gato, your posts make me feel less lonely in this madness. That is exactly what I hammer into my kid - “see how they made this ad? See how they shot this scene? Look behind, it’s all very fake.” It helps that I worked in communications and now on TV, I can tell her what happens behind the scenes. So far, she loves it. Fingers crossed she’ll grow up into a questioning adult.
In California, a state legislator has introduced a bill, SB 1100, that would allow local legislative bodies to prevent "disruption" by silencing and ejecting speakers, or even clearing the entire audience and continuing an "open session" behind a locked door with no one watching. The bill was introduced behind the short title "Public meetings; orderly conduct."
Brilliant!! We did this with our gullible, greedy 4-year old granddaughter who was lusting over the current thing and you could see the wonder and lust for the toy drain from her little face and be replaced by an old soul's cynicism. And you're correct; it became a game from that moment on. "Marketing," she'd say, looking bored, and then she would do something else. She has become a discerning, intelligent young adult who, as far as I know, has fallen for nothing. She has outwitted her university and never received the vaccine despite taking in-person classes and playing on a varsity sports team. Of course, she is a conservative. That early eye-opening lesson has served her well. It has become the stuff of legends in our home, as well.
"then, one day, you try to protest a school board for muzzling your children in class and they silence you, bar you from discourse, and, in all too predictable fashion, brand you as a fascist and a nazi and as a domestic terrorist."
Or you stage a massive, peaceful, inclusive protest on behalf of OTHERS' rights and freedoms, and they not only brand you a fascist, a racist, and a terrorist, but then they pass a post facto law making your peaceful protest illegal, and THEN they summarily and without one iota of due process confiscate your money and your property. See: Canada, and the POS human debris Justin Trudeau.
First thing is I need to congratulate your grandparents or celebrate their blessed memory because they must have done an extraordinary job raising your parents. This kind of wisdom ain't found in the bargain section.
I didn't have such parents but I did have the experience of grappling with the (news of the) Nazis marching in Skokie being defended by the ACLU and having to think really hard about that situation.
And imagine, here we are with the current iteration of the ACLU demanding we say men are women or else be burned at the stake. Things degrade quickly fer shure. And everyone's captured. I started watching Fox News last year or so after being driven by idiocy from MSNBC and CNN, and everyone--everyone, including even Tucker Carlson, refer to Caitlyn Jenner and Lia Thomas as "she" and "her" in discussing the encroachment of men in women's sports. (First typed "biological" and then realized what even I was doing here. See how bad it it?)
I mean, would Fox fire them or reprimand them if they don't conform to this now? What is compelling this conformity even in what we'd call a hostile-to-the-concept environment?
Anyway, a wonderful post and ought to be distributed to every fifth grade classroom so they can save their little siblings.
But the training on willful blindness started so many centuries ago and in some of the most intellectual quarters. I won't go further 'cause I don't want to start a firefight.
Regarding free speech in today's world: I am often dumbfounded by the amount of people who choose be be offended by something and advocate for shutting it down in an age where there are literally thousands of TV channels and millions of websites. Umm... aren't we allowed to just turn the channel? Last time I checked no one is forcing anyone to read, watch or follow something that offends them.
"this should be taught in school, but instead, they teach the opposite and seek to maximize indoctrination and inculcation"
And what is the following thing to protect right after securing free speech?
Public education or any involvement of the government on education should be absolutely eliminated. It was also sold as something that was necessary because otherwise some parents would not be able to educate their sons ... which is so false that it hurts me whenever any of my friends say it (all do).
Climate change is next. Everything they want to accomplish is based on the premise of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Only "science" that supports the premise gets funded. Real science is abandoned as a result. The full-court press for acquiescence to the narrative starts in pre-school. Its adherents are now fixed in the boards of directors for industry. The goal is to destroy that god-damned annoying US constitution, which repeatedly steps in the path of globalist progress.
Our schools are captured by corporations who want them to churn out cogs that can be bought and inserted into their corporate machines. The resilience our schools used to have to resist this corporate push has disintegrated because we, as a society, have told highly competent women that fields like finance and engineering were more honorable than teaching. We eliminated competition in education by encouraging the best teachers to go into other fields. We've devalued the aspects of society that made our schools great. All of this was done with good intentions (another Trojan horse if you will) but has had dire consequences.
Free speech is like pregnancy--you either are or you aren't. No middle ground.
Some times free speech is destroyed by a "positive" goal--slamming the door on anyone who denies the Holocaust, for example. It includes such disparate people as those who deny anything happened, those who say that maybe 3 million, not 6 million Jews perished, and even those who try to include the tens of millions of others who died at the hands of Nazi Germany (see Prof Norman Davies who was denied tenure at Stanford for having the temerity to open up discussion to this possibility.)
okay your first mistake as a youngster was saying "I want that" instead of "I need that"! :-) JK- I had parents who saw through the hype and passed it on by making most of my "I wants"- including bikes from several gathered at the local dump (there were some great bikes assembled from three or more!) I made a game with my daughter about her "wanting" vs "needing" something. A great rule of thumb in our family is writing it down and then going back a week later and seeing how great your "need" (want) is. Short-lived most times. Funny thing is I have 3 siblings who have NEVER caught onto this and interestingly enough fell into the very thing you continue to talk about- instantly jumping on the latest band wagon because "he/she/expert said so", and pointing fingers at those who DO question, and never seeing how in the long run they will not be immune to the imposed rules? How do people from the same family grow up to have such different mindsets and ability to actually think things out? Guess we will never know...
A slightly different tactic is to treat something as a given when it is not. I keep hearing Ukraine is good, the government is a shining star, Zelenski is a freedom fighter as the bases for the argument they are about to make for say... justification to do something the American people would generally disapprove of. But we can do this because we defend good. So perhaps we could call it Noble Purpose Lie. Ditto for global warming. They use it there too. You may not question the "fact". I hear people around me repeat it. I call bullshit on it and then point to a few actual truths about Ukraine that are not at all gloriously freedomy. Sometimes it shuts them up, sometimes they note my stance so they can write me up in the Commie notebook (you know, the one they have been so happy to be in with their Maoist notions, but now... UKRAINE!).
I like Ukrainians. But their government aint the bastion of freedom.
Parents must help children develop their BS detectors to challenge authority from a young age.
gato, your posts make me feel less lonely in this madness. That is exactly what I hammer into my kid - “see how they made this ad? See how they shot this scene? Look behind, it’s all very fake.” It helps that I worked in communications and now on TV, I can tell her what happens behind the scenes. So far, she loves it. Fingers crossed she’ll grow up into a questioning adult.
The left thrives on equivocation:
- Your speech is violence, my violence is speech
- Your rights are privilges, my privileges are rights
- Your truth is relative, my relative take is truth
- Your worldview is an oppressive metanarratve, my metanarrative is the correct worldview
- Your hatred is bad, my hatred is good
- Your virtue is a deception, my deception is a virtue
Wow, I could continue this all day. I'm going to stop now.
Nowadays when my kids see an ad for a toy, they just press “Skip Ad”. My, how the times have changed.
In California, a state legislator has introduced a bill, SB 1100, that would allow local legislative bodies to prevent "disruption" by silencing and ejecting speakers, or even clearing the entire audience and continuing an "open session" behind a locked door with no one watching. The bill was introduced behind the short title "Public meetings; orderly conduct."
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1100
The sell is that anti-LGBT speakers, absolute mean NAZIS!!!!, have been "bullying" a suburban city council in the Bay Area:
https://www.ktvu.com/news/whats-being-done-to-protect-los-gatos-mayor-who-is-bullied-harassed-at-meetings
It's exactly what you've described here. We need the power to silence you, because of the evil bigots! You're not in favor of EVIL BIGOTS, are you!?!?
Brilliant!! We did this with our gullible, greedy 4-year old granddaughter who was lusting over the current thing and you could see the wonder and lust for the toy drain from her little face and be replaced by an old soul's cynicism. And you're correct; it became a game from that moment on. "Marketing," she'd say, looking bored, and then she would do something else. She has become a discerning, intelligent young adult who, as far as I know, has fallen for nothing. She has outwitted her university and never received the vaccine despite taking in-person classes and playing on a varsity sports team. Of course, she is a conservative. That early eye-opening lesson has served her well. It has become the stuff of legends in our home, as well.
"then, one day, you try to protest a school board for muzzling your children in class and they silence you, bar you from discourse, and, in all too predictable fashion, brand you as a fascist and a nazi and as a domestic terrorist."
Or you stage a massive, peaceful, inclusive protest on behalf of OTHERS' rights and freedoms, and they not only brand you a fascist, a racist, and a terrorist, but then they pass a post facto law making your peaceful protest illegal, and THEN they summarily and without one iota of due process confiscate your money and your property. See: Canada, and the POS human debris Justin Trudeau.
First thing is I need to congratulate your grandparents or celebrate their blessed memory because they must have done an extraordinary job raising your parents. This kind of wisdom ain't found in the bargain section.
I didn't have such parents but I did have the experience of grappling with the (news of the) Nazis marching in Skokie being defended by the ACLU and having to think really hard about that situation.
And imagine, here we are with the current iteration of the ACLU demanding we say men are women or else be burned at the stake. Things degrade quickly fer shure. And everyone's captured. I started watching Fox News last year or so after being driven by idiocy from MSNBC and CNN, and everyone--everyone, including even Tucker Carlson, refer to Caitlyn Jenner and Lia Thomas as "she" and "her" in discussing the encroachment of men in women's sports. (First typed "biological" and then realized what even I was doing here. See how bad it it?)
I mean, would Fox fire them or reprimand them if they don't conform to this now? What is compelling this conformity even in what we'd call a hostile-to-the-concept environment?
Anyway, a wonderful post and ought to be distributed to every fifth grade classroom so they can save their little siblings.
But the training on willful blindness started so many centuries ago and in some of the most intellectual quarters. I won't go further 'cause I don't want to start a firefight.
Regarding free speech in today's world: I am often dumbfounded by the amount of people who choose be be offended by something and advocate for shutting it down in an age where there are literally thousands of TV channels and millions of websites. Umm... aren't we allowed to just turn the channel? Last time I checked no one is forcing anyone to read, watch or follow something that offends them.
"this should be taught in school, but instead, they teach the opposite and seek to maximize indoctrination and inculcation"
And what is the following thing to protect right after securing free speech?
Public education or any involvement of the government on education should be absolutely eliminated. It was also sold as something that was necessary because otherwise some parents would not be able to educate their sons ... which is so false that it hurts me whenever any of my friends say it (all do).
Climate change is next. Everything they want to accomplish is based on the premise of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Only "science" that supports the premise gets funded. Real science is abandoned as a result. The full-court press for acquiescence to the narrative starts in pre-school. Its adherents are now fixed in the boards of directors for industry. The goal is to destroy that god-damned annoying US constitution, which repeatedly steps in the path of globalist progress.
Our schools are captured by corporations who want them to churn out cogs that can be bought and inserted into their corporate machines. The resilience our schools used to have to resist this corporate push has disintegrated because we, as a society, have told highly competent women that fields like finance and engineering were more honorable than teaching. We eliminated competition in education by encouraging the best teachers to go into other fields. We've devalued the aspects of society that made our schools great. All of this was done with good intentions (another Trojan horse if you will) but has had dire consequences.
Free speech is like pregnancy--you either are or you aren't. No middle ground.
Some times free speech is destroyed by a "positive" goal--slamming the door on anyone who denies the Holocaust, for example. It includes such disparate people as those who deny anything happened, those who say that maybe 3 million, not 6 million Jews perished, and even those who try to include the tens of millions of others who died at the hands of Nazi Germany (see Prof Norman Davies who was denied tenure at Stanford for having the temerity to open up discussion to this possibility.)
okay your first mistake as a youngster was saying "I want that" instead of "I need that"! :-) JK- I had parents who saw through the hype and passed it on by making most of my "I wants"- including bikes from several gathered at the local dump (there were some great bikes assembled from three or more!) I made a game with my daughter about her "wanting" vs "needing" something. A great rule of thumb in our family is writing it down and then going back a week later and seeing how great your "need" (want) is. Short-lived most times. Funny thing is I have 3 siblings who have NEVER caught onto this and interestingly enough fell into the very thing you continue to talk about- instantly jumping on the latest band wagon because "he/she/expert said so", and pointing fingers at those who DO question, and never seeing how in the long run they will not be immune to the imposed rules? How do people from the same family grow up to have such different mindsets and ability to actually think things out? Guess we will never know...
A slightly different tactic is to treat something as a given when it is not. I keep hearing Ukraine is good, the government is a shining star, Zelenski is a freedom fighter as the bases for the argument they are about to make for say... justification to do something the American people would generally disapprove of. But we can do this because we defend good. So perhaps we could call it Noble Purpose Lie. Ditto for global warming. They use it there too. You may not question the "fact". I hear people around me repeat it. I call bullshit on it and then point to a few actual truths about Ukraine that are not at all gloriously freedomy. Sometimes it shuts them up, sometimes they note my stance so they can write me up in the Commie notebook (you know, the one they have been so happy to be in with their Maoist notions, but now... UKRAINE!).
I like Ukrainians. But their government aint the bastion of freedom.
"I reject your premise" Four words that should be on our lips at all times.
Especially useful against Critical Theory proponents.