Could the cards just lie where they fall?

By which I mean, could we please just deal with human life as it is and not as some kind of blank canvas to be splotched by finger painters from the nearest day care monstrosity? The sequence facts-->analysis-->rational reaction has been replaced in the social, political and economic spheres by facts-->malevolent ideological filter-->dangerous maladaptation. Some young woman who perceive they have a problem to deal with end up thinking lesbianism, abortion, and parading on the street with bared breasts are good options. Some women with attitude think they have a "right" to jog where they want in the big city.

Putting the problem of ideological filters aside, it's more than clear that we all live in an enormous steaming stew of propaganda that hides accurate data and and ensures that our lives unfold in diseased ways.

Here's (yet another) insightful essay from Alex over at Ammo.com on the accurate input part of the sequence: "The American Old West: How Hollywood Made It 'Wild' to Make Money & Advance Gun Control." He looks at the actual record of unlawful behavior in the Old West and finds the truth varies greatly from the imaginings of Hollywood producers. Then he shows how modern ways of dealing with rampant crime focus on depriving citizens of precisely those tools that made the Old West a decidecly peaceful place.

"Ready! Fire! Aim!" and not just with respect to crime. Everything is conducted this way.

I'm reminded of a visit I made to Old Bent's Fort in southeastern Colorado. It wasn't a fort in the usual sense though it looks like it was one. There might have been some federales there during the Mexican-American War (never quite concluded, it seems) but basically it was a trading post out in the middle of nowhere. Eighty days to St. Louis by wagon, IIRC.

The gates stayed open and the local Indians (three or four tribes) entered freely and even put on some of their dances for the entertainment of all. The fellow who ran the fort paid fair prices for the buffalo skins the Indians sold and they lived well with what they purchased to make their lives easier.

If anything, the fort was a refuge for various Indians being pursued by men from other tribes.

All quite contrary to what we think about life in Indian Country from what nonsense Hollywood served up. The Lewis and Clark museum in Great Falls tells similar stories. The expedition had some tense moments with the Lakota at the start but it was quite different later on. Their lives were saved when they decided to cross the Bitterroot Mountains in the winter! It was a close thing but they managed to make it out of the mountains in pretty bad shape, whereupon they were taken in by the locals who saved their lives and sold them horses later on.

The Comanche, Apache, Crow, and Iroquois were another story but that is not part of the Lewis and Clark story. Indians murdered and enslaved each other and stole each other's lands with abandon but guess what version of history underlies all public policy now. Correct. The rapacious white man invaded and brought death and destruction to "Native Americans" living in harmony with themselves and the land.

History is more interesting than the ridiculous versions peddled by various parties. I've read stories of German decency in WWII and British and American criminality. I enjoyed a very interesting book about a fellow who spent a short time in the Gulag and found his way to a job as an accountant in a timber harvesting enterprise. It depicted the Soviet citizens as quite normal and decent, though I think the distance between the place and the madness of Moscow had something to do with the normality. The book is Bitter Waters: Life And Work In Stalin's Russia by Gennady Andreev-khomiakov et al.

Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945 by Marie Vassiltchikov similarly portrays a side of wartime Germany that is quite unlike the usual portrayal of Germans as demons. Many first-person accounts by German troops of fighting on the Eastern Front are also eye-opening. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Hortatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy" as Hamlet observed.

Today, it isn't just the past that's shredded and twisted, but the pestiferous present. The left insists on characterizing whites and our culture as something diseased that oozed out of a crack somewhere. Feminists distort marriage and men in the same way. It would be humorous if we weren't witnessing a game plan for social and political disaster.

One of the interesting things about Old Bent's Fort is that you can walk down to the river a hundred yards or so away. The territory on the other side of the river was Mexico at the time! I've even heard rumors that there are Mexicans on that side of the river who still think the land belongs to Mexico.