The Greater Crime

     While I lament the slow death of Blogdom, I must admit that intelligence and insight can be found elsewhere on the World Wide Web. X / Twitter has become ever more interesting since the takeover by Elon Musk, though its mindless “Security” apparatus continues to present users with severe problems. One user who’s made some striking and thoughtful observations goes by the moniker of Black Dumpling:

     BD has made some penetrating and provocative statements, but none more so than this one:

The list of crimes I now think people should be put to death for has grown exponentially because I think it's not the crime one should be put to death for, but the mindset that informed committing it.

This is why I think people who engage in high speed police chases, torturing… https://t.co/ggKSwBhvtw

— BLACK DUMPLING™ (@BlackDumpling) June 29, 2026

     Please click through and read it to the end. For those who “can’t spare the click,” I’ll excerpt the part that hits hardest:

     What would be required for you, as an adult human being, to engage in the willful torture of a dog? Can you think of ANY rationale for why you would do such a thing? If the answer is no, then ask yourself why you would want to share a civilization with a person who not only can do such a thing but would do such a thing.

     BD’s questions cut to the heart of the matter we call justice.

* * *

     The Latin roots of the word justice mean holding rights. The philosophical basis of justice in Christian-Enlightenment societies is the proposition that we who believe in individuals’ rights have an ethical obligation to redress violations of them: if possible, to make the victim whole. That obligation strikes some people as not pertaining to them personally: “Let it be someone else’s problem.”

     As with many other chores we’d rather not be bothered by, we’ve “outsourced” justice to a third party: The State. But while private individuals are largely unwilling to take personal responsibility for justice, popular sentiment about State justice is negative. Witness the tremendous outpouring of applause for the recent movie Citizen Vigilante.

     Black Dumpling’s proposition in the previous segment accords with the general conviction that at this time, State justice is inadequate. Citizen Vigilante and its popularity underscore that conviction. It’s been called “a feel-good movie.” Ponder that for a few seconds and feel your brain itch. But what matters above all else is the subconscious quasi-logic behind it.

     We entrusted the maintenance of justice to the State. The consequences include an expanding tide of violence and predation against peaceable citizens. That is unacceptable. Therefore, the maintenance of justice cannot be entrusted to the State; other enforcers must step forward.

     Note that the above paragraph makes no mention of what “justice” is supposed to mean. Indeed, it could mean nightly Bingo tournaments, or free durians on national holidays, or anything at all. All that matters is that unacceptable consequence. The implication follows directly, though with imperfect logic.

     Ponder that for a moment before continuing on.

* * *

     Most people don’t think about fundamental things. They’ve had terms such as justice indoctrinated into them. “Justice? Isn’t that what the courts do?” You won’t find many high school graduates who answer some other way.

     But as we can see from the previous segment, in the popular conception, “justice” isn’t about correcting violations of rights. It’s about the protection of the innocent from the violent and dishonest. By that criterion, State justice is a failure. But what else is there?

     Only vigilantes. Only killing.

     A people who feel imperiled will countenance the killing of miscreants. They’ll tolerate it, even if at some level they disapprove of it. They’ll know, without needing to reason it out, that when State justice fails, “private justice” – i.e., vigilantes – becomes the only recourse. Many will deem that to be acceptable. But they won’t have considered the second-order effects.

     The masters of the State will note the developments. They will reason that if the populace tolerates vigilantes doing the only thing vigilantes have ever done, then they’ll tolerate a State justice system that executes more often than it currently does. Moreover, the justifications for execution will embrace a wider spectrum of reasons, including imputed intent.

     If you must have a State, do you really want to empower it to kill a man because of what it conceives his mindset to be?

     Black Dumpling has fingered a fundamental question: what shall we do with persons too mentally aberrant to be tolerated among us? Are there any answers other than the one she propounds?

     Have a nice day.

Marching Orders

     Today’s Gospel reading is one of the most difficult parts of the Gospels to accept literally:

     Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
     He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
     He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
     He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
     He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.
     And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.

     [Matthew 10:34-42]

     That’s Christ talking to His Apostles. The Son of God had something quite definite in mind. The Twelve were about to set out on a difficult, tiring, hazardous journey. That journey had more than one reason.

     One of the distinguishing marks of this passage is its absoluteness. Jesus was putting out the Word unadorned. Loyalty to Him must take precedence over other loyalties. The Twelve had to bear that in mind at all times. Others would surely offer them inducements to leave Him for some other master, especially after they demonstrated the power He had bestowed upon them. Equally imperative, they were not to take among them any of dubious commitment.

     Bishops have to be like that. Bishops, be it remembered, have the authority under the Apostolic Succession to ordain priests and to elevate priests to the episcopate. The deadliest thing a bishop could do to the Church is to elevate an unworthy priest. Of course, if a priest is unworthy, whichever bishop ordained him committed a grave error of judgment at the very least.

     But the passage also speaks to lay Christians. We are commanded to put steadfastness in faith above all other priorities. That sounds harmless enough until we get to the implications. Could you, a Christian randomly selected from the pool of Liberty’s Torch Gentle Readers, profess your faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God if the consequences were to include the death by torture of everyone you love? Because that’s part of the deal. It’s not even in the fine print; it’s right out in front of God and everybody.

     That makes for tough chewing. But it’s at the heart of Christian commitment.

* * *

     We of the United States are blessed in many ways. Not the least of those is that until rather recently, ours was a Christian country. The overwhelming majority of Americans described themselves as Christians of some variety. There were minor faiths, of course: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, even some Taoism and Shintoism. But all of those were compatible with C. S. Lewis’s “Law of General Benevolence.” We are commanded to be “men of good will:” i.e., to will the good of others, and to labor for it at need. A faith that rejects that Law is “outside the Tao,” in Lewis’s formulation. It is unfit for human consumption.

     Today, matters are not so pleasant. Two faiths go among us that reject that Law: Islam and militant atheism. Both of these are threats to the Christian. The Muslim is the sworn enemy of all persons of other faiths; he wills their subjugation or destruction. The militant atheist concerns himself with faith alone. Paradoxically that may make him more dangerous than the Muslim, for he appears harmless.

     I could go into details about those threats to body and soul, but I hardly think it’s necessary. A Christian, whatever his denomination, is sworn to follow the teachings of Christ. Anyone who attempts to induce a Christian to deny Christ – to set anything above His Word – imperils the soul. And one cannot know whence the threat emanates. It could come from within the circle of his temporal loves: his family and cherished friends.

     There is a challenge here, for we are not licensed to forsake our families. We must remain in Christ while also conserving our family relations and bonds. It’s not quite squaring the circle, but it can be difficult, especially if Brother Atheist or Daughter-in-Law Muslim is aggressive about the matter. The challenge is hardly less when the threat comes from a beloved friend.

     Those interested in embracing Christ must be fully conscious of the requirements. Clerics who specialize in Christian initiation have no higher duty. Indeed, a cleric who fails that duty will find forgiveness hard to get.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Race War News

     My gentler Gentle Readers don’t like for me to write about this stuff. Yet I have, and I will. From where I sit, we’re looking at a civilizational crisis. I can’t watch without commenting.

     Have a couple of tweets:

This is how we live. This is how all of us live. This isn't some random street in Peoria, Illinois..

This is the entire world.

As you watch the video you'll feel the tumblers click into place, one by one, over and over, it will be reinforced. As you become angrier.

Consider..… pic.twitter.com/j8jhnOEwkL

— BLACK DUMPLING™ (@BlackDumpling) June 26, 2026

     And even worse:

A pack of blacks surround two White girls sitting on a bench.

One White girl is holding her baby.

The blacks recording are telling the others “take the baby, take the baby, that’s why she not fighting, dam Dey really dat scared to fight, take the baby.” (They think it’s… pic.twitter.com/ojnG66Vn7r

— White Girl (@WhiteGirl1776) June 26, 2026

     These are representative of the trends in recent events. They are not exceptions to a more civilized pattern. Neither are they far from the behavioral norm among blacks.

     Do you remember the “knockout game?” It hasn’t vanished. It’s just that with Colin Flaherty having passed away, no one is writing about it. And it’s blacks attacking Whites: in nearly every case, a young black male attacking an older White man.

     Armed robberies and home invasions have been “colorful,” too. There are plenty of reports of such. Usually, the races of the perpetrators go unmentioned. If there’s a video, it’s even money that the faces of the perps will be blurred. If a White homeowner shoots and kills a black invader, the invader's mother will immediately scream to the media that “he din’ do nuffin’ to deserve that.”

     American Whites haven’t been idle. They’ve been on the move. Residential segregation is making a comeback through White relocation. Demand has made White neighborhoods ever more expensive. Blacks with sufficient means have sought to follow Whites to their new neighborhoods… and have found that they’re not welcome.

     The prevailing residential quest of our time has been to live where there are no blacks, or as few as possible. That’s even the goal of well-civilized, law-abiding blacks. And as young blacks are proving repeatedly that they’ve bought the “White oppressor” propaganda, the trend will continue.

     To regular readers of Liberty’s Torch, this doesn’t come as news. I’ve been on this beat for years. But now and then, it seems important to emit a reminder:

     Whites are not safe around blacks.
     The police are still afraid to act.
     The media are still suppressing reports.
     The courts are still releasing offenders with no or low bail.
     The prisons are still furloughing and paroling violent criminals.
     And should you dare to defend yourself, race-hustlers will call you the real criminal.

     Always, always go armed. No exceptions.

Asceticisms

     Have you noticed the rise in people, occupations, and organizations telling you to give up your pleasures?

     I’ve lived through campaigns against many things. You may remember some of them as well. Butter. Red meat. Sweets. Games. Alcoholic beverages. Carbonated beverages. Fiction. Television. Video entertainment generally. Sunbathing and suntans. Boisterous play. Sexual pleasure! Even smiles and laughter, in some grim religious sects.

     People who denounce things the rest of us enjoy have a long history. The reasons they’ve offered us vary, but the intent is constant: Give that up. You shouldn’t (or mustn’t). They can get very strident about it, such that the rest of us scurry off to find somewhere they’re not admitted.

     You’d swear that the ultimate enemy is human happiness. That just might be the case. There have always been some killjoys among us. But let’s be kind and stipulate that some of the campaigners sincerely want to help us.

     How much of that kind of help can you stand, Gentle Reader? My tolerance for it is limited. Still, there’s always some of it about.

     And this morning it’s very much on my mind.

* * *

     I have a love of sweet things. Some of those things are currently under a cloud of sorts. In the interests of my waistline, I do try to limit my intake, but I refuse to treat sweet goodies as the works of Satan. Despite having been told that sugar is metabolically deceptive and physiologically useless, I still eat a bite of dessert after dinner, most nights.

     I also enjoy wine. Really. A lot! And I have a couple of glasses of wine just about every evening. Got to wash the dessert down, don’t I? The C.S.O. and I enjoy it enough that we bought a tiny piece of a fine winery: Willamette Valley Vineyards in Oregon. And when we go for a brief vacation, we prefer to visit the Seneca Wine Trail, in New York’s Finger Lakes region. You can guess how we spend our time there.

     Well, just yesterday I went for my annual physical. According to my nurse-practitioner, whom I love dearly, I “shouldn’t” be eating sweets or drinking wine. Why? That went undiscussed, save for the usual “bad for you” implication. As I’m 74 years old and in near-perfect health, I smiled and changed the subject.

     There’s a doctor of some sort on X who’s been proclaiming that “Alcohol has not one benefit.” Clearly, he’d like us all to give up the consumption of alcoholic beverages. (I’m against that; it would bankrupt our winery.) No, he’s not the first. But what stands out here is his rationale: no benefits. Were he to be more explicit, he’d say no physiological benefit. And he might be right. But what about the non-physiological benefits? The lowering of stress, the improvement of mood, the improvement to conviviality? What about the enjoyment?

     Don’t those things matter?

* * *

     A passage in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 comes to mind:

     Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly. He had figured out that a single hour on the skeet-shooting range with people like Havermeyer and Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years.
     “I think you’re crazy,” was the way Clevinger had responded to Dunbar’s discovery.
     “Who wants to know?” Dunbar answered.
     “I mean it,” Clevinger insisted.
     “Who cares?” Dunbar answered.
     “I really do. I’ll even go so far as to concede that life seems longer I—”
     “—is longer I—“
     “—is longer—Is longer? All right, is longer if it’s filled with periods of boredom and discomfort, b—“
     “Guess how fast?” Dunbar said suddenly.
     “Huh?”
     “They go,” Dunbar explained.
     “Years.”
     “Years.”
     “Years,” said Dunbar. “Years, years, years.”
     “Clevinger, why don’t you let Dunbar alone?” Yossarian broke in. “Don’t you realize the toll this is taking?”
     “It’s all right,” said Dunbar magnanimously. “I have some decades to spare. Do you know how long a year takes when it’s going away?”
     “And you shut up also,” Yossarian told Orr, who had begun to snigger.
     “I was just thinking about that girl,” Orr said. “That girl in Sicily. That girl in Sicily with the bald head.”
     “You’d better shut up also,” Yossarian warned him.
     “It’s your fault,” Dunbar said to Yossarian. “Why don’t you let him snigger if he wants to? It’s better than having him talking.”
     “All right. Go ahead and snigger if you want to.”
     “Do you know how long a year takes when it’s going away?” Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. “This long.” He snapped his fingers. “A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you’re an old man.”
     “Old?” asked Clevinger with surprise. “What are you talking about?”
     “Old.”
     “I’m not old.”
     “You’re inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow time down?” Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.
     “Well, maybe it is true,” Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. “Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it’s to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?”
     “I do,” Dunbar told him.
     “Why?” Clevinger asked.
     “What else is there?”

     The characters above were at war. They were pilots and bombardiers. Every time they went aloft, people on the ground would shoot at them. When they were on the ground, sometimes people in the air would shoot at them. Truly, they could die at any instant.

     But isn’t that true of all of us?

* * *

     Asceticism’s opposite pole, hedonism, makes no greater sense. If life is nothing but pleasures, ultimately it will be pointless. All the hedonist’s memories will be of sensation. Love? Achievement? Legacy? Those would be absent from the picture.

     Not being either an ascetic or a hedonist, I can’t see the attractions. But there are people in both those camps. I’m willing to let them have their “fun” without any interference from me. What grieves me somewhat is when they try to pull me in after them.

     “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:19) But in between, we have plenty of chances to be more than mere dust: to live, to love, to achieve, to enjoy, to thank and praise God, and to enlarge life for oneself and others. The ascetic spurns those chances. His reasoning may not be that of the ascetic across the street, but their ends are the same: to exclude the pleasures from life.

     Would he answer Clevinger’s “Why?” as Dunbar did? If not, what would he say?

     Have a nice day.

The Unwelcome Cup

     Once in a great while, a politician tells us something significant by doing nothing: more specifically, by not reaching for a seeming prize that would be his merely for the reaching. I have before me a historical reminder.

     In August of the Year of Our Lord 1914, when the great powers of Europe had decided to settle some minor issues by killing millions of their best and brightest, France was in a bit of turmoil. Several shattering defeats of France’s armies by German forces had greatly undermined the existing administration. Premier Rene Viviani decided to look for a few popular figures to buttress the government. His eye lit at once upon the man known as “the Tiger of France:” former prime minister Georges Benjamin Clemenceau.

     Clemenceau politely declined the honor:

     Viviani found [Clemenceau] in a “violent temper” and without desire to join a government he expected to be out of office in two weeks.
     “No, no, don’t count on me,” he said. “In a fortnight you will be torn to ribbons, I am not going to have anything to do with it.” After this “paroxysm of passion” he burst into tears, embraced Viviani, but continued to decline to join him in office.

     [Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August]

     Politicians, however greedy for power, are nevertheless wary of traps that are baited with it. No one wants to be holding the baton when the Jacquerie kicks off, and at that moment in August 1914, popular sentiment was clearly inclined toward torches and pitchforks. Clemenceau, one of the ablest statesmen in Europe, could see that it was thus.

     Something similar is in progress in the United Kingdom. The current Labour government, headed by Sir Keir Starmer, has performed atrociously and seems likely to fall. However, a great deal of the odium for Labourite policies has fallen on Starmer personally. Labour’s “back room” has persuaded Starmer to resign his premiership: something of a “sop to Cerberus” so the rest of the administration might not fall as well.

     And so, there is a vacancy at Number 10 Downing Street. Who will be next to occupy that high post? Surely some grandee of the administration will put himself forward for the job. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy? Defence Minister Dan Jarvis? Perhaps even Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper?

     Nope. None of them want it. Among the seated ministers, the lack of interest in accepting the mantle of leadership is total. In consequence, a brand new Member of the House of Commons from Manchester, Andy Burnham, is expected to take the post unopposed.

     That isn’t because Burnham has the glow of the heaven-sent upon him. He just hasn’t had any previous association with the sitting government. No one who has that taint wants the crosshairs upon him with the government in such dire straits. Burnham, whose highest previous office was as the mayor of Manchester, will be no better than Starmer – indeed, with no experience in Britain’s national administration he’s likely to be well out of his depth – but the strategists and kingmakers of the Labour Party are happy to let him be the focus of popular attention for a while.

     I don’t expect much. I didn’t expect much when Boris Johnson rose to the premiership. The national government of the United Kingdom is even more dominated by unelected civil servants than is the federal government of these United States. “Permanent secretaries” and their staffers get their way in the same fashion as do American bureaucrats: by simply ignoring the elected and appointed officials nominally over them. Radical changes are highly unlikely.

     It’s those bureaucrats who constitute the true and enduring government of Britain. Their primary interests are in continuity, both in policy and in personnel. They know full well that for practical purposes, their positions are guaranteed. They will move, or refuse to move, in whatever fashion preserves those interests.

     Politicians come and go; bureaucrats are forever.

     The Sceptered Isle has been in difficulties for some time. Those difficulties are destined to deepen further. It’s a pity, for America has – or had – much in common with Britain. But with every figure of note unwilling to challenge the untried Burnham for the helm, inertia will be the only victor… and inertia always points downhill.

Timing

     Because I write frequently on matters of faith and the spirit, I occasionally get questions about – drum roll, please – how to lead others to Christ. Such questions make me want to run and hide. I’m no master evangelist. I’m just a thinker and writer. But the questions arrive anyway.

     The greatest Christian apologist of the Twentieth Century, Clive Staples Lewis, once wrote that “God does all things for each.” I sense that to be true. Yes, each of us was given free will, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never need a little help. We cannot predict the timing, nor the form, of that help. That makes it important to stay alert, attentive… and humble.

     I wrote the following in 2005. It first appeared at the late, lamented Eternity Road site. I’ve amended it slightly, to make it conform to events since then. If you’re a Christian of any denomination who hopes to become more effective at spreading the Faith, perhaps it will speak to you.

---

     Timing, they say, is everything. And while we all have our little disagreements with "they," I think on this matter they're more right than wrong. This being Sunday, my focus is, as usual, on matters of faith and the spirit.

     In recent years there's been a resurgence of interest in Christianity, a great part of which has gone to the Catholic Church and its Deposit of Faith. Many "cradle Catholics" who fell away when they became teenagers or young adults, as I did, have returned to the communion, oftentimes with wild expressions of astonishment and joy. I can only delight in this trend, not only because I love the Church and think it to have the best grip on eternal truth of all human institutions, but also because the great falling-away of the Baby Boom generation coincided with the rising of many social pathologies. The relation was more than a coincidence.

     But what does it mean? Are the returnees and recent converts flocking through the Church's ancient doors because they've had a spiritual awakening? Because they seek to change their lives? Because an hour a week with a psychiatrist has become prohibitive? For many persons have involved themselves with a church for reasons quite distinct from a true attachment to its mission and teachings.

     The Church, particularly the Church in America, has changed greatly. Fifty years ago, its presence on this continent was marked by an unpleasant degree of authoritarianism. Its priests and nuns seemed to want to declare everything either compulsory or forbidden, on God's Authority. They gave little or no explanation for their dicta; the subtext was always "It's this way or Hell." And one lesson we who attended parochial schools learned early and deeply, often from the business end of a Bolo paddle, was that you don't argue with a nun or a priest.

     The past half-century has seen a softening of the clerical attitudes that evoked the greatest resistance. Characteristic of the contemporary approach are these passages from What It Means To Be Catholic, by Father Joseph M. Champlin:

     The Church attempts to say something about [a wide range of contemporary issues with moral overtones.] Nevertheless, while it can clearly state the commandments, and almost as strongly teach certain general principles based upon the commandments, the further away the Church moves from the commandments and the more specific the issue at hand, the less authoritative the Church becomes. The Church on such points proposes its teachings more as tentative probings and studied insights designed to help Catholics resolve these delicate conscience questions....

     Catholics believe that an individual's conscience is the ultimate determinant of what is wrong or right for that individual. Moreover, God will judge us according to the fidelity with which we have followed our conscience. Nevertheless, this conscience needs to be formed by objective standards of moral conduct. The Church provides us with just that -- moral norms based on Jesus's teachings, the inspired scriptures, centuries of tradition and the laws of nature.

     In taking this position, the Church demonstrates not only its commitment to its Founder and the Deposit of Faith He left us, but also a quality to which all of us are advised to recur, especially at times when we're unsure of our ground and might well be spouting personal preference rather than sound reasoning based in eternal verities: humility. It's no less important in a two-thousand-year-old institution than in an individual man.

---

     All religious questions ultimately reduce to two:

1. What is eternally true?
2. What does God want from me?

     Historically, children who've undergone early religious indoctrination were seldom confronted with those questions in their fundamental form. Instead, they were drilled to repeat certain approved answers to certain questions, to do this and not that, and above all not to quibble with the hierarchy. Despite the obvious, long-established superiority of religiously based education to secular forms, especially to State-run schools, this is a significant error. Fundamentals should come first; no one of any age should ever be told of a compulsion or a prohibition without being given a clear explanation for it. To do otherwise is authoritarianism, especially if the person wielding the authority is not only unwilling but also unable to justify his dictates.

     Many young Catholics of my generation distanced themselves from the Church for precisely that reason. Their experiences conveyed bad lessons to others who might have become communicants. Contemporary priests and Catholic teachers are slowly coming to realize how great, and how greatly negative, the impact has been.

     In a comment to this essay, Father Ethan McCarthy of Easton, Massachusetts circled the matter in a particularly poignant way:

     As a priest, it is very hard to preach to my generation (I am 31) because they are not at church (I'm not that charismatic). Nevertheless, I try to go out around town and meet some of them. I think your insights are very interesting and similar to what I have seen.

     In the area I work, the cost and standard of living is very high. I could not believe my eyes and ears, but there is a standard to which everyone tries to live, often above their means. It was a very different lifestyle than I have ever experienced growing up and a lifestyle I would never want.

     To get to the crux of my comment, women in my generation want a career, good looks, and a good man. Men want a good job, money, a good car, and a good woman. Neither really wants to get married or have children, but they will if they think they can benefit from a marriage. And they are not getting married in the Church, but on a nice beach or resort.

     I usually come into the picture after their second child is born. For whatever reason, having a second baby is a crisis, I think, because they realize that they have no supernatural wisdom to hand down to their children. I "bless" their marriage and baptize their children. Sometimes they will come to see me when one of them (usually the man) has lost a job. I try to tell them to receive the sacraments (confession & Mass) and build up their domestic church by reading the Bible, praying together, staying away from sin, etc. Internet porn is a huge problem among married men. Past abortion(s) is a problem among women. But, I can never keep them around long enough for them to change their lives. As soon as they find a job, grandma moves away, a new ski house in NH, they are back to just dropping off their kids at CCD.

     I think the biggest problem is the lack of God in their lives. They never stop and think that everything I have will one day be dust. I will be dead and all of these things will not be with me on the other side. It will all be over someday. What they need to do is ask, "What does God want me to do?"

     Father McCarthy is himself young, and so cannot be held responsible for the defaults and missteps of those who instructed, or ought to have instructed, his sort-of-parishioners when they were younger. But the question he wants his parishioners to ask themselves is critical. If they truly believe in God, and in a Divine Plan that embraces all who live, why haven't they asked it?

     Perhaps because it's not time yet.

---

     No one on Earth knows the Divine Plan. God has not granted any man the power to read His mind. He speaks to individuals concerning His missions for them, but He has not deigned to sketch out the whole of His grand scheme for anyone. What He has done, and quite elegantly (if I may say so), is to write the laws of nature, particularly human nature, in a form legible to human eyes. What He has done is to send His Son into the world to reinforce those laws with the authoritative Word, and to suffer and die horribly as an ultimate testimony to their truth. What He has done is to promise that no man shall be tempted beyond his strength.

     That is all, but it is infinitely more than enough.

     Still, one must look in order to see. Many decline to look, or deliberately look away. Why?

     It's not because the Word is burdensome. Indeed, the great contrast between the simplicity of Christ's teachings, their negation of the complex and onerous Levitical Covenant, and the lightness of the yoke He asked His followers to accept is why the Pharisees and priestly caste of classical Judea regarded Him as a supreme enemy. Simplicity and clarity are the things arbitrary authority has always hated most. Ask any bureaucrat -- and judge not by the specifics of his answer, but by whether you can understand it.

     It happens that the central thrust of the Gospel passage for today, Matthew 25:1-13, is that we should be ready at all times to meet our fates, for "you know not the day nor the hour:"

     Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
     And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
     They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
     While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
     And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
     Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
     And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
     Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
     But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
     Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

     All true, but He knows -- and dare we say that the information is of no use, to Him if not to us?

     The resurgence of faith in our day could well be a matter of timing. Father McCarthy, quoted above, might burn with urgency over getting God and faith into his parishioners' lives, but his efforts, however anxious, must defer to the Divine Plan for each individual he approaches. Perhaps Smith, whom the good father has earnestly but vainly entreated, isn't ready yet because God doesn't yet want him to be ready. Perhaps Smith, like an alcoholic still mired in his addiction, must "bottom out" in some indefinable way before he can will himself to look, and so truly see. Or perhaps he, like your humble servant, was brutalized by a hyper-authoritarian indoctrination as a boy, and needs more time for the bruises to heal. The desires and efforts of men, even the holiest and most ardent of men, must be subservient to the will of God -- a will whose barest outlines are only dimly visible, except as He has already sketched them in the laws that govern the universe.

     A great and underappreciated aspect of faith is the willingness to trust that, at the proper time and in the proper proportions, God will provide. Granted, beyond a certain point it's up to us as individuals to embrace our opportunities and move forward on our own, but it should never be a matter of anguish to a Christian, or a Christian cleric, that there are others who have not yet seen.

     God will do all things for each of us, at the time of His choosing. To wait serenely for that time is part of faith.

---

     "What should I have told him?"

     Father Schliemann grinned ruefully. "Do you seriously think I'd have done better than you did?"

     Tony winced. "I'd hope so. All I had in me was a platitude."

     The older priest's eyes were kind. "Sometimes that's all you're going to have, Tony. Don't flog yourself over it. Counseling Louis is likely to be difficult no matter what the occasion."

     Tony had expected the pastor to disapprove of what he'd said, to have an elaborate alternative ready for use that Tony would feel an idiot for not seeing. Louis's visit and sudden departure had left him off balance. Schliemann's attempt to soothe him detached him part way from reality.

     The rectory kitchen seemed to have filled with a faint haze. It glittered at the edge of perception in the light from the overhead fixture. Tony balled his hands on the table before him and tried to compose himself.

     "I can see some of the reasons, I guess. But I wasn't ready for it, and I thought I ought to have been. Does it get easier as you...gain experience, Father?"

     Schliemann grinned again. "You meant 'as you get older,' didn't you? In some ways, it does. In others, quite the reverse." The pastor of Onteora parish reached across the table, gently pried the younger man's hands apart, and folded them between his own.

     "We are the vicars of Christ, Tony. Not Christ Himself. We struggle with the lightest of our duties, because He who defined them for us set a far higher standard than mere mortals could ever meet. But mere mortals are all we have. The Church must make do until the Second Coming."

     A sheen formed on the eyes of the man who had defined the priesthood for Tony Baldaserra.

     "Louis is unlike other men. You should know that, you've known him almost as long as I have. When his sister died, he was only fourteen years old, and he was already the brightest, most mature individual I knew. Today...Tony, he's challenged every notion I ever had about human limitations. I don't know what purpose God has in mind for someone so potent, but I do know that, whatever it is, it's something I could never fulfill. If you had to be more intelligent and more responsible than he is to advise him, who in the world could do it?

     "We who do God's work can't afford to compare ourselves to our brothers in Christ. Our ability to help them doesn't depend on our being brighter than they are, or more worldly wise, or even more moral. It depends on remaining humble, on holding fast to the eternal truths we've made the core of our lives, and reminding them of those truths when they lose their way. We have nothing else to offer, except love."

     The old priest squeezed the young one's hands. "And that you have in full measure, Tony. I've known it since you were a boy. Believe me, Louis knows it too. No matter what you said to him, if it had your love in it, it had to be alright."

     Tony bowed his head.

     [From Chosen One.]

     The most effective preacher does not preach; he ministers. He lives his religion where others can see it in action. He stands true to his convictions against all opposition and despite all inducements to betray them. He is, in other words, an exemplar.

     Leonard E. Reed, who founded the Foundation for Economic Education in Westchester, NY, was gifted at conveying the power of the exemplar to others. His basic demonstration was to light a candle in a well-lit room, to stand a little apart from it talking of other things, and to have a confederate slowly dim the lights. When the room lights had been extinguished, he would note that his audience's eyes had all been drawn to the candle's light, as they had not been while there was other illumination. It was his way of encouraging his students to "be a light in the darkness" to those who lacked conviction or guidance.

     A Christian of any denomination, lay or clerical, who wants to see Christianity spread would do well to follow Dr. Reed's advice. Ours is a code of love, hope, and joy. Therefore, love well, live hopefully, and be joyous, and when asked, be ready to explain how and why. You know not the day nor the hour! There's no need to collar "sinners" in the street and drag them to church; anyway, what good would it do? Their eyes will be drawn to your light, or your Christian brother's light, at the proper time. At God's chosen time.

     May God bless and keep you all.

A Cold House

     On this, the 21st day of June in the Year of Our Lord 2026, the first day of summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, I read something that chilled my heart:

     Why don’t Christians welcome new church attendees?
     I’m a baby Christian. Other Christians on here always tell me if I went to church, it would help me. But the one time I walked a very long walk to the only church close by, I had a very unpleasant experience.
     They were like a clique, looking at me as if I was a weirdo when I said hello. No one approached me or welcomed me. And when I tried to be friendly to them, I was ostracised.
     The sermon was great and the music was okay. But the people were not what I was told they would be at all. It broke my heart.
     Is this how Christians usually act towards new people in church?
     Everyone told me to call churches. The vast majority of churches don’t take calls and don’t return messages. Those that have called back asked why I think anyone would want to pick up a complete stranger to bring them to church. I guess that’s a valid point. We live in a dangerous world with a lot of scammers.
     I have been attending my best friend’s online church (in St Louis) since Christmas Eve. I always said hello and spoke in the chat but was ignored. Those in the chat all seem to know each other so it’s not at all welcoming. I love the music and the pastor so I’ve continued to attend.
     2 weeks ago, a woman in chat asked if I usually went in person and if she’d met me. I told her no and who my friend was. My friend has taught kids on Sundays for decades and her husband is involved in putting the sermons online. So my friend is *very* well known. Now, that woman in chat said hello again to me last Sunday.
     But it took 6 months. Wouldn’t it be better to make all new people feel welcome? Maybe someone else is like me, brand new.
     I don’t find most Christians to be anything like Christ at all, to be honest. I’m sure He would have welcomed me with open arms. Shouldn’t we aspire to be more like Him? What am I missing?
     I read in the Bible that Jesus commanded “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” He also said: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”
     I guess He didn’t specify that Christians should welcome new people to a church but I thought it’s kind of implied in His words. Am I wrong?
     Please help me with this. I’m a bit lost.

     That broke my heart as well. It shouldn’t happen to anyone. That it happened to a new follower of Christ is especially tragic. Yet it’s become the rule in churches nationwide.

     A long time ago, I wrote:

     The physical light may stream from a bank of incandescent bulbs. The physical warmth may flow from a furnace. But these are the least part of the thing. Any Christian will tell you.
     Try it out. You don't have to wait for an invitation; you can engrave this one on card stock and sign my name to it, if you like. Visit the church down the block, some Sunday soon. Don't be shy. Shake a few hands; make the acquaintance of the pastor. Everyone there is as flawed as you, but they'll accept you anyway, if you'll grant them the favor of reciprocation. If you're the least bit open to it, I guarantee that you'll feel it as I do.
     Whether made of wood, stone, or grass and mud, a Christian church filled with its congregants is a warm, well lighted place.

     Remembering those words adds to the pain from reading Samsara’s tweet above.

* * *

     Christian brotherhood – true, unfeigned acceptance of the newcomer – is required of us. Christ said it Himself:

     And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

     [Matthew 28:18-20]

     Yet “baby Christians” such as Samsara are frequently met with indifference or suspicion. That’s especially the case when the newcomer looks a bit “alternative:”

     Why? Why not greet the newcomer as a brother, a sheep welcome in the fold, even if he’s covered with tattoos or wearing his hair in some bizarre style? A lot of long-time parishioners treat anyone unfamiliar as someone to be wary of. It makes no sense!

     While there are occasional exceptions, a visitor to a Christian church is there to learn, to worship, or both. Isn’t that cause for celebration, rejoicing? Why show the cold shoulder to such a person?

     I don’t know Samsara. I plan to engage her, if she’s willing to talk to me. I want to know more about the church she visited that treated her that way. I want to see what I can do to help. A congregation that frosty plainly needs some help.

     I could go on, but I’ve made a resolution to cease flogging dead horses. Yeah, yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts, but all the same.

     May God bless and keep you all…including the guy in the back row who’s dressed like an escapee from an insane asylum, and the woman with the spiky hairdo and the forest of tattoos, and the man, woman, or child who enters the nave of the church alone, looking lost and desperate for a hand of welcome. C’mon, fellow believers! It’s the least you could do.

A Fourth Kind Of Conviction

     [The following piece first appeared at the old Palace of Reason on May 4, 2004 – FWP]

---

     Some years ago, PBS imported a series of made-for-television dramas from England, which were scripted from the magnificent murder mystery novels of Phyllis Dorothea James, Baroness of Holland Park, better known to the world as P. D. James. All those dramas starred the fine British actor Roy Marsden as detective Adam Dalgleish of New Scotland Yard, who is the central character of one of Baroness James's series of novels. For your Curmudgeon's tastes, the best of those dramatizations was that of A Taste For Death, which is also one of the very best of Baroness James's novels. Your Curmudgeon has purchased it on DVD, and has been enjoying it with the C.S.O. these past few nights.

     The production values aren't the best. The series having been made for television, the picture is rendered in NTSC 4:3 aspect ratio, and is below typical DVD standards. None of that matters. The story, the pacing, the setting and the acting are all as gripping as they were first time around. Marsden is superb as always, and Penny Downie, who plays his assistant, Inspector Kate Miskin, makes her nominally supporting part glow. The pleasure of this reacquaintance is even more remarkable when one includes that your Curmudgeon had read the novel first.

     Particularly striking is a sequence involving a minor character: Sarah Berowne, estranged daughter to the murdered man, Sir Paul Berowne, a Home Office subminister in a Conservative administration. As is usual in Baroness James's mysteries, she provides a wealth of possible suspects and motives for the crime. Sarah's plausibility is provided by two factors: she stands to inherit a substantial sum, though short of independent wealth, from her father's estate; and she's a doctrinaire Marxist who reviles everything about British society, most especially its government.

     When Commander Dalgleish interviews her in the aftermath of the murder, among the things he probes is the nature of Sarah's estrangement from Sir Paul. Sarah's comment on the matter is too revealing not to share:

     My father thought our political differences were something we could discuss politely around the dinner table. What he didn't understand was that my politics are a faith.

     Imagine the above words spoken in a tone that combines the passion of total commitment with the revulsion of utter contempt for anyone who dares to differ.

     Your Curmudgeon has written before about his tripartite classification of convictions:

• Mathematics: Theses that can be proved or disproved.
• Science: Theses that can be disproved, but not proved.
• Religion: Theses that can neither be proved nor disproved.

     After pondering Sarah Berowne's statement above, and comparing it to the utterances of other Marxists he's known, your Curmudgeon has come to believe that that scheme is incomplete. A fourth category is needed: convictions retained in the face of conclusive disproof.

     A one-word label for such convictions that doesn't imply lunacy on the part of the holder is proving difficult to find. For now, let's call them ideological cults, or ideo-cults and their adherents ideo-cultists.

     Politics is rife with ideological cults, according to your Curmudgeon's standards for evidence. This is not to say that all questions of politics and public policy can be settled one way or the other for all time. However, some theories about what the State must, may, or must not do have been so thoroughly riddled with holes by the fusillades of experience that to retain them even in the most tentative and conditional form should occasion questions about one's respect for objective reality.

     What's significant in this connection is the array of defenses erected around the failed theory, or more accurately, around the minds of those determined to remain loyal to it. Eric Hoffer spoke of the "fact-proof screen" that an ideological cult tries to impose between its communicants and the evidence that would undermine their faith. While there is no doubt that these exist and are important, there yet remain ideo-cults whose members have been made aware of facts fatal to their creed, but maintain their allegiance anyway. Explaining these is harder.

     Possibly, one can get no closer than to examine the reactions of someone whose religious faith is undermined by the assertion of a contrary fact. For example, what would happen to Christian belief if it were demonstrated to a high degree of confidence that the remains of Christ had been found? Since that would undermine the traditional account of the Resurrection, it would be a heavy blow to orthodox Christian creeds. But it is not necessarily the case that all Christians would accept the immediate implications of such a discovery:

• Some would reject the assertion's accuracy, claiming that the researchers who made it couldn't possibly be right;
• Some would impugn the motives of the researchers, claiming that the assertion was known to be untrue and had been made out of malice toward Christianity;
• Some would spin alternative theories that would cover both the Resurrection and the remains.

     A claim about the discovery of Christ's remains would move Christianity out of the category of religion and into the category of science. Those determined to retain the Christian creed in its traditional form would either have to react scientifically, by invalidating the evidence or its implications, or hyper-religiously, by closing their minds to the disproof offered.

     Political ideo-cultists tend toward the religious pole. In the usual case, they simply refuse to engage the implications of contrary evidence. Often, they attack the motives or character of him who presents it. Their resistance grows stiffer, not weaker, with each new bit of adverse evidence adduced.

     Outreach expert Marshall Fritz, founder of Advocates for Self-Government, has counseled freedom activists not to expend their energies trying to convert people who are "into world domination." Analogously, if Smith evinces case-hardened hostility toward evidence that his convictions might be wrong, Jones would do better to avoid the matter in Smith's presence. Offering facts and logic is one thing; deprogramming is quite another, and not terribly well paid at that.

“Duty Sex”

     I’m feeling a bit quirky this morning – yes, I have a lot of mornings like that; the evidence is copious and easily obtained – and I’ve been particularly fascinated, in a not-entirely-wholesome way, with the arguments flowing on X / Twitter about “duty sex.”

     The core of the thing is that there are a great many married men who “aren’t getting any.” This is a real problem, though most women (and a considerable number of men) would never confront it openly. Men have a greater need for sex than do women; this is empirically beyond dispute. And it’s not about the pleasures available from sex. I’ve written about this before.

     Some pro-man voices are exhorting mated women to “give it up” even if they’re personally uninterested. Some women have derided this as a kind of enslavement. I’m uninterested in the more vitriolic exchanges. My own stance is that spouses should want to accommodate each other. He’s rarin’ to go, but you’re disinclined? Indulge him! Unless you’re in serious pain or seriously fatigued, let him enjoy you. Maybe the next time you want him to take you shopping, or out to dinner, or to visit your (ulp) parents, he’ll remember it.

     But enough of that. For giggles, enjoy the following, which I’ve been assured isn’t authentic advice from the 19th Century. It’s funny all the same.

---

INSTRUCTION AND ADVICE
FOR THE
YOUNG BRIDE
on the
Conduct and Procedure of the
Intimate and Personal Relationships
of the Marriage State
for the
Greater Spiritual Sanctity of this
Blessed Sacrament and the Glory of God
by
Ruth Smythers
beloved wife of
The Reverend L.D. Smythers
Pastor of the Arcadian Methodist
Church of the Eastern Regional Conference
Published in the year
of our Lord 1894
Spiritual Guidance Press
New York City

     To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.

     At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth. Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.

     On the other hand, the bride's terror need not be extreme. While sex it at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured, and has been by women since the beginning of time, and is compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced through it. It is useless, in most cases, for the bride to prevail upon the groom to forego the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would be one who would approach his bride only at her request and only for the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness cannot be expected from the average man.

     Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency.

     Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife's best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction.

     Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth year of marriage.

     By their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home. Just as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and degree of sexual contacts. Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include among others performing the normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body; and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.

     Nudity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, viewing photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are the obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire if permitted.

     A wise bride will make it the goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness. Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves and pajamas for their husbands. These should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed durning the sex act. Thus, a minimum of flesh is exposed.

     Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights, she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access.

     When he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.

     If he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist. If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her anyplace else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his desire to kiss in the forbidden territory.

     If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial non-sexual question to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time.

     Eventually, the husband will learn that if he insists on having sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment. The wise wife will allow him to pull the gown up no farther than the waist, and only permit him to open the front of his pajamas to thus make connection.

     She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while his huffing and puffing away. Above all, she will lie perfectly still and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress. As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him to perform on the morrow. Many men obtain a major portion of their sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act is over. Thus the wife must insure that there is no peace in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise, he might be encouraged to soon try for more.

     One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband's home, school, church, and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings, so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued. The wise wife seizes upon this advantage and relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husband's desire for sexual expression.

     Copyright © 1894 The Madison Institute

Men, Reading, And “Literature”

     The trends running through the world of fiction publishing are susceptible to many possible explanations. One keeps coming up in discussions on X and elsewhere: “Men have stopped reading! Have they really? Why?”

     If you’re the editor-in-chief of a publisher whose sales figures have been dropping, and your market surveys suggest that the great majority of your customers are female, those are questions that will occupy you heavily. You’d like to sell more books to men, albeit without losing your female customers. But to do so requires that you understand why men are buying your product.

     You raise the question at your quarterly editorial meeting. You do so gently, in the spirit of greater success for the company and for everyone at the table. You swing questioning eyes from associate to associate, from Sally to Jane to Marie to Hester to Rosemary to Elizabeth to Sue to Phyllis to Maureen and finally to Agatha. But none of them have the least idea.

     In sober truth, it can’t all be because publishing houses are overwhelmingly staffed by women. But the paucity of male editors doesn’t help. Women tend not to read the sort of material that men seek. Why, then, should we expect lady editors to be receptive to fiction that appeals to men?

     Yes, romance fiction is oriented toward female tastes. Publishers are sensible enough not to expect a lot of male readers for their romance offerings. But as romantic themes and motifs have seeped into other genres – most notably fantasy and science fiction – those genres have started to lose some of their traditional male readerships. That’s a part of the puzzle that deserves greater attention.

     One subject that might matter more than anyone has yet mentioned is the matter of “literary fiction.” I’m a writer and a reader. I do my best to stay aware of tastes and the patterns that run through them. And I can’t name even one recent work of “literature” that would attract a male reader.

     One further current of interest: Crime fiction and police procedurals, historically a male-favored genre, has trended toward female authorship and has lost male readers in the process. The “hard-boiled” detective story is shedding representation in the crime / mystery genre. Yet the stories are quite similar to those once told primarily by male writers.

     It’s far from simple, especially considering that the “indie” sector is gaining male readership, and has been for some time. Yet indie writers are about equally split between men and women. The distribution of genre production is about the same as in conventional publishing. What accounts for the difference?

     No, it’s not simple at all. We could discuss characters. We could discuss action. We could discuss the prevalence of male writers and male protagonists – but wait: there is no such prevalence! This chestnut will take more than a simple explanation to crack.

     My inclination is toward sensibility:

     Yes, writers have very different styles. Some are austere and distant, formalists of classical discipline who regard a dangling preposition as something up with which one should never put. Others strive for a Hemingwayesque simplicity, They write short, single-clause sentences. Those sentences contain nothing but nouns and verbs. They leave all else to the reader's imagination. Still others are Faulknerian in the luxuriance of their prose, every sentence a labyrinthine maze of baroque elaboration decorated with as many descriptive and evocative elements as one can digest before running out of breath. But this is packaging for a story and, beneath the story, supporting it with relevance and timeliness, its theme.

     A writer's sensibility is composed of the sorts of themes he likes to explore, and the angle from which he approaches them. It partakes greatly of his moral vision. Indeed, it cannot be separated from his grasp on the moral order of the universe...whether or not he believes there is one.

     Gentle Reader, have you ever encountered a writer whose command of the language is superb and precise, but whose stories proclaim ideas that you simply can't abide? Have you ever encountered a writer whose works, despite serious shortcomings of style, throb so powerfully with truth that you can't imagine ever forgoing them? If so, you're peering down the barrel of auctorial sensibility. You're staring the bullet of theme right in the face. It's the ultimate weapon in the battle for the reader's time, money, and attention.

     Everything matters, yet theme is frequently overlooked. The writer’s sense for what ultimately matters – what Tom Kratman calls “eternal verities” – is seldom discussed in this matter of female-skewed readership.

     Courage.
     Justice.
     Duty.
     Loyalty.
     Freedom!

     I sense that stories that revolve around these things are what attract the male reader most powerfully. They’ve been somewhat muted in conventionally published fiction. But they remain strong in the “indie” world.

     Food for thought.

The Great Men Of Our Time Have Their Own Fears

     Consider this one:

Something Actually Newsworthy

     Perhaps you remember this story:

     A couple of days ago, something unusual happened Across the Water: A Briton dared to defend another Briton against the threat of rape by an immigrant.
     If you aren’t familiar with the details of the event, the defender was a 14-year-old Scottish girl named Mayah Sommers. The intended victim was her 12-year-old sister. The would-be rapist was from... somewhere else, probably the Middle East or Africa. Mayah protected her sister by brandishing a large knife and a hatchet at the immigrant. Apparently that was enough to daunt him, and thank God for that.

     The U.K. being the totalitarian state it is, Mayah Sommers was immediately arrested for her courage. Britons aren’t allowed armament, regardless of the circumstances. (You can’t have a Second Amendment to the Constitution when there’s no Constitution to amend.) There was an outcry, but it proved insufficient to liberate young Mayah.

     But time marches on. (No, it’s not relevant; it’s just beautiful.) And just a couple of days ago, Mayah Sommers was vindicated:

     A man has been found guilty of making sexual remarks to a group of girls aged between 12 and 14 in Dundee before grabbing and pushing one of them to the ground.
     Ilia Belov, 22, claimed he confronted the girls after receiving abusive remarks and said he saw one of the girls with a knife in her waistband before the assault.
     His sister Nadjedzha Belova, 20, previously admitted assaulting a 13-year-old girl by seizing and pulling her hair, dragging her to the ground, and striking her on the head to her injury during the incident.
     The pair will be sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court on 5 August.

     Very nearly a full year passed before this emerged. While it would be Pollyannaish to expect Britain’s powers that be to apologize to Mayah, or to imagine that Britons’ rights to protect themselves will receive greater respect henceforward, nevertheless this “should” clear Mayah’s name and expunge the arrest from her record.

     Yes, those are sneer quotes around “should.” Regular Gentle Readers of this dive will already know how I feel about “should.” The police who arrested Mayah Sommers are as unlikely to acknowledge their fault as Keir Starmer. To admit to an error, however slight, would undermine the Authority of the Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent State and is therefore “right out.”

     I could go on in this vein, but there’s little point to it. (Yes, I know that hasn’t stopped me in the past.) Britain has been conquered; its people have been subjugated; the flood of migrants lord it over them as a triumphant army, with the open connivance of the government. Native Britons, once among the proudest peoples of the world, are less than serfs: they’re mere sources of revenue for the State.

     What Americans and other freedom lovers can do is to publicize this development:

• To make clear that those two immigrants did pose a threat to those Scottish girls;
• To proclaim that a courageous young woman has been vindicated;
• To make plain the British State’s attitude toward its people.

     Will it overturn that criminal State? I doubt it. But one must start somewhere.

Education Or Jobs?

     The never-ending contentions over American education have several parts. One of them, “higher education,” is particularly significant for this reason:

Conservatives often criticize universities for failing to prepare students for jobs.

But that's like criticizing a library for failing to function as a gym.

The purpose of a university was never vocational training. It was always the pursuit and transmission of knowledge.

— Liza Libes (@pensandpoison) June 13, 2026

     That dichotomy is the secret shame of the American educational system. But it’s also a consequence, rather than a primary that can be addressed in isolation.

* * *

     The history of compulsory education in America is worthy of more attention than it gets from the typical adult. Time was – and I’m not talking about the Pleistocene Era here, but the mid-19th Century – a “grammar school” education was all that was required by law. Moreover, a student didn’t need to traverse eight grades to escape the school’s clutches. What he needed was his teacher’s endorsement of his ability to function as an adult. As the greater part of the population was engaged in agriculture or other manual labor, that didn’t demand much.

     But as John Gall told us in his classic Systemantics, every system embeds a growth dynamic. Grow or stagnate and die is the rule. “Education” proved to be no exception. Once teaching became a recognized occupation, schools ceased to be regarded as a local convenience for imparting literacy and numeracy. They fell into the hands of careerists eager to see their domain enlarge.

     That process was contemporaneous with the rise of industrial America: the transformation of our previous, family-centered agriculture-heavy economy into an urban one heavy with employers and employees. Over time, parents surrendered their part in the education of their children to the schools, while the schools came ever more completely under political authority. “High schools” were born, as were teachers’ colleges. Teaching specialties took a bit longer to emerge, but shortly after the turn of the 20th Century we no longer spoke of “teachers” as an undifferentiated mass.

     But as the system expanded, it also moved away from its previous mandate: i.e., to teach the basic skills required of an adult citizen and leave all else to the home environment. Systems do that sort of thing. Among other diversions of educational effort, we began to see “practical” courses and the “vocational” school: things previously neither required nor requested by the parents of minor children. Prior to the Civil War, the idea of classes in “Home Economics” or “Shop” never occurred to an American parent. That was what Mom and Dad were for.

     With the rise of large enterprises and the need for management came a need for “white collar” employees: persons removed from manual labor who commanded informational skills. (The occupational designation “white collar” apparently originated with writer Upton Sinclair in 1911.) By then, the fundamental skills taught by the “grammar school” had been expanded by the “high school” to include more extensive education in literature, mathematics beyond arithmetic, history and geography, and rudimentary knowledge of the sciences.

     For a while, those two segments of schooling maintained themselves and their putative duties stably and successfully. But change was coming. World wars, conscription, industrialism, unionism, state encroachments on previously local prerogatives and, eventually, federal encroachments on state prerogatives were soon to come upon the United States. All of those trends promoted giantism, the disease that anonymizes decision makers and insulates them against the choices and opinions of the common man. In unionism, teachers found a route toward increased respect and prosperity. State governments were slowly compelled to mandate union membership for teachers employed in government-run schools.

     The “educational system” expanded enormously. Property taxes intended to pay for the government-run schools swelled to such an extent that only a small minority of families could afford a private or religious school for their children. Alternatives to the government-run school system dwindled. With the dwindling of competition and the overweening authority of “departments of education” came the consequence one must always expect from a government monopoly: sharp declines in educational quality and in responsiveness to the parents of school-age children.

     There was one path left to follow.

* * *

     For parents and children who wanted a better and fuller education than was available from the government-run schools, the sole recourse was to “higher education.” That, until relatively recently, remained outside government control. And indeed, a student admitted to a college or university did still have opportunities to learn much to which he hadn’t yet been exposed. But after World War II, the returning GIs were mainly concerned with making a living. Most had had their twelve years of government schooling. They looked upon the American economy, now dominated by corporations, and sought the kind of education that would ready them for corporate employment.

     Government loan and grant programs offered the GI the possibility of free college education. They took it in large numbers. Colleges and universities sprang up like toadstools in response. And to an increasing degree, the education they provided leaned toward readiness for employment. The older goal of a college education, acquainting the student with “the best that has been thought and said,” slowly receded from the priorities of everyone involved.

     Now that governments provide by far the greater portion of funding for “higher education,” those institutions prioritize what governments want. There are still “liberal and humane arts” colleges, but in comparison to the larger number, they’re fewer than ever before. Above all, governments want money. Therefore, they want the “educational system” to produce workers, ready to earn taxable incomes. With the quality of “primary” and “secondary” education having fallen so far that even Ivy League colleges offer remedial reading and high-school mathematics courses, preparation for employment, especially in “white collar” positions, has become the province of “higher education.”

     Most of the above has come upon us so gradually as to be invisible. That’s how social and institutional transformations occur. And this one has conquered education in the United States so completely that any possibility of undoing it – returning early schooling to its original mission and “higher education” to the mission of enrichment it once pursued – is beyond my power of imagination.

Money Fights

     If you’re around my age, and have had a lifelong addiction to the printed word, you might remember the halcyon days of the “advice columnists.” Mostly, if memory serves, they advised individuals with individual concerns. The quality of the advice was irregular, but in the Fifties and Sixties the subjects on which people sought their counsel were a concentrated few. (No: they didn’t advise their correspondents on which toothpaste would renew their love lives. They left that to the Madison Avenue crowd.)

     One of the most popular subjects was how married couples should manage their money. Occasionally, amid the scattered practical recommendations, some helpful columnist would recommend a regularly scheduled “money fight.” It was intended to be a good-humored, largely facetious exchange between him and her over their respective spending habits. Perhaps it worked, for some. But it had risks that could emerge unexpectedly, with consequent destruction. One of the worst was a segue from spending to earning.

     Remember, Gentle Reader: those were the days of the single-income household. In such a household, only one member earned; therefore only one member could be attacked for not earning enough. Need I detail just how much marital carnage could result?

     Well, for better or worse (and for richer or poorer), those days are behind us. Most families are two-income households today. But fighting over who earns how much and what he could do to increase it is still massively destructive. I’ve seen the consequences up close. It should be avoided for the sake of… well, a lot of things.

     And from that we turn to money fights in the news!

     The big one, of course, which could touch every White American alive today, is the fight over “reparations.” Let me be absolutely candid here:

Not one Negro in these United States,
No matter the identities of his forebears,
Deserves one cent from anyone
Because of “slavery” or on any other grounds.

     The black grifters screeching for “reparations” are morally no better than pickpockets. They deserve to be ridiculed, then ignored. The same treatment should be awarded to any White man who claims they have a case.

     I could go into detail here, but it’s not necessary. What is necessary is some thought about what those black grifters hope to accomplish. I’m fairly sure it isn’t a huge cash windfall from the federal treasury.

     They’re getting a lot of publicity from the legacy media. Publicity can be converted into cash, in specific cases. But that cash is far more likely to come from a distributed set of private pockets. Beyond immediate bundles of cash, there are opportunities, with the help of compliant media, to become very well known, and thus to obtain entry to circles that might otherwise not have them. Such circles are themselves entry points to gainful things. And of course, political prospects often flow from notoriety. The machinations deserve to be watched.

     Of less immediate but greater ultimate impact is the outpouring of resentment and disparagement aimed at Elon Musk. Yes, in purely paper terms, Musk has attained trillionaire status. Those who think he can open a checkbook or a bank’s website and gaze upon a cash balance of $1,000,000,000,000 are of course deluded. Given the way the equities markets work, it wouldn’t be possible for him to convert his stock and other paper possessions into that amount of cash no matter how hard he might try.

     That having been said, Elon Musk controls a lot of capital. He can put that capital to many uses, just as he’s done to date. What will matter to the rest of us non-trillionaires is what uses he chooses to address. And the Left, which hates private wealth, is determined to take Musk’s choices, and his capital, away from him. Recent emissions from the detestable Elizabeth Warren and the odious Bernie Sanders are clear indicators.

     Don’t think it can’t happen. There’s a huge wave of envy-powered politics in motion. The “blue” states’ governments, ever hungry for more revenue, are hatching schemes that would catch Musk in their jaws. I wrote about one such scheme just yesterday. Moreover, there’s no guarantee that some future federal administration with a solid backing in Congress won’t take aim at Musk’s fortune, on the grounds of “equity” and “fairness.”

     Remain alert to the patterns. Government always grows until it’s destroyed by a revolution or an internal collapse. As it grows, it consumes ever more of our substance. Leftist “intellectuals” will provide the rationales for advancing taxation and confiscation. Here’s one that should not be forgotten. It got respectable attention from a significant number of Congressvermin.

     Envy is among the strongest political motivators. Expect the screws on private accumulations of wealth to be tightened as the years pass. The defenders of property rights have been lax for quite a while. It’s time to awaken and remobilize them – and ourselves.

Tax Shackles

     I strained to come up with a clever neologism for what I’m about to address, but I failed. “Taxicles?” No, sounds too much like “popsicles.” “Shtaxles?” No, that’s too ethnic; someone would probably suggest that it be served with wiener schnitzel. Anyway, the subject is one of some gravity, so the above title will just have to do.

     If you have twenty minutes, the following video is worth your time and attention:

     Five populous states are trying to fetter their residents – give them a tax disincentive to move out. Those “exit tax” provisions won’t retard all emigration, of course, but they will cause a significant fractions of Californians, New Yorkers, et cetera to cast about for ways of averting the planned amputations of their net worth. There might be some dodges. There’s also the possibility that the federal courts will strike those exit taxes as unConstitutional on the ex post facto provision of Article I, Section 10. But for the moment, it’s a trend in motion, and likely to spread.

     It sets up an interesting tension. You want to move your income away from California’s high-income tax? Well, then the Golden State will get you on the way out. If you insist on not paying the exit tax, then California gets to keep taxing you for years more… possibly including your net worth, which the Giermeisters in Sacramento have already fixed their sights on. But which of those decisions would be favored by the California legislature? The exit tax would yield large prompt revenue, but the income tax and (contemplated) net-worth taxes would yield more over a protracted interval. And once a resident has fled, he’s gone for good.

     The voracity of governments always grows over time. That’s been demonstrated so many times that it no longer requires substantiation. However, I will remind my Gentle Readers of the debates over the proposed Sixteenth Amendment:

     When the Sixteenth Amendment was being debated on the floor of the Senate, one of its opponents rose to ask the body what it could say to reassure the American public that this tax would not rise to seize some unconscionable fraction of their earnings -- perhaps as much as ten percent! A pro-income-tax senator rose and replied that the country need never fear such a development: "The people would never allow it!"

     The American Revolution was a tax revolt, as much as an assertion of independence and the right to self-governance. Americans have been subjected to a mind-boggling array of tax measures since then, most of them falling at the state and federal levels. (If you live in an incorporated municipality, keep a hand on your wallet.) There appears to be no event free of taxation… not even death. And now, the greediest of America’s state governments, aware that their tax policies are causing their states to lose their most taxable residents to lower-tax states, are determined to chain us down so they can mulct us in perpetuity.

     Food for thought – if it’s not fuel for an actual revolution.