My personal assessment of Joe Biden, is that he, and his family, are thoroughly corrupt - but that's an opinion of mine that has nothing to do with Hunter Biden's laptop, and in fact goes back to the 80's, with his various lies, dishonest and unethical attacks on Supreme Court nominees, bullying of individuals and the press, and that old habit of his of plagiarizing better speakers that forced him to withdraw from one of his 20th Century presidential runs. On top of that, in early 2019 even the New York Times' realized that there had been strong enough circumstantial evidence to suspect the 'impropriety' of the Biden's Ukraine & China deals (until they realized that Biden was all they had, that is), which I would not be surprised to find that Hunter's infamous laptop's will lead to proof of (but that's for the courts - we'll see what we see). But that isn't the issue I have with this despicably dishonest article from NBC. The issue I have with their latest FakeNews article, is its deliberate exercise in spreading Pravda-grade disinformation to save their election, and it is deeply infuriating.
It's not so infuriating for what it says, mind you, but for what it attempts to ensure that you the reader will never ever think of, should you take their story to heart.
It shouldn't be surprising, especially here in the far end of 2020, where it's become so obvious as the Pro-Regressives daily demonstrate how much they prefer fantasy to reality. They've deeply wanted to believe those vague hearsay charges of 'Russian Collusion!' that told them what they wanted to hear about President Trump for the last four years, and now they want to believe the vague hearsay that tells them what they want to believe about Joe Biden, which they're doubtlessly eager to sustain for the next four(?) years. But the fact that that desire means dismissing out of hand, undiscussed, unexamined, unmentioned, the sizable amount of officially verified materials of physical evidence, and open & corroborated testimony given by actual people publicly identified and on the record, is of no matter to them - what they want reality to be, is what they are intently conjuring 'reality' to be.
Sad. The verbal hocus-pocus they perform to accomplish that, is eminently suitable for Halloween.
, and it works on focusing it's naïve readers attention on "...a fake "intelligence" document about him went viral on the right-wing internet..." a month ago that is "...an elaborate conspiracy theory..." about the Biden's. It then spends the entire story dwelling on and 'exposing' the flaws in that irrelevant document and its author, and then by elaborating on that theme for the entire article, it manages to entirely ignore the fact that Hunter Biden's laptop has been in the possession of the FBI since December of 2019, ignores the fact that it is acknowledged by the FBI to be part on an ongoing money laundering and corruption investigation, it ignores the fact that the copies of the Hunter Biden's laptop hard drive which has come into the possession of others, have been verified as legitimate by the FBI & the Intelligence Community, and most of all it ignores any mention of the damning email documents which have just been officially verified as being legitimate. They also manage to entirely ignore the official, on the record testimony, of their former business associate, Tony Bobulinski, and the verified nature of his own documents that he's turned in as evidence. [BTW, if you ever wondered what a 'straw man argument' is, that's it.]
As Bill Clinton once famously conjured "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'IS' is", and the Pro-Regressive's (Left & Right) entire imaginary world depends upon exactly that. This is beyond sad, it's frightening. Happy Halloween.
Understand, I've no problem at all with people questioning the nature and validity of the charges being made against the Biden's. Tony Bobulinski is, IMHO, at best a tainted actor, and his outraged defense of his character and integrity ring at least a little bit hollow to me - he was knowingly doing business with the Biden's & Communist China fer gawds sake (I think some of his outrage comes from Biden's emails that show them cutting him out of some deals and cash)! My problem with this 'article' is that I've never seen a more blatant attempt at faking not only the news, but the contents of the American mind, than this NBC FakeNews story, and that it's doing so with such a transparently ridiculous straw man charge, in order to create the impression that real and officially acknowledged charges, real and officially acknowledged evidence, and real and officially acknowledged investigations, do not in fact exist.
It is truly despicable. There is no hyperbole involved in my saying that this is exactly the scale, scope, and nature of USSR era Pravda. And the media has not needed the power of a totalitarian government, to impose it on us. That should give you pause enough.
For more along those lines, and the Tech Giants as well, I'll recommend Dana Loesh's
For those who're looking for corruption to complain about, this article the self refuting 'NBC News', is the most vile example of media corruption that I've seen yet.
Here's a few related stories for reasserting, or at least discovering, the reality behind the FakeNews's incantations:
"..."The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept's editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression...."
It's embarrassing how the Pro-Regressive Left has been desperately seeking oppressors in order to justify their existence. And frantic over the Right failing to comply with oppressing them, they've taken to offending and oppressing themselves, themselves, in a desperate bid for power via martyrdom and publicity (hi Jussie Smollett). And what's more alarming than embarrassing, is that they think that they live in a world where that makes sense (are they wrong?).
Is that hyperbole? Look at the way they go about proclaiming what they are adamantly opposed to, while actually doing what they claim to be opposed to, in order to promote themselves as being the anointed ones to defend us against what they claim to be opposed to - it has become the bizarre norm for the Pro-Regressive Left. Examples of this abound today, ranging from the trivial and sad, like Jussie Smollett (and his legion of imitators, from college students, to professors, politicians, and racecar drivers), to the Left decrying racism and blackface while promoting the likes of racist & blackface wearing Gov. Ralph Northum, to demanding that we 'believe all women!' while demonizing conservative women such as Amy Coney Barrett, to Antifa & BLM claiming to oppose racism, fascism and violence, while actively practicing racism, fascism and violence in order to defend us against that fearsomely racist, fascist and violent Right... which still has not complied by employing widespread acts of racism, fascism and violence against them (call me when 'The Proud Boys' have besieged multiple city centers for months and attempted to set multiple buildings on fire with people trapped within them. Oh, and killed people for political positions. Etc.).
That their behavior is not rationally explainable, is an important key to understanding them, and in a nicely coincidental bit of timing for demonstrating that point, some villainous virtue signalers have installed a statue outside of the halls of justice of a New York City courthouse, which glorifies an evil monster having slain a hero.
Of course they don't describe it that way. Instead, they've busily spun their own myths out of alternate backstories shorn of relevant context (such as that Perseus had nothing to do with the monster that Medusa became), they present the monstrous snake haired Medusa - whose gaze turned people to stone - in the form of a heroic 7' tall bronze sculpture of her as a victim striking back against oppressors everywhere, holding a sword in one hand and the severed head of the hero Perseus, in the other. This parasitical story mode has become all the rage amidst the ruins of the West's Arts & Letters, where by 'flipping the script' they seek to elevate monsters to a respectable status, while recasting heroes as monsters, and virtue as vice. But the 'fact' remains that Perseus was a hero who was sent to slay the snake headed monster Medusa, a task which many others had died attempting, in which he alone succeeded by cleverly using his polished shield to watch only the reflection of the Gorgon's actions, and preventing it's direct gaze from turning him to stone, Perseus slew the monster by cutting off its head.
Which, as with most true myths, conveys an effective lesson that's still useful for us today.
It's wise to avoid gazing directly into the baseless charges of the Pro-Regressive Left, as they make them not because there is a shred of truth, or respect for the truth in what they say, but only as a means to paralyze you in your response to them. They don't make them because they think they are sensible, they make them in hopes of stirring up confusion and controversy while garnering publicity for their fictional plights, while disorienting unwary onlookers about what is up & down, right & left, good & evil.
If you are baffled by how they think that such a strategy will work for them, your confusion probably comes from a habit of thinking objectively about what others say and do - don't do that with them! Remember Perseus's shield - observe their actions, but don't get drawn into looking directly into the writhing words which are meant only to confuse and freeze you in your tracks. When you cease trying to understand what they mean, and simply observe their purpose, it becomes less baffling. For instance, if you reflect upon what the Pro-Regressive's media mouthpieces proclaimed outright just four years ago, that they'd tested "... the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism", and chose to go with "Objectivity is dead, and I’m okay with it". And if that catches you by surprise, you probably failed to pay enough attention to when Bill Clinton expressed what had already long been the prevailing view of academia (you know, those people you send your kids to be educated by), that whether or not a lie must be identified as a lie "depends upon what the meaning of the word 'IS', is'. IOW, while you, a Westerner, are looking to have thoughts and actions make objective sense, the Pro-Regressive (Left & Right) have abandoned that approach, and the West altogether, and have devoted themselves to spinning false myths to grease the skids of the villain's journey.
Do not try to make sense of what is self evidently insensible - it will turn you to stone (such as attempting to argue with the phrase 'Black lives matter', it's not a statement that's meant to make sense, but only to paralyze you in the face of it) - observe their actions in the media, but keep your attention fixed upon reality. Do that (in part by thinking in principles, and turning away from ploys which reveal themselves to be unprincipled), and you have a chance of surviving your contact with the monstrous nature of the Pro-Regressive Left (and Right).
Which brings us around to the Senate Confirmation Hearings on the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court, which the Pro-Regressive Left has been working overtime on getting 'canceled' for her noted lack of having any unconstitutional opinions. I kid you not. So desperate have the Pro-Regressive Leftists been for something to oppose her on, that they have taken to advocating for opposing her nomination to the Supreme Court, for reasons that are, shall we say... counter factual, and then even blatantly unconstitutional.
Demonstrating that first point last week, one of my New York Times morning briefings stooped even lower than normal to grab at America's attention with this headline:
"Good morning. Barrett won’t endorse a peaceful transfer of power."
“Do you believe that every president should make a commitment unequivocally and resolutely to the peaceful transfer of power?”
ACB wisely declined to become stuck to that ploy, she didn't bother engaging directly with whatever he might have meant by that, she simply identified his intentions and cut them off, replying:
"That seems to me to be pulling me into the question of whether the president has said he would not leave office," Barrett said. "To the extent that this is a political controversy right now, as a judge, I want to stay out of it."
At that point Sen. Booker, perhaps embarrassed (as if) by the realization that people of his own political bent have declared that the President daring to nominate ACB justified their threatening to "Burn it all down!", he rephrased his question in a more general context of George Washington, and ACB responded to (the still mostly pointless and worthless, though now disarmed) question, that,
"One of the beauties of America from the beginning of the republic is that we have had peaceful transfers of power," she said. "I think it is part of the genius of our Constitution and the good faith and good will of our people."
Amy Coney Barrett, by refusing to confront the pro-regressive rhetoric directly, was able to safely state that the peaceful transfer of power was a vital and defining aspect of America. Of course that sentiment was of no use to the gorgon headed journalists of the New York Times, who're desperately in search of oppressors to point to their being oppressed by, and so they replaced her actual and easily understood position, with the headline: "Barrett won’t endorse a peaceful transfer of power." Truly, I think the better question is "Will the Left permit the peaceful continuation of power?" That's a reality-based question which the New York Times will not face, let alone raise.
What's even more pathetic, is that in these confirmation hearings for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States of America, our elected Senators are unable to lift themselves to the level of asking meaningful questions, and raising well founded doubts. Instead, they and our media are interested only in promoting disinformation to a (shrinking) public which is more than eager to consume it. Reflecting more of the same, we were also treated to the despicable spectacle of a sitting Senator and Vice Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, speculating on the possibility that the judge might be a liar who's been lying all along in order to seem sensible, in order to get on the SCOTUS where she might then begin lying more out in the open. This was an especially inept prosecutorial effort, which Sen. Kennedy easily and accurately summed up as:
"‘Senator Harris Just Called You A Liar’"
There are zero instances of such behavior in ACB's history on the bench, or as a Professor of Law at Notre Dame, or as a person, to warrant even raising such an artificial doubt. But they don't ask the accusatory question in order to discover anything true, but only to direct their monstrous gaze to impugn the character of the person that they have no basis in reality for doubting. If the Truth stands in your way, spin a lie around it.
And when lies alone fail, they move on to adding on the unconstitutional. Not only is this despicable behavior, but it is typical of essentially every leftist 'objection' to ACB that I've seen to date, which belies what mostly lies behind such accusations, which is plainly reflected in this meme that is popular with the Anti-ACB'rs:
"If, rather than being Catholic, ACB was a devout Muslim woman who belonged to an extremist Muslim organization that demanded a lifelong covenant, professed a belief that women should be subservient to their husbands, taught at a madrassa, and once said she viewed her participation in the legal profession as a way to bring about the kingdom of allah.
The conversation surrounding her appointment to the USSC would be very different."
Once again, taken on the face of it, this is downright confusing - is this meme a confession of bigotry towards Muslims, or Catholics, or both? Of course it's both and more. Don't engage with their meaningless meaning, don't try to understand or defend what they are attacking, observe the direction of their words, and cut them off. Because unless those covenants the judge has purportedly made include the oath to apply foreign laws - Sharia or Marx - against and over those of our constitution, the only problem their charges point to, is their own unfitness to involve themselves in the conversation at all. I've seen a legion of commenters, desperate to cultivate their outrage, add that,
"She has openly stated that her role as a judge is to bring the country to a "kingdom of god". That's clearly a preference of her religion beliefs over law, constitutional or otherwise."
The materialistic dogma lives loudly in their breast. To take the least important part first, that charge has been a non-controversial one ever since it was first advanced 2,000 years ago and left Pontius Pilate feeling baffled as to how Jesus's claim to a spiritual 'kingdom of God', could possibly pose a threat to the oh-so powerful material kingdom of Caesar. Pilate tried to dismiss the issue and let Jesus go, but then as now, the accusers were desperately seeking to nail someone to the cross, and of course, then as now, those carrying out the charge attempted to wash their hands of the matter, which, objectively, doesn't work.
Don't be distracted, the Pro-Regressive's problem isn't with ACB, or with Trump, or even with America, but with objectivity, reality, and Truth - those concepts not only don't work for them, they are threats to their myths, and they are desperate to wrap you up in their lies, so as to not notice that they are nothing but lies. Cut them off. The truth is that the Constitution permits no religious tests for office. Those opposing ACB serving the Constitution through a position on the Supreme Court, are the ones who are advocating for ignoring and violating the Constitution... which undermines the credibility of their position... just a tad... don'tcha think?
There you go being objective again.
If the Pro-Regressive Leftists have proven anything beyond a reasonable doubt in this matter, it is that by their explicitly citing ACB's religious beliefs as a basis for urging her nomination to be rejected, which is explicitlyforbidden by the Constitution to be applied as a fitness test for any office under the Constitution. There's no need to discuss the 'merits' of their position, they've already demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that they themselves have no respect for the Constitution, the offices created under it, or for that sense of justice which the Supreme Court was designed to bring about under a proper application of the Constitution to our laws.
Looking beyond the illusion of their concerns, it becomes apparent that their calling ACB a threat, should prompt you to question what it is that they are really fearful of, and what it is that they find to be so threatening to their beliefs? If you objectively follow that question down the path, you'll be led to the realization that what they fear IS the Constitution, and especially the possibility of its being objectively applied to our laws, and the horrifying (to them) possibility of limiting the power of that government which they seek to gain total power over, and through.
The people peddling this tripe, of course, have no evidence whatsoever of ACB ever choosing religious dogma, over constitutional judgement. None. And so, once again, lacking a problem, they seek to spin one of their own making, which exposes them as unconstitutional zealots frantically opposing a non-controversial nominee - don't distract from that fact by arguing with their point, that way lies madness. For instance, the mavens of Wokeness have offered up this preposterous article in UK's The Guardian, which one enthusiast promoted as having done
"... a great job explaining the concerns with the Republican pick of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. She goes beyond the already misogynistic view of Catholicism..."
,before we let him finish that sentence, take note that he's already given away the 'fairness' game with the wicked huge a slander that "...already misogynistic view of Catholicism...", and without missing a beat, he goes on to say that,
"...read this (and more information) and decide if you think she is the type of person that can set her personal biases aside as a judge."
Do those statements lead you to think that the person who'd say such a thing, is interested in, or capable of, laying aside their own personal prejudices before beginning to 'think'? How likely is it that he has any interest in you doing so? Such mendacious phrases are the signal that it's time to raise the shield, and reflect upon the nature of the wording being used, rather than engaging with what they allege them to mean.
Keep the Pro-Regressive's opinion of Objectivity firmly in mind when considering what they are saying. Note that the article's tagline from the wokety-woke 'believe all women!' crowd, says:
"Amy Coney Barrett went to my all-girls high school. I hope she's not confirmed | Lisa M O'Neill"
Is the nature of that statement one that invites thought, or promises vitriol? That frame of mind is further illustrated in a phrase which the author uses to characterize our nation, its laws, and its people, that,
"...These laws were made by white, cisgender men who enslaved other human beings..."
Does a 'thought' such as that, inspire you with the belief that the speaker is interested in fairness, or justice, or even reality? Does it seem likely that 'white, cisgender men ' are seen as being worthy in their minds, of receiving equal justice before the law? Does offering up blanket hostility and condemnation to a sizable portion of the populace for the sin of being born 'white cis-gendered males', convey anything more than bigotry? At best? The unprincipled, illogical, unreasonable form of the words, makes clear that the writer thinks that her own feelings should take precedence over those who (gasp) think differently from her. Whatever other ideals lurk in such a mind as that, that alone persuades me that their interest is in gaining and imposing power over those lesser 'white, cisgender men', and women like Amy Coney Barrett, any others who dare see things differently from them.
What business do comments such as those, have on the topic of Justice? The line preceding the cis gender one, gives their game away:
"Obedience to the exact original meaning of the constitution without current context is problematic.”
Allow me to hold up the shield's mirror to translate: Objectivity is problematic.
What's quite clear is that any concern that the author might pretend to have about the Constitution being upheld by any judge, let alone by ACB, is an illusion they conjure up as a convenient pretext for attacking it. That such an emphasis that the 'current context' should hold sway over the written constitution, is the ideological ideal of 'living constitutionalists' which has always been about implicitly rewriting the Constitution through a mendacious 'interpretation' of key words and passages, which they will then claim as precedent for justifying the untethering of government power from those limitations that 'white, cisgender men' imposed upon it, by means of our Constitution.
Such minds as these, are unworthy to entrust with political power, let alone judicial power. The interests of this author and those of like mind with her, are not vested in seeing that the Constitution will be respected and upheld by this or any other nominee to the Supreme Court. What they are interested in, is doing away with our Constitution, and with America - and with you as well - even as they proclaim how concerned they are with defending the Constitution, America, and you, from... the Constitution, America, and you.
Doesn't that have a familiar Jussie Smollett-like ring to it?
To be sure, this author, and these people, have the constitutional right to feel as they do, but to expect other people to take their claims seriously, would require the rest of us to be as unconcerned with objectivity as they are, and that, hopefully, is just not the case.
There is a sound and startling difference between giving direct and thoughtful consideration to evidence in light of reasonable laws, so as to reach a just conclusion, and the mashing up of factoids and baseless accusation in order to 'support' a predetermined ideological assault upon the means of clarifying and applying Justice, and this author fails that test, outright.
Justice, and upholding and preserving the individual rights of all, is the furthest thing from their minds.
Despite their proclamations of caring about what We The People want, the 'living constitutionalist's do not give a fig for what 'the people' might want or even overwhelmingly support. If they did care about, or even suspected that their positions had overwhelming support from the people, then they'd use that aspect of the Constitution that was written into it for just that purpose: writing and passing Constitutional Amendments. But because those efforts of theirs have failed to garner that level of support (perhaps their last 'successes' in the 16th, 17th & 18th Amendments, wised We The People up about them? I wish that were true), they prefer the false path of installing ideological judges, while fanatically opposing those who'd treat the Constitution, and its purpose, with respect.
All they have to fear, is... all they fear
What I think that the Pro-Regressive Left is best expressing in their Jussie Smollett & Medusa-like manner, is their concern that their strategy of ideological activism from the bench, has been losing favor and ground with We The People for years, and that they are in peril of losing their foothold in our courts, and in our hearts & minds, and that what they've openly banked upon for the last 50 years for imposing their will, over the will of We The People, is and has been losing its objective value.
I hope that their fears are well placed, and I look forward to their worst fears being realized.
Instead of wasting your time on ideological opinion screeds such as that gobbledygook in the Guardian, I recommend reading ACB's legal thought and judgements and decide for yourself whether or not they comport with the Constitution - that is, after all, the actual task at hand. If you want something more to consider, consider what she herself has had to say about her own beliefs about being a judge.
It's somewhat worth noting that as I am not an Originalist, or a Textualist (which are not the same things), the nomination of an Originalist to the Supreme Court doesn't thrill me in the way that the nomination of someone with the natural law understanding that our Constitution was formed and derived from (think Justice Clarence Thomas), would. But leaving that aside, IMHO, any decent Originalist is far and away a better choice for our nation, and for Justice, than any 'living constitutionalist', whose personal philosophy exhorts them to insert their own personal opinions, beliefs and feelings, into constitutional judgments upon our laws - which is the very thing they baselessly and falsely accuses ACB of doing through her religion.
There is much to admire about Amy Coney Barrett, and there's nothing that I've seen so far that would make me objectively question whether or not she would abide by the Constitution in her duties as a justice on the SCOTUS, or would call into question her ability and judgement as a Judge, and that is the only test that matters. And even though her being an Originalist doesn't thrill me in and of itself, there is no credible, objective reason, for opposing her nomination to the Supreme Court, and a great many reasons for applauding her becoming a sitting justice upon the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
And seriously, to my friends on the Left, if you wish me to take your opposition to her seriously, you've first got to convince me that you give a damn about our Constitution, the ideals and concepts it was derived from, and for America itself.
After hearing some silliness from the woke folk, who fail to give even the slightest thought to the noise in their virtue signaling, prattling thoughtlessly along about wanting to change 'Columbus Day' to 'Indigenous Peoples Day', I do think it's time to re-post this yet again, from Columbus Day, 2015 - Why?
For one thing, as the helpful graphic inset between my Columbus Day pictures below, to celebrate 'Indigenous Peoples Day', over 'Columbus Day', necessarily means celebrating the mass slaughter of indigenous peoples, which some indigenous peoples, perpetrated upon other indigenous peoples, to further the customs of their own (literally) blood thirsty religions, such as the tens of thousands slaughtered in a single day (on a regular basis) to appease the 'indigenous' people's gods of the Aztecs. One thing that Columbus's discovery of The New World heralded, was the putting of an end to horrors such as that, and no, none of the other atrocities attributable to 'The West' come even close to that level of barbarity. And no, such barbarity and slaughter wasn't limited to the Aztecs (or perhaps you were unaware of what Pocahontas's pop was up to prior to the English landing at Jamestown?).
Did some not so good things follow from Columbus's discovery of The New World? Yes. Welcome to human history - do pay attention please, because if you're looking for easy answers you came to the wrong world. And after years of being bombarded with unsubstantiated charges and hysterical outrage from the most outrageous folks imaginable, I think it's time, even with as small a nod as this is, to explicitly disregard the rantings of the failed and the botched, and to lift a glass of cheer and celebrate the heroic adventures of those who actually dared to do what others feared; deeds which, even though tinged with a great deal of error, led to the greatest advances for mankind in all of our nations known histories. Celebrate this day, even moreso because everything it represents is loathed and feared today by those who oppose celebrating this day (as the 'Sultan of Knish' said so well) of commemorating the voyage that Christopher Columbus undertook to take in 1492.
In Other Words: To Indigenous Peoples Everywhere:
Happy Columbus Day!
"In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue..."
If you don't know the rest, or refuse to repeat it, your ignorance is too deep for me to fix in so little time and space. I won't bother a protest, qualification, any hint of apology or take any other sort of a defensive stand on what is and should be recognized and celebrated on this day.
What we like to think of Captain Kirk doing, Christopher Columbus actually did, and he did it without electronic wizardry, without science officers or communication specialists or even replaceable extras in red shirts, but with only wooden boats, a compass and a number of guesses about how the extent of the world might be shaped.
He and some ninety crew, set out on an uncharted ocean with the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, and it was incredibly brave and bold, and resulted in Western Civilization expanding westward around the globe, and even entertaining the notion that we today need to defend or justify that, is not only stupidity on stilts, but a repudiation of all that is good.
He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.
He sailed by night; he sailed by day;
He used the stars to find his way.
A compass also helped him know
How to find the way to go....
If what Christopher Columbus ventured and accomplished isn't laudable and self-evident bad-assery to you, begone and darken my door no more, but do so with my Happy Columbus Day! ringing in your ears.
What is most alarming about Joe Biden saying in last week's debate that antifa is just an idea, is that he seems to think that makes it harmless. Just an idea... hey Joe, what do you suppose that organizations are organized around? What do you think it is that motivates people, to organize organizations, to begin with?
For example, here's a couple other things that Joe might pass off as being... '...you know, the thing...', that've spawned some exceedingly real and substantial organizations:
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
Each one of those catchy phrases, though 'just an idea', led to some momentous movements and organizations, one of which became the United States of America. The other two ideas, unfortunately, though they too were 'just an idea', led to the deadliest and most destructive states in all of human history - from the Terror, to Communism, Fascism, Nazism.
That antifa is 'just an idea', is hardly a meaningless statement. The Tea Party was 'just an idea' without formal or uniform organization, yet millions of people were able to rally behind it and alter the well laid plans of government. The question to ask is, what kind of idea is it? Is the 'just an idea' in question, one that, like the Tea Party, values human life, does it stand for people living in an expectation of liberty and justice? Does it recognize the fundamentals of the American system, such as this mere idea of from John Adams':
"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist."?
, or does Antifa & BLM use simple ideas to intimidate people, such as 'check your privilege', and to undermine the basis of their lives with 'It's only property!', does it lead the people who have 'just an idea' in their heads, to force people to obey and to conform and to submit to the power of those massed in the streets, does it endorse accosting and intimidating people, demanding that they bow and 'say their name!,' proving that they accept the new revolutionary social standards. This too was 'just an idea' of Rousseau's,
"whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free"
, but that idea in the head of Robespierre is what drove the French Revolution's Terror and sowed fertile ground for the deadly weeds of the 20th Century. Just an idea. Here's a collary of these ideas, which history demonstrates over and over again, that ' by tolerating property being destroyed, innocent men are and will continue to be killed'.
I have some good friends, and virtual friends, who think Antifa & BLM are swell, that they are 'doing good' and that while they destroy property, it's warranted and excusable. The fact that the actual fascists intimidated people in the streets, destroyed property, and caused injury and even death, doesn't cause them to check the premises of their ideas in the least, they seem comforted by the fact that antifa and fascist are different names. When I point out that it doesn't matter if the names are different, when, where it counts, they are the same, they laugh 'Antifa aren't fascists, they fight against fascists!'. Try and pin them down to what they mean by that, and they refuse to say what, if anything, they think it means. They're not, you know, gonna be pinned down by me and my terms of truth & liberty, they reply, in so many words, that they have,
"...contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth..."
, they are for relativist concepts, that 'my truth' isn't 'their truth', or as Joe Biden might've put it, 'Ya know... the thing...', which doesn't surprise me at all, because another fellow who expressed much the same frustrations, and expressed an admiration for relative truths, unconcerned with how they might be practiced in one place or another, said:
“... relativism is simply a fact.... Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth … then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity... From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable...."
And you know what? It doesn't matter much whether you put a name to it or not. It is easiest to understand an idea by seeing the results of it being put into practice, and though it is hard to believe it needs to be said, it does: The disregard & denial of Individual Rights is the defining nature of Tyranny, and whether you name its practice as being Antifa, Alt-Right, Fascists, Nazis, Communists, KKK, Black Panthers, etc, each by any other name would reek as foul. Whether the tyrant prefers to tyrannize by race, class, religion, economics-are but fashion choices -Tyrants they are, and those of you who won't 'say their name' will be their target.
Or are you one of those saying
"No hold on, no one's advising fascism, we just think you should be more pragmatic about these matters with antifa"
Funnily enough, both Mussolini and his ghost-author and intellectual guru, Giovanni Gentile, were also deep admirers of the Pragmatism of William James & John Dewey, you know, no 'dogmatic principles or ideals', just doing what works - that was what they saw Fascism as being - taking action to do what works. The problem is, that despite the efforts of tyrants to peddle their notions as 'just an idea', those ideas, when men attempt to organize around them, the nature of those ideas tend to organize men into unprincipled, undependable, passionate forces of despotic violence and destruction.
Let's be clear: If you think that roving gangs of ideological zealots, masked and armed to intimidate and injure, should be the arbiters of public speech, then you are a fascist. If that gang calls themselves 'anti-fascists', the only fascists they oppose are the other competing brands.
One of the best reasons for not voting for Joe Biden, is the fact that he brushes off a group of people who've self organized around passionately tyrannical ideals, as 'just an idea', without the least inkling that that idea is the stuff of apocalyptic nightmares.
