I have to say I was surprised by the vituperative comments to your Yudelson pieces…even more surprised by the vituperative reply to MY own ever so mildly critical comment. Do these morons actually follow you? I mean, I am a long-time follower, and our number is growing, but these trolls? I recall an episode from my childhood, which was pleasant enough, when, for some reason I no longer recall, I was being harassed on the playground by a group of other sixth graders. Elmer Bell, a truly scary classmate, who was at least 16 years old, 6 feet tall, and shaving (sometimes), a poster boy for what some in the South would refer to as “poor white trash,” stepped in and took my part, and dispersed my antagonists simply by glaring at them and saying, “Jim says for you to kiss his ass.” I was stunned by this because I was hardly “friends” with Elmer. However, I was raised to treat everyone with a modicum of respect, and Elmer apparently appreciated it more than I ever knew. So, to your antagonists, I say, “Brad says for you to kiss his ass!”
Brad, you're not as old as I am, but I believe you are old enough to not give a shit anymore about people like this. (It is one of the blessings of aging.) I know you have a job and a reputation to protect, so do what you must. From my perspective, these people are just incredibly stupid. Their insults amount to a rant from a 3-year-old. They don't deserve a response of any kind, and you should block any further comments from them. Keep writing and speaking out, as we know you will!
Aren't these folks just wonderful! It's no longer possible to have a civil disagreement with the left - they have to try to destroy you over it. Keyboard warrior cowards.
What an interesting dichotomy of the written word you are exposed to in your heroic attempt to bring back the free and flourishing country bequeathed to us. You read and then communicate the soaring verbiage of the Founding Fathers who through reason and courage brought about the most amazingly wonderful transformation of human life in history. And you get to read and hear from the true scum of the Earth because of it. Thank you so much for what you do! It is so sorely needed!
From Tal Manvel, Captain (ret.) USN Champion of America, Aircraft Carriers & Ayn Rand.
Brad,
I trust you are smart enough to alert the Clemson police to get involved against these threats. The haters are criminals, and they are crazy enough to say something that will get a some idiot to attack you. Let people know that you are operating under the protection of the Clemson police.
Listening to those recordings---wow, what dolts. And their ultimate message is: 'You should not say those things. You should agree with us." Perhaps they should move to China, Russia, or North Korea.
Way to go, Bradley! These people will keep you in good material for decades to come. :)
I'm relieved that you're recording these encounters, and that you are turning at least some of them over to the police.
My experience with cyber crime is personal, but what I learned is that my local police didn't have a good handle on "cyber crime." They still don't. This may be different in your community, but if not there are private cyber investigators now, so help is out there if you need it. The FBI does have cyber units, and jurisdiction doesn't become an issue like it does with local police.
But for all of our sakes, don't stop what you're doing!
Thank-you for bringing the horrific injustice done to Jonathan Yudelman to my attention. The analogy to the Dreyfus Affair was brilliant. Two men who's lives were destroyed because they were Jewish, but also because people don't want to think. The comments in this article reflect venom and tribalism, but no thinking, no examples, no grammar, no proof. It's like Mallory's drooling beast in The Fountainhead, but you are teaching students to read great books and to study and to think. You are part of the solution.
I suppose if it were me, I'd close my substack to all but paid subscribers. Haters gonna hate, and the ignorant are gonna ignorant.
In a larger context, it seems that we've become very tolerant of lifestyles that stray from what's been considered the norm prior to recent years, but increasingly intolerant of ideas and views that don't fit mainstream ideologies. This strikes me as strange, that "freedom" is being defined as freedom to be a man if a woman or a woman if a man, for example, but not as freedom to think and express oneself. In fact censorship of so-called "misinformation" is widespread.
It's ironic that those who say we're entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts don't understand that we often argue over just what the facts are.
"The Second Coming" is appropriate, but I doubt that some of the enlightened readers you want to give voice to have the subtle capacity to grasp the meaning, and they don't have the slightest interest. I'm not sure it's wise to engage with these people. In fact I'd say let them go their own way, ignore then, and don't let them distract you.
If I get a vote, I upvote you here. Albeit I don't think the second coming was appropriate. It is overused for polemics ever since Justice Bork. I also am unsure as to its meaning. Like all Celtic and Irish folktales from which it is derived it varies according to the "camp fire" author. "Camp fire" stories are authentic "redneck intellectual" traditions. Thompson's post was itself slightly Puca. No one has yet suggested turning Thompson's children into swans, which is unfortunate. Yeats did "predict" world war 2...in a loose sense. Of course in a "loose sense" all irish folklore is a geographic indicator and the sphinx turns us to Egypt...where apparently an Egyptian spy scuttled a peace settlement between Hamas and Israel.
Also it is not clear there is a "Hamas" that isn't sort of IRA. Also unclear that anyone saying they are "Hamas" aren't saying they are "Spartacus". A "slave" revolt primarily ruled by Kritarchy against a modern nation state seeking leibenstraum, and destroying schools and any civic infrastructure. "Zionism" is white guilt, and in America a redux of Custer died for our sins. To put it in SC terms let's assume we decide Locke should pay for the fundamental constitution of the Carolinas, and we create the nation state of wakanda in NC and SC...now just as the jews who long ago were forced to convert to Islam in palestine...so too many actual heirs of slavery live and hold land in the Carolinas...but we bomb the local court houses and the nation state of wakanda doesn't recognize old title. Various black folks who identify as heirs of slavey, some from Nigeria move to wakanda(and assuming it was a strong enough nation state vs the relics of county government, finally get 40 acres and a mule(or an f150).
Of course, I sent you a polite message disagreeing with one of your articles and got not response. You don't owe me a response, obviously. But dialogue can be a helpful learning technique, as you know being a professor.
Dear Ed: My apologies for not responding to your message. I'd love to be able to respond to every comment or email that I receive, but, unfortunately, it's just not possible. Between teaching, being a Socratic Tutor, running a major university institute, raising $1.2 million every year to pay for the salaries of my staff, writing academic books and articles, publishing a 5,000 word essay every other week on my Substack as well as publishing an issue of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "Dumber and Dumber" every other week, publishing 35 blog posts every week at EdWatchDaily.com, trying to start up a publishing company, and receiving 25-50 non-busines-related emails and comments per week relative to my various writings, it's just not possible to respond to every email or comment I receive. Only paid subscribers to The Redneck Intellectual are guaranteed a response.
I hope you have this saved somewhere so you never have to write it out again. Good grief. Do you have time for family and friends? I sure hope so. They could use a man like you in their lives. Thanks for sharing. I just block em. They are lunatics. They’re not interested in learning anything outside their concrete bubble.
Technically some of those comments were in reply to others. Comments upon comments. A worthwhile distinction. Ryan made valid points.
Also BAP is probably the greatest anarchist philosopher Yale or MIT have ever combined to produce. The somewhat Nietzscheian thesis that Socrates or a need to justify the peloponesian war with a "City" that is actually "just" is problematic. Aristotle justifies Alexander, Marcus Aurelius justifies himself with stoicism as a military techne and theory of justice. But Aurelius is just a fascist killing germans. "BAP" on socratic terms, see the Phaedo, is just commodus reborn. Technically however commodus in desiring to be a God left the military to turn swords into plowshares, so even commodus is defensible in the life in being of individuals who might belong to the class/archetype soilder. "BAP's" warlord theory is probably an improvement over what we actually did in Afghanistan(followers of Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden). Essentially(gross simplification) in Afghanistan there were two factions the conservative Muslim, and the young men who wanted to be warlords, grow opium or become the next prophet Muhammed. It was not unforeseeable that the taliban would retake control, because they could tap into longstanding traditions. The third faction wanted uncle Sam's money(but both of the two main factions wanted this).
Technically speaking most governments don't care if you are a pirate because you follow BAP or Fancisco d'Anconia, get big enough and one of the major navy's of the respective nation state will kill/sink you. Is the best life the life or the pirate or warlord who doesn't attempt a rationalization/civilization/city in speech? Maybe. BAP knows that the warlord is the "founder" of civilization. With respect to the English it was some jackass immortalized on a tapestry that saw a commet, his doomsday book became the basis for accounting and eventually English capitalism. And the prophet Muhammad? Armed prophet the basis for machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke. Islamofacism can certainly not be beaten by tanks and military equipment nor by spreading the gospel of "liberalism", since essentially Muhammad used the sword and spread Islam as a liberalism of his age. The US and Israel are simply stronger versions of "Islamofascism". The transmuslims or some crit race theorist would say pray towards Howard, but that is torwards D.C. for almost all practical purposes. Few would go so far as to say that there is one Allah and Joe Biden is his "armed prophet". But Joe Biden is an armed prophet. Joe Biden supports Israel, and perhaps Israel is a superior regime, but precisely this arms it with Islamofascism, thru the eternal return of the armed prophet(the ceasar, the Mohamed, the Alexander, the Marcus Aurelius, the Hitler who believed also that Germany was the superior regime.)
Now universal historical Islamofascism cannot be stopped, except as Ayn Rand suggested by a pirate playboy archetype (BAP, commodus) who essentially kills at random for his own selfish purposes without articulating a socialism or a civilizational structure, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Islam, and all "trans" derivatives therefrom.
With respect to video games this peice is "meta" Grand Theft Auto. In that series WCTR is that/this kind of talk radio.
As to the "redneck" hate, arguably the "rednecks" dislike you for historical sabotage. I admit that I might otherwise like "Reason" magazine but the presumption/suggestion of encompassing all of "Reason" is a bit much. The mind exists in fee simple absolute, but as Rousseau suggests "Reason" exists when one man puts a fence around the mind and says this area is not only "reason", but "mine".
I am pretty sure as a question of branding "redneck intellectual" belongs more to Oliver Anthony. Also a ginger. With respect to Jewish questions/politics, I am more likely to turn to Bernie Sanders. If we follow Oliver Anthony and WV history for "redneck" and consider Bernie Sanders a somewhat aligned intellectual this takes on a different cast. That said the 32 hour work week and the reason Bernie Sanders exists is more akin to why Rand Paul exists...to articulate a principaled moral reasoning that is "too extreme" for pragmatism(aka Bidenism). Also many folks assume that the 40 hour work week is a thing(that is the grounding assumption of the 32 hour work week, but "communism" or in the US the highest level of federalism, i.e. "national control and compliance" actually allows for a 70 hour work week regulated by DOT. Rednecks call them truck drivers, the intellectuals(Engels) call the field logistics or Quartermasters. Technically if we want to produce more domestically we could increase the cost of imports by giving truckers a 32 hour work week at similar to current pay. Truckers by the way suffer nerve damage from long hours sitting, enjoy reduced family time and get all the greatness of McDonald's/Krispy Creme until they die on average at 61 years of age(diabetes/accidents). Truck drivers are already under "communist/federal control", it wasn't just Canada or Justin Trudeau(who by the way is a practical Hobbesian) who forced vaccines on them. In fact the US military somehow was more reticent to force vaccines than the trucking "industry" in general. Now Justin Trudeau and our current well dressed gay also "nice guy" Pete Buttigegg are all quite "woke" and "know" political theory. What exactly would "communism" in the trucking industry look like? Bear in mind I was a US Army quatermaster like Pete Buttigegg. But I assume that communism/federal control in the trucking industry would bring with it public sector labor unions(the only ones with teeth).
I have to say I was surprised by the vituperative comments to your Yudelson pieces…even more surprised by the vituperative reply to MY own ever so mildly critical comment. Do these morons actually follow you? I mean, I am a long-time follower, and our number is growing, but these trolls? I recall an episode from my childhood, which was pleasant enough, when, for some reason I no longer recall, I was being harassed on the playground by a group of other sixth graders. Elmer Bell, a truly scary classmate, who was at least 16 years old, 6 feet tall, and shaving (sometimes), a poster boy for what some in the South would refer to as “poor white trash,” stepped in and took my part, and dispersed my antagonists simply by glaring at them and saying, “Jim says for you to kiss his ass.” I was stunned by this because I was hardly “friends” with Elmer. However, I was raised to treat everyone with a modicum of respect, and Elmer apparently appreciated it more than I ever knew. So, to your antagonists, I say, “Brad says for you to kiss his ass!”
Well, you know what Winston C. said about having enemies: "That means you have stood up for something sometime in your life."
Brad, you're not as old as I am, but I believe you are old enough to not give a shit anymore about people like this. (It is one of the blessings of aging.) I know you have a job and a reputation to protect, so do what you must. From my perspective, these people are just incredibly stupid. Their insults amount to a rant from a 3-year-old. They don't deserve a response of any kind, and you should block any further comments from them. Keep writing and speaking out, as we know you will!
Aren't these folks just wonderful! It's no longer possible to have a civil disagreement with the left - they have to try to destroy you over it. Keyboard warrior cowards.
What an interesting dichotomy of the written word you are exposed to in your heroic attempt to bring back the free and flourishing country bequeathed to us. You read and then communicate the soaring verbiage of the Founding Fathers who through reason and courage brought about the most amazingly wonderful transformation of human life in history. And you get to read and hear from the true scum of the Earth because of it. Thank you so much for what you do! It is so sorely needed!
From Tal Manvel, Captain (ret.) USN Champion of America, Aircraft Carriers & Ayn Rand.
Brad,
I trust you are smart enough to alert the Clemson police to get involved against these threats. The haters are criminals, and they are crazy enough to say something that will get a some idiot to attack you. Let people know that you are operating under the protection of the Clemson police.
Listening to those recordings---wow, what dolts. And their ultimate message is: 'You should not say those things. You should agree with us." Perhaps they should move to China, Russia, or North Korea.
Way to go, Bradley! These people will keep you in good material for decades to come. :)
I'm relieved that you're recording these encounters, and that you are turning at least some of them over to the police.
My experience with cyber crime is personal, but what I learned is that my local police didn't have a good handle on "cyber crime." They still don't. This may be different in your community, but if not there are private cyber investigators now, so help is out there if you need it. The FBI does have cyber units, and jurisdiction doesn't become an issue like it does with local police.
But for all of our sakes, don't stop what you're doing!
Thank-you for bringing the horrific injustice done to Jonathan Yudelman to my attention. The analogy to the Dreyfus Affair was brilliant. Two men who's lives were destroyed because they were Jewish, but also because people don't want to think. The comments in this article reflect venom and tribalism, but no thinking, no examples, no grammar, no proof. It's like Mallory's drooling beast in The Fountainhead, but you are teaching students to read great books and to study and to think. You are part of the solution.
There are lots of us out here who support you, Professor. Keep up the great work!
I suppose if it were me, I'd close my substack to all but paid subscribers. Haters gonna hate, and the ignorant are gonna ignorant.
In a larger context, it seems that we've become very tolerant of lifestyles that stray from what's been considered the norm prior to recent years, but increasingly intolerant of ideas and views that don't fit mainstream ideologies. This strikes me as strange, that "freedom" is being defined as freedom to be a man if a woman or a woman if a man, for example, but not as freedom to think and express oneself. In fact censorship of so-called "misinformation" is widespread.
It's ironic that those who say we're entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts don't understand that we often argue over just what the facts are.
"The Second Coming" is appropriate, but I doubt that some of the enlightened readers you want to give voice to have the subtle capacity to grasp the meaning, and they don't have the slightest interest. I'm not sure it's wise to engage with these people. In fact I'd say let them go their own way, ignore then, and don't let them distract you.
If I get a vote, I upvote you here. Albeit I don't think the second coming was appropriate. It is overused for polemics ever since Justice Bork. I also am unsure as to its meaning. Like all Celtic and Irish folktales from which it is derived it varies according to the "camp fire" author. "Camp fire" stories are authentic "redneck intellectual" traditions. Thompson's post was itself slightly Puca. No one has yet suggested turning Thompson's children into swans, which is unfortunate. Yeats did "predict" world war 2...in a loose sense. Of course in a "loose sense" all irish folklore is a geographic indicator and the sphinx turns us to Egypt...where apparently an Egyptian spy scuttled a peace settlement between Hamas and Israel.
Also it is not clear there is a "Hamas" that isn't sort of IRA. Also unclear that anyone saying they are "Hamas" aren't saying they are "Spartacus". A "slave" revolt primarily ruled by Kritarchy against a modern nation state seeking leibenstraum, and destroying schools and any civic infrastructure. "Zionism" is white guilt, and in America a redux of Custer died for our sins. To put it in SC terms let's assume we decide Locke should pay for the fundamental constitution of the Carolinas, and we create the nation state of wakanda in NC and SC...now just as the jews who long ago were forced to convert to Islam in palestine...so too many actual heirs of slavery live and hold land in the Carolinas...but we bomb the local court houses and the nation state of wakanda doesn't recognize old title. Various black folks who identify as heirs of slavey, some from Nigeria move to wakanda(and assuming it was a strong enough nation state vs the relics of county government, finally get 40 acres and a mule(or an f150).
Of course, I sent you a polite message disagreeing with one of your articles and got not response. You don't owe me a response, obviously. But dialogue can be a helpful learning technique, as you know being a professor.
Dear Ed: My apologies for not responding to your message. I'd love to be able to respond to every comment or email that I receive, but, unfortunately, it's just not possible. Between teaching, being a Socratic Tutor, running a major university institute, raising $1.2 million every year to pay for the salaries of my staff, writing academic books and articles, publishing a 5,000 word essay every other week on my Substack as well as publishing an issue of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "Dumber and Dumber" every other week, publishing 35 blog posts every week at EdWatchDaily.com, trying to start up a publishing company, and receiving 25-50 non-busines-related emails and comments per week relative to my various writings, it's just not possible to respond to every email or comment I receive. Only paid subscribers to The Redneck Intellectual are guaranteed a response.
I hope you have this saved somewhere so you never have to write it out again. Good grief. Do you have time for family and friends? I sure hope so. They could use a man like you in their lives. Thanks for sharing. I just block em. They are lunatics. They’re not interested in learning anything outside their concrete bubble.
I feel your pain. Keep up the good work!
Brad, where are you?
Technically some of those comments were in reply to others. Comments upon comments. A worthwhile distinction. Ryan made valid points.
Also BAP is probably the greatest anarchist philosopher Yale or MIT have ever combined to produce. The somewhat Nietzscheian thesis that Socrates or a need to justify the peloponesian war with a "City" that is actually "just" is problematic. Aristotle justifies Alexander, Marcus Aurelius justifies himself with stoicism as a military techne and theory of justice. But Aurelius is just a fascist killing germans. "BAP" on socratic terms, see the Phaedo, is just commodus reborn. Technically however commodus in desiring to be a God left the military to turn swords into plowshares, so even commodus is defensible in the life in being of individuals who might belong to the class/archetype soilder. "BAP's" warlord theory is probably an improvement over what we actually did in Afghanistan(followers of Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden). Essentially(gross simplification) in Afghanistan there were two factions the conservative Muslim, and the young men who wanted to be warlords, grow opium or become the next prophet Muhammed. It was not unforeseeable that the taliban would retake control, because they could tap into longstanding traditions. The third faction wanted uncle Sam's money(but both of the two main factions wanted this).
Technically speaking most governments don't care if you are a pirate because you follow BAP or Fancisco d'Anconia, get big enough and one of the major navy's of the respective nation state will kill/sink you. Is the best life the life or the pirate or warlord who doesn't attempt a rationalization/civilization/city in speech? Maybe. BAP knows that the warlord is the "founder" of civilization. With respect to the English it was some jackass immortalized on a tapestry that saw a commet, his doomsday book became the basis for accounting and eventually English capitalism. And the prophet Muhammad? Armed prophet the basis for machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke. Islamofacism can certainly not be beaten by tanks and military equipment nor by spreading the gospel of "liberalism", since essentially Muhammad used the sword and spread Islam as a liberalism of his age. The US and Israel are simply stronger versions of "Islamofascism". The transmuslims or some crit race theorist would say pray towards Howard, but that is torwards D.C. for almost all practical purposes. Few would go so far as to say that there is one Allah and Joe Biden is his "armed prophet". But Joe Biden is an armed prophet. Joe Biden supports Israel, and perhaps Israel is a superior regime, but precisely this arms it with Islamofascism, thru the eternal return of the armed prophet(the ceasar, the Mohamed, the Alexander, the Marcus Aurelius, the Hitler who believed also that Germany was the superior regime.)
Now universal historical Islamofascism cannot be stopped, except as Ayn Rand suggested by a pirate playboy archetype (BAP, commodus) who essentially kills at random for his own selfish purposes without articulating a socialism or a civilizational structure, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Islam, and all "trans" derivatives therefrom.
With respect to video games this peice is "meta" Grand Theft Auto. In that series WCTR is that/this kind of talk radio.
As to the "redneck" hate, arguably the "rednecks" dislike you for historical sabotage. I admit that I might otherwise like "Reason" magazine but the presumption/suggestion of encompassing all of "Reason" is a bit much. The mind exists in fee simple absolute, but as Rousseau suggests "Reason" exists when one man puts a fence around the mind and says this area is not only "reason", but "mine".
I am pretty sure as a question of branding "redneck intellectual" belongs more to Oliver Anthony. Also a ginger. With respect to Jewish questions/politics, I am more likely to turn to Bernie Sanders. If we follow Oliver Anthony and WV history for "redneck" and consider Bernie Sanders a somewhat aligned intellectual this takes on a different cast. That said the 32 hour work week and the reason Bernie Sanders exists is more akin to why Rand Paul exists...to articulate a principaled moral reasoning that is "too extreme" for pragmatism(aka Bidenism). Also many folks assume that the 40 hour work week is a thing(that is the grounding assumption of the 32 hour work week, but "communism" or in the US the highest level of federalism, i.e. "national control and compliance" actually allows for a 70 hour work week regulated by DOT. Rednecks call them truck drivers, the intellectuals(Engels) call the field logistics or Quartermasters. Technically if we want to produce more domestically we could increase the cost of imports by giving truckers a 32 hour work week at similar to current pay. Truckers by the way suffer nerve damage from long hours sitting, enjoy reduced family time and get all the greatness of McDonald's/Krispy Creme until they die on average at 61 years of age(diabetes/accidents). Truck drivers are already under "communist/federal control", it wasn't just Canada or Justin Trudeau(who by the way is a practical Hobbesian) who forced vaccines on them. In fact the US military somehow was more reticent to force vaccines than the trucking "industry" in general. Now Justin Trudeau and our current well dressed gay also "nice guy" Pete Buttigegg are all quite "woke" and "know" political theory. What exactly would "communism" in the trucking industry look like? Bear in mind I was a US Army quatermaster like Pete Buttigegg. But I assume that communism/federal control in the trucking industry would bring with it public sector labor unions(the only ones with teeth).