I had this exact experience with a very intelligent and well read friend. Told him that Democrats support taking kids away from parents if they don’t support the transition. He said: that’s a flat out lie. He lives in Illinois and that’s the law in Illinois! I was floored.
I was standing outside a post office in Michigan circulating a petition in 2020 to remove the emergency powers of the governor. A man drove up and told me how dangerous the idea was; Whitmer *needed* that power to "keep us safe". I told him facts about the virus not being dangerous to most people and that masks don't work to prevent infection, etc. He claimed that I got my info from "right wing sources". I told him that no, in fact, a lot of it came from the CDC, the health department, and medical journals. He yelled, "Right wing sources!" and drove off.
I got this from some clown on LinkedIn the other day who was going on about Trump being affiliated with Project 2025. I posted a link from X, from Project 2025, specifically stating that Trump was not affiliated with them. So she responds with: “Your link goes to X. That site has become a leading distributor of disinformation since Elon Musk took over.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. I guess it was fine when Twitter was censoring all of us pre-Elon!
The BC government put out stats that showed triple vaxed were 3x more likely to die from COVID as were the unvaxed. Government stats. They hid them six months later. But I had screen shot this. I showed it to Covidiots. ‘Has this been peer reviewed? I only read peer reviewed research”. “It is government data. A data point isn’t peer reviewed. Interpretations of data are what is peer reviewed.” “Before I could draw any conclusions I would have to know the ages of the people who died.” Said to me triumphantly. Like ‘aha. I
Got around his argument.’ “Its a VACCINE! You aren’t supposed to get the disease if you’re vaccinated. The data shows you are 3x more likely to die from COVID than me! Does that not concern you?” Dumbfounded silence. But one guy I had this discussion with is 6x or 7x vaxed. His arm is withering. Nothing to do with the vax. It is because 20 years ago he broke his thumb. How does he know? His doctor told him. He also is late 60s with some dementia kicking in. Dead man walking.
Yes, you’re so right about CA and IL. The absolute belief in the set of “truths” beyond which nothing worth contemplating exists is like a sports team allegiance. They “know” things are a certain way, so why take in any data for anywhere else,since your set of “truths” already contains the knowledge that all other information is incorrect. It’s a closed circle of cognitive dissonance that the individual is blind to, and makes it hard to tolerate friends, patients etc.
It's interesting that easily provable facts are dismissed as being crazy but if you told your friend that Donald Trump organized and fomented an insurrection on Jan 6th, or that he plans to lock up anyone that disagrees with his general philosophy, they would probably find that to be a fairly obvious truth. The human capacity for delusion is strong and easily reinforced if we stay in our bubbles. It is something we all need to be careful of regardless of which camp you're in. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that most people are in fact decent but the present day media has been spewing hardcore propaganda for a long time and there are still far too many people who believe it is truthful. Our biggest enemies are the controllers in the C-Suites of large corporations and financial institutions and the politicians and elites that benefit from working for them. The legacy media is the most powerful tool these folks have and trying to maintain that power is why they are so desperate to convince those that still absorb the propaganda to believe we need to censor and control the internet. If they somehow win that battle we are in for some long lasting dark times.
A rabid leftie pro choice woman was adamantly against abortion restrictions. Adamantly. Other than ‘what we have now. You know, 12 week limit except in the case of life of the Mother’. This is Canada. Zero rules. I said that. She wouldn’t believe it. Her husband confirmed it. She then pivoted to, late term abortions ‘never happen’. I told her where they occurred in our city. I told her where the abortuary is. She said ‘it must be for only critical life or death situations. I said ‘it is for any reason. Pro choice advocates say it happens in Canada for non health reasons only ‘about 200 times a year’. She said ‘well it isn’t a very big issue then’. I said ‘if 200 young women were being killed on college campuses each year would that be a big issue? And anyway pro life advocates say it happens 1000s of times a year’. She just kept making excuses. She didn’t want to accept the horror of it. And she didn’t want to accept a plank of the platform from the right.
I ask my friends why tgey make the choices tgey makes, such as voting against Trump. They use a lot of words to explain yet at the end of the explanation nothing substantial has been said.
I then ask why harris? Not many words and again no substance. And yet they still believe.
Similar thing happened when I advised people very early that pregnant woman and kids should Not get the COVID jabs, because risk outweighed benefit. By the time of the mandates, no one should have wanted them. I was in healthcare then, and now I am not. It’s a do no harm issue, you know.
When people say that something is not true, that I know for certain is, I typically answer, "well, you may want to look into it because the information exists and is not difficult to find." There's nothing to argue about after that.
I check to see if things are true before I say they are…
If they don't want to know, that is on them… But I assure you if somebody said that to me, I would go look it up!
A friend of min, a single mom (widow), had here 2nd grader came home and told her that her teacher told her she was a lesbian. This capable mom didn't panic, but rather inquired: why do you think that? "Because I like girls, not boys". Mom sighed and said "no dear, that means you are a 7 year old girl".
The conversation with the teacher and school administrators did not go so easily. Just asking politely why this was even being discussed in 2nd grade got her labeled as homophobic. She is not. There was in fact no useful conversation to be had with the school leadership, the teacher or the school board (it escalated). It would have dropped, but the little girl came home a few days after the non-conversation and reported that the teacher had lectured on homophobia and used her mom as an example. That's when lawyers became involved.
Discussion sexual preference with a 7 year old is not OK. It is not necessary. It is not relevant to being a 7 year old. Suggesting gender ambiguity in grammar school is wrong. Considering how may high school kids can't read or do basic arithmentic, we may have clue as to why.
had a similar experience with a leftist who maintained there was no organized effort to convince children they were the wrong sex and chemically and surgically alter them. He said this was rare and hardly ever happens.
Hmmmm, that reminds me of my brother in law (who is an MD) stating categorically that NO transgender surgeries have been/are performed on minors! None! As he looked down at us over his iPad, with its The New Woke Times’ homepage.
He’s on his 8th Covid shot now. So many doctors are “good little Nazis”, thinking whatever they are told to think.
Well, "El Gato" is definitely commerical. She has many nutcase subscribers. Congrats, Gato! You have made it. You are really within commerciality now. You have many useless nuts and conspiracy theorist losers enthusiastically drooling over your creation. Happy???? https://silverman.substack.com/p/commercial-discussion
I think the problem today is not Cluster-Bs creating traditional cults, and by that I mean groups that are outside of the mainstream, but infiltrating and gaining control of mainstream institutions that have largely been trustworthy. It's a more subtle and more dangerous strategy. With a traditional cult, you willingly join, but with infiltration, you are already a member but don't know it.
This is a weird deep dive behind some background behind one of the groups that is inserting DEI into video games. It gets really interesting when they start talking about one of the people behind this project who is heavily involved some big DEI non profit in England, is also the owner of a headhunting agency that inserts management in private industry and government.
There are some interesting names here and some brilliant research. People ask 'how did we get here?' It was because these people were inserting their 'friends' in management and by pretending to be arbiters of moral authority nobody will call them out on it.
I mean, in the end, these groups are made up of Tumblr and Deviant Art hangers on who speculate about what turtle d*ck feels like. But they are dictating the morals of others...
Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
It is the same reason why people who identify as "very liberal" have a tendency to support authoritarianism. My personal belief is that they ALL are cluster B. The scientific data supports this, as does Gallup polling on political identification and mental illness. There are same cluster Bs on the far, far, right as well, but it is a vastly smaller demographic. This is issue is essentially the political manifestation of mentally ill people, i hate to say. But the data is there.
I had my range of experiences with the cults and the personalities of their followers since I graduated from high school in 1969. What you've said aligns perfectly. It was always so perplexing why people joined and were so hard to get to leave and come to their senses. (deprogram). I think a large part is from our distant tribal past. We needed most people to fit into the band and perform the functions of growing food, hunting and gathering, making tools and weapons, protection caring for injured and sick and bringing up kids. Leadership was usually an elder. In my 1st anthro class in '69 I was introduced to the concept of the savage in the gray flannel loin cloth. That fit what I described above. There were always a few that did not quite fit in . They may become the travelers and traders, or may self exile because they don't fit in. But, most everyone wanted a group the could fit in with.
I was in high school during that period. I wanted to be popular it didn’t happen.
I said screw you. Suddenly I became popular. I was in almost every group so I didn’t have one set of beliefs. I loved high school once I stopped wanting something and actually did something
I graduated from that school level in 1973, which makes you 73 years old; I am 69. Yes, we are herd or band-animals! All societies must contain members that conform, and so that much is true. US/Americans (and many persons in the world) also conform to a society of extreme commerciality. The only thing anyone believes in is buying things, accomplished only through money. So many things you just seem to need to take for granted; things like hunting-gathering or makes tools. Everybody must do it. (I just wrote one about how we are commercial in the etreme and yet no economist, since Veblen, has dared discuss the topic of commerciality. Refute me, then... https://silverman.substack.com/p/commercial-discussion)
Start with the Book of Genesis. Its all in there if you read between the lines. It has been written about for a millennia. From Adam/Eve and the serpent, Cain/Abel and so on. Once you know what they are really writing about, i.e the nature of mankind, then it all makes sense.
Joining a destructive herd is not the same as staying in a herd that becomes destructive over time, where the prior years of normalcy carry a lot of weight.
"Joining a destructive herd is not the same as staying in a herd that becomes destructive over time, where the prior years of normalcy carry a lot of weight."
Herd is Herd.
If you can't chart your own path then you have to hope everyone else is doing the right thing. And Herd People don't have a good track record on that account.
Look at the sociopathic personalities of a large % of people in positions of power and control over others that become the politicians and bureaucrat functionaries in our system today. The overton window has fallen out of its frame and lays in shards on the ground.
Woke is just an outfit they put on these last few years. At the turn of the millennium it was counter-terrorism. Same psychopaths (Cheney much?), recycling the same rhetoric, boiling the frog. It's not about WOKE, but it is about totalitarianism.
Nobody mentions the bullying tactics that have been wielded. If you publicly shame and humiliate someone they become less likely to stand up to you, especially when those around them are too afraid to as well, and so they don’t have their back.
I watched the bullying tactics for seven straight years as my two boys were ruthlessly bullied, even by the adults who should have stopped it. (Some bullies were their own child or their child’s best friend or their own best friend’s child.) It was a huge organization of people that bullied to prevent accountability or disadvantage. The tactics were to shame and humiliate my own sons so that no one would dare align with them. Everyone was too scared they would lose power, or that they would become a target themselves if they stepped up and did the right thing. Parents included. The result was my sons were treated like lepers and began to believe they weren’t worthy. Both tried to commit suicide at one point in their school years.
This powerful force of a bullying atmosphere grew to be as bad as it was after decades of anti-bullying campaigns. How is that possible? Literally the adults in charge as well as those running the campaigns are to blame. They used outdated, ineffective approaches that ended up hurting the bullied even more. I saw firsthand the best ways to nip it in the bud, literally overnight - and it wasn’t confronting or punishing the bullies. That NEVER works. It involved creating an environment of open, popular support for the ones being bullied, making sure people saw others defending them. It required the most popular and the most influential in the community to be the first to step up. Eventually the bullies are too afraid to continue when they kept seeing more powerful or more popular kids looking back at them over the shoulder of who they were bullying.
Nobody would listen to me because it was too much of a threat to their own agendas. They wanted that power to bully, to control the status quo and the perceptions of others. Or they simply were too afraid their own kid would endure retaliatory attack.
Anyway, some of these outlier personalities today that want things that the average sane person doesn’t learned from those bullying techniques, and lobbies that embraced the “power of bullying.” Maybe some were victims in their youth and mastered the art of their oppressors? I think MORE were actually the bullies themselves and saw what an effective tool it was.
I’ve always felt that every voice should be allowed at the table, because truth ALWAYS rises to the surface with reasonable, respectful debates. That’s the biggest fear of those wanting control over what everyone thinks - that their perspectives won’t survive the discussion - so they find ways to stifle discussion, to keep others from being able to sit at that table and silence their voices. If the only way you can get your cause to be adopted is by silencing opposition, maybe it’s a bad cause and shouldn’t be adopted. 🤷🏼♀️
LGBTQ issues could never be openly discussed without intense social backlash, shaming, and forced isolation in my community. The table kicked out any dissenting opinion so it could not be heard and if you spoke up anyway you were crucified publicly. It worked so well for their causes that every other group is using their same tactics today. I lived through this too. My daughter was raised to love all people regardless, but to get her truth from the Bible when determining right from wrong (a plumb line for life,) and that it was God’s place to judge others, not ours, and our job was to love all people equally, showing kindness and acceptance. We modeled this for her too. Nothing in our home or from our own treatment of others would ever have taught her to be hateful or discriminatory. Yet … when she was captured by the LGBTQ community in MN, the very FIRST thing they did was destroy her faith and trust in her parents and created a divide so wide between us she couldn’t hear our counter arguments. They severed her relationship with us the minute they found out we were Christian. They convinced her ALL Christian’s were radical, fanatical, and hateful. (Not true) They taught her to hate us for what our faith teaches, and to cancel us at every opportunity, and paint us as judgmental, unloving, unaccepting people. We were none of those things and the people in our life who thought so were projecting their own character. But our daughter could never hear a reasonable arguments because they made sure she never welcomed our “rhetoric” at her table. She has been estranged from us for ten years now and the heartache can’t be described well enough. I lose her all over again every morning I wake up.
Anyway you cut it, it’s bullying that is at play. And people fear being a target. So they jump on bandwagons they would normally never agree with solely to protect themselves and be socially “accepted”.
The early church fathers, who lived in a pretty dystopian and way-out-there environment themselves, believed that inability to see the truth was largely the result of of enslavement to sins - not inadequate intellect.
Why would people join destructive herds? There's your explanation right there. It also explains quite a few of our fellow Weimericans.
But one cannot act on every single moral outrage because of limited time, resources, and capacity. A psychologically healthy person has to be able to notice moral outrages without feeling guilty about not acting on every single one.
I have found the level of violence or trauma an individual has experienced in life, tends to influence the level of adaptability and therefore cognitive dissonance, and/or moral outrage window.😉 Less trauma, more dissonance, more outrage, less action.
I think it's more about humility. With age comes more opportunities to see things as they truly are, but humility is necessary to question whether what you have been believing could possibly be incorrect, and to change one's mind with evidence.
I'm dealing w/ this in my own family. 2 of my kids and I see the gorilla, the other 2 and my husband can't/don't. Makes life difficult to say the least. I can't talk about this truth with my husband b/c he thinks I'm an idiot and crazy. I don't have a PhD in Chemistry like he does so how could I know better than he? My two kids who have followed in his footsteps won't talk about these issues with me either. The other two have their eyes wide open to the craziness. All I can think of is there are none so blind as those who refuse to see...
It's the people who are the most invested in things as they are, who have the hardest time seeing it. I'm sure after going to all the trouble to get a PhD in Chemistry from the system (and I assume making a living that way as well), the system that you're a part of and that rewards you is hard to let go of.
Yes, exactly. He's living in an echo chamber and even when I showed him the Pfizer Whistleblower he said that she was lying (this even after he has told me he thinks Pfizer is the worst Pharma company). The cognizant dissonance is killing me...
CeeCee, I think a LOT of people who took the jabs cannot mentally / emotionally face what they may have done to themselves (not to mention what they did to minor children if they took them in for the shots or to their parents or other relatives if they blackmailed them with banishment).
It's precisely those very professionals in academia, science, etc. who have had the most closed minds and supported the status-quo based on lies and deception; they all have "too much skin in the game" along with ego and arrogance which further enables their blindness.
Tony, I get a publication from Union of Concerned Scientists. Their latest magazine sounds as if Klaus Schwab's gang of psychopaths wrote it. Every article either promotes the 15 minute city idea, electric vehicles, shutting yourself off and not driving, etc.
That gets lonely too. I hope you find others you can talk to that validate what is going on. Eventually them calling you "crazy" is going to affect you in a negative way. Got to find your tribe.
I've found my tribe here on Substack. I have yet to find someone to talk to face to face who agrees with me. Just having you all affirm what I know to be true keeps me strong and keeps me going 🤗
This is the same for me. It’s why I wish I could find a way to connect to local Substackers that follow the substacks I do, so I can have some of that in-person camaraderie and support. Until we find a way to do that, I’ll have to soak up the love I find here and keep diligently praying for us all.
ceecee, juju, We had a little meeting in NM of Simulation Commander readers/commenters. We still all live too far from one another. We do communicate by text and email. The only thing I really have in common with more local folks who are not shot up is the fact that we are not shot up. I want to enjoy life. If I could walk, I would hike. Unfortunately, old age and injuries keep me from that. I do like wine and food. Again, unfortunately, the unshot up folks don't give a flip about that. So I associate with those who keep getting shots. I have to self-censor with most of them. Now I see them getting unusual illnesses. Interesting times.
Current wife, ex wife, all 3 sons, two daughters in law, all not vaxed. I am soooo lucky. My eldest son was last on my list. I said ‘we need to talk. About the vax.’ He said ‘Dad. Stop. I am Not getting vaxed. And if you are we need to get into this. It is a scam. You won’t be able to talk me into it.’ I was ‘phew! I am not getting it’. He asked about his brothers. He said how we can we approach them? I said we are all on the same page. As was his Mom and step Mom. And the Sister in law. He was relieved.
We’re here for you! 🤗. I feel the same way, I never had many close friends before Covid but lost my longtime friend of 35+ years over Covid and politics, and my relationships with a cousin and my brother have become hallowed out. Thank God my boyfriend is on the same page (he even thanks me for talking him out of the shots) and my older son as well. So many refuse to see the truth of how much damage the Covid shots have done, and now they deny that anyone was ever mandated to get them! 🤦🏼♀️😡
Thank you!!! I need to hear that! I live in Sweden so that makes it even more difficult to connect with like minded people. Most of my siblings think I'm cracked in the head. My kids got lucky with University. One got an exemption and the other two are going to Franciscan that had no mandates. I worry the most about my oldest who is living in England right now. Every time I see them I bless them with a special holy oil that has been blessed by an Exorcist. I pray that these demons are kept far from them.
Just being able to share her with you all is a blessing to me 🤗
Sweden didn’t lock down during the COVID BS, did they? I would have hoped that meant they were less pushy about vaccines too, but it doesn’t sound like it. 😢. My younger son was a freshman at University of Idaho in 2020 and while they finished the spring semester remotely, they were back in school on a restricted basis in the fall and they never mandated the shots. Thank God. He would have probably gotten one if he wasn’t so afraid of needles. My older son wanted nothing to do with the vax. There is still so much insanity out there, people getting their 6th or 7th booster shots who have ALREADY HAD Covid! I just shake my head!
They did and they didn't. High schools and colleges and older age group things were curtailed and/or cancelled off and on during the stupidity. My first son was in Wales at University when it started and finished in the Spring b4 there were any shots to be had. He stayed in Wales till the following April when his job pretty much ended b/c of the stupid lockdowns. He came home and stayed with us for a few months b4 going back for Grad school and a job. Neither of which required the shots. He's terrified of needles as well so that's a positive there...
My second son was a Sr. in High School in the Spring and pretty much lost his last semester of school but it made things a lot easier for him for finals and such since they weren't required that year. University in the States didn't require shots at that time either and since we're US citizens he didn't need to get the jab to go to the States or come back to Sweden since he's a permanent resident here. His third year there they began mandating the jabs but he got a religious exemption (He's Catholic and it's a Catholic school so they were very smart in excepting it).
My next child was a sophomore when it began and she had zoom classes off and on for her sophomore, junior and the beginning of her senior year.
Her last semester was pretty much back to normal though. The schools, by that time, were pushing the shots on everyone, and since she was 18 at that time, she was considered an adult. To this day, I have no clue if she got any of the shots. She very easily could have since everyone was pushing for everyone to get them. She has been very susceptible to every cold, flu, and illness since then when she used to be very healthy. It causes me endless worry. She follows after her dad though very closely and I can see him telling her that if she thought she needed them she should get them and not tell me. He knows how dead set against them I was and am so if he gave her permission to get them he would've told her to not tell me...
My youngest was in 8th/9th grade at the beginning and nothing really changed for her. School went on as normal unless they didn't have a teacher.
Masks were pretty much nonexistent which was a blessing. I HATE those things. I refuse to wear them here. I only wore them in the States when I was relying on family for housing or transportation when I was bringing my son to school or when I went home for my mom's funeral.
My SIL tried to get me to tell my son to get the jabs. I told her in no uncertain terms NO WAY! He had gotten the menningitis shot a day or so b4 we left for the States for him to start school and he had a serious adverse reaction to that! I didn't even know he was going in for a shot so when he got violently ill it came out of nowhere! He recovered and was able to go to the States but I told her that he'd already had 2 serious adverse events from 2 different shots, I wasn't going to risk his future health on a shot he didn't need. She countered with the fact that his friends might not want to be around him and he'd lose all social contact if he decided not to take it and I responded with well maybe they weren't really his friends to begin with if that's how they would react. Our relationship has not been the same since then...
For once, a tiny bit of pride to be a U of I alum. The other university I also spent some time at (bigtime, R1) were apparently full on with sanitary insanity.
My youngest at 15 years of age tried to put a mask on IN OUR HOUSE before going outside to go to school. I felt like I had "lost" on my oldest son as he bought the entire scam. I had a bit of a tussle getting the mask off of him. Not sure if it was the right thing to do even now. He was angry. I don't blame him, but at that moment I thought "they weren't going to get my other son so indoctrinated. "
I don't think I would call myself brave just yet...just hanging on hoping and praying that their eyes will open...and it is very painful, especially since my husband took 3 of the shots w/o telling me b/c he didn't think it would be a big deal. Still trying to find my path to forgiving him for that...but thank you...
I'm not sure about your optimism that things are shifting for the better. Trump Derangement Syndrome and the Wuhan flu broke people's brains, I mean, really broke their brains. Then up here in Canada, we're just as broken.
An example is our continual handwringing over Indian Residential Schools. That particular dam broke with the announcement of 215 kid's bodies being found in mass graves in Kamloops, BC. Our Nation went into paroxysm for months. Yet, over three years later, the Native band refuses to let anyone actually investigate what were just ground anomalies. Plus, no one in the history of our schools actually reported their kid missing let alone murdered.
Doesn't matter, as professional organizations such as the BC Law Association voted to keep accepting the murder of these phantom children as fact. Plus our government organizations like Transport Canada are holding literal communist Struggle Sessions with their employees also stating this 'mass murder' as fact. Meanwhile, all the school kids are happily repeating Land Acknowledgements daily to start the day.
The cognitive dissonance is not a bug, it's a feature being hard baked into people's brains. It's no wonder they can't see gorillas for the lies.
That's why so many Canadians, Europeans and Australians know how important the US election is with their countries wholly captured and hopeless....the U.S. is the very last hope
It's going to be a slim hope, unfortunately; the U.S, Canada, most of Europe, and so many other nations are already "lost states" because they have repeatedly had electorates of brain-dead voters; these voters are essentially cowardly sheep without any sense of independent thought or ability to think critically; they believe that "you will own nothing and be happy" is a viable option for them within a corrupt system they are really fearful of and offers them nothing but false hope.
They're the same voters the US has: people who believe voting every four years and then sitting back doing nothing will eventually change the system when their party is elected. This, despite decades of evidence to the contrary. They buy into the bread and circuses routine because it's easy. They ignore the fact that nothing ever changes because of the exact same cognitive dissonance in this article.
The countries you mentioned are further ahead on the agenda than the US because their governments took their guns away, not because their people are stupider or more sheep like.
Most normies in any country have never heard "you will own nothing and be happy" and if they did, they simply wouldn't believe it was a thing. That's the point of this article, even if it does miss the point that cognitive dissonance cuts both ways.
Exactly, and in this regard I highly recommend the work of psychiatrist Iain Gilchrist and his left and right brain theories; Scott Peck's "People of the Lie" is also very helpful, as is Bonhoeffer's explanation of "collective stupidity", the "human defect" which prevents openness to reason or facts.
Never heard about the 215 kid's bodies being found. Though in the JFK book on Fauci ,I believe he mentioned there are kids murdered from his experiment. Kids that were in foster care?
These were supposedly native kids murdered by priests in residential schools. Trudeau and his ilk are using it to drive a divisive narrative here. No proof of any of it being true because the native leaders won't allow any excavation. Genocide without a single body.
Canada lied. There was no credible evidence provided at any point.... its so twisted,& I can t believe people are that gullible about it. But then you realize people are still willing to believe what their tv tells them. Even when its ficticious, and verifiably false.... The distractions provided by MSM,hollywood, Govt keep most people busy with nonsense, not allowing the bandwidth to seek the truth.
But there are no bodies. They’ve looked too. One ‘mass grave site’ was an orchard which had grown to disuse. The furrows of the orchard, trees in line, was speculated to be graves in a graveyard. A mass grave by the way is not a graveyard. A mass grave is where many bodies are dumped after a mass killing. The media went with ‘mass grave site’ for quite awhile. The whole thing was a really bad unneeded black eye for Canada. Trudeau of course declared a National holiday to honour the murdered children.
The land acknowledgments are pathetic. ‘We recognize we are doing _______today on the traditional and unceded territories of the ________First Nations’. If I were a FN I would hear this as ‘yeah we stole your land, and here we are. Whacha gonna do about it?’
Those of us who, at some point in our lives, have had the misfortune of dealing with a single person that actually was that insane now have an easier time cutting through the b.s. in these bizarre times. I guess I'm thankful now that I learned some important coping skills that have come in handy recently. I'm also exhausted.
Ohhh, exhausted is right. All my family members (siblings and parent) are lifelong die-hard progessives. I was liberal until I woke up in my 30s (thank you, Jesus!). Until 2020, we still managed to have interesting conversations,and laughed a lot together. Now? We have nothing...and I do mean nothing...to talk about. It is hard to watch the world falling apart around me, and have to refrain from discussing it, because they just don't see it. Thank God for my non-woke husband and adult children.
The world is not falling apart. We are just in a speedy transition period where things that don't work or make sense are being revealed so they get fixed. Try thinking like an engineer building a bridge.
We all have family and neighbors who, at least we hope, are not insane or evil, but rather as Gato points out, are low information people who have put blinders on. They have not been red pilled like you. Unfortunately, they are aiding and abetting the insane ones in the downfall of society.
I love new words. Adding this one to my dictionary!
*Smugnorance* noun. A mental condition wherein a person is inexplicably proud of his/her lack of knowledge of a given subject. "Karen's smugnorance made it impossible for Bob to discuss the economy in any depth."
Selective attention test x Asch conformity experiment = 2024 America. Free speech with a spoonful of humor is the ozempic for cognitive dissonance. Biderman's chart of coercion was deployed for COVID conformist craziness: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/bidermans-chart-of-coercion-covid-ccp
Ew, don't call it "the ozempic of" since ozempic is a dangerous drug that initially causes the desired effect (weight loss) in some who are able to tolerate it, while destroying the metabolism and digestive system of the user and making them dependent on it for life to maintain the weight loss (if it is even capable of that at long term).
But yeah, free speech with a spoonful of humor is the *something*, just not the ozempic. Maybe someone else here can come up with a better analogy.
I’m not sure many people are waking up to the nonsense and evil - but there is a good test any government could set: broadcast far, wide and often that there is a ‘new virus’ killing many, many people (although no one knows anyone who has actually died of said virus) and tell everyone they must wear a mask. If masks weren’t made compulsory that would be the best test: no one could say they were only following orders. We could all see with our own eyes then who was awake and who was actually so profoundly asleep they are unreachable having learnt nothing at all over the last four plus years.
I am of the belief - especially since March 2020 - that many people are very stupid, very easily led, or very evil. I hope it’s not a majority, but it certainly doesn’t seem like a small minority, nearly 100% wore masks where I live. And so…anyways, I hope no government sets the mask test again. Perhaps they don’t need to, having already assessed just how dumb and sleepy their populations are.
Blaming people for being fooled because they stupid or gullible is your gorilla blind spot. The fact that people can be manipulated like cattle is because propaganda works, and we all have an adaptive mental mechanism that makes us blind to information that’s just too weird or awful to believe. You are missing the gorilla too when you think this phenomenon only applies to fools, but almost nobody sees the gorilla. And it’s just too weird and awful to believe that institutions of various sorts are purposely using psychological manipulation to screw up civilization and destroy people’s lives. None of us are immune and every one of is blind to some certain (but unknown to us) number of gorillas. Me, you, and everyone on the planet.
Exactly! Let's stop buying into the manipulation that keeps us calling each other names and blaming each other for the fact that forces on both sides of the political spectrum are moving the agenda forward inch by inch and have been for decades. That's the gorilla in this chat room.
Well said! There are evil forces at work, alright, and always have been, but evil thrives on stupidity of the masses which is why the psychopaths of the world are so dominant; "the inner liberation of man begins by living responsibly before God. Only then may stupidity be overcome."(Bonhoeffer) In the final analysis (and in the first analysis!) it's a SPIRITUAL problem!
Steve Sailer calls it "noticing", essentially pattern recognition that is an outgrowth of our evolution as a species that has allowed us to survive. Noticing, of course, as Sailer knows, gets you into a *lot* of trouble with the kinds of people that suffer from the cognitive shortcomings you've outlined.
"noticing" is the Zeroth Step in the Scientific Method. We could all be Scientists. Basically:
0. Notice some Stuff.
0.314 Notice some more Stuff.
0.621 Notice more and more of that same Stuff all over again.
0.9944 🤔 Science Guy™ say, "Hmmmm..."
Then *genuflects*
¡1.! Write your Hypothesis. *strikes nerd pose*
2, etc. See if you can Notice more of the Stuff you keep Noticing. Take notes, think about, share you thoughts, revise or retract if others just don't Notice that same stuff.
We can all be Scientists. We don't even have to play one on TV.
Perfect, gato !!! And just last night I actually witnessed an awakening— received an apology letter from a “critical thinker” who had “unfriended” me sometime during the Covid/riots year(s). He stated, “It’s so obvious now that I have open my eyes and see the evil coming out of the left.” There IS hope !!!
If it doesn't agree with their narrative as "we are the good guys, the smart, kind and hip ones" then it's misinformation. Their vision is perfect, complete and flawless. Don't you dare bring up a fault - you racist, Putin loving, fascist.
I was on a Next Door Neighbor site where people in my local area post. Someone posted about there being consequences for posting misinformation. So I said but who determines what is misinformation and what isn't. That was all I said. My post was deleted and flagged. LOL
Yeah, I got thrown off ND. I think it was my comment that the people pushing the mandates should go to the neighboring majority black city and attempt to force the vax themselves, but they wouldn't, because they would wind up as white George Floyds.
I stay on Next Door so I know who to avoid in my area. And also so I know who I don’t need to check on in case of disaster since they’ll be waiting for the government to help them.
I like to get off all those kind of sites for the most part, but I think we need to have a general idea what is the consensus is among that particular group. So when you are in a crowd of people you have a clue what they are thinking, you know before they proudly state their opinion, what you may want to say back or not say back. You can't lose touch of what makes them tick either as we walk among them whether we want to or not.
I was off for a long time. Just thought I would see what was going on in my neighborhood. You are right. Can't stay on that for long. Can't take the insanity. Sooner or later I will make a comment and then...
The only part of Nextdoor that I follow is the private conservative groups I’ve found over the last few years. They are small but we enjoy ourselves. The rest of ND can go f*ck itself, especially the people who complain about “too many” lost pet postings (we live in East San Diego County, so there are coyotes everywhere). As someone who lost a cat in my fenced backyard in broad daylight to a coyote, I would never chastise anyone for posting for a lost pet! 💔
Next Door is pit of despair. I know people rag on Facebook, for many good reasons, but my town has a Facebook group that is simultaneously a rambunctious nest of ball-busting shitposting, an efficient system of reuniting lost pets with owners, a real-time notice board for traffic snarls, EMS callouts, and location of food trucks, and a legitimate source of quality recommendations for everything from roof repair to gourmet cupcakes.
Sadly, you learned your lesson. No room for actual thinking on that mess of an app. I reduced my interaction on there to police activity in my area. I shut off every other topic... the ignorance was intolerable.
I told my lib daughter Walmart had butt plugs wrapped in bright colors at eye level for children in the health and beauty section. Had to take her there and show her before she believed me. I looked up some of these books ( because I won't just repeat what I heard) and was floored! They were not only in the library but on the summer reading display for grade school! I sent excerpts to our local politicians and our governor,suggesting they read the passages out loud at bedtime to their children or grandchildren. The response I got back was " I don't think anyone would disagree this is inappropriate " and 6 months later the governor signed a bill restricting where these books can be in the library and a fine if they are not relocated or the librarian allows a minor to check them out without parental permissions. Soon " conservative " purple haired face pierced tattooed mothers are outside the library protesting the banning of books in the name of free speech. ( Actually the law is less than 2 pages and does not contain the word "ban" anywhere).
I'm even pretty De Gustibus on things but you there are clearly some places where we could be a little more selective about our target audience/customers.
My mom's friend is of that same opinion. She doesn't realize that the books we want out of the school libraries are pornographic, not just "controversial" like the old times of trying to kick out Huck Finn or the like. :/
well, they are trying to kick out Huck Finn and Laura Ingalls Wilder because "racisss"
In 2018 the Association for Library Service to Children decided that the the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award is now officially the Children’s Literature Legacy Award because of one line of the one book about trying to move to Oklahoma that in the original edition seemed to indicate that Laura Wilder thought Indians weren't people. This was changed in subsequent editions (about 1938) but it wasn't enough for those harpies.
The fact that her daughter and editor Rose Wilder Lane was an early outspoken libertarian may have had something to do with that.
They completely misuse the term “banned” (on purpose, I’m sure). A book that has been banned is not easily available in bookshops, libraries, or online sources. Removing a book from one school/school board’s collection is not a “ban“, because the book is still widely available everywhere.
I remember reading a book 13 years ago called 'Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear' about why people are so useless at assessing risk. It told about an aircraft accident. One plane taking off clipped another already on the runway and crashed down - the fire engines and crew raced to the downed plane but did not notice a fire had started on the other plane. Of the people still sat in this plane the majority were unable to move - not because they were petrified but according to the author, their minds were simply unable to process a scene so divorced from their usual reality. In other words they were unable to believe their own eyes. As a result many perished unnecessarily whilst those who did perceive the threat escaped and dragged many passengers off the plane thus saving their lives.
Great insight. I have learned much from a friend of mine who wears a MAGA hat just to break the ice. Doesn't matter to him who he triggers, friend or foe, it's his "in" to conversation. He'll ask a couple questions, find some level ground, then use contradictions in that strangers experience to make them think. Whether they become friends or not, you know they will never forget the experience of meeting him or recover from the truth bombs he tosses. Often they follow up with him for more insight. The point is once we expose the contradictions, the overton window shifts. We will never be pre-elon twitter again, or pre-'what is a woman again', the GOP will never be pre-ron paul or pre-Trump again. Wether it's a cultural phenomena or a private conversation we are duty bound to expose the culture we care about to the margins sneaking into the centre. Our enemies are taking advantage of that grace period where we accept the shocking things, as our minds map out the deeply unknown. We have to reverse that strategy or suffer the consequences, which to me looks like Donald Sutherland in the final scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Eesh...
I had this exact experience with a very intelligent and well read friend. Told him that Democrats support taking kids away from parents if they don’t support the transition. He said: that’s a flat out lie. He lives in Illinois and that’s the law in Illinois! I was floored.
I was standing outside a post office in Michigan circulating a petition in 2020 to remove the emergency powers of the governor. A man drove up and told me how dangerous the idea was; Whitmer *needed* that power to "keep us safe". I told him facts about the virus not being dangerous to most people and that masks don't work to prevent infection, etc. He claimed that I got my info from "right wing sources". I told him that no, in fact, a lot of it came from the CDC, the health department, and medical journals. He yelled, "Right wing sources!" and drove off.
Kudos to you for getting out in public. Circulating petitions are a way to spread the word, even if no one signs!!
There was basically little else we were "allowed" to do, with all the forced shut downs. I met a lot of really amazing, wonderful people that summer.
lol. all u can do is laugh.
Mostly what I hear is- “I don’t believe that”. Here’s the proof- “Stop with your bullshit conspiracies”. Sigh
What's your sOuRCe!?!?
I got this from some clown on LinkedIn the other day who was going on about Trump being affiliated with Project 2025. I posted a link from X, from Project 2025, specifically stating that Trump was not affiliated with them. So she responds with: “Your link goes to X. That site has become a leading distributor of disinformation since Elon Musk took over.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. I guess it was fine when Twitter was censoring all of us pre-Elon!
They just can't. The chunk of the population who cannot admit they could ever be fooled is woefully large. No matter the IQ.
I'm so glad we found our clan! Trying to do our best to wake others up.
We Happy Warriors
The BC government put out stats that showed triple vaxed were 3x more likely to die from COVID as were the unvaxed. Government stats. They hid them six months later. But I had screen shot this. I showed it to Covidiots. ‘Has this been peer reviewed? I only read peer reviewed research”. “It is government data. A data point isn’t peer reviewed. Interpretations of data are what is peer reviewed.” “Before I could draw any conclusions I would have to know the ages of the people who died.” Said to me triumphantly. Like ‘aha. I
Got around his argument.’ “Its a VACCINE! You aren’t supposed to get the disease if you’re vaccinated. The data shows you are 3x more likely to die from COVID than me! Does that not concern you?” Dumbfounded silence. But one guy I had this discussion with is 6x or 7x vaxed. His arm is withering. Nothing to do with the vax. It is because 20 years ago he broke his thumb. How does he know? His doctor told him. He also is late 60s with some dementia kicking in. Dead man walking.
Sounds just like my brother, it really makes me sad!!😞
I like to say my own experience and my own eyes
Illinois is right behind California.
I can not tell you how many friends/family that I grew up with in CA who have said the exact same thing you mentioned.
Mental illness is real.
Yes, you’re so right about CA and IL. The absolute belief in the set of “truths” beyond which nothing worth contemplating exists is like a sports team allegiance. They “know” things are a certain way, so why take in any data for anywhere else,since your set of “truths” already contains the knowledge that all other information is incorrect. It’s a closed circle of cognitive dissonance that the individual is blind to, and makes it hard to tolerate friends, patients etc.
Tiresome and futile to try and reason with irrational thinkers. Its why we all give up
It's interesting that easily provable facts are dismissed as being crazy but if you told your friend that Donald Trump organized and fomented an insurrection on Jan 6th, or that he plans to lock up anyone that disagrees with his general philosophy, they would probably find that to be a fairly obvious truth. The human capacity for delusion is strong and easily reinforced if we stay in our bubbles. It is something we all need to be careful of regardless of which camp you're in. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that most people are in fact decent but the present day media has been spewing hardcore propaganda for a long time and there are still far too many people who believe it is truthful. Our biggest enemies are the controllers in the C-Suites of large corporations and financial institutions and the politicians and elites that benefit from working for them. The legacy media is the most powerful tool these folks have and trying to maintain that power is why they are so desperate to convince those that still absorb the propaganda to believe we need to censor and control the internet. If they somehow win that battle we are in for some long lasting dark times.
A rabid leftie pro choice woman was adamantly against abortion restrictions. Adamantly. Other than ‘what we have now. You know, 12 week limit except in the case of life of the Mother’. This is Canada. Zero rules. I said that. She wouldn’t believe it. Her husband confirmed it. She then pivoted to, late term abortions ‘never happen’. I told her where they occurred in our city. I told her where the abortuary is. She said ‘it must be for only critical life or death situations. I said ‘it is for any reason. Pro choice advocates say it happens in Canada for non health reasons only ‘about 200 times a year’. She said ‘well it isn’t a very big issue then’. I said ‘if 200 young women were being killed on college campuses each year would that be a big issue? And anyway pro life advocates say it happens 1000s of times a year’. She just kept making excuses. She didn’t want to accept the horror of it. And she didn’t want to accept a plank of the platform from the right.
I have had simular experiences.
I ask my friends why tgey make the choices tgey makes, such as voting against Trump. They use a lot of words to explain yet at the end of the explanation nothing substantial has been said.
I then ask why harris? Not many words and again no substance. And yet they still believe.
Same.
Similar thing happened when I advised people very early that pregnant woman and kids should Not get the COVID jabs, because risk outweighed benefit. By the time of the mandates, no one should have wanted them. I was in healthcare then, and now I am not. It’s a do no harm issue, you know.
When people say that something is not true, that I know for certain is, I typically answer, "well, you may want to look into it because the information exists and is not difficult to find." There's nothing to argue about after that.
I check to see if things are true before I say they are…
If they don't want to know, that is on them… But I assure you if somebody said that to me, I would go look it up!
A friend of min, a single mom (widow), had here 2nd grader came home and told her that her teacher told her she was a lesbian. This capable mom didn't panic, but rather inquired: why do you think that? "Because I like girls, not boys". Mom sighed and said "no dear, that means you are a 7 year old girl".
The conversation with the teacher and school administrators did not go so easily. Just asking politely why this was even being discussed in 2nd grade got her labeled as homophobic. She is not. There was in fact no useful conversation to be had with the school leadership, the teacher or the school board (it escalated). It would have dropped, but the little girl came home a few days after the non-conversation and reported that the teacher had lectured on homophobia and used her mom as an example. That's when lawyers became involved.
Discussion sexual preference with a 7 year old is not OK. It is not necessary. It is not relevant to being a 7 year old. Suggesting gender ambiguity in grammar school is wrong. Considering how may high school kids can't read or do basic arithmentic, we may have clue as to why.
had a similar experience with a leftist who maintained there was no organized effort to convince children they were the wrong sex and chemically and surgically alter them. He said this was rare and hardly ever happens.
Same. I asked if they'd ever heard the interviews of the kids who'd actually been through it. No, never heard of them.
How often? Once in a school per year? Five times? How many times is too many times a teacher messes with a child’s sexuality.
"It is about people leaving cognitive reality if that is what they must do to join the prevailing herd."
The Current Thing: https://libertymaniacs.com/products/i-support-the-current-thing-npc-sticker
May they roll up their sleeves for endless boosters….
Hmmmm, that reminds me of my brother in law (who is an MD) stating categorically that NO transgender surgeries have been/are performed on minors! None! As he looked down at us over his iPad, with its The New Woke Times’ homepage.
He’s on his 8th Covid shot now. So many doctors are “good little Nazis”, thinking whatever they are told to think.
A doctor having 8 shots… did he flunk Immunology in Medical School? That is frightening to me…
All Sisyphus-like, for eternity.
Dag, Mrs. McF, I sure like your style.
I looked for that online… Do you have the names of that research duo?
Thank you!
Well, "El Gato" is definitely commerical. She has many nutcase subscribers. Congrats, Gato! You have made it. You are really within commerciality now. You have many useless nuts and conspiracy theorist losers enthusiastically drooling over your creation. Happy???? https://silverman.substack.com/p/commercial-discussion
I think the problem today is not Cluster-Bs creating traditional cults, and by that I mean groups that are outside of the mainstream, but infiltrating and gaining control of mainstream institutions that have largely been trustworthy. It's a more subtle and more dangerous strategy. With a traditional cult, you willingly join, but with infiltration, you are already a member but don't know it.
This! This is exactly what happened.
https://youtu.be/mg5FRRZ5DMQ
This is a weird deep dive behind some background behind one of the groups that is inserting DEI into video games. It gets really interesting when they start talking about one of the people behind this project who is heavily involved some big DEI non profit in England, is also the owner of a headhunting agency that inserts management in private industry and government.
There are some interesting names here and some brilliant research. People ask 'how did we get here?' It was because these people were inserting their 'friends' in management and by pretending to be arbiters of moral authority nobody will call them out on it.
I mean, in the end, these groups are made up of Tumblr and Deviant Art hangers on who speculate about what turtle d*ck feels like. But they are dictating the morals of others...
Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
Benjamin Disraeli
This is an interesting and on-target explanation for how mainstream institutions have behaved.
This is 100% accurate.
It is the same reason why people who identify as "very liberal" have a tendency to support authoritarianism. My personal belief is that they ALL are cluster B. The scientific data supports this, as does Gallup polling on political identification and mental illness. There are same cluster Bs on the far, far, right as well, but it is a vastly smaller demographic. This is issue is essentially the political manifestation of mentally ill people, i hate to say. But the data is there.
"the political manifestation of mentally ill people"...sadly but very accurately stated!
I had my range of experiences with the cults and the personalities of their followers since I graduated from high school in 1969. What you've said aligns perfectly. It was always so perplexing why people joined and were so hard to get to leave and come to their senses. (deprogram). I think a large part is from our distant tribal past. We needed most people to fit into the band and perform the functions of growing food, hunting and gathering, making tools and weapons, protection caring for injured and sick and bringing up kids. Leadership was usually an elder. In my 1st anthro class in '69 I was introduced to the concept of the savage in the gray flannel loin cloth. That fit what I described above. There were always a few that did not quite fit in . They may become the travelers and traders, or may self exile because they don't fit in. But, most everyone wanted a group the could fit in with.
"In my 1st anthro class in '69"
*Carlos Castaneda has entered the chat*
I was in high school during that period. I wanted to be popular it didn’t happen.
I said screw you. Suddenly I became popular. I was in almost every group so I didn’t have one set of beliefs. I loved high school once I stopped wanting something and actually did something
I graduated from that school level in 1973, which makes you 73 years old; I am 69. Yes, we are herd or band-animals! All societies must contain members that conform, and so that much is true. US/Americans (and many persons in the world) also conform to a society of extreme commerciality. The only thing anyone believes in is buying things, accomplished only through money. So many things you just seem to need to take for granted; things like hunting-gathering or makes tools. Everybody must do it. (I just wrote one about how we are commercial in the etreme and yet no economist, since Veblen, has dared discuss the topic of commerciality. Refute me, then... https://silverman.substack.com/p/commercial-discussion)
Start with the Book of Genesis. Its all in there if you read between the lines. It has been written about for a millennia. From Adam/Eve and the serpent, Cain/Abel and so on. Once you know what they are really writing about, i.e the nature of mankind, then it all makes sense.
Joining a destructive herd is not the same as staying in a herd that becomes destructive over time, where the prior years of normalcy carry a lot of weight.
"Joining a destructive herd is not the same as staying in a herd that becomes destructive over time, where the prior years of normalcy carry a lot of weight."
Herd is Herd.
If you can't chart your own path then you have to hope everyone else is doing the right thing. And Herd People don't have a good track record on that account.
Look at the sociopathic personalities of a large % of people in positions of power and control over others that become the politicians and bureaucrat functionaries in our system today. The overton window has fallen out of its frame and lays in shards on the ground.
Woke is just an outfit they put on these last few years. At the turn of the millennium it was counter-terrorism. Same psychopaths (Cheney much?), recycling the same rhetoric, boiling the frog. It's not about WOKE, but it is about totalitarianism.
Nobody mentions the bullying tactics that have been wielded. If you publicly shame and humiliate someone they become less likely to stand up to you, especially when those around them are too afraid to as well, and so they don’t have their back.
I watched the bullying tactics for seven straight years as my two boys were ruthlessly bullied, even by the adults who should have stopped it. (Some bullies were their own child or their child’s best friend or their own best friend’s child.) It was a huge organization of people that bullied to prevent accountability or disadvantage. The tactics were to shame and humiliate my own sons so that no one would dare align with them. Everyone was too scared they would lose power, or that they would become a target themselves if they stepped up and did the right thing. Parents included. The result was my sons were treated like lepers and began to believe they weren’t worthy. Both tried to commit suicide at one point in their school years.
This powerful force of a bullying atmosphere grew to be as bad as it was after decades of anti-bullying campaigns. How is that possible? Literally the adults in charge as well as those running the campaigns are to blame. They used outdated, ineffective approaches that ended up hurting the bullied even more. I saw firsthand the best ways to nip it in the bud, literally overnight - and it wasn’t confronting or punishing the bullies. That NEVER works. It involved creating an environment of open, popular support for the ones being bullied, making sure people saw others defending them. It required the most popular and the most influential in the community to be the first to step up. Eventually the bullies are too afraid to continue when they kept seeing more powerful or more popular kids looking back at them over the shoulder of who they were bullying.
Nobody would listen to me because it was too much of a threat to their own agendas. They wanted that power to bully, to control the status quo and the perceptions of others. Or they simply were too afraid their own kid would endure retaliatory attack.
Anyway, some of these outlier personalities today that want things that the average sane person doesn’t learned from those bullying techniques, and lobbies that embraced the “power of bullying.” Maybe some were victims in their youth and mastered the art of their oppressors? I think MORE were actually the bullies themselves and saw what an effective tool it was.
I’ve always felt that every voice should be allowed at the table, because truth ALWAYS rises to the surface with reasonable, respectful debates. That’s the biggest fear of those wanting control over what everyone thinks - that their perspectives won’t survive the discussion - so they find ways to stifle discussion, to keep others from being able to sit at that table and silence their voices. If the only way you can get your cause to be adopted is by silencing opposition, maybe it’s a bad cause and shouldn’t be adopted. 🤷🏼♀️
LGBTQ issues could never be openly discussed without intense social backlash, shaming, and forced isolation in my community. The table kicked out any dissenting opinion so it could not be heard and if you spoke up anyway you were crucified publicly. It worked so well for their causes that every other group is using their same tactics today. I lived through this too. My daughter was raised to love all people regardless, but to get her truth from the Bible when determining right from wrong (a plumb line for life,) and that it was God’s place to judge others, not ours, and our job was to love all people equally, showing kindness and acceptance. We modeled this for her too. Nothing in our home or from our own treatment of others would ever have taught her to be hateful or discriminatory. Yet … when she was captured by the LGBTQ community in MN, the very FIRST thing they did was destroy her faith and trust in her parents and created a divide so wide between us she couldn’t hear our counter arguments. They severed her relationship with us the minute they found out we were Christian. They convinced her ALL Christian’s were radical, fanatical, and hateful. (Not true) They taught her to hate us for what our faith teaches, and to cancel us at every opportunity, and paint us as judgmental, unloving, unaccepting people. We were none of those things and the people in our life who thought so were projecting their own character. But our daughter could never hear a reasonable arguments because they made sure she never welcomed our “rhetoric” at her table. She has been estranged from us for ten years now and the heartache can’t be described well enough. I lose her all over again every morning I wake up.
Anyway you cut it, it’s bullying that is at play. And people fear being a target. So they jump on bandwagons they would normally never agree with solely to protect themselves and be socially “accepted”.
It's hard to stand tall when you're on the lonely side.
Thanks for the great referrals!
The early church fathers, who lived in a pretty dystopian and way-out-there environment themselves, believed that inability to see the truth was largely the result of of enslavement to sins - not inadequate intellect.
Why would people join destructive herds? There's your explanation right there. It also explains quite a few of our fellow Weimericans.
"admitting a truly awful outrage is and then failing to act = moral culpability"
It always amazes me how you are able to boil an issue down to its essence.
That sentence renders any comment i could provide as redundant.
You would make one helluva a CEO.
BRAVO!
But one cannot act on every single moral outrage because of limited time, resources, and capacity. A psychologically healthy person has to be able to notice moral outrages without feeling guilty about not acting on every single one.
i suspect this is precisely why such processes exist in the human mind.
they're adaptive.
but they can also be gamed and taken advantage of.
like many things, it's double edged.
I have found the level of violence or trauma an individual has experienced in life, tends to influence the level of adaptability and therefore cognitive dissonance, and/or moral outrage window.😉 Less trauma, more dissonance, more outrage, less action.
Well said
Excellent response, Tonya. As I said, choose your battles.
"It always amazes me how you are able to boil an issue down to its essence."
I feel like there should be 'ergo's all over. There are treasure troves of simple summaries in every article.
Truly gifted. One that is sorely needed in all times, but especially these.
I cannot believe how blind and gullible I used to be.
I literally look at everything critically now.
It’s almost like finding a pair of special sunglasses that allow you to see all the propaganda and the nasty people running things.
With age comes wisdom....hopefully....
I think it's more about humility. With age comes more opportunities to see things as they truly are, but humility is necessary to question whether what you have been believing could possibly be incorrect, and to change one's mind with evidence.
^^this^^
The older I get, the more the Bible verse resonates, “In much wisdom is much sorrow.”
I'm dealing w/ this in my own family. 2 of my kids and I see the gorilla, the other 2 and my husband can't/don't. Makes life difficult to say the least. I can't talk about this truth with my husband b/c he thinks I'm an idiot and crazy. I don't have a PhD in Chemistry like he does so how could I know better than he? My two kids who have followed in his footsteps won't talk about these issues with me either. The other two have their eyes wide open to the craziness. All I can think of is there are none so blind as those who refuse to see...
It's the people who are the most invested in things as they are, who have the hardest time seeing it. I'm sure after going to all the trouble to get a PhD in Chemistry from the system (and I assume making a living that way as well), the system that you're a part of and that rewards you is hard to let go of.
Yes, exactly. He's living in an echo chamber and even when I showed him the Pfizer Whistleblower he said that she was lying (this even after he has told me he thinks Pfizer is the worst Pharma company). The cognizant dissonance is killing me...
CeeCee, I think a LOT of people who took the jabs cannot mentally / emotionally face what they may have done to themselves (not to mention what they did to minor children if they took them in for the shots or to their parents or other relatives if they blackmailed them with banishment).
Agree, Cindi
It's precisely those very professionals in academia, science, etc. who have had the most closed minds and supported the status-quo based on lies and deception; they all have "too much skin in the game" along with ego and arrogance which further enables their blindness.
Tony, I get a publication from Union of Concerned Scientists. Their latest magazine sounds as if Klaus Schwab's gang of psychopaths wrote it. Every article either promotes the 15 minute city idea, electric vehicles, shutting yourself off and not driving, etc.
That gets lonely too. I hope you find others you can talk to that validate what is going on. Eventually them calling you "crazy" is going to affect you in a negative way. Got to find your tribe.
I've found my tribe here on Substack. I have yet to find someone to talk to face to face who agrees with me. Just having you all affirm what I know to be true keeps me strong and keeps me going 🤗
This is the same for me. It’s why I wish I could find a way to connect to local Substackers that follow the substacks I do, so I can have some of that in-person camaraderie and support. Until we find a way to do that, I’ll have to soak up the love I find here and keep diligently praying for us all.
ceecee, juju, We had a little meeting in NM of Simulation Commander readers/commenters. We still all live too far from one another. We do communicate by text and email. The only thing I really have in common with more local folks who are not shot up is the fact that we are not shot up. I want to enjoy life. If I could walk, I would hike. Unfortunately, old age and injuries keep me from that. I do like wine and food. Again, unfortunately, the unshot up folks don't give a flip about that. So I associate with those who keep getting shots. I have to self-censor with most of them. Now I see them getting unusual illnesses. Interesting times.
Current wife, ex wife, all 3 sons, two daughters in law, all not vaxed. I am soooo lucky. My eldest son was last on my list. I said ‘we need to talk. About the vax.’ He said ‘Dad. Stop. I am Not getting vaxed. And if you are we need to get into this. It is a scam. You won’t be able to talk me into it.’ I was ‘phew! I am not getting it’. He asked about his brothers. He said how we can we approach them? I said we are all on the same page. As was his Mom and step Mom. And the Sister in law. He was relieved.
I am blessed.
Yes, you are!!!!
Wow! Congrats to you. It is like you won the family lottery. Many of us are not so lucky.
We’re here for you! 🤗. I feel the same way, I never had many close friends before Covid but lost my longtime friend of 35+ years over Covid and politics, and my relationships with a cousin and my brother have become hallowed out. Thank God my boyfriend is on the same page (he even thanks me for talking him out of the shots) and my older son as well. So many refuse to see the truth of how much damage the Covid shots have done, and now they deny that anyone was ever mandated to get them! 🤦🏼♀️😡
Thank you!!! I need to hear that! I live in Sweden so that makes it even more difficult to connect with like minded people. Most of my siblings think I'm cracked in the head. My kids got lucky with University. One got an exemption and the other two are going to Franciscan that had no mandates. I worry the most about my oldest who is living in England right now. Every time I see them I bless them with a special holy oil that has been blessed by an Exorcist. I pray that these demons are kept far from them.
Just being able to share her with you all is a blessing to me 🤗
Sweden didn’t lock down during the COVID BS, did they? I would have hoped that meant they were less pushy about vaccines too, but it doesn’t sound like it. 😢. My younger son was a freshman at University of Idaho in 2020 and while they finished the spring semester remotely, they were back in school on a restricted basis in the fall and they never mandated the shots. Thank God. He would have probably gotten one if he wasn’t so afraid of needles. My older son wanted nothing to do with the vax. There is still so much insanity out there, people getting their 6th or 7th booster shots who have ALREADY HAD Covid! I just shake my head!
They did and they didn't. High schools and colleges and older age group things were curtailed and/or cancelled off and on during the stupidity. My first son was in Wales at University when it started and finished in the Spring b4 there were any shots to be had. He stayed in Wales till the following April when his job pretty much ended b/c of the stupid lockdowns. He came home and stayed with us for a few months b4 going back for Grad school and a job. Neither of which required the shots. He's terrified of needles as well so that's a positive there...
My second son was a Sr. in High School in the Spring and pretty much lost his last semester of school but it made things a lot easier for him for finals and such since they weren't required that year. University in the States didn't require shots at that time either and since we're US citizens he didn't need to get the jab to go to the States or come back to Sweden since he's a permanent resident here. His third year there they began mandating the jabs but he got a religious exemption (He's Catholic and it's a Catholic school so they were very smart in excepting it).
My next child was a sophomore when it began and she had zoom classes off and on for her sophomore, junior and the beginning of her senior year.
Her last semester was pretty much back to normal though. The schools, by that time, were pushing the shots on everyone, and since she was 18 at that time, she was considered an adult. To this day, I have no clue if she got any of the shots. She very easily could have since everyone was pushing for everyone to get them. She has been very susceptible to every cold, flu, and illness since then when she used to be very healthy. It causes me endless worry. She follows after her dad though very closely and I can see him telling her that if she thought she needed them she should get them and not tell me. He knows how dead set against them I was and am so if he gave her permission to get them he would've told her to not tell me...
My youngest was in 8th/9th grade at the beginning and nothing really changed for her. School went on as normal unless they didn't have a teacher.
Masks were pretty much nonexistent which was a blessing. I HATE those things. I refuse to wear them here. I only wore them in the States when I was relying on family for housing or transportation when I was bringing my son to school or when I went home for my mom's funeral.
My SIL tried to get me to tell my son to get the jabs. I told her in no uncertain terms NO WAY! He had gotten the menningitis shot a day or so b4 we left for the States for him to start school and he had a serious adverse reaction to that! I didn't even know he was going in for a shot so when he got violently ill it came out of nowhere! He recovered and was able to go to the States but I told her that he'd already had 2 serious adverse events from 2 different shots, I wasn't going to risk his future health on a shot he didn't need. She countered with the fact that his friends might not want to be around him and he'd lose all social contact if he decided not to take it and I responded with well maybe they weren't really his friends to begin with if that's how they would react. Our relationship has not been the same since then...
For once, a tiny bit of pride to be a U of I alum. The other university I also spent some time at (bigtime, R1) were apparently full on with sanitary insanity.
“Hollowed” out, not hallowed.
yeah, it's difficult to talk to people sometimes. Used carefully, Substack fills a sort of void. Too bad Marc Andreesen runs it, financially.
My youngest at 15 years of age tried to put a mask on IN OUR HOUSE before going outside to go to school. I felt like I had "lost" on my oldest son as he bought the entire scam. I had a bit of a tussle getting the mask off of him. Not sure if it was the right thing to do even now. He was angry. I don't blame him, but at that moment I thought "they weren't going to get my other son so indoctrinated. "
And it’s painful as hell. You’re brave.
I don't think I would call myself brave just yet...just hanging on hoping and praying that their eyes will open...and it is very painful, especially since my husband took 3 of the shots w/o telling me b/c he didn't think it would be a big deal. Still trying to find my path to forgiving him for that...but thank you...
I'm not sure about your optimism that things are shifting for the better. Trump Derangement Syndrome and the Wuhan flu broke people's brains, I mean, really broke their brains. Then up here in Canada, we're just as broken.
An example is our continual handwringing over Indian Residential Schools. That particular dam broke with the announcement of 215 kid's bodies being found in mass graves in Kamloops, BC. Our Nation went into paroxysm for months. Yet, over three years later, the Native band refuses to let anyone actually investigate what were just ground anomalies. Plus, no one in the history of our schools actually reported their kid missing let alone murdered.
Doesn't matter, as professional organizations such as the BC Law Association voted to keep accepting the murder of these phantom children as fact. Plus our government organizations like Transport Canada are holding literal communist Struggle Sessions with their employees also stating this 'mass murder' as fact. Meanwhile, all the school kids are happily repeating Land Acknowledgements daily to start the day.
The cognitive dissonance is not a bug, it's a feature being hard baked into people's brains. It's no wonder they can't see gorillas for the lies.
That's why so many Canadians, Europeans and Australians know how important the US election is with their countries wholly captured and hopeless....the U.S. is the very last hope
Crossing my fingers. There are a lot of idiots here.
It's going to be a slim hope, unfortunately; the U.S, Canada, most of Europe, and so many other nations are already "lost states" because they have repeatedly had electorates of brain-dead voters; these voters are essentially cowardly sheep without any sense of independent thought or ability to think critically; they believe that "you will own nothing and be happy" is a viable option for them within a corrupt system they are really fearful of and offers them nothing but false hope.
But being lost, and I'm not admitting we are, means having everything to win by going on the offensive.
And by not giving up, we are in fact winning; first the spiritual battle and then the physical one too.
They're the same voters the US has: people who believe voting every four years and then sitting back doing nothing will eventually change the system when their party is elected. This, despite decades of evidence to the contrary. They buy into the bread and circuses routine because it's easy. They ignore the fact that nothing ever changes because of the exact same cognitive dissonance in this article.
The countries you mentioned are further ahead on the agenda than the US because their governments took their guns away, not because their people are stupider or more sheep like.
Most normies in any country have never heard "you will own nothing and be happy" and if they did, they simply wouldn't believe it was a thing. That's the point of this article, even if it does miss the point that cognitive dissonance cuts both ways.
Exactly, and in this regard I highly recommend the work of psychiatrist Iain Gilchrist and his left and right brain theories; Scott Peck's "People of the Lie" is also very helpful, as is Bonhoeffer's explanation of "collective stupidity", the "human defect" which prevents openness to reason or facts.
Never heard about the 215 kid's bodies being found. Though in the JFK book on Fauci ,I believe he mentioned there are kids murdered from his experiment. Kids that were in foster care?
Did anyone say how long these bodies were there?
These were supposedly native kids murdered by priests in residential schools. Trudeau and his ilk are using it to drive a divisive narrative here. No proof of any of it being true because the native leaders won't allow any excavation. Genocide without a single body.
Canada lied. There was no credible evidence provided at any point.... its so twisted,& I can t believe people are that gullible about it. But then you realize people are still willing to believe what their tv tells them. Even when its ficticious, and verifiably false.... The distractions provided by MSM,hollywood, Govt keep most people busy with nonsense, not allowing the bandwidth to seek the truth.
Murdered by priest? Yikes.
But there are no bodies. They’ve looked too. One ‘mass grave site’ was an orchard which had grown to disuse. The furrows of the orchard, trees in line, was speculated to be graves in a graveyard. A mass grave by the way is not a graveyard. A mass grave is where many bodies are dumped after a mass killing. The media went with ‘mass grave site’ for quite awhile. The whole thing was a really bad unneeded black eye for Canada. Trudeau of course declared a National holiday to honour the murdered children.
The land acknowledgments are pathetic. ‘We recognize we are doing _______today on the traditional and unceded territories of the ________First Nations’. If I were a FN I would hear this as ‘yeah we stole your land, and here we are. Whacha gonna do about it?’
‘This is your daily reminder you are a conquered people’.
Those of us who, at some point in our lives, have had the misfortune of dealing with a single person that actually was that insane now have an easier time cutting through the b.s. in these bizarre times. I guess I'm thankful now that I learned some important coping skills that have come in handy recently. I'm also exhausted.
Yes. Same. JD Vance’s words come to mind daily: do you hear what you’re saying, Martha?”
Ohhh, exhausted is right. All my family members (siblings and parent) are lifelong die-hard progessives. I was liberal until I woke up in my 30s (thank you, Jesus!). Until 2020, we still managed to have interesting conversations,and laughed a lot together. Now? We have nothing...and I do mean nothing...to talk about. It is hard to watch the world falling apart around me, and have to refrain from discussing it, because they just don't see it. Thank God for my non-woke husband and adult children.
The world is not falling apart. We are just in a speedy transition period where things that don't work or make sense are being revealed so they get fixed. Try thinking like an engineer building a bridge.
We all have family and neighbors who, at least we hope, are not insane or evil, but rather as Gato points out, are low information people who have put blinders on. They have not been red pilled like you. Unfortunately, they are aiding and abetting the insane ones in the downfall of society.
The problem is the smugnorance. They KNOW theu are absolutely correct and “better” than you in every way. Infuriating
I love new words. Adding this one to my dictionary!
*Smugnorance* noun. A mental condition wherein a person is inexplicably proud of his/her lack of knowledge of a given subject. "Karen's smugnorance made it impossible for Bob to discuss the economy in any depth."
Yes.
Selective attention test x Asch conformity experiment = 2024 America. Free speech with a spoonful of humor is the ozempic for cognitive dissonance. Biderman's chart of coercion was deployed for COVID conformist craziness: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/bidermans-chart-of-coercion-covid-ccp
Ew, don't call it "the ozempic of" since ozempic is a dangerous drug that initially causes the desired effect (weight loss) in some who are able to tolerate it, while destroying the metabolism and digestive system of the user and making them dependent on it for life to maintain the weight loss (if it is even capable of that at long term).
But yeah, free speech with a spoonful of humor is the *something*, just not the ozempic. Maybe someone else here can come up with a better analogy.
Fleet enema? Metamucil? Ipecac syrup?
🤣🤣🤣
I’m not sure many people are waking up to the nonsense and evil - but there is a good test any government could set: broadcast far, wide and often that there is a ‘new virus’ killing many, many people (although no one knows anyone who has actually died of said virus) and tell everyone they must wear a mask. If masks weren’t made compulsory that would be the best test: no one could say they were only following orders. We could all see with our own eyes then who was awake and who was actually so profoundly asleep they are unreachable having learnt nothing at all over the last four plus years.
I am of the belief - especially since March 2020 - that many people are very stupid, very easily led, or very evil. I hope it’s not a majority, but it certainly doesn’t seem like a small minority, nearly 100% wore masks where I live. And so…anyways, I hope no government sets the mask test again. Perhaps they don’t need to, having already assessed just how dumb and sleepy their populations are.
Blaming people for being fooled because they stupid or gullible is your gorilla blind spot. The fact that people can be manipulated like cattle is because propaganda works, and we all have an adaptive mental mechanism that makes us blind to information that’s just too weird or awful to believe. You are missing the gorilla too when you think this phenomenon only applies to fools, but almost nobody sees the gorilla. And it’s just too weird and awful to believe that institutions of various sorts are purposely using psychological manipulation to screw up civilization and destroy people’s lives. None of us are immune and every one of is blind to some certain (but unknown to us) number of gorillas. Me, you, and everyone on the planet.
Maybe in 2020 what you said could work. But nearly 2025? If you are still masking you have a cognitive defect that makes you unreliable in many ways.
Exactly! Let's stop buying into the manipulation that keeps us calling each other names and blaming each other for the fact that forces on both sides of the political spectrum are moving the agenda forward inch by inch and have been for decades. That's the gorilla in this chat room.
Well said! There are evil forces at work, alright, and always have been, but evil thrives on stupidity of the masses which is why the psychopaths of the world are so dominant; "the inner liberation of man begins by living responsibly before God. Only then may stupidity be overcome."(Bonhoeffer) In the final analysis (and in the first analysis!) it's a SPIRITUAL problem!
Steve Sailer calls it "noticing", essentially pattern recognition that is an outgrowth of our evolution as a species that has allowed us to survive. Noticing, of course, as Sailer knows, gets you into a *lot* of trouble with the kinds of people that suffer from the cognitive shortcomings you've outlined.
"noticing" is the Zeroth Step in the Scientific Method. We could all be Scientists. Basically:
0. Notice some Stuff.
0.314 Notice some more Stuff.
0.621 Notice more and more of that same Stuff all over again.
0.9944 🤔 Science Guy™ say, "Hmmmm..."
Then *genuflects*
¡1.! Write your Hypothesis. *strikes nerd pose*
2, etc. See if you can Notice more of the Stuff you keep Noticing. Take notes, think about, share you thoughts, revise or retract if others just don't Notice that same stuff.
We can all be Scientists. We don't even have to play one on TV.
Then, make memes about the other scientists.
Cue Gen Alpha-students: "What's a Tee-Vee?"
a giant cell phone that mounts on the wall?
Right! Again, see the work of Iain Gilchrist in this regard...
All you need is a white lab coat and pocket protector, and you too can be a 'Scientist'.
(Don't have to bother with those damned hypotheses!)
Lab Coat: Check!
Pocket Protector: Also Check!
And short-sleeved shirt.
Perfect, gato !!! And just last night I actually witnessed an awakening— received an apology letter from a “critical thinker” who had “unfriended” me sometime during the Covid/riots year(s). He stated, “It’s so obvious now that I have open my eyes and see the evil coming out of the left.” There IS hope !!!
Wow!!
If it doesn't agree with their narrative as "we are the good guys, the smart, kind and hip ones" then it's misinformation. Their vision is perfect, complete and flawless. Don't you dare bring up a fault - you racist, Putin loving, fascist.
I was on a Next Door Neighbor site where people in my local area post. Someone posted about there being consequences for posting misinformation. So I said but who determines what is misinformation and what isn't. That was all I said. My post was deleted and flagged. LOL
Dee, I got off that digital rag Next Door years ago in the Age of WuFlu because there were soooo many libtards. I couldn’t take it anymore
Yeah, I got thrown off ND. I think it was my comment that the people pushing the mandates should go to the neighboring majority black city and attempt to force the vax themselves, but they wouldn't, because they would wind up as white George Floyds.
I stay on Next Door so I know who to avoid in my area. And also so I know who I don’t need to check on in case of disaster since they’ll be waiting for the government to help them.
😊
I like to get off all those kind of sites for the most part, but I think we need to have a general idea what is the consensus is among that particular group. So when you are in a crowd of people you have a clue what they are thinking, you know before they proudly state their opinion, what you may want to say back or not say back. You can't lose touch of what makes them tick either as we walk among them whether we want to or not.
They literally took over EVERY social media site. It was a coordinated, well planned take over.
I was off for a long time. Just thought I would see what was going on in my neighborhood. You are right. Can't stay on that for long. Can't take the insanity. Sooner or later I will make a comment and then...
"So I said but who determines what is misinformation and what isn't."
Apparently not you.
What is that quote about find out who can decide what you can and cannot question, and you'll know who's the true ruler?
I guess you got your answer.
The only part of Nextdoor that I follow is the private conservative groups I’ve found over the last few years. They are small but we enjoy ourselves. The rest of ND can go f*ck itself, especially the people who complain about “too many” lost pet postings (we live in East San Diego County, so there are coyotes everywhere). As someone who lost a cat in my fenced backyard in broad daylight to a coyote, I would never chastise anyone for posting for a lost pet! 💔
Next Door is pit of despair. I know people rag on Facebook, for many good reasons, but my town has a Facebook group that is simultaneously a rambunctious nest of ball-busting shitposting, an efficient system of reuniting lost pets with owners, a real-time notice board for traffic snarls, EMS callouts, and location of food trucks, and a legitimate source of quality recommendations for everything from roof repair to gourmet cupcakes.
Sadly, you learned your lesson. No room for actual thinking on that mess of an app. I reduced my interaction on there to police activity in my area. I shut off every other topic... the ignorance was intolerable.
Dollyboy’s hammer just obliterating that nail.
The existence of "children's books about sex toys and bondage" is just too extreme for them to wrap their minds around.
I told my lib daughter Walmart had butt plugs wrapped in bright colors at eye level for children in the health and beauty section. Had to take her there and show her before she believed me. I looked up some of these books ( because I won't just repeat what I heard) and was floored! They were not only in the library but on the summer reading display for grade school! I sent excerpts to our local politicians and our governor,suggesting they read the passages out loud at bedtime to their children or grandchildren. The response I got back was " I don't think anyone would disagree this is inappropriate " and 6 months later the governor signed a bill restricting where these books can be in the library and a fine if they are not relocated or the librarian allows a minor to check them out without parental permissions. Soon " conservative " purple haired face pierced tattooed mothers are outside the library protesting the banning of books in the name of free speech. ( Actually the law is less than 2 pages and does not contain the word "ban" anywhere).
"Walmart had butt plugs wrapped in bright colors at eye level for children in the health and beauty section"
Dag. My brain just hiccupped reading that, too.
What is a butt plug for? Honest question here!
Let's just say... Don't Google that phrase if you're at work.
🤣
Off the top of my head it is to plug one’s butt. Just spitballing. Diarrhea maybe? Bad gas? Curry addiction? Really bad episiotomy?
Spitballing???
Just ewwww
Congrats to you on standing up for what's right and making them change where they could display that filth!!!
I'm even pretty De Gustibus on things but you there are clearly some places where we could be a little more selective about our target audience/customers.
My mom literally believes that the books that are being "banned" are like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and similar literary classics.
My mom's friend is of that same opinion. She doesn't realize that the books we want out of the school libraries are pornographic, not just "controversial" like the old times of trying to kick out Huck Finn or the like. :/
well, they are trying to kick out Huck Finn and Laura Ingalls Wilder because "racisss"
In 2018 the Association for Library Service to Children decided that the the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award is now officially the Children’s Literature Legacy Award because of one line of the one book about trying to move to Oklahoma that in the original edition seemed to indicate that Laura Wilder thought Indians weren't people. This was changed in subsequent editions (about 1938) but it wasn't enough for those harpies.
The fact that her daughter and editor Rose Wilder Lane was an early outspoken libertarian may have had something to do with that.
so does my 65 year old brother
Maybe in the past, but the pendulum continued to swing in a raunchy direction. It is way, way more crazy than any thing that was written back then.
They completely misuse the term “banned” (on purpose, I’m sure). A book that has been banned is not easily available in bookshops, libraries, or online sources. Removing a book from one school/school board’s collection is not a “ban“, because the book is still widely available everywhere.
My brain hiccupped just reading it and I already knew it was true. They have to block it out or their brains would glitch.
Freud called it Repression. Big hitter, the Freudster.
If you didn't see the gorilla the first time, it's ok. Make a rational excuse and feel superior with the following:
'Seeing the gorilla on the first viewing of the video obviously means you're a racist.'
Now I feel better!!
I remember reading a book 13 years ago called 'Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear' about why people are so useless at assessing risk. It told about an aircraft accident. One plane taking off clipped another already on the runway and crashed down - the fire engines and crew raced to the downed plane but did not notice a fire had started on the other plane. Of the people still sat in this plane the majority were unable to move - not because they were petrified but according to the author, their minds were simply unable to process a scene so divorced from their usual reality. In other words they were unable to believe their own eyes. As a result many perished unnecessarily whilst those who did perceive the threat escaped and dragged many passengers off the plane thus saving their lives.
When one has their head in the sand, and someone else continues to kick them in the ass, there is eventually an awakening…
Some may find it kinky. 🥴
That’s where those butt plugs come in handy! 🤣
🤣
Great insight. I have learned much from a friend of mine who wears a MAGA hat just to break the ice. Doesn't matter to him who he triggers, friend or foe, it's his "in" to conversation. He'll ask a couple questions, find some level ground, then use contradictions in that strangers experience to make them think. Whether they become friends or not, you know they will never forget the experience of meeting him or recover from the truth bombs he tosses. Often they follow up with him for more insight. The point is once we expose the contradictions, the overton window shifts. We will never be pre-elon twitter again, or pre-'what is a woman again', the GOP will never be pre-ron paul or pre-Trump again. Wether it's a cultural phenomena or a private conversation we are duty bound to expose the culture we care about to the margins sneaking into the centre. Our enemies are taking advantage of that grace period where we accept the shocking things, as our minds map out the deeply unknown. We have to reverse that strategy or suffer the consequences, which to me looks like Donald Sutherland in the final scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Eesh...