A Nation of Meddlesome Ninnies We've Become

We have become a nation of meddlesome Americans. It was not always so. There was a time when Americans did not nark on their neighbors. They didn’t inform on their coworkers. They have not, historically, been the comrades in a communist regime whispering, seeking favor from the authorities, and sending hated enemies to the gulag for minor infractions just for spite. Something in the last generation has changed. Americans have turned into a nation of busybodies, harassing strangers on the web, calling the police or their places of business, and generally feeling entitled to destroy someone's life with whom they disagree. Who needs Big Brother when anonymous strangers will seek to silence, defame, shame, and ruin innocent people when their target violates their personal moral code, not the law and not good sense?

There are a couple forms of this destruction. Over the weekend, I read two articles, one from the New York Times,  another at Gizmo, both detailing the menacing behavior of people who should have just minded their own damn business. It is a lost American art, and it needs to come back now as innocent people are having their private lives unnecessarily upended. In both cases, complete strangers distorted innocent activities by their fellow Americans and decided to invade and disrupt someone else’s life. What happened to minding one’s own business?

When did American life so completely change? A few things have happened. In small towns, everyone knows the Town Gossip, the loose-lipped Guttersnipe, the Babbling Drunk. These folks were the exceptions to the rule of minding your own business. Either through overt meanness or carelessness, a gossip passed along their stories at the knitting circle or at the bar. And while these people were often disliked, they were a known quantity and could be avoided. Or, the person who heard a tall tale from these folks could filter the contents through the lens of knowing the character assassin’s tendencies. 

Now, with the flat interaction online, filtering for character of a person on a Facebook page or fact-checking the veracity of a character assassin is impossible. An anonymous tip to a cop?  Another change happened, too: More mothers are in the workforce, so fewer parents are at home. People don’t know their neighbors and they don’t know the kids and they don’t interact with anyone. It’s easy to call the cops on people one doesn’t know. It’s less effort to be tattletale than a good neighbor.

Public shaming private citizens is now high art to be praised. People go onto the internet, take a picture, and write a post about some heinous sin that must be stopped: Like the crime of the peanut butter sandwich. It’s not your business if someone wears a MAGA hat. It’s not your business if someone wears a Che shirt (though they do reveal themselves as morons and it’s okay to point and giggle). It’s not your business if a parent lets her kid play in the park across the street or take a walk. It’s not your business if a kid is in a car playing a video game on a mild fall day.

Keyboard vigilantes might well expend some effort to better their own lives rather than seek some benign social media user to destroy. Tend your own little catastrophe that’s called life. What a narcissistic, overly sensitive, bitchy culture America has become.

Excerpts from Melissa Mackenzie @ The American Spectator

Thank You WHATFINGER NEWS for the 'Blog Explore' Linkage!

Irony Alert: The Godfather of Fake News Calls DJT 'Orwellian'

Disgraced 'Newsman Dan' Rather's face for some strange reason continues to appear on television screens. It's latest appearance was on Don Lemon's CNN basement rated talk feast in a deep intellectual discussion about outrage at the DJT presidency. At one point, Newsman Dan took the lead when he called the current administration “straight out of Orwell”, prompting Lemon to encourage Rather to expand on his comparisons of the Trump presidency and 1984, the classic dystopian Orwell tome. 

“Orwell, what he wrote it's practically a shooting script for Donald Trump. The point being here there is a method to this, and the method is to convince people that the only truth is the truth that comes from me, the ultimate power. I'm the man with the ultimate power. And he has made some way in that -- as several people have said before me he's not just attacking the truths, he wants to annihilate the truth. He wants to move us completely into the post-truth political era in which there's no such thing as objective facts. He is the only fact. He has all the facts, he has all the information, just listen to him.”  

Not only was The Godfather's TDS showing, but the hypocrisy just drips from his comments. Let me explain. 

Let's replace all references to Trump in Rather's above statement with references to "the Media" and see that Newsman Dan's comment demonstrates that he, like most in the media, have totally lost any sense of self awareness, or just a willing participant in a conspiracy of hate and propaganda. (my changes in bold)

“Orwell, what he wrote it's practically a shooting script for the anti-Trump Media. The point being here there is a method to this, and the method is to convince people that the only truth is the truth that comes from the media , the ultimate power. The Media is the ultimate power. And the media has made some way in that -- as several people have said before me they are not just attacking the truths, the media wants to annihilate the truth. The media wants to move us completely into the post-truth political era in which there's no such thing as objective facts. They are the only fact. They have all the facts, they have all the information, just listen to them.”

Watching the whole interview, other than the brilliant revelation that Trump was not descended from Sun Gods, the only real thing believable I heard coming from Newsman Dan was his statement "It is not an overstatement to say that what is going on now is a great and decisive battle for the soul of this country." Yes Dan, we know. And while you refuse to accept it, more and more Americans are coming to believe that in that 'decisive battle', we are led by the right man. Something your agenda driven opinion and blinding hate will never allow you to understand.

  
Thank You WHATFINGER NEWS and MJA for the Linkage!

A Good Monday Morning - Ansel Adams Style

And People Wondered Why Ansel Adams Wandered

 the Wilderness With His Camera for 50 Years. 

Will the APA Soon Designate TDS an Official Mental Disorder?

While the mental afflictions of reactionary, anti-Trump progressives have not yet been classified as an official diagnosis, the symptoms we have witnessed over and over and come to call 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' include uncontrollable crying, loss of bowel control, nightly pillow biting, helplessness, marathon viewing of CNN, screaming at the sky and spending excessive time on social media sites. Mental Health Professionals have taken note and are finally speaking up about this strange phenomenon. 

The Hill

"Therapists in the U.S. say they have seen a rise in politically-related anxiety. Though a condition has not been officially named, therapists and patients have referred to it as “Trump Anxiety Disorder,” according to a report from Canada’s CBC News. 

Elisabeth LaMotte, the founder of the D.C. Counseling and Psychotherapy Center in Washington, D.C., told CBC that there is a “collective anxiety” among her patients related to President Trump’s rhetoric and policies."There is a fear of the world ending. It's very disorienting and constantly unsettling." 

The American Psychological Association (APA) found in a recent online survey that stress levels following the election are the highest they’ve been in a decade. And the majority of respondents reported stress over the 2016 election and the future of the nation as factors. The APA also found a correlation between stress levels and electronic news consumption....."

In the earliest stages of the disease, TDS victims lose all sense of proportion. The later stages of have a profound effect on the victim's vocabulary as sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting solely of hyperbole. As TDS progresses, the afflicted lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. In the advanced stages the afflicted lose touch with reality. Opinion becomes unmoored from fact and stuttering and uncontrollable slobbering may set in. 

Thank You MJA for the Linkage!

Middle Finger Symphony Theater

* No Tuxedos Required *

Brought to You by BLUESJUNKY: Honorary Chair of Music - Middle Finger Symphony Music Director

Thank You Bryce. That Was Lovely. You May Go Sit With the Other Special Children Now.

NYT & AP Target Supreme Court Nominee's Wife

NKT - The New York Times and Associated Press both have  filed requests under the state of Maryland's Public Information Act seeking emails that Ashley Kavanaugh, the wife of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, sent as town manager of The Village of Chevy Chase Section 5, according to documents obtained by America Rising Squared (AR2) .

According to the documents, the AP made a sweeping request for “all emails sent or received” by Ashley Kavanaugh’s Village of Chevy Chase email address. The New York Times is currently requesting that The Village of Chevy Chase Section 5 hand over “any emails to or from Ms. Kavanaugh that contain any of the keywords or terms  like “liberal,” “abortion,” “gay,” and “federalist,” while also explicitly asking for e-mails containing the names of certain individuals.

Here is a full list the Times requested. The list of terms reads like it was constructed in order to manufacture a hit piece on the wife of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. The documents appear to show that The New York Times is most interested in echoing liberal attack lines in the battle over Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, going so far as to target the nominee’s wife.