I dunno…I think I’d take my chances arguing with LambiePieK -- or even a Karen -- over taunting am enormous freakin’ ‘gator.
The video of the motorcycle rider in Lansing is, um, exceedingly vexing. If that carp continues, at some point, an honest, 2A citizen is going to defend themself against an armed, illegal “roadblock”…which is likely to be a baaaaad flashpoint.
It’s also a pointed reminder that, despite the fact we have an enormous amount of “government”, it cannot -- or will not -- perform it’s most basic constitutional duties.
Thanks for mentioning the Father Serra move -- that mission is a large part of Mrs Sven’s family history as her ancestors helped build it. Her family is quite protective in that regard.
This is long but -- IMO -- worth reading. It’s a letter allegedly written by Oriel College, Oxford to the students who are demanding removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes. It is the most erudite, toney and downright British GFY I’ve ever read.
I doubt it’s totally legit, but a wonderful rant nonetheless.
=======================
Dear Scrotty Students,
Cecil Rhodes’s generous bequest has contributed greatly to the comfort
and well being of many generations of Oxford students -- a good many of
them, dare we say it, better, brighter and more deserving than you.
This does not necessarily mean we approve of everything Rhodes did in
his lifetime -- but then we don’t have to. Cecil Rhodes died over a
century ago. Autres temps, autres moeurs. If you don’t understand what
this means -- and it would not remotely surprise us if that were the
case -- then we really think you should ask yourself the question: “Why
am I at Oxford?”
Oxford, let us remind you, is the world’s second oldest extant
university. Scholars have been studying here since at least the 11th
century. We’ve played a major part in the invention of Western
civilisation, from the 12th century intellectual renaissance through
the Enlightenment and beyond. Our alumni include William of Ockham,
Roger Bacon, William Tyndale, John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Erasmus,
Sir Christopher Wren, William Penn, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Samuel
Johnson, Robert Hooke, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Emily Davison,
Cardinal Newman, Julie Cocks. We’re a big deal. And most of the people
privileged to come and study here are conscious of what a big deal we
are. Oxford is their alma mater -- their dear mother -- and they respect
and revere her accordingly.
And what were your ancestors doing in that period? Living in mud huts,
mainly. Sure we’ll concede you the short-lived Southern African
civilisation of Great Zimbabwe. But let’s be brutally honest here. The
contribution of the Bantu tribes to modern civilisation has been as
near as damn it to zilch.
You’ll probably say that’s “racist”. But it’s what we here at Oxford
prefer to call “true.” Perhaps the rules are different at other
universities. In fact, we know things are different at other
universities. We’ve watched with horror at what has been happening
across the pond from the University of Missouri to the University of
Virginia and even to revered institutions like Harvard and Yale: the
“safe spaces”; the? #?blacklivesmatter; the creeping cultural
relativism; the stifling political correctness; what Allan Bloom
rightly called “the closing of the American mind”. At Oxford however,
we will always prefer facts and free, open debate to petty
grievance-mongering, identity politics and empty sloganeering. The day
we cease to do so is the day we lose the right to call ourselves the
world’s greatest university.
Of course, you are perfectly within your rights to squander your time
at Oxford on silly, vexatious, single-issue political campaigns.
(Though it does make us wonder how stringent the vetting procedure is
these days for Rhodes scholarships and even more so, for Mandela
Rhodes scholarships) We are well used to seeing undergraduates -- or,
in your case -- postgraduates, making idiots of themselves. Just don’t
expect us to indulge your idiocy, let alone genuflect before it. You
may be black -- “BME” as the grisly modern terminology has it -- but we
are colour blind. We have been educating gifted undergraduates from
our former colonies, our Empire, our Commonwealth and beyond for many
generations. We do not discriminate over sex, race, colour or creed.
We do, however, discriminate according to intellect.
That means, inter alia, that when our undergrads or postgrads come up
with fatuous ideas, we don’t pat them on the back, give them a red
rosette and say: “Ooh, you’re black and you come from South Africa.
What a clever chap you are!” No. We prefer to see the quality of
those ideas tested in the crucible of public debate. That’s another
key part of the Oxford intellectual tradition you see: you can argue
any damn thing you like but you need to be able to justify it with
facts and logic -- otherwise your idea is worthless.
This ludicrous notion you have that a bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes
should be removed from Oriel College, because it’s symbolic of
“institutional racism” and “white slavery”. Well even if it is -- which
we dispute -- so bloody what? Any undergraduate so feeble-minded that
they can’t pass a bronze statue without having their “safe space”
violated really does not deserve to be here. And besides, if we were
to remove Rhodes’s statue on the premise that his life wasn’t
blemish-free, where would we stop? As one of our alumni Dan Hannan has
pointed out, Oriel’s other benefactors include two kings so awful --
Edward II and Charles I -- that their subjects had them killed. The
college opposite -- Christ Church -- was built by a murderous, thieving
bully who bumped off two of his wives. Thomas Jefferson kept slaves:
does that invalidate the US Constitution? Winston Churchill had
unenlightened views about Muslims and India: was he then the wrong man
to lead Britain in the war?”
Actually, we’ll go further than that. Your Rhodes Must Fall campaign
is not merely fatuous but ugly, vandalistic and dangerous. We agree
with Oxford historian RW Johnson that what you are trying to do here
is no different from what ISIS and the Al-Qaeda have been doing to
artefacts in places like Mali and Syria. You are murdering history.
And who are you, anyway, to be lecturing Oxford University on how it
should order its affairs? Your ?#?rhodesmustfall campaign, we
understand, originates in South Africa and was initiated by a black
activist who told one of his lecturers “whites have to be killed”. One
of you -- Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh -- is the privileged son of a rich
politician and a member of a party whose slogan is “Kill the Boer;
Kill the Farmer”; another of you, Ntokozo Qwabe, who is only in Oxford
as a beneficiary of a Rhodes scholarship, has boasted about the need
for “socially conscious black students” to “dominate white
universities, and do so ruthlessly and decisively!
Great. That’s just what Oxford University needs. Some cultural
enrichment from the land of Winnie Mandela, burning tyre necklaces, an
AIDS epidemic almost entirely the result of government indifference
and ignorance, one of the world’s highest per capita murder rates,
institutionalised corruption, tribal politics, anti-white racism and a
collapsing economy. Please name which of the above items you think
will enhance the lives of the 22,000 students studying here at Oxford.
And then please explain what it is that makes your attention grabbing
campaign to remove a listed statue from an Oxford college more urgent,
more deserving than the desire of probably at least 20,000 of those
22,000 students to enjoy their time here unencumbered by the
irritation of spoilt, ungrateful little tossers on scholarships they
clearly don’t merit using racial politics and cheap guilt-tripping to
ruin the life and fabric of our beloved university.
Understand us and understand this clearly: you have everything to
learn from us; we have nothing to learn from you.
Not very Christian of me, but my response is “Fuck you. You lost.”
“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective. “It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.”
If that’s how the game’s played, I could make a compelling case in favor of the Israelis nuking the shit out of much of Europe and vast swaths of Russia.
Can we start by listing all of the nations that were not created by conquest? Let’s remember that the Oglala conquered lands long held by the Arikara and by the Cheyenne.
It does make me laugh when rioters, especially in Seattle, yell “You’re standing on stolen land” at cops when they are standing two feet away from them.
The bumper sticker, Save the planet, Kill yourself seems most appropriate for many of these people.
Huh. I didn’t know the Dixie Chicks were still a thing. Actually, I didn’t know they were a thing even when they were supposed to be a thing. But good on them for dropping the “Dixie” from their name. That will sure show them.
I wonder if reparations and penance for white privilege could become something like carbon offsets?
Thursday compliments, Wheelizens!
I dunno…I think I’d take my chances arguing with LambiePieK -- or even a Karen -- over taunting am enormous freakin’ ‘gator.
The video of the motorcycle rider in Lansing is, um, exceedingly vexing. If that carp continues, at some point, an honest, 2A citizen is going to defend themself against an armed, illegal “roadblock”…which is likely to be a baaaaad flashpoint.
It’s also a pointed reminder that, despite the fact we have an enormous amount of “government”, it cannot -- or will not -- perform it’s most basic constitutional duties.
Not. Good.
BBL
Happy Thursday, GN! What fresh hell awaits us today?
Sure Happy It’s Thursday, Gerbil Nation!
Good morning, Fatwa, and Sven!
Fatwa -- and when it comes time for budget cuts, the essential services are threatened, never the non-essential.
Sven -- good question. Locally, Mission San Juan Capistrano has moved their statues of Father Junipero Serra to protect them from rage mobs.
Thanks for mentioning the Father Serra move -- that mission is a large part of Mrs Sven’s family history as her ancestors helped build it. Her family is quite protective in that regard.
Hi, Sven and Paddy!
This is long but -- IMO -- worth reading. It’s a letter allegedly written by Oriel College, Oxford to the students who are demanding removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes. It is the most erudite, toney and downright British GFY I’ve ever read.
I doubt it’s totally legit, but a wonderful rant nonetheless.
=======================
Dear Scrotty Students,
Cecil Rhodes’s generous bequest has contributed greatly to the comfort
and well being of many generations of Oxford students -- a good many of
them, dare we say it, better, brighter and more deserving than you.
This does not necessarily mean we approve of everything Rhodes did in
his lifetime -- but then we don’t have to. Cecil Rhodes died over a
century ago. Autres temps, autres moeurs. If you don’t understand what
this means -- and it would not remotely surprise us if that were the
case -- then we really think you should ask yourself the question: “Why
am I at Oxford?”
Oxford, let us remind you, is the world’s second oldest extant
university. Scholars have been studying here since at least the 11th
century. We’ve played a major part in the invention of Western
civilisation, from the 12th century intellectual renaissance through
the Enlightenment and beyond. Our alumni include William of Ockham,
Roger Bacon, William Tyndale, John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Erasmus,
Sir Christopher Wren, William Penn, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Samuel
Johnson, Robert Hooke, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Emily Davison,
Cardinal Newman, Julie Cocks. We’re a big deal. And most of the people
privileged to come and study here are conscious of what a big deal we
are. Oxford is their alma mater -- their dear mother -- and they respect
and revere her accordingly.
And what were your ancestors doing in that period? Living in mud huts,
mainly. Sure we’ll concede you the short-lived Southern African
civilisation of Great Zimbabwe. But let’s be brutally honest here. The
contribution of the Bantu tribes to modern civilisation has been as
near as damn it to zilch.
You’ll probably say that’s “racist”. But it’s what we here at Oxford
prefer to call “true.” Perhaps the rules are different at other
universities. In fact, we know things are different at other
universities. We’ve watched with horror at what has been happening
across the pond from the University of Missouri to the University of
Virginia and even to revered institutions like Harvard and Yale: the
“safe spaces”; the? #?blacklivesmatter; the creeping cultural
relativism; the stifling political correctness; what Allan Bloom
rightly called “the closing of the American mind”. At Oxford however,
we will always prefer facts and free, open debate to petty
grievance-mongering, identity politics and empty sloganeering. The day
we cease to do so is the day we lose the right to call ourselves the
world’s greatest university.
Of course, you are perfectly within your rights to squander your time
at Oxford on silly, vexatious, single-issue political campaigns.
(Though it does make us wonder how stringent the vetting procedure is
these days for Rhodes scholarships and even more so, for Mandela
Rhodes scholarships) We are well used to seeing undergraduates -- or,
in your case -- postgraduates, making idiots of themselves. Just don’t
expect us to indulge your idiocy, let alone genuflect before it. You
may be black -- “BME” as the grisly modern terminology has it -- but we
are colour blind. We have been educating gifted undergraduates from
our former colonies, our Empire, our Commonwealth and beyond for many
generations. We do not discriminate over sex, race, colour or creed.
We do, however, discriminate according to intellect.
That means, inter alia, that when our undergrads or postgrads come up
with fatuous ideas, we don’t pat them on the back, give them a red
rosette and say: “Ooh, you’re black and you come from South Africa.
What a clever chap you are!” No. We prefer to see the quality of
those ideas tested in the crucible of public debate. That’s another
key part of the Oxford intellectual tradition you see: you can argue
any damn thing you like but you need to be able to justify it with
facts and logic -- otherwise your idea is worthless.
This ludicrous notion you have that a bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes
should be removed from Oriel College, because it’s symbolic of
“institutional racism” and “white slavery”. Well even if it is -- which
we dispute -- so bloody what? Any undergraduate so feeble-minded that
they can’t pass a bronze statue without having their “safe space”
violated really does not deserve to be here. And besides, if we were
to remove Rhodes’s statue on the premise that his life wasn’t
blemish-free, where would we stop? As one of our alumni Dan Hannan has
pointed out, Oriel’s other benefactors include two kings so awful --
Edward II and Charles I -- that their subjects had them killed. The
college opposite -- Christ Church -- was built by a murderous, thieving
bully who bumped off two of his wives. Thomas Jefferson kept slaves:
does that invalidate the US Constitution? Winston Churchill had
unenlightened views about Muslims and India: was he then the wrong man
to lead Britain in the war?”
Actually, we’ll go further than that. Your Rhodes Must Fall campaign
is not merely fatuous but ugly, vandalistic and dangerous. We agree
with Oxford historian RW Johnson that what you are trying to do here
is no different from what ISIS and the Al-Qaeda have been doing to
artefacts in places like Mali and Syria. You are murdering history.
And who are you, anyway, to be lecturing Oxford University on how it
should order its affairs? Your ?#?rhodesmustfall campaign, we
understand, originates in South Africa and was initiated by a black
activist who told one of his lecturers “whites have to be killed”. One
of you -- Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh -- is the privileged son of a rich
politician and a member of a party whose slogan is “Kill the Boer;
Kill the Farmer”; another of you, Ntokozo Qwabe, who is only in Oxford
as a beneficiary of a Rhodes scholarship, has boasted about the need
for “socially conscious black students” to “dominate white
universities, and do so ruthlessly and decisively!
Great. That’s just what Oxford University needs. Some cultural
enrichment from the land of Winnie Mandela, burning tyre necklaces, an
AIDS epidemic almost entirely the result of government indifference
and ignorance, one of the world’s highest per capita murder rates,
institutionalised corruption, tribal politics, anti-white racism and a
collapsing economy. Please name which of the above items you think
will enhance the lives of the 22,000 students studying here at Oxford.
And then please explain what it is that makes your attention grabbing
campaign to remove a listed statue from an Oxford college more urgent,
more deserving than the desire of probably at least 20,000 of those
22,000 students to enjoy their time here unencumbered by the
irritation of spoilt, ungrateful little tossers on scholarships they
clearly don’t merit using racial politics and cheap guilt-tripping to
ruin the life and fabric of our beloved university.
Understand us and understand this clearly: you have everything to
learn from us; we have nothing to learn from you.
Yours, Oriel College, Oxford
I only wish that this were true.
Not very Christian of me, but my response is “Fuck you. You lost.”
“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective. “It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.”
If that’s how the game’s played, I could make a compelling case in favor of the Israelis nuking the shit out of much of Europe and vast swaths of Russia.
Can we start by listing all of the nations that were not created by conquest? Let’s remember that the Oglala conquered lands long held by the Arikara and by the Cheyenne.
*Ding*
To the tune of Sonny and Cher’s 1967 hit:
And the grudge goes on, the grudge goes on.
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da
It does make me laugh when rioters, especially in Seattle, yell “You’re standing on stolen land” at cops when they are standing two feet away from them.
The bumper sticker, Save the planet, Kill yourself seems most appropriate for many of these people.
I’m old enough to remember “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”. 👿
As a chemist, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.
Huh. I didn’t know the Dixie Chicks were still a thing. Actually, I didn’t know they were a thing even when they were supposed to be a thing. But good on them for dropping the “Dixie” from their name. That will sure show them.
I wonder if reparations and penance for white privilege could become something like carbon offsets?
Wouldn’t they be the Dixie Crones at this point anyway? It’s been at least 30 years since they were chicks, I’m thinkin’
I do recall them always having been leftist dupes though.