Aug 12 2023

The Romans Understood This

     So did the greatest science-fiction writer of the Twentieth Century:

     “To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives….Force, if you will!—the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Axe. Whether it is exerted by ten men or ten billion, political authority is force.” – Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

     Heinlein published that novel in 1959. Over the sixty-four years since its debut, it’s been pummeled about for virtually every characteristic it possesses…but seldom for the insight above.

     Apparently, presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has openly found some fault with the American scheme of enfranchisement. He’s proposed a Constitutional amendment to raise the age of enfranchisement to 25. That would be a sharp departure from the trends of the past few decades, over which the franchise has been extended to ever larger and more dubious groups. Glenn Reynolds discusses the notion here:

     The first part of the proposal echoes a column I wrote some years ago about raising the voting age. After some unfortunate events at Yale and the University of Missouri, I wrote:

     To be a voter, one must be able to participate in adult political discussions. It’s necessary to be able to listen to opposing arguments and even — as I’m doing right here in this column — to change your mind in response to new evidence.

     This evidence suggests that, whatever one might say about the 18-year-olds of 1971, the 18-year-olds of today aren’t up to that task. And even the 21-year-olds aren’t looking so good.

     Hard to disagree, isn’t it? But your Curmudgeon digresses. Mike Hendrix adds a concurrence:

     In the days following our Founding the franchise was limited to landowners, based on the idea that, pace Heinlein, they’d earned the right to vote via having what one might call skin in the game. After reading Starship Troopers about, oh, a dozen times, the relentless drumbeat advocating endless expansion of the franchise started to clang quite discordantly in my ear. The problem we have, it seemed to me, isn’t that not enough Americans vote, but that way too many of them do.

     It is from here that your Curmudgeon will begin.

***

     Way, way back at Eternity Road, your Curmudgeon wrote:

     There’s an election coming in November of a hypothetical year. Said election will determine who will hold offices at the federal, state, county, and town levels; more, there are referenda to be decided at the three local levels. All these elections are important — and the various levels of government affected have resolved to treat them that way. So a new system has been instituted.

Early in June of the year, John Q. Smith receives mailed notices from each of four Boards of Elections: one each from the federal, state, county, and town levels. Why four? Because the qualifications for voting, and the offices and referenda of interest, are unique for each. Each notice instructs him that as an enfranchised citizen presumptively qualified to vote in that division’s upcoming elections, should he submit a tax receipt (for a tax paid to that division) for a statutorily determined amount in the enclosed envelope, he will receive a ballot for that division’s elections no later than October 1.

     That essay drew a lot of flak, for a predictable reason: it implies that there is no “right” to vote. Indeed, there is not and has never been a “right to vote.” The privilege of voting, a.k.a. “the franchise,” is conferred upon the individual by the political entity upon whose officials and referenda he may vote. If it were not so, non-citizens, felons, and children of all ages would be enfranchised. That has never been the case, here or in any other country that permits elections.

     The great Frederic Bastiat discoursed on the logic behind this:

     The motive is that the elector or voter does not exercise this right for himself alone, but for everybody. The most extended elective system and the most restricted elective system are alike in this respect. They differ only in respect to what constitutes incapacity. It is not a difference of principle, but merely a difference of degree. If, as the republicans of our present-day Greek and Roman schools of thought pretend, the right of suffrage arrives with one’s birth, it would be an injustice for adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why are they prevented? Because they are presumed to be incapable. And why is incapacity a motive for exclusion? Because it is not the voter alone who suffers the consequences of his vote; because each vote touches and affects everyone in the entire community; because the people in the community have a right to demand some safeguards concerning the acts upon which their welfare and existence depend.

     Ignore for the moment Bastiat’s casual and highly inaccurate use of the word “rights.” The point “should” be clear: Each vote potentially affects the outcome of the election in which it’s cast. The point of the election is to confer political authority — force — on someone or something. When a man votes, he is stating his choice for who and what will be permitted to wield force over him.

     Give that a few moments’ thought.

***

     Of the above observations and quotes, the most important one is from Mike Hendrix:

     The problem we have, it seemed to me, isn’t that not enough Americans vote, but that way too many of them do.

     Mike implies a question that he does not stay to answer. (Shades of Pontius Pilate!) It’s plain that many who do vote should not. To whom, then, shall we entrust the franchise, confident that it will be used “properly?” Bearing in mind that the exercise of the franchise confers political authority – the privilege and power of wielding coercive force over others – upon the winner of each election?

     Your Curmudgeon is a curmudgeon: viz., a permanently cranky old man who’ll argue with anyone about his position on any subject, from the highest and most abstract propositions all the way down to what condiments belong on what cold cuts. Moreover, he’s been thus since he was about five. It doesn’t earn him a lot of love, but it does occasion some lovely arguments. Today’s topic for argument is one of his favorites, even though it can be summarized in a single short sentence:

Who “should” have power over you?

     Answer it for yourself. Take your time. Ponder the question in its widest scope, for there is no question of greater consequence. Then, when your brain has cooled to some semblance of rationality, consider your Curmudgeon’s answer:

Not you, Bubba.

     …for all values of “you.”

     Refute it if you can. And do have a nice day.

Aug 11 2023

The death of America (Long live America!)

Back on the ye oldde Goolag blog, I had a tag that I used quite a bit called “The Death of America”, highlighting all the various ways that this country was dead and gone. A zombie, shambling around with no brain, no heart and no soul. Yesterday, our host asked if we were awake yet. Here’s a sampling of the various alarm clocks that have crossed over my reading lists.

Our government kow-tows to China before acting on energy policy. This is just another sign of how compromised Joe Biden in particular and the establishment in general are by China, and how little interest they have in keeping America strong.

Joe Biden is not in charge of his own bowl movements, much less anything else that’s going on in this country. Drooling Joe the Chinese Hand Puppet wanders from room to room, searching in vain for the nice woman who promised him some pudding, while unknown *cough*Obama*cough* people run the country.

Do I need to link to the multiple political prosecutions of Donald Trump? I’m rather tired of the man, and yet I would low-crawl through a mile of broken glass to vote for him if it meant that I could cause damage to the Deep State and the establishment that deep state supports.

The completely open border, and the regime’s operations to bring in as many illegal aliens as possible to overwhelm the American systems.

The targeting of Catholics as domestic terrorists. Who knew that praying the Rosary was a revolutionary act? I would note that the many terrorist-linked mosques don’t receive the same treatment as nuns and priests who offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

The Soviet-style persecution of political enemies, and the destruction of evidence regarding that persecution. If you needed any proof that the Democrats are emulating their heroes of the USSR, the January 6th show trials should wipe away any doubt. Hell, the entire thing was a Fed-instigated event.

Pretty damn dark, innit?

America as we know it IS dead. And it’s not coming back. But I feel better about the future than I have in a good long time. Despite the number of brain-dead liberals in Northern Idaho (from Kommiefornia, Portland and Seattle) the number of people who are awake and watching the world go to hell is astoundingly high. One of my neighbors, who’s wife is a dear thing but somewhat naive, related a story to me a few days ago after they saw a report about the jihadi asshole in North Dakota who had over two thousand rounds of ammunition in his home. The wife asked “Who has that much ammo?” to which the neighbor just started giggling and directed her to go look into their gun safe.

The people looking around and preparing for the eventual collapse of the former USA aren’t just 80 year old war vets limping around on canes, they’re my age or younger. Yeah, there’s a lot of young, idealistic drones with multi-colored hair and nose piercings, but there’s just as many people who you wouldn’t look at twice who have the ability to not only survive the collapse, but they have the ability to fuck things up for the bad guys.

Connections are being made every day by the people who keep the world running. It’s not the liberal activist that people actually need, it’s the farmer with the heritage breed of pigs who knows animal husbandry. And we know it.

I don’t know what your little part of the world is like, but I can tell you that from my foxhole?

We’re awake.

Now the question becomes “What the hell are we going to do about it?” Honestly, I think that the most likely course of action is that people here continue to prepare for the collapse, and then when it happens we try to insulate ourselves from the liberal shitholes and continue on our lives. Living well is the best revenge, and while we might not be living in luxury, if we’re eating pork while the commies are eating rats (if they have any!) that’s living pretty damn well. Whatever works for you in your area, go for it. Just remember that the American government is corrupt and rotten to the core. You might be able to excise away the rot, maybe, but that rot is alive and it will fight you the entire time. The second most likely scenario in my book is that the Feds pull another Waco or Ruby Ridge, and the local population begins sending their disagreement at 2800 fps. If it goes kinetic, all bets are off. Nobody wins, although some people are going to lose much worse than the other side.

Act accordingly.

Aug 11 2023

Alternatives

     Utopia is not one of the options. — David Bergland

     This is likely to be a ramble, but it addresses one of the most important of all axioms in…well, in life, so I hope my Gentle Readers will bear with me for a few hundred words.

     Every human being engages in a decades-long exercise that no one can spare him. The conventional term for this is consciousness: specifically, his consciousness of his own individual existence and what it implies. Consciousness imposes an inexorable duty on its possessor: the duty to choose what he will do with his next moments. (For the hecklers in the peanut gallery, that includes the possibility of doing nothing at all, an alternative that’s always available.)

     The critical word in the above paragraph is choose. When a man is conscious, he must choose what to do next. But choice always occurs within an envelope of alternatives. Those alternatives vary according to the identity of the chooser and the context he inhabits at the moment of his choice. He must select from among them; he cannot demand that God provide him with a different set, or with some possibility that isn’t among them. In colloquial terms, we can do only what we can do.

     We’re seldom acutely focused on that aspect of existence. We deal with it in our varied ways, but we don’t often ponder it.

     Awareness of the finitude of our possible courses of action doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll be happy about it. We might yearn for some alternative that’s unavailable to us. We might resent having to choose from these alternatives, at this time, in this place. But the imperative of choice will be there nevertheless.

     Thus also with politics and nations. An old TV movie, The Missiles Of October, which addressed the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, concludes with a meeting between President John F. Kennedy and his inner circle of advisors. The meeting takes place after a deal has been reached between the Kremlin and Washington over the IRBMs the Soviets had placed in Cuba. In discussing the details of that deal, one of those advisors asks why the U.S. could not demand that the Soviets adhere to some demand that wasn’t “on the table.” President Kennedy, ably played by William Devane, responds temperately that “We’re not all-powerful; we have limits.” And so it is and always will be.

     Regardless of the level of government one inspects, a political entity will not have an unbounded range of alternatives from which to choose. Scarcity of resources, including the availability of time, money, appropriate personnel, and so forth limit every legislature’s and every executive’s choices. Except in totalitarian dictatorships, they will also be confined by legal restraints. No matter the specifics, the question of the hour is never “What would we like to do?” but “What can we do?”

     As president, Donald Trump did the best he could with what he had. Many of his moves had to be through executive orders: i.e., orders to the personnel of the executive branch of the federal government to do (or not to do) something that was within their legal scope and their capabilities. But executive orders can be annulled or reversed, as the installation of Joe Biden has demonstrated. That doesn’t condemn Trump’s moves; it merely underscores the conditions under which he had to govern, and the limited alternatives from which he had to choose.

     When November 2020 arrived, the American electorate had to choose between Trump and Biden. There were no feasible alternatives to those two candidates. Yes, theoretically the whole nation could have written in Ron or Rand Paul, but that was never in the cards. Leaving aside the corruption that tainted the balloting – and there was plenty – the votes that mattered were for one of those two names.

     We could lament that we had to choose from that selection. Lamenting costs nothing. But it also changes nothing.

     NeverTrumpers chose to support a demonstrably senile man of no actual accomplishments and anti-American policy inclinations rather than for the admittedly abrasive real estate magnate who had already demonstrated significant governing prowess. Why? No doubt each of them could give us quite a litany. Their choices – to say nothing of their willingness to accept a fatally fraudulent election process and support its beneficiary – helped to give us the circumstances we face today.

     If Donald Trump should gain the GOP nomination for the presidency in 2024, he’ll face either the Dementia Patient in Chief or some even less palatable Leftist. If you, Gentle Reader, decide to participate in that election, that will be the choice you’ll face. Whatever Trump’s failings, he was and still is the better alternative. Wishing for a candidate of perfectly stainless reputation who has never uttered an ill-chosen word and selects his Cabinet appointees with infinite wisdom will change nothing.

     Of course, there will be other alternatives, from among which anyone may choose. They’ll include declining to vote. That’s the right of every franchise holder. And once the ultimate candidates are presented to us, that might prove to be the best alternative available.

Aug 11 2023

BETTER RED THAN DEAD

BETTER RED THAN DEAD wasn’t real when Red meant communist in the 1960s.

Since the 2000 election, MSM in lockstep with USA Today, dyed the Reds blue, and assigned Americans as red.

Today, with our ruling class religiously believing their decimation of us by any means possible will “save the planet,”

BETTER RED THAN DEAD

sincerely needs to be comprehended as factual.

Aug 10 2023

Clown World and Death Cults

There are times when I wonder if the people put into administrative and bureaucratic roles in our government are either evil, or simply incompetent. I’m going to have to go with “Evil” on this one.

Remdesivir may be the most despised drug in American history, earning the nickname Run Death Is Near for its lethal record during COVID. Experts claimed that it would stop COVID; instead, it stopped kidney function, then blasted the liver and other organs. Now this reviled destroyer of kidneys has been approved by the FDA for COVID treatment of kidney patients. Does anybody else feel as if the FDA is shoving its power in our faces and laughing at us?

That’s right, a drug known for killing people’s kidneys is now approved by the FDA for treating kidney disease.

That’s like approving bullets for fighting lead poisoning.

One of my long-time internet pals is fond of remarking that every single commercial with the phrase “You may be entitled to compensation!” is for a product that the FDA had once approved. (Hi there Drum! I promise I’ll stop by and visit once I’m able to take that motorcycle trip!) The cancer that eventually felled my father was linked to exposure to Agent Orange, an FDA approved herbicide that the government swore up and down was perfectly safe to use in massive quantities around humans. The FDA was claiming that there was no way Agent Orange could cause cancer well into the 80s as vet after vet was coming down with cancer.

My horrible eyesight could be fixed with something called an Implantable Collamer Lens, or ICL for short. I’m not a candidate for Lasik surgery, but an ICL would do the trick. But the ICL that could help me hasn’t been approved by the FDA. If I had ten grand per eye I could go into Canada and have it done, but here in the USA? Not a chance, because the FDA says no.

But the FDA will approve a drug that destroys kidneys to treat kidneys. Hey, you know what this forest fire needs? MOAR GASOLINE!

Everyone in the group knows about the financial incentives that drove the hospital’s insistence on Remdesivir. The federal government paid hospitals a staggering 20 percent bonus on the entire hospital bill of patients treated with Remdesivir. They also handed out lavish extra payments for ventilating patients. And, perhaps most tellingly, the feds rewarded hospitals with more money for patients who died of COVID instead of those who were healed.

The FDA would happily shut down every organ in your body if it meant they got more money from the pharmaceutical companies. And that clearly puts them into the “evil” category. What other recent decisions have they made in order to rake in more of that filthy lucre?

Act accordingly.

Aug 10 2023

Are We Awake Yet?

     Until they [the proles] become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. — George Orwell

     New York writer James Howard Kunstler has an impressive piece up today whose title – “Normies Awake!” – somewhat belies its actual content. That’s not a criticism, mind you; I do it a lot. The whole piece is worth your time, though I’ll pull-quote one paragraph to give you a taste: his eagle’s-eye look at what’s being done to money in these United States:

     Eventually, the official perversion of money — especially of borrowing an awesome lot of it with no intention of ever repaying — leads to the unhappy circumstance of money disappearing until nobody has any money. And by such, the broke-ness of the government transmogrifies to a whole land full of broke people. Many banks go broke as well. Even the high-fliers who hoarded things that purport to represent money go broke. Then, nobody has the means to buy anything. Businesses that can’t sell anything stop being businesses. After a while, no activity is meaningful except grubbing in the soil to grow some food, or stealing it from those who grubbed and grew it. By then, you can barely even call it a society.

     While Kunstler’s description is partly metaphorical rather than minutely circumstantial, what he describes above is a real process in progress as we speak. It’s not only happening; it’s accelerating toward a Weimar-style climax. You can feel it whenever you buy gasoline or your Significant Other goes out for groceries. But the rumblings in America’s financial webs don’t appear to have awakened the great majority to what’s being done to them.

     The rest of the essay covers matters of minor importance, such as the Biden family’s sales of influence to foreign satraps, the impending world war, and the federal government’s campaign of genocide against its own citizens. Kunstler notes these in sequence, in each case with a barely audible murmur of “Are we awake yet?” It’s the question of the hour. As of this moment, the answer is “Uh, not quite.” Indeed, the evidence suggests that most of us have merely shouted “Go away” and pulled the covers over our heads.

     Robert Ringer’s fine book How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization made a piercing observation about this:

     The majority of fiscal conservatives and free-market advocates were blinded by the glare of false hopes when Ronald Reagan took office. They naively believed that President Reagan’s victory demonstrated a shift in people’s attitudes toward a cut-back in both government benefits and the size of government.
     Unfortunately, they completely missed the point of the election. What most Reagan voters were really saying was “All I know is that I’m a lot worse off than before that idiot Carter took office. I don’t understand supply-side economics, or any other kind of economics—and I don’t want to understand. I just want my free slice of pie—make that pie a la mode—and I want it now.”…
     Not one voter in a thousand understood that the collapse of Western Civilization had already entered its latter stages before Ronald Reagan even took office.

     Ringer wrote that in 1982, Gentle Reader. Forty-one years ago. And virtually no one was listening. Will anyone take heed of the mileposts James Howard Kunstler and I have serially noted? Anyone who isn’t already awake, that is?

***

     Some people will seize on any hopeful glimmer as the sign that the dawn is upon us. As long as there’s anything they can interpret as a sign that “things are turning around,” they will cling to the belief that Real Soon Now we’ll all be singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.” (Was that a WPA song?) And I refuse to dismiss them as unreachable idiots, for a simple reason: Nothing is truly inevitable.

     I’ve lost the link, but not long ago I encountered a bit of wisdom that deserves wide distribution: The history of the universe is nothing but a series of improbable events. It’s still possible, however unlikely, that “things” will “turn around.” But as bridge expert Terence Reese once wrote, “The race may not always be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong…but that’s the way to bet.” Alternately put: “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.” And that will be the end of the platitudes for the nonce.

     One development – admittedly, a very unlikely one – that could “turn things around” is if enough ordinary people were to awaken, especially to what’s being done to the American dollar. That other countries are gradually abandoning the dollar as the “reserve currency” upon which international finance should be based is hopeful in itself…but few Americans have taken note of that development, and even fewer have treated it with the significance it deserves.

     The problem is that the dollar is the well-established, nationwide medium of exchange. Virtually no one is willing to stake his future, or the future of his business, on anything else at this time. “If not dollars, then what?” is a question for which we lack a near-term answer. Given the extreme specialization of the American economy, a general reversion to barter is unimaginable.

     But the other mileposts we’ve passed have little to do with the lives of ordinary Americans. They don’t affect us personally enough – yet – to compel an alteration in our routines. “An impending world war? I’ll worry about it when it gets here. The COVID vaccines were revealed as far worse than the disease? I’m still feeling okay. The president of the United States has been proved to be utterly corrupt? Maybe I’ll watch the trial, if it’s televised.”

     The way to bet, in Terence Reese’s formulation, is on the great majority, perhaps nine out of ten Americans, remaining undisturbed in their slumbers. Which puts the whole burden of preparing for any of half a dozen equally likely cataclysms on you and me.

     Perhaps I’ll read the Ringer book again this afternoon.

Aug 09 2023

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.

Aug 09 2023

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.

Aug 09 2023

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.

Aug 09 2023

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.

Aug 08 2023

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.

Aug 08 2023

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.

Aug 08 2023

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.

Aug 07 2023

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.

Aug 07 2023

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

Aug 06 2023

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.

Aug 06 2023

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.

Aug 05 2023

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?

Aug 05 2023

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.

Aug 04 2023

What a GREAT Dad!

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

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