Dr. Caelus wrote:Truth be told, Evil Eye and Kranrabbit aren't too different than I was at 19 or 20 years old. *snip*
Funny, I had the exact opposite experience. I used to be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and VERY liberal. I was the kind of person to be calling people "bigots". But as is the fate of all liberals/progressives, I fell behind the cutting-edge and became branded an
other. I started being called "racist" for not judging people by the colour of their skin. I started being called "sexist" for considering women as equals who should be treated the same as men. And for trying to defend myself, for wondering what I was doing wrong when I'd never had a discriminatory bone in my body? I was further chastised, at best belittled and patronized, at worst yelled at.
People started accusing me of things I KNEW I was innocent of, and furthermore I was told because I was completely unaware of what I was supposedly doing wrong, because I maintained I hadn't done anything, I was even MORE harmful to "the cause" whatever that cause was. I was "privileged" (something I've literally never been FWIW- growing up as an autistic boy with my own rather screwed up family background and being stuck in a mainstream school environment, THEN being forced through specialist schools so appalling they later got investigated for criminal neglect and abuse, was anything but "privileged" and being white probably made things even worse, as looking back had I been some other race I could have at the very least "pulled the race card") and thus the devil.
But I wasn't going to just go along with it. I'd never been any of the things they'd accused me of, but I was definitely not a particularly compliant person. So I didn't just do as I was told- I looked it up. And what did I find?
I found everything they were saying was an absolute load of nonsense, being spouted by people with nothing better to worry about, probably to get a measure of control over other people.
Every source I looked to reinforced this belief. Things I KNEW to be true- basic, simple common sense- was completely cast aside by these people. Racism wasn't, to them, hating someone based on their race, but "a system of privilege and power in which minorities are oppressed by white people" whatever that was supposed to mean. In other words; only white people can be racist, and everyone else has the right to accuse them of racism without backing anything up.
It's not rocket science to see this is complete dreck; even if we assume that "racism" can only be committed by those in positions of "privilege-based power", that varies SO much from place to place. Go to a country (or even community) where the majority is another race, and they'll be the ones with "privilege-based power". Like, if I were to go to China for some reason, being white English isn't going to afford me any privilege or power over the locals. If anything I'll be at a social disadvantage, as I'll be either distrusted ("Hmmm, an obvious foreigner, chances are he's not very fond of the CCP") or outright hated ("Goddamn Brit, those guys wiped the floor with us over a century ago"). Neither of which are exactly conducive to gaining "privilege-based power".
So these people were making these bizarre claims as if they were objective truth when anyone with half a neuron could tell, you know, they weren't. Why? Why did they believe so fervently in something that was utterly, obviously wrong?
I looked deeper, coincidentally as the socio-political climate began to worsen. It began to make sense. It wasn't based on actual belief in what they were saying. It was based on fear- fear of not fitting in with the hip and trendy crowd, and fear of retaliation, either from their "friends", from the supposedly "oppressed" minorities they claimed to champion (most of whom, in my experience, either don't care or consider such attitudes hilarious at best and insulting at worst) or from "higher" places (academic staff, employers or even most frighteningly of all, government agencies threatening disciplinary action if they don't follow the party line).
At first I thought these people were incredibly stupid and easily manipulated by those even more fervently deluded than themselves- I attributed the worst of such madness to third-wave feminism but nothing deeper than that. As things got worse, however, things seemed more complex than I first thought, but also more in-focus.
Former icons around which these movements revolved were either forgotten about or, if they failed to move with the ever-shifting standards of "progress", were outright reviled and cast aside, such as J.K. Rowling. Once beloved by those sorts of people for her support of transformative work, diversity and so on, when the mantra changed from "Women are more oppressed than men" to "Women don't have to be women to be women" (advocating for the use of the phrase "person who menstruates" instead of, you know, WOMAN), Rowling was quite rightly more than a little confused by this sudden twist of the official narrative...and was immediately condemned as a "hateful evil bigoted TERF" (a term which was likely invented for the event). Not only was she now an unperson, but history itself was rewritten to portray that she had ALWAYS been terrible and nobody had ever really liked her or found merit in what she did. It was straight out of Orwell's 1984; when the powers that be (regardless of whether it's the government or Twitter) say something is so and have control over the information, then it is so, and whatever they say happened, happened, even if it completely contradicts what they said a few minutes ago.
Meanwhile, anyone who disagreed with them, be they people like me who were outpaced years ago or people like J.K. Rowling who simply failed to keep up with the times and became "obsolete", were increasingly demonized, and in many cases over bizarrely specific things. Over the years this went from bad to worse to ungodly awful- first was the case of some talentless "game developer" receiving suspiciously good publicity for a mediocre product from people she was personally involved with, and when people noticed this they were branded as an evil harassment campaign for asking the wrong questions.
Then it got worse as more and more people started falling victim to the same thing as me (being judged "outmoded" for refusing to join their borderline cult of self-flagellation) and were subsequently branded enemies of common decency. Then came 2016; people had taken enough, and many people who either identified as or had been forced towards the political right wing, in varying degrees and with many opinions, formed "the Alt-Right" which basically just meant "falls under the right-wing umbrella to some degree but does not fully dovetail with mainstream right-wing neoconservative diktat". It was barely a political affiliation so much as a catch-all phrase to describe those annoyed to some degree or another about the way the world was going and how a particular sect of left-wing crybullies had far too much power, regardless of whether they were ultra-independent AnCap libertarians, staunch social conservatives, or just regular people who generally leaned right-of-centre.
Of course, having a united front to stand against the madness would have been far too dangerous, so between the media smearing the Alt-Right as all being literal Nazis and controlled opposition like Mike Cernovich and other idiots dragging the movement's name through the mud, it was abandoned. As such, nobody actually identifies as Alt-Right anymore, and it's just become another slur to be used to refer to thoughtcrime committers.
But 2016 wasn't over. Donald Trump, who for his many flaws represented someone who WASN'T part of the establishment machine (and also wasn't Hillary Clinton) stood for president and won the election. The fact that all the people who had been increasingly decrying us as evil and backwards seemed to hate him was a good sign. And things seemed to be on the mend- surely with all their efforts for naught and the Bad Orange Man in power they'd HAVE to concede defeat, right?
Heh, no!
His term went by, and they doubled down. Every single thing Trump did, regardless of what it was, was portrayed as some evil twisted act of villainy...even if it had been endorsed as a good thing before he did it. Increase maternity pay? EVIL. Crack down on human trafficking? FASCIST. Try and pull out of the endless meatgrinder that was Afghanistan? MONSTROUS. Not to mention such controversial acts as suggesting the country had control over its own borders, potentially blocking flights from countries basically under the iron heel of terrorist groups, or worst of all simply existing in the same country as the infamous "child cage" ICE detention centres...set up by Obama.
Quotes were taken out of context. Anything the man said or did was an act of Satan. Outright LIES were told. And anyone who challenged the media line was a braindead hick at best or a conspiracy nut terrorist at worst. Because even though Trump was president, the country was ruled by the media, and the media had a vested interest in getting rid of him. The Russian collusion narrative had fallen totally flat and they were pretty desperate. By this point, I and basically everybody else not fully in the Establishment Cult had lost all faith in almost everything mainstream. We'd been pushed from being normal, tolerant people to being nasty ignorant bumpkins in need of re-educating to horrible hateful troglodytes to literal terrorists in less than a decade. We weren't falling for it anymore.
The years rolled by, and for all the falsified accusations, Youtube Poop-tier context removal of footage with him in and the SHOCK discovery that he had TWO SCOOPS of ice cream, Trump still had support and was still in power. What could be done?
Well around the end of 2019, a laboratory in Wuhan which DEFINITELY didn't have ANY ties to ANY United States organizations or companies, ESPECIALLY not Bill Gates or the Clintons, was producing- and leaked- an 'orrible virus onto the world. There were suggestions it might have been a lab leak, but the prevailing story was it was from locals eating bat soup. Sure enough, China's abysmal hygiene standards allowed it to spread worldwide, and before we knew it, the world had Coronavirus on its hands.
Blame was flung everywhere but the Chinese- initially this would have been for EATING BATS, but later (after the soup cover story was dropped) for manufacturing and either intentionally leaking or accidentally releasing a potentially lethal virus. And initially, even I was fooled. I was thinking "Oh god, it's the end of the world!".
But things didn't add up. First they said "Well the Chinese say it's nothing to worry about, carry on as usual!". Then it became clear it had escaped China and the tune changed to "Well be careful, but don't panic!". The it was obvious it was absolutely everywhere and the story immediately changed to "Stay in your homes and never leave, there's nothing that can stop it and if you catch it, you WILL die! Not China's fault though!". Then people suggested wearing masks (like the Japanese do when they're suffering a cold) and we were told they didn't work...until we were eventually told we HAD to wear them if we were doing anything. So already, things were pretty inconsistent about this virus story.
Shortly after lockdowns became a thing, people started wondering if it was really all that awful. After all, most of the "footage" of people dropping dead was from China, known for basically lying about everything if they thought it would give them an edge in some way. And most of the deaths were from the old and infirm who were already just as likely to die from regular influnenza. Not nice, but not worth locking the world down over. Sure enough a few friends of mine caught it, and all of them had the same response- "It wasn't nice, but it was never life threatening".
Then it emerged that hospitals were attributing deaths of people tested positive for- or just exposed to- Covid to the disease regardless of what actually killed them (up to and including gunshot wounds), with the intention of getting extra funding from the government to "help" with the Covid problem. We started getting deeply suspicious. Clearly there was an agenda at work to keep people frightened of a nasty case of the sniffles.
So once the vaccine debacle began, it's no surprise that many of us were highly skeptical. For one, vaccines take years to develop and decades to prove safe for use. These were "ready" in less than a year. To make matters worse the early volunteers began suffering alarming side effects outside the usual vaccine nastiness. Horrible nausea, permanent weakness and heart problems, infertility and actual deaths. But we were told not only that his was normal and nothing to worry about, but that if you had any doubts at all you were a dangerous tinfoil hat wearer and should be shunned.
Obviously, many of us outright refused to touch the stuff, and even those that did eventually relent did not take the thousands of boosters "required". Especially when it was later claimed that if you didn't take the vaccine you were endangering people...despite the entire point of vaccines being that if you took it, you were immune, and thus the only people at risk would be people without the vaxx.
So between this apparently being the only vaccine in history where the problems are traceable to people who DIDN'T take it, the sheer media push to get jabbed, and the horrible side effects, it became very obvious that the thing was a damn poison and should be avoided, to the point even Trump took flak from his supporters for encouraging it.
Oh yes, Trump, whatever happened to him? Despite the country being plunged into disarray by this meme virus and the people in charge of managing it making a royal mess of things, he was still very popular. So the election rolled around, this time against Joe Biden, a creature so utterly senile and barely functional that any reason for voting for him beyond the already tenuous "I don't like Bad Orange Man" would be grounds for carting off to an asylum...and Biden won.
Except not really. People had been warning for the past 4 years about election meddling after the absolute tantrum the media (and their followers) threw in 2016. They accused Trump of vote-rigging after all, and seeing as those suggestions were laughed out, there was a good chance they'd try it themselves hoping for the same benefit of the doubt. So sure enough, when Biden came out ahead, it was with utterly ridiculous shifts in voting patterns (overnight jumps in favour of Biden), many uncounted ballots, ludicrously high voter turnouts in areas known for anything but that, and many cases of illegal immigrants and THE DEAD having their votes counted. It was obvious, as had been foretold, that there had been a bamboozling.
Naturally people were pissed. Very, very angry in fact. So it probably didn't take much prodding from (now admitted) federal agents to provoke a raid on the White House by a small army of furious people who had witnessed the last flame of what little remained of democracy in America snuffed out. And honestly, a psy-op though it may have been, it was pretty damn impressive.
The elite of the elite were cowering under tables, fearing for their lives. They had thought they were in for an easy victory, but the people who had been cajoled into attacking the seat of power- probably by them no less- were a bit better at it than they expected. There were pathetic statements after the fact that "We will not be intimidated by terrorists" but it was too late- they had already been intimidated, for all to see.
Unfortunately there was no happy ending where the people responsible for the fraud were hung from the rafters and the tree of liberty got a good bloody watering. Predictably the whole thing was over fairly quickly, the media pushed their ridiculous story about how it was the worst moment in American history (forgetting that events such as Pearl Harbor and 9/11 happened, and even they couldn't be said to be the worst), everyone who showed as much as a wry smile for the people who stormed the Capitol were demonized as domestic terrorists (forgetting the fact that governments are SUPPOSED to be scared silly of their own people, and that if there is no other option, violent removal of the lying gits is entirely justified), Ashlee Babbit (probably spelled that wrong) was murdered, yet got a much dimmer view from the media than violent fentanyl-addicted felon George Floyd, and worst? Biden was in power.
Of course things have only gotten even more diabolical since then. Biden has stumbled his way through his term without somehow ceasing to function in the middle of one of his many incoherent rambles. The media has become more and more blatant in its attempts to put everyone who won't follow orders to the tee onto the political naughty step. And the definition of "good person" has become more and more twisted. We're already seeing defences of children being subjected to chemical castration based on hormonal confusion- confusion which whilst once well understood as a part of growing up and just a phase everyone goes through, has now become an opportunity to try and convince these impressionable youth that all their problems would go away if they took hormone pills and underwent weird "therapy", all without their parents' knowledge of course. To the point where when the Florida governor suggested "you know, we probably shouldn't allow strangers to lead children astray without their parents being able to do anything about it" he was accused of being literally Hitler, a transphobe and a homophobe (baffling given that plenty- and I mean PLENTY- of gay people have come out in support of the guy and have made it utterly clear that children do NOT need exposing to that sort of thing, but oh wait, they're probably "internalized homophobes" or something). And now we're seeing the beginning of the slow but inevitable move to normalizing outright pedophilia.
So, where from here? I (and many other people) have become so utterly disgusted with the state of modernity that I'm basically not playing anymore. If there's a piece of media I want to consume, unless the creator is someone I actually want to support and not either a supporter of, or on the payroll of supporters of, the modern establishment, I pirate it. If there's a product available that I need that doesn't line the pockets of these devil-worshipping scum, I purchase it. And if there's a chance to stand against the creeping decay of civilization, I take it.
Ironically, the cries of "white privilege" that turned you the way you went have set me and many others down the righteous- if difficult- path away from the modern narrative. The same criticisms that turned you into a self-flagellating coward have turned me (and us) into what I'm sure the media would call "dangerous domestic terrorists" for not just hating myself like a good boy. I won't just consume product and get excited for the next product, and I will ask questions. I will not be made to feel bad because someone has told me that I've hurt them by not sharing their exact opinions. And if I am tread upon (as I suspect I will be, given the ever tightening noose of government control in the Western hemisphere) I will bite. Hard.
But it's not too late for you either, in fact it's pretty inevitable. Eventually the Next Big Thing will be something you find utterly disgusting or just confusing, and when you voice your complaint, you will be branded a heretic and cast in the pile with the rest of us. And then you'll see "Ah, right. That's what he was on about."
So in short- either carry on down this path until you get thrown aside for not completely sacrificing every last shred of your dignity, or quitting whilst you're ahead, checking out the other side and seeing we're not the irrational, evil monsters the media has painted us as.
Which way, Western man?
