What we've lost (2): Stigma - "Progressives were so preoccupied with eradicating stigmas that contain anti-social behaviour in Canadian society, they didn’t stop to think if they should. Well, they accomplished their goal: that natural containment field of shame that once stood between people and bad decisions is gone. Is your life better because of it? Probably not. We were assured that the stigma against drugs was really just a Darwinian filter erected by 20th-century prudes to stop the most vulnerable and addicted from getting help. If only that were true. Breaking down the shame of drug addiction — by legalizing cannabis and decriminalizing possession, among other things — didn’t shrink homeless encampments or stall overdoses. Instead, it grew them. It turns out that population-wide disdain for those who live to get high was a very good thing. Though it was a barrier to getting the few who wanted it help (often psychological), it prevented countless others from ever starting down the path to addiction in the first place. It’s still frowned upon to fry one’s mind out of one’s brain, but it’s legal now, and even the boomers are experimenting at marijuana shops. How hard drug use is viewed isn’t that much better, considering how normal it is to witness crack pipes and meth foils in public. A life of drug dependency is still pathetic in most people’s eyes, but it’s no longer unthinkable, and that’s a problem. More delicate than the stigma of ruining one’s life was the stigma against ending it. The conversation around depression and mental health became so accepting of the plight of the afflicted that suicide is now considered a reasonable, worthwhile option — even a right that’s owed to you by the government. Assisted suicide, or MAID, went from being unthinkable, to being tightly reserved for terminal patients of terrible diseases, to being handed out to anyone with a vaguely uncomfortable diagnosis if they’re persistent enough. There are now doctors in Canada who will kill a 26-year-old diabetic who struggles with depression, which is exactly what happened in a Vancouver funeral home on Dec. 30. There are others who will kill an elderly woman whose husband tires of caring for her — even when she says she doesn’t want MAID. Speak out about these what-should-be crimes and expect to find yourself under a dogpile of moralists telling you not to judge others... the criminal justice system perpetually fails to punish criminals in a way that’s aligned with popular morality, and even gives discounts for race and immigration status. The overall effect? Crime is accepted like the weather in Canada, often understood as a symptom of victimhood. The moral rules set out in the Criminal Code feel more like guidelines meant to be bent by judges to excuse mass murderers, pedophiles, drug dealers and thieves. Society still condemns these people, but not with the sheer force that it used to. Not all invisible rules we had were life-or-death, but they were no less important. We had conventions of modesty that were most clearly expressed in the stigma against sexualizing children. Thus, there was once a time when libraries, schools and even the national broadcaster weren’t on an aggressive mission to introduce children to cross-sex burlesque, a.k.a. drag. Nor were teachers attempting to normalize the false idea that a person can change their biological sex — and even help young children embark on the transgender lifestyle without telling their parents. No, in fact, the people tasked with caring for our next generation of leaders and caretakers during the daytime once had respect for the beliefs of parents, and knew to steer widely clear of sexual topics. The fight to rebuild these boundaries comes with heavy resistance: just ask Premier Danielle Smith in Alberta. Even the failure to be self-reliant doesn’t carry the shame that it once did. There were always people who fell on hard times, and always institutions to help them, whether they be churches, food banks or government assistance. But there was also stigma in using these crutches; though uncomfortable, they kept people from abusing charity just to get ahead. Fast forward to Canada today, and this force is a fraction of what it once was. The safety net will only survive if there is shame in using it. Today, the strictest social rule is the one that mandates agreement with Liberal policy. Question immigration? You’re a racist. Question climate taxes? You’re scientifically illiterate. Question Islam? You’re Islamophobic. Question gender ideology? You hate gay people … even though gay people were among the first to question the wisdom of medically altering the bodies of effeminate boys and masculine girls. Question limitless Indigenous reconciliation? Well, they’re owed something for colonization, aren’t they? These morals aren’t universally held in Canada, but they are backed up with intensity by courts, professional bodies and human rights tribunals, silencing many dissenters like a gun to the head."
Why saying 'Australia is the best country in the world' could soon be illegal: Hanson's dire warning - "She pointed to a provision in the Bill that outlaws the dissemination of 'ideas of superiority' based on race, colour, or national or ethnic origin. 'It could make someone saying "Australia is the best country in the world" a criminal, subject to five years in prison,' Hanson said. 'Australians will be stripped of their freedom of speech, opinion, and the ability to express pride in their culture and nationality.' Hanson argued the Bill's definitions of 'intimidation,' 'fear,' and 'hatred' were vague and expansive, meaning routine commentary could fall foul of the law... Hanson asked: 'Will flying the Australian flag be an offence as well? That's disseminating ideas of superiority - 'the best' - over a group of people based on their national origin,' she said. Hanson said advocating for policies such as banning the burqa or criticising the immigration program could also be captured under the new laws. 'Criticising the immigration program would probably be an offence because that may cause migrants to feel intimidated because of their national origin.' She accused the Government of rushing the Bill through Parliament without proper scrutiny or consultation. 'These laws have been rushed with inadequate consultation with organisations, politicians, national security agencies and the general public,' Hanson said. 'The Prime Minister wants to appear to have Australians' concerns at heart, but when the public has less than two days to make a submission to a snap inquiry, it's obvious he is not interested in what you have to say.'"
Officer's Jeep seen with symbol ‘appropriated by’ neo-Nazis, group says, after Hamilton police OK him to work - "A Hamilton police officer, back at work after he was investigated for sharing racist and extremist content online, is again displaying a sticker "associated with white nationalist extremism" on his vehicle, a community group says. The Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre (HARRC) says that in February, a concerned community member photographed Const. Renato Greco's personal Jeep sporting a decal featuring a Knights Templar crest, a symbol "appropriated by some white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups."... HARRC is also calling on the Governor General of Canada to consider rescinding an exemplary service medal Greco received in 2023, marking 20 years of police service"
It was not so long ago that left wingers were complaining that the Canadian flag had been appropriated by the "far right". So by their logic, anyone displaying a Canadian flag needs to be fired.
Weird how symbols and slogans the left approve of, like "globalize the intifada" and "jihad", are kosher even when they are widely used by terrorists and indeed you're racist and Islamophobic if you criticise them. Of course, the solution is to crack down even farder on the "far right".
Left wingers hate freedom of speech so much.
Meme - Mark Taylor @Stanleymitchell90: "A Time to Kill was a movie about a couple of redneck Whites who break into a farmhouse and rape a young black girl. It was based on a real life crime, except in real life the crime was two black men raped two young White girls, murdering one. Not only did Grisham and the Hollywood producers not give a shit about these two innocent girls, but they then decided to make propaganda smearing all Whites, including those girls as horrible violent pieces of trash. Imagine what kind of world class assholes would shit on rape victims like that?"
Less than half of black Britons feel proud to be British, landmark study says
Clearly, this has nothing to do with how they keep being told how racist and awful the UK is. Clearly, the solution is even more grievance mongering
Kathy Ann🇺🇸🐈⬛ on X - "Libtards love to cite specific examples of their worldview failing as proof their worldview is correct. It’s astonishing how consistently wrong they are about everything.
“But Sweden has open borders!” — it’s the rape capital of the world.
“But Canada has free healthcare!” — 9 month wait for an MRI (assisted suicide is however available same day if you’re white and sad).
“But the UK has a multicultural society!” — Pakistani Rape Gangs covered up by the police and government for 40 years.
“But Venezuela has socialist wealth redistribution!” — resulting in empty shelves and millions of people fleeing starvation.
“But San Francisco has compassionate progressive policies!” — producing open-air fentanyl markets, sidewalks covered in homeless people, and businesses fleeing.
“But Germany has the world's best green energy transition!” — record high electricity prices while burning more coal than ever.
There is not one example of current leftist policy on this planet that supports its continuation"
Spez is on the board of advisors for the ADL, and it likely impacts moderation of both major news subreddits. : r/KotakuInAction - "Found this posted on another sub, it won't allow me to crosspost it here: I was wondering why there was 0 admin pushback for the dogshit moderation of worldnews and news. Of course it's by design, since Spez is literally on the advisory board for ADLs "center for technology and society". It's unbelievable how fucking shit this website has become. Still surprised this place isn't banned yet."
Another explanation for reddit wokeness
Meme - Drew Paviou @DrewPavlou: "Mary Beard wrote a letter to the London Review of Books practically orgasming over Al Qaeda flying hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center. The revenge of the noble brown man against the first world"
"The horror of the tragedy was enormously intensified by the ringside seats we were offered through telephone answering machines and text-messages. But when the shock had faded, more hard-headed reaction set in. This wasn’t just the feeling that, however tactfully you dress it up, the United States had it coming. That is, of course, what many people openly or privately think. World bullies, even if their heart is in the right place, will in the end pay the price. But there is also the feeling that all the ‘civilised world’ (a phrase which Western leaders seem able to use without a trace of irony) is paying the price for its glib definitions of ‘terrorism’ and its refusal to listen to what the ‘terrorists’ have to say. There are very few people on the planet who devise carnage for the sheer hell of it. They do what they do for a cause; because they are at war. We might not like their cause; but using the word ‘terrorism’ as an alibi for thinking what drives it will get us nowhere in stopping the violence. Similarly, ‘fanaticism’, a term regularly applied to extraordinary acts of bravery when we abhor their ends and means. The silliest description of the onslaught on the World Trade Center was the often repeated slogan that it was a ‘cowardly’ attack."
mary beard @wmarybeard: "On the question of whether churches should be allowed to become mosques, let's remember that the Parthenon was originally a "pagan" temple, then was converted into a Christian church, then became a mosque. This kind of conversion is not historically unusual."
Mary Beard: a feminist for Islam? - spiked - "Feminists for Islam are strange creatures. Like Queers for Palestine... Feminists for Islam are perhaps even odder, like those weird women who write love letters to serial killers. It’s a parody of a ghastly, abusive romantic relationship – suicidal empathy turned ideology, with a soupçon of exceptionalism: ‘Oh, he’d never hurt me!’... The UK National Treasure gang can easily embrace a woman who, if she saw her best female friend being ‘done’ by a member of Hamas at one end and a member of Hezbollah at the other, would probably ask the poor woman what she said to provoke them... Even when, in 2012, she was picked on by the ghastly AA Gill, I found it hard to care, though naturally I’d normally stand up for a woman called ‘too ugly for television’ by a puppet-faced monkey-killer. Referring to Channel 4’s The Undateables, in which various disabled and disfigured people sought love, Gill opined that Beard was ‘this far from being the subject of a Channel 4 dating documentary’ and should be ‘kept away from cameras altogether’. But even to this her response was annoying, whining ‘I was a bit hurt’ and ‘I felt stunned, as if someone had punched me’. Such pearl-clutching, from someone who considered that thousands of innocent people murdered by terrorists ‘had it coming’. I thought I knew every awful thing about Beard, but in the course of writing this, I’ve discovered a new one. In 2018, after it was reported that Oxfam employees had been sexually exploiting impoverished girls and women, Beard tweeted: ‘Of course one can’t condone the (alleged) behaviour of Oxfam staff in Haiti and elsewhere. But I do wonder how hard it must be to sustain “civilised” values in a disaster zone.’ Unsurprisingly, this led many to respond with revulsion. The wimp then posted a photograph of herself crying, complaining that, ‘I find it hard to imagine that anyone out there could possibly think that I am wanting to turn a blind eye to the abuse of women and children’. ‘I actually can’t understand what it would be to be a woman without being a feminist’, this preposterous woman once said, rather incredibly in the light of her apparent sympathy for male violence over the years"
From Julie Burchill, so clearly this is internalised misogyny, which even feminists are prone to if they defy the left wing agenda
Meme - Anna Krauthamer @AnnaKrauthamer: "A few years ago, in the middle of my doctorate and writing a dissertation about rape, I was violently raped by a group of men. For @thenation, I wrote about how that experience does and doesn't align with my desire for the abolition of prisons and police."
Why does the left hate J.D. Vance so much? | The Spectator Australia - "The answer is somewhat disguised by his uniqueness in background and resume, but the truth is: They hate him because they view him as a traitor to their class, after they welcomed him with open arms. You can hear the feelings of betrayal in this recent appearance by leftist podcaster Jennifer Welch on MSNBC: “Here’s two things about J.D. Vance. Number one, he used to say Trump is America’s Hitler. So he has regressed,” said Welch during an appearance on All In with Chris Hayes. “And then number two, he is married to a woman of Indian descent. He has mixed race children. So to all of the MAGA voters out there, if this man will not defend his wife and will not defend his kids, do you think he gives a crap about you or anything to do with you?”... This was a perfect critic for the American leftist elite to elevate – a walking, talking human avatar of What’s The Matter With Kansas, with a lovely mixed race family and a Hindu wife, the Ivy League credentials, the venture capital resume, The New York Times bestselling memoir, and a life story perfect for a Netflix movie which Hollywood didn’t just make, they got it nominated for Academy Awards. Forget writing from the lowly ranks of anonymous posts at FrumForum; Vance had set himself up for a lifetime fellowship at Brookings and a permanent seat at the table of the media elite, telling endless stories about how the right went wrong. For someone without a sense of principle or political reality, all this would go to your head. You have the opportunity to be at the top echelon of elite voices, rake in the money on the speaking tours, and be a voice of constant Christian moralizing against the racist bigots from whence you came who just don’t know what’s good for them. Who would turn it down? Well, Vance did. As it turned out, like more intellectual conservatives than would readily admit it today, he saw what Trump did in his first term and he didn’t just change his tune – he switched sides. The left hates this. They think insults matter more than policy, and that if you couldn’t stomach Trump’s tweets, it definitely makes you a hypocrite to say he’s doing good things, too. And deep down, they know Vance is really quite good at it. The vice president has an even better understanding of the elite world he had briefly navigated. Seeing its weak points fueled an even greater talent at making the case for the Trumpian policies he now supports. Today you’ll oftentimes find him arguing the case with those same media entities and figures who once welcomed him into the fold. His talent makes the shift all the more frustrating. So does his beard. So when the left rails against Vance, understand that they do so from a position of deeply felt personal betrayal. Imagine, as bizarre as it might seem today, a J.D. Vance who on an alternate earth chose all the treasure the establishment had to offer and became a Democratic Senator from Ohio in 2018 instead. Is there any realistic scenario where he would not be a leading candidate for their 2028 presidential nomination today? But no – instead, Vance chose the other path, to walk away from the world they offered him and the media elites were left to drown their sorrows with the latest headlines from David French. You can understand why that feels infuriating."
Ashley (TeamTrump47) on X - "Democrats: You can’t blame people like Mamdani for 9/11. He was a child.
Also Democrats: Your white ancestors might have had slaves 200 years ago, so you are also to blame.
Ok 👌🏼"
Anthony Bradley on X - "This will be an extremely controversial article. Prof. @jean_twenge shows that young adults are walking from LGBTQ+ identity and it was more of a social contagion than an orientation. There’s been a 21% decline in young adults identifying as LGB+ in just 3 years."
vittorio on X - "this wasn't contagion we built a system where identifying as LGBT gave you protected status, social capital, media representation, and institutional preference. the superior class par excellence. no one in american history had more unearned systemic privilege than the alphabet people, and it's not a shock that teenagers adopted it. they were adapting to the incentives. what we are seeing now is a return to normalcy since the incentives have been removed"
Should we give babies the right to vote? - "A common objection to ageless voting is that individuals who can’t be trusted to drink, drive or have sex shouldn’t be trusted to vote. But Harry Pearse, research director at the Centre for Deliberation, part of the UK’s National Centre for Social Research in London, says that’s a red herring. We don’t allow the very young to indulge in those behaviours because we want to protect them from the potentially harmful consequences, but voting isn’t harmful to the voter. It’s not as if we’re asking babies to make policy. They may vote badly, whatever that means, but again, so do many adults. Some countries, including Scotland, already allow 16-year-olds to vote, so data exists on 16-year-olds’ voting habits. Five-year-olds are an unknown quantity, on the other hand, and Pearse thinks that’s a good thing: “Some healthy chaos gets chucked into the system.” For him, the beauty of democracy – for all its flaws – is its simplicity. When the rule is one-person-one-vote, politicians feel pressure to serve all constituencies... Many people feel that modern democracies have become calcified. In the past, when that happened, societies sought to expand the franchise, and in time, Pearse says, the expansion reinvigorated democratic life. At this point in history, the only way we can expand, short of violating the species barrier, is downwards in age. Beauvais sees that as much more than a political project. It invites us to stop thinking about participation in terms of competence or productivity, she says, and to focus more on our lived experience and interdependence. It’s about what it means to be an individual in society."
In a culture which only thinks about rights, but not responsibilities, it's no surprise that harm to the country is not relevant
If sex is harmful like driving, smoking and drinking, doesn't that mean it should be regulated?
arctotherium on X - "$100B chip factory in New York derailed because of a nonprofit “using a comprehensive approach that is rooted in racial and economic justice and community organizing” is very on-the-nose."
The NIMBY War Against Micron - "a chip company wants to bring 50,000 jobs to syracuse. but mountains of paperwork, 'endangered bats,' and nimbys from literally california have added years to the timeline"
The solution is more regulation and more social justice!
More proof that Capitalism has Failed
GIFFORDS on X - "Today marks 14 years since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed while walking home. He had dreams to attend college in Florida and become a pilot, but he was murdered at age 17. Too often, Stand Your Ground laws are used to justify racist murders like Trayvon's. Trayvon should still be here, and we’ll always fight for change in his honor."
Tom Knighton on X - "Stand Your Ground was never invoked during the trial as it didn't apply. Trayvon Martin attacked George Zimmerman for following him, then bashed the man's head against the concrete sidewalk while straddling him, meaning Zimmerman couldn't escape if he wanted to. The shooting was ruled justified without Stand Your Ground because it was self-defense. Funny how often you guys tell Martin's story without mentioning he started it, he put Zimmerman's life in danger with his vicious attack, and Zimmerman's only choices were to either hope the vicious attack would end short of murder, or act. Go fuck yourselves."
Fascinating on X - "In 1921, a white supremacist mob, aided by the U.S. National Guard, attacked the thriving Black community of Tulsa, OK. At least 300 were killed, and over 1,000 were injured in what became known as the Black Wall Street Massacre. This is how the media chose to report it. More creepy moments: https://bit.ly/3MhKiB3"
Lucky Teter on X - "What's fascinating is that your account is spreading false propaganda about a race riot that started when a black man shot an unarmed white man outside a court house"
Wilfred Reilly on X - "The confirmed death toll - from hospitals, grave sites, etc - is 10 white guys and 26 Black people. A great deal of modern history is literally just invented, a la "Canadian mass graves:" qualitative street reports are given the same kind of evidentiary weight as the stuff just mentioned, etc."
Black Men Have Lower Cognitive Skills Than White Men, NFL Asserts In Brain Injury Lawsuits - Newsweek - "Former NFL players who suffer from dementia or other brain injuries may be entitled to payouts under the NFL's $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims but the league uses a scoring algorithm that requires former Black players to score lower for cognitive skills than their white counterparts to receive an award which has been called "race-norming."... The NFL's scoring algorithm asserts that Black men have lower cognitive skills to begin with and has impeded the ability for former Black players to attain awards from the league's settlement as they are required to score significantly lower than their white counterparts."
An easy way to resolve the issue would be to establish a baseline for current NFL players, but of course that would lead to more and even more elaborate cope
Brad R. Torgersen on X - "Why do American and European progressives adore Islam? Because it is the "brown" religion, and thus colonized. Versus the "white" religion that is Christianity, which is the colonizer. Color-coding is EVERYTHING to the prognoscenti. The binary oppressed/oppressor. It doesn't matter to Lefties that Islam spread itself for a thousand years by conquest. It doesn't matter that Islam *today* puts gays and women to death for the sin of being homosexual, or female; the latter being a second-class form of human being. It doesn't matter that Paki rape gangs have been operating unopposed in London for many years. Nor does it matter when Islamic terrorists drag Jewish girls into the street to be raped and murdered in front of their own homes. The *only* thing that matters to the American and Euro Left, is that Islam is "brown" and therefore Islam are the Good Guys."
More to the point, Islam and the left have a common enemy - the West
The Woke's War on Words - "The premise of the first war I wrote about was that we tend to change up words when people take them and use them in an irresponsible fashion, over and over again - basically just being assholes with them. Eventually the word becomes so distasteful that we shorten it to its one letter version and cast it into the outer realm of darkness where words never to be used in public again are destined to go. Of course, it doesn't take long for a new word to rise up and take its place and then we need to start the process all over again. In this case it's basically the assholes among us who decide which words we toss aside. Well times, as they say, are a-changin' and evidently so is the war on words. These days, the war on words focuses mainly and purposefully on changing the established meaning of words. It seems there are two reasons for this. One reason is simply so the person using this word with the new definition can add significantly more drama to what they're saying. This is usually because the person is just too damn lazy to bother finding a more suitable word. The other reason that exists for changing the meaning of words with long-established meanings is apparently so one could attempt to establish negative associations where none previously existed in order to push an agenda. Put simply, if you can change the meaning of a really nasty word just enough to make it apply in a brand new way, you now have a way to associate a whole new group of people with that word - even if it never applied before. Basically, it's all about manipulation and control. For example, the word “Racism” has been thrown around quite a lot lately and as a result has become a favoured insult by many on social media. You'll notice that the most common words that people use as insults are also the words that require the least amount of thought. This is what makes them so easily accessible to so many people. Racism is hardly a new phenomenon, in fact I'm sure it's as old as races themselves. Because it's been around for so long, pretty much every person who's been alive for more than 10 years has a very good idea what this word means. Well, they used to anyway. Even though most everyone can agree that “racism” has to do with treating someone differently based on their race, that definition is decidedly unhelpful when you're trying to paint someone as a literal Hitler because they disagreed with you over something as politically expedient as climate change, for example. In order to make it apply, you need to alter that definition ever so slightly. Now, in order to legitimately call that person a racist, you need to establish that because that person thinks climate change is no big deal, what they really believe is that most poor people (who will undoubtedly bear the brunt of climate change and who are by extension, largely non-white) are unworthy of consideration. In fact, according to some activists, “Climate Change Denialists” actually welcome the coming apocalypse because it “gets rid of all those ‘undesirable’ non-white people.” Obviously racist. I mean, if someone said it on the internet, you know it’s a fact. So now that we've established that everyone who's not all up in arms about the coming climate catastrophe is a seething racist, you know what you are if you don't get with the program - so, bring on the carbon tax. A great example of how the meaning of the word “racism” was shifted is in the coverage of the Freedom Convoy in February. Based on the sudden appearance (and then just as sudden disappearance) of a single Confederate flag, the media instantly asserted that the protest was in fact, a racist gathering. This, despite the fact that it was by far the most culturally diverse protest in our history... This obsession with racism on the left is what spawned the whole “Antiracism” movement, which is really just a convenient cover for real racism... Another word which has evolved over the last few years is the word, “aggression”... Here's how it was recently used by Ottawa city councilor Mathieu Fleury in describing the Freedom Convoy: There were all these microaggressions that created an unsafe environment for residents. Sadly we may never know what he actually meant by that, since when pressed for a little more detail, he was unable to define “microaggressions”… Okay, so maybe it wasn't actual aggression, but it sure sounds ominous, even with the “micro” prefix attached... Since we're talking about aggression here, let's pull back a bit and just look at violence in general. And by “violence” of course I don't mean actual violence, that would be cruel. I'm referring to what passes for violence today. You know, like deadnaming and misgendering someone who identifies as something you can't possibly understand. Or, as Black Lives Matter activists so eloquently stated during the George Floyd protests: Silence is Violence (evidently because they sort of rhyme - or something). And apparently, according to these same individuals, words are also violence, so by these metrics it's pretty hard to disagree (or not disagree) with anything these people say without being accused of some sort of violence. “Hate crime” legislation is another one of these strange permutations. Of course hate is a bad thing, and crime is a bad thing too. The fact is, every act deemed a hate crime in this country since the legislation came about was already a crime before this legislation. Like, it was wrong to kill someone before but now if you hate them while you're killing them, it's more wrong because we have judged that hate is somehow involved. But who decides what constitutes “hate”? Sometimes it's just plain, old-fashioned assholery. And meth. As I stated at the beginning of this piece, there is a deliberate method to this madness. Changing the meanings and implications of commonly understood words and then repeatedly using them in a specific context helps create negative associations with people and ideas we don't like - and with people and ideas we don't want others to like. So essentially what's happening here is we're being set-up by people subscribing to a far-left radical ideology that says, in effect, “You must agree with everything I say immediately or you will be shouted into submission and publicly slandered until you do.” This is really the ultimate culmination of entitlement and privilege, and because this tendency and ideology is so prominent in our education system, our legacy media, and certain political circles, it's also probably the biggest threat to free speech going right now. Call me simple, or naïve, or whatever, but I still think the answer is simply to refuse to bow to this"
