Anderson Cooper "Exposing" Newtown Conspiracy Theory 1/11/13

[8bitagent]

Call me a nutter, but Im willing to believe Sandy Hook was a possession/occult sacrifice more than I am a "faked event", and I dont even really subscribe to religious type beliefs

[Project Willow]

^ Interesting that you should mention that as I wanted to post this.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0902/sacrifice.htm

The Forensics of Sacrifice
Dawn Perlmutter

Literally hundreds of theories of violence have been posited in the study of crime. Some of the major criminological theories are: subcultural theories, blocked opportunity theories, control theories, labeling theories, learning theories, and social learning theories (http://www.umsl.edu/~rkeel/200/subcult.html) (http://www.umsl.edu/~rkeel/200/learnin.html and (http://www.umsl.edu/~rkeel/200/labeling.html). Unfortunately, these theories have not been applied in criminal investigative analysis. Profiling evolved from the FBI's understanding of serial murder, and from the somewhat broad mandate of the behavioral science unit within the FBI in the early 1970s to formally introduce psychological and behavioral science principles into law enforcement. Although alternative profiling methods are being developed around the world based on a variety of theoretical perspectives such as geographic profiling, methods that focus on offender profiles are still predominantly based on psychological theories of criminal behavior that revolve heavily around personality and psychological anomalies. That is the core of the problem. Since ritualistic crimes are the result of ethnic and religious diversity, they need to be examined from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives. The most advantageous method of interpreting religious violence is to apply knowledge of world religions and theories of sacred violence, ritual, and sacrifice to the crimes. This does not imply that the work of scholars in academic disciplines that traditionally study crime and criminal behavior is not pertinent. In fact, two scholars in the fields of sociology and psychiatry have recently posed unique theories of violence that involve concepts of symbolism and sacrifice.

26

In an extraordinary book entitled Seductions of Crime, Jack Katz, a UCLA professor of sociology, takes an atypical position that questions standard sociological methods of analyzing crime. He argues that the study of crime has been preoccupied with a search for background forces, usually defects in the offenders’ psychological background or social environment, to the neglect of the positive attractions within the lived experience of criminality. He proposes that empirical research turn the direction of inquiry around to focus initially on the foreground rather than the background of crime and to make it our first priority to understand the qualities of experience that distinguish different forms of criminality.(32) Although it may be problematic to apply empirical research to what is essentially a philosophical endeavor, I certainly agree with Katz when he states:

As unattractive morally as crime may be, we must appreciate that there is genuine experiential creativity in it as well. We should then be able to see what are, for the subject, the authentic attractions of crime and we should then be able to explain variations in criminality beyond what can be accounted for by background factors . . . I suggest that a seemingly simple question be asked persistently in detailed application to the facts of criminal experience: what are people trying to do when they commit a crime?(33)

When applying that question to ritualistic crimes, the first point that needs to be emphasized is that perpetrators do not consider their actions criminal although they understand them to be illegal. For perpetrators of ritualistic crimes, the violent act is a necessary religious ritual, hence the phenomenology of religious experience is the key to understanding the motivation. Violence has been at the core of religious experience throughout history; the only difference is that in other times and places religious violence has been morally integrated into society.

Katz addresses the subject of homicide in his first chapter entitled "Righteous Slaughter" and poses the following questions; "What is the killer trying to do in a typical homicide? How does he understand himself, his victim, and the scene at the fatal moment? With what sense and what sensuality is he compelled to act?"(34) Ruling out murders committed for robberies or other predatory crimes, Katz describes homicide as a form of sacrificial violence and argues that "the modal criminal homicide is an impassioned attempt to perform a sacrifice to embody one or another version of the "Good."(35) Katz considers homicide as a form of sacrifice that derives from humiliation and disrespect and whose goal is to restore offended respectability and honor. He argues that the practical project that the impassioned attacker is trying to accomplish by lashing out against insistent humiliation is analogous to the practices of criminal punishment under the ancient regime, which were continuous with ancient traditions of sacrifice that demonstrated respect for the sacred.

The nature and gravity of punishment defined the offense of which the condemned was guilty. To sustain the symbolism of the king’s regal sensibilities, each affront to the king’s rule must be given idiosyncratic punishment. The extent of the offense was defined for all to see by the pains the offender was forced to experience. The callous desecration of the criminal’s body was a method of celebrating the precious sensibility that the crime had offended. Such punishments exacted in the name of divine right were continuous with ancient traditions of sacrifice that demonstrated respect for the sacred. When a lamb’s throat is slashed in a religious ceremony, the production of a dead animal is not the objective. A ritual slaughter might follow, the choice parts to be burned in a deferential offering. On other occasions, the drawing of blood, the scarring of a body, or a nonfatal dismemberment might demonstrate sufficient respect. Overall, the practical project--the concern that organized the bloody, righteous behavior--is the manifestation of respect for the sacred. It is not enough to feel devotional spirit. Respect has to be objectified in blood . . . What is at stake in everyday contemporary violence is not a king’s divine right but the sacred core of respectability that the assailant is defending and defining through his violence.(36)

27

Katz also argues that in the details of the assault, the project of sacrificial violence recreates the truth of the offense received. He exemplifies this by analyzing cursing that occurs during impassioned attacks. Katz initially distinguishes how expressions that are common when venting anger against the victim differ from expressions used in sacrificial violence.

Attackers curse, not in the superficial sense of throwing "dirty" words in the vicinity of their victims, but in the more profound, ancient sense of casting a spell or invoking magical forces to effect degrading transformations in a polluting offender. Such cursing is at best an indirect way of venting anger and is often useless or even counterproductive in removing the irritant. But it is a direct and effective way of doing just what it appears to do: symbolically transforming the offending party into an ontologically lower status . . . Cursing is an eminently sensible way of making a subsequent attack into a service honoring the sacred. Now the attack will be against some morally lower, polluted, corrupted, profanized form of life, and hence in honor of a morally higher, more sacred and an eternally respectable realm of being . . . Cursing sets up violence to be a sacrifice to honor the attacker as a priest representing the collective moral being. If the priest is stained by the blood of the sacrifice, by contact with the polluting profane material, that is a measure of the priest’s devotion to society.(37)

Although the perpetrator may not be aware of this dynamic, Katz is essentially arguing that contemporary murders conducted in righteous rage fulfill the same purpose as ancient sacrifices: to restore respect for the sacred, in this case the sacred core of the individual. Although religious scholars may argue with Katz’s interpretation of the function of sacrifice, it is extraordinary that a sociologist contemplates criminal behavior in terms of sacrificial experience.

In another unique interpretation of criminal behavior, psychiatrist James Gilligan suggests in Violence, Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes that in order to understand murder and other forms of violent behavior we must learn to interpret action as symbolic language with a symbolic logic of its own. Although Gilligan essentially views the underlying causes of violence as humiliation and shame, he acknowledges that murder is carried out in violent rituals that are profoundly symbolic and meaningful. In Chapter Three, entitled "Violent Action as Symbolic Language: Myth, Ritual, and Tragedy," he describes a twenty-year-old man named Ross L. who on a cold winter night had run into a former high-school classmate who offered him a ride home; during the ride he took out a knife and stabbed her to death. He then mutilated her eyes, cut out her tongue, and threw her out of the car. He was neither stealing her car nor had he raped her. He was sentenced to prison for the rest of his life. Gilligan questions why Ross felt the need to stab out her eyes and cut out her tongue. Ross L. had utter absence of remorse or guilt and feelings not only of total innocence but of wounded innocence despite the fact that he admitted he had committed the acts. He felt that the only justification he needed for his crime was that he didn’t like the way she was looking at him and he didn’t want her talking about him.(38) Gilligan interpreted the underlying symbolic logic of Ross’s mutilation as a desperate attempt to ward off intolerable emotions of shame and humiliation. Gilligan states,

To understand or make sense of this man’s mutilation of his victim, which is senseless from any rational standpoint, we need to see it as the concrete, nonverbal expression of the following thought (which has the structure of all unconscious thought, of magical thinking): "If I destroy eyes, I will destroy shame" (for one can only be shamed in the [evil] eyes of others); in other words, "If I destroy eyes, I cannot be shamed"; and "if I destroy tongues, then I cannot be talked about, ridiculed or laughed at; my shamefulness cannot be revealed to others. The emotional logic that underlies this particular crime, then, which I called the logic of shame, takes the form of magical thinking that says, "If I kill this person in this way, I will kill shame--I will be able to protect myself from being exposed and vulnerable to and potentially overwhelmed by the feeling of shame.(39)

28

Gilligan further describes mutilations in terms of rituals that provide insight into the motivations for the murders,

The rituals surrounding violence, then, like all rituals, are profoundly symbolic and hence profoundly meaningful (that is, they express many highly specific and closely related meanings, which cannot be translated into a consistent set of propositions). In fact they are more symbolic, and hence more meaningful, the more "senseless" they appear to the rational mind, because they follow laws of magical thinking rather than rational thinking.(40)

Gilligan’s description of ritual essentially sums up my basic premise concerning the analysis of ritualistic crimes; there is, however, a significant difference in our interpretations of magical thinking. For Gilligan and most psychiatrists, magical thinking is an unconscious endeavor, whereas, in an occult religious worldview, magical thinking is a literal conscious endeavor. The different theoretical interpretations have significant consequences. For example, Gilligan states:

the mutilation served as a magical means of accomplishing something that even killing one’s victim cannot do, namely, that of destroying the feeling of shame itself . . . So an intensification of the whole project through the introduction of magic, by means of ritual, is necessary, if it is to be powerful enough to enable the murderer to stave off the tidal wave of shame that threatens to engulf him and bring about the death of the self.(41)

In a symbolic analysis mutilations such as cutting out eyes, tongue, or heart can represent religious rituals in the context of specific theologies that magically empower the murderer without having anything to do with feelings of shame.

Although both Katz and Gilligan have proposed extraordinary theories of violent behavior, the problem is that they are describing sacrifice and magical thinking as a subconscious activity of the perpetrator. Both scholars have a fundamental understanding of symbolism, magical thinking, and sacrifice, but cannot completely depart from the Western psychological assumptions of their respective disciplines. They both claim that the underlying motivation for violence is humiliation and shame and the reclaiming of self-respect. What they fail to recognize is that for some perpetrators of ritualistic crimes, magic and sacrifice are conscious endeavors whose underlying motivation is to develop hidden powers to magically manipulate events through violent rituals. This may or may not produce the result of reclaiming self-respect. However, it is important to mention that, as in the case of Ross L., not all ritualistic crimes are enacted in the context of a belief system, but the symbolic analysis methodology provides for this scenario, relegating the crime to a secular ritual killing. It is also necessary to emphasize that the various theoretical perspectives are not always mutually exclusive. In the previously mentioned cases of dabblers who committed ritual murders, shame and humiliation were the underlying emotions that initiated their interest in the occult. The significant difference when applying theories to the analysis of ritualistic crime is that sacrificial theories and magical ideologies are more useful for profiling. Although symbolic analysis recognizes ritual murders conducted for secular reasons, psychological theories are not always applicable to true believers who are not conducting their violent rituals because they were shamed or humiliated. For true believers ritual murder is nothing less than sacrifice in its original form. For this reason, magical thinking, the key to ritualistic crimes, has to be examined in terms of conscious choices, not subconscious feelings.

Magical thinking has been studied in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and religion. Scholars generally attribute magical thinking to primitive peoples who did not have explanations for the world or to a developmental stage in children whose cognitive abilities have not developed an understanding of the principles of cause and effect. The only explanation that is provided for adults who engage in magical thinking is that it is a form of psychopathology or subconscious wish fulfillment. This is the essence of the problem: ritualistic crimes are not interpreted from a worldview that allows for the possibility of magic to exist.

[Elihu]

Call me a nutter, but Im willing to believe Sandy Hook was a possession/occult sacrifice more than I am a "faked event", and I dont even really subscribe to religious type beliefs

Aha! At last we might be onto something.

Basic rabble watching television. Great gory show. However, basic acumen if engaged causes discomfort: hmmmm, something obviously not quite right. Assertions don’t logically connect or follow. Primary verification of evidence impossible. Only color tv show to go by. enter: INTUITION

Evil. Okay.

Secret societies. Okay.

Members: media, cops, politicians, relatives of victims, victims predominantly children. Okay.

Members as congregants: operation initiated and carried out according to occult dates, symbols, orientations etc. okay.

Plausible deniability: members not directly acquainted with other member participants as events unfold. key positions of authority occupied by members. no conspiracy of entire police force or media room, etc. Bizarre, implausible, un-testable, un-investigatable explanations (building is sealed, coroner took bodies, state police impounded car, one shooter, two shooters, used rifle, used handgun, gun found on body, gun found in car, perp killed self, etcetetcetetcet. Okay.

Reaction of relatives: kinda upset. participated for higher (or lower) purposes. Advancement in secret hierarchy. willing to give interviews. Media members host. Okay.

Mystery perps: sequestered if not dead. Veiled insubstantial connections to the mic, psychotropic drugs or psychiatry. Okay.

Seen this pattern before: ramsey, Sandusky (cells easily cut loose with no recourse to the larger op or for themselves other than making unbelievable public assertions which they don’t frequently do anyway presumably because they are scared) to name but two. The latter demonstrating that the occult activity need not be discrete events of a sacrificial nature but ongoing. Okay.

The last okay point being the one justifying the recourse to INTUITION. But then, does the tv show’s bizarre plot begin to fall into place?

Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth. – Sherlock Holmes

[brainpanhandler]

Call me a nutter, but Im willing to believe Sandy Hook was a possession/occult sacrifice more than I am a "faked event", and I dont even really subscribe to religious type beliefs

Well, the board has rules, but OK, you sir are a nutter. Which is really better than other things I might say if you posted that video for ANY reason other than its comedic value. C'mon man. Really?

While I think there is no chance that sandy hook was fake, nonetheless, i think there is even less of a chance that it was a ritual sacrifice that has anything whatsoever to do with ley lines. Good grief man.

How can this woman rightly criticize the its-all-fake theory on the grounds that "there is absolutely no proof" when just a few minutes earlier in the video she was pointing out the rough similarity between teotihuacan and sandy hook as being noteworthy evidence of the possibility of an occult ritual sacrifice explanation for sandy hook?

[Project Willow]

I did not watch the video.

But really, Perlmutter's bit I posted above is interesting, if only to be able to keep in mind when thinking about these incidents.

[brainpanhandler]

I did not watch the video.

But really, Perlmutter's bit I posted above is interesting, if only to be able to keep in mind when thinking about these incidents.

I didn't take your posting of Perlmutter's intriguing thoughts as an endorsement of the video. I think too highly of you for that. I assumed you had not seen it.

I do think there is a lot of unexplained spookiness and mystery around sandy hook. And I don't really rule much of anything out at the moment, except perhaps that it's all faked or that it was a ritual sacrifice of the type suggested in the video.

The symbolic meaning of the massacre for the killer as it relates to motivation is another thing.

[8bitagent]

Call me a nutter, but Im willing to believe Sandy Hook was a possession/occult sacrifice more than I am a "faked event", and I dont even really subscribe to religious type beliefs

Well, the board has rules, but OK, you sir are a nutter. Which is really better than other things I might say if you posted that video for ANY reason other than its comedic value. C'mon man. Really?

While I think there is no chance that sandy hook was fake, nonetheless, i think there is even less of a chance that it was a ritual sacrifice that has anything whatsoever to do with ley lines. Good grief man.

How can this woman rightly criticize the its-all-fake theory on the grounds that "there is absolutely no proof" when just a few minutes earlier in the video she was pointing out the rough similarity between teotihuacan and sandy hook as being noteworthy evidence of the possibility of an occult ritual sacrifice explanation for sandy hook?

Because the Sandy Hook "hoax" conspiracy, which has risen into the stratosphere and broke into the collective societal watercooler, is such a poisonous and mind numbingly horrendous insult to begin with...Im saying yes, Id be more willing to buy the event was part of some straight to dvd like plot. That's how insulting and idiotic this "sandy hook hoax" shit is, and according to the youtube tallies, a lot of people are at least curious about said bullshit.
I cant get too worked up over the moon landing hoax theories, as theyre completely harmless and just for fun. But this...to say that the victims families are actors or faking it, its just wrong.

[8bitagent]

The symbolic meaning of the massacre for the killer as it relates to motivation is another thing.

agreed.

[justdrew]

well, "the people" got a football related hoax to worry about now, this hoax hoax will be blown away

[8bitagent]

well, "the people" got a football related hoax to worry about now, this hoax hoax will be blown away

Ha. Yeah it was strange that right then the Sandy hoax talk reached an angering fever pitch, even on here; the dominating headline soon got taken over by this football star girlfriend hoax.
Strange how in one month the horror of 20 six year olds has been reduced six levels over to talk of hoaxes, gun control wedge issues and far removed banter.

[brainpanhandler]

Bolding mine.

I followed both ATS and GLP threads for a while after the massacre, and it seemed like there was an immediate attempt to muddy the waters by the whole 'no children died' line. This is more than muddying, it's poisoning the water, and if intentional, an extremely clever way to make sure that the whole topic of inconsistencies--and, primarily, how the f-- this dude managed to carry it out alone and wiht no wounded--will be politely ignored and anyone who questions it will be treated like a pariah. Reminds me of the whole 'no plane hit the Pentagon thing', which experienced conspiracy-sniffers just a few days after 9-11 warned was an attempt to discredit conspiracy theories of all types (later, also, the whole thing about no planes used on the towers and etc.).

The most convincing explanation I've heard for the phenomenon is that the "no planes" hoax was part of the control valves created by the planners or the government spin doctors of the 911 attacks, which makes sense considering that quite a bit of the speculation along those lines originally arose from the public statements of Donald Rumsfeld.

There's a site - "September Clues," if you're interested - which is a fairly large community (over 1300 members) of individuals who are convinced that most large news stories such as this are simply a combination of video fakery, hired psyop actors, simulations, and photoshop manipulation of images. If a poster on that forum evidences any apprehension that a story under discussion might contain elements that are tied to something in the real world, they are quickly banned. If this worldview reminds you of the "no-planers", it's because the skill-set required to maintain the perspective that everything is a fake was collected and codified by the same group that started the 911 video fakery lifestyle. It's almost as if the shock of 911 inbred with over-viewings of the Matrix trilogy to birth a near religion of quasi-solipsistic X-treme media skepticism in which anything which you have not touched with your own hands is a construct of the system of media control. And while it certainly pays to be skeptical of what you see on teevee, I think they've gone overboard, and it seems that with each new massacre the idea seems to be spreading that none of it is real. I suspect it means something, sociologically, but just what, I don't know.

Anyway, there's a huge 30 page thread on the Sandy Hook shootings over there, if you have the stomach for it. It's actually kind of shockingly callous, but I think there's a degree of sincerity about their beliefs that can't be denied. There are true believers in their midst, no question.

Back on topic with more grist for the mill, the father of Adam Lanza claimed his body last week, but declined to specify where the body would be buried.

Not surprising, in a practical sense, but it ties right in with the no-plane approach.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35841&p=487747&hilit

Is this idea spreading/being spread? What of a sociological phenomena whereby tragic or major events viewed through the lens of an ever less grounded in reality media and an ever more disturbed populace begin to regularly reach the pinnacle of unreality ct? What is this tapping into that has always been there? I mean why do we find the scene in the wizard of oz where the great and powerful is revealed to be just a regular old man working the controls behind a curtain so compelling? Is there something operative here beyond a rabid media criticism gone off the deep end? Can/did this breed of ct exist before modern media?

Kind of deserves it's own thread as broader category of inquiry.

How many of these events can we place in this category? We're not talking staged or shepherded events. I mean events that are alleged to be straight up utterly fictional events. Hollywood sets/cgi, actors, etc.

1) no planes

2) Sandy hook

3) Apollo moon landings

4) Capturing/killing bin laden?

5)

Looking at the Forum for the September Clues site Barracuda mentions reveals many other candidates. But I suppose numbers matter as far as considering what it all means in a broader psychological/sociological way.

Thinking out loud, fwiw.

[8bitagent]

Is this idea spreading/being spread? What of a sociological phenomena whereby tragic or major events viewed through the lens of an ever less grounded in reality media and an ever more disturbed populace begin to regularly reach the pinnacle of unreality ct? What is this tapping into that has always been there? I mean why do we find the scene in the wizard of oz where the great and powerful is revealed to be just a regular old man working the controls behind a curtain so compelling? Is there something operative here beyond a rabid media criticism gone off the deep end? Can/did this breed of ct exist before modern media?

Kind of deserves it's own thread as broader category of inquiry.

How many of these events can we place in this category? We're not talking staged or shepherded events. I mean events that are alleged to be straight up utterly fictional events. Hollywood sets/cgi, actors, etc.

1) no planes

2) Sandy hook

3) Apollo moon landings

4) Capturing/killing bin laden?

5)

Looking at the Forum for the September Clues site Barracuda mentions reveals many other candidates. But I suppose numbers matter as far as considering what it all means in a broader psychological/sociological way.

Thinking out loud, fwiw.

It's also the divisiveness. When the Pentagon theories were in full bloom, I remember anyone who questioned the "Flight 77 didnt hit the Pentagon" meme as "disinfo agents". Sometimes the CT crowd loves eating their own tail.
I personally don't see any reason why bin Laden *wasnt* killed in the raid. Heck, the whole kidney dialysis meme itself could be a well placed psyop all these years.

"That's not bin Laden in that confession tape!" When actually, it was...though I don't know Arabic, so no idea what he was actually saying.

[Nordic]

4) Capturing/killing bin laden?

Well that falls into a completely different category, as there is absolutely ZERO evidence that it happened, other than our government's "word for it".

I mean, we're talking ZERO.

It blows my mind that anybody just swallowed that at face value, without question. From a government that paraded the corpses of the sons of Saddam in the street, made sure we all saw Saddam not only captured in his hidey-hole (which was fake) but also fucking HUNG from a rope until dead, then made sure we all had a chance to see Qadaffi sodomized with a kinife ...... we're supposed to believe that this same government thought it was too "insensitive" to show any evidence WHATSOFUCKINGEVER as to the actual death of this supposed master terrorist.

Anyway ....

[compared2what?]

[
It blows my mind that anybody just swallowed that at face value, without question. From a government that paraded the corpses of the sons of Saddam in the street, made sure we all saw Saddam not only captured in his hidey-hole (which was fake) but also fucking HUNG from a rope until dead, then made sure we all had a chance to see Qadaffi sodomized with a kinife ...... we're supposed to believe that this same government thought it was too "insensitive" to show any evidence WHATSOFUCKINGEVER as to the actual death of this supposed master terrorist.

Anyway ....

I didn't follow the story and have no opinion on the actuality or non-actuality.

But fwiw, reading the above, what occurs to me is that Saddam, Qadaffi and Bin Laden are only three of a kind from a (presumed) American war-on-terror perspective. The first two didn't have a broad constituency whose outrage at the sight of their bodies anyone anywhere had to worry about. But Bin Laden was a popular leader to many. A hero, even.

It might not have been us they weren't showing his corpse to. IOW.

Just a thought.

[brainpanhandler]

4) Capturing/killing bin laden?

Well that falls into a completely different category, as there is absolutely ZERO evidence that it happened, other than our government's "word for it".

I mean, we're talking ZERO.

Believe it or not I did not follow that story all that closely either. I agree that if there is zero evidence then it falls into some other category since what I'm interested in are alleged theatrical media versions of reality, not staged but completely contrived. But that's why I've got the ? after "capturing/killing bin laden". I wasn't really sure what evidence contrived or not exists or doesn't.

Like this sort of thing, possibly:



But that's why I've got the ? after "capturing/killing bin laden". I wasn't really sure what evidence contrived or not exists or doesn't.

Going back to this:

The most convincing explanation I've heard for the phenomenon is that the "no planes" hoax was part of the control valves created by the planners or the government spin doctors of the 911 attacks, which makes sense considering that quite a bit of the speculation along those lines originally arose from the public statements of Donald Rumsfeld.

I agree that seems the most likely explanation of an official source, although I wonder if such a thing would work unless people were prepared to entertain it.

Your old nemesis Hugh would likely have some interesting and possibly thought provoking things to say on the subject.

Reality/unreality.... blurring the distinctions, confusing people's ability to distinguish useful information from lies, and then creating/promoting the idea that some events that seem to serve the all powerful they in some fashion are strictly ersatz productions? Who does this serve? How is this useful? Who benefits when conspiracy theorists are painted with the ridiculous brush of the it-didn't-happen-at-all crowd?

But sometimes it may be the case that it didn't happen at all. And maybe that's the real purpose. To make the it-didn't-happen-at-all crowd seem forever cuckoo so that the mere idea is dismissed out of hand and the way is left open for...

Fuck.