413 private links
“What the f*** are you talking about? Yeah. One of the biggest threats to America’s politics might be one of the greatest documents that any country has ever found on, if not the greatest ever. That could be a threat to America’s politics. What politics are we talking about? How could you possibly gaslight me enough to go along with you on this?" //
Watch @JoeRogan EXPLODE on this insane New York Times article that argues the Constitution is “dangerous.”
“What the f—k are you talking about?!”
HEADLINE: “The Constitution is sacred. Is it also dangerous? One of the biggest threats to America's politics might be the country's… pic.twitter.com/GuIhQNmSEm
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) September 4, 2024. //
“Trump owes his political ascent to the Constitution, making him a beneficiary of a document that is essentially antidemocratic and, in this day and age, increasingly dysfunctional,” she wrote. //
Folks making these types of arguments rarely do so because they believe the Constitution does not make us free enough. Rather, they might prefer a document that grants the government even more authority to intrude in our lives and infringe on our natural rights. In the end, any legal document or ideology that limits this authority is dangerous only to those seeking to wield state power to force their will on the rest of us. //
DK1969
9 hours ago
I thought it was pretty simple. If you don't like/agree with Constitution, you have two options: work to amend it through the process, we already have or renounce your citizenship and leave. None of the countries comprising the rest of the world have our Constitution so, the choices are endless. May I personally suggest China, Russia, N. Korea or Iran. Choose one and go.
Holden Culotta @Holden_Culotta
·
Drea de Matteo on Fox News: “I’ll never have another gig. At the moment, all I care about is … trying to wake up a few more of my fellow liberals”
“I support Kennedy all the way, and I’m happy that there’s unity right now.
I don’t think Trump is a lifelong politician, and… Show more
0:16 / 2:45
12:31 PM · Aug 31, 2024
She said that "all of that weaponization on the left is camouflaged":
Any true liberal is anti-war, anti-censorship, pro-health ... They would be anti-mandate. That's totalitarian, that was authoritarian. That was on the left! I know that there's a lot of deep-rooted corruption, and sometimes they capture each party. Right now, that capture is on the Left. //
Photog 1
10 hours ago
The thing is, people conflate leftists with liberals, and that's a deliberate redefining of the word BY the leftists. Here's a little ditty I've been posting for years:
Stop Calling Them “Liberals”
Please, folks, I've said this for years. Please stop calling them “Liberals” - call them out for what they really are: Leftists/Progressives/Socialists/Marxists/Communists. "Leftists," for short, if nothing else.
They stole, and redefined, the term “Liberal” (as is their wont, to redefine words to suit their needs), to cash in on the actual Classical Liberal’s positive points while possessing none of them.
Even the word "Progressive" has been redefined by the left, because their actions are actually REgressive, but the classic example is the word “liberal” itself, which the far-left co-opted. It was adopted because of its positive connotation, and used as a cover for imposing greater leftist/marxist control under the false guise of liberty.
In reality, there is nothing “liberal” about failing to protect life [or actively taking it under the also redefined lie of “women’s reproductive health care”], releasing multiple-time violent felons back onto the streets with no bond, burdening individuals with regulations and taxes, allowing unlimited illegal aliens into the country with no repercussions, forcing individuals to provide services to others, or “mandating” what health actions that individuals must take, and penalizing them in multiple facets of their life if they do not comply.
This is no accidental misnomer, but a strategic messaging attempt to influence people. Of course, who doesn’t want to support a policy that is “progressive,” “pro-choice,” “common sense,” or “affordable’ (all also chosen for their positive spin, while not meeting their own definitions)?
Today’s Leftists/Socialists/Progressives/Marxists, calling themselves a “Liberal,” have absolutely nothing in common with the Classical Liberal - the Classical Liberal advocated civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom - more in tune with today's Libertarians.
I’m neither - I’m so conservative I make Ronald Reagan look like Gorbachev’s even further leftist cousin, but I respect the Classical Liberal, who has more in common with the Libertarian today.
The more we call out the so-called “Liberals” for what they are, the more the mask of their eventual intent (full fledged socialism leading to communism) might become clear to some.
Spread this message far and wide, everywhere and every time you see someone incorrectly referring to a “Liberal” when they mean Leftist/Progressive/Marxist - create a wave of understanding of their true nature.
The Problem with far-left progressives, who are maybe 20% of the population, is they think themselves morally and intellectually superior to you and me, the other 80% (which includes non-progressive Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Non-affiliated, Libertarians, etc.). And because far-left progressives feel that our 80% has created an inferior society, they believe it’s their duty to overrule us by passing laws that will create the “correct society," the society that “should be." Of course, on all counts they are profoundly wrong. Unfortunately, their loud voices currently drown out the sensible portion of society. But being loud does not make you right or superior, either morally OR intellectually..
Most Democrats and actual liberals (not leftists) are quietly aware that it’s their current progressive far-left leadership that has let them down, a leadership that has not represented them properly.
They too, are being held hostage.
Regular non-progressive main-stream Democrats are over-taxed and over-regulated, too. They experience the outfall of illegal immigration, off-shoring, lawlessness, little upward mobility, drug abuse and expensive health care, just like you and me. Obviously, they live in houses and apartments, have children, jobs, hopes, expectations and fears just like anyone else.
Let’s not confuse these Democrats with their current far-left leadership, which is a tiny contingent of leaders…whose incompetence is only exceeded by their hostility and vocality.
On June 25, 2024, I wrote about tweets I saw from Gad Saad, “The West has committed the greatest self-immolation in human history”:
“When the leaders hate their civilization more than their enemies do, the civilization is doomed. Never before has history witnessed such a gargantuan self-inflicted death of a civilization that was an existential light in an otherwise world of historical darkness.”
Remember: War is coming to every corner in the West. It might take 5 days, 5 years, or 50 years but it’s coming. The West has committed the greatest self-immolation in human history. Save this post.
I just saw another series of tweets from an account Peachy Keenan along the same lines, but to me more personal:
You guys have no idea how painful it is to have been young during the absolute peak era of the greatest empire in human history and now be forced to watch it all unravel.
The saddest part is that we are doing it to ourselves.
Absolutely agonizing experience. Like watching the most beautiful person you know slowly mutilate themselves.
The reason everyone on Earth wants to move here is because if you squint your eyes, this country still basically “looks” the same, is still powerful, etc.
But we are running on the fumes of the past. //
Very Insignificant Person
@VeryInsig
·
Follow
Replying to @KeenanPeachy
Conservatives love what we have. That why we want to conserve it. So we feel pain when we lose it.
Progressives hate what they have. That’s why they want to transform it. So they feel no sense of loss when what they have is destroyed.
6:12 PM · Aug 15, 2024 //
Mike D🇺🇸🍊
@raftoregon
·
Follow
Replying to @KeenanPeachy
GenX too, I agree but we are not doing it to ourselves. This is an orchestrated takedown of America and capitalist countries around the world. The communists made the long March through the institutions here and now they’re destroying the country from within. Everyone must vote
7:08 PM · Aug 15, 2024 //
rhhardin | August 17, 2024 at 10:34 pm
The cause is news as a profit center instead of a loss leader to contribute to the prestige of the network. As a profit center they found their 24/7 audience with Jessica in the Well, namely soap opera women. Instead of reading daily about Liz and Richard in the tabloid, they follow the news.
It’s an entertainment choice, and it’s calling itself news, which makes the audience feel even better.
Women prioritize feelings (hence soap opera’s attraction), and men prioritize structure (avoidance of perverse consequences). The Founding Fathers were structure guys, not feelings guys. The female end of the Supreme Court is feelings. (So guys are better at running big systems and women are better at small systems like neighborhoods and households. Stereotype is the too-strict father.)
Hence the collapse of everything through feminization. Amy Wax has a milder diagnosis – the rules of the nursery and kindergarten brought to the academy – but it goes deeper. Feelings attracts eyeballs of women and you can sell those eyeballs to advertisers. Democrats just supply soap opera in return for votes, in a sort of business arrangement with the media. //
jb4 in reply to rhhardin. | August 18, 2024 at 10:20 am
Interesting perspective. I fault the MSM far more directly and have considered them the primary danger for years. By aligning themselves with the Democratic Party and its values, they have abandoned what I regard as a major value of journalism and the media, to bring accountability to Society. IMO if the light of day had been shined on Biden and Harris, Biden’s incipient dementia in 2020 would have kept him from running and Harris’ obvious incompetence would have disqualified her. What this Society lacks is accountability, from the shoplifter in CA, to the Trans in women’s locker rooms and sports, to the politicians at the top. What is not “right”, really isn’t right. Period. No excuses. //
JRaeL | August 18, 2024 at 12:05 am
Reading the comments I have to remind myself that the Fall happened in Paradise not outside of it.
No generation is spared the consequence of living in a fallen world. I doubt there has been a single time when some group of believers did not take the news of the day as proof the Apocalypse was at hand.
Are current events and societal changes accelerating the loss of paradise? Yep. Can it be slowed down? In patches, maybe. Overall, not a chance. Too many people yearn for that bone strewn path to Utopia. I know many will disagree but I believe we have left the battlefield and are now under siege. That means creating smaller worlds for yourself and your loved ones. It involves taking on a fortress mentality. While trying not to abandon charity, hope, and faith. That’s tricky.
I too grew up with more freedom. Some good, some bad. But at least I had the chance to learn the difference.
Tiki | July 27, 2024 at 7:29 pm
Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics:
Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
John Derbyshire adds this:
Of the Second Law, Conquest gave the Church of England and Amnesty International as examples.
Of the Third, he noted that a bureaucracy sometimes actually is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies — e.g. the postwar British secret service.
John Moore thinks the third law is almost right; it should read “assume that it is controlled by a cabal of the enemies of the stated purpose of that bureaucracy.”
Kristof notes some inconvenient truths regarding the condition of major cities on the West Coast, said condition best identified by language unsuitable for a family publication.
As Democrats make their case to voters around the country this fall, one challenge is that some of the bluest parts of the country — cities on the West Coast — are a mess.
Centrist voters can reasonably ask: Why put liberals in charge nationally when the places where they have greatest control are plagued by homelessness, crime and dysfunction?
Fear not; Kristof is nowhere near correctly assigning fault to the failed policies, platforms, and practices that make progressivism a cultural, creative, and collective cesspool. No, it’s only how those darn Haight-Ashbury refugees implement it.
(M)y rejoinder to Republican critiques is: Yes, governance is flawed in some blue parts of America, but overall, liberal places have enjoyed faster economic growth and higher living standards than conservative places. That doesn’t look like failure.
Tell that to the people of Chicago. //
So the problem isn’t with liberalism. It’s with West Coast liberalism. //
jtt888
17 days ago edited
Good lord, does this guy think Baltimore is working? Or Philadelphia? Or Chicago? Or New York? All places that people want to escape if able to. At least LA has nice weather, if nothing else. Those other places don't even have that.
Modern left-wing activism in the United States has roots in the Soviet Union's 1960s strategy to undermine Western culture. By promoting divisive ideologies and fostering internal dissent, the Soviets aimed to weaken the societal fabric from within, creating a legacy that continues to influence today’s political landscape.
Over the decades, these tactics evolved and merged with neo-communist strategies for infiltration. This resulted in a robust network of activist groups and organizations at both local and national levels. Initially designed to destabilize Western norms, these groups adapted to the changing political landscape, maintaining their relevance and influence. //
The foundation of left-wing activism in the United States can be traced back to a deliberate strategy orchestrated by the Soviet Union in the 1960s. This plan was aimed at undermining Western culture and destabilizing American society by promoting divisive ideologies and fostering internal dissent. The Soviets knew that to weaken the Western world, they needed to create discord from within, leading to a systematic effort to infiltrate various aspects of American life.
After the end of the Cold War, many leftists aligned with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union shifted their focus to the "green" movement. This shift was marked by Gorbachev's founding of the Green Cross, proving that the "green" movement was always a communist front.
The Soviet strategy aimed not only to spread communism but also to create a lasting legacy that would continue to influence and disrupt Western culture. By embedding operatives and sympathizers within influential institutions, the Soviets set the stage for long-term subversion. This approach, often referred to as the "Long March Through the Institutions," involved systematically infiltrating and gaining control of key societal structures, such as education, media, and non-profit organizations.
Nearly 60 years after tobacco companies were first required to print warning labels on cigarettes to reduce smoking, statists salivate at the opportunity to pull the lever for labels on any other behavior they wish to deter, such as eating meat.
Last fall, a coalition of scientists proposed cigarette-style caution labels be placed on meat products for alleged hazards to the climate and human health. A study examining 1,000 meat-eating adults found labels espousing hazards to climate, health, and pandemics were enough to convince participants to opt for a non-meat meal. Given the success of warning labels at reducing cigarette use, researchers expressed optimism at the potential for similar warnings for deter meat consumption.
A dramatic drop in meat at the center of the American diet, however, offers far worse implications for public health than appreciated by the statist class of academics determined to manipulate behavior. The federal government’s recommendations to embrace a low-fat diet, for example, planted the roots for the twin epidemics of obesity and chronic disease overwhelming the health care system today after three generations dutifully followed the dietary guidelines. Americans increased consumption of grains and processed oils at the behest of the “experts” and now live in a nation where nearly 42 percent of adults 20 and older are obese and 6 in 10 suffer from at least one chronic illness.
The media's pattern of utilizing Alinsky tactics has done it and the left a lot of good, and they've had quite a bit of success with it, even in recent times. The issue is that the law of undulation is absolute. Alinsky's tactics have a shelf-life and the more they're utilized, the more people are going to figure out what you're doing and then find ways to fight it.
Where Alinsky was once the Red Bull that gave the left wings, it's now the weight that drags them down. The sugar high is wearing off. They attacked too much, ridiculed too often; when you target, freeze, personalize, and polarize anyone too often, the fear of being targeted wears off. This especially applies when you attack the same target over and over again.
In this case, the target has been Trump. They wanted to make Trump look like a massive villain, and they succeeded in many ways, but now it's becoming clear that a lot of the Democrats' theatrical hyperventilating about the man was all just that: theatrics. //
In fact, we Americans, with our traditional values, seem to be more enthused to vote for Trump than ever before. I would argue that this is because of a massive miscalculation by the left. It doesn't understand American culture. Yes, it's largely Judeo-Christian, but our entire culture and the blood that flows through our veins is based in rebellion. We don't like the establishment by nature. //
Moreover, it shows that the left doesn't just misunderstand America, it misunderstands conservatives. Alinsky wrote the rules to apply in a land where conservatives were largely passive and happy to ask forgiveness out of pure politeness. It was easy to shame people into compliance back then, not because they were better people, but because they thought we were all playing by the same rules.
That brand of conservatism is pretty much gone at this point. We've learned that these rules only apply to one side, and if that's the case, then we aren't going to play this stupid game.
Atrox
3 hours ago
I'm sure there are differing views on this but I always say, EVERYTHING is a win for the left. Vigilantism is a byproduct of their soft on crime policies and it's something they want. The more it happens, they can complain about how "something needs to be done"!!! ....
mopani Atrox
a few minutes ago
This is the desired result. The progressive left response to vigilante justice will be the suspension of civil rights, because violence. Two guesses when civil rights as we know them will be reinstated, and the first guess doesn't count. //
Random US Citizen
4 hours ago
Indeed. This is exactly what happened on the frontier in the early days of America. If there was no sheriff to be found, citizens might take it upon themselves to hang a horse thief. Because they were--like these folks in NYC--a mob, sometimes the wrong person wound up at the end of a rope. The arrival of civilization, in the form of law enforcement, courts, and jails was--for most--a welcome thing.
Here we see the opposite effect. The decline and fall, as it were. The courts are no longer working to decide the guilt of accused, they are now firmly on the side of the criminals. Law enforcement, whether willingly or no, is no longer able to enforce the law. Bereft of the protection of the society that they are a part of, citizens are resorting to vigilantism again.
You can expect this to get significantly worse unless these places reverse direction.
My advice: invest in lead. //
Douglas Proudfoot
4 hours ago
As every Montana 8th grade graduate knows, the absence of law and order gives rise to vigilantes. In Fall, 1863, a gang of Road Agents murdered perhaps 100 people in the gold fields of Montana. In January, 1864, vigilantes hung 25 of them. The outlaw leader, Henry Plummer, was the elected sheriff of Bannack, MT. Vigilantes hung him too.
Because there is a difference //
Ask the contemporary leftists who target virtually every protection we have against mob rule in the name of “democracy” — attacking the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, federalism, the filibuster, the Senate, and even the existence of states. They understand the difference, even if just intuitively.
Ask leftists who treat the “popular vote,” not as a wishcasting cope, but as means of legitimizing presidential elections. Those who want a few big states ruling the nation via a direct federal democracy are not interested in an American “republic.”
Blunting the federal government’s power over states and the state’s power over individuals is an indispensable way to ensure a diverse people in a huge nation can govern themselves and live freely. The “save democracy” types who refer to these long-standing federalist institutions as “minority rule” do not view “democracy” and a constitutional republic as interchangeable concepts.
Neither do smaller blue-state governors who sign a national vote compact that not only dilutes their state’s power but circumvents the Constitution. They love a direct democracy. A constitutional republic? Not so much. //
There is, “of course,” zero “legitimate debate discussion” to be had over whether we are a “direct democracy.” Not today, nor ever. “Democracy” isn’t even mentioned anywhere in any founding document, much less a direct one. None of the framers entertained any notions about majoritarianism or federal power that would even loosely comport the ones now embraced by the left.
People will often tell me that, sure, we might be a republic, but we also have “democratic institutions.” Of course we do. We also have numerous nondemocratic institutions. The Bill of Rights, for instance, is largely concerned with protecting individuals from state and the mob. The insistence that we only use “democracy” is meant to corrode the importance and acceptance of those countermajoritarian rules and traditions. //
These days, though, a bunch of illiberal progressives (and others) have taken universal notions that once fell under the umbrella of “democracy” and cynically distorted them to champion a hypermajoritarian outlook. It’s no accident the people who demand you call us a “democracy” also champion the idea that 50.1 percent of the country should be empowered to lord over the economic, religious, cultural, and political decisions of 49.9 percent.
It’s the point.