258 Comments
founding

"Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty"

- Hannah Arendt

Expand full comment

This can even happen by accident in a particularly dysfunctional work culture. The best talent knows it has better options and won't put up with the circus, so it leaves. The ones who are immensely loyal or unable to secure better prospects (i.e. immensely dependent) are who stay. You don't need anyone to police this selection process per se as it's mostly automatic.

Expand full comment

it also happens in work situations, where the less able workers are 'promoted' away. When they do not do their job well and it is difficult to lay them off, they upgrade away from the work floor. If they can be fired, they will first be promoted and then it is said, they don't work out as boss, so we fire them. Seen both happen. A good politician was long ago promoted away to the EU (before it had real power) so he would be out of the way of the corrupt ones.

Expand full comment

I worked at a massive company where the regional office where I lived experienced this. We went from ~260 people to less than 70 in about 1.5 to 2 years. I was working out of town so didn't see the extent to the damage until I came back and all that was left was lackeys and low level performers. Anyone with options bailed on the sinking ship.

Expand full comment

That has also been true in newspapers in the UK, and I expect the US as well.

Expand full comment
founding

Very good point

Expand full comment

I lived that nightmare. I quit my job, went into business for myself and now make 3x what I did.

My employer went broke and died woke.

Expand full comment
founding

YES!

congratulations!!!

Expand full comment

yes, remember how Mao had the people who had studied work the fields. Nobody was supposed to be 'higher' than the other, but in fact the communists were the new elite. It would be interesting to see who really directs the show though. I read an article from Eugyppius a while ago about Schwab and wonder if he is really the leader. One must remember he is an appointee from Kissinger. And that man is almost 100 ! Is he the puppet master?

Expand full comment

Why do all these evil elites live to these ungodly ages? I'm started to wonder about the adrenochrome crap. Maybe it's true!

Expand full comment

I wonder if they have some secret cure for aging. That would explain why they are so desperate for the rest of us not to use resources.

Expand full comment

Klaus and Soros certainly don’t LOOK as if they have a secret cure for aging... Just sayin’!

Expand full comment

They keep getting older and uglier. But even Kissinger ain't dead yet, and that's not natural.

Expand full comment

he is 98 I think. Schwab is in his eighties. Not sure of Soros. Gates is 67 but looks way older IMO. I am glad when I look in the mirror compared to him LOL

Expand full comment

Literally vampirism. Lol if only that were a joke ....

Expand full comment
Oct 27, 2022·edited Oct 27, 2022

Oh, it's true (adrenochrome) whether their longevity is due to that idk but (coming from Australia) now we have a proof of the whole operation.

Correction: I don't have any proof myself of course but, I'm led to believe that

some are in possession of such.

Expand full comment

Ok let’s start an on line rumor that adenochrome causes cancer or genital necrosis or MonkeyPox or something ghastly and visible. Falsify peer reviewed papers like “they” do. Will be hilarious! Thoughts?

Expand full comment

Yeah, we could just for fun but.. but look at those geriatric evils starting with Kissinger, look at Fauxi, the lot of them. Although it doesn't seem to be working for the two Bills (Arkansas and our beloved philantropath).

Expand full comment

Really? Could you provide some links? I'd be very interested.

Expand full comment

Don, if you look up on Rumble, ozeye and go to Canberra event 26th Oct you'll find it at around 21min 10 sec

Company is called CYM price per MLG, depending on blood type is around $ 2000

Expand full comment

No, sorry Don it was mentioned in passing at the streamed meet in Canberra. Its been taken down.

Expand full comment

They eat the babies that they convince their followers to abort.

Expand full comment

You will never KNOW or SEE the REAL string pullers.

Expand full comment

If you think about it, the very act of deciding on redistribution of wealth and resources makes the people that do so believe they have a better understanding of where it goes than those who make the wages. They view us with the same hubris that Jesus expressed out of humility "Forgive them father, for they know not what they do." Only in this case the elite liberal is praying to the "ungendered god of government."

Expand full comment

Also Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Competence in anything else except killing people was considered a capital crime.

Expand full comment

The series they did on Chernobyl several years ago on HBO is the perfect illustration of this quote. Loyalty to The Party above all else, even in the face of blatant lies.

Expand full comment
founding

Exactly. That was a very well done documentary imo

Expand full comment

And this is why they inexorably fail. Freedom will always find a better way and this is why global control is the goal.

Expand full comment
founding

Are we free right now?

That seems to be in question in my mind.

Expand full comment

Not free. It’s an illusion.

In the big picture, planet wide,

at the root, the man-made system that underpins one’s ability to live on planet earth -with the possible exception of some still undiscovered tribal community/s deep In undeveloped, unexplored pockets? Still possible?- is the financial system.

In order to exist on earth, feed, clothe and provide shelter for oneself/family one must have money. Anymore it’s not just the developed world either.

It’s man-made, at every level. It’s old, ancient. Haves, the few, and have nots, the many. Even if you’re a have, you’re still a slave to money; you have to have it. Fuggedabout the little people.

Free to live as one pleases, pursuit of life liberty and happiness? Dependent on money.

Live off grid on hard won homestead? Guess what? Still never free, because the system of government demands taxes, money, on your plot of God’s green earth.

Not free. Enslaved. Money is at the root but that would just be one of many man-made systems that enslave humankind through the mind.

Not to say we’re not better off in plenty o’ ways than prehistoric days. But not free.

And certainly not under our system of government. The founders gave it their best shot. But even that, like everything man-made, was hardly flawless. We’re all only human after all. There’s always been ample room for abuse of power. And don’t ‘cha know the power hungry and psychopathic find it. In and out of government.

And here we are. Not free. Thinking we are, or have been, discovering belatedly the lies and deception we’ve been programmed with forever. Since ancient times, but particularly the past few centuries. And even more particularly since Bernays, where the techniques are more sophisticated.

Not an answer, just one opinion. For your consideration.

Expand full comment

Interesting comment. Deeper than money is property, and deeper than property is territory. Deeper than territory is access to the resources we need to live.

With a small enough population, we don't need territoriality, since we can't consume enough resources to impact anyone else's access to them. In that condition, we are free, not necessarily from want, but from any human compulsion other than the most casual, opportunistic, and violent sort.

When our harvesting skills reach a level that brings our population up to the point of threatening to axe the resource base that we are harvesting, then we need to become territorial, to keep countless outsiders from consuming what we depend on to live. We can't do this individually, so we have to join in political units with kin and friends to punish trespassers with the force of our mob. To keep our mob together and on our side, we have to cultivate an ethic of equality and sharing of the resources that we jointly claim, as well as an ethic of war against outsiders. Part of our freedom is now sacrificed to social obligation.

Since our resource base is now limited to the territory our mob controls, by the claims of other mobs surrounding us, it behooves us to practice good stewardship of our land, to find clever ways of making it produce as much for us as possible, and to store what it produces in its good season. This, not the discovery that seeds grow or that kits are cute, is the origin and driving motive of agriculture and animal domestication.

As our techniques become more sophisticated, our population rises, and we become more dependent on individual work to make a living. Hard-working, successful individuals would rather share the fruits of their labor with their own families than with loafer acquaintances, and this leads to private property as a trend counter to the older ethic of sharing and equality.

Loss of the communal sharing ethic lets working farmers improve their techniques and production greatly by giving them rights against local mooches, but it also dissolves the community of the mob that protected them. "Property" can exist only with respect to a political community that recognizes it, and when the band, tribe, or clan of equals dissolves in private free enterprise, protection rackets step in to replace them. This leads to a class-stratified society of parasitic lords, and peasants who must pay the price to be free upon their acre.

When all productive land is "owned," at one level by working peasants, and at a higher level by the lords that milk them, each produces heirs, and perhaps a few more children as well. The latter, as adults, have no obvious means of support, and must live either as dependents or as entrepreneurs. Occupational specialties explode, along with towns and commerce, as third sons and daughters struggle to coax a living out of, ultimately, the peasants and lords who own the resources. Many fail and die in that struggle. At this point, many people simply have no direct access to the resources needed for life, and are terrifyingly dependent on the charity or good will of those that do.

Barter among specialists is hard to negotiate, and some sort of money is invented to facilitate the innumerable exchanges that a society of specialists demands. In time, money becomes, first, a proxy for all value, in goods, services, property, or resources, and then a matter of money-denominated debt. Debt itself, as its inverse, becomes the new money, in the hands of creditors, so long as they have the political backing of laws and police to enforce it, and debt can be expanded to infinity. It is in the individual interest of money lenders to become rich by lending money, subject only to their class interest in having a government that recognizes that debt and is powerful enough to enforce it. Big government, and debt-slavery for everyone else, is their permanent objective, and they will achieve it up to the point when the government that cradles them collapses due to the debt slaves having no further stake in it.

And here we are, our freedom fundamentally limited in so many ways. We probably live longer than those prehistoric people, and certainly support a much higher population, but I doubt that many of them would have wished to trade places with us.

Expand full comment

Quite accurate and SnowWind amplifies it well. As Jefferson noted maintaining our republic will eventually require great effort even death.

Expand full comment

Heterodox, Exactly the truth. Being in a body in this world, and that includes nonhuman animals, consigns us to enslavement. Did God purposely design it this way?

Expand full comment

Instead of "God", I should have said our Intelligent Designer.

Expand full comment

Partially, diminishing rapidly.

Expand full comment
Oct 27, 2022·edited Oct 27, 2022

IMHO, partially free is not free.

Right now, we are all prisoners, wearing a tether like criminals-- aka "smart phones"-- and are controlled by our bank accounts.

Expand full comment

Nope, not free!

Expand full comment

There's another interesting psychological factor in play here: when you coerce or persuade people to go along with something that they know is wrong, it creates cognitive dissonance. In order to reduce the stress from that dissonance, they will actually try to convince themselves that the thing is NOT wrong.

In other words, people can't change what they've already done, but they can subconsciously change how they feel about it. And research shows that they do.

Oh, you supported burning those women at the stake? Maybe they really were witches. Oh, you voted for Hitler in 1939? Well, he had a great economic plan. Oh, you had your family injected with toxic pseudo-vaccine? It can't really be dangerous. Oh, you voted for candidates that seem to be hell-bent on destroying our entire civilization? They really aren't, it's just a bunch of misinformation that makes it seem that way.

This is part of the reason why the majority always enable atrocity. Once they take a step in the wrong direction, they don't want to admit they were wrong.

https://dystopianliving.substack.com/p/the-psychology-of-compliance

Expand full comment

But the thing they do, it is wrong.

Maybe it was my growing up, but I can see fairly easily when I do wrong, or am wrong.

Yesterday I was at a medical appointment and because of physical limitations, I once again have to play a waiting game o get what I need to move forward in terms of mobility (I am an amputee in need of a prosthetic). I was told one of the things I need to do is make an appointment with my primary care physician and see if I can get them to examine my stump, and decide if I can move forward. I expressed to the prosthetist my dissatisfaction with this course of action. I don't want to go to a place anymore that requires masking as its protocol for an appointment. Heck, the Uber driver I had yesterday continued to wear a mask even after the regulation had been rescinded. a couple times I could hear her trying to make conversation with me through the muffled mask. I was this close to going Dinero on are and ask "Are you talkin' to me?"

I understand cognitive dissonance, and that's another reason why I feel so against these measures, as it is no telling what people are asked to believe to be true...once they defer to the gateway symbolic aspect of masking causes.

The prosthetist said I should comply because it will lead me to moving forward. But at this point, I am thinking I will turn on my phone, not wear a mask, and politely refuse when they ask me to do so (if it comes to that.). What makes masks also so bad is that it appears so shameful and such a little thing as to appear petty to refuse it. I don't think this is by accident.

Expand full comment

Jimmy, according to research into conformity, about 1/3 of the population will immediately jump onto the bandwagon, about 1/4 will resist, and the 50-60% in the middle we'll go along with it to avoid trouble. You, and many of us here on sub stack, are part of that resistant quarter.

The interesting thing is that the people in the middle will switch sides when the time is right. In the 1950s, there were still some Germans who insisted the Nazis were right. Most of the rest of them disavowed it, and pretended that they were never really in favor of the Final Solution. And, they probably weren't. They just went along to get along.

The same thing will happen, probably in the near future. Once the level of fraud and harm can no longer be ignored, the mainstream will turn with savagery on the people who manipulated them. This is what El Gato calls "jersey switching."

Expand full comment

There is a social tipping point. When the common man in the street begins saying "the Atrocities" instead of "the pandemic". For among those common men are judges, soldiers, bureaucrats, policemen, security operatives, legislators, lawyers - every element of the State's power.

That tipping point passed, the Reaction will come with suddenness and fury that surprises many.

Expand full comment

Lex Weiser, so I just saw your line about, "the rest of us on Substack are", and thought, "Uh, I don't think this guy has seen enough Substacks." Then, lo and behold, the unhinged hater replies to you. That'll learn ya!

Expand full comment

Indeed! "Don't feed the trolls" is advice that applies to every online platform, and while I've been reveling in liberty-substack, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the ever-present population of people proclaiming, no matter what the topic, that "The Jews did it!" is here as well.

Expand full comment

And in fact the second one I've seen on Substack today. It's the last remaining socially acceptable form of hate on both the left and right. Plus they think it's edgy. An "interesting" phenomenon, to say the least.

Expand full comment

LOL, stating a FACT is "hate?"

I would tell you to DYOR, but you know the answer already.

Expand full comment

The "Final Solution" was a creation of Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism.

Expand full comment

I think you're looking for gab.com ... This is Substack.

Expand full comment

LOL, boomer.com?

At least be truthful with your tropes.

Expand full comment

I wasn't aware of that. Can you describe the context?

Expand full comment

If you have 10 hours or so, watch "Europa: The Last Battle." That's about the normiest sauce I can recommend.

Expand full comment

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. What I was thinking of though was the time and context in which he "created" it.

As you say, Herzl is considered the father of (modern political) Zionism, so he may very well have coined that term. The best source would be references to that term in his own writings. His life was from 1860 to 1904, so that suggests that the concept of a "final solution", either for the Jewish people, or to the "Jewish problem" in Europe, had a rich political history from the late nineteenth century up to the early 1940s, when the Third Reich attempted to implement it.

If true, then the trope is much deeper than just something the Nazis cocked up in 1942 to justify a planned genocide. But it would be good to pin it down with actual references, and enough quoted material to understand what Herzl actually intended when he used the term.

Expand full comment

Totally agree it’s all theater. I resisted at a recent appointment but then they said they couldn’t let me. So i took their damn face diaper and wore it around my chin to come in then took it off once inside. What ridiculosity!

Expand full comment

When I look at all that was done during Covid, I am seeing how so much of it was a big mess. The mask thing, I may simply invoke my reason or exception for not having to wear the mask is due to a pre-existing conditions known as critical thinking.

Expand full comment

You might like to quote this next time you're confronted with an insistence on mask wearing in healthcare settings:-

As of 28 Sept 2022

CDC: Masking No Longer Required in Health Care Settings

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20220928/cdc:-masking-no-longer-required-in-health-care-settings

Expand full comment

I read through the article and I call BS on it. First of all, I don't think the CDC actually mandates anything, it is up to local areas of government to make that decision, and sadly, it apparently doesn't take much.

People can decide for themselves in areas of high transmission? Notice how the CDC deftly avoids talking about what needs to be talked about. They don't address if masking works. If this were, let's say Smallpox, would you trust a mask to protect you from getting it? 30% death rate back when it first ran through the population, but hey, wear a mask and it's all good, right?

For a 30% death rate, I'd lock down. I think. It would make sense if 1 in 3 people died from it. This disease has a .14% death rate for the whole population. Even if masked worked, do we really need to wear one to accommodate .14% of the population? If so, start making a list of things I want banned because it also affects small areas of the population. Let's start with banning carbs and sugar...because diabetics.

Expand full comment

The Covid muzzle is the new swastika - the symbol of the greatest Evil of our time.

I feel roughly the same about being asked to muzzle up, as I would feel being asked to strap a swastika to my face. Utter, visceral repulsion. Sounds like you feel kinda the same way.

Expand full comment

Hmmm....your comment makes me wonder: They want you to muzzle up but what if that muzzle had a swastika printed on it? How would they deal with that dilemma? It would be amusing to know....

Expand full comment

I was just thinking of that. Helluva statement. I also wonder what the reactions would be.

Expand full comment

I think the mask is the gateway drug for compliance. it's part of the starter kit. As someone else mentioned, it can activate cognitive dissonance. The metaphor of the "pod people" in Invasion of the body Snatchers is a great way to look at it. Just put on the mask, breathe in that filtered air, and see how it feels.

The idea of "going to sleep" is like the idea of "handing over control." You see otherwise normal people, functioning and using critical thinking skills in other areas of their life, but once you switch to Covid, there is a disconnect. And from there, that is a foot in th door. If you can do this out of altruistic feelings for others, what else can you do?

Expand full comment

JG, Look up Peggy, the Healthy American. She has a number of resources for navigating the masks and jabs.

Expand full comment

This would explain why so many otherwise intelligent people I know absolutely refuse to talk about anything covid related with me . Many of them are working in science / genetics research, so with a solid grasp of biology and easily able to see through the bullshit. (I have been very vocal about it on social media, having studied molecular biology years ago, and so much of the narrative going against what I was taught).

Way more of my "less educated" friends agree that it's all a lot of bullshit.

Do you have any advice on how to open up conversation before we have gone into a full totalitarian sanitary dictatorship?

Expand full comment

That's why I try to bring it up at any available chance. When I hear about sudden cardiac death or sudden aggressive metastisized cancers, I say, "That's a shame! Wonder if they had the COVID shot because that's a common occurrence." People NEED to have it made obvious before their eyes.

Expand full comment

If the discussion is about some public figure in the news who "died suddenly", I just pipe up cheerfully: "oops, looks like the vaxx got 'em!" These days it produces at most a little uncomfortable silence, but never argument.

Obviously one wouldn't want to take this approach when discussing the death of a friend or family member, as it would be callous.

Expand full comment

I wish I had some good advice. Deprogramming is extremely difficult, because the program becomes part of their core identity. The harder you push against it and try to show them the truth, the harder they push back and refuse to look at it.

It's like criticizing a buddy's ex-wife. You'd think he'd be happy to hear you say she's a bitch, but actually it makes him angry. Why? Because it's not for you to question his judgment on choosing her in the first place. Only he can do that.

In the same way, those who are still under the spell of the programming won't emerge until some kind of personal experience snaps them out of it. Or, until the mainstream narrative shifts, and that may be quite a while.

Expand full comment

If you have the other person alone, indulge your honest curiosity about their mode of thinking by asking them things in a non-controversial way. Be an anthropologist, trying to tease out the logic of their world-picture without contradicting them. That will promote their trust, and will raise any illogic in their views to the top of their own minds, where they will have to deal with it. If they reach this stage, they may ask you questions. Then you can communicate by explaining your views in a way that is about you, and not an attack on them. They will be most receptive then, and, by bits and pieces, may come around to a clearer way of understanding the covid affair.

Expand full comment

I wish I could do that. My conversations don't go that way. I've convinced, persuaded, 0 people.

Expand full comment

I can't say that my record is very much higher. I can say that it is absolutely essential to hold the human relationship of friend, family member, or whatever, inviolate, above the desire to convince.

It's a slow process even when it works well, and it takes a lot of patience and genuine good will. Lex's comments above are wise. We have to consider their pride as much as we value our own. In the end, it is for them to decide in their minds what is right, and it will be a lot easier for them to move in our direction if we don't make it a humiliation for them to do so.

Expand full comment

My brother had prostate cancer 15 years ago when he was 53, and he got 3 jabs before I could really try to persuade him to not take the jabs. However, since summer of 2021 I've been emailing him select links about the fraud, and he has come around to the extent that he says he will take no further jabs. I'm happy about that, but he and I still can't discuss things fully or directly.

Expand full comment
founding

excellent essay btw

Expand full comment

Fact Check! The last time anybody had a chance to vote for the National Socialists was 1932. (Hitler's party won a (diminished) plurality of votes). But come 1933 - and the Germans sensed which way the wind was blowing, a very large majority got on board in very enthusiastic way - in a general sense, illustrating your point.

Expand full comment

Nice catch. I did a lot better in psychology class than I did in history class. Remembering dates is not my forte. 😄

Expand full comment

Another bullseye, Lex.

Expand full comment

Muchas gracias

Expand full comment

much of corporate culture functions this way too. :/

Expand full comment

This has been my conviction for a while - that the absurdity is merely part of the design. What do clowns do? They divert and subvert.

Expand full comment
founding

I believe it to also to be about ever increasing layers of calcified "controls".

The absurdities self-assemble an "unthinking" Rube Goldberg machine with one output:

Control

Expand full comment

Positions of value are systematically eliminated when we place people there who do not have the merit, the integrity, or the charisma to lead in that position.

If the chancellor of a great university or the president of a great country were to use expertise and integrity to protest a wrongdoing, they would be joined by the world.

Expand full comment
founding

You are correct Bird!

I guess that's sort of the "fight" of the 21st century....for now.

In a somewhat different vein (yet connected), I also think we will be fighting this whole idea of monocultural potent tech-collectivism for many years to come.

Expand full comment

Great essay. It's good to see you go where so many others fear to tread.

Because all Western governments moved in lockstep during the pandemic, tossing out previously agreed upon plans, to implement non-sensical lockdowns, and then forced poisonous shots on their citizens, this is not strictly an American Deep State problem. Globalists, forever dreaming of the power and control that One World Government brings, have made their move.

That all Western governments immediately moved to the "Climate Crisis" agenda after Omicron threw a wrench in their plans is awfully coincidental, as well, no?

At this point, I am even questioning if this war isn't part of the Big Show, too. War is a great deck-reshuffler...a re-setter...a Great Resetter. Afterwards, the globalists can Build Back Better...

God help us from what's coming.

Expand full comment

You shouldn't question it. It most definitely is.

Expand full comment

This is why it's not just "get our guy in office to fix things" solution to the problem. The red wave won't save us. Even if they get in office, and even if they're motivated to fix things (how many truly are?), as soon as the next guy is in office, he undoes whatever had been done. Take for example the transition from Trump to Biden. Trump was able to accomplish some very good things, ALL of which was undone by Biden. Now, some people hoist DeSantis up on the pedestal. They think, if only this guy was president, he would do all the things! But every politician is eventually out of office, and then what? That is why we need a fundamental change of the system!

Expand full comment

Correct. This move towards a Great Reset is a golden opportunity for one beneficial to us, not the globalists.

Much suffering lies ahead, but they will ultimately fail.

Expand full comment

In terms of submitting to the absurd, just listen to all the interviews of “regular” people defending Fetterman in PA by regurgitating the most ridiculous nonsense. Just a little Aphasia? Brain damage shouldn’t hinder someone become a senator?

The people of PA, actually of Philly, have been easily convinced to vote for a guy to “represent” them even though he had evident brain damage, and a history of failure and laziness that predates the brain injury. They deserve what they get.

Expand full comment

They're counting on Shapiro to win the governorship and then Fetterman will resign and be replaced by his wife.

It will be hilarious if Mastriano wins and Fetterman does too.

Expand full comment

Didn't Biden even say she would be a good senator?

Expand full comment

They been preparing that flower bed real diligently.

Expand full comment

To see that as a good, or even viable expectation, requires a lot of gullibility and cognitive disconnects.

Expand full comment

Are you unfamiliar with Democratic politics?

Expand full comment

Being familiar with it doesn’t make it less shocking or absurd. 🤷‍♀️

Expand full comment

Shocking and absurd actions and choices are nonetheless quite commonplace.

Expand full comment

This resident of PA is so hoping for exactly this scenario - the best outcome. Not enough to vote for Shrek though...

Expand full comment

Both parties need to be shattered and swept into the trash.

It would be funny, wouldn't it, if Elon owning Twitter meant that candidates not hobbled by party machinery for political support and ad resources could just go straight to the electorate with their platforms?

Expand full comment

I'm waiting for the Dems to roll a comatose candidate out on a gurney. That's next.

Expand full comment

I heard one defend Fetterman's debate performance and then end with he had already voted last week. Facts, information, doesn't need them to make his decision.

Expand full comment

This is the best presentation I have seen. The genius from SC is not to be believed.

Expand full comment

I live in South Carolina, and the way that poor girl was brutalized by the press was awful. If the media held our public officials to the same standard of intellectual clarity that they held her, the ridicule of them would never end.

Expand full comment

The "poor girl," who only had looks going for her, should never have entered a contest where she would be expected to speak. I agree about public officials. Kamala Harris is on the same intellectual level as the blonde, which is one rung higher than Dementia Joe.

Expand full comment

None of us would want to be judged based on our most embarrassing moment. She's not an idiot, she just froze up. The way she was treated afterwards was unconscionable.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/12/10-viral-sensations-on-life-after-internet-fame.html

Expand full comment

I agree, she was also a teenager. Who the hell expects a teenager to provide coherent ideas or profound insights? The press tore her down with everything they had.

Expand full comment

If she would have been trans… they would have LOVED it!

Just saying…

Expand full comment

I could see what happened to her. She was put on the spot in public. I have found myself rambling on about nothing as well when put on the spot.

Expand full comment

Enough fear adrenaline in the brain and it is difficult to think through what to say and sometimes even remember words. She's a lovely girl, I hope she feels fine about it in retrospect.

Expand full comment

Sometimes I wonder if Kamala is faking her cluelessness and weird speech.

Expand full comment

I truly don't think so. She's an inch deep.

Expand full comment

She sounds fluent in this video, for example:

https://youtu.be/Pqu_aXigJm4

Expand full comment

She should have stopped with. "... a lot of children don't have maps" 100% right, nothing else required.

Expand full comment

Something about the question... I'm not sure I would have been able to answer it any better than she did. New fact for me: one fifth of Americans can't find the U.S. on a world map. And what is the profound meaning of that, and what should be done about it? I don't know, but it seems I need to say something pretty while the camera is on me...

Expand full comment

I find that claim very hard to believe. More likely the data collectors designed their survey wrong and the media designed a sensational clickbait headline.

Expand full comment

Yes, that's also entirely probable, and constitutes yet another layer of bog underfoot for the poor person put on the spot to answer the question: "Why do you think this is?"

Expand full comment

I saw her do a follow up, you tube video, where she was funny and any one who can laugh at oneself is good in my book.

Expand full comment

This is an old video but I believe it’s gotten worse.

Expand full comment

Brilliant as usual, Señor Gato!

Do not presume malice where incompetence suffices.

But...

Above a certain level of incompetence, malice is back on the table.

Expand full comment

Malicious incompetence.

Expand full comment
Oct 27, 2022·edited Oct 27, 2022

I was recently in DC, literally the country is being run by 25 year old staffers. They are pitched the idea, concept or need. They help draft the legislation or tell their congressman to vote on a particular bill. The elected leader seem to only have time for the big money movers. If we can start developing the minds of our young people (back to the way this country was founded) we could change the way this country is ran.

Expand full comment

As somebody else pointed out, that may be the saving grace. Since all these kids are terrified of questioning the ideology they serve, they are creating an echo chamber that is more and more out of touch with the populace.

Expand full comment

No wonder why everything's so catty and snotty and shallow

Expand full comment

Hey fellow commenters, is it just me, or is this the most delightfully worded piece of brilliance you have ever read?

Expand full comment

Good day! It is not just you!

I don't know how long you've been on this stack, but we're rather spoiled by the felonious feline mind on a regular basis.

I have called him the Thomas Paine of our times, and I do not step back from that declared likeness.

Expand full comment

Truly wonderful writing....a joy to read...a spunky kitten showing fascinating verbal dexterity!!!

Expand full comment

The cat has spoiled all other substacks for me.

Expand full comment

The one substack I ALWAYS read: bad cattitude.

Expand full comment

haha, yes, I did notice a bit of extra zing to this piece as well!

Expand full comment

It is truly delightful!

Expand full comment

“The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had — he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Expand full comment

Government parasites used to be smaller and sucked just enough blood from the host that the host didn't mind since its health wasn't terribly affected. If you match the amount of theft to just under the rate of growth, all looks well.

The parasites have now grown to the point where they're killing the host. Our choice is binary---Eradicate the parasites or be eradicated by them.

Expand full comment

It's a result of Elite Overproduction.

Expand full comment

Yes, Johnson in the uk, Zelensky etc, serious engagement in the public sphere becomes almost impossible, as there is so little of substance to oppose; we are gaslit disoriented and mocked; we are ‘winded’ with relative powerlessness.

Expand full comment

This is an astute distillation of the problem!

Expand full comment

It’s not just the bureaucracy. The judiciary goes along with it. Whatever you think of Trump, how many cockamamie efforts to sideline him will the courts allow? He might be indicted for obstruction of justice in connection with a criminal investigation into presidential records initiated by the National Archives after being investigated for Russia collusion, a phone call and his efforts to seek an investigation into the conduct of the 2020 election. On top of that, his business is being investigated for loans that were repaid by a prosecutor who promised to go after him. When are the courts going to put a stop to the abuse of power?

Expand full comment

This is the problem we are seeing much clearer now than ever before. We are seeing failure in so many different areas of government. How many in the executive branch resisted the temptation of the executive order? How many extended their emergency powers during the pandemic? How many succumbed to offering ridiculous regulations restrictions.

In terms of lawmakers in Congress, how many of them veto bills out of hand? How many are willing to repeal laws? How many are willing to dismantle the structure of government?

And in the judicial end of it, how many judges affirm the Constitution? How many are willing to recognize that "more regulation" is not better?

Expand full comment

I've often that the real power-brokers are simply saying to us: "This is how much power we have. We can put anyone in power that we want, even idiots like these and there is not a damn thing you can do about it."

Expand full comment
founding

Mockery could be viewed as a trial balloon.

How much can we get away with now?

That would give them a gauge of how much they can get away with in subsequent incremental steps.

Expand full comment

The proles have learned doublethink. Keep feeding them newspeak, and soon there will be no more thoughtcrime.

- Not exactly George Orwell, but implied

Expand full comment
founding

Exactly!

“The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.”

Orwell.

Expand full comment

"I'm too sexy for my shirt"

Also Orwell.

Expand full comment
founding

LOL!

You might be to young to remember when people would dance on tables, to that song, when it was last call.

It had a similar effect as the masks...no thank you. You're ruled out as a potential date or friend.

Expand full comment
Oct 27, 2022·edited Oct 27, 2022

Great column, and you're right.... except, when you really start to effectively name and shame the "deep state", that is when the clown show ends and Pennywise bares his teeth. We currently still have many people in jail, held without bail and quite literally being tortured, for what is now close to TWO years, for having the temerity to question what was obviously a questionable election. That's what happens when you actually take on the deep state.

Expand full comment