Cowardice is Far Worse Than Stupidity
A few reflections on the lickspittle figure of Ted Wheeler and all those like him
The real crime isn’t delusion and ideology… it’s cowardice.
I have been mulling a piece about academia for some time now (actually two: one about the massive structures of fake epistemology that have consumed all of the weird subspecies of sociology and erased any small scientific merit it might have had; one about the teachers’ colleges and schools of education and how THAT is the linchpin of our educational and political rot). I keep being struck by a trenchant observation, though: it’s not the students or the activists or the young people I despise as I read and watch. I pity them and earnestly hope that they will learn, enough through contact with the real world, to pierce their lenses of privileged Leftism. Rather, I despise the administrators and professors and presidents and prosecutors and mayors and governors who should know better (and many of them do) but continue to persist in their delusion or, worse, cynically accede to it in order to avoid conflict or demotion or negative press attention.
In terms of ranking unethical traits: Cowardice and avarice > misled fanaticism and naivete.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is today’s case study in cowardice. I practice a daily discipline of meditation and prayer and reconsideration: have I wronged anyone? Was I dishonest or disrespectful? Am I feeling certain about anything, beyond what the evidence warrants? Have I become emotionally attached to my beliefs or characteristics? Do I harbor contempt or resentment for anyone? When I began this I was overwhelmed by my resentments, and those were just the ones that occurred to me. The regular, subtle daily insults and aggravations didn’t even make my list. By now I rarely hold on to resentment overnight and I usually try to repair my missteps.
I tell you all of that to emphasize that, after doing some research on Portland (which led me to Wheeler, a man who is arguably MORE responsible than any other single person for the city’s implosion) I have to admit that I despise and resent Ted Wheeler. Some of my ire is just a natural emotional reaction of disgust at watching a man cower and grovel and smile awkwardly while he’s screamed at and berated over and over again by potentially dangerous individuals whose remarks often verge on criminal threats. City council meetings, dinner dates, press conferences: again and again I see this limp noodle screamed at while he half-grins miserably and hopes for some deus ex machina to lift him from the spot. There are strong men who can take insult and venom with forbearance and patience… this is not that. This is feebleness and selfish caculation.
Wheeler has created a city which harbors hundreds (perhaps thousands, but their number are never as large as one would think) of criminal Leftists who have completely ignored the lesson of the Weimar Republic and think that broad daylight intimidation and assault and arson are the best tools for political action… OR they are simply immature aggressors and people with personality disorders masking their pathology with high-sounding rhetoric. Many of them just like hurting people and breaking things and if your cause shelters and uses such people it is illegitimate and doomed to failure. Even if your goals are totally worthy (which, in this case, they are not) they will certainly be corrupted by such psychopathy. Such maniacs can never be ‘used’ and should be ejected once found without exception. Political reform requires discipline above all else. Ignoring that will GUARANTEE your defeat.
These people are children, play-acting at revolution before returning to their smokeshops and libraries and open-mic nights. I wish they could see what anarchy REALLY does to a country.
I’m not sure if Wheeler thought that he could use de-escalation strategies to slowly bring the violence and chaos to a close, or if he recognizes that these criminals are on the radical wing of his political ideology and has calculated that treating them softly is his best political play, or if he was just scared and indecisive. Ina any case, he has often avoided condemning (or even acknowledging) widespread violence while harshly criticizing his own police force. He runs a regime which routinely releases serious, violent offenders without bail. Millions of dollars of damage and dozens of additional murders haven’t led him to repudiate his earlier stances. The Oregon State Police pulled out of the city (in 2020) because none of their arrests were being prosecuted (and this was serious enough that they openly said this in public statements)… and meanwhile Wheeler’s public ire at the time was reserved for ‘white supremacists’ (not an active-or even extant-force in Portland) and the employees of the downtown Federal Courthouse. Wheeler has spent ten times longer in public appearances criticizing Trump (and lawful Federal agents), as if he might blend in, convince the radicals that he’s one of them… a righteous agent against the system. Dude: you’re the mayor.
One wonders how he thought this situation would develop, how he thought he might benefit from his Quisling communication strategy, but whether his recorded indignation with his own police officers was sincere or not it’s absolutely disgusting. The police are regularly assaulted and endangered by citizens as they’re being denigrated and scapegoated by the very elites they are daily protecting. His criticism and lack of support was either due to ideological delusion (and was sincere, but idiotic) or was an act to position himself in a certain way in the public’s eyes (which is craven and treacherous). Either way, it’s a SERIOUS failing.
In the relatively early days of this madness Yale Professor Nicholas Christakis was accosted by an angry mob of bored young patricians over an email his WIFE (a dean) wrote about HALLOWEEN COSTUMES
None of his fellow professors came to his defense and the administration was silent on the matter. This pattern would repeat (with even worse incidents) thousands of times during the next 6 years.
His case is especially egregious because he’s the mayor of a midsize city, elected in part to keep citizens safe and protect them from illiberalism and criminal violence. However, we see the same traits and reflexive shrinking in college president after college president, dean after dean, administrator after administrator, as if they don’t have huge institutions at their command! It is truly a rare figure who publicly pushes back against the madness of a certain mentally ill sliver of the student body and their nervous assent validates the criticisms and excesses of their students. When it comes time to DO something they nearly always throw their own professors (police, employees) under the bus: another blood sacrifice on the altar of wokeness. One can almost picture them internally pleading, ‘please, PLEASE don’t come for ME’. Is ANY job or status that amazing, that it’s worth stabbing your friends in the back and forfeiting your soul and every ounce of pride? I truly don’t understand.
The examples are endless: Berkeley, Yale, Harvard, Evergreen State. In almost no case has the administration actually enforced the rules. Instead they treat the dissidents as if they have valid concerns, while also infantilizing them and excusing almost every act of insult or damage on the bases of zeal and youth.
This NEVER actually placates the radicals or protects anyone. When individual or groups break the social contract and block roads or set fires or beat people or break the glass of college buildings or chase guest speakers into back rooms, they have transgressed and they should be stopped by force and punished harshly. Letting the acolytes of disorder enjoy public attention and run roughshod over your city and campus only emboldens them. It ALWAYS makes the problem worse. By now no one can claim that they’re pursuing a certain course, unsure of the outcome.
Off topic a bit, but I recently bought a board game called 'POZ - Portland Occupied Zone'. It's blackly comedic. You, the Antifa-ggot, turn downtown Portland into an excrement-filled dumpster fire. There are daily communist readings too, of course.
The Pelican Brief, Pretty Woman … 😉🙂