The Tenor Of Our Age

     A provocative tweet from Spain has raised a question that has no universally applicable answer:

A 24-year-old woman started working in our office on Monday.
By Wednesday, she had already handed in her resignation.
The reason?
She refused to install a company app on her personal phone.
Her boss told her it was mandatory for receiving messages outside the office.
She asked if they would give her a work phone.
They told her no.
“So, will you pay part of my phone bill?”
“No. Everyone here does it.”
The woman looked at the rest of the team.
No one said anything.
Then she asked one last question:
“And if you message me on a Saturday, do I have to reply?”
Her boss replied:
“We expect commitment, not for you to be watching the clock.”
She looked at him and asked him a question that left the entire office in silence…
"Does commitment also show up in the paycheck, or is it only demanded once my workday ends?"
The boss laughed.
"With that attitude, you won't get very far."
She nodded.
"Maybe. But at least I'll get home knowing I've finished working."
She closed her laptop.
She gathered her things.
And she left.

She'd been with us less than three days.
And she got half the office wondering why we'd spent years putting up with it.
The funny thing is, some colleagues called her immature.
They said that at 24, she wasn't in a position to get so demanding.
Others said they wished they'd had her courage at that age.
I was left thinking one thing.
I get that a company needs committed people.
That there are unexpected things and times when you have to put in extra effort.
But if being available outside work hours is an obligation, why is it presented as a voluntary show of commitment?
And now tell me this:
Was she irresponsible for leaving a job on the third day, or did she do the right thing by setting boundaries from the start?

     Have you ever been in that young woman’s position, Gentle Reader? I have. Startup companies are like that. The possibility of “making it big” in such a company can outweigh the employee’s desire for boundaries between work and private life. But what about in established firms, where the real prospects are merely for a salary, annual increments to it, and the possibility of promotion?

     An established firm has clout enough to demand such accommodations and insist on them, especially in a buyer’s market for labor. The young woman who refused the demand is exceptional for having had the courage and resolve to do so.

     Should she remain an exception, or should the rest of us strap on our spines and stand with her?

* * *

     There’s been a lot of talk recently about “work-life balance” and getting it right. Once again, there’s no generic formula that every working stiff can apply. Personal circumstances make all such decisions individual. Sometimes personal or familial needs constrain our options, often to the point of eliminating all but one. Employers will take advantage of such constraints.

     It’s part of what Thomas Sowell has called “the tragic vision.” All choices involve costs, including the sacrifice of the unchosen options. Life is not “fair” in any enforceable sense. Legislative attempts to make it “fair” by some standard are nearly always misguided, for such laws preemptively eliminate options that some would willingly choose. That’s particularly the case regarding employment decisions.

     All the same, contemporary employers’ readiness to impose after-hours requirements on employees does not speak well of contemporary employment practices or corporate cultures. Work isn’t everything. They who work for wages expect to have some personal freedom once they’ve downed tools for the day. Family and personal needs can be unsparing. Decent employers should take such things into account. It might help to bring the divorce and suicide rates down.

The Bloodbath

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. Happy Guy Fawkes’ Day. Do you feel like burning someone in effigy? I do.

     Needless to say, the results of the midterms have been on everyone’s mind. How did it happen? What should we expect? How do we cope with it? And of course, the gurus of opinion-mongering all have their analyses and prescriptions.

     It seems to me that the old investors’ maxim – “Past performance is no guarantee of future returns” – has some relevance here. Past performance doesn’t guarantee anything, but it’s all the information we have. Besides, the technical analysts have their maxim too: “The trend is your friend.” So we tend to steer by the winds we know.

     While no one in the Right wanted to see the Democrats take control on Capitol Hill, midterm elections tend to disfavor the party whose man is in the White House. So there were reasons to believe that the Left would make some gains. Given the thinness of the majorities the GOP enjoyed in both Houses, the loss of those majorities was, if not guaranteed, possible at least and probable if we go by the polls.

     But matters were graver than we thought. The fecklessness of the Republican caucuses disgusted many conservatives and Republican partisans. The GOP needed more voter turnout than it got. When a substantial fraction of “your voters” stay home, you tend to lose seats in Congress. Funny about that.

     How could it have been otherwise? Voter turnout is determined by voter engagement, and the Republican-led Congress gave us little to engage with. Blame is being heaped on a few prominent figures – Trump and Thune lead the list – but deeper understanding requires a deeper look.

     The Republican pattern is a “do nothing” pattern. The GOP has squandered its majorities since the era of Coolidge. This time around was different only in this: President Trump was expected to get them into motion. But the 119th Congress was indisposed to being mobilized for the Trump agenda.

     Sad as it is to say, that was predictable. After all, the successes of the first Trump Administration were largely produced by executive orders. The Republican caucuses of those four years were as intractable as those of the 119th Congress. The reasons are largely the same in both cases.

     A substantial number of Congressional Republicans dislike Trump and his agenda. Some didn’t want to support him. Others didn’t want to be seen supporting him. Trump’s titular leadership of the Republican Party meant little to them, for they had made careers out of their offices. Presidents can’t do that.

     Add that to Republicans’ notorious aversion to media criticism and their pusillanimity before the slanders of the Left. Add also the “don’t rock the boat” mentality that’s characterized Republican political performance since FDR. Add finally GOP nervousness about being blamed for anything that might go wrong following substantial policy changes. Given all that, would it have been reasonable to expect Republican gains in Congress?

     So here we are. What’s next?

     I expect we’ll have to endure another attempt to remove Trump from the White House. Worse, several anti-Trump Republicans will sign onto it. He probably will be impeached yet again, though he’s unlikely to be removed. His hands will be tied concerning Iran and the Middle East. He may be impeded in other areas of foreign policy as well.

     The bloodbath will also fuel the rise of contenders for the presidency who stand apart from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda. They’ll point to the losses of November 3, 2026 as evidence that “it wasn’t want the nation wanted.” While attention has focused on J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, expect the camera lenses to be pulled toward other figures that gain popular traction. The MAGA movement, such as it is, is likely to fragment as those new figures emerge.

     This is not an argument against the Trump agenda. It’s merely a forecast of the dynamics the bloodbath will evoke. If there’s a lesson for conservative-inclined voters, it would be this:

     If we want changes to federal policy, we must change federal policymakers. The opportunity to do that comes during the primaries, not on Election Day.

     Perhaps we’ll find stouter hearts and sincerer tongues to represent us two years hence. If it’s to be so, it’s time to get working on it now.

     Oh yes, there’s this as well: Buy ammo. Just in case, you understand.

Incomplete Questions

Let me remind you of the pilgrim
Who asked for an audience with the Dalai Lama
He was told he must first spend five years in contemplation
After the five years
He was ushered into the Dalai Lama's presence, who said
'Well, my son, what do you wish to know?'
So the pilgrim said
'I wish to know the meaning of life, father.'
So the Dalai Lama smiled and said
'Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?'

[ Procol Harum ]

     This morning, we have a provocative question:

What if the meaning of life is obvious, but nobody likes the answer?

— XCosmos (@XCosmosOfficial) November 3, 2026

     We’ve been here before, of course:

     I’ve known a fair number of reasonably intelligent people in my sixty-six years. Many of them were atheists. But they were no happier than the theists around them. In many cases they were less happy. One complained to me privately about the sense that his life was meaningless. As bright as he was – IQ around 145, by my informal estimate – he hadn’t grasped that meaning requires an interpreter.

     “The meaning of life,” as XCosmos has put it, must be completed to be of use: “The meaning of life” to whom? To God? To history? To some federally nominated Board of Life Interpreters? Or to the asker himself?

     The completions vary; thus, the possible answers vary.

* * *

     Long ago I was told about a philosophy professor who, weary of the bickering among his students, posed them an incisive question: “Why was it wrong for Cain to kill Abel?”

     The students tossed it back and forth. Many claimed that for one human to kill another is always wrong. Others took the position that it “wasn’t necessarily wrong,” that “we don’t have all the facts.” And of course there were participants between those two poles.

     The professor allowed it to go on for awhile before he hauled the class up short. He gave the only answer that the tale of Cain and Abel in Genesis will support: “Because it was.”

     When the conditions surrounding an event have been fully specified, and the moral-ethical standards are agreed upon, questions of morality and ethics are answerable. It was wrong for Cain to kill Abel because Abel was an innocent who didn’t deserve to die. Willfully killing an innocent man is murder, which is wrong. That’s an absolute upon which Western societies agree. To question it is to question the basis of Christian-Enlightenment society.

     Yes, there are lands whose denizens don’t hew to Christian-Enlightenment moral-ethical standards. We’re having a spot of trouble with nations of that sort. Worse, individuals and groups within our own nation are disdaining those standards, some for political purposes. Consider the Left’s attitude toward the murder of Charlie Kirk. Those cleavages are causing more horror and grief than any other abstract disagreement could.

* * *

     At the base of all of what Robert Burns called “Man’s inhumanity to man” one will always find divergences from moral-ethical standards. But we’re aware that there are other lands than those of the Christian Enlightenment. They cannot trouble us unless we permit it… and by and large, we don’t.

     The divergences from Christian-Enlightenment moral-ethical standards among Americans are more troubling. They force an uncomfortable question upon us: What do we mean by ‘an American?’ What are the qualifications? Contemporary realities compel us to include those standards among the qualifications. That implies something many people would rather not face.

     Just as one cannot inquire about meaning without specifying an interpreter, one cannot inquire about membership of any kind without specifying the qualifications for membership. Aristotle told us so many centuries ago. The question must be complete to be meaningful… which brings us full-circle to the nature of meaning yet again. Sorry about that.

Democracy

     [This first appeared at the old Palace of Reason, so long ago that I can no longer remember exactly when. – FWP]

---

     To many Americans, the names of the two majority parties are words without precise definitions. The original meaning of the word “democracy” has been displaced by a host of implications and a glow of unquestioned sanctity. For “republic,” few persons have any feeling at all.

     In the Random House World Atlas, the United States is classified as a “federal republic.” Indeed, it was the intent of the Founding Fathers to form precisely that object; and for about a hundred years, the political structure of the United States was in that style. However, with respect for the editors of the World Atlas, it is no longer any such thing.

     Several historians specializing in the Constitutional period have written of the fear of democracy several Founders expressed. A number of historians have inferred that, whatever their gifts might have been, these nation-builders regarded the common man with the contempt typical of oligarchs. It's difficult to verify or falsify such a suspicion at two centuries' remove.

     Concerning the contempt felt for the private citizen by our contemporary political class, there is much that may be observed and analyzed. Despite politicians' endless public importunings for our “participation,” it is quite clear that once we favor any one of them with enough votes to install him in office, his desire for citizen “participation” vanishes. A citizen may count himself lucky to get half a minute's attention from a sitting executive, legislator, or judge, until about three months before that executive, legislator or judge is due to stand for re-election, and even then a furious waving of the checkbook is generally required. On the approachability and attentiveness of career bureaucrats, it is unnecessary to comment.

     In the early days of the Republic, the franchise was extremely limited in scope and application. The citizens of a state who were Caucasian, male, over twenty-one years of age, and owned land in that state could vote for the men who would sit in one or both of the two chambers of that state's legislature. The enfranchised citizens of the state were also empowered to choose those who would sit for them in the House of Representatives. Members of the Senate were chosen by the legislatures, not the people, of the states they represented, as required by the Constitution. The President was chosen by a College of Electors, whose members were also chosen by the state legislatures.

     Clearly, the citizen's democratic franchise, if he had it, was much less extended then, and its effects upon the federal government were much less direct than is the case today. The state of affairs described above lasted almost unchanged until 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment empowered enfranchised citizens to choose federal Senators. The Sixteenth (Income Tax) Amendment and the Federal Reserve Act were also passed in 1913. In 1914, the fraction of the Gross National Product consumed by government at all levels passed 10% for the first time.

     Within five years, the United States had entered a war against a group of nations with which it had no contiguous borders; the federal government had asserted the power to nationalize whole industries; conscription and price controls had been instituted; the federal government had “suspended” redemption-in-gold of federal paper currency; a massive “civil service” bureaucracy, hundreds of thousands strong, had arisen in Washington; nine billion dollars (more than $200 billion in 1988 dollars) had been loaned to the governments of Great Britain and France from the federal treasury, never to be repaid; federal expenditures had exceeded the sum of all state and county expenditures for the first time; and 125,000 Americans had died in the trenches, fields and hospitals of war-ravaged Europe.

     This is not to suggest that the direct election of Senators, or the extension of the franchise to non-Caucasians and women, brought these things about. But it is remarkable that a people living in nearly complete peace and freedom could have been stripped so thoroughly of that peace and freedom for so small a price as the extension of the power to vote.

     Not one of the statist-imperialist trends set in motion during the Wilson Administration has ever been abated. The Republic had been dismantled from within, and a democracy had been erected in its place. A republic is a nation in which the permissible activities of government are limited by a written Constitution which defines them precisely; a democracy is a nation in which the majority makes all decisions, either directly or through its representatives, and imposes them on the minority by force. The doctrine of individual sovereignty had disappeared as government at all levels asserted unlimited power to arrange the lives of Americans and dispose of their fortunes as it pleased.

     Some of the Republic's finest moments were among its last, under one of its least appreciated Presidents, Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was the last of the Democrats of the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, “the party of hard money and personal liberty.” Under rising pressure from his own party, Cleveland maintained to the end that government in America had only a limited sphere; at tremendous cost to his popularity, he vetoed every emission of Congress not consistent with the moral limits on government. Among his achievements against a socialist tide whose strength is hard to appreciate today, Cleveland restrained the federal government's debt and spending, prevented the use of tax revenues for individual or corporate welfarism, blocked all attempts to legislate on personal morality, saved the gold standard, and limited the size of the civil service. The excesses of his successors would not have been possible had Cleveland not preserved the country in such fine condition.

     Old Grover knew what a republic was, and it's plain that he loved ours. He might well weep to see what has taken its place.

For Your Own Good Dept.

     “Death is the price we pay for our life, and for all life.” – Ursula Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

     “No one here gets out alive.” – Jim Morrison

     Welcome to All Hallows’ Eve, Gentle Reader. Yes, it’s better known as Hallowe’en – don’t omit the apostrophe – and the legions of candy-grubbing spratlings in weird costumes that troop from door to door in the evening. But in point of fact, this is the opening day of a solemn Christian commemoration. This day is marked for the contemplation of mortality: yours and mine.

     We shall all die. All that lived before us knew it. All that will come after us will know it, too. Fantasies of physical immortality are just that.

     Thousands are dying as we speak. For many, the event is considered premature, because their lives were ended by accident or violence. But we don’t get to say when the clock of mortality, “that two-handed engine that stands behind the door,” will smite us for the last time.

     It behooves us to be ready.

* * *

     Whew! Glad that’s out of the way. Now where was I? Oh yes, this story:

     The manosphere and online misogyny should be treated by the government as a public health issue, in the same way as obesity or smoking, experts have said.
     Writing in the Lancet, the authors of a new report argue that a coordinated response is needed, involving governments, schools, health services and community organisations, similar to the public-health response to tobacco use and ultra-processed food.
     “Men’s problems are framed [in the manosphere] as the result of feminism rather than structural conditions, and masculine identity is commodified through products and paid content that normalise and reinforce health-harming and performance-oriented masculinities,” the authors write.
     The report defines the manosphere as “a diffuse commercial ecosystem and loose collection of online communities united by shared beliefs about masculinity, misogyny and male victimisation”.

     Heavens to Murgatroyd! Men online are saying critical things about women! I could stop right there, secure in the knowledge that my Gentle Readers are all bright enough to predict the rest. However, a bit from the cited article in The Lancet deserves special attention:

     Similar to the tobacco and ultra-processed food industries,44 content creators and hosting platforms deploy strategies that individualise responsibility.45 Men's problems are framed as the result of feminism rather than structural conditions, and masculine identity is commodified through products and paid content that normalise and reinforce health-harming and performance-oriented masculinities.46 Efforts to regulate or moderate content are frequently framed as threats to men's autonomy, restricting political space for intervention.

     So treatment of the “public health issue” of men griping about women and pursuing traditionally masculine goals is being impeded by that inconvenient matter of freedom of expression! Well, the folks in the United Kingdom have already been told that that’s over with. No doubt their political masters will defer to “experts” Sarah Hawkes and Kent Buse. After all, it’s for your own good!

     Yes, we Americans take a somewhat different view of the matter. But… but… public health! Surely we can see the importance of that! What’s an itty-bitty infringement of our free-speech rights compare to the all-important goal of protecting the health of the public? Can’t we give just a little for something so momentous? It’s for your own good!

     I could go on this way, but it’s ceased to be entertaining.

* * *

     Time was, the “public health” shibboleth was reserved for dangerous infectious diseases. Maladies that can spread rapidly among the populace without anyone knowing. There was some justification for government efforts at tracking and general education, at least. But not long ago, the Left discovered the intimidating power of the phrase. It developed that even Americans are willing to allow their rights to be abridged in the name of “public health.”

     Even Robert A. Heinlein, one of the most freedom-loving of well-known writers, was willing to permit such abridgement:

     ‘Lies! I'm not going to say another word without my lawyer.’
     At which point I made yet another mistake. ‘But, Priscilla, I am a lawyer; you know that. What they're asking is quite reasonable, a matter of public health.’

     The power of that phrase is quite astounding. I hope the ghost of Ayn Rand – it’s a good day for ghosts, isn’t it? – will forgive me for slightly altering something she wrote:

     “Mr. Rearden, the law which you are denouncing is based on the highest principle—the principle of the public health.”
     “Who is the public? What does it hold as its health?”

     Apparently, “public health” demands that we not own firearms, or drink wine, or eat what we like if “experts” disapprove of it. Mind you, there’s always a degree of dissent among the ranks of the “experts,” but some have the patronage of the Omnipotent State. Their recommendations get official respect. One guess as to why.

* * *

You don't really need to find out
What's going on
You don't really want to know
Just how far it's gone

(Don Henley)

     Everyone knows how far it’s gone. Lockdowns and forced vaccinations made it quite plain. Christian Scientists, Amish, and Mennonites who resist are painted as something akin to public enemies. It’s even been alleged that surgeons who operate on children for typical childhood needs are facilitating the vaccination of those children before the operation, without informing their parents or securing their consent. All in the name of “public health.”

     But we must raise the question governments most hate to face: “What if you’re wrong? Will you restore our rights, refund our money, and apologize for your intrusion on our lives?”

     There’s no chance we’ll get an honest answer. But upsetting the State is always worth doing.

Options Trading

     Every so often I’ll see a statement from a woman that makes me wonder if she has any ability to pay attention, much less a sense for the consequences of her actions:

Recently a guy asked me out and I told him to let me think about it, and he said okay. A few weeks later I noticed I was no longer seeing his display picture, so I sent him a message, only to discover I had been blocked. He didn't ask or try to persuade me; he just blocked me. So a girl can't take some time to weigh her options anymore?

— Empress (@PempressP) October 29, 2026

     Oh, is that it? You were “weighing your options?” Pray tell, what options were you weighing? Whether the man who asked you out would provide better entertainment than some other, unnamed man? Or perhaps whether a “girls’ night out” would be preferable to an evening in his company? Did you give even an instant’s consideration to what that said to him?

     There are only two acceptable answers to an invitation to a date:

• “Yes, I’d like that.”
• “No, I’m sorry, but I already have plans.”

     Everything else is “options trading.” Not only is that one of the easiest ways to go broke; it’s also the route to a reputation no woman should want to acquire: that of a gold-digger.

     Think about it, for heaven’s sake! “I’ll think about it” says explicitly that he who issued the invitation may not be good enough to be worth your precious time! What kind of message is that? What would you have thought had your positions been reversed?

     (Nota bene: Gentlemen, never, ever pose an invitation to a lady as “would you like to go out sometime?” That’s bad. Always give a specific date, and the first item on the evening’s agenda – usually, dinner. Not to do so leaves the lady wondering just what she’s being asked to do. She would be entirely within her rights to decline with prejudice. Also, remember that three successive declines constitute a permanent negative response.)

     I’ve fulminated about this sort of idiocy before, of course. Not that it matters. Female thoughtlessness and callousness are everywhere. Yet they complain to one another – “Where have all the good men gone?” – without a moment’s reflection on how they have helped to produce the current situation.

     You want to know why so many men are “hit and run” types, ladies? Why they’ll grab what they can, sometimes a single night’s pleasure, and disappear? Their disdain for you is a response to your unabashed calculations about their “value.” Your constant “can I do better than him?” musings. As you reduce them to their net worth, they reduce you to your mucous membranes.

     “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” It’s one of the oldest proverbs. It applies to agriculture and social dealing with equal force. A young woman once learned such basic wisdoms at her mother’s knee. But a great many of their mothers either have fallen down on the job, or haven’t learned it themselves. More’s the pity.

Acculturation

     Adaptability is a double-edged sword. One who moves from a culture in which he’s comfortable to another which differs from it is expected to adapt. But his adaptation can take more than one form.

     Imagine one who moves from a dirty, violent, lawless place – a place where life is “nasty, poor, brutish, and short” – to a place of peace, cleanliness, and mutual trust. There’s no guarantee that he’ll adapt to his new environment by conforming to its norms. He may see those around him, so wealthy, clean, and peaceable in aspect – as pigeons for the plucking. Having been steeped in the ethics of his previous environments – i.e., whatever you can get away with is quite all right – he might just try to pluck them.

     Americans have been seeing a lot of that. Many of us have reacted against it, which is rational and sane. Many others have done the opposite: they’ve claimed that we, the clean, peaceable, trusting ones, have an obligation to adapt to the newcomers. They may even believe that it’s our ethical obligation to do so.

     It “should be obvious” that whichever doctrine prevails will determine the future of that society. What’s not so obvious are the sub-processes by which that future is attained.

* * *

     Mourn the passing of a great nation:

@viking_boer Desensitization is a big thing-- didn't realize how much so until I left Zimbabwe. Stop rationalizing murders & torture because it wasn't in your area. Stop excusing murder & torture because of politics. I believe there will be ethnic cleansing. Save yourselves, before you can't

— Charlene (@_4Charlene) October 29, 2026

     Rhodesia was a great nation. It was built entirely by colonists from Great Britain. Yes, it was imposed willy-nilly upon the blacks in that region. It was great nevertheless, a bastion of peace, order, and prosperity where the law of the jungle had reigned. The same was true of South Africa before the Whites surrendered political control to the blacks of that region.

     In neither land is there anything resembling public order or trust today. In neither land are Whites’ lives safe. The law of the jungle has returned.

     That’s what happens when a society ceases to enforce high-civilization norms and surrenders to those who disdain them. Actually, “disdain” isn’t the right word. They who destroyed Rhodesia and South Africa didn’t think about the norms the British and Boers brought to those places. They simply lived according to the norms of the jungle, where “whatever you can get away with is quite all right.” In the absence of enforcement, they were too many and too savage for the White minorities to cope with.

* * *

     A famous incident from a few years back had a remarkable sequel. The two Sikhs who stopped a blatant shoplifter by force were subsequently investigated for assault. Now ask yourself this:

What rational man, imbued with the norms of a high-trust society, would have blamed the Sikhs for doing what they did?

     Those two Sikhs may not have been thinking about the abstract threat to the high-trust society in which they lived. They may not have been thinking that “if we permit this, the store will close and we’ll lose our livelihoods.” They may have reacted purely from fury. Whatever the case, in the three-person microcosm depicted by the video, they imposed the norms they preferred upon the miscreant who had tried to impose his norms on them. They enforced the norms of high-trust society without embarrassment, and for a spell, the law of the jungle was warded off.

     But we must not pass on without pondering the other facet to the incident. Those Sikhs, who acted in defense of the store and the norms that made it possible, were suddenly subject to legal hazard. Had the district attorney decided to prosecute them, they would have suffered greatly even if ultimately acquitted. They were fortunate that it proved not to be necessary to defend themselves against the weight of the “justice system.”

     Acculturation can penetrate any institution. Get enough softheaded types into the system and they can remake it quite opposite to its original purpose. That’s happened in a number of places in these United States. I live uncomfortably near to one.

* * *

     In even the highest and most civilized societies, there will be a criminally-inclined subgroup. Members of that group will look for opportunities to exploit the prevalence of general trust. I wrote about such a person here:

     “And thank You, dear Lord, for keeping Onteora County well stocked with idiots,” Dominic intoned, head bowed over his folded hands. Tony looked up at him in surprise. “Thank You for making them trust those ridiculous Kruger-Smith snap locks, and for never suggesting to them that they shouldn’t keep all their valuables in the master bedroom. Your humble servant really appreciates these labor-saving conveniences.”….
     Some thieves seek riches. Others seek challenges to their skills. Dominic sought only sustenance.
     Onteora suited him. Its poor had little to defend, and were philosophical about losing it. Its better-offs were few enough not to stimulate much competition for him, and found more succor in their homeowner’s insurance than in the halfhearted efforts of the county police. He knew better than to attack the well secured, privately guarded homes of the county’s few rich. As long as he stayed fit and sharp, he could survive here.

     As long as they’re few, and kept in acceptable check by the “forces of order,” that high-trust society will survive with its norms intact. But when the forces of order become acculturated to failure, the few will attract emulators. Those who were previously unwilling to risk violating the norms will become bolder: “They get away with it, so we can too.” Evidence will accumulate that the norms of general trust are fading. Violators will multiply still faster.

     It’s a positive-feedback cycle.

* * *

     I could go on about this, but I think the point will stand. Either we enforce the norms – emphasis on force — or we’ll lose them. To that end, a particular attitude toward such things is to be eliminated: the notion that “the law belongs to the State.” It does not. The State is merely our agent. If that agent has ceased to fulfill its responsibilities, private citizens who understand the foundation of all law, the principles of right and wrong, must step in.

     Those two Sikhs got it right.
     Refuse to tolerate the intolerable.
     Reject acculturation to the law of the jungle.