Sayre’s law states that “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” Another form is, “Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” This is often attributed to Richard Nixon or sometimes Henry Kissinger. Intellectual history is full of famous battles between rival camps over small differences. For example, two warring camps of Straussians do battle over their understanding of the political philosopher Leo Strauss.
This is not just true of the academy. People within in any organization tend to give more weight to small issues than to the larger issues. The famous example of this is the people designing a nuclear power plant will have vicious disputes over where to place the employee bike shed. Anyone familiar with corporate life knows that the major source of tension between people is the trivial items. This is often referred to as the law of triviality, but despite the name, it is a big part of organizations.
This is something to keep in mind when examining the behavior of actors within the modern political drama. Since the end of the Cold War, the rancor has steadily increased, while the policy debate has steadily narrowed. If you had no idea which political party was ascendant, you just examined the policies coming from Washington the last thirty years, you would be hard pressed to identify the two prevailing ideologies that allegedly control both parties and the disputes between them.
This is where we see Sayre’s law at work. What emerged after the Cold War is a general consensus on the big issues. The ruling elite is in favor of open borders for both cultural and economic reasons. They favor a global trade and economic regime that places the management of these issues outside local legislatures. They embrace democracy as a sort of civic theater, a drama that is never intended to impact policy, but instead reinforces the prevailing morality of the elites.
Within this political structure, there is very little room for any dispute, much less disputes over consequential matters. Our political class, which includes the mass media, the commentariat and the donor class, is left to fight pitched battles over trivial issues, often invented for the purpose. In the case of the media, the selection pressure over the last thirty years has resulted in a collection of performers highly tuned to personalize trivial issues and express those emotions on the stage.
It is why the Trump years were a cacophony of hysterics. This is how everyone responds to everything. In the case of Trump, the entire dramatis personae just happened to be on one side. Note how none of the claims about his administration were rooted in policy. They never engaged in policy disputes with him. It was all highly personal and ridiculously petty. Seventy years ago, when Sayre made his observation about the academy, this was the sort of thing he had in mind.
One reason for this is that whenever serious issues cannot be discussed, the void is filled with heated debate of unserious issues. The result is everyone is looking for a boutique thought to distinguish herself from the mob. Everyone in politics at all levels believes they went into the game to change the world. Instead of accepting their role as another anonymous face in a chorus of actors, they embrace strange, but pointless ideas to distinguish themselves from the crowd.
This is a very feminine instinct, which underscores just how feminized our politics has become over the last half century. The reason the military is always adjusting its uniform policy for female soldiers is they are biologically tuned to signal their fitness to males in competition with other females. The male soldiers are happy to wear the uniform that is assigned to them. Females instantly seek to make small trivial changes. This is the nature of our politics, where everyone wants to be a special snowflake.
One result of this is that all political positions are positional goods. Positional goods are goods that people value because they convey standing within society. For example, South Asians like to wear gold as a way to advertise their wealth. In African cultures around the world, display items like expensive cars are common. In northern European cultures, counter-signaling wealth is a form of positional good. The trust fund guy who drives a twenty year old Volvo, for example.
In politics, especially left-wing politics, positions on issues and the hierarchy of one’s issue list is a positional good. For example, the forgiveness of student debt is an issue for those who stake out the far-left position today. There is no plan as to how to execute such a scheme. They do not appear to understand who holds the debt and what it is used for by the system. The impossibility of forgiving college debt is probably its chief appeal, as it lets them espouse something cost free.
If you go down the laundry list of left-wing political positions, what you find are aspirational and notional items. For four years the Democrats could have struck a deal with Trump on roads and bridges. They were too busy complaining about Hitler to engage in fruitful discussion. In other words, to transform the notional into the practical would have stripped the issue of its value. Something similar happened with immigration, where Trump was willing to give the store away.
Mainstream politics is entirely about positional goods. This is true to some degree of all politics, especially outsider politics, but we now live in an age in which official political discourse is nothing more than a personal spat in the faculty lounge. The difference between what goes on in the academy and in Washington is that the latter revolves around a central set of tenets that contain the ruling consensus. The disputes, however, are every bit as trivial and pointless.
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“The impossibility of forgiving college debt is probably its chief appeal, as it lets them espouse something cost free.” That which cannot be paid back will not be paid back. Besides the government is already on the hook contractually for a big hunk of it anyway, and even the portion they aren’t on the hook for is large enough to sink the banking system and they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent that, so they’re also de facto on the hook for the rest unofficially. The only question is do we ruin a couple of generations of young people trying… Read more »
“ in Washington is that the latter revolves around a central set of tenets that contain the ruling consensus. The disputes, however, are every bit as trivial and pointless.”
The effects, the results are not trivial.
They are our Doom.
As it was with the Indians, as it was with the Irish so it is with the Americans. The next stuffed animals in the Smithsonian.
A trivial argument is where the status between fringe individuals gets settled. I worked on an infrastructure project where minutiae about wastewater treatment became fiercely debated because not everyone knew the facts. The possessor of trivial expertise—for example, about placement of the bike shed at a nuclear plant—obviously benefits from exaggerating the value of their expertise. This is relatively harmless in academia. The risk is the distraction and allure of these wacky sideshows out in the real world; too many people get pulled away from the work that really matters.
In an undergrad history class, I recall the Professor made a point that would be relevant to today’s essay: He said, if you went back and checked the Congressional Record about what the “business” was in the days just preceding America’s entry into World War II, you’d find an account of bickering over the most mundane matters of little consequence. I’m not sure what the “moral” of this story is, but an obvious one is that there are almost always more important matters to deal with, if one has the luxury of seeking what to focus one’s attention upon. Other… Read more »
I’m economically left-wing, and I don’t see a reason student debt has to be complicated. All you have to do is say “from here on out, it is illegal to collect any student debt that you are owed.” The universities and the banks will just have to eat it.
I think we should do the same thing to mortgages, consumer debt, and title loans. The best way to jumpstart the economy is to wipe out debt, nationalize the banking industry, and make all credit state-issued. Everyone gets to start fresh.
The problem with that is obvious: without those fake liberal arts courses, you’ have no other place to park those otherwise unemployable gender studies grads, the interior designers and miscellaneous basket weavers. The people you vote for invented a fake plague to get rid of Trump, and now small businesses that might have paid those losers $5.00/hour are all out on the street too.
They followed their dreams, expecting to make money for nothing, and now they are finding that they were only dreams
The problem with that is obvious The problem with that is you’d be massively [EXISTENTIALLY] subsidizing stupidity & sloth & shortsightedness & fatuousness & substance abuse, while massively [EXISTENTIALLY] penalizing intelligence & industriousness & prescience & seriousness & sobriety. Again, I despise Dave Ramsey’s scofield-heresy prosperity-gospel satanism, but you simply mustn’t use gubmint policy to harm the rice & beans crowd at the expense of saving the wine & cheese crowd [from what otherwise would have been the necessary consequences of having indulged in wine & cheese* behavior for the entirety of their late childhoods & early adulthoods]. If you’re… Read more »
Jason, you may be surprised how open dissident guys are to left wing economic (but ONLY economic) issues.
That said, I’m with you on the condition that “The universities and the banks will just have to eat it.” We would love that!
Again, you may be pleasantly surprised at how disillusioned dissident guys are with laisse faire capitalism. Some authority always controls the market so it should be controlled in favor of the hard working economic strivers, not the middle men.
There is an age-old way that can be implemented. It’s called hyperinflation. It has various other second-order effects that are not so good. Just ask Western Europe, ca. 1933-1945. Or many other wretched temporal-spatial coordinates in world history.
Oy vey. I wonder where all those thumbs down are coming from. Poor innocent bankers probably.
The student loan system in the US has been entirely nationalized. All the loans are guaranteed through the federal government. The banks and the universities won’t pay a penny. Future taxpayers will. I always have to say future, because all our current money is long spent and every penny we spend is a levy against future generations who have no voice in what is being done to them.
Nationalize the banking industry? So you trust the government filled with the likes of the Clintons, Bushes, Comey, Bidens, Pelosi, AOC, Maxine Waters and I better stop here or the list would run for days … you trust those people to run a banking system in your interest?
Hahahahahahahahaha.
Compsci, Since the reply button is never around when you want it, I have to start fresh Yes, I do agree there is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking wrt the boomers I also agree that the boomers couldn’t have known, being idealists, where the immigration thing was heading. They STILL, by and large, haven’t figured it out and they are now in their 60s and 70s, so expecting them to have figured it out in their 20s and 30s is a bit disingenuous Yes, we are all creatures of our time and place. That all said, yes, the fact… Read more »
The Globocorp I work for has it figured it out: the “new” people we hire all have at a minimum of 15, most over 20, years of experience. The millennials are insufferable: Boomer mentality, but without the work ethic or experience.
Not all the millennials are that bad. Remember that a lot of them come from wrecked families and grew up in a left-wing culture that is damaging to healthy male masculinity. When gays are celebrated, hetero male athletes have to be denigrated. There is no way around it. Pull one way, push another. You walk with a flounce, you get applause. You throw a football right: SILENCE. Places like Texas still have football culture, but the dominant national culture is now about nerds and losers. There’s a reason Big Bang Theory is such a popular show on TV. The liberals… Read more »
Who cares, I’m tired of the generational arguments.
Let’s face it 90% or more of white people are not our guys, in any age bracket.
Instead of complaining that X arbitrary age group did this, or Y arbitrary age group didn’t do this, let’s just invite all dissidents in. We can learn from one another’s experiences across the age brackets.
I think a lot of the generational sniping is a prime example of “the narcissism of small differences”,on generational, group and individual levels. But the term really applies to the need of Republicans and Democrats to claim important differences between themselves when there are few meaningful differences.
Holy Moly.
If 95% blacks “not our guys”, 94% Hispanics “not our guys”, 93% white women “not our guys”, 92% Jews “not our guys”, 91% Asians “not our guys”, and 90% white ppl “not our guys” then no wonder we feel as Leonides at Thermopylae.
Yet! Even as Leonidas lost the battle the Greeks won the war! Molon Labe!
“In the end, the liberal wants it all, but his suzerainty over society has given him very little.” “The liberals were never the popular kids when they were young: they hate and fear popularity. Because it excludes them.” These two statements are closely related. All liberals, nerds, losers— whatever term— can do is LARP and take revenge. They don’t have it in themselves to do better. There’s something missing. Empathy, social skills, or something like that. Which seems dire since girls are conditioned to be sluts or lesbians, boys spergy incels. But nature will overcome nurture at some point, like… Read more »
Apparently the female, vibrant mayor of Boston didn’t get the same Beer Flu memo as everyone else because she compared vaxports and coerced vaccination to slavery, which is actually a good comparison:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/boston-mayor-uses-slavery-trump-to-shoot-down-questions-about-vaccine-passports/
Sadly, I’d bet that an Arkancide crew has already been dispatched to Beantown.
Arkancide or not, she’ll be apologizing directly. On second thought, perhaps not. When you’re a vibrant, you can get away with whatever you dam’ well please, including telling the troof.
They just arkancided the president of Haiti after he had refused a shipment of vaxxines.
[…] ZMan peers behind the curtain. […]
Meanwhile CCP builds infrastructure such as the BRI and puts the finishing touches on their CCP über alles plan but at least the bad orange tweets are gone.
This just in from Vladdy Rasputin, get some Yankee.
The Belt and Road Initiative is not an unqualified success. You may wish to view the film “Empire of Dust,” recommended here occasionally. You can find it free on YouTube or just read a summary.
I think the USA has found its own means to turn its empire to dust. In so many words, we wrote lots of IOUs to the world to finance current consumption, then we get pissed off when they or faceless big money comes and buys up farms, homes, who knows what else.
Speaking of trivial political considerations, the Biden administration continues to project its hatred of Heritage Americans in the form of assigning a blood debt on all whites. Look, the El Paso massacre was horrific and a needless event of bloodshed, yet to making sweeping assertions that this is some form of white supremacy instead of a nutcase going off at a Wal-Mart is disingenuous to Nth degree. Here is an excerpt from his speech: “He thought that his hatred of immigrants could prove more powerful than the culture and vibrancy of the people of this community. He was wrong. Yet… Read more »
How many people have been killed by so-called “white supremacists” in the past 20 years? How many have been murdered by black thugs? Uh huh. I thought so.
Always keep in mind that these dem politicians say and propose things only to piss people off on other side of spectrum. Often it’s just a game. Why it’s best to completely tune them out because they’re just bullshitters. They bullshit about doing the things they like and also dislike. They lie all around about everything. Like we were supposed to have water rationing by now in the LA DWP but hasn’t happened. All bullshit. The 100% electric car mandate is also bullshit and odds are will never happen. On and on. They bullshit their constituents just like they bullshit… Read more »
Like the “high speed” rail project doing out in the CA desert.
[In Star Trek Scotty voice] “Captain, we’re spending as fast as we can, but we can’t spend any faster.”
Ha ha But truth be told, I wanted the bullet train, but I was naive to think it would ever happen But they did start it and make an effort. To this day, I don’t get how newsome could unilaterally cancel it. It went to a vote and was approved. Wouldn’t he have to go back to the voters to have them decide to cancel it? But who am I kidding. We are a lawless country. Yet it would have been pretty neat to get on my bike and in 10 minutes be at the local train station and take… Read more »
@Falcone
Agree. The train project seemed to be a good thing in the beginning. Less traffic on the interstate, more convenient to make plans, the works. It seemed like a step in the right direction for transportation progress.
But nope. I’m curious as well how it was canceled and rerouted by lateral decision by fiat. The new route is Bakersfield to Merced? Who does that benefit?
In other words and put more simply the Baby Boomers have much to answer for.
Yep.
But I found myself in the centre of this lunacy the same as you, kid. There was nothing I could do about it. You kids don’t deserve any of what is coming.
But the illness that started in my generation is firmly established in yours. Best of luck to you.
Boomers did nothing that Gen-x’s would have not done had cohorts been reversed, i.e., Gen-x born in the 45-60 period.
Get over yourselves.
I don’t think so because most people act differently depending on how large their age group is. Boomers were massive in numbers. Gen X wasn’t. It has a definite effect on behavior Plus Gen X seemed to have more respect for their elders. For example, I can’t imagine ever telling my parents and their generation that they were bigots and stupid and wrong about things and so forth as we saw with the boomers. That is one of the main reasons I never liked them, by how they treated their elders. Do I have to say I’m speaking in generalities… Read more »
Gen X also received a constant stream of MSM propaganda regarding how worthless we were from day one.
“Plus Gen X seemed to have more respect for their elders.” ——————— Not in my circles. I am smack dab between the Boomers and Gen Xers (1964). We had nothing but contempt for our elders the same way they were contemptuous of the Silent Generation. My elders drive me insane which is why I largely avoid them. The whole world can go straight to hell just as long as they get all the free chit they voted for themselves back in the 60’s and 70’s. If anything, as a tail end boomer closing on his 60s – I have nothing… Read more »
No great argument from me. Points well taken. What I am trying to say is that Boomers were born and raised in a society/culture that shaped them and their behavior. So too Gen-Xer’s and Millennials, for example, in recent times. What these newer cohorts have is a retrospective knowledge of “future” events that the Boomers could not have known/foreseen. In short, most all criticism from those generations amount to “Monday morning quarterbacking”. This seems to be commonplace in most all historical thinking/interpretation these days—from slavery in America starting 400 years ago, to settlement and replacement of our indigenous American population.… Read more »
Baby Boomers were not responsible for many of the legal changes that changed America and (in my opinion) not for the better, and certainly not for Whites: 1948 Loss of restrictive covenants (e.g. sale to Blacks) 1954 End of segregated public schools; 1964 Civil “Rights” Act (even the oldest of us then, were not even old enough to vote, and the youngest were still being born…) Some would even add the Civil War and its aftermath, but that was REALLY before our time 🙂 Now, if you wish to blame us for our behaviors once were were adults, then it… Read more »
Bolsheviks and Mensheviks feuding; splitting a hair. A Roman legion once nearly mutinied because they were given too much meat for a summer campaign when they preferred a veg/carb diet for the hot months. The Judean Peoples Front vs. the …. you get it. Let’s not get caught in the infighting and Nuance Wars ourselves. Gen disputes, ethnostate vs. ethnic enclaves, which groups are the ‘real whites?’, etc. I’m a Gen X so don’t conflate this with being defensive. I don’t care about the finger pointing. All allies are welcome. We strive for the preservation and success of Our People,… Read more »
The genesis for our undoing goes back a lot further than a generation or two.
“In other words and put more simply the Baby Boomers have much to answer for.”
Where would you like to meet.
Weird. Classic Boomer response that keeps me scratching my head. I’ve never felt the slightest inclination to personally answer for “my generation” when called on its BS, but Boomers seem to always do.
Don’t get mad at Boomers for failing to prevent the immigrant invasion or the outsourcing of jobs that happened in the last century. They were as misled as many
people are today.
Get mad at them now if they say:
I love immigration as long as its legal!
Outsource jobs so that my tee shirts are cheaper!
I don’t see color!
The future of the GOP is non-white/gay/trans!
I love all these ethic restaurants!
Ultimately, what it all boils down to is that the more monolithic a society, or an entity within that society, the narrower the scope of potential conflict. When all of the power-players agree on the big issues, perforce, they must engage in conflict over the infinitesimal ones. But are these teacup tempests really more intense than the battles over serious issues? I’m not so sure. Tens of millions of people died over the matter of economic structure in the 20th century. I don’t see that happening over whether men with naugahyde vaginas are allowed to play soccer with women. Then… Read more »
One of the issues is how long the legislature is in session. In medieval times, for example, monarchs would call councils for planning and taxation, and they would get stuff sorted out for the year in a matter of weeks. If they were at war and things went poorly, they might get called up for another brief session. Nowadays, Congress is in session over half the year. We don’t have serious issues to debate, yet they debate more than ever. Perhaps if they had their salaries slashed and we’re only scheduled for two, two week sessions each year they’d get… Read more »
Drew: By law, the regular session of the Texas state legislature is 140 days. They still find time to pass wasteful spending bills and bicker about stupid minor issues . . . and every so often the dims abscond to prevent a quorum.
No tinkering around the edges. There ought to be sufficient lamp posts for all of them, everywhere.
Cutting their salary presumes that is where they get their wealth
I don’t think I made my point as clearly as I intended. A legislature that is composed of men whose income is based on property or work outside the legislature, and can only spare, at most, a month to legislate, is going to behave very differently from a legislature where the members are in session over half the year and can live comfortably off the money they “earn” from legislating. Thus, the issue isn’t merely that our ruling class only has room to differ on details, it’s that they have time to differ, and can afford to differ on trivial… Read more »
Point taken, but picture, for instance, Obama massacring anybody, and it’s obvious how absurd it all is.
There was that movie about Fox News and Roger ailes I never saw it but the trailer was a trip. But the take away from the trailer is that Fox News caters to a grandpa and would say something just to rile him. Something to that effect. They’re all, the msm to the politicians, just in the business to piss off different segments of the population CNN does it from the other side That’s how they “affirm” themsleves is by how strongly they can upset people with their b.s. pelosi is the master at it, but once you know her… Read more »
That’s what drone strikes are for.
Picture Obama doing the job himself. Does he look like a man of will?
When will people snap out of it?
The conservative example of this is the abortion debate. Putting aside all moral arguments relating to conception and bodily autonomy, banning abortion would probably be the most disastrous policy for the USA possible. The demographic reality is that the USA would be 25-30% black today (and countless more mulattoes), had abortion not been legalized. Blacks cannot think far ahead enough to understand that choosing to not use a condom *now* causes a baby in the *future*. Hispanics also have a high abortion rate. Must be a natural conservative value. Asians have no moral problems with abortion either, but they’re smart… Read more »
Griswold decision (1965, ending restrictions on contraception) ended the white Baby Boom. Next: legalized abortion (starting in late 1960s in CA and NY; Roe v. Wade 1973). They were used to reduce whites and replace us with foreigners (Hart-Celler 1965; legal immigration began soaring c. 1973). The only way whites will survive is by becoming highly religious, philoprogenitive and pro-life. See Ed Dutton.
Contraception is a tool or a means to an end. I suspect the number of “unplanned” births pale in comparison to “planned” births—even before such restrictions on abortion and contraception were lifted. Folks had big families because they wanted them, now they don’t.
Dutton’s point is simply that, folks have lost the will to raise children, and I suspect waning religiosity is one very important aspect as he’s noted.
It’s strange, bizarre even, for a people who supposedly are narcissists and who love themselves and it’s all about me me me that they don’t do the one thing that truly shows a love of oneself, namely make a “mini me” by having a baby. Also, the one way to “live forever,” supposedly the dream of these fanatics, is to have offspring who will keep your memory alive. So you never really and truly die if you have offspring. My grandfather for example is physically deceased by put I talk about him all the time, think about him all the… Read more »
a non-trivial amount of people have kids for narcissistic reasons. Ever heard of a “golden uterus complex”?
Krusty, I have to reply to myself b/c your comment has no reply button You make a very good point. But my point is not directed at THEM. How often we hear about all these Antifa people and all of these kids online who everyone is always calling narcissists, the blue haired sorts, the Antifa boys. Noting your point, and dovetailing it with mine, the true narcissists are having their trophy babies for their own ego. But these others hate themselves, and they are legion. I guess, ultimately, my point is one of semantics, that we keep referring to these… Read more »
I’ve not heard of the “golden uterus.” But did you know that the Penis Thigh Trap is a real thing, even if just a euphemism, a clever double pun? The PTT is a is a harmless appearing organism that with intoxicating aroma lures its prey inside; when the time has come to milk its nectar, the visitor finds himself trapped, unable to escape for a time 🙂
I wouldn’t assume the rate would be fairly low. Back in the heyday of Boomer reproduction (c. 1980, the year I was born), approximately 30% of conceptions in the US were aborted. Amounted to about 1.5MM abortions in that year. Of those, around 70% were from a white mother. Of course, nonwhites punch above their weight here, but still, that is wholesale white slaughter. Nowadays we are down to about 700k abortions per year, which amounts to about 1 of every 6 conceptions aborted. Still ghoulish. In the bigger picture, since 1973 there have been an estimated 60MM+ abortions in… Read more »
It’s all a part of Spengler’s cyclical view of the world. But, at least in the US, it’s more complicated. For instance the “it’s my body, don’t tell me what do with my body” theory conveniently omits the wishes of the putative father. He doesn’t get to decide if a fetus is carried to full term even if he’s legally responsible for it if it is. He’s dunned for the costs of fatherhood whether he receives the benefits or not. With additional government stipends single women at a lower social and economic level are foolish not to become mothers. It’s… Read more »
“Wrongful birth” suits are prohibited many (all, perhaps) places by law. If they weren’t, just think of all the cases that could be brought. Although it doesn’t exist at all in the West, and social rigor was only slightly better in the old days, there is a lot to be said for “Old Testament” style sexual mores. In some times and places, men or women were literally killed for the sin of fornication. This still happens to women, even hapless victims of rape, via “honor killings” in Islamic countries. The “shotgun weddin'” is about as close as we got in… Read more »
In 1970, whites were 87.5% of the US population, blacks 11.1%.
Welfare (burden on whites) and immigration are the problem.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1970/pc-s1-supplementary-reports/pc-s1-11.pdf
Also 1950: 89.5% white, 10% black.
They worked us good!
Please excuse the replies.
With all that said, imo abortion should be outlawed because it’s an abomination. It might not affect demographics directly, but the moral cost is profound.
My favorite movie example of a trivial argument is Austin Powers and Number 2 arguing over who pays for the briefcase containing a billion dollar bribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgOYMCtv1aw
Oligarchy disguised as a liberal democracy makes for an amusing show, especially in a world of social media and women voting. Like all good producers and directors, TPTB have to put on a show that appeals to their audience.
I also suspect that part of the reason for the supposed intensity of the fights is to convince the spectators that there really is a fight occurring, that there really are different parties. The WWF does a lot of screaming and waving of arms for a reason.
Yeah, the circus aspect is definitely a huge part of the heat of our politics nowadays. Every once in a while the players drop the mask, but that’s happening less and less with tighter control of the media. One such occurrence that’s always stuck with me was Pelosi going on the Stewart show in 09 and talked about what a wonderful man W was – to loud jeers from the audience. That was after she had spent years denouncing him as a wanna be dictator and war criminal. They really were in it together, just playing different roles for public… Read more »
Perhaps, D. But lunacy and hysteria is nothing new. It has always been around, but it used to be we did not allow it into public discourse. Today we argue seriously with sexually disturbed women about neurodivergency: https://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/2021/08/todays-word-of-week-is-neurodivergent.html Can you imagine having an intelligent conversation, much less an informed debate – with clowns like these? And she is no statistical outlier – we have seen parades and protests where tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands dress up in gay fetish gear, or pussy hats or vagina costumes. Nothing will change until we reimpose some kind of maturity and… Read more »
To Z’s point I hopped on FB last night to see what was being posted by the one lib left in my feed and he was ranting about…more government subsidies for college education. I don’t even know how to relate to that; with all of the issues we face as a people he chose that; but he and his lefty buddies were all fired up about it like the were mobbing the digital gates with torches.
I think that’s what’s happening with young progressives and the old guard Dems. Young progressives grew up hearing about how terrible white racism – conscious and unconscious – were, so they are true believers.
The old guard Dems never fully bought into the narrative. They were mostly using it to gain power. Now that the Dems have power, the young progressives don’t understand why the old guard isn’t using it to aggressively destroy systemic racism.
It’s true. And example like Pelosi are a dime a dozen, quite honestly. That said, the halls of power always seemed like a place where you’re part of a club. It’s just that that club has two public faces, or maybe three if you let some Mickey Mouse Green Party in for some spoils.
I’ve started to think the hysteria over Covid is mostly to distract from the federal fiscal and economic policy. It’s frankly eerie how little is being said about inflation, quantitative easing, bailouts, and the massive federal expenditures and debt. Everyone is bitching about masks and jabs, but no one notices that the US is looking like France in the last four years of Louis XVI’s reign, at least in regards to the nation’s balance sheet and the peasants’ difficulty in affording food.
Drew, no doubt. There is some serious picking of pockets going on. And there were (and are) some serious winners from the shamdemic. It’s true that governments have been making money appear out of thin air for a while, but it always seemed limited – at least to me. The Most Terrifying of China Viruses has changed all that. For example, the furloughing of workers and the guarantee of decreased pay underwritten by The System. The, surely, massive decrease in tax intake during this time interval. It’s all very strange. Strangeness aside, this has probably bolstered many of the elites… Read more »
Speaking of plandemic winners, Moderna was just up 7% on news their new single-dose mRNA clot shot for over-60s just got fast-tracked by the FDA.
I tend to believe the monomaniacal focus on Covid hysteria is intended to distract from the fact that something broke in the US financial system in September 2019 when overnight repo rates spiked from nearly zero into double-digit territory.
The entire repo market locked up/went illiquid until the Fed stepped in as the buyer/lender of last resort.
Please tell me more. I must have missed this bombshell
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=19311
The conspiracy idea is that Covid was cooked up not only to screw OMB but to run cover for a bunch of shenanigans that had to be done to kick the can in late 2019/early 2020. That 2021 inflation didn’t come from nowhere.
Piqued my interest with that response. Any more details?
Drew, OrangeFrog:
Here are the technical details straight from the Fed itself:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/what-happened-in-money-markets-in-september-2019-20200227.htm
Here is some fairly reasoned, 3rd party analysis:
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2019/09/25/understanding-the-great-repo-fiasco
No one also never talks about the massive wealth transfer during the pandemic
The people on the ground are so g-damn dumb and fixated on masks while being robbed blind
No one also EVER talks…
Not only a massive wealth transfer, but a massive power transfer to government. If you can suspend the Constitution, you can do pretty much whatever you dam’ well please.
The fuss about covid is always and everywhere about the vaccine. It has nothing to do with economic or traditional geo-political matters.
Another way to put it is that our politics are all about identity, not performance now. People vote for their tribe, no matter the results. White people are fractured into a number of self selected tribes, progressive, conservative, homos, soccer moms, trannies, Christians etc ad infinatum. Politicians love this because they don’t have to actually do anything in office and thus can’t be judged for failing. If you run for office on fixing the potholes – you probably better fix them or next time some other guy will run on the same issue. But if you ruin on being a… Read more »
Curtis Yarvin (M Moldbug) would probably say that we no longer live under a system of legislative law, but administrative law. This is by design (Wilson, and FDR especially), and has been this was increasingly for almost a century. All three branches no longer have any real impact on actual laws. The most current high profile example of this would be the CDC, after being slapped down by non other than the US Supreme Court for having zero authority to enact “rent moratoriums”, merely reissued their “guidelines” which carry very stiff penalties and prison time if not followed. So the… Read more »
Along similar lines, it’s pretty common to have normiecons say we’re a republic, not a democracy like a mantra. Or Magic’s incantation that will fix things, when they really don’t understand the implications.
Being a republic means that organs of the state are outside popular control. Which is true enough. But they imagine that means those organs are “on their side” or some such. But in our system, those organs are the judiciary, bureaucracy, media and ngos. All are overwhelmingly captured by progressive statists. They’re not on our side, at all. Quite the opposite.
Well, part of the reason administrative law is the de facto law is because it’s stable. Ever since Cleveland reformed the civil service, civil servants are the only members of the government that can carry out executive plans that are more than 4 years in length. Used to be if you voted in a new president, he would sack most of the federal government and hire lackeys and supporters to carry out his vision. This obviously did not make for a stable polity, but it made a responsive one.
Indeed.
But the so called “spoils system” of a winner take all had the advantage of making elections matter.
I don’t know that’s it’s possible for any branch to “clean house” in any meaningful way. The professional civil service employee knows this and just ignores the dictums of whatever doofus has his picture on the wall.
This also has the effect of creating the bureacuracy, a permanent form of government, largely unaccountable to the voters and while susceptible to change via Congress, court decisions and so on, still remains largely autonomous and only changes via indirect action from a distance. This has both good and bad aspects. Ideally, a judge or administrator will do his job according to the rules, irrespective of those who might otherwise try to influence him. That’s called impartiality and is critical to a (relatively) well functioning government. But on the downside, all power systems eventually seek to perpetuate themselves, and develop… Read more »
Put another way:
We were all taught in public school that the spoils system was bad and corrupt, and the Civil Service system was good and professional.
We were taught this by career employees of the Civil Service.
See the problem?
To my understanding, what really set the fox amongst the chickens was the legalization of government employee unions. Once that was in place, the democrat party was no doubt rubbing their hands in glee, as they were home free. Not only did they have the likelihood of a guaranteed voting block (that also electioneered for that party), but as time went on, they realized that inside information flowed from within the union membership to the party, and particularly in regard to grist for the political mill. Anyone who challenged the status quo of the bureaucracy was going to be in… Read more »
The follow on to Zman’s post is a reassessment of neo-classical economics with respect to an individual’s utility or sense of satisfaction. Traditionally, the model of utility relies upon the balance of absolute levels of work, rest, savings, and consumption to determine an “agent’s” absolute utility from his lifestyle choices. (As an aside, using ‘her’ in economics is gay). However, the reality is that each person’s utility is not absolute. It’s relative. It’s how much I consume, work, etc., compared to others. Taken to its conclusion, what matters is conveying positional status because the relative best get the greatest outputs… Read more »
POCs will never be happy because they’re not genetically wired to live in white societies, just like Europeans are not wired to live in their societies. Some POCs actually come off the boat somewhat normal. But over time they develop an inferiority complex. Imagine being a Pakistani male trying to date in the West. They just aren’t meant for this system. It’s somewhat cruel to expect this ugly foreign guy to compete in a foreign dating market. At best he’ll eventually marry a bride that he’ll bring over here, where she’ll quickly learn to be a bitch and sleep with… Read more »
“Imagine being a Pakistani male trying to date in the West.”
Heh. Is it ever true?! I know that the old saying is something like “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”, but if anyone has been around a scorned Punjabi/Chinese, after multiple failed passes at the white gals; it’s one hell of a sight.
Certainly all of the ‘incels’ I’ve heard of have been white, but there must be a huge mass brown/yellows in there somewhere.
I have seen lots of Paki families, with grandmas in sari-type dresses, riding around in (street-legal) rental golf carts at the area where we vacation in the summer. Gosh they are hairy people! Lots of long black wavy hair and facial hair closing in on the eyes, nose and mouth, and I’m talking about the women. Can you imagine cleaning the hotel rooms/bathrooms after these folks get done? They usually bring coolers with their own food/drink in it and picnic in the park, so they don’t contribute much to the local economy. Lots of jabbering like a flock of grackles… Read more »
I saw one washing the shit out of her kids ass in a water fountain, back when they existed, pre globohomo.
Sheesh.
I’m old enough to remember drinking out of public water fountains.
Back circa 1990ish.
However, the reality is that each person’s utility is not absolute. It’s relative. It’s how much I consume, work, etc., compared to others. Taken to its conclusion, what matters is conveying positional status… This used to be critiqued as keeping up with the Jones’s ie the tendency of Americans to want to match or slightly exceed the displayed wealth of their neighbors. The people making the critique implied that doing so was pointless and distasteful in some way. A negative aspect of “capitalism” or consumerism” or some other Americanism that they irrationally disliked. Completely missing the point that it was… Read more »
The Chinese have a term for this trivial SJW virtue signaling in politics. They call it Baizuo. Baizuo means White leftist and it is not a complement. Glad to see Z bring up the feminine nature of this triviality. The conflict between the White West vs Russia and China is very much a conflict between feminized societies and more patriarchal ones. Women are much better at destroying societies, institutions and corporations than they are at building them. While China, especially, is focused on building their economy and going around the globe scooping up resources and infrastructure, the West, nowhere more… Read more »
“ramming anal sex down the world’s throat.”
Talk about mixing metaphors
Wasn’t there a famous porn flick back in the 70s called Deep Tush?
Thank you! It’s reassuring to have at least one regular here who can plumb depths of sophomoric humor equalling, and at times even surpassing, me. 🤪
Unfortunately White men almost always fail these tests by backing away then going shopping for guns. Anyone who is following the current 2nd Am3ndment retail shopping scene would not frown on a Bro who had the prescience to stockpile 2nd Am3ndment accoutrements back when said accoutrements were readily available & ackshually affordable. BTW, ever-so-slightly off-topic, but yesterday Ang1in linked to a masterpiece of an essay here: https://theamericansun.com/2021/08/02/the-disappearing-americans/ I don’t know whether that essay is ackshually true, or whether it’s more of a psy-op, but if it’s a psy-op, then it’s a d@mned good one. And it would be a psy-op… Read more »
anyone see the press conference with Tish James yesterday. I laughed at it since there’s nothing that seems outright illegal. What would they do to Frank Sinatra circa 1955 if he was still alive – give him the death penalty?
I love the thing about female “soldiers'” (that’s an oxymoron) uniforms. And it explains a phenomenon I noticed back in the days but could never figure out how to overcome: your Basic College Girl just adores rules and regulations — you can’t spell things out on the syllabus in minute enough detail for them — and yet, they are utterly incapable of following those rules and regs. Everything has penumbras and emanations; she always has to have an exception to the silliest thing, for the most trivial reason. First I tried making everything as precise as possible: “the term paper… Read more »
“2245 hours Zulu time.”
Prescient.
Women love processes far more than accomplishing something worthwhile. That is why they flourish in bureaucracy and school. Males tend to be the opposite which is why they aren’t as valued now in our feminized Western world
True. Mass bureaucracy kills off absolutely any hint of genius, creativity or dissenting thought. And the girls love it; but, so do highly feminized men. In my crummy ass industry (and probably every industry, actually) every new thing we develop is essentially driven by a fad. Some buzzword a higher-up has heard, and now that’s the goal. Much like when a girl sees a pair of shoes she likes in the window, and just cannot resist. These fads come around at an alarming pace; you’ve hardly finished delivering X and now Y! To me, this has come about at roughly… Read more »
Yeah same shit at my office. I often feel like looking for a new job, but based on the stories I hear from other people, it’s the same feminine crap everywhere.
The best thing they could do is just shut up and let me work.
Definitely looking for a smaller company to jump to eventually though.
Heh. I’m at a company with about 50 people, I would consider that small. They’re just starting out on their ‘journey’ – already the corporate stuff is seeping in. To be fair, I moan about it. But it pays my bills and I doubt the grass will be greener on the other side. That said, a company with maybe 10 people… now that could be decent. On the other hand, they could all be mask wearin’, virus fearin’, white hatin’, do goodin’ wokeists. At this point workplace satisfaction probably isn’t the number one priority. That’s a white thing. A thing… Read more »
OF-
Sorry to hear the crap is seeping in at a headcount of 50.
In these parts there was a tech firm that managed to stay freewheeling enough to have a bar in the cafeteria until they were bought out for a cool $200 million by a larger MIC firm.
“ Women love processes far more than accomplishing something worthwhile. “
Also known as the “What was decided at the meeting? Where and when the next meeting will be held.” syndrome.
Yep. In college they just loved taking all those notes, putting different color post it’s on different pages. Organize organize organize. Secretaries is pretty much all they are. And women can’t comprehend that when it comes to simple tasks of a clerical nature that I simply can’t do them. My brain doesn’t work that way. I see a form to fill out and so forth and literally feel my brain start to hurt. And it makes me want to scream. But they eat it up.
And then all those different color post-its, highlights, etc. will be copied and pasted, verbatim, as a “response” to the essay question. The term paper prompt was “something something Napoleonic Wars something,” and “Napoleonic Wars” was highlighted blue — cornflower blue, to be exact, neither midnight blue nor navy blue nor topaz — and so that’s what goes down on the paper.
Yes, Yes
I forgot about the highlight pens
Oh man, what a world lol
Color coding is a very feminine thing. The behavior of women in the office is the same as the behavior of women outside the office – social, emotional, arts and crafts oriented, communal. The blow feminism made to Western society was not just ‘taking women out of the home’; it was taking women out of the communal life of small towns and neighborhoods. No more church committees, garden clubs, and other pro-social, neighborly activity. Now, ladies who lunch do so on the company dime, bringing their social, emotional, communal and (middle-brow) artistic instincts to bear. And while that creates pests… Read more »
There was a time when you could take a misbehaving child and turn them over your knee for a few quick spanks, and problem solved. Nowadays if you do that, you become a TikTok sensation with an advanced degree in foreplay.
You forgot the magic phrase with the ladies: “Knock that crap off”. Said in a cool, declarative voice with no violence. Informs them the last boundary is pushed. Then fail them when no paper is forthcoming.
Or we used to when we weren’t clown world.
I’ve written many times about the fact that I, the professor, may well have been the first person in their entire lives to tell drinking-age “adults” no. It worked wonders on those who were still reachable… but the still reachable were a distinct minority even back then, and are probably extinct now.
At our community pool a few weeks back, some youngsters were playing with the pool tools (the pole thing to fish items out). I let it slide until I noticed one kid accidentally whack another on the head. “Please put that away, it’s not a toy” I said in my best (default) stern voice. The kid obeyed me. [Honestly, I was a bit shocked. Remember, I’m a single man with no history of managing children.] Also worth mentioning is that the kid’s parents were present but apparently saw no need to control Junior’s antics. Now, advance boy’s age from seven… Read more »
The other total bitch move is to always use that way of phrasing something as “I would [fill in the blank]”
As if asked the question. What do you think about the rain?
“Well, what I would say is that the rain ….”
Jen Psaki ALWAYS does this
I guess it comes from having nothing between their legs. They just can’t say something declaratively. Always hedging, being cautious, hemming and hawing. Drives me nuts.
Ahhhh, Jen Psaki. I know I’ll get some heat for this, and the woman deserves every single harsh word anyone has ever said about her, but…. I spent my early 20s chasing after that exact type of girl. The “she was the chunky cheerleader at her tiny boondocks high school” type, who got knocked down a peg or four when she went to college and got into “causes” — environmentalism, journalism, politics generally — to compensate. I’ll always have a soft spot for that type. Meet ’em at the “keep abortion legal!” rally (as if there was ever a chance… Read more »
I can see Marie Harff
And honestly I can see the allure of Psaki. However, if you Google her image gallery as I did you will see has a weird and abnormal body. God must have been on acid when he made her.
Her allure is only from the chest up, perhaps why they put her behind a podium
Those “bitch” glasses are overdone. Just thank goodness that woman Elizabeth Holmes made the mistake of stealing from you-know-who; that’s all we’d need is a generation of fat, tatted up with women with both “bitch” glasses and fake smokers-voice.
The one that kills me is everyone saying “right?” after every sentence. I always respond: “How would I know if it’s right. You’re the one saying it.” I actually caught myself saying it after a sentence a few days ago, and almost plunged a fork into my larynx.
Right to life politics comes to mind. It is just a stance or position that signifies who you are and how righteous also. Nothing would really change if they got all of beloved fake candidates in office and they know it.
That and the movement is mostly a racket as Hoffer generally observed.
(Will I ever be able to sign in using Disqus?)
In my state Right to Life has wiped out several abortion clinics by creating nuisance regulations that make them unprofitable.
At the Federal level in the legislature and courts, you’re absolutely right though. Bitterly angry how many of my friends fell for Barrett.
Probably not. I think Disqus has me on their naughty list.
Roads and bridges are practical and boring. LGBTQ++ rights are hip and cool and make you look compassionate. Roads and bridges built by LGBTQ’ers deteriorate fast, so perhaps best not to combine the two. I was thinking about this problem last night, particularly as it pertains to local authorities and their ‘duties’. Even at this level, everything is an over-marketed virtue signal. You know: sorry Mr Jones that those pot holes are still in the road, but did you know we’re tackling racism by hiring only blacks? It is not just national politics that is ‘fake and gay’. The rot… Read more »
At the end of body builder competitions, they have a “pose down” where the competitors strike poses to try and get cheers from the crowd. This is politics in the English speaking world now at all levels.
I do not know which to be the sadder of the two: the fact that the body builders do this. Or the fact that this now appears to be our politics.
I suppose it did no harm to me when it was restricted to the body builders…
Do I even want to know what the demographic is that watches body building competitions?
There are two types of people who watch: gay men and closeted gay men
In the 70s and 80s, my Dad was an early adopter of weightlifting. He subscribed to Weider’s magazines.
As kids, we don’t know any better, but looking back, the magazines were pretty homoerotic.
When my Dad’s favorite weightlifter, Bob Paris, came out as gay, my Dad was devastated and confused. He was so innocent. Loved that guy.
As a very young teenager, Joe (((Weider))) would try to push these awful looking weightlifting women as “sexy.” Rachel McLish, for example. My biology was not persuaded.
You and dinothedoxie upthread hit on a point. The Lovely Mrs. dragged me and our vacation guests to a quaint little town with a bunch of boutique shops the ladies love. In one shop was one of those snarky slogan signs ladies of a certain type decorate their houses with. It read “Everybody wants to Change The World. Nobody wants to change the toilet paper roll. Be the change the world needs” OK, Hokey, but germane to the post today. I was born and raised near Chicago. For a long time Aldermen were told to get elected and stay elected,… Read more »
Your final paragraph nails it. Corrupt as the previous office may have been, it knew what it needed to do at minimum. A tolerable minimum. A practical minimum.
That’s all that needs to be done, indeed.
Not trying to be snarky, but I believe the term “Goo-goo” came from Boston where it referred to the “Good Government” movement types and their plans for reform around the turn of the 19th c. See “James Michael Curley”
That’s entirely possible, but Mike Royko defined Goo-Goo as: “”So this beef comes in from a goo-goo that I asked him to make the drop, but just when it looked like I was gonna be vised, my Chinaman clouted for me downtown and it was all squared.” Which, in a foreign language, would mean: A complaint was made by a do-gooder that I solicited a bribe from him, but just when it appeared that I would be fired, my sponsor intervened in my behalf, and the complaint was suppressed in City Hall.” Per Wiki: “In American politics, the term is… Read more »
Maybe we need an army of Hank Voight’s? Chicago, my kind of town. Well, once upon a time, anyway, lol
> Instead of accepting their role as another anonymous face in a chorus of actors, they embrace strange, but pointless ideas to distinguish themselves from the crowd. While this is mostly a left-wing phenomenon, there are plenty on the right who espouse policies that they know have no chance of happening and are intentionally clownish. Adrian Vermuelle with his calls for Lutherans to be put into camps in a new Cathoic Integralist state is the best example. Note he specified a religious group with the least institutional power. This also goes with right wingers who argue about repealing the 19th… Read more »
“This also goes with right wingers who argue about repealing the 19th Amendment, banning birth control, and other stances that will be impossible to implement short of full overthrow of the government.”
Interesting, Chet. I know many people who talk of voting for the Conservatives over here because “They’ll end immigration!”, “They’ll bring back hanging!”. It’ll never happen. This very government will not permit it. They’ve got their agenda, and we’ve got ours. So we must push forward and take what comes.
Tough times ahead…
Yeah, I’d say most of Conservative Inc is just positional goods now. “We have to get back to our constitutional values” is a pointless gesture. I cannot think of anything they say that is substantive.
It’s not who they are.
To paraphrase Saint Joseph Djugashvili: “It’s not who applies for jobs in Conservatism Inc, it’s (((who))) reads the applications and conducts the interviews and makes the job offers.” In retrospect, the last time a red-blooded White American Christian heterosexual male might have had a legit chance at securing a serious entry-level job in gubmint or the NGOs was probably back circa 1986. The System hired a bunch of red-blooded boys after 9-11, but that was merely as cannon fodder in the Mother of All Psy-Ops. Already circa the W-43 inauguration of January 2001, I was hearing that the permanent GOP… Read more »
American politics has turned into nothing but a spat in a girls sorority.
Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, two girls giggling together as they run for the microphone to seek attention.
The Senator from Tel-Aviv versus the War Turtle.
Pro wrestling couldn’t dream up more ridiculous characters.
We’d be better off if either one of these clowns were replaced by an actual horse in the US Senate.
Incitatus for Senate!
Being trivial (and not dying, because reality) is another artifact of an affluent society with way too much deadweight. It’s not simply an annoyance (like the Karen phenomenon), but a symptom of societal cancer that will eventually get to Stage 4 if left to fester. The proper response to an encounter with triviality is not to engage with it verbally; but rather, pick up a 2×4 and whack the SOB upside the head and provide him with some direct curative feedback. This is not cruelty. It is remedy. Methinks we need to get to the whacking stage soon or we… Read more »
We’re approaching the “checkout and avoid” stage of politics, where more and more people don’t believe the system works anymore. They are finding ways of avoiding the official petty authoritarians and working in grayer parts of the law.
Ah yes, The Indian Model. And if one is going to copy the model, why not hire the authentic Indians to give it that feel.
But yes to working outside the state in addition to forming close alliances with trusted local suppliers of goods. Even if they’re slightly more costly.
It’s more accurate to call it the Catholic (in the sense of universal) model, since bribes were the norm in white society pre-reformation (and post, for a while, too). Anyhow, it’s much easier to deal with a tyranny that exists for the tyrant’s sake than than to deal with a tyranny that exists for your sake. With the latter type tyrant, there’s no self-interest to which you can appeal.
And every one local gets paid in cash.
I liken it to carbon monoxide poisoning. If you smell smoke and feel tired – don’t fall asleep because you’ll never wake up. Instead you have to nip it in the bud right then and there (by exiting the area)
Around here we call those “luxury beliefs”. Seem to cost nothing to the holders since they are insulated from the effects. Until they are not. As is happening with increasing frequency. Witness SFO, or BLM calling out wealthy whites in Dallas for failing to pledge to not apply their kids to top 50 schools. Things will only get spicier.
the fact that this crap is going on in Dallas of all places is what really surprises me. Yeah the elite in the northeast (which is heavily tribal) is one thing. But it’s like those ideas have percolated to the south, southern plains areas.
This is similar to the peaceful (at least no violence) in one city, maybe Portland last year. A local BLM or Antifa group went through a sleeping neighborhood literally in the middle of the night, with bullhorns I guess, saying basically “Wake the f**k up! Some of us [Blacks] used to live in these houses! We want them back!” With a demand that the present owners sell or will to the rightful owners, the blacks of course.
Normal people just hire a real estate agent 😀 But we no longer live in normal times.