Politics is downstream of culture.
—Andrew Breitbart
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Category Archives: Culture
Quote of the Day
Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leaks in the Memory Hole
Too many of the wrong people have been caught up in the Afghanistan fiasco for The Media to quietly go along with the Xiden Administration’s attempts to edit the news. During the long war, reporters who spent time in Afghanistan made friends among the Afghan people. Other reporters have college friends or family members working with NGOs in the country. These personal connections to real people in real distress are The Media them to challenge Xiden’s spin.
Here are a couple of examples.
The Guardian has reported in a significant difference between the American and French governments’ version of the minutes of a phone call between Joe Xiden and French President Macron. A British newspaper is reporting on the French lecturing us on moral behavior.
The White House’s readout of a call between Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron on the crisis in Afghanistan leaves out an impassioned plea from the French president that the US and its allies have a “moral responsibility” to evacuate Afghan allies.
ABC has now published the entire transcript of the Xiden interview conducted by George Stephanopoulos, including about 1,000 words that were edited from the broadcast version. The full version simply makes Xiden look even less prepared to handle the crisis.
People who haven’t been to Room 101 yet tend to be supportive of friends and family, even over the demands of the Inner Party.
Quote of the Day
Ahh. You seek meaning. Then listen to the music, not the song.
—Kosh
A Question of Taste
I prefer the way Mrs. Hoge (while she was still Miss Potter) wore it.
Some New Words
One of the advantages of a proper education in Western Civilization that included ancient languages is the ability to coin new technical and scientific words without having to resort to Newspeak. Take the word hoplophobia for example. Jeff Cooper created the term by combining the Greek words όπλο (weapon) and φοβία (fearfulness) to describe the irrational fear of weapons. It succinctly describes an attitude held by many who favor suppression of Second Amendment rights. BTW, it is more on point than the misuse of the -phobia suffix in the words homophobia and Islamophobia which seems to mean the hatred of homosexual and muslims rather than the fear of them. A proper Greek-derived suffix for hatred would be -echtra.
I see a need for a couple of new phobia-suffix words to describe attitudes that are becoming prevalent in our public discourse. They are epistimiphobia and altitheiaphobia.
The first is based on επιστήμη which means science, so it means an irrational fear of science. I believe it will be useful in describing the sort of person who clings to a particular hypothesis long after it has been falsified repeatably because of an emotional investment a false belief.
The second is based on αλήθεια which meant truth or reality. It means an irrational fear of the truth. I believe it will be useful in describing the sort of person who is even further along in his denial than an epistimiphobe.
The guy who is still wearing two masks in the park may be an epistimiphobe, but if believes that he is a woman, he’s probably an alitheiaphobe.
Quote of the Day
Prima societas in ipso conjugio est: proxima in liberis; deinde una domus, communia omnia. The first bond of society is marriage; the next, our children; then the whole family and all things in common.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
Words Have Meaning
And Sarah Hoyt has a post over at According to Hoyt about how collectivist/progressives/liberals have created a style sheet that bends public discourse in their favor.
Look, half of the way you think is bounded in by words. And half of the way other people think too. By using the leftist chosen terms, you’re lending them your unwitting support.
Don’t lose the war of words. Come up with more accurate terms, and think about what you’re saying.
Don’t let the Left frame the terms of the debate. Make them deal with the Real World on its terms. Or if it’s to your advantage, force them to stick with a contradictory position. (Hey, AP, why are you complaining about your Gaza office? Destruction of property isn’t violence again, is it?)
Don’t let the wokie win.
Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
The Left can’t meme, so it shouldn’t be any surprise when it turns out when Team Kimberlin (leftist all) winds up being the butt of the joke they try to tell about someone else. Five years ago today, one of Bill Schmalfeldt’s memes was Presented With Comment.
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The link in the Cabin Boy’s™ tweet takes you to a post at his site which does include a comment asking the visitor to meet Dave and David.
BTW, the image that Schmalfeldt has defaced is Rembrandt’s painting Balaam’s Ass, so the critter in the picture isn’t even a horse.
The story of how Balak, the king of Moab, tried to hire the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites and how Balaam wound up blessing them is found in Numbers 22 and 23.
He answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak that which the LORD puts in my mouth?”
—Numbers 23:12
You know, a story about how a bad guy’s plans backfire seems fitting in this context.
UPDATE—Those Gentle Readers who have not yet met Dave and David should check out their work over at the Artisan Craft Blog.
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The phrase battle of wits with an unarmed man comes to mind.
Racism in America
During his speech last night, Tim Scott said that America is not a racist country. He’s correct. It’s interesting that many Leftists are acting as if he claimed there is no racism in America. He didn’t say that, and if he had, he would have been wrong. It’s clear that there are still some individuals, most of whom seem to be on the left side of politics, who judge others on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. But America, the country as a whole, has moved away from much of its racism over my lifetime.
Racism isn’t dead; it’s on life support, kept alive by politicians in need of an issue, professional do-gooders in need of a clientele to serve/manage, and grifters running new plays on an old con. The Gentle Reader should note that it was after minority unemployment reached a record low and minority incomes achieved massive growth, that the current round of unrest popped up. Note also that its the woke grifters who have bought nice houses while properties such as an affordable housing project were burned by rioters.
The real issue isn’t racism per se. Racism is just a tool used to acquire and manipulate power. As we get closer to a full implementation of Martin Luther King’s vision of seeing each other based on our character, the more we will understand how those who would divide us are poisonous to our society and should be kept from positions of leadership and authority.
That’s what they’re afraid of.
Quote of the Day
Marxism is a flight from the magic of the person and the mystique of hierarchy. It distorts the character of western culture, which is based on the charismatic power of person. Marxism can work only in pre-industrial societies of homogeneous populations. Raise the standard of living, and the rainbow riot of individualism will break out. Personality and art, which Marxism fears and censors, rebound from every effort to oppress them.
—Camille Pagila
Standing Up to Bullies
The woke crowd that is ruining everyone else’s good time are basically a bunch of bullies, and time and again, it’s been shown that best way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them. Glenn Reynolds has a piece over at the NY Post about how to deal with the current crop of little monsters.
Does this mean we should be less tolerant of our own minoritarian tyrants? In a word, yes.
I don’t mean that they should be forced into camps, or even driven from their jobs and from polite society, as the woke are all too willing to do to their opponents. But they need to be deprived of the thing that is most important to their self-image: moral credibility.
Part of what is wrong with bullies is that they have an overabundance of self-esteem. They imagine their superiority, moral or otherwise, entitles them to enforce their desires on the rest of us.
The woke think of themselves — and want everyone else to think of them — as deeply moral. If they have a flaw, it’s that they just care too much. They’re too idealistic, too empathetic, too eager to make the world a better place.
That’s bulls–t (pardon my French, Pepé!). If you look at what they do, rather than what they say about themselves, it quickly becomes obvious that the woke are horrible, awful, people, and they should be treated as such and reminded of this whenever they raise their head.
Indeed. It’s all about power, the power the wokies want to have over our lives and culture, power they hope will fill in the empty spaces in their lives.
I propose this strategy—DON’T let the wokie win!
I’m So Old …
… I remember when we reformed what was then called “welfare as we know it.”
I remember that Joe Xiden voted for the Welfare Reform Act in 1996, but it seems that he’s changed what little is left of his mind. According to a report by The Heritage Foundation, the Administration’s welfare plan would significantly raise cash grants while ending existing work obligations in the current child credit program. It abandons any link between work and welfare established by welfare reform in the 1990s and goes back to the principle of unconditional entitlement to taxpayer-funded benefits.
It All Depends On What You Mean By “Equality”
The House has passed a legislative nightmare called the “Equality Act.” If it passes the Senate and becomes law, it would amend federal statutes to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and it explicitly will destroy religious freedom protections related to sexual and gender identity. The bill explicitly states: “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.) shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, a covered title, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title.”
Stephen Kruiser has suggested that the Equality Act is proof that the Democrats are clinically insane. OTOH, The Party may need the words “equal” and “equality” to have different meanings. Sometimes two plus two equals four. But not always.
Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.
Sour Grapes
Al Franken has an oped over at The Daily News called Rush Limbaugh’s Real Legacy. It’s basically a complaint that Rush Limbaugh was successful in his career while Franken wasn’t.
I’m so old, I remember when the Left had a significant, often dominant, share of talk radio. That began to change during the Regan era, and Rush Limbaugh’s arrival in national syndication more or less coincident with the Clinton’s arrival in national politics was part of decisively tipping the balance on the AM band toward the Right. Rush was funny, and he was effective.
Part of the Left’s response to Rush was an outfit called Air America which included Al Franken, then a minor-league comedy writer and occasional SNL player, as one of its featured hosts. Air America failed, but Franken used his time in talk radio to increase his clout on the Left. He was able to get to the Senate through what many see as a rigged election, but he failed there too. Meanwhile, Rush consistently held on to tens of millions of listeners to the end of his career.
I’m seeing some folks wonder who can replace Rush. Beats me, but I’m reasonably certain that someone else will come along who is funny and effective and who the Left will love to hate.
Stay tuned.
One Example
Rush Limbaugh made a significant impact on American culture. During his 30+ years on nationally-syndicated radio, he influenced, deeply at times, our national political debate. He did it by cleverly and often humorously framing the the debate in ways that were difficult for his opponents to easily answer, and his effectiveness caused him to be one of the admitted and most hated men in the country.
Sometimes he could frame the debate with a single word or phrase.
Consider the word feminazi.
The word Rush coined is now so charged, so verboten, that I had to fight with autocorrupt to be able to type it. Yet, it is a excellent summary description of one segment of the left, that group of generally upper-class radical feminists who wish to deal with their personal failures in life by imposing their control on society, at least with respect to the issues they care about, through totalitarian means. It would be a useful term simply for that terse summary. However, it has the extra utility of pointing out that the marxist kooks to which it refers are more like National Socialists (Fascisti and Nazis) than any of the Republican they call nazis.
I admired Rush Limbaugh.
Politics Is Downstream From Culture
(H/T, Instapundit)
At least seventy-some-odd million of us can honestly claim that we didn’t vote for Joe Xiden.