Mar 06 2022

Faith, Hope, And Confidence

     As has been happening more and more frequently of late, I’ve got a large number of entries in my “Future Columns” folder, and absolutely no interest in writing about any of them. That the topics themselves might not go unnoticed or undiscussed, here are the links:

     All that having been, uh, linked, let’s get on to the main event.

***

     One of the most penetrating pieces I’ve read on the subject of prayer is some fifteen years old: Laurie Kendrick’s “God called.” If you’ve never had the pleasure, ignore this portion of Porretto drivel and surf on over there at once. It’s a half-humorous / wholly serious treatment of the subject in a novel format; memorable beyond even the possibility of forgetting.

     Laurie’s central point is that we pray despite the possibility that the answer to our prayers will not be one we like. Indeed, we learn rather early in our prayer lives that that could and often will be the case. We keep praying because:

  • We have faith that our prayers are heard;
  • We have hope that God’s answer will be pleasant;
  • When it’s not – when the answer appears to us to be “Forget it, kid” – faith allows us to assume that what happened was in line with the Divine Plan, which would not have been the case with the answer we would have preferred. In other words, our faith allows us to have confidence that all is as it must be.

     In a way, it’s the prayers that seem to our human perspective to “go unanswered” that are most instructive. They help to drive home the nature and purpose of prayer itself, nicely summarized in the brilliant movie Shadowlands. The following snippet of dialogue follows the suffering and descent of Joy Gresham, C. S. “Jack” Lewis’s beloved wife, toward death:

Harry: Christopher can scoff, Jack, but I know how hard you’ve been praying; and now God is answering your prayers.
C. S. Lewis: That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.

     I have no idea whether the real C. S. Lewis prayed for his wife to live and get well – an unlikely outcome, given her cancer – or to die, so her suffering might end. Seldom has any loving spouse prayed for his spouse to die. Whichever the case, Joy Gresham did pass from this temporal realm and enter eternity. While Lewis’s faith was shaken for a time, its strength was such that ultimately, he would accept that it was what had to happen.

***

     It’s often writers of fiction who put the matter most memorably:

     “God has some good purpose in mind for every soul that’s born. You have a right to try to redeem yourself. But I promise you, I’ll kill you in a moment if I see that Unwyrm has you again.”
     “I know,” said Angel. “I want you to.”
     “He does,” said Strings.
     “Four hours,” said Will. “At dawn we’ll head for the top. We’re not much of an army, but with God’s help we’ll be more than Unwyrm can handle.”
     “How do you know God doesn’t want Unwyrm to win?” asked Angel.
     “If he wins, we’ll know God wanted him to.” Will smiled. “Reality is the most perfect vision of God’s will. It’s discovering God’s will in advance that causes all the trouble.”
     “The fate of mankind is in the hands of a fanatic,” said Angel. “As usual.”

     Confidence that all is as it must be is impossible to muster without faith in God and His benevolence. Mind you, “as it must be” troubles a lot of folks. In theological terms, it’s called the Problem of Pain and / or the Problem of Evil. Why, the objector asks, would a loving God permit suffering and evil? In the usual case, the objector is resolved not to be satisfied with any answer. Yet the answer is simple – possibly too simple for most persons to accept without first having awakened to faith.

     In a universe under the veil of time and governed by natural laws, there will be unpleasant phenomena: everything from hangnails to enormous natural disasters. There is no way to produce a temporal cosmos with invariant laws in which such things never occur. Thus, suffering will result, though by the application of observation, inference, effort, and skill, we have at least the possibility of defending ourselves against some such events. Of course, all that lives must die – entropy is unforgiving – but while we live, our perceptions, intellects, and skills can be put to making life less painful, as men have done throughout our existence.

     When we add God’s gift of free will to Mankind, the matter of evil stands explained. As individuals with individual perceptions, convictions, desires, and fears, we cannot exclude the possibility that some will choose to harm others – and God will not thwart them, for that would be to retract the gift. There are consequences awaiting the willfully evil in eternity, of course, but in this realm, their wills are unconstrained by anything but their native capacities. But good men can do a great deal to restrain, deter, and defeat evil men, as long as our courage and resolve does not fail us.

     To accept these explanations makes confidence possible…but whether the acceptance can precede the awakening to faith remains unknown.

***

     Perhaps some men get a clear vision of their individual purposes. However, I’m reasonably sure that some of us don’t. But whether every one of us has a purpose is yet another question. One’s answer might be the critical bridge between his reason and his accession to faith.

     This is whence the portentous phrase “the meaning of life” arises. For a life to have meaning, it must have a purpose. (Granted that one possible purpose is to be a bad example, but the principle holds nevertheless.) But for a life to have meaning also requires an interpreter – and that Interpreter, for reasons that approach tautology, must stand above that which He interprets.

     Some very bright folks have stumbled at this point:

     “He posed me a question which I must answer correctly-else he will not co-operate.”
     “Huh? What was the question?”
     “I’ll ask you. Martha, what is the meaning of life?”
     “What! Why, what a stupid question!”
     “He did not ask it stupidly.”
     “It’s a psychopathic question, unlimited, unanswerable, and, in all probability, sense free.”
     “I’m not so sure, Martha.”
     “But-well, I won’t attempt to argue with you outside my own field. But it seems to me that ‘meaning’ is a purely anthropomorphic conception. Life simply is. It exists.”
     “He used the idea anthropomorphically. What does life mean to men, and why should he, Hamilton, assist in its continuance?”

     Once again, whether one can get past that wholly anthropomorphic approach to “the meaning of life” without first acquiring faith is unanswerable. He who has confidence that his life has a meaning is already there, even if he’s not sure what purpose his life is intended to serve. He who becomes certain that he has a purpose to serve – Christians have traditionally called this a commission — must have a notion about Who assigned it to him. While that begs the question of which must come first, it also reinforces the linkages among faith, hope, and confidence.

***

     Some fairly abstruse stuff, eh what? Well, Lent does that to me…especially as I wait for lunchtime. But allow me a few words more about commissions and their importance to those who believe they have one:

     “I didn’t live a long life, Andrew, but for all my limitations I tried to make it a good one. I gave my best when it was asked, and I asked no more in return. But I came here with a weight of doubts I’d never managed to shake. For it’s no simple thing to sell solace by the hour. Especially given the risks of the trade.
     “How many men did I mislead without meaning to? How many did I turn away out of fear, that I needn’t have feared, that I could have helped? How many fooled me completely, and left me with smiles on their faces but storms in their hearts? And took those storms home to their wives and little ones?” She clenched her eyes shut against images he could not imagine. “I could never know. It’s not given to a woman of the streets to know when she’s failed.” Her hand fell to her lap as she drew in a great gulp of air. “Except the once.”
     All thought had deserted him. His own anticipation of loss receded into the depths of space.
     “Once?”
     “The last one. The one that sent me here to wait for you.” She clutched her arms to her chest.
     She died young. Not of accident or disease. By violence.
     “Why?”
     She rocked gently back and forth, arms still tight against her chest. “I wasn’t quite Catholic enough for him.”
     He sat up and reached for her, drew her against him. She would not look at him. Her body seemed thin and frail in his embrace.
     “No one succeeds all the time, love.” In the air of grief that hung about them, the words tolled with the cadence of ancient, hard-won wisdom. “You gave what you had and did what you could. No one could ask more. Certainly not a man who thought he was only buying sex.”
     “What,” she mumbled against his chest, “would a holy man know about it?”
     “What would he not?” He squeezed her gently, let his hands slide down the length of her back to cup her buttocks. “Do you think I never failed my, my commission? Do you think I never failed to reach out to someone who lacked hope, someone badly hurt who was desperate for love or praise, held back by my own fear?” Another squeeze. “It happened more than once, love.”
     She leaned back against his arms and raised woebegone eyes to his own.
     “I’d not have guessed, Andrew. I’d not have thought you capable of it. When we met, when I first looked upon your face, I said to myself, ‘if ever there’s lived a man who knows not the taste of fear or failure, this is he, here he is before me.’”
     He took her face between his hands and brought it close to his.
     “You can’t imagine, love. What you see is summary, not detail. What you love and cherish is what I became, not the road I traveled. No man is a hero every hour of his life.” Rachel’s face rose in his mind’s eye. His whole being quailed before the memory of her hopeless yearning, but this time he forced himself to endure it. “No man fulfills his whole commission.”

     The suspicion, or conviction, that one has failed one’s commission is often enough to undermine a man’s faith. But it’s usually erroneous, not because failure is impossible, but because God is just. He gives each of us what we need…and while it may seem strange, some of us need to feel the awful, reaving sense of failure, perhaps even massive failure. Just as some men have needed to inflict great austerities upon themselves to advance in sanctity, some others have needed to feel that they’ve fallen short. A man who seems wholly good and greatly accomplished might just need to fail for the sake of remedying his arrogance, whether potential, incipient, or fully realized.

     The final stage of the life of Saint Thomas Aquinas is instructive in this regard. Aquinas, the greatest intellect of his day and the mightiest mind ever put to theological questions, experienced a vision and a kind of “letting go” after almost completing the Summa Theologica. All that mattered, he realized, is faith itself: the Beatific Vision. But if Aquinas had not had an immense store of faith already, his scholarly labors would have been impossible. As he was to die soon after that epiphany, perhaps this sense of “failure” was a preventative, such that he might draw back from self-exaltation. But it’s equally possible that it was God’s way of relieving him of any lingering regrets about how well he’d fulfilled his commission.

     Laurie Kendrick’s piece is as relevant here as elsewhere.

***

     That’s quite a lot of verbiage over what some would say is a simple thing. Yet many men’s conception of faith and hope would appear to leave confidence out of the blend. But confidence, whether it’s a prerequisite of faith or a consequence thereof, is the binding agent that ties all the virtues – theological, cardinal, and picayune – into a harmonious whole.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Mar 06 2022

More on Russian motivation for invasion.

Bernard at Moon of Alabama[1] believes several things informed the Russian decision to invade:

  • Zelinsky’s announcement in spring of 2021 that Ukraine would retake Crimea by force,
  • Ukraine’s announcement in November 2021 that it would retake the Donbass by force,
  • an increase in Febuary 2022 of cease fire violations and “explosions,” “most” coming from the Ukrainian side, and
  • Zelensky February 19 speech at the Munich Security Conference that the Russians understood as a threat by Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Russians decided they simply could not tolerate a “fascist” government with nuclear weapons on their border and that Ukraine was preparing for a new war in the Donbass. [Almost as though, on that latter point, the US in its current delusional state was giving assurances of some kind to Ukraine to which it had also been supplying weapons, training and money.]

Notes
[1] “Zelensky And The Fascists: ‘He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk.’” By b, Moon of Alabama, 3/5/22.

Mar 05 2022

Targets

     If you need a demonstration of just how little intelligence, candor, and personal integrity are required to win a high public office, just look here:

     I totally forgot Bernie existed. And then I saw THIS gem today:

     We talk about being a divided nation. In many ways, that’s true. But, in some ways, we are absolutely united. For example, we all hate the drug companies. pic.twitter.com/ZbSpq05MVY

     — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 3, 2022

     Wow, these guys really don’t like to retire, do they? Those D.C. perks are really good, huh?

     Anyway, I really want to punch that clip in the face.

     You’ll find very few Americans whose opinion of Bernie Sanders is lower than mine. He’s stupid, arrogant, hypocritical, and carries a sense of entitlement the size of Vermont. Essentially, he’s a good-for-nothing who’s risen high and become rich on the strength of his ability to lie to Vermonters. If he were to be removed from office, the average IQ of the Senate would rise by about ten points. But the man is a symptom rather than a primary cause of our current political malaise. And like all politicians, he has a knack for manipulating voters.

     In politics, the short cut to notoriety is hatred. If you can get people to hate the targets of your choice, and then represent yourself as their champion against those targets, that alone can suffice to get you elected. It’s worked reliably throughout the history of electoral politics. There are only two requirements:

  • A compelling rhetorical manner;
  • The choice of the right targets.

     Bernie Sanders possesses a (barely) adequate command of rhetoric. But his choice of targets for popular hatred, at this time at least, is observant, especially considering the ironies involved.

     Every era has its targets for popular resentment. Remember how “everybody hates the phone company” — ? It was immortalized in movies such as Fun with Dick and Jane and The President’s Analyst. And indeed, quite a lot of people did, back when there was only Ma Bell and it cost the moon to call someone in another state. Still, we all used the phone. We paid the bills grudgingly, but we paid them. Technological limitations made a continental monopoly on telephone communication inescapable until about 1975. Then there was that little matter of government regulation to get past, which took longer than most people expected.

     Banks are a perennial target. Who doesn’t resent the hassles involved in getting a mortgage? Who doesn’t grump over balancing his checkbook and making monthly loan payments? And who doesn’t gripe about having to endorse a check written to him before he can deposit it in his very own account? But we use them. They provide services we want, and sometimes services we need…or think we do. And much of the hassle they impose on us is decreed by federal regulation.

     Today “everybody hates the drug companies” — ? Well, for my part, I don’t. Some of their products are the reasons I’m alive and relatively healthy at age 70. But there are reasons to wish things in that industry were somewhat different. (Dallas Buyers’ Club, anyone?) And once again, the preponderance of our “problems with the drug companies” don’t emanate from the pharma companies themselves, but from government regulation.

     The tendency to blame your troubles on the thing you can see – the organization you deal with directly – is easy to understand. But we are easily deflected from focusing on the true source of most of our obstacles and nuisances…and that is exactly how the masters of the Omnipotent State want it.

     One of the major challenges freedom activists face is that of correcting the popular focus: getting people who carry heavy burdens to blame their troubles on the right targets. It’s appalling how often the real source of people’s problems is a government: federal, state, or local. When we deal with one another, or with commercial institutions, directly, we get along very well. But when a third party steps between us and commands under threat of punishment that we must do this and not do that while paying that third party so much for its “protection,” things change, and not for the better. With 88,000 governments in these United States, every one of them with coercive powers they can use to intervene in our relations and transactions, they can generate quite a lot of bad will, while simultaneously causing us to misdirect our anger at the difficulties they create.

     I could go on, but my Gentle Readers are surely intelligent enough to draw the moral for themselves. Have a nice day.

Mar 05 2022

Fair assessment?

Volodymyr Zelensky is the current President of Ukraine. He was elected in a landslide victory in 2019 on the promise of easing tensions with Russia and resolving the crisis in the breakaway republics in east Ukraine. He has made no attempt to keep his word on either issue. Instead, he has greatly exacerbated Ukraine’s internal crisis while relentlessly provoking Russia. Zelensky has had numerous opportunities to smooth things over with Moscow and prevent the outbreak of hostilities. Instead, he has consistently made matters worse by blindly following Washington’s directives.

Zelensky has been lionized in the west and praised for his personal bravery. But — as a practical matter — he has failed to restore national unity or implement the crucial peace accord that is the only path to reconciliation.[1]

I have my doubts about reconciliation at this point but that’s a matter for later consideration.

Notes
[1] “The Man Who Sold Ukraine.” By Mike Whitney, The Unz Review, 3/4/22.

Mar 04 2022

What Does Putin Gain From the Damage his Economy is Taking?

If you think about it, he may be clearing out a lot of the Financial Thugs that have stood as a Challenge to his control of Russia. By crashing the money system, and leaving them with little financial reserve, he is clearing the board.

Russia is rich in resources; Putin can use them to re-boot the economy, minus a hell of a lot of Russian mobsters.

Mar 04 2022

Solzhenitsyn’s observation.

In his Harvard address in 1978, Solzhenitsyn made a reference to the absence of great statesmen in the west. That has proven all the more to be the case since then.

Rule by moral midgets is the rule now. The posturing Trump could not contain his feverish wish to bomb Syria in 2017 and Clinton before him inexplicably took it upon himself to bomb Serbia relentlessly for over 70 days. Obama chose groveling on the international stage as his signature gesture and his Secretary of State wet herself with glee at the death of Gaddafi. The entire political class of the United States has chosen to chase will-o’-the-wisps fueled by arrogance and delusions. Denial of fundamental biological reality is now an integral part of the mental processes of said class, superbly “educated” to a man but ignorant of life’s most precious truths.

It’s not only an American phenomenon. All but a few European leaders desire anything but national suicide by immigration to vindicate the most vaporous and sappy sentiments of compassion, fairness, and historical retribution. A mere 104 years after the massive slaughter of The Great War and not a one of that lot could summon the courage let alone vision to lift a finger to derail the asinine U.S. encroachment on Russia or question its inherent assumption of some unique Russian depravity or willful nonobservance of civilized norms. Slavic brutes!! Lessons learned from the reckless slide into the massive slaughter of modern industrial warfare? None. No one.

Tony Wood asks:

The question remains, why did all those who for so long foretold this war do so little to stop it, and so much to hasten the disaster Russia has now set in motion?
Indeed. Why didn’t the government of Germany guarantee in writing that it would veto any additional NATO membership? It would have solved at least half of the problem. Why didn’t any other NATO government do so?

And what are they doing now? Where are their initiatives for peace?[1]

Russia’s historic proposed treaties addressing the realities of the world NOW were ignored as the West chose to cling tenaciously to the security arrangements of a concluded chapter of European history. Not one statesman rose to the occasion and Antony Blinken would not even afford the Russians the courtesy of directly addressing each of the points raised by them. As they had specifically requested. Instead Blinken served up evasion and sophistry.

I’m fond of the always instructive question, “What problem are we trying to solve?” Preventing Russian expansionism was not one of our problems prior to February 24 yet that was the peril held up to the world. NATO to the rescue! Every needless death, every charred body or poor soul with his guts hanging out behind some tree is the direct responsibility of these smug, perfumed twits.

Notes
[1] “Disarming Ukraine – Day 9 – Europe Increases Its Own Losses.” By b, Moon of Alabama, 3/4/22.

Mar 04 2022

Day Off

I’ve had a computer failure, and am typing this on one of my lab computers, so there’ll be no essay today. Pray for me as I clumsily swap parts among my various machines to determine what the BLEEP! has gone wrong with Ol’ Cyclops.

(Is there a patron saint of computers? Or of the people who must fiddle with them?)

Mar 04 2022

Dugin is exactly right.

What does it mean for Russia to break with the West? It is salvation. The modern West—where the Rothschilds, Soros, the Schwabs, Bill Gates and the Zuckerbergs triumph—is the most disgusting phenomenon in world history. It is no longer the West of Greco-Roman Mediterranean culture, the Christian Middle Ages, or even the violent and contradictory twentieth century. This is the graveyard of toxic waste of civilization—it is anti-civilization. And the faster and fuller Russia is disconnected from it, the sooner it returns to its roots. To what? Christian, Greco-Roman, Mediterranean—European—nm [?] that is, to the roots common with the real West. These roots—their very own!—the modern West has cut them off. And in Russia they have remained intact.

“Wartime Remarks.” By Alexander Dugin, The Postil Magazine, 3/1/22.

Mar 03 2022

Disinformation, or Good Intelligence?

I’m leaning towards Disinformation from the Deep State.

One of the problems of a generally educated citizenry is that they might just remember prior acts, and make some reasonable deductions from that history.

Spreading rumors is often seen by risk-averse Deep Staters as a safe mechanism to achieve their aims, without having to engage militarily. For example, after the disaster of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the US’s CIA came up with one plot after another to get Castro out without bringing in troops. Some of them were clearly ridiculous, and only released to raise Castro’s level of paranoia. Some of those that required Mob cooperation may have become known about because the Mob – despite their famous practice of Omerta – contains a lot of bragging fools.

Disinformation is heavily practiced in Washington, New York, and within the Elite Media. We’ve reached a point where you don’t just consume the news for information, you absorb it, look for where the bias is (there WILL be bias, it’s just a matter of which direction it moves), and, after reading about the topic from a variety of sources (Left, Centrist, Right, Independent, Loony…), and tossing it out for your cronies to chew on for a while (this blog is great for this), come to some tentative conclusions about what it COULD mean.

And, be prepared to re-evaluate in light of further information.

We probably should have always done this. We’re a long way from hearing about something from a source you knew, and deciding on whether it was news, gossip, or complete nonsense, based on your knowledge of the players. That works – somewhat – for local events. It’s much less reliable for events happening at a distance.

There was a time when the Moral Code was, “Your word is your worth, your worth is your word”. You stood behind what you said. If you took on a debt, you paid it. So, generally, people were very cautious about taking on debt, outside of the family.

The same with testimony. You raised your hand to God, and most people took that quite seriously. Someone who was found to have lied might have to leave the community, so difficult would it be to function with that reputation. A small community has a LONG memory for those things.

But, in former times, there were limits to what a central government and their allies could do to those living far away. Most of life’s events were handled without asking for government assistance. Your family was your lifeline (and, that was a powerful reason you didn’t break with them, no matter how strongly you felt about an issue. You HAD to get along with them, at least superficially, lest you be out in the cold in the next crisis). Many people have forgotten that your family didn’t HAVE to take you in, or had the option to put conditions on that assistance. Government is more likely today to force your family to pay for your insane lifestyle.

So, we have become a low-trust society, that expects others to cheat us, treat us badly, and flat-out lie to us.

Some New World Order. You can have it.

Mar 03 2022

Let’s Mince Some Words!

     I was just tooling around, surfing through my usual list of news and commentary sources, when I found this piece:

     I first noticed that the Democrats had shanghaied control of our language when the phrase “Global Warming” began to disappear. It was replaced almost overnight with ‘Climate Change,’ mostly because we had had several winters where it was, unsurprisingly, cold. Rather than rock their narrative, the Left merely rebranded Global Warming. It was certainly easier than admitting they were wrong. Plus, now anything could be attributed to climate change, be it a tornado in the plains or a hurricane in the gulf. Even good news meteorologically could be painted as bad with this new phrase. Naturally, this twist of our language was reinforced by the mainstream media, which quickly adopts the phrase du jour and adds it to its liberal lexicon.

     The Left has seized the English language and is using it as a club to pummel non-conformers. Conservatives allowed this to happen. After all, it seems innocent enough. Who cares what people refer to things as? Why debate something as mundane as the words we use?

     We all should be concerned because control of language is still a form of control.

     I was torn between exultation – “Glory be to God! Someone else has finally noticed! — and scorn – “Oh, really? What was your first clue?” – but decided to set both reactions aside in favor of a fresh rant about precision in language. I haven’t done one in a while, so why not?

     Take notes. You might find something to adjust in your speech patterns.

***

     First up, have a few words that are brutally misused or overused:

  • normal
  • literally
  • emergency

     There are others. Those are just the ones that come to mind at the moment.

     I roasted “normal” a while back. The problem with it is essentially connotative; far too often it’s taken to mean “harmless, and therefore acceptable.” But it doesn’t mean that at all. Consider that smoking was for many generations considered “normal,” meaning that it was commonplace enough to be unexceptional. It was never harmless, even back when “everybody” smoked.

     As for “literally,” I have a beloved colleague who had a T-shirt made up bearing the statement:


People who misuse
“Literally”
Drive me
Figuratively insane.

     I could only applaud.

     Concerning “emergency,” the abuse here is largely political. Politicians are fond of “emergency” talk, because it commands immediate attention. It also suggests that there’s no time to lose! Immediate action is required…even if we don’t quite know what we’re doing or, for that matter, what the “emergency” really is. When you hear politicians speak of “emergency” or “crisis” conditions, it’s a time for sharp questions:

  • How many people are affected, and how badly?
  • Do your proposed countermeasures work? How do you know?
  • What are the foreseeable consequences? Might they make matters worse?
  • What development or change in conditions would tell us that the “emergency” is over?

     Often, the “emergency” is just that the politician feels his poll numbers slipping.

     The COVID-19 virus was styled an “emergency” situation, remember? It turned out to have a survivability of 99.7%, with the great majority of the fatalities occurring among the elderly and those already morbidly afflicted – the same groups that are most endangered by ordinary influenza. Need I say more?

***

     Next up is a phrase that has always made me cringe: “track record.” These days we frequently hear people speak of their “track records” at this or that. It’s as if they were thoroughbred horses, when in fact they’re often not even thoroughbred people.

     The phrase “track record” should be reserved for a record of victories or defeats in competition. Most of us compete over very little; dart tossing or the Friday evening poker game, perhaps. Successes at performing the tasks of one’s occupation are nearly never victories over anything. Certainly they’re not victories over nature and its laws. So who were you competing against, and for what stakes, and did you win, place, or show?

     The phrase should be relegated to the dustbin. Speak of your record, when no legitimate implication of winning or losing is possible.

***

     For today’s final helping of lexical bile, let’s talk about verbal inflation.

     Many people have started speaking solely in superlatives. There’s no longer “good” or “bad,” only “the greatest” and “the worst.” Sometimes the inflation is by means of adverbial intensifiers: “very,” “totally,” “extremely,” “supremely,” and the like. Young women are particularly prone to this fault. Have a snippet from a recent novel, in which a mother is teaching her teenage son about how girls his age speak and behave:

     “They’re also very animated when they talk, very expressive. OK things are really good; good things are great. Great things are the best in the world. The opposite is also true; less than ok things are really bad. Bad things are horrible. Horrible things are the worst in the world. Little things are important; important things are life and death.”

     This is painfully accurate.

     A deceased friend, irked by the proliferation of superlatives, started rewording promotional slogans to omit them:

  • “Arguably one of the novels of the Romantic Era.”
  • “Perhaps the movie of our time.”
  • “See some of America’s actors onstage!”

     The effect was striking, to say the least.

     I have a pre-release checklist for my books. One mandatory step is to scan for the use of “very” and related intensifiers. It’s far too easy to overuse them. Some writers would lose 10% or 15% of the word count of their novels if all the intensifiers were removed. You’d think they were being paid by the word. Perhaps some of them were.

***

     Whenever I light off on this subject, the feedback will include questions such as “Why are you so wound up about this language crap? What does it matter, as long as we can make ourselves understood?” To some, I suppose that’s all that matters. But over seven decades of study, speech, and writing, I’ve noticed that persons who speak and write precisely, in definite and unambiguous terms, get more respect and attention than those whose diction is sloppy-casual or polluted by verbal fads. You don’t have to be “high-flown,” adept in the use of all manner of exotic words and phrases, to win distinction. All it takes to stand out is precision – and standing out verbally is a first-class method for drawing attention to one’s other abilities and achievements.

     Draw the moral.

Mar 02 2022

Were He Not a Ruthless Killer, This Might Garner Some Sympathy

Some background first.

On FB, Wretchard introduced an Elon Musk tweet to the video below with the comment:

Some ideologies see ‘no people’ as the most humanitarian outcome.

Naturally such a line caught my attention.

Then this was how Musk introduced the video:

Pretty good summary, although national pride is underweighted relative to economics. Latter serves former, not other way around.

The foundational issue imo, which this video doesn’t ignore, is low birth rate. After all, what good is land with no people?

This video definitely fits with my following of history and, if true, fills in more than one blank. Definitely worth a half hour at normal speed, or at least 18 minutes at 175%. As for the death toll potential of the conflict, I have heard no world leader actively opposing ideologies favoring large body counts.

Mar 02 2022

There Are Days

     Indeed, there are whole years. And 2021 was one such. This year isn’t shaping up to be better.

     But this is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the special liturgical season of Lent. It moves around from year to year, as it depends on the date of Easter. For those with an interest, the date of Easter is determined thus:

  • The first Sunday,
  • After the first Full Moon,
  • After the Vernal Equinox.

     Despite its calendric variability, Lent is a massively important season to Christians. It’s the time when we strive most ardently to prepare for the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth: the Christ, the Son of God and Redeemer of Mankind. We fast, increase and intensify our prayers, and through those and other sacrificial measures attempt to grow closer to Our Lord in His upcoming time of trial, and to better appreciate His triumph over death.

     I’ve heard the jokes. “Get your sinning in early, friends; Lent is just around the corner!” “Go from Mardi Gras beads to Rosary beads in a single day!” “What, again? Sheesh! Christ only had to go through it once.” “Couldn’t we have had Saint Patrick’s Day at some other time of year?” And so forth. Not bad, really.

     Nevertheless, Lent is important. It’s especially significant this year, there being so much suffering in the world – nearly all of it the work of political malefactors. They should be reflecting on their own mortality, and their prospects in the next life. “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” Or as that noted philosopher Jim Morrison put it, “No one here gets out alive.”

     I might be back later with something more, but for now, have a few lines from Thomas Stearns Eliot.

***

Ash Wednesday / T. S. Eliot

I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

II

Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been
contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each
other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond
repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs’s fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy

but speak the word only.

IV

Who walked between the violet and the violet
Who walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary’s colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary’s colour,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke
no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

V

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny
the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season,
time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

VI

Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit
of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Mar 01 2022

Incentives Matter

     Human action is guided and constrained by two and only two factors:

  1. Incentives,
  2. Constraints.

     Sometimes the changes to those things come in a form we fail to recognize at once. Sometimes we aren’t paying attention. And sometimes they stroll up and bite us on the nose:

     After years of delinquency to meet its NATO obligations, Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe has finally committed to spending at least 2 per cent of its GDP on defence spending.

     Speaking before the Bundestag on Saturday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “From now on, more than 2 per cent of our GDP will be invested in our defence,” announcing that the German government will commit an additional €100 billion in this year’s budget towards the German military, the Bundeswehr.

     While Germany has increased its defence spending over recent years, it has consistently failed to reach the NATO threshold, spending just 1.53 per cent on defence last year, according to NATO figures.

     The state of the German armed forces was lambasted last week by the chief of the army, Alfons Mais who wrote that “the army that I am allowed to lead, is more or less bare.”

     “The policy options we can offer in support of the Alliance are extremely limited. We all saw it coming and were unable to get our arguments through to draw and implement the conclusions of the Crimean annexation. That doesn’t feel good! I’m [disturbed]!” the army chief continued.

     My, my! Germany – one of the foremost “at all costs keep the idlers comfy” welfare states under the American defense umbrella called NATO – has decided that a nontrivial defense just might be a good thing to have around. All it took was an invasion of Ukraine by the very power that once subjugated half of Germany, reduced it to poverty, and shot anyone who tried to leave. Who would have guessed?

     Mind you, one doesn’t defend a nation with mere money. It takes men with guns, tanks, aircraft, and a competent command cadre. At one time, Germany had those things. Perhaps the experiences of the World Wars soured them on their military traditions. They’d better hope they can resurrect their earlier expertise before the Russian bear gets hungry again, because Ukraine isn’t likely to sate its appetite.

     A reminder: Vladimir Putin, who has ruled Russia essentially singlehanded for a couple of decades now, once said, quite publicly, that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was among the greatest geopolitical tragedies in all of history. If the possibility that the hour has arrived for reversing that “tragedy” isn’t uppermost in his thoughts, I can’t imagine what would be.

***

     President Trump was aware of how NATO, and the incentive it created toward flaccidity in the European members, was draining the United States and creating a culture of “defense dependency” in Europe. He wasn’t the first to see it, though others of similar penetration never reached the White House. Since FDR there hasn’t been even one president who frowned upon the “entangling alliances” about which George Washington warned us so vividly. Indeed, nearly all of America’s heads of state since the New Deal have sought to entangle the U.S. ever more firmly. The exception was the man who shocked the political Establishment by breaking their hegemony over the White House: Donald J. Trump. That should tell you something.

     Trump’s critics slandered him in all the usual ways, most relevantly for this subject as an “isolationist.” But Trump was nothing of the sort. He valued America’s international standing, but was adamant that in all dealings with foreign powers, America and Americans come first. He resented the notion that other wealthy nations had made themselves into America’s defense clients, and had used the funds that should have gone to military preparedness to fatten their layabouts. His demand that European NATO increase its funding to its continental militaries was consistent with that conviction.

     Trump understands incentives and what they do to the thinking of executives. It’s been his meat and drink for fifty years. He learned in the most complex and difficult market in all the world: New York City real estate. The lessons apply nicely to foreign dealings – and they don’t stop with the enervation of the European members of NATO. Their relevance extends to America’s own military. The recent treatment of our fighting forces as a laboratory for social engineering is bringing them ever nearer to impotence.

     Predatory governments – that is, all governments, past, present, and future — look upon a fat and lazy neighbor with avid eyes. Tom Clancy summarized the matter nicely in Debt of Honor when he described warfare as “armed robbery writ large:”

     “War is the ultimate criminal act, an armed robbery writ large. And it’s always about greed. It’s always a nation that wants something another nation has. And you defeat that nation by recognizing what it wants and denying it to them.”

     You needn’t be a fan of his fiction to appreciate the penetration in that statement. It echoes the thoughts of an American Founding Father: John Jay:

     Nations will go to war whenever there is a prospect of getting anything by it. – John Jay, co-author of the Federalist Papers.

     We have a relevant observation by a more recent figure of note, as well:

     The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from the violence to which it owes its very existence. – Mohandas K. Gandhi

     A predator that sees potential prey weaken their defenses, whether deliberately or through neglect, will not trouble to restrain its natural impulses. Six thousand years of human history should be evidence enough.

***

     The United States cannot defend the whole world. The “world policeman” notion was always a farce. If the nations of Europe come to understand this as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it will be a lesson dearly bought, though the brunt of the price will be borne by others.

     The American foreign-policy establishment must be brought to heel. It will be a prodigious undertaking, for it would imply a great diminution of its importance in national and world affairs. Persons and institutions both inside and outside the corridors of power will fight viciously to retain their perches, their prominence, and their profits. All the same, the invasion of Ukraine has made the necessity clear. It’s time and past time to start withdrawing America from its guardianship, explicit or implicit, over the sovereignty of other nations and the peace of the world.

Feb 28 2022

Crossing The Aisle

     “The poor” have been one of the principal flails the Left has wielded against the Right for over a century. Innumerable policy initiatives have been called for and justified under the rationale of “helping the poor.” They go by other names, now and then: the “disabled;” the “structurally unemployed,” the “historically marginalized;” the “homeless;” and so forth. But underneath the labels is always the implication of personal economic insufficiency, which renders them dependent upon the charity of others.

     I have no doubt that in a nation of 340 million persons, most of whom are here legally, there will be some who cannot, for reasons beyond their personal control, meet their own needs and the needs of others for whom they’re responsible. Yet the American welfare state of today is so generous that the federal definition of “poverty” – the condition that qualifies one for federal assistance – applies to households that many Europeans of the working and middle classes would envy.

     A great libertarian economist, Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek, has argued that an advanced society must make some provision for the relief of genuine need. In his book The Constitution of Liberty, Hayek declaims thus:

     In the Western world some provision for those threatened by the extremes of indigence or starvation due to circumstances beyond their control has long been accepted as a duty of the community…. The necessity of some such arrangement in an industrial society is unquestioned—be it only in the interest of those who require protection against acts of desperation on the part of the needy.

     So let us stipulate that “something must be done.” But let us not descend to this farce:

  1. Something must be done.
  2. This is something.
  3. Therefore we must do this.

     (As an apocryphal professor once said about a paper submitted by an apocryphal student, “This is so bad it’s not even wrong.”)

     The other historically important rationale for governmental intervention into the economy is the Marxist notion of “the exploitation of the workers.” This proceeds from Marx’s absurd notion about “surplus value.” He argued that the difference between what production workers are paid and the market value of the goods they produce, less some obvious allowances for production costs, properly belongs to the workers and not to those who employ them for wages. That they don’t get the “surplus value” in their pay packets constitutes “exploitation.” Some very smart people have signed onto this lunacy, often under the shibboleth of “equity.”

     Any time you hear someone prattling about “exploitation,” the ghost of Marx is cackling in the distance.

     But all that is prefatory. My real subject this morning is that celebrated former Congresswoman and presidential candidate, Miss Tulsi Gabbard.

***

     I like much that I’ve heard about Tulsi Gabbard. She’s friendly, gracious, and approachable. She speaks well, is willing to treat with her political opponents as people with rights and interests they naturally want to defend, and looks great in yoga pants. That’s a lot of political assets, especially in these times.

     We in the Right have longed for opponents who’ll treat us with respect for our intelligence and our positions. Such persons are largely absent from today’s conversation. The appearance of one such is cause for a modest celebration. But let us not forget that what starts in a friendly, let-us-reason-together fashion need not end that way.

     Miss Gabbard’s political stance remains tilted well over to the left. She supported Bernie Sanders for the Democrat nomination for president in 2016. Whether anyone has asked for her opinion of the Usurper Regime’s economy-destroying policies, I do not know. Given her previous stances, I’d guess that she’d heavily qualify any criticism she might have for them.

     Nevertheless, here’s a snippet from her speech at CPAC 2022, which ended just recently:

     “So as long as we’re committed to this foundation of freedom that’s enshrined in our constitution and our Bill Of Rights, we can recognize our differences and work together based on that common ground,” Gabbard said. “Coming from that common foundation of freedom we can overcome the great obstacles and challenges that we face, but if we are not committed to this freedom that is so clearly spelled out in the Bill Of Rights, we are doomed to fail as a country.”
     “Unfortunately, we have too many Americans including leaders in positions of great power in our country who are not at all committed to upholding the Constitution, we have many Americans who don’t even know that the Bill Of Rights are,” she added. “They think free speech is something that should only be left to those who agree with them saying ‘hey, you know what, if your speech offends me or if it offends anyone, then you should not be allowed to say it.’ This is where we are as a country.”
     “We have too many people in positions of power whose foremost responsibility is to protect our freedoms and uphold our God-given rights, and yet they are the ones who are actually trying to take these rights away from us,” she said. “This is the biggest threat to our country, it is not coming from some foreign country, it is coming from power elites here at home and their co-conspirators in the mainstream media and the security state who are working to undermine our freedoms from within.”

     So she’s good on freedom of speech, but has anyone asked her about her socialist policy positions lately? She’s easily the most genial Democrat around, so it shouldn’t be an occasion of hazard. How does she rationalize her attachment to policies that have produced impoverishment and persistent dependency every time they’ve been tried? Is it “for the poor?” Or would we hear a bit of reheated Marxism about “the exploitation of the workers?” Or would she say something else, something I can’t even imagine at this hour of the morning?

     Herein lies the second stage of the aisle-crossing adventure.

***

     Conversation between political adversaries is important to our Constitutional republic. (Note the “our,” please. I’m not talking about Hope here, as much as I wish I were.) But to be constructive, conversation must proceed from a foundation of mutually agreed premises and principles. People who differ dramatically at the level of premises and principles hardly speak the same language.

     Miss Gabbard spoke eloquently of America’s Constitutional basis and the principles it enshrines. Let’s assume that she was entirely sincere about it all, rather than just putting on a good show for the CPAC crowd. As the fundamental principle enshrined by the Constitution is that of “the supreme law of the land,” how would she defend government interventions into the economy that are nowhere authorized by the Constitution? Such interventions are part of Bernie Sanders’s platform, which she endorsed. Would she claim that the approval of Congress, or of the electorate, would be sufficient to sanctify it? If she were to recur to that ancient argument of tyrants, “necessity,” could she defend that based on the objective conditions which she characterized as constituting the necessity, and the conditions that have followed such measures in other places and times?

     This is not mere polemics, nor is it an attempt to disqualify a gracious woman from receiving our respect. It’s about what it’s possible to achieve in a cross-aisle conversation. There must be agreement on fundamentals – individuals’ rights and responsibilities; the proper sphere of government; the sinister nature of alliances between governments, and between a government and private organizations – before positive outcomes are possible. In the absence of such agreement, differences are insoluble. Yea verily, even when our interlocutor is as well-mannered and gently spoken as Tulsi Gabbard.

     (See also this classic exchange between Davy Crockett – then a Congressman – and private citizen Horatio Bunce.)

Feb 27 2022

The Fraying Part 3: Action And Reaction

     Through the first and second pieces, the news has all been bad. Now it’s time to review the other consequences of the sociocultural assault on American norms: the ones that hold out some hope for a future of freedom and decency.

***

     As I’ve written before, word gets around. What people need to know, they will know, albeit not always in time to stave off nasty consequences. Now that we have two years’ worth of COVID-19 hysteria to survey, we can trace the patterns that run through it and reach some fairly confident conclusions about it all.

     And Gentle Readers, be aware: when I write we in this context, I mean to include you. Yes, I have a gift for spotting causal connections, but anyone who pays adequate attention to developments will spot them just as readily…and of course, will recognize them when someone else points them out, as well. Indeed, at this point only the willfully blind could miss the patterns that political skullduggery has made in its peregrinations in our recent past. Have a list of significant elements:

  • Open encouragement of left-wing violence, especially in major cities;
  • Valorization of black criminals entirely because of their race;
  • Assaults on law enforcement and the administration of race-blind justice;
  • Aggressive promotion of racialism, transgenderism, and sexual deviance;
  • Distortion and disparagement of American history and values;
  • Propagandistic slanders of President Trump and his Administration;
  • “Gaslighting” and perverting or destroying the meanings of words;
  • Coordinated efforts to magnify alarm over the COVID-19 virus;
  • Contemporaneous efforts to impede research into the virus’s origin;
  • Resurrection of an undeservedly respected medical bureaucrat to champion the “crisis;”
  • Unprecedented restrictions imposed in the name of “fighting the pandemic;”
  • Use of the “pandemic” as a rationale for destroying the integrity of the 2020 elections;
  • The theft of the elections themselves, with the collaboration of the mainstream media;
  • Use of slander and intimidation to obstruct serious investigation of the frauds;
  • Treatment of the 1/6/2021 protest at the Capitol Building as “terrorism” and an “insurrection;”
  • Immediate crippling of the American energy industry by the Usurper Regime;
  • Recourse to extreme deficit spending by the Regime, thereby weakening the dollar;
  • Coordinated action by the Regime, the media, and Big Tech to suppress dissenting opinions;
  • “Cancel culture,” promoted by the Regime and assisted by the media;
  • And most recently, the frenzied beating of the war drums over Ukraine.

     That list might not contain everything you’ve noticed. Feel free to add to it.

     Not everyone has been alert to the significance of this train of abuses. However, the more alert have drawn the lesson: the Regime intends our subjugation. It will use a string of “emergencies” to “justify” the suspension of Constitutional constraints and guarantees of individuals’ rights. In particular, it will suppress protests against Regime overreach and foolishness through whatever means are expedient. It’s reaction to the “Freedom Convoy” aimed at Washington will prove highly instructive.

     Combine the above with the sociocultural poisons enumerated in the first two essays. In sum, we have tolerated the intolerable: socially, culturally, technologically, and politically. The consequences were swift to arrive. The Intolerable, in all its awful majesty, now stands over us: censoring our speech; restricting our movements, associations, and commerce; degrading our culture; and destroying our society, our economy, and our standing among the nations.

     At this point, only three choices remain to us:

  • Accept serfdom;
  • Stage an armed rebellion against the Regime;
  • Withdraw from the hostile culture – perhaps even physically – into protected spheres.

     The third choice is the one an increasing number of intelligent Americans have been making.

***

     I’m acquainted with a number of persons who’ve executed such a withdrawal. In a way, I and my wife are among them. We’ve cut off all contact with the channels of cultural corruption. For news, we ignore the ones with the loudest voices and look to sources that have proved reliable. We do business only with persons of like mind, to the extent possible. Our entertainment is carefully selected – and none of it comes from the broadcast media.

     Others find that they must do more, especially families with minor children. Children are more susceptible to propagandization than adults. Removal from the schools in favor of homeschooling or “learning pods;” vetting of the kids’ associates; refusing them smartphones; and careful supervision of their entertainment choices are all important measures for the protection of their minds. Even physically moving the family away from corrupting influences may be necessary.

     Some persons are building physical retreats from the chaos. I know of at least two such efforts. The organizer of one compound has invited us to join. I’ve been thinking about it, though it would involve considerable difficulty and expense.

     Hopeful in a way that requires contemplation is the widespread, intensified recourse to Christianity, and to parishes and ministries that have remained faithful to the teachings of the Redeemer. Christianity has always been hated by the power-lusters, for it proclaims strict limits on what they can justly do. Many “fallen away” Christians have returned to the pews, seeking there a refuge from the madness outside and a renewed armor with which to resist its assaults. There is more hope here than one might suppose after a casual glance.

     The refusal to be polluted or subjugated is gaining speed. It’s a good man’s part to get behind it and push.

***

     Action equals reaction. Thrust equals recoil. Newton was talking about bodies clashing with one another, but the pattern applies just as well to social, commercial, and political developments. The despoilers have made a mighty thrust against traditional American society. In consequence, it’s granulating into a number of smaller societies, each of which offers a degree of protection from the influences beyond its borders. Not all such mini-societies have visible form. Indeed, some of the formless ones are of the greatest value.

     The despoilers will pursue us, of course. That’s in the nature of power-lust: it cannot be sated and so must perpetually seek new targets for subjugation. In particular, they’ll strive to corrupt and destroy our channels of communication with one another and the alternative media we prefer to theirs. But the burgeoning awareness of the agenda involved will assist us in preparing to resist and counter further assaults…if we remain alert and flexed to react wherever a new front might arise.

     So while the fraying will continue, individual segments of the American braid will retain their integrity, learn from experience, erect defenses, and prosper. At least, we can hope so.

     An anecdote has it that an admirer once asked fabled economist Ludwig von Mises to describe what he foresaw for the future of the market economy. Von Mises smiled and said “I don’t know…but whatever it is, it will be different.” So also with a society under stress and in transition. We cannot foresee its ultimate shape; we can only know that it will differ from what we have today. The challenge is to ensure that the differences will be to the good.

Feb 26 2022

“National Commitment”

     Hold onto this snippet for later in the essay:

     During repeated visits after 1909, the two commandants became fast friends even to the extent of [British General Henry] Wilson being admitted into the French family circle and invited to the wedding of [French General Ferdinand] Foch’s daughter. With his friend “Henri,” Foch spent hours in what an observer called “tremendous gossips.” They used to exchange caps and walk up and down together, the short and the tall, arguing and chaffing. Wilson had been particularly impressed by the rush and dash with which studies were conducted at the War College. Officer-instructors constantly urged on officer-pupils with “Vite, vite!” and “Allez, allez!” Introduced to the classes in the Camberley Staff College, the hurry-up technique was quickly dubbed Wilson’s “allez operations.”
     A question that Wilson asked of Foch during his second visit in January 1910, evoked an answer which expressed in one sentence the problem of the alliance with England, as the French saw it.
     “What is the smallest British military force that would be of any practical assistance to you?” Wilson asked.
     Like a rapier flash came Foch’s reply, “A single British soldier—and we will see to it that he is killed.”

     [Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August]

     The significance won’t take long to arrive.

***

     The militaries of the Old World aren’t what they were seventy years ago, China excepted. Today’s Europe is lightly armed. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact left few clear lines of demarcation – few places where it could be confidently said that “If war breaks out, it’ll be X against Y.” Yes, there were some regional conflicts, most notably among the former republics of Yugoslavia, but those were of relatively minor significance and have had no lasting effect geopolitically.

     The North Atlantic Charter, which created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), arose from Western Europe’s fear that the Stalin regime, having succeeded in subjugating ten Eastern European nations, would next look lustfully at the Western ones. It was a reasonable fear. Not only was Europe getting back onto its feet only slowly and painfully, America’s wartime aid to the U.S.S.R. had made it into a power comparable only to the United States. The millions-strong Red Army remained half-mobilized. Few would forget its role in the conflict in Spain. It was reasonable for the remaining unshackled European powers to seek protection from the sole remaining force that could plausibly provide it.

     There were both desirable and undesirable consequences. The former included a rapid economic resurgence of the Western European nations, owing in large measure to the injection of American funds through our military presence there. The latter, which may prove to be more significant, included the military enervation of the nations under our protective umbrella. In other words, with America standing watch, the European members of NATO gradually let their own militaries slip into desuetude. Funds that would otherwise have gone to military procurement and preparedness were diverted to “social programs.” This gave rise to an opulently generous European welfare state.

     President Trump’s determination to get the European states to become more serious about their own defense highlighted the matter. The Europeans were unwilling to spend on their militaries at the expense of their social programs. Trump cajoled them as best he could, with a few juicy consequences for nonperformance included, but the effect on European defense postures was limited. Today the best armed, best equipped military of “Europe” is that of the United Kingdom – and that should ring a few alarm bells.

***

     Now we have a war between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine is definitely holding the dirty end of the stick. Present trends continuing – in warfare as in all else, a chancy assumption, but one a prognosticator will make nevertheless – Ukraine will be “Finlandized:” turned into a tacit client state of Russia. The one thing that could materially change that forecast would be a massive intervention by outside powers to counter Russia’s military thrust.

     But who would commit to such an intervention? Leave aside the Europeans’ distaste for armed conflict. In concert, the militaries of Europe could barely match the Russian forces. Moreover, the consequences of going to war for Ukraine’s sake would be devastating to the economies of the NATO powers. The prospect of losing access to Russian oil and gas is frightening enough to paralyze Germany all by itself – and without Germany’s participation the rest of Europe might as well stay home.

     Still, European NATO would really like for someone to step in and halt Vladimir Putin. In his ambition and resolve, he poses more of a threat to Europe than any Russian potentate since Stalin. He’s openly said that in his view, the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. was the greatest geopolitical tragedy in history – and there can be little doubt that he would act to reverse it if he believed he could. So Europe has cast its eyes westward, to the United States.

     The fruits of the NATO tree have ripened to full bitterness.

***

     That’s not all, of course. America’s most powerful special interests include its defense establishment: what Dwight Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex.” When the federal budget dedicates nearly $800 billion per year to military spending, the folks to whom that money goes get very determined to keep the valuta flowing. Their determination to influence American foreign policy in directions favorable to their firms cannot be overstated.

     A good war every so often is vital to keeping the money pipeline full. Of equal relevance is the military’s need for some action every so often to stay sharp…and to provide command experience for its officer corps, without which promotions can be hard to come by. Trouble is, since the end of World War II there haven’t been a lot of wars that commanded a strong majority of popular sentiment. There was a little skirmish early in the Fifties, over in Korea, that started the downtrend. Our subsequent warring hasn’t produced a lot of victories the American people felt were worth what they cost us. The recent debacle in Afghanistan is representative, not unique. (Can you say “Vietnam?”)

     And so here we are, with various influences pressing America to involve itself in the Russia / Ukraine conflict for their various reasons. The drumbeats are intensifying. Will they prevail? Unclear. But even less clear is the question of the American national interest. I, for one, would like to know what conceivable gains could accrue to the U.S. that are worth the possibility of triggering a nuclear exchange.

***

     If you hearken back to the segment from The Guns of August that opens this piece, you will now see the relevance, if you hadn’t already. General Foch wanted Britain fully committed to its alliance with France, such that if France should go to war, Britain would automatically and fully commit its military to France’s assistance, with all that implies. Foch believed that a single British soldier killed in combat would be sufficient. Things were not so clear in London, but that’s merely an illustration of the gulf that divides the military from the diplomats.

     What would cause the United States to commit fully to the defense of Ukraine against Russian aggression? Would it require American servicemen on the front lines? Or American warplanes patrolling Ukraine’s skies? Or perhaps merely an injection of weapons and funding for Ukraine’s forces? At what point would America see itself as a principal combatant in this affair?

     More to the point, what degree of involvement would get Vladimir Putin to see us that way…and how would that conviction cause him to act?

     Putin is, for all intents and purposes, the autarch of Russia. In foreign affairs, at least, he alone makes the decisions. He looks across the Atlantic today and sees Joe Biden, a senile figurehead for a gang of Usurpers actively hostile to American values. Does he fear what he sees? It seems implausible, especially given the destruction the Usurpers have already wreaked on America’s military.

     So it seems unlikely that Putin would back down before an American gesture in support of Ukraine. It seems equally unlikely that American participation in the conflict would do more than amuse or anger him. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see anything good for Americans coming out of that scenario.

     Especially if our nation commits to war under a half-conscious, reality-challenged Commander-in-Chief whose highest priority is to avoid answering questions from the White House press corps.

***

     War is sometimes forced upon a nation. We were forced into World War II by the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. But the majority of wars in this era are “elective:” nations go to war because of Ludwig von Mises’ “axiom of action:” i.e., in the hope of securing favorable conditions or averting unfavorable ones. The decision to enter such a war is therefore economic.

     Regardless of the evil of the Putin regime’s aggression against Ukraine, the United States need not commit itself to involvement. Ukraine has no alliance with us. Therefore, the question reduces to whether the consequences of involvement would be better or worse than the consequences of non-involvement.

     Few aspects of that calculation are certain. Our men at arms who would die under fire would be worse off. Our economy, already staggering from Usurper policies, would be burdened still further. But the Usurpers themselves could foresee political gains: increased power and increased likelihood of retaining it despite the depredations of the two years behind us. Seldom does a nation at war change horses before the war’s conclusion.

     Food for thought.

Feb 26 2022

Wise guy alert.

Thank God Trump isn’t President. I was so sick and tired of affordable gas and food. And no wars for 4 years was just too much to handle.

Source: The Dank Knight, somewhere on the web.

Feb 25 2022

Organic, Whole, And With The Dirt Still On It!

     Ahhh, Friday. Just as with Mondays, even retirees still look forward to them. No, it doesn’t make sense. Does it need to?

     Have a few squibs before I sit down to compose the main event for today.

***

“Experts”

     Gerard Van der Leun has done so much good stuff for so long that we who know him have been conditioned to expect his level of quality. Even so, now and then he reaches a new zenith:

     In the past, you became an expert within a specific domain. For men, that meant farming, war, or governance. You spent most of your waking hours perfecting your skill in those fields, and trusted other experts for matters which you did not know. Today, the experts are liars. They will say anything the oligarchs want to keep their jobs and maintain a pleasurable lifestyle. We don’t have experts anymore, only shills, marketers, and traitors to mankind. The “experts” have declared this additive to be safe in food, but they lie for profit, and I must search online for the real story.

     The old joke about an expert is that he’s “a person who knows more and more about less and less.” There was some substance to that jibe. Yet in times not all that far behind us, we could expect an expert to know something about his chosen domain, even if it were so narrow that 99% of us would be amazed to learn that it was an actual field of study. No longer.

     Expertise has been ousted by credentialism – and the State awards the credentials.

***

More on “Experts”

     Pace the preceding segment, I’ve often wondered if the principal function of the broadcast media is to promote ersatz “experts.” Their commentators seem to do little else, though there remain a couple of exceptions. Whatever the case, comparing the emissions of broadcast-media figures with those of truly intelligent and thoughtful persons, like Eliot’s “Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent,” leads me to an overwhelming question:

WTF, over?

     Whoops! Excuse me, Gentle Reader. I have my moments, both good and bad. I’ll leave it to you to decide in which category the above belongs. But I do have an example for you:

     Have you ever seen a brain so completely programmed with slanders and insults? So thoroughly cleansed of anything resembling rational thought? Yet this man went to the verge of hysterics when he saw that Donald Trump would win the presidency. Told us to “brace for impact,” as I recall. Of course, he had plenty of hysterical company.

***

Still More on “Experts”

     Everybody’s got to have a thing. Some like pizza, others masturbation. I like complicated puns, Steven Seagal movies, and Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry. But today this matter of “experts” and expertise is on my mind, and it must be purged before I can get down to serious work. You, Gentle Reader, are the, ah, beneficiary.

     Time was, the title of “expert” was conferred upon a man by others after he’d repeatedly demonstrated his knowledge or competence in some field. Credentials had little or nothing to do with it. Those others had recognized that he’d acquired knowledge or competence and could bring it forth at need. Nothing else mattered.

     This has given rise to a few jokes. One of the standards is that “he who last made a two-sided copy successfully shall be deemed the expert on the office copier.” Quite a few copier repairmen have dined out on that one. Yet it hearkened back to the older conception of the expert: he who has demonstrated knowledge or competence.

     Given the plague of ersatz experts, and the increasingly urgent need among ordinary Americans to detect fake expertise and dismiss its purveyors, I’d like to suggest a handy discriminant. It’s served me well over the years, and I hope it will do the same for you:

The true expert is humble.

     A genuine expert is aware of how often his predecessors and colleagues have been proved wrong. He expects no better record of accuracy for himself. He doesn’t present his opinions on carven stone tablets. Rather, he will allow that “this is what I’ve deduced from the available data.” When he’s revealed to have been in error, he admits it without resistance or rancor.

     By contrast, a man who proclaims his conclusions in stentorian tones, with the implication that anyone who differs must be either an idiot or a villain, is ninety-nine-to-one a fake expert. Any shibboleths he invokes provide additional giveaways: “science,” “experts agree,” “the consensus,” and so forth. He never willingly admits to uncertainty error. When he’s shown to have been wrong, he does his best to avert any discredit. Nor will he apologize for misleading you.

     Keep that one handy.

***

You Too Can Be An “Expert!”

     Just yesterday a dear friend called me with a question. The call was unexpected, but the question was even more so:

“Do you split infinitives, Fran?”

     It got me laughing so hard that I did an unprecedented thing: despite being in the middle of writing a complex, critically important passage of dialogue, I answered the phone. We had a nice conversation, to which the thing about infinitives was a mere grace note, made nearly irrelevant by the end of the chat. But my friend’s call and his choice of subject have stayed with me.

     People still choose their own experts. They note demonstrations of knowledge or skill and remember them. At subsequent times of uncertainty, they will recur to the man who has shown them “how it’s done” and solicit his opinion. And if he remains reliable in that field, they’ll hang on to him, praise him, and recommend him to others. After all, isn’t that how we choose and treat our favored vendors of services?

     That, too, is one to keep handy.

     I hope to be back later with “Fraying Part 3.” Until then, be well.

PS: Feel free to split infinitives. Compound verbs too. Just because it’s impossible in Latin doesn’t mean it’s forbidden to you. You’re a mature, taxpaying American, for God’s sake, so go out there and act like it! 😁

Feb 25 2022

What passes for intellectual competence.

The Atlantic

The Reason Putin Would Risk War.

He is threatening to invade Ukraine because he want democracy to fail — and not just in that country. ~ Anne Applebaum.[1]

Wasn’t the objective of the 2014 U.S. regime change operation in Ukraine designed to remove the elected president of the country? I mean, I’m just asking here. And I have it on good authority that it was the U.S. State Department that selected Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the next prime minister in early 2014. I seem to be missing the parts where these changes came about by means of anything faintly “democratic.” And boy were we energized about removing Bashar al-Assad in Syria, whose people seem to vote for him as president with some regularity. But, right, Mr. Putin wants democracy to fail. Got it.

“Democracy” is one of those words or terms that have impereceptibly taken over political discourse like “gender,” “impact,” “choice,” “women’s health,” “voter suppression,” “privilege,” “underprivileged,” “underserved,” “disadvantaged,” “racism,” “privacy,” “affirmative action,” “inner city,” “central city,” “youths,” “baby mama,” “poor schools,” “food deserts,” “gun violence,” “rape culture,” and “prison industrial complex.” Of course, the U.S. is not a democracy but a constitutional republic whose avowed purpose is to secure the blessings of liberty, inter alia, by restricting federal powers vis-à-vis the states and dividing those powers between the three branches of government. The idea that we have supposedly become a democracy would have horrified the Founders, Ratifiers and citizens of that generation.

Liberty requires restraint on government excess but democracy bypasses that vital feature. Rather it is the citizen’s sacred right to go through the futile motions of casting a ballot that makes leftists swoon. As Ben Bartee reports

Via empirical, quantitative research from Princeton researchers:

“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”[2]

So lifting up voting as the crowning glory of our system is a bit much. Not to mention Pelosi weeping crocodile tears about “the temple of our democracy” while living in a deep snooze about the disgraceful abuse of the 1/6 “insurrectionists” and the summary execution of Ashley Babbitt. But it is clear, isn’t it, that the payoff for this linguistic distortion is that the erosion of our liberty disappears from public perception?

Come to think of it, I want democracy to fail too, but serious failure is in the works as we speak anyway, so what I think about that is beside the point. Do let it be noted, however, that supposed serious people are utterly clueless about the essentials of our system, such as it was. It ended up that very smart people were too clever by half and contributed nothing more than your average drug-addicted street person.

Notes
[1] Quoted in “Direct From Average Ukrainians in War Crosshairs: ‘The US Needs This War, Not Us’.” By Ben Bartee, ZeroHedge, 2/23/22.
[2] Bartee, supra.

Feb 24 2022

This is HUGE

If there had not be the pushback – the outrage, the sharing of memes and stories, the mocking of Trudeau’s ridiculous claims – Canada would still be under Emergency Rules.

There are times when I have doubts about how I spend my time. Keeping a hawkeye on the politicians, not only of our country, but others, as well. Taking the time to write out posts explaining just WHY we should care. Spending time on social media, promoting discussion of government overreach abuses, and urging others to spread the word.

Wading through official documents – proclamations, rules, legislation – analyzing the effect on ordinary citizens, and looking for anti-Constitutional effects.

Looking for ways to bring up aspects of government abuses that even the Woke can agree are Just Too Much.

And, now, seeing the result of a relatively small group of people, firm in their resistance to the vaccine mandates, bring the Trudeau government to reverse course.

Win!

Kudos, Canadians! Sometimes, the Mild-Mannered Triumph!

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