We here at Monomakhos have commented on this stratagem before. Towit: how to know when you’re winning an argument. In today’s environment it’s rather simple: just look at all the stories in which no comments are allowed. Invariably they belong to left-of-center publications. (Think of Drezhlo for example. Like most libtards, he can dish it out but he can’t take it.)
I first noticed this about five years ago. Some liberal would write something and the comments would invariably go against what was originally written, sometimes by a four-to-one margin. Or more. In time, comments would mysteriously stop. That’s one way you know when a conservative is winning the argument. I believe it was Voltaire who said “Show me whom you cannot criticize and I’ll show you who rules you”.
Contrast this with the old days, when the Patriarchy was in full force and Western civilization was ruled by Dead White Males. In times past, hearty debates often took place between two opposing sides. Think for example, of Lincoln-Douglass, or Oxford Union. This is a concept that goes back to the ancient Athenian agora or the Roman forum. It’s been to our detriment as a polity that we’ve lost that ability.
Ever since the dumbing down of educational standards however, we aren’t able to relish anything of this sort; indeed, we are forced to watch C-SPAN so we can watch British Parliamentarians skewer each other. But that’s merely a guilty pleasure at this point as it has no bearing on us today nor any positive effect.
Because we can’t debate things openly and honestly, we are not better off –not by a long shot. Instead, our mouths are shackled by a political incorrectness that George Orwell predicted in 1984. He called it “crimestop”, the mental filter that operates immediately when one starts to think an independent thought.
We have that in abundance today. And we can thank Google, Facebook and YouTube for this. It is these monopolies which are enforcers of Voltaire’s famous dictum.
Thus it was with much relish that I saw Mark Zuckerberg testifying before the Congress some weeks ago. Unfortunately, he was treated as a conquering hero rather than as a modern-day robber baron. Still, I can’t help but shake the feeling that Zuck’s days are numbered. That goes for Sergei Brin over at Google as well. Their days as manipulators of the news is drawing to an end. Many critics are using the word “utilities” when discussing these behemoths and they aren’t all wrong. Hopefully, they will be regulated as such.
Now, I know that this may shock many of you; after all, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: I am First Amendment absolutist. All speech that does not include threats of violence, incitement or defamation, must be allowed. One man’s hate speech is another man’s cogent argument –that sort of thing.
So why am I advocating for these monopolies to be regulated as public utilities? Because they are. And because they are no more committed to free speech than is the Man on the Moon. Their excuse –that they rely on “algorithms”–has now been exposed as a bald-faced lie thanks to dissident such as James Damore who last year was fired from Google.
This fraud has now been further brought to light thanks to certain egregious take-downs of conservative personalities who have been “de-platformed” thanks to something called “hate speech”. Now algorithm is a fancy word which those of us who took Algebra may remember but these moguls are going to definitely regret that they ever brought it up. A true algorithm is neutral and random, but in the hands of these jokers, they are anything but. It’s now clear that just like every other datum, an algorithm can be manipulated. Especially if a news stories goes against the liberal grain.
Thanks to the internet and (truly) free-thinking people, we know that their protestations are nothing but a crock. (Was it Mark Twain who said that there are “lies, damn lies, and statistics”?)
Anyway, Zuck got caught jiggering the old algorithms. A free-speech advocate he is not. And thanks to the lovely ladies known as Diamond and Silk, who got demonetized because of their supposed “hate speech”, we now know that the jig is up. Below you will see a snippet of their appearance before the House of Representatives. I especially relish their taking down of the nonentities who have had it too easy for too long.
In any event, we are witnessing the unshackling of a true alternative media, coming fast on the heels of the demolition of the controlled media. And it’s about damn time.
https://youtu.be/zxroXrjnzs0
George said:
” just look at all the stories in which no comments are allowed. Invariably they belong to left-of-center publications. ”
This immediately caused me to remember the stinginess that I’ve associated with the Left for a long while. People on the Right can, of course, be stingy themselves, but I’m not talking about that today.
Many moons ago, long before I had enough ammo under my belt to know which way was up, I more or less identified with the Left – believing, among other things, that this was where the heart of all true spirituality resided (which is not to say that I’m Right Wing, either). This Leftist bent led me into some ‘interesting’ circles, and gave me access to some more than ‘interesting’ people. Of all that this includes, I have only one in mind right now: G. Plain and simply, G was the most modern woman most men could ever have the displeasure of meeting, but this didn’t mean that she ‘rolled with the mob’. An exceptional occultist, she was more than privy to the weaknesses of humanity – something which fuelled her desire for inner unity and immortality. The problem with this, however, was that G, like all occultists, sought all of this outside of God – wanting to be ‘alive’ without being good.
Nevertheless, being even more stupid than I am now, I saw her as nothing less than the ‘bees knees’ – utterly (and I do mean utterly) under the pull of her ‘magnetism’. This meant that practically every thought of mine belonged to her; pacified only when I was with her and things were going well. But things very rarely went that way: while being better than most at talking the talk, G was anything but humble, suffering quite acutely (I presume) from her genetic line. If you can accept it, she was descended from the …………… family, but is now several generations ‘removed’, thanks to a grandmother who rejected their ways in preference of being more ‘common’. The sum of this saw her with a most unusual amount of Leftist zeal, rivalled only by the pseudo-aristocratic blood that filled her veins. Ultimately, then, G perfectly despised any and all authority, except her own, and I found it rather difficult to keep her pleased.
This failing of mine provided me with a front row seat to what it is that truly lurks beneath the surface of the Left – bearing in mind as I say this, that G was, for all intents and purposes, not only the perfect modern woman, but the embodiment of Leftist ideology, in the strictest sense. Certainly we all think of the Left as Marxism, feminism, gay rights, refugees, charity organisations etc., yet none of this says anything about its ‘spiritual’ underpinnings.
Just there, at the ‘heart’ of this bona fide monster, sits not only the greatest ability to lie, steal, cheat, manipulate and murder, but the perfect awareness of what it is, where it comes from, what it’s doing and how to do it. In short, this is what Leftism, at its ‘spiritual’ level, which is also its core, is: the conscious or deliberate honing of that which ‘frees’ a person from the ‘weakness’ of conscience, allowing them to shape the world and its inhabitants as they see fit.
At times, people operating at this level will be content to go about their ultra-liberal and sinister lives sh*tting only on the heads of the relatively unlucky few who cross their path, while others can not be ‘happy’ until they have the many whistling to their tune, all the while helping to train up others to be more like them. As for the type G belonged to, I’d actually prefer not to know, but whatever she was up to, the result was more or less the same: people were thoroughly mesmerised by her, and paid the asking price – having entered into nothing short of a fatal attraction.
Obviously the vast majority of Leftists do not quite meet this criteria – i.e., for a start, they’re not consciously following the script – and yet everything about them shares in at least some of all these characteristics. In that regard, we can safely say that the Left is made up simply by those few who knowingly listen to the devil, and those who have no idea – there being less of a distinction, however, between their destructiveness.
Now, to relate this back to the comment of George’s I cited above, and the remembrance of stinginess it invoked in me, the more I have to deal with ‘lefties’ in my day-to-day affairs, the more I perceive their deep lack of charity. This is not to say that I’m as charitable as I should be – Lord knows – and yet, starting with G, I was often left completely dumbfounded at the most basic things she couldn’t afford. Shame on me, I know, for the arrogance in these statements, but then again, what I have said still has its place.
Simply put, if G was basically one of the arch-Leftists going around today, how much more generosity can be expected from her little (albeit unconscious) proteges?
Who is G. Plain???
Ronda, I believe “G” is the first initial of the woman’s first name. When he says “Plain and simply, G” he is indicating his unwillingness to name her fully, which is understandable considering her pedigree and her gifts (if you could call them that). Suffice it to say, he was agreeing with George that there ARE people on the left who have harnessed power and feel no compunction against using that power against others to fulfill their purposes. Sounds like Brian was one of her casualties for a time. Glad he was able to extricate himself. Women with that kind of power are a dangerous breed.
Then the right should not only form it own search engines and social media but also its own wimax satellites.
George, if I may offer constructive criticism , I wish you wouldn’t use words such as “libtards”, “cuckservatives,” or putting “the” in front of Ukraine. Believe me, I don’t speak as someone holier than thou, but rather as a sinful man, who has used more than his share of inflammatory words. Forgive me, a sinner.
I don’t think the colloquial language we use in an informal setting is “wrong.” Spell check takes out the “the” but I always put it back in in front of Ukraine. It just doesn’t sound right to me not to use it. I can understand why it would be equally uncomfortable for those who know better.
ES,
Referring to the Ukraine without the “the” is purely a political preference, nothing more. Formerly, “the Ukraine” was ubiquitous. In Russian, the distinction was between using the preposition “на” or “on”, as opposed to “в” or “in”. In 1996, when Sir Nicholas Brown wrote his short Russian Grammar, it was still the rule to use “на Украине”, “on the Frontier”. When I got my second BA in Russian Studies 2012-2014, the rule had changed in progressive company to “в Украине”, “in Ukraine”. Ukrainian nationalists dislike the “the” and the “на”.
That’s their problem. Orwell would be amused.
But it’s all PC bullsh*t. I habitually use “the Ukraine” and “на Украине” and defy anyone to correct me.
I don’t mean to be obtuse or bullying but everybody always used the definite article when speaking about the Ukraine. It’s an old habit.
Not only do I correct you, but I call you the narcissist you are. You and Millman(Constantinos) are a pair of narcissists who are always right and everyone else is always wrong. You see yourselves as generals and everyone else as troops to be corrected. Although Millman’s Orthodoxy is questionable at best, at least on occasion, he has been man enough to admit he acted like a jerk.
As if you two clowns aren’t enough, now we have Jane Rachel defending Kondratick the thief. Frankly, I don’t give a crap if you have Doctorates in Theology, Slavic Linguistics, English, History, or all of the above. I don’t care if you are the Patriarch’s brother. I bid everyone farewell and hope someday you realize it isn’t all about you.
Estonian Slovak,
I don’t have faintest idea what you are talking about. The question is: do you? Millman(Constantinos)? You seem to have a grudge/fixation about a guy named Millman. He ain’t me as I have previously told you. As far as I can, he is no longer on this forum so let it go. I would imagine he doesn’t give you a second thought- and you shouldn’t bother dwelling on him. I pray for you, brother, because you seem to be a very unhappy man. Life is too short to carry petty grudges and seeing imaginary ghosts of your imagination lurking around every corner.
As for me, this is the first time I have been called a narcissist. Remember, when you point an accusatory finger toward someone, three fingers come back at you. May God bless you abundantly and grant you peace.
I must admit to including the comment about Fr Robert Kondratick and Bishop Nikolai Soraich deliberately. I’m not a fruitcake. I get like this when I see lives being destroyed, and there is no justice, and questions continue to go unanswered. We DO NOT KNOW what really happened, not entirely, and I am 100% sure Father Robert Kondratick and Bishop Nikolai (and others) were thrown under the bus. I’ll bet anything there is evidence that proves this. No reason to dig it all up again except to say that it has not yet been resolved.
Look, either two bishops and a monk are lying or they aren’t. Rather than taking newspaper articles and SIC reports (etc, etc) at face value, ask yourselves this about these bishops and the protopresbyter: “What are their track records?”
Yes, Jane Rachel. There were — and are — lives being destroyed.
The human wreckage left in the wake of Met. Herman’s administration is not yet complete. He will soon answer to Christ for his misdeeds, God help him.
Unless and until the OCA repents and corrects its mistreatment of Met. Jonah and Fr Robert Kondratick, it will never be blessed to succeed in its God-given mission to be the local autocephalous church in America.
The Lord is not patient with people who betray Him, but He blesses His faithful people with peace.
Surely, let us not forget:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20131021/man-pleads-guilty-to-embezzling-from-venice-church
“Who to blame”,
You think you know tje truth, because the newspaper article tells you what you want to believe. You must then also admit that the bishops and the monk are lying. Are they?
Jane, what bishops and what monk do you think we think are lying? If the “monk” you’re talking about is David Smith, he was not a monk, he was MARRIED. You MUST be talking about him because you’re using a twisted version of his story. For example, you made reference to the use of self-flagellation during confession. One who is Orthodox (or even literate, for that matter) would know that the operative word here is SELF. This is what David Smith reported: http://barthsnotes.com/2006/02/16/greek-monastery-in-arizona-desert-accused-of-brainwashing-anti-semitism/
Some of you have said you want to explore this and see where it ends. It ended. Many years ago. Nothing came of it. For those who are interested, there is a guy named Rotislav who can shed some light on the David Smith story. If you Google it, it’s still out there.
Even a clock is right twice a day, Jane. Speaking of time, sometimes I think you’re from the “way back machine” on the Internet. Why are you bringing up stuff that is so old? Several of the articles you posted are dated 2013.
Does it make sense that ANY of these horrific things you’ve implied are true given that the attorneys you are so wont to promote haven’t taken these “murdering, perverted, money laundering, laity stealing, Jesus Prayer freaks” (my characterization) to court?
If they found so many irregularities with their 501c3 financial statements why didn’t they file a claim with the IRS? They’ve had YEARS.
Could it be because there is no substance here? Could it be that they are throwing dirt (literally, as in OLD as dirt) to try to strong-arm them into coughing up some money to offset their own failures? Because that’s what it looks like to me.
Maybe because it’s just too BIG?
“‘murdering, perverted, money laundering, laity stealing, Jesus Prayer freaks’ (my characterization) to court?”
Your words, not mine.
Jane, maybe within the Church they could have covered it up but these charges generated a hailstorm of publicity outside the Church. KVOA, an NBC-affiliated television station, did an investigative report. I believe it was in two segments. If they had turned up anything substantive, there would have been a formal investigation because the surrounding community was up in arms about it. – By the same token, if the financial records of the monasteries were *that* bad, the IRS could have been called in.
It’s been 5 years since these stories broke and if anything new had surfaced, we would have heard about it.
RE: “Look, either two bishops and a monk are lying or they aren’t. Rather than taking newspaper articles and SIC reports (etc, etc) at face value, ask yourselves this about these bishops and the protopresbyter: “What are their track records?”
What two bishops are lying??? People have told me that the GOA laity under whom everything went south were not above hiring agitators to vindicate themselves by pointing the finger somewhere else but I never believed it until now. You don’t know the first thing about Orthodoxy, do you Jane?!!! If you did, you would know the difference between a monk and a protopresbyter. Just a little FYI: a protopresbyter is the highest rank a MARRIED priest can hold. A monk is something else.
Gail, you misunderstand. We are not supposed to comment on the monasteries or their inhabitants now. I was bringing up the fact that Protopresbyter Robert Kondratick and Bishop Nikolai Soraich are innocent. Monk James agreed with me, and mentioned also that Metropolitan Jonah was also thrown under the bus. We could also include Father Joseph Fester… The two bishops I am talking about are Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) – a regular poster here – and Bishop Nikolai, who is now a retired bishop in good standing with the ROCOR in Las Vegas (and thank God, he looks pretty good now after battling cancer). By looking at their track records, their long careers going back decades, and by looking at Father Robert Kondratick’s service to the Church both here and abroad as Chancellor (before he was thrown under the bus), we can begin to see that it is not possible that Bishop Tikhon, Monk James Silver and Bishop Nikolai were ever lying. Take a look at these photos: Bishop Nikolai is holding an icon and looking great!
http://www.russianorthodoxlasvegas.org/category/photo-gallery/
“O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!” – Walter Scott
The definite article never bothered the denizens of the Argentine or the Lebanon!
True Your Grace. I well remember the location “the Lebanon”. In Semitic Greek, we call Jerusalem ta Hierosolema (roughly, “the Jerusalems”).
This is reasonable, if not natural, since the city’s name in Hebrew is _yerushalayim_, a plural form.
As is common in Semitic languages, many words have plural forms (not meanings), and so are mistranslated into other languages, especially scriptural and liturgical English.
As a rule, Hebrew _punim_ (‘face’) is generally rendered accurately in the singular. But _shamayim_ (‘heaven, the heavens, the sky) is very inadequately treated, as is _rakhmanim_ (‘compassion’) mistakenly translated in our liturgical books as ‘compassions’ as if it were plural in meaning rather than merely in form.
Our scriptural/patristic/liturgical texts in English need considerably more help than they’ve been given so far.
I offer the last two liturgical books published by St Tikhon’s Monastery Press as a painful example of the problem.
BTW: What happened to the typographic options we used to have here? No more BOLD, no more /italic/??
Like I said Fr, I’m having some problemos. Hopefully I’ll get them worked out.
Sanctuary much!
Funny, no one has mentioned the Boroughs of the great City of New York in discussing this question. Why do we not refer to “The Queens,” “The Brooklyn,” “The Staten Island,” nor, “The Manhattan,” but reserve (and bestow) this title exclusively to The Bronx. While I have never heard a reasonable answer to this question, I would suggest to Vladyka Tikhon, that the absence of the article would most certainly provoke the cry of “Havoc!” far to our East.
I wonder if terms such as ‘the Lebanon’, ‘the Ukraine’, ‘the Argentine’, ‘the Congo’, ‘the Crimea’, (but probably not ‘the Bronx’), etc., etc., might reflect their usage in western European languages, primarily French, which make far greater use of the definite pronoun than does English. Except in a most vestigial form, Slavic languages (like Latin) have no definite or even indefinite articles. To native speakers, at least, saying ‘the Ukraine’ might sound like an overcorrection on the part of people who haven’t yet learned when to use (or not) the definite article
Estonian Slovak, I must disagree with you about not putting “the” in front of Ukraine. The very word “Ukraine” come from “ot krania”, meaning “the borderlands”, or “at the border”. The Ukraine is and always will be the border area between Eastern and Western Slavs. If you ask where I am from, I would say that I am from “Kraiyu”, i.e., the borderlands.
The concept of “a Ukraine” is a totally modern invention.
Translating Ukraine as “border” has no bearing on the status of the country, Ukraine. The Netherlands is a totally independent national entity—being “nether” (lower) does not attach them to any neighbor.
In the 1980s and 1990s a number of highly distinguished premier scientists spoke out against the fraud of global warming, but if you try to find their work on Goon-Ghoule, you will instead find yourself redirected to sites denouncing them and in fact listing only their undergraduate and no graduate degrees (ie diminishing their stature).
George,
Hillary has been prancing around the globe peddling her sob story about why Lady Macbeth lost the last election. She calls us a basket of deplorables. I resent that , and so should you. We’re not deplorables; we’re lumpenproletariats! By the way, if senile, ole Joe Biden is the democratic nominee, I would suggest that instead of an election, we have a boxing match to decide the next President.
I agree! Put it on Pay Per View and pay off the national debt.
Nice try, sir, nice try. If you were not him, you would not have bothered answering my post. And don’t play Sigmund Freud with me. Dr. Stankovich may be qualified to do so, I am not prepared to recognise you in that capacity.
What are the odds that two Greek Americans would be saying the exact same things; condemnation of tithing , of Fr. Seraphim Rose, of ROCOR? Then the exact same story about the gay nephew, praise for the Charismatics, the Masons, the Papacy, slamming Israel and Orthodox monastic? Didn’t someone point out to you that your gay nephew would be safer in Israel than anywhere else in the Middle East?
And “both” of you asked us to let you leave this forum in peace. And we respected that, when you said to all, please don’t address me again. But you came back anyhow.
I don’t think anyone who boasts of his ability to make someone ” wet their pants” is above lying about his identity. I think you changed yours because you had your butt handed to you by Dr. Stankovich. And if a dummy like me can figure out your identity, what are the odds that an intelligent person like Dr. Stankovich can’t? I thought you were a member of Mensa.
As long as George allows freedom of speech here, I have a right to THINK you and Millman are one and the same. I suggest you let it go. If you have issues, take it up with George. Perhaps he could ban me. Then I’d be spared the temptation of logging on here again. Oh, I’ve already identified myself as a recovering narcissist. So heed your own advice and back off.
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