Thursday, November 17, 2016

Cui Bono?

"The famous Lucius Cassius,
whom the Roman people used
to regard as a very honest and
wise judge, was in the
habit of asking, time
and again, 'Cui bono?
 To whose benefit?'"
Can today's level of liberal dismay and cognitive dissonance be overstated?  For a long time, and especially the last eight years, the liberals have, or seem to have had, a lock on society at all levels, all over the world.  Even the Catholic Church is choked with leftists, all the way to the top of the hierarchy.  The liberals were certain of their hegemony.  But in A.D. 2016, the bunker has been busted.  In June, the United Kingdom voted to detach herself from the Soviet Union's velvet-upholstered successor, the European Union.  And now, in the States, a man who has never held political office or served in the military, who has been relentlessly ridiculed and savaged in the media, has trounced the heiress-apparent to Obama's neo-Marxist empire.  Not only that: the Party of Hillary has failed to gain a majority in the House or the Senate, and has lost control of all but five states and numerous local offices.

And the left is stunned.  Their frenzy and hysteria could not be greater if Old Scratch himself were elected president (assuming they believed in such a person).  Yet there is a clear disconnect for liberals between their outrage over the election of Chief Deputy Devil Trump and real life.  How do they handle their friends and relations who they know voted for Trump?  How do they account for people they know who have never hitherto shown the slightest inclination toward racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, phobophobia, etc., etc., etc. suddenly popping up and voting for a candidate they say embodies all these things?  Are they to believe that every single one of these people was a crypto-[insert prejudice-du-jour here] and it never emerged until now, despite countless opportunities to forward an Agenda of Hate?  The Hillary supporters I associate with daily have not changed their behavior toward me, as surely they should if I am really as low as I'd have to be to vote for a guy that is really as evil as they think Trump is.

It is hard to have to face up even to the possibility that one's world view might be somewhat off.  So for the last week the liberals have been taking comfort in the wearing of diaper pins, and in the notion that their side is being vindicated by events.  I refer not to the professional rioters out pillaging big cities to prove that Trump's election was fixed -- although we could talk about that -- but specifically to the "hate crimes" and "harassment" that minorities are allegedly suffering at the hands of Trump supporters.  See? they say.  We told you so!  We told you America would become a mean, dangerous place with Trump in the White House, and it's already starting even before the electoral college!  Ideology is so important to some people that they clearly devoutly wish it to be true that their fellow, flesh-and-blood human beings are being subjected to torments and degradations in Trump's name.  I think there are many out there who would be positively crestfallen to discover that this is not happening.

And I shall enjoy seeing their crests fall.  It is daily becoming more obvious that these harassment stories are being weighed in the balance and found wanting.  A woman who claimed a redneck in a Trump hat stole her hijab in Lafayette, Louisiana, later admitted to having made the whole thing up.  A story about a racial assault in Philadelphia, with enough idiotic specifics to check against the facts, proved to be groundless.  And then there is the gay Canadian filmmaker and his unsubstantiated story that even Snopes cannot get on board with.  Even anti-Trump types have come under fire as far-right fanatics, like the guy in San Francisco who flew a Nazi flag over his home to protest the election result.

But even setting aside debunked stories, I am calling Bravo Sierra on these "hate crimes" allegedly committed by Trump supporters.  These stories simply do not pass the smell test:

1. I voted for Trump, and I do not recognize myself in the caricature of Trump voters that is being put out there.  These "hate crimes" clearly reflect the left's cartoonish image of Trump supporters and what they believe, rather than reality.

2. The evidence offered to support these stories ranges from non-existent to...well, next-to-non-existent.  Mostly the existence of a report of an incident is the only evidence, even though an accusation is never evidence.  Many reports are pure hearsay, or hearsay upon hearsay.  The person passing on a report often claims or implies that the source is unimpeachable, but never names this source or tells us whether he questioned the source live and in person, or read it on social media, where anybody can say anything about anything.  Some people cite to the existence of photos or videos, as if these can never be photoshopped or staged (and where, by the way, is the moral outrage at the cameraman who is videotaping an assault with his phone instead of using that phone to call the police?).  Others cite to the sheer volume of reports as proof of their believability, adding another honoree to the Non Sequitur Hall of Fame.  Instead of producing competent evidence of Trump-supporter malfeasance, the proponents of these stories accuse anyone who so much as questions them of "creating an environment" that "silences" the victims.  In other words, (a) it doesn't matter whether these reports are true, and (b) my use of my right to free speech oppresses assault victims.

3. Fraudulent hate crimes are a standard leftist tactic.  During my university days, radical activists liked to stage some sort of "assault" at one of their sparsely-attended demonstrations, or claim to have "found" a racist message on a chalkboard in an empty classroom, just to liven things up.  The evidence that these incidents were other than the work of those who reported them was nugatory at best; and the question that never got answered was why, if this is such a racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe/etc.-ophobe society, there was a need to gin up fake evidence to prove it.

4. Conservatives prefer to stomp liberals in the voting booth rather than in the street.  We work hard to earn the money to buy clothes and would rather not bloody them up needlessly.

5. Conservatives would not profit by resorting to desperate tactics of street-thuggery after chasing the Party of Hillary out of the White House, the House, the Senate, 45 governorships, and numerous local offices.

6. Conservatives are too busy trying to lead productive lives to engage in brigandage.  This may come as a shock, but we are really quite ordinary, boring people whose idea of raising hell is to add an extra tablespoon of melted butter to the popcorn.  We do not live for the thrill of imprisonment, as this would interfere with getting up and going to work in the morning.  (Probably most people who vote Democrat are the same way; otherwise, we wouldn't need professional rioters to loot and pillage in the wake of an election.)

All we really need to do is ask ourselves: who wants these "hate crime"/"harassment" stories to be true?  Who needs these stories to be true?  Who profits if they are true?  Is it really plausible that Trump supporters want to look like a bunch of bigots?  Or is it more plausible that liberal leftists want Trump supporters to look like a bunch of bigots?

Cui bono?

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