Don’t Give Up On Life

     Pascal just forwarded this:

     A father took a gun into hospital to stop doctors taking his son off life support – and during the three-hour stand-off the young man squeezed his hand.
     The sign that he wasn’t brain dead meant he was kept alive – and he is now recovering and doing well.
     His father, 59-year-old George Pickering II, was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after marching into Tomball Regional Medical Center in Texas with a gun.
     His 27-year-old son, George III, had been declared brain dead after suffering a massive stroke in January.
     After doctors declared there was no more hope for him, they ordered a ‘terminal wean’ – whereby life support is slowly withdrawn to end a life….
     During the three-hour standoff, Pickering threatened hospital staff. His other son was eventually able to get the gun from him.
     Pickering admitted to being drunk and aggressive but said it was only because he knew his son wasn’t ready to die.
     During the standoff, Pickering’s faith that his son had been misdiagnosed never wavered and after he finally got the response he wanted from his boy, he surrendered peacefully to authorities.
     ‘During that three hours, George squeezed my hand three or four times on command,’ he said.
     His son later came out of his coma and is now fully recovered.

     This brought tears to my eyes. That a father should defend the life of his helpless child – with armed force – is so rare today that I can’t remember when I last saw a report of it. Consider also that the boy’s mother and brother were willing to see the hospital kill George III. Why? Unknown. But it was his father’s courage and stalwart defense of his son that tipped the scales.

     The “authorities” will undoubtedly try to crucify the elder George Pickering for resisting him. They want their power over life and death to go unchallenged, as is the way with totalitarians and megalomaniacs. I wish him the best in his defense against the myrmidons of the “law.” He saved his son’s life, and for any good man, that is worth any price.

     May God bless and preserve you, George Pickering II – and may your ex-wife and other son reflect upon the horror of what they were willing to allow, and why.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

     Apparently they’re not all stupid:

     Money – “free” money from a supposed benefactor – is more addictive than heroin. Washington has used money addiction to subjugate the fifty states and a number of small countries. If the people of Niger are aware of the danger that comes with “free” money, they’re more aware of the geopolitical hook hidden in it than many supposedly sophisticated international statesmen and no end of American state governors and legislators.

August Miscellany

This information was an eye-opener. The money sent by illegal immigrants to various countries is probably more important for countries other than Mexico. And, the countries’ political leadership is being propped up by the ca$h.

The Senatorial and Congressional Collaborators speak with one voice: For our corrupt partnership‘s sake, don’t impeach Biden!

Oh, imagine that! The Burisma lobbyists and the Ukranian prosecutors were linked.

The Trump prosecutions are an assault on Constitutionally guaranteed rights. No $hit, Sherlock!

The Evil Dictator Putin is giving HIS political enemy a lighter sentence than The Left wants to give Trump.

The Elite Effort to eliminate the unwanted American male is proceeding apace, ably assisted by AI technology, which produces Women Too Hot to be Real.

AI – Doing the Work American Women Won’t Do

It amounts to a way of occupying men, while making actual women unnecessary. It’s all about reducing the numbers of actual citizens, and completing The Great Replacement.

I agree that it’s way past time for the USA to stop China – AND other countries’ nationals – from buying our real estate. Putting limits on foreign citizens/businesses land investment is a practice that is common among industrialized countries.

Are you feeling like someone is watching you? You may be right.

More planned intrusions by the Nanny State – all of which will impinge on YOUR freedoms, not The Entitled Elite.

Can you stand to hear more about Anthony Fauci’s abuses of his “authority”? Here they are!

Newer, Better, Stronger Censorship (is it made with Brawndo?) – courtesy of your Benevolent Overlords! But, don’t fret! You probably won’t even be aware that it’s happening!

There’s more out there, but I have a life to live.

Laugh, Cry, Or What?

     I’m an admirer of Paul Joseph Watson. He’s done many excellent, entertaining-while-informing videos on various aspects of our milieu. Moreover, now and then he touches on something that would otherwise escape the notice of someone like me (i.e., an old fart who sits at a computer whenever he’s not laboring over his house and grounds). The video below is a fine example thereof:

     Yes, it’s ten minutes long. Yes, the informational message is relatively compact. All the same, this is both newsworthy and thought-worthy. And no, you don’t need to be an OnlyFans customer to appreciate its significance.

     We’ve heard a lot about the contemporary problem of male loneliness. It’s real; it’s significant; it mars a lot of lives. Its genesis is multicausal, and quite possibly beyond remediation without extensive changes to the social order that cannot be brought about by anyone’s intention. And it plays a part in the OnlyFans phenomenon.

     But OnlyFans reveals more than the unfulfilled and unfulfillable fantasies of lonely men. Indeed, it’s worthy of deep study. (No, not by marathon-viewing the various models that cater to your fantasies while hoovering your wallet.)

     The bare bones of the thing appear to be just one more Twenty-First Century form of video porn. And I’m sure that for some OnlyFans customers, that’s all it is. But it also caters to aspects of men’s lives that are distinct from sexual fantasy. One of them is the loneliness problem.

     As I wrote above, men’s sense of disconnection from society has several roots:

  • Contemporary women’s shameful treatment of men.
  • The decline of male churchgoing and charitable involvement.
  • The diminution of families and of fathers’ interactions with their children.
  • The cancerous “work till you drop” culture that’s overtaken other priorities.
  • The loss of “back-fence society,” which fueled community interaction in earlier times.

     There are others. Listing them doesn’t soften their influence over men’s lives. And in all justice, it must be said that the items above are not primaries; each has roots in other cultural, economic, and political pathologies. Hans G. Schantz’s brilliant elucidation of a number of those pathologies is highly relevant. It’s within the analytical powers of any Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch to draw the necessary connections.

     To be happy, one must have a sense that one’s life is of some value to others. That value must go beyond one’s ability to earn. A great many men in our time lack that sense.

     The life of the typical middle-class American man has developed so many isolating tendencies that it’s a wonder we don’t have a rash of loneliness-motivated suicides. The consciousness of the lonely man is dominated by a single thought: “I don’t matter to anyone.” And he might be right.

     When real life becomes bleak, the tendency is to take refuge in fantasy. OnlyFans responds to such fantasies, even if monochromatically. The OnlyFans model lures the male viewer by offering him something he can’t get in real life – and the sexual aspect is only one component. Whoever she is, she gives him what he wants. For a monthly fee, he can imagine that he’s the center of her world. The woman in his real life won’t do that. Quite probably she can’t, as she too is burdened in ways unique to our time and place.

     Mull that over for a bit while I put up a fresh pot of coffee.

***

     Fantasy has no natural boundaries. In a fantasy, the rules are whatever the author decrees them to be. He can create a realm in which conditions are exactly as he’d like them to be. He can make himself whatever he would most like to be…and then do whatever he likes, even if he could never do it in real life. A lot of modern fantasy is written in the first person for that reason among others.

     Generative AI can cater to those desires in ways the real world cannot. The surprising advances in AI-generated photos and videos enable it to go beyond what any real woman can offer: unchanging physical perfection, perfect conformance to the viewer’s fantasies, and an unmatchable degree of immersion. Granted that it’s a difference in degree; as Paul Joseph Watson notes in his video, it’s sufficient to make real OnlyFans models look to their levees.

     Needless to say, no one can live full-time in a fantasy realm. The demands of the real world are imperative and unrelenting. They don’t show consideration for anyone’s preferences. He must answer to those demands whether or not he likes the idea. But then, so must she. Real women are slowly becoming aware that men’s sense of disconnection isn’t men’s problem alone.

     There’s a self-reinforcing attribute to alienation. He who feels disconnected gradually closes himself off to his remaining opportunities for connection. His conviction that “I don’t matter” leads to his mattering ever less to ever fewer people. The multitude of escapes into fantasy the Internet provides accelerates that process. And the more certain he becomes that he doesn’t matter to them, they will cease to matter to him, with the concomitant reduction of his attendance upon his responsibilities.

     More anon.

Yes, they really are coming for your children

This is deliberate enemy action.

Just when you think the world cannot get any wackier, Disney says, “Hold my Bud Light” and totally proves you wrong. According to a new report from Breitbart News, the Walt Disney Company has followed in the footsteps of what was once the most popular beer brand in the world by creating a partnership with a crossdressing TikTok influencer to help promote apparel for girls, specifically Minnie Mouse-themed clothing featuring a red dress, yellow pumps, and a red hair bow.

Yes, there’s video at the link. And yes, it’s as creepy as you can imagine.

Remember the phrase “What happens in my bedroom is none of your business”? I honestly ascribed to that philosophy. Hey, your life is your life, and if you want to be a freak in your house you can go for it. But allowing that caused the movement to push out from their bedrooms and into your living room. This mentally ill man is not content to live and let live, he is deliberately targeting CHILDREN. YOUR CHILDREN.

That’s grooming. I don’t give a damn what fancy name you want to call it, that is grooming and it is a deliberate action on the part of Disney.

If I had young children in the home, I wouldn’t let them watch Disney for all the money in the world. Disney has proven that they are not some wholesome content creator like they were decades ago. They are wholly involved in the grooming and sexualizing of children. The Cinderella of yesteryear wouldn’t get made by Disney today, nor would any of the films that I and probably many of you enjoyed as a child. Today it is all about sex, and perversion, and grooming kids to think that perversion is normal. Hell, Disney executives have been caught admitting that they’re pushing that agenda. They really do hate you and think that you’re stupid.

Act accordingly.

The Chronicle of the DC: 7Aug23 Tainting Blood

Red Cross ends blood-donation restrictions that singled out gay and bisexual men

Well, why not? After all, they got away with accepting blood from those who took the clot-shots. Since HIV takes so much longer to achieve the cults’ goals, this decision ought to raise not a ripple now.

What Remains To Be Seen?

     Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. – Originator unknown

     Have you ever heard someone use the phrase “That remains to be seen” to dismiss an argument someone else was making? If you’re above-average eloquent, perhaps you’ve used it yourself. It’s a polite way of doing an impolite thing, much the same as replacing “You’re wrong” with “That turns out not to be the case.” (Or “Are you quite sure of that?” delivered in a mock-solicitous tone, rather than “You need to see your brain-care specialist.”) One who has mastered phrases like that is usually embarked on a career in some disreputable occupation, such as politics.

     Of course, there are propositions for which the evidence is not conclusive…yet. There are many such propositions floating around today. Let’s have a look at a few samples.

***

1. America’s “Multicultural” Society Is Doomed.

     I think it was Mark Steyn who first said that the acceptance of “multiculturalism” is a form of “societal Stockholm syndrome.” This is a telling formulation, for large variations in cultural norms tend to engender intercultural hostility. There’s certainly enough hostility on display today to compel us to ask whether there must be a confrontation that ends with one or another culture supreme and all the others either accepting subjugation or fleeing the country. In such confrontations, the one that’s first to “go militant” tends to have a large advantage.

     Much printer’s ink has been expended to rationalize the rampant crime and violence of American blacks as a mere cultural difference. If we take that at face value, the contrast between a law-abiding homeowner and the home invader who victimizes him is merely an outcropping of “multiculturalism.” And of course, the same could be said about such specimens as strong-arm robber Michael Brown, late of Ferguson, Missouri. Larger instances of such “cultural variations” were observable during the riots of 2020.

     Is it possible for a society founded on public order, a high degree of trust, and open access to “public accommodations” such as retail stores can endure the burgeoning of such “cultural variations?” Or can such variations be tamed and somehow regularized? That remains to be seen.

***

2. Without The Judeo-Christian Ethic, The Law Is Impotent.

     A memorable brief video from Clay Christensen puts that proposition nicely:

     Rose Wilder Lane was of the same opinion:

     The real protection of life and property, always and everywhere, is the general recognition of the brotherhood of man. How much of the time is any American within sight of a policeman? Our lives and property are protected by the way nearly everyone feels about another person’s life and property.

     Lane’s and Christensen’s reasoning is persuasive. Yet there are nations – apparently stable ones – in which the Judeo-Christian ethic is far from dominant. How those nations maintain stability is something to study. It involves totalitarian rule whether autocratic or oligarchic, a disarmed populace, a large, mobile, and powerful force to keep order and suppress dissent, and a far lower degree of affluence than that achieved in the United States.

     The “freedom from religion” movement that first began to blossom in the Sixties may yet be seen as the most destructive though superficially non-violent force ever loosed upon a Western nation. It did not target any of the toxic religions (e.g., Islam, Satanism). Rather, it set its sights on Christianity specifically, almost absolutely. Christianity, in its several flavors, is the source of the ethic for the great majority of the persons of this nation; without it, the young are without an ethical mooring. Far too many go adrift.

     Does the degree of law-abidingness and public order we can enjoy depend upon the near-unanimous acceptance of the Judeo-Christian ethic? Or must we allow that such a society is possible without that ethic, even though no such society exists today? That remains to be seen.

***

3. Sexual Perversion Is The Entering Wedge For Chaos.

     Leftists used to get upset about the U.S. selling weapons to despotic states that were then used to kill women and children, but now they are too concerned about transvestites being allowed to waggle their genitals in front of children to worry about human rights. — Arthur Sido

     “Bringing the war home” – i.e., using the American media to upset Americans over conflicts in other lands where American weapons could be found – was a Leftist tactic for fomenting domestic unrest and opposition to the current federal administration. However, the Left found that it only works to satisfaction when American soldiers are fighting and dying in the conflict of interest. Whether the conflict is one in which the United States has a legitimate interest is essentially irrelevant. No one cares much when America’s sons aren’t on the line. After Vietnam, the Left had to find a new tactic with which to stimulate chaos.

     It found one in sex.

     The original “sexual revolution” of the Sixties was probably not a designed and planned thing, but rather an outcropping of other developments. Consider the decline in fertility, the growing social acceptance of divorce, the availability of cheap and convenient contraception, and the “youth movement.” All of that could have been kept within acceptable bounds. For a time, it was. But the Left spotted an opportunity.

     Homosexuality, bisexuality, promiscuity, and the sexualization of children provided fertile soil for undermining families and thus critically destabilizing the social order. The infiltration of the schools with “sex education” curricula under the rationale of “combatting teen pregnancy” and “fighting venereal disease” was the key. Few Americans realized at first how vital the old norm of heterosexual fidelity was to the structure of our society. But Lenin and others of his persuasion knew. The American Left followed their lead.

     Hearken to the brilliant Arne Stromberg of Gallatin University:

     “Families are the fundamental building blocks of a stable society. Extended families — clans — are the best conceivable environment for the rearing of children, the perpetuation of a commercial forte, and the germination of new families and their ventures. A clan like yours, Miss Albermayer, conserves a brilliant genetic line and a priceless medical specialty at the same time. A clan like yours, Mr. Morelon, makes possible a benign agricultural empire and produces natural leaders one after another while connecting Hope to its most distant origins. And all healthy families, which cherish life and bind their members to one another in unembarrassed love, can find far more to occupy and amuse them than they need.”
     Teresza’s mind lit with memories of the way the Morelons had enfolded her and made her one of them. No day could have been long enough for all they had to say and do and share with one another.
     “When Earth’s regard for families and their most fundamental function deteriorated, her people ceased to enjoy the sorts of ties that had held them together throughout the history of Man. Without families, and especially without children, they groped for other things to fill their time, whether to give them a sense of purpose, or to distract them from the waning of their lives. Some invested themselves in industry or commerce, but without the sense of the family line to be built up and made prominent, those things failed to satisfy. Others immersed themselves in games, toys, fripperies, and increasingly bizarre forms of entertainment, which palled on them even faster. Still others made a fetish out of sex; there was a substantial sex industry on Earth, though it tended to operate in the shadows and was seldom openly discussed. They needed emotion and substance, but all they could contrive was sensation and novelty, and they pumped an ever greater share of their effort and wealth into seeking them. That’s my thesis, for what it’s worth.”

     The weakening of the Judeo-Christian ethic made an inroad for sexual perversions of every sort. Today we even have this:

     Is it possible to have a stable and affluent society without the family and heterosexual fidelity as not merely the prevailing norms, but as requirements for social participation? Is it possible to have a stable, affluent society that doesn’t follow that pattern? That really remains to be seen.

Chiming in

Given the various lawless areas all seem to have quite a few connecting issues, here’s another link in the logic chain.

The issue wasn’t gun laws, it was race. “The study found that in areas with higher black populations, mass shootings are likelier to occur compared to communities with higher white populations,” CNN reported. “The findings disrupt the nation’s image of mass shootings, which has been shaped by tragedies like the Las Vegas festival shooting and Sandy Hook in which most of the victims were not black,” Bloomberg added.

Faced with an immovable statistical object and the unstoppable force of equity, the JAMA paper blames the whole thing on structural racism.

Systemic racism you say? You know what, I’m actually going to agree with that. Systemic racism is indeed the problem. But not in the way that the Marxist morons think.

Back when I was stuck in recruiting, my station commander was a black man from the Carolinas. He was smart. Well educated. Well spoken. A faithful Christian. Happily married and a proud father to three children.

He would go back home to visit his family. Back to the old neighborhood, which was almost exclusively black. And when he would go back, the words that would get thrown at him by the people who lived there, even from his old high school acquaintances, was this: “You ain’t a real nigger.” Those were the exact words.

Did anyone blanche at reading that word? Try turning on urban or hip-hop radio. The sheer number of times you’ll hear that word repeated over and over and over will dull the senses to its use.

It hurt my friend to be dismissed in such a way from his ancestral home. He would come back to the station after leave and say that he had no intention of ever being a “real nigger”. He was proud of who he was, and rightly so. To be told that hard work, morals, integrity and dedication somehow made him less of a black man was flat out insulting to him. Now I ask you, if a man who is a faithful Christian, dedicated husband and father, educated, disciplined and professional, somehow “ain’t a real nigger” (and I’m not calling anyone anything, nor am I trying to define it) then you are free to imagine what kind of behavior it takes to be considered “real”.

And based on what this report has to day, perhaps avoiding those areas of “realness” would be prudent in your future travels.

The Subjugated City

     Time was, New York City was the nation’s commercial Mecca. Businesses fought to establish themselves there. Real estate there was considered the most prestigious on Earth. The city’s harbors, its status as the Eastern Seaboard’s transportation and communications hub, and its extraordinary cultural vitality were lures that few firms could resist.

     Time was. No longer.

     The deterioration of the Big Apple as a desirable place to live, work, and do business began some time after World War II. In the first postwar decades, the city exploded with new arrivals, including many whose lives had begun in places far away. Many of the eleven million soldiers and sailors released from the armed forces took part in the city’s population explosion. The influx was used by the political elite as a rationale for several changes in city law, most notably rent control.

     The city government expanded even faster than the population. So did the city’s various assistance programs for the needy. The combination helped to accelerate the influx, especially that of Negro and Hispanic migrants. What had been an overwhelmingly white city gradually darkened. In 1940, the city’s population was approximately 93.6% white; in 2020, that percentage had dropped to 34.1%.

     As the white percentage of the city has decreased, the frequency and severity of felony crimes have increased.

***

     Quite recently, some moron who goes by the name of Kai Cenat announced a giveaway of PlayStation 5 consoles and other equipment, to take place in New York City’s Union Square at about 3:30 PM. As Cenat has some 20 million followers on social media, that was the stimulus for a huge gathering of teenagers and young adults. The gathering turned into a riot. There followed violence, destruction, and arrests. Cenat himself was one of the arrestees.

     Except for the age distribution of the rioters, the population of the riot appeared demographically close to the city’s own demographics. Here are six of the agitators:

     Would any such event have caused a riot among New Yorkers of 1940? Granted that the PlayStation was developed fifty years later, what could have evoked such behavior? How much of the blame should fall on “social media?” Would a promised shower of dollar bills from the clouds have provoked white youths to such disorder and disrespect for the law?

     New York City has instituted one of the most permissive law enforcement regimes known to history. The police are under orders not to pursue the perpetrators of property crimes against retail businesses. Bail is almost unknown. Despite the crime wave, the rate of prosecution appears to be at an all-time low. As the expected cost of committing a crime has decreased, crime, both misdemeanor and felonious, has increased.

     New York City is under siege by its own residents.

***

     America’s large cities are mostly like this today. Some are worse. The esteemed Maura Dowling has provided some comments:

     We have a lot of ill-bred children starting trouble with no one able to address it appropriately. Where are their parents? This doesn’t bode well for the future.

     Parents? Quite a number of those rioters haven’t seen their fathers in many years. Their mothers lack the will or the force or both to rein them in.

     Maura also supplies several relevant tweets. Please surf over there to view them. The most poignant expression of agony over the affair is this one:

     THIS CITY, THIS COUNTRY CRIES OUT FOR SOMEONE TO STOP THIS MADNESS.

     “Someone.” A Man on Horseback to ride forth and cleanse America’s cities? How? There is no salvation in politics. Electing the “right” people wouldn’t quell the madness. The thing has grown beyond any possibility of remediation by municipal police departments. We the People – at least, those who live in the great cities – have abdicated the responsibility. Even were we to resume it, where is the will for the task?

     We are under siege by savages of our own breeding and importation. Those savages, having realized that the “forces of order” either cannot or will not act against them, are doing what comes naturally. They’re doing the things savages do. And you cannot have public order under those conditions.

     But savages will always do savage things. Wrist slaps won’t discourage them. Jail terms won’t do so either. Expulsion from the country — preferably to some savage place where their acting-up is the regular order of things — is the next step. And it had better work, because after that comes violence.

     Remember those laudable Sikh store owners? That’s not the terminus of the development. They didn’t try to kill that shoplifter.

     When I wrote the short story embedded in this piece, I still harbored substantial hope that the descent into open savagery could be halted and reversed. That hope is down to a fine thread. We are on the verge of losing what order remains and descending into Hobbes’s “war of each against all.”

     If the law is too mild, private vengeance comes in. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Petrichor

Like our host here, I too have spent much of the day in a rather disagreeable mood. However, I was able to at least have some small measure of enjoyment. We had rain today, after weeks of rather warm weather. And the smell of the rain on the soil is something that I’ve always enjoyed throughout my life. This area has a unique smell to it that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else, and every time I came home on leave the smell would put a sense of belonging in my heart.

The fact that we have two fires close to home, and any moisture in the ground is a good thing, is also quite heavy on my mind.

As for the news, well…. I don’t need to get unpleasant while I still have the smell of the rain.

Angry Day Off

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. I did have a topic in mind for today, but I’m afraid I’m in no condition, emotionally, to write calmly and dispassionately. I’ve been struggling with a completely unsatisfactory purchase and shipment from Midland Radio and must spend at least a few hours emitting live steam over it. So while I might be back later on today, I wouldn’t give odds on it.

     Have a nice Transfiguration Sunday.

Been Posting at Alternative Site

I’m kinda a belt & suspenders person – don’t trust just ONE thing.

So, I started a Substack site. That’s the place I post when my content doesn’t seem to fit the more serious work on this site. You guys are reasoned, analytical, and learned.

I’m mostly goofy and easily amused.

When I have something more serious to post, that I feel both knowledgeable and passionate about, I look here. When I am working more off the cuff, I post there. It seems to work for me.

But, I think EVERY blogger/writer should go at least a little wide. Have outlets that TPTB can’t easily screw with, shut down, or deplatform. For those who might want to point out that I haven’t PROVEN that the government has been involved with those actions, here’s my response:

I always loved the memes with this kid in them (I do hope he gets some money out of his popularity, but – honestly – I doubt it).

Even as more and more people are becoming aware that something is not right with this republic, it too often gets displaced onto more convenient targets than those responsible.

In America, we generally have a good life:

  • A roof over our head
  • Indoor toilets
  • Sufficient food and water to keep us alive and feeling fed
  • Except for a few Democratic-run hellholes, safe neighborhoods (most crime is low-level and committed by morons, not armed killers)
  • At least one car per family (If you are one of the 8.3% without access to a vehicle, you have my sympathy – I rode public transportation for years, even after having my 3 children. We generally had one not all that reliable vehicle, but I had no license.)
  • Regular source of money
  • Access to schools (OK, that’s a dubious benefit, but in much of the world, parents have to choose which of their children will attend, as it costs)
  • Protection of a Constitution limiting what government is permitted to do. The Left is doing their best to shred that document, but – so far – it’s not gone completely.
  • A robust alternative media – initially blogs and podcasts, but the rise of video channels is skyrocketing, and there seems to be little slowing that down. A few hardy souls have taken on the challenge of hosting their own channels/outlets. Substack, so far, is allowing dissidents to make their mark without the cost of essentially starting their own media company.

I know most of us have busy lives – work, family, household, necessary activities – if both spouses are working, it can stretch time available to the breaking point.

And, yet, here we are, pushing you to prep and stock up, spend time educating yourself and your family on the issues at stake, and work to shore up your community. When can you find the time for anything more?

I really don’t know. I’m currently stretched myself.

And, yet, I do carve out some time for sounding the alarm.

It comes from time not spent in bed, luxuriating in a soft mattress and no need to get up to go to work.

It comes from cutting down my time spent watching TV, hobbies, and (this part is no sacrifice) ignoring household chores.

What in your life could be cut down or eliminated to make time? How serious are you about the impending end of our Republic? Is it worth sleeping one less hour? Letting the grass grow another week?

What are you prepared to do?

No Courage In Politics

     Just in case you’ve spent the last five years in a coma, the federal government of these United States, currently under occupation by the Ukraine-China-Democrat combine, is doing its damnedest to persuade Us the People that to question its legitimacy is against the law. Every now and then one of its boughten allies in the media edges close to saying that outright. Such persons are usually hustled offstage for reeducation in the fine art of political fan-dancing. However, recent indicators suggest that a great light may have dawned among the strategists of the regime, such that its attempts to suppress contrary opinions might soon slacken.

     One cannot steal an election unless the desired outcome can be made plausible.

     The theft of the 2020 presidential election just barely satisfied that criterion. The distribution of fraudulent votes had to be carefully designed to make it appear that urban areas in six swing states had overcome substantial leads for Donald Trump at the very last second of ballot-gathering. In a way, the design was a triumph of the political art. It only became clear in the aftermath, as the county-by-county map was colored in, that it was a massive deceit.

     Today, Donald Trump looks poised to regain the White House come November 2024. The Usurpers are terrified, for Trump is likely to want vengeance for the crimes of 2020. Should the evidence finally escape from behind the legacy media’s veil, he’ll get it in spades. So it becomes imperative that Trump be prevented from returning to the Oval Office…but how?

     The Democrats have no candidate. After the events of the three years past, Joe Biden couldn’t win an election for assistant dogcatcher. Kamala Harris is the least popular federal official since Albert Fall. The kingmakers of the Left might try to present Gavin Newsom as the man of the hour, but his record in California is too vividly on display for him to reach the political summit. So they must contend against the most popular man in America with an empty hand, in an election they cannot plausibly steal.

     Electoral politics doesn’t admit the bluff. They can’t keep raising the stakes in hope that Trump will fold. Their only hope is that somehow Trump can be denied the Republican nomination. Given that the Establishmentarians of the GOP despise Trump quite as much as the Democrats do, this is not a foolish thing to hope. That’s the point of all the indictments on ludicrous charges.

     Special Counsel Jack Smith is aware of the charges’ ludicrousness. He’s been there before, as witness two unanimous Supreme Court overturnings of his convictions of other officials. More, he’s already committed at least one offense against the rules of criminal proceedings. He’s probably aware that even if a Washington D.C. jury should return a guilty verdict on any of the charges, an appellate court will vacate the conviction. So his game is one of timing: Can he prolong the criminal trials sufficiently to prevent Trump from securing the GOP’s nomination?

     It’s not impossible, but it will take one hell of an effort. And Trump might not agree to play along. As Athena Thorne writes, he could use these criminal indictments as fuel for a campaign of popular outrage, transforming the farce into a cause celebre. That would turn the Usurpers’ notable lack of courage – their unwillingness to face him in a straight contest for the nation – into an asset for him.

     Courage has always been lacking in politics. They who seek political elevation are seldom men willing to face a severe, probing test of their character. Sometimes the matter is made quite plain. For example, when the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act reached President George W. Bush’s desk, he signed while openly proclaiming it unconstitutional – as it was later found to be by the Supreme Court. Why did Dubya sign an unconstitutional bill? Because it had powerful support among the legacy media, which would have stormed at him for weeks over a veto. He lacked the courage to face those consequences, so he left the job to the Justices of the Supreme Court, who don’t have to face the voters.

     While there are still facets of this prosecution to unfold, its nature as a political act rather than a quest for justice has already been made plain. The Usurpers have staked all their chips on Jack Smith’s ability to keep Trump from campaigning as the Republican nominee. Slanted polls and cheerleading from the harridans of The View cannot make plausible a second presidential-election hijacking. How long it will take the game to play out, we must wait and see.

What a GREAT Dad!

And, don’t we ALL want a Dad like that!

Speaking of transitions

I’m old enough to remember when almost everybody thought that grooming young children for sex was a bad idea.

A University professor has claimed kids should be exposed to adult genitalia to prepare them for the possibility of seeing a naked trans person, in a shocking jab at swimmer Riley Gaines.

Of course it’s a professor. A “journalism” professor at that. Institutions of supposed “higher” education in America have shown that the only thing high about them are the drugs, the level of sexually transmitted diseases, and the amount of Marxist bullshit flowing out of them.

A civilization that refuses to protect its children from sexual predators will find itself crumbling soon enough, and as of right now the entire Democrat party is pushing the grooming of children at an accelerated rate. The Cult of the Almighty Orgasm is in control of the Left, and has been for quite some time. Lust, sexual perversion and debauchery have been held high as somehow moral by the Left, and so it’s no surprise to see them pushing to remove yet another barrier.

As far as I’m concerned, anyone trying to push kids to observe adult genitalia needs to be locked up, if not publicly executed for child abuse. Yes, I’m that serious. The trauma that abused children suffer lasts a lifetime. No child should be abused, period. And sexual abuse twists the growing mind of a child. I return once again to a paragraph from the book “The Last Closet”, because it explains quite a bit in just a few words:

What sets gay culture apart from straight culture is the belief that early sex is good and beneficial, and the sure knowledge (don’t think for a second that they DON’T know) that the only way to produce another homosexual is to provide a boy with sexual experiences BEFORE he can be “ruined” by attraction to a girl.

The reason they want to push sexuality on children is because they want to have sex with children. The reason they want your son/daughter to see a penis is because they want to show their penis to your son/daughter, right before they do other things to him./her.

Act accordingly.

Warning: Transition In Progress

     The most dangerous time for the people of a country transitioning from freedom to tyranny is the period of transition itself. The events of the transition period are invariably bloody. However, those events are also educational. Once the opposition has been destroyed, the survivors are aware of what it will take to remain survivors. Any that don’t absorb the lesson won’t be around for much longer.

     The United States has entered such a period. We’re in the slow but steady acceleration phase of the transition, during which the tyrants’ forces must gather speed in a judicious manner. The process must not go too swiftly at first, lest it awaken too wide an awareness, and a spirit of resistance. Here as in other, related processes, gradualism is the name of the game.

     During the transition, the moral standing of the citizenry is tested with increasing severity. Part of it arises from the multiplication of moral hazards, as Gonzalo Lira once told us. Changes in public policy can create situations in which doing the wrong thing is more profitable than cleaving to what is demonstrably right. But possibly more stressful are new opportunities to use unjust laws against one’s fellow man, for one’s own advantage.

     The classic, which has been in force for a long time now, is the IRS’s “snitch” program, which rewards those who tattle on others for tax evasion. This isn’t confined to reporting on others who’ve submitted not-quite-correct tax returns. Snitch Smith can allege that neighbor Jones has been bartering, or earning “under the table,” or even that he’s simply “living beyond his means” with no indication of how. In many cases, the allegation need never be substantiated for Smith to receive payment. Similar programs exist at the state level for persons who report others for the violation of other laws. Drug use and drug dealing are among the most frequent accusations.

     Such possibilities, and the dollar-signs-in-the-eyes effects they have on the morally unsteady, will multiply as the transition period wears on.

     A third set of tests arises from the implicit destruction of traditionally recognized and conventionally understood rights. Such things as the right to freedom of expression or freedom of movement are being undermined. Where they were once honored as unconditional – i.e., that no government at any level has a say about who, where, when, or how they were exercised – they’re increasingly being converted into things that require government permission. But a right is not a permission; it’s an inherent property of the individual by reason of his membership in Mankind. To demand that he obtain some government functionary’s permission to exercise a right is to deny that it is a right.

     The following three links are illustrative:

     Add to the above the many cases of pro-life protestors being arrested and tried for their protests, and the denial of the well-established, Supreme-Court-confirmed right of the individual to keep and bear arms.

     I could go on, but I think the point will stand. If the law deviates from the defense of rights, those who dislike you will have an incentive to use the law to wound you. Often it doesn’t matter whether you’re acquitted at trial…or whether you’re ever brought to trial. “The process is the punishment,” as they say, and governments can make the process as long and arduous as they please. Think about “civil asset forfeiture,” which occurs under an evidence-free presumption of a criminal offense. You have no power to prevent such a seizure; resistance would get you killed. In many cases, the seized money or goods are never returned.

     All of the above facets of the transition period act to separate us from one another, and to reduce our willingness to trust one another. It hardly matters on which end of the abuse one stands, for Smith will know that just as he has abused Jones, Jones – or Davis, or White, or Green, or Brown, or Black – could easily do it to Smith.

     People think of the descent to tyranny as a period when armed and uniformed men are battering down doors and hauling helpless citizens away to face sham trials in star chamber courts. The reality is much less dramatic…and much more threatening to the social fabric that makes trust possible.

Unpleasant Foresight

     Four years ago, I made a video in which I predicted, among other things, that if the mushrooming political polarization of the American people should continue as it had begun, hospitals would soon refuse treatment to patients of the “wrong” political persuasion. That video, much to my surprise, is still up at YouTube. Not quite to my surprise, what I foresaw has essentially come true:

     A report has revealed that a woman has been denied cancer treatment at a Portland area hospital after she criticized the facility for displaying the trans flag.
     The woman in question was identified only as Marlene to protect her identity. She sent a message to conservative activist Chaya Raichik on her popular social media account Libs of Tiktok revealing what happened to her.
     As one can see, Marlene’s message was originally sent to a person at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) Hospital after multiple prior communications with staff there.

     Please read the whole thing. If you’re not utterly outraged, check your pulse: you may have died and not noticed.

     For emphasis, have a few links from earlier this week. First, the explicitly trans-activist ones:

     Cuddly little beggars…or should that be buggers? Ah well. Here are two more links, not trans-activist but definitely Leftist and death cultish:

     This is your country, Gentle Reader. It’s here, it’s now, and unless you rear up on your hind legs and bellow a challenge – I believe this is called “throwing down?” – it will only intensify.

     Please watch that four-year-old video and ponder what other bits of its prognostications are now a reality among us.

Too Much Honesty For Public School

Shamelessly stolen from Western Rifle Shooters:

(I want to vote for that kid for President!)

This Warmed The Cockles Of My Spiny Little Heart

     I’ve said it’s coming. I’ve told you to watch for it. Well, it’s here – and I say it’s about BLEEP!ing time!

     While a voice from an unpictured, and presumedly black, commentator says “nothing you can do…you got insurance,” two Sikh immigrants in California have actualized the consequences of this recent aspect of contemporary American life.

     Remember this classic exchange from a 1974 movie?

Paul Kersey: Nothing to do but cut and run, huh? What else? What about the old American social custom of self-defense? If the police don’t defend us, maybe we ought to do it ourselves.
Jack Toby: We’re not pioneers anymore, Dad.
Paul Kersey: What are we, Jack?
Jack Toby: What do you mean?
Paul Kersey: I mean, if we’re not pioneers, what have we become? What do you call people who, when they’re faced with a condition or fear, do nothing about it, they just run and hide?
Jack Toby: Civilized?
Paul Kersey: No.

     In point of fact, the police do not exist to defend us from criminals. Their role is to protect the criminals from us. Look at the video in that tweet and think about it. Under the penal law, what sort of penalty would that thief suffer for his petty crime? At worst, he’d be treated to free room and board for a couple of months, probably in company with others like him who would teach him a few more “tricks of the trade.” He’d be unlikely to come out covered with bruises, or with a broken limb. Those Sikhs are administering the sort of penalty that will give pause to those who think like him.

     Think for a moment about the etymology of the word deterrence. What does the typical thief really fear? A brief spell as an all-expenses-paid guest of the state, or the sort of treatment the miscreant in that video received?

     No partial credit!

A Depressing Correlation

     Trying to draw a causal connection between a measurable thing and an immeasurable thing can be an exercise in self-deception. Even so, some contemporary phenomena are important enough to make the effort. The decline in American birth rates is one such vital factor – in the exact sense.

     As Mark Steyn has said, the future belongs to those who show up for it. American birth rates suggest that the American future won’t be rosy. This page gives the U.S. fertility rate – i.e., the average number of live births per couple for the indicated year – recorded from 1950 through 2023.

     The “ZPG” rate, at which the population stays steady in the absence of immigration, is 2.1 live births per couple. The U.S. has been below that rate since 1973. Since 2017, we haven’t even managed 1.8 live births per couple. Our population is being sustained by immigration.

     Why aren’t Americans reproducing? There are several reasons, many of which I’ve discussed here and elsewhere. Today, I have a new one for the list. It seems particularly ominous to me.

***

     Greg Gutfeld isn’t to everyone’s taste. All the same, I haven’t caught him concealing or shading the truth. In this tirade, he notes a development that you can confirm for yourself:

     So is our imagination overactive or are people becoming less attractive? It’s something that I’ve noticed. Go anywhere and you see how fitness has become fatness. Meanwhile, people take perfectly good hair and dye it blue or purple, while others just let themselves go. But now science is proving me right. It’s the theory presented by a fellow named Shafee Hassan, who apparently is a facial analyst. A facial analyst? Sounds like the most prized job at Pornhub. Actually, Mr. Hassan runs an Australian facial esthetics consultancy firm that uses artificial intelligence to analyze people’s faces. In response to a question about why old high school yearbooks contain so many attractive people compared to today, he writes, The average person’s face is becoming increasingly disadvantaged by modern diet, sleeping patterns, pollutants and orofacial habits, creating a greater inequality in the attractives versus the unattractives.” So there you go. As predicted, now, even faces are disadvantaged. Maybe we can bus them onto more attractive people. But if we’re all getting uglier, the Democrats would call that equity.

     It’s worth reading in its entirety, though the above snippet is sufficient to light off this screed. Contemporary anti-aesthetic trends – especially the proclamation that “all bodies are beautiful” – is making Americans less attractive to one another. Is it too much of a stretch to think that might be part of the cause of our declining reproduction rate?

     Physical attraction is a precondition for the mating dance. No one – of my acquaintance, anyway – goes looking for a mate with no criteria for the mate’s appearance. Is he tall enough, fit enough, clean enough? Is she sufficiently well-proportioned, well dressed, well groomed? Does he / she exhibit the desire to present an attractive appearance to the opposite sex, or does he / she display indicators of the opposite desire?

     A couple is unlikely to couple without the partners finding one another at least adequately attractive. It’s especially unlikely to couple with reproductive intent. Sexual desperation will only take one so far.

     Yes, there are other factors, but this one should be kept in mind.

***

     The “Men Going Their Own Way” movement and men’s growing indifference toward marriage and family threatens the future of America as we have known it. Our population may continue to grow, as it has for a long time now, but that growth will be fueled by immigrants. I hardly need note explicitly that a lot of recent immigrants have no love for America, its founding values, or its culture.

     Yes, yes, it’s legendarily difficult to get people to breed for the sake of a future they won’t see. But the trend deserves reflection, especially when one reflects, as I do all too often, on the ascendancy of the death cults in our society.

     I’ll let Gutfeld conclude for me:

     It feels as if we as a society have given up. Look at the cities and entertainment and travel. Hell, we don’t even expect our models on the cover of swimsuit rags to be in shape, much less thin. And when we’re forced to accept it as appealing, it just doesn’t ring true. So this isn’t about ugliness. It’s about a denial of truth. As Keats said, “Beauty is truth and truth is beauty.” Beauty or an aspiration for it somehow always leads you to a truth about life. Like Shakira said, “The hips don’t lie,” especially when they’re in two different area codes.

     Verbum sat sapienti.

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