State of Friday: SPEAK UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS
Let’s go hard this morning, shall we?
Greetings, Dear Reader,
Welcome back to State of the Day, where I strip the euphemism and misdirection off national politics and give it to you straight, no ice, no mixer.
Let’s go hard this morning, shall we?
SPEAK UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS
Abe Lincoln was only 28 when he delivered his prophetic Lyceum speech almost 200 years ago.
Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist preacher and newspaper publisher, had just been killed. A mob had descended on his property to destroy his printing press. They’d already done so three times before with no legal recourse. Why would a fourth be different? Authorities knew who the perpetrators were and did nothing about it. Lovejoy decided a fourth would not occur, and chose to defend himself. The mob gunned him down and threw his press in the Mississippi.
Trump would later eerily echo Lincoln’s speech during a trip abroad by telling a group of reporters that the biggest threat to America was not Russians, Iranians, or North Koreans. It was the “enemy within,” he said.
Cue shrieking from the American press.
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Men can’t become women. Men and women are fundamentally and biologically and irrevocably different. The vast majority of violent criminals are men, and of those criminals, many of them cannot be reformed.
They must be locked up like animals because they refuse to be civilized.
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Lincoln’s central thesis was that America, even in its infancy, was so suitably endowed that it would not be possible for external foes to take her.
His primary contention was that if America were to fall, it would do so as a result of loss of institutional trust. First and foremost, Lincoln was concerned with loss of trust in law and order.
If one particular side of a contentious political debate reserved the right to monopolize summary acts of violence, and if legal authorities, regardless of politics, opted to look away, soon the whole system would come crashing down.
The common man would decide to form his own law, exert his own justice, and exact his own violence.
“By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit are encouraged to become lawless in practice,” Lincoln said.
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About a 20-minute drive from where I live, a mother entered the ladies’ room with her daughter in a public children’s recreation center.
In one of the showers was a nude man openly masturbating.
He had apparently gained access to the ladies’ room by claiming to be a transgender woman, despite being visibly male and obviously creepy. He already had a record and was a registered sex offender and was not allowed within 100 feet of children’s public spaces.
In his possession was a cell phone that contained children’s swim schedules for the rec center.
Police investigated, but the man received no charges.
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There are a lot of cultural problems happening in America right now, and some that nobody really wants to discuss.
Helen Andrews got at one recently with a piece essentially arguing that there were too many women in the workplace. Obviously it drew fire from every corner of the internet. While I think the article was flawed in some serious ways, I think the overall thrust was correct: America is battling a problem of overfeminization.
It’s given rise to what I call “toxic empathy.” Rioting and looting and burning one’s own neighborhood down is just the “speech of the oppressed,” we’re told.
(Violence as a form of “speech” and speech as a form of “violence” are absurdities that have gained wide acceptance on the regressive left lately. They allows for assault of people they simply disagree with to … end the violence.)
We’re told we must empathize with the criminal outcasts; we must empathize with the mentally deranged who plague our streets. The school of “systemic racism” says we must reduce sentencing and allow for easier forms of bail for violent repeat offenders.
The people suffering the brunt of these policies are innocent and generally apolitical. They go about their days and then suddenly they’re dead, like Iryna Zarutska.
I have no trouble funding attempts at criminal rehabilitation and, if necessary, criminal incarceration. But it needs to be quarantined outside of productive society, rapidly and forcefully if necessary.
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The GOP has a serious problem.
Nick Fuentes is one of the top podcasters in the country. Shane Gillis watches supercuts of him. He’s undoubtedly talented. He’s indisputably funny. He’s explicitly racist. He’s also not going anywhere.
And, if we’re honest, it’s not necessarily the racism that’s the problem, despite wider elitist culture supposedly turning it into the gravest of sins.
Fuentes is an ethnonationalist. He believes America should cater its welfare state explicitly to white people.
This belief is not only contra America’s founding principles, but it would lead to a road of ruin if widely adopted.
His popularity also signals a much deeper problem on the political right.
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On racism: Everyone’s a little bit racist and you can’t tell me otherwise.
Even the most coiffed liberal elitist cringes when an indecipherable Pakistani accent picks up the customer service line.
The real race problem isn’t casual racism. It can actually be funny. There’s nothing wrong with highlighting and lampooning our racial differences. Anyone who seriously got offended by a Mel Brooks movie or Richard Pryor’s hysterical “white voice” was indisputably the butt of the joke.
The real problem is codified racism. Racial quotas at universities are just sundown laws of the professional class in the administrative age.
That’s what makes the wokesters so dangerous. That’s also what makes Fuentes’s policy goals so unconscionable.
Using the state to subvert liberty on the basis of race. Jefferson would not be pleased it’s come to this.
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The problem of overfeminization of our culture, particularly in matters of law enforcement, can only be solved if masculinity reasserts itself.
I’m not going to sit here and argue that women should not be allowed to partake in aspects of officialdom. I’ve hired many myself. As previously mentioned, I believe barring people or admitting people based on immutable traits is a road to ruin.
Nevertheless, law enforcement is by its nature masculine.
It might make people uncomfortable, but the problems we’re facing now on the streets are a result of a retreat of masculinity. Women, whether they’ve wanted to or not, have since filled the vacuum.
Men simply need to reassert themselves in some constructive ways. Will they?
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Fat women who can’t pass physical fitness tests should not be providing security for heads of state.
Secret Service agents should not be allowed to “moonlight” as models.
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Former infantry Marine and Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is a lot of things, but he’s not a Nazi and he’s not a racist. He has Nazi tattoos supposedly, but he’s very obviously not spending his free time Sieg Heiling and reading Hitler.
He got some bad Navy tattoos when getting bad Navy tattoos was super common in the military. To me, seeing a skull and crossbones in tattoo parlor flash and getting it put on your body is not the height of sin. It’s just not enough.
Platner definitely did marksmanship training for Antifa. He’s definitely a radical. He endorsed acts of violence against “fascism,” which is poorly dressed code for assaulting and even killing conservatives.
You won’t find any of that high up on his Wikipedia page though. The purity test of the Dem Party and its captured institutions, like Wikipedia, means that using “anti-gay slurs” and having “Nazi tattoos” are what really matter.
But training domestic terrorist groups and wishing violence on other Americans barely break through the noise.
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Much ado has been made about leaked racist chats of the College Republicans. This is, indisputably, a wide-ranging problem for the GOP.
Undoubtedly many of those people were just “LARPing,” i.e., dressing themselves up, signaling to others that they’re not “woke,” by using offensive and bigoted language.
The actual problem for the GOP is that habit, and it is in fact widespread in Republican comms, provides cover for the people who actually believe the gospel of folks like Nick Fuentes.
It’s impossible to tell the difference between the people who are actually just kidding and the people who truly believe white is right and aspire to install policies reflective of that belief.
As far as podcasting and comedy go, the stakes are low. Those people have no real power. As far as policy goes, the stakes are unbelievably high.
For what it’s worth, I think the GOP reacted well. People who use that kind of language on official channels do not demonstrate the proper judgment for political leadership. They got canned.
That needs to keep happening.
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People who believe it’s okay to throw bricks at law enforcement should not be in positions to influence children.
People who are dumb enough to say as much in public should be fired before the day is through.
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Your grandpa saying bigoted things about Barack Obama at the dinner table is not going to have an effect on anything other than maybe your mood for a few minutes. Gillis making jokes about white people, Chappelle making jokes about white people or trans people, these are ultimately not going to affect much except your own personal mirth, if you find that stuff funny.
A widely accepted sense that it’s okay to violently assault or kill someone based on their political beliefs, and institutions that either turn the other cheek or encourage such behavior — that is a threat.
Institutions that happily, publicly institute race-based policies. That is also a threat.
Lack of adequate policing, lack of the basic judgment required to arrest a man caught masturbating in the ladies’ room are not just absurd and confusing; they’re undoubtedly a threat to our way of life.
Most of all, men who are afraid to tell the truth and do the hard work of maintaining civility will bring about all of our ruin.
We all should not only pray on it but also act on it.
Whether that’s at the local school board, at the polling place, or by supporting media companies you believe in (like ours!), get involved in your community.
Stand up and say something. Lead by example.
The country desperately needs it.
WHAT I’M READING
What is happening?
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Dangerous times, Dear Reader.
About 40% Of Young Americans Think Violence Against ‘The Rich’ Is Sometimes Justified, Survey Finds
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Well, I can think of some ways to fix this: expulsions, arrests, etc.
‘Breaking Point’: Teachers Beg For Help As Post-Pandemic Classroom Violence Spirals
WHAT I’M WATCHING
Andrew Cuomo May Be The Worst Debater Of All Time
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