Power Wins

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

A preacher showed up on campus a couple of weeks ago. He comes every spring and preaches in the quad about the ills of sexual immorality. We are a public university, and he has the First Amendment right to speak freely on public land. This is exactly the argument he was trying to make as the campus police dragged him away.

We have a large stone in the quad, and there is a tradition of students spray painting messages on it. It was fun to see what students would come up with every time. Then the administration introduced a new regulation that every message has to be pre-approved. You have to file paperwork and wait for your message to be studied and deemed appropriate. That kind of killed the whole long-standing tradition right there.

There are no rights without power.

Liberals and Leftists

~ Clarissa ~ 1 Comment

I’m a conservative because both these approaches are the product of boundless individualism. They are about catering to the unhinged, impossible to satisfy “gimme, gimme, gimme” of a desiring maw of need that is a human who doesn’t recognize boundaries. Whether this desiring human demands power or rights is not that important.

The quoted poster is absolutely right in that both a liberal and a leftist appoint themselves to be the judges of Good and Bad. They bicker about what that is but the underlying principle that it’s up to them to figure it out remains intact. They can’t conceive of a limiting principle that lies outside of themselves and that they don’t immediately need to violate. They see themselves and their whims as the measure of everything. They are always owed. Whether they are owed power or rights or endless consideration for their feelings doesn’t matter.

In reality, this distinction between wanting power and wanting rights is unimportant. If rights are the most important thing, soon enough you’ll need a lot of power to wrangle more and more exotic rights out of others. We’ve all seen the creation of a disciplinary apparatus to ensure the right of some men to force people to call them women. We’ve all been forced to sit 6 feet apart so that some of us could exercise their right to feeling less anxious.

Epitome of Trolldom

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

This is really cool, people. Please watch for two minutes of joy to close out the day:

Short-form and Focus

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

I’m not entirely sure what “short-form videos” are. Any video under an hour is insulting to me. Two and a half hours is a much more respectable duration. Short-form are TikToks, right?

In any case, what I recommend is reading novels. Long novels. Or even novelistic universes such as Trollope’s or Balzac’s. These are excellent for focus.

Rotisserie Dilemma

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

It definitely makes sense for people on food stamps. But it will be a punishment for everybody not on food stamps because it will immediately drive the price way up.

Sincere Bickering

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

I’m surrounded by groups of very good, kind, sincere people who are engaged in petty bickering and needless drama. At work, at church, everywhere. They are all great people. I like all of them. They are all upset with me for not taking sides but they are all right to an extent and also wrong to an extent. Like we all tend to be since we are all human.

I understand why it’s annoying that I prance in and out with a beatific look on my face while everybody is denouncing each other. But my inner peace is very hard-won and I’m not giving it up.

Perspectives of Warfare

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

Medvedev is a washed out drunk but on this issue he’s right. This is exactly why I keep saying that the NATO is not real. The US has been at war in the Middle East for longer than I’ve been alive. Even that is getting harder and harder to sell to voters but that is the baseline. Adding active participation in a war in Europe to that universally disliked baseline is a political suicide for either party.

Instead of the fiction of NATO, there need to be serious, real, regional alliances. Europe hasn’t been preparing to defend itself because of the belief in the non-existent NATO. But America won’t be fighting in Europe because America will be Fighting in the Middle East. I hate it, too, but it’s reality. Let’s live in that reality already.

On a somewhat related note, if a day comes when Ukraine participates in any war to liberate Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, potentially the Baltics, etc, that’s the day on which my support for Ukraine ends. I’ve heard some rumblings in that direction and they are probably idle chatter but just to make it clear.

Invented Case Law

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

This is disturbing:

How far away are we from lawyers on both sides arguing based on invented case law and the judge allowing it because his case law is also invented?

AI invents things. I ask it for simple book lists, and 40% of books on them are invariably completely made up. I asked for a list of Mexican presidents since 1990, and was horrified to find Porfirio Díaz on it. AI does this with the simplest tasks. It creates very biased narratives that aim to please the person who wrote the prompt. That gigantic, wealthy law firms use AI to write their briefs is extremely disturbing.

It’s annoying to me that people refer to the fake texts generated by AI as hallucinations. AI is not human. It’s an algorithm that creates plausibly sounding texts that might of might not coincide with reality.

Unable to Accept Reality

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

Every single news outlet on the Dem spectrum today came out with the line that SPLC’s payments to racist organizations were completely normal payments to “informants.” That these “informants” would get sums ranging in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars isn’t taken into account when this explanation is advanced.

I can’t imagine finding out that TPUSA kicked back $250,000 to a BLM chapter and trying to find a justification. I’d condemn them heartily and with ease. But the Left seems unable to demonstrate the same intellectual agility it demands from everybody else.

You were wrong about this organization. Acknowledge it and move on. But no, they’ll keep inventing the most pathetic excuses instead of accepting reality.

Positive News

~ Clarissa ~ 1 Comment

Some positive news in addition to those from yesterday:

A lot of money and effort goes into convincing us that everything is terrible and nothing works. In reality, things are getting better in several areas of life.

That there is no actual organized racism in our country is excellent news. That criminals are brought to justice is also excellent news.