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Through A Tweet, Darkly
I understand lynching now.
The way the Covington boys were treated brought me a moment of clarity. The fundament for this understanding came not from the left (I know what to expect from them) but from the right. Watching in near real-time as thinkers, writers and pundits that I may not agree with but used to respect go off like Roman candles at the mere hint of a whiff of the notion that white teenage males wearing MAGA hats were everything bad in this world was a wake-up call. Those poseur “conservatives” are every bit as intellectually brutish, morally smug, and ideologically craven as those leftists that I despise so.
First, if you went off on a hair trigger after seeing a sliced and diced snippet of film taken at a political event and published by the mainstream media and assumed the very worst about people ostensibly on your side, then you are stupid. You aren’t bright enough to have gleaned the least clue as to the left’s hate-mongering, smear-hungry, hysterics-reliant playbook. Congratulations, you got played. It did not even occur to you that the March for Life would bring leftist provocateurs out of the woodwork to ply their sinister and dishonest trade. Really? Not even a little bit?
You are also stupid because, despite all your proclamations and protestations about being reasoned, balanced, phlegmatic thinkers, you cannot resist turning your opponents into two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. That’s what muttonheads do. Despite your smarts, you cannot see your opponents as three-dimensional moral agents. You cannot take a digital moment to ponder “why would they do that? Did they do that? What are the odds this happened as stated?” Sad.
Your provided aid and succor to those that would take your liberty, your property, and your legacy because you don’t like MAGA hats.
If you were willing to cast every aspersion upon a bunch of kids and throw in with the rabid digital mob that wanted to dox, punch and kill these kids, then I beg you to take some time for introspection. If you could do that digitally, then you could, in the flickering light of the torches, help body surf the rope over the crowd to string up that uppity black boy that allegedly looked inappropriately at a white girl. Honest truth.
C’mon. Wake up.
I wouldn’t presume to ask you to study critical thinking, reason, and rhetoric. You had to have had all those classes, even if you didn’t internalize them. I would admonish you to get off of Twitter. It’s hurting you. It’s hurting the way you think, the way you process information, and the way you weigh variables. I don’t know if it’s the thrill of being part of a digital mob, the instantaneous feedback, or them there dopamine hits all the egg-heads talk about, but it brings out your worst self.
If you are addicted to dopamine, c’mon down; I’ll teach you how to generate it unilaterally, internally. Because you aspire to be a conservative, I’ll give you a rate.
Published in General
Gross! The dude to chick ratio is definitely not to my liking. Oh and orgies are bad inherently, I guess.
I’ve walked out on orgies. Call me a prude.
I once fantasized about walking out on an orgy. Yeah, I was always a conservative.
I think I wouldn’t attend any orgy that would have me as a member.
Late to this thread, but this divine piece of writing – in addition to your many other fine offerings – is why you are known as BOSS Mongo! Really excellent. Thank you, @bossmongo, for saying what so many of us are thinking in your unique “voice.”
Aww, shucks. Thank you, Nerina.
I am curious to hear the details of these supposed incidents as well. Seriously. Going after family IRL is absolutely evil. People who do that should be prosecuted. If they are an active threat to your family, I will shed no tears if they get ventilated.
I know a lot of trolls were out and about on twitter, going for the most offensive statements possible. They are the most active, so they look bigger than reality. I heard lots of reports of vile insults on Twitter – the place is a toxic cesspool – but I had not heard of right wing thugs going after people in real life. Also, I’d like documentation if possible, like a police report, just to have a third party view.
Last but not least, the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer beat up on Antifa. While beating people up is a bad thing, it is not nearly as bad when it is directed at someone who is already there with the intent of hurting people, especially when the police are not maintaining order.
Or, sadly, they do…they just bank on not feeling the kiss of Madame la Guillotine themselves.
That’s how I saw it too.
I lean libertarian so I fantasized about orgies taking place in a capitalist system of free exchange.
This is hugely important. I know that smirk. Every parent of teen-aged boys should know that smirk. It is the uncomfortable smile of an overwhelmed man-child, who does not yet have all the tools he needs to cope with the situation. (“I don’t know what to do, but I can’t back down!”)
Here was a naive teen-ager, caught in the middle of something he did not understand, being drawn into a public confrontation by a seasoned political stunt man. It wasn’t a fair fight. And the entire MSM took the side of the professional provocateur, simply because the kid wore a MAGA hat.
You must attend boring orgies.
Precisely!
I’m on a break from Ricochet right now – I was put in time out on another thread and told I should wallow in my shame.
Jonah has mentioned how his wife and kids were insulted in a grocery store by Trump zealots.
Erick Erickson had folks show up at his home to express their displeasure back when he was still NeverTrump.
David French has had his family insulted for being multiracial by Trump supporters.
Some of these can be found with a quick google search, if you want to believe I’m lying about it that’s your prerogative.
Bye for a while – you guys can get back to the orgy.
Nobody likes an orgy interrupter.
Anyone who is a media personality is going to draw the fringe crazies. I think the real test is how often normal people, people who don’t make a living offering their opinions to the masses, are harassed for their political views. I don’t think it happens very often.
Really could not have said this better myself. I got pointed to the original edited clip by several people, some liberals and some conservatives all essentially asking me the same question, “…still think Trump and his fan base aren’t racists? …still think that white kids are getting taught to hate? …still think Trump isn’t ruining America?”
I replied the same way everytime, “…well, let’s take a look at the whole story. It doesn’t sound right to me? This just seems like too easy a punching bag, are you sure the story is accurate?”
And I waited… and I looked it up… and I waited… and I looked up more things. The truth came out but when I then reached out to those who had emailed me I got one of two responses: no response at all or I guess there is enough blame to go around. The first one is typical and embarrassed people will often retreat into silence hoping the whole thing get forgotten so they don’t have to apologize or explain they are going to hold tightly onto their bias regardless of events. It’s the second one that actually galls me. “enough blame to go around…” WHAT! Those kids did nothing wrong, they didn’t bring this on themselves and no, even if I don’t like Donald Trump, the MAGA hat isn’t some code for White Supremacy. Those who can still see the truth for what it is need to be firm in our resolve on this… the blame for this falls on the disgusting Black Hebrew Israelites, Nathan Phillips and his crew, and the hateful media.
Some 15 or 20 years ago Megan McArdle wrote about getting death threats which included her home address and the schools her children went to, imagine the threats Rush has received over the years. So this type of threat has been going on for some time, it is likely that almost all the public people we see have had experiences similar to those maybe just happening to the folks at NR. It is rotten. These type of threats are not just occurring to folks in the limelight, docs and layers and those who work with a large swath of the public interact with some who are sociopaths, and they receive death threats, like “I am coming to the office to kill you” or “don’t start your car or you will be blown up” are two of the quotes I know about personally. If we are concerned about this type of vicious behavior, then we have been way to passive when it has happened to others, like Memories Pizza, and even the Covington kids whose threats have not caused many writers to get all that animated.
I suspect Mark Steyn and his family get more threats in a day than all of Conservative Inc. get in a year. He just doesn’t talk about it as much. And his threateners have a proven track record.
Don’t you mean to say – “Ricochetti-Trumpers Pounce”
I made this quote on Stad’s post, but it seems applicable here:
Upon the eve of a Mongo doxxing:
Mongo: Attention in the house! Attention in the house! We have been doxxed! I say again, we have been doxxed! Intelligence assets report that buses full of protestors are in-bound! Battle Stations!!
Spawn of Mongo (SM): Dad? What got us doxxed? Was it your post that George Washington was the indispensable man–?
Prom Queen:–Or that MLKs dream that we should judge people by the content of their character is all you need to know about race relations–?
Rain:–Maybe that thing you wrote about how anyone that doesn’t like the electoral college can go suck eggs?
DemonSeed (DS), carrying a couple shotguns into the room, leaning them up against the wall: Hey! Doesn’t matter! This range is going hot! Woot! Woot!
The Lovely Talented Mrs. Mongo (TLTMM): Now, kids, settle down. Does everyone have their magazines?
All: Yes, Ma’am.
TLTMM: And does everyone have their range cards?
All: Yes, Ma’am.
TLTMM: Okay, kids. Have a great shoot. I’ll been in the kitchen. I’m sure you’ll want some warm cookies when you’re done.
(This was going to be about a 9 comment spiel, but this is enough)
I don’t think that you’re lying because I recall some of the incidents. I’ve long felt that, for one, French’s antipathy towards Trump is at least partially because of the unfortunate insults received from certain quarters. A problem arises, however, when the recipient of over-the-top insults assumes that their originators are representative of a larger group of supporters. My guess is that there’s some of that at work among the pundits.
Agreed.
Also, left and right don’t really have much in common. MAGA-wearing kids attending a pro-life rally are nothing like Wall Street occupiers or antifa thugs.
Phillips and gang have now been proven to have taken the opportunity to target these kids to dishonestly advance the notion that Trump supporters are racist aggressors. Who’s to say lefties haven’t done the same to David French’s family while claiming to be Trump supporters? And that said lefties knew to target anti-Trumpers because they’re the most likely to believe the lie that Trump supporters are thugs?
I’m in no way excusing such behavior, but after this last weekend I put nothing past the Left and am deeply skeptical of first impressions — even if they’re David French’s.
They do this all the time. I don’t believe Trump supporters did that. It’s out in the open that they planted someone at a Tea Party rally in front of cameras with a purposely misspelled sign. And that claim that a Tea Party member shouted out the “N” word? Nobody who was there heard it, and it was most likely made up. But it sure was the lead story on the MSM for a week.
Oh, and apparently Phillips has forgiven the boy. Seriously.
Someone showed up at a Tea Party event that I attended carrying a sign that said “Obama is a Martian Space Wizard.” And of course the news crew that was there flocked to this guy. I asked one of them “You realize that you’ve been jobbed, right?”
i don’t think he did.
So, no apology from him?
I thought he was the one wronged. That’s what I heard on TV.
Sadly, the group of group of people who jumped onto the bandwagon early and without much thought or evidence, seemed to include all of the top Ricochet commentators: Jonah Goldberg, Peter Robinson, Rob Long, even the dear James Lileks who first said “distrust, but verify” yet then seemed to ignore his own admonition.
Do you have links? I could use it as evidence in another thread.