Jan 28 2022

Some Random Links and Observations

I’ve been largely at home for the last few days. The winter storms have left me disinclined to venture out of the heated house without a REALLY good reason.

I’m in OH, and, for many of us, NOT venturing out is more the norm. It’s for that reason that we stock up in our pantries before winter. We are well aware that – although we COULD go out of the house – we will likely not WANT to.

Which is where I’ve been this week. Home. Snug. Eating from my stored foods.

It’s given me time to leisurely peruse the blogs. One of them has an interesting post on the largely hereditary governments of the past, and the implications for our society.

Here is the original post at Zman’s site.

I’ve been reading about COVID from a variety of sources. Many of the articles/posts at BOTH ends of the extreme seem to be based less on science, and more on deep-rooted suspicions of the opposing side. However, the near-complete shutdown of alternative points of view certainly leads one to question just how accurate the CDC and FDA numbers are. The government figures have been called into question by a number of people – SOME of them without an agenda, but actively looking for some truth.

Vitamin D is one of the unsung preventatives that might hold the key to keeping most people over 50 alive – the average person is deficient in this nutrient. The deficiencies rise as people age.

However, as so many people “sheltered in place” during the alleged crisis, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that even younger people are severely deficient in this vitamin. Too few people are going outside (myself included, although that might be considered sensible in this current weather). Even children have been discouraged from playing outside by parks closing to unmasked people, and limiting close contact with others.

Add to the masking (keeps the sun from being absorbed on the face), the use of gloves and other clothing to reduce possible skin-to-skin contamination, and the likelihood of Vitamin D deficiency skyrockets. You have to have skin exposed to the sun to get that absorption. Below is a picture of a common use of sunlamps to prevent rickets in Russian children.

It’s even more important for darker skinned people that those with less melanin (i.e., White people). Vitamin D deficiency might account for a lot of the differential in long-term health outcomes in different races.

Even many of the blog/news sites/organizations that profess to be on the side of freedom may only fulfill the task of Cooling the Marks, by keeping them from taking effective steps to stop the Oligarchy. For that purpose, many of the “top-down” organizations have been built. As of today, there are few that were not exposed by Trump; THAT was his real crime.

Consider the dependence of most of society on electronic devices (I am as great a user as anyone – I depend on them to keep me SOMEWHAT connected with family and friends, as well as write, conduct business, and interface with my hearing aids, security system, and network). Depressing to realize the extent to which we are all enmeshed with the Net. Understand, it’s not merely entertainment. THAT we could jettison without much of a problem.

No, it’s the apps that people need to work (teachers call in sick via an app, and their subs pick up the jobs with the same one), conduct business (Zoom calls, email and phone messages, online professional development learning and mandatory HR training, online forms for workers and customers, mandatory tracking of warehouse or production workers to make sure that they are “maximally productive”), online ordering – goods, food, meds – the list goes on and on.

It’s apps that people use to manage their lives – medical appointments, delivery of meds or food, check-ins with caregivers, virtual doctor visits, tracking of elderly family members, so they can continue some degree of independence, GPS travel, interfacing with medical devices.

Little of this is trivial. Little of it is private and under our sole control.

Jan 28 2022

Humility And Confidence

     Do those two qualities sound mutually exclusive to you? They’re not, though quite a lot of people think they are. In fact, they complement one another to an extent that only experience can adequately illuminate.

     No, no political blather today. This is more important.

***

     I’d bet that most of my Gentle Readers have heard or used the term impostor syndrome at some time. It’s a fairly common affliction, especially among young adults who find themselves in positions of authority and responsibility they hadn’t previously imagined they’d ever occupy. Here’s a concise definition-description of it:

     Impostor syndrome (IS) refers to an internal experience of believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be. While this definition is usually narrowly applied to intelligence and achievement, it has links to perfectionism and the social context.

     To put it simply, impostor syndrome is the experience of feeling like a phony—you feel as though at any moment you are going to be found out as a fraud—like you don’t belong where you are, and you only got there through dumb luck. It can affect anyone no matter their social status, work background, skill level, or degree of expertise.

     Mind you, some people feel like frauds because they are frauds. But they’re not impostor-syndrome sufferers, merely individuals aware that they’re not what others take them to be.

     Impostor syndrome is more common today than it was a century ago, for a reason that will surprise few: back then prepubescents and adolescents were given significant responsibilities, and were expected to meet a relatively high standard in discharging them. The practice allowed those young people to build confidence in themselves. By the time they became adults expected to look after themselves, they’d had enough tests of their ability to trust that they would rise to any challenge adult life might present them.

     Those young folks of a century ago were also aware that their contemporaries were undergoing the same sort of maturation-through-responsibility. Johnny on Apple Street would know that James on Pear Street bore a burden comparable to his own – and that James was meeting his responsibilities quite as adequately as Johnny. This inhibited young folks against comparing themselves to one another in a haughty, preening fashion. Even if their responsibilities were quite different, each knew that the others’ parents expected roughly as much from their kids as those kids were capable of doing. The “parental network,” whose main communications medium was the midafternoon kaffeklatsch among neighborhood wives, kept things roughly balanced.

     Thus, while the adolescents’ confidence in themselves built steadily, their awareness that their burdens did not differ significantly from those of their peers kept them humble in the best sense: they viewed one another as equals, equally deserving of respect. Neither impostor syndrome nor arrogance was significant among them.

***

     It’s hard to do anything of substance if you lack confidence. Indeed, a lack of confidence can paralyze you, such that you can’t even bring yourself to start. But there’s no “royal road to confidence,” any more than there is to geometry. Confidence comes from testing oneself against challenges, and overcoming them.

     Contemporary youths don’t get enough such testing. They tend to enjoy a much longer period of sheltered non-responsibility than did their ancestors. Combined with this are the many technological advances that have simplified and eased the tasks young folks do face. Consider only one: research for a term paper, performed at a library or two, compared to research done via Google.

     But among our social maladies, behavior that expresses arrogance rather than humility is equally serious. How ironic that it proceeds from the same source: a lack of testing! For it’s easy to over-assess oneself if one is never tested. From there to deeming oneself superior to others is a short journey.

     I find myself wondering whether the “self-esteem fad” of the most recent decades has its roots in the above.

***

     If you’re wondering why this is on my mind, it’s because today is the feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctor Angelicus of the Catholic Church, the saint to whom I feel the greatest attraction. (Settle down, you in the peanut gallery; it’s because he and I are both compulsive writers.) He sought the religious life from an early age, against the wishes of his wealthy family. According to several accounts, his parents and siblings tried everything short of red-hot pincers to dissuade him from becoming a Dominican friar, including imprisonment in the family castle and repeated temptation with prostitutes. Needless to say, Aquinas withstood it all, joined the Dominicans, was eventually ordained, and today is celebrated as the most important Catholic intellectual of all time.

     Clearly, Thomas Aquinas was confident in his calling to the religious life. He was equally confident that he had contributions to make to Catholic thought. If he ever wavered while being tested, it is not recorded. Yet toward the end of his life, he wrote something that also expressed a profound, even transcendent humility:

     While he believed that reason and logic made the best arguments for the mind of man, Aquinas was also devoted to prayer. He never shirked the execution of his monastic and priestly duties. Pious exclamations dot the margins of his work, and he was transported by heavenly visions. When he set down his pen on December 6, 1273, after receiving such a vision, it was with words that should strike at the heart of any who dare scribble on a sheet of paper and think it good: “I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value.”… But the simple reality is that Aquinas came to recognize the vanity of all intellectual accomplishment, no matter how great. All that matters, ultimately, is the Beatific Vision. His last words were a simple prayer. He had lived and worked, he said, in obedience to the Catholic Church, and if he had ever erred by ignorance, he trusted to that same Catholic Church to correct and forgive him.

     [H. W. Crocker III, Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church]

     In the Beatific Vision, we are all humbled to dust, for what temporal creature can claim any stature to compare with that of our Creator? Yet we are also exalted and urged to confidence, for we are made in His image. Our gifts of perception and reason are the greatest of the tools He gave us. They allow us to make sense of the world around us. But even more than that, if properly employed within the Vision’s premises, they enable us to make sense of our relation to Him: a relation whose elucidation by Thomas Aquinas has never been surpassed.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Jan 28 2022

Thirty years of utterly wasted opportunity.

If the path forward is unpredictable, what got us here is easy to trace. The row over Ukraine is the outgrowth of an aggressive US posture toward Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago, driven by hegemonic policymakers and war profiteers in Washington. Understanding that background is key to resolving the current impasse, if the Biden administration can bring itself to alter a dangerous course.[1]

And good luck figuring out the reason for this hostility toward Russia.

It’s the U.S. that’s been bombing and sanctioning people and providing “leadership” hither and yon and the notion that Russia is intent on reestablishing the U.S.S.R. is nonsense.

This is yet another example of how American elites pursue agendas that are grotesquely distorted, contrary to the wishes of American citizens, and contrary to common sense. An ordinary American looks at what his government does at the federal or state level can only conclude he lives in a carnival house of mirrors.

Notes
[1] “Maté: The Ukraine Crisis, Sponsored By US Hegemony And War Profiteers.” By Aaron Maté, ZeroHedge, 1/28/22 (emphasis added).

Jan 27 2022

Just In Case I’ve Never Mentioned This Before…

     …there is a novel – a remarkably brave and optimistic novel – that addresses the possibility of an America without government. It’s clear-eyed; it allows that there would be some difficulties and some dangers. It also allows that such a project would probably have a limited lifetime. But it is among the most cheerful documents ever to emerge from science fiction. Indeed, it’s almost as good as this widely celebrated masterpiece.

     The novel of which I speak is the late Cyril M. Kornbluth’s magnum opus The Syndic.

     It’s free. Download it! What have you got to lose?

Jan 27 2022

Something That Desperately Needed To Be Said

     Today – indeed, for some years now – any attempt to argue with someone on the political Left has been met with vituperation and accusations of evil motives. “Racist!” “Sexist!” “Xenophobe!” and so forth have become the Left’s standard responses to any sort of disagreement. These pejoratives have lost some of their ability to silence decent Americans – we’re losing our unwillingness to fight quite as swiftly as they’re losing their vestigial credibility – but they haven’t lost their ability to enrage us.

     Today, a man who really deserves to be nationally known has laid down a marker:

     Nicholas Freitas may be a humble state-level legislator, but in the above he speaks for millions of Americans who have simply had enough and will have no more of being slandered and condemned by persons who:

  • Practice the lowest, tawdriest, most deceitful imaginable sort of politics;
  • Recognize no standards of conduct to which they will adhere;
  • Never accept responsibility for their failures.

     Please, please spread this one around!

Jan 27 2022

What You Don’t Know You Know (Or Pretend That You Don’t)

     Most Gentle Readers probably remember Donald Rumsfeld, when he was the Secretary of Defense in the Busy the Younger Administration, talking about “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns:” gaps in our knowledge that we’re aware of, and others that we’re not. Rumsfeld’s comments were important not only at that time and for those circumstances, but for a great many other times and contexts in which people and organizations attempt to plan their moves.

     I have a different, though at least rhetorically related, subject in mind this morning: knowledge we possess but are unaware of…or, alternately, are unwilling to admit.

     It’s a strange idea, isn’t it? Why would anyone be unaware that he knows something? What sort of knowledge would make the knower unwilling to admit that he knows it? In truth, the mystery is quite superficial. Our knowledge can often be used against us: to make us feel or look guilty.

     The late Barbara Tuchman touched on this in her book The March of Folly. She defined folly succinctly as “knowing better but doing worse,” a neat encapsulation that applies perfectly to a great deal of political foolishness. Governments, in particular, are notable for knowing better but doing worse. Our current inflation woes are a salient example.

     But of course, governments are merely collections of individuals raised to positions of authority. It’s individuals that really know things. It’s individuals that make decisions…even when the decision in question is the result of a majority vote. One of the consequences of allowing certain decisions to be determined by a majority vote is that the responsibility for the decision and what follows from it is diluted by the number of persons who approved it.

     The great Herbert Spencer was particularly incisive in this regard. Here he is commenting on the proper limitation of legislative power:

     I asked one of the members of Parliament whether a majority the House could legitimize murder. He said no. I asked him whether it could sanctify robbery. He thought not. But I could not make him see that if murder and robbery are intrinsically wrong, and not to be made right by the decisions of statesmen, then similarly all actions must be either right or wrong, apart from the authority of the law; and that if the right and wrong the law are not in harmony with this intrinsic right and wrong, the law itself is criminal.

     Here, he quotes an unnamed scribe on the same subject:

     Nevertheless, in the inexplicable universal votings and debatings of these Ages, an idea or rather a dumb presumption to the contrary has gone idly abroad; and at this day, over extensive tracts of the world, poor human beings are to be found, whose practical belief it is that if we “vote” this or that, so this or that will thenceforth be.… Practically, men have come to imagine that the Laws of this Universe, like the laws of constitutional countries, are decided by voting.… It is an idle fancy. The Laws of this Universe, of which if the laws of England are not an exact transcript, they should passionately study to become such, are fixed by the everlasting congruity of things, and are not fixable or changeable by voting!

     Both quotes are from Spencer’s essay series “The Proper Sphere of Government,” which is included in the volume The Man Versus The State.

     Like all immanent and immutable truths, this “should” be “obvious.” Yet men routinely behave as if they believe that “if we ‘vote’ this or that, so this or that will thenceforth be.” Do they believe it – really and sincerely?

     I contend that in the main, they do not.

***

     As long as I’m quoting, have one from Heinlein:

     Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal — else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy. The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority… other than through the tragic logic of history. The unique ‘poll tax’ that we must pay was unheard of. No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority. If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead — and responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple.

     [From Starship Troopers]

     Americans have cried out repeatedly for relief from the financial and economic burdens loaded upon them by government expenditure. But they invariably scream Don’t take away our freebies! with equal fervor. They want the “entitlements” but not the bills. They want the authority to command massive government spending but not the responsibility for what follows: inflation, ever-rising tax rates, and ultimately the financial exhaustion of the nation.

     The legislators who enact such a policy shrug and say “My constituents voted for it.” The executives who implement the policy shrug and say “The legislature voted for it.” The jurists prefer not to say. What follows is as predictable as the Sun rising in the East. We know it full well, but admitting it would compel us to accept responsibility for it.

     Might this be what Alexander Tytler had in mind?

***

     What we know but don’t know or won’t admit extends to many subjects, not just the ones measured in currency. We know some obvious things about race, for example. Most of us won’t even speak them aloud, for fear of unpleasant social consequences. We know some obvious things about how “vice” laws corrupt law enforcement, too. But it’s socially unacceptable to say “Legalize it all and let them kill themselves with it.” That would make you sound “hard-hearted.” And we know what H. L. Mencken said about the character of politicians:

     The typical lawmaker of today is a man devoid of principle – a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would cheerfully be in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.

     But we cheerfully vote for this one over that one because of the capital letter after his name, often on the grounds that all we can do is support “the lesser of two evils.” Thus we perpetuate the system, with its built-in dynamics and incentives that inevitably rob private persons of their rights and wealth. We stop short of considering that there might be a third alternative that deserves a moment’s thought. That alternative has an ugly word attached to it: anarchy. We can’t have that!

     It’s time to ask some hard questions, this one most imperatively:


We already have anarchy;
Must we have tyranny as well?

     Hold that thought.

***

     If you believe the official line:

  • Over 150 million persons voted in the November 2020 elections;
  • 81 million votes were cast to install Joe Biden in the White House;
  • And there was no appreciable vote fraud.

     Given Biden’s history of deceit and corruption, his habit of slandering his political adversaries, his demonstrable physical and mental decline, and his non-campaign, is it imaginable that 81 million persons really believed he would be an acceptable president? Americans in possession of sufficient wit to hold a job could not have imagined any such thing. If 81 million votes were cast for him, who cast them and for what reason? Could that many people have rejected a second term for Donald Trump on account of his tweets?

     It doesn’t wash. Indeed, it seems impossible that over 150 million votes were cast. With President Trump’s best efforts, he barely got a tax-cut bill and three Supreme Court nominees through Congress. The rest of his accomplishments were via executive orders. His supposed co-partisans on Capitol Hill gave him nearly no support on any other initiative. You would think that they regarded him as a threat to their power and perquisites.

     Who would consciously, knowingly grant his consent to be governed by the gaggle of smarmy frauds that occupies Washington D.C.?

     The smarmy frauds are aware that We the Private Persons of America would prefer that they all dissolve into ether and float away. That, of course, is not in their plans. They like power and what it brings them. But they must continue to maintain that government in these United States possesses the consent of the governed, as Thomas Jefferson prescribed. Their principal weapon for maintaining that illusion is the biennial vote tally.

     Keep an eye on the reported vote totals. Regardless of who gets elected, the number of votes we’re told have been cast is a critically important datum. Were it to fall below a certain, undetermined threshold, Americans would realize that “the consent of the governed” no longer exists. The political Establishment must prop that number up by any and every means available.

     After all, without robust vote totals, how could they continue to evade responsibility for their actions? How could they maintain their pretense that they’re only doing what We the People want them to do?

***

     I have a colleague, somewhat younger than I, who has said on various occasions that “If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.” Now, this gentleman is reasonably intelligent, a well regarded engineer. But his assertion is utter nonsense – yet no power on Earth could make him see it. (Yes, I tried.) He rejects without a moment’s consideration the rationality of the decisions of millions of others – some of us more intelligent than he – not to participate in a system used to maintain that we consent to be ruled by villains and thieves.

     For some non-participants, it’s a matter of laziness, but for others, it’s about our revulsion at the idea of taking even a shred of responsibility for the blackguards’ dance in our capitals.

     The politicians can’t have it. They need to maintain the illusion that we consent to their capers. Few of them sincerely believe that vote totals are low because it’s difficult to vote. Those totals must be supported to maintain their hegemony – and if they must manufacture the numbers, then so it shall be. The alternative – being held responsible for their depredations – is unthinkable.

     I maintain that we know all this. That millions remain unwilling to admit it is irrelevant. The rest is left as an exercise for my Gentle Readers.

Jan 26 2022

Bullies, 2022 Edition

     During today’s early-morning news sweep, my eye caught on three stories in particular:

     All three are relevant to the subject given by the title of this piece. The first is an example of how bullies prevail when not opposed by forces determined to stop them. The second is a rare example of a governmental bully – OSHA is a worse bully than any other government agency except for the EPA and the IRS – backing down before a swelling tide of popular anger. The third is a study in how an intelligent commentator, misled by the bullying behavior of political adversaries, can thereafter mislead himself. (I expect I’ll be asked what I mean by that last. Here’s my response: Think about it.)

     Back in 2008, at Eternity Road, my beloved friend Duyen wrote:

     There are a lot of bullies roaming around, these days. They’re more numerous and more various than ever before. Muslim bullies. Environmentalist bullies. Homosexual bullies. Union bullies. Anti-Catholic and anti-Christian bullies. Victimist bullies — like the irony in that? Educationist bullies. Bullies who want to disarm you and bullies who want to suck you dry. You can hardly avoid them, especially if you live and work in a large city.

     They’re as many as they are because we failed our sacred responsibility as the gardeners of fertile soil: to pull the weeds before the roots go too deep to dig out. We told ourselves that it was our duty to tolerate even the most blatantly evil nonsense. Instead of punching back, we held our tongues. Look where that got us.

     Today there are even more bullies than the ones Duyen named in the above. You could probably name half a dozen of them yourself. But their essence and the appropriate countermeasure to them remains as Duyen nailed it.

     Not long after that, also at Eternity Road, I wrote:

     Time was, America was understood to be founded on a clear, simple understanding of the manly virtues. A genuine man doesn’t bend the knee to any sort of bullying. He doesn’t concede for the sake of being liked; he doesn’t imagine that his moral standing requires that he surrender preemptively. He doubles his fists and shouts, “All right, bring it on. We’ll see who’s standing at the end of this.”

     Your Curmudgeon has feared for some time that the manly ethic was irretrievably lost. A few have always displayed it, and a few display it today, but their number seems pathetically small: far too few to germinate a renascence of actual moral courage. Yet moral courage is the only thing that can withstand an onslaught of bullying. The great mass of men will only follow demonstrated courage.

     Either we grow spines in sufficient quantity, and sufficient stiffness, to reverse the trend and put the bullies in their place, or America as we’ve loved it is doomed.

     And just a few days ago, Ragin’ Dave wrote this:

     [W]hat is it that we “tolerate”?

     We tolerate things that are unpleasant. We tolerate things that are harmful. We tolerate things that are evil, and we tolerate them only up to the point where we can get rid of them. If I have a tick on me, I’ll tolerate that only up to the point where I can get my fine tweezers and remove it. If my car has a defect, I will tolerate that only up to the point where I can get it fixed. If my neighbors are throwing a wild party, I’ll tolerate that only up to the point where it starts to effect me personally, such as making it impossible for me to sleep.

     The point being, you do not tolerate things that are good. You welcome things that are good. You only tolerate things that are bad.

     Does a bully – regardless of the objective merits of whatever “cause” he claims to espouse – deserve to be tolerated? Are the net consequences of tolerating a bully good or bad?

     Bullying – “Our military can beat the snot out of your military. Try us and see!” – is the sotto voce vocabulary of international negotiation. Many negotiations would be pointless without it. In this you have about 50% of my reason for hating governments – all governments.

     As I have taken a private resolution to reduce the frequency with which I repeat myself this year, I’ll leave the matter there for my Gentle Readers to ponder.

Jan 26 2022

Behold. Sudden clarity on the disposition, number, and composition of Russian forces.

This from the Ukrainian Center of Defense Strategies:

According to our estimates, supported by many of the indicators below, a large-scale general military operation can’t take place for at least the next two or three weeks.

As of Jan. 23, we do not observe the required formation of several hundred thousand troops, not only on the border with Ukraine, but also on Russian territory behind the front line.

Besides, we do not see the creation of strategic reserve units, nor the mobilization of the necessary connections and units on the basis of the centers for mobilization deployment.

* * * *

How likely is an invasion in 2022?

In general, a large-scale Russian offensive operation against Ukraine in 2022 seems unlikely according to many indicators, even judging by purely military requirements.[1]

This kind of clarity is not within the capability of U.S. intelligence. No. The best I’ve seen reported in the gutter press is that Russian troops (number, disposition, actual positions quite vague) are “on the border.” But they are not “on the border” they are noticeably distant from it — 150 miles in the case of one location — such that, even if they were formed up with Military Academy of the General Staff perfection with engines idling at this moment there would be a needless abandonment of the element of surprise because of, oh, a five-hour movement to the border. The Russian military — and the military of any competence on the planet — simply would not incorporate a leisurely signaling of intentions into their planning.

Rather, actual Russian military activity looks a lot more like training with an obvious not-so-subtle message that “we’re here” and these units involved are available for other duties. Not that I think that ground forces will lead off any serious attack. Rocket forces a long way from the border and well protected will cripple “NATO” forces in the first 20 minutes of any serious offensive.

Also, TASS reports that:

Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov said early on Tuesday he had received no information so far indicating the possibility of Russia’s invasion of his country in the near future.

“As of today, the armed forces of Russia created no strike groups, indicating they were ready to launch an offensive tomorrow,” he told Ukraine’s ICTV television channel, adding that a scenario of a Russian attack in the near future was also unlikely.[2]

So this is reduced to a tempest in a tea pot as revealed by the very people who are looking down the gun barrel of supposed naked neo-USSR expansionism. Suddenly it’s a non-problem. Obviously a signal and a welcome one at that. Brandon’s got his out.

Just as Bashar al-Assad has and had no reason to use chemical weapons on civilian Syrian targets, so Russians have no need to invade Ukraine and take on an economic and political basketcase populated by a hostile people. However, Russia simply will not tolerate Ukraine’s accession to the ranks of NATO clowns and parasites and it wants only a measure of autonomy for the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine. Nor should it tolerate what the US clearly would not tolerate during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Similarly, it will not tolerate NATO contemptuous assumption that eastern Europe is its exclusive playground, and NATO emplacement of medium-range ballistic missiles in eastern Europe will be prevented or reversed.

In any event, the impending economic disaster that will soon arrive in the U.S. will short circuit all U.S. imperial projects. As always, the Russians need only play a waiting game and watch the U.S. sink ever further into chaos and irrelevance.

All Western powers are advised to get their arrogant selves under control and take care of business at home. If the Siege of Port Arthur (1904) presaged the destructive horror of industrial warfare, the next serious clash of major industrial powers will demonstrate how precision computerized warfare will involve a massive increase in lethality from that seen in that distant but earth shaking battle. Western military observers saw all the slaughter of Port Arthur but, even if they understood the implications, their reports were overlooked or not understood. The European powers sleep walked into the yet more ghastly slaughter of WWI having learned nothing. Westerners are sleep walking now as they seem not to be able to absorb that there has been a massive technological shift. The multilateral world our fools swoon over is here with a vengeance. Reality is set to arrive with a blinding flash soon. But sappy, arrogant Western elites will be caught flat footed.

Even if this were to be plain vanilla, 20th-century slug fest with rocks and ox thigh bones, it’s clear that NATO is setting up any American troops to be deployed anywhere east of the Oder to re-enact the disaster of Task Force Smith in Korea. Our premise for action is wrong, our strategic goal is vague and certainly completely unattainable, our preparations consist of nothing more than speeches and press conferences, preparatory deployments have been nil, and front line troops will be sacrificed piecemeal for no reason.

Notes
[1] “A ‘Parthogenetic’ Conflict – There Is No Russian Invasion Threat To Ukraine.” By b, Moon of Alabama, 1/25/22.
[2] Id.

Jan 25 2022

Self-Defense (UPDATED)

     I have to run off virtually at once, so I hope my Gentle Readers will be satisfied with a short piece today. Not that “short” should be taken to mean unimportant. Indeed, the short stuff is often more important than the long rambling rants.

     Writer and “professional tinkerer” Alexander Rose, author of Pay the Two Dollars, wrote therein that most people would rather plead guilty to murder than to ignorance. It’s a stark and uncomfortable insight, because it’s demonstrably correct. But it’s a special case of a more general rule:

We hate to admit that we’ve been wrong.

     All of us. Each and every one, without exception. It’s as difficult an undertaking as any in the realm of self-expression.

     Ponder the following bit of dialogue:

     “I’m the world’s biggest excuse-making machine when things start going bad. ‘He’s just under a lot of stress.’ ‘It’ll get better – I’ll just wait his mood out.’ ‘Nobody’s perfect.’ That last one’s my big one. And it’s the dumbest one. Sure, nobody’s perfect. But lots of people aren’t absolute dickwads.”

     Rationalizations of that sort are something other than what they appear. The speaker might have thought she was making excuses for her ex-boyfriend. But what was the effect of thinking or uttering those rationalizations? What practical purpose did they achieve?

     Exactly! She stayed with him a while longer.

     So what was she really defending? Might it have been her own decision to accept him and tolerate his “imperfections?” Could it have been anything else?

     We hate to admit that we’ve been wrong – and the more serious the error, the more determined will be our defense of it.

***

     Have a convenient, widely applicable rationalization on me:

“I try to see the best in people and ignore the rest.”

     Have you ever used that one, or a variation thereof? I wouldn’t be surprised; it’s a fairly common response to “Why do you put up with that shit?” But it’s less an exculpation of the offender for his cruelty, crudity, or crassness than it is a defense of oneself for being a passive enabler of the behavior at issue. It’s also a mile marker for the lapse of standards for public behavior, which is nearing the checkered flag of social disintegration.

     We – the good people of America, and yes, I include myself in that category, thank you very much – have become so averse to confrontation that today we’re allowing thugs of very worst kind to act out in ways that, a century ago, would have led to broken bones at least, pistols at dawn at worst. There are many reasons for this, but that’s not what’s uppermost in my thoughts just now. Rather, it’s our readiness to defend our own spinelessness by offering a seeming excuse for bad, often deliberately offensive behavior.

     We’d rather defend our own timidity with a formulaic rationalization than stand foursquare for public decency and order. Those who are assaulting that decency and order are emboldened every time we “tolerate” it. It’s why we’re losing our country.

     There’s a brief, illustrative vignette near the front of Robert Ringer’s How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization that comes to mind. The book isn’t near to hand at this instant and, as I said earlier, I have to run off almost at once. Perhaps I’ll transcribe it later today.

     Meanwhile, ponder the above and what it implies for our national future.

***

     UPDATE: Here’s Ringer’s vignette:

     It was early in the afternoon of a hot summer day. I was standing in line at a neighborhood ice cream stand, with five or six people in front of me and about the same number lined up at an adjacent window. As we stood quietly waiting our turns, a rather unpleasant mix of screeching musical instruments, wailing voices, and sharp electronic pulses began to fill the air.
     As I and the other patrons in line turned to see what all the ruckus was about, the intrusive sounds were practically upon us, Crossing the street and heading straight for the ice cream stand was a scraggly-looking teenager, sporting one of those now-familiar “I’m a bad dude” looks on his face. As if his gait and demeanor weren’t menacing enough, he was also armed with the ultimate punk weapon—a “portable radio” that, considering its size, would have fit rather comfortably in the right hand of Godzilla.
     As Mr. Bad Dude sauntered up and attached himself to the adjacent line, the discordant “rock” sounds from his gigantic noise machine became more than just mildly irritating. Then a most interesting thing happened. Just as I was expecting him to do the natural and civilized thing—turn the radio down so as not to annoy the other people in line—he startled everyone by deliberately turning his rock blaster up.
     The message was clear: “I can do whatever the hell I want. You don’t like it? Tough s—, man. I’m bad.”
     All at once it hit me. He was right. He could do whatever he wanted, and if I didn’t like it, that was my tough luck.

     That is the end of Ringer’s description of the event itself. There follows a passage of philosophizing about what the event symbolized about the collapse of Western Civilization. Now, for those Gentle Readers who’ve been following along up to this point, I shall ask a most pointed question:

Why didn’t anyone confront the miscreant?

     Explain your answer. Try to avoid excessive profanity.

Jan 25 2022

Why this relentless push for war?

If the current Drang nach Osten and demonization of Russia strike you as something pushed by genuinely unhinged people then this excerpt from a thoughtful article will alert you to the real agenda:

Why, you ask, would a world war ever be needed? That’s simple: To deflect their own people’s attention away from what’s happening on their own soil and divert their gaze to a far-off land whose interests bear no connection to their own.

And what’s happening on our own soil right now from which all eyes must be diverted?

They are in the process of establishing their own authoritarian system – a global technocracy in which large cities cooperate with large corporations and the federal government to install a system where everybody must show a digital vaccine passport to go anywhere and do anything.[1]

Stated another way, the coming war “has everything to do with timing and what is happening in the world right now – which is the transformation of the formerly Free World into beachheads of totalitarianism.”

Think New Zealand, and Australia.

Exactly how different are we from them with our

  • relentless, dishonest purges of the military,
  • maniacal pushing of a useless secret sauce with frightful short-term effects and absolutely unknown long-term effects,
  • medical journal fraud,
  • dishonest suppression of alternative, cheaper treatment alternatives,
  • demonization of dissenting medical professionals,
  • attacks on people’s employment,
  • destruction of tens of thousands of small businesses, and
  • vicious attacks on free speech?

Ready for that sixth booster shot, comrade? Good doggie. There’s a free latte in it for you.

Do you recognize anything from America of even 60 years ago? American government now is grotesque, something that is beginning to resemble a corner of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Nor is daily life on a personal level free of alien encounters with possessed humanoids.

Notes
[1] “As the sound of war drums grows louder …the real enemy remains hidden behind the curtain.” By Leo Hohmann, LeoHohmann.com, 1/24/22.

Jan 25 2022

Ok, more pearls of expression.

For some wily performers, it was almost a point of honour to get away with insulting their opponents in the House without the use of ‘unparliamentary language’. So, when Disraeli was instructed to withdraw his allegation that ‘half the Cabinet were knaves’, he consented and replied that ‘half the Cabinet were not knaves’.

Do read the article. The video of the Dutch member of parliament, Gideon van Meijeren, taking on PM Rutte is priceless.

“Oh, for a firebrand like Gideon!” By Janice Davis, The Conservative Woman, 1/24/22.

Jan 24 2022

WTF Department

     Sometimes, there are no words:

     Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, Mimi Cave’s “Fresh” is a movie about cannibalism. Yes, cannibalism, the eating of people. Yes, Disney. It’s not a parody or a satire like “Get Out.” It’s a straight up horror film about a charming doctor, played by Sebastian Stan, who seduces women, kidnaps them, and carves out pieces of them for sale to high paying customers. Eventually, they’re all carved up and dead.

     Written by Lauryn Kahn, I guess “Fresh” is supposed to be hip. It’s way too hip for me, that’s for sure. (Hip may be on Dr. Steve’s menu.) Disney will release it not on DisneyPlus but on Hulu, and try and distance their brand name. But it’s Disney, folks, nonetheless.

     Plodding along the lines of “Get Out” and “Parasite,” “Fresh” may considered hip because a woman wrote it and another one directed it. But women can make the same mistakes as men. Just because you’ve got a good cinematographer and production designer doesn’t mean you’ve got a good movie.

     Don’t read the whole thing too soon after eating.

     Has this Lauryn Kahn person lost her mind? Did this Mimi Cave person think it clever to make a movie in which a Hannibal Lecter figure preys upon young women as an allegory about misogyny? Could it be a brief for vegetarianism? Have the executives at Disney who greenlighted this atrocity gone over to the dark side? Or are they just out to see if they can make money by shocking Disney’s traditional audience?

     Walt Disney must be spinning in his grave fast enough to power all of California by now.

     When you sever the TV service and concentrate on entertainment from more reliable sources, you tend to miss developments such as this one. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, even if learning of this obscenity will cost me even more sleep. I await the reaction from American moviegoers generally. I pray their horror resembles mine – not the ghoulish sort of horror the movie’s makers probably hope to elicit, but at them, and at Disney.

Jan 24 2022

There Have Been Days…

     …when an image I encountered by chance has infiltrated my thought processes and refused to budge. Those Gentle Readers who remember this short story will know how that can affect me.

     Well, today, courtesy of Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away, we have another such image:

     …and it has compelled me to recycle an old favorite:

***

The Great Pyramid of Cheese

     On one evening not too long ago, a friend of mine, who has an extensive extended family, was dining with most of them. Included were several pre-teens. The bill of fare was, as is common in their not-particularly-pecunious household, macaroni and cheese.

     One of the pre-teens commented on how different the entree tasted to him from “real” macaroni and cheese — by which he meant, as pre-teens often do, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. He contrasted my friend’s wife’s dish unfavorably with the commercial preparation.

     An uncle to the clan cleared his throat. “Kevin,” he intoned, “you know I sell cheese, don’t you?” The youngster nodded. “Well, it’s about time you learned about the Great Pyramid of Cheese.” And he told them all about it.

     It seems that there are places where they make Cheese. The real stuff, straight from the milk, brimming with the odorific and oleaginous virtues that your narrator has found he cannot renounce. And it is good.

     Most of it, anyway. Some wheels of cheese just don’t turn out right. But they’re not thrown away, oh, no. That would be wasteful. They’re sold to factors from other shops, which take them in, and melt them down, and add oil, and chemicals, and further processing, and thereby produce… Cheese Food. Cheese Food is regulated by law to contain no more than 49% non-milk additives, and must not contain any but a specified list of preservatives and artificial flavor enhancers. There are people who eat Cheese Food by choice. There are others who are trying to help them.

     But some batches of Cheese Food don’t come out right either, and they’re not thrown away, either. They’re sold to factors from other shops, which take them in, and melt them down, and add oil, and chemicals, and further processing, and thereby produce… Process Pasteurized Cheese Food. PPCF is the step down from Cheese Food, and may contain up to 70% non-milk additives, plus a much wider range of flavor and color enhancers, and preservatives that guarantee that it will not spoil over the three months between your toddler’s two demands for a grilled cheese sandwich right now, mom!

     And not all of this is saleable, either, but (you guessed it) it’s not thrown away just for that. The rejected barrels are sold to factors from other shops, which take them in, and melt them down, and add oil, and chemicals, and further processing, and thereby produce… Process Pasteurized Cheese Food Substance. PPCFS may contain up to 82% non-milk additives. The flavor and color are almost entirely chemically produced, and the preservatives in it are reputed to be stronger than formaldehyde. Velveeta was once PPCFS, but has moved up the pyramid to Level 3 (PPCF). Cheez Whiz is PPCFS. A number of people have drawn images of the Blessed Virgin on their basement walls with PPCFS from spray cans, and have made quite a lot of money.

     But… that’s right. Some of it doesn’t meet the standards for retail-saleable PPCFS. The rejected barrels are sold to factors from other shops, which take them in, and melt them down, and add oil, and chemicals, and further processing, and thereby produce…

     Well, it doesn’t really have a name, and it doesn’t need one, either, because all of it is consumed by a single company.

     “And Kevin,” the uncle rumbled, “would you like to guess what that company is?”

     Little Kevin swallowed and shook his head.

     “It’s the Kraft Company, Kevin.”

     And I, who have set this tale down for you, have checked it in all particulars, and every word of it is true. And I’m told that little Kevin no longer asks for Kraft Macaroni And Cheese, either.

==<😁>==

Jan 23 2022

Status Report

“The world’s in a bad way, my man,
And bound to be worse before it mends;
Better lie up in the mountain here
Four or five centuries,
While the stars go over the lonely ocean,”
The old father of wild pigs,
Plowing the fallow on Mal Paso Mountain.

— Robinson Jeffers —

     Say, are any of you Gentle Readers still gainfully employed? I’d bet that some of you are, though possibly not a majority. Liberty’s Torch tends to attract the older reader: someone not too far from my age, who hears the whistling of the wind and, now that the illusions of youth have cleared from his vision, has allowed, however reluctantly, that his life will someday end. But those of you who are still vigorous enough to endure the BS of wage employment in this Year of Our Lord 2022 will probably be familiar with, if not actively haunted by, the sort of event that’s known by the title phrase.

     Relax, relax: I’m not about to ask you for a status report. Neither am I about to slather you with one of my own. Well, except about one aspect of the nation we live in: the Land of the Formerly Free.

     It seems the Usurpers have got themselves in a pickle.

***

     It’s not often that I find myself disagreeing with the late Robert A. Heinlein, for my money one of the truly prescient men of the Twentieth Century, but every now and then I feel a quibble come on:

     “We defined thinking as integrating data and arriving at correct answers. Look around you. Most people do that stunt just well enough to get to the corner store and back without breaking a leg. If the average man thinks at all, he does silly things like generalizing from a single datum. He uses one-valued logics. If he is exceptionally bright, he may use two-valued, ‘either-or’ logic to arrive at his wrong answers. If he is hungry, hurt, or personally interested in the answer, he can’t use any sort of logic and will discard an observed fact as blithely as he will stake his life on a piece of wishful thinking. He uses the technical miracles created by superior men without wonder nor surprise, as a kitten accepts a bowl of milk. Far from aspiring to higher reasoning, he is not even aware that higher reasoning exists. He classes his own mental process as being of the same sort as the genius of an Einstein. Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.
     “For explanations of a universe that confuses him he seizes onto numerology, astrology, hysterical religions, and other fancy ways to go crazy. Having accepted such glorified nonsense, facts make no impression on him, even if at the cost of his own life. Joe, one of the hardest things to believe is the abysmal depth of human stupidity.”

     [From Heinlein’s novelette “Gulf”]

     Now, as greatly as I admire the old boy, he got so many things wrong in that passage that I shudder to enumerate them. But “Gulf” was an early story. It’s possible that, later in life, after he’d “wised up,” he hoped to repudiate it. And indeed he did so, partially anyway, in his novel Friday. The key to the wrongheadedness of the above eludes many, yet strikes me as exceedingly simple: the essence of individual competence.

     No one is competent at everything. Human knowledge is simply too broad and too deep. Individuals do their best to become competent at the things that matter most to them. The usual term for this is specialization, though that word connotes an occupational characteristic rather than an overall attitude. One unintended consequence of specialization is a retreat from those fields in which one feels no need to be competent, even if he once found them fascinating.

     I’ve known a few people whose competences are broader than mine. They rarely need to hire specialists in any of the various aspects of home maintenance, for example. They do their own plumbing, electrical work, HVAC work, and so forth. Yet to a man they’re humble: they’re aware that there’s much they don’t know and never will. They would never criticize me, for example, for preferring to “hire it done” so I can concentrate on what matters most to me. Today, that’s time and energy with which to think and write. For most of my life, it was advancing in my chosen field and earning an income that would – among other things – allow me to “hire it done” more often than not.

     We are not stupid; we are specialized. And no, despite Heinlein’s contemptuous statement in a later tale, it’s not strictly for insects.

***

     As you’re undoubtedly aware, from my ravings here if nowhere else, in November 2020 a gaggle of Usurpers, having availed themselves of a convenient pandemic and solid control of the electoral machines in sever key states, stole the presidency and at least two seats in the U.S. Senate, giving them nearly complete control of the federal government. They had to make some unpleasant concessions to get away with this: the wholesale purchase of the mainstream media; the suborning of several governors and secretaries of state; and worst of all for them, the erection of a figurehead to occupy the Oval Office.

     The figurehead they chose is a 78-year-old man, clearly in failing physical and mental health, prone to frequent physical and verbal mishaps, and with a long record of deceit and peculation. They consoled themselves that they had little choice: all the other candidates for the position were massively unpopular and had even worse records in office. They assured one another that after they’d dragged their candidate across the electoral finish line, they would “manage to manage him.”

     That has proved not to be the case.

     Their problem is that the largely not-stupid American people have been watching. We know that the Usurper Regime is responsible for the nation’s swiftly escalating troubles. In consequence, the Regime is now tottering: it’s massively unpopular; widely held responsible for our national ills; unable to command compliance from a great part of the country (including a great many state governments); and generally deemed untrustworthy. The one aspect of the Usurpers’ strategy that’s worked as they hoped is that the bulk of the odium has focused on their Oval Office figurehead.

     But what can they do about him? Were they to remove him, whether via the 25th Amendment’s prescriptions or some less savory means, he would be replaced by a figure even more roundly hated. Meanwhile, his approval ratings have descended below the survival threshold. Without some sort of remediation, this threatens the entire Usurper enterprise.

     If you’ve wondered why the Regime is so fixated upon federalizing electoral law, now you know. With Washington in control, they could assure themselves of the veneer of legitimacy despite the sad state of affairs at present.

     But it would be a veneer only. The not-stupid American people will not be fooled by a massive vote-fraud campaign when the disapproval of the majority of voters is so plain. They got away with their 2020 electoral theft by the skin of their teeth…which have started to fall out.

     None of this portends well for these United States.

***

     But that’s the national political status. Our individual statuses vary widely. Some, of course, are merely hoping that “It will all go away” or that “Someone else will take care of it.” Others are bracing for hard times, though how hard they’ll be in actuality remains open to question. Still others are studying the map.

     We older folks are somewhere between the first two positions. Relocation is always a trial and a jolt, even to the young. For one whose seventh decade on Earth has just ended, it’s near to unthinkable. But we do what we can:

  • We fill our pantries;
  • We buy gold and silver;
  • We buy weapons and ammunition;
  • We see to any lingering maintenance needs;
  • We form mutual-defense alliances with our neighbors;
  • We certainly don’t count on things “going back to normal.”

     The “normal” of 2019 will take quite a while to re-establish…if it can be done at all.

     But do have a nice day.

UPDATE: Please, don’t give me advice about how important it is to move out of New York. I’d love to, but for reasons I prefer not to explain, I can’t. So thanks, but that’s that.

All my best,
Fran

Jan 22 2022

Pearls of expression.

It’s easy to vote for Socialism. The impossible part is paying for it.

Comment by moonmac on “Is America Heading For A Systems Collapse?” By Victor Davis Hanson, ZeroHedge, 1/21/22.

Many interesting comments.

Jan 22 2022

Back to the Spoils System?

I just read a news report that a federal judge overturned Biden’s mandate on Federal Employees. He based his ruling on the argument SCOTUS used to overturn his illegal measure for private businesses.

However, the news sparked the tangential question shown in the title above. Biden’s secretaries have been firing or forcing resignations for military and civil service members who fight the violations of their individual rights. Given the Left’s penchant for declaring all that disagree with any of their agenda items being labeled “right wing extremists,” they are presuming that all resistors are not members of their party.  And basing such eliminations on party affiliation is no different than what was common in America until a few years after the Civil War.

Under guise of Wuflu vax demands not only not being being met, but being treated as a treasonous crime, this result is no different than what would happen had all civil service and military protections been summarily erased. And not by passage of any new law either.

So, deemed not a member of the party, you’re summarily dismissed. That is what the usurper regime has been trying to pull off.

Is that not how the old spoils system worked?

Maybe I’m off based. Please don’t hesitate to correct me.

For now, just let me enjoy the thought that here is simply one more glaring example that everything the Progressives aim to do is regressive. They will do whatever it takes to revert the West back to patricians* and plebeians, nobles and slaves.

———-

*With patricians I’m being polite beyond what is really warranted. However I will never agree to use the word elite for these illegitimi.

Jan 22 2022

Day Off

     The week was a strenuous one for us at the Fortress, and I need to attend to a few domestic matters at once, so I’ll be taking the day off from Liberty’s Torch. Expect to see fresh rantings tomorrow. Until then, be well.

Jan 21 2022

But No More Mean Tweets!

     How’d you like to have the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics back, along with the Warsaw Pact?

     Russia wants Nato to remove all of its forces from Bulgaria, Romania and other ex-communist states in eastern Europe that joined the alliance after 1997, the foreign ministry said on Friday, underlining Moscow’s hardline position ahead of security talks with the US in Geneva.

     Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said in a written Q&A on the ministry’s website that Russia’s demands included “withdrawing foreign forces, equipment, and armaments and making other steps to return to the condition as of 1997”, when Nato began admitting former Warsaw Pact countries.

     “That includes Bulgaria and Romania,” Lavrov said, adding that Russia’s demand was “core” and “deliberately worded as clearly as possible so as not to allow any dual interpretations”.

     Russia has called its demands “security concerns.” The eastward expansion of the NATO Alliance has provided Vladimir Putin with a rationale for massive westward aggression.

     Our supposed allies don’t even want the U.S. involved in negotiations:

     The US has mounted a frantic diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions and warned of “crippling” sanctions in case of any Russian aggression against Ukraine.

     But western unity frayed this week after US president Joe Biden appeared to suggest a western response would depend on the scale of Russia’s intervention and French president Emmanuel Macron proposed separate European-led security talks with Moscow.

     And it’s not just France; Germany wants no part of us either:

     German Chancellor Olaf Scholz turned down an invite at short notice from U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the Ukraine crisis, German magazine Der Spiegel said on Friday.

     Scholz did not accept the invitation due to a full schedule, including a trip to Madrid, as well as the desire to show that he was present as Germany grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Der Spiegel.

     “Full schedule,” eh? Of course. That’s the only reason anyone would decline to meet with an American President, the leader of the free world: scheduling conflicts! Just ask Stacy Abrams. Better yet, ask the folks who sought to avoid having to meet with Barack Obama.

     The Usurper Administration has emasculated our military – yes, I mean that exactly as I wrote it – and weakened our economy near to the point of collapse. Taken together, those two deteriorations make plain that we would be the underdogs in any military action in Eastern Europe. Not only is our armed strength far below what it was even five years ago; we would be hard pressed to sustain combat economically for more than a couple of weeks. Meanwhile Putin has been adding to Russia’s combat capabilities with additional men-at-arms and new weaponry.

     But no more mean tweets, right? That’s certainly worth losing Europe, isn’t it?

     This is what you get from Democrat dominance of the federal government. They start wars with their diplomatic and strategic ineptitude, then are unwilling – or unable – to win them.

     Right-of-center commentators have been saying for a while that Ukraine isn’t worth the spilling of American blood. I agree…but what about the other former Soviet republics? What about the Eastern European nations Ronald Reagan’s resolve liberated from Soviet dominance? What about what was once called the People’s Republic of Germany? Should they be forcibly reintegrated into a reborn Warsaw Pact, will we regret having stood by while it happened?

     Whatever the answer to that question, I have no doubt that we’ll regret allowing the Wokeists to transform our armed forces, once the acknowledged champions of the world, into a laughingstock good for nothing but marching in high heels. Indeed, given the shameful abandonment of Afghanistan and the scent of imminent surrender of Taiwan to Red China, I rather think most of us regret it already.

Jan 21 2022

Something Else To Not-Care About

     My most recent novel, The Discovery Phase, is now available in paperback at Amazon.

Jan 21 2022

On Not Caring

     There are innumerable Causes in circulation these days. You could probably name a dozen off the top of your head, so I feel no need to do so for you. The Cause plague started well before I was born, propelled by early American “progressives” and Communists. The Causes of those early years usually featured the same central motif as do the Causes of today: ersatz “compassion.”

     “Don’t you care?” the Causists screech at their intended victims, always in the most mock-earnest of voices. For ‘tis the heyday of Evangelical Compassion. You’re supposed to care. You’re practically required by law to care. Not caring is bad. It marks you as cold, unfeeling, heartless… a moral monster. And until fairly recently, by exploiting the inchoate but widespread sense of guilt about not caring, the Causists succeeded in browbeating money, petition signatures, and votes out of many who would have preferred to be left alone.

     But in a heartening trend of which I speak in the most cheerful of tones, people not only don’t care, they don’t care who knows it. We might still feel a residual twinge of guilt about it – especially the Christians among us, who’ve been compassion-bombed from the pulpit until it leaks out of our ears – but we’ve made our peace with it, nevertheless.

     And I shall explain why.

***

     I believe it was Adam Smith who said that a man is inclined to prioritize his own hangnail above a famine in China. (This may not apply to any Gentle Readers currently resident in China.) This is normal. Each of us stands at the center of his personal universe. What’s near to us affects us more directly than what’s far away. We have more power to affect what’s near to us than what’s far away, as well.

     However, with the emergence of mass media there arose a global compassion-flogging industry that fattens on tragedy wherever it may lie. It had to happen, you see. Whenever a niche forms that would favor organisms of a particular type, that type will be dominant. And so skilled manipulators and emotional parasites flooded into the nascent industry to feed on our guilt about not really caring but being unwilling to say so.

     Their tools have ramified and refined over the years. It starts with words, of course: verbal depictions of vast fields of suffering among helpless if faceless others. In the early years of “progressivism,” that was all the compassion-floggers had. But today the words are supplemented by pictures and recordings: pictures of suffering, starving children and abandoned or brutalized animals; videos of swathes of poverty and destruction; narrators, often famous in their own right, earnestly entreating you to “help if you can.”

     The producers usually make out very nicely from such productions, as do the unseen legions toiling in the charities’ back offices. But whether any portion of your “help” ever reaches the supposedly intended beneficiaries is dubious. The indications are that for 15% of a charity’s gross revenue to reach its claimed targets, whether as cash or as goods or services, would put it among the leaders in its field.

     For my part, I’d rather be robbed at gunpoint than contribute to such a campaign. I can no longer ignore the dishonesty. And I’d bet the rent money that the majority of my Gentle Readers feel the same.

***

     The following exchange has not happened in all its particulars. It is provided as a pattern to be studied:

Compassion-Flogger: (hawks some Cause in an earnest voice.)
FWP: Go away.

CF: What? Don’t you care that people are suffering?
FWP: Name three.

CF: (flustered, sputters)
FWP: Just as I thought. How much do you care about these people you can’t name?

CF: I’m out here fundraising for them!
FWP: At what salary? What benefits?

Sub-variation 1:

CF: Well, ah…
FWP: Can you name someone you have personally helped? Someone nearby, whose actual status I can verify?

CF: (more confused sputtering)
FWP: I thought not. Go away.

Sub-variation 2:

CF: (indignantly) I’m not getting a penny for this!
FWP: So why are you doing it, when you could be personally helping to feed, clothe, or shelter sone needy neighbor? Don’t you want to help those in need?

CF: I am helping!
FWP: No you’re not. You’re harassing strangers for contributions to an international scam. You could be doing actual charity whose results you could personally verify. Instead you’re donating your precious time and energy to a corporation whose executives wear suits and ties and probably never get their hands dirty. Go away.

     This, of course, would mark me as “hard-hearted.” So very “un-Christian.” But it would be an accurate expression of my convictions regarding impersonal charities and the people who feed from them, who are assuredly not the supposed beneficiaries.

***

     No one admits publicly, and hence public opinion does not admit, that ingratitude is the norm. It is astounding that countless benefactors allow themselves to be persuaded over and over that ingratitude with the resultant hatred is a rare and special case. — Helmut Schoeck

     The sanctification of rapacious ingratitude and envy has reached a terminal point, such that it cannot be deepened further. The more we give, the more we concede, the more we set our own priorities aside to placate the demands of others, the more we are resented. Yet the demands escalate. There is no saturation point, for a specific and enraging reason: The livelihoods of the demanders depend upon it.

     There’s a two-part dynamic behind this: the flogged-out pseudo-compassion itself, and the self-righteousness of those who seek to evoke it. Consider the following statement from the part-owner of an NBA franchise:

     Let’s be honest, nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, okay? You bring it up, because you really care, and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care. I’m telling you a very hard, ugly truth, okay? Of all the things that I care about– yes, it is below my line. Of all the things I care about, it is below. My. Line.

     Now view the reaction from a woman who probably thinks very well of herself:

     Umm… Mr. Palihapitiya, with all due respect (which is less than none), go f*ck yourself.

     Like I guess it’s too bad that caring about people being methodically, systematically rounded up, imprisoned, raped, tortured, sterilized, and killed doesn’t make you millions of dollars, but usually when people are that morally bankrupt they try to keep it to themselves.

     So, Miss Hoffman, what are you doing to help those oppressed Uyghurs? You personally? Apart from flogging someone else for being candid about their position in his priorities, that is?

     Your “caring” is shit. You can do nothing for the Uyghurs, and you know it – and however bad it makes you feel about it, your response is to berate another person – a man who owns a business that provides jobs and salaries to an unknown number of others, who use those salaries to support their families and perhaps to do actual charity for others about whom you know nothing! – for not verbally toeing your preferred line!

     Chamath Palihapitiya is your moral superior, Miss Hoffman. He doesn’t castigate others for not sharing his priorities. At some level in your cinder of a soul, you know he’s your better – and you resent him for it.

     And for the record, I couldn’t give a fart in a hurricane about the Golden State Warriors or the NBA.

***

     “Why don’t I shut up and stop stuffing your ears with nonsense when you ought to be stuffing some other organ entirely?” — John Brunner

     It is vital not to give the compassion-floggers a nanometer. Don’t say “Well, yes, I care about them in an abstract way.” Don’t say “Well, if I thought I could do any good.” Your abstract accord that yes, oppression, torture, and starvation are bad no matter who’s being oppressed, tortured, or starved is an opening wedge for them. The floggers want your money and your guilt – possibly, your guilt above all else.

     Not caring about something over which you have no personal control or influence is a pro-social position. It conserves your resources for things that are relevant to you and your community. Being candid – even brutal – about saying so to a compassion-flogger is a pro-social act. It makes them less likely to harass someone else…possibly someone weaker and more tractable than you.

     Give the floggers nothing. Stay on the attack. Make them cringe for their cheek.

     There are innumerable things to not-care about – to leave to the ministrations of others nearer to them. Constructive indifference to them helps us to preserve our own resources of time, money, energy, and emotion for problems we can personally help to ameliorate.

Never give anything to the acolytes of the parasite class.

     Make “Mind your own business and let me tend to mine” your mantra for this Year of Our Lord 2022. Your “widow’s mite,” given freely and out of true charity, will please Him infinitely more than your semi-coerced contribution to the March of Dimes or the United Way.

     I have spoken.

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