Whenever someone proposes a course of action the first thing you need to do, before you can act on the proposal, before you can even decide whether you agree with the proposal, is to understand the proposal. This seems so obvious that no one could ever dispute it, but it involves thought, so it frequently happens in our personal lives and seldom happens in politics. We will get to politics eventually and try to understand how this basic human ability to understand and evaluate proposals completely falls apart in the public sphere, but first how does it actually work?
Let’s look at a personal life example: Chip walks up to Jose and says “Jose old chum, I have had a thought, I would enjoy your company at a Venezuelan feminist cooperative vineyard’s, artisanal, non-GMO, gluten free, fair trade wine tasting this Saturday, would you like to come?” (Chip is WokeAF™)
Jose, can you see?
What is Jose to do?
First Jose parses the words. This happens rapidly, but does involve a surprising amount of cognition.
Jose old chum,
(Ok, I am in fact Jose)
I have had a thought,
(Ok, Chip is a douche)
I would enjoy your company at a
(I am not really fond of Chip, and suspect he is only asking me because he thinks he gets WokeAF™ points because my skin is darker than his, so my inclination is to say no, but maybe the event will be enjoyable)
Here in the cognitive process Jose skips ahead past the adjectives to the underlying event, he will return to the adjectives, but they can’t fulfill their descriptive purpose without an object.
wine tasting
(I like wine)
this Saturday
(My Mother in law is visiting this weekend, so maybe this is a good plan)
Now Jose gets around to the adjectives.
Venezuelan
(I am Honduran by birth, came to the US to work hard and improve my lot and therefore have neither a sentimental attachment to Venezuela, nor a desire to ‘virtue signal’ by supporting a communist dictatorship)
feminist cooperative vineyard’s
Dissonance begins as Jose struggles to understand the relevance of this adjectival phrase to a subject that seems unrelated to sexual politics, or the ownership structure of the vineyard.
(WTF?)
artisanal
Dissonance increases for another reason.
(Yeah, kind of guessed we weren’t going to be tasting factory wine. Is that even a thing?)
non-GMO,
As mentioned previously, Jose likes wine, and is aware that oenoculture has involved hybridizing, genetic selection and other methods of modifying the basic grape for more millennia than humanity has been writing things down.
(Bull)
gluten free,
(Ok so if the wine is fortified with spirits they aren’t wheat or barley based I guess?)
fair trade
As Jose is not mentally retarded, nor does he huff his own farts, these words float past him and have no impact on the decision; they are semantically null.
Jose has now understood the proposal: He is invited to spend Saturday with Chip, who is extremely annoying. There will be wine which Jose enjoys, stupidity, which Jose does not enjoy, pretension which may provide amusement, and finally, escape from a day of listening to his Mother in law. He weighs the pros and cons and reaches a decision:
“Sure Chip, sounds great, what time?”
Jose’s Mother-in-Law enjoys giving her daughter advice about how to improve Jose. She does this loudly and in Jose’s presence. Jose would likely have agreed to attend a Nazi Mime performance rather than stay home this Saturday. He has heard a proposal, thoroughly understood it, evaluated the obvious effects, considered alternatives, and reached a rational decision. Reason has triumphed and liberty has produced a minuscule increase in happiness!
Now let’s look at how this works in Politics:
A Grassroots Movement (the good kind with talking points and paid protesters courtesy of The Open Society Foundation, not the bad kind made up of lots of deplorable who come together because they are wrong about an issue) proposes a new law banning Assault Rifles. Their stated reason for this law is that Assault Rifles are used to commit mass killings, and we need to do something to stop the killing of schoolchildren.
For the purposes of this essay let’s not spend time on the question of what Assault Rifle means. Pretend it is actually a thing, because while the definition is not available now, and will no doubt end up making no sense from a functional standpoint, the proponents will come up with some set of characteristics for their ban. We will also use a simplified, made up proposal rather than the text of any actual bill because otherwise no one except lawyers will read any further. And not even the lawyers will understand everything that is included. Instead let’s try to understand and evaluate the really scary, dangerous thing in this proposal; no, not the rifles, they are not nearly as scary as A NEW LAW!
To understand the proposal obviously means to understand what the proposed law does. The proponents have stated that their goal is to stop the mass killing of schoolchildren. That is a goal every human, with the possible exception of Peter Singer, agrees is worthy. Does the law actually do this? What does this law do? Well to answer that we have to consider what any law does, and how it does it.
Historically the law was divided into two parts. The Criminal Law, which acted by inflicting punishment on those who were guilty, and the Civil Law, which acted as rules by which to judge private disputes, determine liability and assess some form of redress. Modern legislators, following the lead of Academic Lawyers[1] , dispensed with the formal division into separate codes, and as a result (probably the point of the change) have blurred the distinction between guilt and liability. With the proposal here we are dealing with the Criminal Law.
The Criminal Law acts by imposing a punishment for some act. In the case of a proposed new law there are only two possible ways it can have any effect. It can provide a penalty for some behavior that was previously innocent, or it can alter (increase, decrease, change in kind, or eliminate) the penalty for some behavior that was already criminal. So what does our hypothetical proposed law do?
Per the text made up for this essay:
It bans the ownership of AssaultRifles™ and provides jail terms of up to 5 years and fines of up to $50,000 per violation.
Per the stated goal:
It stops school shootings
Per reality:
It adds penalties for some newly criminalized acts, increases the penalties for some existing crimes, and has no effect on other existing crimes.
Let’s look at what falls in each of these categories:
- Penalties for newly criminalized acts. This is the strongest effect of any new law. Previously innocent conduct is made criminal. People who were totally law abiding become criminals, which makes them subject to the massive power of the State. The police can now seize them; their property can be forfeited; they can be imprisoned; if they resist they can be killed, all with perfect legality.
By definition, only law abiding gun owners can possibly fall into this category. So this law has its strongest effect on people who own an Assault Rifle, but do not use it to rob anyone (already criminal), assault anyone (already criminal), or kill anyone (already criminal). Obviously this doesn’t get us to the stated goal of ending school shootings.
- Increased penalties for other criminal acts. This does not create new criminals, instead it changes the degree or type of punishment imposed on existing criminals. The hope is that changing the punishment will suddenly cause people, who have already shown that they ignore threats of punishment, to stop being criminals.
This category may actually affect some criminals. It adds another charge that can be applied to robbers who use Assault Rifles, thugs who assault others with Assault Rifles, and killers who murder with Assault Rifles. So what effect can we hope for?
5 years is a significant penalty, on a par with existing penalties for the most serious robberies and assaults, and it is quite possible that the threat of an extra 5 years might deter a robber, or some thug from using Assault Rifles, but it probably won’t prevent them from committing the underlying crime. A quick perusal of the record shows that Assault Rifles are seldom used in these crimes. Probably because Assault Rifles are expensive, and frankly awkward to carry around. So most likely the few criminals affected will simply do what the vast majority already do and use a different gun, or a knife.
What about killers? The stated goal of the law seems to imply that it should affect killers. Murder carries penalties ranging from 10 years on up to the death penalty. It is possible, that an increase of 5 years might have some effect on those killers who might expect to be sentenced at the low end of the range. 15 years is more than 10 and maybe our hypothetical killer will think “I’ll do 10 years to kill that #@$%^&, but I ain’t doing 15!”
Of course the legally defining characteristic of killers who might expect to be sentenced at the low end is THAT THEY DID NOT PREMEDITATE THE KILLING! So… not going to affect killers at all then?
- No effect
And we finally work our way around to people who shoot up schools. Mass shooters don’t get sentenced to 10 years. If they survive the shooting itself, they get life without parole or the death penalty. Adding another charge to the indictment cannot possibly deter school shooters. Even the proponents of these laws understand this, they just gloss over the fact that illegal does not mean non-existent. This is apparently a hard distinction to grasp.
What is the difference between illegal (which is what a ban makes something) and non-existent (which only reality can make something)? Consider an example that has a certain relevance to a discussion of a law that prohibits possession of an object. Heroin is illegal; and despite being illegal, demonized in every form of communication, subjected to decades of massive law enforcement effort, having billions spent to eliminate it, and incidentally being highly poisonous, every city has neighborhoods full of people who use it daily. Unicorns are non-existent and thus, despite being the epitome of adorableness, good in every way, beautiful, magical symbols of wonder and purity, there are none.
So what is the result of our careful examination of what is actually being proposed? It appears to be a proposal to make millions of law abiding citizens into criminals and to do absolutely nothing to stop mass killings. By their fruits shall ye know them. Gun bans of any sort are targeted at law abiding gun owners. They have minimal effect on criminals and, in fact, even that minimal effect decreases as the seriousness of the crime increases. They simply cannot prevent mass killings.
[1] a group of people who have done as much for the cause of liberty and justice as Pol Pot or Stalin
Something must be done!
This is something.
Therefore, this must be done.
“There oughta be a law!”
To make this video win an Oscar?
There should be two high order laws.
The first should be one that states all laws, except for these 2 special laws, will have expiration dates and can’t be voted on until any emotional event that triggered the idiotic call for some magical law to solve a problem has been forgotten.
The second law should demand that for every new law they pass two others have to be done away with.
Anyone breaking these two laws should be drawn and quartered…
2 laws,
1. no hitting
2. no stealing
Covers everything except maybe kidnapping/false imprisonment maybe add:
3. No enslaving
#2 includes stealing people’s freedom
Dangerous to allow too much extrapolation in enforcing a law, specificity is good in this area, otherwise you get proggy courts deciding that ‘overcharging’ or “paying under living wages’ is stealing.
@Jarflax:
God, it makes my blood boil when “progressives” think they have some magical ability to determine the “correct” price for something (whether labor or consumer products) just by thinking about it for two seconds.
When they complain that something is “overpriced” or people are “underpaid”, I ask them how they came to that knowledge, what the correct price should be, and how they arrived at that number. I either get a deer-in-headlights look as they realize that their logic is actually quite flimsy, or they launch in a circular argument: “That’s how much they should be paid… Because that’s how much their labor is worth… Because that’s the appropriate price for that kind of work… Because that’s how much they should be paid…”
I call it the Feelings Theory of Value. The value is whatever a person *feels* like it should be.
Semi-related; I got into a discussion with a couple non-proggy coworkers a few weeks back about teacher pay. I contended that teachers are not underpaid. They were adamant that they were. I asked “how much is enough?” multiple times and couldn’t get an answer. I gave up.
I think Jefferson proposed that all federal laws should come with a sunset date – 20 years IIRC.
And no blanket repassing. They must be voted on individually.
Yep. I’m 80% confident most federal drug laws would have lapsed by now.
Anyone else find the recent Gorsuch decision interesting? I mean it seems he came to the decision because a law was sufficiently vague to make it unconstitutional. So when do we get rid of the other 99.9% of our laws since they fall under that same criteria?
I wish…
This is on line with his disapproval of Chevron deference. It won’t be often but I do expect this will come up in the future.
The only problem, Alex, is that whatever that first new law was (law #3) would have require the first two laws to be repealed in order to follow the law.
I accept your rebuttal and will now perform seppuku. Can I have Switzy as my kaishakunin? I trust him to make a one cut beheading.
I made a decision too read it all, Gun Laws Bad! is all i got from it, well written though, Cheers!
Penalties for newly criminalized acts. This is the strongest effect of any new law. Previously innocent conduct is made criminal. People who were totally law abiding become criminals, which makes them subject to the massive power of the State. The police can now seize them; their property can be forfeited; they can be imprisoned; if they resist they can be killed, all with perfect legality.
By definition, only law abiding gun owners can possibly fall into this category. So this law has its strongest effect on people who own an Assault Rifle, but do not use it to rob anyone (already criminal), assault anyone (already criminal), or kill anyone (already criminal).
This is the true intent of gun grabbers.
“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against . . . The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers.”
…”Floyd Ferris”, bureaucrat – “Atlas Shrugged”
I probably would’ve gone to the Nazi mime performance. Wonder if Youtube would demonetize it.
Last night I tried to explain the technical specifications of what the term ‘AR-15’ actually means to my wife and my FIL, who don’t know a damn thing about guns.
I tried to explain, in vain, that any new gun legislation is in reality only doing one thing, and that is assuaging their emotional need for something to be done.
I tried to explain that my SKS is just as dangerous a weapon as an AR-15, and that in the right hands, so is my 300 WinMag, and my grandfathers old Lee Enfield.
Mental note – don’t try and discuss guns with people who know nothing about them, and can only make noises based on emotive response.
It’s the one child rule.
AR stands for automatic rifle and the 15 is how dangerous it is on a scale from 1 to 10.
Automatic Rifle, kills 15 kids per second.
Does it shoot through schools?
Just 15???
Sad.
A lot of people literally believe that the AR stands for “assault rifle”.
If I were the CEO of any one of the manufacturers, I would seriously add a DR-15 “defense rifle” to my catalog.
It’s odd. Even though I know a fair number of lefties IRL, I’ve never run into one as resolutely obtuse as what you’re describing. I always start with the very first stat that I learned in the RCMP firearms training course that I took to obtain my PAL — that 80% of all gun deaths in Canada are actually suicides. That one factoid seems to stop most of ’em dead in their tracks out of surprise, and indeed, I know of no-one who’s been shot by someone else (either in anger or accidentally) but several people (all men, and all suffering from illness) who took their own lives using firearms.
My wife (who knows nothing about firearms but is both patient and rational, probably a side-effect of being employed as a tech/financial analyst at our regional phone company) has told me that she’s learned a fair amount about firearms in our discussions, and seems to appreciate that they’re being de-mystified. She no longer fears them, but just sees ’em as another tool around the house (properly locked up, of course, but then most of my more important/expensive tools are in locked boxes).
Why do some people treat firearms like malevolent, self-aware totems, while others are perfectly capable of understanding that they’re just examples of human technology? Do we really still have so many primitives living amongst us?
Do we really still have so many primitives living amongst us?
Yes, but they are called ‘progressives’, not primitives.
mystified
Great article, and a great word to attach to gun control efforts by the left. There are hundreds of millions of firearms in the United States. Nobody can put that horse back in the barn. And nobody will prevent mass killing events, even if you take away the guns, which nobody is willing to commit to, because it means electoral suicide at least as the electorate is currently constituted. So their efforts take them in a different direction: mystify guns as much as possible. If you can’t change the facts, change the perception. If your electorate doesn’t support your law, change the electorate.
That this means people are disarmed where they’re most vulnerable, that the laws create a raft of criminals rather than punishing any, that they almost strictly afflict nonviolent law-abiders rather than violent transgressors–well, that’s incidental. They want to take your guns, but they want to destroy you.
“Progressivism” doesn’t seem to ascribe much to human will or volition. Every action someone takes is just because of some “system” that forces them to act the way they do. Just look at what else they believe:
Corporations just crank out worthless products and force people to buy them through the black magic of advertising.
Employers are “exploiting” people by paying them low wages because once a job is listed, the job-seeker has no choice but to take it.
Criminals should be pitied because it was really “society” that created the conditions that made them rob that liquor store.
Is it possible that mass shooters just fell under the wicked spell of the AR-15 and killed all those kids? Why not? It just follows the pattern of other “progressive” beliefs.
Excellent point. Progressivism is rooted in “system” changes, e.g. trust-busting.
Very good observation.
Excellent piece.
“So what is the result of our careful examination of what is actually being proposed? It appears to be a proposal to make millions of law abiding citizens into criminals and to do absolutely nothing to stop mass killings. By their fruits shall ye know them. Gun bans of any sort are targeted at law abiding gun owners. They have minimal effect on criminals and, in fact, even that minimal effect decreases as the seriousness of the crime increases. They simply cannot prevent mass killings”
To steal from suthen, Gun grabbers lie. That’s what they do.
So what you’re saying is you’re a racist nazi that wants children to die.
Not only that, but I think he may possibly be a mime as well. *shudders*
No. He is a racist Nazi mime…that wants children to die.
Good one.
Jose need to get woke. That little race traitor isn’t stepping to the right tune.
The time has come to purify Jose.
Schedule his struggle session, immediately.
“but it involves thought, so it frequently happens in our personal lives and seldom happens in politics”
True.
There can’t be that many vegans in Venezuela unless you don’t count cat as meat.
At this point I believe they have already eaten all the livestock, all the pets, all the zoo animals, and unless you count people resorting to cannibalism as eating animal meat, what is left is all vegans…
This smells of sadness and fail. And I dance.
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/17/david-hogg-calls-blackrock-vanguard-group-boycotts/
I get the sense that Hogg and the others can feel the spotlight slipping away. After the March of their Lives the media moved on — now its all about the Facebook scandal and the strikes in Syria. They were told they were going to be the beginning of real change, but the 2nd amendment is still with us, and in place of its repeal, the students have been given the consolation prize of clear backpacks.
They can feel the nation starting to settle back into apathy and they need to do something to keep the attention.
Hogg was only famous at all because big money gun grabbers needed a puppet. The national conscious has moved on and he is no longer useful. You just got used Mr. Hogg, I hope you enjoyed it.
Yep. Fifteen minutes are up. Neeexxxxxxxt!
(Jean Chretien, a previous Prime Minister of Canada who I otherwise loathed, understood very well that all public “issues” had about a two-week expiration date on them, after which the MSM/public would move on to their next shiny bauble; thus, his rule was to stonewall on anything that looked like a volatile issue until it simply went away. Worked surprisingly well.)
That was the Clinton Administration’s technique, too. They’d ignore something negative for a few weeks, and then start saying “This is old news, we’re not going to waste our time getting into this now.”
“No attack ever fed a hungry child”
Just like Cindy Sheehan – remember her?? Used by the Democrat Party during her time of emotional turmoil to help them poo-poo the Republicans, then promptly kicked to the curb as soon as President Murderdrone sat down in the big chair. She outlived her usefulness.
Just consider it a 15 minute break from TRUMPPPP!!!!, it was probably really painful to the media.
I think it’s pretty clear that he did in fact enjoy it. I’m not sure yet how he’ll feel about to going back to the bench. I’d say 10% shot he manages to leverage it into a some minor league non-profit or political gig before it’s completely gone.
Meanwhile, gun grabbers are using this opportunity to push gun grabs at the local level. They’ve learned from the gun rights lobby’ strategy over that past 30 years and are aping it now. Distract and stonewall at the national level (no suppressor repeal and no national reciprocity, I though I still feel the last is misguided) while moving the ratchet at the state and below.
He’s not thinking big enough with his boycotts – remember, none of these weapons can fire without oxygen…
Terrific piece, Jarflax!
The grabbers are frantically trying to insert anti-gun shit into unrelated bills here. These fucks will never stop.
Isn’t that how most legislation is passed these day. Make one giant bill with so much shit in it that nobody who votes on it even knows what’s in it. Be sure to insert a few funding perks for enough senators to like it, and blammo, we got us new laws.
Also add at least one totally unopposable clause, so you can demonize opponents. 545 pages of law criminalizing trade, seizing property, banning happiness, one line approving of motherhood. You vote nay.
“WHYCOME YOU HATE MOM!!!!???”
And give it a name that is the opposite of what it’s going to do.
I’m looking at you, Affordable Care Act.
The Gun Patriotic Freedom Act.
*shudders*
They don’t even need a law to get their gun grabbing done. They just have to use regulatory stuff and keep adding to the list of people who cannot own guns. Owe parking tickets? No guns. Once said something on the internet that might have been racist? No guns. Birthday fall in an odd numbered month? No guns. That may sound funny, but it’s not.
Exactly.
The “mental defective” category offers ample room for expansion. I could even envision a scenario where some “progressive” judge decides that you’ve effectively renounced your citizenship if you have made statements online saying that the federal government has no legitimate authority… I know, I know, stop giving them ideas.
Two can play that game. If you can’t be entrusted with a gun, how can you be entrusted with the right to vote?
It is about disarming the law abiding citizen. After Trump managed to derail their manifest destiny by winning an election they thought they had rigged and stolen for Hillary, they want to make sure that the next time the woke democrats have power they will only hand that off to other woke democrats.
To play Devil’s advocate.
It seems they are trying to decrease the likelihood that a mass shooter can get his hands on the implements of a mass shooting by decreasing the number of weapons out there. A point in their favor is the lack of fully automatic weapons used in these shootings as fully automatic weapons are difficult to obtain.
The Brits are working their way through this very thinking. Too much focus on the tool, and not enough on the tools who use them.
We need common sense criminal control.
Its hard to control criminals when your system is designed to prosecute victims for defending themselves. They’re too busy catching jailing and deporting people for being conservative on Twitter.
I’m not sure a full-auto weapon would help. When I was in Air Cadets (back when the world was young) we got to shoot full-auto submachineguns on training ranges during camps, and frankly, unless you’ve got a roomful of people all herded together like cattle, full-auto isn’t gonna do you a lot of good. They’re impossible to keep on target and eat ammo like there’s no tomorrow, and are better used for suppressive fire (scare the Hell out of your opponents and get ’em to keep their heads down). We were all surprised at how fast shooting one of these things was over — one or two seconds, and you’re done. Now you need another magazine. Meanwhile, the damn thing’s already starting to overheat. It doesn’t surprise me at all that milspec weapons capable of full-auto also have single-shot and double-shot mode.
Also, to split the difference on your playing Devil’s advocate, if I was a whacko and knew about some kind of choke-point where lots of people would gather, I’d use a panel van or a bomb. Those things are more like area-effect weapons, and they don’t miss as much. The Las Vegas shooting still doesn’t make any sense to me.
The Las Vegas shooting still doesn’t make any sense to me.
Truck bomb and subsequent stampede. Way more deaths.
True.
I actually remember reading a minute-by-minute narrative of the Columbine shooting based on survivor accounts and camera footage. What’s interesting is that most of the killings did not occur by the shooters firing into a crowd. What happened is as soon as the first gunshots rang out, everyone ran and hid, and they walked around the school shooting people anyone they found (but letting others go for some reason).
The rate of fire did not assist them at all. That shooting actually happened under an “assault weapons” ban.
decrease the likelihood that a mass shooter can get his hands on the implements of a mass shooting by decreasing the number of weapons out there
Fair point. Except Ingredients to make explosives can be purchased at a local hardware store. You going to ban fertilizer too?
Ok Fronk, fairly said. I would respond that 1) decreasing the number of weapons is nigh impossible in this country and 2) even if by some magic it was possible it wouldn’t actually help.
If we banned and confiscated all semi-autos, we would learn how fast a revolver can be reloaded by someone with practice. We’d learn how devastating shotguns are in crowds. If we magically banned all firearms, we’d learn about the effects of gasoline in enclosed spaces.
Think of the potential bodycount at the Pulse nightclub if the wacko had brought in a couple of gallons of gasoline instead of a firearm. Ugly, isn’t it?
Crazies gonna crazy. It ain’t the tool, it’s the user.
Many years ago, maybe 50, I remember a disgruntled patron of a club in New York (I think it may have had a Puerto Rican clientele ) got pissed off, got a can of gas and dumped it near the front door. Many deaths occurred, I don’t recall the figures and all the specifics but it was a horrible but easy to duplicate crime.
Love this piece. You break down the idiocy with great specificity.
Something I’m still peeved about-
It looked like congress was just days away from taking suppressors off the NFA list when the Vegas thing happened. Here we are, months later, and the spineless critters in Congress have not made a move.
Motherfucker, you’re a god-damned lawyer who recently evicted a 94 year-old woman from her home and you work for an evil capitalist fuck who takes advantage of other people’s misery and misfortune for profit.
In short, why the fuck should I listen to anything you have to say? I don’t have to listen to your twisted “logic” or “reasons” because they are all just Nazi BULLSHIT anyway.
Tulpa?
Definitely Tulpa
Nice try Tulpas. Trying to distract the rest of us Tulpas.
Don’t libel me. I evicted her entire family not just her.
You are a MONSTER! A MONSTER!!
Hey! Fuck Off!
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE
Great, did this glitch somehow carry over from the Reason site?
It’s TOS around here,
Tulpa
Go ahead and call it Reason if you want, Tulpa.
Guys, jeez, I’m kidding. jarflax was my best man at my wedding (and he got *bombed* at the reception) and is literally my kid’s godfather. I’m just here to give my homie some shit.
I haven’t been here in a while. I’m delighted that this Tulpa business is still a thing.
Lies! alcohol has never touched my lips
Alcohol doesn’t touch his lips because he’s holding the neck of the bottle in his teeth.
Its an old trick, but a good one.
“Don’t libel me. I evicted her entire family not just her.”
Why you so mean? You could have let them work in the mines with the orphans to pay their rent. You are a monster.
If it was her home, how was she evicted? Unless you mean she was living in someone else’s property and wasn’t paying the bill, then it wasn’t really HER home.
Home is where the heart is, Florida Man, and her heart is now on the street. The streets will be her home now.
It worked out for Aladdin…
You mean that thieving Arab from the movies?
Yeah. Had a pet monkey, scammed rich girls, had no boss. That dude had the life.
I never said that she owned the building in the capitalistic, racist, shitlord way that you mean. I mean in the real world of actually giving a fuck about people. It was her HOME. And this vile prick dragged her into court and forced her out into the cold.
Not sure if serious, but I couldn’t care less about dead beats getting the boot. Nobody owes you the use of their property.
It’s parody
YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!!
THE CAPS MEAN I’M SUPER SERIOUS!!
!!!!!!!
I had my suspicion.
DAMN, I FELT LIKE I WAS REALLY SELLING IT FOR A MINUTE!
I am one of the capitalist shitlords that employ jarflax and his legal skillz. He really did evict a 94 year old woman in the dead of winter…he just did it for me.
Congrats on the article, Jamie. Now go STEVE SMITH a deadbeat for me. Bitches gotta pay.
Dead of winter – in FLORIDA
I’m more suspicious here because the admins keep the trolls away.
Hi Tulpa, tell your mum hi.
She says hi and you still owe her a tuppence.
I don’t even know what you just said. You one them fureners or something?
Great article. Made some very good points, and made me chuckle a few times, too.
What does Pulitzer Prize winning Kendrick Lamar have to say about being woke?
If I gotta slap a pussy-ass nigga, I’ma make it look sexy
If I gotta go hard on a bitch, I’ma make it look sexy
– From “Element.”
Girl, I can buy yo’ ass the world with my paystub
Ooh, that pussy good, won’t you sit it on my taste bloods?
– From “Humble.”
Today is the day I follow my intuition
Keep the family close – get money, fuck bitches.
– From “Yah.”
To be honest, that should also win the Nobel Prize. If I ever earn a coat of arms, “Keep the family close – get money, fuck bitches” would be my heraldic motto.
Screw that, it should be made into a religion. The most concise holy text in the world.
I want to incorporate Sir Mixalot into a joke involving heraldry, but I’m too lazy to do it.
Fortunately, someone has already done it for you.
Put it in Latin so it’s classy.
I’m too lazy to do it now, but I will eventually.
Ut familia prope – paecuniam, puer canino
You’re welcome.
Will the coat itself be a phat ass with a handprint?
Yes.
I always look to top rap hits for insight and deeper meaning. Where else would I possibly find it? 😉
Also, now I’m going to listen to Humble on my way home from lunch because it’s a jam
Can you believe in 2010, Hank Williams only received a “Special Citation” from the Pulitzer committee for such profound poetry as:
What else can be said about the human condition?
That poor man. He was basically robbed; it took them a good 60 years or so to recognize the genius inherent in those lyrics.
But he had A Hot Rod Ford and a 2 dollar Bill,
/Thanks Mom! HW was great
I remember getting $2 bills from my grandma in various cards growing up. Valentine’s Day? Card and $2 bill from Grandma. St. Patrick’s Day? Card and $2 bill from Grandma. Repeat for any conceivable holiday. Like a responsible little tax payer, of course I put those into my savings account. Now I wish I’d kept at least one somewhere for the sake of novelty.
Start stripping. You can have piles of ’em.
I collected these and have a ton of them.. I must have about $10K in $2 bills stashed in my safe. I occasionally put them in my pool and swim in them while my orphans hold my monocle…
OK, the first part is true, but I do all my swimming in the ocean. Is there a market for these bills yet?
Is there a market for these bills yet?
Yes. In strip clubs.
Screw that.. I am keeping those bills until they are worth more than the $2 value..
And I don’t pay strippers…
Strippers pay ME!
When my mom died, dad took everything out of the safety deposit box and found envelopes for each of us kids. In the envelopes were (among other things) four $2 bills.
Now I can make it rain at the skrip club.
Completely & utterly OT & article but, HM, when you ascend to supreme academic administration overlord, can you please nuke the concept of Program Assessment from orbit and then salt the earth?
P.S. guess what I’m spending today doing?
I feel your pain. This AY is my program’s turn for our 5 year assessment.
OK, you win, that’s even worse. At least this shit I just have to insert a bunch of gibberish into a form. Then in 6 months a bunch of people with PhDs in Education or Communication will tell me why I’m wrong.
You all talking about that “Are you ready for some football!” guy?
I guess what I wonder, as someone who barely listens to rap (and what I do listen to is 20+ years old), is what distinguishes any of that from any other rap lyrics to the point of meriting a Pulitzer Prize?
Tangentially related:
https://twitter.com/jonfavs/status/986240510288211968
The replies are priceless.
I have ability to discern sarcasm from derp in them.
“no”
I think we may have found the problem with the Democratic party right here, Jon. Future winners, right here.
They’ll completely obliterate themselves with purity tests.
Conor Lamb ran a campaign that would get him ridden out of the Democratic Party in most places, Doug Jones had the good fortune to run against a lunatic whose campaign imploded, and….Virginia? A state that has been lurching left for 15+ years, the Dem candidate was a bland moderate-ish incumbent LTG, and the Republican was a party hack and former lobbyist? Quite an impressive case this guy makes!
They punched above their weight in those races for the reasons you stated and for the fact that they’re the party out of power; same reason they’ll have a good showing in the midterms (though I don’t think there will be as big of a “blue wave” as the media is fapping about).
These are known factors, however, and apply universally no matter who’s in power and/or the relative power of the two parties. It says nothing about the long term demographic problems within the Dem’s base coalition. They assembled a ragtag bunch of client groups under the auspices of protecting their victimhood from the big, bad world. Thus far, they have been (sort of) able to reconcile the fact that most of these client groups have mutually exclusive interests and they’re now desperately trying to fix that with “intersectionality”. Intersectionality is really just a buzz word for taking PoMo relativism to its logical conclusion, which requires tearing down and redefining objective reality. This makes them appear insane (which they are) and alienated the biggest and most powerful piece of the “Old Democrat” coalition: Blue Collar whites. On top of that, the various client groups are in the process of cannibalizing each other (in spite of the intersectionality gambit) in increasingly severe purity tests.
TL;DR – Live by identity politics, die by identity politics.
Their generic ballot lead has been steadily dropping. They’ll probably pick up some seats, maybe even score a thin majority in the House, but it’s not going to be this massive shift that everyone has been predicting.
When those generic ballots become actual Dem candidates – humorless spinsters, crazy cat-ladies, and self-hating woke-as-fuck bros – I don’t the votes materialize.
If I tweetered, I would tweeter just one line: Stop being commies.
That’s what I was thinking, until I realized they would not be able to do it. Instead I would go with: Hit yourselves in your stupid faces with bike locks until your arms get tired.
Whenever someone proposes a course of action the first thing you need to do, before you can act on the proposal, before you can even decide whether you agree with the proposal, is to understand the proposal.
This seems tiresome and unnecessary.
Its worse — its actually a total lie from the patriarchy that has been used to brainwash the masses for MILLIONS of years. You can’t truly “understand” anything. Its just the lie that opens the door to a flood of other lies like “evidence,” “logic” and “reason” — all tools to keep white cis men in power.
“By definition, only law abiding gun owners can possibly fall into this category”
Whadabout upskirt photographers in Massachusetts?
Why Massachusetts? Is it because it is the land of the massholes?
OT
WSJ does a deep dive into Podesta-World
(primarily Tony, and his lobbying firm; but when you realize that what he was really trading in was “access to State Dept + clinton-friendly lawmakers” – its easy to see how John figures in)
it provides a glimpse of the sort of world in which Clinton-people operated. Its so slimy you will need an antiseptic-shower afterward. The interesting angle is that Mueller’s investigation of Manafort may have been final straw that undid his little empire. Which you’ve probably never heard about before, because – shocker – news media are disinterested in any angles which shed light on Clintonesque slime.
Paywalled, but I’m guessing that any details of exactly how slimy politicians run their slimy machines is going to make me want to take a showed.
DC politicians are among the lowest scum on earth.
“Paywalled”
right-click, open in private windo
nope, didn’t work
Works with Chrome.
Not mine…
Did you try ctrl+shift+N?
That only works for WaPo and the like. WSJ, you can try to find an archived copy.
(shrug) worked for me. I got a link thru tweeters and it opened up w/ full story.
the WJS’s paywall is indeed sort of a perpetual mystery. Some things are easy to bypass, other times its impossible.
I was able to get past the paywall using the method above in Firefox.
I think a subtext which might be missed is that all of Tony’s “Vacations” to art shows and art-buying habits are very-likely part of his own ‘shadow business’, where he can meet foreign contacts, trade art which ends up transferring huge (unrealized, unassessed) values to himself, and which he can avoid having ever show as part of his direct lobbying efforts.
All the podesta group did was act as bag-men for shady fuckers to bribe officials. when they lost their core ‘in’ (via the clintons) that was one blow. When special prosecutors started sniffing around their past work, that was the killing blow.
Good link. I forgot that Hilary dressed like Chairman Mao.
What this doesn’t take into account is the retarded prog logic of the Precautionary Principle. Of course everyone here agrees that the Precautionary Principle is horseshit, to a bleeding heart “if it saves just one child!” is a persuasive argument. Never mind the fact that, taken to its logical conclusion, the Precautionary Principle leads to the entire population living in hermetically sealed bubbles sacrificing all liberty for the maximum amount of safety.
This is of course the True Believer prog base’s thought process, the prog overlords just want to disarm the populace so they can impose their tyrannical will more efficiently.
Great article! I’ve been thinking about how to stop the slide that’s occurred over the past 200+ years.
I) 90% vote in Congress required to pass a new law and only 10% required to repeal a law. No filibuster allowed to prevent repeals.
2) If a law is found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, all congressmen who voted in favor of the law and all judges who upheld the law at a lower level are automatically fired with loss of all benefits and charged with treason.
It’s extreme, but I think it would be effective at preventing the steady degradation of freedom we’ve witnessed. Might also change the type of people who go into politics at a fundamental level.
1) amend constitution to get rid of 90/10 rule
2) stack the court with judges that believe in a living constitution.
1) Enshrine the Bill of Rights and 90/10 rule as not amendable
2) Good point
I really believe in the ingenuity of man (sexist!). Any system you can come up with, someone else can subvert. It’s fun to think about, though.
Agreed.
Sorry Mr. Corwin, but perhaps the stupidest flaw in the Constitution was not making the clause about what is and is not unamendable, unamendable. I think that’s the most straightforward reading (though haven’t really read the arguments on either side), but here’s a case where I might not mind a bit of activism because it’s just so clearly a mistake. Generally though, I hate amendments prima facie and am glad our political culture in this country is in having an extremely short constitution and regarding it as almost a divinely gifted document of our civic religion, barely fucking with it.
You might be able to partially deal with 2 by eliminating lifetime judicial appointments.
Preventing the erosion of individual liberty is going to require an attack on many fronts.
Another big one is getting control of schools away from the government. Sure, market forces will prevail and there will still be private schools that teach “progressive” bullshit (perhaps even more extreme than what’s in government schools now) but I think on the whole, it will greatly reduce the complacency and intellectual laziness of the population.
perhaps even more extreme than what’s in government schools now-
Like the primary school from “Auntie Mame”?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PzOw8ZP4QRk
Absolutely. One of my early thoughts before venturing into libertarianism was that politicians should be required to send their children to the lowest performing public school in the area of their district as long as education was compulsory.
Better to end public schools period, but as long as we have them, I still like that idea.
It’s not accidental that the most powerful and influential backers of the broken public schools system the rest of us are being told we better accept, send their own kids to ultra expensive private schools…
“Another big one is getting control of schools away from the government.”
That’s not another big one, that is THE big one. Kids are being indoctrinated in leftist ideology and all sorts of wacky identity politics. And it’s not starting at college now, or even high school, it’s starting in pre-school and the early elementary years. You want to stop that, there’s only one way, destroy the public school system.
They sure are not learning any skills that would make them ready to join and earn a honest living the real world anymore.
^So much this. If we get the schools and the entertainment media away from the progs we win. Even their Great Society vote buys aren’t as key to their success. They win because they have defined the questions in the popular mind.
They can’t win in a free marketplace of ideas. Which is why you have Twitter, Facebook, Google and Youtube hiring armies of censors to silence any dissenting voices against their leftist narrative. They’ve been getting bitch stomped to a very humiliating degree all over the internet for a couple of years now. Their only defense is to silence dissent. They fail to do so and it’s game over.
The constitution should have come with a “definitions” addendum. It also should have come with teeth. Violating the constitution has no penalty right now. Harsh penalties would be nice.
Politician who passes an unconstitutional law has his law struck from the books and all politicians who voted for it are stripped of office and publicly flogged. Dame goes for any other government employee whose actions violate the constitution.
Re: Criminal Law
I was trying to find out the other day whether it was a crime to kill a slave in Republican Rome. The answer is no. But in their partial defense, it wasn’t a crime to kill any private person in Republican Rome! It may seem odd today, but in Rome if you weren’t killing a state official, the state didn’t think it was their concern. How would things work if you killed someone? Pretty much as they do now, just…minus the arrest and criminal trial. The heirs, relatives, or (in the case of slaves) owners of your vic would seek civil damages from you–and, if the person you killed happened to be your slave, then obviously your penalty was simply the wanton destruction of your own expensive property.
A more modern example that might surprise you: Did you know that trespassing is not a crime in the UK? It’s true! The very first exceptions to this in British history crept in during the early 1990s, when–apparently in an effort to appear as cartoonishly Tory as possible–the Government made trespassing on private property a crime in three specific situations: interfering with a hunt; protesting; and raving. I shit you not. (And no, I do not mean “squatting to organize a musical concert.” I mean raving. The music in question, for example, must have “repetitive beats.”)
To HMG’s credit, they had never gone the KIng’s Men route in this case. Even trespassing on state property had never been criminalized. This changed only later, during the Blair Government, when some insane dude broke in to the present Queen’s bedroom in Buckingham Palace. (The British Royals are actually a pretty tough lot, so HM didn’t act like some dumb girl from the cornfields in her first confrontation with the dangers of the city; she played it chill without batting an eyelash and kept him calm and occupied until help arrived.)
Trespassing has long been a crime in the U.S., of course, which is exactly ass backwards from what you’d expect it to be. Here we of course have some of the strongest legal permissions to defend life and property–with the permissions getting even stronger the further west you go; whereas in the UK they have been continually getting more and more absurd (as they certainly will here eventually, since with any peculiarities of American legal and political culture–except, perhaps, our abortion law–now openly regarded as an embarrassing and disgraceful primitivism and lack of “progress” by the left two-thirds of our political spectrum, they are certainly on borrowed time). For example, in London two weeks ago two burglars broke into a 78-year-old man’s house in a poor neighborhood. During the physical confrontation the old man managed to grab a screwdriver and stab one of them through the heart, who later died after the two then fled. Scotland Yard arrested the old man and charged him with murder. They oppose such vigilantism, and opine that taking the law into your own hands like that should not be necessary. The government has been installing a whole lot of CCTV cameras, you see.
Thank you, Jarflax, for a great article. I know many people who should be compelled to read it, yet would never darken the doorstep of a site with “libertarian” in the center of the name. *sigh*
Read them some high points? Maybe if they like a few phrases, they’ll ask where they can read the whole thing?
This is the depressing truth. The miracles of modern communication make instant access to every shade of opinion, and every bit of human knowledge available. Unfortunately the same miracles allow us all to sit in our own echo chambers. Seems the latter wins.
People like to think they are smart, and these days just believing in something woke people tell you is what makes you smart – especially marxist nonsense – is en vogue. Even the dumbest fucks can pretend to be smart by parroting this nonsense. Actually investing time in understanding things and having logical arguments to back your beliefs – what would make you smart – would expose a lot of people that now place themselves in the smart column as morons.
Hogg was only famous at all because big money gun grabbers needed a puppet. The national conscious has moved on and he is no longer useful. You just got used Mr. Hogg, I hope you enjoyed it.
He definitely enjoyed having Michael Bloomberg’s hand up his ass.
It would have to be that way, instead of vice versa–because as tight-assed as Mike Bloomberg is, I don’t think even he would feel it if Hogg’s arm was up his own ass. Have you seen that kid’s arms? I never seen anything like that on a grown man. Freaks me the fuck out. Kid is so damn unsettling looking all around, gives me the creeps.
Neoliberal Cosmic Dancer @EtreEtro · 16h16 hours ago
Jon, we don’t need more straight white men trying to make money off of ignoring the Democratic party base and pandering to other straight white men for money and attention. You really are showing yourself
“When I look in the mirror, I see the Democratic Party. I see democracy. I see America!”
Take a seat. I’ve got some news for you, Shirley, and you won’t like it.
Egg McMuffin in hot water with the FEC.
As much as I dislike McMuffin, this is a pretty clear example of how campaign finance laws are used to hamper outsiders who naively think they can participate in politics.
Which is why they exist. I still think Citizen’s United did not go far enough. Political speech is the core of the first amendment and I have never bought the idea that ANY justification can allow for limits on amounts donated to campaigns, or reporting requirements. The right to speak is not limited as to the amount of speech a single person is allowed nor is it contingent on your identity being known. Anonymity is often necessary to allow full expression of controversial opinions, in fact the Federalist Papers were themselves published under a pseudonym. Campaign finance laws stifle speech and support the status quo.
OT: I finhed my reading list. Any recommendations for a fun to read series of books on world history? Basically something to walk me through the rise of civilization until now. It doesn’t need to be super detailed, just general knowledge. Thanks in advance.
I picked up an old copy of H.G. Wells’ A Short History of the World at a used book store. It sounds like exactly what you’re looking for, and it’s written in an interesting way, not dry and boring like some history books can be.
Awesome. Thanks.
Ordered. I also got “Rebel Yell” and “The Rise and Fall of Society” . That should kept me occupied for a few weeks.
Not a series, but try Blainey, “A Short History of the World.” He’s an Australian so you get something of a different take. He’s also taken on multiculturalists in the past. Bonus: good reference section which will lead you to more detailed sources for most topics.
Added the AmazonSmile supporting the NRA list.
Not really a book per se, but The Wall Chart of World History is a fun old classic (I don’t normally recommend old history books) and can be perused like a book for a great overview of the flow of things and tidbits you might not have picked up.
If I was single, I’d get it in a heart beat. My wife is less nerdy in her decorating style.
It’s not what you’re looking for, but I read Fool’s Errand by Scott horton a few nights ago. It’s history and it will piss you off, if you’re into that sort of thing.
On the rise of civilization a good book on how it happened and why it arose in different places and different times is, Guns germs and steel by jared diamond.
I’m trying to get that anger monkey off my back, so I’ll probably pass. I heard some criticism on the Guns, Germs, Steel book as I’m not to rigorous in the research. Not sure.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is an interesting read. I’m not sure Diamond really proves anything in it, but he definitely puts out an interesting theory about the how and why of certain geopolitical trends. It’s worth reading IMHO.
You’re probably right that nothing was proved, but I think his theory is probably unprovable. He gives pretty compelling evidence (at least to me, a nonanthropologist) for it though. His book made sense to me.
Alright. Added to the list.
Agreed – it’s interesting stuff, and worth thinking about, even if it’s not 100% correct.
It doesn’t cover the whole of human history, but a useful “opposite” to “Guns, Germs, & Steel,” is David S. Landes, “The Wealth & Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So RIch and Some So Poor.” He accepts biological, etc. factors but argues for the importance of culture, ingenuity, etc.
Their generic ballot lead has been steadily dropping. They’ll probably pick up some seats, maybe even score a thin majority in the House, but it’s not going to be this massive shift that everyone has been predicting.
I’m not sure about the House, but what I have seen regarding the simple mechanics of the Senate, this time around (like who’s actually up for re-election and where) leads me to think the likelihood of the Demos getting the Senate is pretty much nil. I’m probably wrong, but I think that Blue Tsunami is all in their heads.
I think the Democrats may be galvanizing their hardcore supporters even more, but I don’t believe that very many fence-sitters have come over to their side since the election. They’re just becoming more and more loony with these Russia-gate fever dreams and probably scaring more people away.
Plus, people are seeing more money on their paychecks after the tax bill, and it’s hard to ignore that.
Pretty much this. And the taxes in blue states will be going up because the state and local tax deduction is now limited.
I think people are wising up to the fact that all these silly-ass national stories are only to distract from the fact that state and local government pensions are a fucking disaster that can’t be solved with bailouts and tax increases.
It will only be going up in highly taxed blue states for people who have overpriced McMansions. Most people will just itemize now that the deduction has doubled. Anyway, aren’t those rich blue staters the same people who say they want to pay more taxes? So they should be happy as well. Even more hilarious is states like Cali saying they are going to confiscate half of the savings from tax cuts for corporations. That’s going to go well. I mean I know most of us already have, but it’s time everyone realizes that Democrats have no economic plan, at all. The personal tax cuts have been really nice for my wife and I, but it really does pale in comparison to the corporate cuts. If the Democrats want to repeal that, they’d better get rid of Trump now, replace him with a Dem prez and Dem congress and they’ll have to do it before tax time next year. Otherwise, they’re never going to be able to do it.
My state is decoupling some portions of how they handle tax treatment from the Feds’ methods to gain more (or retain) revenue. It was spun in the local media as a rollback of tax changes, rather than the tax hike that it really was.
No surprises there. I expect MD to follow suit any moment now. And I’m one tax increase from leaving. So they can have at it.
I still give them the House even in my most optimistic days, but not the Senate even at my most panicky. The numbers are just not there. The Republicans will pick up Senate seats pretty much no matter what they do.
The Democratic party spent all the years of Obama’s administration, post-cash-for-clunkers, shitting all over blue collar white workers (aka Reagan Democrats). These folks gave the rust belt to Trump.
Nothing since the election indicates the Democratic party understands this. Fever dreams of a blue shift are driven by Trump Derangement — he is so evil, somehow the electorate will come to their senses and throw team red off the island. It isn’t going to happen.
The party of out power gains seats. That will happen. The courts have imposed their will on redistricting. That will put some Republicans on the street. But blue collars works are still not going to given as shit about otherkind rights.
It isn’t blue collar workers. The Dem leadership fucking hates the private sector, period. They’re going to start losing support from the professional classes.
It’s no longer just blue collar workers. Many professionals, liberal in nature, are just as deplorable as factory workers. It’s just taking a while for the party to get around to them too.
Too much of the professional classes buys into what the Democrats are selling, even if the leadership or other parts of the party are contemptuous of them.
The professional classes also think that they’ll be part of the ruling elite once the Glorious Revolution comes to fruition.
In addition, they get to assuage their privilege guilt and get warm fuzzies by virtue signaling their compassion for the pathetic downtrodden masses.
The saddest part is when you explain to them that historically speaking, when they finally achieve their political goals, they will be in the second wave of people purged, jailed or executed.
They think they are too clever to end up with their backs against the wall.
I think a big part of it is cultural snobbery. They want to be part of that rather than being associated with those rural hicks and their low class pursuits and thinking. Combined with K-16+ brainwashing.
Bingo.
The greatest fear of the upper middle class is being seen as unfashionable and gauche.
I think “freedom for me but not for thee” is a pillar of Democrat thought.
I actually know people who support stricter gun control but own AR-15s and hold CCW permits. They just think the standards to exercise these rights should be tightened considerably, and of course, they have deemed themselves qualified.
Truly, these shuhada have been rewarded with Jannah for their istishhad.
The Republicans will pick up Senate seats pretty much no matter what they do.
I’d really like to see that fat fuck Tester get bounced out on his ass.
OT: As posted in the Morning Lynx, there is another attention whoring Playmate coming out and saying she screwed the Donald. I know this is a cynical attempt by the DemOp/Media Complex to try and drive a wedge between Trump and the Evangelicals but my question is; do they even care? It seems to me that ship sailed when he won in ’16. If they weren’t going to support him, they would have done it then, not now.
Is anyone surprised that a billionaire who openly bragged about being a poon hound… is a poon hound? No wonder people don’t trust journalists.
Counter-op: bring out all the chicks he banged that don’t complain. You know, show a history of being a non-rapey poon hound.
I don’t think anyone cares. Everyone who voted Trump knew exactly what his personal life was like, he’s on his third wife or somesuch, with previous divorces for infidelity. The revelation that an adulterer committed more adultery at some point in the past isn’t going to phase anyone, certainly isn’t going to drive any great outrage. Those who cared about the adultery will already be found in the ‘NeverTrump’ camp, and new extramarital affairs will not drive more down that road.
In general, support for Trump has less to do with Trump himself than with the reactions people Trump supporters hate have to Trump. Just the impression I’ve always gotten. Thus, all these revelations about how awful Trump is don’t move the needle. His supporters mostly don’t give two shits about Trump the man.
I’m still trying to figure out if a president’s private sexual philandering is irrelevant to the job he does (as is the case with JFK and Bill Clinton) or if it’s the foulest moral crime imaginable and an immediate disqualification for holding that office (as seems to be the case with Trump).
It’s a party-dependant variable, Akira.
Bill Clinton? You mean Hillary’s husband? Is he still alive?
Also, JFK was basically a Republican. And that was like a hundred years ago, and it’s just whataboutism anyway.
/things I’m guessing have been uttered on MSNBC
We all know that Trump slept with those women, right? He’s a thrice married serial adulterer. But, Evangelicals have no choice, but vote Republican. The Democrats are in an open war against Christians.
Democrat: How can evangelicals vote for Trump? So much for family values hypocrite
“Libertarian”: Bake the cake, bigot
Also Democrats: The pee pee law applies to your church, too, bigot
“Libertarian”: Religious liberty is a black hole
Also Democrats: Pay for birth control, you anti-woman nun
Also Democrats: Your religious faith is troubling and should disqualify you from holding a government job
What choice do they have but vote Republican? Should they vote for Democrats or the controlled opposition that is the Libertarian Party? What’s really the difference between those two at this point?
Trump or not, their only option is voting Republican and I don’t blame them
Trump has Dems talking about family values and the sanctity of marriage. Maybe he’s going to hell, but he’s doing the lord’s work.
It’s rather amusing to watch them trash family values in regards to Pence and then defend family values in regards to Trump almost in the same breath.
We’re seeing conservatives become the real civil libertarians, at least with regards to religious liberty and freedom of association, as mainstream libertarians are more concerned with bending the knee
They don’t. My mom an dad are in their late 60s. They got married fresh out of high school and have been together almost 50 years and have been, as far as I can tell, always faithful to one another. They both go to their Southern Baptist church every time the doors are open. They read the bible to each other nightly. Neither drinks, nor ever has. They are part of the prayer chain. My dad is a deacon. They tithe and then donate both time and money on type of that. They are the very model of loving, committed Christian evangelicals. (Not the stereotype liberals like to present).
They do not give a shit. My mom shared on facebook a post from their pastor; ‘We didn’t elect Trump to be our preacher, we elected him to be President.’ with the comment ‘Who the President had sex with before being President is between him, the woman, his wife and god. He’s doing a good job. I support President Trump’. I’ve heard my dad go on about David and Solomon and etc. and how if God can use those guys, he can use Trump.
tl;dr Nope. No fucks given.
If Trump would just stick to fucking Playboy Playmates at Mar a Lago, I think we’d all be better off.
Also who is my illustrator? I need to send them a share of the sweet internet cash I’m earning.
How many hours did it take to write? multiply that by 98,543$ and Google will cut you a Check,
or so I’m told
I accept cash or checks.
✔ ✔ ✔
oh well it didn’t work, supposed toe be checkmarks
I CAN SEE THEM!
I see four lights.
*AHEM*
I happened to edit and image this post.
*glares at Lachowsky*
Have some czechs
Re: The link in the last thread about the Dems benefiting from the tax cut.
It is hilarious watching Dems complain about raising taxes on the rich.
This reminds me of the guy who bought a family’s worth of shit at the movie theater concession where I worked. After hearing the price, he said “somebody should boycott this!”
My reaction.
Buckets of popcorn are a natural right!
The miracles of modern communication make instant access to every shade of opinion, and every bit of human knowledge available. Unfortunately the same miracles allow us all to sit in our own echo chambers. Seems the latter wins.
Not to brag, but… I spend a lot more time reading NYT, WaPo and the Atlantic than National Review or (heaven forbid) FOX. Mostly just for the lulz, but also to familiarize myself with their so-called “arguments”.
*argument-by-assertion is really just whining.
This is where proglibs are at a great disadvantage: mainstream culture is so thoroughly leftist that they have to go out of their way to try and understand the “other side”. It’s no wonder that to many of them the fact that anyone believes differently than they do is beyond unbelievable. The truth of reality is self-evident! Just look around, everything confirms my beliefs!
Conversely, those of us that actually do have “unorthodox” views are confronted by the oppositions arguments all the time so we’re more prepared to counter them (not that lefties care about logic in any case, but you get what I mean).
Too much of the professional classes buys into what the Democrats are selling, even if the leadership or other parts of the party are contemptuous of them.
For some reason or other, I was surprised that the professional/financial classes didn’t see the Occupy movement as an existential threat. A large part of the progressive movement is avowedly anti-capitalist and openly hostile to them (until check-writing time comes around).
Maybe they just viewed the self-styled Jacobins as so risibly ineffectual as to be harmless. I’m not sure they’re right.
“Maybe they just viewed the self-styled Jacobins as so risibly ineffectual as to be harmless”
They are ineffectual… right up until they aren’t. If they get enough support and have enough numbers to reach critical mass, then you get the French Revolution. Mobs don’t have to be smart, principled or persuasive to commit violence.
don’t have to be smart, principled or persuasive to commit violence.-
That’s basically my mantra.
Eh, individuals possibly see themselves as those Occupiers or at least sympathetic to them, even if the goals are ultimately harmful. A number of people inside big corporations still hate and despise the corporashuns.
That’s because a large contingent of those classes are self loathing idiots
I wish I had a transcript of this. I heard the last two minutes on air, and was flabbergasted by the professor who thinks that the appropriate apology for using a racist term, even if it was used in an overly familiar but not hateful way, is to dedicate your life to fighting racism and that you cannot be forgiven.
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/04/18/racist-snapchat-message-suny-plattsburgh
OT: Is there a way to purify furniture of bedbugs?
I’m looking at a small bench / settee on Craigslist, and I was just wondering if there was anything I could do to kill any bedbugs or their eggs that may be inside. It could be perfectly fine, but I’m paranoid about those damn things. I can’t afford to drop thousands of dollars to get a whole-house bedbug treatment.
Any ideas?
Steam?
Yes. 135 degrees F for two hours will kill the bugs and their eggs.
I pondered getting into the bedbug business a few years back. The tented dry heat method is the most effective and least problematic solution. The next best option is to tent the furniture and gas it with the same pesticide they use for termites, the name of which escapes me right now. That stuff kills everything.
VX.
/Syrian Army
Don’t buy it. I wouldn’t buy used furniture since bedbugs have made a comeback.
If you have a Garage, you can put a bomb in there and kill the Live ones, but you have to do this at least 3 times over a 6 week period, ask me how I know,
/$2000 mattress
Set it on fire after dowsing with gasoline. I hear that works every time.
I haven’t bought any used furniture since I got a couch a few years ago that gave me bedbugs. That was a nightmare. I had to pay 500 bucks for the extermination and that sucked. But laundering every piece of cloth in my house took about a week of non stop doing laundry.
One benefit was, my wife and I cleaned our house better than it has been done before or since. My house was spotless for awhile post bedbug.
Everyone, please welcome Morrissey to the ranks of the deplorables!
Comments on this article are, of course, “unavailable.”
So, what’s wrong with Kahn? He ain’t be woke? Where’s that common sense knife control he promised? They told me a woke dude could deliver? So why are knives still killing people?
He’s spot on.
“Progressives” are not calling people racist because they actually think they’re racist – it’s because they disagree with the “progressive” point of view. Calling your opponent racist is just the standard opening move.
I think much of Trump’s alleged racism is actually his wise refusal to backpedal and apologize when “progressives” call him racist. He is at least smart enough to figure out that they’re going to say that literally no matter what he does, so there’s no point in making yourself look weak.
Good article. “Would” Jose
Another blow to the CFPB!
Long derided by auto dealers, the CFPB rule restricted their ability to charge extra interest on certain loans offered at dealerships. The CFPB said it developed the rule because some minority borrowers were charged more than white borrowers through a practice called “dealer markups.”
The CFPB levied tens of millions of dollars in fines on auto lenders between 2013 and 2016, including Ally Financial Inc. and Toyota Motor Credit Corp.
Opponents of the rule accused the bureau of overstepping its jurisdiction, arguing that the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial legislation didn’t give the CPFB authority to regulate auto dealers. Critics also questioned the methodology the agency used to identify discrimination.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-votes-to-end-auto-loan-anti-discrimination-rule-1524078961
How about just eliminating the CFPB while they’re at it? Yeah right.
It’s not as though Mulvaney isn’t trying…
Nuke it from fucking space, let the public school system be collateral damage. No, I don’t mean literally nuke actual physical school buildings from space, get your britches back on, Preet.
Man, these Rethuglicans are killing the wiminz, chillins, and color folk, just like we warned you!
Any ideas?
Hartz makes a spray they market as a flea and tick killer for carpets, pet bedding, et c. It works on the eggs and larvae, too. Don’t know if it would work on bedbugs, but maybe you could check.
“Er, hello. If we can prevent guns getting in the hands of the mentally ill! That’s the point. No one wants your guns!”
How do you answer this standard prog fare?
Good article.
My answer to that would be:
“Mental illness is rarely cut and dry. There’s no guarantee that some government-appointed psychologist is not going to use a ridiculously broad definition. They could easily classify everyone as mentally ill just for holding opinions that are slightly eccentric or controversial, or for having very minor anxiety or anger issues. You can see this in the Soviet Union; everyone who spoke out against the government was deemed mentally ill and imprisoned. Furthermore, people who are truly insane are often very good at acting sane to get what they want.
Also, the measures typically proposed – like “temporary” gun confiscation for those who report having mental issues – probably serve to discourage people from getting help for fear of losing their rights.
I think a far better way to address mass shootings (which are still a minuscule problem) would be to allow greater availability of mental health services* so that mentally ill people can get themselves into some kind of facility to recover.”
* It may be necessary to explain that this should be done through de-regulation so that market forces can work, not a government takeover of mental health services.
The mentally ill are far more likely to have violence done to them than to commit violence. Why would someone want to disarm a vulnerable person?
I don’t think people have thought through the implications and possible consequences when they want guns ‘kept out of the mentally ill’.
The Gulag Archipelago should be MANDATORY reading in North American schools.
Then make a suggestion that addresses mental health rather than merely criminalizing law-abiding behavior, you pillock.