In which the pond's virtue becomes unhinged ...

...Assume a virtue, if you have it not. 
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,  
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, 
That to the use of actions fair and good 
He likewise gives a frock or livery 
That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight, 
And that shall lend a kind of easiness 
To the next abstinence; the next more easy; 
For use almost can change the stamp of nature. (Hamlet, act 3, scene 4)

More on virtue anon, but this meditative Sunday, the reptiles had this at the top of the digital page ...

The pond hadn't intended to go there, but for some peculiar reason, the reptiles had tacked a link beneath this fulfilment of the reptile dreaming, this consummation of all reptile desires ... the selling off of the ABC, admittedly only the city operations to begin with, an inherently silly and stupid idea that only the Liberal party could come up with, but a compromise to the ultimate dream, for Chairman Rupert to finally own all of the ABC, and turn it to the path of virtuous righteousness …

Yet another example of how the ABC fucks children's minds with insidious programs such as Bananas in Pyjamas, and how reading too much reptile propaganda after imbibing bananas can produce the imbecilic condition lately known as "Mitchell Collier" syndrome ...

But enough of the comedy hour and reptile dreaming of media mogulism triumphant, for beneath this dreaming, came the question "Can real conservatives stand up?" 

It seemed a little weird, as if the idea of selling off the ABC might not be so clear-cut amongst "real conservatives" … when every reptile taking a hit of kool-aid at the office water cooler knew that "real conservatives" hated, feared and loathed the ABC …

As usual, the pond had got it completely wrong, and arse-up, and the reptiles had produced another excellent troll … it was merely the oscillating fan at his most confused and incoherent …

Strange. If ever there was a sorry excuse for the bastardisation of conservatism, it had to be the reptiles with whom the oscillating fan keeps company … but he had been blessed by the cult of Lobbecke, so the pond knew it was serious and that attention had to be paid ...

What on earth is he on about? The clue will be if the oscillating fan slips in a "Let's be clear" because as soon as anyone says "Let's be clear", it's as clear as mud that he hasn't been clear and instead has been opaque, not even translucent, and possibly not even porous ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, is this what passes as analysis at the lizard Oz, a rag - it should incidentally be noted - which is full of that "growing cohort of older white men" feeling nostalgic about society once was …

No, it's the tosh about gender quotes being opposed "isn't necessarily socially conservative thinking" while opposing gender quotas "can represent conservative thinking" … with the apparent distinction being that if you're a worry wart, and devise all sorts of excuses, caveats, saucy fears and doubts, you're a conservative thinker.

And then there was that use of a word that the pond thinks needs it's own sub-section of Godwin's Law … "virtue-signalling".

As soon as someone signals that they're going to launch an attack on virtue-signalling, the pond knows that they've imbibed a huge dose of kool-aid, and whatever they signal will have no virtue.

It's a meaningless term, and the oscillating fan's desire to apply it to the right as well as the left indicates the level of the pandemic …

It makes a crime of being virtuous …

Now if the pond might don rose-coloured glasses and zoom back into the nostalgic past, "virtue" once meant behaviour showing high moral standards (as in paragons of virtue), and in traditional Christian angelology was the seventh-highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy (Oxford the word here, so the pond might commit a noun-verb crime against humanity).

We can forget the tosh about virtue having to do with virginity and chastity, or Hamlet having a go at mum, and instead talk of virtue as being a good or useful quality of a thing (the pond might extol the virtues of clear-thinking except it would be wasted on the reptiles).

Don't get the pond started on the Virtues … Greg Hunters can head off here …

"The name of the holy Virtues signifies a certain powerful and unshakable virility welling forth into all their Godlike energies; not being weak and feeble for any reception of the divine Illuminations granted to it; mounting upwards in fullness of power to an assimilation with God; never falling away from the Divine Life through its own weakness, but ascending unwaveringly to the superessential Virtue which is the Source of virtue: fashioning itself, as far as it may, in virtue; perfectly turned towards the Source of virtue, and flowing forth providentially to those below it, abundantly filling them with virtue." 

"Virtue" was a word that meant what it meant, and every Xian understood the value and the meaning of 'virtue' and 'the virtuous', and went about the business of being so …

Somehow in this bizarro world that the reptiles have concocted, "virtue" has been turned into a contemptible thing, and every fuck-wit of the Caroline Overington kind will blather on about "virtue-signalling", as if virtue and virtuousness was something beneath contempt …

Okay, the pond will judge Overington on her words alone, and the moment she started off with "virtue-signallers" the pond lost all interest …

Of course Overington carried on in other ways, as with "Even on Twitter, which leans very far left", and channeled Shriver in a routine which is as ancient as the "one-legged gay black lesbian greenie whale with a stutter" …

Instead of the old "M/F", you may now tick "Prefer to use my own term". Under race, you can chose "White: Gypsy or Irish Traveller".

Where does that get us? Well it's not that far from Adolf, when you think about it … under trans or gypsy, choose the concentration camp you'd prefer to die in …

The bigotry, fear and loathing just goes on and on, and it takes on new forms each day …because, it seems, to be trans or a gypsy is a narrow-minded idea, when in fact the pond's trans friends routinely assure the pond that it's a rather liberating and expansive idea, though inclined to produce a narrow-minded response in the world of the reptiles ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, how did the pond end up there?

It's completely forgotten the oscillating fan, and become entranced by the usual reptile madness … you know, like the bizarre notion that Twitter leans very far left …presumably on the basis that the reptiles don't have the first fucking clue that tweeting a link to a paywall-blocked item is only likely to induce a frenzy in a recipient who can't get past the paywall …

But in all the madness, the pond should summon up the last gobbet of oscillating fan gobbledegook …though perhaps the pond should slip this in as a distraction first …

Okay, the pond is ready to go on and read the oscillating fan blathering about Jordan Peterson ...

In the end, the pond came to understand that the oscillating fan meant well, but was in a deep stage of confusion, scribbling for the lizard Oz - presumably in a bid to help sustain the lizard Oz's business model …

If he'd taken a nanosecond to think a bit harder, he might have scribbled about the way the distortions and downgrading of modern journalism and newspaper publication came from the distortions of ideological thinking, and suggested that as a result, the lizards of Oz were doing a lot of self-harm, and in turn hurting everyone and everything around them …

Instead he confined it to "politics", as if politics could be so confined …

The pond suspected that the oscillating fan was actually sending out a cry for help, being surrounded by virtue-signallers who signalled their virtue by deploring virtue-signalling, and being in company with the growing cohort of older white Catholic men feeling nostalgic about the way society once was … and full of fear and loathing at the likely fate of the Catholic Boys' Daily …

And yet the real danger isn't so much from ideological thinking as from populist ratbag demagogues too clueless to have an ideology beyond narcissist authoritarianism … bully boy strong men with not the first clue about virtue, and with no desire to signal an interest in assorted virtues ...

And the next biggest danger is those who support this sort of populist demagoguery … those who work for, and thereby support a company, which has done much to turn the United States, and thereby the world, towards a new form of personality cult and fascism … as Fox and Friends puts up its tent on the White House lawn ...

But all that could be said in a single succulent cartoon image …