Tag Archives: Antifa

On Quitting Facebook

22 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by in Censorship, Social Media

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Cartman is awesome! Haha! But really, that kind of reaction to the dominant social media platforms is well deserved, especially given their recent behavior. Listen to this: my wife’s church held a service of hymns and prayer for “healing the nation” on Tuesday. The church’s IT administrator posted an advance notice about the service on the church’s Facebook wall. There was nothing overtly political about the notice or the service itself. Nevertheless, somehow FB deemed the notice subversive and blocked it! We are not dealing with decent or reasonable people here. They are pigs, and we don’t have to do business with them.

FaceHook

A number of years ago, a woman told me FB was “the Devil!” She was very good natured and I laughed at the time. But there are many reasons for people to wean themselves from social media, or at least from certain platforms. The web abounds with testimony on lives improved by quitting FB, for example, and there are forums for those who’ve quit or would like to. There’s also plenty of practical advice on “how to leave”, so there is definitely some interest in getting out.

Ditching FB offers a certain freedom: you can eliminate the compulsion to check your news feed and escape those feelings of obligation to “like” or comment on certain posts. These are distractions that many can do without. No more efforts to “unsee” expressions of foot fetish narcissism! Free of the pathetic virtue signals that seem to dominate the space. And quitting might be especially nice if you’re keen on cutting ties with certain “frenemies”. Almost all of us have had a few. This study found that quitting FB results in less time online (surprise!) and more time with family and friends (pre-COVID lockdowns, of course). It also found that quitting leads to less political polarization! Imagine that!

There’s no question that FB helped me make new friends and reconnect with old ones. It also led to overdue severing of ties with a few toxic individuals. I know I’m likely to lose contact with people I truly like, and that’s too bad, but in most cases I must leave it up to them to stay in touch (read on). Obviously, there are many ways to stay in contact with friends you really want to keep.

FacePurge

As for politics (and seemingly every aspect of life has been politicized), now is a very good time to quit FB if you believe in free expression, the value of diverse opinion, and a free marketplace of ideas. FB doesn’t want that. As the episode at my wife’s church demonstrates, FB has been brazenly selective in suppressing opinion, like other prominent social media platforms. It was obvious well before the presidential election, and it has become intolerable since.

How To Defacebook

There are voices that counsel patience with the tech giants. They recommend a strategy of diversification across platforms, without necessarily quitting any of them. I can understand why certain people might prefer that route. It’s well nigh impossible to migrate an extended family to another platform, for example. However, juggling several accounts can be a problem of time management. And for me, this all boils down to a matter of disgust. It’s time to stick it to FB.

This rest of this post offers some practical advice on quitting FB and more thoughts on how and why I’m doing it. This will also appear on some speech-friendly platforms, so if you see it there and you haven’t quit FB, do it! You’re already halfway there.

The first decision is whether to quit outright or deactivate. Many don’t have the fortitude to stay away if they merely deactivate, and maybe they just need a break. For others, FB has earned an enmity that can only be satisfied by leaving for good. Count me among the latter.

You should reclaim all of your data before you quit: you can download it to a zip file, which will include all of your photos, chats, “About” information, your friends’ birthdays, etc… While it’s been claimed that shutting your account will cleanse Facebook of all your data, that’s not entirely the case. For example, your friends might still retain chats in which you participated. In fact, I’m not convinced all of your data isn’t permanently in FB’s possession, if not the NSA’s, but we might never know.

You should also change your login credentials on other online accounts linked to FB. You should be able to identify some or maybe all of those by looking at the password section in “Settings”. I’m not sure whether scrolling though and checking all the apps listed in Settings will help — it didn’t help me identify anything that the password section did not.

It’s a good idea to keep Messenger up for a while in case any of your friends want to inquire or find a way to stay in touch. That’s fine, but to really rid yourself of FB, you must part with Messenger eventually. Of course, you’ll lose Instagram and WhatsApp when you quit FB. I don’t use those, so it won’t be a problem for me.

Then there are the “I’m Going To Quit!” status updates, sometimes laced with sadness or anger. I haven’t found those particularly appealing in the past… I’ve often wondered if they were merely ploys to get attention. But things have changed. I will add this post to my wall and leave it there for a few days. My *noble* intent is to help others quit, and to do my small part to foster a more competitive social media environment. Another way to communicate your departure would be to use Messenger to inform selected friends, but that’s more work. And by the way, in anticipation of my stop date, I’ve been culling my friends list more aggressively than ever.

Once you pull the trigger and click “Delete”, your account will remain active for a few days. Don’t be a sucker. Delete the app on your phone. Wait it out. Forget about it!

Not OurBook

Again, there was never a better time to dump FB. Beyond any emotionally corrosive aspects of social media, the last straw should be the selective censorship of political views, shadow bans, outright bans, and deletion of groups. Lately, it’s been like witnessing the early transition from Weimar to the Third Reich. We can only hope the full transition will remain unfulfilled.

For a company protected from liability under Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act, FB’s refusal to respect First Amendment rights and to abide diversity of opinion is shocking. Don’t tell me about fact checking! Facebook fact checkers are politically motivated hacks, and the new “oversight board” is not likely to help you and me. The presumption underlying Section 230 is that these platforms are not publishers, but having abandoned all pretense of impartiality, they should not be entitled to immunity. Moreover, they have tremendous market power, and they are colluding in an effort to consolidate political power and protect their dominant market position.

Big Tech, and not just FB, has been flagrant in this hypocrisy. These firms have deplatformed individuals who’ve questioned the legitimacy of the presidential election, and there is plenty to question. But they refuse to censor Antifa and BLM rioters, antisemites, state terrorists, and genocidal tyrants from around the world, including the Chinese Communist Party. More recently, FB and other platforms have condemned supporters of President Trump, as if that support was equivalent to endorsing those who stormed the Capital on June 6th. And even if it were, would an objective arbiter not also condemn leftist violence? How about equal condemnation of the Antifa and BLM rioters who ravaged American cities throughout last summer? Or those who rioted at the time of Trump’s inauguration?

The social media platforms won’t do that. FB is bad, but Twitter is probably the worst of them all. I quit using Google years ago due to privacy concerns, but also because it became obvious to me that it’s search results are heavily biased. Amazon pulled the rug out from under Parler, and I will quit using Amazon when my Prime membership is up for renewal unless Jeff Bezos starts singing a different tune by then. These companies are anticompetitive, but there are other ways to buy online, and there is plenty of other video programming.

Let’s Book

The power of Big Tech is not absolute. Remember, there are alternatives if you choose to quit or diversify: check out MeWe, Clouthub, Rumble (video hosting), Gab, Signal, and Telegram, for example (see this interesting story on the latter two). And Parler, of course, if it manages to find a new hosting service or wins some kind of emergency relief against Amazon.

Message me for my contact information or my identity on other platforms, or you can always find my ruminations at SacredCowChips.net. You can even share them on FB (if they’ll let you), at the risk of alienating your “woke” friends! So long.

Portents of Harris-Biden Nation

22 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by in Politics

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Joe Biden is a weak figurehead, a one-time moderate faltering over a coalition of leftists. If you wonder why Nancy Pelosi floated legislation to establish a committee on “presidential capacity,” don’t think so much about her loathing for Donald Trump; think about poor Joe Biden. He might be shunted aside just as soon as the power grab isn’t too obvious. They know well how Barack Obama famously said, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up.” But whether Joe Biden is in control of anything, think about who he stands with:

The Violent Left: Marxist Antifa and Marxist BLM; opposed to law and order; burning cities; spewing eliminationist rhetoric; hissing n*g**r at black cops;

Police Defunders: won’t acknowledge good policing is needed more than ever, especially in minority communities;

“Ministers of Truth”: social media platforms exerting control over what we say and what we see;

Re-Educators: democrats push for a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to address the “issue” of Trump supporters;

Critical Race Theorists: a Marxist front whereby every word and action is viewed in the context of racial bias and victimization; they want reparations; on your knees.

The Scientistic: who labor under the delusion that “science” should guide all administrative and political decisions. Or someone’s version of science. The very idea is antithetical to the scientific domain, which deals only with falsifiable hypotheses. Few matters of value can be addressed using the tools of science exclusively, nor can they address matters of ethics.

Fear Mongers: would rule by precaution; risks are always worth exaggerating to existential proportions;

Lockdown Tyrants: refuse to acknowledge the steep public health costs of lockdowns; stripping individual liberties indefinitely, including the right to contract, free practice of religion, and assembly;

Insurrectionists: who fabricated a Russian collusion hoax to subvert the 2016 election, and later to overthrow a sitting president;

Gun Confiscators: they will if we let them;

Abortionists: would use federal tax dollars to fund the murder of millions of babies late into pregnancy, primarily black babies;

Fluid-Genderists: insist that children should be encouraged to explore transgenderism;

Taxers: won’t stop with punitive taxes on the wealthy and employers; it’s just not easy to milk high earners in a way that’s sufficient to pay for the fiscal debauchery demanded by the Biden-Harris constituency. Joe says he will raise taxes by $3.4 trillion.

Spenders: $2 trillion of new federal education outlays, including universal pre-K and free community college; the Green New Deal (see below). After all, the democrats are the party that can’t tell the difference between a cut in spending and a reduction in spending growth. If you think Trump is a big spender, their plans are astonishing;

Green New Dealers: would spend trillions to restrict energy choices, transfer U.S. wealth overseas in the name of international carbon reduction, and reduce our standard of living;

Redistributionists: would tax job creators not simply for the benefit of supporting the needy, but for anyone regardless of need (see UBI); this extends to plans to bail out blue states and cities with insolvent public employee pension funds;

Interventionists: would regulate all phases of life, including straws, sugary drinks, and your fireplace; they will burden private initiative; create artificial, politically-favored winners skilled at manipulating regulatory rules for competitive reasons; and create losers who are typically too small to handle the burden;

Medical Socialists: will strip your private health insurance, dictate the care you may receive, fix prices, and regulate physicians and other providers. You’ll love the care abroad, if you can afford to get out when your sick.

Public School Monopolists: poorly performing, beholden to teachers’ unions, unresponsive to taxpayers and often parents; they would happily revoke school choice;

Federal Suburb Rezoners: demanding low-income housing in every community;

Court Packers: to destroy the independent judiciary;

Iran Apologists: give them cash on the tarmac, let them develop their “peaceful” nuclear program; alienate the rest of the Middle East;

Grifters: marketing their influence as public servants for private gain; never exclusive to one side of the aisle, but the Biden family has certainly traded on Joe to enrich themselves;

Smear Merchants: fabricated allegations against Brett Kavanaugh; impugned Amy Coney Barrett’s religious faith;

Perverts: Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, Jeffrey Toobin, Hunter Biden, and Bill Clinton, to name just a few; even Joe has his #MeToo accusers;

I could go on and on, but Harris-Biden voters should get a strong taste of their compatriots from the list above. It reflects the overriding prescriptive, bullying, and sometimes violent nature of the Left. They’d have you think all material goods can be free. Presto! They presume to have the knowledge and wisdom to plan the economy and your life better than you, Better than free markets and free people. What they’ll need is a lot of magic, or it won’t go well. You’ll get poverty and tears. I’m not sure Joe has the desire or the wherewithal to rein in his coalition of idiots.

You think he was pissed off?

01 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by in Politics

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Many were put-off and even offended by President Trump’s aggressive approach to the first debate with Joe Biden on Tuesday. I’m not bothered except that he didn’t give Biden enough time to lose his way. This debate was tame compared to the standards set at the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which were full of insults, crude language, and racial epithets.

It was Joe Biden who began the unending series of interruptions on Tuesday. Biden interrupted Trump three times at that point, after which the moderator, Chris Wallace, declared “open discussion”. Go back and watch! So if you care, Biden started it. And Biden became rather abusive in his language as the debate wore on.

As to Trump’s pugilistic style, here is Sean Trende:

“… debates are usually staid affairs, pitched to politically knowledgeable elites who like to evaluate things on the merits. Trump’s debates are pitched to someone completely different. His behavior toward Clinton seemed bizarre and juvenile, and made for classic “SNL” fodder. It also apparently worked reasonably well; the townhall-style debate was one of his best received performances. So the interrupting and refusal to answer questions was off-putting for me, but I recognize that I’m not the target audience.”

Okay, fair enough, but Trump’s debate performance was more visceral than calculated. In fact, even members of his debate team were surprised: Chris Christie said it was “too hot”. Trump’s guns blaze because he’s pissed off, and he should be! Just to regard the countenance of the man across the stage was probably enough to infuriate Trump: Biden helped instigate the fraudulent investigation of General Michael Flynn (James Comey’s denial notwithstanding), Trump’s first national security advisor. Biden has repeatedly stooped to the same unfounded accusations of racism against the President that have been made by Democrats since Trump announced his first candidacy in 2015. This despite Biden’s own racial gaffes and affiliations with racists over the years. Biden was involved in a Ukrainian shakedown, admitting that he threatened the country’s President to have U.S. aid withheld if a Ukrainian prosecutor was not fired. That prosecutor was investigating the energy company Burisma, which just so happened to be paying a handsome retainer to Biden’s son, Hunter. Yet Trump was falsely accused of a similar transgression! Talk about the self-projections of Democrats! Trump has every reason to be pissed off, and to let it flow.

Biden represents the same Democrat party that has conspired to have Trump thrown out of office since before he was inaugurated. The same party has spread disinformation about collusion with Russians since before the 2016 election. The same party voted to impeach Trump in the House of Representatives on that fallacious basis. The same party promotes the idiotic suggestion that Trump “killed 200,000 people” with coronavirus; blames Trump for the economic malaise due to coronavirus lockdowns, then insists the economy must be shut down to end the pandemic; refuses to cooperate in passing a targeted coronavirus aid package; supports the violence perpetrated by Antifa and Black Lives Matter (“mostly peaceful protests”), with prominent democrats contributing to the payment of bail for arrested rioters; calls Trump a dictator for offering to help state and local leaders end the violent civil disorder; refuses to call-out the racism promoted by Antifa and BLM; promotes the Marxism and racism of critical race theory; and attacks his latest Supreme Court nominee on religious grounds. The Democrats also threaten to instigate one-party rule by packing the Supreme Court, ending the legislative filibuster, and admitting new states to the union and dividing old ones in order to create a permanent Democrat majority in Congress (but the Constitution prohibits DC from statehood). A one-party nation! And, of course, Democrats have pushed for universal mail-in ballots, with all the bedlam and challenges that is likely to bring to the electoral process.

Then we have the debate moderator, Chris Wallace. There was little doubt about Wallace’s sympathies. He interrupted Trump much more frequently than he interrupted Biden. He asked Trump whether he denounces white supremacist organizations, and Trump immediately said, “Of course.” Trump has denounced them, but Wallace thought it necessary to relitigate the matter. Wallace’s follow-up regarding the “Proud Boys” was misplaced, as the group might be nationalist, but it is not a white supremacist organization (their president is Afro-Cuban). Meanwhile, Wallace failed to ask Biden to denounce Antifa and BLM. Wallace failed to ask Biden about his son’s dealings with the mayor of Moscow and his Chinese clients. He also let Biden off the hook quite readily when he refused to give his opinion on court packing and eliminating the filibuster. Biden refused to answer… Wallace was like, “okay”!

If anything, my biggest frustration with Trump on Tuesday was his typical sloppy articulation of his policies and views. He seldom makes his best and most obvious supporting arguments. Whiff! Instead, what I hear often seems off-point and semi-coherent. Of course, I understand most of what he’s trying to get across, and so do many others when they’re not too busy self-projecting. So maybe Trump is a great communicator after all, despite his seeming lack of clarity.

Biden says he “is” the Democrat Party. Then he has a lot to answer for. I’m glad Trump lit into him. No reasonable person can blame Trump for being pissed off. Hey, I’m pissed off, and you should be pissed off too, because Joe Biden and the Democrat Party is ready to subjugate you!

Brave Cops and Foolish Subversives

25 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by in Police Bias, racism

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It’s difficult to put oneself in the shoes of a cop, but it seems clear that many partisans lack an appreciation for the intensity and danger of police work, which is fundamentally about protecting the public from threats to life and property. Confrontation is an unavoidable part of the job, whether it involves a domestic disturbance, drunk and disorderly conduct, property crime, or a shooting. Situations are adversarial and officers often face significant mortal risk. These are very brave people.

It would be impossible to do a cop’s job without legal authorization and occasional use force, but it can be very hard to judge when that’s necessary. A cop’s beat can feel like a war zone. There’s not much time to think. Things happen fast. Bad things happen really fast. Calm is restored in the best of circumstances, but arrests may be necessary, and sometimes a situation escalates or is already so fraught that it ends in tragedy. Sound procedures help police do their jobs better, but outcomes are capricious, and it is all too easy to make harsh judgements about split-second decisions in hindsight. Like any other accused, when a police matter ends badly, the cop is entitled to due process. Depending on circumstances and evidence, that means cops deserve a fair margin of error in the conduct of their duties.

To take a recent example, the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta occurred after Brooks wrestled with officers when they attempted to put him in handcuffs. Brooks broke free and snatched one of their tasers. As he ran, an officer pursued him at fairly close range. Brooks turned and fired the taser at the officer, shooting too high as it turned out. But the officer returned fire within an instant, three shots, striking Brooks in the back twice. Was that justified or reckless? The videos shown on the networks are in slow motion, but decisions like that can’t be made in slow-mo. The taser might have struck and disabled the officer, or in rare circumstances even killed him. And some tasers fire more than once; if one or both officers were disabled, their guns were potentially up for grabs. Either way, the use of his firearm seems to have been within Georgia law and Atlanta Police Department guidelines. No one should pretend there was time for careful deliberation. However, none of that dissuaded the Fulton County DA from filing immediate murder charges in a politically charged atmosphere. That’s hardly due process.

Of course there are bad cops and racist cops, but they comprise a distinct minority. Certain reforms might help to keep them from abusing their power, get them off the force, or convict them, depending on the nature of the offense. Qualified immunity gives excessive cover to bad cops and has protected far too many from prosecution. It’s regrettable that Senate Republicans have refused to consider modifications to qualified immunity, but perhaps they are holding it back as a negotiating ploy. Monitoring the conduct of officers is obviously important, and anonymous peer review within departments would be an excellent mechanism for identifying problem officers. Some reform proposals would certainly reduce the likelihood that police actions will be unjust, regardless of individual attitudes: ending no-knock raids and decriminalizing drugs would be major steps forward on that front.

The brutal murder of George Floyd has brought much more radical calls for changes in policing — even defunding or dismantling entire departments. These are based on widespread assertions that police are biased against blacks and that unjust police violence is directed at blacks. There is conflicting evidence on that point, however. Harvard Professor Roland Fryer concludes that while there is no evidence of racial bias in the use of lethal force by police, there is some evidence of bias in the use of non-lethal force. Other facts make the latter conclusion seem dubious, however. Consider the patterns of criminal activity described at the last link by Barry Latzer, CUNY Professor of Criminal Justice:

“The latest police data collected by the FBI indicates that blacks comprised 58 percent of all murder arrests and 40 percent of those apprehended for all violent crimes. This disproportional involvement of African Americans in violent crime turns out to be the most significant factor of all in explaining the use of force against blacks by police.

It will be no surprise that violent criminals in the United States are commonly armed and dangerous. For assaults, for instance, 71 percent of arrested persons carried firearms. Among suspected murderers, 58 percent had guns, as did 42 percent of apprehended robbery suspects. This tally doesn’t include the knives or blunt instruments recovered from violent offenders, including over 48,000 cutting instruments possessed by those arrested for assault alone.”

Latzer cites a number of studies of lethal force by police. One of these studies found:

“… after controlling for numerous factors, that blacks were 27.4 percent less likely than non-Hispanic whites to be fatally shot by police.”

Other researchers have noted:

“… the absence of any correlation between the race of the officer and that of the victim. That is, after controlling for other factors, white police officers were no more likely than black officers to fatally shoot black civilians. In fact, the more black officers on a police force, the more African Americans were fatally shot.” 

Another finding by the same study:

“[O]fficer race, sex, or experience did not predict the race of a person fatally shot beyond relationships explained by county demographics. On the other hand, race-specific violent crime strongly predicted the race of a civilian fatally shot by police, explaining over 40% of the variance in civilian race. These results bolster claims to take into account violent crime rates when examining fatal police shootings.”

The most tragic aspect of all this is that the vast majority of black crime victims are victimized by other blacks. Here are 2018 statistics for homicides. While blacks account for about 13.5% of the U.S. population, black offenders accounted for nearly 45% of homicides in 2018, and black-on-black homicide accounted for nearly 40% of all homicides.

Crime in the black community, and its economic costs, are inflicted almost exclusively on other blacks. If there was ever a need for good policing, this is it. The reasons for disproportionate crime and violence in the black community are complex. The notion that there is “systemic racism” at play here might be correct, but again, the evidence suggests it is not the fault of police. The welfare state plays a major role, as Walter Williams has long asserted. There are many more children living without fathers in the black community, a product of misdirected social policy that awards greater benefits to single-parents households. High rates of male incarceration obviously compound this problem. Blame can also be ascribed to a dysfunctional system of public education, and our nation’s continuing insistent on prosecuting the War on Drugs is highly destructive.

The campaign against police is promoted by a number of leftist organizations, the most prominent of which are Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Other well-meaning leftists do not question the rhetoric of police racism, and they also tend to fall for the illusion of collectivist virtue. Don’t accept this bullshit! It won’t help blacks as a class. We’ve known for some time that BLM is a Marxist organization, as is Antifa. Lawrence Person quotes BLM co-founder Patrice Cullors: “We are trained Marxists.”

According to Alexandra Phillips:

“BLM happily self-identifies as a neo-Marxist movement with various far left objectives, including defunding the police (an evolution of the [Black] Panther position of public open-carry to control the police), to dismantling capitalism and the patriarchal system, disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure, seeking reparations from slavery to redistribute wealth and via various offshoot appeals, to raise money to bail black prisoners awaiting trial. The notion of seizing control of the apportionment of capital, dismantling the frameworks of society and neutralising and undermining law enforcement are not just Marxist, but anarchic.”

Identity politics provides a rich trove of grievance, guilt projection, and intimidation. But it won’t end there. They will use any and all means to subvert civil society in order to gain power, and there will be a high cost in terms of freedom, lives and human well being. These people are ruthless morons. One doesn’t have to look far to learn that the histories of Marxist revolution and attempts at governance are uniform in their failure and bloody mayhem.

Too many “nice people”, media, businesses, and other institutions are all too willing to accept BLM and Antifa propaganda unquestioningly, including their stupefying lies about disproportionate police violence against blacks. Yes, there are black victims of police brutality, and there are many white victims as well — criminal justice and police reform is not to be dismissed. Unfortunately, there is a large disproportion of violent crime committed by blacks against blacks. Many in the black community know all too well that good policing is desperately needed. Quite simply: no cops, no peace, no justice.

Rioters Inflict Racial Injustice

02 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Free Speech, racism, Terrorism

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My fervent hope is that the reaction of horror to George Floyd’s murder is universal. However, my perspective on the violence that’s erupted over the week since is also one of disgust. The perpetrators are using Floyd’s death as an opportunity to unleash attacks that undermine civil society and often hurt people of color more than anyone.

The peaceful protests against police brutality and racism in cities across the country are earnest calls for reform, and they also represent fine tributes to all victims of racism. But a different dynamic takes hold when peaceful protesters are infiltrated by violent elements. Agitators use the cover of the protests and typically begin to dominate the scene as darkness falls, though sometimes it happens in broad daylight. The violence, arson, looting, and shooting are perpetrated by a combination of those whose political motivations go well beyond needed reforms to the justice system and other opportunists who are primarily interested in loot, or just a riotous a good time. There are also some otherwise non-violent protesters emboldened by the agitators to cheer on these acts of violence.

As others have said, the rioting does not serve to honor George Floyd in any way, and it does nothing to end racism or racial victimization. By cheering on these malefactors you lose any legitimate claim as an enemy of racism. The rioting, if anything, brings harm to the black community. Black lives are lost in the strife, such as the retired police captain in St. Louis who was shot Monday night defending his friend’s pawn shop. Blacks are also losing their livelihoods as a consequence of the destruction.

The left-wing, anarchist agitators are modern blackshirts masquerading as anti-fascists. Their interest, and delusion, is the violent overthrow of our government. They are largely white millennials, mostly male, and largely unemployed as a result of the ill-advised coronavirus lockdowns imposed in many states. Antifa has been prominent in these attacks, often running under Black Lives Matter flags, and the radical wing of BLM participates as well.

These pigs have been coddled by leftist state and local government officials in many cities, who send outmanned police forces to try to keep the damage in check while releasing those arrested the next day. President Trump was absolutely right on Monday to call out the national guard and raise the possibility of deploying military forces where state and local officials are incapable or unwilling to bring these situations under control.

And here’s the thing: all it takes is a few agitators, along with their enthusiastic but less ideological recruits, to destroy communities. There have been larger numbers in big cities, perhaps a few thousand hard-core shit disturbers. Slowly but surely, perhaps due to Trump’s prodding, state and local politicians are awakening and enabling law enforcement to effectively quell the unrest. The agitators, who are fairly well organized, are being infiltrated by moles who will undermine their operations and perhaps aid in prosecuting higher-level organizers and funders at the federal level. In the end, the force of anarchists is fairly small and the local support they manage to stir is fleeting.

While we recoil at the harm inflicted by the riots, another perspective is offered by the equity markets, which have been relatively unfazed through the turmoil. The values of firms in the security business have risen, but otherwise, as one investment strategist says:

“‘Right now it’s limited enough that it’s not perceived as having a meaningful economic impact,’ said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird. ‘The risk to the market right now is excessive optimism,’ and headlines from protests could simply be dampening that optimism a bit, he added.”

The riots are destructive of lives and economic value, and while we mourn those caught up in these tragedies, the situation does not portend a total social collapse. The overall impact on the U.S. economy expected by markets is not of a magnitude suggesting great instability. This too shall pass, though not easily for the small businesses and employees being ruined by the double jolt of lockdowns and riots.

Besides the outright harm to the black community by the riots, there are other disturbing elements that must be confronted. I keep hearing “White silence = violence”. No, “white silence” is neither responsible for the actions of George Floyd’s killer nor the riots in the streets. What must one say to avoid personal responsibility for the aberrant behavior of Derrick Chauvin and the rioters? What I hear are ignorant excuses and accusations: the violence is inexcusable and it is no one’s fault but the participants, whatever their circumstances.

People of good faith oppose the brutality inflicted by bad cops and a system that tolerates them. It is surely time for some reforms, as the following suggests:

And there are still other promising criminal justice reforms to consider. We need to end the drug war, which is particularly harmful to minority communities.

I bemoan the poor circumstances and education that have burdened many of the disaffected protesters, and even the rioters. I advocate for policies that I believe promote improved education and family stability. I have advocated for a safety net. I have shared my distaste for the unnecessary COVID-19 lockdowns that forced so many of these individuals out of their jobs for several months. But from some quarters, the demands have no end. Not until I bow down on my hands and knees to apologize for the sins of generations past. Who cares if they weren’t my ancestors? I’m white! The next demand is reparation payments to today’s generations of blacks. Don’t complain that impoverished whites won’t share in the gains, though there are more than twice as many of them. They simply failed to capitalize on the opportunity afforded by their privilege. I’m sorry for the sarcasm….

Please mourn George Floyd’s horrible death and support the protests against the brutality that killed him, but do not pretend for a moment that the violence is in any way justified, or that it will create a healthier society. Don’t root for that shit. And don’t cast aspirations at your fellow men and women as if the color of their skin is responsible for the social ills you’ve taken up as a cause. It does nothing to further solutions.

Bernie Sanders and the Brutal Bros

24 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in Collectivism, Leftism, Tyranny, Uncategorized

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Some of Bernie Sanders’ most devoted fans have an unfortunate brutalitarian streak. The violent strain of so-called Bernie Bros aren’t as isolated as one might hope. First, of course, there was James Hodgkinson, the BB who attempted to assassinate Republican members of Congress at a congressional baseball game practice, seriously injuring Rep. Steve Scalise. Now, campaign field organizers for Sanders in Iowa and South Carolina have been captured on film proposing gulags, re-education camps, sentencing billionaires to hard labor, and shooting or beheading those opposed to Sanders’ policies. And much more. And they say this in all seriousness. What nice people have been assigned positions of responsibility within the Sanders campaign organization! Watch it for yourself at the link above.

Should we be surprised? No: these are advocates of forced collectivism, and if their favorable perspective on coercive power wasn’t enough of a tip-off, recent history suggests that many among them are truly ready and willing to do violence. The brutal and murderous history of collectivist regimes the world over demonstrates the tendency well enough. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and too many other leftist tyrants left bodies strewn in their wake as they sought to enforce their ideology. It’s no coincidence that the American Left holds the murderous Che Guevara in such high esteem. Black Lives Matter and Antifa have both perpetrated violent acts, and members of the Leftist media have openly advocated physical attacks on their political opponents. And then we have these Bernie Bros.

I feel compelled to review a bit of background on Bernie Sanders, the batty old communist who has managed to convince large numbers of poorly educated “intellectuals” that he knows the path to utopia. The nicer ones imagine that he’s a man of the people, though he hasn’t worked a day in his life at anything except agitation and rent seeking. He is an inveterate public mooch. His life history as a politician and as a person is rather unflattering.

I’ve used this Iowahawk (David Burge) quote about Sanders before:

“Who better to get America back to work than a guy who was actually fired from a Vermont hippie commune for being too lazy.”

Apparently, Barack Obama is not a Bernie Bro:

“Obama has told people in private that Sanders is both temperamentally and politically unfit to beat Trump in the 2020 general election, these people say. Among his concerns are Sanders’ strident form of politics and confrontational manners where he was known not to seek compromise during his long years in the US senate.”

And say what you will about Hillary Clinton, but her opinion of Sanders comports with much of what we know about The Bern:

“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done.”

At least the Bernie Bros have taken their masks off before getting too far. Give Leftists power and they all will.

“Othered” By the Left

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in fascism, Identity Politics, Progressivism

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Progressivism certainly has its discards. The photo showed a trash bin labeled “CATHOLIC DUMPSTER”. Dead bodies were hanging out of the top. A “friend” had posted it on Facebook, ostensibly as humor. I thought it was in poor taste and had the temerity to say so in a comment; naturally I was immediately castigated by a mob for expressing that opinion. The “friend” said that if I really knew him, I’d realize that he loves everyone. That claim was quickly undermined by his partner, who joined the exchange to spew vitriol for Christians. A wiser person on the thread, perhaps detecting a whiff of hypocrisy, noted the likely outrage had the label on the trash bin said “JEWISH DUMPSTER”. Well yes…. Er, maybe. The political Left, it seems, is drifting ever closer to anti-Semitism as well as radical intolerance for Christians. This in addition to outright hostility toward whites, men, or anyone perceived as having “privilege”. The rhetoric is becoming increasingly hateful, vile, and violent.

A recent confrontation in front of the Lincoln Memorial wrapped together several objects of leftist hatred. It involved boys from Covington Catholic High School and left-wing activist Nathan Phillips, an Omaha Indian, as well as a group of black nationalists called the Black Hebrew Israelites. The Covington boys are white, male, Catholic, pro-life, and they wore MAGA caps. They were passive except for chants intended to drown-out shouts of “faggots” from the Black Israelites, but the media almost uniformly portrayed the boys as racist villains in the immediate aftermath, based on incomplete video evidence. It is difficult to ascertain who released the original video, but a longer version proved that the boys were not at fault. Meanwhile, Phillips proved to be a bald-faced liar. He lied about the sequence of events, the behavior of the boys, and about having served in Vietnam. But those lies fueled a media narrative as well as the fertile imaginations of many leftists. The full video reveals that Phillips marched from some distance straight up to one of the teenagers and proceeded to bang a drum in the kid’s face. The boy maintained his composure and kept a calm smile on his face. Later, however, that smile was cited as proof of racism!

A few members of the media retracted the awful things they said about the teenagers and the incident, but others continue to allege that the Covington teenagers were at fault, or that they at least share the blame. Some of the rhetoric is no less hateful than before the full video became available. This is a far cry from the heartfelt entreaties to avoid criticism of any controversial opinions expressed by “the children” in the wake of the Parkland High School shooting. In the present case. the kids have been targeted with a slew of insults and threats to themselves and their families.

Regarding the MAGA caps, I am by no means a Trump enthusiast, but I root for him to do well as our president despite my strong disapproval of some of his policies. You won’t ever catch me in a MAGA cap. However, I do not believe that he and his political base are racist. Trump is an equal opportunity denigrator, but he’s called a racist every time his target happens to be a person of color, as though people of color are always above criticism. Trump is called a racist for his promise to build a wall along the Mexican border to stem illegal crossings, though the same proposal has been offered by many Democrats over the years, including Barack Obama and Check Schumer. Therefore, the very idea that wearing a MAGA cap is a racist signal is transparently political and absurd. That some of the Covington boys wore MAGA caps has reinforced other excuses to target them for vicious criticism.

A further issue is that the Covington boys are privileged, you see, guilty of possessing white, male privilege, even as they defended a black classmate harangued by the Black Israelites. They attend a private school, and so they must be from wealthy families and worthy of progressive hatred. They were in DC for the March for Life, so they are opposed to reproductive choice and must hate women. In fact, it’s been alleged that they were in DC only to oppose the Women’s March. Misogynists!

Hatred for Catholics and for anyone who has attended private schools is always de rigueur on the Left. That was quite clear during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Hatred gushed from the Left not only because they were satisfied of Judge Kavanaugh’s guilt based on unsubstantiated, 11th-hour allegations leveled against him by an SJW, but apparently also because he attended a Catholic boys school! Oh, and he is male. I have another “friend” whose Facebook feed was littered with smears of Kavanaugh, including characterizations of private school kids as “smug little weasels”. As Caroline Lewis said at the time, these “critics” are barbarians. Do you think they don’t want to hurt those they’ve “othered”, or want someone else to hurt them in one way or another? The boundaries of grievance always expand, and will keep expanding until they eat their own.

David French claims that his defense of Christian education prompted an activist to start the #ExposeChristianSchools hashtag. Now, I’m sure everyone who has attended public or private schools can repeat a litany of stories about a few awful teachers they were forced to endure, not to mention the hostile environment that school children often create for one another. But private schools, and religious schools, are often superior options for parents and children. If you don’t like the curriculum, don’t send your kids there. If you don’t think the policies are sufficiently inclusive, or the environment will be unhealthy for your child, then send them elsewhere. But the vilification of an entire segment of the population based on how they choose to educate their children is despicable. They’d ban Christian education if they could… and religion!

Note that the Left’s insistence on state domination is itself a threat of violence. While capitalism and free markets are cooperative in nature, socialism is at its core authoritarian and coercive. If you resist you become an enemy of “the people”, and such enemies will have consequences to pay.

Antifa is unashamedly violent, but it might be only the tip of the iceberg. The rhetoric of the Left has become increasingly hostile toward Christians, Jews, males, whites, Republicans, and of course anyone achieving material success. There is no forgiveness nor genuine love of others in leftist doctrine. Indeed, the “otherism” inherent in leftist identity politics is dangerous and a source of increasing social instability. Their “eliminationist rhetoric” is becoming all too common (scroll down at the link).

For now I’ll continue to engage in the marketplace of ideas. Perhaps it’s becoming a war. Us “others” need to keep voting and never back down. And by all means, be prepared to defend ourselves and our loved ones by any means necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

Identity-Inspired Hatred and Censorial Violence

21 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by in Identity Politics, racism

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I favor small government and individual liberty because I believe it confers benefits across the socioeconomic spectrum. But some would actually say that means I share responsibility for the appearance of a mob of white supremacists, Klansmen and Nazis in Charlottesville, VA. Not only that: I share responsibility for the very existence of those groups and any atrocities performed in their name! Even as I condemn them.

Here’s another strange thing: many of my old peacenik friends on the Left now believe that violence is an acceptable response to speech. Apparently not just abhorrent speech from white supremacists. They are willing to forgive, if not endorse, violence perpetrated in the name of “social justice”, whatever that concept’s currently fashionable expanse.

It’s also strange that these former champions of nonviolence now fail to distinguish between violence and speech they find offensive. It’s not just acceptable to confront racists. Whether or not it occurred this way in Charlottesville, it’s now acceptable to start a physical altercation with racists. And it’s worse than that: the “wrong” policy position on anything from immigration to public aid to the minimum wage may be characterized as violence (and racism), and that justifies violent opposition.

Many members of the so-called “Unite the Right” (UtR) coalition came to Charlottesville prepared for a fight. They engaged in racist hate speech (protected by the U.S. Constitution) and they were ready to provoke and threaten their enemies (not protected). Physical aggression can be prosecuted as assault, but racism itself cannot unless it motivates a crime. The young Ohio racist responsible for the death of the counter-protester is certain to be charged with a hate crime.

There are claims that the UtR racists arrived with better weapons for the occasion, including guns (open-carry is legal in VA), than the large crowd of counter-protestors. It’s a noteworthy blessing that not a single shot was fired.

Yes, we should all be eager to denounce the rhetoric of white supremacy, but the role of the leftist groups in the violence that took place in Charlottesville cannot be dismissed. The counter-protest coalition, which was organized over the weeks prior to the UtR demonstration, included Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa, both groups responsible for a number of violent protests in recent memory (and see here). Snopes, the leftist “fact-checking” organization, claims that Antifa is not as violent as the so-called alt-right. If one confines “alt-right” to members of KKK, Neo-Nazi, skinhead, and white supremacist organizations, that might be right. Many members of these groups are undoubtedly dangerous even as individuals. The media, of course, defines alt-right much more broadly.

One can reasonably categorize Antifa and BLM as hate groups in their own right. For example, Antifa has advocated physical violence against Trump supporters, a group constituting almost half of the voting public. BLM marches have featured eliminationist rhetoric toward police: “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon”, and “What do we want? Dead cops!” Furthermore, BLM supporters have not been shy about expressing racist views, and a few (aberrant?) BLM supporters have been charged in a number of recent police killings. Nevertheless, if not explicitly violent or threatening imminent violence, I support their right to speak freely.

Thankfully, white racist organizations today do not represent a significant number of Americans. For example, KKK membership ranged from 3 to 6 million during the first half of the 20th century, but today its numbers are estimated at less than 10,000. The other groups certainly make up some of the difference, but while the number of those organizations has grown recently, they tend to be smaller groups than in the past. In total and as a reflection of modern sentiments among caucasians, they are truly fringe, though you might not know it from media reports.

These groups are entitled to express their hateful views as long as it is speech, not violence or an threat of imminent violence. The leadership of the racists obtained a permit for their demonstration in Charlottesville only after the city was sued on their behalf by the ACLU, much to that organization’s credit. Again, like it or not, hate speech is protected by the U.S. Constitution, and that right must be defended. Nevertheless, the ACLU has been attacked for this principled stance. I think the ACLU would also agree that acceptance of violence in opposition to speech is more dangerous to freedom than the speech rights of the fringe racist population. It will not stop with opposition to racism. Instead, it will metastasize into violence in opposition to a broad range of rhetoric, including legitimate policy positions, and it already has.

Whatever you may think of the relative “merits” and demerits of the antagonists in Charlottesville, there is one fascinating similarity between them: both sides trade in victimhood and advocate statist solutions to the problems they perceive. Jeff Goldstein riffs on this point on Facebook:

“Antifa, BLM, CAIR, the New Black Panthers, La Raza, the Pussy Hatters, the KKK — these are all identity movements and all formed and animated by the kind of identity politics championed by the left… The alt-right is only ‘right wing’ in the continental sense. The American conservative is classically liberal, while the American progressive is Fabian socialist.

Don’t listen to labels; follow the assumptions made by each movement — the alt right, the prog left — and you’ll soon recognize that they are the same. This is tribalism, no more and no less. … You should reject this archaic collectivism from whatever group espouses it, because in the end it is simply anti-individualism dressed in mob attire to bolster cowardice and bigotry in numbers.“

Similar points are made by Brendan O’Neill:

Both [sides] are obsessed with race, SJWs demanding white shame, the alt-right responding with white pride. Both view everyday life and culture through a highly racialised filter. SJWs can’t even watch a movie without counting how many lines the black actor has in comparison with the white actor so that they can rush home and tumblr about the injustice of it all. Both have a seemingly boundless capacity for self-pity. Both are convinced they’re under siege, whether by patriarchy, transphobia and the Daily Mail (SJWs) or by pinkos and blacks (white nationalists). Both have a deep censorious strain. And both crave recognition of their victimhood and flattery of their feelings. This is really what they’re fighting over — not principles or visions but who should get the coveted title of the most hard-done-by identity. They’re auditioning for social pity.“

Finally, this piece, “The Curse of Identity Politics” by Rod Dreher, attributes the dysfunctions of white supremacy and violent social-justice advocacy to a failure of religious leaders and their followers to address inconvenient realities head-on. Some of his argument is persuasive, but a more interesting aspect of his essay relates to actions he believes inspire an awakening of racism and racist action. Here are a few of Dreher’s points:

“When the Left indulges in rhetoric that demonizes whites — especially white males — it summons the demons of white nationalism.

When the Left punishes white males who violate its own delicate speech taboos, while tolerating the same kind of rhetoric on its own side, it summons the demons of white nationalism.

When the Left attributes moral status, and moral goodness, to persons based on their race, their sex, their sexual orientation, or any such thing, it summons up the demons of white nationalism.

When the Left refuses to condemn the violent antifa protesters, and treats their behavior as no big deal, it summons the demons of white nationalism.“

These things summon not just racism and white nationalism. They also inflame a broader opposition to radical intervention from people of good faith. These people believe in the righteousness of neutral public policy with respect to race, faith, sexual preference, and other dimensions along which the Left demands both ex ante and ex post equality.

What Part of “Free Speech” Did You Not Understand?

27 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by in Censorship, Free Speech

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The left has adopted an absurdly expansive definition of “hate speech”, and they’d like you to believe that “hate speech” is unconstitutional. Their objective is to establish a platform from which they can ostracize and ultimately censor political opponents on a variety of policy issues, mixed with the pretense of a moral high ground. The constitutional claim is legal nonsense, of course. To be fair, the moral claim may depend on the issue.

John Daniel Davidson writes in The Federalist of the distinction between protected and unprotected speech in constitutional law. The primary exception to protected speech has to do with the use of “fighting words”. Davidson describes one Supreme Court interpretation of fighting words as “a face-to-face insult directed at a specific person for the purpose of provoking a fight.” Obviously threats would fall into the same category, but only to the extent that they imply “imminent lawless action”, according to a major precedent. As such, there is a distinction between fighting words versus speech that is critical, discriminatory, or even hateful, all of which are protected.

Hate speech, on the other hand, has no accepted legal definition. In law, it has not been specifically linked to speech offensive to protected groups under employment, fair housing, hate crime or any other legislation. If we are to accept the parlance of the left, it seems to cover almost anything over which one might take offense. However, unless it qualifies as fighting words, it is protected speech.

The amorphous character of hate speech, as a concept, makes it an ideal vehicle for censoring political opponents, and that makes it extremely dangerous to the workings of a free society. Any issue of public concern has more than one side, and any policy solution will usually create winners and losers. Sometimes the alleged winners and losers are merely ostensible winners and losers, as dynamic policy effects or “unexpected consequences” often change the outcomes. Advocacy for one solution or another seldom qualifies as hate toward those presumed to be losers by one side in a debate, let alone a threat of violence. Yet we often hear that harm is done by the mere expression of opinion. Here is Davidson:

“By hate speech, they mean ideas and opinions that run afoul of progressive pieties. Do you believe abortion is the taking of human life? That’s hate speech. Think transgenderism is a form of mental illness? Hate speech. Concerned about illegal immigration? Believe in the right to bear arms? Support President Donald Trump? All hate speech.“

Do you support the minimum wage? Do you oppose national reparation payments to African Americans? Do you support health care reform? Welfare reform? Rollbacks in certain environmental regulations? Smaller government? You just might be a hater, according to this way of thinking!

The following statement appears in a recent proposal on free speech. The proposal was recommended as policy by an ad hoc committee created by the administration of a state university:

“… Nor does freedom of expression create a privilege to engage in discrimination involving unwelcome verbal, written, or physical conduct directed at a particular individual or group of individuals on the basis of actual or perceived status, or affiliation within a protected status, and so severe or pervasive that it creates an intimidating or hostile environment that interferes with an individual’s employment, education, academic environment, or participation in the University’s programs or activities.“

This is an obvious departure from the constitutional meaning of free expression or any legal precedent.

And here is Ulrich Baer, who is New York University‘s vice provost for faculty, arts, humanities, and diversity (and professor of comparative literature), in an opinion piece this week in the New York Times:

“The recent student demonstrations [against certain visiting speakers] should be understood as an attempt to ensure the conditions of free speech for a greater group of people, rather than censorship. … Universities invite speakers not chiefly to present otherwise unavailable discoveries, but to present to the public views they have presented elsewhere. When those views invalidate the humanity of some people, they restrict speech as a public good.  …

The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized members of that community.“

How’s that for logical contortion? Silencing speakers is an effort to protect free speech! As noted by Robby Soave in on Reason.com, “... free speech is not a public good. It is an individual right.” This cannot be compromised by the left’s endlessly flexible conceptualization of “hate speech”, which can mean almost any opinion with which they disagree. Likewise, to “invalidate the humanity of some people” is a dangerously subjective standard. Mr. Baer is incorrect in his assertion that speakers must balance the “inherent” value of their views with an obligation to be “inclusive”. The only obligation is not to threaten or incite “imminent lawless action”. Otherwise, freedom of speech is a natural and constitutionally unfettered right to express oneself. Nothing could be more empowering!

Note that the constitution specifically prohibits the government from interfering with free speech. That includes any public institution such as state universities. Private parties, however, are free to restrict speech on their own property or platform. For example, a private college can legally restrict speech on its property and within its facilities. The owner of a social media platform can legally restrict the speech used there as well.

Howard Dean, a prominent if somewhat hapless member of the democrat establishment, recently tweeted this bit of misinformation: “Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment.” To this, Dean later added some mischaracterizations of Supreme Court decisions, prompting legal scholar Eugene Volokh to explain the facts. Volokh cites a number of decisions upholding a liberal view of free speech rights (and I do not use the word liberal lightly). Volokh also cites the “prior restraint doctrine”:

“The government generally may not exclude speakers — even in government-owned ‘limited public forums’ — because of a concern that the speakers might violate the rules if they spoke.“

If a speaker violates the law by engaging in threats or inciting violence, it is up to law enforcement to step in, ex post, just as they should when antifa protestors show their fascist colors through violent efforts to silence speakers. Volokh quotes from an opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Backmun:

“… a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse rights of speech after they break the law than to throttle them and all others beforehand. It is always difficult to know in advance what an individual will say, and the line between legitimate and illegitimate speech is often so finely drawn that the risks of freewheeling censorship are formidable.”