In the United States, we tend to think of the Aussies as rugged individualists with little tolerance for government oppression. In that sense, we probably see some similarities between our two peoples. But as one Aussie analyst recently quipped during the evening news, the problem isn’t that Australia is peopled by folks who are the descendants of criminals and prisoners. The problem is that it’s being ruled by the descendants of jailors.
Oz loses it
New South Wales's government rattles itself to pieces.
Hamstringing your own IQ
Thoughts about reality testing, or what I would call the ostensible crime of "sowing seeds of doubt," from Jonathan Haidt at Persuasion:
In 1859, John Stuart Mill laid out the case that we need critics to make us smarter, and that we should have no confidence in our beliefs until we have exposed them to intense challenge and have considered alternative views:[T]he only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it.* * *
By abolishing the right to question, a monomaniacal group condemns itself to holding beliefs that are never tested, verified, or improved. We might even say that monomaniacal groups are likely to be wrong on most of their factual beliefs and their diagnoses of the problems that concern them. And if they are wrong on basic facts and diagnoses, then whatever reforms they propose to an institution are more likely to backfire than to achieve the goals of the reformers.
Maintaining a healthy skepticism is not the same as nihilism. We can remain open to information and ideas even while adopting temporary, tentative conclusions that aid whatever decisions cannot rightfully be postponed. There will even be times when a potentially temporary conclusion seems so obvious that we feel entitled, not only to adopt it for our own behavior, but to impose it on others by force. On those occasions, however, our willingness to tolerate seeds of doubt in ourselves and others is heightened, not relieved. As compelling as is our duty to use discernment and judgment in reaching conclusions that guide our own behavior, we'd better be all that much more rigorous in our discernment and judgment about people to whom we delegate power, or whose crusades we enlist in, because when we act in concert, we multiply both our power and our blameworthiness if we get it wrong.
We should be fastidious in action and the use of force, but generous in entertaining new data and counterintuitive notions. What I'm seeing increasingly in my country's culture is the opposite: careless abandon in imposing wild new schemes of mandatory behavior or commandeering of resources, combined with rigid control over the discussion and dissemination of contrarian ideas and puzzling information.
Rank Betrayal by the 82nd Airborne Commander
The 82nd is a storied unit, and one of the front line forces of the United States because of their rapid deployment capability. They take pride in this difficult duty, and as an Airborne unit their members are authorized distinctive maroon berets.
Most recently they were rapidly deployed to Kabul to shore up the airhead at HKIA during the military collapse in Afghanistan. For the most part these paratroopers behaved honorably during a difficult and sudden duty.
During the last hours of the evacuation, according to troops under his command and as documented by photographs and witness statements, Donahue ordered all of the passengers aboard a C-17 transport plane to disembark so he could have a souvenir loaded onto the plane. That souvenir, or “war trophy,” was an inoperable Taliban-owned Toyota Hilux with a fully operational Russian ZU-23 anti-aircraft autocannon mounted in the bed. Once the Hilux was loaded passengers were allowed back on the plane, but, of course, there wasn’t room for all of them. According to troops on the scene, at least 50 people and perhaps as many as 100 people were left at Kabul to make room for the Hilux.It is believed that many of those left behind have been or will be killed by the Taliban, in part because of information allegedly provided to Taliban commanders by Donahue himself....One military intelligence source, who requested anonymity, told RedState:“Some of those on the last planes out were key HUMINT assets. At least 50, likely as many as 100 were left behind after being removed from the flight. But the 50 were bonafide personnel that should have been evacuated. They will likely never be heard from again. The Taliban was given literally everything that would prevent any of those people from hiding or escape and evasion, and we know that there are a lot of ‘disappearings’ going on.”
Nor was that the only failure that the RedState report reveals. The commander did not apparently obey US laws governing war trophies.
He also failed to destroy sensitive equipment left behind, which can be reverse engineered by the Chinese military now operating in Afghanistan. Learning to defeat this counter-rocket-and-mortar technology endangers every ship in the US navy, should the Chinese go to war with us.
So far no accountability has occurred for senior leaders, though; only for the one guy brave enough to put his rank on the line and demand it. He's still in jail. Several Congressmen have demanded his release, so far fruitlessly.
The Fall of Númenor
I saw this at Dad29's place, and it's quite an essay. I won't excerpt it, but I will add that the king who captured Sauron and was later ensnared by him was Ar-Pharazôn the Golden. Probably there are few enough of us who would know that off the top of our heads.
Sent by a Friend
An Impeachable Offense
Dishonorably discharging those who have served honorably is malfeasance as Commander in Chief. This is a disgrace; forcing out servicemembers who won't take the vaccine is one thing, but treating them as felons and denying them the benefits they have earned at war is monstrous.
Potential consequences for non-compliance with Pentagon vaccine mandate are dire, including loss of eligibility for a range of important benefits, opportunities, honors and rights. A United States Marine corporal who served in Afghanistan during Operation Freedom Sentinel and Operation Southern Vigilance is facing dishonorable discharge for refusing to take the COVID-19 shots as required by the secretary of defense.Having been diagnosed with two heart conditions, arrhythmia and right bundle branch blockage, taking an experimental drug with unknown long-term side effects isn't a medical option for him, he says, especially since the shots have already been proven to cause blood clots and heart inflammation. However, he was informed that the only medical waiver he could receive was if he was diagnosed with congenital heart failure.
In terms of correlation-not-causation, anecdotal evidence, my blood pressure has shot from 120/80 before the vax into ranges that are causing the nurse practitioner I recently sought out for a physical to demand that I start taking medication. There's no obvious other explanation for why my blood pressure would shoot up tens of points on both scales in months; but if clots are thickening my blood, I might have all kinds of medical problems resulting from it. You can't ask a guy with known heart conditions to take the thing if a previously healthy guy like me develops serious conditions at least correlated with it and with no obvious other cause.
Likewise, in the UK there is a mysterious rise in heart attacks from blocked arteries. Correlation, not proven causation; but that doesn't make people less dead.
Using the weapon of dishonorable discharges -- a species worse than 'bad conduct' or 'other than honorable' discharges -- is evil and wrong. This guy deserves an honorable discharge, even if you parted ways with him on this contentious issue. Other case may be otherwise, but 'dishonorable' is almost certainly out of order. It denies you civil rights, including the right to own or bear arms. It's another weapon our enemies in our own government are using against all of us, any of us whom they can.
The Reverend on a Saturday Night
You'll doubtless get a different one on Sunday morning.
And because this is Grim's Hall, here's the Rev doing Johnny Cash.
Old Days Gone
Much of this has to do with the fact that the ‘Old’ left was young, and consequently lacked power; whereas the ‘Modern’ left is old, and has become possessed of all the power of the institutions.
A Plague of Locusts
Unfortunately my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, will be visiting all next week. I may be called upon to play host, or possibly may be in jail, so I might not be around as much this coming week.
Report: FBI Running Dragnet Against 200,000 Conservatives
The subject of the dragnet is reportedly Protonmail, which many of you may know. It's based in Switzerland, and is an encrypted email system that I've used for more than a decade. Of course it's not really secure; email is forever, and can never be really deleted. The FBI is asking for formal cooperation, but the NSA can definitely read it. So they already know what they're allegedly looking for; they just need a legal construction they can take before the courts.
There's not really a good way to communicate via encryption if you really want the government not to see the stuff. Here as elsewhere, you'd need to go lo-fi -- written letters, transmitted through trusted couriers. Cash payments instead of credit cards. Movement via vehicles that don't have electronics onboard, like old fashioned muscle cars or motorcycles.
If they couldn't beat the Taliban, they can't beat you. Not that any of you would consider doing anything they'd need to worry about anyway, not a fine upstanding lot like yourselves.
UPDATE: More on Protonmail being used by governments to prosecute activists.
An Actual Conspiracy
So, AVI is hosting a useful set of reposts about the dangers of paranoia and conspiracy theories. He and his commenters all have good points, and these things are worth keeping in mind.
At the same time, consider the Durham investigation (link is to an Andy McCarthy piece, whom I assume we all think of as a non-conspiracy theorist but rather a reasonably fair former prosecutor). This investigation is looking into what looks increasingly like a very successful conspiracy by the Clinton faction to suborn the national security state, paint Donald Trump falsely as a Russian spy, and obtain (a) FBI investigations that destroyed the lives of several citizens associated with him, none of whom proved to be working with Russia; (b) a Special Counsel investigation, accompanied by loud media coverage of how plausible it supposedly was that these were Russian spies; (c) two impeachments; and (d) the deposing and arrest of a National Security Adviser of the United States, who happened to be a retired three-star general who'd held security clearances his whole adult life (and was therefore regularly, rigorously investigated). Flynn was almost sent to prison, requiring a Presidential pardon to keep a Federal judge who'd bought into all of this from finding a way to put him behind bars.
Indeed, the Presidential election of last year -- one faction of which self-described as a 'conspiracy' -- was largely constructed around Biden's rhetorical painting of Trump as somehow a friend of Putin. This was never plausible; in fact, Biden's decisions e.g. on Russian pipelines have benefitted Putin's strategic position far more than anything Trump ever did. Yet people believed it, and still do believe it, because a vast number of respected professionals across government and the media all told them so.
Ask the same questions about that. How many people had to know? How many people participated without having to know, because they were willing to do just do what their faction asked? How many leaks were there over the years? How much did it matter, given that the media was aligned politically with the faction running the operation and therefore willing to play up the false stories and suppress the true ones? Did anyone have to ask, say, Rachael Maddow to take the latest Trump-Russia leak super seriously and trumpet it to her audience? Did she need to be in the know, or was she functionally a part of the conspiracy who didn't have 'need to know'?
I suppose I've been in a few conspiracies myself, some of them successful. It's not as hard to believe once you've seen it done, and once you've done it.
That said, paranoia really is dangerous, and many conspiracy theories really are false. I don't mean this as a counterargument so much as a counter-example; something to consider as leavening what are also important lessons.
Angry Parents are Domestic Terrorists
So says an organization representing school boards around the nation, calling for the PATRIOT Act to be used to quell parental uprisings.
UPDATE: President Biden's Education secretary says, 'Parents should not be "the primary stakeholder" in their children's education.'
Former* Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe says that parents shouldn't be telling schools what to teach.
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.
* See comments.
Science Deniers
Economics is a science, right? A dismal one, but a science all the same?
Related: An article in the Washington Post today discusses the need for a better sense of mathematics among Americans, to lead to a less stupid politics. Of course they want to stat with vaccines, because they want to get buy-in from their readers who largely agree that only dumb people resist vaccines; but then they move to Federal spending.
Last year [the Federal Government] spent $6.6 trillion. How much is that? Well, if you spent a dollar a second, you would finally spend $6.6 trillion by about 6 p.m. (as of writing) on April 30. Of the year 112,932. (It will be Wednesday, presuming the heat death of the universe has not yet occurred.)
Somehow this ends up being a justification for spending even more money, because we already spend so much that the 'much more' isn't so much by comparison.
"Super Speeder"
I was talking with an old Georgia friend, and she was telling me a fun story about a teenager she knew who got arrested last weekend. He'd been pulled over running a red light, and when they ran his license they found he had an unpaid "super speeder" ticket -- so they took him to jail.
"What," I asked, "constitutes a 'super' speeder?" She sent me the description of the new law.
I laughed, and told her "When we were kids, we just called that 'Friday night.'"
Manchin Talking Sense
Nice to see that one of the more sensible Democrats has the whip hand with the party.
The Republicans, as far as I can tell, are non-entities.
A Definite "No" From Me
Of course they were always going to decide that coronavirus response was the new model for government intervention in other areas our lives where they'd like control.
CDC implements study on "gun violence" after labeling it a "public health threat," aiming to "craft swift interventions, as they have done to contain the coronavirus pandemic and other national health emergencies." (NPR)
"Swift interventions" using "health and safety" to implement unconstitutional, tyrannical measures -- exactly as expected.
That's the problem with the slippery slope fallacy: people assume that because it's a fallacy, it won't happen. In fact, all that a fallacy means is that logic can't guarantee that it will happen. It very often happens exactly that way, because why shouldn't it? That's the way we did it last time.
A Visionary
I don’t always get modern art, but I really feel like I understand what this artist is trying to convey.
US Govt Blocks American Citizens’ Flight Home
This one isn’t my group, but an allied organization flying through Ethiopia. They have US citizens and green card holders, but Homeland Security says they can’t land anywhere in the USA.
Guess they should fly to Mexico and walk in like everybody else.
UPDATE: The organizers tell me they’ve actually discussed that option. There’s a logic to it: set one massive breakdown of the US government against another one, and maybe they’d cancel out.
Hot Rod Race
You've probably heard Hot Rod Lincoln many times over the years, and not just yesterday when we were mourning Commander Cody. But did you know that it was a reply to an earlier song? The older song, here, is figured in the opening lines: "Let me tell you a story about a hot rod race where the Fords and the Lincolns were setting the pace; that story is true, I'm here to say; I was driving that Model A."
You'll hear of that Model A again in this bit. It's not as good as the later song, but it's rock and roll history.
There's a follow-up piece.
There's a third one, as well, about the legal consequences.
And a fourth one, from the perspective of the Mercury.
So you can see how it was easy for another party to apply a reply to this tradition. Nor did it stop there; the Reverend Horton Heat added to the tradition many years later.
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