Rittenhouse Trial Midday Update: Kyle Takes the Stand; Prosecutor Incurs Wrath of Judge

Defense says if ADA Binger misconduct continues, will ask for mistrial with prejudice

Welcome to today’s Law of Self Defense ongoing coverage of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. I am, of course, Attorney Andrew Branca, for Law of Self Defense.

Today the trial heard testimony from the defendant himself, Kyle Rittenhouse—a high-stakes bet by the defense, and one that always has risk of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Fortunately for the defense, however, it appears that Assistant District Attorney Binger is leveraging this remarkable opportunity for the state to collapse not only the State’s own narrative of guilt in this trial, but to collapse the entire trial itself.

Indeed, so grievous has been Binger’s over-stepping on fundamental Constitutional rights of defendants, and curb-stomping on evidentiary rulings previously made by Judge Schroeder, that not only is the defense threatening to seek a mistrial with prejudice—meaning Rittenhouse could not be tried again, as would normally be permitted if there was a mistrial—but Judge Schroeder has repeatedly dismissed the jury during Binger’s cross-examination of Kyle to forcefully scold the prosecutor, and sometimes angrily shouting at him.

Throughout it all, Binger remains unable to pry even from the defendant himself any testimony that in any way undermines Kyle Rittenhouse’s core legal defense of self-defense.  As usual, we’re hearing little but innuendo, snark, snide, and table pounding from the State.

Although Binger’s cross-examination could best be characterized as flailing from his first question until the moment a frustrated Judge Schroeder abruptly broke for lunch, there were three major incidents during the prosecutor’s cross of Rittenhouse that particularly frustrated the court.

ADA Binger Talks At Length On Kyle Exercising Right to Silence

The first was by far the most egregious:  ADA Binger began to raise before the jury the fact that Rittenhouse had exercised his Constitutional right to silence prior to taking the witness stand today in court.

For those who may not know, the right to silence is inviolate, and the fact that a defendant has remained silent may not be used against him in any way—including the prohibition that it may not be mentioned AT ALL by the prosecution at any time of the trial, EVER.

If there’s a single most inviolate civil right in American criminal law, this is it—the right of a defendant to remain silent, and not have the exercise of that right be used against them.

To observe an experienced prosecutor breach this fundamental Constitutional right in open court, in the presence of a jury, was professionally shocking to me personally—and the defense and Judge Schroeder acted with the severity you might expect.

[...]

Binger Begins Introducing CVS Video Evidence Prohibited by Judge

A short time later, Binger asked a lengthy series of questions about Kyle’s understanding that deadly force cannot be used in defense of mere property.  He asked the question in perhaps a dozen different ways, and then revealed that it was all a long build-up into asking Kyle about the CVS video.

The CVS video involves Kyle sitting in a car with someone while they watch an apparent shoplifting or robbery take place at a CVS across the street. Kyle says that he wished had his AR, he’d sound rounds in the criminal’s direction.  He did not have his gun with him, he obviously fired no rounds, he did not engage the criminal in any way—it was the chatter of a 17-year-old boy. All Kyle actually did was call 911 to report the event to police.

The prosecution had sought in pre-trial hearings to have this CVS video admitted as evidence at trial.  The defense objected, it was argued out at length in court, and Judge Shchroeder announced he was not going to admit it, but would leave the door open to further consideration as the trial developed.

This morning, when it was learned that Rittenhouse would testify, the Judge affirmed that he was still not willing to admit the CVS video evidence.

So, when Binger began to reference the CVS video front of the jury, he was revealing evidence the judge had already prohibited after lengthy argument pre-trial, and which the judge affirmed remained prohibited just prior to Rittenhouse beginning to testify today.

Folks, he may as well have just spit in the judge’s face.

The way this is done, if a lawyer feels evidence has opened a door or done something to justify asking a judge to change an evidentiary ruling, you request of the judge an opportunity to make that argument without the jury present.  Then the judge makes the call.

The lawyer does not, himself, get to just pretend that the judge’s prior ruling excluding the evidence simply  no longer matters.

[...]

Defense Threatens to Offer Motion for Mistrial with Prejudice

After this second incident, the defense informed the judge that this was inexcusable conduct from an experienced prosecutor who knows better, that they suspected Binger knew his case was so weak that he didn’t want it to go to a jury, that he was angling for a mistrial, and that if he engaged in misconduct again the defense would offer a motion for a mistrial with prejudice—meaning that if granted, Kyle could never be tried on these charges again.

Binger Begins Providing (Wrong) Testimony on Ammo

Third, Binger began to get into a lengthy and tiresome series of questions with Kyle about the difference between full metal jacket (FMJ) bullets and hollow-point bullets.  The point of all this is beyond me, frankly, but in any case Kyle repeatedly indicated that he didn’t really know all that much about bullets.

But Binger couldn’t let it go. He kept asking, and asking, and asking, and when Kyle kept repeating that he just lacked the knowledge necessary to answer the questions, Binger began to explain to Kyle what the difference in ammo types was.

Folks, this is simply not permitted. The lawyer asks questions, and the witness provides testimony.

The lawyer does not get to provide testimony—which is what Binger was doing.

The defense objected, Judge Schroeder interrupted Binger’s questionin—and Binger responded by interrupting Judge Schroeder.

One does not interrupt a judge in his own courtroom.

Judge Schroeder, with the jury still present, immediately informed Binger that, first, the information about ammo he was spouting in front of the jury was incorrect.

Ouch.

Second, that it was inappropriate for the prosecutor to provide testimony.

At that point Binger interrupted the judge again.

That’s when a clearly frustrated Judge Schroeder abruptly announced the court would recess for lunch, which is where we are as I write this. (read more)

The System is Afraid of Citizens Who Can Defend Themselves

"The purpose of communist propaganda is not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponds to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect - and is intended to."

— Theodore Dalrymple

Rittenhouse Trial Judge Reveals That Someone Was Caught Videotaping Jurors

The judge presiding over the Kyle Rittenhouse trial revealed on Tuesday that someone had been caught photographing members of the jury.

This comes days after Minneapolis-based BLM activist Cortez Rice claimed to know that there were cameras in the courtroom to doxx and intimidate the jury.

“This morning at the pickup there was someone there [who] was video recording the jury—which the officers approached the person and required him … to delete the video, and returned the phone to him,” Judge Bruce Schroeder told the jury.  “I’ve instructed if it happens again they [police] are to take the phone, and bring it here,”  the judge added.

“I’ve been assured that … the video, which had been taken, has been deleted, and new procedures are being instituted so that something like that … should not recur,” ” Schroeder told the jury.

Rittenhouse is facing trial on six charges, including first-degree intentional homicide, for shooting three antifa agitators—killing two of them—during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020. The city was roiled with civil unrest for over a week in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who was wanted at the time on a warrant for felony sexual assault, trespassing, and domestic abuse.

In a now deleted video,  Rice, who refers to himself as George Floyd’s nephew, said he knew that people in the courtroom were taking pictures of the jurors in the trial.

“I ain’t even gonna name the people that I know that’s up in the Kenosha trial. But it’s cameras in there. It’s definitely cameras up in there. There’s definitely people taking pictures of the juries and everything like that,” Rice said in the now deleted video.

“We know what’s going on, so we need the same results,” he added.

In the wake of a media backlash, according to Alpha News, Rice has since back-peddled, claiming that he never said he knew who was spying in the Kenosha courtroom, only that he knew people were there with cameras.

But Rice’s message was clear, Fox News host Tucker Carlson argued on his show Tuesday night.

“‘Videotape the jurors. If they’re afraid, they’ll do exactly what we want’—that’s what he’s saying,”  Carson said. “Jury intimidation is a serious felony in this country, but as far as we know, the Department of Justice isn’t doing anything to stop it in this case, they’re all busy looking for Ashley Biden’s diary,” he added, referring to the scandal-ridden diary that ended up in the hands of conservative journalists and activists, late last year, and prompted FBI raids on several Project Veritas journalists in recent days, including James O’Keefe.

Blaze Media host Jason Whitlock noted that “fear and cowardice rolls downhill just like human waste.”

“Now we have 18 jurors in the crosshairs because men have failed, and this society has failed to uphold the rule of law,” he said. “We now have thugs in control of our society, and so when the prosecutors don’t do their job, when the media doesn’t do it’s job, when politicians don’t do their job, 18 ordinary citizens are now in the crosshairs.”

The prosecution rested on Tuesday after another full day of testimony that in large part damaged their case, and cast doubt on their integrity.

Rittenhouse’s lawyers then began presenting his defense, calling witnesses who were on the streets with the teen that night “and described him as pale, shaking, sweating and stammering after the shootings.” (read more)

Citizenship and Courage

The world is better for young men like Kyle Rittenhouse defending their communities.

In recent weeks, a series of high-profile criminal cases stemming from private citizens acting to protect their communities have been in the spotlight. A young Kyle Rittenhouse worked with other volunteers to protect Kenosha, Wisconsin from violent Antifa and BLM rioters. He ended up being attacked and defended himself from a violent mob, killing two and wounding one in the process.

In Georgia, a father and son, frustrated by a series of thefts, tried to stop a suspected burglar, Ahmaud Arbery. Arbery ended up charging them and reached for the son’s gun, only to be shot dead in the melee. 

One man’s courage is another man’s rash vigilantism. Critics say Rittenhouse and the McMichaels were stupid and full of bloodlust for getting involved, and should have left these matters to the professionals. This cautionary message is widespread and does not come exclusively from the Left. 

The Managerial Regime Citizen

Professional civil service and bureaucratic systems are the foundations of the managerial state. This system justifies itself because of the perceived benefits of specialization, professionalization of government tasks, and jealous guarding of bureaucratic turf, similar to private-sector unions. 

The extensive state bureaucracy encourages a different relationship between the state and its citizens. Under this system, citizens are more like consumers or spectators, whose electoral control consists of symbolic “no confidence” votes at most. Criticism, initiative, and input into matters of government are usually looked at skeptically, as evidenced by the recent deployment of the FBI against parents who dared to speak out against critical race theory. As Terry McCauliffe infamously summed up the matter, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Without getting into a pedantic discussion of democracy and republics, it is fair to say that the United States evolved quickly into a democratic republic. The republican part consisted not merely in the existence of a constitution and the conduct of elections, but also from citizen participation in various government functions, whether it was in the jury system, the militia, the posse comitatus, or acting as part-time, citizen-legislators. 

Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the great genius of Americans came from the people’s capacity for organization and problem solving without the need for official intervention, in contrast to continental Europe. “In the United States, as soon as several inhabitants have taken an opinion or an idea they wish to promote in society, they seek each other out and unite together once they have made contact. From that moment, they are no longer isolated but have become a power seen from afar whose activities serve as an example and whose words are heeded.”

Republican Virtues

To flourish, a republican system needs more than voting, but also patriotism, public-spiritedness, and courage. Mere self-interest would never counsel one to resist threats while serving on a jury, or rush to the barricades to protect against an invading threat, or inconvenience oneself to help the victim of a crime. Rather, it is always individually rational (but collectively disastrous) to fob off one’s duties to others and hang back. 

The latter way of thinking is familiar to me from the years I spent in New York and Chicago. Both are large, anonymous, urban centers with a great deal of diversity. Both have large police departments and elaborate city services. But the dark side of these cities resides in the cynical and widespread desire “not to get involved.” From the Kitty Genovese murder to the modern-day “no snitching” culture, a culture hostile to the concept of civic duty has led to a coarsening of life, the explosion of crime, the growth of government, and the destruction of community. 

This is not surprising. Many of the people in both cities are not recognizably American in any meaningful sense. From whence would they acquire habits in decline among Americans themselves? As the country has become more urbanized (a century-long process) and has deliberately favored immigration from illiberal parts of the world (a 50-year process), it has become less respectful of republican virtues and less capable of self-government. 

Prosecutions of those few who do take initiative—Rittenhouse, George Zimmerman, or Bernie Goetz—reinforce the supine and servile mentality that serves only to increase the relative power of the managerial class as distinguished from ordinary citizens.

A lot can be said about Kyle Rittenhouse and the other men who went out to the streets of Kenosha last summer. Perhaps these self-defense volunteers were reckless, dangerous, foolhardy, and naïve. But even if the volunteers were all those things, they were also noble, brave, and pro-social. Kyle Rittenhouse worked as a lifeguard. He spent the earlier part of the day cleaning up graffiti. In the several interviews of him, he appears unbearably earnest and innocent. 

Even in his use of force, he only shot the few people directly attacking him. He did not panic, and he declined to impose rough justice on the mob. He even tried to turn himself into the police, who incompetently sped past him. 

If he was young and inexperienced, so are a great many young men. Indeed, physical courage is something of a young man’s game. But one cannot also label the army veterans and local business owners as immature when they decided to take action because the state had abandoned them and their community. They were doing something brave, and they were doing something that an incompetent and indifferent managerial system made necessary. 

An Ethic of Self-Preservation
Will Not Preserve Civilization

Whether from the Right or the Left, the constant mantras of caution eventually cede all power and initiative to a hostile state. It is an ethic of weakness and humiliation, the opposite of the Spirit of 1776. At every possible opportunity for courageous civic engagement—a letter to the editor, appearing at a protest, making a donation, or simply refusing to utter lies—there is always a choice to be made between cautious cowardice and civic-minded courage. The recent explosion of “cancel culture” has only thrived, in part, because of the neutered agreeableness and abject fear that has become the national norm.

Year after year, teachers, military officers, managers, cops, lawyers, social workers, and everyone embedded in the system console themselves that they’ll do the right thing someday when they have the power to do it—someday when they’re in charge or at least more influential. But after decades of shrugging compliance, one’s beliefs tend to conform more to one’s actions as a matter of psychological self-preservation. 

The notion of conforming one’s actions to one’s beliefs—and, indeed, even the category of personal beliefs—becomes unfamiliar. Even mild criticism feels dangerous, radical, and unseemly. In spite of the self-consolation stories people tell to themselves, few people find greater moral courage on the eve of receiving a pension than they do as a young person, full of idealism and energy. 

To be clear, even in courage, one should be prudent and strategic. But civilization and self-government cannot survive solely by rational self-calculation. Purely self-interested rationality always says it’s good for someone to do something, but not you. As we used to learn as kids, if everyone behaved that way, nothing would get done. 

Someone has to stand up and do something, and when that someone appears, we should be forgiving and even admiring of his courage in a world where so few people stick their necks out. The world is better for young men like Kyle Rittenhouse defending their communities. (read more)

Mainstream Media Distortions/Omissions

New York Times: "Man Shot by Kyle Rittenhouse Describes the Encounter on a Kenosha Street"

Washington Post: "Gaige Grosskreutz says he feared for his life, pointed gun at Kyle Rittenhouse before getting shot"

CNN: "Armed paramedic who was shot by Kyle Rittenhouse testifies he thought teen was an active shooter"

USA Today: "Gaige Grosskreutz testified 'That I was going to die' as a witness at Rittenhouse trial"

BBC: "Man shot by Kyle Rittenhouse says he pointed own gun amid fears for life."

— Bookwormroom (@Bookwormroom) November 10, 2021

Rittenhouse Trial Day 6: State’s Autopsy Expert Supports Selp-Defense Narrative In Another Disastrous Prosecution Day

Soot pattern on the right hand of Rosenbaum suggested that it had been on the muzzle of the rifle when the hand was shot.

Welcome to today’s Law of Self Defense ongoing coverage of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. I am, of course, Attorney Andrew Branca, for Law of Self Defense.

Today was the sixth day of the trial by which ADA Thomas Binger is seeking to have Kyle Rittenhouse convicted and sentenced to life in prison for having shot three men (two fatally) the night of August 25, 2020, in Kenosha WI, when the city was suffering a tsunami of rioting, looting, and arson following the lawful shooting of a knife-wielding Jacob Blake by Kenosha police officers.

Well, I imagine those of you following my coverage of this trial are beginning to feel like you are caught in “Law of Self Defense: Groundhog Day Edition,” because every day seems to be a repeat of the same general theme—that it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for the prosecution.

And I’m afraid today was no different.

Before I dive into the meat of the day, let me knock off a couple of high-level items.

Curfew Violation Charge Dismissed

First, the curfew violation charge, Count 7 in the criminal complaint, has been dropped from the trial.  No explanation was involved, but it hardly matters, it was at worst a ticketing offense.  The more implication of that charge being dropped is a negative one—that the illegal gun possession charge, Count 6, remains.

This is a travesty, both because a plain reading of the relevant gun statutes would appear to exempt Kyle, and in any case, the statutes themselves are so ambiguous as to be unconstitutionally vague and properly not understandable to a lay jury.

It’s always been my position that the gun count ought to be dismissed, but I’m not the judge, so here we are.

Entire Testimony of FBI Special Agent Brandon Cramin

Today Judge Schroeder also instructed the jury that they were to disregard in its entirety the testimony on the first day of the trial of FBI Special Agent Brandon Cramin.  The reason given to the jury was that the testimony had proved incomplete. As it happens, Cramin was the only witness of the trial whose testimony was not broadcast from the courtroom, so I’ve never had a substantive opinion on that testimony.  But in any case, it’s apparently gone from the case now.

The State Rests: No Directed Verdict

Finally, the State officially rested today, after presenting its final two witnesses.

It should be understood that when the prosecution rests, that’s the high water mark for the State’s narrative of guilt.  Until now, the only witnesses called have been those the State chose to call.  To that point, the defense has had no choice whatever in the witnesses presented to the jury.

Unfortunately for the State, this high water mark more closely resembles a water ring in a dirty toilet.  In a case where the primary legal defense is self-defense, and where the State, therefore, bears the burden of disproving self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt, the prosecution appears to have come nowhere close to meeting that burden.

From this day forward it will be the defense choosing the witnesses to present to the jury—and the defense certainly started off with a bang today, as I’ll cover in more detail in a moment.  Effectively this means that as weak as the prosecution’s case is today, it can only get weaker moving forward.

And that is, of course, good news for Kyle Rittenhouse.  Having said that, the risks of a conviction are never zero, even for the most innocent of defendants, and of course, even for the acquitted defendant the process itself is its own punishment.

Many people have wondered if the defense would make a motion for a directed verdict.  This is a motion arguing to the judge that no reasonable jury could convict based on the state’s case is chief, and asking the judge to take the matter out of the hands of the jury and render a verdict himself.

Motions for a directed verdict are made as a matter of routine in almost every criminal case I’ve ever been involved in—and they are as routinely denied.  The best path to a directed verdict is where the prosecution has simply produced zero evidence on some element of the underlying crime—or, in the context of this case, zero evidence attacking some element of the defense

Once virtually any evidence has been presented, however, most judges are loathe to take from the jury their role in being the weigher of evidence, the finders of fact, and barely more than zero evidence is therefore enough to deny a motion for a directed verdict.

I’m presuming that in this case, the defense made the motion in the usual way, and the judge denied it in the usual way, although I saw nothing in court discussing such a motion explicitly.

In any case, whether it was made and denied, or not bothered to be made at all, the outcome is the same—the judge is not rendering a verdict in this case, and the defense today began to present its own case in chief.

The State’s Final Witnesses

The State’s two final witnesses were James Armstrong, an imaging expert witness, and Dr. Doug Kelley, the medical examiner in the autopsies of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber.

In a nutshell, Armstrong he did nothing observable to help the prosecution, and Dr. Kerrey affirmatively helped the defense.  This is not at all how State witnesses are supposed to work for the prosecution, and especially not the last two the jury will hear from before the defense gets its turn.

State Witness:  James Armstrong, Imaging Expert Witness

Armstrong was brought in by the State to speak to the just-discovered “unicorn” evidence in the form of [FBI] drone footage that the evidence fairy left on the prosecutions’ doorstep this past Friday.

When examined this video yesterday, I could discern nothing useful even on my high-end computer monitor, and Detective Antaramian who introduced the video could only make the most tentative suggestions about what it showed.

The Detective would claim that he could see Kyle Rittenhouse pointing his rifle towards Joshua Ziminski in the moments before Rosenbaum began his murderous chase of the 17-year-old—all it took was for him to zoom in on the image using his smartphone. He also claimed that Rosenbaum was feet away from Rittenhouse at the time he was shot.

Well, I zoomed in using a giant 4k iMac screen and saw nothing of the sort. Presumably, Armstrong was supposed to come in with some video magic pixel dust and show the jury what the prosecution needed to be shown.

Unfortunately for the State, the ‘enhanced’ video and Armstrong’s testimony still failed to show to this small-town lawyer’s eye anything like what was claimed by the Detective.  As far as I can tell, this drone video is a total bust for the prosecution—and perhaps help for the defense, because it provides yet another view of Rosenbaum chasing down the fleeing Rittenhouse.

[...]

State Witness: Dr. Doug Kelley, Medical Examiner

The final State witness for this trial was Dr. Doug Kelley, the medical examiner who performed the autopsies of both Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber.

The most notable aspect of Dr. Kelley’s testimony was how visibly uncomfortable he was under direct examination by ADA Kraus.  Kraus repeatedly attempted to press Dr. Kelley into providing testimony that the good doctor was clearly not comfortable providing.  It was quite noticeable, with Kraus proposing some zany interpretation of the autopsy findings that might support the State’s theory of the case, and Dr. Kelley visibly hesitating before simply disagreeing.

Key to the State’s questioning of Dr. Kelley was their desire to have him testify that both Rosenbaum and Huber were further from Rittenhouse than the video evidence would suggest.  Of key importance to this was the analysis of soot and gunpowder stippling around the bullet entrance wounds.

In short, soot marks are generally found only when the muzzle was within a few inches of the wound, and gunpowder stippling only when the muzzle is within four feet or less of the wound.

In one example of Kraus pressing Dr. Kerrey to “lengthen” the distance at which Kyle fired, in the video of the shooting of Rosenbaum a rather large cloud of smoke can be seen coming from the muzzle of Kyle’s rifle.

Wouldn’t all that smoke mean that the stippling found on Rosenbaum might have traveled a much farther distance than is typically the case, Kraus suggested and that therefore Rosenbaum could have been farther from Kyle when shot than the other evidence might indicate?

Kerrey hesitated, then replied that soot and gunpowder flecks have the kinetic energy needed to travel and mark a target—smoke does not.  Ouchie.

At other times Dr. Kerrey suggested that the only way to answer the hypotheticals posed by the State would be to test-fire the rifle—but that just highlighted that such test firing had not been done by the State, most likely because they were afraid the answer would be unfavorable to their prosecution.

On cross-examination by defense counsel Richards, Kerrey testified that the gunshot wounds and injuries to both Rosenbaum and Huber were entirely consistent with the men being in a position of attack upon Rittenhouse when they were shot—even the fatal shot to Rosenbaum’s back, which was likely inflicted when the aggressor made a diving lunge at Kyle’s rifle.  In particular, the soot pattern on the right hand of Rosenbaum suggested that it had been on the muzzle of the rifle when the hand was shot.

On re-direct by ADA Kraus, the prosecutor tried to suggest that the soot on the hand might have been the result of Rosenbaum attempting to “swipe” the muzzle to the side, and even had Dr. Kerrey do a demonstration for the jury using Kraus’s own hand on the rifle barrel.

Unfortunately, Kraus had entirely mistaken which side of the hand the fired bullet had entered.  Once this was corrected by Dr. Kerrey, he pointed out that really the only way the soot pattern observed could have been created was in the hand on the muzzle manner suggested by defense counsel Richards.

Kerrey even used the term “Superman” to describe the lunging, hands forward body position of Rosenbaum that would explain his wound patterns.

So unsatisfied was the State with their own medical examiner that they not only subject him to direct examination, they then also subject him to re-direct, and ultimately to re-re-direct.  Not that it helped, as the defense effectively cross-examined in each instance.

Overall, the testimony of Dr. Kerrey wasn’t even close in terms of which party it favored—it was entirely consistent with the self-defense narrative of the defense, in a case where the State is obliged to disprove self-defense beyond any reasonable doubt.

[...]

And with that, the State rested its case, and it was the turn of the defense to steer the trial.

The Rittenhouse Strikes Back

The defense presented four witnesses today, the first three of which were substantive—Nicholas Smith and Joann Fiedler, both of whom accompanied Kyle to protect property the night of August 25, 2020, and Nathan DeBruin, an amateur photographer perhaps best known for his photo of Kyle cleaning graffiti.

For all three of these witnesses, the testimony was both entirely consistent with the legal defense of self-defense, and substantively undermined much of the already weak foundation underlying the case-in-chief the prosecution has spent the last week presenting to the jury.

Defense Witness:  Nicholas Smith, Defender of Car Source Property

A key value of the appearance of Nicholas Smith was his testimony indicating that the Car Source owners had explicitly requested, gratefully accepted, and offered to pay for, the protection and assistance of himself, Kyle, Ryan Balch, and the others at the Car Source location that night.  Further, he testified that the owners had provided the protectors with keys and other means of access to the properties. Smith would work alongside Kyle, Ryan Balch, Jason Lakowski, and Joann Fiedler (the next defense witness), amongst others, to accomplish precisely this.

Smith’s testimony was vastly more credible than the confused and apparently stoned testimony of Sal and Sam Khindri presented on the part of the State, in which they ridiculously purported to have no particular knowledge of all these armed men on their properties.

When subject to cross-examination by ADA Binger, Smith not only provided no testimony harmful to the defense, he provided an opportunity for Binger to present as little more than snide, sneering, and flailing—not a good look.

Smith also testified about Kyle’s shocked demeanor in the aftermath of the shootings, and his urging of Kyle to turn himself in to authorities—which, of course, Kyle had already attempted, and which he would do later that evening in nearby Antioch IL.

Defense Witness:  Joann Fiedler, Protector of Car Source Property

The value of this witness to the defense was substantially greater than even the very positive contribution of Smith.  Like him, she also testified that she had personally met with the Car Source owners, that they were appreciative of the protection offered, and that the protectors had certainly never been told to leave the property.  She would work alongside Kyle, Smith, Ryan Balch, and others to do precisely this.

Fiedler also, however, provided substantive eyewitness testimony about the antics of Joseph Rosenbaum, with a breadth of personal knowledge broader than what the jury had previously seen in this trial.

In addition, she effectively exposed the State’s position on ridiculously weak on several points where they sought to challenge or impeach her testimony, only to have her directly contradict the State’s claims, and exposing the State as having no substantive evidence to back up their accusations.

She also injected some much-needed humor into the proceedings.

Fiedler, who might be described as a “little old lady,” (although in fairness, not likely an older than me) presented as patriotic and civic-minded, without—importantly—presenting as “militia” or “boogaloo.”

She testified about how some protestors outside the Car Source were aggressively seeking to provoke a physical confrontation, urging her to put away her gun (a .380 caliber pistol) and come out in the street, getting increasingly angry and strident with her when she refused to repeat their own fist-in-the-air “power salute,” and so on.

She also testified extensively about the antics of Rosenbaum, including his apparently throwing an object moments before the protectors found themselves the victim of a “gas bomb” attack,

On cross-examination, ADA Binger suggested that she had withheld from investigators video evidence that she had shared with Kyle’s defense attorneys. When she flatly denied this, Binger had no actual evidence to the contrary with which to impeach her denial.

ADA Binger repeatedly attempted to suggest that Fiedler was prepared to kill in order to protect the Car Source property, deliberately conflating the notion of being lawfully armed while defending property and the notion of using that deadly weapon to kill in defense of property. Fiedler consistently insisted her gun was for her own protection and to act as a deterrent in the protection of property.

Ultimately Judge Schroeder made clear to the jury the use-of-force distinction being conflated by Binger, and that put an end to this charade.

Binger accused Fiedler of having told investigators that she’d had no actual communication with the Car Source owners, which she again flatly denied.

At one point Binger decided to revisit his “Rosenbaum was only 5’ 3”, he couldn’t be a deadly threat to anybody” argument—and fell flat on his face.  When Rosenbaum’s slight stature was presented to Fiedler for this purpose she responded “well, he’s about the same size as me.” Turns out that Joann Fiedler herself is only 5’ 4” tall.

At times Binger’s cross-examination of Fielder became outright incoherent, with he and Fiedler clearly talking about different locations and times without themselves realizing they were at cross-communications—and of course it’s not the job of the witness being cross-examined to keep the questioning coherent.

In short, Fiedler was a very capable witness for the defense narrative of self-defense, and further undermined the narrative of guilt of the State.

Defense Witness:  Nathan DeBruin, Amateur Photographer: Prioritize This One!

Perhaps the most powerful witness of the day for the defense, however, was one that might have seemed the least likely.  This was Nathan DeBruin, an amateur photographer who took a great many photos the night of August 25, 2020, in Kenosha, as well as on previous nights.  Indeed, it was DeBruin who took the now-famous image capturing Kyle, among others, cleaning graffiti off the walls of the local high school.

I say that DeBruin seemed an unlikely candidate to be the defense’s most powerful witness of the day because he presented—and conceded—that he was extremely anxious, and he also suffers from a rather prominent speech impediment.

Despite this, DeBruin was absolutely coherent and firm in his testimony, almost driving ADA Kraus into a rage with his calm and cool testimony that was so helpful to the defense and so damaging to the prosecution.  Indeed, at times ADA Kraus’ cross-examination of DeBruin became completely unprofessional, and almost personally bullying.

Perhaps nothing was as damaging to the prosecution, and as personally infuriating to ADA Kraus, as DeBruin’s testimony that in a meeting with ADA Binger and ADA Kraus he had the perception that they were asking him to “change” his statement to police about what he had observed the night of the 25th.   Here “change” should be read to mean “falsify”—in particular, to falsify some conduct or presence of Joshua Ziminskiy.

Indeed, immediately after that meeting with prosecutors, in which DeBruin refused to change a word of his prior statement, he immediately left and retained his own legal counsel—and that counsel was present in the courtroom during DeBruin’s testimony today.

ADA Kraus almost shouted his accusatory questions at the DeBruin on cross-examination.  Isn’t it true you have a bias favoring the defense in this case, that you don’t want Rittenhouse convicted?  Not true, answered De Bruin.

Then why did you give an interview to a blog that has published many, many articles critical of myself and ADA Binger?  (Really, this display of personal affront by ADA Kraus was completely unprofessional.)  DeBruin’s answer:  Well, they asked me.

Isn’t it true that you knew the blogger you provided an interview to has a bias against this prosecutor’s office, asked Kraus?  Tell us what you know about his bias!?!?!?!

At this point even Judge Schroeder had enough, interjecting—you’re asking this witness to testify about the alleged bias of some other person?  Yeah, that’s not happening.

Almost as maddening to Kraus was the many photos and personal observations DeBruin had taken of Rosenbaum engaged in conduct that was helpful to the defense and harmful to the prosecution.

Need an eyewitness with photos to testify about Rosenbaum holding a chain? DeBruin’s your guy.

An eyewitness to testify about Rosenbaum’s threatening, violent, provocative conduct towards others, needing to be held back from attacking?  Have you met Nathan DeBruin.

Eyewitness testimony of Rosenbaum tipping over porta-potties, dragging trailer that would later be aflame into the street, hearing Rosenbaum scream that he’d just gotten out of jail and wasn’t afraid to go back, seeing Rosenbaum get angry when the dumpster fire was put out, hearing Rosenbaum shout F the police and shoot me N-word repeatedly.  We’ve got our guy!

Need someone to testify that he saw Huber strike Rittenhouse repeatedly with a skateboard? That Huber hand then fought for control of Kyle’s gun?  That Grosskreutz had approached a fallen Rittenhouse with a gun in his hand?

On cross-examination by ADA Kraus, DeBruin had repeatedly characterized the meeting with ADA Binger and Kraus in which he felt they were asking him to falsify his police statement as one that was very tense and uncomfortable.

Now Kraus proposed, isn’t it true that our meeting was congenial and uneventful?  DeBruin answered: You mean, aside from all the uncomfortable tension?

When Kraus demanded why DeBruin had forgotten to mention important details in his police statement—such that Grosskreutz had a gun in his hand—that he later remembered when interviewed by the defense, DeBruin looked straight at him and answered, hey, I’m not a police detective or prosecutor, I don’t know what you think is important.

That one left a mark.

Honestly, if you don’t have time to enjoy any other, I recommend you prioritize the testimony of DeBruin, and particularly his cross-examination testimony under the tender mercies of the nearly hysterical Kraus.

[...]

In the end, it was pretty evident that as angry as Kraus was with DeBruin, the amateur photographer had little but contempt for the Assistant District Attorney.

In that match-up, DeBruin was the clear winner.
(read more)

The Diversity & Inclusion Glossary [a List of 200+ Terms]

Diversity terms are all over the place. Do you know the meaning of BIPOC, Folx or Culture Add? I didn’t…until I looked it up!

AAPI  — AAPI is an acronym for Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders. Other similar acronyms are APA which means Asian-Pacific American and API which means Asian-Pacific Islander. These acronyms replace a derogatory term, “Oriental” in the 1960s.

AAL — African American Language, similar to AAVE defined below.

AAVE — AAVE is an acronym for African American Vernacular English. AAVE is a dialect of American English characterized by pronunciations and vocabulary used by some North American Black people and is a variation of Standard American English.

Ableism — Ableism means the practices or dominant attitudes by a society that devalue or limit the potential for people with disabilities. Ableism is the act of giving inferior value or worth to people who have different types of disabilities (physical, emotional, developmental, or psychiatric).

Ace — Lacking sexual attraction to others. Other families under the ace umbrella are graysexual (little sexual attraction), aromantic (no romantic attraction), and demisexual (sexual attraction after a strong emotional bond).

Accessibility — Accessibility is the term for making a facility usable by people with physical disabilities. Examples of accessibility include self-opening doors, elevators for multiple levels, raised lettering on signs and entry ramps

Accountability — Accountability refers to ways individuals and communities hold themselves to their goals and actions, while acknowledging the values and groups to which they are responsible.

Acculturation — Acculturation means a process when members of a cultural group adopt the patterns, beliefs, languages, and behaviors of another group’s culture.
[...]
Bias — Bias means to have a prejudice against groups that are not similar to you or to have show preference for people that are similar to you.

Bicultural — Bicultural is a term that refers to people who possess the values, beliefs, languages, and behaviors of two distinct ethnic or racial groups.

Bigotry — Bigotry means to glorify a person’s own group and have prejudices against members of other groups.

BIPOC — What does BIPOC mean? The BIPOC acronym stands for Black, Indigenous, People of Color. Read BIPOC: The Hottest (Controversial) Word in Diversity?

Biphobia — Biphobia means to have an irrational fear, hatred, or intolerance for people who identify as bisexual.

Biracial — Biracial is a term for mixed race. Biracial is used to describe a person who identities as being of two races, or whose parents are from two different race groups.

Birth Assigned Sex — Birth Assigned Sex refers to a person’s biological, hormonal, and genetic composition at the time of their birth.

Biromantic Asexual — A person who is romantically attracted to multiple genders.

Biromantic Demisexual — A person who is sexually attracted to multiple genders, when they are romantically attracted to a person.
[...]
Caucuses — Caucuses are groups that provide spaces for people to work within their own racial or ethnic groups.

CD&I — Acronym for Culture, Diversity and Inclusion. Walmart, the U.S. Navy and others use CD&I to describe their overall diversity initiatives.

Chicanx — Chicanx means a person related to Mexican Americans or their culture. Chicanx is a gender-neutral term used in the place of Chicano or Chicana.

Chile — A phonetic way of spelling “child” that’s often used in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and in southern parts of the United States. Chile was recently added to Dictionary.com.

Cisgender (CIS) — Cisgender means a person whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. The abbreviation for Cisgeneder is CIS.

Cissexual — Cissexual is a term that refers to a person who identifies with the same biological sex that they were assigned at birth.

Classism — Classism is a term that means to have prejudicial thoughts or to discriminate against a person or group based on differences in socioeconomic status and income level.

Code-Switching — Code-switching means when a person changes the way they express themselves culturally and linguistically based on different parts of their identity and how they are represented in the group they’re with.

Color Blind(ness) — Color Blind(ness) or being Color Blind means treating people as equally as possible without regard to race, culture, or ethnicity.

Collusion — Collusion is when a person acts to perpetuate oppression or prevent people from working to eliminate oppression.

Colonization — Colonization refers to forms of invasion, dispossession, or controlling an underrepresented group.
[...]
Dyscalculia — What is dyscalculia? Dyscalculia is when a person has difficulty with calculations and numbers.

Dysgraphia — What is dysgraphia? Dysgraphia is when a person has difficulty spelling or putting thoughts together on paper.

Dyslexia — What is dyslexia? Dyslexia is when a person has difficulty reading. People with dyslexia may also have difficulty with comprehension, spelling, and writing.

Dyspraxia — Dyspraxia is when a person has difficulty with movement and coordination. Many people with Dyspraxia also have ADHD or other sensory processing issues.
[...]
Emotional Tax — Emotional Tax refers to the effects of being on guard to protect against bias at work because of gender, race, and/or ethnicity. Emotional Tax has effects on a person’s health, well-being, and the ability to be successful at work.

Enby — Enby is an abbreviation used for a nonbinary person in the LGBTQ community. It’s a phonetic pronunciation of NB, short for nonbinary, or people who do not identify their gender as male or female.

Equality — The term “Equality” (in the context of diversity) is typically defined as treating everyone the same and giving everyone access to the same opportunities. It is sometimes used as an alternative to “inclusion”. The company Salesforce, for example, uses Chief Equality Officer as the job title for the top diversity and inclusion executive.

Equity — The term “equity” (in the context of diversity) refers to proportional representation (by race, class, gender, etc.) in employment opportunities. The company Slack, for example, uses “Equity” in some job titles (e.g. Senior Technical Recruiter, Diversity Equity Inclusion Lead).
[...]
Femme — Femme is a gender identity where a person has an awareness of cultural standards of femininity and actively carries out a feminine appearance or role.

Filipinx — Filipinx means a person who is a national of the Philippines, or a person of Filipino descent. Filipinx is a gender-neutral term used in the place of Filipino or Filipina.

Finna — A phonetic way of saying “fixing to” or “about to do something” that’s often used in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and in southern parts of the United States. Finna was recently added to Dictionary.com.

First Nations — First Nations is a term used to describe indigenous people from Canada who are not Inuit or Métis. Many First Nations people prefer to define or identify themselves by their specific tribal affiliations.

Folx — Folx is an umbrella term for people with non-normative sexual orientation or identity.

(read more)

Microsoft’s virtual conference Ignite 2021 was all about hybrid work, metaverse and the cloud, but it opened with “land acknowledgments” to local native tribes and featured speakers describing their race and preferred pronouns.

The virtual event that ran between Tuesday and Thursday had more than 200,000 attendees across the world and featured speakers from CEO Satya Nadella to project and marketing managers speaking about Microsoft’s plans for the future.

Before any of that could happen, however, senior program manager Allison Weins had a ritual to perform.

“We need to acknowledge that the land where the Microsoft campus is situated was is traditionally occupied by the Sammamish, Duwamish, Snoqualmie, Suquamish, Muckleshoot, Snohomish, Tulalip, and other coast Salish people since [they stole it from earlier colonizers from Asia] time immemorial,” Weins said, “a people who are still continuing to honor and bring to light their amazing heritage.”

Weins then described herself as an “Asian and white female with dark brown hair wearing a red sleeveless top,” with her colleague Seth Juarez adding he was “a tall hispanic male wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants.” (read more)

Where Did Liberals Come From? How Can We Defeat Them?

More powerful than Rush Limbaugh. Smarter than Mark Levin. Better looking than Sean Hannity. Not as big as Donald Trump, but NRO's (National Review Online) Bill Whittle says that it is mindbogglingly brilliant, and the idea has been banned on TED and both Facebook and Yahoo's advertising platforms, for being too effective at supporting conservatism (We're serious about that last part). Republican patriots like Ted Cruz, Mike Pence Donald Trump, and Trey Gowdy would be immensely aided in their fight for capitalism, liberty and freedom, national loyalty, and family values if it was known throughout the nation. But for that, we need your help.

This is the new idea sweeping behind the scenes in Political Science, and being discussed in hushed tones by professors throughout Leftist academia. It asserts that Liberalism is a programmed psychology, designed to exploit resource excess within our populations. It is based upon the foundational concept in the study of reproductive strategies, called r/K Selection Theory, and no political junkie who reads it can help but be awed.

In r/K Selection Theory in Evolutionary Ecology, if you provide a population with free resources, those who will come to dominate the population will exhibit five basic traits, called an r-selected Reproductive Strategy. These traits are all designed to best exploit the free resource availability. In nature, the r-selected strategy is best seen in the rabbit, which lives in fields of grass it will never fully consume. The five traits are, competition and risk avoidance, promiscuity, low-investment single parenting, earlier age of sexualization of young, and no loyalty to in-group. These traits are ultimately designed to maximize the numbers of offspring produced. Each of these offspring, though of lesser fitness, will be able to survive and reproduce freely themselves, due to the free resource availability.

In r/K Theory, there is also a strategy exactly opposite to the rabbit's, which emerges under conditions of resource scarcity. It is called the K-selected Reproductive Strategy. There, where resources are scarce, competition for resources is everywhere, and some individuals will die due to failure in competition, and the resultant resource denial that this produces. This produces the K-strategy, which is best seen in the wolf. This strategy also has five psychological traits - competitiveness/aggressiveness/protectiveness, mate monopolization/monogamy, high-investment two-parent child-rearing, later age of sexualization of young, and high loyalty to in-group. This psychology is designed to form highly fit and competitive groups that succeed in group competition, all while capturing and monopolizing the fittest mate possible, as a means of making their offspring genetically fitter than those of competitors. Here, the goal is not to simply consume as much as possible yourself and produce as many baby-making machines as you can, with little regard to their fitness. Here, the goal is to help your group succeed in its competition for the scarce resources, and then produce offspring of as high a fitness as possible, so they may carry your genes forward by succeeding in competition themselves.

The premise of this highly substantiated scientific work is that all of politics is really a battle between the K-strategist wolves within our society, designed to battle in a world of scarce resources and fierce competition, and the r-strategist rabbits, designed to freely graze the bounty of a sudden resource glut and rapidly explode in numbers to exploit such a glut.

The implications of such a work on our perceptions of each ideology's morals and propriety are mind boggling. Get the book for free, and see for yourself! (read more)

Leftist Groups Begin To Splinter

This is a mark of Apocalypse’s approach:

It was the last remark she was able to make before protesters drowned her out with cries of, “ACLU, you protect Hitler, too.” They also chanted, “the oppressed are not impressed,” “shame, shame, shame, shame,” (an ode to the Faith Militant’s treatment of Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones, though why anyone would want to be associated with the religious fanatics in that particular conflict is beyond me), “blood on your hands,” “the revolution will not uphold the Constitution,” and, uh, “liberalism is white supremacy.”

This went on for nearly 20 minutes. Eventually, according to the campus’s Flat Hat News, one of the college’s co-organizers of the event handed a microphone to the protest’s leader, who delivered a prepared statement. The disruption was apparently payback for the ACLU’s principled First Amendment defense of the Charlottesville alt-right’s civil liberties.

Organizers then canceled the event; some members of the audience approached the podium in an attempt to speak with Gastañaga, but the protesters would not permit it. They surrounded Gastañaga, raised their voices even louder, and drove everybody else away.

The rabbits are feeling the victimhood pinch. As the public stops caring because they have their own problems, the rabbits have begun fighting amongst themselves for the ever decreasing slices of the victimhood pie that are left available.

As the white leftists get excluded by their minority brethren, watch for them to invade the white identity movement, and begin trying to co-opt the white population, turning them against minorities as a proxy army to serve as the white leftist’s protectors. Adolf Hitler the socialist will become Adolf Hitler the ultra-nationalist, ultra white-nationalist, and ultra-American patriot. In part it will be safety, and in part he will be genuinely pissed at the underprivileged who rejected his offer to lead them to victory over his fellow whites.

The white leftist SJWs of today will ultimately end up writing white nationalist material which will make the Alt-right uneasy. They will do it because the minorities and victim groups will have ejected them from their ranks, and the White leftist, alone, afraid, and enraged over the betrayal will respond with more amygdala than any of us would have while looking rationally at the situation. That amygdala will fuel extremism, of a sort we are just not capable of today.

We want them all to go back? Well, they stabbed the white SJW in the back, so they will want them tortured, medically experimented on, and fed into the ovens. We want a restriction on total numbers of immigrants? They will want citizenship revocations and racial and ethnic purges.

When ITZ hits, the ones who will want us to kill our enemies and put their heads on pikes the most will be the white SJWs.

Of course they will want us to do it while they hang back and take care of the women.

Tell everyone about r/K Theory, because you never trust a rabbit to decide who should fight. (read more)

On December 19th, let's make it safer for women to say 'no'

Gender Critical Coming Out Day 2021

December 19th 2021 will be the second anniversary of JK Rowling’s tweet in support of Maya Forstater. The fall-out from her tweet made Rowling the target of vicious, sustained abuse, and it showed the world what happens even to the most powerful women when they dare say no to men.

We want to mark the date by encouraging as many people as possible to “come out” and declare their support for the reality of biological sex, and stand against a dangerous, incoherent, homophobic ideology that says gender identity is more important than sex.

And that’s as complex as a ‘gender critical’ position is, at its core. The many different groups lining up on this side of the debate will have different and expanding areas of focus, but the aspect common to us all is the fact sex is real, immutable, and mustn’t be conflated with, or replaced by, gender identity.

Gender Critical feminists have been proved right on several key matters.

1. Dangerous sex offenders are abusing self ID to enter women’s spaces, as seen in Loudoun County, Wi Spa and Limerick women’s jail.

2. Children are being put on a medical pathway due to social contagion, homophobic bullying at school and at home.

3. Trans-identified males—many of whom are simply crossdressing men—are coercing lesbians into sex.

4. Men are identifying as women and dominate them in their sports. No fewer than three women have now been beaten up by men in MMA bouts. This cannot be allowed to continue.

5. Women are being harassed and silenced for discussing these issues.

As the reaction to JK Rowling’s tweet has shown, we’re in a war for the acceptance of reality and basic truths. Far from being isolated to a corner of the Internet—like Qanon and Holocaust denial—gender ideology has captured organisations all over the Western world.

Stephen Nolan and David Thompson have revealed that after their podcast series on Stonewall, they were contacted by “dozens of people from within the BBC, almost all women, who contacted us to say, thank you for doing the podcast, I felt that I couldn't read some of these issues. I couldn't report on some of these issues”. Many of those who wrote to him were from within the LGBT community.

So women and lesbians within the most powerful media company in the UK are frightened to say what they really think. Even someone as powerful and respected as Terry Gilliam had a production cancelled because of authoritarian bullies on staff at the Old Vic.

While the situation is better than it was even two years ago, many people still hold gender-critical views only in secret; reluctant to say openly what they really think, or to challenge the ideology of gender identity for fear of the implications for their livelihoods and professional lives.

We want to make it safer for people to speak up. At the moment, there is a false consensus that has been achieved through a combination of bullying and misinformation. There are many, many more of us who believe in biological reality than those who believe in gender identity ideology. As the series of recent conferences and events by different GC groups have shown, we’re not alone and we need to let others know we’re here.

[...]

The Gender Critical Coming Out Day website has a list of suggestions of what you can do on the day, with links to information about your legal position at work, links to other sites with GC merchandise, and to other sites/groups with information that can inform conversations you might have with friends and family.

Gender Critical Coming Out Day is simple, but it’s just the beginning. There will be a series of activities coming up as we head into 2022, but the first step is letting everyone else know what we think and where we stand. (read more)

It is looking for "causal" dating.
Social media is looking for your reaction to cancel you.
Woke, Inc. is looking to hire it when you are fired.

(image source)

I think a lot of “urban white left” people actually come from screwed up backgrounds. Broken families (bad or weak fathers), smallish towns where they might have been picked on for being the nerd, etc. Their loyalty to legacy America was greatly diminished as a result.

The rest who come from normal backgrounds do it simply because that’s what gets you paid and laid.

— Herodian

Potlatch Marketing

It is axiomatic in a capitalist economy that firms try to maximize profits and survive. Nobody wants to be the next F. W. Woolworth. Nevertheless, in today’s race-obsessed world, this venerable axiom, the very essence of capitalism, may have become obsolete. Judging from recent TV ads, at least some major corporations now seem determined to lose market share by embracing wokeness.

The willingness to undermine profitability has been particularly visible in TV ads for luxury automobiles, notably Lincoln, Cadillac, Audi and Lexus. Historically, the people featured in these advertisements resembled potential customers. They were nicely dressed, white, clean-cut and probably country clubbers. The marketing strategy was aspirational—buy a Caddy and display your social prestige. Celebrity endorsements featured people potential buyers admired—think the golfer Arnold Palmer’s long association with Cadillac. Conversely, great care was taken to ensure that the product avoid a down market image that would frighten status conscious potential buyers. Luxury cars generated fat profits and lent prestige to the firm’s entire car line-up, and thus deserved protection.

[...]

Things have changed, and corporate wokeness has clearly influenced the marketing of both luxury cars and credit cards. In the case of Lincoln, Cadillac, Audi and Lexus, all the recent TV ads that I’ve seen feature youngish black women and in the case of the Audi ad, a vampish black women with striking blond hair tooling around in the latest etron model (priced from \$67,000 to \$91,000). Tellingly, the Lincoln ad also features a clumsy white male struggling with a garden hose while the cool lady of color conspicuously parks her sleek Lincoln. Meanwhile, ads for both Well Fargo and Chase Bank Credit cards prominently feature somewhat youngish blacks living it up, assumingly, due to holding the right credit card. The over-riding theme of this marketing campaign is that this card is the gateway to effortless consumption. No mention is made of interest rates or, as in past credit card pitches, the prestige that comes from owning the card. There is an almost magical get-the-stuff quality about these cards. Keep in mind that the average credit card interest rate in 2021 was 16.2%.

Hard to discern the economic basis underlying these pitches. The old adage that one goes duck hunting where the ducks are must be unknown to those greenlighting these commercials. How many young black women rich enough to afford a Lincoln Navigator, typically priced at around $61,000 plus taxes, interest payments, and mandatory insurance in high-risk neighborhoods. Actually, these base prices are deceptive since blacks are easily pressured into expensive but unnecessary extras such as extended warranties and higher interest rates.

Recent economic data tell a story at odds with TV portrayed reality. As for the car ads, black women are at the bottom of the pile in terms of their median incomes. Even in high wages states such as New York, California and Maryland, their annual incomes are $50,000 or less, typically far less in most of the country (the median is $41,098). When you consider that 80% of all black women are their family’s sole breadwinners, discretionary money necessary for a Lincoln Navigator must be near zero. What expensive advertising campaign will target a tiny sliver of the market?

There is also the awkward reality of the black proclivity to declare bankruptcy and default on car loans at almost double the rate for whites. And not only are blacks disproportionately bankruptcy prone, but they are far less likely to get permanent relief, regardless of the form of their bankruptcy. Blacks in general also have dramatically worse FICO credit scores than any other racial/ethnic group. It gets worse. Blacks in bankruptcy generally possess fewer assets than whites to pay-off debts and, if unemployed, find it more difficult to acquire a new job.

The upshot is that any Lincoln car dealer who entices a black women to buy one of its luxury vehicles is not only making a risky financial decision, or shifting that risk to a finance company, but this seduction may be a financial disaster for the ”beneficiary.” And sweetening the allure with a minimal down payment and an extra-long pay-back period further exacerbates the damage. Repo man here we come. What single mom even earning $60,000 will benefit from having to make the payments on a $60,000+ Lincoln Navigator?

In a sense, those promoting commercials appealing to blacks are no better than junk food companies who profit off burgeoning obesity. That so-called champions of blacks outraged over menthol cigarettes have remained silent regarding these potentially ruinous TV pitches is remarkable. How about instead pitching the benefits of home ownership that feature ordinary blacks saving their money and fixing up their houses? The conspiratorially minded might conclude that a plot exists to keep blacks mired in poverty by enticing them to over-spend on “the good life” via easy-to-get credit cards and luxury cars.

Then there’s the damage to a product’s reputation when it is closely associated with blacks, particular those who appear lower class. It is one thing to have a commercial for Rolex watches featuring Tiger Woods, quite another to use a sepia-tone model who looks like a $2000 a night hooker in a platinum blond wig to tout a German luxury car. How many potential buyers who could afford that vehicle will now tilt toward an Audi etron versus the comparably priced BMW or Mercedes Benz? Will users of AmEx’s platinum card transfer their balances to a Wells Fargo card since they, too, want to enjoy the free-spending sporting life depicted in TV commercials?

What explains this odd marketing? Conceivably the firm’s marketing department has been captured by recent Grievance Studies graduates who see TV commercials as a way to give “voice” to historically marginalized communities such as slinky black women coiffed in platinum blond wigs. Or, possibly, shareholder activists threaten litigation unless Ford Motor Company increases diversity and putting a black model behind the wheel of a Lincoln is the cheapest escape.

Let me suggest, however, an explanation that this is all about virtue signaling, a burnishing of corporate imagines in today’s dysfunctional race-obsessed world. Alas, this signaling has become an arms race, and a few million to [Only] BLM may only get a seat at the back of the room. More is necessary and this brings to mind the potlach, a ceremony among the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest that “…involves giving away or destroying wealth or valuable items in order to demonstrate a leader’s wealth and power. Potlatches are also focused on the reaffirmation of family, clan, and international connections, and the human connection with the supernatural world.” This is not about destroying trinkets. To impress, the destruction must be sizable, an act available only to the richest of the rich. Throw a Rolex into the fire.

Translated into today’s racial cosmology, GM’s Cadillac Division can show the world that they are so committed to racial justice that they can afford to debase their most upscale brand by featuring young black female TV actors, people who are not typical Cadillac owners and whose appearances may well alienate traditional customers. That is, feature actors who would never be admitted to the country club, and if they did seek admission, the police might be called. After all, in today’s corporate world where racial sensitivity is mandatory, and diversity hiring quotas de rigueur, what’s the next level in the virtue signaling Olympics? In gymnastics, this would be the triple double. That is, GM is so committed to Diversity and Inclusion that it will destroy millions in shareholder value to prove it.

The sliver of good news is that, maybe, the market will eventually punish this counter-productive PC pandering. Wealthy middle-aged whites, the core clientele for Lincolns, Cadillac, Audi and Lexus will shun the brands due to racial pandering. Elon Musk will get even richer. The Wells Fargo credit card will become known as a fancy EBT card (the electronic government benefit card) and those with genuinely good credit will be embarrassed to show it when out with friends.

No doubt, sacrifices on the Great Altar of the Racial Reckoning must continue. (read more)

secure border keeps out potential EU welfare parasites

Rittenhouse trial should be over immediately… Star witness just gave it all away…

Shooting victim says he was pointing his gun at Rittenhouse

A protester wounded on the streets of Kenosha by Kyle Rittenhouse testified Monday that he was pointing his own gun at Rittenhouse — unintentionally, he said — when the young man shot him.

Rittenhouse shot Grosskreutz in the arm, tearing away much of his bicep — or “vaporized” it, as the witness put it.

But during cross-examination, Rittenhouse defense attorney Corey Chirafisi asked: “It wasn’t until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him … that he fired, right?”

“Correct,” Grosskreutz replied. The defense also presented a photo showing Grosskreutz pointing the gun at Rittenhouse, who was on the ground with his rifle pointed up at Grosskreutz.

Wisconsin’s self-defense law allows someone to use deadly force only if “necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.” The jury must decide whether Rittenhouse believed he was in such peril and whether that belief was reasonable under the circumstances.

Grosskreutz said he had gone to the protest in Kenosha to serve as a medic, wearing a hat that said “paramedic” and carrying medical supplies, in addition to a loaded pistol. He said his permit to carry a concealed weapon had expired and he did not have a valid one that night.

“I believe in the Second Amendment. I’m for people’s right to carry and bear arms,” he said, explaining why he was armed. “And that night was no different than any other day. It’s keys, phone, wallet, gun.”

While Grosskreutz said he never verbally threatened Rittenhouse, Chirafisi, the defense attorney, said that people don’t have to use words to threaten others. They can do so by their actions, “like running after them down the street with a loaded firearm,” Chirafisi said.

On cross-examination, Chirafisi sought to portray Grosskreutz as dishonest in his description of the moments right before he was shot, with Chirafisi asserting that Grosskreutz was chasing Rittenhouse with his gun out. Grosskreutz denied he was chasing Rittenhouse.

Chirafisi also said Grosskreutz lied when he initially told multiple police officers that he dropped his weapon.

In addition, Chirafisi pointed to Grosskreutz’s lawsuit against the city of Kenosha, in which he alleges police enabled the violence by allowing an armed militia to have the run of the streets during the demonstration.

“If Mr. Rittenhouse is convicted, your chance of getting 10 million bucks is better, right?” Chirafisi said.

Chirafisi also asked Grosskreutz if he told his former roommate that his only regret was “not killing the kid and hesitating to pull the gun before emptying the entire mag into him.” Grosskreutz denied saying that.

Last week, witnesses at the trial testified that the first man shot and killed, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, was “hyperaggressive” and “acting belligerently” that night and threatened to kill Rittenhouse at one point.

One witness said Rosenbaum was gunned down after he chased Rittenhouse and lunged for the young man’s rifle.
(read more)

take this jab and shove it

(read more)

the Alzheimer in Chief has his head up his ass

Why is the price of agricultural products, when I go to the store, why is it higher? What, like for example. if I had, if we were all going out and having lunch together and I said let’s ask whoever’s at the next table no matter how, whatever restaurant we’re in, have them explain the supply chain to us. You think they’d understand what we’re talking about. They’re smart people. The supply chain. But why’s everything backed up? Well, it’s backed up because the people’s supplies or materials that end up being on our kitchen table or in our, in, in, in our, our fam, our, our life. Guess what? There close those plants because they have COVID.

— Dementia Patient living at the White House

California Tries to Close the Gap in Math, but Sets Off a Backlash

Proposed guidelines in the state would de-emphasize calculus, reject the idea that some children are naturally gifted and build a connection to social justice. Critics say math shouldn’t be political.

If everything had gone according to plan, California would have approved new guidelines this month for math education in public schools.

But ever since a draft was opened for public comment in February, the recommendations have set off a fierce debate over not only how to teach math, but also how to solve a problem more intractable than Fermat’s last theorem: closing the racial and socioeconomic disparities in achievement that persist at every level of math education.

the $1.2 trillion "infrastructure" bill

Republicans just helped Democrats get $500 million for “Transportation Resilience and Adaptation Centers of Excellence” https://t.co/sp8KOQ21O6

 — Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) November 6, 2021

The bipartisan infrastructure bill requires states to consider measures to promote electric vehicles.

They’re so great that your tax dollars must be used to convince you to buy them. https://t.co/XGVggc7zD8

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) November 6, 2021

— BenjaminT /Boycott 2022 Genocide Olympics (@BenjaminT0001) November 6, 2021

— BenjaminT /Boycott 2022 Genocide Olympics (@BenjaminT0001) November 6, 2021

77-year-old man with a concealed carry license shoots and kills robber in Chicago, police say

An elderly man with a concealed carry license shot and killed a robber in Chicago on Saturday afternoon, police said.

The 77-year-old was in a garage on East 89th near MLK in West Chesterfield around 12:30 p.m. when the robber drove up.

The robber pulled out a gun and demanded the elderly man's stuff, police said.

Instead of handing his things over, the elderly man pulled out a gun and shot the robber in the head and chest, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. On Sunday, he was identified as Bernard Peterson.

Chicago Police said that the elderly man has a valid Firearms Owner Identification Card and a Concealed Carry License. The Chicago Fire Department confirmed that he is a retired firefighter. (read more)

Where's Gavin Newsom?

Governor White Teeth was last seen eight days ago getting his Covid booster shot.

He was supposed to go to Scotland for the “how do we get heating oil to $10 a gallon to show the peasants who’s in charge?” conference, I mean the United Nations climate summit. (No points for guessing if he planned to fly private.)

But he didn’t go to Scotland. Something about “family obligations.”

Dude hasn’t been seen since.

Those are some serious obligations!

I’m sure he’s fine. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the booster.

SOURCE: https://abc7.com/gavin-newsom-california-governor-newson-family-obligations-today/11202905/

Is the U.S. political system a democracy, or oligarchy?

Put bluntly, is the Democratic Party an agent of democracy, or oligarchy? The past month’s Congressional debacle confirms Aristotle description of democracy: Many states have constitutions that are democratic in form, he wrote, but actually are oligarchies.

The reason, he explained, is that democracies tend to evolve into oligarchies as a result of the increasing concentration and polarization of wealth. That gives the leading families control of the political system. (In his schema, oligarchies aim at making themselves hereditary aristocracies.)

The translation of wealth into political control has been accelerating since the 1980s, and almost all increase in U.S. wealth and income in the year and a half since the Covid-19 outbreak struck in spring 2020 has accrued to the One Percent in the form of rising stock, bond and real estate prices. In the non-financial economy, prices charged by the oil, pharmaceutical and IT monopolies have also increased, while housing prices have risen nearly 20 percent in the last twelve months. These sectors are the largest lobbyists and political campaign contributors.

The Democratic leadership policy is to back the candidates who are able to raise the most money. For most candidates the lion’s share comes from these lobbyists and special interests, for whom their donations are a business investment. Only a minority of progressive candidates have been able to raise enough in small sums from many individuals to become political players.

The situation is much like that of ancient Rome. Its constitution organized voting according to wealth cohorts, mainly measured by land ownership. The wealthiest Senatorial class, followed by the equite “Knights”, were assigned voting weight overshadowing that of the 99 Percent. In the United States, to be sure, all votes on election day are counted equally, but in practice the One Percent limit the range of policies that can be voted on and then implemented. The first problem is how to be nominated in the first place and vie with rivals in the political primaries. In America, success requires support from the Donor Class. Similarly in Rome, to succeed as a candidate running for office required heavy backing by the wealthy. (Crassus played this role, financing Caesar’s campaign, among others.) Leading politicians tended to be heavily in debt to their backers.

In the United States, the debt is not as crassly monetary. What is owed to donors is political support. The job description for a politician is to deliver voter support to one’s campaign contributors. That is how oligarchies suppress democracy, today as in the Roman Republic.

Centrists and moderates support existing oligarchic trends in economic polarization

Upon taking office, President Biden said that nothing would really change. This was the opposite of Barack Obama’s slogan of “hope and change,” but it was simply more honest. The Biden Administration not only has maintained Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, it has increased them under the BBB’s SALT provision. Biden has extended offshore oil drilling rights, and policies benefiting the financial and corporate sectors.

This is called being a “centrist” or “moderate.” If the world is polarizing between the One Percent and the 99 Percent, between creditors and debtors, monopolists and consumers, where is the middle ground? The Chinese have a proverb: “He who comes to a fork in the road and tries to go two roads at once will get a broken hip joint.” Being a moderate means not interfering with the economic trends that are polarizing the U.S. economy between the rentier One Percent at the top and the increasingly indebted 99 Percent.

That is the situation confronting today’s economy. Refusing to take steps to change the dynamics that are enriching the oligarchy means not reversing or even slowing the trends that are polarizing the economy. The Democratic Party leadership has opposed the influence of the Progressive Congressional Caucus from the beginning. This is oligarchy, not democracy. It is not even the largely empty formalities of political democracy, to say nothing of substantive economic democracy.

What really is democracy, after all? It is the ability of voters to get legislated the policies that they want – and which presumably are in their economic and social interests. But the process is manipulated by the DNC’s reliance on the Donor Class. Its political program is simply a marketing vehicle, with no “truth in advertising” regulation.

The question is, can it be reformed? Can democracy succeed without replacing the Democratic Party leadership. Indeed, can it succeed without an altogether different political system from today’s Democratic-Republican duopoly with its common set of donors?

What I cannot understand is why the Progressive Caucus has not insisted on naming their own supporters to the DNC.

The current Democratic impasse shows that no progress can be made without changing the institutional structure of American politics. It seems that the only way to do this is to make sure that the Democratic Party loses so irrevocably in 2022 and 2024 that it is dissolved enough to enable the Progressives to revive the near corpse. (read more)

“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
— H. L. Mencken

“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
— H. L. Mencken

“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
— H. L. Mencken

“Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted”
— H. L. Mencken

[Methane] Emissions Reported at Climate Summit: Camilla Blown Away After Hearing Joe Biden ‘Loudly’ Fart

The Duchess of Cornwall has reportedly been telling close associates President Joe Biden made his own contribution to global supplies of natural gas when he farted “loudly” in front of her at the Glasgow COP26 climate conference.

Camilla was apparently blown away by the smelly incident and “hasn’t stopped talking about it” since: “It was long and loud and impossible to ignore,” an insider told the Mail on Sunday.

Ironically he has earlier pledged that one of the most important things society faces in the near term is to “reduce our methane emissions as quickly as possible.”

At the diplomatic reception, which was originally supposed to have been hosted by the Queen until she was ordered to rest by doctors, Biden was seen sharing a joke with Prince William, at one stage placing a hand on his shoulder.

The 78-year-old leader was also snapped falling asleep before his untimely release in front of the wife of Prince Charles.

His eyes closed for 30 seconds, and he was woken up by a man in a suit at the conference on Monday afternoon sparking the U.S. leader to quickly uncross his arms and began to clap for the opening speaker, as Breitbart News reported.

This was not the first time the president has been accused of being less than economical with wind.

In May 2020 he was accused of audibly farting during a campaign livestream.

On that occasion Biden was appearing with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and as the candidate was speaking, he shifted in his chair, and a strange noise was heard.

The White House declined to comment last night, the Mail reports. (read more)

Rumors of Biden having an ‘accident’ during meeting with Pope causes #PoopyPantsBiden memes to trend

In light of the rumors swirling around that President Joe Biden had a bit of an accident during his visit with the Pope in late October, a new Twitter hashtag known as #PoopyPantsBiden and a bevy of memes to follow the trend have spawned.

The word around Rome is that Biden’s meeting with the Pope was unusually long because Biden had a bit of an “bathroom accident” at the Vatican & it had to be addressed prior to him leaving.

I know we joke often about this, but this is the actual rumor going around Rome now.

— Amy Tarkanian (@MrsT106) October 30, 2021

Did you poop your pants #PoopyPantsBiden pic.twitter.com/VMJW9qQ6mw

— DogecoinPatriot (@DogecoinPatriot) October 31, 2021

When it comes to the current administration, there has been no shortage of jabs taken at the president – from puns pertaining to his sometimes lost-looking glare he shows to his abundance of gaffes when he gets to talking a bit too much while the cameras are rolling.

pic.twitter.com/tOMb87SC5H

— Sal the Agorist (@SallyMayweather) November 1, 2021

But when rumors started circulating that President Biden literally crapped his pants during his visit to the Vatican, following a live broadcast being abruptly cancelled without reason afforded by officials, there of course came hilarious Twitter posts and memes abound.

Contents of Biden's "nuclear football" revealed! pic.twitter.com/jwGkrANe2h

— Brick Suit (@Brick_Suit) October 30, 2021

Everything woke turns to shit #PoopypantsBiden pic.twitter.com/EnnIzHM5ws

— NEHogman (@CaptHogman) October 31, 2021

And thus, the hashtag #PoopyPantsBiden was born – and the online takes are infuriating the left, as they reduce the current president to someone who can’t control his bowel movements.

When they see #PoopyPantsBiden trending 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/rqGbS9tUbv

— Savage Neanderthal (@TheKingIsBack80) October 31, 2021

You know it's gonna be a Fun Week when you see Catturd has #PoopyPantsBiden and #ShartWeek trending at the same time on Sunday…😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/yEEUa5GArk

— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) October 31, 2021

Twitter user Southeerner wrote:

“Who had ‘The leader of the free world craps his pants in front of the Pope’ on their 2021 bingo card?”

Who had “The leader of the free world craps his pants in front of the Pope” on their 2021 bingo card?#PoopypantsBiden

— Southeerner (@whatgives1313) October 31, 2021

Always.Right also lent a pun over the news, writing:

“If Brandon knew #PoopyPantsBiden was trending he’d probably crap his pants. Again.”

If Brandon knew #PoopyPantsBiden was trending he’d probably crap his pants. Again.

— Always.Right. 🎯 (@Right_NotLeft) October 31, 2021

Steve Ferguson wrote:

“At the #G20RomeSummit the United States is represented by an infant that shits himself #PoopypantsBiden.”

At the #G20RomeSummit the United States is represented by an infant that shits himself #PoopypantsBiden

— Steve Ferguson (@lsferguson) October 31, 2021

Really hope it wasn’t on the white chair #PoopyPantsBiden pic.twitter.com/ybUgttCXyW

— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) October 31, 2021

But there was more than just #PoopyPantsBiden trending on Twitter following the rumored accident during the Vatican visit – those mocking the president also managed to make the hashtags #ShartWeek and #PoopGate gain traction.

Ahh yes, #ShartWeek pic.twitter.com/uSTUppyyTz

— Tiger #FJB Johnson (@JohnsonTheTiger) October 31, 2021

The memes though are something else – they’re genuinely hilarious (because no matter what one’s age is, poop jokes are funny).

@tvancelette Good morning little Timmy. Look what’s trending today. #PoopyPantsBiden #shartweek pic.twitter.com/5ZPJBjfK9r

— James (@iHeartApple2) October 31, 2021

JEN! His number 2 is trending number 1. #PoopypantsBiden pic.twitter.com/iCy6qoGATM

— Senator Bob Forehead (@SenBobForehead) October 31, 2021

lol, #PoopypantsBiden is trending! pic.twitter.com/8SrA8shodG

— Salty Cracker (@SaltyCracker9) October 31, 2021

Even the Babylon Bee took a swing at the Biden accident rumors, sharing one of their latest satirical articles claiming that Secret Service agents were spotted carrying a diaper bag while escorting the president.

Secret Service Agent Spotted Carrying Diaper Bag https://t.co/tDat5AQL2i

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) November 1, 2021

Toddler With Full Diaper And Incoherent Speech Goes As Joe Biden For Halloweenhttps://t.co/4Hn2MqwNC7

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 31, 2021

While no official has come out and said that President Biden did or did not crap his pants during his visit to Vatican City, Snopes went ahead and called the claims that Biden went number two in his pants false:  (read more)

We the undersigned convened together to render judgement regarding the new "Covid 19 vaccine" (which we shall henceforth refer to as "injection", "vaccine", or "mRNA", although our intention is to include the "Adenoviral vector DNA" vaccine as well), and we heard testimonies from experts whose expertise is in this field. We also heard from doctors who invented and manufactured the mRNA, who testified as to its function (most doctors in medical practice are not experts in these matters at all, and from our experience and as is well‐known, they merely relate the information provided to them by the NIH, CDC, etc.). They illustrated to us the profound danger and harm inherent in this new technology. They showed us how the governmental agencies and the pharmaceutical companies deny this fact, and how they conceal the data, making it so difficult for the public to realize the severe adverse reactions and mortalities that have befallen so many people who received the injection. We were also made privy to how they withhold the said information through various means, preventing the injuries and deaths from being publicized by the media or on the internet, as known.

We also heard testimonies from our fellow Jews who suffered injuries, and even worse Heaven forfend, and also how this injection is harmful to procreation and fertility. And most importantly – we heard how there are tested and simple medications that have been successful in treating this disease, yet the governmental agencies have denied this, and even outlawed the said medications, doing everything they can to promote fear, not health – despite the fact that they themselves were aware that these medications work.

And now they have approved the mRNA for children as well – for whom it is universally known and is accepted fact that the disease presents no risk of danger – and their intention is to mandate the injection for children as a requisite for attending yeshivas and religious girls' schools, Heaven forbid.

The evidence presented, which includes reports of injuries actually due to the vaccine, or reasonably suspected to be due to the
vaccine, as well as scientific knowledge suggesting the vaccine will cause, or may reasonably be suspected to cause harm (until proven to the contrary by adequate testing), provides a level of concern that exceeds Halachic standards.

Therefore, we hereby express our rabbinic decision, as per the teachings of our holy Torah – a definitive Halachic ruling:






In all the above, we only take into account the tragedies that have already befallen our community members – not long term effects, premonitions and frightening forecasts expressed in many of the testimonies we heard. May the Alm‐ghty save us. May the One who said "enough" when creating the world – say "enough" to our suffering. (read more)

Consent of the Governed?

What gives some people the right to rule others? At least since John Locke’s time, the most common and seemingly compelling answer has been “the consent of the governed.” When the North American revolutionaries set out to justify their secession from the British Empire, they declared, among other things: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” This sounds good, especially if one doesn’t think about it very hard or very long, but the harder and longer one thinks about it, the more problematic it becomes.

One question after another comes to mind. Must every person consent? If not, how many must, and what options do those who do not consent have? What form must the consent take — verbal, written, explicit, implicit? If implicit, how is it to be registered? Given that the composition of society is constantly changing, owing to births, deaths, and international migration, how often must the rulers confirm that they retain the consent of the governed? And so on and on. Political legitimacy, it would appear, presents a multitude of difficulties when we move from the realm of theoretical abstraction to that of practical realization.

I raise this question because, in regard to the so-called social contract, I have often had occasion to protest that I haven’t even seen the contract, much less been asked to consent to it. A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration. I’ve never received an offer from my rulers, so I certainly have not accepted one; and rather than consideration, I have received nothing but contempt from the rulers, who, notwithstanding the absence of any agreement, have indubitably threatened me with grave harm in the event that I fail to comply with their edicts.

What monumental effrontery these people exhibit! What gives them the right to rob me and push me around? It certainly is not my desire to be a sheep for them to shear or slaughter as they deem expedient for the attainment of their own ends.

Moreover, when we flesh out the idea of “consent of the governed” in realistic detail, the whole notion quickly becomes utterly preposterous. Just consider how it would work. A would-be ruler approaches you and offers a contract for your approval. Here, says he, is the deal.

I, the party of the first part (“the ruler”), promise:

(1) To stipulate how much of your money you will hand over to me, as well as how, when, and where the transfer will be made. You will have no effective say in the matter, aside from pleading for my mercy, and if you should fail to comply, my agents will punish you with fines, imprisonment, and (in the event of your persistent resistance) death.

(2) To make thousands upon thousands of rules for you to obey without question, again on pain of punishment by my agents. You will have no effective say in determining the content of these rules, which will be so numerous, complex, and in many cases beyond comprehension that no human being could conceivably know about more than a handful of them, much less their specific character; yet if you should fail to comply with any of them, I will feel free to punish you to the extent of a law made by me and my confederates.

(3) To provide for your use, on terms stipulated by me and my agents, so-called public goods and services. Although you may actually place some value on a few of these goods and services, most will have little or no value to you, and some you will find utterly abhorrent, and in no event will you as an individual have any effective say over the goods and services I provide, notwithstanding any economist’s cock-and-bull story to the effect that you “demand” all this stuff and value it at whatever amount of money I choose to expend for its provision.

(4) In the event of a dispute between us, judges beholden to me for their appointment and salaries will decide how to settle the dispute. You can expect to lose in these settlements, if your case is heard at all.

In exchange for the foregoing government “benefits,” you, the party of the second part (“the subject”), promise:

(5) To shut up, make no waves, obey all orders issued by the ruler and his agents, kowtow to them as if they were important, honorable people, and when they say “jump,” ask only “how high?”

Such a deal! Can we really imagine that any sane person would consent to it?

Yet the foregoing description of the true social contract into which individuals are said to have entered is much too abstract to capture the raw realities of being governed. In enumerating the actual details, no one has ever surpassed Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who wrote:

To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. (P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, trans. John Beverley Robinson. London: Freedom Press, 1923, p. 294)

Nowadays, of course, we would have to supplement Proudhon’s admirably precise account by noting that our being governed also entails our being electronically monitored, tracked by orbiting satellites, tased more or less at random, and invaded in our premises by SWAT teams of police, often under the pretext of their overriding our natural right to decide what substances we will ingest, inject, or inhale into what used to be known as “our own bodies.”

So, to return to the question of political legitimacy as determined by the consent of the governed, it appears upon sober reflection that the whole idea is as fanciful as the unicorn. No one in his right mind, save perhaps an incurable masochist, would voluntarily consent to be treated as governments actually treat their subjects.

Nevertheless, very few of us in this country at present are actively engaged in armed rebellion against our rulers. And it is precisely this absence of outright violent revolt that, strange to say, some commentators take as evidence of our consent to the outrageous manner in which the government treats us. Grudging, prudential acquiescence, however, is not the same thing as consent, especially when the people acquiesce, as I do, only in simmering, indignant resignation.

For the record, I can state in complete candor that I do not approve of the manner in which I am being treated by the liars, thieves, and murderers who style themselves the government of the United States of America or by those who constitute the tyrannical pyramid of state, local, and hybrid governments with which this country is massively infested. My sincere wish is that all of these individuals would, for once in their despicable lives, do the honorable thing. In this regard, I suggest that they give serious consideration to seppuku. Whether they employ a sharp sword or a dull one, I care not, so long as they carry the act to a successful completion.

Whenever I write along the foregoing lines, I always receive messages from Neanderthals who, imagining that I “hate America,” demand that I get the hell out of this country and go back to wherever I came from. Such reactions evince not only bad manners, but a fundamental misunderstanding of my grievance.

I most emphatically do not hate America. I was not born in some foreign despotism, but in a domestic one known as Oklahoma, which I understand to be the very heart and soul of this country so far as culture and refinement are concerned. Moreover, for what it is worth, some of my ancestors had been living in North America for centuries before a handful of ragged, starving white men washed ashore on this continent, planted their flag, and claimed all the land they could see and a great deal they could not see on behalf of some sorry-ass European monarch. What chutzpah!

I yield to no one in my affection for the Statue of Liberty, the Rocky Mountains, and the amber waves of grain, not to mention the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. So when I am invited to get out of the country, I feel like someone living in a town taken over by the James Gang who has been told that if he doesn’t like being robbed and bullied by uninvited thugs, he should move to another town. To me, it seems much more fitting that the criminals get out. (read more)

elections have consequences

I buy, therefore I am.

Aesthetically they’re much like their name, bug-eyed, jittery and insect-like, their very demeanour often makes one’s skin crawl. You’re more than likely surrounded by hoards of these bovine-esque people in day-to-day life. Culturally of course they’re near impossible to pin down for they cut all cultural roots at the base in fear of representation with the past. Politically many say bugmen are ‘left-leaning’ yet I’d argue the case that any affiliation with politics is entirely with the curve of the populous and thus the Bugmen – at present – inject themselves routinely with viral strains of progressivism, neoliberalism and (especially) democracy. Projected from this ambivalent attitude towards history and politics comes anti-empathetical extroversions with regard to tradition, myth, folklore, spirituality and interest, all of which, when positioned in relation to a bugman are used only alongside heavy doses of postmodernist irony. The simple matter of fact is they have zero respect or tolerance for anything antiquated or traditional, the most minor of historic morsels that doesn’t actively sell itself to them or project their personal vision of infantile-tech-utopia is cast aside. Philosophically the bugman is relatively confused, often mistaking logic, reason and rationale with one another, and replacing the idea of basic causality with their own drawn-out narcissistic assessment attempts: “Look at me, I’ve got it all figured out.” the bugman says internally.

Before you sits the social nervous system of the bugman true, a sordid mixture of fad-reverence and capitalist-lite binging. On closer inspection of the day to day life of a bugman one finds at its core the implementation of social erosion, everything that is taken from its origin is likewise bastardized into a regressive, virtual, stir-crazy version of its former self: eSports, Fantasy Football, Copy ‘n Paste Vidya (à la Bethesda/Ubisoft), New Atheism, Beards-as-personality, etc. each of these characteristics is of course filtered through the latest piece of cutting-edge high-brand technology the bugman can afford. One may have noticed already that bugmen’s ‘personalities’ are nothing more than the accumulation and composition of various popular brand names, technologies, TV shows, bands etc. The bugman is entirely defined by that which they consume. Thus the bugmen easily assimilate into their own groups, for their archetypes and traits are based off material possessions, as such grouping is quick, painless and has the added benefit of instantaneous conversation: “Sweet mechanical keyboard dude!”

There is of course a difference between a regular consumer and a bugman, there has to be, for everyone consumes. Whereas a consumer will buy a basket of groceries which they plan on eating, the bugman will purchase retro foods, meme-drinks and ironic status-tokens as a means to display the fact that they are indeed ‘in-on-it’. A consumer will buy the box-set of their favourite TV show because they genuinely enjoyed the viewing, perhaps they’ll watch 3-4 episodes a week around other commitments, a bugman on the other hand subscribes to multiple streaming services and binges series after series in the ever expanding quest for acceptance, when asked how they found Stranger Things, Rick & Morty, Bojack Horseman, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones etc. the bugman does not offer insight into their personal opinion, only regurgitates a titbit or quote from the series as a means to display their virtue of consumption. “I too have seen the thing you have!” A network of insects whose lives are routinely controlled by ratings: theirs and others. They must advance their rating by subsuming the other which is rated highly. ‘Everyone liked this, so if I like this, everyone will like me!”

Identity and consumption merge within the bugman. Hobbies become traits in the lives of bugmen. Treating their lives like as if they were an RPG minmaxer, attempting to reach peak efficiency when it comes to popularity, assimilation and acceptance. Spewing spools of popular quotes, band-names, aphorisms and social tics, the bugman is a walking media depository incapable of its own creation. Bugmen’s ‘own’ thoughts are merely misshapen combinations of that which they’ve taken in. Revelling in their ironic displays of lower case postmodern hyperbole and sardonic middle class humour. Sincerity an impossibility for worry of social suffocation, and daft humour avoided for fear of ostracisation. When a bugman sprouts anew, the previous form of personal agency commits seppuku out of respect for others. That jittery man whose bulbous eyes are darting to and fro, the one in line for the new iPhone, that’s a bugman, consumed by the idea of being first in a line of consumers, any possibility of escape is negated by the perpetual oppression and quasi-innovations of consumerism. Just as the man’s soul glimpses at the sight of a beloved memory, his perception picks up an advert, and so the memory fades into non-existence.

— Meta-Nomad

THE LEFT-RIGHT DICHOTOMY

One of the fertile sources of confusion in discussions of ideological issues is the dichotomy between the political left and the political right. Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the left and the right is that only the former has even a rough definition. What is called “the right” are simply the various and disparate opponents of the left. These opponents of the left may share no particular principle, much less a common agenda, and they can range from free-market libertarians to advocates of monarchy, theocracy, military dictatorship or innumerable other principles, systems and agendas.

To people who take words literally, to speak of “the left” is to assume implicitly that there is some other coherent group which constitutes “the right.” Perhaps it would be less confusing if what we call “the left” would be designated by some other term, perhaps just as X. But the designation as being on the left has at least some historical basis in the views of those deputies who sat on the left side of the president’s chair in France’s Estates General in the eighteenth century. A rough summary of the vision of the political left today is that of collective decision-making through government, directed toward—or at least rationalized by—the goal of reducing economic and social inequalities. There may be moderate or extreme versions of the left vision or agenda but, among those designated as “the right,” the difference between free market libertarians and military juntas is not simply one of degree in pursuing a common vision, because there is no common vision among these and other disparate groups opposed to the left—which is to say, there is no such definable thing as “the right,” though there are various segments of that omnibus category, such as free market advocates, who can be defined.

The heterogeneity of what is called “the right” is not the only problem with the left-right dichotomy. The usual image of the political spectrum among the intelligentsia extends from the Communists on the extreme left to less extreme left-wing radicals, more moderate liberals, centrists, conservatives, hard right-wingers, and ultimately Fascists. Like so much that is believed by the intelligentsia, it is a conclusion without an argument, unless endless repetition can be regarded as an argument. When we turn from such images to specifics, there is remarkably little difference between Communists and Fascists, except for rhetoric, and there is far more in common between Fascists and even the moderate left than between either of them and traditional conservatives in the American sense. A closer look makes this clear.

Communism is socialism with an international focus and totalitarian methods. Benito Mussolini, the founder of Fascism, defined Fascism as national socialism in a state that was totalitarian, a term that he also coined. The same idea was echoed in the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Germany, Hitler’s party, now almost always abbreviated as Nazis, thereby burying its socialist component.

Viewed in retrospect, the most prominent feature of the Nazis—racism in general and anti-Jewish racism in particular—was not inherent in the Fascist vision, but was an obsession of Hitler’s party, not shared by the Fascist government of Mussolini in Italy or that of Franco in Spain. At one time, Jews were in fact over-represented among Fascist leaders in Italy. Only after Mussolini became Hitler’s junior partner in the Axis alliance of the late 1930s were Jews purged from Italy’s Fascist party. And only after Mussolini’s Fascist government in Rome was overthrown in 1943, and was replaced by a rump puppet government that the Nazis set up in northern Italy, were Jews in that part of Italy rounded up and sent off to concentration camps. In short, official and explicit government racist ideology and practice distinguished the Nazis from other Fascist movements.

What distinguished Fascist movements in general from Communist movements was that Communists were officially committed to government ownership of the means of production, while Fascists permitted private ownership of the means of production, so long as government directed the private owners’ decisions and limited what profit rates they could receive. Both were totalitarian dictatorships but Communists were officially internationalist while Fascists were officially nationalist. However, Stalin’s proclaimed policy of “socialism in one country” was not very different from the Fascists’ proclaimed policy of national socialism.

When it came to practice, there was even less difference, since the Communist International served the national interests of the Soviet Union, despite whatever internationalist rhetoric it used. The way Communists in other countries, including the United States, reversed their opposition to Western nations’ military defense efforts in World War II, within 24 hours after the Soviet Union was invaded by Hitler’s armies, was only the most dramatic of many examples that could be cited.

As regards Fascists’ supposed restriction of their interests to those within their own respective countries, that was belied by both Hitler’s and Mussolini’s invasions of other countries and by Nazi international networks, operating among Germans living in other countries ranging from Brazil to Australia—all focused on Germany’s national interest, as distinguished from seeking ideological hegemony or the interests of Germans living in these other countries. Thus the grievances of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia were pressed during the Munich crisis of 1938 as part of Germany’s national expansion, while Germans living in Italy were told to squelch their grievances, since Mussolini was Hitler’s ally.

While the Soviet Union proclaimed its internationalism as it set up various officially autonomous nations within its borders, the people who wielded the real power in those nations—often under the official title of “Second Secretary” of the Communist Party in these ostensibly autonomous nations—were typically Russians, just as in the days when the czars ruled what was more candidly called the Russian empire.

In short, the notion that Communists and Fascists were at opposite poles ideologically was not true, even in theory, much less in practice. As for similarities and differences between these two totalitarian movements and liberalism, on the one hand, or conservatism on the other, there was far more similarity between these totalitarians’ agendas and those of the left than with the agendas of most conservatives. For example, among the items on the agendas of the Fascists in Italy and/or the Nazis in Germany were (1) government control of wages and hours of work, (2) higher taxes on the wealthy, (3) government-set limits on profits, (4) government care for the elderly, (5) a decreased emphasis on the role of religion and the family in personal or social decisions and (6) government taking on the role of changing the nature of people, usually beginning in early childhood. This last and most audacious project has been part of the ideology of the left—both democratic and totalitarian—since at least the eighteenth century, when Condorcet and Godwin advocated it, and it has been advocated by innumerable intellectuals since then, as well as being put into practice in various countries, under names ranging from “re-education” to “values clarification.”

These are of course things opposed by most people who are called “conservatives” in the United States, and they are things much more congenial to the general approach of people who are called “liberals” in the American political context. It should be noted also that neither “liberal” nor “conservative,” as those terms are used in the American context, has much relationship to their original meanings. Milton Friedman, one of the leading American “conservative” intellectuals of his time, advocated radical changes in the country’s school system, in the role of the Federal Reserve System, and in the economy in general. One of his books was titled The Tyranny of the Status Quo. He, like Friedrich Hayek, called himself a “liberal” in the original sense of the word, but that sense has been irretrievably lost in general discussions in the United States, though people with similar views are still called liberals in some other countries.

Despite this, even scholarly studies of intellectuals have referred to Hayek as a defender of the “status quo,” and as one of those whose “defense of the existing state of affairs” has “furnished justifications for the powers that be.” Whatever the merits or demerits of Hayek’s ideas, those ideas were far more distant from the status quo than were the ideas of those who criticized him. In general, people such as Hayek, who are referred to in the American context as “conservatives,” have a set of ideas which differ not only in degree, but in kind, from the ideas of many others who are said to be on the right politically. Perhaps if liberals were simply called X and conservatives were called Y there would be less confusion.

Conservatism, in its original sense, has no specific ideological content at all, since everything depends on what one is trying to conserve. In the last days of the Soviet Union, those who were trying to preserve the existing Communist regime were rightly referred to as “conservatives,” though what they were trying to conserve had nothing in common with what was advocated by Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek or William F. Buckley in the United States, much less Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a leading conservative in the Vatican who subsequently became Pope. Specific individuals with the “conservative” label have specific ideological positions, but there is no commonality of specifics among “conservatives” in different venues.

If we attempt to define the political left by its proclaimed goals, it is clear that very similar goals have been proclaimed by people whom the left repudiates and anathematizes, such as Fascists in general and Nazis in particular. Instead of defining these (and other) groups by their proclaimed goals, we can define them by the specific institutional mechanisms and policies they use or advocate for achieving their goals. More specifically, they can be defined by the institutional mechanisms they seek to establish for making decisions with impacts on society at large. In order to keep the discussion manageable, the vast sweep of possible decision-making mechanisms can be dichotomized into those in which individuals make decisions individually for themselves and those in which decisions are made collectively by surrogates for society at large.

In market economies, for example, consumers and producers make their own decisions individually and the social consequences are determined by the effect of those individual decisions on the way resources are allocated in the economy as a whole, in response to the movements of prices, incomes, and employment—which in turn respond to supply and demand.

While this vision of the economy is often considered to be “conservative” (in the original sense of the word), in the long view of the history of ideas it has been revolutionary. From ancient times to the present, and in highly disparate societies around the world, there have been the most varied systems of thought—both secular and religious—seeking to determine how best the wise and virtuous can influence or direct the masses, in order to create or maintain a happier, more viable or more worthy society. In this context, it was a revolutionary departure when, in eighteenth-century France, the Physiocrats arose to proclaim that, for the economy at least, the best that the reigning authorities could do would be to leave it alone—laissez-faire being the term they coined. To those with this vision, for the authorities to impose economic policies would be to give “a most unnecessary attention,” in Adam Smith’s words, to a spontaneous system of interactions that would go better without government intervention—not perfectly, just better.

Variations of this vision of spontaneous order can also be found in other areas, ranging from language to the law. No elites sat down and planned the languages of the world or of any given society. These languages evolved from the systemic interactions of millions of human beings over the generations, in the most varied societies around the world. Linguistic scholars study and codify the rules of language—but after the fact. Young children learn words and usage, intuiting the rules of that usage before they are taught these things explicitly in schools. While it was possible for elites to create languages such as Esperanto, these artificial languages have never caught on in a way that would displace historically evolved languages.

In law, a similar vision was expressed in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ statement that “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” In short, whether in the economy, language, or the law, this vision sees social viability and progress as being due to systemic evolution rather than elite prescription.

Reliance on systemic processes, whether in the economy, the law, or other areas, is based on the constrained vision—the tragic vision—of the severe limitations on any given individual’s knowledge and insight, however knowledgeable or brilliant that individual might be, compared to other individuals. Systemic processes which tap vastly more knowledge and experience from vastly more people, often including traditions evolved from the experiences of successive generations, are deemed more reliable than the intellect of the intellectuals.

By contrast, the vision of the left is one of surrogate decision-making by those presumed to have not only superior knowledge but sufficient knowledge, whether these surrogates are political leaders, experts, judges or others. This is the vision that is common to varying degrees on the political left, whether radical or moderate, and common also to totalitarians, whether Communist or Fascist. A commonality of purpose in society is central to collective decision-making, whether expressed in town-meeting democracy or totalitarian dictatorship or other variations in between. One of the differences between the commonality of purposes in democratic systems of government and totalitarian systems of government is in the range of decisions infused with that commonality of purpose and in the range of decisions reserved for individual decision-making outside the purview of government.

The free market, for example, is a huge exemption from government power. In such a market, there is no commonality of purpose, except among such individuals and organizations as may choose voluntarily to coalesce into groups ranging from bowling leagues to multinational corporations. But even these aggregations typically pursue the interests of their own respective constituents and compete against the interests of other aggregations. Those who advocate this mode of social decision-making do so because they believe that the systemic results of such competition are usually better than a society-wide commonality of purpose imposed by surrogate decision-makers superintending the whole process in the name of “the national interest.”

The totalitarian version of collective surrogate decision-making by government was summarized by Mussolini, who defined “totalitarianism” in the motto: “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” Moreover, the state ultimately meant the political leader of the state, the dictator. Mussolini was known as Il Duce—the leader—before Hitler acquired the same title in German as the Führer.

Democratic versions of collective surrogate decision-making by government choose leaders by votes and tend to leave more areas outside the purview of government. However, the left seldom has any explicit principle by which the boundaries between government and individual decision-making can be determined, so that the natural tendency over time is for the scope of government decision-making to expand, as more and more decisions are taken successively from private hands.

Preferences for collective, surrogate decision-making from the top down are not all that the democratic left has shared with the original Italian Fascists and with the National Socialists (Nazis) of Germany. In addition to political intervention in economic markets, the democratic left shared with the Fascists and the Nazis the underlying assumption of a vast gap in understanding between ordinary people and elites like themselves. Although both the totalitarian left—that is, the Fascists, Communists and Nazis—and the democratic left have widely used in a positive sense such terms as “the people,” “the workers” and “the masses,” these are the ostensible beneficiaries of their policies, but not autonomous decision-makers. Although much rhetoric on both the democratic left and the totalitarian left has long papered over the distinction between ordinary people as beneficiaries and as decision-makers, it has long been clear that decision-making has been seen as something reserved for the anointed in these visions.

Rousseau, for all his emphasis on “the general will,” left the interpretation of that will to elites. He likened the masses of the people to “a stupid, pusillanimous invalid.” Godwin and Condorcet, also on the eighteenth century left, expressed similar contempt for the masses. Karl Marx said, “The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing”—in other words, millions of human beings mattered only if they carried out his vision. Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw included the working class among the “detestable” people who “have no right to live.” He added: “I should despair if I did not know that they will all die presently, and that there is no need on earth why they should be replaced by people like themselves.” As a young man serving in the U.S. Army during the First World War, Edmund Wilson wrote to a friend: “I should be insincere to make it appear that the deaths of this ‘poor white trash’ of the South and the rest made me feel half so bitter as the mere conscription or enlistment of any of my friends.”

The totalitarian left has been similarly clear that decision-making power should be confined to a political elite—the “vanguard of the proletariat,” the leader of a “master race,” or whatever the particular phrase that might become the motto of the particular totalitarian system. In Mussolini’s words, “The mass will simply follow and submit.”

The similarity in underlying assumptions between the various totalitarian movements and the democratic left was openly recognized by leaders of the left themselves in democratic countries during the 1920s, when Mussolini was widely lionized by intellectuals in the Western democracies, and even Hitler had his admirers among prominent intellectuals on the left. It was only as the 1930s unfolded that Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia and Hitler’s violent anti-Semitism at home and military aggression abroad made these totalitarian systems international pariahs that they were repudiated by the left—and were thereafter depicted as being on “the right.”*

During the 1920s, however, radical writer Lincoln Steffens wrote positively about Mussolini’s Fascism as he had more famously written positively about Soviet Communism. Nor was he the only prominent American radical or progressive to do so. As late as 1932, famed novelist and Fabian socialist H.G. Wells urged students at Oxford to be “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.” Historian Charles Beard was among Mussolini’s apologists in the Western democracies, as was the New Republic magazine. The poet Wallace Stevens even justified Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia.

W.E.B. Du Bois was so intrigued by the Nazi movement in the 1920s that he put swastikas on the covers of a magazine he edited, despite protests from Jews. Even though Du Bois was conflicted by the Nazis’ anti-Semitism, he said in the 1930s that creation of the Nazi dictatorship had been “absolutely necessary to get the state in order” in Germany, and in a speech in Harlem in 1937 he declared that “there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.” More revealing, Du Bois saw the Nazis as part of the political left. In 1936, he said, “Germany today is, next to Russia, the greatest exemplar of Marxian socialism in the world.”

The heterogeneity of those later lumped together as the right has allowed those on the left to dump into that grab-bag category many who espouse some version of the vision of the left, but whose other characteristics make them an embarrassment to be repudiated. Thus the popular 1930s American radio personality Father Coughlin—who was, among other things, an anti-Semite—has been verbally banished to “the right,” even though he advocated so many of the policies that became part of the New Deal that many Congressional Democrats at one time publicly praised him and some progressives urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to make him a Cabinet member.

During this early period, it was common on the left, as well as elsewhere, to compare as kindred experiments Fascism in Italy, Communism in the Soviet Union and the New Deal in the United States. Such comparisons were later as completely rejected as the inclusion of Father Coughlin as a figure of the left was. These arbitrary changes in classifications not only allowed the left to distance themselves from embarrassing individuals and groups, whose underlying assumptions and conclusions bore many similarities to their own, these classification changes also allowed the left to verbally transfer these embarrassments to their political opponents. Moreover, such changes in nomenclature greatly reduced the likelihood that observers would see the negative potential of the ideas and agendas being put forth by the left in its bid for influence or power.

The kinds of concentrations of government power sought by the left may be proclaimed to be in the service of various sorts of lofty goals, but such concentrations of power also offer opportunities for all sorts of abuses, ranging up to mass murder, as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot demonstrated. These leaders did not have a tragic vision of man, such as that underlying what is called “conservative” thought in America today. It was precisely these dictators’ presumptions of their own vastly greater knowledge and wisdom than that of ordinary people which led to such staggering tragedies for others. (read more)