Surfing around Instagram, you will find a large number of scantily-clad women travelling the world petting cute little animals, talking about “body positivity” and posing provocatively, generally with the juicy bits only barely covered enough to avoid attracting the attention of the censors. Invariably, every cause spouted by these Instagram ladies is boilerplate Leftism. Save the whales, maybe, or fat is beautiful, or white men are vaguely shitty and probably shouldn’t even exist. Also, Christianity is crap, and Atheism is morally superior to the zombie sky wizard.
Now, we roll our eyes at this and go about our business. Why, after all, should we worry excessively about near-porn fusing with idiotic Leftism?
Truthfully, this is a massive problem. Leftism is seen, even by most Rightists, as the default position. It’s the ‘no thinking required’ setting. If you want to spout some kind of philosophical nonsense to make yourself look smart and cultured while your boob is falling out, you do Leftism. It’s easy rhetoric. Hey look, there’s a man with no fish. Saying “somebody should give him a fish, look he’s starving” is the easy rhetorical answer. Defeating this argument is simple with dialectic, but few people care about dialectic. It’s boring. Nerdy. Too many words. Better to just call somebody a bigot and move on.
Defeating Leftism with rhetoric is much more difficult. For not only must you use a convincing argument, that argument must be truthful and honest. The Leftist may use deceit without remorse, because to him the end justifies the means. You may not. Furthermore, Leftism itself is tailored toward sounding good. Rightism is full of unpleasant truths about human nature and the how things work in the real world. People don’t like to hear these things. Only when it comes to money does Rightism have a rhetorical advantage. Even the most ardent Leftist feels the pinch of the tax man.
This means superficial Instagram would-be porn stars are going to spout Leftism. It requires minimal intellectual investment. And in order to please these attention-seekers, hordes of thirsty men will likewise spout Leftism. After all, they want some of that boob that’s falling out. Sure, baby, climate change is a horrible tragedy. Want some dick? This effect is amplified by the constant Leftism spouted both blatantly and subtly by the media and entertainment establishments. Remember V for Vendetta? Or the Handmaid’s Tale? These are the caricatures bandied about by the establishment. You can have semi-nude Instagram girls, or you can have some kind of twisted theocratic dictatorship. Framed that way, who would choose the latter?
Delusional rhetoric is the centerpiece of Leftist thought. These people believe – or at least act like they believe – that we live in the most oppressive, terrible society ever, when it is far closer to the exact opposite. If a more tolerant society has existed, it certainly wasn’t for very long. Usually tolerance at the level we’re at today results in societal collapse – indeed, it may be heading that way now. But either way the point is, the oppression they crave, the oppression they rant about (not the contradiction it first seems) does not exist.
Bend over and let your thong bikini ride between your ass cheeks, snap a picture, and rant about how Trump is a racist… and you are rewarded with thousands of followers, likes, and comments mentioning “goddess.” Which, as a side note, has become something of an irritant to me. As a man, I don’t expect to be referred to as a “god” and, furthermore, would be somewhat pissed that somebody would refer to me that way. I’m not that arrogant. So what’s with this “zOMG you’re such a goddess” crap?
Anyway, I digress. Just notice how much society rewards people who claim oppression. It’s actually a benefit. People compete and jockey for oppression points, because the more you have, the more attention you get. Pop out a boob, and you get even more. Don’t have a boob? No problem. Call yourself trans – you don’t even have to shave the beard – and now you’re a goddess too. Stunning and brave, of course. Just make sure to tell everybody that Barbara Bush was a horrible racist and deserved to die. Then pop out a non-existent boob, and you’ll be flooded with positive comments.
Of course, if you’re trans and anything but a raging Leftist, expect the Blaire White treatment. You’re no longer stunning and brave, you sexist, transphobic transsexual. The contradictions don’t seem to bother them much.
It’s all mass delusion, but it’s a strange sort of self-reinforcing mass delusion. It’s like a brain virus, and once you have it, obtaining a cure is exceedingly difficult – because you have to realize that you are sick in the first place, something Leftism explicitly tries to avoid. Don’t question the narrative heretic… er… I mean racist. If there is any sort of religious dictatorship threatening to micromanage every facet of our lives, it’s coming from the Left, not the Christian Right. Of course, their dictatorship doesn’t make women wear strange red bonnets, but it does make you sign a consent form to have sex, so there’s that. The boob on Instagram is free, though.
All of this is simple rhetoric. And it all stems from something Francis at Liberty’s Torch said some time ago (I’ll have to dig up the link again later). White Christian men are the last group for whom hatred is celebrated. That, in polite company, you may trash and insult without mercy, and expect to receive accolades for it. The people of the in-crowd can take dumps on a God-fearing farmer of Podunkville, pat each other on the back, and go drool over Instagram girls saying they are going to end the objectification of women by wearing see-thru lingerie on the Internet. It’s easy rhetoric. There’s no social cost to it, and plenty of social benefit.
It is the ease of this rhetoric, the reward for it, that really pushes people into Leftism. Oh, sure, there will always be welfare queens and hardcore Marxists who spout this crap, but the regular Joe is responding to a need to be accepted. The middle manager trying to angle for promotion to the upper tier is saying what he thinks people want him to say. And yes, even the flaky Instagram girl is just responding to what will get her the most likes and comments.
It is the ease of this rhetoric that must be defeated more than the rhetoric itself. Even if a Milo or Ben Shapiro gets in a slick comeback; even if Thomas Sowell comes to the party armed with every economic statistic known to man and has them on immediate tap, it won’t be enough. Such victories are short-lived, and the culture at large goes back to ‘if you want upvotes, talk about Islamophobia!’ Rightists are fighting an enormous cultural current, and are doing so admirably. But it is the current itself that must be changed.
The bikini girl on Instagram should be at least as likely to talk about taxation as theft as she is to take rhetorical dumps on Donald Trump. Only then will the rhetorical battle be on level ground.
Well Thales,
I like this post (and the others). On the “enormous cultural current”, actually after making political hay for 40 or so years on calling Righties the “Man” the Left has become the “Man” without realizing it ……..and doing it all by themselves. You’ll notice it’s them that are the targets of derision and they hate it, but they have no idea what to do about it, it’s fun to watch.
I think the most potent response to anything the Left does or says is “I don’t care” and MEAN it. They have no idea how to deal with that. They are losing.
Ps. One reason they’re so easy is that they finally got some power and they’d rather cling to that more than anything else and it’s destroying them.
Yeah, “I don’t care” is one comeback. “I disagree” is another, it breaks the consensus that casual Leftists imagine that their views enjoy. Finally, there’s the Nike shoe company’s slogan, “Just do it.” Use that one when the neighborhood Leftist pops off with “somebody should give him a fish, look he’s starving”. Never let a Leftist feel benevolent as she places a burden on “somebody” (i.e., anybody but her). Press her to go catch the fish, gut it, clean it, cook it, then present the gift to he who is “starving”.
Be on guard. Act to make sure there are no free baskets for the Left.
If you’ll permit me the shallow comment of the day:
Some of those instagram chicks are DAMN HAWT!
😉
Sorry, folks. But if you’re still on FartBook, Twitter, Instagram… you’re part of the problem. It doesn’t matter what you say, feel, or argue. Your presence there is not akin to being on the battlefield. It is akin to being in a self-imposed prison and consenting to a skewed set of assumptions and rules.
I’ve been saying for years that the right cannot hope to win the cultural wars by fighting on the battlefields that the left chooses and using the rules that the left imposes.
Pull your heads out of your asses.
What? No to this salacious leftist content?
No links??
Three rules for confronting brownshirt/red-armband types in all their gloire are:
1) Tell it as it is: “The truth is out.”
2) Fight fire with fire: Fathead throws a brick, toss ‘im one of yours or gun ‘im down.
3) Hit ’em where it hurts: Gobbling retards are cowards, so confront ’em; they’re uniformly pork-ignorant, so spell things out; above all, they’re profoundly stupid, so baffle and confuse ’em with Reality (hot air rises, water flows downhill).
Do this by accepting nothing: Play tit-for-tat, for keeps; personalize everything (farmers oppress herds of heifers– ya like that sirloin rare?); bag generalities, “So, twitface, what’s in this for you?”
Though this requires a certain attitudinal take, it’s either you or them.
With specific application to the “Instagram aspect” of it, I could easily imagine Leftist tacticians pondering thus: “Hmmm, what identifiable group would be most useful to us as bellwethers to our political ideology?” And once they’d seduced all the major entertainment celebrities they could, what would be left?
That’s right: soft-core Web porn stars! Female, for preference. Best if they’re “well endowed” and have just enough inhibitions to hold the line at a cameltoe rather than go “all the way” on a Web video. A little something held back always rakes in more eyeballs, don’t y’know.
Not everyone on the Left is stupid. Batshit crazy? I won’t argue. But they’re not all stupid — and they’ve been studying political tactics, soft and hard, since Karl Marx. (And before you ask: No, I’m not acquainted with any soft-core Web porn stars.)
The challenge is that the Left lives on emotion, whereas the Right needs to make the intellectual case. So we’re severely disadvantaged from the start. I used to think that facts could win the day. I no longer think that.
For example, that dreadful Handmaid’s Tale. It has a strong emotional pull and portrays the right and pro-lifers in the most terrible light possible. IMO, it’s pure projection.. But it sticks in peoples’ minds. While an extreme example, it is still representative.
So we need something similar, but the fact is that it’s very difficult to persuade someone into conservatism. We also face a huge disadvantage in that the Right of the US is dissimilar to the Right of the rest of the world.
It’s very difficult to speak with any sincerity in the world of business. Since I’m white, educated, professional, female, Catholic and from the Chicago metro area, the assumption is that I’m a liberal. I work in consulting so see a variety of the business and government world. People tend to speak freely since none of us could be those deplorable Right Wingers — or even worse, the Religious Right. But in turn, I can’t speak freely. After I get to know people, I do throw out a right wing insight or two, sounding very reasonable. But I’m definitely in the closet!
I’m not optimistic.
A wise man once said “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
With that in mind:
The Left has million of illegal voters and controls ballot boxes in crucial areas where they can insert votes from double/triple counts and dead people. With that, they can and will win house and senate control in 2018.
They’ll use that control and MSM support to essentially override the constitution. Gun control will become more severe and blue state/city confiscation efforts will be strongly encouraged and supported. Illegal immigration will be VERY strongly supported, especially to put illegals on voter rolls in purple and red states. Reparations will move much closer to execution. The tax reform bill will be forcefully repealed. Obamacare will be ‘revitalized.’ Impeachment proceedings against Trump will move forward VERY aggressively.
The emigration of the remaining middle class from Blue to Red states will grow, but these transplants will by and large bring their stupid political choices along to ruin the Red states where they settle.
The only thing that will save at least part of America will be secession. And it will be done thru no small amount of violence.
In all of this, what will the GOP do? Nothing. They are too timid, too cowardly, too corrupt. They’re clearly sticking quietly to their original plan – take the easy road and let the democrats take over, with the repukes serving as a token minority ‘opposition.’ That way, the democrats do all the heavy lifting and take all the heat, while the republicans believe they can sit back and quietly and passively participate in the new oligarchy as a junior partner. llinois appears to be their model.
When civilizations fail, they break apart into constituent components. There is a tribal element to it. Those fault lines are, at this point, easy to see all across America.
Western Civilization itself is failing. The Renaissance and Enlightenment have run their course. Yes, all other societies are doing what they can to ‘imitate’ Western culture in order to break out of the chains imposed by their own moribund societies and achieve some of the greatness that has characterized the West for 5 centuries. But the source itself is dying. Without the guiding example of that source, the ‘westernization’ of the Far East, Russia, India, the Dar al Islam and Africa will be muted, at best.
Along with America splitting apart, we’ll see the same in Europe. The slavic states will break away from the West; Britain will break away and fall into turmoil; Italy will break off and itself break apart. The german and scandinavian states will try to prop each other up and fail. Russian influence will grow mightily.
Trump is the last hope. But this is likely too much even for a “grey champion” of his caliber. Just be ready.
You’d think at some point there’d be a market opportunity for Instagram models to address the under-served conservative half of the audience. That opportunity is certainly emerging in fiction where independent authors are offering stories outside the narrow bound approved by mainstream gatekeepers.
I really liked your post as it articulated what I had been thinking myself, namely that it is very hard to fight against the feel good naiveté of the left. My neighbor has a “Free Tibet” bumper sticker on her car. Yet the only way to actually do that would be with troops and a considerable number of dead. But if I were to suggest this she would be aghast as she’s against violence, guns, and warfare. This, in a nutshell, is how I view the left. It’s all about the wish without respect for the reality.