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In praise of authoritarianism
Not from me; I say it’s spinach, and to hell with it. But others find it a good election message:
I don’t know if Ms. Berlinski endorses the particulars of D muthafargery. I don’t know if she just liked the swinging’-Richard coq-of-the-walk posture of muthafargery from an internet videosthat cherrypick moments from charismatic politicians who really said some things, y’all. But she’s on to something; weakness is not an effective message in 2020.
Still, it’s hard not to infer a trill of joy that the Ds are doing this, and hence will win. So.
Is it just me, but when the Ds have embraced every statist “solution” and intrusion into the economy, elevated identity politics to a religion, let cities burn, lost their voice when it came to condemning mobs that spatter every civic structure with obscenities, shrug at Jew-hatred when the popular people say it, promise to make citizens of illegal aliens, and recast the national narrative to conform to the 1619 project – complete with witch trials and struggle sessions for anyone who does not parrot the new history – well, perhaps your enthusiasm for competent, ruthless people might be less than enthusiastic?
Maybe it’s just me! But I’m trying to imagine a scenario in which ruthless statists is a concept that makes conservatives stand up and cheer.
Competent, ruthless people weld people’s doors shut to keep them inside when Covid strikes. Competent, ruthless people billyclub citizens who do not wear masks.
Competent, ruthless people enforce compliance with their ideas with every tool in the arsenal – legal, social, economic – because after all, the personal is the political.
Competent, ruthless people pack the Supreme Court.
Competent, ruthless people gun down protestors.
Sorry, reductio ad absurdum there, utterly unmoored from history. Sorry! It’s different in this context, because “ruthless” in American politics means an unwavering desire to pursue the necessary policies through the established system by whatever means necessary, yet scrupulously adhering to laws, norms, and conventions. That’s all!
Whatever: at least we have a standard. Competency is not enough. The necessity of defeating Trump requires not just the absence of ruth but its abolition. It needs a hard, pitiless heart, and this sentiment is best expressed with Quentin Tarantino dialogue to make sure we get the point. You know people are serious when they use the really bad swears.
Published in General
Me, too. Unfortunately, I always publish after only one or two.
Yes, I’ve seen that on other threads in the past. Seems to me like that’s something that can and should be stopped. And not just for her.
Yeah, if only we could stop her from voting everything would be right as rain.
Seriously, whats going to happen to the beautiful mosiacs in Hagia Sophia now that the Muslim Iconoclasts are defiling it again?
I’m sure there are probably thousands of people who would qualify. And if we’re worried about felons/prison inmates voting in Florida, why not worry about idiots voting in Paris?
Just make everyone vote in person at their local USA precinct.
I’d give you one election cycle to vote absentee overseas. After that you need to return to the US to vote in person to reset the ability to absentee again. People who are expats for prolonged periods should not vote in US elections.
Exemptions for people in literal government service.
Exactly. Mexico and others can allow that if they want, for their own – often corrupt – reasons, but that doesn’t mean we should.
I humbly submit that any efforts are better spent almost anywhere else.
Including government contractors overseas?
No.
I believe that the writing classes in the 18th century had arrived at a balance between alcoholic beverages and caffeinated beverages which permitted both productivity and long attention spans.
It was a mosque from 1453 to 1931, and most of that stuff is still there. In any event, short of mounting a crusade, what’s your plan?
The Nouns capitalized. And uſe of the long ſ.
Who said anything about “short of?”
As long as we are on the same page.
If it’s Kansas, it can’t be the Kansas City area. Would need to be something more in the interior. Salina? McPherson? Wichita might even be too urban to counteract Paris.
I won’t force her into someplace like Garden City. There aren’t even any interstates near there. That’s just cruel.
Are we talking Irish coffee, 4Loko, or vodka and Red Bull?
BTW, this is an 18th century-level run-on sentence. It should be written on parchment, in calligraphy, with every third or fourth word capitalized.
But, but , but as a visual not a verbal person, sometimes those run-on sentences express in one train of thought, as they should, the real message of the thought which just can’t quite be done as well with a series of short sentences, so I empathize particularly since I could be accused of using run-on sentences as well- a lot. So I am actually quite pleased that the esteemed James Lileks has joined the lowly me in the run-on sentence club.
Now that the Turks have turned Hagia Sophia back into a mosque I’m ready to sign up for a Crusade.
Now if only we could get rid of the Commie Pope through some sort of palace-Vatican intrigue like maybe we accuse him of being a closet Trump admirer or that he had a fun plane flight with Epstein and Hillary- he being a closet gay and all. Then perhaps we could get the next Pope to call for a “secret” Crusade against Turkey for persecuting Christians. We just won’t call it a Crusade but we all know what it will be !
Erdogan may make one mistake too many and it’s time for an invasion! Turkey as a quasi- Christian or perhaps just a neutral country in the religious wars could open up a huge opportunity for tourism if this damn COVID thing ever gets resolved.
We have military personnel who are likewise voting from overseas. It isn’t an issue.
I wonder how much a sudden lack of tourist dollars played into their decision in the first place.
Military personnel and their families are regularly sent home on a specific leave designed to prevent them becoming alienated from America.
You leave Americans in Stockholm long enough they’re liable to develop some kind of syndrome.
It’s a huge issue, their vote has been suppressed repeatedly. Under Obama, for example.
And I don’t believe anyone in the military would have their mind – and their vote – twisted as much as a (*spit*) “journalist.”
State Department too. My brother wouldn’t even cross the border from Montana into Canada for two days during a family vacation because the leave is to be spent in the US.
.
It’s a vacation with weapons.
Military reenactment! With live fire exercises! Fez’s not included.