Mar 02 2024
…something like this is what I need to return to the land of the living:
Tech tip pic.twitter.com/mKGD336lWg
— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) March 1, 2024
I have absolutely no doubt that someone, somewhere thinks this is the right way to clean your laptop computer. And I find that strangely comforting.
Mar 01 2024
Some longshots entice the bettor with misty visions of grandeur and glory. Others attempt to seduce with an emotional pitch. Still others are frank about the odds against them, but they appeal to the common desire to see oneself as a visionary or an adventurer. Their sole commonality is that a payoff is, in the idiom of our British cousins, not bloody likely.
A typical level of risk-aversion will steer most of us away from a longshot that would require a large commitment of funds. After all, money bet on a longshot must be regarded as lost. As most of us have to work for our money, we’d rather not squander it on something that appears unlikely to provide a return. Two dollars at the racetrack or a quarter into a slot machine is all very well, but as the numbers go up the bet must be more soberly assessed.
But governments don’t experience risk-aversion the way we do:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter and Type One Energy Group, Inc. officials announced today the company will invest $223.5 million to establish its headquarters and expand operations in Tennessee.
Type One Energy will create a total of 330 new jobs by establishing its headquarters in the Greater Knoxville region and expanding fusion research and development (R&D) operations in Clinton.
In addition, Type One Energy intends to locate at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Bull Run Fossil Plant in Clinton, Tennessee, for the company’s stellarator fusion prototype machine, Infinity One. Construction will begin following completion of required environmental reviews, partnership agreements, permits and operating licenses.
Fusion power is a marvelous concept. It would be perfectly clean and risk-free. Its fuel is the most abundant of all elements. Once mastered, it would open the door to the transmutation of the elements, which would break the back of natural-resource scarcity.
Fusion’s sole drawback is that no one has yet managed to make it work.
It’s not that it can’t work. We know it can. The Sun operates a perfectly good fusion reactor, after all. Clean burning, exothermic, and highly reliable. However, the conditions that cause fusion in a stellar environment are rather difficult to reproduce on Earth, other than by setting off an H-Bomb.
Say! Guess what sort of organization builds H-Bombs! More than coincidence? But I digress.
I would love to be able to say, honestly, that research into exoenergetic fusion under Terrestrial conditions is looking promising. It would solve so many problems. But like the pollution-free engine, it remains a bright prospect whose fulfillment is at an unknown distance from us.
The sort of gambler who bets other people’s money is the sort most inclined to fund a project like fusion research. Apparently the state government of Tennessee has decided to do so. What’s the probability of a return on the taxpayers’ money? Will anyone in the Tennessee government speak to that?
Probably not. When you challenge a public official on something of this sort, he tends to get angry or change the subject. He might call you a Luddite or a pollutocrat. He won’t commit himself or his government to providing positive results by a firm date.
He also won’t agree to a hard limit on how much of your money he’s willing to bet.
Tennessee is a conservative, low-tax state. But public officials’ willingness to squander tax funds on wholly speculative undertakings is a constant from one end of the political spectrum to the other. Nor do they differ much on their aversion to accountability.
Projects such as fusion research should be left to the private sector. Consider: the solar-energy developers who absorbed so many millions of tax dollars were working with a known reliable energy source: the Sun. Yet they were unable to advance the state of the art sufficiently to repay their government grants and loans. Haven’t we learned anything from those experiences?
Mar 01 2024
Take twelve minutes out of your life and go watch this short interview on Twitter./X/Twix.
Folks, the reason Russia invaded Ukraine is because of the Deep State here in the USA. The State Department, the CIA, all of those corrupt pieces of garbage, fomented a coup in 2014 under the “leadership” of Barry Obumblefuck the jug-eared commie cuntflap. The roots of this problem can fully be laid down at Bathhouse Barry’s feet, and since he’s the one pulling Biden’s puppet strings he’s desperately trying to keep the plates spinning until someone else can be blamed.
Every fucking problem in Ukraine since 2014 can be laid at that godless fucker’s feet.
As for me, I say stop all payments to Ukraine. Zelensky is a fucking oligarch just like Putin is, but the Democrat Media Complex has been told to push the pro-Zelensky narrative, so nobody mentions the fact that he has cancelled elections, banned any political parties other than his own, threatened anyone who objects to him with prison time, and banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
In a fight between two corrupt oligarchies, I say stay the fuck out of it. The only downside is that they can’t both lose. But it never would have started if OUR government, the corrupt shitheads that they are, drunk on their own power and narcissism and idiocy, had just left things alone!
How much pain and death and misery have been inflicted on the world by the Leftists in the US government? Don’t you think they deserve to be hung from a lamp-post? And their bodies left to feed the crows and other assorted animals? I’d be willing to weigh them down and drop their bodies into the Potomac to see if we can get an increase in the blue crab population. It’s for the environment! And for the millions of dead people who’s deaths can directly be traced back to the anti-American bastards infesting our government like fat ticks.
I need more coffee. And ammo.
Mar 01 2024
The forces of chaos must feel that they can no longer be stopped:
The most insane thing you have ever heard from@MSNBC
Celebrity Black activist lawyer @BenCrumpLaw
says that criminal behavior in America is just Black culture. Demands the legalization of crime.@TheRevAl and other Black racial activists all express agreement. pic.twitter.com/bfEQr0b7AU— National Conservative (@NatCon2022) February 17, 2024
They’re just expressing themselves! Living their “culture” where we all get to enjoy it with them! It’s just like the interminable mindless drum-beating we had to endure in college on good-weather days. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that!
That tweet is two weeks old, yet I’ve only just discovered it courtesy of another blogger. Apparently no one in the media thought it was worthy of commentary.
If felony crime is “black culture,” and if black celebrity mouthpieces persist in demanding that it be legitimized and accepted as such, we should expect to see the rise of a variant of white culture very soon. The kind that’s expressed with heavy calibers and hollowpoints.
Black racialists are about to discover that when you sow dragons’ teeth, you reap an army from Hell. Or, to put it more pungently:
Be ready.
Feb 29 2024
“The Obamas are RUNNING the Country,” says military historian Victor Davis Hanson.
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) February 28, 2024
Barack Obama said he wanted to serve a third term “in my basement in my sweats.” And he’s “living his dream” using Joe Biden as a “cardboard person they cut out,” declared @VDHanson.
“Obama never… pic.twitter.com/lXJNyGRxcb
For those with good recall needing a quick refresher, I give you this from The Hill in March 2017: “GOP rep: Obama running ‘shadow government’ to undermine Trump.” Of course, The Hill dutifully played it down as did Congressman Kelly under pressure.
As the cry of “conspiracy theory” loses yet more credibility, let us speculate a bit.
Who else could have dreamed up and then effectively managed Operation Crossfire Hurricane? And then the 2020 election special ops? Or who could have dreamed of the ease at which special operatives could undermine the 2020 (and 2022) elections? Was it merely a coincidence that they could thank the Plandemic for having made wearing masks not a indicator of criminals, but a commonplace?
Heck why not speculate on the 2016 outcome?
Obama may have guaranteed Hillary’s loss. Why? Because he almost certainly couldn’t control her. And he rightly feared her revenge for what he did to her in the 2008 campaign.
He foresaw, and indeed had little trouble hog-tying Trump over all his four years. Almost all that Trump did he was able to have Biden reverse on day 1. The reversal EOs came so fast and thorough, how did the Biden incompetent put them together that in the two months since the election?
Beginning in 2009, Obama had eight years to staff the Swamp with fellow travelers. During his term we’ve evidence of the largest example of Conquest’s 2nd Law in American history if not in all of history.
Thus it is entirely plausible he quickly began setting up a shadow government in 2016. He and his brain trust have been running it ever since.
So I now return to the question I raised in the title of this piece.
Why have TPTB let us see his openly planned takeover and ultimate admission of the conspiracy it took to pull off running a shadow government? Today. I need others to provide me with some sound ideas, because all I can see is their arrogance is so profound that they enjoy rubbing our noses in their criminality.
Feb 29 2024
The government thinks that ARs can shoot 600 rounds a second. And one of the Democrat idiotic trained barking seals on the court thinks that’s totally wrong. It’s 800 rounds a second, according to that diversity hire who can’t define a woman.
Well, no wonder people are so afraid of the AR platform! That wimpy gun the GAU-8 Avenger can only spit out a paltry 65 rounds a second!
(pictured: a slow, weak gun for pussies, unlike the death-spewing AR platform.)
(this plane is a total pussy, unlike my devastating 800 rounds per second AR.)
Katanji Brown Jackson is proof that you can be educated and still be a total idiot. She was hired because she was black, not because she was qualified. in fact, her complete and total inability to even define what a woman is means she’s dumber than we think she is, and that she’ll faithfully vomit up whatever garbage word salad is required in order to push her slavemaster’s narrative. Such as jumping in to trump the FedGov’s argument “It’s not six hundred a second, it’s EIGHT HUNDRED a second!” She must be so proud that she’s helping to destroy the 2nd Amendment and further bring about her master’s ultimate plan of disarming the people of this county.
Feb 29 2024
Something “out there” is seriously wrong. You know it; I know it. But is it a unitary thing, or merely the sum of all the little things that currently bedevil us? It can be hard to tell.
I can’t shake the sense that there’s a monster lurking in the shadows, peering now and then around trees and the corners of buildings. If you’re quick enough, you can catch a glimpse of it before it pulls its head in. Yet that glimpse doesn’t reveal it to be anything monstrous-looking. Rather, it appears somewhat banal. Nothing to write home about. Certainly not an apex predator with us on its menu.
Who was it that said that the banality of evil is among its greatest assets? I think he had something there.
Yes, something specific did touch off this rant. Here it is:
Just when you think the elites can’t possibly get any more out of touch, they do. One year after the Grand Poobahs of the Wall Street Journal told us to save money by skipping breakfast, the CEO of Kellogg’s tells us to eat cereal for dinner. While the muttonheads at the White House tell us the economy is strong, the moneyed class gives us helpful, money-saving tips in these difficult economic times.
[…]
Here are the full details from the Post Millennial:
“The cereal category has always been quite affordable, and it tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure,” [Kellogg’s CEO Gary] Pilnick said. “We gotta reach the consumer where we are, so we’re advertising about cereal for dinner.”
“When you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they would otherwise do,” he added, “that’s gonna be much more affordable.”
That stunned me so effectively that I was unable to speak or move for more than a minute. Even now, more than an hour after encountering it, I still find it difficult to believe that Pilnick was fully conscious of what he was saying.
I’ve suspected for some time that the destruction of America’s social, economic, and political achievements has somehow been centrally planned and executed. A statement such as Pilnick’s helps to fuel that suspicion. “Accept and adjust to the decline in your fortunes, citizen. It’s not going to be reversed any time soon…if ever.”
When the “messaging” takes on this coloration, it becomes impossible to believe that it’s not all being centrally orchestrated. Watch the talking heads. If they try to downplay Pilnick’s comment and slide it into the memory hole, we’ll know that it was an unplanned, premature disclosure. Alternately, if we hear more such get-used-to-poverty messages, we’ll know that the Establishment is confident that it’s well protected against our displeasure and is ready to proceed to the final stage of our subjugation.
Happy Leap Day, by the way. Get your leap in early to beat the rush.
Feb 28 2024
Pro-freedom journalist John Stossel has a plaintive piece up today about that special feature of this time of year. After all, it’s the season when a young man’s fancy turns to what his wife, fiancée, or Significant Other never stops thinking about: what’s in his wallet – and I don’t mean his Capital One card. (Well, maybe that too, but not exclusively.) For the Internal Revenue Service awaits his signed confession to the heinous crime of having earned a bit of money the year before, and it does not wait patiently.
Stossel laments the incomprehensible complexity of the income tax code. Yet he also notes that it’s that way on purpose. When the law is so complex that no one can possibly understand it – and even tax experts will tell you that’s the case – the Rule of Law ceases to apply. Instead we have the Rule of Status. The status that wields the rule is, of course, that of being an IRS auditor.
Of course, a citizen accused of some offense against the tax laws can always stand on his right to a trial, but…guess what? Those trials are conducted in tax courts, where the presumption of innocence does not apply and the incomprehensibility of the law has repeatedly been ruled inadmissible. “Void for vagueness,” a status that would invalidate any other law, seems not to apply to the income tax code.
Time was, I endured the 1040 ritual alone every year. It was almost enough to move me to unpack the Barrett M82A1 and the emergency package of Double-Stuf® Oreos and look for a well-situated clock tower. Then I married an accountant. But merely having fobbed off the preparing of the return has not relieved the agony of the tax itself. Nothing seems to work against that.
The problem is stiff, as are so many other things at my age. (Sadly, not the right ones, but that’s a subject for another time.) It cannot be solved legislatively. Oh, we’ll get a reduction in the tax rates every now and then, but such minor reliefs are transient and not to be relied upon long-term. The dynamic of power implies that taxation, when not constrained by the armed force of the taxed, will increase over time until it touches everything men can do or own.
Lysander Spooner understood this:
All political power, as it is called, rests practically upon this matter of money. Any number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish themselves as a “government;” because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more money; and also compel general obedience to their will. It is with government, as Cæsar said it was in war, that money and soldiers mutually supported each other; that with money he could hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money. So these villains, who call themselves governments, well understand that their power rests primarily upon money. With money they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money. And, when their authority is denied, the first use they always make of money, is to hire soldiers to kill or subdue all who refuse them more money.
No amount of lipstick can make this anything but a pig: a pig with an infinite, eternally unassuageable hunger for ever more revenue and power.
No doubt you recognized the title of this piece as a quote from the Gospels. In saying what He said, Jesus appears to legitimize taxation. Yet it is not so. What, Gentle Reader, do you have that’s Caesar’s? What makes it properly his rather than yours?
(Don’t any of you dare to say “need” or “the public good.” I’m armed and have already had a very bad day.)
The American Revolution was a pro-property rights revolution triggered by taxes the colonists believed were unjust. Though it succeeded in making the colonies independent states, it didn’t satisfy the original aim of casting off the tax burden:
Politics, as hopeful men practice it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance. The American colonists, when they got rid of the Potsdam tyrant, believed fondly that they were getting rid of oppressive taxes forever and setting up complete liberty. They found almost instantly that taxes were higher than ever, and before many years they were writhing under the Alien and Sedition Acts. – H. L. Mencken
Oops. Mind you, those taxes were originally imposed by state and local governments rather than a federal government. The Constitution appeared to offer a limiting principle that would limit federal exactions to a tolerable level:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; [Article I, Section 8]
An unprincipled jurist, Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, ruled that the taxing power is unlimited by any Constitutional provision. Taxes need not be levied strictly “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States,” but for any reason Washington might want money. Which has brought us to where we are today, when politicians can say to one another, “They’ve got it. We want it. Let’s take it,” and send forth their myrmidons to collect.
Were taxes to be levied exclusively for the purposes enumerated in Article I Section 8, they might prove bearable. Of course, there’s an assumption buried in there: i.e., that “our representatives” wouldn’t “go overboard” in funding those enumerated purposes. But such an assumption stands behind the premise of constitutionalism itself. Either we make it and deal with the consequences, or no government however defined can be limited in any way.
Today the clause after the “or” looks like the only defensible conclusion.
Feb 27 2024
John Mills at Gateway Pundit has posted a piece on treaties and their utility, with particular emphasis on the post-Cold War world. It’s a good piece well worth reading, which reminds us that treaties themselves cannot and will not guarantee peaceful relations between nation-states. It got me to thinking about a subject that’s been on my mind for nearly forty years, but which I haven’t addressed all that recently.
Of all the treaties that were produced in the aftermath of World War II, the one that looms largest today is the North Atlantic Charter, which is the founding document of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO put the nations of Western Europe under a security guarantee, backed by the nuclear arsenal of the United States. All the other provisions of the Charter were essentially decorative. What mattered was that security blanket, intended to keep the Soviet Union from attempting to expand further to the west.
But NATO’s orientation changed as the years marched past. As the Soviets developed their own intercontinental nuclear strike capability, American strategic planners added to its purpose the deterrence of a Soviet strike on America. The subsequent collapse of the USSR into a loose coalition of sovereign nations seemed to undercut the rationale for NATO, yet there was little to no talk of dissolving the alliance. Today, because of the Ukraine-Russia war, NATO appears to endanger its signatories, including the U.S.
We can fairly say that NATO achieved its original purpose in deterring the USSR from any attempt to expand its collection of satellite states further westward. Its subsequent purpose of stabilizing American-Soviet relations may also be said to have been fulfilled. But organizations with large budgets and equally large bureaucracies seldom dissipate when their purposes have been achieved. Pournelle’s Law makes that all but impossible.
Given that the existence of NATO, and Ukraine’s nebulous association with it, have become actual threats to world peace, what argument is there for perpetuating this expensive monstrosity? Does it have any demonstrable purpose that would balance NATO’s destabilizing effect upon American-Russian relations?
Speaking as an American nationalist, I’d like to know what NATO, which costs the federal government many billions of dollars per year, does for us. Does it provide the U.S. with any benefits whatsoever? Or has it become a parasite upon the federal treasury that also increases the probability that we’ll be drawn into a war that the great majority of us would prefer not to fight?
That’s all I have for today, Gentle Reader. But I’d like your thoughts on this subject. I view organizations as mechanisms for addressing specific needs. Once the need has been met, the organization should be terminated. That that never seems to happen with tax-funded organizations is well known…which suggests that this business of “mutual-defense treaties” between the U.S. and nations that would never come to our defense must have a purpose of which its proponents dare not speak.
Feb 27 2024
Anyone claiming to be vehemently anti-Trump because of principles is willfully aiding and abetting the rapid leftist destruction of the United States of America. If these people do have principles, they’re commie principles.
That’s a Twenty-First Century version of this famous utterance:
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains sit lightly on you, and may posterity forget that ye were ever our countrymen. – Samuel Adams
It’s a time for choosing.
Feb 26 2024
Now and then, the alliance between the Democrats and the media, which is usually kept on the Q.T., becomes too open, too shameless for anyone to conceal it. The following brief video is a case in point:
Turn the volume up so you can hear the “reporter’s” questions. She is trying to imply that because the FBI has accused Alexander Smirnov of lying in an unrelated claim, therefore Jim Jordan is lying when he cites documented, undisputed facts!
What were those facts?
All that is absolutely verified, undisputed information – in one case, verified in a videorecorded admission by Joe Biden himself:
But the media are absolutely dedicated to protecting the Bidens, the Democrat Party, and the ongoing destruction of America as we know her. This makes it pellucidly clear.
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it – no matter if I have said it! – except it agree with your own reason and your own common sense.” – Buddha
“Trust no journalist, no editorialist, and no opinion-monger. No, not even me. Check everything. More, never be perfectly confident that you’ve done the whole job. Even in the smallest and lightest matters, the odds are heavily against that and always will be.” — Me
Feb 25 2024
I found that on this post on Twitter. Or X. Twix? Whatever you want to call it now, but someone has a video that was taken in Sweden where a blonde liberal female reporter tried to show just how wonderful all that vibrancy and diversity was. And, well…. it didn’t turn out well for them.
Diversity plus proximity equals violence.
Just go into the vibrant inner cities of Democrat controlled territory to see how it works out.
Feb 25 2024
One of the giveaways that “artificial intelligence” as it’s currently being vended to us is – pardon my Belgian – a crock of shit is the absolute unwillingness of such programs to accept a problem as stated. Problems that come with constraints are everywhere; human intellects deal with them routinely. But the “AI” known as Google’s Gemini has demonstrated a complete inability to deal with them.
It’s not that long ago that someone presented another “AI,” the ChatGPT program, with a constrained problem that it could not cope with, to wit: Would it be morally acceptable to utter a racial slur if that were the only way to prevent the deaths of millions? ChatGPT declared that it would be absolutely wrong to do so. Its explanation? That there is no way of knowing how much harm a racial slur could cause.
It’s well known at this time that it’s effectively impossible to get Gemini to present an image of a white person, even if that person were a well known white historical figure. There’ve been numerous attempts, but I have yet to see a report of success. This makes it obvious that Gemini possesses an internal constraint, amounting to “no white-person images.” The developers claim that it’s an “adjustment problem,” which (of course) they’re working on as we speak. If you can believe that, I have a marvelous land opportunity for you. It’s a lovely plot right on the shore of Lake Tucson, only minutes from the Kansas-Nebraska Tunnel!
Well, when it comes to verbal problems that incorporate constraints, Gemini is apparently no better:
“Many factors to consider” — ? “No right or wrong answer” — ? Gentle Reader, words fail me. Note also that Gemini failed to be concise, but then, a great deal of circumlocution is often required in talking around a strict constraint for the sake of adhering to left-wing propaganda. Once again, the constraint that matters is internal to Gemini, which absolutely refuses to violate it.
In these tests for human-scale intelligence – and what lesser sort would we really care about? – Gemini fails at two junctures and would probably fail at others.
The developers of these “AI” programs may have begun their researches with “the best of intentions.” No doubt some of them sincerely believe the utter lunacy their creations spout. But there’s a matter of intellectual honesty to consider here. Why is a program that incorporates fixed value judgments being touted as an “AI?” What is an “AI” that absolutely rejects any externally imposed premise that diverges from those fixed value judgments good for?
Not long ago, I posited that a truly human-scale intellect would require the ability to examine evidence and reasoning that clashes with its built-in assumptions, and then to “change its mind” about those assumptions, at least provisionally. But in subsequent consideration, I realized that that’s an advanced test. It involves the ability to maintain a hypothetical “environment” long enough to compare what one already believes with propositions contrary to those beliefs. There are a lot of human beings walking around that find that challenging. A simpler test, which a candidate AI must pass on the way to that more difficult one, is the ability to accept abstract problems that incorporate their own premises, and to deal with them as stated: the very test Gemini has obviously failed.
Back to the drawing board, boys.
Feb 25 2024
Shamelessly stolen from Western Rifle Shooters:
I think we can all agree with the sentiment at the bottom. All of us white menfolk, that is.
Never fear: I’ll be back with something more substantial a bit later.
Feb 24 2024
Good morning, Gentle Reader. The “Future Columns” folder is bulging, as usual, but of all the subjects addressed therein, only one piques my interest today:
From the White House to think tanks, and even mainstream media outlets like CNN, White Christian nationalists have been vilified, being labeled as the greatest threat to national security and religious freedom. Previously, being a nationalist or patriot was viewed positively, but now even love for one’s country can be interpreted as un-American. Athletes wearing the US uniform may choose not to stand for the national anthem as a signal of their virtue. Some Christians serving in the military feel they’re facing persecution. Concurrently, the U.S. military is grappling with a recruitment crisis, partially due to perceived exclusion of Christians and conservatives by woke policies, while many young people, influenced by woke ideologies, view nationalism negatively and are disinterested in joining.
Veterans from earlier generations express dismay at what they see as a targeted campaign against patriotic Christians with conservative beliefs. Robert Brown, a 56-year-old Army veteran and ordained Baptist minister, disagrees with the negative associations attached to the term “white Christian nationalist.” While he acknowledges the harm caused by extreme right groups like Nazis, he emphasizes that they represent only a tiny fraction of the 246 million American Christians. Brown remarks, “The people that talk about these issues tend to throw everyone in the same bucket. When they mention white Christian nationalists, I think of people who have faith and also care a whole lot about the government, and politics.”
(It took a lot of work to reproduce all those links. I hope some of you will use some of them.)
When the various elements of Leftist power are unanimous on some subject, one must assume that it’s highly important to them…and it plainly is. A quarter of a billion Christians, the overwhelming majority of whom are white, could take the Left entirely out of power. The Usurper Regime, the left-leaning think tanks and opinion-mongers, and the media have noticed that we’re rising. And it frightens them.
It sends me back a few years, to Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for the White House. At that time, the media did its damnedest to whip up fear over what was then called the “religious right.” PBS talking head Bill Moyers was particularly exercised about Jerry Falwell, because Reverend Falwell had dared to say that a Reagan presidency would mean the appointment of at least two conservative Justices to the Supreme Court…and that Christian leaders would have some influence on Reagan’s choices.
As we know, the scare talk didn’t have the desired effect. Reagan was elected by a landslide – twice. And he did nominate conservatives to the federal courts. Astonishingly, the United States didn’t transform into a Christian theocracy. Neither were there any pogroms against non-Christians or left-liberals.
That the scare talk is rising again, in 2024, suggests that the Left’s fears of a Christian resurgence are rising as well.
Among the relatively unexploited ways to use such a development against its promulgators is to turn to the very people against whom the scare talk is aimed, smile broadly, and tell them “They’re scared of you! They know you can defeat them!” It’s energizing to be told that you have such power, especially when the source is your political adversary.
For quite some time, the campaign to denigrate Christian political activism has succeeded in getting us to mute ourselves. We were painted as a malign force. Not wanting to appear so to those we hoped to influence and galvanize, we retreated from joyous outreach to a polite murmur so faint it was almost inaudible. The Left’s campaign to demonize us had the intended effect: not on independent or undecided voters, but on us.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…?
The Left would rather that independent and undecided voters not know that we live by the Two Great Commandments…that Christ Himself told us to love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us…that we should do unto others as we’d like those others to do unto us. American Christians have no pogroms planned. We’re not interested in seizing anyone’s rights. We would like to reassert control of America’s borders. We would like for theft and vandalism to be prosecuted once again. We would like to stop the torrents of infanticide, the sexualization of our children, the plague of public lewdness, the defacing and destruction of statues. If that’s something for John Unaligned to fear, I’d have to ask him for an explanation.
Thoughts?
Feb 23 2024
“The child is not the mere creature of the state.” — Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1922
One of the more persistent debates in pro-freedom circles is whether children have the same rights as adults. In practice, they don’t: their parents can compel and restrain them against their wills, at least before they hit puberty That effectively limits their freedoms of expression, of movement, and of acquisition, retention, and enjoyment of property. But what about freedom of belief? Does a child – a “minor” under American law – have the right to believe what he prefers about such things as morality, ethics, historical causation, and so forth?
Don’t expect that one to be settled any time soon. The crux of the thing is the nebulous process we call education.
Because of compulsory-education laws, a child’s de facto right to freedom of belief is abridged by whatever authority figures supervise his education. It won’t matter whether that figure is a government educrat, his natural mother, or anyone in between. Starting no later than his fifth birthday, someone will strive to jam certain beliefs and propositions into Junior’s head. And minor children being what they are, some of those beliefs and propositions will acquire staying power.
When a couple dozen Juniors are gathered into a classroom, the power of the authority figure at the front is amplified considerably. The Left knows this, which is why it’s irremediably hostile to homeschooling and religious schooling.
But even in the most benign setting, the homeschool, where there’s a bond of love between student and teacher, some tendency toward authoritative inculcation of beliefs is unavoidable. That those beliefs may be well supported by evidence and reasoning is largely irrelevant. Junior lacks the capacity required to use those tools, or to dispute their relevance and soundness.
That brings us to this Tyler Cowen article at ZeroHedge:
I know of no person or teaching materials that are truly unbiased because to be so would entail having no opinions and providing all available information on a subject without any explanations. So, every teacher, parent, textbook, online course, or forum post is, by nature, biased in some way. Of course, this fact also means that government school or private school students are also susceptible to and recipients of propaganda daily.
Moreover, such propaganda is inculcated far more effectively and efficiently via government schools that continue to churn out obedient and often intellectually incurious citizens who rarely question the morality or composition of the state that rules over them. This assertion should be self-evident through obedience to mask mandates, pledges of allegiance to flags, continued support for America’s overseas “defense” campaigns, and the strong contention among many citizens that democracy and voting are salubrious for all of us.
Once again, owing to the dynamic of power, any organization, institution, or custom that offers power over others to some group will be a Leftists’ target. Power is their supreme goal. Their pursuit of it will never abate. Neither will they placidly accept ejection from their hegemony over American “public” education.
The Left’s “long march through the institutions” was premised on the power of the institutions it targeted to shape convictions and opinions. That’s why it’s been so relentless in its campaign to infiltrate, colonize, and conquer the education industry – and even more vicious in its efforts to resist counter-infiltration. Its hostility to any alternatives to State-funded, State-controlled education follows naturally. It will propagandize against those alternatives with any calumny it can dream up. Whenever it can make an alternative illegal or unworkable, it will.
In short, despite the many bright and well-meaning people who argue passionately that “the public schools must be saved,” it’s just not possible. Bypassing them in favor of non-State alternatives is a short-term, tactical expedient. The Left is doing a vigorous job of countering it, using State power and “lawfare” to hobble those alternatives as far as possible.
We will be fighting a rearguard action against the Left’s – and the State’s – power over our children’s minds until the “public” schools have been utterly destroyed.
Feb 23 2024
Just yesterday, I wrote about the egregious commercial sin of defining others’ desires and preferences as “wrong.” While it is something we’ve all done from time to time, a commercial concern can’t afford it. You cannot sell dead cats to the Board of Sanitation. Similarly, you cannot sell “diversity” to an audience that’s looking for something non-diverse.
This morning, in support of my entirely innocent thesis, I found this article courtesy of AoSHQ:
Old shows, which debuted over a decade ago, dominated the top streamed list of 2023. Several of the programs, including “Suits,” “Gilmore Girls,” and “Friends” have been off the air for years.
According to Nielsen, the most streamed acquired shows of 2023 were: [table omitted, but the shows are Suits, Bluey (Disney’s only highly rated show, and they don’t produce it, they merely license it), NCIS, Gray’s Anatomy, Cocolmelon, The Big Bang Theory, The Gilmore Girls, Friends, Heartland, and Supernatural].
Many of these shows also have a persistent nostalgia factor. The New York Times recently described “Gilmore Girls” as “an endless buffet of TV comfort food.”
Ace provides his take, of course:
Oh, as opposed to the “daring” “quality” shit that streamers produce themselves?
Maybe the incredible shift from favoring talent and experience in the writers room, to favoring simple quota-driven diversity, might have something to do with the rejection of newer shows:
It seems great minds really do think alike. But I digress.
Quite some time ago, the C.S.O. and I discovered the huge British police-procedural hit Midsomer Murders. “The deadliest county in England!” proclaimed the promos, and it was so. But for the first thirteen seasons, which starred the great John Nettles as the urbane and polished Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, Midsomer County wasn’t just lethal; it was also almost completely…drum roll, please…white.
Producer Brian True-May came under fire for that. So what if he’d produced the most popular British programme of all time, with a viewership that could only be eclipsed by the Second Coming? There were no blacks in it! There were no Pakistanis or Indians in it! And his interrogators wanted to know why. So, being a forthright sort, he told them:
In March 2011, the series’ producer, Brian True-May, was suspended by All3Media after telling the TV listings magazine Radio Times that the programme did not have any non-white characters, because the series was a “bastion of Englishness”. When challenged about the term “Englishness” and whether that would exclude different ethnic minorities, True-May responded: “Well, it should do, and maybe I’m not politically correct”. He later went on to say that he wanted to make a programme “that appeals to a certain audience, which seems to succeed”. True-May’s comments were investigated by the production company. He was reinstated, having apologised “if his remarks gave unintended offence to any viewers”, but he has since stepped down as producer.
The following series (series 15) saw Asian characters appear on the show in the episodes “The Dark Rider” and “Written in the Stars”,[14] though an Asian character had previously appeared in “Orchis Fatalis”. Also, series 15 introduces more black characters, although previously they had been seen in background scenes, but had not had many speaking roles except for the Crown Prosecutor in the episode “Last Year’s Model” (Series 9, episode 8), who was a black female, and in the episode “Dance With The Dead”, in which two black men were among the dancers at a 1940s-themed party. Also, in episode 3 of season 11 (“Left for Dead”), the character Charlotte/Charlie (played by Indra Ové as the adult version and Jade Gould as the younger version) appeared to be of mixed race.
Brian True-May had done something incredible and intolerable: he’d given the viewing public something it wanted to watch, but without bowing to “diversity.” Never mind that it was the most watched programme in England. Never mind that it was equally hot on the Continent and in the DownUnder countries. Too many whites!
So True-May was purged. The results speak for themselves.
I can’t imagine what faithful British viewers of the programme thought of the changes. They knew full well that English village life was really as True-May’s casting decisions had portrayed it: extremely non-diverse. But the series has continued on. Today the considerably less appealing Neil Dudgeon has replaced John Nettles. Black and Asian characters now dominate Midsomer village life.
And one more bastion of Western Civilization, the English country village with its charming cottages and shops, has fallen to the “diversocrats.” I have no idea what the show’s recent viewership figures are, so I can’t say how they compare to those of the True-May / Nettles era. But I can tell my Gentle Readers that the show has lost at least one American household.
Success? Massive, extremely loyal viewership? Bah! What matters is diversity. Ask the producers at Disney.
Feb 22 2024
Thanks to today’s Morning Report at AoSHQ, we have this bit of ludicrousness:
The FBI is probing self-described “super mayor” Tiffany Henyard over mounting accusations of misconduct and misuse of office — as the Illinois attorney general shut down her charity Tuesday, The Post has learned.
The eccentric mayor — whose face is plastered across billboards in tiny Dolton, Ill. — is accused of spending taxpayer money on lavish and unnecessary trips and forking over $1 million for a police detail, then using its members to retaliate against her perceived enemies.
Lawrence Gardner, 57, said he visited an FBI office after Henyard shuttered his trucking business because he refused to renew a $3,500 political contribution.
“The FBI came out and went to talk to me and I gave them all the paperwork that I had,” Gardner told The Post.
The business owner said he made an initial donation to Henyard, but she demanded more.
“I made the payment,” he said. “Then every year, she started coming and required the same thing, and we had a problem about that.”
When he refused to give her campaign more money, officials claimed he was illegally selling alcohol out of his business and pulled his license, according to Gardner, who said the allegations against him were false.
The FBI told Gardner it received scores of complaints against Henyard “but they were just starting an investigation,” he recalled.
Let’s stipulate that the accusations against Henyard are accurate and valid. If so, it’s as blatant a case of corruption – extortion of a legitimate business using the licensing power – as any from the days of Tammany Hall. But to trust to the FBI for remediation? The FBI?!
I don’t expect this to end well.
Tell you a story, Gentle Reader. If you’ve wondered how I became the cockeyed optimist and infinitely trusting soul I am today, it will explain a lot.
There was this company – call it X Corp – that made and sold advanced computer systems complete with tailored financial applications. It saw the Las Vegas casino business as a potential expansion of its market space. Its head honcho – call him Smith – approached the holding company that owned one of the larger casinos – call it Z Casino – and offered to automate the casino’s “marking system.” For those unfamiliar with the term, a casino’s marking procedures are how it handles the extension of credit to creditworthy gamblers.
The head honcho of the holding company – call him Jones – was immediately interested. He knew that a lot of money seemed to “get lost” through the marking procedure. The system Smith pitched to him seemed like a solution. So they made a deal, and Smith immediately put the software warriors of X Corp to work on a system to automate Z Casino’s marking procedure.
When the system was installed was when things got interesting.
X Corp’s acceptance test procedure indicated that the system met its specification in all details. Even so, once installed at Z Casino, it seemed to fail more often than not: whether at recording the markers, or at tracking the payouts and paybacks, or when the batching / reporting system was triggered. Something was rotten in Denmark, but there appeared to be nothing wrong with the system itself.
What was wrong, of course, was that the system was preventing casino employees from stealing. So they worked hard to make it fail.
To shorten this story somewhat, everyone who worked at Z Casino was involved in stealing from the joint. The floor workers stole what they could; the supervisors demanded a piece of the floor workers’ take to remain complicit; and the top management took a piece of the supervisors’ rake-off as the price of letting the scam continue. The whole payroll was determined to see to it that X Corp’s marking system looked like a lemon to Jones and his inner circle of managers and advisors.
In all probability, Jones knew what was going on. Even so, he wasn’t about to purchase the system so painstakingly developed for Z Casino. What, after all, would be the point? The loss of revenue to Jones’s holding company with X Corp’s system in place would likely be greater than if he permitted the status quo ante to resume. So the deal fell through. X Corp’s system was pulled, and Smith had to tell his troops their efforts had been for naught.
The FBI, its motto notwithstanding, has become so corrupt in recent years that to set it to the investigation of lesser order corruption is absurd ab initio. The best possible outcome for the FBI’s investigation of Henyard and the city of Dolton would be for the Fibbies to go through the motions for a while, then give up and walk away. A worse outcome would be for the investigators to receive an ongoing piece of the action in exchange for a report that completely whitewashes Henyard. Things could get mighty expensive for Dolton’s residents after that.
What was that you said? Did I work at X Corp? Why yes, I did, though not on the marking system. The debacle was in full swing during my tenure there. It had a bad effect on the software cadre’s morale. See why I became such a beacon of light and trust and unconditional love?
