Thursday, December 02, 2021


Leftism as a mental infirmity

Below is an excerpt from a long essay by Claire Wolfe. She is an extreme libertarian but she sounds a bit unhinged to me. She forgets Hanlon’s razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

She writes a huge amount, which must take up a lot of time. It is perhaps for that reason that she seems to have dog in her life rather than a man. But the excerpt below has some interesting points


The woke demand that we believe in the historically unlikely and the biologically impossible or face demonization and unpersoning. Those awaiting the climate-change apocalypse are utterly undeterred by its repeated failure to arrive and insist more loudly than ever that the rest of us — those not in their crowd — will eat soy, give up our cars, own nothing, and like it.

And — as omicron madness rises from the ashes of the dying COVID panic to sweep the global “public health” establishment — we can expect the True Believers (who in this case have the added incentives of billions of dollars, increased political power, and media fame) to hit us, harder than ever, with the same-old same-old of their broken “expertise,” their failed prophesies, and their useless (and cruel) “solutions.”

Never mind that we know very little about omicron at this point. Never mind that what we do know hints that the new variant follows the standard pattern for mutating viruses: more contagious but milder.

The True Believers of Public Health faced their own Great Disappointment. Millions were beginning either to ignore or strike back at the best panic they’d ginned up in their bureaucratic little lifetimes (a real and nasty disease, but eminently survivable even for 98+ percent of its most vulnerable victims).

So — GLOBAL CATASTROPHE, Part umpty-ump! Whoohoo!

And if previous tools didn’t “slow the spread” or sufficiently cow the peasants, then let’s use the same tools, only more and harder! Lockdowns! Shutdowns! Masks and more masks! Firings! Travel bans! Closed borders! Closed schools! Vaxx passports! Above all, more and more NEW JABS! And for the unbelievers, increasingly stringent punishments to save their souls force compliance.

Heck, even before the excuse of omicron, one country in Europe had already banned the dirty unvaxxed from buying gasoline. (I also thought this was fake news until I checked beyond the original link I received.)

In Greece, where the average monthly pension is 730 Euros, every filthy unvaccinated resident over 60 will be forced to pay a 100 Euro monthly fine. (But never fear, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis assured us he was “tormented,” the poor dear, by his decision to smack the most vulnerable. Also he wants us all to understand “It is not a punishment.” That should make everybody, especially all the newly poor, feel better.)

And as Noah Rothman noted in the second half of one of the links above, despite omicron giving, as yet, no sign that panic is called for, panic swiftly ensued around the globe and on the shores of our very own burgeoning banana republic. Or at least it did in the minds of officials and “experts” for whom panic (in Rothman’s words) is a lifestyle brand.

Boston University School of Public Health Associate Professor Dr. Ellie Murray must have been chortling with glee when she recommended “solutions” for this new variant we know almost nothing about: more jabs, more tests, more mask mandates, more business closures, PLUS paid pandemic furloughs, new eviction moratoriums, forcing airlines to absorb the costs of socially distanced flights, requiring (this is my favorite) ALL winter gatherings to take place outdoors (have fun, you Minnesotans and Canadians!), and being ready to close (again) whatever schools may have managed to open.

That sort of thing worked SO well before, you know.

Of course, whoever’s actually running the Biden administration responded instantly with bans on travel from various African nations. (NOTE to readers: Bans on travel from various nations are racist only when issued by Republican presidents.)

Japan slammed its borders shut entirely (as it is historically wont to do).

And all around the world True Believing governments behaved like True Believing governments. They panicked and hoped we’d all panic right along with them. And they did the same-old same-old, then more of the same.

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"Stop and frisk" is back in NYC

New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams maintained his support of "stop and frisk" in reaction to last week’s Thanksgiving Eve shooting that wounded two police officers.

Adams, who will be the city’s second Black mayor, praised the "professional conduct" of NYPD officers Alejandra Jacobs and Robert Holmes in their handling of suspect Charlie Vasquez in the Bronx last week. Adams said the officers handled the situation correctly when they approached the suspect matching a 911 caller’s description and asked him to show his hands.

In response to the request Vasquez opened fire and shot officer Jacobs in the arm, Jacobs returned fire, and, "the threat was neutralized. One more gun off the street. One more blow against the bad guys," Adams said. "Yet there are some in our city who would say these officers should never have confronted Vasquez, that he never should have been stopped and questioned."

Adams rejected his opponents’ demands to "end stop and frisk forever," maintaining that the tactic "stop, question and frisk" must be reinstated because it can actually help reduce crime "without infringing on personal liberties and human rights."

"In fact, as American courts have affirmed over many years, stop, question and frisk is a perfectly legal, appropriate and constitutional tool, when used smartly, as opposed to indiscriminately against hundreds of thousands of young Black and Brown men, as it was for years in New York City," Adams said. "Not only that, but it is a necessary tool, whereby police approach someone who fits a witness description or otherwise appears to be carrying an illegal weapon."

He continued: "The question was never whether stop, question and frisk should be allowed; it was how it should be done. Those who claimed it should be outlawed entirely reduced a nuanced issue to an either-or argument, and unwisely answered it with a blanket ban."

Adams has called for an end to "fighting from the extremes about public safety" and promised to make solutions his "number one priority" in January. He also discussed arguments about stop, question and frisk, defund the police and bail reform.

"The question should not be whether or not police are allowed to confront suspects; it should be about how we train them," he said. "The question should not be whether we have police; it should be how we use them. The question should not be whether judges should have the ability to protect New Yorkers from violent offenders; it should be how we let them."

At a press conference following the shooting, both NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea and a police union president, Pat Lynch, spoke about the lack of fear among criminals in the streets in spite of efforts to remove illegal guns. Vasquez, who was also wounded in the shooting, was charged Saturday with attempted murder and other weapons offenses.

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US police officer dismissed after shooting alleged shoplifter in wheelchair nine times, killing him

Richards was a white career criminal so he was obviously challenging the cop. He guessed wrong

A US policeman who shot and killed a suspected shoplifter in a wheelchair, hitting him nine times in the back and side, has been fired from the police force.

Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus said he was "deeply disturbed" by the shooting

Footage released by the department shows Mr Remington meters behind Mr Richards, asking him to stop.

When Mr Richards continues to move his motorised wheelchair away, Mr Remington opens fire, shooting the suspected shoplifter in the back and the side.

Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus said a Walmart employee had called Mr Remington for help.

"According to the employee, he (Mr Remington) caught up with Mr Richards outside as he fled the store and asked to see a receipt for the toolbox," CNN quoted Chief Magnus as saying.

"Instead of providing the receipt, Mr Richards brandished a knife and said, 'Here's your receipt.'"

Chief Magnus told a press conference he was "deeply disturbed" by his officer's actions. "His use of deadly force in this incident is a clear violation of department policy and directly contradicts multiple aspects of our use of force and training. "As a result, the department moved earlier today to terminate Officer Remington."

CNN quoted Mr Remington's attorney Michael Storie as saying the video did not tell the whole story.

Mr Storie said Mr Remington "attempted to de-escalate the situation" but Mr Richards's actions left him "no choice but to use deadly force".

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CNN insists ‘a car’ killed six people at Wisconsin Christmas parade

Despite multiple media outlets being hammered for blaming the Waukesha Christmas parade massacre on a vehicle rather than its black driver – a murder suspect – CNN continued to blame “a car” for the mass killing.

Repeat felon Darrell Brooks killed six people and injured more than 60 when he plowed an SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last week. Though Brooks has been arrested and charged with six counts of murder, media outlets covering the massacre have seemingly made a point of avoiding naming the suspect, instead ascribing blame to the vehicle and calling the killing spree a “crash” or an “accident.”

Amid outrage from conservatives, the Washington Post last week deleted a tweet calling the incident a “tragedy caused by a SUV,” but CNN is standing its ground. In a tweet on a memorial event in Waukesha on Sunday, the liberal network said the city was “marking one week since a car drove through a city Christmas parade.”

Inside the article, only the final paragraph mentioned Brooks as the “suspected driver.”

The tweet led to an instant outpouring of scorn and ridicule from the right. “Will we ever know the car’s motivation? What did the car post on social media? What kind of background did the car have?” former US diplomat Alberto Migues Fernandez sarcastically quipped.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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