Welp, I’m going to grab my fiddle and watch it all burn down. I just don’t think I can care anymore. What’s left of the West isn’t worth saving. Let it all fall apart like the 500s again and we can try to not spit on God’s face when we rebuild. No democracies this time. They never work. Men need a Godly king to obey. I’ll be in my cave.
I have kids. All I can do is teach them to know God, tell them stories of who we once were and do everything I can to physically protect them. It’s not up to me after that.
In politics, we must return to the Constitution. Those are not either/or choices, nor does one inevitably follow from the other. They are two different matters.
The difficulty of course is what returning to either one means. Not being trained in theology, nor called, I will limit myself to expounding the Constitution. It is, first and foremost, a jurisdictional document. It is not a laundry list of Good and Evil. It allocates certain powers, which may and should legitimately be exercised. It restrains or forbids the exercise of certain powers in certain ways or areas. Because it is not a laundry list of priorities and sentiments, it has survived almost 250 years, with some prudent amendments, rather than being rewritten and replaced every few decades.
The role of the courts is not to second guess the wisdom of legislatures and executives, federal or state, but to rein in either when they exceed the authority constitutionally delegated or left to them, or exercise a power that is forbidden to them. Otherwise, the role of the courts is to give effect to the intent of the legislature, with regard to laws that are not in violation of a constitutional restraint.
That's what we need to affirm. Things will begin to heal if we can manage that.
A few amendments might also be wise -- but those would be the next step.
I think you are right. The U.S. constitution is why, even in my darkest moments reading this substack or scrolling X, I still have hope for the U.S. I think the separation of powers and the thought that went into instituting that in our Government, is the keystone. The Bill of Rights is a close second.
The poor Brits have no Bill of Rights, and it has hastened the totalitarian takeover of their country. The EU "constitution" is like 5000 pages long. It's absurd.
Rod, the time for peaceful protests to demand change is long over. As a Christian, I want us to all live peacefully and get along, but that doesn’t seem to be one of the options for our generation in this time. Riots? That’s the minimum because the powers that be can’t be bothered otherwise. I’m not saying it’s effective, but when people have no voice, they have no choice.
I agree. And I think we really haven't tried a bunch of peaceful protests in the U.S. The closest we have now are the Trump rallies. But we need to start thinking about what we can do after Trump loses. Jan 6 gave them a pretext to crack down on the Trump/populist movement. It was not fully peaceful or non-violent. We can't make that mistake again.
John, don't be defeatist. In 1988, Dukakis was going to be an easy winner over Bush. Everyone knew that except Lee Atwater. Gee, give Cackles her moment in the spotlight. If you don't know Estee Palti's work, go to her YouTube channel. Estee Palti is a genius. I have never seen an impressionist who captures the nubbins of his, or her, subject better than she. Seriously, I think it's possible that by herself Estee Palti could swing enough votes against Harris to make a significant difference in the election if she's given the exposure she needs.
Happier things aside, come on, dude, campaigns do mean something. Granted, people are in general duller and more prejudiced than they were in 1988, but please, Harris is as insubstantial as helium. Trump needs to be given a dose of clonazepam an hour before the debate. He should be extremely effective.
When Cackles is the official nominee, media outlets, which as we know are Leftist but are ambitious first, will be competing with one another to find former Cackles employees and even current ones ( well disguised by lighting and voice distortion ) to arrest to what an insufferable bully - a termagant - she really is.
I was cheered that in his Atlanta speech, Trump had found a word to counter the Left's evil mauling of Vance's rep with the word, "weird," "freaks." Freaks, freaks, freaks. Sound it far and wide. I hate that our politics have become so degraded. I suppose countries get not just the leaders but the politics they deserve.
The Left is out to cut our throats, and I'm not going quietly.
Well, at some point it is. Thomas Jefferson said so in the Declaration of Independence, and that was giving voice and form to facts already under way on the ground. The conundrum is, when is lawless violence legitimate, and how do we tell?
Perhaps just war doctrines apply. Rioting seldom offers a chance of success for replacing a current regime with one that is better. The events of 2020 you reference had essentially two components: more or less peaceful protests, and, apolitical opportunists rushing in to loot businesses while the police were distracted. One didn't rise to the level of revolution, and the other didn't pretend to have any principles whatsoever.
The Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party might have been just a riot, if they had not, with 20/20 hindsight, been revered as forerunners of more astute and focused political and military actions. These riots... probably will not be such precursors, but we won't know for some time with absolute certainty.
"What are British people who have had enough of this supposed to do? The answer is: organize peaceful mass protests, demanding change." Ah, something the British establishment can completely ignore. And still denounce as far-right white supremacy.
Modern British parliament is an elected dictatorship. Labour can and will squash the leaders of the rioters just as surely a man's hand can crush an ant.
Pardon me for hanging a somewhat irrelevant comment of mine on yours, John, but if I put this at the end of the queue, no one will see it.
I don't have X, but there are some excellent YouTube channels which give us the truth of what is happening in Britain. The Podcast of the Locus Eaters is generally quite good but more intellectual than journalistic. Mahyar Tousi's channel is excellent. He's an Iranian immigrant, a Londoner, and he does great journalism. He has a pleasant contempt for official verities. I love Tousi's sign off line: "We are the media."
Britain has had problems with its violent young men for a long time. Remember the football (soccer) riots? Or how English soccer fans were banned from matches elsewhere in Europe for years?
It finally calmed down during the Blair years, when there was enough economic growth to give people real alternatives.
Now, the economy has been stagnant for years, and is falling behind the rest of Europe post-Brexit. Housing is unaffordable in the only areas with jobs. And yes, it's because the Tories have been botching everything for far too long. But this didn't come from nowhere.
True. The specific problem in the 70s and 80s was the same as now: insufficient economic growth and opportunities. It is indeed the responsibility of the regime to create the conditions for growth to flourish. My point was that the much maligned Blair was the one who did it.
Worst of all, it was too rooted in financialization, and didn't do anything for the declining industrial base. I'm not saying it was perfect. But the long term solution to this unrest lies in economic growth.
The governing regimes in most of the world now arrogantly proclaim something to be true, and if we don't agree, we become (fill in the blank...threats to democracy, radical right, believers in misinformation, etc. etc ad nauseam). Meanwhile they commit serial depredations: 1)Biden is sharp as a tack, or No, now he is "unfit" (but he can stay president). 2) Kamala is a dope and unpopular, and Now, she is "brat" and brilliant in pursuing all her portfolios as VP (but don't ask her to respond to an unscripted question. Universities claim to be places of free inquiry with "safe spaces", but No safe space for Jewish students. Rioting is wrong when the rioters are working class or the dreaded MAGA, but virtuous when pursued as "mostly peaceful" in 2020 (against backdrops of burning buildings). The U.S. economy is great, sure prices are up a bit but hey job growth is terrific (ignore that 10 or the last 14 months job figures were subsequently revised downwards). We should be mindful of women's rights, sure, and folks like Harvey Weinstein are wretched but wait, a man posing as a woman can literally knock women's jaws with impunity in the Olympics so that the two finalists in Women's sports are XY men. But don't offend LGBTQ+. It is "weird" to be pro-family but normal to express interest in (fill in the blank--pedophilia, polyamory, bestiality, sex with robots...) The climate is a total Stage 12 emergency but those addressing it can maintain "carbon heavy" lifestyles and sure, its ok to manipulate temperature records to promote the cause. Exaggeration is evil and Hitlerian but its ok to recruit former and current government leaders to argue that items like Hunter Biden's laptop are "fake" and sure, the Russians are constantly interfering in our elections but the $400M donated by Zuckerberg to "help" in elections is AOK and honest.
Need I go on?
Anyone that uses the term disinformation and misinformation has a blaring red flag on their truthfulness. If only Mark Twain were here to expand his comments on lies.
Good summary. Thing is, reality has a way of crashing through the narrative. As I write this stock markets are plunging around the world - I wonder how the elite might spin a "Biden recession" just as Kamala is set to ascend to the throne.
Stock markets go up and stick markets go down. Would that I had a dollar for every time someone descried "recession!:": when the markets took a dump. I'm old enough to remember the abrupt crash of October 19 1987 when the commentariat was woe-saying about the coming "Reagan depreesson", which somehow never manifested.
But you're also old enough to remember the dot-com recession and the crash of '08. As I write this the Dow is down over 1,000 points.
Point is, the Kamala narrative relies on a belief that the economy is doing well and all we need to do is continue the policies of the Biden era. A crashing stock market will make that far more difficult for Team Blue.
Jon, the Dow Jones will be over 40,000 again when the Federal Reserve Board drops the discount rate by .5%. Wall Street is hooked on low interest rates like John Belushi on heroin.
I just found 2 1/2 pounds of sliced beef with a discount pricing label for a total of $11. That's the only way I buy meat now -- and it feels like I paid too much, but it was marked down from $!8. However, I can still get three whole pounds of 85% lean ground beef patties at ALDI for a total of $11.99.
If one were paying attention, you'd have seen that the long term Japanese period of no growth (and attendant low rates) was set to change. With Japanese rates increasing, the "carry trade" (basically arbitrage leveraging cheap borrowing rates in Yen to buy other stocks) is being unwound. Most likely markets will settle later this week but will remain choppy for awhile.
Most knowledgeable folks know that unending debt--with our debt at highest level vs. GDP EVER (including periods of war)--is not sustainable. That plus the disastrous energy and other policies pursued by the Dems are terrible for growth outlook. Markets definitely would prefer an R win as one that presages better economic outlook.
The partisan analysis here is balderdash. "Markets", AKA rich people, might prefer GOP tax cuts (and never mind they explode the deficit yet further) but historically, including in the last twenty ears, Republicans tend to leave us with recessions while Democratic administrations tend to preside over periods of growth and expansion and even deficit reduction (once they've mopped up after the recession they inherit).
Who do you think has the bulk of they money in the market? Hint: It's not waitresses or even auto mechanics. It should be staringly obvious that those people have particular personal interests which are apt to be rather at variance from the rest of us.
That's silly, Jon. We have had few recessions in my lifetime and most have been relatively short. Reagan inherited a bad economy, Clinton inherited an economy just a few months out of a small recession, Bush II inherited an economy just a few months out of a small recession and Obama inherited a recession from Bush II. I think Obama was a bad president but I do not fault him for what Bush gave him economically.
The Reagan Depression had been going on for some time already. I was working some pretty mean streets in those days, and people felt it long before pundits and stock analysts began to consider it.
I learned this week how effective the media gaslighting has been. I am visiting family in Japan. They watch CNN. My brother in law was giving me a hard time about how anti-immigrant the West is. I tried to explain that Americans are against ILLEGAL immigration, not immigration in general. He was unaware that therr is any ILLEGAL mmigration, thinking that all enter legally through regular ports of entry. When I mentioned that Biden had invited people to come, he informed that that was disinformation. When I said it wasn't he demanded proof. Things went downhill as I tried to explain that CNN itself spreads disinformation. The clincher was when I said CNN had covered up Biden's dementia. At this point he began to yell at me for trying to deceive him because English is his second language. He is convinced that Biden is fine.
Oh wow. This reminds me of a very bitter argument I got into a few years back with a now former friend, who accused me of lying when I brought up basic facts that ran counter to her preferred (progressive) narrative. It was astonishing to see. This is an educated, literate person, yet she could not conceive that she might be wrong. This is the same person who later ended our forty-year friendship because, in a letter to the editor in which I supported Trump's second impeachment, I made the unforgivable moral error of saying that Trump as president had done some good things.
I hear you, David. A question, though, I believe that Japan has a draconian approach to immigration and absolutely NO illegal immigration. Is this verboten as a topic with your b-in-law?
Oddly, no. He is quite open in talking about Japan and xenophobia. Being from Okinawa, he has seen Japanese prejudice first hand. It was only when I pushed back on the US mainstream media narrative that he became angry. CNN has done a good job.
i stopped arguing politics with my friends and family on the right or left a few years ago, once it dawned on me how blasted by propaganda their brains are, how helpless most people are to think clearly and sanely in our sensationalized media environment, and how pointless it is to attempt debate when what we're dealing with is akin to cult indoctrination, just with different dynamics.
the phones and our other devices work off operant conditioning (meaning they addict people to potential rewards like a slot machine), the algorithms are constantly perfecting a toxic crack rock of fear, panic and hatred, social media magnifies the most incendiary people and statements, and all this gets fed to tribalized brains trapped in a constant tribal battle mode.
the modern media environment is radically unraveling and remaking all our societies and communities in a way that we havent seen since Gutenberg.
Gotcha and ditto. I complained to a friend that the Olympics opening ceremony was offensive. My friend replied: 1) "Well, it wasn't the last supper. It was a painting, purportedly of the last supper" and 2) "That wasn't the entire opening ceremony. Just a small part of it."
"i stopped arguing politics with my friends and family"
Already in 2016, there was a "no politics" rule in place for Thanksgiving on the maternal side of my family. An uncle was almost tossed out for violating it before he wisely shut up.
Clickbait, no matter what sort, is a dopamine hit. And the tech lords know this. This is one of the many reasons I will not get a smartphone -- they intentionally foster addiction.
I don't know that its "blasted by propaganda." Its more, there are certain premises inculcated by their bubble of confirmation bias, which they axiomatically take as true, and, anyone who varies from those axioms is not merely wrong, but insane. There is a counterpart in Trump supporters who are so utterly sold on the idea that an election was "stolen" by "fraud" that they can't conceive of this not being fundamental to any respectable thought process.
Japan isn't as strict against immigration as claimed. One odd thing is that the immigrants, from Brazil, Vietnam and the Philippines, tend to be Catholic, and are driving Japan's Christianisation.
The Brazilians tend to be partly Japanese, although often just one great grandparent, say. Otherwise, they tend to be SE Asian. I get the feeling there’s a no-Muslims policy.
This is my approach. It's painful, but less painful than the alternative. Many people, including many of my family members, cannot conceive of the possibility that they've been lied to again and again.
I have tried, repeatedly, for years, to rationally, logically, calmly discuss important matters with my legislator and many of my neighbors in the very, very blue state in which I reside. There is no spirit of humbleness in their minds and hearts. They are right and you are wrong... end of conversation.
Our property taxes went up 25% over last year. A $2200 increase. Now it's over $11,000 dollars a year for some wooded acreage which cannot be developed. For which we get absolutely no services. They do not plow our road or otherwise maintain it. That was "given" to the residents years ago. They have no emergency services. Only a volunteer FD in which they all work outside the town. The school is a leftist indoctrination camp. And my state just voted in free childcare regardless of your income level. Amongst many other heinous things.
So, I'm good. They won't have a conversation; they continue to tax us to death, and they are shoving their crap down our throats. I'm good, let's get it done. Bring on the riots. Let's refresh that Liberty Tree.
Excellent question. Short answer: don't have the resources-money, energy and stamina.
We built a sustainable homestead. We can't recreate it without either years of work, which we can no longer accomplish or money, which we don't have. We have livestock enclosures and pastures that we built, large gardens and fences, fruit and nut trees, rainwater harvesting etc. etc. etc.
I would love to live in western Montana.
Trust me, I've run the numbers forwards and backwards. We would effectively be giving up everything we worked years for and can't reproduce it at our age.
Fellow New Englander here, PB. I'm in RI and feel much as you do. To what you've said about why you stay, I'd add that the people, like the land, are mostly lovely. Go anywhere people shop or gather and you'll find good, friendly, accommodating neighbors. You're only aware of the blue that surrounds you when the voting returns come in, the taxes go up to support things you loathe and, of course, the bias of the local media shows. Which is, admittedly, daily. Still, I wouldn't have to go far for my Shangri-La. A secluded oceanfront "summer home" in Watch Hill would do just fine.
Sounds like paradise. I'd give anything to be in a quiet natural area. And you've worked at it. Sticking where you are if possible is a good choice IMO.
It is most definitely quiet, most of the time. It's most addictive. Now being around lots of people and cars and such is a bit exhausting. I don't like being behind "enemy lines" but I also won't go "quietly into that good night" either.
I'd rather shovel out the turkey coop or stack wood or pull weeds when I'm not blathering on Substack.
I'd still like to be back out west. But, this is where I'm needed and where we've built, so this where we'll stay and fight. Next time you're in New England, give a shout out. I'll show you some restful acres and good people.
Me too. But sometimes we are led to places for reasons we cannot fathom. I hope I'm living by His will and design. I haven't always been listening. But something powerful moved me enough to get me and my family and possessions across country and plant roots.
Some red states have horrible property tax rates too. Florida for example-- it has no state income tax, but high sales tax rates and painful property taxes anywhere desirable to live.
By contrast blue state Delaware, where I moved from last year, has no sales tax at all, a fairly modest state income tax and low property taxes.
I hear you, Rod. I have a thirty-plus year friendship on the rocks; we were best man in each other's weddings. Said friend is also educated, literate, has lived in multiple countries, big US cities and a small rural town. He has life experience. Yet, he has gone full ideologue. Justice is what matches his opinions. His facts are alien to what news I follow. What makes continuing the friendship unlikely is that he seems incapable of setting politics to the side. He must speak of it. It's his theology, philosophy and, sadly, where he derives his meaning. Thinks he's part of some great struggle on behalf of humanity against retrogrades and bigots.
Same for me. Pretty apolitical until 2020. Tolerated a lifelong friend's barbs at various political people. Then she went after my husband and that's when I had to cut ties. I like Musk's term, "woke mind virus" but there is no antibiotic for this. I prefer to call it the woke mind cancer. It's either going to kill the host or the treatment will.
You're right. I read my first bio of Churchill as a 10 year old at camp (some years ago ha-ha-ha). Churchill's multi-volume on WW2 also great, though I haven't read it all.
I have a conservative and Christian acquaintance whose politics and religious views match mine. A cordial and mature guy. But he sees these BS videos on the Internet and, despite being pretty intelligent, doesn't fact-check their sensational claims. But if I suggest they are wrong his domineering side emerges and its isn't worth being around.
I know for myself, when I do that, despite knowing better, I realize I am afraid of something. It often takes me quite awhile before I figure out what it is. I know intellectually that these folks are afraid, but in the moment, I often lose my patience.
I have to say, I use to dismiss conspiracy theories without any thought. Now, I let it marinate and then I dig a little then I ponder. Many times I just stick it in the file called, "Who knows?" Lately, I've been pulling those files out and moving them to a different "folder".
Give him the Doonesbury cartoon series on Mark Slackmeyer's efforts to get a summer job in construction to bring the good news of the revolution to the workers who were in need of enlightenment. Its hilarious.
Alcuin, the way these comments appear ( on my phone, anyway ), it would take me too long to go back through all of them to find what you are responding to. I'm embarrassed to admit that while I never make a comment here without being convinced it's true, or at least probable, at the moment, I don't remember who it was I was writing about.
You were commenting in response to this description of my friend where I wrote:
"I hear you, Rod. I have a thirty-plus year friendship on the rocks; we were best man in each other's weddings. Said friend is also educated, literate, has lived in multiple countries, big US cities and a small rural town. He has life experience. Yet, he has gone full ideologue. Justice is what matches his opinions. His facts are alien to what news I follow. What makes continuing the friendship unlikely is that he seems incapable of setting politics to the side. He must speak of it. It's his theology, philosophy and, sadly, where he derives his meaning. Thinks he's part of some great struggle on behalf of humanity against retrogrades and bigots"
I have too many friends and family who have utterly bought into demonstrable lies about so many things. I’m not talking about squishy topics like climate change, where interpreting data could lead to varied conclusions, but things like the various comments Trump has made, denials regarding the Russian collusion stuff, denials regarding FBI crime stats, denials regarding trans matters, the contents of books like Gender Queer, etc.
One is discredited merely for noticing and mentioning the truth about these things. Or for, as you discovered, simply exercising a bit of moral humility in acknowledging that people are not all bad, that Trump has, on occasion, done some good.
My life would become an impossible hell if I insisted on the truth of one tenth of these things. Fortunately, most of it is current-events stuff that isn’t relevant to making sure the bills are paid and that the house is in good order.
Just to be as even-handed as can be…I ALSO have family and friends, who are otherwise Trump-supporters, who think that Covid itself was a complete hoax, or just the flu, at most. They refuse to consider the fact that I had healthy colleagues at work in their early 50s who died from it.
But on the whole, the self-deceptions on the left seem to far outnumber those on the right, if only because the underdog MUST see clearly in order to survive.
Not trying to start an argument, but did they really die from COVID? Or did they die from their comorbidity in the presence of COVID? Or did they die from COVID treatments? And were they "vaccinated" which is showing horrific numbers of increased mortality rates as compared to the unvaccinated? I can converse about all three from both a clinical and personal perspective. COVID wasn't a hoax, it existed and initially was severe and virulent but quickly, very quickly (1 month or less) mutated to be a on par with the cold or mild flu.
Also not arguing that there are many who have implacable unmovable beliefs on the right or conservative side as well.
Honestly, what is far scarier to me, is the profound effect the "vaccines" had and continues to exert. The numbers of cancer rates exploded in unheard of amounts. And yet, only the "fringe" are talking about it. Just my two cents worth.
One of my colleagues had no co-morbidities at all. He was a very fit and healthy 51-year old. He had undergone little of the initial treatment that we saw early on. His case was late—summer of 2001. Not vaccinated.
I’m willing to consider that the vaccines themselves are problematic and that the disease was certainly demagogued ridiculously by the Woke types. But it was/is real and people were dying from it even a year into the pandemic.
Thanks for replying CrossTieWalker. I'm curious, sorry can't help myself, do you know what specific treatment your friend received?
And yes, people did die. But it remains to be discovered exactly what they died of. There was an "unintended" incentivization by Medicare and other insurance companies to compensate hospitals for treating patients with COVID. At least two reports of people with gunshot wounds that although they tested positive post mortum, that had nothing to do with the leaky hole in their head or chest. Only two examples, to be sure. I personally had a very good friend who, aged 55, in relative good health, (no obesity, fit, non smoker) vaccinated, developed COVID, was put on ventilator and given remdesivir. Died in less than 24 hours of treatment. In my personal opinion, he didn't die from COVID; he died from the treatment. There is a tremendous amount of documentation out there but difficult to find due to various factors,that supports that conclusion. You could start with the big dogs... Drs Robert Malone, Peter McCullough , Jay Bhattacharya and analyst Steve Kirsch. I didn't come to it on my own. While that doesn't let people off the hook for wild and off the reservation theories, I have come to discover, painfully, that there is likely more truth in those theories than tinfoil hat ideas.
My own skepticism was due to long held medical practices (historically, safe identification and treatment of new diseases takes a minimum of 24 months, vaccine effectiveness 12-24 months, manufacturing 8-12 months) that were bypassed. So when we go from a novel virus in Nov/Dec of 2019 to a vaccine in Dec of 2020, followed by a mandate after being told to engage in completely unscientific measures and told to shut up by your peers and administration when you attempt to point out the accepted practices prior to a few months ago.... Yeah, my BS meter was pegged out. When well respected providers are fired for reporting adverse effects of the shot... Yeah, off the chart alarms. And then time passed and people are distracted by the next thing and the next thing. We are SO primed for this to go off again and this time, it will be much worse. A more destructive virus or more thorough lockdown and control.
Och, I've bent your ear long enough. Sure and your thinking I'm a whack job. I tell ya, for awhile there, I thought I was losing me mind!! Now I know, we were all being artfully manipulated and still are. God have mercy on us all.
Yes, it's real and can indeed be quite severe. My first round was (though not hospitalized) but second round was just a cold. Have not been vaxed but it's a tradeoff. If I were older and I thought it could therefore kill me I'd roll the dice on the vaccine harms.
This. They can afford to believe untrue nonsense, whereas the benefit of being the ideological minority is it forces you to weigh your positions carefully.
Not to tout Nietzsche too much here, but the “will to truth” often does seem to begin in the resentments of the overtly powerless. That, after all, is why victims are so celebrated today. Except that they’re no longer the victims except in name—rather like Renaissance popes preaching the virtues of poverty.
The only loss of that sort I've had was a cousin who has vanished into the nuthouse of Qanon, and she no longer talks to anyone who isn't on board with that. She was always one for tinfoil hattery, and over the years we barely said three words about politics but apparently she's gotten to the "If you're not with me you're against me" phase of fanaticism.
Your friend can hang out with my mom, then. For almost 5 years now she doesn’t even really talk to her grandchildren; she just spouts a bunch of Q mumbo-jumbo at them. Doesn’t know or care what anyone is up to, just cares that every person she knows, encounters, or is descended from her is someone to preach at.
I don't doubt that there are such people. I think I lost contact with one old friend who couldn't handle my critique of the manner in which Trump is attacked in the media (albeit I have many criticisms of the man), and I lost one over the Kentucky students who got caught up in that fracas on the Mall between Black Hebrews and a drummer. But I find it hard to fathom for the most part. I have conversations with Trump voters all the time. I make no concessions on why I don't trust him, we talk easily about things we agree on, I hear their reasons for voting as they do, some of which are quite rational, others are absolutely without factual basis, and I say why I think so. Is that so uncommon?
Yes, but sometimes family members make it impossible not to discuss such things. I’ve been pressed to reveal my opinions on many occasions. I’ve been more or less able to dissemble or to bore by offering a blizzard of talk and detail that quickly loses my pursuer in a fog.
I appreciate what few friends I can find and I'm not hanging out w/them to force my views on them (not possible otherwise I might make some effort). So I just mentally write off the idea I might change their views and I won't permit an argument to begin (as resembles your strategy). Nothing to gain by arguing.
I've written before about my English cousins visiting me in the late 1980's. They were sure that all of us Irish-American, working class, cousins, were racists. I was a police officer at the time and yes, I arrested a lot of black people......I worked in drug-filled, housing projects during "The War on Drugs". One of the questions was "How's the racism, then?" as my smirking cousins made eye contact with each other.
One moved to southern Spain, and drops nasty comments on Facebook about anyone questioning the (CNN) narrative you speak of. One moved to rural Ireland, back to the home our mothers were raised in. He's been on "the dole" for decades. He smokes and watches cable TV all day long with a few weekly jaunts to the pub in town. But the third guy stayed in England, I'm pretty sure he's in downtown Birmingham, and he's oddly quiet on FB. I'm afraid to log on to FB now. I like these cousins, but they most likely don't want "the buzz" to end. I get it. My wife is similar and I love her to death. I don't push it any more. This comment section keeps me sane.
A Japanese is lecturing (or hectoring) you on immigration...? Perhaps, you might concede that he is correct and from here on out, the US should follow Japan's policies of immigration and multiculturalism...
The point was that he is following the narrative that he hears from US media. As an Okinaawan he is well aware of how xenophobic Japan can be. The treatment of Okinawan civilians by the Japanese military in WWII was awful.
How good is Japan about reporting the fine details of US politics? That mistake you cite is not something any American would make. The opinions and (mis)understandings of the Japanese are quite irrelevant to the matter.
I don't want to live in a country where ANYBODY, of ANY religion or ANY race, has to feel threatened because of it, or is discriminated against because of it. The rioters in the UK do not have the answer to Britain's problems. But they exist because Britain's elites, of the Left and the Right, have ignored the problems for so very long, and have in many cases blamed the victims. A mob this past weekend burned an asylum-seekers' shelter in Rotherham. Outrageous, truly! But note well that Rotherham is where the police knew, or had reason to know, that some Pakistani men were pressing working-class white English girls into sex slavery and drug addiction -- and yet did nothing, because Racism™. That's not the fault of asylum seekers, God knows, but you see the connection.
is in fact a Holiday Inn, one of hundreds and hundreds of hotels up and down the country taken over by the UK Government to house illegal immigrants at taxpayer expense. We are talking about billions of pounds.
They get housing, food, medical care, free transport.
Working class British people are left to sort these things for themselves, with a crushing housing crisis, green policy-inflated energy costs forcing many to ration heat in their tiny, damp apartments, a shambolic and grossly overpriced transport network, and a health service that is in such bad shape many are dying while waiting for treatments. But there's always plenty of money for mass third-world immigration--except for policing the resulting crime.
The anger is entirely justified, even if the rioting is not.
A decent government would listen to this justified anger and address these problems while prosecuting rioters.
I might disagree to some degree. The predominant religion is a component of the national identity. Legitimate discrimination to preserve this predominant religion would be justified. This might not mean an absolute prohibition, but rather stronger limits on those with non-native religions. For the U.S. (and U.K.) this would be a preference for immigration from Christian countries. Somewhat controversial, but I offer for discussion.
I am disappointed almost beyond measure because you won’t watch ‘Silenced’. Any video Tommy Robinson makes comes from his experience of being in that two tiered justice system where white conservative people are silenced when they question immigration policies in Britain. It is compelling to watch as his books are great to read. His rallies are peaceful. He is not perfect but who is?
You bet a riot is what people resort to when they are unheard. I know that so am tired of the overcrowding, congestion homelessness and two tiered justice system in my country and it is nothing to what is happening in Europe, the UK and US.
Wait a minute, I said that I had not wanted to watch it, but now I'm going to watch it because of the weekend's events, and the UK government's desperation to silence him! Why do you think I put a link to it in today's newsletter -- to encourage others to watch it. I saw 20 minutes of it before I decided to link it.
I think 20 years ago Tommy was a thug, but now he nasn't been for the last ten. The smears are for his past and exaggerated too. Watch the Jordan Peterson interview for great insight on his character. He isn't a grifter, and I don't think he wants to be a politician either, he's just a messenger.
I sympathise with your feelings towards Tommy Robinson. I also, for many years, saw his work with curiosity, but unfortunately that curiosity kept been watered away by a plethora of bad press. Nevertheless, I always felt a certain respect towards TR.
It wasn’t until his recent interview with Jordan Peterson that I decided that TR has my full moral support and that I started seeing him as a sign of hope for Britain. I don’t know if you’ve listened to the interview, but I urge you do. Not only the matters and facts he addresses are outrageous, but you see clearly TR’s tragic, but courageous, character. Please, listen to the interview if you haven’t:
Like you said with Camus’s Great Replacement Theory, being avoided or ignored for having been labeled as a racist-right-wing conspiracy: TR has been subjected to that same machinery. You’d not believe what he has been put through if you listed to this interview.
What a fantastic and riveting interview. The first part about the massive lie perpetrated about the Syrian student is great, but it really takes off when he starts talking about his battle against Muslim rape gangs and jihadi activity. As Peterson notes, these rape gang stories are so horrific that at first you wonder if it's just some tabloid exaggeration, but it was true and apparently done to a fair number of victims. The cover up by police and the lawfare against Robinson, the complete absence of integrity of the British government. These riots are quite understandable.
I don't watch much video content but I stuck around for the entire interview. Highly recommend.
I got to say it was one of the interviews which has impacted me the most in my life. And I do listen and watch many interviews.
In light of an interview like this, I agree with you, I strongly support the British protestors. I’m not sure about the looting and I do think the looters are horrible people that I wish were singled out by others (and jailed), but in all honesty, I cannot even begin to care a fraction as much for the looting as I care for the actual reasons of the protests. Particularly when policing has a much more relaxed standard for muslims, simply for being muslims, than working class whites have, simply for being working class white Brits.
I watched the JP interview this weekend. I also watch a lot of interviews but this one...this was terrifying. What is going on is COVID-level gaslighting, scheming, scamming, and agenda pushing. It is so egregious and the results are horrific (I think of TR talking about the dads who showed up to save their daughters from being raped and ended up getting arrested while the girls were left in the building with the grooming gang). Tommy Robinson is a hero, that's all I can say. Well, that, and I feel the need to prepare my family. For what? I'm not sure. But something big and something worse than COVID.
I myself see the COVID lockdowns something like a test to see how the populace reacts to tyranny. It’s as if the devil - who with each day that passes I’m more certain is real - is scheming a plan so twisted and diabolic that it is somewhat a ‘tiered’ plan. Forced communism failed (eventually). Now the devil is working to reach a form of oppression in which the main goal is the consent by the people to be tyrannised. COVID lockdowns were also meant to show who’s already on his side, and to test human race’s readiness for whatever the next stage or tier is in his diabolical plan.
I keep thinking climate change may be the next stage, or one of the following stages: the climate change narrative is decades in the making and I don’t think we’ve seen the peak of how Orwellian things can get in the name of climate. COVID-like lockdowns may well be in the making in the name of climate. The devil’s goal is, of course, ultimately to be worshipped without the need of a disguise like COVID, communism, climate, social justice, racial justice, gender affirmation, (insert woke cause).
The devil’s objective is to rule directly. Us Christians, we know how this ends. But before things take a dramatic turn with Jesus’s return, things are going to get worse.
Natalie, you are completely right and justified in thinking of protecting your family from whatever is coming. Whatever comes next may or may not be a big thing in the grand scheme of things, but what is certain is that our resilience and trust in God will be put to the test. We need spiritual tools and training to be prepared for that moment. If you haven’t already, I urge you to read ‘Live Not By Lies’ from Mr. Dreher - it’s one of those indispensable tools for our spiritual readiness.
I couldn't agree more with all of what you wrote. COVID was definitely a "trial balloon" to see what they could get away with. And COVID and everything around it is why I began to believe the devil is real and at work, and why I reverted to the Catholic faith.
I learned about Rod during COVID when he was on Jonathan Pageau's podcast talking about Live Not By Lies and thought "YES. This guy gets it." I bought the book (and The Benedict Option and Crunchy Cons) and tried to give it to our parish pastor and one of our deacons--but they'd already read it! One of our other priests had the Ben Op in his library in his office and we talked about it. Because of Rod's books and, of course, the coming trials for Christians, our parish has leaned in to small groups and forming strong bonds within our church.
That's the best I can prepare my family. We're getting very involved in church, prioritizing building relationships with faithful Christians, and have a bunch of freeze dried food and water filters/tablets. My husband is learning to hunt as well. Physical prepping is important, but I feel the real prepping must be spiritual.
I find fascinating to find likeminded people going through very similar journeys as myself! And it makes me feel hopeful to see priests in the Catholic Church reading that book. I myself am a Catholic but haven’t yet met anyone that has read Rod’s books (that I know of).
I haven’t yet read the Ben Op though but your comment was just the final push I needed to buy and read it. Thanks, and God bless you and your family!
Hello from the UK. I agree with your analysis of the underlying causes, but using language like "a riot is the language of the unheard" is ironic coming from the right given that versions of this were used by the left all over the summer of 2020 and after to excuse the BLM riots, and we rightly were having none of it. I'm not saying you're guilty of doing this, but some on the right are. The problem is, if it's ok to use this framing when "people like us" do it, then we don't really have a leg to stand on for criticising the BLM riots and other leftist violence. It risks becoming "who/whom" from the right. Any functional society needs maintenance of a bare level of civic order, so rioting must be suppressed. The fact this violence has happenened is morally wrong of itself, given the damage caused, people attacked, based in the immediate term on lies about the perpetrator of the stabbing in Southport. Further, it is also deeply idiotic in a tactical sense as it will give the Labour government a reason to crack down hard on the rioters (good) *and* those who share concerns abour mass immigration, demographic change, multiculturalism, two-tier policing etc and want to articulate them, now lumped in as part of "the far-right". The entire thing is an absolute moral and tactical disaster. Again, I'm not saying you're excusing the rioters, but talking about how there's little else that can be done is incorrect: the needle had started shifting in a really significant way away from open borders. These riots have devastated *majority white communities*, and have handed a weapon to the left to shut down to an even greater extent discussion of underlying problems. If rioting is the language of the unheard, the unheard are likely about to be silenced to an even greater extent.
I had hoped it would be clear from my piece that I condemn the riots not only as immoral, but stupid, for exactly the reason you point out. I quoted MLK back at the Left somewhat ironically, but I do think that in SOME circumstances it could be true. In the US, for example, there was in fact no epidemic of cops killing blacks (though polling showed that most people think there is). In the UK, it seems to me that whites, esp poor and working class ones, have legitimate grievances— but again, the riots are only going to make things worse for them. As I said in the piece, what I wrote is not a justification for the riots, but an explanation, or at least a partial one. Seems like the Ruling Class is desperate to pin this entirely on right wing extremists acting solely out of race hatred. A just-so story.
Hi Rod. My apologies. I should have acknowledged your explicit repudiation of the riots early on in your piece. That’s my fault for not doing so. My main concern is that some on the right, particularly on Twitter, have been a bit too soft on the rioters, without the explicit and unequivocal rejection that you made. They do a sort of pro forma “This is bad, BUT…”. The way they look at contributing factors has sometimes sounded like they’re excusing rather than explaining. This is a very delicate balance given the situation and is why I haven’t been back on Twitter since my break to say anything. Apologies again if it seemed I was lumping you in with this.
The gold standard, if that is the phrase, for riots is in my book South Central. That was shocking, all right, but it was, you know, sincere, especially as I had heard from more than one black friend just how awful the LAPD was (still? don't know). The Floyd riots, this ginned up Palestinian crap on the campuses, that's nothing, and it is pretty obviously orchestrated. Well, the U.K. rioting passes the test. The gold standard applies.
However, it has occurred to me that Starmer and his goons may not be at all displeased with the way this is going.
Half the people arrested for looting after the Rodney King protests were recent Guatemalan immigrants. One black-owned business was held up by a white guy and a Hispanic guy who walked out saying "F*** Rodney King." Near the beginning of a San Francisco protest, while the police were preoccupied down the line directing traffic, several 20-something thugs from the southeast corner of the city methodically broke into jewelry stores along the way. An old white lady tearfully told them this is not what the protest was about, but they really weren't there to protest, just taking advantage of the situation.
They’re going to use this as a basis for more Orwellian dictates. As James Lindsay says, “your reaction is the real action” they’re looking for in order to justify continuing the revolution.
The problem is, do we think actual peaceful protests would get the British government to sit up and listen? At what point WITHOUT riots does Starmer smack his forehead and say "My gosh, these people are right, we ARE treating our own people as second-class citizens?"
I agree riots are counterproductive. On the other hand, when all other protestations have failed, what's left?
It seems that any protest is being quashed. Did you see the example on X of the police clearly saying "pick one out" and then arresting a protester who was seemingly just standing there. If the guy threw a bottle then arrest him for sure, but the response looks a bit "Jan 6th-ish" to me.
The 2020 George Floyd riots were based on a lie; the 2024 riots in Northern England are based on the truth. That’s the difference. Doesn’t make rioting per se morally appropriate, but that’s the difference.
Yes, certainly. I had long been very critical—maybe not in this space, though—of the stupid high-handedness of post-Iraq War police forces who were using all kinds of surplus military equipment to deliver ordinary summonses and the like. The overuse of SWAT teams was definitely wrong and the ongoing harassment of black people in poor neighborhoods, as we saw in Ferguson, was completely unacceptable.
But that’s not what the summer of 2020 was really about. That was a generalized tantrum against all authority—historical, aesthetic, political, parental, whatever. Floyd was simply an excuse and the underlying discontents, in my view, were never brought out, viz., a severe crisis in meaning and purpose, the collapse of religion, etc.
I agree with the main thrust of your argument. But I also think we can't understand the 2020 rioting with including the Pandemic lockdowns which created a sense of life turned upside down for people.
I disagree. And without going into detail, which you and I are both capable of, that is the trouble with making that kind of pat little distinction. This is why families prohibit discussion of politics at Thanksgiving dinner. There are always one or two who say "the difference is, I'm telling the truth, and he's lying."
If you mean that the UK riots are based on the untruth that the Rwandan assailant in Southport is Muslim, then you’d be right. I’m saying that the riots are based not on that specific bit of misinformation but on the much larger truth of the situation of the native English working class vs. the largely Muslim immigrant community and the difference in the way the government is treating the two groups. Are you saying there is no such difference? That’s the problem, as I understand it. But I’ve been wrong before.
People responding to horrendous events in the news are no more motivated by deep statistical analysis than are people voting for or against a presidential candidate during a recession, rising or dropping gas prices, high unemployment, etc. In fact, its not even the stats about matters of imminent concern, its the way people FEEL about it all as they go to the polls. A lot of political dissent is rooted in a feeling that we are not in control of our lives and we're not sure who is in control or why but we want more respect and a live human being to respond to our questions and complaints.
If one wishes to say that the George Floyd riots were about general complaints with policing in the black community, then I’d agree with you. But as for the specifics of police shooting of unarmed men and the even more specific issue of Derek Chauvin’s guilt, the received stories are false and dubious, respectively.
In any case, who’s to say what any of these riots are actually about? Ask any given rioter and you’ll get a particular response. And these responses will likely differ greatly. Some of the rioters probably have little idea why they’re rioting anyway.
Indeed, riots have many individual motivations, plus those just running with whatever is happening or caught up in the moment. So we should be careful about ascribing much of any significance to them.
The truth about policing in any community is far more complex than the common back and forth political slogans conveys. I have no doubt of Derek Chauvin's guilt, although I'm less certain of the degree. I'd call it something like involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide. Maybe acting with depraved indifference to human life. (California employs that as one of two or three definitions for second degree murder -- but not all states used the same terms or structures different levels of crime the same way.) Basically, I agree with a former police officer who used to be a regular on some of Rod's posts, who said Chauvin got into a pissing contest with bystanders and made every officer's job infinitely more difficult. The other three officers, I might well have acquitted if I had been on the jury. There are officers who are arrogant, rude, etc., and while many of those are equal opportunity jackasses, some do focus on one or more disfavored ethnicity. Its also true that apolitical thugs use whatever is available as cover, and every time someone rants about "how black people are treated by police," doesn't mean its of any political significance at all.
I can concur with much here, but I’d differ on your final point. Police treatment of black people has become one of the most salient drivers of politics in the present day. Disagreement about the proper state response to persistent and severe disparities in violent crime among racial groupings and the police response to that crime is one of the primary defining differences between conservatives and left liberals in the entire Western world.
As always, I note that "left" and "liberal" are mortal enemies, although 21st century American culture is generally ignorant of the distinctions, or indeed of either word having precise meaning. Conservatives aren't always happy with police practices either. For instance, Rod posted a few years ago the SWAT team gunning down a man in a hotel in Arizona, as did a friend of mine who posted a lot of Black Lives Matter videos, and it was indeed horrendous, and the victim was quite a pale complexion. Also the time police responded to a 911 call about a man causing a disturbance at a bar -- the security guard had the guy on the ground, with a (legal) pistol pointing at his head. When police arrived, they promptly shot the security guard dead.
I agree though that we need to throw some cold water on the notion that anytime police respond they must be gentle, polite and respectful, and that anyone of a dark complexion should be treated extra gently. Thugs come in every race, creed, color and national origin, but at present more "black" people are economically behind, and that's the environment that produces thugs at the highest rate. Always has been. We can't get anywhere reducing this to "Black Lives Matter" v. "We Back the Badge."
Regarding that Ursula lady's address to the WEF,"...the top concern for the next two years is not conflict or climate, it is disinformation and misinformation, followed closely by polarization within our societies..."
They introduced the polarization device into their societies, c/o immigrants whose cultures are in opposition to the host culture. And now the chickens have come home to roost.
I agree Rod, we are so lucky to be living in Hungary, looking on at the madness unfolding in the West of Europe. This idyllic situation may not persist, if the Ukraine war expands and spreads further West, but let's enjoy it for now.
I sure feel smug as hell for having had the foresight to leave the UK 10 years ago.
I knew something was coming, something big, but I didn't know what it would be. All I knew is that it would start in 2020 and we would see substantial upheaval in the world from then on. I just wanted to be close to family in case the worst happened and I felt that the UK and London in particular would be very bad places to be during some sort of global upheaval. We are less than halfway through this very turbulent decade and it is already the worst one since the 1940s, with the Pandemic kicking it off in style.
Whilst I love London and the UK, living in such an ethnic melting pot, you can't help but notice, that things are only OK on the surface, whilst economic times are good, but tensions will soon boil over, especially when the economy turns sour.
Whatever you may think about Brexit politically, and I can certainly understand the sentiment behind it, economically, it's been a disaster for Britain and it has underperformed economically, since the 2016 Brexit vote and predictable disinvestment. Something similar happened in China since 2020 and it is also in the economic doldrums. Hungary seems to be booming in comparison, but I wouldn't count on that lasting forever. I am not talking about official GDP statistics here, which can easily be cooked and distorted (just underreport inflation and presto, change-o, your economic recession becomes modest growth. See www.shadowstats.com for more details), but about the everyday lived experience of ordinary citizens, how easy or difficult it is to find a job, for instance and whether young people see any prospects for the future.
The reason there hasn't been much unrest in France by the indigenous French is due to their comparatively rosy economic outlook. France looks set to benefit from current economic and geopolitical trends and they are energy secure, due to their large nuclear power industry, which also means, that unlike in Germany and the UK (and now increasingly, China), there hasn't been any deindustrialisation and French companies likes Airbus are doing really well.
The UK economy isn't going to get any better as long as they stay outside the single market and I doubt the political will is there to rejoin it, as it would mean having to accede to unpopular elements of the single market, like the four freedoms, one of which is freedom of movement.
I expect the UK economy will continue its slow decline due to lack of investment, though a lot will depend on the skill of the current labour government in negotiating with the EU.
This is a difficult dilemma for any nationalist politician as the case of Viktor Orbán shows. I'm sure he would be very happy to take Hungary out of the EU, given their increasingly authoritarian and anti-sovereignist tendencies. However, economically, it would destroy the country, so that is just not an option for now.
As in the case of the UK in the eighties, Hungary has become the preferred investment destination for Asian companies that want to set up shop in the EU, with free access to the single market, low corporate taxes and minimal regulation, with even a guest worker scheme that can provide the labour, that the Hungarian labour market cannot provide, due to historically low birth rates and emigration. A lot of those investments, that ended up coming to Hungary, could have gone to the UK, but Brexit has basically entirely killed demand for Asian companies wanting to set up shop in the EU via the UK.
Like it or not, Asia is now the economic giant of the world, not Europe or even North America. True, China is currently in an epic recession, but that also means they are much keener to invest abroad, with Hungary rivalling Germany in terms of the amount of battery manufacturing capacity that is being built there, mostly from Chinese and South Korean companies.
It will take significant further impoverishment and demographic change in the UK to turn this ship around. It needs to rejoin the single market and the customs union as a first priority, though the damage has already been done, so it will only be a stopgap measure. Then, investment needs to be encouraged through various means, such as tax incentives. Ireland is a great example of how this can be achieved.
For the foreseeable future, the working and middle classes in the UK will continue to get poorer, therefore it is easy to foresee, that interethnic conflict, rioting and general unrest will continue with it. What most commentators miss, is how this is all a reflection of the UK's class system, which is so rigid and antiquated, that the only comparison, that springs to mind is the caste system in India. Admittedly, it's not quite as bad and there is considerable social mobility nowadays, it still drives UK politics and what we are seeing in the UK today is a class revolt, almost comparable to the French or Bolshevik revolutions in its grassroots structure and the desire to overthrow the established social order, of which the Tories have always been the chief custodians.
Britain's ruling class, in power since 1066 and ethnically different and distinct from the indigenous population that make up the bulk of the country, have failed spectacularly and the oppressed lower classes have had enough. They are now revolting against their rulers and it will be interesting to see where this takes up, but I wouldn't at all be surprised to see Norman heads on pikes.
"I sure feel smug as hell for having had the foresight to leave the UK 10 years ago."
Respectfully, Chris, Hungary is one election away from being irretrievably changed. Once the EU gets their person in power... Orban and his sort won't win forever. Then what?
That might happen eventually. Hungary is Hungary, whether Orbán is in power or someone else. His main rival is an ex-Fidesz member, also a conservative and on the centre-right. He agrees with the current government's stance on migration and the Ukraine war. So, overall, I don't see any real possibility for a political sea change, the electoral support for such parties, simply isn't there.
If the ex-communists and neo-liberals got power, I'd worry, but they're polling in the single digits. The three main political parties in Hungary right now are all right-wing.
Tisza, Fidesz's main rival is centre-right conservative. Fidesz, in coalition with the Christian Democrats is populist right, ostensibly conservative and Mi Hazánk is far right. The other parties are inconsequential and have no prospect of electoral success. By the way, this has historic precedent, left-wing parties never did particularly well in Hungary, when there was true democracy, conservative parties were dominant. It took 40 years of Soviet Occupation to normalise left-wing parties, but that generation is now mostly gone and the Left wing is just not popular here. I say this as someone who wouldn't mind seeing a Social Democratic party in charge, but there isn't one.
Leaving the EU would be economic suicide for all of these countries (the UK has far more options in that regard, being an island nation and having historical links with much of the rest of the world), so there are limits to how obstructive they can be to EU decision-making. Orban's new strategy is to find allies and try to change the EU's direction of travel from within.
yes, for sure. I am not crazy about the so-called "Eastern Opening" strategy, it carries a lot of risk. Russia and China are both unstable places, that collapse from time to time. Soviet Russia collapsed in 1991 (Life span 70 years plus change), but can collapse again and fractue into even smaller pieces.
Communist China is now 75 years old, overdue for a collapse in my view. Orbán may yet find, he bet on the wrong horse.
A few weeks ago, Melanie Phillips (The Spectator, Guardian, Telegraph, Times UK) had a podcast which I found informative on the deeper reasons for the demise of the UK Conservative Party, going back to the Thatcher days.
The second part of the podcast deals with the prognosis for Jews in the UK but the first half is heavy on the Conservatives' decline. She makes some interesting points.
Dr Philip Kiszely writes (note: "gammon" is the slur that middle class leftwing Brits use for the white working class---in reference to the classic cheap pub meal of gammon, eggs and chips):
I condemn the violence. It sickens me to the core.
The problem is:
You tell poor people to make reparations.
You ‘educate’ them into guilt and shame.
You relentlessly deconstruct the culture.
You dismiss concerns about women and children.
You manipulate the narrative when something tragic happens.
YOU DON’T LISTEN.
It’s one rule for some…
Your grievance-mongering has been relentless.
You constantly scapegoat white men.
You call white women Karens.
We are all so much GAMMON to you.
YOU DON’T LISTEN.
You shove luxury beliefs down our throats.
You call us far-right for complaining about mass immigration.
You turn context on and off at will.
You re-write history.
YOU DON’T LISTEN.
You think we deserve all we get.
The idiots wreaking havoc are your mirror image. Look at what they’re doing - then think about what you’ve done.
If the ruling class really thinks they can solve the recruitment crisis with their new clients, recall that more than twice as many British Muslims fought for the Islamic State satanic death cult than served in Her Majesty's Armed Forces.
Welp, I’m going to grab my fiddle and watch it all burn down. I just don’t think I can care anymore. What’s left of the West isn’t worth saving. Let it all fall apart like the 500s again and we can try to not spit on God’s face when we rebuild. No democracies this time. They never work. Men need a Godly king to obey. I’ll be in my cave.
Oh to be so cool under pressure. I have a 3 year old grandson that I hope will have a real future.
I have kids. All I can do is teach them to know God, tell them stories of who we once were and do everything I can to physically protect them. It’s not up to me after that.
There is plenty to preserve in the West. Ask Orban, Musk or Bukele.
In religion, people must return to God.
In politics, we must return to the Constitution. Those are not either/or choices, nor does one inevitably follow from the other. They are two different matters.
The difficulty of course is what returning to either one means. Not being trained in theology, nor called, I will limit myself to expounding the Constitution. It is, first and foremost, a jurisdictional document. It is not a laundry list of Good and Evil. It allocates certain powers, which may and should legitimately be exercised. It restrains or forbids the exercise of certain powers in certain ways or areas. Because it is not a laundry list of priorities and sentiments, it has survived almost 250 years, with some prudent amendments, rather than being rewritten and replaced every few decades.
The role of the courts is not to second guess the wisdom of legislatures and executives, federal or state, but to rein in either when they exceed the authority constitutionally delegated or left to them, or exercise a power that is forbidden to them. Otherwise, the role of the courts is to give effect to the intent of the legislature, with regard to laws that are not in violation of a constitutional restraint.
That's what we need to affirm. Things will begin to heal if we can manage that.
A few amendments might also be wise -- but those would be the next step.
I think you are right. The U.S. constitution is why, even in my darkest moments reading this substack or scrolling X, I still have hope for the U.S. I think the separation of powers and the thought that went into instituting that in our Government, is the keystone. The Bill of Rights is a close second.
The poor Brits have no Bill of Rights, and it has hastened the totalitarian takeover of their country. The EU "constitution" is like 5000 pages long. It's absurd.
Rod, the time for peaceful protests to demand change is long over. As a Christian, I want us to all live peacefully and get along, but that doesn’t seem to be one of the options for our generation in this time. Riots? That’s the minimum because the powers that be can’t be bothered otherwise. I’m not saying it’s effective, but when people have no voice, they have no choice.
Re: Rod, the time for peaceful protests to demand change is long over
That's exactly what radical leftists said about the riots we experienced in the US in 2020. It was BS then and it's BS now.
Lawless violence is NEVER legitimate.
Hi Jon311👋🏼👋🏼
I agree. And I think we really haven't tried a bunch of peaceful protests in the U.S. The closest we have now are the Trump rallies. But we need to start thinking about what we can do after Trump loses. Jan 6 gave them a pretext to crack down on the Trump/populist movement. It was not fully peaceful or non-violent. We can't make that mistake again.
John, don't be defeatist. In 1988, Dukakis was going to be an easy winner over Bush. Everyone knew that except Lee Atwater. Gee, give Cackles her moment in the spotlight. If you don't know Estee Palti's work, go to her YouTube channel. Estee Palti is a genius. I have never seen an impressionist who captures the nubbins of his, or her, subject better than she. Seriously, I think it's possible that by herself Estee Palti could swing enough votes against Harris to make a significant difference in the election if she's given the exposure she needs.
Happier things aside, come on, dude, campaigns do mean something. Granted, people are in general duller and more prejudiced than they were in 1988, but please, Harris is as insubstantial as helium. Trump needs to be given a dose of clonazepam an hour before the debate. He should be extremely effective.
When Cackles is the official nominee, media outlets, which as we know are Leftist but are ambitious first, will be competing with one another to find former Cackles employees and even current ones ( well disguised by lighting and voice distortion ) to arrest to what an insufferable bully - a termagant - she really is.
I was cheered that in his Atlanta speech, Trump had found a word to counter the Left's evil mauling of Vance's rep with the word, "weird," "freaks." Freaks, freaks, freaks. Sound it far and wide. I hate that our politics have become so degraded. I suppose countries get not just the leaders but the politics they deserve.
The Left is out to cut our throats, and I'm not going quietly.
Thanks for the pep talk Bobby. I agree completely and will make a supreme effort to cut the defeatist talk. It's not helpful; plus it makes me gloomy!
Campaigns do matter. They must.
Thanks for the Estee Palti link, I hadn't heard of her. She's funny. I'm going to run her by my wife to test the waters with a liberal audience.
Well, at some point it is. Thomas Jefferson said so in the Declaration of Independence, and that was giving voice and form to facts already under way on the ground. The conundrum is, when is lawless violence legitimate, and how do we tell?
Perhaps just war doctrines apply. Rioting seldom offers a chance of success for replacing a current regime with one that is better. The events of 2020 you reference had essentially two components: more or less peaceful protests, and, apolitical opportunists rushing in to loot businesses while the police were distracted. One didn't rise to the level of revolution, and the other didn't pretend to have any principles whatsoever.
The Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party might have been just a riot, if they had not, with 20/20 hindsight, been revered as forerunners of more astute and focused political and military actions. These riots... probably will not be such precursors, but we won't know for some time with absolute certainty.
Yeah, just give up.
Who said anything about giving up? My comment was about not choosing lawless violence. There are other choices on offer.
"What are British people who have had enough of this supposed to do? The answer is: organize peaceful mass protests, demanding change." Ah, something the British establishment can completely ignore. And still denounce as far-right white supremacy.
Do you know the size of the Labour majority in Parliament?
Modern British parliament is an elected dictatorship. Labour can and will squash the leaders of the rioters just as surely a man's hand can crush an ant.
It doesn't help that the Brits have no bill-of-rights.
Pardon me for hanging a somewhat irrelevant comment of mine on yours, John, but if I put this at the end of the queue, no one will see it.
I don't have X, but there are some excellent YouTube channels which give us the truth of what is happening in Britain. The Podcast of the Locus Eaters is generally quite good but more intellectual than journalistic. Mahyar Tousi's channel is excellent. He's an Iranian immigrant, a Londoner, and he does great journalism. He has a pleasant contempt for official verities. I love Tousi's sign off line: "We are the media."
Damned right.
I understand the "queue" problem. Feel free to attach a comment anytime!
Britain has had problems with its violent young men for a long time. Remember the football (soccer) riots? Or how English soccer fans were banned from matches elsewhere in Europe for years?
It finally calmed down during the Blair years, when there was enough economic growth to give people real alternatives.
Now, the economy has been stagnant for years, and is falling behind the rest of Europe post-Brexit. Housing is unaffordable in the only areas with jobs. And yes, it's because the Tories have been botching everything for far too long. But this didn't come from nowhere.
A regime that takes care of its people, or makes sure they are taken care of, is one that generally doesn't have to worry about riots.
True. The specific problem in the 70s and 80s was the same as now: insufficient economic growth and opportunities. It is indeed the responsibility of the regime to create the conditions for growth to flourish. My point was that the much maligned Blair was the one who did it.
Yeah but look at the the type of growth it was, rooted in debt and stock market fantasies and deindustrialization.
Worst of all, it was too rooted in financialization, and didn't do anything for the declining industrial base. I'm not saying it was perfect. But the long term solution to this unrest lies in economic growth.
I agree but it needs to be sustainable economic growth, as opposed to more debt and more financialization, i.e. stock market games.
The governing regimes in most of the world now arrogantly proclaim something to be true, and if we don't agree, we become (fill in the blank...threats to democracy, radical right, believers in misinformation, etc. etc ad nauseam). Meanwhile they commit serial depredations: 1)Biden is sharp as a tack, or No, now he is "unfit" (but he can stay president). 2) Kamala is a dope and unpopular, and Now, she is "brat" and brilliant in pursuing all her portfolios as VP (but don't ask her to respond to an unscripted question. Universities claim to be places of free inquiry with "safe spaces", but No safe space for Jewish students. Rioting is wrong when the rioters are working class or the dreaded MAGA, but virtuous when pursued as "mostly peaceful" in 2020 (against backdrops of burning buildings). The U.S. economy is great, sure prices are up a bit but hey job growth is terrific (ignore that 10 or the last 14 months job figures were subsequently revised downwards). We should be mindful of women's rights, sure, and folks like Harvey Weinstein are wretched but wait, a man posing as a woman can literally knock women's jaws with impunity in the Olympics so that the two finalists in Women's sports are XY men. But don't offend LGBTQ+. It is "weird" to be pro-family but normal to express interest in (fill in the blank--pedophilia, polyamory, bestiality, sex with robots...) The climate is a total Stage 12 emergency but those addressing it can maintain "carbon heavy" lifestyles and sure, its ok to manipulate temperature records to promote the cause. Exaggeration is evil and Hitlerian but its ok to recruit former and current government leaders to argue that items like Hunter Biden's laptop are "fake" and sure, the Russians are constantly interfering in our elections but the $400M donated by Zuckerberg to "help" in elections is AOK and honest.
Need I go on?
Anyone that uses the term disinformation and misinformation has a blaring red flag on their truthfulness. If only Mark Twain were here to expand his comments on lies.
Good summary. Thing is, reality has a way of crashing through the narrative. As I write this stock markets are plunging around the world - I wonder how the elite might spin a "Biden recession" just as Kamala is set to ascend to the throne.
Clearly, it is Trump's fault.
Well, he certainly doesn't help.
Stock markets go up and stick markets go down. Would that I had a dollar for every time someone descried "recession!:": when the markets took a dump. I'm old enough to remember the abrupt crash of October 19 1987 when the commentariat was woe-saying about the coming "Reagan depreesson", which somehow never manifested.
But you're also old enough to remember the dot-com recession and the crash of '08. As I write this the Dow is down over 1,000 points.
Point is, the Kamala narrative relies on a belief that the economy is doing well and all we need to do is continue the policies of the Biden era. A crashing stock market will make that far more difficult for Team Blue.
Yes, I had a ringside seat for the real estate bubble and bust. Nothing of the sort is happening today.
Who says the stock market will be crashing in three months? Or even three weeks?
Jon, the Dow Jones will be over 40,000 again when the Federal Reserve Board drops the discount rate by .5%. Wall Street is hooked on low interest rates like John Belushi on heroin.
The Fed has kept interest rates high too long.
How many times do our benevolent leaders have to tell you stupid dum-dum peasants that $11/lb ground beef is only a 7% increase from 5 years ago?
Exactly.
I just found 2 1/2 pounds of sliced beef with a discount pricing label for a total of $11. That's the only way I buy meat now -- and it feels like I paid too much, but it was marked down from $!8. However, I can still get three whole pounds of 85% lean ground beef patties at ALDI for a total of $11.99.
3 months is probably not enough time for the Stock Market plunge to work its way into the Main Street economy.
The market can (and has) stayed down longer than people of advanced age can survive it.
If one were paying attention, you'd have seen that the long term Japanese period of no growth (and attendant low rates) was set to change. With Japanese rates increasing, the "carry trade" (basically arbitrage leveraging cheap borrowing rates in Yen to buy other stocks) is being unwound. Most likely markets will settle later this week but will remain choppy for awhile.
Most knowledgeable folks know that unending debt--with our debt at highest level vs. GDP EVER (including periods of war)--is not sustainable. That plus the disastrous energy and other policies pursued by the Dems are terrible for growth outlook. Markets definitely would prefer an R win as one that presages better economic outlook.
The partisan analysis here is balderdash. "Markets", AKA rich people, might prefer GOP tax cuts (and never mind they explode the deficit yet further) but historically, including in the last twenty ears, Republicans tend to leave us with recessions while Democratic administrations tend to preside over periods of growth and expansion and even deficit reduction (once they've mopped up after the recession they inherit).
No not rich people. Those invested. Thanks for the ad hominem buzz Jon.
Who do you think has the bulk of they money in the market? Hint: It's not waitresses or even auto mechanics. It should be staringly obvious that those people have particular personal interests which are apt to be rather at variance from the rest of us.
That's silly, Jon. We have had few recessions in my lifetime and most have been relatively short. Reagan inherited a bad economy, Clinton inherited an economy just a few months out of a small recession, Bush II inherited an economy just a few months out of a small recession and Obama inherited a recession from Bush II. I think Obama was a bad president but I do not fault him for what Bush gave him economically.
Jon is routinely silly.
The Reagan Depression had been going on for some time already. I was working some pretty mean streets in those days, and people felt it long before pundits and stock analysts began to consider it.
My dear NNTX, I think it's as ready to burst as an overripe plum still on the vine. I think Trump may be the unlikeliest of godsends.
We can but hope
I learned this week how effective the media gaslighting has been. I am visiting family in Japan. They watch CNN. My brother in law was giving me a hard time about how anti-immigrant the West is. I tried to explain that Americans are against ILLEGAL immigration, not immigration in general. He was unaware that therr is any ILLEGAL mmigration, thinking that all enter legally through regular ports of entry. When I mentioned that Biden had invited people to come, he informed that that was disinformation. When I said it wasn't he demanded proof. Things went downhill as I tried to explain that CNN itself spreads disinformation. The clincher was when I said CNN had covered up Biden's dementia. At this point he began to yell at me for trying to deceive him because English is his second language. He is convinced that Biden is fine.
Oh wow. This reminds me of a very bitter argument I got into a few years back with a now former friend, who accused me of lying when I brought up basic facts that ran counter to her preferred (progressive) narrative. It was astonishing to see. This is an educated, literate person, yet she could not conceive that she might be wrong. This is the same person who later ended our forty-year friendship because, in a letter to the editor in which I supported Trump's second impeachment, I made the unforgivable moral error of saying that Trump as president had done some good things.
I have decided that it's better to keep silent from now on and preserve a family connection. The gap in perception is too big to bridge.
I hear you, David. A question, though, I believe that Japan has a draconian approach to immigration and absolutely NO illegal immigration. Is this verboten as a topic with your b-in-law?
Oddly, no. He is quite open in talking about Japan and xenophobia. Being from Okinawa, he has seen Japanese prejudice first hand. It was only when I pushed back on the US mainstream media narrative that he became angry. CNN has done a good job.
i stopped arguing politics with my friends and family on the right or left a few years ago, once it dawned on me how blasted by propaganda their brains are, how helpless most people are to think clearly and sanely in our sensationalized media environment, and how pointless it is to attempt debate when what we're dealing with is akin to cult indoctrination, just with different dynamics.
the phones and our other devices work off operant conditioning (meaning they addict people to potential rewards like a slot machine), the algorithms are constantly perfecting a toxic crack rock of fear, panic and hatred, social media magnifies the most incendiary people and statements, and all this gets fed to tribalized brains trapped in a constant tribal battle mode.
the modern media environment is radically unraveling and remaking all our societies and communities in a way that we havent seen since Gutenberg.
Gotcha and ditto. I complained to a friend that the Olympics opening ceremony was offensive. My friend replied: 1) "Well, it wasn't the last supper. It was a painting, purportedly of the last supper" and 2) "That wasn't the entire opening ceremony. Just a small part of it."
"i stopped arguing politics with my friends and family"
Already in 2016, there was a "no politics" rule in place for Thanksgiving on the maternal side of my family. An uncle was almost tossed out for violating it before he wisely shut up.
Clickbait, no matter what sort, is a dopamine hit. And the tech lords know this. This is one of the many reasons I will not get a smartphone -- they intentionally foster addiction.
I don't know that its "blasted by propaganda." Its more, there are certain premises inculcated by their bubble of confirmation bias, which they axiomatically take as true, and, anyone who varies from those axioms is not merely wrong, but insane. There is a counterpart in Trump supporters who are so utterly sold on the idea that an election was "stolen" by "fraud" that they can't conceive of this not being fundamental to any respectable thought process.
Japan isn't as strict against immigration as claimed. One odd thing is that the immigrants, from Brazil, Vietnam and the Philippines, tend to be Catholic, and are driving Japan's Christianisation.
Interesting!
Aren’t they usually people of Japanese descent? Are they taking Africans?
The Brazilians tend to be partly Japanese, although often just one great grandparent, say. Otherwise, they tend to be SE Asian. I get the feeling there’s a no-Muslims policy.
This is my approach. It's painful, but less painful than the alternative. Many people, including many of my family members, cannot conceive of the possibility that they've been lied to again and again.
I have tried, repeatedly, for years, to rationally, logically, calmly discuss important matters with my legislator and many of my neighbors in the very, very blue state in which I reside. There is no spirit of humbleness in their minds and hearts. They are right and you are wrong... end of conversation.
Our property taxes went up 25% over last year. A $2200 increase. Now it's over $11,000 dollars a year for some wooded acreage which cannot be developed. For which we get absolutely no services. They do not plow our road or otherwise maintain it. That was "given" to the residents years ago. They have no emergency services. Only a volunteer FD in which they all work outside the town. The school is a leftist indoctrination camp. And my state just voted in free childcare regardless of your income level. Amongst many other heinous things.
So, I'm good. They won't have a conversation; they continue to tax us to death, and they are shoving their crap down our throats. I'm good, let's get it done. Bring on the riots. Let's refresh that Liberty Tree.
What makes you stay? Red states are pretty nice.
Excellent question. Short answer: don't have the resources-money, energy and stamina.
We built a sustainable homestead. We can't recreate it without either years of work, which we can no longer accomplish or money, which we don't have. We have livestock enclosures and pastures that we built, large gardens and fences, fruit and nut trees, rainwater harvesting etc. etc. etc.
I would love to live in western Montana.
Trust me, I've run the numbers forwards and backwards. We would effectively be giving up everything we worked years for and can't reproduce it at our age.
Thanks for the question Mary.
Fellow New Englander here, PB. I'm in RI and feel much as you do. To what you've said about why you stay, I'd add that the people, like the land, are mostly lovely. Go anywhere people shop or gather and you'll find good, friendly, accommodating neighbors. You're only aware of the blue that surrounds you when the voting returns come in, the taxes go up to support things you loathe and, of course, the bias of the local media shows. Which is, admittedly, daily. Still, I wouldn't have to go far for my Shangri-La. A secluded oceanfront "summer home" in Watch Hill would do just fine.
Next door to Taylor Swift no doubt. She used to have a home there anyway.
Sounds like paradise. I'd give anything to be in a quiet natural area. And you've worked at it. Sticking where you are if possible is a good choice IMO.
It is most definitely quiet, most of the time. It's most addictive. Now being around lots of people and cars and such is a bit exhausting. I don't like being behind "enemy lines" but I also won't go "quietly into that good night" either.
I'd rather shovel out the turkey coop or stack wood or pull weeds when I'm not blathering on Substack.
I'd still like to be back out west. But, this is where I'm needed and where we've built, so this where we'll stay and fight. Next time you're in New England, give a shout out. I'll show you some restful acres and good people.
I'm sorry to hear that your dream home/homestead has been locked into a dire Blue State.
Me too. But sometimes we are led to places for reasons we cannot fathom. I hope I'm living by His will and design. I haven't always been listening. But something powerful moved me enough to get me and my family and possessions across country and plant roots.
Some red states have horrible property tax rates too. Florida for example-- it has no state income tax, but high sales tax rates and painful property taxes anywhere desirable to live.
By contrast blue state Delaware, where I moved from last year, has no sales tax at all, a fairly modest state income tax and low property taxes.
These things do not always pattern by politics.
Southern Delaware tends to attract retirees from Washington and Baltimore for the reasons you give.
Amazing how circumstances change positions, isn't it?
Mr. Iocobuzio, were you replying to me or someone else? If it was me, how did I change positions, just curious?
I was replying to somebody else. Don't know how this happened.
No worries! Thanks for clarifying!
I hear you, Rod. I have a thirty-plus year friendship on the rocks; we were best man in each other's weddings. Said friend is also educated, literate, has lived in multiple countries, big US cities and a small rural town. He has life experience. Yet, he has gone full ideologue. Justice is what matches his opinions. His facts are alien to what news I follow. What makes continuing the friendship unlikely is that he seems incapable of setting politics to the side. He must speak of it. It's his theology, philosophy and, sadly, where he derives his meaning. Thinks he's part of some great struggle on behalf of humanity against retrogrades and bigots.
Same for me. Pretty apolitical until 2020. Tolerated a lifelong friend's barbs at various political people. Then she went after my husband and that's when I had to cut ties. I like Musk's term, "woke mind virus" but there is no antibiotic for this. I prefer to call it the woke mind cancer. It's either going to kill the host or the treatment will.
I believe it was Winston Churchill who defined a fanatic as a man who can't change his mind, and won't change the subject.
We are rewatching Churchill, "The Wilderness Years". Much of interest to current events.
You should read the William Manchester series on Churchill. It is very good. So is Andrew Roberts.
You're right. I read my first bio of Churchill as a 10 year old at camp (some years ago ha-ha-ha). Churchill's multi-volume on WW2 also great, though I haven't read it all.
One thing never changes, and we all know what it is: for a great many of these people, it will always be the fault of da Joooz, da Joooz, da Joooz!!
I have a conservative and Christian acquaintance whose politics and religious views match mine. A cordial and mature guy. But he sees these BS videos on the Internet and, despite being pretty intelligent, doesn't fact-check their sensational claims. But if I suggest they are wrong his domineering side emerges and its isn't worth being around.
I know for myself, when I do that, despite knowing better, I realize I am afraid of something. It often takes me quite awhile before I figure out what it is. I know intellectually that these folks are afraid, but in the moment, I often lose my patience.
I have to say, I use to dismiss conspiracy theories without any thought. Now, I let it marinate and then I dig a little then I ponder. Many times I just stick it in the file called, "Who knows?" Lately, I've been pulling those files out and moving them to a different "folder".
Give him the Doonesbury cartoon series on Mark Slackmeyer's efforts to get a summer job in construction to bring the good news of the revolution to the workers who were in need of enlightenment. Its hilarious.
I'll bet he also has the money to vulcanize himself against the things which will occur if his candidates win.
No, he doesn't. He finances are a bit of a shamble, actually.
Alcuin, the way these comments appear ( on my phone, anyway ), it would take me too long to go back through all of them to find what you are responding to. I'm embarrassed to admit that while I never make a comment here without being convinced it's true, or at least probable, at the moment, I don't remember who it was I was writing about.
?
You were commenting in response to this description of my friend where I wrote:
"I hear you, Rod. I have a thirty-plus year friendship on the rocks; we were best man in each other's weddings. Said friend is also educated, literate, has lived in multiple countries, big US cities and a small rural town. He has life experience. Yet, he has gone full ideologue. Justice is what matches his opinions. His facts are alien to what news I follow. What makes continuing the friendship unlikely is that he seems incapable of setting politics to the side. He must speak of it. It's his theology, philosophy and, sadly, where he derives his meaning. Thinks he's part of some great struggle on behalf of humanity against retrogrades and bigots"
I have too many friends and family who have utterly bought into demonstrable lies about so many things. I’m not talking about squishy topics like climate change, where interpreting data could lead to varied conclusions, but things like the various comments Trump has made, denials regarding the Russian collusion stuff, denials regarding FBI crime stats, denials regarding trans matters, the contents of books like Gender Queer, etc.
One is discredited merely for noticing and mentioning the truth about these things. Or for, as you discovered, simply exercising a bit of moral humility in acknowledging that people are not all bad, that Trump has, on occasion, done some good.
My life would become an impossible hell if I insisted on the truth of one tenth of these things. Fortunately, most of it is current-events stuff that isn’t relevant to making sure the bills are paid and that the house is in good order.
Just to be as even-handed as can be…I ALSO have family and friends, who are otherwise Trump-supporters, who think that Covid itself was a complete hoax, or just the flu, at most. They refuse to consider the fact that I had healthy colleagues at work in their early 50s who died from it.
But on the whole, the self-deceptions on the left seem to far outnumber those on the right, if only because the underdog MUST see clearly in order to survive.
Not trying to start an argument, but did they really die from COVID? Or did they die from their comorbidity in the presence of COVID? Or did they die from COVID treatments? And were they "vaccinated" which is showing horrific numbers of increased mortality rates as compared to the unvaccinated? I can converse about all three from both a clinical and personal perspective. COVID wasn't a hoax, it existed and initially was severe and virulent but quickly, very quickly (1 month or less) mutated to be a on par with the cold or mild flu.
Also not arguing that there are many who have implacable unmovable beliefs on the right or conservative side as well.
Honestly, what is far scarier to me, is the profound effect the "vaccines" had and continues to exert. The numbers of cancer rates exploded in unheard of amounts. And yet, only the "fringe" are talking about it. Just my two cents worth.
One of my colleagues had no co-morbidities at all. He was a very fit and healthy 51-year old. He had undergone little of the initial treatment that we saw early on. His case was late—summer of 2001. Not vaccinated.
I’m willing to consider that the vaccines themselves are problematic and that the disease was certainly demagogued ridiculously by the Woke types. But it was/is real and people were dying from it even a year into the pandemic.
Thanks for replying CrossTieWalker. I'm curious, sorry can't help myself, do you know what specific treatment your friend received?
And yes, people did die. But it remains to be discovered exactly what they died of. There was an "unintended" incentivization by Medicare and other insurance companies to compensate hospitals for treating patients with COVID. At least two reports of people with gunshot wounds that although they tested positive post mortum, that had nothing to do with the leaky hole in their head or chest. Only two examples, to be sure. I personally had a very good friend who, aged 55, in relative good health, (no obesity, fit, non smoker) vaccinated, developed COVID, was put on ventilator and given remdesivir. Died in less than 24 hours of treatment. In my personal opinion, he didn't die from COVID; he died from the treatment. There is a tremendous amount of documentation out there but difficult to find due to various factors,that supports that conclusion. You could start with the big dogs... Drs Robert Malone, Peter McCullough , Jay Bhattacharya and analyst Steve Kirsch. I didn't come to it on my own. While that doesn't let people off the hook for wild and off the reservation theories, I have come to discover, painfully, that there is likely more truth in those theories than tinfoil hat ideas.
My own skepticism was due to long held medical practices (historically, safe identification and treatment of new diseases takes a minimum of 24 months, vaccine effectiveness 12-24 months, manufacturing 8-12 months) that were bypassed. So when we go from a novel virus in Nov/Dec of 2019 to a vaccine in Dec of 2020, followed by a mandate after being told to engage in completely unscientific measures and told to shut up by your peers and administration when you attempt to point out the accepted practices prior to a few months ago.... Yeah, my BS meter was pegged out. When well respected providers are fired for reporting adverse effects of the shot... Yeah, off the chart alarms. And then time passed and people are distracted by the next thing and the next thing. We are SO primed for this to go off again and this time, it will be much worse. A more destructive virus or more thorough lockdown and control.
Och, I've bent your ear long enough. Sure and your thinking I'm a whack job. I tell ya, for awhile there, I thought I was losing me mind!! Now I know, we were all being artfully manipulated and still are. God have mercy on us all.
Yes, it's real and can indeed be quite severe. My first round was (though not hospitalized) but second round was just a cold. Have not been vaxed but it's a tradeoff. If I were older and I thought it could therefore kill me I'd roll the dice on the vaccine harms.
This. They can afford to believe untrue nonsense, whereas the benefit of being the ideological minority is it forces you to weigh your positions carefully.
Not to tout Nietzsche too much here, but the “will to truth” often does seem to begin in the resentments of the overtly powerless. That, after all, is why victims are so celebrated today. Except that they’re no longer the victims except in name—rather like Renaissance popes preaching the virtues of poverty.
I welcome the Nietzsche references. Freud said he was the most honest man to ever live. Peterson adores him. He’s worth considering.
We’ve all experienced many-decades-long friendship endings with this exact scenario since 2016, I am afraid
The only loss of that sort I've had was a cousin who has vanished into the nuthouse of Qanon, and she no longer talks to anyone who isn't on board with that. She was always one for tinfoil hattery, and over the years we barely said three words about politics but apparently she's gotten to the "If you're not with me you're against me" phase of fanaticism.
Your friend can hang out with my mom, then. For almost 5 years now she doesn’t even really talk to her grandchildren; she just spouts a bunch of Q mumbo-jumbo at them. Doesn’t know or care what anyone is up to, just cares that every person she knows, encounters, or is descended from her is someone to preach at.
Oops—I mean cousin
I don't doubt that there are such people. I think I lost contact with one old friend who couldn't handle my critique of the manner in which Trump is attacked in the media (albeit I have many criticisms of the man), and I lost one over the Kentucky students who got caught up in that fracas on the Mall between Black Hebrews and a drummer. But I find it hard to fathom for the most part. I have conversations with Trump voters all the time. I make no concessions on why I don't trust him, we talk easily about things we agree on, I hear their reasons for voting as they do, some of which are quite rational, others are absolutely without factual basis, and I say why I think so. Is that so uncommon?
Maybe it's best not to discuss/argue about politics with family members?
Yes, but sometimes family members make it impossible not to discuss such things. I’ve been pressed to reveal my opinions on many occasions. I’ve been more or less able to dissemble or to bore by offering a blizzard of talk and detail that quickly loses my pursuer in a fog.
I appreciate what few friends I can find and I'm not hanging out w/them to force my views on them (not possible otherwise I might make some effort). So I just mentally write off the idea I might change their views and I won't permit an argument to begin (as resembles your strategy). Nothing to gain by arguing.
I’m fortunate that my only sibling, my sister, has the same political outlook as me.
I've written before about my English cousins visiting me in the late 1980's. They were sure that all of us Irish-American, working class, cousins, were racists. I was a police officer at the time and yes, I arrested a lot of black people......I worked in drug-filled, housing projects during "The War on Drugs". One of the questions was "How's the racism, then?" as my smirking cousins made eye contact with each other.
One moved to southern Spain, and drops nasty comments on Facebook about anyone questioning the (CNN) narrative you speak of. One moved to rural Ireland, back to the home our mothers were raised in. He's been on "the dole" for decades. He smokes and watches cable TV all day long with a few weekly jaunts to the pub in town. But the third guy stayed in England, I'm pretty sure he's in downtown Birmingham, and he's oddly quiet on FB. I'm afraid to log on to FB now. I like these cousins, but they most likely don't want "the buzz" to end. I get it. My wife is similar and I love her to death. I don't push it any more. This comment section keeps me sane.
A Japanese is lecturing (or hectoring) you on immigration...? Perhaps, you might concede that he is correct and from here on out, the US should follow Japan's policies of immigration and multiculturalism...
The point was that he is following the narrative that he hears from US media. As an Okinaawan he is well aware of how xenophobic Japan can be. The treatment of Okinawan civilians by the Japanese military in WWII was awful.
How good is Japan about reporting the fine details of US politics? That mistake you cite is not something any American would make. The opinions and (mis)understandings of the Japanese are quite irrelevant to the matter.
I don't want to live in a country where ANYBODY, of ANY religion or ANY race, has to feel threatened because of it, or is discriminated against because of it. The rioters in the UK do not have the answer to Britain's problems. But they exist because Britain's elites, of the Left and the Right, have ignored the problems for so very long, and have in many cases blamed the victims. A mob this past weekend burned an asylum-seekers' shelter in Rotherham. Outrageous, truly! But note well that Rotherham is where the police knew, or had reason to know, that some Pakistani men were pressing working-class white English girls into sex slavery and drug addiction -- and yet did nothing, because Racism™. That's not the fault of asylum seekers, God knows, but you see the connection.
Tommy and the Sikhs before him were the ones who blew the whistle on grooming gangs.
On account of how much the Sikhs love the Pakis.
The Muslims and Hindus had street brawls over a cricket game. Unusual for the Hindus, who seem better assimilated.
Again, Tom Lehrer’s lyrics come to mind - from “National Brotherhood Week” (1965):
Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Moslems
And everybody hates the Jews
But during National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
It's National Everyone-smile-at-one-another-hood Week
Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you
It's only for a week, so have no fear
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!
For added fun, read those lyrics in the voice and cadence of Don Rickles. He would have slayed with this. Not least because of the underlying truth.
I would pay to attend that performance!
The Kingston Trio's class "Merry Little Minute" is also apt:
They're rioting in Africa; they're starving in Spain
There's hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans; the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs; South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like anybody very much
But we can be tranquil, and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off, and we will all be blown away
They're rioting in Africa; there's strife in Iran
What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek...
It's really obscene. And that "shelter"
is in fact a Holiday Inn, one of hundreds and hundreds of hotels up and down the country taken over by the UK Government to house illegal immigrants at taxpayer expense. We are talking about billions of pounds.
They get housing, food, medical care, free transport.
Working class British people are left to sort these things for themselves, with a crushing housing crisis, green policy-inflated energy costs forcing many to ration heat in their tiny, damp apartments, a shambolic and grossly overpriced transport network, and a health service that is in such bad shape many are dying while waiting for treatments. But there's always plenty of money for mass third-world immigration--except for policing the resulting crime.
The anger is entirely justified, even if the rioting is not.
A decent government would listen to this justified anger and address these problems while prosecuting rioters.
But Britain does not have a decent government.
We’re doing the same thing in the US of A, but with nicer hotels and welcome packages
I might disagree to some degree. The predominant religion is a component of the national identity. Legitimate discrimination to preserve this predominant religion would be justified. This might not mean an absolute prohibition, but rather stronger limits on those with non-native religions. For the U.S. (and U.K.) this would be a preference for immigration from Christian countries. Somewhat controversial, but I offer for discussion.
Maybe, but history suggests that making a religion depend on a political crutch is a bad idea for several reasons.
Not so much saying that religion is to be supported politically. In fact the opposite. Politics flows from culture, and culture from the cult.
OK, but faith has flow from its own proper springs in people's souls. You cannot prop it up with official acts if the spring has dried up.
I think the US is lucky that most of the recent immigrants are Christians from Latin America.
I agree though, unfortunately in my experience, most don't practice.
I am disappointed almost beyond measure because you won’t watch ‘Silenced’. Any video Tommy Robinson makes comes from his experience of being in that two tiered justice system where white conservative people are silenced when they question immigration policies in Britain. It is compelling to watch as his books are great to read. His rallies are peaceful. He is not perfect but who is?
You bet a riot is what people resort to when they are unheard. I know that so am tired of the overcrowding, congestion homelessness and two tiered justice system in my country and it is nothing to what is happening in Europe, the UK and US.
Wait a minute, I said that I had not wanted to watch it, but now I'm going to watch it because of the weekend's events, and the UK government's desperation to silence him! Why do you think I put a link to it in today's newsletter -- to encourage others to watch it. I saw 20 minutes of it before I decided to link it.
Good.
I think 20 years ago Tommy was a thug, but now he nasn't been for the last ten. The smears are for his past and exaggerated too. Watch the Jordan Peterson interview for great insight on his character. He isn't a grifter, and I don't think he wants to be a politician either, he's just a messenger.
I sympathise with your feelings towards Tommy Robinson. I also, for many years, saw his work with curiosity, but unfortunately that curiosity kept been watered away by a plethora of bad press. Nevertheless, I always felt a certain respect towards TR.
It wasn’t until his recent interview with Jordan Peterson that I decided that TR has my full moral support and that I started seeing him as a sign of hope for Britain. I don’t know if you’ve listened to the interview, but I urge you do. Not only the matters and facts he addresses are outrageous, but you see clearly TR’s tragic, but courageous, character. Please, listen to the interview if you haven’t:
https://youtu.be/jnhwBoFxaDI?si=9_5E2eiC4mssYwV6
Like you said with Camus’s Great Replacement Theory, being avoided or ignored for having been labeled as a racist-right-wing conspiracy: TR has been subjected to that same machinery. You’d not believe what he has been put through if you listed to this interview.
Thank you for the link
What a fantastic and riveting interview. The first part about the massive lie perpetrated about the Syrian student is great, but it really takes off when he starts talking about his battle against Muslim rape gangs and jihadi activity. As Peterson notes, these rape gang stories are so horrific that at first you wonder if it's just some tabloid exaggeration, but it was true and apparently done to a fair number of victims. The cover up by police and the lawfare against Robinson, the complete absence of integrity of the British government. These riots are quite understandable.
I don't watch much video content but I stuck around for the entire interview. Highly recommend.
I got to say it was one of the interviews which has impacted me the most in my life. And I do listen and watch many interviews.
In light of an interview like this, I agree with you, I strongly support the British protestors. I’m not sure about the looting and I do think the looters are horrible people that I wish were singled out by others (and jailed), but in all honesty, I cannot even begin to care a fraction as much for the looting as I care for the actual reasons of the protests. Particularly when policing has a much more relaxed standard for muslims, simply for being muslims, than working class whites have, simply for being working class white Brits.
Something serious needs to happen.
I watched the JP interview this weekend. I also watch a lot of interviews but this one...this was terrifying. What is going on is COVID-level gaslighting, scheming, scamming, and agenda pushing. It is so egregious and the results are horrific (I think of TR talking about the dads who showed up to save their daughters from being raped and ended up getting arrested while the girls were left in the building with the grooming gang). Tommy Robinson is a hero, that's all I can say. Well, that, and I feel the need to prepare my family. For what? I'm not sure. But something big and something worse than COVID.
I myself see the COVID lockdowns something like a test to see how the populace reacts to tyranny. It’s as if the devil - who with each day that passes I’m more certain is real - is scheming a plan so twisted and diabolic that it is somewhat a ‘tiered’ plan. Forced communism failed (eventually). Now the devil is working to reach a form of oppression in which the main goal is the consent by the people to be tyrannised. COVID lockdowns were also meant to show who’s already on his side, and to test human race’s readiness for whatever the next stage or tier is in his diabolical plan.
I keep thinking climate change may be the next stage, or one of the following stages: the climate change narrative is decades in the making and I don’t think we’ve seen the peak of how Orwellian things can get in the name of climate. COVID-like lockdowns may well be in the making in the name of climate. The devil’s goal is, of course, ultimately to be worshipped without the need of a disguise like COVID, communism, climate, social justice, racial justice, gender affirmation, (insert woke cause).
The devil’s objective is to rule directly. Us Christians, we know how this ends. But before things take a dramatic turn with Jesus’s return, things are going to get worse.
Natalie, you are completely right and justified in thinking of protecting your family from whatever is coming. Whatever comes next may or may not be a big thing in the grand scheme of things, but what is certain is that our resilience and trust in God will be put to the test. We need spiritual tools and training to be prepared for that moment. If you haven’t already, I urge you to read ‘Live Not By Lies’ from Mr. Dreher - it’s one of those indispensable tools for our spiritual readiness.
I couldn't agree more with all of what you wrote. COVID was definitely a "trial balloon" to see what they could get away with. And COVID and everything around it is why I began to believe the devil is real and at work, and why I reverted to the Catholic faith.
I learned about Rod during COVID when he was on Jonathan Pageau's podcast talking about Live Not By Lies and thought "YES. This guy gets it." I bought the book (and The Benedict Option and Crunchy Cons) and tried to give it to our parish pastor and one of our deacons--but they'd already read it! One of our other priests had the Ben Op in his library in his office and we talked about it. Because of Rod's books and, of course, the coming trials for Christians, our parish has leaned in to small groups and forming strong bonds within our church.
That's the best I can prepare my family. We're getting very involved in church, prioritizing building relationships with faithful Christians, and have a bunch of freeze dried food and water filters/tablets. My husband is learning to hunt as well. Physical prepping is important, but I feel the real prepping must be spiritual.
I find fascinating to find likeminded people going through very similar journeys as myself! And it makes me feel hopeful to see priests in the Catholic Church reading that book. I myself am a Catholic but haven’t yet met anyone that has read Rod’s books (that I know of).
I haven’t yet read the Ben Op though but your comment was just the final push I needed to buy and read it. Thanks, and God bless you and your family!
Hello from the UK. I agree with your analysis of the underlying causes, but using language like "a riot is the language of the unheard" is ironic coming from the right given that versions of this were used by the left all over the summer of 2020 and after to excuse the BLM riots, and we rightly were having none of it. I'm not saying you're guilty of doing this, but some on the right are. The problem is, if it's ok to use this framing when "people like us" do it, then we don't really have a leg to stand on for criticising the BLM riots and other leftist violence. It risks becoming "who/whom" from the right. Any functional society needs maintenance of a bare level of civic order, so rioting must be suppressed. The fact this violence has happenened is morally wrong of itself, given the damage caused, people attacked, based in the immediate term on lies about the perpetrator of the stabbing in Southport. Further, it is also deeply idiotic in a tactical sense as it will give the Labour government a reason to crack down hard on the rioters (good) *and* those who share concerns abour mass immigration, demographic change, multiculturalism, two-tier policing etc and want to articulate them, now lumped in as part of "the far-right". The entire thing is an absolute moral and tactical disaster. Again, I'm not saying you're excusing the rioters, but talking about how there's little else that can be done is incorrect: the needle had started shifting in a really significant way away from open borders. These riots have devastated *majority white communities*, and have handed a weapon to the left to shut down to an even greater extent discussion of underlying problems. If rioting is the language of the unheard, the unheard are likely about to be silenced to an even greater extent.
I had hoped it would be clear from my piece that I condemn the riots not only as immoral, but stupid, for exactly the reason you point out. I quoted MLK back at the Left somewhat ironically, but I do think that in SOME circumstances it could be true. In the US, for example, there was in fact no epidemic of cops killing blacks (though polling showed that most people think there is). In the UK, it seems to me that whites, esp poor and working class ones, have legitimate grievances— but again, the riots are only going to make things worse for them. As I said in the piece, what I wrote is not a justification for the riots, but an explanation, or at least a partial one. Seems like the Ruling Class is desperate to pin this entirely on right wing extremists acting solely out of race hatred. A just-so story.
Hi Rod. My apologies. I should have acknowledged your explicit repudiation of the riots early on in your piece. That’s my fault for not doing so. My main concern is that some on the right, particularly on Twitter, have been a bit too soft on the rioters, without the explicit and unequivocal rejection that you made. They do a sort of pro forma “This is bad, BUT…”. The way they look at contributing factors has sometimes sounded like they’re excusing rather than explaining. This is a very delicate balance given the situation and is why I haven’t been back on Twitter since my break to say anything. Apologies again if it seemed I was lumping you in with this.
You write very clearly but some of your readers have comprehension difficulties. Not your fault.
The gold standard, if that is the phrase, for riots is in my book South Central. That was shocking, all right, but it was, you know, sincere, especially as I had heard from more than one black friend just how awful the LAPD was (still? don't know). The Floyd riots, this ginned up Palestinian crap on the campuses, that's nothing, and it is pretty obviously orchestrated. Well, the U.K. rioting passes the test. The gold standard applies.
However, it has occurred to me that Starmer and his goons may not be at all displeased with the way this is going.
Half the people arrested for looting after the Rodney King protests were recent Guatemalan immigrants. One black-owned business was held up by a white guy and a Hispanic guy who walked out saying "F*** Rodney King." Near the beginning of a San Francisco protest, while the police were preoccupied down the line directing traffic, several 20-something thugs from the southeast corner of the city methodically broke into jewelry stores along the way. An old white lady tearfully told them this is not what the protest was about, but they really weren't there to protest, just taking advantage of the situation.
They’re going to use this as a basis for more Orwellian dictates. As James Lindsay says, “your reaction is the real action” they’re looking for in order to justify continuing the revolution.
The problem is, do we think actual peaceful protests would get the British government to sit up and listen? At what point WITHOUT riots does Starmer smack his forehead and say "My gosh, these people are right, we ARE treating our own people as second-class citizens?"
I agree riots are counterproductive. On the other hand, when all other protestations have failed, what's left?
It seems that any protest is being quashed. Did you see the example on X of the police clearly saying "pick one out" and then arresting a protester who was seemingly just standing there. If the guy threw a bottle then arrest him for sure, but the response looks a bit "Jan 6th-ish" to me.
What's needed is an Independent Labor Party. Sideline these liberals.
The 2020 George Floyd riots were based on a lie; the 2024 riots in Northern England are based on the truth. That’s the difference. Doesn’t make rioting per se morally appropriate, but that’s the difference.
Whatever the particulars of the George Floyd situation, poor urban black people have legit grievances too, including against the police.
And these UK riots are based, at least originally, on a lie as well. The perp who committed that ghastly murder was not a Muslim.
Yes, certainly. I had long been very critical—maybe not in this space, though—of the stupid high-handedness of post-Iraq War police forces who were using all kinds of surplus military equipment to deliver ordinary summonses and the like. The overuse of SWAT teams was definitely wrong and the ongoing harassment of black people in poor neighborhoods, as we saw in Ferguson, was completely unacceptable.
But that’s not what the summer of 2020 was really about. That was a generalized tantrum against all authority—historical, aesthetic, political, parental, whatever. Floyd was simply an excuse and the underlying discontents, in my view, were never brought out, viz., a severe crisis in meaning and purpose, the collapse of religion, etc.
I agree with the main thrust of your argument. But I also think we can't understand the 2020 rioting with including the Pandemic lockdowns which created a sense of life turned upside down for people.
Yes
Also, is their looting in the UK? Looting was a big point of it stateside, "reparations."
I disagree. And without going into detail, which you and I are both capable of, that is the trouble with making that kind of pat little distinction. This is why families prohibit discussion of politics at Thanksgiving dinner. There are always one or two who say "the difference is, I'm telling the truth, and he's lying."
If you mean that the UK riots are based on the untruth that the Rwandan assailant in Southport is Muslim, then you’d be right. I’m saying that the riots are based not on that specific bit of misinformation but on the much larger truth of the situation of the native English working class vs. the largely Muslim immigrant community and the difference in the way the government is treating the two groups. Are you saying there is no such difference? That’s the problem, as I understand it. But I’ve been wrong before.
The George Floyd riots were based on the idea that policing in the U.S. disproportionately targets unarmed black men for killing.
Roland Fryer, formerly of Harvard, published well-substantiated research showing that is not true.
People responding to horrendous events in the news are no more motivated by deep statistical analysis than are people voting for or against a presidential candidate during a recession, rising or dropping gas prices, high unemployment, etc. In fact, its not even the stats about matters of imminent concern, its the way people FEEL about it all as they go to the polls. A lot of political dissent is rooted in a feeling that we are not in control of our lives and we're not sure who is in control or why but we want more respect and a live human being to respond to our questions and complaints.
If one wishes to say that the George Floyd riots were about general complaints with policing in the black community, then I’d agree with you. But as for the specifics of police shooting of unarmed men and the even more specific issue of Derek Chauvin’s guilt, the received stories are false and dubious, respectively.
In any case, who’s to say what any of these riots are actually about? Ask any given rioter and you’ll get a particular response. And these responses will likely differ greatly. Some of the rioters probably have little idea why they’re rioting anyway.
Any judgment about ultimate purposes here will be just that—a judgment more or less informed by known facts.
Indeed, riots have many individual motivations, plus those just running with whatever is happening or caught up in the moment. So we should be careful about ascribing much of any significance to them.
The truth about policing in any community is far more complex than the common back and forth political slogans conveys. I have no doubt of Derek Chauvin's guilt, although I'm less certain of the degree. I'd call it something like involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide. Maybe acting with depraved indifference to human life. (California employs that as one of two or three definitions for second degree murder -- but not all states used the same terms or structures different levels of crime the same way.) Basically, I agree with a former police officer who used to be a regular on some of Rod's posts, who said Chauvin got into a pissing contest with bystanders and made every officer's job infinitely more difficult. The other three officers, I might well have acquitted if I had been on the jury. There are officers who are arrogant, rude, etc., and while many of those are equal opportunity jackasses, some do focus on one or more disfavored ethnicity. Its also true that apolitical thugs use whatever is available as cover, and every time someone rants about "how black people are treated by police," doesn't mean its of any political significance at all.
I can concur with much here, but I’d differ on your final point. Police treatment of black people has become one of the most salient drivers of politics in the present day. Disagreement about the proper state response to persistent and severe disparities in violent crime among racial groupings and the police response to that crime is one of the primary defining differences between conservatives and left liberals in the entire Western world.
As always, I note that "left" and "liberal" are mortal enemies, although 21st century American culture is generally ignorant of the distinctions, or indeed of either word having precise meaning. Conservatives aren't always happy with police practices either. For instance, Rod posted a few years ago the SWAT team gunning down a man in a hotel in Arizona, as did a friend of mine who posted a lot of Black Lives Matter videos, and it was indeed horrendous, and the victim was quite a pale complexion. Also the time police responded to a 911 call about a man causing a disturbance at a bar -- the security guard had the guy on the ground, with a (legal) pistol pointing at his head. When police arrived, they promptly shot the security guard dead.
I agree though that we need to throw some cold water on the notion that anytime police respond they must be gentle, polite and respectful, and that anyone of a dark complexion should be treated extra gently. Thugs come in every race, creed, color and national origin, but at present more "black" people are economically behind, and that's the environment that produces thugs at the highest rate. Always has been. We can't get anywhere reducing this to "Black Lives Matter" v. "We Back the Badge."
"These riots have devastated *majority white communities*..."
Imagine having to use a phrase like 'majority white communities' in reference to England.
Whaddaya mean? England has always been a giant rainbow of Benetton people since the beginning of time
Regarding that Ursula lady's address to the WEF,"...the top concern for the next two years is not conflict or climate, it is disinformation and misinformation, followed closely by polarization within our societies..."
They introduced the polarization device into their societies, c/o immigrants whose cultures are in opposition to the host culture. And now the chickens have come home to roost.
Yes, and with regard to her statement about "building trust," it helps to first be trustworthy, if being trusted is the goal.
Funny how obtuse Ursula von der Leyen is. She's preposterous.
I agree Rod, we are so lucky to be living in Hungary, looking on at the madness unfolding in the West of Europe. This idyllic situation may not persist, if the Ukraine war expands and spreads further West, but let's enjoy it for now.
I sure feel smug as hell for having had the foresight to leave the UK 10 years ago.
I knew something was coming, something big, but I didn't know what it would be. All I knew is that it would start in 2020 and we would see substantial upheaval in the world from then on. I just wanted to be close to family in case the worst happened and I felt that the UK and London in particular would be very bad places to be during some sort of global upheaval. We are less than halfway through this very turbulent decade and it is already the worst one since the 1940s, with the Pandemic kicking it off in style.
Whilst I love London and the UK, living in such an ethnic melting pot, you can't help but notice, that things are only OK on the surface, whilst economic times are good, but tensions will soon boil over, especially when the economy turns sour.
Whatever you may think about Brexit politically, and I can certainly understand the sentiment behind it, economically, it's been a disaster for Britain and it has underperformed economically, since the 2016 Brexit vote and predictable disinvestment. Something similar happened in China since 2020 and it is also in the economic doldrums. Hungary seems to be booming in comparison, but I wouldn't count on that lasting forever. I am not talking about official GDP statistics here, which can easily be cooked and distorted (just underreport inflation and presto, change-o, your economic recession becomes modest growth. See www.shadowstats.com for more details), but about the everyday lived experience of ordinary citizens, how easy or difficult it is to find a job, for instance and whether young people see any prospects for the future.
The reason there hasn't been much unrest in France by the indigenous French is due to their comparatively rosy economic outlook. France looks set to benefit from current economic and geopolitical trends and they are energy secure, due to their large nuclear power industry, which also means, that unlike in Germany and the UK (and now increasingly, China), there hasn't been any deindustrialisation and French companies likes Airbus are doing really well.
The UK economy isn't going to get any better as long as they stay outside the single market and I doubt the political will is there to rejoin it, as it would mean having to accede to unpopular elements of the single market, like the four freedoms, one of which is freedom of movement.
I expect the UK economy will continue its slow decline due to lack of investment, though a lot will depend on the skill of the current labour government in negotiating with the EU.
This is a difficult dilemma for any nationalist politician as the case of Viktor Orbán shows. I'm sure he would be very happy to take Hungary out of the EU, given their increasingly authoritarian and anti-sovereignist tendencies. However, economically, it would destroy the country, so that is just not an option for now.
As in the case of the UK in the eighties, Hungary has become the preferred investment destination for Asian companies that want to set up shop in the EU, with free access to the single market, low corporate taxes and minimal regulation, with even a guest worker scheme that can provide the labour, that the Hungarian labour market cannot provide, due to historically low birth rates and emigration. A lot of those investments, that ended up coming to Hungary, could have gone to the UK, but Brexit has basically entirely killed demand for Asian companies wanting to set up shop in the EU via the UK.
Like it or not, Asia is now the economic giant of the world, not Europe or even North America. True, China is currently in an epic recession, but that also means they are much keener to invest abroad, with Hungary rivalling Germany in terms of the amount of battery manufacturing capacity that is being built there, mostly from Chinese and South Korean companies.
It will take significant further impoverishment and demographic change in the UK to turn this ship around. It needs to rejoin the single market and the customs union as a first priority, though the damage has already been done, so it will only be a stopgap measure. Then, investment needs to be encouraged through various means, such as tax incentives. Ireland is a great example of how this can be achieved.
For the foreseeable future, the working and middle classes in the UK will continue to get poorer, therefore it is easy to foresee, that interethnic conflict, rioting and general unrest will continue with it. What most commentators miss, is how this is all a reflection of the UK's class system, which is so rigid and antiquated, that the only comparison, that springs to mind is the caste system in India. Admittedly, it's not quite as bad and there is considerable social mobility nowadays, it still drives UK politics and what we are seeing in the UK today is a class revolt, almost comparable to the French or Bolshevik revolutions in its grassroots structure and the desire to overthrow the established social order, of which the Tories have always been the chief custodians.
Britain's ruling class, in power since 1066 and ethnically different and distinct from the indigenous population that make up the bulk of the country, have failed spectacularly and the oppressed lower classes have had enough. They are now revolting against their rulers and it will be interesting to see where this takes up, but I wouldn't at all be surprised to see Norman heads on pikes.
"I sure feel smug as hell for having had the foresight to leave the UK 10 years ago."
Respectfully, Chris, Hungary is one election away from being irretrievably changed. Once the EU gets their person in power... Orban and his sort won't win forever. Then what?
That might happen eventually. Hungary is Hungary, whether Orbán is in power or someone else. His main rival is an ex-Fidesz member, also a conservative and on the centre-right. He agrees with the current government's stance on migration and the Ukraine war. So, overall, I don't see any real possibility for a political sea change, the electoral support for such parties, simply isn't there.
If the ex-communists and neo-liberals got power, I'd worry, but they're polling in the single digits. The three main political parties in Hungary right now are all right-wing.
Tisza, Fidesz's main rival is centre-right conservative. Fidesz, in coalition with the Christian Democrats is populist right, ostensibly conservative and Mi Hazánk is far right. The other parties are inconsequential and have no prospect of electoral success. By the way, this has historic precedent, left-wing parties never did particularly well in Hungary, when there was true democracy, conservative parties were dominant. It took 40 years of Soviet Occupation to normalise left-wing parties, but that generation is now mostly gone and the Left wing is just not popular here. I say this as someone who wouldn't mind seeing a Social Democratic party in charge, but there isn't one.
How long do you think other Central and Eastern European nations will go along with the EU agenda?
Leaving the EU would be economic suicide for all of these countries (the UK has far more options in that regard, being an island nation and having historical links with much of the rest of the world), so there are limits to how obstructive they can be to EU decision-making. Orban's new strategy is to find allies and try to change the EU's direction of travel from within.
He needs to be very careful about embracing either the Russian bear or the Chinese dragon. Those nations do not have benign intent.
yes, for sure. I am not crazy about the so-called "Eastern Opening" strategy, it carries a lot of risk. Russia and China are both unstable places, that collapse from time to time. Soviet Russia collapsed in 1991 (Life span 70 years plus change), but can collapse again and fractue into even smaller pieces.
Communist China is now 75 years old, overdue for a collapse in my view. Orbán may yet find, he bet on the wrong horse.
A few weeks ago, Melanie Phillips (The Spectator, Guardian, Telegraph, Times UK) had a podcast which I found informative on the deeper reasons for the demise of the UK Conservative Party, going back to the Thatcher days.
The second part of the podcast deals with the prognosis for Jews in the UK but the first half is heavy on the Conservatives' decline. She makes some interesting points.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/melanie-phillips-on-the-british-election-and-the-jews/id921756215?i=1000661983804&uo=4&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Dr Philip Kiszely writes (note: "gammon" is the slur that middle class leftwing Brits use for the white working class---in reference to the classic cheap pub meal of gammon, eggs and chips):
I condemn the violence. It sickens me to the core.
The problem is:
You tell poor people to make reparations.
You ‘educate’ them into guilt and shame.
You relentlessly deconstruct the culture.
You dismiss concerns about women and children.
You manipulate the narrative when something tragic happens.
YOU DON’T LISTEN.
It’s one rule for some…
Your grievance-mongering has been relentless.
You constantly scapegoat white men.
You call white women Karens.
We are all so much GAMMON to you.
YOU DON’T LISTEN.
You shove luxury beliefs down our throats.
You call us far-right for complaining about mass immigration.
You turn context on and off at will.
You re-write history.
YOU DON’T LISTEN.
You think we deserve all we get.
The idiots wreaking havoc are your mirror image. Look at what they’re doing - then think about what you’ve done.
You fucked things up.
WHAT THE HELL DID YOU EXPECT?
https://x.com/kiszelyphilip/status/1820176610823209011?s=46
This could be the USA. Easily, these days.
If the ruling class really thinks they can solve the recruitment crisis with their new clients, recall that more than twice as many British Muslims fought for the Islamic State satanic death cult than served in Her Majesty's Armed Forces.
https://www.newsweek.com/twice-many-british-muslims-fighting-isis-armed-forces-265865
The slaughter in Gaza continues.
Carthago delenda est
And the Russian war of attrition grinds on in Ukraine. Wait, déjà vu...
Thanks, Mr. Bot.