Yes, the great science fiction visionary, Robert A. Heinlein (PBUH) an Annapolis grad and serving naval officer who was discharged for reasons of health early on in what might have been a promising naval career at the right time and in the right generation to have made a significant command mark in WWII, generated the concept of the crazy years. But I wonder if he had the slightest clue of the far-frozen limits of bug-house, chewing-at-the-restraints, raving-at-the-moon crazy that current political figures, media personalities, self-styled internet stars, and academic t*ats would achieve … and just in the last week or so. Really, under the old rules of civility, the ones that I grew to adulthood honoring, decent citizens would have just looked away, murmuring polite demurrals and excuses under their breath, while deleting the offending party from their address book and never inviting them to their neighborhood potlucks any more … but now the crazy has got to such an extent that one can hardly keep up.
The noisier prog/leftoids – and noisy because of the death-like grasp of their claws on the higher perches of the establishment media, entertainment, and the almost incestuous intertangling of prog-political with major media operatives and sympathizers, to the point that the rest of us can hardly escape having our ears battered with their concerns – have gone into overdrive. Yes, they have been going into steadily increasing levels of overdrive over the last two years, achieving orbital velocity in the past six months. But at some point, you have to think that they would all just melt down into a steaming puddle of outrage goo. From which you think (and would hope) that those who have not been paying much attention and are still recognizably sane and able to function meaningfully in this, our lamentably mixed-up, screwed up world would at least recognize that our noisy prog/leftoids in the media biz are not dealing from a full deck.
A comprehensive list would be … well, longer than I have the time and patience to enumerate. A look at the current headlines should be sufficient: the NAACP wants to impeach Trump for whatever, the brightest bulbs on the Dem election marquee are stoked at the impossible possibility of reparations and totally open borders, the black-clad black-masked minions of Antifa are planning a ten-day long bout of festivities in El Paso, Texas early next month (Yes, high desert West Texas, in head-to-toe black clothing in September, where temperatures are most likely to be in the high 90ies), it’s apparently a high crime to point out that mountains of trash and rat infestations on city streets are the responsibility of the managerial cadre and political leadership of that city, that Al Sharpton is the spiritual heir of Martin Luther King, and that sufferers from body dysmorphia ought to be indulged in their delusions of sexual identity.
Have we reached peak crazy yet? If not, then when, and how will we be able to tell. Discuss as you wish.
“Have we reached peak crazy yet?” In late 2015…which was 3 1/2 years ago (yikes!)….I posted Are We Living at the Intersection of These Two Stories?, the two stories being Heinlein’s ‘Year of the Jackpot’ and Ionesco’s ‘Rhinoceros’.
‘Year of the Jackpot’ posited a high level of crazy, the increase of which was being measured by the statistician Potiphar Breen. In my post, I mentioned several examples of *current* craziness, which seemed to match the examples cited in Heinlein’s story.
I’d say the current level of crazy does exceed that in observed in 2015. To measure the first and second derivatives and accurately assess the trends, we’d need a new incarnation of Potaphar Breen to construct a craziness index.
An Antifa meetup in El Paso, TX? Don’t Antifa goons know that Texas is a “shall issue” concealed carry state? Or are they ASKING to be shot? There are still a lot of people in Texas, and in the South in general, who believe that “He needed killin'” is grounds for justifiable homicide.
Being the total cynic that I am … I would think that the Antifa-ites are hoping to get a few of their ilk bleeding out in the gutter, purely for the Horst Wessel effect that such an incident would provide.
Sarge, this Caucasian Cluster Copulation [Hey, we Chinese have to have an equivalent expletive to the Fire Drill!] in El Paso may be one of the triggers for the violence.
I for one am expecting deadly political violence, including possible political assassinations by mid-2020. And no matter who wins in November, I expect violence to continue after the election. If the Democrat-Socialists win, they will want to take vengeance on those who opposed them knowing that they will be protected after inauguration day. If they lose, I expect an attempt at an overthrow of the government.
The TWANLOC enemy is concentrated in urban areas. Those loyal to the Constitution are concentrated in suburbs and rural areas. If the organic waste starts to impact the rotating airfoil, if you are a Constitutionalist, y’all need to remove yourself to safer areas.
Since TWANLOC are concentrated in cities, siege warfare would be a good theoretical field of study, since cities are totally dependent on constant imports of food, water, fuel, and electricity. For example, most cities have a 3 day supply of food in stores and warehouses at normal demand levels. Demand will not remain normal from the first hint of interdiction. Look at what happens in cities when hurricanes approach.
Don’t know how long till long pork is on the menu.
Subotai Bahadur
The Antifa remind me of nothing so much as the SDS Days of Rage, Join Us! Join Us! Join Us! or the Wobblies or Tea Partiers…back to the Peasant’s Revolt. There have always been losers who, under the direction of dissident elites, saw violent agitation as the means to overcome injustice. There is nothing new under the Sun, the poor will always be with you.
Mrs. Davis – the Tea Party was nothing like that: Not crazy, not losers, not particularly poor, either, I was there. Nice, middle-class concerned citizens, exercising our rights to have a say in how our civic affairs were conducted.
It’s astonishing to observe the cognitive dissonance in some people… They don’t trust the media, but they still parrot the talking points as if it they were truths handed down to Moses by God himself.
And, when you question these people, they run into dead-end alleys, and vapor-lock…
“Impeach Trump!!!”
“OK… What for? What are the charges?”
“He lied! He’s a Russian patsy…”
“Where did he lie? Where is the proof he ever worked for the Russians…?”
Confused sputtering, and the subject realizes that nobody has ever spoken about the specifics, and they have no idea what those are.
It’s a mess. More than half the public believes things they’ve been told, without proof, and they’ve just accepted them as true. Which does not bode well for the future…
}}} It’s astonishing to observe the cognitive dissonance in some people…
There’s a meme around — it’s based off the one with The Rock in the front seat, the daughter in the back, then The Rock looking back into the back like: “Are you insane?”
The first pic, he asks her “Still protesting police brutality this week?”
Her response is, “No, now we are saying only cops should have guns…”
The look he gives has rarely been more apropos….
We are approaching the singularity — except it’s the singularity of teh burning stoopid.
This is what you get when people substitute emoting for thinking.
Sgt Mom: In referencing the ‘Tea Partiers’, perhaps Mrs. Davis was referring to the orignal Tea Partiers – those agitators who made trouble just off Boston Harbor.
“never inviting them to their neighborhood potlucks any more”
That was before they could invite themselves…. with a legal system ready to back them up because that’s discrimination.
“An Antifa meetup in El Paso, TX? Don’t Antifa goons know that Texas is a “shall issue†concealed carry state? Or are they ASKING to be shot? There are still a lot of people in Texas, and in the South in general, who believe that “He needed killin’†is grounds for justifiable homicide.”
Kenneth, that would be before they imported enough illegal immigrants to turn El Paso and other areas reliably blue. Austin, San Antonio, and Houston get more press, but I guarantee you that Antifa will be operating under the protection of the El Paso PD. Most people aren’t angry enough to risk a tour through the legal system even with fair confidence that they’ll be acquitted…. and there are more than enough Democrat judges in the Texas and Federal court system to make that dicey.
Really, under the old rules of civility, the ones that I grew to adulthood honoring, decent citizens would have just looked away, murmuring polite demurrals and excuses under their breath, while deleting the offending party from their address book and never inviting them to their neighborhood potlucks any more
And there’s the problem. We became so civilized that we would not visit harm on those who would harm us.
In the days preceding the ones when you and I grew up, people spouting the sort of damaging craziness these folks do would not have been ignored. They would have been forcefully institutionalized, tarred and feathered, or simply met in some dark recess and given a ‘talking to’. This would have ended their craziness or they would have “moved on”.
Oh, and they never would have been able to form an organization. No matter how unorganized.
Civilization does make for ‘soft men’. And soft men bring down civilization by eating out its foundation.
SDN Says:
August 2nd, 2019 at 5:43 am
that would be before they imported enough illegal immigrants…
Well, they also imported all the aliens from places like Chicago and New York and (especially) California. They’re arguably much more alien to American values than the folks from south of the border.
The madness Sgt. Mom describes are illnesses of prosperity, the social equivalent of gout, obesity, and diabetes.
Recall the instantaneous return of respect for burly men on 9/11.
The Augean stables are cleansed not by pitchfork, but by deluge.
“They’ve gone to plaid!”
Read “Days of Rage” by Bryan Burrough. Puerto Rican independence group: Attempted assassination of Truman in 1950. Attempted mass shooting in Congress in 1954.
1970s: FALN bombings, supported by Episcopal church.
Weathermen bombings, supported by National Lawyers Guild.
Summary here. https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/
Sgt Mom: One has to grant that Heinlein himself proclaimed/promoted some crazy stuff.
In jr hi I began reading his books. Had read a bunch of ‘em by end of hi school. Even if I did not agree with some of his ideas, I strongly endorsed others and certainly appreciated a good yarn. But for a decade plus, including college and grad school I had little time for reading Heinlein (or lots of other leisure activities); just too busy studying, earning a living, sleeping. Later, as circumstances provided opportunity, I would read another of his books. Over the years I read nearly all of his books.
One cannot deny that Heinlein’s works display changes in what he presented/promoted if not a development in his thought. Some of these parallel what his biography tells one. But as early as the 1960s I could already discern an earlier, middle, and later Heinlein. Certainly no surprise to find that division in Wiki on Heinlein. Have Spacesuit Will Travel and Destination Moon have enormous differences in perceptions of reality than does The Cat Who Walked thru Walls. Heinlein went from sci-fi that had plausibility flowing from engineering awareness to sci fantasy where mind over matter controlled.
Some of his books got plain weird. Even granting liberty to sci-fi and fantasy as a genre to explore ideas and communicate cultural evaluation, Heinlein went beyond. Lazarus Long was not the only character or theme that suggested Heinlein longed (pun accidental) to escape the certainty of his death. He rather clearly agreed with Blood Sweat and Tears in saying there is no heaven and hoping there is no hell. Instead his characters often relied on some sort of transformation into another life stream, or were actual gods themselves. One sees this in Job a Comedy of Justice. While stranded in Houston on business, I spent time in the main library (one of the circumstances I mentioned above) and read To Sail Beyond the Sunset. A hope for escape stood out.
It seemed to me his weirdness relied upon a modern/post modern approach that shows up elsewhere to the extent it is “newspaper knowledgeâ€, so common one reads of it in the local paper. Some folks insist that only they themselves can choose (=determine) their gender. They reject any appeal to “Well, let’s just take a lookâ€, or the method used by Croc Dundee. Biology and DNA mean nothing in competition with their independent-self powered choice. Meanwhile, other folks insist that no one can say that they have chosen homosexual behavior that they can and ought change. They reply that they were born with that bent, that, indeed, calling it a behavior, a choice, involves suppositions they reject. Both of these groups rely upon self as final authority. Accept that foundation, man as god, then one can produce/justify whatever culture, whatever activity one wishes.
Ironically, then, imho Heinlein himself has helped champion crazy years.
Subotai: I read with sympathy your predictions of not-distant violence. And alarm, too. If one with your background and awareness thinks this, then certainly I have reason for concern.
Yet I don’t think so. My own experience has suggested another reality. All too often I have witnessed situations where “let the other guy go fight first, perhaps if enough join I will too†governed. Sure, people will fight when cornered. But they typically seem to desire nearly absolute certainty that they are actually cornered before they will take action.
Or, as SDN said above, “Most people aren’t angry enough to risk a tour through the legal system even with fair confidence that they’ll be acquitted….”
SDN: Kenneth, that would be before they imported enough illegal immigrants to turn El Paso and other areas reliably blue.
But I have been assured by Wise and Knowledgeable pundits at the Weekly Standard and Ricochet.com that we should cease our opposition to open borders because all those potential immigrants are Natural Conservatives who will certainly swell the GOP voter rolls and reliably vote against socialists and big government liberals. /sarcasm
Robert Arvanitis: “Recall the instantaneous return of respect for burly men on 9/11.”
Except on the far left: The Nation magazine and many university professors never wavered in their hatred and contempt.
Roy Kerns: “Heinlein… no heaven and…no hell…some sort of transformation into another life stream”
As a matter of fact, Heinlein believed in reincarnation and was convinced that he had lived before.
Roy: If we were talking about the average person, there would be no worries. The problem is that the leftist activists and politicians who want to pick fights, not just to go about their business.
“Sure, people will fight when cornered. But they typically seem to desire nearly absolute certainty that they are actually cornered before they will take action.”
For most people, yes. The status quo is fine, starting a fight puts that at risk, so they won’t fight unless cornered. But certain people want to fight when they’re sure they’ll win, so they think they have nothing to lose but plenty to gain. That’s what’s going on with the bakery/wedding cake nonsense. The problem of course is when they miscalculate.
The next Democrat president will try to ban most guns by fiat. At the moment they will lose in court. But it would only take one more liberal SC justice for them to win. And the majority of states, and the majority of counties in blue states, will refuse to comply. What then?
The next Democrat president will grant all illegals citizenship, basically Super-DACA. And they will probably win in court. And huge swaths of the country will deem every election after that illegitimate. What then?
And huge swaths of the country will deem every election after that illegitimate. What then?<
Have you read any of Kurt Schlicter's novels ? Start with “People’s Republic.”
I have to say it is very strange that after several days of talk of antifa coming to El Paso we get a massacre there by one of these strange ecofascist white supremacists. I don’t know what to make of it.
Pst314 “As a matter of fact, Heinlein believed in reincarnation and was convinced that he had lived before.”
Thanks. Bit of data I did not know. Certainly fits a good chunk of his writing.
Brian: “But it would only take one more liberal SC justice for them to win.”
Yep. You’ve just hit on what I thought a sufficient reason to vote for Trump despite all sorts of legitimate quibbles. What he would do with SCOTUS would probably set a course for the next 30 yrs, maybe much longer if SCOTUS would restrain some of the lawless lawfare. I was voting for the not figurative but actual life of great great grandchildren.
“And the majority of states, and the majority of counties in blue states, will refuse to comply (with a gun ban). What then?”
I hope they’d refuse. Not sure. Think of Roe, of Obergefel. But I think that the possibility of a such a ban would develop slowly enough that the refusal would become apparent before the ban made it through the Legislature. That would in turn result in some compromises, maybe even a reversal.
“The next Democrat president will grant all illegals citizenship, basically Super-DACA. And they will probably win in court. And huge swaths of the country will deem every election after that illegitimate. What then?”
That question worries me. I already sense some of that in comments (including some on Chicagoboyz) from people living in criminal immigrant invader high density locals. Maybe they have not yet thought an election illegitimate, but they have thought the local justice system untrustworthy and the local political apparatus sold out.