vxbush 9/8/2022 6:03:19 AM

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Occasional Reader 9/8/2022 6:51:28 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

If this entire Administration were actually a plot by SPECTRE to destroy the country, what would they be doing differently?

JCM 9/8/2022 7:26:35 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

Just vend the drugs and give the contract to MS-13 and get it over with.

vxbush 9/8/2022 8:22:16 AM

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In #2 Occasional Reader said: If this entire Administration were actually a plot by SPECTRE to destroy the country, what would they be doing differently?

Oh, they might be able to do something more nefarious, but I'm trying to not thing about how much worse it can get. 

vxbush 9/8/2022 8:24:02 AM

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In #3 JCM said: Just vend the drugs and give the contract to MS-13 and get it over with.

It's easier to work with any organization by entering into an agreement. Why should drug dealers be any different?

vxbush 9/8/2022 10:47:28 AM

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Occasional Reader 9/8/2022 2:14:32 PM

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buzzsawmonkey 9/8/2022 3:32:17 PM

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There have been times of late when I have looked back with immense nostalgia to the days on SOB before its proprietor went nuts.  The site back then was a revelation, in that it opened up what was, then, a spirited but seldom mean-spirited discussion among people who were largely, though not entirely, conservative, but who did not generally demand lock-step regimented thinking.  Perhaps I recall incorrectly, but I remember few trolls of the sort that routinely infest sites like Instapundit today---and I remember that there was very little, if any, tolerance for the kind of open Jew-hate which, again, is a feature of places like Insty.  As one who was brought up in an environment of old-fashioned liberalism, not the hard-Left progressivism that today falsely claims that designation, it was a new world.

I look at the dogmatism, coupled with Balkanized bickering, that distinguishes the Insty comment sections, and I cannot have much optimism regarding the yearned-for tsunami of Republican victories this fall.  The adulation which the Trump enthusiasts view the man, and their vilification of anyone who dares whisper the notion that maybe, just possibly, Trump has failings which contributed, and continue to contribute, to his current problems, sounds increasingly totalitarian---and blind to opposing realities.  To this, one has to add that the so-called "conservatives" who are most convinced that they will prevail have not done the homework, laid the groundwork, for the victory of which they dream.  Republican state governments which came in starting under the Obama adminsitration did not set to work cleaning up their state election-board apparatus.  The Democrats may be Balkanized also to some extent, but they are united in their opposition to anything remotely Republican or "conservative," while the Republicans/conservatives are too busy knifing each other over whether someone is sufficiently loyal to our former president.

JCM 9/8/2022 4:06:24 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 8:

SOB was great, for a time.

I enjoy a good spirited debate, but it is harder and harder to find people who will debate without making personal.

It is only continues to spiral downward. Marcuse's Critique of Pure Reason lays it out, make it so that any opinion other than the approved opinion becomes unacceptable.

buzzsawmonkey 9/8/2022 4:27:14 PM

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In #9 JCM said: I enjoy a good spirited debate, but it is harder and harder to find people who will debate without making personal.

Ain't that the natural truth.

JCM 9/8/2022 4:34:36 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 10:

I had a history prof, she and I didn't agree about a dang thing. But we had a great time, we'd argue in class, she knew I could take a contrary position to get the class going. We frequent had coffee in the morning together, classmates were befuddled. How could we argue like that and still be friends.

buzzsawmonkey 9/8/2022 4:45:37 PM

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Reply to JCM in 11:

I remember exchanges like that; we'd enjoy being challenged by each other.  

Now, I am seeing the same lockstep orthodoxy and refusal to look at the realities that exist outside of ideology on the "conservative" side that the Left formerly had a near-monopoly on.  

Occasional Reader 9/8/2022 4:49:15 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 8:

to quote what was carved on the homemade flute in “ The four feathers“: don’t despair.

anecdotally, at least, I am seeing the scales falling from the eyes of many “progressive“ acquaintances.

Occasional Reader 9/8/2022 4:57:23 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 12:

remember, Internet blogs are not the same thing as reality.

buzzsawmonkey 9/8/2022 6:36:40 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 14:

Thanks for the shout out on the Palestinian thread on Insty, OR.  I just posted "Hooray for Paliwood."

Kosh's Shadow 9/8/2022 6:36:46 PM

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RIP Queen Elizabeth II

Music composed for her coronation

Kosh's Shadow 9/8/2022 7:46:01 PM

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Kosh's Shadow 9/8/2022 7:49:50 PM

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Kosh's Shadow 9/8/2022 8:02:24 PM

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Just remember, in an insurrection, first we take Manahattan, and then we take Berlin

Jukebox

Occasional Reader 9/8/2022 8:33:46 PM

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Mark Steyn, to no one’s great surprise, has written an obituary for Queen Elizabeth II that is far more eloquent than anything being bandied about by corporate media.

https://www.steynonline.com/12797/the-longest-reign-and-a-sudden-end