It is way too late for your Democrat friends to wake up. The country we loved
and wore the uniform for no longer exists. We had a good run and, if we're
lucky and on good days, good memories. It pains me to see what our kids and
grandkids are inheriting. Our fathers were the Greatest Generation. We seem to
have been the Greatest Failure Generation.
-----Original Message-----
From: dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: pa64@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <pa64@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Fri, Oct 15, 2021 11:15 am
Subject: [pa64] Re: Biden and Nothingness
We will find out in November if they have managed to lie their way into four
more years of power, or whether the majority really wants: unlimited illegal
immigration another $3.5Trillion of social welfare programs to help
transform our country while burying it economically complete authoritarian
government including control of the media the end of free speech
I hope not. Some of my Democrat friends have started to come to their senses.
One who now lives in Europe characterizes us as a "socialist paradise".
See recent Tulsi Gabbard Fox interview: this is not about Republicans vs
Democrats, but about freedom vs authoritarian government
-----Original Message-----
From: harrisfamily436 <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: pa64@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <pa64@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, Oct 14, 2021 11:12 am
Subject: [pa64] Biden and Nothingness
From today's WSJ.
Biden and NothingnessMeet Joe Biden, existentialist philosopher.Another of the
world’s famous existentialist phi-l osophers, Jean-Paul Sartre, wrote a book
called “Being and Nothingness.” Extending Sartre’s ideas on nothingness, Mr.
Biden recently said: “Every time I hear, ‘This is going to cost A, B, C or D,’
the truth is, based on the commitment that I made, it’s going to cost
nothing.”Overnight, Mr. Biden’s belief that his $3.5 trillion spending bill
will “cost nothing” became what fellow intellectuals call a “meme,” a thought
adopted and repeated by other people.The most notable Biden “cost nothing” meme
was created by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who while repeating it days later
held up her hand to form a zero. Some journalists then wrote elaborate
explanations of how Mr. Biden was correct that his trillions in new spending
would “cost nothing.”Our purpose here is not to refute the president’s
assertion that spending $3.5 trillion is cost-free. Instead, we want to
recognize the Biden statement as a tipping point in the way Americans conceive
reality, or what philosophers like Mr. Biden call consciousness.All the time
now, one hears people say, “I don’t know what’s going on anymore.” Or: “Maybe
it’s me, but I just don’t get it.” They don’t mean only in Washington. They
mean everything. We’re in a crisis of consciousness.Let me explain.The reason
many have come to feel cut off from reality is that so many others spend their
days creating alternative realities.Washington, to be sure, has become a
round-the-clock supplier of manufactured realities. Many Americans, for
instance, watch scenes on television of thousands of migrants crossing the Rio
Grande River into the United States. Nonetheless, Mr. Biden’s secretary of
homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, says the border is “closed” and “no less
secure than previously.”Mr. Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in August
the evacuation of Kabul couldn’t be called “anything but a success.” Ms.
Psaki’s skill at reordering reality for Mr. Biden is mesmerizing, and I say
without irony that she will be seen as an important figure in the
transformation from believing what is real to believing what we’re told is
real.Reality resets have become commonplace. In Chicago some days ago, Cook
County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx declined to prosecute any of the gang members
who staged a broad-daylight shootout in a residential neighborhood. Among the
reasons her office gave for not bringing charges was that the gangs were
engaged in consensual “mutual combat,” like in the movie “Fight Club.”The
relevant point here is that in our time more and more people—and not just in
politics—think they can say anything. We’re living in a Peter Pan world: “You
just think lovely wonderful thoughts and they lift you up in the air.” The
credibility cost is zero.The political class, a lagging indicator, is
assimilating changes in the general culture, which has been transitioning for
years from old-fashioned lies (“I didn’t do it”) to self-delusion (“What’s your
problem?”). Donald Trump inhabited both worlds. Social media platforms such as
Facebook and Instagram enabled people to assemble personal alternative
universes, which became “real” when their friends embraced the fake persona. A
similar manipulation away from plain reality has happened to politics on
Twitter.At Facebook’s scale, these reality-shifting habits and forces are
unprecedentedly powerful. Conspiracy theories proliferate, from QAnon to the
Russia-collusion narrative.Euphemisms are an important tool for asserting
alternative realities. Two of the most important are “reframe” and
“reimagine.”The New York Times’s “1619 Project” said its purpose was to
“reframe the country’s history.” Reframing is about displacing a proven reality
with mere assertion, something previously difficult but now
normalized.Wokeness, in its many manifestations, says it is about “reimagining”
the status quo. It has reimagined sex by asserting new pronouns; reimagined
race as a national “DNA” problem (“1619” again); reimagined merit in college
admissions; and reimagined crime control from Seattle to New York.Most
recently, the Art Institute of Chicago fired its staff of 82 volunteer docents
because most of them are older white women. The museum is going to reimagine
the docent function through “an income equity-focused lens.”Can the constant
assertion of alternative realities on such a scale endure? Maybe. They got this
far. But cracks in this facade are starting to appear.We began with Joe Biden
because he is president—the object of nearly universal focus by the public and
as such a constant national referendum. His statement that $3.5 trillion will
cost zero may have been born in the plausible view that many people today think
anything is possible. But let us agree: What he said did test the limits.The
most striking number in the recent, bleak Quinnipiac poll on Mr. Biden was the
23% support for his border policy. He says the border is “closed.” But
virtually everyone in America says, “No it isn’t.”All those people who today
say they just don’t get it may—in reality—be a majority. And they do get
it.Write henninger@xxxxxxx.WONDER LANDBy Daniel Henninger
