Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

It’s official. The Biden Administration is engaging in the War on Misinformation! As we breath a collective sigh of…well, utter confusion to be honest, we’re left with some serious questions. What is considered misinformation? Who determines what constitutes misinformation? What is Joe Biden’s favorite flavor of ice cream? (Okay, that last one wasn’t really mine. That’s an actual question asked of the President by a “reporter.”)

Ice cream question aside, we’re entering a strange new territory, one where the rules of reality as we know them are null and void. It’s to the point we’re one ironic twist away from a Rod Serling voiceover. This isn’t just a Leftist ploy; this is a question of reality itself, and we’re not even college-age stoners. Well, you might want to light up a fatty and settle in because this one is going to get weird.

misinformation

What the Left thinks it means – false information that damages society

What it really means – information that damages Leftist narratives

As I’ve noted before, the Left has a love/hate relationship with the truth. They love it when the truth backs them up, and they hate it when the truth doesn’t back them up (which is most of the time). With the advent of a Donald Trump Presidency, however, they started hugging the truth tighter than a “popular” girl’s prom dress. And, surprise surprise, the Left found misinformation with every Republican/conservative statement, no matter how factual the statement was. There’s a reason Trump supporters and others have come up with the #TrumpWasRight hashtag, and it’s not because they’re cult members.

It’s because, well, Donald Trump was right.

But the Left can’t bring themselves to admit the truth. After all, they claim reality has a liberal bias (except when it comes to the number of genders, the effects of Welfare on the poor, and the absurdity of the government spending money to prop up the economy, just to name three). When the facts don’t fit, the Left does its best to either memory hole the truth or poison the well (not literally, unless you count Flint, Michigan) by attacking the source instead of refuting the information.

I’ve covered an aspect of this previously when I discussed media “fact checkers”, but for those who haven’t read it yet, here’s the short version. Most fact checkers you’ll find are tainted by biases, especially well-known and oft-circulated ones like Snopes and FactCheck.org. They would scrutinize every word Donald Trump said to find the worst possible interpretation while giving Joe Biden as much leeway as a needle thrown in the Grand Canyon. Yes, I know this smacks of “whataboutism” but it’s not wrong. Check out Politifact’s recent “fact check” on whether President Biden wants to ban handguns, which is a direct quote from the man. Let’s just say Politifact’s interpretation is the fact checking equivalent of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (Speaking of which, does Melinda get half of the foundation in the divorce?)

To bring this all together (finally), this process of partisan fact checking lends itself very well to misinformation. Combine that with social media’s lax and contradictory application of misinformation standards and you see the crisis for what it is. It’s like trying to get a sip of water from a firehose. There’s a good chance you’ll get something, but you’re more likely to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume being sent your way.

And that’s only part of the problem. Our attention spans are getting shorter than…wait, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, attention spans! With the sheer amount of information we get on a daily basis, we have to pick and choose what we consume, which makes it easier for misinformation to get around. After all, if someone with some authority says something and it gets repeated by others, it must be right, right? Oh, by the way, Dr. Fauci, phone call on line 5, one for each of your positions on masking.

I don’t disagree with the notion misinformation can be destructive, but it gets more destructive when it becomes politicized because all politics is personal on some level. That’s why political attack ads are effective and still being used today. Where I part company with the Left is in the danger assessment. The Left claims misinformation can be deadly, citing the number of COVID-19 cases and President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic. If only we had followed the science and listened to our non-Trumpian leaders, we could have saved millions of lives!

Except not even the Left follows the science completely and gives off misinformation on the regular to sustain the notion President Trump made the pandemic worse. He could have taken other actions, sure, but while he was trying to get a handle on the situation, the Left and the media (but I repeat myself) gave constantly changing information. First it was “you don’t need masks” to “wearing masks is a sign of Asian hate” to “OHMYGODTHEWORLDISGONNADIEUNLESSYOUMASKUPANDQUARANTINEINPLACE” to “don’t trust the vaccinations because Trump rushed them to the public” to “maybe you should get them if you’re in a high risk group” to “OHMYGODYOUNEEDTOGETTHEFAUCIOUCHIEORYOUWILLKILLEVERYONE.” Put simply, the people who are so concerned now about misinformation are the ones who benefitted most from it politically and ideologically. If that and the gradual escalation of hysteria aren’t huge red flags that can be seen from orbit, I don’t know what to tell you.

Actually, I take that back. I do know what to tell you: be smart about what news you consume and do your own research before taking a stand. Not only will you be able to develop intelligent opinions, you will be able to ferret out the bad actors, and this time I’m not talking about Tara Reid. And don’t buy into the idea misinformation is in the eye of the beholder. It doesn’t matter who initially distributed it or what their intentions were or what greater good they think they’re serving. If something is wrong, it’s wrong. End of story.

And whether it’s the federal government or Big Tech doing it, I’m not a fan of the current crop of self-professed determiners of truth and falsehoods being the ones to dictate reality to us. Some of these folks are confused by the idea there are only two genders, for the love of Pete! Do you want these nozzleheads anywhere near the decision-making process on what is misinformation?

Anyway, I wish the Biden Administration the best of luck in their battle against misinformation. I mean, it couldn’t be any worse than our showing in the War on Drugs, right?

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

If there is one thing the Left excels at, it’s sucking at life. But if there’s another thing they’re good at, it’s hyperbole. If there is a problem they can market, it’s the most horrible problem ever! After the 2020 Elections and the results being more questionable than a Media Matters hit piece, many Republican-led states looked into passing voting laws designed to address the issues they saw. As expected, the Left overreacted, calling these new laws a threat to our democracy.

Then again, the Left thinks a threat to our democracy is anything from new voting laws to fines for overdue library books. It’s gotten to the point it’s become a rallying cry to get their supporters energized enough to take a day off work and…sorry, I couldn’t even type the rest of the sentence with a straight face.

Now’s as good a time as any to add the term to our Leftist Lexicon.

threat to democracy

What the Left thinks it means – a group or idea that can potentially unravel the social and political fabric of America

What it really means – an overused catchphrase that is both unintelligent and inaccurate

There is one thing I forgot to mention in my introduction. The Left is good at connecting two things that have no actual connection whatsoever. Remember, these are the folks who maintain speech can be violence, but actual violence is speech, and mostly peaceful speech at that! So, it’s not surprising the Left would try to conflate new voting laws with events that will destroy our country, move us closer to a fascist/totalitarian state, and, Marxist Utopia forbid, lead to another Nickelback album.

The problem is these new laws have gotten a bad rap (by the same Leftists who told us the 2020 Election was the most secure in history) because the Left…lied about them. Whether it’s Georgia’s proposed law that allegedly bans people from getting water while in line to vote (it doesn’t) or Texas’s proposed law that allegedly restricting access to vote (it doesn’t), the Left has people thinking any Republican effort to curtail the potential for voting fraud are politically-motivated, racist, ageist, and overall evil.

And, surprise surprise, this is by design. The Left doesn’t have any substantive arguments against the proposed laws, or at least none that doesn’t make them look like idiots. Let me put it this way. There are Democrats who are exposing the Left’s lies on these bills. No matter how you slice it, that’s not a good look.

As deceptive as this is, unfortunately it works with a lot of people outside of the Left’s bubble because it preys upon the fact most of us fell asleep during Civics 101. We are not a democracy, nor have we ever been. Whether we will be one later…well, let’s just hope it doesn’t happen unless you want to be Piggy in a live-action version of Lord of the Flies. Many Americans think we are for the reason I mentioned earlier, and it makes it harder to convince people of the truth.

And, no, a democracy and a republic are not interchangeable, nor are they close enough to be synonymous with each other. In a democracy, the people have a direct voice within the government, while the people have an indirect voice within the government through the election of representatives in a republic. A slight difference, but one that means a lot in the grand scheme of politics. For there to be a threat to democracy, there must be a democracy to threaten.

The other aspect of the Left’s latest squawking point left to tackle is why the Left makes so many seemingly minor molehills into metaphysically dangerous mountains. For this, let’s focus just on the voting laws. The purpose of the laws is to prevent people and parties from undermining elections. That is troubling to the Left because these laws shut down many of the tricks they’ve used to win elections in recent years. That gives Leftists a vested interest in shutting down these laws, even though the specifics of these laws make sense. It’s like watching a debate between Ben Stein and an agitated honey badger.  One will present the facts in a measured tone, and the other will rip your throat out if you get too close. And if you’ve ever had your throat ripped out by Ben Stein…

But just like the honey badger, the Left doesn’t care about the facts. They need people to be afraid because fear makes people malleable to the point they abandon critical thinking and focus on self-preservation. And with the Left thinking they know what’s good for you more than, well, you do, they’re going to do whatever they can to get you under their control. Then, after you die, they will control how you vote. Isn’t that nice?

Unfortunately, it’s worked again, and many people are lead to believe the new voting laws prevents people from voting, but only certain people (i.e. non-whites). The facts aren’t as sexy as the fear, so the sexy wins. But as we’ve found out with supermodels, sexy isn’t the same as smart. While the fearmongers screech about how these new restrictive laws prevent people from giving voters in line water, they leave out a little detail: it applies to everybody connected to a political campaign or movement. If it’s the Girl Scouts doing it, no problem. If it’s the National Organization for Women stumping for Biden/Harris, that’s a problem. The devil is in the details, kids, and the Left just so happens to not like to give all the details as they tell you Republicans want people of color to die of thirst while in line to vote.

Meanwhile, we here in “flyover country” have this nifty little thing called tap water that we can put in our own containers and drink to our hearts content. (Offer void in Flint, Michigan.)

As with most Leftist ideas, the best weapon is common sense. Why are the Left so up in arms about voter laws in Republican states that are often looser than voter laws in Leftist strongholds? It’s pure politics, baby. If the Left wants to turn states like Texas and Georgia blue in our lifetimes, they need to keep their cheating on the down-low. New laws mean the Left’s goal to flip red states is going to be delayed as they try to figure out new ways to cheat. To put it simply, the Left is counting on you to be scared so their status quo doesn’t change. They’re not interested in saving democracy; they’re interested in saving Democrats!

Sorry for saying the quiet part out loud, Leftists, but if you’re not going to level with us, I’m going to level with us and, spoiler alert, it’s not going to end well for you. Take your faux-patriotic self-generated OHMYGODWEREGONNADIE bunk and stick it where the sun don’t shine.

Namely, under Jerald Nadler’s beltline.

In the Meme Time

Another Leftist meme showing how ignorant the Left really is today. Unfortunately the useful idiots still buy it.

The whole problem with this meme is none of these activities are safe to mail. Every single one of them has been intercepted, lost, or has been used fraudulently by another party.

Checks are stolen every day from the postal service worldwide. If you want to securely send funds use direct deposit, Paypal, Venmo, bitcoin, or some other electronic transaction that is more secure than dropping a check in the mail and hoping it gets there.

Draft registrations, who uses this term? This is Selective Service registration that every male must fill out when he turns 18 years of age. I did it, but back then other methods just weren’t available yet. And these too can get lost in the mail or be filled out fraudulently. It does happen.

Prescription drugs being sent via the mail is a lucrative business and supply chain for those that abuse prescription drugs. Lots of issues with this and total lack of safety for sending such substances in the mail system.

Passports, Driver Licenses, or other State issues IDs. These are stolen and used fraudulently all the time. From kids with a fake or false ID so they can buy alcohol to the very depth of identity theft.

But then there is the granddaddy. Voting by mail. This one, unlike all the others, has three avenues of potential fraud to be committed.

Requesting the ballot.

Receiving the ballot.

Returning the ballot.

All the others the initiating transaction is in person or at least more secure than just filling out a form and sending it through the mail. And once received these other items are kept.

Not so with voting by mail. It is just not safe.

And until we have a secure solution, blockchain voting. It should not be the norm. and should only be used in extreme cases. Get to the polls in person to cast your vote.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

Remember when COVID-19 first became a thing a little over a year ago? Everybody was freaking out because we didn’t know if it was the common cold or the Bubonic Plague or what impact it would have on us. After it was determined to have a survival rate of over, oh, NINETY NINE FUCKING PERCENT, that should have calmed us down quite a bit.

lt didn’t, thanks in part to the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci giving frequent and contradictory updates like having Sybil as your investment guru. As new cases started to drop, COVID-19 hysteria started to calm down a bit.

So, naturally, there had to be a new threat to keep us locked down, masked up, and six feet away from us. Enter the Delta variant. Leftists have been talking up the Delta variant in recent weeks, suggesting it could be worse than COVID-19 and result in more death, mayhem, and Netflix binging. Is it worth the hype? Let’s find out!

Delta variant

What the Left thinks it means – a new, deadlier strain of COVID-19 that we have to take seriously

What it really means – the result of the coronavirus acting like a virus

I will advise you ahead of time that I am not a virologist, which makes it easy to dismiss what I’m about to write in this Leftist Lexicon. Leftists love to do this as a means to discredit anyone who isn’t following The Church of Leftist Science. The thing is what I’m about to say is consistent with not only actual science, but with Leftist statements about COVID-19.

Viruses have the ability to mutate, creating new strains of the original virus. These strains can be harder to address because of the potential immunity to existing treatments, stronger and/or more symptoms, and more potential victims. When there is a new variant strain, caution is warranted.

I did some digging into the Delta variant because, well, I’m a science geek. Based on what I’ve found, it appears it’s…not that different from COVID-19. Oh, sure, the usual media talked up the danger like a hype man, but once you overlook the usual suspects and get to the kernel of truth, you see the new strain is the same as the old strain by and large. There are differences that we should be aware of, but it’s not as major as we’re being lead to believe.

So, why is the Left so eager to talk about the Delta variant? I see two major reasons: 1) to make themselves look smart, and 2) to strengthen the power of the state. The first reason is easy to understand. Leftists have to feel like they are the smartest people in the room, no matter where they are. After all, they are the “Party of Science” according to them. By using scientific concepts and terminology, it makes them seems knowledgeable.

The problem is they are often wrong because they don’t understand how science works. Whether it’s Paul Ehrlich, Al Gore, or Michael Mann, the Left has a track record of the coldest of hot takes when it comes to applying scientific principles. Instead, they modify the Scientific Method to achieve whatever goals they want/need in any situation, but it always results in the Left feeling they’re smarter and better than the rest of us.

And that brings us to the second reason. The Left needs to be in control whenever possible, so they will do whatever it takes to retain and grow that control. Once the Left caught on how easy it was to play on people’s fear of COVID-19 to make them do what the Left wanted, they jumped at the chance to not let a crisis go to waste. Hmmm…where have I heard that before?

Anyway, some of the Left’s favorite governors enacted restrictions that made it hard to do anything else but knuckle under. (I’m looking at you, Gretchen Whitmer.) By picking and choosing who or what would be expected to follow the rules, the Left was able to find a way to stifle capitalism, solidify its power base, and avoid consequences for the most part. You might want to ask Andrew Cuomo how that’s working, though.

So, what does this have to do with the Delta variant? It gives the Left an excuse to reinstate the controls they had at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. After all, Leftist Governors lead the country! Granted, it was in killing old people, but leadership is leadership, right?

The best way to combat what the Left sees as inevitable is to be educated, not just on the science, but on your rights as a person. For me, masking and getting the “Fauci Ouchie” are a matter of choice and in some cases a matter of necessity. Whether I do both, one of the two, or neither is my business, and for the record I have done both for mostly personal reasons. If you don’t, so be it. I’m good with that and I hope you’re willing to accept the consequences of your decisions without asking or demanding my sanction or my money. You’re adults.

But the Left can’t handle that. Anyone who knows what they’re worth is a threat to the Leftist hivemind because that person can’t be infantilized and made to believe he/she is incapable of doing anything without Leftists. Once you get that sweet taste of freedom, you don’t go back.

As scary as the Left makes the Delta variant seem, a little research shows the existential danger the Left wants us to believe it is doesn’t quite match up to the actual science. Having said that, be careful out there. I would hate to lose a reader to any form of COVID-19.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

If you listen to the Left for any amount of time (and, to be honest, why would you?), eventually the conversation will come to race. And by “eventually” I mean within microseconds. Recently, there’s been a new term that, surprise surprise, directly connects to race: white rage. Whether it’s CNN’s Brian “Mr. Potato Head” Stetler claiming Fox News’ Tucker Carlson stokes white rage or current Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark “Not Vanilli” Milley testifying the military should take training to avoid white rage, it seems the Left wants to make it a thing, and a racial thing at that.

But, just like with Critical Race Theory, it’s not exactly clear what white rage is. Good thing there’s someone who can cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter. But since that person is off, you’ll have to let me do it.

white rage

What the Left thinks it means – white people’s reaction when their power and influence in the world is threatened, the most important problem in America today

What it really means – an accusation with little actual proof, but a lot of actual racism

As a white man, I get labeled with a lot of shit from the Left based solely on the color of my skin and what they believe what I believe. The Left sees me as a Bible-thumping, flyover country bumpkin who hates gays, blacks, women, albino midget Eskimos who walk with a limp, and so on. Now, to be fair, they are right about the albino midget Eskimo bit, but the rest of it is based off a serious of assumptions the Left has deemed to be true without affirmative proof.

And that’s the same basic principle behind white rage. As Leftists can’t leave a PR crisis untouched, they point to the 1/6 “insurrection” as evidence and bludgeon anyone who supports Donald Trump as someone who is one bad day away from being a mass shooter or insurgent against America. And if we’re not careful, white rage is going to create chaos (and that’s the Left’s job, darn it)!

Now, where have I heard that kind of verbiage before? Wasn’t there a movement in, say, the mid-to-late 90s that were considered to be dangerous crackpots not unlike the people the Left claim are out there waiting to strike? Why, yes. Yes, there was! It was the militia movement, and the rhetoric started to kick into high gear not long after the Oklahoma City bombing. The Left did their best to paint Timothy McVeigh as the typical militia member, even though he was kicked out of his local militia and had a record voting for Democrats, but why let the facts get in the way of a good narrative, right?

Last time I checked, the militia movement of the 90s didn’t cause any of the things the Left said would definitely happen if we didn’t do something right now. If anything, they just wanted to be by themselves to LARP as the National Guard, which is perfectly fine in my book. Just leave me be and don’t ask me to pay for your reindeer games.

Now, the Left is trying to resurrect the fear of militias and spin it into white rage. Within the Leftist hivemind, it works, mainly because a) it reaffirms their preconceived ideas about non-Leftists, and b) most Leftists today may not have even been born in the 90s or were too young to remember Militia Mania. That makes it easier to be successful than a coke dealer working on the Hunter Biden account. But here’s the thing: the fact it’s easy doesn’t make it right. Just like with the militia movement rhetoric, there isn’t anything concrete that suggests white rage is even a thing.

Except if you look at the Left.

Last year showcased a lot of violence and destruction from members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Although the Left swears up and down they weren’t responsible, the mugshots after the arrests show a different story. It seems most of the people arrested were…white. And the majority of BLM members? Also white. Hmmm…destroying property, attacking cops…that sounds a lot like the way the Left characterized 1/6, doesn’t it? And if 1/6 is an example of white rage, logic might lead us to conclude Antifa and BLM are examples of white rage, too.

Of course, this isn’t about logic. This is about pushing a racist narrative because the Left needs to make us believe white people are evil racist bastards. Call me conspiratorial, but I find it interesting the whole white rage concept didn’t get traction until fairly recently during a time when the Left wants to push Critical Race Theory that teaches…white people are evil racist bastards. With the pushback against CRT coming from mostly white parents, the Left appears to have scrambled to find a reason people might be against it and landed on white rage. On a side note, I swear the Left has a giant wheel with derogatory phrases they spin whenever they want to blame whites for something.

There’s a rule of thumb I’ve seen online that applies here. If you replace the racial word with a different race and think it’s racist, then it’s racist. This concept certainly applies to white rage, but there’s a twist. By assigning rage to whites only, the Left suggests no other race can get angry, which diminishes the other races’ agency. Under the Left’s constantly-changing definition of racism, that would be racism.

But in a Rod Serling-esque twist, I have to point out the ones who claim there is white rage…are white Leftists. They seem to have forgotten in their rush to make white rage all the rage who they are.

Normally this is the part where I give you advice on how to deal with the latest Leftist controversy-du-joir. This time there isn’t any advice to give because white rage is going to fall in on itself without us having to lift a finger. There is simply too much implausibility and illogic to adopt at once for it to survive much outside of the Leftist bubble. But should you run into a Leftist bound and determined to talk about white rage, ask them how they felt about the Antifa folks arrested in Portland and how they were predominantly white.

Then ask them to repeat what they said about white rage.