It has long been known that certain types of jobs and professions attract certain personality types. The entertainment business attracts shallow people, who crave attention and adulation. Cops tend to be belligerent bullies. It does not mean all entertainers are shallow airheads or that all cops are jerks, just that these fields tend to attract those types. In fact, shallow airheads and belligerent bullies may have some advantages in these fields over average people.
Modern mass democracy seems to attract a certain personality type as well. The person we tend to see in politics and the associated media, large and small, is someone, who takes great pleasure in admiring himself. His vanity is not rooted in accomplishment or even proven skill, but rather in an idealized version of himself, which is often quite different from his actual self. The world of mass democracy, especially the media, is a world dominated by narcissistic nitwits.
Just look at some of the people that were in the Democratic primary field. Pete Buttigieg is a man of no accomplishments. In fact, given all the advantages he has had compared to most people, he has been a failure. Yet, he spent a year sashaying around the country, carrying on like he was doing the world a favor. Think about the level of self-regard it takes for a small-town mayor to think he can be President. You have to like yourself a whole lot to do what he did this last year.
The political media is where this is most obvious. David French is a great example of the narcissistic nitwit. The only reason to notice him at all is due his many idiotic things he has posted on-line over the last decade. Tucker Carlson called him a buffoon and “one of the least impressive people he has met.” Carlson is in showbiz now, which means he is around feckless airheads all day. That means he ranks French below the bubbly weather girls and the addle minded jocks he meets.
French is a pretty good example of what has come to dominate the world of non-profit conservatism over the last couple of decades. This is guy, who exaggerates his own trivial accomplishments and spends an enormous amount of time telling the world about his wonderfulness. He is a moral nullity that spends his time on line lecturing us about the moral failings of public figures. How is it possible for such a nothing person to have so much self-regard? It should be impossible.
Another good example of the narcissistic nitwit is Tom Nichols. That would be “Five Time Jeopardy Champion” Tom Nichols for you commoners. He is fond of telling everyone he meets that he is really good at remembering pointless trivia. He is also fond of being wrong about everything, but carrying on as if he is an expert on everything. He is, of course, always disappointed in the rest of us. So much so he writes long essays explaining why the world does not deserve Tom Nichols.
The thing is, guys like David French and Tom Nichols are not unusual. The political media is full of people posing in front of empty trophy cases, grinning like they are the champions of everything. Their careers are a mix of pointless credentials, timely obsequiousness and idiotic public pronouncements. Yet, they strut around as if they are doing the rest of us a favor by remaining on the planet. The gap between self-perception and reality is breath taking.
It is not just the mainstream either. Mass media, especially low-barrier to entry stuff like video streaming, has loaded minor politics with narcissists too. Look at the e-celebs that have become a staple of the dissident scene. Many are dumb girls, who flash their boobs on camera, but there are plenty of men that think they are Tom Nichols. Think about some of the fringe people, who have been born on third base, but ended up on first base, yet carry on as if they are world changing figures in history.
Again, it is not the self-regard. Lots of men are cocky, especially when young, thinking they are all that and a bag of chips. It’s a form of peacocking. Women, of course, naturally seek attention. The difference between normal vanity and what we see with these narcissistic nitwits is the massive gap between their self-perception and the reality of their resumes. They are so delusional that they may as well be imagining themselves to be entirely different people. Their life is a larp.
Now, the most likely explanation for this is mass media. Nowhere has mass media had a greater impact than politics. Turning it into a game of attention seeking, like the entertainment rackets, means it will attract the attention seekers. That’s certainly true, as politics at all levels has been turned into entertainment. Politics, especially fringe politics, is as much of a hobby as a real effort to change things. The general lack of seriousness means the un-serious can run wild.
That said, this seems to be a feature of modern democracy. Since the game is winning the crowd, at any cost, people willing to do anything, even humiliate themselves, to win the crowd become major figures. Two types of people are willing to humiliate themselves for the pleasure of others: those with no self-regard and those with infinite self-regard. The former has no pride and the latter has no shame. Shameless is the word that best describes people like David French.
There have been many technical explanations for why democracy is a system that eventually destroys itself. Those explanations are sound, but one reason seldom mentioned is that democracy selects for the worst people. You cannot run anything with feckless airheads and narcissistic nitwits. That’s democracy though. It elevates the vain and stupid into positions of authority. It elevates narcissism and boasting over prudence and caution. It makes the people reckless and stupid.
There is another aspect to this that helps explain the dominance of narcissistic nitwits in modern liberal democracy. Empathy and compassion are rooted in self-interest. When done so publicly, they become a form of status seeking. The narcissist is bets equipped to display what appears to be a heightened sensitivity to suffering of others. They are willing to rend their garments and sob in public on behalf of everyone. They put on a great show, that allows the public to vicariously empathize with the suffering of man.
Self-preservation is the natural limit on compassion. In a healthy society, this limit scales up to be the limit tolerable to maintain social order and continuity. Democracy not only unleashes the narcissistic nitwits; it crumbles the limits on compassion that these narcissists feed on like maggots. Democracy murders itself not just because of the low-quality people it attracts, but because it indulges in limitless compassion to the point where it can no longer defend itself.
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Politicians are not representative of ordinary people. Authentic democracy is either by sortition, taking randomly drafted citizens to rule, or by monarchy, because a king is just an average guy who happened to be born king, representative of his people.
Oligarchy and its show business only have positive utility when technology is rapidly advancing and constant fresh blood is needed to adapt to an evolving world. In stagnant times, and most certainly in declining times, a king is needed, a true democrat as much as a true authority.
These fops share your disdain for “democracy,” and would love nothing more than to have their superlative class rule without any pretense to consulting the proles. Indeed, every subversive social and economic policy smuggled through congress or rammed home by the courts would have happened decades sooner, were it not for the pretense of “democracy.”
What is it that keeps narcissistic windbags from talking too much in an old Western, or in a tribe on the savanna for that matter or feudal Japan? To answer that may offer an important clue to where modern democracy has gone wrong.
The answer is; in those places, someone will test your ‘tall talk’ there, in a pretty scary way, where failure often means death. That is the difference. Tall talk in modern ‘polite society’ is free. No one is going to come after you with a colt or a spear or a samurai sword. If they get really angry they will sue you. Oh my, dear, isn’t that scary. Especially when your backers will pay any compensation you might have to cough up.
Putting a cap on this, ladies and gentlemen, was the purpose of the duel, the ‘let’s take it outside’, the ‘meet me in a back alley’ or ‘under the big acacia or cherry tree’. These things had a purpose, to match masculine status to courage and backbone. Having removed that feedback loop, this post describes exactly what you can and should expect, a con artists’ arms race.
“It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.” – G.K. Chesterton in The Cleveland Press, March 1, 1921
This is even more true today than when Chesterton wrote it in ’21.
“This is guy, who exaggerates his own trivial accomplishments and spends an enormous amount of time telling the world about his wonderfulness. He is a moral nullity that spends his time on line lecturing us about the moral failings of public figures. How is it possible for such a nothing person to have so much self-regard? It should be impossible.”
For a moment I thought you were referring to the commenter “Twinkie” from the Audacious Epigone’s bog at Unz Review.
Ha! He’s one of the reasons (Rosie was another big one) that I essentially abandoned Unz. Nothing Sailer or Epigone writes is worth the comments that follow. Two more brilliant examples of 1)Women ruin everything and 2) Special exceptions really aren’t as special as they think they are.
Thanks for the French busting. Made my day.
You’ve nailed the #1 reason I retired from higher ed. When I started, decades ago, adolescents sure had high self-regard, but I figured that was because they’re adolescents. These days, though, you’ve got kids who know the straight A’s they’ve gotten all their lives are participation trophies… but they carry on as if they, personally, solved world hunger and cured cancer. It’s surreal. Imagine class after class after class of nothing but those nitwits, semester after semester…
The left at least hires their own pundits. We have to suffer with a left-wing dominated media that hires frauds and Con men to represent those of us on the Right. None of these people, Erickson, Nichols, French, Goldberg, etc. have any supporters on the Right, but they still have media jobs and columns churning out worthless “Never Trumper” “Reasonable Conservative” crap for their left-wing masters.
You’d have to have a heart of stone to not laugh at this Reason headline:
“Libertarian Super Tuesday: Big Night for Jacob Hornberger, NOTA; John McAfee Drops Out and Backs Vermin Supreme”
(not linking, because friends don’t encourage friends to read Reason)
I don’t even know what to say. It would be interesting to find out how McAfee got his lousy anti-virus software bundled in to every corporate PC build in the 90s. Everything after is speculation . . .
Vermin Supreme! I met the guy at a Manchester, NH MAGA rally. (Guy next to me in line knew him personally and Vermin – who was apparently vaguely protesting on general principles – came by to say hello.) So there he was, big as life, rubber boot -worn-as-hat and all. Completely deadpan my ladyfriend turned to me and said, “Well, that seems like an interesting man. Grassroots politics, huh?”
And yes, a headline for the ages.
Z — If David French were writing articles that you liked, would you still see him as a “narcissistic nitwit”? I rather suspect you wouldn’t! Unrelatedly, and just out of curiosity, can you name a single writer whose ideas you hate, but who you nevertheless respect as a human being?
(BTW, Dave French does not lack accomplishments. Getting your thoughts regularly published in well known venues definitely counts as an accomplishment! It’s not a unique accomplishment, to be sure, but only a tiny fraction of the population ever manages it. The rest always have the option of becoming bloggers though).
If the apparent split in the black (Biden) and brown (Bernie) vote repeats on March 10, the next week should see a serious and cold-eyed effort to meme the split wider before Arizona, Florida and Illinois vote on St Patrick’s Day.
Tocqueville–It is not always the ability to choose men of merit which democracy lacks but the desire and inclination to do so.
When I stepped ashore in the United States, I discovered with amazement to what extent merit was common among the government but rare among the rulers.
Men of moderate desire commit themselves to the twists and turns of politics…it often comes about that only those who feel inadequate in the conduct of their own business undertake to direct the fortunes of the state.
To be brainwashed into being compassionate for an enemy seeking to destroy you is one thing but faking being compassionate is the worst.
Crying Chuck Schumer comes to mind, his phony tears and all the phony compassion for political gain is the worst thing about our democracy.
Speaking of narcissists Joe Biden anyone?
Democracy brings to us a three ring circus of narcissists.
We have a decent chance now of having the leader of the United States walking around in the White House in his slippers looking for the checkout line at Wal Greens.
What has democracy wrought?
Probably Hillary or Stacy Abrams as his replacement when he resigns or kicks the bucket.
You seem to be batting 1,000 of late Mr Z. I’ve not been able to find anything to pick a fault with, and believe me, I do try.
Whatever you’re drinking, keep at it.
The Trophy Cabinets aren’t empty, but they are participation trophies, Nice Loser awards, and the meaningless credentials. Someone should give out honorary degrees in “Gender Studies”.
Democracy isn’t at fault as much as the /demos/. If you have a number of fiercely independent nonconformist english protestant Christians, they will vote for very limited government. If you have a bunch of freeloaders, or those who want to be taken care of (e.g. women – they didn’t hurt Wyoming when given equality, but note that Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Katy Stanton didn’t move there so they could vote, they just cried and whined until they got what they wanted).
Democracy (limited, we had a republic but coudn’t keep it), and the Free Market, and other things are means to an end, tend to be amoral, and need to be kept in the proper place, much like fire in a fireplace is wonderful, not when it happens elsewhere in your house.
It requires a high trust society but one that is suspicious of Man. What has been abandoned with Christianity is the idea that Man is fallen and flawed (but not bad). If the only thing we have are the better angels of our nature, we need no controls. But if you look at the discussions around the Constitution, it was specifically that Man cannot be relied on not to abuse power. So Adams start with a “moral people” was a necessary but not sufficient condition. The moral have to be miltant in keeping things in check.
We destroyed that under Wilson with the 16th, 17th, and 19th amendments, and no one would think that the 18th was necessary to allow government to control alcohol consumption.
Everyone knows where to get back to and how to get there. We need the will, and it will be hard, messy, and even likely bloody. But is liberty worth it? I ask that of libertarians who live in the highest taxed and regulated places, pointing out like the Suffragettes above, that they operationally prefer other things to liberty.
” Empathy and compassion are rooted in self-interest ”
When I try to get a normie or lib to examine their motivations, I point that line out to them specifically, almost exactly….I’m surprised I haven’t been punched yet but fewer people speak to me now, so there’s that, I guess. It makes me wonder why I’m not more social and then I get to thinking about who I would socialize with if I could. I accept the logical conclusion that 5 people in my life is enough.
Also, I wondered why clown car Bill Kristol was not used as a pinata in today’s post but I suppose the easy joke isn’t always the appropriate one. Even after everything that has happened to the dnc in the last 24hrs, today’s post made me laugh every bit as hard.
thanks for that Z.
A linked article late in yesterday’s thread really said it all. One side of our politics is totalitarian, and the other side is bigoted. Each side sees no problem with his own side’s position, which is actually a way to getting to the best outcome for the greatest number, in each side’s opinion. Normies have the deer in the headlights thing going on when they have to contend or deal with any of it. But both sides have their own self-interest at the heart of the matter. For all of our protestations about the proper rightness of our thing, its benefits do fall fully at our feet. And I suppose the “all of the above” totalitarian bigot could be a real powerhouse choice.
That was a good article by Christopher Caldwell linked yesterday in the post
“its benefits do fall fully at our feet”
They do! And should, because our people built and earned those benes, no?
The heartbreaking thing is that our greatest sin was trying to be decent.
Nonetheless, we’re quite humble.
The Lefty criers, however, should rename themselves the Narcissists.
We could call them, simply, the Narcs.
_______________________
(Trying to upvote, of course, but Dutch won today’s “you have already..” lottery- does anybody else get vote zero’d like that?)
Anybody know where I can find details on the upcoming amren conference?
https://www.amren.com/2020-american-renaissance-conference/
Thank you
A lot of these guys remind me of Al Bundy and his four touchdowns in a single game for Polk High. They have a single minor accomplishment decades earlier and they are still milking it. We have always had people like this, years after we graduated some of the guys I played football with were still hanging around the team when they had a day off from their job as a gas station attendant, but now they have the internet to trumpet their accomplishments.
You see a lot of this with veterans. Not taking from their accomplishments, but some seem not to have done much outside of such service and continue to dwell upon such long after.
Is this not related to something that has been discussed here before, i.e. the fact that power (real power) is moving away from elected politicians to senior functionaries of the deep state and the people who control money and information? A shadow state, if you will.
No doubt that our once-venerated democratic process has degenerated into a TV talent show but is that the cause of the shadow state or the effect of it?
They’re all Baghdad Bob now, so I’d say frontmen and puppets are the effect of the shadow state.
I’d also posit that frontmen and puppets are the specialty of a permanent minority whose niche and tactics are of a culture of chamberlains. They could not defeat, so they learned war without weapons or risk, achieving victory from behind the throne.
Would that be cause, or effect? of environment, history, and circumstance.
(p.s.- in Old Babylon, the title of such chamberlains was “Lucifer”.)
I recommend a process whereby a king is elected from and by those with skin in the game. Perhaps 7th century Visigoth politics can serve as a useful model here.
Kind of off-topic, but Steve Sailer had a very, very superficial and disappointing take on Frank Buckley’s important new book, “American Secession” over at Taki’s. His view – secession isn’t going to happen, because it’s hard, and the American military, and, well, USA! USA!. I’m temped to say “OK, Boomer”, and I’m a Boomer myself. All that I can say is that secession had better become possible, because it’s the only way out short of civil war. Sailer is great when it comes to race, ethnicity and immigration, but in some very important ways, he’s still stuck in the 1980’s, that “Golden Indian Summer of American Patriotism” as some guy over at CounterCurrents phrased it. Yeah, I loved the Eighties, but living in the past isn’t going to get us out of this. In Saddam Hussein’s words in “House of Saddam” …”very disappointing, very, very disappointing!
secession seems like a bureaucratic nightmare though. Imagine brexit but multiplied by a factor of 5
I anticipate secession becoming a very popular topic among NormieCons if (when?) Biden wins.
Speaking of good books, A Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale.
A common trend amongst postmodern vooter coomers who want attention: latent homosexuality. We’ve spoken at length about gender norms but not about genetics. It is my contention that successful men in the modern world are bisexual. As a moderately successful man, I come into contact with this tier of American often. They all seem literally gay. The way the look at you and smile, laugh too hard at your jokes, get red in the face when the conversation starts to deviate away from the expected boundaries…it’s all so gay.
I say gay and I don’t say feminine, because woman and her tendencies are distinctly different from gays. Gay men are very concerned with what other people think. Most women don’t care about what people think if those people aren’t high status. In many ways, gays exhibit tendencies of women who stopped maturing after 16.
Being offended, being concerned, listening intently to a person who shouldn’t even be talking, it’s all so damn gay.
In the words of a meme famous Nigerian Broadcaster: please don’t be gay.
PS
Don’t be aggressively cartoonishly manly cause that reveals that your hiding your gay.
The whole metrosexual thing has gone off the rails. I know guys who dress faggy ( pastel colored translucent eye glass frames -some don’t even need glasses) and speak in a higher register in their professional setting than they do away from the public stage.
I always gave these guys the benefit of the doubt that they were half-consciously acclimating to an environment that had become increasing feminized. It’s everywhere, especially among younger guys.
I always find myself restraining the urge to kick them in their skinny jeans. As I get older it becomes increasingly hard to resist the impulse to lash out, or comment upon the faggotry.
I theorize that with population density, Nature starts throwing the switch to ‘off’.
Urban pollution and stress would accelerate such birth defects in the delicate brain circuits, in addition.
Such a subset of nonbreeders was and would be focused and efficient at short-term goals, such as front-line shock troops (their historical role in male armies), as domestic help (doesn’t add mouths to feed), and as administrators (no threat to the king’s heirs).
No offspring would also tend to a heightened sense of self-regard.
If a society needs more of these units, more can be quickly manufactured- as gelded eunuchs (a.k.a. trannies).
They overuse the phrase, “Our democracy,” and glorify it to the point of insanity.
The political media will now move to Bidenpill millions of young hwyte Sandernistas.
Hahahaha! Perfect.
Feel the Bern, Mikey!
The ship just hit the icebergenstein.
I think I know where you got your inspiration for today’s article…
https://images.contentreserve.com/ImageType-100/1785-1/%7B84F39BBC-25D0-4836-B3A4-96C6DF257E31%7DImg100.jpg
The mysterious reticence is solved!
I was wondering what everbody was whispering about. And the snickers.
If you think that’s bad, though, my Mexican neighbor even said, “well, what you white guys did with Hitler and all that, you know…”
(slabbery and Injuns was surely close to mind)
The stunning thing to me about David French was that it appeared he had no one close to him willing to say, “what are you crazy” when Bill Kristol tried to recruit him to run for President in 2016. The most bizarre part being that it wasn’t a run as some sort of morally pure protest vote, he thought he would easily win. You need to be in a situation where no one around you is willing to challenge you to get as narcissistic as David French.
Another place self-admiration is evident is in the auto-biography section of any bookstore.
Most of these books are written by folks you have never heard of or by folks no sentient human would care to read about.
Do these authors really believe their lives are so interesting that other’s wish to learn about them? Are their egos that massive?
Imagine if I wrote my autobiography and by some miracle it wound up in all the bookstores.
I wouldn’t even bother to read it !!
It is that rare bird that enters politics for reasons other than the pursuit of self-adulation, influence and power. And those that do not seek power, generally speaking, avoid politics and have real jobs.
I wonder if it has always been this way in the USA – can’t imagine George Washington accepted the presidency because he was full of himself – or if the age of mass media, TV in particular, really provided the attractive force for ego-maniacal (and not uncommonly, not very intelligent people) personality types to flock into the political arena.
I think most politicians who have autobiographies have them ghost written as a way to allow big donors to circumvent campaign finance restrictions. The donors order the book by the box, maybe they pass out a few copies to friends or employees, maybe they just burn them. There is no way public interest is as high as some of the sales numbers for these books.
The U.S. Printing Office prints up 535,000 copies of the Pocket Constitution annually and equally distributes them to our Congressmen and Senators for the purpose of providing them to their constituents upon request and a first come, first serve basis. The demand for these things is so great and they are in such short supply that if you ask your Congressman or one of your Senators for fifty copies, say, you’re likely to receive by U.S. mail a box of five hundred copies printed ten or fifteen years ago, or longer.
We had a few decades ago our Dem Speaker of the House, Jim Wright. In those days he circumvented the speaking fee limit by having hosts buy hundreds of his autobiographies to pass out at the engagements. He was exposed and I believe was deposed. Those were the waning days of any semblance ethics in the House. Good days I guess.
The former mayor of (c)Harm City AKA Lagos on the Chesapeake, Catherine Pugh, was sentenced to IIRC three years in prison for a similar scam, only it was a children’s book rather than an autobiography.
Watching these sorts prance about, preening every time they stop to take a breath, fills me with the urge to unleash a pack of feral swarthies upon them so they are culturally enriched unto their last breath.
Even at the best of times, with the best of the NoN, I am appalled. The Usual Suspects get all spun up over Trump’s vulgarity, but they do not see how their own behavior is stomach-turning.
Correct. They wail over death by coronavirus while butchering innocents and dissidents.
My dad is a very smart, well-educated, diligent, and decent man.
I remember one time I suggested he run for office. Just saying it out loud, and having the suggestion kind of hang in the air between us, made us both realize how absurd, how impossible, it would be for someone like him to even consider being a politician.
He didn’t even need to answer.
Clarifying moment.
Politicians at any level are looking for a parade to get out in front of, and boy will they take credit for everything (good). The depressing part is how most people go along with the scam as long as the gibs and their life keep rolling along.
99% of the people will agree with the statement ” all politicians are crooks” yet still support THEIR incumbent even when they have been caught red handed enriching themselves at America’s expense.
I suspect that 99% of people don’t think politicians are crooks. I think they have be trained to say it. On the Left, they deeply believe in government and the sorts of people who love government. They don’t think Hillary Clinton is a crook, despite the mountain of evidence. On the Right, they may not trust government, but they really trust anyone making conservative noises.
The evidence suggests few people think pols are dishonest or corrupt. They think the other guy’s pols are greedy and corrupt, but not in a specific way, more as a general way of saying they are immoral for having the wrong ideology.
That is one trick of democracy. People can’t hate the system or the people in it, because they are allegedly responsible for it. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world their vote mattered.
Have to own a disagree here, Z. There have been entire populations in our big cities who know their politicians are crooks, and approve of it as long as it benefits them. That’s how Tammany Hall, Curley, etc., got started.
Democrats don’t care if their guys are corrupt. Look at Ted Kennedy – left a woman to die in a submerged vehicle and Massachusetts voters kept voting him in over and over again. He even ran in the 1980 presidential primaries against Jimmy Carter. Kennedy said the “right” things and voted the “right” ways and that all they cared about. They were paid off to turn a blind eye to his shenanigans.
Plato suggested philosopher-kings. Today’s translation is “Elites.”
Thank you. I’ve always despised Plato for that very reason.
And I would add that if Socrates were alive in the US today, he’d be Antifa.
I’d love to have Socrates’ take on the present system we have of government. But remember, he eloquently defended the State that was about to take his life on a trumped up charge of “impiety” in his last major soliloquy, Crito.
It would be interesting to have the genuine Socratic take on events today.
That said, the impiety charge was indeed trumped up, but the Athenians wanted Socrates gone because he was the teacher (“corrupter of youth”) of Critias (he of “and the Thirty Tyrants” fame). The Athenians who ultimately sentenced Socrates to death desperately wanted him to go into exile instead and offered him the choice. But as an old barefoot (literally) agitator Socrates felt too old to go establish himself as a subversive asshole elsewhere, and instead wanted the immortality of martyrdom. Unfortunately he got it. In this matter I view Socrates as an analog to persons of our own times such as Bill Ayers. Only Ayers is likely to die in bed fat, comfortable, and smug.
While the “impiety” charge was indeed trumped up, the real reason that the Athenians wanted Socrates gone was because of the teaching/mentoring role he played w/rt Critias (he of “and the Thirty Tyrants” infamy). They offered Socrates the choice of exile (and really tried to get him to leave), but he realized that he was too old to start over elsewhere as a vexatious, tyranny-fomenting, barefoot (literally), trouble making asshole. Instead he wanted martyrdom and the fame that would come with it. Sadly, he got them both.
Oops. First post disappeared (or so I thought). Apparently not. Sorry for the repeat.
…and Aristotle would still be Our Guy.
If democracy were important, important people would run for office
Remember Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron short story. Wasn’t part of the novel’s version of future america was to have the presidency work like jury duty. A short time that everyone chosen randomly would have to serve . I think a plumber was the current one in the story.
Hm. Doesn’t ring a bell, but there’s one where a computer – to save money and hassle – picks the guy it deems to be the voter closest to being an average American, so he’s the only guy who gets to vote. Vonnegut or Phil Dick, if I remember correctly.
do yourself a favor and watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SICa0tWHzJQ
Thanks, great video.
I haven’t heard of that before, but the theme about people carrying chains to negate any physical advantages and such, is developed in his cult classic The Sirens of Titan.
Speaking of: I’m surprised TSoT isn’t referenced more by ourguys. The religion of self-handicapping he describes, is a perfect metaphor for white, Protestant guilt.
Also, it’s a great book, very disturbing.
Yeah, the degree to which you are demonstrably handicapped would evolve into a status symbol, heh. Similar, to dissidents bragging about their deplatforming and making a watch list.
Holy smokin’ jehosephat, Sidvic.
That was riveting.
Intelligent, level-headed people don’t run for office, either because they don’t want their good name dragged thru the mud, or they sensibly conclude that the s**tshow isn’t worth their time. (Remember when being in politics used to be called “public service” by some, in a way to elevate that profession to the level of nursing or teaching?) I predict Democracy and politicking in general will be reduced to an entertaining sideshow as real big-brained people escape into other fields. The good news is that the worst and dimmest will represent the American people, and may hasten the fall of the Republic. The bad news is all the power will flow into tech and financial centers.
Sounds an awful lot like what has been happening for decades.
yes, but you missed one of the worst of these , Rick Wilson. associate of French and tom.
Yeah, I was going to use him too, but I was running long. Wilson is probably the most ridiculous person in politics. Court jesters had more dignity.
Rick Wilson had a brief stint on the throne of troll-targetry. Good times. Cruz’s campaign manager was that kind of sleazeball consutant class residue – Rick Tyler.
What was that book a bunch of us cut our teeth on way back when – The Greatest Salesman in the World, or whatever it was. Sounds like Tom Nichols must have skipped over that page where it talks about the worthlessness of a man with a head full of trivia facts readily accessible in a common encyclopedia.
I don’t know anything about Mr. Nichols other than what you reveal about him in the post, but I’ll take your word for it. As for David French, well, what can I say other than to parrot Letterman: man, what a nose bleed this guy is, eh?
Re: Cops – it doesn’t help matters in their particular case that they are constantly told, or otherwise telling themselves, that they are indeed Name Their City’s Finest. As William James once noted, “there is nothing so absurd than when you repeat something often enough, people begin to believe it.” I theorize that this largely what is wrong with the likes of Barack Obama. Such persons have been coddled all of their lives and told by anyone and everyone who was ever in some sort of position to do so, how great and wonderful and super intelligent (blah blah) they are. At some point in that process they started to believe it, and the rest is, as they say, history.
“…democracy selects the worst people.” I’d argue every form of government; e.g. socialism, communism, fascism, have all attracted the worse of humanity. Political leaders only rise to power because the situation made them look like the best option at the time.
It’s the same in the corporate world too. Jack Welch was the best thing that ever happened for GE. Yet in retrospect he was only good for the shareholders. The same can be said about Jeffrey Skilling (Enron), Travis Kalanick (Uber), John Schnatter (Pappa John’s) or John Stumpf (Wells Fargo).
Everyone knows politicians are all self-aggrandizing liars by nature. And people will accept the lies. But only as long as they can be distracted with bread and circus.
Democracy, socialism, communism, fascism and so on are all forms of popular government. They assume themselves to be the expression of the popular will.
Which is why Hoppe described so favorably a monarchical system in his book, “Democracy, The God That Failed”. Somewhere between universal suffrage and a hereditary kingship must lay the “sweet spot”.
It’s not just that politics attract crooks (wanting to be a politician should automatically disqualify you from holding office) but that the office requires you to be a crook or get ousted by one, a kind of political darwinism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
@ thezman – And once that form of Government is cemented in place with a Constitution, it’s nearly impossible to change it.
@ Felix – There’s an old saying; “I’d never want to work for a company that would hire someone like me.” True enough for politics.
Fortunately here in Europe, when our national politicians and policy makers prove themselves to be completely useless, we can at least pawn them off on the EU (e.g. Ursula von der Leyen).
A thoroughly revolting person, von der Leyen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJQeFBXXiAo
I distinctly remember seeing her name on the ballot at the election for European president and thinking: “a von? Not on my watch!”
No, wait, that didn’t happen! I just woke up one morning and discovered she was my president, never having heard her name before in my life. The fact that she’s head of the Commission demonstrates that it’s sock puppets all the way down, they hold no real power.
At least you got rid of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer without foisting her upon your neighbors. But next time, could you please not elect a vice chancellor whose name sounds like an armored column revving up? My dog gets panic attacks when he hears her name on the radio.
I think you’re just jealous that unlike our neighbors, Germany has been responsible for some of the worst and most dangerous politicians and political thinkers for over 200-years. Every country has a leader, but not everyone gets a Führer!
Don’t forget Martin Luther – that makes it more like 500 years.
Germans are amateurs in the worst and most dangerous thinkers department. Let me quote poet Irving Layton (and the misquote about him by Leonard Cohen).
Layton:
Uselessly you bruise yourselves, squirming
against civilization’s whipping post;
Black September wolfcubs
terrify only themselves
The Jewish terrorists, ah:
Maimonides, Spinoza, Freud, Marx
The whole world is still quaking
This was mis-remembered by Cohen as:
I think [my song First We Take Manhattan] means exactly what it says. It is a terrorist song. I think it’s a response to terrorism. There’s something about terrorism that I’ve always admired. […] I don’t like it when it’s manifested on the physical plane – I don’t really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism. I remember there was a great poem by Irving Layton that I once read, I’ll give you a paraphrase of it. It was ‘well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here and there’, he says. ‘But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein. The whole world is still quaking…
Mike – hard to disagree – the Bolsheviks alone were more dangerous to the world at large than the Nazis were, much less the banking dynasties, slave traders and religious subverters before and since.
One of the hardest arguments for anti-anti-Semites to refute is to simply ask “are they worth it? Are they worth all that comes with them, every single time.” I’m hardly objective on the subject but I think sending them back is a pretty obvious recommendation if you look at our version of “200 years together.”
Normies see human beings simply as economic units and the US as an economic zone. They see Jewish immigration into the US as a blessing they’re so smart and typically do well for themselves economically. The fact that they have been in the forefront of political radicalism and cultural subversion since the 19th Century doesn’t matter. Some have a problem with Moslem immigration, but one reason for that is their “anti-Semitism.”
There are goals more important than maximizing economic growth and one is creating and maintaining a healthy culture.
Mike, Exile, psychic terrorism is a great and powerful tool for a physically weak and nomadic, but mentally smart and clever, tribe to wield. What better tool in the toolbox for people such as those?
Isaac Asimov wrote a story on that (1950’s I think) : If desire disqualifies then a democracy would be having people vote for the sort of person they want as President and the Univac sorts through the psychological profiles of the people to find the one who most closely fits.
He then gets a surprise knock on the door on Election day.
The scary thing is that now we are damn near close to being able to do it.
Everyone thought stock options would mean CEOs have skin in the game. It only means they have financial skin in the game. If they were forced to live near their employees and customers (stakeholders, so I am informed), then they’d have skin in the game.
It’s the curse of Milton Friedman, who convinces everyone that A CEOs job is only to help shareholders, as if we should allow organizations to exist that have such a narrow and anti-social function
MF was a Libertarian. As such he made certain mistakes about human nature. One of his last ones, IIR was to advise the former Soviet Union as to how to disassemble their State owned monopolies—thus birthing the rapacious Russian oligarchs. Took Putin some time to put them out of business and stop the pillaging. And Putin’s no saint either.
I keep seeing Joe Biden’s visage when reading this. In the hall of fame of political narcissists/belligerent bullies/shallow people, he comes out on top. Trump ain’t no slacker in this regard so that says something.
I would lose a pint of blood daily just blushing with shame for the daily acts and bloviating these types do.
Sometimes I am envious of these cretins that are so confident in one’s self to not give on shit what others think of them.
We had some sort of Republicanism and constitutional democracy in place for a little while but our founders knew even then that it would all
devolve down to this abhorrent democracy. Just to see the average idiot voter and the political orcs that rule us is enough for me to despair in perpetuity.
Trump is a braggart, not so much a narcissist. He has real achievements and real talent. He also is acutely self-aware. He is the most self-aware politician in my lifetime. He knows exactly how people perceive him and he uses that to his advantage.
I agree that Trump is a very intelligent and very innately talented man. He would have been a success at anything he put his hand to in life, well at least on the surface.
But I’m rather confused about what he actually means to do, by meddling in politics this late in life. For all his ostensible business savvy, he appears to be an absolutely naive rube in terms of the company he keeps, who he permits to be in his inner circle, his clownish misunderstanding of how DC operates, and so forth.
Before he even was inaugurated, there were two extremely obvious things he should have done to consolidate his shaky and besieged power base, and both these things he not only did not do, he doesn’t seem to have even thought of them….
1. He should have used a bit of his personal fortune to fund and cultivate a private brain trust of two dozen or so writers, thinkers and speakers who were more careful and well-spoken than his own obnoxious self, educated people who could articulate his program in justifiable moral, intellectual, and political terms on the non-populist radio frequency — a dozen or two people of the caliber of Ann Althouse, Sailer, or Zman himself, would have done wonders in explaining to non-cavemen how he actually like totally was not rilly Hitler, srsly.
2. This guy has massively crowded, packed political rallies everywhere he goes. WHY WAS THERE NOT A JOBS FAIR AND JOB RECRUITMENT STRUCTURE SET UP TO RECRUIT AND HIRE LOYALISTS TO REPLACE RANK AND FILE FEDGOV WORKERS, ALL OF WHOM SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED AND REPLACED WITH TRUMP LOYALISTS ON DAY F@CKING ONE ???!?!???
Good points, Elementary. My guess is that Trump sees the presidency as a very personal challenge for him, to do something no other successful, smart, rich businessman has done, and that is to wildly succeed at the top rung of the political world (certainly businessmen such as Bloomberg are envious). To seek wise counsel and broad staffing would dilute his “I did it all myself” thing. Sometimes I think he cultivates political opposition to everything he does, simply to personally savor the victories he can then win over them, and count scalps. This is a bit reckless of him, and it makes the formal policy agenda very messy, but it also demonstrates that he is actually very competent at getting things done that he wants to do. Would that what he wants to do, be more in line with what we would like to see him do, unfortunately.
Say what you will, but there’s something to Trump and his tenacity in office. Every other clown we’ve gotten in there in recent history has been content to bask in the glory of the office without putting in the work. Bush (I & II) comes to mind. Good or bad, Trump’s got some ideas and he’s tenacious in pursuit.
Dutch,
It does seem like he cultivates enemies and pokes the bear in order to flex.
I also sense there is a flip side for him. He feels like he isn’t given the due respect and credit for winning the election. Like his victory is tainted because the media and bureaucracy doesn’t treat him like a real President. He reached the acme of life that ambitious men dream of, fortune, political power, and immortality of name… and yet he constantly points out that he isn’t treated fairly (like the others).
Can’t quite figure the man out.
PM, Trump is certainly an enigma in many ways. I am sure that part of it is that he is a loner. He has no real close friends, that I can detect. For people like that, sensitivities can abound and offenses can be taken, from sources that would not intimidate many other people.
Miller is that person – he’s written almost all of his speeches at least early 2016. But he’s just one person. He and Bannon were the 2 man brain trust. Although officially ”out”, Bannon is still working in parallel.
If you look at a person like Ann Althouse, she is a very reasonable, non-crazy, publicly charming, non-controversial person with a well-established reputation (law professor at U Madison, it doesn’t get more respectable than that). And if you read her blog, even if you don’t always agree with her, you will note that she is pretty much always a highly literate, civilized, humane, rational, even-minded critic. Her witty and erudite dissections of opinions and positions that she doesn’t like are always a marvel to witness. She’s a gem.
If I were a rich crazy brilliant but annoying caveman like Trump, I would gladly pay Ann Althouse half a million dollars a year to just take a look at everything that comes across my desk and at least offer her opinion. I wouldn’t try to buy her opinion, I’d let her stay independent, but my gambling-man notion would tell me that at least a third of the time she’d likely agree with me, and at those times, I’d let her do the talking for me.
Ann Althouse is pretty cool but President Trump wins bigly by being himself not by being fancy and appealing to the bow tied looter cuck crowd.
You must be a woman. Or a man with absolutely no balls at all.
You mean the Ann Althouse who voted for Obama twice? Sure.
Agreed. I would have picked an intelligent street cop to replace Comey, one who the hard working agents all pointed to. Same for CIA and the rest of those alphabet soup intel positions.
The best thing we could do is ban college boys and girls from anything of importance , caveat a few STEM places that can’t be avoided.
Sure the results won’t be “polished.” but they’ll odds on be far better results for the real world we live in.
I believe there are some 3,000 people in Washington who serve “At the pleasure of the President” (Clinton, of course misread that to be “for the pleasure…)
They should all have been fired on day one and a Federal Marshall should have escorted every one of them from their offices ensuring that they only took personal belongings,
It is not easy to replace those 3000+ folk. Within a week or so of the election, the phones were ringing for any and all to report to DC for those jobs. I knew some of these folk and was surprise wrt to how such people were being recruited. My impression was that they could not fill all the positions, or at the very least were unprepared to do so. But those were lower level that I knew of.
There was no excuse for not firing all the high level positions, like Fed Attorneys and Ambassadors. Trump received bad advice and probably naively assumed as the new CEO, he’d have their loyalty. Bad call.
Why the rush to replace?
For most Americans their absence would be a feature not a bug.
Trump could make a very nice speech on that. Pick one or two people from State and point out their major accomplishments were the lies (and be specific) about Libya, Syria, Afghanistan that started/lengthened the wars and that you were looking for competent truth tellers.
That would go down very well with the base.
He might point out that in the age of the telephone, Embassies are redundant.
Trump is a Boomer through and through. He really views America as it once was. I think he naively figured he would show up and the bureaucracy would follow orders. It has taken him awhile to gain any traction. Honestly, with the resistance he’s met, I don’t know if anyone would have done much better.
I think two things caused him to run. He really thinks he can do a good job at it. It seems to be the old style thinking of “I made my money, now it’s time for some civic payback.” Throw some personal glory in there and it’s kind of Republican Roman. The other thing is Obama embarrassed him at the press dinner. Never underestimate revenge.
Regarding your point #2, that can’t happen because of civil service regulations.
This is why the white nats and ((())) obsessed people and their huge disappointment with Trump are laughable. Trump was never that guy. He’s a civnat guy living in +80% white America history. Be happy he’s moved the ball in the right direction.
So I guess Trump wanted Biden to win then. If he is indeed self aware, he would have to know that anyone he tweeted favorably about would lose support.
trump is very much a boomer in that he is steadfast in his ways and doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him,especially not his supporters . want a wall and immigration control? tough shit kiddo. you get nadda.
He’s made progress with both. Yes, he could do better. That being said, you think enough Senate Republicans would have stuck with him had he started ignoring court orders? Enough would have seen that as a reason to go cuck. Plus, the Republicans couldn’t even repeal ObamaCare when they controlled it all. Funding the wall was a non-starter. So, he’s been working where he can through the executive. Portions of the wall have gone up. Mexico has been turning people away. H1B’s and other visas have been getting a lot more scrutiny. It’s far from perfect. It is an improvement.
They tried to limit democracy with federalism, which was a great idea. What doomed their effort was not doing anything to limit what money does. A lot of people cite the civil war as the moment the republic died. It was a conflict over economics.
No one after Jackson had Old Hickory’s commitment to keeping the money men out of politics.
Aha- no limit on what money men do led to: “One side wants tyranny by government, while the other side wants a tyranny of corporate power centers.”
The physical logistics alone might account.
A smallish Greek city is one thing. It took months of travel to allow a vote for this newfangled democracy biz in a settler’s nation, thus smoky back rooms- a Roman republic- is the most efficiency you can get.
The coming of fast travel- barnstorming by railroads on up- and then radio, TV, and large-scale newsprint machinery turned those back rooms into today’s Oscars awards program.
The idea of federalism was to make the nation something like a collection of city-states by limiting political power. They didn’t limit economic power. Expressly forbidding a central bank or limiting the terms of loans by forgiving them after X years might have done that. Not an economist, but those are what I’ve got.
It’s the economic power that ended up overrunning political power because of this shortsightedness. In fairness capitalism wasn’t the beast it is today, then again they should’ve been able to grasp what unfettered financialization would do. Maybe they underestimated people’s willingness to be debt slaves.
” … limit what money does.”
Fiat currency and unassimilable immigration were the final nails in the coffin of our republic. The whole point of the original design of the American republic is not to give ‘power to the people’ (who are certainly unfit to wield it as our founding fathers knew well) but to give the people a veto over the misconduct of whichever faction of the ruling elite is misruling to excess, a restoring force to good governance.
This only works when the political choices on offer to the people actually change the decision-makers of civilizational consequence. We now have (at a first-level of abstraction) 3 sets of ostensible decision-makers: the two parties both of whom are corporations owned by the same set of people (called globalists by some) and a permanent bureaucracy part of the ‘deep state’ that has over the last 30 years been increasingly staffed with bureaucrats compliant to the globalist mission.
Globalists own the means of production of new currency (the most important of the control nodes of civilization) and ensure that their institutions are never short of money, especially for what are essentially bribes for compliance by the actors within the two parties (think dangling a bag of money before little Marco Rubio who was specifically elected to oppose illegal immigration then took the money and did the opposite). They have staffed the deep state with their creatures (state bureaucracy and privately-owned corporate media) and they own the two corporations we call the Democratic and Republican parties and thus globalists are the true decision-makers on any question of civilizational significance.
Moreover, because of immigration of unassimilating foreigners who have seized control of the training grounds of the ruling elites of the American empire, new cohorts of ruling elites are about 50% foreign in composition with the remainder being, while ostensibly American, shaped with a political and social culture that is deeply hostile to the American nation. Thus, those who should have been the guardians of the American civilizational mission of European liberty are now its most hostile opponents.
Globalists do not see themselves as part of a long multi-generational chain of American national ruling elites. They see themselves as an internationalist imperial aristocracy and they see us as a conquered imperial people who don’t have the sense to know that we should just roll over and die. Our civilizational mission has been hijacked away from European liberty into making us tax slaves and cannon fodder to support the growth of their empire, which has burst forth, Sigourny Weaver-alien-like, out of the murdered corpse of what was once our European and Christian-heritage republic.
The globalists have constructed the perfect scam with which to rape the American people to death: a de-facto one party state where they own both elements in the system (the parties) that were theoretically accountable to the American people. The competition between the parties is real in that the elected officials and party bureaucrats receive serious money if they win, thus giving the superficial appearance to the electorate that choice of party matters. However, decisions of civilizational organization and mission always rest with those who own both parties. It is fake democracy.
The American nation, only one of many national peoples within the American empire, is the largest most numerous nation on Earth not only to not have its own country, but not even to have a single country-level institution representing its collective interests. Donald Trump upset the equilibrium of the globalist fake democracy by promising the dispossessed American nation that he would look out for their interests. The globalists, with their almost complete control over media and entertainment and the manufacture of cultural products, had thought irreversible the dissipation of the sense of national belonging of the American nation. Donald Trump put back onto the chess board the largest obstacle to their twisted dreams of planetary empire. That is why they hate him.
TLDR: The republic of our founders is dead. We are now living inside an empire owned by hostile foreigners. Pres. Trump has a duty to lead us in a war to destroy globalism. The hostile foreigners had before Trump 2016 classified us Americans as a disgusting irritation that they were content to let wither on the vine, but now they see our mere existence as a threat. They will come for us in earnest after he leaves the oval office.
The Civil War was a conflict over economics.
I kept thinking of Biden too – because he is clearly not up to the task mentally (if he ever was) and either can’t recognize it or doesn’t care. Nobody else around him will admit it either, because they all want to use him to get on the gravy train.
The deep state wants their unfettered access to the levers of power again, and Biden is their pathetic ticket back to the parade. Bernie is not, and has to be eliminated. Biden’s VP pick (actually chosen for him, he’s just the half-there frontman) is the key thing. Not only to enhance his electability, but as a message as to which element of the deep state is going to prevail (the Clintons, the Obamas, or ???).
I’m afraid they will take no chances on trying to calculate the margin of cheating on the vote this time, and will simply pull out all the stops. Votes well in excess of the numbers of living, breathing voters in select districts, and 100% to their side. They will simply dare anyone to do anything about what it might look like.
Neither Trump nor his Justice department uttered a single peep about all the shady, “vote harvesting” business that went on during the 2018 mid-term elections. In some races they were still counting votes four weeks later.
Biden is what they want…..an empty vessel with no real policy positions of his own. The Ruling Overlords will just fill him as they want, turn the key in his back, push him in their chosen direction, launching him into a mindless gaff-riddled aged stagger to do their bidding. Stepford Biden. Biden will team with a Blackity Black angry-eyed shrew. Should he lose in November, the Ruling Overlords will hold onto their positions of globalist elite power. Bernie will be gone either way.
The Ruling Overlords learned from watching the disenfranchised Never Trumpers sailing in the sea of futility finding no welcoming port in which to anchor, sailing fruitlessly with great wailing and hectoring. Will David French’s African daughter of the virtue signal regress to the mean of Spielberg’s African daughter of the virtue signal porn “star” whore beaten by her shack-up. Never allow in these people again. Hopefully, they will reap the whirlwind and get a taste of their bile. I wish. Vengeful Range.
“Stepford Biden”. Sounds perfectly Ivy.
He summers at Cape Cod.
He’s dating French’s fashionable black daughter, helping xer through xer’s brave but difficult transition.
The toast of the town!
The Founders never “knew” what they assembled would be a failure. There is no evidence for such. They *warned* it could be a failure should citizens fail to maintain and preserve what they had assembled. The people through their elected representatives and an uncontrolled judiciary pretty much changed the original intent and form of the Constitution. But such can not be laid at the feet of the Founders as such happened well after they were no longer in the picture.
You can add to your points the chaos of too rapid a growth:
1777: 2,500,000; 1789: 3,800,000; 1820:9,600,000; 1850:23,000,000;1880: 50,000,000.
The population doubled every generation throughout the 19th Century. That’s a logistical nightmare. Anyone who could wield capital was going to get to run the table by owning government. Everything from the Teapot Dome to the Johnston County wars was rich guys buying their own fiefdoms. Now they have complete victory so the only scandalous act is opposing them.
You could have saved yourself about 70 percent of the trouble by just saying: Jews.
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
In a better timeline, “A Day Without Jews” would be a holiday classic.
“I’ll see your ‘1350’ and raise you ‘0270’!”
1 do 109
110 and never again!
“…it indulges in limitless compassion to the point where it can no longer defend itself.”
It’s easy to see this on a local level. If I scan the local Next Door app there are two merry-go-round arguments that never fail to generate a zillion responses. The first is the homeless invasion. One the one hand you have, “We must help these poor unfortunates.” The rest of the town realizes these “unfortunates” are junkies, tweakers, drunks, and feral losers who get by on scavenging, handouts, and petty theft.
The same goes on with coyotes. “Poor creatures have been displaced by evil mankind, and therefore deserve our sympathy” competes with “The goddamn thing ate my little dog, or cat”. Nobody gives an inch.
JWM
People are liberal about things not going on in their own front yard, and very conservative about things that are.
Indeed. The last time such an incident wrt “homeless” people blew up in this town, the city council allowed them to sleep on the sidewalks and garden/park areas around the downtown court/government buildings area. Hell, after awhile, they even began to buy little wooden coffin-like structures to allow them protection from the elements. Soon it became a free for all drug use area with nonstop panhandling. Then these folk began to deficate around the court buildings—and air intakes, and finally they were “moved” out of downtown.
I have thought for some time that the book title “Democracy: the God that failed” is one of the best titles ever. It says it all. (it was a wonderful book besides that)
The STATE is itself an abortion, but if you must live under one then Democracy is the worst. It may start off OK as the US did, but it will drift towards the left at all times and will become a tyranny of the mindless asshats just as Z points out.
Someone said last recently that Z has been on fire with good posts lately. I agree 110%.
Upvote.
Also, it’s not just the people who want to be the politicians and minor celeb journalists who are mentally dysfunctional. In my salad days, I lived in DC and hung out with people who worked on the Hill, both journalists and staffers.
Just like the journalists, the staffers were young people who wanted the power to change the country according to their views. These were 20-somethings who had achieved nothing life other than getting into a decent college – and yet they felt they entitled to control the lives of millions.
Check out a State Dept. A100 class (if they’re still called that) and be even more horrified. Even back in my day I, a newbie conservative, was part of my class’s small right wing. We had left-wing journalists, women with mulatto spawn, even neocon Philip Zelikow (who was just as pompous and idiotic back then as he is now). When people chant or write about draining the DC swamp, they don’t have a clue just how wide and deep the rot goes. It’s why I always lean to the accelerationist side – lots of people I want to see burn.
Never got to know the people working in the various departments much when I was younger (the staffers and the journos were more the party crowd), though I have had a few as neighbors over the years.
They seem an odd combination of being fairly bright but wholly unimaginative. They will be completely blindsided by what’s coming.
Yep, these are your PolySci majors at name schools who then seek government internships to learn “the trade”. I’ve interacted with some parents of such. I have to smile and pretend to enjoy their stories of their progeny’s success in DC, or get in trouble with the wife.
It’s not restricted to liberals either. Hillsdale college is big on this from the Conservative side. Went there with daughter to interview the school. Fairly run of the mill in every real subject, except politics—from a conservative bent —and Western Civ. They have summer courses taught by Supreme Court Justice Thomas, before that Rehnquist. Library does not just have a bust of Winston Churchill—it has a life size bronze statue!
By that time in my life, I was turned off by both sides in this facade and looking for schools that taught top tier majors in STEM. We passed, but it was an interesting experience.
Hillsdale is an interesting one-off. My husband enjoys reading their Imprimis monthlies. I regard it as an institution steeped in civic nationalism and muh magic constitution, so even if either of my sons were interested, I wouldn’t send them there.
And yet there’s a lot of evidence that voting is pointless, that prole opinion doesn’t matter at all, that we’re run by an oligarchy. How does this square with democracies inevitably heading leftwards?
1. Hollywood for ugly people.
2. “ Think about some of the fringe people, who have been born on third base, but ended up on first base, yet carry on as if they are world changing figures in history.”
Hmm. Won’t say who I think you have in mind.
Highly tangential: the Joseph Conrad novel that the article’s title appears to be a play on, is excellent.
In fact it’s about how a sort of social justice warrior of the time exploits a sickly [n-word] on the ship to wreak havoc on the rules of naval discipline and get unearned benefits.
Highly prophetic!
A lot of people say it is his best work. The title is a bit of a problem unfortunately.
Ha, yeah. Amazingly, I actually bought it at a bookstore in the Before Times.
Shows you how much things have changed. If I needed it today, I’d do an anonymous free download with my VPN on.
Yeah, years ago I bought The Secret Sharer and Other Stories for title story. Then I saw the full list of stories and laughed. Made me think of the purging of certain words from Huck Finn in later editions. Kind of hard to do in this case, though I’m sure someone has tried.
Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Niggers” was bleached merely by crossing the Atlantic.
It was published in Britain in 1939 under the original title and in the US just one year later as “And then there were none”.
There was an intervening time when it was titled “Ten Little Indians.” I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before all of her books are deemed “problematic.”
Absolutely – just like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books have been put aside for their honesty re race and history.
About Blacks or Indians? Only familiar with the tv show.
Never watched the show, but read the books multiple times. Yes, the Indians do not come off in a good light. There is a Negro doctor that saves the family’s lives when they’re ill with malaria, but the White men also put on a minstrel show (different books, different states, different years).
Indians
Staged on London’s West End in the mid 1980s as Ten Little Travellers.
I picked up my Flannery O’Connor anthology this week for the first time in close to 20 years. The liberal use of “nigger” in almost all her stories is a real eye-opener in this post-Obama era.
KGB, Mary Flannery O’Connor was a keen observer of her social milieu. I consider her one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century. She had a lot to say about other things as well. If you haven’t read “Mystery and Manners” I recommend it.
Thanks for the recommendation to all who mentioned it. I’ll have to check it out. I was forced to slog through the “Heart of Darkness” in senior high English and I loathed it and haven’t picked up another word of Conrad since.
English was Conrad’s fourth(?) or fifth(?) language, that he didn’t master until he was an adult. I had a great teacher, few do, even at university.
I felt that way about Catcher in the Rye. Hated every second of that book. I didn’t think so much invented whining could be packed in to so few pages until the English teacher assigned The Bluest Eye, next. Touche madam.
Luckily she assigned All Quiet On the Western Front and Hamlet as well or I would have burned the classroom down with her in it. How you stuff Toni Morrison in alongside Shakespeare and not not eternally facepalm yourself is beyond me.
I actually had a brilliant teacher (a rather idiosyncratic older unmarried lady from West Virginia). We read an enormous amount of classic literature – more than I read in any one class in college – and I definitely had my preferences. Hated Moby Dick, too. Wasn’t until college that I started reading Milton and I ended up loving him. Never know what’s going to hit you where and when.
Yes, good title for this entry.
If it had been about Liz Warren, it could have been titled “The Nagger of the Narcissists.”
Reading this post, all I could think of was “The Gong Show”, which was such a pathetic exercise for a TV show, it was like watching a train wreck.
Ah memories…The Gong Show. Some folk played it for what is was, a farce. But others…they really believed in themselves and were in their inevitable failure, pitiful. So that’s what Democracy in 2020 has sunk to.
I liked the Joseph Conrad allusion in the title.
So for sh*ts and giggles, looked for it on Amazon. Could only find one standalone copy about three pages down. Otherwise only listed in one anthology. Reminds me, need to dig “Victory” out and read it again.
David French considered kidnapping an African Child and LARPing with it as though it were a family member to be the height of morality.
The African snatching fetish is compounded by the fact he is super fond of posting pics of him and his trophy, but ignores his other kids. African snatching is monstrous on its own, but everything around it manages to make it worse.
Isn’t that how Rachel Dolezal’s craziness was created?
DW, not to be too (((Freudian))) but I can’t see how Rachel’s upbringing didn’t factor in. Relatively invisible and neglected boring White kid vs. trophy exotics. Whether her LARPing parents were sh*tlibs or Cucktian righties, she got shorted on peacocking time. What’s a kid going to learn from that? The adolescent-tier solution is going to be “fake being black.”
David Wright – my thoughts exactly. French’s biological kids are either going to cuck mightily and hate their skin and heritage trying to please their miserable excuse for a father, or there is still a chance they may turn on him and become race conscious. Same way families who lavish all their care and attention on their mentally or physically handicapped kids shortchange their others, who then resent the hell out of it and feel guilty about it at the same time. Just crappy dynamics all around.
It’s funny because rather than being impressed by his wonderful sacrifice for humanity, most people are revolted by it. People see right through it because he is so shameless about it. He is such a moral coward besides. Trump is ready to appoint the female version of David French to the Supreme Court! Amy Barrett is on the short list! If RBG dies while Trump is president, she will likely get it.
Yeah! That way abortion can be banned and we can have millions of extra black and latino youths sucking up welfare! Libs = owned!
Homo marriage, open borders, affirmative action, and demonization of whites in the media will continue undisturbed even with a 6-3 “conservative” majority (the actual nasty stuff).
She will be absolutely AWFUL if she gets in. She will vote wrong on basically everything, but especially on issues around race and immigration. She has a personal stake in it. She would be likely, IMHO to support full amnesty.
I can’t wait until French’s and Barrett’s kids are old enough to start acting like themselves. Haiti’s average IQ is 67! Those kids are not likely to be high IQ exceptions.
Don’t we have a present example of such adoptive virtue signaling with Spielberg and his daughter? I believe she now aspires to be some sort of slut/sex worker and Spielberg is signaling his approval of sorts?
Banning abortion will not stop abortion from happening. But it will make it clear that our society still has a few values left, such as “dont murder your offspring”
Yeah it won’t stop upper middle class white girls from aborting, you’re right.
Shaniqwa can’t afford an abortion anyways so she’ll plop out yet another baby that you can pay for.
It’s not about affording an abortion so much as having her “independence”. Each child means another increment of cash inflow. It is both the least-resistance path and only option for the uneducated and uneducable to obtain and control her “own” money.
This is also a reason why all the chilluns done got different baby daddies. A man with multiple children with the same woman (regardless of wedlock) is more likely to be able to claim some parental rights, which could include cohabitation and theoretically some say over how she spends “her” money.
A friend once taught at all Black middle school in Akron, Ohio. 10-15% of the girls were pregnant at any given time and deliberately popped out baby after baby in order to collect welfare. Ohio originally provided five years of welfare per baby, then cut the time down to three, thinking that that would discourage baby breeding for fun and profit. It didn’t – they just had babies every three years instead.
Most of the students ambition in life was to be either a gangbanger or welfare mamma. My friend’s husband remarked that they wouldn’t work even if the jobs came back.
Mike_C, that is a goshdamm Industry in Dallas.
Abortion wasn’t illegal, only discrete, until… sometime after the 19th, I think?
A private matter between a woman and her doctor, or the squaw selling yellow snakeroot (causes miscarriage) on the other side of the tracks.
Dilation and curettage (of the placenta) is the procedure to remove stillborns, so who would know? Such things weren’t the government’s business, anyways. Children’s third largest cause of death after disease and accident was being beaten to death by their guardians.
Anglo-American common law held that a baby wasn’t alive until the quickening – around the fourth month. The first anti-abortion law passed in Connecticut in 1821 and over the following century abortion was banned for most reasons in every US state.
Normies go ballistic when the subject of abortion arises on sites such as Breitbart. Especially abortion among Blacks. Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger are to blame, doncha know? As usual, Blacks are absolved of responsibility for their actions and Whitey is to blame.
More than likely it will be another John Roberts’ “mini-me” like Kavanaugh. He isn’t really pro-life. He understands that his supporters give him full credit and extravagant praise for empty gestures like attending the March for Life, while signing every appropriation fully funding Planned Parenthood.
The toughest decision French and his wife will face, if they hope to keep the virtue signal thing going, is which of their kids is going to become a tranny. Trophy African orphans are so, like, yesterday.
SamlAdams,
Why not be both? Isn’t that what that psychopathic actress from South Africa did with her hijacked African boy? I forget her name. One of the blonds. Put him in dresses. It can be a twofer.
Accerationism for the win? Well it’s fun to laugh at anyway. The more decadent and misanthropic the elite get the more the normal people will resent them I guess.
He has other kids?
His wife has two natural children.
Hah! Natural Children immediately made me think of the traditional definition of Natural Son…
Does anyone know how French who was working as an attorney while serving in Iraq earned the Bronze Star?
I tried to find an account of how he earned it, but no article ever gives any details, which is odd.
You can earn a Bronze Star for doing your non-combat related job well. A friend’s grandfather got one in the Philippines in WWII for being a train engineer.
Well then, that dick weed French shouldn’t go around promoting it. He knows what people will think when they hear that he earned the Bronze Star so he should go out of his way to keep anything written about him to leave it out.
This is is a classic resume filler-type. He knows how to look good on paper.
Citizen,
What Chris Lutz said. You can also be given a bronze star for heroism in the face of the enemy. Those bronze stars are marked with a “V” device for valor and oak leaves for multiple acts.
Bronze Star is a merit badge. I and every other LT, as well as every NCO in the company that was E6 or above got one when we redeployed
I never knew that – and I’ve got plenty of military in the extended family. And you can bet that most people don’t know that either. When we see an article saying someone was awarded the Bronze Star, we assume it means that the guy did something, you know, brave.
There’s zero chance French isn’t aware that he’s giving people the wrong impression.
That’s alright. I was on active duty for over 8 years before I even found myself that they were basically a participation medal. They only get awarded for service in a combat zone, so when there’s no war(s), you never hear about them
So the Bronze Star has now become a participation trophy for those of higher rank. I guess inflation destroys value everywhere.
There are plenty of African American, Hispanic, and even *gasp* white children in the USA that need to be adopted. But I guess Mr. French doesn’t consider them exotic enough. And you can tell what a fake Christian he is by his constant bragging about his virtue. Praying loudly in the street and casting the mote out of other people’s eyes = Mr. French.
Did you mean Tom Nichols? Your links post to him.
I know Tom Woods is a libertarian and deserves a beating for some of his thoughts, but he’s surprisingly aware of many of the things we notice, but can’t go too far without alienating his audience.
Ha. Yes. I fixed it. Tom Woods is a nice guy. My apologies for the blunder.
Tom Nichols and David French were two favorite targets back when Twitter trolling was still allowed.
Ridicule is powerful persuasion, and these people could not have maintained their influence without its removal.
I got banned from Twitter for calling David French a retard.
Well done you!
On twitter, the truth is no defense. Apparently.
There is a world of difference between the two. Tom Nichols was my hands-down favorite Blue Cheka to Twitter-troll. If you don’t mind the profanity and hysterics, he’s even good for beginners. Easy to trigger. child’s play to own. Get your youngster a Twitter account and start trolling him today. Great fun for the whole fam.
Another War College chickenhawk who thinks he’s Jack Ryan. No helicopter crashes and jarhead PT for Tom, though, just good old academics. At least VDH gets his hands dirty and sells me raisins.
Woods is the anti-Nichols, a gentlemen who argues in good faith.
I know, which is why it is a funny gaffe. I mix the two up all the time for some reason.
Tom Steyer and Karl Rove trying to rap on a stage is all you need to know about Democracy.
Looking on the bright side – might that duo rapping portend that the genre has reached it’s apex and decline and fall is imminent?
Haha I wish, unfortunately they have been astroturfing the shit out of that genre for decades to maintain it’s relevance and I doubt they are going to stop anytime soon. It’s a finger in the eye of their most hated enemies.
That and “my no no square” Not sure if it is real or just a grift (over 2m USD to create that video!), but either way it does not bode well for democracy!
Tars,
I broke. Looked up “No no square.” I blame you for offering that up. I put a vendetta on you. My children’s children will know of what you did and carry on the vendetta.
Thank you for taking that burden upon yourself. I will work hard to remain blissfully ignorant.
Once seen, a thing cannot be UNseen. (Shudder.)
And the worst thing is Tom Steyer pandered to bleghs in the worst way, and still lost by a lot. Biden only had to do his roaches and Corn Pop routine. I don’t know how these people can feel respected by their wives and children.
My favorite part of that was how he bragged about how the kids loved to play with his “strawberry blonde leg hairs”. Oftentimes I feel like we live in some kind or horrible computer simulation, or perhaps purgatory. The reality is just that most people brains are broken from all the propaganda and craziness that profligates our modern world.
All that story lacked was Chris Hansen sauntering in and telling Joe, “I need you to have a seat over there…”
For anyone who has not seen the Steyer video, this is probably the best angle, courtesy of James Woods’ twitter account. Be forewarned, you may need to bleach your eyes after watching.
https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1234018154348609536
I have trouble accepting the fact that we live in a country where this sort of display is necessary to win votes. And it’s only going to get worse. The new Steyer will be awkwardly grooving to Latino oom-pha music.
Nah, they’ve turned the Latinos into Liggers now. Only the older ones kept their culture, the youth have ascribed to the corporate approved choices of bugmen or Liggers. I call them Buggers since there is often crossover between the types.