As a non-American, I look upon what's happening to our world leader and ally and watch its destruction. Spirit of confusion and hatred. The US is in so much trouble...and it will filter out (it has already). Such a shame.
This is the kind of incident that will help put DeSantis in the White House. From the Left's perspective, big mistake in letting it be captured on video.
I wish you were right, Tim, but the fact is that nauseating stuff like this...and worse...does not register on the public's radar screen. Rather, it largely remains within the province of conservative niche media. As a percentage of the population, the number of people even aware it happened is tiny.
This is largely because one of the core features of the soft totalitarianism discussed in the post is Regime control of the information flow. I mean, these people own and operate the major media, which function as their mouthpieces...Orwellian propaganda organs whose mission is to manage a narrative, not inform the citizenry. This incident is accordingly destined for immediate consignment to the Memory Hole.
Jerry, that is why avenues like Substack are so important. I try to "Johnny Appleseed" folks I know to by small-doses red-pill them, but tactically forwarding things from time-to-time that might pique their interest based on what I know about them (e.g., vax injuries, J6, election fraud, dollar devaluation - inflation).
I'll forward selected Substacks, Epoch Times pieces, clips from Bannon's War Room or Epoch TV (etc.), with a generic comment like "this is interesting" or "I didn't know that."
I'm not saying that I'm Pollyanish that my efforts will have any meaningful impact; but if nothing else, when I face my Maker I'll at least be able to say that I made some effort to help resist the (Satanic) evil currently enveloping the globe.
I am heartened to witness some getting red-pilled (not through any of my efforts). Dr. Robert Malone, Robert F Kennedy, Jr. and Dr. Naomi Wolf come to mind (see her Substack of a day or two ago apologizing to Conservatives regarding J6).
I remain a Trump supporter (this, though I live in Florida and feel blessed to have had DeSantis as Governor).
That said, unless we fix the election system, it won't matter who the Republicans put up (unless it's a UniParty candidate that is allowed to "win" so as to maintain for the normies the pretext of a "free and fair" election system).
I'm curious how you can remain a Trump supporter when, one, he blew his chance, and two, we're four years farther down the harrowing of the United States. 70% of the American people support same sex "marriage," which I take as the canary in the coal mine of the commonweal.
At least, DeSantis can make a reasoned case, and isn't instantly loathsome. Don't you find Trump loathsome? Although I echo Rod in my willingness to crawl naked over ground glass to vote for him if he is the Republican nominee, I do loathe him. I'm appalled by him.
One of the greatest concerns of the writer of this blog, and many of its commenters, is the lunatic vulgarity of our era. Can you argue that Trump presents a contrast to that? DeSantis does.
What's more DeSantis won reelection last year by a huge margin. It is hardly the case that elections are somehow "fixed" in the US or someone like DeSantis (or a number of others in other states) would not be in office.
This comment system is better than anything Rod has had before, but your reply baffles me. I can't remember that I said anything about DeSantis and fixed elections, and I can't spare the time to go through all of the comments to see what I said. What was it? ( Hi, Jon. I was Robert Kirby in a previous fake identity. )
Consider the possibility that the UniParty and its election fraud infrastructure allowed the "red wave" to occur in Florida (but not in other states) so as to make DeSantis look good, while providing a narrative that "MAGA candidates failed." Comments after the midterms by GOP Establishment / UniParty types are consistent with this thesis.
>>"There is no evidence whatsoever of serious election fraud. Deal with reality."
That's arguably insulting ("Deal with reality.").
Also, "no evidence whatsoever" is factually inaccurate. I will be happy to provide links to multiple sources of evidence, but even without that, the documentary "2000 Mules" alone provides compelling evidence.
That's easy. Trump didn't blow his chance - he was being sabotaged from before he even gained the nomination (Russiagate, multiple impeachment efforts, etc.).
Trump has all the right enemies. Conversely, DeSantis has all the wrong supporters: the Murdochs of Fox; Jeb Bush and the GOP Establishment a/k/a UniParty generally. Huge red flag.
IF DeSantis "wins" the nomination - a very good possibility, as the UniParty election fraud infrastructure is available for primaries - and if he actually attempted to govern as a quasi-MAGA / America First President, he'd encounter the same undermining as Trump.
If he governs as an acceptable to the UniParty President, he'd just execute the Globalist-CCP Axis' agenda, albeit at a slightly slower pace, i.e., like another of the Bushes.
In politics one has to expect opposition from the Other Party, and for pretty much my whole life that has involved no little dirty-fighting and scandalmongering. It's how the game is played. Reagan had to deal with that. So did Clinton. Attempts wre made against both Bushes and Obama. All suceeded despite it. Trump failed.
Trump accomplished a few things, but he's an idiot. He's oblivious to the power of charm. Compare him with Franklin Roosevelt, who was as hated by his opponents as Trump has been.
Politics is about winning people over, not enraging them. Roosevelt got far more of what he wanted because he understood how to win people over. He could be brutal about his enemies, as in the "I welcome their hatred" speech in 1936, while at the same time projecting sunniness and good humor.
Trump is repellent. He's loathsome. Day after day after day, we got vulgarity, insult, a ceaseless degrading of the public square from him. And you do realize, don't you, that he did essentially nothing for the bottom 80%. He proposed essentially the same tax bills a stiff like Jeb would have done.
I'm bothered by DeSantis' support from the Kochs, God knows. But a great politician like FDR is perfectly prepared to betray whomever he must betray, and knows how to get away with it. It's a vicious, filthy game, politics, but we do know that Trump failed at it.
Your adulation of FDR is ... curious. As is considering Trump "loathsome."
FDR, the second "Progressive" President after Woodrow Wilson, continued that mission to unmoor us from our Constitution (his court-packing threat, which led to the enactment of the quasi-Socialist "New Deal"). He was popular with many, but via an early form of information op; radio broadcasts, a adulatory media that cooperated (including hiding his polio, even though this should not have mattered).
Yes, I wish that Trump was more of the happy warrior persona of a Ronald Reagan. But I would not let "the perfect be the enemy of the good." Amongst other good things, Trump recognizes the existential threat that the CCP represents, and was working to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. He also got us out of that Globalist-CCP Axis inspired "Paris Climate Accord."
If you want loathsome, try B. Hussein Obama, political scion of Marxist / terrorist Bill Ayers, and a Marxist mole who's mission was/is the subversion of the USA.
Or Joe Biden, a CCP-compromised puppet; himself reminiscent of post-stroke Wilson - a mentally hollowed-out figurehead serving as a prop force nefarious forces behind the curtain.
Funny you should mention Bill Ayers. For entirely personal reasons I have always believed that if I were to see him in person, I would punch him in the face.
And I don't hit people.
Wilson is an example of good intentions letting loose a sh*twhirl of an effect. As for FDR's unmooring us from our Constitution, as Justice Jackson asserted, the Constitution isn't a suicide pact, and as Jefferson thought, every generation or so, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants. In other words, the Constitution isn't sacred. I do not idolize it. As you know, it contains within itself the means essentially to abolish it.
As horrible as slavery is, it was Lincoln who changed what Americans were taught the Constitution means.
FDR saved the Constitution, saved capitalism. And it's interesting that you read into my admiration of him. It's there, and deep, for the same reason I admire JFK, the courage of the two men. With FDR, it's deeper. If you could stand it, read Jonathan Alter's wonderful book about Roosevelt's ascent to the Presidency, "The Defining Moment." Roosevelt's spiritedness and insistence that the Warm Springs resort be what it was, and his personally leading, coaching, and encouraging the other paraplegics, will always make him dear to my heart.
You don't seem to understand that Trump's personality isn't just unfortunate, it does existential damage to the commonweal.
I'm just old enough to remember when this pseudo-therapeutic totalitarianism was something you saw in humanities hothouses at American universities and was treated as something of a joke everywhere else. Consider this 1993 skit, which is not so parodic anymore: https://youtu.be/JKkb0qXbyUY
Now it's institutionalized, to use the current DEI terminology, "embedded" in our institutions and bureaucracies. It's not a joke anymore, and classical liberalism will not be enough to dislodge it.
This is why the right’s long time strategy of satire is so deeply mistaken. They’ve been making fun of political correctness since the 90s and life just gets more and more politically correct. Probably the funniest anti communist humor was told by Russians… at the height of Stalinism. Satire acts as a pressure release valve for the opposition, not as an effective anti-regime tool. The more jokes we make about DEI, the more powerful it grows. Thank goodness for humorless leaders who actually take action against it…
Senator Schumer shows up at the steps of SCOTUS and threatens Justices Gorsuch and Kavenaugh over abortion. Dobbs is leaked and USAG Garland will not use his authority to prohibit nasty protests in front of Justice Kavenaugh's home. A crystal clear violation of federal law. It is not surprising that the crybullies at Stanford Law are emboldened. Governor DeSantis has it right: DEI programs at public universities need to be dismantled root and branch. God Bless Judge Duncan!
As we all know, these “protestors” are not speaking truth to power, they are the pawns of a new power, one with strong influence at our institutions, including Stanford. If Stanford spoke for liberal democracy this would provide a great opportunity to pull the rug out on these kids, signaling to others that, no, this behavior is not sanctioned by the powers that be here, and if you want to behave like this you will not be protected , but must actually pay the price of truly speaking truth to power.
Of course, it won’t happen. Stanford is on board and these kids are protected.
A] situation where power and ideology trump reasoned debate. When we reach that place (and I’m assuming we haven’t already reached it in some way), then the rule of law will have turned into barbarism."
I saw early stages of this 6-7 years ago. My belief is it will get worse. Much worse. Do the gatekeepers of this profession have the guts, competence, or mental scaffolding to turn it around? I have my doubts. The precedent-only groupthink inherent in legal ed often inhibits the ability to navigate toward productive solutions. (Disagree? Re-read the interview.) I’ve met few lawyers and even fewer judges and law profs who could effectively think their way out of unfamiliar cognitive prisons. My money says they'll be boxed in gradually - then suddenly. (Credit to Hemingway for the timeless phrase.)
I have seen Justice Duncan speak and he is well-spoken, intelligent, and reasoned. I am so glad he isn't backing down on this. I will lose all hope if he goes on an apology tour next week.
I am really hoping that many, many law schools will issue statements condemning this sort of behavior. I also hope to hear from many other judges, especially liberal judges, condemning this behavior. "Crybullies." Well said, sir.
"All of this was delivered, as anyone can see from the video, in the voice and idiom of a therapist. I found it profoundly creepy. It was the language of “compassion” and “feelings,” but it came across as deeply controlling and aggressive."
Not to denigrate the entire modern therapeutic industry, but let's be clear, it is a secular priesthood. It is the science of the soul, conducted by people who don't actually believe in the soul. They believe in the psyche, the Freudian aspects of mind and consciousness. I have been in Freudian analysis as well as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. There is nothing mysterious about any of it, whether you're talking about your parents and analyzing your dreams, or filling out questionnaires that organize your thoughts and clarify your patterns of belief. Ultimately, in my experience what matters most is not the latest theory of the science but your relationship with the therapist. If any healing and change comes, it is from within that dynamic. And it is completely mutual. I have not met a normal therapist, I believe they chose the field of study primarily to understand their own dysfunctions. The dysfunctions have to do with core family relationships, obviously. We are all trying to understand what happened to those that surround us most intimately, so we can understand ourselves.
Since we have rejected the primordial divinity as superstition, we only have ourselves to talk to, and to talk about. There is no doubt that the psyche is not the same thing as the soul, that it is personality and mind, at best augmented by an unnamed mysterious secret, a remnant of a memory. The therapist's office is the field hospital of the materialist mind, alienated and looking for connection. That much it may find, but it won't find the secret to happiness. However, the connection is also fraught with danger. The science is an edifice built on sand, but it has true believers, who are exactly like religious believers. And they believe that their psyches have been healed, while yours is damaged. The DEI dean is one of those helpful therapists.
Personally, I don't mind a doctor of medicine telling me that they know how to heal a broken bone, and if I have a broken bone, I will consult a doctor. There is a lot of scientific evidence for a broken body, for patterns of healing and resilience. A broken mind, however, is a different story. A personality is complex beyond belief merely in our standard perception, not to mention the unsayable, the indescribable parts. Was Van Gogh's mind broken? Stalin? Putin? Rod Dreher? Myself?
I have a "schizophrenic" cousin. He was perfectly fine until his late teens. According to one of my aunts, Attila's mind was broken by the conflict in him regarding his father. His father abused him mercilessly while growing up, and Attila's desire to kill his father in revenge combined with his profound inability to actually carry out the murder, so his mind snapped instead. Maybe something else would have triggered the collapse anyway, because maybe Attila was born with that kind of fragile genetic structure -- who knows? I do not. The point is, professionals claim to know, and he has been labeled. Something is "wrong" with him. Surely, he can't take care of himself properly. He needs help. But I say there is nothing especially wrong with him that also isn't wrong with us, those who surround him and claim to be "normal."
Do you not see how easy it is to denigrate and dominate and insult people with this kind of setup? Meanwhile, the real therapy happens inadvertently. The real therapy happens when people treat Attila like a totally regular person. Attila desires normalcy, after all. And he might be capable of more justice than his father, who is basically a sane criminal.
If we got rid of this paradigm entirely, and returned to the concept of the soul, salvation and sin, right and wrong, moral act and immoral act, Attila's contribution would be judged quite differently.
I've personally known a number of psychologists and even a famous psychiatrist, Evelyn Hooker, and all of them were deeply troubled in their own minds. I think the only psychiatrist who was not insane himself, was Thomas Szasz.
Being thoroughly screwed up neurologically, I was the patient of a first rate clinical neuropsychologist for eight years. He did me a lot of good. I needed to talk. I had a lot of questions. My time as his patient was illuminating and deep in therapeutic gain for me.
He's a remarkable guy. One of the first things I learned about him was that he'd completed five and a half of the six years of seminary required for ordination to the Catholic priesthood before he decided he couldn't remain celibate. I'm happy to report he has a charming wife and a half dozen children.
I was always disgusted by the little Buddha he kept in his consulting room, and mentioned this to him once. He protested that his dabbling in Buddhism did not clash with his Catholicism.
This good doctor/patient relationship came to its natural end. I didn't see him for almost seven years. Then, burning up with a question I wanted to ask him, I saw him for another appointment. The little Buddha had been superseded by two of the creepy things, each as large as a six year old child.
The aspect of his office was notably different, and I was made instantly uneasy by it. His previous gentleness had been replaced by an implicit brutality. And the son of a bitch tried to gaslight me about something extremely important.
On my way out of the office I was tempted to make a remark about idols and demons, and regret that I did not. M. Scott Peck's book, "People of the Lie," will leave you spinning your eyeballs on occasion. I'm all in favor of psychiatrists and of preachers, but not in the same persona, thank you. However, Peck was a Christian who believed in the existence of the demonic, and I recommend his book to you.
I would also add that while psychiatry may once have had some usefulness for identify certain issues that people experience, and techniques for them remedy (at least in part), today it's not even that. Whatever merit it once had as a "profession" has now degenerated into something more resembling witch-doctors.
Why do I say that?
Today it's mostly about dispensing pharmaceuticals (follow the money) and (like most of our institutions) has become politicized by the Left. Hence the shifting with the political winds changes to the DSM regarding homosexuality and transsexualism.
The Simpsons said it best when they identified the latest SSRI, it's called Repressitol. Apparently, the scientists themselves don't know how it works.
It's worth checking out HBO's In Treatment, where psychotherapist Gabriel Byrne begins the week seeing his off-kilter patients and ends the week seeing his own therapist, which, of course, raises the question -- who's more nuts? In Treatment is fun and witty, a satire of our circular, therapeutic culture.
I'm on board, it's a great show, I agree, but I haven't seen all of it, to my shame. Only a few episodes some years ago, so thanks for the reminder, because these days, I can't find anything worth watching. We are seriously deteriorating as a culture.
Note well, I have a therapist, and by this point in my life, I get quite a kick out of the experience, whereas before I placed them on pedestals. Understanding the complementarity and the mutual need is key. The process is treatment through communication, no doubt, it just can't fulfill the spiritual requirement.
Bottom line: that massive-aggressive DEI and her followers don't just have mental problems. They are seriously looking for God, or the Messiah, or the Devil, or something like that, and the problem is, they think they found it.
Shock’s a word over employed these days, but I was genuinely, jarringly shocked by this incident. What has happened to the Free Speech-Kerouac-Ginsberg Left (should I say in ‘Days of Yore’) that in what seems an almost bizarre convergence intersects now with the Free Speech Right. Only maybe it’s bizarre at all. I remember reading a lucidly discerning essay (was it in Modern Age?) by the Agrarian-Thomist Literary Critic Marianne Moore about even In the Beginning
And Stanford is just down the road from Berkeley, where Mario Savio, bullhorn in hand, shouted out the Free Speech Movement's theses from atop a police cruiser in 1964.
Cont... ‘In the Beginning’ the writings of Richard Weaver were as much ‘Anti-Establishment’ as anything on the New Left. I was intellectually weaned on the Fugitive Agrarians, the Distributists, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. And in those days even Catholic Conservatives had a weak spot -- rightfully so I would say -- for the Kennedys. What is to be done? Live not by lies is the first thing but to speak up, speak out, to engage politically seems a close second. I’m hoping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will declare for the Presidency. He at least has the courage of his convictions, a sincere Truth Teller if there ever was one, Truth-Telling as he sees it, honestly, outspokenly with the courage of real convictions. So what is to be done? Live not by lies and don’t tell them either. Pray, speak up and vote.
I'm looking forward to RFK Jr. announcing, just for the entertainment of observing the internecine warfare within the Democrat Party.
He's been stalwart on exposing the Covid / vaccine fraud (if not depopulation agenda).
As to climate change, it's a fabricated crisis, a Trojan Horse intended to enable the imposition of a Collectivist / totalitarian dystopia upon the entire globe. (The parties behind this I refer to as the "Globalist-CCP Axis" ... while recognizing that there may well be other actors behind that ... and that ultimately, it is Satan as the "root cause.")
Law school students, not college, so a bit closer to “elite” status. And the problem is not so much where any of these individuals ends up, but the mindset they represent.
The judge's most trenchant point of course is that behavior like this puts the whole notion of law to shame. Whatever you may think of contract theory, let's stipulate it. In classic contract theory the first natural right you surrender when you enter civil society is the right be a judge in your own cause. That's what these little snots can't stand.
The Red Guards and the rapist. Er, therapist. This is not soft totalitarianism. Why, some time not long hence, new Marshals will arrest him. Coming very soon to a country near you.
Elite colleges were established as Christian organizations. This helped to balance their elite power with an education in altruism. Over time, people stepped away from the church, as it became seen as an unneeded vestige from the past. Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth were the zeitgeist of the times (1970's). Breaking things is what we did. Building things and instilling values was a much more difficult task. The politicians couldn't be bothered with it and opened the flood gates to Asian immigrants, assuming that it would make their lives easier, but it only hurt the middle class who now had to compete with endless competition for resources. Parents, schools and churches struggled to care for the kids.
Over time, a new religion seeped into the schools and replaced Christianity in the background (an intentional change, made by the avowed Marxists). As Cynical Theories has noted, postmodernism is a fascist ideology. It replaced healthy skepticism with nihilistic cynicism. It weakened the resolve of the young and replaced a love of capitalism with a love for socialism. The enthusiastic quest for truth, handed down from the Enlightenment, was replaced by a cynical power grab, offered by the elites. Our liberal, Western culture was transformed into a Marxist power grab where everything is for sale and nothing matters.
Where Christianity has dissipated, capitalism took over as the ruling ideology. The markets replaced the people as the center of the economy as corruption took over the halls of power. In the midst of all this, a void opened in the hearts of children. Searching for meaning and purpose, the leftists offered the answer, Marxism. Now we are seeing the results of this evolution. Judge Duncan was shouted down by Woke Marxists. He symbolizes the past and their ideology is all about the future. It is about pinning one group against the other and hating on the past. We have a sick culture that needs a moral infusion, but few leaders are willing to offer it. They are afraid to promote Christianity over aggressive Woke Marxism.
It goes back further. The so-called “enlightenment” displaced ecumenical teaching for non-ecumenical teaching. The love of money is the root of all evil.
I got blocked out of a Facebook group I enjoyed very much and added a lot to because the termagant who runs it was infuriated by my describing myself on my page as a cisgendered, heterosexual Christian.
Now I counsel against war, which the more unhinged are determined to wage, in concert with the Woke. The current and future elites can terrorize us, but we are going to get a hell of a chaotic defeat from their foreign enemies, as those who are not only incompetent, but devoid of reason, not only lead us into temptation, but deliver us over to evil.
I suppose Stanford needs to be added (along with Yale) to the list of law schools from which no graduate should ever be selected to be law clerk. Also, this is another demonstration that DEI must DIE.
Say it again: the little creeps who actually carried out this hit are not the problem. No white shoe firm, even one "committed to diversity", is going to hire morons like this, let alone encourage this kind of behavior. They're probably at Stanford in the first place because of a bump up in their LSAT scores for reasons anybody can guess. The people to be afraid of are not even the "Dean"; though the first thing Stanford should do is fire her ass and take the consequences. Their endowment can stand the hit, I can assure you.
The people to be afraid of are the ones who are using these idiots, and that would be white men, and BIPOCs who have enough sense to act like white men. Who teach these little craps that this kind of behavior is cute. Believe it: when Thermidor comes around these loudmouths get one-way tickets to the GULAG.
Once again, Stanford is a research institution, is it not? Does it not receive truckloads of federal dollars? Has the federal government been shy about influencing university policy through this kind of money? No wonder the New York Times ran three hit pieces on DeSantis above the fold yesterday. This isn't pretty, but it's effective.
Always on hand with idiocy, Michelle Goldberg yesterday wrote a column that our "obsession" with wokeness is really weakness. Right.
As a non-American, I look upon what's happening to our world leader and ally and watch its destruction. Spirit of confusion and hatred. The US is in so much trouble...and it will filter out (it has already). Such a shame.
This is the kind of incident that will help put DeSantis in the White House. From the Left's perspective, big mistake in letting it be captured on video.
I wish you were right, Tim, but the fact is that nauseating stuff like this...and worse...does not register on the public's radar screen. Rather, it largely remains within the province of conservative niche media. As a percentage of the population, the number of people even aware it happened is tiny.
This is largely because one of the core features of the soft totalitarianism discussed in the post is Regime control of the information flow. I mean, these people own and operate the major media, which function as their mouthpieces...Orwellian propaganda organs whose mission is to manage a narrative, not inform the citizenry. This incident is accordingly destined for immediate consignment to the Memory Hole.
Try to find this in the Times or the WaPo.
We can force them to cover it, but too many people here aren't up for the fight. Are you?
Jerry, that is why avenues like Substack are so important. I try to "Johnny Appleseed" folks I know to by small-doses red-pill them, but tactically forwarding things from time-to-time that might pique their interest based on what I know about them (e.g., vax injuries, J6, election fraud, dollar devaluation - inflation).
I'll forward selected Substacks, Epoch Times pieces, clips from Bannon's War Room or Epoch TV (etc.), with a generic comment like "this is interesting" or "I didn't know that."
I'm not saying that I'm Pollyanish that my efforts will have any meaningful impact; but if nothing else, when I face my Maker I'll at least be able to say that I made some effort to help resist the (Satanic) evil currently enveloping the globe.
I am heartened to witness some getting red-pilled (not through any of my efforts). Dr. Robert Malone, Robert F Kennedy, Jr. and Dr. Naomi Wolf come to mind (see her Substack of a day or two ago apologizing to Conservatives regarding J6).
"one of the core features of the soft totalitarianism discussed in the post is Regime control of the information flow"
This cannot be repeated enough. In fact, it's one of the main things that enables the control to be "soft."
Sad but true.
No, it's not true. We can force this into mainstream through our media and by passing laws in red states that target DEI in college.
It's just that guys like you and Jerry are afraid to fight.
I'm increasingly convinced that cowardice and demoralization are the biggest problems the right currently faces.
I remain a Trump supporter (this, though I live in Florida and feel blessed to have had DeSantis as Governor).
That said, unless we fix the election system, it won't matter who the Republicans put up (unless it's a UniParty candidate that is allowed to "win" so as to maintain for the normies the pretext of a "free and fair" election system).
I'm curious how you can remain a Trump supporter when, one, he blew his chance, and two, we're four years farther down the harrowing of the United States. 70% of the American people support same sex "marriage," which I take as the canary in the coal mine of the commonweal.
At least, DeSantis can make a reasoned case, and isn't instantly loathsome. Don't you find Trump loathsome? Although I echo Rod in my willingness to crawl naked over ground glass to vote for him if he is the Republican nominee, I do loathe him. I'm appalled by him.
One of the greatest concerns of the writer of this blog, and many of its commenters, is the lunatic vulgarity of our era. Can you argue that Trump presents a contrast to that? DeSantis does.
What's more DeSantis won reelection last year by a huge margin. It is hardly the case that elections are somehow "fixed" in the US or someone like DeSantis (or a number of others in other states) would not be in office.
This comment system is better than anything Rod has had before, but your reply baffles me. I can't remember that I said anything about DeSantis and fixed elections, and I can't spare the time to go through all of the comments to see what I said. What was it? ( Hi, Jon. I was Robert Kirby in a previous fake identity. )
My reply would have been better had I made it more directly to the person above you who was floating the "rigged election" line.
I am glad to see you here.
Consider the possibility that the UniParty and its election fraud infrastructure allowed the "red wave" to occur in Florida (but not in other states) so as to make DeSantis look good, while providing a narrative that "MAGA candidates failed." Comments after the midterms by GOP Establishment / UniParty types are consistent with this thesis.
There is no evidence whatsoever of serious election fraud. Deal with reality.
>>"There is no evidence whatsoever of serious election fraud. Deal with reality."
That's arguably insulting ("Deal with reality.").
Also, "no evidence whatsoever" is factually inaccurate. I will be happy to provide links to multiple sources of evidence, but even without that, the documentary "2000 Mules" alone provides compelling evidence.
That's easy. Trump didn't blow his chance - he was being sabotaged from before he even gained the nomination (Russiagate, multiple impeachment efforts, etc.).
Trump has all the right enemies. Conversely, DeSantis has all the wrong supporters: the Murdochs of Fox; Jeb Bush and the GOP Establishment a/k/a UniParty generally. Huge red flag.
IF DeSantis "wins" the nomination - a very good possibility, as the UniParty election fraud infrastructure is available for primaries - and if he actually attempted to govern as a quasi-MAGA / America First President, he'd encounter the same undermining as Trump.
If he governs as an acceptable to the UniParty President, he'd just execute the Globalist-CCP Axis' agenda, albeit at a slightly slower pace, i.e., like another of the Bushes.
In politics one has to expect opposition from the Other Party, and for pretty much my whole life that has involved no little dirty-fighting and scandalmongering. It's how the game is played. Reagan had to deal with that. So did Clinton. Attempts wre made against both Bushes and Obama. All suceeded despite it. Trump failed.
Trump accomplished a few things, but he's an idiot. He's oblivious to the power of charm. Compare him with Franklin Roosevelt, who was as hated by his opponents as Trump has been.
Politics is about winning people over, not enraging them. Roosevelt got far more of what he wanted because he understood how to win people over. He could be brutal about his enemies, as in the "I welcome their hatred" speech in 1936, while at the same time projecting sunniness and good humor.
Trump is repellent. He's loathsome. Day after day after day, we got vulgarity, insult, a ceaseless degrading of the public square from him. And you do realize, don't you, that he did essentially nothing for the bottom 80%. He proposed essentially the same tax bills a stiff like Jeb would have done.
I'm bothered by DeSantis' support from the Kochs, God knows. But a great politician like FDR is perfectly prepared to betray whomever he must betray, and knows how to get away with it. It's a vicious, filthy game, politics, but we do know that Trump failed at it.
Your adulation of FDR is ... curious. As is considering Trump "loathsome."
FDR, the second "Progressive" President after Woodrow Wilson, continued that mission to unmoor us from our Constitution (his court-packing threat, which led to the enactment of the quasi-Socialist "New Deal"). He was popular with many, but via an early form of information op; radio broadcasts, a adulatory media that cooperated (including hiding his polio, even though this should not have mattered).
Yes, I wish that Trump was more of the happy warrior persona of a Ronald Reagan. But I would not let "the perfect be the enemy of the good." Amongst other good things, Trump recognizes the existential threat that the CCP represents, and was working to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. He also got us out of that Globalist-CCP Axis inspired "Paris Climate Accord."
If you want loathsome, try B. Hussein Obama, political scion of Marxist / terrorist Bill Ayers, and a Marxist mole who's mission was/is the subversion of the USA.
Or Joe Biden, a CCP-compromised puppet; himself reminiscent of post-stroke Wilson - a mentally hollowed-out figurehead serving as a prop force nefarious forces behind the curtain.
Funny you should mention Bill Ayers. For entirely personal reasons I have always believed that if I were to see him in person, I would punch him in the face.
And I don't hit people.
Wilson is an example of good intentions letting loose a sh*twhirl of an effect. As for FDR's unmooring us from our Constitution, as Justice Jackson asserted, the Constitution isn't a suicide pact, and as Jefferson thought, every generation or so, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants. In other words, the Constitution isn't sacred. I do not idolize it. As you know, it contains within itself the means essentially to abolish it.
As horrible as slavery is, it was Lincoln who changed what Americans were taught the Constitution means.
FDR saved the Constitution, saved capitalism. And it's interesting that you read into my admiration of him. It's there, and deep, for the same reason I admire JFK, the courage of the two men. With FDR, it's deeper. If you could stand it, read Jonathan Alter's wonderful book about Roosevelt's ascent to the Presidency, "The Defining Moment." Roosevelt's spiritedness and insistence that the Warm Springs resort be what it was, and his personally leading, coaching, and encouraging the other paraplegics, will always make him dear to my heart.
You don't seem to understand that Trump's personality isn't just unfortunate, it does existential damage to the commonweal.
I'm just old enough to remember when this pseudo-therapeutic totalitarianism was something you saw in humanities hothouses at American universities and was treated as something of a joke everywhere else. Consider this 1993 skit, which is not so parodic anymore: https://youtu.be/JKkb0qXbyUY
Now it's institutionalized, to use the current DEI terminology, "embedded" in our institutions and bureaucracies. It's not a joke anymore, and classical liberalism will not be enough to dislodge it.
This is why the right’s long time strategy of satire is so deeply mistaken. They’ve been making fun of political correctness since the 90s and life just gets more and more politically correct. Probably the funniest anti communist humor was told by Russians… at the height of Stalinism. Satire acts as a pressure release valve for the opposition, not as an effective anti-regime tool. The more jokes we make about DEI, the more powerful it grows. Thank goodness for humorless leaders who actually take action against it…
Gaty.substack.com
Yes. George Will sniggered at Stanford in another context, the failed "speech code". Sorry. Time to move.
I meant spring into action. I ain’t going nowhere.
Senator Schumer shows up at the steps of SCOTUS and threatens Justices Gorsuch and Kavenaugh over abortion. Dobbs is leaked and USAG Garland will not use his authority to prohibit nasty protests in front of Justice Kavenaugh's home. A crystal clear violation of federal law. It is not surprising that the crybullies at Stanford Law are emboldened. Governor DeSantis has it right: DEI programs at public universities need to be dismantled root and branch. God Bless Judge Duncan!
But the federal government has leverage at private institutions as well! Leverage it's never been afraid to exercise.
As we all know, these “protestors” are not speaking truth to power, they are the pawns of a new power, one with strong influence at our institutions, including Stanford. If Stanford spoke for liberal democracy this would provide a great opportunity to pull the rug out on these kids, signaling to others that, no, this behavior is not sanctioned by the powers that be here, and if you want to behave like this you will not be protected , but must actually pay the price of truly speaking truth to power.
Of course, it won’t happen. Stanford is on board and these kids are protected.
A] situation where power and ideology trump reasoned debate. When we reach that place (and I’m assuming we haven’t already reached it in some way), then the rule of law will have turned into barbarism."
I saw early stages of this 6-7 years ago. My belief is it will get worse. Much worse. Do the gatekeepers of this profession have the guts, competence, or mental scaffolding to turn it around? I have my doubts. The precedent-only groupthink inherent in legal ed often inhibits the ability to navigate toward productive solutions. (Disagree? Re-read the interview.) I’ve met few lawyers and even fewer judges and law profs who could effectively think their way out of unfamiliar cognitive prisons. My money says they'll be boxed in gradually - then suddenly. (Credit to Hemingway for the timeless phrase.)
I have seen Justice Duncan speak and he is well-spoken, intelligent, and reasoned. I am so glad he isn't backing down on this. I will lose all hope if he goes on an apology tour next week.
I am really hoping that many, many law schools will issue statements condemning this sort of behavior. I also hope to hear from many other judges, especially liberal judges, condemning this behavior. "Crybullies." Well said, sir.
"All of this was delivered, as anyone can see from the video, in the voice and idiom of a therapist. I found it profoundly creepy. It was the language of “compassion” and “feelings,” but it came across as deeply controlling and aggressive."
Not to denigrate the entire modern therapeutic industry, but let's be clear, it is a secular priesthood. It is the science of the soul, conducted by people who don't actually believe in the soul. They believe in the psyche, the Freudian aspects of mind and consciousness. I have been in Freudian analysis as well as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. There is nothing mysterious about any of it, whether you're talking about your parents and analyzing your dreams, or filling out questionnaires that organize your thoughts and clarify your patterns of belief. Ultimately, in my experience what matters most is not the latest theory of the science but your relationship with the therapist. If any healing and change comes, it is from within that dynamic. And it is completely mutual. I have not met a normal therapist, I believe they chose the field of study primarily to understand their own dysfunctions. The dysfunctions have to do with core family relationships, obviously. We are all trying to understand what happened to those that surround us most intimately, so we can understand ourselves.
Since we have rejected the primordial divinity as superstition, we only have ourselves to talk to, and to talk about. There is no doubt that the psyche is not the same thing as the soul, that it is personality and mind, at best augmented by an unnamed mysterious secret, a remnant of a memory. The therapist's office is the field hospital of the materialist mind, alienated and looking for connection. That much it may find, but it won't find the secret to happiness. However, the connection is also fraught with danger. The science is an edifice built on sand, but it has true believers, who are exactly like religious believers. And they believe that their psyches have been healed, while yours is damaged. The DEI dean is one of those helpful therapists.
Personally, I don't mind a doctor of medicine telling me that they know how to heal a broken bone, and if I have a broken bone, I will consult a doctor. There is a lot of scientific evidence for a broken body, for patterns of healing and resilience. A broken mind, however, is a different story. A personality is complex beyond belief merely in our standard perception, not to mention the unsayable, the indescribable parts. Was Van Gogh's mind broken? Stalin? Putin? Rod Dreher? Myself?
I have a "schizophrenic" cousin. He was perfectly fine until his late teens. According to one of my aunts, Attila's mind was broken by the conflict in him regarding his father. His father abused him mercilessly while growing up, and Attila's desire to kill his father in revenge combined with his profound inability to actually carry out the murder, so his mind snapped instead. Maybe something else would have triggered the collapse anyway, because maybe Attila was born with that kind of fragile genetic structure -- who knows? I do not. The point is, professionals claim to know, and he has been labeled. Something is "wrong" with him. Surely, he can't take care of himself properly. He needs help. But I say there is nothing especially wrong with him that also isn't wrong with us, those who surround him and claim to be "normal."
Do you not see how easy it is to denigrate and dominate and insult people with this kind of setup? Meanwhile, the real therapy happens inadvertently. The real therapy happens when people treat Attila like a totally regular person. Attila desires normalcy, after all. And he might be capable of more justice than his father, who is basically a sane criminal.
If we got rid of this paradigm entirely, and returned to the concept of the soul, salvation and sin, right and wrong, moral act and immoral act, Attila's contribution would be judged quite differently.
I've personally known a number of psychologists and even a famous psychiatrist, Evelyn Hooker, and all of them were deeply troubled in their own minds. I think the only psychiatrist who was not insane himself, was Thomas Szasz.
Being thoroughly screwed up neurologically, I was the patient of a first rate clinical neuropsychologist for eight years. He did me a lot of good. I needed to talk. I had a lot of questions. My time as his patient was illuminating and deep in therapeutic gain for me.
He's a remarkable guy. One of the first things I learned about him was that he'd completed five and a half of the six years of seminary required for ordination to the Catholic priesthood before he decided he couldn't remain celibate. I'm happy to report he has a charming wife and a half dozen children.
I was always disgusted by the little Buddha he kept in his consulting room, and mentioned this to him once. He protested that his dabbling in Buddhism did not clash with his Catholicism.
This good doctor/patient relationship came to its natural end. I didn't see him for almost seven years. Then, burning up with a question I wanted to ask him, I saw him for another appointment. The little Buddha had been superseded by two of the creepy things, each as large as a six year old child.
The aspect of his office was notably different, and I was made instantly uneasy by it. His previous gentleness had been replaced by an implicit brutality. And the son of a bitch tried to gaslight me about something extremely important.
On my way out of the office I was tempted to make a remark about idols and demons, and regret that I did not. M. Scott Peck's book, "People of the Lie," will leave you spinning your eyeballs on occasion. I'm all in favor of psychiatrists and of preachers, but not in the same persona, thank you. However, Peck was a Christian who believed in the existence of the demonic, and I recommend his book to you.
Well said, Emil.
I would also add that while psychiatry may once have had some usefulness for identify certain issues that people experience, and techniques for them remedy (at least in part), today it's not even that. Whatever merit it once had as a "profession" has now degenerated into something more resembling witch-doctors.
Why do I say that?
Today it's mostly about dispensing pharmaceuticals (follow the money) and (like most of our institutions) has become politicized by the Left. Hence the shifting with the political winds changes to the DSM regarding homosexuality and transsexualism.
The Simpsons said it best when they identified the latest SSRI, it's called Repressitol. Apparently, the scientists themselves don't know how it works.
It's worth checking out HBO's In Treatment, where psychotherapist Gabriel Byrne begins the week seeing his off-kilter patients and ends the week seeing his own therapist, which, of course, raises the question -- who's more nuts? In Treatment is fun and witty, a satire of our circular, therapeutic culture.
I'm on board, it's a great show, I agree, but I haven't seen all of it, to my shame. Only a few episodes some years ago, so thanks for the reminder, because these days, I can't find anything worth watching. We are seriously deteriorating as a culture.
Note well, I have a therapist, and by this point in my life, I get quite a kick out of the experience, whereas before I placed them on pedestals. Understanding the complementarity and the mutual need is key. The process is treatment through communication, no doubt, it just can't fulfill the spiritual requirement.
Bottom line: that massive-aggressive DEI and her followers don't just have mental problems. They are seriously looking for God, or the Messiah, or the Devil, or something like that, and the problem is, they think they found it.
Dang, son, you win the day with "massive aggressive."
Why pay for fiction, when reality is even stranger and more accurate...
They've definitely been captured by the diabolical.
Shock’s a word over employed these days, but I was genuinely, jarringly shocked by this incident. What has happened to the Free Speech-Kerouac-Ginsberg Left (should I say in ‘Days of Yore’) that in what seems an almost bizarre convergence intersects now with the Free Speech Right. Only maybe it’s bizarre at all. I remember reading a lucidly discerning essay (was it in Modern Age?) by the Agrarian-Thomist Literary Critic Marianne Moore about even In the Beginning
And Stanford is just down the road from Berkeley, where Mario Savio, bullhorn in hand, shouted out the Free Speech Movement's theses from atop a police cruiser in 1964.
This is the poet, Marianne Moore, right?
No, sorry, Marion Montgomery, taught at the University of Georgia, fine poet too.
I've heard of him. Your reference to Marianne Moore threw me.
I would not accept the apology until the DEI Dead is fired and students disciplined.
DEI *Dean*.
Cont... ‘In the Beginning’ the writings of Richard Weaver were as much ‘Anti-Establishment’ as anything on the New Left. I was intellectually weaned on the Fugitive Agrarians, the Distributists, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. And in those days even Catholic Conservatives had a weak spot -- rightfully so I would say -- for the Kennedys. What is to be done? Live not by lies is the first thing but to speak up, speak out, to engage politically seems a close second. I’m hoping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will declare for the Presidency. He at least has the courage of his convictions, a sincere Truth Teller if there ever was one, Truth-Telling as he sees it, honestly, outspokenly with the courage of real convictions. So what is to be done? Live not by lies and don’t tell them either. Pray, speak up and vote.
RFK advocates prosecuting as "war criminals" corporations that disagree with his views on "climate change."
I'm looking forward to RFK Jr. announcing, just for the entertainment of observing the internecine warfare within the Democrat Party.
He's been stalwart on exposing the Covid / vaccine fraud (if not depopulation agenda).
As to climate change, it's a fabricated crisis, a Trojan Horse intended to enable the imposition of a Collectivist / totalitarian dystopia upon the entire globe. (The parties behind this I refer to as the "Globalist-CCP Axis" ... while recognizing that there may well be other actors behind that ... and that ultimately, it is Satan as the "root cause.")
No college student is an "elite". No doubt some few of them will eventually ascend the ladder to become elites, but time will tell on that.
The jerks who misbehaved in this matter should be thoroughly censored for it. Expulsion from the university should be on the table.
The first thing they should do is fire that unspeakable dean. Believe me, Stanford's endowment can withstand any lawsuit.
Law school students, not college, so a bit closer to “elite” status. And the problem is not so much where any of these individuals ends up, but the mindset they represent.
The judge's most trenchant point of course is that behavior like this puts the whole notion of law to shame. Whatever you may think of contract theory, let's stipulate it. In classic contract theory the first natural right you surrender when you enter civil society is the right be a judge in your own cause. That's what these little snots can't stand.
The Red Guards and the rapist. Er, therapist. This is not soft totalitarianism. Why, some time not long hence, new Marshals will arrest him. Coming very soon to a country near you.
Elite colleges were established as Christian organizations. This helped to balance their elite power with an education in altruism. Over time, people stepped away from the church, as it became seen as an unneeded vestige from the past. Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth were the zeitgeist of the times (1970's). Breaking things is what we did. Building things and instilling values was a much more difficult task. The politicians couldn't be bothered with it and opened the flood gates to Asian immigrants, assuming that it would make their lives easier, but it only hurt the middle class who now had to compete with endless competition for resources. Parents, schools and churches struggled to care for the kids.
Over time, a new religion seeped into the schools and replaced Christianity in the background (an intentional change, made by the avowed Marxists). As Cynical Theories has noted, postmodernism is a fascist ideology. It replaced healthy skepticism with nihilistic cynicism. It weakened the resolve of the young and replaced a love of capitalism with a love for socialism. The enthusiastic quest for truth, handed down from the Enlightenment, was replaced by a cynical power grab, offered by the elites. Our liberal, Western culture was transformed into a Marxist power grab where everything is for sale and nothing matters.
Where Christianity has dissipated, capitalism took over as the ruling ideology. The markets replaced the people as the center of the economy as corruption took over the halls of power. In the midst of all this, a void opened in the hearts of children. Searching for meaning and purpose, the leftists offered the answer, Marxism. Now we are seeing the results of this evolution. Judge Duncan was shouted down by Woke Marxists. He symbolizes the past and their ideology is all about the future. It is about pinning one group against the other and hating on the past. We have a sick culture that needs a moral infusion, but few leaders are willing to offer it. They are afraid to promote Christianity over aggressive Woke Marxism.
It goes back further. The so-called “enlightenment” displaced ecumenical teaching for non-ecumenical teaching. The love of money is the root of all evil.
"What if, in ten or twenty years time, this kind of behavior is the norm in the courtroom, the law firm, the board room?"
It's already started: we already have judges who will not allow "cis-hetero-normative" perspectives to be presented in their courtrooms.
I got blocked out of a Facebook group I enjoyed very much and added a lot to because the termagant who runs it was infuriated by my describing myself on my page as a cisgendered, heterosexual Christian.
Now I counsel against war, which the more unhinged are determined to wage, in concert with the Woke. The current and future elites can terrorize us, but we are going to get a hell of a chaotic defeat from their foreign enemies, as those who are not only incompetent, but devoid of reason, not only lead us into temptation, but deliver us over to evil.
I suppose Stanford needs to be added (along with Yale) to the list of law schools from which no graduate should ever be selected to be law clerk. Also, this is another demonstration that DEI must DIE.
Say it again: the little creeps who actually carried out this hit are not the problem. No white shoe firm, even one "committed to diversity", is going to hire morons like this, let alone encourage this kind of behavior. They're probably at Stanford in the first place because of a bump up in their LSAT scores for reasons anybody can guess. The people to be afraid of are not even the "Dean"; though the first thing Stanford should do is fire her ass and take the consequences. Their endowment can stand the hit, I can assure you.
The people to be afraid of are the ones who are using these idiots, and that would be white men, and BIPOCs who have enough sense to act like white men. Who teach these little craps that this kind of behavior is cute. Believe it: when Thermidor comes around these loudmouths get one-way tickets to the GULAG.
Once again, Stanford is a research institution, is it not? Does it not receive truckloads of federal dollars? Has the federal government been shy about influencing university policy through this kind of money? No wonder the New York Times ran three hit pieces on DeSantis above the fold yesterday. This isn't pretty, but it's effective.
Always on hand with idiocy, Michelle Goldberg yesterday wrote a column that our "obsession" with wokeness is really weakness. Right.