Conversation as Intervention

With the rise of BLM and the #MeToo movements, there has been a constant theme across the Left when it comes to addressing concerns raised by people not within those movements:  Let's Have a Conversation.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The people who claim to want to have a conversation only want the chance to hector, humiliate and lecture people who do not bend the knee.

How do I know this?  Well, because I've tried to have conversations with people, both online and in person.  What usually happens is that I'm told I need to educate myself.  Considering that I read upwards of forty books a year -- none of them in the James Patterson or Maeve Binchy categories -- and that I listen to podcasts involving people who are on both sides of an issue, I'd like to think I'm educated beyond what most people are.  Admittedly, I don't know everything about every issue, and I'm painfully uninformed when it comes to statistics -- as some say, statistics can mean whatever a speaker wants them to mean -- but I'm relatively conversant about most hot-button issues.  My rhetorical style doesn't lean on too much sarcasm or snark, I don't revile my opponent and I don't insult people, generally, although if someone starts a fight, I'll finish it.

During the Obama administration, I got into it with a couple of black guys about Trump, and how racist he is.  Perfect he ain't, but I don't think he's particularly racist.  I was harangued about my support of Trump -- it was more of a defense, but OK...-- and told I had drunk Kool Aid.  The conversation took the inevitable turn into systemic racism, and Michael Brown was brought up.  To them, it was clear the cop was a dyed-in-the-wool racist and was only looking to gun down the first black guy who provoked him.  But when I brought up Eric Holder's DOJ autopsy which, on pages 88 and 89, stated that Brown was rushing at the cop when he was shot...the discussion abruptly ended.  See, they didn't want to have a conversation:  They wanted to hector me until I apologized for being white.

In my time, I've been around plenty of horses' asses of the male variety.  I know of one guy who, in high school, slept with a fellow student on her birthday and then broke up with her immediately after.  So I'm quite prepared to defend a woman who makes a credible accusation of rape or sexual harassment.  But I've also known that some women, for whatever reason, will make claims that are unsupported by the facts simply to impugn a guy.  Take the Brian Banks case, the Duke lacrosse cases and the UVA frat case for starters.  And those are just the most visible cases.

Gun control always brings out zealots.  Despite never having touched a firearm, much less fired one, gun control advocates will point to the need to get rid of all semi-automatic assault rifles, asking rhetorically why weapons of war are needed by anyone.  When the difference between automatic and semi-automatic is finally explained to them, and when statistics about murders by cars and knives are raised, the discussion ends, because it's not a conversation that was sought, but an intervention.  When the person who is the subject of the intervention is resistant, the conversation abruptly ends.  That the intervenors might be proven wrong, or that they may admit that their point of view needs correction, is not a possibility.  Only the complete and utter capitulation of the interlocutor is acceptable, and once it becomes evident that that's not going to happen, the conversation ends.

So spare me the entreaties to converse.  No matter what LeBron James says, I don't need education.  I'm not omniscient like those who want to convert me.  But I am analytical, I am well read and I'm no fool.

To paraphrase Sir Walter Scott, I'm not about to change my beliefs as one would change his coat with the weather.

(c) 2022 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

The Twitter Files: This Millenium's Watergate

 When I first heard about Twitter, I asked someone what it was about.  After I heard what people were tweeting, I decided no one needed to hear what I had for lunch.  Obviously, I underestimated the importance of the medium, but I am nevertheless very happy I never opened an account.

Over the last six years, there's been a firestorm over Twitter, who can be on Twitter, what can be said on Twitter, and how Twitter censored certain viewpoints.  Generally speaking, I suppose I don't understand what all the fuss is about.  But upon further inspection, something very invidious took place.

Earlier this year, Tesla owner Elon Musk bought Twitter.  We can only guess at his motives, but thank goodness he did.  Upon taking over, Mr. Musk opened up the files of his new company and allowed two independent -- and it should be pointed out, left-leaning -- journalists, Matt Taibi and Bari Weiss, to report on what they discovered.  What's been reported not only has rocked the nation, but it's also confirmed what many have suspected for a long time:  Twitter censored viewpoints with which it disagreed, shadow banned some people, and did other things to tweets that made them unavailable to viewers.  What people didn't suspect, however, was that not only was it members of Twitter that were engaged in the censorship but that these Twitter employees were working in tandem with the FBI and the Biden presidential campaign.

It goes without saying that as a private company, Twitter was well within its rights to publish whatever it wanted, as well as censor whatever it wanted.  Where the line was crossed, however, was when it was getting direction from the FBI, a unit of the federal government.  It's also questionable whether the Biden campaign's involvement crossed constitutional lines (if the Biden campaign received federal funds, I contend, it was thereby a quasi-governmental unit bound by the Constitution in the same way a university received federal funding is).  So while Twitter would otherwise have the right to do with its platform whatever it liked (withing constitutional reason, of course), once the FBI and the Biden campaign got involved, the equation was queered.

Why this is at all relevant is that two topics had a direct impact on the 2020 election.  First, the Hunter Biden laptop fiasco -- was the laptop the product of Russian operatives or real, were the emails contained therein Russian disinformation, was Man of Dementia involved in influence peddling -- had a crucial bearing on the election.  From certain reports, as much as 17% of Biden voters would not have voted for him had they been told the truth of the laptop story.  Depending on where those voters lived, that could have changed the outcome of the vote and therefore the results of the Electoral College.  

The other story that was suppressed was the origins of Covid.  Debate raged as to not only the origins of the virus, but also whether the vaccines and the masks were effective.  How did this impact the 2020 election?  Not having all the perspectives out on the table allowed certain states, such as Pennsylvania, to alter the voting rules to favor the Democrats over the Republicans.  It's a little like allowing the home team to move the goalposts when the other team has the ball to make it much harder for it to score.

Now that Republicans have taken back the House, I earnestly hope they don't go tit-for-tat with investigations to pay back the Democrats.  I do, however, hope they launch investigations into Hunter Biden and the FBI.  If Republicans regain both the presidency and the Senate while holding onto the House in 2024, they need to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to hold social media companies accountable for such invidious, undemocratic behavior.

(c) 2022 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

The World Cup and Soccer Generally

 The long-delayed World Cup is upon us, coming from that Middle Eastern mecca of tolerance and modernity Qatar (pronounce it how you will), and the group stage is almost over.  There have been some unusual upsets -- Saudia Arabia defeating perennial favorite Argentina, for example -- and the usual thumpings by favorites over also-rans -- Spain over Costa Rica -- with most of the games low-scoring affairs.  The United States overcame the terrorist regime running Iran, mired in protests both at home and abroad, to qualify for the knockout stage, thereby relieving an entire nation more preoccupied with the Christmas season.  And Canada, in the World Cup for the first time in over twenty years, embarrassed itself by trying to strongarm Croatia.

Beside the games, however, is the silliness that accompanies the games.  As an American, I'm not in-the-know about the nuances of the game; in fact, I'm considered an unintelligent outsider.  So be it.  Having lived in Spain and experienced the game from the European perspective, I may be a tad more knowledgeable that the typical American in the street about the game.  Considering that I've followed La Liga since I lived in Spain, I do consider myself somewhat informed when it comes to the sport.  I only really follow the World Cup (and its qualifying rounds), La Liga and sundry European contests (Euros love to have tournaments, it seems, just to have more games to play).  So despite my heritage, I think I'm qualified to engage in a bit of criticism.

So here goes:

-- Calling football -- soccer, as we know it here -- the beautiful game is, to put it mildly, a joke.  First of all, the flopping, the complaining, the missed shots that aren't even close, the bad passes, the fan interactions with the players (more on that anon) decidedly remove the beauty from this game.  In fact, the women's game is closer to being the beautiful game, compared to the men's game which, rarely, if ever, has elements of beauty to it.

-- Soccer is now a world-wide game.  Because it's relatively inexpensive to play, it can be played on every continent.  Despite this, announcers insist on using English -- as in from England English -- to describe everything related to the game.  That's fine if you're on that island, but why do Americans insist on saying that the team's kit (uniforms) are sullied on the pitch (the field) and that the game is nil-nil (zero-zero or scoreless)?  What's more, since when did countries become plurals?  For example, "Spain have the most goals in the tournament."  What?!?!  Seriously, stop the British ass-kissing.

-- FIFA rules soccer.  It's one of the most corrupt organizations this side of the Cosa Nostra.  Granted, it's the governing body for the sport, but it's not infallible.  Why it won't make changes that would improve the game escapes me.  For example, instant replay cameras would do a world of good.  Doing away with the offsides trap would immeasurably speed up the game.  Giving yellow and red cards to floppers would discourage the use of the tactic.  But FIFA knows better.

-- Putting the games in Qatar is a joke.  I'm not arguing for them to be here -- which they will be in four years -- but Qatar has no soccer history whatsoever.  It's disgraceful that bribery ruled the day.

--  The time is kept almost arbitrarily.  How the refs know for certain how much added time is needed escapes me, as does how they know when the added time actually runs out.  There are unwritten rules about timekeeping -- as empirical an element of the game as there is -- that determine when the referee will blow his whistle.  And why doesn't the clock stop when there are substitutions?  This allows the team that's ahead to milk seconds off the clock as they walk off the field.  It's ridiculous.

-- Soccer fans are some of the unruliest fans in the world. They make Yankee and Deadbird fans look tame by comparison.  Whether it's the English hooligans, the Mexican anti-gay set or the South American battery-throwers, it's a discredit to the sport to allow such a criminal element to attend the games.  FIFA's limp response to these fan bases does nothing to enhance the beautiful game's image.

-- Flopping is ridiculous.  Countless replays show players who were barely touched or untouched at all roll for yards as if they were struck by a sniper's bullet.  Spaniards explained to me that this is gamesmanship.  In America we call this cheating.  If soccer's the beautiful game its supporters claim it to be, why does it need this in it?

I love international competitions.  I will cheer on my country and Spain throughout this tournament.  I watch the highlights on Youtube.com and not the games themselves because they're so god-awful boring.  

(c) 2022 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

The Demands and Expectations of African-Americans

Mine is not a popular opinion.  In fact, it's probably tantamount, in this crazy time in which we live, to hate speech which, in a bygone era, would be protected under the First Amendment but which now is actionable under several questionable statutes.  

With the death/murder of George Floyd, the country has lost its collective mind.  Cities burned, reparations were demanded, a semi-terrorist group, Black Lives Matter, was founded.  Corporations caved in, commercials began to feature nothing but biracial or black people and kente cloth found its way on to white people's shoulders not named Father Pfleger.

That Floyd's death was wrong and actionable is without question.  But the torrent it unleashed has been less justifiable.  Now, we have to defund the police, because police departments and the men and women in blue are uniformly racist.  Corporate America needs to reconstitute itself, because there aren't enough black people in higher positions.  Hollywood has to diversify, because whites win too many Oscars.  And we all need to examine our white privilege.

Enough.

By no means am I suggesting there aren't inequitable situations in the country.  And blacks' ancestors suffered through the horribly traumatic period of slavery.  I'm not minimizing ongoing racism that still exists.  

But this is not a racist country.

There are too many examples of how this notion of systemic racism is a red herring.  For me, let's start with the seminal SCOTUS opinion of Brown v. Board of Education, the long overdue opinion that put an end to the notion of separate by equal, from 1954.  If there was such systemic racism, how is it that nine old white men voted unanimously to end the Plessy standard?  Why didn't the court use its sophistic talents to uphold Plessy in the name of systemic racism?   

Martin Luther King, Jr., famously declared I have a dream that my four little children will done day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  Dr. King would be disappointed.  Because today, it is not permissible for a white person to judge a black person at all, much less because of the person's character, because due to white privilege, white people are inherently racist.  No, any comment made by a white person about a black person, however slightly critical, is now ipso facto grounded in race.  So if LeBron James is hypocritical about inequities in the United States compared to those in China, we must remain silent.  If the SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson has a questionable sentencing record as a judge, we must remain silent.  If Will Smith walks up on stage during the Oscars telecast and slaps Chris Brown for making a gratuitous joke about his wife, we as white folk must sit silent, because we can't possibly understand black culture.

Meanwhile, openly racist behavior by such luminaries as Caryn Elaine Johnson, also known as Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Reid, Maxine Waters, Nick Cannon and a bevy of wannabe eugenics experts must not only be tolerated by applauded.  To question the falsity of their statements, or the overtly racist overtones, or the openly hostile comments is to be racist.

What Dr. King was promoting was equality.  For a person to be judged on the same level as another of a different race using the same measuring stick is equality.  To not judge a person in a similar fashion is to distinguish, to discriminate, to treat differently.  So if a black person makes a heinous statement for which a white person would be taken to task, it is only fair and right that the black person be held to the same standard.  Yet that's not acceptable in today's heightened race conscious society.

It's hard to say from where this more aggressive attitude is originating.  It could be from affirmative action, descried by critics as a spoils system.  It's counterpart -- reparations for slavery -- smacks of the same sense of entitlement.  Which brings us to an interesting conundrum for the recently confirmed Justice Brown Jackson:

Harvard University has a case pending before the Supreme Court.  In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the organization is taking the university to task alleging that it discriminates against Asian-Americans by imposing a soft racial quota against Asian-Americans. The case will be heard in the 2022-2023 term.  That's where it gets interesting.

Justice Brown Jackson currently sits on the Board of Overseers, which provides counsel to the school's leadership on a number of issues.  The newly-minted Justice has said, rightly, that she will recuse herself from the case.  This, of course, is unnacceptable to the neo-racists.  To ask the Justice to recuse herself in a case where there is a very real conflict is, necessarily, racist.  Were the situation reversed, and a white Justice were asked to recuse himself due to a conflict, that would be expected and not in the slightest racist.

Double-standards are wrong.  No amount of justification can bless double-standards.  Blacks can be as racist as whites.

It's time for real equality to replace the double-standards.

(c) 2022 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

 

Did Man of Dementia Use His Running Mate?

 It's been over a year since Man of Dementia was inaugurated.  Even the most charitable of observers would describe the first year of the Biden-Harris -- or is it Harris-Biden -- Administration as a dumpster fire, or a train wreck, or a dumpster fire involved in a train wreck.  

No matter where one looked -- the economy, immigration, energy, Afghanistan, voting rights, Covid, SCOTUS litigation, the press -- Man of Dementia not only underperformed his critics' expectations, he failed to live up to his supporters' hopes.

Each facet of this new administration is horrible.  Man of Dementia seems to be cognitively impaired, mostly due to his age, but his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, seems cognitively impaired due to her innate incompetence.  Her insanely stupid laugh, trotted out at interview after interview, has been likened to the Joker's laugh on the old Batman series (somewhere, Cesar Romero is spinning in his grave).  Her vapid, scripted answers that awkwardly try to sidestep answering questions make a mockery of attempts to get answers.  Her inability to be honest is glaringly obvious to the electorate and, increasingly, to the fawning press.

Yet, if she's so bad, why did Man of Dementia bring her on his ticket?

I have a theory.

For all his warts, Man of Dementia is a longtime politician, savvy in the ways of using the process to his advantage.  He may be horrible as a leader, but as a sniveling powerbroker who knows how to turn things to his advantage, he may be among the most adept.

Many remember how the harridan of Blair House went after Man of Dementia in the debates, alleging, not without reason, that his record was tainted with evidence of racism.  It was an ugly attack, but one that is common in modern-day politics.  

Apparently, Jill Biden lost her mind after this exchange in the debates.  The story can be found here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9595697/Jill-Biden-told-supporters-Kamala-f-attacking-Joe-2019-debate.html

Jill Biden told supporters that Kamala Harris could 'go f**k' herself after the June 2019 Democratic primary debate where the then-candidate attacked Joe Biden for supporting racist policies during his Senate career.

If that's the case, why would her husband put Harris on the ticket?

Race and gender.

The present-day Democratic Party is all about identity politics.  Race and gender are the two measuring sticks the Left uses to rate anything.  And by selecting Harris, Man of Dementia appealed to voters who thought he was progressive, hip, modern.  It allowed them to overlook his many shortcomings; he'd nominated the first female and minority Vice Presidential candidate.

For Harris, it's an obvious benefit to her political career.  For the first time, she attained a position not because she slept with someone powerful or was boosted by her looks.  This put her a heartbeat away from the presidency and history.

But then Man of Dementia played his ace in the hole.  He appointed Harris the border czar, a thankless task in light of the many pronouncements he had made that were essentially invitations to the world to violate our sovereignty.  This put Harris in the unenviable position of having to defend her boss when there was no way to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

Other than one trip to Guatemala to study the root causes of immigration and propose new age remedies addressing gender equity, Harris made one trip to one of the more defended portions of the southern border after the press hounded her about it.  Since then, she's been largely silent about it.

Since then, she's been mostly out of the public eye, unable or unwilling to do anything substantive.

Then, the situation between Ukraine and Russia broke out.  We have no strategic interests in Ukraine.  Ukraine is not part of NATO.  Yet Man of Dementia sent Harris to talk with our German and other NATO allies about intervening in Ukraine should the Russians attack.  There would be very little anyone could do to stop Russia were it decided on taking Ukrainian territory.

So in a year, Man of Dementia has sent Harris on two fool's errands, jobs that no one this side of Henry Kissinger could solve.  To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, Harris is no Kissinger.

The net effect of these assignments has been to create a track record that almost guarantees that Harris has reached the height of her incompetence a la the Peter Principle.  Compared to her, Hilary Clinton is a politician for the ages.  Harris will never sit in the Oval Office.  Her political hopes were dashed the minute she accepted Man of Dementia's offer to be his running mate.  Were she more politically aware, she would have turned down his offer and waited until 2024.  But her vanity and professional greed got the best of her.  Jill Biden, she of the woefully laughable doctoral dissertation, had outplayed her.

There is one problem for the country and one hope for Harris, and that is Man of Dementia's declining cognitive abilities.  Should the 25th Amendment be invoked and he is removed, Harris ascends to the presidency.  And if that happens, we're all in a lot of trouble.

(c) 2022 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Rushing to Judgment

 For myriad reasons, this country rushes to judgment about virtually everything.  Oftentimes, the rush causes misjudgments left and right that should be corrected later but rarely are.  The collateral damage can be enormous.

Just in the last twenty years, this country has seen countless lessons of the ills of rushing to judgment.  Some of the more notable examples are the Duke lacrosse scandal, the University of Virginia frat story published by Rolling Stone, the Nicholas Sandman debacle and the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.  In each instance, the truth as asserted by public news organs turned out not to be the truth but the hopeful narrative pushed by news organizations hoping to cash in on sensational plots.

Perhaps the top reason for this is the rush to be first with a story.  In the United States, claiming to be the first with a story -- and not necessarily the most accurate -- matters a lot to the press.  Were it only the press's fascination with being first with the news, that would be one thing, but a more than gullible public wanting its fears or hopes confirmed is what galvanizes the press to eschew its journalistic responsibilities in order to claim the mantel of being first with a story.

No matter how wrong a story turns out to be, the rush to be first never causes the perpetrator too much backlash. Professor Jonathan Turley has dubbed this the Age of Rage, and no matter how incorrect a news organization turns out to be, as long as the story sounded plausible when first aired, no amount of correction can diminish the victory of having broken the alleged story.  In each of the cases cited above, the story turned out to be almost directly opposite of what the press implied was the truth. People's lives and reputations were damaged.  As far as I'm aware, as of this writing, only Mr. Sandman has found any vindication whatsoever, but because of the press's perfidy, no amount of monetary vindication will erase the stain of having been branded a racist.  Mr. Rittenhouse will, hopefully, soon add to the MSM's debit column in the next couple of years, but with the enormous sums of advertising revenue the MSM takes in, it will but bat an eye, write a check and exchange it for an NDA.

And that's where the rubber should meet the road.  Obviously, given the ordeal endured by Mr. Rittenhouse, he may be loathe to go through another such exercise, but if I were him, after I'd settled with one or two of the lesser miscreants, I'd go to the mat with one of the other, bigger ones.  No amount of money would compel me to settle.  The reason is quite simple:  He can't lose.  There is no way that going through a trial and exposing the craven partisanship of an entity that all but had him tried, convicted and executed for exercising his right of self-defense, he'd be viewed as anything other than a champion by right-minded people  Sure, he may forfeit a hefty payday, but think of what it would be like to expose, say, the bias of CNN by putting them on the witness stand and having them answer questions under oath:

What was racial about this trial, Mr. Stelter?

How did Mr. Rittenhouse commit murder, Mr. Lemon?

Please explain how Mr. Rittenhouse wasn't in fear of his life after having a gun pointed at his head, Mr. Cuomo.

Admittedly, I don't stand to forfeit a $50M payday, but think about all the goodwill Mr. Rittenhouse would earn for exposing the putrid underbelly of the MSM.  Sure, the MSM wouldn't have to write a check, but after undergoing a trial, even assuming it won, how many advertisers would jump ship?  How many would continue to support a propaganda machine masquerading as news organization?  

It's hard to choose which Leftist to use as an example; there are so many from which to choose.  Does he choose the deep pockets, the most vitriolic, the one who stands the most to lose after being exposed?  Professor Turley has written that winning a defamation trial for Mr. Rittenhouse isn't the slam dunk many think it would be, given SCOTUS precedent in New York Times v. Sullivan.  That being the case, why not take the suit to trial?  

It's gotten to the point that for a news organization to be able to claim an exclusive on a news story is tantamount to sell world famous pizza in Newberry, Michigan.  But the audience, lacking either the sophistication or the wattage to discern the unimportance of the claim, eats it up.  To be honest, having an exclusive is no more authoritative in this age than having a broadcasting license.  The lowliest blogger can scoop the major networks if she plays her cards right.

But rushing to judgment gives the newsies one thing:  The rush.  It gives them the chills to be able to say that they were the first to report something, no matter how inaccurate, because the claim of exclusivity will soon be overtaken by events.  For perhaps a twenty-four hour period, the organ that breaks the story is in first place, until everyone catches up, events overtake the original story and corrections begin.  

Meanwhile, the poor focus of the story wallows in the mess created by the rush to judgment, never being able to unring that bell.  There are still, for example, people that believe Mr. Rittenhouse killed black people, that he shouldn't be allowed to attend college and that if he were black he certainly would have been found guilty.  Ironically, these same people are blissfully ignorant of the case in Florida of Andrew Coffee, a black man, who was acquitted the same day as Mr. Rittenhouse of murder and attempted murder when a SWAT team raided his house.

It is possible the Mr. Rittenhouse could sue Man of Dementia for statements he made during his campaign for president wherein he intimated Mr. Rittenhouse was a white supremacist.

Unfortunately for Mr. Rittenhouse, the Man of Dementia has an obvious defense:  diminished capacity.

Think of all the millions Mr. Rittenhouse could take from him that China and Ukraine paid him.

(c) 2022 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles