* * *
I had to credit Kobus with one thing. His remarks about what courtiers thought I was up to made me rethink some of the things people had done lately. I didn’t like the sinister aspect that line of thought gave the world, but it did lead me to some interesting conclusions. But, it was only speculation, and I had to be certain before I dragged anyone before the Court of Electors. I tracked down Walther Nussenbaum, finding him in a small beer garden a short walk from his employer’s residence. The journeyman wizard stared wide-eyed at my approach, and let out a nervous chuckle as I slid into the seat next to him.
“Look, beer is cheap, it’s not as if I lied to you. The Zweitzers won’t let me drink any of their wine.”
“I’m not here about your loan, Walther.”
“Then… oh.”
“What type of potion did you make for Emilie?”
“It was a love potion. But I swear didn’t know who she planned to give it to until she complained you never drank anything.”
I frowned.
“Even if she had managed to use it, the effect is not really as strong as stories depict, and wears off in three or four hours.”
“I guessed as much,” I said, then dismissed it with a gesture. “On the day your employer fell ill, what happened after my visit?”
“Well, uhh, his highness ranted off and on about you. There were some unpleasant words in there. He had calmed down by the evening meal, then got sick afterward.”
“You’re glossing over things.”
“I’m not sure I should be talking to you.”
“Would you rather answer my questions before the Court of Electors?”
Nussenbaum squeaked in fright.
“Here, you don’t need to worry about saying the wrong thing in front of princes of the realm.”
“But if I lose my contract with the Zweitzers, I’ll have to leave Gertrude. And she actually likes me.”
“I understand. I’m not asking you to betray your employer. I just want more details about what happened that afternoon.”
“In between his rants, the Herzog argued with people. He insulted Rudolf for not blocking you from buying the debts. He threatened to bar Emilie from going to court so he wouldn’t have to buy her any more dresses or cosmetics. He said he would kick me back to Zhalskrag if I didn’t make myself scarce. That sort of thing. It had the whole household on edge. I made myself scarce, and missed dinner.”
“Who was at dinner?”
“Only his highness and Emilie ate. There were the usual servants for delivering the food, I suppose. I wasn’t there.”
“Thank you.”
“But, how does any of what I’ve said help you?”
“White lead.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s all right, you’ve helped verify a theory.”
I dropped a silver groat on the table. My grandfather’s profile gleamed on its face. “For your beer tab,” I said.
“I don’t drink that much.”
I stood up from the table. “So buy Gertrude a drink,” I said. Weaving through the patrons, I left the beer garden. I could see von Stirnberg’s house from the street, and debated whether to walk over there. No, that would be rude. I’d get an appointment. That was the proper way to handle this.
* * *
Gunther agreed to talk to me on a neutral spot. The location picked was one of the drawing rooms in the halls of the Imperial Diet. Plenty of guards and people who would interfere with attempts to cause trouble. A ring of clerestory windows provided plenty of illumination despite the cabinets along the walls. Green leather armchairs sat around an unlit fireplace, with small tables between them. Not trusting the food or drink here, I’d brought my own bottle of fig brandy and a small glass. I sipped halfway through the first glass when Gunther arrived. His people checked to see if I’d stationed anyone for an ambush, then withdrew. The Herzog took the seat past the table with my bottle on it.
“Let me guess, you want to plead with me to drop the charges.”
“No,” I said, taking a sip.
“No?”
“I want to apologize for the initial misunderstanding.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I at the time. Let me explain. I’ve been steeped in the mundanities of moneylending. All my time has been absorbed in paying palace servants, paying wizards, underwriting loans, collecting on loans, and negotiating agreements of that sort.”
“Work beneath a proper nobleman.”
I ignored Gunther’s barb and went on.
“So when I bought your debt it was with the eye towards striking a deal which netted me more than I paid, but didn’t think of how it looked from your perspective. After all, the Diet is in session, the court social calendar is at its peak, and your duties keep you in the middle of all of this backstabbing.” I gestured at the walls around us. “So naturally you saw someone trying to acquire leverage over you. I should have realized that was how it would appear.”
“Hmph,” Gunther grunted. “Do you think I’m going to be pleasantly disposed to you now?”
“No. But I hope you are open to avoiding further escalation of this misunderstanding.”
“If you think you’re going to threaten me with your family-”
“No, that is what I want to avoid. Right now, no one has died. There is no need to turn this incident into a blood feud.”
“You’re the first one whose head would part from his shoulders,” Gunther said.
“I would have to take whatever steps I could to avoid that, including revealing to the court who really poisoned you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you have a headache that night?”
“You gave it to me.”
“Headache, vomiting, abdominal pain, and purging of the bowels are all symptoms of ingesting a large dose of lead.”
“Poisoners will use what they can get.”
“But you already know I can get much better poisons than lead.”
“What’s your point?” Gunther asked.
“Did you know the main component of common face powder is white lead?”
“So?”
“Emilie knew. That’s what she mixed into your wine.”
“I have a taster who checks my wine.”
“She is novice poisoner. There wasn’t enough in the glass to kill you, so your taster will probably not have any ill effects. Besides, the part that didn’t dissolve likely sank to the bottom. Did you drink the dregs, your Serene Highness? Perhaps due to drinking angrily?”
“Why would Emilie do anything of the sort?”
I extracted a letter from my pocket and unfolded it. I laid it on the table between us, but kept hold of the paper. Gunther’s gaze drifted along the lines of flowery prose Emilie had written to my sister. A horrified expression came over him. I took the letter back and folded it into my pocket.
“Emilie’s your only child, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“And it would be unfitting for a Prinzessin of the house of Zweitzer to be smitten with the likes of me.”
“What is it you want?”
“I want this whole mess to be peaceably put behind us with no one dying over it.”
“You still hold over four million marks of my debt,” Gunther said.
“And I had come to you originally to discuss how we could resolve that. I have no interest in hurting you, I just want a return on my investment.”
“If I had the cash to pay it back, I wouldn’t be that far in debt.”
“What do you propose?” I asked.
“First, you must move as far away from Emilie as you can get. That part is non-negotiable.”
“That would put me in Yothos. I’d rather not go any further than Valay or Atlor.”
“Well, that would be far enough.”
“And for your part?”
“You give me time to figure out how to cover the debt.”
“And the electors?”
“As long as you stay far away from Emilie, you won’t have to worry about them.”
“I can live with that.”
* * *
I spent my last week in Stirnberg instructing a new agent how to take over my duties for the family and to act as Assistant Cofferer. Faced with managing my collection of plants, I harvested seed pods, bulbs, and other storable means of growing them anew. The plants themselves suffered the fate they had always been destined for as I extracted their toxic or useful elements. I boxed up a collection of neatly labeled jars and bottles that could probably wipe out every noble in Stirnberg. On that chest I fitted the strongest locks I could get. So preoccupied with preparations for leaving, I hadn’t noticed Annika’s distant, dreamy expression at breakfast.
“Either Bas or Max will be showing up to escort you to court events for the sake of decorum,” I said. Annika didn’t seem to be paying attention.
“Gustaf plays the guitar beautifully,” she said.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“He has a beautiful singing voice.”
“Are we even having the same conversation?” I asked.
“He kept it secret because his late father didn’t approve of princes playing music.”
I sighed, realizing Annika hadn’t heard anything I’d been saying.
“I thought Gustaf was boring.”
“That was before I found out he was the singer in the garden,” Annika said, finally responding to me. “How am I supposed to see him again without scandalous rumors if you run off to Valay?”
“Either Bas or Max will be coming here to take over that part.”
“Oh, that’s okay then. Which one?”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“Not really, no one else will be able to tell them apart.”
“Anyway, you can’t kick our our tenants downstairs, they have a lease until the end of the social season. After that, it’s none of my business.”
“What’s that have to do with anything?” Annika asked.
“I’m trying to wrap up affairs in the city before I go. Since you’ll still be here, and I know you don’t like the house being partitioned.”
“We own it. We should at least have the better quarters.”
“That’s why I needed to remind you that they have a right to stay were they are for now. That should be easier than what I have to do.”
“Sight-see through Valay?”
“No, explain to our mother that I’ve tied up nearly sixty thousand marks in buying debt of a man who is going to have trouble paying it back.”
“You don’t have to worry there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I wanted to know why you got so much money to play around with and I didn’t, so I wrote mom and asked. You want to know what she told me?”
“What?”
“It was your money to begin with. It was the sum of all the honoraria from being named a Dragonslayer, and all the various valuable junk you dragged back to Sudtor from your trip. So you didn’t cost the family that much money – only yourself.”
“I suppose that’s an improvement.”
“Look on the bright side.”
“What bright side?”
“If Gunther ever pays up, you’ll get to keep it all.”
* * *
End
Nice, UCS!
Thanks for an enjoyable read.
And… FIRST! A real-life, legitimate first!!!
/tears up, runs from the room
Congrats. I was away from my desk.
Doesn’t count. Ya gotta nut up and say “first” in the original post. Ya either take the chance and believe in it…or you live in shame!
For a place with fewer rules than a UFC fight, the “first rule” seems to have an awful lot of specifics.
The First rule is there to discourage posts of ‘First’.
Sounds like somebody wants a knee to the face.
I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone who’ll do that for you. All hope is not yet lost.
Now we see the violence inherent in the system?
FIRST!
Hey, I don’t make the rulez.
I pull them from my ass!
FIRST!
Having read all five parts, I have to say this. Very poor effort UCS, very poor indeed. No non-binary, queer disabled characters, no critical analysis of the oppressive systems of the Diet, nothing to make a case for social justice, no attempt to dismantle the structural power structures of power. I am asking myself what is even the point of writing it. It did nothing to give a voice to the oppressed who are barely paid pffenings for a hard day’s labor by the idle rich with their ill-gotten wealth. It is criminal. The focus on banking without indicting money, usury or capitalism and it was also anti-Semitic, Zionist, racist and sexist… then again everything is so this is not unique in this respect but it could at least have made an effort. Very disappointed.
The author is another straight white man who does nothing against the system. He seems to even be the kind of shitlord to pay his debt instead of railing against capitalism as any proper writer and artist should. Is he even starving? I think not! Art that is not explicitly anticapitalistic is no art at all. It seems to me that literature under late capitalism is a bourgeois construct aimed at spontaneously reproducing class power structures that arise from tensions between the relations of production and the mode of production in a class-based society.
There website is no better for promoting this kind of posts. Typical libertarianism, a thin veneer of feudalism and slavery. Somedays I can’t even with this site.
Also a bit too descriptive overall for my taste.
I’m glad you liked it, Pie.
Right on, brother!
Terrific! And once again, leaves the door open for further adventures.
Thanks for the stories!
You’re welcome. This was written as a bridge between his adventures in his homeland and those in Valay.
I think Kord conceded too much at the end. He has to liquidate and move away and all he gets is a promise to figure something out maybe. He held all the cards and he folded.
All that said, I really enjoyed this story. I think it could’ve benefitted from another episode or two in length, but it was a compelling story in an interesting setting.
With the fucked up justice system there? Nah, I think he was smart to gtfo.
What cards did you think he had?
He seemed to have enough family influence to play the bribery game with the court of electors, he could further embarrass Gunther with details of his insolvency, he had good evidence to build a case stringing up Emilie, and he had the ability to do legit physical harm to Gunther which, while not in his character, was enough of an implied threat to put Gunther on the defensive. Worst case, Kord could’ve bolted for greener pastures if things started to go against his favor.
I think it works because Kord isn’t what you expect from a shrewd moneylender. He feels like an amateur who gets in a bit too deep and panics, all while superficially keeping his wits about him.
That pretty much sums him up. He wants to put it all behind him as fast as possible.
I agree with trashy completely on all points, but as it’s a bridge and you needed to get him on the road, I can roll with it.
I’m not happy with the way Annika’s plot wrapped up. I suspect she’ll end up back at “Gustaf is boring” before too long.
Nicely done sir. Succinct but sufficiently colorful to let the reader paint around the edges and fill in our own visions of the lighting and backdrop.
Me likey.
Just this segment, or all five?
Enjoyable read. Thanks UCS.
You’re welcome.
Excellent! Now we have a whole world Beyond the Edge of the Map. I look forward to 1,000 page books a year. Get working.
I don’t think I’ve every written a 1,000 page book.
Wouldn’t you know if you had?
Well, in my case, probably. But there are some authors who’ve pharmacologically disconnected from their output.
Private is just a huge Jimmy Page fan. He wants 1000 books by or about him.
BEGGING AGAIN FOR A LITTLE ASSIST!
Anyone of you cretins (I mean, lovely people) who are endowed with TPTB edit privileges, please go to the late night post last night (“Biden Wins Grand Prize at Gibberish Olympics”) and delete my accidental self-doxxing signature block at:
“hayeksplosives on February 20, 2020 at 5:31 am”
I throw myself on thy mercy. I emailed SP and OMWC but no response so far. (((They))) are apparently sleeping one off.
Glibs helping…
LOLZ!!!
Initially read this as “BEGGING AGAIN FOR A LITTLE ASS”.
All I could think is, aren’t we all?
Good luck on your predicament.
Yeah, splosives has more reason to maintain confidentiality here than most, given her job. I’d hate for a search for her name to pop that post.
If it was me, I wouldn’t be posting actual pictures of myself, either. Actually, I already don’t post actual pictures of myself.
Done.
*Fd’A updates information in blackmail list*
Humbly curtsies to Fd’A.
Thank you, kind sir. Although you have me in the blackmail list, I trust you far more than I trust the googlebots and other internet evils.
Should we scrub the GFM links, too?
I’m slow on the uptake. GFM?
GoFundMe
GoFuckMe… no wait… GoFUNDMe.
*navigates to sugarbabies.com and begins writing a post
You were already doxxed, but now we know where to send the owls.
Great read UCS. Dunno if I’ve like any of your other stories this much. Might look into getting one of your books.
also 1 typo: “they have a right to stay were they are for now.”
I blame the editor.
Wait… that’s me too.
Will read the whole thing in order this weekend.
Thanks for this, UnCiv.
When you get around ti reading it, let me know what you think.
Sorry to go OT, but I just saw someone on this cesspool call for the assassination of a real, live flesh-and-blood individual who they’ve never even met. And the digital mob cheered it on. What the f**k is wrong with people?
You saw that here?
Uggh!! Not here. I copied a message I sent my gf on FB.
-1 woodchipper
What the f**k is wrong with people?
People, as a general rule, are just awful.
I can’t even. i know it’s an unscientific poll, but Sanders as frontrunner has me fearful for this country. It means our education system has completely failed.
**DRUDGE POLL** WHO WON DEM DEBATE IN VEGAS
WARREN 17% 33,633 votes
SANDERS 26% 52,215 votes
KLOBUCHAR 19% 37,756 votes
BUTTIGIEG 13% 26,651 votes
BLOOMBERG 16% 31,343 votes
BIDEN 9% 18,240 votes
Poll posted 16 hours ago.199,838 Total Votes
To paraphrase John McLaughlin, they are all WRONG!! The correct answer? DONALD J TRUMP.
It was likely not presented as an option.
Let me guess, those were the only options presented.
Everyone who thinks socialism is a grand idea needs to look long and hard at this article.
https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php
At least Yeltsin was a good enough man to recognize that and start reforming for the sake of the citizens. Most pols would just say “Clearly we need better markets for the elite! The normies are doing just fine with what they have.”
Yeltsin had a great heart, but his penchant for vodka and the stress of the transition took its toll on him. And now we have Oligarch Putin.
The Russians love a strongman and they could do quite a bit worse than Putin.
Putin is the Devil we Know, so we got that going for us.
I do appreciate that he doesn’t put up with that Chechen terrorist crap.
Putin is more a reflection of the general Russian mood than he is a leader of thought change. Leave him alone, and don’t drink anything he serves you.
Given the history of Russian leaders, Putin is probably one of the better ones.
The ones they Idolize are:
Boris Godunov who instituted serfdom
Ivan the Terrible
Peter the Great whose policies killed 10s of thousands as he sent them into a freezing swamp to biold a new Capital, who conducted the Government in Fench which none of his people spoke.
and
Stalin
Russia and Russians are odd.
Most autocrats would redouble their efforts to destroy the place that shows how stupid/evil/bad the rule of the autocrat is. That Yeltsin decided to change the U.S.S.R. instead of just nuking the U.S. to make us as miserable as them, says a lot about the guy.
In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism, according to pundits.
So it can be said that the final nail in the coffin of the USSR was driven by a visit to an American grocery store. Capitalism is great.
“It means our education system has completely failed.”
60s-era radicals and teachers’ unions say “Speak for yourself prole! The system is working brilliantly!”
“It means our education system has completely failed.”
I’d say that it means the education system has succeeded in its true purpose.
OT: Peak Florida?
https://nypost.com/2020/02/19/do-not-disturb-the-snake-orgies-florida-park-officials-urge/
Not bad but needs more meth and general mayhem.
Michael Malice is coming to town…
OT: If ya wanna live a really long as time, be a freaking slacker. Wait, wut?
Ah, but there is a catch:
There’s such a thing as too lazy.
POM FAR!
Since we’re going OT: Are you a communist?
https://www.idrlabs.com/communism/test.php
Turns out, no, I’m not. I got 1%.
Also, I got the same location in the politics test as Milton Friedman.
/dusts shoulder off, preens
Ditto.
The same Milton Friedman who gave us income tax witholding? I knew you were a socialist.
I quit after the first ten, they were all so typical,
I’m 10%. Apparently my views of religion and copyright are communist.
I’m 6% not-a-filthy-commie. I suspect my partial agreement/disagreement on a couple of questions is why (one was the religion question, can’t remember the other).
Taking it.
My problem is that the questions mix up a lot of cause and effect:
eg. “Capitalism is a prerequisite for Freedom to Flourish”. No. Freedom to enforce Property rights is a prerequiste for Capitalism.
Or: “The absence of a free market economy will inevitably lead to the suppression of individual rights”
The Absence of a free market econome is a result of the suppression of individual rights.
I havn’t looked into this institute, but they are either communist and want you to lean that way to, or they are shit free marketers who haven’t a good foundation. Like the Cato Institute.
The questions don’t mix anything up. They ask you to evaluate the extent to which you agree or disagree with those statements.
I dissagree with them because they are non-sensical and it says i’m a commie? That is my point. I have to answer in a way that makes no sense because I know that the person asking the question doesn’t know what they are talking about.
It said you were a Commie?
The individual’s best interests are indistinguishable from society’s best interest.
Fuck it. What does that even mean? “Society” doesn’t have a best interest. Groups of people can have common interests, but you can’t just say “Society” as if it is some singular entity that can be reasoned about.
I left that one as neutral, which I assume still gave me commie cred.
If society does not have a best interest, but individuals do, then the individual best interest has many predicates true of it that society’s doesn’t. So, you’d disagree that they’re indistinguishable, yeah?
Or i could agree that they are indistinguishable because the only interests that exist in a society are the ones held by the individuals that populate it.
…which is contrary to your original point.
No, my Point is that these questions are so poorly written that they give you bad information about wether or not someone is a communist or not. there are two legit interpretations of the question. The Two i Gave. Neither are going to be held by a communist.
Now i don’t know if i pissed you off cause your wrote the shoddy piece of shit, or what.
This is the one I didn’t care for. According to Adam Smith if individuals act in their own interest it will benefit society (the other individuals in a community) as a whole. The commies have that backwards think that if you are working in “society’s” best interest the individuals will flourish. They are of course wrong.
It means that like insect colonies, the individual would sacrifice itself for the collective , or be sacrificed for the collective and just accept that lot, because the collective is as important if not more. It is marxist drivel.
The three-card monte of commies and socialists is that they want you to believe you are sacrificing for the collective good, but you are only ever sacrificing for the good of the Inner Party apparatchiks.
“But I thought the pea was under the “Collective Good” shell!”
“Nope, its under the “Apparatchik” shell. But you still get a prize: a train ride to the camps, When you get off the train, be sure to go straight to the showers.”
The collective’s good is whatever the apparatchiks say it is. See China, Venezuela, and any other such shithole run by a real (wo)man of the people that needs a police state to keep said people from showing him/her how much they love said leader…
Ahem. Tap. Tap. Is this thing on?
There is no such fucking thing as “society”. Society is the illusion that appears when you stand back and lose track of the 7 and half billion individuals going about their business in a mostly cooperative way.
^This times 1000. When you think about it, There’s no such thing as ‘state’, either. Just individuals.
Thank you Margaret Thatcher.
Local vs system optimization. Think tragedy of the commons. It may be better for society, or a large group of people in a contiguous area if you prefer a wordier replacement, to curb air pollution, but it may be in the individual’s best interest to avoid those restrictions if they are a business owner, shareholder, employee, or otherwise dependent on an enterprise that creates air pollution.
While it isn’t completely analogous, I’d point to Arrow’s Impossibly Theorem as proof that not only do system vs local problems exist, but that they are irreconcilable.
That was my take on the question, your mileage may vary.
I like that. Though to take it a different direction, i am saying that you cannot reason about “societies” interests. I can reason about what is in the interest of a delinated group of people like a club or a company. These people have chosen to identify as a group and to associate with some common interest. I can’t reason about what is in “Texans” or “Womens” best interest, because these are just categories, not really associations, and so there is no reason to believe that they share any common interest that can be reasoned about.
“Society” is the element of humans; it doesn’t have any inherent meaning and can contain as many or as few things as you choose, whenever you choose.
Oh yeah, duh.
That should read: “Society” is the div element of humans. But, wisely perhaps, WordPress didn’t like my sticking an HTML tag in there.
I understand, and largely agree with, your points of contention, it is a bad question that is poorly worded. “Society” is a far too nebulous concept without proper context to fully understand what they were actually trying to ask, and even with context its use could still be contemptible sophistry.
I was trying to add the missing context; in my experience most similar questions are aimed at finding out if you believe in the tragedy of the commons and if so what solutions you think are best able to solve it. Since belief in and preferred solutions to the tragedy of the commons diverge sharply between collectivists of all stripes and individualists, it is a valid question to ask if your thing to guage someone’s sympathies towards communism, at least in theory. That specific question on the other hand, as you’ve rightfully pointed out, absolute horse shit.
I wasn’t trying to disagree. I liked the way you put it, and i think you are right that it is fair enough to talk about “society” since so many people think that way. I was mostly clearing up my own thoughts on it.
I took it to mean that the best possible outcomes for society occur when the best interest of individuals are met/pursued.
And that is my point about how awful a question it is. We are both assuredly not communist. but your answer was taken to mean that you are a communist sympathizer.
At a certain, dare I say, collective, level, that is true.
But there are individuals whose pursuit of their own interests are a net negative. So, its not possible to say that, without exception, every single individual’s best interests generate the best possible outcomes for society. Some people pursue their interests by stealing, assaulting, lying, defrauding, etc. Those people cannot claim that “Society benefits from me pursuing my interests”.
Note: this assumes that each individual gets to define what is in their interest. Because once you start saying otherwise, then you are heading down the slippery slope of collectivism at a rapid pace.
I had a hard time with that one. I eventually assumed it was really asking whether individual liberty is more important than the “greater good” and went with liberty. Initially, I went the other way entirely, reasoning that when individuals all evaluate their own best interests and act accordingly society as a whole benefits, making the two essentially the same.
Yep, I got 5% commie because I only somewhat agreed with those statements.
Poverty, disease, and early death are endemic to capitalism.
Another question that is just retarded.
Poverty, disease, and early death are endemic to existence.
Utopia exists dammit. We just need to return to a harmonious state of nature.
*checks chi crystals*
That’s the thing that escapes these people. The likely and perennial state of humanity has been poverty and brutality. What freed us from that was the massive amount of riches capitalism allowed a few to create. But the marxist pretend that we used to have utopia before the capitalists wrecked it and they want to take us back there. I for one prefer not to be anyone’s fucking serf. Especially some entitled asshat that believes they are special and know what’s best for everyone else.
That’s pretty much all of communist/socialist thought.
But it is the supposed internal contradictions of
capitalismfree-markets that are the problem.Many members of the working class who vote right-wing live in a kind of false consciousness where they do not understand their own true interests.
Sorry. I love this part of Marxism.
Almost all the current Marxists are postmodernists (Bernie and Zizek probably excluded).
Postmodernism and communism cannot be reconciled. True communism is a “scientific” solution to all of human history and requires an objective basis upon which to be based. Postmodernism rejects objectivity wholesale.
Yet, almost every single postmodernist out there is a socialist/communist.
I laugh when the postmodernists bring up false consciousness because a “false” consciousness implies there is a “true” consciousness, something they explicitly reject. Their world is entirely subjective.
Easy enough because when a strongman hijacks their revolution and seizes power, at least they’ll be executed knowing that the strongman’s reasoning is just as valid (or equally invalid) as their own reasoning.
Yeah, they have some of those issues. For those two, though, I think its fair to say that capitalism is a prerequisite, etc., and the absence of a free market economy will lead, etc.
These are not binary states settled in one instant. These are ongoing processes, and lack of capitalism and free markets go hand in hand with ongoing lack of prosperity and suppression of individual rights.
17%? I must have answered something wrong, I swear!
Huh. 0%
It says “Not a communist”
Your personal agreement with communism is low, indicating that you support few of communism’s principles as presented in classical Marxian literature.
I think the lowest score means I don’t support any marxist principles.
10% Communist. Likely due to my indifference to the questions related to class and religion.
4%. I feel ashamed that it’s so high.
0. but my moniker should already tell you that.
[doesn’t read on previous poster]
Either that, or your kink is to have Don Escaped Texas to tread on you.
And delete the last “to”….
Heh
Thanks. I enjoyed the story.
FIRST!
No to be first you have to post something on topic
“You’re glossing over things.”
I’m just glossing over it since I need to go back two installments.
…FIRST!
This is what I meant about suffering the shame
You think I’m capable of shame? Please.
US Army vehicle filmed running Russian MPs off the road in Syria:
https://youtu.be/shEHkdRdwyI
Somebody needs to get a letter put in his file because that’s just stupid.
That was a dick move. Especially with the civilian bystander. Think, boys, think! Who is the real enemy? Hint: not the Russkies.
It’s the kind of dick measuring silliness that could lead to an escalation. Armed people playing real life demolition derby is dangerous.
“Who is the real enemy?”
The Navy, right? What did I win?
Eh, we don’t know what the Russians might have done to provoke/deserve this. This could be justifiable. Not, perhaps, the smartest, given the civilian, but not perhaps without some reason.
Imma guess that the little bit they showed there left a lot out. There are a lot of cases where shit happens between competing forces.
The opening of Top Gun was probably the only part of that movie that was accurate.
I could easily see the MP trying to impede/interfere/pull over the lead vehicle in a US convoy on a route where Russian and US forces both exist.
ROE and threat risks might make that a very conceivable threat, especially in an environment where the bad guys are using IEDs and car bombs to attack US forces.
As a convoy commander, it might come down to either running him off the road or leaving a burning vehicle in the ditch.
20th!
Nailed it.
FIRST (For the next post)
Oh, wait, I needa comment on one of the links…
Um…deep dish, abortion and circumcision…FUCK YEAH!
*Pineapple* deep dish.
*recoils in horror*
Thicccc?
all I saw was:
Have you thought about getting an eye exam?
Swissy, a question: in the previous thread’s comments, you said that Franco was a Falangist. I thought he co-opted the Falangists into his own party, but didn’t actually think much of them. Franco was perfectly happy to let Primo de Rivera rot in a Republican jail and eventually be executed. He was a monarchist and thus much more favorably disposed to the Carlists.
If Franco were a Carlist then why didn’t he put a Carlist back on the throne? And why did he skip over Juan Carlos’ father in the line of succession if he were a Carlist and proper succession was a concern to him?
I thought he skipped over Juan Carlos’ father because he was felt to be unreliable?
Like many things, that succession has been blessed after the fact by papa Juan renouncing his claim.
That is why Franco skipped over papa Juan (which is ironic, because Juan Carlos ditched Franco’s system the minute he died), but Carlists were motivated by a succession claim and “legitimacy” to the throne. So, I think it would be curious for a Carlist to then ignore the line of succession even if he thought the royal house on the throne was illegitimate.
I didn’t say he was a Carlist himself. He was a Francoist. I just said that he was much closer to their beliefs than the Falangists.
I get it. Sorry, for misunderstanding.
Yeah Franco paid a lot of lip service to the Falange and adopted symbolism and such, but he was basically a king in all but name. He didn’t even form a party until after the war, and what he basically did was skinsuited the Falange, but concentrated power into his own person and in the army.
He was very much a man of the 19th century in a lot of ways. Deeply Catholic, an unreconstructed nationalist. You could have sat him at a table with Bismarck, Napoleon III, and Disraeli and he would have fit right in. He though the Falangists were lower class rabble whipped up into a frenzy. He used them up in the war, I think over half of the pre war Falange died. When he died, he handed power over not to some new leader, but to the king. Who promptly transitioned to a constitutional monarchy.
Agreed. What people often forget about Franco is that he did not begin the Civil War, he just went with the flow. The burning of churches and shooting of priests started a revolt against the Republican government (perhaps the most disgraceful use of the term ‘Republican’ ever). Franco probably had zero beliefs, but he understood who his allies were. So by default he embraced Catholicism, Carlism, and Corporatism.
Very similar to Trump in the sense that Trump clearly doesn’t believe or understand half of the things that his administration does, but he does understand who his base is and how to energize them. Does anyone actually believe that Trump is pro-life or cares about having a gold bug on the Fed (the last one he most certainly doesn’t, but Kudlow snookered him into nominating Judy Sheldon)?
Yeah its one of the more egregious memory holings of leftist aggression, in a historical profession that does that an awful lot.
The left won the election, immediately embarked upon a revolutionary legislative program, while simultaneously using violent party cadres to murder their opponents. They killed priests. They killed rightwing leaders. They murdered the Leader of the Opposition. It wasn’t “isolated violence” or “extremists”. It was Bolsheviks 2.0, except this time the Whites had the better military leadership.
Considering he kept 26 out of the 27 planks of the falangist platform, I think it is fair to call Franco a falangist. He obviously held Carlist views as well, but he ruled more in line with the falangist positions most if the time. I think the discrepancies can be best explained by tre fact that regardless of which position he ultimately identified with more, like all most dictators his true allegiance was to himself. The falangists were both a larger and more volatile faction, if Franco’s ultimate goals were to secure his own power it would make sense that most of his actions would be against members of the falangist parties as they were more likely to try and unseat him.
Perhaps you’re right – I didn’t know the bit about the planks. I just remember getting the general impression in the books I read about the Spanish Civil War that he might have had some agreement with Falangist political positions but he disdained most of the Falange leadership.
And your second point, of course, is absolutely right. Franco never cared about anything so much as his own grasp on power. Political allies were only useful to him so long as they never challenged his position as the Caudillo.
Great finish, UCS! My husband was in the office when I opened the post and asked why I was so excited. I’ll miss your Thursday stories, thank you.
I’m sure I’ll have something else sooner or later.
Just FYI: 22 Plinkster has good things to say about the SR22 as a defensive pistol.
Roger Stone sentenced to 40 months in prison for lying to the FBI about discussing Wikileaks disclosures with other people (not with having known about Wikileaks disclosures ahead of time which was a conspiracy theory peddled by the corporate press). That is 40 months longer than the sentence given out to Andrew McCabe, James Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper who were all found to have lied to the FBI (and for some of them Congress, as well), but were not prosecuted.
The intimidating witnesses part got him worse than that.
He’ll be pardoned anyways.
You’re a lawyer. Here’s my question: if the cops say you intimidated a witness, but the witness said they didn’t feel intimidated, is it even legitimate to suggest that they did?
And I’m going to be honest, I hope he does get a pardon. The fact that FISA abuse and lies perpetuated by FBI and CIA agents is just being ignored while others get punished on process crimes is a clear sign that “justice” is not important here, at least not as much as “butt hurt”.
“You intimidated him, of course he’s going to say he didn’t feel intimidated, he’s scared.”
The vast majority of these trials now are about covering asses. If you get a conviction you can just blur the fact that the conviction had nothing to do with the conspiracy that you were peddling for three and a half years. It’s amazing that no one has faced any consequences for being so embarrassingly wrong on literally every single part of that insane conspiracy that never made any sense, unless you were functionally mentally debilitated.
He’ll be pardoned because Trump’s base is clamoring for it and not doing so would look weak.
Trump would be right to pardon him, Manafort, and Flynn. That would be a legitimate pardon.
I agree, especially with Flynn.
Oh, and throw in Papadopoulus too.
Flynn shouldn’t need a pardon. Flynn should be suing the shit out of the government and winning.
I couldn’t care less about Paul Manafort. The only exception I take with his prosecution is the fact that a helluva lot of other slimy DC types do the same shit he did with impunity. If he goes down, he shouldn’t be alone in that.
Agreed, but at the same time, an illegal investigation should not be rewarded by receiving prosecutions against political enemies because of process crimes or crimes unrelated to the investigation.
This is very much a political prosecution. And I have a hard time seeing it any other way without abandoning any semblance of principles in favor of principals
if the cops say you intimidated a witness, but the witness said they didn’t feel intimidated, is it even legitimate to suggest that they did?
I could argue that a witness who is intimidated will not testify in a way that the suspect would disapprove of, so any of their testimony that is favorable to the suspect, including a denial of being intimidated, shouldn’t be given much credibility.
You could, but it would be question begging.
I am credibly told that if I testify against X, my family will wind up face down in a ditch.
When I am asked “Did anyone try to intimidate you” I answer “No”, because I don’t want my family face down in a ditch.
I gotta say, if I’m a prosecutor, and I have good reason to believe a witness had been intimidated, I wouldn’t put much weight on their denials. Much depends on the context, facts and circumstances, etc., of course.
Just cause something is logically falacious doesn’t mean it isn’t true, it’s just not a logical argument to say: This man intimidated the witness, and we know that because the witnesses refuse to say he intimidated them.
The case you are outlining is very convincing, but at its root is at least a bit of a fallacy.
Strong similarities with domestic abuse situations. Just because the victim won’t press charges doesn’t mean charges won’t be brought.
Much depends on the context, facts and circumstances, etc., of course.
Sometimes, the witness will actually be too intimidated to tell the truth. Other times, not. I am not proposing an iron-clad rule that is true in all cases. Merely trying to point out why the witness’s denial is not dispositive.
Heads they win, tails you lose.
What did Martha Stewart get for lying to the feds? These two seem just about of equal importance.
The others that TGA mentions should be held to a much higher standard as they were people in influential positions within the government.
I don’t know about Stewart, although she deserved a pardon too, but this same judge sentenced Jesse Jackson Jr. to thirty months in prison for stealing from his campaign fund.
So, forty months for lying to the FBI with no underlying crime, but only thirty months for theft. A lot of principals involved here, not a whole lot of principles.
Remember that sentencing is under certain guidelines and isn’t entirely up to the judge. You throw in a few factors that up the sentencing range, and you throw in a few factors that lower it, and you come to a number like, say, 20, which would translate to 33-41 months, and sentence them in that range.
Judge Jackson was right under the law here, whatever you think about the prosecution itself. She did a good job.
And it’s pretty likely that this is what she was going to sentence Stone to in the first place and the whole kerfuffle on the sentencing memo was for nothing.
She’s also not going to remand him until after she rules on his motion for a new trial. Assuming it’s denied (and it probably will be, and that’s probably correct under the law), he’ll appeal, which will stretch his time before he begins his incarceration until past November which means he’ll get pardoned post-election without spending a day in prison.
Thank you for the clarification.
Assuming it’s denied (and it probably will be, and that’s probably correct under the law)
I haven’t been following: has it been confirmed whether or not the jury foreman lied to the court to hide her bias? If so, that seems like a good basis for a retrial.
Out of curiosity, why do you think denial of a new trial is appropriate?
https://www.biography.com/business-figure/martha-stewart
from wikipedia
I’ll call that five months.
The judge on Stone.
Your judge, ladies and gentlemen.
Covering up what?
Russian collusion, I presume.
Just another example how in Trumps America the government is beholden to debunked conspiracy theories.
I love a happy ending! Well, maybe it’s not so happy for Emilie, but so much the better. I agree with Tundra that he was wise not to trust the “justice” system trying his case, given the political machinations involved. Even if Gunther could still somehow engineer Kord’s conviction, Kord’s evidence against Emilie could provide ammunition to Gunther’s enemies, so the deal is also a prudent move for him.
I think Kord was also just as glad to have an excuse to get out of the banking biz. It’s clearly not his preferred calling. And he gets away from his airhead sister.
Enjoyed, as always. Best wishes for a productive and SHORT work meeting this afternoon!
I ended up going home sick. So I’m not in the meeting.
Ugh! That’s no good. It might even be worse than going to a meeting. ::flexes hand permanently cramped from taking minutes:: Hope you feel better ASAP!
Thank you.
I’m trying to get more words on the page for anything.
Meanwhile in China
https://files.catbox.moe/674jmn.jpg
Damned if you do…
“It means our education system has completely failed.”
What is the first thing the commies did when they got power in Cuba?
What is the first thing the national socialists did in every country they took?
What is the first thing the commies did in China? Cambodia? Vietnam?
What is the fist thing the commies did when they got power in Russia?
In every single case the first thing they did was round up the Academics and Journalists and shoot them.
Who is primarily pushing communism in the United States?
The Academics and Journalists.
*Recent conversation I had with an Academic….in a nutshell. I think I might have gotten through a bit.
The advocates for that nonsense always seem to think it’ll be someone else who gets the bullet. If Trotsky had known it’d end with an icepick in his gourd he probably would have chosen a different political path.
Darkness at Noon is one of my favorite anti-commie books.
I thought the first thing they did was disarm the people, and then, they rounded up and killed the people that displeased them, with easy I say, cause nobody had the firepower to make that endeavor very costly. Round one was the wreckers & kullaks. After that, the rounds that followed killed the true believers that became troublesome to the new nomenclatura.
When they have total power they just assume that the true believers are a potential threat to that power so…
As Yuri Bezmenov said “When they see the reality of their world of social justice and equality they will not like it very much, so they will dissent. Dissent cannot be allowed so before they can dissent they are rounded up and squashed like cockroaches.”
Also the useful idiots are programmed to dissent to the point where they can no longer do anything else. No matter how many of their demands are met they will simply find something else to bitch about. We see that here with the ever evolving ‘rights’ movement. People with total power won’t tolerate that….I mean really, who needs that shit? Permanent population of rabble rouser and shit stirrers?
They are the first to go. People like you and I just try to keep their heads down.
My guess is that these most of people – now heroically proclaiming the evils of the thugocracy of orange man and decrying our decent into fascism – when confronted with the real totalitarianism of the ideology they espouse, will be completely bamboozled when they actually end up in the camps. At first, that is. The lot of them will immediately shut their traps, if not suddenly start carrying water for the brutal bosses, because they are cowards and only show dissent when they know there are no consequences.
Yeah, wife was wondering aloud about why they take up causes that are long lost to history.
They desperately need a dragon to slay, but you know…real dragons are goddamned scary and dangerous so they invent imaginary dragons. It is much safer. The people they are carrying water for are fine with the endless scab picking to upend society so we get Black Lives Matter, the ERA, etc etc.
You are correct. They are cowards.
Oh and those LBKGXZ rights activists? They and all of the trannies and homosexuals will be rounded up too.
They desperately need a dragon to slay, but you know…real dragons are goddamned scary and dangerous so they invent imaginary dragons
I’ll never hear there music the same again.
They already carry water for the brutal bosses (deep state). They’re already upset at the “poor” treatment orangemanbad gives those poor ol’ bosses.
Bravo UCS! the end was perfect…
Thank you.
UCS, great read. The Ending though, i think it would have been better if you had said:
fin
But that is just preference.
But there’s no fish involved.
…and I don’t think it would be accurate or fair to call Kord a loan shark.
Relevant.
(It’s the title card at the end of this movie
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/russian-propaganda-radio.html
Interesting. Russian propaganda playing on Kansas City radio airwaves.
Mojo, can you confirm?
Blink twice for yes
Should we send in the Wolverines? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REKLC3s30Mw
How do we know Moj isn’t one of them?
OMG! THEY’RE INSIDE THE GLIB!
That’s rich coming from the NYT.
In the United States, talk radio on Sputnik covers the political spectrum from right to left, but the constant backbeat is that America is damaged goods.
Very rich coming from the NYT. The problem is that Radio Sputnik is working NYT’s side of the street.
I do not understand this word, “radio.”
That’d be hilarious if it were trolling.
Not sure how that’s going to fare with making money.
Doing the work Americans won’t do – the Daily Mail runs story with a “Minneapolis Somali community leader” who confirms that Ilhan Omar married her brother.
Did she consummate the marriage?
who confirms
‘Sources say’
Abdihakim Osman is the first person to go on record to speak of how Omar said she wanted to get her brother papers so he could stay in the United States, at a time when she was married to her first husband Ahmed Hirsi.
I was told (thanks Winston!) that claiming you heard someone else say something wasn’t first hand evidence.
I get all confused by hearsay rules and exceptions.
Agreed. However, someone going on the record with their accusation is stronger than “anonymous source says”. Wouldn’t you agree?
Ah, bliss.
I’m sitting in a warm Tesla waiting in a parking lot for my husband, just outside Miramar Marine Airbase. Wonderful sights and sounds of near non stop military jets and helicopters surround us here.
I can’t get enough of it.
I’m sitting in a warm Tesla
Get out before it is too late.
Ah, bliss.
I’m sitting in a warm Tesla waiting in a parking lot for my husband, just outside Miramar Marine Airbase. Wonderful sights and sounds of near non stop military jets and helicopters surround us here.
I can’t get enough of it.
We get it you like it. You don’t have to tell us twice.
*ahem* The Marine Corps (and the Navy) has Air Stations. The Air Force has Air Bases.
I wanted to get stationed in Miramar so badly. I got Yuma instead. Talk about being born under a bad sign.
HOLY SHIT- THEY’RE ON TO US!
https://twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1230148390685683712
“New: The Boogaloo, an anti-government movement that advocates for a second “Civil War” against political opponents and law enforcement is openly organizing and recruiting on Facebook and Instagram.”
The corporate press are the enemy of the people
Sounds electric.
2
AKA Big Igloo, Big Luau,
So grab your parka or your hawaiian shirt.
LARPing. As it stands now the vast majority of Americans have too much to lose to let a hot war get started on our soil. We have a long way to go before that happens.
Top shelf memeing going on there.
Who has time for crap like that?
Maybe I am just old and tired but the first thing that I would ask is “Why would I be out there doing that nonsense when I can be at home in front of a fire with a bowl of chili?”
Something something memes are the opiate of the masses.
That scene from Breakin’ 2 with the rotating set for the ceiling/wall dancing was trippy. It’s still pretty cool. They don’t make ’em like that any more.
OH NO! Internet tuff guys are threatening civil war!
So i want to pose a hypothetical and get your opinions, knowledge, spitballs and navel gazes about it. Lets say it is 2040 and Rep. Imigrant is Speaker of the House. Then all of the sudden both the POTUS and VP are incapacitated/killed/removed from office. Under the law for presidential succession the Speaker will be inaugurated to finish out the Term of the president. But someone raises a case saying that they cannot be because they don’t meet the requirements.
1. Do they have a leg to stand on in the case?
2. Do you think they could succeed in such a case?
3. Maybe this is already accounted for?
I’m no lawyer, but I don’t see why that case couldn’t succeed. The Constitution is clear on the requirements of the office.
The line of succession is longer than that. You would still have to meet the req’s in the constitution to be eligible to be president. Skip the immigrant and on to the next person.
I guess it is already accounted for.
https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/presidential-eligibility-and-the-line-of-succession/
I come here for wild speculation and crazy rumors. Not well documented answers.
That is also why the cabinet member that has to stay back during the state of the union is always qualified for prez.
Under the constitution, the vice president is first in line and must meet the standard presidential requirements, so no problem there. The constitution then states that further succession arrangements can be made by Congress. The official law of succession determines the order of further succession, and requires that all candidates for succession meet the standard eligibility requirements for the office first, so under your hypothetical if a foreign born person was in line, they would be skipped over for the next available person. There are additional restrictions as well, depending on the reason for succession. They are outlined in 3 USC § 19(e)
Democrats Take Gamble That America Is Finally Ready For A Rich, White President
Read these over lunch. An enjoyable tale. Thanks for posting it. I’ll need to check out the book. I admit there was a nice red herring and I thought the servant girl the wizard was crushing on might have been the culprit.
No spoilers!
I liked it UCS. It was effective and interesting enough to stand alone although the ending woud be a bit rushed for that, but as a bridge it does its work well.
I liked it.