Thread by @lsanger

Lately I have often had the impulse to post, "The world is going absolutely insane!" But then I stop myself, because it's boringly obvious. | via startthis.org/?p=671

Why don't I make a list of insane things?

Everyone is wearing masks, despite the fact that the science has not indicated they do much good—except that we're supposed to believe that all the scientists and policy-makers en masse around the world have come to the same conclusion.

We're supposed to believe that "just in time" for this global pandemic, a new kind of vaccine just happens to be ready to be developed in a matter of mere months, and then administered to everyone, and scientists agree that it is effective, and all of humanity must take it.

We're supposed to believe the statistics about illness and death published by giant state bureaucracies, without careful, critical public scrutiny, even though those statistics justify shutting down businesses and schools.

It's not just what we're supposed to believe—it's the very fact that we're expected to believe it. And, apparently, very many of us do. And those of us who employ a bit of critical thinking about what's going on are called conspiracy theorists. That's insane!

"Liberals" who can't be told what to do, and many freedom-loving "conservatives"—jeez, many of my fellow "libertarians"—they all just suddenly give up all of their rights. Because it's the decent, safe thing to do. Absolutely bonkers. What's the phrase...🤡🌎

But that's not all. No, not at all. I'm pretty damn sure I saw a *lot* of evidence, not a little—and you can see it in my Twitter feed from Nov. 3-10 or so—that there were *many* instances of election fraud. Now, do I know that this meant the election was totally fraudulent? No.

What it does mean, though, is that I should have seen a boatload of court cases, or reporting debunking individual cases. I did not. All that stuff just...disappeared.

We *know* a fair bit of election fraud happened. Like, we have absolutely conclusive evidence. But!

If I say so, I am said to be dangerous, because this opinion makes me like the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. Never mind that that ragtag group was never going to do much. The whole episode smells to high heaven. I was watching as it happened and almost immediately thought it was weird.

But somehow that single event was enough to make it impolite even to talk about the very clear examples of election fraud. And then, just to make it extra bonkers, the Democrats propose a law (failed) that would actually make all the illegal election tampering they did legal.

I could go on and on. What's going on with free speech. In higher education. The shocking hypocrisy surrounding Antifa, BLM, etc. Hunter Biden. Ukraine. Obamagate (yes, it's still very much a thing). Hollywood insanities. Epstein etc. What do all these things have in common?

Something like this: all this insanity, it all represents the breakdown of basic standards of civility, decency, legality, and politics that define our system. Over and over, we see the total abandonment of ordinary standards of honesty, kindness, decency, justice, democracy...

But there is a flavor to this insane slow-motion crash of modern civilization: overlaid, on top of it all, is the evident breakdown of the media, of the very systems that have been used by us, whether we know or like it or not, to form our opinions about how sensible all this is.

I can't believe that my Democratic friends actually believe that the MSM feeds them about this crap. But I guess they do. And among the weird things they're now required to believe is that *I* am now bonkers. Because I don't buy into their constant gaslighting.

And my Democratic friends, well, I suppose they believe that, too! And if they don't, I don't know what they're thinking. Well, but I do. It's just that it's stunning how easily led they are, because they refuse to question the mainstream narratives.

I don't have any easy answers here. I'd like to discuss it—this breakdown of the social order, you might call it—and possible explanations, but even discussing it makes you branded as a crank and a kook. Does that stop me? No. But it does make rational discussion harder.