A Show Of Don’ts

This week I decided to do some housekeeping. I started looking at the lists I keep for posting and podcasting with an eye on doing some year-end cleanup. This time of year I like to take some time to reorganize and reset. I noticed on my podcast list that I had some stray items and leftovers that I was probably never going to use, so some housekeeping was in order. That’s when it occurred to me that maybe I could bundle all of them into a single show. That way I would not discard them entirely.

The result this week is a show about things you should avoid doing. These are all ideas I thought about using for different topics, but they never quite fit. The first segment, for example, was something I thought about in the show on fascism, but it was left on the cutting room floor, as the professionals say. The last segment is something I thought of using in a show about popular culture, but I decided I did not care enough about popular culture to do a whole podcast on it. This show is a hunter’s stew, of sorts.

Tonight at 8:00 PM EST I am scheduled to be the Josh Neal live stream. I don’t know a whole lot about him, but he seems to be interviewing people involved in dissident politics, so I figured it would be fine. His list of topics to discuss is free will, the near future of dissident politics and my thoughts about Donald Trump. The show will run about 90 minutes and you can watch it at anytime. Given that this livestream will happen during my designated drinking time, it should be an entertaining episode.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below. I have been de-platformed by Spotify, because they feared I was poisoning the minds of their Millennial customers.

This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Opening
  • 07:00: Don’t Worry About Principles
  • 17:00: Don’t Chase The Stick
  • 27:00: Don’t Worry About Details
  • 37:00: Don’t Play The Role
  • 47:00: Don’t Black Pill Yourself
  • 57:00: Closing

Direct DownloadThe iTunes PageGoogle Play LinkiHeart Radio

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

48 thoughts on “A Show Of Don’ts

  1. ZMan,

    Seems to me that “not chasing the stick” is not as easy as you make it sound, unless you just walk away from the stick thrower. Most of us (myself included, sadly) are not good debaters. My brain doesn’t process that quickly. I can come up with good arguments and counter-arguments given time. How to respond to someone who asks you a direct and leading question, however, is not quite so easy. You can, I suppose, make a list of stock responses. I’ve added “and then what” for when someone proposes some stage 1 infantile public policy to force them to articulate at least some of the negative consequences of that policy. It is almost impossible to have a stock response for every stick and, for some of us, hard to remember them all on the fly. I am constantly surprised by the next comment and react poorly (in an argumentative sense), then walk away feeling like I ended up on the pointy end of the stick. Later I think “oh but I should have said…” but that doesn’t help in the moment.

    • Jesus often answered a question with a question. I think that’s a better route than always having a big-brained nibba response on the tip of your tongue anyway. Make them explain themselves—get them to talk themselves into a corner.

      “How’s that working out for you?”

      • I’ve used the answer a question with a question for years. In part because it’s a good technique but mainly because the Left and the Old Right often 1) never define their terms and 2) they have no rationale behind their statements.

        By asking them to define a word or explain why they are in favor of something, you destroy their “argument” because you expose that they don’t even have a position, just platitudes.

        For example, if someone calls you or someone else a racist, ask them what they mean by racist. They will get extremely flustered. If they say “diversity is our strength” or something like that, ask them to explain how and when it has worked in the past. They can’t.

        However, beware, you are causing them very serious cognitive dissonance, and they won’t like it. People often get very upset when you ask them to explain what they mean or why they believe their slogans, far more upset than when you try to explain your side of the argument. This is especially true for women, so watch out.

        It’s weird and a little scary to see people get so mad because you asked them to explain their side. You’re not even challenging them, just asking for an explanation. They get furious and always walk away. What’s more, they remember that you did that to them. Be careful how you use this power.

  2. Excellent on principles…the surest cuckservative tell is a bitter diatribe on liberal media hypocrisy. “We’ve been so loyal, so good…how could you betray us so?”

  3. I think discussing gay marriage at all is a form of chasing the stick, only a little better than arguing about trannies in bathrooms, which is much like discussing precautions to protect jackolopes crossing highways in its real world impact. It’s a topic of such minuscule societal import that to have a strong opinion one way or the other betrays a lack of proportion. I’m gay but I could literally care less about gay marriage. I think it’s pointless, but if it were made legal tomorrow, I would be completely neutral. I see it as a leftist diversionary tactic—something that gets religious peoples blood up and draws the public eye from the real issues, the borders, the neocon wars, the trade deals.

    • I just wanted to say Jackelope. But really, I mean it’s a establishment diversionary tactic. To create great theater and make it appear as though there’s a political debate, when in fact there is not.

    • ”the real issues, the borders, the neocon wars, the trade deals.”

      Those really are the Big 3, aren’t they? You could quibble about the wording or the emphasis, you could point out that they’re all subsets of globalism vs nationalism, but it’s those three. They got Trump elected, and every time you run into somebody with any degree of awareness the talk gets around to those three areas.

  4. “Shiv of conservative principles”
    Excellent. A brilliant encapsulation of the most serious problem.

  5. I want to give Z a tip of the ole chapeau. My 29 year old daughter and I were spending some time today Christmas shopping. We have been discussing subjects regularly discussed on this site, and while driving, I put on today’s show. She listened intently, and when we got to our destination, she said, with regards to abandoning principles, that she never thought of the subject the way that you disseminated it. (BTW, she is the lone Christian Conservative at her current employer. We get a kick out of talking about how she seamlessly navigates the land mines at work). Anyway, thank you for clarifying a subject that I was clearly inadequate in articulating.
    Keep up the good work.

  6. Avoiding rage bait is good. Inflicting it on the Enemy is better.

    If it can be done safely, legally and anonymously, 100 pieces of paper and a little ink carefully deployed under windshield wipers can accomplish more than a year’s worth of fighting in comment sections.

    • I’ve had all sorts of animals over the years. If my schedule was more fixed, I’d have a dog, most likely a dachshund or a rottweiler. But, the schedule does not permit a dog, so I have wild cat hybrids.

  7. The chase-the-stick thing is a great metaphor, and image.

    I’m not a media expert, but one thing that also bugs me when watching “conservatives” getting interviewed, is that they pretend to respect the interviewers’ questions, which are usually nothing more than barely-disguised invective and smear attacks.

    They should never even pretend to respect the interviewers or their questions. Respect grants the interviewers grossly undeserved moral legitimacy. Like Trump, they should attack their interviewers every single time, and call them out on their obvious leftism and dishonesty.

    When dealing with the totalitarian smear-bots of the left-wing media, as a principle this should be right up there with “never apologize.”

  8. Maybe not “principles”, but what about “objectives”? Most people need some organizing and clarifying constructs.

    • “Organizing and clarifying constructs” arise naturally in a people facing extinction. The objective is victory over the aggressors. They declared war on us and their sole objective is our annihilation.

      Z man’s use of the Soviet example from WW2 is helpful. Stalin in 1941-1942 abandoned much principle to defeat Germany, setting aside the building of ‘Socialism in One Country’ to fight ‘The Great Patriotic War’. He encouraged pre-Revolutionary sentiments such as Christianity and the Motherland to activate the fighting spirit of the Russian people. He suspended his war on the Soviet officer corps. He openly and gladly accepted the vast material support of the “capitalist enemy”. After 1945, Stalin had a free hand to re-establish his ‘principles’, such as they were.

      That’s because he won. It’s what we have to do. Remember that it was the “good guys” in WW2 who razed cities with incendiary bombing and eventually atomic blasts. Dropping atom bombs on defenseless cities is probably the Gold Standard of “not who we are”. But our fathers and grandfathers did it, and here we be.

      • Implying we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for firebombing Japan and Germany? We had no reason to get involved in either World War.

    • Likewise.

      I’ve listened to the Zman once before. It’s always interesting to hear the free flow exchange of ideas in real time.

      John Derbyshire had a good quote on this once. Paraphrasing (because I can’t find the quote) “In print, a genius. In speeches, passable. In person, an idiot.”

      Being able to communicate effectively and intelligently in a real time medium is a very real challenge, particularly when there is give and take between the moderator and the guest(s).

      Tuning in at 8pm. Must listen now; frankly, it’s a miracle that The Zman hasn’t been kicked off of Youtube for “hate think”.

  9. “We need all the sober-minded people we can get.” Excellent line to end the main segments. Overdosing on black pills will ensure defeat. It’s fun to be a loose cannon. Yet, it’s also undisciplined and evidences poor priorities. One reason not to “play the role” of a caricatured anti-leftist villain is that it’s more important to convert normies to a dissident worldview than it is to piss off leftists (though I readily admit that doing the latter can be quite amusing). Normies scare easily, especially when dissidents so readily fit themselves to worn-out tropes such as “racist” or “sexist” or what have you. Being respectable and smart — as opposed to deliberately outrageous — will probably prove the most effective way to win people over.

    • I viewed the ‘dont play the role’ segment as basically just another angle on ‘dont chase the stick’. Both are about ‘frame control’. Dont accept the frame where you are defensive or the clown or ‘weird’ etc. Shift the frame so they are any or all of those.

    • The problem is, what does the alt-right stand for, oppose, etc. We’ don’t even have talking points or anything else. Our so-called serious thinkers are either too busy being snarky or just can’t be bothered to put forth a FAQ and basic talking points.

      Saying we’re HBD’ers is worthless and can black pill people against you real fast if you start talking about genetically engineering superior humans like Sailer has done or telling the normie he is a meat machine with no free will(NPC) and people will think “He’s a Nazi”.

      Worse, there is no go to site to point the curious normie at. Books? Trucker Carlson’s “Ship of Fools” is the only one I recommend to normies.

      This is the fatal flaw of our side and makes us a big joke: We can’t organize anything. Not even a FAQ.

  10. Agree w most. But, about principles, I have to admit when heard Z say (or write, I forget) this it took me by surprise too. I see where he’s coming from but, maybe as a matter of semantics, I would rather say ‘dont have any dogmas’ than ‘principles’. If you have no principles at all, how do you know what you stand for?? But they should not be absolute, unyielding, ‘eternal’ truths and especially so when they get in the way of winning. The stuff about the left being devoid of morals, ethics etc is all true. I kinda suspect this is the postmodernist side to them, but Im not sure. Postmodernists, I think, were the ones who said ‘there is nothing but power’; that is pretty darwinian btw, as is Z’s ideas here; first win/survive. Darwin doesnt care if your seed went extinct for the prettiest principle in history, after all, maybe sabertooths and brontosaurs were totally idealistic, wonderfully moral creatures; maybe they were not (there was a little sarcasm tugged in there). In any case, how did that work out for them??

    And, true about chasing the stick. This principle already has a name, ‘frame control/frame shift’. Ie controlling the ‘frame’ of the conversation, which you should always do. I learned this via the ‘pick up artists’. You should read a little on these guys, it is not about getting laid (although it actually works for that too and thats how it got started). But what makes it interesting is that it is actually solid psychology, some of the only such out there. It is NOT random that many of the more ‘famous’ (or infamous, whatever) PUAs agree w ppl here and such, politically.

    Other than that, pretty solid stuff (as usual, tbh).

    • I have it on good authority that brontosaurs were like, totally down with trans rights. No to cis-reptilian trad-cloacal oppressors!

  11. Any ideas for a launch page to replace Drudge? Force of habit here for so many years.

    In an age of hedonism and non religious beliefs being prevalent we sure have a lot of piety.

      • I have tried with whatfinger but I cannot get over how bad the website looks. There’s really no excuse for it. Why do you have to use so many colors? so many fonts? It’s just a mess.

        And I really enjoyed the podcast and I like that you ended by telling people not to despair. Very appropriate

          • It’s been a while since I’ve been to Drudge but as I recall it was just very simple. Very black and white. Kind of like this website. Not messy. I just don’t think a bunch of colors and fonts and flashing lights make a website more interesting. I’m interested in the content not the presentation. Totally agree with the Z man though, drudge became fake news. Sometimes his headlines wouldn’t even have anything to do with the article they linked to and other times they didn’t even link to anything. Giving up drudge was a great decision

  12. Only a little more than twenty minutes into this episode and there have already been several gems (loved the bit about DR3 being a way for Boomer Cons to throw their own stick though it clearly doesn’t work). Every once and a while somebody should stop to acknowledge how great Z is at what he does. As much as I’d prefer not to sound like a kiss-ass, I can’t help it. This guy deserves a lot of admiration.

    • It is never improper to give credit where credit is due. I have an idea of how hard it is to put thoughts together and the work involved in presentation. It is a time consuming endeavor which as near as I can tell accrues no renumeration to Z-man. An “atta boy” every so often should come from all of us.

      • Compsci, I agree, but if Mr. Z hasn’t got a plan to monetize this I’d be both surprised and disappointed.

  13. I NEVER try to argue facts and reason with lefty relatives. I simply mock their stupid ideas and express complete indifference to their current “principles” – like your quip to the gay guy. Nothing makes them madder than not caring and not accepting their crap. Exactly how is diversity our strength?

    • In 1985 I got drunk with an old friend who had “come out” as a homo a couple years earlier. He kept asking me, or pestering me, really, to declare my total commitment to the homo cause. I was continually trying to change the subject. Eventually I had to declare my position – that homosexuality is an aberration. I went into details, describing in plain Anglo-Saxon the sort of things that homos got up to, and declaring my total rejection of such activity as crimes against nature.

      We haven’t been in touch since. But it wasn’t my fault. I was drinking with a friend, and ended up rejected as a “hater”, just trying to stay off a certain subject, where that was the ONLY subject that mattered to him.

  14. If you opened the door to left over year end thoughts?…

    Principles inform a society (or they used to), look at cities past & present you can see what people cared about in how they built towns.

    Go back a bit and the grandest buildings were churches, usually in town center. Later political palaces had to be built even larger to show political dominance over theology. Today it’s skyscrapers where business/$$$ runs the show.

    Tomorrow it will be the Chinese launching Sauron’s eye with a space elevator.

  15. One of the problems of cleaning out the attic is ya find old chit that is so cool, ya wonder how it ended up in the attic in the first place. Then you start thinking about that and all the other junk up there, that no cleaning gets done. I liked the point about chasing the stick, it will have great application in public debates and sparring matches. I also have a personal take on that.

    Let’s be honest: Your aunt that drinks wine by the box does that because she’s an idiot, and her politics are what they are for the same reason. That and maybe she’s one of the parasites, grifters, or union slobs that benefit from leftist policies. I got banished from my prog family for not chasing the stick (and I suppose beating them over the head with it didn’t endear me to them either).

    My message for everyone going into the Christmas holidays with the family is this: Lefties and proggies will not be convinced of anything. They will only hate you more if you win an argument or refuse to play their games. I take control of those arseholes right up front now. I tell them loudly and bluntly that they can shove their politics up their arse – I am there for fun and to socialize with the family and that’s it. They have no right to force their politics on me during such an occasion and If they want to get stupid and be unpleasant about it, I will thank the hosts, and leave. Go home, pour a dram for you and the wife, and spare a thought and some thanks for your Maker and His Son during the holidays. Or, just turn on your heel and walk away and go talk to somebody sane.

    We live in divisive times and nothing is going to get settled until the shooting starts.

Comments are closed.