BC SOCIETY
Saved by @Jacobtldr

Excellent analysis! One of our biggest problems is that people think "democracy," all by itself, is a sufficient check on power. I frankly don't understand how anyone can still believe that, but of course they probably won't be taught otherwise in school.

 The disturbing flip side of thinking democracy is a magic talisman against tyranny is the belief that democracy sanctifies power - the essence of majoritarianism. "They can't be dictators if we can vote them out of office!" is one of the most dangerous ideas in the world.
The restraints placed on power are MORE important than the process of choosing who gets to wield it. You would be more free under a tightly restrained hereditary monarch than in a "democracy" with totalitarian centralized power.
The human race learned, fairly recently, that elected government is the approach most likely to maximize liberty and human rights, but where on Earth did we get the notion that it's perfect and sufficient all by itself? The world is full of tyrannies that hold elections.
"Democracy" would be the worst of all worlds - tyranny by mob rule, with the oppressors claiming their every fancy was fully and completely sanctified because they won a vote, and why should we let a stubborn minority thwart The Will of the People?
One of the things "democracy" fetishists don't understand - or don't want YOU to understand - is that you don't amass majoritarian power by convincing a majority of the people to agree with you. It's FAR easier to gain power by suppressing those who disagree.
The childlike view of "democracy" is some great lively national conversation where we all decide what we're going to do together. The Democrat Party actually used that as an insipid slogan during the Obama years - "government is just a name for the things we do together."
The reality is aggressive, power-hungry groups intimidating and oppressing the opposition to get what they want. They loudly insist those who disagree with them have no moral standing to participate in "democracy." The number of ideas that can be voted on grows ever smaller.
Getting 51% of the people in a huge nation to agree with you is a sucker's game. Preventing 51% from banding together to stop you is MUCH easier. It's funny how in theory everything is on the table in an unrestrained majoritarian democracy, but in practice nothing really is.
You know who really has the whip hand under "democracy?" Power brokers who can drop packages of bloc votes on the table. Give me what I want, and I'll deliver X votes. Those blocs must be kept disciplined and obedient by teaching them to feel entitled and hate everyone else.
And of course, the more centralized power becomes, the less important the concerns of individual people will be. One vote among tens or hundreds of millions gives you no "control" over "democracy," especially not compared to power brokers with bloc votes and big city machines.
What you need to be free, really free, is a tightly restrained central government, constitutional rights it cannot transgress against no matter how morally superior politicians might feel or how badly special interests desire it, power devolved to local representatives.
It's still not a perfect setup - there will always be tension between freedom and the desire for more government intervention - but the best thing about constitutionally limited, decentralized government is that you really can organize and make a difference in local government...
... and if that doesn't work, you can fairly easily move to a city or state that respects the freedoms you value and supports ideas you believe in. Americans were given the best deal anyone ever got by our founders, and we let it slip away. We were foolish to let it go.
"Democracy" and majoritarianism are appealing to people who want to be ruled, hunger to rule over others, or have been convinced that freedom is scary. Easier to accept totalitarianism when you can tell yourself it was sanctified by "democracy."
The worst illusion is the foolish belief that we can always vote the totalitarianism away if we don't like it. Sorry, folks, but the core belief of "progressivism" is that nobody ever gets to vote again once government power is imposed, no matter how badly it fails.
Look at how the Democrats have used Obamacare to enslave voters. It was sold with lies, it failed so spectacularly that even the Dems agreed it's a disaster during their debates... but there's no going back, ever. You're not even allowed to talk about returning to freedom.
All too often, "democracy" boils down to one man, one vote, one time... and the voters don't really know what they're voting for. True freedom lies not in the opportunity to say "yes," but in the power to say "no." /end

More from John Hayward

John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Around the world, very much including the Western world, real power is measured by the ability to silence criticism.

The highest reaches of power are measured by the ability to force people to speak in politically-approved ways.

The ability to silence criticism is a signifier of power. It's how truly powerful groups and regimes recognize each other. If free people can challenge your ideals or mock you without fear, you aren't TRULY powerful, no matter how much authority you might nominally possess.

And if you can force people to speak, force them to use your preferred language, penalize them socially or legally for failing to signal their support for your agenda, then you've entered the winner's circle. Your government or movement has taken a seat at the highest table.

This is one of the reasons people with authoritarian or totalitarian inclinations are constantly screaming that opponents are trying to silence them, even when it's manifestly untrue. It's a means of signaling their contempt for the opposition, of diminishing its stature.

These people would cheerfully allow themselves to be silenced by a regime or movement they truly respected. They pretend to be victims of oppression as a means of signaling the illegitimacy of leaders they despise.
WORLD
John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Our pretensions to civilization have become very thin. Political violence was legitimized last year and is spreading wildly now. "Might makes right" is clearly the only "principle" behind freedom of speech. That's why Chinese Communists will never be censored by Big Tech.

When every "principle" becomes nothing but a ruthless exercise of power, it's not surprising that a growing number of people conclude they must demonstrate some sort of power in order to be taken seriously. Violence is the crudest exercise of power.

A well-run civilization makes it clear *universally* that violence is absolutely unacceptable. Giving free passes for irresponsible rhetoric and destruction to groups favored by the dominant political ideology of the State undermines that message.

We must also people peaceable means of expressing themselves and controlling their own lives, to relieve the pressures that can lead to violent outbursts and other forms of lawlessness. The less healthy discourse and freedom of action you have, the more pressure builds up.

It's dangerous when large numbers of people begin drawing the conclusion that might makes right, that laws and principles bend easily for those who have the political strength to bend them. Might makes right is the code of anarchy and barbarism, the antithesis of civilization.
POLITICS , SOCIETY , ALL
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
The amazing thing about the era of filmmaking that ended with "Wonder Woman 1984" is that a script that dumb and joyless could get past dozens of people without anyone pumping the brakes before a firehose of funding was sprayed over the project.

The most entertaining thing about WW84 is the press tour where the filmmakers pretend to be creative geniuses who learned *so much* from the failings of the vastly superior original film, especially its climactic showdown.

"The studio forced us to wrap the first movie up with a loud, cartoony CGI smackdown!" they cried... then delivered a sequel that ends with an even more cartoony and pointless CGI smackdown, followed by half an hour of Wonder Woman explaining why cheating and selfishness are bad.

How do you come off a surprisingly popular, breezy, entertaining movie that began the turnaround for a flagging zillion-dollar franchise and decide the sequel should be a first-grade morality lesson with the logic of a Care Bears cartoon that's longer than a Tolkien film?

Presumably it's because everyone involved decided they had something Very Important to say about the hellish 80s Decade of Greed that would be Highly Relevant for modern audiences, even though many people involved in the production are too young to remember the 80s.
CULTURE
John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
In the space of half a year, a new class division was ripped through American society: those who can live normally through pandemic lockdowns and restrictions versus those who can't. The two sides have a great deal of difficulty communicating across that chasm.

Of course, media and political elites are, at worst, inconvenienced by lockdowns, so news coverage is heavily slanted against the people who are really suffering from these policies. They're already as forgotten as the designated losers of globalist trade policy.

Spend a day watching mainstream media pandemic coverage, then spend the evening with people whose livelihoods have been utterly ruined by pandemic restrictions. It's like traveling from the Earth to Mars. Completely different worlds, totally different outlooks.

It's exactly like the divide between "free trade" winners and losers, people living in comfortable financial and media bubbles vs. people living in hollowed-out ghost towns with skyrocketing mortality rates. The Wuhan virus gave us a new, even bigger class of Designated Losers.

The new class divide cracked open along some economic and social fault lines that were already present and deepening, such as the growing number of people who preferred minimizing human contact while socializing online. It really is the social schism of the new century.
LIFE
John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
The liberty and mobility granted to average people by cheap gasoline and home energy is absolutely infuriating to socialist central planners. They need you people to stop moving around so much. You keep scuttling their glorious five-year plans.
SOCIETY

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Jonny Best
Jonny Best
@JonnyWorst
Academic staff at universities can't be open about the complaints against them - and most complaints of transphobia from students seem to be directed at staff. I'm just a final year PhD student, under no contractual requirement to be confidential, so I can share.

The original complaint against me was typical of the sort of thing directed at many female professional academics (and some male too). The strategies employed by my complainants are commonly used.

One of these is to perform vulnerability while behaving aggressively. Performing vulnerability is essential in order to trigger the university's awareness of its duties under the Equality Act, and establish an oppressor/victim dynamic to the case from the outset.

My complainants did this effectively. The complaint was initiated by a fellow PhD student, who joined forces with the SU. A student from the SU wrote the actual complaint. This is how it begins:


In all my dealings with @HuddersfieldUni I accepted that sometimes anonymous complaints were necessary - and that, sometimes, victimisation could be a concern. However, I have never victimised anyone. Nobody has ever argued that I have.
SOCIETY
kurt lash
kurt lash
@kurtlash1
1/ The “I Have a Dream" speech is one of the most extraordinary speeches in American history. You should read it again. First, a few thoughts about the common American heritage Dr. King relied upon in calling Americans to rededicate themselves to the unfinished work of freedom.


2/ Dr. King delivered his speech in what he called the “hallowed spot” of the Lincoln memorial. More than a picturesque backdrop, King relied on America’s reverence for Lincoln and the common celebration of Lincoln’s words and acts, especially the Emancipation Proclamation.


3/ “Five score years ago…” King echoes the words of the Gettysburg Address. Like Lincoln, King invokes the Declaration of Independence and the fundamental principles of American freedom, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Every person in that crowd knew these words.


4/ The Declaration, Constitution and Emancipation Proclamation declared and established the fundamental American principles of freedom that all Americans knew and believed in. But these principles and promises remained unfulfilled for black Americans.


5/ Lincoln’s audience knew the history of slavery and many had suffered personal loss in the ongoing war. Dr. King’s audience knew the history of violent racism, segregation, and unequal economic opportunity. The Proclamation freed the slaves, “but the Negro still is not free.”
HISTORY , SOCIETY
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Indian Rwanda Radio
Indian Rwanda Radio
@IND_RwandaRadio
Nearly a year ago, the Tablighi Jamaat controversy took over India’s media. Around 3,500 foreign nationals had visited India to attend the Tablighi Jamaat event at the Nizamuddin Markaz Mosque in Delhi.

With the lockdown being announced on March 24, 2020, several attendees had moved to different parts of the country to attend smaller gatherings in local mosques.

Around 960 foreign nationals were held at quarantine and in states like UP, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc. were sent straight to prison.

There was an outpour of Anti-Muslim bigotry in much of Indian news media with this event where it ramped up its demonisation of the community.

For weeks, the attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat event were named the “super-spreaders” of COVID and in several cases, Maulana Mohammad Saad was called a terrorist and “the maulana of death”.
SOCIETY
Youyang Gu
Youyang Gu
@youyanggu
I've seen many news articles cite that "the UK variant could be the dominant strain by March". This is emphasized by @CDCDirector.

While this will likely to be the case, this should not be an automatic cause for concern. Cases could still remain contained.

Here's how: 🧵

One of @CDCgov's own models has tracked the true decline in cases quite accurately thus far.

Their projection shows that the B.1.1.7 variant will become the dominant variant in March. But interestingly... there's no fourth wave. Cases simply level out:

https://t.co/tDce0MwO61


Just because a variant becomes the dominant strain does not automatically mean we will see a repeat of Fall 2020.

Let's look at UK and South Africa, where cases have been falling for the past month, in unison with the US (albeit with tougher restrictions):


Furthermore, the claim that the "variant is doubling every 10 days" is false. It's the *proportion of the variant* that is doubling every 10 days.

If overall prevalence drops during the studied time period, the true doubling time of the variant is actually much longer 10 days.

Simple example:

Day 0: 10 variant / 100 cases -> 10% variant
Day 10: 15 variant / 75 cases -> 20% variant
Day 20: 20 variant / 50 cases -> 40% variant

1) Proportion of variant doubles every 10 days
2) Doubling time of variant is actually 20 days
3) Total cases still drop by 50%
SOCIETY
Hollywood
Hollywood
@J_MoAGoGo
Overall I think Labour will be a bit disappointed with how the ‘relaunch’ has started. Labour have given themselves a mountain to climb anyway through a year of inaction but the speech today lacked coherence, purpose and distinction from the government.

Starmer is (funnily enough) making a lot of the same mistakes Corbyn made in 2019. He is listing a ‘bold’ set of policy proposals that come across as disjointed and lacking connection to Britain’s priorities.

The policies themselves were basically good, I wouldn’t argue against them. But I would cringe whenever Labour came out with spending proposal after spending proposal in 2019 without any rationale or connection to a larger economic strategy. That’s what Starmer did today.

The questions that voters will have about Starmer’s speech are the same ones that voters will have had about Corbyn’s 2019 manifesto: why are these policies your priority, how can we afford them and why aren’t we doing these already?

The first one needs to be answered by diagnosing Britain’s problems and their causes. He doesn’t have to diagnose all of them. For the purpose of today he could have picked three that feed off each other: inequality, stagnant income growth and stagnant productivity.
SOCIETY

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Dad was unmoved and told the guy to stop arguing with him.

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It was really hard to not jump in and say, "Sounds like you guys are going to have a fun meal tomorrow!" so they could unite in hatred against me, the outsider, and stop squabbling. Instead I exchanged glances with a nearby fellow lady patron, who also emotionally ate a cookie.

Anyway, I want to thank the random family for yelling about rape and the Holocaust in an Israeli cafe in the US of A today because it reminded me that while this country isn't the greatest, it is inevitably my stupid favorite and I am never, ever bored.
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On the occasion of youtube 20k and Twitter 70k members

A small tribute/gift to members

Screeners

technical screeners - intraday and positional both

before proceeding - i have helped you , can i ask you so that it can help someone else too

thank you

positional one

run - find #stock - draw chart - find levels

1- Stocks closing daily 2% up from 5 days
https://t.co/gTZrYY3Nht

2- Weekly breakout
https://t.co/1f4ahEolYB

3- Breakouts in short term
https://t.co/BI4h0CdgO2

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6- Intraday Buying seen in the past 15 minutes
https://t.co/XqAJKhLB5G

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Symptomatic people are tested for one and only one respiratory virus. This means that other acute respiratory infections are reclassified as


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THE NOTICEABLE SIGNS OBSERVED ON IMPENDING DEATH(मृत्यु के संकेत या चिन्ह)

As per Skanda Puran, Kartikeya had narrated to Muni Agastya about the signs of the coming death. This is as per this ancient scripture.


If one experiences the air coming out of right nostril continuously then it is observed that the person dies within three years. If the breathing is continuous towards upper side from both the nostrils, then the person can die within two three days.

If the breathing is through the mouth instead of the nostrils then the person may live only for two days. The person should take into coignance these signs of the occurance of any sudden death.

As per astrology when the Surya is in the 7th house and Chandrama is in its own house and the breathing is only through the right nostril then the danger exists. If you see a yellow black coloured figure who becomes invisible immediately then the life span is limited to 2 years.

If any person sneezes, passes urine, stool and semen all together he has only a year more to live. If a person sees blue coloured snakes flying in the sky then he has only six more months to live. If a person sees any thing opposite to its real self like colours
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