Conniving, posturing, hypocritical trash.

Google helps the Chinese Communist Government prevent its citizens from accessing “forbidden” knowledge and ideas – but then claims helping the US Defense Department with Cloud computing or artificial intelligence surveillance would “violate its principles.”

“The party of Antifa fascists?” By Paul Driessen, Dissecting Leftism, 10/22/18. No direct link to article but it comes directly before (below) this unrelated article.

Quickies: The Caravan

     Sovereignty doesn't flow from a United Nations declaration. It’s not a theoretical or formal thing in any sense. It’s about a nation's ability to maintain its political system, its laws, and its borders.

     In other words, a nation becomes sovereign when it’s been accepted by neighboring states. When nation X’s neighbors concede nation X’s sovereignty, it becomes sovereign de facto. Such a concession takes the form of not attempting to invade, and of treating with X’s government as a legitimate entity.

     When X’s neighbor Y decides to invade X, it is saying “We no longer concede your sovereignty.” What else could it mean? An invasion is a direct challenge to the ability of X’s government to maintain itself, its laws, and its borders. X will lose sovereign status unless it can repel the invasion. If it can’t – and that includes suing for peace while hostilities are still in progress – then the nation that will emerge from what follows will not be what X was before the invasion. Indeed, what emerges might not be sovereign at all, but a protectorate of Y.

     The “caravan” moving through Mexico is an invasion force. By challenging our ability to maintain our borders and our laws for legal entry, it directly challenges the sovereignty of the United States. Therefore it must be repelled. The alternative is to have all the other nations of the world watch as the third-rate states of Central America succeed in reducing us to their status: a pretender to sovereignty rather than a nation that can maintain its laws and borders against its neighbors when challenged.

     The Army must mobilize and move to our southern border at once. If Mexico’s government is found to be complicit in this invasion attempt, whether by tacitly permitting it or by lending it “aid and comfort,” a declaration of war is the only acceptable response. The people of Mexico had better be ready for what will follow.

Isn't This Type of Organized Targeting of Legal Businesses...

...what USED to be called racketeering? Or, since it's government doing it, Restraint of Trade?

If there are not prosecutions in the next year or so, I will NOT be voting in the GOP in the 2020 election.

Politicized Pulpits Dept.

     I dislike to come home from Mass angry, but there are days when it seems unavoidable. Today is such a day.

     My parish – St. Louis de Montfort in Sound Beach, NY – is graced by a couple of excellent priests. However, a couple of others don’t seem to grasp that the pulpit is not for politics or economics. Granted that this has been a problem for some time all around the country, every incidence of it elicits my ire, though I do my best to fight it.

     Some priests don’t grasp why preaching politics or economics from the pulpit is wrong. To be fair, some lay communicants don’t grasp it either. Yet it’s so clearly wrong, both from Christian fundamentals, the individualized nature of faith, and the privileged position of the clerical pulpit, that I can’t understand why they don’t get it.

     Allow me to put it simply:

Christ Himself separated faith from such things.

     Remember “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s?” What the Redeemer refused to do, His vicars on Earth should not presume to take up for themselves.

     Today’s occurrence was especially enraging. The celebrant made assertions that are provably false, to advance a completely fallacious political / economic position. Those assertions were along the lines of the old canard that “If the rich would just share what they have, there would be no poverty.” He cited Mohandas Gandhi as an authority, and went on to invoke Hindu conceptions of the divine as reinforcement.

     Disgraceful. But you don’t argue with a priest at the pulpit, delivering his Mass homily. Indeed, it would be inappropriate to take up cudgels with him even if he were to hang around afterward. The very most you can do is plead with him to stop.

     These uses of ecclesiastical authority to promote political or economic aims would be inexcusable even if they were founded on verifiable facts. The Christian faith isn’t about what others should be doing; it’s about what you, the communicant, should be doing.

     If you encounter poverty that deserves to be ameliorated, and you have the means, do so! Don’t foist off the responsibility for it onto the shoulders of some abstract, ill-defined group of others such as “the rich.” How do you know “the rich,” however defined, aren’t already doing one hell of a lot more to alleviate poverty than you could dream of doing, whether by charitable action or by creating jobs and advancing the economy? And how sure are you that the “poverty” you deplore isn’t the consequence of bad decisions or bad behavior – things that ought to be accompanied by some sort of penalty, so the “poor” person will learn to do better next time?

     Tenderheartedness about “the poor” has led this nation into a very bad course of action: specifically, a national attempt to eradicate not merely sustenance-level poverty but all economic discomfort whatsoever, regardless of its genesis. The major profiteers from this misplaced “compassion” have, as usual, been politicians and government bureaucrats. A priest who leagues himself alongside them, by preaching as today’s celebrant did, is doing harm, not good.

     Forgive me, Gentle Reader. I had to get it out before it blew me up from inside. It’s a cancer on Christianity that demands to be excised.

The ISIS is Coming! The ISIS is Coming!

Some may recognize the reference to an old story (quite charming) about an accidental invasion by a Russian ship.

The film starred the usual collection of Liberal actors, some of them quite prominent in their affiliations with the Left.

Not-so humorous, nor as benign as the film would make it seem, are the caravan of Hondurans heading toward our Southern Border. At this point, they've been halted by the Mexicans, at their own southern border with Guatemala. Reportedly, tear gas was directed at the mob (am I permitted to use that word?), to keep them from forcing their way in. Gateway Pundit had the story at the link, so I'd be inclined to believe it. Despite the use of tear gas, the police are NOT stopping further travel.

Rush zeroed in on a pertinent point - traveling armies need to eat - who is feeding them?

The video of caravan organizers paying those joining is still on YouTube - watch and download, it may 'disappear'.

From their own words, they are NOT fleeing oppression, but looking for jobs.

I found this disturbing story about the infilitration of ISIS into Honduras. South America has long permitted those of foreign birth into their countries, as long as they have money, and do not stir up trouble with the host countries' Leftists.

Trump is threatening to send in the military to stop the invasion. Fortunately, even though CA is usually uncooperative with these kinds of efforts, San Diego, right at the border, is lousy with Navy and other military. I don't anticipate any problem stopping them there - IF there is the will.

Some military-affiliated 'experts' say that use of military at the borders would violate the Constitution, which only permits their use for non-domestic situations. However, since the 'caravan' is clearly an alien invasion of US borders, yeah, I think it would fly with the Supremes.

Other concerns involve an almost-guaranteed use of women and children at the front of the crowd., making action against them a problem. My attitude is - THEY are the ones that put women and children in harm's way. The blame falls on THEM. The media would have a field day with this, particularly as the march on our border was intended to arrive just before the election.

No matter what the outcome, I hope that US voters realize this is just another sleazy Leftist ploy, not an authentic expression of grassroots action. In other words, Astroturf.

Quickies: Conspiracies And Fiction

     There’s a lot of fun to be had in writing about conspiracies. Many Liberty’s Torch readers will be familiar with the Illuminatus! trilogy by Shea and Wilson. Umberto Eco produced a dazzling turn on the subgenre in Foucault’s Pendulum. I dabbled shallowly in conspiracy in Which Art In Hope. And more recently we have Hans G. Schantz’s conspiratorial techno-thriller series that begins with The Hidden Truth.

     Except for my book, the above efforts make use of the motif of multiple, competing conspiracies. And why not? Why limit oneself to a single shadowy player, when the laws of economics (such as they are) almost compel the emergence of competition into a field, once its viability has been established by an outrider?

     But note that they who ostensibly write non-fiction about conspiracies nearly always do so under the contrary assumption. The Gary Allen / Larry Abraham books on the subject are only the examples that first come to mind. They could be right that there’s only one conspiracy – Allen once told Michael Emerling after a lecture on his thesis that “We only need one conspiracy to explain the facts” – but as I’ve written several times lately, the simplest explanation isn’t the one that’s most likely to be correct; it’s only the one that’s most easily tested.

     This strikes me as a failure of imagination among the non-fiction writers. Conspiracy arises from a strong motive shared among a group of actors who resolve to operate in secret. When you’re dealing with a strong motive, it’s more reasonable to imagine that many persons would share it, but without necessarily being friendly toward one another. That would automatically give rise to competing conspiracies, including some that would be friendly toward one another’s aims without being friendly toward one another’s personnel, or their personal ambitions.

     Hans Schantz’s books are particularly elegant treatments of this idea. He incorporates conspiracies for both good and evil ends into his narrative – but in a fashion that makes it plain that the good guys don’t trust one another all that much. Indeed, in his upcoming third volume The Brave and the Bold, one of those seemingly benign conspiracies threatens the life and work of his young protagonist for “acting too rashly,” even though the action brought about a major advance toward their shared objective.

     For motives are seldom unalloyed. Indeed, they’re nearly always entangled with personal considerations. The highest of motives – i.e., the ones that attach to abstractions such as justice — are normally far weaker than one’s desire for self-preservation, to say nothing of the desire for self-exaltation. And a conspiracy will always be made up of people: ornery, self-interested people to whom their hangnails are of far greater import than a famine in China (Adam Smith).

     Which is mostly prefatory to this announcement: Hans’s two books The Hidden Truth and A Rambling Wreck will go on sale Thursday, October 25, for only $0.99 each. Get ‘em while they’re cheap!

Legalized Pot - A Good Idea? - UPDATE

[UPDATE: I was out of town until late afternoon yesterday. I intended that the following would be finished before then, but... I will be updating this, by posting further Parts over the next few months. Feel free to argue with my viewpoint - I know many do (including family members).]

I've been hearing the arguments for years - if pot was just legal,

• Casual users would not be made criminals
• Use could be regulated
• Those needing medical treatment could get their pot without jumping through hoops
• States could collect taxes on the legal dispensaries
• Minors would still not be able to legally indulge
• Use of pot would not rise
• Criminal activity around the production and distribution would cease
• The 'herb' is harmless

Let's take them, one at a time.

Do casual users (occasional, low-level users) seriously risk jail time? This essay from a former prosecutor disagrees, who states that pot possession has been "de facto" legalized.

Here is why there is confusion: the only time someone is sentenced to jail for smoking pot is if there is a more serious crime they are clearly guilty of, and the prosecutor or judge wants to give them a lighter sentence. Theft or burglary were the most common crimes I came across. Instead of being required to sentence a defendant to a year imprisonment for stealing, a defendant could plead guilty to marijuana possession instead and get a much lesser sentence. So on paper, it looks like they are serving time for drug possession, but in reality, they were let off the hook for a serious crime.

This is in line with what I've seen and heard from my students - they may complain about someone having to go to jail for marijuana possession, but, when you question them further, they'll admit that there was a more serious FELONY on the table, that they escaped prosecution for.

But, at least use could be regulated?

Uh, no.

Unraveling.

I said recently that Donald Trump gives spine to the spineless within the GOP. That his willingness to fight the Democrats and the Deep State on their terms and come out victorious, c.f. Kavanaugh, is changing the domestic political landscape in tectonic ways.

So too, I’m coming to believe, is the case with Putin. His unwillingness to barter away Russia’s future for short-term gains but instead tackle head-on the U.S.’s hypocrisy and aggression on the world stage and win is having a huge effect on other world leaders.

And this announcement by Merkel and Macron to attend Sochi is a perfect example of that.

Germany and France are now looking to broker with Russia against the wishes of the U.S. political and military establishment who have done everything possible to prolong the war and shield the collapse of ISIS east of the Euphrates River and support Al-Qaeda-linked groups in the province of Idlib.^[1]

Tom Luongo, the author of this quote, notes the possibility that Trump will pull U.S. troops out of Syria after the elections next month. God willing that will bring this disgraceful enterprise in Syria to an end.

Even better, Luongo echoes Herb Stein’s famous dictum that what can’t go on, won’t:

Because something has to give here. And all the signs point to a loss of power and control over the geopolitical landscape by the deepest of Deep State actors in the U.S. and the U.K.^[2]

Only good can come out of that, if he’s right. Whatever the Deep State is, it should be clear by now that it hates traditional America, despises the (original) constitutional order, and is an enemy of liberty.

As Luongo’s article makes clear, the Deep State has proved to be too clever by half and “U.S.” “policy” in the M.E. is splintering. Iraq, for example, after much U.S. blood and treasure and even more Iraqi blood and destruction, is tilting toward Iran. Really? That Iran? Busloads of foreign policy geniuses in the State and Defense Departments embraced “nation building” and ended up with a supposed client state that isn’t having the “good doggy” picture America has wanted to paint there. Certain domestic critics moaned about “no blood for oil” but the only problem with that is that it was the Chinese who ended up with the contracts for the oil. I guess that's what you call playing The Great Game.

Too, look at how Libya turned out. Gaddafi, a cooperative and benevolent leader by any standard not embraced by sophomore theater majors at Bryn Mawr, was killed because he was “a threat” to his own people. That there is a steaming pile of distortion and lies if ever there was one. The U.S. and its lick spittle European allies removed “pretty good” and engineered “hellacious” in its place. Terrific! People noticed though this pearl of U.S. ignorance, dishonesty, and incompetence receives little of the condemnation today that it deserves. Could some State Department summer intern please point out to the suits that "regime change" absolutely entails a vision of what change looks like and a guarantee that we will bring about a good result. But the U.S. never makes such a guarantee. "Political solution" is as specific as the State Department will get.

In Syria, the U.S. Syria has pursued regime change with not a thought about what comes next. The picture we have attempted to paint there of Assad the “brutal dictator” is sheer distortion. Even if it’s not, what country is it that the country can point to where what we arranged after the removal of “The Evil Faction” was anything but chaos and endless tragedy? Japan and Germany would fit the bill but both required actual, costly, extended military occupation. So, what is this “political solution” we seem to have in mind for Syria and why would anyone do anything but cringe when we propose it?

I’ve always thought Mr. Putin was playing the strongest hand when he held his fire after not a few provocations. Time has been on his side and, as any demolition expert knows, to destroy a bridge you only need to cut certain support members and the weight of the bridge will do the rest of the work for you. Our servility before the Likudniks and the Saudis and our horrendous expenditures for bases and pointless "kinetic" actions overseas are the charge we are laying ourselves on our own bridge.

The U.S. has no policy in Syria or elsewhere. Provocative military exercises, sanction on every nation that displeases us, and deciding what is good for other people make a mixture or hubris and blindness. Anything the U.S. will do in the coming decade will be (1) stupid, (2) ruinously expensive, (3) dishonest, and/or (4) suicidal. Not what you would call a formula for long-term geopolitical success. Putin's strategy is restraint and firm opposition to the jihadi scum. Something we should emulate.

Luongo’s piece is short and worth your time. He ties a lot of threads together.

Notes
^[1] "More Peace Dividends As Merkel And Macron Join Syria Summit In Sochi." By Tom Luongo, ZeroHedge, 10/21/18.
^[2] Id. (Emphasis removed).

Quickies: In Search Of An Idea

     (Leonard Nimoy, call your office!)

     As I await my cover artist’s creation, I’ve been maundering over what to do next fictionally. The Onteora Canon, as much fun as it’s been, deserves a rest, possibly a permanent one. Concerning the Spooner Federation Saga, with which I’ve had an equally good time (and which deserves at least one more novel), I haven’t quite worked up the energy for another volume in that especially taxing series. And I think I need to be away from Athene Academy and the futanari of Onteora County for a little while, for similar reasons.

     But I dislike idleness. To pause for a week or two after completing a novel-length story is one thing; to go on a months-long sabbatical away from fiction is quite another. Dangerous. I could lose my fictioneering chops and be relegated to nothing but these interminable op-eds for the rest of my days. So I’ve been casting about for a fresh idea that would sustain a novel-length story.

     Well, Our Lord and Savior has told us to pray for what we need, so this morning before Mass I asked Him – and His Dad and The Spook, of course – for an idea that would be:

• Suitable for a novel-length story;
• Usable in a fantasy or science fiction setting;
• Relevant to contemporary discourse on a subject of interest.

     And glory be! I got one.

     What’s of greater current interest than ecological balances, eh? Damned near nothing I can think of. Perhaps the most contentious issue within that envelope would be the role of Man in the Terrestrial ecology. the loudest voices are those that proclaim that Man is an excrescence upon Earth’s ecology: an intruder who can only do harm, and whose effects we are morally obligated to minimize.

     But there are arguments, good ones, to the effect that the reverse is true: that Man is an integral part of the ecology, and that his subtraction from it would give rise to what any objective observer would call catastrophe... that is, if there were an objective observer around after Man had been removed from the scene.

     Now, in our temporal reality we would look for destructive organisms and pernicious influences that would surge beyond control without Man to moderate them. But a spec-fic approach would not be restricted to what we know of Earth in reality.

     Larry Niven, Steven Barnes, and Jerry Pournelle turned in a nice treatment of this idea in The Legacy of Heorot and sequelae. But that hasn’t used it up. There’s room for further exploration of the idea. A significant departure might include non-biological interactors with a planetary ecosystem: interactors that only Man can control.

     I’ll be tossing this around for a few days, I’m sure.

Quickies: Concerning The NPC Meme

     “The devil...the prowde spirit...cannot endure to be mocked.” – Saint Thomas More

     “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” – Saul Alinsky

     The Fifth Rule: You have taken yourself too seriously. – Paul Dickson, The Official Rules

     Effective ridicule employs two elements: caricature and belittlement. Taken separately, these are wounding; taken together, they have enormous force. They strip their target of all characteristics but one, and reduce that one to risibility. Any other trait the target possesses is completely effaced.

     But what’s truly deadly about effective ridicule is that the user enjoys it. He gets positive psychic feedback from it. That makes it self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating. Worse yet, the target’s attempts to shut it down make him look like a killjoy.

     Note how beautifully the NPC meme, one of the easiest to apply that I’ve seen in political combat, fits the above patterns. Note also that the Left’s attempts to ridicule President Trump have fallen flat, in part because he ignores them and in part because of his own gift for ridicule.

     This one will be with us for a long time. Let’s torment the Left and enjoy the hell out of it.

British collusion?

Srisly. Who are these snakes?

Whatever their [the British aristocracy] motivation, it is indisputable that British intelligence agencies were imagining Putin under mattresses in 2016.

If that extreme paranoia influenced behavior, [the idea of] Russian collusion to steal the election is void ab initio. It was instead British collusion under a false Russian pretext. Proof of British collusion can be found in the number of British spies and the absence of anyone Russian in the sordid tale.^[1]

Dramatis personae:

United Kingdom:

Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud, Christopher “Nowhere to Be Found” Steele (“former” MI-6).

United States:

Theophrastus von Obongo, Clinton, Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, Lynch, Brennan, Clapper, Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS.

Russia:

Some guys.

Notes
^[1] "Did The British Collude To Steal The Election For Hillary?" By Thomas Farnan, ZeroHedge, 10/20/18.

UPDATE: Add to members of Team America.

A Writer You'll Want to Bookmark

Starting with this Female version of Lord of the Flies.

On Making The Best Of Things...Including Yourself

     [It’s become clear that creating an insuperable condition of distrust and hostility between the sexes is a principal objective of gender-war feminism. At one time I thought the disease had reached its peak and would thereafter recede. Given recent events, I am no longer of that opinion. The following piece first appeared at Liberty’s Torch on September 22, 2013. -- FWP]

---

     I'm as anti-authoritarian about relations between the sexes, and the positions of the sexes in society, as I am about everything else. I accept no "thou shalts" or "thou shalt nots" from any authority but God. I insist on reasoning everything out -- but with a caveat: Practical Reason, as C. S. Lewis put it, must begin with the laws of Nature and make proper use of the available evidence. More, its conclusions must be put to the test and survive their practical applications.

     Much of the strife and malaise that afflicts American society derives from the willful dismissal of those provisos by feminist activists who want to resculpt relations between the sexes according to a wholly artificial vision that conflicts sharply and irremediably with metaphysical reality -- that is, with what Nature has given us.

     Those activists have put incredible effort into persuading Americans in particular:

• That traditional family structures somehow oppress women;
• That men who subscribe to those structures are authoritarian brutes;
• That women can take up men's traditional roles to their advantage;
• That men can and should be compelled to subordinate themselves to women's preferences;
• That a woman who prefers a traditional marriage and marital role is a "gender traitor."

     If you're unacquainted with that system of thought, and have never been subjected to a haranguing from that perspective, welcome to our planet! We hope for friendly and peaceful relations with your planet, too. But I digress. The nadir of this lunacy was provided by Simone de Beauvoir:

     "No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one." -- Interview with Simone de Beauvoir, "Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma," Saturday Review, June 14, 1975, p.18

     Hm. So "oppressed women" are not to choose freely what life path to adopt, because too many would choose the "wrong one?" That doesn't sound like liberation to me; it sounds like a change of oppressors -- and not from a harsh master to a gentle one.

---

     De Beauvoir is not alone in her inanities. There are contemporary feminists who tout the same line of nonsense. Hearken to feminist evangelist Linda Hirshman:

     Half the wealthiest, most-privileged, best-educated females in the country stay home with their babies rather than work in the market economy. When in September The New York Times featured an article exploring a piece of this story, “Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood,” the blogosphere went ballistic, countering with anecdotes and sarcasm. Slate’s Jack Shafer accused the Times of “weasel-words” and of publishing the same story -- essentially, “The Opt-Out Revolution” -- every few years, and, recently, every few weeks. (A month after the flap, the Times’ only female columnist, Maureen Dowd, invoked the elite-college article in her contribution to the Times’ running soap, “What’s a Modern Girl to Do?” about how women must forgo feminism even to get laid.) The colleges article provoked such fury that the Times had to post an explanation of the then–student journalist’s methodology on its Web site.

     There’s only one problem: There is important truth in the dropout story. Even though it appeared in The New York Times. ...

     The census numbers for all working mothers leveled off around 1990 and have fallen modestly since 1998. In interviews, women with enough money to quit work say they are “choosing” to opt out. Their words conceal a crucial reality: the belief that women are responsible for child-rearing and homemaking was largely untouched by decades of workplace feminism. Add to this the good evidence that the upper-class workplace has become more demanding and then mix in the successful conservative cultural campaign to reinforce traditional gender roles and you’ve got a perfect recipe for feminism’s stall....

     What better sample, I thought, than the brilliantly educated and accomplished brides of the “Sunday Styles,” circa 1996? At marriage, they included a vice president of client communication, a gastroenterologist, a lawyer, an editor, and a marketing executive. In 2003 and 2004, I tracked them down and called them. I interviewed about 80 percent of the 41 women who announced their weddings over three Sundays in 1996. Around 40 years old, college graduates with careers: Who was more likely than they to be reaping feminism’s promise of opportunity? Imagine my shock when I found almost all the brides from the first Sunday at home with their children. Statistical anomaly? Nope. Same result for the next Sunday. And the one after that.

     Ninety percent of the brides I found had had babies. Of the 30 with babies, five were still working full time. Twenty-five, or 85 percent, were not working full time. Of those not working full time, 10 were working part time but often a long way from their prior career paths. And half the married women with children were not working at all.

     And there is more. In 2000, Harvard Business School professor Myra Hart surveyed the women of the classes of 1981, 1986, and 1991 and found that only 38 percent of female Harvard MBAs were working full time. A 2004 survey by the Center for Work-Life Policy of 2,443 women with a graduate degree or very prestigious bachelor’s degree revealed that 43 percent of those women with children had taken a time out, primarily for family reasons. Richard Posner, federal appeals-court judge and occasional University of Chicago adjunct professor, reports that “the [Times] article confirms -- what everyone associated with such institutions [elite law schools] has long known: that a vastly higher percentage of female than of male students will drop out of the workforce to take care of their children.”

     How many anecdotes to become data? The 2000 census showed a decline in the percentage of mothers of infants working full time, part time, or seeking employment. Starting at 31 percent in 1976, the percentage had gone up almost every year to 1992, hit a high of 58.7 percent in 1998, and then began to drop -- to 55.2 percent in 2000, to 54.6 percent in 2002, to 53.7 percent in 2003. Statistics just released showed further decline to 52.9 percent in 2004. Even the percentage of working mothers with children who were not infants declined between 2000 and 2003, from 62.8 percent to 59.8 percent.

     No, you're not imagining the tone of disapproval in the above. Miss Hirshman definitely takes the Simone de Beauvoir attitude toward free choice: women who choose to be homemakers and mothers are choosing wrongly. By their free choices -- by opting for traditional women's roles rather than some alternative in the market economy -- they're helping to derail feminism. And the advance of feminism, we must remember, is what really counts, not the happiness of women or the well-being of their children.

     Hirshman considers McElroy / Sommers feminism -- choice feminism -- to be a wrong turning:

     Conservatives contend that the dropouts prove that feminism “failed” because it was too radical, because women didn’t want what feminism had to offer. In fact, if half or more of feminism’s heirs (85 percent of the women in my Times sample), are not working seriously, it’s because feminism wasn’t radical enough: It changed the workplace but it didn’t change men, and, more importantly, it didn’t fundamentally change how women related to men.

     This is without foundation, but let's proceed to Hirshman's prescription for curing this terrible malady of women opting for homemaker-motherhood over careerism:

     Women who want to have sex and children with men as well as good work in interesting jobs where they may occasionally wield real social power need guidance, and they need it early. Step one is simply to begin talking about flourishing. In so doing, feminism will be returning to its early, judgmental roots. This may anger some, but it should sound the alarm before the next generation winds up in the same situation. Next, feminists will have to start offering young women not choices and not utopian dreams but solutions they can enact on their own. Prying women out of their traditional roles is not going to be easy. It will require rules -- rules like those in the widely derided book The Rules, which was never about dating but about behavior modification.

     There are three rules: Prepare yourself to qualify for good work, treat work seriously, and don’t put yourself in a position of unequal resources when you marry.

     Clearly, Hirshman doesn't think homemaking and motherhood qualify as "good work" that deserves to be taken seriously. By "unequal resources" she must mean unequal earning power, since young marrieds almost always go to the altar with equal resources-in-hand: approximately $0.00.

     Most of the remainder of Hirshman's article is vapid and predictable, but her conclusion re-emphasizes her priorities:

     The privileged brides of the Times -- and their husbands -- seem happy. Why do we care what they do? After all, most people aren’t rich and white and heterosexual, and they couldn’t quit working if they wanted to.

     We care because what they do is bad for them, is certainly bad for society, and is widely imitated, even by people who never get their weddings in the Times. This last is called the “regime effect,” and it means that even if women don’t quit their jobs for their families, they think they should and feel guilty about not doing it. That regime effect created the mystique around The Feminine Mystique, too.

     As for society, elites supply the labor for the decision-making classes -- the senators, the newspaper editors, the research scientists, the entrepreneurs, the policy-makers, and the policy wonks. If the ruling class is overwhelmingly male, the rulers will make mistakes that benefit males, whether from ignorance or from indifference. Media surveys reveal that if only one member of a television show’s creative staff is female, the percentage of women on-screen goes up from 36 percent to 42 percent. A world of 84-percent male lawyers and 84-percent female assistants is a different place than one with women in positions of social authority. Think of a big American city with an 86-percent white police force. If role models don’t matter, why care about Sandra Day O’Connor? Even if the falloff from peak numbers is small, the leveling off of women in power is a loss of hope for more change. Will there never again be more than one woman on the Supreme Court?

     Worse, the behavior tarnishes every female with the knowledge that she is almost never going to be a ruler. Princeton President Shirley Tilghman described the elite colleges’ self-image perfectly when she told her freshmen last year that they would be the nation’s leaders, and she clearly did not have trophy wives in mind. Why should society spend resources educating women with only a 50-percent return rate on their stated goals? The American Conservative Union carried a column in 2004 recommending that employers stay away from such women or risk going out of business. Good psychological data show that the more women are treated with respect, the more ambition they have. And vice versa. The opt-out revolution is really a downward spiral.

     So Hirshman demands that the top spot in every woman's decision-making process should go to whether or not her choices will position her to become a "ruler" -- i.e., one who wields authority over others. Her own happiness should stand no better than second in the lists; after all, the future of feminism is at stake!

     Finally, these choices are bad for women individually. A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one’s capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of having enough autonomy to direct one’s own life, and the utilitarian test of doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested standards, the expensively educated upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives.

     Authoritarianism in the raw: "You have a duty to hew to this standard as I've expressed it, girlie, so no backtalk! Get out there and do your best to become a ruler!"

     I don't need to tell you how I feel about such blather, do I, Gentle Reader?

---

     One of the classical false dichotomies is the choice restricted to two contrasting authorities and their dictates. He who only gets to choose between masters remains a slave. No virtue inheres in submission to anyone's authority...unless the choice of going one's own way is open as well.

     Over the years I've observed the human carnival, I've noticed all the following:

• The overwhelming preponderance of happy American women are married and have adopted a traditional wife / mother / homemaker style of life.
• The strongest and least stressed marriages are those in which "traditional" male and female roles obtain.
• The unhappiest women are found among the careerists who have completely renounced marriage and motherhood in favor of work for wages.
• Many unhappily married women, though perhaps not a majority thereof, are unhappy specifically about having to work for wages.
• Far too many men of a "conservative" bent take the above prescriptively: that is, as a command that the only proper place for a woman is in a traditional married woman's role.

     It doesn't matter that the path to happiness for most women seems to be that of marriage and traditional wifely and motherly pursuits. Indeed, it wouldn't matter if one could "prove" that that's the only path to female happiness. No good can come from either the de Beauvoirean / Hirshmanesque command to women to "get out there and prepare to become a ruler" or the authoritarian-paternalistic command to "stick to your home, your kids, and your kitchen." There must be free choice.

     Some women would best relate to life, men, and society by adopting a traditional "wifestyle;" others, upon whom God has bestowed other gifts and insights, would do best to follow another path. If our experiences since the inception of the "Women's Lib" movement are at all indicative, there are more women of the first sort than of the second, perhaps far more. That doesn't confer authority over such decisions upon anyone.

     If freedom means anything, it means the right to pursue happiness according to your own notions and priorities, whether you have two X chromosomes or only one.

     Some women will choose "rightly" for themselves, and will become enduringly happy.
     Some women will choose "wrongly" for themselves, and will become enduringly unhappy.
     Neither group acquires the authority to dictate to other women, nor to their daughters or nieces.
     Neither does any man.
     All anyone can do for others is to provide an example -- hopefully, a good example of a life well lived.

     All else is folly.

---

     There's only one more point to make: about bargains and the promises they imply.

     One cannot rightfully be saddled with a responsibility against one's will. That's especially true as it pertains to practical matters within a marriage. However, a responsibility once accepted cannot rightfully be abrogated without making provisions for its acceptance by others -- willing others. He who accepts the role of family provider is, in the usual case, stuck with it; he cannot lay it down with a clean conscience. Similarly, she who accepts the responsibilities of homemaker and mother cannot morally walk away from them without first seeing to it that someone else willingly picks them up. This is especially significant when the subject is the care and nurturance of minor children.

     These things must be agreed to before responsibilities of either sort are accepted. Some decisions, such as the decision to produce children, are irreversible.

     It's best for a man and a woman contemplating marriage to hash all of this out beforehand. What standard of living are the spouses-to-be anticipating? Do they expect the same one, or markedly different ones? In what sort of environment will they live? Who wants children? Who's willing to accept the responsibility for their care and upbringing? Who's willing to settle for an apartment? Whose heart is set upon a detached house with all the responsibilities that implies? Those are the biggest topics that, if not settled willingly and amicably before marriage, can become life-destroying bones of contention afterward.

     There's no escape from life's major decisions. No one can make them for anyone else...nor can anyone "delegate" them to some reliable authority in full confidence of the results.

---

     The title of this tirade -- "On Making The Best Of Things...Including Yourself" -- might be a little too subtle for some readers. There are two "parts" to the "thing" that is you:

• What you are -- i.e., your nature as a human being of one or the other sex;
• Who you are -- i.e., the individuality you've acquired from your path through life.

     Each of these provides opportunities and constraints. Neither is absolutely binding; neither can be utterly dismissed. Along all the paths one might take through life, the quintessential asset is accurate self-knowledge, of both your "what" and your "who." Happiness is all but impossible to obtain without it.

     To young Miss Smith, who's pondering what course to take: the "traditional" roles of wife, mother and homemaker, or the "modern" approach of careerism and ascent through the business world. Do you know yourself? Well enough to make promises to others and be confident that you'll keep them?

     If not, you'd better get started on it PDQ. Life is short.

Just doesn't fit The Narrative.

As feminists were busy peddling their “War on Women” narrative in the U.S., Yazidi sex slave survivor Nadia Murad was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting a real War on Women in the Middle East.

* * * *

At just 21 years old, she was kidnapped alongside an estimated 3,000 other Yazidi women and girls, traded as sex slaves from one ISIS fighter to another. She was forced to pray, dress up, and apply makeup in preparation for her rape, which was often committed by gangs.

While any comparison between Nadia’s story and the accusations leveled against newly minted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would be completely unfair, it is fair to wonder how news of uncorroborated allegations of gang rape brought by porn lawyer Michael Avenatti can overshadow a gang rape survivor-turned-women’s advocate being honored with the most prestigious award in the world.

For years, it seemed the world didn’t care about Nadia’s story and the thousands of others like it. . . .^[1]

The MSM view of events is invariably through a strange lens smeared with oil on the edge but crystal clear in the center. Beastly treatment of women at the hands of ISIS and the bedrock scourge of FGM in Arab and African Islamic culture, retreat into mere background noise, but Little Bo Peep and her, shall we say, dubious sister “victims” twisted the entire American political system into knots for days with their fabulous rememberings.

That’s old Joe for ya.

Intersectional feminism, whatever that is exactly, has poisoned the relations between men and women, defiled the sacred, abandoned common decency, and done not one damn thing to rectify horrific abuses of women around the world. Other than broadcast the false theme of “the rape culture.”

The New Feminists utterly despise all that America is, the America that provides American women with security, opportunity, and comfort that women in other countries can only dream about.

They are Shao Lin masters when it comes to denigrating woman and fouling their own nest.

Notes
^[1] "Rape Survivor Wins Nobel Peace Prize, and ‘Feminists’ Are Nowhere to Be Found." By Kelsey Harkness, CNSNews, 10/15/18.

Pearls of expression.

“Portland mayor Wheeler has responded by calling for new police powers to curtail violence.”

–Right because stopping traffic, overturning cars and smashing store front windows is just not covered in existing law.

Comment by n230099 on “The CultMarx 'Mob' Is WINNING—Trump’s DOJ Must Act.” By James Kirkpatrick, The Unz Review, 10/17/18.

Quickies: Bad Comparisons Dept.

     Just a few minutes ago, someone posted this on Gab.Ai:

     When a police officer points a gun at you and tells you not to reach in your pocket or he will shoot you, and you reach in your pocket anyway, what happens? Chances are you die. You were warned by someone with authority to end your life. The case with the Honduran insurgence is no different. You tell them they are approaching a sovereign country. If they attempt to enter illegally, they will be shot. The message couldn't be any clearer. Democrats can spin it any way they choose. Democrats like to call it collateral damage when they ruin the life of a judge. Well guess what assholes?

     This is a very bad comparison. Someone attempting to enter the country illegally is committing invasion under international law, and is breaking American law prima facie. The use of force to repel or prevent his invasion is recognized as legitimate by all but a few SJW idiots. Indeed, it’s not a law enforcement issue but one of national defense and national security. But there are many instances in which a cop might pull a gun on a passing citizen without justification, and therefore without “authority” as any reasonable person would understand it. Were he to pull the trigger, regardless of his rationale, he’d be likely to get away with it – but not because he possesses “authority to end your life.”

     Americans legally within the borders of the United States possess a right to life that the police cannot arbitrarily override. That’s not the case for persons attempting to invade our country against our laws and the laws of civilized nations generally.

Who Are These Honduran 'Refugees'?

Judging from these pictures, overwhelmingly young males, a few with young children.

I found these pictures on Rush's site (the link is above).

What I'm NOT seeing is women, for the most part. So, are these guys just leaving their women behind to starve to death? Or suffer horrible oppression?

At the Airport, Reading Resistance is Futile!

I'm at the airport - CLT, waiting for a plane that will take me to Washington, then, another plane to arrive in Cleveland this afternoon. Airports are not fun places to wait. The chairs aren't comfortable, the decor is boring - gray and white - and, in Charlotte's airport, due to remodeling, there are few TVs.

I downloaded the newest Ann Coulter book. She's the perfect travel read - funny, light, doesn't need to much concentration.

Here's an excerpt from it, about election irregularities, and why we should be getting in the face of those screaming about Trump's election/campaign 'scandals':

In the 1990s, Chinese nationals were literally dragging duffel bags of money into the DNC1 as President Clinton allowed sensitive ballistic-missile guidance technology to be transferred to the Chinese government.2 No charges. No independent counsel.
Coulter, Ann. Resistance Is Futile!: How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind (p. 192). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

And,

As a presidential candidate in 2008, Edwards lied up a storm about getting his mistress pregnant as his wife was dying of cancer. Only through the generous support of his well-heeled donors was he able to hide his mistress from the public. This donor-funded scam went on for months, until the National Enquirer finally caught Edwards visiting his mistress and newborn baby in the Beverly Hilton hotel.8 

Coulter, Ann. Resistance Is Futile!: How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind (p. 193). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

It's interesting to see how much of the past 25 years or so I had forgotten. Events happens so fast, and our own personal concerns loom large in our minds. It's easy to skim over the news, and, if the headline doesn't read, WAR IS DECLARED, we tend to let it pass us by.

I wish Ann wasn't so fixated on the Clintons' misdeeds; more about Obama and his crew would be nice to spend some time dissecting. However, it's making the time pass.

“Keep It Sold!”

     While I was in military engineering, I learned things about the necessities in long-term contracting I hadn’t previously suspected. Many engineers are uninterested in such things; they prefer to keep their heads down and concentrate on technology. However, at least two entirely non-technological things I learned during those years have proved to be important in the seemingly unrelated field of politics.

     The typical defense-contracting company is bifurcated. On one side, which where I worked was called the Projects side, are the engineers who actually design, build, and support the product. On the other, which where I worked was called the Programs side, are the people who deal directly with the military bureaucracy about trivial matters such as deadlines and money.

     At my shop, Projects-side engineers were often heard making disparaging comments about the Programs-side people. Very few of them aspired to go from Projects to Programs. Relations between the two groups were often chilly, even strained. You’d almost suspect them of lacking respect for one another.

     Yet Programs’ activities are vital to the company. It’s their job to win contracts for the company, to negotiate prices, payment schedules, milestones, deadlines, and the many associated details that go along with contracts that extend several years forward. Granted that unless the Projects people turn out a good product that the customer approves, the Programs folks would have nothing to sell, nevertheless unless Programs could win the contract in the first place and keep the customer committed to it throughout its term, the engineers on the Projects side would be out of work.

     It’s the emphasized clause above that’s much on my mind this morning.

---

     It’s been said, and truly, that anything worth buying must be sold – i.e., that salesmanship is an essential element of all commerce, regardless of specifics. When the thing being sold exists only as a concept when the customer-vendor conversations about it begin, there’s a lot more involved than when the customer can simply point at an item on a shelf or in a catalog and say “I want that one.” Moreover – and you may find this difficult to believe, Gentle Reader, but I assure you it’s true – a customer that must wait for what it’s ordered often changes its mind in the interim. It might want the product to possess features it hadn’t originally ordered. It might want to remove features in the name of cost savings. It might change its mind about whether it can afford the product at all.

     In a monopsony situation – i.e., where you only have one customer and can never have another – you must take all such possibilities very seriously. Thus, winning the contract is only the start of your salesmanship. Thereafter, you must keep it sold: you must maintain the customer’s commitment to the product and manage any changes to it the customer might demand. The longer the contract is expected to persist, the more arduous and important it is to keep it sold.

     Several defense contractors have failed, or have succumbed to hostile takeovers, because their Programs offices couldn’t keep important contracts sold. It was an important aspect of the “defense shakeout” years, during which several seemingly invulnerable companies fell by the wayside.

     Now let’s talk politics.

---

     The ascent of Donald Trump to the White House was a political experiment. The American electorate decided to take a chance on this brash outsider, in part because we liked what he was saying and in part out of disgust with the political Establishment. Trump, be it plainly said, had baggage: three wives, a number of bankruptcies, his reality-television venture, and a reputation for sharp dealing that wasn’t entirely undeserved. But he had an edge over Hillary Clinton that Clinton could do nothing about: he hadn’t disappointed us yet. So we took a chance on him.

     So far, that chance has proved well taken. But Trump, a veteran of a field in which long-term contracts are the rule, is as aware as any defense contractor that it’s vital to keep the customer sold. In the American political milieu, that requires more than on-the-job performance.

     When those who want you disgraced and deposed work as tirelessly as do Trump’s adversaries, keeping the electorate sold on him and his agenda requires a vigorous Program of counteraction. In effect, Trump must keep winning the presidency even as he wields its powers. He does this in several ways:

• His “tweeting;”
• His many public rallies;
• His other public activities;
• His support for other Republicans.

     And happily for the United States, which has already benefited greatly from the Trump agenda, it’s working well. It might even deliver him the allegiance of those Congressional Republicans who’d been dubious or outright opposed to him. For example, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was recently queried about his turn in favor of Trump and his agenda. The senator replied “I go by the results,” by which he was taken to mean Trump’s economic and foreign-policy successes. I have an uncanny suspicion that this long-term Washington insider also looked at the success Trump has had at keeping the electorate sold on him – a success that has also strengthened McConnell’s position.

     The product might be terrific, but it still needs to be sold – and when your competitors are willing to do anything whatsoever to defeat you, you must keep selling it, day after day, until the customer can’t even imagine backing away from its contract with you.

---

     The American political environment has been changing these past fifty years. While the word populism has only recently been important in political discourse, the phenomenon has swelled steadily ever since the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Smart politicians have been attuned to it. No one who seeks elevation in national politics can afford to ignore the currents and clamors that in recent years have coursed through the body politic.

     The Framers were determined to dampen the importance of “faction,” by which they meant pretty much exactly what we suffer today. Of course, our factions are a lot larger than theirs, in consequence of the nationalization of practically every political or para-political question. Moreover, the passions that animate our factions are a lot hotter than anything Madison ever had to confront.

     That might be unfortunate. I think it is, myself. But it’s how things are at the moment. A successful politician with an agenda about which he’s sincere must cope with it. He can win election. He might win re-election despite an indifferent record in office. But he must keep the electorate sold on himself and his ideas.

     Donald Trump, the 45th President of these United States, grasps that perfectly, and our nation is fortunate that he does.

Top Russophobes.

RT's list of the top 10 Russophobes of 2018 has received a rapturous welcome by many of those lucky enough to make the list. It has been perceived as justification of their work aimed at undermining trust in an entire nation.

* * * *

Atlantic Council

The staff over at the Atlantic Council were over the moon after claiming top spot.

"'Is There a Cash Prize?' RT's Top 10 Russophobes of 2018 Celebrate Making the Cut." By RT, Russia Insider, 10/18/18.