The Secret Chord
One Tagalog word for which no exact translation in English exists is “kuryente.” It literally means “electric current,” but the word can be applied to the practice of spreading sensational but faked news in order to produce a media jolt. One newspaper translates “kuryente” as “a bum steer”; others have rendered it as “actually but not really” or “confirmed but not definite.” At any rate, the phrase applies perfectly to the storm of bogus rumors swirling around the Trayvon Martin media feeding frenzy. The Daily Mail reports:
Fake Will Smith tweet about Trayvon Martin sweeps the internet — and Spike Lee retweets wrong address for George Zimmerman. … Man tweeting as Will Smith tweeted angry post about no justice for Trayvon — Spike Lee retweeted incorrect Florida address for Trayvon’s killer, George Zimmerman — Man posing as Will Ferrell also tweeted about high-profile case.
Americans are no stranger to the phrase “fake but accurate.” But kuryente takes things to another level where the lie becomes the truth; or worse, to where nobody can tell the difference.
The couple who actually live at the address which Spike Lee wrongly believed to belong to George M. Zimmerman now fear for their lives. The address was actually associated with the electoral roll of a different Zimmerman — George A. Zimmerman — though of course such fine distinctions are lost in the wash. As for the “Will Smith” tweets, the author of his missives is actually a “white man from Nashville, Tennessee.” Nor is Will Ferrell the Will Ferrell — his spokesman says his tweet was a hoax.
Not that it will make any difference. The main thing about faked news is that it shouldn’t matter whether it is in the slightest degree true. It is far more important for the news to confirm what we want to hear: our deepest suspicions about our neighbor or our wildest vanities about ourselves. People will believe it because they want to. As for the truth, well what about it?
Even the most basic facts becomes surprisingly irrelevant. Media Matters, for example, apologized to Matt Drudge after accusing him of being a “racist demagogue” for running a fake photo of the victim — only to discover it was actually a real photo. You would have thought Media Matters would know true from fake to play the fact-check game, but really, why would factuality be important?
Winston Churchill once observed that “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” The immense power of kuryente consists in that it operates in the world of myth. It does not belong in the universe of fact. Hence what happened when, who liked what, what reasons there were for which: these are irrelevant.
Kuryente addresses what some might call a “deeper truth,” and it is therefore proof from falsification. You cannot falsify the re-telling of a myth. Take The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for example:
The Protocols purports to document the minutes of a late 19th century meeting of Jewish leaders discussing their goal of global Jewish hegemony by subverting the morals of Gentiles and by controlling the press and the world’s economies. It is still widely available today — still presented, typically, as a genuine document — on the Internet and in print in numerous languages.
Even if you could show that none of the events, meetings, or correspondence depicted in Protocols ever took place, it could never meet the objection that, taken as a whole, the narrative still contained the “truth” about the Jews. In that plane, evidence has no place. What predominates in that airy sphere are symbols, sacraments, and chants.
One of George Orwell’s most important insights is that all totalitarian ideologies — all methods of control — fundamentally required a religious liturgy to persist. It was faith — or its evil twin prejudice — that you really had to appeal to.
I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
There was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
(original lyrics by Leonard Cohen, best sung by Jeff Buckley)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOoEYxt0PPA&feature=related
here’s the song leonard wrote for jeff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QllY_0VFYI8
wws and cjm – Here’s the song Jeff wrote for Leonard
The Bonfire Of The Vanities
Has shown us the insanities
Of race hate mongers screaming what is false
But that was work of fiction
And with Jackson’s benediction
The media dance to his triste valse
And the haters daily rave on
‘Bout the sainted martyred Trayvon
Writing falsehoods by the score on every page
No the facts don’t seem to matter
It’s the narrative, the chatter
That on Twitter drives the haters unto rage
2. cjm – interesting video caption, although he may just be trying to increase search hits with those tags. Also I never realized how much Leonard Cohen sounds like Huey Morgan of Fun Lovin Criminals.
Tagalog script is gorgeous by the way.
The American word for this is ‘Narrative’. Translates perfectly.
I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Entrance wounds in the front, it’s self defence. In the back, it’s murder. I will remark that bringing Skittles to a gunfight wasn’t very smart.
Churchill was right about how fast a story circulates.The worrying thing now is how quickly each suitable narrative finds its way onto the news bulletins and current affairs shows of all western nations. Note I say “suitable”. If it doesn’t fit the templates they have, it gets discarded or reinterpreted. By the time someone has done the research and shown it to be both fake and untrue, the media pack is away and baying after the next story.
This story has been appallingly badly presented here. They are just taking it straight from the US (the left newshound and black activist version) with no thought of any mitigating circumstances, the alleged attack on Zimmerman, or consideration of the “previous record” of the deceased.
There enough to pity on both sides. Zimmerman doesn’t sound like the sharpest knife in drawer. The kind of guy who believes what he reads in cereal boxes. I never really felt for Trayvon until I saw the Drudge picture of him wearing the grillz. The gold teeth — dental jewelry — probably of the kind you can buy for $19.95.
There is something inexpressibly sad about a 17 year old guy whose idea of flair is grillz. It’s like cheap hair cream and costume jewelry, a confession of innocence within a package of malice. I have a son of about the same age and even though he’s accounted smart and though perhaps I was myself accounted smart at that age, what does a man know at 17? Enough to hurt somebody else. And maybe he would have become some kind of thug, and maybe he would have turned away and maybe joined the Marine Corps or something, but nobody will know that now.
On the level of individual human beings the thing was a tragedy for both. And I, for one, am glad I don’t have to judge one man or the other. That’s what judges and juries do best.
But the whole media food fight went on without needing to refer to details. This entire brouhaha happened on the level of narrative, myth, kuryente — whatever you want to call it. Everybody already knew what they needed to know.
The whole thing will die down in a couple of weeks and Trayvon will still be dead. Maybe Al Sharpton will have a few more bucks in his pocket. What will he do with it, what does a man like that do with money anyway? Other than that, the world will keep on turning as though it never happened.
How has humanity made it this far, I wonder? And for that I don’t really need to look as far Trayvon or Zimmerman. Sometimes I only have to look as far as my own heart. But I remember that for reasons that escape me, all the great religions hold that we are not a lost cause. There must be some good in us, I guess, but as Michael Shaara once wrote, “if man is angel, then he’s a killer angel”.
There is another forum I regularly particpate on. It’s non-political, a place where folks who share a hobby of mine trade ideas and advice. It is non-political, but over the last four years I have formed a reasonalbe idea of the political leanings of the regulars.
The Martin case came up over the weekend in the “junk” forum (where political topics are relegated to and I rarely chime in on). The initial responses were of the “hang Zimmerman, the dirty bigot” variety. Then on Day 2 a few folks observed there were some new facts coming to light. They were met with denails and, well, a general reply of “so what?” from the Lynch-Zimmerman contingent. Predictably, that mob was made up of the more left-leaning denizens, and they responded to every item that cast doubt on the innocence of Saint Trayvon, or the villany of Zimmerman-the-Bigot, with remarkable bull-headedness.
Zimmerman had no business chasing poor Trayvon. Oh, he was a watch captain? Well, he should have dialed 911 then. He did? Why was he still chasing Trayvon then if they told him to leave? He was leaving? Oh, you can’t fool me, how could Zimmerman have been trying to leave when he was still chasing Trayvon? What do you mean he wasn’t chasing him? How did they end up in a fight then? Trayvon attacked him, you say? Well, wouldn’t you attack some bigot who was chasing you for no reason?
The Narrative, the kuryente, was fixed in their minds, and the facts were mere decorations to orbit around it. Mobius strip logic.
Years ago I wrote a negative review of a novel by a leftist professor. My chief complaint about the novel was not the politics – they were there but coule be overlooked. My complain was the cast of cardboard cliches masquarading as characters. The characters in this fellow’s story were doggedly determined to be and remain stereotypes, completely oblivious to common sense and the world around them. They played their part with no free will. Sock puppets for their master. If I said the author would’ve been perfectly at home as a screenwriter for the movie Avatar you’ll understand what I mean.
I thought – in both cases – it was poor writing. Maybe that’s just the way leftists see the world. Maybe cardboard and styrofoam are all they know of human thought and motivation.
Nothing to do with the post subject, but another rather different treatment of “Hallelujah” that I like a lot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guwgy_G8Eq0
(I chose the version without the reality show razzamatazz.)
Wait until the BP settlement with the private plaintiffs is filed and approved in federal court on April 16, 2012 (which, by coincidence, will be TAX DAY). That will be the time to start the Tony Hayward “See? I Told You So Tour!”
He told us that BP would pay all legitimate claims. CHECK
He told us he wanted his life back. CHECK
He told us that the Gulf was a really big ocean and by comparison the spill was small. CHECK
He told us that the “top kill” had a high chance of success (absent sabotage by Steven Chu, CHU LIED – DOLPHINS DIED!) CHECK
Meanwhile Ali-Bama and his Forty Thieves have developed a reputation for LYING!
Left with a choice regarding the believeability of Tony Hayward or Barack Hussein Obama II, the polls will be certain to give the nod to TONY!
The polls will show that voters prefer BIG CORPORATIONS over BIG GOVERNMENT!
Wretchard said:
Americans are no stranger to the phrase “fake but accurate”. But kuryente takes things to another level where the lie becomes the truth; or worse, to where nobody can tell the difference.
There was a time I would sit and adsorb the information Huntley and Brinkley would lay down (not so much Walter). But later on, with the lesser news readers, when they were “reporting” on things I was familiar with I noticed they were flat out wrong about certain things. Not esoteric opinions, but basic facts. Then I noticed the opinions masquerading as facts. So, years ago I stopped watching television news and then stopped watching television as much as I am able. The damn machine is everywhere and people always have it on. The TV is a fantastic indoctination device; it is easy to go into receiving mode and shut down critical thinking.
The other information transmission devices are not as dangerous. Reading and the internet, even the radio, are more interactive and require the user to be an active participant. It is harder to spin a yarn unless the end user wants to be fooled.
So, I am no stranger to those “lies becoming truth”. I have seen it happen time and time again for many years. Maybe I am inured (too much so) to it now. It is good to be reminded every now and then.
I agree. But of course, Sharpton, Obama, Jackson, and the rest aren’t judging Zimmerman or Marin either. Those two individual human lives, one now over and the other forever altered for the worse whatever happens, aren’t important to them. Trayvon and George aren’t human beings to Sharpton. They’re stage dressing. The only thing Sharpton is judging is how effective they are as props for his three-card-monte game. The dead kid, the guy who killed him, the parents, the elderly couple with the wrong address now getting hate mail, all just props, or maybe walk-on extras in their productions would be more accurate. Central Casting sent down some new extras, Mr. Sharpton. Where would you like them to stand? Is their wardrobe okay, or should I have some new costumes sent over?
Which is the meta-tragedy here. In some sense, incidents like this are always a possibility. But the likelihood increases when basic crime prevention doesn’t happen. A community doesn’t have a Neighborhood Watch if it doesn’t think it need one. And maybe some neighborhoods are more paranoid than others, but the less effective the justice system is, the more watch captains there are patrolling the streets. And the more watch captains, the more confrontations, every one of which is a potential shooting.
Likewise, a culture that’s not allowed to criticize grillz puts more 17-year old kids on the streets to run across the Watch Captains. It’s unclear just how bad a kid Martin was. He had at the least engaged in school vandalism and truancy, and had in his possession pot, along with what was most likely stolen jewelry. At best he was a juvenile delinquent. Perhaps he was nothing worse, but the more kids we have who are delinquents at best, the more kids who will end up in a scuffle with the neighborhood watch.
This is the cost of playing politics with the justice system, dead kids and flammable civics. Glenn Reynolds might observe that the Sharptons and Obamas of the world see that as a feature, not a bug. After all, who cares if the ocassional stage prop get’s smashed during the performance? We can always gin up a new one, and it’s so exciting for the audience…
We are all capable of much worse than we are willing to admit. When i found my house broken into, fierce anger was what i felt. If the perps had been there i would have attacked. And probably been killed, since the one who likely did it killed a couple just a few blocks away before they caught him. A 17 year old. Not so innocent. Tried as an adult.
Defending your neighborhood is nothing new. It happens in good neighborhoods without thought. A month ago i was home around 10 in the morning, and stepped out the front door to look around. My neighbor came past and asked if i had seen anything. He was following a suspicious man who had left a bicycle in my driveway, hidden behind my car. The stranger had walking along the street as tho casing places. When my neighbor went out to see who he was, the guy rushed to my driveway, untied something from the bike, and peddled off.
We didn’t see anything as we walked up to the corner. When we returned to my driveway, we saw what the guy had untied from his bike. It was a large bolt cutter. We called the cops, and a lady cop came and collected the burglar tool. Responded in just 10 minutes too. Not bad at all, she put on gloves to pick up the tool, well trained. In most places you would never get a cop to come by for a bolt cutter that quick, if at all.
In good neighborhoods you check things out. If something looks out of place you do something. When seconds count the police (even as good police as we have), are still minutes away. It would have been smart if we had been armed, since we were looking for trouble, but luckily it didn’t find us. It found Mr. Z. He was prepared for trouble.
I wonder if part of the problem is that we have lost something the constitution mentions, “A well regulated militia”. That is members of the community, trained and part of a body. The police do not seem to see armed civilians as being a help, and not being trained, we may not be, but perhaps this is a broken link in our civilization. What would we need to do to recreate the well regulated militia?
When it all falls apart, the thin blue line will be overwhelmed by mobs seeking food when the grocery stores are emptied. They will need the well regulated militia.
That very thin veneer will wear even thinner when the trucks stop running. There is a difference between killing and murder. That is the basis of civilization. How do we defend neighborhoods and civilization? How do we know when to shoot?
http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2012/03/27/fail-democrat-msm-narrative-falls-apart/ Yours and Sister Toldjah’s posts are some of the best writing on this issue I have seen on the web (or anywhere else).
Marx, watching the Millerite temperance movement, simply took the Apocalyptic themes and sanitized them.
Took the ‘God’ out, and used them as a political advocate for Bismark’s visionary politics- the unification of Germany.
Stalin sanitized his Azeri Muslim gangs in similar fashion, giving us the militant, fundamentalist Western religion of fusion Socialism.
The New must overthrow the Old in order to replace it.
Someday this will be but a line in a book, such as “Zeus’ Olympians cast down Chronos’ Titans”, or
“The El drove Man from the Garden because of the Goddess and the Snake”.
(American Protestants have a uniquely Millenial flavor- Baptist, Pentacostal, Latter-day, Adventist.
The ‘plague of drunkenness’ from 1830′s Irish distillation led to hellfire Methodist preachers riding out in the 1840′s.
The End Was Nigh because America was Awash in Sin.
The poor Irish-Scots had naught else to trade but their technological secrets; entire grain harvests could now fit into one cart, even the poorest could contribute a jar or jug and get cash on the spot. Lay preachers finally had a Cause.)
Regarding the Tagalog script — nobody actually writes that way. At one time they tried to create a Filipino-specific alphabet, but in the end had to bow to the reality that Tagalog has more, rather than less base characters than English, because it had to have all the characters of English, plus all the character of the Spanish alphabet, plus all the Malay!
The real Filipino alphabet is in one to one correspondence the SMS character set as to enable the sending of such messages as “c u ltr” — “see you later”. Filipinos don’t speak Tagalog, they speak a mish-mash of languages. There’s Taglish and there’s Engalog, depending on which you emphasize. And then there’s straight English and straight whatever … What enriches the local dialect is that it is possible to pun by using one language as a proxy for the other.
And because there are dialects, it gets worse. For example, since I understand Cebuano in addition to Tagalog, I know that the word “inday” means ‘miss’ as in young lady. So one day someone says to me, have you heard the “inday” song. The what? The “inday” song.
Nope, I say. Can you sing it?
“Inday … ay will always love you.” Holy moly it was the theme from the Bodyguard. I gave it my best straight face until I could let out my breath round the corner, where you could have seen me manically humming, “Indayyyy will always love you!”
“(Facts) never really mattered outside of math and engineering and perhaps, real spirituality.”
Hustlers may be illiterate, or disinterested in reading, but they do know how to read people.
It’s a talent, instinctive, one they are born with. One they appeal to.
As my old black friend Clem told me, ‘Either you are born knowing what women want to hear, or you’ll never know.’ I’ve seen this street hustler’s instinct illustrated many, many times. I will never, ever be able to do it.
We are a social animal. Our deepest instinct is to belong.
This instinct, and that talent, are far older than literate training.
You will not convince hustlers or their audience with a language they don’t use.
Science and faith… all we really have after all…
kuryente …
but with the Internet, virtual reality, hollywood cgi, we’re all magic realists now.
science? hah. that’s something indentured servants from over there do, or something we educate other people’s children to do, or the wizards of silicon valley do to make us all rich. it’s nothing a respectable, elite sort of person would dirty their hands with. keep your stupid science away from my iPad.
rationality? wazzat? I think I read about that in a history class, oncst upon a time, didn’t people worry about rationality, like, instead of religion, maybe three hunderd years ago? we don’t need that anymore, we’re modern folks.
Well that ain’t me. Once, long ago, some thugs asked me to join them for midnight coffee and put a problem before me. The leader of the gang, strange as it may seem, was in love with the salesgirl in the bakery.
He wanted to send her a love letter. And would I, Texas, help him out?
Inasmuch as I wouldn’t wish him on my worst enemy, let alone the salesgirl, I contrived to write a letter, which, so I believed, would put paid to all his amorous ambitions. The letter ran thus:
Imagine my surprise when a few nights later, a similar invite came and I was told, to my total astonishment, that the lady in question had found the letter moving, eloquent and deeply attractive. It was then I realized that there was no accounting for taste.
As I grew older, I realized that women are not made the same way as men. That’s just a fact. And the only way around that problem is to turn yourself into an analogue computer. Never try to understand why women are a certain way. Just mindlessly adapt. Just file away whatever part of you needs filing down till you amend yourself to make them happy.
In the end, they remain a mystery. And so it be. I’m convinced that men through the ages never understood what went on with women. If the street hustler has his instinct, then I guess that’s a specialized Darwinian adapation. I, lacking that, must make do with my caliper and file. If the lockpick can open achieve some kind of unthinking conformity with reality, then so can I. Women are a mystery. Let them remain so.
W and all: thanks for letting me sit here near the stage in this funky bar while you pursue one theme after another, weaving and shifting texture and text, an unending riff. In particular thanks for the Leonard Cohen lyrics which remind what a genius he is, echoed in Walt’s instant answer. And the lesson in Tagalog, Filipino, how to write love notes for thugs, how hustlers hustle, how women think (mysteriously). Pass the bottle, gents, that is some fine sipping whiskey.
The only sad part is how, in this jazz bar, it is so late, and outside is a cold rain. And how we are left to talk around the great dark hole that two young men fell into as they struggled in the night in Florida; a hole where our civilization used to be.
presbypoet 14. “When it all falls apart, the thin blue line will be overwhelmed by mobs seeking food when the grocery stores are emptied.”
Given the provisions for detaining citizens contained in the National Defense Authorization Act I’ve been thinking how this might all go down.
1. A catalyst for civil disorder ignites a well prepared ‘spontaneous’ powder keg of widespread and violent social disorder.
2. Deliveries of food and fuel to the cities are interrupted.
3. Martial Law is declared.
4. Here in CA where all commercial gun purchases are registered, gun owners are refused food unless they turn in their guns.
5. Enemies of the regime are rounded up and consigned to the mythical FEMA camps.
6. The situation is ‘normalized’ absent the Bill of Rights. Marcos, IIRC, maintained marital law for years.
What might counter this? Maybe widespread social disobedience, people pouring into the street in defense of the Constitution to hinder the actions of those charged with conducting the round up. Not a likely scenario in my view.
The ‘Media’ which spends a lot of time and resources exposing the shortcomings and lack of quality control of other industries and businesses severely lacks the same themselves. Unlike other major corporate organs which can’t hide behind an appeal to an old outdated document written by a bunch of old white men (/sarc off), the media has no outside quality control other than that of the purse, of which the mega-corporate model structure provides more than adequate protection from consequences. I don’t think those old white men conceived of the ‘free press’ in the latter terms. It was about the free flow of information which would be subject to the public’s judgement of value, not a closed market of modern accredited manipulators of what is and what is not ‘news’.
Actions have Consequences. That makes them testable. If the advertised consequence happens then it is a True Fact, and if not it is a False Fact or a Lie. How to cut off the current? By treating it as a fact and ensuring that there is a consequence for the action of producing the kuryente.
What is important is to have some expectation of a potential consequence, even a small one. We cannot catch every idiot who lies on the internet. We do not want every stupid 17 year old getting shot. Somewhere in between is an optimum level of return. Perhaps a public assessment of a $5,000 fine for identity theft or five strokes with a cane in one in ten thousand cases would be best.
The Sharptons want to dull responses, to shut down immune systems so that their actions do not produce any consequences adverse to their interests. A million jerks feed their egos in the shadow of an Al Sharpton or a Bill Ayers publicly getting away with being “guilty as Sin and free as a bird.” The expectation that the world lacks order, that their actions will have no consequences, produces the delinquency that gets people shot.
Saying that we do not want the police state that would follow from attempting to track down every falsehood does not mean that we should never punish a fraud. Offering the lie is an action and the action should have a consequence.
Alzaebo #16:
Thank you for bringing the Scots-Irish angle into this.
To one extent or another, the fault lines of response of white people to this incident are simply a continuation of the war of the ruling elite and their lackeys against the country class “wrong sort” of white people. The “wrong sort” of white people are alway to be the object of a hate and bigotry that is as deep and evil as any that an ignorant redneck ever had towards black folks. This hatred of the “wrong sort” – gun-owning, individualistic, religious, family vs state oriented people – is a defining shibboleth for the ruling elite and their wannabes and lackeys, the politicians/professors/media magnates and their NPR listening, NYT reading hopeful climbers.
JMH #9:
When Newt became Speaker of the House he selected a female history professor as House Historian.
The next thing we heard was that she was pro-Nazi.
But what really happened is that she gave a negative review on a Master’s thesis from a student. He had written a thesis on what the Nazis did to the Jews. She pointed out that nowhere in the paper did it explain why the Nazis did what they did, what their thought process was that made them want to exterminate the Jews. Based on this very reasonable criticism of an academic document it was alleged that she wanted to promote the Nazi viewpoint. She had to resign as House Historian before she ever took the job.
It’s not just employing cardboard cutouts; it’s insisting on them and nothing else.
One of the more disturbing things I get from American Blacks is that they insist on setting their own rules, applicable to them. From kids engaged in the drug trade in DC, to the black panthers, to the OJ Simpson jury, they seem to assert that they set their own rules within their subculture. Even among those who are not criminals themselves, a certain degree of criminal behavior is tolerated and one might even say expected.
“what does a man know at 17?”
Everything. If you don’t believe me, just ask them.
23. Tamquam Not in America.
The USA has about 800,000 police, half of which would shoot Obama on sight. The USA also has about 175 million Armed citizens. Well armed, better then the cops in most cases.
IF American civilization collapses, the police will hide their badge and uniform or be hunted down. They will be outnumbered over 200 to 1 and not even Miami Vice can handle those odds.
2. Deliveries of food and fuel to the cities are interrupted.
Not by the government but by the citizens. Look at the elections this century. The USA is splitting along Urban/Rural lines. Urban has commerce, Rural has food. What sort of dressing does one use on a 20$ bill?
4. Here in CA where all commercial gun purchases are registered, gun owners are refused food unless they turn in their guns.
NO, gun owners shoot dead those refusing them food. Remember 200 to 1?
We ain’t Greece. Remember the vids of Greek rioters fleeing riot police? In America, it’s the riot police that would be fleeing.
IMHO, the best rendition of Hallelujah is by k d lange on her “49th Parallel” album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJlFAcSaoSY
21. wretchard
They don’t even understand each other
Goldstein and the Protocols were mere fabrications and easily explained. The myths developing around Trayvon Martin are weeds sprouting in the absence of fact. People are just filling in the blanks with what they want to be there.
The real trick is taking something like the Eiffel Tower and convincing people that it does not exist and never did. In one of the most bizarre incidents in the news recently German television broadcast an interview with Iranian president Ahmadenijad in which he denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He goes unchallenged by the interviewer.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?ID=263404&R=R1
There is an inscription at the entrance to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem:
“Joel 1, 2-3 Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next.”
Truth requires effort. It must be defended. If we do not teach it will wear away like an old vinyl record.
George C. Heller tells us his experience on Passover 1945 in Austria as he was being marched from Mauthausen.
“The night of the first Seder, before we went to sleep, we celebrated Passover with song, and a piece of Matzo. The unleavened bread, a reminder of the slavery of our ancestors in Egypt many centuries ago somehow appeared from nowhere. We did not need bitter herbs to remind us of what slavery was like in the past. We were slaves ourselves in the present. Our very lives were on the line daily as the guards could, and did kill anyone they wanted, without having to account for the killing in any way.
Worth reading the whole story as he recounted it to his family every year on Passover: http://www.hellers.ws/borrowed-time/passover-1945.shtml
When Ahmenijad is long gone the Passover story will still be told.
I don’t think the blacks are a lot different than any other ethnic group that came here in spite of their slavery. Is Southy in Boston so much different than Harlam or are the heavly Italian areas of NY or the Greek neighborhoods of Baltimore. Maintaining a core identity puts an anchor to windward. What grates is that he blacks are a part of the socialist special victims class that have special privilages the rest of us don’t. They vote as a 16% population block and elect democrats who feed them on the govt. plantation; slavery isn’t dead, just the master has changed.
“The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching.”
Today in the U.S., the Left has replaced “Goldstein” with “Limbaugh”.
”I’m convinced that men through the ages never understood what went on with women.”
Almost always true except, I think, boys who were raised with sisters, particularly older ones. I’ve known three men who were the only sons in a house full of sisters and they seemed to be able to read women’s minds. Their wives even commented on it.
“what does a man know at 17?”
Everything. If you don’t believe me, just ask them.
Yes, I used to be much smarter than I am now.
The agents of this kuryente. were the media. Forget Sharpton et al, they were just given the vehicle to ride on.
The original police report , according to a The Market Ticker post of 3-26, had an abundance of witnesses and other evidence that backed up Zimmerman’s story, which were all forgotten to push the agenda. That nice boy Trayvon had been suspended from school for a marijuana baggie and had been caught with an nice cache of women’s jewelry previously. Oh no, he couldn’t have been casing the neighborhood. Right. Trayvon attacked Zimmerman from behind, flattened him with one punch and was pounding Zimmerman’s head against the sidewalk. Sounds like a pretty good case for self defense to me.
This was another example of gross media malpractice. Zimmerman should sue the networks for defamation of character and the now ongoing threat to his life.
The best example of “kuryente” that comes to mind was the press willfully ignoring the report of Valery Plame’s husband, as reported in the NYT, about Saddam seeking yellowcake. It just was ignored as if it had never happened. Poof. Instant victims conjured to order.
13 JMH:
At best he was a juvenile delinquent. Perhaps he was nothing worse, but the more kids we have who are delinquents at best, the more kids who will end up in a scuffle with the neighborhood watch.
No, the more kids who will end up in a coffin.
24. Don51:
It was about the free flow of information which would be subject to the public’s judgement of value, not a closed market of modern accredited manipulators of what is and what is not ‘news’.
Manipulators of what is and what is not “FACT”.
25. BFTP:
The Sharptons want to dull responses, to shut down immune systems so that their actions do not produce any consequences adverse to their interests.
I think they want their time on stage more than anything else. “Pay attention to MEEEEEE Meeeee MeeEEE”
27 RWE:
One of the more disturbing things I get from American Blacks is that they insist on setting their own rules, applicable to them.
Note how well that has worked out for them. e.g.: Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland, Gary, Indiana, and East St Lous, Mo., all of which have been controlled by people of color of years, to their detriment I am sorry to say.
One thing not mentioned is how Sharpton came to be involved.
Speaking of “detriments”, and to lighten the mood a bit, perhaps some of you will enjoy Mr.Connery and Mr.Cain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRshbHhk724&feature=related
Trayvon was a miniscule grain of sand that got caught in the leviathan gears of societal interaction. Nearly a century ago the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand foresaw the beginning of a military holocaust. We see now the bitter edges of societal fabric where they grind hard and stop. Any surface, no matter how fine is rough at the proper magnification. Modern media and communications can apply that magnification haphazardly or within the scope of its own narrative. But it cannot do so justly.
The government used to reserve its powers to judge, and so did not directly affect the events at hand. Now our politicized government reacts hastily to any offense, especially against the order of our nascent Marxist state. They cannot judge because they have already judged to be on the right side of history and now reinforce the weakest of signals only to aggravate the search for truth.
I fill out employment applications online and due to the governments obsession with Goldstein must by the second click identify my race and by the third my gender. Am I to believe that this is because the US government favors my DNA or the binary choice of my sexual organs? I think not. I know not. Something stinks in this society and it is the rot of the head. If the USG is the world’s largest racist organization and I am sure of that fact, it reaps the worlds most vigorous racist hate group, African-Americans. I do not resent individuals their petty grievances, their penchant to hate, their lust for revenge. I do resent a government who fans the flames of such base emotions to further its control. Color blind society? Not within the confines of this super power’s borders. It has been made impossible.
STOP THE PRESSES! THE HOUSE NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE HAS JUST APPROVED ISSUING SUBPEONAS TO THE ADMINISTRATION!!! http://tinyurl.com/6stb6yp
Obama’s energy obstruction policies are now subject to Congressional oversight!
CHU LIED – DOLPHINS DIED!
One key aspect of the subpeonea will deal with the events of May 27, 2010 when the illegal six month drilling moratorium was drafted in the wee hours as BP was conducting its “top kill” operations to “plug the damn hole”!
This time period is during the notorious 16 hour gap in the flow of information from the National Incident Command. It also marks the prelude to the end of the joint NIC/BP press conferences and the end of Admiral Mary Landry’s tenure as On Scene Incident Commander.
Future witnesses before the committee may include Adm Landry, Adm James Watson, the Driller of the relief well Halliburton’s John Wright, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Oil Spill Commission consultant Mavank Tyagi of LSU and Admiral Thad Allen.
Where does it come from – this need to condemn? Not to criticize, merely, but to judge in the worst way. Does it come from a religion or ideology? …from some inner self loathing? Ayn Rand called it hatred of the good for being the good. This attitude that “…how can you be good? Nobody’s any good.” It’s way beyond the man in the Steig cartoon who sat frowning in a corner of his cage with the caption “People are no damn good”. From what part of the human soul does nihilism and the lust to destroy come from?
I’m not surprised by our media – after all, they’ve been doing a really horrible job for a couple decades now. What I am surprised at is elected leaders who actually believe at first glance what they read from the MSM. President Obama, (who really needs new handlers), again jumped to conclusions regarding guilt. And did his jumping to conclusions exercise to the MSM. Now he looks the fool – again.
Even if Matt Drudge reports it, (and he’s pretty reliable), I still check other sources. And I imagine most of you do too. After all, trying to figure out what is really happening from media reports is like trying to tell time using a clock that only has a second hand.
Obama’s reelection plea – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nvhAZ0vr0 -enjoy!
W: “The main thing about faked news is that it shouldn’t matter whether it is in the slightest degree true. It is far more important for the news to confirm what we want to hear — our deepest suspicions…”
Paranoia is an irrational belief, believing something to be true when it is false. When a person believes something to be true; and the belief is supported by observation and reason, the belief is not paranoia. Rational belief is based on truth whereas paranoia is based on untruth. To prove paranoia one must first prove that the belief in question is untrue. Most people think of paranoia as seeing something that isn’t really there – this is suspicious paranoia – the man who irrationally thinks there’s someone “out to get me” when it is not true. There is however another type of paranoia – another type of irrational belief – which is intellectual blindness – this is blind paranoia – the man who can’t see what really is there – a man who believes someone is not out to get him when in truth someone is out to get him. The blind fool is as paranoid as the suspicious fool.
Phobia is the hell of irrational fear which follows on the heels of suspicious paranoia – irrational fear of something that is not really there – the hell of falsehood seen. Another form of hell follows on the heels of irrational lack of fear – irrationally lacking fear of a threat which is there – which brings to mind an insight of Thomas Hobbes: “Hell is truth seen too late.”
So, I believe Wretchard’s statement can be rightfully modified to this:
“The main thing about faked news is that it shouldn’t matter whether it is in the slightest degree true. It is far more important for the news to confirm what we want to hear – or conceal what we don’t — our deepest suspicions – or our deepest blindness…”
More on truth and totalitarian suppression of truth from George Orwell:
“You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident… I tell you Winston that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else; not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes and in any case soon perishes; only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth.” George Orwell – 1984
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously [the lie and the truth], and accepting both of them [Insanity]… with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth… Those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is; in general the greater the understanding the greater the delusion; the more intelligent the less sane… If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality… If human equality is to be forever averted; if the “high,” as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently; then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity… Even the names of the four ministries by which we are governed exhibits a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts; the ministry of peace concerns its self with war; the ministry of truth with lies; the ministry of love with torture: and the ministry of plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they are deliberate exercises in doublethink; for it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely.” George Orwell – 1984
@28: The USA also has about 175 million Armed citizens.
I think that is number of guns, not number of USA citizens owning guns.
Number of guns and gun owners in USA.
Most estimates range between 39% and 50% of US households having at least one gun(that’s about 43-55 million households). The estimates for the number of privately owned guns range from 190 million to 300 million. Removed those that skew the stats for their own purposes the best estimates are about 45% or 52 million of American households owning 260 million guns).
there are about 80 million gun owners in America with a combining total of 258 million guns
FYI: Comparison with Other Countries
You often read people complaining that liberal mentality does not rely on logic and rational thought processes, at least in there discussions with conservatives. This situation regarding the inflamatory monologue and misrepresentation of the facts proves the opposite is entirely true.
It is a cynical adherence to logic that is prepossessing the liberal mind and influencing their actions. That logic is this: only the end result matters. Lies, fabrication, disemblance, prevarications, distortions are all means to achieve the objective.
In this particular case, the entire ediface of the special treatment of the formerly oppressed minority is the objective. The narrative is that the white guy is always at fault. We owe them, historically, financially, and judicially. Retribution and reparation must be continued until all inequality is erased.
I don’t think professionally presented news ever has been just news. In the old days (Cronkite et al ) it was called “infotainment”. Nowadays infotainment has gotten nasty and has become ideotainment. That’s stories woven from current events presented as entertainment for and by a particular set of identity groups who subscribe to a common ideology.
Ideotainment is presented for both right and left but because most people in the ideotainment industry are lefties, that particular ideology dominates most of the chatter.
On the one hand, as that theatrical and moody Scottie who was cooped up in Dunsinane castle once remarked “it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” On the other hand one kid is dead; the lefty mob is baying for his killer’s blood and no-one knows the truth of the matter.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ff6806e133/new-used
Send me $39.95 for shipping and handling and I’ll send you my free GirlFax report. It is well worth it to avoid a salvage title.
What were the Duke lacrosse players? The fantasy enemies of a hate-needing milieu? White, rich, Duke, prep school, lacrosse, Catholic–you name it, they had it. They didn’t need names (nor were they often referred to by name; even Duke President Brodhead didn’t mention
them by name for months. What did their names matter? They were stereotypes, necessary ones for the myth to be true.)
The Gang of 88 professors who immediately denounced them responded as programmed for the Two Minute Hate. And you couldn’t argue for the innocence of the accused
without simultaneously dismantling the prevailing social myth. As in Scottsboro, the accused had to fit the mold of the myth–otherwise, the believers would have to consider that the myth which undergird their entire identity might not be true.
#34 Gordon
I think Lefty women are another exception: to my mind, there’s nothing particularly mysterious about San Fran Nan, FLOTUS, Bernardine Dohrn, Barbara Boxer, etc. And as far as we know, all of them have two normal X chromosomes.
e @ 47
In this there is similarity to Islam when dealing with infidels: lying in service of God is no crime, and in fact a high calling.
Don’t know whether the following falls under the heading of kuryente, comic relief, or sad commentary on current culture: A poster advertising a fundraiser for Trayvon in a, um, gentlemen’s club:
(HT: Gerard @ American Digest):
“Titty Bars for Trayvon!
If you find yourself in Greensboro, NC, on Wednesday night and feeling a little randy, you are invited to visit a local titty bar to show your respect and love for Trayvon, and to proclaim your demand for justice. Just FYI.”
http://americandigest.org/sidelines/2012/03/
Most folks on line in forums state that if they thought someone was stalking them as Zimmerman was alleged to be stalking trayvon they would go after the person alleged to be stalking them and beat them up.
It doesn’t seem to be rational thinking, what if the stalker isn’t stalking you? But you beat them up? what if the stalkers are Mormon missionary’s? What if the stalker is an undercover cop? A serial killer? another 17 year old gang banger? Or an armed neighborhood watch commander?
People don’t see Trayvon as Stalking in the dark dressed in dark clothes and hood but do see Zimmerman as a stalker even dressed in a red shirt or top, in contact with the Police.
When I was 17 I was a Marine and an 0300.
Will the Trayvon Martin case die down?
What is happening now may only be phase one. Agitators are demanding “justice” (a trial in which there can only be a verdict of guilty).
The way the actual police report narrative is shaking out there may not be a trial; and if there is a trial the most likely charge would be involuntary manslaughter. A jury in a trial based on the facts as they seem to be shaking out stands a good chance of acquitting Zimmerman, the suddenly-white Hispanic man.
If that is what unfolds, then there will be a phase 2 from the “Trayvon side:” riots.
If it comes to a trial and Zimmerman is found guilty in short order, he will likely win an appeal and the verdict will likely be overturned, resulting in delayed rioting at some future date — maybe.
My assumptions about the actual specifics of the case may turn out to be innaccurate as we learn more, but right now it seems to be turning out to be another in a long succession of cases founded on lies and distortions.
The opposite of the secret chord—which is an expression of divine harmony—is the devil’s chord, the tri-tone, often used as the main interval of dissonance in Western harmony.
The secret chord is not quite the right term when applied to the stimulus-response leading to the two-minute hate. Dog-whistle is more like it.
The Trayvon event-response shows the dog-whistle mechanism in action. But why is the hearer motivated to respond so vehemently?
Rene Girard would attribute the phenomenon to mimetic rivalry, which results in scapegoating and lynching. The left needs a lynching to resolve its impossible to resolve lust for its rival’s goods and self-hatred for that lust.
Some entire nations and cultures seem to be based inescapably on rivalry-scapegoating. Any Islamic demonstration about the Jews illustrates the Emmanuel Goldstein phenomenon. China is also expert in stoking the hate. The incident of the Belgrade embassy bombing or the later China Sea spy plane incident illustrate how easy it is for the Chinese government to generate anti-western hate. The Japanese are on the receiving end every day, e.g., the Zhao Wei incident wherein the actress received national hate for wearing what some thought was a fashion that incorporated a rising sun motif.
It usually makes sense to de-escalate, where possible. Two short weeks ago, I had an opportunity to do just that: I saw a woman in a corner market that was very agitated and “paranoid”. It was night and as a result of her recent assault on a previous and separate occasion, she imagined that a boy who had gotten off the bus at the same stop she did was stalking her. She said that she had just called her “Italian” (jealous, tough) husband to come and deal with the guy and that he was 10 minutes away. Feeling that I could intervene in a positive way, I had her point out the (Latino) boy to me who was sitting on the front steps of an apartment building half a block down. I walked up to him, asked, “How’s it going?” and he told me he was from out of town and waiting for his friend who lived in the apartment above. I lent him my phone and he called her and left a message. I then went back to the “freaked out” woman and explained the situation, after which she apologized to me and went over to apologize to the boy. Now, if I hadn’t done that, who knows what could have happened, but as it did happen, everything worked out fine. So if one were to draw a moral from this (myself included), it is to have the courage to approach and address directly apparent “enemies” for the purpose of possible de-escalation. Of course, you should make sure to be safe while doing so, but be courageous and make genuine attempts to bring truth and understanding to the table.
House Panel Clears Way for Administration Subpoenas On Drilling, Coal Reg Probes
http://tinyurl.com/6syfpvx
See also @ 41 above
Nixon got taken down for an 18 -1/2 minute gap. Imagine the mischief one could get into in 16 HOURS!
CHU LIED, DOLPHINS DIED! http://tinyurl.com/7v4eyst
The work product of those 2 AM edits http://tinyurl.com/24evtll
The Halliburton driller (When your only tool is a hammer everything starts to look like a nail.) http://tinyurl.com/77rkhry
“By the mid-1980s, “I had developed an obsession that drilling relief wells and working on blowouts is what I wanted to do with my career,” he said.”
Top kill’ plugs gulf oil leak, official says http://tinyurl.com/ceocpe5
“Engineers have stopped the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government’s top oil-spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.
The “top kill” effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting.”
14. presbypoet “I wonder if part of the problem is that we have lost something the constitution mentions, ‘A well regulated militia’. That is members of the community, trained and part of a body….”
That is why it is so important for leftists (especially thugs like Sharpton and Farrakhan) to destroy Zimmerman: They want to delegitimize the very idea of neighborhood watches and the individual right to self-defense. The thug–whether carjacker, burglar, or socialist bully–must know that his victims will be helpless to resist.
OH HAPPY DAYS!
PRAVDA ENDORSES OBAMA
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pravda-mitt-romney-out-touch-out-date-unelectable_634772.html
Hmmm . . . . do you think the Stupid Party will run with this? One can only hope. Oh, wait . . . that word, “Hope.” It’s been ruined forever.
One good thing may come out of this. “Hispanics” may no longer be allowed to occupy valuable real estate in the left’s pantheon of victims. You know, those who’s social pathologies must be subsidized. I could never could figure out why the offspring of Conquistadors merited affirmative action and special consideration over the other European colonizers anyhow. They intermarried with the people they exploited, but that is the only difference. Now maybe our progressive betters will make them take their place among the “maker” class like the rest of us. At least it will add to the tax base.
PST314 #59:
But even if they succeed in demonizing neighborhood watch groups and armed citizens, it won’t change people’s desire to defend themslves.
What it will change is their acceptance of The Law. Imagine if the neighborhood watch groups devise a plan to quickly dispose of a body. I have even thought about bringing that idea up with my friends.
Remember the case my brother’s friend Ben of Columbia SC, who, a decade ago confronted a burgler armed with both .357 and 9MM handguns with nothing but his single shot .22 rifle. Ben won the gunfight and there was never any question of him being in the right; the burglar was an career criminal with 17 prior felony convictions and had opened fire on Ben first. But in the civil lawsuit the largely black jury handed the black criminal Ben’s house to compensate him for Ben’s superior marksmanship.
“Donno, officer. I heard something but I assumed that it was those darn kid with their firecrackers again. Somebody oughta do something about that. Now, if you’ll ‘scuse me, my dinner is getting cold.”
“PST314 #59: But even if they succeed in demonizing neighborhood watch groups and armed citizens, it won’t change people’s desire to defend themslves.”
My intended point was that their intent is to first make self-defense socially illegitimate and, once enough Enlightened legislators and judges have the Right Opinions, outlaw it through laws and Supreme Court opinions.
“What it will change is their acceptance of The Law”
Who was it who famously wrote that stupid laws cause good citizens to lose respect for the law? I suppose the same thing could be said regarding the black jury that ruled against your friend Ben: If a large fraction of black Americans are racist and thug-friendly, then good people will draw the logical and entirely justified conclusions.
Gordon#34
Quite right. Older sisters.
Also it profits one to read Jane Austen.
Women are Romantics above all else, especially when someone else is footing the bill.
But when it comes to survival they become real and ruthless.
A rational suitor gets nowhere.
That hallelujah is just heart stoppingly sad.
Here’s Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus sung by flahs mob in a food court.
This rendition has received over 37 million hits on utube: the largest in utube history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE
IMHO those who believe that they understand women are in the same league as believers in psycho kinesis. All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
presbypoet (14),
Well, why weren’t you? For many of us, that’s as basic an item as anything else. You can’t wait to buckle your seatbelt until you have the car crash, and when your house is already on fire it’s too late to shop for a fire extinguisher.
See previous paragraph–you can start by being prepared yourself ; and that’s a mindset thing every bit as much as an equipment thing (or more so: see Flight 93.)
“You know what else Karmazinov says? That essentially our teaching is a denial of honor, and that it’s easiest of all to carry the Russian man with us by an open right to dishonor.”
“Excellent words! Golden words!” Stavrogin cried. “He’s put his finger on it! The right to dishonor – and everyone will come running to us. . . .”
67
This is the peoples republic of the bay area. It’s only rich democraps who are entitled to protection. You need “good cause”, plus about a grand. Not to mention cost of gun & ammo. Haven’t had the disposable income to convince my wife we need to invest in security. It is a quiet neighborhood.
What is the right level of paranoia? There are very few ghetto blacks in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. Most of them are in one very tiny town next to Palo Alto. Odds are pretty good then, except for trying to drive down Highway 17 to Santa Cruz, where a tree might hit you. Crime rates are low due to demographics.
Remember we are the State that is telling Mountain Lions that people and pets are lunch, and a member of a fish & wildlife board was slammed for legally killing a Lion in Idaho. We suffer from a severe case of liberalism.
Excellent column, Mr. Fernandez, as always.
“The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which George W. Bush was not the principal figure.
He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Econoyy’s purity.
All subsequent crimes against the Economy, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his Policies.
Somewhere or other he was still in power and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even — so it was occasionally rumoured — in some hiding-place in Crawford Texas.”
Yep, it fits.
“What is the right level of paranoia? There are very few ghetto blacks in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. Most of them are in one very tiny town next to Palo Alto. Odds are pretty good then, except for trying to drive down Highway 17 to Santa Cruz, where a tree might hit you. Crime rates are low due to demographics.”
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
The Left hasn’t had a good month. The OWS movement tried to revive after its winter hiatus and only tarred the Left even further with their shenanigans. The Fluke episode backfired and brought withering return fire from the Right that even had the scumbag Maher running for cover. The One was caught trying to deal away our missile defenses in return for election favors from the Russians. Gas prices continue to go thru the roof, Americans are getting pissed about it and the Left can’t escape the blame for it. The Supreme Court justices have been bitch-slapping the Administration’s lawyers about the head over Obamacare and appear ready to strike the law down. And now the Trayvon narrative that the Left obliviously so desperately needs and wants is falling apart. Turns about that the good little black boy was in fact a thug and assaulted Mr. Zimmerman. The shooting now appears more and more as in self-defense. Yep, not been a good month for the Lefties. Maybe Easter will bring a renewal of their fortunes.
Oh, and the Obama budget went down to defeat in the House 414 to Zero. Not even one Democrat had the courage to vote for it.
#55 Don Rodrigo, the next step in your scenario if Zimmerman gets convicted and it’s overturned is Holder goes all in and re-tries Zimmerman for a hate crime. Then the hyena chorus of Jackson, Sharpton, et al won’t be satisfied until he’s locked up on a cell block with the Bloods and Crips.
Here’s perhaps a more relevant Leonard Cohen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FzM_XrgtPo&feature=related
For some reason, the name “Horst Wessel” keeps coming to mind…
tb68 @ 74: The Future
Thanks for that link, fantastic performance by Cohen, and I don’t believe I ever even heard that song before – what lyrics! Anyone know when he wrote that?
–
Women, hmm? Indeed. Venus and Mars, cats and dogs, I can tell you all about women like I can tell you all about NBA basketball, but actually playing at the professional level, that’s another matter.
So what was Martin doing in that gated community on a rainy night? I have not heard anything about that.
Was he there to visit a friend? If so, I would expect that fact to be front and center with this supporters.
Was he prowling around looking for a house to break into? If so, Zimmerman was right to call the cops and keep an eye on him — and his supporters are wrong to use this case to decry profiling.
I understand that ether way it does not say in itself if the shooting was justified or not, but I am curious, have any of you heard this issue discussed?
.
Not even one Democrat had the courage to vote for it.
Rats leaving a sinking ship.
Won’t help ‘em much, though.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict that the President and his men are about to go into into Hysteria mode (though with their recursive efforts to blame anyone and anything else but themselves for their own “mistakes”—square quotes simply because I think they were intended, that is, they aren’t “mistakes” but intentional administration policy—one could argue that they’ve been in Hysteria mode for quite a while now; cf. Alinsky playbook).
No, it will not be terribly edifying (no surprise there, certainly).
But there will be no time for gloating or amusement: there are far too many holes in the dikes, as it were (the intention all along) to plug.
And a whole lot of unsavory international characters, having similarly, (i.e., similar to the Obama administration) come to the conclusion that their windows of opportunity will slam shut by mid-January 2013, are going to go absolutely bat-shit trying to exploit that window to the limit.
While it is still open.
File under: Closed window policy
Truth doesn’t matter with totalitarians; they appeal to a need for myth.
A fixed body of narrative, each point to which totalitarians subscribe (or pretend to subscribe) in lockstep.
Therefore, when anything at all happens that appears to counter the accepted cant, the dogma, the bullet point on that topic, the only job of totalitarians is to immediately find the right spin.
Hence, beneath the veneer of ostensibly rational discourse which outfits like Media Matters professed to espouse was an enormous need to hate. Given a photo, they just had to hate Drudge for it. They couldn’t help themselves. And now that it didn’t work out they’ll find something else. It was an itch they needed to scratch….An itch.
An infamous radio personality who will not be named
has called Media Matters jock itch.
An object of hatred (serial objects of hatred) is fundamental to keeping all the myths alive and well inside the craniums of the totalitarians’ army of Useful Idiots.
presby (69),
Oh, California? Say no more…
I’m still waiting for the New Black Panther Party and Spike Lee to be arrested and/or prosecuted….I have a feeling it’s going to be a looooong wait.
We are all Emmanuel Goldstein.
Which is to say, personal liberty itself is the default scapegoat chosen by our own Aristocracy and that of the ‘greater world collective’. Our independence is what they direct their perpetual equivalent of war against…Their 1440 minutes of hate a day.
Hmmm. that should be “scare quotes”… (#78)
Speaking of “myths” (#79), gotta be careful here: depends on how you define “myth”.
Every nation, people, religion, culture has its own founding myths, in the sense of founding stories. These stories, whether true (yes, myths, in this sense, can be true!) or not, illuminate either by example or metaphorically the principles or credos of the particular group.
Myths are intended to strengthen the group. American myths, for example, are intended to strengthen the American ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” or “truth and justice” or free enterprise, etc. (though certainly, critics of America view such myths quite a bit differently).
Totalitarian myths are intended to strengthen the regime (whose principles are, illustrated, in Orwell’s well-known words, by “the picture of a jackboot stomping on a human face—forever”) at the expense of the individual (though certainly, critics of America likewise view such myths quite a bit differently…). One interesting feature of Totalitarian myths is their changeability—or airbrushability—to suit the regime’s needs of the moment (aka Totalitarian Truth, heh).
In short, it’s universal; we all do it. The question is not if, but how and why…. (In any event, I know which myths I subscribe to!)
Now (after that bit of pedantry) how ’bout that myth (heh) about Turkey being America’s (read, the Obama administration’s) most reliable (heh, heh) ally (heh, heh, heh) in the ME:
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=263987
File under: Mything In Action
Kuryente translates into English as : LYING HORSECRAP
There is no question that we pick and choose the elements of the story which WE wish to believe. Today’s news at noon now features the story that the tape of Zimmerman coming in to the police station WITHOUT any apparent injuries is calling into question HIS story. This part of the narrative will now face extreme scrutiny. Everything will have to be weighed, but that will not keep many of us from selecting the narrative we feel in our bones is true.
I stated that I did not know the facts from the beginning, but I did suggest that Zimmerman’s injuries COULD have been self-imposed after it became clear to him the possible consequences of what he had done. The “eyewitness” COULD have lied and Trayvan’s girlfriend COULD be lying, or any of them telling selected pieces of the truth. Do I want to believe that Trayvan is a thug who attacked? That Zimmerman is a thug who attacked, that both were flawed human beings, who did the “wrong” thing in one way or another, that one is much more guilty than the other?
Anyway, great song!
stoicheion wrote:
That kind of simplistic approach works well in Hollywood. It’s not very useful in the real world.
Entrance wounds can be front OR back in either case.
The whole point of this brou-ha-ha is that there was no gunfight. To the simple minded, that automatically makes it murder.
Just so I understand you correctly, if you are getting your brains beaten out by someone sitting on your chest and who has said that you are going to die now or tonight, you would be a “Murder” if you pulled out a gun and shot him? What planet did you just immigrate from? This “Kid” is six feet tall, and from the looks of him he is not frail, and you would allow him to beat you until what? You are dead, he gets remorse and lets you go, someone calls 911 and stops the one sided beating or you shoot the SOB? According to Zimmerman’s father the gun fell out during the beating and that’s when he grabbed it and shot Trayvon. What that tells me is that this street thug did not know that Zimmerman was armed and thought he would beat him up real good. Even dumb thugs don’t usually attack an armed person.
Where was media-led “two minutes of hate” after the Knoxville felony murder convictions?
Two white UT students were kidnapped and murdered. The details defy humanity. The multi-racial jury found guilty of felony-murder and other charges three AA men ages 24, 28 and 30. An 18-yr old AA woman was convicted of multiple lesser charges. Three months ago all were granted new trials because the presiding judge was believed to be impaired due to use regular use of opiod drugs for pain. The federal trial and conviction of a 34-year-old AA male participant stands.
After the trials, the President of the Knoxville NAACP, Sheryl C. Rollins said, “I don’t believe it had a negative effect on the African-American community as a whole .. because the African American community is not responsible for the acts of a few individuals who went past the bounds of human decency.”
Here is Ms. Rollins speaking those words: 10:23 of this Knoxville news video:
http://www.knoxnews.com/videos/detail/chipman-murders-channon-christian-chris-newsom/
US murders in which the perp/victim are the same race are close to 90%, whether white, black, or hispanic. The other 10% seem to have multiplied emotional impact – remember black Americans cheering OJ’s acquittal? If a US leader loved the country, wouldn’t he try to calm passions?
The thugs and gang bangers should assume everyone they see as a victim is armed. The thugs are behind the curve on the new CCW laws and open carry.
John Cale’s version of hallelujah here.
“if I had a son he sould look like Trayvon”… and he would tell you to vote for me in November, because “They” are out to get us.
That is the primary message.
The secondary message is – self defense is illegitimate.
I hope those who live at that incorrect address sue for mega bucks.
I don’t think Zimmerman should have been ‘patroling’ with a loaded gun. He is probably as nutty about crime as many are about race. however, he should not be persecuted.
None of us is a fit participant in society except insofar as we can restrain ourselves…
restrain ourselves from acting,
restrain ourselves from speaking, and
restrain our judgment.
The minstrels of our society who sing the song of “I say what I want, do what I want, and think what I want” are like a cancer.
“For some reason, the name “Horst Wessel” keeps coming to mind…”
For you, too?
@92 donna quixote
“I don’t think Zimmerman should have been ‘patroling’ with a loaded gun.”
Should it have been unloaded, you think? What would be the point of that? Do you think police should not be patrolling with guns, either? I bet not. So, why should Citizens not be armed while patrolling? Isn’t it as dangerous for them as for the police?
You need to find out about Citizen Watch groups. In my experience, they work with guidelines set up by the police. They get self-defense training. They get gun and law training. These are not yahoos.
Notice the police reports. They treated the guy with respect. He cooperated fully. They arrested him as per routine. There were no problems. 911 was clear on what was going on. No problems with the authorities whatsoever.
But YOU think he should have been doing it otherwise, patrolling without a gun? What if he had been killed? Would you then say he should have had a gun? Or would you say he should not have been doing this at all? If that is so, then why not just say he should not be doing this at all? Oh, right. You cannot honestly say that people should not form Neighborhood Watch groups. Unless he got killed or seriously injured. Then you can point to that and say, “See?”
The truth is, you think citizens should not be doing this at all, but it is taboo to say it? “Just leave it to the professionals.” Except the professionals actually support these things.
You are uninformed, donna. Go get informed.
Spoke to my brother today who lives near the neighborhood which Zimmerman was patrolling. I asked him if he had heard any explanation of why Trayvon was in the gated community. He said he heard, though it was not reported, that Trayvon had a relative or in law that lived in that neighborhood, so had a good reason to be there. If Zim had IDed himself, could Martin have simply reported why he was there? Easily avoidable. Still don’t know why Martin saw the need to attack GZ. Something does not add up. Will have to await the facts. What will happen if the officials all come back and say “Nothing to see here. No crime to charge.” Might happen. Might not. I join all those who say, regardless of outcome, “Let Justice Prevail.”
As Homer Simpson said “Marge, did you know the Internet is on computers now?” Really everybody with a access can and does say anything and everything. Hyperbole and calumny knows no political party, just ask Pat Buchanan and Maxine Waters about Israel. This is not news, only expect it to get worse as everybody gets wired in and says everything, with no regard for others. Who was it who said we need a “Truth” button on QWERTY keyboards? Even there was such a thing, half the people would not use it.
See Mr. Burke, even you got the name wrong–Zimmermann.
As Thomas Hobbes (a man with whom you no doubt disagree with) said in Leviathan:
(On life in the State of nature)….In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Mr. Zimmermann and his family as well as any number of Zimmermans and Martins will now suffer at the hands of others who desire to take “law” into their own hands….blogging tweeting FB. YouTube, Zigzag….w/evr
Tzanchan 98,
Thomas Hobbes was wrong when he said that in the state of nature all men are in a state of war with each other. John Locke got it right – man mostly lives in harmony with other men as long as every man honors other men’s equal rights to life, liberty and the fruit of their own labor, as reason self-evidently directs. Good men are in the vast majority, and are only at war with the evil men who, like beasts of prey, would do them harm.
“The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction; and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but sedate, settled design upon another man’s life puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other’s power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction; for by the fundamental law of Nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred, and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion, because they are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as a beast of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power. And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom – i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as an enemy to my preservation who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it; so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that in the state of Nature would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away everything else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that in the state of society would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth must be supposed to design to take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in a state of war… Men living together according to reason without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of Nature.” John Locke
http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/index.html
Self-defense against an aggressor is properly taking natural law into your own hands – the rational and moral law of self-preservation.
I read George Hernandez for the first time today; I found this website for the first time today. I am astounded at the erudition and insight of the comments above and find reading them an education in itself. My big worry is Critical Mass. Are there enough people in our country now who reflexively respond as ordered to The Two Minute Hate to end our country? For me, it’s not decided yet. I watched the demonstrations here in my small city–almost all blacks demonstrating, but a fair number of whites. I think of the Kool Aid drinkers of Georgetown–many of whom were coerced, to be sure–they went all in with Jones to begin with. (And I always remember that one of Jones’ last acts was to send his son to the capital city with a briefcase of some one hundred thousand dollars, to be delivered to the Soviet embassy–a token of his support for communism.) And though I often feel discouraged, there are a number of us here in the country, including many black people, who don’t buy this stuff. It’s tough, though, with the powerful alliance of education, entertainment and media. I pray a lot.
wretched via #21.. I can somewhat relate.
In my late teens I was in an AC/DC, Bon Scott era-only cover band.
Suffice to say I ONLY sang backing vocals and accompanying guitar (sadly memory serves to recall we weren’t terrible but received few encores!) to my buddy who was and is a guitar virtuoso.
Anywho I’d met an older woman who was and is very Conservative in all definitions. Though the drippingly obvious sexual innuendo of said music was a pheromone for the 2 of us. Good times.
It has gotten to the point in the “black community” that if one does not hate whitey and blame whitey for all the “black communities” ever increasing pathologies, they are considered to be an outcast.
Science fiction literature can be a useful way to think of cultural problems, because SF tends to think in sweeping historical perspectives and project those lessons into the future. I often think of SF as a kind of collection of speculative White Papers on civilizational problem solving.
In the case of George Orwell’s “1984,” despite the author literally putting the brakes on his narrative in the middle of the novel for those who might not “get it,” America seems to be divided into those who believe the Orwell novel a warning, and those who unwittingly believe it to be a blueprint to follow.
Because the slaughter of Christian and Newsome didn’t fit an ideology, it wasn’t news.
Until the New York Times, The Washington Post and the L.A. Times care to report about the most brutal murders in modern American history, ones committed by savages, I think the hooded members of the Miami Heat should be kicked out of the NBA, one and all, for being recklessly ignorant; that Obama should be booted out of the White House, ears and all for his ignorant look-alike statements about 17 year old Trayvon Martin who was shot and killed my Hispanic, George Zimmerman.
Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.
The same charlatan newspaper people that swept their murders under the rug, now are trying to make political hay for the anointed one with the Florida death.
Maybe the Obama family will don hoods too in their support of the 17 year old Florida attacker. Let’s face it, our President is as pure a racist as a Marxist. And if he considers this a teachable moment for Malia and Sasha, maybe one day they’ll whine for blacks to vote for them, too, based solely on the color of their skin.
Every day, the president clearly demonstrates what a lying sack of racist dirt he really is. How much longer do we have to put up with this Frequent liar Mile Marxist miscreant? Patriotic Americans want to know.
This American from another planet has been smelling up the White House with his bald faced lying while wasting our taxpayer money with his redistribution of wealth schemes to the tune of 6 trillion dollars. If the secret service is too brainwashed to realize it’s time to lead the worst first family in the history of our nation out of the White House in handcuffs, maybe some returning Marines from Afghanistan who know first hand what a bumbling coward he is, have the patriotic presence of mind to evict Obama, themselves. Somebody’s gotta get that eviction notice and slap it on the front door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The debt clock is running. Keystone remains unbuilt and the oil that would go to the U.S. will go to China instead (gee, thanks, Obama). Are we going to wait till Obama totally puts us out of business? Neuters our military. Shreds the Constitution. And gets Israel, and who knows who else, blown off the face of the map in he process?
Silly people. It’s not about Treyvon the budding thug black kid, nor is it about Zimmerman, the pied Hispanic. It’s about Obama. And meant to remind us of the gazillion years of slavery in America and how we *still* need Affirmative Action to make up for it, and the very least we as American citizens can do to make up for both the slavery and this black kid’s death is to re-elect Obama, so history will not write that the first (and last) African-American President was an utter and abject failure.
What I don’t understand is why this same dynamic of social unfit and misfittedness among people with darker skin plays out in other countries where there was no slavery, like Canada and England. And in countries where there are others with dark skin but with straight hair and noses, like the Middle East, those from Africa are *still* mistreated and abused as slaves.
But somehow here in America if we don’t vote for Obama, then it’s our fault that a fine upstanding youth in a hoodie and grillz in Florida was shot. (BTW, here in Los Angeles, stores are posting signs “No Hoodies” if you want to enter their shops. Seems like a plan to me, but I’m surprised that no one is stamping their Nike-clad foot and shrieking “racist!” to get the signs removed.)
I going into a territory that I haven’t spoken out loud before but I will now because of the hate that I have seen concerning this tragedy. Do any of you feel when you are around a lot of Black people that there are really two groups of them? By that I mean there is the everyday at work group who are a little different from Whites but nothing real different. And then the same group of Blacks appear to become totally different people with almost hostile attitudes against anyone who is not one of them when certain incidents arise. Remember the OJ verdict day? I do and I was with four Black flight attendants whom I had flown with for three days and thought I had gotten to know. That morning when the verdict was announced they were the most hostile four Black women I have ever known. They sneered at all of the White people who were there and danced and made rude threatening remarks, like “Its about time” and “Payback Baby”. It was like a mask had slipped from their evil faces. I guess I am like Jesse Jackson and feel relieved when the people walking behind me turn out to be white. I truly am never sure who I am next to or sitting beside and how something that might happen at any moment will bring out the Mr. Hyde in them. They appear to have a lot of anger and it’s directed at Whites.
TRAYVON MARTIN: GANGSTA WANNA BE
With his several large tatoos, gold capped teeth, drug use and numerous school suspensions for bad behavior Trayvon Martin was likely an out of control, wise a$$ little punk-a rude wanna be degenerate gang banger, a rebel thumbing his nose at authority and society-who copped a bad attitude and flew into a rage when George Zimmerman was doing his job and watching him the night he tragically died. He was probably the type of thuggish, troubled, insecure kid who thinks he’s being insulted, belittled, disrespected and wronged when someone looks at him the wrong way, and then reacts aggressively with violent words or deeds to prove his manhood and win respect and honor. If, on the night of his death, Tray was doing nothing wrong it is understandable that he might feel offended at Zimmerman for watching him suspiciously; but instead, unprovoked, Tray went ballistic and viciously attacked him as if he were being threatened, molestered or slapped down. In short, Tray wasn’t going to let Zimmerman get away with that sh*t; his crude gangsta logic, street code and twisted ego wouldn’t allow it; and now he’s dead blown away by his victim in self-defense. The lesson here is this: when someone looks at you the wrong way be a man, be cool about it, keep your head on your shoulders and ignore it. It might save your life.
The Whitewashing of Trayvon Martin
Aesop’s shepherd boy cried wolf so often that villagers didn’t believe him when a very hungry wolf was really stalking his flock and the wolf ate all the sheep. Morals: Don’t lie and, when you do, you shouldn’t expect anyone to believe you when you finally tell the truth.
(See “The Trayvon Martin Bonfire,” http://bit.ly/H28Eaf, and “America’s One-Sided Race Card,” http://bit.ly/HnQeQC.)
Those morals should be studied by blacks agitating for the condemnation and execution of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida on February 26th, 2012.
Since the case went national, we have witnessed an almost unprecedented upheaval attended by astounding lies and distortions from black leaders. Not since Rodney King was portrayed as an innocent and large areas of Los Angeles were burned to the ground in 1992 have we seen such an outpouring of organized venom and mischaracterizations designed to instigate public discord.
Any untimely death is a tragedy and the death of a young man is especially tragic. However, the circus atmosphere created by professional race-baiters, by the media, and by Martin’s parents in the wake of the shooting is a shameful disgrace which only serves to needlessly stir up racial animosity and demean Trayvon’s memory.
Contrary to initial knee-jerk media coverage but according to the Sanford Police Department’s “Incident Report,” Zimmerman, a part-hispanic, registered Democrat, shot and killed Martin after the muscular, six-foot two inch Martin ambushed the overweight neighborhood watchman and pummeled him while he was merely doing his job watching the gated neighborhood in Sanford.
There can be no reasonable doubt as to Zimmerman’s injuries. Police first attempted to resuscitate Martin and then administered first aid to Zimmerman who was bleeding from his nose and head, and a laceration is visible on the back of his head in a survellance video shot at the police station.
Statements were taken from six people who witnessed the attack in whole or part.
See the Sanford Police Department report here http://thedc.com/GUFFpi.
That neighborhood will never be the same, not because of Zimmerman’s self-defensive actions but because Trayvon Martin has become a cause célèbre for fomentors of black rage, a dead but potent tool to stir up racial strife, the bread and butter for such people as Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and the New Black Panther Party.
As they continue to arouse racial passions in black communities and as mostly-black high school and college students throughout the country stage misguided protests . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=19299.)
P.S. It’s also about his family making their grab for the financial brass ring, trying to make a money windfall in any way they possibly can to put dollars in their pockets as a result of his death.
107. ApolloSpeaks
Or GZ is a racist wannabe bada** looking for a fight so he can kill a black man a claim self defense.
I think neither is the truth.
Neighborhood watch is intended to WATCH, not confront, arrest, or enforce. I am an avid advocate for CCWs and gun rights. It is essential for citizens to be able to defend themselves and their fellow citizens. It is also essential for gun carriers to conduct themselves with the utmost responsibility. That means that if there is no threat to life (yours or anyone else’s) the gun carrier has a responsibility to keep himself out of a confrontation that may result in lethal defense.
I am not advocating running from a potential threat, but starting an altercation that may end in unnecessary death when there is no immanent threat is irresponsible in a scenario that requires the utmost responsibility.
Stand your ground laws are bad for gun ownership. The go beyond self defense in the realm of legalizing vigilante justice.