There is an actual far right, but the way the word is used by most politicians and corporate media today really means "anyone that takes positions I oppose". The Economist interview with Musk is a textbook example of this.
I used to be "far left" because I advocated for individual liberty and mutual coexistence - and against government intrusion into lifestyle choices, against censorship and for free speech and expression, against those that deemed my music "the devils work" and those that sought to impose by force their choices upon others. I've not moved, but now I'm "far right" for the same beliefs and actions. In 2020 I got to watch the "liberals" espouse on the "need" for censorship, called "moderation", the need to suppress inquiry and opposition to blind obedience. In many cases the same people who railed against "decency" standards a few decades earlier.
Should have been ditched a long time ago. Since the Left is totalitarian, the Right must be individual liberty. A spectrum has to have opposite poles, not two sides of the same coin.
Rothbard used the 18th century French Estates General as his spectrum model to place the radicals on the Left and the monarchists on the Right (based on where they sat in the ES), or in modern parlance, the anarchies (anarcho-communism, anarcho-capitalism) on the Left and totalitarianism (absolutism, dictatorship) on the Right.
He then placed libertarianism just to the right of the anarchies, republicanism to the left of totalitarianism (with constitutional monarchies in between), and smack dab in the middle he placed socialism, which he termed a muddle-headed desire to use totalitarian means to bring about utopian anarcho-communism...
That sort of applied in the day. But a monarchy is simply a dictatorship collective that is accepted and has established rules of succession.
Nobody's spectrum offers the individualist a chance to be the opposite of whatever collectives. I don't want to be place between two groups of collectivist s. I want to be as far away as possible.
Not sure. I've always thought anarchy meant the destruction of the current order as a means of transition to some other ism. Chaos is the lack of order. Mathematically, chaos doesn't really exist.
Neither does any political ism, including individualism. If all humans existed alone we'd go extinct.
Capitalism would be perfect if everyone was talented and honest. But the world is full of lazy, stupid and envious people that refuse to behave.
Anarchists hate the capitalism part, capitalists hate the anarchy part.
We humans are sure a puzzle. As long as we keep polite discussions going, we have a chance.
I looked it up. Seems like they don't want to admit that the only difference between the groups is who they like and who they hate. Who cares? Why try to separate them?
It seems to me the problem is that those who hate white men are the same as those who hate some other group. They both fit into a collective. Nazis, Fascists, Communists and many religious orders and other forms of insanity are all simply varieties of collectives. Go look at Free Republic. The Republican Borg.
So in my simple definition, they all belong in the exact same spot, which I call Left. They may love or hate different splinters of humanity, but they all want to control everyone to their satisfaction.
They all want ice cream, but they all demand their own flavor.
Now I'm the opposite of all of them. I belong as far away as possible from any of those who want to command me. I want nothing from anybody, but to be left alone. That's completely opposite of any collective. None of them are willing to leave me alone.
I've abandoned those terms long ago, mostly because I have no idea what they mean anymore the way the terms are used. See above...I've moved from far left to far right in 50 or so years without changing my views :-).
There is nothing more Anti-American than being Anti-Gay, except perhaps for being Anti-Pedophile and Anti-Transgender, or Anti-Sadist.
This is what the US is fighting against in Ukraine, where the values of Iran's Christian ally in the BRICS Union, Russia, of respect for heterosexuality and the traditional family, and laws against proselytizing for paedophilia and transgenderism are being resisted by the US in favor of the American values recognized around the world as associated with Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Theil, George Santos, Dylan Mulvaney, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, Lindsey Graham and the USMC.
And that's the way I like it. Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church taught the world that the USMC are, to use his word, "faggots" and that the "US = Fag Nation." His right to protected free speech was upheld by the SCOTUS.
Is the Invisible Gorilla in the room? Why can’t people see the truth?
Islam means Surrender, which should be shocking to any American since our origins are quite the opposite.
And there is a very big difference in Christianity and Islam since Jesus told us to Love our Enemy and Mohammed said Kill the Infidel. Quite the opposite message. Love v. Hate.
Google AI says the three verses most commonly cited for the command to "kill them wherever you find them" are:
• Surah 2:191: "And kill them wherever you find them...". This verse is immediately preceded by verse 2:190, which instructs Muslims to "fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits."
• Surah 4:89: "They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved... but if they turn away, seize them and kill them wherever you find them."
• Surah 9:5: Often called "The Verse of the Sword," it says, "kill the polytheists wherever you find them."
So, why would we invite people to live in our country when they want to kill us? Yes, the US created a ton of refugees from our senseless ME wars, but this madness of letting people who want to kill the infidel into western countries is madness.
So, who knows about this stuff but the psychic Baba Vanga predicted that the Islamic caliphate would be complete in Europe by 2043 with Rome as the capital.
I read all of Baba Vanga's predictions and I don't remember that one. I'll need to look it up. Like Mother Shipton, there a lot of false verses and quotes attributed to her.
Very true - hard to know what was exactly said. I've seen a lot of Edgar Cayce prophesies on youtube that specify dates like 2026 and he did not put in dates like that.
Here's what Google AI says: It's BS! (JK)
"The claim that Baba Vanga predicted an Islamic caliphate centered in Rome by 2043 originates entirely from internet folklore and modern social media posts rather than any verified primary text.Nature of the SourceNo Written Records: As reported by outlets covering her legacy like NDTV, "These predictions are not available in written text anywhere but have been passed on to the next generation by her followers and aides."Oral Tradition and Amplification: The specific timeline regarding a 2043 European caliphate surfaced heavily online around 2015 alongside media commentary attempting to tie her generalized warnings of a "great Muslim war" to the rise of ISIS.Lack of Verification: Scholars and researchers note that because Baba Vanga (Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova) left no personal journals or transcripts, most attributed future timeline milestones are posthumous fabrications or interpretations popularized by tabloids and internet forums."
And a couple hours for 40 or 60 thousand or maybe more to invade a city of 80,000. And many (most?) are still there, no matter what the liberal pols and msm say. What breaks my heart is the desecration of graves.
It helps if you think they are no longer there. Indeed, they weren't even their true selves in their meatsuits. What you saw was either a reflection or a projection of their true being.
“It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.” George Orwell
During our family vacation in Ocean City New Jersey in July, I was sitting on the boardwalk eating ice cream and people watching. Two young Muslim girls walked by in full black garb including veils with eye slits. I was shocked. It was the first time I have seen that, and it was a wakeup call.
I'm far from the first to notice that the commies' apparent plan is missing detail on the most important step and it's going to bite them in the butt.
1) Mass importation of Islam to kill everyone that makes the septum-piercing crowd sad
2) ?????
3) Communist utopia
In fact, it's already biting them - the Muslims are already shedding the skin suits of Western leftist parties in favor of starting their own. We're a little further behind the curve on that then Europe, but not by much.
The worst part is that even though it's been biting the commies for awhile now, they refuse to learn the lesson; that would involve some self-examination and the indoctrination is too deep for them to have that particular skill.
Also, the leftists need their votes. That’s the prime motivating factor. Leftists have such a severely stunted intellect and mentality that they cannot see the train wreck (actually, firing squad) that’s coming down the road at them. But, they will see it in due time, when it’s too late. There is no avoiding it.
The chief problem in western society, however, is that we give time and attention to the idiots in these videos. These people need to be far away from anything power-related. We've given them control and let them corrupt our societies.
It's written. In the Muslim Brotherhood guide. Financial jihad - drain the public well. Cultural jihad - rape their women. Political jihad - run for office. There are approved actions for various percentages of population - when they get to 30%, that's where it gets really dangerous. Prior to that, they can taqiyyah (deceive) about - "religion of peace."
They have been shipped in by people who don't like you. Most lack the agency to do anything, never mind travel across oceans and somehow settle in the US. The paperwork alone would prevent it. Thousands of NGOs exist to manage this.
Most countries ban this group from entering their territory. Why do you think that is?
Not “surrender,” but “submit.” There is an important difference. We are not just allowed to say, “OK, let’s just get along and I’ll let you run the world.” It is literally “I will submit myself to you so I am not enslaved, dominated, or murdered.”
There is a Rule of Abrogation in the Qu'ran. The verses are ordered by length of verse, not chronologically. The contradictions in the text are resolved via the Rule of Abrogation: Things that Mohammad said later "abrogate" the things he said earlier. Any guesses about how early or late the "peace" verses are as opposed to the "kill" verses? Yeah, that.
Yes. It is hopeless to try and exist with people that are separated from us by 13 centuries.
This is exactly what the most powerful people in the world want, Muslim versus Christian war (or non-religious people that adhere to the golden rule) in western civilization. An excuse to gain more control over all of us.
When you combine this with Cambridge's black, lying, super-marathon running "scholar" you can really see that UK unis seem to be speeding headlong into sheer worthless parodical skinsuits of formerly august institutions.
"...and so i wonder: 'where is moderate islam in all this?' "
Well, in places like Pakistan it's being blown to smithereens by its fellow practitioners of peace. The great Sufi shrines have been as much under attack as the Christian churches.
But there's an awful, awful irony too. The moderate Muslims often emigrate to the West and their children and grandchildren raised here turn into hijabis. Go figure.
There is no "moderate" islam. I've read converts who've left islam say they didn't jihad personally, but quietly waited for and fully expected islam to eventually conquer the entire world.
There are good and bad people, and weak people in between, and everyone everywhere interprets the tenets of their own religion/dogma/cult according to their own natures.
Unfortunately good people are rare, and weak people are extremely numerous, and a few bad people can have catastrophic effects.
Good grief. Christians were burning other Christians at the stake for possessing copies of the Bible printed in the vernacular. There are Christian sects completely exterminated by more dominant Christian sects.
That's how Islam was designed by a warlord who wanted his violent gangs to kill everyone not in their gang, enslave the women and keep them pregnant, making more thugs
I expressed the following in a gathering of conservatives where the speaker was discussing the problem of Islam, and I was roundly booed for it. I still believe I am correct.
Only about 2% of Americans ever serve in the military, but when we are under attack, almost everyone is willing to "Support the Troops".
Only a small number of Muslims are willing to become jihadis, but almost all Muslims "Support the Troops". The jihadis are the Muslim military.
Insert your own caveats, but I believe that all true believing Muslims support the terror and murder done in the name of their religion, including the eventual extermination or enslavement of all Jews, Christians, Atheists, and every other non-Muslim.
I hope not but Islam has the IRGC, Hezbollah, Hutis, Hamas and they do things more horrible on the regular to women and children than most war armies have ever done.
History supports your conclusion. The approval may be fear based or ideological; envy, hate, faith or disdain for the West. Islam is an absolute with regard to in-group out-group ideology. They hate the other.
Well, I disagree with you based on my own personal experiences, and I repeat--good people interpret their faith as suits their own natures, and bad people likewise.
This is the same with Christianity. Good people who are Christians find it very hard to truly believe that people they love dearly who are not Christians will roast in hell for all eternity. Bad people who are Christians are more than happy to believe that.
Goodness does not save though. People will burn in hell because God (the real one, not the satanic allah) is just and people are all evil to varying degrees. The only question is what we choose to do about the evil in our own hearts.
Are you really truly absolutely sure that the New Testament does not discuss the fate of unbelievers?
Are you prepared to declare that the tender mercies of the Spanish Inquisition were administered by people entirely unfamiliar with Christian dogma?
Yes, the Quran has some pretty awful stuff and it's not healthy for anyone to live under Muslim rule.
But as you know it wasn't very healthy for my people to be subjected to Christian rule. I wouldn't want to live under Jewish theocratic rule either. I'm really glad that of my great-grandmother's four children, two of them came here rather than going to British Mandatory Palestine as the other two did.
Islam is not the same as Christianity. Read a little history. Think Golden rule vs Intifada...kill the infidel, kill the other. They are a wee bit different.
This has been the case throughout the muslim world. The muslim brotherhood was started about a century ago, explicitly to bring the muslim "back" in line with the guidelines in the hadiths, but also to expand those same guidelines to dominate the infidel. Egypt, its birthplace, banned mb in '48 and again in '54, after a successful and failed assassination, respectively. Since mb was largely an upper-middle class and professional organization, other muslim countries welcomed them, and they assumed positions of influence, especially in education. Many of these countries would later ban them. Obama called them the moderates in the arab spring, and the west welcomed them in hordes, again into positions where they would have outsize influence on the young.
Well, the basic problem is that believing in cults is bad. The Western Enlightenment was a unique historical and intellectual moment but time doesn't stand still, and when you give people intellectual and social freedom they might do anything with it.
And people feel a strange sort of hollowness when they stop believing in the cults they were raised in, and they find substitutes, and even when they continue to pretend they believe in a cult they will bend and twist it to suit their own needs, so the liberal Christianity and Judaism that was the fruit of the Western Enlightenment became socialism and all sorts of modern derangements of liberalism.
But Muslims can't liberalize because other Muslims will kill them, and when liberal Muslims move to Western nations, their children resent being surrounded by Western liberal culture and rebel right back into the Islam their parents attempted to escape.
There's a stern lesson here. Even for the thoroughly Western holding on to that Enlightenment is rough work. Others don't have enough of a desire to even understand it at all.
"Well, the basic problem is that believing in cults is bad."
Mostly it's not. If the followers of jim jones want to drink the flavor-aid, or the members of heaven's gate want to take sleeping pills or slit their wrists or whatever it was they did, what's that to me? Its when they try to impose their will on non-cult members that the problems begin.
Enlightenment was not the unalloyed good you are suggesting. It's the reason the french revolution went sideways -- chesterton's fence will not be mocked. At least not without blood in the streets.
Mostly, believing in a cult is bad because cults are cults because they have an authoritarian ruling group and treat non-cultists badly and treat their members and children badly to keep power. Cults are a terrarium of poisonous behavior and growth.
Maybe. Depends on your definition of "cult." If you use it as a pejorative, of course cults are bad. If you mean a group that has all the knobs turned to 11, it depends on what those knobs are. For example, I'm not sure who was harmed by all the cultists handing out flowers in airports.
"The Western Enlightenment was a unique historical and intellectual moment but time doesn't stand still, and when you give people intellectual and social freedom they might do anything with it."
Do you mean that the enlightenment was a good thing? We did (and do) tear down our constraints and taboos did we not? Everything should be permissible.
Or do you mean we, as humans, haven't tried that particular thing before? I can assure you we already have, the only reason you can't read about it in the history books is that those groups/civilizations are no longer with us. Survivorship bias. Same with Matriarchy, tried and tested, but did not stand the test of time.
Just because you prefer to be without the constrains from religion does not mean everyone feels the same, as you yourself said, they find substitutes. Just because you can and want to be a good person in total freedom does not mean most people can or will.
Now we have lost our way and it seems our will. Our will to fight and protect what our forefathers left us. With the Enlightenment we gained some things but lost a lot more. We will probable lose more to come.
In the long run the believers will triumph over the non-believers. Question is, do you prefer Islam or Christianity?
You can prefer whatever you like. I'm not convinced "Western Enlightenment" has the fortitude, staying power nor the ability to convince enough people to stand against a belief system.
See for example communism, environmentalism, wokeism or other secular belief systems.
Stories, sadly imo, tend to be better at convincing people than cold hard facts.
"I'm not convinced "Western Enlightenment" has the fortitude, staying power nor the ability to convince enough people to stand against a belief system."
You are correct. One of the better implementations was the Articles of Confederation, and that barely made it a decade before it was overthrown from within. Which then dashed itself on the rocks in the Whiskey "Rebellion".
No belief system stands still, Jesus was the leader of a small reformist Jewish sect trying to get back to first principles. He was not a Christian. He'd wonder who in hell the Pope thinks he is.
Moderate or not - the goal of the religion is Sharia for all. Even "moderates" agree with that. It's all laid out in the Qu'ran, Hadith, and Muslim Brotherhood texts.
“it’s just astonishing watching self-styled progressive women lining up for this.“
Could someone explain to me why we keep indulging the fantasy that these wackos are “progressive” in any meaningful sense of the word? They are as REgressive as they can be. Their endgame seems to be wanting to return to the big Sleep of Reason that preceded the Renaissance.
That nap lasted the better part of a millenium, and it wasn’t called “progressive.” It was called the Dark Ages. For a reason.
Mark Steyn has been saying for over 20 years that Islam is a political system pretending to be a religion and the left is a religion pretending to be a political system. But as amusing as that is, the outcome is the same either way.
Keep writing. The warnings have been out for decades but the awakening to what's been allowed is just beginning. There's still hope Muslims will not rule in the US but that hope is fading as they join forces with the useful idiots advocating socialism. The window for action is closing rapidly. A reckoning can't come soon enough.
When you look at UK demographic maps. # of mosques 2000, compared to # of mosques today. # of Muslim mayors 2000 compared to today. They have critical mass, it's gonna fall.
"hitting back when hit is both a right and a basic tenet of common law and personal space. fear of being hit back is basically the only thing that keeps half the world in check."
Yeah, and when you're an honorable guy with fists you often face dishonorable scum with knives and guns.
Which is why sadly all the honorable guys need guns.
As many people have said, being rational with irrational people is pointless.
Progressivism is a cult. And the point of cultism is to blindly believe, and never question. They measure self-worth, not in knowledge, achievement or compassion, but in fealty to their leaders.
Fascism is easy, it’s communism with private property and corporations allowed as long as all serve the state.
Communism with less micromanagement.
There is a great book, “Travelers in the 3rd Reich”, letters and observations of people who traveled through Europe from the 20s to 1945, what stuck with me was most saw little difference between Hitler’s germany and Joe’s Soviet Union
What sprung to mind while watching that video was "fascism is a form of totalitarian collectivism that protects itself from reactionary counterrevolution by allowing the propertied classes to keep nominal ownership of their assets."
"Nominal" is the important bit. The socialists at the time had already recognized the principle of tragedy of the commons, though not by that name. Their genius was in switching from "ownership of the means of production" to "control of the means of production." Same end result, but, as in today's america, holding a deed or title gives the illusion of ownership, close enough to the same thing if you don't look too closely, so he is incentivized to keep it maintained and in good repair.
Wow, no kitty catting today. I don't know which part of the drop is the most chilling because the whole thing is a big frightening slurpee. Is it the howls of protest in the audience over the mere words that an image of Mohammed might be revealed, or the horrible woman sneering the truth: we've already taken over? When I first came across James Lindsay labeling Islam and Marxism as cults, I thought it unfair. But his definition of a cult fit with the label. Both believe they can bring forth utopia by enforcing their rules on earth. Christianity is continuously mocked, and we are told it is essential in a free society to criticize. But criticize Islam or the alphabet people, and you are worthy of death - literally. Christianity gave rise to the individual, and the status of women. In LA there are beautiful old empty Churches. I know the congregations that built these Churches also built the prosperity that once was LA. The few Churches open are on life support with rainbow banners. I wonder why not say the truth: "under new management."
We have hollowed out the hallow by Enlightenment thinking that sneers at it. In college, I was one of them. I poked fun at the Catholic Church after interviewing a man entering the priesthood who was obviously gay. My secular Jewish professor told me I was a narcissist. I never forgot the lesson and always remember him fondly for telling me (in academic language) I was an asshole. I came across the work of René Girard on scapegoating, with major scapegoating occurring with a technological advance. I can't help but wonder if what we are encountering is inevitable. I also wonder, with irony, if the only place Christianity will be allowed in 100 years is in the emerging modern nation states of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Based on my experiences growing up in Miami during the 1960s Cuban invasion, I'd extend the above analysis to any invading groups.
For example, I was in the principal's office the first week of first grade for hitting a kid in the face after he hit me in the back of the head while standing in line. It wasn't something my parents taught me, it was what I learned from playground bullies in kindergarten.
Attempts at bullying me stopped for a while, then I was back in the principal's office in second grade for a wild-ass accusation that i was taking sharps from the back of a pharmacy and throwing them at Cubans. I had never thought of doing that, of course.
Got one video in gmail, FYI. Edit: I take that back, looks the same online.
It is also interesting to me the volume of everyday Americans that require punishment to avoid breaking laws and customs. The volume of stop sign no-stops, red light runners, parking in the fire lane, and phone usage to the point you're crossing the double yellow or driving off the road is crazy. When I started driving, you lived in terror of getting called out for the rolling stop, now, you get honked at for stopping. It strikes me that a huge volume of people are unable to resist getting away with what they can get away with. It terrifies me because it seems they are just going to continue to escalate until there are some real consequences.
Of course, it's what you see in the process of transitioning from a high-trust society to a low one.
In a high-trust society like America used to be, social norms as well as laws are adhered to largely voluntarily, and transgression, while not unheard of are rare. In low-trust groups like the third world, our own inner cities and migrant enclaves, only an authoritarian iron fist serves to control behavior.
It is not an organic shift, but one that is directly attributable to political policies which encourage (or at least refuse to sanction) all sorts of deviant behavior, along with the deliberate flooding of our society with incompatible immigrants from barbaric cultures.
I think that is part of why it bothers me so much. I don't live in an urban migrant enclave, I live in a solidly red state in the Midwest, outside of the blue dot major city. It is also not major crime, but absent enforcement, a lot of my neighbors will immediately take the easier route of parking on the sidewalk in the fire lane rather than walk 20 feet to the closest open parking spot.
You're correct, and the taint of lawlessness seeps into formerly pristine parts of our culture.
Just like the broken window syndrome, you'll find the anti-social behaviors increase when tolerated. One symptom I found amusing but telling is that, in Texas, the closer you get to the border, the more you see shopping carts at the grocery store let randomly around the parking lot instead of being corralled.
Instead of common courtesy to unknown others, we see increasing indifference to any needs but the individual's desires of the moment.
I'm not as concerned about that. Even in small towns, decisions about speed limits and stop signs are made by an increasingly incompetent bunch. Submission to arbitrary authoritarian diktat is not a particularly American value, especially diktat decreed by morons.
Make a rolling stop when you would have clearly had the right-of-way, fine. Keeps traffic from backing up. Make a rolling stop that steals someone else's right of way, "Book 'im, Danno."
The point of politics is for AWFULs to feel good about themselves. That's why it's OK to let a bunch of barbarians into your country then blame the well-behaved natives when the barbarians start killing the gays.
It's also why it's OK to ignore last week's Senate hearing with The Science.
If you're not doing your part to affirm mentally ill leftist women and emasculated men, you're the problem. Either clap louder for the gays so you can invite further hectoring by purple haired lunatics or drive a van into a crowd of dudes wearing assless chaps. Those are your options.
And we can thank our dear Saudi friends for obliterating moderate Islam, too. Even in the '80s in places like Pakistan you could go to fairs in Punjab during Ramadan if you felt like it and not get your teeth kicked out. Now they don't hold fairs during Ramadan anymore. Those petrodollars paid for a lot of Saudi-influenced madrassas throughout the Muslim world.
My paternal grandmother travelled on her own from Morocco to Kairo in the 50s. No harassment, no resentment, no problems. Lots of women wearing Western clothing, or westernised versions of local clothing, make-up, smoking, dancing - normal life.
Here in EU-rope there's another angle to it too:
In the 1970s the various Socialist Democrat parties outside the Soviet Bloc noticed their share of the votes had started shrinking rather alarmingly (in Sweden, the party likened it to a coup d'état* when they lost an election in the 1970s), due to their base changing their voting patterns, as the traditional working class was replaced due to the gradual shift away from labour-intensive industry towards education-intense same.
What to do?
Taking inspiration from the US Democrats and their wrangling of USAmerican Negros, they allied with various migrant-groups from MENA- Arabs, Persians, Kurds (Sweden). Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians (France) and so on. In exchange for votes, which the head imams, kadis and clan chiefs ("community organisers") would provide, the party would ensure that members of the clans and people approved of by the imam councils would have an easier time migrating here. And with well over 50% of the migrants being wholly dependent on welfare, and the Socialist Democrats being the "welfare-state party" bar none, it was a match as diabolical as Hitler and Stalin making nice.
*In a twist of irony, there's a Persian restaurant in Stockholm called "Coup D'Etat", serving a de luxe mixture of French and Persian cuisine. 4.3 out of 5 acc. to Tripadvisor.
Geez. I'm not really "liking" your comment, you understand.
I think the perilous social moment happened when the word "ethnic" suddenly was only used for all the nonwhite peoples as though everyone of European origin had zero cultural attributes. Even in my younger foolish years it annoyed me to see those "ethnic hair care" aisles in the drug stores.
It was an insidious attack and it worked brilliantly. A few years ago some moron lady in a comments thread (possibly NYT or a left-leaning publication) referred to herself as a "generic white woman" and I was incredulous.
But this is one of the reasons, I think, why younger Swedes and Germans and English people so easily became seduced by the imaginary romance of The Eastern Other. I got a bit seduced by that myself but for me it was the opposite of fatal.
Yes - the term "White people" has a lot to answer for. Could be a good subject for a deep-delve research-paper, where it originates in its various forms and applications and how (and by whom) it was hi-jacked and put its post-1950s usage.
Also,, a lot of blame for the rampant hatred of the West among many "ethnic people" in MENA can be put on one man:
Edcard Said, and his "Orientalism" (or as I called it after working throug it - "the Arabs' 'Mein Kampf' since that is what it most resembles). Talk about weaponising "othering".
My wife frequently calls herself "indigenous Swede" when talking about our history, culture and such (mainly pre-1100s things), and younger people, make that the under-forty bracket now thinks she means she's Sámi.
No, she informs them. Our ancestors pre-date the Lapp (our name for them) by almost 10 000 years.
To which they invariably reply with "But Wikipedia states that..."
And I thought the likes of Ahnenerbe and Himmler's boys were the bottom tier in creating fake history to erase races and cultures... nope. Modern-day tech-corporations have them beat by a country mile.
I got his book on my shelf but I wasn't overly enamored by it. And funny thing--if I recall he was the one at Columbia who set Bari Weiss off on her outrage journey, and as tiresome a gal as she is, if she manages to utterly destroy CBS during her tenureship I'll forgive her a lot.
Wikipedia's been around for long enough now that people who were kids when it was started are adults now, and so perceive it as a normal and trusted go-to for information. That's how good agit-prop works - it has to be around for long enough to be seen as normal and middle-of-the-ground by people making decisions. Then, for the next generation it will be the standard measure, and for the next again it will simply be "what everyone knows".
Newspapers were seen as low-class ad-space gossip-rags full of lies, initially. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and we get what our generations thought of as the golden standard: NYT, The Times, Financial Times, Telegraph, et cetera.
Internet, forums and social media all went through the same process too, while old media responded with lies and hysteria and calls for state control and censorship and gatekeeping.
Which ironically echoes perfectly what happened when papers and publishing was the new hot in the 1700s, and the Catholic and Protestant Church tried to curb freedom of speech, opinion and expression the exact same way.
It's a bit like your nose. How often do we really notice it, unless looking in a mirror? It's just there, and has always been.
"Far right" really means "So far, right all along", just like how "conspiracy theory" is just French for "spoiler alert".
There is an actual far right, but the way the word is used by most politicians and corporate media today really means "anyone that takes positions I oppose". The Economist interview with Musk is a textbook example of this.
I used to be "far left" because I advocated for individual liberty and mutual coexistence - and against government intrusion into lifestyle choices, against censorship and for free speech and expression, against those that deemed my music "the devils work" and those that sought to impose by force their choices upon others. I've not moved, but now I'm "far right" for the same beliefs and actions. In 2020 I got to watch the "liberals" espouse on the "need" for censorship, called "moderation", the need to suppress inquiry and opposition to blind obedience. In many cases the same people who railed against "decency" standards a few decades earlier.
Left v. Right is so skewed and makes no sense when you really evaluate it so maybe it’s time to ditch the Left v. Right paradigm: https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/lets-ditch-the-left-v-right-paradigm?r=76q58
Should have been ditched a long time ago. Since the Left is totalitarian, the Right must be individual liberty. A spectrum has to have opposite poles, not two sides of the same coin.
Rothbard used the 18th century French Estates General as his spectrum model to place the radicals on the Left and the monarchists on the Right (based on where they sat in the ES), or in modern parlance, the anarchies (anarcho-communism, anarcho-capitalism) on the Left and totalitarianism (absolutism, dictatorship) on the Right.
He then placed libertarianism just to the right of the anarchies, republicanism to the left of totalitarianism (with constitutional monarchies in between), and smack dab in the middle he placed socialism, which he termed a muddle-headed desire to use totalitarian means to bring about utopian anarcho-communism...
That sort of applied in the day. But a monarchy is simply a dictatorship collective that is accepted and has established rules of succession.
Nobody's spectrum offers the individualist a chance to be the opposite of whatever collectives. I don't want to be place between two groups of collectivist s. I want to be as far away as possible.
What do you think anarcho-capitalism is?
Not sure. I've always thought anarchy meant the destruction of the current order as a means of transition to some other ism. Chaos is the lack of order. Mathematically, chaos doesn't really exist.
Neither does any political ism, including individualism. If all humans existed alone we'd go extinct.
Capitalism would be perfect if everyone was talented and honest. But the world is full of lazy, stupid and envious people that refuse to behave.
Anarchists hate the capitalism part, capitalists hate the anarchy part.
We humans are sure a puzzle. As long as we keep polite discussions going, we have a chance.
Thanks for your comments.
Unless it is a circle where the two sides meet...
If you have left to right, then it's a linear axis. Polar opposites. A circle requires more coordinates. Left, right,up, down.
Offers an endless possibility for debate or argument.
Best.
Ever hear of the Horseshoe Political Theory? It's an interesting take.
I looked it up. Seems like they don't want to admit that the only difference between the groups is who they like and who they hate. Who cares? Why try to separate them?
It seems to me the problem is that those who hate white men are the same as those who hate some other group. They both fit into a collective. Nazis, Fascists, Communists and many religious orders and other forms of insanity are all simply varieties of collectives. Go look at Free Republic. The Republican Borg.
So in my simple definition, they all belong in the exact same spot, which I call Left. They may love or hate different splinters of humanity, but they all want to control everyone to their satisfaction.
They all want ice cream, but they all demand their own flavor.
Now I'm the opposite of all of them. I belong as far away as possible from any of those who want to command me. I want nothing from anybody, but to be left alone. That's completely opposite of any collective. None of them are willing to leave me alone.
So I declare myself a right wing extremist.
I don't want ice cream.
Thanks for your comment. Have a wonderful day!
My mom used to say the political spectrum is round. Go far enough left and you get right. Go far enough right you get left.
I've abandoned those terms long ago, mostly because I have no idea what they mean anymore the way the terms are used. See above...I've moved from far left to far right in 50 or so years without changing my views :-).
The Nolan chart is much more coherent.
There is nothing more Anti-American than being Anti-Gay, except perhaps for being Anti-Pedophile and Anti-Transgender, or Anti-Sadist.
This is what the US is fighting against in Ukraine, where the values of Iran's Christian ally in the BRICS Union, Russia, of respect for heterosexuality and the traditional family, and laws against proselytizing for paedophilia and transgenderism are being resisted by the US in favor of the American values recognized around the world as associated with Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Theil, George Santos, Dylan Mulvaney, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, Lindsey Graham and the USMC.
Why you doggin the Marine Corps?
I'm homophobic.
You have no experience with USMC.
And that's the way I like it. Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church taught the world that the USMC are, to use his word, "faggots" and that the "US = Fag Nation." His right to protected free speech was upheld by the SCOTUS.
So-called "transgender" is exactly as "real" as Santa Claus, but not more real....
EVERYBODY is gay, but NOBODY is "transgender"....
Is the Invisible Gorilla in the room? Why can’t people see the truth?
Islam means Surrender, which should be shocking to any American since our origins are quite the opposite.
And there is a very big difference in Christianity and Islam since Jesus told us to Love our Enemy and Mohammed said Kill the Infidel. Quite the opposite message. Love v. Hate.
Google AI says the three verses most commonly cited for the command to "kill them wherever you find them" are:
• Surah 2:191: "And kill them wherever you find them...". This verse is immediately preceded by verse 2:190, which instructs Muslims to "fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits."
• Surah 4:89: "They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved... but if they turn away, seize them and kill them wherever you find them."
• Surah 9:5: Often called "The Verse of the Sword," it says, "kill the polytheists wherever you find them."
So, why would we invite people to live in our country when they want to kill us? Yes, the US created a ton of refugees from our senseless ME wars, but this madness of letting people who want to kill the infidel into western countries is madness.
Don't worry, It only took 800 years for Spain to expel the Moors last time.
To paraphrase Young Frankenstein "A Crusade is an ugly thing; but I think it's just about time that we had one!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buvSIrFi0Hw
IKR.
So, who knows about this stuff but the psychic Baba Vanga predicted that the Islamic caliphate would be complete in Europe by 2043 with Rome as the capital.
I read all of Baba Vanga's predictions and I don't remember that one. I'll need to look it up. Like Mother Shipton, there a lot of false verses and quotes attributed to her.
Very true - hard to know what was exactly said. I've seen a lot of Edgar Cayce prophesies on youtube that specify dates like 2026 and he did not put in dates like that.
Here's what Google AI says: It's BS! (JK)
"The claim that Baba Vanga predicted an Islamic caliphate centered in Rome by 2043 originates entirely from internet folklore and modern social media posts rather than any verified primary text.Nature of the SourceNo Written Records: As reported by outlets covering her legacy like NDTV, "These predictions are not available in written text anywhere but have been passed on to the next generation by her followers and aides."Oral Tradition and Amplification: The specific timeline regarding a 2043 European caliphate surfaced heavily online around 2015 alongside media commentary attempting to tie her generalized warnings of a "great Muslim war" to the rise of ISIS.Lack of Verification: Scholars and researchers note that because Baba Vanga (Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova) left no personal journals or transcripts, most attributed future timeline milestones are posthumous fabrications or interpretations popularized by tabloids and internet forums."
Great work Liz. A little research goes a long way.
Sometimes I just need to say, "d'oh!"
And a couple hours for 40 or 60 thousand or maybe more to invade a city of 80,000. And many (most?) are still there, no matter what the liberal pols and msm say. What breaks my heart is the desecration of graves.
Feel the same way
It helps if you think they are no longer there. Indeed, they weren't even their true selves in their meatsuits. What you saw was either a reflection or a projection of their true being.
I better increase my vitamin dosage.
"So, why would we invite people to live in our country when they want to kill us?"
You answered your own question. The commies see the Muslims as their anti-Christian allies, Muslims see the commies as a means to an end.
Communism has always been chock-full of useful idiots.
“It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.” George Orwell
During our family vacation in Ocean City New Jersey in July, I was sitting on the boardwalk eating ice cream and people watching. Two young Muslim girls walked by in full black garb including veils with eye slits. I was shocked. It was the first time I have seen that, and it was a wakeup call.
How do you know how young or old they were underneath all that garb?
I'm far from the first to notice that the commies' apparent plan is missing detail on the most important step and it's going to bite them in the butt.
1) Mass importation of Islam to kill everyone that makes the septum-piercing crowd sad
2) ?????
3) Communist utopia
In fact, it's already biting them - the Muslims are already shedding the skin suits of Western leftist parties in favor of starting their own. We're a little further behind the curve on that then Europe, but not by much.
The worst part is that even though it's been biting the commies for awhile now, they refuse to learn the lesson; that would involve some self-examination and the indoctrination is too deep for them to have that particular skill.
Also, the leftists need their votes. That’s the prime motivating factor. Leftists have such a severely stunted intellect and mentality that they cannot see the train wreck (actually, firing squad) that’s coming down the road at them. But, they will see it in due time, when it’s too late. There is no avoiding it.
That's why the traitors-- the leftists-- have to go before we can get rid of the invaders
🎯
The chief problem in western society, however, is that we give time and attention to the idiots in these videos. These people need to be far away from anything power-related. We've given them control and let them corrupt our societies.
Karl Marx’s favorite line from “Faust” was “Everything that exists deserves to perish”.
Islam’s operational motivation is “We love death more than you love life”.
The leftist cancelled or soon to be cancelled MLK, Jr. had “a Dream deeply rooted in the American Dream”
In what dream is the leftist/islamic dream rooted? All I can think of is Carl Jung’s “the roots of the Human Shadow extend all the way to Hell”.
John Milton gets it:
for Whence, but from the author of all ill,
Could spring so deep a malice,
To confound the race of Mankind in one root [The Garden]
And Earth with Hell, to mingle and involve
Done all to spite The Great Creator.
yes. there's no clearer path to suicide than believing that anyone who hates the same people you do must therefore your friend.
It was not just "our senseless ME wars" that created a ton of refugees. It was, and is, a deliberate perpetration.
Your're right. The Nationality Act of 1965 was devestating.
It's written. In the Muslim Brotherhood guide. Financial jihad - drain the public well. Cultural jihad - rape their women. Political jihad - run for office. There are approved actions for various percentages of population - when they get to 30%, that's where it gets really dangerous. Prior to that, they can taqiyyah (deceive) about - "religion of peace."
They have been shipped in by people who don't like you. Most lack the agency to do anything, never mind travel across oceans and somehow settle in the US. The paperwork alone would prevent it. Thousands of NGOs exist to manage this.
Most countries ban this group from entering their territory. Why do you think that is?
Not “surrender,” but “submit.” There is an important difference. We are not just allowed to say, “OK, let’s just get along and I’ll let you run the world.” It is literally “I will submit myself to you so I am not enslaved, dominated, or murdered.”
...which is enslavement, domination and murder.
Have you never noticed how the Qur'an contradicts itself? How certain Suras say the exact opposit of others?
It's worth the study.
Not even their Holy Book is consistent.
Of course, there is an explanation for that, and it's not pretty. But the fact is there, nonetheless.
There is a Rule of Abrogation in the Qu'ran. The verses are ordered by length of verse, not chronologically. The contradictions in the text are resolved via the Rule of Abrogation: Things that Mohammad said later "abrogate" the things he said earlier. Any guesses about how early or late the "peace" verses are as opposed to the "kill" verses? Yeah, that.
Yes. It is hopeless to try and exist with people that are separated from us by 13 centuries.
This is exactly what the most powerful people in the world want, Muslim versus Christian war (or non-religious people that adhere to the golden rule) in western civilization. An excuse to gain more control over all of us.
Seems pretty straightforward.
It's frightening that the venerable Oxford Union is being run by Muslim Women. The takeover is near complete.
The useful idiot , suicidal white females think this is like a zoo break of cute animals
If it cries, it must be a baby.
well said.
When you combine this with Cambridge's black, lying, super-marathon running "scholar" you can really see that UK unis seem to be speeding headlong into sheer worthless parodical skinsuits of formerly august institutions.
Yes. The UK is a lost cause.
Right? I was in shock looking at the people in the room in that video.
Maybe I need to move my timeline up for us having to bomb the UK…
"...and so i wonder: 'where is moderate islam in all this?' "
Well, in places like Pakistan it's being blown to smithereens by its fellow practitioners of peace. The great Sufi shrines have been as much under attack as the Christian churches.
But there's an awful, awful irony too. The moderate Muslims often emigrate to the West and their children and grandchildren raised here turn into hijabis. Go figure.
There is no "moderate" islam. I've read converts who've left islam say they didn't jihad personally, but quietly waited for and fully expected islam to eventually conquer the entire world.
There are good and bad people, and weak people in between, and everyone everywhere interprets the tenets of their own religion/dogma/cult according to their own natures.
Unfortunately good people are rare, and weak people are extremely numerous, and a few bad people can have catastrophic effects.
If your religion worships killing and burning down, that quirky behavior is encouraged.
Good grief. Christians were burning other Christians at the stake for possessing copies of the Bible printed in the vernacular. There are Christian sects completely exterminated by more dominant Christian sects.
That's how Islam was designed by a warlord who wanted his violent gangs to kill everyone not in their gang, enslave the women and keep them pregnant, making more thugs
I expressed the following in a gathering of conservatives where the speaker was discussing the problem of Islam, and I was roundly booed for it. I still believe I am correct.
Only about 2% of Americans ever serve in the military, but when we are under attack, almost everyone is willing to "Support the Troops".
Only a small number of Muslims are willing to become jihadis, but almost all Muslims "Support the Troops". The jihadis are the Muslim military.
Insert your own caveats, but I believe that all true believing Muslims support the terror and murder done in the name of their religion, including the eventual extermination or enslavement of all Jews, Christians, Atheists, and every other non-Muslim.
I hope not but Islam has the IRGC, Hezbollah, Hutis, Hamas and they do things more horrible on the regular to women and children than most war armies have ever done.
History supports your conclusion. The approval may be fear based or ideological; envy, hate, faith or disdain for the West. Islam is an absolute with regard to in-group out-group ideology. They hate the other.
Well, I disagree with you based on my own personal experiences, and I repeat--good people interpret their faith as suits their own natures, and bad people likewise.
This is the same with Christianity. Good people who are Christians find it very hard to truly believe that people they love dearly who are not Christians will roast in hell for all eternity. Bad people who are Christians are more than happy to believe that.
Goodness does not save though. People will burn in hell because God (the real one, not the satanic allah) is just and people are all evil to varying degrees. The only question is what we choose to do about the evil in our own hearts.
Non Christians burning in hell is not in the bible that I’ve seen.
Burning down infidels runs through the books Islam children are forced to recite
Are you really truly absolutely sure that the New Testament does not discuss the fate of unbelievers?
Are you prepared to declare that the tender mercies of the Spanish Inquisition were administered by people entirely unfamiliar with Christian dogma?
Yes, the Quran has some pretty awful stuff and it's not healthy for anyone to live under Muslim rule.
But as you know it wasn't very healthy for my people to be subjected to Christian rule. I wouldn't want to live under Jewish theocratic rule either. I'm really glad that of my great-grandmother's four children, two of them came here rather than going to British Mandatory Palestine as the other two did.
Islam is not the same as Christianity. Read a little history. Think Golden rule vs Intifada...kill the infidel, kill the other. They are a wee bit different.
Christians never kill people for believing differently?
It’s not in the Bible is my point. It’s not a command, it’s a sin.
And my point as always is there's very little connection to God in the way most people of any religion conduct their lives.
Yes. but if a Christian preaches peace with other religions, other Christians are not supposed to kill them for that.
This has been the case throughout the muslim world. The muslim brotherhood was started about a century ago, explicitly to bring the muslim "back" in line with the guidelines in the hadiths, but also to expand those same guidelines to dominate the infidel. Egypt, its birthplace, banned mb in '48 and again in '54, after a successful and failed assassination, respectively. Since mb was largely an upper-middle class and professional organization, other muslim countries welcomed them, and they assumed positions of influence, especially in education. Many of these countries would later ban them. Obama called them the moderates in the arab spring, and the west welcomed them in hordes, again into positions where they would have outsize influence on the young.
Well, the basic problem is that believing in cults is bad. The Western Enlightenment was a unique historical and intellectual moment but time doesn't stand still, and when you give people intellectual and social freedom they might do anything with it.
And people feel a strange sort of hollowness when they stop believing in the cults they were raised in, and they find substitutes, and even when they continue to pretend they believe in a cult they will bend and twist it to suit their own needs, so the liberal Christianity and Judaism that was the fruit of the Western Enlightenment became socialism and all sorts of modern derangements of liberalism.
But Muslims can't liberalize because other Muslims will kill them, and when liberal Muslims move to Western nations, their children resent being surrounded by Western liberal culture and rebel right back into the Islam their parents attempted to escape.
There's a stern lesson here. Even for the thoroughly Western holding on to that Enlightenment is rough work. Others don't have enough of a desire to even understand it at all.
"Well, the basic problem is that believing in cults is bad."
Mostly it's not. If the followers of jim jones want to drink the flavor-aid, or the members of heaven's gate want to take sleeping pills or slit their wrists or whatever it was they did, what's that to me? Its when they try to impose their will on non-cult members that the problems begin.
Enlightenment was not the unalloyed good you are suggesting. It's the reason the french revolution went sideways -- chesterton's fence will not be mocked. At least not without blood in the streets.
Mostly, believing in a cult is bad because cults are cults because they have an authoritarian ruling group and treat non-cultists badly and treat their members and children badly to keep power. Cults are a terrarium of poisonous behavior and growth.
Maybe. Depends on your definition of "cult." If you use it as a pejorative, of course cults are bad. If you mean a group that has all the knobs turned to 11, it depends on what those knobs are. For example, I'm not sure who was harmed by all the cultists handing out flowers in airports.
You are misperceiving my comment.
"The Western Enlightenment was a unique historical and intellectual moment but time doesn't stand still, and when you give people intellectual and social freedom they might do anything with it."
Do you mean that the enlightenment was a good thing? We did (and do) tear down our constraints and taboos did we not? Everything should be permissible.
Or do you mean we, as humans, haven't tried that particular thing before? I can assure you we already have, the only reason you can't read about it in the history books is that those groups/civilizations are no longer with us. Survivorship bias. Same with Matriarchy, tried and tested, but did not stand the test of time.
Just because you prefer to be without the constrains from religion does not mean everyone feels the same, as you yourself said, they find substitutes. Just because you can and want to be a good person in total freedom does not mean most people can or will.
Now we have lost our way and it seems our will. Our will to fight and protect what our forefathers left us. With the Enlightenment we gained some things but lost a lot more. We will probable lose more to come.
In the long run the believers will triumph over the non-believers. Question is, do you prefer Islam or Christianity?
I prefer the Western Enlightenment.
You can prefer whatever you like. I'm not convinced "Western Enlightenment" has the fortitude, staying power nor the ability to convince enough people to stand against a belief system.
See for example communism, environmentalism, wokeism or other secular belief systems.
Stories, sadly imo, tend to be better at convincing people than cold hard facts.
"I'm not convinced "Western Enlightenment" has the fortitude, staying power nor the ability to convince enough people to stand against a belief system."
You are correct. One of the better implementations was the Articles of Confederation, and that barely made it a decade before it was overthrown from within. Which then dashed itself on the rocks in the Whiskey "Rebellion".
And it worked out no better for the French.
They are all religions.
No belief system stands still, Jesus was the leader of a small reformist Jewish sect trying to get back to first principles. He was not a Christian. He'd wonder who in hell the Pope thinks he is.
It's the same phenomenon as the children and grandchildren of escapees from Cuba or the Soviet bloc being enthusiastic Communists.
Always. The need of children to rebel against their parents can't be gene-edited away.
Moderate or not - the goal of the religion is Sharia for all. Even "moderates" agree with that. It's all laid out in the Qu'ran, Hadith, and Muslim Brotherhood texts.
“it’s just astonishing watching self-styled progressive women lining up for this.“
Could someone explain to me why we keep indulging the fantasy that these wackos are “progressive” in any meaningful sense of the word? They are as REgressive as they can be. Their endgame seems to be wanting to return to the big Sleep of Reason that preceded the Renaissance.
That nap lasted the better part of a millenium, and it wasn’t called “progressive.” It was called the Dark Ages. For a reason.
Mark Steyn has been saying for over 20 years that Islam is a political system pretending to be a religion and the left is a religion pretending to be a political system. But as amusing as that is, the outcome is the same either way.
Keep writing. The warnings have been out for decades but the awakening to what's been allowed is just beginning. There's still hope Muslims will not rule in the US but that hope is fading as they join forces with the useful idiots advocating socialism. The window for action is closing rapidly. A reckoning can't come soon enough.
Imagine when Germany invaded Poland if their troops had been met with TV crews and local Liberal women handing out bottles of water.
When you look at UK demographic maps. # of mosques 2000, compared to # of mosques today. # of Muslim mayors 2000 compared to today. They have critical mass, it's gonna fall.
"hitting back when hit is both a right and a basic tenet of common law and personal space. fear of being hit back is basically the only thing that keeps half the world in check."
Yeah, and when you're an honorable guy with fists you often face dishonorable scum with knives and guns.
Which is why sadly all the honorable guys need guns.
As many people have said, being rational with irrational people is pointless.
Progressivism is a cult. And the point of cultism is to blindly believe, and never question. They measure self-worth, not in knowledge, achievement or compassion, but in fealty to their leaders.
Fascism is easy, it’s communism with private property and corporations allowed as long as all serve the state.
Communism with less micromanagement.
There is a great book, “Travelers in the 3rd Reich”, letters and observations of people who traveled through Europe from the 20s to 1945, what stuck with me was most saw little difference between Hitler’s germany and Joe’s Soviet Union
What sprung to mind while watching that video was "fascism is a form of totalitarian collectivism that protects itself from reactionary counterrevolution by allowing the propertied classes to keep nominal ownership of their assets."
What I said 😀
"Nominal" is the important bit. The socialists at the time had already recognized the principle of tragedy of the commons, though not by that name. Their genius was in switching from "ownership of the means of production" to "control of the means of production." Same end result, but, as in today's america, holding a deed or title gives the illusion of ownership, close enough to the same thing if you don't look too closely, so he is incentivized to keep it maintained and in good repair.
Wow, no kitty catting today. I don't know which part of the drop is the most chilling because the whole thing is a big frightening slurpee. Is it the howls of protest in the audience over the mere words that an image of Mohammed might be revealed, or the horrible woman sneering the truth: we've already taken over? When I first came across James Lindsay labeling Islam and Marxism as cults, I thought it unfair. But his definition of a cult fit with the label. Both believe they can bring forth utopia by enforcing their rules on earth. Christianity is continuously mocked, and we are told it is essential in a free society to criticize. But criticize Islam or the alphabet people, and you are worthy of death - literally. Christianity gave rise to the individual, and the status of women. In LA there are beautiful old empty Churches. I know the congregations that built these Churches also built the prosperity that once was LA. The few Churches open are on life support with rainbow banners. I wonder why not say the truth: "under new management."
We have hollowed out the hallow by Enlightenment thinking that sneers at it. In college, I was one of them. I poked fun at the Catholic Church after interviewing a man entering the priesthood who was obviously gay. My secular Jewish professor told me I was a narcissist. I never forgot the lesson and always remember him fondly for telling me (in academic language) I was an asshole. I came across the work of René Girard on scapegoating, with major scapegoating occurring with a technological advance. I can't help but wonder if what we are encountering is inevitable. I also wonder, with irony, if the only place Christianity will be allowed in 100 years is in the emerging modern nation states of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Based on my experiences growing up in Miami during the 1960s Cuban invasion, I'd extend the above analysis to any invading groups.
For example, I was in the principal's office the first week of first grade for hitting a kid in the face after he hit me in the back of the head while standing in line. It wasn't something my parents taught me, it was what I learned from playground bullies in kindergarten.
Attempts at bullying me stopped for a while, then I was back in the principal's office in second grade for a wild-ass accusation that i was taking sharps from the back of a pharmacy and throwing them at Cubans. I had never thought of doing that, of course.
Got one video in gmail, FYI. Edit: I take that back, looks the same online.
It is also interesting to me the volume of everyday Americans that require punishment to avoid breaking laws and customs. The volume of stop sign no-stops, red light runners, parking in the fire lane, and phone usage to the point you're crossing the double yellow or driving off the road is crazy. When I started driving, you lived in terror of getting called out for the rolling stop, now, you get honked at for stopping. It strikes me that a huge volume of people are unable to resist getting away with what they can get away with. It terrifies me because it seems they are just going to continue to escalate until there are some real consequences.
Of course, it's what you see in the process of transitioning from a high-trust society to a low one.
In a high-trust society like America used to be, social norms as well as laws are adhered to largely voluntarily, and transgression, while not unheard of are rare. In low-trust groups like the third world, our own inner cities and migrant enclaves, only an authoritarian iron fist serves to control behavior.
It is not an organic shift, but one that is directly attributable to political policies which encourage (or at least refuse to sanction) all sorts of deviant behavior, along with the deliberate flooding of our society with incompatible immigrants from barbaric cultures.
I think that is part of why it bothers me so much. I don't live in an urban migrant enclave, I live in a solidly red state in the Midwest, outside of the blue dot major city. It is also not major crime, but absent enforcement, a lot of my neighbors will immediately take the easier route of parking on the sidewalk in the fire lane rather than walk 20 feet to the closest open parking spot.
You're correct, and the taint of lawlessness seeps into formerly pristine parts of our culture.
Just like the broken window syndrome, you'll find the anti-social behaviors increase when tolerated. One symptom I found amusing but telling is that, in Texas, the closer you get to the border, the more you see shopping carts at the grocery store let randomly around the parking lot instead of being corralled.
Instead of common courtesy to unknown others, we see increasing indifference to any needs but the individual's desires of the moment.
It's not a good place to be.
I see it every day here in calgary, formerly law abiding but now the roads are so 3rd world, only took a couple years
Great! Only in Texas would you say shopping carts are “ corralled.” Love it.
Probably because there are no consequences due to weak leadership.
I'm not as concerned about that. Even in small towns, decisions about speed limits and stop signs are made by an increasingly incompetent bunch. Submission to arbitrary authoritarian diktat is not a particularly American value, especially diktat decreed by morons.
Make a rolling stop when you would have clearly had the right-of-way, fine. Keeps traffic from backing up. Make a rolling stop that steals someone else's right of way, "Book 'im, Danno."
The point of politics is for AWFULs to feel good about themselves. That's why it's OK to let a bunch of barbarians into your country then blame the well-behaved natives when the barbarians start killing the gays.
It's also why it's OK to ignore last week's Senate hearing with The Science.
If you're not doing your part to affirm mentally ill leftist women and emasculated men, you're the problem. Either clap louder for the gays so you can invite further hectoring by purple haired lunatics or drive a van into a crowd of dudes wearing assless chaps. Those are your options.
And we can thank our dear Saudi friends for obliterating moderate Islam, too. Even in the '80s in places like Pakistan you could go to fairs in Punjab during Ramadan if you felt like it and not get your teeth kicked out. Now they don't hold fairs during Ramadan anymore. Those petrodollars paid for a lot of Saudi-influenced madrassas throughout the Muslim world.
Yep.
My paternal grandmother travelled on her own from Morocco to Kairo in the 50s. No harassment, no resentment, no problems. Lots of women wearing Western clothing, or westernised versions of local clothing, make-up, smoking, dancing - normal life.
Here in EU-rope there's another angle to it too:
In the 1970s the various Socialist Democrat parties outside the Soviet Bloc noticed their share of the votes had started shrinking rather alarmingly (in Sweden, the party likened it to a coup d'état* when they lost an election in the 1970s), due to their base changing their voting patterns, as the traditional working class was replaced due to the gradual shift away from labour-intensive industry towards education-intense same.
What to do?
Taking inspiration from the US Democrats and their wrangling of USAmerican Negros, they allied with various migrant-groups from MENA- Arabs, Persians, Kurds (Sweden). Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians (France) and so on. In exchange for votes, which the head imams, kadis and clan chiefs ("community organisers") would provide, the party would ensure that members of the clans and people approved of by the imam councils would have an easier time migrating here. And with well over 50% of the migrants being wholly dependent on welfare, and the Socialist Democrats being the "welfare-state party" bar none, it was a match as diabolical as Hitler and Stalin making nice.
*In a twist of irony, there's a Persian restaurant in Stockholm called "Coup D'Etat", serving a de luxe mixture of French and Persian cuisine. 4.3 out of 5 acc. to Tripadvisor.
Geez. I'm not really "liking" your comment, you understand.
I think the perilous social moment happened when the word "ethnic" suddenly was only used for all the nonwhite peoples as though everyone of European origin had zero cultural attributes. Even in my younger foolish years it annoyed me to see those "ethnic hair care" aisles in the drug stores.
It was an insidious attack and it worked brilliantly. A few years ago some moron lady in a comments thread (possibly NYT or a left-leaning publication) referred to herself as a "generic white woman" and I was incredulous.
But this is one of the reasons, I think, why younger Swedes and Germans and English people so easily became seduced by the imaginary romance of The Eastern Other. I got a bit seduced by that myself but for me it was the opposite of fatal.
Yes - the term "White people" has a lot to answer for. Could be a good subject for a deep-delve research-paper, where it originates in its various forms and applications and how (and by whom) it was hi-jacked and put its post-1950s usage.
Also,, a lot of blame for the rampant hatred of the West among many "ethnic people" in MENA can be put on one man:
Edcard Said, and his "Orientalism" (or as I called it after working throug it - "the Arabs' 'Mein Kampf' since that is what it most resembles). Talk about weaponising "othering".
My wife frequently calls herself "indigenous Swede" when talking about our history, culture and such (mainly pre-1100s things), and younger people, make that the under-forty bracket now thinks she means she's Sámi.
No, she informs them. Our ancestors pre-date the Lapp (our name for them) by almost 10 000 years.
To which they invariably reply with "But Wikipedia states that..."
And I thought the likes of Ahnenerbe and Himmler's boys were the bottom tier in creating fake history to erase races and cultures... nope. Modern-day tech-corporations have them beat by a country mile.
I got his book on my shelf but I wasn't overly enamored by it. And funny thing--if I recall he was the one at Columbia who set Bari Weiss off on her outrage journey, and as tiresome a gal as she is, if she manages to utterly destroy CBS during her tenureship I'll forgive her a lot.
What if she's making CBS into an impartial news source?
Jaja
Bari has always been a liberal. She just has some disagreements with the progressive lunatics. She won't be bringing in a rigorous standard.
That was interesting. Thank you.
And...
Why do people think Wikipedia is an actual informed source of anything?
Wikipedia's been around for long enough now that people who were kids when it was started are adults now, and so perceive it as a normal and trusted go-to for information. That's how good agit-prop works - it has to be around for long enough to be seen as normal and middle-of-the-ground by people making decisions. Then, for the next generation it will be the standard measure, and for the next again it will simply be "what everyone knows".
Newspapers were seen as low-class ad-space gossip-rags full of lies, initially. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and we get what our generations thought of as the golden standard: NYT, The Times, Financial Times, Telegraph, et cetera.
Internet, forums and social media all went through the same process too, while old media responded with lies and hysteria and calls for state control and censorship and gatekeeping.
Which ironically echoes perfectly what happened when papers and publishing was the new hot in the 1700s, and the Catholic and Protestant Church tried to curb freedom of speech, opinion and expression the exact same way.
It's a bit like your nose. How often do we really notice it, unless looking in a mirror? It's just there, and has always been.
Well. It's great when you're watching an old movie and want to refresh your memory on the lives of all the stars in it.