The question asked in this post from Powerline is WHO WILL BE THE NEXT NEOCONSERVATIVES?, that is, who will be among those who moved from left to right when they finally found out how vile and repulsive the left really is. This last happened in the 1960s/1970s when I made the transition myself, and the very very odd thing is that amongst all the people I knew then, I am the only one who shifted. When I visit home, it is virtually impossible for me to raise any political issue with any of the people I grew up with. Leftism really is a disease which truly must rot the brain and for whom facts are optional extras dependent on what the agenda is and the needs of the narrative. The universities and the media are the worst carriers, but it is everywhere.
Anyway, the suggestion is made that Bill Maher, who I have never paid any attention to before, may be one of the neo-conservatives who is about to transition from left to right. We’ll see. Meanwhile, he gets this covid agenda pretty right. Still anti-Trump, of course, but it’s the only way to get a leftist audience to stay tuned.
From Top 25 most dangerous jobs in the United States. Not office workers, administrative assistants, psychologists, teachers, shop assistants, waitresses, lecturers, airline stewardesses, etc. I suspect the list would be similar in most places.
The worst part about seeing the Left succeed is also recognising how third rate they are. Really dumb and ignorant. Thank goodness every so often a Jordan Peterson comes along.
A recent of issue of Captain America written by Coates features the villain Red Skull apparently sounding a lot like Jordan Peterson.
Wow! And with a book written by Mr Skull titled, “Ten Rules for Life”. These people are beyond caricature and not very subtle either. But here’s a reply from someone who gets Peterson.
Yes let’s vilify the man who tells us to clean our rooms, find a partner with whom we can grow, approach conversations with an open mind, and solve our own problems instead of waiting for someone else to do it for us. https://t.co/52sXrjwoRz
I wanted to use the word “depraved” to describe what I read, but I don’t want to sound too harsh and negative because how are we then to open a fruitful dialogue with these people who obviously only have our best interests at heart?
Came across this today. Psychopath “diagnostic criteria”. These are all direct quotes.
Psychopaths show a disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others.
They fail to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours.
They are always deceitful…. They are nasty, aggressive con artists.
They are massively impulsive and fail to plan ahead.
They show irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights and assaults.
They manifest a reckless disregard for the physical and psychological safety of others.
They are consistently irresponsible. Repeated failure to sustain consistent work behaviour… are their hallmark.
They show lack of remorse. They are indifferent to, or rationalize, having hurt, mistreated or stolen from another…. It can seem that labelling them as anti-social is a serious understatement.
From Furnham, Adrian. 50 Psychology Ideas You Really Need to Know. London: Quercus Publishing, p. 25. The heading of the chapter is “Seem Sane”. This is the statement at the start of the discussion:
“Psychopaths are without conscience and incapable of empathy, guilt or loyalty to anyone but themselves.”
Anyway, I just thought I would mention it.
SOME FURTHER RESEARCH: I have gone on Dr Google and found first this:
Even though it’s commonly used to describe someone who has a mental illness, psychopath is not an official diagnosis. The true definition of a psychopath in psychiatry is antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).
Antisocial personality disorder signs and symptoms may include:
Disregard for right and wrong
Persistent lying or deceit to exploit others
Being callous, cynical and disrespectful of others
Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure
Arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated
Recurring problems with the law, including criminal behavior
Repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty
Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead
Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, aggression or violence
Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others
Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others
Poor or abusive relationships
Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them
Being consistently irresponsible and repeatedly failing to fulfill work or financial obligations.
Obviously requires specialist training to identify ASPD or to know how to deal with it. Anyway, I just thought others might find this as interesting as I did.
“Once the capital of the land of the free and home of the brave, the compliant and scared have taken their place in Washington, DC….
Deaths are sad, but COVID-19 has taken far more than loved ones. Conventions going back centuries restraining democratic governments have been dumped….
A few weeks ago former British Supreme Court judge and historian Jonathan Sumption gave the most eloquent and cogent critique of the “despotic and irrational” lockdown and mask obsessions that have “deprived everyone of what makes life worth living” and “thrown science out the window”….
Please watch it before Facebook, Twitter and Google remove it from the internet as part of a worrying trend towards censorship by firms that once praised free speech online….
A year on from the start of lockdowns around the world, we have learned three lessons. Foremost, we are far more compliant than we thought….
The pandemic also has revealed levels of intellectual laziness and credulity we might not have expected from ever higher spending on education….
Finally, despite decades of globalisation and internationalism, both Australians and Americans have evinced profoundly parochial sentiments….
Freedom and democracy aren’t the same. In the 19th century, the liberal John Stuart Mill worried that the gyrations of public sentiment would erode the individual rights of free association, movement, protest and speech.
His contemporary, Alexis de Tocqueville, in his famous observations on the US, said democracy unchecked would tend to “reduce each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd”. COVID is proving them right.
If he’s not the best, he is certainly the bravest. This is the Best Comment found at The Oz where the article appeared.
Adam [Creighton], love your work (I mean all of your articles on this bender of public fear called COVID 19). I’ve always found it odd that myself and four of my siblings, now middle aged and over, reacted with anger and outrage the moment governments here started implementing COVID policies that curtailed personal liberties. We didn’t argue amongst ourselves, or cajole, bully or debate each other on the issue – we all saw red collectively. I see a similar outrage from some commenters here in the Australian (but more seem to argue for restrictions), and I don’t see any outrage or indignation in my workplace or amongst friends and acquaintances on the subject. The recent Qld election rout shows just how many are happy to be kept safe by Big Bro, too. The vast majority of Queenslanders are compliantly wearing masks – even when not required – while myself and fam avoid public places and seethe with anger and frustration behind our masks when we have to. I guess I’m confused as to why something that comes naturally to me and mine doesn’t come naturally to the majority, but Adam, I’m happy that we have you and your eloquence in our court.
And just below that comment was this:
Watching the West hand a decisive, overwhelming economic and industrial advantage to a huge dictatorship on the rise, China, over the last decade and more, by crippling ourselves with our Left’s insistence on industrially prohibitive expensive and unreliable energy, has been enough to cause many astute observers to conclude that the classical liberal ascendancy’s time is likely running out. Watching the West implode with Covid put it beyond any doubt. For so many years we thought, in our complacency, that giving China an easy run in the WTO and in trade & climate agreements would make China more liberal, more like us. After Covid, we’re more like them, except that the downsides of Western modern ‘liberalism’ – the loss of social cohesion, the attacks on our long-standing institutions, the loss of cultural identity, the poison of identity politics and the demonisation of our historical legitimacy have only gotten worse. All the attacks on our societies by our Left are now harnessed by the CCP. Observe the speechlessness of the new left-wing administration in the US in the face of CCP criticism at Anchorage. How could the US representative contradict China’s charges when the charges came straight from the US Dem’s political playbook? Our cultural self-loathing has become our adversaries’ most potent weapon. We can now either learn from our extreme over-reaction to a ‘pandemic’ which doesn’t even come anywhere near as serious as those of the past such as the Spanish Flu of 1918-20, or we can continue down the path of totalitarianism towards the CCP model. Given the relentless denigration of our culture and history by the left-wing educators and media that dominate, however, it’s unlikely we’ll have the motivation to fight for what is being lost. Worst of all, China remains free of the self-demonisation we have to endure, while we won’t be, under the increasingly censorious and illiberal trend of our governments, MSM and big tech. I don’t envy the Western young.
Law of Markets 