Category Archives: Badder Thoughts

The Great Reckoning

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For generations, going back to the middle of the last century, people have been warning about systemic problems in American society. Some of the warnings have been tricks to continue the cultural revolution. Some have been part of the financial legerdemain that defines so much of our economy and politics. There have been, however, many sincere warnings about long term structural problems. Out of necessity and expediency they were ignored, but that may be about to change.

The most obvious is the most immediate. Going back to the Clinton years people who understood money were warning about loose money policy. People forget that Clinton winning was a surprise. After all, Bush came into the election with a huge war victory and a solid economy. The Reagan expansion was viewed not only as a miracle of Republican policy, but a rebuke of left-wing economics. Then the economy soured before the elections and Clinton was president.

Much of official Washington blamed the tight money policies of Alan Greenspan for tanking the economy under Bush. Team Clinton made sure this could never happen again, especially with a Democrat in office. Loose money became official policy and only got worse with each administration. By the Obama years, we were in a world of Zero Interest Rate Policy. Now those ZIRP chickens are coming home to roost in the form of a systemic banking failure.

No one should be deceived by what is happening. Last weekend, the Federal Reserve decided that the banks are all broke due to holding assets that have a declining market value, so the Federal Reserve effectively nationalized the banks. The only way they can regain control of money policy is to eliminate the market for long dated bonds by promising to buy them at face value. The Federal Reserve has nationalized the banks by nationalizing the bond market.

This is required to avoid a bank collapse but also allow for the long overdue reorganization of the financial sector. A generation of free money has turned Wall Street into a drug addict. It is entirely organized around getting the narcotic of free money from the government, rather than the normal practice of banking. All of its schemes are designed not to create value in the economy but to generate the need for more free money, a portion of which ends up in executive pay.

This did not happen in isolation. The great auctioning off of the manufacturing base that began in the 1980’s has finally caught up to America. The subtext to the Ukraine war is the fact that America no longer has the ability to make the weapons it requires to wage war on the world. Russia, with a third of the population, can now make more weapons for war than America. Her production of ammunition dwarfs what America can muster, which is why Russia is slowly grinding down the Ukrainians.

Of course, one main reason for the auctioning off of the manufacturing base is it raised quick money to invest in the rigged casino that is Wall Street. This fact was masked to a great degree by cheap consumer goods. In fact, the culture of cheap consumer goods has justified all of the nation wrecking policies. Everything from open borders to wholesale political corruption have been justified by cheap lawn care and cheap products sold in big box stores.

The price tag for decades of cheap goods underwritten by the sale of the manufacturing base is now coming due. The only thing America makes now is sexual deviance and lectures in favor of sexual deviance. It turns out that there is no global market for rainbow colored marital devices and films promoting the culture around them, which means America does not have a real economy. The ongoing economic crisis is about to get much worse as that reality becomes clear.

In fairness, some of the proceeds from auctioning off of the manufacturing base went into the technology sector. In the fullness of time, the robot historians may remember America for having singlehandedly created the technological revolution. This has changed the world. The trouble is, the technological revolution ended decades ago, but Silicon Valley continues to consume trillions in money. With the collapse of SVB, that great money drain is now ending.

The war with Russia and the looming war with China has also brought other chickens home to roost. For a long time people have been warning about the military industrial complex and its addiction to expensive, high tech weapons. Those whiz-bang systems look great, but they are not what wins wars. What wins a war are the tools the average soldier uses to kill the enemy. We no longer bother making them and instead focus on rocket ships and space lasers.

What the war in Ukraine has revealed is that NATO would have to use nuclear weapons in a war against Russia, because NATO lacks the men and machines to fight a ground war against the Russians. Most NATO countries would run out of ammunition in a few weeks and have to surrender. Against China, the American military would deliver some serious early blows, but then run out of supplies. Chinese manufacturing capacity is now greater than America and Europe combined.

Overlaying all of this is the crisis of competence. The SVB fiasco is a great example of a problem that permeates American society. Instead of rewarding skill and accomplishment, our system is rigged to reward nonwhites at the explicit expense of whites, especially white males. The only market that is booming in America is the racial revenge market and the result is colorful people in positions of authority who lack the basic skills to do the jobs they have been given.

Thirty years ago, people warned about this. What started as tolerance in the 1980’s, became sensitivity in the 1990’s, then diversity in the new century. It has now turned into a full blown cult of anti-whiteness. While towns in Ohio suffer from an ecological disaster, the people in charge fret of racist sidewalks. Corporate America is more concerned with its ESG and DEI scores than its financial stability. We have combined demographic reality with anti-white fanaticism into a ruling ethic.

No society can run this way. Good luck fighting China with a rainbow coalition of drag diverse drag queens trying to operate space guns. Good luck weathering a reorganization of the financial system when the banks are run by people who were just recently coaxed from caves by European explorers. Imagine surviving an end of empire crisis with the productive portion of society seething with rage at the fanatics who brought about this disaster.

One could go on a long time listing the things that should never have been allowed to happen that are now turning up in the nation’s crisis list. All of these are the result of bad polices hatched in the late 20th century and used to loot the country by the new generations of rulers ushered in by the Clintons. The bill for the great bust-out is now coming due and there is no avoiding it. Like drunks at closing time, we await the bill for generations of reckless behavior.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Crisis In The Clouds

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Note #1: Behind the green door is a post about Kanye West, a post about the nuts and bolts of this bank crisis and the Sunday podcast. You can sign up for a green door account at SubscribeStar or Substack.

Note #2: The White Art Collective is putting together a film and they issued a casting call for those interesting in acting. They have crowdfunded the project and produced a trailer for the film. Details on how to contact them are here.

Note #3: Some may have noticed that my Twitter account has been restored and I have created a Rumble channel. I doubt I will do much with the Twitter account, but I am kicking around the idea of doing some live shows on Rumble.

One of the underappreciated properties of managerialism is how the managerial elite begin to look like the elite of a bureaucracy. The people at the top of the various pillars of power begin to think like the people in charge of the Post Office in that they care primarily for the power and privilege’s of their power center. We are getting a glimpse of this with the evolving financial crisis that was set in motion by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week.

The bank started to run into trouble when the Federal Reserve started raising rates in order to combat inflation. Rates have been near zero for so long that it became the new normal, leading to  activity that otherwise would never get financed. When money is cheap, the appetite for risk-taking is high. When money has been cheap for a generation, risk-taking is no longer seen as risk-taking. It is simply how things are done, until money stops being cheap, which is what is happening now.

Despite the bizarre devotion to the cult of diversity by the people running SVB, the bank itself does not appear to have been poorly managed. To date no violations of the law have been suggested. Instead, the bank was the victim of changing conditions that suddenly made their model unworkable. In the world of banking, when your model becomes unworkable it means you are running out of money. A bank without money is an abandoned building.

SVB’s clients were mostly startups, tech companies and their corresponding venture capital firms. The bank helped facilitate funding for new companies and existing companies that are growing. Private investors kept their money at the bank and the firms they were bankrolling also kept their money at the bank. Because borrowing rates were near zero, the bank could lend to the customers of their preferred customers, the private investors, at attractive rates.

When the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates to combat inflation, everything based on cheap money was thrown into crisis. Those private investors suddenly had more attractive options than startups. Those startups suddenly found it hard to borrow money at tolerable rates. The startups then started to draw down on their cash reserves and the private investors began to move their money to more profitable places, thus creating a cash crisis for the bank.

That is the second problem, the very serious problem, that has broad implications for the entire system. To raise cash, Silicon Valley Bank first elected to sell assets like treasuries and mortgage backed securities. In the near zero interest rate world, these were as good as cash. In the time of rising rates, these very low yield instruments are not in demand, so they had to be heavily discounted. SVB had to take a two billion dollar write down when they sold these assets.

Since every bank in America, possibly the Western world, holds treasuries and long dated mortgage backed securities, it means every bank has the same problem as this bank in that they have assets with a book value above market value. Some estimates suggest there is a trillion dollar gap in the system due to this problem. In 2008 when the system came close to collapse, the problem was about a trillion and half, so you can see why the bankers are in a panic.

This is where we see the bureaucratic nature of the system. Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

That is what we see with the bankers. The people running the system care only about the system, not the alleged goals of the system. No one ever asked if near zero interest rates was good for the economy. They do not care. What mattered is what is good for the financial system and the people running it. When inflation promised to become dangerous to their position in the system they raised rates, but now that raising rates is threatening the system, they will stop raising rates.

We are about to have another banking crisis because no one in the system bothers questioning what happens in the system, outside of those things that threaten the position of those atop the system. Cheap money underwriting you-go-girl capitalism makes them feel good, so they do it. If the polices warp the overall economy and puts the middle-class at risk, they do not care. All that matters is the internal dynamics of the system and how it impacts the people in it.

Replicate this silo mentality across the empire and you can easily see why the ruling class appears to be out of touch with reality. The reason is their reality is not our reality, but the artificial reality of the system. Right now, banking regulators are telling each other they are heroes for working the weekend to stem a bank run, while the rest of us see another trillion getting printed up and handed to the greed-heads who have been looting the economy for generations.

Of course, none of these silos of power are independent. The political silo will get in on the act when Joe Biden mumbles something about it this morning. Expect to hear lots of statements beginning with “we did…” from various political operatives, claiming that they are the real heroes of this crisis. The media will adopt their usual bunker mentality, defending the people who control their scripts. Here is an early example of what we will see this week from the content creators.

What all this means for the rest of us is the grocery bill will rocket up this year as the bankers are bathed in free money to save the system. We will get new narratives from the Cloud People about how the food bill is a conspiracy theory or maybe it is the work of the Chinese, who are the new bogeyman. The people at the top will sleep well knowing they have once against defended the system from the barbarians of reality who threatened to crash through the gates.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

The Cult Of The Elite

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Every society has a moral code, a collection of unwritten rules that govern the behavior the members toward one another and with the outside world. A moral code, of course, is a collection of rules reflecting the moral preferences of society. These things and activities are good, while these things and activities are bad. The authority for these preferences can be the gods, tradition or what the rulers prefer. Fashion, after all, is just the sartorial preferences of the people in charge.

Despite what conservatives insist, the moral code of a society is a top down affair, imposed by the people in charge. Their preferences start at their primary preference, which is to remain in charge. That means the preferences the rulers impose on their subjects reflects their interests, at least how they see their interests. It is not a perfect link as elite society is as subject to evolutionary pressure as the rest of society, but it is a good place to start in understanding the elite.

Since a moral code regulates behavior, we can look at behavior and do a bit of reverse engineering to get a peak at the code. What are the things the elites do that point to what they prefer and not prefer? It is not what they say, as people say what they think they are supposed to say. This is especially true of elites. What matters is what they do as this indicates what they value. One thing libertarians got right is the concept of revealed preferences. Actions are what matter.

For example, we have the constant lying from official Washington. They lie about everything to the point where it is the norm. No one is bothered to be outraged as it is just how the things are now. It is the line incorrectly attributed to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, but written by Elena Gorokhova. “The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”

Obviously, truth in the empirical sense is not important. Dig deeper and you see that the lying is mostly in service to narratives that define the world of Washington. In other words, they are not lying to deceive so much as lying to support a version of reality that is preferred at the moment. They see the truth and the lie as means to an end, judged only on the ends. What counts is the narrative, while facts are just props in the narrative structure, used only when needed.

What this tells us is the people inside the political system are not hostile to the people, but indifferent to them. The lying is not an effort to trick the people into supporting one thing or another, but mostly about internal considerations. Even the lies over Covid, which were an effort to shape behavior, were actually in service to the narrative they created around the virus. Immiserating millions of people was a happy accident, but never the point of their lying about Covid.

We have a couple of recent examples that are useful in understanding what truly matters to the elites. First is this case involving a couple of fringe goofballs using robocalls to mock black people. Americans receive billions of bogus calls, despite it being illegal, but these two warranted special attention. The judge makes clear that if they had mocked Irish people, for example, it would have been fine. They targeted black people and no one is allowed to mock the gods.

We have this case of four black people who drove to Mexico so one of them could get cosmetic surgery, but they got carjacked instead. Sadly, thousands of Americans are attacked by Mexicans around the border ever year. Of course, tens of millions of people from around the world stream over the border. This not only damages the lives Americans near the border, but it has ruined life around the country. This is cheered by the political class as the browning of America.

This case is different. You see, the four people involved are black and no one is allowed to lay a hand on our sacred black people. Lady Bugs Graham is now demanding we go on jihad against Mexico as retribution. Official Washington is suddenly ablaze with angry rhetoric about what is happening south of the border. Mexicans kill white people every day in America, but when they killed a couple of black people, they crossed a line in elite moral code that must be addressed.

Of course, anyone paying the least bit of attention could come up with a dozen such cases where elites are moved to action because an issue involves black people, but they are indifferent when it involves white people. Candace Owens is a millionaire because she tells white people they are good boys, very good boys. Even so, this Mexican case is threatening to change policy regarding Mexico. It is not just a show to signal their virtue to one another.

A century ago, Paris was gripped by something called negrophilia which is derived from the French négrophilie that means love of the negro. The beautiful people would collect African art and hang out at Jazz clubs. Much of it was driven by exposure to black troops from America and Africa during the war. The controlling factor was the desire of the avant-garde to feel trendy and separate from the bourgeoise. It was all superficial and eventually was replaced by new fads.

Today’s version is something more than a fad. It is not just a weapon to be used against the remaining white people. What we are seeing is antiwhite, but it is not necessarily hatred of whites that is the source of this new moral code. Instead, it seems to be a genuine worship of black people, as if they are magical beings. Our elites now think they will be judged by how well they take care of black people. Who will do the judging is never spoken, but that just adds to the mystery.

That last bit is important. Much of what we see from our elites fits the pattern of religiosity, but it lacks the explicit supernatural authority. They never say why they worship black people. They never point to an authority for this behavior. It is just assumed to be there at the center of things. Perhaps that is what gives it power in the minds of these people. Their moral code is now a mystery cult in which it is essential to not know why you embrace the moral code.

A million years ago in another context, John Derbyshire made the following observations about cults. “To those inside [a cult], it appears to be a structure of perfect logical integrity, founded on unassailable philosophical principles, while to those outside it seems to some degree nutty; to some other degree hysterical; and to some yet other degree a threat to liberty.” This sounds eerily accurate with regards to the worship of nonwhites by our ruling classes.

What we are seeing is the evolution of a cult of the elite, in which salvation is sought through the worship of that which symbolizes the antithesis of the West. This explains the extremism of these people. How can you be satisfactorily anti-Western? How can one be satisfactorily worshipful of black people? What is the outer limit of the rejection of biological reality? There is no answer to these things, so cult members keep looking for an even more extreme expression of these values.

Returning to where we have started, an objective examination of elite behavior reveals a bizarre moral code that is out of sync with reality. That gap between what they believe, their moral preferences, and reality, is the measure of their virtue. In other words, the way to understand elite behavior is to imagine a cult founded on the rejection of human reality and then that cult gains control of society. That is the condition of the West and it is probably not going to cure itself.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Ukraine Stirrings

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Last Friday, the ruler of Germany got on a plane and flew to Washington, then took a car service to the White House for a private meeting with Joe Biden. He was not accompanied by German media. After the meeting, the White House issued a one paragraph summary of the meeting. There was a brief media show after the meeting and then Scholz got back on a plane to Berlin. Regime media then issued the usual agit-prop about the collective West’s commitment to victory.

The whole thing was extremely bizarre, even by current standards. Normally when a  head of state visits Washington, they bring their media to cover it. They typically bring some of their most important citizens to meet Washington officials. Often, the visiting head of state will stay the night in the White House, even if there is no official state dinner on the agenda. The trip is finished off by a press conference in which state media from both countries put on a show.

One interpretation of this bizarre event is that Scholz was summoned to the imperial capital so he could be reminded that Washington would not think twice about regime changing him and the other flunkies in his government. The German political class may be craven and obsequious, but they are not so stupid as to not understand what is going on with the war on Russia. A year on and none of the predictions from Washington have turned out to be accurate.

The reason that the promise of new super tanks for Ukraine has fallen apart is the Germans cannot scrape up enough of them. The reason for that is the internal resistance in Germany to supplying what is left of German weapons. This is not just a German problem, but it is signaling to the other EU counties that it is probably a good idea to not give the store away. This meeting could have been a warning to Scholz about what happens when you defy the empire.

Alternatively, Scholz could have been dispatched to deliver a secret message to Washington on behalf of Europe. Given the shabby state of things in the West, the only way to make sure such a message was not leaked to the world would be to hand deliver it in the White House. Scholz met privately with Biden for one hour. This means no one can be sure what was said in that meeting. Most likely, Biden had his key handlers there to receive the message from Scholz.

A third option is that Scholz was summoned so that Washington could confirm that it was Washington that ordered the bombing of the gas lines. What followed the meeting was a claim laundered through regime media that it was the Ukrainians that bombed the Nord Stream pipelines. The absurdity of the claim notwithstanding, this could be misdirection to give Scholz some cover. Maybe the disclosure came with some promises to help in other areas.

A fourth option is that Washington is planning to expand the war to include China, with the excuse being the claim that China is selling arms to Russia. China is a vital trading partner for Germany. Scholz recently met with the Chinese and issued Washington supplied statements about the consequences of selling arms to Russia. This secret meeting could be part of some backdoor discussion with China or about looming sanctions on China over support for Russia.

On the other hand, the Germans have been increasingly restless about the progress in the war, so this meeting could have been a warning to Washington. The German economy is in a precarious state due to sanctions. Europe avoided an energy crisis this winter because they stocked up on Russian gas. That buffer is now gone, which means a looming energy crisis this year. Put another way, time is running out on Washington’s scheme to defeat the Russians and steal their resources.

There are also the events on the battlefield. The Russians have encircled the strategic town of Bakhmut. This is the linchpin to what is called the Zelensky line. If this town falls, then the line of contact moves rapidly west. It would also rule out any possibility of counter attacking this spring. There were reports that the Ukrainians were abandoning the town, but then Zelensky changed course again. Now there are reports of new units with new Western gear being thrown into the cauldron.

Clearly, Washington is calling the shots in Kiev, so this change of plan in Bakhmut could mean there is some new escalation planned. That could be why Scholz was called in for a private briefing. Maybe the Poles will be sent into the Western part of Ukraine in order to bring supply lines closer to the front. Currently, the Ukrainian army is supplied through Poland using rail lines. Having the Poles set up forward bases in Ukraine shortens the supply lines.

That would also put NATO troops near the front. The Russians have been attacking the rail system and power grid all over Ukraine. Would they attack those rail depots knowing that they are full of Polish troops? That could give the Kagan cult the excuse to launch World War III. It sounds insane, but this is what happens when you have a Bronze Age death cult running imperial policy. No matter how insane the idea, they are willing to consider it in pursuit of their goal.

The final possibility is that we are seeing the start of the end game. Unless Washington is prepared to get directly involved in the war, there is no other possible outcome for Ukraine than defeat. The question is how to manage this so that Western governments experience the least amount of agony. Given how Western politics is driven by narrative, this meeting may signal the start of a new narrative to explain what is looking like the inevitable demise of Ukraine.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

A Culture Of Corruption

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What we think of culture is a system and a system is a collection of rules for how interdependent group of items interact with one another. This results in the whole possessing a set of unique properties. An accounting system is a set of formal rules based on the accepted standards of accounting. The habits of the accounting department, the culture of the department, is an unwritten set of rules for governing the behavior of the people in the department.

Most of life is governed by the unwritten rules. You can see this in something as simple as driving a car. In the United States, the written rules of the road are the same from state to state, but the unwritten rules are quite different. In Texas, drivers will stand on the brakes to let someone merge into traffic, while in Massachusetts people regularly drive on the shoulder to prevent it. The driving culture in New England is different from the driving culture of other parts of America.

Cultural shifts, changes in those unwritten rules, happen when key players within the culture decide to violate those rules. Maybe it is self-interest that drives the change, or maybe it is simply the declining utility of the old rules, but important people begin to violate those unwritten rules. Because humans are social animals, the rest follow the lead of the important people and the culture changes. The fashion industry has counted on this reality since its inception.

A classic example of a cultural shift was Watergate. The sorts of shenanigans done by the Nixon people during the 1972 election were considered normal and then all of a sudden they were declared beyond the pale. Prior to that time, the FBI was prohibited from getting directly involved in politics. Then all of a sudden, they were plotting with the Washington Post to overthrow the president. Those unwritten rules of political conduct suddenly changed and Nixon was removed.

Another example from politics comes from the 1990’s. Current affairs programming followed a set of unwritten rules. It was supposed to be a calm exchange of views, hosted by a moderator who pretended to be objective. The Clintons showed up in Washington and this changed. All of a sudden Clinton people were flinging their pooh at the moderator and anyone else on stage. It did not take long before this became the new normal and now all shows are pooh flinging contests.

This week, Tucker Carlson is doing shows on the hidden surveillance tapes from the Capitol on January 6th. These tapes had been hidden from public view by the Democrats until the Republicans took control of the House. Kevin McCarthy, the new Speaker, let the production team of the Tucker Carlson Show review the 40,000 hours of footage and this week they are reporting on it. They also have permission to show clips of that hidden footage in their reporting.

So far, nothing earth shattering has been revealed. The guy who showed up wearing animal skins, the QAnon Shaman, is seen being given a guided tour by the police, who seem to be having a blast leading the guy around the building. The QAnon Shaman is now in prison, doing four years for allegedly leading a violent insurrection. He was not allowed to have access to this footage in his defense, because in America the accused are no longer entitled to defend themselves in court.

This is where you see one of those cultural shifts. Most people reading this remember when such a thing would be a massive scandal. The judge and the prosecutors would have been reviled as fascists for denying this man a right to a defense. Of course, the media would have been demanding the footage from the beginning. Instead, they are up in arms over Tucker having access to the material. They fear he may create a “dangerous narrative” using these tapes.

The media was always biased. We used to be more mature about this and accept that politics is about friends and enemies. In the colonial times, everyone knew the bias of the newspapers and thought nothing of it. Then all of a sudden there was a culture shift and we were supposed to pretend the media was neutral. They were the fourth estate, speaking truth to power. We have just experienced another culture shift. The media is totally corrupt, using power to obscure the truth.

Another example of the culture shift is in the tapes. Tucker showed a scene from the J6 show trial in Congress. One of the politicians showed a clip of Senator Josh Hawley running from the building like a little girl. It turns out that the video was heavily edited by the Democrats. Hawley was with a group of other pols being herded out by the police and he was the last guy to leave. In other words, the Congress doctored a video and presented it under oath to the public as fact.

Everyone has always accepted that politicians lie. The reason they lie is to get elected, avoid scandal, or avoid responsibility. In other words, self-interest. This is the nature of all human activity and everyone accepted it. Doctoring video and presenting it as fact in order to promote a crazy narrative is something different. In a prior age, the people involved would be facing criminal charges. After all, they charged Roger Clemens for lying to Congress not so long ago.

More importantly, they doctored video to make a sitting Senator look like a sissy and then used the hearing to broadcast it to the world. It appears they worked with the media to promote this lie. Ten years ago, this was so beyond the pale that no one would have considered it. Now all of a sudden, the culture controlling the House and Senate has changed and this is now the new normal. How long before they move onto assassinating one another?

None of this is startling for people on this side of the divide, but it underscores an important point about the current crisis. The corruption at the top is so deep and so pervasive that the time for reform has now passed. How can the system reform itself when the people running it are so thoroughly corrupt? How could a genuine reformer work with people who are so corrupt? How can you fix the rules when the culture has evolved to reject the very idea of rules?

In the fullness of time, the ape historians will look at the 1980’s as a time for choosing, when the political class struggled to redefine itself. They could have gone down the road of reform and prepared for the word after the Cold War. Instead they signed on with the Clintons and the road to perdition. That has led to the flowering of a culture of corruption at the top of the political order. That is why J6 terrified them. They have known this long before that protest.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

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Reading The Kagan Cult

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One of the things that is being underscored by the war against Russia is the isolation and insularity of the political class. They live in a tightly controlled narrative structure in which all of their information is filtered by the fulltime and permanent policy making class that controls the official narratives. The readings in the show this week are intended to show how that narrative structure is built.

It is a good example of how managerialism works in practice. There is real information about what is happening on the battlefield. The American military has men on the ground observing the Ukraine army. They have men in Kiev working with the political and military control systems. These people feed information back to Washington within their respective chain of command.

That information does not get to the politicians. Instead, the top people in the various agencies decide what will end up in official briefings. They work with the semi-permanent foreign policy community, controlled by the Kagan cult, to decide what gets transmitted to the political class. It gets transmitted via direct briefing, through aides and advisors or through the media.

Mostly what the politicians get is a moral framework. You see this in these pieces in the show, especially the first one. With regards to Ukraine, the managerial class has provided a moral framework for the politicians and then provided them safe options within that framework. Various politicians are then given information to argue their preferred position within that framework.

Most everyone has wondered why no one in Washington asks the obvious questions about the issues of the day. The reason is, they live in a simulation of reality so that what is obvious to you is not obvious to them. A few long serving insiders in leadership will have some access to the truth, but that is only because they have been around so long their handlers know they will not stray from the script.

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Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

Full Show On Rumble

The Election At The End Of Time

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The first Republican debates for the 2024 election will be in about six months, which means the field will be shaping up in the next few months. Trump has already declared, along with zombies like Nikki Haley and John Bolton. Tim Scott is supposed to join the zombies shortly, along with Mike Pompeo. There is rumor that former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is contemplating a run. Team zombie will be well represented on the debate stage next fall.

The big name everyone is waiting on is Ron DeSantis. He is doing all of the things that a presidential candidate does when he is seriously thinking about a run. He has gone on tour to important states to give speeches. He has a book out about himself and what he claims to believe. This being the social media age, he has a team for that and a collection of paid influencers. That last bit is unspoken but it is becoming common for so-called influencers to sell their services.

Of course, the unpaid influencers and clout chasers are jumping into the act, siding with Trump against DeSantis or DeSantis against Trump. It speaks to the ridiculousness of the zombie wing of the party that their influencers are all retirees down at the Villages who still have National Review subscriptions. Putting that aside, you have the usual on-line suspects doing their thing to get attention for themselves while ostensibly getting attention for their preferred candidate.

It has been an article of faith that winning the social media war is the same as winning the fight in the real world. There is no evidence to support this, other than post hoc claims about the role of influencers. Douglas Mackey is facing ten years in prison based on the claim that his mocking of Hillary Clinton caused her voters to think they could vote for her by text message. There is no evidence to support this, but people now think social media is a form of magic.

Putting that aside, the evidence suggests that the virtual world of Twitter is disconnected from the world of reality. How often has someone mentioned to you in real life something they saw trending on Twitter? The fact is, unless you are really into Twitter, Twitter does not matter. Facebook groups and local on-line groups matter somewhat, but people join these groups because they already agree with the general theme of the group, so it is about confirmation bias.

We are already getting a taste of this with Trump-DeSantis. There is a large on-line vote that is still angry about Trump not being their God-Emperor. Ann Coulter is their queen and various influencers are vying to become the king of this group. Then you have the tribe that always goes for the latest thing, so they have their claims in favor of new and hip DeSantis over the old and tired Trump. Of course, the finks of conservatism are pretending to like DeSantis.

So far none of this matters. All of the polling shows Trump has a huge lead over the field in the key demographics. He comes with the built in advantage of answering the two essential questions every candidate must first answer. “This is who I am and this is why you should vote for me.” The rest of the field has to answer both of those questions, which is not easy in a crowded media world. DeSantis has the shortest road, but he is still an unknown to most of the voters.

This is where another question will be answered. The Republican leadership has been sure that Trump is done for a while now. They threw the midterms as proof that Trump no longer has influence over voters. It is a good example of how they get high off their own narratives. They are playing nice with DeSantis thinking he can be the final nail in the Trump coffin. Trump voters will be tempted to accept the compromise of DeSantis in order to get support from the party elite.

This probably would have worked in 2016. If the party had rallied to Ted Cruz early in the process, he most likely would have won. This time it may be the opposite where any support from party leaders is toxic. We are already seeing populist paranoia about DeSantis on key issues like foreign policy. DeSantis and the field may be faced with an additional hurdle. That is, they will have to prove to voters that they are not going to fink on them like every other Republican has done for generations.

Put another way, this may be the crackup of the Republican Party. A sizable chunk of their vote no longer trusts the party. The party leaders and donors no longer trust the voters, especially the Trump wing. If the gap is large enough, it means no candidate can stand across it and get the trust of both sides. Any effort to do so creates doubts on both sides of the divide. A couple generations of finking on their voters may finally have cracked this coalition of the desperate.

Of course, the shadow over all of this is the sense of futility. As more people come to terms with the electoral map, the less enthusiasm there is for the process of finding an electoral solution to our problems. With key states having been fortified for democracy, it is just about impossible for a Republican to win now. This is why the political class is not vexed with the Democrats running a vegetable. They put John Fetterman in the Senate, so they can re-elect Joe Biden.

As America transitions into a one-party authoritarian state, this election will have the feel of a final chapter. The old folks will get to reminisce about how these things used to matter and lament the passing of an age. The rest will find a way to fight the inevitable frustration over the lack of anyway to do something about it. Many, of course, will pretend that it is all on the level. They will blame the voters for electing a political class that is corrupt and feckless.

This will be an election at the end of time. Not the end of all time, but the end of this phase of the American experience. The current political and cultural arrangements are not working and that is becoming increasingly clear to people. This election promises to be ridiculous enough to drive home that point. It will also become increasingly clear that the older generation is just hoping to run out the clock. The rest will soon be left to contemplate what comes next.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

The Coming Crisis

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Every war is a part of a larger story of relations between the nations that fought in the war and the war in Ukraine is not an exception. This war started a year ago, but it is part of the story that started in 2014. of course, that chapter was preceded by the aftermath of the Cold War. In the case of the neocons driving American policy, their portion of this story begins during the Trial of the 193. Like all stories, the war will end and what will follow are more chapters to close out this story arc.

Within the war itself there are chapters. In the case of Ukraine, the first chapters could be called the pre-awakening. Both the Russians and Ukrainians, assumed this would be a short affair ending in rounds of talks. The Europeans, in contrast, thought it would be a short affair as well, but instead ending in a Russian collapse. They had been assured by their American handlers that Russia was a hollow country. Once the sanctions hit them, the peasants would revolt.

Interestingly, all parties kept on believing their version of the plot even after it should have been clear they were wrong. The Russians kept pressing for negotiations, even after Ukraine told them Washington would not allow it. The Europeans kept pushing new sanctions packages, even after it was clear the Russian economy was not going to collapse and there would be no peasant revolt. For a few months last spring and summer, everyone stuck with the old script.

It appears that it was the Russians who were the first to realize that the script was wrong and that they needed to rethink things. The mobilization of reserves along with a reorganization of their military structure in Ukraine followed. The Russians figured out that this is a long war of attrition between Moscow and its allies versus the American Empire and its allies. What we have seen for the last six months is a slow, deliberate grind of the Ukrainians by the Russians.

We are about to see the final closing of one chapter of this war and the opening of a new chapter due to developments on the battlefield. The first and most important bit of news is the encirclement of a town called Bakhmut. If you look at this pro-Ukrainian deployment map, you see the line of contact in Ukraine. In this case, pro-Ukrainian does not mean pure propaganda. It simply relies primarily on Ukrainian sources to assemble the map and unit positions.

If you zoom into the area dead center of the line of contact, you will find the town called Bakhmut and see a large grouping of Ukrainian forces. They have been throwing everything they can into this town in order to hold it. The Russians now have the town surrounded, with tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops inside it. It appears that Zelensky has instructed the forces inside this cauldron to fight to the last man, much as he did last year with the Mariupol garrison.

There are two primary reason Zelensky and the general staff are sacrificing tens of thousands of men for this town. One reason is strategic. It is the keystone to this defense line in the Donbas. If it falls, the Ukrainians will have to fall back to their last line of defense east of the Dnieper River. That last defensive line is not as built up as the current defensive positions. The Ukrainians are buying as much time as they can in order to build up that new defense line.

The other reason for this massive sacrifice of men and machines is the general psychology of the war on the Ukrainian side. They have been told since the start that they just needed to hang on until the Russians crumbled. Then they were told to hang on until the West could provide wonder weapons. Now they are hanging on because they have no other option. For Zelensky, this war is about buying time while hoping for some change that will save him from his fate.

Another reason for the great turning of the page that is coming in this war relates to that waiting strategy of the Ukrainians. They are running out of supplies. Reports keep coming in from Ukrainian sources that they are out of ammunition. The reason they are out of ammunition is the West cannot get ammunition to them fast enough. The reason for that is the West is running out of ammunition as well. After a year of ground war, the Western warehouses are now empty.

The issue has become so critical that the people running foreign policy had Biden sign “a presidential waiver of some statutory requirements (Waiver) authorizing the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to more aggressively build the resiliency of America’s defense industrial base and secure its supply chains.” This is the first step in transitioning the economy to wartime, which means prioritizing defense over civilian items.

Something similar is afoot in Europe. What the West has come to realize is they were all wrong about the Russian economy. It has performed better over the last year than the European economies. They were also wrong about Russia’s standing in the world, particularly with other major powers like China and India. They have not been willing to go along with Washington’s war on Moscow. Eighty percent of the world’s population now supports the Russian side in this conflict.

Another piece of this is a bit of reality Western leaders have ignored for so long they stopped thinking about it. That is, the industrial base of the West no longer exists as a practical matter. Generations of offshoring and global supply chain management have left Western countries with a tiny manufacturing base. China now has more manufacturing capacity than the U.S. and Europe combined. Throw in Russia, Brazil and India and you see the problem.

The shape of the next chapter in this new global war is still unclear, but one storyline will be the looming political crisis in the West. The sanctions regime is simply unsustainable for Europe so it must come to an end. It cannot come to end until the war in the Ukraine has come to an end. The trouble is European political leaders have ruled out any end other than Ukrainian tanks rolling through Moscow. Europe has created an unsolvable problem for itself.

Another part of the story could be a change in China. For a long time the Chinese have viewed their relationship with Washington as purely economic. If they did good business with Washington, everything else solved itself. Beijing now sees that things have changed and so they are changing. All of the war talk over Taiwan has finally convinced the Chinese to adjust their position. Sino-American relations will no longer be about business, but about great power conflict.

Of course, all of this will be happening against the backdrop of a political class in Washington that looks like the shuffleboard courts in Boca. Everyone who wants to be Pericles in this war is too old to say the name clearly. Of course, Washington is full of potential Cleons among the younger generations of politicians, but none of them are bright enough to understand it. As this war enters the crisis chapters, the West is desperately short of men who are good in a crisis.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

The Storytellers

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Those of a certain age will probably recall when they were taught the difference between the great man theory of history and modern history. The former claimed that events were driven by individuals, while the latter stressed events. Those great men we read about were products of the events around them. If Napoleon had never been born, some other man would have filled the role. Therefore, history is about the narratives that shaped the people, including the great men.

A similar thing happened in content creation. In the middle of the last century, the content creators working for newspapers and news gathering organizations decided that the basics of events were insufficient. They needed to create a narrative to explain those events, to put them into proper context. In his book, Banana Sunday, Chris Munnion described how content creators would arrive in Africa with scripts, looking for quotes and images to complete them.

The scandal business has undergone a similar transformation. It used to be that when a famous person got into trouble, he did one of two things. Either he presented the facts in order to explain his behavior or he went away in disgrace. Then narrative creators came along to present a third option. They would create a story for the person to tell that would contextualize his actions in such a way as to make his accusers into the bad guys and himself into the victim.

That last bit seems to have had a mesmerizing effect on the managerial classes, as they no long respond to scandal in the old way. Joe Biden is as crooked as a ram’s horn but displays no shame nor an inclination to explain himself. Instead, the content creators in the media have created a narrative to contextualize his corruption as part of a partisan plot against him. In this age, facts are no longer important, because they are controlled by the prevailing narrative.

You see the power of narrative in this story about January 6th. It is about content creators suing for access to video of January 6th. “Without full public access to the complete historical record, there is concern that an ideologically-based narrative of an already polarizing event will take hold in the public consciousness, with destabilizing risks to the legitimacy of Congress, the Capitol Police, and the various federal investigations and prosecutions of Jan. 6 crimes.”

In other words, the claim here is that without the proper narrative, people may come to an unwanted conclusion about the events of that day. Most people would read that and think the content creators are afraid of having their lies exposed. That may be part of it, but the main reason for the letter is they think narrative is reality. They think Tucker Carlson will create a new narrative to supplant the old narrative, which is the reality in which all of them exist.

What we are seeing with our ruling class is they have come to think of their tall tales as reality, while reality itself is a conspiracy theory. In the case of January 6th, they think the insurrection story is real. In that story, cops were killed by an angry mob trying to overthrow the government. It is a conspiracy theory to point out that the only person killed was a white woman executed by a black man. The former is their reality, while reality is a reckless conspiracy theory.

We see the power of narrative everywhere now. The Ukraine war is a perfect example of how their own fantasies have supplanted reality. Content creators make up whoppers about how the Ukrainians are destroying Russian tanks with slingshots, while the poor Russians are forced to fight naked in the snow. Putin is a maniacal dictator holding together his rule with brute force, while his country crumbles. This is the reality of the people running the West.

Events on the ground have no bearing on the thoughts and opinions of the ruling class because they are excluded from the narratives. It is as if the people in charge think that if they tell the story the right way, with the right amount of enthusiasm, it will change reality to match the narrative. As we see with the Tucker Carlson story, these people think reality is literally a creation of their imagination. Whoever produces the best tale gets to shape reality.

This is what drives them to rewrite history. We get movies about Vikings featuring African actors because the past is just a story. That means they can change the past by writing Africans into Beowulf. You go girl can be the reason men walked on the moon, simply by creating a narrative in which you go girl wrote all the software used to get the astronauts into space. For the managerial class, these tales they spin for themselves are more real than reality itself.

As insane as it looks to the normal people on the outside looking in on these people as they create these whoppers, it is not without logic. In a world dominated by words, rather than deeds, a good story is better than a good deed. Look at the resumes of the people running the West and you find no one who has done anything in his life other than talk to others in his class. The resumes of these people are stories about themselves that contain no truth value.

Can a society run with a ruling class living in an alternative reality? Clearly in can for a little while, at least until reality intrudes on the fantasy. Perhaps the people who live in reality and make the world possible will keep on providing the energy to keep the system going. Maybe the system is on autopilot now. Alternatively, reality could be prepping for its violent return to the main stage of life and the storytellers are headed for a terrible end to their own narrative.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

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Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Enablers Of Evil

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Note: Behind the green door is a post about a B-movie called Avengement, a post about the fatwah issued against Scott Adams and the Sunday podcast. You can sign up for a green door account at SubscribeStar or Substack.

An important insight of Karl Marx was that rights, as in individual rights established in the law, create inequality. The reason for this is obvious. People are not equal so left to their own devices, they will have different life outcomes. More important, since human society is defined by scarcity, this will inevitably result in the unequal distribution of the benefits of society. A rights regime will impact the distributive choices because the more talented will lay claim to a greater share of benefits.

Communism would solve this problem by first producing superabundance, so that those distributive choices were greatly simplified. Of course, superabundance is only possible when you eliminate gross inequality. This leads to Marx’s expression, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” This is a main difference with socialism, which seeks to close the gap between the rich and poor through redistribution of wealth.

This is all sounds quaint and a bit nutty in the current age, but it turns out these problems are going to be front and center in the diverse future. If you listen to the diversity warriors, most of what they are saying revolves around what Marxists would have called distributive choices. Instead of thinking about the distribution of benefits based along individual or class lines, like the communists, they think about the problem along lines of group identity.

The logic flows from egalitarianism. If all people are equal, inequality must be the result of something other than nature. Individual choice can explain differences in individuals, but what explains measurable differences in groups of people? The only option once you eliminate the obvious is the structure of society itself. The reason blacks, for example, are overrepresented in prison is the criminal justice system distributes justice unequally between the races.

This is what the diversity warriors mean when they talk about whiteness or white supremacy culture. These are the unwritten rules of society that benefit one group over other groups. Since it is white societies that make this form of madness possible, they naturally conclude that white society is the problem. As insane as it is, the diversity warriors are not irrational. From their starting premise, theirs is the only rational answer for why we have inequality in our societies.

This is why conservatives are worthless against these arguments. Here is a “conservative case for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” post in National Review that is a good example of the problem. The author thinks there is some accommodation within his conventional American view of politics for the politics of diversity. He assumes that these people will accept equality of opportunity, when in fact they view that argument as the problem they are seeking to eliminate.

This is the central problem of diversity. Scarcity is a permanent feature of all human societies, even wealthy ones. For example, there is a finite amount of health care in America, which means some people get less, maybe even no health care, while others get the heath care they need. Since there are still some market forces at work, rich people will get luxurious levels of health care. Dick Cheney, for example, was able to buy a heart for himself.

Further, Mother Nature does not distribute her gifts equally among people, so no two people are identical and no two groups of people are equal. Combined with the scarcity problem, it means there will be an unequal distribution of benefits between people and also groups of people. Even more important, the more diverse your society, the less equal the outcomes appear. The reason is there are lots of people with a grievance for not being in the top group of society.

The way to think of it is this. In 1950’s America, blacks were a little more than 10% of the population, while whites were a little less than 90%. There was a small percentage of Asians and other. In a world where 10% of the population has a racial grievance, most of the rest can safely ignore the complaints. In a majority-minority society, the majority always has a beef with the minority group at the top, so that minority group must always be on guard against the majority.

This is why the arguments in favor of natural rights or equal opportunity sound increasingly ridiculous to people who live in the world. To conservatives they make perfect sense, because their income depends upon maintaining these fictions. To the diversity warriors, these arguments are confirmation that they have the morally superior argument and therefore they are justified in pushing even harder. The conservative case for diversity is exactly what it claims.

Instead of letting nature take its course, the Marxists imagined an administrative state making the distributive choices. It was this managerial layer that would determine “according to his needs” issue. The diversity warriors have assumed control of the managerial state and the corresponding administrative state. They are now proceeding to remedy the equality problem. From each race according to their abilities, to each race according to their needs.

Of course, this has no better chance of working than Marxism. Unlike communism, however, this new egalitarian drive will not just make people poorer. It will unleash the passions of cultural differences that cannot be remedied. These differences are the product of thousands of years of separation. This is ultimately the conservative case for diversity. It promises to unleash 10,000 years of evolutionary differences within the confines of Western societies.

This is what makes American conservatism so evil. It is the sugary drink in which the poison of egalitarianism is dosed to society. The diversity warriors believe they are on the side of angels, while the so-called conservative know otherwise, but they choose to cash in on the madness. The simpleton who wrote that NRO piece is too dumb to get this, but his handlers surely know better. Yet, they volunteer to be the willing accomplices to the executioners of Western civilization.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.