Mar 25 2023

Money Today And Tomorrow

     Good evening, and welcome to the Money Programme. Tonight on the money programme, we’re going to look at money–lots of it, on film and in the studio. Some of it in nice piles, Others in lovely clanky bits of loose change. Some of it neatly counted into fat little hundreds…delicate fivers stuffed into bulging wallets…nice, crisp, clean checks…pert pieces of copper coinage thrust deep into trouser pockets. Romantic foreign money rolling against the thigh with rough familiarity. Beautiful wayward curlicued bank notes…filigree copper-plating cheek by jowl with tumbling hexagonal-milled edges, rubbing gently against the terse leather of beautifully balanced bank books!
     I’m sorry. But I love money…all money. I’ve always wanted money to handle, to touch. The smell of the rain-washed florin…the lure of the lira…the glitter and the glory of the guinea! The romance of the ruble, the feel of the franc, the heel of the deutschemark, the cold antiseptic sting of the Swiss franc, and the sunburned splendor of the Australian dollar!

     [ Monty Python, of course.]

     All right, so the above is a little excessive even for your Curmudgeon. But yes, today we’re going to talk about money: where it’s been, where it is now, and where it’s going. Perhaps that last clause should be “where it might be going,” for there are several possible futures for money, and not even a Certified Galactic Intellect can say with assurance which one will greet us with the sun.

1.1 Why money?

     Why, in the abstract, do we have and use money? Is it because going to the mall with two chickens and a bushel of seed corn is just too cumbersome? Is it a lack of confidence in Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and the digital records maintained by the banking system? Or is it that without it we’d have nothing to make our wallets bulge, as contemporary fashion and the dynamics of the mating dance dictate?

     Yes to all three, as we move through that most elusive and intangible of all assets, time.

1.2 How money?

     Money came into existence as a superior form of barter. A medium of exchange that was widely accepted made it possible for the farrier to buy shoes for his wife without having to find that one particular cobbler whose horse needed shoeing. To some extent, that motivation remains in force today. Rather than search interminably for a Michael Kors outlet that would accept four hours of her accountancy services in exchange for a pair of python-and-copper high-heeled sandals in size 10, the C.S.O. prefers to carry a debit card that can transfer a fraction of her vast electronic wealth over to the vendor a few miles away in Lake Grove.

     But of course, the medium of exchange in question must be acceptable to both parties in the exchange. So the evolution of money took some time. And by the way – and this deserves large font:

Governments were not involved.

1.3 Who money?

     Money was the consequence of what the late Friedrich Hayek called spontaneous order. Ordinary people “invented” money over the course of the centuries. They tried a potential medium of exchange, found not quite right, and put it aside for another. At first what made a particular commodity unsuitable was usually that not enough merchants would accept it, but that was eventually overcome by the general desire for something superior to “raw” barter that would facilitate trade.

1.4 What money?

     Many commodities have enjoyed a spell as the prevailing medium of exchange in a society:

  1. Big, crudely carved wheels of rock;
  2. Seed corn;
  3. Animal pelts and skins;
  4. Tobacco;
  5. Potable alcohol;
  6. Various metals.

     Each of these things had some characteristic that made it acceptable, for a time, to the society that employed it. Note that all but one of the items above possess a utility unrelated to its use as a medium of exchange. (Don’t ask your Curmudgeon about the big, crudely carved wheels of rock. He wasn’t there, and neither was anyone else he knows.) However, all but one of them lacked some quality that would have made it perfect for the application:

  1. Durability over time;
  2. Durability in trade;
  3. Divisibility without loss of value;
  4. Acceptance over long distances;
  5. Ability to store indefinitely large amounts of value.

     We can see in this the significance of the original definition of money as “a medium of exchange and a store of value.” Though it might make a widely accepted medium of exchange, a commodity that lacks durability over time or in trade would function poorly as a store of value. Thus the “organic” and “alcoholic” moneys, which are prone to steady deterioration even under the best of circumstances, gave way to the metallic moneys and their far greater durability.

1.5 When and where money?

     The acceptability of a particular money commodity varied with our ability to travel great distances in tolerably brief periods of time. Moreover, as advances in travel technology made it possible for dramatically different societies to trade with one another, differences in local technology and culture loomed large. An industrial society that had adopted gold and silver as its money would have trouble, at first, getting a hunter-gatherer society to accept gold or silver coins in exchange for their local produce or resources. That hunter-gatherer society would have to be persuaded that those coins could thereafter be used to purchase the products of the industrial society.

     Regard in this connection the wary way American Indians approached the coins of the European settlers. In the main, the Amerinds of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries did not use money, and initially preferred direct barter with the European colonists. It took a while for that to change. This was also the case as European traders of those times approached the tribes of Africa. Not only did those tribes not use money; their attitude toward property itself was at odds with European conceptions.

***

     Money today is an elusive quantity that’s largely been severed from its roots. Earlier moneys were commodities or proxies for them. They were redeemable in a way in which contemporary moneys are not. The holder of a money proxy could demand its equivalent in the prescribed amount of the agreed-upon backing commodity. He could not be refused without severe consequences for the redeeming institution. Contemporary moneys are quite different, which goes to the heart of our current troubles.

     Ludwig von Mises, that incomparable scholar of money and credit, was among the first to call moneys of our current sort fiat moneys. That is, they are “money” because an authoritative institution – a government – says of them that “This is money and you must accept it.” That institution controls the supply of money and has absolute authority over everything about it. This has been the case over the whole of the Western world since the early Twentieth Century.

     Despite this radical redefinition of money, which strips from it all notions about its utility apart from in trade, people continue to use it as a medium of exchange and a store of value. This is essentially an exercise of faith: faith that the dollars we possess today will still be tradable for the goods we need or want tomorrow. But as has been made plain by inflation throughout the three centuries behind us – the inevitable consequence of permitting a government to control the supply of the prevailing money – that faith can be shaken.

***

     Thus we come to the questions on a great many minds at the moment: What will the money of tomorrow be? Will the transition from today’s money be smooth or convulsive – perhaps even catastrophic? What process will cause its emergence?

     Few writers have dared to delve into these questions, but then, there’s a reason your Curmudgeon has the lectern this morning.

2.1 Digital moneys.

     Unless you’ve spent the last decade in a coma, you’re surely aware of the phenomenon called Bitcoin and the frenzies it’s experienced. Bitcoin arose as did the original moneys: it was an invention of the private sector. No government had anything to do with it, though several have tried to arrogate authority over it, and no doubt several more will do so presently.

     Bitcoin and its more recent competitors arose because of declining faith in government fiat moneys. The developers have made use of the worldwide acceptance of the Internet and electronic funds transfer to introduce the idea. Note that without the Internet and EFT, Bitcoin would be impossible. By corollary, should the Internet become massively unreliable, Bitcoin will lose its following.

     Note that at this time, unless a merchant says explicitly that he accepts Bitcoin in exchange for his wares, Bitcoin must be converted into the locally prevailing medium of exchange. But then, that’s the case for all other widely accepted moneys today. That having been said: Is digital money the money of tomorrow? The answer is relatively simple: Possibly, if tomorrow is an awful lot like today. Should there be any great upheaval, digital moneys will not gain wide acceptance as the prevailing medium of exchange.

2.2 Government moneys.

     Current government moneys are in trouble, owing to the accelerating rapacity of governments. The American dollar is the best example. It’s founded on “the full faith and credit” of the federal government of these United States. But that faith has been failing steadily, owing to massive federal borrowing and its consequence: massive inflations of the money supply that have caused the dollar to lose value. In this regard most of the other governments of the world are doing the same thing.

     Thus, a digital government money would not improve on the current scheme. Indeed, it would be worse, for it would enhance the government’s ability to intrude into the privacy of earners, borrowers, lenders, and spenders. No transaction conducted in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) would be private. Moreover, the government could veto any transaction of which it disapproves. The recent contretemps over credit-card-backing companies’ trial balloon about tracking their cards’ use to purchase firearms are a mild precursor.

2.3 Original commodity moneys.

     In the event of a less than catastrophic loss of faith in the dollar, a return to the commodity moneys of yesteryear, particularly gold, silver, and copper, would be plausible if not probable. Silver especially would be ripe for a comeback, as it has always been the preferred “hand to hand” money of Americans. Copper would become the small change of the new standard. Gold, while almost universally valued, is too dense a store of value for most transactions. Consider that at the current exchange rate between gold and dollars – approximately $2000 per Troy ounce of gold – fifteen ounces of gold would purchase the majority of new cars.

     Perhaps a currency — that is, a paper promissory note that stands as a proxy for the backing money commodity – would emerge that’s backed by gold or silver. Whatever the backing commodity, the essential qualification of the currency would be redeemability. Whatever institution might issue the new currency would be required to redeem any of its notes upon demand. Without that guarantee, the note would not be accepted widely enough to matter.

2.4 New commodity moneys.

     Here we come to the consequences of a convulsive collapse of the dollar. In the event of such a collapse, and of the chaos it would wreak upon markets everywhere, trade as we know it would collapse as well. Our current markets, fed with goods and services by supply chains that cross continents and oceans, would vanish. If new markets were to arise, they would be founded on barter. But barter is always easiest if there’s some commodity that most will accept as a store of value.

     Yes, some would accept the money metals. However, other commodities would rise in importance, possibly eclipsing the metals by dint of their greater utility in a chaotic environment. The one that’s most probable (and most often discussed) is ammunition: cartridges for the most commonly owned guns. Others, such as fuel chemicals or toilet paper, might take second place behind ammo, again because nearly everyone would find them desirable and conventional “retail” channels for them would no longer function reliably.

2.5 A hybrid scenario.

     The possibility of greatest interest at this time is one in which general faith in the dollar continues to decline, but short of a complete collapse. In such a scenario, the federal government would continue to maintain that “the dollar is the sole legal tender,” for its ability to maintain its authority is based in large part on the dollar, its acceptability, and its ability to purchase goods and services in dollars. Some would say that where we stand today is not far from such a situation.

     This scenario is of the sort that gives rise to widespread nationalizations of major industries and corporations. Society tends to fission into “dollars only” and “anything but dollars” camps. Where any particular individual (or institution) finds himself would depend upon the nature and quantity of the customers for his product or service. As a rule, in such situations widely valued skills tend to be more negotiable than anything else, including dollars and precious metals.

     The preparationist community has laid some emphasis on acquiring such skills, refining them to a high degree of quality and reliability, and making them known to persons of like mind. The man who can and will fix your small engines in exchange for an agreed supply of fresh eggs would be much esteemed in a situation of this sort. There might be other sorts of trade in widely valued commodities as well.

***

     The future of money is an inexhaustible subject. Just as the evolution of money, its seizure by governments, and the consequences for private persons are a valuable study, the possible paths forward are worthy of general speculation. No one can foresee much of the future. Speculations, including the very wildest and most fanciful, are always worth considering. Mackey Chandler’s April series contains a number of such speculations, and will probably address even more possibilities as the space-based societies of Home and Luna extend their reach into the galaxy. How plausible they are, your Curmudgeon cannot say.

     Of one thing we can be sure: governments will not spontaneously mend their ways. They will not bind themselves to a genuine budget they cannot overspend. They will not tolerate superior forms of money that put them at a disadvantage. What they cannot suppress, they will do their best to control. They will not agree to pay their debts in anything but fiat currencies, which they will then inflate as much as necessary to relieve them of the burden thereof. Anyone who reposes unbounded confidence in the “full faith and credit” of the federal government – an institution whose sole instruments are force, fraud, and intimidation – will come home from the confessional poorer and sadder…though hopefully wiser.

     Verbum sat sapienti.

Mar 24 2023

For Those Needing Proof That Climate Hysteria Is A Religion

This is a newsworthy item for infamous reasons.

Faculty of Theology to confer eight honorary doctorates on 9 June 2023
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Greta Thunberg, activist
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I’ve long maintained that climate hysteria is a religion. Once recognized as such, that fact could have been used to prevent the followers of that faith from eliminating all who disagree with them from every department in the United States government.

Sadly, no legal team has attempted to save a single professional from being pushed out of their government position, or out of any educational system funded by federal tax dollars. There must be a reason that it’s never been attempted since countless suits that are far more harebrained turn up in the news regularly. Could it surprise anyone were it revealed that the first institution the Progs seized control of was the legal profession?

It is not easy to keep track of the fall of our institutions to Conquest’s Second Law of Politics to the “Progressive” Movement. However, in recent years it seems the takeover of science by climate hysterics has moved at a pace that was faster than all other assaults by the Progs.

It should never have come to this. Americans need to seriously consider repenting their laxity in keeping the political class from rising to ruling class status, seemingly unanswerable to their votes. You regulars here know where this “sustainability” push is leading even if its lethality is hard for you to imagine.

It is never too late to regret our foolishness and seek to do better. Simply pray that it is not too late for America.

(Cross-posted at Crusader Rabbit.)

Mar 24 2023

The New Abnormal

     One’s views will often depend upon one’s time horizon. If yours is short, you’re likely to have a different conception of normality than your neighbor, whose horizon is many years deep. The continuity of an individual’s experiences is decisive in determining what he regards as normal.

     Consider the lot of the “military brat:” the child whose father is in one of the armed services, and thus whose family is subject to frequent uprooting as Dad’s assignments move him around. There’s nothing a child can do about this; he simply has to cope. Despite the ultra-tender regard shown for children’s feelings in our time, children are about as good at coping with changes of residence as their parents require them to be. But it gives the child a “normality” he doesn’t share with the children of fathers in other occupations.

     One man’s normality can be another’s nightmare of intolerable abnormality. The same is true for locales and generations.

     Time was – and you can take this on faith or you can do your own research – American cities were regarded as safer places to be than America’s rural areas. Older Americans would often retire into the cities, rather than away from them as is the norm today. Many things contributed to that perception of better safety, including better paid, better staffed police forces, more copious medical facilities, and greater resources of all kinds. But things have changed. Indeed, the rise of the suburbs was fueled in part by the declining quality of city life, including the safety factor.

     And now we have this:

     You may have noticed a trend among Democrats, particularly in Washington, suggesting that they really do want to fundamentally change how the world works. (And not for the better.) It boils down to the establishment of a “new normal” and how you are supposed to view the world and set your expectations. We’ve seen that recently when people complaining about rising crime rates and a crisis on the southern border were waved away by liberals assuring them that “it’s always been this way.” Now the Free Beacon has documented yet another instance of this. Out in San Francisco, the tech CEO of Horizon3, Snehal Antani, tweeted about how two of his staffers were distressed when they were robbed on the street of thousands of dollars of computer equipment, presumably by the usual homeless drug addicts that populate the city. In response, John Hamasaki, the Democrat who tried (and failed) to replace Chesa Boudin, told Hamasaki that he had lived in the suburbs for too long and was unable to handle a “basic city life experience.”

     This is just a textbook example of the phenomenon I was describing above. If you live in a Democrat-run blue city and you are one of the more than 50% of residents (at least in San Francisco) who have been impacted by crime, you’re supposed to simply shrug it off. That’s just a basic fact of city life. It’s always been this way.

     To someone of my years, that “it’s always been this way” rings flatly false. Perhaps it can be sold to younger Americans, to whom cities have always appeared more dangerous than what lies outside them. The sale will be easier to close as those of us with longer time horizons die off, or are alienated from their posterity by other means.

     Many things have factored into the deterioration of cities’ safety. I could name several discrete factors that would get my Gentle Readers’ heads nodding. But I think all the individual contributors look back at one giant one that I’ve harped upon at other times:

Predators Go Where The Prey Is Fattest.

     The great predators of the jungles watch watering holes for the arrival of prey. The great predators of Mankind tend to go toward the cities, especially those cities in which enterprise has resulted in wealth for their denizens. It’s just a generalization of Sutton’s Law:

     In a famous apocryphal story, Sutton was asked by reporter Mitch Ohnstad why he robbed banks. According to Ohnstad, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”

     (Yes, Sutton denied ever having said it. The fool! He should have copyrighted it and sold the right to use it for a fat license fee.)

     Mankind is afflicted by several species of predators. The low-level thug who mugs inattentive citizens is at the bottom of the hierarchy. The political predator, who seeks and gains power over a great city with intent to fatten himself on it, is at the top. What might shock the naïve reader is the ease with which the several kinds of predators collaborate with one another. It’s plainly in their mutual interest to do so.

     Viewed from a height, the low-level predators, who target individual citizens or organizations, assist the high-level or political predators in creating a climate of fear. The innocents who must bear that fear all too easily turn to the political predators for relief…which the politicians promise them, in exchange for more money and / or power. The money and power are reliably tendered; the relief of fear never arrives.

     Note that this pattern explains Republican non-performance when in power better than any alternative thesis. Really fighting crime is dangerous. Pandering to large corporations and allied interest groups is relatively safe. And the money flows in more reliably, too.

     There have been some changes to this pattern in recent years, as one gang of political predators has sensed that it need no longer worry about popular opinion. That gang now aids the low-level predators openly by grading down the offenses for which a lawbreaker can be prosecuted, and by refraining ever more often from issuing custodial sentences for those who are prosecuted and convicted. Felonies become misdemeanors. Misdemeanors are waved aside with dismissals such as “We don’t have the resources” or “Why sentence these young folks to life as a known felon?” Convicts are released into the streets despite not having served their sentences, to “reduce crowding in the system.” Meanwhile, political power focuses ever more narrowly on mulcting and subjugating the law-abiding, who typically put up little resistance to such measures.

     That this pattern now prevails in America’s largest cities should surprise no one. What target would aspiring predators of either kind favor over those cities?

     Eventually the cancer will spread. First it will penetrate the suburbs, to which frightened and disgusted city dwellers have the first recourse. But it cannot be contained there, for the predator’s hunger for more never slackens. It will reach out into the rural areas.

     It can only be contained by men who will have no more of it. Men who must decide that it’s time to do something about it, regardless of the cost. Men with homes, loved ones, and peaceful neighborhoods to protect. Men with guns. Men who want only to be left alone.

     Pray.

Mar 23 2023

We’ve Been Here Before, Haven’t We?

     The Left’s pet media are reading Trump’s obituary again:

     Seems I remember comments of this sort from just a few years ago…

     “Do not count a man dead until you have seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake.” — Frank Herbert

Mar 23 2023

From The Bearded Spock Universe: Public Servants Who Want It Kept Private

     Cops are public servants, right? That’s what it says on the sides of the cars, anyway: “To Protect and Serve.” Is there any doubt about whom they’re supposed to serve? Isn’t that We the People, a.k.a. the Public? We do pay their salaries, after all.

     However, a lot of cops have become averse to that status. Not only would they prefer to be free to do as they please; they’d also very much prefer not to be recorded while doing it. Such recordings have caused them quite a lot of inconvenience. A few of them have wound up wearing orange jumpsuits, though not always justly.

     So when a story such as this one comes along, it gooses me in a sensitive place:

     The Adams County Sheriff’s Office is suing Afroman for using video footage of their January raid on his home in his music video.

     Several deputies have sued the artist claiming he was profiting from the sale of merchandise that included their images, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawsuit, obtained by The Daily Caller, indicates Afroman was not at his residence at the time of the raid, but his wife was inside the home and managed to record the police in action. Residential surveillance footage also recorded the raid as it unfolded. Members of Adams County Sheriff’s Office insist they didn’t provide consent for their images to be used or profited from.

     The pictures and videos make the raid look fearsome: men in military-style camouflage toting what appear to be automatic weapons. Apparently it was performed in search of narcotics. But the cops didn’t find any, so the sanctity of Afroman’s home was breached to no good end. But for Afroman to make use of the recordings to turn a profit? That’s beyond the pale, according to the cops:

     The officers claim the artist proceeded to release music videos, social media posts and physical merchandise products without their approval, and are calling this an invasion of privacy and misappropriation of their likenesses.

     They said Afroman’s actions were “willful, wanton, malicious, and done with conscious or reckless,” according to the legal documents provided to Daily Caller.

     They also claimed to have suffered emotional distress and said they fell victim to ridicule, humiliation and irreparable loss of reputation. The Adams County Sheriff’s Office cites feelings of embarrassment over the matter, according to the legal documents.

     The sheriffs allege they were “subjected to threats, including death threats, by anonymous members of the public” that viewed social media posts” made by Afroman.

     Their case is a non-starter, as far as I can tell. A public servant engaged in an action warranted under the law inherently does so in public. Supreme Court decisions have not only affirmed the right of any citizen to record such an action; it has ruled that the public shall have full and unfettered access to such records without let or hindrance. The cops’ approval of said recordings, or of their use in any form or for any purpose, is not legally required.

     If the Adams County sheriff’s department has the services of a lawyer, he’ll probably disabuse them of any notion that they might prevail in court. But as has been said on many other occasions, “the process is the punishment.” We can expect the department to mount a full-scale campaign of defamation against Afroman, though it might be subtle and / or indirect. Cops who’ve had their feelings hurt are notoriously unforgiving. There will surely be a backblast, albeit without the smell of burnt gunpowder.

     And remember this: Should Afroman counterclaim against the cops for their pointless breach of his Fourth Amendment rights and win a monetary judgment against them, the cops won’t be the ones to pay the bill. That will fall upon the shoulders of Adams County taxpayers, and possibly other California taxpayers as well. Heads they win, tails the public loses. It’s all very neat in these latter days of post-Constitutional America.

We had women and a mirror ball, we had a DJ
We used to eat pretty much all came this way
Ever since the goons came in took apart the place
I keep a tire iron in the corner just in case

Gave you a magic bullet on a little chain
Keep you safe from the chilly winds and the howl of the rain
We’re gonna might need bullets, should we get stuck
Any which way, we’re gonna need a little luck

You can still get gas in heaven and drink in kingdom come…
In the meantime, I’m cleaning my gun

— Mark Knopfler —

Mar 22 2023

Dog Bites Man?

     (The full story on page A38 at bottom right, with pictures!)

     There are items of information to which the human mind is resistant. Take the certainty of death, for example. All but the youngest of us know this, yet very few people go through their day with even a background awareness that I will die someday, and it could be today. It might be impossible; consciousness of our inexorable mortality would amplify every fear we harbor, making the simplest decisions and actions exercises in risk avoidance. That’s among the reasons the Church exhorts us to practice mortification, an exercise that promotes the recognition of our common fate.

     Moving back to secular considerations, it’s a well-documented fact that a strong majority of violent crimes and crimes against property in these United States occur in a small minority of locales. One who is determined not to be a victim of such a crime would naturally be advised to avoid those locales – especially, not to live in one. But when we deal with persons who already reside in such a district, the advice tends to fall upon deaf ears. The tendency is to wave the argument and the supporting evidence aside, perhaps with a flip “It hasn’t happened to me yet” for a grace note.

     And here we come to Daniel Greenfield’s recent piece on the subject:

     A groundbreaking study by John R. Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center, revealed that “1% of counties have 21% of the population and 42% of the murders” and “2% of counties contain 31% of the population and 56% of the murders.”

     The 1% of bloody red counties include such Democrat strongholds as Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Dallas, D.C., Miami-Dade, Milwaukee, San Diego, St. Louis, Chicago’s Cook County, L Houston’s Harris County, Detroit’s Wayne County, Memphis’ Shelby County, Phoenix’s Maricopa County, Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County, and many others.

     Biden won Cook County, the bloodiest county in the country, by 66%. He won Los Angeles County, the second bloodiest, by 71%, Harris County by 56%, Philadelphia by 81%, New York City by 76%, Wayne County by 68%, and Shelby County by 64%.

     One could reach various conclusions from the above alone. The first would be that Democrat governance fosters crime. The second would be that anyone who is risk-averse should stay the hell out of those 2% of “bloody red counties.” The third – and I say this without rancor toward anyone – would be that 31% of the population of this country is either blind to the risks it faces or completely BLEEP!ing nuts.

     The population of the U.S. currently hovers near to 330 million persons. 31% of that figure is over 102 million. That’s a whole lot of blindness and / or lunacy. But there we are: approximately one out of every three of our fellow Americans falls into one of those two categories. Finer determinations are left to the individual reader.

     Still, there are other conclusions to be drawn, assuming one has the patience and the informational resources to delve into the demographics of those bloody red counties:

     All the figures above are from the 2010 census.

     Certain conclusions leap out of such figures. I shan’t belabor the point, other than to repeat two favorite bits of advice. The first is from the late and deeply lamented “Ol’ Remus” of The Woodpile Report:

Stay away from crowds.

     The second is from the badly mistreated John Derbyshire:

     (10) Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:

     (10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.
     (10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
     (10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
     (10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
     (10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
     (10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
     (10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
     (10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
     (10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.

     Keeping these bits of advice firmly in mind could be critical in preserving your life and property. Besides, I love all my Gentle Readers! For any of you to get killed would make me sad. So stay alert! And wherever you live and must travel, do have a nice day.

Mar 21 2023

Things Are Looking Up

     Someone with my proclivities has to be reminded that happiness requires him to “stay close to home:” that is, to keep the greater part of his attention on things that are personally important to him, and to hold the “big stuff” that occupies the attention of the talking heads at a good distance for as long as possible. With today’s foray into matters medical, it’s a particularly important bit of advice.

     My beloved wife Beth (a.k.a. “the Curmudgeon’s Significant Other” or C.S.O.) is nearing the end of her journey through cancer treatment and recovery. While she has some months of healing and plastic surgery ahead of her, she’s looking and feeling better than she has in some time. It’s an occasion for rejoicing and thankful prayer…and maybe a little music, too.

     This is my favorite track from one of Twentieth Century rock-music’s high points:

     Give thanks with me, Gentle Readers!

Mar 21 2023

Here Comes Another One (Just Like The Other One)

     Yes, today will be yet another day of long-distance driving, sitting in a surgical waiting room, and generally agonizing over the well-being of the C.S.O. So there’ll be nothing from me this morning. Perhaps later. Have a nice day, Gentle Reader.

Mar 21 2023

Small Update on East Palestine

This disaster is close to my heart. I’ve traveled those roads often, going from OH to SC, OH to PA, and OH to WV. It’s not just East Palestine that is affected, but also those communities nearby, whose own property values have taken a hit. The fear of health damage will be many years long.

The poor response to this is going to hurt the Democrats in 2024, I think. It should – actions, or, in this case, LACK of action, should have a cost.

The thing is, people aren’t dumb. They are capable of looking at attempts to ‘snow’ them, rejecting it, and acting in their own best interest. That so many have not done so yet is related to the fact that there have been more important things going on in their lives. Each Leftist act to screw up their lives was not resisted, as they were individually not worth the time.

However, cumulatively, the damage, and the cost, has mounted. The situation is not looking good for even the most charismatic candidates – and, those are the kind of candidates that the Dems are seriously short of.

I do hope that the citizens of East Palestine are not lost in the process.

Mar 20 2023

The Judgmental Cadre And Their Accelerating Irrelevance

     I read somewhere that cartoonist Scott Adams believes himself to be politically on the left: “Somewhere to the left of Bernie,” to use his formulation. Hm. Well, maybe. But Adams respects evidence, and anyone who does that won’t remain on the left for long.

     I’m sure my Gentle Readers are aware of Adams’s recent statement about blacks’ attitudes toward whites:

     “If nearly half of all blacks are not OK with white people … that’s a hate group. And I don’t want anything to do with them….And based on how things are going, the best advice I could give to white people is to get the hell away from black people. Just get the fuck away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. ’Cause there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed.”

     Always assuming that the Rasmussen poll accurately captured the attitudes of American blacks, Adams’s conclusion was and is impeccable. But of course, what he said is something that must not be said. So he’s been roundly castigated for it, lost most of his syndication for it, and has been relegated to the ranks of the socially untouchables.

     Evidence, you see, is irrelevant when a socially prescribed element of Goodthink is at issue. You are not allowed to cite evidence that cross-cuts the Goodthink! The media, which have the power of a hundred hurricanes, will whirl you off into the outer darkness where there is the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

     I would have thought that persons on the Right would be willing to allow that Adams has reasoned soundly from what he knows. It’s possible to dispute the validity or the accuracy of the Rasmussen poll, but he who accepts it as valid and accurate cannot be faulted for reaching the obvious conclusion. However, some on the Right won’t allow it:

     The problem is, of course, everyone watching Scott Adams be cancelled for “racism” knew exactly what would happen if the races he was talking about were reversed.

[…]

     America, we have a problem. Here we have two white people saying the exact same thing, except one said it without getting loud and using profanity. Either these comments are racist, or they aren’t. I happen to think both sound racist.

     It seems I must say it again:

Facts Have No Agenda.
Therefore, Facts Cannot Be Racist.

     It doesn’t matter how a statement “sounds.” What matters is its accuracy and – if it involves a conclusion – its validity. Either half of American blacks disagree that “It’s okay to be white” or they don’t. If they do, American whites cannot and must not live among them, nor allow blacks’ incursion into peaceful, orderly white communities. And be damned to anyone – Left or Right – who tries to plead otherwise.

     I yield the floor to my Gentle Readers.

Mar 20 2023

The First Day Of Spring 2023

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. It’s been an interesting week already, yet it’s only Monday. I’m in a “bar the doors and clean all the guns” sort of mood, but to keep things peppy around here (and to avoid involuntary commitment) I think I’ll muse over a graphic I snagged just yesterday. As is so often the case, I stole it from Mike Miles:

     Younger Americans might not be aware of Isaac Asimov, as he:

  1. Passed away in 1992;
  2. Wrote actual books that contain no videos, JPGs, or hyperlinks.

     Asimov was a prolific writer. If memory serves, he published over 200 books under his own name, and quite probably an equal number under various pseudonyms. His interests were wide – among his less well-known works were Asimov’s Guide to The Bible and Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare — and he possessed a seemingly boundless confidence about his ability to tackle any subject whatsoever. His science fiction remains popular today – so much so that other highly popular and capable writers have added to his Foundation saga with further volumes.

     There’s no question that Asimov was highly intelligent. However, his confidence in his intellect led him to some strange positions. For example, he opined that a tax of 50% of one’s income was perfectly fair and reasonable. For another, he differed with another very bright man, the late Julian Simon, on his position about population growth, and took the losing side of Simon’s bet with Paul Ehrlich about the prices of commodities over time. Clearly, as intelligent as he was, he could also be wrong.

     The above graphic nods toward one of the more controversial questions of our time: the proper role of the intellectual. What is it? What bounds it? To what extent should ordinary people place their trust in the opinions of intellectuals?

     If there are hard and fast answers to those seemingly straightforward questions, I don’t have them. I don’t know anyone who does.

***

     As I’ve said on several occasions, a powerful intellect is a tool, not a state of grace from which one cannot fall. Never mind the posturing of the “many kinds of intelligence” promoters; there’s no substance to the notion. Intelligence is about one’s power to handle abstractions through logical operations. In its generalized form – what Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein labeled g — it can be measured with fair accuracy. While allowances must be made for the influence of cultural factors on tests and testing procedures, the results of IQ tests have been shown to be reproducible within modest error bars. Indeed, they’ve become more so over time.

     But even the brightest man can go badly wrong in his reasoning. The ways in which a powerful mind can go astray are many. We don’t collect logical fallacies and misapplications of logic because they smell nice.

     One of the most important sources of intellectual error is the mistaken premise. If your premises are incorrect, reasoning from them is unlikely to lead you anywhere good. One of the most influential thinkers of his day, Thomas Malthus, started from a mistaken premise in composing his Essay on the Principle of Population. Later observations persuaded him that he had erred, which resulted in a revised essay describing how and where he’d gone wrong. Yet the uncorrected edition remains among the most influential works of all time.

     No matter how bright you may be, ensuring that your premises are right is critical to good reasoning.

***

     Have a fictional exposition on the importance of accurate premises:

     “I just have a question about this.” Rachel nodded sideways at the vessel she’d brought. “Did she tell you about it?”
     “Holly did. Fountain never said a word.”
     “I made it according to her instructions, but it doesn’t have the same effect as hers.” She dug the printed recipe out of her purse, unfolded it, and passed it to Trish. “I couldn’t help but wonder what I did wrong.”
     “Probably nothing,” Trish said.
     “Then why—”
     “You’re not Fountain.”
     Rachel merely stared.
     “Why are you looking at me that way, Doctor? A scientist should know she has to control all the experimental variables.”
     “It’s a postulate of the sciences,” Rachel said dryly, “that no investigator shall be deemed privileged over any other investigator. We carved that in stone after Rene Blondlot.”
     “Who was that?”
     “An investigator who wanted to be deemed privileged. When no one else could see the radiation he claimed to have produced, he said it was because only he could see it.”
     Trish grinned. “I’ll bet that pissed off his colleagues and competitors.”
     “It taught us something,” Rachel replied. “Either I bollixed up Fountain’s recipe or she didn’t give me all the details. No other explanation would cover it.”
     “Only if you’re superglued to that postulate,” Trish said. “But let’s imagine that there was an ingredient Fountain didn’t tell you about. Then adding that ingredient would produce a drink with effects identical to the one she gave you at the hospital, right?”
     Rachel nodded. “That’s my working hypothesis.”
     “But there’s at least one other possibility,” Trish said. “What if Fountain gave you a complete list of ingredients but omitted a processing step?”
     Rachel waved it aside. “Yeah, that would explain it equally well, but—”
     “We’re not done yet, Doctor. What if the environmental conditions under which the shake is made are the missing factor?”
     Rachel felt her jaw tightening and fought to relax it. “All right. Anything else?”
     Trish smiled nastily. “Only your no-privileged-investigator postulate, Doctor. How would you like to test that?”
     Rachel’s jaw tightened again. “How would we do that?”
     Trish reviewed the recipe Rachel had worked from, finished her coffee, and rose. “For that, we’ll need Fountain.”

#

     “I don’t understand, Miss Rachel,” Fountain said as she peered at the printout. “What is written here is exactly what I did to make your shake. I would expect you to get the same result if you followed these directions.” She canted her head. “Are you sure you did so?”
     Rachel cringed internally. “Yes I am, Fountain. I was meticulously careful at every stage.”
     “Do you still have an adequate supply of the ingredients?”
     “Oh yes. I bought more than enough to make two more servings.”
     “Then if it will please you and Miss Trish,” Fountain said with a look at Trish, “let us go to your home and try the recipe a second time.”
     Trish shrugged. “I’m game. You’re in Foxwood, right?” Rachel nodded. Trish fetched a large purse from her bedroom and pulled out a ring of keys. “We’ll follow you.”

#

     “Okay,” Rachel said. “We have here two potations—”
     “Hm?” Trish frowned. “How do potatoes figure into it?”
     Rachel chuckled. “A potation is something made to drink. Anyway, these two shot glasses contain samples of my and Fountain’s mixtures. The one in my left hand is hers; the other is mine. You’re the guinea pig.”
     Trish smiled crookedly. “Couldn’t figure out how to make it double-blind, eh?”
     “Nope. We’d have needed another participant, and Elise is at the clinic.” She offered the glass in her left hand to Trish, who took it and sipped from it.
     Rachel waited.
     “It’s okay,” Trish said. “Tasty, but I’m not getting the lift you talked about. Let me have the other one.”
     Rachel did so. Trish sipped from it and immediately screamed in exultation. “Yee-HAH!” Her whole body vibrated visibly. She thrust her arms toward the ceiling and started bouncing on her toes.
     “Now that’s what I call a tonic.” Trish bounced in place a few more times. “I’d do a few backflips if there were room enough. Looks like you got it right that time, Doc…hey, what’s with the long face? Fountain, did you tell Miss Rachel to do something you didn’t write down?”
     Fountain’s face filled with woe. “No, Miss Trish! We both did exactly as the paper says. I swear it!”
     “We did,” Rachel muttered. “We even synchronized the steps. I fibbed to you, Trish. The one in my left hand was mine. The one that lit your jets was Fountain’s.”
     Trish frowned. Rachel shrugged. “It was the closest I could get to a double-blind test.”
     “Hmph. Well, in that case, Doc, it looks as if we’ve found our missing ingredient.” Trish beckoned Fountain to her side and slipped an arm around her waist. “And it’s not sold in any store.”
     “Yeah.” Rachel turned away. “Shit.”

     [From The Wise and the Mad]

     Admittedly, that’s a fanciful case. The premises of experimental science include this one: The identity of the experimenter does not matter. But in the fictional case above, it did matter: my character Fountain had unique powers over food, which my character Rachel MacLachlan lacked. Indeed, Rachel mentions the infamous case of Rene Blondlot and his “N-rays” in support of her thesis. It merely happened that in my fictional experiment, the identity of the “experimenter” mattered very much.

     Of course, that was fiction. In the hard sciences, the “no privileged experimenter” premise is maintained absolutely. No one is permitted to assert the contrary and be treated as an honest researcher. But it serves to illustrate my point.

***

     If a hard scientist, accustomed to dealing with inanimate matter manipulable by human beings, should venture into “softer” realms of thought that deal with self-willed human beings who can resist manipulation, premises that served him well in the laboratory can lead him astray. There are some lurid examples of this. The late Linus Pauling comes to mind at once. In his later life Pauling, whose work in molecular biology was genuinely groundbreaking, allowed himself to be used by certain interest groups in promoting their social and political causes. Never mind that his brilliance in biochemistry was irrelevant to such causes. His reputation was what they sought to exploit, and he permitted it.

     To some degree, the hard scientist who allows himself to pontificate about economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, or the like is merely following his “fellow intellectuals” who labor in those fields. He might even tell himself consciously that “if they can sound off about all this crap, surely I can too!” But all commit the same error. People are not all the same! They vary too greatly in their desires, priorities, abilities, shortcomings, and influences to be treated as a hard scientist treats his experimental materials. They’ve always resisted absolute generalizations, and probably always will.

     The many cases of intellectuals propounding absurd theses in peremptory tones with absolute assurance are a great part of why “intellectual” is today a term of dismissal, if not contempt. I have no doubt that Isaac Asimov was sincere in deploring that development, but the failure of intellectuals, including himself, to respect the boundaries around their expertise is the greater part of the reason for it.

Mar 19 2023

The Pursuit Of Misery

     The calendar makes this the fourth Sunday of Lent in the Year of Our Lord 2023. That makes this Laetare Sunday, which parallels in significance the third or Gaudete Sunday of Advent. These days are periods for a lightening of the mood that dominates the rest of the Lenten and Advent seasons. Coincidentally, March 19 is also the feast day of Saint Joseph, husband and protector of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her divine Son. Saint Joseph has also been named the special patron of the Catholic Church. So it’s a big day for us theophages, though not as big as Christmas or Easter.

     But enough of calendric considerations. What’s on my mind right now is the notion expressed in the title, and how to avoid it.

     Contrary to the myths circulated by the Church’s enemies, Christianity is a religion of joy. After all, its Founder came among men to redeem us from our sins, from one end of Time to the other. We don’t practice and promote our faith or the virtues it exalts because they conduce to misery, but to happiness. Hilaire Belloc’s quatrain expresses it nicely:

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

     Sadly, during Lent that point is often obscured by the ubiquitous exhortations to sacrifice this, that, or the other thing. Today’s society recoils in horror from the very suggestion that we might be better off for a bit of temporary self-denial. We’ve lost the understanding and appreciation of delayed gratification that previous generations absorbed and internalized.

***

     At one time, in an essay I can no longer locate, I wrote that a man’s possessions have almost as much power over him as he does over them. (“Almost as much” because he can get rid of them, whereas they can’t get rid of him.) While the extension of this idea to generalized self-indulgence is difficult and imperfect, there is some relevance to it, especially as regards our habits of consumption.

     Like any other kind of habit, a habit of consumption gradually sinks below the threshold of consciousness. That is, we cease to be fully aware that we’re doing it. For some people, for example our old friend Smith, another person must call attention to the habit before Smith becomes aware of what he’s doing.

     Of course, some repetitive behaviors are not habits. You don’t “habitually” breathe, eliminate, sleep, or check your blind spot before changing lanes; you do those things because you must, or your life will end. A habit of consumption will necessarily involve an optional behavior, not required for the perpetuation of life. For example, as has been well established by millions of studies, coffee is necessary to life. (It is, isn’t it?) However, putting milk into your coffee, though it starts as the conscious exercise of a preference, can become a habit. Over the years you may cease to think about it, except for those unfortunate mornings when you discover to your surprise that there’s no milk in the house.

     Our exceedingly wealthy society is prone to habits of consumption. Our markets are dazzlingly efficient and our means are considerable; thus, for most of us, acquiring an ongoing supply of what we consume is relatively easy. It wasn’t always that way, which is one reason why our forebears were better at denying themselves something than are we.

     Let a habit of consumption be interrupted involuntarily – “Honey, where’s the milk?” “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to get some.” – and we become freshly aware of what we’ve been doing. The degree of the attendant discomfort will depend on many things, though there nearly always is at least some irritation. That surge of awareness should carry a message: I’ve been doing this automatically. Sad to say, apart from the irritation over having been denied something we’d come to expect, no message arrives.

     One seldom feels gratitude while indulging a habit of consumption.

***

     The more habits a man has, the greater is the portion of his life that he spends unconscious. Socrates of Athens has told us that this is a bad thing: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And while habits of consumption are to be expected to some degree, especially in a nation as rich as ours, unawareness of them is unreservedly negative.

     One method for becoming more aware of them is the practice of voluntary self-denial: “For this season of the year, I’ll go without it.” The thing sacrificed enters into one’s consciousness: “I normally put milk in my coffee, but not today.” You become aware not only of what you habitually do but of why you do it. That actually improves the sacrificed indulgence – not “as a habit,” but as a source of pleasure and satisfaction.

     As voluntary self-denial increases the percentage of your day you spend fully conscious, so does your awareness of how much you have to be thankful for. Gratitude follows naturally. But gratitude not only increases your happiness, it brings you closer to God. It does so even if you fail to make use of the moment to pray, though prayer is always to be encouraged.

     But let’s not stop there, for the inverse is also true. As the percentage of your life spent unconscious increases, your overall happiness will decrease. You cannot be happy without being conscious of what you have, whether or not you feel you’ve earned it. If you know someone who seems to “have it all” but seems perpetually unhappy or unsatisfied, the probability is high that he seldom if ever gives conscious thought to how fortunate he is, and how grateful he should be.

***

     Of course, nothing of great value comes without a price. The price may be monetary, or it may be effort. The increased happiness that arises from voluntary self-denial is paid for by the effort of forgoing that chosen thing. And there is a caveat: it’s possible to forfeit that increment of happiness by grumbling about the effort, as if it had been forced upon you by a divine Drill Instructor.

     One of our founding documents speaks of “the pursuit of happiness” as a individual, God-given right. When Thomas Jefferson penned that phrase, he was probably thinking of the sort of material gain that free people can and do pursue. But heaping possessions around oneself is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Similarly, consuming without limit eventually causes the thing consumed to become a burden rather than a source of pleasure or satisfaction.

     Occasional voluntary self-denials are a preventative for that trap. Best of all, they remind us of the ultimate Source of all that is good, and the gratitude He is owed.

     Happy Laetare Sunday, Gentle Readers. May God bless and keep you all.

Mar 19 2023

Allegiances And Alliances

     It takes a bit of investigation to puzzle it out, but the facts are there for anyone who makes the effort. The United States has only one set of treaty obligations at this time: those that arise from the North Atlantic Charter, which created NATO. There was once a comparable SEATO, which created an alliance of nations in the South-East Asian region, but that treaty has expired. Our other “security commitments” are entirely informal, matters of “understandings” between national administrations.

     In particular, we have no treaty obligations to Ukraine.

     Recently, Tucker Carlson submitted the question of “what we should do about Ukraine” to a number of prominent politicians and aspirants to high office. That question is obviously pertinent to the ongoing war between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Equally obviously, any contender for the presidency must expect to face that question. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is one prospective contender, albeit undeclared at this time.

     Here is the most pertinent part of DeSantis’s response:

     While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them. The Biden administration’s virtual “blank check” funding of this conflict for “as long as it takes,” without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges.

     Without question, peace should be the objective. The U.S. should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of American troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders. F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table. These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable.

     Sounds pretty moderate, doesn’t it? In good agreement with the Trump Administration’s policy of “America First.” I can find nothing objectionable in it. But then, I’m not a member of the political elite:

     Former Vice President Mike Pence, without mentioning Ron DeSantis by name, rebuked the Florida governor Saturday for his isolationist approach to the war in Ukraine….

     A sharp divide inside the GOP over U.S. involvement in Ukraine has made Mr. DeSantis the target of widespread Republican criticism for suggesting America should focus on problems closer to home. His approach aligns him with former President Donald Trump, who is warning the conflict could cause “World War III.”

     “There must also be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad,” Mr. Trump said in a campaign video Thursday.

     Mr. Pence said those who suggest the U.S. can’t take care of its problems at home and still remain the leader of the free world are selling America short.

     “That’s a pretty small view of the greatest nation on Earth,” he said. “We can do both.”

     The article does mention “declining Republican support” for American involvement in the conflict, but then, the great majority of Republican-aligned voters aren’t members of the political Establishment. At least, we don’t expect defense contractors to help us with our monthly bills.

     DeSantis is no better liked than Trump in Establishment circles. Whether the letter after the name is D or R, Establishmentarians are firmly opposed to what Pence has called “isolationist” policy. “Isolationist,” in their idiom, means any lessening of the “GloboCop” posture of the U.S. toward regional wars. They want significant, visible American presence in all such conflicts, regardless of the particulars.

     On the Republican side, it might be about maintaining the stream of campaign donations. On the Democrat side, the issue is power, and the prestige that widespread international meddling brings with it. They’re the Twenty-First Century’s descendants of the Nineteenth Century colonialists who sought to impose the rule of their nations on less developed lands “for their own good.” The first of them, Woodrow Wilson, was determined to involve the U.S. in World War I. Democrat presidents since him have eagerly inserted American forces in war after war, regardless of the relevance to American interests.

     I submit that ordinary Americans have a strong interest in not being caught up in a war with Russia. Whether or not it would “go nuclear” is a side issue. “Never get into a land war in Asia,” right? Our last foray cost nearly 56,000 American lives and brought us…nothing of value. A war with Russia would be a great excuse for imposing censorship, confiscatory taxes, a renascent draft, and other authoritarian controls on American life. Read up on the activities of General Hugh Johnson during the World Wars for a refresher.

     But the Establishmentarians have another agenda…and our interest in remaining alive and free doesn’t factor into it. The “America First” component of the electorate is their enemy. Anyone who claims to speak for it must be destroyed. Like Trump, Ron DeSantis had better watch his back.

Mar 19 2023

Courage Or Opportunism?

     At this point, I’m unable to take any mainstream “journalist” seriously. They strike me as a clique of toadies, ever willing to kowtow before power in the hope of ingratiating themselves and winning “access.” Thus, I entreat you to view the following:

     I don’t know the “reporter” who condemned Lori Lightfoot to her face. What I do know is this: she will soon no longer be the mayor of Chicago. Given that, what negative consequences is the “reporter” likely to face? Any? None?

     Perhaps I’m being unjustifiably harsh. The next mayor might be a Democrat and a Lightfoot ally. All the same, this looks to me like opportunism rather than journalistic courage. Your opinion is your own.

Mar 18 2023

Peak Lawlessness

     According to this article, Donald Trump, the 45th president of these United States, expects to be arrested on Tuesday:

     Numerous leaks have reported Trump will be charged next week in New York City in the Stormy Daniels case where he has been accused of paying Daniels as part of a confidential settlement before the 2016 election to buy her silence over her unfounded accusation of an affair.

     Given the Left’s desperation about keeping Trump from regaining the presidency, I find this credible. But there might be a “gotcha:”

     Trump, who has 24-hour protection by the U.S. Secret Service, currently resides at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, which he rarely leaves.
     Under Florida law, the state’s governor is responsible for making sure a person in the state is arrested and delivered to another state if that person is indicted on a felony charge.
     However, Florida law also gives the governor the power to call for a further investigation before a defendant is extradited if that defendant refuses to comply with extradition.

     If this is the case, Governor DeSantis will have a lot of influence over what comes next. How he’ll use it is anyone’s guess.

     Elon Musk and others have opined that if such an arrest should occur, it will catapult Trump back into the White House in November 2024. If elections were still reasonably honest, that would probably be so. But we know that the electoral machinery is now entirely in the control of the Left. They’re likely to pull out all the stops – if there are any remaining – to prevent his re-inauguration.

     But what if the Left were to fail to steal the 2024 election? What then?

     Then President Trump had better watch his back. He’s well guarded, I know, but as Michael Corleone said to Tom Hagen near to the end of The Godfather Part II, “If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it’s that you can kill anyone.” The Left would be desperate enough to try anything. Bombs? Plausible. An enfilade with machine guns? Not beyond the bounds of possibility. Throwing waves of bodies at the president-elect, spending lives by the hundreds just to get one close enough to Trump to snuff him out? I can imagine that, too.

     Do not imagine that any degree of carnage would strike the Left’s planning cadre as unthinkable. Trump restored to the Oval Office is their worst nightmare. Moreover, in this they have allies throughout the Republican Establishment. Trump threatens to upset their applecarts, too.

     But there’s this, too: Were anyone to succeed in assassinating President Trump, it would herald the end of all law and all order in these United States. The event would dissolve all obfuscation about the bipartisan political Establishment and the Deep State. No level of government would be able to assert and enforce its authority in the chaos that would follow. Electric Boogaloo? Try Nuclear Tarantella.

     Stay tuned.

Mar 18 2023

Social Deterioration In Real Time Dept.

     As long as we’re looking at signs of the Apocalypse, have another:

     Well, yes, she’s an idiot. The cloth mask is a dead giveaway. But not only is she mumbling through a completely unnecessary mask, she’s unable to grasp a simple fact: Walmart knows what’s being stolen and what isn’t. That’s one of the reasons for having a point-of-sale / inventory control system. The security tags on the shades of makeup most desired by black women merely reflect those data.

     As it happens, the enhanced security trend has reached my supposedly safe portion of Long Island. However, Walgreen’s has implemented a “protect it all” scheme: everything small enough to be stuffed into a woman’s handbag is now locked behind a Lucite shield. I discovered this in the course of:

  • Going to Walgreen’s to purchase ibuprofen;
  • Discovering that the ibuprofen was behind such a locked shield;
  • Summoning sales help to liberate the ibuprofen;
  • Watching the saleswoman pull out a large bundle of keys and sort through them for the right one;
  • Watching her unlock and open the shield, extract one large bottle of ibuprofen, and close and relock the shield;
  • Watching her scamper off toward the registers with that bottle of ibuprofen faster than I could follow her.

     It protracted what would have been a five-minute stop into about fifteen minutes. This constitutes a severe blow to Walgreen’s. The store needs more personnel than it otherwise would. It must pay those salespeople, and provide them with certain noncash benefits. It must purchase accident insurance and unemployment insurance to cover them. Finally, it must deal with the reduced willingness of shoppers to shop there, owing to the indignities and the losses of time.

     Unless those costs and that reduction in trade are covered by increases in the retail prices of what it sells, Walgreen’s is in trouble. Yet I have no doubt that were I to visit any comparable institution in my district, I’d see the same precautions against theft in place or being implemented.

     But at least no one can accuse Walgreen’s of “racism” for protecting only the part of its stock-in-trade that’s stolen most often. What a bargain!

Mar 18 2023

Open War Is Upon Us

     Whether we like it or not. Please click through and watch the video:

     That aired on the BBC yesterday — Saint Patrick’s Day. So did this clip:

     Isn’t it getting a wee bit obvious, Gentle Reader? On one of the most joyous Christian celebrations in the Western world, what do those…people lambaste us with? Nothing Christian, to be sure. Paeans to paganism. Lectures about “racism,” “xenophobia,” and “the contributions of migrants” to Irish history!

     There is a full-scale attack in progress on everything Christian, everything Western, and – I must include this, so forgive me if it raises your neck hair yet again – everything white. It no longer attempts to be subtle. It no longer uses the “but” sidestep. It simply effaces and obliterates all the distinguishing characteristics of Christian-Enlightenment civilization. It gives everything non-Christian, non-Western, and non-white pride of place even on occasions such as Saint Patrick’s Day.

     I fear for Easter this year. What will they batter us with then? Islamic scripture? The life and loves of Muhammad? Or perhaps a recruitment video for al-Qaeda?

     It’s time to get seriously angry.

Mar 17 2023

Something Beautiful For Your Friday Afternoon

     Because there’s more than enough ugliness to go around:

     Enjoy.

Mar 17 2023

Right But Ignored

     I was once given a gift subscription to a weekly periodical – one that arrived on pulp paper rather than as an email – that aggregated the writings of prominent conservative opinion writers. That started arriving in my mailbox in early 1990, if my memory is accurate. Among other things, it provided my introduction to the late and deeply lamented Joseph Sobran.

     Sobran was a standout among conservative columnists. He was his own man, ever willing to go where he pleased, without regard for the preponderance of opinion on the Right. Moreover, his writing was so perfectly lucid that when his case was sound – i.e., when he had his facts straight – it was irresistibly convincing. I could not read a Sobran column without being impressed by his clarity and forcefulness.

     If you’re old enough to have lived through it and serious enough to have kept up with the news, you may recall a couple of things about the Year of Our Lord 1990:

  • The U.S. had just completed the Reagan Era.
  • George H. W. Bush was the president of these United States.
  • Saddam Hussein, the strongman dictator of Iraq, was plotting the annexation of Kuwait.
  • The strongman dictator of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, was being removed from his perch by American forces.
  • The Iron Curtain and its manufacturer, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were being dismantled by popular pressure, and would soon fall completely.
  • Red China was tacitly dismantling its Communist economy in favor of “state capitalism,” which would coincidentally leave the Communist Party in complete political control.
  • Francis Fukuyama would soon publish The End of History and The Last Man, a tome whose thesis would be hailed by the naïve and shortsighted of all political creeds.

     If you would just squint with the light behind you, you could almost see Thomas Jefferson smiling down at us from heaven. “I told you!” he said to the spirits of George Mason and Patrick Henry. “The ball of liberty has rolled right around the globe.” And in that heady heyday of the Land of the Free, it was possible to believe it…for a while.

     Joseph Sobran didn’t let his guard down. A lot of other conservative columnists did. The temptation was too strong for them. The forces of entrenched power and privilege were far from giving up. Perhaps the other luminaries of the Right should have known that; Sobran did.

     When the drums began to beat over Iraq and Kuwait, Sobran was virtually alone on the Right in opposing the drive for war. “Has the Left given peace a bad name?” he wrote memorably. He took issue with the suggestion that any vital interest of the U.S. was at stake in that matter. Indeed, the U.S. didn’t – and still doesn’t – have any treaty obligations toward any Middle Eastern nation. But seldom can a lone voice deflect a nation from a drive toward war.

     The Reagan years had seen little American involvement in armed conflict. Yes, there was Grenada. Yes, there was Libya. And yes, to this day there are opinion writers who dispute the necessity of both actions. But they were blessedly brief. The bloodshed was minimal.

     But the Bush family was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the defense and intelligence sectors. Reagan’s notion that a military intervention should serve the vital interests of the United States was anathema to them. Pere et fils were united on that, and remain so.

     I worked for a defense contractor back then. I hardly need tell you what the preponderance of opinion was about Operation Desert Storm. “Contracts! Jobs! Orders for more airplanes!”

     Eisenhower told us. Joseph Sobran reminded us. We should have listened.

***

     In the years before the First World War, the French military was under the supreme command of General Victor-Constant Michel. From what I’ve read, General Michel was a clear-sighted analyst and a sober military planner. He foresaw the Schlieffen Plan of a German invasion through the Low Countries, and was open about his reasons for predicting it. On the basis of his prognosis, he advocated a defense-oriented strategy for France hat would deter such an invasion.

     But the attitude among other top French commanders was irremediably opposed to the Michel strategy. France had lost the War of 1870 in a most humiliating fashion. The German Empire had annexed the districts of Alsace and Lorraine as part of the price of peace. All the generals other than Michel were slavering for the chance to avenge themselves for their earlier defeat, and to take those lost provinces back. So Michel and his emphasis on a strong north-northeastern defensive position had to go.

     In 1913 Michel was ousted as supreme commander. He was replaced by General Joseph Joffre, a notably offense-minded commander who saw things the way the rest of the commanders did. He had no respect for Michel’s analyses. He founded French war strategy on an all-out thrust into Alsace and Lorraine, with the intent of driving headlong into Germany and forcing the Empire to sue for peace.

     But in those days before the mechanization of ground warfare, a serious analyst would have regarded a major thrust through Alsace and Lorraine from the French side as madness. Those provinces were about the best defensive ground in Europe. Indeed, that was a great part of the reason Germany wanted them, for France, despite its defeats in 1870 and 1814, was the most feared military power on the continent. For six centuries its forces had been well nigh unstoppable. The Metternich Plan that emerged from the Congress of Vienna was aimed directly if not exclusively at blunting French aggression.

     In other words, the Joffre Plan was insanity on a stick, despite the enthusiasm for it among other French generals. What Michel foresaw came to pass almost exactly as he foresaw it. Yet it is Joffre who is well remembered to this day. General Michel has been reduced to a footnote. As Barbara Tuchman wrote in The Guns of August, “To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.”

     I hope it’s forgivable for opinion writers: both for those who were swept up by the tide of martial ardor and for those who resisted it.

***

     The drums are beating once again. The political Establishment is nearly unanimous that the U.S. must fight for “Ukrainian integrity.” Those who dissent are routinely slandered as “pro-Putin.” Tucker Carlson, of all people, has been called a “Putin apologist.” Despite Russia’s superiority in men, material, and strategic position, Vladimir Putin’s clear commitment to victory, and the dubious ability of NATO to reverse the course of the war, the possibility of escalation to a nuclear level is waved aside as “fear-mongering.”

     Joseph Sobran died in 2010, at age sixty-four. The wars and prospects for war in our time are no longer his concern. I hope soon to celebrate my seventy-first birthday. I hope to celebrate another. I wonder if I will.

Mar 17 2023

Of What Use is an Aging Person?

This is an issue that many struggle with – the idea that they are “too old” to be useful to their family and neighbors. The Survival Blog addresses this issue here.

In addition to the suggestions that post has, let’s add in others:

  • Wisdom and experience with handling food prep, storage, and cleanup the “Old Way”. Don’t underestimate this – when the Covid restrictions hit, and local stores were out of bread, suddenly younger individuals realized the utility of knowing how to turn flour, water, salt, and yeast into something that was edible. I’d had a long experience with breadmaking, thanks to my husband’s desire to go “Old School”. I bought Laurel’s Kitchen (still a very good introduction to providing meals that are both nutritious and inexpensive), and a few specialty cookbooks (Beard on Bread is indispensable), and learned to bake.
  • Sewing, knitting, crocheting – all of those skills both stretch out a budget, and allow for clothing creation and repair. We augment our heating with strategic use of afghans. In a pinch, I can make mittens, hats, and scarves for family. I’m learning variations on other items, and have passed those skills on to my children (except for my son – he, rather surprisingly, learned needlework in middle school).
  • Backup child care for emergencies. Organizing pickup from schools, should the parents be held up at work by a disaster. This doesn’t have to be a commitment to daily babysitting, just having the ability to put a plan into operation, should weather or national disaster interrupt normal operations. That would include a list of people who have been authorized to pick up local kids, notify the families where they are, and keep them fed and safe until they are reunited with their parents.
  • Pet care – feeding, walking – for short periods. Taking in mail, if the absence is longer than a day or two.
  • Simple home repairs. I set up our home network, security system, and will be stopping off today or tomorrow to get a new tub diverter that has become worn out. I’ll be putting it in myself, if I can (limited dexterity with my arthritic hands might be the issue). My goal is to add to the number of things I can repair. I have a lamp that has a damaged cord; I have the replacement, and will be looking into its repair over the next couple of weeks.
  • Teaching – basic Math and English skills, along with useful skills for children. Gardening. Home maintenance. Household Chemistry (soaps, cleansers, home remedies for mild illnesses). I may even resurrect my old knot-tying skills from Girl Scouts.
  • Communications – building a local neighborhood watch (it’s not just using the hardware, it’s knowing who to trust, logging activity on the street, using GMRS handhelds, and training others). Setting up training on ham radio, if possible. Serving as an Elmer (more experienced amateur who assists newbs), participating in local nets to gain experience and to build relationships, should the SHTF. Building relationships with local first responders – police, fire, hospitals – and assisting them with communications in drills. Getting to know who can be trusted, and – more importantly – who cannot.

You can probably add your own recommendations to the list. The point is, old does not have to mean useless.

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