During the early weeks of the Covid Crackdown, I tried to maintain a normal work schedule, just doing so from home. I’ve worked from home before, so I was prepared for the pitfalls that come with the home office. In fact, I have a home office setup just to avoid those pitfalls. The reality of the crackdown, however, started to sink in at the end of the second week, so I have transitioned to treating this as an involuntary vacation from reality. I’m going to use the free time as best I can.
The weather is getting better here in Lagos so I decided one thing I can do is get some time in on the bike. I ride in the winter, but this year not as much. Spring is always a good time to ride in the country and with the crackdown it means far fewer cars on the road than typical. Good or ill, people are obeying the crackdown orders in the spirit of civic duty and perhaps genuine concern. Regardless, I took advantage of it last week and hit the road out in the county for a long ride.
That really is the striking thing about being out during the crackdown. It has a post-apocalyptic vibe, just no zombies or roving gangs of survivors. I saw a few people running or walking their dogs, but otherwise, everyone was inside. Even on a beautiful spring day, no people. If you have ever seen video of North Korea, where traffic cops perform their duty, despite there being no traffic, that is what it is like in parts of the country right now. Civilization just waiting for civilized people.
A great example of the eeriness was a private golf club. The gate was open, so I went in, figuring they were allowing the golfers onto the driving range. There was one car parked near what I assumed was the maintenance building. The sprinklers were running, but otherwise, no people. I rode the cart paths around the course and did not see a soul. It turns out the state has banned the playing of golf, along with most other forms of enjoyment. A reminder that this is not really about the virus.
I left the golf course and headed to some roads I ride a lot in the summer, as they tend to be quiet and have a good combination of hills and valleys. Another cyclist, younger than me, was out so we rode together through the empty country roads. Adding to the weirdness, he was wearing a Reagan T-shirt. I’m guessing he was in his 20’s, so he was not alive when Reagan died. I guess there is some sort of nostalgia cult forming up among young white guys for Reagan.
The Mid-Atlantic is a forgotten region in many ways, but it has some great cycling opportunities if you’re into that sort of thing. The mountains are a short drive to the west and the ocean is a short drive east. In between there is a lot of good terrain. I told him that there was a very steep climb up ahead and that I may not attempt it. I’ve never been a great climber and now that I’m in my dotage, I’m even worse. At 220, I don’t exactly have the body type to be on the professional tour.
My young friend said something like “you can do it”, so not wanting to look like an old man, I decided to forge ahead., I threw all the fury my old body could muster into the climb and eventually made it to top in better shape than I expected. I coughed up part of a lung, did the Rocky pose at the top and then realized by companion never made the climb up the hill. When he said, “you can do it” he was being literal. He had no intention of tackling a steep climb. Some people just don’t like challenges.
After the climb, the road gets flat and the scenery is a blend of old country houses and some older ad hoc development. It makes for a pleasant ride. Maryland is one of those strange parts of the country where you can go from the land of suburbanite bug men to old time country living in a few miles. Get far enough away from Lagos itself and the state is quite beautiful, with an aesthetic that is unique. The state has always been a strange confluence of the surrounding regions.
I went over this weird little bridge and saw a couple of soyish looking guys standing by a car pulled over to the side of the road. I approached thinking they were having car trouble, but then I saw one of them was wearing a Reason T-shirt. I stopped and beat them. They knew why. Just in case I also said that Hans Herman-Hoppe spells his name wrong. I may have mentioned some unfortunate things about Ayn Rand’s personal life. You can never be too thorough with these types.
I continued on down what is more like a lane than a road. This is an odd part of the county, where you can pass a big beautiful home that looks like a country estate, but across the street can be a dilapidated old dump. In some cases, what used to be a farm was parceled off into lots back in the last century. There will be a beautiful old farm house then a handful of brick ranchers. It is a reminder that in the last century, the classes used to live in closer proximity to one another than today.
A house that always makes me smile is a run-down dump of place with a big Confederate flag posted out front. It has some other flag with what looks like a Norse rune on it. The house is across from a big old farm house. Most likely, the farmers started parceling off their land as economic reality required. The Compsons kept selling off lots in an effort to keep up appearances, but eventually, the old farm was all Snopes and no Compson. Now it is the Snopes clan keeping up appearances.
Having ridden past the house many times, I noted that the flags were once again in new condition, while the house was a little worse off since the last time I saw it. I always imagine the owner putting out those flags, thinking that soon, his efforts will pay off and the fortunes of his cause will change. On the other hand, maybe he just hates his neighbors and this is his way of punishing them. Either way, his neighbors no doubt notice his flags, but find a way to ignore them too.
That’s the whole thing in a nutshell. You can be sure the neighbors in their neat little ranchers think burning flags and toppling over statues is monstrous. They just lack the courage to do anything about it. So, while they privately agree with their redneck neighbor, they also wish he would just go along with it. His protest is not really about the flag or what he may think it represents. It’s against his neighbors. At the same time, their resentment for him is that he won’t just go away.
I went down what I think may be a private lane, but I’ve never been sure. It runs along a tiny creek or brook. Even though my head perfectly understands it, I’m always amazed to see anglers on these little bits of stream. Wherever there is water, nature finds a way to put some fish, which means nature finds a way to put a fisherman. For whatever reason it reminded me of an old fishing buddy. He and I probably stood together in rivers and streams more than on dry land. I should give him a call.
Coming back to my bit of the world, I could not help but think about how easy everyone has gone along with the crackdown. Americans may say they don’t trust their politicians or the media, but in the end, they trusted them completely on this panic. You can be sure the politicians and media are both feeling bold right now, having seen tens of millions dutifully follow their commands. No matter what happens in the near term, the long-term cost of that will far outweigh the threat of the virus.
The empty parks and streets are a good reminder that civilization is people, not the stuff made by people. If a bunch of strangers moved into our empty towns right now, it would not be the same. Soon, they would transform the stuff to reflect their will. Right now, our civilization is full of people ready to cower under their bed when the people in charge come up with a decent ghost story. I half wonder if the people in charge are doing this just to see if there is any fight left in us.
All of this reminds me of a great Joe Sobran quote. “By today’s standards King George III was a very mild tyrant indeed. He taxed his American colonists at a rate of only pennies per annum. His actual impact on their personal lives was trivial. He had arbitrary power over them in law and in principle but in fact it was seldom exercised. If you compare his rule with that of today’s U.S. Government you have to wonder why we celebrate our independence.”
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The most enervating aspect of the shutdown is the compulsory abstinence from physical affection. Yes, some of you have family who are skeptics, but my mom subsists on a steady diet of CNN and Facebook. So no hugs, period. Worse, my grandmother is totally quarantined in her nursing home. She can’t even go outside. Moments before dying, renowned chessmaster Bobby Fischer said that nothing heals like the human touch. I now understand what he meant. Many of those who are closer to death need physical affirmation that they valued. Our vision fades; our minds, perhaps just due to normal cognitive… Read more »
I feel ya brother.
The plague is not from God but the response is satanic
The wily BIll Gates is uncovering all kinds of ways to lessen the population. Chinese viruses he’s funded. Then there’s the tried and true vaccination route, which if nothing else screws up immune systems. Now, he can add lack of touch to the list. Hell, he might even pick off a few babies, too. They are especially vulnerable to a lack of touch and nurturing, and have been known to die from it.
Lawdog,
“I really do hate these people. Although I don’t advocate violence, they deserve death for what they’ve done.”
Very well articulated, and, except for not advocating violence, I agree with everything you wrote. My hatred for these people is with the passion of a million white-hot suns.
Agreed. I don’t advocate violence because it’s a practical matter. They have the technology to quickly crush us; indeed, that might be the best course of action for them.
I have been driving a lot. Searching for a new place to live. In the transit across the landscape I have seen beauty and ugliness, separated in stark opposites of the masked and unmasked, distant and proximate; but there is a disturbing combination as well, a kind of utopian brave new world emerging that bothers me in ways that I struggle to articulate. While the china virus has illuminated the already massive divide between normal people and the truly sick, there is an emergence of this “new normal” springing up like overnight dandelions in every aspect of our formerly normal… Read more »
Screwtape, I was just thinking the same thing this morning. It feels like a things have been irreparably altered, yet some people are acting like it’s been this way forever.
To what kind of place are you looking to move?
Lawdog, just 80 miles south. Nothing too radical, just a change. Burn rate is way to high here. Hoping to retrench down there. Have a couple soft leads on some possible career moves but if I have to set up shop its a better place longer term. Smaller, slightly more sane city. Though I still hope to get out altogether before I am too old to buck hay.
Lawdog; ain’t gonna say learn to code (I haven’t yet) but get on the internetz and learn something. Takes your mind off things. I’m going for recert / Up Cert in my field and its homework for months, years. Better than festering on the web all day, hint hint.
You’re right, Toxic. I’ve already learned Spanish and Arabic, but practically speaking, these skills have helped me very little in the modern world. It got me one job that I didn’t even like. Honestly, for me, I think that learning to code is my best option. My problem is that I’m cognitively weird. Most people, for example, are either good at both mathematical and verbal reasoning or they’re good at neither. Not the case with me. They actually made me retake the SAT because the gap between my verbal and mathematical scores was insane; they thought I was just a… Read more »
however many upvotes this post receives – it should be x 1,000
Yes we are now a docile and compliant people. This trial run test has revealed to our leaders exactly what we are. Afraid.
Sorry, forgot. A Happy and Reverent Easter to all!
The pain hasn’t really hit yet. If this goes on much longer, I think you might see some push back. So far it’s been more like a strange vacation. We’ll see what happens if it goes on much longer. Denial is a powerful sedative. What happens when denial is no longer possible?
I am a business owner. This is no vacation and guvment ain’t coming to bail me out. It is me or the highway.
I’m afraid, but not because of disease. I simply don’t know WTF to do around others any more. I’m happy to go about my business as I did a month ago, but how? If I step into someone’s newly defined “space” am I going to have to extricate myself from a fist fight? Now I’m not a pleasant person, but I usually follow the “rules” in a social situation. That’s what they were developed for over millennium. I try to say good morning, thank you, and address folk by title, and so forth. Now we are told that to sneeze,… Read more »
One whitepill: the normies in comment sections are now pushing back on this in a way they weren’t 2 weeks ago.
Stopped by the locked church again this Sunday. Not a car to be found. Quarantine signs on all the doors. Bent the knee to the Cross in the rear garden and gave my thanks and a decade on my rosary. I know I can log on to some online gathering but it just doesn’t feel right. The Church that survived Roman emperors, the Saracens and countless plagues and purges can’t find the defiance to even gather loosely in the parking lot. I don’t blame the priest, orders are orders and he answers to the archbishop. I listened to a sermon… Read more »
Your sense is accurate–this isn’t right.
Admiration to you
Hi Penitent! Your instinct is spot on. All MS churches are weak these days and virtue signal to fly, they wish, under the radar of the ruling secular overlords. They won’t fight back for they are afraid of full scale attack by the overlords, taking away tax exempt status is one way, and some as churches of the left are bringing in their world view. These churches are self destructing before your eyes. Mr. Charlton explains: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2020/04/clan-churches-should-be-as-strong-as.html My brother.. I feel your pain..this is your time for introspection and direct talking with Creator. We won’t view the churches in the… Read more »
RFF, Hello dear Lady. Perhaps I am being too hard. I float from Mass to Mass at various churches because of the obscene work schedule I keep. Vampires have it easier. Maybe each church is doing their own secret meetings, you know, “Where two or three gather…” and I’m simply not enough of a permanent fixture at any given one to be on the inside. I rather like that prospect. I’ll hope that is the case, and the laity and clergy are meeting in small groups and celebrating the King. This would make Him rejoice. Yes, I’ll hold onto that… Read more »
RFF,
Post script, forgot to mention I read your link and the subsequent link. Good stuff. Food for thought. The clock is ticking down on my relocation. We dirty Papists are few on the ground there and maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for in a smaller community.
It’s revealed this society’s neuroses to our leaders as well to the leaders in China, who will probably make plans accordingly. Tecatevirus, anyone?
The compliance of the original Milgram experiment was around 2/3. The French redid it as a game show in the late 90’s (I believe) an th number was aprox 5/6
That’s the thing, isn’t it? The **cowardice.** The people freaking out the most don’t have young children, and as for aged relatives, they couldn’t dump them in a home fast enough. It’s pure, lilly-livered, sausage-spined poltroonery. Save me, holy government, from the merest chance of catching the 98%-totally-recover sniffles!
“Sausage spine”. I own that term, sir. I insist you pay me.
The only thing that made this lockdown halfway plausible was the “Dunkelziffer” (in English, I guess that’s the “dark figure,”) the actual number of people who have the virus vs. those who get tested and find they have it. The dark number is obviously much larger, but evaluating exactly how much bigger will tell you to what extent our crazy elite is overreacting. Robert Koch Institute used a sample of nothing but people with Corona, a fairly large sample (roughly 1000) to find out how many people this thing really kills (not just elderly Italians who were going to die… Read more »
Saw that–didn’t they run a antibody tests on a full town to finally discover what the denominator is? More conspiratorial side says the pols around here are partially afraid to find out that number in case, during the ensuing depression, the population turns on them. That’s what’s bugged me from the start–modeling this thing would be like us trying to run natural catastrophe damage estimates—but lacking the Value at Risk denominator.
About .3 percent.
I doubt it’s that high. At the moment, Sweden stands at 0,0088%, and they haven’t done anything except lock up their geezers; otherwise they’re carrying on as usual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Sweden
And of course, this drives the Breitards insane, they are incredulous that the stupid, suicidal Swedes don’t demand swift and overbearing government action.
I think the mean age of the world is something like 29.9, so some disparities could be based on the fact that Germans are older than Swedes generally (47 vs. 40) and are less healthy (I know little about the Swedes, but I’d hazard they don’t drink or smoke like the Germans; the Irish don’t even drink like the Germans). Also if the official average age of Germans is 47 you can surmise it’s probably closer to sixty for actual Germans and the rapefugees are tipping the scales in a false direction.
If you mean Breitbart by Breitards…
Ah, er, ah Breitmart’s actual owners have $6.3T reasons to be grateful that the chapter 11 angel has passed over them again.
Its like any disaster; yes there is suffering and tragedy but there are vast profits to be made from looting.
Not that I’m seeing it happen, but compared to ((())) I really don’t know what the beef with Tyrone and Laqueesha 👨🏿⚕️ is… poor taste and aesthetics perhaps but really petty crime compared to their upper class mentors.
If you mean Breitbart by Breitards… I mean the commentariat. They have a few handful of good posters, but unless you come in early, they’re drowned out by retards latching on to the first post to bump up their own, a kind of firstfagging by proxy, that pushes the following posts way down the page count. Of course, the mere mention of Sweden drives them mental on the best of days, so it’s basically a Pavlovian reflex, but the lack of self-awareness is depressing. Also, a lot of ((them)), I suspect, are simply there to gloat over these tall, blonde… Read more »
I like my typo “Breitmart”.
God moved my finger…
Well, the Swedes negotiated through two world wars and came out with a profit each time….
Oh the lamentations and wailing! Knock it off everyone! Okay, okay, I admit to being victim to a sort of creeping optimism (you can conflate that into “creepy”), but look, there are *reasons* to be optimistic about various potential results of the Chinese virus. Globalism is dying if not outright dead. Nationalist manufacturing capability is rushing back into style. The FDA is being shown to be a government entity that kills people. Trump has daily press conferences in which he all-but-explicitly calls sneering MSM reporters assholes (repeatedly). The southern border has been slammed SHUT, and no one is objecting (in… Read more »
Proud to be the first one! Happy Easter;-)
I’ve posted the following several times before beginning a couple weeks back in the spirit of your post.:
https://youtu.be/0CZCVE5Sd2U
FTR: I gave you an up-vote. 🙂
To all of you, I quote Elvis: “Thankyaa,thankyaa,thankyaaVerrrmuuch.”
“But it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.”
Sir Walter Scott
Happy Easter.
There is opportunity here.
Globalism has collapsed.
The downside is so did our economy.
This is financial repression if anyone missed it.
We just became Venezuela.
With not a peep.
I’m going to make a prediction; when this COVID scare is over they’ll be lots of young, entrepreneurial Americans leaving America for the “developing” world, I’m thinking Uruguay and the other more sober minded nations.
That’s what happened in Venezuela and that was as soon as Chavez turned hard left.
As far as I’m concerned they can go, and never return. Not fond of fair weather types.
Here in NW DC mask-wearing has now increased to nearly 100%. Yesterday went to Giant Food across the street and I was in fact the sole customer with no mask; many were decked out in full plague-doctor regalia. From the stares I got I was apparently considered some sort of heretic or filthy leper, with people scurrying away as I approached. Given neighborhood most customers are white, yet all employees (as at nearby Georgetown Safeway) are Vibrants, who manned the sole entrance admitting customers on case/case basis (kind of like the old Studio 54) and roamed the aisles and checkouts… Read more »
Anarcho-tyranny at its finest, as white people luxuriate (don’t tell me many of them aren’t enjoying this) in the fetal position.
Same at our grocery store. Most of the staff are white but the black security guards at the door love displaying their power over the white shoppers. You can see it. I guess the normie whites can’t, or they do but just ignore it.
It is most likely the new reality as the 3rd worlders out number us more and more.
full plague-doctor regalia.
With these?
Because I swear that’s what I’m going to wear if someone manages to force me into wearing a mask.
Jim Crow?
I would add a voice modulator that made me sound like Kylo Ren’s creepy robo-voice when he had his mask on.
Or Bane from the third Nolan Batman.
That’s not a plague doctor. That’s Black Spy from Mad magazine’s Spy vs. Spy. Dude is apparently really into old-timey cosplay.
Man. That’s surely a pretty good approximation of Hell.
Happy. Strangest. Easter. Ever. At least the Jews got to have the first real “Passover” in a few thousand years. Fun thing around here is seeing just how many Cuban style, CDR block captains have emerged to spend their days on FB calling out every business or person that doesn’t adhere to their interpretation of the lockdown rules. And swarm on anyone that has the temerity to suggest burning down the economy might have a few second order effects later on. I’m just waiting for the first Soviet-style poster art to appear.
Good on the self-appointed block captains, I say. They’re taking the work out of generating local accountability lists. Not THEIR lists, mind you….
On another forum these scolds were called Six Foot Karens. To prove what a good, responsible citizen I am, I have been wearing my ISIS shemagh when I go out to protect the community from my diseased breath. Others must be getting the same idea. This ebay seller has sold 2,449 and is currently out of stock.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Military-Army-Shemagh-Tactical-Desert-Keffiyeh-Scarf-100-Cotton-Scarves-Roman-/112470731520
Brah that’s the US Army authorized schmegh, not ISIS 🤣
I’m waiting for some smartypants to go grocery shopping in a full KKK robe and hood, explaining to the exploding heads that it was the only PPE he had readily to hand.
I may well be in the process of losing one income stream because I dared suggest that the CV “pandemic” is a pathological farce.
I wonder if the haste to comply with government Social Distancing is more about people being exhausted and sick to death of the frenetic pace of our lives than an implicit trust in our government.. Now we have ‘permission’ to drop most things and retire to our homes with our families and be left alone for awhile.
You’ve hit the nail on the head.
Methinks you have captured a truth. Particularly given a femmed-over society. They’re tired, which historically means we should strike hard no matter how tired ourselves. I don’t have an offensive plan unfortunately.
Most people weren’t enjoying life before virus (BV). Nobody wants to interact with weird 3rd worlders at the grocery store, hear their simplistic babbling on the cell phone, deal with them at work. The 3rd worlders don’t like interacting with other types of 3rd worlders either. The cat ladies don’t really enjoy being on the carousel and the soy gamers don’t really like being in their basements. Nobody wants to sit for hours in traffic every day to drive home to their suburb to avoid the tax urban living. (Suburb is probably filling up with h1b anyways). So yeah, if… Read more »
I agree. There is some truth to this.
Patrick your comment was a seamless display of contrarian insouciance. Well done. But I can’t even give you a, “there’s some truth in that, bro.” There’s absolutely no truth in it. LOL
Hopefully the women will stay there.
Good point. Let’s not forget that this mess has killed off the NBA season so let’s not pretend that there’s no upside!
Here in Cali, La La Land literally, (alliteration intended) the only free people are the homeless it finally dawned on me. They have nothing to lose. That is what it takes. Driving by Trader Joe’s I saw everyone submissively obeying the edicts which change by the day and the city. Everyone was 6 feet apart and wearing masks. Except for two homeless men who were were walking together mask-less, letting their free flag fly as it were. And they are free. Of course in Cali no police are going to bother them virtually no matter what they do. But still… Read more »
Sad. DemonRat controlled localities are going to collapse unless the President sends in the national guard to wrest control from the mayors and other officials. These Rats have no intention of loosening their grip on compliance until the supply chains are down and store shelves are empty.
I’ll bet the shopping cart racers are all having a blast out on the open roads out there in la la land. Free of motor vehicle traffic, the way God intended it to be when he invented the freeway. 🙂
https://youtu.be/90m5zTHxsmc
funny you should mention that. seeing Mad Max type asshatery on the roads (south in OC). it is genuinely unsafe to be out and about right now.
I’ve noticed this too. The only people who seem to be out driving are street racers in 800hp modified Jap sedans, rocketbikers, and cops, lots of cops.
Beginning @ 15:30:
https://youtu.be/GzjVFqXYV_A
On Friday, Utah started making drivers entering the state fill out a travel declaration form. “The entry points listed above have geo-fenced areas so that vehicles entering the state will receive a text message from a federal system, according to Carlos Braceras, Executive Director of the Utah Department of Transportation. When the vehicle comes to stop, the driver will be directed to entry.utah.gov to fill out a self-declaration form. The form will ask if the individual was tested for coronavirus, the results of that test, and if they are experiencing symptoms. It will also require basic information such as a… Read more »
Good information. When I go to visit my daughter in Salt Lake I’ll turn off my phone and remove the battery.
When all this first started I and got a couple of my old phones that I had already reset to factory and turned them into prepaid phones. Just seems like it might be helpful in the future. Who knows
Bloody hell.
The libertarian aside was awesome. Happy Easter, ZMan.
It wouldn’t have been quite as funny if Z-man was merely being facetious. As it is, I pissed myself.
[1,000 years in the future]
“Mom, why do we beat libertarians and eat chocolate bicycles on Easter?”
“I think that’s one of the pagan traditions, son.”
It’s reminiscent of another hate criminal I used to worship. Only he hated hipsters and killed them on sight in fun and inhumane ways. Cheese graters, catapults, and dull edged weaponry were brandished the same way a master musician wields the violin.
I was an outhouse objectivist when I began my journey though. I think Ayn Rand should be mandatory reading for any aspiring dissident. Along with Mein Kampf, Das Kapital and the bible.
It isn’t enough to just beat and kill lefties, hipsters, libertarians and other turds… you must also know WHY they must be kilt. 😆👍
Fox had a poll out where only 4% of respondents thought that the lockdown measures are excessive. Even if the real number is double that, there is still 90% support for the current restrictions ( or stronger ones).
Makes sense if you think about it. Essentially, all women and old people support quarantine, as do the soy-infused millennials. Basically, only gen X men think this is all bullshit, along with a few Very Late Boomers.
Tarl – I think that’s what both surprises me the least and scares me the most – how gung ho everyone is on this insanity. My husband and I are later boomers and hate the hysteria. Our younger son, generation z, is in full agreement with us. Our older son, a later millenial, who was the most politically dissident and activist of us all, has shocked us by reacting with the herd. He and his girlfriend declined to join us for Easter dinner out of health concerns.
I appreciate your perspective.
The result of American men being corporatized and subsequently cubicleized since the 1950s.
This female late Boomer thinks that it’s nonsense. When purchasing an item, I make a point of remarking to the cashierist that this is all ridiculous and everyone agrees.
It is funny how the young are so uninformed (or blind) about the nature of the generations. There never was a unified “Boomers” except in the media and in politics and in the mind of the bigots over that site where everyone is “high IQ”. I am a real southerner and born in early 50s. I hated every fucking hippy even if they were exactly my age. I hate to this day almost anyone born in the big cities of the east or west. What I am trying to say is that given weapons and an open field the Boomers… Read more »
An event and the reaction to the event are different things. The event itself doesn’t matter, just watch the government’s respose . It’s an excuse to allow them to do what they already want to (and have planned) to do for a long time. The response doesn’t even have to make sense as a reaction to the event. For example, 9/11. Committed by Saudi Muslims. A common sense reaction? Ban Muslims from the country, including immigration, and attack Saudi Arabia after Afghanistan. What was the government reaction? Import millions of Muslims, go to war with a country that had nothing… Read more »
Yes. If we are on a war-footing, as all this big talk from everyone in charge would have us believe, back it up with deportation of all Chinese nationals. There should be no problem with due process if we are truly at war. And given the Chinese cover-up of all this, as well as its takeover of the globalist behemoths like WHO, perhaps we should be at some sort of war. But this will not be done. Just as giving the Muslims the common sense heave-ho was not done in 1991. Maintaining diversity and the Asian workforce here, displacing Americans… Read more »
And stop giving out STUDENT VISAS to them!
The level of traitrorousness and corruption in western universities is shocking.
That’s not who they’re at war with
So, in other words, in the wake of 9/11, Jews got everything they wanted and more, plus they got Americans to pay for it all, and Americans got exactly nothing, except for the bill in blood, treasure, lost Liberty, demographic shredding, cultural debasement, and ruined social capital, in order to pay for everything the Jews wanted and got.
And your inference is, the Saudis did 9/11…?
Never let a crisis go to waste.
Say! Weren’t you a writer for “Happy Days”?
I don’t think its trust, necessarily. I mean, for some, it is – they trust their faction.
I think it’s a lack of will to openly challenge authority.
I wonder if that goes with that metaphor you’ve been forming that we are in our end years as a country. Challenging authority is a young person’s perogative.
The death ratio, Wuhan worldwide to date compared to an average year for the flu, is 0.28. Using a sportsball analogy, it’s up to Double A status. If it hits 0.75 it will have joined the bigs.
A blessed Easter to all.
I’ve had a similar experience here in Canada. Every day I go for a long walk and I’ve seen fewer people than before the “lockdown” but there is always someone out and about (oot and aboot) usually someone with their dog. One persistent fantasy that I hear people mutter is the idea that when this thing is over there will be some positive changes. There may be few but overall I expect people to be so desperate for a return to “normality” they will try to forget the whole thing. However, our rulers won’t forget how easy it was to… Read more »
Nor will the Chinese rulers.
Much of this is simply an opportunity for our progressive overlords to display their anti-white bigotry. Shutting down golf courses, gardening stores, no traveling to your cabin up North, etc, etc, all stuff that in their minds are things that only suburban white people like. Michigan’s execrable feminist AG tweeted as much: “I just can’t hear about one more black health care worker, police officer or bus driver die while getting a barrage of complaints from white folks outraged because they can’t go golfing.” Meanwhile, the last cell phone vid from the Detroit making the rounds ended with the mob… Read more »
Ah yes, (((Dana Nessel))). Can’t help but notice right away these days.
She’s also a lesbian.
The Tribe really needs to made aliyah. Either voluntarily or it’ll be the 110th expulsion.
I have said for decades that if George Washington and the boys had a fortune teller who could show them the future: if they could see today, they would apologize to the King and never give democracy (or whatever people call our system) a try. The generation that gave birth to the Boomers spent the late 50s and the 60s destroying our civilization. They did away with REAL marriage, opened the boarders to wholesale immigration, did away with freedom of association, and so very much more evil. Like a snowball going downhill, the collapse has been going faster and faster.… Read more »
Mark – Texas today is not the Texas in the imagination of so many. A lot of it is very typically urban and suburban. The state has hundreds if not thousands of mosques, brown and yellow imports from every corner of the globe, as well as NY, NJ, CA and IL refugees all set on recreating their personal view of ‘home.’ Texas is but a few years behind California, and will lead nothing.
I’m afraid you may well be right. And if so, that is why secession must occur at a level lower than the state. There remain chunks of rural and small-city Texas that would be wonderful nations or city-states if they could disengage from the USSA.
The American Free Counties Movement …..
I agree that Texas today is not the Texas of old. I don’t expect Texas or California to secede and become a paradise for dissidents. I just want a big state to set the precedent. And I don’t think the left would try to stop California or Texas. Perhaps they could go together and guarantee they would be allowed to leave.
Support secession always and everywhere.
In Arizona, you can still play golf and loads of people get out and walk, or hike in the wild areas every day….as the Governor has urged them to do…I walk a couple of hours every day, and see people walking, even whole families, that I had never seen before…Also, The small trades have kept working and there is a lot of construction and highway traffic…Also, Home Depot and Loew’s are booming, and most restaurants are open for takeout…Ironically, highway traffic has increased substantially since the restrictions were theoretically increased on April 1….but nobody talks about all this…..
That’s not reality on the East Coast. You can fire off a cannon down a DC street right now.
The difference between NYC, its expensive suburbs, and “upstate” (starts abput 60 miles outside The City), is like night and day. I too plan a ride today, on two wheels. But on my 1200cc machine. The feeling of freedom, knowing you are a twist of the wrist from dusting any member of that fraternity known as John Law, quite American. Of course, they know that and leave us alone.
Long line to get into cavernous Home Depot one person at a time… compared to no such thing north of the shitlibistan blue line here in New York.
If all this doesn’t prove we are no longer a one-size-fits-all nation, I don’t know what will.
Yes but we’re shut down too, and we can’t print money. Albany by virtue of the NY FED can and does.
In NJ, facemasks are mandatory. Here in the northcentral part of the state, there was a line into a local supermarket last Sunday morning and some shops put up the plexiglass divider. I make a point of remarking to every person ringing me up that this is all ridiculous and everyone agrees.
Geez. Glad I’m not living in Princeton anymore.
Grew up there, in Princeton. beautiful town, but only went back to scatter my dads’ ashes. In Palmer Square. Guess that might not be legal. So arrest me.
Yup, didn’t think this post gets much traction here. The cohort of the public, “dissident” movement trends geeky. A weakness, IMO. When I rode south into Westchester today, there they were. Spandex ghey Wall Streeters on their $5 grand bicycles, perched on tiny seats no anatomical male would tolerate. With the helmets their moms made them wear. These self described Masters of the Universe typically do not obey the rules of the road. Saw one group 4 abreast. Then the affluent women that divorced them swerve around these males, often widely, while at the helm of the latest Range Rover.… Read more »
Agreed. In rural Upstate New York, this nonsense is having zero immediate effect. I’ve been to the rifle range 8 or 10 times since this shitshow started. Last week it was much busier than usual.
I am on the edge of Up, and Down State so I see both. Badge of honor a Downvote on my pointing up the geekiness of our online “dissident” males.
Nerdy downvoter, learn how to open your car’s hood,then drop me a line haha.
Nerds are the “dissidents” currently hiding under their beds. Even clutching the 2A rights. Sorry.
You can always fire a cannon down a street. Ask Napoleon.
wish i could upvote this like 10x!
Just a whiff of grapeshot.
Not just can, but should.
And someone should. Repeatedly.
Arizona seems to practice a sort of quiet libertarianism…and the cops go along with it…
I’m in a camp town in the South. All the soldiers have crammed themselves into Home Depot and Lowes with their families in tow. Without an open restaurant, I’ve been eating lunch at a crowded park all week. The government wrapped the kids play equipment in police tape, so the kids are riding the walking tracks and fishing in the lakes.
The only ones following this are businesses. It’s a good reminder that businesses are the conduit of government tyranny. Once they come for the guns, they will do it by ripping out the producers and sellers.
Kids seeing their playgrounds in police tape. That will do more to acclimate them to tyranny than any one high school history teacher could ever dream of inflicting.
I was saying similar things twenty years ago when all the little schools in my area were (literally) chaining their doors shut from the inside, forcing kids to carry clear plastic backpacks to school and so on and so forth, in reaction to the Columbine shooting. …
Yes, that and then there’s the damage to their bodies from hauling the equivalent of a day’s worth of busting rocks at Angola Prison around.
Wait a minute Tykebomb; the producers and FFL holders are exactly who its being enforced on for years. That’s why COLT got out of certain lines, as did DICKS and now CABELAS, at least in many stores. As far as enforcing it on the gun owners that’s why the NRA is an insurance company. The cost of firearm insurance will become high, the cost of self defense prohibitive. However given the vast disparity in all classes of power including wealth why do you hate businesses for caving in and obeying the laws? Its not business job to uphold liberty, dignity,… Read more »
Businesses are organizations. Lack of organization is the primary reason Evil, Inc. is able to get away with its deeds without blowback; they only face individual dissidents.
A business who defies government is organized opposition against the government… exactly what is missing right now. It’s why Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby were headline news.
Uh
Governments have force, law. Armies, police, courts.
Businesses have none of that.
As far as businesses being organized; so are Little League Teams. Bingo games.
Churches.
Organized for what? Only one is organized for power.
Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby didn’t need armies to freak out the government, now did they? They simply told the government “No” while being too big to be quietly disappeared.
Government is masculine, business is feminine. I know the guy taking the risk would disagree, but think about it. Who entices, who forces? Businesses compete for customers like women compete for men. They don’t get the monopoly or the bailout without gov’t muscle.
Speaking of Chick-Fil-A, they were the first ones to shut down their lobby and go completely to drive-through only. I call that caving big time.
Same where I am in the south. This is the prettiest plague I’ve ever seen.
The other day I happened to hear an ad for Home Depot on the radio. It gushed over the fact that “during these difficult times” we have been honored to see the emergence of heroes in our world: first responders, medical professionals, retail employees… Retail employees!!? Yes, they actually said that. Those guys that stormed Omaha Beach? I suppose they’re worthy of standing next to the mouth-breather who stacks mulch at Walmart. When you set the bar that low, we’re all heroes by virtue of merely respirating. Personally, I tend to agree with what Norm McDonald said when talking about… Read more »
KGB: I’ve heard that retail heroes canard a lot – and the lady who thought I was impatient (I was in no hurry, merely disgusted by her mask and subservience) at the store made a big point of thanking the cashier for his ‘service.’ Again, heard that multiple times from multiple AWFLs. Here in DFW burbs it’s similar to Lagos – empty streets, more White families out for bike rides, all restaurants closed. Yesterday at the store I was one of the perhaps 10% not masked, gloved, goggled, and shrouded. My misanthropy is thriving these days.
I have an “essential” job but sometimes wish I didn’t because people are so obsequious now. I’ve actually gotten that “thank you for your service” thing. It’s embarrassing. I usually just mumble “yeah” and nod or say nothing.
Dude, you’re a ruddy hero!
I’m about 325 miles west of you. Went shopping yesterday. Approximately 85% of the women looked like they were fit to dodge Phosgene in the trenches, while about 15% of the men were similarly tricked out. Lots of conclusions to draw from this observation, but the main one is that America’s panicked overreaction to the Nothingburger Pandemic is driven by estrogen and the emotions it produces. And, perforce, we see that America is now a feminine nation.
I think it all started going downhill once Subway declared their hoagie hacks “Sandwich Artists”…
Please, I still need to teach the low IQ workers at Scrubway what a tomato core is – a small piece of wood – and how they should not put it in my sandwich or that of any non porcine mammal.
When I worked at a restaurant as a teen, I cored LOTS of tomatos before they were sliced. So surely a massive child molester front man corporation could install protocols. Needless to say, they want to monetize every speck of the tomato.
The tomato core. Largely a product of picking tomatoes before they’re ripe so they survive shipping. Gotta love that industrial food supply.
For the love of God and all that is decent, don’t put Subway and “hoagie” in the same sentence. Subway doesn’t make hoagies.
I’m not a hero, never claimed to be. My school is still closed to in person instruction, most of us are doing our best to do the “remote learning” thing, not working all that well. I dunno if it was here or one of the other hate thinker sites I frequent, but I agree that parents getting a load of what their kids are actually learning might be a good thing! My New England latte town is pretty empty, but there are lots of people out walking, running and biking. My bit of defiance is I still go out and… Read more »
In my mid-sized burgh on the Plains I’m not seeing the apocalyptic scenario either. The playgrounds are taped off and basketball nets removed but otherwise state and city parks have people. I don’t see much drop in traffic either. Of course Lowe’s and HD are open, and people are using them to full effect. Lots are either walking the neighborhood or doing DIY or gardening. It’s almost…utopian.
Here, in Southern AZ, the stores that remain open have placed large plastic, clear panels/sheets between the customer and the cashier. Banks as well. Of course, that does little to nothing except make folk “feel” safer. In the pharmacy yesterday, they have the plastic panels, and a table between the customer and the pharmacist—who is now also wearing a face mask. Hilarity ensues of course as the routine is that no one can hear the other one talk. So I was inquiring about a prescription at the top of my lungs and giving the required ID personal info, while I… Read more »
Same here in South Central Oklahoma with these plexiglass barriers/nuisances. Virtually no one around these parts is going to go about his/her day-to-day activities wearing a mask, and everyone knows it, including the gun-toting authorities. I guess the plexiglass things are the last line of defense for the defenseless or something. Well, that and the fact that these businesses are instructed by the city-managers-by-whatever name to follow these sorts of protocols that the cities in question will remain eligible for federal aid when the time comes to divvy it all up.
I had thought our state, in which every county went for Trump, an exception to the madness, T. Guess it’s not.
MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER IS…..ha, crazy times
The utter absurdity of trying to interdict microbes in a nation of 333 million seems lost on the vast majority of the populace.
In my neck of the woods the cops are dragging people off of the bus for not wearing a face mask. Like 8 or 10 cops for one dude on a bus!
I had to run an errand on Friday at rush hour and the streets were empty. There is more traffic on an average week night at 10. I don’t think I have ever seen Philadelphia streets so empty.
Tars, you’re kidding me…the cops’ll go after you for not wearing a mask..??
Hard to believe, but true.
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/philly-police-rip-man-off-bus-for-not-wearing-mask-raw/
They have also shut the buses and subways down to anyone not carrying a hall pass proclaiming they are a essential person.
It will be interesting to see the reaction if somebody dies from the cops’ prophylactic abuse.
When ive been out running this past week i’ve seen more people out running or walking than ever. Lots of families with kids and dogs. Lots fewer cars though. I went to get a truckload of barkdust yesterday and it was busier than i’ve ever seen it. There were 20 pickups in line and more pulling in as others left. Lockdown or not, yardwork cant wait.
Last night I was doing what I’ve assigned myself as a kind of grim duty and watched a bunch of news shorts from the major media. This is the first encouraging thing I saw. It was a segment on how life is going on pretty much as usual in Utah. They interviewed people who said they didn’t feel they needed to wear masks or keep distance from other people. They also talked to a white guy who was probably sympathetic to our thing and his 2 young sons standing by their pickup at a store. He said he felt people… Read more »
That pretty well describes the situation in west Texas.
You can be sure the politicians and media are both feeling bold right now, having seen tens of millions dutifully follow their commands. No matter what happens in the near term, the long-term cost of that will far outweigh the threat of the virus. I’m not so sure. Soon, Normie will discover he’s had himself, his children and grandchildren consigned to lifelong debt slavery over what was basically just the flu, brah. Having all your possessions stolen, takes some forgetting. Thank god we have control groups in Sweden, Turkmenistan and Brazil, that makes it somewhat harder to gaslight us about… Read more »
Looking ahead about 6 months I can see that there are going to be a LOT of (former) small business owners who are now working shit jobs at Amazon and have lost basically everything they have. This is the big gamble the rulers are playing. It remains to be seen if the newly unemployed and impoverished become the seeds of a harvest of fury. Why did they take this gamble? I posted earlier that I was skeptical of the conspiracy theories in general. However, I think once the panic ball started rolling the ruling class felt this was as good… Read more »
Why did they take this gamble?
It’s a heist. Not only will those small business owners be replaced by chain stores, but the relief packages are astronomical, and the guy with the most lawyers take home the biggest loot.
By some estimates, I already owe Corona Chan $25,000, as do every other Dane. If the numbers are comparable across the Western world, the amount involved is truly mindboggling, north of ten trillion. Of course, the globalists don’t get all the loot, but if they only rake in ten percent, it’s still well worth it.
That occurred to me too. It still seems like a huge gamble since this could be the last nail in the coffin of the US dollar, and maybe the Euro too. The thieves could end up getting a bad cup of coffee for their trillion dollar bills. Then again, I suppose the big players reckon that the worst case scenario would be that they need to retire to their fortified island lairs a few years early.
It still seems like a huge gamble since this could be the last nail in the coffin of the US dollar, and maybe the Euro too.
Maybe that’s the whole point? Maybe they’ve decided it’s time to pull the plug on the dollar regime?
Oh this is the Diehard Plot for sure.
Yes exactly; its not a gamble.
It’s a Heist film.
Mind you; movie plots don’t usually work in real life.
Exactly pozy
Don’t forget the freest country in the world – Belarus!
We don’t celebrate our inependence; we celebrate a calendar date. It’s a paid federal holiday, so there ya go.
T. Morris – No one ever asks, “Independence from what?” What we dissidents really want is independence from typical human stupidity and cupidity – from human nature. The average really is awful, and so I suppose I’m merely a snob at heart. Whatever – the inmates have been running things for decades, and while I might wish the end were near, I fear we have yet to see just how much ruin there is in nation.
Welp, as our esteemed blog host has pointed out… if we are going to put women and vibrants in charge, they are going to do what they do. Our ancestors were not dull, hateful people. They understood blacks, and women… and actually treated them quite well. Better than they treat each other, in fact.
You can never be equal with blacks or women.
Either you can be the benevelant dictator, or they will have you as their dog (in the case of blacks they will kill you).
Sadly democracy, while always fatal, kills the patient VERY slowly. In that way it’s sort of the political equivalent of a hybrid of ebola and Covid-19.
Cultural inertia. Pure, plain and simple. Nothing more.
psst! (Soup’s on.)
Gramsci’s heirs in schools and the media (the latter contains the biggest schoolmarms of all) have been readying the population for many years. This society was cooked almost to perfection. But the Borg did not account for the home schooled and those who home school them, as well as various and sundry traditional freedom lovers. Uneven heat will do that. Anticipate an all-out effort to fix the oven.
Can confirm. I was homeschooled and the first thing I noticed when going to college was just how much bullshit and propaganda normies believe in.
Congratulations. Your parents gave you an immeasurable gift — the gift to detect horseshit upon the first whiff. And most likely a balanced view of history and the capability to make change without the cash register cuddling you. You are one of the fortunate ones.
I used to teach at a community college. I would open every semester by asking the students how many had read the U.S. Constitution. On average, 98-99% had not.
Last year the only kid in the class who had read it had been home-schooled.
I’ve mentioned this here before but the anecdote dovetails with your comment so I’ll repeat it. I was once at a Very Elite East Coast College soirée where people were talking politics. There was a young woman who was a poli-sci major, junior year. During the course of the conversation I got the sense she didn’t know much about the Constitution so I asked if she had ever read it. She said “well I haven’t read ALL of it, of course” and with a little probing I discovered that she had conflated the US Constitution with the US Federal Code.… Read more »
Somewhat in her defense, reading the Constitution only has value as a study in human hubris. It proves that you cannot overcome human nature through a written piece of paper.
I hope the government gives me permission to leave my house on the Fourth of July so that I can celebrate my freedom.
If the government forbids–and I’ll allow it’s a possibility–then we turn the fireworks on it…
Nah. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the big annual “Pride” event in Tel Aviv kicks off in June (I think). This all has to come to an abrupt halt before then. Can’t deprive world traveling sodomites, especially those for whom 2020 will have been their first experience with the mother of all pride events in the mother of all pride cities, that experience.
The long term costs on this will just be awful. I aways knew this bubble would burst, it’s been over 10 years since the last crisis. But never did I foresee a nationwide effort to put a gun to the head of small business and pull the trigger. Every day is a more complex ordeal. You can’t just go to the grocery store without standing on your little masking tape markers on the pavement, waiting for enough people to exit. All the money spent on plexiglass, etc. It’s become some bizarre cake walk from square to square. No free people… Read more »
The empty parks and streets are a good reminder that civilization is people, not the stuff made by people. What is maybe a contrary thought hit me over and over on my trip to the Grand Canyon 10-ish years ago or so. There is this stark dividing line in the architecture and aesthetics of the buildings and human-improved features around the park. In the days when the Kolb Brothers and the railroad controlled the canyon edge, they built beautiful buildings — all the Colter-designed buildings like the Desert View Watchtower and Bright Angel Lodge, and the Kolb Brothers house, literally… Read more »
Excellent post. As to why the American people accepted this variant of Martial Law is simple. Trump ,the CDCand the MSM packaged it very well. Trump trotted out his scientific experts who told us tha tmilions will die if we don’t shut down the country. The MSM ran with this and repeated the lie in different forms on a 7×24 basis creating a mass panic. The state and local pols – all budding tyrants at heart used this to shut down all public venues via fatwas and gun point. ne other thing, the local police have shown no qualms about… Read more »
Out here, a frat house near OSU hosted an unauthorized party this weekend. Cops shut them down, but the fact that it even happened is telling. Some churches are continuing to meet out of defiance.
Does it mean the sleeping normie is stirring? Who knows?
Or it could be simply put down to religion. The Frat party has always been Bacchus, the Nazerean righteous feels.
Saturday night followed by Sunday Service.
Buckeye drunkards curb-stomp cop cars b/c Eggball every season but can’t muster the same spirit when it comes to Mitt Romney flooding Columbus with Somalians
https://beltmag.com/in-columbus-somalis-live-under-suspicion/
Somebody tell these keg-grugs that Israel supports Michigan Wolverine football.
The Somalis are fucking intolerable. They’ve ruined the whole Morse area.
All the government and law enforcement are on the Somali side. They’re untouchable by Midwestern White boys.
Can confirm Vizzini, I live nearby.
A beautiful post today…Really. Maryland has some stunning countryside. Though the inhabitants have done yeomans work erasing it in the post war era. This whole circus is a damned farce. Highlights the fact that somewhere along the way Uncle Sam had a sex change and became “Auntie Samantha” we have well and truly become a nation of simpering cows. My state of PA recently closed off access to hard liquor. State stores are closed for the duration. Safety and all that. Got a taste for some of the hard stuff this week. Asked co workers and friends for their requests.… Read more »
What a horrifying link:
I’m glad to read here the Catholics are ready to pander to Thirsty Quakers and Pentecostals Ser VViper. And presided over by a Tranny Queen of Progress.
This may be the most ecumenical Easter ever.
For there are still Men, or at least drunks in The West.
Is Pennsylvania still going to allow selling Fireworks?
asking for a friend.
Happy Easter to all! Z….thanks for your thoughtful travelogue. Love in the time of cholera. Bicycling in the time of faux pandemic. Our overlords testing our mettle. Our mettle is shredded. As much as I’ve groused about my sheep-like Mormon neighbors and friends, Gov. Herbert has come through greatly in one way….he and Romney may be globalist pirates, yet he still believes in a touch of liberty. The old ancestors’ blood still runs through his veins. He turned over the responsibility of Wuhan response to the counties and the Salt Lake corridor. This state never got locked down. Salt Lake… Read more »
Riding a country road is always great and I have done it out west (dirt roads and pronghorn antelope). But now I ride the empty streets of New York City and it is great. It’s surreal. Nobody , no cars. I would never do it before being afraid of traffic. It.s also super clean. Never seen city so clean. I feel that I am riding trough a movie set. The response to the virus is way exagerrated but my wife is a nurse and there is a meat truck outside her hospital as also outside other hospitals. Hopefully that will… Read more »
No Judeo-Christianity wanted here.
“I could not help but think about how easy everyone has gone along with the crackdown.”
I think it’s just that cities and their closer suburbs tend to be full of cat ladies, soy gamers, and Netflix. The only time they ever go out is to ride the cock carousel at bars (that includes the soy gamers), so of course if the bars are closed, the streets will empty.
Around here, the woods, fields, roads, and parks are more full of walkers, hikers, kids, joggers, and bikers than they’ve been in decades.
They soy gamers are going out and picking up the cat ladies at the bar? That’s news to me!
I expect that the same soyboys who used to run “male-feminist game” will switch to “mask and glove game” if and when the bars re-open. It won’t work any better but it will give me something new to laugh at.
my rule with riding uphill is i get off an push/walk the bike as soon as my pedaling results in a speed less than walking (if that makes sense).
they actually made a movie about Ayn’s love life, with Helen Mirren playing her. Needles to say, that represented a substantial upgrade from Ayn’s actual attractiveness 🙂
My father loved Ayn Rand. When I was 11, he left anthem on my bedside table and I just picked it up and read it . When I was 13, I read Atlas Shrugged while away at a month-long Christian Camp in Alabama and I made sure they all knew I was an atheist. I can legitimately say, I have been persecuted by Christians. I read her entire oeuvre by the time I was twenty, even her terrible play. And then I read about her… you cannot separate her from her message. She is a hypocrite and a liar par… Read more »
Whitney – I had never even heard of Rand until I went away to college, where I discovered all my classmates had read her books. I didn’t get around to actually reading Atlas Shrugged until perhaps 10 years ago – lousy, turgid prose, with a few excellent points and insights buried within. As for her personal life and character, yet another human waste of space.
Atlas Shrugged has some pretty salacious sex scenes in it too which I think is a lot of the appeal for younger people way back when. Or perhaps I should say Randy sex scenes!
In the SF Bay Area people were into reading Tolkien and naming their dogs Frodo. Any Rand didn’t exist. In my early 50’s I stumbled onto her Atlas Shrugged, hit the sex scenes, read them over a few times and thought holy shitski…hot humping then off to the next guy. That type of gal turned into the crap wine drinking blue haired solo childless cat auntie arguing across the dining table at your prairie home companion Easter.
A reasonably good Easter as good as we’re going to get to you ladies!
Now all the cool kids name their dogs Dagney and Taggart.
Range, no surprise, every Objectivist girl ever thinks she’s Dagny. A big reason why I never put a ring on my Dagny was knowing I wasn’t John Galt. The Bigger Better Deal would always hang over an Objectivist marriage like the sword of Divorce-ocles.
And our shared “faith” sanctioned it. I wasn’t long for Objectivism once those red-pill truths sunk in.
lousy, turgid prose, with a few excellent points and insights buried within.
Wholeheartedly agree. There’s meat and potatoes for a longish essay, the rest is a literary trashfire. I only got through it because I was on a holiday and had no other books.
Towards the end, the elusive hero, wossisname, broadcasts a speech where he sums up the ethics of the entire book. The speech runs to a hundred pages, no kidding.
Felix – so Ayn Rand invented the effort-post?
I could practically recite that speech after a few years – not so much for trying, but because it really does contain her whole spiel. Some of her essay collections still have useful critiques and ideas we can hack, but probably 2/3 of her overall canon is superfluous.
But she was not wrong in pointing out how The Herd seethes with envy of excellence, accomplishment, and independence. This needs to be explained, and often. In her time, she was one of the few saying it.
She wasn’t the first to notice it. It’s in the Ten Commandments. Though she would find that comparison galling
Ayn Rand’s observations were perceptive, but her solutions ludicrous.
It’ been years since I read Atlas Shrugged but, IMHO, the best scene in the book is the run up to the train collision heard ’round the world where Rand is describing the occupants of the train(s) – car A, room 8b, a school teacher who believed herself eminently qualified to assume a larger leadership role in society given that she’d been leading a classroom of 3rd grade misfits for twenty-five years, or however it goes.
yah, she is great for 17 year olds 🙂 not so much for adults. and my god, the rape fantasies that woman entertained! maybe it was cossacks or something…
Rand’s mindset was little different from the average communist. Her results were different and credit to her for that. But her god of Reason reminds of Chesterton–civilization and barbarism are like the difference between polished steel and rust. You can only find truth with logic after you have found it without logic. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason, but the man who has lost everything but his reason.
Whitney, that’s why Rothbard called Objectivism “Ayn Randianism”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/understanding-ayn-randianism/
I was a Randroid for over 20 years – almost married into the cult. Dear God, imagine raising kids in a dual-Objectivist household? The sperg-levels would have torn a hole in the universe.
Never was part of their “inner circles,” so I don’t know how virgin Statist blood tastes.
That was enjoyable. It’s been a long time since I’ve delved into Randianism and that was a sufficiently meaty. Apparently I never could have been in the cult. You had to prefer Rachmaninoff to Bach?? Insanity!
My favorite is everyone taking up smoking because she did. Serial adultery/cuckoldry as well – hippies had nothing on Alisa Rosenbaum’s “salon.”
Et tu? I’m having trouble enough with the image of Z-man in spandex bicycle shorts – I had no idea there were so many bike fiends in here.
Young Helen Mirren was extremely attractive- see “The Long Good Friday”. Great flick
This is one of those rare parts of the year, along with October, where the mid-Atlantic has livable weather.
Happy Easter.
First, you’re always welcome to come visit and ride the high mountain valley that I call home here in the Central Rockies. I’m in my 60s but can still climb all the neighboring passes, several of which top out at over 11,000 feet. And the single-track mountainbiking trails all have spectacular views. Second, do not despair that all of us have become sheeple. That is an intentional ruse. There are hundreds of thousands of skilled hunters in this country that can traverse 20 miles of difficult terrain while out on the hunt, often starting before daybreak. That is no trivial… Read more »
It’s funny about climbing. A long steady climb for miles is not problem for me. In fact, I quite enjoy it. What I hate are the short steep climbs, that plateau and then begin again. I hate those. It’s all mental, of course, but that’s just as real as anything else.
get an electric bike, and use the motor for the parts you don’t like.
That’s why the Tour de France riders hate the Pyrenees and Alps. You’re in good company, Z.
Something like 70 percent or more of young White guys voted, or would have, for Trump. Some of them wised up and moved further right than the Republican party, but the Neocons probably grabbed most of them.
Turning Point Delende Est.
My friends tell me that the governor of Michigan has named garden seeds and plants as non essential and that although Lowe’s is open, the garden area and vegetable seed rack is roped off to keep from making sales of these items. While I think this whole shutdown is ridiculous and horribly destructive, this stopping people from growing food and being outdoors doing things they enjoy like gardening or golfing is sadistic. They are doing it because they can. PS. I had a sense this was going to be crazy in late January and bought all my garden supplies to… Read more »
They hate happy and normal white people. So of course they would ban things that make normal white people happy.
That said alot of the SWPL types vote Dem anyways so it’s hard to feel too bad. Most actual conservative, rural types with a garden wouldn’t be buying their seeds at Lowes (or, would have no problem “getting some” anyways).
We should make it a point to remember the gallantry of individuals of the past, especially this particular individual who was without doubt a victim of the very scourge that’s supposedly facing the world today, judging by the symptoms: https://nailheadtom.blogspot.com/2020/04/preston-brooks-falls-to-covid-19-virus.html
I grew up in the Midwest. Friendly and wavey. I now live in SoCal. No one ever waves at each other out here. But now they are. It’s kinda nice.
Zman, just over six months ago I moved to your neck of the woods and have to agree, it’s quite beautiful in places. Still, I miss the west, where I spent most of my adult life. I do have a geography related question, though. Being a transplant I’m curious about the opportunity to socialize with some like-minded people. My work as a rule tends to draw flaming leftists so from my perspective Maryland appears as ideologically homogeneous as a place like Utah. Any suggestions would be welcome. I’ve added my personal email in the details below. Lastly, I’m in Frederick… Read more »
Heading out with the wife on an attack mission. She left our checkbook at the office in the Loop when she was evacuated, one of the last “men” standing until the post got overwhelmed by the progressive zombies and she fled in terror of social consternation. (Must have paper checks because ???) We’re going to walk to near the Sears Tower, it will never be “Willified,” which we can see from our perch in the Old Town Triangle. Cancer loves my wife’s estrogen, a fact I learned when we were engaged twenty-plus years ago that cost us babies, and it… Read more »
Hey Z, do you enjoy climbs on the bike? I just finished a Bridgestone XO-1 and took it out on the road this evening. Roads are eeeeemmmmmptyyyyyyy, except for some neighbors and farmers doing their thing. Feeling that Chromoly frame flex with each heave up that bitch of a hill was great, especially with the damp cool air right now.
Neil Peart, Rush’s recently deceased drummer, was a cyclist. He wrote a lyric called “Marathon,” where he wrote:
“It’s a test of ultimate will,
The heartbreak climb uphill”
Oh yeah. Gonna face that later today.
“Nobody gets a free ride…”
There’s an untapped genre of hipster-horror in this – Free-State NAPsters being hunted by feral wolf-packs of cave-grug Fascists and other Statist hobgoblins.
Remember Blair Witch Project? Who among us wasn’t rooting for the Witch to give these solipsistic suburban Bugs an authentic YOLO travel-experience, good & hard?
No shaky camera, better costumes. Let’s make this happen, fam.
“NAP meets BAP and there’s no turning back. When an atheist prays in the woods, there’s no one to hear him scream. A is Gay – coming soon to Bitchute until it’s banned.”
Hey, They made “Hunters” didn’t They?
A delightfully charming piece. That’s the silver lining to life in The Age of The Virus: lots of time enjoying Nature and family. I’m also sitting at a robust 220, and getting out more is surely helping (although working in the house all day is counteracting that marginal increase in physical activity, as I’m indulging in salty snack treats more).
In my area, you wouldn’t know there was a virus going around unless you tried to go to a restaurant or a bar. The outdoor areas are quite active (we’re having nice weather right now) and everyone is out and about. The traffic is starting to pick up on the freeways during the week. Its comparable to one of those holidays (Veterans day, Columbus day) where the schools and banks are closed, but everyone else still works.
I have a feeling that, when this is all over and the dust is settling, all across America regular folks will pull off their masks and gloves, and sheepishly realize they’ve been had. They’ll know that their rulers and the experts are not to be trusted — that they are inept and not honest about their motivations. They will have complied because they wanted to trust, they were afraid, and they had to believe that those who run the show had their interests at heart. I believe that for many, after this truly significant event (or it’s truly significant social… Read more »
” You can be sure the politicians and media are both feeling bold right now, having seen tens of millions dutifully follow their commands. No matter what happens in the near term, the long-term cost of that will far outweigh the threat of the virus.” Yes, and that isn’t even the worst part. We’ve found out that “The Lives of Others” unintentionally was an allegory for post-Cold War American, and our own citizens put East Germans to shame in ratting out their neighbors. There is a silver lining. When people start to suffer unprecedented economic devastation, they will be ready… Read more »
Jack Dobson; oh I question we weren’t supposed to sign for PPP. A year/18 months from now; The list of people who were fire sold as distressed assets to the big boys or closed forever is going to line up with PPP applicants. PPP is a version of ARM; string you along getting you in debt on $15K and maybe another $15K and meanwhile given false hope you become ever more drained. You mustn’t think the big boys don’t care about pennies from the poor; “pennies roll into dimes, dimes roll into dollars.” – Sam Giancana. Robbing us of our… Read more »
Actually neoliberal stealing from the poor was Obamacare too. ACA was a lien on the assets of its victims combined with extortionate premiums.
Lien as in collateral for leverage.
These programs in the past factored in “X” whites would not apply, and applications from certain zip codes and addresses would be rubber stamped. I know as fact the PPP applications put the bank processors on their heels. It’s why all the wrangling is happening in Congress for more money. The Democrats don’t want to add to the coffers because all those white folks would benefit, and the Republicans are afraid not to do so for the mirror reason.
I agree as fact PPP has gummed the works. No non- connected banker wants to commit suicide.
Then again the non-connected bankers aren’t getting paid by their rapidly being bankrupted Debtors.
This is a choice of poisoned chalices if you’re not connected to the Fed Discount desk.
great post Zman, it reminded me I need to donate those rick steves books I sheepishly admit I have in the basement . wouldn’t want to drop dead at work an have the “clean the dead guys house out” ghouls find them. the last paragraph, well lets just say the pill is a bit redder going forward, thanks. this morning the local news station website had a story about a house party of 400 in Bakersfield. 6 shot, no mention of suspects. a little digging and, you guessed it 4 blacks in a white sedan. since death race 2020 has… Read more »
I doubt Reason and Hoppe would ever associate with each other. Hoppe is a “racist” pro-borders reactionary, while Reason are morons.
Speaking of Beatings…I don’t vouch for this but if true China is rounding up the blacks and evicting them. Into the streets.
https://www.funker530.com/china-black-people/?fbclid=IwAR0NOrBkwGca27uWThY46pmq03B1pRTeIZb690LxwAyItfAD3P8SmVzRSGw
Suddenly China looks better, I’ll admit it.
Happy Easter to Zman and all the readers. Thanks for the light-hearted fare today. Still, two humorous observations: 1) I’ve seen your “mountains” in Maryland. We call those foothills here out West. Not sayin’ I want to ride up one on a bicycle; but let’s not exaggerate for sympathy. 2) More than passing reference to a golf course. Are you perhaps trying to take up the mantle of the pre-Wuflu Sailer? Golf is his go-to for light-hearted fare. If I hadn’t wasted my 30s striving for bogey, the concept of obsession wouldn’t make any sense. Now that I’m retired and… Read more »
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211291/U-S-government-gave-3-7million-grant-Wuhan-lab-experimented-coronavirus-source-bats.html
If this is true, Fauci should resign. Who doesn’t get a grant from the US milk sow these days?