Saturday, January 13, 2018

Wholly Shit

It’s like the day when you were wandering through the halls of some hotel, looking for your meeting room when you opened the wrong door and found yourself in a convention of coprophiliacs. Everywhere you turn, all you hear are references to excrement. People cannot lift their eyes from the mountains of plain, ordinary shit. Call it the banality of anality. Or the triumph of the scatological.

The American media is delighted... to be proved right. By all appearances Donald Trump declared that certain nations, like Haiti and El Salvador were shithole countries. Or, did he say, shithouse countries. Enquiring minds want to know.

For his part Trump should know better. He should know better than to ignite a firestorm of moral outrage by speaking as though he was with friends back in Queens. Politicians are not his friends. They feel no longer bound by the rules of gentlemanly decorum. Trump should know this. And he should learn to control his mouth. He made an unforced error and he is paying for it. Exercising presidential leadership means not making your oversized persona the issue. With Trump, the persona seems always the issue. True enough, the world is chockablock with people who will do anything in their power to destroy Trump. But, why give them ammunition? Or better, why give them fertilizer?

Given its propensities and declivities, the media, like a roll of toilet paper, has been all over the issue. It has thrown its own rules to the wind and keeps talking about shitholes. Everything is coming up shit. It’s all they talk about. Shouldn't we be asking whether they all sound like assholes? Or wouldn't that be polite. 

With tears in their eyes journalists posture and preen. They have never had a bigoted thought in their lives. And yet they keep saying that certain countries are not shitholes. They are definitely not shitholes. Some of them have produced citizens who are decidedly not shit holes. They are not even assholes.

I dare you. I double dare you to think of any of these countries without associating them with shit. Is Haiti a shithole? Is El Salvador a shithole? Even if you dispute the facts and the language, the association will stick to you like… shit thrown against a wall.

It’s a problem. The same problem arose with the #MeToo movement. The more women offered graphic descriptions of their experiences of sexual harassment and assault, the more difficult it was to think about women on the job without thinking also of sexual harassment. Fill peoples’ minds with insalubrious images; insist that they keep focused like a laser beam on said insalubrious images… and, lo and behold… they will have a difficult time ridding their minds of such images. And they will have more and more difficulty elevating their minds beyond the excremental.
  
At least, with the current shitstorm, the images are more disgusting than pornographic… unless, of course, you practice coprophilia. As I said, it’s a great day for practitioners of that slightly bizarre sexual practice. And yes, I know that we are not allowed to say that it’s a perversion and we are certainly not allowed to say that it is disgusting… because that would forever consign us to the island where we are going to send everyone who is unenlightened and politically incorrect. Or should we say, politically incorrectum.

Unfortunately, for those who think that immigration should be an important political issue, Donald Trump has muddied the waters… to the point that we can no longer even have a rational discussion of the matter. After all, that is the point of denouncing people as racists or sexists. You muddy the waters with so much shit that no one can ever discuss whether mass migration is a good or a bad thing. 

No one can discuss whether or not we should test new migrants for what they can contribute to the nation, how good they are in STEM subjects. We cannot even discuss the horrors that migrants from shithole countries are visiting on Europe, on Germany, Sweden and France… for starters. Raise the issue and you will immediately be denounced as a shithead.

In the meantime, besides reporting on the situation in Europe, I have also exposed the new Israeli policy of deporting African migrants. You might not have heard about it. You probably did not hear about it. But, the Israeli government has offered African migrants a stipend to return to their home countries. If they do not accept the stipend and leave, the government will forcibly deport them.

No one has gone into highest dudgeon over this. No one has even noticed. And yet, a nation has a right to control its borders, to accept or to reject those who want to relocate. Only those who believe that nations are ideas or that we are all citizens of the world will dispute this point. One understands that Donald Trump rode to the White House by proposing such an idea. Now, however, thanks to his uncontrollable wish to be cool, the debate has shifted… away from the rights and wrongs of immigration to Trumpian racism.

Oh, shit.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I might care, a little, if this was said outside of a private meeting, but I don't. We do not elect saints to be president. Look up the definition of the word. http://dcwhispers.com/hey-remember-obama-called-libya-sht-show/#O4P2tvyvQ7eYZBUf.97 I would expect that, just like the rest of us, president do use "swear" words on occasion.
This is so silly and inane I am almost sorry that we have to endure a "media" so embed with TDS that they want to turn everything into an "ism." As they say, "Let the first person who has not used language not meant for use in polite company toss the first stone." Grow the #$%^ up. Oh I intimated a dirty word.

Sam L. said...

The media are now SO happy to repeat what Trump is said to have said. He may have said it, but I don't know that he did. Color me...agnostic.

trigger warning said...

Everybody knows Presidents say "bad words", as tbey were called by the teachers in my primary school years. This was a closed meeting. The Bezos Blog sources were "anonymous" and not present in the meeting. It was passed on anonymously to afford deniability to the source. The purpose was obviously to queer the negotiations and pressure Trump. I doubt that it will work. I personally hope he hardens his position. Let the Progs shut the government down. Please. Give us a break from "nonessential personnel", however brief.

Moreover, the countries referred to are, in fact, shitholes. Everybody knows that, too. It's at least plausible that Haiti, for exammple, might not be quite so shitty a shithole as it is, had it not been royally ripped off by Bill and Hillary Clinton. As one of several examples...

"Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, was a board member of a North Carolina mining company that enjoyed prime access to Haitian gold deposits in the wake of post-earthquake relief work organized in part by former president Bill Clinton through the Clinton Foundation."
--- Daily Mail

Nevertheless, in a sincere effort to better understand dignified political language, I quote from a podcast by the ever-dignified Sen Kamala Harris (D-CA): "What the fuck is that?" And, modeling the same dignified language while attempting to encourage a spirit of international amity, I quote from a speech by NY Sen Kirsten "Prissy" Gillibrand, "Go the fuck home."

In truth, though, one of the things I love about Donald Trump is his off-the-cuff commentary. It has the same effect on the Left as dragging a broomstick down cage doors in a Primate Lab. The screeching, exaggerated threat displays, and feces-throwing are priceless.

Malcolm said...

Andrew Klavan says it the best

https://www.city-journal.org/html/crudeness-and-truth-15668.html

Jack Fisher said...

"Temporary Protected Status" What part of "Temporary" do these vermin not comprende?

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Phenomenal first paragraph, Stuart. I don’t hear about coprophilia everyday.

“No one can discuss whether or not we should test new migrants for what they can contribute to the nation, how good they are in STEM subjects.”

This is the conversation we should be having. We’ve not been having it because the topic is verboten, unutterable — like Voldemort’s name. Matters of our perverse, slothful, phony intellectual culture are the forbidden fruit, begging to be picked and eaten. It is Trump the savage whose daring leadership is allowing us to have at it. I understand your preference for decorum, Stuart, but the Leftist media is not allowing us to have polite discussion about real issues or policy choices. Polite society — as determined by the “meritocratic” cognitive elite — does not allow these forbidden topics to be broached. It’s racist, you see. Bigoted, if you will.

Trump’s benefit — and challenge — is that he is willing to start these conversations, and to express them in a way that gains broad attention. Not one of Trump’s 16 other Republican presidential challengers would have touched all the issues he has in this first year. Not one. I find it refreshing. I may shake my head (smiling) sometimes at how he says it, but it gets the conversation out there. You can’t avoid it... the way he says things begs for broad consumption. The Left lives in a universe of untouchable, unquestionable, unmentionable moral and ethical assumptions that form the foundation of their immense power (legally prescribed and enforced by the non-STEM bureaucrat pinheads who drive government policy). Who else has the brazen courage to take it all on? Trump is the greatest threat to the parasitic modern Establishment that we will likely see in our lifetime.

And this is all delivered into your home by the media. The media has become a daily shitshow, with no indications that they will become serious. Grow up, indeed. Trump didn’t make his comments from a podium with the presidential seal — this was a closed-door a policy discussion. And what Dick Durbin said to the press immediately afterwards about African-Americans migrating in chains is horrifically patronizing. And Terry “Clinton Moneyman” McAuliffe, says he would’ve socked Trump in the mouth, had he been there. My, my... Democrats are so impressive and morally superior.

Haiti is a shithole. And Norway is not. Everyone knows it. I thought the Lefties LOVED Scandinavia — couldn’t get enough of it! Hell, whenever public education comes up, the Lefties start lecturing us about Finland, and how great their education system is. Finland has 5 million people, and a per capita GDP of $42,611. Wanna talk? Bring it on. Let’s talk about it. I assert “Finnish education exceptionalism” has little to do with money. It has to do with the social cohesion and uniform standards a polity of 5 million people offers. We don’t have that here in the U.S., and it gets worse as we enforce federal education standards in a country of 320 million with social disintegration and few standards. The only standards Leftists push for are the living standards of education employees in their adult public works leviathan.

And I’m with TW: shut the government down. All non-essentials. Kimberly Strassel had a WSJ Potomac Watch column two weeks ago where she pointed out the incredible compensation distortions of federal bureaucrats, whose total compensation (i.e., including benefits) is 61% higher than comparable private sector employees. Yes, let’s have THAT conversation. Hopefully civil service reform is next, and people in D.C. will start dropping from hyperventilation.

Anonymous said...

We already have "civil service reform". Private contractors are replacing Civil Servants.

Many companies (some overseas), lobbyists, retired politicians and Flag Officers involved.

When I retired in '07, half my office of 15 worked for a company putatively owned by Eskimos.

They made Double what we did.

But on annual contracts. Job security nil. Commitment to USA, which was Not their employer or paymaster ... I dunno.

Many mercenaries too. Most former US military, making Big Bucks. Active Duty grunts don't trust them. For the same reason.

And techs, scientists, "experts", bureaucrats, whatever - don't know how many - as Contractors. Like Snowden.

I enlisted Buck Private Army. Proud and happy to serve my country & people.

GS 3 as civilian. Same sentiments.

TR created Civil Service to fix ~130 years of corruption - political & financial, abuse of the commonweal, mal & misfeasance.

IMY firm opinion, we're going back to the Bad Old Days. Respectfully, Rich Lara

Jack Fisher said...

I'd be happy to roll back the civil service and return to the spoils system of the 19th century.

Walt C said...

I'll reoeat my own fb post on the subject:

THE SHIT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD.
The question here shouldn't be whether he said it (he probably did--in a private conversation behind a closed door). Nor is the question, What did he mean? The question is: why was it released to the press where the upshot was, predictably, national embarrassment and international uproar? And when will politicians stop playing Gotcha games with each other and think, instead, about the national interest?

Ares Olympus said...

I'm trying to understand what to call the psychological need to divide everything into good and bad, everything's worth becoming purely subjective, what it can do for you, but it seems to be related to narcissism and shame and scapegoating. So people who feel bad about themselves have a constant need of bad outside of them to rant against, and to the degree they are successful in defending their contempt, they can temporarily feel better about themselves.

Perhaps that explains Trump's obsession with "winning", since winning instantly transforms "bad self" into "good self", and then all the bad can be projected onto the losers who are required to disappear. And probably that's why sports is so popular. So like Minnesota is on top of the world for a week, while of course we're all trying to defend ourselves for the coming disappointment next Sunday or at the Superbowl.

At least with sports you know trash talk is just trash talk, but in politics things are more serious, and if you divide the world between winners and losers, and try go keep yourself exclusively on the winning side, and keep the losing side properly punished, someday that approach leads to war that may come back to bite you in the shithole.

Ares Olympus said...

Walt C said... The question is: why was it released to the press where the upshot was, predictably, national embarrassment and international uproar?

That's a good point. Why share content of private conversations? The answer certainly is that it makes Trump look bad, and it makes the GOP look bad, if they try to defend him.

But I agree "tattling to the media" is a sign of weakness, done by politicians who feel they have no other leverage available. And the real payday is the November elections for both political parties.

Some call this "weaponized shame", and its why successful politicians tend to learn how to be shameless. If your rivals can shame you into submission, you can't effectively fight for what you want.

The fact that Trump denied at least part of what is claimed he said is interesting, shows Trump isn't fully shameless, but of course we can also wonder if he himself even remembers what he says, given his ability to remake memories into what he wants them to be, even if it was different than what he wanted 5 minutes ago. It may not be diagnosable mental illness, but it's not a good sign for a leader you want to put your faith in.