Another another “Another Hump Day Shrapnel Post” post post
Quick. Explosive. And leaves behind some unsightly stains.
I’m going to keep these relatively short today because nothing matters anymore, least of all fossils like me. Even though I’m not a “boomer,” I’ve begun thinking of every “OK, Boomer!’ tossed my way as a badge of honor.
I do this now only for my own sanity. Holding it in just makes me intellectually constipated, and there’s not enough prune juice in the world to fix that.
Biden’s State of the Union Address, my thoughts: Dunno. Didn’t watch. Did you? SOTU Addresses are obvious and cynical exercises in the art of spin. We all know the real “state of the union” because we’re living it: if you’re a leftist elitist or left elite-adjacent (see, “The Conservative Case for Voting for Progressives From Now On!”), you’re doing swell, because you control every aspect of the culture, and you’re able to use your media arm — which includes all of the legacy media and the vast majority of social media platforms — to keep already uninformed people misinformed, be it about the economy, crime, the environment, governmental corruption, national sovereignty, foreign policy, or the nature of reality itself, made manifest in gender and racial politics. And this power keeps you fat and cared for, while it forestalls potential challenges to your power by keeping the non-credentialed riff-raff fighting among themselves for a more elevated position on the intersectional totem pole. We are a declining power; our economy is in shambles; citizens are treated as enemies by the ruling class; and our rights are being consistently pressured by the cultural Marxists we continue to allow to rule us because democracy! Which is to say, the state of the union — to the extent what we have now is a union in any important sense — sucks. The only distinction one needs draw is that for a good part of our ruling elite, that suck is a feature, not a bug. You can’t have a Great Reset until the circumstances seem to demand one. And in lieu of those circumstances arising organically — which they’ve stubbornly refused to do under the framework established by our Constitution — the global ruling elite is more and more determined to orchestrate those circumstances. What we’re living through is absolutely intended.
In re: Eliza Bleu, Tim Pool, Michael Malice, The Quartering, et al. Tens of millions of subscribers among them. Outsized platforms. And for what? Edgy “ancap” cosplay? Beanie-bound left-libertarianism? I can remember a time when conservative “influencers” were actually, like, conservative. Now? Nearly all of these people are grifters getting rich manipulating the social media chess board, with the end goal being wealth, power, and hierarchy.
The rank and file online conservative has long suffered from wanting desperately approval from the left in some form or another. This has led him to champion former leftists who appear to have come to Jesus — almost always over those who have remained steadfast in their core beliefs through an extended, documented period of time. The Flavor of the Month worship exhibited by far too many conservatives is ripe for grifters. To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg yet again, “I’m tired of ‘the soup of the day.’ Just make a decision already! Can I please have ‘the soup from now on?’” Elon Musk was taken in by an erstwhile hip-hop Dolezal, a pretend sex-trafficking survivor who it turns out would, in her ancap Utopia, approve of consensual sex between adults and willing children. So taken was he with her before he was shamed into dropping her like a wet fart that she was able to get her critics deplatformed from Musk’s “free speech oasis”. Don’t worry, though — the combatants in this latest influencer power struggle, which to me appears increasingly like a pundit Wrestlemania, staged for controversy and milked for clicks, have been reinstated. Me? I’m still deplatformed from Twitter, where Musk is consistently fellated by right wing meme-makers who offer nothing more than red meat for the base and who have no desire to speak up for those who paved the way for their online popularity. Because nothing is real. If you say otherwise, my response is a very solemn give me a fucking break.
Dilbert’s Daddy Doubles Down! Scott Adams simply can’t let it go. As the bad news continues to dribble out about the potential ill-effects of our erstwhile “miraculous” mRNA therapeutics and their far-traveling lipid nanoparticles, the “Dilbert” creator remains firm in his stance that his having been wrong about the efficacy and safety of the experimental “vaccines” is proof of his higher-level reasoning skills — the argument still being that there was simply no way for those who distrusted the very obviously heavy-handed government vaccine push to have the requisite information to do so rationally. For Adams, he continues to maintain that by all available evidence — and by this he means from credentialed experts aligned with the government or Big Pharma — his choice to trust the vaccine regimen was the only logical one. Those who distrusted the vaccine, he tells us in a Tweet stream in which he answers critics in real time, were guilty of confirmation bias, as they were likely distrustful of the government to begin with. Thus, it follows that they would distrust the vaccine and the vaccination rollout campaign as a matter of rote contrarianism, and accidentally — thanks to a far-reaching paranoia that in most other instances wouldn’t serve them well — stumble into non-compliance that, in this rare instance, may prove providential.
Of course, this position is itself one of confirmation bias — people paranoid over government intentions are crackpots, and crackpots are rarely right; so following the advice of crackpots is illogical, the glaring question beg goes — but Adams refuses to concede that point, just as he refuses to concede the point that acquired immunity is a real thing that real doctors have known about for a really long time, and so it made no sense — even as early as January of 2021, when the vaccines were rolled out — for those who had already cleared the virus to get vaccinated. Couple this with initial reports that, thanks to early signals of heart inflammation, those who have had the virus should wait at least 90 days before getting the vaccine, there has always been a reason to avoid vaccination, especially in the Covid recovered. Later studies showing an increased instance of adverse effects in those vaccinated after having cleared the virus — which were ignored by the “experts,” who advised getting a vaccination to supposedly increase immunity — were likewise available and noted by the very people Adams claims were simply vax-hesitant because they’re natural contrarians. Most of the people Adams lumps into this group, of course, were in nearly all other instances vaccinated. But that didn’t stop he and others from sneering at the mRNA-hesitant as science-denying anti-vaxxers.
So here we are again.
To be one of the “thinky” conservatives — you know, like the ones who advocated for the election of Joe Biden — I’m evidently supposed to be outraged! that Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled “liar"!” at our corrupt, captured Turnip-in-Chief during his litany of what I suspect were demonstrable lies detailed during his SOTU Address (see item 1). Um, ok. No. We’ll leave that to people whose principles follow paychecks, nothing more.
We need more of this. Unless and until, there’s no moving forward, no grounds for reprochament, no trust, no forgiveness. Of course, when the conservative movement is being led in the social media sphere by faux-intellectual cartoonists, white identitarians, and erstwhile Disney employees larping as Speakers of Truth to Power, what difference does it make, anyway? We are well and truly screwed. So I’m content to just sit back and wait for the rebuild. In the meantime, arm yourselves, stock up on ammo, and be prepared for the collapse. Because it’s inevitable.
Speasking of which: Springfield Armory’s XDM-Elite 3.8” 10mm compact is an absolute work horse. From the relatively wimpy 40 S&W rounds being sold as 10mm to the actual 10mm hot stuff from Underwood, Buffalo Bore, Double Tap, et al., it eats it all, then spits it out on target. A reliable, polymer-framed 10mm you can conceal carry.
Who knows. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.
Appreciate your witty exposition of reality…you are a TRUE “Truth-Teller,” Jeff. I do encourage you to read the Bible, if you don’t already. Though we are expected to stand for the TRUTH of the GOSPEL, and to wage war against the enemy and his evil minions (won’t capitalize these descriptions, but I’m of course referring to Satan), the Bible reminds us GOD WINS!
I’m praying for you to find the peace that only comes with this knowledge and through a saving relationship with Christ Jesus. Keep fighting the good fight, and may God bless and keep you safe and strong in Him. ❤️🙏🙌
I'm not surprised I'm out of the loop but, wrt #2, I just barely know who a couple of those people are (counting Elon Musk), and don't care at all. Which leads me to #1, where I agree completely and also care little. It's definitely intended and it's definitely going to get a lot worse, even for most of those doing all of the intending, than commonly expected. Sure, a lot will skate. But for most of the ones who think they're Mastering the Universe, they'll be shocked by rats in their metaphorical Bermuda prisons sooner than they think. (Of course they think 'Never!' so I'm not making too bold a prediction.)
The thing is, most of modern civilization rests on polite fictions, and all of the 'influence' this perverse vanguard deploys depends 100% on the vast majority buying into those fictions. (I consider self-inflicted civilizational destruction perverse.) The societal engine chugs along on common acceptance of ideas such as the police will come when you call, one should pay one's taxes, licenses from the state are required before doing certain/many things, lawbreakers - even white collar ones! - are punished, contemporary 'public art' is not a bad joke, weird/crazy is not dangerous, authorities are impartial, doctors aren't trying to kill you, countries have borders, etc. Shattering those fictions, or norms, so fantastically, dramatically, and commonly as happens nowadays, sooner or later leads to normal people closing ranks, necklacing thieves, and enforcing their own selected norms.
The law-and-order chicken is not far from the roost in many places that not coincidentally overlap nicely with places so-called ruling elite (and hangers-on) prefer to swan about, most preferably lately amid masked hoi polloi. You know, all the coastal enclaves and Chicago, where photo ops showcase gem-encrusted females and Weinsteinesque males ostentatiously doing nothing. But I digress. The polite fiction that these are swell places for normal people to live has evaporated, outmigration of entire neighborhoods and everyday commerce means the normalcy on which the vanguard's illusions rest cannot be sustained. Personally I look forward to the return of tarring and feathering to replace ineffective shaming and insincere apologies. The reality of tar and feathers is horrific. But societies revert to horrible, real things when the powers that be strip away the polite fictions. Then we all hate that so much that we do the necessary labor to reconstrain ourselves in a civilization. Eventually.
Nature abhors a vacuum; human nature abhors chaos. Maybe that leads to a totalitarian interlude, or efforts in that direction, but totalitarianism will prove prohibitively expensive in America, and probably lots of other places, too. It's a big world out there and everyone (except a couple of generations here) loves the American dream.
In the meanwhile. prepare not only with stuff but especially with skills. Knowing how to do stuff is handy in itself and also the most fungible asset.