The Narrative is an interlocking set of lies promulgated by an alliance of governmental and commercial/social media interests to keep the public ignorant, fearful, and obedient. The Narrative is pervasive. It is taught in schools from pre-K to graduate and is in the news 24/7. I believe the fundamental split in society isn’t rich .vs. poor or urban vs. rural, but those who believe The Narrative vs. those who do not.
The Narrative provides a complete mental framework for one’s relationship with society and government. To dispute one element of The Narrative is to dispute the whole thing. This is why those who believe The Narrative get so combative when it’s challenged. An insinuation that one tenet of The Narrative is in error is an insinuation that one’s entire concept of reality is in error. This is perceived as aggression and, according to The Narrative, an appropriate response to conceptual aggression is physical violence.
Does this sound familiar? I believe The Narrative figuratively occupies the part of the brain that evolved to contain religion and that religious faith may provide some inoculation to The Narrative.
It used to be that believers and non-believers could literally get along in public because there was no way to tell who was what. Compulsory masking has changed that. The mask has become the Nazi armband of modern society. Not wearing a mask challenges a part of The Narrative and reveals the free breather to be a dangerous free thinker.
Who believes The Narrative? In my observation it’s people who’ve had little or no difficulty in their lives. Human beings evolved to live with a certain level of stress and, paradoxically, suffer without it. The Narrative provides endless amounts of trivial difficulty to fill the gap. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. I know some very intelligent people who believe The Narrative.
Who doesn’t believe The Narrative?
– People with sufficient levels of self-awareness, observation, and critical thinking.
– High level government officials.
– The powers behind commercial and social media outlets.
The Narrative is a weak argument because it’s a transmission from Top Men and relies upon faith in Top Men. If someone realizes that just one of the tenets of The Narrative is false, it could be concluded that the Top Men are liars. From that it could be concluded that the remainder of The Narrative is a lie.
I concede that what follows could be considered a massive straw man argument. “My enemies believe this.” I would be fascinated to read a rejoinder.
The following statements are just a part of The Narrative. None of them are true:
– The conspiracy theory known as The Narrative is false.
– Statements contrary to The Narrative are dangerous “disinformation” and “fake news” and do not deserve First Amendment protection.
– A person who makes statements contrary to The Narrative is depending on the context:
– racist
– sexist
– a white supremacist
– a domestic terrorist
– homophobic
– transphobic
– fascist
– a Nazi
– Government officials only do what is best for society and are never wrong.
– Commercial and social media spokesmen are honest, trustworthy, and factual.
– Physical violence is an appropriate response to conceptual aggression.
– Criticism of the government is treason to the country.
– Individuals have a personal responsibility to safeguard the interests of society.
– Systemic Racism is a real problem that requires immediate attention.
– White Privilege is a real problem that requires immediate attention.
– Global Climate Change is a real problem that requires immediate attention.
– Global Climate Change is caused by human activity.
– Nuclear power is dangerous.
– Nuclear power is economically unviable.
– The world’s energy needs can be provided by renewable sources.
– The SARS-CoV2 virus is so dangerous that a perpetual state of emergency is an appropriate response.
– Casual masking inhibits the spread of viruses.
– The nation is experiencing an epidemic of gun violence.
– Laws restricting access to guns reduce gun violence.
– The nation is experiencing an epidemic of drug abuse.
– Laws restricting access to drugs reduce drug abuse.
– The events in Portland, Oregon starting in 2020 are peaceful protests.
– The January 6, 2021 event in Washington, DC was a violent insurrection.
– The 2016 Presidential election outcome was the result of Russian interference.
– The 2020 Presidential election outcome was fair and honest, the epitome of electoral correctness, beyond reproach.
– Transgender women have no physical advantage over natural women in athletic competitions.
– Not having medical insurance means not having access to medical care.
The Narrative is an interlocking set of lies promulgated by an alliance of governmental and commercial/social media interests to keep the public ignorant, fearful, and obedient. – yes and I bet you believe the earth is flat and run by reptiles.
The Narrative provides a complete mental framework for one’s relationship with society and government – big brother truly loves me, more than you anyways
“…I bet you believe the earth is flat and run by reptiles.”
Well, isn’t it?
Only Mr. Lizard knows for sure.
Nice Narration Dick…
Good write up as well, thanks
So, appropos, the attempt to establish a narrative on the right. One that will probably ring sympathetically in quite a few ears hereabouts – because the hook is so catchy, the failure of our elite.
This now elevates the Outsider narrative to more than just the Presidency, but the entirety of govt (which is inherently an insider game) must become the realm of outsiders. Like the progressive narrative, this inherent contradiction must not be allowed to derail faith!
You’re not lying about the catchy hook. I havn’t read the article yet, but just going off the hook, It is something i’ve seen stirring around on the right, and will admit that i do see _some_ validity in it. Our current crop of Elites suck. And not just in a “Oh look how dumb they are”. They genuinely are bad people, who recoil from any sense of accountability for what they do, and even claim that their Elite status should shield them from reproach. They can’t do what even basic people in America are able to do (Why is it that so many movie stars and politicians are unable to be faithful to their spouses?).
But this is a thing that will always happen with elites. I’ve been reading Livy and thinking about writing up a review of his Book 1 (Rome under the Kings) with some thoughts along these lines.
First thing I don’t like about American Moment – of their 10 guiding priorities, not ONE mentions adherence to the Constitution. I don’t trust your brand of conservatism if it doesn’t start by conserving THAT.
This really feels like more of the same low-brow, intellectually weak conservatism that has been around for _at least_ the last 30 years. These points don’t feel rooted in any principle. If they had a principle they would have listed it no?
Go fuck yourself.
And these are the same people that were huge Trump supporters.
If you read that off to someone during the Eisenhower administration, they would consider it eminently reasonable. Hell, it pretty much describes the post-war consensus, except with China replaced by the more general Communism.
Yet we went through the Eisenhower era to get where we are today. Why won’t it just play out the same way, assuming we could do it all over again? You can argue we went off the rails, but where exactly do you find the widespread enthusiasm to roll back 60 years of “progress”? The reason reactionaries are more popular than traditionalists is because they have an inspiring vision (for good or ill).
That touches on a really weird thing in our current politics – both left and right have big nostalgia for the 50s, but for different reasons of course. And each is completely blind to the aspects beloved by the other side, let alone those unmourned by anyone.
I’ve always thought of it, at least on the left, as nostalgia from the start of the Kennedy administration through to the resignation of Nixon.
Yet we went through the Eisenhower era to get where we are today. Why won’t it just play out the same way, assuming we could do it all over again?
Ooh, goody, more dead Kennedys.
*facepalm*
So, we dont have the right people in charge.
Good grief.
Exactly, the problem isn’t that the right people aren’t in charge; the problem is that it matters which people are in charge. Because properly constrained by adherence to the constitution, it matters not at all.
TOP MEN
Reducing everything to a conspiracy theory is as tedious today as it’s always been. You didn’t point even a single thing wrong or incorrect in the linked article.
Their premise is that we need a new organization to train a cadre of future govt leaders, bureaucratic as well as elective. These will all be inculcated with the values this organization espouses. And they will carry that indoctrination into action when they are paid to do otherwise.
That’s not conspiratorial, it’s also not coherent, but it might be a great way to hustle money.
Sorry. I assumed you were discussing a different article. Your comment could have perfectly appropriate.
Haven’t studied the article yet, but “our elites [whatever that means] suck and should be replaced” seems far short of the totalizing type of Narrative described by Richard.
Now, the bullet points leon lists, that’s starting to look like it could be a Narrative.
But as I understand Richard, the content and source of a Narrative is less important than its totalizing nature:
I’d say organizing more than totalizing (the former can include the latter of course). Hoffer is relevant here, hell, even Chomsky is (as long as you don’t go along with his weaseling out on his own conclusion). Sure, the progressive Narrative is totalitarian in nature because the movement is as well. The nascent attempts at Narrative on the right point in an authoritarian direction, which is why I’m so reticent about that direction of populism. I’m not ready to commit to one to avoid the other.
This is an interesting way to look at things. I would add, though, that the government isn’t quite monolithic. One party is official keeper of The Narrative, and the other party is continually painted as racist/sexist/homophobic etc. It was that way before Trump and and it’s even more pronounced now.
Thank you. I love bullet point lists.
#metoo
They are like the erect nipples of lists.
So, you’re way more apt to help them than all the other relaxed lists?
Of course! It’s easy to focus on the subtleties of the bullets, and you can jump around between them giving them the individual attention they deserve.
I’ll never look at bullet points the same way again. Good thing I’m working from home, because that could get awkward in person.
[shudders at thought of TARDis and every Powerpoint presentation that isn’t animated.]
From now on I will refer to them as nipple points.
Mojeaux, I have a jpg of the Iron Law list that somebody put together here. I don’t have a way to share it unless there’s a way to attach media to a forum post. It’s just white text on a black background.
Thanks. I think that was the one I was looking for. In this case, I just needed the list. I’m going to try to make a fancy-dancy font-art poster of it for my home a la https://i.pinimg.com/564x/76/e3/3d/76e33dd99a21d68ab3d01ba9819ef722.jpg
https://www.glibertarians.com/faqs/
I don’t know if it can be called an Iron Law, but I’ve always liked what Merlin said to the then-nascent Knights of the Round Table in the movie Excalibur, when he was warning them of the struggles to come:
“It is the doom of men that they forget.”
Change “men” to “humans” and it works for me.
Statements contrary to The Narrative are dangerous “disinformation” and “fake news” and do not deserve First Amendment protection. – this is not a thing in civilized Europe as we do not have that pesky first amendment because we realize not all speech is good.
Government officials only do what is best for society and are never wrong. – to be fair no one really believes this
Commercial and social media spokesmen are honest, trustworthy, and factual. – to be fair no one really believes this
I mean it is a bit of a mish mash and obvs US centric but I think that while the majority believe some of those things it is not as clear cut as this. Most people do not believe most of those points. But that is irrelevant as, as K Niemitz said, twitter is the real world, and twitter believes.
Also I am not convinced the current culture war emanates entirely from top men. I mean while it is possible all the wokies and academia are manipulated by a cabal of top man, it is not plausible.
I am. It started in American universities. If that isn’t Top Men I don’t know what is.
American universities are not really top men. in current speak they are top men adjacent
OK, they breed top men. Same thing. That’s where all the woke shit started and now it’s everywhere.
The reason the woke shit has proliferated so much is because it is useful to establishment power brokers. on many levels: 1) It clearly defines an In and Out group (In = Woke, Out= Not-Woke). This keeps outsiders out. It also embues those groups with Moral judgment. Woke is righteous, Not-Woke is evil. This makes it easy to force dissenters to self-censor. 2). The Crazier it gets, the more focused people get on the split. Being Woke means you can generalize groups and fight your neighbor rather than question the power brokers.
“Government officials only do what is best for society and are never wrong.”
“Commercial and social media spokesmen are honest, trustworthy, and factual.”
It depends on what “side” those government officials and spokesmen are on. Fauci is unassailable. But Betsy DeVos was evil. The people in charge at Facebook and Twitter are trying to safeguard democracy, but the people in charge of Parler are enabling white supremacy. Narrative.
I’m kind of surprised that Fauci hasn’t been ousted. He worked for President Trump after all.
He’s been skulking around the CDC for decades.
Why didn’t he retire at 65 with his fat federal pension?
1) He craves power and making the puppets dance.
2) He wants to prevent people from having fun.
hayeksplosives! Pleased to meet you in sort-of real time!
True, but he disagreed with Trump, and Trump badmouthed him on more than one occasion, so that makes him a hero or something.
– to be fair no one really believes this
Nobody needs to actually believe… You just have to stick to the script. That way you can grind your enemies beneath your heel.
It’s the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect except applied to government competence instead of journalistic competence.
People may find and recognize “isolated examples” of government incompetence but will still turn around and ignore evidence of widespread incompetence, retreating to their default assumption that the government is competent and well-meaning. Paradoxically, they will justify this belief with similarly “isolated examples” of government competence.
Sometimes, if dissonance arises, examples of incompetence will be written off as “the other side’s fault” for whatever definition of “the other side” there may be. See, for example, many gentry Democrats’ fervent belief that Republicans want incompetent government because they think that’s some kind of synonym of small or less powerful government. Never mind that one can generally observe that local government functions tend to run more efficiently under Republican administration than Democrat administration, all else being equal; though this is not an enduring axiom of the universe, it has been my experience. Indeed, one could just as well invert the formulation and say that Democrats want incompetent government because it keeps people employed and justifies more spending.
The reality is that the incentive structure, regardless of party, exerts a significant effect on the level of competence. Government has all kinds of fucked up “common sense” incentives that not only lead toward undesirable outcomes in aggregate, they often lead away from their own stated goals in isolation. The government can waste more money to save money than any organization known to man. Contracting and procurement processes can easily double (or treble, or more) the effective cost of carrying out some function when viewed holistically, but when viewed narrowly someone will claim they saved 10% off some line item. This, in turn, will lead to a promotion. “The inmates are running the asylum” does not begin to describe the situation; the inmates have been running the asylum for 7 generations, progressively increasing insanity has been iterated a dozen times over, and nobody can even remember a time when this wasn’t so.
“It’s the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect except applied to government competence instead of journalistic competence.”
Excellent insight.
Government has all kinds of fucked up “common sense” incentives that not only lead toward undesirable outcomes in aggregate, they often lead away from their own stated goals in isolation.
I’ve been mulling a new Iron Law:
Inside every incentive is a perverse incentive trying to get out.
I’m not quite happy with the phrasing (not that kind), though.
That is just a corollary to the Foreseeable Consequences law.
Maybe more like Inside every reasonable incentive proposed is a perverse incentive lurking?
This is what happens when they allow Tulpa to post.
Nice knowin’ ya, Tulpa. The Narrative Nazis will be here any minute!
Wait, who is Richard?
I am your king!
I didn’t vote for you.
You don’t vote for kings!
The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering silmite
held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine
providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your
king!
Darn. Beat me to it.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
Better check again, Biden has restored our democracy.
LOL
Democrazy.
The king is a dick. Long live the king!
Help! I being repressed!
I’ll trade you this horse here for your kingdom.
?
Tangentially related: It’s a better deal than trading Manhattan Island for a string of beads.
Exactly what Tullpa would say.
Exactly what Tulpa would say.
King Dick?
The First of his Name?
Tricky King Dicky.
#ImpeachTheKing
The new Fed in town.
Richard joined on Day 2 of the Glibening and has written articles before. Keep up, TARDis!
Awww. I was waiting for a Fuck you!
Well, that’s what you don’t get for joining too early.
OK, fuck you!
(And thanks for the article.)
(Preens)
“(Preens)”
Exactly what Tulpa would do.
I have alcohol related dementia!
*pouts*
I’ll go sit in the corner now… after I make a Martini, that is.
I’m skeptical of this article.
Sure. You just want to be in charge of a gulag.
That would be easier in China. /half black Jesus
I’m skeptical of your skepticism.
I want to believe.
Speaking of bucking the narrative.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/journalists-start-demanding-substack?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDcyMDg5NCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzM1NTMxODcsIl8iOiJEdENBVSIsImlhdCI6MTYxNTQ4MzA0NywiZXhwIjoxNjE1NDg2NjQ3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTI4NjYyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.BNrto8tLBR04mLatrxlzZ5BV2_UivLSzXiQXumxFTdI
I don’t agree with many of his stances, but that man is a fucking hero.
Yes.
One needn’t be right about everything in order to be tight about a particular thing.
And on challenging real power, he’s pretty much right almost all of the time.
Nail, meet the hammer.
I hate so much of what the internet has turned into
/remembers when the internet had a libertarian bend
/sighs
/yells at damned kids to get off my lawn.
It’s tough to remember 2016 before Russia stole the election and forced The Right People to silence everyone else.
Every once on a while my Roomba goes off at 11 am instead of PM.
Every once in a while my dog has diarrhea and shits on the floor.
For the second time in a year both happened today while i was at the gym.
What a disaster. Rug ruined. House stinks. Shit in every single crevice of the Roomba. Next few hours gonna suck.
ditch the roomba. shoot the dog. get a boston dynamics robot dog roomba hybrid
and get hydraulic diarrhea!
Well your already a jerm, so your safe,
Jerms Koling?
You gotta get a robot dog. All the shitlords have one, I hear!
Are they really better than a robot sheep?
Yes, as I want a robot dog, not a robot sex doll like you do.
*snort*
No I don’t. I want a real sheep. I just can’t afford one on my salary.
What a confluence. Sorry, dood.
*of effluence
Pooptastrophe!
The diagram really sells the story.
So it looks like all Jerms has to do is post his tale on social media and hundreds of offers of free shit will pour in.
Seen what was done there. It was a shitty thing to do. Which is why I larfed.
I honestly didn’t plan that. Now I’m laffing.
Years ago I came home from work to find my son cowering in a corner and his mother glaring at him with steam coming out of her ears.
I asked what had happened. Turns out the Altar Boy had put on his new winter boots and taken off his full diaper. He then stepped in the diaper and then walked all over the house leaving a Little Billy type trail behind him.
I tried, oh how I tried, but at some point I burst into gales of laughter. While gasping for air, I told her I completely understood why she was so angry and that I’d be just as mad if the boot was on the other diaper, but she had to look at it from my point of view.
The move worked and all her anger was redirected at me. The Altar Boy was able to run and hide until his mother remember she loved him more than anything. Meanwhile I was called all sorts of names and had all my character flaws documented and recited back to me.
That must have taken a while.
/I ever so gently, pull the leg.
That must have taken a while.
It’s probably still a work in progress. Something, something married life?
She’s pretty much given up. Just like I have given up on her making sense.
If either of us were smarter, we wouldn’t be married.
Long conversation, huh?
Luckily most of it is computerized so the presentation goes much faster than back in the day when it was all on paper.
She has two main gripes when we get into it like that, a) that I don’t listen and b) something or other.
Someone could make a small fortune inventing a device that the Roomba people could use to turn off the vacuum if the smell of poop or urine is detected.
Of course, then they’d never sell another unit in the Boston area. Maybe it could be user switchable.
Or just put in a moisture sensor.
Sorry.
Not having medical insurance means not having access to medical care. – I mean in some cases this is true, because the world created on various insurance schemes and the free market is nonexistent to cater to the insurance less
Any industry will organize around how it gets the bulk of its revenue. Health care in the U.S. is organized around Medicare, Medicaid, and employer-funded insurance. Health care in the U.K. is organized around the NHS. Health care in France is organized around their national insurance scheme. So on and so forth. There is only a large supply market for private payers if there is a large demand market of private payers. Various and sundry regulations will impede the visibility and viability of alternatives to the plurality market, which can exacerbate the perception of “no other options”.
Unless you want Lasik or Boob Expansion Surgery.
That shit is magically affordable.
Boob Expansion Surgery should be illegal
Q hit hardest!
And, generally, not covered by insurance. IVF used to be affordable, too.
Really? I seem to recall hearing how people spent a small fortune on that.
Yeah, I might be conflating it with other fertility treatments.
Health care in the U.S. is organized around Medicare, Medicaid, and employer-funded insurance.
Which is why we refer to patients as “MBBUs” – Meat Based Billing Units.
A person who makes statements contrary to The Narrative is depending on the context:
Rejoinder: The context doesn’t really matter to them. If you say TERF-y things you can still be called a white supremacist. Even if you’re black. If you say women aren’t oppressed, you can still be called a fascist even if you have a picture of Mao in your wallet. The accusations are arranged not by contextual relevance but instead by hierarchy of contemporary potency. Hence, traitor and insurrectionist are getting more mileage now than white supremacist or fascist, even though a normal person might be befuddled by the contextual inaccuracy of all of those accusations.
To be fair, all political parties do have a narrative. i.e.
– Government can’t do anything right.
– Anyone who doesn’t believe the libertarian view is evil and or stupid.
– The gun is good
– The Iron laws are the iron laws and not to be questioned, including the iron law; foreseeable consequences are not unintended.
The difference I’m seeing is that we’re not allowed to put commies into wood chippers. The Narrative is trying to get to the point where it can send the deplorables to the re-education camps. In short power corrupts.
It is true that pretty much all movements have a narrative (even nihilists). The purpose of a narrative, generally speaking, is to tie together shared motivations and objectives into a cohesive story (hence, narrative) that makes the participants feel like they’re part of something bigger and justified in how they feel. The Declaration of Independence is a narrative, and so is the Gettysburg Address. Of course, so is Mein Kampf.
The thing we’re seeing here, however, is that there is a narrative that is exogenous to the political parties. Yes, the Democrats are the favored party of the proponents of this narrative, but one strongly gets a sense of the party being led rather than doing the leading (especially zooming out to cover say the 1990s to the present day). Indeed, many narrative adherents are none too happy with the Democrats not quite giving them everything they want, though that’s at least partly because the Democrats are a political party and spoils system not merely a vessel for the narrative to actualize through.
When even the minor political parties, being utterly irrelevant as they are, start speaking with the tongue of the narrative, one must at least raise an eyebrow about the whole thing. Something about this narrative has given it more legs than any other.
Narrative.
I like how they all use the same photo too. And the “Reporter, reporting on what one reporter reported” format of article has got to be up their in one of the dumbest things done in journalism.
See it’s all Indiana’s fault. They keep exporting their mass killing causing guns to the rest of the nation.
*inserts mashup of dozens of “news” agencies all reading the same script*
House passed a gun control bill today. Coincidence?
In unison: “The Bill of Rights is dangerous to our Democracy.”
The article is a good summary of where are real problems lie. If we are looking for our big enemies, we will not find them in Russia or China, though China is a real problem. Instead, we will find them in public schools and the media. Those are the real enemies and they are inside the gates already. If we don’t turn them back and soon, our constitutional republic will be lost, forever.
At this point, I doubt we’ll even survive another 4 years of complete control of the federal government by democrats.
And yeah, it’s about the narrative for real, it’s all about the narrative and the narrative will destroy us.
Don’t forget the 4th branch of government, the bureaucracy.
And when you trace the problems of public education in this country – that should not lead you to Gramsci instead of Dewey. But people that have to have a communist bugbear will invariably flow to the former.
So you don’t think Dewey was a bad guy?
Wouldn’t that make you… A Communist? /Insert Penquins meme.
Dewey was the greatest American dumbass intellectual of all time, but he was no Marxist.
He defeated Truman!
And that one helped get Ike the Republican nomination in ’52 over Taft. Then again Taft might have lost to Stevenson.
By a mere decimal.
I just realized i read you wrong, and now my joke makes no sense.
I’m glad, because I didn’t get the meme reference at all.
I’m thinking this format: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1453565-im-not-straight-okay-maybe-i-am-straight
Hey now, Horace Mann deserves his place in hall of shame, too.
Also, why do communist “intellectuals” of the 19th century all look like pretentious twats? Was it the style of the time?
Believe all women.
Up to 6. Where’s #7?
Janice Dean?
She’ll be around soon enough.
Will the NY Dem Senate President call for his resignation now? I seem to recall him saying “If a 4th woman comes forward he should resign”. Because we now believe every 4th Woman or something. *
*SLD about due process etc
The stuff about Cuomomafioso and harrassment is weak sauce, to the point that why should anyone care? Maybe they might care more about him sentencing senior citizens to their death by nursing home. But that’s the state of affairs these days, people are too busy caring about nothing burgers that they can’t see the truly important stuff.
10,000th Victim Comes Forward To Accuse Cuomo Of Inappropriately Killing Her Grandma
See, something like that can only be The Bee, because parody now makes more sense than real life.
Heaven?
Obligatory.
I’m almost afraid to click on your links now, out of fear that it could be another manifestation of a Hillary monster.
That wasn’t me.
Link is safe.
Exactly what HM would say.
I was expecting this
Ha!
I don’t think I’ve seen that movie all the way through, just bits and pieces.
Haven’t seen it, now I have to.
This movie is under rated. Stupid as hell but under rated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8o1UAVeoxw
Wait for the end of the clip for Don Rickles
Pretend stupid is desirable these days, gives you a chance to escape the real stupid, which is even more stupid.
Obligatory.
The CNN interviews with his brother over the past year made me so, so, angry
Well don’t worry. Now that he’s in scandal, they won’t make his little bro do any hard hitting journalism on him now.
I do love seeing DeBlasio turning on him – a battle of between complete incompetence personified.
Speaking of pseudo-Fredo, I got to thinking yesterday about the Kennedy boys in relation to the Corleones. Joe was actually Michael, the one with brains and cool; Jack was Sonny, hotheaded and horny as hell; and Teddy, yep, Teddy was Fredo. I figure that Puzo changed around who was who to hide the connection.
I know, I know, I left out Bobby. C’mon, he was Tom, because he was the lawyer and how tight he was with Jack.
I figured Bobby was Moe Green. Shot to death in a restaurant.
Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be turning that giant nasal swab into an anal swab any time now.
It’s interesting how you can rearrange the letters in nasal to spell anals.
The idea is to run him out of office for the snuggle-struggles so they don’t have to investigate the nursing home deaths. Murphy (up for re-election this year) and Wolf (next year) both killed lots of elderly people too and might end up going down too.
Yup
If the nursing home deaths get truly investigated, a lot more careers are on the line. Much better for them if Cuomo gets run out over sexual harassment first.
Don’t forget about Whitmer. But she got her fall guy to sign a non disclosure agreement to caver her ass.
PA’s gubernatorial term limit is that no governor may serve more than two consecutive terms. Wolf has served two consecutive terms. He has to sit out one term before running again. I expect he will move on to “bigger and better” things instead of trying again in five years.
Nice write-up, Richard.
Hi Ii reference a part of the brain that might have evolved pre-wired to take some things on faith and defend those beliefs even to the point of violence, like in religion.
But it seems to me that one thread running through the worst “religious” strains are those that discourage or forbid questioning. Examples include Ayatollah Morality Police, hard-line 17th century Puritans, etc. a Baptist and a Presbyterian can have a lively discussion of religion over coffee and then play a round of golf.
Not so with extremists who secretly are less confident in their beliefs than they let on; the doubters thus become the worst, most rabid enforcers.
This is on full display with the “politics is my religion, and Blue Elites are my high priests” crowd.
Hi HE! How was the appointment? Did I miss a report?
Howdy, TO’G!
Husband’s ticker isn’t great, says the cardiologist yesterday, but they don’t want surgery if they can avoid it. They want to wait until a few more weeks of antibiotics and reassess.
Waiting game…
Uccch. At least you are (usually?) at home right now to look after him.
Sorry. I am hoping for the best.
Thanks!
I’ve observed that people who are secure in their beliefs, whatever the beliefs are, tend to be interesting and respectable. As you say it’s the people who are not secure in their beliefs that become extreme.
Unfortunately I think the defend-the-faith-with-violence brain wiring has (or had) an evolutionary advantage. Exterminating the neighboring tribe in the name of the volcano god is a good way to prevent them from reproducing.
Good read.
Carrying over from the Morning Links, Count Potato posted a twitter link about that terrible racist Dr. Seuss. Thereafter there was some discussion about how there will be a pendulum shift away from The Narrative, or at least parts of it. I tend to agree. In the sidebar of that twitter link, where they post the “what’s trending?”-type stuff, there were two stories, and both were about some terrible racist thing that seemed to amount to nothing. Everything is racist now, and there can be no other explanation for anything that is less than perfect in life. Also, perfection is racist. This cannot be sustained, since it has reached absurdity. Soon, the deplorables over at Delta House will be openly lampooning the ROTC and high-society folks at Faber, en masse, without fear of pushback. Caught in between will be a whole bunch of fair-weather wokesters who were just going along without a ton of thought as to the ramifications of the tenets of this terrible church of supposed ‘tolerance’ and ‘nice.’ Once cracks develop, things can collapse rather quickly. Humans are a herd-minded bunch, and the gatekeepers won’t be able to cancel or silence the herd. When it happens, be empathetic for the folks caught in the middle, I guess.
I doubt Audrey Geisel (Dr. S’s recently deceased widow and local society-column staple) would have stood for all this. How long until the demands for the Geisel library at UCSD to be renamed?
And the worst part about all this shit is that these assholes can’t be satiated. The more you give them, the more they’ll ask for. That’s why it’s important to say fuck off right at the beginning.
Ehhh… she did cash in by licensing live action adapatations and (for a while at least) selling mounted heads of some of the creatures that were illustrated in the books.
Yeah, the Mike Myers and Jim Carrey adaptations were suboptimal, but monetization beats repudiation.
I have a rather large silkscreen of a Horton Hears a Who image that is one of a few that were authorized by the Widow Geisel. My wife got it about 25 years ago, and it’s the centerpiece of our living room. I’m to understand it’s worth a decent amount.
I guess I’ve just outed myself as a racist.
Yes you did, and as a result, we’ll have to expropriate that item from you… for justice.
You’re among friends.
These were mounted heads, not just prints. The original news reports I read when these were first released included bits about how Dr. Seuss never wanted anything based on his art rendered in the real world. Based on the more recent story, it looks like it was cleared.
/slightly retracts complaint
Victimhood is currency now, so all you have to do, especially if you’re in one of the victim groups is point out how something is racist and bam, you’ve scored some points.
While we weren’t a racial paradise, I felt like the 90’s were a time when we were all taught that you should treat others as individuals and not look at the color of someone skin and that everyone should be treated the same. Something happened in the 2000’s where saying this sort of shit gets you labeled as a racist.
You probably want to read Murray’s The Madness of Crowds.
Agreed. A time after the lessons of the civil rights victories took hold. Sure, there were jerks and haters and bigots but, you know, don’t hang out with them. Now we’re just reenacting the French Revolution.
This. It was not a racial paradise but close. Sometime in the mid nineties I saw a documentary where a reporter asked HS and Jr college students about racism. They all seemed puzzled. “What’s racism? Oh that? Whatever….we dont care. ” There were tons of mixed race couples and groups of friends…
What happened in the 2000’s was that the left panicked. They realized that the race card was their ace up the sleeve. Since then they have been doing everything they can to revive it. I am stunned that they succeeded. The bigotry on full display now is worse than I saw growing up in the Deep South in the ’60s and ’70s.
Every activist group that eventually achieves its stated purpose faces an identity crisis. There is all this cash flow and local power wrapped up in the cause. It is rare for activists to pull a Cincinnatus, then pack up and go home once the mission is achieved. This can be seen with all sorts of causes. Heck, feminism was initially (mostly) anti-abortion, and (largely) outlived its usefulness so decided to take up the pro-abortion side, if only to keep the money flowing. And it doesn’t just have to be a minority-rights cause (not that women are a minority); (nearly) every lobby in DC started out as a defensive operation and now it exists mostly to perpetuate itself. The AFL-CIO was by the 1970s just a slush fund for the mob; nowadays it can’t even claim that level of achievement. Or heck, the Libertarian Party, not long after the “libertarian moment” was declared, turned into something else entirely (always grifting, now without the ideology).
Nothing new under the sun. From the Tao Te Ching:
“When you have names and forms,
Know that they are provisional.
When you have institutions,
Know where their functions should end.
Knowing when to stop,
You can avoid any danger.”
Murray calls it St. George in retirement – when there are no dragons left to slay. So, to stave off that boredom, you invent new dragons. In that sense, I agree with Suthen, that this was a hole card to play, but also, it was needed because our prosperity (and boredom) meant there was no energy in activism. Thus, new crusades had to be formed to fight for new holy causes.
Better get those boating accidents lined up. The house just passed it’s first gun grabber bill today. 8 Republicans voted for it. The 2nd amendment is as good as gone, folks.
…and Merrick Garland is the new AG.
Totally by accident.
It has long been observed that one way a human processes the overload of information is to observe the choices that he sees other humans make. For example, he doesn’t have time to try every fruit he finds growing, but if the locals all eat that yellow berry, it’s probably ok to eat. The guidelines are only that, and deviations are possible but take a certain spirit and risk to accept those risks.
This is part of the division of labor and the passing down of acquired knowledge, and generally it works well for social creatures like humans.
Now we are bombarded with information, too much information. It comes in TV, smartphones, Twitter, social media, targeted advertising, billboards, sides of buses—everywhere.
If we are pushing our exposure to ideas and events beyond the scope of what we evolved to cope with, it is reasonable to consider that we’re also pushing the limits of usefulness of observing others choices.
Instead of tentatively following the behavioral example of a trusted acquaintance as we evolved to do, we just see what Taylor Swift or Anderson Cooper say, and repeat it parrot-like but with all the zeal of the religious nut making up for his internal doubts.
In addition to that, people have too much time on their hands, which is a hazard of prosperity.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
This is a quote that always run through my mind whenever I hear someone freaking out about something dumb. As a result of our abundance and technological advances, we have a lot of time to create drama where there is none. I think there’s also cultural rot and that’s a lot to do with today’s parenting. My parents weren’t perfect people but my Mom whenever she saw us getting too lazy for her tastes would always quote St. Paul, “If a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat.”
That shit had a profound effect on me because it taught that if I wanted anything, I had to work for it and that being entitled isn’t the path to prosperity.
Sort of related: My daughter, who is preparing to move out when she turns 18, is starting to get the gist of how much money it takes to just maintain. Rent, utilities, internet, car insurance, renter’s insurance, gas, car maintenance, and health insurance (critical) and on and on and on.
She doesn’t make enough at Walmart to cover all that, although we’re all hoping she’ll be able to get an IT job that will at least cover her health insurance. I suppose if she can’t do that, we’ll just keep her on ours. She needs it.
She’s starting to turn sickly green every time we add some sort of expense to the pile.
I think it’s quite possible that many “special ed” programs that teach independent living skills to “special needs” students serve them better than most schools serve “average +” kids in that regard. Do high schools require or at least offer such life skills classes to all students?
If we’re going to force kids to take Govt/Civics class for two semesters, at least cover filling out your 1040.
I don’t recall having a life skills course offering in high school (private school), but our kids’ school has what used to be called home ec. XY is taking “culinary arts” this semester. In high school, there was a brief section about finances in…history? I think? Not sure. Checkbooks, balancing it, credit, suchlike. My mother had already taught me how to balance a checkbook but I see no reason to teach my kids how to do it. I also took bookkeeping in high school. I got an American Express card when I was 18 at BYU before I knew the difference between a charge card and a credit card. I learned fast. Debit cards take care of checkbooks and credit cards in one fell swoop as long as you have the money in your account.
How to find a place to live, how to take the bus (no, we had no need to because the bus system here sucks donkey balls), how to sign up for utilities, how to apply for a loan, how to do this, that, some other thing, no. We didn’t have that. I figure that, like sex ed, is a parent’s responsibility. And as far as practical experience goes, for XX, buying a car first requires you to have saved up your pennies.
@Pan Fried Wylie, I got my first exposure to the 1040 when I got my first W2 and I used the 1040EZ. I’ll help XX with her taxes this year. However, I didn’t really get the gist of independent contractor taxes until I got to bitching at my aunt about it and she said, “Hol’ up. This is how you do this…” I went through the 1040 and schedule C line by line until I got it. Then I ordered our spending (as much as I could) around the schedule C.
And fortunately for XX, she got a front-row seat to what happens when you make one bad purchase, and take on more debt than you can pay back. She’s debt-shy from the get-go, and I’m glad for that.
I’m not expecting public schools to start teaching how to complete your independent contractor taxes. I don’t want the students to end up in jail.
I remember when I first on my own and had to buy groceries for myself. It was a cold glass of water to the face.
Ed couldn’t successfully purchase 8oz of water, you read it here first.
/StillBlamesRioGrande
Entitlement mentality seems to be strongly correlated in my experience with a strong interest in tournament careers and/or get-rich-quick schemes. There’s something like 3-4,000 professional sports players in this country at any one time, and of those a good many weren’t on the roster last year, and some others won’t be on it next year. Even if you look at everyone who “got a shot” (meaning, they made it to the NBA/NFL/MLB/NHL/MLS/etc. at some point, no matter how fleeting), you’re still talking about astronomically low odds. The number of headline entertainers (film, TV, stage, radio, music, etc.) is similarly small. The number of struck-it-big billionaires is even smaller.
Focusing on this statistical impossibilities distracts people from the realistic things they can do to improve themselves and their ability to make better money (not necessarily “more, more, more” but also enough to survive or be comfortable without killing yourself getting it).
I think for the younger Generation it is even worse. They have all the YouTube stars, and they think “That’s easy to do!”. It’s the equivalent of the kids in Junior High who were convinced they were going to make it big if they could just get a sweet new Guitar.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094980/
Completely agree – I know someone who has a good geology job that is convinced a youtube career is easy to do, and wants to quit to try it.
They listen to a random youtube video and take it as gospel, ignoring the surviorship bias, the outright lies, the implausible claims.
There are a lot of what I’d call insidious channels that prey on people who think like that
Reminds me of the people selling books or seminars telling you how to make money. If they really knew how to make money so easily, why are they selling books and seminars instead?
Running a YouTube channel as a primary form of income is an incredible amount of work. Individuals are doing the work that dozens would do at a TV/film studio. The have an idea for content, script it, “act” in it, film it, edit it, and market it. The best youtube channels do this 2 or more times a week.
This is no small amount of work, and requires a large investment in time to learn how to do all of that shit, and money to buy the gobs of expensive gear to make it happen with good production values.
kbolino:
Step 1: Write a best selling book
Step 2: Get on a talk show
Step 3: Start a seminar circuit
Step 4: PROFIT
Yep. YouTube, Twitch, JustForFans, Patreon, OnlyFans, etc.
I wonder if illiterate people are happier, more psychologically balanced, and have lower blood pressure than literates.
I remember reading about a study about the stereotype of “dumb jock”. The gist of the article was that dumb people did better in athletics because they couldn’t think about all the possible things that could go wrong. Instead they focused on shooting the ball or catching the pass. Smart people distracted themselves with “what if I mis the shot?” type of thinking.
Not sure if I agreed with the study, but it was at least an interesting hypothesis.
I think it’s more about the ability to make a quick decision. For example, a QB needs to be able to read the situation quickly and make a snap decision (no pun intended). You need intelligence to read the situation, but it doesn’t do much good if you can’t pull the trigger. Both Aaron Rodgers and Alex Smith are supposed to be really smart guys, but Rodgers is the one who is able to make a quick decision.
Rodgers is the one who is able to make a quick decision
At one time, sure. He seems to take forever to get rid of the ball now.
I read an article a while back talking about how innumerate people seem to have a natural grasp of concepts like “logrithimc scales” that are often harder to grasp for numerate people.
However the study (IIRC) was done with only a few tribes within the Amazon, and that could be more cultural than the fact that someone hasn’t been taught standard number theory and arithmetic.
Ignorance is bliss.
This is something that Postman’s Technopoly seems to hint at without ever saying so explicitly. I don’t know if that is because he edited himself on that (seeing it as too nihilistic) or just failed to follow the thought out. But it frustrates the hell out of me reading him. Four or five good points/observations and then CLUNK, that inconvenient aversion to where he was headed.
Good stuff. To your last sentence, the modern version of what passes for conventional wisdom really sucks.
Can’t believe nobody (including me) thought to link to this before, Original Poster!
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2z7qyv
My kids’ school will be starting 4-day-a-week in-person instruction in early April, which would be great if it didn’t fuck up the way our entire household is running right now, and I mean REALLY fucks it up. Their current hybrid schedule will not be an option. They can be all virtual or all in-person, but the current schedule is no longer an option.
It’s a damned good thing XY wants to go in person.
And it’s a damned good thing XX is getting a car today and now we only need her to take her driver’s test.
But damn. Two months left and this upends the routine it took us so much work to adjust to.
“My kids’ school will be starting 4-day-a-week in-person instruction in early April”
The positive side to that is, on the 5th day, you can send them into the fields for some good old fashioned hard labor. Builds character.
For both offspring (not to mock; they sound pretty sane of noggin): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gg-dn-9kK34
Options are not an option, plebe. STFU and keep shovelin that cashmoney.
Also, aren’t XX and XY like 22 and 23 by now.
Don’t recall if this was covered here, but speaking of narratives.
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill has reinstated a third-degree murder charge against the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd.
Cahill granted the request from prosecutors to reinstate the charge after the former officer, Derek Chauvin, failed to get the state Supreme Court to block it. …
Cahill dismissed the charge last fall because he believed that the circumstances of Chauvin’s case did not fit, but an appellate court ruling in an unrelated case established new grounds for it days before jury selection started. Cahill ruled at the time that a third-degree murder charge under Minnesota law requires proof that someone’s conduct was “eminently dangerous to others,” not just to Floyd.
Cahill said Thursday that he is now bound by a ruling, stemming from a recent decision involving the conviction of former officer Mohamed Noor, which stated that third-degree murder can be applied to acts directed toward a single person.
Why even bother writing the statutes down at this point?
Emphasis mine, This got me curious as to why that wouldn’t have been the case prior to noor.
Here’s the statute:
Section a is the relevant part, and i’m not sure how that statement from the judge makes sense? Why does it all the sudden matter about actions towards a single person? Is he saying your actions have to be such as one like driving a car on a sidwalk, where you aren’t explicitly attaking a single individual but just anyone who happened to get in the way?
without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another
I’m curious how aiming at someone and pulling the trigger isn’t “intent to effect the death of any person”. What Noor did, intentionally pointing a gun at someone and intentionally pulling the trigger, sure seems like intending to effect their death.
Perhaps the argument wasn’t that he explicitly targeted her, but that he was just firing wildly and it happened to hit her.
he was just firing wildly and it happened to hit her
As I recall, he pointed the gun across the inside of the car and past his partner to shoot her at the driver’s window. That ain’t “wildly firing” and “accidentally striking someone”.
kbo has it right.
The acts in question are already covered by murder in the second degree. But that is a heavier charge with a longer sentence. By weasling around the definition of murder in the third degree, they can keep Chauvin charged with multiple somewhat exclusive crimes for the same act so the jury can play criminal penalty a la carte.
The irony of all of this is that we are told jury nullification is an unacceptable exercise of power by the jury, because after all they’re not legal experts so how can they possibly review the law? The jury’s job is to assess the charges as written, match them up with the facts as presented, and then render an impartial decision as to whether the facts meet the definition. Why you need 12 randos to do this, I don’t know, but that’s the claim.
However, by presenting a smorgasbord of charges for the same act, they are essentially winking at the jury and saying, forget the definitions laid out in the text of the law: instead, first decide if something “wrong” was done, then based on how bad you feel the wrong is, pick the crime that gives the right punishment. The prosecution gets to play this like Goldilocks.
Thanks KBO, you did a great job of articulating what has irked me about this (and others) trial.
The DA should have to prove his case. No throwing a ton of shit at the wall and letting the jury pick one. If you don’t think you can prove 2nd degree murder, better not charge him with it.
The only downside is that a scuzzy DA could start with 2nd degree and if he loses bring charges for 3rd degree in a second trial without running into double jeopardy. Not sure how you fix that. Expecting DA’s to behave ethically and honorably is like expecting the New Soviet Man to appear. Human nature is what it is.
an appellate court ruling in an unrelated case established new grounds for it days before jury selection started
So, a new rule established after the events that Chauvin is being tried for allows him to be charged with a crime?
Am I the only one who sees an ex post facto problem there?
It wasn’t a new law/statute. It was a new way of applying the existing law. This all is coming out of Noor’s appeals case. Fucking gift that keeps on giving.
This isn’t a deal where Chauvin is getting screwed because they just invented a new law that said the use of a knee in the back is now an automatic felony. It is because an appellate judge ruled that 3rd degree murder was an OK charge for Noor. And that can also be used to apply to Chauvin.
A lot of this maneuvering is because they are trying desperately to get some charge that they can appease the mob with. Without 3rd degree murder it is either 2nd degree murder or manslaughter. 2nd degree is pretty much impossible to convict on unless the jury decides to cave to the mob. Manslaughter will result in the mob burning their neighborhoods down again.
At the very beginning of this process Chauvin was willing to plea to 3rd degree murder, so I’m not feeling too outraged for him.
It wasn’t a new law/statute. It was a new way of applying the existing law.
This gets at common law, where court decisions are binding, a form of law.
Cahill said Thursday that he is now bound by a ruling,
If there were never any prior court rulings saying that wasn’t how it would be applied, then there’s probably not an ex post facto problem. Whether there were or not, I have no clue.
Ex post facto is an old problem that sailed away a long time ago. How else could they take a felon’s gun rights away forever because of a law that passed AFTER they committed a crime. Yet, there it is.
I haven’t been following this case terribly closely, but Minnesota doesn’t seem to have much in the way of court rules when it comes to prosecutorial discretion. “Your honor, can we just go ahead move charges in and out based upon the mood at the moment? Wait, maybe we could just levy, say, five or six charges and we could pick the correct one in the future based on how the trial is going!”
I live here and I am not sure what normal court processes are.
This case is completely fucked because of how political it is. The AG is running the prosecution instead of the DA. The mayor and the governor are both on records saying Chauvin is guilty of murder.
I don’t think there are any right answers or any “good” way to run this trial.
I’m convinced the fix is in on Chauvin, based solely on the fact that they are having the trial in Minneapolis rather than some other venue.
From what I hear about jury selection, there’s a bunch of prospectives who are saying they are afraid of retaliation if he isn’t convicted. That alone should be enough to move the damn trial.
Exactly. I’m no lawyer, but how on earth can this guy possibly have a fair trial in Minneapolis, when there is a supposed “autonomous zone” run by people who have flatly stated that they’re going to burn the city (again) if the correct verdict isn’t reached?
What are the odds of more “voicless people’s protests”? And what, if anything, will Biden do? Deploy more guardsmen to DC?
Jeebus on a pogo stick.
The coroner’s report is definitive. Floyd had three times a fatal dose of fentanyl in his system when the cops arrived. His death, while a tragedy, had nothing to do with the cop’s actions. Talk about a kangaroo court…
This trial if not going to be about justice or equal protections under the law. It’s about systemic racism, a clever cover for Marxism.
Chauvin is guilty as fuck for kneeling on the guys neck like that.
But the other glaring part of this clusterfuck is that this somehow makes Floyd some type of hero? In what warped fucking universe are you a hero by being a fucking loser who can’t stay out of trouble?
The ones I hold the most contempt for are Floyd’s family. They wrote him off years ago and had nothing to do with him. (That isn’t the part that bugs me).
Now, they are in front of every camera lamenting how their poor, poor kin was killed and taken away from them. The daughter he hadn’t seen for years and years is given a full ride scholarship.
It is cold, but George was far more valuable to his family in death than he ever was in life (even if he had lived to 100).
The guy didn’t deserve to die, but to pretend he was murdered on his way from teaching Bible School to his shift at a soup kitchen is absurd.
Rent seekers and shameless opportunists and the opportunist who in turn profit from them, will always be with us.
This is what I’ve never understood about the mobs – they always decide to champion the worst exemplars. You have Philando Castile on the one hand and George Floyd on the other, and George Floyd is one everyone goes nuts over? Walter Scott and Michael Brown, and Michael Brown is the one that gets turned into some kind of martyr?
Some say it is on purpose, because it divides people and makes it easier to foment outrage.
But counterpoint would be that for the first 24 hours everyone agreed that George Floyd’s death was a horrific thing, and it was only really controversial once the Riots started.
makes it easier to foment outrage.
Impossible. I’m starting to believe that outraged is the natural state of man.
Locally, the news still brings up Tamir Rice.
They wrote him off for a reason, and now they’re getting some of their own back. I might think they’re going about it in a crass manner, but I don’t fault them for this.
I think that’s jimbo’s stance too. The problem isn’t them collecting the money, its the moral harping and haranguing about a beloved father is lost, when they had written him off years before.
Nuh-uh! A consensus of experts agree it wasn’t an OD!!!!
Who are you going to believe? Some hick coronor in Minnesoda who actually performed the autopsy? Or EXPERTS selected by the WaPo?
Who are you going to believe? Some hick coronor in Minnesoda who actually performed the autopsy? Or EXPERTS selected by the WaPo?
I’ll go with option C of not believing any of them. Every person involved in this is a bad guy. I won’t shed any tears for the cop. He deserves whatever comes his way for kneeling on Floyd’s neck. I trust the coroner just as much as the prosecutor and cops involved… which is zero… they are all agents of the state and work together.
Floyd also fucked up and I don’t trust anyone backing him. It’s just bad actors all around.
I’m more apt to believe the coroner, even if only because he’s put himself in real danger by giving the jury an “out”, and he’s clearly going against the narrative and the sure desires of the prosecutor.
His findings make it impossible for the state to just March through with victory on the highest possible charges.
He’s risking something big.
I’m more apt to believe the coroner
Me, too. There are actual lab results on the Fentanyl load he was carrying, and almost certainly retained samples so the tests can be repeated if anyone wants. You can fudge some things, but lab results are very tough.
I don’t recall reading what the coroner said the actual cause of death was.
For the record, an “expert on illegal drug use” would be someone who can score you the fentanyl in any city in the world in 30mins or less without getting you arrested.
Oh, and help you take it without dying.
I’d say a manslaughter charge is on order here.
What we have is a case of Chauvin, an asshole bully, and Floyd, a loser thug, crossing paths at the wrong time.
The real disturbing thing here is that every fucking street thug in the country is now a hero. What a great thing to be teaching our children, what could possibly go wrong?
Take the cops out of the picture, and Floyd is very likely still alive. Their actions did contribute to his death. But, that doesn’t make Floyd innocent. He was intoxicated and he was belligerent. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I think the appropriate charge here is manslaughter in the second degree. The officer who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck did so for a little too long and didn’t check on him enough. I understand why he acted that way, but at the very least, the cop chose to involve himself in that situation and wears the badge of the state, so should be held to some kind of standard for ensuring the welfare, even of criminals, of people in their effective custody.
But charging a person with the wrong crime can be just as bad as not charging them at all.
It needs to be pointed out that the reason the cops were there is because Floyd tried to pass a fake $20 bill. The clerks didn’t call the cops about that until they noticed that Floyd was pacing outside their store waving his hands and ranting.
But I agree, Chauvin needs to be convicted of some sort of crime. My dad – an ex-PO – said at the beginning of this, 2nd manslaughter would be what the he would have gotten if it was a normal case.
Yeah, on the one hand, it’s good to see a cop face some personal scrutiny for actions on the job.
On the other hand, sitting opposite Chauvin in this trial is the very same state that he once worked for. The showiness and gaming of this by the prosecution engenders no warm feelings in me. To the extent Chauvin deserves punishment, it is for his actions that day, not for who he is, what he represents, how useful it is to someone’s career, etc.
I think that is the problem. Justice is not the primary concern here.
If the coroner’s finding are correct, this isn’t a sure bet.
At the very least, it’s reasonable doubt.
There has been so much bullshit spewed about this story it is impossible for us to know fact from fiction. One thing is sure…there is a narrative here and the people pushing it have a political agenda.
Whatever happened to the rumor I heard that Chauvin and Floyd were both working at the same club and knew one another? Did that turn out to be BS?
Yes, it was BS. They did both work for the same company at the same time. But they would have never crossed paths during that time because of their jobs and indeed, they did not know each other.
It’s not to say that breaking news was never bullshit, but the concept of breaking news means TWEET BEFORE ANYONE ELSE REGARDLESS OF VERIFICATION.
They don’t have to even worry about getting it right. They know that 1) every single part of the cathedral will back them up initially, 2) every fact checker will verify them using any stretch of logic necessary and rhetorical trick possible, and 3) by the time the truth is trickled out it’s too late to matter because the narrative is already ingrained.
TMITE
Whew! My employer’s Professional Employer Org finally calculated the corrections for last week’s guesstimated pay to my boss’s satisfaction, so I was able to approve the posting for everyone who was shorted.
And I finally get to have lunch. (2:30 US EST)
And me, boss? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYQvZk9CgL0
The following statements are just a part of The Narrative. None of them are true:
– The conspiracy theory known as The Narrative is false.
So, what you’re saying is, is I should have put on my tin foil hat before reading this article?
Too late dude… too late.
*calls reeducation hotline foe DEG*
It’s too late for DEG as well, he goes straight to the big camp. You know, the one for lost cause shitlords. See y’all there!
Save me a seat.
The top bunk is mine, bro. Don’t worry, I don’t pee the bed that often.
The guy on the top bunk has got to make the guy on the bottom bunk, he’s gotta make his bed all the time. See, it’s in the regulations.
I’m happy the camp is not in Germany.
So I’ll be in good company. Excellent!
We all will be DEG…we just have to find each other. I propose someone to smuggle in monocles.
Don’t forget about the emergence of super Nazis. I think they are Nazis who only like other Nazis.
AND THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!!!!
I regret to say I see what you did there.
Are there Nazis who only like Nazis who only like other Nazis? What are they called?
Nazisexuals?
Our airport surveillance system has a new adaptation enhancement to predict if an aircraft is lined up to a taxi way. Great, really. Except they are using data from old procedures rather than gathering from data from our Feb 25th procedure change.
Because they’re SOOPER SMART!!
Predict? You still, like, actually line things up too, right?
Whatever, I did my one time on a plane and wasn’t planning on repeating the experience. Have fun on those randomly oriented deathtraps, people.
Great read – thanks for encapsulating the majority of my triggers into a tight article!
Thanks, Richard.
Now I’ll be even more insufferable!
Seriously, terrific distillation of the Narrative.