From this Niall Ferguson article via Insty (thankee, squire) comes a gem:
Last week, the Rhodium Group’s Logan Wright estimated that there was enough empty property in China to house more than 90 million people.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Housing for 90 million dispossessed and poverty-stricken Afghans, Haitians, Venezuelans, Mexicans, Africans and Palestinians?
Could the answer be that simple? Let’s hear the response from the ChiComs…
[exit, cackling like a maniac]
Apparently, we conservatives are Beyond The Pale. Saith Jennifer Rubin:
There is no way to “understand” MAGA voters, nor is there is any possibility of reaching political agreement with them. They are beyond the bounds of rational political debate.
Hey, Jen: substitute “socialist voters” for “MAGA voters”, and you’ll have an idea of what we think of you lot. The only thing you need to understand about us is that we hate your putrid political philosophy and your criminal voting practices.
And then some other Lenin-lickspittle chimes in with:
There is no longer any reason to try to “understand” these people. Nor should there be any compunction about doing whatever we can to read them out of American politics…
…by any means available, you mean?
Noted.
Via Insty, I read this:
Stephen Collinson is well-known among conservatives as the most hackneyed of the hacks at CNN. The CNN Politics Twitter account promoted his latest online essay with the words “President Biden to showcase his moderate radicalism in his big congressional address.”
“Moderate radicalism”? Doesn’t that make about as much sense as “quiet loudness”?
Well, no. Basically, “moderate radicalism” is when radical ideas and positions (i.e. extreme leftwing, in this case) are talked about and explored, but there are no actions associated with the activity. Here’s an example:
“Racial equity is going to be our social goal and policy” — moderate radicalism. Then there’s this:
“Racial equity is going to be our social goal and policy, and anyone not supporting it will be sent to reeducation camps” — that’s pure (immoderate) radicalism.
Just don’t kid yourself that the latter is an impossibility in these here United States.
Never forget that socialists, of whatever variant, are utterly convinced of the rightness and purity of their ideas, and that opponents thereof are evil and should be suppressed, by force if necessary.
A couple of Readers sent me this clothing idea:
…and it comes in olive drab.
I would have wanted one even more had there been a little text, e.g. “Sometimes you need to kill a few Communists to save the Republic”, but still…
Ordered.
It’s not often that I feel the need to chide Insty, but he asks a silly question of a Michael Barone article. Barone states:
When public policies have produced disastrous results and when alternative policies have resulted in immediate, seemingly miraculous improvement, why would anyone want to go back to the earlier policies? Is there any reason to suppose that this time will be different?
…
We know where such policies led before. Is there any reason this time will be different?
Whereupon Insty states, correctly:
The explanation is that Democrats don’t care about the downsides to these policies, because they feel like the upsides offset them.
But he then falls into the standard trap of the intelligent person by asking:
So what are the upsides that they see?
Silly rabbit. The upside to any policy proposal or implementation by the Left (Marxists) is that it makes them feel virtuous. (The only other significant upside is if said policy increases the Left’s grip on power.) In the face of those two features, downsides pale into insignificance.
I will now quote again the late-and-very-much-missed Acidman:
“I could tolerate leftists if they had any coherent ideas for a better way to do things. But they don’t. They cling stubbornly to failed brain-fart dreams that have been attempted over and over again with disastrous results, but they never learn. When better ideas come along, they simply screech and holler at them, then fling feces like the monkeys they are.”
The reason they do that is because better ideas underline their (many) failures. And that gives them Teh Sadz.