The Kids Are All Right
We're all time travelers.
Some years ago I was talking to a friend who is on the left, and telling him that I didn't see this "racism" people kept ranting about. He proceeded to go on a rant about his childhood and how segregated it was and…
Well, He's my age. Back then he was talking about times fifty years in the past, in one — still — of the whiter areas of this country. So, well, duh. But, you know, it's been a while. And I had kids, and was watching them grow up, and most of them really couldn't give a hang. Unless you go to the really bad areas of town, and then its bad, but usually not in the direction you expect.
We're in Kansas City for the Chicago Boyz meetup. (We really should do a Huns meetup one of these days. I miss the dinners in Denver.
We're staying in a nice (relatively unexpensive) suburban hotel, the kind of place traveling kid teams stay at.
And there's a team staying here. We just had breakfast at the same time they did. There were about twenty of them, from the clothes fairly affluent, and they looked like central casting's picture of "diversity." You had teen boys of every possible color, from so black I'm sure they're first generation Americans to pale blonds. It — giving me the impression it was central casting — included both kinds of Asian: probable Chinese ancestry and Indian (dot not feather.)
The thing is, they were interacting like my kids' friend group interacted when they were teens. (Mind you their group also tended to be… Well, the school once took a picture of my younger son hanging out with his geek friends and used it for a diversity poster….)
I swear to you none of those kids cared what color or ethnicity their friends were. They literally couldn't care less. And all of them acted like American kids.
I suspect a foreigner would have stuck out among them, because culture is visible, but race? They'd forgotten all about race.
And I suddenly understood why the left is so all gang-ho on Critical Race Theory and saying that color blindness is racism.
Because unless they create some racism, real quick, double time, the poverty pimps, race slavers and stirrers of dissension are going to be out of a job. They're going to have to come up with a better strategy than divide and conquer.
And they got nothing.
In the end we win, they lose.
Hopefully they don't burn the world down on their way out.
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187 thoughts on "The Kids Are All Right"
Sadly, there is (or was) the kook-ball statement that "if whites don't think about Race, then the whites are Racist". 😦
Then there was this CRT Asshole who said to whites "if your Black friends don't tell you how "oppressive" you are, then they're lying to you". 😡
Worse, the race hustlers insist that only whites can be racist. The same actions by other racial groups are excused because you can supposedly only be racist if you have power, and whites have all the power.
Chuckle Chuckle
A few years I saw an interview with an Asian-American (from India).
He was talking (in part) about how his critics Could Not Call Him Racist because he wasn't White.
They talked about his apparently racist views but couldn't/wouldn't call him Racist.
Apparently, he challenged them on that. IE He asked them if they thought he was racist. 😈
Was it Dinesh D'Souza?
Might have been but I'm terrible with names.
Alabama Slamma says:
The part that interests/confuses me the most is that they think this is actually a persuasive argument. Very few of us, of any race, are powerful politicians. A lot of religions have the concept of original sin, but the sane ones offer a means of salvation. CRT assigns original sin to whites, and there is no possibility of salvation. Given that, if I'm a white guy, and there is no way to atone for my sins, why bother? May as well party like it's 1999.
Or worse, if I'm a Racist By Birth and Can't Change It, then why not Be A Real Racist?
Good point. If you are condemned at birth, might as well let it all hang out. What else can they do to you? It's like laws that make it illegal to commit suicide.
Patrick Chester says:
I always find that logic to be questionable. Why become evil just because some dishonest weasel declares that you must be so?
Because you'll be condemned and punished for your supposed crimes whether you commit them or not?
Bob C. says:
The "as well be hanged for a sheep" argument? While I can't fault the logic, I find myself incapable of being a total st just because a real total st says I am. McDonough's song says it best, although in a different context:
"Have no truck with the senseless thing
Order the guns and kill!"
Well, that came out wrong. Since using asterisks for the middle two letters apparently causes WP to get the vapors (WPDE), try "I find myself incapable of being a total shit just because a real total shit says I am."
My exact recommendation. The racialist Left wasn't reasoned into their nonsense and can't be reasoned out of it.
That always makes me want to do it more. "Oh, I'm bad because I'm White? Okay then. I'm going to be so White you f-ers go blind from the shine. K my A, you [expletive deleted] weenies."
I was infamous for using the word "cripple" deliberately at physical therapy school. As in "crippling injury" etc. The more they raged at me to say "differently abled", the more I pointed out that "abled" is not a verb and the correct, scientific term in English is cripple. Go ahead and mark me down, b1tchez, I'll pass anyway.
If people are going to act like idiots, I'ma get my popcorn and enjoy the show.
But if I'm treated like a racist by most people I know, why not act as a Real Racist?
Counter example: If you're treated like a pedophile, does that mean you should act as a Real Pedophile?
If progs start flinging that around (and I know they tend to be guilty of that but they love to project) at various enemies, should I start investing in woodchippers?
weefreeirish says:
Do that anyway.
When you -actually- are treated as a real racist by people you know, it is time to change your circle of acquaintances. Much as we all have in SF/F fandom. We don't go to their cons or comment on their blogs anymore. There's no point.
In Real Life of course this is more difficult. The correct course of action is to shun and evade the lunatics screaming "racist." They said they don't want your trade, take them at their word. If they come after you anyway, it is time to hoist the Jolly Roger and run out the cannon. Usually by way of lawyers. Usually. 😡
Amsel, Matthew [FH] says:
"We hae a cheap lawyer, and we're nae afraid to use him!"
They are going to be justified in harming you because you are already evil; the only question is whether you will accept their definition and the harm that goes with it, or resist them until they are no longer able to harm you.
Submit and die, or believe the threat and end it. Your choice.
…and does that require you actually being a racist to resist them? Or simply showing them both your middle fingers and not meekly submitting to their accusations?
To a very large degree, you're correct about "what they should do".
But humans aren't always rational.
Part of it seems to be that the Alt-Right come from people deeply into "Poor Little Blacks Need Our Help" but were treated like shit because they are white. So while still holding plenty of Leftish economic views have decided that Blacks are not only inferior but don't deserve help.
These are people who had accepted the "all blacks are poor" garbage of the Left but thanks to "all whites are evil" garbage have decided "blacks are poor because they are inferior".
Not a Logical position, but then they weren't logical/rational beforehand.
I contend most of the ones posting on line are foreign
Agreed. Most of them write funny, English as a second language.
Because they blatantly don't "get" the culture in which they are supposedly embedded
If I resist Black Lives Matter, or any of the race hustlers, I'm going to be treated as a racist. Neither they nor you will know if I actually am one.
You don't have to be racist to shoot dead a bloc of people who are after your scalp.
This is why Progessives and Progressivism must be eradicated.
The logic is closer to, "They're going to call me racist no matter what, I may as well do what I want and not worry about it." Meaning, you do things that are obviously not racist but are what you want, and refuse to be shamed.
So the folks at risk are the ones who are not well established– the ones who may try to be good, but don't really KNOW how what is good, and are trying to build it.
It's not like "racism" is a magically obvious category– even folks of good will still argue on where the lines are, up to and including things like "on average, an African American is likely to be more athletic." (sends a side-eye at "sexism" and statements of objective statistical norms)
"It's not like 'racism' is a magically obvious category…"
Actually, to them it is obvious: If you disagree with them you're a racist. If you say that anyone other than a Caucasian can be a racist you're a racist. If you say colorblindness is desirable you're a racist. And if you say you're not a racist that's just irrefutable proof that you are. Which is why ignoring them or laughing at them is the best course, if more *active measures" are contraindicated.
"If it helps them for you to be BADGROUP, then you are BADGROUP." /sigh
Yeah, that's the general form. But it seems that when their brain freezes up "racist" is the go-to for accusing members of BADGROUP. And it seems that they still imagine that anyone with a pair of functioning neurons cares what they say.
Plus of course you're a racist if it's convenient for the Narrative.
The bit is they, by declaring you CANNOT be anything other, have ENABLED the problem by removing the cost – or perhaps, pre-inflicting it. This is Not Good, but it does actually make it easier for some to be the very thing they (allegedly) rail against. And that suggests that the thoughtless followers are indeed thoughtless or would have thought it out and realized the problem. And the 'leaders' are Evil indeed.
Are not some of the opponents bright enough to know that by tossing groups into this kafka trap they will generate some (small) additional number of new racists/speciesists/whateverists? To some degree they are trying to create what no longer exists.
Well, if they manage to generate more racists they will be proven right! They will be able to point to an Enemy, and demand that Something Be Done about them. So, yes, creating more racists would be good for their Cause.
Wing: "Have you ever heard the phrase, Living well is the best revenge?"
Miles: "Where I come from, someone's head in a bag is generally considered the best revenge."
That thought has crossed my mind multiple times…
More to the point, if there's nothing I can do to change it, then sending me to any of these indoctrination classes is a waste of time and resources. Which means doing so is a violation of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse federal regulations if done by the U.S. Government, and probably by any state and local governments with similar regulations. Also, such should be pointed out to the stockholders of any corporations; gross mismanagement of funds that decrease your dividends and stock prices.
Kind of a testament to how much they think the Not Them folks are genuinely good people, huh?
By their own standards, something inborn makes you a victim. Therefore, being white (and by definition racist) is not something we can control, we're now a victim group and must be given the privileges of a victim group.
Watch their heads explode as they try to support contradictory liberal ideals.
Except that their heads won't explode. They'll just look at you with contempt and say that because you are white, you have all the power and privilege (including Holocaust survivors), and therefore cannot be a real victim. Instead, you have always been the victimizer, and anything your victims decide to do to you is justified, and right.
Get the lead going fast enough, their heads will explode real good!
J. J. Griffing says:
Seen it.
A guy I once respected once tried to preach me into Repentance for my White Supremacism (pouring on all the Sins-as-scarlet passages again and again) without explaining how my denials of Racism and White Privilege were White-Supremacist, even indirectly, or how I was guilty for being born in a pale skin instead of a swarthy one. I maintained that I'd repent of any sin he could show me guilty of. Which was, of course, proof of clinging to my Inherent Racism and my White Fragility.
He is, no surprise, whiter than I am. The one plain benefit I got from the exchange was a preemptive inoculation against Miz DiAngelo's kafkatrap claptrap a good year or more ahead of her book coming out, and long before the martyrdom of Fentanyl Floyd.
That's because CRT is pretty blatantly Maoism, with whites replacing capitalists.
I'm more inclined to party like it's 899.
Bollix. That was supposed to be the Reader…
If this nonsense continues, the Reader is afraid that some people might decide to party like it is 1899. The results will be very ugly for those pushing CRT.
All we need to do is what we can to salvage the few sane bits of academia, and then the American public routes around paying the academics any mind.
The CRT folks are only able to harm because Americans have an excess of trust for scholars and scholarship.
Sucks for people in academia, but I might argue that even the best of them are complicit enough that they have some consequences coming to them.
They think that it is a persuasive argument because they are nuts when it comes to understanding or predicting real human behavior.
Critical Theory can be summarized as postulating the existence of ancient super conspiracies.
Some magic worker thousands of years ago used power to manipulate language to exert a lasting control over the choices that people make now.
This is the exact opposite of how the reality seems to work, objectively. We see people trying to play word games with a lot of victims, and it actually stops working with the intended effect pretty fast. People get cynical, and they stop trusting. Enough lies do make people confused, and that complements other manipulation techniques fairly effectively.
But, words on their own change meaning in response to manipulation rapidly, not slowly, and certainly not 'survive a bunch of fundamental changes in language' slowly. The reason people don't laugh at all of this stuff all the time, is that the academics are hiding the 'secrets' of their mystery cults, the people who study it in academia don't want to see that the emperor has no clothes, and that academia thinks that the public trusts them even while not explaining what they are doing to the public.
Most critical theorists believe that they are also magic workers, like those behind the ancient super-conspiracies, and can create a super conspiracy today, in modern life, if they can lie hard enough.
So, they are nuts.
The Race nutter critical theorists have also spent too much time studying a narrow and not entirely representative set of historical persons, when they haven't been studying outright fiction. When you spend all of your time studying the most vicious examples of a group, it tends to make your own thinking vicious and paranoid.
I experienced this myself by studying a bunch of critical race theorists. I learned from them the viciousness that they had learned in their studies. Took me some time to realize this, and work my way past this to 'CRT scholars only ever speak for other CRT scholars'.
So, vicious paranoids who are extreme conspiracy theorists. They are seriously convinced that all white people really want to murder the blacks. They think that the /only/ reason that whites have not to carry out mass murder is fear of force from black persons.
From that perspective, the arguments they make to whites make sense. If white fear of force is the sole explanation for white behavior, then it is impossible to persuade a white man to become a race war nutter, because he is already a race war nutter. So, there is no strategic risk to the statements that they make /inside of the logic of CRT/.
There are better tools for predicting human behavior than that. Like, ensembles of explanations for behavior. If I have a dozen different explanations for a person, I can make two predictions from each explanation. Then, I can see what happens for a why. If one of the first predictions is true, and the other first predictions are false, then I can guess that my one explanation was true, and that the second prediction will hold.
But, this runs right against a central assumption of critical theory. Critical theorists seem to believe that considering more than one explanation weakens the 'magic' that they are attempting to manipulate things with.
Ooh, forgot the second bit assumption of critical theory. In the context of super conspiracies, it matters what is said how, and it also matters who is saying it.
Which assumption seems to conflict with mathematics. In mathematics, it seems like quite a lot of mathematical statements are mathematically true or mathematically false regardless of who it is that is saying them.
This apparent fundamental theoretical conflict seems to be why a lot of the critical theorists seem be calling mathematics an ancient super conspiracy.
Hence why some of the CRT folks seem to be implying that it is racist to teach mathematics to blacks.
IOW, they think whites are superior (though a superior malevolence) to others and must be hobbled to give those they see as inferior a chance. I think there's a word for that…
Like the gal leaping forth on her soapbox on national TV and declaring that Gov. DeSantis' comments about looters were obviously anti-minority, especially anti-black.
Gee, project much?
And she's black, too.
And if she (and others; she's not alone) had even half a brain, she's know that what she really said (actually implied, but in her case it's equivalent) was "blacks are looters". Or maybe she just doesn't think that her audience can think at all.
Deep Lurker says:
I suspect it's more twisted. "DeSantis is trying to lure blacks into becoming horrible criminals – specifically the kind of criminals who commit the crime of shooting to defend their property from looters. And corrupting blacks that way is even more racist than merely oppressing them."
You're making the perhaps-unwarranted assumption that she's capable of that level of thought, rather than being simply one more leftist racist who can't imagine any possible negative implications in her pronouncements. Take a look at some of Grandpa Badfinger's (thanks, Kurt 🙂 ) gaffes for examples.
It's textbook Critical Race Theory, something which when boiled down to its essence is Nation of Islam Founder Elijah Muhammad's "white people are the devil" translated into the terminology of academia and spiced with old-fashioned Marxism. Period.
I ran into the "only men can be sexist" bit around 20 years ago on a wide-ranging blog. The person who came up with that did manage to offend other commenters of both sexes and Lord Only Knows how many orientations. It. Didn't. Matter. And people were pretty ticked at the person trying to Make It Matter (and yes, she was pretty sexist).
WP ate my comment, but it might show up later… TL;DR version:
"Only men can be sexists" was a thing 20 years ago. OTOH, the person proclaiming this to the blog/comment section in question managed to tick off both sexes and people of all represented sexual orientations. She left in a huff.
I've run into sufficient counter examples in my life.
It's Kafka traps all the way down with CRT.
The demand for racism far exceeds the supply, so they have to make it up. Sort of like the Fibbies have to bolster their 'White Supremacist Extremist' numbers by supplementing them with paid instigators.
I still remember one 'White Supremacist' group that when they finally rounded them up, turned out to be entirely composed of informants from various government agencies, all reporting on each other. Every. Single. One. No native 'White Supremacists' at all.
What's more dangerous than a polar bear? A bipolar bear!
The case I know of similar to that was a gang– and the actual instance was that every actual criminal had been arrested and given a "jail now or work with us" deal by different agencies.
Racist-supremacists, I'd believe, but there just aren't that many white supremacists to my knowledge…. so any details to try to chase it down?
William H. Stoddard says:
You want to watch out for rectangular bears, too.
Do they hang out with spherical cows in a frictionless vacuum?
Consider a 10 Kg Spherical Frictionless cat. We had one of thos his Nme was Mac and he reminded me of a cross of Fezzik and Baby Huey…
Goodness, that sounds very like our current cat, Macavity. He's just barely under 10 kg now.
Mac's full name was Macavity. Our younger daughter had been studying poetry and Mac's sibling was named Tyger after Blakes Tyger, Tyger. Mac had his short form name from the rescue agency but trying to stay in the poetic vein I called him Macavity. Really no one else did. He was a black and white Cap and Saddle cat and that does fit some of the descriptions I have heard for "jellicle" cats. He had the plushiest fur I've ever felt he was like some high end stuffed toy. And he was an IMMENSE cat, 19 lbs in fighting trim, the full 10 KG when he was a bit pudgy. He was devoted to our elder daughter and massively distraught when she went off to college
Our Macavity is a ginger tabby. In fact that was why C gave him that name: the poem says "Macavity's a ginger cat."
The other poetic cat I'm fond of is Christopher Smart's Jeffrey, in the lines from Jubilate Agno that begin "For I will consider my cat Jeffrey." I particularly like "For by stroking of his fur I have found out electricity."
For some reason I associated Macavity with jellicle cats but that is somebody else in the poem clearly, When we got Mac it had probably been 30 years since I read any of that poem. And yes the section on Jeffrey/Geoffrey is a favorite too.Short Data's Ode to Spot I know no other cat based poems.
I'm fond of "On a Cat, Aging" (https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/cat-ageing/). I'm less fond of "Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44302/ode-on-the-death-of-a-favourite-cat-drowned-in-a-tub-of-goldfishes), but its last line is often quoted. Tolkien has one called simply "Cat" (https://allpoetry.com/poem/8499991-Cat-by-J-R-R-Tolkien) that rather foreshadows Neil Gaiman's splendid "A Dream of a Thousand Cats." And I had not known that Marge Piercy had written about cats, but "The Cat's Song" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44880/the-cats-song) is rather nice.
And we keep Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats on the shelves and refer to it regularly. I like all of it (the musical Cats degraded it, and the movie further degraded the musical), but I'm especially fond of "Cat Morgan Introduces Himself" (https://allpoetry.com/Cat-Morgan-Introduces-Himself). You can't but like Morgan, 'e's got a kind 'art.
Thanks, I like the Tolkien on quite a bit. And yes the Musical Cats made a mess of T.S. Eliots stuff and the movie, well it should be used only for torturing uncooperative Brahmandarins like the films were used in Clockwork Orange…
B. Durbin says:
"Cap and Saddle cat."
There's a TERM for that? Nice! Our current cat Mayhem (came with the name Smudge) has that plus the off-kilter nose mark and soul patch.
Three basic terms I've seen used:
Cap: Only has head (and perhaps tail) coloration. Body shows white
Saddle: Large colored patch on body. May include colored tail, though with a break of white before the tail
Mantle: Head, body, and tail colored. In a black body color this is often called a tuxedo cat, especially if it includes white paws (spats of course…).
Cap and Saddle or Cap and Mantle include a white division between head and body. I think none of this used in show cats as far as I know.
Hey what can I say Im a cat connoisseur 🙂 .
Ah, but does your Spherical Cat have uniform density? 😀
A solid or liquid cat would be comparatively incompressible, but a gaseous cat's density would increase exponentially as you approached the center of mass.
Forget mass and density. What you really need a good measure of is how much offense the cat takes to you trying to compress it.
I would expect Compressed Cat to be highly unstable and prone to spontaneous violent outbursts. Requires an extremely durable container. Hearing protection recommended.
THIS of course.
I've read that the rule of thumb for groups considered Deplorable: If there are more than 5 people in it, at least one, likely two are informants.
I suspect that's now overly optimistic, what with the shortage of White Supremacists.
Back in the day (1970s?) there was a tale going around that at least one Soviet group in the US had to disband for lack of dues-paying members when the Fibbies turned their attention elsewhere. Probably apocryphal, but…
LTC Ted says:
A history project interviewed me. I feel they were hoping for a tale of woe recounting my misery as a half-blood stuck in an ethnic elementary school. I believe they hoped for hair-raising tales of bullying.
I was at pains to let them know that boys up to age, oh, let's call it 30, tease, taunt, punch, trip, and belittle each other. They have done so at all times in all places, even the oblates in monasteries.
True, the ethnic As teased my Bs blood; the Bs, my A blood. The As and I teased the Cs, etc. It was round-robin teasing, taunting and tripping, unless, especially, unless Mr Brown, the custodian, who was ethnically D, saw it. Then, we became angels of tolerance and bon homie.
Note that when one B boy called Mr Brown an ethnic slur, said, boy fell into the hands of Mr X, an E, and regretted it so much that he and his parents sought another school.
tim773081fc7035 says:
Never forget, no matter what the issue is, it's about the Revolution. Ah! Revolution! A problem for a lot of these bone heads is that they are getting old. All this time spent fomenting, and no soap. That chill they feel from behind is the icy finger of death reaching out to grab them and they are afraid to die and miss that glorious day, The Day Utopia arrives. I think sometimes we are witnessing the desperation of these people, who are pushing so hard to destroy America to usher in the Revolution, It's because they are afraid to die and their entire lives will amount to absolutely nothing.
The Reader thinks that is an interesting insight. It explains why the political gerontocracy won't take their ill gotten gains (the Reader is looking at you Brandon and Nancy) and retire peacefully. The challenge we will have is what to do with their grandchildren.
You could also argue that if one denies the existence of $DEITY, and thus of an after life or returning incarnations, then all one leaves to be remembered is "my legacy." Especially if the individual has no children or the body or of the spirit. So "the Revolution" or "my political legacy" are the only hope for some sort of eternal life.
Which I find terribly sad and hollow, but that's just me.
Just because they deny it, doesn't mean that they don't know the Truth.
Ahhh, presuppositional apologetics. 😉
They are leaving a "legacy" alright. Just short of Hitler's Final Solution. May their souls forever rot in the Hell they do not believe in. (Cannot ask for forgiveness if they do not believe.)
For those living those writing a summary of History are the ultimate judges. Even the most dry facts will cause people to interject judgement. History is written by the winners. Or in our host's words "they got nothing. In the end we win, they lose.", written by us.
That is indeed what I expect to leave behind. I'll have had a life of doing work I enjoy, at least some of which contributed to the growth of genuine knowledge; I'll have had, so far, two academic publications; I'll have written a lot of books for Steve Jackson Games; I'll have helped shaped the Libertarian Futurist Society, and through it libertarian science fiction; my material assets will go to help people and organizations I care about; and I trust that there are people who will remember me and regret my passing. I find that sufficient.
Tolkien, of course, believed that there was more than memory after death, but he understood the feelings of those who do not: "When dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm's horn, and I will ride forth. Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn? Maybe we shall cleave a road, or make such an end as will be worth a song—if any be left to sing of us hereafter." And one of the great wish fulfillments of Middle-Earth is the elves, who can remember even the glory of the First Age.
And one of the great wish fulfillments of Middle-Earth is the elves, who can remember even the glory of the First Age.
Well, David Weber's elves in his War God Series are immortal but can't forget the horrors of a losing war that they lived though.
IE Is remembering terrible times such a blessing?
One of my favorite parts of the Old Testament is the 137th Psalm, which says, in part,
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
The psalmist was looking back at a lost war from a place of captivity in a strange land. But he seems to have thought that that memory was a treasure to be cherished. And I don't find that so strange; SH has written of similar feelings on the part of the USAians of her fictional future, and what she writes speaks to me.
Or as Spider Robinson put it – "have you ever seen a happy elephant"?
They also got where they are by developing unusual and extreme appetites.
HRC is an extreme among extremes. She can't survive retiring to spend time with grandkids, because kids and grandkids are too small of a scope for cruelty and thieving to feel like life to her.
She has rested her identity in things she cannot provide for herself, and also cannot survive letting go of those aspects of her identity. No matter what she obtained, it would never be enough, because she identifies as obtaining more.
It is like pedophiles and hurting kids.
Robin Munn says:
C.S. Lewis's conception of Hell, in The Great Divorce, was a place where people allowed their appetites to run amuck and dominate their personality, until their personality was nothing but uncontrolled appetite and nothing else.
If his vision is remotely correct, that would mean that HRC's punishment would be… to be HRC. Forever, with no hope of change. (Shudder).
The more I see of real evil, the more I understand how important repentance is for the human heart. Because we all carry seeds of real evil inside us, and when we identify them, it's important to truly dig them up and cast them out — to truly repent — in order for the heart to grow closer to God's goodness. Those who don't, but instead water those seeds and allow them to grow because of the short-term benefit they can obtain from doing evil… they will find themselves becoming nothing but those evil appetites in the end. You don't need a supernatural (or imaginary) vision of Hell in order to see that, either; you can see plenty of examples of such people all around you in the living world.
OUCH. That punishment is almost to harsh even for HRC. There are times I wonder if the Infinitely Merciful Author would do that. Then I remember He is also infinitely just and am thankful my ransom was paid long ago.
That's the theme in Marlowe's Faust as well. I saw an excellent production of it at OSF, and at the end, when he's trying to call on Jesus to save his soul and calls on Satan instead, you could see it was a deeply ingrained habit that it was too hard to break at the end of his life.
The actor also played him as both learned and ignorant—when he said he was lustful for example, it was fairly rote, as though he could see the outward forms but had no clue that it meant anything. He gave up what he didn't value for trash, because he had no idea about the value of either.
Their lives amount to far worse than nothing. The best thing they could possibly do is die, the sooner the better.
One of my characters, after MaligNancy tries to force them to give her 'the secret of immortality' (which they don't actually have to begin with):
"I will not extend your life. You can't die soon enough to suit me. At the end of a rope, if there is any justice in this world."
I think they should focus on repentance and preparing to meet God.
These fools think they see G-d every time they look in a mirror
Yep. My savage teenage granddaughter's geek group could easily be diversity postered as well, not that such would interest them, of course.
Yeah. Mostly it amused younger son
I remember the attempt to reve up horror at a very mild joke during the Rittenhouse trial….
Yeah, if Kyle Rittenhouse was sooooo RRRAAACISSST!!!, why did he shoot 3 white punks?
K.R. is white. The three punks he shot were white. The Soros sock-puppet persecutors prosecutors were white. The defense lawyers were white. The judge and jury were white. Even the court clerk and bailiff were white!
But it's all about RRRAAACISSSM!! Just like when a black cop shoots a black criminal in a black neighborhood, the black chief of police says the shooting was justified, the black D.A. declines to prosecute, and the black mayor agrees.
But the white liberals are upset!
When police arrest violent criminals to protect innocent people, they are Jackbooted Fascist Stormtroopers.
When police arrest innocent people at the behest of corrupt politicians, they are National Heroes.
Even better, Rittenhouse apparently pointed his gun at a fourth attacker, who was smart enough to immediately back off. As a result, Rittenhouse didn't shoot him. That fourth guy was black
Dr. Mauser says:
"Jump Kick Man" they called him. Yeah, he almost got two shots into him the long way. They didn't want him to testify against Kyle. He also wouldn't have been a great loss to society, having a really long rap sheet himself.
Physically attacked Kyle, but when he saw the gun GTFO'd.
You bet they didn't want him on the stand!
I was thinking of the judge's joke about Asian food not being in the cargo ship pileup
If I remember right, Kyle's mom is "Latino."
Karen Myers says:
KC is my home town. I left for college and almost never returned (family all gone), but I was back a few months ago for my 50th High School reunion. I also dropped in on my childhood home (across the street from the widow of Russell Stover's old house — Halloween was an EVENT in my neighborhood) unannounced, and the very nice owners let me take a quick peek. Unrecognizable.
I spent most of the time with my old best friend who went back after early adulthood, taking in the environment (and her well-informed society gossip) with an all-grown-up-now jaundiced eye. What's good about the place has a shady past… , like many places.
Yes, KC used to have (and still has, according to my informants) both anti-race and anti-semite positions at the elite level (the latter lost them a particle accelerator construction project competition among cities — "where would all the distinguished scientists go, if they couldn't get into the clubs?" [which was true]). But the race issue also has a long history at ground level of live-and-let-live, too, and a lot of universal fondness for blues and barbecue, not to mention tacos, even during my childhood.
Bridging the racial divide in the 60s in KC…
A New Yorker article about my brother George Myers (and others) who helped bring R&B and The Blues to whitebread high-schools in Kansas City in the 1960s. That's him, in glasses, 3rd from the left. George went on to found The Grand Emporium in KC, and started the first Blues Cruises.
https://www.newyorker.com/…/the-kansas-city-school-that…
Fixed the link (I hope): https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/the-kansas-city-school-that-became-a-stop-for-r-and-b-performers
That is a really cool memoir.
Anyone who takes a realistic look at the USA will see that the only official racism left is in the Affirmative Action laws and regulations. Individually, there are some racists left around, but not enough to actually do any harm. If anything, they provide a useful negative example for the rest of us. As many folks have pointed out, the demand for racism is far greater than the supply, so that most racist attacks (in the traditional sense of whites attacking non-whites) now have to be faked.
I've met one out-and-out racist in my life (of the "all non-whites are inferior" sort). One. And he didn't go around preaching, just made some off-hand comments and wouldn't promote blacks or others to management in his business. But he also paid everyone fair wages for their skills. He was in his 70s back, oh, 30 years or so ago, so I assume he's gone to whatever reward awaited him.
The Reader had a family experience. His mother was the youngest of 8! and her eldest sibling (sister) was 20 years older than my mom. The Reader loved his aunt dearly, but she was a rabid racist where blacks were concerned. One day in our house the Reader's younger sister (she was 18 or so at the time) got into a shouting match with the Reader's aunt on the topic. After about 10 minutes the Reader and his mother separated the two of them. The Reader's sister was furious with the Reader for not joining the 'discussion'. The Reader looked at her and said 'that's not a mind you are going to change, and it isn't important to change it' and followed with 'be grateful our parents raised us better than that, despite their biases'.
When I was a kid, I knew an older woman who was a family friend.
The only evidence of racism IMO was that the woman referred to "colored-people" as "n*ggers".
Mom and Dad didn't argue with her and told me and my sister to not argue with her.
Oh, Dad was very strong (at that time) about using the word Negro rather than "n*gger".
Note, I was born in 1954 so based on my remembered age when the older woman was around, this had to be sometime in the 1960s.
I was born in '45, and grew up in MD and FL, neither bastions of racial tolerance. But the Marines taught me that the only color that mattered was green. Either you were a Marine or you weren't; trivialities like skin color were irrelevant. And it took.
AesopFan says:
@ Bob C > "Either you were a Marine or you weren't; trivialities like skin color were irrelevant."
The Democrats are working on changing that.
Yes, and for that alone I'd like to see something amusing and lingering happen to the jackasses doing it. Doesn't matter exactly what; boiling oil, melted lead, the rack, whatever.
But I'd be satisfied with something quick; the object is simply to have them gone.
There are plenty of lampposts in need of decoration.
True, and rope has the advantage of being reusable/recyclable, which they should find attractive (at least until the "URK!" CRUNCH! SNAP! stops them from thinking about it). 🙂
I rather like for them, C. S. Lewis' version of eternal life in a dingy town where it's a long walk to anything, boarded up shops, food that doesn't seem to satisfy, wanted goods not available… Oh… Wait…
In "The Great Divorce", the damned could get away, and, with great anguish, have their faults extracted, but many would rather cling to those and live in Greyton.
The problem is that, in Real (mortal) Life (TM), anyone could lie their way out and become a problem again. At least until Piper's polyencephalic veridicator is invented. (Added incentive to be truthful: "…and if it turns red I'm going to hammer your teeth down your throat with the butt of this pistol.")
> "Piper's polyencephalic veridicator"
You're obviously referring to some kind of infallible lie detector, but I don't get the reference.
H. Beam Piper. He was very interested in the workings of the judicial system, and several of his novels (including the Fuzzy books) used the veridicator—and also pointed out its inherent flaws. (Such as the delusional person who claimed he was God, and the veridicator backed him up.)
Oh, sorry, forgot to describe how it worked. It registered the substitution of a falsehood for something the person knew to be true, which means you couldn't deliberately lie, but if the answer was outside your field of knowledge, it couldn't detect that.
Yep. I can see no way that any instrument can detect a falsehood believed to be true, and a truthful reply of "I don't know" would be, as you note, outside the scope of its abilities to detect something as false or true (although it would report that statement as true).
The line I quoted was from "Space Viking", and was said by one of Trask's men who was about to question a henchman of Zaspar Makkan when Trask was cleaning up Marduk; I always thought it cut straight to the root of the issue. 🙂
There was a great line on Law and Order, way back in its first season (when they did a riff on the Tawana Brawly case) – "cops only have two colours, silver badge or gold"
I've heard that World War 2 went a good ways toward removing many racist attitudes in the US. While there was still some segregation in the military along ethnic lines (blacks, for instance), not all groups were segregated. And the segregated units often fought right alongside non-segregated units. So it brought a lot more men into contact with other ethnic groups in situations were racism was both discouraged, and could get you killed. Men were forced to see that people were people regardless of ethnicity, and attitudes started to shift as a result.
lfox328 says:
The people in the nerdy/geek circles don't have to fight a death match for jobs. The need is there. Unlike the 'Studies'/LibArts/FineArts/Communications majors. For them, using ethnicity is just one of the tactics that MIGHT help them survive the winnowing process.
Just me says:
I was recently with someone who is white and conservative and religious. And in her house were more black people that I ever see in the houses of my leftist friends. A whole pile of them – including two very delightful little kids – were clearly treated as family and familiar family (which is to say that they were obviously around all the time).
On the other hand, the parish I left not so long ago after decades, has never had as much as 1% non-white members.
Tough finding people of color in most NH communities. You have to go to one of the cities to have a chance of finding any.
Because unless they create some racism, real quick, double time, the poverty pimps, race slavers and stirrers of dissension are going to be out of a job."
Waves from Liberty!
We're probably too slammed to have a get together. Maybe next month
I remember reading an article about 30 years ago (just out of high school) in which the writer stated that children were growing up color-blind, which was a BAD THING and racism must be reintroduced so that the "colored" children knew how oppressed they were.
The arguments haven't changed, it's just gone mainstream.
Eleven years ago I read an op-ed by a black pundit (think it was Claude Lewis but don't really remember) arguing that the South needed to be put back under Reconstruction, including being stripped of their Congressional delegation, because of their "irresponsibility," and "laziness," combined with their irritating "arrogance." Why, they get tons of Federal money and instead of being humbly grateful they push their stupid ideas about "family values,"! As opposed to "fiscally responsible," states that pay much more in Federal taxes than they receive in benefits, yet are uncomplaining. States like…Illinois.
So, another jerk who never read the Constitution and is proud of it?
Insanestreaming racism right back.
@ Lauren > " racism must be reintroduced so that the "colored" children knew how oppressed they were."
As the song in "South Pacific" says, they've got to be carefully taught.
https://www.lyrics.com/lyric-lf/4020976/South+Pacific
I've read the whole Book and believe me we've still got more time.
Not much time—and here and there things can go sideway quickly—but other than making certain everyone has at least heard the Gospel once, I think we have time…
No one knows the day nor the hour
And for each of us, it could be sooner… thus the suggestion to spread the Gospel first, prep later. 😉
You do remember that the hour is going to come like a burglar: without warning?
Yes. So we need to make sure we're spreading the Gospel; but I am not entirely certain America goes fully sideways before the end. So we have time before that. Us dying can happen at any time, any age, any reason.
On the chance there is a "pre-trib rapture", those left behind may need such bits of Gospel as we've left behind. Like Romans 3:23, 5:8, 6:23, 8:1, 10:9-10, and 10:13, for example. So make sure any family and friends have offline access to a Bible. And have heard you speak of it the right way. As food for the soul, not just a brick to beat a recalcitrant's skull.
Thanks for reading and replying! We're all in this together.
You can't know what America will or will not do before then. Burglars don't warn you.
Agreed. But I still think, short of "The Rapture" as some call it, America won't go 100% commie overnight.
And if it does, there will be an "adjustment period" as various folks use their 1st and 2nd Amendment rights to "petition the government for redress of grievances." Or something like that.
pyrrhus says:
Totally agree from what I have seen with my kids…The "racism" scam is visible to all races..
Yeah, they NEED there to be racism to keep drawing a paycheck. Like how papers need there to be crime so they can sell advertising and eco-weenies need pollution.
Larry Niven in "Inferno" made a special circle in Hell for these a-holes. I like to think of it that way.
I can sum up a great deal of this thread, "keep your ethics where you can find them in the dark". "Refuse to be shamed". And wouldn't the first one make a great T shirt?
I do need to get on the tshirts
I need to be three people for everything
Would there be a three-way argument/fight over who does what? [Crazy Grin]
Three Sarahs, four opinions. 😉 dives under the bed
Only four??? Based on the range of Sarah's characters, the Reader would expect a lot more…
Three Sarahs, three times as many characters raising hell? Run!
carlmelcher1 says:
Good one. I can relate. My son is ethnic Cambodian (looks Filipino) and my daughter is bi-racial; her mom is Chinese. They both have friends of many ethnicities. They both like California where they grew up, but going back there now creeps me out a little. As an old white man, I know I'm a target if I go in certain areas. And I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood in Philly, not far from an all black neighborhood. You had to be careful then where you went… and this was in the sixties. I don't hate anybody but I'm a realist and I know that there are people out there who hate me based on my race. I tried to address a lot of this racial strife in my novel, Van Ripplewink: You Can't Go Home Again. I think it's one of my best books, certainly one I'm very proud of. Here's a link to an actual newspaper review: https://smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/20578-book-delves-into-our-lingering-racial-problems
I am, actually, probably not a race bigot.
I may even not be a sex bigot.
My dislike of recreational drug use is very definitely a form of bigotry, at least during the least sane times in my life.
Right now, my issues with university administrators, and with certain self-proclaimed 'scholars' may be quite unreasonable.
I have some philosophical differences that I do not discuss with university administrators, and most certainly have no desire to discuss with the 'scholars'.
It is possible that with enough mutual trust for a discussion with university administrators, that some of them and I might reach some form of agreement on the philosophy.
I have made the decision that I will never be a supervisor, in part so that I have no pressure to constrain my thinking to only those bounds that minimize legal liability.
Given that, if I am a bigot, what business is it of anyone else's? If I am not training anyone, if I am not hiring anyone, if I am not rating anyone, if I am not promoting, disciplining, or retaining anyone, how do I harm others, beyond the harm done to myself?
Warning about PayPal via PJ Media:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/10/08/paypal-policy-will-allow-them-to-deduct-up-to-2500-from-your-account-for-spreading-misinformation-n1635588
Meanwhile Google is now targeting Issues and Insights and political cartoonist Michael Ramirez (also via PJ Media).
Google senior management is on record after Trump won of stating that they could not allow such a thing to happen again, and they are abusing their monopoly power to silence political opposition to the Democrats, in coordination with Democratic Party leadership and the HarrisBiden administration. Even polls that reflect badly on Biden and Democrats are being censored by Google.
Finance companies like PayPal as well are working hand in hand with the Democrats to crush dissent. Yes, PayPal will be policing people's lives, CCP social credit style, and cut off all who stray from the Democratic Party line. Indeed, until called out on it, they were planning to deduct money from people's accounts as "compensation" for disagreeing with the Party Line.
This coordinated attack to silence, delegitimize and ultimately criminalize dissent is the greatest domestic danger to liberty, not the leftist fantasies that the Democrats are cooking up to achieve their goal of totalitarian power.
Biden's Triumph of the Shrill Speech was the kickoff to an effort by the Democrats and their tech allies to replicate the 1920s and 1930s actions of Mussolini in Italy and the Nazis in Germany.
The response startled them:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/paypal-reverses-course-says-company-will-not-seize-money-for-promoting-misinformation_4783827.html
PayPal on Oct. 8 said it was not implementing a new policy that would have enabled the company to seize money from users who allegedly promote "misinformation" or "hate."
"An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy," a PayPal spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
"Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We're sorry for the confusion this has caused," the spokesperson added.
/end quote
Gosh, a istake…..
I suspect that something similar but not the same will quietly be "accidentally" introduced all the same.
But we will be watching for that, too.
I have no first-hand experience with them, but Andrew Torba's GabPay could be an alternative. I gather he had to do a lot of his own payment processing after TPTB deplatformed Gab and him personally from finances. He was talking about buying/creating a bank–no idea if it happened, but GP would have been a logical offshoot.
Venmo has also been in the deplatforming arena against those to the right of Lenin.
They already have and they introduced it no so quietly:
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/10/09/paypal-still-threatens-2500-fines-for-promoting-discriminatory-intolerance-even-if-not-misinformation/
Yep, they still intend to unilaterally declare people of wrongthink and seize $2500 from their accounts for "EACH TIME" that there is a "violation:
While Democrats are declaring the majority of Americans, i.e. those who disagree with Democrats, to be "extremists" and "domestic terrorists", they are meeting with the Taliban, the group that has actually supported terror attacks on the USA that have killed thousands of Americans, so they can give them hundreds of billions of dollars.
There is no depth to the level of perfidy that this regime won't sink to.
Technomad says:
The left is like little kids on a long road trip. Except, instead of constantly asking "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" they're constantly asking "Is it racism yet? Is it racism yet?" They're mentally permanently stuck on the Bridge at Selma, like aging veterans constantly reliving their glory days.
Some old veterans relive gory days.
Not just the glory days of fighting the good fight against racism. There's also a hankering for a time when government institutions were generally trusted and respected, when the USSR was still a going concern and communism was still the future, when unions were strong and union members were reliable Democratic party votes, when people believed and trusted what the Three Networks, the New York Times, and the other institutions of Big Media told them, when marginal tax rates were 90%…
Captain Comic says:
As has been stated here and elsewhere (I'm looking at you, Ace of Spades), the demand for racism outstrips the supply.
That's how you get magic slurs that can be heard by a complaining BIPOC, but not picked up by dozens of cameras and microphones surrounding them.
Google BYU and volleyball if you feel the need to raise your blood pressure.
Prof. Ornery says:
I was always arguing with some colleagues and university administration that our students were not, repeat not, inherently, overtly, or even hidden racists. Nor were they (a large majority) snowflakes who couldn't handle conflict (faculty were more fragile, or at least acted as such). Our students made friends on the basis of "is s/he an asshole? No? Okay then, we can be friends." Unlike the administration and many faculty, our students did not pick friends on the basis of needing a certain amount of friends of each race.
It was ridiculous and I'm sure it's far worse now (I've been out for a little over two years, and most of my former colleagues who I thought of as friends, have cut me off… oh, well).
"A good horse is never a bad color."
Consider yourself fortunate that such "friends" showed their true colors. Better a declared enemy that a hidden one.
No kidding. Friend of mine in H.S. ended up a dyed in the wool Marxist. So toxic I ended up unfriending him on Farcebook; and I usually never give up on someone. Worse thing was he was a Col. in the AF working at one of the depots in Texas, and so had the access to badly influence a whole lot of people.
You can only hope that the influence was presented in such a way that it had the opposite effect: "If this jerk believes that I definitely reject it!". Wouldn't be the first time, and leftists seem prone to shooting themselves in the foot; they simply can't seem to help it.
Yeah. "That idiot Colonel," was a phrase I heard a lot growing up. (Said idiot was replaced by a much less idiotic one later.)
If you've read Ringo's "Last Centurion", "idiot Colonel" should sound familiar; his was both an idiot and a CYA specialist. And for that matter, a military incompetent (read: "politician").
I am…cautiously optimistic on this front. I remember being in college classes not that recently and saw the CRT/Social Justice/DEI trinity in action. Might have been the school, might have just been college in general, but I saw too many people marching in step.
Doesn't mean that they aren't saying what a crock of monkey snot this is, in secret. Entirely possible.
overgrownhobbit says:
Eh. It's a fake sin. Completely effingy. Bogus. A blind to keep you from repenting of real hatreds, envies, and resentments. Full on bullocks.
Like the cult of climate stasis keeps us from doing risk benefit mirigations of the myriad toxic byproducts of a high tech culture, while allowing the effingy moral clowns to playlike virtues of conservation prudence and stewardship with Muh Carbons.
A purpose of that Communist Racism Training is so people can feel good about doing evil. Thus-lots- more evil.
The above facilitates "Keep killing the non-communists until Communism finally works."
Yes, the intended end state of "CRT" is "slaughter". Doesnt really matter who gets dead. The remainder will become the good communists. Because "arrow of history" (mumblesomething). …
Watch it unfold.
Everything you said falls within the topics Mark Levin talks about in American Marxism. Obviously turning education of our children over to "experts" is a failed experiment.
Glycine Bienne says:
Yes, they are racialists! And, yes, racialism is all that they have! Further, they are willing to burn the entire place down, if they can't have their way!
Political philosophies matter, but the political philosophies of archetypical Leftists is manifestly more a psychosis.
Mark Alger says:
It seems pretty clear to me — and has since the mid-60s — that most if not all of the left's scams (and the left is scams all the way down) are ways and means for leftists to avoid honest work. They pick things that look easy to them as ways of making (not earning) a living.
👍 Yup, having and real job and having to go to work everyday is hard. Looking for ways to mentally masturbate to get by is much easier.
Somebody was discussing the latest, dumbest reboot of Scooby-Doo (without Scooby, but with decapitated corpses, naked high school girls, and everybody gay and race-swapped).
And they pointed out that the entirety of the original Mystery Inc. was comprised of kids who would normally have been members of very different high school cliques, but working together in harmony and being friends. And not pressuring each other to dress and act any differently.
This had never occurred to me, because they were just always friends. (And because I started watching SD about as soon as I could watch TV with my big brother and follow a plot.)
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