Welcome to Corona Country: Donald Trump's Ohio

StillLessons · 2020-11-19T18:16:36+00:00

"It seems not to have dawned on the governor and his aides that if such a policy is going to work, it would have already done so by now."

This is the problem. The numbers in Ohio right now are horrible, but the numbers are equally horrible in places that have embraced the strict lockdown measures being proposed as salvation in the article. So the same statement quoted above works whether you do lockdowns or not. Look at New York, as just one example. California? Same story. This virus is now endemic in the population, and we're in for an ugly time as we come into balance with it. But the measures being lauded as the "solution" appear to do nothing. So we get lots of covid and societal shutdown, or we get lots of covid and try to keep society running. Among other things, lowering the stress on people would help keep our immune systems in stronger shape, and that is the single best defense we have against any and all bugs. I know which I choose.

StillLessons · 2020-11-19T13:42:13+00:00

Feel free. Any ideas I might have are an extension of other ideas I have been exposed to, and I have no feeling of "ownership" of any of it. I appreciate the support.

StillLessons · 2020-11-19T13:41:11+00:00

That happens on both sides. While there are some Trump supporters whom I ignore, there are others I don't. But in either case, this is what free speech means. This is the traditional "person on the street corner" problem. Before the internet, some people would go on street corners and say really crazy stuff. Stuff that made those of us passing by feel uncomfortable. But we walked on, and we ignored them. Unless they were acting in a demonstrably threatening manner that would lead to violence, we ignored them. This ability to ignore the voices with whom we disagree to the point of discomfort is sadly lacking today.

StillLessons · 2020-11-17T17:02:57+00:00

I am open to the likelihood that the Russian power structure engages in evil. They are a large institution. I have no loyalty to them any more than any other large institution.

But perhaps especially if what you and jet199 are focusing on is true, my original post comes even more into focus. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Russian government does do these things, why not call them out on things that can be solidly proven? Why choose to focus on events with so many inescapable logical contradictions at the foundation of the story?

StillLessons · 2020-11-17T16:55:39+00:00

Hmmm. The videos are what they are. I have not to date seen any of the people on those videos claim they didn't say what they said. The only claim they ever make is that it was illegal to tape the conversation. Your claim "fake news" thus holds precisely zero functional value.

StillLessons · 2020-11-17T14:47:31+00:00

All governments are doing this. The propaganda advantage the west lost in the past twenty years is that twenty years ago, the public here would have looked at this and said, "I'm glad I live in [the US/Britain/France/etc] where this doesn't happen!"; that is absolutely no longer the case. Now people know that our western governments are doing exactly the same thing. This is a sea-change in thinking, and I don't think the established powers in the west have entirely absorbed how much they have lost because of it...

StillLessons · 2020-11-17T14:40:25+00:00

I cannot comment directly on whether this news is fake or real. To call it desperate, however, is a step too far. A brief trip over to Project Veritas shows many many well-documented examples of people from the Silicon Valley crowd saying items fundamentally identical in their ideology to what is alleged here. That this story suggests just another example of the same hardly seems "desperate" to me.

StillLessons · 2020-11-17T14:32:58+00:00

The traditional political establishment is playing a very dangerous game here. The people they are censoring are supported by tens of millions of citizens, including many (almost certainly majorities) in the rank and file of the armed forces and the police. Censorship - to achieve its goals - requires being followed by physical, real-world suppression of those whose perspectives you need to crush. TPTB have so far been doing this using a combination of Antifa/BLM mobs and orders to the police departments of cities they control. Those of us watching, however, are aware of the exodus of police officers, tired of lack of support from their "superiors". When it comes time to really crack down (which would be absolutely required if they want to finish this game they're starting), do they really think they have the manpower to do so?

StillLessons · 2020-11-17T14:21:49+00:00

Calling George Orwell, to the white courtesy telephone please... George Orwell, you have a call waiting...

StillLessons · 2020-11-17T14:12:57+00:00

I look forward to examining this information. I have referred already in previous posts to the similarities in my mind between Biden and Brezhnev. I was politically aware at the end of the Soviet Union, and I never imagined the same pattern would be replayed in the west. It makes me far less judgemental of the Russians for having fallen into the system they did...

StillLessons · 2020-11-17T14:08:49+00:00

There are a variety of stories. I kept it general in my post, but the specific two I was referring to are the Skripals (both of whom survived and disappeared from view into the English system) and Navalny, who is also alive and well. According to the "scary Novichok" story, this should be impossible. Do I believe Putin's government is capable of poisoning dissidents and has done so in the past? I think that's entirely possible, and some of the earlier cases (the polonium case) seem to hold up. But these cases - on their individual merits - fall apart on examination. I actually think that's part of what has happened in the Skripal/Navalny cases. Because there is a link (in the public consciousness) between "Putin" and "poison", all the propaganda folks in the west have to do is awaken that link in people's minds. Magic - people poisoned! - no proof required. But for those who do check into each case as it happens, the more recent accusations are getting rather thin.

StillLessons · 2020-11-16T23:08:19+00:00

I wish this were getting more attention. This video yields very valuable insights about how we are being controlled. Thanks for posting this.

StillLessons · 2020-11-16T22:50:51+00:00

Fact: James Clapper flat out lied to Congress when asked about government spying on all American citizens.

He is a now a go-to voice promoting the re-establishment of the status quo.

These are the "facts" Obama wants us to return to.

StillLessons · 2020-11-16T01:20:44+00:00

"A statewide mask mandate must be implemented to stop the increasing spread among residents in rural and urban areas of Tennessee"

This statement has all we need to see in it. If mask mandates actually stopped the increasing spread where they were used, I would not be writing this note. But we now have good comparison cases to see the effects. We have places where masks have been mandated (and a whole lot more beside), and we have other places where they have not. There is no difference. That's precisely the problem. They don't work. Places where all these "solutions" are put into place have worse spread than other places.

How hard is that? Look where they're used (France & Spain give two good examples); look where they're not (Sweden & South Dakota). Compare. They. Don't. Work.

THAT is the problem.

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T22:40:45+00:00

I agree about the tenth amendment. It has been completely abused for more than a century now.

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T20:37:16+00:00

The machine grinds on...

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T20:32:08+00:00

None of us knows the true stats. This is part of the problem. But as long as the attempt to contain two hostile philosophies in a single space continues, these stats are unlikely to become any clearer. With a home for each, natural migration could lead to a better sense of the reality.

Who is this "we" who are not divided? What is the unifying theme that yields a single polity?

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T20:27:18+00:00

Easier said than done. But of course so also is the idea of splitting into two...

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T20:24:59+00:00

You raise a good question. Does such a beast exist as a government that doesn't grow - given enough time - to take on tyrannical powers? Given any particular "problem" in common, groups of people consistently look for "someone" to "solve" it. This is a force of human psychology naturally leading to endless reasons to call for more government. Is it possible - and if so how - to put a lid on this tendency for government creep? I'm sorry I don't have an answer for this question. It's a good one and critically important to the debate.

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T18:55:45+00:00

I haven't clicked through to see the item, but based on the title alone, this sounds like "water is wet". Of course she says this. What value is there in focusing on the obvious?

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T18:25:30+00:00

Trump's greatest weakness is all-or-nothing thinking. In some cases, it is his greatest strength (his defense of individual rights), but in cases like this, he is incapable of recognizing the benefits being provided by the status quo. He shares the near-universal blindness of all of our elites to the difference between individual economic freedom and corporate economic freedom. I've heard this discussed almost nowhere. The first is very valuable; the second is the single most toxic philosophy of the past 150 years. The policy described in this article will allow corporate power untold leeway for destruction. A huge step encompassing concrete environmental degradation.

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T18:19:46+00:00

Thanks for bringing this out from behind the paywall!

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T16:09:13+00:00

I have a theory as to what's going on here. I think (based on family who put these beliefs at the center of their politics) the elite truly believe the end of the world is coming because of "climate change". They are genuinely afraid. Fear is a terrible state of mind from which to make decisions. Yet those who actually wield the levers of control have found themselves unable to spread their fear to the majority of the population. But - in their minds - the threat is real! So something must be done! They realize that even all the Elon Musk marketed electric BS is in truth useless to the task of limiting carbon emissions. Hmmm... how do we stop carbon emissions? To do this would require the stoppage of industrial production. Hey?! Covid! That'll do the trick. A full-spectrum industrial halt. Magic.

Meanwhile, the Chinese (who clearly have a lot of influence now) stoke these ideas happily, watching their nemesis committing suicide in the name of this fear. They love this shit.

Long-term goal: the global left doesn't believe the United States as a separate entity should exist. Our local power-base (the US government) should instead be limited to the point of elimination by their preferred "global decision makers". They're quite explicit about this.

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T15:58:26+00:00

"Trump is Jesus compared to Biden's Satan. And Trump is a sleazebag."

That's a nice concise description of where we are at. For all those who say "But the alternative is Trump!", implying there can't be anything worse, guess what? We have discovered: Yes, it can get even worse. Biden. is. that. bad.

StillLessons · 2020-11-12T15:26:10+00:00

So did Stalin, again and again. Is that helpful?

StillLessons · 2020-11-11T20:57:04+00:00

Please note. This is not about Black Lives.

This is about a very dirty cop. It is a shame that he ended up in the Breonna Taylor situation, because while it has brought him to national attention, that is for only a tangential part of the reasons he deserves punishment. Margo Borders is white. He sexually assaulted her. That is criminal behavior. In the case of the Breonna Taylor raid, he fired his gun like a lunatic. One white, one black. In both cases, a cop out of control. NOTHING to do with race. All lives matter, and a criminal should be charged as a criminal, regardless of the race of his victims.

But that story is not politically useful. BLM can't promote socialism using that story.

Race hustling must end. I continue to find the greatest hope among the black community, where growing numbers are waking up to just how badly your community has been played by the Democratic establishment for 60 years. Look up LBJ's quote about Democratic ownership of the black vote. To those of you blacks who have figured it out, I say "Great! Well done!" Convince your friends. That's the single best way we will improve racial relations in the United States today.

StillLessons · 2020-11-11T19:47:17+00:00

Kissinger is one of the scariest individuals I can imagine.

He is super-bright. Way way smarter than the average individual. Just reading this interview shows me this again. At 97 years old, he is infinitely more lucid and coherent than Joe Biden, who is "only" 78. It's not even close.

Yet at the same time, he has incredible blind spots. His inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the costs of the policies he has supported over the years never ceases to amaze me. He is most famous for "opening up China". This single act is probably the best window into who he is. Kissinger does not care about the United States. His mind is concerned with how to ensure that the elites of the "important" (i.e. nuclear power) countries get along. As long as these elites can get along and not start wars, however, Kissinger doesn't care what the effects are of his policies on people on the street. He cares not at all that his decisions set up a system which has industrially gutted the country for which (in theory) he was working. That's not his department.

A man who can get a Nobel Peace Prize, having been instrumental in the unholy slaughter that was United States involvement in Vietnam. He really is quite emblematic of the entire establishment we face.

Lastly, he speaks glowingly in this interview of Joe Biden's decision-making style. This alarms me as much as anything else. Though Kissinger appears lucid here, I find it terrifying that he either chooses to ignore or genuinely cannot see that Joe Biden's mental acuity is pathetic.

Henry Kissinger is among the most powerful people alive today on the planet. We should pay attention to what he is saying. He is among the most skilled politicians ever to have lived in history (including the necessary ability to lie with absolute facility).

Even for those of us who see the results of his decisions as evil (whether intentional or not) - and perhaps especially for us - we must read very carefully and pay attention to what he is saying. It is perhaps the best and clearest window we can find into the nuts and bolts of how establishment planning minds think.

StillLessons · 2020-11-11T18:49:45+00:00

Individual freedom has so very many enemies.

StillLessons · 2020-11-11T18:45:57+00:00

Are they offering any excuse for the most obvious cause->effect pair I've witnessed in decades? Has anyone seen what reasoning these brain-dead (to the point of evil) council members are trying to hide behind?

StillLessons · 2020-11-11T18:41:08+00:00

Why anybody believes a word these people say I genuinely don't know. Two of the most go-to names for the legacy press/media for the past ten years are John Brennan and James Clapper. These two men are documented liars. Full stop. I don't see why anyone accepts a word these organizations say, and am genuinely mystified by what part of human nature is permitting this.

StillLessons · 2020-11-11T18:27:11+00:00

Emphatically YES. He states the message well. I really really hope this spreads.

StillLessons · 2020-11-11T14:16:39+00:00

Nice meme. Well done.

StillLessons · 2020-11-11T14:13:28+00:00

Don't dismiss the role of the Chinese Communist Party in these events. If there's one thing we now have hard evidence of, it is that the CCP controls the Biden family. We in the US are so used to the idea of the US Deep State running puppet regimes in countless countries that it takes some re-thinking to realize that the same tool can be - and is now being - used on our own leadership by a foreign power. This does not absolve the US deep state. They are despicable and completely corrupt. But they are now so corrupt that they are no longer even in control. They have - without even realizing what they have done - given the true control (which lies in the capacity for production of the tools used to maintain a functional society) to the CCP, an organization even more corrupt than they! The CCP now has what they need to run the US through our corrupted elites. It is indeed a big club, and no surprise, we still ain't in it...

StillLessons · 2020-11-10T23:02:31+00:00

I know nothing about Katy Perry, but this tweet speaks well for her. Kudos to her for this.

StillLessons · 2020-11-10T11:40:56+00:00

Well put. Very succinct summary.

StillLessons · 2020-11-10T11:31:48+00:00

Yes, the rhetoric from both sides has been divisive and toxic. I don't think that's productive from either side.

But there are two points which particularly condemn the Democratic side: censorship and disenfranchising votes. Democrats - over and above the hateful back and forth - have defined their side as moral, even though in fact their thinking is every bit as hateful as those they oppose. They then use their weight in the power structures of the legacy and social media to silence any Republican response. This is the definition of censorship. Democratic philosophy is working to enshrine itself as a religion from which we are not allowed to dissent. Censorship must always be opposed. Always.

Regarding votes, it's ironic, because Democrats have made the argument for years that they are the party of making sure that votes are not lost due to intimidation from powerful forces. Interestingly, this commitment to getting "all the votes in" has in fact determined their strategy. They did not stop anyone from voting; I'll give them that. They allowed all Republicans to vote. It should be noted that Republicans also appear not to have interfered with anyone voting. I saw no evidence for the Democratic myth of Republicans intimidating people away from the polls. Congratulations to both for that. But Democrats then proceeded to disenfranchise every Republican vote by manufacturing enough additional votes to get the result they wanted (the obviously impossible "participation" in disputed races gives this tactic away). Just because you allow (and encourage) someone to vote, that doesn't make you a hero if you then proceed to negate the vote they cast through overt manipulation of the result. The Stalin quote comes up again and again: What matters is who counts the votes. That's raw power, zero "democratic" about it. Democrats may successfully take and wield power, but popular legitimacy? That's harder to come by.

These are the "bridges" I'm talking about.

StillLessons · 2020-11-10T11:06:10+00:00

I actually agree with you here. De facto, anyone who supports any party to "lead us out of this" is philosophically agreeing that the government of the US is the tool they will use to that end, and that "the US" is a legitimate structure by which to arrange our affairs. I am aware of the hypocrisy of the Republicans (and equally importantly, of Trump himself) when it comes to "cutting government". It was completely obvious when Trump (correctly) pointed out the fact that the "market" was a joke under Obama only to do an instantaneous 180 upon election and declare that the exact same "market" now demonstrates the success of his complete abandonment of any tiny shred of remaining fiscal discipline. You've seen enough of my comments to know I do not give Trump any loyalty. I respect some of his base. Himself, no.

That said, what I said above does matter. There is a difference between two people doing precisely the same thing if one of them feels guilty enough about it to recognize it as sin. At least for the sinner there is an intellectual path out of the mess. Because Democrats philosophical structure is completely consistent with their actions, on the other hand, they have zero motivation to pull us back to the correct (non-coercive) path. In our current moment (this changes over time, but quite particularly now in fall 2020), Trump's Republicans have taken on at least the rhetorical role of calling out the government (and more specifically the bureaucracy) as the evil cancer it is. Whether hypocritical, two-faced, lying or not, it's better that at least someone continue to state that truth. At least then the banner is still out there, even if tattered and in shreds.

StillLessons · 2020-11-10T01:52:17+00:00

If it were 1 or 2% of people who didn't see it that way, you might have a point. But Democrats have now thoroughly burned their bridges with 50% of the voting public. In this situation, "reality" is not so fixed as you wish to pretend...

StillLessons · 2020-11-10T01:44:24+00:00

Sadly, I believe we are unlikely ever to come to an accurate tally of which man is more popular. There's too much vested interest involved, and neither side is interested in getting the true numbers, only winning. Because the Democratic side is dominant within the bureaucracy (Democratic philosophy believes the state is the solution, so more Democrats are naturally drawn into bureaucratic positions), they are in the position to put their thumb on the scales quite effectively. The evidence appears to show that Trump would have won absent this manipulation, but there's so many games being played, it's hard to know anything for sure. One thing is clear, based on the direction Democratic philosophy is trending (i.e. toward quasi-religious belief systems which exert overt censorship to prevent dissent): if the Democrats gain power over all the organs of .gov (House, Senate, President, SC), the US will become a single-party totalitarian state. Except that the population of guns available will lead to chaos before that outcome can solidify. It's no surprise the Chinese want Biden to win. That would be a much more familiar situation in which for them to operate. But 50% of actively political citizens hate the other 50%, and vice versa. Where can we draw a durable dividing line and pull to separate corners?

StillLessons · 2020-11-05T16:13:44+00:00

I have looked at it. I have family who argue for the same things, and I know the details. This doesn't change the fundamental point I'm making, however. The details of how this theory is supposed to work out do not reflect the reality of how it has worked out over the past 30 years. I don't see anything new. Three of five of your points (points 1,4 and 5) basically boil down to "restore the status quo pre-Trump". That status quo was failing badly, which is precisely why Trump was elected in the first place. Points 2 and 3, climate change and tax the rich, are two different ways to give more power and control to a political/corporate elite who already have vastly too much power over the citizenry. There's no change in direction here. It's the same pattern that has led to a downward trend in individual satisfaction (observed, not modeled) for the past 50 years. Why continue this?

StillLessons · 2020-11-05T14:13:57+00:00

When are we going to drop this "better" and "worse" mindset? Neither of these two men represents the majority of the population, and both are thoroughly corrupt. Voting for one "to stop the other" is just continuing the downward spiral. Unfortunately, however, tribe-building has never been easier and continues to be a booming business.

StillLessons · 2020-11-05T14:04:14+00:00

"Predictably, Donald Trump has already claimed victory and has accused his opponents of voter fraud (as usual without a shred of evidence)."

I stopped right there. No point in reading further...

StillLessons · 2020-11-05T13:56:34+00:00

So you voted to follow the Democratic platform. Every item on your list is a vague platitude. No substance there at all to describe the details of how any of that would work. The answer is that it doesn't work. I have come up with a term I like: observational politics. What you have written in your statement is theoretical politics. But in reality, watching the Democratic machine in action over the past 50 years (and Biden is the absolute epitome of that machine), they've made things worse. That's the simple truth. You're voting for a platform which is a simplistic, overgeneralized summary of a real-world ideology which has been dominant for most of the past 30 years. During that time, our country has become consistently less free, less representative, and less peaceful. If you keep voting for mirages, this is the result. Again, this is observation, not theory. I didn't vote for either candidate because neither has any desire to address the simple imbalance behind our society's decline: we consume more than we produce. Until we decide to address that imbalance (which involves the monetary system), the decline will continue. Your platitudes just keep the wheel spinning faster.

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T22:20:00+00:00

Seems roughly correct to me. Especially given the way the vote played out. Rather than try to hide the vote manipulation (which I believe - perhaps erroneously - they would have been much more capable of had they tried), they highlighted it. "See! Here's votes being dumped into Michigan and Wisconsin! Look over here!" They want people to know they've done this. They don't want to win a low-friction election; it needs to be an election where there's some risk. The "risk of losing some critical element of our system!" is what attaches people to their tribe. I think you're right: the empire's fundamental game still isn't changing...

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T22:10:11+00:00

It was bound to come to this...

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T17:45:16+00:00

I keep finding myself thinking of Leonid Brezhnev near the end of the Soviet Union. When the ruling class decides to explicitly hold power, this is what happens. They actually cannot have a competent charismatic leader, because that introduces risk that he might not do as he's told. The leaders to follow Xi Jinping in China or Putin in Russia are also likely to be relatively incompetent, because the power bases that have now built up under those men will be super careful not to allow someone in place who could upset the apple cart. Joe Biden will not be a legitimate president. On the other hand, given the games going on on both sides, it's not clear that Trump can really claim a genuine mandate either. The split in our country right now is sadly seemingly 50/50. Recipe for violence...

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T17:28:21+00:00

What they've done will ensure focus on this election for years to come. It is eminently clear that the signal/noise ratio is now hopelessly out of control. Both sides (but more clumsily and extremely obviously the Democrats) have added so much noise to the system (games they are playing corrupting the voter information/voting/counting process) that determining a genuine legitimate result becomes impossible. The only thing that seems clear from living through this is that the country is truly split close to 50/50, and neither of the sides is willing to acknowledge the other side's legitimacy. That's not a good recipe for harmony...

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T14:23:53+00:00

I'm glad to see people wake up to this, but it's frustratingly late. It was clear that the media establishment had declared themselves the arbiters of political acceptability in 2012. I know this because I got into an argument with the founder of Business Insider that year about Ron Paul. He was declared "unelectable" and following that decision, his campaign was sidelined shamelessly. 2016 we saw what happened to Bernie Sanders. The mainstream Democratic cadre is remarkably willing to allow this group of self-declared kingmakers incredible power over what is supposed to be the power of the citizenry. They will wake up, of course, only when the press declares their candidate off limits. By that point, they are going to shocked at the result. Trump vs. Biden is just the warmup...

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T10:55:23+00:00

As to "load of babble", I accept the charge. Talking about this subject never yields anything but babble, but it is a series of hopelessly off-the-mark words I happen to enjoy, so I engage.

What you address here - quite correctly - is the most paradoxical element of the spiritual path. How do we simultaneously promote beauty and goodness, while recognizing that one person's "good" is his enemy's "bad"? Violence results from taking ourselves and our individual perspectives too seriously. Interestingly, however, even violence is clearly part and parcel of reality (watch a cat with a mouse or colliding galaxies), so where's the problem? For me, I prefer peace and calm to violence and anger, so I promote acceptance, but even this is just a preference on my part. As you say: babble.

The third term you use is different, however. Truth needs no prerequisite. Truth is what is. Full stop. What is around us (and includes us as well as all we do, think, or perceive) is Truth. Truth has neither quality nor hierarchy. You may prefer parts of it and reject other parts, but that doesn't in any way diminish the reality of what you reject, which lies in its simple existence.

Lastly, regarding a serious tradition, I have been engaged for twenty-five years now in a tradition that traces its roots back to before Christ. While the words I use here are seemingly unrelated to the tradition to which I refer, I definitely was exposed to many of my concepts there and continue to find them reinforced in that tradition. Whether it is "serious" I have no idea. Those who sincerely follow it have never represented more than a handful.

Have fun with this stuff. What better is there for us to do with this wonderful - and ever changing, including that we die - life we've been granted?

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T10:03:24+00:00

I agree that promiscuity is natural. But so is anger, and I don't support domestic violence. There are parts of our nature we wish to emphasize and others we prefer to keep in check.

The hypocrisy of "moral leaders" doesn't mean that the opposite is true. That's a false choice. Should people who don't have control over their own sexuality shut up about it? Yes. But limiting sexual behaviors that are destructive to families and the critical social-formation role they hold in society is a legitimate goal. Sadly, there are only a very few people with the moral integrity to model the behavior they suggest. It has been this way throughout history.

My question and yours are the same, basically: how can we encourage people to express our natural sexuality in a way that supports both ourselves and the social networks around us (particularly families)? Hookup culture - what is heavily promoted on our screens - is hurting us. We need to encourage a different model that (just as you say) encourages sexuality expressed in harmony with emotional bonding, not just for its own sake.

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T09:43:53+00:00

It's precisely the reason you give for severe consequences that concerns me. If I thought all-sex-all-the-time actually led to human happiness, I wouldn't have an issue with it. But it doesn't work. In my experience, the people who regularly throw themselves into sex with the nearest warm body end up feeling emptiness and meaninglessness. Worse, however, the ones who fall into this pattern while simultaneously pretending to maintain a stable family life create intense destruction in those around them. I am quite concerned that the offspring of promiscuous parents are damaged for life. The research is clear: kids growing up in stable monogamous heterosexual relationships grow up happier and more stable than those in other environments. Do we want a more happy and stable future generation or not?

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T09:36:06+00:00

I think you and I are thinking along the same lines.

I particularly like "Sexual liberation is essentially used as a means to politically control people into thinking that they're excercising their "freedom" by jacking off to porn."

This is also true of legalization of weed in my mind. I have no problem with legalizing weed; if alcohol is legal, weed appears no more harmful than alcohol. But motivation matters. Why are they offering this freedom? I would argue it's the same reason. People feel they are "free" because they can smoke weed, when actually TPTB see it as a wonderful distraction so people will lose themselves in unproductive freedoms like this instead of asking why the world surrounding their weed-induced bubble is closing in on them daily.

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T09:26:53+00:00

I've been intrigued by your first point for a while now, because I have heard the same thing. The more the population in the west is fed this "more sex!" line in the corporate liturgy, the more see through it. I find that encouraging.

StillLessons · 2020-11-04T09:11:23+00:00

One spoonful at a time, then...

StillLessons · 2020-11-03T16:46:16+00:00

Start from the premise, "In the beginning, God created..."

Before God, there was nothing.

Everything that exists - everything we perceive - everything with which we interact - exists within God's creation. Each of us as well. Our connection to God is quite direct. Just as God created all things, God created each of us. That puts us neither superior nor inferior to all the rest of it. We are each another element of God's universe.

The problem with most organized religions is that they exist based on the premise of "we're better than those other people over there". But in order for God to be all-powerful (kind of the definition, no?), then God must have created "them", too.

This deep instinct of ours to divide God's creation into "what we like" and "what we don't like" is what makes it so difficult - perhaps impossible (though I'm not sure of this)... - to accurately perceive the universe around us. To achieve this "universal" perception is the true spiritual quest. That's why truly spiritual people have no desire for violence. No matter who or what you attack and destroy, you are by definition attacking and destroying part of God's creation. How can that be productive?

StillLessons · 2020-11-03T16:29:41+00:00

9/11 was the event which opened my eyes to the evil we are currently facing. The obvious impossibility of the official story - because of the breaking of simple and intuitive laws of physics - was impossible to ignore.

That said, unfortunately because of the amount of time that has passed, in the mind of youth today, this is now catalogued in the "history" part of the brain. Most people (again unfortunately) don't connect emotionally with history. As such, 9/11 does not resonate as strongly with those who didn't live through it. This is a shame, but I'm not sure it can be helped.

To bring the point you're making home to the readers, it is more helpful to point out not that "another ... could happen at any time," but that it is happening as we speak. The Covid reaction, and the use of it to promote the "Great reset" is the same people. We are - as we speak - in the middle of a series of events even more damaging than 9/11. We are living the threat we need to awaken people to.

It's not coming; it's here and now.

StillLessons · 2020-11-02T16:01:58+00:00

Great article. Thank you.

StillLessons · 2020-11-02T00:03:13+00:00

"When I directly asked one professor in the program whether very young children were really psychologically ready for exposure to some kinds of content, he argued that “age appropriateness” was a conservative myth."

Wow. This one shocked me.

My question for you, dear Saiditers, where did this go so wrong? I know it's been a bunch of small steps. But how did people with such radically damaging views sneak into the mainstream? This is no longer just an amusing roll-our-eyes kind of crazy. This is destroying us. And what do we do to come back? The coming vote is basically irrelevant to this question. We have a much bigger problem.

StillLessons · 2020-10-26T22:34:55+00:00

Well said. I have a tendency to speak in poorly supported exaggerations. I actually agree with what you write here. Given that all these problems are intertwined, however, it seems the whole concept of a "ranked list" is a mistake from the get go. Thanks for pointing this out.

StillLessons · 2020-10-24T13:18:12+00:00

The worst part about our current moment in race relations is that the left is promoting a doctrine actively destructive to black self-esteem. The fundamental grain of the leftist argument is "hire/admit/promote black people at their statistical proportion relative to the population, above all other factors." For black people who are not stupid (as much a majority within the black race as within all the races), there is a voice in the back of the head that asks, "Hmm. If I was hired because I was black, would I have been hired if I weren't?" In other words, by giving them this "help", you plant the firm seed in their mind that perhaps they didn't achieve what they did based on their skill but on their race. This is spiritual destruction.

Race-blind advancement (even with its acknowledged weaknesses) is an infinitely better construct than where we are now, for all races. Individual ability and family support need to return once again to the foundation so we can develop a society that better addresses our individual needs rather than "group" needs, when groups are never absolute, only temporary collections of widely disparate individuals with widely disparate abilities and dreams.

StillLessons · 2020-10-14T15:42:46+00:00

Sweden has (in this case) done the one thing that government lovers absolutely hate: less. Thus the anger. This goes beyond coronavirus, though this is a great data point. Those who believe in government are always those saying, "We need to do something!!!" Government is seen as their tool to do what needs to be done!^tm The worst thing for a person of this mindset is to do nothing. For them, doing nothing always leads to catastrophe in the form of violent anarchy. But guess what, more often than not, nothing would be a far better thing to do than the policy enacted. The form of government makes no difference with this statement. The point is that when left alone to figure out problems, individuals and voluntary small groups do better than large institutions. Full stop. Local solutions are always better. Full stop. This is why the deep anger at Sweden right now. Results in Sweden are demonstrating for all to see that governments are making matters worse, not better, and that leaving people to get on with our lives has been the successful strategy. Self-imaged "world problem solvers" hate to be shown that they are solving nothing, only - at best - moving problems around - and at worst (more often) - making them exponentially worse.

People who love government hate to be shown this truth. When in doubt, leave people alone. This goes against every busybody gene in their souls.

The root of the rage.

StillLessons · 2020-10-14T14:24:29+00:00

This is infuriating.

From the article:

"Woolf says the deaths indirectly caused by the pandemic came from illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and heart disease, which sharply increased in the same five states that recorded the most COVID-19 deaths.

Delayed care, fear of seeking care or emotional crises stemming from the pandemic could have also contributed to these deaths."

The logic here is that deaths of other diseases that occurred because of the official response to the crisis should now be considered covid deaths?!

Let's unpack this with a thought experiment. A spider is loose in a crowded hall. The organizers of the event panic the people in the hall, telling them there is a spider loose. The spider bites someone, and that person dies. But according to the logic of this "study", the death toll of the spider is not 1, i.e. the number of people killed by the spider's venom; it's 50, the other 49 being the people who died in the stampede unwisely provoked by the response of the organizers.

What they have done with this study is turn reality on its head. This "study" is basically proving what skeptics have said all along: the deaths from the reaction to Covid are likely to be far higher than those provoked by the virus itself. But instead of saying that, they take the insane step of deciding simply to define the deaths caused by official panic as deaths from Covid.

This kind of raw propaganda is destroying the concept of logical thought in public discourse. All the social breakdown we are seeing is a direct consequence of this kind of redefinition of simple facts.

We need to highlight, laugh at, and mock such transparently opportunistic thinking at every opportunity.

StillLessons · 2020-10-06T20:31:45+00:00

The scariest part about this is that dictionaries are now being re-written to agree with what this professor has said.

Example (written by someone who clearly agrees with above professor) in Dictionary . com:

Also called in·sti·tu·tion·al rac·ism [in-sti-too-shuh-nl rey-siz-uhm, -tyoo-], struc·tur·al rac·ism [struhk-cher-uhl rey-siz-uhm], sys·tem·ic rac·ism [si-stem-ik rey-siz-uhm] . a policy, system of government, etc., that is associated with or originated in such a doctrine, and that favors members of the dominant racial or ethnic group, or has a neutral effect on their life experiences, while discriminating against or harming members of other groups, ultimately serving to preserve the social status, economic advantage, or political power of the dominant group.

What's particularly insidious about this kind of "definition" is that it leaves the writer wiggle room, because even within the "definition" itself are vague terms such as "dominant group". The dominant group is whoever the writer chooses it to be given what is useful politically at the time.

We are rapidly losing any objective truth in our academic disciplines, which - sadly - is precisely the aim of those engaged in this re-writing of history.

StillLessons · 2020-10-06T18:44:57+00:00

https://gis.cdc.gov/GRASP/Fluview/FluHospRates.html

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_3.html

StillLessons · 2020-10-06T18:24:40+00:00

The following letter is what this is about: https://gbdeclaration.org/

StillLessons · 2020-10-06T18:15:40+00:00

It's not just politicians. Corporate leadership needs to be recognized for the explicit "ruling power" it wields. We need to be able to see what all these people are up to.

StillLessons · 2020-10-06T18:12:57+00:00

Pardoning Assange would be a truly radical step. For Trump to do this would be to break away from both wings of the War Party. It would be a declaration that he believes journalism such as that Assange facilitated is legitimate and has value. It would mark the first genuine step away from global imperial thinking and would make me question my current platform that politics is 95% theater. Follow it up with an impartial look at what actually happened in 2001, and you might begin the process of regaining people's faith in our "leaders". For all these reasons, I'm not holding my breath. I don't think it's possible.

StillLessons · 2020-10-06T17:09:58+00:00

It would be great if she is elected. By this time, the writing is not only on the wall but completely read and digested in Portland. Anyone who doesn't agree with the drift toward socialism is either already out or actively working to leave. From here on we step back and congratulate them. Let them have Portland. Based on the poll numbers, they basically already do. Okay. Now what? I'll be very curious to see how they run a city. Portlanders seem to want this. It's the beginning of "they have their space, we have ours". This could actually be a very healthy test case.

StillLessons · 2020-10-05T21:53:20+00:00

The Covid fear crew are losing their minds. What strikes me about this tweet storm is watching her mind completely spin out. I know people in my circle who share this fear she has of the virus, and I recognize the mindset. No matter what objective evidence you send their way, their mind is completely full of other crap, and counter-evidence simply cannot be received. In her mind is this blind panic called "VIRUS!!!! PANDEMIC!!!" and there is no rational thought remaining that can get past those words.

My comment assumes she's not just being raw political, which is equally possible. But again, I know people in non-political contexts, and the absolute short-circuiting of reason around Covid is real.

Any ideas how to get through to people like this?

StillLessons · 2020-10-05T18:14:38+00:00

Hehehe. Okay. Message received. I have indeed never waded in these waters before, and my ignorance is immediately revealed. I genuinely apologize for entering a field with basically no history and pretending I had some insight. Clearly I was wrong. I should have spent a lot more time lurking and reading actually to learn something rather than shooting my mouth off.

Thank you to those who responded for being civil in demonstrating my lack of understanding in this area. A good reminder to me that more often than not, keeping one's mouth shut is the best policy.

A happy day to all.

StillLessons · 2020-10-05T17:23:31+00:00

Assuming the facts of this story are accurate as they are written in this account, this is the most compelling of the black lives I have seen taken. All the rest - including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor - are associated with criminal activity. From what is written here, this guy had no criminal element at all. Assuming that is true, this truly was an incredible act of police injustice. But again, this would be true whatever color or ethnicity he was. The acts themselves are the problem, regardless of what "group" the affected individual belongs to.

StillLessons · 2020-10-05T17:13:11+00:00

Interesting. This goes to the more general philosophical problem that has faced humanity forever. We attach meanings to words, and each of us - as an individual - attaches a different emotional weight. Apparently, the word "queer" gives you a strong emotional reaction. I was thinking of it in more of an intellectual descriptive way, with less emotional baggage. This is why the "identity" movement is problematic from the get-go. Every label we attach to anyone, anything, or any idea has this inherent difficulty embedded in it.

StillLessons · 2020-10-05T17:07:26+00:00

This is a letter accepting public signatures. Here is a chance to put your name behind this if you feel strongly, as I do, about this issue.

StillLessons · 2020-10-05T13:02:35+00:00

Hey all, new to this thread. You'll have to pardon my "invasion" of your space, as I am a straight male, but these questions have been of interest to me for a long time now, given that when I was adolescent (a long time ago now...), I would have been at risk for the trans trend (fortunately for me, it hadn't even been conceived of when I was that age).

The letter that I think gets too little attention and which could play a more significant part of a move toward a stable gender equilibrium is "Q".

The debate has gotten sidetracked into trans vs. cis (which are themselves binary constructs), and this is the loss. For me at least, queer is a more powerful concept, because it really gets at the heart of the issue, which is that in our minds there is no pure male or female. While in our bodies, biology exists and I am a firm believer in giving that objective truth the respect it is due, in our minds, there are infinite shades of behaviors we all (from both sexes, from all sexualities) exhibit. Some behaviors were traditionally associated with one sex or the other, and thus the problem. But "queer" to me gets at that group of people (where I fit as a teen) who have a lot of the behaviors of the opposite sex, but who are not part of that group.

Long story short, we (gay people, straight people, bi people, whatever) need to really be hitting the message that queer is okay. It's alright to be one sex with behaviors that are more common among the other. It doesn't mean we are the other sex. It just means behavior and sex have never been as linked as people (either militant straight or militant trans) make them.

Behaving whatever way you behave (and associating with whomever you want to associate with) is perfect, within the body you are given. You don't need to assault your divinely-provided body to give yourself permission to behave a certain way.

Support Queer. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for not attacking me, "an invader". ;)

StillLessons · 2020-10-05T12:00:39+00:00

Yeah. This looks to me like the physics analog to the medical "If I had a dime for every cure that works in mice..." Cool work, but I don't see how they scale this up.

StillLessons · 2020-10-02T19:25:44+00:00

Islam - as currently practiced in its most virulent form - is an ideology. That ideology is violent, and it is intolerant. Are there muslims who are peaceful and tolerant? Yes, but they are not the ones creating the cultural movement that is destroying western Europe. So we have to pay attention to the muslims who are most active and what they want and believe. As you say, they're not a race; they are the representatives of this ideology, which is expansionist and has structured mechanisms (such as fatwas) to call for violence. Muslim "activists" in Europe have no interest at all in adapting to their new environment, only in adapting that environment to their will.

I'm sorry to see the hatred of muslims growing, but it is a completely natural and expected counterbalance to a group of people within their "religion" who hate the systems of the countries they are choosing to move to to take advantage of the material benefits, and are regularly and violently expressing that hatred.

StillLessons · 2020-10-02T18:32:34+00:00

Let's compare two stories for a second: the immigration of muslims to Europe and the immigration of Latin Americans to the US. These are two movements happening simultaneously, and I see two very different stories developing.

First, the US. While people are angry about illegal migration, I see no significant backlash against Latin Americans as such. In other words, people in the US realize that there are people from Latin America who have arrived legally, are working their asses off, and are helping our country continue to grow and move forward. These legal migrants are also - most importantly - fully adopting the ideals of the country to which they have moved; there are no stronger advocates for American ideology than new migrants. Interestingly, many of those who are most pissed off about the illegal immigration are the legal migrants. Long story short, I don't see an "anti-Latino" wave here, just an anti-illegal one. This thus is - correctly - playing out in politics; the Democrats represent illegal migration, and the Republicans are against it. We'll see where it lands.

Muslims in Europe are a very different story. The problem with the rise in the muslim population is that far too many radical muslims have no interest in assimilating culturally into their new home countries. Europe was a region with systems based in Judeo-Christian thought. The way the society is designed reflects that history. But fundamentalist muslims are unwilling to accept this system. There are countless stories about "no-go zones" in European cities where the official agents of the state can no longer operate without armed escorts. Fundamentalist followers of Islam, which started with Mohammed as a political movement (he was a general and killed a lot of people for disagreeing with him), are unwilling to adapt to their new countries. No, they are convinced it's the other way around. The new countries must be subjected to their system. This then ceases to be migration in the traditional sense - it becomes invasion and cultural cleansing.

It's outrageous watching the power structures in western European governments throw their own native populations under the bus to enable this cultural destruction. Apparently their own history has less value for them than the money they receive through cheap labor and direct payments from the governments of the oil states.

It is super depressing to watch western Europe committing suicide by islamization.

It occurs to me, though, that this is a parallel to the transgender problem. Just like transgenders learn to hate themselves in their original form and feel they must become the other gender to feel better, European leaders seem to hate themselves in their original Judeo-Christian form and aim to accept a new, more islamized version of themselves to feel better.

StillLessons · 2020-10-02T17:51:14+00:00

This fits a suspicion I've had about this virus since February. It reminds me of mononucleosis. I was told by my doctor when I got mono in college that the types of viruses that cause the syndrome "mono" (usually epstein barr, but not necessarily) are effective on compromised immune systems in post-adolescents. In other words, mono can be on a campus, and only a few people will "get it", not because they are not exposed to it, but because a healthy immune system eliminates the virus so quickly it never establishes any detectable presence in the body. When people become stressed out and exhausted, however (such as around exam times), their immune system is compromised, and the normally easily-defeated virus can get in and establish. Once established, it's hard to get rid of and causes more serious problems.

This article points out that our new virus friend also moves through subsets of the population. Small numbers of people are moving this thing around. Sounds similar to me. Some people are not reacting with this bug; others are. Most don't get terribly sick; a few do. Stressing the population out and hyping fear are very effective at lowering the effectiveness of our immune systems. Those with the most compromised immune systems (the most stressed) are our reservoir.

Our overblown reaction to this bug is at a minimum having zero effect on its course, and is quite possibly making it even worse. Nice job, guys!

StillLessons · 2020-10-02T12:47:48+00:00

The probabilities dictate that this will be one of the huge majority of cases that is fundamentally a non-event. Though Trump is old, he has the best healthcare possible, and even in older people cases caught early are quite responsive to treatment.

Sadly, although this is a perfect high-visibility example to demonstrate what many of us are saying - i.e. this bug is very contagious but not as lethal as advertised - the news will not say that. Instead, we are now in for weeks of "Told you so! See how dangerous it is!"

Our reaction to this bug frustrates the hell out of me.

StillLessons · 2020-10-01T18:26:21+00:00

source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

Please note, this is the percentage of cases that is listed as serious as of 10/1/20, not the percentage of deaths. We were told once upon a time this bug had a 1% mortality rate. Now it appears it has a 1% serious case rate.

This data does not remotely tell the story that we are hearing...

StillLessons · 2020-10-01T18:20:35+00:00

source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

StillLessons · 2020-10-01T17:53:25+00:00

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

StillLessons · 2020-10-01T17:48:10+00:00

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden

StillLessons · 2020-09-30T17:54:38+00:00

I didn't see this to the level that the article suggests. There are places where I agree that Wallace demonstrated bias against Trump. The idea that he continues to use the very fine people line absent the context demonstrating it to be a completely false thread is indeed shocking. In that, he definitely gave an unnecessary gift to Biden partisans. His treatment of critical race theory was equally biased, not acknowledging the very real inherent problems in teaching white people that they are racist by birth with no way to redeem this quality. For those two things, I agree that Wallace was way off base.

But in general, most of the times that Wallace cut Trump off, it was because Trump does not feel obliged to stay within any boundaries during a debate. Listening to him is like listening to the annoying uncle at the Thanksgiving table who refuses to listen to anything anyone says beyond 10 seconds if he disagrees with them. Trump has no desire to listen to a complete argument against anything he says. He gets a few seconds into it and proceeds to interrupt, simply to prevent any further development of whatever the idea is he doesn't approve of. This is a tactic that prevents actual debate, and it is very difficult for any moderator to deal with. Wallace reminded Trump several times that he had agreed to allow Biden two minutes uninterrupted at the beginning of each section, but that is very difficult for Trump to do. Also, all politicians prefer to turn conversation to their own talking points rather than stay on line, but Trump is particularly bad about this. The debate was a shitshow because the topics were never followed. One or the other of them (but more often Trump, as I saw it) would simply start flinging extraneous random attacks against the character of the other, having nothing to do with the question at hand. Who the moderator was makes no difference to that. Trump was going to behave that way no matter who was behind the table.

Trump's advantage is that he has some very accurate mud to fling at Biden. Biden is trying to pretend that very simple, very direct truths are not true. But Hunter Biden's corruption is so well documented that trying to pretend it's "all fine" cannot play well.

I don't think any minds were changed last night. Biden was successful in that none of his mental lapses were as bad as the audience was expecting (either with glee or dread), although it's still shocking that in more than half of his utterances, his brain clearly has to work very hard to override mis-speech and confusing words or numbers. But even so, he did better than many of us were expecting. Trump was successful in that Biden was forced into obviously false and pretty pathetic "That's just a lie! 's" on many occasions when he has no better argument to counter the fact that what Trump was saying was most certainly not a lie.

This didn't change the game at all. And Wallace was not the uber-villain the right would like to think. His questions on calling out the riots and on packing the court forced Biden into obvious positions he would rather not have had to face.

I still don't see a leader to improve the country's position post-election. Just different flavors of continued degradation.

StillLessons · 2020-09-29T13:23:46+00:00

The push to get people to vote is one of the most important parts of the game. In order for this system to operate, the population needs to be convinced that the policies enacted represent "the will of the people". Even if "the other side" wins, the fiction can still be maintained as long as you vote. "Oh, well... it'll get better when our side wins again." But it doesn't. No matter which "side" wins, the corruption deepens and our values diminish further.

I am no longer in favor of the power of election. Instead of creating a system for the population to wield power (the ideal), in reality it simply provides a smokescreen for those in power to hold up, imitating legitimacy while actually representing the result of propaganda, gaslighting, and popular manipulation. Responsibility is deflected from the people in charge so they can claim to be "representing" something. In truth they represent nobody but themselves.

This was true under the older royal systems as well of course, as well as in the case of dictatorships, but at least in those systems, responsibility for the decisions made was still relatively easily assigned to the people actually making the decisions. Under the current "democratic" systems, those responsible for our misery hide in the shadows, and people do not as easily recognize who to haul out when the time comes.

Democratic governance is a noble idea. But in practice, democracy at the scale of our countries is more destructive than productive.

A return to monarchy or single person rule is nowhere close to ideal. But it might actually (sadly) be better than what we've got now.

StillLessons · 2020-09-29T13:11:05+00:00

What you write here is the letter of the law, but it does not reflect the reality of US foreign policy since 1970. A simple example: has Congress declared war to allow the US military to enter Syria? The justification used (I believe, though I could be corrected) would be the general War on Terror declaration back under Bush II, but there has never been any congressional debate that I have seen to discuss militarily occupying Syrian soil. The military - directed by the president - simply did it, and nobody questioned it. The idea that the US is operating under the framework of the law as written is a fiction. They use it when it is useful to them, and ignore it when it doesn't.

StillLessons