Category: Social Issues

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that inevitably everything bad can and will be pinned on race. Just within the past year or so, everything from chess to Dr. Seuss has been deemed racist by some member of the Left, and not ironically I might add. The reasons for this are simple: 1) it’s identity politics, and 2) they’re morons.

Yet, if someone like me were to try to push back, the Left would accuse me of “white fragility.” Personally, I’m more into blues, but I wasn’t aware fragility was color based these days. I did, however, know it may be Italian.

To keep everyone in the loop on this, let’s explore white fragility in all of its…I would say glory, but there’s nothing glorious about it.

white fragility

What the Left thinks it means – a negative reaction from whites in reaction to people of color pushing back against white-controlled entities

What it really means – racism against whites

The Left will disagree with my definition of white fragility because of their own definition of racism. To them, whites can’t be victims of racism because whites have power, while people of color don’t. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say the cities where Black Lives Matter members/supporters have burned and looted might have a different opinion of how powerless people of color are. Regardless, this notion is at the core of white fragility because it implies whites are scared of people who don’t look like them exercising the rights whites have been able to exercise themselves.

Which, of course, is crap fostered by the Left in their attempts to be the Great White Hope to people of color.

The Left truly believes they are the only ones who can speak for people of color, and too many people believe it even within the POC community. (Apparently a lack of irony is not just a Leftist phenomenon.) Yet, when it comes to white people like me who openly question why race is such a factor in these types of discussions, the strong white Leftists and their POC counterparts all assume it’s because we’re scared of the change they say is inevitable. Yes, whites will no longer control anything and will have to pay for the sins of systemic racism because…reasons.

And really that’s what it comes down to: reasons devoid of reason.

Any pushback against this sort of thinking is deemed as “white fragility,” but it’s not. In today’s society, taking a stand against racism is pretty much the current societal default setting. The issue is being against all racism, not just the acceptable racism against whites that is so pervasive on the Left. Although the Left has watered down racism to the point of Rep. Eric Swalwell’s Presidential aspirations this year, there is still a definition of racism that works pretty well: the idea that one race is superior or inferior to others. The entire concept of white fragility has its foundations in the notion whites are weak and incapable of adjusting to a situation where whites aren’t the majority.

Guess what, Leftists. You’re racists! Congratulations, and don’t forget to grab your racism starter kit before you leave. And since you believe only whites can be racist, you have no defense.

Once you get beyond the delicious irony of white Leftists being the actual racists in this situation, there is another level of delicious irony when you consider Leftists are the ones who say words are violence. Let that sink in for a moment. The people who love to use “white fragility” think words are violence. If that isn’t fragility, I don’t know what is, but it’s good to know I can use my vocabulary to bludgeon a Leftist figuratively and quite possibly literally.

At the end of the day, it’s night, but it’s also the height of white Leftist snobbery to use white fragility as a response to anyone who isn’t down with their imaginary struggle. If anything, it takes a strong person to stand up against the Left’s bullying these days, so fragility isn’t even in the equation. What is in the equation is the lengths the Left and their POC allies will go to protect the Leftist narrative at the expense of the very POCs white Leftists claim to support. Using racist terminology while proclaiming utterly unrelated things as racist weakens the concept of racism, thus making it harder for actual racism to be confronted. And using “white fragility” to dismiss concerns, legitimate or otherwise, doesn’t help. All it does is create divisions where there don’t need to be.

Granted, there are entitled white folks (Karens, Chads, etc.) who can be used as examples of white fragility, and rightly so. As a white (or if you prefer Honkey-American) man, I can tell you most of us are sick of these idiots, too. Not all of us are like that, though. And shouldn’t we avoid condemning an entire group of people because of the actions of a few?

Or does that standard only apply to Black Lives Matter? Asking for a friend.

CHOPped Short

If you had the under in the CHAZ/CHOP betting pool, go to the window to pick up your winnings.

After three weeks of murder, mayhem, and general government incompetence, the Seattle Police Department spent a few minutes of their morning today to retake the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest compound. And I do mean minutes. If they had retreated any faster, the French would have sued for copyright infringement.

The funny thing is their failure was not only imminent, but predictable. In order to be autonomous as CHOP claimed to be, there is a need for personal discipline and a respect for others. Needless to say the Left doesn’t subscribe to either of those. They want what they want when they want it and they don’t care how they get it, but once the bill comes to pay for what they want, the only thing you see of them is the cloud of dust as they leave as quickly as possible.

This is in contrast to the way libertarians (small and capital L) and some conservatives approach the idea of self-governance/autonomy. Although they passionately believe in Man’s natural desire to be free, they also understand the necessity of not infringing on other people’s desires to be free as well. Without the latter, any society built on the former will not succeed.

Although I would hope we would see more of the right-leaning philosophy on autonomy take hold, I’m not confident it will happen. Society today has made a lot of people self-absorbed and unconcerned about the plight of others (which, oddly enough, is kind of what motivated the CHOPpers to start their little social experiment in the first place). We have become so fractured and distant from people who live across the hall, across the street, or across the country that self-governance even on a small scale will be a flop of “Gigli”-esque proportions.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate those little moments of freedom that come not from a government or a warlord, but from the conscious decision to live my life as I see fit with an understanding of the implications of my decisions on others so I do as little harm to them as possible. At a time when we can’t get a chunk of the population to wear masks in public to protect others from possibly catching COVID-19, it’s important we balance rights and responsibilities for no other reason than because it’s the right thing to do for everyone involved. If you’re constantly looking out for number one, you invariably wind up as a piece of number two, if you know what I mean.

And speaking of number two, there will be a lot of that to clean up, literally and figuratively, from the CHOPping grounds, and it won’t be the CHOPpers who get to foot the bill. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a Leftist it’s they never think they have to pay for their failures, no matter how badly they’ve screwed everything up. They’re like the rowdy kids who will always come to a party, but leave right before it’s time to start the clean-up. To the Left, it’s the intentions that matter, not the results. Which is good for the CHOPpers because they accomplished exactly nothing. Bad cops are still out on the streets, good people are still getting murdered, theft and violent crimes continue, and CHOP turned out to be…well, the aforementioned “Gigli”-esque failure it was destined to be.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen what the CHOPpers would have done over the next couple of months, maybe even into the fall when temperatures drop and Seattle’s climate turns a bit cooler and wetter. Oh, well, I’m sure there will be another CHOP site somewhere that will provide me with more giggles. It’s only a matter of time before history repeats itself.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

Have you ever heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences? If not, the gist is sometimes what you want to happen comes with strings attached that you didn’t anticipate. Like eating gas station sushi on a long road trip. You may be happy in the short term, but further down the line you’re going to wind up puking your guts out at a Rest Stop outside Laramie, Wyoming.

Not that that’s ever happened to me, mind you…

Anyway, the Left is experiencing a gas station sushi situation of their own, thanks to a little something called cancel culture. When the Left wants a conservative marginalized from the open market of ideas, they do everything they can to discredit and silence them, expecting them to either apologize (which the Left will never accept) and comply (like confessed liar and Media Matters founder David Brock) or to go silent to avoid further persecution. Now, some prominent Leftist celebrities are watching this practice boomerang against them, and now they’re being held to the same standard they held for others.

And somehow it’s the Right’s fault.

This looks like a good time to look at cancel culture and mock it.

cancel culture

What the Left thinks it means – a movement co-opted by the Right to silence anti-Trump speech

What it really means – the Left not getting the message of 1984

I’m not a fan of silencing people for offending modern sensibilities because it tends to drive their message underground where it can thrive away from the attention of the offended. However, the Left and some members of the Right believe the ends justify the means. They’ve tried with Rush Limbaugh, Chik fil A, Fox News, and others with varying degrees of success. Mostly failure, but I want to be generous.

The entire idea of cancel culture, much like most of Leftist ideas, is absurd at its face. However, with the Left’s dominance of media, those ideas have been given absolute power, and in this case absolute power screws up absolutely. Keep this point in mind because it’s going to get even weirder.

Recently, Leftist celebrities are being called out for using blackface in sketches and shows. Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, Joy Behar, Tina Fey and others are facing legitimate criticism and apologizing for offending people. And in Fey’s case, she’s asking for the episodes of “30 Rock” that used it to be taken off any platform that replays her show. Although the apology and the removal of the offensive material may be enough to satisfy the cancel culture club, it doesn’t change the fact Fey and the producers of “30 Rock” made the decision to allow blackface in the first place.

That may be the biggest shock for the Left right now. Not only have they thought, said, and signed off on racist activities, they’ve championed the very tools of their own destruction…when those tools are used against other people. Although it’s fun to point and laugh (because, believe me, I have), it astounds me how tone-deaf these people are. It’s almost as if they thought they’d never be held to the standards they’ve set for others because their ideology made them immune. They say the right things, they support the right causes, so in their minds, they can’t be batting clean-up behind Adolf Hitler in the World’s Worst People Softball Tournament. It’s almost as if they never expected to get caught and suffer the consequences of their actions.

In other words, they’re all Hillary Clinton, circa 2016.

Leftists have tried to get in front of the cancel culture story by saying it doesn’t exist, but that was only after several people were caught up in cancel culture that the Left decided to say it wasn’t real. Just a teensy bit late on that, kids. Meanwhile those of us who paid attention in history and any literature class that included George Orwell in the reading list could see where this was going because it ends the same in fiction and reality: eventually everyone gets the axe in one form or another. Even the most stalwart believer of an ideology can be called an infidel at some point and, in fact, it’s the Leftist approach to everything. If they can’t find some reason to expel you, they’ll invent one. Paging Juan Williams…

So, how do we fight cancel culture? By not giving into it. The Left need you to be scared of being publicly shunned to force compliance or silence. Social media is a breeding ground for this kind of insanity, so either be completely non-offensive so they can’t find dirt on you or be loud and proud of who you are. Not everyone will be able to be as brash as Candice Owens, so find your comfort level and stick with it. Also, keep your emotions in check. Once you lash out at someone for an opinion that differs yours, you’ve sprung the trap that will allow you to be canceled at some point.

Above all else, though, try to be as intellectually diverse as possible. I don’t like Samuel L. Jackson’s politics, but I enjoy his work as an actor and I would never want him to be censored by anyone. As long as he’ll let me be me, I’ll let him be him. That’s the thing the Left doesn’t get. You don’t have to be in lockstep with everyone you like, and anyone who says you have to is an idiot. By keeping an open mind and accepting not everyone will dance to the beat of your own drum, not only will your life be more open and interesting, but you’ll recognize those who think they can tell you who you should and shouldn’t see are missing out. Plus, if you learn about ideas and concepts outside your comfort zone, you may become a fan of them or at least a better-informed critic.

On top of that, you can prove you’re not an immature brat like the Left. So, double-bonus!

Those Who Do Not Learn from History Are Doomed to Tear Down Statues

As an Iowa boy, I’m familiar with cow-tipping. At the risk of Flyover-Country-splaining, cow-tipping is when people push a cow over so she falls. I’ve never done it, but from what I’ve heard it’s a fun activity, or at least it’s a fun activity for Iowans because we’re just now getting actual entertainment here.

Lately, though, people have taken to statue-tipping because they’re upset with the racism in our history. Some Leftists on Twitter have even offered suggestions on how to topple statutes or, in one case, the Washington Monument. As humorous as this seems, allow me to take it to Orwellian heights while attempting to sprinkle in a bit of humor along the way.

As the debate over whether statues of Confederate generals deserve to be preserved rages right now, there is an underlying issue that’s a bit tougher to overcome, although the Left finds it easy to disregard. I’m talking about American history. Like it or not, our past is full of incidents that make us look like David Duke, but it’s still our history. We fought a civil war at least in part on racial issues, and although the Confederacy lost, it’s hard for me to get past the notion they are still part of American history.

“But we’re not trying to erase history,” Leftists love to say. “History will still be taught.” Except it’s not being taught well in today’s public schools, thanks to people who agree with taking down statues of people they find objectionable. The Founding Fathers, for example, aren’t being taught as seriously because they owned slaves and, thus, aren’t worthy of study or consideration (according to Leftists). Yet, without one of these slave-owners, we might not have expressed our independence from England, nor would we likely have had a Constitution. Instead of teaching these perspectives, the Founding Fathers are being “memory-holed.”

George Orwell is holding on Line 1, kids.

This is not to elevate the Confederacy to Founding Fathers status. Instead, it’s to underscore just how important it is to consider the impact imperfect people have had on our nation. If we pretend Thomas Jefferson didn’t exist because he owned slaves (as well as getting freaky-deaky with at least one of them), we erase the positive impact he had. With Confederate generals, that argument is a much harder sell, but the point remains. When we erase history on the basis of current sensibilities, we do a grave disservice to the past, present, and future.

And that’s where the Left gets it completely wrong.

Toppling a statue of a Confederate general may be righteous in the Left’s eyes, but it doesn’t address the underlying issues that caused the statue to be erected in the first place, nor does it eliminate any good that person did. Like it or not, Robert E. Lee was a military strategist. Even if he was on the losing side, that can’t be taken away from him, no matter how many statues you wreck or history lessons you don’t teach in school. Now what? You’ve pretty much destroyed public property for nothing. Brilliant!

Now, here’s where the Left’s logic about offensive statues will come back to bite them in the backside. As with any movement, eventually the winds of change will make it obsolete and the ideals of said movement can be used to justify actions never intended by the movement to be done. Put another way, the statues you topple today may get erected again and other statues you like will get toppled tomorrow, and you have only yourselves to blame. Congratulations! You’ve not only accomplished nothing, but you’ve opened the door for others to take the same actions that will accomplish nothing. But hey, at least you owned the Right, right?

This next part is a bit of a tangent, but it relates to the matter at hand because it shows how little the Left knows about history and how little they regard context. Some of the same folks who like to topple statutes are trying to get Huckleberry Finn banned because of its frequent use of the n-word. Of course, these morons haven’t taken the time to either a) read the book, or b) understand the reason why the word was used. Mark Twain used the language of the time (of which he was familiar) to expose the idiocy of the racism shown in the book. Of the characters, Jim was by far the most noble while the white characters (including Huck for a time) were irredeemable. That’s a context you miss if you’re just looking for the n-word. Not to mention, this was tried back in the 1990s and it failed. As my old high school history teacher used to say, “Those who do not learn from history get to take it again next semester.”

It appears a lot of Leftists skipped that class the second time around as well as the first.

Other Leftists are arguing the removal of these statues on the basis of them not being art. May I introduce you to the Right and their attempts to remove the works of Robert Mappelthorpe back in the late 80s and early 90s? You guys are going to get along great!

The thing about art is it’s subjective, and the thing about being an adult is you’re not required to like everything and you can ignore what you don’t like. Hear that, Leftists? You don’t have to like everything and you can ignore it. If you get upset over a statue, first of all you have much bigger problems than just the statue, and second of all you can walk away. Tearing down monuments you don’t like is a childish solution to a non-problem. If you want to tackle racism, do it, but don’t do it by acting like a child.

That’s why the toppling of statues today (even people like Ulysses S. Grant who fought in the aforementioned Civil War) is, to borrow a Leftist term, problematic. And why it’s extremely humorous to me.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

I had a piece already written about a lighter subject, but recent events out of Minnesota changed the best-laid plans of mice and bloggers.

When four members of the Minneapolis Police Department detained and eventually killed George Floyd for attempting to pass counterfeit money, it started off a chain of events resulting in property being destroyed, people being injured, and general discord around the world. And, as you might expect, politics got injected into the situation early and often.

Enter Representative Ilhan Omar and the other members of “The Squad.” The Minnesota Congresswoman took to Twitter to help promote donations to ActBlue.com, a Leftist website, under the auspices of racial justice. What is that? I’m glad you asked, otherwise I’m out a topic for the Lexicon.

racial justice

What the Left thinks it means – getting justice for disenfranchised people of color

What it really means – tilting the scales of justice to favor people of color at the expense of actual justice

There is a reason statues of Lady Justice wear a blindfold; justice is supposed to be blind. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been when it comes to police officers and black criminals. In the former case, sentences tend to be on the light side, while in the latter case, those sentences are harsher. And it’s been going on for far too long.

Hence, the Left’s renewed call for racial justice. This is another term the Left devised that combines a powerful word that appeals to most Americans (justice) and adds a politically-charged modifier (racial) designed to advance an agenda. In this case, the goal is to take any negative feelings about racism and apply it to the judicial system to allow blacks and other minorities a chance to experience what the Left thinks/knows whites have enjoyed for so long.

The scary part is the Left has a point. Blacks and whites do not have equal justice in America, no matter how hard we try to ignore it. And before you start throwing out statistics about what percentage of blacks commit what percentage of crimes, the fact it took days to arrest the officer who choked George Floyd and at least contributed to his death shows how screwed up our justice system is.

Having said that, the Left’s solution isn’t to fix the problems, but screw them up even more by using race as even more of a factor than it already is. Of course, that’s by design. One of the cornerstones of Leftist ideology is to undermine the American legal system and institute a global legal system, an idea most American Presidents have rejected. But, the Left doesn’t give up that easily and has made progress towards their goals. The very fact we have four Representatives on record advocating for racial justice in an attempt to raise funds is proof of how emboldened they feel right now.

By adding race into a court proceeding, it guarantees the results will not be just because it prevents the jury from doing its sworn job. It’s not to try to figure out what race deserves what punishment; it’s to determine guilt or innocence based on the law and the arguments presented by the attorneys involved. Any thought outside of those two elements muddies the waters, making actual justice harder to obtain.

Granted, I’m a white guy and have undoubtedly received preferential treatment because of it, even though I don’t want it. We are supposed to be equal under the law, so I prefer to be treated equally. No, that doesn’t mean I want to be treated as poorly as blacks have. It means I want blacks to be on an even playing field with me. Racial justice doesn’t strive to do that. Instead, it strives to make race a major factor in determining whether I go free if I’m found not guilty or punished more severely if I’m found guilty.

In trying to bring racial justice to fruition, the Left has made justice racist. Good job, I guess?

Meanwhile, we should not be scared to point out the disparities between how blacks and whites are treated. It doesn’t start with looting, violence, and vandalism. It’s starts with a conversation so we can learn from each other and build a stronger relationship as a result. And, yes, that means we white folk are going to have to be willing to listen and accept how blacks have been treated overall, but it will lead to a much greater result, one that will make The Squad’s call for racial justice obsolete.

Fear of Germs

I was trying to write this article about how our society has become sterlized with a paranoid level of fear when it comes to germs over past several decades. But instead of writing it myself I’m just going to give credit to guest author and let him tell the story himself.

So here is the transcript of the late George Carlin from his You Are All Diseased, the 16th album and 11th HBO live broadcast stand-up special, recorded on February 6, 1999 at the Beacon Theater in New York City. Thank you Mr Carlin.

Please note that this transcript contains adult language. You are warned.

What we have now is a completely neurotic population obsessed with security and safety and crime and drugs and cleanliness and hygiene and germs… there’s another thing… germs. Where did this sudden fear of germs come from in this country? Have you noticed this?

The media, constantly running stories about all the latest infections – salmonella, e-coli, hanta virus, bird flu – and Americans, they panic easily so now everybody’s running around, scrubbing this and spraying that and overcooking their food and repeatedly washing their hands, trying to avoid all contact with germs. It’s ridiculous and it goes to ridiculous lengths.

In prisons, before they give you a lethal injection, they swab your arm with alcohol! It’s true! Yeah! Well, they don’t want you to get an infection! And you could see their point; wouldn’t want some guy to go to hell and be sick! It would take a lot of the sportsmanship out of the whole execution.

Fear of germs… why these fucking pussies! You can’t even get a decent hamburger anymore! They cook the shit out of everything now cause everybody’s afraid of food poisoning! Hey, where’s your sense of adventure? Take a fucking chance will you? You know how many people die in this country from food poisoning every year? 9000… that’s all; it’s a minor risk! Take a fucking chance… bunch of goddamn pussies!

Besides, what do you think you have an immune system for? It’s for killing germs! But it needs practice… it needs germs to practice on. So listen! If you kill all the germs around you, and live a completely sterile life, then when germs do come along, you’re not gonna be prepared. And never mind ordinary germs, what are you gonna do when some super virus comes along that turns your vital organs into liquid shit? I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do… you’re gonna get sick, you’re gonna die, and you’re gonna deserve it cause you’re fucking weak and you got a fucking weak immune system!

Let me tell you a true story about immunization okay? When I was a little boy in New York City in the 1940s, we swam in the Hudson River and it was filled with raw sewage okay? We swam in raw sewage! You know… to cool off! And at that time, the big fear was polio; thousands of kids died from polio every year but you know something? In my neighborhood, no one ever got polio! No one! Ever! You know why? Cause we swam in raw sewage! It strengthened our immune systems! The polio never had a prayer; we were tempered in raw shit!

So personally, I never take any special precautions against germs. I don’t shy away from people that sneeze and cough, I don’t wipe off the telephone, I don’t cover the toilet seat, and if I drop food on the floor, I pick it up and eat it! Yes I do. Even if I’m at a sidewalk café! In Calcutta! The poor section! On New Year’s morning during a soccer riot! And you know something? In spite of all that so-called risky behavior, I never get infections, I don’t get them, I don’t get colds, I don’t get flu, I don’t get headaches, I don’t get upset stomach, you know why? Cause I got a good strong immune system and it gets a lot of practice.

My immune system is equipped with the biological equivalent of fully automatic military assault rifles with night vision and laser scopes, and we have recently acquired phosphorous grenades, cluster bombs, and anti-personnel fragmentation mines. So when my white blood cells are on patrol recon ordering my blood stream seeking out strangers and other undesirables, if they see any, ANY suspicious looking germs of any kind, they don’t fuck around! They whip out their weapons; they wax the motherfucker and deposit the unlucky fellow directly into my colon! Into my colon! There’s no nonsense, there’s no Miranda warning, there’s none of that “three strikes and you’re out” shit, first defense, BAM… into the colon you go!

And speaking of my colon, I want you to know I don’t automatically wash my hands every time I go to the bathroom okay? Can you deal with that? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. You know when I wash my hands? When I shit on them! That’s the only time. And you know how often that happens? Tops, TOPS, 2-3 times a week tops! Maybe a little more frequently over the holidays, you know what I mean?

And I’ll tell you something else my well-scrubbed friends… you don’t need to always need to shower every day, did you know that? It’s overkill, unless you work out or work outdoors, or for some reason come in intimate contact with huge amounts of filth and garbage every day, you don’t always need to shower. All you really need to do is to wash the four key areas; armpits, asshole, crotch, and teeth. Got that? Armpits, asshole, crotch, and teeth. In fact, you can save yourself a whole lot of time if you simply use the same brush on all four areas!