OPEN THREAD: Keep it clean.
Archive for 2020
September 2, 2020
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Is the Democrat Party Filled With Covid-19 Hypocrites?
NEO: The Trayvon Hoax.
So here’s the documentary itself. Please be patient, and I think your patience will be rewarded. The importance of the Zimmerman/Martin case cannot be overemphasized. It’s the event that was the kickstarter for the organization BLM and the spreading of the leftist narrative about innocent blacks being killed in droves by cops. That’s a bit ironic, because Zimmerman wasn’t a cop. But he was considered a quasi-cop (and a quasi-white, since he’s half Hispanic).
Video at link.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Note these two entries, 11 minutes apart, on the San Francisco Chronicle’s blog-style Coronavirus Live Updates page, regarding San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed:
2 p.m. Breed says Pelosi salon visit distracts from important issues: San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Wednesday said the country should focus on more important issues than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to a hair salon as city rules allowed only outside operations for salons. “We basically have a dictator in charge of running the country. We have our speaker working day and night against the challenges we have at the White House. It’s unfortunate this conversation has blown up in the way it has and distracted us from the real issue, Breed said. “We have bigger issues as it relates to this country. That’s what we should be focused on.”
1:49 p.m. Breed calls for holiday observance of virus protocols: Mayor London Breed is asking San Franciscans to follow COVID-19 safety protocols over the three-day Labor Day weekend: “Let’s honor our workers by taking the measures to protect them,” she told a press briefing on Wednesday. Joined by community leaders, Breed said it’s safest to stay home. She urged residents to avoid large groups and social distance if they go out, adding, “Make sure everyone is wearing a face covering, and avoid sharing food and drinks.”
“Let’s honor our workers by taking the measures to protect them,” but when one the city’s nationally-known politicians refuses to do so, it “distracts from the important issues.” (And curiously, despite “a dictator in charge of running the country,” the worst that will happen to his arch-enemy is ridicule.) But the rules that politicians like Breed set into place that cripple the city’s businesses, and Pelosi’s flaunting of them are the important issues. Or as Mollie Hemingway responds to NBC’s Democrat stenographer “senior media reporter” Dylan Byers when he plays the same card:
In the New York Post, the Federalist’s David Marcus writes, “Perhaps some good can come of Pelosi’s ignominy. Perhaps seeing her insane hypocrisy, owners will start opening their businesses and daring petty tyrants like Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo to shut them down. One of the truly remarkable — and chilling — aspects of the more arbitrary lockdown rules is that, in general, they have been consented to, not enforced. We have given away our rights as much they have been taken from us. Well, if Pelosi doesn’t have to live under these absurd restrictions, then neither should you.”
Related: Speaking of the important issues:
While Nancy Pelosi is breaking the restrictions she put on her own district in order to get her hair done at a fancy salon, This is how her constituents live.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 2, 2020
VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH ROGER SIMON: The Moral Narcissism of the Radical Left—Roger Simon on Riots & Beyond.
JAMES LILEKS’ WEDNESDAY REVIEW OF MODERN THOUGHT:
They can’t move the Washington Monument, but they can put up signs about slavery, and that will change people’s minds. Hope they hate him now! Don’t look up at this abstraction and feel anything but shame and boiling bile, topped off with self-reverence for being better than him.
This is the point where people incapable of holding two ideas simultaneously say “oh you care more about a stone pole than lives,” or some such gotcha that’s supposed to reveal me as a Nazi. Nailed it, bro! Every single piece of mental and physical energy spent on keeping the Washington Monument from being rebranded or “explained” by the humorless, ahistorical wokeoisie keeps Justice from happening. These are the same people who probably nod approvingly when the modern-day Jacobins roll up their home-made guillotines, and believe that the French got it right, and we got it wrong. Sure, we were founded in ideals that contained the liberation of all, and indeed forced it, if one was honest, but did we rename any months or shutter churches? No.
It’s as if their knowledge of the French Revolution ends with the Bastille doors thrown open, and a stream of jubilant social warriors imprisoned by Melania Antoinette pour forth, rejoicing, followed by a haircut for the oppressors — well, the neck has hair — and that was it! Then Great Justice and egalitarianism for all.
Read the whole thing. Incidentally, the latest chapter in this story has flashbacks to the aftermath of another revolution: “The WaPost cleanup crew in action. D.C. Mayor Bowser released a report recommending ‘the Federal government remove, relocate,or contextualize’ Washington Monument, etc. After pushback, Bowser removed that page–and the WaPost now pretends ‘remove’ and ‘relocate’ were never there.”
VIRGINIA IS NOW A ‘PRO-CRIME’ STATE? Hans Bader says that will be the case if liberal early-release legislation becomes law.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A SMALLER BLOG: Debunking NPR’s Bizarre ‘In Defense of Looting’ Interview. In a controversial NPR interview that quickly went viral, author Vicky Osterweil attempted to recast property crime as nonviolent and morally good:
In the controversial [NPR] interview, which quickly went viral, Osterweil attempts to recast property crime as nonviolent and morally good.
“When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot,” Osterweil says. “That’s the thing I’m defending. I’m not defending any situation in which property is stolen by force. It’s not a home invasion, either. It’s about a certain kind of action that’s taken during protests and riots.”
“[Looting is] taking those things that would otherwise be commodified and controlled and sharing them for free,” she continues. “[Looting] demonstrate[s] that without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free.”
Contempt for looting, meanwhile, is driven by “anti-Blackness and contempt for poor people who want to live a better life,” Osterweil claims.
Before going any further, it’s worth pointing out the glaring holes in these arguments so far.
Read the whole thing. Osterweil is so out there, even Atlantic columnists are dunking on her:
My job sometimes entails traveling to countries recently or currently destroyed by civil unrest, and that experience has made me appreciate the fragility of peace, and has not made me eager to conduct a similar experiment in my own city.
I am also from recent-immigrant stock. Osterweil euphemizes looting as “proletarian shopping,” and no one from a place that has recently experienced this phenomenon can take seriously her assurance that it can happen justly and bloodlessly. When I think of riots and smashed storefronts, I think of Kristallnacht. I think of American businesses built by penniless immigrants who preferred to forfeit their vacations and weekends for 30 years rather than see their children suffer as they did; I think of these businesses ransacked in 30 minutes and left in ruins. Osterweil at least has the psychology right when she says that looting can be “joyous and liberatory.” I have never seen a sullen looter, but I have seen plenty of shop owners crying next to the smoking remains of their children’s future.
Why is the far left such a cesspit of anti-Semitism?
IRRESISTIBLY: How the Phillips Screwdriver Took Over America.
THERE ARE CERTAIN SECTIONS OF TEXAS THAT I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT TO INVADE: Will the Antifa Riots Come to Your Community? Voters Are Rightly Concerned.
ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Man Suspected of Killing Trump Supporter in Portland Identifies Self as ‘100% ANTIFA.’
WELL, THEY COULDN’T RULE AGAINST IT WHEN OBAMA WAS PRESIDENT — THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN RACIST. Court rules NSA phone snooping illegal — after 7-year delay.
GREAT MOMENTS IN CHUTZPAH: Pelosi says San Francisco salon ‘owes me an apology for setting me up.’
On Tuesday, Erica Kious shared a security video of a maskless Pelosi getting a haircut inside her San Francisco salon despite the fact that the area only allows outdoor haircuts right now; Kious also admitted she knew about the appointment ahead of time and let it happen. Pelosi wouldn’t apologize to Kious or to her critics on Wednesday, instead asking Kious to apologize to her instead.
“I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon I’ve been to over the years many times,” Pelosi said on Wednesday, claiming the salon told her it could take one customer at a time. “As it turns out, it was a setup, so I take responsibility for falling for a setup,” she continued. “I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up.”
Note that Pelosi’s not taking responsibility for knowing what the laws for Covid are in her own district, and abiding by them. (Pro Tip: Don’t try this “set-up” defense if you’re ever stopped in a police radar trap for speeding.)
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: ‘Covid hugs:’ Springfield, MA police asking public to help ID suspects offering infective embrace. “A man is accused of hugging shoppers in a Walmart and telling them they now have coronavirus, according to Springfield Police, which is seeking the public’s help in the investigation.”
‘WE’RE NOT CLOSING DOWN THIS CHURCH:’ Things are escalating as California officials ratchet up their enforcement efforts against evangelical congregations defying Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest Covid-related restrictions on indoor gatherings.
Interesting, isn’t it, that it’s the traditional, politically conservative churches in the most leftist-dominated state forming the front line in defense of constitutional liberty? Didn’t there used to be a California GOP with brass ones?
LOTS OF LOVE FOR THE NEW FORD BRONCO.
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Antifa Drives Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler Out of His Home.
The race for Worst Mayor in the United States is starting to heat up. There are a lot of contenders: de Blasio, Garcetti, Lightfoot, Durkan, Frey, Bottoms… They’re all bad public servants and even worse liars. Most mayors only disappoint and infuriate their own citizens, but these select few keep pissing off the whole world. Now there’s a dark horse in the race, and he’s moving up fast. He might not be running the biggest city in the country, but right now it’s one of the most violent. And he has absolutely no idea what to do about the chaos and destruction within his city limits, because his liberal ideas about the world haven’t prepared him for it. Of course, I’m talking about Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, Oregon.
* * * * * * * * *
Wheeler has made a big show of rejecting federal help, because #DrumpfIsBad. In return, Antifa is going after him even harder.
And that’s just another week in Portland. It’s commonplace now. Everybody who’s been paying attention knows about it. And yet, when CNN sends “journalists” to cover it, they send out stuff like this instead:
Wheeler isn’t the only mayor to have had Antifa and/or BLM arrive at his front door: San Jose mayor’s home vandalized, becomes subject of protests. “The vandalism to [Mayor] Liccardo’s home occurred just one month after the home of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf was also splattered with graffiti messages such as ‘Defund OPD’ and ‘Cancel Rent.’”
NEW CIVILITY WATCH (See update below): On the Lesson Plan at Appalachian State University in North Carolina: ‘If a Few of the Worst Republican Politicians Were Assassinated, it Wouldn’t Be the End of the World.’
UPDATE: An Insta-reader who is one of the course instructors sent us this email:
Here’s more context on that survey in the story you reblogged.
Haidt’s site on morals has many surveys. We assigned one called “Moral Foundations Questionnaire.” You can find the survey yourself if you register at yourmorals.org (note: we used the original in the lower section, not the revised one in the upper). The student took the “Political and Social Attitudes” survey instead. You can see that the two are totally different–and the one we assigned does not contain the “there is no right answer” language to which the parents objected.
To put the latter survey in context, for decades political psychologists have talked about ‘right-wing authoritarianism’ but not left-wing authoritarianism. This survey is one attempt by researchers (at Emory, apparently) to reverse that bias and measure left-wing authoritarianism. That’s why there aren’t any opposite questions. They’re trying to measure how intolerant the Left is, not the Right,
In short, the innocuous-sounding “political and social values” survey appears designed to collect academic-journal-publishable survey evidence to document that arguments like those in Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism or Dreher’s “Pink Terror” thesis are correct.
Glad to hear it; hopefully Townhall will update the story at the above link as well.
(Updated and bumped.)
