David Dubrow

Author

Not the End of the World: Just the End of the Benefit of the Doubt

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Everybody likes to complain about how divided the country is. Consider the irony: those who bleat most loudly about our divisive politics also mouth the “diversity is our strength” bromide. Diversity is, by its very nature, divisive. Diversity isn’t strength. Unity is strength: political, cultural, and moral unity. Shared ethics. A nation isn’t strong when its population consists of different skin colors, cultures, and genders; it’s strong when its population shares a unity of purpose, mores, and love of country. The United States no longer has that strength. The diversity that our progressive betters demand that we cherish includes loathing of America’s Constitutional system of governance, its founding, its people, its bedrock principles, and its standing in the world as an economic and military titan. Their raison d’être is acting on that loathing. That’s the diversity you must embrace. Their hatred of this country is more valid than your patriotism: accept this or be destroyed.

Where this leads us is the end of the benefit of the doubt. Every last ugly thing you’ve suspected has proved true over the last several years, barring stupid conspiracy theories like 9/11 Trutherism or Russians stealing the 2016 presidential election:

  • Progressives have a problem with Jews and Israel. It’s called anti-Semitism. We’ve suspected this for decades. Now they’ve proved it.
  • There is a shadow government (the Deep State) that has far too much influence on daily events than any unelected group should.
  • Progressives would rather murder babies both inside and outside of the womb than jeopardize a single vote from one of their prime interest groups: abortion enthusiasts.
  • Hollywood doesn’t just possess different values from ours. They seek to impose their corrosive values upon us through their near-monopoly on television/movie entertainment.
  • Federal law enforcement is corrupt in its leadership. The fish rots from the head down.
  • The vast majority of the news media exists to push progressive ideas, not report the news.
  • The university system is a corrupt institution that focuses on indoctrination over education.
  • We have a two-tiered justice system that plays favorites, and not just rich over poor.
  • The Republican party prefers talk over action. They’re weak and spineless and lacking in character, even the good ones.
  • Both political parties favor open borders for different reasons. They will be shielded from the consequences of their policies. You won’t.
  • Every last talking head on television, in print, and online is full of shit 99% of the time. Including me.

So now that we live at the End of the Benefit of the Doubt, what do we do?

Stop thinking about revenge. Or payback. Or how your favorite politician is going to stick it to Hillary or Mueller or anyone else. It’s not going to happen and unless you’ve been personally wronged by all the stupid bullshit going on in Washington D.C., your anger is misplaced. Don’t put your faith in politicians, even so-called outsiders. They’re all bad. All of them. They think they can run your life better than you can, even those who claim that they want to leave you alone. If you want to be angry, get mad at yourself: you believed in things that the evidence of your senses (including common sense) told you was untrue. I’m all for tribalism, and I rejoice in owning the other side as much as anyone. But social media battles won’t win the war. James Gunn is still making movies. Pete Davidson is still fucking Kate Beckinsale. These things don’t impact your life. Either laugh or get angry. Then get past it and move on.

If you want to do something about the End of the Benefit of the Doubt, live your life recognizing, in the present, how corrupt America’s institutions have become. Take nothing for granted. And, as uncomfortable as it is, you have to push back. You have to ask difficult questions, because growth comes from discomfort, not ease. We’ve lived lives of ease for too long, and it’s made us soft. Me included. During our decades-long vacation we let lunatics who believe that there are dozens of genders run our schools and make cartoons for our kids to watch. And we did it because we didn’t question the received wisdom. Diversity isn’t our strength. Tolerance of bad ideas isn’t a virtue. We are not a nation of immigrants; we’re a nation of citizens.

Push back. There are more of us than there are of them. Our leaders, such as they are, in Washington, Hollywood, the news media, and education need to be told that they’re on the fringe, not the mainstream. Question them, kick them out, humiliate them, and, when possible, reject them. They’re the enemy. They show you that every day. Why not believe them?

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Bits and Pieces 2/28/2019

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Bill Maher ruffled feathers/made headlines/pick-your-cliche in the most recent episode of his show, claiming that people who live in red states/flyover country are secretly envious of the blue state coastal elites, and want to be like them. “We have Chef Wolfgang Puck, they have Chef Boyardee,” he said. “They don’t hate us, they want to be us.” If I had it in me to be insulted by what anyone on television has to say anymore, I suppose I could muster some outrage over this. But I can’t. We rubes in the red states have seen how the elites live and don’t want any part of it. What’s telling is that Maher didn’t mention mores as a reason for this envy. He didn’t say, “We have abortion clinics on every corner, they have traditional families.” He didn’t say, “We have strict gun laws, they have personal responsibility.” And he didn’t say, “We have Hollywood, ground zero for institutionalized prostitution, sexual harassment, drug addiction, and pedophilia; they have churches.” What Maher’s proud of isn’t what we’re proud of. We just wish that the coastal elites would stay in their bailiwicks instead of moving to red states and voting for the same policies and politicians that ruined their original homes.

—

I’ve watched as many episodes of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television program as I’m likely to; you can read my general impressions of it here. Now that I’ve gone through the vast majority of it, I’m struck by how much it’s a product of a different generation, a different set of TV rules for storytelling, tone, and style. Many of the episodes were two-parters, which stretched the envelope for a time before the advent of VHS players. Tone-wise, it was far from all doom-and-gloom. The fleeing Colonists encountered many planets on which humans lived and thrived; no matter what happened with the Cylon War, humanity was probably going to survive. Everything wasn’t a world-ending emergency, unlike today’s type of apocalyptic programming. Faith and God were very important to the Colonies; Commander Adama (who had the power of telekinesis, go figure) led the Colonists to Earth based initially on religious faith, not knowledge of our planet’s location in the universe. A later episode has the Colonial Fleet meeting Lucifer (yes, that Lucifer), who can only be defeated by angels (yes, those angels) who resurrect a fallen pilot and tell the Colonists where to find Earth. This kind of thing simply isn’t done anymore in science fiction programming. Yes, many of the episodes were hokey, silly, or corny, but it had heart. And, at the time, it was all we had. I highly recommend it as a fascinating look into the popular entertainment of just a few decades ago.

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I recently read Eleanor Bourg Nicholson’s novel A Bloody Habit and enjoyed it, for the most part. To get the most out of it, you have to have read Bram Stoker’s Dracula recently, or have more than a passing recollection of the events therein. Bram Stoker has a cameo in A Bloody Habit, and the novel reads very much like a combination of Dracula pastiche and correction of the faith-based elements of the Stoker work. The vampire hunters of Habit are miles from the dashing, stake-wielding Van Helsing and Holmwood: they’re men of the cloth who recognize vampirism as demonic possession, and treat it as such. If you can work your way through the first third’s foundation-building, you’re in for a treat.

—

Appalling Stories 3 is coming soon, and while it hews to the previous volumes’ themes, it’s a different style of work. Get ready.

 

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A Message to the Covington Kids

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I hold no illusions that what I write here will be read by the Covington High School students mired in the latest case of social media-fueled media malpractice. It’s really a message to my son, who will have to learn these lessons eventually; the sooner he takes them to heart, the better off he’ll be.

Hey guys:

I’m not going to pretend that I understand what you’re dealing with now. I’m assuming, however, that if you were attending the March for Life to protest the horror of abortion, you’ve got good parents who are guiding you along the path to being decent adults. At your age I didn’t care about any issues outside of my personal desires, so I salute you.

Obviously the attendant ugliness isn’t what you expected. It’s bad that it happened, but it’s worse if you don’t learn anything from it. Here are the biggest takeaways:

Adults lie. You probably knew this already, but it’s particularly galling when thousands of adults are lying about you, what you’ve done, what you’ve seen, and what you believe. There’s a big difference between white lies and lies designed to destroy you, and you’re being subjected to the latter, and it sucks. It’s disillusioning. Nathan Phillips lied to the media about what he did to you and what you did. He has a history of lying about his service record and previous encounters with white people. You’re being lied about by politicians, news reporters, entertainers and their brain-dead fans, and it’s absolutely crazy, but here we are. They’re lying about you not because of anything you’ve done personally to them, but because of what you represent: the millions and millions of people who hold different values. You’ve become proxies for President Trump, his voters, and anyone who stands against abortion. They hate you (and us) so much they’ll lie about you to ruin your lives. So yes, adults lie.

Only your family has your back. It’s absolutely shameful that the diocese and school immediately and publicly rushed to judgment against you, despite that these are some of the adults who know you best. Any apology at this point is too little, too late: the damage has already been done. Their primary interest isn’t in protecting or even educating you: they live first and foremost to maintain their jobs. Students come and go, parishioners move elsewhere, but the school and the church live on. They don’t have your back. Not even the strangers who are outraged on your behalf have your back, at least not for long; we’ll move on to a different outrage next week. Only your family has your back. Don’t trust your teachers or clergy to protect you. Trust your parents. Trust your family. They’re the ones who will see you through this.

Entertainers are, for the most part, scum. I understand the desire to lionize actors, musicians, and comedians. They entertain us and it’s natural to like them for it. It’s hard to dislike someone who makes you laugh. Just remember that they’re doing a job, nothing more. They have no special skills outside of that job. They don’t have the wisdom of the brilliant people they sometimes portray, and for the most part, they lack curiosity, education, and ethics. Hollywood is a town that’s known worldwide for rampant sexual assault, pedophilia, substance abuse, and institutionalized prostitution. So when you see something like this:

Consider the source. John DiMaggio is the actor who does the voice for Jake the dog in Adventure Time. And now he’s hoping you’ll die. He doesn’t even know you. He hasn’t bothered to inform himself as to the particulars of the incident. He’s representative of the majority of the entertainment sphere. So don’t make the mistake of elevating entertainers. They’re not good people just because they’re on screen. In fact, most of them aren’t good people at all. Don’t you have something better to do than give the people who hate you your time and money and attention?

Most adults are cowards. While you’ll find a lot of air time devoted to attacking you for just being there and wearing MAGA hats, you won’t find a lot of air time devoted to attacking the Black Hebrew Israelites. Which is weird, because they called you “faggots”. If white nationalists had called black kids faggots, you can be sure that every gay rights organization on the planet would have jumped on them with both feet. But they haven’t, because the Black Hebrew Israelites scare them. Because they’re cowards. Anyone in media who doesn’t denounce this racist, bigoted group the Black Hebrew Israelites is either a coward or someone who agrees with them. Note also that the majority of people who called for you to be beaten up or even murdered weren’t saying they’d do it themselves. They asked other people to do it, because they’re cowards. Like Reza Aslan.

This is all very cynical, I know, but it’s also the truth, and it’s something you’re living right now. I wish you the best of success in everything, particularly your lawsuit.

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Flash Fiction Writing Contest!

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On Tuesday, October 23, The New York Times published short stories focusing on the end of the Trump-Russia investigation, and one of the more notable (if poorly-written) tales involved a U.S. Secret Service agent helping a Russian spy assassinate President Trump.

In the wake of the recent scare involving unexploded bombs sent to prominent progressives, CNN, one of the progressive targets, blamed Trump for inciting the bomber.

What’s clear is that these two seething cauldrons of progressive bile masquerading as news outlets are using their bully pulpits to destroy a president they disagree with. This is unacceptable, no matter who you voted for.

It’s time to not just fight back, but write back. To that end, publisher Obsidian Point is sponsoring a flash fiction writing contest. In 1,000 words or less, tell us a story that describes the downfall of NYT, CNN, or both. We want to see, in writing, “Dear Diary” Jim Acosta get his comeuppance. What would make Don Lemon’s self-satisfied smirk vanish? What fake news story would finally get the failing New York Times to shut its doors? Which scandal would befall the ancient-but-still-twitching Maureen Dowd?

We’re not looking for assassination porn; let the amoral progressives at The New York Times publish those kinds of masturbatory fantasies. Any genre is welcome, from horror to comedy to science fiction to thriller to whatever. Make us laugh, make us cringe, make us throw up all over ourselves. But make it good.

Send your story to appallingstories@gmail.com in any format that can be opened with Microsoft Word. Remember, 1,000 words or less. Deadline is Sunday, November 4. One story per writer.

The winning story will receive a Chick-Fil-A gift certificate and will be published in the upcoming anthology Appalling Stories 2: More Appalling Tales of Social Injustice, the sequel to the top-selling Appalling Stories: 13 Tales of Social Injustice. Runners-up will be published online in this space.

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Your Defense of Zina Bash Should Be Bashed: A Guest Post by Paul Hair

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On September 4, Zina Bash sat behind soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing in the clown show we affectionately refer to as the U.S. Senate. Social Justice Warriors immediately accused her of being a white nationalist/white supremacist because, as she sat there for hours upon hours, cameras caught her touching her index finger to her thumb. (Spoiler alert: the OK symbol is not a white supremacist symbol. At all.) Conservatives rushed to her defense by saying there was no way she could be a white supremacist because she has Jewish and Mexican heritage, thus eliminating the possibility that she’s an icky white person. So went the latest incident of conservatives advancing identity politics; so went the latest incident of conservatives advancing the progressive agenda.

The progressive conspiracy theory that Zina Bash is some sort of white supremacist is so outlandish it deserves to be treated with nothing more than ridicule as another example of how insane progressives have become. It should have been an easy win for conservatives. So, of course, they screwed it up by playing the progressive game. They defended Bash by bashing white people; by making her racial/ethnic heritage the highlight of her defense. “She’s not white—that most evil of races—thus she can’t be a white supremacist. QED!”

The issue of Bash’s heritage was, and is, irrelevant. If she was 100% Anglo, Celtic, Nordic, or any other European heritage, what she did with her fingers is still a non-issue. It’s a sign of how appallingly unserious we’ve become that this kind of thing must be said. The progressive accusation against her was vile. Attempting to defend her with a “She’s not white!” defense is nearly as vile.

Unfortunately, there is nothing unusual about this latest failure of conservatism. Progressives have such a tight hold over every aspect of culture that not only do their own adherents think the thoughts they want them to think, but most conservatives think the thoughts they want them to think too. Thus, it’s standard operating procedure for conservatives to boast of how “We hate identity politics!” right before they form a working group to figure out how to appeal more to “non-white, non-cis, non-males.”

As long as conservatives continue following progressive rules and playing the progressive game, they will continue losing. And the failed defense of Zina Bash serves as the latest example of everything conservatives are doing wrong.

–Written by Paul Hair

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The Alex Jones Flap: Solutions

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Professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was recently removed from just about every social media platform in existence, including LinkedIn, but not Twitter.

Alex Jones is disgusting. He’s a 9/11 Truther, a Sandy Hook Truther, and a thousand other appalling things. Anyone who buys into his sickening brand of commentary is, by definition, a garbage person. *

But is his ouster from these social media platforms a free speech issue?

The easy response is that Instagram and YouTube and iTunes are private companies and can kick off anyone they want to. They’re not public utilities, but they’re being run like public utilities. On the other hand, by limiting content, they’re edging into publisher territory. So are they utilities or are they publishers? If a publisher declines to print your manuscript, is the publisher silencing you?

That’s the high-minded stuff. The theory. Let’s talk about practice.

In reality, Silicon Valley is a hive-mind of far-left progressive ideology from Google on down to Snapchat and beyond. This is inarguable, even if you find it troubling. The big tech companies loathe and contemn everyone who isn’t a progressive; it’s what animates them over profits. If you don’t enthusiastically toe the leftist line, they wish you’d just go away and die already. Alex Jones was a trial balloon. They’ll move on to normal people soon.

So what can you do?

You can opt out, of course. That’s one choice. One of the best things I ever did for myself was quitting Facebook, and I encourage all other normal people to do the same.  Void the field. Let the progressives have the social media platforms they built. This is preferable to the death of a thousand cuts they have in store for us.

The better choice is to treat them like Ma Bell and regulate the living shit out of them so they can’t just arbitrarily decide that you’re an unperson who spews hate speech. I’m a firm believer in free markets, but support of a free market, like support of the U.S. Constitution, isn’t a suicide pact. As long as these bizarre, anti-Western progressive panjandrums are bound and determined to de-platform everyone who isn’t a bizarre, anti-Western progressive, let them feel the wrath of normal people. It’s not a free market when one side has its thumb on the scale. They’re fighting dirty, so we have to fight just as dirty. Confound them with regulation after regulation. Put their arbitrary, hostile business model in jeopardy. Make them testify in front of Congress again and again and again and make them vomit up their dishonesty before the voting public. Progressives love regulating business, the environment, education, and everything else under or above the sun, so choke them with social media regulation until they can’t breathe.

If we have to bake that cake, you’ve got to let Alex Jones spew his stupid crap on Facebook. Regulate, regulate, regulate.

 

*What’s amazing is that Jones, as loathsome as he is, is no different from Rachel Maddow, who works for NBC. Why aren’t social media companies going after Maddow? She promulgates moronic, offensive conspiracy bullshit to unthinking drones every day herself. **

**You know the answer to that.

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