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Another Democrat Reaches Enlightenment


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2021 Dec 9, 2:03pm   41,775 views  267 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (59)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-turn-liel-leibovitz?source=patrick.net


The Turn

When I saw the left give up everything I believe in, I changed politically. You can, too.

For many years—most of my politically cognizant life, in fact—I felt secure in my politics. Truth and justice, I believed, leaned leftward. If you were some version of a decent human being, you cared about those less fortunate than you, which meant that you supported a whole host of measures designed to even the playing field a little. Sometimes, these measures had unintended consequences (see under: Stalin, Josef), but that wasn’t reason enough to despair of the long march to equality. Besides, there was hardly an alternative: On the other end of the political transom lurked despicable creeps, right-wing orcs who either cared for nothing but their own petty financial interests or, worse, pined for benighted isms that preached prejudice and hate. We were on the right side of history. We were the people. We were the ones giving peace a chance. And, no matter the present, we were always the future.

This belief carried me through high school, and a brief stint in a socialist youth movement. It accelerated me in college, sending me anywhere from joint marches with Palestinians to a two-week hunger strike in Jerusalem trying (and failing) to lower tuition for underprivileged students. It pulled me to New York, to Columbia University, to more left-wing politics and activism and raging against Republicans whose agenda, especially in the 2000s, seemed like nothing more than greed and war.

And it wasn’t just an ideology, some abstract set of convictions that were accessible only through cracking open dusty old books. It was the animating spirit of life itself: The dinner parties I attended on the Upper West Side required dismissive comments on President Bush just as much as they did a bit of wine to make the evening bright, and there was no faster or surer way to signal to a new acquaintance that you were a kindred spirit than praising the latest Times editorial. It wasn’t performative, exactly. At least, it felt real enough, the reverent rites of a good group of people protecting itself against the bad guys.

I embraced my people, and my people embraced me. They gave me everything I had always imagined I wanted: a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university; a professorship at NYU, complete with a roomy office overlooking Washington Square Park; book deals; columns in smart little publications; invitations to the sort of soirees where you could find yourself seated next to Salman Rushdie or Susan Sontag or any number of the men and women you grew up reading and admiring. The list goes on. Life was good. I was grateful.

And then came The Turn. If you’ve lived through it yourself, you know that The Turn doesn’t happen overnight, that it isn’t easily distilled into one dramatic breakdown moment, that it happens hazily and over time—first a twitch, then a few more, stretching into a gnawing discomfort and then, eventually, a sense of panic.

You may be among the increasing numbers of people going through The Turn right now. Having lived through the turmoil of the last half decade—through the years of MAGA and antifa and rampant identity politics and, most dramatically, the global turmoil caused by COVID-19—more and more of us feel absolutely and irreparably politically homeless. Instinctively, we looked to the Democratic Party, the only home we and our parents and their parents before them had ever known or seriously considered. But what we saw there—and in the newspapers we used to read, and in the schools whose admission letters once made us so proud—was terrifying. However we tried to explain what was happening on “the left,” it was hard to convince ourselves that it was right, or that it was something we still truly believed in. That is what The Turn is about.

You might be living through The Turn if you ever found yourself feeling like free speech should stay free even if it offended some group or individual but now can’t admit it at dinner with friends because you are afraid of being thought a bigot. You are living through The Turn if you have questions about public health policies—including the effects of lockdowns and school closures on the poor and most vulnerable in our society—but can’t ask them out loud because you know you’ll be labeled an anti-vaxxer. You are living through The Turn if you think that burning down towns and looting stores isn’t the best way to promote social justice, but feel you can’t say so because you know you’ll be called a white supremacist. You are living through The Turn if you seethed watching a terrorist organization attack the world’s only Jewish state, but seethed silently because your colleagues were all on Twitter and Facebook sharing celebrity memes about ending Israeli apartheid while having little interest in American kids dying on the streets because of failed policies. If you’ve felt yourself unable to speak your mind, if you have a queasy feeling that your friends might disown you if you shared your most intimately held concerns, if you are feeling a bit breathless and a bit hopeless and entirely unsure what on earth is going on, I am sorry to inform you that The Turn is upon you.

The Turn hit me just a beat before it did you, so I know just how awful it feels. It’s been years now, but I still remember the time a dear friend and mentor took me to lunch and warned me, sternly and without any of the warmth you’d extend to someone you truly loved, to watch what I said about Israel. I still remember how confusing and painful it felt to know that my beliefs—beliefs, mind you, that, until very recently, were so obvious and banal and widely held on the left that they were hardly considered beliefs at all—now labeled me an outcast. The Turn brings with it the sort of pain most of us don’t feel as adults; you’d have to go all the way back to junior high, maybe, to recall a stabbing sensation quite as deep and confounding as watching your friends all turn on you and decide that you’re not worthy of their affection any more. It’s the kind of primal rejection that is devastating precisely because it forces you to rethink everything, not only your convictions about the world but also your idea of yourself, your values, and your priorities. We all want to be embraced. We all want the men and women we consider most swell to approve of us and confirm that we, too, are good and great. We all want the love and the laurels; The Turn takes both away.

But, having been there before, I have one important thing to tell you: If the left is going to make it “right wing” to simply be decent, then it’s OK to be right.

Why? Because, after 225 long and fruitful years of this terminology, “right” and “left” are now empty categories, meaning little more than “the blue team” and “the green team” in your summer camp’s color war. You don’t get to be “against the rich” if the richest people in the country fund your party in order to preserve their government-sponsored monopolies. You are not “a supporter of free speech” if you oppose free speech for people who disagree with you. You are not “for the people” if you pit most of them against each other based on the color of their skin, or force them out of their jobs because of personal choices related to their bodies. You are not “serious about economic inequality” when you happily order from Amazon without caring much for the devastating impact your purchases have on the small businesses that increasingly are either subjugated by Jeff Bezos’ behemoth or crushed by it altogether. You are not “for science” if you refuse to consider hypotheses that don’t conform to your political convictions and then try to ban critical thought and inquiry from the internet. You are not an “anti-racist” if you label—and sort!—people by race. You are not “against conformism” when you scare people out of voicing dissenting opinions.

When “the left” becomes the party of wealthy elites and state security agencies who preach racial division, state censorship, contempt for ordinary citizens and for the U.S. Constitution, and telling people what to do and think at every turn, then that’s the side you are on, if you are “on the left”—those are the policies and beliefs you stand for and have to defend. It doesn’t matter what good people “on the left” believed and did 60 or 70 years ago. Those people are dead now, mostly. They don’t define “the left” anymore than Abraham Lincoln defines the modern-day Republican Party or Jimi Hendrix defines Nickelback.

So look at the list of things supported by the left and ask yourself: Is that me? If the answer is yes, great. You’ve found a home. If the answer is no, don’t let yourself be defined by an empty word. Get out. And once you’re out, don’t let anyone else define you, either. Not being a left-wing racist or police state fan doesn’t make you a white supremacist or a Trump worshipper, either. Only small children, machines, and religious fanatics think in binaries.

Which isn’t to diminish the anger, hurt, and confusion you’re feeling just now. But it’s worth understanding that your story has a happy ending. The freedom you feel on the other side is so real it’s physical, like emerging from a long stretch underwater and taking that first deep breath in the cool afternoon air. None of it makes the lost friends or the lost career opportunities any less painful; but there’s no more potent source of renewable energy than liberty, and your capacity to reinvent—yourself, your group, your life—is greater than you realize.

So welcome to the right side, friend, and join us in laughing at all the idiotic name-calling that is applied, with increasing hysteria, to try and stop more and more normal Americans from joining our ranks. Fascists? Conspiracy theorists? Anti-science racist TERFs? Whatever. We have a better word to describe ourselves: free.


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80   Patrick   2022 Nov 7, 10:01am  

https://unherd.com/2022/11/why-im-voting-republican/


Why I’m voting Republican
Biden has left this Democratic voter with no alternative
BY ANDREW SULLIVAN
81   Patrick   2022 Nov 13, 8:30pm  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-won-over-a-liberal-canadian-midterms-red-wave-democrats-ideals-vote-election-leftist-violence-free-speech-11668197928


How the GOP Won Over a Liberal Canadian
The new left’s embrace of authoritarianism led me to question old loyalties.

As I watched the U.S. midterms election results come in, it was clear that the red wave wasn’t materializing. It was exactly what a lifelong liberal such as myself should want, right? My brain tried to convince me this was good news, but my heart wasn’t having it.

As the night wore on, the source of my unease became unmistakable: I couldn’t bring myself to sign up for today’s prevailing liberal movement, which has taken over, both in my homeland of Canada and in the U.S., the left-leaning parties I aligned with since my youth. It’s a movement I call the “new left.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the new left championed policies that jettisoned our most fundamental civil liberties. Whether the measures “slowed the spread” was beside the point: They threatened the foundational principles of liberal democracy and deserved public scrutiny. The new left was in no mood for scrutiny, though. Anyone who questioned its pandemic policies was branded a sociopath and a troglodyte. ...

I still care about many traditionally leftist ideals, from a livable minimum wage to universal healthcare. But my heart has started to put less weight on these and more on the fundamental freedoms the new left treats as disposable. The movement has exposed its deeply authoritarian stripes, which constitute a graver threat to the free world than anything the right is throwing my way.

The heart doesn’t compete with our rational thoughts, it reveals them. And what my heart told me on Election Day was that the new left had betrayed the values that meant everything to me. By the end of Tuesday evening, I was rooting for the red.
82   Patrick   2022 Nov 17, 10:28am  

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/journey-woke-capitalist-victim-woke-mob-levis/


How I went from woke capitalist to victim of the woke mob
Levi’s was among the wokest of the woke. And I was in on it
83   Patrick   2022 Nov 22, 11:54pm  

https://notthebee.com/article/watch-former-mumford-and-sons-musician-explains-why-hes-okay-with-being-canceled-for-liking-an-anti-antifa-book


Marshall's gut reaction, like all normal and polite people, was to apologize because he assumed the people offended knew something he didn't. But when he looked more into it and did his research, he realized that it was just hyper-sensitive woke reactionaries who were offended.

When Winston realized he was in the right and apologized simply to get out of the spotlight, he realized he shouldn't have backed down.


Rules #1, #2, and #3 are all NEVER APOLOGIZE.
84   Patrick   2022 Nov 27, 11:54am  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11472405/Manhattan-pharma-heiress-says-mom-hire-300-day-DEPROGRAMMER-help-unlearn-woke-views.html


Manhattan pharma heiress says her mom had to hire $300-a-day DEPROGRAMMER to help her unlearn crazed woke views after she was brainwashed while attending elite Mount Holyoke college
Annabella Rockwell, 29, graduated from Mount Holyoke in Western Massachusetts in 2015
She said it drove her to drink and made her briefly become estranged from her mother, who threw a vase during one of their arguments
Prior to attending the elite school, which charges $60,000 a year, Rockwell said she grew up in a 'traditional' and 'open-minded' household
While attending the school, she became 'indoctrinated' and was taught she was an oppressed victim of the patriarchy
Her mom hired a $300-a-day deprogrammer to help her daughter, which Rockwell credits for getting her back on her feet
'I just went down this deep rabbit hole,' she said 'If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be living in Massachusetts...and I’d be miserable'
85   Patrick   2023 Jan 17, 7:59pm  

https://slaynews.com/news/san-diegos-rich-and-famous-residents-revolt-we-have-had-enough-we-are-no-longer-going-to-follow-other-once-great-american-cities-into-the-abyss-of-homelessness-lawlessness-and-ro/


Two San Diego residents have reached their limit with the homeless and crime crisis hitting the city.

Former NBA star Bill Walton and business owner George Mullen have vowed to stop the city from following “other once-great American cities into the abyss of homelessness, lawlessness, and roadside shantytowns.”

San Diego has the fifth-highest homeless population in America and the third-largest in California.

Walton and Mullen co-authored a Times of San Diego opinion column where they promoted a grassroots effort to build a site to house the homeless called Sunbreak Ranch.

They wrote: “Most of us can no longer walk or bicycle our downtown city streets, sidewalks, and parks without facing an obstacle course of tents, bodies, human excrement, needles, trash, and a slew of walking zombies who are impossible to distinguish between those just down on their luck and others who are out-of-control substance abusers about to attack us.


I'm glad they woke up, but I don't think "Sunbreak Ranch" is going to work.
86   Misc   2023 Jan 17, 11:47pm  

Nothing a little napalm can't cure.
87   Patrick   2023 Jan 23, 11:28am  

https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2023/01/23/layed-off-google-employees-learn-the-hard-way-that-woke-corporations-dont-actually-care-n692718


Laid-off Google Employees Learn the Hard Way That Woke Corporations Don't Actually Care ...

According to the New York Post, employees suddenly found themselves jobless through an “automated account deactivation at 3 am.”

“It’s hard for me to believe that after 20 years at #Google I unexpectedly find out about my last day via an email,” wrote one Twitter user. “What a slap in the face. I wish I could have said goodbye to everyone face to face.”
88   AmericanKulak   2023 Jan 23, 3:30pm  

I suspect Google did this to stop their woke workforce from having a spontaneous demonstration/flipout.
89   mell   2023 Jan 23, 3:35pm  

AmericanKulak says


I suspect Google did this to stop their woke workforce from having a spontaneous demonstration/flipout.

Agreed. I think they are cutting back on woke after realizing that they can't push the Djinn back into the bottle, it's a fine line between spreading woke via algorithms and going down in flames by way of woke employees.
90   HeadSet   2023 Jan 23, 4:33pm  

AmericanKulak says

I suspect Google did this to stop their woke workforce from having a spontaneous demonstration/flipout.

Or getting rid of the useful idiots that are now a liability.
93   HeadSet   2023 Jan 24, 5:20pm  

Harrelson is full of shit. Government is about power and use of force. Business is about free exchange, Governments controlling business is called fascism, while businesses controlling government is called corruption.
94   Patrick   2023 Feb 2, 10:40am  

https://adambcoleman.substack.com/p/i-gave-up-political-party-affiliation


I Gave Up Political Party Affiliation & Chose Me Instead

Often when people disassociate from one political party, they immediately go to the opposition.

However, when I abandoned the Democrats, I didn't become a Republican. I purposely chose to avoid party affiliation and become a values oriented Independent.

There is a negative sentiment that's sometimes expressed about Independents as being fence sitters who are afraid to pick a side. We're just "hedging our bets" and loyalty is needed in the world of politics because there is only one right side. I completely disagree with this.

I spent years as a Democrat going along with the narrative and what was expected of a good moderate Democrat. I advocated for positions that I didn't feel completely comfortable with. I held animosity for the other side when I really didn't even understand their perspective.

Far too many people see politics like sports, where every election cycle will be the year their team wins the championship & when they don't, it's because the referees fixed the game. They even put bumper stickers on their car like they would their favorite college football team.

I put my old party in front of my value system and excused bad political behavior from the left. I learned half the story about the political landscape because they purposely set it up that way.

Neither party wants you to understand fully how the other side thinks because then you'd start to get along. You'd realize you have more in common than different & that's not sufficient for either party as it would debunk partisan narratives that they're constantly feeding you. ...

We spend too much time attacking individuals instead of dissecting the terrible ideas they're projecting into the world. Too many are feverishly partisan and take the bait for red meat rage for a quick endorphin hit meanwhile gaining nothing long term for it.

And then we spread the lie that the country is split 50 / 50 to manufacture more enemies to attack (it’s actually about 25 / 25). There are more Independents & apolitical than either party possess. You might not see this because you're probably too busy being amped up to fight on behalf of your party's elites.
95   mell   2023 Feb 2, 1:20pm  

Patrick says


https://adambcoleman.substack.com/p/i-gave-up-political-party-affiliation


I Gave Up Political Party Affiliation & Chose Me Instead

Often when people disassociate from one political party, they immediately go to the opposition.

However, when I abandoned the Democrats, I didn't become a Republican. I purposely chose to avoid party affiliation and become a values oriented Independent.

There is a negative sentiment that's sometimes expressed about Independents as being fence sitters who are afraid to pick a side. We're just "hedging our bets" and loyalty is needed in the world of politics because there is only one right side. I completely disagree with this.

I spent years as a Democrat going along with the narrative and what was expected of a good moderate Democrat. I advocated for positions that I d...

That's fine, but you should not splinter unnecessarily if you run for an office, sometimes you have to make compromises to achieve your ultimate goal, e.g. political influence. In fact the Republican party right now tolerates almost 180 degree dissent, there are de facto demonrats, neocons and tea partiers and constitutionalists in the party. Maybe one day the US is ready for more parties, even if just a 3rd one, but there is a clear choice IMO for the lesser evil, there has been since the demonrats went completely full spastics globalist marxist retard. It's every free citizen vs the leftoids now, it has been for a few years.
96   Ceffer   2023 Feb 2, 2:44pm  

One of my Libby neighbors (on the civil servant gravy train) in tri valley stopped to chat with me. Topic veered to San Francisco and he was talking about going up there and seeing every third car along a street he was visiting with shattered windows. I had told him that I carried my stuff around with me and didn't leave it in the car in Santa Cruz because of one break in tutorial in my own driveway there.

He kept talking about the crime, and I thought it was time to pounce, and I told him what did he expect with fake elections and installed pervert office holders. He looked like I hit him with Thor's hammer, and sort of mumbled, well, what about the Republican perverts. Then, he just said we won't talk about that any more to remain cordial. Maybe we'll stay friends, maybe not, but somebody at some time has to put it up to them if they continue to have their heads that much up their asses to stay in their state of blissful denial. They won't acknowledge until they hear the warm thump of dead bodies on their own front lawns, or they are forced to quarter some nice Somalis with machetes.

I am that sick of the coastal elite enablers of communist insanity. A year ago I wouldn't have blurted that out.
97   AmericanKulak   2023 Feb 2, 5:58pm  

Ceffer says

mumbled, well, what about the Republican perverts.

"What Republican perverts? None of them get elected in SFBA, they have nothing to do with this bullshit."
98   richwicks   2023 Feb 2, 7:15pm  

AmericanKulak says

Ceffer says


mumbled, well, what about the Republican perverts.

"What Republican perverts? None of them get elected in SFBA, they have nothing to do with this bullshit."


Pfft. Dennis Hastert was a pedophile, and he's an UNPROSECUTED one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert#Sex_abuse_scandal_and_federal_prosecution

There's no difference between the parties, or at least the party leadership. The only thing the Republican party has done in the last 30 years was done under a lifelong Democrat that changed political affiliation in 2000 who later on when to beat Hillary Clinton for the presidency. Trump is a classic 1960's NYC democrat.
99   AmericanKulak   2023 Feb 2, 7:25pm  

Not the point. The point is SFBA democrats perverts ARE responsible for SFBA woes.

Not a foot-tapping Republican Senator from Idaho or any other Republican Page-chaser from West Palm.

Hastert and the rest were gay or pervs, but they didn't write pro-perv laws, and certainly not in Cali or SF specifically. SF/Cali Dem Perverts do write the pro-perv laws.

The knowing spread to an unknowing victim of HIV is now basically a parking ticket, not because of Denny Hastert in Idaho or Mark Foley in Florida, but because of pro-perv CA Dem laws to protect nasty STD HIV "Bug spreaders"

Just like the severe beating of a guy by 5 Black Cops in a city with an 8 of 12 Black City Council with a Black Mayor and Black Female Police Chief has nothing to do with White Supremacy, even if there were actual White Supremacists in Government outside of Memphis.
101   richwicks   2023 Feb 3, 1:53am  

AmericanKulak says


Hastert and the rest were gay or pervs, but they didn't write pro-perv laws, and certainly not in Cali or SF specifically. SF/Cali Dem Perverts do write the pro-perv laws.


I have a big problem with hypocrisy among law makers and law enforcement.

It's one thing to believe what you are doing is right, but it's much worse when you're actively being hypocritical.

You can explain how somebody who is wrong is wrong, you can't explain it to a hypocrite, they are worse than people who are in the open. People knew Pete Buttigieg was homosexual when they elected him, IF they actually elected him. People who are secret hypocrites, they are much worse.

AmericanKulak says


Hastert and the rest were gay or pervs, but they didn't write pro-perv laws, and certainly not in Cali or SF specifically. SF/Cali Dem Perverts do write the pro-perv laws.


Hastert was on the "United States House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families" - he's a predator. Same sort of guy that would become a priest to get access to choir boys.

Did you know what he did on the committee? I don't either. I'm doubtful he actually did anything good.

I don't mind people who have sexual perversions, however, they shouldn't inflict them upon children, and even more, they shouldn't be secretive and underhanded. I think Dennis Hastert was.

This isn't democratic/republican problem.

And I got no problem with Larry Craig, other than he was a hypocrite. Honestly, I don't need to know who or what you're fucking, and nobody does. As long as it's all consensual among ADULTS, I don't give a shit, and I don't think it should be public to CHILDREN and really, it doesn't need to be public at all. It's none of my goddamned business, or yours, as long as it's just among ADULTS.

I don't need to see Pete Buttigieg feeding "his" child with fake boobs. I don't need to see a congresswoman feeding her child with her real boob. Work is work, private life is private.

When I was a kid, after I left high school, it became obvious to me that two female teachers were in a lesbian relationship. They made hints about it, but they weren't overt about it. I didn't know if 1/2 my teachers were even married. None of my goddamned business and that's the way it ought to be. I prefer this sort of professional relationship. At work, no distractions, nothing should be revealed within work. If you make outreach, or they do, that's OUTSIDE of work.

I confess, I have discussed politics, but I kept it only at the level of concepts and ideals, I never defended individuals or parties - only what they did as individuals and parties. I defended Trump as only the first president in 40 years not to start a new war, and although he was deeply flawed, not murdering people was a good thing. What I got back was that Obama legalized gay marriage - as if that is justification for him bringing back slavery to Libya.
102   mell   2023 Feb 3, 9:17am  

richwicks says


This isn't democratic/republican problem.

Yes it is. why do you keep repeating falsehoods. It's better if you have one party writing laws against child molestation and perversion, even if their OWN party members (e.g. hastert) get caught up in it. What is so hard to understand about this? The leftoids demonrats WRITE LAWS LEGALIZING SEXUAL MOLESTAION AND GROOMING OF CHILDREN! This is 100% on the demonrats and the left, the Republicans at least keep introducing bills curbing that shit everywhere. If the left had introduced a bill to prosecute a sitting president for war crimes if they start a war without congress declaring war I would have supported it as well, doesn't matter. But they didn't. The left and the demonrats are infinitely more corrupt than the Republican party, bringing the nation closer to tyranny every second they have control. The Republican party is 100000000 x better than the left.
103   mell   2023 Feb 3, 9:24am  

The current demonrat party is unelectable as they have people openly promoting, legalizing and engaging in pedophilia, race hate rwanda style, economic destruction of the middle class, forcing deadly experimental inoculations mengele style onto the public while exempting themselves. Not a democrat/republican problem my ass. The last 3 years it has been 100% a demonrat problem. They are so far gone off the rails to the left that castro and lenin would have been deemed moderates in today's democratic party.
104   GNL   2023 Feb 3, 9:29am  

gabbar says





I'd go a step further and say centralization is the biggest problem.
105   GNL   2023 Feb 3, 9:34am  

mell says

Patrick says



https://adambcoleman.substack.com/p/i-gave-up-political-party-affiliation



I Gave Up Political Party Affiliation & Chose Me Instead

Often when people disassociate from one political party, they immediately go to the opposition.

However, when I abandoned the Democrats, I didn't become a Republican. I purposely chose to avoid party affiliation and become a values oriented Independent.

There is a negative sentiment that's sometimes expressed about Independents as being fence sitters who are afraid to pick a side. We're just "hedging our bets" and loyalty is needed in the world of politics because there is only one right side. I completely disagree with this.

I spent years as a Democrat going along with the narr...

Yes, and because the Demonrats have gone so far off the deep end, the Republicans can get away with even more now.
106   mell   2023 Feb 3, 9:41am  

GNL says


mell says


Patrick says


https://adambcoleman.substack.com/p/i-gave-up-political-party-affiliation


I Gave Up Political Party Affiliation & Chose Me Instead

Often when people disassociate from one political party, they immediately go to the opposition.

However, when I abandoned the Democrats, I didn't become a Republican. I purposely chose to avoid party affiliation and become a values oriented Independent.

There is a negative sentiment that's sometimes expressed about Independents as being fence sitters who are afraid to pick a side. We're just "hedging our bets" and loyalty is needed in the world of politics because there is only one right side...






The Republicans got away with a lot of shit under W boosh, probably the culmination of their corruptive reign. However, none of this comes even close to what the demonrats have done the past 3 years in damage to the American people. None of it comes close in terms of passing and declaring unconstitutional oppressive orders. The worst Republicans passed was the partiot act - it's pretty bad, but it's nothing compared to what the demonrats have been dong the past 3 years. And the reason you don't see more Republican politicans rising up is because if active intimidation, such as calling for prosecution if you disseminate info from crackhead hunters laptop. Not everyone is corrupt and in on it. MTG had her home swatted umpteenth times. You want to go through this with your family? Then step forward. The demonrats are modern domestic terrorists.
107   FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden   2023 Feb 3, 9:49am  

man both parties are full of shit and corruption. its why im independent.
108   mell   2023 Feb 3, 9:52am  

FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden says

man both parties are full of shit and corruption. its why im independent.

You can be independent all you want, when it comes to vote and 2 parties are the choice given and you throw away your vote instead of voting for the lesser evil, you inflict more pain onto your family and society. Everybody knows that whole DC is corrupt, it always has been, comes with the territory. But there is a clear difference between the two parties. And it's huge, despite the corruption.
109   FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden   2023 Feb 3, 10:01am  

mell says


FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden says


man both parties are full of shit and corruption. its why im independent.

You can be independent all you want, when it comes to vote and 2 parties are the choice given and you throw away your vote instead of voting for the lesser evil, you inflict more pain onto your family and society. Everybody knows that whole DC is corrupt, it always has been, comes with the territory. But there is a clear difference between the two parties. And it's huge, despite the corruption.



i don’t see much party difference, both do same shit, because both are representative of american culture. they all protect their sacred corporate interests.
110   Patrick   2023 Feb 5, 8:48pm  

https://sashastone.substack.com/p/how-the-legacy-media-lost-my-trust#details


How is it that I, a once-former blue-check Democrat and loyal Hillary Clinton/Joe Biden supporter began watching Tucker Carlson in the first place?

How is it I can withstand the hysteria that arises from my friends and family should I dare mention Carlson’s name in their presence? Well, it all started with the truth.

Mark Twain said a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth is putting its boots on. But he also said if you tell the truth you never have to remember anything. I have found that I care about the truth. I care enough to seek it out, no matter where it takes me.

I first found Tucker Carlson in the Summer of 2020. I had just learned the unbearable truth that journalists in the mainstream had gone completely silent on the protests erupting on the streets in nearly every city. I understood why they would avoid the looting and the destruction in mostly Black cities. But why were they ignoring the bizarre nightly rituals in Portland and Washington by mostly white kids, a kind of strange bacchanalia of social justice warriors coming of age and feeling their newfound rapture?

Why were they ignoring what was actually happening? Why was it such a brave act for Michael Tracey to cover the destruction of mostly minority-owned businesses? Why were there suddenly so many journalists being fired, canceled, and sent into exile on Substack? What was going on and where could the truth be found?

Well, I found it on the Right. I did this out of desperation because of what had happened to the Left. The first thing I found was Tucker Carlson not flinching even a little to report on what was actually happening on the streets. My side would call that racist, to even report on it, to notice it, to care about it. If you were worried about the curfews, the broken glass, the theft you did not care about the plight of Black men at the hands of police and you did not care about systemic racism. You were a bad person, a RACIST.
111   Patrick   2023 Feb 5, 8:53pm  

In the above post, she talks about the Columbia Journalism Review finally admitting that the Russiagate hoax was indeed a complete fabrication, and the Russians had nothing to do with Trump winning in 2016:

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php
112   richwicks   2023 Feb 6, 1:25am  

Patrick says


In the above post, she talks about the Columbia Journalism Review finally admitting that the Russiagate hoax was indeed a complete fabrication, and the Russians had nothing to do with Trump winning in 2016:

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php


It's just a naked attempt to regain credbility.

Our establishment media always does this to pretend they were fooled, instead of being dishonest. When their lies are pointed out, they will point out that article. NY Times did this with Judith Miller more than 15 years ago, although nobody read the "apology" of their "error". These people are systematic propagandists. There's no fixing of them.

We all learned about "yellow journalism" - well, it never went away, it just was moved to serve the state.
113   casandra   2023 Feb 6, 9:51am  

Even minded citizens who think rationally are becoming a minority as the powers have invested in creating a class of people who want free money from the government and allowing felons and homeless and immigrants to vote. By the time more people wake up they will realize too late that they are out voted at every level.

I'm beginning to see this scenario play out in places where my liberal friends are noticing problems in their neighborhoods and thinking conservatively, but alas its really too late for them there. My advice is "JUST MOVE!"

Your leaders have fooled you for your vote and you have been betrayed!
114   Patrick   2023 Feb 6, 9:58am  

richwicks says

Our establishment media always does this to pretend they were fooled, instead of being dishonest.




115   HeadSet   2023 Feb 6, 11:22am  

casandra says

I'm beginning to see this scenario play out in places where my liberal friends are noticing problems in their neighborhoods and thinking conservatively, but alas its really too late for them there. My advice is "JUST MOVE!"

No, don't tell them to move! They will just move to an unspoiled conservative area and bring their woke politics with them. Tell them to stay put and fix it.
116   HeadSet   2023 Feb 6, 11:24am  

casandra says

allowing felons and homeless and immigrants to vote. By the time more people wake up they will realize too late that they are out voted at every level.

The homeless and migrants are just space holders. They need not even vote, it is just the afterhours manufactured ballots will be said to have come from them.
117   Patrick   2023 Feb 15, 8:25pm  

https://sashastone.substack.com/p/did-i-just-leave-a-cult#details


Most of the cults back then always collapsed under the weight of their own utopian ideals, sex and financial scandals would rise out of the ash heap of failure.

Whatever was left swirled down the drain in the wake of Watergate, the end of Vietnam, and the failure of the Carter presidency, not to mention the more terrifying events like the Manson murders. It was not cool to be a hippie anymore. But their kids, kids like me, would grow up lost too - worse than lost. Depressed, full of anxiety, and in need of a fix.

We sought out therapy to talk about our bad childhoods. We gathered to watch Oprah every day at 3. We wanted to fix ourselves and thought we could. It was self-help books and anti-depressants. It was yoga, aerobics, meditation, juice cleanses, fasting, and gurus.

First, we focused inward, then we focused outward. Then it was climate change, women’s rights, racial injustice, cloth diapers, hybrid cars, cruelty-free cosmetics, feeding the hungry, and eventually, we had kids and then we sought about fixing them. They had to be perfect too because otherwise all of the work we did on ourselves was for naught. ...

Imperfect children were diagnosed with this disorder or that, even as toddlers, then we would drug them into perfection. We gave our children nowhere to escape. So they escaped online.

Eventually, though, all points led to Barack Obama. A perfect president for a perfect utopia of perfect people raising perfect kids. We were good puritans, utopians who had fixed ourselves, and our kids, and now we had a president to fix our country.

That feeling most of us had when Obama won was like a religious awakening, filling up a hole that had been left empty for decades.

Finally, what we had been searching for, working toward, and desperately craving had arrived: a collective sense of purpose embodied in the first Black president. The idea of the “first” was the high we were chasing, and would keep chasing to find ultimate purity.

But sooner or later you run out of the ones that already exist so then you have to start inventing new ones, finding new ways to define people as marginalized. Who is not accepted by Hollywood? Who is never noticed in public? Who is shamed or ridiculed or bullied? Those people needed rescuing and we were going to rescue them.

Everyone else, which was mostly everyone, was to be named as the oppressors. The more successful, the more oppressive.

Meanwhile, many of our kids began creating and inventing their own religion online, a jacked-up version of ours based solely on identity, purity, and a binary measure of people who are good and people who are bad. They didn’t realize it but they were building a utopian cult that would grow up, join the workforce, and completely overtake the Left. We saw the beginnings of it at Evergreen College in 2018. ...

Though it took me a while to really understand what had happened to the Left, I knew eventually it would drive me away. I was with them as a loyal Democrat who really was a true believer in the Party and even the social justice movement for a time. But then it got weird. Really really weird.

I spent a few years trying to fight with them, pushing back against the many cancellations, trying to convince my friends and family that something was very wrong with the Left but none of them would listen to me. They were in a kind of “mass formation” fugue state and all they could do was try to pull me back into the fold. Even now they show up with their fingers pointed, accusing me of being a heretic, a blasphemer, a witch.

They whisper about me behind my back, they gossip and worry and fret about what happened to me, why I went so wrong. They seem to think that nothing is quite as bad on the Left as Trump. So they keep asking me, “are you a Trump supporter now?” And “Are you voting for Trump?” If I answer yes, then they have their confession and they can feel satisfied that they were right to throw me away like human garbage. But I don’t answer because I don’t know.

What I do know is that it was a lie that we were the resistance. We were always the empire. It was a lie that Trump was a fascist. We’re closer to fascism now than we’ve ever been as a country with the Democrats in power. And it was always a lie that Trump World was a cult.

What kind of cult leader takes credit for the vaccine and then can’t get his supporters to take it? Wouldn’t they have complied like everyone on the Left? Did Jim Jones allow anyone to not drink that flavoraid laced with cyanide?

The cult of the Left is ruled by fanatics, zealots, and true believers. While there really are people who suffer from gender dysphoria - and trans people do exist, in my view - they aren’t part of the cult of the Left so much as they have become sacred symbols of it. ...

The women are bad enough - trading their journey of empowerment for endless self-punishment over their whiteness. So now their children are being used as sacred symbols for their path toward salvation. They might not be sacred themselves but they are “holy mothers” of the sacred which gives them some status.

Cults separate children from parents. Cults separate mothers from their biological impulse to protect their children. Watching Democrats wear pins to the State of the Union that said “abortion” was yet another sign that the cult seeks to destroy the bond between mother and child. ...

But that’s nothing compared to the “Good White Men” of the Left. They have had to erase themselves in real time, as though they alone can roll back thousands of years of men being in charge. ...

Their only outlet is to take to Twitter and unleash all of their pent-up frustration at their own muted masculinity. They can call Marjorie Taylor Greene “white trash” and feel perfectly justified in it. They know no one will call them a sexist. They can openly mock Justice Clarence Thomas knowing they will not be called a racist.

It must feel so good to beat their chest and cosplay being the men they once were, instead of the melted goo that they are now.

This is why Joe Biden must flank himself with Black women and why Hollywood hides behind Black actors in their films, their advertising, and their award shows. Biden and the Democrats believe they really have changed things by re-ordering the social hierarchy.

If you don’t think it’s a cult, just today, the Hollywood Reporter published a letter from celebrities demanding the already OH SO WOKE COULDN’T POSSIBLY BE MORE WOKE New York Times change their coverage of transgender issues...

That they believe they can control what people think if they bully the New York Times into compliance, or they silence dissent is, well, the stuff of cults. ...

Years from now when all of these young people come to us to ask, Where were you? Why didn’t you protect us? What are we going to say? That we were too afraid? Many of them are going to have major health problems for life and probably not be able to bear children or breastfeed them and we’re supposed to sit idly by and say nothing?

What it is we’ve been searching for on the Left is simply a way to replace the religion we lost long ago. I know that now. That is something I am going to have to find a way to reconcile in my own mind and heart. ...

We should never have to live in a country where we are afraid to express ourselves, to have conversations about complex topics, and above all, have the courage to stand up and protect kids. I can’t think of any higher purpose than that.
118   Patrick   2023 Feb 19, 3:43pm  

https://etana.substack.com/p/jennifer-seys-journey-to-medical


Jennifer Sey's Journey to Medical Freedom and Free Speech
Jennifer Sey, former Brand President of Levi's, discusses her journey from the corporate world to the world of medical freedom advocacy.
119   Patrick   2023 Mar 9, 4:02pm  

https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-conservatives-i-am-sorry


Dear Conservatives, I Apologize
My "Team" was Taken in By Full-Spectrum Propaganda

There is no way to avoid this moment. The formal letter of apology. From me. To Conservatives and to those who “put America first” everywhere.

It’s tempting to sweep this confrontation with my own gullibility under the rug — to “move on” without every acknowledging that I was duped, and that as a result I made mistakes in judgement, and that these mistakes, multiplied by the tens of thousands and millions on the part of people just like me, hurt millions of other people like you all, in existential ways. ...

The proximate cause of this letter of apology is the airing, two nights ago, of excepts from tens of thousands of hours of security camera footage from the United States Capitol taken on Jan 6, 2021. The footage was released by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson [https://www.axios.com/2023/03/08/mccarthy-defends-jan-6-footage-tucker-carlson-fox-news].

While “fact-checkers” state that it is “misinformation” to claim that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi was in charge of Capitol Police on that day [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/27/fact-check-nancy-pelosi-isnt-in-charge-capitol-police/8082088002/], the fact is that the USCP is under the oversight of Congress, according to — the United States Capitol Police: [https://www.uscp.gov/the-department/oversight]. ...

There is no way to unsee Officer Brian Sicknick, claimed by some Democrats in leadership and by most of the legacy media to have been killed by rioters at the Capitol that day, alive in at least one section of the newly released video. The USCP medical examiner states that this Officer died of “natural causes,” but also that he died “in the line of duty.” Whatever the truth of this confusing conclusion, and with all respect for and condolences to Officer Sicknick’s family, the circumstances of his death do matter to the public, as without his death having been caused by the events of Jan 6, the breach of the capitol, serious though it was, cannot be described as a “deadly insurrection.” [https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/press-releases/medical-examiner-finds-uscp-officer-brian-sicknick-died-natural-causes] Sadly, though the contrary was what was reported, Officer Sicknick died two days after Jan 6, from suffering two strokes. https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/capitol-police-officer-brian-sicknick-died-of-natural-causes-after-suffering-two-strokes-day-after-jan-6-report/ ...

And remember, by law that footage belongs to us — it is a public record, and all public records literally belong to the American people. “In a democracy, records belong to the people,” explains the National Archives. [https://www.archives.gov/publications/general-info-leaflets/1-about-archives.html] ...

I was oddly unsurprised to see the “Q-Anon Shaman” being ushered through the hallways by Capitol Police; he was ready for the cameras in full makeup, horned fur hat, his tattooed chest bare (on a freezing day), and adorned in other highly cinematic regalia. I don’t know what Mr Chansley thought he was doing there that day, but so many subsequent legacy media images of the event put him so dramatically front and center — and the barbaric nature of his appearance was so illustrative of exactly the message that Democrats in leadership wished to send about the event — that I am not surprised to see that his path to the center of events was not blocked but was apparently facilitated by Capitol Police.


She's not quite there though. My response as a comment on that Substack post:


I'm glad you're trying, but you're still spinning things for the benefit of people who deeply hate half of the country. You talk about "the violence of Jan 6" but fail to mention the only real violence that occurred: the murder of unarmed veteran Ashley Babbitt by a Capitol Police Officer. Nor do you mention that all of the people let into the Capitol that day (and they were deliberately let in) were unarmed. Please correct those omissions and you'll have more credibility.

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