Reflections on The Nature of Human Evil, Part I: Evil as Childishness

I often encounter the argument that libertarianism as a political philosophy must make exception for children and mental invalids on the basis of the fact that these individuals are not sufficiently rational. Generally, it seems that the claim is that under an individualist order, such individuals have insufficient mental faculties to adequately represent themselves or to understand the arrangements that they enter into, so that any arrangement cannot properly be considered 'voluntary' or 'consensual.' An order based on consent can hardly be expected to handle an individual incompetent to grant his own consent.

Actually, I think that most ideologies make such exceptions, whether in terms of rationality or the broader concept of intelligence, and in general that most people believe along similar lines that 'good' behavior, or 'socialization,' broadly speaking, is something 'learned' -- a matter of the intellect. The assumption seems to be that it is rationality, or at least it is primarily rationality, which is what allows for human beings to function as moral individuals capable of representing their own interests and respecting social norms, whether those norms are derived from libertarianism or communism or whatever.

First, I do not deny that children and mental invalids probably are less rational and less intelligent than fully grown and developed adults. But I do question whether it is primarily rationality which allows an individual to peacefully and successfully navigate his surroundings, social and otherwise. After all, violent criminals are often frighteningly rational people, while many lunatics and imbeciles who nevertheless manage to acquire a modicum of self-control and have been reasonably well trained-up in good habits may often be safely allowed out on the streets, mostly unsupervised. In fact, I sometimes wonder if maybe they might not constitute the majority of...

Well... never mind that. The point is, it seems to me that the real problem is that children fundamentally can't control themselves. I would also question just whether anyone actually can be said to 'understand' reality at all, let alone that everyone actually does except children and mental invalids, or whether this is perhaps a bit of a popular delusion one might creatively call 'rationalism.'  But I shall pass over that for now. Other things contribute to the difficulties of making arrangements for these groups, yes, especially their inability to 'understand,' but I think it is primarily a question of self-control. All the intelligence and rationality in the world can't make up for a deficit in this department.

And, in practice, it's not so much that they can't handle a libertarian system, it's that the system can't handle them. Inevitably, it breaks before they do. It is this lack of self-control that brings the whole thing down. It is simply impossible to deal in a free and easy manner with a person who has no control over his impulses.

Inevitably, childish impulsiveness meets with tyranny of one form or another, and either the tyranny wins, or the impulse does and becomes its own tyranny. And as self-control is a critical -- if not the central -- component of human virtue, it follows that 'unvirtuousness' -- 'evil' -- necessarily leads to a state of tyranny, while only by virtue may a person arrive at a state of liberty. So, as it seems to me, both liberty and tyranny are matters determined by the soul. Both come from within, and a child who does not learn self-control will never have any hope of tasting freedom, whatever kind of society he finds himself a part of.

But it is not merely children who suffer from childishness.

***

I claim no special knowledge of the field of psychiatry, but it is my understanding that there is a tradition of thought in that field which posits that psychoses and other personality disorders stem from disruptions to the process of childhood development, such that a person in some critical respect becomes 'stuck' in a childish state, unable to complete some process of maturation. He moves into adolescence and adulthood with some mode of his conduct governed by a childish, destructive frame of reference because his psyche is unwilling or unable to make the transition to a more truthful or mature point of view. A psychosis is a sort of childishness.

I do not know if this theory is correct, but I suspect that whoever came up with it based it on many of the same patterns which have occurred to me. As I observe myself and others, even historical figures, the 'evils' that befall them and the evils they inflict, as well as the 'evil' character flaws that lead to these behaviors, all too often resemble the silliness and oblivious self-centeredness of childhood. The posturing and mannerisms of an eccentric like a Qaddafi or a Hitler strike me not so much as anything like some dark sophistication, but as the manner of an impetuous little child. They are like vain little children with the faculties and potencies of a man -- physical, intelligence, and yes, even 'reason.'

It is for this reason that I strongly suspect that there is really no such thing as 'diabolical genius,' or if there is, it must be very rare, and really and truly diabolical. Most run-of-the-mill evil, even of the genocidal sort, seems to me more like the dissembling little child who carelessly knocked over the glass of milk but doesn't want to admit it for the sake of his foolish pride. The nature of human evil is more a lack of control than an active, intelligent force.

It doesn't scheme all that much, I suspect, at least in the active manner portrayed in the movies; it passively grasps at fleeting temptation, is long on opportunism but short of real initiative, and rages and broods at what frustrates it. The appearance of calculation in the villainous mastermind is mostly an illusion, I suspect. He probably merely fell into a useful pattern by a combination of trial and error to see what works, practicing to perfection the usual spur-of-the-moment dishonesty necessary to prolong whatever situation he finds himself in, and perhaps had a bit of luck or a few pointers at the hands of an elder crook. All this is a roundabout way of indulging a particular tendency rather than learning to control the tendency itself.

He was probably as good as caught many a time, if only his captor had had the energy and gumption to press ahead with a real and meaningful apprehension. He only looks as 'sophisticated' as he does now through a prolonged, almost a mechanically habitual, masturbatory practice, not as a matter of cultivated virtuosity. Deep down...well, there is no deep down to him. Like everything else about him, his 'sophistication' is a dissembling pretense. To those unfamiliar with his pattern of thoughts, its initial appearance may impress as having a resemblance to real intelligence. But ultimately, there is no real polish to him, there is nothing there there, only a greasy prideful sheen. Anyone who got to know him would see the 'sophistication' fall away, and would realize that there was very little him to know.

The slime-ball, glad-handing politician is no one but that kid who was elected class president in high school, who you know (and oh how he would prefer that you didn't!) started out as the bossy little tyrant of the playground that annoyed everyone with any sense. The drama-queen who gets wrapped up in every stupid cause and ruins her life 'helping' people who only take advantage of her is the little girl who never seemed to have a clue, who all the boys used for fun and tossed aside because she never developed any wisdom or common sense, preferring to live in her fantasy world than to face the facts as they were.

The thug serving time for breaking and entering is that kid you knew who used to steal candy from the corner store, whose grades always suffered because he spent all his time at school selling the loot. The psychopath who commits a horrific string of murders is the creepy kid nobody ever talked to, who found pleasure in his spare time torturing small animals because he never developed a sense of relating to the pain of others. Developing the insight and self-control to become 'normal' would have come at the cost of their childish gratifications, so they never bothered to do it, preferring instead to develop an accretion of pretense to protect it. As adults, not much changes, only the necessity of increasing the complexity of the fan dance that obfuscates the nature of the evil impulse to others -- and often to themselves.

All of them are stuck as children down inside, infants, toddlers, and adolescents who have gotten command of the levers controlling and adult body and intellect. To be sure, this is not to be dismissive of evil. A heavily armed toddler at the helm of a speeding automobile evading the authorities, or at the helm of a nation and in command of a nuclear arsenal, is a very dangerous thing.

***

I find this abstraction of 'evil as childishness' to be a very useful mental tool. Whenever I am confronted with a situation or a conflict in which I detect evil but I cannot understand, often viewing the actors through the lens of childishness will bring some insight.

When I encounter this kind of confusion, it is usually because I am trying to relate to the actors by 'putting myself in their shoes,' and this is a mistake. If I realize my mistake -- that 'I am not them' -- and then try to relate to them as they appear to me, sometimes I make some headway. But this approach can also be misleading. After all, I am not them; if I were, the first approach would have worked.

By trying to 'adjust myself to be them,' so that the situation makes sense, I wind up being forced to ascribe some very uncharitable qualities to them in order to make sense of what I see. But these qualities not only appear uncharitable, but also unreasonable and unrealistic if evaluated independently. In explaining the evil, they tend to stretch the limits or reasonableness and probability.

This is especially true when I am trying to bridge a large cultural gap, because I simply have a very difficult time understanding the other frame of reference. It begins to look feasible that some really awful and unrealistic personality traits are actually present, especially when one can find no other explanation for what he has seen to have actually taken place. Thinking about it, the reader can probably recall a whole slew of speculations of this sort.

But I think the mistake here is assuming an adult frame of reference merely from the appearance of adulthood. If I ask myself 'What thought or mental state or set of beliefs could persuade a grown adult to behave in the way I am observing this person to behave?', I must often come up with some very nasty answers. The answers are very different if I assume a childish frame of reference, but most people, myself included, don't usually think of adults as children. Viewing the situation through the lens of childishness -- especially a lack of self-control, insecurity, small-mindedness, self-centeredness, an inability to relate to the pain of others, to understand or acknowledge the probably consequences of one's actions, and other characteristically childish qualities -- many otherwise horrible or stupid actions begin to make sense in a much more reasonable way. For whatever reason the actors simply have not developed into adulthood in some critical regard, and yet have acquired the physical appearance and most of the other capacities of adulthood.

There is a point in almost everyone's life when he realizes that his parents are real people that aren't actually all that special, and that adulthood isn't really what he thought it would be. It is pretty much like being young, except older. It may seem rather condescending to view other people in this way, but sadly it is probably accurate. It helps every now and then to remember to view one's self in that light as well, and to remember what the alternative explanations might be. As all people are capable of evil, so also most people could do with at least a little more growing up in some aspect of their lives.

***

This idea of self-control and childishness is all very well and good, but it would do well to ask 'What exactly is this self-control going up against? What is one controlling?'

The easy answer, of course, is 'one's impulses.' Probably if I were to follow that path a little further, I might really find myself staring into the very pit of all darkness. Primeval chaos? Original sin? The devil himself? I'm not sure. Of course, whatever it is, it can't be all bad; some impulses are good, even the highest forms of human inspiration. But I think that even with leaving the answer here at 'impulses' there is a great deal of useful thinking to be done.

Mainly, it is useful to think about because not all people will experience the same impulses in the course of their lives. For starters, I'm quite sure that some people experience much more powerful impulses than others as a sheer matter of their individual constitutions.

For these people, a great deal more of the faculty of self-control must surely be required to over-ride these tendencies. I'm 'lucky,' I think, in that I don't in general feel most such impulses even as strongly as the average person, at least so far as I can tell, so I don't generally need much self-control to appear 'good.' In the impulse department, on most things I think I'm close to a flat-liner. There really is almost nothing to control. Others struggle mightily with things that I find totally uninteresting altogether. This isn't necessarily a matter of a lack of self-control for them; they may just find it all the more tempting. One shouldn't necessarily jump to conclusions that a vice is a sign of a weak constitution.

On the other hand I think that my type of situation can be a mixed blessing. Developing the strength of self-control for any particular circumstance is an experience in itself, and all habits are strengthened through repetition. Not having the habit of self-control for lack of need can be a set-up when that one oddball temptation comes along out of the blue. It can also be a handicap when some new need emerges, as in dealing with a bad habit when a change of necessity forces one's hand. It is difficult to break a habit when one isn't in general used to forcing himself to form new ones.

I think this is a big component in the geopolitical culture clash as well. For example, an American has had the world at his fingertips in a way that most Chinese have not -- and all the responsibilities and temptations to deal with that come with it. On the other hand, most Americans have not had to deal with the situation of surviving near-starvation. One's particular virtues can often come with a downside of never having met certain temptations in that the necessary circumstances never presented themselves. Where no impulse was ever present, it should not come as a surprise that there is a chink in the armor of discipline when it does surface.

As individuals and as peoples, the disciplines we have acquired and childish tendencies which have been allowed to persist are unique to our situations, and not necessarily to be so quickly despised when perceived in one another. It can be difficult to see the mote in one's own eye, and that works both ways.

***

For those with powerful impulses who are trying to 'learn' to overcome them, it goes without saying that one of the most detrimental things that can be done for their efforts is to indulge the impulse. Being in the company of personalities which encourage indulgent behaviors is really unhelpful.

Yes, I'm thinking of grandparents.

But I think the damage goes beyond sabotaging self-control. Indulgent personalities almost always have one thing in mind -- short-term comfort and happiness. Also, securing the affection of the indulged person is often a goal of this behavior. But the indulgence almost always has exactly the opposite effects.

This is easy to see in small children, who quickly learn that by 'putting on a show' of being upset that they can wheedle things out of weak (and indulgent) people. However, I think that the 'show' is less of a show than most people who observe this kind of behavior tend to assume. In general, I think that there is much less of a clear distinction between make-believe and reality within the psyche of humans -- especially those who are disposed to pretense, and especially in children.

After all, the best way to tell a good lie is to convince one's self on some level that the lie is actually the truth. Those squalling children trying to get their way I suspect are really upset on some level. The manipulative fit of drama can never be entirely truthful nor entirely pretense. That is no good reason at all to cave in to the demand, naturally. This is not an argument for leniency. What one shouldn't do, one shouldn't do, whether or not he is upset about it. Neither two-year-old nor fifty-two-year-old crybabies should have their destructive attitudes and impulses indulged by others. And there are good reasons that the indulgence should be resisted precisely because of the upset it induces.

If being perpetually upset is the way to reliably get what one wants, well, the strategy is clear. Indulgent caretakers given the care of an impulsive child reliably produce very unhappy, out-of-control children. And, seemingly paradoxically, such children often harbor resentment and anger towards the indulgent caretaker, not affection. But even less impulsive children I suspect are not well served by this kind of upbringing, as it tends to teach them to take the goodwill of others for granted, makes them weak, and does not prepare them well for the real world. Like their impulsive counterparts, they also tend to be selfish and disrespectful, if less in severity, because they have never really needed to learn not to be. Conversely, children who are consistently resisted in their impetuousness and expected to live up to their responsibilities tend to turn out much better adjusted, responsible, respectful, and, yes, loving. Most people find it easier to love when they are strong than when they are weak, and that it is more compelling and rewarding to love a strong person than a weak one. At least, that is what I observe.

But in general, I think most people already know all this. It is not usually the child's lack of self-control which is the real problem. It is the adult caretaker's.

Among impulsive adults, the behavior usually isn't quite so obvious as a tantrum. Most adults at least have that much self-control. The 'drama' manifests itself in other ways -- posturing and pretense, elaborate rationalizations, guilt-shifting attitudes. We all know someone who lives his life immersed in his own personal narrative of victimization, or passes from one all-too-avoidable drama to another, or in some self-constructed fantasy that somehow conveniently lets him off the hook for indulging in some behavior that would otherwise be obviously stupid and self-destructive.

Of course, to a degree we all must live in some abstraction of life or another, which we each construct on the basis of our own insight and character. But I think we tend to draw better abstractions when we have better command of our passions.

Competition, Seen And Unseen

There are two important articles at TownHall.Com today, both on the
subject of competition. The first, by Daniel J. Mitchell, addresses the
under-explored subject of competition among governments and the
imperative of federalism. The second, by Alan Sears, speaks of the
pressures being exerted on private, voluntary charity by governments
unhappy with competition in the eleemosynary field. I recommend them
both.

Government "charity's" principal purpose is to purchase political
support. It's been clear since FDR's first term that a politician given
the power to buy votes with tax money will do so until he's been
manacled and shoved into a Black Mariah. This has been one of the most
powerful drivers of the expansion of government at all levels for nearly
a century. It will continue to swell them until it's been put down
violently and permanently. Unfortunately, that happy day appears still
to be far in the future.

For the moment, we must address the disincentives government charity
faces, in hope of intensifying them and so curbing the State's predatory
tendencies. Surely whatever wholesome forms of competition exist should
be encouraged and defended, as well as any disincentives we can erect to
the acceptance of government handouts. But a discriminating eye will be
required; not all such forms are plainly visible, or ethically
acceptable.

Consider the "underground economy:" that sphere of enterprise that pays
no attention to taxation, law, or regulation except what's required to
evade them. There's quite a lot of it these days: in part due to high
levels of taxation and oppressive labor laws; in part due to a desire to
exploit instances of consumer demand that the State has decreed illegal.
Every sort of enterprise practiced there implicitly reduces the State's
opportunities for its forms of "charity." But picking and choosing among
those enterprises is required of a man with any sort of moral code.

For example, tradesman Smith, who deals exclusively in cash, is to be
commended for his insistence on the privacy of his dealings, and for the
discount from "above-ground" rates he can offer to his customers. The
State already gets too much of our money; every extra dollar that flows
to Washington is a dollar too many -- indeed, a dollar that will be used
to tighten our shackles and shorten our fetters. So this method of
employing Smith, who might otherwise be unable to find work, is morally
acceptable, and excellent competition for the State's desire to provide
his sustenance.

But what of contractor Jones, whose low rates are made possible by his
employment of illegal aliens as labor? Leave aside the "American jobs /
jobs Americans won't do" arguments, as they can never be settled to
everyone's satisfaction. Jones is providing an incentive to break the
nation's border control laws. Does it matter how well he treats his
workers, or how low he prices his services? Or is it more relevant that
those illegals are already here, and would otherwise be dependents of
the state? What of the steady increase in minimum wage rates nationwide,
which has made it impossible to hire "legal" labor to do what Jones's
customers need done?

And then we have merchant Davis, who sells heroin and cocaine. Davis
might have no other means of support. His customers might value his
services greatly; indeed, it's odds-on that they do. But a steady
percentage of those customers will turn into addicts, unable thereafter
to choose freely whether or not to patronize him. Some customers will
move outside the law in other ways, as well. And of course, the drug
trade is fraught with violence, in which an active participant of
Davis's sort is likely to be caught sooner or later.

Some alternatives, clearly, are easier to judge than others.

The great political battle of our time is the one to re-confine
government within its Constitutional cage. That's where the big payoffs
are. In the interim, many persons will choose some extra-legal means of
evading the State's attentions and predations. Not all of these are
praiseworthy in and of themselves...but every one of them is a response
to governmental overreach. As such, they can be harnessed rhetorically,
in the argument over the proper sphere of government, and they should be
so harnessed. But we must remember to condemn the negative ones on their
own account; no other stance is morally acceptable, let alone
politically profitable.

Predictions

"Prediction is hard, especially about the future." -- Author unknown

Quite a lot of people are nervous about the November elections. Some of
them aren't even office-holders. When people get nervous about a
possibility, they resort to trying to gauge its probability in advance
of the event itself.

That's when the fun really starts.

There have been so many wildly wrong predictions in American politics
that a sensible man should know better than to repose confidence in any
of them. Some have been based on bad statistical technique; others, on
correlations that proved not to be as firm as had been believed. (Anyone
else remember "As goes Maine, so goes the nation" -- ?) But all
predictions of any sort, whether or not they prove correct, share a
common, ineradicable failing: Those who want to believe them will invest
in them emotionally, usually to the exclusion of all objective evidence
and good sense.

Just now, several national polls have presumptive GOP nominee Mitt
Romney defeating Barack Hussein Obama on November 6. A few other polls
present the opposite result. The most interesting thing about this split
among the prognosticators is the cleavage between those who choose to
believe which poll. The pollsters themselves are dedicated to producing
a good, trustworthy prediction based on the soundest known techniques
and the most reliable evidence available at the moment. Their allegiants
mainly want a certain result, and will pledge their faith to whichever
poll best matches their preferences.

No doubt the folks whose opinions skewed the famous 1936 Literary Digest
telephone poll heavily in favor of Governor Alf Landon wanted to believe
that result, too. The election decreed otherwise, but the poll must have
been a comfort to Republican partisans and critics of the New Deal until
the balloting was held. A bare twelve years later, poll after poll had
Governor Thomas Dewey defeating Harry Truman, as well, similarly to the
chagrin of those who had put their faith in the polls beforehand.

The most important case of a recent prediction gone wildly wrong may be
the Election Night 2000 fiasco that had the major networks declaring Al
Gore the winner in Florida more than an hour before the polls actually
closed there. The result was massively embarrassing to many a talking
head: in part because no one wants to be wrong on camera, but in equal
part because they were almost undisguisedly Democrat partisans and Gore
backers.

I know, I know: this is all very interesting, a delightful study in the
presumptions of "specialists" and the arrogance of "experts," but so
what? This is what: How many of the Landon backers in 1936, the Dewey
backers in 1948, and Florida voters in 2000 refrained from voting
because they believed a prediction that turned out not to be accurate?

There's an exertion of effort involved in getting up off the couch and
going to the polls -- minor, to be sure, but it can be enough to keep a
"convinced" voter home. Why, after all, should you stir your stumps to
get to the polling place if you're dead certain that your side has it
"in the bag" -- or contrariwise?

That effect is a large part of the reason so many Americans disbelieve
in the objectivity of political polls. The use of a slanted poll to
depress one side's turnout seems just too tempting to resist, especially
since most polling experts are known to be partisans of one sort or
another.

Even if you're inclined to regard this as a "problem," there's no
"solution" applicable to large numbers of people. All you can do is
resolve to pay no attention to the polls...a rather difficult thing when
the latest poll results are displayed in 36-point type at the head of
every newspaper and the top of every Website, and trumpeted
authoritatively at the beginning of every broadcast news program.

Heroes

Yesterday afternoon, Beth and I indulged our taste for action movies and went to see Lockout, Guy Pearce's near-future star vehicle about a breakout on an orbital prison. Yes, we enjoyed it quite a bit, though perhaps for different reasons.

Pearce's character Snow is the archetype of the American hero of yesteryear: masculine, cool, fearless, unbending, and ready with a wisecrack for any occasion. He takes quite a bit of abuse -- though competent, Snow is neither indefeasible nor invulnerable -- but prevails in the end, in part due to a complete unwillingness to surrender to events. Indeed, in one critical scene, he embraces the probability of his own fiery death because it appears that there's no other way to fulfill his core mission: rescuing the daughter of the president.

I can't overemphasize how refreshing it was to see a movie built around such a character. Such figures, if not completely absent from recent entertainment, have definitely become an endangered species.

I write heroes, both male and female. I sculpt my stories around them because it's the sort of fiction I love best, the sort I prefer to read. Being an older guy, it's the sort I did read in my so-called formative years...which, if God is good, and He is, aren't over yet.

A long time ago, I proclaimed a definition of a hero that I continue to maintain: A hero is one who puts himself at risk for someone or something else.

An adventurer, who embraces risk in a quest for gain, is not a hero. One who fights in defense of his own life or property is not a hero. The sports figures paraded before us daily, some of whom are undeniably magnificent specimens of athletic prowess, are not heroes. Many of these might have admirable qualities, but until they thrust themselves into danger for someone else's sake, or in defense of some important principle, they remain merely specimens of Mankind interesting for specific reasons and in specific contexts.

A significant part of the reason for the gradual enervation of the American man's will and character has been the entertainment world's assault on America's traditional conception of a hero. Who in recent popular fiction qualifies as a hero? Who in recent popular cinema would qualify? Harry Potter? Katniss Everdeen?

Today's offerings are more likely to focus on antiheroes: men portrayed as victims of forces beyond their power to oppose. The archetypal antihero, Winston Smith of George Orwell's 1984, is ground to characterological powder by a State that will tolerate not even the thought of defiance and has the means both to smoke it out and to destroy it. We can sympathize with Winston's agonies; we can feel horror at the torments employed to break him; we cannot aspire to be him.

A society's hero figures are critically important to that society's spirit -- to its conception of its virtues, its strengths, and its destiny. Consider: America became the world's savior, defeating totalitarian powers in three successive world wars, because we stepped up. We weren't fighting for advantages for ourselves, or for our nation; we were fighting for freedom and justice. To the extent that they've served as the world's policemen, our fighting men have been willing to do so largely for the same reason: because we regarded freedom and justice as too important not to be defended, even at great national cost and great individual risk.

Apropos of the above, the rise of a careerist ethic in the ranks of our senior officers tracks strongly with the entertainment world's promotion of cynicism about heroes, and by extension, about our national character. It's not yet pandemic, but even a hint of it should be viewed with great alarm: a nation whose military commanders think more of their prospects of winning high rank than of the nation and the ideals for which it stands is a nation in danger of being abandoned by its own defenders.

A nation is more than a demarcated territory. It's more than a Constitutional tradition. It's certainly more than a common language and culture. If it is not more than these things, singly or in aggregate, it has little chance to sustain itself against the assaults and villainies of those who would profit from its diminution or demise.

A nation that will endure, that will leave its mark upon the ages, must express, through the characters and deeds of its men, a set of moral principles.

Men acquire their principles and aspirations from their culture's myths and traditions, and most particularly from the heroes at the center of its greatest stories. Even the heroes of the purest fiction play a part...perhaps, given how few of us are ever put to a significant test in this time of great comfort, the largest part of all.

Capital Ideas

In the ongoing presidential campaign, we may expect a handful of broad themes to receive the overwhelmingly greater fraction of the Democrat propagandists' efforts:

• "Republican war on women"
• "The 1%"
• "Fairness"

The "fairness" canard is, of course, aimed at cowing the GOP's Congressional caucus, its candidates, and the electorate into bowing to higher taxation. In this connection, the Democrats' dominant meme has been that "millionaires and billionaires" are somehow evading paying their "fair share" of federal taxes, and that this contributes to the immense Obamunist deficit.

Let's see if I can make this as striking as it always was at Eternity Road:

BALDERDASH!

Anyone who's been even half awake as the political arrows have flown past must surely know by now that the top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all income taxes, while 47% of American households pay no federal tax at all. Please be aware that capital gains taxes, a particular favorite of the Democrats, are included in "income taxes."

If one one-hundredth of our populace paying two-fifths of our national bills is "unfair," then I ask you: to whom?

Isn't it time we asked that question of the Democrats explicitly, and with maximum scorn?

* * *

Capital-gains accounting has a somewhat unfamiliar flavor to many Americans, even though, as matters stand, more than half of us will have to grapple with its effects at some time in the future, either personally or through a paid tax preparer.

Broadly speaking, anything you, Gentle Reader, acquire in the hopes that its value will appreciate is considered capital. The difference between what you paid for it and what you sell it for is defined as "capital gain." Here's the Infernal Internal Revenue Racket Service's statement on the subject:

Did you know that almost everything you own and use for personal or investment purposes is a capital asset? Capital assets include a home, household furnishings and stocks and bonds held in a personal account. When you sell a capital asset, the difference between the amount you paid for the asset and its sales price is a capital gain or capital loss.

Currently, for a middle-class taxpayer who has bought an asset -- usually, stocks, bonds, or other investment vehicles -- and has retained it for two years or more, the tax rate on his gain when he sells it is 15%. If he's fortunate enough to have owned a second home, or any other real estate other than his primary residence, the same rule applies.

If you have any investment vehicles other than in the unique form of a 401(k) account, capital-gains taxation will eventually matter to you. The rate at which your gains will be taxed will matter to you...possibly quite a lot. But as important as it might be to you personally, it will be far more important to the American economy. The reason can be summed up in a single word:

MALINVESTMENT

The higher the capital-gains tax rate, the more reluctant are those who hold a significant amount of capital to sell it, or any portion of it. When an economy is in the doldrums, as is that of the United States at this time, that reluctance to sell and be hit with cap-gains taxes tends to "freeze" investments wherever they happen to be. In the terms favored by financial analysts, high cap-gains taxes decrease the liquidity of American capital holdings overall.

But an economy in recession needs for capital to get into motion: in particular, away from investments that have proved faulty and toward new, promising opportunities. To the extent that capital is rendered "sluggish" by high cap-gains tax rates, that process is retarded, and the recession is prolonged.

Barack Hussein Obama and his Fairness Chorus are aiming at the current cap-gains tax rate. They want to raise it, as sharply as politically possible. A high cap-gains rate wouldn't bring in a lot of additional federal revenue, even in the short term, but it would improve the regime's negotiating position vis-a-vis those corporations and investment institutions that would like to become its favored cronies -- to say nothing of the galvanizing effect such a move would have on the left-wing base of the Democrat Party.

So when you hear Obama prattling about "fairness," you should translate it to "class warfare," "crony capitalism," and "Occupy Wall Street."

* * *

You haven't seen the worst of it yet. I have yet to describe what happens when the effects of government inflation are included.

Whenever the Federal Reserve Bank increases the supply of currency and credit -- for example, by purchasing Treasury bills -- the value of every dollar in the economy is reduced in proportion. Over time, that will cause an increase in the overall price level of everything. You will pay more tomorrow for the items you purchase today, regardless of what they are. That effect will also apply to investment vehicles such as stocks and bonds, even if the volume of trade in them is very low.

An example will help to clarify this. Suppose Smith purchases 100 shares of XYZ Corp. at $10 each, today in 2012. Net price: $1000. Imagine that by 2022, the steady inflation of the dollar has expanded the volume of currency and credit to twice what it was at Smith's time of purchase. Were Smith to sell his XYZ Corp. holdings at $20 per share, the $2000 he receives would purchase no more, in consumer goods and services, than it would have in 2012. Yet the IRS would claim that Smith has realized a capital gain of $1000, and would demand a tax on it.

The destruction of the dollar by government inflation -- currently, the Federal Reserve Bank purchases over 60% of new federal debt, using money created out of thin air -- is ongoing and severe. It hasn't yet made its power completely visible, owing to the large cash balances being held by major corporations and institutions reluctant to invest in today's political and economic climate. But it will; there's no surer proposition in all of economics.

Inflation has crippled many nations throughout history: Weimar Germany, Revolutionary France, and Chiang Kai-shek's China are only the most dramatic cases. Combining high inflation with high cap-gains tax rates is a death blow even to a healthy economy -- and ours is already on the ropes.

* * *

All of this is okay with the Obamunists. They want to retain the White House and as many seats in Congress as they can; if that requires crippling the economy, guaranteeing protracted unemployment for millions of Americans, and endangering the retirements of millions of others, so be it. More, as I mentioned above, high cap-gains tax rates give them a lever to use against corporations and investment houses that won't do their bidding. So they play the class-warfare game, rant about "fairness," and intimate over and over that for Smith to do well, particularly with his investments, somehow forces Jones to do poorly.

Spread it around, particularly among your "fairness-minded" friends.

Come Back! Come Back!

The reader response to my offhand suggestion that the old band of Eternity Road Co-Conspirators might be reassembled here was quite positive. Accordingly, now that I've more or less ceased to tinker with this dive, I am officially inviting those of my former partners in commentary who are still willing to be associated with me to become co-contributors here at Liberty's Torch.

How about it, guys and dolls? Got any words left in the tank?

Gender Galtery?

Dr. Helen Smith has posted a curious inquiry at PJ Media today:

I have spent the week talking with experts and others about how men can fight back against the backlash and misandry that is so rampant in our culture and many have given me good suggestions for my book. However, one way of fighting back is “going Galt,” that is–going on strike–against the system and individuals who are causing the problem....

My question to male readers is, what are your suggestions on how to “Go Galt” as a man in a female-centered society? Do you think this route is a viable one to making a change in society or is it just good for a man on an individual level, or is it a poor way to fight back in your opinion?

As Dr. Helen notes immediately, there are many ways of refusing women what they claim as their due from men: refusing to marry, working at subsistence occupations, and so on. But there are more aspects to the matter than merely the economic.

The essence of "going Galt" in any context is to challenge its ultimate implications by putting them into practice. That is: think through the implications of The System, from its fundamental premises and hypotheses all the way to their furthest stops, and then conduct yourself exactly according to their demands. Consider: Economically, in a System that excoriates creators, producers, and capitalists, it means going almost completely limp: making just enough money to sustain your life, but creating nothing from which others can derive a profit or make further advances. Many men have already chosen this course.

In terms of gender relations, what are "the system's" premises and hypotheses, and what implications follow from it? Well, one thread that comes to mind at once runs as follows:

1. Premise: Men have "oppressed" women and therefore, women are owed some form of retribution.
2. Premise: Women are men's equals, not merely before the law, but in every imaginable way.
3. Hypothesis: If women were to do all the traditionally male jobs, they would be done just as well as men have done them.
4. Implication: Let women do those jobs without male colleagues or male assistance.

Okay, where shall we start?

• Police
• Military
• Firefighting
• Commercial fishing
• Subsurface work (e.g., mining, sewer work)
• Jobs involving high risk of exposure to hazardous substances
• Miscellaneous emergency services (e.g., paramedical, mountain and water rescue)

That list might not be exhaustive, but those are the major "dirty chancies" that men have dominated for centuries. Some women have entered those fields, but very few in proportion to the ongoing preponderance of men. If men were to "go Galt" in their gender relations, we would swiftly find out how well those jobs would be done with only women in them.

It won't happen, of course. At least, not in America. With some exceptions, American men are still men: self-respectful, self-reliant, willing to prove themselves against challenges and hardships, and (brace yourselves, ladies) protective of women. The American male psyche will not be swiftly rewired. Neither will that of the American woman. Indeed, the typical American woman has become so fragile a hothouse flower that she can't bring herself to lower a toilet seat, change a cat box, or take the garbage out to the curb. Working eight hours a day, five days a week in a fluorescent-lit, air-conditioned office overpopulated by grubby, disgusting men already taxes her to the edge of sanity.

But one of the implications of that observation is that women's carping about their imagined lowly status in American society will evoke a steady increase in men's resentment of their objectively lowly status. Resentment, when it reaches a certain level, will occasion outbreaks of resistance and retaliation, which will span a wide spectrum. As the major media are aligned with the notion that women currently get the short end of the stick, they'll use those incidents to fan the flames, and things will get worse.

Hm, it seems I've predicted a real "war of the sexes," to take the place of the one women imagine to exist in the present day. I doubt either men or women will like it much.

Please Allow Me A Day Off

Composing yesterday's post was a wearying adventure, and as I've been
cranking 'em out furiously in hope of rebuilding my readership, I'm a
bit dry of words just now.

And thanks to all of you who have written with messages of appreciation,
encouragement, and support.

Terminus Part 4: Fight, Flight, And The Approach Of The Cusp

It's time to round off this short series of screeds.

If these "Terminus" posts have struck you, Gentle Reader, as unusually angry or strident, I can scarcely be surprised. I'm very angry; the country is going downhill far faster than even I expected it to go, and good men have done little more than complain about it. My contempt at such limpness in the face of social, economic, and political calamity has caused me to jack up the stridency of my prose. Whether that's for good or for ill, I can only wait and see.

* * *

The belief that our difficulties can be solved entirely through the political process is among the most pernicious fantasies of our time.

Regard well the political trends of the century behind us. Start from about 1912, to make it an even hundred years. I'm not going to do the work for you. Grab a pad and a pencil, and make ready to draw some graphs.

Top income tax rate in 1912: 0%.
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: $20.67.

In 1912, the year before the enactment of the Sixteenth Amendment and the Federal reserve Act, the nation elected Woodrow Wilson to the presidency. He brought with him a certain Colonel Edward M. House, a dear friend and trusted advisor, who had written a book titled Philip Dru, Administrator, about a Utopia brought about by soft-fascist means. The policies House's fictional protagonist pursued had much in common with those he commended to Wilson...and which Wilson, more often than not, adopted as his own.

We need not dwell overlong on the substance of those policies. What matters most is the attitude behind them, which is common to all statist thought: that wise men given unbounded power over the rest of us can bring about conditions far preferable to those free men could attain on their own initiative. That attitude informs every element of the Wilson Administration's policies, foreign relations not excepted. Many of those policies were made politically possible by the war Wilson had promised Americans he would keep us out of: World War I.

Top income tax rate at the end of the Wilson Administration: 77% above $35 million (2011 dollars).
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: still $20.67.

The Harding Administration immediately set about reducing the size of the federal government, in particular reducing its annual expenditures by about 40%. The Coolidge Administration largely continued Harding's austere-government policies. However, the personal income tax, which had already become an object of detestation to private citizens, remained in place.

Top income tax rate at the end of the Coolidge Administration: 25% above $1.28 million (2011 dollars).
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: still $20.67.

Forward to the Great Depression and its sequelae. Wilson's pet creation, the Federal Reserve Bank, had so grotesquely inflated the supply of currency and credit -- an average annual rate of 7.7% over the Twenties -- that when investor confidence finally wobbled and the "institutionals" acted to reduce their exposures, panic raced through the markets and the pyramid of inflated values collapsed. "Great Engineer" Herbert Hoover, a thoroughgoing statist, was determined to restore the previous state of affairs through federal intervention. Most poignant of all the measures of his administration was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which, together with the "retaliatory" tariffs enacted by America's trading partners, guaranteed a worldwide depression.

In the presidential campaign of 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt ran on a small government / hard money platform, opposed to Hooverian interventionism both implicitly and explicitly. Roosevelt won by a large margin...and immediately jettisoned his campaign platform. Among his very first moves was to command the surrender of all gold coins held by American citizens, and to forbid domestic trade in gold other than for ornamental purposes. Unable to decree an end to the redemption of the dollar by foreign holders, FDR started raising the dollar price of gold in increments, thus gradually reducing the federal government's gold exposure overseas.

Roosevelt and his advisors were politically canny. They assured his regime substantial support by a combination of methods, most notably their liberation of the labor unions from most of the restraints of the law, their enactment of a massive program of subsidies to American farmers, and the creation of hundreds of thousands of make-work jobs to absorb a hefty fraction of the nation's unemployed. All this, coupled to his cult of personality, the first one advanced by a federally guided and funded effort, allowed Roosevelt to do something no previous president had dared: He successfully ran for a third and a fourth term.

Top income tax rate in 1936: 79% above $80.7 million (2011 dollars).
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: $35.00, private ownership illegal.

Roosevelt, like Wilson, campaigned for re-election in 1940 on a no-war promise: "Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." But after the depression that surged back in 1939 proved intractable, he found it expedient to renege on that promise. Roosevelt, like Wilson, had a habit of lying for political purposes...especially the promotion of his cult of personality.

Top income tax rate in 1941: 81% above $76.3 million (2011 dollars).
Top income tax rate in 1942: 88%.
Top income tax rate in 1944: 94%.
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: still $35.00, private ownership still illegal.

With the cessation of World War II and the demobilization of America's 11 million man draft Army, massive reductions in the size of the federal Leviathan became plausible...and failed to occur. The Truman Administration terminated Roosevelt's war contracts, but it retained the immense superstructure of the wartime regulatory state essentially intact. Several companies that had grown very large on war contracts, and had succeeded in eliminating smaller competitors thereby, lobbied for the retention of the regulatory regime as a stability measure. When the Korean War broke out and American forces were once again sent into a foreign adventure, those companies smoothly resumed their wartime businesses, albeit on a smaller scale.

Top income tax rate in 1954: 91% above $1.67 million (2011 dollars).
Consumer Price Index: 26.86
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: still $35.00, private ownership still illegal.

The Eisenhower Administration was centrist in its overall behavior. The Democrats controlled Congress, making it difficult for Eisenhower, a conservative by temperament, to haul down any of the larger manifestations of the federal Leviathan. Though the United States was at peace throughout the Eisenhower period, the federal government's activities were largely unchanged -- certainly undiminished -- from the Korean War years.

Top income tax rate in 1961: 91% above $1.67 million (2011 dollars).
Consumer Price Index: 29.92
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: still $35.00, private ownership still illegal.

John F. Kennedy, who enjoyed a favorable Congress, was able to curb new federal excesses with fair effectiveness, though he wasn't inclined to attack existing ones. He did, however, appreciate the economically retardant effect of high income taxes, and rammed through a reduction in rates as a key part of his economic program.

Top income tax rate in 1964: 77% above $2.85 million (2011 dollars).
Consumer Price Index: 31.02
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: still $35.00, private ownership still illegal.

Lyndon Johnson was Big Government personified. He believed passionately in government's ability to solve problems, bring about social improvements, and generally advance the nation on all fronts. To him, we owe Medicare and Medicaid, massive expansions of the Social Security entitlement and the federal welfare system, "urban renewal," and of course the great expansion of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Despite the continuously ballooning costs of all these things, he never retreated from his conviction that government is, if not the only answer, at least an effective one, to most phenomena viewed as "problems.

Top income tax rate in 1968: 70% above $1.42 million (2011 dollars).
Consumer Price Index: 34.90
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: $42.25, private ownership still illegal.

Richard Nixon, though reviled by Establishment historians, is generally underappreciated. Every president since Wilson had argued for or passively conceded the necessity of military conscription: "the draft." Certainly no president had made any attempt to limit or rescind it. Nixon made that possible by dramatically reducing America's commitment of troops to the Vietnam War: by 1972, it was down to 10% of Johnson's commitments. The indefinite suspension of conscription, in August 1973, was among the proudest achievements of his administration -- and bitterly opposed, not merely by Democrats but by a substantial fraction of Congressional Republicans.

Yet Nixon was no libertarian. He ended the redeemability of the dollar by foreign holders -- "closed the gold window" -- in 1971, making the dollar a purely fiat currency. The federal regulatory state continued to swell, including the birth of the Environmental Protection Agency, one of Washington's most vicious creations. He imposed wage and price controls during the 1973 recession. Federal revenues and expenditures continued to increase.

Top income tax rate in 1976: 70% above $0.53 million (2011 dollars).
Consumer Price Index: 57.00
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: still $42.25, private ownership illegal.

Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II...all have permitted, some eagerly and some grudgingly, the expansion of the federal government, its power and prerogatives, and of course its revenues and expenditures. Even Reagan, the self-described "small-l libertarian," proved unable to halt the expansion of the regulatory state; the number of persons on the federal payroll increased by 13% during his eight years in office. As for the explosion in deficit spending, it speaks for itself.

Need I say anything about Barack Hussein Obama? Or that the continuing belief in political saviors is unsupported by our historical experiences?

Top income tax rate in 2012: 35% above $0.38 million (2011 dollars).
Consumer Price Index: 228.43
Price of 1 Troy oz. of gold in dollars: $1660.00, private ownership legal once more.

* * *

We have seen a century-long convergence on an Omnipotent State, seldom impeded in any degree by whatever regime held power in Washington. For the most part it's been gradual, except when a crisis -- usually a war -- has provided a pretext for acceleration. For the private citizen, life has become ever more complex, more expensive, and less free.

In time with the expansion of federal power and the erosion of private rights has come a steadily broadening and intensifying campaign against general knowledge of what's going on. This campaign has been conducted both inside and outside the halls of power; government, the media, and numerous special interests have all colluded to deflect public attention away from the progression toward totalitarian control of the nation.

Privileged special interests, whether by legislation or lax enforcement of the law, have begun to Balkanize the nation around provincial and notional concerns. Of course, there has never been a time when sectional interests haven't clashed over sectionally relevant matters such as tariffs, but today's constellation -- racial, gender, ethnic, sexual orientation, educational, environmental, labor unions, and so forth -- has attempted to shut down open-minded discussion of nearly every important subject in political discourse. Seldom do the flacksters for such interests argue for their positions on rational grounds, with objective evidence for support; they'd much rather denounce their opponents as racists, sexist, xenophobes, homophobes, enemies of the environment, enemies of education, or what have you.

The core of the power-seeker's strategy is to divide to conquer. Therefore, it is his aim, wherever and whenever possible, to cause citizens to gather into issue-oriented groups that other issue-oriented groups will view as competitors for government privileges and public allegiance. In recent years, the campaign's public-sector component has become completely visible and maximally vile, yet seemingly nothing can be done to halt it. The private-sector components have become ever bolder about their use of intimidation, threats, and outright violence.

Everything has begun to move very, very fast.

The cusp -- the point at which the rates of change become infinite -- has been approaching for some time. It may have arrived in 2012. At the cusp, there are only two alternatives: fight and flight.

If you dislike both, why sit you here idle?

* * *

The inevitable question is, of course, "But what can I, a mere individual, do about it?"

I can't answer that question for everyone in every set of circumstances. Many persons have proffered advice of various sorts. All of it is good:

• Save aggressively, and put a great part of those savings into precious metals, the only trustworthy store of value over time.
• Fill your available storage with foods that have long shelf lives, and other necessities of life unlikely to degrade over the long term.
• Arm yourself. Become proficient in the use of firearms. Teach your spouse and your children, as well.
• Minimize your dealings with large companies and companies based outside your locale. Big Business is the handmaiden of Big Government; you cannot have an economy dominated by gargantuan companies without Big Government to suppress smaller competitors through taxation and regulation. Therefore, prefer more local merchants over distant ones, and smaller ones over larger ones, whenever you have a choice in the matter.
• Get onto the best possible terms with your neighbors, such that you all know that you can count on one another's assistance and support in most imaginable crises.
• Explore the virtues of "non-dollar-based" commerce. (This has cost me a couple of thousand dollars in giveaways: pure silver and copper coins made by private coiners. Such gifts always come as a surprise, and are always appreciated.)
• "Raise consciousness" -- a detestable term, but I can't think of a better one -- among your neighbors and colleagues about the national crisis, and the role individuals can play in halting and reversing our slide toward destruction.

In other words, dig in. Provide for unpleasant contingencies, marshal as many allies as you can find, avoid funding the enemy, and make ready to resist his further assaults, as best you can.

Trouble is, not everyone can follow that program. It takes a lot of discipline, plus the willingness to forgo the enjoyment of certain opportunities and pleasures. Families with minor children will find it especially difficult to hew to it.

All the same, there's hardly a measure available to the ordinary American family that's missing from that list.

* * *

As it has been said for centuries, those who want peace must prepare for war. Similarly, those of us determined to maintain our freedom must be prepared to resist incursions on it. The only conceivable means by which the power-mongers can be deterred, and possibly compelled to retreat, is the creation of an informal resistance force ready, willing, and able to fight and too large and too well prepared to be overcome by the tools and methods at their disposal.

I don't want a violent revolution; in the classic formulation, I'm "too old for that shit." Many of us would say the same. And indeed, this conflict might outlive us all. Thus, those who have minor children must take care to educate them, as we've educated ourselves, in the use of the government-run schools as instruments of propaganda, the history of the United States, the evils of unlimited power, and the means of keeping all power in check. Indeed, that might prove to be the most important item of resistance of all; contemplate how much of the propaganda we've been slathered with is founded on propositions about the welfare of America's children.

The cusp -- the terminus of the American concept of individual liberty and our experiment in Constitutionally constrained government -- may not yet be upon us. But given your knowledge of history, your perception of the battles in progress, and your sense for today's rates of change, how long do you think we have left?

"Up on your feet, you ward heelers, you courthouse loafers. Can you not see that Rome is burning?" -- Robert A. Heinlein, The Puppet Masters

Terminus Part 3b: Hurry, Hurry, Hurry

Permit me to speak in abstractions for a moment.

Imagine that the Wazznians have been eyeing the possibility of invading
neighboring Brux, toppling its regime, and seizing its lands. Imagine
further that the rulers of Wazznia -- nasty fellows, really -- have
harbored this ambition for some time, and are passionately dedicated to
it. Finally, imagine that, though Wazznia's military strength vis-a-vis
Brux has been growing, it's not yet decisively greater; moreover, it's
highly unlikely to grow any further, even shows signs of waning.

Given all those postulates, what decision would you expect the rulers of
Wazznia to make? Would they simply abandon their ambitions of a Greater
Wazznia at Brux's expense, or would they say to one another, "there'll
never be a better time to strike," and cast the military die?

I won't say that every autocrat, presented with those circumstances,
would choose to strike, but I will say that some will -- and perhaps a
majority, at that.

Now let's talk about politics.

Since World War II, the nation has surrendered, incrementally, to two
polemic tactics wielded most skillfully by the Democrat Party: the
imposition of unearned guilt, and the evocation of unwarranted
compassion. The unearned guilt is, of course, about America's long-dead
practice of slavery; the unwarranted compassion is for groups nominated
as "helpless" or "downtrodden," whether their plight came about by
chance or by deliberate action. The national response to these tactics
has been most gratifying to the Democrats, who owe much of their
political ascendancy to them.

But both tactics are waning in force. The attempt to evoke guilt over
race relations, most particularly by accusing anyone who dissents from
the Democrats' claims and policy preferences of "racism," has begun to
backfire more often than not. The attempt to make ordinary Americans
feel responsible for succoring the Democrats' various victim-groups also
appears to have crested, and is facing a sharp reduction in
effectiveness. Yet these are the principal political weapons in the
Left's arsenal.

I speak here of tactics rather than values. No sane man, viewing the
national tableau, could dispute that the law has done more than it
should in its attempts to compensate for America's historical injustices
toward Negroes. No sane man, aware of the size of the nation's
aggregated "welfare" efforts, could argue that our governments should be
given still more power and money with which to "help the needy." The
hardest of hard-core left-liberals could never make an objective case
for either proposition. Yet they continue to press it, using the
emotional pistons of guilt and compassion.

Now that those tactics are losing their power, what ought we to expect
from the Left?

My assessment is that it's even money, if not more likely, that we'll
see the Left marshal its allies -- the media, the special-interest
groups, corporate cronies, and racialists and victimists of every stripe
-- and attempt to galvanize them into maximum militancy.

The George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin affair is one weathervane. The
Left has done everything but a rain dance in the attempt to whip up
public fury over this incident, and to make Republicans and
conservatives its targets. Consider the bounty the New Black Panthers
have placed on the head of George Zimmerman. Consider the threats of an
outright "race war" -- a foolish notion, considering that American
Negroes make up a mere 13% of the population, and the less wealthy, less
well armed portion at that -- should "justice" not be done. Consider
that no prominent Democrat, whether he holds public office or not, has
spoken against this tide.

The "war on women" theme is another indicator. For daring to suggest
that ObamaCare's requirement that Catholic institutions must insure
their employees' purchases of contraceptives and abortifacients is a
violation of First Amendment protections, Republicans and conservatives
are being assailed furiously as enemies of women. The facts of the
matter are plain enough. Catholics' reactions are plain enough. The
degree of inter-creedal support for the Church's position is impressive
enough. Yet the Left continues to press this theme, knowing that it must
break through now, on this front, or lose its opportunity for the
foreseeable future.

Finally we have the "Occupy" madness. Masses of lawless vandals in city
after city have effectively seized public property and taken it private
-- and for what? To scream for more free stuff from the government! Yet
the Democrats are, if not vociferously, at least tacitly in support of
this insurrection. For them, it's strike now, while the iron is at least
warm, or strike never.

We are in danger of a change so large as to dwarf any event in American
political history except the Civil War. Race, creed, gender, ethnicity,
and relative financial standing are all being harnessed to the Left's
war chariot. Yet supposedly intelligent conservatives are still trying
to placate blood enemies: power-seekers who would commit any crime,
perpetrate any fraud, and sacrifice any value, to attain total hegemony
over these United States.

How do you plan to respond? What are you willing to say, in public where
everyone can hear, in defense of freedom, equality before the law, and
Constitutional rule? Should there be insufficient non-violent pushback
to quell the forces being mobilized against them, where will you stand?

"Let us not speak falsely now; the hour is getting late." -- Robert
Zimmerman / "Bob Dylan"

The Test Of Fire

It is beyond question that in the past, the Catholic Church in America has unwisely taken political positions that are antithetical to the American ideals of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and Constitutionally limited government. But it is also beyond question that the Democrats, whose passion for power respects no bounds, have targeted the Church as a principal adversary in the upcoming election. There is no other imaginable explanation for the Obamunists' determination to impose a requirement on Catholic institutions to provide their employees health insurance that will cover contraception and abortifacients.

Which makes this ad eminently worthy of wide promotion:

May God protect the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic, enlighten her electorate as we draw near to November, and guide the Church in all places and times.

Terminus Part 3a: Thoughts About IQ

With regard to the previous segment, John Derbyshire's citation of the
measured IQ differences between American Negroes and non-Negroes, as
statistical aggregates, has drawn some critical attention. Martin
McPhillips, than whom there is no one I admire or respect more, gigs
Derbyshire for a lack of "generosity of spirit" for that particular part
of his notional "talk." Others have commented in a fashion that suggests
that what Martin has in mind is unclear. So (of course) I'm stepping in
to clarify -- or to muddy the water further; take your pick.

IQ testing has been fraught with uncertainties for some time. One of the
central objections to using IQ test results as a gauge of overall
intellectual competence is that a testee with any sort of reading
impediment will be hobbled thereby. The ability to read is an acquired
skill. It's possible that even a very bright person might somehow have
been prevented from mastering it. Therefore, there will always be some
very bright persons who, whether because of visual problems,
second-language problems, or dyslexia, will score far lower on an IQ
test than their innate ability, unencumbered by their reading
difficulties, would allow.

The charge has some substance. One of the demonstration populations for
it, Eastern European Jews who entered the U.S. early in the Twentieth
Century, scored below the national mean on IQ tests administered by the
Army as acceptance and classification tests. This was almost entirely
due to language difficulties; as that population and its progeny
accommodated to the English language, their mean scores rose swiftly.
Today, the descendants of those Jews score well above the national mean
-- and outpace other identifiable groups in the acquisition of advanced
degrees and other sorts of intellectual honors, as well.

Test designers have learned to compensate reasonably well for most
intelligence-irrelevant discriminators, but reading impediments remain a
difficult problem. Thus, the significant deficit in American Negroes'
mastery of standard English, compared to other American sub-populations,
continues to put them at a disadvantage in IQ testing. This effect
cannot easily be measured or separated out from other causal factors
related to low IQ test scores.

All that to one side, practical considerations remain paramount. One who
finds it difficult to read / write / speak / understand standard
English, and who will therefore be disadvantaged in IQ testing, will
suffer quite similar handicaps in any other intellectual endeavor. With
the exception of pure mathematics, there is no field of intellect to
which language competence is irrelevant. Employers, however generously
inclined they might be, must take that into account in hiring, tasking,
and promotion decisions.

So while it remains admirable to take a generous attitude toward those
whose IQ scores might be depressed entirely because of their language
problems, and to offer what help is appropriate and will be graciously
accepted, the fundamentals remain as they are: We cannot blithely assume
that linguistically handicapped Smith will perform as well in an
intellectual role as linguistically competent Jones. The possible cost
of being wrong is high. Worse, a mismatch between Smith's overall
competence and the tasks to which he's assigned will have a prolonged
negative effect on him, undermining his competence for any future
undertaking.

It is cruel to assign a man to a role for which he's unequipped. We
don't make blind men into snipers, and we don't assign deaf men to
answer the phones. Yet the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and
the regulations it presumes to enforce are completely numb to such
considerations. They persist in suing employers for not having a
particular distribution of the races among their employees. To the best
of my knowledge, only Sears, among all the companies the EEOC has
targeted, has fought back and won.

A coda: Generosity must proceed from the recognition that someone could
use a hand -- that he's in difficulties that aren't, strictly speaking,
his fault. The recognition does not invalidate the generous gesture.
Neither does the gesture somehow negate the recognition.

Food for thought.

Terminus Part 3: Suppressing Communications

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell

Sharp-eyed readers will note that the link to National Review Online has vanished from my list of useful or interesting sites. Some will ask why; others will know.

For those not yet aware, the reason is this John Derbyshire article:

There is much talk about “the talk.”

“Sean O’Reilly was 16 when his mother gave him the talk that most black parents give their teenage sons,” Denisa R. Superville of the Hackensack (NJ) Record tells us. Meanwhile, down in Atlanta: “Her sons were 12 and 8 when Marlyn Tillman realized it was time for her to have the talk,” Gracie Bonds Staples writes in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Leonard Greene talks about the talk in the New York Post. Someone bylined as KJ Dell’Antonia talks about the talk in The New York Times. Darryl Owens talks about the talk in the Orlando Sentinel.

Yes, talk about the talk is all over.

There is a talk that nonblack Americans have with their kids, too. My own kids, now 19 and 16, have had it in bits and pieces as subtopics have arisen. If I were to assemble it into a single talk, it would look something like the following.

Reading Derbyshire's piece to the end is a prerequisite to the completion of this article. Make note of any assertions in it that you think you can challenge on objective grounds; I can't find any.

I'll wait.

* * *

Back at Eternity Road, I posted a piece titled The Shamans, which concerned itself primarily with various victim-groups' assertion of rights over who may use certain words. Inasmuch as that piece isn't currently accessible, and that I not be accused of being excessively indirect, here are the words I cited:

• Victimist blacks often call one another "nigger," often as an expression of fellowship or approbation. Indeed, a rap act of some notoriety named itself Niggers With Attitude, apparently without embarrassment.
• Homosexuals feel no constraint about calling one another "queers," "dykes," "queens," or "faggots," even if the rest of us are not licensed to do so. Indeed, one of its activist groups is named "Queer Nation."
• Women who ascribe to a particular shade of feminism make free and frequent reference to their "cunts," which is a hangin' offense for any possessor of a Y chromosome. A professor of Women's Studies at a relatively well-known university has been known to discourse on "cuntal dialectics."

Taboos centered on individual words are quite irritating enough. Taboos on specific facts and concepts, however upsetting certain persons find them, are entirely unacceptable.

In a previous piece titled Pieties, inaccessible for the same reason, I wrote thus:

One cannot challenge the pieties of a society without provoking condemnation or ostracism. To question a piety, even along its margins, is to ask to be thrown out of the church. This is an absolute that applies to all peoples and times.

Pieties have their dangers. The unquestioned belief, in late 17th Century France, that Catholics were morally superior to Huguenots allowed Louis XIV to revoke the Edict of Nantes, the decree of religious tolerance for the Protestant minority. The resulting mass emigration of Huguenots to Belgium weakened France severely, as the Huguenots were among the most industrious and educated persons of northern France. Indeed, part of the Catholic animosity toward them was that they worked on Sundays, and thus had a competitive edge over Catholics in business and commerce.

If we are in thrall to a piety contrary to the actual facts of our society, we are in danger too. The question is only of degree.

No decent person would gainsay the principle of equality before the law. It's the only sort of enforceable equality that doesn't violate the rights of Man. He who commits a crime by the written laws should face an impersonal juridical procedure and receive an impersonal sentence -- impersonal in the sense that they should take no account of anything about the accused other than what he did and the circumstances within which he did it. Plainly, we have departed from this simple, honorable standard in many ways. That doesn't vitiate the ideal.

Black-identity groups, which have grown powerful in recent years, have used the law to impose the equality-of-the-races piety on us whether we agree or not. This has led to a marked inequality of treatment of the races, with net benefits flowing coercively to blacks, in particular to politically active blacks, at the expense of whites and Asians. As a matter of justice, this situation is indistinguishable from apartheid and Jim Crow, except for the race of the beneficiaries.

If there are real, substantial differences among the races, whether in ability, civility, or willingness to conform to the law, this could be the death blow to our society.

How does that line up against National Review's decision to fire John Derbyshire?

* * *

The core of the matter isn't the specifics of the differences among racial, ethnic, creedal, and other identifiable groups; it's the unwillingness, among those who want to be deemed "acceptable" in "polite society," to allow anyone to discuss the possibility that such differences might exist.

Please note that I'm not talking about the geneses of whatever differences exist among such groups. Bright and knowledgeable people have been fighting the nature-vs.-nurture war for longer than I've been alive. That doesn't matter. What matters are the present-tense attitudes, capacities, limitations, and above all the behaviors of those groups, as statistical aggregates. If there are real, significant differences, particularly as regards matters such as intelligence and propensity toward lawbreaking, refusing to face them frankly does a disservice to the whole nation.

Allow me to be even more explicit:

• If American Negroes, as a statistical aggregate, are markedly less intelligent and/or more inclined toward lawlessness than non-Negroes;
• If American Hispanics, as a statistical aggregate, are more inclined toward the formation and protection of violent gangs than non-Hispanics;
• If American homosexuals, as a statistical aggregate, are more inclined toward the sexual victimization of minors than heterosexuals;
• If American Muslims, as a statistical aggregate, generally support the worldwide imposition of sharia law and the reduction of non-Muslims to dhimmi status;
• If American women, as a statistical aggregate, nurse a sense of grievance toward "the patriarchy" and believe that American men work to "oppress" them;

... then pretending otherwise will cause social, economic and political damage.

Note the parallel structure. In any sentence that contains it, the most important word will always be if: the admission that the validity of the consequent depends upon the truth of the premise. Thus, every proposition above is legitimately debatable as a factual assertion: Are American Negroes less intelligent as an aggregate than non-Negroes? Are they more prone to lawlessness and violence? And so on through the litany? Proponents of both evaluations should marshal objective facts to their sides and present them for open examination...but nothing of the sort has been considered acceptable since the public flaying of Arthur Jensen.

Worse, as I wrote in yet another currently inaccessible piece:

One of the natural laws, which should be so obvious as not to require saying, is that word gets around. Something that people in general would want to know is something they will know, eventually. If you assist them in learning it, you will earn their gratitude. If you retard their edification, then when they've finally learned it, if they learn that you were responsible for denying them the data they need, you will reap the whirlwind.

Thus, the suppression of frank discussion of differences among identifiable groups will serve to sharpen animosity and distrust among members of those groups, playing into the hands of the divide-to-conquer strategists of the political class. The resulting tension will mount until relieved by the violent expression thereof.

You do the math.

* * *

Today is Easter Sunday: the commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Redeemer of Mankind. It's supposed to be a day of joy among Christians, on which we give thanks for His ministry among us, His New Covenant, and His willingness to be sacrificed for our sakes. But it has another aspect, as well:

    Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of he Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?
    Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me; what hast thou done?
    Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
    Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then?
    Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end I was born, and for this cause I came into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. [Gospel According To John, 18:33-37]

Truth -- the admission that reality is indifferent to our opinions, desires, aspirations, and fantasies -- is the sacred abstraction. He who named Himself the Way, the Life, and the Truth thus told us something of transcendent importance:

• Truth stands above all notions and fictions;
• Life depends completely on the acknowledgement of that which is objectively true;
• The one and only Way to life -- temporal and eternal -- is to live in complete recognition and humble acceptance of the truth.

Therefore, an ironclad dedication to learning the truth -- the objective, verifiable, opinion-independent facts -- and living by it is the highest of all priorities. There can be no other.

* * *

Ironically, National Review has a longstanding reputation as a "Catholic institution." Its founder, the late William F. Buckley, was a lifelong Catholic, and a quite serious one. His soul must surely wince at the sight of his inheritors' decision to cast out a worthy writer for daring to express a truth they found threatening to their place in the political Establishment.

But of course, that's not the worst aspect of the thing for those of us still under the veil of Time. National Review has implicitly aligned itself with the purveyors of a pretty fantasy: the notion that we are all exactly alike in every important way, and that any suggestion to the contrary is to be execrated even as it is spoken. More, the editors of National Review have taken upon themselves the role of enforcers of that fantasy.

This is a declaration of solidarity with the forces of evil.

I've subscribed to the print edition of the magazine for some years. Before that, I visited the online edition daily. No longer.

Testify to the truth if you want to be welcome in my home.

No More Color Changes

Please stop asking for changes to the colors used here. Being partially color-blind, I'm usually receptive to readers' suggestions about such things, but in the past three days I've received fifty-three such requests, and each requestor wants something no one else can stand.

The color scheme will remain as it is for the foreseeable future.

Terminus Part 2: Divide To Conquer

Divide et impera. Divide to conquer. Julius Caesar knew it. He wasn't the first. He's certainly not the last.

Robert A. Heinlein made use of the concept in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress:

"Manuel, you wish to see Luna free."

"You know I do."

"You also know that Terra can defeat us."

"Sure. No projection ever gave us anything close to even money. So don't see why you set out to antagonize--

"Please. Since they can inflict their will on us, our only chance lies in weakening their will. That was why we had to go to Terra. To be divisive. To create many opinions. The shrewdest of the great generals in China's history once said that perfection in war lay in so sapping the enemy's will that he surrenders without fighting. In that maxim lies our ultimate purpose and our most pressing danger."

I added the emphasis of the last sentence.

Politicians have employed divide-to-conquer strategies since nations were first founded:

• Find "issues" that fragment the populace into contending groups. If you can't find them, create them.
• Identify a subset of those groups sufficient to constitute a ruling majority.
• Promise each of them what it wants at the others' expense.
• Leave worries about the details till after power is securely yours; campaign promises are not enforceable.

Ponder the political trend of the century past. The presidential campaign of 1912 is a good starting point. The pattern is there; all you need do to see it is to look.

* * *

And now, a few words from the inimitable Fred Reed:

Societies work best when they have a uniform culture. The next best thing is a dominant culture to which small numbers of people of similar culture must accommodate themselves. We see this in America with the Chinese, who are studious, industrious, abide by the laws, and do not set themselves in opposition to the ambient European ethos. They are few enough, similar enough, and quiet enough that it works.

But blacks are too many, too different, and too culturally raucous. Some syncretism occurs around the edges, yet even the middle classes of the two races mix seldom and somewhat awkwardly.

I do not see how things can change. The sprawling black regions of the cities are so homogeneous, so big, and so isolated from the white world, television aside, as not to be susceptible to outside influence. Whites do not go in, and blacks do not come out. A steady-state model of the universe, so to speak.

We are screwed.

Reed is speaking here of the race war brewing over the Zimmerman / Martin contretemps, but there are other cultural and quasi-cultural cleavages of equal importance: Hispanic immigrants. Muslims. Single mothers. Isolation-minded religious groups.

There is great irony in noting that of all identifiable groups, immigrants from Indochina, where America fought a terrible, nationally ravaging war, have been the most willing to accommodate themselves to America's dominant culture. Yet even these have formed next-to-impenetrable enclaves in parts of the Western United States.

And politicians like it just fine.

* * *

I don't know how the divide-to-conquer process can be turned against our political class. Coalition majorities are unstable, owing to the voting power of marginal blocs in a bare-majority coalition, but the political riposte is to form a new coalition by enlisting new blocs to replace the querulous ones, or better yet, to use the prospect of being outside a potential new majority to quell any embryonic uprising. Note how hoary this tactic is: Federalist Alexander Hamilton used it to persuade New York to join in ratifying the Constitution.

One way or another, this is the enemy's big gun. It's the weapon we must contrive to spike to have any chance at all of restoring freedom, justice, and political sanity to the United States.

And now, as I've said so often in the past:

More anon.

Logic Obeys Its Own Rules

To all defenders of abortion on demand:
This is what we who oppose abortion predicted forty years ago.
This is the logical conclusion of every argument you've advanced.
Happy now?

Terminus

I have had enough.

The progression that has driven the original, relatively constrained welfare system of the United States to its present, cradle-to-grave assurances of absolute support for whatever form of Taking or Faking one chooses to pursue has taken quite a lot of Americans, including this one, to a completely different destination.

Here's a sample of the fuel that's propelled us:

“I believe that in a society as wealthy as ours, we should have a commitment to our seniors and to the disabled,” Obama said. “That’s not a sign of weakness. That’s not socialism.”

Obama called “the basic American compact” the promises of a job with a “living wage,” college education and health care “if you work hard, if you’re responsible, if you’re looking after your family.”

He hit the standard “change” notes about the Lilly Ledbetter equal pay act, the auto bailout, fuel-efficiency standards, and the end of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays serving openly in the military.

“And we are going to insure another 30 million people in this country, and we are making sure if you’ve got health insurance that they can’t drop you when you get sick — the strongest patient protection bill that we’ve ever seen when it comes to health care,” Obama told the donors. “That all happened because of you. That’s what change is.”

Promises to raid the earnings of the self-reliant and property rights of the industrious. Promises to tie the medical-insurance industry in webs of law and regulation that will force it into bankruptcy within a decade. Promises to bail out milked and mismanaged corporations, and firms that have been systematically looted by unions they can't get rid of. Promises to perpetuate demographically doomed pyramid schemes that are already in a negative cash flow status and speeding toward collapse.

To whom are the benefits promised? Why, to the communities of interest that traditionally vote for Democrats: special-interest groups, welfare recipients, government employees, unions, retirees, and assorted persons who refuse to pay for what they want or need. Oh, never fear: there'll be some swag for Obama's favored crony capitalists, too. Just make sure you get the donation check date-stamped.

Obama called Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" budget proposal, which contemplates only modest alterations to existing redistributive and entitlement programs and would leave the federal government in deficit for at least another decade, "nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism."

But wait: there's more! Obama's supposed opponents agree with him in principle. They've demonstrated it in positive ways -- i.e., the Bush II prescription-drug bill, No Child Left Behind, and the financial-firms bailout at the end of 2008 -- and in negative ones -- i.e., refusing to address the inherent unsustainability of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which cannot be sustained without a steadily increasing population of net taxpayers.

In commenting on the lamentably weak presidential candidacy of Robert Dole, a wag whose name I've forgotten remarked that if the Democrats were to propose a law mandating the immediate execution of all white males, Dole would suggest that it be phased in over a five-year period. As funny as the remark was, it perfectly expressed the principle-free mindset of the man Newt Gingrich called "the tax collector for the welfare state." But that's not the bad news, this is: Dole's willingness to compromise with evil wasn't exceptional among Republican officeholders and candidates. Nor is it today.

If you disagree, ask Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich if they'd entertain Constitutional objections to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or TANF (the federal welfare system). Ask Mitch McConnell if he'd support repeal bills aimed at those programs. Ask John Boehner if he'd permit such bills to be voted on in an open session of Congress.

There is neither courage nor principle in the GOP any longer. If these are America's champions, we are doomed to destruction.

Enough. Either it stops, or America stops.

They have called us "social Darwinists," because we hew to the Constitution. They have styled us as "selfish," "heartless," and "toadies to big business," because we call for individual responsibility and respect for property rights. They claim we care nothing about children, the elderly, or the disabled, because we argue that you cannot forever consume more than you produce. Very well. I embrace their slanders. I will show them the terminus they've steered us toward.

The old libertarian slogan "Help Starve a Feeding Bureacrat" didn't go far enough. Mine is the Let 'Em All Starve, Hero (LEASH) approach to budgeting -- and I mean it exactly that way. Herewith, the Porretto program for federal budget reform:

• Abolish all federal cabinet departments except Defense, Justice, Treasury, and Interior. (Make Veterans Affairs an office under Defense.) Fire all the employees of the abolished departments, without exception.
• Rescind with prejudice all regulations promulgated by Executive Branch agencies under the notion of delegated authority. There shall be no laws nor regulations other than those that have been passed in all particulars by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the president.
• Enact a Constitutional Amendment that forbids Congress to borrow money except:
  • During time of explicitly, Congressionally declared war,
  • From American lenders,
  • And only upon proffering sufficient security in federally owned land.
• Reinstitute the definition of the American dollar as a specific weight of gold or silver, and mandate the redemption of any Federal Reserve-issued currency in that medium, at the holder's request.
• Enact a statute that makes a public official's violation of his oath to the Constitution of the United States a capital crime, triable before a jury of private citizens and a duly appointed federal judge.

Why do I endorse a program guaranteed to cause so much short-term privation and suffering? Because it's necessary. Because it's the last step we can take before accepting inevitable collapse, chaos, and more suffering than anyone could possibly imagine. And not least, because I'm sick to death of political adventurers like Barack Hussein Obama trying to "guilt" us into allowing him and his lieutenants to plunder what remains of what was once the freest, richest nation that ever graced this ball of rock.

To those pleading for "compassion for the less well off," "concern for the elderly," "respect for the environment," "think of the children," or "not a handout, just a hand," we now know how that eventuates. Earn your keep, shoulder your own responsibilities, provide for your own futures, and perform what charities you please from your own resources. It's that or go under.

Before you ask: Yes, I actively want anyone who subscribes to Obama's ideals, or who latched onto a government teat rather than work for a living, to suffer. Badly. Before they can re-elect the Marxist-In-Chief to an office he's never been fit to hold. I'll make no pretense to the contrary. It's all the satisfaction we'll ever get from those who have ruined the country I love...who have bled America dry.

(Why, yes: I am a heartless capitalist bastard. However did you guess?)