Over the last decade or so, I’ve lost interest in debating my Progressive friends on most everything. I’ll torment them when the opportunity arises or subtly mock them by appearing to go along with their latest crackpottery, but I avoid getting into anything resembling a serious debate with them. There’s simply no point. I’d have more luck debating an astrologer.
The astrologer, at least, understands that their thing is bullshit. People into the black arts willingly admit to being into magic and they never pretend otherwise. Some astrologers, I suppose, come close to making claims to science, but they never hide the magical bits at the core. Instead, they believe the stars determine our fate in some magical way that can be discovered. It’s kooky, but they don’t pretend it is real science and it is basically harmless.
Hang around Lefty for any length of time and you inevitably bump up against what can only be labeled as magical thinking. There’s an old gag in engineering where you have a flow chart describing all the inputs pointing to a box labeled “something magical happens” which then leads to the desired output. The modern Progressive orthodoxy is shot through with some version of this, usually dressed up with “studies” that read like astrological charts.
I’ve visited this topic in the past, but it seems like a good time to catalog the various forms of magic floating around the Cult. As the load bearing walls of the ruling class show signs of distress, magical thinking is breaking out all over so keeping up on the latest spells and incantations is probably a good idea. That and it allows me to let my hair down and say horrible things about Progressives.
And I’ve started drinking earlier than usual.
The most obvious example of magical thinking is gun control. The Cult is out shaking their staffs at the heavens now, demanding special ceremonies to make the guns stop shooting people. The way to do that, they claim, is to go hassle some white guys in the suburbs who like to hunt and shoot paper targets. Somehow, that’s going to stop Farouk and Jamal from shooting up their neighborhood.
The thing about gun control is that ultimately it is based on the belief that shaping a piece of metal or plastic in a certain way imbues it with magical powers. The “studies” they wave about claim that the mere presence of a gun shaped object causes otherwise sane people to commit suicide, shoot their old lady, rob a liquor store and now, go on Jihad at the local municipal building.
Magic Shape Theory is just one facet of the Progressive amulet. The guy holding the amulet right now is the world’s greatest example of Magic Negro Theory. Back in 2008, the Cult of Modern Liberalism assured us that the sins of the past could be washed from the soul of the nation by putting a black guy in charge. Even though he spoke mostly in gibberish and had yet to show he could run anything more complicated than his yap, he was our savior.
Sadly, we did not have a Pontius Pilate handy (or a Sirhan Sirhan) so we got Barak the Magic Negro who promised:
“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”
There’s political rhetoric and then there are incantations and prophesies. Promising two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot is standard political rhetoric. Promising to alter physical reality is the sort of thing people claiming to be warlocks say just before they are carried off to the asylum or, preferably, thrown off a cliff. Not only did the people voting for this ninny believe he was magic; Obama believed he was magic.
The most famous form of magic floating around today is Magic Dirt Theory. Put that phrase in a google machine and out comes 496,000 references. In the whole wide web, that’s not a lot, relatively speaking, but it is not a little either. The fact that the phrase alone could enter the mainstream so easily makes clear it is not just a throwaway line. It’s a real thing, at least in the minds of the believers.
For the unaware, Magic Dirt Theory claims that the soil alters behavior. Place a bunch of Bantus in Paris and they magically transform into Frenchmen. Round up residents of your typical inner city, set them up in suburbia and they become the Cleavers, just without all the honky-ism and white privilege. They will quit gang-banging, get jobs, pay taxes and join the Rotary Club.
In the ongoing crisis, it’s tempting to think that belief in magic is new or just a last gasp, but magic has always been a central part of the Cult of Modern Liberalism. Decades ago, moonbats were convinced that if they affixed a Darwin Fish to their Subaru, it would turn the vehicle’s occupants into scientists. Back in the day, the surest way to spot the innumerate was to look for the Darwin Fish.
At the time, people who should have known better dismissed it as mere signaling. The people displaying these things were letting us know they were in the cult of secular humanism. Remember that one? People used to wear shirts claiming they were secular humanists.
Anyway, that’s exactly the point of a magic talisman. It is a signal to the evil spirits that the wearer is protected by strong juju. Instead of warding off Satan, the Darwin Fish people were using magic symbols to ward off Christians.
Today, the hip and groovy thing to do is to let everyone know you love Gaia by carrying grimy canvas sacks with you to the grocery store. The people doing this believe the grimy sacks create a force field around them repelling deniers who want to kill Mother Earth with their lawnmower. If enough believers carry the grimy sacks with them, Mother Earth will be protected from the bad men.
You can’t have a decent cult without a collection of abracadabra words, the incantations that expose the evil doers in your ranks, give strength to the faithful and diminish the power of the enemies. In modern America, there’s no word more potent than “racist” and its use has the power to slay dragons. Theodore Dalrymple wrote a nice column on how even non-believers can use the power of the R-word to destroy the wicked.
Anti-racism has become the philosopher’s stone of the Cult of Modern Liberalism. It’s not just a weapon, used to melt the faces off of enemies like the Arc in Raiders. The faithful truly believe that once they purge society of racism, the skies will open up and bliss will rain down on mankind, bringing about the eschaton. This is no different from the Puritans believing their purpose in life was to rid their communities of sin and sinners.
One way to purge the world of sinners is through the magic of diversity. Filling up your neighborhood with people not like you is the one sure way bring about the eschaton. If you doubt this, well, you’re probably related to Hitler. Everyone believes diversity is good, because science! and because it is. It just is and if you disagree, well, maybe you should find somewhere else to live.
Before we had the wonderfulness of diversity, we had tolerance, which was this thing that drove away the people the tolerant simply could not tolerate. Similarly, diversity is this thing where everyone is welcome to celebrate their culture, unless they are white and from a culture that has something to celebrate. Diversity promises to magically lift us all to the heavens by pulling the roof down on Western Civilization.
But who doesn’t believe in magic?
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Hmmm…
Sodium. too much in your diet will screw things up for SOME folks.
In it’s pure form, it’ll kill you.
Chlorine. used sparingly it can simplify SOME issues, too much in the pool burns your eyes, and in it’s pure form, it’ll kill you.
Sodium Chloride. Can’t live without it.
Merry Christmas to all…
Ah, sodium…keep your fingers oily and you’re safe…kept in a jar of oil, we used to flick pieces of it over the heads of fishermen at the dock…
(same as a stick of dynamite but it is minuscule, so unnoticed)
Oh, you kids, with your rollerskates and your twenty-three skidoo and your fanny packs and your Pong and your I-don’t-know-what… Time for Tom, Mike and Crow to teach you something about Sodium, through the rock ‘n roll music that the kids seem to like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqAxcs9lC1U
Thank you Dr. for the sodium song.
I somehow missed that in my chemistry studies.
Sodium also gets a mention in this Tom Lehrer song,
but you have to pay attention to catch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3NOQnsQM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM-wSKFBpo
Daniel Radcliffe sings The Elements Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1TfPDlA1xE
Merry Christmas Zman and to all the excellent posters here as well.
If this article (and the endless string of absolutely suicidal comments) is any clue, then a lot of the Cult’s outer party (lesser priesthood?) seem to think that the magic is going away. I have times referred to the progressives as a death cult, but until I read this, I really didn’t have a gut feeling for how meaningless and empty they see life as. I was tempted to taunt the commenters, but that would be like making fun of a guy standing on a ledge. I don’t mind them all killing themselves off. I just don’t want them to… Read more »
Interesting article. Ben Franklin described a learned blockhead is only a greater blockhead. This woman adores but can’t even properly parse Nietzsche’s phrase “Man will sooner will nothingness than not will.” but this is no bar to mangling it’s simple understanding. If only she would read Nietzxche’s rant againstf George Eliot perhaps she would stop abusing the dead. “They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. That is an English consistency; we do not wish to hold it against little moralistic females a la Eliot. In England… Read more »
The greatest works of man are those things reassembled from opposing forces. It is increasingly obvious that Progressives are post-Christians who cracked the flywheel of his civilization, retaining an evangelical belief in man’s perfection without going to the trouble of learning his restrictions. A half Muslim is an improvement over a Muslim; a half-Christian is a great deal worse.
I think they’re also in love with the “love your enemy” dictum. So much so that they sometimes love their enemy more than their fellow men.
And magic dirt? Don’t be silly, when we all know it’s a curse!
When they opened King Tuts tomb back in 1922 they unleashed the curse of the pharaohs over the middle east… See, it’s again all SCIENCE.
Or are you a denier and don’t believe in Egyptology? I say re-seal it!
I have this mental picture of the followers of the Magic Negro following him around, collecting his fingernail clippings and the output of his daily constitutionals, and studying them intensely for the roots of his incredible awesomeness. I do not think a reasonable conversation could be had with people such as those.
Except that they don’t.
I think you missed my point. Some fans of Obama have no concern about his policy positions, the real world effects of such positions, the truthfulness of the things he says, whether the words and the actions have any relationship to each other, or where his loyalties lie, if anywhere. It is all about Obama, and some sort of mystique that he carries, in their eyes. Hence the widely used term, “Magic Negro”. Having any sort of rational conversation with such people is impossible, because there is nothing rational to their devotion to some sort of totem that goes by… Read more »
Two years ago, Ace wrote this essay on “The MacGuffinization of American Politics”: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/345514.php The reason we can’t discuss issues with leftists is because issues don’t really exist for them. What exists is a movie: “The Hero’s Quest”, starring Barack Obama as The Hero. The things we think are important: freedom of speech, border security, energy development, etc., are issues to US, but them, they’re the trolls and collapsing bridges the Hero has to overcome. As such, they don’t really matter; what matters is that the Hero triumphs, to the applause of his adoring audience. And we, of course, have… Read more »
Heh. I’m grinning from ear to ear reading this. Killing it. I love it.
I take the “Grimy Sacks” to the grocery store in orderr to save 6 pennies per sack.
So the 8 sacks I take in save me almost 50 cents. Not to be sneezed in today’s economy.
No ‘magic’ about it.
It’s not magic, it’s SCIENCE!
As far they are concerned, modern science affirms ALL progressive premises.
The apocalypse? Crazy bible thumper talk, but climate doom, pure cold logic…
Progressives are almost orthodox at this point, all they need is a dress code!
Given the radically different behavior exhibited by Pakistani Muslims and Indian hindus there’s something to be said for magical dirt theory. If you take a Pakistani baby, send him to the West and have him adopted, he’ll undoubtedly grow up to be a very different man than he would if raised by his own parents in his own society (regardless of what garden you plant them in).
The number of second generation Mohameds self-detonating or going back to the old country to Jihad against the infidel, suggests nurture is no match for nature.
The number of Brits who convert to Islam and then self-detonate or plot to self-detonate is worth considering.
The percentage of self-detonators among converts is at least as high or higher than that of native Muslims.
For that matter, British culture has changed considerably since the dark ages, long before its recent demographic changes.
There are plenty of Indian Hindus in Britain. Ethnically they’re no different than the Pakistanis but their behavior in Britain is nothing alike, neither in terms of criminality and violence, nor in terms of Jihad.
I’d like to some some data on the the number of British, Anglo-Saxons, Welsh and Scots who convert and then go on jihad. My bet is you will find data that includes second gen Asians as native Brits.
As far as Pakistan and India, the difference is obvious when you see it up close.
I’ve no idea where to find that data, but it is known that these converts are native Brits.
Although you might want to read this article http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/09/09/ginger-jihadis-why-redheads-are-attracted-to-radical-islam/
Quote: ” In the Daily Mail archives, 69 per cent of white Brits lured into jihadism or the orbit of an extremist preacher were ginger.”
So we are talking about actual native Brits, not second generation immigrants.
Ghenghis Khan was a ginger.
So is Conan O’Brien.
Not Bluebeard though (apparently).
That Jihad or “self detonation” is a new thing with Islam and the legacy of Osama Bin Laden…Before, despite all the toxicity of the umma, one noticeable attribute was cowardise. The bravery of a muslim was proportional to his distance from the battlefield. Remember how Charles Martel beat them, by going around and jumping on the rearguard where le loot was stacked. Faced by our own berserkers, the muslims always cut and ran. Now, they all seem to turn into a mafia of berserkers, like the Pablo Escobar narcos or the terrorist gang of Abu Nidal…At this stage, they mostly… Read more »
The problem is that the Jihadists haven’t been exposed to enough magic dirt. They need to be completely covered by it to a depth of several feet, preferably for a duration of several weeks, for it to work.
Magic dirt will solve all our problems.