Your arguments for courage and against a life determined by fear are so powerful - perhaps because they come from a writer struggling not to be controlled by fear herself? Anyway, thank you again for modeling the courage to speak, think freely, and confront the urgent questions for all of us left in the land of the sane.
“For a stranger’s view to be consequential, much less devastating to the point that it feels like actual violence, is narcissism gone to seed. Immaturity run amok.”
I left Medium in part, because early on during the pandemic, I wrote several pieces discussing how authoritarians use the fear of pathogens as a trojan horse for authoritarian politics, and that it works because people are fearful enough of pathogens (a largely invisible force that can be pinned onto any enemy of the state) that they go along gleefully.
These pieces were taken down because they were "misinformation." The irony. Here's one piece, which I'm proud of (because it predicted some of the bullshit that eventually happened) but I remember holding back and not going as far with my predictions as I wanted to.
Agreed, Dear Friend. I was explaining to someone the other day that those of us who value our freedom and independence are currently in a toxic, narcissistic relationship with our government. A narcissist will push and poke. W
e continue to try and remain calm and simply live our lives as we choose but this makes the narcissist even more angry, so they find new ways to poke at us by chipping away small bits of freedom. They are waiting for us to finally snap and push back so they can say, "See?? I told you they were unstable!"
You have put this into perspective better than I ever could have. Powerful and concise!
My hypothesis about "safety" culture is that it's because we aren't having enough kids. Evo psych might cause these societal issues. No way to know how to test and NPD might be as good, if not a better, fit, but there are several others too, as Josh has stated.
I think there's something to this, too. The impulse to create something that will outlive you is powerful. If people don't have kids, that impulse generally goes somewhere else.
To follow this line of thought implies that our egos require us to leave a legacy and/or believe there is something bigger than us that connects to the world before and after we're gone. History and legacy. I know I've felt it BEFORE I had a child. And perhaps societal "rules" are necessary to orient ourselves in a direction that allows us to meet that psychological need. With many of our material needs met, our brains head there. Those who are struggling with basics likely don't have this in their radar.
I don't see it, given the clear and obvious efforts to utterly destroy the future. This entire movement is about tearing things apart, with no effort made to build anything out of the wreckage, even.
Along with fewer people choosing to have kids, those who do decide to have kids have fewer kids. I think this is likely to be the genesis of "helicopter parents." If you only have 1 or 2 kids, it's much easier to devote a great deal of attention to them, to "protect" them. If there are 7 or 8 kids, it's physically impossible to helicopter them, so the kids get lots more opportunities to figure things out for themselves, to engage in unsupervised and "unsafe" activities.
Kids don't learn anymore to deal with unpleasantries that go along with growing up. I shave with safety razors (the kind your grandfather probably used). My youngest stepson, when he was perhaps 6 or 7, got into my pack of safety razors and opened one of them up. He gave himself quite a number of cuts (none requiring stitches), and of course was wailing and freaking out. His mother was freaking the eff out. "Go away," I mouthed to her, as I washed and bandaged the boy's fingers, and treated it like the non-issue that it really was. If you treat things like that as a big deal, then the kid believes it's a big deal and will behave accordingly. He was probably 8 or so before he wasn't so afraid of skinning his knees that he really put in any effort to learn how to ride a bike. He's still fairly risk-averse, but I've made some headway with him.
Both my sisters and I got into Dad's safety razors when we were kids. Nobody likes getting hurt, but if you learn to deal with it as a kid, as an adult it becomes much easier to say "Fuck! You fucking dumbass, look what you just did to yourself!" as opposed to "OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG it hurts! Whatamigonnadooooo????"
And as a matter of fact, I cut my thumb with a box cutter yesterday, trying to cut the bound roots from some new shrubbery I was planting, and that was my exact reaction: "Lynch, you fucking retard, pay attention to what you're doing."
Fully agreed...with only one child, I probably exhibit some of the negative parenting behaviors you mention, but I've always been a fan of "Free Range" parenting, trying to get my kid to go out and do things.
I dunno. I only had one sibling for all of my childhood (the second one showed up when I was 19) and my parents didn't "hover". I had knees that were torn to shit for months on end and still show scars even at 46. It's at least not *just* the "fewer children" thing. The entire culture has become exceedingly risk averse in almost every way.
We not only cannot, we *should* not attempt to nerf pad the universe. You hurt yourself and you learn not to do stupid shit. Or at least not as often, because yeah, I box cuttered my thumb about a month ago myself. ;)
I agree there's more than small family size, but small family size is a necessary condition for it. Like I said, no way could parents hover with 7 or 8 kids. There just isn't time in the day for it.
You and I had some very different childhood experiences. You experienced so much more trauma than I did. My childhood was almost idyllic in comparison. I am also several generations older than you. I suspect we have more differences in many other ways as well. Despite this, we are of a like mind in so many instances. You give me hope that all is not lost, that there are some in the younger generations who can “see”-pockets of resistance.
Right. I don't respect most people's opinions enough to be hurt by them. I don't need universal accolades. (And good thing, because I'm never going to get them. 🤪 )
Great piece, as always, Holly. I’ve recently been reading the book “Why Liberalism Failed,” and while I find myself disagreeing with a great deal of it, it’s made me wonder about the difference in the way the modern Left views freedom and the way I view freedom. Basically, I’ve always thought about freedom as a chance to do something with my life, nothing more and nothing less. It’s not a guarantee I’ll make the right decisions or get the best outcomes, but it is a promise that I’ll have a chance because no one will get in my way.
But I think those on the left have a view much closer to: the ability to take unrestrained action free of consequence. At some level this authoritarian impulse is a desire for them to have someone step in and slap down anyone who pushes back up to and including reality itself.
Liberalism failed because the habits of tolerating the intolerant and utopian idealism allowed its' platforms and causes to be thoroughly infiltrated and subverted by communist and communist aligned socialists. While the goals and aspirations of Liberalism are admirable, Liberalism was perverted into pursuing; enacting; and installing policy; law; & means that could only fail - and deliberately so. This New Liberal Order could only be bandaided with increasing authoritarianism; and that because it is for the most part all nonsense with knobs on that cannot survive reasoned and reasonable interrogation.
Conservatism failed because it has naively and mistakenly conserved this New Liberal Order instead of coherently critiquing and measuredly dismantling it in cooperation, rather than confrontation, with the misled Liberals.
Conservatism is well suited to conserving and critiquing; conceiving and delivering alternative solutions that actual work, not so much. That is Liberalism's forte; but discrimination of ideas; solutions; and their critiquing, not so much. You cannot have a working Conservatism without a working Liberalism; nor can you have a working Liberalism without a working Conservatism. If they are not harnessed in tandem to the body politic but are antagonistic to one another, they will rip the nation apart even absent deliberate subversion by hostile parties.
Conservatism and Liberalism are in reality the only legitimate politics in the Anglo Saxon and Anglo Saxon descended common law and commonwealth tradition. They are together the only politics that have been shown to actually work. I'm sorry if that gets the backs up of Socialists and Libertarians and other politically naive or lunatic people; but whatever they have that is reasoned; reasonable; and works are actually our stolen clothes.
I have observed over time that for those whose greatest fear is death, they'll suffer literally anything they think will help them avoid it.
3 things have steered me towards putting death a bit lower on my list of things to fear.
1. I am an imperfect but devout Christian.
2. A quote from Winston Churchill
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
3. a quote from Chief Tecumseh
"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."
So playing DA here, when our natl ethos is predicated on "life, liberty, and POH", how else would you expect those who disagree to act when they believe life is threatened, even if it isn't in the traditional sense?
I don't think there's any real conflict here. The DoI simply asserts that nobody has a right to take/interfere with life, liberty, and the PoH.
Incidentally, in this context I have come to understand "pursuit" as a noun, not a verb. As in "the pursuits of medicine/engineering/teaching/wood-working/etc."
"... I have come to understand "pursuit" as a noun, not a verb. As in "the pursuits of medicine/engineering/teaching/wood-working/etc.""
By gum, matey! That squares a circle; I've always filed that under "American Daft"; but now I can see, as with the 2nd Amendment, you are looking at 18th century phrasing with 18th century meaning. Your's is probably the most worthwhile comment up to this time that I've read on any Substack.
Thank you, Holly, for this thoughtful post. I have to say I get gut reactions and increased heart rate when I hear the words, "experts" and "Science." Of course, I live in fear that my loved ones will drop dead from SADS. That fear is slowly abating because I realize we will all die eventually and I have no control over any of it. I find sanity reading your Substack and others. I am not alone....
"I want it to be not your godsdamned babysitter. Harden the fuck up. Learn to accept that there are people who don't think like you."
Best should hire me to be in charge of censorship at Substack. Because I'll never do it and I'm really good at saying "No". I can do this job from home. ;)
I wonder to myself how, exactly, we found ourselves as a country/culture in the predicament you describe so eloquently. I have a theory based on nothing, really, that it is as least partly because public school is now more a thinly disguised propaganda vehicle than an actual education. I can only hope that the slight increase in parents homeschooling/private schooling their children will be enough to carry our free speech culture forward.
I have been subbed and reading your stacks for several months now but have just upgraded to a paid sub after reading this. I can imagine there was some difficulty in writing this piece, but it is exactly this sort of honesty and vulnerability we so desperately need nowadays. I very much relate to several points you made, particularly the lunacy surrounding the state of society and the alarming thought experiments that ensue when playing out the possible outcomes of our current trajectory. I'm yet to read Park's books, but have watched her on both Rogan and Peterson's podcasts. I was left with the same belly-dropping feeling of just how disconnected the Western world now is from the devastation of true human cruelty. We would be wise to consistently revise 20th century history rather than forget it, and not turn a blind eye to the reality of the human experience outside of the Western world.
I recently published a stack with one possible theory of why said lunacy and ignorance is taking place today. I'd love to hear your perspective in relation to mine on the topic.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” is of no earlier coinage than a dreadful 2016 post-apocalyptical "novel"; there is no resonance with other than very recent history to maintain.
The British Empire was murdered by the joint enterprise of WSC and FDR. Both so looked, swam, and quacked like Communist Socialists traitors that it is best to consider them such. FDR's administrations and agencies were awash with korasne budale and actual Communists being run by the Organs. Whiehall and Westminster and their agencies were similarly afflicted.
You are perhaps ignorantly and perhaps inadvertantly advocating what you obstentiously oppose - genocidal totalitarian tyranny. You'll like as murder the American Republic as maintain and save it with such advocacy. You are contradictory and the result is incoherent: "To break this cycle and mitigate the consequences of weak men creating hard times,..." then "we can shape a future where strong men and women rise,..." Which is it? You cannot have your cake and eat it; you cannot break the cycle by repeating it; only reinforce it. I suspecct what you mean but this is so ridden with errors, and much the same errors as have us stuck here, that I cannot say more than that.
"This country-right-or-wrong business is getting a little out-of-date. Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I’d been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have been damn near called Communism and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts."
- James Bond in "Casino Royale"(1953); Chpt. 20 : The Nature Of Evil
"Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action."
- Auric Goldfinger in "Goldfinger"(1959); Chpt. 14 : Things That Go Thump In The Night
It feels like we’re in this space, the gloves have been dropped, a line has been drawn but we’re frozen or moving in super slow motion and some action that can’t be taken back is a hair’s breadth away. The world’s never felt this way to me before and I wonder what price will have to be paid when the movie starts again.
All good stuff. I vote we don't feed the trolls and Notes ban the trolls immediately. This is all the "safety blanket" crowd are: trolls here solely to disrupt. Folk who don't play by the rules should be turfed straightaways.
Notes seems to have provided the necessary infrastructure for individual users to ban whomever they themselves find to be trollish. That's better than an institutional action, IMO.
They just continue to annoy other people and the comments become awash with their dross. I am and have been a member of umptie fora where about half the content or more is trolls and folk feeding trolls. Just nuke them from orbit already.
Actually, having seen this play out in another location that has a "mute" feature for people one does not wish to hear from, but which nevertheless gets drowned in conversations between the trolls and those who cannot ignore them... I think you're probably right, as much as it irks me to institutionally "ban" anyone when lower order controls are available.
Your arguments for courage and against a life determined by fear are so powerful - perhaps because they come from a writer struggling not to be controlled by fear herself? Anyway, thank you again for modeling the courage to speak, think freely, and confront the urgent questions for all of us left in the land of the sane.
“For a stranger’s view to be consequential, much less devastating to the point that it feels like actual violence, is narcissism gone to seed. Immaturity run amok.”
🎯
I left Medium in part, because early on during the pandemic, I wrote several pieces discussing how authoritarians use the fear of pathogens as a trojan horse for authoritarian politics, and that it works because people are fearful enough of pathogens (a largely invisible force that can be pinned onto any enemy of the state) that they go along gleefully.
These pieces were taken down because they were "misinformation." The irony. Here's one piece, which I'm proud of (because it predicted some of the bullshit that eventually happened) but I remember holding back and not going as far with my predictions as I wanted to.
https://macrodose.substack.com/p/are-you-a-covid-nazi
Agreed, Dear Friend. I was explaining to someone the other day that those of us who value our freedom and independence are currently in a toxic, narcissistic relationship with our government. A narcissist will push and poke. W
e continue to try and remain calm and simply live our lives as we choose but this makes the narcissist even more angry, so they find new ways to poke at us by chipping away small bits of freedom. They are waiting for us to finally snap and push back so they can say, "See?? I told you they were unstable!"
You have put this into perspective better than I ever could have. Powerful and concise!
❤️❤️❤️
Wow. Thank you, as always.
My hypothesis about "safety" culture is that it's because we aren't having enough kids. Evo psych might cause these societal issues. No way to know how to test and NPD might be as good, if not a better, fit, but there are several others too, as Josh has stated.
I think there's something to this, too. The impulse to create something that will outlive you is powerful. If people don't have kids, that impulse generally goes somewhere else.
To follow this line of thought implies that our egos require us to leave a legacy and/or believe there is something bigger than us that connects to the world before and after we're gone. History and legacy. I know I've felt it BEFORE I had a child. And perhaps societal "rules" are necessary to orient ourselves in a direction that allows us to meet that psychological need. With many of our material needs met, our brains head there. Those who are struggling with basics likely don't have this in their radar.
I don't see it, given the clear and obvious efforts to utterly destroy the future. This entire movement is about tearing things apart, with no effort made to build anything out of the wreckage, even.
Even a legacy of chaos, slavery, destruction and misery proves that one has left a mark on the world.
Along with fewer people choosing to have kids, those who do decide to have kids have fewer kids. I think this is likely to be the genesis of "helicopter parents." If you only have 1 or 2 kids, it's much easier to devote a great deal of attention to them, to "protect" them. If there are 7 or 8 kids, it's physically impossible to helicopter them, so the kids get lots more opportunities to figure things out for themselves, to engage in unsupervised and "unsafe" activities.
Kids don't learn anymore to deal with unpleasantries that go along with growing up. I shave with safety razors (the kind your grandfather probably used). My youngest stepson, when he was perhaps 6 or 7, got into my pack of safety razors and opened one of them up. He gave himself quite a number of cuts (none requiring stitches), and of course was wailing and freaking out. His mother was freaking the eff out. "Go away," I mouthed to her, as I washed and bandaged the boy's fingers, and treated it like the non-issue that it really was. If you treat things like that as a big deal, then the kid believes it's a big deal and will behave accordingly. He was probably 8 or so before he wasn't so afraid of skinning his knees that he really put in any effort to learn how to ride a bike. He's still fairly risk-averse, but I've made some headway with him.
Both my sisters and I got into Dad's safety razors when we were kids. Nobody likes getting hurt, but if you learn to deal with it as a kid, as an adult it becomes much easier to say "Fuck! You fucking dumbass, look what you just did to yourself!" as opposed to "OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG it hurts! Whatamigonnadooooo????"
And as a matter of fact, I cut my thumb with a box cutter yesterday, trying to cut the bound roots from some new shrubbery I was planting, and that was my exact reaction: "Lynch, you fucking retard, pay attention to what you're doing."
Fully agreed...with only one child, I probably exhibit some of the negative parenting behaviors you mention, but I've always been a fan of "Free Range" parenting, trying to get my kid to go out and do things.
I dunno. I only had one sibling for all of my childhood (the second one showed up when I was 19) and my parents didn't "hover". I had knees that were torn to shit for months on end and still show scars even at 46. It's at least not *just* the "fewer children" thing. The entire culture has become exceedingly risk averse in almost every way.
We not only cannot, we *should* not attempt to nerf pad the universe. You hurt yourself and you learn not to do stupid shit. Or at least not as often, because yeah, I box cuttered my thumb about a month ago myself. ;)
I agree there's more than small family size, but small family size is a necessary condition for it. Like I said, no way could parents hover with 7 or 8 kids. There just isn't time in the day for it.
Fair.
You and I had some very different childhood experiences. You experienced so much more trauma than I did. My childhood was almost idyllic in comparison. I am also several generations older than you. I suspect we have more differences in many other ways as well. Despite this, we are of a like mind in so many instances. You give me hope that all is not lost, that there are some in the younger generations who can “see”-pockets of resistance.
Strangers might not like me?
Oh no. Anyway.
Right. I don't respect most people's opinions enough to be hurt by them. I don't need universal accolades. (And good thing, because I'm never going to get them. 🤪 )
Great piece, as always, Holly. I’ve recently been reading the book “Why Liberalism Failed,” and while I find myself disagreeing with a great deal of it, it’s made me wonder about the difference in the way the modern Left views freedom and the way I view freedom. Basically, I’ve always thought about freedom as a chance to do something with my life, nothing more and nothing less. It’s not a guarantee I’ll make the right decisions or get the best outcomes, but it is a promise that I’ll have a chance because no one will get in my way.
But I think those on the left have a view much closer to: the ability to take unrestrained action free of consequence. At some level this authoritarian impulse is a desire for them to have someone step in and slap down anyone who pushes back up to and including reality itself.
Liberalism failed because the habits of tolerating the intolerant and utopian idealism allowed its' platforms and causes to be thoroughly infiltrated and subverted by communist and communist aligned socialists. While the goals and aspirations of Liberalism are admirable, Liberalism was perverted into pursuing; enacting; and installing policy; law; & means that could only fail - and deliberately so. This New Liberal Order could only be bandaided with increasing authoritarianism; and that because it is for the most part all nonsense with knobs on that cannot survive reasoned and reasonable interrogation.
Conservatism failed because it has naively and mistakenly conserved this New Liberal Order instead of coherently critiquing and measuredly dismantling it in cooperation, rather than confrontation, with the misled Liberals.
Conservatism is well suited to conserving and critiquing; conceiving and delivering alternative solutions that actual work, not so much. That is Liberalism's forte; but discrimination of ideas; solutions; and their critiquing, not so much. You cannot have a working Conservatism without a working Liberalism; nor can you have a working Liberalism without a working Conservatism. If they are not harnessed in tandem to the body politic but are antagonistic to one another, they will rip the nation apart even absent deliberate subversion by hostile parties.
Conservatism and Liberalism are in reality the only legitimate politics in the Anglo Saxon and Anglo Saxon descended common law and commonwealth tradition. They are together the only politics that have been shown to actually work. I'm sorry if that gets the backs up of Socialists and Libertarians and other politically naive or lunatic people; but whatever they have that is reasoned; reasonable; and works are actually our stolen clothes.
So what we need is effectively a sort of "liberalism" based on older principles? Something that includes activism, but in a more sane direction?
I can see it.
I have observed over time that for those whose greatest fear is death, they'll suffer literally anything they think will help them avoid it.
3 things have steered me towards putting death a bit lower on my list of things to fear.
1. I am an imperfect but devout Christian.
2. A quote from Winston Churchill
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
3. a quote from Chief Tecumseh
"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."
So playing DA here, when our natl ethos is predicated on "life, liberty, and POH", how else would you expect those who disagree to act when they believe life is threatened, even if it isn't in the traditional sense?
I don't think there's any real conflict here. The DoI simply asserts that nobody has a right to take/interfere with life, liberty, and the PoH.
Incidentally, in this context I have come to understand "pursuit" as a noun, not a verb. As in "the pursuits of medicine/engineering/teaching/wood-working/etc."
"... I have come to understand "pursuit" as a noun, not a verb. As in "the pursuits of medicine/engineering/teaching/wood-working/etc.""
By gum, matey! That squares a circle; I've always filed that under "American Daft"; but now I can see, as with the 2nd Amendment, you are looking at 18th century phrasing with 18th century meaning. Your's is probably the most worthwhile comment up to this time that I've read on any Substack.
We'd have probably done better with just keeping Locke's original "life, liberty, and property". Less confusion that way.
Too worldly and unelevated. Commitees never allow that sort of thing. /s
Why thank you!. That may be the best compliment I've ever received.
Safetyism is a helluva drug.
“The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.”
-H. L. Mencken
Thank you, Holly, for this thoughtful post. I have to say I get gut reactions and increased heart rate when I hear the words, "experts" and "Science." Of course, I live in fear that my loved ones will drop dead from SADS. That fear is slowly abating because I realize we will all die eventually and I have no control over any of it. I find sanity reading your Substack and others. I am not alone....
> "What do you want it to be?"
"I want it to be not your godsdamned babysitter. Harden the fuck up. Learn to accept that there are people who don't think like you."
Best should hire me to be in charge of censorship at Substack. Because I'll never do it and I'm really good at saying "No". I can do this job from home. ;)
I wonder to myself how, exactly, we found ourselves as a country/culture in the predicament you describe so eloquently. I have a theory based on nothing, really, that it is as least partly because public school is now more a thinly disguised propaganda vehicle than an actual education. I can only hope that the slight increase in parents homeschooling/private schooling their children will be enough to carry our free speech culture forward.
I have been subbed and reading your stacks for several months now but have just upgraded to a paid sub after reading this. I can imagine there was some difficulty in writing this piece, but it is exactly this sort of honesty and vulnerability we so desperately need nowadays. I very much relate to several points you made, particularly the lunacy surrounding the state of society and the alarming thought experiments that ensue when playing out the possible outcomes of our current trajectory. I'm yet to read Park's books, but have watched her on both Rogan and Peterson's podcasts. I was left with the same belly-dropping feeling of just how disconnected the Western world now is from the devastation of true human cruelty. We would be wise to consistently revise 20th century history rather than forget it, and not turn a blind eye to the reality of the human experience outside of the Western world.
I recently published a stack with one possible theory of why said lunacy and ignorance is taking place today. I'd love to hear your perspective in relation to mine on the topic.
https://bennysbanter.substack.com/p/the-cycle-of-strength-and-weakness
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” is of no earlier coinage than a dreadful 2016 post-apocalyptical "novel"; there is no resonance with other than very recent history to maintain.
The British Empire was murdered by the joint enterprise of WSC and FDR. Both so looked, swam, and quacked like Communist Socialists traitors that it is best to consider them such. FDR's administrations and agencies were awash with korasne budale and actual Communists being run by the Organs. Whiehall and Westminster and their agencies were similarly afflicted.
You are perhaps ignorantly and perhaps inadvertantly advocating what you obstentiously oppose - genocidal totalitarian tyranny. You'll like as murder the American Republic as maintain and save it with such advocacy. You are contradictory and the result is incoherent: "To break this cycle and mitigate the consequences of weak men creating hard times,..." then "we can shape a future where strong men and women rise,..." Which is it? You cannot have your cake and eat it; you cannot break the cycle by repeating it; only reinforce it. I suspecct what you mean but this is so ridden with errors, and much the same errors as have us stuck here, that I cannot say more than that.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"This country-right-or-wrong business is getting a little out-of-date. Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I’d been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have been damn near called Communism and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts."
- James Bond in "Casino Royale"(1953); Chpt. 20 : The Nature Of Evil
"Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action."
- Auric Goldfinger in "Goldfinger"(1959); Chpt. 14 : Things That Go Thump In The Night
It feels like we’re in this space, the gloves have been dropped, a line has been drawn but we’re frozen or moving in super slow motion and some action that can’t be taken back is a hair’s breadth away. The world’s never felt this way to me before and I wonder what price will have to be paid when the movie starts again.
All good stuff. I vote we don't feed the trolls and Notes ban the trolls immediately. This is all the "safety blanket" crowd are: trolls here solely to disrupt. Folk who don't play by the rules should be turfed straightaways.
Notes seems to have provided the necessary infrastructure for individual users to ban whomever they themselves find to be trollish. That's better than an institutional action, IMO.
They just continue to annoy other people and the comments become awash with their dross. I am and have been a member of umptie fora where about half the content or more is trolls and folk feeding trolls. Just nuke them from orbit already.
Actually, having seen this play out in another location that has a "mute" feature for people one does not wish to hear from, but which nevertheless gets drowned in conversations between the trolls and those who cannot ignore them... I think you're probably right, as much as it irks me to institutionally "ban" anyone when lower order controls are available.
Alas. :-/