“Blind Squirrels”

     Are you familiar with the old maxim “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then?” It’s an old bit of folk wisdom, which indirectly exhorts us not to judge the accuracy of an observation by the identity of him who made it. It remains as wise a guide as ever.

     However, the blind squirrel species – i.e., he who can’t see what’s before him, and so must grope blindly to achieve his aims – is not undifferentiated. Some blind squirrels are stupid. Some are merely uninformed. And some, perhaps the most troubling of the species, are highly intelligent, highly erudite men who, because they’re blinded by the aim at the forefront of their thoughts, can’t...quite...grasp a critical fact. Such squirrels provide an invaluable illustration of the inverse of the old maxim: that one mustn’t automatically accept a pronouncement as accurate simply because it comes from a respected source.

     Today’s example arrives from the pixels of the Washington Times, in a brief article by two highly intelligent, highly erudite men:

     After proposing $1 trillion investment into infrastructure, the Trump administration is harnessing the brainpower of renowned experts to unlock the insoluble problem of how many jobs will be created for each billion dollars of spending. While stressing the obvious, the administration is missing the important point.

     The purpose of capitalism is not job creation. The purpose of the capitalist economy is to create wealth. Employment and the subsequent distribution of the spoils of an economy are byproducts of capitalism.

     Contemplate those two paragraphs for a moment. Can you find any problems in them? Any deviations from your understanding of capitalism? Wait, hold hard there: Just what is capitalism? Have you ever read or heard a definition of the term? Could you state it concisely for the rest of my Gentle Readers?

     Not an easy assignment, is it?

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     The great Thomas Sowell, in his book The Vision of the Anointed, made an important point about the law: We private citizens form our interpretation and evaluation of a proposed law according to the public meanings of the words in its text. We expect our lawmakers to do the same:

     Those who argue for...“judicial restraint” often say that judges should follow the “original intent” of laws in general and the Constitution in particular....Professor Ronald Dworkin, for example, argues against original intent on grounds that ‘mental events” in the minds of legislators or writers of the Constitution are difficult or impossible to discern. But of course, nobody voted on what was in the back of somebody else’s mind. What was enacted into law were the meanings of those words to others—in short, the public meanings of words. As Justice Holmes put it, the relevant question was “not what this man meant, but what those words would mean in the mouth of a normal speaker of English, using them in the circumstances in which they were used....We do not inquire what the legislature meant; we ask only what the statute meant.”

     That words have public meanings is the linchpin of the matter: the great majority of us know what they mean and expect them to be used according to those meanings. In their required courses in straining at gnats and swallowing elephants whole, lawyers learn how to pervert the meanings of words – to twist them into meanings and applications no non-lawyer would ever have imagined – so they can reach their intended aims. That’s one reason why “lawyer” has become a de facto synonym for “devious scoundrel.”

     However, not all words have generally agreed-upon public meanings at any given point in time. Such words often get the Humpty Dumpty treatment:

     'And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'
     'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
     Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
     'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
     'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
     'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
     'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

     [Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass]

     Capitalism is such a term. Markovsky and London have an intended meaning for it – but not one you and I, Gentle Reader, are guaranteed to accept.

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     Thomas Sowell again:

     Since capitalism was named by its enemies, it is perhaps not surprising that the name is completely misleading. Despite the name, capitalism is not an “ism.” It is not a philosophy but an economy. Ultimately it is nothing more and nothing less than an economy not run by political authorities. There are no capitalist institutions; any number of ways of carrying out economic activities may flourish under “capitalism”—that is, in the absence of control from above. You may get food from a restaurant, or by buying it from the supermarket and cooking it yourself, or by growing the food on your own land and processing it all the way through to the dinner table. Each of these is just as much “capitalism” as the others...They do not define capitalism but are simply one of the innumerable ways of doing things when choices are unconstrained by authorities.
     Many have argued that capitalism does not offer a satisfactory moral message. But that is like saying that calculus does not contain carbohydrates, amino acids or other essential nutrients. Everything fails by irrelevant standards. Yet no one regards this as making calculus invalid or illegitimate. [Op cit.]

     Markovsky and London would like to encourage a particular attitude toward a feature of this “phase of capitalism:”

     Until recently, only the government could handle projects on the scale of the Hoover Dam and the interstate highway system, but now large corporations and investment funds have sufficient resources to build projects on any scale. Hence, there is no imperative for the government — federal, state or local — to finance and maintain modern infrastructure when private capital is available to do the job.

     Privatization of the infrastructure will open a new, multitrillion-dollar frontier for capitalism, and its effect could be massive. It has the potential to create a long-term economic expansion that will dwarf the scale of the Pacific Railroad and National Interstate and Defense Highways acts combined.

     An inspiring vision, to be sure...but how compatible is it with either capitalism or government? Governments enter into these agreements with private corporations with more than one end in view. The first, most obvious one is that a bridge, road, dam, or what-have-you should be built. A second one is that the item shall conform to the State’s dictates, which are usually the subject of a protracted negotiation with the private contractor, to say nothing of a lot of lying about “future intentions” and “future contracts.” A third is that the item should serve the interests of particular persons and institutions...some of which are not named and might never be known.

     Factor in the State’s predictable insistence that only certain lands are available through eminent domain, that only certain unions shall be employed in the work, and that the State shall have absolute hegemony of the item after it’s complete. Does any of that sound like an undertaking in “an economy not run by political authorities” – ?

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     I teetered at the verge of anarchism for decades. Anarchism has some very attractive features. However, after a great deal of reading and hard thought, I was forced to conclude that anarchism shares a critical feature with government: instability:

     I shan’t attempt to deceive or misdirect you: I’m horrified by politics and all its fruits. I consider the use of coercive force against innocent men the greatest of all the evils we know. But I try, most sincerely, to be realistic about the world around us. In that world, peopled by men such as ourselves, anarchism—the complete abjuration and avoidance of the State—is unstable. In time, it will always give way to politics. Hammer it to the earth as many times as you may, you will never succeed in killing it permanently. The State will rise again. [From the Foreword to Freedom’s Fury]

     Many who’ve dabbled in anarchism have sought a compromise in the privatization of various undertakings we’ve routinely deeded to the State. “Public-private partnership” is the term most commonly applied to such compromises: the State decrees a need or a priority, but some private institution is charged with its execution. It sounds nice, but in practice it’s a morally confused, practically unworkable disaster. The State will always contrive to control as many elements of such a “partnership” as possible. Ultimately, whether through contractual agreement or post hoc seizure, it will control all of them.

     Which returns us to the question in the opening segment: What is capitalism? If it’s Thomas Sowell’s conception of “an economy not run by political authorities,” such “partnerships” contradict it. If it’s to embrace Markovsky and London’s calls for privatization, it’s a fraud. Since the word appears to have no generally agreed-upon meaning – pace Sowell, you can thank capitalism’s enemies for that – the question becomes unanswerable in the general setting.

     The purpose of an undefinable thing is as murky as the thing itself. However, we can know this much: individuals operating in freedom act according to their own purposes. In keeping with Ludwig von Mises’s “axiom of action,” those purposes can be generically enumerated:

• Advancement toward a positive outcome (e.g., greater wealth, security, or status; one’s welfare or that of a loved one);
• Averting a foreseen negative outcome (e.g., penury, shame, vulnerability, or harm to self or a loved one).

     Which is why I concur with what Nathaniel Branden told us about an early encounter with Ayn Rand:

     Even though he was considerably older and more mature, Branden was no wiser about economics or the peculiar position of capitalism in the scheme of economic systems. Rand pointed him at a number of books, including Henry Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson and Isabel Paterson's The God Of The Machine, which he proceeded to digest and ponder. Even so, by Branden's own statement, he "still didn't get it."
     There came a fateful day when Rand asked him: "Do you believe that man has the right to exist?"
     The young man replied, "Why, Miss Rand, of course he does!"
     Rand immediately countered, "You do understand, the right to exist means the right to exist for one's own sake?"
     Branden replied, "But Miss Rand, of course! If he didn't exist for his own sake, it would mean he was existing by permission!"
     Rand nodded and said, "The political implementation of that idea is capitalism."
     And Branden said, "Oh!"
     "From that beginning," Branden continued, "capitalism, for me, was filled with moral energy....It was the only economic system fit for human consumption."

     [As told by Branden to an audience at the 1987 California state Libertarian Party convention. From an essay first published at the Palace of Reason.]

Unhappy about some far off things
That are not my affair, wandering
Along the coast and up the lean ridges,
I saw in the evening
The stars go over the lonely ocean,
And a black-maned wild boar
Plowing with his snout on Mal Paso Mountain.

The old monster snuffled, "Here are sweet roots,
Fat grubs, slick beetles and sprouted acorns.
The best nation in Europe has fallen,
And that is Finland,
But the stars go over the lonely ocean,"
The old black-bristled boar,
Tearing the sod on Mal Paso Mountain.

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

"Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution,
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies,"
Said the gamey black-maned boar
Tusking the turf on Mal Paso Mountain.

[Robinson Jeffers]

     Have a nice day.

Europe's last chance.

Pat Condell:

A War That Shaped The World

     Fifty years ago, a major war was fought and concluded within a six day span. In terms of geopolitical impact, it was the most consequential war since World War II. A tiny nation surrounded on three sides by enemies and on the fourth by the Mediterranean Sea, defeated six much larger nations and in so doing extended its domain well beyond its original borders. At the conclusion of hostilities, the world was on notice: Israel stood ready to defend itself against any array of hostile forces and would do so a outrance.

     Yet Israel was perhaps not quite as ready as it wished, for six years later the Yom Kippur War brought Israel briefly to the brink of national annihilation. It had been a matter of policy: Prime Minister Golda Meir, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, and Chief of Staff David Elazar had conferred, and had decided to allow Egypt and Syria to strike the first blow. They believed that despite clear and unambiguous foreknowledge of the attacks to come, to strike first would isolate Israel from its chief ally and the source of a great part of its munitions, the United States.

     To preserve some vestige of international good will, Israel allowed Egypt, Syria, and their allies to draw the first blood. For three days Israel’s fate hung in the balance. It survived and prevailed largely due to the superiority and fighting spirit of the Israeli armed forces.

     Has it mattered? Yes, very much. Had Israel not extended its borders in 1967, allowing its enemies to strike first might have destroyed it. But given the developments since then, Israel’s decision to allow its enemies to strike first, despite the conviction among its political masters that to do otherwise would result in international ostracism, seems to have mattered very little, if at all.

     The Islamic states that surround it still hate Israel and work to undermine it in various ways, especially through the exploitation of the “Palestinian” problem. Europe is now hostile to Israel as well; its dependence on Arab oil and its vulnerability to terrorism from its Islamic immigrants have neutered the Old World’s better inclinations. In all probability, were it not for the nuclear deterrent Israel amassed after the Yom Kippur War, the country would have been attacked a third time and overwhelmed decades ago.

     Islamic enmity is absolute and eternal. Humiliating military defeats have only sharpened that enmity, for there is nothing so potent in the Islamic soul as its envy of truly civilized societies. The intensity of that envy is at its maximum toward Israel, for Muslims have been taught for centuries to hate and fear the Jews, and to seek their extinction.

     A hatred centuries deep will take centuries to quench...if any attempt is ever made to quench it. The consequences for the world have already been dramatic. Should any of the Middle Eastern Islamic states acquire nuclear weapons, those consequences will become apocalyptic. One or more nations will die.

     I remember the fears of the adults around me in 1967. They expected both the U.S. and the Soviet Union to intervene. The highest of the worries was a nuclear exchange – and not merely over Israel. The wounded egos of the Soviets, we young ones were told, had barely healed from the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was credible that they would see the war as an opportunity to assert themselves afresh – this time in “their” hemisphere, where American will did not prevail.

     I don’t remember any comparable fears over the 1973 conflict. It took a while before I discovered the reason: America’s strategic arsenal had gone to DEFCON 3, an elevation of our alert condition of which the Soviets were surely aware. Had the Soviets elevated their own alert status, America was prepared to strike first.

     Should Israel be attacked today, whether the U.S. would do anything that declarative is a matter of conjecture. Yet it strikes me as unlikely. The stakes would be the same, but our national weariness with war is far greater. Bluntly, we are not what we were. We’ll happily sell Israel military goods, but we expect it to look after itself.

     Israel could not survive without its nukes. It would be overrun – indeed, it would have been overrun long ago. Yet there are persons who self-righteously condemn nuclear weapons in general, and specifically condemn Israel’s possession of them. That’s worthy of much thought.

     As I’ve written before, nuclear weapons, especially the sort delivered by ballistic launchers, put the political elites on the battlefield. They who in earlier times merely commanded others to fight, bleed, and die now have “skin in the game.” No preparation for nuclear bombardment can be regarded as guaranteed protection. Yet no one has ever died as a result of a nuclear exchange. As Russell Baker put it, the H-Bomb has an unparalleled safety record: “You could almost grow fond of a bomb like that.”

     If they have the sense God gave a flea, five million Israelis thank Him every night for their nuclear deterrent, and for the men who stand ready to use it.

     “Before all else, be armed!” – Niccolo de Macchiavelli

A fair assessment.

At this moment Washington has the better part of a thousand military bases around the world, unnecessary except for the maintenance of empire. America exists in a state of constant war, bombing Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Somalia, recently having destroyed Iraq and Libya. Washington threatens Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China. Its military moves deeper into Africa. Washington sanctions Cuba, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, to no effect. It constantly tries to dominate other nations, for example adding to NATO.

Is this what the American republic has become?

"General Lee Speaks: Had it Figured Out." By Toadstool, Fred On Everything, 6/8/17.

They Who Mean To Be Masters

     Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. – Daniel Webster

     I’ve been saying the same thing, in different phrasings, for so long that it begins to bore me. Yet the message is as important as it ever was, and the threat has never abated. Indeed, the main reason for the Establishment’s unrelenting assaults upon President Donald Trump is that he, the first president to oppose Washington’s drive toward total hegemony since Reagan, is sincerely focused upon reducing government’s power over us.

     All that’s changed over the decades since the Reagan years is the power elite’s choice of methods.

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     About ten years ago, back at Eternity Road, I wrote:

     Alongside the threat from Islamic demographics, and synergistic with it, is the threat of Transnational Progressivism. This ideology completely dominates the power structures of the states of Europe, and has made significant incursions in the English-speaking countries as well. For a full exploration of its substance and import, please read John Fonte's stunning exposition on the subject. If you haven't the time, a reasonably accurate summary is: the ideology that considers nation-states obsolete, and considers the relocation of all power into the hands of a "wise elite" the ultimate political imperative. That "wise elite" is animated by socialist or social-fascist convictions, which are hostile to individual freedom, free-market economics, federalism, and the limitation of political authority. It is irremediably America's enemy.

     Our status in that third war is even harder to assess than the War on Terror. In part, this is because attitudes are difficult to capture quantitatively, even after a brace of national elections. In larger measure, it's because the effects of attitudinal transitions on objectively perceptible events are often delayed well past the transitions themselves. In largest measure, it's because the Old Media, which remain the most potent of the conduits that bring information, analyses, and opinions to the consumer, are aggressively biased against their own side.

     If you haven’t read the Fonte essay, one of the most important pieces of political analysis in the postwar years, let me know and I’ll email you a copy. More recently, I noted a supremely ominous development in local government:

     Authority is a heady thing. It intoxicates many who are granted it, to the point that they forget their bounds and lose their way. This story provides a chilling example:

     “It has been frighteningly apparent that we in this city have given our freedoms up in ways that we never really saw coming,” [Columbiana, OH resident Tony] Dolan wrote in the Columbiana for/against Chickens Facebook page.
     Dolan also posted copies of ordinances council was expected to discuss during last week’s meeting. One of those ordinances was to amend section 1260.16 of the planning and zoning code to include language pertaining to the planting and growing of fruits, vegetables and grapevines.
     The other related to the keeping of chickens in town.
     The garden legislation would amend the zoning code to allow gardens on residential property, but Dolan and others at the meeting believed it was just another effort on the city’s part to restrict their rights.
     The proposed amendment originally stated that residential gardens would need to be confined to rear yards, but that wording was later removed by a motion of council during the meeting.
     Municipal Attorney Daniel Blasdell said the garden issue came about as a result of the chicken issue.
     He explained that people were asking why chickens couldn’t be allowed in the community while gardens were.
     The city had no laws pertaining to residential gardens, which means they were technically not allowed.
     According to the city’s laws, if something is not permitted it is prohibited.
     “Right now, if there is not something expressly in this code that says that you can have one, you technically can’t,” Blakeman confirmed.
     He went on to say that the city’s effort to make a law allowing gardens is something that should be seen as a good move by residents.
     “The intention of it is to not to take away, it is to give,” he said.

     Please read it all. Note especially the parts emphasized above. Note the attitude embedded in the statements by Columbiana Mayor Bryan Blakeman. He sees the Columbiana city government’s authority as unbounded, such that Columbiana’s residents have only such latitude of action as the city code expressly provides.

     That’s not quite “Everything not compulsory is forbidden,” but it comes close enough to be lethally chilling. And an elected official of an American city has proclaimed it.

     And today, courtesy of Western Rifle Shooters, we have this:

     WRSA advises that you read the whole thing. I concur.

     There’s no way to miss the common thread in the above.

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     They who desire power above all other things will always have, as an instrumental objective, the elimination of other power centers and alternate sources of authority. The wars against family and community autonomy, against affiliation with traditional American religions and their institutions, and against American national sovereignty are all of a piece. Regional or limited power is no good to our would-be masters. They won’t be satisfied until their rule is unopposed.

     Any means toward that end will be part of their arsenal. Even if some measure should seem contradictory to their ultimate aims – for example the importation of Islamic totalitarian savagery – if it appears useful in the weakening of some bastion of Americans’ freedom or traditions, they’ll strive to bend it toward their purposes. Much that appears insane about the Establishment’s various campaigns suddenly appears evilly rational in that view.

     The loci of opposition to the transnational progressives and their drive for absolute hegemony are dwindling. Some are straining to rally their forces. Others are merely making their peace with what they see as inevitable. A survey of American Christianity, with specific focus upon the preachments of priests and ministers and the causes their congregations are exhorted to support, is particularly revealing – and depressing.

     It’s unclear what means of resistance remain upon which we who desire to remain free can rely.

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     I have a full day ahead of me and can’t spend much longer at the keyboard before I address my necessities and obligations. However, I wanted to get the above out before I did so, if only so I don’t need to tell my Gentle Readers about another day off.

     The main point is what it’s always been. Daniel Webster has already said it:

There are those who mean to be our masters. They work ceaselessly toward their common aim. They refuse to accept defeat. Even when they appear locked in conflict with one another, the thing is more apparent than real. And they will never, ever relent.

     There was more substance, metaphorically at least, to James Cameron’s Terminator than many might have imagined.

     Duty calls. Perhaps I’ll be back later. Have a nice day.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

     This movie:

     ...constitutes a complete refutation of all the claims of the global warming / climate change drum-beaters. If you haven’t yet viewed it, I strongly urge you to do so.

     Incidentally, by using this video downloader, you can download a copy to keep. By using this video converter, you can upscale it to a decently high resolution for a properly large television screen. I use both these utilities and recommend them highly.

Assorted

     Sorry, I’m fresh out of clever titles.

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     1. Islam.

     Just in case you were wondering about Islam’s “official position” on female genital mutilation:

     In his lecture, a video of which appeared on the mosque’s YouTube channel, [Imam Shaker el Sayed] spoke about circumcision as the cutting of “the tip of the sexually sensitive part of the girl so that she is not hypersexually active.” He warned about the dangers of more serious forms of the procedure, but advised congregants to seek the advice of a Muslim gynecologist to see whether minimal action was necessary. He also warned that “in societies where circumcision of girls is completely prohibited, hypersexuality takes over the entire society and a woman is not satisfied with one person or two or three.”

     When this video came to light, the mosque, belatedly realizing that Imam el Sayed had committed a gaffe – i.e., he revealed his true opinion, which concurs with that of Islamic imams everywhere – immediately backed away from his statement:

     Dar al-Hijrah’s Board of Directors on Monday said that it rejected Elsayed’s opinion, and that FGM is “prohibited in Islam as well as the laws of the land.”

     “We at Dar Al-Hijrah, DO NOT condone, promote, or support any practice of FGM,” the board said in a statement. “The reference to “Hyper-sexuality” is offensive and it is unequivocally rejected. The Board of Directors is particularly disturbed by such comments.”

     Choose for yourself whether to believe the original video or the ex post facto denial and apologies.

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     2. Action? Reaction.

     No, not in the Newtonian sense:

     You're not imagining it. When you decide to better yourself, you'll be immediately surrounded by people trying to stop you. Action, it seems, offends the inactive....

     It's the story of the crabs in the bucket. Put a bunch of crabs in a bucket and some will try to crawl out and avoid becoming dinner. The rest won't try to escape, but they'll reach up and pull the others down.

     It’s a short article; please read it all. While the reaction described doesn’t occur 100% of the time, it happens often enough that persons who’ve decided to turn over a new physical-activity leaf should be aware of it and braced to withstand it. There’s no need to argue against it; merely let it pass in one ear and out the other.

     However, you mustn’t imagine that someone disturbed by your self-improvement efforts will be easily put off. They can show a surprising degree of persistence...almost enough for a professional bodybuilder. The same, of course, is true for a publicly announced resolution to lose weight. But I digress.

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     3. Well, well!

     I wonder how Barack Hussein Obama feels about this coming to light?

     "The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life," Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday. "That's going to be very, very powerful," Waters said. "That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it's never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They're going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can't get around it. And he's [President Obama] been very smart. It's very powerful what he's leaving in place."

     Maxine Waters has been returned to office many times. It’s begun to look as if that has nothing to do with how well or poorly she “serves” her constituents.

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     4. Free speech?! We can’t have that here!

     Betsy deVos has already weathered a few storms since becoming Secretary of Education. They don’t seem to have daunted her any:

     America has reached a consensus. We have a free speech problem when it comes to higher education, and there’s a growing crisis where colleges oppose inviting speakers to their campus who disagree with their political positions.

     Thankfully, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has appointed free speech advocate Adam Kissel to deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs effective June 19.

     Kissel was formerly with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, higher education’s paramount defenders of freedom of expression. The Left, to say it mildly, is not pleased:

     “I am deeply troubled this hire is another concerning sign that President Trump plans to make it more difficult for survivors of campus sexual violence to get justice,” [Senator Patty] Murray said in the statement. “Campus sexual violence is an urgent public health threat nationwide, and rolling back steps that have empowered more survivors of sexual violence to come forward will only send this problem back into the shadows. If there was ever a President who needed to take issues of sexual assault more seriously, it’s President Trump—and this is yet another indication his Administration is falling disturbingly short.”

     What’s that you say, Gentle Reader? You can’t see a connection between sexual assault and freedom of speech? Me neither. But Patty Murray is on record as having praised Osama bin Laden for building schools and day-care centers, so we already know that her elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top.

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     5. Inmates running the asylum, day ???

     This is what the arbitrary-identity crusade has come to:

     Florentin Felix Morin, a French PhD student who studied at the University of Arizona in the spring 2017 semester, published a paper discovered Saturday entitled “EGO HIPPO: The subject as metaphor,” in which he explained “how his metaphorical hippo-self is collectively produced and performed.”

     “For a while, if someone was asking me how I ‘identified,’ I would joke about being a hippopotamus trapped in a human’s body,” says Morin, a transgender man, “later, a human trapped in a hippopotamus’ body, until my humorous ‘truth’ solidified and I began announcing myself as an old butch hippo dyke trapped in a young human faggy transboy’s body.”

     Morin was born female. He “identifies” as a male...when he’s not wallowing in the African mud. And no, the arbitrary-identity madness isn’t strictly Old World:

     TORONTO, June 1, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne Liberals have passed what critics describe as “totalitarian” Bill 89 by a vote of 63 to 23 on the last day before Queen’s Park adjourns for the summer....

     Bill 89, or the Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act, 2017, repeals and replaces the former Child and Family Services Act that governs child protection services, and adoption and foster care services.

     It adds “gender identity” and “gender expression” as factors to be considered “in the best interests of the child.”

     At the same time, it deletes the religious faith in which the parents are raising the child as a factor to be considered, and mandates child protection services consider only the child’s own “creed” or “religion” when assessing the best interests of the child.

     Farewell, Canada. It was nice while you lasted.

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     6. Noticing beauty is prejudicial against the ugly, or something.

     This sort of thing is enough to make me wonder whether it’s safe ever to speak to a stranger:

     The only grace note in the generally clunky Wonder Woman is its star, the five-foot-ten-inch Israeli actress and model Gal Gadot, who is somehow the perfect blend of superbabe-in-the-woods innocence and mouthiness.

     Fairly innocuous wording from a movie review, right? And there’s no harm in noticing that Gal Gadot is quite beautiful...or is there?

     Continuing to dig a grave for himself with New York‘s woker-than-woke readers, [Reviewer David] Edelstein observed: “Fans might be disappointed that there’s no trace of the comic’s well-documented S&M kinkiness. With a female director, Patty Jenkins, at the helm, Diana isn’t even photographed to elicit slobbers.” His conclusion? “I didn’t miss Lynda Carter’s buxom, apple-cheeked pinup, though. It was worth waiting for Gadot.”

     Edelstein getting carried away elicited a predictably furious response from New York readers, who slammed him for being sexist, called for him to be fired for his “masturbatory crime” and threatened boycotts. The Mary Sue and Jezebel websites are predictably freaking out.

     It’s time for all of us to resolve to reject the thunderings of the Left with extreme prejudice. This is especially important as regards the feminist Left. With every venom-scented word that drips from their mouths or their pens, they make it obvious that their dominant emotion is hatred: of men, and also of women who strive to appeal to men, especially with their appearances.

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     That’s all for now, Gentle Reader. If you noticed that this is appearing a bit later than my usual emissions, that's because I’m recovering slowly from a painful, idiotically self-inflicted hand-and-wrist injury. Anyway, it’s time to kick back with some decaf, a good book, and a cat or two. I’ll see you again tomorrow.

Elites And Contempt

     Today’s stimulus for thought comes from this nicely pointed op-ed from William McGurn:

     In the last week or so a flurry of articles have appeared arguing for toning down the looking-down. In the New Republic Michael Tomasky writes under the heading “Elitism Is Liberalism’s Biggest Problem.” Over at the New York Times , Joan C. Williams weighs in with “The Dumb Politics of Elite Condescension.” Slate goes with a Q&A on “advice on how to talk to the white working class without insulting them.” Stanley Greenberg at the American Prospect writes on “The Democrats’ ‘Working-Class Problem,’ ” and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones asks for “Less Liberal Contempt, Please.”

     None of these pieces are directed at Trump Nation. To the contrary, they are pitched to progressives still having a hard time coming to grips with The Donald’s victory last November. Much of what these authors write is sensible. But it can also be hilarious, particularly when the effort to explain ordinary Americans to progressive elites reads like a Margaret Mead entry on the exotic habits of the Samoans.

     McGurn recognizes the intractability of the fault addressed by the commentators he links:

     But the larger progressive dilemma here is that contempt is baked into the identity politics that defines today’s Democratic Party.

     McGurn leaves the key insight for the reader to infer, but it’s not really that hard to reach.

     So the question becomes: Is there a future for a party or other political body whose principal appeal to prospective members and supporters is its insistence upon its members’ superior wisdom and virtue?

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     For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. – Thomas Jefferson

     Those who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies some description must be uppermost. The levellers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of things; they load the edifice of society by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground. – Edmund Burke

     “[W]hat democracy needs most of all is a party that will separate the good that is in it theoretically from the evils that beset it practically, and then try to erect that good into a workable system. What it needs beyond everything is a party of liberty. It produces, true enough, occasional libertarians, just as despotism produces occasional regicides, but it treats them in the same drum-head way. It will never have a party of them until it invents and installs a genuine aristocracy, to breed them and secure them.” – Henry Louis Mencken

     Everyone has his own notions about what characteristics justify a claim of personal superiority. Lately, the focus has been on political alignments. It hasn’t always been that way. Nor has it always been the aim of perceptive and intelligent men to exalt themselves over others:

     Do you feel that you are superior to the Japanese? The truth is that the Japanese consider themselves far superior to you. A conservative Japanese, for example, is infuriated at the sight of a white man dancing with a Japanese lady.
     Do you consider yourself superior to the Hindus in India? That is your privilege; but a million Hindus feel so infinitely superior to you that they wouldn’t befoul themselves by condescending to touch food that your heathen shadow had fallen across and contaminated.
     Do you feel you are superior to the Eskimos? Again, that is your privilege; but would you really like to know what the Eskimo thinks of you? Well, there are a few native hobos among the Eskimos, worthless bums who refuse to work. The Eskimos call them “white men,” that being their utmost term of contempt....
     The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realize in some subtle way that you recognize their importance, and recognize it sincerely. – Dale Carnegie

     “In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

     “Only one thing do I know, and that is that I know nothing.” – Socrates

     Contrast those three quotes with the ones at the beginning of this segment. Find the key divergence in assumptions. It won’t take you long.

     The Left’s divergence is political: Adopt our political stances, they proclaim, and we will certify you as superior to those who do not. As there are many who need to feel superior to others, this has a certain appeal. Its problem is the same as that of coalition politics: it cannot maintain an enduring majority. That, of course, doesn’t quench the need to feel superior among those who flock toward its banner.

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     As I wrote just yesterday, the Democrats and the activist Left have gone “all in” on their campaign against the Trump Administration, the Republican Party, and the many millions of Americans who remain attached to the conception of America as a free and prosperous commonwealth that looks out for its people and itself above all other considerations. Either their strategists sense an opportunity that won’t come again, or they’ve grown too desperate to wait any longer. In either case, they’ve committed themselves past the political point of no return. If their gamble fails, they’ll spend many decades in the political wilderness. The Democrat Party, in particular might need to “die and be reborn.”

     Yet there will always be persons who must feel superior to others. Their actual virtues and capabilities won’t be the foundation of that conviction; far too few persons actually are so much better than others at anything that matters to base a claim of superiority on what they can do. The irony swells when we note the strong correlation between Democrat / Leftist political affiliation and lack of ability and standards.

     All the same, those persons will find one another again. “Birds of a feather flock together.” They always have and they always will. When the need to feel superior to others is all that sets them apart from other oxygen wastrels, we may rest assured that it will be their bond. The natural repugnance decent, modest persons feel toward the self-exalting will usually hold them at bay. Men of good will want neither to become commissars nor to be ruled by them – and as counter-intuitive as it may sometimes seem, the great majority of Americans are men of good will.

Creativity.

Full Moon Service at Twisted Sifter, an underappreciated website.

At least by me.

Points Of No Return

     Among the lessons a chess player must master, if he’s to get beyond the “gifted amateur” point in the game, is how to recognize the point of no return in pursuing an attack. It’s an important concept because so many attacks are sacrificial in nature. That is, they involve the sacrifice of material – pieces and pawns – or positional features – pawn structure weaknesses or control of the center – to prosecute an all-out assault on the opponent’s king. The point of no return is the point in the game at which the attacker is fully committed and a draw is no longer available: either the attack will break through to victory, or it will peter out, leaving the defender with a winning advantage.

     As a rule, points of no return are relevant only to a sacrificial attack on the opponent’s king. Any other objective would be strategic in nature. Such a maneuver can almost always be diverted to other aims. An assault on the king that requires a material or positional sacrifice is a win-or-die commitment.

     They who undertake political or geostrategic maneuvering must recognize such points, as well.

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     “So you plan to shoot at the King? A word of advice: don’t miss.” – Origin unknown.

     The American Left has gone “all in” on its assault on the Trump Administration and the sentiments of Americans of conservative or traditional views. They’ve resorted to tactics that have cost them any claim to a portion of the moral high ground, and have horrified far too many persons: everything from the vilest sort of accusations and denunciations to outright violence against Administration supporters. In choosing to do so, they’ve passed the point of no return: either they’ll succeed in bringing down the American Constitutional order and installing themselves irremediably in power, or they’ll go down to a defeat so smashing that it will marginalize them for decades to come.

     As Leftist activism is a centrally-directed undertaking, its strategic planners should have known that they were committing their forces irrecoverably. If they didn’t, they’re as stupid as their politics are vicious. If they did, it’s imperative that the rest of us recognize that the point of no return is past for us as well: if we don’t defeat them, we’ll be crushed under their heel.

     This has tactical implications for us in the Right: specifically, that from this point forward, no tactic will be ruled out of bounds. The Marquess of Queensbury has retired from the field. It’s not fair play and may-the-best-man-win in the American political order any more; it’s war to the knife:

• Accusations and denunciations must be met with even greater counterblasts.
• Lawfare must provoke a counter-reaction of such magnitude as to humiliate and impoverish our attackers.
• Conservatives’ political campaigns must not hesitate to employ their opponents’ methods.
• And of course, violence must be met with even greater violence.

     We didn’t choose it, but we’ve been left unable to avoid it. Conservative luminaries and spokesmen had better take note.

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     Europe, by choosing to open its borders to the Islamic tide, has passed a point of no return of its own. While there is no central governing authority over Islam, there is an overwhelming commonality of sentiment among Muslims: Tomorrow belongs to us. No matter where they migrate, they strive to establish an Islamic culture complete with sharia law. Even those who were desperate to escape the sharia-controlled hellholes of their origins submit to the more consciously active Muslims among them. They will undertake no resistance to the sharia advocates, much less to the jihadis.

     Today there are far too may Muslims in Europe to impose forcible assimilation upon them. Their communities are self-reinforcing in too many ways, including violence. Moreover, events suggest that the political elites of Europe are aware of that. If they aren’t, their passive acceptance of the Muslim hordes and their unwillingness to speak against such horrors as female genital mutilation testifies to a remarkable flaccidity of will.

     At this time, the nations of Europe retain the ability to defeat the Islamic tide. They still possess enough numbers and enough force. Recent events suggest that willingly or otherwise, the satraps of Europe have acknowledged that private Europeans will tolerate no more. That, of course, doesn’t mean that the forces the command will be deployed to turn back the Muslim torrent. They might be put to the suppression of anti-Islamic sentiment, as “anti-religious-defamation” laws in several countries hint.

     One way or the other, the point of no return has been passed, both for Europe and for Islam. Victory will require the conquest and humiliation of the defeated opponent: either Europe will become wholly Islamic, or Islam will be routed out of the Old World and straitly confined to its Middle Eastern bastions. Another outcome is no longer possible.

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     We are involved here in a far reaching conspiracy to undermine our most basic beliefs and sacred institutions. Who's behind this conspiracy? Once again ask yourself: who has the most to gain? People in high places: their names would astound you! People in low places: concealing their activities beneath a cloak of poverty! People of all walks of life, left wing and right wing. Black and white. Students and scholars. A conspiracy of such ominous proportions that we will never, ever know the whole story and we'll never be able to reveal all the facts! We are readying mass arrests. I am going to see that you people get every possible break. If there is any information you would like to contribute at this time, it will be held in the strictest confidence.... [Lieutenant Practice, in Jules Feiffer's black comedy Little Murders]

     Let us not talk falsely now,
     The hour is getting late. – Bob Dylan

     America might well be at a point of no return as regards individual freedom. However, in our case, the crisis point is located in the courts.

     Constitutional language notwithstanding, no right remains absolute. Even freedom of expression has been abridged, often under the aegis of “national security.” Moreover, the citizenry’s ability to defend itself against outright oppression has been undermined by federal court decisions that hold that the citizen has no right to resist even an unlawful state action – that he is criminally liable for violence he might commit to defend himself against an unlawful home invasion by the police, for example. That ratifies any and every imaginable oppression. If legislation to correct this horror is in sight, I’m unaware of it.

     The situation is bleak. It’s largely unrelieved by recent improvements in our economy. The height of your pile hardly matters when it can be taken from you for any reason or none, with no recourse available to you. Neither is your right to life worth much if the cops can ram in your front door on the pretext of searching for drugs, and gun you down on the representation that you “resisted.”

     Our political class, being immune to this sort of interference, seldom deigns to comment on it. Rather, we hear paeans to our “brave protectors,” the police, and are expected to be horrified when one of them is killed in the line of duty. Granted that no innocent, uniformed or not, deserves to be killed, where is the outrage against the use of SWAT teams to conduct drug raids on the homes of private persons? Where is the outrage against police seizures of travelers’ cash holdings on suspicion of “trafficking,” and IRS confiscations of small businessmen’s bank accounts on suspicion of “structuring?”

     We may cluck at those in even worse shape, but let it not blind us to the approach of a point of no return of our own.

The origins of gooneybirdism.

The following is a repost from 12 years ago on the Intergalactic Source of Truth with minor edits, mostly in the formatting department. The question of the lunacy of the modern West has only been imperfectly explained, quite simply because it is such consummate lunacy. Navies exist not to repel invaders but to ferry them to the homeland. Western governments seem to take it that their most sacred duty is to fall at the feet of whatever savage can make it across the national border – wide open – and mouth the phrase "human rights" or "colonial exploitation." What is involved is a lethal cocktail of cowardice, stupidity, and a sickness of the soul seemingly unique in the all the years since mastrodongs roamed the earth.

I don't know what modern psychiatry can add to the 18th-century insights of Johnson set out below on mind fevers. Jonathan Swift in the same era had the measure of disconnected scientists on Laputa who are so lost in thought that they need to be swatted by inflated bladders tied to a stick. Distracted man.

Ours is a sickness that has deep roots in the past. Perhaps what makes the modern version so pathological is the fantastic wealth and comfort afforded by capitalism, vestigial though it might be in its present-day form. Bladders and pitiless crowbars are in short supply these days and who then is surprised to read of homosexual "marriage," "gender fluidity," weaponized equality, strength through diversity, birthright citizenship, quantitative easing, intersectional feminism, identity politics, or open borders?

Surely, humans were more grounded in less opulent times because of the discipline of work and a politics that did not extract vast sums from others or give wings to the fantasies of morons and children.

Here then that old post. Johnson's insights are extraordinary and we should keep them in mind in these strange times:

______________________________________

Liberals, leftists, socialists, National Socialists (leftist, btw), commies, multiculturalists, fanatics, and other idealists (pardon the taxonomical confusion) seem most beset by the pain of dealing with life's intractable realities: cupidity, personal failings, faction, ignorance, ethnic difference, sloth, rejection, disease, uncouth motherplunkers, etc.

Marcus Aurelius said, "[Consider] that men will do the same things nevertheless, even though thou shouldst burst." Meditations, VIII, 4. Aurelius counseled acceptance of the natural order (man's nature).

Idealists cannot. They must either bend reality to conform to their imagination by denial, or conform reality to their imagination by murder and revolution. It is probably this that explains the appalling blindness of the left, their inability to see communism as the abhorrent system that it is. Anyone else who can agree that the "is" of one's own society is deficient has to be noble. Like oneself it happens.

The U.S. is in trouble because we have thrown aside the mechanisms that the Founders devised to deal with man's actual nature. Today, the politicians vie amongst themselves to offer the most attractive dream (sic).

To attack the dream is to attack the dreamer. Hence the disproportional vehemence of the liberals, the "angry left."

Samuel Johnson nailed the psychodynamics of dreamers 246 years ago -- way before anyone had even heard of psychodynamics. He had no illusions about the pathetic search for a perfect government.

Enjoy this vignette from Dr. Johnson's Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia:

CHAPTER XLIV--THE DANGEROUS PREVALENCE OF IMAGINATION.

"Disorders of intellect," answered Imlac, "happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes predominate over his reason who can regulate his attention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his command. No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannise, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability. All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity, but while this power is such as we can control and repress it is not visible to others, nor considered as any deprivation of the mental faculties; it is not pronounced madness but when it becomes ungovernable, and apparently influences speech or action.

"To indulge the power of fiction and send imagination out upon the wing is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation. When we are alone we are not always busy; the labour of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots in delights which Nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow.

"In time >some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.

"This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which the hermit has confessed not always to promote goodness, and the astronomer's misery has proved to be not always propitious to wisdom."

"I will no more," said the favourite [Pekuah], "imagine myself the Queen of Abyssinia. I have often spent the hours which the Princess [Nekayah] gave to my own disposal in adjusting ceremonies and regulating the Court; I have repressed the pride of the powerful and granted the petitions of the poor; I have built new palaces in more happy situations, planted groves upon the tops of mountains, and have exulted in the beneficence of royalty, till, when the Princess entered, I had almost forgotten to bow down before her."

"And I," said the Princess, "will not allow myself any more to play the shepherdess in my waking dreams. I have often soothed my thoughts with the quiet and innocence of pastoral employments, till I have in my chamber heard the winds whistle and the sheep bleat; sometimes freed the lamb entangled in the thicket, and sometimes with my crook encountered the wolf. I have a dress like that of the village maids, which I put on to help my imagination, and a pipe on which I play softly, and suppose myself followed by my flocks."

"I will confess," said the Prince, "an indulgence of fantastic delight more dangerous than yours. I have frequently endeavoured to imagine the possibility of a perfect government, by which all wrong should be restrained, all vice reformed, and all the subjects preserved in tranquillity and innocence. This thought produced innumerable schemes of reformation, and dictated many useful regulations and salutary effects. This has been the sport and sometimes the labour of my solitude, and I start when I think with how little anguish I once supposed the death of my father and my brothers."

"Such," said Imlac, "are the effects of visionary schemes. When we first form them, we know them to be absurd, but familiarise them by degrees, and in time lose sight of their folly."^[1]

Notes
^[1] "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." By Samuel Johnson, 1759 (emphasis added).

The Triad Of Completion: A Sunday Rumination

     There are certainly a lot of “threes” in the Bible. Some are more visible than others: the Trinity and Simon Peter’s three “denials” of Christ during the Passion, for example. But one other “three” is on my mind this morning, owing to a passage in the Gospel According to John:

     So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. [John 21:15-17]

     A bit reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s “What I tell you three times is true,” isn’t it? Yet it has traditional significance. The “tell me three times” practice is believed to remove all doubt, to answer a question finally and beyond dispute. Peter was to become the first Bishop of Rome (a.k.a. Pope) and set the Church on its course through the centuries. It would cost him his life, as Jesus foretold in the next verse:

     Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girded thyself, and walked whither thou wouldst: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.

     The Redeemer wanted to be certain that Peter believed himself the right man for the job before He was to pronounce such a doom. For another “three” was in the process of completion, the triad of miracles that capped Christ’s ministry among men: the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the event Christians commemorate today: the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles:

     And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
     And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
     And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

     The Paraclete bestowed upon the Apostles a “three” of his own:

1. Understanding, that they might preach plainly what Jesus had taught them;
2. Tongues, that each hearer should hear their preachments in his own language;
3. Courage, to accept the hardships and hazards of evangelism in the cause of Christ.

     All three of those gifts would be required for their mission.

     The Pentecost miracle is the final element in the miraculous triad that completed Christ’s journey among men. It wasn’t merely a stroke of generosity, but a reinforcement of the proclamation of duty He had laid upon them: the Great Commission. The Son of God would not leave His Apostles without the things they needed to fulfill His charge.

     Despite persecution, doctrinal missteps, and misdeeds and lapses in judgment among its clerics, the Church of which Peter was the first primate has flourished. Christianity has spread throughout the world: not by force or intimidation, but by the power of its messages of forgiveness, love, and eternal life. Yet it’s important to remember that like all that lives and grows, the Church had a birthday: the Pentecost, which completed the triad begun by the Resurrection and the Ascension, invested understanding, tongues, and courage in the eleven Galilean fishermen who witnessed them, and powered their fulfillment of Christ’s command to “Go, and teach all nations:”

     Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. [Matthew 28:19-20]

     May God bless and keep you all.

Lawfare.

Another out-of-the-blue terror attack in London today. Authorities flummoxed as to motive, of course.

It was clear centuries ago that Islam is a malevolent force in this world. Just as obviously, Muslims today use our laws against us to obtain a protection for their subversion and terror, and thus to achieve their time-honored goals from within our countries. However, our laws were intended for white, Christian Europeans and Americans not for barely civilized Muslims (and Africans).

This thought -- lawfare -- is perplexing to Western morons who never met a foreigner they didn't want to worship or a white Western country they didn't want to destroy. Sensible, patriotic people resent being played for chumps by people who hate our guts.

The great Islamic religion points the way to a solution -- second-class status for infidels, otherwise known as People of the Book when we're talking about Christians and Jews. Dhimmi status for infidels any Muslims don't care to exterminate is just bedrock doctrine for adherents of the great Prophet. Thus, there's no Muslim objection to creating an identical status for Muslims that is just as uncomfortable, unpleasant, and humiliating for them. Too, we know how justice is one of the concepts dearest to the heart of all Muslims, so they can appreciate the principle of do unto others as they actually do unto you.

Similarly, Muslims who offend the honor of any infidel need to be dealt with according to the tried and true Muslim device of the "honor killing." A healthy Western country would not tolerate casual, extra-legal murder on the part of savages. While our countries are unhealthy we need stern justice to regain our health.

Of course, the chorus of saps who wet their pants over foreigners will howl in dismay at my workable suggestions, interim as they may be while the overall problem of Muslims and Africans in our societies is dealt with.

In the meantime, after each new terror event, we'll have more of the hours and hours of cable news images of police milling around, ambulances carting away the dead and wounded, deadly earnest chalk line drawing, resolute yellow tape stringing, and spiffy police supers talking about after-the-fact reactive measures and the impermissibility of even daring to think that Muslims and lunatic immigration policies are the ONLY reason why such tragedies take place.

Theresa May is even now ordering in a twenty-five pound bouquet to place on some London street, preferably without any icky blood from any of the victims to get on her shoes. This is what will pass for a draconian crack down on the part of the Conservative Party. The Catholic Church will be asked to dip into emergency stocks of votive candles to tide the government over until replacements can be shipped in from Hong Kong on a priority basis. Muslims will know that the government is deadly serious then. Look out now, you swine!

Day Off

     I have a ton of yard work to do, and the forecast calls for heavy rains starting this afternoon, so I mustn’t dawdle. I might be back later, but it’s a longshot. Enjoy your Saturday.

Sexbots?

     Normally, when I write about sex, I’m hoping to inspire and exhort the two and a half readers who deign to pay my emissions (so to speak) any attention. This piece and this one are typical cases. I hope they did someone some good, as I remember them as rather difficult to write.

     Not today. Today we get serious. Really serious. For today, The Writer in Black deposeth and sayeth:

     Sexbots are going to be big: Invest now.

     Used to be when I said that I was joking. Nowadays I’m mostly not. Mostly.

     We are rapidly reaching the point where there’s nothing a woman can do for a man in the bedroom that justifies the risk of what she can do to him in the courtroom later.

     Please read it all, including the embedded tweet-captures and the text in the pictures, and take it seriously. If WiB is correct, he’s forecast the end of Mankind. Yes, I mean that literally. And I will tell you why.

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     I’m near to releasing Innocents, my twelfth full-length novel and the most difficult story I’ve ever tried to write. I’m not complaining about that, mind you; the creation of fiction should be difficult, and not just so millions of illiterate wannabes with word processors won’t get in on the racket. To create fiction one must create people, and give them intriguing problems the solutions of which are not trivial. In my particular lines of effort, fantasy and science fiction, those problems are expected to be presented in an original setting, and to be original themselves; otherwise you’re just echoing others’ works. Creating life in a test tube is child’s play by comparison.

     Here’s a brief swatch from the Afterword to Innocents, which, pace Tom Kratman, is a large part of the reason I wrote the book:

     Scientific knowledge is inherently morally neutral. So are the technologies it spawns. Atomic power plants can make cheap electricity that improves the lives of many millions. Nuclear fission and fusion can make explosives of unprecedented power, capable of ending millions of lives at a stroke. There’s no way to preclude its destructive possibilities without also losing its constructive ones.

     Once we learn how to do something, those with low motives will have the same access to it as those with high ones. So it is with both bioengineered technology and artificial intelligence. Since destruction is far easier than creation, it takes a huge majority of good people to outweigh the damage a far smaller number of bad people can and will do.

     But what harm could there be in lifelike robots who can bring sexual pleasure to a man unable to persuade a woman to grant him the same? By themselves, perhaps none. But cultural currents will play a part, too. The ones WiB has fingered are only the most obvious.

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     Just yesterday, I asked the C.S.O., a fairly typical woman of our time...well, except for having bound herself to me, an error in judgment whose full horror she hasn’t yet grasped...“What reasons are there for Americans to have children today, other than wanting them for their own sake?” Between us, we couldn’t come up with any good ones. (The bad ones are easy enough to enumerate, but I wasn’t interested in them at that moment.)

     Children, you may recall, are a product of sex. And not just any kind of sex: sex between a potent, fertile man and a woman of childbearing years. None of the many popular alternatives to ordinary sexual intercourse will produce children. Ergo, if potent, fertile men stop having ordinary sexual intercourse with women of childbearing years, they’ll stop having children. Which brings us to an overwhelming question: What could cause that?

     It wouldn’t be purely a matter of fear of the legal consequences. The legal consequences are worse than they’ve ever been. That’s the case whether we’re talking about sex between (heterosexual) spouses or the unratified sort that seems to be somewhat more common. Yet men and women still marry. Some couples even have kids, though typical family sizes are historically small.

     Therefore, the fear of possible legal ugliness down the road isn’t yet fearsome enough to put an end to procreation by Americans. It’s being held at bay by other incentives and disincentives. But what are those countervailing influences? What if they should weaken and collapse – and what might bring that about?

     Give it some thought while I fix myself some decaf.

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     I wrote here that:

     The fulfillments of sexual intercourse don't end with physical pleasure. They don't begin there, either. Though the language seems brusque, even a bit savage, the principal fulfillment to the man is that of victory: winning access to the body of his beloved. The principal fulfillment to the woman is that of agreeable surrender: the cession of her body to his, not merely for immediate pleasure but also in hope of a union that eclipses the physical connection. These satisfactions greatly overshadow the pleasures of the body, as does their continuation over time.

     The love of a man for a woman partakes of the wholly non-physical desire that she should grant him that victory. The love of a woman for her man partakes of the exact complement of that desire. Therefore, the most important of the incentives toward ordinary, potentially procreative sex is heterosexual love.

     There’s more, of course. Men are more idealistic than women. One of our ideals is the creation of a legacy: “something to remember me by.” (Note how many mass murderers undertake their horrors from an equal yet opposite motivation.) Throughout history, children have been a principal component of a man’s legacy. Though the economic aspect of such a legacy – i.e., the continuation of a family business – is greatly reduced today, the urge remains. After he and his wife are gone from the world, his children are the most likely to remember them...hopefully, in a positive way.

     Women feel that desire too, albeit in a more immediate, less idealistic sense: not principally as elements in a legacy but as “more to love.” If I may quote from the thought stream of a character in a recent novelette:

     I hope he finds someone worthy of him. Someone to make him a proper home, greet him at the door each evening after work, love him at night and give him children who’ll bear his name. Daughters she’ll teach about propriety and respect, romance and love. Sons he’ll raise to be men like him. He will. I can’t be that girl, but…he will find her. He must.

     That character was inherently unable to bear the children she hoped the man in her thoughts would someday have. (Read the story for details.)

     Therefore, a man’s desire for a legacy, and a woman’s innate desire for children to love and raise, are additional aspects of our urge to procreate.

     The inability to prevent conception, coupled to children’s earlier value as economic assets during one’s working life and security in one’s old age, have disappeared as considerations. Therefore, I maintain that should marital (and quasi-marital) love and the desire for children as extensions of oneself and one’s love weaken, so also would our inclination to procreate.

     I also posit that such a weakening is in progress, and is being encouraged by the darkest of the forces that work among us.

---

     Pleasure is not enough. I wrote here that:

     Maximizing pleasurable sexual sensation, as transient as such sensations are, has become the sole aim of many. In pursuit thereof, they eschew normal intercourse – with or without contraception – for cunnilingus, fellatio, anal intercourse, vibrators, electric stimulators, and other sorts of machine-produced thrills, specifically because the physical sensations are stronger than those available through ordinary coitus. This is “living for the moment” to an extent even I didn’t foresee in the earlier essay: a concentration upon sexual pleasure so complete as to forgo all other pleasures and satisfactions, including others of the body: Genital Nerve Endings Uber Alles!

     Advances in sexually oriented technology have only intensified my point. The desire for the physical pleasures available from sex will not be sufficient, in the face of the counter-inducements being made technologically available and the legal and social disincentives that synergize with them, to keep us having procreative sex. If love and the desire for children for their own sake should fail us – and there are plenty of “reasons” why that might happen – we will stop having generative intercourse in favor of the inherently non-procreative alternatives.

     That’s what makes the advent of sex surrogate robots, endlessly accommodating and capable of providing thrills beyond those of intercourse, so threatening.

     It’s a hard thing to feel sincere fear for a future one doesn’t expect to see...but it’s not impossible.

Nice story about a man who restores veterans' headstones.

"The Good Cemeterian: Мan spends his Sundays cleaning forgotten veterans’ tombstones." By Goran Blazeski, The Vintage News, 5/29/17.

Buzzword alert.

Every known 21st-century feminist buzzword has been crammed into this piece about Ann Boleyn:

"Anne Boleyn’s bold, feminist, no-nonsense tendencies is what costed her head." By Damjan Stojanovski, The Vintage News, 5/29/17.

A Peek At The Left’s Strategy Guide

     Hans G. Schantz, author of The Hidden Truth — if you haven’t read it, repent of your sins and get to Amazon at once! – has a sequel coming out: A Rambling Wreck. He plans to launch it at LibertyCon in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on July 1. In it, he presents (among other things) a glimpse at the Left’s overall strategy for advancing its aims in these United States. Gomulka, the speaker in the following excerpt, is a Professor of Social Justice at Georgia Tech.

     “Of course, it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to use class time to organize for specific political action,” Gomulka observed, “so let’s discuss, hypothetically of course, the kinds of steps students at other campuses have taken to effect social change, within the general framework that underlies all activism.”

     He wrote, “TARGET,” on the board. “First we have to ask ourselves, who is the target of our activity. If our targets are individuals, we want to change their attitudes or behaviors. If our target is a group or organization, we may want to change the group structure, power hierarchies, or secure greater participation and control for our allies. If our target is a community, we want to change intra group relations such as discrimination, or attitudes, or beliefs. Finally, if our target is society at large, we want to impact policies like globalization, education, the economy, health care, the environment, and so forth. Campus activism can take on any of these targets. Our focus is on a group, the administration, and to a lesser extent, the public whose support they require, and the individual reactionaries who oppose social justice.”

     He added, “AGENT,” below it. “Then, we have to consider who the agents of social change are. The agents of social change can be leaders, directors, politicians, the people in charge. Or it can be the supporters or backers on whom the target relies. Or it can be the grassroots volunteers, employees, or interested citizens.” He smiled benevolently at the class. “That’s you – the idealistic student advocates for social justice. You need to keep it simple, maximize cooperation by maintaining good relations, and be ready to show how change benefits the target. Which brings us to…”

     Then, he wrote, “AGENT ==> TARGET,” on a third line. “How does the agent relate to or impact the target? The target may already be well-converged toward social justice convergence and only require a modest nudge. Pre-converged targets are in the grasp of reactionaries and require a change in beliefs, attitudes, or values. Finally, anti-converged targets are actively opposed to social justice. They may dominate and oppress the agents, requiring more forceful measures.”

     Finally, he wrote, “SUPPORT,” at the bottom of his list. “What actions are required to gain public support for your goal? Social change is easiest when the target is already well-converged: acknowledges the problem, agrees change is needed, is open to assistance, and willing to change. That’s the case in most campus advocacy. We already have allies and fellow travelers in the administration who recognize that true equality requires more than head counting and quota checking. Equality requires fundamental changes in beliefs and attitudes that can only be achieved through changes in how and what we teach our students. The administration needs our help to overcome and silence the determined opposition of reactionary voices. Well-converged targets only require empirical evidence – information journalism, reports, studies. They can transform that information into the right action.” He wrote, “CONVERGED = RATIONAL/EMPIRICAL,” on the board.

     “Pre-converged targets need re-education. They need to be taught to adopt new values and new norms, either through the carrot of rational or emotional means, or the stick of facing the consequences of their poor choices. The holdouts, the reactionaries, the opponents of social justice,” he smiled, “and no campus is without a few of those, they respond best to non-violent methods – strikes, protests, rallies, sit-ins, publicity, advocacy journalism, public shaming, boycotts – those are the principal tactics.” He added “PRE-CONVERGED = NORMATIVE/RE-EDUCATIVE,” on the board.

     “Anti-converged targets require coercive strategies and raw power, up to and including riots, revolution, and terrorism.” He added “ANTI-CONVERGED = POWER/COERCIVE,” on the board.

     “Campus advocacy will typically employ rational/empirical and normative/re-educative strategies for social change. Power or coercive strategies are not appropriate. Why?” He pointed at Madison.

     “Because the administration is on our side already and we want to cooperate with them,” she answered.

     “Exactly!” He beamed. “You’re providing cover for them, giving them a justification to do what they want to do already because ‘the students demand it.’ Now, of course, all I’ve been saying is true of campus activism most everywhere, including here at Georgia Tech. As I said, it would be highly inappropriate of me to organize activism here in class. I’ve covered all I need to say today, so class is over.” A few students started to gather their things. “However,” he loudly interrupted them, “if you find yourselves gathered here and want to take advantage of the opportunity to organize outside of class time, why, I see no reason why anyone would object. I’ll see you next time.”

     That is as comprehensive a statement of the methods of the “social justice warriors” as will fit into a thousand words – and it is priceless. It could only be more valuable to us in the Right if we could trace it verifiably to an official publication of one of the major Left-wing organizations.

     Giving true coloration to the Left’s methods, by pointing out the patterns and the most striking examples thereof to normally sensible persons unwisely entertaining their pronouncements, could be the most effective purely rhetorical tactic available to us. Ponder it. Measure it against the events of the recent past, and contemplate how you might use it when one of the subject areas mentioned above enters conversation.

     No, it wouldn’t have any effect on a committed Leftist. For him, there’s nothing you could possibly do...except to hit back twice as hard when he dares to raise a hand to you. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

A New Aristocracy

     I’ll be away from my keyboard most of today – the world-famous author and social analyst must occasionally venture forth from his palace to press the flesh and distribute boons among his adoring fans, don’t y’know – so allow me to leave you with a bit of brilliance from Ace, who’s established himself as one of the most perceptive and thoughtful writers of the DextroSphere:

     It is imperative we begin emulating the left in its tactics.

     A couple of years ago, I suggested a completely different strategy: I wanted to pursue a kinder path. I wanted an end to the speech wars and social media mobs and boycotts and all the rest of it.

     But that path has been tried, and it has failed. Passive resistance -- moral resistance -- can only work when dealing with opponents with morality and honor, or who, at least, see you as more than subhuman....

     We don't seem to notice that we are always defending, and even the best possible outcome for our attempts at defense only means that we have avoided harm -- for a month.

     Please read it all – and then review this recent Kurt Schlichter column, which points to the only path forward.

     The Left has asserted a privilege. It has made itself into a privileged class, with the rest of us subject to an increasingly straitened regime. When I wrote:

     A class is defined by its legal and social privileges. The aristocrats of medieval times were not distinguished by their lineages or their deeds, but by the things they were allowed to do, without penalty, that commoners were not. There is reason to believe that the majority of medieval aristocrats were fairly responsible stewards of their lands and of public order within them. That does not justify the creation of a class of men who could wield high, middle, and low justice over others, but who would normally escape all consequences for deeds for which a commoner would be severely punished.

     The American response to the failings of traditional aristocracies was the Rule of Law: the fundamental principle that the law must treat all men impartially, regardless of their identities or station in life. The old shorthand for this principle was "blind justice," meaning that the law must not see one's person, only one's deeds. In a society that respects the Rule of Law, a king would stand in the same dock as a trash-hauler, were the two accused of the same offense. All that would matter would be the evidence for their guilt or innocence.

     In the absence of a scrupulously observed Rule of Law, classes with differing degrees of privilege will emerge. The flourishing of the members of each class will be influenced, often heavily, by the class's privileges and how effectively they can be exploited. Men being what we are, we will be moved to use those privileges in our own interest, both against competitors within our class and against other classes.

     ...I was of course referring to the way American Negroes who break the law receive uniquely more gentle, more indulgent treatment from both the press and the justice system. But the analysis is equally applicable to the Left’s resort to coercion: intimidation and violence.

     If the media and the justice system should continue to treat Leftist agitation and outright violence as privileged, the Right must respond in kind. Else we will have tacitly consented to the elevation of a new aristocracy.

     The prospect is ugly. People will be hurt. Blood will eventually be spilled. But the alternative is our reduction to voiceless serfs of an order implacably hostile to freedom.

     I’ll be back later with further thoughts. Just now it’s time for Mass. Enjoy your Thursday.

Concerning Kathy Griffin

     As it is quite clear that Kathy Griffin’s “beheading” stunt was planned out and carefully executed, it’s impossible to accept her supposed apology as sincere.

     Griffin doesn’t regret what she did. If anything, she regrets that the backlash was more than she expected:

     “Hey everybody. It’s me, Kathy Griffin. I sincerely apologize. I am just now seeing the reaction of these images.” – Kathy Griffin

     Griffin’s behavior since coming into public view – and why was that, exactly? – has consistently displayed a degree of shameless crudity that undermines any claim she might make about having “made a mistake” or having gone “too far.”

     In our era, far too many “comedians,” lacking the wit to be genuinely funny, have substituted outrageous behavior for the substance of true humor. When such a “comedian” can score points for some left-liberal cause, the temptation is often too powerful to resist. Griffin is merely one of the tawdrier cases. (Say, remember her “Suck it, Jesus” episode?) Her lack of talent, her willingness to pander to the Left, and her total shamelessness have combined to land her at the nadir of classlessness...and to drill through the bottom to set a new anti-standard.

     CNN should wise up and get rid of her. Will it? Doubtful. We’re talking about CNN, after all.