Thursday, January 28, 2016

Quickies: On The State Of The American Left

     In one of his typically penetrating pieces on feminism, Stacy McCain deposeth and sayeth:

     There is no objective reason for the recent upsurge of radical feminism in the United States.

     I’ve been thinking about this since I first read it, and I find that I must disagree – not because I differ with McCain’s reason for thinking so, but because the reason I have in mind is quite different.

     A “movement” that sees that its fortunes are failing and fatally threatened will often exhibit “Battle of the Bulge” behavior: i.e., it will try one last-ditch, all-in and all-out push in a final attempt to reclaim its chances. During such a push, it will often:

  1. Appear much larger and stronger than it really is;
  2. Command wildly disproportionate attention from the media;
  3. Achieve temporary gains of “territory” that it will ultimately surrender.

     Of course, to the casual observer, the reality might not be apparent, and the results will cause many an “I should have known better” smacking of the forehead. (Equally of course, there’ll be pseudo-prognosticators who succeed in concealing their alarm until the results are in, at which point they’ll crow that they “knew it all along.”)

     “Surveys” that attempt to assess the state of popular opinion on controversial subjects – especially those where certain responses are likely to get you publicly vilified or worse – are notoriously unreliable. For the opponent of a totalitarian movement – contemporary feminism, contemporary “environmentalism,” the “social justice” idiocy, or any other – the path of caution is always to fight with maximum concentration and effort. But remember always that the prospects might not be as bleak as they look. Though that should “go without saying,” nevertheless saying it now and then is the rhetorical equivalent of a Jewish mother’s administration of chicken soup to her “feeling poorly” son: it might not help, but it can’t hurt. Besides, it gets one more leftover container out of the refrigerator.

2 comments:

Backwoods Engineer said...

The gun control movement is the same way: reeking of desperation, attempting to consolidate its gains while losing almost everywhere. With public opinion turned against it, all they have left are government -dependent harridans and hoplophobes.

Reg T said...

Yet, Bloomers is still able to buy legislation in various states (e.g. Washington http://www.ammoland.com/2014/11/how-i-594-gun-control-was-passed-in-washington-state/#axzz3ybT28ByP) that significantly reduce the exercise of 2A rights by those citizens who abide by it. He is trying it in New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas that I've heard of, and probably elsewhere as well. He financed - and won - several votes here in Montana that otherwise would have increased the exercise of _our_ 2A rights.

There will always be judges ready to rule against us - Obama appointed ~300 of them to various Federal courts - in spite of what the Constitution says, and even knowing that SCOTUS will probably rule against them, because they know most of us could never afford to take it that far. Just like Federal U.S. Attorneys who laugh and say they don't care if they win a case, as long as it can be used to bankrupt the defendant.

The moment we start believing the danger is gone, we will be faced with further inroads. Just like the midnight attempt of some in Congress to steal 10+ billion dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund (not that there is any _real_ money in the fund anymore): https://www.facebook.com/senatormikelee/videos/1028817943816565/?pnref=story

I know BE will never slacken his attention to this issue, but others could read statements like this and get the impression it is OK now to back off on whatever they do to fight gun control and to support the Second Amendment.