Round Up

Editor’s Note: Last Redoubt comes back after a couple of weeks without posting.

It’s been a while, and I’ve accumulated a few odds and ends that don’t call for a full post.

Hate is bad. So we are told. Of course, the same people will gladly tell us that “White Lives Don’t Matter“.

I know, I know, they’ll tell you that it’s not “white lives” as in “the lives of white people,” but instead “white lives” as in “lives lived as if you were white” – she even somewhat clarified it.  Leaving aside you’d think that a college professor would be aware of the implications of her choice of words, AND that if she actually meant the latter she’d say the latter more explicitly than she did, it doesn’t make things better.

First, by her definition, if we took away the “white lives” white people were living – because they don’t matter – we’d be doing what? Rounding them up into gulags? They’d still be alive. We wouldn’t be murdering them (for now). We’d just be taking away everything tied to their identity and crushing their souls, whereas her identity does matter.

Me? She doesn’t care about my “white life”, I don’t feel obligated to care about hers.

Second – if you follow academic thought – mainstream enough that the Smithsonian saw fit to publish it – “whiteness” and white culture are a good thing, and I’ll proudly lay claim to it. Look at the below and tell me – accounting for a few stupidities like “bland is best” and some weaponized spin – that any peoples living by that template will not find success?

Funniest is that without the gray header block, it would not only be a reasonable description – again, accounting for skewed language – but would be “inclusive” in a way that these traits would not be exclusively white, vice the total pattern. That block makes it clear that these are all foreign to black culture.

You won’t find it posted online anymore at the Smithsonian – as soon as the spotlight shone on it and people asked questions, the museum realized that it made for horrible optics to take the mask off that way.

When it comes to culture, if I have to choose between what is listed above, and other options, I’ll take white, thank you.

For people looking to do a lot of dry-fire training, and wanting something that can give them a bit more bang for the buck, look at these laser training tools. There are simulated Glocks, and even a drop-in replacement for the bolt carrier group on an AR complete with a trigger reset, that allows you to go around and practice drawing and firing, with feedback on where you are pointing the weapon. There is also software to spot the laser and help evaluate your accuracy. Not cheap, but given ammo availability and costs these days, it isn’t as expensive as it looks.

Reddit is deemed to have a hate speech problem – it is just full of uncontrollable hatey haters. There have been repeated calls to “do something.”

And Reddit listened:

Reddit users who keep tabs on potential hate crime hoaxes via the popular subreddit are met with a label notifying them that “r/hatecrimehoaxes has been banned from Reddit.” The page also notes that the page was banned for “violating Reddit’s rule against promoting hate.”

Pointing out that lying grifters are playing victim to stir up sympathy and anger against the group of people supposedly oppressing them is now hate speech and beyond the pale. Reddit assures people though that this isn’t about banning conservatives:

Company executives said there is still a place for Trump supporters and conservatives on Reddit. “There’s a home on Reddit for conservatives, there’s a home on Reddit for liberals,” Benjamin Lee, Reddit’s general counsel, told reporters. “There’s a home on Reddit for Donald Trump.”

There’s a home for these people – but they should know their place. We won’t let them say hateful things, even the truth about people who hate “conservatives” or whites, or anyone else who is not sufficiently woke. As long as they obey like good little sheep they can stay out of the gulag.

The Didact takes a look at Toe Rogan moving out of California, and makes some excellent points about delaying full rights to make decisions in the new home until time has been spent integrating and acquiring skin in the game.  I’m sure we can debate numbers, but I don’t find ten years unreasonable before being able to vote in local affairs. While a three-generation requirement on voting on national affairs would exclude me, I’ve also seen first hand how second and third gen immigrants behave, and don’t integrate – there’s a strong argument for that as well.

Speaking of reciprocity, I’m fully on board with Alexander Hellene (author of the excellent The Last Ancestor), when it comes to Fed law enforcement in the PNW.

There comes a time in everyone’s life where you realize that, in one sphere or another, playing by the rules is a sucker’s game. When you are expected to be a good little law-abiding citizen fighting for the constitutional rights of every man while the other side, whomever that may be, gets to beat the snot out of you and burn your stuff down with impunity as the police look on, you either realize the true nature of the game or you slide further into irrelevance.

It is, as he notes later, about reciprocity. They unrepentantly won’t follow the rules, and are declaring themselves outlaws. You don’t have to bind yourself by the “rules of (political) warfare” for those who won’t follow them – a side using hospitals as fire bases can’t morally complain if said hospitals are targeted.

This is because those who find fists and fire, deplatforming and disemploying you so you can’t feed your family–and find it funny–as valid forms of political expression, as long as you don’t get to do the same to them, have no shame.

You can’t shame those who want you dead.

When some hardcore progressives start risking all to replatform and re-monetize and re-hire and rehabilitate the reputations of various rightie personae non grata, when they vociferously defend us and decry their own side with the same passion that conservatives are willing to throw their own fighters to the wolves, when they lay down their Molotov cocktails and Marxist aims, and police their own murderous extremists… then maybe I’d shed a tear when Federal agents drag them off the streets of America’s failing cities.

Jon Mollison takes a look at the latest release in the Yankee Republic series. I’ve read the first two, and it looks like I’ll have to catch up.

Alexandru Constantin takes a look at a book I haven’t read, but will be going on my to-read pile.

The novel is beautifully written in an atmospheric mythical tone that blends the real and the metaphysical. Time flows in peculiar ways and prophesy and visions become reality. Religion and spirituality are not tacked on, but part of everything from the healing herbs to the fish in the rivers to the ebb and flow of the river ice. The candle illuminating an icon in a plague room is real and powerful just like the wild holy fools that spend their days throwing rocks at invisible demons are taken seriously. Laurus brings the Russian Orthodox medieval world to life, not just through description but by giving us a glimpse into the intellectual and spiritual perspective of medieval Russian life but expertly illustrating its universal relevance to our world.

Finally, Jon Mollison takes a look at putting the toothpaste back in the tube. Specifically, at what we know and don’t know about how Corona-chan gets around.

Anyway, I’m not a doctor or epidemiologist.  I’m just a humble scientist who collects data and uses it to understand how best to protect human health and the environment from the inevitable industrial “whoopsies” that occur in any complicated system.  I’m not here to tell you how to live your life, except to encourage you to doubt everything you hear from official sources, and to take comfort in the fact that things are getting better all over.  Stop worrying so much, and get back to living.

A couple notes on masks: I get why people are pissed at them – they are utterly dehumanizing when pushed upon entire populations instead of just people with whatever flu trying to keep the spread down. The thing is, it’s not just bigoted rednecks who think the masks are unnecessary… though the SATW comic does push the “yay socialized health care” a bit more than is seemly. They do have a point about the higher degree of health consciousness and fitness that still holds more true in northern Europe. And a lot of the people pushing the “wear your mask, you whiny bitch” line mocking breathing and other issues are relying on their authority as health care professionals to shame others. I’ve also seen them ignore the breathing issues related to not knowing how to properly breathe in a mask (hint, deep and slow, not short and shallow) and mock people instead of teaching them. I’ve also watched them ignore how many homemade and other “recommended” masks obstruct airflow more than a number of medical models – an issue for those who’ve caught COVID and are still recovering, or with asthma, etc.

Don’t get me started on glasses fogging up.

I’ve seen maskers berate old people for not wearing a mask in public or restaurants. “You are risking your life!”

Maybe they want to live and not merely be alive?

There is evidence that the biggest factor in the death rate is, indeed, the inherent health of the population and not how quickly the virus spreads through it (as the comic I linked somewhat notes). I’m less certain about claims that the failure of medical professionals to obsessively wash their hands between every contact is the major cause – but they certainly don’t wash as often as they should, and it certainly is a factor. I’m also wondering if slowing down the spread has given more time for different strains to evolve, and thus to keep the infection going. I’m also pretty sure that we should have kept things more normally open while focusing more of our efforts on containing the sick instead of the healthy. It’s much worse than the typical flu, but not the massive death toll we were told to expect, even with measures in place.

As to PPE, masks help – somewhat. Gloves don’t – mostly.

Gloves first:

Unlike radcon contaminants, you’re not going to be absorbing the virus through your fingertips. The gloves don’t protect you – especially if you then touch your face and nose. The gloves also do nothing to prevent you spreading the virus by then touching other surfaces  after you’ve picked it up (unless, of course, you keep discarding them).

Masks. If the virus is truly airborne, the mask will do little to prevent you from getting the virus.

That said, as has been noted as to why in Asia masks are common among those who have the flu, what it does is massively cut down on how much exposure everyone else gets. Sure, the smallest particles may still get airborne, but the large water drops that come out when you cough or sneeze will still be trapped instead of getting on everyone. And thus, so does the majority of the virus bits you expel.

It also minimizes your ability to get a virus by touching your face, especially around the nose and mouth.

Oh, and just because…