FreedomFest 2023 was held in Memphis, TN from July 12th through July 15th, 2023.
I met with Don Escaped Texas between while I was in Memphis. I had dinner with him and his wife at a fantastic BBQ place. Don and I also had some beer at High Cotton and Flying Saucer. Don and his wife are good company. Thanks to Don for taking me out.
Anthem Film Festival
As every year, the Anthem Film Festival runs concurrently with FreedomFest. Your pass is good for both. I attended a few showings.
This year the organizers announced a streaming service from the Advocates for Self Government. The streaming service will host movies and short videos with liberty and freedom themes. Membership is free. The platform is donor founded. The plan is to add more films, including everything shown at the Anthem Film Festival.
Calvin Coolidge
A documentary on Calvin Coolidge was the opener for the Anthem Film Festival. I found the full documentary plus an added introduction by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on the South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s youtube channel.
Unredacted
This is a documentary about a Saudi school for reforming terrorists. Several men held at Guantanamo Bay went there after their release from Guantanamo Bay. The film came under some fire from the usual suspects angry that a white woman made a film about Muslim men.
The film follows a group of men as they go through the school, then their experiences afterwards. There are also interviews with a graduate of the school and a school official. The documentary touches on Mohammed bin Salman’s takeover of power in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman changed the school to be used for political prisoners.
Papa Coriandre
This is a short, subtitled film from the Atlas Network about the effects of Burundi removing regulations. The film tells the story of an entrepreneur who moved his business from the informal to the formal sector.
The Broken Boys of Kenosha
A subset of movies at the Anthem Film Festival were on the effects of the lack of a father on children’s development. “The Broken Boys of Kenosha” and its following panel discussion were the showpieces of this theme.
The Movie
“The Broken Boys of Kenosha” (age verification required) Is a documentary about Jacob Blake, Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber, and Kyle Rittenhouse. When the documentary maker, Rob Montz, went to Kenosha to find out the truth behind the media narrative, he discovered that these four all had absent fathers.
The movie started with the lies and truth of Jacob Blake. The truth is Blake had an arrest warrant, was trying to kidnap his ex’s kids, was trying to steal her car, was armed with a knife, and was probably trying to stab the one of the responding police officers when the police shot him shot. Blake’s father had nothing to do with him until after the shooting except for one year where Blake lived with his father when Blake was a teenager. When Blake’s father was making appearances after the shooting, he was claiming to want to protect his kid that he had nothing to do with.
Joseph Rosenbaum had been molested by his stepfather. Rosenbaum’s stepfather forced Rosenbaum to watch as his stepfather raped Rosenbaum’s younger brother. Rosenbaum’s biological father was not around because he had died in prison when Rosenbaum was very young.
Kyle Rittenhouse’s father was abusive and alcoholic. Rittenhouse’s parents divorced when Rittenhouse was four after his dad beat his mother. Rittenhouse’s father’s only interaction with his son during the trial was to leave drunken messages, late at night, on Rittenhouse’s lawyers’ answering machine.
Anthony Huber’s dad tried giving him away, and had nothing to do with him until after Rittenhouse shot Huber. Huber’s dad sued the City of Kenosha calling Huber ‘a beloved son”.
The Panel Discussion
After the movie, there was a brief panel discussion on absent fathers’ effect on families, especially sons. On the panel were Rob Montz, a man who had been wrongly convicted of a crime who had to parent from prison, and a pastor who works with inner city youth.
Most of what I remember of the panel discussion and Q&A were comments by Rob Montz. Those comments are:
- He found research showing boys are more sensitive than girls to family disruptions.
- He talked about visiting the Kenosha neighborhood which has historically been dominated by black owned businesses. BLM riots resulted in the destruction of this neighborhood.
- He had a lot of people wanting to talk to him because they were pissed at the coastal media’s lies. This included Anthony Huber’s girlfriend who is an Antifa activist.
There was a question for panel if anyone noticed a difference between households where the father died and households where the father was absent due to divorce or abandonment. The pastor answered this question. He noticed that boys and young men whose fathers have died are often much better adjusted than boys and young men whose fathers are absent.
Presidential Candidates, Past and Present, Domestic and Foreign
Tulsi Gabbard
I don’t remember much of Tulsi Gabbard’s talk on the main stage beyond her being the only Democrat who attended a reading of the US Constitution in the House of Representatives. According to her, when she asked her Democrat colleagues why they didn’t attend, their excuses can be summed up as “Reading the Constitution in the House is just a Republican dog and pony show.”
I attended a paid luncheon event where I thought Tulsi Gabbard was supposed to speak. For most of the lunch, I did not see her in the room. I saw her in the room about ten or fifteen minutes before the lunch was supposed to end. She did not speak. She left pretty quickly after I saw her. Others at the luncheon that I talked with also thought she was going to speak. Mark Skousen, one of the organizers of FreedomFest, got up to speak and was apologetic. Had I known this would happen, I would not have paid for the luncheon.
Gloria Álvarez
Gloria Álvarez was running for president in Guatemala despite not being eligible. In Guatemala, you must be at least 40 to be president. Álvarez is in her 30s. Her talk on the main stage was a summary of her platform. She cut the talk short as otherwise she would have run over.
Álvarez’s platform is made up of “non-negotiables” and “negotiables”. The “non-negotiables” are a list of things that she promises to do while she is president. The “negotiables” are a list of things that she plans to put up for a vote. If enough people vote for those things, she will do them. It wasn’t clear to me how she intended to get any of these things done. The only things I remember are that drug legalization, prostitution legalization, and a reduction in regulation were among the list. I don’t remember which list those were on.
FreedomFest took place before the Guatemalan presidential election. Gloria Álvarez did not win.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Vivek Ramaswamy gave two talks. I only attended one. Part of the talk I attended centered on how America is not systemically racist. He used his parents who came to America and built themselves up from nothing as an example that America is not systemically racist.
One thing I noticed about his talk is that some of his mannerisms and way of speaking sounded much like Barack Obama to me.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
I skipped Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s talk. The security lines were too long.
I met a woman at the final banquet who knows Kennedy. This woman used to work for Kennedy at Children’s Health Defense. The woman claims libertarians don’t have to worry about Kennedy on guns, but we need to worry about other things with him. I assumed she meant we need to worry about Kennedy on environmental issues and affirmative action.
Larry Elder
A key point of Larry Elder’s talk was his use of his father as an example of how America is not systemically racist. His father worked his way up from nothing into the middle class.
Talks
Zhittya
Zhittya gave two talks this year. Last year they only gave one talk. Their first talk was a longer presentation in a breakout session. Their second talk was on the main stage and cut short because the head of Judicial Watch significantly went over time.
First Talk
The first talk from Zhittya was an update on their Parkinson’s treatment. Jack Jacobs, Zhittya’s President and Chief Science Officer, described the progress the company has made over the last year in testing its Parkinson’s treatment. Dan Montano, Zhittya’s CEO, finished with a description of their plan to fight the FDA. They are also investigating if FGF-1, the drug they test on Parkinson’s patients, also works on diabetics. They think there is a cardiovascular component to diabetes.
There was a guy in the audience constantly interrupting Jacobs and Montano with questions. I couldn’t figure out this guy’s purpose. Skeptical and trying to find out more? Antagonistic? I don’t know. He told Montano “You don’t believe in science” when Montano said he was uninterested in peer review.
Second Talk
Doctor Jacobs gave a summary of what Zhittya is doing, which was a summary of what I head in their first talk. Two of their patients talked about how Zhittya’s treatment helped them. The Zhittya CEO wanted to talk about the FDA. The previous speaker, the head of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton, had gone so far over his allotted time that Zhittya had only a fraction of their time. So instead, the CEO Dan Montano told the crowd that the Zhittya folks would be in the exhibit hall if anyone wanted to talk with them about their treatment, their work, or dealing with the FDA.
Latin America Panel
I only remember three of the names of this year’s Latin America panel: Jeffrey Baldwin, Izabela Patriota, and Gloria Álvarez. I cannot remember the name of the moderator or the other person on the panel. The panel make-up was a bit different than what was described in the program.
The moderator opened the panel with a monologue about Chinese Communist influence throughout Latin America. This monologue went on for a long time. I stopped paying attention at some point.
Here’s a summary of what I remember of the actual panel discussions:
- Izabela Patriota talked about how the Brazilian Supreme Court is overstepping its bounds with respect to Brazil’s recent election
- Gloria Álvarez talked about the many variations on Socialism in Latin America. In her opinion, even right wing folks are Socialists. They are Mercantilists, which she sees as a variation on Socialism. She thinks more libertarianism will help Latin America’s problems. She is pessimistic about Latin America’s future because she thinks many Latin Americans like being miserable.
- Jeffrey Baldwin described how, after he migrated to North Carolina from Guatemala, he motivated the Hispanic community to support education freedom legislation in North Carolina. It was a long effort, but paid off. He thinks the Hispanic community in America is ripe for libertarian outreach, especially in areas like education freedom.
The panel discussion ended with a Q&A session between members of the audience and the panel. Here is what I remember.
- The first question was about whether or not Objectivism can be a force in the region. Gloria Álvarez answered by saying Objectivism is a hard sell in the region because of how religious Latin America is.
- There was a question about Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. The panel member whose name I can’t remember answered this question. This panel member knows Bukele personally. He thinks Bukele is not as bad as portrayed.
- An audience member asked the panel what area in Latin America is the best hope for freedom. One of the panelists, I don’t remember which one, immediately responded with “Miami”. After some discussion, the panel agreed that Uruguay has potential. The government is right leaning with few Socialists. The Uruguayan president has been openly critical of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil.
- There was a question about prospects for Ecuador. The panel says that they expect Ecuador will make a leftward shift as Marxists are very well poised to take over.
Hong Kong Panel
Li Schoolland, Frances Hui, Simon Lee, Yang Jianli, and Zhou Fengsuo discussed Hong Kong and Communist China.
One of the panelists said that powers running mainland China see the rest of the world and many internal things as threats. This colors how they react to events.
Another of the panelists pointed out that comparisons of Singapore and Hong Kong aren’t appropriate despite both being former British Colonies that superficially appear to have much in common. Singapore is a top-down society. Hong Kong is bottom up. When Deng Xiaoping looked for ideas for opening up mainland China, he looked to Singapore.
The panel discussed Hong Kong’s civil society. Hong Kong has a strong civil society because the British never had total control. The British needed local help to run the colony. This meant that many Hongkongers were trained in a similar fashion to British civil servants. One of the panelists pointed out that China has not been able to completely destroy this society. As an example, the panelists pointed out that in Hong Kong courts contracts still matter.
Steve Forbes Luncheon
Izzit.org is Steve Forbes’ new education initiative. The idea is that it is not enough to say markets are good. You must show markets are good. The initiative includes a series of videos on what entrepreneurs do and how they improve people’s lives. Forbes spent most of his time talking about examples such as Fred Harvey, Frank Woolworth, and Henry Kaiser. There is much more on the website than videos about past entrepreneurs. Topics include business, economics, civics, and history.
Secession Panel
Near the end of the conference was a panel on secession. The panel make-up was different from what was in the program. The actual panel was made up of folks from New Hampshire and Texas. Stephen Villee, who wrote the Club 75 Alliance manifesto, and Carla Gericke were two of the three people from New Hampshire. I cannot remember the name of the third. The two people from Texas were involved in the Texit movement. I cannot remember their names.
The panel talked about the popularity of secession. Texit polled well in Texas in 2022, but according to the Texit folks, many Texans don’t realize this. The Texit folks say that when they travel the state talking to Texans, many people think they are the only ones in the state that support secession. According to the folks from NH, secession polls at about 20% approval. The NH secession attempt was a failure, but resulted in lots of media coverage throughout New England such as a series on the Free State Project produced by NBC Boston.
There was talk of Texas v White. Club 75 Alliance is pushing for an amendment to allow secession to basically kill Texas v. White.
Wrap Up
I attended more sessions than I covered here. I either don’t have notes on those sessions, don’t remember them, or thought they weren’t interesting or important enough to cover here. FreedomFest 2023 was not the best of the three FreedomFests I’ve attended, but it was good. I’m signed up for FreedomFest 2024 which will be held in Las Vegas, NV on July 10th through 13th, 2024.
How did you like the change of venue? Did you get to see Margatte Wade? You know I find her so interesting in light of my current employment.
I like that the FreedomFest folks are alternating locations.
Memphis had some good stuff. Some not so good stuff.
I thought the convention center wasn’t all that bad. It could use a bit more sound proofing between rooms, but otherwise I have no complaints about it.
Both hotels closest to the convention center had problems.
The food at Westy’s, a bar close to the convention center where I got lunch a few times, was great, but the service was abysmally slow even by Southern standards. On the other hand, if you walk downtown, Huey’s is great. Flying Saucer is great. In fact, I liked Flying Saucer so much I went back a night or two after Don and I had drinks there. I heard some good music on Beale Street. There are some good things to do in Memphis.
I’d like to see the FreedomFest folks keep alternating between Vegas and other places. I’d like to see them pick a better place than Memphis for 2025. Rapid City was great. There were complaints about transportation (rental cars unavailable and Lyft drivers slow/unresponsive), but otherwise I’ve heard only good things from folks about Rapid City. I heard very few good things about Memphis from other attendees. We’ll see what the FreedomFest folks announce next year for the 2025 venue.
I saw Magatte Wade in a panel discussion. I don’t remember what I said on the GlibsZoom after I got back from FreedomFest, but I actually did see her in one discussion. My memory was faulty. What I remember of the discussion is she talked about when she was younger she believed the lies about America, especially those about the American South. How racist the place is. And then when she learned she had been lied to, that was the beginning of her path to where she is now.
Salt Lake/Park City might be a good location for them to try. Manchester, NH, of course. Although that might be competing with Porcfest? Flagstaff could be cool.
Those of us in NH have been trying to get the FreedomFest folks to come to NH. Being near in time and location to PorcFest might draw more people to both events.
“She said, tell me, are you a libertarian, child? And I said, ma’am I am tonight!“
Southern standards
Westy’s is the old North End, and it hasn’t changed in 30 years. I’m pretty sure the same guy owns it, and I even remember one of the bartenders from back then. The food is solid, so it’s a reliable dive for missing calories as one stumbles home after a string of overservings. Some bars care about clients; some bars are careless about clients; Westy’s can only be said to not mind clients: they’re not glad you’re there, but they’re not surprised or mad about it, either…..that’s as far as they can go.
One of the bartenders was kinda chatty with me. He pointed out the owner. Older guy, having some trouble moving around.
so glad you came by
NewWife is scoring Glibs 2 for 2: y’all are pretty good company
I’m glad we met up. Good to hear I kept the good score going with NewWife.
I forgot to include something. The founder/CEO of American Classic Hardwoods, Bill Courtney, gave one of the opening talks for FreedomFest 2023. He has a podcast, An Army of Normal Folks, showcasing normal people doing things in their community to help out their community.
huh. I screwed up the first link. Trying again
Forest product folk are very entrepreneurial, very independent, usually self-made or family-centered/multi-generational. They’re resourceful, responsible, pay their bills. Their handshake means something. It’s corny and old-school in a lot of great ways.
I liked his talk. He sounded like a good guy to me.
*raises hand* Same. Except I was three.
It took me a *long* time to acknowledge that there is in fact a pattern there, even though I like to think I am a complete exception.
Me too. Some of it wasn’t until I started seeing a therapist last year and realizing some, in retrospect, obvious patterns and likely causes from my childhood and parents’ divorce. A year ago, I would have dismissed it out of hand and said it didn’t have any real influence.
Hey, sailor!
Thanks, DEG. I find these very interesting. The memory gaps are a refreshing bit of reality too.
You’re welcome!
I didn’t take notes like I did at FreedomFest 2022, but I did have some notes to help. I also didn’t want to write up everything like I did for FreedomFest 2022. Putting that write-up together got to be a drag.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
No, lingerie!
Go on…..
I don’t know if you would have liked to see Dot Parker in hers, but 🤷🏻♀️.
Nothing puts a nice face on free markets like promising something to your customers that you don’t deliver, and then taking their money anyway…
Fool me once…
I’ll be much more selective in extra paid events in the future.
Their paid luncheons have been hit or miss. The Steve Forbes one this year was worth the price. Tulsi Gabbard? Nope.
I didn’t write up that Enes Kanter Freedom was at FreedomFest. Maybe I should have. He gave a talk about what the NBA did when he was openly critical of China. He was also at that luncheon. I paid because I wanted to see Gabbard speak, but Enes was going to do a meet and greet as part of the luncheon. Enes took seriously what he needed to do. He posed for pictures with anyone that wanted a picture with him, and then he went around to each table and made small talk with everyone.
Agreed, they should have refunded at least a portion, if not everything, since food was provided…
Thanks, DEG. I am not much of a sitter and get impatient at times. Your synopsis was excellent. Good for you meeting with Don and wife. Glibs are the best
You’re welcome!
I’m sad I won’t make Honey Harvest this year.
That’s what next year is for. Mark your calendar
Will do
I re-watched Milton Friedman’s 1980 series Free to Choose a couple years ago, and the section on Hong Kong is fucking heartbreaking now.
What has happened to Hong Kong is sad, even though China hasn’t completely killed Hong Kong yet.
They will.
Eating the seed corn.
Or, they are just using it too get whatever cash/pounds they can out of it, and then it will go full CCP.
Made in Hong Kong
Queen’s Road East
I don’t see anything here about a fat guy striptease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BAOiGTizU4
Did you see Stan Jones or anyone else with argyria?
***
Stan Jones (born January 13, 1943) is a Libertarian Party politician who has twice run unsuccessfully for the United States Senate, in 2002 and 2006, and three times unsuccessfully as the Libertarian nominee for governor of Montana, in 2000, 2004, and 2008. He is known for his artificially induced blue-grey skin tone, caused by argyria.
…
In his book The Disappearing Spoon, about the periodic table, author Sam Kean chronicled the experience of Jones, who developed argyria, which permanently turned his skin a blue-grey color, by consuming large quantities of home-made colloidal silver.[1] Jones’ purposeful consumption of silver, which he believed to be an antibiotic, was a measure he undertook in response to his fears that the Y2K problem would make antibiotics unavailable, an event that did not occur.[1] The peculiar coloration of his skin featured prominently in media coverage of his unsuccessful campaign.
***
Silver does have some anti-bacterial properties and was used as a medicine before antibiotics were invented. However, since the body cannot eliminate it, it migrates to the skin where it turns color when exposed to sunlight, much like photographic film.
Did you see Stan Jones or anyone else with argyria?
No.
Almost surely apocryphal, but it’s been suggested that the term “blue bloods” arose because the aristocracy could afford to eat and drink from silver tableware, which leached into their food and caused argyria.
Also, silver sulfadiazine is still used in the treatment of burns and certain other skin lesions.
Libertarians, the Purple Man Group…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Karason
pa pa smurf
I thought you were trying to tell us we’re inbreds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Fugates
I’ve always been perplexed how a country founded in violent revolutionary secession from its lawful government became an indissoluble perpetual union.
Just gotta twist the right words around to get the conclusion you want.
In discussions with normies, I sometimes ask that if it was OK for the 13 colonies to secede from Britain, why was it so bad for the South to secede from the US? If they say it was necessary to stop slavery, I point out that the 13 colonies allowed slavery, and that the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in states that seceded.
I doubt that being for or against slavery motivated the vast majority of Civil War soldiers. It was most peer pressure, just as in most other wars.
To look at some other examples, I doubt very much any Iraqi soldier invaded Kuwait with the desire of defending the honor of Saddam and Greater Iraq. It was mostly just a chance to loot. Same deal for Japanese soldiers in WW2 – they were stuck doing it, so might as well cash in, unless you’re one of the unlucky guys sent to garrison a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. In that case, you just try to survive, which is the lot soldiers at war in general.
“We seceded through a successful rebellion. So must you.”
Australia has one of the largest number of micronations in the world
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-06/hutt-river-commonwealth-micronations-in-australia/12521668
***
Principality of Hutt River
…
During a dispute with the Western Australia government over its limits on wheat production, Leonard Casley declared his sizable farm an independent province, though he remained loyal to Queen Elizabeth II.[1]: 22 The micronation persisted for decades. Casley’s son and heir, Graeme Casley, contending with a massive debt to the Australian Taxation Office as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, finally dissolved the principality.[70][71]
***
Andrew Heaton of the before place has a Huttese passport which was granted to him by Leonard the Hutt.
Gloria Álvarez
Is gorgeous.
Jayzus.
But probably a good reason to have age limits (both young and old!)
Did you see anything there of Libertarian International? They have conferences around the world and quite a network of libertarians in countries where it is far more dangerous than here in the U.S. to be talking about individual rights and very limited government.
There was talk of their conference in Madrid which was last August. That’s all I remember.
Secession. I just bought this shirt on Saturday.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CQMX9X5
“Most Likely to Secede”
That is sweet.
Seconded.
Secession.
We Seceded Where Others Failed
Which would be easier to do if markets would cooperate and stop turning into oligopolistic circle jerks of utopian would-be master of the universe social planners. Capitalism’s inherent flaw seems to be that the only people who are any good at it hate capitalism.
Markets get taken over by grifters and thieves who, envious of those who work effectively as capitalists, slowly destroy everything around them. The problem is we have to protect our markets with lead. And we don’t.
There’s something to be said for that, but I don’t think it’s the whole story either. Big Tech is an example where it couldn’t really have been more wild-west in its infancy, and even today is among the more lightly regulated markets. The likes of Facebook and Twitter weren’t colluding with one national political party and the surveillance state at the point of a gun – they’re just fellow travelers. So what’s the market-based solution for a market that becomes a natural monopoly or oligopoly? There isn’t one, of course. If the market power is derived from efficiency such that no other competitors emerge for want of an opportunity that would exceed the cost of market entry, you can’t justify force to eradicate it. The assurance the free market economists give us is that such market power is never permanent because new efficiencies will always emerge. Which is probably true for tangible goods, but less so for services with no marginal cost of production. And Keynes was right about one thing: In the long run, we’re all dead. Google losing its near-monopoly in online advertising 50 years from now after I’m long dead isn’t much more comforting than the prospect of the nation steering a new course when the next monarch ascends the throne. Theoretically, we’re at least not subject to taxation and compulsory participation with these oligopolistic corporations. In theory, there’s no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there is. Example: I’ve recently been job hunting and had to quit in the middle of an application when their hiring process requires a Google account for certain services and identity verification.
Unless the prospective employer is “Google”, that’s a hard fucking No.
There are very few such things I consider beneficial – a Github account is one of them. Sadly, probably LinkedIn.
So you have an iPhone, then.
Just about everybody asks for a LinkedIn profile, but I haven’t run across any where it was mandatory, thankfully. I think I may have a LinkedIn account that I started back in 2009 when I finished college to join my alumni group, but that would have been the last time I even logged into it.
The places where I needed a Google account were using Google Forms for onboarding forms, or Google Docs for onboarding materials and assessments. And then one of them indirectly required a Google account, since you had to have access to the Play Store or iOS for their mobile app for ID verification. Utter retardation.
The likes of Facebook and Twitter weren’t colluding with one national political party and the surveillance state at the point of a gun – they’re just fellow travelers.
There’s also the probably-not-a-conspiracy-theory that the CIA is an early investor in both.
“Whaddya mean? In-Q-Tel is just a run of the mill venture capital fund!”
Speaking of startups, I was wondering earlier how hard it would be to use buying out a company as a means to funnel money to someone. In particular, this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Hartogensis
This comment jogged my memory.
During the Steve Forbes luncheon, someone asked Forbes something along the lines of why aren’t there more entrepreneurs used as examples who are alive. Forbes’ response was that he preferred dead entrepreneurs because he was worried about what currently living entrepreneurs might do in the future after being featured as an example at Izzit. Forbes explained that his worry is that living entrepreneurs might do something that enemies of Capitalism could use to discredit the initiative.
Of course, you can always use presentism to discredit people in the past.
I’m not sure I really care for the implication that the bastard child who ventilated the serial child rapist is equally as dysfunctional as the bastard child who became a serial child rapist on account of they were both bastard children.
For that matter, although it’s demonstrably true that single parenthood leads to abysmal social outcomes for children, and especially boys, I’m not sure I really care for the way the issue is presented in conservative circles as if it absolved the children of absentee parents from individual choice or responsibility for their own lives. And I speak as someone with a large degree of sympathy in the matter, having been raised from the age of 2 years old by a very dysfunctional step-father after having been briefly kidnapped by my abusive alcoholic and drug addicted biological father at the acrimonious conclusion of he and my mother’s tumultuous relationship.
I’m not sure I really care for the implication that the bastard child who ventilated the serial child rapist is equally as dysfunctional as the bastard child who became a serial child rapist on account of they were both bastard children.
If you got that implication, I must not have summarized the documentary well. I watched it twice, that implication is not at all in the documentary. It is clear from the documentary that Rittenhouse has his problems, but is not as messed up as Blake or Rosenbaum.
Take a look at the documentary. I don’t think you’ll get that implication from it.
I didn’t meant to put words in your mouth, or the filmmakers for that matter. I wouldn’t mind checking out the film. Just the title alone though kind of suggests a commonality among them that is, ultimately, fairly meaningless, I think. It made me think of the statistics you always hear about “coming from a single parent household makes you X% more likely to wind up in prison.” Which, while true, can also be used as an excuse for shitty behavior, as if young men raised by single mothers were predestined for criminality.
I understand.
I have a vague memory of either Montz or the pastor at the panel discussion saying something about a substitute father figure (coach, teacher, uncle, etc.) can have a similar effect to an actual father.
My Mother got remarried twice after my Dad died. I was lucky that she found 2 good guys (first one died after a couple years of marriage). I was 40ish at the time.
Well I don’t want to give you all the wrong impression either, I’m extremely grateful for having had my step-dad in my life. Growing up, and even until he died, he was always just “dad” to me. We had enough of a bond that he had long since made me his medical proxy, and I was the one who made all of the decisions about his care when he died. A lot of the values I carry with me to this day are the ones he inculcated in me in his own deeply imperfect way. He wasn’t good at living up to the principles he espoused, but at least he espoused them.
“He wasn’t good at living up to the principles he espoused, but at least he espoused them.”
Here is the little hypocrisy everyone is guilty of; not practicing what you preach sometimes. Big hypocrisy is claiming moral superiority because you don’t even try to follow any code of ethics and denigrate anyone who does.
I didn’t get a true stepfather until near the end of HS – i.e. he was never a true stepfather. Though a good guy; the best of a bad bunch my mom went through during my childhood.
All my values I got from my mom.
I was way closer with my mom than my dad, and certainly got a lot of my values from her as well, but she wasn’t any kind of disciplinarian, so I’m glad I had that second parental influence, flawed as it may have been. I wasn’t very rebellious and made it pretty easy on them, but my mom would have let me get away with anything, honestly. I feel like what I got from dad was a lot better than nothing. It was mostly in his relationship with my mom where he dropped the ball. It’s a great example of how he never lived up to the principles he tried to teach me. A little court-ordered stint in anger management after my step-brother called the cops on him for smacking my mom around when I was very young had pretty well broken him of the habit of getting physically violent, but he could still be a cruel prick to her all the way up until he died. I can remember him lecturing me as an adolescent about how you should never put your hands on a woman only a half a dozen years or so removed from the last time me and mom went and spent the night at grandma’s house after he’d bloodied her lip. Over the years I kind of learned to separate the respect I had for his efforts with me from the lack of respect I had to have for his miserable failures as a husband.
I use humor to cope. Having read your story, I hope you find this song enjoyable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8dPa2S4vL0
A wise man once said everybody hurts.
Death to Smoochy is GOAT
My fave line of an underrated movie.
MIchael Stipe?
Fantastic job DEG! I enjoyed the read.
Thanks!
Yes! Great write up, DEG. You being here to add things and answer questions pairs nicely with this shorter format. Well done.
Thanks!
I’ll be sticking around a little bit longer, then heading to bed. I got stuff to do tomorrow.
Proud Boy gets 22 years for Jan 6.
I probably have the least patience for the Jan 6 stuff of anyone here, but Tarrio doesn’t remotely seem like he deserves the stiffest sentence. I don’t think much about words or even conspiracies: what you do matters immensely to me; in this regard, a reckless FoxNews addict who wasn’t even there does not qualify as the worst guy of the day even if his organization led the breach. I am not a student of the facts in this matter, but at first blush this doesn’t seem equitable.
Charlie Manson never killed anyone. But he got life for “directing” people to do the work.
I have too much respect for agency to go very far down that road; I don’t like muddy I-know-it-when-I-see-it kinds of arguments that police or prosecutors or juries or defendants don’t find clean and clear. There’s always a price to be paid for absolutism; it’s not very convenient; but when bad people turn good rules on good people, they have a tougher go when the rules are unambiguous: the rule of law is more apt to prevail. On balance I remain convinced that fewer, cleaner rules well-deployed and enforced will result in a better society sooner than adding bands of interpretation; clear rules can be explained and sold to reasonable people, so I’d rather prioritize them.
Hitler probably never killed anyone, but he had power and could coerce and compel, so he is responsible where his orders were obeyed. That’s an objectively bright line.
Charlie Manson never killed anyone.
I’m too tired for this shit today.
Equating the January 6 protests to Charlie’s Helter Skelter in anyway is bullshit.
I’m a bit skeptical of that.
Since we’re prosecuting based on mind-reading and all.
No objections.
The source I read could be wrong; I don’t actually know; I should have said it was argued or asserted by the prosecution.
I’m just saying that it’s still not enough, even if we were to stipulate it as true, to convince me he’s the worst person associated with those goings on…which his sentence indicates.
The feds led the charge into the capital building and it will come to light at some point after people have spent years rotting in prison cells. The media will yaw.
For a bit of context, in 1954, four armed Puerto Rican nationalists broke into the capitol and opened fire on congress, wounding 5 congressman, 1 seriously. All 4 were convicted of various crimes, none of which included “seditious conspiracy,” and Jimmy Carter commuted all 4 sentences in 1978. So this guy is going to serve 2 fewer years in prison than gunmen who broke into the capitol and shot several congressmen, because members of the organization he leads were involved in a riot at the capitol, for which he was not even physically present.
I’m heading to bed. I’ll check in in the morning to answer any questions/respond to any comments that come in over night.
I hurt myself today…to see if I could still First.
The answer is of course that I am always First.
Good write up DEG.
This is a good piece on the long term fight for liberty against the current woke moment. There really is no political solution for it, this is a battle that must be fought for a culture. I’d say there are some good signs of this already going on, and I think the generation that follows the Millennials will be the ones that lead towards a more liberty based and much less identitarian reality here. A good passage:
“ If you reject the quickly crystalizing orthodoxy of America’s millennials, your short-term options are limited. The millennials are a lost generation; they will persist in their errors to the end of their days. Theirs is a doomed cohort—and for most of the next two decades, this doomed cohort will be in charge.
But like all orthodoxies, theirs will eventually stumble. Today’s orthodoxy will meet events it cannot explain. Today’s hopes will be the source of tomorrow’s sorrows. When those sorrows arrive, a rising generation will be looking for alternatives. The job of today’s insurgents is to build a coherent critique of this orthodoxy, a compelling vision of a better way, and a set of networks that can guard the flame until the arrival of that happy day.
https://scholars-stage.org/culture-wars-are-long-wars/
Reminds me of a local well educated blogger. Up front view of the leftist failures, chronically calls it out and documents it, the hypocrisy, grift, dishonesty, etc etc. Yet is utterly convinced we’re just a heartbeat away from goose stepping under right wing Nazis led by Trump.
Thanks for sharing.
The Forbes site sounds interesting! I’ll check it out.
OT: for you night owls.
A YouTube mockumentary on the Death of Mickey Mouse, complete with AI Attenborough narration.
I liked it! Under 7 minutes.
https://youtu.be/EG4JL6ntJsw?si=1XQOSp3ZMivCPaeF
Home inspection no too bad but some areas of concern.
They expanded their main electrical box and the sub is done superb but wasn’t done by an electrician in official capacity. That needs to be looked over. Along with some fixtures with no bulbs that need to be verified
Some plumbing is off in basement bathroom. Not sure if shutoff or issue.
Now to find out how dedicated seller is cause they insist on ‘as is’ and for the price, I’m gonna say no if they push back on these simple things.
Thank DEG. This is a great piece. I need to watch some of those videos later.
Why do smoke detectors go on the fritz in the middle of the night?
Because the man is trying to kill you.
It is well known that sleep deprivation causes all sorts of illness. Why do you think smoke detectors going off happens to POCs so often? Genocide.
The detector in my office went on the fritz a couple of months back, and taking out the battery didn’t help because it’s the connected to the grid shit. That detector isn’t necessary anyway since there’s another at the foot of the stairs and another in the adjoining bedroom.
This morning it’s the one in that bedroom (my room) that went off.
Reached it’s maturation date then?
I dislike the wired ones quite a bit, since they have a battery backup that will also make them alarm they are even more annoying than usual.
From Mexi’s links (https://apnews.com/article/chile-pinochet-dictatorship-5d500715f016804990d0898ff6d89907):
“The world remembers Gen. Augusto Pinochet as the dictator whose regime tortured, killed and disappeared 3,065 people in the name of fighting communism.”
This is the thing that bugs me about ‘rightwing dictators’ (Franco belongs here, for example and to some extent the Spanish inquisition, many monarchies). We must remember their victims, etc. but their kill counts are literally 3 orders of magnitude lower than commie dictators.
With communists you don’t and can’t count down to the single digits because the numbers are just so big. 3,000 people was a slow day in the office for a mao or a stalin. Pinochet killed <200 people/yr. which isn't even a blip on the radar for most governments, even 'democratic' ones. How many people were disappeared by Maduro and company? 9,000- and in 10 years, not 17 (and thats according to wiki/UN.
Also, the country turned into a shithole, compared to Chile being the most advanced south American country… it is just a joke to criticize right-wing dictatorship at this point. Yeah, I'm sure there are bad examples out there, I just don't know of any somehow.
Pinochet saved Chile from a much worse fate, same with Franco and Spain. Strong men are usually needed to control radical communists unfortunately.
‘There was a question for panel if anyone noticed a difference between households where the father died and households where the father was absent due to divorce or abandonment. The pastor answered this question. He noticed that boys and young men whose fathers have died are often much better adjusted than boys and young men whose fathers are absent.’
Probably some selection bias based on maternal quality there, but it is different being unwanted…
The abused statistic is something that doesn’t come up much, but a child in a home with a step-parent is something like 10-50x more likely to be abused (depending how whose numbers you use- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0162309585900123). But sure, get divorced, its not a big deal… >.<
Good morning all!
It’s time for some Renaissance.
An early one, Rajah Khan.
And perhaps the closest they came to a big hit, Ashes Are Burning.
Share and enjoy!
Good morning, Beau, Sean, Roat, Lack, and Ted’S.!
Second link is purty, Beau, but I’m afraid the first is a bit of a…closed loop? 😉
Found it!
Damn your nimble fingers!
Huh, that’s weird. Glad you liked the second enough to go find the first!
I love Annie Haslam’s voice. Incredible range (reported to be 7 octaves early in her career)l. I have a couple more from them that shall show up one of these mornings.
Renaissance has a bit of an odd history. Originally founded by Keith Rolf, ex-Yardbirds. In the US, there was a total turnover of band members between the first & second albums. The UK got a 2nd album that was a hybrid, before our second was released as their third. Ah, the bad old days of regional control ;-\
Better link:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ox_hzO6SIAY
WRT Renaissance: John Hawken, their original keyboardist, came to the states in the early seventies and took a job as a second shift receiving clerk at the distribution center where I was working at the time. My boss was a pretty fair guitarist and had a band that played gigs in local clubs. Hawken wound up playing with them for a few years; very humble guy, and terrific musician. Most of the patrons at the clubs had no idea who he was.
Time to get up and kick some ass.
😈😉🍩
I’m declaring Wednesday’s as love song day.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZrwysCjnnU
🎶🎶
Monkey County being Monkey County
Mornin’, reprobates!
About halfway through the article, will finish later. Nicely done, DEG – also, I registered for the ASG streaming service.
In too local news, my renal calculus is still hanging around. I hate math.
Good morning, ‘patzie! I’m so sorry you haven’t tested out of that class. 😞
Thanks!
Sorry about kidney stone hanging around.
tap tap tap…
This thing on?
Good Morning:
When I last left you, wife was topless protesting developers actions with the towns planning commission.
I have an update of sorts.
Wife was charged with a misdemeanor “OUTRAGING PUBLIC DECENCY”, we never got the official notification about that.
We did get sued by developer, and he knew about it.
Then a week later, she got arrested when we called the police (the neighbor who lead the planning commission and who we have a trespass against) parked a military type truck in front of her when she was sunbathing [with nipple covers]) and droned . Police officer arrested her for INDECENT EXPOSURE. Did not ask her any questions, arrested her for…”waving”
Today we have a VPO hearing from the same foamily against wife WRT a 16 YO son for excessive waiving, for the same day.
Meanwhile our lawyer sent an counter complaint to the original suit. It alleges numerous errors in the approval process and documents probable revenge porn from the planner against my wife sent to the towns administrator, and towns lawyer.
I still think i am blessed with some stuoid emieneis, But its going to be a 3 year slog to figure this all out. I need that meme with the guy and all throe pics in the background connected with string..
Yikes. I believe you have stumbled upon the singularity of assholes.
Oh, my, ‘bodru! 😳
So why doesn’t your lovely bride come around here? She sounds like quite the…interesting person!
“the neighbor who lead the planning commission and who we have a trespass against) parked a military type truck in front of her when she was sunbathing [with nipple covers]) and droned”
Sounds like stalking and harassment to me. Can you get a red flag order on him? As much as I despise them, lawfare is the game these days…