As you've probably noticed, I've been posting a lot.
A major reason is that public discourse in America has become so constrained by the dictates of The Narrative (e.g., Immigration Reform) that only when some maniacs like the Bomb Brothers intrude upon the smooth flow of agreed-upon marketing campaign news that we get to see the conventional wisdom stress-tested.
The results of these unexpected ordeals for pundits and media organizations are proving enlightening.
I believe these Boston bombers have woken the proles from their stupor and the gang of eight will be defeated
ReplyDeleteIf I believed in conspiracy theories - I don't - I would would think that now would be the opportune time for our current elites to stage some white right-wing atrocity.
ReplyDeleteThe following may seem to lack perspective given the death and suffering the Tsarnoff's caused, but I think it is an epidemic problem across the country.
ReplyDeleteYou will note that the younger Tsarnoff was awarded an academic scholarship by the City of Cambridge and presumably enjoyed the fruits of taxpayer subsidies at UMass-Dartmouth. These resources could have gone instead to a different non-immigrant American citizen if our immigration policies weren't so lax. This is an enduring problem repeated thousands of times across the country: recent immigrants taking academic opportunities from non-immigrant American citizens. We are pushing our own sons and daughters out of the economy.
Unfortunately, the next suspect for the ricin letters is an anti-illegal immigration unseccessful politiona in Mississippi. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/ricin-case-crumbling-678452
ReplyDeleteAmnesty-shamnesty. If they pass no bill, then the illegal Mestizos, Haitians, Guats, etc. will still be here and still be breeding like rats. To say nothing about the Ricans, Cubans, Somalis and other legal "refugees" like our Chechen friends. Makes no difference. We are doomed.
ReplyDeleteThis is a bit off-topic but what I want to know from this blog is:
a) What's the Scotts-Irish angle?
b) Are the bombing brothers betas?
Just chill the snark, most of your posts were pure snark, which gets real boring to read..
ReplyDeleteI get caught in it myself when I post, but I'm just a lowly commenter..
A minor setback; like a doomsday cult living past its due date.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how long the narrative can be maintained.
The former Soviet Union trundled along for quite a while despite ridiculous non-performance.
We are rapidly running out of money, but even a poor nation can find ways to waste itself.
They don't need to worry; any day now, some "crazy white right winger" is going to do something horrible to some person or persons of color, and everything will be back on track.
ReplyDeleteBet on it.
If there were three or four Steve Sailers out there I would feel our democracy was secure, but as there is only one, I'm feeling nervous.
ReplyDeleteI propose we seal him in a ventilated plexiglass bubble and roll him to a safe spot in North Dakota.
I wonder how long the narrative can be maintained.
ReplyDeleteI think the narrative can be maintained up to the death of the individual or society.
I used to hear that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. Clearly that's not true. As the liberal lies on the sidewalk being kicked in the head by a black flash mob, his last conscious thought will be, "If only these youths understood that I'm on their side, that I'm not one of those racist right-wingers."
Similarly, I used to think that if there were an economic collapse in this country, liberals would realize that their ideas hadn't worked. Hah! Fat chance. The last living conservative will be blamed for it all.
I might've lost one of my best friends yesterday. He called me a racist after I made a small Facebook post opposing the amnesty bill. He's a nice guy but also sometimes a knee-jerk liberal.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big Facebook user, and I almost never post on politics there. High taxes vs. low taxes, gun control vs. gun rights, Obama vs. Romney - these are all out there, people argue over them, and sometimes the spats get very heated, but no one ever effectively silences the debate by shouting "racism!" There's no real reason to post on these issues because they're out there, all the time, and no one is intimated against posting about them. For those topics, the debate goes on.
Immigration is different. You're allowed to criticize Americans, but not immigrants. You're not allowed to suggest we have the right to expect immigrants to come here legally, or suggest we have the right to limit the numbers they arrive in, or question the kind of immigrants who come. Anything even remotely critical of immigrants, or just the amount of immigration, is thoroughly castigated as "racist," and thus the debate is effectively silenced. You might even fear offending friends who are immigrants, especially Hispanic friends.
If you post on Facebook, and you're reasonably well-respected by your friends, then please throw in a brief but well-reasoned post opposing the amnesty bill. Break down those barriers. If people get the sense that it's OK to criticize, then the stigma goes away - just so long as your post is brief, intelligent, and well-reasoned.
I may have lost my best friend yesterday. I really don't care.
The Narrative has not even paused. It's just gotten slightly more absurd as they do hand-stands to work through this little blip. But you see, it's called The Narrative because it becomes the truth, no matter how insane it is. And it never, ever stops.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of that time Stephen King got writer's block at about 1:40 in this video.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/280366
If that isn't the perfect metaphor for the media narrative, I don't know what is.
A major reason is that public discourse in America has become so constrained by the dictates of The Narrative (e.g., Immigration Reform) that only when some maniacs like the Bomb Brothers intrude upon the smooth flow of agreed-upon marketing campaign news that we get to see the conventional wisdom stress-tested.
ReplyDeleteTechnically the narrative could be derailed every week if only the media would report nationally all the local stories of illegals driving drunk killing our fellow citizens. But since these stories are buried, no one can connect the dots.
The only reason last week's story was so thoroughly covered is because, like the Trayvon case, the media felt they had a white conservative in their cross hairs.
The bombing itself was not big compared to OKC. But the media jumped on it because it was April 15th, and they thought there was a good chance that a Tea Party guy or gun-nut was involved. So they pumped the story only to find out it was immigrants after all. By this time it was too late to put the genie back into the box.
If they had known upfront that the perps were foreigners, this thing would not have had the wall to wall coverage it did.
Sadly I agree 100% with "Semi-employed White Guy":
ReplyDeleteWe are doomed. Demographically, we've gone too far to ever pull back. This is a country of and for the Sun People.
One you can say about Tamerlane, he may have been a woman beater, but he would never abuse welfare.
ReplyDeletehttp://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/04/tamerlan_tsarnaev_got_mass_welfare_benefits
Similarly, I used to think that if there were an economic collapse in this country, liberals would realize that their ideas hadn't worked. Hah! Fat chance
ReplyDeleteRighty-o! As various communist schemes failed, resulting in economic collapse, famine, mass murder, did those guys ever back off an inch? The PC folks are their modern day fellow travelers and can be expected to react the same. More force, more coercion, more vilification, more tyranny.
William A has it right. The oral barrier has to be broken. It's a shock to some at first, but the more they hear the words spoken by those they respect, the more it becomes less a shock to the system.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, who woulda thunk "gay marriage"? The left has been winning battles by silencing people...so be like Steve, un-silent...yes, even at your place of work. Yes, even in the academy, ESPECIALLY in the academy. That's where the damn mess started. Time to make amends.
BTW, Facebook is the right place for such talk as well. The left has been using it. Fb re-elected President Alan Alda. Time to co-opt it.
An interesting thing happening over at National Review Online. I'm a fairly regular reader of NRO, and while I never post comments, I occasionally read them. Robert Costa posted an article today on Rubio's defense of the amnesty bill.
ReplyDeleteWhile NRO stories generally attract a few dozen comments, or perhaps 200-300 tops, Costa's article, as I type this, has attracted 921. The third largest number of comments, behind a Mark Steyn piece on the Chechen terrorists (764 comments), is a Corner post also about Rubio/Amnesty, with 620 comments.
This issue is lighting up the base. Apparently Marco Rubio decided to pull out a big old can of gasoline and douse it on his political career. The man is finished. Shocked if he even manages reelection in 2016.
Not really trying to promote myself, Mr. Sailer (I have no blog), but if you really want to break down some communication barriers, you'll turn my comment on this thread into an entire post. People need to start talking more about this issue with their friends. The silence needs to be broken.
ReplyDeleteI second William A.'s call. I've been trying to be more vocal in subtle, calm, reasoned ways.
ReplyDeleteTight lips sink countries.
William A,
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that pro-amnesty posts by my Latino FB friends rarely get more than a single "like" or comment if any at all.
When someone expresses deep belief, silence can demoralize more than vocal opposition. I don't see many of those posts any more.
Remember that the left is an inherently oppositional ideology, so take care not to fuel personal narratives of struggle and defiance.
It is essential to deprive their struggle of status and meaning.
Nothing stings more than isolation and irrelevance.
-The Judean People's Front
"I've noticed that pro-amnesty posts by my Latino FB friends rarely get more than a single "like" or comment if any at all."
ReplyDeleteMy post attracted about a dozen comments and about 5 dozen likes. I lost three "friends" shortly after posting it. All those "likes" tell conservatives that someone is on their side. The fact I spoke up may have given other people the courage to speak up, as well.
I posted a brief statement opposing the amnesty bill and a link to an NRO article. My friend, who clings to all the mind-numbingly vapid cliches about immigrants and immigration - "Mexicans are hard workers! Americans are lazy! America is a nation of immigrants!" - called me a racist. My response was to ask him how much he knew about legal immigration, the last amnesty, the present bill, and so on. Crickets.
Then, in what I think was the coup de grace, I told him, "You've just shown that you know almost nothing about the subject, but you're willing to call me a racist for disagreeing with you."
People who throw out these vapid pro-immigration diatribes mostly don't know any actual facts about the issue, yet they're willing to call "racist" those of us who know quite a bit and want enforcement.
Anyone calls you a racist, ask them what they know about our present situation. When they prove, as they most always will, that they don't know anything, ask them how they can dare to call you a racist when it's quite clear they've never educated themselves on the subject.
William A,
ReplyDeleteI am not disagreeing with your strategy at all, I am merely trying to add to it. The correct approach to weaken the narrative depends on the audience and the context, so I merely wanted to share an one approach for one context.
At minimum, open statements against amnesty embolden the silent majority. Such statements can even convince the indifferent and shake up the narrative's wavering adherents. I'm not much of a faceborg guy, but in person I've made it happen.
In real life conversations about HBD and immigration issues I am continually surprised by how little pushback I get, even from hispanics.
The purpose of my original response to your call for action was to point out that silent rejection can be a useful tool. I did not mean to imply that we should all shut up and wait.
-The Judean People's Front
William A. Said: Yes, even in the academy, ESPECIALLY in the academy. That's where the damn mess started.
ReplyDeleteI'm a grad student, and you'd be surprised how well my peers (and even faculty) respond when confronted with the facts in a tactful but comitted way.
There is a great deal of untapped anger among grad students who must face the facts denied by the narrative every single time they teach an introductory course to an increasingly vibrant student body.
One tip: Remember that you don't have to win the whole argument at once.
-The Judean People's Front
[The idea of "manufactured consent" -- maybe you should do a story on that. There's a scene in the British version of House of Cards in which a campaign consultant cynically observes to her boss that public opinion polls can be constructed to assure almost any outcome desired.]
ReplyDeleteWilliam A, a similar thing has happened to me over this whole Bomber Brother deal. "I never thought you held bigoted, racist beliefs." Sorry honey, I just see what many people willingly choose to ignore. Although in my case, it's more like an acquaintance, but whatever. I suspect my friend list would be reduced by a quarter if I consistently said what I really believe. Oh well. I hope your friend can put aside his hard feelings.
ReplyDelete"We are doomed. Demographically, we've gone too far to ever pull back. This is a country of and for the Sun People."
ReplyDeleteI think this version of Western Civilization is doomed to go the same way as Rome and for exactly the same reason however how much can be salvaged from the wreckage is proportional to what clear-eyed people do in the meantime.
William A is right. I've been open about speaking my mind on all sorts of topics, one of which has been illegal immigration, for years, on social networking. I've lost dozens of friends, and seen other friendships diminish. BUT....., I've made new friends, too, people I have more in common with who don't want to see the USA flushed completely into the sewer.
ReplyDeletePeople have a hard time with it, at first, but some really seem to relish the combat. The truism about leftists being bullies who like to throw punches, but can't really take a punch, is real. You get the impression that some of these folks see unfriending or blocking as the nearest thing to one of Stalin's Gulags or Mao's reeducation camps.
I have been unfriended by only 2 conservatives that I can recall, one of whom was offended by a darkly humorous Charles Manson post, the other was really angry I didn't love Mitt Romney enough. There was a lot of hatred and ridicule directed toward 'Paulbots' on the right. Many of those people have shut up since November's debacle.
I have also noticed that it is self employed people who have the right to speak the most freely. People with a steady job (often in LAs fizzling film business) have frequently come up to me, saying (sometimes whispering) something to the effect of "Hey, man, love what you're doing. Of course I can't say anything. But I'm with you!"
I post Steve articles and comment threads all the time. There are a few more liberal yuppie/aging punk rocker types who see him as Count Dracula, thanks to me.
Keep up the good fight!
William A. and Judean Peoples Front:
ReplyDeleteCould you provide us with specific wording to use in conversation?
Similarly, I used to think that if there were an economic collapse in this country, liberals would realize that their ideas hadn't worked. Hah! Fat chance. The last living conservative will be blamed for it all.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. The only thing that makes statism (AKA liberalism) possible is lots of excess wealth. In times of hardship, people become both more fascist, and more religious.
We are doomed. Demographically, we've gone too far to ever pull back. This is a country of and for the Sun People.
Nonsense. See the Jews for details.
Remember that the left is an inherently oppositional ideology, so take care not to fuel personal narratives of struggle and defiance.
Counter-narratives. Tell stories about friends and family harmed by illegals. Make them up, if you have to (but keep a copy somewhere so you can keep them straight if you have to).
My post attracted about a dozen comments and about 5 dozen likes. I lost three "friends" shortly after posting it. All those "likes" tell conservatives that someone is on their side. The fact I spoke up may have given other people the courage to speak up, as well.
Peer Pressure
One person speaking up #^@%s up the whole Narrative.
Anyone calls you a racist, ask them what they know about our present situation. When they prove, as they most always will, that they don't know anything, ask them how they can dare to call you a racist when it's quite clear they've never educated themselves on the subject.
Anyone calls me racist gets it thrown back at them: "you're a racist." I can make it stick because pretty much everyone can be found guilty on cross-examination. I can't think of a single person I've argued with on these issues over the years who wasn't a racist in some fashion.
[The idea of "manufactured consent" -- maybe you should do a story on that. There's a scene in the British version of House of Cards in which a campaign consultant cynically observes to her boss that public opinion polls can be constructed to assure almost any outcome desired.]
I think there was a scene or two like that in Yes, Minister too.
I think this version of Western Civilization is doomed to go the same way as Rome and for exactly the same reason however how much can be salvaged from the wreckage is proportional to what clear-eyed people do in the meantime.
Yes, though I think saving our civilization is the wrong focus; too easy. The monks had a man's job in front of them. With today's tech and widespread knowledge, it'll be easy to preserve the material culture. It's the genetic preservation that's going to be man's work this time around.
People have a hard time with it, at first, but some really seem to relish the combat.
Yep. I was born to argue.
Could you provide us with specific wording to use in conversation?
ReplyDeleteLearn to do it online first. Try Stormfront. Sure, you're probably not the SF type, but at SF, they get a regular stream of dumb libs wandering in and posting the same old stuff, day in, day out. So you get used to the usual, mile-wide inch-deep "arguments." After enough time doing this, the counters will become second nature. Later, you can try it with the smarter breed of leftist, found here and there (this blog seems as good a place as any).
Then you can move on to doing it IRL.
I never thought you held bigoted, racist beliefs." Sorry honey, I just see what many people willingly choose to ignore. Although in my case, it's more like an acquaintance, but whatever.
ReplyDeleteYou shouldn't need to resort to bigotry and racism to make the strong arguments against immigration.
There is a great deal of untapped anger among grad students who must face the facts denied by the narrative every single time they teach an introductory course to an increasingly vibrant student body.
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of subjects are they teaching and what kind of institution where they have this experience?
Anonymous said: William A. and Judean Peoples Front:
ReplyDeleteCould you provide us with specific wording to use in conversation?
You really just have to play it by ear. I can only offer some general pointers, and even then the appropriate tactics depend on wether or not you are trying to shatter the false consensus, silence your opponents, or convert the uncertain.
-DON'T COME OFF AS BITTER!!!
- Humor, grace, and tact at all times
-Imply more than you state directly
- Find a get out of jail free card for your mild transgressions against the narrative. If you play your cards right, you can buck convention without being ejected from human society. Charisma, personal warmth, a good reputation and GENUINE good will toward your fellow man are crucial if you seek the role of honest dissenter rather than atavistic subhuman outcast.
-The Judean People's Front
"Could you provide us with specific wording to use in conversation?"
ReplyDelete"You shouldn't need to resort to bigotry and racism to make the strong arguments against immigration."
1) I would never post a link to VDare or this site (sorry Steve). I stopped reading VDare almost completely, not because it's wrong (it's almost all true) but because too much of it is angry. I don't like to be angry, and anger doesn't win anyone else over, either. Steve isn't angry, but he's a little blunt, and taking the racial angle isn't the way to go.
2) Don't ever use racial arguments, and don't get suckered into making one. There are plenty of reasons to oppose immigration - environmental, economic, political and cultural - that have either nothing to do with, or are only tangentially related to, the issue of race.
3) My go to point, when opposing amnesty, is to note that we already allow in over 1.1 million immigrants legally each year. The precise scientific term for that is "a crapload." One-fifth that number would still be a lot to take in a single year.
4) If you at any point criticize a particular group of immigrants and are called a racist, point out that people routinely criticize Americans, Catholics, evangelicals, and so on. Why is it OK to criticize them but not Group X? The goal of the left is to shut down debate by equating criticism of immigrants/immigration with racism. We have to stop letting them do that.
5) We have the right to set a reasonable limit on the number of people who immigrate. Reasonable people may disagree on what a reasonable number is. We have the right to expect that they come here legally. We have the right to bar immigrants, like Muslims, who would cause us to remake our society as a result of the actions of even a few of their number. Barring Muslim immigrants is not the same as hating them.
Those are the kinds of points I make. The point isn't really to win, per se. Stop trying to win. Be above the argument. At this point winning just means making our views seem reasonable and acceptable. "You may not agree with them, but lots of decent people have them so deal with it.
6) Everyone of us has seen the Facebook political thread with the nutcake who insists on writing post after endless post, usually without paragraph breaks, defending his position. Get in there, make the best 1/2/3 points you can make, clarify yourself no more than once or twice, then get out.
7) Don't post a lot on the topic. I limit myself to one post every 3 months or so, though maybe I'll make 2-3 this month with the amnesty bill in the senate.
"Find a get out of jail free card for your mild transgressions against the narrative."
ReplyDeleteDo you volunteer for the Boy Scouts, dish out lunches at the homeless shelter, or sing in the Gay Men's Chorus? Don't look like a raw politico. Look like a decent human being with a real life who just happens to have these opinions. Oh yeah, it helps. And if you don't have a real life, then get one.
William A Said:Do you volunteer for the Boy Scouts, dish out lunches at the homeless shelter, or sing in the Gay Men's Chorus? Don't look like a raw politico. Look like a decent human being with a real life who just happens to have these opinions. Oh yeah, it helps. And if you don't have a real life, then get one.
ReplyDeleteDon't just look like a decent human being on paper. Realism requires a cool head, not a cold heart. A Reactionary world view can be awfully depressing at times, but compassion goes a long way towards staving off nihilistic despair.
-The Judean People's Front
You shouldn't need to resort to bigotry and racism to make the strong arguments against immigration.
ReplyDeleteA racist argument against immigration is a contradiction in terms.
Racism is racial aggresion. The immigrants and their sponsors are always the aggressors; the opponents of immigration are always engaging in self-defense.