Miracles Still Happen

     They’re not always showy events that dazzle the onlookers.

     We needn’t discuss Lourdes, nor the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in 1917, nor any other of the visually or audibly impressive occurrences the Church has investigated. There are grounds on which even events such as those, witnessed by thousands, can be “explained away.” That those explanations are themselves disputable – they certainly aren’t irrefutable – is also beside the point. Were God’s hand provably the reason for a proposed miracle, faith would not be necessary.

     But faith is necessary. Everyone has one. No one can go through life without adopting a creed of some sort. The hardest of hard-core atheists holds to propositions that are both unverifiable and unfalsifiable.

     Few who choose to believe in God would claim that He is not purposive. While there are conceptions of higher beings and higher planes that incorporate that premise, it has few adherents. Thus, the believer not only looks to miracles as demonstrations of Divine power; he also seeks to know the reason for them.

     Consider the following, recent event.

     The celebrant, a Catholic priest, said afterward that he was overwhelmed by his sudden sense of the weight of God’s power and of human sin. Has it happened to others? Yes. Therefore it wasn’t a unique event. But does that mean that it could not have been a miracle? Emphatically no!

     There’s no imaginable reason why an interior experience can’t be of miraculous origin. Many have had such experiences and have wondered why afterward. They’re seldom explainable by reference to a particular train of thought or an environmental influence. They happen, and we are moved by them; nothing more definitive can be said about them.

     Emotion itself, with its many benefits and perils, is something of a miracle. Scientists have labored to explain the emotions by referring to aspects of brain chemistry and the complexity of the central nervous system, but their hypotheses are as unverifiable and unfalsifiable as any religious doctrine. What we colloquially call “the heart” remains a mystery. So does the phenomenon of the man unable to feel certain common emotions, including love.

     As a writer of fiction, I hold to a common premise about narratives and their relevance to their consumers: You can’t get more out of it than you put into it. That applies quite as strongly to narratives about real-world events as it does to fiction. Believers, who start from the premise of a purposive God, can draw meaning, power, and reinforcement for their beliefs from an event such as the one depicted above. Nonbelievers have less chance of doing so.

     That should come as no surprise. Men are highly variable. Faith is a choice. No two persons share absolutely identical beliefs about anything. We manage to form societies because, thanks to some subconscious awareness of the need, we tolerate differences of vital premises and important convictions among us without allowing them to propel us to violence.

     And that may well be the greatest miracle we know.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Steak, Sizzle, Or Self?

     Happy Autumnal Equinox, Gentle Reader! Today we enter the fall season, which is a favorite here at the Fortress. Soon the colors will be changing, the weather will cool, the fleece garments will come out of storage, and I’ll be sweeping up leaves and patching leaks in the roof… oh, strike that. This should be a happy occasion! It’s Monday, so… well, maybe you should strike that too.

     Anyway, a question has arisen that should interest all writers and anyone else who sells anything. That includes you, doesn’t it? You do – or did – sell either your products or your labor, right? So give this one a hard think:

What are you selling?

     It’s non-trivial, I assure you.

     Consider this pole of the discussion:

Some writers sell themselves.
A few sell a trendy comfort.
Others sell a product.
I simply tell my stories.

I’m not a product, and neither are my books.
The only thing that matters is that you read the stories.
Readers don’t need anything else.

— Delenda Carthago (@DelendaStories) September 20, 2026

     In the strictest imaginable sense, Delenda is correct. After all, the purchaser pays for the book and nothing else. He’s not buying any part of the author, or a guarantee that the author will do any particular thing in the future. What he gets is the book, no more.

     But the book, like any product, conveys other impressions. The purchaser will read the book and draw some conclusions from it:

• Is the story good?
• Is it well told?
• Does it convey specific ideas?
• Do I find those ideas attractive?
• Should I form any expectations of this writer?

     All those things help to mold the purchaser’s future decisions and actions. What do they sell?

     The purchaser’s impressions of the man behind the book matter quite as much as the book itself. Most of us who read have favorites – genres; authors; themes and associated ideas – that we seek to satisfy in our reading. Writers who are consistent about those things will develop followings. Consistency over time reveals the man behind the product.

     I contend that we’re buying into the author quite as much as his books.

     Obviously, this isn’t the same as sitting behind a table at a book-signing event. No one gets to shake the author’s hand or engage him in conversation. But the cumulative impression of a writer that develops over a number of books matters greatly. If he’s to develop a following, he must sell himself as much as his writings. He must consistently evince what I’ve called a sensibility: a set of convictions and attitudes that express a worldview that doesn’t drift or amble about aimlessly.

     The writer cannot “be all things to all men.” He must stake out a specific place in the universe of fiction providers and hold fast to it. That doesn’t mean his convictions can never change. It does mean that his Weltanschauung must be grounded in a particular vision of “how the world works.”

     I was drawn to the late Robret A. Heinlein for that reason, among others. Yes, his writing was unusually graceful for science fiction of the years in which he wrote. I did appreciate that. But more important by far was his remorselessly factual, logical approach to “how the world works,” especially the human part. That might have been because our personalities were compatible; I cannot know, as I never had the privilege of meeting him.

     Most other writers I’ve admired have presented more variable personas. I’ve enjoyed some of their output, but not all. I haven’t pursued their latest works as avidly as I might have. Their divergences sometimes displeased me; they suggested that the man behind the story wasn’t what I’d taken him to be.

     Sensibility, in my view, partakes of craftsmanship, but equally of the writer’s worldview and his willingness to let it show. If that isn’t part of the sale, how likely is the purchaser of your book to want to drink more from your well? And what are you selling, from that perspective? It isn’t just the book, is it?

Morality

     I’ll make this as brief as possible. Morality is a large subject. And yes, it’s one whose discussion tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable. Part of that arises from the desire to believe oneself to be of sound character. Another part arises when the discussion addresses the moral gulfs between various identifiable groups. The latter aspect has come to matter to Americans a great deal more than it did a century ago.

     When the people of our nation were overwhelmingly Christian, peppered here and there by a few Jews and the occasional Oriental or agnostic, an American could proceed through his affairs in the assumption that his moral code was that of everyone around him. It was expressed in the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. C.S. Lewis called them, in sum, the Law of General Benevolence. Because we were united on that code, we felt safe among strangers. I’ve talked about this before, most notably in this piece.

     It’s not the case any longer. We’ve imported a great many people to whom the Law of General Benevolence is irrelevant, if not an actual impediment to the satisfaction of their wants. Some of them are scoping you as a potential victim right BLEEP!ing now.

     You can name a few such groups. There are probably a few whose names are unknown to you. But they know you, you trusting Euro-American fool.

     This is the best argument for the reversal of the tides of immigration that have polluted our nation. To be viable, a republic such as ours demands a high-trust society. We are too many to be kept peaceable and sane by policing us. America would need so many police, and so ubiquitous, that the worst totalitarianisms known to history would pale in comparison – and even that many would leave some of us unwatched and unguarded.

     Back from sheer necessity, review Clay Christensen’s striking observation:

     The issue is particularly acute with regard to Indians and Muslims. Members of those demographics are highly unlikely to share Christian moral standards. Therefore, you must not trust them. If you do so, you put yourself in peril.

     Six years ago, I posted briefly about something I’d encountered in a humorous book, a “politically correct” dictionary of sorts. Though my focus this morning isn’t the same as it was then, the observation is nevertheless pertinent. I’ll repeat it here, with emphasis:

“Morally different”
Is a synonym
For EVIL.

     You may not be a practicing Christian, but if you’re of European descent, you’re likely to abide by the Christian moral code. Don’t assume that those of other heritages share that code with you. It could be worth your life.

     I have spoken.

The Latest Threats

     Avast, ye deck rats! The landlubbers be expectin’ a column, even an’ it be Talk Like A Pirate Day! Arr! Well, shiver me timbers, I’ll just have a peek into the “Future Columns” chest for some grub to serve up with yer rum. Now let’s see… ah, here we have it:

1984 playbook everywhere.🇨🇳

Last year 188,760 court records mentioned exit bans.

In 2016 that number was 89.

And now there’s a new law that says if the state thinks you might “endanger” tech or industrial security, they can stop you from leaving the country.

This applies to… pic.twitter.com/ViF0YXU3eG

— Haretina (@HaretinaK) September 17, 2026

     We hear a fair amount about “threats to national security,” these days. “National security” has been used to justify quite a lot of intrusions on Americans’ rights. But as I’ve said before, no one is willing to define it, nor to specify what might threaten it.

     Undefined rationales for suspending or dismissing individuals’ rights bother me a bit. What about you, Gentle Reader? I know, I know: don’t flog a dead horse. But it gets so much more interesting when governments do such things on the basis of one’s trade.

     Haretina Kukuri has brought her usual penetration to this latest outcropping of “threats to our security:”

     1984 playbook everywhere.
     Last year 188,760 court records mentioned exit bans.
     In 2016 that number was 89.
     And now there’s a new law that says if the state thinks you might “endanger” tech or industrial security, they can stop you from leaving the country.
     This applies to everyone by the way… engineers, researchers, and anyone with useful knowledge.
     Soft power stopped working so citizens were packing up and leaving.
     But the system did what systems do when they are authoritarian … it locked the doors.
     Your skills don’t belong to you first.
     They belong to the Party.
     Want to leave?
     Prove you’re not a risk.
     When a government starts treating talent like a national security asset you know what you are dealing with…
     But there is a problem…
     We’re watching the same logic show up in Europe…
     First they normalize tracking everything and sell it to you as security…
     Then movement stops being a right and starts becoming a privilege you have to keep earning!!
     China went straight to the hard version and said if the state thinks your knowledge or skills might be useful elsewhere, they can just stop you leaving.
     But China is ruled by a communist party, so why is Europe trying to promote similar rules?
     For me the direction of travel is obvious.
     More digital IDs.
     More real-time monitoring.
     More rules about who can board a plane when the system flags you.
     More politicians talking about “managing” mobility instead of protecting it.
     The pattern is always the same.
     It starts with a reasonable-sounding reason and it ends with the state deciding your ability to leave is conditional.
     People keep acting surprised when free movement gets treated like a temporary privilege.
     But it shouldn’t be because once a government gets used to controlling information and behavior at scale, controlling physical exit is the next logical step.

     In summary: “The needs of the State come first, comrade.” Today we hear it in every language spoken in the First World. The dirty stew of surveillance, unhallowed investigations, warrantless searches, and now exit bans, all of them founded on threats to undefined conditions, has reached its boiling point.

     Don’t kid yourself, matey. Haretina’s main concern is for Europe, but there’s no reason it couldn’t happen in America. Why shouldn’t “national security” include the forcible retention of “vital” skills and talents? The defense industry, in particular, hungers for them. And what would America be without its trillion-dollar defense industry?

     I shan’t dwell on this at length. Let it suffice to say that it’s vile, the most anti-freedom development since World War II. But let’s take a moment to ponder the second-order effects.

     If Country X makes emigration conditional upon government permission, what effect will that have on persons who might be contemplating moving to X? If X has become, in a charming recent phrase, an open-air prison, will the talented of other nations consider X a desirable place to tote their skills? Doesn’t it seem like Communist East Germany’s border guards might be in prospect? You know, the guys who were ordered to shoot persons attempting to escape as “an act of mercy?”

     Now consider persons already immured in Country X. When they see that freedom of movement has been abolished for certain skill categories, will they seek to acquire those skills? Won’t their interest in them take a hit? As for X’s employers who need those skills, what will happen to their businesses? Wouldn’t you expect applications for employment to decrease?

     Given the above, the next step would be for X’s government to legislate about salaries and working conditions for persons in those categories. Such legislation seldom favors the individuals’ interests.

     Ubiquitous surveillance technology could compound the damage still further. Schoolchildren detected to possess aptitudes that bear on those valuable skills might be “preselected” for involuntary training for the desired occupations. Don’t laugh it aside: it happened in the Soviet Union.

     In view of all that, is it really such a burden to spend just one day of the year talking like a pirate? Yes, yes: I know it’s not related. But think about it, ye scurvy knaves!

Ugly Day Ahead

     Things being as they are – and when aren’t they? – I won’t have time or energy for a fresh piece today, so I’d like to invite my Gentle Readers’ attention to three older pieces:

• What Are National Defense and National Security?
• What’s The Exchange Rate?
• A Failure To Understand, Or An Outright Deceit?

     …plus the snippet below, from Garet Garrett’s essay “Rise of Empire:”

---

     To outsmart the Constitution and to circumvent its restraints became a popular exercise of the art of government in the Roosevelt regime. In defense of his attempt to pack the Supreme Court with social-minded judges after several of his New Deal laws had been declared unconstitutional, President Roosevelt wrote:

     "The reactionary members of the Court had apparently determined to remain on the bench for as long as life continued—for the sole purpose of blocking any program of reform."

     Among the millions who at the time applauded that statement of contempt there were very few, if there was indeed one, who would not have been frightened by a revelation of the logical sequel. They believed, as everyone else did, that there was one thing a President could never do. There was one sentence of the Constitution that could not fall, so long as the Republic lived.

     The Constitution says: "The Congress shall have power to declare war."

     That, therefore, was the one thing no President could do. By his own will he could not declare war. Only Congress could declare war, and Congress could be trusted never to do it but by will of the people. And that was the innermost safeguard of the republic. The decision whether or not to go to war was in the hands of the people—or so they believed. No man could make it for them.

     It is true that President Roosevelt got the country into World War II. That is not the same thing. For a declaration of war he went to Congress—after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. He wanted it, he had planned it, and yet the Constitution forbade him to declare war and he durst not do it.

     Nine years later a much weaker President did.

---

     See you tomorrow, I hope.

Wisdom Is Where You Find It

     And who would know better than history’s most celebrated villains?

     And they dreamed big.

The Political Problem, Distilled To Its Essence

     A lot of people are justifiably disgusted with the total nonperformance of the Republican Party since President Trump returned to the Oval Office. That’s given rise to the notion that maybe we can only awaken the GOP to its responsibilities by punishing it: i.e., by refusing to support its candidates in the 2026 midterms, and perhaps in the 2028 elections as well.

     Consider the following rejoinder to that suggestion:

Tell me how you win.

I wave a magic wand *poof* The Democrats now hold all three branches of government comfortably, the Republicans are suitably chastised.

They feel great shame and sorrow over the loss.

Now the Left, firmly in bed with everyone from the cartels to the CCP to… https://t.co/TmWCWPBnLr

— BLACK DUMPLING™ (@BlackDumpling) September 16, 2026

     Black Dumpling’s conclusion is worth highlighting:

     You have gotten everything you asked for Nick. It's all burned.
     Now, tell me how you win. Tell me this wasn't all just an exercise in sacrificing children to Moloch because you're disappointed in the Trump administration not doing enough or doing too much of the wrong thing.
     Tell me how you and "The Good Guys" wrestle back control via whatever means you suitably desire. But no wishes there, we need concrete answers.

     That, I propose, is the essence of our political problem.

* * *

     I have periods during which I feel much like BD’s interlocutor “Nick.” As William E. Simon put it in A Time For Truth, we have two major parties: the Evil Party and the Stupid Party…except that I don’t think the Republican Party, its elected officials, or its strategists are stupid. They just look it to a casual observer.

     Human nature tells us that in any situation that demands a decision, when a range of possibilities are available to an individual, he will naturally be most attracted by the course that most benefits him personally. That’s Mankind for you: we look first to ourselves and our well-being. Not a surprise, is it?

     Now consider the political dynamics that prevail in a legislature whose component districts have largely polarized. That is a configuration likely to emerge over time, as private citizens and businesses move about to serve their own interests. It prevails today in the United States: the great majority of Congressional districts and states are regarded as “red” or “blue.” For a “red” candidate to defeat the “blue” one in a “blue” locale, or vice-versa, is significantly against the odds.

     The consequence is a steadily increasing indifference toward the perceived values and desires of voters. The elected official, having the backing of the party most aligned with his district, feels safe in his seat. Barring “being caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy,” he trusts in his perpetuation in office. He feels he can confidently pursue and defend his personal interests without fear of electoral reversal.

     Today, the majority of the GOP Congressional caucus represents such safe districts. Overall indifference to such minor considerations as the party platform and the values it espouses is only to be expected. Why risk funding, bad press, or the loss of admission to high Washington society just to act on a campaign promise? Especially as you have “strength in numbers:” i.e., you can claim that the fault lies with the rest of your caucus, deflecting the odium from yourself.

     When election time nears, you can play the game called “Vote for me or you’ll get him! He and his party are The Enemy. They’re a threat to your values! I, your Republican stalwart, am the only defense against what they want to do to you.”

     That dynamic synergizes with the natural corruptibility of men whose principal drive is for power over others. Having become safe in their seats, their attention veers ever more toward possibilities for personal gain at public expense.

     “Well, well, it’s all very natural, Wormwood.”

* * *

     More than the above, what pro-freedom Americans want to know is what we can do about it. Sadly, the answer is: Barring a successful revolution, not bloody much.

     The major parties are effectively impossible to depose. There are only two, and voting Democrat is unthinkable. Voting for a minor party isn’t quite as bad as voting Democrat, but it doesn’t advance the defense of what remains of your freedom, your property, or your Constitutional republic. You’re caught between the would-be despoilers of your country and a gaggle of men who will mount a token resistance to them.

     Moreover, the major parties have established de facto control over the electoral mechanisms. They’re entrenched; they “own” the media and the major conduits of funding. Note that during election reporting, the minor parties are ignored almost completely. There are a significant number of people who can’t even name a minor party, much less its candidates for office.

     I speak from experience here. I was once an official of the Libertarian Party. Even if we omit consideration of the predominance of marginal personalities in that party – it’s fallen a long way since the days of John Hospers, Roger MacBride, David Berglund, and Ed Clark – the party exists mainly to provide a relief valve of sorts to the most disgruntled citizens. The other minor parties are about equally ineffectual.

* * *

     Electoral politics offers very little hope to the pro-freedom / limited-government advocate. Your defense of yourself, your values, and your personal interests practically compels you to vote Republican. Yet if you’re not a cockeyed optimist, you’re aware, even if only subconsciously, that you can’t expect significant improvements. Even when the GOP controls all three branches of the federal government, the likelihood of major reductions in taxation, spending, regulation, oppression by law, and the general politicization of American life is vanishingly small. Republicans have little incentive to do anything constructive. They’ll deny votes to Democrats and keep their seats warm, but little else.

     We who miss what America was are looking at a bleak future.