Could It Be that Much that We Think We Know About MLK Is Exaggerated or Even an Outright Lie?

Brace yourself for a stampede of public figures all claiming to be King’s greatest admirer 

as April 4th marks 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr was murdered in Memphis. Benny Huang, who has written about MLK before, declares that he will not pretend

to be one of them. Unlike a lot of conservatives I wouldn’t be caught dead trying to co-opt MLK and his undeserved aura of moral superiority.

Not that King didn’t have a lot of nice things to say. I can support the sentiment behind his “I Have a Dream” speech despite the fact that it was co-written by King’s Communist Party handler. I firmly believe that we should judge people by the content of their character not the color of their skin.

But King did not. He simply mouthed those vapid words because he was trying to persuade a majority-white nation to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an unconstitutional monstrosity that turned out to be even worse than its critics had predicted. King’s tactical appeal to colorblindness was destined to be tossed aside the moment he achieved his short-term policy goals.

As the recognized advocate for America’s only substantial racial minority, MLK vowed to resolve the race issue once and for all in return for a few small concessions: our property rights, our right to free association, our free speech rights, and our right not to be subjected to involuntary servitude.

It would have been a terrible deal even if each side had held up its end of the bargain. But that’s not what happened.

Less than one year after King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech Congress gave him what he wanted: a sweeping nondiscrimination law that invaded the private sphere and unleashed the federal government’s massive authority to police even our thoughts and intentions. It was supposed to be government-mandated race neutrality which was something most Americans could get behind because of their inherent sense of fair play. Personally, I find the race neutrality part appealing but resent the government mandated part, especially as it applies to private entities.

The bill was passed by a congressional supermajority and signed into law by the old racist Lyndon Johnson who was afforded the opportunity to portray himself as the black man’s best friend which he most certainly was not.

That was the bait. Then came the switch.

About four months later King sat for an interview with the future Roots plagiarist Alex Haley in which he argued for racial preferences—which he would also soon get.

Said King:

“Few people reflect that for two centuries the Negro was enslaved and robbed of any wages–potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America’s wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation.”

Translation: It’s payback time. According to King, everything America has is stolen wealth. White people should feel lucky that they’re being allowed to get away with merely being discriminated against for generations to come. They deserve much worse.

For the remaining three and a half years of King’s life he worked tirelessly toward Marxist revanchism. He supported racial discrimination (in his own favor), further eroded our constitutional rights with the Voting Rights Act and Fair Housing Act, and fought for an even more robust welfare state than even Lyndon Johnson had proposed.

In the same Haley interview King endorsed racial preferences in housing and hiring, as well as a $50 billion spending package exclusively for blacks—about $400 billion in today’s inflated currency. Funny how he didn’t mention any of that until after he got the Civil Rights Act.

King’s support for racial preferences stands in stark violation of the law he championed that same year. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 clearly states that employers may not discriminate on the basis of race. It does not say that employers may discriminate against whites (or Asians!) as long as they’re trying to redress historical grievances. More importantly: If the bill had contained that kind of language it never would have passed.

But alas, employers have been favoring black over white ever since. Martin Luther King did not oppose that kind of discrimination because he never actually opposed racial discrimination per se. He just didn’t like being on the wrong end of it—and who does?

The idea that King opposed racial discrimination is just one of several myths that won’t die. Let’s unpack a few others.

MLK was not non-violent. We’ve been taught this lie because he refused to fight with the policemen and redneck vigilantes who roughed him up. But he supported the ultra-violent Planned Parenthood and physically beat at least one of his many adulterous relations so we know he had no problem picking fights with women and children. That didn’t make him Gandhi it just made him a coward.

He also winked at urban rioting. It’s no wonder his followers honored his legacy by burning down more than one hundred American cities in the days that followed his assassination.

Nor was King a patriotic American trying to make his country live up to its founding ideals. He was actually only one degree removed from the Soviet Union and he almost certainly knew it. Imagine all the worst accusations that have been lodged against Donald Trump about his supposed collusion with the Russians to “steal our democracy”—then imagine that they’re actually true. That was Martin Luther King.

MLK was just starting to become a household name during the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott when he met a Communist Party apparatchik named Stanley Levison. According to King biographer David Garrow, Levison was King’s closest white friend.

Levison conveniently “quit” the Communist Party in 1957. He was still very much a small “c” communist though conveniently unburdened by the party membership card he had carried for ten years. In all likelihood his departure was a sham.

Levison was always the man behind the curtain. Even Garrow and other sources friendly to King admit that Levison got King his first book deal, reviewed the book line by line, wrote whole drafts of King’s speeches, did King’s taxes, and wrote his fundraising letters.

And yet I suspect that Garrow’s description of the relationship between these two men soft-pedals the truth: Levison did everything for King except speak with that booming black preacher’s voice. For that, the CPUSA needed an honest-to-goodness black man and a purported Christian.

There’s a word in the intelligence community for guys like Stanley Levison. They’re called “handlers.”

Stanley Levison joined the CPUSA in 1946 just when the wartime alliance between the US and the Soviet Union was crumbling. (See John Barron’s Operation Solo: Our Man Inside the Kremlin. ) Unlike party members who joined in the 1930’s, he cannot claim that he was attracted to the Communist Party only because of its fervent opposition to Hitler’s Germany. He was, like every other CPUSA member at the time, a fanatical defender of Stalin and Soviet Communism. If he hadn’t been he would have been quickly shown the door.

Even before Levison was introduced to King the FBI had already identified him as a party treasurer. Levison’s duties might explain why he was so closely involved in the “civil rights movement’s” finances. Where all that money came from is anybody’s guess but it’s not outlandish to consider the Kremlin as one possible source.

What we do know is that the CPUSA always did the Soviet Union’s bidding. Professor Harvey Klehr et al. argue convincingly in their excellent book The Soviet World of American Communism that the CPUSA was a willing instrument of Soviet policymakers. Their assertion is based on extensive review of Soviet archives opened to scholars in the early 1990s.

They write:

“[A]t every period of the CPUSA’s history, the American communists looked to their Soviet counterparts for advice on how to conduct their own party business. But there was more to it than that: these documents show that the CPUSA was never an independent political organization. There were moments when it was less strictly controlled by Moscow than at others, but there was never a time when CPUSA made its decisions autonomously, without being obliged to answer to or—more precisely—without wishing to answer to Soviet authority.”

It should come as no surprise then that Levison was observed in 1962 by FBI counterintelligence meeting with the undercover KGB man Viktor Lesiovsky, who was then working ostensibly as an assistant to UN Secretary-General U Thant. This was after Levison “quit” CPUSA.

The Soviet Union was the puppet master pulling Levison’s strings through the CPUSA. Stanley Levison in turn was pulling MLK’s strings. A single tissue-thin layer separated King from Moscow and both sides knew it.

Once one understands this basic fact, so much else becomes clear—King’s insistence on an even more aggressive war on poverty at the expense of military spending, for example. Geez, why might the Soviets be interested in that? Consider his constant racial agitation. Might a divided America be a weaker foe? The Soviets certainly thought so.

Martin Luther King was dishonest, cowardly, and downright seditious. He was no hero and the world would be a better place if he had never existed.

Related: • Today, MLK Jr Would Be Unemployable in America,
Given That He Would Be Anathema to Most Americans… of the Left (!)

• None Other Than MLK Welcomed Judgment,
So Why the #$#%$@# Should We NOT Judge Wendy Davis?! 

• Kim Davis and Martin Luther King both defied the law for the same reason
—Both agree that they have an obligation to disobey any law that is unjust

• Is it time to say that MLK does not deserve all of the adoration we heap upon him?

• A Few Black People in the 1960s Not Being Martyrized by White America

• Is It Possible?! What If All Southern Whites Weren't the Equals of Nazis
and What If the South Had Not Been a Total Racialist Nightmare?!

• Witness the Unbelievable Amount of Racism
That Exists Among Conservatives and in the Tea Party

RIP Col. Arnaud Beltrame, the French police officer who offered himself up in a hostage swap to a terrorist yelling “Allahu Akbar”

A French police officer who offered himself up in a hostage swap Friday after an armed man reportedly yelling “Allahu Akbar” went on a rampage in southern France, has died

report Kathleen Joyce and Lucia I. Suarez Sang on Fox News.

Details about the death of the officer, identified as Col. Arnaud Beltrame, were not immediately available.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb wrote in a tweet early Saturday that Beltrame had "died for his country."

The officer had offered himself up unarmed to the 25-year-old attacker in exchange for a female hostage.

He managed to surreptitiously leave his cellphone on so that police outside could hear what was going on inside the supermarket.

Officials said once they heard shots inside the market they decided to storm it, killing the gunman.

Beltrame was grievously injured, and his death raised the toll from the attack to four.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest since Emmanuel Macron became president last May.

Police said the suspect, identified as Redouane Lakdim, 26, carjacked a vehicle, shot at police and barricaded himself inside a Super U supermarket in Trebes before officers stormed in, fatally shooting him.

The Associated Press adds that

The mother of a French police officer who was killed after he swapped himself for a hostage during an Islamic extremist attack on a supermarket says that she wasn't surprised by her son's courage.

Col. Arnaud … Beltrame's mother told RTL radio Friday night before the announcement of his death that

"I'm not surprised. I knew it had to be him. He has always been like that. It's someone, since he was born, who gives everything for his homeland." 

Asked if she was proud of him, she said he would have told her "'I'm doing my job mom, that's all.'"

She said to "defend the homeland" was his "reason for living."

Hergé Exhibit in Odense's Brandts Museum Visited by Crown Prince Frederik

Jakob Stegelmann (th) var med som Tintin-ekspert, da kronprins Frederik så udstillingen på Brandts. V til H: Erik Svane, Belgisk ambassadør Leo Peeters, Odense borgmester Peter Rahbæk Juel, Kronprins Frederik, direktør for Brandts Mads Damsbo, Jakob Stegelmann

At the last moment, I was asked to join the inaugural tour of Brandts's Hergé exhibit in Odense for Crown Prince Frederik, since I had met the Belgian artist as a child when one of the Danish Embassy's top honchos (none other than my father) helped get two signed Tintin albums to the Danish princes (the one to Kronprins Frederik being Tintin au Tibet). Photos by Fyns Stifitstidendes Birgitte Carol Holberg

Kronprins Frederik fik en rundvisning i den nye Hergé-udstilling af flere Tintin-eksperter. Her snakker han med Nick Rodwell, direktør for Musée Hergé, mens borgmester Peter Rahbæk Juel (i midten) og tegneserie-elsker Jakob Stegelmann (th) ser på. V til H: Nick Rodwell, Belgisk ambassadør Leo Peeters (skjult), Kronprins Frederik, Erik Svane, Odense borgmester Peter Rahbæk Juel, ukendt, Jakob Stegelmann. (Michael Farr var også tilstede.)

More photos aqui…

The language of equality misses out the despised new underclass: cis males

The Judges’ handbook on the language of equality misses out the despised new underclass: Oxbridge-educated, cis males. Thus writes Giles Coren in the Times of London:

According to a story in Thursday’s Times, a handbook has at last been published offering judges “advice in how to avoid giving offence”.

 … Thank heavens. We live in better and more enlightened times. Overt racism and sexism are not tolerated anywhere, by anyone. Except in the White House, of course. So what the Judicial College is looking to stamp out now, as the noose tightens around those who would seek to upset their fellow humans with outrageous prejudice, are words like “Afro-Caribbean” (which I didn’t know was actively offensive but is a mouthful and I’d never say it anyway), “transsexual” (which I assumed was fine but should apparently be “trans person”), “ethnic minority” (which I truly thought was just a description of when one ethnic group is outnumbered by another), and “postman”, which is obviously downright bloody disgusting fascist language and must be stamped out now, or we will soon be in a situation like Germany in 1933, with postmen first being denied marriage licences and council flats, then being hounded into special “postie” ghettos, then “relocated in the East” and ultimately marched to their deaths in the gas chambers of Poland — all of which, the Equal Treatment Bench Book asserts, can be avoided by merely calling them “postal operatives” instead. So a big “phew” for that.

And speaking of gas chambers, they are also looking to stamp out the word “Jew” on account of its “potentially negative connotations”. So does that mean I am not one any more? I mean, it’s great that judges are being told not to chase me down the street throwing rashers of bacon at me, shouting “Jew! Jew! Jew!”, because frankly I have had enough of that, but if it’s at the expense of my using the only word I can think of to describe my racial identity then maybe I’m not such a big winner after all.

And “Jew” is my racial identity only, by the way. I do not practise. I am a “Jew” only in the way that a black person is black. Although with more counting money and less dancing. Is that racist? Yes. But only because I said “Jew”, according to the handbook. What I should have said was “Jewish person”. Because that is MASSIVELY different.

It’s like when Benedict Cumberbatch got hauled up (rightly) for saying “coloured actors” and we suddenly learnt that “person of colour” was a thing. So white columnists all started writing “person of colour” everywhere to show how liberal they were, until Twitter exploded with pissed-off black people, shouting, “I’m not a person of colour! I am a black woman!” And damn right. Because euphemism is the worst thing of all. It compels people to apologise linguistically for being who they are.

The political correctness movement did a wonderful thing from the mid-1980s onwards to change the language used about groups who had suffered years of bigotry. But changing the focus of language did not reduce the sum total of hate. You can’t do that.

Telling a blind person — as the handbook recommends — that she is “a person with sensory impairment” does not give her back her sight.

 … In ten years on social media, nobody has ever called me a y**. Or even a Jewish person. But every time I write something that the millennials don’t like, they pour forth a stream of personal abuse centred around such new disentitlements as being “privileged”, “cis male”, “Oxbridge” and “public school”, all of them accidents of birth which my abusers believe should disqualify me from work in the media.
When I write something angry they ask, “U okay hon?” which, in case you didn’t know, is the modern way of suggesting that a person is experiencing mental health issues. It is exactly the same as calling someone with depression a “spastic in the head”. It’s just new words for an old thing. No less hate.

And when the swarms of millennials who will misread this piece for a defence of bigotry set about snarling “privileged, public school, cisgender male!” at me, they will do it — just like the tribal Labour supporter who yells “Tory scum!” with a venom that passes way beyond the realm of political dissent — with every ounce as much hatred as any black-shirted Mosleyite ever shouted “n***er!” or “p*ki!”

So I’m going to say to the judges: burn your stupid handbooks (although not in a Nazi way) and just show respect for your fellow humans. And if that leads to a Holocaust of the postmen, well . . . my bad.

Michael Moore's Comments on the 2018 Elections Are Revelatory of His Admitted Devotion to Marxism—"Dude, I am on Marx's Tomb!"—Never Disclosed by the MSM

“I want you to know that in this election you are not electing a member of the House of Representatives. You are electing the jury for the impeachment of Donald J. Trump. Never forget that over these next few months.”

When Michael Moore gives Democrats that message (thanks to Stephen Green) — he is actually quoting "a Democrat running in my district in Michigan" — he does not realize how revealing he is of the true nature of the Democrat Party. (Thanks to Ed Driscoll for the Instalink.)

A jury is supposed to be impartial — with lots of vetting from both defense and prosecution before each person is accepted as a bona fide member of said jury.

For leftists like Michael Moore, the courts, like the people in general, are supposed to fulfill the desires of the élites — our betters — and of the (Deep) State, in the same fashion as the kangaroo courts do or did in all authoritarian countries, from Nazi Germany to Sovet Russia.

How strange is that, however, for a man who, 11 years ago, basically admitted to a French newspaper that he was a full-fledged Marxist?

In the States, mainstream media types have called Michael Moore's Sicko his "least political film". But in his interview with Thomas Sotinel, the Le Monde reporter states that this seems to be Michael's coming-out as "a socialist". To which Moore answers (retranslated from the French) that, in a scene in Sicko,

I film myself on Marx's tomb. Nobody mentioned it. In the reviews in America, they wrote, "it's his least political film." And I say: "Dude, I am on Marx's Tomb!" Do I need to take out a baseball bat and hit them on the head [for them to understand]?!

In case you hadn't understood, this says — and this reveals — almost more about the powers-that-be (both in the U.S. and abroad) than about Michael Moore: being on the socialist/marxist-bordering left, for the MSM and America's Eastern élites (as for Europe's MSM and élites), is mainstream, is normal, is understandable, is OK, is cool. It is avant-garde. Beyond being (naturally) avant-garde and therefore (obviously) a positive and endearing trait, it hardly bares mentioning. And it is "not political" (that's only a dirty game that America's hit-below-the-belt Republicans play).

Sarkozy Accused of Accepting Millions of Euros from Libya for His 2007 Campaign; Did Gadhafi and Other Africans Also Fill Obama's Coffers in the 2008 Elections?

The AP's Samuel Petrequin reports (hat tip to Instapundit) that

Nicolas Sarkozy was placed in custody … as part of an investigation that he received millions of euros in illegal campaign financing from the regime of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi …

No Pasarán has reported on this before — and on something far worse (see below) — and tried to bring it to the attention of American conservatives. Back in 2011, Instapundit quoted Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating as reporting on the Qaddafi régime's response to the French government's recognition of Libya's rebel forces, through Colonel Kaddhafi's son.

Saif al-Islam: “Sarkozy must first give back the money he took from Libya to finance his electoral campaign. We funded it and we have all the details and are ready to reveal everything. The first thing we want this clown to do is to give the money back to the Libyan people.”

But that ain't all.

Far from it!

France ain't alone and Sarkozy's winning 2007 presidential campaign may hardly be the only one.

Time to head West, over the Atlantic.

As No Pasarán reported back in 2011, a question to be asked is

Is it possible that Obama's reluctance to interfere in the Libyan crisis has something to do with secrets?

Five months before the 2008 election, indeed, in June of that year,

E-nough's Damien reported on a speech (broadcast and translated by Memritv), which was held by none other than the "Brotherly Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". (We will look away from Gaddafi's birther credentials, even though from his perspective, calling Obama a Kenyan, an African, and/or a Muslim is hardly a smear — far from it.) [Here is what Gadhafi said]

There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama. All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency.

From: Qaddafi in June 2008: Hints That He and Other "Arabs and Africans Are Involved" in Contribution Drives for Obama's Presidential Campaign

Snowfalls a Thing of the Past? Europe Is Colder than the North Pole

Europe is being battered by unusually frigid conditions even as temperatures at the North Pole soar well above normal.

As the month of March 2018 started, Kendra Pierre-Louis reported that Europe was colder than the North Pole. So, naturally, with all the hoopla around global warming for the past few decades, her New York Times article could not only report on the (climate) news, it also had to explain how on Earth (yes, that's also meant literally) this could be the case. [Update: thanks to Ed Driscoll for the Instalink.] In the process, Kendra Pierre-Louis managed to repeat myths such as the one that "human-caused climate change … is agreed upon by 97 percent of climate scientists."

Related: Unexpected! The Puzzling Reason Why So Many People Remain Skeptical of Global Warming and Climate Change 

Back to The New York Times:

Subfreezing temperatures have spread across much of Europe over the past week, stretching from Poland to Spain. Snow fell in Rome for the first time in six years. Norway recorded the lowest temperatures of the cold snap: minus 43 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42 Celsius) in the southeast part of the country on Thursday [March 1].

And on Friday [March 2], Britain and Ireland were buffeted by a storm that brought snow and high winds, along with cold that was expected to linger for days.

If Europe feels like the Arctic right now, the Arctic itself is balmy by comparison. The North Pole is above the freezing mark in the dead of winter; there are no direct measurements there, but merging satellite data with other temperature data shows that temperatures soared this week to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). That is 50 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, and 78 degrees warmer than in parts of Norway.

The Arctic warmth and the European cold snap have raised questions over whether the unusual weather occurrences are linked to each other, and if they are somehow related to climate change. Here are some answers.

Are the Arctic and European weather patterns connected?

Probably, according to Judah Cohen, a climatologist who is director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a weather risk assessment firm. Dr. Cohen is the author of a 2017 study that linked a warming Arctic to the intermittent blasts of cold that those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have come to know as the polar vortex.

The polar vortex is a low-pressure system that, as its name suggests, ordinarily rests over the North Pole. (There is also a polar vortex over the Antarctic.)

When it behaves normally, the polar vortex helps trap cold air in the Arctic.

“It’s locking in that cold air at the high latitudes in the Arctic region,” Dr. Cohen said, comparing the polar vortex to a dam holding back the frigid arctic air from the rest of the Northern Hemisphere.

But sometimes that dam bursts as the polar vortex weakens and allows cold air to escape the Arctic to more temperate climes. This has always happened from time to time, but a growing body of research suggests that because of climate change the warming Arctic is weakening the polar vortex.

Why is the polar vortex weakening?

Researchers are still figuring out how the warming Arctic is triggering the polar vortex’s aberrant behavior. Some of them, including Dr. Cohen, point to melting sea ice, caused by global warming. Dr. Cohen says the loss of ice creates patterns of high pressure near the Barents Sea and Kara Sea off northern Russia. That high pressure blocks the low-pressure system of the polar vortex, weakening it in the process.

There is not yet a scientific consensus over the root cause of the weakening polar vortex; it’s fair to say that it is not as definitive as, say, the evidence for human-caused climate change, which is agreed upon by 97 percent of climate scientists.

But it’s worth noting that in January the extent of Arctic sea ice was the lowest ever recorded for the first month of the year. In some parts of the Arctic the sea ice is already breaking up before winter’s end. And Arctic sea ice has been declining since at least the late 1970s.

What happens when the polar vortex weakens?

When the polar vortex weakens it allows cold air to escape and head south. This is what Dr. Cohen suspects happened in late December and early January when the Northeast United States endured some of its coldest temperatures on record. Other researchers who conducted a rapid analysis of the weather event aren’t so sure, though they stress theirs is just a first pass at the data.

 … meanwhile, some countries like Spain that are wholly unused to the cold are freezing.

That explains why Europe is freezing, but why is the Arctic so warm right now?

Dr. Cohen likens the Arctic to the refrigerator in your kitchen. When the refrigerator door is closed, the fridge stays cold and the kitchen stays warm, but if you leave the fridge door open all the cold air comes out. Because air is spilling out of the fridge, it has to be replaced by surrounding air — air also has to flow into the fridge, or in this case the Arctic. And since the air outside the Arctic is warmer, it will necessarily move in.

For the first time in over 30 years, reports Géo, Corsica's capital is covered with snow.

Those explanations are all good'n'well, but as a Prager U video reveals, the New York Times is repeating a myth ("human-caused climate change … is agreed upon by 97 percent of climate scientists") that, according to Alex Epstein, Director of the Center for Industrial Progress and author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, has a shady source, is a manipulative scare tactic disguised as scientific claim, and should never be used by anyone with intellectual honesty.

New Yorker Cartoon on the Bureucracy

An L Finck cartoon on bureaucracy in The New Yorker

“Will Republicans keep control of the House in the midterm elections?”

With regards to the "special Congressional election in Pennsylvania’s 18^th District that Trump won by 20 points in 2016" and that a Democrat claims to have won, it is instructive to remember that Myra Adams reported from CPAC that the most frequently-asked question at the conservative get-together could be surprising to many:

 … outside the ballroom, there was one question repeatedly on the minds of conservative media people who lined “Broadcast Row.” Surprisingly, the question discussed both openly and privately had nothing to do with gun control or the NRA.

What was this question you ask? Drum roll: “Will Republicans keep control of the House in the midterm elections?”

This helps to explain why Myra Adams

set out on a mission to find the real reason for [Donald Trump's] historically early re-election announcement.

In any case, Myra points out that the President addressed the issue during his rousing CPAC speech:

Perhaps Trump heard the question was being raised. In his Friday speech, in what was uncharacteristically negative talk for Trump, the president warned that after his 2016 victory he knows Republicans could be “clobbered” in the midterms due to complacency among GOP voters. “That’s why you have to get out and you have to fight for 2018. You have to do it,” he said.

Trump also explained his theory of historic midterm election losses for a new president:

“I’ve finally figured it out. What happens is you fight so hard to win the presidency, you fight, fight, fight, and now you’ve got to go and fight again, but you just won.”

Incidentally, the freelance journalist was one of many people interviewed at the Gaylord National Harbor Hotel by Da Tech Guy.
 

Le site Contrepoints ("le seul média qui défend vos idées") a un auteur invité…

Limitation à 80 km/h : le problème n’est pas la vitesse, mais la lenteur !

C’est une limite de lenteur que la France, comme seul pays de l’Union Européenne, propose régulièrement de réduire encore plus, en particulier avec la nouvelle loi sur les 80km/h sur les routes.

Par Erik Svane.

La limitation de la vitesse à 80km/h sur les routes ne vise pas à protéger les citoyens mais à les soumettre aux impératifs de la lenteur. Par rapport à la seule politique de la sécurité routière en France, ne semblerait-il pas exagéré d’avancer qu’elle montrerait que le gouvernement est tyrannique et que les citoyens sont des esclaves ?

Et pourtant…

Le problème fondamental avec la soi-disant sécurité routière, c’est que dès la case départ, les autorités trichent — le gouvernement triche avec les termes de base propres à la conversation.

Lire aussi Limitation à 80 km/h : la bourse ou la vie ?

Nous parlons évidemment d’expressions comme la limite de vitesse ainsi que le mauvais comportement des délinquants punis pour excès de vitesse ou vitesse excessive.

Quand les conducteurs lambda sont verbalisés, ce n’est pas pour avoir roulé trop vite, non, pas du tout. N’ayons pas peur de dire la vérité, c’est pour ne pas avoir roulé assez lentement.

Ne pas se laisser tromper par la langue

La conclusion est inévitable : on ne devrait pas dire la limite de vitesse — expression qui serait à assimiler à la Novlangue (La liberté c’est l’esclavage) dans le roman d’anticipation de George Orwell, 1984 — mais la limite de lenteur ; et les VMA (les Vitesses Maximales Autorisées) devraient donc être nommées les LMA (les Lenteurs Maximales Autorisées).

C’est une limite de lenteur que la France, comme seul pays de l’Union Européenne, propose régulièrement de réduire encore plus ; et pour quelle raison sinon accroître la répression, la persécution, et le matraquage des citoyens ?

Jean Much explique que, de fait, le mot « vitesse » a deux significations :

C’est la confusion savamment entretenue par les pouvoirs publics entre « excès de vitesse » qui, au sens légal, signifie juste « dépassement de la limitation de vitesse en vigueur » et « vitesse excessive » qui signifie « rouler réellement trop vite par rapport aux conditions de circulation, au profil de la route, à la météo, etc.

Or, ces deux notions n’ont absolument rien à voir ! Dépasser la limitation de vitesse en vigueur ne présente en soi aucun danger, a fortiori quand la limitation en question est absurde et totalement contre nature pour un conducteur digne de ce nom (trop basse de manière injustifiée et l’on rejoint là la notion de lenteur). La vitesse excessive, elle, est la véritable source de danger.

Bien entendu, tout le système répressif est basé sur le fait de sanctionner des excès de vitesse au sens légal (c’est-à-dire rentable) du terme en les assimilant à de la vitesse excessive… Et conduit à sanctionner, dans l’immense majorité des cas des comportements qui ne sont en fait pas dangereux…

En l’espace de cinq heures, un jour de mars 2015, un seul et unique radar de la police danoise a recueilli tellement d’argent sur une minuscule portion de l’autoroute au sud de Copenhague qu’il a fait la Une des quotidiens du Danemark. Mais ce qui importe, ce n’est pas que les autorités avaient encaissé 2 millions de couronnes (presque 270.000 euros) en moins d’un quart de journée, c’est que l’article ne faisait état d’aucune victime, ni même d’un seul accident de la journée, voire d’un seul accrochage.

La vitesse n’a rien à voir avec la sécurité

Il n’y a pas 36 conclusions à tirer de cette observation. Si des milliers de véhicules peuvent conduire « dangereusement » en « violant » les lois sécuritaires sans le moindre accident ou accrochage (et ce quel que soit le pays), c’est que les limites de vitesse (sic) n’ont que peu, sinon rien à voir avec la sécurité ; du coup, quelle autre conclusion tirer que les radars ne sont rien d’autre qu’un racket ?

Pis : on pourrait en outre accuser les gouvernements d’entraver leur rôle attitré (la protection de la population) et de rendre la route plus dangereuse pour tous.

La première cause de mortalité sur les autoroutes, en effet — ces routes qui sont les plus sûres du pays —, ce n’est nullement la vitesse mais la somnolence. Or, quelle est la cause de la somnolence si ce n’est une limite de vitesse (sic) soporifique (ou plutôt une limite de lenteur soporifique) ?

De quand date cette limite de 130 km/h ? Des années… 1970. Les autos n’auraient-elles pas évolué technologiquement depuis plus de 40 ans ? (Comparer les téléphones de l’époque — tournez-le, ce cadran ! — avec les smartphones d’aujourd’hui…) Et par ailleurs, pour quelle raison la limite a-t-elle été instaurée ? Pour la sécurité (de tous) ? Non, pour des raisons purement économiques (réagir au choc pétrolier causé par l’OPEP)…

Contre les robots

Un mot pour ceux qui défendent machinalement les autorités, j’ai nommé les yakas (y’a qu’à se taire et respecter la limite de vitesse, y’a qu’à jamais dépasser 130, y’a qu’à passer 2-3 heures de plus sur la route (tout en accroissant le nombre de véhicules sur lesdites routes et donc les risques d’un embouteillage en plus du danger d’un accident), y’a qu’à pas s’endormir au volant, y’a qu’à jamais être en retard, y’a qu’à payer les contraventions avec humilité, y’a qu’à accepter de se faire traiter comme des enfants turbulents qui doivent se taire et obéïr tout en restant bien sages, etc…) : la pensée, le véritable désir des YAKAs — qu’ils soient parmi nos dirigeants ou parmi la population —, c’est que les citoyens sont, ou qu’ils devraient devenir, des pantins, des robots.

Avec les airbags, les systèmes de freinage ABS, et autres modernités, une limitation raisonnable sur autoroute devrait être autour de 150—160 km/h (50 en ville, bien entendu, pour la vie des piétons), voire être sans restrictions comme chez nos voisins allemands qui n’ont nullement une mortalité plus élevée sur Autobahn qu’en Hexagone, au contraire.

La bonne conduite, et donc la sécurité, pour toute personne utilisant son cerveau et son bon sens c’est regarder principalement la route et  faire attention aux objets qui bougent (autres véhicules, passants, animaux…) — qui signalent êtres humains ou êtres vivants…

Ce qu’exigent les yakas, c’est : regarder principalement l’intérieur du véhicule (le tableau de bord et ses tachymètres) et faire attention aux objects fixes (panneaux de signalisation etc…) sans âme et sans vie…

Laquelle des deux conduites est la plus intelligente ? Lequel des deux conducteurs est le plus attentif à autrui ?

We’ve all been guilty of projecting some kind of utopian fantasy on the Nordic countries

Americans are not just a few policy changes away from becoming happy Norwegians or Finns

writes Jim Geraghty in National Review.

Washington Post columnist Elizabeth Bruenig links to, but does not mention by name, my morning newsletter item responding to her original column declaring, “It’s time to give Socialism a try.” In her response, she writes, “I hadn’t named the Nordic countries in my piece, but my opponents were quick to discard them from the conversation.” Perhaps a longer discussion about why America shouldn’t try to become like the Nordic countries — and would fail if it tried — is in order.

1) The Nordic system kills innovation, and the United States’ adopting it would have dire consequences for the world economy.

As Daron Acemoglu, an eminent economist at MIT, wrote in 2013:

In our model (which is just that, a model), U.S. citizens would actually be worse off if they switched to a cuddly capitalism. Why? Because this would reduce the world’s growth rate, given the U.S.’s oversized contribution to the world technology frontier. In contrast, when Sweden switches from cutthroat to cuddly capitalism (or vice versa), this does not have an impact on the long-run growth rate of the world economy, because the important work is being done by U.S. innovation.

2) Most of what American progressives envy about the Scandinavian countries existed before they expanded their welfare state, and America’s voices on the left are mixing up correlation with causation.

As Nima Sanandaji, a Swedish author of Kurdish origin who holds a Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, wrote in 2015:

Many of the desirable features of Scandinavian societies, such as low income inequality, low levels of poverty and high levels of economic growth predated the development of the welfare state. These and other indicators began to deteriorate after the expansion of the welfare state and the increase in taxes to fund it.

3) At its biggest, most far-reaching, and invasive form in the late 20th century, the Nordic model crushed startups and the growth of new companies. “As of 2000,” Johan Norberg writes, “just one of the 50 biggest Swedish companies had been founded after 1970.”

4) It’s easier to get people to buy into a collectivist idea when everyone has a lot in common. As Robert Kaiser, an associate editor of the Washington Post, wrote after a three-week trip to Finland in 2005:

Finland is as big as two Missouris, but with just 5.2 million residents, it’s ethnically and religiously homogeneous. A strong Lutheran work ethic, combined with a powerful sense of probity, dominates the society. Homogeneity has led to consensus: Every significant Finnish political party supports the welfare state and, broadly speaking, the high taxation that makes it possible. And Finns have extraordinary confidence in their political class and public officials. Corruption is extremely rare.

5) That collectivism is driven, in part, by taking away choices from people. In Finland there are no private schools or universities. As Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education’s Center for International Mobility, said in 2011: “In Finland parents can also choose. But the options are all the same.”

6) Having all of your needs handled by the state does not cultivate a sense of responsibility, independence, motivation, or gratitude. Here’s Kaiser again:

I was bothered by a sense of entitlement among many Finns, especially younger people. Sirpa Jalkanen, a microbiologist and biotech entrepreneur affiliated with Turku University in that ancient Finnish port city, told me she was discouraged by “this new generation we have now who love entertainment, the easy life.” She said she wished the government would require every university student to pay a “significant but affordable” part of the cost of their education, “just so they’d appreciate it.”

7) Some might argue that the quasi-socialist system of Nordic countries eliminates one group of problems but introduces new ones. But in some cases, these countries have the same problems as the United States, only worse — the problems are simply not discussed as openly. As British journalist Michael Booth argues:

We’ve all been guilty of projecting some kind of utopian fantasy on them. The Nordic countries are, for example, depicted as paragons of political correctness, yet you still see racial stereotypes in the media here — the kind of thing which would be unthinkable in the U.S. Meanwhile, though it is true that these are the most gender-equal societies in the world, they also record the highest rates of violence towards women — only part of which can be explained by high levels of reporting of crime.

8) If the government is paying for everything, why is Denmark’s average household debt as a share of disposable income three times that of the United States? Meanwhile, the household-debt share in both Sweden and Norway is close to double that of the United States. The cost of living is particularly high in these countries, and the high taxation means take-home pay is much less than it is under our system.

9) Nordic-system evangelists would have you believe that citizens of freer-market countries are stressed while those living under generous social-welfare systems are happier and more relaxed. If American-style capitalism is depressing and dehumanizing, why are Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway not that far behind us, ranking in the top twelve countries for antidepressant use? Is it just the long winters? Why are their drug-related deaths booming? Isn’t it possible that a generous, far-reaching welfare state depletes people’s sense of drive, purpose, and self-respect, and enables them to explore chemical forms of happiness?

10) I saved the most important reason for last: If the government is to take on a bigger and more powerful role in redistributing wealth, citizens first must be willing to put their faith in the government. But in the United States, public trust is historically low — which goes well beyond President Trump’s implausible “I alone can fix it” boast or Obama’s broken “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” pledge.

If the government is to take on a bigger role, citizens first must be willing to put their faith in the government. But in the United States, public trust is historically low.

A lot of progressives seem to think that conservatives distrust the government because of some esoteric philosophical theory, or because we had some weird dream involving Ayn Rand. In reality, it’s because we’ve been told to trust the government before — and we’ve gotten burned, time and time again.

Comments

Government doesn’t louse up everything, but it sure louses up a lot of what it promises to deliver: from the Big Dig to Healthcare.gov; from letting veterans die waiting for health care to failing to prioritize the levees around New Orleans and funding other projects instead; from 9/11 to the failure to see the housing bubble that precipitated the Great Recession; from misconduct in the Secret Service to the IRS targeting conservative groups; from lavish conferences at the General Services Administration to the Solyndra grants; from the runaway costs of California’s high-speed-rail project to Operation Fast and Furious; from the OPM breach to giving Hezbollah a pass on trafficking cocaine.

The federal government has an abysmal record of abusing the public’s trust, finances, and its own authority. Now some people want it to take on a bigger role? If you want to enact a massive overhaul of America’s economy and government to redistribute wealth, you first have to demonstrate that you can accomplish something smaller, like ensuring every veteran gets adequate care. Until then, if you want to live like a Norwegian, buy a plane ticket.

Adds Ben Shapiro:

The Washington Post columnist [Elizabeth Bruenig] memorably wrote last week that she wished for an upsurge in support for socialism. I critiqued that column. Now she’s written a response to that critique, claiming that I (among others) interpreted her in bad faith for mentioning several countries that have tried socialism and failed, from Venezuela to the Soviet Union, and for pointing out that many of the supposedly socialist countries that socialists so often proclaim as their examples aren’t actually socialist (see, for example, Denmark and Sweden).

 … Finally, she decides on her favorite new socialist paradise: Norway.

 … First off, a huge portion of Norway’s wealth ownership is thanks to their nationalization of their oil industry; like the United Arab Emirates or Venezuela, this gives them an enormous amount of cash to play with (their social wealth fund, worth $1 trillion, was seeded with oil money). The oil industry represents approximately 22% of Norway’s GDP two-thirds of their exports. (It also pays for 36% of the national government’s revenue.) That’s not the extent of their government holdings — Norway also nationalized all German-owned stocks after World War II, which partially explains the state’s high level of ownership of the stock market. Stockholding in companies does not mean the state runs the companies — in fact, the board runs the companies separately, not for the benefit of the state specifically or for the benefit of the workers, as Marx would prefer; Norwegian law requires that all shareholders be treated equally, with no preference for state shareholders. In fact, companies in which the state owns majority stock have even gone into bankruptcy before. The state essentially operates along the lines of so-called “state capitalism.”

Furthermore, Norway is a relatively friendly business climate; Heritage Foundation ranks it 23^rd in the world, with the United States ranking 18^th.

More than that, it’s important to recognize that the total population of Norway is 5.6 million; the total population of the United States is 323 million. It’s also rather important to recognize the cultural homogeneity of Norway: just 15.6% of the population are immigrants or children of immigrants, and 32% of the population has a higher education degree. Why does that matter? Because if we’re to compare Norway and the United States, we should probably compare Norwegian Americans with Norwegians in Norway. Here’s National Review’s Nima Sanandaji:

It was mainly the impoverished people in the Nordic countries who sailed across the Atlantic to found new lives. And yet, as I write in my book, Danish Americans today have fully 55 percent higher living standard than Danes. Similarly, Swedish Americans have a 53 percent higher living standard than Swedes. The gap is even greater, 59 percent, between Finnish Americans and Finns. Even though Norwegian Americans lack the oil wealth of Norway, they have a 3 percent higher living standard than their cousins overseas.

So, how’s state capitalism working out? Norway has a significantly higher per capita GDP than that of the United States — about $70,600 per year, as opposed to $59,500 in the United States. But a large portion of that per capita GDP is due to oil wealth.

 … Norway is an incredibly expensive country to live: it’s the second-most expensive country to buy food in Europe, and the most expensive to buy alcohol and tobacco. A haircut can cost $50. Vehicles can cost nearly twice as much as in the United States, and food costs vastly more than in the United States. There’s a reason that in 2013, Norway elected a far more conservative government — and they re-elected that government in 2017.

Da Tech Guy Interviews the Black Female Democrat Who Shouldn't Exist

Da Tech Guy calls his Vük interview the most telling and important interview that he has done among the 60 videos he has shot since hitting CPAC, and Peter Ingemi is absolutely right.

Indeed,

the MSM has been telling [us] that a young woman of color like [Lea] has nothing but disdain for conservatives in general and Donald Trump in particular.

If you believe them she shouldn’t exist but there she is and if there is one Lea in a county of 300+ million there are likely hundreds of thousands of others out there not wedded to the MSM narrative of doom and gloom.
 
 … She gave the President mixed marks, complemented him on keeping campaign promises that he made to his people, noted that as a Democrat she’d like to see some more moderate moves. Her answers had none of the rancor or the division that the media has pushed on us for the year or that I’ve seen from angry activists. They were completely reasonable answers that would not have been out of place several decades ago in a saner time when I remembered people could disagree and get along. In other words they reflected who she is, a normal American trying to get by whose primary focus is real life instead of manufactured outrage.

This told me two things that are vital to understanding election 2018 and 2020. …/…

Read/View the whole thing.™

Towards 5:30, Lea mentions which essential oils company she works for, which is doTerra, but I can't quite understand the letters after the "/" (N or M? A or N?).

Among other people interviewed at CPAC by Peter Ingemi is Myra Adams.

Related: The Comedy Central comedians might take a couple of lessons in journalism from Peter Ingemi… Giving a Stellar Example of Dishonesty, Daily Show Uses Deceptive Editing of CPAC Conservatives to Brand Them as Mindless Buffoons (Video)

Giving a Stellar Example of Dishonesty, Daily Show Uses Deceptive Editing of CPAC Conservatives to Brand Them as Mindless Buffoons (Video)

And you wonder why Donald Trump calls it Fake News?!

I think we should all be eternally grateful to the Daily Show for sending The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper to CPAC (tak til TFP), as Kobi Libii, Tim Baltz, and Jordan Klepper give a stellar example of dishonesty in the mainstream media or, certainly, in the comedians that the MSM is always celebrating (video here).

What it also shows is, as Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds continuously points out, that you should always record an MSM interview with your own hand-held device. (In our defense, everybody was being interviewed right and left, and we had no idea that this group was composed of independent (sic) satirists from Comedy Central.) Update: Speaking of which, thanks to Stephen Green for the link.

In one instance — at least — each and every single line of an "exchange" comes from totally different points in the "interview" (sic).

CPAC 2018: More Shootings Call for More Guns 
The Opposition with Jordan Klepper CPAC 2018:
Jordan, Kobi Libii and Tim Baltz visit CPAC to learn about Republicans' heroic unwillingness to solve America's mass shooting problem.

In the experience of the No Pasarán blogger in the Stars and Stripes shirt, at least, the interview lasted 20 times the amount of time in which he appears that included a lot of give-and-take as well as intelligent or at least reasoned arguments.

First remark: A lot of what appears in the entire episode seems to be no more than simple fluff talk ("yeah", "right", "absolutely", etc) strategically and dishonestly moved to appear as mindless agreement with satirical comments (for an example of this, go no further than the two "Right, exactly" comments of the very first interviewee). A similar technique was described by Kevin Williamson in the following words:

This technique is known as “the Jon Stewart.” What you do is take a few seconds (or, in [the case of Katie Couric], a few minutes) of reaction shots (the footage they shoot of people’s faces while other people are talking) and then insert that non-talking footage after a question is asked: Voilà, the opposition is literally speechless.

1) the 400 mass shootings a year remark (0:44)

At 0:44, the conversation with the No Pasarán blogger is shown going like this:

•  Liberals keep saying, there are like 400 mass shootings a year in America…
• "Move on, liberals!"
• That's right!

Needless to say, that is an outrageously dishonest cut that deliberately ignores the point that was being made.

First of all, notice the cuts: as it happens, each and every single one of those three lines comes from totally different points in the interview.

That the argument is cut may not come as a surprise, but even the "That's right!" does not come immediately after "Move on, liberals!" It's a bit of fluff talk from elsewhere expressly moved to make the interviewee appear mindless.

Back to the argument being made. From memory, it went like this:

Liberals keep saying, there are, like, 400 mass shootings a year in America [DAILY SHOW CUT]. But why is it that nobody, no conservative, no liberal, no pro-gun activist, no anti-gun activist, can mention those 400 shootings a year? Why, in other words, aren't/weren't 99% of them reported? Why can most people, whatever their point of view, not quote more than three or four shootings a year? Well, first of all, the number of dead in the definition of mass shootings has been reduced to appear meaningless. Just as important, most of the mass shootings are not reported for the simple reason that they involve criminals shooting one another.

Are these facts irrelevant?

Should they be ignored in the debate?

Yes, if you are a liberal trying to demonize your opponents.

Related: the BBC's statistics behind gun violence —
Mass shootings in the U.S. have fallen so much in the past century
that the political left has had to redefine what a mass shooting is

Everytown for Gun Safety's list was compiled to give the public an exaggerated impression of how many school shootings have taken place. Notes Glenn Reynolds:

IT’S FUNNY THAT THE GUN-CONTROL FOLKS CAN’T SELL THEIR PROGRAM WITHOUT, YOU KNOW, LYING

At this point of my Jordan Klepper interview, regarding the 400 mass shootings a year, I made a joke that we've been using here at No Pasarán for the past 10 years:

• Do you know why statistics are like a bikini?
• Because they reveal a lot, but… they hide the essential.

That's a great line (if I may say so myself), whoever is making it, and you would think that that one-liner would make the cut of a TV show and/or a comedy show, but it makes conservatives look less than humorless and clueless clods, so it ended up on the cutting floor.

The follow-up can be included in point 2 below:

2) ridiculous asides (3:21 et al):

Here is another point in their technique, which you can see at 3:21:

The blogger at No Pasarán is making a (more or less intelligent and/or reasoned) argument — one which you never get to hear — and Jordan Klepper starts bringing in, goading us with, irrelevant comments ("the cashier at Gadzooks, or the hot topic person piercing ears, they should have an AR").

At this point the person interviewed agrees, he or she fluffs, for the simple reason that it is (kind of) irrelevant and he or she want to get back to the point they are making, but all that is deliberately sent to the cutting floor.

The argument in this case that Kobi Libii, Tim Baltz, and Jordan Klepper failed to keep were as follows: liberals want America to be more like Europe, more say like Scandinavia, but in 2011 Anders Breivik killed more people in Norway than were ever shot in any school in the United States or even during the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Do you think the teen-agers at Utøya island would have approved of somebody present with guns?

This comes from another (reasoned) argument from my in-depth examination of the gun control issue, a version of which was published in the New York Times two years ago:

It is easy for leftists, American as well as foreign, to tout the success of the gun control laws in the rest of the western world and to say that "this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries” when you ignore:
• the 1996 massacre of 16 children at a Scottish primary school;
• the 2000 killing of eight kids in Japan;
• the 2002 deaths of eight people in Nanterre, France;
• the 2002 killing of 16 kids in Erfurt, Germany;
• the 2007 fatal shootings of eight people in Tuusula, Finland;
• the killing of 10 people at a Finnish university less than a year later;
• the 2009 killing of 15 people in Winnenden, Germany;
• and, needless to say, Anders Breivik's 2011 mass murder of 77 Norwegians, most of them teenagers;
• not to mention the various terrorist attacks of the last few years, such as the 2015 mass shootings inside the Bataclan nightclub which killed 90 Paris revelers.

Is it unrealistic — or uncouth — to wonder whether the tolls would have been lesser had a few of the adults in each place carried a weapon and tried to shoot back at the respective killers?

3) The Forrest Gump remark (1:52)
 
The Forrest Gump remark is deliberately misleading too — natch — because Jordan Klepper turns the issue into the basic innocence in Tom Hanks's fictional character in a sweet comedy, whereas the real issue is the very tendency among liberals to regularly portray mental cases as harmless messiah-like beings who turn out to be (far) more loving than us regular people, superior souls who touch everybody they meet.

In this perspective, Jordan Klepper comes with other deliberately ridiculous asides ("you're drawing a line between Forrest Gump and school shootings" CUT "and that's a line people are afraid to draw" CUT "shooting with an AR-15 — Forrest Gump") that the interviewee seems to agree with ("that's it"), for the simple reason that he wants to get back on message.

What really happened during the interview, indeed, is that I specifically countered the assertion, pointing out that the point is not Forrest Gump himself, or even the vast majority of mental cases, most of whom probably are harmless, but the tendency to see all mental cases as basically harmless, and thus failing to intervene when the handful of dangerous ones need to be put under some form of control. Straight to the cutting floor.

The Forrest Gump quote comes from  What Is to Blame for Mass Shootings? Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere?

Here is the relevant excerpt from the lengthy and in-depth post that I consider one of my best in 14 years of blogging:

I wonder what happened, or started to happen, in the 1960s and 1970s…

Oh — that's right: the left's youth revolution with the "victory" of more and more of the "modern" ideas of the progressives…

Now let's see — what did, and what do, these entail?

Well, among other things, the triumph of the ideas of compassion, of tolerance, of understanding…

Of empathy for all kinds of groups, not least the mentally ill — who turn out to be nothing more than merely misunderstood and who therefore deserve freedom from straitjackets…

And the ensuing political correctness demanded the dismantling of mental institutions or the limiting of their use and refraining from confining mental cases (who of course turn out not to be mental cases) thereto. ("Guffaw! You want to keep insane asylums open?! How can you be so reactionary, so backwards?! It's everybody else who should be in a nuthouse! Snort!")

We should not judge these people, we can not judge these people; with some compassion and understanding, if only we are willing to make an effort, we can allow such people to live amongst us.

Rather than the judgments we pass on them, which show our cluelessness and — our hatred… (Maybe we — us "normal" people — are the mental cases! And maybe we need to be institutionalized!)

Mental cases are even given hero status in the left's narratives (winning several Oscars from Hollywood in the process) — as indeed are all the usual members of the left's victimhood brigade (women, gays, blacks, Indians, primitive peoples living close to nature, etc etc etc).

From Forrest Gump to John Coffey via Raymond Babbitt, these messiah-like beings turn out to be (far) more loving than us regular people, superior souls who touch everybody they meet, leading to miracles by helping "normal" (blinded) people to become better human beings and fulfill their destinies, if these saints do not healing said mortals outright, physically or otherwise.

In other words, what artists, and leftists, are basically helping to "prove", over and over again, is that the average American, the average citizen, the average human being (who is unlike themselves) is a clueless and/or bigoted "deplorable" (someone obviously in need of some sort of betterment treatment).

As with everything else the Left touches, slowly, one brick at a time, common sense is overturned, and normal, regular law-abiding, citizens are demonized and made to be those who obviously ought to be the true outcasts of society (among other things, these bigoted oafs obviously ought to be without weapons or the rights thereto).

N Joe, who used to blog for No Pasarán many years ago, says that whereas half a million people were institutionalized half a century ago — when the U.S. population was far lower — in our day and age, the number of people committed to asylums is, thanks to leftist "compassion" policies, as low as 5,000.

But again, back to the relevant issue here, which is:

We should all be eternally grateful to the Daily Show for sending The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper to CPAC (tak til TFP), as Kobi Libii, Tim Baltz, and Jordan Klepper give a stellar example of dishonesty in the mainstream media or, certainly, in the comedians that the MSM is always celebrating.

Update — from the archives: This problem of people not knowing satire from reality is likely a phenomenon of the Daily Show Generation by Benny Huang:

In a piece titled Liberals Can’t Tell the Difference Between Satire and News, and GOP Presidential Campaigns Are Paying the Price, [Jim] Geraghty noted examples of fake quotes, attributed to Republicans, that were nonetheless perceived as genuine by people already inclined to hate their supposed speakers.

  … This problem of people not knowing satire from reality is likely a phenomenon of the Daily Show Generation. I consider myself part of that generation, though not a fan myself. Regardless of whether I actually watch the program, many people my age (I’m thirty-four) and many members of the generational cohort fifteen years my junior, consider the Daily Show to be a real source of news, along with The Colbert Report, The Onion, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, and Saturday Night Live. For some, it’s the only news they get.

And they brag about this. No, seriously. They snicker at the Left’s latest object of scorn while clapping like trained seals at all of Jon Stewart’s jokes, even the unfunny ones, which happens to be most of them. They love to tell you how savvy they are about current affairs. When I was in college, students actually wrote columns in the campus paper arguing that people who got their news from the Daily Show were actually smarter than the average bear.

 … These people remind me of grown adults who still think that professional wrestling is real, except WWE fans aren’t nearly as smug. 

"See you at #CPAC2019"

Over the last four days conservatives around the world gathered in National Harbor, MD because they know now is #ATimeForAction. Watch the full recap of #CPAC2018 below.

See you at #CPAC2019, February 27 - March 2. pic.twitter.com/6JS0gBIeG6

— CPAC 2018 (@CPAC) February 25, 2018

 

Over the last four days conservatives around the world gathered in National Harbor, MD because they know now is #ATimeForAction. Watch the full recap of #CPAC2018 below.

See you at #CPAC2019, February 27 - March 2. pic.twitter.com/6JS0gBIeG6

— CPAC 2018 (@CPAC) February 25, 2018

Update 2: After, later in 2018, it was announced that Sacha Baron Cohen's satirical seven-episode “Who is America?”, exploring "the diverse individuals … across the political and cultural spectrum, who populate our unique nation”, it transpired that, according to a source familiar with the project, "it was nothing more than a Hollywood hit job on Trump supporters and the Republican Party."

This led one of the victims, Sarah Palin, to issue the following response:

Yup – we were duped. Ya’ got me, Sacha. Feel better now? I join a long list of American public personalities who have fallen victim to the evil, exploitive, sick “humor” of the British “comedian” Sacha Baron Cohen, enabled and sponsored by CBS/Showtime. This “legit opportunity” to honor American Vets and contribute to a “legit Showtime historical documentary” was requested of me via a speakers bureau.

 … For my interview, my daughter and I were asked to travel across the country where Cohen (I presume) had heavily disguised himself as a disabled US Veteran, fake wheelchair and all. … The disrespect of our US military and middle-class Americans via Cohen’s foreign commentaries under the guise of interview questions was perverse. Here is my challenge, shallow Sacha boy: go ahead – air the footage. Experience tells us it will be heavily edited, not pretty, and intended to humiliate.

Update 3: Whether it's comedy and satire or serious and weighty matters, leftists, even at the highest echelons of power, always seem ready to use to deception to take remarks out of context:

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Planned Parenthood have come under fire after accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh of describing contraceptives as “abortion-inducing drugs” -- when he was only summarizing the position of a pro-life group.

 … Pro-choice and anti-Kavanaugh groups seized on his reference to "abortion-inducing drugs." Harris tweeted out the video, but cut out the preface that showed Kavanaugh making it clear he was summarizing the arguments of Priest[s] for Life. The video therefore presented the reference as his own. … Planned Parenthood, in a press release, also left out the words “they said” …

 … White House Deputy Spokesman Raj Shah said the video was an “obvious act of deception.” Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee said that the controversy was proof that Kavanaugh had performed well at the hearing.

"If Senate Democrats are resorting to editing videos of Judge Kavanaugh’s answers to make him look bad then he must have done well," he tweeted.

Update 4: It turns out that, already in the summer of 2017, Comedy Central had broadcast a show on guns which, as Christian Toto explains, was just as dishonest with conservative points of view as the CPAC one:

'Jordan Klepper Solves Guns' recycles the same liberal talking points without letting the other side speak.

What is obvious about Comedy Central's hour-long special? asks Hollywood in Toto.

It’s hopelessly biased against the 2nd Amendment, the NRA and anyone who supports gun ownership in 2017.

 … Klepper has solid comic timing and offers some choice ad-libbed comments. Too bad he’s deathly afraid of talking to someone savvy on the “other side” of the gun control debate.

 … At no point does Klepper let a smart, rationale gun rights expert counter the show’s battery of vague arguments and context-free statistics.

  … Guns are bad. End of story.

 … The special’s sober through line? Attacking the NRA. It’s all that organization’s fault. The group lobbies too aggressively and spends too much money to be defeated. It employs “buttloads of fear” and “patriotic manipulation” to get the job done.

Never mentioned? The Brady Campaign, Everytown for Gun Safety and Michael Bloomberg’s massive war chest supporting gun control initiatives.

Why, it’s like the special is being disingenuous on the subject.


 … The irony that [Klepper is] deathly afraid of hearing a sane soul on the other side of the issue, or changing his own mind, is lost on him. And [on] the special.


 … It hardly helps that Klepper might be the most smug comedian of the modern age. The fact that he repeatedly acknowledges that fact can’t change reality.

Global Warming: Severe Arctic Blast Brings the UK to a Virtual Standstill

Scotland remains on red alert

writes The Times of London,

after a severe Arctic blast brought the country to a virtual standstill. 

Indeed, the British Army [has been] called in to rescue drivers trapped in cars as forecasters warn of more snow and howling winds.

Or, as Instapundit likes to quote, tongue-in-cheek, an immortal eight-year-old MSM headline warning of global warming of climate change, Snowfalls Are Now Just A Thing Of The Past.

Related: Unexpected! The Puzzling Reason Why So Many People Remain Skeptical of Global Warming and Climate Change

• I'm so old, I can remember when, year after year after year, Britain's winters have proved to be among the coldest in a century.