Category: politics

Setting a trap for bike thieves

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Is this wrong? https://ktla.com/2020/01/09/2-men-accused-of-luring-thieves-with-unattended-bikes-then-beating-them-with-baseball-bats-and-posting-attacks-on-youtube/amp/?__twitter_impression=true Serious question – this is basically what the police due with “sting operations” and “honeypots,” so how is it different when it is done by private individuals? If you have a right to protect your property with force, does that right extend to defending it when you have set up the violation of your property rights as a temptation to wrongdoers? It seems to be this crime is operating in the nebulous world of “intents” – those favorite devices of the slave morality. Had these people just left a bike in front of their house (which…

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All it Takes is One Complaint

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Apparently, for Mailchimp to cancel your account. I’ve used Mailchimp for years, and stuck with them through the degradation of their interface, to the point where the site is barely usable, but that’s probably going to have to change now. It’s not that the complaint was libelous; it is – Stefan is an anarchist, not a “nationalist” or a “white nationalist” (something which is a contradiction in terms). It’s that the company will cancel your account immediately after a single false accusation of wrongthink. This response was so quick and the accusation so ridiculous that it makes me think that…

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Cultural and Political Inertia

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Most of you know what inertia is – Objects in motion tend to stay in motion; objects at rest tend to stay at rest. The biggest effort is the first inch you roll a boulder. Then everything gets easier; then it keeps going on its own. Once that boulder is rolling, don’t get in its way. The same thing happens in politics and culture. It’s difficult to enact changes, but once the revolution happens, it’s hard to slow down. Everything that is taken for granted can go out the window. You can see this with the transformations that happened in…

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Judging things by their outcomes

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This post is beyond the contest between consequentialism and deontology, before anyone starts firing up his philosophy brain. I notice in our society there is a profound resistance to judging actual outcomes, whether it is a public program, government service, educational process, or even a workout routine. The tendency is to try to judge either the process for its own sake or to judge the intended outcomes of the process. A workout program seems fun at the gym – it’s a great program! But… did you gain strength and muscle, cut fat, or increase your athletic capacity? We can’t abandon…

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Boomer Economist vs. innerne’ pr0n

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I really don’t know how to write about Paul Krugman. Others have talked about his economics which is beyond my scope here (in short – the criticism is that he’s bad at prediction and engages in nostalgianomics), but when it comes to something like this, it’s hard to know where to begin: This is like a piece of post-modern art, only it actually means something. It’s a portrait of a boomer, painted with the boomer’s own words. Mike Cernovich had this to say: Yes, obviously the idea that someone “compromised” his IP address to download child pornography is absurd, but…

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Romance Writers Implode

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Corporate cancer has afflicted the romance writers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/08/romance-writers-america-cancels-awards-program-writer-racism-controversy/ The saga continues. This time, the entire organization has folded back on itself, much like something that is frequently described in the tomes of the membership. This won’t end well, of course, but we must also ponder: What exactly is the point of a professional membership organization like the Romance Writers of America, anyway? Is it a trade union? If so, it’s a shambling corpse in the newpub landscape. Is it for author support? Clearly the constant harassment and infighting doesn’t serve that purpose. They cancelled their awards, so they are clearly…

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Feeding Molech for a Trophy

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Very rarely does something appear truly devilish to me, but this one really seemed strange, even crazy. I’m curious if those who don’t share my faith get the same vibe, but for sure there is something… off about her voice. It sounds compelled, if that makes sense: Of course, there is more to this than that. First, she makes the trade obvious – she is successful because having an abortion allowed the opportunity to be so; she would not have the trophy had she not aborted her child. She says, “Thank God or whomever you pray to.” An image comes…

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Who is Michael Moore Talking To?

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It sure ain’t the Ayatolla, who probably doesn’t know who he is and wouldn’t care what a godless, decadent American has to say to him anyway. This is to say nothing of the fact that posting a podcast is not actually communicating with a foreign leader. So who is this tub talking to? Well, everyone who agrees with him, that’s who. This is a plea for attention and an attempt to regain relevancy that has been lost due to the free-flowing information of the internet. He’s talking to leftists like himself, saying the things that they want to hear. They…

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“Star Wars Fans” and created identities

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Just a little follow-up to my post yesterday: Being a “fan” is no to a large part a function of identity. However, it is fundamentally different from other forms of identity, such as race, ethnicity, or religion. For ethnicity, membership is generally obvious and immutable – either you are the descendant of an ethnic group or you are not, with the only grey area being multi-ethnic individuals in some circumstances. For religion, identity is primarily how one views himself and his alignment with tradition and creed that has been passed down, and so is in most cases not up for…

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Blogs are Back!

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To kick off 2020, we have a cascade of agreement on all sides: And I’m not the only one agreeing with Scalzi and Wendig: So why? Why are blogs a thing? Or alternatively, why do they NEED to be a thing? Scalzi spells it out – even if you are on the left, and I STRONGLY URGE any of my readers who feel “safe” on social media due to being politically aligned to the left to consider this, the goalposts can shift at any time and you can get your social media presence destroyed. They can destroy it directly by…

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