On the recent cause celebre

by | Jul 21, 2020 | Racism | 248 comments

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I wrote this article and posted it on my blog in the immediate aftermath of one of the recent “cancel culture” victims, while it was happening in real time. My blog went from getting dozens of visits (on most days) to thousands, some hate, calls from Media, and a lot of support from people in the CrossFit Community, especially the people who had been around longer. Given the dearth of articles here, I figured I would reshare it here for the Glibertariat who may have missed the kerfluffle. I will also be submitting a followup I wrote about “systemic racism” in light of a bunch of the comments I got on the original article. (Editor’s note: We published that one first. Oops.) I believe I have linked each of these in the comments previously, so apologies for the drugs dropping out of my keister.

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CrossFit CEO and CrossFit community rift is reflective of larger split in these United States

It starts with a tweet…

Oy. Of course it does.

I was Greg Glassman’s lawyer for 8+ years at CrossFit. I was his first General Counsel and an early CrossFit Affiliate before that. I met Greg when I showed up to compete in the first CrossFit Games in Aromas, California, on Dave Castro’s family’s ranch. It was 2007 and I was on leave from the Marine Corps. I had been following CrossFit since 2005 when I found it during my time in Afghanistan. A number of operators at the base I was at were also doing it and the results were undeniable. Those guys were machines, and the war demanded being as fit as possible. I got hooked.

As gyms started to reopen across the country in recent weeks, the IHME (the same ‘scientists’ that brought us the original models that prompted the lockdowns) decided that they needed to defend some of the public pushback about the rather profound lack of social distancing going on at some of these demonstrations/protests/riots. Suddenly, COVID-19 has a conscience. And they (the IHME) are now going to “model” the impacts of “systemic racism.” That doesn’t seem exactly wise… or even scientific.

Glassman’s “FLOYD-19” reply tweet was the shot heard round the Twittersphere.

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People tend to forget that the CrossFit Affiliate program, the Level 1 Certificate Course (formerly Seminar Program, pre-ANSI certification days), and even CrossFit itself, have early ties to law enforcement. When Greg was just a personal trainer and there was only one CrossFit gym – his –  landing a contract to train the Santa Cruz Country sheriff’s department was a great get. That was in the mid- to late-1990s. One of the earliest seminar attendees, and CrossFit Affiliate owners, was T.J. Cooper of CrossFit East. T.J. Cooper, for the record, is black. He is also a longtime friend and a police officer. CrossFit East was the Affiliate name for the police department where T.J. hosted workouts and made cops in Jacksonville, Florida, fitter for their jobs and better for their communities. It’s easy to forget that there are CrossFit “Hero” workouts named for police officers, like black police officer “Randy” Simmons, a 27 year veteran of LAPD and LAPD SWAT.

The idea that Glassman is a racist is so absurd it feels bizarre to entertain it. It’s a terrible claim to have made against anyone – ever. In the current zeitgeist, however, if you don’t come out and declare your NON-RACISM soon enough, or loudly enough, you get the public struggle session. Witness Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s bizarre performance art where the mob shouts “Shame! Shame!” – from Game of (bleeping) Thrones, of all things! – because Frey said he didn’t support defunding the police. He slinks away like Circe, but with his clothes on, a white kid surrounded by angry black protestors.

Now it’s Glassman’s turn in the barrel. Of course, one can say that he brought it on himself with that ambiguous and ill-timed response to the IHME. But I never thought I’d see “Glassman’s a Racist!!” from a bloc of his own Affiliates. He hasn’t been quick enough to mutter the shibboleths about “systemic racism” in the United States or condemn the police.

This for a guy who in 2013 went to Kenya repeatedly to build schools for black people in the Rift Valley. When he came back, he got in front of his Affiliates and asked them to do the same: donate money, hold their own fundraisers in their communities, and build schools and cisterns for black people in Kenya. It was simply par for the course with Greg Glassman.

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Everywhere we went and met Affiliates, they always asked for his help. He couldn’t say no – Ever. People came to know me as the guy grimacing in the background whenever an Affiliate asked ‘Coach’ for CrossFit HQ’s help with something. Many times it came out of his own pocket. Once we were at an Affiliate’s gym – we just stopped in on a whim while traveling – and they were holding a fundraiser for someone in the gym who needed a wheelchair. Tragedy had struck a member of their small gym community and they were doing what Greg had taught them: hold an event, come together for a workout, and pass the hat for a family or person in need. Greg sidled over to me and quietly asked me to run back to where we had parked his truck: “Get my checkbook out of the glovebox,” he whispered while shaking hands and posing for pictures. He wrote a personal check for the remainder of the $10K that was needed – more than half. He couldn’t help himself; he didn’t know how to say “No.”

The schools in Africa was the idea of a brother of one of Greg’s Affiliate owners. The young man was a Mormon kid, doing his mission in Africa, and he came up to Greg at a skiing event in Park City, Utah. I was right there and can still see Greg’s face looking over at me, kinda sheepishly grinning to my grimace: he’d already said yes before I could get there. “We can build some schools in Africa, right D?”  he grinned at me. It was vintage Glassman. “Sure, we can!” I said, my lawyer-stomach doing butterflies.

I had no idea how we were going to build schools in Africa.

But Greg went to Africa, repeatedly. He met people, he saw the need, he paid for others on his staff to go, and, in the end, he couldn’t say no. Eventually, we found out what everyone finds out who tries to do charity work in Africa, from Bono to the UN, but Greg didn’t regret the energy and efforts. He knew it might be a losing cause from the beginning. El Shabbab, the militant terrorist group, was on the move in the region and the Christians in Kenya were on the run. The villages we were helping would likely be overcome, eventually. Greg told me once that it was worth it, that the experiment, “showed the Affiliates they could have impact on the other side of the world! For a people of a different language, culture, and skin color, with a deep need. Look what you can do 15,000 miles away! Think of what you can do in your own neighborhoods.”

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When tragedy came to his own neighborhood, Greg did the same thing. 19 firefighters from Prescott, Arizona – where Greg owned a house – died tragically in the Yarnell, Arizona, wildfires June 28-30, 2013. It was the worst loss of life for firefighters since 9/11. The Granite Mountain “hotshots” were firefighters* – and CrossFitters – who inserted themselves into wildfires to cut firebreaks and divert/stop their spread. They burned to death, huddled together in the last patch of grass left when the fires overran them. As of the 4 year anniversary for the Hotshots 19 workout in 2017, its website claimed to have collected over $335,000 dollars.

It never stopped; it never did when I was his lawyer. A young girl named Kate Foster lost her leg to cancer. She was a gymnast and loved CrossFit. Greg found about her, gave generously of his own money, and then mobilized Affiliates to donate to St. Jude’s for kids with cancer. The community raised enough to cover a day of operating expenses for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital: around a million or two. Every year the CrossFit Community has done “Murph” on Memorial Day, a workout to honor Mike Murphy, a CrossFitter and Navy SEAL who died in Afghanistan and whose heroism was captured by Marcus Luttrell’s book and the movie “Lone Survivor.”

When firefighters in the Community, particularly in southern states, told him about the tragedy of drowning, we raised awareness around childhood drowning across the United States. He partnered with Infant Swim Resource to get parents to teach their young children how to float (‘drown proof’). He even put his own kids through it, filmed them passing their “final exam” – being dropped in the pool in their clothes, flipping onto their backs, and kicking to the side – and then he posted it on the CrossFit.com site. None of it was without controversy. He tried to find ways to fund programs to help kids in inner cities get the training. 1 of every 5 drowning is a kid under 14; for every 1 who drowns, another 5 kids have had a “submersion injury” and have brain damage and lifelong disabilities.

I know, I know… a terrible guy. He’s not out there doing anything about “systemic racism.” Slacker.

People saying Glassman doesn’t care about people of color should be embarrassed. He’s been yelling about the disparate health impacts of diabetes and hyper-insulin related illnesses on communities of color for years. And trying to open gyms to make an impact in the best way he knows: with fitness… because that’s what he does. A few years ago we were in New Zealand – the Maori people, the native tribes, have (technically) been at war with the New Zealand government and they were working on a peace treaty. We happened to be visiting and one of the tribal leaders wanted to know if CrossFit could help with the destructive impact of diabetes on the natives. I didn’t even need to hear the rest to know what Greg would do. Of course. He did the same thing back in the United States, traveling to Native American Reservations in Oklahoma, meeting with elders and leaders, trying to find ways CrossFit boxes could help on the “Rezis.”

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I haven’t checked recently, but the last time I looked there were somewhere around 7500 CrossFit Affiliates in the United States. Because they’re not chains, but individually owned and operated businesses, each gym tends to have its own unique personality. They’re in strip malls, in big cities and the burbs, in remote areas, barns, houses, light industrial spaces, former gas stations, high rises, garages, and all kinds of other arrangements, including police stations and military bases. It includes a pretty wide variety of personalities, as well, from SpecOps trigger-pullers to old women, and everywhere in between. Given its maculate origins in California, it also attracts people with a lot of different politics. Controversy is nothing new for Glassman or CrossFit, but racist/systemic racism is the firebomb du jour of the Twittersphere.

What is the guy supposed to do? How much more can a guy do for others, including for Black people? How much is enough for the new Woke Thought-Guardians? Now we all have to take “sides” – and they’re not even sides we picked or got to define. You either start screaming RACISM! and demonize and denounce every cop in the country – or you’re cancelled. Is Glassman supposed to wade into the fray and choose between his “woke” Affiliates and his police Affiliates – the latter being the ones who helped build CrossFit, the guys and gals that were there from the beginning? Freddie Camacho was a long time police officer from just south of San Francisco, bristling in muscles and covered in tattoos when I met him at the CrossFit Games in 2007. To look at him, you could easily mistake which side of the law he’s on. One of his fellow female officers, Jolie Gentry, won the women’s side of the first CrossFit Games.

Glassman’s got CrossFit Affiliates on all sides of these convergent and divergent, whipsaw “emergencies.” Is there some Racism Kommissar out there watching and waiting: “What? Glassman said he’s against systemic racism? Well, there we go. Finally! Okay. It’s all better now.” What does his pronouncement add? Why does anyone even care what Greg Glassman, or CrossFit Affiliates, think about these issues?

Some observations:

  1. There seems to have been a loss of the familial nature of the Community, where we had gyms owned by addicts, alongside gyms owned by the cops who might have arrested them. That’s a trippy thing to consider, but we’ve had lots of gyms owned by people with records – minorities, young men from inner cities, many who found in CrossFit an opportunity and a clean slate, a lack of judgment about their past. They could make a good living as trainers and even become respectable business owners in their communities. That seems to have been lost in all of this.
  2. CrossFit was always “color-blind.” It was how it grew and thrived. We sent camera crews to document women’s only CF gyms in Muslim Sharia countries. We did Media on Affiliates living on opposite sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict and tried to find ways to bring them together. I spent almost two years – me, former Marine – living in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) opening CrossFit gyms, at Glassman’s personal request in 2017-18.
  3. Fitness transcended politics for us; it had to or we could never have grown the way we did around the world.We tried to find ways around the U.S. government’s ban on business in Iran, when an Iranian doing CrossFit in Iran contacted us, wanting to become an “official part of the Community.” Greg didn’t want to leave a single “CrossFitter” outside of “the Community.”
  4. You can believe deeply in the need for real police reform, work for it like some of us did and still do, in courtrooms and on a case-by-case, and also still know and love great people who are cops. This Us v. Them, you’re either with me or against me mindset isn’t sustainable, nor is it a solution to any problem in the CrossFit Community or the broader U.S. around police and the communities they serve.

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Chuck Carswell was a former standout football player for the University of Georgia Bulldogs. He went on to play safety for the Miami Dolphins. He is cooler than Shaft and the longest tenured voice of Greg Glassman’s vaunted Level I Seminar Staff. He’s done more seminars in front of CF’s most important customers – the people who attend its Level I seminars – than even Glassman himself. Chuck is beloved wherever he goes. It’s hard to imagine a racist having the single-most respected and prevalent face of his brand be a black guy. Of course, that’s because Glassman isn’t a racist. He is, however, in between a rock and a hard place with his Affiliates and this current strife.

The government-mandated lockdowns across the United States in the wake of COVID-19 wreaked a swath of destruction across the fitness industry that is probably hard to fully appreciate if you’re not in that industry. Running a CrossFit gym – a gym of any kind, or a martial arts school, or gymnastics school, as well – those are already tough margins. Every gym owner got hit hard. The lucky ones might have gotten some forbearance from their commercial landlord, but the unlucky ones might have found a landlord looking for an excuse to terminate a lease. Some states have begun to open back up and some of the gyms are coming back, but many will not.

George Floyd’s death was yet another terrible incident between law enforcement and the citizenry. Many of us, Glassman included, have long advocated for ending the War on Drugs, asset forfeiture, and for having courts reconsider the judicially created doctrine of qualified immunity for police – all of these things fall disproportionately on minority communities, particularly in big cities. No knock warrants are another bad idea, and the relationship between police unions and politicians, as well as having DAs in the same town investigating and prosecuting the cops of the department that gathers the DA’s evidence: all are a recipe for bad outcomes. And yes, there are undoubtedly racists sprinkled in among some forces.

But who bears responsibility for this mess? Why is Greg Glassman, or Elon Musk, or any business owner anywhere on the hook for any of this? Where are the people who have actually been running the police, the alderman, political leaders…? you know, the people actually getting paid by tax dollars to deal with these issues?? In Derrick Chauvin’s case, who was the AG of the state when multiple excessive force complaints were filed against Chauvin? Oh, Democratic Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. How… strange. How was Kamala Harris’s record as a prosector and AG of California? Where was the “systemic racism” then… or did “systemic racism” just arrive on our shores last week, like the COVID? Who sponsored the 1994 crime bill that was directly responsible for so much of the disparate impact that policing had on blacks in inner cities in the decades that followed? It wasn’t Greg Glassman; for the record, it was Joe “If you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black!” Biden.

Greg and I are both old enough to have clear memories of “systemic racism” in the U.S. from the late 60s and 70s. Back then protestors screamed that what was needed for “systemic racism” was more black officers and leaders. Changes to the “force composition” in the 70’s and 80s was touted as the answer to that version of “systemic racism.” Baltimore – and a ton of other Democratically controlled metropolises – New York, Chicago, Detroit, all said that more people of color in leadership and on The Force would help solve their “systemic racism” problem. Those cities have now been controlled by one political party for decades – one, with an absolute hammer-lock on jobs, leadership, budgeting, you name it. So, how has that worked out? Shaun King recently dared to tweet this unspeakable truth, and about how blacks should be careful in how they vote in the upcoming election. Which brings us back to a question of responsibility: why is any of this Greg Glassman’s fault? He wasn’t running the police departments in the past decades: Bill de Blasio was when Eric Garner was suffocated over the possibility he was selling “loosies” – single cigarettes – because NYC’s cigarette taxes are so high they’ve created a black market for poor people who can only afford single cigarettes.

George Floyd’s hagiography is missing the point; he never even made it to the station. He may very well have committed a crime by using a counterfeit bill – but you don’t get the death penalty for counterfeiting, and the police are responsible for your safety once you’re in their custody. The Constitution enshrines our rights to due process of law. Do people screaming at others in the name of George Floyd think that hectoring people publicly – with no pretense of due process – somehow honors his memory? This is what’s going to help fix the “systemic racism?”

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All of this, the lockdowns, the protests, it’s all a complete aside from what CrossFit, Inc., and what CrossFit Affiliates, does and do. They’re businesses: gyms train people and make them fitter. CrossFit runs educational courses, the CrossFit Games, content, etc. for its Affiliates and community. Local gyms provide a community for their members and families…

…What they are not, however, nor should they ever be, is a place for politics. I don’t want politics in my gym in the same way I don’t want it at my jiu jitsu school, or my kids’ gymnastics classes, piano lessons, or my ice hockey league. It has no place in any of those settings; it is in the completely wrong magisterium and milieu. What’s befallen some CrossFit Affiliate owners is a sense that their business is now a place, and platform, for political advocacy. They’ve truly made politics personal – and the mob is cheering it on at full volume. Maybe you can have a sufficiently large community of like-minded political devotees to have a successful gym, but it sure doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Not to me, anyway.

If gyms really wanted to make a difference, why couldn’t they simply do what Glassman’s showed them how to do all along? Maybe the Wokesters could reach out to the Affiliates run by LEOs and have an event to raise money, maybe help black business owners who have had theirs burned down, or help fund efforts to rebuild these communities? Maybe start by acknowledging that there are good people in the CF Community; even and especially among its LEOs, who live and work in those communities, and would love to come together to build communities up, not burn them down.

I’m not sure what the answer is. I don’t work there any more; I’m not in Greg’s (currently) rather warm  seat. Asking, nay, demanding that he take a public stance is to put him in the position of having to call people he knows – his friends and Affiliate owners – “racists” when he knows they’re not. Notwithstanding the uproar on Media, I suspect he may be getting many emails of support from Affiliates who are owned by cops and LEOs, friends of many years. They’ll probably just lay low until the outrage mob moves on to a new target.

He’ll still have my friendship. I’ve known him too long, and too well, to let even the public calumny change that. There’s nothing racist about him – he’s a man with a deep love for humanity; most especially those who’ll take his advice on workouts and diet. He’s also always been a contrarian with a quick lip, but a huge heart – and Affiliates used to love him for it.

Maybe he’ll lose a sizable portion of Affiliates. He’s got 7500 in the US. If it settles out at… I don’t know… 6,000, or even 5,000, would it be the end of all things CrossFit? No. I was there when it was smaller than that; we all still made a living and had fun – a LOT of fun, in fact. Maybe even moreso than later on, when it got bigger; or now, when public shaming for not reciting the proper Progressive dogma became the order of the day.

In my opinion, a little less public attention on politics, and a little more focus on making people fit would be just the antidote for… you know… a fitness company, and its community of (supposedly) like-minded, small gym owners. It always has been in the past.

I can’t predict the future, but I will make one Mark Messier-like guarantee: exactly zero problems we confront in our society will be solved on or by social media.

*I originally described the Hotshots as “smokejumpers,” but that is incorrect. The article has been updated to correct the error. (Hat tip to Alex Anglin for the catch).

About The Author

Ozymandias

Ozymandias

Born poor, but raised well. Marine, helo pilot, judge advocate, lawyer, tech startup guy... wannabe writer. Lucky in love, laughing 'til the end.

248 Comments

  1. Brochettaward

    To Firsting before others.

    • Brochettaward

      Ozymandias doesn’t capitalize Black. He clearly doesn’t think Black bodies matter.

      • Ted S.

        I bet he thinks Brochettaward doesn’t matter.

      • Ozymandias

        This is why I like this place.

  2. Creosote Achilles

    These are great reads. But so infuriating at the same time, because it drives home how shallow and narcissistic these commie rioters are, and how ignorant and harmful the people giving them cover are. Thanks, Ozy.

  3. Brochettaward

    The idea that Glassman is a racist is so absurd it feels bizarre to entertain it. It’s a terrible claim to have made against anyone – ever. In the current zeitgeist, however, if you don’t come out and declare your NON-RACISM soon enough, or loudly enough, you get the public struggle session

    Words clearly speak louder than actions to these people. Words are violence to but actual violent action isn’t.

  4. Drake

    Great article. I have really come to despise the racial shakedowns and social justice struggle sessions. They have nothing to do with racism and will cause far more resentment than we had before.

    I’ve spoken to the owner of my gym a few times. When / if Murphy ever allows gyms to reopen he’ll probably be back in business because his landlord hasn’t been charging rent (same mall lost a restaurant permanently during the lockdown). If that changes and he gets a rent bill before he can start collecting gym dues, he’s bankrupt. My wife had been going to a Curves, the owner of that franchise folded also and is permanently out of business.

    I believe that fit people tend to be more conservative politically – maybe because they take responsibility for their fitness? I think Murphy agrees and is purposely screwing them. He seems that petty and mean-spirited.

    • leon

      He seems that petty and mean-spirited.

      I think that’s a qualification for being a politician.

    • Rebel Scum

      cause far more resentment than we had before.

      That’s the apparent goal.

      • The Other Kevin

        The word that keeps popping into my mind is “unity”. We were never close to holding hands and singing like a Coke commercial, but in general over my lifetime things were going in the right direction, as we worked toward that ideal. Even in my close circle of friends and family, there are a number of interracial marriages and nobody seems to have any problem with that.

        But now the suddenly have disunity, anger, as as you said, resentment. That isn’t going persuade anyone. But that isn’t the point. This is war, and if you don’t fall in line you will be punished and forcibly exiled.

      • Drake

        Google blacklisted a whole bunch of conservative news sites and blogs today.

      • The Other Kevin

        I searched for Pat Buchanan earlier and that happened to him, too. Normally his website is on top, now it’s Wikepedia and another article about him being racist.

      • Drake

        I haven’t used Google in years, I wonder if the masses will notice it’s useless now.

  5. The Late P Brooks

    What is the guy supposed to do? How much more can a guy do for others, including for Black people?

    I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but it’s not what you do that counts.

  6. Yusef drives a Kia

    Thanks Ozy! now I’m mad, these people need to be stopped, or it’s going to get real ugly…

  7. Stinky Wizzleteats

    A guy does the right thing all his life and says the wrong thing: canceled; Someone like Northam wears blackface but spouts the right platitudes: crickets from the woke crowd.

    Welcome to the new world where words are undeniably greater than actions.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Me: ?

    • Viking1865

      Northam is the one in the hood, just FYI, and that picture is from the 80s.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Sure, it’s an old pic but if it was a Republican etc. I thought he was supposed to be the blackface fellow or are you joking?

      • Viking1865

        Northam is a VMI alum. I have connections in those circles. Apparently, it is well known that Northam is the guy in the hood. Apparently, and yes I am hearing this from a friend of a friend, so it is absolutely hearsay, I am not claiming direct proof, but it’s well known enough that VMI guys talked about it at events after the story broke.

        My point of saying “It was the 80s” was that it was the 80s, not the 60s or the 40s. It was well acknowledged in the 1980s that the Klan was A Bad Thing, and he was a medical student, not an 18 year old kid.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Ah, gotcha…I grew up in the Deep South in the ‘70s and ‘80s and Klansmen and their sympathizers were looked at by the normies in a way that men from Mars would have been viewed. It was apropos even back then.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Unacceptable, not apropos. How the hell did that end up that?

      • Chipwooder

        I thought the blackface/Klansman picture was from his medical school days, though?

    • Akira

      A guy does the right thing all his life and says the wrong thing: canceled; Someone like Northam wears blackface but spouts the right platitudes: crickets from the woke crowd.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd

      Hell, you can even start a chapter of the KKK and do everything in your power to stop the Civil Rights Act (and not due to any libertarian notions of freedom of association, but purely on the basis of your own racist views). And as long as you play for Team Blue, you’ll get eulogized this way:

      Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “It is almost impossible to imagine the United States Senate without Robert Byrd. He was not just its longest serving member, he was its heart and soul. From my first day in the Senate, I sought out his guidance, and he was always generous with his time and his wisdom.” [255]

      Vice President (and thus President of the Senate) Joe Biden: “A very close friend of mine, one of my mentors, a guy who was there when I was a 29-year-old kid being sworn into the United States Senate. Shortly thereafter, a guy who stood in the rain, in the pouring rain, freezing rain outside a church as I buried my daughter and my wife before I got sworn in … We lost the dean of the United States Senate, but also the state of West Virginia lost its most fierce advocate and, as I said, I lost a dear friend.”

      President Barack Obama: “He [Robert Byrd] was as much a part of the Senate as the marble busts that line its chamber and its corridors. His profound passion for that body and its role and responsibilities was as evident behind closed doors as it was in the stemwinders he peppered with history. He held the deepest respect of members of both parties, and he was generous with his time and advice, something I appreciated greatly as a young senator.”

      House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “Throughout his historic career in the House and Senate, he never stopped working to improve the lives of the people of West Virginia. While some simply bore witness to history, Senator Byrd shaped it and strove to build a brighter future for us all.”

  8. The Other Kevin

    This is a great series of articles. I think you are a strong contender for a Gliblitzer Prize.

  9. Not Adahn

    T.J. Cooper, for the record, is black.

    Wait, William Shatner is Black? I thought he was one of (((them)))?

  10. The Late P Brooks

    George Floyd’s death was yet another terrible incident between law enforcement and the citizenry. Many of us, Glassman included, have long advocated for ending the War on Drugs, asset forfeiture, and for having courts reconsider the judicially created doctrine of qualified immunity for police – all of these things fall disproportionately on minority communities, particularly in big cities. No knock warrants are another bad idea, and the relationship between police unions and politicians, as well as having DAs in the same town investigating and prosecuting the cops of the department that gathers the DA’s evidence: all are a recipe for bad outcomes. And yes, there are undoubtedly racists sprinkled in among some forces.

    Here’s a thought. It sounds crazy, I know, but stay with me. What if we stopped criminalizing everything under the sun just because some vocal subgroup doesn’t approve?

    And what if we went back to the school of policing where a cop would show up and say KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF and then leave? No “Papers, please”. No chokeholds. No detainment. No incentivised War on Citizens.

    • hayeksplosives

      Too many incentives to “get the numbers up” in number of arrests, citations, etc. No glory for simply “walking the beat” and having a nice, quiet neighborhood.

      • Ozymandias

        Eric Garner was killed because he had a history of selling loosies. That was the context for the interaction that led to him being choked to death. All of those anti-smoking zealots Karens have his blood on their hands, along with all of the legislators who taxed cigarettes so much that they created a black market for single cigarettes. Fuck all of those people.

    • R C Dean

      Well, trying to pass counterfeit currency is the kind of thing that gets you arrested under even a minarchy.

      • leon

        I was gonna make a complaint that the minarchy is supposed to be a night watchman state, not also in charge of the issuance of money.

        But then i thought about it, and it would be fraud to issue fake currency in the name of some banking institution.

  11. Rebel Scum

    a black market for poor people

    It would be much better to just buy/sell poor people in a legal market.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      ?

  12. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Thanks Ozy

  13. Rebel Scum

    Never give up. Never surrender. Never concede the premise. Never apologize.

    Trader Joe’s is getting rid of ethnic brand names from its products as a petition calling for their removal gains steam.

    The California-based grocery chain said it’s working to phase out stereotypical names it has attached to foreign foods, such as “Trader José’s” for Mexican cuisine, “Trader Ming’s” for Chinese products and “Arabian Joe’s” for Middle Eastern dishes.

    “While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect — one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day,” Trader Joe’s spokeswoman Kenya Friend-Daniel said in a statement.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      All these headline-writing editors seem to buy into the racism premise. So much for objectivity.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        The NYT isn’t the only journalistic dumpster fire that’s headquartered in New York.

    • creech

      “Kenya” needs to be advised to change his/her/its name as it is too stereotypical.

    • mindyourbusiness

      That’s too bad. I liked some of the things TJ’s stocked. Now I’ll have to find another place to buy ’em.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        I’ve been getting along without for months now solely because of the ever-present long line outside.

    • one true athena

      And in two years the wokescolds will complain that there’s no ethnic representation on labeling anymore.

      It’s such tiresome obvious shit.

  14. hayeksplosives

    Thanks, Stinky Wizzleteats, for the link to the Victor Davis Hanson piece at the end of the morning links.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      He’s a good writer and that’s a disturbing read. Even worse, I think he’s dead on.

      • Ed Wuncler

        I just finished reading the article you posted in the previous links. Fuck me, I know it’s noon but I need a drink after reading that.

      • JD is in the United Karendom

        VDH has been excellent recently. Certainly back in the Bush era he was someone more sympathetic to the “neo-con”, interventionist ideas prevalent at the time, but like others, he’s someone who’s writing has evolved to something that “as a libertarian”*, deeply resonates with me. I listen to his podcasts more often than read the written word these days as I don’t put aside enough time for reading. I’m a big fan.

      • JD is in the United Karendom

        *”as a libertarian” = take two shots of tequila, as per the rules for The No True Scotsman Drinking Game: Libertarian Edition

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Eh.

        Eh.

        Put me in the lukewarm category for VDH. For one, I find it amusing that a professor of Classics cum gentleman farmer has made it a shtick to condescendingly smirk at the upper-middle-class ‘learned’ professions. Also, while I do not relish the neo-Maoist future that he depicts in his latest, I also don’t want to live in the future white working class American Gemeinschaft that the ecumenical quasi-Integralists who make up his audience at American Greatness crave. Again, noting that the first thing these Nu-Right types did once becoming popular was to shit on the libertarians.

      • Viking1865

        “made it a shtick to condescendingly smirk at the upper-middle-class ‘learned’ professions”

        I mean, isn’t the whole point that the learned professions aren’t actually very learned at all? As revealed by, well, every time they open their fucking mouths? You know, the experts who have given us COVID lockdowns, quanitative easing, critical ___________ theory, climate models, perpetual war, etc etc etc.

        The best and the brightest have to actually be right about stuff to maintain their status as the best and the brightest.

        “I also don’t want to live in the future white working class American Gemeinschaft that the ecumenical quasi-Integralists who make up his audience at American Greatness crave.

        Well, one must separate the writer from his fans, no? I will confess, I don’t read the comments section at AmGreatness.

      • grrizzly

        Don’t forget that the “upper-middle-class ‘learned’ professions” also proclaim to believe in 67 genders and favor castrating and mutilating young children for any or no reason. They are the worst and deserve contempt and condescension.

      • kbolino

        There is a reason this has been focused most heavily on going after people’s jobs. While some blue-collar workers have been affected too, like the SDGE employee, it has mostly targeted white collar employees and been driven by other white-collar employees or wannabe white-collar employees (barista is just a temporary job while I work on becoming X, Y, or Z). For this purpose, white collar includes employees of media-driven enterprises even though many of them are not exactly office workers; they are, however, quite sensitive to the opinions of the white-collar consumer base.

        A la 1984, white collar workers are party members, but blue collar workers (the proles) are not. What party you ask? Well, it’s not the Democrats or the Republicans, nor even some third party like the Greens or the Libertarians, but rather the party of polite society, of passive-aggressive office politics, of keeping up appearances and backstabbing, of social climbing and social signaling. This is not to say life is just peachy as a prole, but neither was it so in Orwell’s vision. This has always been true to some extent or another but it has been particularly weaponized of late. Indeed, if I gloss VDH’s argument, this is the point of it or at least the mechanism by which it is being achieved.

        But white collar is not a synonym of “best and brightest” or of “intellectual” or even of “learnéd” though they may think of themselves that way. White collar just means your next pay check depends more on your ability to placate other people than it does on your ability to get the job done. The balance of political power in this country has shifted from appeasing the blue collar worker to appeasing the white collar worker. One Karen to rule them all, if you will.

        Yet no one is actually being tested for the mettle, for their ability to solve hard problems, nor being held accountable for their failures. So really we have no idea who the “best and brightest” are anymore because no one is looking for them and no process is weeding out the rest.

      • BakedPenguin

        Again, noting that the first thing these Nu-Right types did once becoming popular was to shit on the libertarians.

        But enough about Tucker Carlson…

      • kbolino

        Indeed. Nevertheless, a nontrivial number of libertarians seemed happy to live down to the stereotypes. “Pot, ass sex, and Mexicans” seems quaint compared to where “mainstream” libertarian thought sits today.

      • leon

        Again, noting that the first thing these Nu-Right types did once becoming popular was to shit on the libertarians.

        We libertarians really ought to use our overarching control of the government they say we have to teach them a lesson.

      • kbolino

        “If you don’t stop acting like an asshole, mister, I’m going to shut down yet another federal bureaucracy?”

      • I'm Here To Help

        Went back to the morning links, read the article, and posted a comment there, thinking for some reason I was here.

        I really do think that a lot of what he says will happen – I can see the dems getting the presidency, and both houses of congress in November, followed by packing the Supreme Court and passing all their transformation plans. But the response in 2022 and 2024 will be vicious, and won’t have the polite manners of the old Tea Party.

        Wife is a dual citizen, and we could escape to somewhere in the EU, but frankly I don’t think things will be any better over there…

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It isn’t looking too rosy but it’s difficult getting a real picture of what’s going on in people’s heads because of the unprecedented nature of what’s happening now and the understandable fear that Trumpsters and other non leftists have of voicing their opinions and preferences. If you put much credence in the polls he’s already done but that’s a big if. We’ll see how this all works out soon enough though.

      • hayeksplosives

        It seems that one of the problems with new young wokesters is that they have never been through an actual trying time (world war, Great Depression, racial tensions pre 1970s, student loan payback, etc.

        So maybe an upside to a Lefty takeover of the US will show them there are things in the Old Order worth fighting to keep or bring back.

      • R C Dean

        I can see the dems getting the presidency, and both houses of congress in November, followed by packing the Supreme Court and passing all their transformation plans.

        If not this November, then in four years or at most eight.

        the response in 2022 and 2024 will be vicious,

        Will it? Not sure I see it.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They will, in the name of fair voting practices, make certain they never lose the Presidency again.

        Obama’s goal was to bring Chicago style machine politics to DC. I think he partially succeeded. The rest of the Democrats aim to finish the job.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Put it on a plate, son.

      • BakedPenguin

        “Couldn’t get any better than this, Mom.”

  15. Heroic Mulatto

    2. CrossFit was always “color-blind. …
    3. Fitness transcended politics for us …

    And that is why they have to destroy it.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The personal is the political and you need to declare where your loyalties lie. Other than thicc broads who are you loyal to HM?

      • Heroic Mulatto

        When asked to join the Founders, my response was “ride or die”.

    • leon

      That and have you ever done a crossfit workout. Feel like i want to die after doing that.

      • Ed Wuncler

        I remember my first time doing a CrossFit class, and holy shitballs I wanted to die but also wanted to crap myself.

    • kbolino

      Every institution that does not bend the knee must be destroyed, and those that do bend the knee get skinsuited. And nothing will be left except confusion, anger, and hate.

      • PieInTheSky

        and fat chicks with purple hair and tattoos

      • Not Adahn

        He already said “hate.”

  16. Ed Wuncler

    Great article Ozy!

    I’ve taken a break from Crossfit since the birth of my daughter along with other unexpected shit popping up in my life, but ditto on what you said about Crossfit being a bridge for people of different races, classes, and backgrounds.

    It’s upsetting to see the social justice activists who were once a small minority on campus slowly implementing their vision. No matter how much good you do and how much you help others, if you aren’t in line with their bullshit, you are to be destroyed. It’s depressing but hopefully someday we can turn from this madness.

    • WTF

      The only way to turn from this madness is to destroy the wokesters by attacking them with the same vigor and relentlessness and dishonesty they attack others with. Since those tactics are abhorrent to libertarians and conservatives, the wokesters will win.

      • Ed Wuncler

        I battle with that myself. Do we debase ourselves and use their tactics or do we fucking go scorch Earth and try to push back against their bullshit?

        If there’s anything that I’ve learned from the Song of Fire and Ice books and that is if you expect your opponents to play by same rules you play by, chances are you might get an audience with Sir Ilyn Payne and the King.

      • Don Escaped LøböT

        those tactics

        the truth is enough

      • grrizzly

        LOL.

      • leon

        I have always opposed to “we must sink to their level or we’ll lose” arguments. In this case, i really don’t see how fully adopting “Cancel Culture” throughout the country will then stop “Cancel Culture” from becoming dominant. It’s We have to kill the free market to save the free market kind of thinking.

      • kbolino

        I think the notion that “we” are holding back because “we” are above all that is absurd. For one thing, “we” are not that virtuous. For another, they’ve made themselves not only a player in the game but a referee too. On what battleground do you get to fight them by any set of rules that don’t disfavor you? You assume they have rules that are consistent, but they do not. In the span of a couple of months, we went from smug-faced teenagers getting their comeuppance from wise native elders to it being wrong to criticize children while we got lectured by a teenage Swedish harpy.

      • Ed Wuncler

        We saw that with the whole Tara Reade and Biden situation. When it was Kavanaugh getting scrutinized and having accusations thrown at him, the Left and their allies in the media shat all over the concept of due process and basically said that any criticism about Blasey-Ford was tantamount to victim blaming. With Reade, they preached the virtues of due process along with doing whatever they could to question her credibility.

        How do you battle an opponent who has no shame whatsoever, switch principles whenever convenient, and slowly starting to control the flow of information?

      • R C Dean

        I tend to agree, WTF, but I think that we need to redefine “winning”.

        The wokesters have captured major institutions – education the media, entertainment, the administrative state, large corporations, etc.. I don’t think there is a way to capture them back using the infiltration/entryism/skinsuit techniques of the Left. They will either be Leftist institutions, or they will be destroyed.

        The wokesters are quite far along in their transformation of America. They are getting close to the “bayonetting the wounded” phase. Reversing the Left’s gains will require, not recapturing the institutions, but destroying them. The true revolutionaries, at this point, won’t be the Left, it will be whoever effectively opposes the Left.

        Government education – gone.

        Major media and entertainment companies – bankrupt.

        Big corporations – bankrupt.

        Administrative state – unemployed.

        I don’t see any other way to stop the train.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    All these headline-writing editors seem to buy into the racism premise. So much for objectivity.

    Assume the conclusion. Discard contradictory evidence.

    That’s what journalism means.

    • WTF

      It’s not journalism, and it’s not intended to convey information. It’s propaganda, and it’s intended to shape a narrative.

    • Not Adahn

      “At NPR we don’t report facts, we tell stories.”

  18. Rebel Scum

    Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves wokes…

    The professional head of the Naval Service, First Sea Lord Tony Radakin, reportedly ordered the banning of the phrases to create a more inclusive environment for female recruits to the Navy.

    “The vast majority of people in the Navy accept that some terms are problematic or no longer appropriate. Leadership are keen to ensure that, where practicable, gendered terms aren’t used,” a Royal Navy source told The Sun.

    The Canadian Royal Navy has announced that it will be looking for a replacement word for the rank of ‘seaman’ in favour of a term that is not gender-specific, as well as avoiding the double entendre.

    Britain’s Royal Navy is also considering a change to the name as well, but as the source noted: “The problem is that sea-person sounds a bit rubbish. There’s a lot of history attached to the seaman rank, and we know there will be resistance.”

    Might as well as get rid of those projectile launching phallic symbols on the decks of the ships as well. It’s not like you need them.

    • Ed Wuncler

      Lord Nelson is rolling in his grave right now.

      • leon

        “England expects that every man will do his duty”

        Not woke

    • Viking1865

      “as well as avoiding the double entendre.”

      The move was met with approval from the Junior Anti Sex League.

    • WTF

      Let’s replace it with “squid”.

    • hayeksplosives

      Let’s just sail the British Navy over down to Spain and set it alight.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    The word that keeps popping into my mind is “unity”.

    What’s the opposite of e pluribus unum?

    Divide and Conquer? To the Victor Go the Spoils?

  20. PieInTheSky

    I don’t much care for the sport, but the stupid outrage led by a small mob online is getting out of hand.

    That being said, the US people do have a problem of to much fitness and should tone it down a bit.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I chuckled.

  21. Rebel Scum

    Withdraw from the UN. Eject the members. Raze the building and salt the earth.

    The Portugese socialist made his prediction Saturday as he delivered the Nelson Mandela Lecture and spoke of the need for the U.N. to address “the huge gaps in governance structures and ethical frameworks” the epidemic has exposed. He said:

    To close those gaps, and to make the New Social Contract possible, we need a New Global Deal to ensure that power, wealth and opportunities are shared more broadly and fairly at the international level.

    A new model for global governance must be based on full, inclusive and equal participation in global institutions.

    […]

    A New Global Deal, based on a fair globalization, on the rights and dignity of every human being, on living in balance with nature, on taking account of the rights of future generations, and on success measured in human rather than economic terms, is the best way to change this.

    The worldwide consultation process around the 75th anniversary of the United Nations has made clear that people want a global governance system that delivers for them.

    • leon

      Portugeese GDP per capita is 5X the amount of Mozambique. Maybe the socialists should start at home with their own former colonies.

    • kbolino

      people want a global governance system that delivers for them

      Surely, it is on the tongue of every person you meet.

    • hayeksplosives

      I’d love to send the UN packing.

      All the Donald has to do is point out the alarmingly high number of sexual assaults committed by UN Peacekeeping troops over the past few decades.

      Surely that is outrageous enough to generate some UN hate or at least tough questions…right?

      • leon

        Tough Questions are for Tough Guys

  22. kinnath

    So is there a crossfit program for short, fat, old guys with bursitis in both knees that won’t result in cardiac arrest the first day?

    • PieInTheSky

      why would you want it?

      • kinnath

        For the same reason I need to find Goya products next time I shop.

      • PieInTheSky

        because the mob kicked out the founder? If he had stayed and crossfit was fully behind I would understand, but I remember there were plenty in the community who practiced their under the bus throwing

      • kinnath

        because the mob kicked out the founder

        Oops, I forgot.

    • Ozymandias

      Of course. Indeed, one of the program’s great strengths is its universal scalability and applicability. Old ladies and olympic athletes can do the same workouts aide-by-side, but scaled up or down to their relative abilities. Grandma is using a PVC pipe for her cleans while big dude is using 185 lb. He’s doing ring muscle ups and she’s doing ring rows until she’s strong enough for pullups.
      People may not want to hear this, but Glassman’s a fucking genius, among the handful of smartest people I’ve ever known – and I’ve met some Nobel winners and Fields Medal winners, for whatever that’s worth. He survived polio as a kid – maybe one of the last cases from that era. He was born in 1956 and got it as an infant, just after the vaccine had been developed. It withered one of his legs, but iron-willed sonuvabitch that he is, he became an avid bike-rider and a Los Angeles City level ring man – a gymnast. In the early 70s, that was the heart of U.S. Men’s gymnastics.
      He’s forgotten more about fitness and training than most people will ever know.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    A new model for global governance must be based on full, inclusive and equal participation in global institutions.

    You pay. We decide.

    • leon

      Do they really want equal participation in their institutions? They know that a Majority of the people in the world live in cultures vastly different from the European Socialist. This just sounds like new European Colonialisim. “Of course we want to extend the vote, but we have to wait until they hit certain social benchmarks before they are able to fully participate in governance”.

    • PieInTheSky

      I feel Romania should get more. we are needy too

    • Agent Cooper

      “global governance”

      Oh, I found the problem.

  24. leon

    Well Written, as always Ozy. Don’t worry about the haters. It’s not their fault that they were born fucked up.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I think most do when you threaten family…even if veiled

      • Not Adahn

        I’m sure that all goodtwitting people are calling him a weak fragile little crybaby and also a liar because the NYT sat they totally weren’t going to do that and anyway Antifa’s never hurt anyone unlike Milo Elphanetapus and his Boogaloo atomwaffen bois. .

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I think he jumped the gun by naming the journalist and photographer. Now the NYT will not publish his address and claim that he’s inciting the mob against its employees with no reason.

      A simple warning to not do so would have sufficed.

      • Drake

        That wasn’t about political points. It was not having to move his family again.

      • Viking1865

        He talked to them on the phone, and claimed they told him on the phone they would publish his address.

        So he put them on air on Monday, and called them out by name.

        Now they claim they were never going to do that.

        Well, you know what would certainly clear that up? A recording of the phone call. I sure hope it exists.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        If he has it, that would be a boon.

        As it stands, naming the journalist and photog before it occurred only gave them the opportunity to play victim.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I think we’re past the point of the playing the victim to sway public opinion. The cultural battlelines are already set (look at the Kavanaugh confirmation circus). We seem to be closer to the “circling the bandwagons” phase.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Nobody’s *really* buying the NYT as a victim. Not even their dwindling reader base, who will only pretend to.

      • hayeksplosives

        You mean, before it occurred again?

        The NYT had already hounded him out of one house.

      • kinnath

        Carlson has already been doxxed once.

        This falls into the “best defense is a good offense” category.

        I don’t have any problem with Carlson’s posting the names of the journalist and photographer.

      • Ted S.

        It’s not as if he posted their addresses.

        (At least, I don’t think he did.)

      • kinnath

        WaPost is breathlessly reporting that Carlson provided the names, and his fans did the rest.

        Clearly a conspiracy to hurt the poor NYT reporter and photographer.

  25. gbob

    Damn. Good article. I hadn’t really followed the story (Imean, my mental filter tends to block the word “cross fit” as much as it does “vegan”. Not because I dislike either, but to prevent eye damage from rolling them too much when listening to zealots). Fascinating stuff.

    Keep fighting the good fight, Ozy.

    • juris imprudent

      The joke about how you know your friend is a vegan, cross-fitter that goes to Burning Man – because they never, ever shut up about all three.

  26. Toxteth O'Grady

    Today I learned the word “maculate”.

    • PieInTheSky

      I thought the word was used in every toxic masculinity post on this site.

      • Animal

        Beat me to it by two minutes.

    • Animal

      Well, I have been using it in all of my Profiles in Toxic Masculinity for months now, as a section header: “His Maculate Origin.”

      • PieInTheSky

        I just said that

      • Ozymandias

        Is there an echo in here!

        And that was a deliberate call-out to our very own Animal. I wondered if you would catch it.
        When I wrote that, I knew I was going to post it here, so there is my tip o’ the cap to you, sir.
        It’s a great line.

      • Animal

        Thank you! High praise indeed.

  27. kinnath

    There is no hiding from this shit.

    The mayor of Iowa City will issue an order requiring people to wear face masks on Tuesday, according to the Press Citizen.

    Mayor Bruce Teague made the announcement last night at a joint entities meeting with Johnson County Supervisors.

    The order will defy Governor Kim Reynolds order which says local officials do not have that authority.

    • EvilSheldon

      Bumfight!

    • mrfamous

      Gee, it’s almost as if random politicos executive orders becoming full force of law creates chaos and leaves the public unsure which branches of governments control which governmental functions.

      Maybe the judiciary could step in and void all of these executive overreaches around the country and demand that law making powers be returned to the legislature.

      Sorry, don’t know what came over me.

      • grrizzly

        It’s more likely the Supreme Court will find a constitutional duty to wear face masks outside your home forever.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Broward County has a sad…should be inside your home too!

      • leon

        :raises eyebrow:

        Really? That’s taking the cargo to the cult.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Think it depends on how your read the order…let me find it

      • Ownbestenemy

        Section 4. Responsibility to Ensure Compliance with Applicable Orders.
        A. Residential Property Residents. All persons who reside on any residential
        property, whether single family or multi-family, and irrespective of whether they own or
        rent the property, must ensure that all persons on the residential property, including
        guests, comply with all applicable guidelines of any Broward County Emergency Order,
        including the facial covering requirements. Residents who fail to ensure compliance with
        all applicable Broward County Emergency Orders by such persons shall be subject to the
        penalties set forth in Section 8-56 of the Broward County Code of Ordinances, with each
        person present and in violation of an applicable Emergency Order constituting a separate
        violation.

      • Ownbestenemy

        That could just be legal cover if say your kid gets busted out and about without a mask they can come after you, the adult.

      • one true athena

        Right?

        What the hell are any of our state legislatures even DOING? It seems Congress isn’t the only one who’s outsourced all duties to the executive and just sits around. I guess once in a while votes on package some lobbyist cronies put together. Or if you’re Sacramento, pass laws to kill industries for funsies, but mostly nothing.

      • mrfamous

        Here in Arizona they refuse to meet due to fears over COVID-19. Seriously.

      • leon

        Mind Blown. They can’t figure out how to meet virtually?

      • mrfamous

        I’m sure they could. But why would they want to? There’s a handful of Republican reps trying to get the legislature to re-convene, but most from both parties are too busy focusing on their re-election efforts.

        It’s grifters all the way down.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Same in Nevada. Asked multiple times why no special session (outside the Guv calling one) and they keep saying that they are letting the Governor do it.

        What an abdication of your duties is usually my response

      • kbolino

        Well, for one thing, many of them aren’t in session. In Maryland, for example, the General Assembly has been out of session since March 16. They could likely convene if they wanted to, though the governor would have to order it, but they would have to meet in person at least once to pass a resolution allowing them to meet virtually. Much like the teachers, they don’t want to do even that.

      • Ownbestenemy

        See above, NV legislative can require one on 2/3rds vote and they dont even want to do that. They have given up all powers to the Executive

      • Viking1865

        “Sorry, don’t know what came over me.”

        Racism, straight up.

  28. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    *hearty ovation*

    lots of things said there that are hard to say in this climate, but needed to be said.

    *forwards to wife*

  29. BakedPenguin

    …exactly zero problems we confront in our society will be solved on or by social media.

    Well put.

    • Don Escaped LøböT

      As I said on the Zoom the other night, it’s not the medium that’s the problem (it’s who you follow).

      I see this the other way: social media is a powerful communications medium, and sometimes good ideas can be brought to bear quickly.

      Anecdote: redneck state’s legislature promulgates ridiculous bathroom law, and social media melee ensues; a thousand emails get sent to Big Bad Corp who is thinking about opening a new warehouse and bringing 500 jobs to said state; Big Bad’s general counsel drops a call on Guvna Righteous, who quickly convenes his caucus. Result: ridiculous law rescinded even faster than it first passed.

      Lots of things that are in the government’s purview would be better managed by popular scrutiny. Lots of people learn all kinds of things about history and philosophy and what’s going on from social media, from crazy, seditious platforms like Glibs dot com.

      • Viking1865

        “ridiculous bathroom law”

        Which one? Because I think one of those laws, in one of those states, was “Private business owners can choose their own bathroom policies”.

      • Don Escaped LøböT

        if I misremembered, then just replace bathroom law with whatever worthy target you deem; I’m making a point, describing a flow, not grinding an ax

      • Ozymandias

        Yeah, I get your point, the specifics aren’t the thing. See my reply below this for the “why” of my ‘axe.’

      • Don Escaped LøböT

        just to be clear: I wasn’t attacking anyone’s motives or intellectual honesty

        I was just saying that the bathroom law was mere example, not any political cause I needed to bandy about; it just sprang to mind because I thought it was a cause of vox populi promptly trumping partisan mechanics

      • Viking1865

        Vox populi =/= 50-500 Twitter freaks with discipline and time on their hands to write media outlets and a few corporations with friendly executives.

        I’m not saying the legislature is vox populi either, but its certainly closer to vox populi then fucking Twitter.

      • Viking1865

        I’m not as enamored of activists on Twitter use a few hundred burner email accounts to create a false consensus to stampede the cattle substituting for the political process, personally.

        I prefer liberty to rule, but if there is to be rule, I prefer to be ruled by the preferences of the majority, not rule by the preferences of a tiny minority that happens to have access to the levers of corporate and media power.

        Liberty>democracy>oligarchy.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Charlotte, NC passed a city ordinance that forced business owners to allow anyone to use any bathroom they wanted (e.g., adult men could hang out in the women’s room without needing to “identify” as a woman and a business owner could not ask them to leave). The state of NC tried to pass a law affirming business owners did in fact own their businesses and could decide for themselves. All hell broke loose.

      • Ozymandias

        Glibs is NOT social media, at least not by my definition. My bitch is with the platforms themselves, not the power of the Net for mass communication. Indeed, on topic, CrossFit’s leadership learned over the years that our community had been built on laptops and desktops, on our old message boards: much like this, but some better threading and search capability (and edit!), and volunteer mods. It was a massive undertaking, but a lot of great friendships developed out of it, going from virtual to IRL, also just like here, and it helped us build that company and community. We found out that mobile devices don’t work like that – you do not get the same kind of community and necessary connection because there is not serious communication.
        Facebook is not meant to build communities and neither is Twitter. Facebook was originally MZ the Incel’s attempt to pick out hot college chicks from ugly ones, like Tinder, really. It morphed into a way to aggregate data about its users for advertisers, much like Google did with search. Then they turned to manipulating information to influence behavior.
        Whatever minimal number of times they have been leveraged for good is so far outweighed, in my opinion, by their use for actual, IRL, indisputable bad and downright evil that I find myself in the “please let them hurry up and die” camp. It’s analogous to the argument over the Patriot Act being justified by the times it’s been used to nab bad guys. Even if I accept it as true, the underlying nature of the thing itself is such that I can’t justify its existence.

      • Don Escaped LøböT

        now do guns ?

      • Ozymandias

        I didn’t say I would outlaw anything, Don, just that they suck – and I hope they go broke.
        I can’t tell if you’re being funny or that’s supposed to be a criticism/rebuttal of my point, so I’ll leave my comment at that.

      • Don Escaped LøböT

        Oh, it was an honest question, but thanks for clarifying; I’m relieved. Indeed, It has long been my biggest challenge with this libertarian site to navigate between the philosophical points and personal preferences. I’m not gunning for anyone; I’m just trying to distill the points.

        I had written an article on cancel culture per se, but I don’t think I’ll submit it. The last time I brought it up, someone wisely opined that it was another one of those whose-ox-is-being-gored deals, and this feels like that: a good guy lost to bad guys, so let’s saw down all the telegraph poles that are stealing our souls.

        My posture is that the culture war is long lost; all that is left is whether we believe in liberty or not. I hold that the unhappy, unseemly, populist consequences of freedom are mere overheads; remaining steadfastly principled is the only remaining satisfaction.

      • Ozymandias

        I try to be very particular in my language. I have strong opinions about almost everything, but it would be immoral to attempt to impose any of them on anyone else by force. My hatred of Facebook/SM is not that they should be illegal, or even “cancelled,” though there would be some poetic justice in that. I just fervently hope that they die of their own wretchedness, much like I feel about a bunch of things I can’t control. Unlike my enemies, however, I don’t want to use the law to do it.
        I know I’m too late (and likely being idealistic because lawyers have created a LOT of this mess) but the Law as a concept is baked into the human condition. It hurts me to see it debased so. Robert Bolt’s Thomas More was correct about revolutionaries’ desire to destroy the Law when it protects their enemies. I wonder how much they’re teaching that play anymore, eh?

      • R C Dean

        My posture is that the culture war is long lost; all that is left is whether we believe in liberty or not.

        I agree that the culture is lost. I think that also means that “we” (as in, enough people to matter) no longer believe in liberty.

      • kbolino

        Facebook, Twitter, etc. rode and shaped the same wave that turned journalism into clickbait and fired off the old guard to replace them with the new soon-to-be woke guard, before woke was something besides the past tense of wake. The Internet was a different place before, and while the change did not happen overnight, is somewhat unrecognizable to older netizens (and look how old that word seems now). Of course, even older neckbeards would say the same thing about the Internet before September 1993, but I think September 2006 (when Facebook opened up to everyone) was, in retrospect, a more momentous turning point in the culture of the Internet.

      • kbolino

        (TL;DR: I was on the Internet before it was cool)

      • Suthenboy

        “Even if I accept it as true, the underlying nature of the thing itself is such that I can’t justify its existence.”

        An observation it seems few people are able to make.
        Immediately after the 9/11 attacks congresscritters assembled on the steps of the capital, put their hands on their hearts and recited the pledge. I clearly remember saying in a room full of family and friends “Oh my God. We’re fucked.’

        I got a lot of blank stares and “Whu? Huh? Whut are you saying? Why? Huh?”

        “If I have to explain it then I am wasting my breath. “

      • Viking1865

        “The Republic for which it stands”

        Flight 93. Let’s roll. They didn’t call the police. They didn’t beg for the government. They rolled up their sleeves, worked together. Al-Qaedas master tactic worked for exactly 2 hours before American citizens shut it the fuck down.

        The unofficial, unorganized civilians moved more people off Manhattan on 9/11 than the government did. People who had boats in the surronding areas crossed the river, shuttled people over, went back and did it again.

        The proper response to terrorism is the revival of the American milita ethos. A rifle and a first aid kit in every trunk, a pistol on every belt.

      • Don Escaped LøböT

        A rifle and a first aid kit in every trunk, a pistol on every belt.

        * swoons dead away *

      • Suthenboy

        Yeah, I am stealing that. Dont for get your fire extinguisher.

      • Ownbestenemy

        My kids, city dwellers indeed, start out with a pocket knife that I tell them to conceal well in their school bags and it is not for use outside of survival needs. They dutifully have buried it deep in an obscure pocket. Once they get old enough, I will gift them a firearm of their own to carry and protect themselves and their loved ones.

      • Ownbestenemy

        More people and more boats than Dunkirk if I recall. Though the distances were much smaller. I do think the Coast Guard gets credit for that later in the day, but at first..it was fiery boats and fisherman.

      • Ozymandias

        I wrote almost that exact same thing (with another 3,000 words, imagine your shock!) about 9/11 and the “need” for the TSA. The tactic worked once – one fucking time – and then it was done. But the govt created a million ways to violate the Constitution as a response. SMFH.
        And I always come back to Albert Nock’s brilliant words about “social power” and its loss in the first chapter of “Our Enemy, the State.” He was so fucking right it’s incredible. Of course, he lived through the socialism boom of the era that led to the Nazis and he saw that coming, too.
        They never fucking listen and learn.

      • Viking1865

        Yeah imagine how much actual preparedness and resilience could have been purchased for the amount of money spent on blue gloved idiots and other forms of security theater.

        Americans should never ever be forced to confront evil with empty hands, or improvised weapons. The only question when a killer strikes at an American school, or plane, or restaurant, or nightclub is how many free citizens will return fire and end the threat.

      • Gender Traitor

        Glibs is NOT social media…

        Antisocial media?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        “dumb fucks”.

        I think of social media as having a separate phone app available.

      • R C Dean

        it’s not the medium that’s the problem (it’s who you follow).

        Of course, on non-fringe social media, there’s an increasingly limited menu of people you can follow.

        I was just saying that the bathroom law was mere example, not any political cause I needed to bandy about; it just sprang to mind because I thought it was a cause of vox populi promptly trumping partisan mechanics

        Social media is not “vox populi”. It is mostly people who hate the populi, and its keepers are going to great lengths to make sure that only the people they agree with get to use the megaphone. The kerfuffle over bathroom laws was the usual lefty suspects dogpiling a state to prevent it from saying “Your bathroom, your rules” (you know, the rule the populi wanted).

        I get that, in theory, social media could be a very different thing than it is. But as it stands, it is a cancer on the body politic.

  30. Rebel Scum

    What do Antifa, BLM and the CCP have in common?

    In China as in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic has crippled the economy and stricken many people’s livelihoods. Christians who receive government benefits have found themselves pressured to give up their faith — or at least, strike symbols of it from their homes — in order to keep receiving aid, Bitter Winter, a magazine on religious liberty in China, reported.

    In April, the government of a town brought officials from surrounding villages together and ordered them to “remove crosses, religious symbols and images from the homes of people of faith who receive social welfare payments and replace them with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi Jinping. The officials were instructed to annul the subsidies to those who protest the order.”

    A Christian in one of those villages told Bitter Winter that local officials tore down all religious couplets and a calendar with an image of Jesus in his home, replacing it with a portrait of Mao. “Impoverished religious households can’t receive money from the state for nothing—they must obey the Communist Party for the money they receive,” an official reportedly told him.

    • Ed Wuncler

      Why do you think the Progressives want a welfare state. It’s easier to coerce people who are dependent on you.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        That’s the reason for the Cash “shortage”

      • Viking1865

        The Stalin Era you got sent to the gulag for being a dissident. The Brehznev era you lost ration coupons or got moved to a smaller apartment. When the State controls everything, prisons aren’t really necessary. The whole world is a prison.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    A Christian in one of those villages told Bitter Winter that local officials tore down all religious couplets and a calendar with an image of Jesus in his home, replacing it with a portrait of Mao. “Impoverished religious households can’t receive money from the state for nothing—they must obey the Communist Party for the money they receive,” an official reportedly told him.

    Are you not grateful for the beneficence of the People, Comrade? Then show it.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      They should be grateful they weren’t shot but with the way Xi’s heading maybe they eventually will be.

    • leon

      Communisim is just sharing.

  32. Suthenboy

    Thank you Ozy. Your articles are always a thought provoking pleasure to read.

    I have been laying a bit low lately. Keeping up with current events is just too depressing.

    I will try to come back more often and maybe get off of my ass and write up a couple of submissions.

    • Ozymandias

      Be well and thanks, Suthen! Enjoy the bayou and the food.

  33. Tres Cool

    Great article, Ozy. And I just skimmed it. Ill go back to read it.

    But from the salient points I saw, I immediately thought “sunk cost fallacy”.

  34. mexican sharpshooter

    I can’t say I’ve been all too happy about gyms getting the blame for recent events, but I have little control over what idiots want to believe.

    Thank you for reposting this here. I don’t know who this guy is, but I do know my wife’s CF gym closed permanently due to the shutdowns. It is nice to hear the context the outrage mob almost always reacts without knowing.

    • leon

      Times like this that makes you glad that we are in a Military Alliance with Turkey. One that the smart people in charge have assured us is so important that we stay in.

  35. leon

    BREAKING: Census is trending on twitter. Forget Portland, lets move on to the next panic. Also people are remembering that this is a census year.

    • leon

      Hmm reading the USAToday article about it, i had assumed that trump had ordered that they ask the citizenship question, but looks like he is actually ordering that non-citizens don’t be counted for Aportionment reasons, which won’t last, because IIRC the constitution doesn’t care for citizenship when it comes to counting.

      • R C Dean

        The census is supposed to count everybody, no question.

        Non-citizens don’t get a vote, so they aren’t “represented” in Congress no matter what (for some values of “represented”).

        Counting non-citizens for apportionment of representatives is inconsistent with each vote counting equally – if you live in a district with a lot of non-citizens, your vote counts for more.

        So, its a conundrum whether we should apportion Congressional seats based on citizens, or total residents. The 14th Amendment sez:

        Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.

        Which seems to pretty clearly go for “residents”, not citizens. However, it goes on to say:

        But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

        Non-citizens are “inhabitants” who can’t vote, so this would seem to say that you reduce the representation of a state to reflect the number of adults who can’t vote, tilting back toward representation by citizens.

        Then the drafter’s screwed the pooch by saying that your reduce it proportionally to the citizens who can’t vote. “Inhabitants” =/= “citizens”. So as long as all your citizens can vote, the required reapportionment by having inhabitants who can’t vote gets nullifed.

      • R C Dean

        Sorry about that superfluous apostrophe, Ted. Honest typo, not a provocation.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I am waiting for the knock from a census worker…
      They get one honest answer, 2 persons that are 18 years of old or older and 2 minor children.

      If they insist on other information they will be met with a grand story of epic proportions.

      • UnCivilServant

        “I identify as Zeta Reticulan.”

      • The Last American Hero

        I identified as Noldor. Wait for a century until my great great grandchildren look that up for a school project.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Just do it online. You can skip thru the unconstitutional BS by clicking NEXT multiple times.

      • UnCivilServant

        That violates my security policy.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I think I lost those on a boat with some other items…

      • Not Adahn

        I did put myself down as “other Kekistani.”

        Hopefully that didn’t make it too easy to track me down

        *inspects Faraday cage for breaks*

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I start training as an Enumerator on August 2nd,
      It’s in the Constitution you know

      • leon

        I already answered! Don’t hunt me down.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I’m going to the boonies to find the Desert crazies, and count them, wish me safety!

      • Fatty Bolger

        Hoo-boy. I worked for the census some decades ago, and the enumerators who worked the boonies always had some interesting stories. Lots of angry dogs and crazy people.

      • Agent Cooper

        Be careful when you are out there hunting down Jedis.

  36. Akira

    OT: I’m looking to get into woodworking, specifically traditional joinery. Planning to start with dados, mortise & tenons, and dados. The primary reason is to build furniture items for my house.

    Any tips or suggestions for beginners? I have little woodworking/carpentry experience but I’ve always been good at handiwork when I put in the time to learn it. I’m planning to get some basic chisels, hand planes, etc. and just practice on scrap wood until the joints look good, then attempt little boxes before moving on to an actual shelf.

    • Akira

      dados, mortise & tenons, and dados

      Fuck. Replace one of those dados with dovetails.

      • UnCivilServant

        Sounds like you are having trouble with your joints.

      • Not Adahn

        I thought you just really liked dados.

    • Pine_Tree

      Start with good material, not what most people would consider “scrap” wood.

      That is, it should be high-quality, in good shape (splits, knots) and straight.

      You want your early work (boxes and practice joints) to focus on the basics of technique and tools, not dealing with crappy material.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    It’s in the Constitution you know

    Unlike the Office of the Surgeon General, or the CDC.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Centres for the control of the Vapours?

      • The Last American Hero

        Vapers are covered by BATF

  38. leon

    So after some discussion yesterday about presidentail poling i decided to look at a tracking of the movements of the polls differentials (using the polls found here, starting in March)

    What i see from the 10 poll moving average: Trump was hovering at a 4 – 7% deficit up until Jun 1 when there was a noticeable slide in the polls which stabilized at a -10% deficit. Starting on the end of June there is a rise in his polling numbers but they seem to have leveled off at a -7 to -8% deficit.

    I don’t know what that means in absolute terms, but Trump certainly is worse off right now than he was starting off in March.

    • UnCivilServant

      Polls are still as worthless as they have been.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      interesting. so he wasn’t getting hammered for the covid issues, but he’s losing on the racial shit. that doesn’t bode well for this fall.

      • leon

        I’ll see if i can get a screen cap of my chart up here, but technically his slide starts in week 19 (Beginning of May), but it was within the range that he was at, and before it really slid, he had a slight up tick, so i count the slide as starting at the end of may.

        If you have a way to share files anonymously, i’ll share the spreadsheet with my basic calculations.

      • Don Escaped LøböT

        It’s not clear.

        As I posted recently: Trump plods along at 42% approval with 53% disapproval . . . unless you believe that the last three months’ figures (a drop to 40% from 45) are meaningful reflections of something or just noise as he continues to bob around in his normal altitude.

        He was peaking at the end of March before this seeming downtrend emerged.

    • Don Escaped LøböT

      Instead of the boorish jammering, he should roll out a couple of decisive programs that aren’t controversial and that create jobs. Instead of the Scaramungsia, he needs to find moderate, accomplished adults to front the initiatives. The middle is unimpressed: they’re more than tired of ad hominem all day.

      • hayeksplosives

        He could just read some nice speeches too. America and apple pie.

    • hayeksplosives

      I wonder if anyone who plans to support a non-leftist will aver admit that to a pollster.

      The voter doesn’t want to be judged non-woke by the pollster, and also has lost faith that anything is really anonymous anymore.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        ??

      • littleruttiger

        Yeah, I wonder that too.

        Maybe this has already been done, but I think an interesting analysis would be comparing these polls to the ones 4 years ago in terms of makeup, etc. I haven’t seen an explanation for Trump’s win in terms of polls besides the basic fact that people weren’t telling pollsters what they really thought, and based on that I don’t know what significance these polls give. I get Leon’s point in trying to capture the trend, and don’t think it can be presented as good news for Trump, but don’t know what overall weight to give it (i.e. on the spectrum from irrelevant to super bad)

    • kinnath

      This is how is started in 2016: This is how the unthinkable happens.

      Trump Vincibility Watch: How the Horrifying Comeback Could Unfold

      The polls have always been shit.

      In 2016, the polls were extra shitty.

      In 2020, saying the wrong thing in public gets people fired. Many people that support Trump are going to lie about it right up until the get in the voting booth.

      You can forget what the polls are saying.

      Simply listen for the silence from traditionally democratic-voting blocks to decide who is voting for Biden and who is voting for Trump.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I don’t respond to polls. Most people I know of a similar political bent don’t respond to polls, nor talk about it when they do.

        One thing I do know, my Democrat and liberal acquaintances absolutely love to respond to polls and then tell everyone about it.

      • hayeksplosives

        An insidious new factor on the horizon: online or mail voting. If people fear their votes will cost their job or put a demerit in their social credit score, will they feel safe voting?

    • Pine_Tree

      My prediction is that one of his major moves in the next few months will be speaking directly to African-Americans. It will be something along the lines of the Donks’ multi-generation failures, assuming they own the black vote, a reminder that the employment/economic picture was so noticeably increasing, and an outright statement that the plandemic and the riots are a deliberate tool to hurt all of that and drive continued dependence.

      It will be in the context of “you know (all of those things)….”. And he’s right. And the direct straightforward engagement will work.

      • Pine_Tree

        “lady”?

      • Pine_Tree

        Oh. I couldn’t tell it was a link because of the screwed-up text.

      • Don Escaped LøböT

        couldn’t hurt in NC, MI, OH, and FL

      • Fatty Bolger

        So, tell the truth? So crazy it just might work.

      • littleruttiger

        I saw a bizarre Biden ad on youtube – someone is walking up a staircase, and Biden is saying how tough it is to walk up and tell your kid you lost your job, etc. The ending voice over says Biden’s father had to do that to little Joe, and Joe is working so you don’t have to to your kids.

        I don’t know who would watch that and think “Man, Biden really understands what it’s like for us!”

      • Agent Cooper

        We lived in a single-floor ranch home! FUCK YOU BIDEN!

  39. robc

    Watford may have just doomed themselves to relegation on goal differential. They were 3 pts up on Villa and +4 in GD starting today. They lost 4-0 to Man City and Aston Villa is up on Arsenal 1-0 at the half.

    If AV holds on, they will be tied on pts and AV will be +1 in GD. There is still one game left, but Watford was looking in good shape to stay up. Bournemouth is 3 pts behind them and even on GD also, so could also pass them this weekend.

  40. hayeksplosives

    Thank you for the in-depth look at the CrossFit culture and history.

    Wokesters hate CrossFit because both the business model and the main activities surrounding fitness are too individualistic and merit based, and worse, are voluntary.

    They hate voluntary activities.

    • The Last American Hero

      But they like screaming and howling, and they like bragging about stuff online. I’d think it would be a natural fit for them.

  41. Warty

    Good shit. Thanks for writing it.