Another week has passed, and another Leftist idea has taken hold in the aftermath of the George Floyd death. Admittedly the original sentencing for the main officer involved would have made Brock Turner’s look like he was the victim of the Spanish Inquisition (which, by the way, no one expects), but the reaction to this has been both positive and negative. On the positive side, America and Minneapolis have taken a long look at police tactics and how to address situations when officers step over the line. On the negative side, a new idea has taken hold in Leftist circles: defund the police.
Most of us are behind the former, but unfortunately too many are getting behind the latter. That’s why it’s important we understand what the Left wants so we can develop ways to combat it.
Oh, and so we can mock it.
defund the police
What the Left thinks it means – introducing necessary reforms so police departments can better serve citizens of color
What it really means – defunding the police
I’ve said the Left loves to control the language in situations like this, but they are really putting in some overtime to get people to believe the words they’re hearing don’t mean what they say. This isn’t easy, mainly because of the number of Leftists actually saying we should defund the police and have it handled either by a higher level of government or just have no police at all.
We’ve seen examples of both. Camden, New Jersey, eliminated its police force and created a county-level police force. To be fair, the numbers look a lot better. Whether it’s because or in spite of Camden’s efforts is a matter of opinion. Crimes nationally have dropped faster than Stacey Abrams’ hints she wants to be Vice President and some residents aren’t happy the police force doesn’t live close enough to the neighborhoods they police to understand the problems. Oh, and some think it doesn’t reflect the diversity of the community well enough.
As far as the no police option, we saw that working at UC Berkeley in 2017. Sure, they still have a police department, but they pretty much let student rioters make a mess of things due to a “hands off” policy where officers weren’t allowed to arrest criminals. We’re also seeing the same situation play out in Seattle, Washington, right now, with a group calling itself “Free Capitol Hill” creating its own community-within-a-community called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. And, as you might expect, it’s been a clusterfuck. The best part of it is these morons were allowed into City Hall because…a Councilmember let them in. And to repay her, the protesters called for the Mayor to step down because reasons.
As you might expect, the Free Capitol Hill group is pro-defund the police.
But you’d never hear it from the Left’s mouthpieces in the media and their designated political flunkies like the Socialist Socialite. They’re trying to spin “defund the police” into “reform the police.” The main goal is simple: get people to believe what is being repeated isn’t the real goal of those calling to defund the police. Yeah, about that. Seems there are too many people on both sides calling bullshit or at least saying the messaging is wrong and hurtful to the Left. Not that they necessarily disagree, mind you, just that the message can get interpreted in a way that makes the Left look anti-police.
Which, of course, they are.
I wish I could say that was an attempt at humor via hyperbole, but I can’t. (And, yes, I know I just typed it, so don’t write in about it, okay?) Leftists are on the front lines of this controversy because people are talking about it, but what have they actually done? Demonized police officers as a whole for the actions of too many bad cops. Granted, those too many bad cops shot themselves in the feet with a Howitzer, but their actions have been used time and time again to tarnish the reputations of many police officers. Plus, hating cops guarantees the Left will be able to garner votes and money from people of color, who also aren’t fond of the men and women in blue. Few, if any, Leftists even stop to consider they treat police officers more harshly than they treat Muslims (i.e. #NotAllMuslims after any terrorist attack perpetrated by Muslim radicals).
The funny thing is police unions give a ton of money to Democrats in both the House and the Senate, while the officers themselves are currently giving more money to President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans probably for the same reason flies respond better to honey than to sulfuric acid: self-preservation. The rank and file police know it’s the Right who support them with actions and words, and they know their unions spend dues to help candidates who don’t support them ultimately. Now with the defund the police idea catching fire, they get to see the disconnect between leaders and members play out yet again.
However, we must acknowledge this momentous occasion. This is the first time the Left hasn’t thrown money at a problem in an attempt to fix it. Well, this isn’t exactly true. The defund the police side wants the money spent on police spent on other items, which represents a laundry list of Leftist causes. Public education, ending misogyny and racism, and universal health care, to name just three I’ve seen being tossed around. How universal health care helps make communities safer isn’t exactly spelled out, but I’m sure they’re working on it…eventually. Right after they get done rioting…I mean protesting.
That’s par for the course with Leftists. They sow the seeds of a problem to exploit it later for personal gain, and in this case, it’s honest police officers getting caught in the crossfire. More often than not, too, it’s never those who created the problem in the first place who get the axe. Politicians find ways to keep people under their thumbs, and police unions are usually untouchable. Yet, who are the ones making decisions on what to support and how officers get trained? The answer is, of course, Donald Trump because he’s always the bad guy these days.
Unfortunately for them, this isn’t something the Left can blame President Trump for saying and doing. They’ll try, but it won’t work. This is their baby and they’re going to have to be the ones who figure out how to change its diaper.
In the meantime, we can be safe in the knowledge we can both support police officers and want the bad ones to get their comeuppance. It’s not an either-or proposition, kids. If the Left gets its way, your local police department will wind up like teachers’ unions: incapable of firing the bad to make room for the good, which is a goal we can all support. But we can’t do that by defunding or abolishing the police.
What may make a difference is for police officers to be empowered to engage their communities and prevent bad cops from getting a Get Out of Jail Free card when they screw up. The key will be to reducing the fear and distrust between police and the people they are supposed to protect. It does no one any good to know there are people living in fear or hate because of what the police do to the criminal element. It’s going to be a lot of work, but if it helps create a better working relationship, I’m all for it.
Let’s take the Left at their ever-changing word. They want police departments eliminated through the death of a thousand paper cuts made worse by red tape. If they get what they want, we will all feel the pain.
Tag: leftist lexicon
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
After the recent killing of George Floyd, a forgotten figure of the Black Lives Matter movement came back into the limelight: Colin Kaepernick. The former starting quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers became a darling of the BLM crowd by taking a knee during the playing of the National Anthem (and for wearing socks depicting police officers as pigs) to protest the killing of black people by police. At the time, he was praised and criticized and now it seems he was ahead of the curve, even though he was riding the pine at his former job for sucking.
With Kaepernick’s reemergence, Leftists are coming out and saying we owe him an apology, a starting quarterback position, and back pay. There are people making as much on two knees as Kaepernick could make on one, and what he’s doing won’t get you arrested! But is he worth the accolades? Let’s take a look.
Colin Kaepernick
What the Left thinks it means – an early hero of Black Lives Matter who was blackballed by the NFL for his stance on police brutality
What it really means – a quarterback whose skills have been overshadowed by his advocacy
When he started, Colin Kaepernick was a one-of-a-kind quarterback. He was able to lead the 49ers to a handful of NFC championship games and an appearance in the Super Bowl, where he lead the team to a disheartening loss to the Baltimore Ravens (which just happens to be your humble correspondent’s favorite football team). After that, he experienced either a decline in his skills, defenses started figuring out his tendencies and exploited them to their benefit, or his offense wasn’t as potent as it was when he was successful. As a result, he wasn’t as effective as he once was and lost his starting quarterback position, even though he felt he had the skills to play as a starter.
This is where things get a little controversial. Kaepernick started dating a woman in the off season who turned him from a mediocre-starting-quarterback to a mediocre-former-starting-quarterback-with-a-cause. And out of that cause came a lot of trouble for him and headaches for the NFL. After he tried to test the free agency market and came up empty, allegations of his being blackballed flew around like errant passes from Kaepernick.
Was he blackballed? Not really. He insisted he was a top-tier talent without the numbers to back it up, and he refused to accept a back-up quarterback position. Oh, and there was the attitude problems and controversial statements supporting Fidel Castro…while he was trying to get a job with the Miami Dolphins. I will say this. What Kaepernick lacked in reading the room, he more than made up in positive press coverage. To say he became more beloved by people who would normally consider football barbaric (and, to be fair, anything short of checkers is too barbaric for the Left) would be an understatement.
And that’s how he’s made his money since deciding not to play football (i.e. when no NFL team would sign him because, well, he’s a PR nightmare in crappy socks). He’s become a professional victim, even though his ego/stupidity made him a victim in the first place. Since he’s involved in a Leftist cause, however, his defenders will overlook the obvious flaws in his story of victimhood. After all, there are black people being shot by police all the time, right? Wellll…that’s not strictly true. Crime statistics show police most often shoot…white criminals. And it’s not always white cops doing the killing, either. Thanks to diversity (something the Left claims to embrace), police departments have officers of various races. In fact, only 2 of the police officers involved in the George Floyd matter were white.
None of this diminishes the fact far too many people are getting killed by police officers, regardless of race. Nor does it excuse the racism evident in some police departments. These are real issues that fuel the division in this country and acts as justification for all sides to distrust each other. If we are make any headway, we have to call out the bad faith actors and praise those who are upholding the best in people.
And that’s why I’m calling out Colin Kaepernick and his Leftist enablers. I know the perfect is the enemy of the good, but Kaepernick is neither. He took advantage of a bad situation to create a new job opportunity for himself when his job at the time wasn’t working out the best and his options were as limited as his ability to evolve as a quarterback. And I’m guessing he hasn’t improved on his existing skill set during his extended off-season. Even though his cause has gained traction, it wasn’t because of him. If anything, it occurred without his presence being necessary. Although the Left can remember the glory days of him taking a knee, the truth remains he was merely a replaceable cog in an already existing machine.
As far as his Leftist enablers go, he doesn’t deserve back pay, a starting quarterback job, or an apology because he hasn’t earned any of it. He hasn’t played for a few years because no team would sign him. That’s not the NFL’s fault, but it is Kaepernick’s fault for not realizing his limitations. If he could play like he did prior to the Super Bowl he lost and shown he has a more level head than he did before taking a knee, there are teams right now who could use a good quarterback or at least someone who could do a good job mentoring the next generation of quarterbacks. And if football was no longer an option, he has a degree in business management that he could use…or is he using it right now to leverage his self-imposed victimhood into a lucrative, albeit somewhat dishonest, career?
In other words, Colin Kaepernick is playing Leftists for fools so he can enrich himself, and if Leftists have their way, he will succeed. But, hey, at least they’re “woke”.
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.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
There are times when I have to really dig to find Leftist Lexicon subjects that will excite, entertain, and inform you, gentle readers. This week is not one of them, and I have former Vice President Joe Biden to thank for it! During an online interview on The Breakfast Club, Vice President Biden said “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” That’s bad enough on its own, but at the time he said it, he was speaking to a young black man, and his tone was, to put it mildly, scolding. After Biden’s campaign surrogates and members of the media (who are pretty much the same people) tried to convince people the former Vice President’s sentiments weren’t racist, he later apologized…to a completely different group of blacks.
The Left pins some of its hopes for 2020 Presidential and Congressional victories on the black vote, which has been predominantly Democrat for a couple of generations now. However, the 2016 Presidential election showed blacks moving away from the Democrats and warming up to the possibility of voting for a Republican, or at least voting for Donald Trump. With this key voting bloc being so important to the Left, it’s time we take a closer look at it.
the black vote
What the Left thinks it means – black voters who have been disenfranchised from society due to racism and classism, a key component to any campaign
What it really means – black voters who the Left thinks can be convinced to overlook their mistreatment from the Left by throwing money at them and giving lip service to their concerns
Before I begin, I realize I’m white (or Honkey-American, if you prefer). To many, that makes my commentary on blacks as valid as Elizabeth Warren’s claims to be Native American. If that’s what you think, that’s fine, but I think I have some insights that you won’t get anywhere else (mainly because I’m the only one crazy/stupid enough to advance them).
The Left has taken blacks for granted for quite a while now, and with good reason (at least to them). The Left’s default position is blacks, or any minority for that matter, need people to speak up for them within the current power structure. Barring electing people of a certain color who parrot the Left’s squawking points, that duty falls to…rich white Leftists. Funny how that works out, isn’t it? Either you have to be a rich white Leftist to speak for minorities or talk and act like one to get ahead.
Even for a Honkey-American dude like me, that’s messed up.
For all the talk from the Left about respecting a person’s agency, they simply don’t apply it. Then again, the Left doesn’t actually care about the plight of anyone outside of their cul de sac in their gated communities. Remember the Flint water situation? Still hasn’t been addressed yet, even though Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, is Governor. And who does that affect most? Blacks, unfortunately. Granted, the Right has been as effective as Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment of the President at attracting black votes, but in recent years we have seen black conservatives and Republicans become more visible, for lack of a better term. And, of course, white Leftists either pretend they don’t exist or call them racial sellouts.
But the Left is better on racial issues. Just ask them.
This may sound like a “not all X” statement, but black voters aren’t a monolith. They may tend to vote Democrat, but there are plenty who not only see through the Left’s high-minded rhetoric, but actively push back. And, much like their white counterparts, each has his or her own style. Whether you like sober and intellectual rhetoric like Dr. Thomas Sowell or the take-no-crap-nor-prisoners style of Candice Owens, you will find a greater diversity among black conservatives than you find among Leftists, let alone black Leftists.
That’s how Donald Trump was able to do better with black voters in 2016 than Hillary Clinton. Well, that, and she’s a horrible candidate. Trump not only reached out to the black community, but he offered them an opportunity to take a long, hard look at their environment to see if they wanted the change Barack Obama promised, but never quite delivered. In his time as President, it’s hard to overlook the strides Trump has made to improve conditions in the black community and act on some of the issues they’ve been talking about for years, like prison and sentencing reform. If black voters look at actions instead of words, they have the opportunity to put Donald Trump back in the White House.
And it’s that possibility that scares the Left. Even though Joe Biden walked back his comments and his fans and the media (again, pretty much the same people) are trying to turn this situation into a non-issue, it is an issue on a grander scale. Biden tried to wave it off as his being “cavalier,” but one has to ask why he felt comfortable saying it in the moment. And we can’t overlook the dismissive and scolding tone of the initial statement. Within the context of the moment, it doesn’t make a good case for black voters to pull the lever for Biden.
Also, this opens him up to a lot of scrutiny of his past statements. Spoiler Alert: Joe Biden has made some questionable statements about blacks, which will certainly be used as attack ads by the Trump campaign. Plus, there’s the snubbing of up-and-coming Leftist superstar and self-identified Governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams. During a recent joint interview, Biden had a chance to introduce her as his running mate, only to ask others (read: white Leftist women) to be vetted for the position.
Looks like Abrams isn’t the only person who will be relegated to self-identified leadership in the near future.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
If there’s a figure in the Trump Administration that is a lightning rod of criticism (outside of the President himself), it’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Some of the criticism (she doesn’t have an education background) is legitimate, while some of it (she wants to take away victims’ rights on college campuses) is as valid as a Nigerian prince’s email. It’s not secret Secretary DeVos has been pushing for changes to Title IX that would give accused sexual assault attackers the opportunity to defend themselves against allegations.
Enter our good friends, the American Civil Liberties Union. For decades, they have championed rules of evidence and due process. What did they do? They…sided with victims’ rights group and filed a lawsuit against Secretary DeVos to try to prevent the proposed Title IX changes. Yes, you read that right. The ACLU came down against due process on college campuses.
If you’re still scratching your head over this, keep reading. I have a lot to unpack here.
ACLU
What the Left thinks it means – an organization whose sole purpose is to defend civil liberties against those who would seek to undermine them
What it really means – an organization whose commitment to civil liberties is spotty at best these days
Before we get into the specifics of the lawsuit against Secretary DeVos, it’s important to understand the ACLU isn’t what it used to be. Throughout much of its history in the 20th Century, it defended everyone from conscientious objectors to neo-Nazis. Their commitment to civil liberties was unquestioned, and justifiably so.
Even so, there were parts that would cause fans of civil liberties to take pause. Their commitment to the Second Amendment is weaker than Richard Simmons’ handshake. Their interpretation of the freedom of religion section of the First Amendment pretty much ignores the whole “Congress shall make no law” verbiage and comes down that any entity even remotely funded by Congress can’t express any religious sentiments (well, except for Islam because…reasons).
If these were the only issues, the ACLU could skate past any criticism. Yeaaaah, about that. There are a lot of issues beyond that. In recent years, the ACLU has decided to give up its commitment to civil liberties for everyone to whatever civil liberties the Left wants to promote this week. In other words, the ACLU has gone from the American Civil Liberties Union to Always Cucking to Leftist Underlings.
Which brings us to the situation with Title IX. Previous Administrations attempted to walk a tightrope between protecting equal treatment of male and female students and maintaining a common sense approach to enforcing that equal treatment. Then, President Barack Obama came along and decided due process on colleges campuses was best handled by letting people not in the legal profession hold kangaroo courts where the accused is presumed guilty even if proven innocent. But remember, President Obama is a Constitutional scholar and the smartest man to ever be President (without knowing what was going on without watching the news), so the Left thought it was okay. Besides, men are icky, amirite? How dare Betsy DeVos try to prevent colleges and universities from trampling on Constitutional rights in the act of sweeping bad press under the rug?
Although I have some misgivings about Secretary DeVos, she’s in the right here, and for the ACLU to ignore their previous stances in defense of due process shows how far left they’ve gone. Yes, there are scumbags like Brock Turner on college campuses, but there are also scumbags like “Mattress Girl” who invented sexual assault charges out of whole cloth and were rewarded for it by the same Leftists who tell us repeatedly victims tell the truth. The fact there is such a dichotomy in dealing with something as serious as sexual assault under the auspices of Title IX with the backing of a civil liberties group should have more people outraged than there are.
I’m sure no one from the ACLU will be reading this, but it has to be said: you have utterly lost your ever-loving minds (and I say this as someone who remembers when a couple of your members went to bat for NAMBLA). Civil liberties aren’t subject to ideological litmus tests; either you’re all in or all out. What’s truly scary is what impact this lawsuit will have on justice as a whole. Sure, your position is that relaxing the protections you say are in Title IX will undercut sexual assault victims and make them feel as though they won’t be believed, but there is another party in this equation that will definitely get the shaft if you get what you want. The falsely accused get railroaded under the current system precisely because their civil liberties are ignored. They don’t get to face their accusers, offer an alternate opinion of what happened, or even have an attorney to cross-examine the accusers (if they’re even allowed to represent the accused in the first place). At the risk of invoking the wrath of “whataboutism” from the Left, I would say you would be far less forgiving if this happened in a courtroom in, say, Alabama.
And that’s the problem.
When you base your commitment to civil liberties on what will get you more Leftist street cred, you erroneously conclude only the Left cares about civil liberties. News Flash for you, kids. They don’t care about civil liberties until they can find a way to get support and money for supporting it, and it seems you’re okay with it.
For the purposes of this point, I did a quick search to see how the ACLU responded to Senator Kamala Harris’ practices of mass incarceration of blacks while she was Attorney General of California. How many hits did I get? If you guessed 0, you’d be right! But I did find a lot of press releases praising her work in the Senate defending “protesters of color” from surveillance efforts. Just a bit of a disconnect there, kids.
The ACLU should no longer be considered the benchmark for the protection of civil liberties because they’ve long since given up any pretense of living up to the principles their name suggests they have. And with their recent lawsuit against Betsy DeVos, they’ve brought their own backhoe so they can bury the last remnants of their credibility.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Although COVID-19 put the kibosh on a lot of festivities this year, we still had the Pulitzer Prizes awarded. Aren’t we lucky? Among the wieners…I mean winners were reporters who wrote about global climate change being bad, Vladimir Putin being bad, and President Donald Trump being bad. You know, the same topics the media report on during any day ending with a Y.
And speaking of Y, why are these reporters winning an award for journalistic excellence when there is very little deviation in the subject matter? That, dear readers, is a fine topic of discussion.
the Pulitzer Prize
What the Left thinks it means – a prestigious award given to the very best in the journalism field
What it really means – an award as worthless as the reporters who win them these days
I wouldn’t want to be a journalist or a reporter today. The pay sucks, the hours are as erratic as Joe Biden going off script, and more often than not the only time you get recognized is when you screw up or get nominated for a Pulitzer. And more often than not, you get known for the former because most people don’t care about the latter.
So, why should we care? The people who are getting nominated are the ones who have an incredible, albeit waning somewhat, amount of power to shape narratives. There was a recent story that spread like wildfire that President Trump had a financial interest in a company producing hydroxychloroquine, a drug he promoted as a potential treatment for COVID-19. The press reported it without highlighting the fact the interest was 1) part of a mutual fund, and 2) so financially insignificant he could have found more money under his couch cushions. Even after the facts came out, people believed the initial truncated reporting.
And we’re no longer just dealing with half-truths being heralded, either. One of this year’s Pulitzers went to Nikole Hannah-Jones for the 1619 Project, a major New York Times undertaking reviewing the history of slavery in America. And by “reviewing,” I mean “making shit up.” One of the major contentions Hannah-Jones made was the American Revolution was fought to keep slavery alive here. Yeah, nothing about taxation without representation, unfair treatment of the colonists, and, oh yeah, “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World” that sparked the American Revolution (and included the death of Crispus Attucks, who just happened to be black). It was totes about slavery, yo!
Yet, in spite of the fact historians called out the multiple historical inaccuracies and Hannah-Jones promised to revise her derisive drivel before it gets published as a book, the Pulitzer Prize Board shrugged its collective shoulders and gave her the award anyway. Granted, it was for Commentary and not actual reporting, but the fact she was rewarded for making up easily refuted shit should tell you all you need to know about the Pulitzer Prize and journalism in general today.
While the New York Times can pat itself on the back for winning it, the real payoff is the credibility it gives them with fans and the general public. Joe Sixpack may not be able to name many, if any, Pulitzer winners, but they may recognize the name and extrapolate it means something good for the recipients. But we shouldn’t let the award dazzle us into thinking the Times is worth a damn. Let’s not forget the Times keeps Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman on staff to write about economics, and he’s an idiot on the subject. Then again, it would explain how Hannah-Jones got her job…
In preparation for this week’s Lexicon, I did a little research on past Pulitzer winners, as well as the members who decide who get them. (The sacrifices I make for you…) To put it mildly, it’s mostly a Leftist circle jerk. There are the occasional exceptions to the rule, but it’s safe to say there are some real journalists getting shafted so the “right” people win and the media outlets they work for can pretend they’re actually doing something great for the journalism field.
Of course, they’re not. The profession has undergone a death by a thousand newspaper cuts, combined with a push (or in some cases a gentle nudge) to advance an agenda at the expense of the truth. Nowadays, bloggers like your humble correspondent are the ones digging through the layers of bullshit to get to the heart of a story and then tell it to the world. And we do it without killing trees or brain cells.
That’s more than I can say for the Pulitzer Prize “winners” this year.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Since Tara Reade came forward with allegations former Vice President Joe Biden sexually assaulted her, the Left has been in two modes: attack the accuser and the Right, and defend a man who in on video sniffing females’ hair. When people of all political stripes point out the Left’s double standard, the Left talks about “fake outrage” and suggests the people calling them out don’t really care about women, just scoring political points.
You know, like they did with Brett Kavanaugh?
However, it is interesting to look at how the Left uses outrage to achieve ideological goals. Before we do that, let’s define the term.
outrage
What the Left thinks it means – an expression of righteous anger over a grave injustice
What it really means – the rhetorical equivalent of holding your breath to get your way
Today’s society is an emotional minefield. Say something, do something, or believe something that offends a Leftist’s feefees, and you are subject to a world of hurt. If you’re lucky, they will stalk you, find out every piece of information they can about you and release it to the world, protest in front of your house, leave threatening messages for you and your family, contact your employer to get you fired, and make you look like Sybil’s crazier cousin. Just think of what they might do if you did something really bad!
This is only possible due to outrage. Leftists love mobs because they give the impression of popular opinion without the niggling little detail of confirming whether the mob actually represents popular opinion. The other aspect of this is volume, as in loudness. A mob can make a lot of noise, which underlines the impression of public opinion being on its side. It, too, fails to go the extra step to confirm whether the public agrees with the mob.
Let’s look at ANTIFA, for example. This group of happy-go-lucky miscreants make a lot of noise and come out in droves, and the Left uses them to justify their positions on social injustice. It’s a win-win for them…until ANTIFA starts breaking the law and the Left has to pretend they don’t agree with ANTIFA’s methods (Spoiler Alert: they do). And all of this is made possible through outrage.
And, unfortunately, outrage works. Humans have a natural desire to be accepted by a community, and anything that threatens that makes us defensive. Imagine a bunch of blue-haired pink pussy hat wearing Leftists appearing outside your house saying you were Adolf Hitler. The most obvious response is to deny it and try to persuade others (and possibly the mob) you aren’t. Some will believe you, but most will either keep quiet or agree with the mob to avoid having the mob come after them. Or at least to try to get the blue-haired pink pussy hat brigade to stay out of their begonias.
Here’s the funny thing: the Left is always outraged about something, which is as close to a perpetual motion machine as we will see in our lifetimes. As a result, the world outside of their ideological bubble will tick them off at the drop of a microaggression, and we will all have to walk through the resulting minefield while wearing clown shoes. It’s not a matter of if we’ll offend them; it’s a matter of when.
This brings us back to fake outrage, which is a way for the Left to defend themselves against those who see what they do as fake. The Left believes all of their motives are noble and anyone who doesn’t agree is ignoble. Therefore, all of their fake outrage is real and all of our real outrage is fake. And, yes, I realize this makes no sense, but the Left don’t care about facts and logic, only feelings.
Oddly enough, that is exactly how to overcome the Left’s outrage. They need to feel it, but we don’t. If we accept what they believe to be true, we surrender the rhetorical high ground to them. If we don’t, all they have to fall back on is their outrage, which inevitably escalates and makes them seem a lot less persuasive and a lot more cray-cray. Eventually, the line between true outrage and abject insanity gets so blurred as to be non-existent, and the Left is pretty much tap-dancing on the line as it is. As a result, it’s easy to turn their outrage against them by denying them the oxygen for their outrage bonfire.
This isn’t to say the Left is completely full of bullshit when they get outraged. Most of the time, yes, but sometimes they do bring legitimate points to the table, albeit couched in layers of bullshit. I do believe there is a stigma around victims of sexual assault and it needs to be called out no matter who it is maintaining the stigma. On the flip side, there are also people who are unscrupulous enough to make up sexual assault allegations for any number of reasons, which furthers the stigma. I observe Tara Reade’s allegations with the same critical eye I used with Christine Blasey Ford’s: there may be something there, but we need a full investigation to be sure to make sure we move forward with the right course of action. One based not on outrage, but on facts.
The Left doesn’t agree. Whether it’s male college students, a Supreme Court nominee, or a former Vice President, their course of action is the same: protect the Left, no matter how absurd it makes them look. Knowing this makes it possible to see the Left’s outrage for what it is: a temper tantrum designed to get people to knuckle under to whatever they want, only to have them throw another one the next time they want something. As any parent who has had to deal with this from their children will tell you, it never ends well.
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
I have been waiting a long time to write about this topic (partially because of the hacking attack on the site, partially because this is a fun topic).
With Coronavirus-A-Palooza running roughshod around the world like a Guns N Roses concert with security supplied by the Hell’s Angels, people look for someone or something to guide us. One such something is the World Health Organization. The Left loves the WHO for multiple reasons, with the main one being…Orange Man Bad.
Yet, are they truly the go-to folks for a global pandemic? That’s a matter of opinion, just like these Leftist Lexicon pieces you kind folks keep reading and circulating. However, unlike some of the people rooting for the WHO, my opinions tend not to be tainted by anti-Trump ideology. Plus, I tend to bathe regularly.
World Health Organization
What the Left thinks it means – a team of professionals devoted to scientific discovery and the advancement of medical science as they combat global health issues
What it really means – a group that is to medicine what the United Nations is to global stability
The real definition isn’t an accident. The WHO is a part of the UN, which should raise more than a few eyebrows considering what the latter group is known to have done. Unless, of course, you’re cool with child rape, giving a non-existent country more of a platform than a member nation, and allowing such human rights champions as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria spots on the UN Human Rights Council unironically.
Well, at least the WHO is above board, right? Yeaaaaah, not so much. Just with the COVID-19 situation, we’ve seen them proclaim there was no evidence of person-to-person transmittal of the virus, even as it was literally happening. The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, spoke glowingly of the way China handled the COVID-19 outbreak in January, even as China hid their real numbers. Although his name would get you at least a Triple Word Score in Scrabble, his value has fallen more than oil prices, and just about as rapidly.
Although this begs a lot of questions, one of the primary ones should be what the WHO actually does. If you listen to the Left, you would think they’re hard at work in laboratories working around the clock trying to figure out how to combat COVID-19. Which, of course, is bullshit. As you might expect with any organization connected to the UN and with the word “World” in its name, it’s a bureaucratic nightmare that would make the DMV look like The Flash.
And just like with any bureaucracy, the WHO has a nasty spending habit with few tangible results. According to an internal report, the WHO spent nearly $192 million in 2018 on…travel. And that number was down from what they spent in 2017 on the same expenses. And what did the World Health Organization spend in 2018 on medical supplies and materials? Half of what it spent on travel. And we’re not talking about economy class flights here. The WHO lives large off our tax dollars.
That’s right, kids. We are the number one financial contributor to the WHO, even higher than the UN itself. Which is exactly what we do with the UN: pay out the nose for service that we would ask to see the manager for if we received in real life. Especially if we were named Karen. (Yes, I went there.)
The aforementioned internal report also mentioned the WHO spends its time trying to find medical solutions for social and economic problems, which takes it out of the realm of medicine and into the world of Leftist ideology. The Left keeps trying to apply science to problems that have little to do with science because it lends credibility to their hare-brained ideas that have yet to actually work. Most people, unfortunately, buy into this line of thinking because we’ve been taught to listen to the experts. Well, at least until the experts prove the Left wrong.
The Left needs the WHO to be the experts with COVID-19 because it ticks all of their ideological boxes: a bloated unaccountable entity focused more on social justice than actually doing its job. Plus, more people are going to reflexively believe the WHO over President Trump’s COVID-19 task force solely because of the name. This is a logical fallacy known as an appeal to authority, where the seemingly logical conclusion is based solely on because someone with presumed superiority over us says so. That is the go-to Leftist position because they believe they are the experts.
Yet, when you consider what the WHO is doing with the money we’re giving them and what they should be doing, it’s hard for me to say they are the experts we need to be listening to on COVID-19. It’s clear they’re operating either as a willing culprit in the whitewashing of China’s poor handling of the disease or useful idiots doing China’s bidding at the expense of its reputation. Just like CNN!
And until the WHO can show the class they are completing their assignments within the set parameters, we should trust them as much as we trust Joe Biden’s memory. Given how they’re more enamored with cushy travel perks than with decidedly non-cushy jobs working on behalf of the world’s health, I’m guessing we’ll see that happening about the time Stacey Abrams accepts losing in 2018.