Home Alone 1 and 2
It's hard for me to explain why, but I found myself greatly disliking the second movie's decision to further rely on slapstick and painful moments with the thieves. I haven't watched Home Alone 2 in a long time and so the rewatch today made me realize how far it trails the first in my overall enjoyment.
I realize they're kid movies and may as well be cartoons, but the painful moments definitely hit harder (no pun intended) and are less entertaining for me in the second movie than the first's, which I still find largely enjoyable and nostalgic.
|
On Tyranny
A short read which should really be required reading for the world right now.
Here are a few passages I highlighted from the book.
These two excepts came from the Prologue of the book:
Since the American colonies declared their independence from a British monarchy that the Founders deemed "tyrannical," European history has seen three major democratic moments: after the First World War in 1918, after the Second World War in 1945, and after the end of communism in 1989.
Fascists rejected reason in the name of will, denying objective truth in favor of a glorious myth articulated by leaders who claimed to give voice to the people.
From Chapter 1 "Do not obey in advance":
Crucially, people who were not Nazis looked on with interest and amusement.
From Chapter 3 "Beware the one-party state":
The American abolitionist Wendell Phillips did in fact say that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." He added that "the manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten."
From Chapter 5 "Remember professional ethics":
If lawyers had followed the norm of no execution without trial, if doctors had accepted the rule of no surgery without consent, if businessmen had endorsed the prohibition of slavery, if bureaucrats had refused to handle paperwork involving murder, then the Nazi regime would have been much harder pressed to carry out the atrocities by which we remember it.
This section is largely reminding that the Nazi atrocities relied on professionals bending to the evil acts of others to either support directly or at least not impede. The government machine we see happening in DC is the system working as it resists the changes the government is undergoing.
From Chapter 7 "Be reflective if you must be armed":
Yet we make a great mistake if we imagine that the Soviet NKVD or the Nazi SS acted without support. Without the assistance of regular police forces, and sometimes regular soldiers, they could not have killed on such a large scale.
This section largely says "look, if you're going to get a gun, don't lose perspective." But again, similar to the above, it's a reminder that secret police rely on the support of local law enforcement. Which makes the local PD and Sheriff departments refusal to help with ICE etc. are critical resistance elements.
Chapter 10 "Believe in truth":
Post-truth is pre-fascism.
Chapter 14 "Establish a private life":
What the great political thinker Hannah Arendt meant by totalitarianism was not an all-powerful state, but the erasure of the difference between private and public life.
Chapter 17 "Listen for dangerous words":
The way to destroy all rules, he explained, was to focus on the idea of the exception. A Nazi leader outmaneuvers his opponents by manufacturing a general conviction that the present moment is exceptional, and then transforming that state of exception into a permanent emergency. Citizens then trade real freedom for fake safety.
|
Automated Archives for December, 23rd 2025
This post was automatically generated.
Articles To Read
The following are articles that I saved today. Substance and quality will vary drastically.
Chess For the Day
Record: 2-0-4
Net Elo Change: -11
Games Played
Blog Posts On This Day
- December 23, 2024 (4 posts)
- December 23, 2023 (11 posts)
- December 23, 2022 (11 posts)
|
