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Wednesday, January 13, 2021

The Real Plague

"Wokeness," self-righteousness masquerading as enlightenment, is the real plague upon the land.  Better definition: "authoritarianism masquerading as righteousness."

A few manifestations of "wokeness":


But deplatforming is not enough. 

Moreover, deplatforming should not be limited only to Donald Trump: Trump's de-platforming could reshape the internet


How long before any and all Trump supporters — identified via facial-recognition software, posts in social media, and donor lists — are banned from the public square and even from employment?  For example, Teachers In Jefferson County, WV That Attended Rally At the Capitol Threatened With Termination.

Related video to watch.

Stalin-esque.

Kafka-esque.

Weep for our lost American Republic:

60 comments:

  1. ...Welcome to America's Cultural Revolution.

    China's Cultural Revolution (1966-76) sought to purge remnants of impure non-Maoist thoughts from Chinese society and economy. It was a radical period of persecution.

    We are witnessing and experiencing a perverse and dangerous effort to purge America of all things Trumpian — but more importantly — the conservative, traditional values of millions of Americans. It is not only about erasure, but criminalization. Ordinary Americans who support President Trump — and at least 75 million that voted for him — are being targeted with a barrage of efforts to sensationalize and marginalize their beliefs. The professional political and media classes of America's East and West Coasts are striking hard and fast to eliminate Trump. There is a concerted effort to tar every Trump supporter with the brush of Capitol mob protester. That is a lie. It is deliberate and malicious. It is a plan to intimidate and silence....


    Source. Read the rest at the link.

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    1. Trumpism might be popular, but don't the other half of America deserve some protection from its excesses?

      Delete
    2. Jez,
      The excesses exist on both sides.

      Honestly, I don't see any possibility for unity.

      Delete
    3. Jez, could you define a few of the excesses, and how the other half would be protected from them?

      Delete
    4. Well, take the immediate purpose for his Twitter ban for example: to protect everyone from the effect Trump's rhetoric has on some of his supporters, which has caused multiple deaths.

      Delete
    5. @ Jez

      After you provide a few examples of “excesses,” could you also cite a few examples of the effects of Trump’s rhetoric — and, if you have the time, explain how anyone needs protection from rhetoric. Hint: it’s the sticks and stones rule.

      Delete
    6. Jez, we here in the US have spend a whole year listening to Government officials from local to national justify violence, deny the violence is violence, or explain it away, and they were joined in by college professors, celebrities and the news media.

      We are in a dangerous and stupid place, and we have been for years.

      The only upside to this latest act of violent stupidity is it finally got Democrats supporting law and order.

      Delete
    7. @mustang: see my comment from 8:35. Laws against incitement exist. The opinion I'm coming to just now is that the threshold for incitement should vary according to the status of the accused. Private citizens should have a high bar. A superior officer in an armed force should have a much lower bar. POTUS should have a lower bar still.

      @SF: I suppose I'm implicated in that first paragraph, since I have consistently failed to denounce all political violence, ever. Although I greatly prefer non-violent methods (I am by disposition peaceful, although if you cross me, you should expect to taste the blade of *my* steel), I cannot impose that ideal upon my (limited) understanding of history without foregoing too many of the societal advances I hold most dear.
      If BLM's grievences are legitimate and have been consistently dismissed for a hundred years, I can understand why some people resort to violence. It's not irrational.

      But on the other hand, if Trump's grievences are legitimate, shouldn't I say the same for the MAGA revolutionaries who breached the Capitol building earlier this week? What better excuse for violence could there be than to rescue Democracy from the disaster of a fraudulent election result?
      Come to think of it, why wasn't Trump himself leading the charge? Surely his failure to lead them, or at least give them his full-throated support and offer to finance their legal defence, indicates either cowardice or uncertainty about the strength of his fraud case (at best -- worst case he knows full well it's a fantasy).

      It won't surprise you to learn that I don't let the MAGA mob off the hook that easily, but the difference between their case and BLM's is the strength of their respective cases. I believe that they have been fooled by Trump, and furthermore I think the grift is so transparent that the onus is on them to see it. Trump has done a collosal disservice to the entirely legitimate argument that election fraud exists and defence against it should be strengthened. I have not investigated every piece of evidence floated on the right-wing blogosphere (no-one could), but those that I have are weak. Whoever rolls up their sleeves to do the real work of tackling fraud has the additional task of disassociating their efforts from Trump's circus.

      @ed: hi. Yep, I'm here but lockdown is weird. How are you?

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    8. @ JEZ

      I, for one, appreciate your thoughtful response. A couple of points, however.

      (1) Depending upon the jurisdiction, “incitement” to violate the law could be a crime in-and-of-itself, but then we get into a disagreement about what Trump said and the way he said it. If he had said, “go over to the Capital and let your voices be heard,” then that is not an incitement to violence. If he had said, “go over to the Capital and tear it down,” then he would have incited violence.

      (2) If people went there to demonstrate and allowed themselves to be caught up in the trespass, a violation, then the onus isn’t on Trump; it’s on the dopes who committed the offense.

      So, while you are making a rational argument about blame, it is essential to know what was said and how it was said. I’m not defending Trump – but I am suggesting that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. We cannot leave it up to people who edit videos or photoshop images to establish our facts.

      I spent just under then years in Japan. I was always impressed when the Japanese put on demonstrations for or against (whatever). The more frequent protests involved removing US forces from Japan, loud noise around military airports, nuclear energy, and so forth. Given so many people showing up to demonstrate, one would think that the Japanese parliament would be foolish not to give some attention to these people’s demands. But then I learned that Japanese demonstrations are never surges of people with deeply held convictions about (whatever); some benefactor is paying every single person who shows up to demonstrate to do so. It placed “civil demonstrations” in a different light.

      Similarly, I do not doubt that some of the idiots attacking the Capital building were Tramper’s ... but I am not convinced that all of them were, as you call them, the MAGA mob. As it happens, a long-time friend of mine (and his wife) attended the demonstration. He’s 80; she’s a few years younger. They stood across the street and observed the rush into the building. The number of people involved in that episode, he told me, though minuscule, was looking for a confrontation. Elsewhere, the people who attended the rallies – the real MAGA people, were law-abiding, polite, good-natured, non-threatening people who simply wanted to demonstrate their support of DJT. There is no crime in that.

      And there is no crime in wanting to “make America great again.” I would simply urge you to avoid lumping everyone into the same lot because, just as with the paid demonstrators in Japan, there may be more going on below our radar than you know. I would like to see significant changes in the way America does business – for the good of all, but do not trust politicians to put aside their self-interests to get the job done. MAGA may not be as much support for DJT as it is disgust with what our politicians have done to the country, its people, and its allies.

      Delete
    9. Mustang,
      Multiple up votes for your comment!

      You stated many things which I also believe, but I simply don't have the time or the will to transcribe my thoughts.

      Delete
    10. "I would like to see significant changes in the way America does business – for the good of all, but do not trust politicians to put aside their self-interests to get the job done."

      And that is the 'money shot'...however, 'MAGA' as it's currently practiced, is exactly how America currently does business.

      Delete
    11. Yes, I cannot stand BLM. They are fraudulent. However, I have also acknowledge many times that people of color in this country have legitimate Grievances, and I support them in their struggle to have them recognized and addressed

      Having a grievance does not justify violence. Politicians and the Press have been justifying violence all damn year. It's bad. All of it

      Delete
    12. Also, to be perfectly clear, I do not believe any of Donald Trump's grievances are legitimate. They had their day in court we've gone through the process, it's over it was over when those violent criminals stormed the capitol. Find them, prosecute them, jail them

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    13. Possession of a grievance is not sufficient, I agree. It's when those grievences are not addressed after several decades of peaceful campaigning, that gives me pause.

      If political violence is never justified, what's the point of the 2nd ammendment?

      Delete
    14. Two Points. Point one:

      Those doing violence this summer were often out-of-town professionals and anarchists who didn't give a damn about black lives.

      Even if you could somehow justify the violence, how do you justify destroying the businesses of people who are not culpable? Even if you somehow think that Indian car dealer was somehow to blame, mob "justice?" Really?

      Delete
    15. Point Two:

      The right to bear arms is fundamentally tied to the the right to life, liberty and property. The founders recognized that we have a right to those things, and its not much of a right if you can't defend it.

      Yes, those running around and posing in military gear like to bark about how the 2nd Amendment is for taking down a tyrannical government, but that's foolishness.

      It does work on one level: To actually impose tyranny, government officials will have to send police and military to disarm, push around and corral millions of armed citizens. Much harder that doing so to unarmed citizens.

      At the county level, this works. Many sheriffs refuse to carry out tyrannical orders. They are closer to the people than the petty tyrants issuing diktats.

      If you want to enter somewhere, but there is a medium sized dog baring his teeth and growling at you, do you enter? Or does the dog deter you? He can't kill you, but he could ruin your day.

      An armed citizenry keeps a government honest in that respect, but the right to possess arms is a fundamental acknowledgement of your right to life, liberty and property, which includes your right to defend them, with deadly force if necessary.

      Delete
    16. My opinion lies somewhere along the spectrum between the extremes of "political violence is never justified under any circumstances" and "every violent incident you can name was politically legitimate."
      Thanks for making some sense of the 2nd ammendment for me :)

      Delete
    17. SF. you may not believe Trump has legitimate grievances.
      Many of us do. They are our grievances, an election was stolen from us.
      I am amazed that you are OK with that.
      and Trump had NOT had his day in court. Famously so ay SCOTUS.

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    18. Ed, If Trump's legal team had been anything other than a nutball clown show, they might have gotten somewhere. Sidney Powell and Lin Wood (a Democrat) are batshit crazy.

      If a smart team thought the fraud was in the mail-in ballots they wouldn't have been talking about the ghost of Hugo Chavez conspiring with voting machine companies to switch votes. The hand counts proved that allegation wrong.

      Good lawyers would have started with audits, matching signatures and their numbers against numbers of ballots.

      This has all been a horrible farce. Perhaps it was stolen, but stumblebum Rudy and the rest of his nutball chorus beshat themselves and didn't bring the goods. I'm sick of all of it. Trump needs to shut up and go away. Hopefully, some well-mannered conservative can pick up his agenda and run with it. Its a winner.

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    19. I don't enjoy saying any of this. While I think the left has lost its load and their orgy of outrage and calls for maoist revenge is embarrassing and un-American, I also think President Trump has been grossly irresponsible in all of this. I don't believe he "incited" anything, but he bears some moral responsibility for the absolutely disgraceful criminal conduct last Wednesday. The man did a lot of good things in his tenure, its a shame to see it all eclipsed by recent events.

      Delete
    20. Hopefully, some well-mannered conservative can pick up his agenda and run with it. Its a winner.

      But is there any on the national stage, who can pull the Trump camp from it's cable news fever dreams and unite the now very fractured party? I'm not a Republican, but I'd certainly like to see a rational bulwark against Leftism, even if it's the GOP. Right now....that doesn't exist.

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    21. CI: The best outcome would be Trump goes away and the GOP picks up the flag of working class people and American First (which never meant America alone).

      The worst outcome would be El Donaldo starting a vanity party that accomplishes nothing but siphoning votes from Republicans.

      Most likely, some kind of splintering and confusion, but I don't think its going to be warm showers together and happy campfire songs for the Democrats either.

      A stark reality is Donald Trump mobilized millions of people who had not voted in previous elections. This motivated Democrats on the ground to do the same (Stacey Abrams conquered Georgia not by fraud, but by hard work).

      The Trump voters may fade back into not voting without Trump to vote for, but as I've already said, if the GOP is smart they will preach the message, to all Americans, and continue expanding the tent. The final twist of irony is, the greatest threat to Trumpism and the GOP expanding tent, is Donald Trump.

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    22. Well put. Let's hope the party apparatchiks and GOP voters take heed.

      Delete
  2. McEnany's is tainted by her own record of barefaced lying in public, whether Forbes says so or not. I can't believe her and wouldn't hire her either, would you?

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    Replies
    1. Jez,
      All White House Press Secretaries of recent memory lie. It's their job! Apparently. It's a public relations thing, I think.

      Delete
    2. Considering the level of propaganda, conspiracy theories, and gaslighting that McEnany's abetted, the "they all do it" argument rings a bit hollow.

      Delete
  3. We've all seen this coming for a long time. Remember the Overton window? This is about converting it from a picture window to a narrow decorative one.

    Progressives want to put half this country (the deplorables) beyond the Pale. They would push us all off a cliff if they could, but marginalizing us, silencing us, taking away all power and employment would bring glee to their sick souls.

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    Replies
    1. Can't have all those pesky small business entrepeneurs eating up large corporate profits to feed the bank accounts of old world banker families like the Rothschilds...

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    2. ....and all those obsolete workers automation has made redundant? Fogeddabouditt!

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    3. Progressivism is ALL about increasing the economy's "Aggregate Efficiency" and if that means putting 90% of the population OUT of work, so be it!

      Delete
  4. Obama, pressed to prosecute George W Bush for war crimes, declined to do so saying that, "we should be looking forwards not backwards."

    The truth is that in a nation such as ours no incoming administration will prosecute an outgoing administration because they know that someday soon they will themselves become the outgoing administration. They are unwilling to set a precedent for those following them to copy.

    Today's establishment is so enraged by their hatred of Trump that they are blind to the future, and at the same time are so filled with self righteousness that they think they will remain in power forever.

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  5. Wait til you see the Social Credit Score (ala China) implemented.

    Link

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    Replies
    1. Kid,
      The equivalent of that here in the United States is on the horizon -- and waiting.

      Delete
  6. To the victor go the spoils. This is one price of defeat. Of course, the gleeful imposition of severe restrictions against Germany post-World War I gave us World War II and this is something Marxist Democrats ought to consider. For the most part, the clamoring for purges and deprogramming originates with but a few pathetic souls, which of course mainstream Marxist Democrats will publicly disavow, but quietly applaud because keeping society stirred up is part of their overall game plan.

    After Trump’s election in 2016, we were provided with a glimpse of the future with the so-called Steele Dossier and how that fairy tale was used to tie up the House and Senate during Trump's first two years in office. I would have mentioned “waste of money,” but that’s what Congress does for a living.

    And while we did witness vilification of Democrats through a stream of Trump-Tweets (a waste of energy in my opinion and not in Trump’s long-term interests), but we did not see any efforts to silence Marxist Democrats and ban them from social media, or interfere with their livelihood. Ignoring Trump's abrasive personality, herein lies the difference in the two parties. On the one hand, vocal disagreements about the direction of our country (always a good thing), and on the other a full-press effort to punish anyone who disagrees with them (never a good thing). All elections have consequences.

    I’d like someone to tell me one lie told by McEnany and then provide specific facts (as opposed to differences in opinion) that proves the lie. Otherwise, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick defame people as liars ... just a progressive thought.

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    Replies
    1. Mustang,
      Thank you, my friend, for your detailed and thoughtful comment. I'll emphasize what point thereof:

      Of course, the gleeful imposition of severe restrictions against Germany post-World War I gave us World War II...

      Good point! But I doubt the Progressives are paying a bit of attention to the lessons of history.

      Delete
    2. Mustang: Well stated. Progressives will take their revenge on everything and everybody they can, and it won't be pretty.

      Delete
    3. I'd be interested in those lies, myself.
      If I needed someone to defend me in public, hands down my first choice.

      Delete
  7. Wait until the re-education and deprograming of all of the cult Trump begins. Recall the Japanese during WWII who were American citizens.

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    Replies
    1. Bunkerville,
      It won't be so easy. Trumpers are not meek.

      Delete
    2. No job and no way to feed yourself and your family, no way to travel, kids not allowed in school... even now they will cancel your insurance... the IRS will hassle you... you will be in court and done to you what they did to Flynn.

      Delete
  8. Democrats claimed that the 2016 election was tampered with and were rewarded with almost three years of formal government investigation. Republicans claimed that the 2020 election was tampered with and were told to shut up and go away. And we wonder why Republicans are aggrieved?

    Not to mention that Democrats did not initially even claim any evidence and later manufactured evidence which was disproved. Republicans provided multiple instances of evidence which has been ignored and/or disregarded without investigation.

    All of which gives new meaning to the term "double standard."

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  9. The only thing tragic about the purge of Trumpist terrorism from civilized society is that not all of the executions will be caught on film to enjoy over and over again with popcorn.

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  10. Indeed I have, Eddie. Now share with the class how many posts you've read today about being censored. 🤣

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  11. Using the French Napoleonic penal code to punish freedom of expression violates the Constitution of the United States of America. (Guilty until proven innocent.)

    If corporations function as Kangaroo Courts, all is lost.

    * AOW, as both of us have histories of peaceful march and activism in the past, we discussed the "what if" scenario if we had attended the rally together... had a good hoot and holler... and then trudged back to a transportation hub.

    Would we now be investigated, castigated and punished?

    My latest thoughts from this morning:

    https://thelastenglishprince.wordpress.com/2021/01/14/congbods/

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    Replies
    1. Tammy,
      If corporations function as Kangaroo Courts, all is lost.

      For the moment -- at least -- all is lost.

      Delete
  12. Here's the latest twist https://jonathanturley.org/2021/01/15/revoke-their-degrees-harvard-faculty-and-students-seek-revocation-of-degrees-for-trump-officials-and-allies/#more-168029

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Viburnum,
      Woefully amazing!

      Could revocation of degrees hold up in court? Who knows? There are "woke" judges on the bench.

      Delete
  13. I can think of no other “President, who, on the day he was sworn in, should be immediately IMPEACHED by not just one, but four — four! — impeccable scandals..
    Once he takes office, his administration should, and will be bogged down by legitimate investigations into his actual and credible wrongdoing, corruption, self-dealing, and sexual misconduct including with the dealing with the Prosecutor in the Ukraine, and , of sexually assaulting Tara Reade in 1993.. Both he and his Crime family MUSTn be dealt wit. Lets remember the saying of the Democrats only a few months ago. “No One is Above the Law, NOT even the President of the United States. Right Nancy Pelosi? Right Donna Brazile? Right Jerry Nadler who accused the president of betraying the public trust and endangering US National Security to benefit himself. Right Kamala Harris!

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  14. Dude, Won't happen because the news controls this country and they have already been order to hands off predator joe and the biden crime family. You know Botox Nan or chuckels will not bring it up so that ship has sailed.

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  15. My outrage meter's running high...

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