Smart People, Foolish Notions

     The political trenches are heavy with commentators who write smart, literate pieces but who are utterly filled with folly. Folly, as Barbara Tuchman once wrote, is knowing better but doing worse. Persons who promote follies typically refuse to heed the lessons of the past. At least, that’s the most common form of folly in politics and political advocacy.

     Here’s a sample of current relevance:

     One of the big fears that some conservatives have about Republicans doing the simple thing that they were elected to do by confirming a conservative Supreme Court justice is that Democrats would respond by packing the court. As such, they are proposing a "compromise." The idea, first put forward by Adam White in a thoughtful piece, is that President Trump nominates somebody, but Republicans agree not to vote until after the election (and to not confirm a nominee in a lame-duck session if they lose) as long as Democrats agree to not pack the court. The idea has gained adherents, including David French and Jonah Goldberg.

     I don’t know anything about Adam White. I know little more about David French, other than that he’s a foaming-at-the-mouth NeverTrumper. But I followed Goldberg’s essays for some time, and I own one of his books. I have no doubt that he’s a smart fellow, his aversion to President Trump notwithstanding. However, these three persons are united in a folly of monumental dimensions: They believe the Democrats would keep a promise when violating it would be massively favorable to their interests.

     The Democrats do not keep promises. The record is quite definite on this subject. Why, therefore, would the GOP’s Senate caucus trust the Democrats to do so in this supremely important matter – a matter the Left has been talking about for years?

     Do I hear someone in the back rows nattering about “collegiality?” Where was collegiality during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings? Where was it during impeachment hearings and the Senate trial of President Trump? Where is it today, when prominent Democrats routinely slander President Trump as a dictator and anyone who supports him as either stupid or evil?

     Given the open, venomous viciousness of the highest-placed Democrats at this time, why would anyone believe, against the historical evidence, that “this time it will be different?”

     Folly, pure and simple.

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     Now and then, I’ll encounter a smart fellow in a comment section. As often as not, such a person is riddled by folly. A recent case arose in the comments to this story about the Congressional campaign ads of Kim Klacik.

     I commented there much as I expressed here. But note the reply I received:

     I would rather my federal tax dollars go towards fixing an entirely broken city, one that is so broken that the local government can't fix it alone, so it can become successful enough to, once again, thrive on its own. Every city where a Democrat gains and keeps control is in danger of descending into squalor. So, how do we prevent such a thing from happening in Baltimore again after it has been fixed? By showing the citizens that it was a Republican who finally stepped up and fixed everything, by showing the citizens that voting red is what made a difference, and by showing the citizens that as long as they keep voting red, there is no limit to how successful their city can be. Doing all of this could create long-lasting memories of how it was actually the Republicans who cared for the black communities enough to fix things, memories that would be passed down from generation to generation. Kind of the same effect the Dems "party switch" lie had, but without the lie. I think such a thing is worth my federal tax dollars.

     Folly of the first water. Why believe that the residents of Baltimore, once bailed out of their own mess – a mess they created for themselves! – would care any better for their city afterward than they did beforehand? Simply because “it was a Republican who finally stepped up and fixed everything” -- ? Memories of good deeds done to the undeserving aren’t “passed down from generation to generation;” they aren’t even perpetuated for a year! Does no one else remember that just last year, when volunteer Scott Presler led a group to Baltimore to clean up one of its worst trash-filled alleys, after which the Baltimore Sun questioned Presler’s motives – then claimed that the rest of us owed it to Baltimore to clean it up for them?

     Collectivists never accept responsibility for anything. Whatever the “problem,” it’s always someone else’s fault, and someone else’s responsibility to correct. They certainly don’t feel an obligation to keep their promises. The Democrats are collectivists. As we mathematical types are wont to say at such times, quod erat demonstrandum. But people resolved upon promoting a foolish notion will never accept that.

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     It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you’re unwilling to look at the objective facts, or unwilling to draw the moral they present. I speak with some authority on this, having fallen into various kinds of folly on several occasions, including some recent ones, out of a desire to believe something that clashed with the observable facts. Those follies have cost me time, money, emotional distress, and hunks of my willingness to trust the newcomer by default. I’m not quite to the point of turning my back on others, but I’ve come close. Certainly I no longer accept rosy-glassed claims or piteous plaints without checking the evidence.

     The descent into folly is almost always because one has forgotten – or has decided to ignore or dismiss – an important bit of knowledge about people and the laws of Nature: i.e., a sturdy wisdom. Here’s a brief, non-exhaustive list:

1. Life is short.
2. Debt is a form of slavery.
3. Men and women are different.
4. There is no such thing as casual sex.
5. Governments never return seized rights or money.
6. He who won’t help himself doesn’t deserve your help.
7. He who wants power over you is inherently untrustworthy.
8. To get a man to do something, you must get him to want to do it.

     Post that list over your computer. Refer to it often. It’s a handy way of averting the descent into folly – and take my word for it: you’re not so smart that you’re immune to folly’s lures.

Quickies: A Stunning Bit Of Wisdom

     Found at Gab:

"When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
When I found I could not change the world, I tried to change my nation.
When I found I could not change my nation, I tried to change my town.
When I found I could not change my town, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realise the only thing I can change is myself."

"And suddenly I realise that if long ago I had changed myself,
I could have made an impact on my family,
My family and I could have made an impact on our town,
Their impact could have changed the nation,
And I could indeed have changed the world."

--unknown monk, 1100 AD.

     The young resist learning from the old. They always have, and in all probability they always will. How much more ironic could it be that the old so often learn from the young: specifically, the mistakes made by their younger selves?

Intelligence Is Neither Wisdom Nor Prudence Nor Judgment

     Take note, all you cockeyed optimists out there.

     From behind the Uber-Curmudgeon persona types a 66-year-old man in shaky health. (The traditional phrase is “one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.”) I thank God for all my blessings, emphatically including the shaky health. Here’s why.

     Yesterday afternoon, a dear friend named Joe, perhaps the brightest and most capable person I’ve ever known, did a stupid thing: He mounted a ladder. Now, for many persons that would not be deemed an unduly hazardous thing to do...but Joe is 71 years old. He fell from that ladder, breaking his pelvis and nearly all his ribs and compromising his lungs badly enough to require intubation. He spent the day in the ICU, has already undergone one bout of surgery and will undergo another quite soon. Whether Joe will survive his mishap is unclear.

     Joe and I have several things in common...but not the “shaky health” part. Joe is (was) robustly healthy and looks (looked) twenty years younger than his calendar age. He retired from law enforcement just last year. I’m certain he mounted that ladder thinking nothing would happen to him...certainly nothing of the sort that did.

     I would never have mounted that ladder; I know I’m aged and frail. My shaky health would have defended me against such an error of judgment. Joe didn’t have my advantage. Nothing had ever hurt him before this.

     You, the Temporarily Able-Bodied, should start cultivating some respect for the perils that come with advancing age BEFORE you get to your fifties and sixties. Gravity is not your friend. Neither are machines with fast-moving parts. Neither are doe-eyed young women wearing pleading looks. (Admittedly, that last temptation can be hard to resist. Resist anyway. You’ll thank me.)

     An IQ that resembles a California zip code is no good unless you remember to use it. Ask Joe when he comes out of surgery later today.

Sturdy Wisdoms And Realizations

     “Ve get too soon old und too late schmart.” – Ancient maxim

     “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” – Book of Proverbs

     Our time is slowly but steadily unearthing what I call “sturdy wisdoms:” the hard won learning of our parents, grandparents, and the generations before them. The “youth revolution” of the Sixties had many destructive effects, but the very worst of them was the contempt we showed for such wisdoms. We decided that we were the smart ones. The fusty oldsters cluck-clucking at us were fossils of a bygone era, misguided by their excessive respect for tradition. We were certain that we knew better than they, on just about every subject under the Sun.

     We reaped the whirlwind for it. We deserved what we got. Yes, there were others who knew that we were headed for a fall and, for reasons of their own, hastened us toward the abyss. That doesn’t spare us the odium for our arrogance and foolishness. However, admitting that might be the key to sparing our progeny some of what we’ve suffered.

     This morning I have three sturdy wisdoms in mind for your consideration. I contend that insisting on the contrary propositions has cost us dearly and will continue to do so until we unlearn and resolve sincerely to do better. There are others beside these three; indeed, there are many. But I’m not here to write an encyclopedia of our follies, merely to provide some color commentary.

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     The first sturdy wisdom to be revived is one about which there’s still much dissent. In all probability that will continue forever. It’s been derided as simplistic, self-limiting, even dictatorial. Yet the truth of it glows more brightly with every passing day.

Sex is a serious matter.

     Long, long ago, at a Website far, far away, I wrote the following:

     Viewed through a coarsely-grained lens, sex is just a variety of agreeable physical contact between bodies. Why should it differ emotionally from other physical activities we enjoy? What makes it so special?

     The mystery deepens when we note that there are devices, available for a few dollars, that can excite the body to greater degrees of pleasure than ordinary sex, or even extraordinary sex, could ever achieve. Yet people overwhelmingly prefer the genuine article, with all its muss, fuss, occasions for embarrassment, and potential for social and emotional disaster....

     You have to open your defensive perimeter, your reflex-reaction zone, to let someone else get close enough to you to make love. A woman has to permit her man to enter her body. Each partner is in a state of total physical vulnerability while their embrace lasts. There are implications and overtones to this that no rationalization about sex being mere happy friction can erase.

     And it doesn't stop with the sexual embrace itself. No matter how often we tell ourselves otherwise, every sex act is a test of a proposition: "Will we be a unit? Will I share his home and bear his children? Will she stand by me in my battles and nurture me in my times of infirmity?"

     The unit of two is the unit best suited to human beings. One person can accept and bond to another on mutually agreed terms, with little or no ambiguity about the nature, obligations and extent of the intended relationship. Larger numbers don't work nearly as well. If you disagree, you've never been in politics.

     No amount of propaganda about sex being just one more way for people to enjoy their bodies can erase these facts. They are graven in our genes, and in our nature as a species....

     See that handsome stranger or pretty lady across the bar? What were you thinking a moment ago, about how it would be nice to try the night with him / her, and that it needn't come to more than that if it doesn't work out?

     Don't kid yourself, my friend. From the moment you first touch, forces will be unleashed in heaven and on Earth that will rock you to your core, and it won't matter a dented copper groat what your intentions were.

     Be smart. Know yourself. Know your species.

     Quite a lot of Americans who pooh-poohed that sturdy wisdom, gaily dismissing the warnings of parents and grandparents about casual sex, have reached their thirties, forties, and the years beyond alone. A large fraction of them have suffered painful divorces. Others have lost all contact with their children. Others have contracted diseases they could have avoided. Still others have become embroiled in legal complications from which escape seems indefinitely far off.

     Our predecessor generations knew all the hazards. They strove to impress us with them. And we laughed them off.

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     The second sturdy wisdom is one for which I’ve been called a kook, a loon, a bizarro, out of touch with the realities of contemporary living. Indeed, this is one the effacement of which affected more than just the postwar generations. Huge industries have sprung up to exploit our foolishness, and have profited greatly from it.

Debt is slavery.

     If you are in debt, a part of the reward for your labor goes to others to service the debt. You can be legally penalized for failing to service your debts. You get nothing else for doing so. You are therefore, in part, a slave.

     Debt slavery is the chain that keeps many Americans working at jobs they’d love to slough. Financiers love it; the rest of us endure it to afford our “needs.”

     I revived an old Eternity Road essay on this subject earlier this year. It drew the same choruses of dismissal in 2017 as it had in 2006. Yet the truth of it remains beyond intelligent dispute:

     Many a reader has been saying to himself "But how could I get the things I need without incurring these debts?" for several paragraphs now. Such questions arise from a perverse sense of "need" far more often than not. Americans are hooked on material self-indulgence; easy credit is the pusher that feeds our habit. Most of what we have, we do not need. We want it, and we certainly enjoy it, but those are far different things.

     "Need" is the gateway drug. "Need" is habitually "defined down" over time: from a house, to a car, to better clothes, to a better car, to a really nice house in a "suitable" neighborhood, to designer jeans and sneakers for the kids, to the latest iPods^®, to a PlayStation 3 ^® and all the "hot" games for it, to a Giant Economy Size bottle of Chivas Regal to dull the pain from having to pay for all that stuff.

     Man's needs are food, clothing, shelter, and heat. All else is discretionary. The truly prudent man does not incur debt to pay for discretionary items.

     William Pitt said three centuries ago that “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” Nor was he incorrect. Those who hope for your enslavement have no better way of securing your collaboration in the project than by inducing you to incur debt.

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     The third sturdy wisdom is one that informs most of my op-ed writing. It seems so perfectly obvious to me, yet millions upon millions of persons dispute it at a temperature that could set the world aflame. Indeed it has done so several times already.

Do not trust government or would-be governors.

     The man who wants power over you is inherently untrustworthy. For the love of God, think about it! Once you allow him power over you, he’ll be beyond your control. You’ll be stripped of the ability to defy him. When he does other than what he “promised” he would do, you’ll be without recourse.

     One of the most extraordinary aspects of the American Constitutional design, underappreciated even by the most erudite legal scholars, is this: The United States was designed to be an anarchy. The giveaway appears in the Sixth and Seventh Amendments:

     Amendment VI: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

     Amendment VII: In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

     The right of trial by jury says, in so many words, that you cannot be punished by State decree. You can only be punished by the judgment and with the consent of your peers. But a State that cannot inflict punishment upon its subjects without their explicit consent is not a State in the original sense of the word: an organization that commands the pre-indemnified use of force, whether initiated or in response.

     The statists that rule this once free country have made a mockery of those guarantees. They’ve done it with “prosecutorial discretion,” with laundry-list charges and “plea bargaining,” with the silencing of the right of jury nullification, and perhaps worst of all with administrative laws created and imposed by unaccountable bureaucrats, entirely outside the Constitutional requirements on the law.

     We permitted it. We were told it was “necessary,” that the usual processes of legislation and judicial operation were “inefficient,” “unsuited to our complex modern era.” And we swallowed it whole. The ghost of William Pitt must have wept at the sight. Yet people ask me why I study the skies each night, hoping for a convenient planetoid.

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     There are some indications that those sturdy wisdoms are being rediscovered. Those who rediscover them often do so in a spirit of “if only I had known.” The understanding that debt is a form of self-imposed slavery is receiving particular respect: millions of Americans discovered during the recent recession that the deep financial holes they’d excavated for themselves shackled them more tightly than they could endure. The other sturdy wisdoms are singing less audibly, but there are some hopeful signs.

     It’s time we admitted how little we really know, and how much there is to learn from the experiences of others...especially others who have already run the race to completion and would happily tell us about the hazards they encountered along the course.

Quickies: Bearding The Lion Dept.

The following may be interpreted as a display of ballsiness, whether or not it was wise:

He is the rarely-seen artist known as Sabo.

His artwork is many times controversial and political in nature.

His Twitter feed is uncensored and some argue his comments can go too far. In fact, a few of Sabo’s recent tweets struck a nerve and got the attention of the United States Secret Service. One of the tweets involved bringing back Harvey Lee Oswald as a zombie.

Please read the whole thing. Then decide for yourself whether actively inviting the attention of Secret Service myrmidons, or any of their federal colleagues, is a wise course of action in these latter days of the Republic That Was. Provoking the authorities can have more consequences than any private citizen can prepare for...including the possibility that some Leftist villain might persuade your local constabulary to "SWAT" you. Two people have already been killed by such tactics.

"If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgement." -- Robert A. Heinlein, Farnham's Freehold

Verbum sat sapienti.