Amerika

• Burning Man, a utopia for guests, was hell for many workers

  There is general agreement that Burning Man symbolizes and perhaps even carries on the legacy of the socially libertarian spirit of the 1960s counterculture.

  …“They’ve taken Guerilla art and turned it into a real corporation,” he said. “They’re worse than Walmart at this point.”

  As the video continues, something strange happens: Rather than join in solidarity, people emerge from within the Burning Man headquarters to form a counterprotest. One man with his shirt off tries to hug Schaber, who quickly backs away and says, “Do not hug me.”

  “Are you afraid of a hug?” the other man asks. “Why are you here?”

  Time and time again, history teaches us that the people telling us that they are here to bring love, peace, and justice are in fact here to seduce us with their salesperson words and then steal everything we have. Another hippie project like Burning Man fits entirely into this narrative; what great things did hippies do for anyone? Or Bohemians? Or Bolsheviks? Or French Revolutionaries? They are all just clever grifters like Neal Cassady as revealed in On the Road. Silicon Valley, rather than revolutionaries or new robber barons, are standing revealed as simply con men pimping unnecessary lifestyle products.

• Nordic countries’ ‘happy’ reputation masks sadness of young, says report

  “More and more young people are getting lonely and stressed and having mental disorders,” said Birkjaer. “We are seeing that this epidemic of mental illness and loneliness is reaching the shores of the Nordic countries.”

  …It may be that the world appears a harder place in which to prosper. “We have seen these decreases in happiness in many countries since the financial crisis, even though countries like Denmark have regained economic growth.”

  No one is prospering because our policies act against natural impulses and needs. How does one prosper in a world of cubicle jobs, boxlike apartments, atomized citizens, affectionless sexuality, clogging red tape, and knowing that your society is overall headed to doom because it is in the grips of the insanity of Leftism, democracy, equality, and diversity? The Nordic nations started out ahead with their high-IQ population and strong cultural mores, but over time these became eroded by a desire to be “good” through egalitarianism. Now egalitarianism has — as it always does — made a horror of a society, and while on the surface everyone is prosperous, they feel their time is wasted on meaningless activities for a doomed society.

• The New Socialists

  Since the 1970s, American liberals have taken a right turn on the economy. They used to champion workers and unions, high taxes, redistribution, regulation and public services. Now they lionize billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, deregulate wherever possible, steer clear of unions except at election time and at least until recently, fight over how much to cut most people’s taxes.

  …The socialist argument against capitalism isn’t that it makes us poor. It’s that it makes us unfree. When my well-being depends upon your whim, when the basic needs of life compel submission to the market and subjugation at work, we live not in freedom but in domination. Socialists want to end that domination: to establish freedom from rule by the boss, from the need to smile for the sake of a sale, from the obligation to sell for the sake of survival.

  Beware idiots talking about “freedom,” which always means the ability to avoid reality. The intelligent and morally good do not abuse freedom, but everyone else does, and that venal group are the majority, so they win. Socialists accepted capitalism as a means to fund socialism, but now they want to be free from the toxic workplace. However, this workplace is the result of the immigration, red tape, sexual liberation, affirmative action, civil rights, and social changes created by the Left. If we undo those, capitalism becomes friendlier. The real story here is not the downfall of capitalism, but of democracy.

• When Justice Is Partial

  But there have been no charges against the partisans who made repeated abjectly false claims to the FBI and Justice Department about actions of their political opponents. There have been no charges against those who leaked classified information, including the unprecedented release of an unmasked conversation between former national security adviser Mike Flynn and a Russian ambassador. Nothing.

  Conservatives will never understand the Left: to them, there is only one goal, which is their ideology, and everything else is a means to an end. They will let Antifa bike attacker Eric Clanton off with probation and throw Alt-Righters who defended themselves against Antifa into jail simply because in order to advance their ideology, they need Leftists on the streets and Rightists in jail. Similarly, they will destroy any Rightist they can, simply because to them this is war for an ultimate Utopia, and anyone who is not on their side is an ideological enemy who must be eliminated.



• America’s Never-Ending Culture War

  Liberals and leftists still battle with conservatives over most of the other big issues that roiled the nation back then: affirmative action, the right to abortion, freedom for gays and lesbians, curbs on corporate power, environmental protection, the politics of academia — and rulings by the Supreme Court that cheer one camp and infuriate the other.

  …But the harsh divisions among Americans in 1968 have largely endured. They are rooted in profound disagreements based on culture and creeds that are impervious to compromise.

  …In addition, the alienation of rural white Americans from cosmopolitan urban dwellers has only increased since big cities became entry points of immigrants from all over the world. The family reunifications made possible by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 helped create today’s polyglot big cities.

  …But as a historian, I also know that civil wars, even cultural ones, seldom end with settlements that please both sides. Until the left or the right wins a lasting victory, America will remain a society rent in two.

  How can a culture war end when one side wants pathological egalitarianism, and the other side wants an organic way of life which includes social order, nature, a sense of right and wrong without ideology, culture, heritage, and possibly even faith? America is divided because of the presence of Leftists, a group we apparently imported from Southern and Eastern Europe before going to the third world outright. Simpler societies with lower-IQ people favor Leftism invariably. Those who want Western Civilization are inherently endorsing a conservative prospect, namely that there is an order larger than the individual and therefore egalitarianism is unnecessary and illusory. These two cannot be reconciled. They never could, and we deferred action, so now we are at battle stations waiting for the final command. One side will win, and it will permanently remove the other. Let’s get the Leftists before they destroy us.

• “We’re Prepared to Die For Land Expropriation Without Compensation”

  “Death is the price we will pay and poverty will come. It’s a war and we must be prepared. Death is the price we are willing to pay, we are not shaken.”

  Identity trumps economy. People need to know that their team is in charge and winning, and if another team is succeeding nearby, they will destroy that team if they can. This is why diversity does not work. South Africa shows us the future coming to all diverse Western nations.

• Houston cop begs security guard to help him arrest suspect who tries to grab for his gun but she refuses and RECORDS him instead

  But the situation escalates when Miller appears to grab the officer’s gun.

  ‘Stop grabbing my gun!’ the cop screams as the woman in the scrubs yells ‘Oh my god!’ in fear of what will happen next.

  …The officer holds both of Miller’s hands down to the ground and turns to the security guard, who has moved from her original position and begun circling them.

  ‘Help me!’ he screams. ‘Stop f*****g filming and help me!’

  Loyalty to race will always win out over loyalty to laws. Every group acts in its own self-interest alone. That is the “golden rule” of understanding human groups. The “muh Constitution” cuckservatives, who believe that laws can somehow force assimilation of many different groups. Maybe that worked for Western Europeans, who are very genetically and thus culturally similar, but it did not work for Southern and Eastern Europeans, and it has utterly failed with any wider casting of the net to third world groups.

• 3 face charges in connection with toppling of Confederate monument

  Steinburg said he’s worried that weak prosecution of vandals will embolden further attacks on other Confederate monuments across the state. He called law enforcement responses to Silent Sam and another statue toppling in Durham “milquetoast.”

  Last year in Durham, demonstrators tore down a Confederate statue in front of local government building. Law enforcement officers took video but didn’t try to stop them as one climbed a ladder and attached the rope that was then yanked by protesters on the ground.

  A judge in Durham later dismissed charges against two and found a third not guilty because of difficulty identifying protesters on video. The district attorney then dropped charges against the remaining five, saying he didn’t have any stronger evidence against the rest.

  Police got tired of getting blamed any time they acted decisively to stop a perp who later turned out to be from a protected group, so most of them are staying away from any controversy entirely. The rest are Leftists who actively encourage their fellow comrades to destroy, much like this Leftist judge let his fellow Leftists off the hook. The solution is to start taking out Leftists, which requires police to dive in and gather evidence and then courts to hit these people with the felonies they deserve.

• Chinese Communist Party Funds Washington Think Tanks

  The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.

  The Party’s United Front strategy includes paying several Washington think tanks with the goal influencing their actions and adopting positions that support Beijing’s policies.

  I hear the sound of vindication. The “domino theory” just got proven correct yet again. All those guys who died in Vietnam bought us extra decades without foreign Leftism, but now the crazy Leftists are back and infiltrating our institutions from within. This shows us that all Leftists form alliances because their primary goal is simply to take control by destroying anything other than themselves. That’s a nasty infection we have there.

• Trump Paints Xi Into a Corner

  The bombastic approach taken by the Trump administration paints him into a corner. Any major concessions could look like appeasement to Washington’s bullying — and an unacceptable blow to Xi’s prestige.

  As usual, Leftists do not understand diplomacy. China has been hiding its aggressive role by disguising it as economic and social expansion. Trump has forced them to reveal what they are actually doing, and by not tolerating it, he is shutting down their delusions of grandeur and forcing them to reveal their intent to expand and conquer.

• Elizabeth Warren takes wrong side

  American citizens are regarded as less-than by progressives and their stories are considered a nuisance to the driving narrative that we are all complicit of crimes against this group or that and we have no moral authority to do anything but shut up and pay up.

  This original sin is shared by most Americans, according their ideology, and the implication is that families like the Tibbetts, who’ve been victimized by someone of greater intersectional value, should simply “walk it off.”

  To Leftists, everything and everyone is a means to the end of establishing equality. Those who have culture, heritage, faith, customs, family, and a goal in life are expendable, because these people do not need equality; they, like conservatives, want order which requires hierarchy and specialization and more complex notions than an endless quest to make everyone feel equal, which placates the raging herd because every individual wants to feel like they cannot be driven out of the group for the Darwinian mistake of being incompetent.

• A lesson to other cities when they go bankrupt: you will be taxed until you bleed

  According to Payscale Houston wages have risen at 2.4% annually since 2006.The City’s property tax collections have risen at over 2.5 times that rate. This is precisely what Houston taxpayers sought to prevent when they limited City Council’s ability to make them pay more in taxes than was needed to cover inflation and the City’s growth without asking them for their permission. Because of the TIRZ loophole, the taxpayers’ will, as expressed in the 2004 referendum, has been thwarted.

  Welcome to minority-majority rule. The few who make anything will be expected to fund the masses who have nothing because they contribute nothing more than repetitive labor. Any time someone points out that this is a path to bankruptcy, politicians will shrug because they know to bring up the issue in public means that those politicians will be out of office. Democracy commits suicide this way anyway, but diversity — Houston is the most diverse area in North America — accelerates the process. The good news is that the West will soon be free of democracy.

• Chinese Military Joining Russians for Nuclear War Games

  The People’s Liberation Army will send more than 3,200 troops, 900 pieces of military equipment, and 30 aircraft to Russia for the exercise known as Vostok-18, or East-18, the Chinese Defense Ministry said, noting the exercises will involve practicing maneuver defense, live firing of weapons, and counterattack.

  The ol’ Sino-Soviet block is back together, under a new name and new management. Who could be surprised that these old allies found each other again, and have implicitly united against the West? Russians — who are genetically about a quarter Chinese — and Chinese both want the West out of the way so that they can have dominion over Eurasia and Asia, respectively. Then they will have to fight each other, but the 2D chess they play probably has not yet extended to take account of that inevitability.



• 7 arrested in protest over torn-down Confederate statue

  Television footage and videos posted to social media showed several punches thrown and at least one man handcuffed after he tried to burn a Confederate flag taken from another man’s hands.

  None of the seven people arrested was affiliated with the school, Chancellor Carol Folt said.

  Three were charged with assault, two were charged with assault, destruction of property and inciting a riot; one was charged with destruction of property and one was charged with resisting an officer, the university said in a statement. Officials did not release their names or say if they were protesting for or against the statue.

  It turns out that part of the solution to the Leftist menace is to encourage them to reveal themselves by their own behavior. After decades of claiming to be mature and compassionate, the Left has yanked off its Jimmy Carter mask and screaming, “Just kidding, we’re Communists and Jacobins after all!”

• ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ draws immigrant parents to the movies

  Younger Asian-Americans have been flocking with their parents to see the first movie in 25 years with an all-Asian cast.

  For many older, first-generation Asian immigrants, going to the movies doesn’t rank high among hobbies and interests. The crowds, the language barrier and ticket prices are often turnoffs.

  But the appeal of “Crazy Rich Asians,” the story of a culture clash that erupts when an Asian-American woman from New York meets her boyfriend’s family in Singapore, has bridged a real-life generation gap.

  We see the positive side of identity politics: people like being from a group, having its standards and customs, and being different from and thus above the undifferentiated herd.

• Houston marks Harvey anniversary with flood-control vote

  A web of bayous and other watersheds that can overflow during heavy rainfall snake their way through Harris County. Flood maps show that more than 25 percent of Harris County is in the 100-year flood plain and more than 33 percent of the county is in the 500-year flood plain. Structures in a 100-year flood plain have a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year, while those in a 500-year flood plain have a 0.2 percent chance of flooding during any year. The Houston area has had three 500-year flood events since 2015. Many of the Houston area homes damaged during Harvey were not in designated flood plains.

  No one will say the factual truth: the flooding occurred because the city released its reservoirs, flooding its oldest neighborhoods, so that the new construction in the flood plain — mostly inhabited by minorities — would not flood. This is minority-majority rule for you; it is Detroits all the way down.

• Holy nights: New Marriott rooms to get Bible, Book of Mormon

  Marriott is alone among big hotel chains in requiring religious materials in its rooms. Hilton and IHG, which owns Holiday Inn and other brands, say they let local hotel managers decide whether to offer Bibles. Hyatt has no official policy, but says it will obtain religious texts if guests ask for them.

  According to STR, a hotel data firm, the number of U.S. hotels that offer religious materials in their rooms has dropped over the last decade, to 79 percent in 2016 from 95 percent in 2006. Luxury hotels were the least likely to offer them, with just 51 percent saying they did. And urban and resort hotels were less likely to offer them than hotels in suburbs or along interstates.

  The culture wars rage on, but it seems like on the home front, tradition is winning out as all the Leftist policies seem to produce bankrupt countries, angry tattooed drug-addicted people with blue hair and obesity, graffiti-smeared cities, moronic cubicle McJobs, and permanently alienated, isolated, and withdrawn populations.

• Children made up story about white man urinating on black child: police

  Grand Rapids police and prosecutors late Friday, Aug. 24 said they determined the story was not valid and said no charges would be issued against a 60-year-old man arrested following the initial report on Wednesday.

  Police said several children, all 7 or younger, were playing together sometime before 6 p.m. Wednesday when one of the children urinated on the 5-year-old girl.

  Kent County prosecutors said the parents of the children, in talking with them, ultimately determined the children “concocted the story to avoid trouble.”

  Civil Rights is our new blank check / get out of jail free card. You can use it for any situation where you are in a bind. This causes it to be abused, as anything open-ended without much accountability tends to be abused, much like the false rape accusations under sloppy Title IX tribunals.

• Fox’s Carlson stunned by reaction to stories on South Africa

  Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Friday he’s shocked his segments this week on a South African land reform policy should be considered an appeal to white nationalists — let alone spark an international incident.

  Carlson argued against a proposal that would allow the South African government to seize some white-owned agricultural land, part of an effort to address inequities left over from apartheid. Whites own more than 70 percent of such farmland despite being about 8 percent of the population.

  In the new Leftist world, principle does not matter. Saying that stealing is bad will offend Leftists because to them, everything is a means-to-an-end of enforcing equality, so stealing that increases equality is good. Since white people are high performers who therefore pose a threat to the presumed validity of equality, Leftists also oppose white people, much as they oppose Jews in Israel who outperform Palestinians.

• Bavarians see conservatives as more of a problem than refugees: poll

  “The CSU strategy to combat their loss of confidence by provoking a conflict with [Merkel’s] CDU over the topic of refugee policies has so far not been successful,” said Forsa boss Manfred Güllner.

  “It’s the opposite: The CSU itself has become a problem for Bavaria. And thus in contrast to all other regions, refugees only became a ‘problem’ in Bavaria because the ruling party has been preaching about it so loudly.”

  Some of this must surely be shoot the messenger style logic, but a 6% lead is not huge, which more likely suggests this is the same antipathy that American conservatives feel toward their “conservative” party, namely that the group is focused more on drawing attention to itself than fixing actual problems. When one considers that democracy is a competition for attention, it makes sense that all politicians tend to be cut from the same mold.

• Microsoft Bug Testers Unionized. Then They Were Dismissed

  The ­38-person union successfully organized in 2014, winning the right to negotiate with temp agency Lionbridge Technologies Inc., which provides marketing, testing, and language services. Within a few years, however, Lionbridge had eliminated all their jobs, and the workers say a union-busting complaint they filed in December 2016 with the NLRB against Microsoft dragged on too long.

  Unions raise costs without benefits to the company, essentially engaging in wealth transfer from the company to the workers above market value. This causes companies to take labor offshore. Everyone in Washington knows this, which is why they are sitting out these Silicon Valley tech union suits. We lost many jobs to the high costs that unions impose — workers may get more money, but the union gets quite a bit too — and brought organized crime into business and politics once unions became legally protected. If you have thirty-eight workers who want to get paid more, the best way to do this is to demonstrate increased value, because then your position becomes solidified by market forces and not laws and the willingness of the company to resist offshoring.

• Millennials’ Rosy View of the Welfare State Dwindles Once They’re Told What It Costs

  When asked if they support socialist policies, millennials generally say yes, but when asked if they’re actually willing to pay for it, their enthusiasm drops markedly.

  …A recent analysis by Brian Riedl from the right-leaning Manhattan Institute found that implementing a socialist agenda—things like single-payer health care, a federal jobs guarantee, and “free” college—would cost $42 trillion dollars over the next decade. That’s an obscene amount of money and would require a doubling of federal revenue, meaning steep tax hikes for everyone, not just the rich. According to Riedl, when it comes to socialism, “Taxing the rich is not enough. America would need to match, or even surpass, Europe’s enormous tax burden on the middle class.”

  Leftist policies are formed of social ideas, or stuff that sounds good to other people when you say it at the bar or club. It can get you a girlfriend, place you at the center of a group of friends, and make people like you at work. These are conversational gambits, conjectures and assurances, not actual policy; when they make contact with reality, they always implode. Add to this the burden of supporting a permanent underclass crossing porous borders and it becomes evident that Leftism will not just destroy what is left of the American Dream, but all of America.

Tags: linkpost, periscope