#the free speech everyone thinks about is racist bigoted rhetoric

[bitchapalooza]

This whole TikTok ban and “Chinese parent company” bs is so stupid when you realize the mass majority of products sold in the us are at the expense of most likely underpaid and abused Chinese workers. I can’t pinpoint if this is hypocrisy or not, whatever this is, but it’s ridiculous and it’s the least of our concerns.

[0aurelion-sol0]

SNK 134: Why we need to move forward.

Well...

That's horrifying...

Oh but whatever they are probably bad people in there. Thieves, greedy people, hateful mothers, men who beat their wives , liars, bullies, killers, murderers, rapist, child rapist and racist babies.

Yeah...

This is a rhetoric that has been used for ages and is currently being used in this fandom especially on reddit and 4chan.

The justification of injustice.

When George Floyd was slammed on the ground and died because he couldn't breathe anymore, conservatives and republicans at large ignored the police brutaliy leading up to that.

He was just a cocaine or drug addict who one day pointed a gun at a pregnant lady. So he was a criminal and deserved that.

Of course ignoring the racial segregation that happened from the very legalized slavery hundreds of years ago and how poor and racially stigmatized black people are being in America right now.

When the Uyghurs are being genocided by China, the world blinds itself because China is one the worlds necessary assets in economy as it basically produces a good chunk of what is being used in the world. Most made by children, " but it makes us live "... Apparently that's the only logical reason...

When Palestinians and Israelis are literally killing each other over some complicated non sense that no one ever really understands and also Israël basically doing Apartheid at this point,

When the totality of the Middle East has turned into a warzone because of the United States's violent imperialism,

When most far right or extremist group decided that Islam and Islamic terrorism are the same thing,

When xenophobes and racist always attack immigration,

"If she wasn't wearing that skirt, she probably wouldn't have been raped",

When we have homophobes, transphobes, LGBTphobes, telling us what's natural and always bragging about "\___-_-___/ God, Holy Jesus",

When you have people who tells you that poor people chose their way of living when there are a small percent of billionaires and soon to be trillionaires having such a gigantic amount of wealth,

When 6 millions Jews were genocided which was 40% of Jewish people at the time and 2/3 of European Jews,

When the prime minister of Israël is saying that the Holocaust wasn't Hitler's Idea but Haj Amin al-Husseini, (who was extremely anti semitic, don't get me wrong)who suggested it to him maiking the prime minister a revisionist but at the same time making his actions against Palestinians justified,

When around the world Christianic places of worship are being vandalized,

When entire SYSTEMS of segregations have made societies work,

When the South American continent has been attacked by the United States because of different political beliefs,

When people use their rape as a way to attack other communities of a specific religion or color,

When Black Panthers uses racism against White people because of the story of USA and are being anti semitic but essentializing a whole group,

When Nationalistic Israelis tells you what is a good Jew and what isn't a good Jew,

When dozens of groups have been forced to extinction,

Natives who were being murdered, yeah? YOU DON'T SEE THAT A LOT IN YOUR COWBOY MOVIES ?

When literal "feminist" calls for the destruction of men while they can't educate the kids about what to do and what not to do, OH, can also be transphobic apparently,

When you have entire websites who encourages pedophilia,

And pedophiles killed, left alone and live a life of endless torment while no one does nothing to help them and fight those who encourages it even in the highest places of our society,

Oh and Hollywood, that's all I need to say.

And let's not even talk about animal brutality and the destruction of ecosystems.

And there is more and more and more and more and more and FUCKING MORE,

All that because of reasons, reasons, reasons, reasons,

All stuck in a cycle of hate, violence and discrimination that just never ends.

The selfishness,

The greed,

And at end, everything is meaningless. There is just blood.

This is what this chapter represent the meaningless of it all. How everything goes to shit...

How everyone, whether it's the oppresor or the oppresed, will justify the violence, the injustice.

Society does nothing cause society right now runs for the entitled and the entitled only and creates it's own monsters.

I want to ask those people who defend the rumbling.

After everything we saw in this manga, after what the real world has commited, after how much these real events have inspired this story, how can you say it was the only way ?

After everyone hided Hange valuable informations including Eren who had information about KRUGER who was a spy in MARLEY. Who has created a civil war in Eldia and activated the rumbling while killing Eldian civilians in the way.

After seeing the mental breakdown of Bertolt, who we don't hear about anymore, Annie and Reiner's mental breakdown over GENOCIDING AN ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE, by the way Reiner totally didn't develop another persona at that time to cope with what he was doing, HUH ?

After all the deaths, Carla, Grisha, Dina, Faye Marco, Levi's squad, Ymir, Erwin, Sasha, Hange, Hannes, Floch and many others, how can you go and be like "CHAD EREN, BEING DADDY, FUCKING HIS MEAT WAIFU, PHILOSOPHER FREEDOM SEEKER"

"104th crybabies... xDdDDDD Prfrpfr"

Come on...

This isn't serious at this point.

And for the H character, we're gonna come back for her but...

GODDAMNIT!

THANK YOU, DEATH.

This has sparked debates.

Some are thankful for this speech by the commander.

Others are finding it disingenous.

Others think it's too on the nose and not natural.

Others don't care.

On my part, I enjoy it but I take it with the context. Most of their airships have been destroyed and they are facing their doom upfront right now. It's more of a death plea at this point. Just like in the cave with Histor... GOD IT'S SO HARD SAYING HER NAME... with Historia who said truly horrible things at the point of an imminent death. At that moment, words like this can tell what you really are inside but even that is not enough to have a full picture.

It did have some interesting elements.

It is true, using, raising, breeding hate and shoving problems upon a group will always come bite you up the ass someday.

Marley in their extensive and violent coloniaslistic, imperialiatic behavior towards Eldia creates only weaknesses for them on an international field and create this monstruosity that is right now Eren.

Eren, a soldier who suffer from trauma and PTSD, who has terrible insecurities and everything to lose after losing so much and possibly in my book being influenced by another entity decides to kill them all.

But...

In no way does that justify Eren's actions, in fact it goes against it.

He is just as angry and hateful as they were back then but instead of destroying the system, he decides to genocide.

Essentializing the whole world as your ennemy and problem, and deciding to get rid of it is just continuing what has been started and continued for hundreds of years before.

No one ever thinks about the simple families, the innocent children, the homeless...

What about them Eren ?

What about the people who faced discrimination like Ramzi ?

What about the other groups that are almost extinct just like yours ?

What about the groups that tried to support the Eldians but were considered freaks ? HUH ?

What about the babies and innocent children ?

Isayama is even spelling it out for you this chapter.

Is he not worth it ? To stop all this ?

He was born into this world just like every other baby.

Look at that while everyone, is trying to jump off, their trying to save the baby. Even if it's probably impossible. That's humanity right there.

And... jesus christ...

I literally saw people who said that the mother was dumb to give it to the people because titans were behind them.

I can't even...

Imagine if Eren is the daddy of H's Baby and that he completes the genocide, killing his friends or even persuading them and at the end he is saying you are free to this baby.

So this baby is worth more than this baby ?

He is more legitimate to live than him.

I can't even imagine what the arguments would be like with the Eren stans:

"He's protecting his friends."

While literally challenging them to fight and right now trying to kill them.

"Well, you know the Rumbling is horrible but they got what was coming for them. They did nothing to help Paradise."

While forgetting the complexity of human nature, how banalization of these acts of violence have come to be BECAUSE...

These just like me and you are just simple people. With simple lives and not too much power who can't do anything about it.

Most of the people today sees all the suffering in the world, they just don't have the power, nor the will to go against such complex geo-political conflicts.

Would you be able to just resolve the Israelo-Palestinian conflict ? I don't think so, so shut your ass down with this argument.

These people can't change the world with power that they have and the one that has the power to change that, is killing them right now. BRAVO.

" Well, uh, the child is a child, parents might be racist and uh... child maybe is racist or will become racist..."

God...

Just because someone has done horrible shits or is an horrible shit doesn't mean he should die like this.

Here it is people, how we work as human :

Fuck redemption and possible solutions, let's kill everyone who did something bad.

Y'all would have been perfect during monarchies time.

And like... having an argument on a baby should face genocide is just fucking disgusting.

AND DON'T GIVE ME THE BULLCRAP OF FICTION DOESN'T EQUAL REALITY!

That you are interested into what could bring the Rumbling in terms of thematics and story is fine.

BUT ENDORSING IT ?

Do y'all even hear yourselves sometimes ?

You just sound like every racist, bigoted, fascist and violent person that has ever existed.

You're just excited to see someone die because he commited something wrong, sadistic pricks.

You're no different. Perhaps the guy who was talking to Grisha in chapter 97, who was a Marleyan and gave serums to Eldian is right. When he was talking to Grisha, Isayama use it to break the fourth wall and talk to the readers.

Why do we watch this, all this violence ?

" Because it's fun!"

" People take peace for granted!"

" Of course we're abnormal in society's eyes."

" We wish to exterminate all eldians!"

" Your sister did nothing wrong. Shame she was an Eldian!"

The fun fact is that this guy is a racist fuck but he dies pushed by Kruger and killed by his very own creation: a titan.

Why do people endorse genocide ?

" Because it's justice!"

" They got what was coming for them!"

" Isayama is just showing us that genocide is not really wrong if you just understand the concept of morals. Puritans."

" Humanity can die, they deserve it!"

" I'm sad for Ramzi, he didn't do nothing wrong but you know... maybe he didn't have good ideas about Eldians."

While also saying why children could deserve genocide. \____@-@____/

Of course I found most of these on Reddit and 4chan, the nazi propaganda website. Tumblr is a little free of it.

Babies....

Literally babies...

That remind me of somethin'...

OH YEAH!

QUEER NO MORE.

*put gloves on*

PUUUUUUUSSHH!!! COOOOOOOMMEEE OOONN!!!!

Breathe...

I SEEEEE THE HEAAADDD, IT'S HEREEEEEE!!!!

Natalie, bring the bucket, quick!

Of fuck she shitted on herself a little bit!

_________________________________________

So ?

Y'all like my fanfic ?

It's about how Erehisu is canon and how Historia is actually thinking about Eren right now because she is blushing.

But also about how Historia actually looks good and sexy while being pregnant and how she looks so happy!

She also is a lesbian that turned straight.

I'm so proud of my work.

_________________________________________

In all honesty...

This is... dissapointing and an insult to Historia fans. Why ? What is the purpose or the reason ? Being tragic ? To show how far Historia can go to protect her loved ones ? A female Eren so ?

I always leaned towards the fake pregnancy even if I don't know how something like that could be really pulled. I didn't understand this choice for his storytelling. The others I understand but this one...

O_o

What the fuck ?

So she really is pregnant ? But nothing leading up to it makes sense.

The character whose thematics still rings too much true for this arc is put in the background and as a breeding farm on top of that.

It even came to a point I started people to stop asking about her.

I had faith in her presence in the final arc. That she would have a role play.

But now ?

/\/\/\

For people who don't understand why this aspect of story is wrong, we have to break it down.

First off, Historia one of the first queer characters with Ymir in SNK. Others are suspected but these two are the few that holds a definitive representation as queer.

Most often in media or in real life, LGBT people have been forced into a situation that requires them to fall under heterosexuals lives. Here Historia is forced to be pregnant, yes in a way she agreed because of her people, but at the same time she didn't really want it.

For queer people, like me, this still rings true. Too much true. People literally forces you to go for your opposite sex everytime, to have a family.

No, stop forcing your view of your own life or desire of life on other people.

The fact that the fandom rationalizes that and says that she is happy and in love with Eren is just so fucking weird.

It either is blind ship following, heteronormativity or not understanding the story.

And I saw people saying she might be bisexual. This doesn't change anything. Also ignoring the fact that she hasn't shown any attraction to men other than women in the story.

If she is bisexual, it doesn't change anything, she is still queer. Not semi-straight AND EVEN IF SHE WAS A WOMAN WHO HAPPENED TO BE STRAIGHT, SHE IS STILL FORCED INTO SOMETHING SHE DID NOT WANT.

Bisexual is not semi-straight, semi-gay.

It's bisexual.

Bisexual, Straight and Homosexuality are not the same thing.

And if she was straight, that doesn't make it acceptable. It's just sick.

Just because you're a straight woman doesn't mean you are going to be more happy or have god like duty to have kids.

I just don't understand it...

A manga who was so progressive with his female characters reduces Historia to this.

Imagine...

Just imagine...

Eren is the father. I would shoot myself in the face. A forced straight relationship at the end for the pleasure of shonen readers and heteronormative readers.

" What if I have baby, Eren ?"

" Only if it is from me. I want him to live and have FREEDOM!"

" It's open bar, honey." *saying this after hearing the guy says he's going to genocide which goes against her own values and actions as queen*

Ew... Just ew...

And even worse she wasn't supposed to give birth right now, she was supposed to give birth in a few months.

She could DIE. SHE IS 19. This is dangerous.

Everyone is like this is normal.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL. *sigh*

This goes against what she is supposed to have as a character development.

The fact that she would be okay for genocide while as a queen she reached out to the most weak and in need is fucking incoherent.

No. This doesn't make sense. Even Eren said that Historia's action as a queen were to help others. How could she be okay sitting at her house ? Telling no one about what Eren was going to do ? And becoming a breeding farm ? What is the logic in that ?

Why make it suspicious than ?

The only thing that was able to make any logical sense to me was that the person we are seeing here isn't Historia.

I know if my theory is right, it's sick, even more sick.

The only times we saw Historia after the timeskip was during flashbacks, the reveal at 107 and possibly at the end of 123.

If this is her at the end of 123, I want to ask you why is she all prepared, why is she all dressed up and why is she wearing the same clothes in 134 that she is wearing 107. Something doesn't add up.

She is young, small-petite, blonde and her belly and face are hidden.

I was only able to go through the theory that this is a fake Historia. Than who it is than ?

Well, I searched for female characters who look like her or who could look like Historia right now. From all the characters that we haven't seen coming coming back and that has interacted with Historia, there is only one.

Rico Brzenska.

For those, who don't remember her : She was a Garrison Member who helped Mikasa and Eren during the Trost Arc and also helped Historia while she was exhausted during the Clash of the Titans Arc.

She hasn't appeared ever since the start of the Return to Shiganshina Arc unlike many of the older characters.

She is the only one I see who could pass as Historia I think.

I know this is still sick. But this is the only way I would be able to make Historia get out of this crappy storyline and play some relevance in the story. And if we look at Rico and Historia in 107, they kinda look the same. They have the heart shaped face, they are both small and they both have this sort of closed eyelids.

One line that just stuck with me of Rico was:

"Hiding/Lying about Eren's rampage in the report wouldn't have benefited humanity. "

This was during Eren's trial before joining the Survey Corps. What was discused was when Eren lost control of himself during the Trost Arc and attacked Mikasa.

The second line that struck was the one where she holds Historia who is exhausted in her arms:

"Wow! Who is this girl, is she okay ?"

I don't know why it just pushed that theory. And I kinda believe it now, because no one can make me believe that there is something satisfying coming out of this. Why would she sacrifice herself for Historia ? Well, I don't really know but Rico was always a little wary of Eren, even after the Trost Arc but yeah ultimately for Rico being able to give her own life for Historia. I don't know about that. But with this manga you never now. It is a very dark and twisted theory but this is the only logical thing I can see right now since no answers have been provided.

Monkey is BACK

Zeke is back and like most of us predicted, Eren dragged him with him. And I'm not gonna lie, the way he was attached to the spine was pretty badass.

He is used as a puppet which reinforces the theory for me that all three of them: Eren, Ymir and Zeke are being used by the Attack Titan.

I cannot understand Eren's illogical behavior especially after seeing the train scene where he says he wants them to live long happy lives and than having him kill his friends.

Ymir the first being free and having eyes to returning to having no eyes just like before and Eren.

And Zeke would have never agreed to the Rumbling. And we can't see his eyes either.

And...

Thank you, 104th for existing.

Because...

After how much shit they have gone through and after how much the fandom, not just the Eren stans, have mocked them. Like the fandom has been the biggest asshole to the the Alliance while they were the ones who were able to survive through the sentence " Genocide is wrong!" that so many people seems to find to be so hard to say.

I will root for them until the bitter end, I don't care. They are the one who are fighting. You can call Cringevengers all you want but I am glad they are winning.

They all suffered like Eren but they didn't prioritize their own and only feelings above everything else and they stood by for the values they fought for since they joined the Survey Corps. Even if I have to admit they have, for most of them, conflicted feelings with what they were doing and have done things like trying to talk to Eren while it's obvious he wasn't going to talk and that in a situation like this I don't think someone would try to stop Eren by just talking.

Levi, and it would be foolish to not recognize it, is being consumed by his promise but he is restraining it and still is able to think about the bigger picture.

There's one thing I really like about this is Armin asking Eren:

"Eren... I'll ask you one last time... "What part of you is free" after we rip you out from there... "

Hehe... yes... what part of you is free ?

To be honest, there's many things I don't want for the ending.

A Lelouch Ending, it was all Eren's plan. Literally wouldn't make sense. No one would be questionning his free will and he wouldn't have these weird shits happening to him.

A Code Geass ending, why would Mikasa have to kill Eren, what does that add to her as a character ? More tragedy ? No she doesn't have the scarf, it's pretty telling what place she's at right now.

Eren being the daddy. NO, JUST NO.

Everyone dies, genocide is the right thing. You know all the worst shit that can happen.

But most of all I want important plot points to be explored and moved over because ever since the timeskip, there has been no important plot points out the way. Eren's behavior, Ackertalk, Bertolttalk, Historia's Condition, Paths stuffs, answers!

Whatever... Trust me Peace is not something I take for granted. Being proud of myself and having a life with the least conflict and problem is something you fight for. Having rights, being recognized as a human.

Never lose that, fight for it. But never with injustice, be smarter and stronger. Cause at the end what unites us is not only what we have in common but what the perspective of what we have not in common can make a bigger picture of what we are as humans. We all are different and have a different story with similarities but in the end, we are human and born into this world. And in that, we must move forward. In the present, because of the past and for the future.

We all wish for the problems to go away but if it's for the solutions to be rigged with injustice, it will not work. No one has acheived with genocide and never will.

It's kinda sad that this long of a post has to say this. Did y'all see that ? Pretty inspiring what I wrote. Oh well you know what ? If they can be bigoted why can't I myself.

Here's a song I wrote:

(Fuck everyone and you.

We hate women

There are only 2 genders, the breeder and the breeded.

Everything is degenerate.

We hate brown, Arab and Muslim people.

Genocide is cool

And Hitler was too.)

I know but you know what, at least if they want a spy for Nazi Germany someday. They'll know not to give it to me because I'd laugh at the stupidity of the people just like you and I are doing with the rest of world cause for all the shits it gives us, it's entertaining.

[smokeybrand]

Duplicity

It’s nuts watching the spin the Right is thing on this Gina Carano firing. I understand the free speech thing and i, personally, wouldn’t have fired her but i understand why she was terminated. I’ve written at length about my perspective on that aspect of the matter. This ain’t about that. This is about how “FirePedroPascal” trended on Twatter yesterday because he posted an image comparing a MAGA hat to Nazi Swastika and a Klan hood or something. This is not the same thing as the nonsense Carano spouts. This isn’t some Leftist elitism judging your wholesome Rightist views. That comparison is one that f*cking MAGA cultists have done everything to earn. Those vile motherf*ckers worship one of the most disgusting people to ever hold office. Donald Trump is a proven racist, misogynist, and elitist, filth. He’s a liar and a cheat, willing to, and damn near accomplished, sell out the American people for a quick buck. This is a man who’s entire platform was based on bigoted xenophobia and he won. Just like Hitler. This is a man that used the the idea of the other, the specter of Brown and Black people, to terrify, radicalized, and galvanized, every suburban White person who would listen. Just like Hitler did with the Jewish Problem. This is a man who actively, knowingly, incited a whole ass insurrection. People died. This is a man who separated refugee children from their parents strictly because they came from “sh*thole countries.”

On Trump’s order, entire families were destroy just for seeking asylum from incredibly dangerous places where horrors would be heaped upon them, hoping to find safety in the “Land of the free”, only to have their locked in concentration camps before their parents were sent back to the fire from whence they came. These kids have come to know hunger, diseases, and assault in these camps, some even forcibly sterilized, all on Herr Trump’s watch. That MAGA hat is red because it’s stained in the blood of thousands of innocent children, all illegally incarcerated just for being Brown. That comparison Pascal made is every bit apt, deserved, and f*cking earned. History will definitely remember it as such. It is not the same as the sh*t Carano says or the one thing that was used to let her go. Being Conservative in this age is definitely not the same as being Jewish during the Holocaust. That is a false equivalency, one that was rightfully called out. If we’re being truth, being that young, Brown, kid trying to escape a brutal life in some Latin country to south, is a much more apt parity to a Jew during the Holocaust, but we’re not being truthful right now. We’re not taking context into consideration anymore. We are being willfully inflammatory because motherf*ckers have lost site of right and long. Trump hasn’t divided this country, he’s exposed it. He’s shown us what we really think of each other and that genie ain’t going back in the bottle anytime soon.

If we really wanted to have this discussion honestly, on that should be held because there’s weaponized rhetoric being slung about by both ides, then Pablo Hildalgo should have been the comparison here. He should have been fired for the way she attacked the fans after they expressed their adulation for Luke’s return on Mando. That sh*t feels like a properly fireable offense as opposed to this sh*t with Pascal. Hell, that stuff with the writer everyone seems to be so upset about, that nonsense about her being racist against White people? Yeah, that’s dumb, too. That chick is Black as f*ck. We, as a people, have a very sus view of who White folks are as a collective. Individuals can be butt-hurt about it all they want, but Black people have legitimate beef with Wypipo and the institutions they have built into this country to marginalize us, get us back to as close as chattel as they legally can. It’s not like racism and bigotry is over because MLK, as much as these disingenuous lily White assholes and Fox News talking heads, like to pretend that it is. Case in point, the Brown kids in f*cking cages! How the f*ck is that not racially motivated? Or, how about when we, as Black folks, were out fighting for our right to just f*cking live, the ex-President got on Twatter and said “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” but when his people, them White people, looted the Capital, he got on television and said they were very special, that he loved them? Seems like a racial component there to me.

Gina Carano said some stupid f*cking sh*t and her platform was rightfully removed. It wasn’t removed for the reasons Lucasfilm actually said but that was more because Kathleen Kennedy is a b*tch and firing was personal to her. However, the comparison she made was wrong. Being Conservative in this age isn’t like being a Jew during the Holocaust, it’s like being a Nazi right now. See, we punch Nazis in the mouth, now. We did back then, too. There was a war. They lost. Just like the MAGA cultists are losing. No one is persecuting you because you have Conservative views. No one is attacking you because you’re Christian. No one gives a f*ck that you favor deregulation and an unfettered free market, even though we are watching why that sh*t is a real bad idea in Texas right now. No one cares that everything you believe, stems from fickle ass emotion rather than hard data and proper science. I mean, i am, but i meant as a whole. Conservatives are dumb but i digress. As a whole, no one on the Left is coming at you for those views. This isn't a double standard or a some heinous plot by a shady cabal of cannibalistic, pedophile, Satan worshiping, Lizard people to silent the righteous supporters of the Reincarnated Ronald Reagan or whatever. No, we’re coming at you because, over the last four goddamn years, you motherf*ckers have lost sight of, not only them values you arrogantly espouse so much, but your goddamn humanity to boot. You dicks have used your platform to push dangerous and false narratives like f*cking Space Jew Lasers setting fire to California or that the vote was rigged when it most certainly was not. That last tidbit was taken to court sixty-plus times and those cases were lost sixty-plus times, none of which argued fraud because there was no fraud to begin with. You are getting deplatformed by the adults in the room, consistently, unapologetically, because you can’t be trusted to not say some dumb , dangerous, hurtful sh*t. Sh*t like saying you’re being persecuted in the same way that a Jew was during the Holocaust because you support Orange Hitler.

[futureplanetconcept-blog]

Hypocrisy - Part 1

Paul Joseph Watson, editor-at-large of Infowars, and now a prominent social media voice for the right-wing shared this post with the caption, “How Trump Happened.”

Brendan O’neill - “Trump?! How did this happen?!?!”

It happened because you banned super-sized sodas. And smoking in parks. And offensive ideas on campus. Because you branded people who oppose gay marriage as ‘homophobic,’ and people unsure about immigration as ‘racist.’ Because you treated people owning a gun and never having eaten a quinoa as signifiers of ‘fascism.’ Because you though correcting people’s attitudes was important than finding them jobs. Because you turned ‘white man’ from a description into an insult. Because you used slurs like ‘denier’ and ‘dangerous’ against anyone who doesn’t share your eco-pieties. Because you treated dissent as hate speech and criticism of Obama as extremism. Because you talked more about gender neutral toilets than home repossessions. Because you beautified Caitlyn Jenner. Because you policed people’s language, rubbished their parenting skills, took the piss out of their beliefs. Because you cried when someone mocked the Koran but laughed when they mocked the Bible. Because you said criticizing Islam is Islamophobia. Because you kept telling people “you can’t think that, you can’t say that, you can’t do that.” Because you turned politics into something done by for people into something done to them for their own good. Because you treated people like shit, and people don’t like being treated like shit. Trump happened because of you.

It does hit on some of the issues, but is also a mess of error and hypocrisy. The solution, as I advocate, lies somewhere in the middle. So let’s analyse it...

1. Super-size sodas? It’s free refills everywhere. A small size can easily be made into a super size if you get up off your arse and refill it.

2. Smoking in parks? If you want to smoke you are free to do so in private (and no one is challenging that freedom), but not where it damages the health of others, and the evidence shows that it does affect others. What is unfair about that?

3. Banning offensive ideas on campus is a very stupid move by the left. They have caved under pressure from those who wish to stop any criticism. Freedom of speech is the right that ensures all other rights – we cannot forget that.

4. Being against marriage equality is “homophobic.” What legitimate reason do you have to oppose a gay marriage that isn’t suggesting the superiority of heterosexuals? If your objection is at the word “homophobic” being used as a tarnishing label, like “racist,” “bigot,” and “Islamphobe,” (and we’ll get into that) then that is a misunderstanding. Homophobic can’t be applied in the same way because being gay is not a choice or an idea, so I refer you back to my original question.

5. It is dumb of the Left to brand those who have concerns about immigration as ‘racist.’ The word is used to stop debate and it certainly offers no viable plan for integration or controlling illegal immigration.

 6. I have no idea what Quinoa is. More labels branded by the left that have no grounds. Obviously, it is not fascist to own a gun, or to not want to give it up. There are plenty of good reasons for better and safer gun control but fascism doesn’t rank among them.

7. “Correcting people’s attitudes was more important than finding them jobs.”

That is two problems lumped together with no relevance to each other in any way. Do Trump supporters not have jobs? Does every person ranting to someone on Facebook about racism and sexism have a job to offer? Okay, I can actually see your point. Liberals have their priorities wrong, right? “Correcting people’s attitudes” is about making sure everyone is cared for, that includes the unemployed. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. The liberal public can’t be blamed for choices the Obama administration made, or policies they tried that failed. An argument against Trump is not an endorsement for every Democrat policy.

8. “White man” generally isn’t used as an insult but as an identifier of privilege and plea to consider the struggles of other races in our society, explicitly because of their race. Of course, as pointed out by the unemployment rates, white-men are also struggling because of various factors, but they aren’t struggling because of race. However, there are those on the left that do use “white male” to suggest that that person’s opinion is invalid. Ironically, it’s normally a white person making this point. Let’s stop identity politics.

 9. Climate change is a fact. Being a ‘denier’ is not a respectable belief, it is being objectively wrong.

10. You are well within your rights to criticize Obama. Others are within theirs to criticize Trump.

11. You rubbished your own parenting skills. “This generation are a bunch of spoilt brats, who are too sensitive because they were awarded participation trophies” was the most common insult of young protesters. Who spoiled the brats with participation awards, I wonder?

12. “Because you took the piss out of people’s beliefs. Because you cried when someone mocked the Quran, but laughed when they mocked the bible. Because you said criticizing Islam is Islamophobia.” The left’s blindness towards immoral Islamic doctrines is definitely worrying, and the accusations of Islamophobia, as well as some of the other labels were definitely used to stop debate. Look at your double standards, though. You complained that your beliefs were criticized and simultaneously complained that you were being stopped from criticizing other’s beliefs.

13. “You treated people like shit.” Are you saying you were treated like shit when someone complained about your homophobia, or your disgust at Caitlyn Jenner and gender neutral toilets? So, you were treated like shit because someone stood up to you treating people like shit? I’m not accusing you of hating Caitlyn Jenner or being homophobic, but if this is a complaint about the left, I struggle to see how someone on the left would have been “treating you like shit” if it wasn’t by opposing one of these typical issues.

So much of this election has been Us vs. Them rhetoric and therefore has been extremely hypocritical. I think people on both sides main objection was the other candidate, because of their corruption or misogyny, among other flaws, and what that symbolizes when that person becomes Commander in Chief. For many people a vote for Clinton was a vote against Trump, likewise a vote for Trump was a vote against Clinton. Which way a person voted out of only two (terrible) options does not reveal that person’s entire ideology.

“How Trump Happened” is interesting. It seems to mostly be a response from the inaction or over-action of the far left. It’s time to stop the labeling because that is a form of tarring everyone with the same brush (hypocrisy from the left), and means we’re arguing against opinions we think people have rather than what they actually have. Stop the hypocrisy of the Us vs. Them debate. Stop denying problems when the evidence is clear.

[readingismyname]

Socialism or the Democratic Establishment: Which is Better for America?

“We have candidates on the debate stage talking about open borders and decriminalizing illegal immigration.  They’re talking about doing away with nuclear energy and fracking.  You’ve got Bernie Sanders talking about letting criminals and terrorists vote from jail cells.  It doesn’t matter what you think about any of that, or if there are good arguments-talking about that is not how you win a national election.  It’s not how you become a majoritarian party.” -James Carville to Vox reporter Sean Illing (Source: www.vox.com.)

The way I see it, James Carville is right.  In the years since Barack Obama left office the Democratic Party has sharply lurched leftward in record time, with the leftist wing of the party represented by New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar pushing the Green New Deal and supporting the socialist agenda of Bernie Sanders.  Emerging from the rhetoric of the debates are overtones of class warfare, an ever-expanding government, open borders, and “free stuff.”  However, in listening to the debates and speeches from many of the candidates, I have noticed that much of the Democratic Party has embraced values that go far beyond those of the party as it has been in recent decades-values of helping people who cannot help themselves.  So, how did this change occur, and why?

As I see it, the most troubling trend in the Democratic Party has been its embrace of socialism-or, as Bernie Sanders calls it, “democratic socialism.”  Perhaps what is so troubling is how the agenda has been sold to the public: a tax on the wealthy and availability of free college education and free healthcare.  It has been sold as a great equalizer.  Bernie Sanders and his supporters have made his socialist agenda sound very seductive to the American electorate.  However, many people fail to understand what socialism really is and how it works.  The textbook definition of socialism is the ownership of the means of economic production and distribution by everyone in society.  In a socialist society, everyone owns the labor, capital goods, natural resources, and entrepreneurship; The collective good is more important than the good of the individual in socialist societies.  Socialism grants the government a lot of power.  It does not reward entrepreneurship and creativity.  It does not value individual freedom.  Furthermore, socialism wrongly assumes that all people are equally virtuous.  It denies the selfish aspects of human nature that push individuals to act in their own self-interest.  

In other words, socialism does not work because it does not understand that equality is an illusion.  It does not work because it undercuts the desire of individuals to be free to determine their own future.  Adopting socialism in the United States of America would require a complete restructuring of our economy that would not be feasible long term.  

Another concerning aspect of this embrace of socialism is the promise of “free stuff” with very little proof of how it would be paid for.  For example, some estimates for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s healthcare plan show that it would cost $52 trillion over the next 10 years.  That’s “trillion” with a “t.”  Bernie Sanders’ agenda, as CNN projects, would possibly cost $60 trillion over the next decade, increasing the size of the federal government well beyond what it has been in recent memory.  (Source: www.cnn.com.)  Who would pay for this free stuff?  There has been no clear answer to this question or the question of where the money would come from, though the money would likely come in the form of higher taxes on the wealthy.  So the term “free stuff”-free college tuition, free healthcare, etc.-is really a misnomer, as nothing in life is free.  

It should be noted that, at the time of this writing, the national debt is $23.378 trillion, and neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have put forth any agenda to decrease the national debt.  The current plans put forward by Democratic presidential candidates would only add to the debt over time.  After watching all of the debates and speeches from Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and others, I have noticed the glaring omission of the topic of the national debt from any real discussion.  To be fair, I have noticed this among Republicans as well.  Neither party seems to want to address the national debt because dealing with it means cutting programs that are vital to their political objectives.  However, I believe this is a colossal failure of our ruling class to keep kicking the proverbial can down the road.  At some point, the bill is going to be due.  Do our lawmakers really want to continue to delay the political discomfort at the expense of future generations of Americans?  Is that a price that both parties are willing to pay?  

Ahead of the South Carolina Primary and Super Tuesday, there are many questions that need to be addressed in this election and beyond for both parties, but especially Democrats: do they want to embrace socialism or walk away from it?  Do they value division or open, honest dialogue?  Over the last 10 to 20 years the Democratic Party has embraced identity politics, prioritizing political concerns along racial, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic lines.  What was initially intended to foster inclusion has actually created division and polarity within the parties; many Democrats have called political opponents racist, sexist, or generally bigoted for holding different views.  This, I believe, is where the party needs to change itself.  The politics of division is destructive not just to the party but to the nation as a whole.  There are many valid perspectives that must be listened to, and I believe that it is necessary to foster an environment that promotes civil, honest, and open-minded conversation.  The party, and our nation, will be better off when we can listen to each other and not just talk.

In conclusion, I believe that the Democratic Party is doing a disservice to Americans by embracing things like open borders, a single-payer healthcare system, free college tuition, and all-out class warfare.  I believe that Americans are being sold a seductive agenda of so-called equality that, in reality, is far from it.  The lurch toward socialism is something that should concern all Americans.  It represents the abandonment of freedom, of the “pursuit of happiness” that our Founding Fathers wanted for the future of this country.  That is why it is so important to vote this year, whether you are Democrat or Republican or Independent.  The future is here.  The future is now.  It is time to get it right.  

[duaneodavila]

Seaton: Bicoastal Intellectuals Fail Free Speech

The Smart Guys’ Secret Social Network, a ragtag band of heterodox thinkers from all walks of life, recently convened in Los Angeles to discuss what the group saw as an ever rising tide of social media trolls and online attacks.

“It’s getting really tiresome,” moaned Guy Stuben, host of popular YouTube channel “The Stuben Retort.”

You can mute and block all day long, but eventually you need to address certain attacks, because they carry negative consequences if you just ignore them.

Everyone nodded in approval.

“I mean, some of these attacks cost people their livelihoods!” exclaimed Stuben, who apparently conveniently forgot he made a comfortable living with fans paying monthly for his acclaimed YouTube interviews produced in his studio/garage and revenue from podcast ads.

“That’s why I’ve been saying all along litigation is the answer,” barked Todd Starnes, a prominent attorney with a boisterous social media presence. “We must sue the shit out of every person who calls us racist, sexist, transphobic bigoted poopyheads. No one should be able to compare our facial complexion with fecal matter and escape serious consequences.”

“That’s a hell of a thing,” mused clinical psychologist James Stephenson, the group’s elder statesman. “Some of these remarks make people resentful. Being resentful isn’t conductive to life’s eternal struggle. When you’re called a white supremacist it’s hard to make your bed first thing in the morning!”

“We might be able to fix this with my new Disagreeability algorithm,” mathematician Jeremy Weintraub piped in. “It employs Russell Conjugation to automatically blacklist from search engines every disagreeable comment someone makes about us. Finally we’ll be able to have those rational conversations we all love having!”

“Or, guys, maybe we could all realize we’re public figures, and being a public figure means you’re going to take some shots from time to time,” countered conservative pundit Len Castillo. “You know I was the number one target of…”

Everyone immediately told Len to shut up, as he was very short, and the opinions of short people meant nothing to the Smart Guys’ Secret Social Network.

“Man, all of this is too heavy,” mumbled comedian Bo Hogan. “I think I’m going to smoke some weed and stare at an Acacia tree. Hey, did you guys know Terrence McKenna once said the Acacia is rich in Dimethyl Triptamine? That’s DMT! The Spirit Molecule! If you smoke that stuff you can really see God!”

As was the usual, no one understood a damn thing Hogan said.

Across the country, the heads of lawmakers on Capitol Hill exploded when two women of color on different sides of the political and ideological aisles said the exact same thing at the exact same time. The remarks from a Democratic Representative and the Communications Director for a major Republican activist group ruptured the space-time-bullshit continuum.

“How dare someone take a clip of something stupid I said out of context from what’s probably ages ago and try to use it against me! This type of hateful rhetoric isn’t just intellectually dishonest. It will lead to violence, and I’m ashamed of my colleagues across the aisle who don’t join me in condemning this hate speech. Don’t you know I get death threats? The only time this tactic is ever okay is when we’re doing it to the other guy!” both women cried out.

Inside the White House, the President of the United States watched the fracas on six televisions (three tuned to C-Span, three to Fox News) with a smile. “They laughed when I talked about opening up the libel laws on the campaign trail,” he smiled as he opened up his Twitter account. “No one’s laughing now! Sad!”

And somewhere, in an undisclosed location, Justine Sacco grumbled at the entire state of free speech in the United States. “It would’ve been nice if you’d sorted all this out before the online mobs came for me.”

Seaton: Bicoastal Intellectuals Fail Free Speech republished via Simple Justice

[elizabethleslie7654]

Pressure Relief Valves

all kinds of cool jewelry and no shipping or getting mobbed t the mall

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by Nathan Karlsen

Let’s talk about the American right’s problem of pressure relief valves. First, let’s define the term. A pressure relief valve (PRV) is anything that is used by the anti-White system to divert Whites from advocating for their own interests. Some are mostly harmless, some are self-destructive.

Talk radio:

It’s the three hours hate for people of a conservative persuasion: Democrats are destroying the country with their real racism. Feminists are loony. Environmentalists worship Gaia instead of the true Judeo-Christian God. Taxes are too high for the job creators. Many immigrants don’t have the proper paperwork.

You can receive these earth-shattering commentaries from any of a number of Kosher-approved gasbags, after which you can go back to your normie world, satisfied that several million deracinated individualists share your edgy opinions. Presumably something useful will come of this. While it doesn’t hurt to hear what the “muh Constitution” crowd is thinking for purposes of recruiting, and many of the hosts are quite entertaining, don’t think our problems will be solved by someone who is more interested in his million dollar paycheck than in leading us to victory. 

 NRA/Gun rights activism:

The Second Amendment is sacrosanct among the right in America. Even some leftists hesitate at the more extreme “turn ‘em all in” rhetoric of the gun-grabbers. Fighting these fanatics is not in itself a bad thing. God forbid we should ever need our guns for anything other than defending ourselves and our loved ones from the predations of the Feral-American community, but the founders wisely enshrined the 2A in the Bill of Rights for defense against tyranny.

The problem starts when potential identitarian energy becomes diverted.  Outside of a few urban centers, it is still possible to be accepted by polite society and to be a gun rights activist; it is a perfect PRV for a young White man who wants to influence policy but is scared to be called a racist. Worse still, he can be cuckolded into the DR^3 (Colion Noir) and LGBTQP (Pink Pistols) narratives, since these minority groups are allegedly targeted by toothless White trailer park bigots and need their guns worse than anyone.

Now the gun rights activist is double cucked, tossing his own people under the bus for a bit of respectability and shilling for the scum of America. Don’t even try to point out to him the tribal over-representation in the gun ban movement, he’ll pull out his Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership membership card and tell you how the Nat-zees disarmed our harmless Hebraic friends. Now he’s triple cucked.

 The truth is we will have no gun rights or any other rights when we lose control of our country to invaders who have no fealty to American ideals. White rights are gun rights. You can’t have one without the other.

Sportsball

Now we’re getting to the dregs of the PRV problem. Sports can be a healthy activity, if one engages in it! What is gained by cheering on roided out colored mercenaries playing children’s games? Natural feelings of tribal (racial) and regional loyalty are subsumed by beer, junk food, and overpriced licensed merchandise. How cucked is a man who wears a jersey with another man’s name? Why are we enriching ingrate millionaire Negroes and their Jewish owners? Why is any pro-white person paying any attention to this clown show?

Use these wasted hours to better yourself. Take the money you save and support pro-White organizations. Join a gym. Learn martial skills. Maybe even meet some fellow fashy goys. Peer pressure can be a positive if you surround yourself with quality people who share your beliefs and goals. If America continues her decline you’ll be glad you did. 

Drugs

Drugs are what broken people use to plug the hole in their soul. Our degenerate society denies young White men the rewards they used to receive for pro-social behavior in healthier times: meaningful employment, a wife and kids, the house with the white picket fence.

The nihilism of Weimerica encourages “if it feels good do it” self-destructive behavior. When there seem to be no other ways to fill the void of a meaningless life, drugs become an easy escape. It’s a spiral that has destroyed too many of our good young men. Hanging out with addicts and drug dealers leads nowhere positive. Breaking the addiction won’t remove the drug conviction. Drugs (legal and illegal) destroy the body and the mind. Don’t waste your potential on spirit-sapping escapist substances. Life’s real highs come from accomplishing great things.

Porn

Number one on the list needs no introduction. Just don’t do it. Sex is like cocaine to the brain. Anyone who has been in love and also tried cocaine can confirm the similar euphoric feelings. Since few men have easy or cheap access to either, the freely available nature of porn becomes a substitute for a real male/female relationship. There is no shortage of material on how porn rewires the brain. It dehumanizes women and creates unrealistic standards that can lead to impotence and an inability to form a meaningful relationship with potential waifus.

There’s a reason the so-called free speech activists tore down the moral standards of America in the 1960’s. Once the Communists realized that the white working class of America wasn’t going to embrace the Proletarian revolution, they switched tacks from the economic issue to humanity’s powerful desire: the sexual. Give the devil his due: this subversion has wreaked more damage on Western society than Sigmund Fraud could have dreamt.

Our founders never intended that the First Amendment would be used to protect obscenity and vulgarity. What a shame that we have lost control of our country to an alien power and its homegrown enablers! If you want to stick it to Shlomo, turn off the RedTube and get out there and find a wife!

—–

Everyone needs hobbies and distractions from the stresses of everyday life. Many of us feel we haven’t, or can’t, reach the goals we strive for. If we don’t find positive outlets for the frustrations of the Current Year, we can fall into these PRV’s that rob us of our strength. All we can do is keep striving to better ourselves. When we fall down we have to stand back up, dust ourselves off and try again. We only lose when we quit fighting!

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[prime-one-blog]

Really,Em?!:Sentiments Of An Unenthused “Stan”

After seeing Eminem’s “The Storm” freestyle from last week’s BET Awards cypher,I was initially tempted to respond in a video with a freestyle of my own in which I would have excoriated him for parroting the same aspersions that the biased,lying mainstream media cast upon U.S. President Donald Trump on almost a daily basis.In addition,I was going to pick apart just about everything that Em said in his freestyle as well as to take him to task for giving those that are both Trump supporters and fans of Slim Shady (such as myself) the ultimatum of choosing one over the other.But I decided that I would save my bars and instead react to “The Storm” here.

The only thing that was even cool about the freestyle was the golden cable chain that Em was wearing,which calls back to the bling of Eighties-era rappers.Otherwise,this was about as disastrous as a magnitude-eight temblor.Aside from the fact that he was regurgitating the same rhetoric that everyone on the far left side of the political spectrum does,Em’s technical form was very hit-and-miss.There were moments where Em showed flashes of vintage Shady but that was juxtaposed with forced punchlines (the whole “fantastic for”/Fantastic Four bit) and the eyebrow-raising,head-scratching attempted rhyming of “for”/”orange” and “ball up a fist”/”Donald the bitch.” I could almost picture a younger Slim Shady with arms folded and eyebrows lowered,shaking his head in disapproval of his future self’s falling below of standards.Then there were the points where Eminem sounded about as winded as a 350-pound roly-poly or three-pack-a-day smoker trying to run a 100-meter sprint as he shouted out his anti-Trump vitriol (okay,maybe dude had a chest cold or something.) Topping it all off was Em’s flipping of the bird to perhaps millions of his fans he had placed in a tough position with his “it’s either Shady or Trump!” ultimatum. This was about as lame and pathetic as Marshall Mathers had ever gotten.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Marshall,one could get the feeling that Eminem was the latest celebrity in a line of them that the far left establishment had trotted out to be a mouthpiece,perhaps figuring that they couldn’t fail this time with a middle-aged rapper that had inarguable GOAT status in hip-hop and was incidentally Caucasian.And,seeing that Em has a new album coming out next month,doubling down on political rhetoric that he gave us glimpses of on songs like “Mosh” off his 2004 Encore CD could a great way of promoting his upcoming record in advance.It’s actually kind of surprising that Eminem would hop aboard the anti-Trump train when there’s a huge commonality between the legendary rapper and “The Don.” Both of these individuals have had no qualms with using their freedom of speech to say things that poke some beehive or wasp’s nest.Eminem certainly knows what it’s like to be “protested and demonstrated against” and to be labeled as misogynistic and homophobic (as well as perhaps a racist when a rap that he’d recorded about a black girl he had been involved with once upon a time was leaked.)  The only difference between Eminem and Donald Trump is that the latter doesn’t talk about things that people “joke with their friends inside their living room” about or say things with no other purpose than to make people mad.Trump puts people off with his unfiltered statements that accurately reflect what a lot of Americans think and feel but have been made afraid to say due to the societal scourge that is political correctness.What underlies the hatred for Trump is not that he’s a “racist,” a “bigot,” or a “sexist,” but rather that he’s an enemy of globalism and cultural Marxism..ERR!..”progressive values.”  From the looks of it,Eminem has decided to become at least somewhat P.C. and “The Storm” freestyle smacks of hip-hop’s biggest ever troll/villain saddling up on a high horse.It’s a horse upon which he has no business being.

I know that it’s unfair to make someone a prisoner of their own history and it’s unreasonable to think that a person can’t (or shouldn’t) change over time.But is it right for Eminem to speak of “gun reform in Nevada”-in response to the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas-when he has had run-ins with the law for firearms? Does anyone think that Em doesn’t own a gun himself,that he doesn’t have armed guards,or that the guys standing behind him during his freestyle weren’t packing? Is it meritorious to allege Donald Trump of “tormenting” Hillary Clinton (pffffft!) when Em has tormented his ex-wife and mother via his music? While Eminem was perhaps at his finest and most entertaining when he allowed his Slim Shady alter ego to be as rancid and rancorous as possible,he put himself in position of looking like a hypocrite if he ever turned over a new leaf and assumed some kind of moral high ground.Like it or not,fair or unfair,he’s going to get called out for it.Perhaps especially so by those within his fan base that he alienated by his drawing of “the line in the sand” and his subsequent “fuck you very much.”

To those that feel that Eminem was making “statements of fact” or speaking “the truth,” they’ll see a nobility in his risking of losing Stans to make a stand.To those that Eminem gave the middle finger too,we see it as a selling-out or a betrayal.Why shouldn’t we? Many of us were responsible for making him a multi-millionaire rap artist.He wouldn’t have many of the accolades that he does without us.We loved him when he was the most hated rapper on the planet.We warmly embraced him back in the rap game after he retired and kicked his pill addiction.If we’re no longer good enough to be his fans as a result of supporting the current leader of the free world,we were never good enough to begin with.It’s not like we will ever be refunded of every dollar and cent that we invested in his product,though. Speaking as an artist myself,it should be immaterial to Eminem what the political leanings are of those that butter his bread.Being monetarily compensated for the art one creates is a business transaction.It comes across as dictatorial and childish to tell your clients that you don’t want their business if they support the POTUS.It’s like seeing a kid telling one of their friends that they’re not going to be their friend anymore if they’re going to be cool with another kid that the one having the tantrum doesn’t like. Difference is that Em’s a grown-ass man that’s almost halfway to 50 and he’s not in the playground but in the music business.Henceforth,his immaturity is going to be costly.I have a hunch that this will be the end of the road for Eminem’s rap career and we can cite “The Storm” freestyle as a catalyst for Em’s last hurrah.Unless he reveals that this was an epic Shady-esque troll job and that he had to add a percentage of his Stan base to the number of people that he’s pissed off over the years,it’s sad that things ended this way.He could’ve left it alone and not get in the way of those that want to be both fans of his and supporters of Donald J.Trump.

I could always end this entry by calling for a boycott of Eminem’s new album.But I’ve got something better.I am imploring those Stans that were given the bird by Em to acquire his next record.However,don’t pay a red cent for the thing.Find a good torrent site on the Interweb,download it,and enjoy Em’s new joint on the house.If we could somehow make this a trend on Twitter that could get Em’s attention and make him mad,he can #KissOurWhiteNakedAss. (#TrollingEminem or #DearSlim could work as a hashtag as well.)

[bpellerin]

True blue nightmare

How could good people with good ideas and principles end up like this? How can so many, right here in Canada, still support Donald Trump and what he represents? How can so many support (morally and financially) Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media after the Charlottesville events and the accompanying alt-right fracas?

I don’t understand it. It’s not what I thought conservatism (with which I’ve been associated for years) was all about.

It was one thing to get a chuckle out of the 2016 presidential circus. You could take a certain kind of pleasure in seeing everyone getting so upset. It’s not like the political establishment doesn’t need a good shakeup every now and then. But that wasn’t serious, was it? Sooner or later people would have to come to their senses, step away from the TV, drink some strong coffee and get back to sober, mature reality.

Alas.

Every time Mr. Trump said something outrageous (which wasn’t rare), his popularity increased. It was like being stuck in a political version of Opposite Day. What should have gone up went down, and what should have disappeared in a cloud of infamy, was loudly cheered and repeated by disturbingly large crowds.

I was never a fan of this kind of politics, and of this particular politician. I find him boorish, vulgar, and dangerously self-centred. But when so many millions of people vote for someone, you have to keep a certain tiny door open because hey, democracy is how we do things.

Yeah, well. I can no longer keep that door open. For me the last Twitter straw came in late June when, in a pair of tweets, the president managed to display crazy behaviour along with extreme meanness and vulgarity. Put together, they read: “I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came.. to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”

It’s not OK to stand behind a man who, as POTUS, tweets like that. Especially after all the other offensive things he’s said and done against just about everyone. A man who makes a mockery of his office and the constitution he swore to uphold by making policy on the fly and who shows contempt for the two other branches of government.

Especially after the events of Charlottesville, when he started by blaming both sides for the violence before condemning white supremacists specifically only to revert to blaming both sides the next day, well, now there’s no excuse.[1] In my book, if you still support him, and defend him, you are like him.

And you are part of the problem.

____

In Canada, Trump supporters also tend to be ardent fans of The Rebel. I’ve known Ezra Levant for a long time. I’ve worked with him at Sun News Network (not particularly closely, but he had me on his show several times). My husband, John Robson, contributed historical video vignettes for The Rebel from day one. Nobody will make me believe that Ezra is a racist or a bigot. I know he’s not. But some of the stuff he runs appeals to a lot of them. I believe it’s a mistake for Ezra to stir that pot of festering anger for clicks, YouTube views, and financial contributions.

That’s not something I’ve just recently discovered. I had been discussing these things with my husband for many long months before he finally announced he was stepping back from contributing to the site, and I do think he waited too long. He has explained himself elsewhere and I don’t need to add to that.

Charlottesville was the last straw for a lot of people, including my old friend Brian Lilley and National Post columnist Barbara Kay. If Charlottesville had been a one-off thing, many people might have opted to forgive Ezra and his crew, but it wasn’t. The tone of The Rebel had long been one of anger, sometimes paranoia, with a remarkable blind spot when it came to the company it kept. Trying to distance yourself from the alt-right was a step in the right direction, but it was too little, too late. Better than nothing, but not by much.

I know many people who still support The Rebel, post-Charlottesville, many of them financially. It makes me sad. Because I know these people are not stupid, or evil, or racist, or any more bigoted than the average person (oh, come on; we all have some of that in us). But what they are is angry, frustrated, and genuinely scared for the future of their country.

These are people who think Canada – as the West generally – may have lost its way. They worry that the values that made Canada what it is today are not, well, valued anymore. They think the people in charge are worried about the wrong stuff (in no particular order: climate change, multiculturalism, transgender rights, inclusiveness, safe spaces, organic meat) at the expense of the right stuff (traditional family values, cultural assimilation of immigrants, national security, military preparedness, law and order, property rights and free speech).

Do me a favour and hold the scorn for a minute. Forget that you disagree with these people, and try this thought experiment. Imagine that the roles are reversed. Imagine yourself – a fine, reasonable, upstanding citizen who works hard to do the best he can every day of his life – having serious concerns about the path your country has taken and being not only ignored but ridiculed for having those fears.

Keep holding that scorn. You can do it.

Imagine that your concerns are ignored and ridiculed, for years on end. That no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to get your message across. Year after year you see things deteriorate some more, and no politician speaks to your concerns. Until one day this bizarre orange person shows up and says, without fear or embarrassment, some of the things you’ve been saying for so long. Oh sure, he’s also saying things you don’t agree with – even things you find offensive. But there he is again talking about one of your biggest worries and pledging to do something to make it better!

You’re doing awesome on the scorn-holding front. You’re almost there. Keep it up!

You are so desperate and angry after being ignored and ridiculed for so many years that you are willing to ignore a lot of unpleasant facts about this weird orange person and cheer for him anyway. Because he’s the only one among all those politicians who’s not ignoring or ridiculing you. Better yet, the weird orange person gets ridiculed just like you and yet he keeps saying those things you’re so desperate to hear, and offers no apologies for his behaviour.

OK. Breathe, the thought experiment is over. Back to being you.

I know what you’re thinking. There’s a reason no serious politician speaks the way our long-frustrated angry voter does. That’s because that kind of talk is guaranteed to get anyone laughed out of the serious crowd. That’s not because everyone in the media is a liberal idiot. You’d be amazed how many conservatives and middle-of-the-road types lurk in newsrooms. I’m not prepared to say there’s no such thing as biased journalists, but as I’ve been saying to conservatives for years, if you believe in a media conspiracy to silence conservatives I’ve got a big shiny new bridge to sell you.

Also? I have news. Journalists can’t even organize pub night without 16 rounds of reply-all emails – and even then half the people typically fail to show up. Journalists couldn’t conspire to silence conservatives if they tried. They can’t even organize their own desk drawers.

Ryan Holiday, in his wonderful Ego is the Enemy, quotes Seneca that “He who indulges in empty fears earns himself real fears,” and adds that what paranoia usually does is create “the persecution it seeks to avoid, making the owner a prisoner of its own delusions and chaos.”

The reason our angry, frustrated and long-despised conservatives get ignored is because a lot of their opinions are often 1) very unpopular with normal people who are not themselves journalists; and 2) expressed in spectacularly sub-optimal ways.

I can count of the fingers of one hand the number of conservatives in this country who can express a conservative opinion without tangling themselves up in their own rhetorical ineptitude. I’m married to one of them (I disagree with him on a lot of things, but he’s one hell of a debater). It doesn’t help your cause when you look angry and clumsy while trying to make an unpopular point. It just reinforces people’s opinion of you as someone who doesn’t need to be taken all that seriously. Which angers our already frustrated conservative some more until one day he shows up at a rally wearing that red baseball cap and starts filling up his feed with #MAGA retweets.

___

Nobody wins when all sides are shouting at each other when forced to interact and muttering darkly to themselves otherwise. We need to start talking to each other, not screaming at each other. And we need to start listening to one another.

We need a dialogue.

In practice, that means conservatives need to quit sounding so paranoid. That’s a big one. They also really ought to avoid whining about being ignored and/or persecuted. That just makes them sound petulant and entitled. I would also counsel evangelicals to really make an effort to refrain from using Biblical language when talking to non-Christians. It really grates on the ear, and that’s not helpful.

Fears about society going to hell in a handbasket may or may not be entirely justified. Personally I think it’s not quite as bad as all that. Human beings have been through worse, and somehow we’re still all here.

Regardless of what I think, if you’re trying to convince other people that current policies or ideas or ideologies are destructive, it helps a lot not to start the conversation with “YOU’RE TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY!!!” I’m pretty sure there are no reasonable Canadians who are deliberately trying to do that, not even Gerald Butts. Being accused like that does not make anyone receptive to your points.

Explain your concerns gently. Acknowledge that you don’t see eye to eye with your interlocutors. Further acknowledge that there is some good in your opponents’ positions (really; do try to find something, even if it’s just good intentions). But then calmly and patiently walk them through your concerns. Help them understand something they might not even have thought about. Try to make your opponents into allies, if only for a tiny bit. That’s your beachhead. You need a beachhead. Because right now you’re out at sea.

Oh, and please – try to stay away from making people who don’t believe traditional heteronormative values are the entire point of civilized society not feel like unrepentant sinners. It’s a big, varied world with all kinds of funky people in it, and most of us are doing our best every day to be as good as we can. Gay parents aren’t worse than straight parents. In fact, I’ve met plenty of gay parents who were much better than the traditional, straight parents I had growing up. Granted, anecdotes don’t make for good policy. But do try to keep an open mind and an open heart. I strongly suggest keeping your focus on making sure children are well taken care of – because everyone agrees with that goal. And work very gently from there.

Lefties and other non-conservatives: Please stop calling people names because they hold views you consider retrograde. I get that a lot of Christians are annoying when they talk about people indulging in a gay “lifestyle”, as though being queer was a passing fad, like some kind of metaphysical fidget spinner. They make me cringe, too. But that doesn’t necessarily make them obnoxious bigots. Even in the cases where it does, there’s not much to be gained by shutting down a conversation with someone just because they take the Bible literally. Do try to engage them. Smile as you point them to statistics showing children raised in non-traditional homes do as well (if not, in certain cases, better) than their peers. Remind them – gently – that divorce does a lot more damage to children than having two mommies, and that divorce is, at the moment at least, an overwhelmingly heterosexual issue. That maybe we could all try to work to strengthen all families, for the benefit of the children who never asked to be there.

Engage conservatives on immigration and Western values. It’s to the benefit of everyone to make sure we don’t unwittingly allow tolerance to ding our cherished values of equality and inclusiveness. Agree that it would be OK to discriminate against a group that wanted to throw homosexuals off a cliff, or that anyone who demands the right to perform clitorectomies should be told to get in line or get out. Agree to some lines in the sand. Give conservatives something they can work with you to improve.

Show some sympathy for the crowds of people who – for one reason or another – find themselves bypassed by technological evolution. People whose skills are no longer in demand and who are too old to retrain. People who feel helpless and out-of-date with the world. You don’t have to remind them that their best-before date is fast approaching. They’re painfully conscious of it. The fact that some of them blame cheap labour and “job-stealing immigrants” for their troubles is unhelpful, I get it. But try to have some room in your heart for the thought that very often it’s anger and fear you hear talking, not real sentiment.

And if all of that fails, and you’re up against a wall of obtuseness in human form, keep in mind this splendid advice from The Power of No’s authors James and Claudia Altucher: 1) Don't argue; it's pointless. You will never change their mind. 2) Let them state their opinion. Try to learn something from it. Try to respect one angle of their point of view. 3) Everyone just wants to be heard. 4) Listen.

If we could all make an effort to listen to each other more, and yell insults less, we’d bring back much-needed sanity to our public square.

____

[1] Lots of good people make a convincing case that there was indeed violence on all sides in Charlottesville. That some counter-protesters showed up to disrupt a rally that had been allowed by the authorities, armed with all kinds of weapons, clearly anticipating violence. Other counter-protesters were peaceful. As were some of the folks who showed up to protest the plan to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee. Fine. Nothing is 100% black-and-white, as it were. But when one person from one side (the side that associates with the KKK and neo-Nazis, as far as we know) rams his car into a crowd of people, the president has a solemn moral duty to come down hard on that side. Not to deny that there were bad people elsewhere. But to emphasize that deliberately killing people in the name of a racist ideology is unmistakably un-American.

[learnprogress]

BREAKING: Newt Gingrich Can’t Imagine A World Where White People Aren’t Racist

Former Republican Speaker of the House and major Trump supporter Newt Gingrich is outraged that Confederate statues are being downed all across America because, for him, it signals the end of white privilege in America. Gingrich is terrified that the majority of Americans are rising up in defense of equality and justice, and his pathetic rhetoric in the wake of the neo-Nazi uprising in Charlottesville proves it.

Now, Gingrich is such a far-right ideologue that you can just go ahead and chalk up anything he says as OUTRAGEOUS. But his comments after the racist Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protest take the cake as being amongst the most atrocious remarks he’s ever delivered.

Gingrich just appeared on Fox News to make his case, naturally, and he was all but shameless in his defense of the neo-Nazi protestors in Charlottesville. Gingrich wants America to be a haven for white nationalists forevermore, and his latest comments prove it.

“I think the point is we ought to be a country focusing on the future, not a country frothing at the mouth about the past,” said Gingrich, while unironically defending the Nazis who were protesting the removal of Confederate statues. “And it tells you something about the intellectual collapse of the left―that all they have is this kind of rabid behavior.”

“And of course, mayors in towns that are largely black are going to pander to their audience,” he continued, unabashed in his racism. “They are going to go out and prove they are popular by doing something that meets the current demagogic needs.”

Seriously, folks, Gingrich is literally arguing that mayors across America are only removing Confederate statues to “pander” to black Americans. No sir, the reason the Resistance wants these statues removed is for the same reason that Holocaust memorials don’t use statues of Hitler—it’s breathtakingly memorializing the actions of monsters.

“[This is] everything that the founding fathers worried about,” continued Gingrich. “Having demagoguery define your country is truly dangerous. Listen to the mob you got on the screen back there. That’s not democracy. That’s not a free society. That’s a group of people behaving like a mob.”

WTF. So Gingrich thinks it’s a “free society” when white nationalists can conduct violent protests, but it’s not a “democracy” when counter-protestors come to use their 1st AMENDMENT FREE SPEECH RIGHTS to fight back against these Nazis. This is unreal, folks.

Gingrich is nothing more than a charlatan who’s bending over backwards to pander to the bigots in Trump’s base. His rhetoric here is as un-American as you can possibly imagine, yet he has the gall to call the Resistance anti-democratic.

Gingrich needs to crawl back under the rock that he came from. His sick ideals belong in the distant past, not contemporary America.

POLL: Are you offended by Gingrich’s comments about the left?

What’s your take? Are Gingrich’s comments here breathtakingly inappropriate?

Let us know where you stand and amplify your voice with us! Please participate in our poll below!

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To say that history will look back on Gingrich unkindly is a severe understatement. He is an enabler of Trump and of white nationalists, and he should be held fully to account accordingly.

America MUST do better than this. And if the Resistance has anything to say about it, we will.

The nation must counter sick rhetoric like this. Please share this story on Facebook so that everyone knows what’s at stake.

The post BREAKING: Newt Gingrich Can’t Imagine A World Where White People Aren’t Racist appeared first on Learn Progress.

from BREAKING: Newt Gingrich Can’t Imagine A World Where White People Aren’t Racist

[yuppiefail]

Fascism is not Capitalism

This weekend white nationalists descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia to protest the City of Charlottesville’s decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee.

Several hours into the “Unite the Right” rally 20-year-old James Alex Fields, Jr. rammed his silver Dodge Charger into a crowd of protesters twice, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 20 other protesters.

Source

The rally turned violent well before the murder. City and state police largely stood by and watched as protesters and counter-protesters beat the crap out of each other. One team of reporters covering the rally observed, “Several times, a group of assault-rifle-toting militia members from New York State, wearing body armor and desert camo, played a more active role [than police] in breaking up fights.” After the rally Cornel West told the Washington Post that “the police didn’t do anything” to protect the counter-protesters. “If it hadn’t been for the anti-fascists protecting us from the neo-fascists,” he said, “we would have been crushed like cockroaches.”

(If you’re a fan of direct action, here’s a good post on how to help non-violently.)

It’s galling to watch police sit back when white supremacists march, knowing that when black protesters march against police violence, police respond with tear gas and rubber bullets against both protesters and journalists. Assault-rifle-toting militia members also protected journalists covering the Ferguson protests from police violence.

Promoters including Jason Kessler claimed the “Unite the Right” rally was about free speech. The right loves to use “free speech” as a fig leaf for bigotry. Few of the people who complained that Google firing the memo guy is “suppressing viewpoints” complained about the white nationalist getting fired by a libertarian hot dog stand for participating in the Unite the Right rally. The same thing happened with Milo Yiannopoulos, who was a free speech hero while saying things the right could admit to agreeing with, but was summarily dismissed once his rhetoric strayed outside of acceptable rightwing groupthink.

One thing I want to discuss briefly is a thread about a vigil for Heather Heyer in which @copcemetery writes of “liberals,” “line em up against a goddamn wall.”

My first point is that Nazism is against private profit and private property.

Mises:

For more than seventy years the German professors of political science, history, law, geography and philosophy eagerly imbued their disciples with a hysterical hatred of capitalism, and preached the war of “liberation” against the capitalistic West.

So it’s odd to see antifa acting as if Nazism and capitalism are one and the same.

Nick Land, a forefather of neo-fascism, admits in a recent blog post that “‘Liberalism’ is the most profoundly corrupted word in political history.” I assume “line em up against a goddamn wall” would agree with Land’s definition of liberalism:

Liberalism, from this point forward, means nothing at all like state-happy progressivism. It is defined, instead, as the polar opposite of socialism. Its sole commanding value is liberty. It is individualist, only ever guardedly traditionalist, commercially and industrially oriented, strategically neglectful of care, skeptical in respect to all purported public agencies, and rigorously economical in respect to every dimension of government.

Land also seems to use “libertarian” and “liberal” interchangeably. To the extent that @copcemetery means “libertarian,” I’m sympathetic.

Libertarians are a funny bunch. They are not a monolith, of course. But there are themes. For example, they call the Google firing “tyranny,” but fight to protect employers’ right to discriminate for employment on the basis of gender and race. Wait, do employers have the right to free association or not? Reasonable person: Can rights also be tyranny? Libertarians if they had a shred of self-awareness: Only if I disagree with how they’re being utilized!

Yet libertarians are also the only people who are going to defend Milo Yiannopoulos’ legal right to advocate child molestation.

Libertarians are currently claiming that groups like Black Lives Matter “asked for it.” As in, they brought the violence of white supremacy upon themselves.

When people ask to stop being stripped of their humanity on the basis of their demographics, libertarians deride it as “identity politics.” You can only claim that non-whites invented identity politics if you ignore white supremacy.

“Through picnics, lunches, and cross burnings, these white women rallied around racist immigration laws, anti-miscegenation, and segregation,” it’s white supremacy in action that libertarians refuse to recognize white supremacy as violent collectivism.

White supremacy began with violent collectivism, endured through violent collectivism, and is experiencing what I hope is its death throes in America with violent collectivism.

Of course white supremacy will respond with violence toward “others” gaining any semblance of equality. Of course they will see the relative decrease of their unearned power as violence because that’s how they got their power to begin with.

And to blame the victims of violent white supremacy for their own murders, the idea that to advocate for your humanity one should expect, and be blamed for, a violent response, is itself a manifestation of white supremacy.

But liberalism and libertarianism are not one and the same. Libertarianism, according to Land, is a little corner of the far right where liberals bunkered down after immigrants and women gained electoral power and grew government out of control. (He’s empirically right about women, but the evidence on immigrants is very weak.) Liberalism, says Land, “had a truly terrible 20th century, and right now things aren’t looking any better.”

  There’s a reason the alt-right has drawn so much of its participants from libertarianism. Three of the listed speakers at the United the Right rally used to identify as libertarians: Mike Enoch, Augustus Invictus, and Christopher Cantwell.

Until the alt-right, libertarianism was the best fit for radical white identity politics.

As Jonathan Blanks put it on Sunday:

The United States was founded as a country with an economy based on racist exploitation. Libertarians, as a group of people dedicated to the ideals–not the reality–of the Founding, must recognize the difference and come to terms with the hypocrisy of the era. Moreover, in the past half century or so, libertarian ideas have been the intellectual window dressing for modern racist practices and politics. As people devoted to liberty, today’s libertarians must separate themselves from these ignoble traditions.

Effective American advocates for liberty must understand and face the real barriers to economic and personal liberty that remain present in the United States. This administration’s actions, policies, and words are anathema to the expansion of liberty and the flourishing of human freedom. It is a daily disgrace and an ongoing American tragedy.

If self-described libertarians cannot recognize that, I don’t know what good they are doing for anyone.

And here, we get to Land agreeing with Mises. The word fascism “in its cold, technical sense, the word fascism] is not even merely convenient, but even invaluable. It literally means the politics of bundling. Fasces are sticks bound together. Liberals are essentially defined by their dissent from that.”

John Quiggin writes of an “important shift” of libertarianism to the left in the US. Jonathan Blanks is an example. He cites Liberaltarianism. I would cite neoliberalism as well. Both are explicitly pro-capitalist, pro- social-welfare, and anti-fascist.

I think several things are really important now, especially for leftists.

I’m not asking for sympathy, only accuracy. I think we’ll get less fascism if we recognize the difference between the right, the alt-right, libertarians, and (neo)liberals.

Broadly speaking, the alt-right is fascist, which is to say supportive of the politics of bundling. They are fundamentally tribal. They oppose free trade, immigration, multiculturalism, ethnic blending, individualism, and free speech. They support what they consider to be tradition, a large role for the state in the economy and a generous social safety net for white citizens. They are anti-capitalist.

Libertarians are in the middle. Many self-described libertarians oppose immigration, multiculturalism, ethnic blending, a large role for the state in the economy, and a generous social safety net for anyone. They support what they consider to be tradition, free trade, individualism, and free speech. They are pro-capitalist. Many libertarians explicitly oppose fascism. Many more don’t.

Neoliberals, on the other hand, are explicitly opposed to the politics of bundling. They are individualist and pro-capitalist, and do not seek a large role for the state in the economy except for a generous social safety net for everyone. They support multiculturalism, ethnic blending, free trade, immigration, and free speech. They do not particularly support what they consider to be tradition. They readily admit that the United States was founded as a country with an economy based on racist exploitation.

As satisfyingly easy as it may be to lump everyone who you dislike in together, Liberal Currents is not the Quillette. The Niskanen Center is not the Cato Institute. Hell, the right is not the alt-right. These distinctions matter because fascism is real and it’s killing people in America right now so we really need to get along and work together to fight it.

Fascism is not Capitalism was originally published on