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?)

Other People's Money, Other People's Children

I do a few things that strike others as difficult to comprehend. Not all of them are mere expressions of a Certified Galactic Intellect; some are indulgences that aren't widely shared. For example, I often reread.

What's that you say? How can I find time to reread books already read when I have to read so much just to keep up with events? I manage, Gentle Reader; I manage. And there's this: truly excellent books contain a good deal more of merit than anyone can squeeze out of them in a single reading.

An excellent example of such a book is Mark Steyn's recent blockbuster America Alone:

Today, in your typical election campaign, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much every party in the rest of the West are all but exclusively about those secondary impulses: government health care (which America is slouching toward, incrementally but remorselessly), government day care (which was supposedly the most important issue in the 2006 Canadian election), government paternity leave (which Britain has introduced). We've elevated the secondary impulses over the primary ones: national defense, self-reliance, family, and, most basic of all, reproductive activity. If you don't "go forth and multiply," you can't afford all those secondary-impulse programs, like lifelong welfare, whose costs are multiplying a lot faster than you are. Most of the secondary-impulse stuff falls under the broad category of self-gratification issues: we want the state to take our elderly relatives off our hands not so much because it's better for them but because otherwise the old coots would cut seriously into our own time. Fair enough. But once you decide you can do without grandparents, it's not such a stretch to decide you can do without grandchildren.

There's a complete diagnosis of the core malady of the West wrapped up in that paragraph. We might call it "present-moment thinking:" complete absorption in present pleasures and satisfactions, without regard for who must foot the bill or what it might mean for the future.

I've written before about the transition in perceptions from children as economic assets to children as "luxury goods." A bit stark, that formulation, but a bit of starkness might be what we need. For despite our general departure from the farms, children remain economic assets: "certificates of deposit" in our society's future. To put it most bluntly: Anyone who hopes to sponge off "society" implicitly hopes to be supported today by other people's money, and tomorrow by other people's children.

I've also written before about the inability to get people to reproduce by exhorting them to care about the future. You can't get a man to breed for the sake of a future he doesn't care about; it's as vicious a circle as has ever been drawn. Nor would it be a terrific deal to be born to a couple that didn't want you but felt obliged to produce you for "the future." But one of the primary-impulse matters Steyn mentioned above -- self-reliance, at any age and in any state of society -- will grow to be an ever more important commodity as our progeny dwindle in number.

It is written in the stars that those who cultivate sufficient self-reliance to thrive in an aging, shrinking population will not look charitably upon those who persist in looking to others for their sustenance. If that isn't perfectly obvious to you, check your glasses: someone might have painted them opaque while you slept.

"Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful"

An article from across the Atlantic has been getting quite a lot of attention:

Throughout my adult life, I’ve regularly had bottles of bubbly or wine sent to my restaurant table by men I don’t know. Once, a well-dressed chap bought my train ticket when I was standing behind him in the queue, while there was another occasion when a charming gentleman paid my fare as I stepped out of a cab in Paris.

Another time, as I was walking through London’s Portobello Road market, I was tapped on the shoulder and presented with a beautiful bunch of flowers. Even bar tenders frequently shoo my credit card away when I try to settle my bill.

And whenever I’ve asked what I’ve done to deserve such treatment, the donors of these gifts have always said the same thing: my pleasing appearance and pretty smile made their day.

While I’m no Elle Macpherson, I’m tall, slim, blonde and, so I’m often told, a good-looking woman. I know how lucky I am. But there are downsides to being pretty — the main one being that other women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks.

If you’re a woman reading this, I’d hazard that you’ve already formed your own opinion about me — and it won’t be very flattering. For while many doors have been opened (literally) as a result of my looks, just as many have been metaphorically slammed in my face — and usually by my own sex.

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first: It takes a certain amount of brass to write about oneself in this fashion, and not everyone will regard it as good manners to do so. But Mrs. Brick's tales of female resentment toward her ring true to me; I've observed much the same these past four decades, in venues beyond counting.

There are several facets to this. First, the specific lady in question, while unlikely to win a Mrs. America contest, is trim, well groomed, and dresses in an attractive, feminine, age-appropriate fashion. All by itself, the obvious care she takes of herself and the way she looks is enough to stimulate quite a bit of envy from women who don't trouble themselves so.

Second, female attractiveness differs qualitatively from male attractiveness. A dear friend -- a woman -- once admitted candidly that "men all pretty much look alike to me." (No, she wasn't drunk, and we weren't about to "get it on.") It partakes significantly of non-material qualities: happiness, vitality, conviviality, and purpose. These things are visible, and men will gravitate toward them. Give me such a woman any day -- and Mrs. Brick appears to be such a woman.

Third, it's an old bit of wisdom that a woman can have any man she wants if she can learn how to take a sincere interest in him and let it show. This is an aspect of character women have literally been discouraged from developing these past forty years, and the whole of Western society is poorer for it. A woman who takes a sincere interest in men generally has a huge edge in attractiveness over others of her sex -- and that interest manifests itself in a woman's dress and grooming.

Fourth, I can't let this go without mentioning the "youth culture." Yes, women have such a thing; read a few "women's magazines" and ponder the explosion in cosmetic surgery if you need hard evidence. But that's not news. What's under-discussed about it is the imbalance between pursuit of the physical attributes of youth and the cultivation of the characterological qualities that make mature women attractive to mature men. The former gets a lot more air time and column-inches than the latter, even though developing one's character and personality are objectively easier, cheaper, and require less closet space.

There are obvious threads connecting this to gender-war feminist attitudes toward men, which have infected far more women than are aware of it. But another aspect of contemporary Western society factors in at least as powerfully: the pressure on women to contribute financially to their households.

A woman who puts in an eight-hour day in an office environment -- fess up now; how many female coal miners do you know personally? -- will come home quite as weary as her spouse. She's unlikely to feel enthusiastic about making herself attractive for him. Besides, she's already "done her bit" for the day, so how dare anyone, even her husband, expect more from her?

Now consider the environment from which he emerges to come home at five: One in which the women are professionally courteous, generally well groomed, and if not femininely garbed, at least forbidden to slouch about in sweat clothes. It takes a mighty effort not to compare those surroundings to what he confronts, evenings and weekends, in his own home. (This article about "work husbands" bears on the phenomenon as well.)

I continue to maintain that chivvying women out of their homes and into the workplace -- specifically, making them feel an obligation to contribute financially to their families' support -- has been a bad thing for relations between the sexes, however urgent it might have been economically. From Samantha Brick's story, and from similar phenomena we can observe every day of our lives, it hasn't done women's relations with one another a lot of good, either.

(Applause to Charles Hill at Dustbury for the link to Mrs. Brick's article.)

Oops!

...it appears that Yahoo (those lovable guys) disabled my main Yahoo email address for no BLEEP!ing good reason. I certainly didn't ask them to do so.

Anyway, for the present, email all correspondence to:

fran -- dot -- porretto -- at -- yahoo -- dot -- com

...until I can arrange for a more reliable email account.

Apologies all around.

Holy Thursday

From the Gospel According To Matthew:

--- While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks he
broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, "Take, eat, this is my
body." And after taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them,
saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of
the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I
tell you, from now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until
that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." [Matthew,
26:26-29] ---

Today is the commemoration of the Last Supper, the final day before
Jesus began his Passion. The Last Supper was a Passover dinner, of the
sort enjoyed by Jews worldwide during the Passover season today. The
Passover itself commemorates the last of the "plagues" God sent upon the
Egyptians as indications that they were to release the Jews from
bondage: the angelic execution of the firstborn son of every non-Jewish
family in Egypt. The Jews were instructed by Moses to slaughter a lamb
and splash some of the lamb's blood upon their front doors, as a sign to
the angel to "pass over" their household.

Jesus Himself is spoken of as the Paschal Lamb: the ritual sacrifice, in
parallel to older, pre-Christian "scapegoat" practices, for the
expiation of the sins of Mankind. The comparison has points upon which
few commentators bother to touch, in our time.

The first and most obvious is that Jesus, like the lamb sacrificed at
Passover and all the animals ever used as "scapegoats," was entirely
innocent. Throughout His life, He harmed no one. He instructed others in
the ways of truth and righteousness. Never did He condemn any man, not
even those whose sins were obvious and grievous.

The second connects to the practice of sacrifice itself. Human sacrifice
was forbidden by God; this is obvious from Abraham onward, if not from
the story of Cain and Abel. But the unpleasantness of the proposition
that one cannot be absolved of one's sins without bodily suffering --
"No remission without the shedding of blood" -- gave rise to the conceit
that one could delegate one's sufferings to a non-human substitute. All
animal sacrifice as practiced by the Jews had that as its object: the
propitiation of God in the hope that He would refrain from striking the
penitent directly. It was a holdover from earlier, pagan creeds that
believed that the more destructive phenomena of Nature were directed by
a divinity or divinities, out of wrath at those upon whom they were
inflicted.

But God does not coerce. Neither does He punish us in our temporal
lives. Indeed, according to one conception, even our damnation is
self-willed: were we to repent in our moment before Him at the
Particular Judgment, He would accept us with open arms.

The Passion was not "necessary," in Divine terms. "Necessity" does not
apply to God, Who stands outside time. But at the time of Jesus's
ministry on Earth, the minds of men were barely mature enough to grasp
the identity between natural law, as reflected in the nature of Man, and
Divine law, as pronounced to Moses on Mount Sinai and reinforced by
Jesus centuries later. For that reason, the congruence of pattern
between "traditional" blood sacrifices and Jesus's Passion was supremely
useful; the pattern itself, and the expiation associated with it,
resonated irresistibly in the minds of those who learned of it.

Human records describe nothing to compare with the Passion and
Resurrection of Christ. It was, at once, the most terrible and most
glorious time in Mankind's history. And for believing Christians, the
terror and the glory both come alive as we pass from today, through the
horrors of the Crucifixion, the fears of Jesus's disciples as He lay in
the tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea, and the sense of fulfillment
and deliverance His followers knew upon His Resurrection.

May God bless and keep you all.

Eternity Road's Archives...

...are taking me a lot of time and trouble to assemble. Be not afraid;
I'll get them together eventually, and mail out copies to everyone who
has requested one.

Though the fwp --at-- eternityroad --dot-- info address is no longer
serviced, I can still be reached at fporretto --at-- yahoo --dot-- com,
so anyone who has yet to request the archive should write me there.

Meanwhile, who would like to see the old band of Co-Conspirators
assembled here? I'm more than open to it.

Mistakes Were Made

Passive-voice constructions are a perennial favorite with public officials who find themselves under unwelcome scrutiny. To quote the esteemed Mark Alger:

So, the head of the GSA resigns under an ethical cloud. "Ethics are a big issue for me," she said upon ascending to the office. Now we learn she actually mean she has issues with ethics.

"Taxpayer funds were mis-spent," she admits. Not, you will notice, "I mis-spent taxpayer funds."

Mistakes were made. There were ethical lapses. Monies were mal-appropriated.

Please note the lack of an actor in each statement. Who made the mistakes? Whose ethics lapsed? Who mal-appropriated or mis-spent monies? These are questions that need to be asked, and sharply, repeatedly, until satisfactory answers are forthcoming. No. Shift that from passive to active voice. Until the miscreant in question fesses up.

This is so typical of politicians and public officials that there ought to be a special term for it. Even Ronald Reagan, arguably the best and most ethical president of the century past, used such constructions from time to time. But then, it's typical of immature children, too: "It got broken."

As a rule, the more often a man recurs to the passive voice, the less trustworthy he is. Active-voice phrasings that designate a party responsible for the action described give the listener a focus whose conduct can be assessed: for efficacy, for efficiency, and for ethical worth. Particularly to be appreciated is he who admits to his own errors in the active voice: "I screwed up. Alongside the acceptance of responsibility for his deeds, the phrasing suggests that the speaker is open to learning from his mistakes -- the only way most of us ever learn anything.

Persons in public life learn early-on to grab as much credit for anything positive as they possibly can...and to deflect the blame for anything negative by any means necessary, including involute passive-voice periphrases such as Mark cites in the above. We're nearing the peak of the art with the Obama Administration, whose leader has made a point of blaming everything bad on someone else -- usually, his predecessor in the White House -- while claiming to have killed Osama bin Laden his very own self.

"Journalists" are known for similar behavior:

NBC concluded its internal investigation into why George Zimmerman's 9-1-1 call was edited to make him appear racist. The findings?

"During our investigation it became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret," NBC News said in a statement e-mailed to The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. "We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers."

When asked if anyone at Today had lost their job or had been reassigned as a result of the investigation, an NBC spokeswoman said: "We will not be commenting on our course of action."

Theodore Dalrymple has written some penetrating essays on the use of passive-voice constructions and the anthropomorphization of inanimate objects to avert acceptance of responsibility -- by convicted felons immured in British prisons. "The beer went mad." "The knife went in." When neurolinguistics becomes adequately advanced, I'll be fascinated to learn what portions of the brain are involved in such feints...and whether they "light up" the EEG machines when recited to journalists, public officials, and aspirants to high office.

Demagoguery On Parade

To be sure, politicians must master the art of winning the support and enthusiasm of large groups. But wouldn't it be nice if they had some other qualification for office as well?

It's a measure of how badly our political class has deteriorated that the president of these United States has no other skills:

President Obama on Tuesday levied a partisan broadside against Republicans and their policies before a sympathetic crowd of reporters who frequently applauded and laughed along.

The Republican Party, he said, is seeking to “impose a radical vision” on the U.S. that is “antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility.”

The president spent the majority of his speech before the Associated Press luncheon at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention in Washington, D.C., attacking the GOP budget resolution proposed by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.).

The president accused Republicans of promoting a failed theory of “trickle-down” economics driven by large tax cuts for the wealthy financed at the expense of federal spending on the middle class.

The GOP vision, as outlined in the Ryan budget, was “nothing but thinly veiled Social Darwinism” and “a Trojan horse designed as a deficit reduction plan,” the president said.

“I don’t think people fully appreciate the nature of [the GOP] budget,” he said. History has proven “their theory” wrong, Obama argued, before chastising Republicans for refusing to “show some humility and moderate their views.”

“Instead of moderating their views even slightly, the Republicans running Congress right now have doubled down,” he said, describing Ryan’s budget as “so far to the right it makes the Contract with America look like the New Deal.”

Though he did not mention Ryan by name, Obama did call out GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney, who has praised Ryan’s budget as “marvelous.”

“He even called [the Ryan budget] marvelous,” the president said of Romney. “Which is a word you don’t often hear when it comes to describing the budget. It’s a word you don’t often hear generally.”

The crowd of reporters erupted in laughter.

Quite a number of questionable, not to say outright false, statements in there, eh?

Guy Benson at Townhall cites a few more egregiously demagogic snippets of the speech:

Show me a business leader who would not profit if more americans could afford to get the skills and education that today's jobs require. Ask any company where they would rather locate and hire workers, a country with crumbling roads and bridges or one committed to high-speed internet and high-speed railroad and high-tech research and development? It doesn't make us weaker when we guarantee basic security for the elderly, sick, or those who are actively looking for work. What makes us weaker is when fewer and fewer people can afford to buy the goods and services our businesses sell. When entrepreneurs don't have the financial security to take a chance on starting a business. What drags down our entire economy is when there is an ever widening chasm between the ultra rich and everybody else....

They keep telling us that if we convert more of our investment in education, research and health care into tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, our economy will grow stronger. They keep telling us if we strip away more regulations and let businesses pollute more and treat workers and consumers with impunity, somehow we will all be better off. We are told that when the wealthy become even wealthier and corporations are allowed to maximize profits by whatever means necessary, it's good for America and their success will translate into more jobs and prosperity for everyone else. That is the theory.

Pure divide-to-conquer slander -- which, in politics, is apparently considered acceptable, at least when it's aimed at an amorphous "they" rather than at a named adversary.

Nice Deb cites a piercing response from Paul Ryan:

In an interview with CBS News’ Chip Reid in Wisconsin on Tuesday, Rep. Paul Ryan was also laughing but not with the President — at the President’s comically, demagogic criticism of his budget proposals. He said, “unfortunately, we’re used to the President acting like this”, called him the “Campaigner in Chief”, and went on to say instead of offering real solutions to fix this country’s problems, Obama offers “these baseless, partisan attacks.”

“You know, I don’t think history is going to be kind to a President, that when confronted with one of country’s most pressing challenges – the debt crisis – chooses to do nothing about it, and then waits for those of us who offer solutions, to attack us in these baseless ways….I think what the President is trying to do is offer this big government populism and in an effort not to propose solutions, but in an effort to divide and distract this country for the purposes of his reelection, and I just don’t think people are going to buy this stuff.”

We can only hope that Ryan's prediction is correct. But even if he is, there's a possibility that Obama, a narcissist beyond any other who has ever attained high political office, will refuse to accept the verdict of the November elections, and trigger a second Civil War. To those who pooh-pooh that possibility, I say: What aspects of Obama’s character, his antecedents, or his behavior to date have convinced you so thoroughly that that can’t possibly happen?

Pray.

Surprise, Surprise Dept.

One of the open scandals about the 2008 Obama for President campaign was its openness to illegal contributions. Indeed, the campaign website didn't even make a pretense of checking the source of donations delivered through it. In consequence, quite a lot of money flowed into the campaign's coffers from places such as the Gaza Strip -- a dubious residence for American citizens with an interest in presidential politics.

During the campaign, Obama's many shady associates popped onto the national radar one after another. Bill Ayres. Tony Rezko. Jeremiah Wright. Alex Giannoulias. Louis Farrakhan. But the media's infatuation with the candidate was too profound to allow any depth of examination of these relationships, even after really damaging linkages between Obama and these various hoods and venom spouters were discovered.

After Obama's inauguration, he began appointing persons of dubious antecdents and ominous agendas to high federal positions. Tim Geithner. Van Jones. John Holdren. Cass Sunstein. Anita Dunn. Steven Cho. Few of those appointments were challenged, and only one -- Van Jones -- actually failed to "take."

With a track record like this one, I suppose this should come as no surprise:

A major donor to President Barack Obama has been accused of defrauding a businessman and impersonating a bank official, creating new headaches for Obama's re-election campaign as it deals with the questionable history of another top supporter.

The New York donor, Abake Assongba, and her husband contributed more than $50,000 to Obama's re-election effort this year, federal records show. But Assongba is also fending off a civil court case in Florida, where she's accused of thieving more than $650,000 to help build a multimillion-dollar home in the state -- a charge her husband denies.

Obama is the only presidential contender this year who released his list of "bundlers," the financiers who raise campaign money by soliciting high-dollar contributions from friends and associates. But that disclosure has not come without snags; his campaign returned $200,000 last month to Carlos and Alberto Cardona, the brothers of a Mexican fugitive wanted on federal drug charges.

Never before has an American executive administration displayed such brass in flouting so many aspects of the law. But given that the Obamunists regard the Constitution itself as an obstacle to be circumvented, finessed, or outright ignored, perhaps it's unreasonable to expect them to hew to a standard of any sort in these lesser matters.

Will any of this be permitted to bear on Obama's re-election? Or will his lapdogs in the Main Stream Media succeed in suppressing the lot of it once again? We shall see.

Ratchet In Motion

Isabel Paterson noted in The God of the Machine that "political power has a ratchet effect," such that once it's been granted, it's nearly impossible to withdraw. She cited the repeal of the Eighteenth (Prohibition) Amendment as an example, noting that the thousands of federal Civil Service jobs Prohibition had created remained in place even after the authority they were supposed to wield had been retracted.

The lesson has not been lost on the Internal Revenue Service:

The rest of the country may be waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the fate of President Barack Obama’s health-care law, but the Internal Revenue Service is wasting no time.

It wants to add new agents to hunt down tax cheats and still plans to spend $303.5 million building a system to oversee the effects of the health law even though its future is unclear.

As for the new IRS workers, the Government Accountability Office said the total will be about 4,500, with nearly 4,000 (3,997) slated for enforcement.

On the $303.5 million for health care, the GAO said the IRS will “continue the development of new systems and modifications of existing systems required to support new tax credits,” as well as other IRS enforcement systems for health reform.

I predict that whether or not the Supreme Court rules ObamaCare unConstitutional, those positions, once created, will remain. The salaries attached to them will remain. And the persons in them will acquire the longevity associated with Civil Service personnel, and the arrogance and power typical of the IRS.

This sort of irreversible swelling of government is one of the things Americans tend not to think about when we're urged to pass a new federal program. "We can always repeal it," goes the saying. Perhaps we can...but the expansion of the federal bureaucracy is quite another matter. That hasn't endured a reduction in real terms since the Harding Administration.

Beware the ratchet!

Get That Deity Off the Field!

Nothing infuriates our aggressively secular, overwhelmingly left-liberal Main Stream Media like a devout Christian in a prominent position:

The Atlantic mocked the Jets--and Christianity--in an article entitled, “New York City Sports, Now with Even More Jesus."

On ESPN, Skip Bayless asked Tebow how he felt about being one of the most polarizing, divisive players in the NFL because of his faith.

And recently, on MSNBC, The Nation sports editor Dave Zirin remarked, “There are a lot of LGBT people that live in New York City who are also football fans and they might want to know why the new, possibly starting, quarterback for the New York Jets wants them to move backwards 30 or 40 years." Since when does an athlete’s position on a social issue disqualify him from playing a sport?

CBSChicago.com writer Dan Bernstein labeled Tebow as a “little more than an affable simpleton” and criticized Tebow’s fans, calling them “lunatic-fringe cultists.”

Prior to the Super Bowl, Rabbi Joshua Hammerman opined in The Jewish Week that “If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.” The Jewish Week and Hammerman later apologized.

The attacks expanded to the absurd: MSNBC mocked Tebow’s reading ability when he read Green Eggs and Ham for Pizza Hut’s “BOOK IT!” children’s reading program.

In December 2011, Bill Press, who likes to lecture conservatives about civility, said on his radio show that Tim Tebow needs to “STFU” about Jesus, calling him a “disgrace” and an “embarrassment.” However, he was just getting started with those remarks. He continued: "By dragging God into every football game, Tebow makes a mockery of Chrisianity--and trivializes religion. The truth is, God doesn't care who wins an election, a bingo game, or a football game. Sorry, Tebow, Jesus is not a Broncos fan."

Mind you, if Tebow were a Muslim, our Punditocracy would be entirely silent about his creed, even if he wore a turban instead of a helmet and shouted Allahu Akhbar! after every completed pass. But perhaps we should stay on point.

Christianity is the least violent, most tolerant of all faiths. Christ Himself told us to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and to "Love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you." It asks nothing of anyone who declines to accept it, except that he leave those of us who do in peace.

More: Christianity literally improves a believer's life. It relieves him of all worry about the pointlessness of life, and therefore armors him against the temptations of venality and exploitative hedonism, by promising him an afterlife of eternal bliss if he'll merely cleave to a short list of requirements. Those requirements, all of which are founded upon the Two Great Commandments enunciated by Jesus Himself:

Now when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they assembled together. And one of them, an expert in religious law, asked him a question to test him: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these commandments.” [Matthew 22:34-40]

...articulate the inescapable requirements for peace and harmony in society.

So what's the left-liberal Main Stream Media's problem with Christianity?

The longer I think about it, the more I find myself forced to a particularly distasteful conclusion: The division of society into mutually hostile groups, each determined to have what it wants at the expense of the others, is integral to the Left's program for attaining and expanding its political powers. Were everyone in the nation a sincere Christian, that would be impossible; therefore, Christianity is a fatal obstacle to the Left's political aspirations, and must be derided, denigrated, and otherwise opposed wherever and whenever it appears.

Food for thought.

More Haters Of Mankind

Residents of New York Metro are generally aware that the state of our several bridges, on which so much of the commerce and employment in the region depends, is best described as "scandalous." Possibly the worst of the bunch is the Tappan Zee Bridge, a critical connection between Westchester on the eastern side of the Hudson River and the New York State Thruway on the western side.

After altogether too long, the state is nearing the inception of construction of a new bridge to replace the old, inadequately large and badly worn one. So what step absolutely, positively must come next, fellow observers of the political scene?

That's right: objections and obstruction by enviro-Nazis.

A group that calls itself the River Keepers claims that a new bridge would be "bad for the Hudson River." Why? Apart from "it won't support mass transit," no details are forthcoming. Given that any expansion of capacity, over and above the existing facility, would at the very least support bus traffic better than the existing bridge, it seems they simply don't want a new bridge.

They suggest digging a tunnel instead.

Mind you, driving a high-capacity tunnel under the Hudson River would be far more expensive than constructing a new bridge, whether the bridge was pontoon-based or piling-mounted. It would also demand special provisions for the health and safety of travelers, as river transit underground isn't exactly protected from seepage, subsidence, or corruption of the air. But perhaps that hasn't occurred to the River Keepers. Or perhaps, as it wouldn't be their money being spent on the project, it doesn't matter to them.

Or perhaps, were the state to propose a tunnel instead of a bridge, some other group would step forward to claim that a tunnel would be bad for the environment, too. In fact, I'd bet on it -- and I'd bet that the River Keepers have already consulted with some such group and have told them to make themselves ready.

Environmentalists are Mankind-haters, one and all. The distinguishing characteristic of a Mankind-hater is that he can always come up with a reason you mustn't, mustn't, MUSTN'T do whatever you've proposed to do. Sometimes he'll be able to argue his case semi-rationally; at other times he'll just scream about "our sacred environment" until your eardrums are about to burst. Under no circumstances will he ever concede that you have the slightest justification for your preferences, to say nothing of a right to act on them. That would be wrong.

Beware these people. They might not explicitly worship privation, but in any decision between Mother Gaia and human well-being, by their lights the latter will always come off second-best.

Two Sides Of The Story

Today, Christians observe Palm Sunday, the commemoration of the day Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem, the first day of our Holy Week. Christ's entry into the central city of Judea was triumphal; hundreds lined His path, spreading palm fronds before Him and shouting hosannas as He passed. To one unacquainted with the next chapters of the story, it would sound as if the ascent of His New Covenant was complete.

Unfortunately, grievous suffering and a humiliating death had been ordained for His immediate future.

Christians speak of the Passion of Christ in ambivalent tones. Yes, we say, it was the Expiation His Father had decreed for the Redemption of Mankind, the remission of sins from one end of time to the other, and as such should not be mourned but honored. Yet that Expiation involved torturing to death the mortal body of the Son of God! It's rather difficult to celebrate such a thing, in the usual sense of the word "celebrate."

On one face, the Passion / Expiation; on the other, the Redemption. Christians are required to accept that neither can do without the other.

But it becomes a little easier to grasp when we embrace our own role in the affair:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. [Gospel According To John, 3:16]

The story is unfinished without that step. To believe in Him -- to accept Him as the Son of God and Savior of Mankind, and to embrace His New Covenant -- completes it. But that step requires accepting something more difficult than some are equipped to handle:

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake, and the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples, that he is risen from the dead; and behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him; lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples the word. [Gospel According to Matthew, 28:1-8]

No one alive today witnessed the Resurrection. Yet according to Saint Paul, about five hundred persons saw the risen Christ in the forty days before His Ascension. More, Peter, Paul, James, and others of the Apostles later went to torturous deaths of their own, rather than deny Him or renounce the Great Commission: something that should be soberly considered when assessing whether the tale of the Resurrection is history or fiction.

No, it's not provable by the standards of mathematics, nor disprovable by the standards of the sciences. Yes, it's possible that every record of the era that speaks of Jesus, or of the deeds His Apostles performed and the sacrifices they made in His name, is utterly false. That's why accepting it requires an act of faith. Isn't that a rather small thing, compared to what He endured for our sake?

All ye that labor, come unto Him.

Hatred Of Mankind Knows Many Forms

I once knew a woman who violently opposed dirt-biking -- in the Mojave Desert. Her rationale? "Look at those ruts and trails in the sand! When you scar the desert, it doesn't heal!"

I doubt she was impressed by my counter-argument: "So what?"

Well, there are many deserts in the world, some of which challenge our understanding of the term. Antarctica is one such. Yes, it's covered with ice. Nevertheless, by the conventional definition of a desert landscape -- one visibly devoid of water in the liquid state -- it's as much a desert as the Sahara.

And just like my old acquaintance, there's a man who wants to "keep Antarctica pristine:"

Robert Swan was the first person in history to have walked to both the North and South Pole.

Working off of what he experienced he started an organization called "2041." The purpose of 2041.com is to wake up people from around the globe as to the need to extend the Antarctic treaty past its current sunset in 2041. One person, Robert Swan, started a whole movement.

The treaty keeps Antarctica pristine for not only our generation but for future generations as well.

Antarctica could be quite valuable real estate, if its riches were properly appreciated and exploited. It conceals deposits of fuels and minerals enough to satiate the human race for a millennium or more. But in its "pristine" state, it's near to worthless except as an outpost for weather observation. Yet this Swan character, like my abovementioned acquaintance, wants to keep Antarctica "pristine," meaning valueless to the 99.999999% of Mankind that will never, ever go there.

Such a desire is inexplicable upon any basis but utter hatred of Mankind.

Beware such persons. They posture as noble souls, dedicated to a cause greater than themselves. What they are is obsessives consumed by an anti-human ideology that admits of no scheme of values that differs from their own.

We must learn to recognize and denounce such ideological evil. Up to now we haven't done a good job of it. It's becoming critically important; they're massing for a final strike, after which to dig into the Earth for anything, even to bury a dead pet, will be forbidden us.

There isn't much time left.

Sociability And "Mental Health"

Dr. Helen Smith poses some important questions at PJ Media this morning:

...to some degree we are social animals, but some of us are more social than others. For example, in books like Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength, the author makes the point that a private homelife can sometimes provide comfort and inner peace. I remember in graduate school (at the New School for Social Research in New York), I had one class where we discussed whether it was healthy for people to be hermits. Some people said “yes,” and some “no” but it wasn’t a unanimous consensus that people were social animals. Even the psychologist professor wasn’t so sure. Today, everyone is told to interact with each other because it’s “healthy.” Maybe yes, maybe no, but for those with demons in their head, the wrong kind of interaction may make things worse, not better. The right kind with a person they can trust to help? Usually priceless.

First, I must allow my inner Grammar Nazi to relieve himself, lest he explode: "Healthy" applies only to a description of a living organism; the correct word here is healthful. And as for "The right kind with a person they can trust to help?" That would be an expert in multiple-personality disorder.

(Sorry, Dr. Helen. I love you and all, but I've sworn a sacred oath no longer to let educated persons get away with easily avoidable mistakes of these kinds; their diction is too likely to be taken as authoritative by others. If this be OCD, make the most of it.)

I'm a noted recluse. I've never had many friends. I'm emphatically not a "party animal;" groups of more than about four persons induce a sense of hazard in me. Throughout my life, those around me have chivvied me to "be more sociable." Yet only in my periods of solitude can I achieve the serenity required for productivity and maximum clarity of thought, however such things are measured.

But I know another exceedingly bright fellow who's exactly the opposite. He has dozens of friends, each of whom he values greatly and strives to see as often as possible. He glories in having a lot of company. Indeed, he seeks it out. When he finds a group to which to attach himself, he tends to dominate it. Between us, we constitute a testament to the scope of human variability.

The individual need for interaction with others is...well...individual.

We could have some lovely arguments over the genesis of individuals' "sociability index." It might have more to do with genetics -- the particular strain of Mankind from which he draws his inheritable traits -- or more to do with upbringing and socialization. Indeed, I'd venture to propose that the sexes differ markedly in this characteristic, and the races as well. But at the individual level, I can see no justification for a firm link between any particular degree of sociability and "mental health."

The old definition of mental health still strikes me as the best one: "A mentally healthy person is one with the capacity for work and love." Sociability, above the degree required to allow a single beloved Other into one's sphere from time to time, appears to this quasi-hermit to be an independent variable. Besides, we cranky sorts wouldn't want to give the Social Engineers yet another rationale for having us committed "for our own good," now, would we?

Conspiracies Everywhere

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

To search for a conspiracy, the late Murray Rothbard has told us, is essentially to search for a motive. But surely not every motive is the underpinning for a conspiracy, is it?

Depends whom you ask. Why, just this morning, I happened upon the most ominous coincidence I've beheld since...well, since I got up this morning.

You see, the plastic container in which we store our Cheerios^® was empty. I, desirous of a bowl thereof, ventured down the dimly lit stairs to our basement, wherein all manner of wonders and terrors are stored...some not to be spoken of, lest the stars should turn and Great Cthulhu return in his full and awesome fury.

I made it without incident. I took from the pantry shelves a giant-economy-size box of the object of my delectation, extracted from it one of the plastic bags it held, and returned with it to the lands of the living and more-or-less awake. There on the counter stood the empty plastic container, waiting to be filled with a fresh load of cereal, from which I might dispense my repast. Thinking nothing of it, I unsnapped the lid on the container, opened the bag of Cheerios^®, and poured the latter into the former.

The contents of the bag filled the container exactly. Exactly! Not a morsel too many or too few. When I reapplied the lid, it fit with unnatural snugness. Clearly it had been engineered to a most precise specification.

"This can't be mere happenstance," I murmured.

And indeed, it is not. After much painstaking speculation, I have concluded that cereal maker General Mills has colluded with container maker SnapWare^®! The two have collaborated to one another's commercial benefit: General Mills is now able to assure its customers that, thanks to the SnapWare^® container, the cereal is protected against moisture, insects, and all possibility of going stale!

Surely someone -- some innocent maker of odd-lot cereals or variant-size containers -- is suffering economic harm from this collusion! How could this be anything but a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?

When do the mass arrests begin?

Don't Stop Working...

...millions on welfare depend on you! No, wait, that's for another screed. This one is about early retirement leading to early death:

We find that a reduction in the retirement age causes a significant increase in the risk of premature death – defined as death before age 67 – for males but not for females. The effect for males is not only statistically significant but also quantitatively important. According to our estimates, one additional year of early retirement causes an increase in the risk of premature death of 2.4 percentage points (a relative increase of about 13.4%; or 1.8 months in terms of years of life lost).

This is consistent with the anecdotal evidence. But why?

We consider several channels to understand why male early retirees die earlier.4

• A first channel suggests that early exit from the labour market is associated with lower permanent income. We find that earnings losses due to early retirement cannot explain our finding for men, because these losses are quantitatively too small to have a substantial impact on mortality.
• A second channel suggests that changes in health-related behaviours associated with smoking, drinking, an unhealthy diet, and little physical exercise may cause premature death following early retirement. Our results strongly support this hypothesis. Complementary data from cause-of-death statistics reveal that excess mortality is concentrated on three causes of deaths:
  • ischemic heart diseases (mostly heart attacks),
  • diseases related to excessive alcohol consumption, and
  • vehicle injuries.

  These three causes of death account for 78% of the causal retirement effect (while accounting for only 24% of all deaths in the sample). We calculate that 32.4% of the causal retirement effect can be directly attributed to smoking and excessive alcohol consumption.

• A third channel suggests that the detrimental mortality effect arises from retirement following an involuntary job loss but not from voluntary quits. Even though our data do not distinguish between voluntary and involuntary retirement, we exploit severance payment rules to proxy the voluntariness of the retirement decision. Our empirical results suggest that retirement following an involuntary job loss is likely to cause excess mortality among blue-collar males, while retirement after a voluntary quit does not.

I can't quite fathom why the authors, who appear to be both intelligent and perceptive, failed to consider purposelessness as a contributing factor. A bodily organ which has no function tends to wither away: first to vestigial status, and over time, to disappearance. Why would this effect not apply to the whole body?

Of course, the authors are principally concerned with government budget stresses, which suggests that their agenda isn't entirely benign. I mean, all those folks on welfare are purposeless, too...but I did say I'd save that for another screed, didn't I?

Surprise, Surprise

Today at PJ Media, Richard Fernandez declaims on the failure of the "blue model:"

The chief problem with money, as Walter Russell Mead observes, is that the Blue Model is running out of it. Once upon a time the money was just out there. The dollars were mooing and lowing like the buffalo on the Great Plains. The only problem was divvying it up. But now that it’s getting harder to come by a whole host of professions based on the dollar hunting and skinning business is becoming endangered.

No, really? Did anyone with three functioning brain cells expect any other result from the dilute socialism of the promise-borrow-spend "blue model?" But wait: there's more!

The marketing department has been particularly hard-hit. Al Gore’s Current Network was paying Keith Olbermann $50 million to attract viewers they hoped to have. Olbermann was supposed to be its primary liberal voice. But the New York Times explained that Olbermann wasn’t attracting anybody, even though he acted like he was:

In his 40 weeks on Current TV, he had an average of 177,000 viewers at 8 p.m., down from the roughly one million that he had each night on MSNBC. Just 57,000 of those viewers on any given night were between the ages of 25 and 54, the coveted advertising demographic for cable news.

Talking Points Memo quoted a source which said “Olbermann failed to show up for work without authorization, missing almost half of his working days in the months of January and February. Olbermann asked for a vacation day on March 5, the night before Super Tuesday, according to the source. He was told it would be a breach if he took the vacation, which Olbermann did.” For his part, Olbermann said he would sue Gore. In the end, perhaps, they both needed and deserved each other.

...Olbermann was a reprise of the recent fall of Rosie O’Donnell. Early this March the “Oprah Winfrey Network issued a press release announcing The Rosie Show had been canceled, following six months of humiliating ratings … What went wrong? Multiple insiders interviewed for this story say that both Ro and O are to blame; the network never fit O’Donnell, and O’Donnell wasn’t able to make the splash she was supposed to.”

Becoming a “liberal voice” was once where the money was. The jack. A lot guys still believed that. And boy were they wrong.

The failure reaches all the way to the campaigns of left-liberal politicians:

Last July, President Obama's campaign announced that it had raised an average of $29 million in each of the previous three months for itself and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). I was only mildly impressed. After all, that was well below the $50 million a month needed to reach the campaign's goal of a $1 billion war chest for the 2012 race.

Seven months later, I'm even less impressed. Through January, the president has raised an average of $24 million a month for his campaign and the DNC. Next week, the Obama campaign will release its February numbers, but the president is on track to be hundreds of millions of dollars shy of his original goal.

It's not for lack of trying. Mr. Obama has already attended 103 fund-raisers, roughly one every three days since he kicked off his campaign last April (twice his predecessor's pace)....

This perhaps explains why the White House told congressional Democrats last week not to expect a single dime for their campaign efforts from the Democratic National Committee this year. All the DNC's funds will be needed for the president's re-election.

His campaign's financial situation also may explain why Mr. Obama has embraced Super PACs after decrying them as a "threat to democracy" in the midterm elections.

None of this should come as any surprise to one who understands the vital importance of absolute respect for individuals' rights to social and political stability:

Wealth and freedom severed from their rightful owner draw looters and thieves, as a body severed from life draws vultures and flies. ["John Galt," Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics as if Freedom Mattered ]

The vaunted "blue model" was always based on the blatant invasion of private persons' property rights, in particular their rights to the fruits of their labors. The consequences were foreordained; the only aspect of the thing that was uncertain was how long it would take for the looters to empty the treasury.

We who claimed to know better indulged the looters for far too long, forgetting that our treasury has Constitutional authorization to sink us into debt. The whole country, not just the beneficiaries of the "blue model," will pay for our inanition.

How Long Has This Been Going On?

If you've been wondering about the constant changes of layout here, I'm still exploring what Blogger can do. Clearly, it's orders of magnitude more powerful than it was when I first encountered it.

I won't attempt to reproduce the old Eternity Road layout -- I don't really need that degree of complexity any more -- but I'll be gradually importing the features I'd like to preserve over the next few weeks.

Suggestions and offers of assistance are, as always, quite welcome. My specialty is real-time engineering, with emphasis on simulation and communications. I can barely scrape by in HTML 3.2 and have never produced a Cascading Style Sheet!

Nuclear Fire

Bill Whittle has become a master of video polemics:

Pass it along...especially if you know anyone who's muttered about not bothering to vote this coming November.

Forms Of Power

Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when it was...okay to write lyrics such as these:

In a little cafe just the other side of the border
She was just sitting there givin' me looks that made my mouth water
So I started walking her way
She belonged to bad man Jose
And I knew, yes I knew I should leave
When I heard her say, yeah

Come a little bit closer
You're my kind of man
So big and so strong
Come a little bit closer
I'm all alone
And the night is so long

So we started to dance
In my arms, she felt so inviting
That I just couldn't resist
Just one little kiss so exciting
Then I heard the guitar player say
"Vamoose, Jose's on his way"
Then I knew, yes I knew I should run
But then I heard her say, yeah

Come a little bit closer
You're my kind of man
So big and so strong
Come a little bit closer
I'm all alone
And the night is so long

Then the music stopped
When I looked the cafe was empty
Then I heard Jose say
"Man you know you're in trouble plenty"
So I dropped my drink from my hand
And through the window I ran
And as I rode away
I could hear her say to Jose, yeah

Come a little bit closer
You're my kind of man
So big and so strong
Come a little bit closer
I'm all alone
And the night is so long

[Jay and the Americans]

"She belonged"...? Female duplicity? Well, yes. The two go together. That's what you get when you oppress a class of people, regardless of their discriminating characteristic: they seek new, indirect ways of flexing their muscle. They "go underground."

We've changed our ways substantially these past few decades. Western women are no longer treated as chattels or lesser creatures. In many ways, they're a legally privileged sex today. (That's just as wrong as subjecting them to unique legal restrictions ever was, but it's a change.) Unfortunately, they're still involved in a contest over the use of their innate assets. It's just not often recognized as such.

Today, the "war on women" is being waged by the Left against women. It takes the form of an undermining campaign, aimed at weakening the Western woman's willingness to use her particular assets in the eternal negotiation with men over her status:

• Women possess sexual allure, and the privilege of granting or withholding sexual access.
• Women possess the power to bear and nurture children.
• Women possess superior domestic-management skills and a gift for tension dispersal.

But the Left, with the able assistance of the gender-war feminists ("the angry ugly-girl fraction of the Left" -- Duyen Ky), has striven hard to weaken women's will to wield those advantages:

• By trumpeting an ethic of sexual indulgence that devalues women's allure and privileges;
• By stigmatizing child-bearing and child-rearing as somehow demeaning;
• By campaigning against homemaking and breadwinner-support as legitimate career choices.

By any objective measurement, this campaign has inflicted damage on Western women. In the usual case, their lives are less stable; they endure more strife and of more varieties; their overall health is less robust; and the satisfaction they take from their life choices is less. They often wind up in middle to late-middle age feeling as if they've "missed out," no matter what courses they've followed.

This is what you get when you buy into an oppressive ethic as if it were an emancipation.

Yes, there are exceptions. There always have been, in all places and times. But exceptions are called that for a reason.

However, as Emerson has told us, "Justice is not postponed." Women are waking up to what's been done to them in the name of a spurious liberation. And they're turning against their former gurus in ever-increasing numbers.

We're Going To Need A Really Big Camper And A Lot Of Gas

Courtesy of our beloved InstaPundit, we have this interesting speculation about the possibility of lots of life-sustaining worlds:

About 40 percent of red dwarf stars may have Earth-sized planets orbiting them that have the right conditions for life.

Red dwarfs – which are smaller and cooler than our sun – are extremely common, making up 80 percent of stars in the galaxy. Their ubiquity suggests that there are tens of billions of possible places to look for life beyond Earth, with at least 100 such planets located nearby.

The new estimate comes from a team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s HARPS planet-hunting telescope to look at a sample of 102 nearby red dwarfs over a six-year period. The telescope checked for a characteristic wobble from the star, indicating that at least one planet was tugging on it while orbiting around.

The search found nine planets with between one and 10 Earth masses, including two in the habitable zone, possibly giving them the right temperature to have liquid water. Because red dwarfs don’t produce as much heat as our sun, their habitable zones occur much closer to the star.

...to which Professor Reynolds replies:

We need interstellar travel. Faster, please!

We do? Well, let's agree at the least that it would provide us with some options. But until a superluminal reactionless drive should make its appearance, I'm afraid it's not in the cards.

Two arguments for interstellar travel are more common than all the others: adventure and racial survival. Let's leave our taste for adventure off the table for the moment. The usual "survival" argument is to secure the future of Mankind against the possibility of a world-ending calamity here on Earth. The establishment of a human presence on a world in some other solar system would seem to improve the odds that Man will continue regardless of any "local" events. At any rate, it's more difficult to wipe out a species distributed over several solar systems than one that's concentrated on one world.

But sublight vehicles bound by Newton's Third Law can't garner the interest, or fire the enthusiasm, of people who have lives they'd have to live out in transit between the stars. Try to imagine how you'd go about recruiting enough volunteers to man such a mission -- to say nothing of the difficulties of financing it. Which is why, when I imagined the Hegira of the Spooner Federation, I based it on a no-alternatives scenario: flee the Solar System or die at once!

What's that you say? What about "suspended animation?" Well, you bring me a man whose "animation" has been "suspended" for a good long while -- say seventy years or so -- and has been successfully "reanimated," and then we'll talk.

I Was Seriously Thinking...

...of no longer writing on social and political topics, and confining myself to my fictional endeavors. I reasoned that: 1) there are a lot of solid commentators on the Right side of things already; and: 2) that this op-ed crap often turns into an excuse not to face the music on a neglected or stalled fiction project. But I couldn't ignore the wave of anguished email that followed the announced demise of Eternity Road, and anyway, being overfull of unexpressed opinions is a lot like a bad case of constipation: relief eventually becomes a matter of survival.

But a couple of things have changed:

• I'll be posting a lot fewer of the law-review-length pieces I was known for at Eternity Road and The Palace Of Reason, but rather attempting to keep my emissions down to a more modest length -- say 500 words or less.
• I'll at least try to put aside the academic tone that I employed in prior pieces, which characterized the "Curmudgeon Emeritus" persona.

Why? Simply this: I'm too old to write for the mere pleasure of writing, or just to rid myself of accumulated bile. As my remaining time on this ball of mud is sharply limited, I'd like for my efforts to have some point. The point of serious op-ed writing should be one of the following three:

• To confirm the prejudices and established opinions of your existing readers;
• To equip those whose opinions match yours with additional rhetorical firepower;
• To persuade those who differ, or at least acquaint them with a different perspective.

It strikes me that brevity and informality are better suited to all three of those missions than my habitual quasi-scholastic verbosity. Anyway, "they say" that change is good for you, if you put any stock in "their" opinions.

So don't be too alarmed if my drivel here at Liberty's Torch reads a bit differently from what you're accustomed to seeing from me.

Addicted To Fear And Trembling

I sometimes wonder if conservative pundits have a psychological need to feel surrounded, beleaguered, and endangered. The febrile speculations in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's oral hearings on ObamaCare would support that conclusion.

Suddenly, there's talk -- quite a lot of it, actually -- about negative consequences that might flow from having the Court strike down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (George Orwell, call your office!) Why, if this monstrosity of a federal usurpation of Americans' rights is ruled unConstitutional, the Democrats might do something worse! They might even call for a single-payer system, such as Canada has, or (gasp!) a National Health Service like that of the United Kingdom!

HORRORS!

And I'd always thought fear was the Left's principal weapon. Now it turns out to be an essential nutrient for conservative commentators. Silly me.

As if more silliness were mandatory, FOX News has posted perhaps the silliest piece of opinion journalism I've ever seen. It argues that the Court should postpone the decision until 2013. Why? Because it's "political." The Court must never, ever do anything that might influence the operation of the American political system, you see. Not even to correct an injustice or defend the God-given rights of Americans. Elections are just too important!

What do you suppose the authors of the article really fear?

Damn it all, it's time to stand up and be counted. That goes for both sides of the issue: either you're proud of your stand or you're beneath contempt. It also goes for people who make their livings with a word processor, just as much as for the rest of us.

To Democrat partisans: You made your bed by ramming ObamaCare down the nation's throat in the face of overwhelming popular hostility to it. Crawl in; it's time for your nap.

To Republican partisans: Either follow through on this or lose the allegiance of anyone who can honestly call himself a conservative, or a patriot. If the Court strikes down the entire law, don't you dare allow any consideration of a new one. If it strikes only certain portions, such as the individual mandate to have health insurance, you'd bloody well better get to work on repealing the remainder!

Yes, I'm Back

...though God knows for how long.

Eternity Road was wearing me down in many senses. The straw that broke this camel's back was a contretemps with my Webmistress, without whom I was helpless, as she and she alone understood the Expression Engine technology that powered the site. I'm better off here, even if Google is quite as capable of yanking the rug out from under me, if it should decide to do so.

For the present, I'm alone here. If I can get some traffic, perhaps I'll attempt to persuade one or two of my former Co-Conspirators to join me here. Until then...

All my best,
Francis W. Porretto

P.S.: No, the Curmudgeon Emeritus has not been invited!