It’s the first charge in the indictment – Violation of the GA RICO Act. The government seems to be simultaneously insisting that Trump is a ‘Lone Wolf’, whose actions are off the cuff and, for that reason, both unpredictable and highly dangerous. Not a cool-headed mob boss.
Money. RICO enables the government to take ALL of his money, business, and property, without a trial verdict of guilty. It’s asset forfeiture, a practice that forces the person so targeted to – separately – PROVE that the wealth wasn’t illegally gained.
The above link is to The Burning Platform, where many of the usual methods government uses to grab ordinary citizens’ money and possessions is detailed. RICO is just one of those methods.
Now, Trump has money in many places. Likely, the government cannot completely tied up his assets. However, under the guise of RICO, they can install “asset managers” who can veto spending his money for discretionary activities, such as campaigning, criminal defense, and support of his social media site, Truth Social.
That whole process is not meant to do much more than provide a minor aggravation to Trump; what it IS designed to do is to send a message to people with assets.
Back off, or you will be next.
It’s intended to financially cripple the opposition.
Goal of the Progs: seat in authority ideologues who care not one whit about preserving human lives. Useful idiots will get added support when they are fully aware of what they are empowered to do: commit mass murder by appearing to be inept while being perfectly protected from criminal charges.
Rest assured, that if he is more than just a useful idiot, he has no conscience about what he did. Sustainability belief provides him with the “morals” that human life is the one thing the planet has too much of.
Please note: “Kaleo Manuel, former deputy director of the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management was a former Obama Foundation Leader who said water was an important tool of social justice.” So, consider this creep as a case example of the product of social justice education that Fran wrote about earlier today.
In analyzing the phrase “social justice,” we see how prefixing the word justice with any modifier inverts its meaning. It turns something easily understood – inherently unambiguous, in fact – into something for noisy groups to argue and negotiate. But then, attempts to redefine “justice” to accommodate some trendy Cause are as old as Mankind itself. What’s newsworthy is the noisy groups’ attempt to redefine mathematics:
The California State Board of Education issued on July 12 a new framework for teaching math based on what it calls “updated principles of focus, coherence, and rigor.” The word “updated” is certainly accurate. Not so much “principles,” “focus,” “coherence” or “rigor.” California’s new approach to math is as unfair as it is unserious.
The framework is voluntary, but it will heavily influence school districts and teachers around the Golden State. Developed over the past four years, it runs nearly 1,000 pages. Among the titles of its 14 chapters are “Teaching for Equity and Engagement,” “Structuring School Experiences for Equity and Engagement” and “Supporting Educators in Offering Equitable and Engaging Mathematics Instruction.” The guidelines demand that math teachers be “committed to social justice work” to “equip students with a toolkit and mindset to identify and combat inequities with mathematics”—not with the ability to do math. Far more important is teaching students that “mathematics plays a role in the power structures and privileges that exist within our society.”
California’s education bureaucrats are seeking to reinvent math as a grievance study. “Big ideas are central to the learning of mathematics,” the framework insists, but the only big idea the document promotes is that unequal outcomes in math performance are proof of a racist society.
This is not a perfectly new phenomenon. I remember, from the early nineties, some aggrieved bitch on WCBS-AM ranting that the idea of a “right answer” to a math problem is inherently faulty. “There are good answers, and there are answers that are less good,” she said. She condemned the teaching of arithmetic and any higher use of mathematics for that reason. I suspected immediately that she, or perhaps one of her children, had failed a math test and she was determined to get back at someone. Why the program directors at WCBS radio gave her airtime, I cannot know.
Tell me, Gentle Reader: Once we omit the possibility of a “right answer,” what remains. BRRRING! Got it one, didn’t you, you clever fellow! What remains is opinion. And as we know from what the world has come to call Porretto’s Anatomical Axiom:
Opinions Are Like Assholes:
Everyone’s Gotta Have One.
“Social justice” is always someone’s opinion, no matter the subject, time, place, or circumstances. It is never a fixed, objectively correct thing. Indeed, in a realm that demands fixed rules and absolute adherence to them, “social justice” has no place. Mathematics is such a realm. Moreover, the statistical superiority at math of men over women, whites over blacks, and the careful over the casual reveals that some groups just aren’t as good at math as others. Ergo, as we mathematical types like to say, the Left must destroy traditional mathematics education as “socially unjust.” (Have a quod erat demonstrandum for lagniappe.)
One of my stepdaughters gravitated to mathematics early in life. She found that she loved it because for once there were right answers to the problems she was set. There was no room for opinion – including that of her math teacher. It led her to an enduring love of the sciences, of which mathematics is the foundation. Today she teaches the sciences in a nearby school district.
The educational goal of the Left is to establish as dogma that there are no right answers in any realm of thought. The destruction of mathematics education is central to that aim. Imagine what would happen to the more powerful, more inquisitive minds among our young were they to be convinced of that proposition. If all things are a matter of opinion, and no one’s opinion is better than anyone else’s, where is knowledge? What happens to the concept of truth? Would there be any hope for the continuation of scientific inquiry? And what about engineering? Would things designed and built by our posterity work?
Feel free to shudder.
If it cannot be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. – Robert A. Heinlein
Tokenism usually refers to the inclusion of a member of some group perceived as “victimized” or “a dispreferred minority.” But there are varieties of tokenism that are unconcerned with such things. Tokenism in the news media can mean grudgingly mentioning something unfavorable to the Left. Here’s an example from CNN:
TAPPER: Yes. And Kristen, Glenn Kessler from “The Washington Post” had a fact check about Joe Biden from earlier this month noting that Hunter Biden admitted in court in July that he was, in fact, paid substantial sums from Chinese companies. Kessler wrote, Hunter Biden reported nearly 2.4 million income in 2017 and 2.2 million income in 2018, most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests. But this — and this directly goes against what Joe Biden said in the debate in 2020 with Donald Trump. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[17:35:32]
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My son has not made money in terms of this thing about what are you talking about, what are you talking about, China.
(CROSSTALK)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow —
BIDEN: That is simply not true.
TRUMP: — and various other places.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So this is from two different debates. But I mean, Trump was right. I mean, he did make a fortune from China, and Joe Biden was wrong. I don’t know that he was lying about it. He might not have been told by Hunter. But this blind spot is a problem.
ANDERSON: It’s a problem, one, because Republicans aren’t going to let it go, that’s for sure. But also these problems are continuing through the legal system. It’s not as though this is something that’s been settled in other jurisdictions, and Republicans are just harping on it. It is an ongoing thing in our courts. It’s not going anywhere.
TAPPER: This is a blind spot. Does it concern you as a Democrat?
LEVIN: Well, I think dads sometimes and parents sometimes have blind spots about their kids, for sure, and the President may be no exception. But nothing has tied the President to any of Hunter Biden’s dealings. There’s no whiff of him being involved or him being implicated in it. And it’s, you know, I think it’s not something the voters care a lot about.
TAPPER: All right, my thanks to the panel. Thanks once again.
Joe Biden is allergic to truth. His entire political career has been founded on lies. He lies by preference. But no Democrat partisan will admit this, nor even hint at Biden’s adversary relationship with the truth, despite mountains of evidence reaching back fifty years. And, for completeness, note the mandatory “Republicans pounce” motif near the end.
That gallon jug of Carlo Rossi Chablis has been looking better and better, hasn’t it?
You say your country’s been stolen from you? That the man in the big chair is a vegetable, his administration is filled with lunatics, and his son is a degenerate? That the “woke” military you pay a trillion a year for couldn’t beat Equatorial Guinea? That your throat is hoarse from hollering, your ballot has become a joke, and your money wouldn’t even make good toilet paper? Is that your problem, Bunkie?
If memory serves, Frederic Bastiat was first to use that phrase. He employed it in a discussion of what’s usually called the “broken window fallacy,” an important example of how choosing not to look at some of the consequences of an event or a decision can fatally warp one’s perception of economic reality. Henry Hazlitt made it the core of his treatise Economics in One Lesson, which remains the most important and accessible book ever written on economic thinking. Here is Hazlitt’s “one lesson” in full:
The art of economics consists in not merely looking at the immediate but also the longer-term effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
This is a perfect statement of how economic analysis “should” be performed. Indeed, it applies more broadly than that. It’s a commandment to which all politicians, policy wonks, and opinion-mongers must be held, regardless of the specific topics about which they prattle.
***
When a private citizen chooses a course of action from among the alternatives available to him, he’s best advised not to include certain propositions:
Use magic;
Have your adversaries abducted by aliens;
Persuade the Vatican to declare you the fourth Member of the Trinity.
…and others of similar character. When governments choose a course of action, their “thinking” is less restrained. Oftentimes their policy analysts do some very unwise things:
Overestimate resources or intended benefits;
Underestimate costs or ignore foreseeable impacts;
Governments get away with such foolhardy “thinking” because they can’t be held to account or compelled to give refunds. Private citizens are obviously more constrained than that. Our shortsightedness or excessive optimism normally comes down upon our own heads.
The “what is seen and what is not seen” principle, combined with the “alternatives” principle and the inherent arrogance of those who rule, give rise to my pessimism about the possibility of a “good government.” I wrote three novels to explore this subject in a fictional context, and I’m not done with it yet.
***
These things are on my mind this morning owing to the well-aged controversy over recreational drugs and whether producing, selling, buying, and using them should be legal.
Over at AoSHQ, Weird Dave has stated the matter with admirable concision:
Legalizing drugs. Where should the line be? I generally define my political leanings as “conservatarian”. Conservative, but with libertarian leanings. The more libertarian the solution to a problem is, the more likely it is to be the correct one. Doesn’t mean it’s the right one, but I think that generally speaking solutions with less government involvement are better than the opposite. So, legalize drugs then, right? Problem solved.
Not so fast.
The libertarian argument that resonates the most with me is “Hey, drugs were basically legal for the first 150 years of America, and caused far fewer problems that the war of drugs does for us now” (CatGirl Kulak makes this argument here) . And I’ll concede the argument, but there are a few big problems with the it:
#1. The moral character of the country in the 19th century was vastly different than the moral character of the country today. A work hard, seize opportunity, delayed gratification, personal responsibility society based upon Judaeo-Christian principles is very different from a me first, instant gratification, I deserve anything I want because I want it society whose “moral” foundations are hedonistic. The two will react to the availability of drugs in vastly different ways.
#2. Social services. In the past they were provided by private, voluntary organizations. There was no 911, no Narcan, no ambulance ride to a million dollars worth of medial machinery to keep you alive, all of it funded by the government from the pockets of the productive citizens to the benefit of the non-productive ones. Sure you could buy laudanum from the pharmacist, but if you OD in an alley or checked out of life and wasted away, well, you did, that’s all. Legalizing drugs with that level of safety net in place is an invitation for people to abuse it.
#3. Drug strength. As I said, you could [buy] laudanum easily. But nobody was selling fentanyl. Smoking pot with a natural THC level of 5-8% is a far cry from the 40-50% that we have today. LSD wasn’t invented until the 1940. Meth goes back to the very end of the 19th century, but it wasn’t widely used recreationally until much later. We’re not talking about the same drugs.
So what are your thoughts on this? Where’s the line?
Despite what I’m about to say, this is as elegant and modest a statement about the problem as I’ve seen in many a year. But the questions that surround the problem are terribly wide. They involve much that most people don’t include in their reasoning. When we confront the problem – and it is a problem; drugs do destroy many lives each year – are we committing any of these errors:
Are we groping for unavailable resources?
Are we tendentiously neglecting foreseeable impacts?
What unintended consequences have arisen from the War on Drugs?
The failure of the War on Drugs to date is a datum of importance. Ron Paul once said to me that every known illegal drug is available to virtually every prisoner in any American prison. By implication, if you can’t keep ‘em out of the prisons, you’re beaten before you start. But does that neglect to consider alternative approaches…that is, alternatives that are actually available? Would a “bigger commitment” – i.e., more people and more money – make a difference? If so, what foreseeable impacts on other phenomena would diverting those resources to drug interdiction have? And always: what other consequences are we failing to take into account?
It’s flip to say that there will always be people who’ll ruin their lives somehow; if not with drugs, then with something else. But it’s equally flip to say that eradicating the use of illegal drugs is worth any cost, no matter how high. It’s shortsighted, potentially fatally so, to neglect to consider the side effects of the War on Drugs. Those extend all the way from petty crimes by junkies and the deterioration of public order, to the corruption of police departments and the enrichment of criminal gangs, to the economies of a considerable number of nations and the consequences for American foreign policy.
A good case could be made that we have too much squalor and suffering, and not nearly enough insight into the future, to make rational decisions about this matter. We can only be sure of a few propositions:
We can’t use magic;
We can’t count on help from Antares or Betelgeuse;
And God Almighty, whatever opinion He may hold, is indisposed to decree a solution.
And so this screed is revealed as a brief for humility and caution: characteristics notably absent from those who presume to rule over us. Bet you never guessed.
Kalifornians discovered Idaho back in the 80’s, and they haven’t stopped showing up. This isn’t a new phenomenon. The common attitude from Kalifornians back then was “Oh, we’ll show you unenlightened hicks how things are supposed to work!” As if the reason they left their pathetic shithole state and moved up here was because somehow the way they did things in their pathetic shithole state was somehow better. A popular bumper sticker back in those days were “Dear Californians: Welcome to Idaho. Now go home.”
I should point out that most of these Kalifornians were from Los Angeles County and the Bay Area. You never saw a conservative leave the Central Valley and move up, or at least you didn’t see it very much.
Many of the Kalifornians were stereotypically ignorant and arrogant. They knew how to run things, and we backwards sister-humping Jesus-freaks were too stupid to be listened to. When we said outrageous things like “Hey, the snowplow throws snow for a good ten to twelve feet, you might not want to put your fence that close to the road” we were sneered at and ignored. The broken fenceposts that appeared from under the melting snow in the spring somehow never seemed to effect their thinking the next time around. “Hey, the curve in the road right there is graded wrong, you might want to slow down as you approach it.” Once again, we gun-fondling flyover country bumpkins couldn’t possibly know what we were talking about, as proven by the way all four tires were spinning in the air as their fancy SUV was overturned on the curve during a cool fall morning, where frost on a curve in the road lasted a little bit longer due to shade.
That continued into the 90’s. In 2005, Forbes magazine listed Coeur d’Alene, ID as one of the top five towns in America were people could retire.
The words uttered by my family are not fit even for a sailor’s ears.
Now not only were we flooded with Kalifornians, but people from Portlandia and the People’s Democratic Republic of Seattle (aka the Putrid Sound). Housing prices shot through the roof. The land that I purchased back in 2003 is now worth quite a bit more than I paid, to the point where I couldn’t afford to buy it today if I tried. Myself back in 2003, pinching pennies so hard that I was re-inventing copper wire, could afford to purchase land, but myself now, far wealthier and better off, couldn’t afford that same patch of land if it was available.
Housing prices never came down. But one thing that I’ve noticed changing is the people coming up from Kalifornia. Rather than the typical Kalifornians, we’re getting Californians who have had enough of the commie bullshit and decided that they weren’t going to get steamrolled by the Marxist anti-American godless heathens. They got out while they could, and headed to the mountains. A couple of them are my neighbors out in the hills. One of them has a flock of sheep that they raise, shear, and then they card and spin the wool themselves. Another is a couple retirees who have a shooting range in their backyard, and happily note that Idaho has a law saying a suppressor that is made in Idaho, of Idaho materials, sold to an Idaho resident, doesn’t fall under FEDERAL laws. So long as it stays in Idaho and doesn’t travel over a state border, you don’t need a tax stamp for it.
He has two. And they’re stamped “MADE IN IDAHO” rather prominently.
Ask them about their prior homes, and they might express some longing for the beautiful parts that made them live there in the first place, but then the conversation turns to why they left. And they express quite a bit of anger. Anger at the Marxists, anger at the low-information sheeple who keep voting for the Marxists. Anger at the Left for destroying what was a beautiful state. Instead of the stereotypical “We know how to run things!” we now have people saying “They screwed shit up so bad I couldn’t stay, and I won’t let them do that here.”
We still have the arrogant, ignorant Marxist shitlibs around. Far too many. But they are the minority and they’re getting outgrown by the based, red-pilled people moving in.
All of that was brought to mind by the cartoon above. Yesterday at the farmer’s market, several of the people who I know came from California recently were walking around with a gun on their hip. And if any Kalifornian had tried to say something, I have no doubt the result would have been a most unpleasant discussion for the Marxist.
Not mentioned here, but elsewhere: direct energy weapons are suspected as having been used in the mass arson. You think that is too far fetched?
As Fran pointed out a couple days ago, there once was a too-radical-to-consider pile of causes for extraordinary events. That heap hasn’t had too many additions lately, and numerous ones once consigned there (e.g., scamdemic items) have since been retrieved.
Please point out — to anyone who will listen — the Sustainability agenda of every major Western institution. It’s a religion with them. Their moral code is not that of decent human beings. To these neo-pagan Sustainability worshippers, sacrificed human life is what is sacred to them.
The Progressive Movement — with its Sustainability priests providing them a moral framework that overrides conscience — are at war with 95% of the world. Expect no mercy.
Traditionally, in the West, an agenda like that would be seen as the essence of evil. But so many of us have gotten in the habit of discarding that very thought. If you value life, if you value your own life, that habit must end.
If you are one who believes in God, the Progs are especially determined to destroy you. If you permit injustices such as this to go on hoping it claims you last, do you really have faith in Him?
Even those who are atheist but behave decently for the most part are not safe. All men of decency would be a potential threat to them. It may be true that there are no atheists in fox holes, but by then it may too late to find the strength needed to fight the forces of evil.
I fear I am making a hash out of the plea accompanying this latest attempt at illuminating the threat.
Please risk scorn and try to awaken anyone you care about who you sense has not gone too far over to the other side. The Progs have built themselves a ruthless moral code diametrically opposite that of the Judeo-Christian faiths. The morale you can gain from reacquainting yourself with the faith you grew up with (or are at least most familiar) almost certainly will be needed to fight this war you did not start. The Progs certainly have theirs. That’s why I expect no mercy from them.
Draw on your faith in what is right and fight the injustices and those who perpetuate them. Human beings who still hear their conscience have the numbers. What they lack is being aware that the evil has advanced well beyond mere threats, and renewing their faith that He is on their side. The potential strength to be gained from those two alone has always been known to be very useful in war.
I pray that this message works, or at least encourages others to do a better job at getting the message out. Amen.
I allowed myself to sleep a little later than usual this morning, so my spleen and bile levels are a bit depressed: ergo, I have insufficient agita for a “traditional” tirade. However, I have a couple of tidbits for general amusement.
***
1. The War On Catholics Continues.
The FBI classifying us as a variety of terrorist was bad enough. Apparently, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts thinks we might breed more of our kind from children we foster-parent:
Beliefs in traditional marriage and the reality of biological sex have led to a Roman Catholic couple in America being rejected as suitable foster parents.
Mike and Kitty Burke’s application to foster was denied by the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) because they “would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA”….
According to court papers, during the application process the Burkes shared their beliefs “that marriage is between a woman and a man and that sexual relations are to be kept within the bounds of such a marriage”.
They also told the assessor representing the DCF, who interviewed them in their own home, that due to their “religious beliefs, they would not assist a medical gender transition for a hypothetical future child”.
In a report of the interviews, the assessor expressed concern about the Burkes’ beliefs on gender and sex and believed that neither they, nor “their faith”, would be “supportive of LGBTQIA+ youth”.
Their application was subsequently rejected by the DCF, “based on the couple’s statements/responses regarding placement of children who identified LGBTQIA”.
(Note the URL of the cited story. Odd that we’re hearing about it from a UK source, isn’t it?)
This assessor is demonstrably less interested in the welfare of children in state care than in the promulgation and reinforcement of the transgender ideology. As that has been established as a social contamination – a communicable mental illness, if you will – the clash is really between the assessor’s politics and the teachings of the Burkes’ faith.
The Burkes have initiated a lawsuit against Massachusetts for religious discrimination. We can hope they prevail in court, but lately the odds against doing so have been formidable.
A Coffee County [Tennessee] Judge with a reputation for being biased against homeschooling trampled on parental rights on Tuesday by ordering a homeschooled student back to public school.
General Sessions and Juvenile Court Judge Gerald Ewell, Jr. told the student that he could send her away and that “homeschool is no school.”
In a recording from the Patriot Punk Network, the judge can be heard saying, “When there’s a truancy charge pending, state law says that I have to approve homeschool.”
Ewell Jr. then says, “And I don’t do it. You’ve got to go to a public school. Homeschool is no school.”
Ewell, Jr. then directed the student to be present at her former school the next day. “If you’re not there tomorrow, I’m going to send you… send you off is exactly what we’re going to do.”
He then told the parents that they could be found guilty of violating the Compulsory School Attendance Law.
Read that carefully. This supposed judge is plainly biased. More than that, he’s in violation of a U.S. Supreme Court precedent. And looky here:
The parents enrolled their child in Chestnut Ridge Academy, a Category IV non-public school, one of the legally recognized methods of homeschooling in the state. Under this category, students are technically considered to be privately schooled under state law.
If this judge presided over a normal court, his ruling would be grounds for being removed from the bench. Indeed, if he holds a law license – not all judges do – he could be disbarred as well. But Judge Ewell is a Juvenile Court judge…and such courts often make up their own laws. Worse, they usually get away with it.
The President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, explains Central Bank Digital Currencies are all about control. She has said it before, and she means it….
She said the digital euro would be a control mechanism for EU citizens. As the EU, we depend on gas supplies from a very unfriendly country, she said, and we need the digital euro to help us with that. And then she said that we have a threshold. The EU has a threshold of €1000 in Europe. If you cross it, you will find yourselves in the grey market. You risk being caught, fined, or sent to jail. But the digital euro will have limited control.
“Limited control with the digital euro. I don’t think so. In this interview, Lagarde talked about 3 to 400 euros being some sort of a threshold, and anything above that, anything spent above that will be monitored. And it’ll be monitored very, very easily with the digital euro.”
The recent World Economic Forum in Davos, a yearly gathering of would-be dictators whose self-awareness has been chemically suppressed if not surgically removed, is a fertile source for the emissions of such persons. These can be priceless – especially when they’re standing before a microphone straining to say something profound. Let the following serve as an example:
Someone should be trying to keep this woman out of the public eye. Happy for us that apparently no one is doing so.
***
4. Brevity Is A Leading Cause Of Bafflement.
As a person of a certain age, I’m more conscious than I once was of the sand trickling through the hourglass. And so I’ve become terse. (No, not here. I feel my obligation to you, Gentle Reader, far too keenly. Besides, a septuagenarian crank is still a crank.) In consequence, when I’m asked a question to which a short reply is possible, that’s what I give. Some people aren’t quite prepared to cope. Brevity is such an infrequent visitor to their conversations that its appearance is off-putting to them.
Yesterday evening, Beth (a.k.a. the CSO) and I had our friends Tom and Jane over for dinner. As is usual, Beth did the cooking and I did the cleaning-up. I start the cleanup as soon as everyone has finished eating, as you would not believe the mountain of pots, pans, dishes, serving pieces, and utensils Beth can employ to make dinner…especially dinner for guests.
And so I was at the sink for some time while Beth did the host duties. As usual with these two friends, the talk was largely about the yoga classes Jane and Beth have in common. That didn’t bother me; I was under no obligation to participate. But when I returned to the table, Jane realized that I’d been out of the whirl of things. It seemed to embarrass her. At the next convenient pause in her chat with Beth about some not-to-be-named yoga teacher, Jane turned to me and said, “Would you like to join us at yoga, Fran?”
I smiled. “No.”
I didn’t think I’d be halting all conversation with one syllable, but I did. It seems Jane expected a parade of excuses, rationales, and circumlocutions. And in truth, such a soliloquy usually accompanies a demurral of that sort. My disinclination to provide any any derailed her train of thought.
There’s a moral in there, though I’m not sure it would be politic to make it explicit.
***
That’s all for today, Gentle Reader. I’ve finally been making progress on my long-stalled novel-in-progress, and I’d like to get back to it before Beth finds something absolutely imperative for me to do, like washing and waxing our garden hoses. So until whenever, be well.
Sarah Dawn Moore, with whose oeuvre I’m largely unfamiliar, has posited five major reasons for the trend of “men going their own way:”
Marriage: An Unattractive Proposition for Men
Men are questioning the value of traditional marriage, given the increasing divorce rates and financial risks they face. With no guarantee of stability and custody issues, many men are opting for alternatives to marriage.
Lack of Traditional Women
There seems to be a disconnect between what women expect from men and what they are willing to bring to the table. The desire for traditional men clashes with the decline of traditional roles in modern society.
Dating Based on Potential
The emphasis on material wealth and status has skewed dating preferences, leading to unrealistic expectations from men. Potential and character are often overshadowed by income and financial metrics.
Fear of Rejection and Social Backlash
Men feel torn between the desire to approach women and the fear of public humiliation or being labeled negatively. The Me Too movement and instances of public shaming have left men cautious about initiating contact.
Dating Expenses and Financial Strain
The cost of dating can be burdensome for both men and women, impacting their financial stability and affecting their dating choices. A shift towards more affordable and realistic dating options is necessary.
Miss Moore discusses these influences sympathetically to the position of unmated men in this 17-minute video. She’s largely correct, but those five bullet points omit some of the less-discussed problems in today’s increasingly awkward and anxiety-filled mating dance:
The mechanisms that bring single people together today are few and weak.
Working women have little time, energy, and incentive to make themselves available.
Today’s legal environment disincentivizes marriage, fatherhood even more so.
Today’s social environment is highly tolerant of perpetual singlehood.
Feminists’ insistent preaching to women that “men are the enemy” has had terrible effects.
All that having been said – and it takes a brave woman to say all of it boldly – Miss Moore is on target. Is hers an example of a rising trend? May we expect other sensible and eloquent women to echo her sentiments? We can hope. But for now, the dating-and-mating minefield remains one to navigate with great caution – and young single men know it. For an unfortunate number, the appeal is insufficient.
One of the consequences is an accumulation of women in their thirties and forties who are unmated and have despaired of doing so. Some are divorced, or have had extended relationships that lapsed unpleasantly. Some have children by men no longer in their lives. And many are bitter. That’s additional grist for the mill of male-female distrust.
Some years ago a well-known commentator said, candidly and publicly, that he’d elected to “go gay” because women didn’t seem to him to be worth the trouble. They wanted too much, were willing to give too little, and most had too much baggage. That’s not something you’ll hear from many homosexuals, of course. The overwhelming majority insist that their homosexuality is innate; they can’t flip it by sheer willpower. But that one voice was a breath of fresh air, albeit unpleasantly scented.
The sexes currently appear to have incompatible goals. Some feminist opinion-mongers think that’s as it should be, and are exhorting young women to render themselves essentially independent of men. But we have Sarah Dawn Moore, and perhaps a few other commentators, to speak good sense. I hope they prove enough to reverse the tides of the moment.
To quote Chris Rock when he hears a black person proudly say, “I take care of my kids!” – YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR KIDS!!!!
Time was, we didn’t give merit badges to blacks for doing things that whites are expected to do – and to do without being rewarded or praised for it. American Negroes have faced a left-wing cultivation strategy that has made them expect such rewards. Indeed, they expect to be rewarded for not breaking the law. When they don’t get such rewards, this can happen:
…and this:
…but this is “hate speech:”
…as is this:
I became unwilling to hear further racial hectoring quite some time ago, at which point I started to react against it, largely as follows:
Sanctimonious Leftist: You’re a racist! Fran Porretto: And damned proud of it, baby. But do you know why I’m a racist? SL: (sneering) I can hardly wait to hear it. FWP: Because you made me one.
This is sometimes followed by dumbfounded silence, though now and then the conversation will continue along these lines:
SL: (shocked) How can you say such a thing? FWP: Because it’s true. You’re my stand-in for everyone on your side of the political fence, while I represent my own. I wanted nothing but to be left in peace, to get along with my neighbors as best I can regardless of the color of their skins. You refused to permit it. You’ve emphasized race at every opportunity. You’ve harped on racial injustices in the distant past as if they were the doing of contemporary whites. You’ve taught American blacks and Hispanics to think of themselves as helpless victims of “Whitey.” You’ve agitated ceaselessly for racial preferences in the law, and you’ve usually gotten them. You’ve excused non-white criminals, traitors, and other miscreants on the grounds that “they couldn’t do otherwise in this oppressive society.” You’ve granted a wholly undeserved degree of respect to racialist hucksters like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, Toure, Melissa Harris-Perry, and hundreds of others. You’ve used ordinary words and idioms as justifications for destroying decent men’s lives and careers. You’ve used cries of “racism!” to silence anyone who disagrees with you about anything. Worst of all, you’ve got everyone in the whole damned country seeing race everywhere, and afraid to speak his mind if it might somehow touch on that subject. But now that whites are showing some racial consciousness, voting and relocating and arming to protect our own from the groups you’ve sheltered and coddled, you find that you dislike what you’ve wrought? Choke on it!
At that point the conversation usually trails off, though it might continue one exchange longer:
SL: I…didn’t mean to do any of that. FWP: If I accept your claim of good intentions, it makes you an idiot who shouldn’t be allowed out of the house alone, much less permitted to have a voice in national discourse. But if you did intend this outcome, you’re one of the worst villains in American history and deserve nothing but my contempt. In either case, get away from me.
I find that a rising number of whites – especially older whites – are reaching the same conclusions and state of mind as have I. We’ve simply had our noses rubbed in the facts too many times, and in too many ways.
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” – Attributed to Hassan-I Sabbah, founder of the Hashshashin
When contradictions, deceits, and miscellaneous frauds have multiplied past a certain point, the very existence of truth is called into question. This has a curious, anti-intuitive consequence: propositions previously on the borderline of credibility become much more credible. The most curious aspect of this phenomenon is that those borderline propositions all become equally credible.
How long has it been since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? It’ll be sixty years come this November 22, right? If you were alive and paying attention back then, you probably recall that there were an awful lot of what are commonly called “conspiracy theories” about that event. Some of them involved the Castro regime in Cuba. Others involved the Cosa Nostra or the CIA. And the mainstream media did its best to consign them to the wastelands beyond the realm of credibility. We were told, repeatedly and relentlessly, that the killing was accomplished by a lone, somewhat crazy gunman with four shots from his rifle. And the great majority of us chose to accept that explanation.
But there was a lawyer-writer who didn’t accept it. His book, a critique of the Warren Commission investigation of and report on the assassination, stirred a furor that was slow to abate. Many regarded it as an important contribution, not because his hypotheses about the forces behind the assassination were unquestionably correct, but because it ruthlessly exposed the flaws in the official account. Despite the emphasis placed on it, the Warren Commission’s report was less than credible. Mark Lane’s book made that plain.
We’ve had a lot of crap shoveled at us since then. Recently there’s been some testimony, and some evidence, coming to light about that assassination. Is it wholly accurate? Hard to say, after sixty years. But what’s not “hard to say” is this: Because of all the obvious lies and obfuscations that have been thrown at us since then, the window of credibility has been opened wide – and not just about the death of President Kennedy. Today, no candidate explanation for anything has more credibility a priori than any other.
That is not a good thing.
***
A wide-open window of credibility lets in a lot of noise. It’s a great time for the cranks, the snake-oil salesmen, and the promoters of lunatic theses. They get as much of a hearing as the sobersided and the responsible…but it’s not their doing that it should be so. The window of credibility is opened wide because men with mighty voices and a reputation for knowledge misused those things, in service to an agenda other than truth.
The current Sturm und Drang over the COVID-19 pandemic and the various vaccines for it is a case in point. So much of what occupied the public’s attention was propaganda and “fear porn” that sober analysis that paid proper attention to evidence and logic was largely sidelined. Analysts attentive to the surrounding phenomena were called – drum roll, please – “conspiracy theorists.” The “authorities” did their best to silence them. Now that the “official line” about the pandemic and the vaccines has been destroyed by the evidence that’s accumulated since then, those “conspiracy theorists” are looking at least as credible as the “authorities” ever did. But that’s not the whole story; cranks, hustlers, and assorted nut jobs are getting an equal amount of attention and respect.
Everything about COVID-19 and the vaccines is clouded by the storms of controversy. As the actual events recede in time, it becomes ever more difficult to find out what really happened and why. What’s increased is popular skepticism, especially of proclamations and explanations emitted from supposed “authorities.”
Skepticism about the statements of “authorities” is healthful. Indeed, it’s necessary to the pursuit of reliable knowledge. But a complete cynicism about all analysts and researchers is not. It leads to a distrust of the pursuit of knowledge itself – i.e., of the possibility that any process, however rigorous, can allow anyone to know anything more than anyone else.
As I’ve said before, only the ability to predict events reliably should be taken as a possible sign of knowledge. The deceits of “authorities,” which justly destroy our willingness to rely on such persons, must not give rise to cynicism about the pursuit of knowledge by well-established processes such as scientific method and objective investigation. Those things work…when we use them according to their rules. And by using them carefully, with due attention both to human fallibility and to wishful thinking, we can lower the sash on the window of credibility, such that at least some of the noise from the cranks and the con men can be excluded from public discourse.
We are not calling for massive new entitlements nor are we repeating the Bush follies of subsidizing mortgages for people who can’t afford a home. We simply accept that big government is here to stay—at least for the foreseeable future. And so we want to learn to use it instead of simply calling for it to be abolished while watching it continue to grow. As I explained in the essay that provoked Goldberg: “The right must be comfortable wielding the levers of state power. And it should emulate the Left in using them to reward friends and punish enemies (within the confines of the rule of law).”
As much as I’d like to credit the author of this piece with good intentions, I can’t. Far too many people have blazed the very same trail with the worst and lowest of intentions – and it’s seldom possible to discern their actual agenda before giving them the power they seek.
The dynamic of power is inexorable. You cannot use it without legitimizing it for use by your adversaries…and sooner or later, it will be at your adversaries’ command. It’s a bit like the One Ring that way. But persons impatient for “progress” will never admit that, whether to others or to themselves.
***
2. Telework.
It was seldom possible for me to telework, because of the security restrictions that applied to the kind of work I did. When the COVID-19 scare came to town, many employers whose employees largely deal with information and / or information flow decided to give it a try. Apparently, the results have been disappointing overall…but not for this reason!
Consider two people who are moving the contents of their office into a moving van. Let’s say Jon can move 30 items an hour by himself. Patrick moves 20 items an hour by himself.
How much do you think they could do an hour if they worked as a team? You might be tempted to say 50, but that isn’t quite right. Think of how long it would take to move a couch by yourself. You could probably do it, but it’s awkward to carry alone, and it’d be hard to get it through doors and up or down stairs. Two people moving a couch are probably more than twice as fast as one person trying to do the same.
In other words, the team as a unit is more productive than the individuals’ work simply added together. It’s more likely that this increased efficiency will mean the team could move more, say 70 boxes, in the same amount of time. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Economists call this team production.
But work that deals with information is qualitatively different from carrying bricks or moving furniture. “Team production” is the exception in that domain. By far the greater part of such work is best performed in isolation. I’d have expected one who writes for FEE, a venerable and highly reputable organization, to realize that.
There are reasons telework has failed to deliver on its promises. One is its dependence on the Internet, a source of many distractions. Another is the home environment, wherein other considerations will often rear their heads. A third is the possibility that the work itself isn’t interesting enough to command the teleworker’s focus. Apparently these factors, and possibly others, have tipped the balance against telework: for the typical company, and for the present.
The key to productivity is what it has always been: the full engagement of the worker. For some kinds of work, on-site supervision is required to maintain that focus; for others, the work itself must be capable of overriding other competing factors. Absent that engagement, productivity will always be a crapshoot.
Asset forfeiture is the process through which the government seizes money or other property that is believed to be linked to a crime. Most federal forfeitures are civil, meaning the government can keep the seized property without ever charging the owner with a crime.
The DOJ announced earlier this year more than $6 billion in contracts awarded to multiple private companies to help with asset forfeiture investigations. Contractors are expected to help with everything from investigating and identifying assets for seizure to record keeping and providing courtroom testimony, according to DOJ records.
“These are six billion reasons we need civil forfeiture reform now,” Alban said. “Congress must act to prevent law enforcement from treating ordinary Americans like ATMs.”
Forfeiture generated more than $45.7 billion in revenue for the federal government alone between 2000 and 2019, according to IJ. Proceeds are often split between federal and local police agencies
“Federal forfeiture is a big business,” Alban said. “And it’s a particularly big business for the law enforcement agencies that get to spend the money out of these funds.”
The rationale under which “asset forfeiture” has evaded the strict interpretation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments is a curious one: it is not the owner who is being accused of a crime, but the property itself. But an inanimate object cannot commit a crime. It lacks what the law calls agency: the rational consciousness required to decide on a plan of action and execute it. Lack of agency is the reason given for not prosecuting the obviously insane.
This is a festering wound in American law and law enforcement. But it’s highly profitable, so don’t expect it to be cleaned out and sutured up any time soon.
***
4. The March Of Unfreedom.
The vicious and unprincipled legal assaults on President Donald Trump have largely been about things he said, or is alleged to have said. Apparently, a sitting president doesn’t possess the freedom of expression we thought was guaranteed to all Americans by the First Amendment. But this is part and parcel of the Left’s decision that it’s now sufficiently powerful to “finish the job:” i.e., to cement itself into permanent and unopposable power by eliminating the remaining restraints on what American governments can get away with.
[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.
The position of the Left in the early postwar decades was that “liberty” merely means “freedom of expression” plus “democracy” (i.e., popular election of public officials). Those things have served to “keep them in the game” during periods when popular sentiment was largely against them. But when those mechanisms turn against them, they’re just as willing to destroy them as they are to destroy the right to keep and bear arms. That’s a complete explanation for what’s been happening to President Trump. Nor is it confined to these shores:
It’s impossible to satirize a statement such as this:
Speaking before the Irish Senate (Seanad) this week, O’Reilly declared “when one thinks about it, all law and all legislation is about the restriction of freedom. This is exactly what we are doing here. We are restricting freedom but we are doing it for the common good.”
It is the same message of New York democrats calling for limiting speech as a way of protecting democracy. Indeed, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has declared free speech is “tyranny.”
Julian Assange was just the beginning, Gentle Reader. Watch your back.
***
That’s all for the moment, Gentle Reader. I have a slew of necessities to address, so enjoy the remainder of your Monday, and with luck I’ll see you tomorrow.
Yes, Gentle Reader: there really are people that stupid in the world. I’ve met an unfortunate number thereof.
***
2. A Debatable Proposition?
I have a sweatshirt that’s emblazoned with the slogan “IT’S OKAY TO BE WHITE” in large, friendly letters. (Well, it is, isn’t it?) I haven’t worn it much lately – for Gentle Readers from the Southern Hemisphere, it’s been a trifle warm up here lately – but as luck would have it, I had to wear it to go shopping just yesterday. (Laundry day has its own imperatives.)
Supermarkets can be…interesting places. Normally I don’t speak to anyone while shopping; I’m far too committed to breaking the Land Shopping Speed Record. (Ladies, if you fail to grasp the overwhelming importance of this, ask your menfolk about it. I’m confident that they’ll concur.) Yesterday was not an exception. However, my sweatshirt caused a lot of hairy eyeballs, plaintive “Why are you wearing that?” inquiries, and as time passed, other shoppers to congregate in conversational knots, apparently to debate the proposition. It was a challenge to respond to all that with nothing but a silent smile.
As it happens, I did speak to someone before leaving the store: the checkout clerk. (Yes, we still have a few representatives of that rapidly disappearing species on Long Island. The eastern part, anyway.) It was a memorable exchange. He read the lettering on my shirt, grimaced, nodded, and said “Do you have a Stop and Shop card?”
I said “Yeah,” and presented it.
He rang me up, took my money, helped me to pack, and said “Have a nice day.”
Ah, social life!
***
3. Things No One Has Ever Said Nor Ever Will.
I intend for this to be an ongoing effort, as the domain of possible human experiences must surely include at least a few options that are too bizarre to occur outside the imagination:
Mother to child: “You finish your ice cream, or you’ll get no liver and onions!”
Neighbor to neighbor: “Sure, you can borrow my [insert expensive tool here] for as long as you like.”
Supervisor to subordinate: “I wish you hadn’t done such a good job on this.”
Customer to merchant: “You really should charge a lot more for this.”
Prostitute to customer: “No, keep your money. That was too much fun for me to charge you.”
Customer to prostitute: “I just want to sit and chat with you about politics.”
Politician to reporters: “I’d like to refute the charges, but in all honesty I can’t. I’m too obviously guilty.”
Feel free to submit further candidates in the comments.
I was minded to take the day off, but I started thinking about St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
Brothers and sisters: I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience joins with the Holy Spirit in bearing me witness that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.
They are Israelites; theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; theirs the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
[Romans 9:1-5]
The “big difference” that separated Christianity from Judaism was, of course, the proclamation of Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah, for whom the Jews had waited for a thousand years. The Jews had expected a semi-secular leader who would restore to Israel the independence and stature it had lost under Roman occupation. Christ never even glanced in that direction. Indeed, one of his more frequently cited sayings on the matter was that the Jews should “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” which is hardly a call to rebellion. And so the majority of the Jews of First-Century Judea dismissed the claim that He was the one whom they had awaited.
According to historian Paul Johnson, the opposed camps were more numerous than that. Not all who called themselves Christians were united on what that means. Saint Paul, the central doctrinal figure of the early Church, was in some ways a schismatic. He and the Apostle Peter, whom Christ had chosen to head the Church, differed on several things, including the proper targets of Christian evangelism. And there were more and deeper dissensions than that alone. Johnson treats with some of them in his book A History of Christianity.
As the earliest Christians were all Jews by birth and education, there was always some question among them as to how much of the Mosaic Law was relevant to Christ’s New Covenant. It’s a matter that’s been debated among theologians for two millennia. Many of the early Jewish Christians believed that the whole of it was still imperative. Others, such as Saint Paul, picked pieces of it to incorporate into his teachings. When the Church’s center of gravity shifted from Jerusalem to Rome, such things became the province of “professionals.” The pieces they deemed relevant were codified into Christian doctrine along with the Nicene Creed, to await the great wave of schism triggered by Martin Luther at Wittenburg.
Schism has continued to affect Christianity. The “less successful” proponents of divergent teachings were classified as heretics. Some, like Arius, were assassinated for promulgating their beliefs. The Church coped with the arguments presented by others as best it could, sometimes adopting parts of their reasoning while distancing itself from their conclusions. It’s an ongoing process.
But doctrine is like that. He who proclaims that some proposition is true must be able to withstand objections to it. Religious doctrines are never proof against all dissent. Indeed, the most important Christian doctrines are premises, neither provable nor disprovable. The Church asserts and maintains them on the grounds of the ancient evidence for them, but that evidence falls short of proof.
The schism history calls the Reformation has fragmented Christianity into a number of denominations. These agree on some things and differ on others. Yet nearly all accept nearly all the others as defensible-in-conscience: “believable, for those who wish to believe.” And the Catholic Church, to which I adhere, has proclaimed that the members of any of the denominations are as validly Christian, with as much hope of eternal life in the nearness of God, as any others.
The contemporary approach to the situation is a kind of truce. It maintains the possibility of an ecumenical ingathering: the uniting of all Christians under one roof. Yet the denominations remain free to differ, and to argue their positions with one another. It sometimes seems like a massive, ongoing negotiation, with no end in sight.
But the eagle-eye view is the one that matters most. From a height that conceals the details of the inter-denominational discussions, the truce is profoundly humble and tolerant. Each of the denominations can go on proclaiming that its doctrines are the right ones…but humility and tolerance provide the undertone that matters most: Any of us might be wrong about anything.
In the citation from Romans above, Saint Paul laments that the majority of his brethren by tribal heritage, the Jews of Judea, had proved unreachable by Christian evangelism. He acknowledges their role as God’s Chosen People, though he and Jewish scholars differed on what that meant practically. But he found it tragically unfortunate that God’s Chosen People should have denied Him who fulfilled the greatest prophecies of the Old Testament. That first schism was painful enough to provoke the lament above – a lament ironically addressed to the Christians of Rome.
So I pray that the differences among our several beliefs will fail to matter; that God may make His face to smile upon us all, no matter how wrong any of us might be about anything. And that He whose Crucifixion and Resurrection redeemed us all might one day say to each of us, “Yes, you were wrong about a few things. As long as you loved your neighbor as you loved yourself, that doesn’t matter.”
Due to certain familial and social obligations, I found myself in various activities in a small town of Northern Idaho as they had their town celebration.
I won’t say that it was unpleasant. Quite the opposite. Also, I would like to thank whomever it was that convinced young women to wear yoga pants that leave nothing to the imagination as daily wear. With that being said, here are just a few random observations that I happened to collect in my old noggin.
Helicopter parents and small farm towns do NOT go together. I actually saw kids playing on an old school merry-go-round, complete with the young’uns making it go as fast as possible, followed by various other young’uns being flung off only to jump back up and get back on after pushing it even faster. Brought back memories of my youth, and it was a joy to see.
In the same vein, country living and obesity do NOT seem to go hand in hand. Yes, there were obese people there, but far fewer than what you would normally find, and even the ladies who might have a few extra pounds had them in the areas that men appreciate. Farm living and being fat seem to be diametrically opposed. But that should be common sense. This point also ties in with the yoga pants. Yes, I’m male. Sue me.
Small town families = lots of kids. Again, it was a joy to see. The yoga pants probably don’t hurt in this regard.
Based on the various booths filled with crafts, goods and other sundry items, when everything goes to hell this is where you want to live, or at least have friends. These people do not just produce, they create. There is a vast difference between the two.
The normal small-town friendliness and happiness is tinged with a tiny amount of sadness and a larger amount of anger. Almost every vehicle parked down the streets had some form of bumper sticker that essentially told the government to piss up a rope.
Your Curmudgeon has kept the myrmidons of the Internal Revenue Service at bay through the expedient of doing his tax returns in Norse runes and Roman numerals. (Yes, this is legal.) However, other approaches have always been of interest. The following suggestion is exceptionally striking, and potentially highly consequential:
If you’re ordered to an audit, put your papers in a box (any papers will do, as you’ll see), and take the box and a friend to the IRS agent’s office. The agent will ask you both to identify yourselves. You comply, and ID yourself, your friend replies “Silent witness number one.” (The agent will probably ask more than once. Your friend replies the same way each time. The agent will give up.)
The agent will ask if you have brought your tax documents. You nod your agreement. He will ask for the documents. Move as if to give him the box, but then stop. Ask him, “Can anything I reveal to you be used against me?” The agent will tell you, “Yes.” Then you ask, “Can I be compelled to deliver to the government information that may be used against me?” The agent will respond, “No.”
Tell the agent the audit is over, as you respectfully decline to surrender information that may be used against you, and thank him for his time. You and your witness leave. Audit done.
I’ve been the witness at several such proceedings. Works every time. No need for an attorney.
The IRS won’t retaliate. If they had something to hang you with, they would not be asking for an audit, they’d be charging you, and would have conducted the investigation without your knowledge or cooperation. The audit is a fishing expedition that effectively acknowledges that they have nothing on you. They also know that retaliating against someone who did nothing but assert his rights could put them in deep doo-doo. You’re probably not worth the trouble you could cause them. They will just move on to their next chump.
Your Curmudgeon can only applaud.
Every aspect of the tactic described above is vital to the success of the approach. Note that the auditor cannot compel “Silent witness number one” to disclose his identity, for he is not the subject of the audit. Thus, the IRS would not know whom to try to intimidate. Asking the two indicated questions in the indicated order is also vital. Politely ending the audit is then merely the assertion of an individual right the auditor has already conceded.
This Mark Butterworth novel proposes another approach: intimidating the auditor. It’s too long to quote here, but do read the book, which is filled with assorted delights.
Any Gentle Readers who have other well-tested techniques for thwarting the IRS are encouraged to submit them in email. Heavily encrypted, of course.
(I don't endorse any of these sites. I list them to marvel at how many people and organizations want to run a "news site," but have no idea what that entails. -- FWP)
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