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Control & Mental Illness
In September 1984, a retired MD with a distinguished career including his role as an effective whistleblower at the FDA and a decorated WWII veteran made a strange public confession of a foul, disgusting personal habit in a letter to the editors of the Washington Post:
The Post later informed its readers that this letter generated a higher volume of written responses than any previous issue or story. “Nestoring” became a verb.
I will not bother discussing the traffic engineering concept of optimal speed, the certainty of increased congestion, increased probability of accordion-effect rear-end collisions from this practice. Nor the rightful rage it engenders.
What is of interest is the disordered need to regulate the behavior of others on display. Where does that come from? We saw that sick tendency erupt during the botched management of the COVID-19 crisis. Mask Nazis, linear 6-foot distance Blockleiters, and vaccine Stalinists who assumed supreme moral authority. No one who followed the data or read the available science on respiratory viruses believed any of that was effective, much less necessary. But the moral certainty and neediness of the enforcers overwhelmed many.
The science of the climate “crisis” strongly suggests that (a) the effect, degree of attribution, and presumed degree of certainty regarding the effect of anthropogenic emissions are greatly overstated and that (b) the proposed COP solutions such as the ones suggested in Kyoto/Paris/Dubai/etc would be hideously expensive yet provide little or no reduction of temperature. Nevertheless, the attraction of the moral imperative, to be able to take away travel freedoms, reduce and flatten the quality of everyone’s lifestyle, and mandate global obedience to the sensibilities and aesthetics of prosperous white leftists has become the opium of the elite.
The science of psychology is characteristically useless with respect to the likely cause of rising obsessions with control. Like Captain Louis Renault, it simply rounds up all of the usual suspects: Paranoia, Schizotypal, Narcissistic, Antisocial, Borderline, etc. could be some/all trying to deal with fear. Thanks a pantload, psychology.
The control issues of our time are also increasingly weird. Nobody is mobilizing to tell disturbed men they can’t wear dresses, lipstick, and heels but there is instead an enormous effort to control what we think about them when they do.
A sizeable proportion of our young people call for “safe spaces” that do not require us to think or grapple with hard questions. Dissent, disagreement, and challenges to ideological holdings must be kept outside of some magic border if not destroyed altogether. This is pathological.
The Founding Fathers went to some lengths to create a national ethos in which the people would disabuse themselves of the right (and ideally also of the inclination) to regulate the beliefs and behavior of others to the greatest possible extent. Either offer cogent, respectful arguments to the contrary and remain open to reciprocal dialog or accept and move on.
As long as we are each confident in both our moral position and in our fellow Americans’ willingness to protect our freedom to disagree, we can be the free people we are meant to be. We could all stand to learn from the exemplary, non-controlling, confident example of David Puddy.
Published in Culture
The rise of COVID Karens was actually more predictable than most of us realized. The desire to keep anyone from getting ahead is, I believe, a bigger driver than attaining one’s own success for a large cohort of people.
Im going to relate a story I’ve told for a long time. About 20 years ago some of the supervisors in our county departments figured out that they could have their employees work 4 ten hour days instead of 5 eight hour days. Offices like the tax office that had lots of direct citizen contact stayed on the 8 hour schedule, but probably half of the departments went to the 4 day work week. As time went on, employees on the 8 hour schedule complained more and more bitterly about the people on the 4 day week. The county commissioners finally got so tired of hearing about it that they forced everyone back onto the 5 day week schedule. Now, that’s a mark of cowardly politicians in my opinion. But think of the kind of person who was satisfied with that outcome. Happy that no one could get a better deal. Karens abound. Combine those people with the inexplicable collectivism of Gen Z and it’s a recipe for future disaster.
Nestor displayed true jackassery. What if there were a parent with a desperately sick child in the car trying to get to the hospital to save the child’s life? Nestor’s attitude was self-centered, narcissistic, and narrowminded. As if nobody could have a legitimate reason to exceed the speed limit!
I think people submit to control because they want the other guy controlled. Hence the popularity of voluntary homeowners’ associations (HOAs). :)
It is sad that we live in such a low-trust society.
Joe Righteous
BTW, there are still people that do that on the interstate here. Sometimes you roll up behind them on the way to an emergency. Newer emergency vehicles have LED lights you can probably see from the space station. These Nestors never see or hear you until you hit the siren multiple times right behind them, and then they panic because they won’t speed up to get out of the way. Incredibly dangerous. Usually we are in too big of a hurry to ask law enforcement to cite them.
That’s a great point. We had to take over our HOA board some years ago to shut down the Karens. 12 years of bliss. But that small group of people still rage about their neighbors. What’s really strange is all the habitual complainers are retired people, 70+.
Little else they can think of to do all day. When my husband was selectman years ago, that was true of our small town government too.
They’d be happier if they took up gardening. :) :)
In Texas it is illegal to drive in the left lane (for passing only).
Also, for climate change, CO2 emissions from China do not count. That tells us who sponsors that hoax.
In my case, it was a place I did some contract software work for, who declared that everyone had to start wearing a tie all the time because the salespeople – who were the only ones who actually dealt with the public – resented being the only ones required to wear a tie.
I quit that job immediately. The guy I mostly dealt with there, couldn’t understand why. To him, “Life is too short!” meant “tolerate everything.” To me, “Life is too short” means “tolerate NOTHING.” Such as, being required to wear a tie.
I haven’t lived in Oregon for a long time, but as I recall, it wasn’t illegal to pass someone on the right… it was illegal to be to the left of someone who passes you.
Kinda works out the same, but I appreciated that formulation.
Until recently I have always had the same strategy as Dr. Nestor. Smooth, safe, stress-free driving is the result, just as he says.
However, in recent years, I find that 55 is just too fast…all around me, things are moving and changing faster than I can react, due to the increased ability, which has come with my advancing maturity, to think through each new piece of information from the senses very deliberately before reacting to it.
I have settled on 45 mph as the optimum speed for driving in the left lane, as long as it’s sunny and the roads are dry.
Surprisingly, I have not experienced any of the anger that one hears about being directed at Dr. Nestor, and other practitioners of his method.
On the contrary, when one of the younger drivers is passing me on the right, he will often slow down sharply just as he draws even, so I have time to frame him clearly in my trifocals, and wave at me enthusiastically, with a hand sign that I take to mean, “You are Number One, Pops!”
Mr. Nestor is somewhat like me, except that the 55 MPH speed limit is now more like 70 MPH and I do try to avoid the left lane: Also, for sure, the right lane. But I move to the right for sirens with flashing red lights.
I used to do that, too. But a few times I got rear-ended by a firetruck that was passing me at high speed.
So now I just always stay in the left lane, and when one of the nice firemen wave the “thank you” finger signal as they zoom by, I smile and wave back cheerfully.
Never had either one of those happen. So far as I can recall.
Anyone going slow in the left lane should not be ticketed. They should be shot.
When I was teaching my kids to drive I instilled in them the following key guidelines:
I generally drive fast (my goal is second fastest on the highway), but still follow the above. Nestor acted like he owned the road and went out of his way to stake his claim on it.
Also, in most states it is against the law to travel in the left lane. I smile when I see cops pull over non-speeders who were traveling in the left lane for a long time, with no one in the right lane.
Much as I don’t like it when I have to listen to other motorists’ music, I also don’t like it when I’m forced into their driving decisions. The usual case is my evening commute to taekwondo where people can’t seem to see the 45 mph speed limit signs. They chill at 40 while checking phones.
The Nestoring phenomenon seems to be on the rise and there is no distinct profile to those who engage in it. I just as often encounter the driver that has to be “first” and will put everyone else in danger to reach that unattainable status.
Hear, hear!
42 mph minimum, unless you get distracted by a joke texted by one of your old buddies and absent-mindedly let your foot off off the gas.
Anyone who goes slow, or stops, in the left lane, while he looks for his car keys, should be shot!
Moderna, with Pfizer for second offense, and AstraZeneca for third offense.
Have you considered sensitivity training? HA!
If you ask me, the main reason people on the left have a compulsion to control others is because they have so little control over themselves, especially their emotions. When one has little control over one’s self, it is only natural to try and control other people and external circumstances beyond your control in order to make your own life more satisfying.
I think that is why conservatives on the whole are more confident and comfortable people while those on the left have more anxiety and depression.
What are the range of Ricochet opinions on tailgating, driving at excessive speeds, and operating derelict vehicles?
I haven’t tried it. OSU and UC Bearcat fans do seem to have a lot of fun at it.
No comment for the record. On background, I might be willing to respond.
Whenever I’ve been able to afford to drive anything else, starting with my gold-colored Ford Maverick, I’ve been consistently and firmly opposed. When I was driving the Triumph Herald whose engine I rebuilt with limited success, I was willing to make some allowances.
@NoCaesar: “I generally drive fast (my goal is second fastest on the highway), but still follow the above.”
“Second fastest on the high way” is also my strategy. I call the fastest “my rabbit”, which sometimes is actually a Rabbit or, as they call them now, a Golf. Invariably, a Nestor or a truck will insert itself between me and my rabbit, and I will lose contact with my rabbit. In those cases, I might become someone else’s rabbit, but generally I try to share rabbit responsibilities.
During the COVID pandemic I once got a bit too close (maybe within about 5 feet) of a woman in front of me in the supermarket checkout line.
She shouted: “You’re too close! You’re too close!”
I replied that there was nothing to worry about because my cat had given me a thorough bath before I came to do my shopping.
For some reason she didn’t think that was funny.
Go figure.
In South Carolina, we passed a law telling folks to pull into the right lane if there is a car or line of cars behind them, even if going the speed limit. It will probably rarely be enforced (where’s cop when you need one), but it’s on the books . . .
I know its not the point of your story but they should have gone with four 9s and a 4…
My life in the car got much better once I realized that there’s nothing wrong with letting a car get in front of me, and that’s there’s nothing wrong with tucking in behind someone instead of in front of them when merging.
Generally, I’d prefer to have the [REDACTED] drivers in front of me instead of behind me anyway. Easier to keep an eye on them and I don’t have to worry about getting rear-ended.
Thirty MPH means thirty MPH, not 31 or 32 or 35: To violate the law is hardly commensurate with Constitutionalism. Fastest (or second fastest) on the road means disregarding the law. If I don’t agree with the speed limit, I can work to change it.