Shyness is nice...

The cultural and political elite has become so successful at demonizing "conservative" attitudes that polls are becoming increasingly unreliable:

Pollsters in Britain have long realized the potential polling problem created by the “shy Tory” vote — referring to those voters who don’t want to admit to pollsters that they are going against the grain of media coverage and might cast a politically incorrect vote. But this is the third time in 50 years that the shy Tories have swung an election (it also happened in 1970 and 1992). Apparently, polling companies haven’t been able to solve the problem. Chris Hanretty, the academic who advised the BBC on polling, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper that he feels “a little bit foolish,” in the wake of the election. “We categorically ruled out a [Conservative] majority. . . . We should have expected far more ‘shy Tories.’” 

She should have known what we all know isn't true

Something happened in the wake of the failed terror attack in Garland. Not so much a shock--it's been coming in full view for a while--as much as depressing confirmation. The elite media has shown a disturbing willingness to sacrifice the first amendment, among other things, as a necessary concession to Diversity. From Eric Wemple's blog:

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, in speaking with a guest: “This is problematic to me, because I wonder whether this group that held this event down there to basically disparage and make fun of the prophet Muhammad doesn’t in some way cause these events. Well, not the word ‘causing’ — how about provoking, how about taunting, how about daring? How do you see the causality factor here?” (Taunting is a form of expression) 

Donald Trump on “Fox & Friends”: “What is she doing drawing Mohammed?…What are they doing drawing Muhammad. Isn’t there something else they can draw?…I’m the one who believes in free speech probably more than she does, but what’s the purpose of this?” (Must protected speech have a Trump-approved purpose?) 

Comedy Central’s Larry Wilmore: “You know another thing that’s horrific, Pamela Geller? Intentionally putting innocent, unarmed security guards in danger so you can make some bull[—-] free speech argument.” (A bad moment: When comedians are rating others’ free-speech arguments)  

Fox News host Martha MacCallum to Geller: “I absolutely get where you’re coming from. I’m not sure you went about it the right way.” (Let the government decide on the “right way”!) 

CNN host Alisyn Camerota to Geller: “And nobody is saying that this warrants the violence that you saw. I mean I haven’t heard anyone in the media saying that it’s okay for gunmen to show up at an event like this. But what people are saying is that there’s always this fine line, you know, between freedom of speech and being intentionally incendiary and provocative.” (Provocative — we surely wouldn’t accuse Camerota of such a crime.)  

CNN’s Jake Tapper to Geller: “Nothing justifies the attack, the violent attack. There is no justification, but I do want to ask you about your reasons for holding the event, if you’ll permit me. Charlie Hebdo ran a magazine in the name of satire and criticism and the magazine continues to attack every religion, every political party, all sorts of leaders. What was the purpose of holding an event that specifically focused on the prophet Muhammad?” (New standard: To satirize Islam, you must show a record of satirizing other religions). 

Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren: “It’s one thing for someone to stand up for the First Amendment and put his own you-know-what on the line, but here, those insisting they were defending the First Amendment were knowingly putting officers’ lives on the line — the police.” (Taxpayers hire cops to protect their freedoms)

The provocation argument is based on the perceived petty nature--to secular eyes --of the provocation; it's so unnecessary. We don't need, after all, to draw Muhammad. It isn't an essential thing. It isn't even a non-essential thing that, presumably, our media betters would defend, like the right to wear the clothes we want, despite the offense it gives some, on the street. I mean, it isn't as if anyone's demanding that stop. Yet. At the same time, it constitutes a grave offense not only to the radicals, but to any devout Muslim.

So the petty nature of the provocation is precisely the problem, and everyone knows it. What lays ahead, in a nation with a larger, more assertive Muslim population, is anyone's guess. But at this point, Geller's guess, as lurid as it may be, is better than any the average respectable figure is willing to offer, if he is still capable of honestly considering the question. A sobering thought.

In that disparity between how the Muslim and how the westerner view the drawings the problem of diversity is revealed, and that, as well as fear, is what bothers the Chris Matthews of the world. It's driving them mad. Geller has called a bluff. It wasn't the Muslims' bluff, for they have warned us; it was the liberal elite's bluff. That bluff said Muslim immigration will not be a problem for the US.

President Obama and the Clown Car Liquor Store

The other day the president asserted the media is deliberately misleading the nation on the extent of violence by protesters in Baltimore by showing the same footage of a burning CVS, over and over. I think he's not so much ignorant or dishonest as he is confused. He probably saw this remarkable footage of a liquor store being looted.
So many protesters make their way in and out of the store in ten minutes one might get the impression every black person in Baltimore set foot inside. The thing is a remarkable study in mob dynamics. So many people file in you wonder how the little store holds them all. Periodically a mass of people rush back onto the street like a fleeing herd. Seeing this happen the first time I thought someone had let off a gun inside, but as soon as the store has relieved itself in this way, the crowd starts pouring in again, as if filling a vacuum.
My favorite part is when a car pulls up and an obese woman gets out and goes inside. A car full of people and she, apparently, is the most mobile one available for the task of weaving through the wilding throng. She returns later empty-handed, and appears to wave to someone in the crowd:

 

Baltimore is in a cognitive trap

Rumsfeld Obama Spring Mashup: Don't Trust the Media!

The violence that happened yesterday distracted from the fact that you had seen multiple days of peaceful protests that were focused on entirely legitimate concerns of these communities in Baltimore, led by clergy and community leaders. And they were constructive and they were thoughtful. And frankly it didn’t get that much attention. And one burning building will be looped on television over and over and over again, and the thousands of demonstrators who did things the right way, I think, have been lost in the discussion.
Barack Obama, April 2015, on rioting in Baltimore

Let me say one other thing. The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, "My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?"
Donald Rumsfeld, April 2003, on looting in Baghdad

Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right...

When I sat down to write this last night, Martin O'Malley, feeling duty-bound as former mayor, was the only presidential candidate to address the rioting in Baltimore. I get up this morning and find them all jockeying to be least offensive in lamenting violence they don't dare condemn. Only the president was unequivocally condemnatory of the violence--right before his usual spin-move from that to how it all reiterates the need for more progressive policy:

“If our society really wanted to solve the problem,we could. It’s just that it would require everybody saying this is important. This is significant. And that we don’t just pay attention to these communities when a CVS burns.” 

Welcome to the underside of the bus, CVS! Say hi to Grandma and the rest of white America!

The president said attention must be paid to the rioters' demands. Hillary offered a prayer. Rand Paul spit up some libertarian baby food, criminal justice system flavor. Looks the same on his bib as it did in the little jar. He assured us it isn't racial. Jeb Bush, presumably speaking in English, directed his passive-aggression against the president:

“[Obama] could be such an eloquent spokesman to heal wounds and to be a constructive force. I’m sure he realizes that and I’m pretty confident he will step up,” Bush told reporters in San Juan, Puerto Rico...

In mentioning Obama, Jeb may be furtively trying to identify himself as the implicit white candidate, and that represents as far as anyone is willing to go in recognizing white America's legitimate concern with the barbarous state of black America. Anything more would be denounced as demagogy, while the president's overt demagogy through the Justice Department preceding this season of violence is equally off-limits. That's one hell of an advantage Obama plays with.

What's striking is how, a half-century after the sixties' race riots upon which these now are modelled, unequivocal condemnation of such violence is no longer possible. No Republican will dare stand up as the law and order candidate in solidarity with a white America--really a non-black America--that is directly targeted by an unreasoning black mob. Combined with big money's complete takeover of presidential elections it's hard not to declare American democracy officially over.

Cover Version

Watched Die Hard again recently and was struck by the scene where Reginald VelJohnson's black LAPD patrolman explains to John McClain he's working a quiet beat (unnamed Century City) on Christmas Eve because after mistakenly shooting a kid with a toy raygun he doesn't think he'll ever be able to draw his service revolver again (why a cop incapable of using his weapon is on the street at all, they don't say).

Anyway, I thought it was quaint and humorous to see that reasonable past, when we could accept the difficulty inherent in armed policing, as long as it was explained to us in the honeyed tones of an inoffensively soulful black man.

Alas, I could not find the scene online. But I found something better. The Perfect Movie Recreations version of the scene. Not to disparage the actor covering the Sgt Powell role here (for he is excellent), here's a picture of Reginald VelJohnson to enhance the mood:

"Don't worry, White Man, I got enough goodness for both of us."

Enjoy:

Quote of the Day

One may cover over secret actions, but to be silent on what all the world knows, and things which have had effects which are public and of so much consequence, is an inexcusable defect.
--Montaigne, On the Duty of Historians

Appropriate condemnation for those, from the University to Fox News, determined to enforce our continuing misunderstanding of race and its problems. It's been about fifteen years now since I first discovered dissident literature about race online. It was exhilarating. The thrill of transgressing the sacrosanct and sense it was nonetheless right (if you feel seeking the truth is right) coexisted. Amazing! (It would make the wholesome yin to the shameful yang of discovering Internet porn, if I should ever discover Internet porn.)
Of course, the thrill is gone.

Farther back people were assuming it inevitable the Internet would soon render the Narrative an unsustainable laughingstock. How they flattered the nation! How I flattered myself. You can transgress all you want, if you're nobody; "transgressing" by reading HBD sites, for instance, proves you're nobody. Don't do it if you want to be somebody. The cottage industry that is the outing of "racists" exists to broadcast this dictum. But it isn't just about vetting celebrities and politicians. The message the average guy--white guy, needless to say--gets loud and clear is this is what losers do.

So far so good: the Narrative hasn't even had to adapt to facts that have been more "settled" than global warming for a long time. In its aversion to logic and romanticizing of anger (it's become routine: the media reports the anger of such as the Ferguson mob as if it proves the justice of their cause; one burned-down Quickie Mart a solid argument, two a slam dunk) the Narrative argues that feelings make facts, but its sharper proponents know the reality: feelings make power.

The Internet has failed to make facts relevant. Certain facts at least. From the conspicuous self-abnegation of the white liberal to the surly self-importance of the urban black, feelings drive behavior. The Narrative knows. It advanced ten miles while you meticulously fashioned a brilliant treatise "destroying" it--on paper. Smirking, it advances as you go back to try out another argument. The Narrative rules. I wish I was the Narrative!

 The processes set in motion just grind on, and demographic change is slowly overtaking the relevance of the racial question--a white minority will be eclipsed not merely by the number of non-whites (who Democrats and progressives hope to keep corralled in an anti-white coalition), but by talented groups such as Asians and Indians, who, the HBD counter-narrative assures us, will displace whites in much of the professional and business world. What consequence the truth or not of HBD then? The best we can hope for at that point is sympathy. "Yeah, looking back, you white guys really got screwed. Can you make those curly fries?"

Argument gets nowhere so the truth is irrelevant. Progressivism knows it's all about boots on the ground--"alien bodies" in Narrative jargon--so they push the demographic agenda knowing time favors them; the respectable right doesn't even know there's a war on.

But then I'm just trying to cheer you up.