Thursday, July 30, 2020

Marginalia

     We approach the midpoint of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s been a rough one, so far, and few are the prospects for improvement. Things are particularly rugged here at the Fortress – allow me to withhold the non-weather-related reasons – so have a few bytes from other sources, with brief commentary.


     I have the utmost contempt for persons who want to impose their personal problems on the rest of us:

     Before a coronavirus news briefing in Harrisburg on Tuesday, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine responded to a series of transphobic attacks directed against her.
     “While these individuals may think that they are only expressing their displeasure with me, they are, in fact, hurting the thousands of LGBTQ Pennsylvanians who suffered directly from these current demonstrations of harassment,” Levine began, according to PennLive.com....
     “Your actions perpetuate the spirit of intolerance and discrimination against LGBTQ individuals and specifically transgender individuals,” Levine said of the incidents....
     “We have not made progress unless we have all made progress,” she added. “It is in this space that these acts of intolerance live and where we need to continue to work against them.”

     “Attacks.” “Transphobic attacks.” Ponder those words, Gentle Reader. What do they signify? Condemnation at the very least, no? Some form of physical assault, at the other extreme. But that’s not borne out by the article:

     Among the anti-trans incidents was a man who dressed as Levine for a dunk tank at a local fair, an off-color menu item mocking Levine at a tavern and a radio host who repeatedly called Levine “sir” during an interview.

     “Among” the incidents? Was there nothing more? Nothing worse? I’d have expected the most dramatic “attacks” to be front and center. Is the Post, a paper long known for lurid coverage, suppressing the mention of them?

     I have said it before: If you want to transition from your birth sex to the other one:

  1. Work to achieve a convincing presentation;
  2. To avoid any unwanted consequences, keep it to yourself.

     That’s the way transgenderism was handled before it was politicized, and it worked tolerably well. Levine’s presentation is laughable, and he’s compounded the damage by going public about his “transition.” Choices – decisions to act or not to act – have consequences.


     Anthony Fauci appears to have become addicted to the limelight. Either that or his dubious prestige is being exploited to intensify the New Totalitarianism:

     Dr. Anthony Fauci to @DrJAshton: "If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it. It's not universally recommended, but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can." https://t.co/SJPZn8fN6F pic.twitter.com/Ml87aBuclI
     — ABC News (@ABC) July 29, 2020

     This...person has been so wrong, and for so long, that it’s a marvel he hasn’t been pilloried for it. On the strength of his “expertise” we’ve precipitated a Second Great Depression, destroyed millions of jobs and tens of thousands of businesses, and inculcated an unknown fraction of the American populace with fears that might never be quenched.

     I really don’t care about Fauci’s claims to expertise. (I also don’t care about his inability to pitch.) I care about his medical-grade arrogance and inability to admit to error...especially since even the makers of the masks he wants us trapped behind admit that they cannot and will not prevent the transmission of the Chinese Lung Rot a.k.a. Covid-19:

     (Do you think Fauci would recognize a satire were he to see one?)


     They who have enjoyed popular attention seldom lose their taste for it. In an attempt to capitalize on the current sociopolitical chaos, an old, nearly forgotten racialist huckster has stepped forward with a favorite slander:

     “Hitler had his Brown shirts and Mussolini had his Black shirts, now Donald Trump has his camouflage shirts.” Thus began a statement signed by 15 distinguished interdenominational religious leaders in Chicago that I joined, including ministers, priests, and rabbis.
     Comparisons to Hitler are always explosive, but the comparison is apt. “Hitler’s bullyboys,” the statement continues, “operated on the fringes or outside of the law to violently intimidate Germany’s leftists and finally to exterminate Jews. Trump’s bully boys are operating on the fringes or outside the law to violently intimidate America’s progressives and people of color who are exercising their First Amendment right to protest racial injustice.”
     Portland, Oregon, provides the model. Trump dispatched untrained, unidentified, camouflage-wearing, military-uniformed, no name-tagged bullyboys who are literally kidnapping protesters, stuffing them in unidentified vans, taking them to unknown locations without charges — and against the wishes of local law enforcement officers the mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon.

     One falsehood after another, and topped with the Left’s favorite outrageous denunciation – “[Insert chosen Republican here] is Hitler” – from the superannuated war horse of the racialist Left, Jesse Jackson. He must miss the spotlight, or maybe it’s that his illegitimate kids are hurting for new sneakers.

     Glenn Reynolds comments:

     How explosive can [comparisons to Hitler] be in 2020, when in “In the aftermath of the Republican Party’s dramatic takeover of Congress on the strength of the conservative ‘Contract With America’ in 1994, Jackson lamented: ‘In South Africa, we call it apartheid. In Nazi Germany, we’d call it fascism. Here in the United States, we call it conservatism.’”
     Then in 2000, “During the Florida mess he accused Bush of ‘Nazi tactics’ and suggested that Jeb Bush was deliberately targeting Holocaust victims, ‘once again.’”

     That’s Jesse Jackson for you. But it’s also the behavior of the typical black racialist. Oh, and remember this one:

     “These people are committing genocide with a smile...they’re worse than Hitler.” – The Dishonorable Major Owens (D, NY), quoted in Ann Coulter’s meticulously footnoted Slander.

     And people wonder why it doesn’t trouble me to be called a racist. I simply smile, say “Consider the source,” and walk away.


     That’s all for today, I think. Perhaps Margaret, Linda, or the Colonel will be here later with meatier fare. It’s time for me to rebuild my freshly painted office. Until tomorrow, be well.

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