Victor Davis Hanson: "The Hysterical Style in American Politics"

Cruelty aficionado Victor Davis Hanson is always interesting.

The post-Joe McCarthy era and the candidacy of Barry Goldwater once prompted liberal political scientist Richard Hofstadter to chronicle a supposedly long-standing right-wing "paranoid style" of conspiracy-fed extremism.
But far more common, especially in the 21st century, has been a left-wing, hysterical style of inventing scandals and manipulating perceived tensions for political advantage.
Or, in the immortal words of former President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste."

He takes us through a review of leftwing hysterias and moral panics, begin with Obama's drive to "fundamentally transform" the US, through the Trump Red Scare, through the predations of #MeToo opportunists.

...
The outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States during the winter of 2020 prompted an even greater hysteria.
Without scientific evidence, federal health czars Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins were able to persuade the Trump administration to shut down the economy in the country's first national quarantine.
Suddenly, it became a thought crime to question the wisdom of 6-foot social distancing, of mandatory mask-wearing, of the Wuhan virology lab's origin of the COVID-19 virus, or of off-label use of prescription drugs.
Left-wing politicians and celebrities, from Hillary Rodham Clinton and Gavin Newsom to Jane Fonda, all blurted out the political advantages that the lockdowns offered--from recalibrating capitalism and health care to ensuring the 2020 defeat of Trump.
The COVID-19 hysteria magically ended when Biden won the 2020 election. Suddenly, the explanations about the bat or pangolin origins of the virus faded. The damage from the quarantines could no longer be repressed. And herd immunity gradually mitigated the epidemic.
The lockdown caused untold economic chaos, suicides, and health crises.
One result was the 120 days of looting, arson, death, destruction, and violence spawned by Antifa and Black Lives Matter in the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd while in police custody in May 2020.
Suddenly, a hysterical lie took hold: American police were waging war against black males.
The details around Floyd's sudden death--he was in the act of committing a felony, resisting arrest, suffering from coronary artery disease and the after-effects of COVID-19, and being high on dangerous drugs--were off limits.
The riot toll reached $2 billion in property damage, more than 35 deaths, and 1,500 injured law enforcement officers. A federal courthouse, a police precinct, and a historic church were torched.

It has been just one hysteria and one irrational, crazed crusade after the next.

One thing: Hanson writes as if this may be a tactic of the left.

I don't believe it's a tactic.

I believe this is real: They are literally insane. They are in the spasms of an untreated 8-year-old nervous breakdown.

I really want someone to analyze the phenomenon of an entire social order having an ongoing nervous breakdown for eight years straight, but never seeking treatment for it, because all of their social peers and political allies -- all other occupants of The Bubble -- tell them that it's not crazy to be crazy 24/7/365, but in fact insanity is the right response to Trump, Covid, and a drug-dealing thug having a heart failure due to the prodigious amounts of fentanyl and amphetamines he had swallowed.

Obviously, it was caused by Trump. But why? Here's my guess. Think about the average Uniparty Bourgeois Bohemian voter. Think about, say, Allahpundit.

All of his life his tribe been in control of politics. Yes, sometimes the faction of the Uniparty he (slightly) favors loses, but when he "loses," someone like Obama who he likes an awful lot takes over. He either gets his first pick or his second pick, and everyone permitted to be president has been vetted and approved by his social class.

But now comes Trump, who definitely has not been vetted and approved, and even worse come Trump's voters, who Allahpundit has been in a not-so-hidden alliance with leftists to keep from ever having a meaningful say in America's politics.

And in a few hours on November 8, 2016, all of the certainty and safety of a system built to champion and perpetuate Upper Middle Class "Elite" Educated special rights and special privileges to rule and order society as they like comes tumbling down.

Suddenly members of what are called "The Protected Class" feel completely Unprotected. They know they've been holding the "uneducated" and non-socially powerful classes down, and suddenly get very, very panicked about what these newly-empowered classes might do in revenge.

And thus: The shrieking. Eight fucking years of degenerate lunatic shrieking and the justification of Nazi-like authoritarian measures to put the "lower classes" down, back down to their low places, where they belong, where they always belonged, before they got uppity and attempted to rise above their natural level.

John Hindraker at Powerline looked through that Scott Rasmussen poll showing that the elites are narcissistic fascists and wonders: Are they simply crazy?

These "elites," so defined, are living in another world than the rest of us. They are extraordinarily loyal to the regime; 84% of them approve of Joe Biden's performance as president. I wouldn't have thought you could get that high an approval rating if you sampled the Democratic National Committee. And 70% of the "elites" trust the government to do the right thing most of the time; that rises to 89% among those who are "the most politically active members of the elite."
These elites even trust journalists: 79% have a favorable opinion of them, as do 84% of the "Ivy League elite."
When it comes to policy, these people are crazy. Forty-seven percent say that America suffers from too much freedom, compared with only 21% who think we have too much government control. Among the Ivy League elite, 55% say America is too free, with only 15% saying we have too much government.
So how do the elites want to limit our excessive freedom? A shocking 77% say they favor the "strict rationing of gas, meat and electricity." That basically means living in a poor, totalitarian state like the USSR. And by 89% to 10%, the Ivy League elites want to see "strict rationing" of these most basic commodities.
These "elites" are fascists. Large majorities want to ban gas stoves (69%), gasoline powered cars (72%), non-essential air travel (55%), SUVs (58%) and air conditioning (53%). The Ivy League elites are even worse: the corresponding numbers are 80% for gas stoves, 81% for gasoline powered cars, 70% for non-essential air travel, 66% for SUVs, and 68% want to ban air conditioning. There is no polite way to put it: they are fascists.
There is more at the link. The people whom Rasmussen has identified are obviously dangerous to our democracy. If they take over, we are finished. More study needs to be done to figure out who, exactly, they are, so we can root them out and negate their influence. In the meantime, some moderate measures probably need to be taken. Like abolishing the Ivy League.

I'd really like to read a book about that. Not a screed like I'd write, but a genuine analysis informed by psychology and the history of moral panics and witch hunts and viral contagion lunacies.

What happens when the entire Ruling Class becomes functionally insane? It's purely rhetorical question -- we're living it. You see it every day.

Soon planes will be falling out of the sky and killing 300 people in one very fell swoop and the Regime will say, "That didn't happen, and it's good that it did."

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:00 PM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Ace is cruel

Posted by: Ann at January 26, 2024 03:01 PM (4neFu)

2 I called the others.

Posted by: Ann at January 26, 2024 03:01 PM (4neFu)

3 What happens when the entire Ruling Class becomes functionally insane?
-------------

Maybe I can provide some insight?

Posted by: Nero at January 26, 2024 03:02 PM (tT6L1)

4 Reporting for duty.

Posted by: bandy lee at January 26, 2024 03:04 PM (rJ48h)

5 I think it's a tactic and insanity

Posted by: nckate at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (ZGGD+)

6 Hinderaker -
In the meantime, some moderate measures probably need to be taken. Like abolishing the Ivy League.
_____

I think he's only half joking when calling this a 'moderate' measure.

Posted by: Chuck Martel at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (fs1hN)

7 >>>What happens when the entire Ruling Class becomes functionally insane?

No comment.

Posted by: Louis XVI at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (CwhoI)

8 Hysterics in Politics?

Repeal the 19th. Problem solved.

Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (mdhFC)

9 Our WH spokeslesbian is a gas lighter. That's part of the crazy.

"We've done more to protect the border than any other administration!"

Posted by: Seems Legit at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (JeYYB)

10 The Fani Willis impeachment inquiry should be lit. I look forward to the leaks!

Posted by: Ann at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (4neFu)

11 Crazy.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:06 PM (ufFY8)

12 I really want someone to analyze the phenomenon of an entire social order having an ongoing nervous breakdown for eight years straight, but never seeking treatment for it, because all of their social peers and political allies -- all other occupants of The Bubble -- tell them that it's not crazy to be crazy 24/7/365, but in fact insanity is the right response to Trump, Covid, and a drug-dealing thug having a heart failure due to the prodigious amounts of fentanyl and amphetamines he had swallowed.

========

Here's an alternate theory:

They area a mob. Let me quote Gene Wolfe and modify one word:

"A ~~crowd~~ mob is not the sum of the individuals who compose it. Rather it is a species of animal, without language or real consciousness, born when they gather, dying when they depart."

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:06 PM (GBKbO)

13 The post-Joe McCarthy era and the candidacy of Barry Goldwater once prompted liberal political scientist Richard Hofstadter to chronicle a supposedly long-standing right-wing "paranoid style" of conspiracy-fed extremism.

If you described the America of 2024 to the American people of 2004 they would not have believed you - right, center, or left leaning.

For all of these claims of paranoids conspiracies on the right...the things these "extremists" claim the left wants to do keep happening - from locking down the country over COVID to allowing tens of millions of colonizers into the country.

Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:06 PM (ibTVg)

14 only one solution to calm down the left... fug em in the squeakhole

Posted by: Iva Bigun at January 26, 2024 03:06 PM (JMu4f)

15 I think the left is a mental disorder but I also think their hysteria is a tactic. Fear is how you get funds and the Patriot Act.

Posted by: Seems Legit at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (JeYYB)

16 "What happens when the entire Ruling Class becomes functionally insane?"

Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

(Although today, that should be spelled Rogue.)

Posted by: gp Rented A Tent at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (MvF+J)

17 "We've done more to protect the border than any other administration!"

Ike sent ALL the illegals home and didn't give a shit about a single BS "asylum" claim.

Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (ibTVg)

18 >>> 9 Our WH spokeslesbian is a gas lighter. That's part of the crazy.

"We've done more to protect the border for anyone who wants to cross it than any other administration!"
Posted by: Seems Legit at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (JeYYB)

(also, does your hash want us to clap?)

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (llON8)

19 One thing: Hanson writes as if this may be a tactic of the left.

I don't believe it's a tactic.

I believe this is real: They are literally insane. They are in the spasms of an untreated 8-year-old nervous breakdown.

-

I think the lower-level communists are insane.

I think the higher ups understand exactly how color revolutions work after practicing them around the world for the last 20 years.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The South will right again, and Biden is Clemsoning at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (k1AR8)

20 I'm pretty sure Jordan Peterson has covered the subject of an insane ruling class.

I know History certainly has.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(tT6L1) at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (tT6L1)

21 Just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (cWNll)

22 I don't know that I'd call them insane. They're really just a bunch of mean girls.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (CsUN+)

23 Didn't Allahpundit reveal his real name last year?

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (9yWhg)

24 I meant leftism is a mental disorder.

Posted by: Seems Legit at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (JeYYB)

25 549 The poop from his invisible diapers will hit the fan.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 26, 2024 02:53 PM (ynpvh)

I'll await that development with bated breath.

Jim, I'm so sorry for the empty place in your life. May you be able to fill it with warm memories.
Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (cTCuP)

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM (cTCuP)

26 This post smells like perspiration.

Posted by: Oglebay at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM (ogTiX)

27 23 Didn't Allahpundit reveal his real name last year?
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (9yWhg)

=======

Who cares?

(yes he did)

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM (GBKbO)

28 VDH is way to polite to recognize that people like Alex Jones are more effective (and often more right) than he is.

I know the conspiracy stuff he's talking about is John Birch Society stuff, but the problem is, if you're not a conspiracy believer now, you're not really paying attention. Whatever aversion his type have to "going there," he's going to have to get over it.

Or not. I know lots of people can't bring themselves to do it, and maybe that's another one of Bill Buckley's major sins, that he caused a lot of reasonable, rational people, to shy away from conspiracies... in part because Buckley was... wait for it... IN ON THE CONSPIRACY!!!

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM (dGCAG)

29 Mass formation psychosis.

It's what took Hitler to power. Enough societal instability and people want to believe there's a path to stability, even if it means invading the world and gassing six million people.

When the herd gets spooked, they stampede. Will go right over the fucking cliff if you let them.

Posted by: Cowboy psychology at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM (k2zVs)

30 Our WH spokeslesbian is a gas lighter

-

Weird. No matter how hard I squint, I just see a toilet brush. It must be like one of those optical illusions where eventually your brain clicks and you see it without meaning to.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - The South will right again, and Biden is Clemsoning at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM (k1AR8)

31 23 Didn't Allahpundit reveal his real name last year?
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (9yWhg)

=======

Who cares?

(yes he did)

Taylor Lorenz.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM (MGqzM)

32 Democrats know how to work the crisis game. They learned it from Hitler, hell they even dusted off his Jew hatred play.

Posted by: Eromero at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM (JTuy1)

33 I should have added "willowed" @25.

Posted by: creeper at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (cTCuP)

34 A shocking 77% say they favor the "strict rationing of gas, meat and electricity."

What is the point in being elite if the normies get to enjoy the same benefits that you do?

This is the same idea as the sumptuary laws of the middle ages that the nobility put it to make sure that even if the peasants got wealthy as merchants that they still couldn't live like the nobility.

Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (ibTVg)

35 Cruelty aficionado Victor Davis Hanson

Has he weighed in on capital punishment using nitrogen?

Posted by: spindrift at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (MqhXY)

36 (also, does your hash want us to clap?)
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (llON

---

heh Didn't notice.

But, yes, clap.

Posted by: Seems Legit at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (JeYYB)

37 Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay

http://tinyurl.com/4a5szmmu

Posted by: gp Rented A Tent at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (MvF+J)

38 Hi Ace
How was your run?
This insanity knows no bounds. Read today about a male fetish where men want to watch other men being castrated. They have a group. How does a group like this get together? How do people who like to dress up like animals and have sex , get together. This society has devolved to a point where we accept that men can become women, cutting off healthy body parts is a okay and we can power our world through solar panels and wind turbines.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (t/2Uw)

39 Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

https://bityl.co/NoIY

Posted by: Obligatory at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (cWNll)

40 >>I believe this is real: They are literally insane. They are in the spasms of an untreated 8-year-old nervous breakdown.

The easiest way to understand Democrats is to go to the Grocery Store and Witness a Child pitching a fit in the checkout line over their desire for a piece of Candy.

The easiest way to understand Republicans is to watch the Parents that give in.

Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (mdhFC)

41 It has been just one hysteria and one irrational, crazed crusade after the next.

One thing: Hanson writes as if this may be a tactic of the left.

I don't believe it's a tactic.

I believe this is real: They are literally insane. They are in the spasms of an untreated 8-year-old nervous breakdown.

-----------------

I think its a tactic of those who see themselves at the top, but to the base of the left it is true belief. The base is being exploited by the those who simply want to aggrandize power. Such is communism. But as with communism, the exploited eventually consumes the exploiter - who can't believe it when he becomes the victim.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (sX1BW)

42 They aren't crazy.

They just hate that you're too comfortable to be jealous of them, begging for table scraps.

Posted by: XTC at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (UnA8+)

43 When the herd gets spooked, they stampede. Will go right over the fucking cliff if you let them.

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (CsUN+)

44 OT, but in case Eris happens to stop by, I found a site she might enjoy:
https://shorturl.at/bDFI5

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (llON8)

45 I notice that this post is erudite and lacking any coarse language.

You know VDH will read this one.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (lTGtQ)

46 Ace runs?

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (9yWhg)

47 Boy this Allahpundit fellow certainly seems not to like the Republican base. I imagine he must have been working at a site that felt the same. (Still remember humpbot)

Posted by: Bete at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (BKMOA)

48 Not a screed like I'd write, but a genuine analysis informed by psychology and the history of moral panics and witch hunts and viral contagion lunacies.

Ace's screed >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> any analysis

Posted by: Duncanthrax at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (Khhkh)

49 Maybe our elites lifestyle has something to do with the level of insanity they exhibit? I mean, if it's true they consume things normal people don't (whatever that may be) or take certain drugs, maybe that's part of their affliction?

A misplaced sense of self worth doesn't help either.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (Q4IgG)

50 >>Has he weighed in on capital punishment using nitrogen?

Once he is successfully treated for the ensuing Priapism, sure.

Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (mdhFC)

51 The easiest way to understand Democrats is to go to the Grocery Store and Witness a Child pitching a fit in the checkout line over their desire for a piece of Candy.

The easiest way to understand Republicans is to watch the Parents that give in.
Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (mdhFC)
---------------

Someone took their cruelty vitamins today. Well done, sir!

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(tT6L1) at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (tT6L1)

52 Willowed: Joe Biden personally shot Santa Ana with a Colt Dragoon.
Posted by: Not a joke at January 26, 2024 03:02 PM
*
Which model?
Posted by: An apostle of Weasel at January 26, 2024

***
Colt's Dragoon, if you please. And it so happens it was the one that belonged to my papa.
Posted by: Mattie Ross a

Posted by: Mattie Ross at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (J2vNu)

53 The Fani Willis impeachment inquiry should be lit. I look forward to the leaks!
Posted by: Ann at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM

I don't want to know about Fani's leaks.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (MGqzM)

54 I think the hair on fire tactic is they hope you rush your judgment to their side

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (fwDg9)

55 Suddenly members of what are called "The Protected Class" feel completely Unprotected. They know they've been holding the "uneducated" and non-socially powerful classes down, and suddenly get very, very panicked about what these newly-empowered classes might do in revenge.

And thus: The shrieking. Eight fucking years of degenerate lunatic shrieking and the justification of Nazi-like authoritarian measures to put the "lower classes" down, back down to their low places, where they belong, where they always belonged, before they got uppity and attempted to rise above their natural level.

Hello darkness my old friend
The national razor cries for blood once again

Posted by: rickb223 at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (GIBR7)

56 Texas has some mean wabbits, Jimmah...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)
----------------------------

Well,, in that case uh,, never mind then

Posted by: Jimmy Carter at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (X4yCj)

57 I think the French figured a way to deal with the Insane Trust Fund Babies. It will leave a big scar on the country but it needs to be lanced.

Posted by: Pudinhead at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (pZ64F)

58 I don't think they're insane. Some of them know it's bull, some are insane, but most just want to be seen as "in the club ". These are the same folks that rush out to buy the latest Apple product. They don't put much thought into it.

I had an interesting convo with one a couple years ago about the doj/fbi. He couldn't possibly believe they might lie. Just couldn't. Of course he'd never read or heard about any of the stuff they've done since 2016. Unaware.

Posted by: THAT ONE GUY FROM THAT MOVIE at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (W+TLY)

59 VDH is way to polite to recognize that people like Alex Jones are more effective (and often more right) than he is.

Jones says some crazy stuff but...honestly...none of it is crazier then what you can hear talking heads spout on the evening news.

Seriously...is it more believable that agricultural run off chemicals are screwing up frog reproduction organs (They are making the frogs gay! as Jones said) or that Joe Normie driving to work is going to end all life on earth in 12 years?

Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (ibTVg)

60 Insanity is what's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the Leftist household.

Lunacy 24/7/365.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (7fElN)

61 40 The easiest way to understand Democrats is to go to the Grocery Store and Witness a Child pitching a fit in the checkout line over their desire for a piece of Candy.

The easiest way to understand Republicans is to watch the Parents that give in.
Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:09 PM (mdhFC)

We need the father who'll slap the kid right there in the store and then shout "WHAT? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS" to everyone that dares to stare aghast.

Posted by: XTC at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (UnA8+)

62 We didn’t start the fire …

***smirks like Johnny holding the unplugged cord***

Posted by: C.E.R.N. Engineers at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (TTAGa)

63 I believe this is real: They are literally insane. They are in the spasms of an untreated 8-year-old nervous breakdown.
++++
It isn't just "them." The psychosis spreads well outside of politics and policy. I also think it's older than you do. I'd put the start of this closer to 2012, or closer to 11-12 years ago than 8 years. It didn't hit full steam 12 years ago, but I think it was baking in at that point.

In 2012:
* Twitter turned 6 years old and had 140 active users
* Facebook turned 7 years old (generally available for 6 years) and had a billion active users
* Tumblr turned 5 years old and had (probably) about 10-12 million users
* Reddit Reddit turned 7 years and had 50 million users

Obama was also re-elected and he's a drama queen, but I think that's secondary. I think the hysterical tone of politics - and various non-political things that have been sucked into politics - started ramping hard about 2012-2014, and corresponds with what we now called "social media" hitting escape velocity. I firmly believe that social media is psychogenic, and it became ubiquitous just as everything became hysterical.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (mwCIn)

64 >>We need the father who'll slap the kid right there in the store and then shout "WHAT? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS" to everyone that dares to stare aghast.

*Reaches for Lubriderm*

Posted by: VDH at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (mdhFC)

65 Soon planes will be falling out of the sky and killing 300 people in one very fell swoop and the Regime will say, "That didn't happen, and it's good that it did."
---
The Left will suggest two possibilities:

1. Not enough money was shoveled at the problem.
2. Not enough diversity hiring caused the problem.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (7fElN)

66 Perhaps rusted, but ready.

Posted by: Guy O'Teen at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (lZVy/)

67 "John Hindraker at Powerline looked through that Scott Rasmussen poll . . . ."

I think the better explanation for that poll is that it was total dogshit. The numbers were far too lopsided to have any basis in reality (84% in favor of this, 80% in favor of that, etc.). You can't get 84% of people to favor breathing.

The other "tell" is that everyone seemed to be in "favor" of things that would directly negatively impact their lives. I'm highly skeptical even the most fever-swamp leftist turd really believes this. Burden others? Sure. But the leftists -- especially the elites -- always always seek to exempt themselves from the burdens they impose on others.

So basically, Rasmussen can suck my balls with that poll.

Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (iFTx/)

68 will there be pillaging raping and plundering goin on in this fight with the Feds?

Posted by: Hitchin a ride w/Civilian convoy at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (JMu4f)

69 I think the left is a mental disorder but I also think their hysteria is a tactic. Fear is how you get funds and the Patriot Act.
Posted by: Seems Legit at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (JeYYB)

There's an evil to it. Not just being defective in mind, but defective in the direction of bringing hell on Earth to fruition.

I can't bring myself to get over Intern Killer Joe Scarface and his pinch nosed commie wife, talking about how Trump is "losing it," that he's shuffling around, doesn't know where he is.

You aren't THAT stupid, you're not that delusional. You know what you're doing, and you go on teevee spouting abject lies that are unfathomable, because of how deranged they are.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2024 03:13 PM (dGCAG)

70 The guy that was servicing Fani Willis, do his friends give him shit about that?

Posted by: bandy lee at January 26, 2024 03:13 PM (rJ48h)

71 This post smells like perspiration.
Posted by: Oglebay at January 26, 2024 03:08 PM

This post's smell >>>> * 10^23 mephitic penguins

Posted by: Duncanthrax at January 26, 2024 03:13 PM (Khhkh)

72 The left fully lost its mind with the 2000 election, and has never regained sanity.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:13 PM (9yWhg)

73 63 Obama was also re-elected and he's a drama queen, but I think that's secondary. I think the hysterical tone of politics - and various non-political things that have been sucked into politics - started ramping hard about 2012-2014, and corresponds with what we now called "social media" hitting escape velocity. I firmly believe that social media is psychogenic, and it became ubiquitous just as everything became hysterical.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (mwCIn)

=========

Social media is designed to turn people in mobs.

Mobs are unthinking beasts easily led.

You can be perfectly reasonable outside of it, but something about social media just turns on the need to hate on your fellow man.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:14 PM (GBKbO)

74 How would federal forces or nationalized blue hell hole states NGs get down to the border. Train tracks are particularly open to shenanigans. Same for interstate highways. Long way through country that has a huge armed populace.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 03:14 PM (17s+e)

75 In 2012:
* Twitter turned 6 years old and had 140 active users

Man, that's a slow start.

Posted by: spindrift at January 26, 2024 03:14 PM (MqhXY)

76 I really want someone to analyze the phenomenon of an entire social order having an ongoing nervous breakdown for eight years straight, but never seeking treatment for it, because all of their social peers and political allies -- all other occupants of The Bubble -- tell them that it's not crazy to be crazy 24/7/365, but in fact insanity is the right response to Trump, Covid, and a drug-dealing thug having a heart failure due to the prodigious amounts of fentanyl and amphetamines he had swallowed."

Go back to the classic "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds" from 1841, by the incredibly insightful Scottish jounarlist Charles MacKay. Every bit as relevant today as it was when he wrote it, and he details how this kind of behavior has repeated itself throughout human history.
“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, one by one.”

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:14 PM (i9ffA)

77 63 Obama was also re-elected and he's a drama queen, but I think that's secondary. I think the hysterical tone of politics - and various non-political things that have been sucked into politics - started ramping hard about 2012-2014, and corresponds with what we now called "social media" hitting escape velocity. I firmly believe that social media is psychogenic, and it became ubiquitous just as everything became hysterical.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (mwCIn)

It started earlier than that, IMO.

It started in 2009, almost immediately after Obamacare was passed into law.

Posted by: XTC at January 26, 2024 03:14 PM (UnA8+)

78 So basically, Rasmussen can suck my balls with that poll.

Posted by: Elric Blade

Tempting, but we must decline.

Posted by: Rasmussen at January 26, 2024 03:15 PM (CsUN+)

79 The one thing the federal race warlords have taught me is to embrace my raycissim. They scream, holler and shout and turn theyselves about that all YTs are Rayciss so I guess I will be. The cartoonist was right.

I discriminate now in all my dealings, excluding anyone and everyone who is not lily white, yellow, or at least tan. I tell my business associates and friends whom I trust to do the same. No business, no hires, no interactions whatsoever, as best as can be done. Sodomites too.

This is how they want it, this is how they gets it.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 26, 2024 03:15 PM (R/m4+)

80 >>> 49 Maybe our elites lifestyle has something to do with the level of insanity they exhibit? I mean, if it's true they consume things normal people don't (whatever that may be) or take certain drugs, maybe that's part of their affliction?

A misplaced sense of self worth doesn't help either.
Posted by: Martini Farmer at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (Q4IgG)

"spirit cooking"

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 26, 2024 03:16 PM (llON8)

81 Suddenly members of what are called "The Protected Class" feel completely Unprotected. They know they've been holding the "uneducated" and non-socially powerful classes down, and suddenly get very, very panicked about what these newly-empowered classes might do in revenge.
++++
That's a huge part of it, and well-documented. The country's - and to some degree, the world's - elites had an existential crisis because of the rise of Trump and the resurgence of "populism" (politics of outsiders).

But how did they have such a great effect? Why did *their* panic spread and metastasize throughout society? Control of the press - it was the only message for years - is a part of it, but I think another part (and perhaps the major part) was a population primed and ready for panic to spread like wildfire courtesy of high-turnover and constantly reinforced social media habits. Crucially, it was *participatory* panic. Everyone could join in on Twitter or Facebook or whatever, for or against (and then just "for" thanks to censorship).

Nothing enables mass hysteria like mass media, and there's no mass media more massive than social media.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:16 PM (mwCIn)

82 Not everyone on the Left is mentally ill. But, all of them are at high risk to achieve that status.

Fat women in bikinis are BRAVE!!!! Which is another way of saying...keep doing what you're doing because it makes me look better (which is important).

Posted by: Orson at January 26, 2024 03:16 PM (dIske)

83 What happens when the entire Ruling Class becomes functionally insane? It's purely rhetorical question -- we're living it. You see it every day.

Soon planes will be falling out of the sky and killing 300 people in one very fell swoop and the Regime will say, "That didn't happen, and it's good that it did."
++++
Yup.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (mwCIn)

84 >>Maybe our elites lifestyle has something to do with the level of insanity they exhibit? I mean, if it's true they consume things normal people don't

They eat da Poo-Poo.

Posted by: African Health Minister at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (mdhFC)

85 "In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”
― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (i9ffA)

86 ace, ur "screeds" are more intellectually honest, thought provoking, and accurate than most books

Posted by: JB at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (VY4F0)

87 These "elites," so defined, are living in another world than the rest of us. They are extraordinarily loyal to the regime; 84% of them approve of Joe Biden's performance as president.

When you make upwards of $450k the effects of inflation don't really affect you. You care about the market, and that is doing well. You talk politics with your other rich friends, and all of you get your "news" from the NYT or other likeminded people on twitter. And all of them say Biden it totes coo!

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (2ovLw)

88 How would federal forces or nationalized blue hell hole states NGs get down to the border. Train tracks are particularly open to shenanigans. Same for interstate highways. Long way through country that has a huge armed populace.
Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger

I got this.

Posted by: Galaxy C-5 at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (lZVy/)

89 There is more at the link. The people whom Rasmussen has identified are obviously dangerous to our democracy. If they take over, we are finished. More study needs to be done to figure out who, exactly, they are, so we can root them out and negate their influence. In the meantime, some moderate measures probably need to be taken. Like abolishing the Ivy League.

-----------

At least they are relatively easy to identify. I'm trying to "war game" the correct response:

1) Arrest all Ivy League graduates from 1980 onwards, no exceptions

2) Seize all Ivy League endowments to fund the camps.

3) Place those arrested and their immediate families in the camps.

4) Make the camps a WEF paradise: no fossil fuels, only bugs to eat, forced sterilization.

5) Anyone attempting to leave must be shot on sight.

4) Make

Posted by: MAGA_Ken at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (cMXNt)

90 I put forward the name of VDH as a candidate for this Extra Special Annual Lecture we fund. His, I'm pretty sure, was the only non-leftist, non-commie name on the list.

My boss wants to invite a former president of a non-profit (progressive, of course) U.S. think tank. Never think outside the box, man, that way lies ostracism.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (J2vNu)

91 >>But how did they have such a great effect? Why did *their* panic spread and metastasize throughout society?

We let them out of the Kitchens.

Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (mdhFC)

92 You talk politics with your other rich friends, and all of you get your "news" from the NYT or other likeminded people on twitter. And all of them say Biden it totes coo!
Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (2ovLw)

And you already have a Stanley cup.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM (ufFY8)

93 This year is going to put Covid and BLM to shame. We will wish it was 2020 again.

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM (2ovLw)

94 Suddenly members of what are called "The Protected Class" feel completely Unprotected. They know they've been holding the "uneducated" and non-socially powerful classes down, and suddenly get very, very panicked about what these newly-empowered classes might do in revenge.

------------------

This is where we are again and in a much more intense reaction by the elites. They see Trump about to triumph so they imagine, and I hope rightly, that he will do to them what they have been doing to us for the last eight years. That's why the hysterical squealing about dictatorship which is what they did for over three years and are still doing.

Elites are really very shallow and imagine that everyone is like them. Oh who cares, in this matter I'm shallow too and want revenge.

Posted by: Decaf at January 26, 2024 03:19 PM (3JfbU)

95 There is more at the link. The people whom Rasmussen has identified are obviously dangerous to our democracy. If they take over, we are finished. More study needs to be done to figure out who, exactly, they are, so we can root them out and negate their influence. In the meantime, some moderate measures probably need to be taken. Like abolishing the Ivy League.
++++
Huh?

"If they take over?" They have. They run the show here and throughout the West. This *is* the power class at the macro scale. Specific power players may disagree or whatever, but in general, those in power are on this page. This is who they are and what they want. The concentration can increase - and it will - but there's no avoiding the "if these people take over" stuff. The takeover is done.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:19 PM (mwCIn)

96 92 And you already have a Stanley cup.
Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM (ufFY

=========

Dolley has had 2 of those things for at least a year. Maybe two.

I had no idea they were such a big cultural thing. No clue at all.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:19 PM (GBKbO)

97 ace, ur "screeds" are more intellectually honest, thought provoking, and accurate than most books
Posted by: JB

This one, however, lacks any use of either "snizz" or "snuzz." Judges deduct 1/2 point.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:19 PM (9yWhg)

98 93 This year is going to put Covid and BLM to shame. We will wish it was 2020 again.
Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM (2ovLw)

A year of living dangerously.

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:19 PM (i9ffA)

99 This year is going to put Covid and BLM to shame. We will wish it was 2020 again.
===
Every year worse than the last.

Posted by: It's like clockwork at January 26, 2024 03:19 PM (k2zVs)

100 You mean the people who think that cow farts are imperiling the Earth are prone to fits of hysteria?

The F?

Posted by: The Central Scrutinizer at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (KbCG3)

101 And all of them say Biden it totes coo!

Babs Streisand doesn't understand why you plebes don't know how good you have it.

Her investments are all doing well and her servants tell her they are very happy with Senior Biden.

Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (ibTVg)

102 Watch the video of people at a pro Hamas rally responding to the question, what river, what sea. They have no idea what they are advocating. I do not understand what they get out of doing this. Does being in a mob give them some kind of thrill? I just don't think there are are hundreds of thousands of antisemites just waiting for the siren call to turn out for this. Some must be getting paid but what about the rest?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (t/2Uw)

103 99 This year is going to put Covid and BLM to shame. We will wish it was 2020 again.
===
Every year worse than the last.
Posted by: It's like clockwork at January 26, 2024 03:19 PM (k2zVs)

========

And every election the most important in history.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (GBKbO)

104 I am way more open to conspiracies than I used to be. People like Alex Jones though do more damage to legitimate conspiracies. Mainly because he's an asshole. And he does it in an assholish way. Telling parents who lost a child that their kid really isn't dead etc. makes me write him off as, well, an asshole. Broken clock twice a day.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (MGqzM)

105 Is VDH still killing hobo's with his penis?

Posted by: Dr Spank at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (vooaz)

106 77 63 I think the hysterical tone of politics - and various non-political things that have been sucked into politics - started ramping hard about 2012-2014, and corresponds with what we now called "social media" hitting escape velocity.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:12 PM (mwCIn)

It started earlier than that, IMO.

It started in 2009, almost immediately after Obamacare was passed into law.
Posted by: XTC at January 26, 2024 03:14 PM (UnA8+)
________

I think it goes all the way back to the 1960s. That was before my time, but if you look at that generation and the ideas they had and what they did, they were basically just gestatory versions of the paranoid hysteria we have today. Violent leftwing domestic terrorists blowing shit up and murdering people? Check. Race riots? Yup. Out of control FBI? For sure. Rise of radical Islam? Also yes. Blatantly stolen elections? Yes yes yes.

All the flash points were there, ready to explode. They eventually fizzled out. Then went underground. But a few decades later, they exploded with the advantage of a nuclear-level ignition event: social media.

Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (iFTx/)

107 Almost everyone who thinks the elites should have special treatment thinks of themselves as part of that category- think your average public school teacher.

They then are shocked and throw a fit when they discover that they are merely encourage to think that by those in the group of "elites" as it helps them get power but they will never share any with the delusional ones like the teachers who aren't actually in the club.

Posted by: Bete at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (BKMOA)

108 106 I think it goes all the way back to the 1960s. That was before my time, but if you look at that generation and the ideas they had and what they did, they were basically just gestatory versions of the paranoid hysteria we have today. Violent leftwing domestic terrorists blowing shit up and murdering people? Check. Race riots? Yup. Out of control FBI? For sure. Rise of radical Islam? Also yes. Blatantly stolen elections? Yes yes yes.

All the flash points were there, ready to explode. They eventually fizzled out. Then went underground. But a few decades later, they exploded with the advantage of a nuclear-level ignition event: social media.
Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (iFTx/)

========

So,...Gramsci's march through the institutions?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (GBKbO)

109 "Allegedly".

Posted by: Dr Spank at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (vooaz)

110 I just started hearing about these Stanley cups.
Saw them on Zeducation that past week or two.

Stupid.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (ufFY8)

111 >>One thing: Hanson writes as if this may be a tactic of the left.

>>I don't believe it's a tactic.

I think it's a tactic and I believe the left are the perfect target for the tactic because they are insane.

The left in this country is no different from the people in Germany who fell for the NAZI bullshit or the people in Ukraine who went along with the western run color revolution in 2014.

Propoganda is powerful against weak minds.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (ZLI7S)

112 Unfortunately I can vouch that they are literally insane. My Sister, a seemingly normal and college educated individual less than 15 years ago, has completely and totally lost her mind. Don't worry though, as a school teacher of Elementary age kids, she's probably not passing her insanity on to any of them. :-/

Posted by: Little Larry Sellers at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (xaNfJ)

113 Watch the video of people at a pro Hamas rally responding to the question, what river, what sea. They have no idea what they are advocating. I do not understand what they get out of doing this. Does being in a mob give them some kind of thrill? I just don't think there are are hundreds of thousands of antisemites just waiting for the siren call to turn out for this. Some must be getting paid but what about the rest?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM

See: Soros, George.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (MGqzM)

114 Maybe our elites lifestyle has something to do with the level of insanity they exhibit? I mean, if it's true they consume things normal people don't

Little kids for one thing.

Posted by: rickb223 at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (GIBR7)

115 I believe that the elites wouldn't have so much power to influence the masses if there weren't so many elite wannabes.

The mob bosses rarely have to soil their fingers pulling the trigger on an actual gun.

The wannabes are very much more cruel and insane than their bosses because that's how they move up.

Posted by: Just Lily at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (GiYD6)

116 I just don't think there are are hundreds of thousands of antisemites just waiting for the siren call to turn out for this. Some must be getting paid but what about the rest?

==

they just ugly, man

Posted by: runner at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (V13WU)

117 We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”
― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024

***
So on the one end of the scale we had the Pet Rock and mood rings, and on the other, the Sniffle Scare.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (J2vNu)

118 "If they take over?" They have. They run the show here and throughout the West. This *is* the power class at the macro scale.
===
It takes time for people who have lived in denial to accept the full scope of the horror even once they have opened their eyes. It just so big. It grand canyon big.

Posted by: It's like clockwork at January 26, 2024 03:22 PM (k2zVs)

119 This year is going to put Covid and BLM to shame. We will wish it was 2020 again.
Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM (2ovLw)

What are the odds we see tanks deployed in the streets of DC this year?

Whatever you think they are, it's higher.

Posted by: Last Days of the Republic at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (i228p)

120 "They are literally insane." As has been blindingly obvious since they decriminalized buggery.

Posted by: DenverGregg at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (ccqW3)

121 Why isn't AOC applying her brainpower against the elites. Could she be a dimwitted hypocrite?

Posted by: Northernlurker at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (RwRUc)

122 And you already have a Stanley cup.
Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM (ufFY

=========

Dolley has had 2 of those things for at least a year. Posted by: TheJamesMadison

Dolly plays pro hockey? And she individually won two in one year?

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (9yWhg)

123 IMO, the entire exercise of seeing this in terms of class is mistaken. Sure, the new "elites" think of themselves that way, but try to find a reason for that. I know it's very popular to think of historical ruling classes as pure leeches, but they weren't. Even in America, for instance, the WASP elite had an ethic that involved service in the military, risking one's life. Neither GHWB nor Dole is on my list of favorites, but face it, both could quite easily died in combat. (Outside America, this is even stronger.)

But what do these guys DO here? They are, so far as I can see, real leeches. And at some level, I think they know it. (If you read between the lines in some of what David Brooks writes, you can see that.) And, IMO, THAT has a lot to do with the panic.

But seeing it in terms of peasants and aristos will just lead you astray. The closest historical comp would be a conquering nation and the conquered. But they didn't ever conquer. (I do have to admit that the simple fact that we've put up with them this far is evidence that maybe the American people are not fit to rule ourselves.)

Posted by: Eeyore at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (1bNHn)

124 One other point about Alex Jones. He made his bones as an anti-WoT conservative.

And back around 2004 the left LOVED him. He was a "reasonable conservative" unlike Shrub or Darth Cheney.

Hell they cast him, AS BASICALLY HIMSELF, in the movie A Scanner Darkly where he is a protestor revealing conspiracies that the government moves to silence.

Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (ibTVg)

125 There is more at the link. The people whom Rasmussen has identified are obviously dangerous to our democracy. If they take over, we are finished. More study needs to be done to figure out who, exactly, they are, so we can root them out and negate their influence. In the meantime, some moderate measures probably need to be taken. Like abolishing the Ivy League.

----------------

That's easy, don't give jobs to anyone from Ivy League, rather employ people from community colleges who will have more connection to reality.

Posted by: Decaf at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (3JfbU)

126 And you already have a Stanley cup.
Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM

Cracks me up, because I've had one for years. Before some lame ass "influencer" made the lemmings HAVE to have one. So apparently I was a trend setter!

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (MGqzM)

127 Posted by: MAGA_Ken at January 26, 2024 03:17 PM (cMXNt)

Now, now. My husband is a post-1980 Ivy League graduate. He thinks the Ivys are bat-shit crazy these days. He's not wrong.

And, that poll? Ca-ca

Posted by: Ann at January 26, 2024 03:24 PM (4neFu)

128 The Venn diagram of *biden supporters, the so-called "elite" and people who have a bent sense of self worth is a circle.

Taken together is does appear to look like insanity.

Yet, there is an epidemic of insanity spreading throughout the country. There's nothing remotely normal about the trans movement, for example.

The closure of the insane asylums was a huge mistake.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at January 26, 2024 03:24 PM (Q4IgG)

129 ... All the flash points were there, ready to explode. They eventually fizzled out. Then went underground. But a few decades later, they exploded with the advantage of a nuclear-level ignition event: social media.
Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (iFTx/)
++++
A few decades later, scale was easy to achieve.

What kept the stuff you're describing from going nuclear is exactly that "fizzle out" you mentioned. The movements lost strength and largely dissolved. The True Believers kept on keeping on in musty cellars and classrooms, but most didn't. They couldn't achieve the necessary scale. Achieving scale was difficult and expensive.

Now, achieving scale is easy and cheap. It's just a numbers game and if you can flood the zone (or get people to self-flood), you'll wind up with lots of hits at major scale. This is even easier with a primary control point in the traditional press and tech companies.

Yes, there's nothing new under the sun and all this stuff existed back in the day, too - but it was very much harder for it to get legs.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:24 PM (mwCIn)

130 I am way more open to conspiracies than I used to be. People like Alex Jones though do more damage to legitimate conspiracies. Mainly because he's an asshole. And he does it in an assholish way. Telling parents who lost a child that their kid really isn't dead etc. makes me write him off as, well, an asshole. Broken clock twice a day.
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (MGqzM)

The only people who are allowed to talk about Alex Jones these days, are his enemies.

Anyone who listens to him knows he apologized profusely for being wrong about that, and anyone who doesn't forgive him either isn't aware of his apology and amends, or doesn't forgive people who make mistakes.

What he's doing now is more valuable than the polite commentators who harrumph at what the left (as if it's ONLY the left) are doing. And he's been proven right over and over and over and over again, on multiple issues.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2024 03:24 PM (dGCAG)

131 I'd really like to read a book about that. Not a screed like I'd write, but a genuine analysis informed by psychology and the history of moral panics and witch hunts and viral contagion lunacies."

I'll say one last time - Charles MacKay wrote that exact book, including all the things you mentioned. If you haven't read it, it's very much worth the time - one of the great classics of Western Civilization, really. It's also quite a conservative book, in that it demonstrates just how stupid people can be when they start believing in their wishes, rather then reality.

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:24 PM (i9ffA)

132 102 Watch the video of people at a pro Hamas rally responding to the question, what river, what sea. They have no idea what they are advocating. I do not understand what they get out of doing this. Does being in a mob give them some kind of thrill? I just don't think there are are hundreds of thousands of antisemites just waiting for the siren call to turn out for this. Some must be getting paid but what about the rest?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (t/2Uw)
_______________

Yes. What amazes me is that they don't really even try to hide that they have no idea what they're talking about. That pretty Jewish girl was interviewing them, and they readily admitted "I don't know," "someone just gave me this sign," "I don't really follow that," "the Amazon river," "JELLO," etc. Not one single one of them ever thinks "gee, what river and sea? Does anybody know? Maybe someone should look that shit up?"

Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:24 PM (iFTx/)

133 You're talking about people that take advice from an autistic teenager. I'm sure some of the higher ups like Klaus are using it to their benefit. However, I think most of the world leaders are coasting on systems already set up for them. Those under them just get stuck in algorithms that feed them confirmation bias as facts.

Posted by: ryukyu at January 26, 2024 03:24 PM (hR0kJ)

134 I believe this is real: They are literally insane. They are in the spasms of an untreated 8-year-old nervous breakdown.

It's too widespread to be a tactic. Agreed.

Posted by: Question Authority bumper sticker at January 26, 2024 03:25 PM (Rbu5d)

135 I got the MacKay book as a gift for my wife years ago. She recommends it.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:25 PM (9yWhg)

136 And you already have a Stanley cup.
Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM (ufFY

=========

Dolley has had 2 of those things for at least a year.

Wow, more than Steve Larmer. Respect.

Posted by: spindrift at January 26, 2024 03:25 PM (MqhXY)

137 I'd like to remind you all that Biden is the great unifier who will bring us together.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at January 26, 2024 03:25 PM (FVME7)

138 "...but a genuine analysis informed by psychology..."
~~~~~

Impossible.

Posted by: IrishEi at January 26, 2024 03:25 PM (3ImbR)

139 I can’t believe I’m asking this, but has anyone got a copy of the constitution?!?

Posted by: Overheard in emergency cabinet meeting at January 26, 2024 03:26 PM (wu87C)

140 What are the odds we see tanks deployed in the streets of DC this year?

Whatever you think they are, it's higher.
Posted by: Last Days of the Republic at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (i228p)

Austin most likely.

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:26 PM (i9ffA)

141 ... But seeing it in terms of peasants and aristos will just lead you astray. The closest historical comp would be a conquering nation and the conquered. But they didn't ever conquer. (I do have to admit that the simple fact that we've put up with them this far is evidence that maybe the American people are not fit to rule ourselves.)
Posted by: Eeyore at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (1bNHn)
++++
The "ruling class" is not a class in traditional terms. It's just an easy classification rule. This isn't a class war, it's a relative power war.

The "elites" produce nothing as you point out, but that doesn't mean that they're not elites. Elite status is a social and political phenomenon. The elites have power because they are elite. It has no relationship to accomplishment, intelligence, wealth etc. There are plenty non-rich elites and plenty of rich non-elites. It comes down to authority.

The elites are elite because they are the ones running things.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:26 PM (mwCIn)

142 Ike sent ALL the illegals home and didn't give a shit about a single BS "asylum" claim.
Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:07 PM (ibTVg)

------------------

I believe he just had them pushed back over the border into Mexico. Easily done again regardless of where they came from, they came from there they can make their own way home from Mexico.

Posted by: Decaf at January 26, 2024 03:27 PM (3JfbU)

143
What he's doing now is more valuable than the polite commentators who harrumph at what the left (as if it's ONLY the left) are doing. And he's been proven right over and over and over and over again, on multiple issues.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 26, 2024 03:24 PM

Well as long as he said he was sorry. Yea, I'm sure it had nothing to do with getting his ass sued off. Sorry, he's a dick. He might be right once and a while but he comes off as a fucking lunatic. Get off my side.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:27 PM (MGqzM)

144 It's too widespread to be a tactic. Agreed.
Posted by: Question Authority bumper sticker at January 26, 2024 03:25 PM (Rbu5d)
++++
It's not a tactic.

It's a phenomenon.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:27 PM (mwCIn)

145 Progressivism is the belief that society would be better if it was organized and ruled by an elite. A Progressive is someone who imagines themselves a part of this elite.

No one ever voted to send themselves to the concentration camp.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at January 26, 2024 03:27 PM (cWNll)

146 No one ever voted to send themselves to the concentration camp.
Posted by: G'rump928(c) at January 26, 2024 03:27 PM (cWNll)
++++
Countless have, do and will again.

They just don't *think* that's what they're voting for.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:27 PM (mwCIn)

147 The left in this country is no different from the people in Germany who fell for the NAZI bullshit or the people in Ukraine who went along with the western run color revolution in 2014.
==
See mass formation psychosis.

Lots of social disorder, uncertainty, anxiety and the herd gets spooked. It's starts with noise and then somebody in the front panics, and the spooked herd follows because they imagine it is safety. Herd animals stick together. Boom. This is human history and the oligarchs know it.

Posted by: It's like clockwork at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (k2zVs)

148 The vast majority of American adults are medicated.
Medicines are known the have side effects, many of them mental.

It doesn't take a leap to think (overly) medicated society plus break from routine/normal = irrationality and mental breaks in the public sphere.

Posted by: Nova Local at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (exHjb)

149 I believe this is real: They are literally insane. They are in the spasms of an untreated 8-year-old nervous breakdown.

It's too widespread to be a tactic. Agreed.
Posted by: Question Authority bumper sticker

Didja see those videos of American "Palestinian" protesters who don't know what river or which sea they're talking about?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (FVME7)

150 Our WH spokeslesbian is a gas lighter. That's part of the crazy.

"We've done more to protect the border than any other administration!"
Posted by: Seems Legit at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (JeYYB)

And not one soul in the WH Press Corp has the stones to stand up and say, "you're lying!"

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (tkR6S)

151 So on the one end of the scale we had the Pet Rock and mood rings, and on the other, the Sniffle Scare.
____

Climate change will result in humanity's destruction in 100 years due to 2 degree increase in average global temperatures.

Posted by: Chuck Martel at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (fs1hN)

152 I do not understand what they get out of doing this. Does being in a mob give them some kind of thrill? I just don't think there are are hundreds of thousands of antisemites just waiting for the siren call to turn out for this. Some must be getting paid but what about the rest?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)

Time for a re-read of True Believer by Eric Hoffer.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (IG4Id)

153 141 ... But seeing it in terms of peasants and aristos will just lead you astray. The closest historical comp would be a conquering nation and the conquered. But they didn't ever conquer. (I do have to admit that the simple fact that we've put up with them this far is evidence that maybe the American people are not fit to rule ourselves.)
Posted by: Eeyore at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (1bNHn)
++++
The "ruling class" is not a class in traditional terms. It's just an easy classification rule. This isn't a class war, it's a relative power war.

The "elites" produce nothing as you point out, but that doesn't mean that they're not elites. Elite status is a social and political phenomenon. The elites have power because they are elite. It has no relationship to accomplishment, intelligence, wealth etc. There are plenty non-rich elites and plenty of rich non-elites. It comes down to authority.

The elites are elite because they are the ones running things.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:26 PM (mwCIn)
____________

The wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things . . . .

Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM (iFTx/)

154 8 Hysterics in Politics?
Repeal the 19th. Problem solved.
Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:05 PM (mdhFC)

...which would include any being "identifying" as female, or actually getting the the snip, non-binary, pan- ultra- queer-sexual, etc.

Posted by: Question Authority bumper sticker at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM (Rbu5d)

155 the = to - dang typo again.

Posted by: Nova Local at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM (exHjb)

156 124 One other point about Alex Jones. He made his bones as an anti-WoT conservative.

And back around 2004 the left LOVED him. He was a "reasonable conservative" unlike Shrub or Darth Cheney.

Hell they cast him, AS BASICALLY HIMSELF, in the movie A Scanner Darkly where he is a protestor revealing conspiracies that the government moves to silence.
Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (ibTVg)

See also Cory Doctorow. Now Cory is an intellectual lightweight, but he was attacking the State from the Anarch/Libertarian Left in his book 'Little Brother'. He was praised to high heaven in 2008. Today he'd be in a jail cell....if he didn't vote right, which he does of course.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM (xcxpd)

157 122 Dolley has had 2 of those things for at least a year. Posted by: TheJamesMadison

Dolly plays pro hockey? And she individually won two in one year?
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 03:23 PM (9yWhg)

=======

Yes.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM (GBKbO)

158 >>Didja see those videos of American "Palestinian" protesters who don't know what river or which sea they're talking about?

You can't expect people to get bogged down in the granular details when there is SO MUCH to be HYSTERICAL about.

Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM (mdhFC)

159 >>> I really want someone to analyze the phenomenon of an entire social order having an ongoing nervous breakdown for eight years straight
----

Heinlein's "Crazy Years". Interestingly enough, I think he placed those at the end of last century. But that's what they are:

"Considerable technical advance during this period, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of mores, orientation, and social institutions, terminating in mass psychoses in the sixth decade, and the interregnum."

He also placed this era on a timeline that coincided with a large expansion in rocket flights. The crazy years were followed in his Future History by a brief reconstruction, then Imperialism/planetary colonization, then religious wars. I doubt we'll get that or robot cat girls, or Leeloo. Just more crazy years.

Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM (Y6IkP)

160 They are getting more hysterical with the prospect that Trump gets elected again... If he does the shit will really hit the fan

Posted by: It's me donna at January 26, 2024 03:30 PM (n2vyf)

161 My read is the elites fucked up by selling America down the river to the lowest bidder. They know they and their cadre did this. As always with the left they seek to project their sins on others to maintain their supposed high ground. Its pretty heavy lift to think Mr. Mumbles is on the high ground. But here we are. Rivers of blood will clear things up. Count on it.

Posted by: Pudinhead at January 26, 2024 03:30 PM (Xr4QU)

162 149 I believe this is real: They are literally insane. They are in the spasms of an untreated 8-year-old nervous breakdown.

It's too widespread to be a tactic. Agreed.
Posted by: Question Authority bumper sticker

Didja see those videos of American "Palestinian" protesters who don't know what river or which sea they're talking about?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (FVME7)
______________

I wonder how many "Palestinians" know which river and sea they're babbling about . . . .

Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (iFTx/)

163 The part that makes no sense is that the rich did extraordinarily well under Trump. The stock market soared. People got raises and they made a difference because inflation was so low. We were almost energy independent. The Middle East was trending our way through the Abraham Accords.
Biden reversed it all. Everything. Why did they want this outcome? That is what does not make sense. Zero Carbon, unmitigated immigration from third world countries, support for Ukraine war instead of a negotiated peace, all policies that have ruined the prosperity that was uplifting whole populations...it just makes no sense unless you set out to ruin life on the planet.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (t/2Uw)

164 Does being in a mob give them some kind of thrill?

-
I think that amost every human has a need to be a part of something bigger than themselves. So, in answer to your question, yes.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (FVME7)

165 You can't expect people to get bogged down in the granular details when there is SO MUCH to be HYSTERICAL about.
Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM

Their faces when asked about the hostages and brutal rapes....Uhhh. Useful idiots.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (MGqzM)

166 It is 100% a tactic.

Maybe you don't remember the shrieking left prior to 2016. The ones barring recruitment doors, putting Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter in handcuffs, chanting frighteningly meaningless platitudes with Obama.

What 2016 did was allow the Left to suck more people into their Insanity Bubble. MeToo had already started and it was supposed to coincide with the Manufactured Rise of Hillary, but instead it coincided with Unmanufactured Rise of Trump.

They were already doing it bit by bit with the internet... MeToo was breathless insanity... losing let them take it all into overdrive.

This is what they do and how they motivate their people to create "change".

Posted by: ... at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (CZnaf)

167 Those pulling the strings, those getting the benefits of the grift, don't buy into the bullshit. Look at Obama's two homesteads -- both situated right on the coast; on islands, no less. Is that what a true believer in *gasp* rising waters due to climate change would do? Of course not. He's just playing the game.

The truth is, most politicians know that fear is a great motivator. (There's a reason why the phrase "fear not" appears hundreds of times in the Bible.) The shift in tactics coincides with the rising depravity of democrats willing to drive up fear in order to codify their power. They are no longer in any way swayed by moral arguments, having discarded any semblance of standards outside their ability to rationalize away their behavior. What is left, however, is the powerless and gullible hoi polloi, running around like frightened, headless chickens. Except these chickens all have twitter accounts and are able to push official policy toward the direction of our own destruction. It's like we're reverted to the 15th century -- but with social media.

Posted by: red speck at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (0Id0S)

168 >>I think that amost every human has a need to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

This settles it. I'm not at all human.

Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:32 PM (mdhFC)

169 Ace, I think it is different that insanity, it is an entire strata of people who only know how to follow prodedures without actually understanding what they are doing or how anything actually functions. they have outsourced their thinking and morality to third parties who can advise them what to do, and so they can "be successful"
It is like sending off for the manual "how to win at investment" and never understanding anything about supply and demand, just "you have to be aggressive and diversify"

This makes them horribly conceited, dismissive and terribly afraid. It also makes them incredibly reactionary when faced with anyone breaking the "rules" because WITHOUT THE PROCEDURE THAT WAS ROTE LEARNED NOTHING IS UNDERSTANDABLE

I suppose I could go on forever on this, but the main thing is we are dealing with people with power who can't think, can't create, and need autocucumber to spell correctly.
And until we can change it, they hold our lives in their hands.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 03:32 PM (D7oie)

170 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)

171 In the alternate universe of DC, the Biden Administration is battling itself over a decision to end LPG exports as part of Climate Change mitigation.

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration had forgotten that they promised LPG to the Europeans to help make up the shortfall from the loss of Russian natural gas.

Now, they seem to be having a battle to see just who is more senile: the Biden Administration or the Biden Administration.

imagine the man sweating while looking at two buttons;
1) Climate Change Mitigation 2) Ukraine coalition

Posted by: SMOD at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (RHGPo)

172 The other thing fueling the insanity is a lack of consequences for being stupid. In fact, idiots get rewarded for being stupid. This is a basic life reversal from all that came before the millennial generation. Used to be do something stupid, don't do anything, and most likely die.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (17s+e)

173 You can't wonder why the Left lies blatantly in the face of every fact AND why they "spontaneously" went crazy.

The lies are designed to make and keep their people crazy. That's why they don't stop even when proven wrong 1,000 times.

Posted by: ... at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (CZnaf)

174 The part that makes no sense is that the rich did extraordinarily well under Trump. The stock market soared. People got raises and they made a difference because inflation was so low. We were almost energy independent. The Middle East was trending our way through the Abraham Accords.
Biden reversed it all. Everything. Why did they want this outcome? That is what does not make sense. Zero Carbon, unmitigated immigration from third world countries, support for Ukraine war instead of a negotiated peace, all policies that have ruined the prosperity that was uplifting whole populations...it just makes no sense unless you set out to ruin life on the planet.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (t/2Uw)
++++
Because it isn't about money, it's about power/control.

Money is a relative game. Power/control is an absolute game.

If the rich get poorer but they stay rich - or even get richer - relative to the poor who got even poorer, they're still winning. It's the spread that matters, not that absolute level of wealth owned (unless you're a rich guy who just likes being rich enough that his wealth is used primarily for scorekeeping).

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (mwCIn)

175 Lots of social disorder, uncertainty, anxiety and the herd gets spooked. It's starts with noise and then somebody in the front panics, and the spooked herd follows because they imagine it is safety. Herd animals stick together. Boom. This is human history and the oligarchs know it.
Posted by: It's like clockwork at January 26, 2024

***
"Rollin', rollin', rollin',
Keep them peasants movin' . . .
Don't try to understand 'em,
Just rope an' throw an' brand 'em,
Soon, we'll be livin' high and wide . . ."

Posted by: Oligarchs Everywhere at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (J2vNu)

176 63 The part that makes no sense is that the rich did extraordinarily well under Trump. The stock market soared. People got raises and they made a difference because inflation was so low. We were almost energy independent. The Middle East was trending our way through the Abraham Accords.
Biden reversed it all. Everything. Why did they want this outcome? That is what does not make sense. Zero Carbon, unmitigated immigration from third world countries, support for Ukraine war instead of a negotiated peace, all policies that have ruined the prosperity that was uplifting whole populations...it just makes no sense unless you set out to ruin life on the planet.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (t/2Uw)
_______

I agree. But the stock and equities market is higher now. That's a big factor, because that's where most rich people have their wealth, or at least a significant portion of it. So long as they can look at their portfolio and see it grow, they don't really care about inflation or higher prices. They can easily eat higher prices without feeling pain.

Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:34 PM (iFTx/)

177 >>>This settles it. I'm not at all human.
Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:32 PM (mdhFC)

====

*fist bump*

Posted by: Turn 2 at January 26, 2024 03:34 PM (JfxgE)

178 I think that amost every human has a need to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

-------------

Hence the importance of Christianity.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at January 26, 2024 03:34 PM (sX1BW)

179
I don't think Jesus polled as well as that among the disciples.

Posted by: Auspex at January 26, 2024 03:34 PM (j4U/Z)

180 >>> 163 The part that makes no sense is that the rich did extraordinarily well under Trump. The stock market soared. People got raises and they made a difference because inflation was so low. We were almost energy independent. The Middle East was trending our way through the Abraham Accords.
Biden reversed it all. Everything. Why did they want this outcome? That is what does not make sense. Zero Carbon, unmitigated immigration from third world countries, support for Ukraine war instead of a negotiated peace, all policies that have ruined the prosperity that was uplifting whole populations...it just makes no sense unless you set out to ruin life on the planet.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (t/2Uw)

It's been talked about it here - some asshoes can't be happy if *you* are happy, too. They don't want those icky wal-mart people on *their* beach!!! They HAVE to have MORE than you. If you have a dime and they have ten bucks, that's better than everyone having one meelion dollars.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 26, 2024 03:34 PM (llON8)

181 >>I think that amost every human has a need to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
-----
This settles it. I'm not at all human.
Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:32 PM (mdhFC)

I'm with you. "bigger than themselves" sounds like there'll be meetings and group participation. This human has a deep need to sign the opt-out form on all this.

Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:35 PM (Y6IkP)

182 He also placed this era on a timeline that coincided with a large expansion in rocket flights. The crazy years were followed in his Future History by a brief reconstruction, then Imperialism/planetary colonization, then religious wars. I doubt we'll get that or robot cat girls, or Leeloo. Just more crazy years.
Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:29 PM (Y6IkP)

the only thing I think Heinlein missed, probably because it's too depressing, is that Interregnums after things all fall apart usually last a couple of centuries. That's about how long it took for Charlemagne to start piecing civilisation back together in Western Europe. The great collapse of civilisations about 1200 bc saw the same thing.

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:35 PM (i9ffA)

183 Sometime today Senile Joe will confuse himself with Teddy Roosevelt.

Posted by: Northernlurker at January 26, 2024 03:35 PM (RwRUc)

184 And you already have a Stanley cup.
Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM

Cracks me up, because I've had one for years. Before some lame ass "influencer" made the lemmings HAVE to have one. So apparently I was a trend setter!
Posted by: Minnfidel

I have a Stanley cup on top of a 40 yr old thermos and a stanley whiskey flask.

Posted by: rickb223 at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM (GIBR7)

185
Yes. What amazes me is that they don't really even try to hide that they have no idea what they're talking about. That pretty Jewish girl was interviewing them, and they readily admitted "I don't know," "someone just gave me this sign," "I don't really follow that," "the Amazon river," "JELLO," etc. Not one single one of them ever thinks "gee, what river and sea? Does anybody know? Maybe someone should look that shit up?"
Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:24

I think it's a social contagion that they've learned in school and from their peers and they get dopamine hits from bragging, whether on social media or with their loser friends about how they're fighting genocide, hate, right wing extremism. It's what all the cool kids are into.

Posted by: CaliGirl at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM (ioPqD)

186 it just makes no sense unless you set out to ruin life on the planet.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (t/2Uw)
---
Uh, oh...

She's onto my master plan!

Posted by: Old Scratch at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM (7fElN)

187 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024

***
Too many to get it down to one:

Methuselah's Children
The Door Into Summer
Have Space Suit, Will Travel
Friday
and the collection The Past Through Tomorrow, short stories building up to MC, above.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM (J2vNu)

188 I don't think that you can throw everyone in jail who graduated from a an Ivy League
l after 1980. (I realize it's unrealistic and over the top.) After all, people such as Dr. Bill Jacobsen who got his law degree from Harvard in 1984 and teaches at Cornell is a conservative blogger.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM (Ki//m)

189
I have a Stanley cup on top of a 40 yr old thermos and a stanley whiskey flask.
Posted by: rickb223 at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM

I guess that means we're "influencers!" Where's our money?

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM (MGqzM)

190 170 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)

_____

All of them, but Starship Troopers is at the top of that list for me.

Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM (iFTx/)

191 Ace, I think it is different that insanity, it is an entire strata of people who only know how to follow prodedures without actually understanding what they are doing or how anything actually functions. they have outsourced their thinking and morality to third parties who can advise them what to do, and so they can "be successful" .... It also makes them incredibly reactionary when faced with anyone breaking the "rules" because WITHOUT THE PROCEDURE THAT WAS ROTE LEARNED NOTHING IS UNDERSTANDABLE ...
Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 03:32 PM (D7oie)
++++
You're describing, in essence, cargo cultism.

And the elites do appear to share a lot in common with other cargo cultists. I think it's definitely a factor in this, but it's a "power of and" situation. They're hysterical. The people are hysterical. We have a hysterical contagion and have for more than a decade. The fact that our elites are dull-normals who slavishly follow procedures and get terrified - that is hysterical - when anyone deviates from those procedures doesn't help a bit and probably helps compound the whole mess.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM (mwCIn)

192 Barky no doubt to me learned his Drama Queen in his early Marxist Seminaries

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (fwDg9)

193 And you already have a Stanley cup.
Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at January 26, 2024 03:18 PM

Cracks me up, because I've had one for years. Before some lame ass "influencer" made the lemmings HAVE to have one. So apparently I was a trend setter!
Posted by: Minnfidel

I have a Stanley cup on top of a 40 yr old thermos and a stanley whiskey flask.

-------------

For a minute, I thought we had some hockey players in the chat.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (sX1BW)

194 The Left doesn't only employ Keynesian beliefs, tactics and structure towards Economics.

They do the same thing with Morality. Establish Credit within a system. Make promises based on a future beneficial outcomes that will never be realized.
Take out more Credit. Increase promises of benefit.

Repeat.

Posted by: garrett at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (mdhFC)

195 170 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)

Starship Troopers. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Podkayne of Mars.

I can't endorse 'Stranger in a Strange Land' or later unless you are doing scholarly research as opposed to reading for fun though. He gets his sex kinks going as he gets older.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (xcxpd)

196 all policies that have ruined the prosperity that was uplifting whole populations...it just makes no sense unless you set out to ruin life on the planet.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:31 PM (t/2Uw)

The banking system was collapsing, and with it the free money for beloved family and friends was going to go away.
There are theorists out there who believe the last 20 years were a drive to keep the Euro and the Pound in the catbird seat to control the world though finances, and run it to the benefits of the main banks. They also thing (on even days at least) the drive to digital currencies is to set up the tools to control the economies of the world as one, and use it as a weapon to destroy any dissent.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (D7oie)

197 The part that makes no sense is that the rich did extraordinarily well under Trump. The stock market soared.

.. forgotten was the Trump tax plan.

One feature that has gotten little to no coverage is that it allowed companies with large cash accounts offshore to repatriate those funds. I seem to remember AAPL having $250 billion +/- offshore from iPhone sales.

Posted by: SMOD at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (RHGPo)

198 Too many to get it down to one:

Methuselah's Children
The Door Into Summer
Have Space Suit, Will Travel
Friday
and the collection The Past Through Tomorrow, short stories building up to MC, above.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:36 PM

Thanks Wolfy!

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (MGqzM)

199 So I was curious about that Rasmussen "elites" poll because Rasmussen stated that one of the qualifiers was that they live in an area with more than 10,000 people per square mile. I found that a curious number and looked it up. Turns out there are only 6 zip codes in the United State with a population density of greater than 10,000 people per square mile, and five of them are in New York City. The other is in Trenton, New Jersey.

Now, it's possible Rasmussen has more granular data that allows them to identify population density in areas smaller than entire zip codes... but I doubt it. Which would mean this is just a poll of idiot New Yorkers with postgraduate degrees.

Posted by: Caiwyn at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (BaIXK)

200 Monopolies. Die hardest.
Ever seen a cockroach that got cut in half?
Next day the head and legs will still be waving.
Yeah.

Posted by: Humphreyrobot at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (J8LnB)

201 I think that amost every human has a need to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

***
Which might be part of why men willingly head off to war, sometimes.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (J2vNu)

202 I don't want to know about Fani's leaks.
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:10 PM (MGqzM)

Old and busted: shit hitting the fan.

New and hot: shit hitting the Fani.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2024 03:38 PM (tkR6S)

203 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)

Citizen of the Galaxy and Between Planets.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 03:38 PM (D7oie)

204 That is what does not make sense. Zero Carbon, unmitigated immigration from third world countries, support for Ukraine war instead of a negotiated peace, all policies that have ruined the prosperity that was uplifting whole populations...it just makes no sense unless you set out to ruin life on the planet.
==
Monetary wealth is relative. The economy is an auction for resources. If the resources are limited, or you believe in peak oil or overpopulation or some such, you want to maintain your proportionate wealth. If you are in an auction for resources against people who only have pennies you rule the world with
millions. They will happily burn it down to eliminate what they consider the excess population, freeing up limited resources and maintaining proportionate bidding power.

Posted by: It's like clockwork at January 26, 2024 03:38 PM (k2zVs)

205 102 Watch the video of people at a pro Hamas rally responding to the question, what river, what sea. They have no idea what they are advocating. I do not understand what they get out of doing this. Does being in a mob give them some kind of thrill? I just don't think there are are hundreds of thousands of antisemites just waiting for the siren call to turn out for this. Some must be getting paid but what about the rest?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (t/2Uw)

They get to be in the "popular clique."

Posted by: Question Authority bumper sticker at January 26, 2024 03:39 PM (Rbu5d)

206
For a minute, I thought we had some hockey players in the chat.
Posted by: SH (no more socks) at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM

Well I am! It's the only one I'll ever have in my house. I still play in an "old timer's" league. It's supposed to be no checking, but, you can take the youth out of a hockey player, but he's still a hockey player.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:39 PM (MGqzM)

207 Great post, Ace. You rock!

Posted by: Peaches at January 26, 2024 03:39 PM (14URa)

208 Thanks Wolfy!
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024

***
You're welcome, M. They are all quick reads -- Heinlein even at his worst was never a dull writer. Past Through Tomorrow was the book that led me to him and made me realize what sciience fiction was *supposed* to be like.

If you like these, you can move on to one of his big novels, Time Enough For Love. Time enough for that later!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:40 PM (J2vNu)

209 Thanks for the Heinlein suggestions guys and ettes. Appreciate it!

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:40 PM (MGqzM)

210 Also, a lot of is accepting propaganda. Liberals believe what the TV tells them.

Posted by: Bud Norton at January 26, 2024 03:40 PM (6cOMd)

211 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)
++++
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
The short story collections "The Menace from Earth" and "Revolt in 2100" and "The Green Hills of Earth"
"Methuselah's Children" - though it's a weird read.
"Starship Troopers"
"Time for the Stars" (wherein Heinlein falls into the "all research pays off" trap)
"Citizen of the Galaxy" (which expands on the themes in his novella "The Logic of Empire," which is itself collected in "The Green Hills of Earth.")

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:40 PM (mwCIn)

212 The political hysterics are part of a larger confluence of crazy. With increased prosperity and victim culture clout, the rise of the AWFLs has also been a major factor. These crazy bored bitches want some kind of attention and meaning in their life, so they either become the oppressed, turn their children into the oppressed, or openly support the oppressed (mostly LGBTQIA, or BLM).

Posted by: Moron Analyst at January 26, 2024 03:40 PM (JCZqz)

213
Cracks me up, because I've had one for years. Before some lame ass "influencer" made the lemmings HAVE to have one. So apparently I was a trend setter!
Posted by: Minnfidel

I have a Stanley cup on top of a 40 yr old thermos and a stanley whiskey flask.

Posted by: rickb223
===

I have my fathers Stanley green thermos that I remember going fishing with him when I was five. As to the new Stanley things. I have RTIC as the value was so much better. A 14oz cocktail one and a 30 oz beer one. The 30 oz beer one let's you pour 2 1/2 beers to go and 1/2 beer to get ready to go.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (17s+e)

214 Jonathan Haidt has an explanation for this:

He went through cognitive behavioral modification therapy in order to deal with depressive thoughts. (According to my recollections- actual truth may vary)

He then thought that if you can train people to STOP being depressed and suicidal, can't you do just the opposite?

And his observation is that this insanity is cultivated. Children have been raised and trained to be crazy. To obsess, catastrophize, and get depressed.

And that's just from the schools. The social media companies have worked to make them addicted to dopamine hits, as well.

As such our country is crazy, likely by design.

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (JMAcK)

215 >>> the only thing I think Heinlein missed, probably because it's too depressing, is that Interregnums after things all fall apart usually last a couple of centuries. That's about how long it took for Charlemagne to start piecing civilisation back together in Western Europe. The great collapse of civilisations about 1200 bc saw the same thing.
Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:35 PM (i9ffA)

Yes and that was the driving force behind the character Seldon's psychohistory in Asimov's Foundation series. He foresaw, calculated that civilization would fall and there would be an unimaginably long period of dark misery before it could recover and he sought to minimize that greatly through direct manipulation.

Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (Y6IkP)

216 Sometime today Senile Joe will confuse himself with Teddy Roosevelt.
Posted by: Northernlurker

And this evening, with Teddy Ruxpin.

Posted by: Brother Tim sez Nick Saban for President! at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (OUMaO)

217 Recall the observation that when the conspiracy theorist is confronted with evidence that contradicts the conspiracy, they don't abandon the conspiracy-- they point to that contradictory evidence as further proof of the theory.

There are your elites: The public's rejection of ALL of their policies is further proof that their policies are right.

As I point out, 99% of our elected Republicans get their news from CNN and the New York Times. The elite all watch the same shows read the same news-- there is no way they all could possibly be wrong when everyone and everything agrees with them.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice - Personality Commentator at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (C2U4G)

218 Oh Lort. I have never seen so much cringe.

Tom McDonald made a rap song/video with Ben Shapiro.

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (2ovLw)

219 They also thing (on even days at least) the drive to digital currencies is to set up the tools to control the economies of the world as one, and use it as a weapon to destroy any dissent.
===
Did you think it was all a made up story? Really? How quaint.

Posted by: Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (k2zVs)

220 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024
*
Citizen of the Galaxy and Between Planets.
Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024

***
Two of his "juveniles,' like Have Space Suit -- but grownups can read and love them too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (J2vNu)

221 The left uses their ideology as a religion. It's a strong draw for the disenfranchised. The religion/ideology is very intense, jihadi like. The effort to convert people to this way of thinking is off the hook. They really, really want you to join them.

When you reject their religion/ideology they're incensed and act irrationally. And violently. Mostly violently.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (Q4IgG)

222 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:42 PM (mwCIn)

223 My political philosophy has only changed by a few letters in the Trump Era.
2015: Those government people - What a bunch of lazy bastards! Amirite?
2024: Those government people - What a bunch of crazy bastards! Amirite?

Posted by: Wally at January 26, 2024 03:42 PM (hqVaF)

224 Sometime today Senile Joe will confuse himself with Teddy Roosevelt.
Posted by: Northernlurker

And this evening, with Teddy Ruxpin.
Posted by: Brother Tim

Golf clap.

Posted by: rickb223 at January 26, 2024 03:42 PM (GIBR7)

225 Now that we've moved onto a book thread, I admit that while I've enjoyed the handful of Heinlein I've read, I generally don't rate him as highly as some other science fiction authors from the same era.

I do recognize the tremendous influence he has had in the field, though.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:43 PM (7fElN)

226 211 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)
++++
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
The short story collections "The Menace from Earth" and "Revolt in 2100" and "The Green Hills of Earth"
"Methuselah's Children" - though it's a weird read.
"Starship Troopers"
"Time for the Stars" (wherein Heinlein falls into the "all research pays off" trap)
"Citizen of the Galaxy" (which expands on the themes in his novella "The Logic of Empire," which is itself collected in "The Green Hills of Earth.")
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:40 PM (mwCIn)
_______________

"You should see my fucking toxic bitch!"

-- Tyrone Thundercock, Esq.

Posted by: Elric Blade at January 26, 2024 03:43 PM (iFTx/)

227 I can't endorse 'Stranger in a Strange Land' or later unless you are doing scholarly research as opposed to reading for fun though. He gets his sex kinks going as he gets older
==

Agree that is one I could never finish although I tried several times.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 03:43 PM (17s+e)

228 The vast majority of American adults are medicated.
Medicines are known the have side effects, many of them mental.

It doesn't take a leap to think (overly) medicated society plus break from routine/normal = irrationality and mental breaks in the public sphere.

Posted by: Nova Local at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (exHjb)

That and the rapid expansion of social media, a media that gives these people a platform to attract others of the same mindset/mental illness. A platform that did not exist until rather recently.

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy now with twice the crazy at January 26, 2024 03:43 PM (iODuv)

229 222 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:42 PM (mwCIn)

=======

Are you serious with that nail polish color? How on earth did she find some brainless drone to marry her?

2/10

Would not bang.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:44 PM (GBKbO)

230 225 Now that we've moved onto a book thread, I admit that while I've enjoyed the handful of Heinlein I've read, I generally don't rate him as highly as some other science fiction authors from the same era.

I do recognize the tremendous influence he has had in the field, though.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:43 PM (7fElN)

=========

You know who else wrote under the scifi/fantasy umbrella?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:44 PM (GBKbO)

231 Any group of people, be it huge, large, or small that turn their backs to God will act like people that have turned their backs to God.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at January 26, 2024 03:45 PM (BdMk6)

232 A thought: Is the crazy really as widespread as it appears? Or is the combination of concentration in critical areas of influence and deliberate media messaging making it seem that way?

It's an important distinction. If it's a very small group with the levers of power and the media podium, that gives different options for solving the problem.

Posted by: Brother Tim sez Nick Saban for President! at January 26, 2024 03:45 PM (OUMaO)

233 Yes and that was the driving force behind the character Seldon's psychohistory in Asimov's Foundation series. He foresaw, calculated that civilization would fall and there would be an unimaginably long period of dark misery before it could recover and he sought to minimize that greatly through direct manipulation.
Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (Y6IkP)
---
Hari Seldon foresaw a new Dark Age lasting around 30,000 years without his planning. Only about 1,000-3,000 years with his planning. The collapse of the Galactic Empire was going to suck, regardless. The only difference was in HOW LONG it would suck.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:45 PM (7fElN)

234 I feel, too free today. Way too free

Posted by: Humphreyrobot at January 26, 2024 03:45 PM (J8LnB)

235 227 I can't endorse 'Stranger in a Strange Land' or later unless you are doing scholarly research as opposed to reading for fun though. He gets his sex kinks going as he gets older
==

Agree that is one I could never finish although I tried several times.
Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 03:43 PM (17s+e)

========

I did finish it. I am convinced that Heinlein had no idea how or why religions worked, so any time he writes on them they are incomprehensible gobbledygook.

Still, he did start the use of the word grok, so the 500 pages was worth it, I guess.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:45 PM (GBKbO)

236 Now that we've moved onto a book thread, I admit that while I've enjoyed the handful of Heinlein I've read, I generally don't rate him as highly as some other science fiction authors from the same era.

I do recognize the tremendous influence he has had in the field, though.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:43 PM (7fElN)
++++
I like Heinlein. One of the reasons his work is so distinct is that he's one of the few people in that crowd who wasn't a default communist. Many of his contemporaries wove weird collectivism throughout their works (Clark in "The Trigger" and the Rama series are prime examples) in a way that sort of made them mutually similar. Heinlein went the other way, which helped him to stand out and act as something of a counterpoint within the wider genre.

I think that some of the others who also went their own ways stand out in their own rights, like Zelazny and Pohl.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:45 PM (mwCIn)

237 You know who else wrote under the scifi/fantasy umbrella?
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:44 PM (GBKbO)
--
Frank Herbert? Philip Jose Farmer?

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:46 PM (7fElN)

238 You know who else wrote under the scifi/fantasy umbrella?

Ezra Klein?

Posted by: 18-1 at January 26, 2024 03:46 PM (ibTVg)

239 the only thing I think Heinlein missed, probably because it's too depressing, is that Interregnums after things all fall apart usually last a couple of centuries. That's about how long it took for Charlemagne to start piecing civilisation back together in Western Europe. The great collapse of civilisations about 1200 bc saw the same thing.
Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024

***
Yes; his era of "the Prophet" (Nehemiah Scudder) lasted only about seventy years, I think, from the fall of the U.S. to the Second American Revolution chronicled in "If This Goes On --". Only one human lifetime instead of two or three or more. He may have made it short for dramatic purposes, so he could have living humans in the late Prophet era who remembered what things used to be like before.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:46 PM (J2vNu)

240 149...Didja see those videos of American "Palestinian" protesters who don't know what river or which sea they're talking about?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at January 26, 2024 03:28 PM (FVME7)

Yes.
It is incredibly sad.
I hope those children wake up, eventually.

Posted by: Question Authority bumper sticker at January 26, 2024 03:46 PM (Rbu5d)

241 233 Hari Seldon foresaw a new Dark Age lasting around 30,000 years without his planning. Only about 1,000-3,000 years with his planning. The collapse of the Galactic Empire was going to suck, regardless. The only difference was in HOW LONG it would suck.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:45 PM (7fElN)

========

And he failed to predict the Mule, which tells me that Hari Seldon's conclusions were suspect, at best.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:46 PM (GBKbO)

242 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:42 PM (mwCIn)

I wouldn't mind feeling Minnesota. Kinda like to be looking California again too.

Posted by: zombie Chris Cornell at January 26, 2024 03:46 PM (MqhXY)

243 >>> Cracks me up, because I've had one for years. Before some lame ass "influencer" made the lemmings HAVE to have one. So apparently I was a trend setter!
Posted by: Minnfidel
===
I have a Stanley cup on top of a 40 yr old thermos and a stanley whiskey flask.
Posted by: rickb223
===
I have my fathers Stanley green thermos that I remember going fishing with him when I was five.
Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 03:41 PM (17s+e)
===
A while back I got one of their giant french presses and it's great. Makes plenty coffee for my wife and I, well insulated , and made tough. I'm thinking of getting their beer stein.

Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (Y6IkP)

244 One of my favorite Heinlein quotes:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

We are going to be having a lot of "bad luck."

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (17s+e)

245 Dolley has had 2 of those things for at least a year. Maybe two.

I had no idea they were such a big cultural thing. No clue at all.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:19 PM (GBKbO)

Which NHL team does she play for?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (tkR6S)

246 My lifelong Democrat in-laws wiped their mail with disinfectant during the corona days. And they believe every fucking thing the msm tells them about the insurrectionists on J6.

They question none of it.

Posted by: Montec at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (YofvK)

247 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:42 PM

Nice Twins! SWIDT.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (MGqzM)

248 This is an excellent discussion of something I do not comprehend, namely, why does Donald Trump, of all people, make people lose their ever loving minds.

Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (nYGbn)

249 And he failed to predict the Mule, which tells me that Hari Seldon's conclusions were suspect, at best.

Stop calling me that!

Posted by: Science Fiction Napoleon at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (ibTVg)

250 237 You know who else wrote under the scifi/fantasy umbrella?
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:44 PM (GBKbO)
--
Frank Herbert? Philip Jose Farmer?
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:46 PM (7fElN)

=======

It's Tolkien. If it's a book thread, there must be Tolkien.

Also me.

Buy my books! Giveaway on Colonial Nightmare that ends tomorrow!

http://tinyurl.com/38ttzxvc

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (GBKbO)

251 Turns out there are only 6 zip codes in the United State with a population density of greater than 10,000 people per square mile, and five of them are in New York City. The other is in Trenton, New Jersey.

Posted by: Caiwyn at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (BaIXK)

This is absolutely incorrect. In my dataset (fourfront.us) I count 303 zip codes with density greater than 10,000/square mile.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (gSZYf)

252 thanks Mannix, cargo cult is exactly the term, but it is more because cargo cult does not explain rote cooking and rote computing. You can get away with it while things are simple, but in emergencies rote learning only takes you so far. You need practiced responses, but you also need to understand what is going on so you can change your reactions to the situation.

I think part of the problem is that it is an emergency situation, the wheels are coming off, and the standard rote responses are not working.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (D7oie)

253 My lifelong Democrat in-laws wiped their mail with disinfectant during the corona days

Ask them why they stopped...

Posted by: Science Fiction Napoleon at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (ibTVg)

254 Minnfidel - I have a co-worker who dose a old timer Hockey league, plays a few games a week in evenings.
No idea how he does it

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (fwDg9)

255 But to the bigger point, the dripping hatred of the elite for anyone not them was something they used to try and hide.

Trump forced them to show their true face.

The Democrats, from their inception, have built over a century of power by being "for the little guy."
With Obama, they truly believed they had finally built a coalition that allowed them to discard the little guy. And boy did they.

The response of the Republicans wasn't joyfully disbelief that the largest voting block in American politics for the entire history of the United States was up for grabs.
Nope.
They look at Trump bringing in these voters by the truckloads and his calls to help like he is asking them to pick up a wet dog turd bare-handed.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice - Personality Commentator at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (C2U4G)

256 MN blonde is married. Which means there’s a guy outbthere tired of fucking her, lol.

Posted by: Montec at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (YofvK)

257 Monopolies. Die hardest.
Ever seen a cockroach that got cut in half?
Next day the head and legs will still be waving.
Yeah.
Posted by: Humphreyrobot at January 26, 2024 03:37 PM (J8LnB)

this is a terrible Haiku, the syllable count is way off.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (D7oie)

258 248 This is an excellent discussion of something I do not comprehend, namely, why does Donald Trump, of all people, make people lose their ever loving minds.

Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (nYGbn)

========

Because in our oversexualized culture, a man talking about sex in a private conversation with another man is the height of sex crimes.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (GBKbO)

259 Now that we've moved onto a book thread, I admit that while I've enjoyed the handful of Heinlein I've read, I generally don't rate him as highly as some other science fiction authors from the same era.

I do recognize the tremendous influence he has had in the field, though.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024

***
Some have called him the Mark Twain of SF. I dunno, I have not read that much Twain.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (J2vNu)

260 One of my favorite Heinlein quotes:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

We are going to be having a lot of "bad luck."
Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (17s+e)
++++
That one's from "Methuselah's Children." The various parts of that book are largely disconnect from each other and so rather than try to weave connective tissue, Heinlein just broke up the sections with various musings attributed to the main character (Lazarus Long). Some are pure nonsense. Some are quite good. That one is quite good, probably the best of all the musings.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (mwCIn)

261 I watched a program on Cuba's Panopticon Modern Prisons and how it worked on 24 hours suspension of constant surveillance. Really fucked guys heads up. The Panopticon prison layout was introduced in the 18th C. Now we have cellphones and confessionals (social media). Its basically the same thing.

Posted by: Pudinhead at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (Xr4QU)

262 From the Powerline piece- If they take over, we are finished. I'm afraid I've got some bad news...

Posted by: Ex Rex Reeder at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (MZ+PY)

263 I believe that the elites wouldn't have so much power to influence the masses if there weren't so many elite wannabes.

The mob bosses rarely have to soil their fingers pulling the trigger on an actual gun.

The wannabes are very much more cruel and insane than their bosses because that's how they move up.
Posted by: Just Lily at January 26, 2024 03:21 PM (GiYD6)

----------------

That's why they need all the illegals so they will have someone to feel superior to, we are in the way and make them feel insecure.

Posted by: Decaf at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (3JfbU)

264 183 Sometime today Senile Joe will confuse himself with Teddy Roosevelt.
Posted by: Northernlurker at January 26, 2024 03:35 PM (RwRUc)

We would have dealt with him appropriately...

Posted by: Aubt Abbie and Aunt Martha Brewster at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (TTAGa)

265 >>The vast majority of American adults are medicated.
Medicines are known the have side effects, many of them mental.

>>It doesn't take a leap to think (overly) medicated society plus break from routine/normal = irrationality and mental breaks in the public sphere.

This is not a unique American phenomenon nor is it new. Propaganda has been used in one form or another for decades, probably longer, to control narratives and changes people views for a very long time.

The entire point behind the CIA's work on MK-Ultra was mind control, trying to build off what the Soviets had been doing. The CIA was also a seed investor in what became Google because they were also doing work on crowd dynamics and decision making.

The government didn't attach themselves to Big Tech and eventually use it as a censorship and narrative building machine for nothing. Many if not most people are easy to manipulate. The desire to belong and the fear of being left out and othered are powerful tools. People have done horrific things throughout history if it meant they could belong with the team in power.

Posted by: JackStraw at January 26, 2024 03:50 PM (ZLI7S)

266 >I'd really like to read a book about that. Not a screed like I'd write, but a genuine analysis informed by psychology and the history of moral panics and witch hunts and viral contagion lunacies.

-----

Didn't Mattias Desmet write about what he coined "mass formation psychosis"?

Posted by: Dworkin Barimen at January 26, 2024 03:50 PM (B8ieY)

267 264 183 Sometime today Senile Joe will confuse himself with Teddy Roosevelt.
Posted by: Northernlurker at January 26, 2024 03:35 PM (RwRUc)

We would have dealt with him appropriately...
Posted by: Aubt Abbie and Aunt Martha Brewster at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (TTAGa)

========

Sending him to dig the Panama Canal?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:50 PM (GBKbO)

268 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)

Definitely NOT I Will Fear No Evil.

Posted by: spindrift at January 26, 2024 03:50 PM (MqhXY)

269 >>> Hari Seldon foresaw a new Dark Age lasting around 30,000 years without his planning. Only about 1,000-3,000 years with his planning. The collapse of the Galactic Empire was going to suck, regardless. The only difference was in HOW LONG it would suck.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024 03:45 PM (7fElN)

Hari was a very unique "hero". One that would save all through planning, but be long dead and required generations to keep his plans and writing. Certainly a secular scifi author's marysue to an extent. But a very unique idea for a series spanning protagonist.

Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:51 PM (Y6IkP)

270 Minnfidel - I have a co-worker who dose a old timer Hockey league, plays a few games a week in evenings.
No idea how he does it
Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM

I wonder why the next morning when I try to get out of bed. My wife just shakes her head and says, you're not 18 anymore you know. But I tell you what, it's GREAT exercise. I still say any regular hockey player is in better shape than most other sports.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:51 PM (MGqzM)

271 268 Definitely NOT I Will Fear No Evil.
Posted by: spindrift at January 26, 2024 03:50 PM (MqhXY)

========

YOU'RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!

*downloads copy of I Will Fear No Evil to read next*

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:51 PM (GBKbO)

272 I think it goes all the way back to the 1960s. That was before my time, but if you look at that generation and the ideas they had and what they did, they were basically just gestatory versions of the paranoid hysteria we have today. Violent leftwing domestic terrorists blowing shit up and murdering people? Check. Race riots? Yup. Out of control FBI? For sure. Rise of radical Islam? Also yes. Blatantly stolen elections? Yes yes yes.

All the flash points were there, ready to explode. They eventually fizzled out. Then went underground. But a few decades later, they exploded with the advantage of a nuclear-level ignition event: social media.

Nice screed. In fact all of this, in this country, dates back to Woodrow Wilson, prohibition, the income tax, elected senators, and the 19th amendment. That is the foundation of radical leftism in this country - without all of that it couldn't have succeeded. You may hate us Boomers, but the fact is we stacked dead Communists by the 100's of thousands, what the fk has your generation done? By the way, Radical Islam has been around since the 600's.

Posted by: An Observation sez China Joe not my president at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (CecP5)

273 269 Hari was a very unique "hero". One that would save all through planning, but be long dead and required generations to keep his plans and writing. Certainly a secular scifi author's marysue to an extent. But a very unique idea for a series spanning protagonist.
Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:51 PM (Y6IkP)

=========

"What if we kept him alive through the entire thing and made him second fiddle to a black girl?"
-AppleTV

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (GBKbO)

274 "There is no polite way to put it: they are fascists."

---

Yeah, I have no problem with throwing the F word back in their faces, but I don't think this is what makes them fascists. More than anything, they're malignant feudalists. They want serfs and they want to be the lords.

Posted by: SloPitch Whiffer at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (wzAuc)

275 Because in our oversexualized culture, a man talking about sex in a private conversation with another man is the height of sex crimes.
==
Bob Hope said best. Zombies. Today you can call them NPC s but their identification with their chosen in group is life and death. They would rather die than to lose group status. On the other, this "group" couldn't agree on lowbows vs crossbows....

Posted by: Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (k2zVs)

276 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)

I'm not a big fan, but I did enjoy "Farnham's Freehold."

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (gSZYf)

277 248 This is an excellent discussion of something I do not comprehend, namely, why does Donald Trump, of all people, make people lose their ever loving minds.

Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM

Don't know. Ask one of those people. What specifically did he do that made your life worse? Get the popcorn ready.

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (MGqzM)

278 Definitely NOT I Will Fear No Evil.
Posted by: spindrift at January 26, 2024 03:50 PM (MqhXY)
++++
Ahh, the counterpoint list. Also definitely not:
- The Cat Who Walked Through Walls
- The Number of the Beast

A number on the "don't bother" list for me, including:
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- Tunnel in the Sky
- The Star Beast

Though the last, to be fair, is a juvenile book for teenagers. IIRC, Tunnel in the Sky might be, too - but I don't remember because it's been a long time since I read it. I just remember being thoroughly unimpressed.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:53 PM (mwCIn)

279 277 Don't know. Ask one of those people. What specifically did he do that made your life worse? Get the popcorn ready.
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (MGqzM)

=======

He saved all the children, but not the tranny children.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:53 PM (GBKbO)

280 You know who else wrote under the scifi/fantasy umbrella?
Posted by: TheJamesMadison

C. S. Lewis. Just finished his 'space' trilogy. Though listed as sci-fi, it's more of a spiritual fantasy.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 26, 2024 03:53 PM (IG4Id)

281 What happens when the entire Ruling Class becomes functionally insane?

--------------

Eventually death camps & mass graves, same as it ever was ...

Posted by: ShainS -- Civil War 2: 10th Amendment Revolution Boogaloo at January 26, 2024 03:53 PM (B/yME)

282 What specifically did he do that made your life worse?

-----------

He said pussy.

Posted by: SH (no more socks) at January 26, 2024 03:54 PM (sX1BW)

283 I believe he just had them pushed back over the border into Mexico. Easily done again regardless of where they came from, they came from there they can make their own way home from Mexico.
Posted by: Decaf at January 26, 2024 03:27 PM (3JfbU)

He flew some back by plane. One plane crashed and killed all aboard, and the Commies and folksingers, BIRM, made hay with that.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2024 03:54 PM (tkR6S)

284 And for the 'ettes: This man is a baseball player and is wearing a much more practical outfit than the boobette above, who would fall out of her clothes if she was actually on the field:

http://tinyurl.com/mwtja7dv

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2024 03:54 PM (Ki//m)

285 Sending him to dig the Panama Canal?
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:50 PM (GBKbO)

Stuff him in the window seat ...

Posted by: Mortimer Brewster at January 26, 2024 03:54 PM (TTAGa)

286 Yeah, I have no problem with throwing the F word back in their faces, but I don't think this is what makes them fascists. More than anything, they're malignant feudalists. They want serfs and they want to be the lords.
-------------
They are Roundheads and crazy Quakers. We've seen this shit show before.

Posted by: Pudinhead at January 26, 2024 03:54 PM (Xr4QU)

287 Insane? I know insane.

Posted by: Amy Coney-Barrett at January 26, 2024 03:54 PM (eYF7X)

288 My first Heinlein was "All You Zombies". I thought it was going to be about zombies, but instead I got a mind-bending story about the complications of time travel. I was hooked.

Posted by: J. Frank Parnell at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (IGKzA)

289 Sending him to dig the Panama Canal?
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:50 PM (GBKbO)

CHAAARGE!!! up the White House staircase!

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (i9ffA)

290 That one's from "Methuselah's Children." The various parts of that book are largely disconnect from each other and so rather than try to weave connective tissue, Heinlein just broke up the sections with various musings attributed to the main character (Lazarus Long). Some are pure nonsense. Some are quite good. That one is quite good, probably the best of all the musings.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024

***
Joe, your description is spot on, but that book is Time Enough For Love -- the big one with Lazarus Long dictating his memoirs. In two sections of it RAH gives us "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long," with various aphorisms and observations LL has made in his very very long life.

Mrs. Wolfus No. 2 (possibly tongue-in-cheek) likened TEfL to the Bible, in that both have stirring stories, plus rules for getting along with other people.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (J2vNu)

291 The "elite";are, get this, most certainly NOT smart, but ARE evil.

Posted by: uniparty, Raping and Mutilating the Children They Do Not Kill at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (gxokI)

292 A search for "cruelty aficionado Victor Davis Hanson" brings up this thread on Duckduckgo.

Posted by: Miley, okravangelist at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (w6EFb)

293 The Democrats are like Bud Light and Disney, they felt they were big enough to slough off their main demographic so they could focus on servicing the demographic they liked better.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (D7oie)

294 Don't know. Ask one of those people. What specifically did he do that made your life worse? Get the popcorn ready.
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (MGqzM)
++++
They can't ever answer that question. It isn't that they won't, it's that they can't. For one of two reasons, I think:

1. They're elites and can't acknowledge that the rube sauntered in, insulted them and then outperformed them. It would cause a mental breakdown and thrust them into a fugue state.
2. They're followers of the elites and Trump did nothing to hurt them but they've been told that he's hurtful and so he is.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (mwCIn)

295 >>> Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (mwCIn)

One story I remember is that Lazarus hooked up with a hottie with a generally long life span but she was scared of ever dying so she joined with an immortal tree. Poor immortal Laz. He was like, ok well good luck with that babe, I'll be in space.

Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (Y6IkP)

296 Joe, your description is spot on, but that book is Time Enough For Love -- the big one with Lazarus Long dictating his memoirs. In two sections of it RAH gives us "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long," with various aphorisms and observations LL has made in his very very long life.

Mrs. Wolfus No. 2 (possibly tongue-in-cheek) likened TEfL to the Bible, in that both have stirring stories, plus rules for getting along with other people.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (J2vNu)
++++
D'oh! You're right. I am shamed.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:56 PM (mwCIn)

297 288 My first Heinlein was "All You Zombies". I thought it was going to be about zombies, but instead I got a mind-bending story about the complications of time travel. I was hooked.
Posted by: J. Frank Parnell at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (IGKzA)

I think the Futurama episode where Fry becomes his own Grampa is a whacked out version of that.

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:56 PM (i9ffA)

298 Man, now I am excited to start reading some of his works. Maybe you all can give me a free pass with Mrs. Minnfidel to skip cleaning out the garage this weekend? Can I just tell them you all said it was O.K?

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:56 PM (MGqzM)

299 >>>I really want someone to analyze the phenomenon of an entire social order having an ongoing nervous breakdown for eight years straight, but never seeking treatment for it, because all of their social peers and political allies -- all other occupants of The Bubble -- tell them that it's not crazy to be crazy 24/7/365, but in fact insanity is the right response to Trump, Covid, and a drug-dealing thug having a heart failure due to the prodigious amounts of fentanyl and amphetamines he had swallowed.
--------------------

Feedback loop of insanity deliberately initiated and reinforced by Obama's handlers. Media is/was the amplifier.

Posted by: Braenard at January 26, 2024 03:57 PM (2HSPn)

300 Hmmmm. Tactic or genuine insanity. Perhaps it was a tactic to weaponize insanity like the left has done.

Posted by: Emmie at January 26, 2024 03:57 PM (Sf2cq)

301 I think a lot of people are just going to have to die as a result of what Biden is doing to this country. Starvation, homelessness, insanity.

Posted by: Miley, okravangelist at January 26, 2024 03:57 PM (w6EFb)

302 >>> "What if we kept him alive through the entire thing and made him second fiddle to a black girl?"
-AppleTV
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (GBKbO)

Is that what they did? I never watch adaptations of things I like because I know they'll screw it up. Always

Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:57 PM (Y6IkP)

303 294 They can't ever answer that question. It isn't that they won't, it's that they can't. For one of two reasons, I think:

1. They're elites and can't acknowledge that the rube sauntered in, insulted them and then outperformed them. It would cause a mental breakdown and thrust them into a fugue state.
2. They're followers of the elites and Trump did nothing to hurt them but they've been told that he's hurtful and so he is.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (mwCIn)

=======

Oh, they definitely blame covid on him. First it was because he tried to racistly stop immigration from China. Then it was because he didn't do enough, mostly around not getting enough testing packets into the hands of the people.

Almost never about the lost economic activity directly, though. They mention it, acting like year 4 of Trump's presidency outweighs the first 3, but it's an unrelated thing to covid.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:57 PM (GBKbO)

304 277 248 This is an excellent discussion of something I do not comprehend, namely, why does Donald Trump, of all people, make people lose their ever loving minds.

Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM

Don't know. Ask one of those people. What specifically did he do that made your life worse? Get the popcorn ready.
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:52 PM (MGqzM)

I found the absolute worst thing you can do, as a parent, is warn your child of something, and be right.

THEY HATE IT FOREVER. They may eventually acknowledge it... someday... but not anytime soon.

In this case... Trump is Daddy...

Posted by: Romeo13 at January 26, 2024 03:57 PM (xaFKb)

305 300 Hmmmm. Tactic or genuine insanity. Perhaps it was a tactic to weaponize insanity like the left has done.
Posted by: Emmie at January 26, 2024 03:57 PM (Sf2cq)

Goes hand in hand with "stray voltage theory"

Posted by: browndog lifts his leg on the left at January 26, 2024 03:58 PM (TTAGa)

306 Posted by: Pudinhead at January 26, 2024 03:54 PM (Xr4QU)

Crazy Quakers weren't particularly crazy unless you're talking about modern ones whose religion (except for ones in the Midwest) is basically progressive politics with a time of silence in their religious meetings.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2024 03:58 PM (Ki//m)

307 VDH is WRONG!

The riots EXCEEDED $2 B in damages. The $2 B was just insurance payouts, and not even all of them.

Posted by: Don at January 26, 2024 03:58 PM (2GPfT)

308 Here's the thing:

No doubt the libs took to the lockdown with a mission.

But I also remember staying at home in Michigan and hearing that in the bluest of blue regions, NYC, people couldn't be convinced to stop riding subways and go out to bars yet.

I think that was at least a full week into "Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve". I remember getting steamed by the idea that NYC was still largely unaffected.

Posted by: Axeman at January 26, 2024 03:58 PM (krQz2)

309 Ace is overlooking a key point.

The Left is not insane; *all* people are insane.

The Left just *leans into* the insanity suppressed by those on the Right because they do not consider themselves Gods.

No, it is also not a planned tactic, but it is a resultant tactic. Mothers with Munchhausen by Proxy to not have a tactic of making their kids sick and die, but they do what they do to get attention and power. Same with the Left.

Posted by: Gentlemen, this is junta manifest at January 26, 2024 03:59 PM (lpvLE)

310
I think the Futurama episode where Fry becomes his own Grampa is a whacked out version of that.
Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:56 PM

There was an old Christian song that had the words. I'm my own Grandpa...I was always like. Wut?

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:59 PM (MGqzM)

311 302 Is that what they did? I never watch adaptations of things I like because I know they'll screw it up. Always
Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 03:57 PM (Y6IkP)

========

I thought the first season was okay, but the second season was less so.

Essentially, I just don't think almost anyone knows how to do longform visual content, and David Goyer is not one of those who can figure it out. Also, he is either actively a participant in all the gender/representation things or just a happy follower as long as he gets work. I mean, in a science fiction setting a million years in the future, it's less grating, but it's still yet another science fiction property that gets centered around...a girl.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 03:59 PM (GBKbO)

312 Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM

The progressive elites don't like that he's not one of them and that's he supposedly crude. Just seems like a NYC businessman to me.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2024 03:59 PM (Ki//m)

313 this case... Trump is Daddy...
===
So you're saying the left has Daddy issues???
Ya' think!

Posted by: Yup at January 26, 2024 04:00 PM (k2zVs)

314 307 VDH is WRONG!

...
Posted by: Don at January 26, 2024 03:58 PM (2GPfT)

Read that in a Mona Lisa Vito voice...lol

Posted by: browndog lifts his leg on the left at January 26, 2024 04:00 PM (TTAGa)

315 Some have called him the Mark Twain of SF. I dunno, I have not read that much Twain.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 03:49 PM (J2vNu)

He wrote more like Hemingway. Twain was at his heart a wonderful ear for language and how people talk if he was never a poet, and Heinlein was, as a poet, a wonderful engineer.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 04:00 PM (D7oie)

316 I had an interesting convo with one a couple years ago about the doj/fbi. He couldn't possibly believe they might lie. Just couldn't. Of course he'd never read or heard about any of the stuff they've done since 2016. Unaware.
Posted by: THAT ONE GUY FROM THAT MOVIE at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (W+TLY)

He knows that they lie and lie in his interests. He just won't let himself admit it. An honest human would have to admit that all humans can lie. When you get that refusal to consider obvious truths, it is in service of something.

Posted by: Oldcat at January 26, 2024 04:00 PM (eoQWY)

317 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz
Posted by: Joe Mannix

She's in luck. I've got TWO balls she can play with!

Posted by: Moron Analyst at January 26, 2024 04:01 PM (JCZqz)

318 One story I remember is that Lazarus hooked up with a hottie with a generally long life span but she was scared of ever dying so she joined with an immortal tree. Poor immortal Laz. He was like, ok well good luck with that babe, I'll be in space.
Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024

***
Methuselah's Children

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 04:01 PM (J2vNu)

319 316 I had an interesting convo with one a couple years ago about the doj/fbi. He couldn't possibly believe they might lie. Just couldn't. Of course he'd never read or heard about any of the stuff they've done since 2016. Unaware.
Posted by: THAT ONE GUY FROM THAT MOVIE at January 26, 2024 03:11 PM (W+TLY)

He knows that they lie and lie in his interests. He just won't let himself admit it. An honest human would have to admit that all humans can lie. When you get that refusal to consider obvious truths, it is in service of something.
Posted by: Oldcat at January 26, 2024 04:00 PM (eoQWY)

=======

Doesn't the left think that the FBI framed MLK Jr. for something? That the CIA had a hand in the Malcolm X assassination?

That the entire federal government was in on 9/11 to give W his war?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 04:01 PM (GBKbO)

320 Yea, not one person I asked that had any response. Except Abortion from one, which I pointed out was SCOTUS giving it back the states, then they were even more. Well. Um, BADORANGEMAN! It's telling. Like when the lady asked the Pali/Hamas supporters, which river, which sea?

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 04:01 PM (MGqzM)

321 Anything happen with Brandon's deadline? Have the Texans caved yet? Has Kalorama?

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at January 26, 2024 04:02 PM (0FoWg)

322 Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM

The progressive elites don't like that he's not one of them and that's he supposedly crude. Just seems like a NYC businessman to me.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2024 03:59 PM (Ki//m)

They love crude, just listen to them. They've opened up to him all those years and he betrayed them by siding with us.

Posted by: Oldcat at January 26, 2024 04:02 PM (eoQWY)

323 Heinlein?

The Puppet Masters.

Been quite a while since I read them, but as I recall Double Star, Beyond This Horzon, Starship Troopers, and The Past Through Tomorrow ain't too dusty either. YMMV.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2024 04:02 PM (a/4+U)

324 He wrote more like Hemingway. Twain was at his heart a wonderful ear for language and how people talk if he was never a poet, and Heinlein was, as a poet, a wonderful engineer.
Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024

***
I meant more the kind of almost-folklore stories RAH told, not so much his style.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2024 04:02 PM (J2vNu)

325 Nood, bitches

Posted by: nckate at January 26, 2024 04:03 PM (ZGGD+)

326 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz
Posted by: Joe Mannix

She's in luck. I've got TWO balls she can play with!
Posted by: Moron Analyst at January 26, 2024 04:01 PM

Let's go Wild!

Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 04:03 PM (MGqzM)

327 My first Heinlein was "All You Zombies". I thought it was going to be about zombies, but instead I got a mind-bending story about the complications of time travel. I was hooked.

They made a movie of that, Predestination, staring Sarah Snook

And...she made the gender bending parts of that hard to believe in a good way...http://tinyurl.com/mtfywv64

Posted by: Science Fiction Napoleon at January 26, 2024 04:03 PM (ibTVg)

328 The Narrative, going back to at least the 1950s, was that “uptight” sexual mores were what causes rape.

“Free Love” given freely (and often) was going to usher in the Revolution. And Utopia. Fucking For Freedom, or something like that.

When we read Adorno in class, and how the republicans in America were all “authoritarian” I pointed out that Theodore isn’t describing anyone other than left wing wack jobs. Projection indeed.

Think of all the really crazy people you may have ran into. The authoritarian types. The folks who don’t have a “cause and effect” awareness (or don’t care). In my experience the most bitter, resentful and envy burdened people are almost uniformly leftist. Always.

That isn’t to say conservatives can’t be crazy, but on balance, happy well adjusted people who have well adjusted families - they ain’t liberals. Ever.

Posted by: Common Tater at January 26, 2024 04:03 PM (R1PsC)

329 No, it is also not a planned tactic, but it is a resultant tactic. Mothers with Munchhausen by Proxy to not have a tactic of making their kids sick and die, but they do what they do to get attention and power. Same with the Left.
==
Embrace the power of and. It is a tactic and a phenomenon.
The elites are crazy, panicked, and that is motivating them to pull the strings and set off the herd in a stampede. They think they are stuck on a lifeboat and their billions will mean nothing if they don't radically change the math.

Posted by: Yup at January 26, 2024 04:03 PM (k2zVs)

330 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)

Looks like she's into darning socks.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 04:04 PM (9yWhg)

331 They hate Trump primarily because they hate his supporters; he's just a convenient representative upon whom they can focus all that collective hate.

Posted by: ShainS -- Civil War 2: 10th Amendment Revolution Boogaloo at January 26, 2024 04:04 PM (B/yME)

332 I pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave me birth
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
and the cool green hills of Earth.

Wow... have not read that since I was a teenager... musta made an impact.

Posted by: Romeo13 at January 26, 2024 04:04 PM (xaFKb)

333 Why do the crazys hate Trump?

IMHO, he disrupted their fine balance of cognitive dissonance. He showed them in facts and reality that what they had so long believed was in fact wrong. Not just wrong but very wrong.

That was intolerable to the crazys and they had to hate the person that demonstrated their false beliefs.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 04:05 PM (17s+e)

334 http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz

And I agree with TJM about the nail polish. Yech.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 04:05 PM (9yWhg)

335 330 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)

Looks like she's into darning socks.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 04:04 PM (9yWhg)

I'm into darning socks too... darn, lost another sock to the dryer monster...

Posted by: Romeo13 at January 26, 2024 04:05 PM (xaFKb)

336 "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is one of Heinlein's best.

Posted by: An Observation sez China Joe not my president at January 26, 2024 04:05 PM (CecP5)

337 This Minnesota blonde is tired of all the hysteria and just wants to play ball:
http://tiny.cc/8e4fwz

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)

------------

"M" is for Mammary.

Posted by: ShainS -- Civil War 2: 10th Amendment Revolution Boogaloo at January 26, 2024 04:06 PM (B/yME)

338 This is an excellent discussion of something I do not comprehend, namely, why does Donald Trump, of all people, make people lose their ever loving minds.

Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (nYGbn)

He doesn't cause them to lose their minds. He forces them to confront the fact that their minds are gone.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2024 04:06 PM (tkR6S)

339 Maybe it is all just "Preference Cascade" gone wrong?

Or "Mass Psychosis"?

Posted by: illiniwek at January 26, 2024 04:06 PM (Cus5s)

340 312 Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM

The progressive elites don't like that he's not one of them and that's he supposedly crude. Just seems like a NYC businessman to me.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke
--------------------------

Right, aside from being a billionaire genius, he's a normal, shoot the bull guy. They can't stand it.

Posted by: Braenard at January 26, 2024 04:06 PM (2HSPn)

341 They made a movie of that, Predestination, staring Sarah Snook

And...she made the gender bending parts of that hard to believe in a good way...http://tinyurl.com/mtfywv64
Posted by: Science Fiction Napoleon

Wow. Very nice.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 04:07 PM (9yWhg)

342 I see the Mackay classic book has already been mentioned.

Should be required reading in every high school.

Posted by: Gentlemen, this is junta manifest at January 26, 2024 04:07 PM (lpvLE)

343
I do recognize the tremendous influence he has had in the field, though.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 26, 2024

***
Some have called him the Mark Twain of SF. I dunno, I have not read that much Twain.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius

Dude, you gotta fix that. Get his unabridged short stories, good stuff. Guy was as sarcastic and cruel as the ewok we have here.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2024 04:08 PM (3CCua)

344 Wee need to pit the lower urban class against the "elites"

Have them clean house.

Posted by: Kestrel.987 at January 26, 2024 04:08 PM (wyl5F)

345 >>> This is an excellent discussion of something I do not comprehend, namely, why does Donald Trump, of all people, make people lose their ever loving minds.
Posted by: alexthechick at January 26, 2024 03:47 PM (nYGbn)

Part of his basic interaction, negotiation style is to jab at people, throw them off balance by throw low level insults constant slights, and provocations. Conversely he tries to pitch small compliments at people all the time too. Both are some business tactic he learned somewhere.

I don't know if it works, it's kind of like how you have little treats on hand for a dog you are training for positive/negative reinforcement. That whole thing drives some people batty. I think that's most of it. I know what it is so it doesn't affect me one way or the other.

Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 04:10 PM (Y6IkP)

346 The "Madness of Crowds" and the social media of the internet have a congruence.

You don't physically have to be "in the crowd" to be part of the madness.
You can find it on Social Media...Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), etc., etc.
It's all out there, Left and Right.
The Left is more dangerous right now, because 98% of the Media, the Academy and the great majority of popular elected national politicians agree with them. And the permanent bureaucracy, which is more powerful than the elected politicians...what some people call the "Deep State".

People have stopped thinking for themselves, stopped reasoning for themselves, stopped reading things that do not already conform to their personal world view.
There is no shortage of madness out there, and people cling to the madness that confirms their own world view. It's terribly comforting.

Posted by: A face in the crowd..... at January 26, 2024 04:10 PM (vcOmj)

347 who would fall out of her clothes if she was actually on the field:

http://tinyurl.com/mwtja7dv

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2024 03:54 PM (Ki//m)

You say that as though were a bad thing.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2024 04:11 PM (tkR6S)

348 Some have called him the Mark Twain of SF. I dunno, I have not read that much Twain.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius

Dude, you gotta fix that. Get his unabridged short stories, good stuff. Guy was as sarcastic and cruel as the ewok we have here.
Posted by: BifBewalski

His short stories are good. Huckleberry Finn an overrated piece of crap.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 04:11 PM (9yWhg)

349 This is absolutely incorrect. In my dataset (fourfront.us) I count 303 zip codes with density greater than 10,000/square mile.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (gSZYf)

I'm no expert, so I'll take your word for it. I got my data from here:
http://tinyurl.com/5a662zxn

If it's wrong, my apologies, but I'm curious to know where those 303 zip codes are centered.

Posted by: Caiwyn at January 26, 2024 04:11 PM (BaIXK)

350 "I believe this is real: They are literally insane."

You absolutely are right. It also is the worst-case scenario since it limits non-violent responses. Irrationality is not subject to reason. Here's to hoping there is a peaceful resolution even if it does not appear to be possible.

Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at January 26, 2024 04:11 PM (KSNKu)

351 @241 And he failed to predict the Mule, which tells me that Hari Seldon's conclusions were suspect, at best.

----

The Mule was a freak of nature, so it couldn't have been foreseen. But Seldon did anticipate that something unforeseen would throw everything off. That's why he secretly established the Second Foundation.

Posted by: junior at January 26, 2024 04:13 PM (D/tHS)

352 The insanity of "Global Warming" has gone on for decades, long before Trump hate.

While the masses may be full of real psychotics, the central planners seems to know exactly what they are doing. The WEF types talk about "Flood", as in flooding all media and eliminating all other voices. It is planned carefully.

Posted by: illiniwek at January 26, 2024 04:13 PM (Cus5s)

353 Here's to hoping there is a peaceful resolution even if it does not appear to be possible.

Kind of like saying global warming is the reason that the world is getting colder.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable a Clear and Present Danger at January 26, 2024 04:14 PM (17s+e)

354 211 Opinion from the Horde needed. Adding Heinlein to my reading list. Favorite book?
Posted by: Minnfidel at January 26, 2024 03:33 PM (MGqzM)

Given current geopolitical trends, hard to believe no one mentioned "Sixth Column" aka "The Day After Tomorrow":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Column

Posted by: Grumpy Old Ham at January 26, 2024 04:15 PM (b6Yv0)

355 This is absolutely incorrect. In my dataset (fourfront.us) I count 303 zip codes with density greater than 10,000/square mile.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 26, 2024 03:48 PM (gSZYf)
------------
Aaaaaand now I see I misplaced a decimal point. That explains it. Sorry again, here I was thinking I had found some hope to cling to.

It does beg the question, though... why is population density a factor in making one an "elite?"

Posted by: Caiwyn at January 26, 2024 04:17 PM (BaIXK)

356 Begun, the zip code wars have.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at January 26, 2024 04:18 PM (9yWhg)

357 351 @241 And he failed to predict the Mule, which tells me that Hari Seldon's conclusions were suspect, at best.

----

The Mule was a freak of nature, so it couldn't have been foreseen. But Seldon did anticipate that something unforeseen would throw everything off. That's why he secretly established the Second Foundation.
Posted by: junior at January 26, 2024 04:13 PM (D/tHS)

========

History is full of freaks of nature. Hari Seldon was a control freak, Asimov's spirit animal. Seldon had no vision or imagination. He was a tyrant.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 04:41 PM (GBKbO)

358 NOOD

like, immortality yo!

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 26, 2024 04:44 PM (llON8)

359 With respect, Ace, you are just figuring out the Left's modus operandi is psychological, not rational. They are more religious than all the religious Christians they hate.

Posted by: Lex at January 26, 2024 04:47 PM (QlUHh)

360 Watch the video of people at a pro Hamas rally responding to the question, what river, what sea. They have no idea what they are advocating. I do not understand what they get out of doing this. Does being in a mob give them some kind of thrill? I just don't think there are are hundreds of thousands of antisemites just waiting for the siren call to turn out for this. Some must be getting paid but what about the rest?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2024 03:20 PM (t/2Uw)

Action without knowledge or blame is what mobs are all about. Turn off the mind, let the violence come out. Its why they used to shoot mobs if they didn't disperse.

Posted by: Oldcat at January 26, 2024 04:49 PM (eoQWY)

361 I think our Dem elites are indeed crazy and driven mad by the media and the party since Nixon. They got rid of him and want to do it again. And the left of course wants revolution, and do start a revolution you need people who area ready to kill. And we are just about there, judging from the crazies in the streets.

http://tinyurl.com/y4cjfkhx

Posted by: PJ at January 26, 2024 04:49 PM (G1dq6)

362 ~~Abs are~~ brisket is made in the kitchen.

fify

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2024 04:53 PM (D7oie)

363 I don't know if it works, it's kind of like how you have little treats on hand for a dog you are training for positive/negative reinforcement. That whole thing drives some people batty. I think that's most of it. I know what it is so it doesn't affect me one way or the other.
Posted by: banana Dream at January 26, 2024 04:10 PM (Y6IkP)

Trump is a tit for tat kind of person. You treat him nice, he treats you nicer. You insult him, he insults you 10 times harder.

Modern elites are uncivil by nature, they feel it a natural right to treat people badly without any payback if they are below them on the moral food chain. Trump smacks them down all the time and they can't give it back.

Posted by: Oldcat at January 26, 2024 04:55 PM (eoQWY)

364 Doesn't the left think that the FBI framed MLK Jr. for something? That the CIA had a hand in the Malcolm X assassination?

That the entire federal government was in on 9/11 to give W his war?
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, walking with hope in America with Frank Capra at January 26, 2024 04:01 PM (GBKbO)

That was the old left. The new left thinks of them as right wingers now.

Posted by: Oldcat at January 26, 2024 04:57 PM (eoQWY)

365 My first Heinlein was "All You Zombies". I thought it was going to be about zombies, but instead I got a mind-bending story about the complications of time travel. I was hooked.
Posted by: J. Frank Parnell at January 26, 2024 03:55 PM (IGKzA)

I think the Futurama episode where Fry becomes his own Grampa is a whacked out version of that.
Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2024 03:56 PM (i9ffA)

I think "By His Bootstraps" is far better, time travel paradox without the body horror. Not at all a fan of late stage Heinlein.

Posted by: Oldcat at January 26, 2024 05:01 PM (eoQWY)

366 I think it started with the Bush/Gore election. The instant the Supreme Court ruled against Gore, all my liberal friends went insane, and they've stayed that way since.

Posted by: Captain Josepha Sabin -- I stand with Israel and all Jews everywhere at January 26, 2024 06:42 PM (ZijDZ)

367 Tһanks for finaⅼly talking about >Viсtor Davis Hanson: "The Hysterical Style in American Politics" <Loved it!

Posted by: grievance at January 26, 2024 09:49 PM (0hRVf)

368 Cruelty aficionado, VDH, eh? Sounds about right. Old VD is a big fan of the war criminal Lincoln which would be consistent with being a cruelty aficionado.

Posted by: Wade Hampton at January 27, 2024 05:32 PM (S3YDA)

369 I agree with everything you say, Ace, but here is the deal: You are trying to understand a cult that has failed upwards for 50+ years. Less than 5% of congress or the bureaucrats that are now writing laws against us have ever spent one minute earning a dollar in the private sector where there is risk. Period. This includes Nimrata Haley and a governor I liked named Ron DeSantis.

They are all multimillionaires through corruption, grift and fraud and are in the process of locking everyone else out. It is called communism and we are currently in the demoralization stage.

Posted by: Danimal28 at January 28, 2024 11:44 AM (ryUqI)

370 Hey! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any problems with hackers?

My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing many months of hard work due to no backup.
Do you have any solutions to stop hackers?

Posted by: dog ate some chocolate at February 01, 2024 01:39 PM (txdC9)

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