Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Privilege Theory vs Actual Reality at a Bar in Leominster

Posted: June 19, 2022 by datechguy in culture

Yesterday after opening day in my face to face Tabletop league (My Nationals took 2 of 3 from the world champion Rockies) and an unexpected nap I found myself alone in the house with a couple of hours to go before my wife got home. Normally I’d head to Happy Jacks but their surprise closing drove me a bit farther down route 12 to Longhorn Steakhouse home of the Spicy Chicken Bites, the Best Appetizer for the price in town.

There was a woman behind the bar. When I sat down she was in the process of reconciling her drawer but recognized me from visits with DaWife for dinner and knew what I wanted. I watched her between pitches and it brought to mind my mother watching bartenders and being able to tell who was stealing and who was not (she wasn’t btw). She was rather busy as a good bartender is, constantly washing glasses, busing the bar, fixing drinks for customers in the primary restaurant. I’ve always enjoyed watching a person do a job well and like the late Mike Romano who cut meat like the pro he was, this Bartender knew her craft and was able to keep all of us taken care of while still cashing out for her replacement.

Farther down the bar there was a thin fellow whose arms suggested he did some weightlifting. We struck up a conversation and it turned out he was formally employed at the same Market Basket as my son and a friend now working at one closer to his home.

He talked about working six days a week, about trying to keep up with his department, how hard it was to get help and the extra time that meant for him, but he also talked about his granddaughter and how he made it a point to put away money from those all those six day weeks so that when she was 18 and he was about to retire he could give her some cash to get herself started.

Noticing the time I headed home as DaWife was at work and was scheduled to get out at 10 PM. I got in at 9:35 and did some picking up so the place would be more presentable when she got home, but she didn’t get home at 10:15 as expected. It was past eleven when she walked in the door. She was the only nurse on duty at her place and there was work that had to be done which kept her for an extra hour. This was something that was not unusual on days when she was alone and she was happy to finally be off her feet and only deal with the aches and pains that are standard as you prepare to complete a sixth decade of life.

As I watched her go to the recliner I thought about the fellow working six days a week and the bartender who was busting her ass at her job and realized that based on the materials I had been given which I wrote about yesterday children all over the country are being taught how these three hard working people are members of a privileged class of oppressors who are keeping others down and that moreover there are people making a fortune off of selling this lie and shaking down corporations, perhaps even the ones these three are working for, to help finance this lie to not only school kids but to the public at large.

This is how you create division and how you bring down a republic.

The GOP Leadership, Still Playing the Old Game

Posted: June 15, 2022 by datechguy in culture
Tags: ,

He said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

Produce good fruits as evidence of your repentance; and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Luke 3:7-9

Yesterday I talked about how foolish it was to trust the Democrats on the gun bill. Today at Instapundit my point is made even clearer:

Several Republican senators pressed for a hearing on President Joe Biden’s “Truth Ministry” on Tuesday after new documents revealed that it planned to spy on the public and even included a “domestic terrorism branch” to look into election “misinformation.”

The leadership of the GOP doesn’t seem to understand the people they are dealing with. They still seem to think they are dealing with people from the same culture with the same values who wish to co-exist as equals with whom you can negotiate with in good faith

The evidence of the last few years suggests this is not the case. We are no longer a single culture, we are two cultures and the 2nd culture does not believe in the love of enemies or the idea that the ends do nut justify any means. Furthermore the evidence suggests that while the majority of the those who vote for the left have not reached this point, the activist class, the donor class do and most importantly the “civil servant” bureaucrats either do or are unwilling to oppose them and are willing to destroy any who do and “destroy” also includes the use of violence.

Do you really think people who were unwilling to object to the attempted assassination of a Supreme Court Justice to stand up to these guys?

This isn’t the 1920’s or the 40’s or even 2005. These people have been telling us who they are for a decade. That the leadership in the Senate does not see this is astounding.

Should we give the a chance to as John puts it: “Produce good fruits as evidence of your repentance“. Absolutely. They are still our countrymen, and we still need to live with them.

But until we see concrete evidence of their good faith no deal of any type should go forward.

Closing thought: It is possible that McConnell is playing the Johnson 5D chess agreeing to a “framework” or a “basis” of a deal which will never take place. I am willing to consider this possibility but I’d not bet my rights or the rights of any other American on it.

The Same Old Song and Dance, Yes Trying to Murder Kavanaugh was bad but GOP & GUNS!

Posted: June 11, 2022 by datechguy in culture, News/opinion, politics, the courts
Tags: , , , ,

Was part of an interested twitter exchange that will make a better post than what I was going to write:

It started with my reply to a Mollie Hemmingway tweet:

A fellow (or lady) by the name of Still following took umbridge at my suggestion that the left would consider the murder of a justice who opposed them a good thing:

I’ll give him/her/it full marks for suggesting that the protests (which are illegal under federal law) are wrong but his attempt to pivot to “republicans support the murder of citizens is so weak and such a standard response by the left that it’s almost not worth fisking, but I had the time…

I then started to note this piece at powerline rather than the tweets quoting the piece let’s just quote it directly:

What do the Democrats think about attempted assassinations of Supreme Court justices? To my knowledge, neither Schumer nor Joe Biden’s handlers have commented. I surmise that the Democrats are hoping for one or more assassinations to take place before Biden is hustled out of the White House, so that his handlers can appoint a successor.

The attempt on Kavanaugh’s life has only emboldened the Democrats’ efforts to intimidate conservative justices. Thus, the dark money group called “Ruth Sent Us,” which has been behind much of the publication of justices’ home addresses and threats against their families, is calling for action against Justice Amy Barrett:

why not double down if there is no push back:

Barrett attends church “DAILY”? The horror!

What I would like to know is, who funds “Ruth Sent Us”? I hazard a wild guess that it is not some fringe group, but rather mainstream Democratic Party donors like, say, George Soros. I think the campaign to expose conservative Supreme Court justices and their families to the risk of assassination is not “extremist,” but rather has been orchestrated by the leaders of the Democratic Party–Joe Biden’s handlers, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and so on. And I think they hope that one or more assassins will succeed so that Biden’s handlers will be able to nominate one or more justices.

Let me remind you that this is the opinion of John Hinderacker. A lawyer who has a long steady record and not someone who just shoots his mouth off: He continues:

Does this speculation seem beyond the pale? Once, I would have thought so. But, apart from open advocacy of assassination by Democrats as in the tweet above, Democratic leaders haven’t done anything to rebut it.

And I can’t think of an alternative explanation of why Merrick Garland and other Democratic Party authorities have failed to enforce laws against demonstrating outside judges’ homes. I can’t think of another explanation of why leaders of the Democratic Party can’t bestir themselves to condemn an assassination attempt. I can’t think of another explanation for why the Washington Post buried news of the attempted murder of Justice Kavanaugh deep in their “local news” section.

The “local news” bit is of course in line with DaTechGuy’s 3rd law of Media Outrage but the Merrick Garland business reminds me of how lucky we were not to have this evil asshole on the court. My apologies for the language but I can’t think of something worse description to use that is printable. He concludes:

Nor can I think of another explanation of why leaders of the Democratic Party haven’t called off “Ruth Sent Us” in the wake of the Kavanaugh assassination attempt. Could they do so? I am pretty sure they could. But let’s find out! Who, exactly, is financing “Ruth Sent Us”? How do those people (or maybe just one person) relate to assassination-inciter Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Party generally?

Inquiring minds want to know. The effort to intimidate or, better yet, assassinate Supreme Court justices didn’t begin with marginal characters like Nicholas Roske, just like the idea of assassinating the House Republican baseball team didn’t originate with James Hodgkinson. The leaders of the Democratic Party are in the dock. Can they defend themselves?

So far, they haven’t even tried.

In fairness even if they wanted to speak I believe that there are two factors here preventing them:

  1. The people who are funding these guys have things on the left to shut them up
  2. They are afraid of they murderous loonies on their side because unlike us on the right they know they’re willing to kill

But there is one more reason while the argument of Still Following fails and this is it:

Nobody is claiming that the Uvalde shooter murdered those kids in protest over gun control o the fellow who shot up his surgeon did so because he objected to limits on magazine sizes or that the gang bangers in Chicago, Baltimore or Philadelphia are basically having a “national day of gunning down people in support of Heller”. For his argument to have the slightest bit of rationality that would have to be true.

But that’s the left for you. it’s all about the narrative and the political goals.

What Stacy Said About Dave Weigel

Posted: June 8, 2022 by datechguy in culture, opinion/news, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

Yesterday I was at Workers Credit Union at the Twin City Mall. It’s the only branch of that bank I now go to because it’s the only one that is still manned by actual human beings not behind a television screen.

While I was there a man at the counter with the teller was commenting on how like me he only goes there because there are real people. The teller commented that they are thinking of converting this branch as well. When I got to the window she said the decision hasn’t been made yet but it’s a cost issue but their branch is constantly swamped BECAUSE they are the only one with real people and actual tellers at the windows.

She seemed to miss that in terms of profitability the fact that this branch is attracting customers tells you all you need to know about if getting ridding real people is a smart move.

This came to mind instantly when I read this from Stacy McCain’s piece on our mutual friend Dave Weigel who has been suspended from the Washington Post:

 I feel obligated to point out that Dave is an actual honest-to-God reporter, the kind who goes out on the road, talks to real human beings and takes notes, rather than sitting in front of a laptop making up phony narratives about people on social media, which seems to be Taylor Lorenz’s job description.

It was the same way a dozen years ago, when some of Dave’s “friends” on the Left decided to get him fired from the Post because he had the audacity to defend Ron Paul. Some of my conservative friends were doing a sack dance over Dave’s firing, but I called him up and offered him some advice: Where you go next, make sure that a travel budget is part of the deal. He signed on with Slate a few weeks later and, sure enough, a travel budget was included. Because that’s what Dave does best, really — The Man on the Scene, in an era when every other “journalist” in America seems to spend most of their time ranting on Twitter.

There is still a need for basic shoe-leather reporting in America, and that’s what Dave Weigel is best at. So this suspension from the Washington Post ought to be seen as an opportunity for some other news organization to grab Weigel and put him to work with (a) a guaranteed travel budget and (b) a promise he’ll never be fired for RT’ing a joke.

If you want actual reporting that people would find interesting the example of Dave Weigel actually going to places and talking to people rather than just sitting and pontificating might be a clue, particularly when you see the response to Salina Zito.

Of course there is a disadvantage that Dave has in the sense that last think the left wants is either for people of the right or their own people to be seen as they are in person.

Older Entries
Newer Entries