We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
“Only 27%” – Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democratic voters would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a proposal is opposed by 61% of all likely voters, including 79% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters.
– Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. Only 27% of all voters – including just 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters – favor criminal punishment of vaccine critics.
Rasmussen Reports citing a poll of 1,016 U.S. Likely Voters taken on 5th January 2022. Poll data here.
I would enjoy mocking the turn to naked authoritarianism taken by the Democrats if that 27% were 2.7%.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, âPorcupinesâ, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty FrĂ©dĂ©ric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Would that it were otherwise, but the Democrats seem to have gone insane. (I suspect a fair portion are faking it, but those might keep on faking it in the voting booth. They know who will count the votes.)
They elected the stupidest president in history as the supposed saviour of democracy. It’s going as well as should have been expected. The democrats’ coping strategy is to declare the public have lost the confidence of the chosen senile one and wish to elect a new people.
ThatÂŽs the Karen party right there
14% of Republicans favor criminalizing vaccine critique.
For me, that was the most depressing item.
None of it is depressing to me. The ones who want forever lockdowns, criminal convictions, jail and gulag, and lives ruined for the unvaxxed have the political spines of jellyfish. They’ll only pursue this stuff if their unelected comrades mandate it, and most of them will shrink from any active part. They may be perfectly willing to let the military/police handle that end, but will not be able to stomach the kinetic results. Nor the inevitable backlash that lands on THEM. Remember polls are from people mouthing off about things they don’t think they’ll be held accountable to. Tyranny is easy, freedom is hard. And remember, they think we’re the bad guys for resisting their enslavement. Being mentally handicapped by communism is usually permanent.
And people still doubt that the modern diet causes brain damage??
Because people were so much saner ‘back in the old days’? đ
Ya probably.
What backlash? They’re in the majority. That makes it safe. At some point, the majority will see the light, but then all memory of their earlier madness will conveniently fade away by acclamation. There will never be any price paid for this.
It’s simple, really:
“Friendly fire – isn’t”
“Liberals – aren’t”
And there I was thinking you read a lot of history.
From the article:
” President Bidenâs strongest supporters are most likely to endorse the harshest punishments against those who wonât get the COVID-19 vaccine. Among voters who have a Very Favorable impression of Biden, 51% are in favor of government putting the unvaccinated in âdesignated facilities,â and 54% favor imposing fines or prison sentences on vaccine critics. By contrast, among voters who have a Very Unfavorable view of Biden, 95% are against âdesignated facilitiesâ for the unvaccinated and 93% are against criminal punishment for vaccine critics.”
I am glad that ordinary Democrats are rejecting the insane brainwashing of the education system and the “mainstream” media. The obvious question they now need to ask themselves is “why am I still a Democrat?”
Contrary to the education system and “mainstream” media account, Donald John Trump was good at convincing poor people and people from racial minorities to vote for him – President Trump may be too old to run again in 2024, but whoever the Republican candidate is (and assuming there is NOT the mass “mail-in ballots” fraud – i.e. that State election laws are actually enforced) will have to continue to reach out to ordinary people of all races.
There is no point is speaking like a Harvard graduate New York Times reader – the establishment elite (who wish to control every aspect of the lives of ordinary people – essentially treat ordinary people as CATTLE) are NOT going to vote Republican – and it is time the Republican “leadership” got that in their thick heads.
The Republican party must become the party of ordinary people – people who reject the control of their lives by the government and by the Woke Corporations (who are joined, at the hip, with the government via the competition destroying regulations and the endless funny money subsidies from the Federal Reserve).
“But the Corporations used to be conservative” – yes, back in the 1950s, times have changed. Wake up and smell the coffee – the Republican Party does not have many REAL friends on Wall Street (all those Federal Reserve welfare claimants in thousand Dollar suits).
Remember the first Republican President was a railroad hand (a pick and shovel man) who turned to practicing law without ever going to college and without a “license”.
There is nothing wrong with being born rich – but if you are not comfortable talking to people who live in trailer parks, then that is YOUR problem (it is not their fault).
Here is an amusing clip from the Dutch parliament.
Enjoy it while you can.
The ploy âIf you donât vote Tory, then Labour might get inâ is familiar here in the States, taking the forms “If you don’t vote Democrat/Republican then the Republicans/Democrats might get in” and pushing the heuristic “No matter how horribly we treat you, the other side is TWICE AS BAD!”
As for Trump, the man has his faults and I would have liked to have seen some reasoned and balanced criticism of him, instead of the deranged attacks that howl at the moon even when the moon isn’t there. But he also has virtues, and one of them is the way he does “tribal” diplomacy: He doesn’t make condescending claims of being one of the ordinary people, and he doesn’t expect ordinary people to treat him as one of “our betters.” Instead he treats them like members of a different tribe that he can have friendly diplomatic relations with.
DJT is often obnoxious and vulgar, and as president he gave offices to scumbags like Scarramucci and John Bolton who should have been kept as far away as possible. He sometimes lapsed and caved to the media and deep state, such as when he made the pointless air strikes against the Assad government. That all said, Trump was the best president since Eisenhower, maybe even Harding and Coolidge. Certainly one of the bravest presidents. I don’t think even Richard Nixon faced such a hostile media and power elite.
I do believe that American and British politics is more insane now than it was while i was residing in the US or UK.
More insane by a significant margin.
Going further back in time, people were, on average (or rather, on median), less intelligent (lower IQ) but not necessarily less sane. The lower IQ might have had had something to do with a diet poor in proteins; and also with women giving birth at an earlier age.
The fun thing is all these people leaning heavily towards punishment and imprisonment, fervently believe such measures only target the other side, and not them. After all, they are virtuous, and the virtuous are instantly recognised and thus ‘safe’ from potential miscarriages of justice, or just plain old government overreach.
However once the dictatorial powers start picking on all those once in favour of such draconian measures (and somehow ignoring virtue-signalling) there will be one hell of a shock to the systems of the ‘good and faithful.’
I am old enough to remember the 1970s, so… not really. The breathtaking disconnect from reality back then was different in many ways but no less bonkers.
@ Albion’s Blue Front Door
Whenever one of my friends with what I like to call “non-traditional sexuality” starts cheering for unconstitutional crap like the persecution of that poor baker in Colorado, I ask “What are you going to do, when they turn on you?”
I’ve yet to receive a reply that is either sensible or substantive.
Perry: fair enough.
I seem to remember reading a humorous personal account from somebody recovering from Thatcher Derangement Syndrome, who had joined a support group called I Was Embarrassingly Left-Wing in the 80s.
But that does not account for American politics. Surely, electing Carter was not as insane as electing Biden?
BTW when i remember that, during the Cold War, the 2nd largest party in Italy was the Communist Party (PCI) and the 4th largest was the crypto-fascist party (MSI), i feel more optimistic.
Snorri Godhi,
Source?
Shlomo: see the Flynn effect.
Of course, nobody knows what the average IQ was before IQ tests were introduced, but i should think it a fairly safe bet that it wasn’t higher than right after the tests were introduced. At least, not since people started eating grains, at which point human brain size was reduced by a significant amount.
Ancient Athens might also have had a significantly higher average IQ.
But remember, back in 1976, people were actually trying to elect Carter. People voted eagerly for Carter even though his opponent was an amiable nullity. In 2020, people were mostly trying to block Trump. The choice of Biden was incidental.
In that context, I think that the height of insanity occurred in 1976.
Deep Lurker – voting Republican often WORKS at State and local level, so it is worth voting.
Do not want your store or home robbed and then have the robber laugh at you on the street – not prosecuted or only given a token punishment? Then vote Republican for such things as D.A. and PREVENT that. Whole cities (once great cities) are dying because THEY VOTED DEMOCRAT – it really is that brutally simple.
Do not want a Covid lockdown, or “Climate” insanity (or the rest of the international “governance” stuff) – then make sure a conservative Republican wins the Primary and get out and support him or her at general election time.
Perry – I think you will agree that the 1970s in Britain are best summed up by Terry Arthur’s “95% is crap”.
The establishment were insane then – just as they are now. But, yes, in a different way.
One thing remains constant – they know nothing about economics. And that includes the business establishment.