Jan 26 2022

Behold. Sudden clarity on the disposition, number, and composition of Russian forces.

This from the Ukrainian Center of Defense Strategies:

According to our estimates, supported by many of the indicators below, a large-scale general military operation can’t take place for at least the next two or three weeks.

As of Jan. 23, we do not observe the required formation of several hundred thousand troops, not only on the border with Ukraine, but also on Russian territory behind the front line.

Besides, we do not see the creation of strategic reserve units, nor the mobilization of the necessary connections and units on the basis of the centers for mobilization deployment.

* * * *

How likely is an invasion in 2022?

In general, a large-scale Russian offensive operation against Ukraine in 2022 seems unlikely according to many indicators, even judging by purely military requirements.[1]

This kind of clarity is not within the capability of U.S. intelligence. No. The best I’ve seen reported in the gutter press is that Russian troops (number, disposition, actual positions quite vague) are “on the border.” But they are not “on the border” they are noticeably distant from it — 150 miles in the case of one location — such that, even if they were formed up with Military Academy of the General Staff perfection with engines idling at this moment there would be a needless abandonment of the element of surprise because of, oh, a five-hour movement to the border. The Russian military — and the military of any competence on the planet — simply would not incorporate a leisurely signaling of intentions into their planning.

Rather, actual Russian military activity looks a lot more like training with an obvious not-so-subtle message that “we’re here” and these units involved are available for other duties. Not that I think that ground forces will lead off any serious attack. Rocket forces a long way from the border and well protected will cripple “NATO” forces in the first 20 minutes of any serious offensive.

Also, TASS reports that:

Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov said early on Tuesday he had received no information so far indicating the possibility of Russia’s invasion of his country in the near future.

“As of today, the armed forces of Russia created no strike groups, indicating they were ready to launch an offensive tomorrow,” he told Ukraine’s ICTV television channel, adding that a scenario of a Russian attack in the near future was also unlikely.[2]

So this is reduced to a tempest in a tea pot as revealed by the very people who are looking down the gun barrel of supposed naked neo-USSR expansionism. Suddenly it’s a non-problem. Obviously a signal and a welcome one at that. Brandon’s got his out.

Just as Bashar al-Assad has and had no reason to use chemical weapons on civilian Syrian targets, so Russians have no need to invade Ukraine and take on an economic and political basketcase populated by a hostile people. However, Russia simply will not tolerate Ukraine’s accession to the ranks of NATO clowns and parasites and it wants only a measure of autonomy for the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine. Nor should it tolerate what the US clearly would not tolerate during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Similarly, it will not tolerate NATO contemptuous assumption that eastern Europe is its exclusive playground, and NATO emplacement of medium-range ballistic missiles in eastern Europe will be prevented or reversed.

In any event, the impending economic disaster that will soon arrive in the U.S. will short circuit all U.S. imperial projects. As always, the Russians need only play a waiting game and watch the U.S. sink ever further into chaos and irrelevance.

All Western powers are advised to get their arrogant selves under control and take care of business at home. If the Siege of Port Arthur (1904) presaged the destructive horror of industrial warfare, the next serious clash of major industrial powers will demonstrate how precision computerized warfare will involve a massive increase in lethality from that seen in that distant but earth shaking battle. Western military observers saw all the slaughter of Port Arthur but, even if they understood the implications, their reports were overlooked or not understood. The European powers sleep walked into the yet more ghastly slaughter of WWI having learned nothing. Westerners are sleep walking now as they seem not to be able to absorb that there has been a massive technological shift. The multilateral world our fools swoon over is here with a vengeance. Reality is set to arrive with a blinding flash soon. But sappy, arrogant Western elites will be caught flat footed.

Even if this were to be plain vanilla, 20th-century slug fest with rocks and ox thigh bones, it’s clear that NATO is setting up any American troops to be deployed anywhere east of the Oder to re-enact the disaster of Task Force Smith in Korea. Our premise for action is wrong, our strategic goal is vague and certainly completely unattainable, our preparations consist of nothing more than speeches and press conferences, preparatory deployments have been nil, and front line troops will be sacrificed piecemeal for no reason.

Notes
[1] “A ‘Parthogenetic’ Conflict – There Is No Russian Invasion Threat To Ukraine.” By b, Moon of Alabama, 1/25/22.
[2] Id.

Jan 25 2022

Self-Defense (UPDATED)

     I have to run off virtually at once, so I hope my Gentle Readers will be satisfied with a short piece today. Not that “short” should be taken to mean unimportant. Indeed, the short stuff is often more important than the long rambling rants.

     Writer and “professional tinkerer” Alexander Rose, author of Pay the Two Dollars, wrote therein that most people would rather plead guilty to murder than to ignorance. It’s a stark and uncomfortable insight, because it’s demonstrably correct. But it’s a special case of a more general rule:

We hate to admit that we’ve been wrong.

     All of us. Each and every one, without exception. It’s as difficult an undertaking as any in the realm of self-expression.

     Ponder the following bit of dialogue:

     “I’m the world’s biggest excuse-making machine when things start going bad. ‘He’s just under a lot of stress.’ ‘It’ll get better – I’ll just wait his mood out.’ ‘Nobody’s perfect.’ That last one’s my big one. And it’s the dumbest one. Sure, nobody’s perfect. But lots of people aren’t absolute dickwads.”

     Rationalizations of that sort are something other than what they appear. The speaker might have thought she was making excuses for her ex-boyfriend. But what was the effect of thinking or uttering those rationalizations? What practical purpose did they achieve?

     Exactly! She stayed with him a while longer.

     So what was she really defending? Might it have been her own decision to accept him and tolerate his “imperfections?” Could it have been anything else?

     We hate to admit that we’ve been wrong – and the more serious the error, the more determined will be our defense of it.

***

     Have a convenient, widely applicable rationalization on me:

“I try to see the best in people and ignore the rest.”

     Have you ever used that one, or a variation thereof? I wouldn’t be surprised; it’s a fairly common response to “Why do you put up with that shit?” But it’s less an exculpation of the offender for his cruelty, crudity, or crassness than it is a defense of oneself for being a passive enabler of the behavior at issue. It’s also a mile marker for the lapse of standards for public behavior, which is nearing the checkered flag of social disintegration.

     We – the good people of America, and yes, I include myself in that category, thank you very much – have become so averse to confrontation that today we’re allowing thugs of very worst kind to act out in ways that, a century ago, would have led to broken bones at least, pistols at dawn at worst. There are many reasons for this, but that’s not what’s uppermost in my thoughts just now. Rather, it’s our readiness to defend our own spinelessness by offering a seeming excuse for bad, often deliberately offensive behavior.

     We’d rather defend our own timidity with a formulaic rationalization than stand foursquare for public decency and order. Those who are assaulting that decency and order are emboldened every time we “tolerate” it. It’s why we’re losing our country.

     There’s a brief, illustrative vignette near the front of Robert Ringer’s How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization that comes to mind. The book isn’t near to hand at this instant and, as I said earlier, I have to run off almost at once. Perhaps I’ll transcribe it later today.

     Meanwhile, ponder the above and what it implies for our national future.

***

     UPDATE: Here’s Ringer’s vignette:

     It was early in the afternoon of a hot summer day. I was standing in line at a neighborhood ice cream stand, with five or six people in front of me and about the same number lined up at an adjacent window. As we stood quietly waiting our turns, a rather unpleasant mix of screeching musical instruments, wailing voices, and sharp electronic pulses began to fill the air.
     As I and the other patrons in line turned to see what all the ruckus was about, the intrusive sounds were practically upon us, Crossing the street and heading straight for the ice cream stand was a scraggly-looking teenager, sporting one of those now-familiar “I’m a bad dude” looks on his face. As if his gait and demeanor weren’t menacing enough, he was also armed with the ultimate punk weapon—a “portable radio” that, considering its size, would have fit rather comfortably in the right hand of Godzilla.
     As Mr. Bad Dude sauntered up and attached himself to the adjacent line, the discordant “rock” sounds from his gigantic noise machine became more than just mildly irritating. Then a most interesting thing happened. Just as I was expecting him to do the natural and civilized thing—turn the radio down so as not to annoy the other people in line—he startled everyone by deliberately turning his rock blaster up.
     The message was clear: “I can do whatever the hell I want. You don’t like it? Tough s—, man. I’m bad.”
     All at once it hit me. He was right. He could do whatever he wanted, and if I didn’t like it, that was my tough luck.

     That is the end of Ringer’s description of the event itself. There follows a passage of philosophizing about what the event symbolized about the collapse of Western Civilization. Now, for those Gentle Readers who’ve been following along up to this point, I shall ask a most pointed question:

Why didn’t anyone confront the miscreant?

     Explain your answer. Try to avoid excessive profanity.

Jan 25 2022

Why this relentless push for war?

If the current Drang nach Osten and demonization of Russia strike you as something pushed by genuinely unhinged people then this excerpt from a thoughtful article will alert you to the real agenda:

Why, you ask, would a world war ever be needed? That’s simple: To deflect their own people’s attention away from what’s happening on their own soil and divert their gaze to a far-off land whose interests bear no connection to their own.

And what’s happening on our own soil right now from which all eyes must be diverted?

They are in the process of establishing their own authoritarian system – a global technocracy in which large cities cooperate with large corporations and the federal government to install a system where everybody must show a digital vaccine passport to go anywhere and do anything.[1]

Stated another way, the coming war “has everything to do with timing and what is happening in the world right now – which is the transformation of the formerly Free World into beachheads of totalitarianism.”

Think New Zealand, and Australia.

Exactly how different are we from them with our

  • relentless, dishonest purges of the military,
  • maniacal pushing of a useless secret sauce with frightful short-term effects and absolutely unknown long-term effects,
  • medical journal fraud,
  • dishonest suppression of alternative, cheaper treatment alternatives,
  • demonization of dissenting medical professionals,
  • attacks on people’s employment,
  • destruction of tens of thousands of small businesses, and
  • vicious attacks on free speech?

Ready for that sixth booster shot, comrade? Good doggie. There’s a free latte in it for you.

Do you recognize anything from America of even 60 years ago? American government now is grotesque, something that is beginning to resemble a corner of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Nor is daily life on a personal level free of alien encounters with possessed humanoids.

Notes
[1] “As the sound of war drums grows louder …the real enemy remains hidden behind the curtain.” By Leo Hohmann, LeoHohmann.com, 1/24/22.

Jan 25 2022

Ok, more pearls of expression.

For some wily performers, it was almost a point of honour to get away with insulting their opponents in the House without the use of ‘unparliamentary language’. So, when Disraeli was instructed to withdraw his allegation that ‘half the Cabinet were knaves’, he consented and replied that ‘half the Cabinet were not knaves’.

Do read the article. The video of the Dutch member of parliament, Gideon van Meijeren, taking on PM Rutte is priceless.

“Oh, for a firebrand like Gideon!” By Janice Davis, The Conservative Woman, 1/24/22.

Jan 24 2022

WTF Department

     Sometimes, there are no words:

     Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, Mimi Cave’s “Fresh” is a movie about cannibalism. Yes, cannibalism, the eating of people. Yes, Disney. It’s not a parody or a satire like “Get Out.” It’s a straight up horror film about a charming doctor, played by Sebastian Stan, who seduces women, kidnaps them, and carves out pieces of them for sale to high paying customers. Eventually, they’re all carved up and dead.

     Written by Lauryn Kahn, I guess “Fresh” is supposed to be hip. It’s way too hip for me, that’s for sure. (Hip may be on Dr. Steve’s menu.) Disney will release it not on DisneyPlus but on Hulu, and try and distance their brand name. But it’s Disney, folks, nonetheless.

     Plodding along the lines of “Get Out” and “Parasite,” “Fresh” may considered hip because a woman wrote it and another one directed it. But women can make the same mistakes as men. Just because you’ve got a good cinematographer and production designer doesn’t mean you’ve got a good movie.

     Don’t read the whole thing too soon after eating.

     Has this Lauryn Kahn person lost her mind? Did this Mimi Cave person think it clever to make a movie in which a Hannibal Lecter figure preys upon young women as an allegory about misogyny? Could it be a brief for vegetarianism? Have the executives at Disney who greenlighted this atrocity gone over to the dark side? Or are they just out to see if they can make money by shocking Disney’s traditional audience?

     Walt Disney must be spinning in his grave fast enough to power all of California by now.

     When you sever the TV service and concentrate on entertainment from more reliable sources, you tend to miss developments such as this one. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, even if learning of this obscenity will cost me even more sleep. I await the reaction from American moviegoers generally. I pray their horror resembles mine – not the ghoulish sort of horror the movie’s makers probably hope to elicit, but at them, and at Disney.

Jan 24 2022

There Have Been Days…

     …when an image I encountered by chance has infiltrated my thought processes and refused to budge. Those Gentle Readers who remember this short story will know how that can affect me.

     Well, today, courtesy of Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away, we have another such image:

     …and it has compelled me to recycle an old favorite:

***

The Great Pyramid of Cheese

     On one evening not too long ago, a friend of mine, who has an extensive extended family, was dining with most of them. Included were several pre-teens. The bill of fare was, as is common in their not-particularly-pecunious household, macaroni and cheese.

     One of the pre-teens commented on how different the entree tasted to him from “real” macaroni and cheese — by which he meant, as pre-teens often do, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. He contrasted my friend’s wife’s dish unfavorably with the commercial preparation.

     An uncle to the clan cleared his throat. “Kevin,” he intoned, “you know I sell cheese, don’t you?” The youngster nodded. “Well, it’s about time you learned about the Great Pyramid of Cheese.” And he told them all about it.

     It seems that there are places where they make Cheese. The real stuff, straight from the milk, brimming with the odorific and oleaginous virtues that your narrator has found he cannot renounce. And it is good.

     Most of it, anyway. Some wheels of cheese just don’t turn out right. But they’re not thrown away, oh, no. That would be wasteful. They’re sold to factors from other shops, which take them in, and melt them down, and add oil, and chemicals, and further processing, and thereby produce… Cheese Food. Cheese Food is regulated by law to contain no more than 49% non-milk additives, and must not contain any but a specified list of preservatives and artificial flavor enhancers. There are people who eat Cheese Food by choice. There are others who are trying to help them.

     But some batches of Cheese Food don’t come out right either, and they’re not thrown away, either. They’re sold to factors from other shops, which take them in, and melt them down, and add oil, and chemicals, and further processing, and thereby produce… Process Pasteurized Cheese Food. PPCF is the step down from Cheese Food, and may contain up to 70% non-milk additives, plus a much wider range of flavor and color enhancers, and preservatives that guarantee that it will not spoil over the three months between your toddler’s two demands for a grilled cheese sandwich right now, mom!

     And not all of this is saleable, either, but (you guessed it) it’s not thrown away just for that. The rejected barrels are sold to factors from other shops, which take them in, and melt them down, and add oil, and chemicals, and further processing, and thereby produce… Process Pasteurized Cheese Food Substance. PPCFS may contain up to 82% non-milk additives. The flavor and color are almost entirely chemically produced, and the preservatives in it are reputed to be stronger than formaldehyde. Velveeta was once PPCFS, but has moved up the pyramid to Level 3 (PPCF). Cheez Whiz is PPCFS. A number of people have drawn images of the Blessed Virgin on their basement walls with PPCFS from spray cans, and have made quite a lot of money.

     But… that’s right. Some of it doesn’t meet the standards for retail-saleable PPCFS. The rejected barrels are sold to factors from other shops, which take them in, and melt them down, and add oil, and chemicals, and further processing, and thereby produce…

     Well, it doesn’t really have a name, and it doesn’t need one, either, because all of it is consumed by a single company.

     “And Kevin,” the uncle rumbled, “would you like to guess what that company is?”

     Little Kevin swallowed and shook his head.

     “It’s the Kraft Company, Kevin.”

     And I, who have set this tale down for you, have checked it in all particulars, and every word of it is true. And I’m told that little Kevin no longer asks for Kraft Macaroni And Cheese, either.

==<😁>==

Jan 23 2022

Status Report

“The world’s in a bad way, my man,
And bound to be worse before it mends;
Better lie up in the mountain here
Four or five centuries,
While the stars go over the lonely ocean,”
The old father of wild pigs,
Plowing the fallow on Mal Paso Mountain.

— Robinson Jeffers —

     Say, are any of you Gentle Readers still gainfully employed? I’d bet that some of you are, though possibly not a majority. Liberty’s Torch tends to attract the older reader: someone not too far from my age, who hears the whistling of the wind and, now that the illusions of youth have cleared from his vision, has allowed, however reluctantly, that his life will someday end. But those of you who are still vigorous enough to endure the BS of wage employment in this Year of Our Lord 2022 will probably be familiar with, if not actively haunted by, the sort of event that’s known by the title phrase.

     Relax, relax: I’m not about to ask you for a status report. Neither am I about to slather you with one of my own. Well, except about one aspect of the nation we live in: the Land of the Formerly Free.

     It seems the Usurpers have got themselves in a pickle.

***

     It’s not often that I find myself disagreeing with the late Robert A. Heinlein, for my money one of the truly prescient men of the Twentieth Century, but every now and then I feel a quibble come on:

     “We defined thinking as integrating data and arriving at correct answers. Look around you. Most people do that stunt just well enough to get to the corner store and back without breaking a leg. If the average man thinks at all, he does silly things like generalizing from a single datum. He uses one-valued logics. If he is exceptionally bright, he may use two-valued, ‘either-or’ logic to arrive at his wrong answers. If he is hungry, hurt, or personally interested in the answer, he can’t use any sort of logic and will discard an observed fact as blithely as he will stake his life on a piece of wishful thinking. He uses the technical miracles created by superior men without wonder nor surprise, as a kitten accepts a bowl of milk. Far from aspiring to higher reasoning, he is not even aware that higher reasoning exists. He classes his own mental process as being of the same sort as the genius of an Einstein. Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.
     “For explanations of a universe that confuses him he seizes onto numerology, astrology, hysterical religions, and other fancy ways to go crazy. Having accepted such glorified nonsense, facts make no impression on him, even if at the cost of his own life. Joe, one of the hardest things to believe is the abysmal depth of human stupidity.”

     [From Heinlein’s novelette “Gulf”]

     Now, as greatly as I admire the old boy, he got so many things wrong in that passage that I shudder to enumerate them. But “Gulf” was an early story. It’s possible that, later in life, after he’d “wised up,” he hoped to repudiate it. And indeed he did so, partially anyway, in his novel Friday. The key to the wrongheadedness of the above eludes many, yet strikes me as exceedingly simple: the essence of individual competence.

     No one is competent at everything. Human knowledge is simply too broad and too deep. Individuals do their best to become competent at the things that matter most to them. The usual term for this is specialization, though that word connotes an occupational characteristic rather than an overall attitude. One unintended consequence of specialization is a retreat from those fields in which one feels no need to be competent, even if he once found them fascinating.

     I’ve known a few people whose competences are broader than mine. They rarely need to hire specialists in any of the various aspects of home maintenance, for example. They do their own plumbing, electrical work, HVAC work, and so forth. Yet to a man they’re humble: they’re aware that there’s much they don’t know and never will. They would never criticize me, for example, for preferring to “hire it done” so I can concentrate on what matters most to me. Today, that’s time and energy with which to think and write. For most of my life, it was advancing in my chosen field and earning an income that would – among other things – allow me to “hire it done” more often than not.

     We are not stupid; we are specialized. And no, despite Heinlein’s contemptuous statement in a later tale, it’s not strictly for insects.

***

     As you’re undoubtedly aware, from my ravings here if nowhere else, in November 2020 a gaggle of Usurpers, having availed themselves of a convenient pandemic and solid control of the electoral machines in sever key states, stole the presidency and at least two seats in the U.S. Senate, giving them nearly complete control of the federal government. They had to make some unpleasant concessions to get away with this: the wholesale purchase of the mainstream media; the suborning of several governors and secretaries of state; and worst of all for them, the erection of a figurehead to occupy the Oval Office.

     The figurehead they chose is a 78-year-old man, clearly in failing physical and mental health, prone to frequent physical and verbal mishaps, and with a long record of deceit and peculation. They consoled themselves that they had little choice: all the other candidates for the position were massively unpopular and had even worse records in office. They assured one another that after they’d dragged their candidate across the electoral finish line, they would “manage to manage him.”

     That has proved not to be the case.

     Their problem is that the largely not-stupid American people have been watching. We know that the Usurper Regime is responsible for the nation’s swiftly escalating troubles. In consequence, the Regime is now tottering: it’s massively unpopular; widely held responsible for our national ills; unable to command compliance from a great part of the country (including a great many state governments); and generally deemed untrustworthy. The one aspect of the Usurpers’ strategy that’s worked as they hoped is that the bulk of the odium has focused on their Oval Office figurehead.

     But what can they do about him? Were they to remove him, whether via the 25th Amendment’s prescriptions or some less savory means, he would be replaced by a figure even more roundly hated. Meanwhile, his approval ratings have descended below the survival threshold. Without some sort of remediation, this threatens the entire Usurper enterprise.

     If you’ve wondered why the Regime is so fixated upon federalizing electoral law, now you know. With Washington in control, they could assure themselves of the veneer of legitimacy despite the sad state of affairs at present.

     But it would be a veneer only. The not-stupid American people will not be fooled by a massive vote-fraud campaign when the disapproval of the majority of voters is so plain. They got away with their 2020 electoral theft by the skin of their teeth…which have started to fall out.

     None of this portends well for these United States.

***

     But that’s the national political status. Our individual statuses vary widely. Some, of course, are merely hoping that “It will all go away” or that “Someone else will take care of it.” Others are bracing for hard times, though how hard they’ll be in actuality remains open to question. Still others are studying the map.

     We older folks are somewhere between the first two positions. Relocation is always a trial and a jolt, even to the young. For one whose seventh decade on Earth has just ended, it’s near to unthinkable. But we do what we can:

  • We fill our pantries;
  • We buy gold and silver;
  • We buy weapons and ammunition;
  • We see to any lingering maintenance needs;
  • We form mutual-defense alliances with our neighbors;
  • We certainly don’t count on things “going back to normal.”

     The “normal” of 2019 will take quite a while to re-establish…if it can be done at all.

     But do have a nice day.

UPDATE: Please, don’t give me advice about how important it is to move out of New York. I’d love to, but for reasons I prefer not to explain, I can’t. So thanks, but that’s that.

All my best,
Fran

Jan 22 2022

Pearls of expression.

It’s easy to vote for Socialism. The impossible part is paying for it.

Comment by moonmac on “Is America Heading For A Systems Collapse?” By Victor Davis Hanson, ZeroHedge, 1/21/22.

Many interesting comments.

Jan 22 2022

Back to the Spoils System?

I just read a news report that a federal judge overturned Biden’s mandate on Federal Employees. He based his ruling on the argument SCOTUS used to overturn his illegal measure for private businesses.

However, the news sparked the tangential question shown in the title above. Biden’s secretaries have been firing or forcing resignations for military and civil service members who fight the violations of their individual rights. Given the Left’s penchant for declaring all that disagree with any of their agenda items being labeled “right wing extremists,” they are presuming that all resistors are not members of their party.  And basing such eliminations on party affiliation is no different than what was common in America until a few years after the Civil War.

Under guise of Wuflu vax demands not only not being being met, but being treated as a treasonous crime, this result is no different than what would happen had all civil service and military protections been summarily erased. And not by passage of any new law either.

So, deemed not a member of the party, you’re summarily dismissed. That is what the usurper regime has been trying to pull off.

Is that not how the old spoils system worked?

Maybe I’m off based. Please don’t hesitate to correct me.

For now, just let me enjoy the thought that here is simply one more glaring example that everything the Progressives aim to do is regressive. They will do whatever it takes to revert the West back to patricians* and plebeians, nobles and slaves.

———-

*With patricians I’m being polite beyond what is really warranted. However I will never agree to use the word elite for these illegitimi.

Jan 22 2022

Day Off

     The week was a strenuous one for us at the Fortress, and I need to attend to a few domestic matters at once, so I’ll be taking the day off from Liberty’s Torch. Expect to see fresh rantings tomorrow. Until then, be well.

Jan 21 2022

But No More Mean Tweets!

     How’d you like to have the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics back, along with the Warsaw Pact?

     Russia wants Nato to remove all of its forces from Bulgaria, Romania and other ex-communist states in eastern Europe that joined the alliance after 1997, the foreign ministry said on Friday, underlining Moscow’s hardline position ahead of security talks with the US in Geneva.

     Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said in a written Q&A on the ministry’s website that Russia’s demands included “withdrawing foreign forces, equipment, and armaments and making other steps to return to the condition as of 1997”, when Nato began admitting former Warsaw Pact countries.

     “That includes Bulgaria and Romania,” Lavrov said, adding that Russia’s demand was “core” and “deliberately worded as clearly as possible so as not to allow any dual interpretations”.

     Russia has called its demands “security concerns.” The eastward expansion of the NATO Alliance has provided Vladimir Putin with a rationale for massive westward aggression.

     Our supposed allies don’t even want the U.S. involved in negotiations:

     The US has mounted a frantic diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions and warned of “crippling” sanctions in case of any Russian aggression against Ukraine.

     But western unity frayed this week after US president Joe Biden appeared to suggest a western response would depend on the scale of Russia’s intervention and French president Emmanuel Macron proposed separate European-led security talks with Moscow.

     And it’s not just France; Germany wants no part of us either:

     German Chancellor Olaf Scholz turned down an invite at short notice from U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the Ukraine crisis, German magazine Der Spiegel said on Friday.

     Scholz did not accept the invitation due to a full schedule, including a trip to Madrid, as well as the desire to show that he was present as Germany grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Der Spiegel.

     “Full schedule,” eh? Of course. That’s the only reason anyone would decline to meet with an American President, the leader of the free world: scheduling conflicts! Just ask Stacy Abrams. Better yet, ask the folks who sought to avoid having to meet with Barack Obama.

     The Usurper Administration has emasculated our military – yes, I mean that exactly as I wrote it – and weakened our economy near to the point of collapse. Taken together, those two deteriorations make plain that we would be the underdogs in any military action in Eastern Europe. Not only is our armed strength far below what it was even five years ago; we would be hard pressed to sustain combat economically for more than a couple of weeks. Meanwhile Putin has been adding to Russia’s combat capabilities with additional men-at-arms and new weaponry.

     But no more mean tweets, right? That’s certainly worth losing Europe, isn’t it?

     This is what you get from Democrat dominance of the federal government. They start wars with their diplomatic and strategic ineptitude, then are unwilling – or unable – to win them.

     Right-of-center commentators have been saying for a while that Ukraine isn’t worth the spilling of American blood. I agree…but what about the other former Soviet republics? What about the Eastern European nations Ronald Reagan’s resolve liberated from Soviet dominance? What about what was once called the People’s Republic of Germany? Should they be forcibly reintegrated into a reborn Warsaw Pact, will we regret having stood by while it happened?

     Whatever the answer to that question, I have no doubt that we’ll regret allowing the Wokeists to transform our armed forces, once the acknowledged champions of the world, into a laughingstock good for nothing but marching in high heels. Indeed, given the shameful abandonment of Afghanistan and the scent of imminent surrender of Taiwan to Red China, I rather think most of us regret it already.

Jan 21 2022

Something Else To Not-Care About

     My most recent novel, The Discovery Phase, is now available in paperback at Amazon.

Jan 21 2022

On Not Caring

     There are innumerable Causes in circulation these days. You could probably name a dozen off the top of your head, so I feel no need to do so for you. The Cause plague started well before I was born, propelled by early American “progressives” and Communists. The Causes of those early years usually featured the same central motif as do the Causes of today: ersatz “compassion.”

     “Don’t you care?” the Causists screech at their intended victims, always in the most mock-earnest of voices. For ‘tis the heyday of Evangelical Compassion. You’re supposed to care. You’re practically required by law to care. Not caring is bad. It marks you as cold, unfeeling, heartless… a moral monster. And until fairly recently, by exploiting the inchoate but widespread sense of guilt about not caring, the Causists succeeded in browbeating money, petition signatures, and votes out of many who would have preferred to be left alone.

     But in a heartening trend of which I speak in the most cheerful of tones, people not only don’t care, they don’t care who knows it. We might still feel a residual twinge of guilt about it – especially the Christians among us, who’ve been compassion-bombed from the pulpit until it leaks out of our ears – but we’ve made our peace with it, nevertheless.

     And I shall explain why.

***

     I believe it was Adam Smith who said that a man is inclined to prioritize his own hangnail above a famine in China. (This may not apply to any Gentle Readers currently resident in China.) This is normal. Each of us stands at the center of his personal universe. What’s near to us affects us more directly than what’s far away. We have more power to affect what’s near to us than what’s far away, as well.

     However, with the emergence of mass media there arose a global compassion-flogging industry that fattens on tragedy wherever it may lie. It had to happen, you see. Whenever a niche forms that would favor organisms of a particular type, that type will be dominant. And so skilled manipulators and emotional parasites flooded into the nascent industry to feed on our guilt about not really caring but being unwilling to say so.

     Their tools have ramified and refined over the years. It starts with words, of course: verbal depictions of vast fields of suffering among helpless if faceless others. In the early years of “progressivism,” that was all the compassion-floggers had. But today the words are supplemented by pictures and recordings: pictures of suffering, starving children and abandoned or brutalized animals; videos of swathes of poverty and destruction; narrators, often famous in their own right, earnestly entreating you to “help if you can.”

     The producers usually make out very nicely from such productions, as do the unseen legions toiling in the charities’ back offices. But whether any portion of your “help” ever reaches the supposedly intended beneficiaries is dubious. The indications are that for 15% of a charity’s gross revenue to reach its claimed targets, whether as cash or as goods or services, would put it among the leaders in its field.

     For my part, I’d rather be robbed at gunpoint than contribute to such a campaign. I can no longer ignore the dishonesty. And I’d bet the rent money that the majority of my Gentle Readers feel the same.

***

     The following exchange has not happened in all its particulars. It is provided as a pattern to be studied:

Compassion-Flogger: (hawks some Cause in an earnest voice.)
FWP: Go away.

CF: What? Don’t you care that people are suffering?
FWP: Name three.

CF: (flustered, sputters)
FWP: Just as I thought. How much do you care about these people you can’t name?

CF: I’m out here fundraising for them!
FWP: At what salary? What benefits?

Sub-variation 1:

CF: Well, ah…
FWP: Can you name someone you have personally helped? Someone nearby, whose actual status I can verify?

CF: (more confused sputtering)
FWP: I thought not. Go away.

Sub-variation 2:

CF: (indignantly) I’m not getting a penny for this!
FWP: So why are you doing it, when you could be personally helping to feed, clothe, or shelter sone needy neighbor? Don’t you want to help those in need?

CF: I am helping!
FWP: No you’re not. You’re harassing strangers for contributions to an international scam. You could be doing actual charity whose results you could personally verify. Instead you’re donating your precious time and energy to a corporation whose executives wear suits and ties and probably never get their hands dirty. Go away.

     This, of course, would mark me as “hard-hearted.” So very “un-Christian.” But it would be an accurate expression of my convictions regarding impersonal charities and the people who feed from them, who are assuredly not the supposed beneficiaries.

***

     No one admits publicly, and hence public opinion does not admit, that ingratitude is the norm. It is astounding that countless benefactors allow themselves to be persuaded over and over that ingratitude with the resultant hatred is a rare and special case. — Helmut Schoeck

     The sanctification of rapacious ingratitude and envy has reached a terminal point, such that it cannot be deepened further. The more we give, the more we concede, the more we set our own priorities aside to placate the demands of others, the more we are resented. Yet the demands escalate. There is no saturation point, for a specific and enraging reason: The livelihoods of the demanders depend upon it.

     There’s a two-part dynamic behind this: the flogged-out pseudo-compassion itself, and the self-righteousness of those who seek to evoke it. Consider the following statement from the part-owner of an NBA franchise:

     Let’s be honest, nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, okay? You bring it up, because you really care, and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care. I’m telling you a very hard, ugly truth, okay? Of all the things that I care about– yes, it is below my line. Of all the things I care about, it is below. My. Line.

     Now view the reaction from a woman who probably thinks very well of herself:

     Umm… Mr. Palihapitiya, with all due respect (which is less than none), go f*ck yourself.

     Like I guess it’s too bad that caring about people being methodically, systematically rounded up, imprisoned, raped, tortured, sterilized, and killed doesn’t make you millions of dollars, but usually when people are that morally bankrupt they try to keep it to themselves.

     So, Miss Hoffman, what are you doing to help those oppressed Uyghurs? You personally? Apart from flogging someone else for being candid about their position in his priorities, that is?

     Your “caring” is shit. You can do nothing for the Uyghurs, and you know it – and however bad it makes you feel about it, your response is to berate another person – a man who owns a business that provides jobs and salaries to an unknown number of others, who use those salaries to support their families and perhaps to do actual charity for others about whom you know nothing! – for not verbally toeing your preferred line!

     Chamath Palihapitiya is your moral superior, Miss Hoffman. He doesn’t castigate others for not sharing his priorities. At some level in your cinder of a soul, you know he’s your better – and you resent him for it.

     And for the record, I couldn’t give a fart in a hurricane about the Golden State Warriors or the NBA.

***

     “Why don’t I shut up and stop stuffing your ears with nonsense when you ought to be stuffing some other organ entirely?” — John Brunner

     It is vital not to give the compassion-floggers a nanometer. Don’t say “Well, yes, I care about them in an abstract way.” Don’t say “Well, if I thought I could do any good.” Your abstract accord that yes, oppression, torture, and starvation are bad no matter who’s being oppressed, tortured, or starved is an opening wedge for them. The floggers want your money and your guilt – possibly, your guilt above all else.

     Not caring about something over which you have no personal control or influence is a pro-social position. It conserves your resources for things that are relevant to you and your community. Being candid – even brutal – about saying so to a compassion-flogger is a pro-social act. It makes them less likely to harass someone else…possibly someone weaker and more tractable than you.

     Give the floggers nothing. Stay on the attack. Make them cringe for their cheek.

     There are innumerable things to not-care about – to leave to the ministrations of others nearer to them. Constructive indifference to them helps us to preserve our own resources of time, money, energy, and emotion for problems we can personally help to ameliorate.

Never give anything to the acolytes of the parasite class.

     Make “Mind your own business and let me tend to mine” your mantra for this Year of Our Lord 2022. Your “widow’s mite,” given freely and out of true charity, will please Him infinitely more than your semi-coerced contribution to the March of Dimes or the United Way.

     I have spoken.

Jan 20 2022

Conversations

     Ours is a “mixed” household:

  • One (1) Catholic husband (me);
  • One (1) agnostic-Jewish wife (Beth, a.k.a. the C. S. O.);
  • Three dogs (Sophie, Precious, and Joy);
  • Four cats (Uriel, Fluffy, Chloe, and Zoe).

     (The cats sacrifice to Bastet. I have no idea whom the dogs worship. Possibly Dick Van Patten.)

     The consequences have included some humorous moments, especially since the onset of the “pandemic.” (If you haven’t yet tumbled to the essential falsity of this farce, check your pulse: you may have died and not noticed.) My parish, St. Louis de Montfort of Sound Beach, panicked as completely as most such. What followed included mask mandates, “social distancing” rules, an awful lot of awkwardness at Mass, and the elimination of holy water from the holy-water fonts, which are now filled with…brace yourself…hand sanitizer.

     This has irritated many members of the parish. A couple of weeks ago, in response to the rising tide of requests, our pastor, Monsignor Christopher Heller, made holy water available in an unprecedented form:

     Not exactly a conventional way of dispensing it, as the Catholics among our Gentle Readers will surely agree. But any port in a storm, as they say, and St. Louis’s parishioners were generally glad that holy water was available again, even in such an unorthodox container.

     Beth caught sight of the little bottle on my desk and asked about it. I told her that I was in search of a more appropriate container into which to decant the holy water, so that embarrassing mistakes might be obviated. She nodded and returned to her previous activity.

     I did acquire a more conventional bottle for holy water:

     …and poured it full from the little plastic bottle provided by the parish. Beth, who was a step behind this development, saw the new bottle and made a long face.

CSO: Aw, that’s pretty.
FWP: Thanks. I thought so myself.

CSO: I guess you won’t be using the bottle I made for you, then?
FWP: Hm? You made a holy water bottle?
CSO: Oh yeah. One second…

     Beth hurried away and returned a couple of minutes later with this:

     Words failed me. Truly, Gentle Reader, words failed me.

Jan 19 2022

Chronicles Of Anarcho-Tyranny, Continued

     I seldom regret canceling the TV service. It helps that Tucker Carlson’s show is usually available on YouTube the next day:

     Carlson calls it “the collapse of civilization – in real-time.” And indeed, there is no better description for it.

     Pace Milton Friedman, economists may not know much, but they know this:

What you penalize, you will get less of.
What you subsidize, you will get more of.

     Our “leaders” are “progressively” destroying normal, middle-class people, families, and communities, while actively subsidizing degeneracy, homelessness, and drug abuse. The completion of this sequence is left as an exercise for the reader.

     I’m thinking of starting a “Bobcat Fund,” to purchase Bobcats for angry city dwellers who would thereafter use them to clear the sidewalks in their neighborhoods. Clear them of what, you ask? Why, whatever might impede foot traffic, of course! Snow, garbage, tent cities…what’s the difference?

     Think it would catch on?

Jan 19 2022

Trial Balloon Warning

     It’s almost a pity people have stopped watching CNN. That makes it far too easy for the network to slip something like this past us:

     London (CNN Business) – People are paying a lot more for food, gas, cars and services, and inflation isn’t over yet as the pandemic continues to distort the economy. So should governments consider setting the price of essential goods?
     It’s been done before, typically during times of crisis, but for most mainstream economists, the answer to this question is a resounding “no.” Limiting how much companies can charge will distort markets, they argue, causing shortages and exacerbating supply chain problems while only temporarily reducing inflation.
     “Price controls can of course control prices — but they’re a terrible idea,” David Autor, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remarked in a survey published earlier this month by the University of Chicago.
     Asked whether price controls similar to those used in the United States during the 1970s could reduce inflation over the next year, less than a quarter of economists surveyed said they agree while nearly 60% said they disagree or strongly disagree.

     Remember how I suggested that you read some Andrew Dickson White? I do hope you took me seriously.

     When a government inflates the currency, as ours has been doing to support its insane spending, and prices start to rise rapidly, the government invariably does two other things:

  • It blames producers for the increases;
  • It toys with price controls.

     I’ll leave the completion of this line of reasoning to my Gentle Readers.

Jan 19 2022

Inflammation Of The Ego

     At one time, I held, albeit inarticulately, that the largest egos in the known universe were possessed by celebrities: entertainers, sports figures, and others who are “famous for being famous.” However, in recent years new evidence has emerged that suggests that it’s really politicians who hold first place:

     With President Joe Biden rounding out his first year in office amid a sinking approval rating and multiple setbacks to his agenda, the White House is planning a new communications strategy, senior administration officials say.

     Biden’s reset plan, senior administration officials said, is to make his conversations with members of Congress less of a public priority and to emphasize spending more time communicating directly with Americans. The officials said that the White House will continue negotiations with Congress over Biden’s legislative priorities but that it would stop releasing details of the talks to the public.

     Words fail me, Gentle Reader – and when you hear a writer say that, mark your calendar.

     The “Biden agenda” can be stated quite succinctly:

Whatever Trump did,
We’ll do the opposite.

     It’s as mindless as an amoeba. There’s no rationality to it at all; it’s driven by hatred and hatred alone. Causes economic dysentery, too.

     Mind you, Biden being as close to mindless as a man can get without being confined to a safe, secure place where the attendants wear white and have been trained never to raise their voices (yes, as with department store “greeters,” that does invite speculation about their home lives) the “agenda” isn’t really his, any more than the 180 IQ he once claimed. That doesn’t really matter, though; the hatred is real and as swollen as the egos behind it. Biden would share it, if he were conscious enough.

     The Land of the Formerly Free is now ruled by people who hate freedom in all its venues and manifestations. Indeed, they hate people, selectively at least. They’re doing their level best to thin us out. What gain would that bring them, you ask? Nothing a rational man could value. It’s just what people consumed by hatred do.

     Even if massive anti-electoral-fraud measures are put in place from coast to coast, November will not save us. That was the point of this piece, in case it whizzed by you. The Constitution of the United States is no longer in force. The political virus – the largely unexamined belief that politics is the cure for all ills, including the ills of politics – is more pandemic than the Kung Flu could ever be.

     The insanity has peaked my meter and the needle is beginning to bend.

     Say, what are the property values like in Oymyakon? It looks like there might be room there for a couple of expatriates and their menagerie. What’s that you say? Barrow has all of Oymyakon’s virtues, and we wouldn’t have to learn to speak Russian? Naah. Too damned close to D.C.

     Don’t mind me. I’ll be back with something more cheerful a bit later. Maybe a story about cannibalism or a crashed airliner. Stay tuned.

Jan 18 2022

Revolutions Without Bloodshed Part 2

     We possess unfortunate inclinations, embedded in our psyches by hundreds of years of habituation, toward leaving the most important of all things to the State:

  • Police services;
  • Community safety;
  • Education of the young.

     It isn’t just Americans who possess such inclinations. They’re uniform across the First World. As “natural” as they may seem, they are the key assets of tyranny.

     Couple those inclinations to another, possibly even more deadly: the desire to believe in political saviors. Politics and our mindless reliance on it is what brought us here. Yet some very smart people can’t get off that track. Here’s an example:

     November is coming and what they have sown they shall reap. They have sown failure. They shall reap a House ruled by Kevin McCarthy and a Senate by the murder Turtle and the pain will begin – at least it better. The base is in no mood for hands across the aisle. Time to deal the pain.

     Also, it will be fun to see Democrats fall in love with the filibuster again.

     The reckoning begins in the House. We must have our vengeance, both to satisfy the reasonable craving for justice on the part of the base and to teach the Democrats that there is a price for crossing us….

     Oh, and the January 6th inquisition must not be eliminated. Instead, it must be filled with new members and then investigate the FBI’s participation in the minor fracas, the unconstitutional treatment of the political prisoners, and the unlawful killing of Ashli Babbitt….

     But understand that even when we Republicans retake the Congress, things will still be awful for a couple of years.

     Kurt Schlichter plainly identifies with the Republican Party. He sees its return to federal majority status as the solution to our ills. But if that were the case, why did that party resist the majority of President Trump’s pro-American initiatives? Why did it compel him to do by executive order what should have been done legislatively? And why did a substantial fraction of Republican officeholders repudiate President Trump and all his works as soon as the Democrats managed to steal the presidency?

     Ten GOP Senators voted to convict President Trump and remove him from office – and for what? For an innocent phone call, entirely within both his authority and his responsibilities as president, to his opposite number in the Ukraine! What did they think they were doing?

     I trust the point is made.

***

     In the Baseline Essays section there are pieces in which I addressed aspects of our political fixation:

     Those “Off the Mishnory Road” essays are steps to understanding the importance of defeating the political mindset – not just the Democrats, but the whole “let the government handle it” mindset that has allowed the worst people in the world to ascend to power over us:

  • The political junkie is generally incapable of mere “fun.”
  • He has little appreciation for the stoic virtues and is dismissive of masculinity.
  • Facts are either weapons with which to advance his Cause, or obstacles to be surmounted.

     If we are to escape the habitual resort to politics as our “solution” to “problems,” the political junkie must become a figure of ridicule: impossible to take seriously. Only when the great majority of Americans laugh raucously at the suggestion that certain responsibilities “belong to” the State, or can only be properly discharged by the State, will we have a chance of depoliticizing the Republic.

     In this regard, our best weapon is the State’s demonstrated inability to meet any of the responsibilities it’s undertaken these two centuries past. Whether the politicizers’ intentions were good is irrelevant. The mechanism has displayed its inadequacy and cannot be trusted.

***

     Perhaps some Gentle Readers are thinking “he’s advocating a revolution in thought.” You’d be right to think so. The pro-politics / “leave it to the government” mindset that’s dominated Americans’ social and economic thinking for so many decades must be blasted out of the way before substantial progress can be made. There are two mutually-supporting reasons for this:

  1. The pro-politics mindset is synonymous with the abdication of personal responsibility;
  2. Until we accept personal responsibility for what we seek, we won’t put our own shoulders to the wheel.

     One who believes that public order and cleanliness are the government’s responsibility would be dazed by the suggestion that he ought to take a personal hand in them. One who believes that the relief of severe need is the government’s responsibility would goggle at the idea that he should practice personal charity toward those who need and deserve such help. One who believes that “only the government” can see to the education of American youth would be staggered by the notion that it is profoundly wrong, an immense and absolute moral default for him to leave his children’s minds to government hirelings to shape.

     In sober truth, when the subject is the fundamental requirements of a free order, there is no alternative to “doing it yourself.” You cannot leave such things to politically elevated “experts.” The politicians and their handmaidens don’t want you thinking such things. They want you to continue to think of governments as reliable, trustworthy problem solvers. Yet in point of fact governments fatten on the authority and responsibility for “problems.” They never do anything that might reduce them.

     Personal responsibility and the acceptance of certain propositions as absolutely true must come first. While “the rest” won’t follow automatically, without those things “the rest” won’t follow at all.

     More anon.

Jan 17 2022

A Little…Afternoon Music?

     I have a great fondness for the folk artists of the Sixties, particularly for the ones who started out with nothing but a guitar and a folder full of song lyrics. Most faded away and were forgotten. A couple of them became famous. A handful failed to reach Dylan’s heights but retained a following. Some are still active today. One of my favorites from those years was Eric Andersen.

     Just now, it being Martin Luther King Day, damned near everyone is probably posting, playing, or humming “Thirsty Boots.” It’s a nice song – I used to play it when I was a semi-pro performer – but it’s also kind of dreary and over-exposed. The following is Andersen’s lively side, which he reached occasionally when he had a few other musicians to play with.

Truth with all its far out schemes
Lets time decide what it should mean;
It’s not the time but just the dreams that die
And sometimes when the room is still
Time with so much truth to kill
Leaves you by the window sill so tired

Without a wing, to take you high
Without a clue to tell you why

Now, I just want to keep my name, not bother anybody’s game
Without ideas of gold or fame or insane heights
I don’t need a lot of money, I don’t want a Playboy Bunny
Just a love to call me honey late at night

In my arms, by my side,
In my arms, late at night

Well, I don’t know, I ain’t been told
Everyone is so alone
Ev’rybody wants a hand to hold
They’re so afraid of being old
So scared of dying, so unknown
And so alone, rollin’ home

There’s nothing big I want to prove
No mountains that I need to move
Or even claim what’s right or true for you
My sights, my songs are slightly charred
You might think they miss their mark
But things are only what they are and nothing new

But for me, I think they’ll do
But for me, I know they’ll do

Now if you care what people think
Like you were some missing link;
They’ll just stand back and watch you sink slow
They’ll never help you to decide
They’ll only take you for a ride
After which they’ll try and hide the fact that they don’t know

What you should do, where you should go
What you should do, where you should go

Well, I don’t know, I ain’t been told
Everyone is so alone
Ev’rybody wants a hand to hold
They’re so afraid of being old
So scared of dying, so unknown
And so alone, rollin’ home

I can’t claim I know my father,
I been lookin’ for my brother,
And I end up just another one.
Fantasies and prophecies fill my head like fallen leaves,
And underneath I don’t believe a one!

Not to do what’s been done,
You can try, try, or you can run.

Well, I can see a king and queen, a beggar falling at my feet;
They all must see the same sad dreams at night;
Futility and senseless war, pit the rich against the poor
While cause is buried long before the fight

For what was wrong, for what was right
It’s just the strong, with a sense of what’s right

Well, I don’t know, I ain’t been told
Everyone is so alone
Ev’rybody wants a hand to hold
They’re so afraid of being old
So scared of dying, so unknown
And so alone, rollin’ home

(Eric Andersen)

Jan 17 2022

Revolutions Without Bloodshed Part 1

     They’re rare.

     The State that finds its hegemony threatened almost always responds with violence. Violence, after all, is the State’s stock in trade. It’s the characteristic method of rulers to use force and violence to work their wills upon us. In the majority of cases, they could get their way in no other way.

     Americans are familiar with the concept of the consent of the governed. The phrase appears in the Declaration of Independence. The concept is (supposedly) reified by the election of our public officials, said officials then being said to “represent” us. But there are several fallacies built into that notion. The most blatant such fallacy lies in the official’s freedom to do as he pleases once he’s been installed in office. The “representation” appears to be confined to the electoral process itself…and given the scandalous state of our elections, none too strongly, at that.

     It has begun to seem “obvious” to me that we must withdraw our consent from American governments of all levels, both in appearance and in fact. The core problem, of course, is averting any negative consequences as far as possible. Few of us are actually eager to shed our blood for the cause of freedom. But there may be an alternative to violent revolution. If so, it would be founded on an attribute that individuals possess but governments usually lack: agility.

***

     All political power, as it is called, rests practically upon this matter of money. Any number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish themselves as a “government;” because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more money; and also compel general obedience to their will. It is with government, as Caesar said it was in war, that money and soldiers mutually supported each other; that with money he could hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money. So these villains, who call themselves governments, well understand that their power rests primarily upon money. With money they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money. And, when their authority is denied, the first use they always make of money, is to hire soldiers to kill or subdue all who refuse them more money.

     For this reason, whoever desires liberty, should understand these vital facts, viz.: 1. That every man who puts money into the hands of a “government” (so called), puts into its hands a sword which will be used against himself, to extort more money from him, and also to keep him in subjection to its arbitrary will. 2. That those who will take his money, without his consent, in the first place, will use it for his further robbery and enslavement, if he presumes to resist their demands in the future.

     [Lysander Spooner, No Treason]

     Spooner’s famous essay, 152 years old this year, is still the most penetrating treatment of political power that’s ever been written. Murray Rothbard, may he rest in peace, could not have done better. The cited paragraphs are the sword’s point of the essay. I named a trilogy after him in tribute to his acuity. But let’s focus on his assertions above:

Spooner’s Circle of Coercion:

  1. Coercion requires coercers.
  2. Coercers won’t work for free.
  3. Thus, they must be paid – but with what?
  4. The money to pay them must be amassed beforehand.
  5. The money must come from their intended victims: the to-be-coerced.
  6. But without coercers, how can we mulct the to-be-coerced for their own coercion?

     The circularity “should” be “obvious.” How do governments usually force their way into the circle? Take a moment over it. The answer isn’t hard to find, merely shocking and mind-expanding.

Promissory notes.

     In classical times warlords promised those who would go raiding with them a share of the loot. That was one of the earliest methods for assembling an army on credit. When weapons were expensive and therefore scarce, men who owned them could be seduced into service by this method. Moreover, they would already have the assurance that resistance to their pillaging would be infrequent and easily overcome.

     These days, soldiers and other enforcers are paid with currency: “dollars,” most tangibly in the form of Federal Reserve Notes. Now, while it’s unobvious, the Federal Reserve Note is a promissory note. Its “value” is exactly and only what it can be exchanged for. Today, 99.99% of all commerce is exactly such an exchange: Federal Reserve Notes, or their electronic equivalent, for goods and / or services.

     Find the weak link in that sequence and you have the key that would lock the door of Spooner’s Circle against the State’s desire to hire myrmidons.

***

     Just now, I have an image in my mind of a well-dressed, neatly-groomed man – obviously a white-collar type – standing along an expressway entrance or exit ramp, bearing a boldly lettered sign:

WILL WORK FOR GOLD OR SILVER

     No, I haven’t seen anyone like that lately, but then, I seldom leave the house. Still, let that image tickle your imagination. Transform it to signs in shop windows:


DOLLARS NOT ACCEPTED HERE
PAYMENT IN GOLD OR SILVER ONLY

     Granted that it might make banking a wee bit harder…if you feel a need for banks when safes are so cheap these days. It would certainly make things harder for the “tax authorities,” especially considering how dependent they’ve become on electronic banking as a source of information and a channel for confiscation. As for large corporations…who really wants to make things easier for them?

     Just a few early morning thoughts. As you can tell from the title, I’ll be back to this. Meanwhile, read Andrew Dickson White and Eric Frank Russell. They’ll get your blood pumping.

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