Feb 06 2025

The Group Lookout

     Groups are dangerous. (“Groups give me an itch.” – Keith Laumer’s fictional diplomat Jame Retief) They possess powers that mystify the uninitiated, and terrify those who… well, those who seek to be accepted by a group! I, a determined “non-joiner,” have regular clashes with groups of all sorts. From them have come some of the most instructive moments of my life to date.

     Now and then, I pseudo-join a group – lately, it’s usually a “writers’ group” – to see what sort of blather dominates within it. It’s probably a practice I should abandon; sooner or later I wind up “contributing.” At that point, a lot of the other members suggest that I might be happier in some other group. Well, you can’t please everyone, and only a fool would try.

     Today, the trend appears to be trying not to offend anyone.

     In his vitally important book The American Tradition, the late Clarence Carson wrote:

     When groups become accustomed to having others submit to threats and pressure, they will become less and less willing to brook resistance. But there comes a time when social order requires resistance to the anarchy of contending groups. The road of resistance, however, leads to despotism in one form or another.

     Dr. Carson’s focus was on the interplay between groups and the dynamic of power. Yet there are social and cultural aspects to groups that are equally important. As I’m a writer, I have a particular interest in how groups influence and condition the operations of the creative mind.

     Not long ago, I was briefly a member of an online writers’ group organized through Meetup. At the last of the meetings I “attended,” the talk turned quickly to “sensitivity readers:” a variety of “reader” who scans through your manuscript looking for anything that might offend anyone. The immediate consensus among the other members was that such a “service” is a vital new offering that we should all employ. I was shocked into silence. (Now you know why that was my last meeting.)

     As I didn’t hang around after that, I have no idea whether another member ever challenged the premise behind the “sensitivity reader:” i.e., that it’s supremely important not to offend anyone. I don’t know if anyone ever noted the similarity between a “sensitivity reader” and a censor. And I don’t know whether the monetary cost of such a service was ever discussed. But I’d bet heavily that any member who dared to challenge the consensus would either be beaten into submission or induced to leave the group.

     The individual’s need for acceptance is one of Abraham Maslow’s steps to self-actualization. Its power is considerable, which is why people who “prefer their own company” – e.g., isolates like me – are regarded as dangerous. (“You are a deviant from the social norm!” — Roger Zelazny.) To be accepted by a group is regarded as a guarantee of sorts: specifically, that the group’s norms are your norms, and that the group will haul you back into line if you start to deviate.

     Therein also lies a great part of why the other nations of the world – including our so-called allies – are ineradicably suspicious of the United States. We champion individualism… or did, until not too long ago.

     This has been something of a self-indulgence, for which reason I’ll try to close it off promptly. It’s a brief rumination on the nature and consequences of being “out of step,” as Frank Chodorov put it. America is a land where the individual is supposed to be free to march to his own chosen drummer… or none. But groups are hostile to such persons. They often exercise their weight in attempts to squash them. It takes a lot of resilience to face them down, especially the more militant ones.

     Just now, several high-profile groups the Left has championed have been thrown onto the back foot, as our British cousins would say, by the aggressive initiatives of the Trump Administration to neuter their influence over federal policy and operation. Those groups have been in the ascendant for some time. They got used to being able to bully the federal government. That’s a good metric for their sociocultural power… and a warning to the rest of us.

     The Left’s strategic emphasis on militant groups is plain from its weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies. Putting an end to that obscenity is a paramount mission for the Trump Administration… wait: What’s that, Sweetie? The FBI is at the door again? All right, you get the Mace; I’ll fetch the shotguns. Back later, Gentle Reader.

Feb 05 2025

What A Difference Two Weeks Make

     It’s impossible for me not to smile. Indeed, my smile is so persistent and so wide that it threatens to amputate my jaw. We are witnessing the demolition of the most malevolent enterprise since the fall of the Soviet Union — in real time.

     The driving forces are two that virtually no one would have dared to predict would become allies before it actually happened: fierce-willed upstart politician Donald Trump and technological visionary Elon Musk. I don’t think it’s accidental. It might even have been inevitable. But it’s a miracle either way.

     Large hunks of the cancer are daily severed from the main mass. One of them is / was the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The following comes from Steve Bannon’s “War Room:”

     Stunning. The Left intended that USAID, an agency nominally devoted to assisting the economic development of underdeveloped countries, should become its chief domestic political weapon. It would never have occurred to the great majority of us that such a thing is even possible. Yet it did. More, the conspirators had the brass to publish their “resistance” playbook. They really believed that they could not be stopped.

     It’s no wonder that the Left is apoplectic:

     Screaming incoherently is all that remains to the Left. With DoGE moving swiftly and ruthlessly to root out the power bases of the Deep State, the Left has no conduit for funding and no platform from which to engineer damaging leaks. USAID, its main spigot for funding Left-aligned NGOs, has been cranked shut. It’s reverting to its strategy from the first Trump Administration: coordinated denunciations in the legacy media, nearly all of which feature one of two phrases:

  • “Five-alarm fire”
  • “Nobody voted for Elon Musk.”

     It’s particularly sweet that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, arguably the nation’s most famous ex-bartender, should have called Musk “unintelligent.” Truly, I could never have made that up!

     Anyone who seeks to do something truly big faces an all-encompassing need: Get good people who share your focus and turn them loose on it. Elon Musk understands this. The talking heads are baffled by the youth of his DoGE corps. Some of them aren’t through with college yet. But they’re razor-sharp, and great God in heaven, are they ever focused! Hearken to El Gato Malo:

     the simple fact is that there exists a very small group of incredibly high function, insanely productive people. it’s the dirty secret of the world. this tiny tribe conceives, invents, and builds basically everything novel. all of it. they are not normal people. they are the 0.1%.
     unless you have worked with them, around them, been a part of what they do, you simply lack a reference for what they are like. it’s essentially inconceivable how much such people can get done when they set their minds to it, how many rules they will disprove, break, or ignore and how many paradigms they will upend.
     DC has never seen a mob of high function autist builders and fin warriors coalesce before.
     they have no fricking idea what’s coming.
     they cannot possibly know.

     Please read it all.

     There is a special kind of joy that arises from the awareness that one is seeing something unprecedented, world-historical. That’s what we’re seeing today. The speed at which the DoGE juggernaut is moving strongly suggests that we not “blink.” The abject helplessness of those in its path only adds a frisson of schadenfreude to the delight.

     For decades, one of the Left’s tactical standbys has been the “hall of mirrors” approach: burying the heart of its machinations behind innumerable layers of misdirection and deception. Everywhere the naïve investigator looks, he sees a reflection or a distortion, such that he slowly becomes convinced that he cannot find the core of the tumor. But there’s a countermeasure, if he’s willing to use it:

     “What is the immediate objective?” I asked.
     “To map the network of this KGB faction,” he answered.
     “And?”
     “To break the mirrors.”
     “The mirrors?”
     “Remember when I said that we had stepped into a hall of mirrors?”
     “Yes.”
     “In that dilemma you smash all the mirrors. Destroy their capacity to bring confusion and misdirection.”
     “And then?”
     “Then they are stark buck naked and very ordinary.”
     “That can happen to those people?” I asked.
     “Especially to them. What are they besides their deception?”

     [Martin McPhillips, Corpse in Armor]

     Now I know how Simeon the Righteous felt upon seeing the Christ Child. I am overjoyed that I’ve lived to see this.

Feb 04 2025

The Real-Estate Blitz

     Until a few months ago, I was indisposed to believe that large, wealthy organizations are buying up America’s single-family homes. There are so many millions of single-family homes in the U.S. that it didn’t seem plausible. Yet people assured me that it’s happening, and that it’s a great part of what’s driving home prices ever higher. I simply reserved comment.

     Then the phone calls started coming.

     It was a trickle at first: a call every couple of days from someone named John or Bob or Joe who just wanted to “talk about your Long Island home.” At first I allowed the conversation to go on a sentence or two from there. But that phase didn’t last, and as soon as a caller asked “Do you own [this house]?” I’d say “I’m not interested in selling” and disconnect.

     These days, I get two or three such calls per day. Some of them arrive as late as 9 PM, which is especially irritating. Yesterday it struck me as no longer sufficient just to say “I’m not interested in selling.” So on the third such call of the day I indulged myself a wee bit:

     Caller: Do you own the property at [my address]?
     FWP: I do. I suppose you’re thinking of making me an offer for it?
     Caller: Yes, and—
     FWP: Stop there for a moment. Let me tell you a couple of things about my home that you can’t get from the town records office.
     Caller: Okay…
     FWP: I bought this property in 1979. I’ve lived here since 1980. That’s 45 years living in one place. Have you ever lived even ten years in one place?
     Caller: No, but—
     FWP: Please hear me out. Someone who lives in one place for an extended period of time is likely to make improvements to it, to make it better suited to him, his family, and their needs. Have you ever made an expensive improvement to your current home?
     Caller: No, but—
     FWP: I thought not. Well, I bought this house for $72,000 in 1979. Today, it assesses at nearly $700,000 market value: more than nine times what I paid for it. All kinds of real estate has shot up in price over that time, of course. But as I said, I’ve been making improvements the whole time. Some of them were very expensive. But today, my home is ideal for me. It has everything I need and nothing I don’t. And when I looked around at other homes in this area that I could buy for $700,000, I didn’t find even one that would suit me and my little family as well as this one. I’d have to make a lot of improvements to any of them. Now, as it took me 45 years to get this place into this shape, I’d have to expect that it would take 45 years to do the same to some other house. But I’m 72 years old. Do you think I have 45 years left to do home improvements?
     Caller: (Disconnects)

     I found that exercise strangely satisfying.

Feb 03 2025

Experts And Foresights

John Anderton: Why’d you catch that?
Danny Witwer: Because it was going to fall.
John Anderton: You’re certain?
Danny Witwer: Yeah.
John Anderton: But it didn’t fall. You caught it. The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen.

[From Minority Report]

“Prediction is hard, especially about the future.” – Attributed to Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra, but so are a lot of other things.

     Once again, Mike Miles provides a striking graphic:

     Similar data is available about the Antarctic ice sheet and the world’s icebergs. Once seasonal effects are accounted for, the aggregate of global ice is stable. Global temperature readings have fluctuated in a strangely stable fashion these past few decades as well, despite ever-increasing human and natural emissions of the “greenhouse” gases. But the warmistas are unrelenting; they persist in claiming that Earth will become too hot to sustain life unless we all turn down our thermostats and don heavy woolen hair shirts right now!

     None of their near-term forecasts of doom have proved correct. A record like that ought to disqualify them from serious attention. Even so, they continue to command attention and large amounts of money. Someone must have an interest in promoting their scare talk.

     The squib above from Minority Report is relevant. Near-term predictions are easier to make, and have a better record of accuracy, than long-term ones. Genuine experts understand this, which makes them cautious about long-term claims. In this regard, economists divide into two groups: the cautious ones, and the Marxists.

     The basis of true expertise is a record of accurate predictions. True experts know it.

     We’ve suffered a number of bedevilments-by-expert the last few years. The most egregious one is the most recent: the predictions of “COVID doom” from figures in the fields of epidemiology and pharmacology. Please, God: May it be a long, long time before we forget what that cost us.

     The media have been hugely complicit, of course. Without those giant megaphones to broadcast the prophecies of doom at a million decibels, the scare talk would go nowhere. The dynamic there is obvious: lurid stories about impending calamity draw the “eyeballs” better than sober, measured statements that concede the difficulties of prediction and the fallibility of experts.

     A few memories:

     None of those predictions came true. Yet those who made them continue to receive respect as “experts.” It makes me feel a certain sympathy for Jeane Dixon and The Amazing Criswell.

     Not long ago, attorney and essayist Christopher Roach advised us to “Be skeptical. Being skeptical is a superpower.” (I gave that a place in the LIS Codex.) Given the persistent failure of the doomsayers’ predictions, you’d think we’d have learned a little skepticism by now. But such is the human need for an occasional zing! to the central nervous system that our ears continue to prick up at each fresh prediction of doom. And so the tabloids arrayed at the supermarkets’ check-out counters continue to enjoy brisk sales.

Feb 02 2025

Units And Standards Reprised

     Not too long ago, in addressing one of my favorite shibboleths, “national security,” I wrote the following:

     [The Biden Administration] argued that obeying the First Amendment “imposed unprecedented limits on the ability of the President’s closest aides to use the bully pulpit to address matters of public concern, on the FBI’s ability to address threats to the Nation’s security, and on the CDC’s ability to relay public health information at platforms’ request.”

     So the Regime is claiming, quite baldly, that violations of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech are required for the sake of “national security.” The claim isn’t that there’s any ambiguity to what’s being done; the Regime concedes that it’s violating the right to freedom of expression. Indeed, it’s demanding that a claim of “national security” trumps the right to speak freely. But that raises certain questions:

  1. What is “national security?”
  2. Is it measurable? If so, by what means and in what units?
  3. What statements and categories of statements affect “national security,” whether positively or negatively?
  4. Is any increment or decrement to “national security,” however slight, a justification for violating an individual’s right to speak freely?
  5. Since the violation of an individual’s rights by a private party is legally actionable, what, then, should occur when a government official or functionary violates an individual’s rights to the detriment of “national security?”

     No, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the answers. Keeping the whole thing undefined and undefinable is key to the aspirations of the political class. As matters stand, any sufficiently highly placed federal official or functionary can justify anything, including any violation of any right possessed by anyone, simply by invoking “national security.” It’s a blank check for unlimited and absolute power.

     I felt that put the matter plainly: the federal government, in the name of an undefined objective it calls “national security,” demanded – during the Biden years, at least – that Americans surrender a Constitutionally protected right: i.e., freedom of expression. But there’s another phrase of import in the quoted passage, a bludgeon equal in size to “national security” if not greater: “public health.”

     I just did a quick search of this site, and found 37 columns that mention “public health.” So it’s not an obscure subject here. During the COVID-19 pan[dem]ic, it was claimed to override both the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression and the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of bodily autonomy.

     Some very bright people – many of them ardent defenders of freedom – have argued that “public health” is a necessary exception to individuals’ rights. Nevertheless, the term is undefined. It has no agreed-upon, measurable meaning. There is no “bright line rule” by which Smith may determine, objectively, when and how he, or Jones, or Davis has trespassed against the “public health.” That makes it at least as dangerous to Americans’ rights as “national security.”

     Yet we sit here and take it. Worse, we allow salaried public servants to pontificate about it to us as if they know what they’re talking about. (NB: They don’t.)

     Just recently, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse made the matter explicit:

     During confirmation hearings this week on Trump’s nominee to take over the Department of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy, Jr., Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island once again demonstrated his fascist and petty dictator nature, demanding that Kennedy support “forced mandatory vaccinations” of Americans or else he will vote against Kennedy’s nomination.
     Whitehouse also demanded that Kennedy promise to never again say “that vaccines are not medically safe when they in fact are.”
     In other words Kennedy is to put aside his own research and knowledge, that has found some vaccines efficacy and safety are questionable, and join the government swamp to lie to Americans while forcing Americans to take drugs they might not want.

     Robert Zimmerman includes the video of that obscenity. It’s hard to watch it, but if you need confirmation of Whitehouse’s desire to violate Americans’ rights, you have it.

     Here’s the oath Whitehouse had to take to become a United States Senator:

     I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

     Does Whitehouse’s dismissal of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights seem consistent with that oath, Gentle Reader? Or does it strike you as a blatant violation? Note the “without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion” clause. That oath is binding even if you have your fingers crossed when you take it.

     It’s not the first time a legislator has openly dismissed some provision of the Constitution. There have been many others. During the original arguments over Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi said that Congress has the power to do whatever it wants. During a 2010 interview on Fox News, Congressman James Clyburn (D, SC) openly said “I don’t give a damn about the Constitution.” The attitude is widespread, especially among Democrats.

     The time has come for citizens to ask sharp questions – “Who did it? What exactly? When was it? How do you know? How will you know?” – and demand that they be answered clearly and specifically. Otherwise it’s torches-and-pitchforks time. Actually, when I’m not trying to seem restrained and well-tempered, I’ll argue that that hour arrived long ago. But it’s too early in the morning for me to start foaming at the mouth.

Feb 02 2025

Life Update

Last year was challenging, mostly for the ungoing health problems of my family.

This year is starting out on the wrong foot, too.

My husband’s brother, after a long hospitalization and hospice care, died on January 23. It was anticipated, although my husband remained hopeful until that last week. As he and his wife were not Catholic, he is being cremated and a Celebration of Life is planned for early summer.

I hadn’t thought much about the differences in Christian rites before. Cremation and a Memorial service is becoming increasingly common in our culture; even my friend, Coleen, who died around this time last year, had that form of burial.

It does make some sense, with family being spread around the country/world, and, during Covid, forbidden to gather in groups for an extended time. But I’d never before thought of the downside of this practice.

We don’t gather after the death, bringing food and sympathy. We are not part of the process, helping with errands, talking to others who are grieving, shepherding the family through the events.

We grieve alone, or with a few family/friends. We are isolated. With no structure to our days, what point is there in getting up? Unlike a wake/funeral/gathering, we do not exist in a bubble of separation from work and life demands. We are expected to plod forward with no break.

Oh, sure, your boss may say, “Take as long as you need,” but, without the need to handle the arrangements and attend a funeral, people will head back to the office ASAP. You’ve temporarily put off the ritualized process, but have nowhere to go with your grief.

The thing is, we need to cry until we are dry. We need to reminisce, hear the stories about that person’s life, and unload that emotional burden.

We need to grieve. Not put things off until it’s more convenient. Death is NEVER convenient.

In other news, my eldest daughter, the Felician sister, will be having open heart surgery to replace a valve and repair an aortic aneurysm. She will be coming into town February 27, and staying with family until the surgery. It will be the first time we’ve had extended time with her in months, and I plan to enjoy it.

She’ll be staying with her sister after the surgery and release from the hospital (I’m assuming that she won’t need skilled nursing care – they don’t anticipate an unusually difficult recovery – but, it’s Cleveland Clinic. Good surgeons, lots of experience with hearts, but they been said to act somewhat like the Army after an operation – “Get on your feet, soldier, and start making your bed – hospital corners!”).

She will be in town on the west side of Cleveland – closer to the hospital than our house – for a few weeks. Then, a few weeks at home, then back to work.

Waiting for it all may be the hardest part (I hope).

Feb 02 2025

When Fiction Becomes Fact

     First and foremost, Happy Groundhog Day. Today a hole-dweller will become the nation’s superstar. For a brief, shining moment, all eyes will be on him as he makes his critical observation / decision. (Bilbo Baggins, eat your heart out.) Now to trivial matters:

     Applause to NC Renegade. Now, remember this scene from Atlas Shrugged?

     [James Taggart] “What I mean is, there are practical problems to solve, which…For instance, what was that matter of our last allocation of new rail vanishing from the storehouse in Pittsburgh?”
     [Dagny Taggart] “Cuffy Meigs stole it and sold it.”
     “Can you prove that” he snapped defensively.
     “Have your friends left any means, methods, rules or agencies of proof?”
     “Then don’t talk about it, don’t be theoretical, we’ve got to deal with facts! We’ve got to deal with facts as they are today…I mean, we’ve got to devise some practical means to protect our supplies under existing conditions, not under unprovable assumptions, which –”
     She chuckled. There was the form of the formless, she thought, there was the method of his consciousness: he wanted her to protect him from Cuffy Meigs without acknowledging Meigs’s existence, to fight it without admitting its reality, to defeat it without disturbing its game.

     That scene has been replayed several times in reality, just this past year. Do you think there might be a moral in there, Gentle Reader?

Feb 01 2025

The Process, Simplified

Shamelessly stolen from The Village Hemorrhoid.

Feb 01 2025

Protecting The Bastions

     A field army that finds itself thrown onto the defensive will usually react in one of two ways. One is to employ a substantial part of its forces for a counterattack, somewhere removed from the main theater of action, while the rest of its forces continue to retreat. The other is to fall back upon its strong points and use them to outlast its attackers. There are combinations of those tactics as well; indeed, combinations are more common than “pure” cases of either approach.

     As in ground warfare, so also in politics.

     Just now, the Democrats are in the unenviable position of having disgraced themselves while in power. The public expressed its displeasure in a massive electoral rejection. But political parties are seldom killed outright, even by a dramatic loss. Congressional Democrats and their boughten allies in the media are straining to rally for a comeback in 2026 and 2028.

     The Left knows where its bastions are: the media, the educational system, and the thousands of bureaucrats that make up the Deep State. Accordingly, the Democrats are fighting to defend those fortresses – a tough job, as President Trump has already set his sights on them and appears unwilling to give quarter. Of its governmental bastions, two stand out as supreme in importance: the “intelligence community,” and the Department of Justice, especially the FBI.

     The intense exchanges of fire over Trump’s nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence and of Kash Patel to be Director of the FBI have spotlighted those bastions. Those positions are critical both to the MAGA agenda and to the Democrats’ hopes for a near-term political resurgence. As both nominees are persons of demonstrated ability and high character, the Democrats have labored mightily to defame them. A look at the confirmation interviews, most of which are available on YouTube, will confirm this. Baldly, if those nominees are confirmed by the Senate, the FBI and the intelligence agencies will be swiftly depoliticized and returned to their proper missions. That would likely put the Democrats out of power for a long time to come.

     Concurrently, the Democrats’ media allies are doing what they can to defame Trump and his closest associates, and to throw doubt on the aims of the MAGA movement. Broadcast interviews of key figures in the coalescing Trump Administration have been nakedly hostile. The media counterattack has not succeeded in drawing off any significant part of the Trump / MAGA energies, but it shows no signs of relenting.

     It’s notable that there has been no significant uptick in the activities of Left-aligned “street forces:” i.e., AntiFa and Black Bloc. Perhaps those troops are being held in reserve, awaiting the appearance of a flank or salient to attack. We shall see. At any rate, the outline of the Left’s tactics appears plain.

     As the effort to reduce the Left’s strongholds proceeds, it’s vital not to allow the legacy media’s counterattack to divert our attention. The media’s most important asset is “eyeballs:” readership and viewership. Ordinary Americans in the Right have served their cause best simply by depriving the media of those things. It would be a mistake to pay excessive attention to them now, when their bid for readers and viewers is desperate. Rather, take note of the ludicrous attempts of Senate Democrats to blacken Gabbard and Patel, and count up their irrelevancies, discourtesies, and bursts of fake outrage. They’re a good measure for whether the Trump / MAGA thrust at the hearts of its foes will penetrate.

Jan 31 2025

The Weapon

     [Now and then, I stumble over an entirely original, brilliant idea that another writer has tossed off as if it’s merely a trivial component of his tale, without bothering to explore its wider implications. For me, that’s a head-shaker. There aren’t all that many original, brilliant ideas around at any moment; they shouldn’t be treated as “throw-ins.” I encountered the one that underpins the story below just yesterday evening, in a TV movie. – FWP]

     The truce talks were held on the Moon, very near to where the invaders from Phift had landed.
     The representative of the phifti was white-faced. It moved toward the truce table haltingly and seated itself hesitantly, as if it feared that the man across the table might attack and kill it at any moment.
     Extraordinary Ambassador Seth Novikov sat quietly. It had been a long time since he’d had to sit on the surface, in a moonhut. Once he’d been assured that it was proof against leaks or punctures, he’d been able to remove his pressure suit’s helmet and relax. He was ready for the talks, though he had no idea what the phift might say or what he might say in response. He knew the invaders to be humanoid, if not human in all respects. Yet no member of their expedition had even tried to descend to the surface of the Earth.
     Waiting to see if their weapon would succeed against us, no doubt.
     Several seconds passed in silence.
     “Well?” Novikov said. “What are we here to talk about?”
     “The expedition…” the phift said, and trailed off.
     “Yes?”
     “The expedition is without options.”
     “Meaning what?”
     “It cannot return to Phift.”
     “Why not?”
     “Lack of resources.”
     “Which ones?”
     “Food, water, and propellant.”
     “But those needs are transient rather than absolute,” Novikov said. “Perhaps we can help. What would you need to return to Phift?”
     The phift did not reply.
     “Despite the harm you have done us, we are not inclined to take vengeance.” Novikov spread his hands in a gesture of conciliation. “If we can help you, we will, though not at the expense of another race of sentients. What do you need?”
     “There are other difficulties. Our homeworld is no longer habitable. The other worlds known to be suitable,” the phift said, “are all occupied.”
     “Ah. And you are unable to share a world?”
     “It would pose problems.” The phift appeared reluctant to give details.
     “From that,” Novikov said, “I take it that you could not bring yourselves to share Earth with its current inhabitants. I must confess that I cannot understand it. You appear to be as human as we are.”
     “Such an arrangement would not be… stable.”
     “But why?”
     “We…”
     It was the phift’s first use of a collective pronoun. Novikov sat up sharply.
     So it does speak for the rest.
     “Yes?”
     “We are… a belligerent race,” the phift said at last. “It compels us to live sparsely. To a phift, Earth seems impossibly crowded. Lethally crowded. One of us could never imagine living in one of your small towns, much less one of your great cities. It would result in carnage. We draw near to one another at extreme peril, for any cause, no matter how slight, can spark a combat to the death.”
     “But—” Novikov struggled with the implications. “How do you… reproduce?”
     “Rarely and with great fear.”
     It was the revelation that gave rise to comprehension.
     They’re alone lifelong. There can be no society among them.
     One compelled to lifelong solitude must go insane or die.
     One and all, they are insane. Probably from birth.
     “Is that why… ” Novikov hesitated. “…why you don’t have names?”
     The phift nodded. “It is.”
     “Is it also why you attacked us with proxy organisms?”
     “It is.” The phift’s face contorted. “We knew that we could not defeat you with weapons. We are too few. Yet we had to exterminate you if Earth is to be ours. So though it cost us terribly, we gathered the greatest predators our travels had ever discovered, set them loose among you, and waited. Had you not developed the nemesis—”
     “By which you mean our counter-organism?”
     The phift’s whole body tensed. It jerked partway out of its seat, looking as if it badly wanted to spring at Novikov and kill him.
     Novikov raised a hand, palm toward his interlocutor. “My apologies,” he said. “I should not have interrupted you. Please forgive me, that we may continue.”
     The phift drew a long, shuddering breath, From its clenched expression, it was forcing itself back to a state of calm.
     “Forgiveness,” it said after a moment, “comes hard to us.”
     Novikov nodded. “Nevertheless, you must exert yourself. You know the conditions under which we permitted this meeting to occur.”
     The phift peered at him suspiciously. “It was not a bluff?”
     “I would not have trusted my life to a bluff. Your fleet is being continuously watched. Ever since you requested a parley, you have been under a suspended sentence of death. Any act of aggression would cause that sentence to fall. If I die, so do you all.”
     “You… are undefended?”
     “I bear no weapon,” Novikov said. “I am protected solely by the threat to your life and the lives of your fellows.”
     “In eliminating our fleet,” the phift said, “you would destroy all that rests upon the surface of this satellite.”
     “We are aware of that.”
     “Yet you came. Despite the risk, you came.”
     “I came.”
     “What are you?”
     “A man. An administrator, a husband, and a father.”
     “What do you… administer?”
     “Our settlement upon this satellite.”
     “Are you many?”
     Novikov nodded. “We are. Many thousands.”
     “Where are the others?”
     “You do not need to know that.”
     “When our fleet landed,” the phift said, “why did you not attack us?”
     “If our positions were reversed,” Novikov said, “would your people have done so?”
     “At once!”
     Novikov could not repress a smile.
     “We too,” he said, “are a belligerent people. Perhaps even as belligerent as yourselves. Yet we have learned restraint. We do not strike unless and until the need is clear.”
     “I cannot imagine that. Restraint kills,” the phift said.
     “Among you?”
     “Yes.”
     “We did observe your arrival,” Novikov said. “Despite the risks, we deemed it possible that you might become friends. We only decided otherwise when you released your war creatures upon the Earth.”
     “They killed many, did they not?”
     “Oh yes. More than half the population of the world. Had we not developed the nemesis fungus, they would have exterminated us. But we exterminated them instead. They are gone from Earth. And so you and I sit here now.”
     The phift shuddered and fell silent.
     Presently it said “We could not have imagined this.”
     “What do you mean?”
     “That your whole people would cooperate to confront and defeat our invasion.”
     “Would your people not have done so?”
     “It is unlikely.”
     “If that is so, you are doomed.” Novikov rose. “I deem it time that we retire and reflect. There may yet be a way that we can help you, though it appears clear that we cannot allow your people to have access to Earth. Return to your ship and take counsel from your fellows… if you can. I will remain available to you.”
     He essayed a half-bow. When the phift had departed, Novikov exited through the tunnel that connected to the subterranean passage to the body of the lunar settlement.

#

     Alice awaited Novikov at the door to their compartment. He was barely out of his pressure suit before she’d wrapped her arms around him, trembling palpably. He returned the embrace with a soothing murmur.
     “Where are Rod and Susan?” he said.
     “I sent them to the cafeteria. I didn’t want them to be here if you were upset or angry or…”
     He stroked her back. “I understand. Can we have a little dinner?”
     “It’s in the microwave. Two minutes.”
     He followed her to their galley and seated himself at the dinette table. She started the microwave and set the table. They had finished their meals before either spoke again.
     “Can you tell me about it?” she said.
     He nodded. “It went nowhere. I did learn a couple of things, though. They had no idea that we were here. We’re very fortunate to be deeply dug in.”
     “The colony couldn’t have worked any other way.”
     “We’re still lucky. Remember. everyone was on the surface for the first twelve years. The invaders didn’t expect us to make homes inside the Moon.”
     She cast her gaze around their spacious, well-furnished lodgings and frowned. “I can’t imagine living in a tiny hut exposed to the radiation and the meteorites.”
     He chuckled. “Some people did imagine it. They certainly tried it for long enough.”
     “Well, we’re here now, and that’s what matters.” She stood, gathered the dishes, put them into the sanitizer, and returned to her seat. “Do you think we’ll be making room for them?”
     “Not a chance. By their own admission, they’re much too belligerent. If we didn’t exterminate them, they’d exterminate us.”
     “Could we beat them without using the fungus?”
     “We’d have to. It can’t live here.”
     “So what do we do with them?”
     He looked away and tried to think.
     We can’t share the Earth with them, and we can’t inflict them on another inhabited world. What’s left?
     “Don’t know,” he said. “But someone else on the council might.”
     “You debriefed already?”
     “Oh yeah. It didn’t take long. Anyway, they have the recordings.”
     “So why did you come home in your pressure suit?”
     He grinned. “Too tired to take it off. You know, I think I learned something today.”
     “From… them?”
     “Yeah. The phift representative. Three times he said his people ‘couldn’t imagine’ this or that.”
     She frowned. “So?”
     “They were things we take for granted. Ordinary social stuff. Living together, making towns and cities together, working together to beat a threat to all of us. At first I thought the key to the thing was the ‘together’ part. Their response to the sight of one another is to attack and kill. Like two male grizzlies confronting one another.”
     “They can’t overcome it?” she said incredulously.
     “Well, they haven’t.”
     “How did they build their ships?”
     “I didn’t ask. Maybe they were leftovers from another race. Creatures that used the phifti as planet-clearing weapons, the way they used those things against us.”
     She shook her head and grimaced. “Were we ever like that?”
     “Earth humans? Maybe. You’d have to ask an anthropologist. But the ‘couldn’t imagine’ stuff is what got me thinking.”
     “How so?”
     “He reached across the table and took her hands in his. “Do you remember what I said after our first date?”
     Her brow wrinkled. “That you’d—wait—that you couldn’t imagine that I’d ever agree to go out with you?”
     He nodded. “But I could, or I wouldn’t have asked, right?”
     Her face lit with a slow smile. “Yeah!”
     “And the guys Earthside who came up with the killer fungus had to imagine it first, right?”
     “Yeah…”
     “But all those countries that hate each other had to get their top minds together to figure it out, right?”
     “Yeah!”
     “Well,” he said, “then our decisive weapon wasn’t the fungus. It was imagination. Imagination is a superweapon. For sure it beat those predators they unleashed at us.” He winked. “Got any idea who it was that said the guys who say something can’t be done should stand out of the way of the guys who’re doing it?”
     “I have no idea. You, maybe?”
     “I wish I was that clever.” He stood. “Let’s go get the kids.”

==<O>==

Copyright © 2025 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Jan 31 2025

Our Men And Women Are Rising

     Remember this fantasy, from two weeks ago? Well, it’s being played out in real time:

     From the above, even though I know nothing else about Russ Vought, I support his confirmation. His “hearings” are available on YouTube.

Jan 31 2025

New Totalitarians For Old

     In a way, when the subject is the lust for power, nothing fundamental really changes. The would-be tyrant doesn’t say to the masses, “Give me total power over you because I want to oppress you.” He says, “I’m here to help you. Trust me. Give me total power over you because I know best how to care for you. It’s for your own good.” Even the discredited ones return to that mantra.

     In 2020, the setup for the election theft was the COVID-19 virus. Today we know that that virus was engineered in a Chinese lab, with funds provided by our very own federal government. The panic the Left engineered over it was sufficient to impose a degree of tyranny upon us that, in retrospect, we ought to have known better than to accept. Even today, many rationalize the imposed lockdowns, the masking, the closing of schools and churches, the “social distancing,” and so forth because “we had to trust the experts.” Even though their “expertise” was revealed to be a sham.

     And today, how are they trying to impose their restrictions and intrusions on us? A new-old virus:

     Remember that “expert” from the COVID years? I do. Today she has no political power of her own, but she has allies who do:

     Senator Whitehouse is uninterested in the Fourth Amendment’s protections of personal autonomy. Does any Gentle Reader sincerely believe that his Democrat fellow-travelers don’t feel the same?

     Totalitarians are never concerned with individuals or their rights:

The citizen’s rights are inseparable from his duties.
The State guarantees the rights of the citizen; the citizen must fulfil his duties to the State and society.
The citizen’s rights and duties are determined by the Constitution and the law.

     [North Vietnamese Constitution]

     The needs of the State come first, Comrade. Note that “the people,” that famous, faceless collective noun, includes no actual persons. But then, how could it?

     The North Vietnamese Communists were relatively open about it. Ours continue to pretend otherwise.

Jan 30 2025

Government money spigot turned off, “Christian” charities hardest hit

The government has frozen all funds going to the NGOs that are facilitating the illegal invasion of the USA. See how simple that was? Who’s bringing in the illegals? Those guys? And they’re using our money? Yeah, let’s stop doing that.

Also, the weeping and wailing from the Left about “Christian” charities getting their funding cut off? Here’s a clue you can slip to people doing the wailing: If the so-called charity requires federal funding, then it’s just another NGO, not a “Christian” charity. Christ looked at his followers and said “You will do this”. He did NOT say “You will use the government to take money from other people to spend it on charity”. Forced charity is not charity. Forced charity is theft. Now, the left loves forced charity, because they think it absolves them of having to do the icky charity stuff themselves. But if I rob a man of $100, and I then turn around and give that c-note to a starving woman, is that charity? Nope. Because I used the threat of force to take that cash from someone who didn’t want to give it up, which is essentially the Left’s version of “charity”. They never want to use their own money. Think of Oprah and The Rock crying on TV trying to get donations for the people of Maui who’s houses just burned down. Two billionaires telling YOU to give money. As if they couldn’t snap their fingers and have millions of dollars on the ground helping the victims themselves.

Anyways, back to that forced charity, and how it’s not actual charity. It’s an act of theft that allows the thief to put on an un-earned air of moral superiority: Oh look at how compassionate I am! Do you see what I am doing with other people’s money? That’s because I care!

Nevermind the fact that anyone can spend someone else’s money with ease. True charity has to come from the individual. I cannot be charitable with my neighbor’s money, because it’s not MY money.

And let’s be honest, the government is such a corrupt group of crooks and criminals that the afore-mentioned $100 NEVER gets to the recipient untouched. Oh no, there are “administrative costs” and kick backs and of COURSE some of that money gets laundered back to the people who are doing the stealing in the first place. That’s not charity. When 90% of that money is spent on “administration” and bureaucracy, that’s not charity. That’s theft and graft and corruption.

For years, I’ve refused to donate to Catholic Charities, because they have been facilitating the illegal invasion of this country. Any charity with the anti-pope on it? Not doing it. I tithe to some of the churches that I attended when I was active duty and moving around a lot; small parishes without the rich backing that many churches in urban areas have. I’m not the richest guy in the world, but I’m certain that these churches appreciate seeing my small check show up in the mail every month.

And now we see that many of these “Catholic” charities are in fact money-sucking NGOs who are importing a slave class of un-educated serfs in the USA, and there is not a single good reason for them to do so other than overloading the USA’s systems. You can help people just fine in their own countries, and it costs a lot less. But that’s not what Catholic Charities are doing. They’re bringing them HERE and the forcing the rest of us to pay for them through our tax dollars that are extracted against our will.

That’s theft. That’s criminal. That is NOT Christian, and that most assuredly is NOT Catholic.

You want to help out and make a difference? Every single Catholic church in existence has a ministry to the poorer people of their parish. Donate to THAT. Help out with THAT. Keep it local, keep it sane. Talk to the priests about what needs the parish has, and what you can help cover. But stop giving money to these multi-national organizations who’s only focus is tearing down civilization. They’re Catholic in name only, and that name is just a cover for their illegal operations. They can all go to hell. Which is probably where most of them will end up at the finish.

Jan 29 2025

Something To Make You Feel Good (EXTRA!)

     I know, I know: plenty of good things are happening just now, or at least are getting started. I feel the elation over President Trump’s confident and aggressive start to his second term, just as many of our Gentle Readers do. Things are looking up – and it seems that the sky is the limit for a reborn, re-energized America.

     But now and then I look eastward, and in our kinda-sorta mother country, things are not so good. The United Kingdom seems to be descending into a darkness from which its reascent is hard to imagine. I sorrow for the Sceptered Isle, knowing how much of what made America what we value came from there.

     Let’s shove politics to the side, and enjoy something British that’s genuinely out of the ordinary. I didn’t know anything about singer Rick Parfitt or his RPJ Band until just a few days ago. I certainly didn’t know anything about what you’re about to see. But I assure you: It will lift whatever you have that you use for a heart right into the stratosphere.

The following video is about seven minutes long. Please, please watch it to the end. Extra points for anyone who remembers the band Guns & Roses, and their blockbuster hit “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”

     If that didn’t make you smile from ear to ear, see your brain-care specialist at once!

     Have a nice evening, Gentle Reader.

     EXTRA! Jake repeated his performance not long after that, before a much larger crowd:

     This young man can shred!

Jan 29 2025

It’s time to go scorched earth on RINOs.

That last minute smear attack on Pete Hegseth? It was brought by Thom Tillis, the Republican shitbag from North Carolina.

Tillis personally assured Danielle Hegseth in a call on Jan. 19, witnessed by two other people, that if she signed the statement testifying that she believed her former brother-in-law Pete Hegseth has an alcohol abuse problem and was abusive to his second wife, it would carry weight, and potentially move three votes—his own, along with the votes of Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), those people said.

Enough of these backstabbing pieces of shit. These two-faced traitors. These snakes in the grass. Efuckingnough of this bullshit. I want this worthless sack of hyena vomit primaried. I want him driven out weeping and wailing and gnashing his teeth. I want him cast out into the wilderness so fucking hard that he never finds his way back. I want him whipped so fucking hard during his primary that Liz Cheney says “Holy shit dude!”

Fuck Thom Tillis, fuck Mitch the Bitch McConnell, fuck Susan Collins, fuck that nepo-baby bitch from Alaska, fuck them all straight into obscurity until their names are scrubbed from history and they are known only for being the worst examples of humanity.

I am done with these Judas whores playing fuck-fuck games. Give them nothing but grief.

Jan 29 2025

A whole lot of people said the mRNA jabs were poison

We just didn’t know how poisonous they really were.

The troubling study found that people’s emotions, personalities, feelings, fears, stress levels, mental well-being, and general outlook changed after they were injected with the “vaccine.”

The peer-reviewed study, which included over 2 million participants, was published in the renowned Nature Journal.

The study was led by Professor Hong Jin Kim of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Inje University Sanggye Paik Hospital and the College of Medicine at Inje University in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

The researchers confirmed that the Covid injections are responsible for increasing global reports of major personality and behavioral changes in people in the last four years.

They explain that the “vaccines” cause “psychiatric manifestations” among the vaccinated.

There’s a lot to unpack there if you want to watch the whole video. As for me, I recall watching priests warning about the jab early on. A group of orthodox priests, having been jabbed according to the demands made on them by their superiors, found that they couldn’t exorcise a demon when called upon to do so. The demon laughed at them and told them that the “peck” (their slang for the jab) corrupted them and made them spiritually weak. Of course, we know that the jab was developed using aborted fetal tissue. And I’ve said in the past that I do not believe the drug companies when they claim that the tissue is from the 1960s or 1970s, a line of stem cells that they’ve kept alive somehow. Especially when we have videos of Planned Parenthood executives and doctors crowing about how much money they’re making by selling the body parts of babies they’ve ripped from the womb.

Second, if you’re an atheist who doesn’t believe in god and thus doesn’t believe any claim that the jab is spiritually tainted, there’s the simple fact that the spike proteins that the mRNA forces your body to produce have been found EVERYWHERE in the body. It has crossed the blood/brain barrier. Spike proteins are toxic to living tissue; researchers who injected spike proteins into lab rats found that the spike proteins caused the lab rats to have a stroke and die. So the pharma companies made a jab that forces your body to produce a toxic substance that crosses the blood/brain barrier despite all promises that it would remain in the muscle where it was injected. Do you think that a toxic, stroke-inducing substance that crosses the blood/brain barrier might cause some personality changes?

Anyone involved in the creation of these shots, or in the mandating of them, needs to be held accountable.

Jan 29 2025

What’s The Mission?

     Whenever a weapon system is proposed, the question in the title is the one that must be answered first: What’s the mission? What will this system be expected to do, and in what circumstances? The reluctance to provide a firm answer to that question is one of the things that make possible the phenomenon that haunts every defense engineer’s nightmares: “requirements creep.”

     Way, way back when Robert McNamara – remember him? – was the Secretary of Defense, there was a lot of discussion of “missile defense:” that is, the creation of a shield against ballistic bombardment over the United States, or portions thereof. McNamara opposed such a system, not because it was technologically infeasible at the time (though it was), but because he saw it as uneconomical. He argued that an enemy determined to attack the U.S. ballistically, if confronted with a missile shield, could increase his offensive forces sufficiently to overwhelm the shield with numbers. Moreover, such an increase would be cheaper than expanding the missile shield it was intended to defeat. So economics was on the side of the notional attacker. McNamara was very economics-oriented.

     In McNamara’s time, designing a system to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic missiles was thought to be beyond the current technological frontier. Adding the requirements of economy and indefinite expansibility defeated the proposition altogether. But the idea of missile defense would not go away. It was revived with much controversy by President Reagan in the Eighties. With the advances in technology since McNamara’s time, it was beginning to look possible – barely.

     But that nagging question in the title remained to be firmly answered. Just what would the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) systems be required to do, and under what conditions? For the technology required to make the SDI feasible wasn’t the only thing that had advanced since the McNamara years. Missile tech had leaped forward as well. Air-launched cruise missiles, in particular, had become a huge factor in planning for possible assaults.

     Not long after SDI became a subject for discussion, Reason magazine proposed the following problem for consideration: Imagine two missile shields of equal cost and complexity. Shield A is guaranteed to stop 80% of all incoming warheads. However, the remaining 20% will get through to their targets. Shield B will stop 100% of incoming warheads… if it works. But there’s only an 80% probability that it will work. If it fails, all the incoming warheads will get through. Which of those systems would be preferred by strategic-defense planners?

     The title question looms behind both shields. The planners must confront its major ramifications before any other consideration is addressed. For the answers would determine the planners’ eventual orientation:

  • What’s being defended? Population centers, military bases, or ICBM installations? And which ones?
  • What weapons would the shield be intended to defeat? How many of each?
  • What’s our defense posture:
    1. Would we be poised to strike first? If so, to what end: counterforce or countervalue?
    2. Would we launch our forces upon credible warning of an incoming attack?
    3. Or would we retaliate only after being struck?
  • Who is envisioned to be the enemy? Are there several such? Can a system be designed to stop an attack no matter who is attacking?

     The above is an incomplete list. Yet even in its paucity it illuminates the problem of requirements specification. It’s guaranteed that any system designed to meet some proposed threat would confront “requirements creep,” possibly sufficient to make the system impossible.

     The reason this is on my mind, of course, is President Trump’s proposal that the U.S. construct an “Iron Dome” missile shield like that deployed by Israel. All the questions that have tormented planners in the past will arise again, as will all the objections to any proposed answer. The technological, economic, and political feasibility of each proposed system will be hammered ruthlessly. More, those opposed will object to anything that might make war look more likely. What systems might do that is a question separate from all the others, and equally important.

     Brace for a long, loud, and highly acrimonious public debate.

Jan 28 2025

Assorted

     I’m exhausted, so no clever title today. Just a few squibs.

     This recent column says it plainly, right out in front of God and everybody:

     For those that are attempting to fight climate change, fighting population growth is one of their number one goals. They tell us that on average each additional human produces approximately 4 tons of carbon dioxide per year. So many true believers in this agenda are convinced that reducing population growth is the most important thing that they can do for the environment.

     The World Economic Forum makes it explicit:

     “An average middle-class American consumes 3.3 times the subsistence level of food and almost 250 times the subsistence level of clean water,” according to Professors Stephen Dovers and Colin Butler in their paper, Population and Environment: A Global Challenge.
     “So if everyone on Earth lived like a middle-class American, then the planet might have a carrying capacity of around 2 billion. However, if people only consumed what they actually needed, then the Earth could potentially support a much higher figure.”

     Is that sufficiently clear? We’re not wanted.

     “They” don’t like the current wave of vaccine skepticism:

     Most troubling is [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s] long record of anti-vaccine advocacy. In the past he has claimed that the measles vaccine causes autism despite reams of studies that have found no causative link, and that the polio vaccine might have killed many more than the actual virus. Deadly infectious diseases disappeared because of better hygiene, not vaccines, he asserts.
     He has tried to soften his vaccine skepticism since being nominated, and he now says he won’t take away anyone’s vaccines. He says he merely wants to ensure that vaccines are safe and thoroughly studied—who doesn’t?—and that Americans have access to more information. In Mr. Kennedy’s case, this means opening the industry to lawsuits by the trial bar.

     In other words, RFKJr. wants the vaccine makers, who are currently shielded from liability under federal law, to forfeit that shield. Why should they have it, when any other business found to be making harmful products is fully exposed?

     Why do vaccines receive more liability protection than medicines? For one, the population of potential plaintiffs is much larger for children’s vaccines than for any other medical product. Juries are especially sympathetic when it comes to children, so the payouts and potential liability are also much larger.

     So it’s the amount of money that’s at stake! Poor vaccine tycoons. Whatever will become of them if they must answer for what their products do?

     This sounds suspiciously like a “special pleading.”

     The more I learn about Tulsi Gabbard, the more I like her:

     In April 2003, Gabbard enlisted in the Hawaii Army National Guard. She was at the time already a serving member of the Hawaii House of Representatives. She did not step into some pre-arranged cushy staff job. She enlisted, and she went through basic training like everyone else without any of her drill sergeants even knowing who she was.
     The next year, although she had filed to run for reelection, Gabbard volunteered for a 12-month deployment to Iraq with the Medical Company, 29th Support Battalion, 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. She pulled out of the race and stepped down from office to serve in a war zone. The Army sent her to Iraq where she served with Charlie Med at the Anaconda Logistical Support Area in Baghdad and earned the Combat Medical Badge.
     In an interview later, Gabbard described her decision to go to Iraq this way:

     “That summer, the Hawaii National Guard’s 29th Brigade Combat Team was called up for a deployment to Iraq. I was in a headquarters medical unit and heard very quickly from my commander. He said, ‘Hey Tulsi. Good news. You don’t have to deploy. You’re not on the mandatory deployment roster because somebody else already filled the slot. So you get to stay home.’
     I said, ‘No, I’m not staying home. That’s crazy. There’s no way that I’m going to stay back and watch all of you guys go and deploy to Iraq, while I sit here in this fancy office.’ We went back and forth, he pushed back a little bit, and I pushed back some more. He realized I wasn’t budging. They had a different job in the medical unit that needed to be filled, so I volunteered and took it. I withdrew from my reelection campaign and went to our pre-deployment training at Fort Bliss, Camp McGregor, and Dona Ana, for all the training cycles. We trained there for a few months, then deployed to Iraq for a year after that.”

     After returning from Iraq in March 2007, Gabbard graduated at the top of her class from the Accelerated Officer Candidate School at the Alabama Military Academy—the first woman to do so. She was commissioned as a second Lieutenant and then returned to her National Guard unit as a Military Police officer. She then volunteered to return to the Middle East.
     She served in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009. She worked closely with the Kuwaiti military and was given an award by them on her departure.
     Following her return from Kuwait Gabbard continued to serve in the Hawaii National Guard and was promoted to Major on October 12, 2015. In 2020 she transferred from the National Guard to the U.S. Army Reserve. She was assigned to a California-based unit in the United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne). Gabbard was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on July 4, 2021. As a Civil Affairs officer, Gabbard deployed to the Horn of Africa as part of a Special Operations mission.

     Plainly, Gabbard “walks it like she talks it.” It’s not an infallible indicator of good values and good character, but I can’t think of anything that comes closer.

     Pete Hegseth has taken a leaf from Donald Trump’s playbook and has laid down the law:

     Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth’s message to the US Armed Forces was short – just about 330 words. However, its intent and importance could not have been clearer. America’s military personnel will be warriors again, keenly focused on the threats we face and unfailing in the pursuit of the “Peace through Strength” mission President Donald Trump has stressed for the nation. Hegseth’s words were categorical – not elegant, but clear in meaning.
     During Secretary Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, he was unequivocal in portraying precisely what he was about and what he intended to bring to the Pentagon – a renewed warfighter spirit with lethality and readiness. The new secretary made his case for a more capable military in just three bullet points.

     “We will revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military. We are American warriors. We will defend our country. Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose.
“We will rebuild our military by matching threats to capabilities. This means reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisition process, passing a financial audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies. We will remain the strongest and most lethal force in the world.
“We will reestablish deterrence by defending our homeland — on the ground and in the sky. We will work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by Communist China, as well as supporting the President’s priority to end wars responsibly and reorient to key threats. We will stand by our allies — and our enemies are on notice.”

     That’s how a military should focus. America’s armed forces are asked to do more than any other military in the world. Yet they’ve been used as a kind of social laboratory for bizarre left-wing notions about “diversity,” the “right” of transgender individuals to serve, and other nonsense. Let’s hope the correctives are put in place at once.

Jan 27 2025

“Hostis Humani Generis”

     It’s always a special day when I get to use my Latin. The title phrase means “enemy of all Mankind.” It originally denoted the sort of predator who plies his trade where “the writ of law does not run:” i.e., a stateless region. These days, the principal stateless regions are the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the “high seas.”

     When Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provided Congress with the power:

     To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

     … it addressed the “hostis humani generis” known to that time: oceangoing pirates. Trials for “war crimes” – a famously underdefined phrase – partake of the concept, though I don’t know if it’s ever been made explicit. Similarly, when a nation-state is declared to be “failed,” predators who operate in that region become “enemies of all Mankind,” and are therefore punishable by anyone who has the means and deems the effort worthwhile.

     Of course, that opens the question of what constitutes a failed state, and whether there’s general agreement on it.

     I’ve written about the “failed state” concept on several occasions:

  1. Final Stages
  2. Pretending As Policy
  3. Legitimacy, Its Departure, And What Follows
  4. And also at Liberty’s Torch V1.0

     Probably the closest I’ve come to defining the concept is here:

     The defining characteristic of a state is an organization that possesses the pre-immunized privilege of coercion over those within its scope. Note the qualifier pre-immunized. Many non-state organizations can and do use coercive methods to attain their objectives. However, they remain liable to pursuit and penalty under the law, whatever it might be, should the state decide to act against them. Only the agents of the state are granted immunity – i.e., the presumption of lawfulness – for specified uses of coercion.
     Many organizations seek to become immune to punishment for their coercions. That’s one aspect of the dynamic of corruption: such an organization – assuming it can’t or won’t simply overthrow the existing state and take its place – will attempt to acquire such immunity through bribery, blackmail, or exchange of favors.
     A state which can operate under the presumption of immunity for its deeds is a functioning one. Regardless of the laws it promulgates and whether or not it chooses to enforce them, it has not failed. It maintains its defining difference from the other organizations within its jurisdiction. Inversely, a state whose agents and other subunits are routinely punished for their actions by non-state actors is at the very least in danger of failure. A state some of whose subjects have mounted a credible insurrection against it is in the critical stage that precedes failure, though complete failure might yet be averted. Should the insurrection persist despite the state’s attempts to suppress it, the verdict would become definite.

     Note that by the criteria above, the United States of America was itself a failed state during the Civil War / War Between The States. During that period, there were two states in the region that once constituted the U.S.A.: the Union and the Confederacy. After the war, when reunification had been accomplished, something much like (but not exactly) the original U.S.A. was again a functioning state.

     But what of a state that declines to enforce its laws? Does the reason it declines to do so have anything to do with its being a functioning or a failed state? And what if the enforcement is selective, such that certain groups know they can break the law with impunity, while others must expect it to be enforced upon them?

     Now things get interesting.

     Of course, the reason I who condemn all governments am interested in exploring under what conditions a nation-state can legitimately be deemed failed isn’t because I want to see governments flourish and prosper. But like it or not, governments do cover the habitable land surface of the Earth. Their existence and their power determine a great part of what people must, may, and must not do. One of those things is the punishment of miscreants.

     This story, from Aschaffenburg, Germany, should raise the hair on any decent man’s neck:

     On Wednesday, an Afghan migrant who was living in an asylum center was arrested for stabbing to death a two-year-old child and 41-year-old man on a playground. Two others were injured in the knife attack.
     28-year-old Enamullah O had a history of violent attacks and was in Germany despite having an order to leave the country.
     Workers at a nursery, or what we call a daycare center here in America, noticed the man acting suspiciously and decided to move the children inside. It was at that moment that the Afghan migrant attacked the children killing a two-year-old and then killing a 41-year-old man who attempted to rescue the children.
     It was the latest mass killing by a migrant in Germany.
     Then, at the funeral, Antifa showed up and reportedly insulted family members and friends, accusing them of being fascist.

     Talk about miscreants! Two groups are represented above: Muslim immigrants to Europe, and AntiFa. Both behave in a fashion that would make me comfortable classifying them as enemies of all Mankind and gunning them down wherever they appear. But then, I’m not a state, functional, failed, or anything in between. Most states take a dim view of citizen-imposed punishments. They make the state look less necessary. But wherever the state appears to be falling down on its job of protecting life and property, the impulse is there.

     In America Alone, Mark Steyn wrote:

     ‘Soft power’ is wielded by soft cultures, usually because they lack the will to maintain hard power. Can you remain a soft power for long? Maybe a generation or two. But a soft culture will, by its very nature, be unlikely to find the strength to stand up to a sustained assault by blunter, cruder forces…. On the night of September 11 Muslim youths in northern England rampaged through the streets cheering Islam’s glorious victory over the Great Satan. They pounded on the hoods of the cars, hammered the doors, and demanded that the drivers join them in their chants of “Osama bin Laden is a great man.”
     Try that in Texas, and the guy will reach into his glove box and blow your head off…. But in Britain you’re not allowed to own a gun or even (to all intents and purposes) resist assault. So the unfortunate burghers of Bradford went home cowed and terrified, and the Muslim gangs went swaggering off with their self-esteem enormously enhanced. The bullying, intimidating side of Muslim immigration seems to be largely absent in America, in part at least because the assertiveness of the individual American citizen makes it a riskier undertaking.

     Steyn, a New Hampshire resident, knows what he’s talking about. The contrast he draws is striking. What goes unremarked in that passage is the willingness of many local authorities to condone, sotto voce, such citizen-imposed punishments even as they officially deplore them.

     Such places quietly acknowledge that even on the individual level, some crimes tar the perpetrator as an enemy of Mankind, and therefore fair game for anyone with the will, skill, and armament. Sometimes the police are even candid about it. I know of one locale where the gendarmes have made it known that a homeowner who kills a burglar or trespasser will have police assistance in contriving the appearance of “imminent danger to life or limb,” which justifies a homicide. It’s a very orderly neighborhood.

     This is not an argument that all lawbreakers should be regarded as enemies of all Mankind. But it does point at the tension that exists between those who putatively make the laws and employ the public enforcers, and those who must suffer when those others fail at their duties. At some point – some degree of carnage and theft – law enforcement, the public face of the state, will be popularly deemed to have failed and vigilantism will kick in. Ironically, that recourse to citizen enforcement is the thing that both criminals and states dread most. For then, they are symbiotes in predation. They acquire a common membership in hostis humani generis.

     The government of Germany should ponder its policies toward Muslims and AntiFa before that day comes.

Jan 27 2025

We Gotta Repair The Electoral Process

Because if the Left ever swindles its way back in, surviving the next gulag is terribly unlikely. It surely will be worse than this.

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