Item the 1st – In the recent sort of brouhaha about IPCC8.5 – only the willfully ignorant could (still) be surprised that it, and the whole climate scam in general, is complete non-sense. The climate scam fits naturally into the paradigm that ‘the stated goal is never the actual goal’. Rather the climate crisis was a post-hoc rationalization for the real goal, to upend the status quo and further the revolution. Communists do it all the time – identify a reasonable seeming issue, claim it, distort it, and turn into a tool to facilitate the revolution. Whether poverty and class in its original formulation or, one of the current causes, the climate crisis. I think these sorts of existential crises are especially attractive to the left as they are psychologically disposed to the idea of the perfectibility of the human condition and hence more willing to advocate for systems that purport to fix perceived shortcomings of said condition.
Similarly, I’m often struck by the question of “why is the left so focused on the trans issue, drag queens reading to children, and sexually explicit books in school libraries (and so-called ‘deviant’ sexuality in general)?” In the context of ‘the stated goal is never the actual goal’, while superficially a different cause than the climate crises, it is pretty clearly the same phenomena. Indeed, the Hungarian communist Gyorgy Lukacs was very explicit about this in the early part of the 20th century. He was the secretary of education in Hungary the in late 1910’s, and implemented and wrote about a policy of sexualizing children with the goal of separating them from their parents, their social support systems, and cultures, all to facilitate generating young people that were more amenable to carrying out and maintaining the revolution. For him, the goal actually was the goal, he was willing/able to be explicit about it. In modern times, the underlying goal, subconsciously or otherwise, remains the same – disrupt the system and make it more amenable to the revolution – while the stated goals, caring, empathy, inclusion – are, in practice if not explicit and consciously, rather a means to an end, the ends being disruption.
Item the 2nd – The MeatEater podcast is a sort of regular in the line up, especially playing along with the trivia game even if I generally don’t do great – No, I don’t know what brand of fishing lure is purple and is named after the 4th dorsal spine of the long-nosed snipe fish. It’s a bit weird in that I don’t hunt, but never mind that. Anyway, they were recently talking about the use of drones for hunting; primarily scouting so you know the bedding locations and daily movements, partly for the actual hunt (though I’m not sure how that would work), and game recovery. While generally supportive of the latter with caveats about making sure it was truly being used to recover wounded game, they were generally opposed to using drones in the process planning and execution of the hunt.
One reason outlined is ‘violation of fair chase’, i.e. makes it too easy to hunt. This of course right after a discussion of best load and ballistic characteristics of rounds for accuracy and distance, high end optics, high-tech clothing for cold, heat, rain, and everything in-between. I’ve never really understood the ‘ethical’ basis for violation of fair chase – it seems the goal of hunting is, fundamentally, to get meat to eat. Why is there an ethical consideration in how hard I have to work or how much time I have to invest?
Related was the impact on game management. I think it’s related to ‘fair’ chase in that there is undercurrent of backlash against things like the harvesting of the bison in the late 19th century. Better rifles and the train lines made it easy to over-harvest bison and bring the herds down to nothing. But I think management and fair chase aspects of drone hunting are only trivially related. After all, management of game populations is not really at it’s core tied to method of harvest. It’s tied to the number of animals available and, in principle (ignoring Colorado, Oregon, Washington, etc ‘game’ commissions for the time being), the right balance of human harvest to preserve the resource. The number of tags/permits issued is not dependent on how a given species is harvested.
So why such an opposition to e.g. drone hunting by a group that live the hunting lifestyle? I think it boils down to the same drive that makes the teenage rebel pissed-off when the normies start liking “their” special band. Or that makes the candle maker complain that technology has made their skill set less valuable. People in the MeaterEater universe and dedicated hunters have spent a lifetime perfecting their skills – just read some of their books to see how much preparation, patience, and skill putting together a hunt requires. Now any slob can come along and do that (not that this is true, I suspect it will still take more dedication and patience than most are willing to invest, even with drone hunting). More directly, I think there is an undercurrent of the feeling that it cheapens their skill set and lets just anybody into the club (never mind whether that’s actually true), whether they’ve invested the ‘appropriate’ amount of effort and dedication or not. And not for nothing, people like the MeatEater crew make a living off the challenges of hunting, whether guiding or selling equipment designed to facilitate the hunt (but not drones, that’s a technology too far for some reason). So there’s a financial incentive to object to allowing drones to for hunting, at least for some.
Short of it, I haven’t seen a convincing reason to say using drones in hunting should be illegal, anymore so than using dogs, high-tech dedicated design rifles with specialized ammunition loads, decoys, or breathable fabric that keeps you warm and cool, should be illegal.
Item the 3rd – Triggered by a long comment from the Bro regarding father-hood and the ‘ceding’ of entirety of childhood development to women. Incidentally, you should write down some of these longer comments and, with just a bit of added input, convert it into a submission. I mean I really don’t want to read about the gritty details of your many Firsts, but this would have been interesting as an article and may have triggered some useful discussions.
Anyway, it struck me that childhood development/education being a predominantly female endeavor is not necessarily bad; IF it doesn’t get expanded to encompass essentially the entirety of a child’s life as it does now. We turn kids over to the bureaucratic state at younger and younger ages – FFS, on my walk into work through the pinko section of the neighborhood, I saw a ‘Congratulations to the xyz Schools pre-K Class of 2026!!!’ – and keep them there longer and longer in adult-hood. Whether dues to increasingly parasitic tax burdens requiring two-income households, social pressure for women to fully participate in the labor force, or a reflection of general human laziness and narcissism that is easily exploitable by members of said bureaucracy, ‘education’ in institutions dominated by ‘female norms’ is increasingly the only thing children know for the entire formative period of their life. It leaves no room for development or experience outside of those structures and that’s not good for any children and certainly not for young boys.
If I may put on my onion belt and get my walking cane, in my middle school, I remember 15-20 minutes on the playground before school, a break mid-morning for 15 minutes (yes, even in the depths of the coldest Wisconsin winters), 30 or so minutes for what passed as lunch/food followed by another 30 minutes on the playground, and then another 15 minute playground session in the mid afternoon. All largely unsupervised. Incidentally, with one exception, I think all my teachers through those years were women. The principal was a woman. I don’t recall encountering hardly any men. So it’s not women per se, it’s the, IMNSHO, the feminized system that’s been created along with making that system so totally pervasive in the development of children. In any case, we will likely never gain that style of education back in the context of the current institutions – too much money, power, and influence – see Item the 1st – at stake. That’s why I think one of the most crucial areas to draw a line between us and the bureaucratic state is in reclaiming education. Home schooling, back-pack funding, getting men involved outside of formal education teaching of children, etc. And we will probably have to take that power back, it won’t be ceded easily. But if we want to reclaim some semblance of freedom in the long game, that’s were efforts can be fruitfully focused.
Incidentally, probably shouldn’t have DDG’d images for “feminization of education” at work. There’s a surprising number of fiction books the words “education” and “feminization”. And “sissy”. People be weird.
Item the Repeat – In the course of writing this up, it sounded strangely familiar. A quick search indicates I wrote something nearly identical up back in RandomThoughts 12. I’m starting to repeat myself, maybe I need a new shtick. Anyway, I already wrote it, so you get a repeat.
I’m not sure what triggered scribbling this note down – it shows up on the Darkhorse podcast often and amongst the MAHA and COVID-response skeptical community all the time though, so somewhere from there. It’s the notion of ‘regulatory capture’ or ‘institutional capture’. I don’t really like the captured formulation. In that formulation, there is embedded the notion of some sort of Platonic Form of the institution or regulation and ‘capture’ is an external agent that takes it over and corrupts it. Perhaps not coincidentally, that formulation is amenable to the ‘capture’ being controlled and excised by simply more control, more funding, and more restrictions on individual action. Not that all who advocate the capture formulation necessarily advocate that, but it is sort of natural progression and many do – “we need to get the money out of politics!”
But what if the ‘capture’ is an intrinsic property of the underlying regulation or institution? Not an external force but rather it is the institution, inseparable from any stated purposes or goals. That casts a bit of a damper on solutions that involve expanding the power of the institution or codifying the regulation with more detail – those will actually incentive MORE of the ‘capture’ behavior. In fact limiting the power and scope may be the only way to mitigate against the benefits of ‘capture’. But if the institution or regulation is fulfilling an actual desirable goal, perhaps one has to except some form of capture – it is after all intrinsic to the nature of the construct – and remain ‘eternally vigilante’. Of course ‘eternal vigilance’ doesn’t always seem to work out too well either…
I think these sorts of existential crises are especially attractive to the left as they are psychologically disposed to the idea of the perfectibility of the human condition and hence more willing to advocate for systems that purport to fix perceived shortcomings of said condition.
Or maybe they are just Doomsday cultists at heart.
Just keep them out of the subways.
Humanity can be perfected once all the bad thinkers are exterminated.
Filing that one away for the future. I wasn’t aware of that (though I have seen the name somewhere).
FWIW the marxists who pushed trans for this exact reason a few decades later were pretty explicit about the end goal with each other, if not the general public.
I believe cultural communism includes the trans movement, hardcore feminism, white guilt, wokism, and any other way to sexualize children. All designed to destroy the family and bring children closure to their true family – The State.
Yup, it’s all just different flavors of “smash the system”. It’s how you get the same crowd rioting against ICE one day and Jews the next, and then hitting a gay pride parade – all of which with the enthusiastic support and often attendance of all of the nearest Democrats.
Agreed. I sometimes wonder if I descend into B. Gen Ripper territory or the prototypical right-wing paranoid who sees a commie under every bed.
But all these things seem to inevitably lead, historically and in the modern day US, to commies being in power, whether it be Mamdami and his bitter, angry wealth confiscating picks for filing government positions, the petulant little nothing of a Seattle mayor, or Karen Bass in LA. When everything seems to lead there, maybe it’s not paranoia, especially when, like with Luckacs and others, it’s pretty damn explicit. It doesn’t require the masses to be explicitly complicit, but it does require them to be favorably predispposed. And that predispposition seems to be a general aspect of human nature that is gamed explicitly in the education system a la Item the 3rd.
Same. I used to have that concern until I realized I was right.
All the social and political trends you describe can be traced back to their source, and in every single case that source is a Marxist intellectual.
This doesn’t prevent the people espousing these trends *today* from being completely unwitting as to the origin of their theories. For the most part, the modern progressives are just reciting a script.
So, you’re right, but it’s still not a great idea to hit progressives with the ‘Commie’ label. Between John Birch, Joseph McCarthy, and the ingrained idea that the Commies were beaten when the Soviet Union fell, people tend to blow off accusations of ‘Commie!!!’ before they do any conscious analysis of it.
I linked this a few days ago, so here’s a relevant excerpt:
Orwell was wrong about the State abolishing the orgasm. Huxley was correct.
What about bows? At what point does complex enhancement of mechanical operation and accuracy become too much?
Or does it ever?
I tried hunting by bowing at animals once. It didn’t work at all.
From the beginning of time – or at least the beginning of humans – hunting has been an exercise in applying technology. Sharp pointy sticks, slings, flint knapping, bows, on and on. Hell, domesticating wolves was likely in no small part an investment in the development of biological technology to aid with hunting. So what is “too much”? I don’t think that question can be answered as there’s not, at least to me, a really consistent logical path to that answering it.
It’s another case of what was advantageous to humans in an evolutionary sense does not scale to modern systems, even if the basic evolutionary drive will remain in place for the foreseeable future. But then maybe the answer to e.g. not destroying the last remaining bison because technology allows you do to it, is not a futile, contradictory, and hypocritical attempt to limiting technology to those technologies you favor and have invested in, but rather something approaching US game management infrastructure in the context of rationing the amount of take (whether through the state or private is a completely orthogonal discussion).
Idaho banned drones last session for hunting.
You already could not legally fly and hunt the same day here.
Oregon is about to ban hunting outright. All the game commissions and the Fish and Game in general have been moving left for the last forty years. Hard. Clinton got his 100,000 federal cops and they are the BLM/F&G guys. Jerks will write you speeding tickets and bust you for not having insurance on your dirt bike when out in the woods.
It’ll probably be on the ballot*, but likely won’t pass this time. Not enough dipshit vegans yet.
*signature count hasn’t been verified yet and Kotek doesn’t want to run against it in the general. She got the gas tax increase moved to the May ballot unlawfully, and it still passed, so she didn’t have to run against that one.
And we will probably have to take that power back, it won’t be ceded easily.
Oh yes. We have had some education freedom wins here in NH recently. The usual suspects are up to their usual shenanigans to take over the Education Freedom Accounts (basically a voucher program), to impose new regulations on home schooling, and shut down open enrollment (you can send your kid to any government run school in the state instead of the one you live in).
I should explain something about open enrollment. As soon as I hit submit, I realized some people probably wouldn’t know what is going on there.
In response to criticisms of school choice programs diverting money from government run schools to private schools, some NH Republicans decided as a bit of a troll to change state law so that you can send your kid to any government school instead of being restricted to the one where you live. It got legs. I think it is still being fought over in the legislature with one last try for this session coming up for a vote Thursday which gets a limited form into law.
It’s been amusing watching the usual suspects. Some have criticized the program. Some government school officials have broken ranks saying, “Hmm…. We could get more money if parents want to send their kids to our school. This might not be a bad idea.”
Yeah, that would never fly in bigger states. The entire point of school districts is to keep out the riffraff.
The entire point of school districts is to keep out the riffraff.
There is some of that going on here too.
There are other states with open enrollment in government schools. Florida has mandatory open enrollment for interdistrict transfers. Here is a list of states’ open enrollment policies. NH is voluntary, meaning the school district makes the choice on whether or not it is allowed. The proposed change in state law is to make it mandatory that the school district must allow it up to a limit. The limit is something along the lines of the school district has to accept interdistrict transfers up to 10% of its total enrollment.
We have had some education freedom wins here in NH recently.
Home schooling in general has made a lot of progress lately and got a boost from the pandemic. But part of the problem is that those inclined to fight for these things get the victory and close up shop, thinking the war is won. They tend to have less of the MADD outlook of permanent activism – they get back to living their lives with their new found freedom. But the other side doesn’t stop or rest. Even when they win, they just move onto the next ratchet. It’s an inherent problem with advocating for freedom.
Incidentally, I saw some headline (probably here?) about the national “L”P de-listing (or whatever it’s called) the NH LP; any insight?
Tom woods had Jermey Kaufman on the other day. He went into it.
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2765-jeremy-kauffman-on-libertarian-party-degeneracy/
the stated goal is never the actual goal
That’s a good way to look at things. Similarly, it’s useful to say the left isn’t embarrassed by their programs not fixing any problems, because the goal isn’t to fix problems, the goal is to fund lefty organizations.
“It’s just time,” French Gates said. “What you’re seeing is a generation of women coming into their full power. I’ve walked into tough rooms, and being one of the few is very hard. Once we can create enough that we’re one of many, it just gets easier.”
I’m assuming the “tough room” was discussing the sales of Microsoft Bob. Or was it explaining why you needed a script to your doctor after Bill’s return from the island?
Melinda French Gates to be Seattle Kraken minority investor
https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/48939541/melinda-french-gates-seattle-kraken-minority-investor
ESPN eats that tired shit up, no doubt.
“I despise the guy but I kept his name and money so people know who I am”
the stated goal is never the actual goal
I had a little lightbulb moment when I was a kid (high school, maybe). I was in a movie theater, and one of the little messages during the previews was, “Trash receptacles are located [X], for your convenience.”
And I thought to myself, “That should read, ‘for OUR convenience’.” Do our work for us.
I don’t know why people become such slobs there, but popcorn was a big mistake.
Item the first.
The left is anti human.
Global warming, peak oil, trans, gay, government funding abortions, and all the other Malthusian garbage is anti human and plays to them.
Be fruitful and multiply is anathema to them.
The left is anti human.
I balk at that formulation. When the outcome of leftist policies in the modern world is anti-human, it’s easy to go there. But it doesn’t make sense.
We are all of us, descendants of a long line of evolutionary winners; our ancestors did the right things to survive. The leftists predilection survived, was not bred out. I interpret that to mean that it had a non-negligible evolutionary advantage. And maybe, like in the family, a typically ‘leftist’ approach coupled with the more individualist approach is actually successful (optimal?) in the small band structures of maybe 10’s to a few 100 members that we spent most of our history in.
But it doesn’t scale to the modern world, despite the fact that it’s still there in us. Humans living in the modern world that are more dominated by that ‘left’ predilection will appear to be, and in fact will be in practice if not actual motivation, anti-human. But I don’t know how to fix that or prevent the malevolent amongst us from taking advantage of that.
When everything seems to lead there, maybe it’s not paranoia, especially when, like with Luckacs and others, it’s pretty damn explicit.
When you look at the convergence of “Everybody go to college” and the decay and ruin of “higher education” it’s hard to not suspect it was all planned from the beginning.
To be honest, I think it was a slow and organic degeneration, but there are unquestionably people explicitly advocating it.
And-
Chasing a herd of buffalo over a cliff and killing the survivors with stone hammers doesn’t seem very “sporting” but when it’s a question of surviving through the winter or not…
People think that Hunter gatherers used all of the animal.
They cut out the choicest, fattest cuts and bounced. It’s not worth the energy to field dress and save the lean parts unless you’re actually starving or camped where the animals are during hard times. Transportation takes energy and you have to high grade the game.
BTW – the UK Police release bodycam footage of Henry Nowak’s arrest and murder. The spinning has been interesting.
cops should be tarred and feathered more often.
Maybe Starmer will take a knee again in solidarity.
For the Sikh victims? Undoubtedly.
PROPOSAL – instead of banning the traditional Sikh dagger legalise all traditional ethnic daggers BUT you are only allowed to carry the traditional ethnic dagger of your own ethnicity
https://x.com/kunley_drukpa/status/2061548486663807176
We should get a falx cause we wuz dacians an shit
Relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqS0D8tuRZ8
Cool. So I can carry a Scottish dirk?
I like venison, particularly from a deer I had killed. Savoring the meat and the memory brings back memories of youth. Going out in the early morning with my Dad and
brothers or friends to enjoy the camaraderie, hoping for some bragging rights of first or biggest and to listen to the stories from the others was a Rite of Passage.
I could easily take a deer in my front yard in the fall or winter but it wouldn’t be the same. While there are some to argue the ethics I would not be comfortable living with myself. I have shot a nuisance bear in the yard, I didn’t feel bad, the bear was destructive of my honey collecting attempts. Bears that don’t bother my stuff get a pass.
Other critters, such as woodchucks, porcupines, bunnies and gophers are also competitors that have met their demise as well. I like foxes/coyotes, they’re in the same business and get a pass. They aren’t competing for my labor.
Each person has to live with himself. Mine is no poaching.
I have hunted off the patio one season but elwasnuncessfull. Dang deer come through before dawn to scrape on and kill my trees.
Was nice to sit and watch the sunrise with the neighborhood cat on my lap that season.
May try again someday.
Which Glib is this?
https://x.com/NotZ3Music/status/2061399206145724639?s=20
Not me: I wouldn’t inflict that sort of captioning on people.
I do not think there are many glib candidates for big titted goth chicks.
Gen X glibs have entered the chat.
Not like she’s an actual goth. Not moody enough. Talks too much. She’s the anime take on goth.
I’m OK with that.
Her and her friends pop into my feed. It’s good balance to the political stuff I get.
Part of the left focusing on this shit is as stated in the post. Part is because it lets them control the conversation and take it in any direction they want while the right foam at the mouth or try to debunk the piles of bullshit. Whenever you prove something wrong more bullshit appears or the meaning of words change. it never ends. Part is because it makes an easy distraction from other issues. They lost the whole economy is better under socialism so now they have we need degrowth and trans children.
Model Penny Lane going viral after owning the Sports Illustrated Miami Swim Week runway
https://x.com/TaraBull/status/2061825163012751367
Paging Q…
She’s in your ears and in your eyes.
Four of fish and finger pies in summer.
Eurotopia lurches Trumpward
EU politicians have promised to increase deportations of undocumented migrants, under a new law that critics say mimics elements of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown.
——-
The agreement became possible after the centre-right European People’s party (EPP) voted with far-right groups in the European parliament in March to push through more stringent measures on returning undocumented people. Before the parliament shifted rightwards in 2024 European elections, it had traditionally acted as a brake on the tougher instincts of EU member states.
Welcoming the deal, Regina Doherty, an EPP lawmaker from Ireland, said: “This agreement is not about people who have come to Europe legally, those who are working, studying or contributing to our communities, nor is it about people who have been granted international protection. It is about creating a common European system for dealing with cases where a person has gone through the legal process and has been found not to have the right to remain.”
She said there was “too much misinformation” about migration, with complex issues reduced “to slogans, outrage and false claims”.
Silvia Carta, an advocacy officer at the Brussels-based Platform for Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, said the law would “expose hundreds of thousands of people to harm and violence – from locking people up in immigration detention for up to 30 months to tearing families apart and sending people to countries they don’t even know”.
She added: “Across the Atlantic, we see the violence and fear created by ICE’s brutal immigration enforcement. Europe should be learning from the harms of that model, not building its own version of it.”
Soon they will be murdering innocent peaceful protestors as they take their babies to school.
Penny Lane going viral
Gadfrey. That girl is liable to do herself an injury.