Snap Takes on the Various and Sundry

Brief comments on some current events.

First, Angela Merkel is stepping down as head of the Christian Democrats, and she has announced that she will not run again for chancellor.  Although this means she will step down no later than 2021, the unravelling nature of end games makes it highly likely that she will depart sooner than that.

I remember distinctly being in Europe in March, 2017 when Merkel met Trump.   Everybody was flapping their gums about how now Merkel was now leader of the free world, due to Trump’s abdication of the post, and his general unfitness for it had he not abdicated it.

And now Angela can’t even lead Germany.

Further proof that conventional wisdom is the province of idiots, the intellectually lazy, and conformists.  Not that anyone is embarrassed by their fawning over her in 2017, but that is par for the course for idiots, etc. etc.

Merkel’s demise was the result of her arrogance, as relating to the issue of immigration in particular.  It’s usually the arrogance of the long-in-power that is their downfall: only the specific issue that brings them down differs between cases.  No, Angela’s fate is just another illustration of Enoch Powell’s observation: “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”  And I should add, human nature.  Or, as the movie Patton noted: in their triumphs, in the chariot behind the emperor stood a slave who whispered in his ear: “All fame is fleeting.”

Second, the left and the media (but I repeat myself) are stooping to a particularly scurrilous tactic to defend the execrable George Soros against any criticism.  According to them, any criticism of the sainted speculator is not based on substance.  Oh no.  It is driven by anti-semitism.

As someone whom revealed preference has proven beyond cavil to be non-antisemitic (either that, or the most masochistic anti-semite in history), I say: bollocks.  Indeed, it is worse than that: it is a cynical slander intended to intimidate people into silence.

People on the right despise Soros because he is a hard core leftist, who is the most beneficent funder of leftist causes–including the most malign of these causes.  Just as one of the conservative or libertarian persuasion can dislike Obama (or Kamala or Spartacus or Eric Holder–and I can tell them apart!) because of their politics and not because of their race, one can dislike Soros without being an anti-semite, and to suggest otherwise is disgusting and dishonest.

You see, the left can hate the Koch brothers because they are evil, but if you despise Soros—well, you’re a bigot.

See how that works?

Third, and relatedly–the appalling campaign to exploit and politicize the horrific Pittsburgh synagogue shooting by blaming it on Trump.  Yes, Trump is a bumptious bully, and an epic trash-talker.  Like classic needlers in sports, he has the knack for identifying someone’s vulnerability and sensitivity and drilling into it relentlessly, and causing the target to lose their concentration, and often their minds.  (You know what I mean, right, Liz?)

But in fact, this behavior is very personalized–which is what makes it effective–and not bigotry–which by definition is not individualized.  And the claim of anti-semitism is particularly outrageous.  Trump is the first president with Jewish grandchildren.  Indeed, when they are not shrieking about Trump’s anti-semitism, the left is having conniptions about the outsized influence of the Jewish father of those children, Jared Kushner.  Hell, Bloomberg even has a “journalist” assigned full time to investigate the Kushners.  (Said “journalist” is the uber-twat/smear specialist David Kocieniewski.  I guess I should feel honored that the twat went after me before turning his malign attentions to the Kushners.)  Trump’s support for Israel is unprecedented in American history.  Strange manifestation of anti-semitism, that.

Further, the causal connection between political rhetoric and the acts of the deranged is asserted, but never proved: indeed, the hypothesis is never actually tested.  It is yet more intellectual dishonesty and intellectual laziness: a particularly sloppy application of post hoc ergo propter hoc “reasoning” to political speech and criminal acts.  What’s more, the “reasoning” is never applied symmetrically: the far more blatant and direct calls to direct action, including violence, by leftist politicians is never blamed.

This reflects systematic attacks on free speech generally.  And mark my words: the more you suppress speech, the more likely dissent will be expressed through violence.