I've posted this elsewhere so it's a recycle(sorry about that). If they admit to themselves that they were wrong, and seriously wrong, then they might start wondering about what else they might be wrong (umm, incorrect?) about. And where does that lead, Immigration, Climate Change? Were they wrong about Israel\Gaza? Were they wrong about Trump (the horror, the horror). Were they wrong about Socialism, Communism, China, Net Zero. The Population Bomb exploded in their face, ditto Peak Oil, And so on and so forth. Deep down they can't admit the people they consider inferiors (intellectually, morally, ethically, spiritually fillintheblankly) might have been correct. Once the Cascade Preference starts you don't know where it will end. The horror, the horror, indeed. By the way as the old saying goes With Friends like that who needs enemies. I believe the correct appellation is he was a Fair Weather Friend.
It does result in a certain cognitive dissonance forcing you to face the fact that you are not all that well educated, you have just remembered what are the appropriate answers to the issues of the day. That can be jarring. To have allowed one's self to be blindly led by the nose and to have ignored any contrary evidence to even penetrate your thoughts to allow any type of course correction, must be a bit startling. And assuming you were of a weak mental constitution anyway, your mind may not even allow you to realize this truth about yourself.
Dorthy just had to click her heels three times and say I wish I were home, I wish I were home. After Tinkerbell dusted you all you had to do was to believe you could fly, and you could. In the real world when the 1950's Superman show was on TV George Reeves had to make an announcement that tying a red cape and jumping off a roof did not mean you could fly. Kids were doing that and getting injured. I think they may be the ones believing in Net Zero and Carbon neutral now. In 1984 if the Party said that 2+2=5 you had to believe it, not just say it. Likewise if a person with one X and one y Chromosome considers themselves to be a beautiful woman you have to ignore the beard and believe.
I think you are right about sweeping power, and I think that its the manifestation of how managerial/academic/journo class, but not the undrelying reason. I really don't think that the over-credentialed class thinks with much nuance.
Right / Wrong, Black / White. Which is why "he's one of us - he saved lives" makes sense in that view. It's the perfect distillation of that ideology. There are no tradeoffs - in that sense he was a success. And even if he wasn't, he INTENDED to save lives, so just as good.
Or, its probably more simple - Trump can never be right. Conservatives can never be correct.
It the biggest tell from the midwit overcredentialed class (we really need to stop calling them "elite" - some random making $150k doing mid management BS is not "elite" - I don't care where you went to school), is that they can never consider new information, and further, they cannot change their opinion unless they get permission to do so from the NY Times or WaPo.
I agree. . I always like to refer to Thurston Howell III saying to his wife "not our sort dear, not our sort." If you look back at JFK and then LBJ you see the same thing. Johnson was born dirt poor. He grew up among very poor people. A lot of times his family would have gone hungry if not for his Mexican neighbors helping them out. The Kennedy's were born with Gold spoons in their mouths. I once read a piece that RFK was in Hickory Hill with a group of his advisors raging against Johnson. Saying that Johnson didn't understand poor people like Kennedy did. One advisor later wrote (but probably didn't say it at the time) that he never remembered any of the Kennedy's inviting someone from South Boston to play touch football with them. Johnson was "crude" in the Washington sense. Remember when he went in for an operation and showed the press his scar. He also made a lot of really bad decisions while President, in my opinion. Ones that we are still paying for. But he was also the master of the Senate and a lot of. legislation would not have been passed without him. But he didn't have the right accent, or graduate from the right colleges. Just like Trump Not our sort, just not our sort.
Think about the hubris in inherent in the Musk criticism - guy has billions of dollars, basically created online payments, mainstreamed electric vehicles, the rockets, the satellite internet - but someone dope with a worthless gender studies degree who's been trying fora PHD in "colonizer studies" thinks he's a moron.
Wow. I'm old enough to remember Jeff Jarvis as the post-9/11 war blogger! Regardless of your disagreements, I'm sorry that he thinks Fauci is a hill worth killing a friendship over (especially right now).
DISCLOSURE: I own a Fauci bobblehead, which sits in the bathroom on top of a stack of expired COVID-19 tests.
"An excuse for sweeping power, based on (alleged) expertise, in which they could ride roughshod over those stupid proles and flyover people while preening about the allegedly superior moral and intellectual qualities that justify their rule."
One of the best characterizations of progressives I've seen.
I didn't catch on that he was a charlatan until after I took the first two shot dose. I even helped people get it, God forgive me. But I was able to figure it out before the boosters. I almost lost my job because I didn't want to show them my vaccination card when it was required by everyone because I didn't think it was right. People in my work got the jab under pressure of being fired. I would have told them to sue me if they required the booster and walked out. That monster required that shot. He should live the rest of his life in jail. I won't talk about the cancer that my mom got after the first two shot dose and then the booster when she didn't listen to me and listened to the freaking main stream news, even Fox at the time. They will NEVER get my trust back.
Spot on. This is also the foundation of their fascination with “Climate Change”, and gun control. The aim is always raw power, deriving from their superior wisdom and virtue.
Jarvis, or anyone who defends Fauci with the claim that he “saved lives” is at best wild ass guessing that more lives were saved than lost because of his actions. First of all, he funded the lab where the virus was created. Is there any justification for that? He did it in violation of the law. Would it have been created without that funding? Does Jarvis or any of Fauci’s defenders know that? No, they do not.
The lockdowns caused incalculable economic, social, emotional, educational, developmental, and psychological damage on an unimaginable scale. They violated every scientific protocol known for addressing respiratory virus pandemics. All kinds of legal protocols too, but Fauci was more responsible than any individual for establishing and continuing them. The case that they “saved lives” on a net basis is anything but clear and in the opinion of many highly doubtful.
The masks, distancing and other measures that Fauci knew were humbug created social division and weakened the credibility of the scientific establishment. The dishonest dismissal of treatments other than the “vaccines,” the knowingly false claims about the vaccines, the enforcement mechanism for forcing people to take them, and the demonization of anyone who questioned any of it was led by him and would never have gotten the traction it did without his full throated advocacy. He ignored snd misrepresented the known science and still does.
That people like Jarvis still cut people out if their lives because they point out any of this demonstrates the depth of their commitment to falsity, and their utter unwillingness to conduct themselves in a civilized manner.
I don’t know Jeff Jarvis, Jeff Jarvis is not a friend of mind, and I’m glad to say so. He has to be a very shallow person, as most Leftist are. Sad that they seem so miserable.
A prequel to the Covid madness, for events occurring in my time and that I followed closely, was the denial of the slaughter that took place under the communist regimes established in Southeast Asia by Democrats at large and particularly the toast of the anti-war left like Kerry and Fonda. 5M souls were slaughtered within 6 years of when "peace broke out". And Jerry Brown refused to let "boat people" come to CA.
Others preceded and followed that horror show, but the consistent denial that the left ever made a mistake, even when they knew they were wrong, set the pace for Covid, and set the stage for the iconic truth "The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the Revolution".
Once a body understands that truth, and that the allocation of poverty (in every conceivable sense of the word from the physical to the spiritual) is a primary tactic and later control mechanism employed by tyrannical regimes to enrich and preserve themselves, the repeated rollout of evergreen socialist/communist "ideas that always fail" makes more sense.
It is not that these ideas will ever work and deliver what they claim. It is that they have worked very successfully for the ruling classes that have imposed them. How else did Hugo Chavez' pig-faced daughter end up with a net worth of $4B? Cuba is a shithole, but the "leadership" isn;t missing any meals. Rhodesia has been importing food for how long? I will not go on if I could.
An impoverished population is much easier to control. That, kleptocratic enrichment of the leaders and their security are the goals of the DSA and islamists. And of course they are united now against Western culture.
The leftists have not learned from the fate of foreign and domestic communists who aided the overthrow of the Iranian Shah and expected a seat at the table for their work. The ones who couldn't get out fast enough once the mullahs were comfortable were executed as "godless infidels". So to will the "queers for Palestine" be. Mamdani combines islamism and communism so he might survive.
Hoisted on one's own petard sucks for us proles. But for Fauci, and others like him, it is a mere bump in the road to greater wealth and influence. Why is it wrong to have President for more than 2 terms, but we can have bureaucrats, representatives and senators in DC for their entire lives? I wish for the days of the spoils system, if Fauci is what we instead.
Well said. I’m adding that wealth and influence combined are power to sway public opinion, political discourse, freedom, patriotism and the rule of law for example as set forth in the US constitution etc. (with ammemdments).
Greg Lukianoff, President of FIRE, defriended me for pointing out that he was perpetrating the throughly debunked myth that Trump called white nationalists "very fine people" in Charlottesville in his book written with Johnathan Chait, The Coddling of the American Mind. (page 91 in paperback)
He's the best at his job, not so hot at recanting. I consider him a friend in real life and remain a FIRE Ember Club member as I have for over a decade. I hope he feels the same.
Another offramp not taken. "I thought you did a marvelous job for the American people during COVID, but this new evidence has to give me second thoughts . . ." How difficult would it have been for the Dem Senators on the Committee to say something like that? Too difficult, apparently. Pedal to the metal and they didn't even turn their head.
I've posted this elsewhere so it's a recycle(sorry about that). If they admit to themselves that they were wrong, and seriously wrong, then they might start wondering about what else they might be wrong (umm, incorrect?) about. And where does that lead, Immigration, Climate Change? Were they wrong about Israel\Gaza? Were they wrong about Trump (the horror, the horror). Were they wrong about Socialism, Communism, China, Net Zero. The Population Bomb exploded in their face, ditto Peak Oil, And so on and so forth. Deep down they can't admit the people they consider inferiors (intellectually, morally, ethically, spiritually fillintheblankly) might have been correct. Once the Cascade Preference starts you don't know where it will end. The horror, the horror, indeed. By the way as the old saying goes With Friends like that who needs enemies. I believe the correct appellation is he was a Fair Weather Friend.
It does result in a certain cognitive dissonance forcing you to face the fact that you are not all that well educated, you have just remembered what are the appropriate answers to the issues of the day. That can be jarring. To have allowed one's self to be blindly led by the nose and to have ignored any contrary evidence to even penetrate your thoughts to allow any type of course correction, must be a bit startling. And assuming you were of a weak mental constitution anyway, your mind may not even allow you to realize this truth about yourself.
Dorthy just had to click her heels three times and say I wish I were home, I wish I were home. After Tinkerbell dusted you all you had to do was to believe you could fly, and you could. In the real world when the 1950's Superman show was on TV George Reeves had to make an announcement that tying a red cape and jumping off a roof did not mean you could fly. Kids were doing that and getting injured. I think they may be the ones believing in Net Zero and Carbon neutral now. In 1984 if the Party said that 2+2=5 you had to believe it, not just say it. Likewise if a person with one X and one y Chromosome considers themselves to be a beautiful woman you have to ignore the beard and believe.
I think you are right about sweeping power, and I think that its the manifestation of how managerial/academic/journo class, but not the undrelying reason. I really don't think that the over-credentialed class thinks with much nuance.
Right / Wrong, Black / White. Which is why "he's one of us - he saved lives" makes sense in that view. It's the perfect distillation of that ideology. There are no tradeoffs - in that sense he was a success. And even if he wasn't, he INTENDED to save lives, so just as good.
Or, its probably more simple - Trump can never be right. Conservatives can never be correct.
It the biggest tell from the midwit overcredentialed class (we really need to stop calling them "elite" - some random making $150k doing mid management BS is not "elite" - I don't care where you went to school), is that they can never consider new information, and further, they cannot change their opinion unless they get permission to do so from the NY Times or WaPo.
I agree. . I always like to refer to Thurston Howell III saying to his wife "not our sort dear, not our sort." If you look back at JFK and then LBJ you see the same thing. Johnson was born dirt poor. He grew up among very poor people. A lot of times his family would have gone hungry if not for his Mexican neighbors helping them out. The Kennedy's were born with Gold spoons in their mouths. I once read a piece that RFK was in Hickory Hill with a group of his advisors raging against Johnson. Saying that Johnson didn't understand poor people like Kennedy did. One advisor later wrote (but probably didn't say it at the time) that he never remembered any of the Kennedy's inviting someone from South Boston to play touch football with them. Johnson was "crude" in the Washington sense. Remember when he went in for an operation and showed the press his scar. He also made a lot of really bad decisions while President, in my opinion. Ones that we are still paying for. But he was also the master of the Senate and a lot of. legislation would not have been passed without him. But he didn't have the right accent, or graduate from the right colleges. Just like Trump Not our sort, just not our sort.
As they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Also you could have put a periods after "thinks"..
This is 100% spot on.
Think about the hubris in inherent in the Musk criticism - guy has billions of dollars, basically created online payments, mainstreamed electric vehicles, the rockets, the satellite internet - but someone dope with a worthless gender studies degree who's been trying fora PHD in "colonizer studies" thinks he's a moron.
Wow. I'm old enough to remember Jeff Jarvis as the post-9/11 war blogger! Regardless of your disagreements, I'm sorry that he thinks Fauci is a hill worth killing a friendship over (especially right now).
DISCLOSURE: I own a Fauci bobblehead, which sits in the bathroom on top of a stack of expired COVID-19 tests.
Don't be greedy. Supply that bobblehead to a public restroom urinal where we can shower it with our yellow gratitude.
Better yet, flus it! lol
Flush
"An excuse for sweeping power, based on (alleged) expertise, in which they could ride roughshod over those stupid proles and flyover people while preening about the allegedly superior moral and intellectual qualities that justify their rule."
One of the best characterizations of progressives I've seen.
I didn't catch on that he was a charlatan until after I took the first two shot dose. I even helped people get it, God forgive me. But I was able to figure it out before the boosters. I almost lost my job because I didn't want to show them my vaccination card when it was required by everyone because I didn't think it was right. People in my work got the jab under pressure of being fired. I would have told them to sue me if they required the booster and walked out. That monster required that shot. He should live the rest of his life in jail. I won't talk about the cancer that my mom got after the first two shot dose and then the booster when she didn't listen to me and listened to the freaking main stream news, even Fox at the time. They will NEVER get my trust back.
Jail is not sufficient punishment for his lost moral soul. The Lord will determine his journey.
Spot on. This is also the foundation of their fascination with “Climate Change”, and gun control. The aim is always raw power, deriving from their superior wisdom and virtue.
Jarvis, or anyone who defends Fauci with the claim that he “saved lives” is at best wild ass guessing that more lives were saved than lost because of his actions. First of all, he funded the lab where the virus was created. Is there any justification for that? He did it in violation of the law. Would it have been created without that funding? Does Jarvis or any of Fauci’s defenders know that? No, they do not.
The lockdowns caused incalculable economic, social, emotional, educational, developmental, and psychological damage on an unimaginable scale. They violated every scientific protocol known for addressing respiratory virus pandemics. All kinds of legal protocols too, but Fauci was more responsible than any individual for establishing and continuing them. The case that they “saved lives” on a net basis is anything but clear and in the opinion of many highly doubtful.
The masks, distancing and other measures that Fauci knew were humbug created social division and weakened the credibility of the scientific establishment. The dishonest dismissal of treatments other than the “vaccines,” the knowingly false claims about the vaccines, the enforcement mechanism for forcing people to take them, and the demonization of anyone who questioned any of it was led by him and would never have gotten the traction it did without his full throated advocacy. He ignored snd misrepresented the known science and still does.
That people like Jarvis still cut people out if their lives because they point out any of this demonstrates the depth of their commitment to falsity, and their utter unwillingness to conduct themselves in a civilized manner.
I don’t know Jeff Jarvis, Jeff Jarvis is not a friend of mind, and I’m glad to say so. He has to be a very shallow person, as most Leftist are. Sad that they seem so miserable.
Most people never change - they just become more of who they always were.
Perfesser- Well, I think you are one among many - thousands perhaps- having this experience.
When one of someone's Lesser Gods falls, the reaction can be quite damning.
A prequel to the Covid madness, for events occurring in my time and that I followed closely, was the denial of the slaughter that took place under the communist regimes established in Southeast Asia by Democrats at large and particularly the toast of the anti-war left like Kerry and Fonda. 5M souls were slaughtered within 6 years of when "peace broke out". And Jerry Brown refused to let "boat people" come to CA.
Others preceded and followed that horror show, but the consistent denial that the left ever made a mistake, even when they knew they were wrong, set the pace for Covid, and set the stage for the iconic truth "The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the Revolution".
Once a body understands that truth, and that the allocation of poverty (in every conceivable sense of the word from the physical to the spiritual) is a primary tactic and later control mechanism employed by tyrannical regimes to enrich and preserve themselves, the repeated rollout of evergreen socialist/communist "ideas that always fail" makes more sense.
It is not that these ideas will ever work and deliver what they claim. It is that they have worked very successfully for the ruling classes that have imposed them. How else did Hugo Chavez' pig-faced daughter end up with a net worth of $4B? Cuba is a shithole, but the "leadership" isn;t missing any meals. Rhodesia has been importing food for how long? I will not go on if I could.
An impoverished population is much easier to control. That, kleptocratic enrichment of the leaders and their security are the goals of the DSA and islamists. And of course they are united now against Western culture.
The leftists have not learned from the fate of foreign and domestic communists who aided the overthrow of the Iranian Shah and expected a seat at the table for their work. The ones who couldn't get out fast enough once the mullahs were comfortable were executed as "godless infidels". So to will the "queers for Palestine" be. Mamdani combines islamism and communism so he might survive.
Hoisted on one's own petard sucks for us proles. But for Fauci, and others like him, it is a mere bump in the road to greater wealth and influence. Why is it wrong to have President for more than 2 terms, but we can have bureaucrats, representatives and senators in DC for their entire lives? I wish for the days of the spoils system, if Fauci is what we instead.
get instead.
Well said. I’m adding that wealth and influence combined are power to sway public opinion, political discourse, freedom, patriotism and the rule of law for example as set forth in the US constitution etc. (with ammemdments).
the most hateful thing to the clerisy is the suggestion that they have ever been mistaken about anything whatsoever.
Greg Lukianoff, President of FIRE, defriended me for pointing out that he was perpetrating the throughly debunked myth that Trump called white nationalists "very fine people" in Charlottesville in his book written with Johnathan Chait, The Coddling of the American Mind. (page 91 in paperback)
He's the best at his job, not so hot at recanting. I consider him a friend in real life and remain a FIRE Ember Club member as I have for over a decade. I hope he feels the same.
There really is remarkable cognitive dissonance. There is nothing worse than a "smart person" impervious to new information.
Everyone has a Jeff. Not that we're the better for it.
Another offramp not taken. "I thought you did a marvelous job for the American people during COVID, but this new evidence has to give me second thoughts . . ." How difficult would it have been for the Dem Senators on the Committee to say something like that? Too difficult, apparently. Pedal to the metal and they didn't even turn their head.