35 Comments

"there is no other option for realists except to call themselves Republicans."

Indeed. Being Gen x, and growing up in a blue collar neighborhood, the notion that I'd ever "identify" (to use a trendy word) as a Republican was risible. Yet, here I am. Rock-ribbed Republican.

Expand full comment
Sep 21, 2023Liked by William M Briggs

Over the last couple years, I have met several self-proclaimed socialists and anarchists declare their support for Trump because of the COVID insanity. One was a woman who grew up on a Kibbutz and who campaigned for Bernie. I recall her casually mentioning Eugyppius in a conversation and suggesting that much of the DNC should be arrested. Strange bedfellows!

Expand full comment

Any fan of Bernie's should automatically be dismissed as incompetent.

Expand full comment

"Be cautious when speaking in generalizations."

Expand full comment

I count myself as competent enough to have swum away from his boat after the second time he rolled it over.

Expand full comment

A minority faction doesn't have the luxury of dismissing allies

Expand full comment

Many of us on the "Right" today probably would have found a home in the Democrats of the 50's-70's due to them being a party that supported the working man and resistance to megacorp tyranny. I would have had issues with the support for sexual deviancy and murdering the unborn because women hate responsibility, but man would it be nice to have a party that isn't globalist controlled and cared about the hoi poi.

And the rigged system doesn't help. Even if we were to form a "Realist" party platform, it would have to work within the uniparty wings. Technically MAGA is just that for the Reps.

Expand full comment

So abortion is about "women hate responsibility"?

Technically it's not a uniparty. The DEMONRATS are infinity more culpable for the insanity unleashed in the world today.

Be cautious when speaking in generalizations.

Expand full comment
Sep 21, 2023Liked by William M Briggs

There are two parties in the US, the 'Haves" (0.5%) and the "Have-nots" (99.5%)

Politics is a stupid charade set up to amuse the 99.5% and to give them the impression that they matter. They don't.

A quote from a 1924 edition of the American Banker's Association not intended for the public sums up what is currently happening all around us:

"Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through the process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers. These truths are well known among our principal men who are now engaged in forming an imperialism to govern the world.

By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance.

It is thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished."

I repeat "By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance."

Both parties take their instructions from the same 0.5% and they always will.

"I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world. "

"There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress. "

Mark Twain

Expand full comment

Fighting of questions of no importance! Exactly what I'm saying. The whole LGBTQ, climate alarmisms are easy topics to make people divide and argue about absolutely useless topics! Meanwhile the political class steals the roof above your head.

Expand full comment

Thanks Vix, please see response to Cathleen below.

There are always issues that can be exploited and have been since ancient Sumer.

Expand full comment

PJ London: exactly. Note how most comments on Substack virtually always devolve into the republicans vs. democrats arguments, no matter what the subject matter of the post. It appears people are going to continue being distracted by this until the frog is fully boiled.

Expand full comment

Sorry this is a bit long but ....

"Matt had made a comment about using both the ‘Government’ and the ‘Opposition’ in applying for aid, as often the opposition could pressure the government to action.

The President said “I blame it on Socrates, of course. They put him to death, but it was too late, the rot had set in. Plato was a wimp who extended it and made it worse, but claimed he was just reporting what Socrates had said. And Aristotle, well he spread the disease by expanding and teaching Plato’s philosophy to Alexander the Great who then pushed the sickness onto half the world.”

Matt was non-plussed, “Er quite,” he said, “What exactly was it that Socrates did?”

“He started the idea that one should humiliate and embarrass those who disagreed with you.

That the only ‘formal’ means of discourse was adversarial debate. That a ‘perfect’ answer or solution was better than a marginally imperfect one, regardless of the damage and hurt caused by the answer. There had always to be a winner and a loser when arguing an issue. Socrates was of course always the winner.

Plato went on to embody ‘dissect and analyse’ as the only method by which knowledge is gained. Aristotle then dissected and analysed everything he could get his hands on. Creating lists and genera and classes, dividing by appearance and by function, trying to list the causes of everything he saw. He started by dividing everything into one of three groups, but found this too complicated for most people so he reduced his divisions into two groups. Everything had to be one of two choices, a dichotomy one can see to this day. Republicans and Democrats, Labour and Conservatives, Pro Life and Abortionist. Only the extremes are permitted, what happened to the vast ground in between? Plato in teaching rhetoric called it ‘Argument by excluded middle’.

What about recognising that both extremes have positive and negative aspects? Why not settle in the centre, why not embrace the positive and discard the negative from both, are they truly incompatible? People are conned into having to make a decision. They fight long campaigns, and spend enormous amounts of money, over whether the taxation rate should be 37% or 39%, and everybody has to pick one or the other.

Why don’t we rule by consensus? What is the hurry? Why is it that a decision that has been waiting for 20 years or 50 years has to be made by Wednesday? If the decision is right, it will still be right on Thursday, but if it is wrong a million people could be harmed over the next ten or 50 years. If you can’t convince all the people around you, how can they convince the people around them? Hippocrates in politics, ‘First do no harm’, not to anyone, not even your enemies. Of course, if you don’t do any harm, you don’t have many enemies.

We have to stop this vitriolic ridicule and humiliation of anyone who does not subscribe to your views.

There may not be a cosmic law that says the world must be filled with happiness and love, but I couldn't find a law that says it has to be filled with bitterness and hatred either.”

"divide et impera" which is why they hate single "party" societies.

Expand full comment

PJ London - thank you. Excellent. It seems the word ‘compromise’ no longer exists.

Expand full comment
Sep 21, 2023Liked by William M Briggs

"Except that once you embrace Fantasy, you can’t stand being reminded of reality—for reality is harsh and unforgiving. Much better to impose your beliefs on others and make them by force of law lie to you, as you lie to yourself."

Excellent summation of the seemingly inexplicable ability of some to wrap themselves in a warm blanket of self delusion.

Expand full comment

A concise explanation of where we are as a nation... Fantasy Land. Our whole nation is now resting on a foundation of fantasy-induced FRAUD. Every major institution - both public and private - is rotten to the core with FRAUD.

Expand full comment
Sep 21, 2023Liked by William M Briggs

There's actually a recent book called Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, by Kurt Anderson. It goes into the historical underpinnings of American tendencies toward fantasy. Pretty interesting. https://www.kurtandersen.com/fantasyland

Expand full comment

Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.

Expand full comment

There are some interesting ideas in there. I recommended it to my book group, and while people didn't buy fully into the hypothesis (especially religious people), it sparked a really good discussion afterwards.

Expand full comment

Yes, I read the blurb and figured I’d struggle with connecting being a Christian to being in a fantasy. Also, based on the book blurb, it seems as if he thinks supporting Trump is believing in a fantasy. I’m firmly in the opposite camp: if you don’t understand how critical America First policies are to economic and national security, then you are living in fantasy land. Thanks for the book recommendation!

Expand full comment
Sep 21, 2023Liked by William M Briggs

This article truly took a "brutal" although artistically and imaginatively and regarding the truth pleasant turn.

Although I happen to agree on the general idea of "a spectrum" it cannot be denied that there is NO SUCH THING regarding THE TRUTH!

In the material there either is a wall or there is no wall. And of course just because there was yesterday a wall it doesn't mean that there is tomorrow a wall etc. pp. ... So in essence what I am trying to express is, that a yesterday democrat can become a saint and visa versa at any time! Which means no-one is lost or saved till the last trumpet! Whatever that means!? So everyone watch out ...

Expand full comment

To the man next to Him on the cross: "...today you shall be with me in paradise."

Expand full comment

Since the Bible is clear that the dead in Christ will rise from their graves when Jesus returns, it is good to read that Jesus had an sardonic sense of humor to the very end.

Expand full comment
Sep 21, 2023Liked by William M Briggs

Regarding the first chart showing sexual orientation by confessional background: as I pointed out on Twitter, the only number that actually matters is % gay; the "something else" and "bisexual" students are almost certainly left-leaning young women and spiritual women (read: "men") without the slightest hint of same sex attraction taking advantage of social conditions to appear more hip. That they would be compelled to do so is depressing to be sure. The upshot, though, is that the number of sexual minorities in the more conservative faiths is negligible—clear evidence yet again that many if not most are indeed not "born this way."

Expand full comment

That was my line of thought too-- that the only sexual orientation category other than "straight" that really matters is "gay". That's a self-assessment that actually means something. "Bisexual", or being attracted to both sexes, is probably real too, but it could vary radically between maybe 5% and 50% depending on whether the person were assessing their practice or their deepest fantasies. "Something else", of course, is wide open, and suggests that the self-assessor either has no sexual interest or is overthinking the question.

Expand full comment
Sep 21, 2023Liked by William M Briggs

P.S. That chart is genius.

Expand full comment

Agreed. The basic concept is genius. The artwork, on the other hand...

Expand full comment
Sep 21, 2023Liked by William M Briggs

Ah, the artwork. Clearly the work of his enemies.

Expand full comment
author

They are everywhere.

Expand full comment

It appears that the communications and interdisciplinary fields in the graph have a denominator of zero and thus reach their own sort of infinitEy. So, even though Anthropology has 133:1 ratio it is a much shorter line than communications at 56:0 and interdisciplinary at 108:0 which are rated equally. See the difference between unanimous idiocy and a lone voice raised in favor of reality, Contra Mundum

Expand full comment

Your drawing is brilliant! I saved it for future reference.

Expand full comment
author

I am even now in contact with Hunter Biden's art dealer.

Expand full comment

I can confirm that Briggs, with this artistic masterpiece, is precisely 38% more skilled in artistic rendering than in his previous effort. Imagine the right half of that graph hanging on a dartboard (if weapons are allowed in the building that declared the Rosary a weapon) at the Atlantic! Bravo!

Expand full comment

Not sure where you would include...”the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, (and) d*ckheads...”

Expand full comment
author

Pen them in and let's see if we agree.

Expand full comment