The Schooling Trap

     Americans in the Right have been exercised about the sad state of American education for decades. While relying on any individual metric is dangerous, as “educational quality” is inherently immensurable, education appears to have hit its peak in the years immediately after World War II and started to slide thereafter. Today it’s a joke. American teens leave high school knowing less, and being less prepared to think for themselves, than at any time since the founding of the nation. The schools largely exist to provide jobs to “educators” and administrators.

     The defenders of mass education – note and remember that term, please; its significance will soon be apparent – have all sorts of rationales for it. Remember “basic skills?” Remember “socialization?” Remember “keeping the little monsters out of the labor pool?” No, that last one has never been discussed a lot, but it was among the first of the real reasons for compulsory schooling. The labor unions were big backers.

     We in the Right have grappled with all those arguments. Given the abysmal performance of the schools – note this too; with few exceptions, the private schools barely exceed the performance of the “public” ones – we’ve displayed a notable reluctance to break away from the public-education model. Instead, most conservative education activists focus on “reform.” But the notion that one can reform a government-run institution in a significant and enduring way is inherently foolish. Governments and their institutions obey a dynamic wholly different from that of wholesome ones.

     Public education and mandatory schooling are inherent to the problem. If we want real, enduring improvement in education, those things must end. Conservatives are steadily moving toward that realization. But the problem doesn’t end with them.

     Schooling collectivizes education. Even in its best instances – curricula that omit everything but actual education; teachers who really teach rather than indoctrinate; students who earnestly seek the improvement of their minds – it bends inexorably toward uniformity. Worse, that uniformity gravitates toward the students least ready, willing, and able to learn.

     Collectivization is something freedom lovers should know to avoid.

---

     I had a “Mishnory Road” moment a little earlier. A fellow-traveler in the Right was ranting about educational reform. I found that the subject made me unbelievably weary, in that Dear God, haven’t we been here before? fashion. So did my colleague’s prescriptions. All of them were as familiar as leftovers eaten for lunch.

     That weariness made me say to myself Why not break the mold? Why not ditch the schooling model instead of trying to make it serve purposes it probably can’t serve?

     I didn’t say anything then and there. I just started to think from the premise that the model itself – education collectivized via schooling – is the source of our troubles. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

     Rather than pursue this further at this early hour, I’ll leave it here for you, Gentle Reader. To think about. What current, widespread practices would have to change were Americans to avoid schooling our kids? Would those changes be beneficial:

• To the children;
• To their parents;
• To their communities;
• To the nation?

     Please try to be specific about the costs, benefits, and demerits.

     I’ll be back later or tomorrow with my own thoughts. Meanwhile, enjoy your day.

Concerning Freedom Of Speech

     When the wheel turns under your hand, you must watch your words. – Ursula Le Guin

     This is a piece I feel obligated to write. I don’t want to write it. It comes near to being an insult to my readers’ intelligence. It’s mandatory even so. The yammerers of the Left have made it so.

     Here’s the text of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

     Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

     It’s noteworthy that of all the rights mentioned in the original Constitution, or any of the Amendments, only the First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law.” The other Amendments speak of rights without mentioning any particular possible abridger or infringer. Even when Civics was a routine part of American education, insufficient attention was drawn to that difference. Few lecturers dared to speak of the reason for it.

     The reason is simple: The Bill of Rights was a compromise document. Its drafters urgently desired that all thirteen colonies sign onto it. For that reason, they had to make room for certain practices that existed in those colonies at that time. Just as several of the colonies legislatively protected slavery, several had laws that did infringe upon the freedom of speech and religion. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire had an established church: the Congregational Church. Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia had established the Church of England. Several colonies had laws against public vulgarity and blasphemy as well.

     When the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment federalizes all the rights mentioned in the Constitution, such that no state government could pass laws abridging or infringing them, those established churches and laws infringing on freedom of expression were history, de facto if not de jure. It was a landmark in judicial practice, as never before had the Court deliberately ignored the plain language of the First Amendment, nor the care with which the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment had averted any talk of rights. For comparison, here’s the complete Fourteenth Amendment:

     1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

     2: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

     3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

     4: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

     5: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

     Read it closely. You won’t find the word rights anywhere in it. Moreover, note that the original ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights don’t say anywhere that “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” That too was deliberate. The whole point of those Amendments was to keep Congress from legislating about the rights mentioned there.

     There’s a whole education in those differences... and damned near no one even thinks to mention them today.

---

     The above is my gesture at providing some real and important information, something worth saying that my readers might not know. The rest of this piece will be of a different color.

     Various Leftist figures, many of them in the media, have felt their positions shaken because of viciously intemperate remarks they’ve made in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The most recent is Jimmy Kimmel. ABC announced that it has suspended Kimmel “indefinitely” for his statements, and has pulled his late-night show from its schedule “for the foreseeable future.”

     Other Left-aligned figures have called such actions on the part of media organs offenses against freedom of speech. They’ve striven to equate those things with Biden Administration strong-arming of various organs into muting conservative voices of note. There is some justice to those claims, as the Federal Communications Commission has been involved:

     FCC chairman Brendan Carr has threatened to take action against ABC after Jimmy Kimmel said in a monologue that “the MAGA gang” was attempting to portray Charlie Kirk‘s assassin as “anything other than one of them.”
     Appearing on Benny Johnson’s podcast on Wednesday, Carr suggested that the FCC has “remedies we can look at.”
     “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

     I can’t approve of that, but it’s just one more example of the perniciousness of licensing. Whoever’s in power decides what will and what won’t be considered licit under a license; note the etymology. Just as they have with tax law, left-wing Administrations have used licensure to suppress voices contrary to their preferences before this. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.

     All that having been said, when governments are not involved in a pressure campaign to punish intemperate remarks, “freedom of speech” as guaranteed by the federalized First Amendment is not an issue. Media barons are fully within their rights to hire, fire, and discipline their employees on whatever basis those barons find appropriate. If well-known media giant Octopus Corp. should decide that some fire-breathing conservative is hurting its bottom line, terminating his employment is merely one more corporate decision. We in the Right might not like it, but it would have nothing to do with “freedom of speech.”

     Both Left and Right have been inconsistent about this. Newspapers – say, remember newspapers? I do – have routinely selected and dismissed commentators on the basis of what their readerships tell them they want to read. That’s not a freedom-of-speech issue. Neither is it when a broadcaster or cablecaster does the same. Even so, the partisans of dismissed commentators will try to make it one. This only confuses the issue of freedom of speech still further.

     Similarly, when a business loses customers and patronage because one of its owners or employees has said or done something customers find repugnant, no freedom-of-speech issue exists. Indeed, the customers are exercising their freedom of speech: i.e., their right to disapprove and to take their business elsewhere. It’s moderately distressing that anyone should need to say this, but such are the times we live in.

     What’s strangely humorous is that many on the Left, having been chastised for belittling Charlie Kirk’s murder or attempting to gloss over its horror, are asserting something akin to a right to be free from criticism. I cannot imagine where or how such a notion originated. It certainly wasn’t honored on the Left when the Bidenites were in power. But people stung by the popular lash will say anything.

---

     Other, better known commentators have reframed the matter in the best possible terms: There is freedom of speech, but there is no freedom from consequences. All actions have consequences. Word gets around, as I’ve said far too many times already. People will decide with whom to associate from several criteria, and what a man says to others is one of them. With whom he associates is another... and several persons of relatively moderate disposition have discovered that to their chagrin, as well.

     Yes, your words are protected by the First Amendment. That means that, with the exception of incitement to violence, they are not criminally actionable. But the First Amendment cannot limit the freedom of others to regard you as they see fit, including on the basis of your words.

     Words matter. Watch yours, for others surely will.

The Evidence Is Plentiful And Explicit

     I never would have expected to say this here – or anywhere – but the hour has come for segregation of the black race away from whites.

     Have just one item of evidence:

“You don’t deserve black culture…” pic.twitter.com/QHIeER5Nj7

— Dark Side (@not_rekt_11) September 17, 2025

     Oh all right, have another:

Is this “we’re all the same” thing in the room with us now? pic.twitter.com/3RVtJrY4KB

— Dark Side (@not_rekt_11) September 17, 2025

     There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of such videos. There are videos of blacks trashing supermarkets, outdoor grocers’ stalls, fast-food places, convenience stores, and hairdressers’ salons. There are many videos of blacks attacking a lone white man or woman, sometimes in packs. There are videos of blacks deliberately vandalizing cars. There are many videos of gangs of black women brawling in public. There are videos of blacks challenging white cops to a fistfight, usually getting shot or Tased for it. There are videos of blacks disrupting restaurants, of blacks acting up on mass transit, and of blacks deliberately halting traffic on a busy street. You can find as many of these as you can stomach on X/Twitter.

     There are plenty of videos of black smash-and-grab robberies and strong-arm robberies, if you prefer.

     Many will say “But in a nation of 330 million, surely these are just scattered incidents.” They are not. They’re commonplace and growing more so as you read this. Iryna Zarutska wasn’t a tragic outlier; she was representative of today’s norm.

     Around blacks, whites and our property are not safe.

---

     The “root cause” of racial “disharmony” will remain a matter for dispute. Some will insist it’s cultural. I continue to believe it’s at least partly genetic. But does it really matter? Must civil society continue to suffer while we struggle toward a consensus about it?

     When I wrote this piece, I still had hope. I didn’t think that outcome, or anything like it, was inevitable. After all, I told myself, there are still many intelligent, well-socialized blacks. Perhaps they’ll finally realize that they must take their unruly fellows in hand, discipline them, and bring an end to their disruptions of our society.

     Then I started to think seriously. I asked myself the key questions: Who is teaching the unruly ones to hate whites? Who is encouraging them to victimize us? Who is shielding them from the consequences of their actions?

     It was a long and painful pondering. I sought answers other than the obvious one. I couldn’t find any that were consistent with the available evidence. Then I wrote this piece. No, it doesn't explicitly mention race. Does it need to?

     We cannot have them among us.

---

     I’m old. The old are often cynical. I’ve tried to resist that temptation. But cynicism often comes of a particular phenomenon: a pattern of pieties repeated to rationalize the avoidance of an unpleasant or uncomfortable conclusion. The pious ones keep saying “We can’t go that way” to that conclusion even as their preferred explanations fail and the “solutions” they proffer crash and burn beyond recognition.

     It’s when the pieties are inflicted upon oneself that they become truly intolerable. I’ve had that experience.

     I once had a couple of liberal friends. Liberal in the Sixties sense: tolerant, generous, well-meaning – liberals are always well-meaning; ask them and they’ll tell you so – and certain that America could “solve” its race problem. They ascribed that problem to racism: that is, to white racism toward blacks. It was liberal doctrine; anyone who refused it was “read out of the church.”

     I was politically unaligned back then. I’d begun to question that doctrine. At that time I worked near the border between Nassau County and Queens. I’d been mugged several times, always by blacks. Even then, I was willing to notice a pattern, though I still held back from what it implied.

     So I asked one of them, a woman not much older than myself, what she thought about racial matters. She responded with liberal doctrine: we must understand blacks’ grievances, we must be tolerant and forgiving, we must compensate for the legacy of slavery, we must give them a “hand up” to balance the scales, and so forth. We must, we must, we must.

     Must we? I asked myself silently. My interlocutor lived in a lily-white district and worked as a high-ranking bureaucrat at a prestigious university. She might never have brushed against racial hatred personally. I forbore to ask her about that, of course; it would have been “insulting.” So I asked her something else.

     “Suppose my neighborhood,” I said, “were about to find itself home to a couple of black families? Knowing what usually results from that, what would you say I should do?”

     She reacted indignantly. Indignation is common among liberals when they’re challenged on one of their dogmas, even indirectly. She insisted stridently that I would have a moral obligation to remain where I am, not to sell my home and move.

     Why would I be under such an obligation? She never got there. But she was adamant. That obligation, she insisted, was absolute. It superseded my responsibility for my own well-being.

     You might try my query on a liberal of your acquaintance. I can’t recommend it, mind you; the consequences occasionally go beyond simple disagreement. But give it some thought when you’re not otherwise engaged.

---

     I know some highly intelligent persons. More than one of them has echoed that old Sixties-liberal racial doctrine at me. As I once did, they resist the conclusion that the black race cannot mingle peacefully with America’s other races. They want to keep trying. They maintain, sometimes explicitly, that racial separation is simply unacceptable. They insist that there “must be another way” – and that whites are morally obligated to keep trying until we find it.

     I no longer feel any such obligation. The obligation I feel is to defend myself, my loved ones, my neighbors, and American civil society. That’s where I have planted my flag.

     Your conclusions are your own.

A Declaration Of War Part 2

     Though I strive for clarity, the associated virtue of concision often eludes me. I know the reasons, but my efforts to overcome those weaknesses have had only indifferent success. That’s a great part of why I admire writers and commentators who succeed at concision... when they do so.

     A fellow who describes himself as a “Dem strategist” posted this to X:

In the middle of Kirk’s memorial yesterday, Donald Trump held a press conference and called Democrats scum. I am not going to be lectured by the modern-day Republican Party about rhetoric.

— Mike Nellis (@MikeNellis) September 15, 2025

     I didn’t see that press conference. Let’s stipulate that President Trump actually did call the Democrats “scum.” He has earned my regard, so I’m inclined to think well of him, especially in his dealings with the increasingly vulpine press. If he said it, he had his reasons. At any rate, by my lights various Democrats in public office have behaved “scummily” in recent months.

     The redoubtable Kurt Schlichter responded to the above with brilliant concision and penetration:

See there’s your mistake. No one’s lecturing you. We’re not interested in convincing you of anything. When your side lies about obvious truths, there’s no point in argument. We’re just going to use our legitimate power to prevent your friends from murdering us. If that makes you sad, that’s a fringe benefit. https://t.co/HIyz3uz49t

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) September 15, 2025

     Kurt has gone to the heart of the thing. The Left is at war with us. Its public figures wield language as a weapon rather than as a means of conveying information or opinion. That includes the deliberate denial of objective truths, as if observers were incapable of seeing the reality.

     Argument has been taken off the table. What remains is combat.

     Rhetorical combat can be as vicious as any other kind. While words alone cannot do damage to others, they can induce some persons to use actual weapons with which to do so. The recent murder of Charlie Kirk is only the most recent demonstration.

     Rhetoric can also be used in defense. The Left’s numerous attempts to defame Charlie as a fascist, racist, misogynist, et cetera ad nauseam infinitam are desperate attempts to blunt the impact of his assassination. The intent behind them is perfectly clear: “He deserved it.”

     But let’s not stray from the core of the thing: Argument with the Left is impossible. The Left has made it so. If there was a time when Leftists were willing to debate rather than defame, it’s come and gone. The implications for us in the Right, if I may use a disfavored word for its dictionary meaning for once, are obvious.

     But if argument is impossible, what remains? Reciprocal defamations? Fisticuffs? Counter-assassinations?

     None of the above. While the Right must acknowledge the reality, it’s enough that we take an active stance. There’s no longer any point in William F. Buckley’s approach of inviting the adversary to sit down and reason with us. He tried it; he had some successes; but that era is over. The hour for an all-out attack on Leftists’ deceits, distortions, deflections, and defamations is upon us.

     Make them appear like what they are... what they have become.

     In combat of any kind, a tactic that succeeds will be reused. The reuses will continue until its enemy discovers a counter-tactic that defeats it. In other words, success breeds failure. When you hear someone deride military planners for “fighting the last war over again,” that’s what they’re saying.

     The tactic that defeats lies is truth: the presentation of unadorned facts and their immediate implications, including the plain import of the deceits being proffered in their place.

     No, the truth will not persuade the committed Leftist. He’s sold his soul. But the unaligned political middle of America, the approximately twenty percent of voters who decline to become partisans, are reachable. Moreover, my sense is that they’re growing weary of being lied to.

     It’s our time. Use it for all it’s worth.

     UPDATE: Braden Langley has gone the extra mile for all of us:

     Ponder. And pray.

Any Given Sunday

     [An imagining. Not a prediction. At least, not yet. – FWP]

---

     “Dad!” I shouted over my shoulder. “The groceries are here.”
     “Why tell me?” came the answering shout. “You know what to do.”
     Well, yes, I did. But I didn’t like to do it. All the same, I stepped over to the master console, pressed the toggle that focused the monitor camera, and winced as the driver’s face became visible. It was the same one as last week. He leered at me the same way.
     “Do you have a shipment for Hayes?” I said.
     “I got a medium-size package marked Hayes and a great big one for you, sugar.”
     I forced myself not to react. “Put the package on the conveyor.”
     He took his time about it, but after a couple of minutes he fetched a box marked Hayes in large block letters and tossed it onto the belt. I waited until his whole body was back inside his vehicle, then triggered the belt. It jerked forward. Five seconds later, the package was completely inside the safety box. I slapped the safety that dropped the outer security panel. The driver awarded me a parting sneer and sped off.
     Dad ambled over to peer at the sensor readings. Temperature and vapor emissions were within normal limits. The needle on the radiometer ticked forward once, then settled against the left stop. My heart fluttered.
     “Dirty bomb with a crack in the shielding?” I murmured.
     Dad shook his head. “We’d get a persistent positive reading. Probably an activation glitch. I don’t usually use the radiometer. Why would anyone dirty-bomb a private home?”
     “Well, there was Houston—”
     He nodded. “And then there wasn’t. It looks safe, Leah. Let it in.”
     I pressed the Admit key. The inner security panel rose, the belt groaned as it went through its slow, spiraling descent to our level, and presently the parcel entered our home proper. I slapped the safety to drop the inner security panel. I would have opened the parcel myself, but Dad shooed me back.
     “Let me do this, hon.”
     He did, in his usual painstaking way. Fortunately, the parcel was perfect and innocent. It contained no surprises. The contents were what we’d ordered. Three precious pounds of ground beef, a two-pound loaf of bread, a quart jar of strawberry preserves, and assorted canned beans, vegetables and fruits. The quantities were correct. Every item bore an origination-point seal. It was one of our better days.
     No fresh vegetables or fruit, of course. Those days are over.
     “So we’ll eat for another week,” I muttered.
     “Yeah. Put the perishables in the fridge, Leah?”
     “Sure.” I hefted the box of goods and headed downstairs.
     I returned to the living-room level to find Dad sitting on our sofa, staring at his tablet screen with a look of annoyance.
     “Something up?” I said.
     He scowled. “They’re sending a truck.”
     I peered at him. “They want you to come in on a Sunday?”
     He nodded.
     “Any explanation?”
     “None. Last time, it was some garbage about employee security.”
     “I remember.”
     Dad grunted. “I’d better tog up.” He headed up the stairs to the storage area.
     I couldn’t help but worry. The last time he left the house, his car was attacked on the way out and on the way back. The driver had to spray tear gas to drive off the mobs.
     It hasn’t happened often, but more than once mobs like those have shucked a man out of his vehicle and stomped him to death. Yes, even out of an armed and armored, high-security truck like the ones Dad’s employer sends for him. What do you mean, were they looking to steal something? Get serious. Mobs don’t need a reason. That’s what makes them mobs.
     Dad came down the stairs in his going-to-the-office gear: combat helmet, plate-carrier overshirt and Kevlar pants, steel-toed construction boots, a .45 in an appendix-carry holster, Bowie blade at his side, and a chest rig stocked with loaded mags, Mace, and first-aid items. Only his head was visible, and not all of that. He looked ready for the Manhattan front lines. I had a hard time believing he wouldn’t smother under the weight.
     He saw me inspecting him and chuckled. “What am I missing, hon?”
     “Varmint gun.”
     “Won’t need it this time. Going to the Tarrytown offices. The town was fumigated day before yesterday.”
     “Doesn’t always kill the bigger rats. Think you’ll be back by game time?”
     “Hope so. It’s Bears–Packers at Lambeau Field. Old-time football.”
     “Give me a call if you think you’ll miss the kickoff, okay?”
     “Leah,” he said, “you know I’ll call you as soon as the pow-wow is over. What are you going to do while I’m out?”
     “I think I’ll fix some pilaf.”
     “To go with hamburgers?”
     “I still have a good onion and some garlic. Anyway, we haven’t had beef in a month. Live a little, okay?”
     He grinned. “Okay.” He glanced at the monitor. “Truck’s here. Try not to worry, hon.”
     I nodded. “Yeah.”
     He went upstairs to the exfiltration area. I slid the lever forward that extended the access tube. When I got the mouth to within about a foot of the truck’s security portal, I took manual control, docked it, and waited for the green light. It lit at once.
     I could see Dad’s silhouette as he passed through the umbilical, knocked on the portal, and waited. The driver’s-side gunner gave him a once-over, nodded to the driver, and the driver allowed him into the interior. Seconds later the truck was moving at high speed toward the turret-lined entrance to the Hutchinson River Parkway.
     I closed the umbilical’s security panel, retracted it, and headed downstairs to cook and fret.

#

     Dad did get back by game time. He said there were no incidents this time, coming or going, other than a little rock throwing. Still, he looked wearier than usual. He went to the bedroom to shed his gear. I scooped modest portions of my not-quite-gourmet concoction into two shallow bowls and toted them to the living room.
     Dad was back just before the coin flip, once more in his usual garb. The clothes he’d taken to calling his fatigues. He wouldn’t explain why. He settled into his chair in front of the transceiver, picked up his bowl, sampled the pilaf, and smiled approval.
     “It’s good, hon,” he said. “Mom would have liked it.”
     I just nodded thanks. He doesn’t often mention Mom. It’s not smart to continue when he does.
     The Packers won the toss and elected to receive.
     It was old-time football, all right. What Dad calls smash-mouth. The Packers stayed on the ground all the way to the Bears’ fifteen, threw an incompletion, and had to settle for a field goal. The kicker must have been angry. The ball bounced off the Lambeau Field dome and back onto the field.
     “That’s the way it’s been going for them,” Dad muttered. “Quarterback’s got no arm.”
     “He’s not that bad,” I said. “It’s got to be hard to throw accurately with that little light.”
     “Power allotment,” he grunted. “The nukes are at their limits. We’re fortunate, Leah. If it weren’t for the geothermal unit, we’d be feeling our way around like moles.”
     Just how different are we from moles, I didn’t say.
     “Why couldn’t they have made the dome out of Lucite?” I said.
     “They wanted to,” Dad said. “The cost was prohibitive. Takes a lot of Lucite to stop a Vulcan round, and the fabrication and installation would have been a bitch, so they went with steel.”
     The Bears took the kickoff all the way back to midfield and played the hurry-up to catch the Packers unready. It worked. The Bears’ wide receiver snagged the ball in the Packers’ endzone. He waited for the ref to signal the score and trotted to the sideline.
     “No touchdown dance,” I murmured.
     “No fans,” Dad said, “so why bother?”
     “There’re fans,” I objected. “There must be ten million people watching them right now.”
     Dad didn’t reply.
     The Packers took the kickoff for a touchback. Their offensive unit returned to the field sluggishly, as if they weren’t sure why they were there.
     “Geez, guys,” I muttered. “Show a little spirit.”
     “Why should they?” Dad said. “No fans cheering wildly in the stands.” He snorted. “No stands.”
     “Why couldn’t they have kept the stands?” I said. “People used to pay a fortune to attend an NFL game.”
     “Cost and security,” he said. “The security dome would have had to be four or five times as large. As it is, the cost nearly broke the Packers. It did break a lot of other teams. There were thirty-two at one time. Now there are eight, and staging games just for those eight is so expensive there’s only one per week. If it weren’t for the federal subsidy, there wouldn’t be any. Besides, can you imagine what it would take to get ten or twenty thousand people into an enclosed stadium without mass bloodshed?”
     I shook my head. “I know. It’s just... oh, forget it. I don’t know why we bother watching.”
     Dad did something he seldom does, these days. He turned to face me squarely and took my hands in his.
     “Leah,” he said, “it’s what we have left. It’s something. We have power and a working transceiver. The wireless signal here is pretty good. The game is on, so we watch. What else would we do on a Sunday afternoon, buried here like a pair of corpses?”
     I started to say something, bit it back.
     “We can’t go out,” he said. “We can’t go visiting, or shopping, or to a movie, or to a park, or to church. We don’t have the means and even if we did, the risk is too great. The savages are always on the lookout for targets. We have to make do with what we have in this little fortress I built for us. This damned, dark, damp underground fortress.” His voice trembled. “Thank God we got out of the Bronx before... before it got really bad.”
     He wouldn’t say in time. We hadn’t been in time. Not quite.
     “Remember how you used to complain about the apartment? How cramped it was, how there was only one bathroom and practically no closet space?”
     I nodded.
     “If we hadn’t ditched it and moved out here, do you think we’d be alive today?”
     He was plainly on the verge of tears. Part of it was losing Mom to the savages, but another part was the sense of failure. He’d wanted more for me. A regular college education. A social life like the one he’d had. A horde of suitors vying for the hand of his only daughter, marriage and children and a regular family. Those things had receded into the mists.
     I haven’t been out of the house in eleven years. What higher education I could get came from the Internet. I haven’t yet had a paying job. I might never have one. I’m twenty-three and a virgin. I might die a virgin.
     Others have it worse. A lot of others and a lot worse. We’re safe in here. We eat regularly. Dad seldom has to go out and when he does, he gets the best protection Teleoperated Systems can provide. They think a lot of him. They should. There aren’t a lot of waldo operators who can do the nano-etching he does.
     I should have been more thankful and I knew it.
     “Forgive me, Dad,” I said. “I know we’re the lucky ones. I just have... you know, girl stuff to deal with.”
     “I know, hon,” he said. “So did... Mom.”
     We sat in silence for an endless moment. The game continued without our attention.
     A little animation returned to his face. He perked up.
     “There’s a boy at the office...” He hesitated. “I like him. You might like him too.”
     My flags went up. All red. I struggled to control myself.
     “Tell me about him,” I said.
     “Well, he’s... in agriculture,” he said. “Works a combine waldo. He’s good at it, a real natural talent. He’s well-mannered, too. A Christian.”
     “Oh? What denomination?”
     “I never asked,” he said. “He wears a cross pendant, though. You don’t see those much anymore.”
     We don’t see anything much anymore, I didn’t say.
     “Keep going,” I said. “Is he decent-looking?”
     Dad shrugged in that way that says How am I to judge?
     “Leah,” he said. “He’s alone in the world. He lives at the office, in the barracks there. He lost his family in the Trenton riots. Both parents and two younger sisters.”
     “And he wants to start a new one,” I muttered.
     Dad nodded.
     “You haven’t said how old he is,” I said. “Or his race.”
     He grimaced. “Seventeen. He’s white.”
     I forced myself to keep still.
     “Would you like to meet him?” Dad said.
     “Can you arrange for us to chat over the Net?” I replied. “I think it would be a bad idea to bring him here before we’ve had a conversation or two.”
     “I’ll get on it.” His gaze flicked to the transceiver. Halftime had arrived. The Bears were up by seventeen.
     “The Packers don’t have it today,” he said.
     “Or they’re not putting it out,” I said.
     “They looked a lot better back in October,” he said. “Well, that’s the game. On any given Sunday—”
     “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Heard it all before.” I headed to the stairs to fetch a bottle of water from the fridge, stopped. “Dad?”
     “Hm? What, hon?”
     “I miss... Eucharist.”
     He winced. “I don’t know, Leah. I’ll see what I can do.”
     I nodded and continued on.

==<O>==

Copyright © 2025 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Bearers And Crosses: A Sunday Rumination

     I haven’t done one of these in quite a while, so please bear with me if need to knock a little rust off.

     Today, September 14, is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It’s not one of the better known feast days. It hearkens back to the fourth century, when the cross on which Christ was crucified was lifted above the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Sine then (if not before), the Cross has been an object of veneration and mystery. A number of miraculous cures have been ascribed to the sufferer having been touched by a fragment of the Cross.

     But the significance of the Cross is far deeper than its healing powers. It was on the cross, when Jesus was flanked by condemned thieves Dismas and Hestas, that He promised eternal life in heaven to the repentant Dismas. The Cross thus speaks to us of Divine forgiveness, which opens the gates of heaven to those who sincerely repent of their sins.

     These days, not a lot of priests talk much about sin. Funny thing, isn’t it? The Church exists specifically to guide men away from sin and toward God. But if we don’t strive to understand sin, how can we learn to steer away from it? Few of us travel with a priest at our elbow, ever ready to counsel us on the hazards we face. Wouldn’t do much good, anyway; sin is an individual matter, not something one can rely on a spiritual guide to avert.

     Inasmuch as the Cross is also the overarching symbol of Mankind’s spiritual burdens and the suffering Jesus had to endure to relieve them, it evokes a question of fundamental import to the sincere Christian. We were told, by Christ Himself, that we must take up our own crosses if we wish to belong to Him. He said it well before He was crucified; the cross – the severest form of capital punishment the First Century knew – was already a symbol of immense gravity.

---

     There’s a great deal of variation among Christians’ conceptions of sin. That variation gives weight to Christ’s command that we “Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matthew 7:1) The Church recognizes this in its proclamation that, after the Ten Commandments and the Two Great Commandments from which they descend, the individual conscience is supreme in such matters. I’ve written about this many times, both here and in my novels, so I’ll resist the urge to expound on it yet again.

     From the contemplation of sin, we come to the subject of temptation.

     Temptation is a real thing. When it comes upon you, you can feel it at work. Quite simply, it’s the urging to disregard your conscience’s evaluation of some possible act. Your conscience, which is the mechanism you’ve been given with which to distinguish right from wrong, speaks softly, in whispers. The counter-whispers that exhort you to ignore your conscience are your temptations.

     Some of our temptations arise from our appetites and our desire to indulge them. Those may be entirely innate to the human animal. But some temptations have nothing to do with such things. They speak to our fallen selves, our incompletely controlled urges to hurt and destroy. Those, I believe, have an external source. Whatever the case, he who feels temptation testing his conscience must recognize the symptoms.

     I believe that when Christ told us to take up our crosses if we wish to follow Him, he was speaking of temptation. For our temporal burdens and sorrows are of this world. Everyone has some; no one gets a free ride. The temptations we face are our individual spiritual burdens – our crosses.

---

     Few men are admitted to the knowledge of another man’s conscience or the temptations he faces. Few of us talk about them. I’m unsure whether that’s for the best or whether we who believe should be forthcoming about them. It would certainly be a trial for me.

     Temptation usually aims at our personal weaknesses: unsatisfied currents of yearning and the sense of deprivation. Some key phrases to bear in mind are “I deserve,” “No one has to know,” and “Everybody is doing it.” He who finds himself contemplating one of those is in danger; he must look to his defenses. Whichever of his unfulfilled yearnings or resentments is front and center, he must back away from the urge to slake it. It’s seldom easy; ask Saint Paul.

     Shouldering one’s cross at such times is the spiritual challenge.

---

     Before I close, I want to mention one of the most emotionally wringing stories I’ve ever read. It was written by my friend F. James Dagg. It’s titled “The Bearer.” Imagine yourself in the protagonist’s role. Do you think you’d be equal to what was asked of him?

     For in James’s tale there lurked a special kind of temptation: the desire to flee from one’s duty. James’s protagonist didn’t flee, didn’t shirk. He carried his cross, though it took much from him, possibly including many years of his life.

     Each of us has a duty. Only you know yours.

     May God bless and keep you all.

"A Man To My Wounding"

Have a "think" video:

The Shelter Problem

     Yes, yes, I know you’re tired of hearing about Charlie Kirk’s murder and what’s followed. Sorry; it’s on my mind, and I write about what’s on my mind. You see, there are parallels between the situation that produced Charlie’s murderer and the ones that make both black predation and Muslim violence so rampant.

     The explanation starts with an insight from Brigitte Gabriel:

     I think I’ve embedded this video before, but never mind. Gabriel’s explanation of the sheltering character of a population that protects and enables its violent fraction is on point. When Mao Tse-tung wrote that “The people are the sea in which the revolutionary fish swims,” he had the same idea in mind. The larger mass of that population need not be violent. It needs only to provide concealment, protection, and sustenance to its violent members. That greatly increases the willingness of the violent to go forth and slaughter.

     When black or Muslim violence erupts, the rejoinder from the peacefully inclined among us is often “But they’re not all like that. We can’t punish all of them for the deeds of a few!” This response is so common that it’s generated an Internet acronym: NAXALT. And indeed, by American standards of justice that rejoinder is correct.

     But the phenomenon has killed the degree of mutual trust that made America the social, economic, and political envy of the world. When it’s unwise, for the sake of one’s own well-being, to trust in the good will of strangers, trust will disappear. And that is exactly what has happened.

     We cannot trust blacks.
     We cannot trust Muslims.
     Worst of all, we cannot trust those on the Left – and we have no reliable way of distinguishing them from the others around us. Any of them could be an assassin or an enabler of assassins. Any of them might cheer at seeing one of his fellows brutalize or kill us. The culture that shelters them has reduced the risk of those things to them.

     That has increased the risk to the rest of us.

---

     Retail establishments and restaurants are beginning to sense the dangers. Some have already gone to what I’ve been (mistakenly) calling a “kill box.” Properly, it’s a delayed-admission security entrance. Below is a picture of the sort of thing I’m describing:

     The outer door is unlocked. The would-be entrant steps inside. The inner door remains locked against him until a security guard can decide whether he should be allowed to pass into the establishment. If the answer is no, he can proceed no further; he must leave.

     The “kill zone” where the would-be entrant must wait is of course transparent. It can be made as large as the proprietors think appropriate for their application. The walls are usually made of Lucite. In the future they may be made of armor glass, given how many guns there are in the world. I know of one such retailer, a furrier, who has already imposed such a control on his potential customers. He won’t be alone for long.

     Such controls, openly designed to separate dangerous elements from the rest of us, are a stopgap solution. They can only protect enclosures; they cannot protect public places. With Muslim violence and black “chimp-outs” becoming more frequent and more widespread, the long-term solution can only be a complete, enforced separation of the populations, such as this. Popular sentiment won’t yet support that, but time will tell.

---

     Trust in the good will of strangers is a social requirement. The loss of it atomizes us, as it’s doing today. An increasing percentage of Americans are unwilling to leave their homes to shop. They fear what may await them. Many such have ample justification. (Say what you will about Jeff Bezos, but thank God for Amazon.)

     Do you hate the idea? I do. But anyone with a better idea, a better vision for restoring public peace and amity is welcome to present it. In this regard I must hope that there are keener eyes than mine... though I’ve seen no evidence to that effect.

Rearguard Actions

     There may be no creature on Earth lower than Jim Acosta. You may remember his interminable badgering and hectoring of President Trump during his first term. Trump showed more restraint at his antics than I would have expected, far more. He even managed to restrain himself when a court ruled that he could not, on his authority as the president, expel the troublesome tosser from the White House press pool.

     This might have been the supreme example of Acosta’s arrogance and entitled-ness: demanding that Sarah Sanders, then the White House press secretary, contradict her boss in public:

     CNN fired Acosta awhile ago, perhaps out of recognition that he was the opposite of an asset to their viewership and sponsorship. But one of his ilk doesn’t disappear quietly these days. (Cf. Keith Olbermann) He’s sought out alternative channels by which to pump his vitriol into the national discourse. And of course, as there are many today, he’s found one:

Jim Acosta: The real worry is the right’s “exploitation" of Charlie Kirk’s death causing violence.

CNN presented this loathsome, unhinged radical as an “anchor” for years:

“There's exploitation going on of his death and it's happening on the right and it's absolutely… pic.twitter.com/TqCvYIPhgY

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 11, 2025

     It would be foolish to expect Acosta to focus on the actual impact of the Charlie Kirk assassination. No, his bent compels him to look for a way to downplay the actual killing in favor of his political allies. So he trumpets that the Right is exploiting the atrocity!

     This is not something to dismiss with a growl. Acosta is something of a standard-bearer for his ilk. He may be the most obnoxious of them, but he represents their attitudes and preferences very well. His approach has already been adopted by other Left-aligned commentators in the mainstream media.

     That’s the Leftist approach to anything terrible their allies precipitate. They don’t reflect on causes and consequences. No, it’s always “Republicans Pounce,” or something to that effect.

     It’s been clear from all the open Leftist jubilation over Charlie Kirk’s death that the killing of an effective conservative activist gladdens their hearts. A few have actually said that they wish it had been their deed, rather than that of an as-yet-unknown assassin. Do we really need any more evidence that they’re at war with us? Real, flying-lead, take-no-prisoners war in which Charlie Kirk’s death is something to celebrate?

     Other conservative activists have been pondering whether they should adjust their schedules, perhaps take additional security measures. May God watch over all of them at every moment. It’s clear that the cream-pie phase of this struggle is over.

     As distasteful as it is, we must keep watch on the mainstream media and their favored mouthpieces. Yes, they’re wounded and falling back, but “a wounded lion is a lion still.” If the Acostan message – i.e., that what matters most about Charlie Kirk’s death is how the GOP can benefit from it – should gain traction, the national discourse will be twisted to their advantage yet again. It wouldn’t be the first time the reptiles of the Left have pulled the rhetorical rug out from under us.

A Declaration Of War

     Time was, wars were declared in formal notes, delivered by one nation’s ambassador to the potentate of another nation. Military operations waited until that note had been received and acknowledged. When hostilities did begin, they were often battles scheduled to begin at a particular time and in a particular place, with prior warnings delivered to any noncombatants in the area. Battles would often have mercy breaks, during which each side would collect its dead and wounded and care for them.

     Time was.

     I shan’t trouble my Gentle Readers with the tale of degradation that’s brought us to where we are. You may already know it, or some of it. Suffice it to say that nations’ warlike practices are no longer so civilized. The Geneva Conventions, noble attempts to return warfare to some degree of decency, are mostly honored in the breach, if at all.

     Today, wars begin with a military strike. “Oh, you didn’t know we were at war with you? Well, you know it now.” The attitude needs no analysis from me.

     That new “standard” applies to civil wars as well.

     Just in case you’ve been completely disconnected from national events for the past day or so, yesterday a sniper ended the life of Turning Point co-founder and popular conservative activist Charlie Kirk. A high-powered rifle bullet found his jugular from an estimated two hundred yards away. For a moment, it was a tragic, stunning shock, nothing more. Then the reactions and commentary from the Left began to accumulate: celebrations compounded with statements that “he deserved it.”

     It was barely possible to rationalize away Charlie’s murder as the deed of a madman, a “lone wolf,” before those reactions and comments began to appear. After that, it was no longer possible to interpret the assassination as anything but a declaration of war. Real war, the kind fought with bullets and bombs.

     The Right has been muttering darkly about the possibility of a modern civil war for some time. We’ve never wanted one. We hoped we could restore the Constitutional order of the United States by argument, education, and electoral action. We failed to reckon with the emotional dynamics in this deeply divided country. We also failed to understand the two attempts on Donald Trump’s life as we should.

     Clarity has come.

     I could go into depths of detail that would sicken even me, but there’s no need. The matter is simple. The Left has lost at the ballot box. It has lost the national argument. It has lost the emotional allegiances of decent Americans. Its back is to the proverbial wall. Its remaining choices are surrender and violence – and the Left never surrenders.

     War is upon us.

     We don’t get to say “No, we don’t want this,” and end it that way. We don’t get to stand back and hope it will happen somewhere else, to someone else. We don’t get to declare a personal armistice and live our lives quietly while others argue over the terms of the peace treaty. We don’t even get to buy peace by surrendering. We’re in Israel’s position now: every one of us in the Right is on the front lines.

     Charlie Kirk was targeted because of his effectiveness, but even more because of his openness. He wasn’t a supreme commander, any more than was Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He was a high-value target, but nevertheless a target of opportunity.

     Other conservative speakers and public figures are on notice. But then, so are we all.

     I wish I could end this on a positive note, but there aren’t any positives to the thing. The Left has declared war on the Right. The violence will continue. It will probably escalate. More people will be maimed and killed.

     There’s no predicting the outcome. The Right has been too determinedly civil. We’ve never accepted the absoluteness of the contest. We’ve proceeded as if the contest could and would be settled by argument alone. But our adversaries will not accept defeat by that standard. They won’t stop short of anything but total power over all of us: the power of life and death and everything in between. Why should they not go to guns when the national discourse and the electoral contests turn against them?

     It’s August 1914 in America. The next few days will reveal much. For now, pray for our country. And clean and oil all your guns, of course.

Matt Walsh Goes Part Way (UPDATED)

     It cannot be made clearer than this:

Time for MASSIVE change in America
pic.twitter.com/IyUpNRHB2e

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 10, 2025

     Note that Walsh is unsparing about the grisly reality of the crime. Note that he is unequivocal in condemning the mainstream media’s desire to turn the attention away from the crime and onto “conservative racism.” But note also that he shies back from the conclusion that the statistics he cites would force upon any of us: i.e., that whites cannot and must not have blacks among us.

     The black race is incompatible with the white race. Yes, some of its members have adapted to the norms of the advanced civilizations whites have built. But generation after generation, young black males have reverted to the norms of the jungle. When they do, their forebears fail to restrain or discipline them. Whites are left to clean up the mess... and, to add insult to injury, to hear ourselves denounced for “racism” for daring to notice the obvious.

     It is no longer possible to believe, after all these years and all our efforts, that the black race can be rendered safe for civilized society. The “not all of them are like that” deflection must be dismissed with prejudice if whites’ lives and property are to be protected.

     In a different context, Ronald Reagan asked pointedly, “If not now, when? If not us, who?” Those are the questions of the hour. The subject is different, but the urgency is just as great.

     What awaits us should we delay further will be too grim to bear.

     UPDATE: Don’t think for a moment that other blacks aren’t wholly behind Decarlos Brown Jr.:

I really hope @dbongino and @FBIDirectorKash know about these things. https://t.co/IyiK9vrp8a

— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) September 10, 2025

     Young black men lap that stuff up. It’s their license for doing whatever they please to the rest of us.

     They must go. Even if it takes the imposition of martial law and a “Two Doors” scenario, they must all go. Where, I don’t know or care.

Enemies

     Do you have enemies? If you believe so, are they known to you individually? If not, by what criteria do you identify them?

     I’m not talking about board games, Gentle Reader. An enemy is someone who would like to see you come to harm. The nature of the harm need not be physical, though that would certainly count.

     The crime statistics suggest that there are a lot of people out there doing harm to others just now. In a great many of those cases, the “harmers” don’t know the “harmees.” Not as individuals, that is. They choose their targets by other criteria.

     Crime statistics can tell us a great deal, but they don’t elicit the kind of horror or passion for vengeance that the murder of Iryna Zarutska has awakened. Yet this, according to all we know, was an impersonal crime. The murderer was not acquainted with the victim. They had never previously encountered one another. Neither had said a word to the other before the killing took place.

     Individual crimes seldom evoke mass movements or large shifts in public opinion. Even utterly vicious killings don’t usually have that effect. A gang that knocks over a convenience store, killing a clerk in the process, is usually just treated as one more dreadful statistic. Until the statistics are studied for patterns, that is. Then the game changes.

     The murder of Iryna Zarutska had a special quality. The mass media were aware of it from the start. They could sense the kind of avalanche in public opinion it would loose. So they declined to cover it. Their explanation? “Just another local crime story.”

     When the media finally did deign to mention that murder, they tried to make it about – what else? – race and politics.

CNNs reaction segment tonight about the horrific murder of Iryna Zarutska tonight was to express sympathy for the suspect and harshly criticized social media pundits.

Van Jones decided to weigh in, criticizing @charliekirk11 due to alleged racial hate mongering.

He claimed that… pic.twitter.com/6i2LPK6sTF

— Media Lies (@MediasLies) September 9, 2025

     Reflect on that for a moment while I put up another pot of coffee.

---

     I could go in a dozen directions about this, but you’ve probably read my other tirades about the race war in progress, so I’ll spare you that set of rantings. No, today my focus is on the mass media.

     We’ve known for quite a while that the media are boughten allies of the Left. Journalism attracts the Left-inclined ab initio, for reasons I’ll address some other time. Leftist activists and politicians have had great success at seducing journalists into supporting and promoting their causes. But above all, the media have been most useful to the Left in embracing and promulgating the Left’s narratives.

     Leftist politics requires that certain narratives get traction. The most prominent of them has been the oppression narrative, particularly in matters of race. The notion of ongoing race-based oppression probably matters more to the Left than any of its other themes. Therefore, its allies in the media must take care:

• To cover any event that can be framed so as to lend support to the notion that whites oppress blacks;
• To refuse to cover, or to minimize or distort, any event that leans in the opposite direction.

     Some time ago, I wrote:

     Word gets around. Something as atrocious as the rape-torture-murders of Christian and Newsom cannot forever be kept from the light of day. People talk: policemen, forensic investigators, neighbors, reporters, reporters' clerical assistants, cleanup specialists, garbagemen, the families of the victims, their neighbors, and their neighbors' kids. There's simply no hope that the story won't sooner or later be told. When it is told, after a long interval of silence, people will naturally ask one another, "Why haven't we heard anything about this before now?" They will suspect conspiracy.
     It's easy to suspect conspiracies, and difficult to disprove them. Conspirators are secretive by nature, seeking always to conceal or disguise their identities and deeds. Successful conspirators are well prepared to deflect the blame for their crimes onto wholly innocent others. With this as the model, one who begins to suspect that he's being deceived has a long, hard road to travel to disabuse himself of the notion.
     Journalists who downplay or conceal inter-racial crimes out of the mistaken notion that they're helping to avert further hostility are either deluded or hopelessly stupid. By furthering the conviction among private citizens that we're being lied to, they advance the concomitant conviction that "the other," about whose deeds we're being denied full and accurate reports, really is someone to be feared...someone to be located and destroyed, or cast out of our midst, for our own safety's sake.
     Thus, whatever their conscious motives and intentions, politically correct journalists who spike stories about horrific crimes by black perpetrators are the new segregationists. It is their decisions about which stories should be emphasized and which ones must be buried that will persuade white Americans that their black neighbors cannot be trusted and must be expelled from the body politic.

     An insistence that reality must be shoved aside – denied or suppressed – to make way for a counterfactual narrative is the height of delusion. Word gets around. The supposed purity of the deniers’ motives cannot hold back the tide.

---

     Most Americans first heard about the murder of innocent white woman Iryna Zarutska by black multiple felon Decarlos Brown Jr. on X. For the first two days after the event, the media wouldn’t say a word about it. “Local crime story” was the rationale. But the “coverage” that followed gave the game away.

     White Americans are angry now. Angry enough to do what? Perhaps not angry enough to start lynching the blacks around them. But they’re angry at the media, for sure. The media have revealed themselves as our enemy.

---

     During the 2002 war to depose Saddam Hussein, a lot of jokes were cracked about Iraqi information minister “Baghdad Bob,” who was known for denying every report of American advances against the regime. One picture, in particular, became commonplace:

     Baghdad Bob’s behavior is easy to understand. He was working for Saddam Hussein. He had to serve the interests of the regime or lose his job... and quite possibly his life. There was no reason to doubt where his allegiance lay.

     But the mainstream media claim to work for us. It’s become all too clear that that is not the case. The media are enlisted in a cause that threatens our very lives. In advancing that cause, they repeatedly deny the reality of events. When that’s no longer possible, owing to independent journalism, they strive to obscure the causes and the implications. Shall we impute to them the foreseeable consequences of their actions?

     Draw your own conclusions.

Foresights and Golden Ages

     “I have praised the past, the present, and the near future with all the insight God has given me. Peering into the farther future, I have seen nothing but obscure and terrible things which it is not in me to praise. So it is certain that I have fulfilled my task, and may now rest.” -- Olaf Stapledon, Odd John

     Have you ever felt that way?

     Yes, it’s going to be one of those mornings.

***

     Though little known and appreciated today, Olaf Stapledon was a giant of early 20th Century speculative fiction. His novels Star Maker and Last and First Men are considered seminal to the science-fiction field, though there’s little of scientific or technological speculation in them. Both of those, and Odd John quoted above, display a height and breadth of imagination few modern writers have equaled. Yet his tales were notably pessimistic, even fatalistic in tone, whatever his personal inclinations may have been.

     It seems that in some sense, Stapledon recoiled from his own imaginings. The monk Langatse into whose mouth he put the words at the top of this piece certainly didn’t like what he foresaw. Of course, one can always suppose that was purely for fictional purposes. Whatever the case, an Englishman who lived and served through World War I can be forgiven for a bleak view of existence.

     Old men often acquire such a view, even if they’ve lived in a golden age. Age can do that to you. It’s born from a dislike of change and a sense of impotence.

     Ours may someday be recalled as a golden age, even if many alive today would not agree.

***

     I’ve often thought it a blessing that we cannot see the future clearly. I think it would conduce to a fatalism that would be difficult to overcome. Think of the records of those cults that believed that they could see what was coming. Did any of them end well?

     A major benefit of Christian faith is its optimism. Though he can control little of what happens in this world, the Christian believes that he can control his own fate in the life to come. It’s entirely up to him; no other force, personal or impersonal, can take that from him.

     One who disbelieves in the life to come doesn’t have that balm for his temporal wounds. This life – indeed, the present moment – is all he has. If he’s a news junkie, the effects can devastate him beyond recall.

     Christian or not, immersion in current events is not good for us. It leads to foresights, whether accurate or inaccurate, that darken the soul. That so many of us are so immersed does not bode well.

***

     What can we make of developments such as the ones in Britain and Australia today? Is it not clear that a time of trouble is coming for those nations? If we turn to America, where much that’s in progress parallels the course of events in those other lands, does the future look any brighter?

     When a decent man confronts a story such as this one:

0 AP stories on this deadly attack
0 PBS stories on this deadly attack
0 NYT stories on this deadly attack
0 NPR stories on this deadly attack
0 WSJ stories on this deadly attack
0 BBC stories on this deadly attack
0 CNN stories on this deadly attack
0 WAPO stories on this… pic.twitter.com/962qmFOBNm

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 7, 2025

     ...it takes a mighty effort to turn aside from the rage and horror it induces. The same is true of the multitude of stories about racially and ethnically motivated attacks on innocent individuals. Most of those attacks are by groups of blacks on individual whites. The determination required to turn away from the fury produced is enormous. Some don’t manage it.

     Even those who do manage it experience a change in demeanor. No matter how pleasant or peaceful one’s own existence, the specter of all-encompassing violence that can strike anyone, anywhere, at any moment darkens one’s vision. It’s certainly darkened mine.

     It’s among the biggest of the influences that’s draining our benevolence from us.

***

     Yet having said all the above, I can’t go on to say don’t pay attention to the news. The news often tells us what we need to know as individuals. It’s the foresights that result from news immersion that wound us.

     Many alive today know a prosperity and security that no previous generation has experienced. (Yes, even those of us who still have day jobs.) One reaction to the torrent of reports of ugly events is to isolate ourselves, shut out the noise – to wrap ourselves in our personal circumstances, pull them tight around us. Howard Beale described that reaction in Network:

     “We know things are bad — worse than bad. They’re crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’”

     Others become frenzied, and strive to build a fortress against the threats. Still others are filled with hatred and fury. And some simply give up.

     Those are the consequences of too dark a foresight.

***

     A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved. -- Robert A. Heinlein

     I have no idea what state of mind Heinlein was in when he wrote the above, but I suspect it had some elements in common with mine at this hour. I have a misty vision of Western society’s near future, and it is not pleasant. I have a somewhat more solid vision of my own future, which is more agreeable. For I am one of the fortunate ones; I enjoy a “personal golden age.”

     I could, should I choose, “turn off the news” and simply enjoy my own circumstances. I’m often inclined to do so. After all, I have plenty of food, clothing, wine, living space, diversions, and entertainments. (And guns.) I could take refuge in those things, pull them tight around me, and ignore the general descent into chaos and squalor. I could easily justify doing so.

     But I don’t. I keep track. And on this eighth day of September in the Year of Our Lord 2025, I can’t say exactly why. Yes, it gives me plenty to write about, but what other good does it do?

     So I’ll end this morning’s ramble with a question:

     Is it the course of prudence to strive to remain well informed, or is it folly to concern oneself with what’s beyond one’s power to redress?

     Have a nice day.

The Return Of The Unacceptable

     Consider this episode, which has “gone viral:”

A Phillies fan retrieves a home run ball for his son and this woman is furious she did not get the ball pic.twitter.com/kDMMJrw2R5

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 6, 2025

     There has never in the history of the National Pastime been a rule, formal or otherwise, that when a baseball lands in the stands it belongs to the person nearest to it. The woman who raised a stink about getting to it late had no grounds for doing so. Yet she got away with her brazen display of entitlement.

     Her behavior falls into the category decent societies categorized as “not done.” It should not have been tolerated. It certainly shouldn’t have gained her a souvenir baseball.

     Herewith, a reprint from 2022.

---

“Not Done”

     Historically, much that is not illegal by statute has been restrained by an unwritten social code. Nineteenth Century England, the closest approach to a classical-liberal polity in Europe of that era, had extensive codes of that sort. Because English society was stratified by class, there were several such codes, which included rules by which Englishmen interacted within their class and with members of other classes. Indications of this come through in the fictions of the time. John Galsworthy’s magnificent Forsyte Chronicles are probably the best example.

     As the early United States was largely populated by persons of English descent, some of those codes made their way across the ocean and took root here. For a while you could hear Americans condemning certain kinds of behavior, actual or proposed, with the classically English phrase “It’s just not done.” The associated social opprobrium had a degree of force contemporary Americans – and contemporary Englishmen, for that matter – can hardly imagine. (“Enforcement” by dueling had only a little to do with it.)

     Today there’s damned near nothing that “isn’t done.” The greatest imaginable outrages are performed shamelessly and in public. They who perpetrate them upon the rest of us do so precisely because they are outrages. The social codes that once restrained them no longer have force. They certainly aren’t respected by the outrageurs.

     Some of this is attributable to “anti-discrimination” laws, but a far greater portion arises from cowardice among better men.

     Yesterday evening, I cited the disturbance at Los Angeles’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels by pro-abortion protestors determined to disrupt Sunday Mass. The brief video embedded in that tweet depicts what occurs when a few good men find a scintilla of courage: enough, at least, to act against those who would ruin something precious to others. It was heartening to see...moderately so, at least. For I had to note a visible shortcoming: only a half-dozen of the Mass attendees rose to the occasion.

     Why so few? There was no physical danger involved. I can’t see how there would have been any legal consequences to forcibly expelling the protestors. Yet only a handful of Angeleno Catholics rose to oppose the desecration of a sacred Catholic rite that involves the Body and Blood of Christ. Where was the righteous anger appropriate in response to such a profanation?

     If we want such scurrilities to return to the status of “not done,” we’ll have to muster exactly such righteous anger – in quantity.

***

     The matter is grave. Such invasions of the prerogatives of others, even when nominally within the law, are massively destructive to the sense of social order and public peace. That, of course, is why they occur. The perpetrators want to convey exactly that message: “Give us what we want or you will know no peace.” It’s their mantra.

     What goes undiscussed is why such persons get away with their obscenities:

• It’s nominally legal for them to do so;
• The rest of us do nothing but wring our hands.

     But the law does not reserve unto itself the punishment of all infractions against the social order. It cannot. What’s done that’s “not done” must be punished by those offended by it – and by punished, I mean the infliction of actual pain, embarrassment, and ostracism.

     Minority groups determined to disrupt our lives, our gatherings, and our rituals will only get away with such behavior for as long as it fails to draw retaliation. We the Decent Majority must impose consequences so painful, embarrassing, and isolating that no one will be minded to repeat the offense ever again. Moreover, we have to be imaginative about it, for any tactic too often repeated can be countered, given time.

     Imagine if those protestors at Our Lady of the Angels had been stripped bare, spanked to a bright red, and thrust out of the cathedral entirely unclothed. Possibly after having been figged, as well. And perhaps doused with a blend of caffeine and DMSO, for good measure. Do you think they’d have dared to repeat their impertinence?

     Of course, preparation would be required, but that goes without saying.

     Sounds outrageous, doesn’t it? “Not done!” But what lesser measures would ensure a return to public peace? The organs of the law either have no authority in such matters or refuse to use what they have. This is what is left to us.

     Other commentators have spoken of a “cold civil war” in progress. Their perspective grows more applicable by the day. The Left has delved deeply into the “not done,” confident that We the Decent will not respond with more than words. When only one side is willing to fight, the outcome is foreordained.

     The explosions of outrages in recent years have made this Curmudgeon yearn for “the good old days” when such violations of the public peace were constrained by the possibility of being challenged to a duel. Unfortunately, when dueling was accepted, women were regarded as immune to challenge. Perhaps the custom could use a spot of innovation.

     Have a nice day.

Necessary But Not Sufficient

     A graphic that’s been making the rounds of the Net has been much on my mind lately:

     That’s awfully good advice. I’d say those practices are necessary for long-term health and comfort in one’s body. But his body’s needs aren’t the only ones a man must meet if he’s to have a complete sense of well-being.

     A man is not his body alone. His soul has requirements of its own, above and apart from what’s required for physical health. Even a hard-core materialist will have a sense of this. He might use the term fulfillment rather than anything that smacks of the mystical, but the sense of needs that transcend the physical will be there even so.

     (“Fulfillment” had its heyday back in the Seventies. We don’t hear it as much these days. Nevertheless, it’s on a lot of minds, especially with the rise of the tradwife evangelists and the furor they’ve evoked among militant feminists.)

     Each of us needs a sense that he’s doing – or done – something worthwhile with his time on Earth. Without that, physical health and fitness are mere baubles that will be buried alongside you.

     That may be a strange thing to have on one’s mind at 5:00 AM EDT, but you know me, Gentle Reader.

***

     What’s required to feel that you’re doing, or have done, something worthwhile? Are there life paths that greatly improve the chance that you’ll sincerely believe it?

     That is one hell of a long-term study, Gentle Reader. It goes back to Socrates and Aristotle. The arguments over it have never ceased. They probably never will.

     Aristotle, for all his brilliance, had to approach the subject from the back end: happiness. He sensed that the traditional virtues were connected to happiness, and prescribed them emphatically. Even so, his argument was teleological: i.e., that living a virtuous life will make you happy. It left open the question: what if you live a virtuous life from cradle to grave, but find that you’re not happy? And indeed, there have been men whose lives have been absolute paragons, but have been unhappy throughout.

     This is not an argument for eschewing the virtues. It’s merely a demonstration that teleological arguments are always vulnerable to a teleological challenge. You may labor diligently for many decades at cultivating and practicing the virtues, yet not attain happiness.

     Time gives no refunds.

***

     I’m not about to claim that I have the answer. This is an early-morning ramble from an old man, Gentle Reader. Don’t read too much into it. But it does suggest something about what direction would be most profitable to follow.

     Happiness and the sense of a life well lived don’t have to be regarded as prizes awarded solely at the conclusion of life. They can be immediate: concomitants of the awareness that at this moment in time, you’re doing what you ought to be doing, and doing it right.

     I’d hope that every man has such moments. They may not last long, but they can bring a sense of purpose fulfilled: “I was there and I did my job,” whatever “my job” might be. They do something else, too: they speak to the desire for meaning that each of us feels: the yearning to believe, sincerely, that life is not a purposeless accident. That’s not a need that can be satisfied by any physical nutrient.

     I may return to this later on. For the moment, I need more coffee. No, it’s not sufficient, but it is necessary. Thank You, God.

Vacua

     It seems that for some kinds of learning, you have to get old.

     I’m old. I’ve lived 73 years as of the fifth of September in this Year of Our Lord 2025. And I sometimes thank God that I can’t clearly remember the foolishness I espoused in my younger days. I’d die of embarrassment if some of it were to come to light. And that’s enough for personal disclosures.

     I was educated as a physicist. I’ve retained very little of that knowledge. I couldn’t solve a Schrodinger’s Equation problem to save my life. But I did hold on to one critical insight. It’s one you probably acknowledge, too, even if you would express it in other terms.

Excepting the effects of entropy,
The universe is ruled by equilibrium.

     Practical living incorporates that insight in particular ways: “The goldfish will grow to the size of the bowl.” “Water seeks its own level.” “Dirty is automatic; clean takes work.” “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

     That last one is much on my mind this morning. No calculus will be required to follow it out.

***

     Experimenters create vacua for specific purposes, often to gauge the consequences of a reaction that cannot occur in air. Vacua are also required for certain types of high-tech manufacturing. But have you ever contemplated the production of vacua by activists and politicians? Why would they do it?

     (Before we proceed further, yes: the plural of vacuum is vacua. The alternate plural vacuums is best reserved to the discussion of floor-cleaning devices.)

     Nature abhors a sociopolitical vacuum just as much as the physical kind. Indeed, a sociopolitical vacuum is often paralleled by a physical one. Both demand to be filled by something. All it takes is time.

     Now consider what’s happened to birth rates in the First-World nations. I don’t know of any advanced nation other than Israel that’s reproducing at or above replacement rate. Without an influx of immigrants, those countries would “empty out” within a few generations. The effects are already visible in Russia and Japan.

     Those declines in fertility don’t create a hard vacuum... but they indicate a reduced pressure within the affected countries. The pressure against their borders is higher than the pressure to maintain racial, ethnic, and cultural norms can resist. Moreover, there are elements within those countries that want a flood of immigrants, regardless of any countervailing considerations.

     Those pro-immigration elements have effective control of the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

     Yes, movements have arisen in all those nations to agitate against unrestricted and unqualified admission to their lands. But to this point, the pro-immigrant elements in their governments are holding sway. It’s unclear whether the balance will tip in the other direction in the near future.

     I’d bet against it, because of a cooperating vacuum that’s been under construction for several decades.

***

     Moral and ethical norms are best inculcated in the young person by his parents. Should they fail to do so, he might manage to acquire them in some other fashion, but he’d likely give and receive a lot of pain and damage in the process. Some of that damage would be to his beliefs about individuals’ rights.

     For decades the trend in Western nations has been away from firm moral-ethical norms and toward a freewheeling relativism: “whatever’s right for you.” Parents have been swayed in that direction as much as anyone else. But relativism acts like a vacuum. Under the guiding principle of “whatever’s right for you,” even a nation whose heritage is strongly Christian will lack the will to defend Christian norms against an incursion by an aggressive and confident opponent.

     Relativism synergizes with the reluctance to confront – an unwillingness to risk conflict, even if it’s just verbal conflict. The relativist will not argue for any absolute norm. How can he? Under the relativistic principle, there are “no right answers.” Everyone is entitled to “his own truth.” But a time may come when someone else’s “truth” mandates the relativist’s subjugation or death.

     That’s what’s happened to Canada, Britain, and Australia. It’s beginning to raise its head here in the United States. The great majority of Americans are at least nominally Christian. Our Nation’s laws were founded on Commandments Four through Nine of the Decalogue. But we have exhibited an increasing disinclination to take up cudgels in support or defense of Christian norms.

     Those norms will not prevail without a stouthearted defense. Their adversaries’ numbers are growing while ours are stagnating. Do the math.

***

     My personal conviction is that Islam is toxic to human life and must be destroyed root and branch. I feel similarly about the tide of Negro savagery that’s manifested in recent years, most notably in the larger cities. But underlying those threats to Christian-Enlightenment civilization are the vacua of relativism and non-confrontation. Those vacua will be filled by something. It behooves us of the Christian Enlightenment to be ones to fill them.

     Time is not on our side.