Attention!

     There’s been a flood of “spam” comments that keep me busy deleting them, such that my time for other things is seriously reduced. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, comments will only be possible for registered, logged-in users.

     If the “spam” flood does not abate, this may become a permanent policy. Your understanding and forbearance are appreciated.

Love,
Fran

Shamelessness As A Political Weapon (UPDATED)

     The key political asset of our time is the ability to tell any lie, however outrageous or absurd, with a perfectly straight face: eyes straight and flat, no lifting of either corner of the mouth, and no tightening of either nostril. Moreover, the liar must be able to maintain that solemn-as-a-judge expression through a series of shocked inquiries as to “what you really meant by that.” Without that skill, the aspirant to power needn’t bother aspiring.

     Alternately, as a prized lapel button from my vast collection puts it:


Sincerity is the ultimate asset:
If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

     Yes, I know I’m a terrible cynic. But I’m also right.

     I admire President Trump for several reasons, but the one at the top of my thoughts just now might seem peculiar: He’s unwilling to police his own words for political advantage. One of the consequences is that his enemies, who are legion, can easily find in his statements words and phrases they can misquote and use to make him seem like something he’s not. In witness whereof, we have the following:

     Leftists across social media freaked out on Saturday after Donald Trump warned of a “bloodbath” in the automobile industry if Joe Biden wins in November.
     Trump made the remarks during a rally in Dayton, Ohio, where he was warning about the impacts on the automobile industry if he is not re-elected.
     “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath. That’s going to be the least of it,” Trump said during a rally near Dayton, Ohio. “It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”

     Language like that is a Trump trademark. He knows what he’s talking about: the importance of the American auto industry to the national economy. His enemies and detractors know it as well…but their utter shamelessness permits them to exploit his choice of words for denigration:

     Apparently, former Congressvermin and current MSNBC venom-spewer Joe Scarborough – hard to believe he once claimed to be a Republican, isn’t it? – tweeted something similar. He deleted it after being called to account by Elon Musk. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear him allude to the “bloodbath” slur during his show. If I were so idiotic as to watch his show, that is.

     This is the Left in all its evil glory. They regard nothing as too outrageous or too vile to employ for their purposes. Even when their attributions of malicious intent are easy to refute, they carry on. They know that their devotees listen only to them, and are as uninterested in truth or justice as they.

     They acknowledge no rules to the contest. Only winning matters to them.

     Oftentimes, American conservatives have lamented “our” people’s reluctance to participate in the scrum by the Left’s rules: i.e., none at all. There’s a lot of irony in that. As I’ve detailed it many times before, I’ll spare you this fine post-Saint Patrick’s Day morning. Leaving aside whether “our” people are truly “ours,” would we still regard them as such were they as shameless as the Left?

     We retain a hunger for probity and integrity in public men. We look for it ceaselessly…sadly, in vain far more often than not. Yet we found a modicum of it in Donald Trump. We were thrilled beyond measure when, in defiance of all precedent, he followed through on his campaign promises.

     What followed was easy to predict: Trump became the Left’s prime target for calumny and vilification. We’re not allowed to hope that public servants of high principle might return to our Republic. The Left will crush that hope by any means necessary. Their media megaphone is more useful to them for that purpose than for any other…and they’re utterly shameless about exploiting it.

     Forgive me, Gentle Reader. I’m a bit heartsick today. Perhaps it’s the cabbage. Or perhaps it’s the collapse of my vestigial belief in the fundamental soundness of our nation as originally constituted. Even a complete cynic can lament the failure of the greatest political experiment of the Christian era. Verily, even one who’s become convinced that it was doomed from the start.

     If the shameless have an unstoppable play in their playbooks, it’s time to quit the game.

     UPDATE: Scarborough, as many (including your humble Curmudgeon) have predicted, decided to double down:

     And of course, when he was called on it, he acted as if he were the injured party. Typical of the shameless.

Just remember, this is being done on purpose

Hezbollah member caught entering USA, claims he wants to build a bomb.

A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he’s a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York, The Post can reveal.

Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by border patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody he asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied: “I’m going to try to make a bomb,” according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post.

But Ebbadi later claimed in an interview that he had been trying to flee Lebanon and Hamas because he “didn’t want to kill people” and said “once you’re in in, you can never get out,” according to internal ICE documents.

Oh, yeah, he doesn’t want to kill people. That’s why he’s part of Hezbollah. Does anyone think that he’s the only terrorist to make it across our Southern border? Is there anyone out there who thinks we don’t have thousands of them in the USA already? And that doesn’t even begin to take in the thousands of military-aged males from China who are here. The bottom line is that we don’t know how many of them are here. The only thing you can be sure of is that the number is far, far higher than what is being reported.

It’s getting to the point where I think a false flag operation to disrupt the 2024 election is a real possibility. It might not even be a false flag at this point. Hell, I don’t know what is coming down the pike, I only know that it’s not good.

I’m blessed in the fact that I’ve had my cataract surgery, and I have 20/20 vision for the first time in my life. For those who don’t know, I used to have terrible eyesight. It almost kept me out of the Army, and it did keep me out of the Marines. When the doc was looking at my cataracts, he started talking about how I would see much better after the surgery. Sure, doc. Yeah, the cataract will be gone. He looked at me and said “No, I can put a toric lens into your eyes. You won’t need glasses anymore. Well, readers, but still….”

Ho. Lee. Crap. Wanna talk a life-changing event? I don’t know if I can express what a difference it is to people who’ve had perfect eyesight their entire lives, and who gripe about needing reading glasses as they age. I’ve had coke-bottles in front of my eyes since I was 7. They finally made contacts for my eyes when I was in my 20’s. This is the first time in my entire life I was able to wake up, open by eyes and just see. It cost me two grand per eye. Two thousand dollars. Per eye. The doc apologized about the cost. I would have paid ten times that.

I went shooting for the first time in a long time last Friday, and I can put holes in paper in a tight grouping once again. I was being forced to use my non-dominant eye for a while, but things are back to normal and I can at least take solace in the fact that if I have to shoot, I can do so. And I don’t need glasses or contacts in order to do it.

We’re also making local contacts, which will be crucial if anything bad does happen. People who can provide the things that we can’t create. Or who have access to it. And we have things that other people don’t have that we can use to trade, or collaborate.

I never thought when I re-enlisted that I would be looking at my government as the primary evil force in this country. Sure, I didn’t trust it, but I’ve watched it go from greedy to evil in the past two decades. And the only real force I have to stave it off is local. In reality, that’s the only force any of us have. We have no control over the corruptocrats in D.C. Not really. They’re getting rich by ignoring us. I don’t see that changing any time soon. But locally? Having a network of people locally and getting prepared will be about the only real thing we can do.

Anyways, my thoughts tend to drift towards the melancholy these days. Being able to delight in the small victories helps even me out. Like being able to see. Getting new chickens. Making connections. Plan accordingly.

The Meek And The Grand

     Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Gentle Reader! A summary of the great Irish saint’s life and work:

     St. Patrick (387-493) was born in Kilpatrick, Scotland, to Roman-British parents. He was kidnapped by Irish raiders at the age of sixteen and sold as a slave to a Druid high priest. He worked as a shepherd and spent much time in prayer as he labored in the fields. He also acquired a perfect knowledge of the Celtic language and the Druid cult, which later enabled him to evangelize the Celtic people. After six years of slavery, an angel told him to flee his oppressive master and return to his native land. Upon returning to Britain, Patrick desired to devote himself to God’s service. He went to France and placed himself under the direction of St. Germain, who ordained him a priest and sent him to evangelize the pagans in Ireland. St. Patrick devoted the rest of his life to converting the island to Christianity. He was ordained a bishop and himself ordained many priests. He divided the country into dioceses, held local Church councils, founded monasteries, and urged the people to greater holiness. He suffered much opposition from the Druids and occult magicians, who, threatened by Christianity, conjured demonic power to defy Patrick. However, the prayer, faith, fearlessness, and episcopal authority of Patrick triumphed, and he was so successful in his endeavor that in the Middle Ages Ireland became known as the Land of Saints, and himself the “Apostle of Ireland.” Later, the missionaries sent from Ireland to Europe were largely responsible for the Christianizing of the continent. St. Patrick’s feast day is March 17th.

     The bit about the snakes is in all probability merely metaphorical.

     There are a number of “grand” saints in the hagiography: men and women whose accomplishments were huge and whose personal impact on Christian belief was evident even during their lifetimes. We admire those works and celebrate the lives of their doers. But we must not forget that sainthood – which, strictly speaking, means admission to eternal life in Heaven – does not require achievements that can be seen from orbit.

     The hagiography includes several thousand saints, the majority of whom are unknown even to most erudite Catholics. Many of those named there were not acknowledged for sanctity during their lives. Yet enough information about them survived to get the attention of the Church, which proclaimed them saints after due deliberation.

     The Church today refers possible saints to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, one of the nine prefectures of the Curia. That congregation would assign investigators to the task of amassing and assessing everything it’s possible to know about the candidate – a formidable task, as the depth and breadth of any man’s life is impossible to know in all its details. In earlier centuries, the investigation of a man for potential canonization was less formal, though equally serious.

     Information about the life and deeds of Saint Patrick was voluminous. The many priests and monks of the Emerald Isle made certain that his record would be preserved over the centuries. They venerated him long before the Vatican’s canonization process ever addressed him. That’s easy to understand, for a man whose achievements in service to the Church were so vast.

     But there have been many more “meek” saints: persons whose lives, as best we know them, were holy but whose accomplishments in this world were humble. Think of the many Christian martyrs of the First through the Third Centuries, when Christianity was outlawed in the Roman Empire and had to be practiced in secret. Few of their names have survived, yet all are accorded sainthood for their final deed: surrendering their lives rather than renouncing their faith.

     More recently, we have the Martin family of Alençon, France: Louis, Zelie, and their daughter Therese. All three have been canonized, yet they have no “grand” works to their credit: only exemplary lives that lived the love of God. Therese, the “Little Flower” of the Carmelite Convent of Lisieux, is often held up to young Catholics – especially Catholic girls – as exceptional models of faith and Christian devotion. Her writings on her “Little Way” are among the most popular of all spiritual fare among lay Catholics.

     Plainly, if both the meek and the grand are honored by the title of saint, and have received the same celestial reward, the magnitude of one’s accomplishments matters little if at all. Therese Martin didn’t found dozens of monasteries nor did she bring tens of thousands to the Faith during her lifetime, as Saint Patrick did, yet they partake of the same reward. The unnamed martyrs of the early Church didn’t travel thousands of miles to bring Jesus’s New Covenant to persons in India and the Far East, but their eternal bliss is no less than that of Francis Xavier.

     The common factor, which all saints share, is the deep, abiding love of God and devotion to His Will. Meek or grand, that is “the ticket:” for such a love, if sincere, will be lived. The works of a saint’s life, whether audacious or humble, will be suffused with that love. Those whose lives he touches will be unable to deny it.

     The daughter of a dear friend recently found her husband-to-be in a curious way. While in conversation via a social media site, each revealed to the other that sort of love of God. Though separated by many miles and difficult circumstances – he’s a career Navy man; she’s a dentist – they found their way to one another. They married despite considerable obstacles and the certainty of repeated lengthy separations.

     Another Martin family in the making, perhaps? Of course we cannot know beforehand. But we do know this: love has great power. It makes possible the conquest of obstacles that would otherwise prove insuperable. And all love, whether the lover’s deeds will prove meek or grand, reflects God’s love for us.

     May God bless and keep you all.

When The Writing On The Wall Is This Large…

     …there’s no ambiguity about the connecting link:

     This is only part of the pattern of Usurper-in-Chief Joe Biden’s first days in office. He also reversed all of President Trump’s executive orders on securing the border.

     Never let anyone tell you the Democrats sincerely want the border controlled. They want that flood of illegal aliens. They want Americans cowering in their homes while murderers and rapists freely roam the streets. Why else would the Bidenites and their state-level acolytes be so unwilling to keep those arrested for violent crimes behind bars, much less deport them?

     The Biden Regime has already opened the U.S. / Mexican border wide to all sorts of scum, including Chinese soldiers and Middle Eastern terrorists. When boatloads of violent Haitian gangs arrive at our southern shores, do you expect that federal forces will be there to repel them…or to welcome them?

     Emerald Robinson has called the turn:

     Robinson’s prediction is too logical to dismiss. Regimes that are willing to go peacefully in deference to the popular will don’t behave the way the Bidenites are behaving. If the campaign to terrify us into acceptance somehow fails to achieve its objective, remember how eager dozens of alphabet agencies have been to arm their people, including with machine guns.

     It’s not looking good.

Restatements

     The Future Columns folder is full again, but I find that I can bring myself neither to write about all of it nor to delete any of it without first writing about it. So, as a pale substitute for one of my habitual tirades, here are a few links:

  1. How to change the corporate culture.
  2. Unfortunately, there are consequences of #1.
  3. A much-lauded essay.
  4. Why we “hate progressives.”
  5. Political anodynes and fundamental pressures.
  6. “Burn it to the ground!”
  7. You are being replaced.
  8. Women’s franchise and societal decline.
  9. Invasion in progress.
  10. More “white supremacy.”

     All the above are worth reading in their entirety, if you have the time.

***

     Liberty’s Torch isn’t one of the more popular commentary sites. That’s all right; we have a few hundred Gentle Readers who appreciate what we do, and that’s entirely sufficient. Yet it often strikes me that the preponderance of the current-affairs / political commentary available today simply restates the news. That is:

  • A news article about some event will appear at a news site;
  • Web commentators will decide that the event deserves their attention;
  • Those commentators write about the event – but without providing anything extra, except perhaps outrage.

     Granted that it’s good to “get your mad out,” is that what the typical reader wants and values?

     One of the virtues of the World Wide Web, once it became “two-way,” is that it allows us to find others of like mind. For a long time persons in the Right suffered from a sense of isolation, as the one-way Legacy Media moved ever further to the Left. The Web changed that, in large measure because of the emergence of blogging. With a little effort, it became possible to locate commentators who see things as we see them…and thereby to feel less alone.

     The Blogiverse is sadly reduced from its glory days. Some of us are still here, still plugging away. But the remaining current-affairs / politics bloggers in the Right are more oriented toward simply venting their anger than toward analysis and explication.

     We need more analysis and explication.

***

     The Co-Conspirators at this little corner of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy allow ourselves some venting, of course. But we also provide, as best we’re able, analysis of causes and explications of probable consequences. I hope we’ll continue to do so, as I expect it’s what our Gentle Readers come here for. The need seems plain enough.

     In one of his most highly acclaimed stories, “Slow Sculpture,” writer Theodore Sturgeon gives us the key to understanding anything:

     “Maybe you’re asking the next question instead of asking the right question. I think people who live by wise old sayings are trying not to think—but I know one worth paying some attention to. It’s this. If you ask a question the right way, you’ve just given the answer.” She went on, “I mean, if you put your hand on a hot stove you might ask yourself, how can I stop my hand from burning? And the answer is pretty clear, isn’t it? If the world keeps rejecting what you have to give—there’s some way of asking why that contains the answer.”

     But knowing which is the right question to ask isn’t so simple. Cool, hard thinking is involved. Acceptance of context and constraints. Knowledge of history. And above all, the determination to see clearly, without hiding inside some comfortable delusion.

     Americans need all of that, in sharply increased amounts. Yet the Left is determined to deny it to us, by any means necessary.

***

     That’s all for the moment. Just a bit of musing over why we do what we’ve been doing and hopefully will continue to do. Now it’s time (ulp) for me to rev up the lawn tractor and perform my least appreciated chore: “picking up” the back yard, with all its windblown leaves, fallen branches, and dog poop. Back later, perhaps…assuming I survive.

GE Changes

Why am I writing about this? My husband had directed me, a few years ago, to put some money into GE (and a few other old-school companies, as well). I did it under my E-Trade account, so I get the news first (although he makes any decisions about the investment).

I received notification about some changes – GE is spinning off several of its units as separate companies – GE Vernova, GE Health, and GE Aerospace. If I heard about the GE Health spinoff, it slipped past my conscious mind. We’ve spent a few years with more than enough to keep the brain cells busy – moving, dealing with 2 major injuries, COVID, and family concerns. We only own 2 shares, so it’s success or failure won’t change our lives significantly.

GE Vernova appears to be focused on Energy – New Green Energy, to be precise. Although that’s often considered (primarily by the Left) to be a Growth Industry, I’m less enthralled by the prospect. Again, little investment, little concern.

GE Aerospace (wonder why the Euro spelling?) appears to be piggypacking on the success of SpaceX in achieving their mission. Lotsa luck with that. In GE’s own words from their report announcing the spinoff:

GE Aerospace’s sole focus will be executing its bold vision to invent the future of flight, lift people up, and bring
them home safely. With nearly 41,000 commercial engines at work in more than 70% of global airlines, and a
diverse portfolio of more than 26,000 defense engines, this exceptional franchise is a global aerospace leader.
And more than 70% of its revenue is derived from aftermarket services that not only have attractive economics,
but also keeps the team closer than ever to our customers. GE Aerospace will continue to generate significant
value for decades to come, leveraging the quality of its technology and product development plans, the energy
and collaboration of its team, and its positioning as the industry’s largest and youngest fleet. “

I dunno. The 3 new companies don’t seem like innovators, they look like copycats. If the investment makes money, I’ll be happy, but I wouldn’t risk my retirement portfolio on it.

The Easiest Sin

     Happy Ides of March, Gentle Reader! If you enjoyed your Pi Day – we did – then perhaps you’ll also enjoy this commemoration of the day, in 44 B.C., when a group of civic-minded patricians decided to take an aspiring dictator “off the ballot” in a rather final and unappealable way. It’s a recipe for averting tyranny that we should always have in our back pockets, just in case…

***

     “Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.” – Catholic maxim.

     This recent article surprised many Christians:

     Pope Francis appeared on Italy’s most popular prime-time talk show on Sunday night where the pontiff shared how he hopes that hell is “empty.”
     […]
     When asked by the interviewer, Fabio Fazio, how he “imagines hell,” Pope Francis gave a short response.
     “What I am going to say is not a dogma of faith but my own personal view: I like to think of hell as empty; I hope it is,” Pope Francis said.
     The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that Catholic teaching “affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, ‘eternal fire.’ The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.”
     The catechism also says: “In hope, the Church prays for ‘all men to be saved.’”

     A splendid hope, whether or not it describes the actuality. For Pope Francis, of whom I have no great opinion, to express that it’s his hope raises my evaluation of him a notch. But not everyone shares that hope:

     I have a different — indeed, completely opposite — view.
     I should make it clear that I, too, hope that sometime in the future — hopefully the near future — no one will be sent to hell. That would mean goodness had finally so prevailed on Earth that not one person was deserving of punishment in the afterlife.
     But as of this moment, I fervently hope that some people are in hell — or whatever one wishes to call punishment after life; just as I hope some people are in heaven — or whatever one wishes to call reward in an afterlife.
     Why? Because if no one is punished after death, that would mean either there is no God or, equally depressing, it would mean God is not just.

     Before this, I held a moderately approving view of columnist and radio personality Dennis Prager. However, I must condemn the above as vile. I hope Prager doesn’t understand the implications of his statement; I’d find it hard to forgive him if he does.

     And of course, I shall tell you why.

***

     It’s Church doctrine that sincere repentance of one’s sins, even just before the instant of death, will spare a man from Hell. It’s also Church doctrine that internment in Hell is “eternal.” Yet our comprehension of “eternal” and “eternity” are incomplete. Prager wants justice for the great sinners and evildoers on his little list. That’s understandable and laudable, especially considering that some evildoers get out of this life without ever being brought to book. But what is justice? Isn’t just punishment supposed to be proportioned to the offense? Could any crime committed in our temporal realm, in which all things have a beginning and an ending, justify infinite, eternal punishment?

     Saint Thomas Aquinas thought so:

     “The magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the sin. Now a sin that is against God is infinite; the higher the person against whom it is committed, the graver the sin—it is more criminal to strike a head of state than a private citizen—and God is of infinite greatness. Therefore an infinite punishment is deserved for a sin committed against Him.”

     Aquinas, the greatest intellect ever put to the service of the Church, must always be listened to respectfully…but that doesn’t mean he was right about everything. The above embeds a rationale akin to medieval notions of lese majeste. As justice, I can’t see it, and I’m not the only one:

     “Every torture in Hell was too much too late. Punishment? But it’s infinite punishment for things that are little in comparison. Dracula caused a lot of people a lot of pain and death, but it ended. George only lied to people to make them buy things! And what about the fat lady in the Vestibule area?
     “What’s the point? To teach us a lesson? But we’re dead. Revenge, punishment? Completely out of proportion.”

     It’s hard to square that with any notion of justice comprehensible to men.

***

     Dante Alighieri’s vision in his Inferno, upon which the Niven / Pournelle novel was based, included a way out of Hell: protracted, difficult, and with severe requirements, but possible to the truly repentant. Dante was not a theologian, yet his conception has been praised for centuries, including by many theologians.

     We also have the conception of the great Clive Staples Lewis:

     “Did ye never hear of the Refrigerium? A man with your advantages might have read of it in Prudentius, not to mention Jeremy Taylor.”
     “The name is familiar, Sir, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what it means.”
     “It means that the damned have holidays–excursions, ye understand.”
     “Excursions to this country?”
     “For those that will take them. Of course most of the silly creatures don’t. They prefer taking trips back to Earth. They go and play tricks on the poor daft women ye call mediums. They go and try to assert their ownership of some house that once belonged to them: and then ye get what’s called a Haunting. Or they go to spy on their children. Or literary Ghosts hang about public libraries to see if anyone’s still reading their books.”
     “But if they come here they can really stay?”
     “Aye. Ye’ll have heard that the emperor Trajan did.”
     “But I don’t understand. Is judgment not final? Is there really a way out of Hell into Heaven?”
     “It depends on the way you’re using the words. If they leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory. And perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not Deep Heaven, ye understand.” (Here he smiled at me). “Ye can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life. And yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first. And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the beginning.”
     I suppose he saw that I looked puzzled, for presently he spoke again.
     “Son,” he said, “ye cannot in your present state understand eternity: when Anodos looked through the door of the Timeless, he brought no message back. But ye can get some likeness of it if ye say that both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say ‘Let me but have this and I’ll take the consequences’: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.”

     This casts quite a different light upon the notion of eternity in Hell…and I can find no reason to dismiss it out of hand.

***

     Hmph. Fifteen hundred words already and I have yet to get to what I regard as the heart of the matter. Well, here goes nothing.

     If the Church is correct in asserting that at the instant of death, sincere repentance will shrive the foulest sinner, sparing him from Hell, then that is something for which we must hope: i.e., that even the greatest evildoers of history found that sincere repentance within them as they met their ends. Yes, all the greatest ones: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, add your favorite villain here. Not to hope for that is to wish unimaginable sorrow and suffering upon them: a degree of hatred which is forbidden us. That’s the true theological meaning of hatred as a capital sin: to desire that another human being be damned.

     Even if Dante and Lewis were correct, and that there is a way out of Hell, to wish Hell upon someone is to condemn him to a variety of suffering that’s not only beyond imagining, but about which he can do nothing. For regardless of the actuality, the details of which are unavailable to us the living, our conception of damnation involves permanence, and therefore disproportion. It involves a form of despair.

     To despair – to abandon hope – is the easiest sin. It surrenders. It dismisses possibility and despises effort. Even to despair of another person’s ultimate redemption is horribly sinful. To wish for it…words fail me.

***

     And so, being a person of hope, who has been taught to hate the sin while loving the sinner, I must express here a pair of hopes.

     First, I hope that Dennis Prager comes to understand the implications of what he’s said, and to repent of it.

     Second, I hope with equal fervor that Pope Francis’s vision of Hell as empty is accurate. If it is not so today – whatever “today” means in the supratemporal realm – then may it be so “when all has been accomplished:” i.e., when all have truly suffered enough, repented enough, and above all hoped enough.

     May God bless and keep you all.

No Deposit, No Return

     Does anyone else remember seeing that on the label on a soda bottle? I mean, I know I’m old, but still…!

***

     We tend to value things according to their costs. It’s a natural thing; we remember what we paid to acquire the item, and – perhaps more dimly – the work we had to put in to earn it. It doesn’t always involve a projected need to replace the item.

     Abstract possessions have the same character. Think about some of yours:

  • Love;
  • Faith;
  • Friends;
  • Skills;
  • Self-Respect.

     What did those things cost you? Can you remember clearly? (Don’t be too embarrassed if you can’t; it’s a common condition.) Consider also what would follow if you were to lose one of them. A couple of those possessions are things the great majority of men can’t live without.

     And there are others.

***

     Most Americans didn’t have to “pay” anything for the extraordinary gift of citizenship in these United States of America. Some did, of course, but the majority of us are “born here” citizens, for whom that state is automatic. One of the consequences is a relative unconsciousness of the gift…and of what securing it for its first crop of citizens cost them and their fellows.

     Being something of a fanatic about freedom, the original raison d’etre of this nation, I’ve watched it being sliced away with growing horror. Little has been done anywhere, by anyone, to resist the paring-away of Americans’ rights to life, liberty, and their honestly acquired property. Speaking out? A few have done so, and a few of them have suffered for it. Voting? When the choice is between Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, the impact is dubious. What else has anyone ventured for the preservation of freedom? Donating to some right-of-center think tank?

     Today, Paula Bolyard enumerates some of the slices the Left has already achieved or is intent upon:

     The corruption of the Democrats—particularly those in the Biden administration—seems to know no bounds.
     Here are just a few things they have their hearts set on:

  • Remaking the Supreme Court
  • Jailing Donald Trump, keeping him off the ballot, and bankrupting him and his family
  • Spying on conservative Americans, treating them as terrorists
  • Banning voter ID
  • Using lawfare as their preferred political strategy
  • Importing millions of illegals
  • Censoring free speech
  • Getting rid of the Electoral College
  • Destroying conservative media.

     And those are just the ones we know about.

     It’s an interesting list, but mainly for what it omits. The majority of the items in Bolyard’s list pertain to political mechanisms and maneuverings rather than to Americans’ Constitutionally guaranteed rights. You have to squint a bit to see the connections.

     Bolyard goes on to ask:

     Are there enough Americans who will stand up and say “enough” in the voting booth this year?

     I maintain that this is the wrong question.

***

     Nearly two centuries ago, France’s foremost polemicist, Frederic Bastiat, called attention to the disconnect between voting and liberty:

     I wish merely to observe here that this controversy over universal suffrage (as well as most other political questions) which agitates, excites, and overthrows nations, would lose nearly all of its importance if the law had always been what it ought to be. In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual’s right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder — is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?
     Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent of the right to vote would endanger that supreme good, the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would refuse to peaceably await the coming of their right to vote? Is it likely that those who had the right to vote would jealously defend their privilege? If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone’s interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that, under these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience those who did not vote?

     Clarence Carson made the same point:

     [W]e are told that there is no need to fear the concentration of power in government so long as that power is checked by the electoral process. We are urged to believe that so long as we can express our disagreement in words, we have our full rights to disagree. Now both freedom of speech and the electoral process are important to liberty, but alone they are only the desiccated remains of liberty. However vigorously we may argue against foreign aid, our substance is still drained away in never-to-be-repaid loans. Quite often, there is not even a candidate to vote for who holds views remotely like my own. To vent one’s spleen against the graduated income tax may be healthy for the psyche, but one must still yield up his freedom of choice as to how his money will be spent when he pays it to the government. The voice of electors in government is not even proportioned to the tax contribution of individuals; thus, those who contribute more lose rather than gain by the “democratic process.” A majority of voters may decide that property cannot be used in such and such ways, but the liberty of the individual is diminished just as much as in that regard as if a dictator had decreed it. Those who believe in the redistribution of wealth should be free to redistribute their own, but they are undoubtedly limiting the freedom of others when they vote to redistribute theirs.
     Effective disagreement means not doing what one does not want to do as well as saying what he wants to say. What is from one angle the welfare state is from another the compulsory state. Let me submit a bill of particulars. Children are forced to go to school. Americans are forced to pay taxes to support foreign aid, forced to support the Peace Corps, forced to make loans to the United Nations, forced to contribute to the building of hospitals, forced to serve in the armed forces. Employers are forced to submit to arbitration with labor leaders. Laborers are forced to accept the majority decision. Employers are forced to pay minimum wages, or go out of business. But it is not even certain that they will be permitted by the courts to go out of business. Railroads are forced to charge established rates and to continue services which may have become uneconomical. Many Americans are forced to pay Social Security. Farmers are forced to operate according to the restrictions voted by a majority of those involved. The list could be extended, but surely the point has been made.

     Voting alone achieves nothing. This point must be pressed home upon today’s Americans.

***

     I could start to rant about the Deep State, whose insulation from electoral processes is a great part of the reason for the diminution of our freedom, but I’ve done it before, and I dislike to repeat myself. My actual purpose here is to remind my Gentle Readers of the essential truth about freedom:


Freedom is not granted.
It is taken:
Whether by you, or from you.

     Freedom’s price is always paid in advance. It’s usually denominated in blood. How, then, should we who have paid nothing expect to retain it?

     [See also A. E. Van Vogt’s classic story The Weapon Shop.]

Reading an Interesting Book

It’s The Dad With a Flamethrower, about an America thrown into chaos by an electrical emergency, leading to blackouts, lessened electrical flow (making those all-electric homes and vehicles seem like a VERY bad idea), and civil disruption.

It’s KU – Kindle Unlimited – but it’s also only $0.99 to buy if you don’t have it.

I think we may learn more from the bad examples of prep than the “I’ve got this” types. This man is semi-ready, but just barely. For example, he has a generator, but only one gas can. Once the urgent need hits, he realizes that there are no extra cans for sale, except at inflated prices.

I’d previously read the 299 series of books. Interesting story, but the main character had made preps over many months, and that prep included physical training, gun training, and a defensible community near water. Not what many of us would face.

When we moved from SC, we considered more rural properties. A major argument against them is our age (70+), the distance from family support, inadequate medical facilities within a short driving distance, and the money and work required to make those properties habitable and able to withstand power outages. So, we choose to buy in the city (not a major city, mind you, and one that could be cut off from disruption by blocking bridges, manning the approaches from highways, and otherwise keeping out invaders.

Most of our near-neighbors are homeowners and either retired or working at jobs. In other words, stable people. Quite a few with military experience or who hunt. I’m one of the few amateur radio operators I know of, but I hope to link up this summer with the ARES group – Amateur Radio Emergency Services. They work with the civil authorities to facilitate communications between police, fire, and other emergency services.

But our first goal is healing injuries and bringing up our ability to manage ADL – Activities of Daily Living – by ourselves. I don’t want to have to depend on others to assist with gardening, work on our house, or other tasks. It would also help us keep our medical costs down.

I guess that caution makes me a person you might consider ‘twitchy’. The political situation – both at the state and federal levels – along with the financial instability I’ve been seeing, make me more than a little nervous. I’ve volunteered to be a poll worker this year, along with my husband. OH generally has more honest voting than most states (outside of Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland).

Cross your fingers.

“How Did He Know?”

     This piece has evoked some amazing reactions, the majority of them imparted to me privately. Yes, all of them were from men. Quite frankly, what I thought I knew about my Gentle Readers falls short of the actuality. It seems that even among our sort, there’s a lot of romantic and para-romantic misery out there.

     I’m not surprised…well, not as surprised as I might have been. I did hope it was otherwise for men as intelligent and appreciative as the readers of Liberty’s Torch. But the contemporary disease of the “war between the sexes” has penetrated even here.

     What particularly shook me was a repeated plaint that I didn’t expect to be addressed to me: “How did you know?” I must have read that a dozen times. I know because I know, damn it all. I’ve been there. I’ve been through the wringer, the same as you. High intelligence is no more a barrier to that sort of abuse than exemplary good looks or a huge fortune. Neither is it a perfect guarantee against succumbing to wishful thinking.

     I must also say this: The “war between the sexes” mentality has deeply polluted the attitudes of both sexes. Just as the majority of American women have come to regard men as little better than predators, the majority of American men have come to distrust women as a standing policy. While the malady still falls short of universal, it’s dominant among Americans today, particularly those in their middle years. It probably contributes to the low birth rate, though there’s no way to separate it from other relevant factors.

     I was about to repost this story, which first appeared here almost exactly two years ago. After consideration, I decided against it. The gesture Allan originally intended to make toward his unloving spouse would have been unwise, all but guaranteed to fail. Think about it.

     So instead, enjoy the story below. It’s of a happy tone, and we could for sure use a happy tone around here. And remember not to let the bastards – male or female – wear you down.


The Middle Years

     On the day it began, I was at work at Onteora Aviation. I was on my way to somewhere. I can no longer remember where. Once there, I would do something required by my middle management job, with indifferent cooperation or bored resistance from some other middle manager. After that, I’d return to my usual routine, which was mostly juggling figures and composing reports that had only a tenuous relation to anything in the real world.
     I was headed downstairs, with a folder of papers tucked under one arm. I reached the landing between floors, wheeled to continue down the next flight, and found myself staring helplessly at the most beautiful woman God has ever put on this sorry ball of mud.
     She was tall, about five feet eight, with a buxom-slender figure from an adolescent fantasy. She wore a navy blue skirt suit that hugged her with a lover’s fervor, and matching high-heeled pumps that transformed her already magnificent legs into instruments of erotic torment. Her dark brown hair brushed gently over her shoulders as she climbed. When she raised her face and her eyes met mine, the impact should have thrown me back against the wall. Those eyes were huge, luminous, and so kind that I couldn’t imagine her ever speaking a word in anger.
     No woman had shaken me that way since Bea left me.
     She smiled. It was enough to melt the Rock of Gibraltar.
     “Hi,” she said, and climbed on past me.
     It was some time before I realized that I’d frozen solid on the staircase. Even after I realized, it took a few seconds to make my limbs move normally again.
     Heaven had descended to Earth and looked me in the eyes.
     She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old. I was well past forty. I had no more business fantasizing about a young goddess like that than I had of trying to play in the Masters’, but of course that didn’t stop me.
     I should have continued down, but instead I glanced up at the flight I’d just descended. She was standing at the middle of it, watching me intently. It was a second blow, and nearly fatal.
     “Are you all right?” she said. Her concern seemed genuine.
     I forced a smile. “Fine. Just a little winded.”
     “You’re sure?” She came down the stairs toward me and peered into my eyes. “I could help you to the nurse’s office, if there’s a problem.”
     A spike of pure panic went through me as I realized that she was about to touch me. I put on a face that wouldn’t have passed muster in a wax museum.
     “No, everything’s okay. Have a nice day!” With that I trotted down the stairs and hid behind the doors to the next floor until I was certain she’d gone on her way.
     I don’t remember anything else that happened that day, but I remember that I dreamed about her that night, all night long.

#

     Two days later, she saw me in the cafeteria and sought me out. I don’t usually eat cafeteria food—too much salt—but that particular day I hadn’t brought anything, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t ignore the demands of my gut.
     I was sitting alone, shoveling down a fairly decent beef stew, when I saw her approach. When I realized that she was headed straight for my table, my mouth went too dry to swallow.
     She smiled that bone-liquefying smile and sat down across from me as if we were old friends that had arranged to meet there. Dozens of pairs of eyes followed her. They remained upon her as she unwrapped her utensils and addressed her chef’s salad.
     “How are you?” she said.
     I swallowed my heart. “Not bad. You?”
     “Just great. I’m Angela Bowman, by the way.”
     She put out a hand. After about a century of agonizing indecision, I took it and shook it.
     “Uh, I’m Dan Lundquist.”
     “I’m in Accounting. Where do they have you?”
     “I manage the Aerodynamic Engineering Department.”
     She forked up a bite of her salad and held it at port arms. “Is the engineering stuff fun?”
     I had no difficulty believing that her interest was sincere. That guile-free face could have convinced me that black was white.
     “It has its moments.” I dredged up more stew, realized my hand was shaking, and set down my spoon before I could spill it on myself. “It had more of them before I got into management.”
     “Do you regret that?”
     The young ones always asked that. “No, not really. You can’t keep doing technical work your whole life. At least, I couldn’t.”
     Tiny Vs formed on her forehead. “Why not?”
     I shrugged. “You lose some of your ability to concentrate when you get to my age. Plus, the younger guys come to the job with tools you’ve never learned. So you let them do the math, and you make sure they know what they’re supposed to do and have enough computers and pencils to do it. You settle into elder statesmanhood.”
     I sneaked a glance around. There were between sixty and eighty people in the cafeteria that day, nearly all of them male, and every one of them was watching our table. The closest ones were listening with only the barest trace of concealment.
     She noticed my survey. “They’re watching us, aren’t they?”
     I tried to smile. “Yeah. Does it bother you?”
     A tiny shake of the head. “I just have to remind myself not to laugh.”
     “Why would you laugh?”
     A giggle bubbled through her restraint. She cut it off at the third trill. “Because it always happens.” She pushed the remains of her salad aside, knotted her fingers on the table and stared down at them, as a young girl would do while trying to cope with embarrassment. It was the first gesture I’d seen from her that wasn’t exquisite in every way.
     “They’re young men, Angela. It’s normal for them to be interested in a pretty young woman. And to wonder why she’s sitting with a man old enough to be her father.”
     She nodded without looking up. “I know.”
     “Why are you, by the way?” It took an effort to get the question out.
     That brought her head up. Yet there was nothing but warmth in her expression.
     “Because when I asked you on the staircase if you were okay, you didn’t use it as an excuse to hit on me.”
     Blood flooded into my face. My behavior had been more from the shock of encountering her than from any quality of character, but how could I explain that to her? Was it something she’d be better off for knowing?
     “Angela…” I paused to choose the right words. “I did notice how attractive you are.”
     She cocked her head. “Well, of course you did. I know I’m beautiful. If you hadn’t noticed, I’d have thought there was something wrong with you.”
     Aha.

#

     Need I tell you I was overwhelmed by Angela’s interest and warmth? I should think it was obvious by now. I hadn’t realized I had enough fuel left in me to feed so fierce a fire. I’d been twenty years without a wife, more than a decade without a date, and I’d thought I was “beyond all that.” I could not have been more wrong.
     She’d lavished her lunch hour on me, making small talk in a cafeteria crawling with younger men, any of whom would have killed me and eaten my body for the hint of a smile from her. When we rose to return to work, she asked if we could have lunch together again the next day. I’d have said yes if it meant I’d be hanged at sunrise.
     She possessed more than physical beauty. She was as poised a person as I’ve known lifelong. She had conversational skills that were uncanny in one so young, and a sense for what directions not to take that I hadn’t won until long after Bea left me. There was nothing coquettish or affected about her. Her gift of beauty was matched in full by her gift of grace.
     I was in love.
     It was absurd, grotesque, unthinkable. It was in defiance of the laws of nature. It was the central cliche of the male mid-life crisis, enacted nightly in cheap bars and red sports cars from coast to coast.
     It was undeniable. On the strength of an hour’s socializing, Angela had me in a grip of steel.
     I was good for nothing the rest of the day, locked in a state of ambulatory paralysis. My body went through all the motions, but my mental processes had stopped. The lockdown didn’t lift until I was home, swaddled in the familiar sterility of my flat. When it did, I started to shake. Passions unslaked for twenty years rose to seize my heart and brain, and they had their way with me.
     I sat on the couch in my little living room, with the television off and only one dim lamp burning in the corner, shivering as if defending myself from frostbite, until simple weariness brought my day to an end.
     I went to my bedroom, undressed, and got down on my knees to pray. Go ahead, laugh at the thought of a middle-aged man who still prays before bed, without children to set a good example for. But I do. I have to. The once I let it lapse, just after my marriage to Bea failed, I slid so close to the edge of Hell that I could have steamed rice in the updraft.
     I don’t know that God looks out for me. I only know that I have to ask.
     So I did. I asked to see clearly, not to fall prey to vanity or wishful thinking. I asked for wisdom enough to tell what was right from the urgings of desire. And I asked for something I hadn’t asked since the night Bea left me: a sign.
     No, I hadn’t gotten one back then, but He hadn’t told me not to ask again.

#

     The next day, work took me away from my desk just before noon. When I returned to my office, I found Angela waiting for me, but not alone. Carl Weatherly, an engineer of mine about her age, was chatting her up. She did not look happy.
     Carl’s a nice young man, intelligent, hard-working, not bad looking and always decently groomed. He’s had his share of attention from the unattached women in the plant. That isn’t much, as there aren’t many. The typical engineering group is more than ninety percent male, and aerospace is even purer than that. Women just don’t take much interest in it.
     One of the things a young engineer has to cope with is that there are essentially no romantic opportunities in his workplace. Since young engineers typically overwork, sparing little time for activities outside the office, they can go through agony over why they spend all their Friday and Saturday nights alone. Some draw the lesson and adopt pastimes that will bring them into contact with single women, even if those pastimes are far less exciting than designing airplanes. Some close in upon themselves, and train themselves to believe it doesn’t matter. Others become…well, let’s say a trifle crude. Not vulgar, necessarily, but heavy-handed, unable to be subtle or read the finer signs.
     When Angela saw me she raised a hand, cut Carl off in mid-importuning with a curt “excuse me,” and hurried toward me as if we were lovers who’d been separated for twenty years. She actually grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the stairwell. Carl stood there at the door to my office, looking as if he’d just been mugged.
     When we were sufficiently far away, I asked her, “Wasn’t that just a little abrupt?”
     She scowled delicately. “I didn’t need to hear the rest of his pitch. They’re all the same.” She noticed my dismay, stopped and turned to face me squarely. “I get it a lot, Dan. I’m tired of it. Maybe if you spent a few years being drooled over like a nicely dressed pizza, you’d understand.”
     I nodded. We didn’t speak again until we were seated over lunch. Once again, we received an inordinate amount of attention from the other diners.
     “Did I upset you?” she asked.
     I reflected briefly. “No. I think I understand the pressures on you. But do you understand the pressures on him?”
     “On what’s-his-name upstairs?” She shrugged.
     It was the first indication she’d given that there might be something missing from her perfection.
     Was it the sign I’d asked for? How could I know? And if it was, what was I to make of it?
     “His name is Carl, Angela.” I kept my voice low. “He’s twenty-six years old, unmarried, and a fine design engineer. He spends most of his evenings here as well as his days. It’s a pattern among my younger men, though God knows I don’t ask it of them. Cut him a little slack.”
     Her eyes flared. Clearly she hadn’t expected a reproof from a man she’d deigned to lavish her time on. Perhaps it had never happened to her before. She started to defend herself, fell silent instead.
     “It’s not a big deal, dear.” I wanted to reassure her, but I’d be damned if I was going to let her think that treating me nicely could get me to overlook rudeness to others. Especially others for whom I had responsibility. “But you should bear in mind the differences between you. You’re a beautiful, charming, poised, much sought after young woman. He’s a young man who has almost nothing going for him at this point in his life except good health and a skill that might make him prosperous some day. Yet he has to seek you out and win your attention, not the other way around. So try to be kind.”
     Her mouth dropped open a little way. A lesser woman could have burst into tears and not delivered such a jolt to my heart.
     “Are you angry with me, Dan?” It was almost inaudible.
     “No.” It had taken more resolve than I thought I possessed to drop that mini-lecture on her, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “I’m flattered beyond belief that you should want my company. I don’t know what to make of it, though.”
     Some of her composure returned. “What you should make of it is that I like you. You’re what you are, and you’re not trying to be something else. You’re courteous and dignified and accomplished, and you get a lot of respect. And you’re not a slave to your glands.”
     Aha. “I think I understand. And thank you.”
     We finished our meals in silence, the cafeteria buzzing around us.

#

     Angela kept seeking me out. She developed a sense for my free moments and made sure to share them. Lunch every day. Coffee breaks early and late. After a couple of weeks, Happy Hour at The Black Grape, a local watering hole where our colleagues often went to wind down from the tensions of the workday. Shortly after that, dinners and movies, not as dates but as if foreordained.
     She had my absolute attention every second we were together. What little I had to offer socially, I gave to her. She listened to my stories and my japes with complete and unfeigned interest, and returned her own as appropriate. At first, it was baffling, even frightening. At last, it was exalting.
     She kept me captivated from first to last, with never a hint that she expected anything but the pleasure of my company. She touched me often, at first with the carelessness of the casual conversational gesture, later with a far more evident significance. I had to work harder than she knew to control my body’s response. Controlling it was mandatory, for whenever there were others present, all eyes were upon us.
     For some time, I regarded the match as absurd, destined to come to nothing. From the admiration with which Angela spoke of her father, I inferred that I was just an approximation to him, someone she could trust to be protective and gallant without demanding anything of her. Once she’d found a young man of suitable quality, she’d wean herself from me and go on.
     Yet it persisted. Days became weeks, and weeks became months, and her devotion lessened not one iota. We grew closer with each hour together, every step as natural as April rain. My resistance to her all but disappeared.
     I came to realize that I was more than I’d allowed myself to be. Angela was the instrument of my reacquaintance with myself. Her affection restored me to a stature and a sense of value that my years alone had leached away.
     I stood straighter and groomed myself more carefully. I watched the way I spoke, pared away the fuzz that had accumulated around my diction. I bought half a dozen shirts and two pairs of shoes. I lost nine pounds.
     My reaction at being noticed with Angela on my arm evolved from embarrassed incredulity to confident pride. The twenty years between us ceased to concern me. I was more than an aging bundle of comfort-seeking, pain-avoiding nerves, more than a cog in a corporate machine, more than a node of production and consumption. I was a man. I was her man.
     I was reborn.

#

     Carl took to dogging my steps, asking inane questions, making small talk, telling me jokes I’d first heard before he was conceived. Out of pity, I restrained my urge to tell him to let me be. He wanted Angela as desperately as man has ever wanted woman. It screamed from him.
     His contemporaries wisecracked about it at his expense. He struggled to hold his tongue. Apparently, he was the last of them to happen upon my young goddess. The rest had already discovered her, made their plays, and been turned away.
     He probably thought that association with me would render him more eligible in her eyes. Engineers are like that. When it didn’t happen, he became sluggish and remote.
     To her credit, Angela remained polite to him, though reserved and impervious to his advances. I loved her all the more for it, though it still hurt to see his look of envious yearning, so easily translated: Why him? Why not me?
     I struggled with the guilt for awhile, until I realized it was unearned. Then I struggled with the irritation from his unwillingness to accept Angela’s lack of interest.
     One day when Carl was following me like an imprinted duckling, babbling about some design decision which I knew he needed no help with, we chanced by Art Marsden’s office. Angela was there, in pursuit of a report Art had promised her. He was habitually late with such things, but she wasn’t inclined to let it slide.
     I braked before they could see us, stuck out an arm to block Carl’s progress, and showed him a finger to the lips.
     “You know, Art,” Angela purred, “the business side of the building doesn’t think as well of you technical guys as you deserve.”
     “Really.” Art was being his usual dour self, making it plain that his thoughts were elsewhere and he was waiting for his visitor to notice. If he weren’t the top hydraulics man in the country, I’d have shipped him to Siberia long ago.
     “Uh-huh. And it’s all due to trivia like this. But Dan tells me you never miss a really important deadline, so I know your priorities are good.” I bit my tongue. She leaned forward over his desk and looked into his eyes at close range. “Help me convince my boss?”
     Angela had a knack for getting the attention of a middle-aged man. Art straightened in his seat and held himself with some dignity. “What do you need?”
     “If you’ll just copy off your costings worksheets and staple them together for me,” Angela said, “I’ll write the report myself. Just let me have the numbers, so Phyllis can see that you’re not a subversive and I’m not a goldbrick, okay?”
     No, I couldn’t see her bat her lashes at him. But I could hear it.
     “Okay,” Art rumbled. “I guess I can type it up for you. It’s just, with the whole EL-17 program on the line—”
     Angela held up a hand. “No need to explain, Art. And really, if it’s too much of a bother, just send the pro forma costings over and I’ll pretty them up. I really do appreciate your help.”
     Art swallowed and smiled. I’d have sworn it would fracture his face.
     “It’s no trouble, Angie. I’m sorry to be a drag.”
     I was too close to insane laughter to stay for the denouement. I grabbed Carl by the arm and routed us around the back of Art’s cubicle before I could lose control.
     Presently, Carl said, “Phyllis would kill her if she saw that.” He said it with a hint of anticipation.
     Phyllis Lefkowicz, the Comptroller, was sixty-three years old, all business all the time, and battleship gray down to her underwear. She probably didn’t remember how to spell sex. She was Angela’s boss.
     “You think so? She got the job done, didn’t she?”
     “But—”
     I fixed him with a glare. “You think Phyllis has to know about it?” He turned an embarrassed red.
     “You’ve got to use the tools you have, Carl. If you have a forceful personality, you use that. If you have a silver tongue, you use that. If you’re blessed with Angela’s brand of charm, you use that. There are only three rules in business: Don’t lie, don’t steal, and don’t promise what you can’t deliver.”
     He said nothing more, but I could hear the gears grinding in his skull, and I didn’t like the way they clattered.

#

     We’d gone to The Black Grape after work, and found the usual knot of our colleagues, laboring to remind themselves that life existed beyond the office. As had become usual, Angela stayed close to me, always with an arm around my waist or draped over my shoulder. A little circle of admirers formed around us to swap banter and gentle irreverencies about management above our heads. It was all light and inconsequential, until Carl showed up.
     He looked flushed and tousled. He walked with a hitch, as if he’d begun his evening somewhere else and had come there to finish it. As he came through the door he scanned the crowd, found Angela and me, and headed directly for us, trapping us against the bar. I tensed.
     “Well, lookee here,” he said with a crooked leer and a hint of a slur. “OA’s super stud of the month. How’s it hangin’, boss man?” He groped with one hand, found the bar and propped himself against it. He looked straight into my eyes, pointedly informing Angela that she had fallen beneath his notice. “Gettin’ it ready for later?”
     I clenched my jaw and forced back a reproof. Angela’s hand closed on my arm and squeezed strongly.
     “Carl—” she said.
     His eyes swerved toward her as if she’d risen out of the ground that very moment. “It talks! I wouldna guessed!” He swept an arm at me. “How long did it take to train it, Danny boy?”
     What the mind might detoxify can still poison the body. I saw red. Adrenaline flooded through me.
     I’m not a brawler. I’ve never raised a hand in anger. Still, if Angela hadn’t stepped between us, Carl would have gone to the hospital and I’d have spent the night in jail.
     She knew what she was about. She slipped between us and faced me squarely, put both hands to my face and compelled my attention. We stood that way, her fingertips against my face, until the blood haze had cleared from my eyes.
     “Let’s go, Dan,” she said. It was enough. We shouldered past Carl and made our way out to the parking lot.
     Instead of getting into the car she settled her arms around my neck and pulled me close, and we kissed. I clasped her against me, let myself bathe in her magnificence, and silently prayed for strength.
     “Dan,” she whispered, her face warm against mine, “can we make love tonight?”
     The remnant of my anger dissolved, and my fear surged to its full height. I began to tremble.
     Though I’d grown accustomed to Angela’s affection, I’d never allowed myself to think about what might lie beyond the present. I’d tasted the agony of loss already, and had no appetite for a second helping. As ingenuous as she was, beyond the door she’d opened was a place into which I could not see.
     Was it only fear for myself?
     Angela was as generous of heart as she was beautiful of face and figure. She’d put no price on anything she’d given me, from her companionship to the offer of her body. She might not know what she stood to lose by her generosity. I did.
     I could not take what she’d offered without paying for it in full, and I did not know if I had the price.
     A thump and a flash of flapping cloth pulled my gaze toward the door of the Black Grape. I winced, pushed Angela back a little way, and looked into her eyes.
     “Can you wait for it a little longer, Angela?”
     Her eyes compressed with disappointment. “If I have to, but why?”
     The night seemed packed like the Coliseum of old on a Roman holiday, a crowd of thousands eager for the emperor’s signal that the games begin.
     “I have to do something first, love. It’s not…not optional. Believe me that I want to?”
     She frowned and studied me closely, but at last she nodded.
     I squeezed her against me one more time. Over her shoulder, staring at us from the entrance to the bar, was the disconsolate, fury-twisted face of Carl Weatherly.

#

     The following morning, I summoned Carl to me as soon as he arrived at his desk. Without explaining, I led him upstairs to where Alfred Kinkead, vice-president for Aerostructures, awaited us in his office on Mahogany Row. I sat in one of the two guest chairs, and Carl settled uneasily into the other.
     Al’s a good man. He knows it’s no kindness to hang a man slowly. He smiled formally and said, “Mr. Weatherly, I’m transferring you to the Structural Analysis group in plant 17. Ed Forger will be your new supervisor. He expects you over there this afternoon. Will you need any packing materials for your personal possessions?”
     Carl turned white. For a moment he worked his jaws like a beached fish, gasping for water and unable to reach it.
     “Why…why am I being transferred?”
     Al gestured at me. “Dan asked for it.”
     Carl turned to me, a portrait of outrage.
     “This isn’t about anything professional, is it? This is about her.
     I nodded. “It’s both, Carl. You’re obsessed with her. You take up my time on the slightest excuse, just hoping you’ll be there when Angela comes by. Your productivity is down by nearly half. You’re the butt of every joke told in the department. After last night, I can’t have it any more, but I know you’re a capable man, so I’ve arranged to put you out of the way of your problem.”
     He spat a jolt of bitter laughter. “Out of your way, you mean.”
     “That too. Didn’t I just say so? Look, you’re not the first man in history to fix his sights on a woman who doesn’t want him. No one’s going to fault you for your pain. But your conduct on company time and company grounds is company business. You’ve posed me a problem I cannot abide.”
     He clutched the arms of his chair. “What about your obsession with her?”
     I allowed myself some severity, then. “My conduct,” I said flatly, “is for evaluation by my supervisor, just as yours is for evaluation by me.” I waved at Al Kinkead. “There he is. Do you think you have anything to tell him that he doesn’t already know?”
     That stopped him. He looked down at the floor in silence for a long time, then rose and left to pack his things.
     Al shook his head. “It’s a pity.”
     “No argument, but what else should I have done?”
     A rueful smile. “Nothing.”
     “I’m going to need the rest of the day off, Al.”
     He nodded.

#

     That night I took Angela out to Grucci’s, the finest restaurant for hundreds of miles in any direction. She was surprised, and a little uncomfortable about being dressed in business attire among so many evening gowns, but I hadn’t wanted a change of clothes to blunt my momentum.
     I ordered for both of us. No one in America makes osso bucco to match Ogusto Grucci, and the wine he brought to accompany it would have made the Olympians forswear ambrosia forever.
     The meal and the surroundings unsettled her for the first time in our acquaintance. From end to end, she said next to nothing. She was visibly unsure of herself. She certainly wasn’t sure of me. But then, neither was I.
     Dessert was strawberries zabaglione, and why the condemned don’t order it with their last meals, I’ll never know. Angela finished her sweet and laid down her spoon with a look of mystical transport.
     “Dan, none of this was necessary!”
     “Don’t you think the occasion warrants it?”
     “Just because we’re going to make love later?”
     I smiled. “But we’re not.”
     Her mouth fell open and the color drained from her face. Diners all around us took notice of her distress. She must have been radiating on some universal band.
     “Don’t you want me?” she whispered.
     “Desperately, dear. So much that I can barely stand to wait. But I can stand it for another three months, and I think you can too.”
     Her hands clenched and unclenched on the surface of the table. “Why three months?”
     “Because,” I said as I rose, “that’s the soonest Father Schliemann could get us the church. We’ll make love for the first time on October third. That is,” I said as I sank to one knee before her and took her hand, “if you will do me the honor of coming to Our Lady Of The Pines that day, joining me at the altar and becoming my wife.” Under the eyes of two hundred elegantly dressed strangers, I fished the jewel box from my jacket pocket and showed her the engagement ring. “Will you marry me, Angela?”
     There is a perfect face, for it is her face. There is a perfect silence, for it was the silence in that place as she comprehended what I’d said.
     “Can we have children?” she whispered.
     “As many as you like.”
     Her eyes brimmed over. “Then, yes.”
     I slipped the ring onto her finger, rose and took her in my arms as the crowd burst into applause.
     There is a perfect joy, for it was mine that night, and has remained mine ever since.

#

     In his middle years, a man learns not to accept the unearned, that it will carry a higher price than he can imagine. He looks for the strings on a free gift, and prunes them away or declines the package. Above all, he learns how unlikely is the true second chance, and how precious. But if it should come, he takes it, and gives thanks, and reflects on how wise God is in not letting us see too far ahead.

==<O>==

Copyright © 1998 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

The state of the union

Yeah, I didn’t watch the speech. I didn’t need to listen to Drooling Joe the Chinese Hand Puppet slur/shout for an hour. The clips of it that I did see were just as bad as I expected him to be – lying, mean-spirited, demented. Mush-brained. And doped up to his bulging eyeballs on so many stimulants that I’m shocked he didn’t just keep over. Whatever they keep sticking him with is some amazing stuff, but it can’t cover up how far gone Drooling Joe is.

I have spent the past couple of weeks trying to improve myself and my mood just a little bit. I can’t say that I disconnected from the news because I didn’t. However, I did help someone who I had mentored previously get her feet on the ground in Northern Idaho. I joined up with a chorale group, and found out that one of my old high school buddies was in it. I’ve been taking care of various things around the house, getting my motorcycle re-registered and a new title showing my current, permanent address. Baking up a storm. Sourdough bread. And of course, schoolwork, because I added another class on to my pile because GI Bill and why not?

Most of all I’ve spent a lot of time pondering on what I wish to spend energy on. Especially with the upcoming election, the hue and cry of people proclaiming their woe or how horrible I am for not allowing myself to be murdered by an illegal alien, or I don’t give up my property to come criminal without a fight or the fact that I’m considered white so I’m evil. Where to direct my energy? Well, at this point the only energy I have is for local issues. Making sure the local sheriff gets re-elected because he’s the first law enforcement bulwark against government tyranny, as proven by the fact that with the North Idaho Health Commission tried to do a mask mandate and said that the local law enforcement would be the people to make it stick, the sheriff popped up less than a day later to issue a statement, that statement being “I will not enforce this unconstitutional mandate, nor will any deputy under me.”

Yeah. Gotta keep that man employed.

Improving my house, especially as it applies to being able to defend it. Building rabbit hutches so I can raise meat rabbits. Possibly building a larger chicken coop for my mom. And of course during the summer, firewood. And more firewood. Then more firewood, because I’d love to be able to see a bunch and make some cash next winter.

I’ve spent a goodly amount of time making sure that I’m not spinning my wheels. A navigation check, if you will.

Anyways, that’s why I haven’t been writing more. You should see more of me in the future.

Oh, and Daylight Savings Time is a horrible idea, always has been a horrible idea, and needs to be ended immediately. Thatisall.

Day Off

     I’m exhausted. I have an essay subject in mind – working title “When Presumably Decent People Write Hateful Things” – but in my current state I’d surely make a hash of it. So please allow me a day’s rest. With luck and a little cooperation from my wife and my four-footed dependents, I’ll be back and in form on the morrow.

     Love,
     Fran

Is It Really That Bad Out There, Guys?

     I’ve been “out of the game” for more than thirty years, so I don’t really know what it’s like to be unwillingly unmated. I do know that there are a lot of men, from young adults all the way up to my age and beyond, who are either in that category or in an even more painful one: mated to a woman who’s turned cold and indifferent toward them. The search for a woman’s love – real love, the sort that provides him the physical affirmation and emotional sustenance he needs when he needs it – has become a truly agonizing feature of male Americans’ existence.

     In great part, that agony stems from the twisting of American women’s psyches. Forces have converged on American women that have warped them into a unique variety of solipsism. The majority of them are psychologically wrapped around themselves as “victims,” “oppressed,” “underappreciated,” “marginalized,” et cetera ad nauseam infinitam. Simultaneously, those forces have done their damnedest to denigrate American men and masculinity generally. That pincer attack on love practically guaranteed the chilling of male-female relations into something resembling a demilitarized zone.

     I could spend a hundred thousand words on this, but it’s sufficient that my Gentle Readers see the outlines of the problem. What has my boiler lit this misty moisty morning is something I’ve only just learned about, courtesy of Misanthropic Humanitarian: a technological response to the subject that’s had interesting consequences:

     Artificial intelligence-powered girlfriends, or chatbots programmed to provide companionship, are gaining traction.
     This is especially the case with those who are struggling with loneliness or navigating the complexities of real-world relationships.
     These AI companions can engage in conversation, offer words of encouragement, and even adapt their personalities based on user interaction.

     That’s intriguing and somewhat worrisome all by itself, but we haven’t yet reached the Sunday punch:

     My.Club, specifically, provides a similar experience to any online chat interaction you would have on social platforms.
     Except, the platform, which uses an AI feature called “Digital Twin,” doesn’t create AI girlfriends out of thin air.
     Instead, the virtual models are replicas created by real-life models who have brought them to life with their personalities, images, and minds.

     I added the emphasis. Ponder the implications while I make more coffee.

***

     The universe of opinion writers will provide every sort of analysis, justification, riposte, and rebuttal of the whys of this phenomenon. But for me, the tragic heart of the thing is implied by that emphasized sentence above.

     A woman who has a “personality, image, and mind” that appeals to the emotional needs of men, and can be implemented as an AI chatbot, isn’t necessarily a rare thing. It’s quite possible that there are many such women, and that many of them are unmated. But we must assume that the women who allow themselves to be used in this fashion are unavailable to the men who interact with their AI avatars. Possible reasons abound; I need not enumerate them here. Still, if they’re available as chatbot-implementations, they must be out there in the flesh.

     He’s searching, or has searched, for her real instantiation. Why is his search so frequently in vain?

     To be fair, sometimes it isn’t in vain. Sometimes he can’t offer her what she needs. And sometimes the problem is one of space, time, or circumstance. Still, the existence, and rising popularity, of those pseudo-women suggests that the larger problem – that “demilitarized zone” between the sexes that has caused so much frustration and sorrow – is soluble.

***

     Frustration is not indefinitely sustainable. If he becomes convinced that she’s not really available to him, he’ll look for a substitute, or an alternative outlet, or some combination thereof. The AI chatbots are an example of what men desperate for love and support will accept, temporarily if not permanently.

     Yet we know from the above that the problem is soluble: i.e., that there are real women capable of the sort of constructive, sustainable romantic relationship he seeks. I’d go further: I maintain that the great majority of women are capable of it. However badly contemporary pressures and trends have warped women’s beliefs and behavior today, they could un-warp tomorrow should they choose to do so.

     Attack my proposition from the contrapositive. If it were not so – if the knowledge of what it takes to be a good companion and helpmeet to a decent man were for some reason unavailable – would the chatbots be possible?

***

     There are important non-emotional obstacles to the restoration of “traditional” romantic expectations and accommodations. Have a snippet from an analyst in the far future:

     “[A]s a people grows wealthy, it ceases to breed. Earth data does indeed suggest that. The richest of Earth’s nations had fertilities below replacement level—below the rate at which the population could sustain its numbers, much less increase them.
     “As it happens, those very rich societies had become obsessed with what they called ‘youth culture,’ and the concomitant assumption that the young deserved whatever they might happen to want. What the young mostly wanted, then as now, was playthings. Families with young children routinely buried themselves in children’s toys, some of which were crafted to appeal to an adult’s frivolous side as well.
     “Now, we know from historical data that predators of all sorts will concentrate where the prey is fattest. The State, which is merely an organized band of predators with a veneer of legitimacy derived either from tradition or from a manufactured appearance of the consent of its subjects, took a huge fraction of its subjects’ annual production from them in taxes. A typical State would increase its exactions on its subjects faster than those subjects could increase their own fortunes. That compelled wage earners to strive ever harder just to run in place, with obvious consequences for production and marketing. Of course, after some point has been reached, the economic frontier will be purely discretionary items: entertainments, diversions, toys, and the like. Thus, the ever-accelerating production of junk was reinforced by two powerful impetuses.”
     […]
     “Families are the fundamental building blocks of a stable society. Extended families—clans—are the best conceivable environment for the rearing of children, the perpetuation of a commercial forte, and the germination of new families and their ventures. A clan like yours, Miss Albermayer, conserves a brilliant genetic line and a priceless medical specialty at the same time. A clan like yours, Mr. Morelon, makes possible a benign agricultural empire and produces natural leaders one after another while connecting Hope to its most distant origins. And all healthy families, which cherish life and bind their members to one another in unembarrassed love, can find far more to occupy and amuse them than they need.
     “When Earth’s regard for families and their most fundamental function deteriorated, her people ceased to enjoy the sorts of ties that had held them together throughout the history of Man. Without families, and especially without children, they groped for other things to fill their time, whether to give them a sense of purpose, or to distract them from the waning of their lives. Some invested themselves in industry or commerce, but without the sense of the family line to be built up and made prominent, those things failed to satisfy. Others immersed themselves in games, toys, fripperies, and increasingly bizarre forms of entertainment, which palled on them even faster. Still others made a fetish out of sex; there was a substantial sex industry on Earth, though it tended to operate in the shadows and was seldom openly discussed. They needed emotion and substance, but all they could contrive was sensation and novelty, and they pumped an ever greater share of their effort and wealth into seeking them. That’s my thesis, for what it’s worth.”

     Listen to the man. The most prestigious university on Hope didn’t give him the Genet Chair in Sociology for the elegance of his haircut.

***

     I could go in many directions from here, but I’ll spare you. It’s Monday, after all. I’ll conclude with this: Consider the burgeoning of the “traditional wife and homemaker” pattern, which is now being adopted by an increasing number of young women. One of its best known practitioners, Estee Williams, has a fair number of pieces on YouTube. If she’s faking it, I can’t tell, and I fancy myself a good judge of sincerity.

     But having noted Mrs. Williams and the pattern of which she’s an exemplar, allow me to note this as well: Angry voices are being raised against her and that pattern. Some of them are familiar from decades past; others are artifacts of more recent trends. They’re united in their hostility to her message and their determination to turn young women away from it. Their ideological standard-bearer is Simone de Beauvoir:

     “No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” — Interview with Simone de Beauvoir, “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975, p.18

     If you were wondering about the “death cults” tag at the start of this essay, there’s your explanation.

***

     I’ll end this screed with a few questions for the ladies in the Liberty’s Torch audience:

     Should you find yourself wondering whether there might be something more satisfying and enduring than money and work, in what direction will you look?
     Should you find yourself beset by nameless anxieties and formless fears, to whom will you turn for protection and security?
     When you look up from your transient personal concerns to contemplate society’s grand vista, and you see the sweet and pretty women going in one direction, and the “angry ugly girls” (Duyen Ky) going in the opposite one, which will you prefer: for your children, your young friends, or yourself?

     Need I say more?

And They Say That Americans are Obsessed with Sex!

This story – about women in Cambridge jailed without a trial for suspicion of prostitution – is amazing. Shocking just how long this went on without protest.

UPDATE – saw this meme and couldn’t resist posting it.

Never…Well, SELDOM On Sunday

     I don’t awaken to a lot of news-rich Sundays. Generally, that’s to the good, as Sunday tends to be the busiest day of my week. Still, it’s nice to have something to rant and rave about. A news-deprived day is a blogger’s definition of frustration.

***

1. Vending Machines.

     The C.S.O.’s morning begins with the Wall Street Journal. (Be nice; she’s an accountant.) But the Journal isn’t the stodgy rag of yore, focused exclusively upon matters commercial and financial. It carries articles on many things today…such as this one:

     With a brick of cash in his hand and a grin on his face, Jaime Ibanez shows his half-million YouTube subscribers a path to earning money without burning many calories: Vending machines.
     In videos with titles such as “This Is HOW MUCH My Vending Machines Made IN 7 DAYS!!” the swoopy-haired 23-year-old Texan makes the rounds to his 51 machines, stocking them and taking the profits.
     His channel promotes the idea that with diligence and luck, anyone can go from snacks to riches.

     That article made the C.S.O.’s eyes light up. (Nothing will do that faster than “passive income.” It’s the accountant’s Holy Grail.) This exchange followed:

CSO: Why don’t we get into this?
FWP: Would you want to do all that driving?

CSO: Hmm…good point. What if we kept all the machines near to us?
FWP: Well, okay, but what are you going to vend that isn’t available a thousand other places?

     A brief yet tension-filled silence ensued as the C.S.O. sifted through the universe of possibilities. Then:

CSO: Hosts! There’s a priest shortage, right?
FWP: (nonplussed) Huh? Uh, yeah.

CSO: Put vending machines filled with consecrated hosts in the vestibules of churches! Think of the time and labor savings! Walk in, insert a ten-dollar bill, get your host, and walk out! No need for expensive personal service!
FWP: I don’t think it would play, Sweetie.

CSO: (draws herself up) Why not?
FWP: For one thing, it would be considered simony. More than that, people like that expensive personal service. It helps justify their weekly contributions.

CSO: Oh. Well, it was a thought.
FWP: Original, too. Blasphemous, but original. But… (grins evilly)

CSO: What, Sweetie?
FWP: Maybe not consecrated hosts, but if you could fill your vending machines with absolutions, I’d say you’ve got something!

     Yeah, yeah, I know I’m going to Hell.

***

2. Boobs.

     There are few things more eye-catching than a fabulous rack. From the youngest infant to the oldest dirty old man, the female bust is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. And so, a young woman with notable knockers will get a lot of attention should she put them on display. However, this tends to evoke resentment from the not-so-generously-endowed:

     For those not living perpetually online, [actress Sydney] Sweeney’s au naturale double D bombs set off one of the most brutal, bloody battles in our raging culture wars.
     While co-hosting “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, the 26-year-old actress leaned into her famous bust, playing a stacked Hooters waitress in one sketch.
     During the show’s wrap-up, she donned a plunging black frock that showed off her girls, bouncing as she enthusiastically dished out the customary thank-yous.
     The image of the blonde’s embonpoint boomeranged online, drawing lusty appreciation from dudes.

     But these days, even Mom’s Milk Jugs are regarded as a political subject:

     Writer Amy Hamm argued in the National Post that Sweeney’s breasts were beating back woke culture and the clever Bridget Phetasy heralded the return of boobs for The Spectator.
     “For anyone under the age of twenty-five, they’ve likely never seen it in their lifetime — as the giggling blonde with an amazing rack has been stamped out existence, a creature shamed to the brink of extinction,” Phetasy wrote.
     And then, blowback from the left flank: a flurry of angry tweets including one from writer Ali Barthwell who admitted she couldn’t get past the paywall to read Phetasy’s analysis but called Phetasy’s premise, “fatphobia, misogyny, anti-blackness, transphobia just rolled into one” anyway.
     “These weird conservatives are lifting up sydney sweeney for being a thin cis white blonde with big boobs because they are mad other body types have also been on tv,” she wrote.

     Poor Sydney. Everything I’ve read about her suggests that she’s a perfectly nice girl, as well as being drop-dead gorgeous. But those two perfect double-D spheres have forced her, willy-nilly, into the political sphere! And once you’ve been shoved in there, it can take more than a (ahem) jiggle of the doorknob to get out.

     I’ll be watching this…fascinating case. Closely!

***

3. Vegans.

     There’s a joke making the rounds:

     The bus driver had closed the doors, engaged the first gear, and was pulling away from the curb when a nearby passenger shouted “Wait! Someone’s chasing you!”
     Startled, the driver clutched and braked, bringing the bus to a somewhat awkward halt halfway into the intersection. He immediately spotted the pursuer, a young woman running full-tilt toward his bus. As she arrived, he quickly opened the bus doors expecting her to scurry up the stairs and find a seat.
     Instead, the young woman stood there, huffing, puffing, and grinning as if she’s just won a race. After a few seconds, the driver, perplexed, said, “Well, aren’t you going to board?”
     “Oh no,” the young woman said. “I’m not going anywhere. I just wanted to tell you that I’m vegan.”

     Whether or not it strikes you as funny, the unsolicited “I’m vegan” announcement seems to be all the rage in human intercourse today. But perhaps not for long:

     Welcome to our article on Trans Veganism, a lifestyle choice that combines two unique identities: veganism and transgenderism. Trans Veganism is an extension of the veganism philosophy that promotes compassion, empathy and equality towards all living beings.
     So, what is Trans Veganism? It is a lifestyle choice that brings together the principles of veganism and transgenderism, promoting a compassionate and eco-friendly approach towards food and identity. Trans Veganism is not just about what you eat, but how you live your life, and how you express your identity in the world.
     Trans veganism is a unique lifestyle that combines two seemingly different movements – veganism and transgenderism. However, upon closer inspection, one can see that these two movements share a lot of common themes, such as compassion, empathy, and equality. Both movements promote a vision of a more just, fair, and equitable world.
     At the intersection of veganism and transgenderism, we find that both movements share a commitment to challenging the status quo and the dominant power structures that oppress individuals and groups. Veganism seeks to challenge the animal agriculture industry, which is notorious for its cruelty and exploitation of animals. Transgenderism, on the other hand, seeks to challenge the gender binary and the patriarchal structures that enforce gender norms and restrict personal expression.

     I suppose we can expect this to displace the simple “I’m vegan” declaration in the near future. Or perhaps not! Perhaps they’ll duke it out. Other “communities” among the crack-brained have begun to do so. There can be only one marginalized intersectional victim group on the pinnacle of Mount Oppression.

     I owe something to Dave Blount for this citation…but I’m not sure it’s my thanks.

***

     That’s all for the moment, Gentle Reader. I might be back with something more later. Until then, enjoy your Laetare Sunday. (Fudge sauce and sprinkles not included.)

Media, Propaganda, and Censorship

Here’s the place to go for a thorough look at each one of these.

If You Remember Paul Harvey…

     He once composed a piercing piece called “If I Were The Devil.” The following video, a Trump campaign ad, borrows its structure from that piece:

     Pass it around.

Evil: The Frontier

     I’ve been exploring evil as an abstract, categorizable phenomenon for decades. It’s one half of the most important question in all of human life. I sketched the edges of the other half of that question in this brief piece. To save you a mouse click:

     Primary authority is the sort possessed by him to whom has been given the role of “he who makes the rules of the game.” If you choose to play the game, you must abide by the rules as the primary authority has decreed them. He who violates the rules will be penalized or expelled. Of course, that authority pertains only to the game and those who play it.

     But what if “the game” is human life?

     In that “game,” the “rules” can only be what constitutes acceptable conduct by human beings. But acceptable meaning what? What are the “rules” of this “game?” One cannot “quit” this “game” except by suicide. What does it mean to “win” at human life? What is the “payoff” for winning?

     If you can see how its edges align with the edges of the question “what is evil,” you can infer my personal take on evil…and on good.

***

     Ragin’ Dave’s recent, furious piece on the sale of infant body parts illuminates a horror that, so far, has not touched a great many American lives: the reduction of human life to a commodity to be bought, sold, and manipulated as if it were of no greater significance than the life of any lesser creature.

     People are doing this as we speak, Gentle Reader. I don’t give a flaming fuck how you feel about abortion…well, no, as a matter of fact I do, but let’s leave that for a bit later…to treat human lives and parts thereof as commodities is the very nadir of evil. There is nothing a man can do that’s worse, or that should elicit a greater degree of horror and revulsion from an onlooker.

     Back when those lives were whole and approximately healthy, we called it slavery. Think about that for a moment.

     There are persons, some of them highly intelligent, who hold that all animal life should be treated as reverently as human life. I disagree, for a reason that must be accepted or rejected as a postulate: Human life differs qualitatively from animal and plant life. The heart of the thing is our ability to distinguish between good and evil: something that no other species has exhibited. If that ability, and our inability to dismiss or ignore it, fails to elevate Man to a higher plane, what could do so?

     To head off the objection that’s about to be raised: Yes, there are sociopaths. Yes, there are persons who, whether by conscious decision or because of a birth defect, fail to draw the critical distinction. But despite the harm they can do, and that some of their exemplars have done, they are exceptions, a tiny group that lacks categorical significance. Aristotle would be muttering about “essence” and “accident” just now, but we’ll let him do so in silence.

     In short, if the treatment of human life as a rightless commodity, of no value other than what one can get for it in the market, is not evil, then nothing could possibly make the cut.

***

     For the sake of my aged fingers (and my increasing tendency to “type in the cracks,” as a dear friend puts it), I’m going to introduce an acronym here: COHL, which will stand for “Commodification Of Human Life.” Henceforward in this essay, please take the acronym in place of the phrase, which my slipshod typing has already mangled more than once.

***

     Among generally good people, COHL starts by nibbling at the edges. I’ll describe just one, in a fictional vignette, with hope that it will suffice.


     “Shaw’s still alive?”
     The doctor nodded.
     “Despite the removal of the ventilator?”
     Another nod. “Seems he has enough pulmonary capacity to keep him going a while longer. I wouldn’t have expected it, but…” The doctor shrugged and spread his hands in a what can you do? gesture.
     Terman scowled. “Pierson won’t last out the day without a kidney and a new renal artery.”
     “Dialysis has failed?”
     “Completely. Isn’t there anything…?”
     The doctor winced.
     I knew the question would come.
     “I took an oath, Mr. Terman,” he said.
     Terman bared his teeth. “To preserve a life that’s already doomed when you could use it to save one that has many years to go?”
     The doctor started to reply, but caught himself as a hand landed on his shoulder. He turned to find the hospital administrator standing behind him. The man’s eyes were unreadable.
     “Louis,” the administrator said, “we need to talk.”


     You get the idea, don’t you? Sacrifice one life to save another? Treat the dying man as a collection of useful parts rather than a human being with an innate right to life? Besides, that dying man is consuming expensive medical resources! What’s the point when we already know he can’t last more than a few days longer?

     Let’s not omit consideration of the revenue to the hospital. Oh no, we don’t sell transplant organs! The procedure is just complicated and expensive, that’s all! Transplant surgeons are rare and special, and their fees are high. Besides, if we don’t charge you heavily for it, we won’t be able to provide it free to others who need it just as desperately as you!

     That’s how COHL starts. Read this Baseline Essay for my take on where it stands today.

***

     I could go on about this, but I’ll spare you for the present. I have a novel in development that will address this and related questions. All the above “should” make my point “obvious:”

It is evil to treat humans purely as commodities.

     The frontier of evil is wherever some men are concocting rationalizations for doing so. The rationalization will always be utilitarian, as if there were a calculus of human life and well-being that can be worked to a solution in particular cases:

     Shall we kill this one to save that one?
     Abort this one for the convenience of his parents?
     Enslave these because it will serve a greater number?
     Expropriate these because it will conduce to a greater good?
     Deceive these to mollify those other ones?

     More anon.

“Let The Bodies Hit The Floor!”

     Nothin’ wrong with me…
     Nothin’ wrong with me…
     Nothin’ wrong with me…
     Nothin’ wrong with me…
     Oh fudge…who do I think I’m kidding?

***

     Courtesy of Ace’s long and detailed piece of yesterday, I’ve only just become aware of what he’s styled “GamerGate 2.0.” You may recall the original GamerGate dustup. Among other happy consequences, it resulted in a huge defeat for the forces of “woke” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” But the thing to remember about the Left is that its strategists regard no setback as permanent. They’re relentless. Wherever we think we’ve defeated them, they’re sure to be back. So it is with video games.

     This “Sweet Baby Inc.” (SBI) organization is an explicitly ideological firm. It’s dedicated to forcing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” into video games – preferably popular video games. Its camouflage is as “narrative developers” who propose to “assist” game makers with their “storytelling.” And as you may have guessed, it’s a total canard.

     Here’s SBI’s very own home-page description of its mission:

     Founded in 2018, Sweet Baby Inc, Is a narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal and working around the globe. Our mission is to tell better, more empathetic stories while diversifying and enriching the video games industry. We aim to make games more engaging, more fun, more meaningful, and more inclusive, for everyone….

     We believe you need diverse voices to solve diverse problems. Sweet Baby Inc. provides narrative consultation at any stage of development, boasting a talented team with vetted industry experience to bring your best story to life….

     New and marginalized talent can change this industry if given the proper support. We want to provide this through our outreach programs.

     Got the idea? It’s hardly concealed.

     As with the original GamerGate contretemps, gamers are reacting – negatively. I don’t have demographic statistics on the gamer populace, so I’m willing to assume that gamers are demographically distributed roughly as are First Worlders generally. Whatever the case, they don’t want SBI fucking with the games they love.

     But how does SBI actually pursue its agenda?

     Here’s Ace’s take:

     Sweet Baby Inc. claims to be a game development company, but they develop no games. Instead, they pressure actual game companies to hire them to censor their games for them. In addition, Sweet Baby Inc. demands that the companies paying them for their worthless services increase Muh Representation in every game, no matter how little sense it makes.

     For example, Sweet Baby Inc. was hired by the God of War developers. The latest game involves the Norse gods. God of War includes a black female Norse god.

     Ace provides a long list of games where SBI has had its way. Then:

     How does Sweet Baby Inc. get actual game developer companies to make worse and more unpopular games than they otherwise would, and get paid for telling people how to lose money?

     It’s very simple, as the founder of the grifter group explains: You pitch your money-losing ideas to the companies’ leaders. Then, when they turn down your ideas (as they SHOULD!), you just go to the marketing department and “terrify” them by telling them how much money they’ll lose when Sweet Baby Inc.’s ideological allies cancel the game for not being sufficiently woke:

     The “narrative” being “developed” here is that of a protection racket. Nothing more. But that’s the whole of the Left’s strategy: threaten the target with a militant group of “victims” and “marginalized persons” that will wage a campaign of defamation against the target if it doesn’t bend the knee to the Left’s agenda. As the media in our time are ever-ready to provide a megaphone to such groups, such a threat can chill the blood of legendarily lily-livered corporate managements. You need actual confidence in your stance to withstand it.

     But the companies that develop video games appear to be of a higher class. They know what they’re doing. They know what works in video gaming. They also know they have the support of their customers; that was established back during GamerGate V1.0. So for the moment, most are resisting successfully.

     I spent some time yesterday on various gamers’ sites such as Steam, and in the sections dedicated to them on servers such as Discord. Gamers are furious about SBI and its tactics. They want better games, with better stories to propel them. They don’t want to be lectured or harangued by anyone, regardless of his message. So they’re fighting back. One enterprising gamer even wrote a plug-in that detects SBI’s meddling with a game and warns off potential buyers. That degree of constructive involvement is all but unique to the videogaming community.

     There’s a lot we in the Right can learn from the gamers. If they differ about whether and when to tack or furl the sails, nevertheless they come together to repel boarders. And they do it with a fury that deserves copious applause. Now it’s back to my daily dose of Drowning Pool. “Nothin’ wrong with me…nothin’ wrong with me…”

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