Any Fascists North of Richmond?

That surprise hit song,Rich Men North of Richmond, reminds me of the late Angelo Codevilla's great piece from 2010 on America's Ruling Class, somehow. Glenn Reynolds called it the best article on American politics this century. But it's too much for me to tackle today. Even though it is really pertinent to Rich Men North of Richmond.

This weekend, I have also been thinking about a friend who has recently been characterized as a "fascist" on social media, with her job threatened. She's okay for now, thanks to a lot of support from other people.

And I happened to run across a fascinating piece from 2020 by Codevilla on Mussolini, the original fascist, and the true nature of fascism. I thought it would be worthwhile to get a little deeper into it. Because "fascist" is no longer a movement. Now it is an epithet. While those hurling the epithet may not care what it actually means, some young people might respond to a little education.

Barbie was called a fascist by a tween in that too-pink movie this summer.

School started this week here. That means school board meetings, with lots of opportunities for people to be labeled as fascists. And the media is trying to convince us that next year's presidential election is the thing which must dominate our lives. You could be called "fascist" pretty much no matter who you support (bleaah).

Mussolini and Fascism

Codevilla's 2020 essay, The Original Fascist, From movement to epithet is elegantly written and it is hard to pick out highlights, but here goes:

Today, the adjective "fascist" is an epithet -- often mixed promiscuously with "white supremacist," "sexist," etc. -- that the ruling class uses to besmirch whoever challenges them, and to provide emotional fuel for cowering, marginalizing, and disempowering conservatives.

This maneuver consists of defining fascism in terms of unpopular ideas, political practices, and personality traits observable in many times and places; then, having cited Hitler's Nazi movement as fascism's quintessence, of pinning those deplorable characteristics on the intended targets. This reductio ad Hitlerum aims at no less than to outlaw conservatives. As the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin exclaimed: "these people are not fit for polite society.... I think it's absolutely abhorrent that any institution of higher learning, any news organization, or any entertainment organization that has a news outlet would hire these people." And the New Republic explains "why fascist rhetoric needs to be excluded from public discourse." The establishment doesn't seem to realize that they are preaching some of fascism's practices.

This essay looks behind fighting words to fascism's reality. Although Benito Mussolini, fascism's artificer and personifier, died discredited in 1945, fascism's socio-political paradigm, the administrative state, is well-nigh universal in our time. And as the European and American ruling class adopted Communism's intellectual categories and political language, the adjective "fascist" became a weapon in its arsenal.

We begin with how fascism developed in Mussolini's mind and praxis from 1915 to 1935, how it was hardly out of tune with what was happening in the rest of the Western world, as well as how it then changed and died. After considering how fascism fit in the 20th century's political warfare doctrines, we explore its place in contemporary political struggles.

(emphasis mine)

One thing this essay does is show several differences between Nazism (including its devotion to ideology) and Mussolini's Fascism.

Mussolini - a few highlights.

These are not the only interesting facts about his life:

Mussolini was radical, talented, ambitious, insatiable. He fashioned fascism out of the ideas and circumstances of his time.

In 1883, his socialist father, a blacksmith, named him for the most radical revolutionary of the time, the Mexican Benito Juarez. His middle names were those of Italy's most radical socialists. But Benito was also raised to revere the liberal republicans who had unified Italy. . .

. . . Since age 18, he carried the official title "professor." But teaching in small towns strained his leftist political advocacy and his personal ambitions, including sexual ones. He was a "chick magnet." Also because he was not about to let himself be drafted into the king's army, he emigrated to Switzerland in 1902.

While supporting himself as a stonemason, he learned German and French, studied philosophy, in part at the University of Lausanne. . . He was active in socialist circles, both Italian and international, giving speeches to workers and helping to organize strikes -- which got him expelled. He got to know Vladimir Lenin, who later chastised Italian socialists for letting such a talent leave their ranks.

Back in Italy, taking advantage of an amnesty for having evaded the draft, he served for two years in the army's elite Bersaglieri corps.

He knew Lenin?

By 1915 he had also married, and fathered a son by one of his mistresses. He had become Italian socialism's brightest star.

The socialist movement's adherence to Karl Marx's dictum "the workers have no fatherland" had led to the expectation that the masses would not lend themselves to war among nations, and is among the reasons why many believed that the Great War would not happen. But when it did, rank-and-file socialists in all nations dragged all but fragments of their respective parties to support the carnage. So long as Italy stayed out of the war, Italy's socialist party was the major exception, along with Russia's Bolshevik faction. In 1911, Mussolini had campaigned against Italy's war in Libya. In August 1914 he wrote a fiery editorial, "Abbasso la guerra!": Down with the war! By November, however, he was arguing that entering the war would complete Italy's unification by taking the Austro-Hungarian empire's Italian-speaking regions, and make possible a host of beneficial social changes. . .

In December, he committed socialist heresy by writing that class struggle is a bad idea because the nation is more important than social class. He called his few scattered followers fasci, bundles, of individuals. The word recalled the bundles of punishing rods and axes that ancient Rome's lictors bore for the consuls. Hence he labeled the movement "Fasci Rivoluzionari d'Azione Internazionalista" and its members "Fascisti." In 1915, when Italy entered the war, as most of the party remained faithful to doctrine, and as Mussolini further identified with popular sentiment, the party expelled him and his Fascisti and did its best forcibly to silence them.

The war, and his own military service, had impressed upon him of what human beings are capable when acting as a disciplined mass. All over the world, people had produced more things, made greater sacrifices for their countries, than anyone had thought possible. European elites had been worshiping the state's architectonic powers since the time of Louis XIV's ministers (Louvois, Vauban, Colbert). G.W.F. Hegel, following Napoleon, had made patriotic worship of the scientifically administered, progressive state the political essence of modernity. Mussolini's vision of Italy followed from that. "The bureaucracy is the state," he said.

"When the nation's interests are at stake," Mussolini explained, "all particular interests, whether the proletariat's or the bourgeoisie's, must be silent." "All know that Benito Mussolini is an individualist," he declared. But, as regards the nation, "[Mussolini] is utterly disciplined." The state personifies the country, and disciplines its several elements to its service. "Soon, we will be the state." "We do the bureaucracy the highest honor and raise it to a level above that which it occupied under previous governments by making it into an army of co-belligerents, which works toward the same end." He said that Catholicism too must be brought into the nation's service in order to revive the Italian people's millennial tradition of greatness. Doing all this would take sacrifice, perhaps war, as had the struggle for independence in the previous century, and as the Great War had reawakened national consciousness.

By year's end, fascism was personified by thousands of street warriors who cheered their "Duce" (Leader), and who seemed to live the poet Gabriele D' Annunzio's exalted patriotic visions.

Mussolini, however, felt the need to explain himself philosophically. He called himself "a practical relativist." . .

"Relativism is akin to Nietzsche's Der Wille zur Macht, and fascism is a most formidable creature of an individual and collective will to power."

(emphasis mine)

Doing honor to the bureaucracy? This does not sound like Hitler.

I've seen Italian bureaucracy in action. It doesn't have much staying power.

In the 1921 elections, Mussolini's Fascists had gained only .04% of the vote. But chaos reigned in the streets because of socialist, Communist, and anarchist mobs, as well as because of the perhaps 40,000 fascist squadristi (the Blackshirts) who fought them. The government seemed irrelevant. King Victor Emmanuel III and the rest of the country looked for a savior. Mussolini organized the descent of some 30,000 squadristi on Rome to demand he be named prime minister. The incumbent, Luigi Facta, demanded the king institute martial law. When the king refused, Facta resigned and the king appointed Mussolini to head a government with almost no fascists. But, beginning with parliament's grant of plenary powers for a year (recalling the Roman institution of constitutional dictatorship), Mussolini gradually dispossessed the rest.

Hegel, as well as the positivist and Progressive movements, had argued for the sovereignty of expert administrators. Fascist Italy was the first country in which the elected legislature gave up its essential powers to the executive, thus abandoning the principle, first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, by which people are rightly governed only through laws made by elected representatives. By the outbreak of World War II, most Western countries' legislatures--the U.S. Congress included -- had granted the executive something like "full powers," each by its own path, thus establishing the modern administrative state.

(emphasis mine)

Fascism was an Italian movement

Codevilla makes the case that fascism was an Italian movement which is now dead. After the parliament gave up its power to the executive, Mussolini's word became law. This should make us very uneasy here in the USA.

Mussolini's economic program and comparisons to the New Deal are described (remember Liberal Fascism?)

Mussolini's downfall includes his meeting with Hitler. Many features of fascism were tied to Italian history and culture. You'll need to get into the essay to see this. The expansion of the Administrative State in many countries seems to me to be its contribution to the world.

Birth of a Slur

Communists in general and Joseph Stalin in particular are responsible for turning the words "fascism" and "fascist" into mere negative epithets. . .

In 1922-23, Germany was the big question. Its socialist party was really the only big nationwide force other than the Christians. The two did not get along. Stalin judged that the Communists could defeat them both, and the National Socialists, too, acting alone. Perhaps most of all he feared that if Communists were to ally with movements not under his control, he might lose control of the Communists.

Hence, Stalin elaborated the doctrine of "social fascism" which, verbiage aside, meant that Communists should consider all to the right of them--essentially all who were not under Communist discipline--as "fascists." Stalin wrote:

Fascism is the bourgeoisie's fighting organization that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organization of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of the fighting organization of the bourgeoisie. These organizations do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins. Fascism is an informal political bloc of these two chief organizations; a bloc, which arose in the circumstances of the post-war crisis of imperialism, and which is intended for combating the proletarian revolution. The bourgeoisie cannot retain power without such a bloc.

In 1935, after the Communists had lost Berlin's streets to the Nazis and Hitler had taken power, Stalin dropped the notion that everything to the right of him was fascism and reversed tactics. Thereafter, "popular front" became the watchword--meaning Communists would ally with everyone, under whatever banner, to defeat his worst enemies. . .

But the notion that everything to the right of Communism is fascism remains a fixture in the minds of Communists and other radicals. They never ceased to think of non-Communists and especially anti-Communists as fascists.

Marxist ideology lets them do that. According to Marx, consciousness is epiphenomenal to class reality. Hence, what people think subjectively does not affect what they are objectively. Truth that is class-objective and hence politically correct, is whatever the party judges useful to itself. That is why Communists believe they may apply the term "fascist," or any other, to people who do not think themselves so. But this reasoning, so clearly expressed, is adequate only among Communist apparatchiks.

For that claim to have force outside of the Stalinist canaille, for it to migrate into modern Western society's bloodstream, it had to be translated into pseudo-academic form. The book The Authoritarian Personality (1950), by the Communist Theodor Adorno and researchers working at the University of California, Berkeley, began doing that by popularizing a test that purports to correlate personality traits with fascism--that is, Adorno's F-scale (F for fascist). The test consists of a questionnaire that measures agreement with what Adorno calls "conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception [the rejection of all inwardness], superstition and stereotypy, power and 'toughness,' destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and [excessive] sex." These are the characteristics by which Adorno defined fascists.

Other academics started formulating their own "F-scales" to describe people they didn't like as fascists. But they are really just parroting Stalin.

This cracks me up:

This author first encountered the scam in 1963 as a student at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute. The text assigned us, Herbert McClosky's "Conservatism and Personality" ( American Political Science Review, 1958 ), consisted of one questionnaire to measure conservatism, as defined by McClosky, and a second designed to measure personality traits, most of which were translations of Adorno's F-scale. The article touted its scientific bona fides by stating that both sets of definitions had been submitted to, and certified by, experts, including McClosky's graduate students. Not surprisingly, the project's results showed a strong correlation between conservatism and repulsive, dangerous personality traits.

Having received permission to do a term paper on that article, I replicated it as "Liberalism and Personality," using the same "scientific" methods--likeminded friends--to validate the questionnaires as McClosky had for his. What do you know? The results showed that liberals suffer from even worse disorders than conservatives, many unmentionable in a family publication. Only one of my professors cracked a smile.

Stalin and Adorno were a long time ago.

But what is the point of repeating from society's commanding heights that the ruling class's opponents are fascists, fascistizing, near-fascists, Nazis, white supremacists, racists, and so forth?

Today, those words mean simply that those so indicted have no right to challenge the ruling class. Whatever they do in that regard is illegitimate. Whatever may be done to quash them is legitimate, because it involves saving all things decent.

To engage in these practices in 1922-26 and in 1933-34, Mussolini and Hitler had to change Italy's and Germany's basic laws because, although they controlled the government, they did not yet control society's commanding heights: the judges, schools, businesses, press, and religious establishment. But because the 21st century's ruling class has almost a monopoly of all those heights, it does not really need new laws. Having seized the power to make words mean whatever they want, as well as the power to include and exclude from society's prime places, they are the law.

Our ruling class increasingly labels people fascists -- but not for doing or saying things other than what they did or said in previous decades. Those who are so labeled have not changed. Indeed, those who call them fascists chastise them for refusing to abandon their ways. Nor has fascism changed. It is one of history's closed chapters -- except for the theory and practice of political economy that it invented and that is now well-nigh universal. Hence, the invidious labeling and the punitive consequences result from a change in those who impose them. We may understand that change as the progressive deformation of liberalism.

That people who still sometimes call themselves "liberal," who had once defined themselves in terms of all manner of freedom, should vilify and try to hurt those with whom they disagree is counterintuitive. But our liberal, or formerly liberal, ruling class's claim exclusively to embody enlightenment and righteousness, its taste for humbling those outside itself, is our time's predominant reality. That claim, that taste, are impervious to reason.

We may understand why they are impervious, and hence why fighting that class is the only alternative to submission, by reference to the German sociologist Robert Michels. At the turn of the 20th century, he developed what he called the "iron law of oligarchy," which argued that any and all human organizations, regardless of their ostensible purpose or structure, end up serving the interests of their leaders. . .

Are the Rich Men North of Richmond impervious to reason?

Music

There was one criticism of Rich Men North of Richmond that led people to characterize the artist as mean: a line criticizing welfare. In response, a couple of people posted excerpts from this piece on welfare in Appalachia, the Big White Ghetto:

This is about "the draw."

"The draw," the monthly welfare checks that supplement dependents' earnings in the black-market Pepsi economy, is poison. It's a potent enough poison to catch the attention even of such people as those who write for The New York Times. Nicholas Kristof, visiting nearby Jackson, Ky., last year, was shocked by parents who were taking their children out of literacy classes because the possibility of improved academic performance would threaten $700-a-month Social Security disability benefits, which increasingly are paid out for nebulous afflictions such as loosely defined learning disorders. "This is painful for a liberal to admit," Kristof wrote, "but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America's safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency."

There is much here to confound conservatives, too. Jim DeMint likes to say that marriage is our best anti-poverty program, and he also has a point. But a 2004 study found that the majority of impoverished households in Appalachia were headed by married couples, not single mothers. Getting and staying married is not a surefire prophylactic against poverty. Neither are prophylactics. Kentucky has a higher teen-motherhood rate than the national average, but not radically so, and its young mothers are more likely to be married. Kentucky and West Virginia have abortion rates that are one fourth those of Rhode Island or Connecticut, and one fifth that of Florida. More marriage, less abortion: Not exactly the sort of thing out of which conservative indictments are made. But marriage is less economically valuable, at least to men, in Appalachia -- like their counterparts elsewhere, married men here earn more than their unmarried counterparts, but the difference is smaller and declining.

Speaking in the Rose Garden in March 1965, Lyndon Johnson had high hopes for his Appalachia Bill. "This legislation marks the end of an era of partisan cynicism towards human want and misery. The dole is dead. The pork barrel is gone. Federal and state, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, Americans of these times are concerned with the outcome of the next generation, not the next election ... The bill that I will now sign will work no miracles overnight. Whether it works at all depends not upon the federal government alone but the states and the local governments as well."

The dole, as it turns out, is deathless, and the pork barrel has merely been reincarnated as a case of Pepsi. President Johnson left out of his calculations the factor that is almost always overlooked by populists: the people.

People are listening to the song.

This might be good advice for some folks:

Dark as a Dungeon

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, August 12, Playing Kick the Can: The Chinese Biotech Lab in Reedley

Other threads involved in the "Lost in Space" episode last week:

Daily Tech News 12 August 2023

8/12/23 EMT

Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on week-old threads. But don't try it anyway.

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 I term them Bolsheviks but same difference

Posted by: Skip at August 19, 2023 11:18 AM (MOY79)

2 hiya

Posted by: JT at August 19, 2023 11:22 AM (T4tVD)

3 Hiya KT !

Posted by: JT at August 19, 2023 11:23 AM (T4tVD)

4 Fascism is simply a socialist heresy.

Whereas socialism is generally internationalist, Mussolini suggested it could, and should, be implemented at a national level. This came after he broke with most Italian socialists in supported Italy in WWI.

And while fascism in has been more pragmatic in its implementation of socialism there is no question that it is.

Who CONTROLS the means of production in a fascist system? The state. They might not own it but...who cares. If Krupp wants to hire Jews or Italian companies don't want to make weapons they aren't allowed to choose outside of what the state wants.

Posted by: 18-1 at August 19, 2023 11:24 AM (lc5cP)

5 It's a potent enough poison to catch the attention even of such people as those who write for The New York Times. Nicholas Kristof, visiting nearby Jackson, Ky., last year, was shocked by parents who were taking their children out of literacy classes because the possibility of improved academic performance would threaten $700-a-month Social Security disability benefits, which increasingly are paid out for nebulous afflictions such as loosely defined learning disorders.[/]

I've heard it called "crazy money" by some.

Posted by: BignJames at August 19, 2023 11:26 AM (AwYPR)

6 whoops

Posted by: BignJames at August 19, 2023 11:26 AM (AwYPR)

7 Codevilla was req reading. The key opposition intellectual.

They [redacted] him.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 11:29 AM (9yc9H)

8 Oh and one other point to consider, one of the core failings of socialism is that while people are generally willing to work hard and sacrifice for their family and maybe their friends, they are almost never willing to do so for some guy on the other end of the earth they've never and will never meet.

National socialism takes at least that last hop away.

It still doesn't work but it is slightly closer to the way people actually work.

Posted by: 18-1 at August 19, 2023 11:30 AM (lc5cP)

9 18-1 at August 19, 2023 11:24 AM

Yes, it is a socialist heresy that works better than the original. Which is why it has been adopted in Red China.

Posted by: KT at August 19, 2023 11:30 AM (rrtZS)

10 I always marvel at idiots who think it matters whether the boot in your face is worn by someone who self-identifies as a fascist or a communist.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 19, 2023 11:31 AM (I/Qkd)

11 Hiya JT and everybody!

Posted by: KT at August 19, 2023 11:32 AM (rrtZS)

12 I still wonder if Codevilla was eliminated

Posted by: Skip at August 19, 2023 11:32 AM (MOY79)

13 I remember when the Left called Humphrey v. Nixon "Tweedledee and Tweedledum". They said the two parties were the same. They don't talk about that much these days.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 11:32 AM (ouTlx)

14 I learned some good stuff here, in this essay. And now I will walk my dog while I cogitate.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at August 19, 2023 11:34 AM (wO3Oq)

15 Shoot! Missed the prayer thread but here goes anyway:

Verse for the Day:

"If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you."

–John 15:18-19

Posted by: Tonypete at August 19, 2023 11:34 AM (LtwdY)

16 I still wonder if Codevilla was eliminated
Posted by: Skip

"a sworn enemy of the CIA"... could have been...

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at August 19, 2023 11:34 AM (ztPSO)

17 I remember when the Left called Humphrey v. Nixon "Tweedledee and Tweedledum".

Watching the debates between JFK and Nixon are fascinating. They argue about who will be better at fighting communism. What a better America they lived in.

Posted by: 18-1 at August 19, 2023 11:35 AM (lc5cP)

18 "Fascism" doesn't really mean anything. It's a synonym for something "bad."

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at August 19, 2023 11:35 AM (8fpTj)

19 Either way other than Everything for the State, Nothing outside the State, Fascism is just a minor nuance of Leftism.

Posted by: Skip at August 19, 2023 11:35 AM (MOY79)

20 Socialism, fascism, communism, Marxism, blah blah blah, all date back to when ZOG wanted some poontang and the little honey-bun sugar-tits from another tribe resisted. She got strong-armed and raped and another generation of lunatics was born.

White, black, mixed, - you're all guilty.

Posted by: Dr. Bone at August 19, 2023 11:36 AM (KVGVf)

21 I won't click on the WAPO, but I see they are running an article titled US Democracy is Cracking.

I can only guess who they blame and what the proposed solutions are.

Camps?

Posted by: Last Days of the Republic at August 19, 2023 11:39 AM (kcNr5)

22 I like that song. It's pretty raw.

Posted by: grammie winger - I don't belong here at August 19, 2023 11:39 AM (45fpk)

23 Think of all the things the Left used to claim. They were pro free speech, anti war, pro working man anti violence. All lies. It's about total control and forced conformity.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 11:40 AM (ouTlx)

24 Communists in general and Joseph Stalin in particular are responsible for turning the words "fascism" and "fascist" into mere negative epithets.

==

um....otherwise it was nice ? Whitewashing fascism by making it Stalin's idea to make to make it look bad...interesting trick. Let's start about talking about fascism's racial components.

Posted by: runner at August 19, 2023 11:40 AM (V13WU)

25 I like most of Oliver's work. Favorite is 90 Something Chevy. A lot of good stuff on RadioWV. Some are good songwriters

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 11:42 AM (ouTlx)

26 The key if you are in a group is to be the first to label the other guy a racist. That way they are stuck trying to deny it and you win!
Simple.

Posted by: Diogenes at August 19, 2023 11:43 AM (hv9bm)

27 And for the record, that macular degeneration picture up top is just gross.

Posted by: Diogenes at August 19, 2023 11:45 AM (hv9bm)

28 Oh and one other point to consider, one of the core failings of socialism is that while people are generally willing to work hard and sacrifice for their family and maybe their friends, they are almost never willing to do so for some guy on the other end of the earth they've never and will never meet.

National socialism takes at least that last hop away.

It still doesn't work but it is slightly closer to the way people actually work.
Posted by: 18-1

--

It's funny because that is almost 100% of half of my understanding of Christianity, with the crucial difference being it's a personal calling and sacrifice and I have no business dealing with anything that I take from anyone else that they don't offer willingly.

And it's likely why Christians are hated by governments almost everywhere. IIRC the local Christian churches were the first ones on the scene helping people in Maui and giving out clothes and offering showers.

Well, until FEMA stopped them.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 11:45 AM (oZ23Y)

29 I haven't heard anything about nascar recently. Is that still a thing?

Posted by: Dr. Bone at August 19, 2023 11:46 AM (KVGVf)

30 Part of fascist movements' (and there were several) dna is making some "race" inferior to the one dominating politics, and pinning the ills on the ones they called inferior. Croatian fascists painted Serbs and Jews as inferior. So they liquidated tens of thousands of Orthodox Serbs, and murdered 40k Jews in a concentration camp.

Posted by: runner at August 19, 2023 11:47 AM (V13WU)

31 KT, my day was a big listener of TEF, might still be and don't know I ever heard that one before or don't remember it.

Posted by: Skip at August 19, 2023 11:48 AM (MOY79)

32 I've heard it called "crazy money" by some.
Posted by: BignJames at August 19, 2023 11:26 AM (AwYPR)

Long term, welfare money is toxic to the recipients, regardless of their race.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at August 19, 2023 11:50 AM (HdNLc)

33 The bureaucracy is the state,"

Deep State,, "We're getting there."

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 11:50 AM (lCWOD)

34 31 Dad

Posted by: Skip at August 19, 2023 11:51 AM (MOY79)

35 Long term, welfare money is toxic to the recipients, regardless of their race.


--

Generational wealth has completely different meanings depending on the culture involved.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 11:51 AM (oZ23Y)

36 Too hot to be homeless.

Posted by: Eromero at August 19, 2023 11:52 AM (z3WCn)

37 The human race needs to cast aside heredity and make offspring fight in the octagon.

Entitlement is a deception that needs to be murdered in its sleep.

Posted by: Dr. Bone at August 19, 2023 11:56 AM (KVGVf)

38 Part of fascist movements' (and there were several) dna is making some "race" inferior to the one dominating politics, and pinning the ills on the ones they called inferior. Croatian fascists painted Serbs and Jews as inferior. So they liquidated tens of thousands of Orthodox Serbs, and murdered 40k Jews in a concentration camp.
Posted by: runner at August 19, 2023 11:47 AM (V13WU)

You are conflating Fascism and Naziism, which is exactly what the Commies want you to do.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at August 19, 2023 11:56 AM (HdNLc)

39 Looking at the map up top, it puzzles me that such a crooked State as Delaware has such a nice square corner on it.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at August 19, 2023 11:58 AM (HdNLc)

40 Looking at the map up top, it puzzles me that such a crooked State as Delaware has such a nice square corner on it.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon

--

I've read a book on how a few of the northeastern states got their shapes. The causes are often weird and really interesting. It's been decades and I don't recall the name, but all the info is probably online by now.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:00 PM (oZ23Y)

41 You are conflating Fascism and Naziism, which is exactly what the Commies want you to do.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at August 19, 2023 11:56 AM (HdNLc)

you sound like a leftie. prove me wrong first, then cast aspersions.

Posted by: runner at August 19, 2023 12:00 PM (V13WU)

42 The hilarity is that those who scream "fascist" at everyone also tend to see socialist or communist as a term of endearment and something to strive for. They miss the irony that they support a murderous ideology that makes Hitler look like a lightweight.

Posted by: Rbastid at August 19, 2023 12:01 PM (Ouz58)

43 fascinating piece from 2020 by Codevilla on Mussolini, the original fascist, and the true nature of fascism.
******

Hi KT
I noticed the spelling similarity between 'fascinating' and 'fascist', so went to etymonline.com. Fascinating derives from French, from the Latin fascinatum and has to do with putting a spell on, a la witchcraft. Fascist derives from Italian, from the Latin fasces, which as we know means a bundle, as of sticks. So no apparent common etymology.

Interestingly, apparently Etymonline.com has a sense oof ironic humor as evidenced by this excerpt (my emphasis):

fascism (n.)
1922, originally used in English in 1920 in its Italian form fascismo (see fascist). Applied to similar groups in Germany from 1923; applied to everyone since the internet.

Posted by: Muldoon at August 19, 2023 12:04 PM (991eG)

44 it's n easy label, since no one knows much about anything these days

Posted by: runner at August 19, 2023 12:04 PM (V13WU)

45 >>>In response, a couple of people posted excerpts from this piece on welfare in Appalachia, the Big White Ghetto

Link goes to The Week, a lefty publication. The piece is a regurgitation of something scumbag Kevin Williamson published in NRO. Williamson, you may recall, briefly went to work at The Atlantic, before those leftists cancelled him. He now works for The Dispatch, which like National Review, pretends to be on the right, but really exists just to criticize the right. David French is the editor these days.

I wouldn't believe anything that has as it's source Kevin Williamson, as this thing does. The whole thing is based on Williamson's observations and reporting and none of it is verifiable.

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at August 19, 2023 12:04 PM (klJTj)

46 Who CONTROLS the means of production in a fascist system? The state. They might not own it but...who cares. If Krupp wants to hire Jews or Italian companies don't want to make weapons they aren't allowed to choose outside of what the state wants.
Posted by: 18-1 at August 19, 2023 11:24 AM (lc5cP)

I find it very hard to see how anyone can not see that's where we are now. For the most part, corporate giants are our rulers, and the flow of power between them and the bureaucracy is clear and specific, but sometimes clunky.

Take electric cars as an example. Who is pushing it, The State or Frod, Government Motors, and Musk? Does it matter? They all hop in and out of bed with each other, sometimes one is the top, and the next time, the bottom.

I don't know how to see that as anything other than fascism, but hell, who cares what we call it.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:05 PM (On1N3)

47 That was a girthy post, KT!! I salute you; I learned so much about Mussolini and the origins of fascism that I had not known before. It was girthy AND meaty so I’m not sure I understood it all…. But my primary takeaway is that the primary feature of fascism bequeathed to us by Mussolini is the modern administrative state. And the deep state jealously guards its power and prerogatives. Is that an accurate understanding?

Seems like Woodrow Wilson and Mussolini shared a few principles of governance…

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:06 PM (xT8gx)

48 Codevilla is hard to beat when it comes to political observation!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 19, 2023 12:06 PM (g0MSz)

49 This does not sound like Hitler.

(makes farting noises)
Does that sound like Hitler?

Posted by: Commissar of Plenty and Lysenko stuff at August 19, 2023 12:07 PM (IvwgA)

50 There's nothing like driving around the yard cutting grass on a tractor while drinking. I've got free beer for any Moron who would like to experience this joyus experssion of freddom.

Posted by: Pawl at August 19, 2023 12:07 PM (vFG9F)

51 "Communists in general and Joseph Stalin in particular are responsible for turning the words "fascism" and "fascist" into mere negative epithets. . ."

They have no choice but to be perpetually butthurt in order to help distract everyone from their status as co-belligerents at the outbreak of WW2, not to mention the half century of horrific crimes that followed in occupied territories.

The Germans built an abomination - it was a mess long before they so much as set foot in Poland - but Patton was right and the West is paying the price for half-assing it.

Posted by: somedood at August 19, 2023 12:07 PM (uGpeQ)

52 Oh damn, sock off.

Posted by: fd at August 19, 2023 12:08 PM (vFG9F)

53 Hillbilly Elegy is a better explaination of Appalachian thought than anything Williamson has written. It's very hard to break out of that mindset when it's all you've known.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:08 PM (ouTlx)

54 applied to everyone since the internet.

Posted by: Muldoon at August 19, 2023 12:04 PM (991eG)

Excellent!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 19, 2023 12:09 PM (g0MSz)

55 Is it a zero turn? Folks love them here. Sometimes they drive down the street on one.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:10 PM (ouTlx)

56 So come on yall and I'll let you drive my tractor and drink beer. If you do a good job I'll even let you handle my weedwhacker.

Posted by: fd at August 19, 2023 12:10 PM (vFG9F)

57 A ZTR tractor? I don't think so. Just drive over it.

Posted by: fd at August 19, 2023 12:12 PM (vFG9F)

58 So come on yall and I'll let you drive my tractor and drink beer. If you do a good job I'll even let you handle my weedwhacker.
Posted by: fd at August 19, 2023 12:10 PM (vFG9F)

I have my own Dixon ZTR to ride and drink beer on. And I probably will some time today. It takes both hands on the steering levers to keep it on track, so beer drinking can be problematic, but I persevere.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at August 19, 2023 12:14 PM (HdNLc)

59 If I don't get any volunteers I'm going to have to have all the fun myself.

Posted by: fd at August 19, 2023 12:16 PM (vFG9F)

60 There was one criticism of Rich Men North of Richmond that led people to characterize the artist as mean: a line criticizing welfare. In response, a couple of people posted excerpts from this piece on welfare in Appalachia, the Big White Ghetto:

--

And it should always be pointed out:

White trash is joked about, teased, despised, ridiculed, walked away from, stayed on alert around, suspected, pitied, and mocked.

No white person wants white trash around them. Even other white trash. Much less a month to celebrate the culture or some sort of flag or logo.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:16 PM (oZ23Y)

61 I'm beginning to believe the idea of freedom is comprehended by only a small percentage of humans and that a great majority of mankind can only exist when someone else is instructing them how to live. And one should look no further back than the Wuflu op for evidence of this.

The ones who embrace freedom are the ones willing to take risks in life. They're the ones willing to sacrifice everything in order to preserve their God-given power of choice and will.

Freedom has only been realized by a very very small percentage of people. And those people have been vilified and denigrated even to the point of imprisonment and death.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 19, 2023 12:16 PM (BdMk6)

62 Mussolini had flair. Never got the tassel on the piss cutter, though.

Posted by: Puddinhead at August 19, 2023 12:17 PM (/UtnQ)

63 >>>So come on yall and I'll let you drive my tractor and drink beer. If you do a good job I'll even let you handle my weedwhacker.

Posted by: fd

>Your old lady looks like she could use a little grooming in this heat wave. What say you pick up the tab at the local swanky steakhouse?

Posted by: Dr. Bone at August 19, 2023 12:17 PM (KVGVf)

64 They are pressure washing the house today, to get it ready to be painted. It's hot, but he and his wife are from So Cal. I told him that he knows how much heat he can handle. I am hiding inside, in air conditioned comfort

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:17 PM (ouTlx)

65 I wouldn't believe anything that has as it's source Kevin Williamson, as this thing does. The whole thing is based on Williamson's observations and reporting and none of it is verifiable.
Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at August 19, 2023 12:04 PM (klJTj)

Yeah, for me personally I think I have a pretty solid grasp on why the leftists do what they do.

What I struggle with is these so-called conservatives, and those who self-identify as right, including many of the elected politicians. I don't really get them. I don't know what their motivation is, to do what they do, unless it's solely selfish greed. I don't think that explains it though, nor do I think it can solely be explained by them being controlled by THEIR corporate overlords.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:17 PM (sL/Fv)

66 It takes skill to drink beer on a zero turn. I could, but wifey does that chore.

Posted by: sTevo at August 19, 2023 12:17 PM (lNjdg)

67 "It takes skill to drink beer on a zero turn. I could, but wifey does that chore.
Posted by: sTevo "

I think they make a hat for that.

Posted by: fd at August 19, 2023 12:18 PM (vFG9F)

68 I have 3 lawnmowere, well 4 counting the Ryobi battery one. 2 John Deeres, 1 TroyBilt no zeroturns. Oddly enough the Troybilt cuts wider and turns tighter than either John Deere.

Posted by: Eromero at August 19, 2023 12:19 PM (z3WCn)

69 In response, a couple of people posted excerpts from this piece on welfare in Appalachia, the Big White Ghetto:

--

Now that's interesting. From the link.

"Driving through these hills, you aren't in the Appalachia of Elmore Leonard's Justified or squatting with Lyndon Johnson on Tom Fletcher's front porch in Martin County, a scene famously photographed by Walter Bennett of Time, the image that launched the so-called War on Poverty. The music isn't "Shady Grove," it's Kanye West."

Probably nothing, though.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:19 PM (oZ23Y)

70 Happy Saturday to you all (tips coffee tumbler).

Thanks for the hookup on that essay, KT - now I know what I will be reading tomorrow evening on the back deck.

Posted by: The_Hoser at August 19, 2023 12:19 PM (N66D6)

71 That was a girthy post, KT!! I salute you; I learned so much about Mussolini and the origins of fascism that I had not known before. It was girthy AND meaty so I’m not sure I understood it all…. But my primary takeaway is that the primary feature of fascism bequeathed to us by Mussolini is the modern administrative state. And the deep state jealously guards its power and prerogatives. Is that an accurate understanding?

Seems like Woodrow Wilson and Mussolini shared a few principles of governance…
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:06 PM (xT8gx)

That's about half of it. The other half is the corporate element, which is a symbiotic relationship, with people coming and going, back and forth between the bureaucratic state, and the boardroom.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:20 PM (sL/Fv)

72 55 Is it a zero turn? Folks love them here. Sometimes they drive down the street on one.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:10 PM (ouTlx)

---

I approve this message!

Posted by: George Jones at August 19, 2023 12:20 PM (N66D6)

73 The line is about being 5'3" and 300 pounds, that taxpayers shouldn't help you kill yourself.

Has anyone pointed out that guys like Oliver Anthony are paying for rich people's kids to default on their student loans?

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:20 PM (ouTlx)

74 Except Glenn Reynolds is a fucking blue blood Neocon.

Posted by: BonscottMikeN at August 19, 2023 12:20 PM (x45Yu)

75 Seems like Woodrow Wilson and Mussolini shared a few principles of governance…
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:06 PM (xT8gx)

Mussolini predated Wilson but FDR and Churchill certainly admired him and did share much of his philosophy of governance. Il Duce 's Italy was second only to Britain in admiration and emulation. This largely has been memoryholed and while asshole Jonah touched on it, even "his" book did not do this unpleasant fact justice. The administrative state we despise today is based on Mussolini's government, which was Codevilla's point.

This was excellent, K.T.! Sometimes it does us good to realize how long things have been getting bad, and while the United States is developing totalitarian features recently, much of the rest is not new, just worse.

Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at August 19, 2023 12:21 PM (KSNKu)

76 Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:06 PM (xT8gx)

That's about half of it. The other half is the corporate element, which is a symbiotic relationship, with people coming and going, back and forth between the bureaucratic state, and the boardroom.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:20 PM (sL/Fv)

Although one must be clear: In the original fascist state, the power definitely resided almost exclusively in the bureaucracy, whereas nowadays it's much more muddled.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:21 PM (sL/Fv)

77 I wouldn't believe anything that has as it's source Kevin Williamson, as this thing does. The whole thing is based on Williamson's observations and reporting and none of it is verifiable.

--

Even funnier is it looks like they included a picture of maybe the only two black people in the region leaving "Hope Outlet" as their photo example of the white poverty and welfare.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:21 PM (oZ23Y)

78 There's nothing like driving around the yard cutting grass on a tractor while drinking. I've got free beer for any Moron who would like to experience this joyus experssion of freddom.
Posted by: Pawl

Owning a yard tractor also confers upon the owner the right to drive over to the neighbor's house and criticise and supervise any outside work the neighbor is attempting to accomplish. It also attracts one or more like-minded other supervisors.

Do't ask me how I know this.

Posted by: Tonypete at August 19, 2023 12:22 PM (LtwdY)

79 There's a great deal of drug use, welfare fraud, and the like, but the overall crime rate throughout Appalachia is about two thirds the national average, and the rate of violent crime is half the national average.

--

You know, I doubt that article turned out like they meant it to.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:23 PM (oZ23Y)

80 What happened to Flower Power?

Posted by: Joey Sausage at August 19, 2023 12:25 PM (SUc4N)

81 I've got a small B&S for tight spots and a 2000 Craftsman ( Koehler) for the remaining.

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 12:25 PM (lCWOD)

82 I followed the many links and discussions about Codeville’s writing. Thank you so much for posting this. His views and writings are virtually prophetic in their accuracy. I can’t imagine seeing the emerging governance he did and being able to live with it.

Posted by: Advo at August 19, 2023 12:28 PM (VHN21)

83 I was having a first world issue today. I getting salt a the market and here comes a fellow suburbanite in his little cheese box with his windows down and ghetto music was blasting at 100Db inside his mobile. The rapper had nothing but n-words to rap about.

Seems like a first world problem initiated by third world behavior. And this is just one incident on the otherwise beautiful day in August.

Posted by: sTevo at August 19, 2023 12:28 PM (lNjdg)

84 Well, time for me to get on with my day. Bright and sunny after a stormy yesterday.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at August 19, 2023 12:29 PM (HdNLc)

85 I getting salt a the market and here comes a fellow suburbanite in his little cheese box with his windows down and ghetto music was blasting at 100Db inside his mobile.

--

There are quite a few people who are especially generous with their music.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:29 PM (oZ23Y)

86 >> I don't think that explains it though, nor do I think it can solely be explained by them being controlled by THEIR corporate overlords.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:17 PM (sL/Fv)

I think with most of the GOPe it is plain old tribalism. Humans have a natural affinity to identify with groups. But for the GOPe, they want their club to be cool. Country club republicanism is a thing. They wanna be for smaller government and lower taxes (rhetorically anyway) and they want their club to be exclusive. No grubby outsiders. They imbibed the superficial Reagan but they never understood his deeper message of human freedom. And there’s also the fact that they get paid pretty well to be the Washington Generals (cf. Mitch McConnell)

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:29 PM (nNI2N)

87 Thanks for the hookup on that essay, KT - now I know what I will be reading tomorrow evening on the back deck.
Posted by: The_Hoser at August 19, 2023 12:19
The hoser, eh?

Posted by: That Northernlurker what lurkd at August 19, 2023 12:30 PM (aCNZ6)

88 Our town, which gets 200 inches of rain a year, has announced water restrictions. You can only water your yards and gardens on the odd-even cycle, like the old gasoline system.

It isn't due to "climate change", but rather to the enormous influx of rich Yankees and all the new developments here.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at August 19, 2023 12:30 PM (aD39U)

89 I remember my rabid Lib SIL visiting. Driving through a run down area of town she looked at homes needing TLC and said "white trash"...would she say "black trash" that was about a mile away?

Posted by: Joey Sausage at August 19, 2023 12:30 PM (SUc4N)

90 What I struggle with is these so-called conservatives, and those who self-identify as right, including many of the elected politicians. I don't really get them. I don't know what their motivation is, to do what they do, unless it's solely selfish greed. I don't think that explains it though, nor do I think it can solely be explained by them being controlled by THEIR corporate overlords.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:17 PM (sL/Fv)

Their just conservative liberals. That's it. They're dyed in the wool liberals, just conservative about tactics and operations.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:31 PM (znuOo)

91 Hoser's been here a goo while.

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 12:32 PM (lCWOD)

92 LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:06 PM

That's about it.

Posted by: KT at August 19, 2023 12:33 PM (rrtZS)

93 I remember my rabid Lib SIL visiting. Driving through a run down area of town she looked at homes needing TLC and said "white trash"...would she say "black trash" that was about a mile away?
Posted by: Joey Sausage at August 19, 2023 12:30 PM (SUc4N)

White liberalism as far as sentiment goes is experienced largely as a drive for intra-ethnic cleansing.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:33 PM (znuOo)

94 I remember my rabid Lib SIL visiting. Driving through a run down area of town she looked at homes needing TLC and said "white trash"...would she say "black trash" that was about a mile away?
Posted by: Joey Sausage

--

You know the answer to that.

And if they maintain their yards and keep their house in good shape, they're acting white. Same as if they work to get out of those ghettos.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:33 PM (oZ23Y)

95 No white person wants white trash around them. Even other white trash. Much less a month to celebrate the culture or some sort of flag or logo.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:16 PM (oZ23Y)

I think it's worth noting, with that line in the song, it gives the victim class an opportunity to criticize him, but the victim class in generally NOT the actual, you know, poor people who buy Funyuns with their EBT cards. No, it's the agitators on the left who try to stir up class warfare, to keep people divided.

The truth is, EBT cards DO buy junk food, and cause obesity, but the question is, is this the fault of the poor people, or the ruling class, who set people up to fail as part of their control mechanisms?

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:35 PM (fbZT9)

96
Epic post K.T.

Well done.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc.,etc. at August 19, 2023 12:35 PM (21vDQ)

97 71, 76: Thanks BurtTC…. Your addition makes the thought more complete. Like the FBI and CIA embedded at “private” corps Facebook and Twitter

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:36 PM (nNI2N)

98 And if they maintain their yards and keep their house in good shape, they're acting white. Same as if they work to get out of those ghettos.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:33 PM (oZ23Y)

Nah. It's just the drive to cleanse the ethnos. They don't hold non-ethne to the same stds.

We saw this in the pathological aspects of the North's war drive in the US Civ War. And post-war activities.

It has never left the zeitgeist.

Justice Holmes' jurisprudence was based on this drive.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:36 PM (znuOo)

99 Humans have a natural affinity to identify with groups.

*********

Rugged individualists of the nation, unite!!

Posted by: Muldoon at August 19, 2023 12:36 PM (991eG)

100 ghetto music was blasting at 100Db

Hey man, it's not a party till the whole neighborhood thumps from salvi pop!

Posted by: Commissar of Plenty and Lysenko stuff at August 19, 2023 12:36 PM (UkV2l)

101 "White trash" is an absolutely pernicious concept.

The category is evil.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:38 PM (znuOo)

102 There's nothing like driving around the yard cutting grass on a tractor while drinking. I've got free beer for any Moron who would like to experience this joyus experssion of freddom.

Posted by: Pawl at August 19, 2023 12:07 PM (vFG9F)

Publius has told me a series of heartbreaking stories about stupid fatal tractor accidents. Booze was never a part of them. Please don't.

Posted by: Miley, okravangelist at August 19, 2023 12:38 PM (Mzdiz)

103 61 I agree with you that many people are not just content with having the terms of their existence laid out for them. It's easier and requires very little effort. And even less thought. It's what makes socialism/collectiveism work.

Posted by: Neo-Kulak at August 19, 2023 12:39 PM (ynmtz)

104 The truth is, EBT cards DO buy junk food, and cause obesity, but the question is, is this the fault of the poor people, or the ruling class, who set people up to fail as part of their control mechanisms?
Posted by: BurtTC

--

LBJ removed all doubt with his "we'll have them ****ers voting Democrat for 200 years!" or whatever he said, but it seems like it would be pretty easy to fix, and probably is very close to how it used to be.

You can buy staples like flour, powdered milk, sugar, and powdered eggs with your food stamps, and you can buy vegetables with those food stamps. No one should go hungry in the United States.

If you want anything else you need to pay for it yourself.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:40 PM (oZ23Y)

105 --- the question is, is this the fault of the poor people, or the ruling class, who set people up to fail as part of their control mechanisms?
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:35 PM (fbZT9)

Ask LBJ.

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 12:41 PM (lCWOD)

106 I think with most of the GOPe it is plain old tribalism. Humans have a natural affinity to identify with groups. But for the GOPe, they want their club to be cool. Country club republicanism is a thing. They wanna be for smaller government and lower taxes (rhetorically anyway) and they want their club to be exclusive. No grubby outsiders. They imbibed the superficial Reagan but they never understood his deeper message of human freedom. And there’s also the fact that they get paid pretty well to be the Washington Generals (cf. Mitch McConnell)
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:29 PM (nNI2N)

I guess, but that seems an incomplete explanation. Tribalism and greed may be the starting point, but why did they ALL make the big turn on so many of the big issues of the day? They want perpetual war, they love them some illegal immigration, and they generally despise the social conservative base that gave them their power in the first place.

I don't really understand why. They could have just as easily gone the other direction... IF they actually acted on the principles they claimed to believe. I still think there's something here I'm not quite understanding.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:41 PM (TOvGn)

107 101 "White Trash" is every bit as evil as any other racial epithet that we are forbidden from speaking or writing.

Posted by: Neo-Kulak at August 19, 2023 12:41 PM (ynmtz)

108 Great post K .T . Every day you hear leftist yelling "fascist" to shut down everyone they don't agree with. The funny thing is that I doubt they could define fascist, heck I doubt most people couldn't tell you what side of the Vietnam war we were on.

Posted by: Smell the Glove at August 19, 2023 12:42 PM (BqPUE)

109 "White Trash" is every bit as evil as any other racial epithet that we are forbidden from speaking or writing.
Posted by: Neo-Kulak

--

I don't think it is.

Shame is a healthy part of society. Removing it has caused no end of trouble.

One can't help but notice that the other word isn't forbidden. Far from it. It's just that only the people with power can use it.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:42 PM (oZ23Y)

110 I still think there's something here I'm not quite understanding.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:41 PM (TOvGn)

Bro, they're liberals. Dyed in the wool liberals.

And their big money donors are liberals.

They buy into every single liberal ideal and project.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:43 PM (znuOo)

111 Great post, KT. Thanks.

And on a completely unrelated note, our son got an e-mail from his school (Well it came in yesterday; He didn't read it till today.) "In order to get a key for your room, please arrive at the campus between 12:00 and 2:00." Oh, nifty. They're just letting us know this yesterday?. I have church and it's an hour and a forty minutes from church to the school. I guess my sermon will be shorter than usual-causing some celebration amongst the congregants. It seems that they could have let us know this earlier.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 19, 2023 12:44 PM (Keyt1)

112 The hoser, eh?

Posted by: That Northernlurker what lurkd at August 19, 2023 12:30 PM (aCNZ6)

---

I should really switch to MidwesternCanadian like I am on Rumble, but then I don't think people know whether I mean I'm in midwestern Canada (no) or I'm a transplanted Midwesterner in Canada (yes).

Maybe I should switch back to my old blog name -- From Hoosier To Hoser.

Posted by: The_Hoser at August 19, 2023 12:44 PM (N66D6)

113 Their just conservative liberals. That's it. They're dyed in the wool liberals, just conservative about tactics and operations.
Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:31 PM (znuOo)

Liberals?

Whatever that's supposed to mean, I don't think that answers the question.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:44 PM (TOvGn)

114 "white trash" is a slur. Period.

Whether it's as vile as other slurs is debatable, but it's still meant to denigrate.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at August 19, 2023 12:45 PM (Q4IgG)

115 91 Hoser's been here a goo while.

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 12:32 PM (lCWOD)

---

I like this typo.

Posted by: The_Hoser at August 19, 2023 12:46 PM (N66D6)

116 Think I'll go honky-tonkin' this afternoon.

Posted by: Count de Monet, White Trash & Fascist at August 19, 2023 12:46 PM (4I/2K)

117 "In order to get a key for your room, please arrive at the campus between 12:00 and 2:00." Oh, nifty. They're just letting us know this yesterday?. I have church and it's an hour and a forty minutes from church to the school. I guess my sermon will be shorter than usual-causing some celebration amongst the congregants.

--

Wouldn't want to inconvenience any government employees whose job is to make sure the students who signed up for housing and paid for housing get their keys.

Reminds me of election night now that I think about it. There was no way those people could've stayed up all night. That's just silly to think they could've planned for that on a specific day.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:47 PM (oZ23Y)

118 ---Bro, they're liberals. Dyed in the wool liberals.

And their big money donors are liberals.

They buy into every single liberal ideal and project.
Posted by: Thesokorus at August

Subversives

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 12:47 PM (lCWOD)

119 Think I'll go honky-tonkin' this afternoon.
Posted by: Count de Monet

You said 'Honky'!!

Reeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Posted by: Tonypete at August 19, 2023 12:47 PM (LtwdY)

120 And if they maintain their yards and keep their house in good shape, they're acting white. Same as if they work to get out of those ghettos.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:33 PM (oZ23Y)

Back when I used to do home visits, I went to a home maintained by an elderly black couple, because their son was on our radar. He wasn't there, but they let us in anyway. My colleague was black, but not from the area, and he noted all the curious eyes in the neighborhood. It was clear this couple had spent their lives maintaining with dignity, their home and their personal values.

And here they were, knowing their time was going to be up soon enough, and there was no stopping the rot. It was already in their home, in the form of their "adult" son.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:48 PM (TOvGn)

121 Whether it's as vile as other slurs is debatable, but it's still meant to denigrate.

--

+1

Denigrating is the entire point. Don't want to be called white trash? Don't use that 1988 Cavalier as a planter.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:48 PM (oZ23Y)

122 Bro, they're liberals. Dyed in the wool liberals.

And their big money donors are liberals.

They buy into every single liberal ideal and project.
Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:43 PM (znuOo)

Bingo. It is an alleged coalition where two or three percent manipulate the vast majority within the group to secure and hold power. It has no ideological underpinnings and depends on lying. That is why it is coming apart.

Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at August 19, 2023 12:48 PM (KSNKu)

123 You don't understand EBT. It started with commodities, basic food and a cookbook to show you how to use the stuff. But there was no graft in that. So they went to food stamps. At first, you got change as script, good at that store. Then you got money back. Then they went to cards so people "wouldn't be embarassed". It's really about money to grocers.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:48 PM (ouTlx)

124 There are quite a few people who are especially generous with their music.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:29 PM (oZ23Y)

My fervent wish at those moments is that the penetrating deep bass notes causes impotence and sterility with sufficient exposure.

Posted by: Count de Monet, White Trash & Fascist at August 19, 2023 12:49 PM (4I/2K)

125 Funny how few people understand the working man. I was one for a short time. Worked hard, sweaty, dirty jobs for bull shit pay. Was hungry enough to eat government cheese. But I was able to improve my life.

The rich men north of Richmond, are taking away the American dream for fun (power) and profit. And it's a damned shame.

That's what this song is about, Charlie Brown.

Posted by: Regular joe at August 19, 2023 12:50 PM (nnp+f)

126 Rugged individualists of the nation, unite!!
Posted by: Muldoon at August 19, 2023 12:36 PM (991eG)

We will implement our anarchist principles... just as soon as we get elected!

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:50 PM (TOvGn)

127 I still think there's something here I'm not quite understanding.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:41 PM (TOvGn)

Bro, they're liberals. Dyed in the wool liberals.

And their big money donors are liberals.

They buy into every single liberal ideal and project.
Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:43 PM (znuOo)

And probably another element is they’re beta personalities; they’d do anything to avoid confrontation and they desperately wanna be liked by the “cool kids” (the Dems and the media which just blend into one). Finally, they have no core beliefs or values… as Paul wrote in Ephesians, they are “… children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive”

No wonder they can shamelessly change their positions from day to day…

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:50 PM (nNI2N)

128 I guess my sermon will be shorter than usual-causing some celebration amongst the congregants.

--

That reminds me. I met a preacher not too long ago that is convinced he saw church attendance grow at his old church because the preacher would only preach 20 minute sermons. Word got around and that place was packed every Sunday.

It's not a bad idea to use human nature to your advantage.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:50 PM (oZ23Y)

129 I'm so old I can recall that if you read Rolling Stone in public, people thought you were an anti-establishment long hair hippie. I was, and they were right.
Alas. Gone are the days of P.J. O'Rourke (whose last act on earth was to disappoint us all).
Now, Rolling Stone is just another establishment suck up.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 12:50 PM (MeG8a)

130 Liberals?

Whatever that's supposed to mean, I don't think that answers the question.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:44 PM (TOvGn)

Liberal is not one of the word magic over defined terms like "fascist" or "communist" or "Marxist".

It is clear and precise. They are people who believe in the ideals of the school of thought that comes from the Enlightenment as manifested in England.

This is basic stuff. Are we really taking the position that the word is ambiguous?

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:51 PM (znuOo)

131 Now, you can use EBT for fast food. It has to be uncooked, like pizza or sandwiches. There's no attempt to teach people how to cook.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:51 PM (ouTlx)

132 My psychoanalysis is quite amateur, I admit…

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:51 PM (nNI2N)

133 Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:47 PM (oZ23Y)

Yes; That was a lame excuse. We''l go to bed and count votes in the morning.

What about students who are coming from states that are several hours away? Maybe they could have told parents this weeks ago?

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 19, 2023 12:51 PM (Keyt1)

134
And if they maintain their yards and keep their house in good shape, they're acting white. Same as if they work to get out of those ghettos.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:33 PM (oZ23Y)

This. I taught in "poor" schools. If a kid wanted to learn and got good marks...Same thing. Harrassed, shunned and pulled down.

Posted by: Joey Sausage at August 19, 2023 12:52 PM (SUc4N)

135 That reminds me. I met a preacher not too long ago that is convinced he saw church attendance grow at his old church because the preacher would only preach 20 minute sermons. Word got around and that place was packed every Sunday.

It's not a bad idea to use human nature to your advantage.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:50 PM (oZ23Y)

How many humans have the ability to form coherent thoughts that take more than even 10min to express?

Not me.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:52 PM (znuOo)

136 Liberals?

Whatever that's supposed to mean, I don't think that answers the question.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:44 PM (TOvGn)

Agree. "Liberal" is not what it used to be. Who knows what it means now. It's kind of like the "United States of America".

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 19, 2023 12:53 PM (BdMk6)

137 the question is, is this the fault of the poor people, or the ruling class, who set people up to fail as part of their control mechanisms?
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:35 PM (fbZT9)

Ask LBJ.

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 12:41 PM (lCWOD)

He might be a founding father of the welfare state, but I doubt even someone as despicable as him could have envisioned how "successful" the fascist left would be.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:53 PM (TOvGn)

138 It's not about understanding the working man. It's about finding someone that hasived that life and is articulate enough to explain it to others. That's rare

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:53 PM (ouTlx)

139 > Denigrating is the entire point. Don't want to be called white trash? Don't use that 1988 Cavalier as a planter.
__________

The avocado green American Standard toilet is totes cool however.

*There's actually an old farm house not far from me that has an old set of bedsprings and frame in the yard as a "feature." Old brass bed I think. Looks.... not trashy but maybe wistful with all sorts of flowers around it. Get "Sleeping Beauty" vibes from it.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at August 19, 2023 12:54 PM (Q4IgG)

140
It isn't due to "climate change", but rather to the enormous influx of rich Yankees and all the new developments here.
Posted by: G'rump928
-------

I am beginning to feel like a refugee, in my own country, in my own town.

The sad irony is that I had already fled the place where I was raised, for the same reason.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc.,etc. at August 19, 2023 12:54 PM (21vDQ)

141 Agree. "Liberal" is not what it used to be. Who knows what it means now. It's kind of like the "United States of America".
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 19, 2023 12:53 PM (BdMk6)

No. It is the same thing. Just more fulfilled and the realization of what it is disorients a lot of people who imagined they were liberals.

The Fabians and Keynes were dyed in the wool liberals.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:54 PM (znuOo)

142 Then they went to cards so people "wouldn't be embarassed". It's really about money to grocers.

--

There's that "shame" element keeping human nature in check again.

And yeah, the welfare as an industry is blatant now. Related, I would love to know how many millions of gallons of milk are thrown away every day in schools around the nation. But we can't stop it because the milk producers' employees rely on the guaranteed contracts by the government.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:55 PM (oZ23Y)

143 Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:50 PM (oZ23Y)

I'm really not a long preacher like some of those great "orthodox" guys such as John MacArthur who preach about an hour. I did go overtime with communion and everything and the entire service was about an hour and ten minutes.

There is a Black Pentecostal Church near me and the sign outside says: Service: 12-2. At least they're direct about it.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 19, 2023 12:55 PM (Keyt1)

144 Old brass bed I think. Looks.... not trashy but maybe wistful with all sorts of flowers around it. Get "Sleeping Beauty" vibes from it.
Posted by: Martini Farmer

On yeah. There's one around here too. We all call it the 'Flower Bed' house.

Posted by: Tonypete at August 19, 2023 12:55 PM (LtwdY)

145 girthy post

I wanna party with this animal

Posted by: Amber Heard at August 19, 2023 12:56 PM (us2H3)

146 Don't use that 1988 Cavalier as a planter.
Posted by: Moron Robbief

Wait, wait!
Is this really a rule?

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at August 19, 2023 12:56 PM (ztPSO)

147 It isn't due to "climate change", but rather to the enormous influx of rich Yankees and all the new developments here.
Posted by: G'rump928

--

Speaking of, good call with moomoo the other day. He outed himself again at the end of the last thread.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:56 PM (oZ23Y)

148 Bingo. It is an alleged coalition where two or three percent manipulate the vast majority within the group to secure and hold power. It has no ideological underpinnings and depends on lying. That is why it is coming apart.
Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at August 19, 2023 12:48 PM (KSNKu)

What you're describing sounds more like Elitism, not Liberalism.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:56 PM (TOvGn)

149 123 A friend of mine got in trouble at his store for the heinous act of accepting EBT for stuff like soap and diapers. Then the new arrival in our country totally legit businessmen will buy the value at 50 to 75 cents on the dollar, and if caught, lose their food stamp acceptance for a month or two. Big money floating around. It was a lot worse before the EBT cards, with the funny money tender. The fives and tens could not be exchanged by anyone without a card. The singles, no problem, and a lot of vendors accepted them at a wholesale level. A lot of hole in the wall stores were showing many thousands in food stamps monthly.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at August 19, 2023 12:57 PM (0EOe9)

150 I wanna party with this animal
Posted by: Amber Heard

"Potty"?

Sorry, that's what I heard.

Posted by: Tonypete at August 19, 2023 12:57 PM (LtwdY)

151 I am beginning to feel like a refugee, in my own country, in my own town.

It's all part of The Plan.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at August 19, 2023 12:57 PM (Xrfse)

152 Poor people will sometimes work twice as hard at a scam for "easy money" than they would at a regular job. It's a mindset. And some of these folks are damaged by the drugs and alcohol their mom used during pregnacy.

Used to watch WCN Chicago. They would show people living in dumps with no running water or heat. Someone was paid to turn a blind eye to that and it benefitted someone wealthy.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:58 PM (ouTlx)

153 Liberals?

Whatever that's supposed to mean, I don't think that answers the question.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:44 PM (TOvGn)

Agree. "Liberal" is not what it used to be. Who knows what it means now. It's kind of like the "United States of America".
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons
---------

IMHO, Patrick Moynihan was the last true Liberal.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc.,etc. at August 19, 2023 12:59 PM (21vDQ)

154 No wonder they can shamelessly change their positions from day to day…
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 12:50 PM (nNI2N)

Yeah, these are good descriptions of the asses in the "right" leaning corporate press, but it doesn't explain the politicians and bureaucrats and corporate overlords whose arses they're always kissing.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:59 PM (TOvGn)

155 Lol. People want to shame others for the failings they don't posess. Not the failings they posess.

Modern society is a machine to destroy people via weaknesses.

And it has no "darwinian" component.

Porn anyone? Divorce? Greed?

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:59 PM (znuOo)

156 Current culture is alarming in general. Fortunately, my little burg is full of people who are forming families and taking good care of them. The kids are learning to govern themselves and will require minimal external governance.

I wish we could "infect" the rest of the US with this mindset.

Posted by: Emmie Montoya at August 19, 2023 01:00 PM (Sf2cq)

157 A lot of hole in the wall stores were showing many thousands in food stamps monthly.
Posted by: bill in arkansas

Some of the general stores here up in the hills also use, in some manner, Coke (the drink), as currency. I don't quite understand it but there is some means of exchange with the soda and EBT cards that shakes out to being able to buy drugs.

Posted by: Tonypete at August 19, 2023 01:00 PM (LtwdY)

158 Huh, imagine that.

https://www.pdsoros.org/
meet-the-fellows/vivek-ramaswamy

Posted by: Gwenn at August 19, 2023 01:00 PM (9Gr7n)

159 I am beginning to feel like a refugee, in my own country, in my own town.

It's all part of The Plan.
Posted by: Notorious BFD at August 19, 2023 12:57 PM (Xrfse)

Press "2" for English.

Posted by: Count de Monet, White Trash & Fascist at August 19, 2023 01:01 PM (4I/2K)

160 Oliver Anthony's songs are just good old fashioned protest folk songs against the establishment, writ in the present age.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:02 PM (MeG8a)

161 What you're describing sounds more like Elitism, not Liberalism.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:56 PM (TOvGn)

There is quite a bit of overlap. Elites tend to share luxury beliefs, which we call "Woke" now. "Liberalism" probably is not the precise term, I will grant that. The "elite" handful either share or value luxury beliefs and lie to the vast majority within the coalition on that point to attain power. And to be fair, ideological consistency never has been a real feature of American political parties.

Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at August 19, 2023 01:02 PM (KSNKu)

162 Used to watch WCN Chicago. They would show people living in dumps with no running water or heat. Someone was paid to turn a blind eye to that and it benefitted someone wealthy.
Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 12:58 PM (ouTlx)

You shut your whore mouth!

Posted by: Valerie Jarrett at August 19, 2023 01:03 PM (4I/2K)

163 This is basic stuff. Are we really taking the position that the word is ambiguous?
Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:51 PM (znuOo)

No, the word isn't ambiguous, but its use by the modern so-called right doesn't in any way accurately describe their leftist opponents, nor does it describe the quislings on the so-called right who either embody the characteristics you're describing.

At most it's an old paradigm. At worst, it's a distortion that is used by them to keep people from really seeing what's going on, and should be abandoned by anyone who finds their efforts to be execrable.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:03 PM (TOvGn)

164 Oliver Anthony's songs are just good old fashioned protest folk songs against the establishment, writ in the present age.
Posted by: gourmand

Funny the voice does remind me of Dylan.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at August 19, 2023 01:04 PM (ztPSO)

165 Now, Rolling Stone is just another establishment suck up.


"High Times" has entered the chat.

Posted by: High Times at August 19, 2023 01:05 PM (cCxiu)

166 I gots them Workin' Man Blues . . .

https://youtu.be/fbEstJ98TcM

Posted by: Count de Monet, Honky-Tonkin' with Merle at August 19, 2023 01:05 PM (4I/2K)

167 160 Oliver Anthony's songs are just good old fashioned protest folk songs against the establishment, writ in the present age.
Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:02 PM (MeG8a)

The Left is in total control and such dissent no longer will be tolerated.

Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at August 19, 2023 01:06 PM (KSNKu)

168 157 Tonypete, probably somebody walks in, buys a six pack of Coke for, say, $4 on the EBT card, goes to the back door and they give him $2 and put it back on the shelf. Probably doing that with a lot more products, but Coke always sells. Also, years ago in Cleveland, I go to get my ne'er do well cuz out of the work release. He had to go to some government building for some paperwork, comes out, and say "hey Bill, I'll buy lunch". The hot dog guy on the sidewalk gladly took his new food stamps.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at August 19, 2023 01:06 PM (0EOe9)

169 There are life-preserving benefits to having a bit of a rebellious attitude. I was never taught that as a young person.

Posted by: Emmie at August 19, 2023 01:07 PM (Sf2cq)

170 Bingo. It is an alleged coalition where two or three percent manipulate the vast majority within the group to secure and hold power. It has no ideological underpinnings and depends on lying. That is why it is coming apart.
Posted by: Trump poisoned my cat at August 19, 2023 12:48 PM (KSNKu)

What you're describing sounds more like Elitism, not Liberalism.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 12:56 PM (TOvGn)


I think this is part of our problem. We sit around trying to define terms instead of just saying that what we have now, whatever it is, is fucked up.

Let's get back to the principles defined in the US Constitution. To hell with the rest of this horseshit.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 19, 2023 01:08 PM (BdMk6)

171 Thank you, KT. Much to consider.

This is what I love about AoS- intelligent people with decent values and a working knowledge of the world discussing vital issues.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at August 19, 2023 01:09 PM (hAfUZ)

172 And yeah, the welfare as an industry is blatant now. Related, I would love to know how many millions of gallons of milk are thrown away every day in schools around the nation. But we can't stop it because the milk producers' employees rely on the guaranteed contracts by the government.
Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 12:55 PM (oZ23Y)

Yeah, the whole food pyramid myth was created by Big Farm, and their elected/bureaucratic cronies. The same people who gave us ethanol, and used pesticides as a means of destroying small farmers.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:09 PM (SyQqu)

173 He might be a founding father of the welfare state, but I doubt even someone as despicable as him could have envisioned how "successful" the fascist left would be.
Posted by: BurtTC

It seems like he wouldn't have cared. He was all about Number One. Granted that's S.O.P. for politicians to enact horrible legislation and walk away from it as the costs enact a toll on the country. But they got theirs, so FU America!

Posted by: weft cut-loop at August 19, 2023 01:10 PM (IG4Id)

174 If he's like the guy I know, he continued to get EBT benefits while in jail.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 01:10 PM (ouTlx)

175 The last time I actually bought a copy of Rolling Stone was when a group had a hit song "I Wanna Be On The Cover of the Rolling Stone" on the cover.
It was a funny song. Forgot the name of the group.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:11 PM (MeG8a)

176 Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 01:12 PM (ouTlx)

177 I think this is part of our problem. We sit around trying to define terms instead of just saying that what we have now, whatever it is, is fucked up.

Let's get back to the principles defined in the US Constitution. To hell with the rest of this horseshit.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 19, 2023 01:08 PM (BdMk6)

Absolutely, but a huge part of the problem is having a "silent majority," or whatever one wants to call it, some of whom are people who used to listen to Rush Limbaugh, and currently watch Foxnooz, and/or read National Review, who use these old terms to describe their supposed enemies and opponents, and they're not going to be very useful to any cause of defending liberty, if they continue to go around labeling others as "liberals," when that word ALSO describes wide swaths of this country who really do want more freedom, they just don't want to identify with any of the right leaning terms.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:13 PM (SyQqu)

178 The main effect of this song is that people are talking about issues that the "Rich Men North of Richmond" have been trying to bury for decades. One man with courage, a song, a guitar and a mic CAN make a difference. This song will change the country.

Posted by: mrp at August 19, 2023 01:13 PM (rj6Yv)

179 Just got off the phone with the LA daughter. They are battening for the expected rain.
She explained that that's a problem there because everything is concrete.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at August 19, 2023 01:13 PM (hAfUZ)

180 Liberal is not one of the word magic over defined terms like "fascist" or "communist" or "Marxist".

It is clear and precise. They are people who believe in the ideals of the school of thought that comes from the Enlightenment as manifested in England.

This is basic stuff. Are we really taking the position that the word is ambiguous?

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 12:51 PM (znuOo)

++++

Yes, it is. After the left became known (and hated) as progressives, they started calling themselves liberals. That is their go-to tactic when the public at large becomes generally aware what is meant by some term; the left swaps out terms to deceive.

Now they are going back to progressive again, but many still think lefty when they hear the word liberal.

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at August 19, 2023 01:14 PM (klJTj)

181 Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show

Was that 1978? 79? Somewhere in there.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at August 19, 2023 01:14 PM (Qn59F)

182 Rage For the Machine

Posted by: Skip at August 19, 2023 01:14 PM (MOY79)

183 174 If you're talking about my cousin, he was collecting them while in the work release lock up due to the fact he was out on the street X hours of the day. When I took him over to the office on Euclid he was just picking up back pay. 'Merica.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at August 19, 2023 01:14 PM (0EOe9)

184
Having seized the power to make words mean whatever they want

Humpty Dumpty needs a great fall.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at August 19, 2023 01:14 PM (63Dwl)

185 It seems like he wouldn't have cared. He was all about Number One. Granted that's S.O.P. for politicians to enact horrible legislation and walk away from it as the costs enact a toll on the country. But they got theirs, so FU America!
Posted by: weft cut-loop at August 19, 2023 01:10 PM (IG4Id)

Yeah, if he's capable of it, I'm sure he's getting his rocks off in hell, seeing what he created, but I just don't happen to think he had any way of knowing how far it would go.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:15 PM (SyQqu)

186 Just got off the phone with the LA daughter. They are battening for the expected rain.
She explained that that's a problem there because everything is concrete.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum

--

Are they telling people to get inland?

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 01:15 PM (oZ23Y)

187 The last time I actually bought a copy of Rolling Stone was when a group had a hit song "I Wanna Be On The Cover of the Rolling Stone" on the cover.
It was a funny song. Forgot the name of the group.
Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:11 PM (MeG8a)

Hey Ray, tell 'em who we are . . .

Posted by: Dennis Locorriere at August 19, 2023 01:15 PM (4I/2K)

188 Big-L Liberalism is not the same as liberalism. Just like Big-L Libertarianism.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at August 19, 2023 01:15 PM (Qn59F)

189 Are they telling people to get inland?
Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 01:15 PM (oZ23Y)

Run toward the fire!

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at August 19, 2023 01:16 PM (Qn59F)

190 Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show
Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 01:12 PM (ouTlx)

When you’re in love with a beautiful woman…

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 19, 2023 01:17 PM (xT8gx)

191 There are life-preserving benefits to having a bit of a rebellious attitude. I was never taught that as a young person.

Posted by: Emmie at August 19, 2023 01:07 PM (Sf2cq)

....

Descartes is widely accepted as having penned Cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefor I am". But this is the Latin translation of his musings.

In his original French, it is more accurately translated into English as "I doubt, therefor I think, therefor I am."

To question is to discern.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger at August 19, 2023 01:17 PM (NV99M)

192 189 "Yo, dude, surfs up and it is gnarly".

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at August 19, 2023 01:17 PM (0EOe9)

193 FWP, I over salted my scrambled eggs and sausage.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at August 19, 2023 01:17 PM (Qn59F)

194 Run toward the fire!

-

Ha. I won't be at all surprised to learn that they're telling folks it's perfectly fine to stay on the coast in order to maximize Global Warming.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 01:18 PM (oZ23Y)

195 Now they are going back to progressive again, but many still think lefty when they hear the word liberal.
Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at August 19, 2023 01:14 PM (klJTj)

I don't. What I believe is there are MANY people who are Democrat Party voters, who believe they are "liberals," because they old terms stick with some people, but they're really as opposed to this corporate/bureaucratic alliance is anathema to them too.

They COULD be enlisted to the cause... whatever one wants to call this, but aren't going to be as long as people who have identified them as enemies continue to throw their own epithets at them.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:18 PM (SyQqu)

196 Are they telling people to get inland?
Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 01:15 PM (oZ23Y)

Not at the moment- they're expecting about 2" of rain.
I imagine all staple items are sold out, though.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at August 19, 2023 01:18 PM (hAfUZ)

197 > Oliver Anthony's songs are just good old fashioned protest folk songs against the establishment, writ in the present age.
_____________

Back in the 90's I lived in West Virginia. My wife knew a girl who she worked with who lived "out in the sticks." Like way out. Her and her husband did an annual party/ho-down/whatever. Lots of country food, moonshine and raw, acoustic bluegrass music. Like Oliver Anthony. Only better.*

*might have been the 'shine...

Posted by: Martini Farmer at August 19, 2023 01:19 PM (Q4IgG)

198 Now they are going back to progressive again, but many still think lefty when they hear the word liberal.
Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at August 19, 2023 01:14 PM (klJTj)

No they've always just been Liberals.

The Left/Right concept is dumb. And just works to limit the permissive options to conservative Liberals and radical Liberals.

Globohomo is not Leftist. It is Liberal. Leftists oppose Int'l Finance and think sexual degeneracy is a facet of Liberalism.

The con is getting one to think globohomo is Leftist.

And that neo-cons are Rightist.

Both are just Liberals.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 01:19 PM (znuOo)

199 Technocrats.

Loosely, people who believe they are smart enough and have the mission to order all society according to their dictates.

Full stop. That has been:

-Roman Emperors (Diocletian)
-The Church (and this is by no means only a Catholic thing)
-Kings, Queens, Tsars
-French Revolutionaries
-Eugenicists
-Commies and Nazis of course, in all their varieties and flavors

Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 19, 2023 01:19 PM (zZu0s)

200 Not at the moment- they're expecting about 2" of rain.

-

Not smarmy: Good luck to your kin.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 01:19 PM (oZ23Y)

201 Unrelated, but if you want to watch something funny yet thought provoking, Amazon has an 8 episode series called Jury Duty. Sort of a reality show, but it made me laugh quite a bit. And it has an interesting plot twist at the end. Very watchable.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:19 PM (MeG8a)

202 Liberalism=/=Libertinism

Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 19, 2023 01:20 PM (zZu0s)

203 Orwell 75 years ago: "The word fascism has now no meaning except as it signifies something not desirable."

Posted by: Ordinary American at August 19, 2023 01:20 PM (c7Ujy)

204 Big-L Liberalism is not the same as liberalism. Just like Big-L Libertarianism.
Posted by: G'rump928(c) at August 19, 2023 01:15 PM (Qn59F)

No. They're the same.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 01:20 PM (znuOo)

205 Liberalism=/=Libertinism
Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 19, 2023 01:20 PM (zZu0s)

Yes. Yes it does. It just does.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 01:21 PM (znuOo)

206 Wow KT, thank you for an epic survey.

When Hitler first met Mussolini, he was the junior partner looking to Mussolini as a mentor, and beseeching Il Duce for a territorial concession in Tyrolia.

At their next meeting, the tables had literally turned and Mussolini was eclipsed.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at August 19, 2023 01:21 PM (RIvkX)

207 No. They're the same.
Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 01:20 PM (znuOo)

No, they're not.


Btw, that will be five quid.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) can likewise assert at August 19, 2023 01:21 PM (Qn59F)

208 Big-L Liberalism is not the same as liberalism. Just like Big-L Libertarianism.
Posted by: G'rump928(c) at August 19, 2023 01:15 PM (Qn59F)

I suppose, but it seems the left benefits the most by allowing the word to continue to be identified with their supporters.

As for Libertarian, those who continue to see the party as a soft-lefty coalition of dope smokers and pointy headed thinkbots from think tanks, they may have missed the news that the party was taken over by people who are vehemently opposed to that shit, and are, indeed, hard core libertarians in their thinking.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:22 PM (SyQqu)

209 178 The main effect of this song is that people are talking about issues that the "Rich Men North of Richmond" have been trying to bury for decades. One man with courage, a song, a guitar and a mic CAN make a difference. This song will change the country.
Posted by: mrp at August 19, 2023 01:13 PM (rj6Yv)

I wish that would be true. But I think it's going to have to be more than a song to change the direction this country is headed.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 19, 2023 01:22 PM (BdMk6)

210 Back in the '70s, the Before Times, when music could be fun . . .

Dr. Hook - Cover of the Rolling Stone
https://youtu.be/KuvfIePDbgY

Posted by: Count de Monet who thinks Sylvia's mother was a stone cold b*tch at August 19, 2023 01:22 PM (4I/2K)

211 If you're talking about my cousin, he was collecting them while in the work release lock up due to the fact he was out on the street X hours of the day. When I took him over to the office on Euclid he was just picking up back pay. 'Merica.
Posted by: bill
--------

I do some volunteer work with a *very good* local charity, mostly work with Vets. I was casually talking to one guy (who we are housing/feeding) who told me that he was looking forward to his retirement, which was coming up.

Puzzled, I asked him where he was working. He explained that he meant that he would start collecting SS.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc.,etc. at August 19, 2023 01:23 PM (/pD2r)

212 Another word ruined by the left, and it started in its homeland, is Stormtrooper. Sturmtruppen in WW1 would have been the equivalent of our Army Rangers. Then the Fascist Nazis adopted it, and it became a slur.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at August 19, 2023 01:23 PM (0EOe9)

213 In this part of the world, we get heavy rain that runs off. So the streets are made to channel that runoff. They also act as speed bumps and slow traffic down

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 01:23 PM (ouTlx)

214 The Federalist had an article about 14 US cities that have a plan to ban meat, diary, and private vehicles by 2030. These cities are part of the "C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group" which has a published manifesto. I have linked to both.

Federalist
https://tinyurl.com/2p9574ut

The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5C World - C40 Cities
https://tinyurl.com/mr3r3wr7

Posted by: Lost In Space at August 19, 2023 01:23 PM (kxv2o)

215 Fascism is the inverse of regulatory capture.

Posted by: SFGoth at August 19, 2023 01:24 PM (KAi1n)

216 Liberalism=/=Libertinism
Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 19, 2023 01:20 PM (zZu0s)

Thomas Jefferson is most commonly viewed as this nation's original liberal.

He's since been smeared falsely as a libertine. He was not.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:24 PM (SyQqu)

217 I was a Libertarian back when it was about fleeing to Costa Rica. Then they went openly pro-abortion, the ultimate triumph of the powerful against the powerless.

I left and never looked back.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at August 19, 2023 01:24 PM (Qn59F)

218 To question is to discern.
Posted by: Bitter Clinger at August 19, 2023 01:17 PM (NV99M)

Yes, absolutely. Still drove my dad crazy.

Posted by: Emmie at August 19, 2023 01:24 PM (Sf2cq)

219 Great topic but my takeaway, given the deplorable state of education on this country, is that the Left accuses anyone that disagrees with them of being a fascist. Which is their faux sophisticated way of saying 'you're a Nazi'. Any deeper analysis is a waste of time with these civilization destroying cretins.

Posted by: Chairborne!...Desk From Above! at August 19, 2023 01:25 PM (Is5+x)

220 I should have said knew because the guy we knew that was in and out of jail is gone. Tweaking damaged his heart. He'd get out of jail and have several months EBT benefits to spend.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 01:25 PM (ouTlx)

221 Mrs Morton's Tea Room

Posted by: REDACTED at August 19, 2023 01:25 PM (us2H3)

222
Full stop. That has been:

-Roman Emperors (Diocletian)
-The Church (and this is by no means only a Catholic thing)
-Kings, Queens, Tsars
-French Revolutionaries
-Eugenicists
-Commies and Nazis of course, in all their varieties and flavors
Posted by: Aetius451AD
---------

This is about us, isn't it?

Posted by: The WEF at August 19, 2023 01:25 PM (/pD2r)

223 Not far from me is a neighborhood, the entire neighborhood is built on what used to be a large lake. Not a pond. The civic planners decided it would be a great idea to drain it and build houses on it.
You don't want to own one of those when we get heavy rainfall. Glug. Homeowners have to break out the sandbags and the sump pumps. Some have springs flowing in their basements for weeks.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:27 PM (MeG8a)

224 Conservative and Libertarian and Progressive are just Liberals.

They are all out of the Anglo cultural and economic tradition.

They all agree on the project.

Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, Anarchists etc etc etc

They may end killing each other but that makes no difference in re this.

Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 01:27 PM (znuOo)

225 The Federalist had an article about 14 US cities that have a plan to ban meat, diary, and private vehicles by 2030. These cities are part of the "C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group" which has a published manifesto. I have linked to both.

--

You're just one of those conspiracy theorists.

You probably think new production of non-EVs will be banned in 2035 just because those regulations have been passed and are in effect, too.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 01:27 PM (oZ23Y)

226 I sure hope the people of SoCal have had the foresight to buy up all the milk, bread and toilet paper.

Posted by: Weasel at August 19, 2023 01:27 PM (RG6z4)

227 I wish that would be true. But I think it's going to have to be more than a song to change the direction this country is headed.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 19, 2023 01:22 PM (BdMk6)

Yes, more than that, but there is the concept that change tends to happen when the underclass rises, and waves of people join in when the injustice and illiberal policies of the ruling class are revealed.

Marx wasn't wrong in some ways, he just miscalculated that his class (which was NOT the underclass) would then take hold and impose their own form of tyranny on people.

Or it wasn't a miscalculation, and was the plan all along. The idea that the masses need to be ruled, just ruled by us instead of you.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:28 PM (SyQqu)

228 Well would you look at that:

"Climate dystopianism doesn’t end there. WEF-linked “bioethicist” Dr. Matthew Liao has proposed the idea of scientists genetically modify humans to be allergic to meat."

Hey, remember back in 2019 when Congress was going to hold hearings to determine if Lyme disease was a bioweapon that was intentionally released by the US government onto its citizens?

Good thing COVID interrupted all of that.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 01:29 PM (oZ23Y)

229
This is about us, isn't it?
Posted by: The WEF at August 19, 2023 01:25 PM (/pD2r)

Of course. Davos crowd cannot be left out, but I figured they would fall into the Commies/Nazis category.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 19, 2023 01:30 PM (zZu0s)

230 I put Jefferson in the category of "Classical Liberal", which is very different from what modern liberals consider themselves to be.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:30 PM (MeG8a)

231 THE GARDEN THREAD IS BLOOMING

Posted by: Skip at August 19, 2023 01:31 PM (MOY79)

232 191 There are life-preserving benefits to having a bit of a rebellious attitude. I was never taught that as a young person.

Posted by: Emmie at August 19, 2023 01:07 PM (Sf2cq)

To question is to discern.
Posted by: Bitter Clinger at August 19, 2023 01:17 PM (NV99M)

Hooboy. If I exhibited so much as a hint of either of these things it was met with emotional or physical violence, sometimes both. All independent thought, feelings, or perspectives were disobedience and dishonor and therefore had to be punished and eradicated.

Posted by: Which, yet again, explains a lot at August 19, 2023 01:32 PM (fhX0j)

233 Californians should also make sure they have plenty of ziploc bags of gas handy.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at August 19, 2023 01:33 PM (TZ75n)

234 Public opinion can shift quickly when it gets started. And there's no telling what the trigger will be. I watched the Vivek/Tucker video, which is really good. Vivek gets this and he said it can be channeled productively or spiral out of control.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 01:33 PM (ouTlx)

235 The Left/Right concept is dumb. And just works to limit the permissive options to conservative Liberals and radical Liberals.

Globohomo is not Leftist. It is Liberal. Leftists oppose Int'l Finance and think sexual degeneracy is a facet of Liberalism.

The con is getting one to think globohomo is Leftist.

And that neo-cons are Rightist.

Both are just Liberals.
Posted by: Thesokorus at August 19, 2023 01:19 PM (znuOo)

C'mon. Average people just don't think in these terms. Only political professors and philosophers make these types of distinctions.

Normal people just think that what's happening is not a good thing. It's messing up a lot of lives and fortunes. We need to be America again.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 19, 2023 01:34 PM (BdMk6)

236 Californians should also make sure they have plenty of ziploc bags of gas handy.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at August 19, 2023 01:33 PM (TZ75n)

Or a metal garbage can.

Posted by: Cheech and Chong at August 19, 2023 01:34 PM (4I/2K)

237 I sure hope the people of SoCal have had the foresight to buy up all the milk, bread and toilet paper.
Posted by: Weasel
------

Those of us from the SE coast often joke about hurricanes apparently inducing a craving for milk sandwiches.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc.,etc. at August 19, 2023 01:34 PM (EvGP3)

238 I do some volunteer work with a *very good* local charity, mostly work with Vets. I was casually talking to one guy (who we are housing/feeding) who told me that he was looking forward to his retirement, which was coming up.

Puzzled, I asked him where he was working. He explained that he meant that he would start collecting SS.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc.,etc. at August 19, 2023 01:23 PM (/pD2r)

The concept of the service connection rating is one where, while there are some grifters, most of the people who served in the military, deserve every penny they get from their service connected rating.

However, the downside is the extent to which this has created a sense of dependency in these folks. I'm not saying the government had that as one of their motives, but I'm not saying they didn't.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:35 PM (pDTo2)

239 "Not far from me is a neighborhood, the entire neighborhood is built on what used to be a large lake. Not a pond."

When S.F. first joined the USA, much of the SE side was marsh/swampland. There were creeks and gullies all over the city. That stuff has been paved over but wreaks havoc every so often like Godzilla waking from a long slumber. My own street partially collapses every couple of years because it was built over a filled-in by 19th/early 20th century standards. S.F. has a fascinating topographical/natural history history.

Posted by: SFGoth at August 19, 2023 01:36 PM (KAi1n)

240 $900 Yeti cooler? Gas can.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at August 19, 2023 01:36 PM (TZ75n)

241 NOOD

plants

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at August 19, 2023 01:36 PM (llON8)

242 Californians should also make sure they have plenty of ziploc bags of gas handy.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory
----------

We can help!

Posted by: PowerXL Duo Nutri Sealer at August 19, 2023 01:38 PM (EvGP3)

243 You don't want to own one of those when we get heavy rainfall. Glug. Homeowners have to break out the sandbags and the sump pumps. Some have springs flowing in their basements for weeks.
Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:27 PM (MeG8a)

Yikes! When I was last home shopping, there was this large, gorgeous house on a fairly large piece of land, being priced well within my range... Problem was, it was build on an unstable piece of land. Homes all around there were plopped down, and have ever since had all kinds of foundation problems.

Eh... nope.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:38 PM (pDTo2)

244 SFGoth, you know I'm talking about Lake Geneva, right?

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:38 PM (MeG8a)

245
Those of us from the SE coast often joke about hurricanes apparently inducing a craving for milk sandwiches.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc.,etc.

Snow storms do that for us in middle America.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at August 19, 2023 01:40 PM (63Dwl)

246 I put Jefferson in the category of "Classical Liberal", which is very different from what modern liberals consider themselves to be.
Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 01:30 PM (MeG8a)

Right, but there are millions of people in this country who consider themselves to be liberals, who aren't leftists, and the more the so-called right clings to the label as an epithet, the less one has the ability to recruit them to your side.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:40 PM (pDTo2)

247 Meh. Plant thread already up? Guess it's time to go do something else. Y'all have fun talking about flowers and such.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 19, 2023 01:41 PM (pDTo2)

248 Yikes! When I was last home shopping, there was this large, gorgeous house on a fairly large piece of land, being priced well within my range... Problem was, it was build on an unstable piece of land. Homes all around there were plopped down, and have ever since had all kinds of foundation problems.

Eh... nope.
Posted by: BurtTC

--

I know of a nice subdivision in a very appealing part of town that sells most of their $400K houses and condos (I think that's the right term) in the winter, and relies heavily on internet sales to out of state buyers.

They're within a mile or two of the wastewater plant. Beautiful area with just a bit of an odor problem in July.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Some comments were lost, so if you said something interesting, repeat it here. at August 19, 2023 01:42 PM (oZ23Y)

249 --- "Climate dystopianism doesn’t end there. WEF-linked “bioethicist” Dr. Matthew Liao has proposed the idea of scientists genetically modify humans to be allergic to meat."
-------------

Put them in the chrisper.

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 01:45 PM (lCWOD)

250
The concept of the service connection rating is one where, while there are some grifters, most of the people who served in the military, deserve every penny they get from their service connected rating.
-------

I dislike this intensely, but my observation is that the population of grifters is very high. I speak here not of the down-and-out guys that I work with, but rather of the thousands of people, who while they are Vets, require no assistance at all, but take advantage of their status to claim benefits.

By way of a single example, a guy I know who is an AF vet. Air Force Band. Never even left Florida during his 'career', and he is perfectly well-off, no service-related disability, and yet, he qualifies for, and receives VA care. Just anecdotal, but I know of plenty of others.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc.,etc. at August 19, 2023 01:45 PM (6qpYX)

251 Sigh. Every Saturday it is my hope that folks will stick around and continue to comment on "the thread before the gardening thread" but it rarely happens. The Corgi Effect is strong here at the HQ. Anyway, thanks for the thread, KT.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at August 19, 2023 01:51 PM (Xrfse)

252 If I came back, maybe others will too!

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 19, 2023 01:52 PM (ouTlx)

253 I'm still here.


To the regret of many...Heh.

Posted by: Chairborne!...Desk From Above! at August 19, 2023 01:54 PM (Is5+x)

254 Expended 27% of my battery on this thread.
Excellent presentation, K.T.

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 01:54 PM (lCWOD)

255 Notorious, I agree. KT does such a good job which leads to great discussion . That said, I have to leave to meet a customer

Posted by: Ben Had at August 19, 2023 01:55 PM (OTfJN)

256 SFGoth, you know I'm talking about Lake Geneva, right?
Posted by: gourmand du jour

Yeah. Lots of good info here:
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist5/vanish.html

Posted by: SFGoth at August 19, 2023 01:57 PM (KAi1n)

257 Notorious, I agree. KT does such a good job which leads to great discussion . That said, I have to leave to meet a customer

Yep. Hope your meeting and afternoon are rewarding, BH.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at August 19, 2023 01:58 PM (Xrfse)

258 Right, but there are millions of people in this country who consider themselves to be liberals, who aren't leftists, and the more the so-called right clings to the label as an epithet, the less one has the ability to recruit them to your side.
Posted by: BurtTC

"Liberal" is so 1970s.

Posted by: SFGoth at August 19, 2023 01:59 PM (KAi1n)

259 Just got off the phone with the LA daughter. They are battening for the expected rain.
She explained that that's a problem there because everything is concrete.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at August 19, 2023 01:13 PM (hAfUZ)

But the LA River is so lovely when it rains!

Posted by: Miley, okravangelist at August 19, 2023 02:02 PM (Mzdiz)

260 Daughter and her family live just north of San Diego on the coast. They have no plans to evacuate. Her husband is currently out on the water on his surfboard waiting for some "big waves".

Current storm track shows the center tracking parallel to the Mexican coast east of Baja and crossing the border ~8 a.m. tomorrow, skirting just east of San Diego. The rotation shoUld put SoCal on the "dry" side of the storm, likely not much storm surge on the west side of the cyclone.

IANAM

Posted by: Muldoon at August 19, 2023 02:05 PM (991eG)

261 Right, but there are millions of people in this country who consider themselves to be liberals, who aren't leftists, and the more the so-called right clings to the label as an epithet, the less one has the ability to recruit them to your side.
Posted by: BurtTC


I'm guilty of this. I used to call them Libtards. But after watching them continually and predictably voting for the likes of Dem mayors like Adams in NYC and whoever the new thug in Chicago is - politicians who are literally making our cities unlivable - now I just call them Mental Defectives.

Posted by: Chairborne!...Desk From Above! at August 19, 2023 02:07 PM (Is5+x)

262 I've found that Ventusky is a pretty cool weather site to check these storms out.

Posted by: Notorious BFD at August 19, 2023 02:10 PM (Xrfse)

263 The way I see it is "Liberal" and "Conservative" used to be descriptors, then they became merely labels, now they are largely pejoratives.

Posted by: Muldoon at August 19, 2023 02:11 PM (991eG)

264 "Yeah. Lots of good info here:"

Bookmarked! Thanks.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 02:14 PM (MeG8a)

265 "IRS special agent killed at Phoenix gun range during training exercise"
Why does the IRS need special agents and what exactly are they training for?

Posted by: PG at August 19, 2023 02:18 PM (84jHt)

266 My house is built on what was a racetrack before the earthquake of 1906.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at August 19, 2023 02:21 PM (RIvkX)

267 The oval of that racetrack is now a street, I know the neighborhood. Let me recall the street, hmm...
Urbano Drive!

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 02:30 PM (MeG8a)

268 My house is built on what was a racetrack before the earthquake of 1906.
Posted by: San Franpsycho

Were you shocked to find out there was gambling there?

Posted by: SFGoth at August 19, 2023 02:30 PM (KAi1n)

269 If'n you locals want to have lunch sometime, I'm "all ears".

Posted by: gourmand du jour at August 19, 2023 02:34 PM (MeG8a)

270 Well the whole thing's pretty fuckin' simple, innit?

You have a huge, unwieldy, continent-spanning country. The middle-class third of that country lives hated like they're goddamned devils by the other two thirds for the simple crime of not adhering to the state religion of godless materialism.

Another third also lives in squalor, and hates the last, richer third for their wealth, but blames that first third for failing in their religious duties to the richest third by never being happy to tithe *more.*

The richest third condescends the poorest because they are chattels, and nobody respects a chattel, and they fear the other third for not being chattels, because independent men are dangerous liabilities.

This is the American Triangle of Power And Hate.

As long as two groups gang up on the other, that third one is totally doomed. And both the richest and poorest have natural reasons for hating the ones in the middle. We have too little cash to make the poor happy, and too much power for the rich to sleep well in that knowledge.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at August 19, 2023 02:37 PM (0FoWg)

271 I love Americans in the image of the idea of America, fuck everyone else.

Posted by: Indignacio Vindacatorem at August 19, 2023 03:08 PM (oWBc3)

272 "IRS special agent killed at Phoenix gun range during training exercise"

That proved those agents are special alright. I assume the special agents involved were formerly in Special Ed and rode the short bus to school.

Yep, this illustrates the idiocy of the leftist trope..."lets restrict gun ownership to LE professionals".......bwah, hah, hah, hah. hah. What could possibly go wrong?

The local LE org used to shoot at the range I belonged to. What a bunch of miscreants. Unsafest bunch of unskilled , dangerous shooters I ever saw in my life.

If there was ever shootout between local LE and criminals, I'd stand in front of the perp. Its the safest place to be .

Posted by: The Walking Dude at August 19, 2023 03:45 PM (cCxiu)

273 I use FreeRepublic as one of my information aggregators. Just discovered that some of the results are different on my iphone and ipad.

For a blog that's pretty sophisticated, creepy or what?

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 03:49 PM (lCWOD)

274 Hegel, as well as the positivist and Progressive movements, had argued for the sovereignty of expert administrators.
______________

Anthony Fauci to the white courtesy phone, please.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at August 19, 2023 03:57 PM (YqDXo)

275 Watching the debates between JFK and Nixon are fascinating. They argue about who will be better at fighting communism. What a better America they lived in.
Posted by: 18-1 at August 19, 2023 11:35 AM (lc5cP)
_________________

JFK has some choice anti-communist quotes. Recall he greenlighted the Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Castro. LBJ ginned up an incident in the Tonkin Bay to have an excuse to fight communists.

How far (down) we've come.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at August 19, 2023 04:01 PM (YqDXo)

276 A lot of words, using Fascism and Communism, to arrive at Americanism. We're the country that supposedly loves Capitalism, yet has Social Security. We're the country where all banks are Too Big To Fail.

Even WWII - the era all the Boomers here love to idolize - was fought using a rich Soviet doctrine. We didn't have the "best" of anything other than artillery and logistics. But we had so much of it. Like winning a tag team wrestling match three against two.

Posted by: The Way It Is at August 19, 2023 04:23 PM (MrqsE)

277 This is the American Triangle of Power And Hate.

Nah. On this, I'll argue all day. America, as the Boomers remember it - and Dildo bans it while Fen narcs it - was the nation of Don't Wear Your Hat Indoors, do right during the Anthem, and you don't need to be drinking on Sunday.

America has always been a nation of Nags. American Politics has always been a NorthEastern thing, because of media. And those folks up there are nags by nature.

Posted by: The Way It Is at August 19, 2023 04:37 PM (MrqsE)

278 There is a LOT of territory north of Richmond. Just sayin.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at August 19, 2023 04:41 PM (f0XAF)

279 There is a LOT of territory north of Richmond. Just sayin.

Starts with DC. Extends to Philly. Includes New York City. Up to Boston.

Look at a map. Then look at the news. That region is over half of what is wrong with this Union.

Posted by: The Way It Is at August 19, 2023 04:53 PM (MrqsE)

280 Mussolini’s article “force and consensus” was a gloss on what he called Machiavelli’s essential teaching: “all armed prophets won, and the unarmed ones came to ruin….

Because the nature of peoples is variable, and it is easy to persuade them of things, but difficult to keep them thus persuaded.

Hence one must make sure that, when they no longer believe, one may be able then to force them to believe.”

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 05:10 PM (lCWOD)

281 Hence one must make sure that, when they no longer believe, one may be able then to force them to believe.”

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 05:10 PM (lCWOD)

Hence, why some folks feel the need - in their bones - to control speech. And that need is generations old.

Posted by: The Way It Is at August 19, 2023 05:35 PM (MrqsE)

282 After Franklin Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, Mussolini’s enthusiasm for likening the New Deal to fascism’s political-economic order was tempered only by the need not to give additional ammunition to FDR’s domestic opponents, who were saying precisely that

Posted by: Braenyard at August 19, 2023 05:51 PM (lCWOD)

283 After Franklin Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, Mussolini’s enthusiasm for likening the New Deal to fascism’s political-economic order was tempered only by the need not to give additional ammunition to FDR’s domestic opponents, who were saying precisely that.

Said shorter ... Mr. Roosevelt was gonna' save us all.

Posted by: The Way It Is at August 19, 2023 06:15 PM (MrqsE)

284 And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

And that's simply a quote. Let's all vote harder, though. I used to enjoy C.S. Lewis and Tyranny of the Well Intentioned.

Posted by: The Way It Is at August 19, 2023 06:20 PM (MrqsE)

285 Mussolini's longest lasting crime is giving sovereignty to the Vatican after the corrupt Popes were made powerless after the Italian unification. To validate his rule, he reinstated the most vile and corrupt religious state to autonomy.

Posted by: EGGO at August 19, 2023 07:37 PM (2V01g)

286 Hell the Demorats are near to fascists except for their use of racism and division. Come to think of it that is the forte of communists and national socialists. But the national socialists didn't use purges in the same fashion as the commies, so the Demorats aspire to be Stalinists. To compare them to Mussolini is wrong.

Posted by: Jane at August 20, 2023 12:12 AM (EcD5Y)

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