Monthly Archives: October 2018

Magic Makes The Stuff God Happy

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One of the things normal people struggle with when they look over the great divide, at the arguments of our side, is the lack of interest in economics. In the lands of the normie, the cry of “socialism” remains salient, despite the fact America is a socialist country and has been for as long as anyone reading this has been alive. Still, the people of whiteness remain locked in that old dynamic that says the fight is between free market capitalism and command and control socialism. This is especially true of older whites.

Perhaps the most powerful tool deployed against us is the weaponizing of the economy, by turning it into the third man in the room whenever there is a debate about politics. The economy is like a mysterious god, who can get angry at the wrong policy and punish the people with high prices or job losses. This is especially true in libertarian and conservative circles. They are convinced that the whole point of life is to work and then buy cheap stuff from China. Anything that threatens that is viewed as un-American.

Democracy has also become an enchanted being that, unlike the economy, needs to be defended at all costs. While the right side of the political class worships the economy, the left side worships democracy. Everything they do not like is a threat to democracy, even the results of elections. Democracy and the economy make up the modern Janus that presides over the beginning and end of all political debates. Both sides ritually invoke his name whenever it is time to debate the issues of the day.

This post at Marginal Revolution is a great example. The comments are worth reading, as they reveal this strange worship of both democracy and the economy. The skeptics you find in the comment thread are all skeptics of democracy. You do not see any doubts about the righteousness and superiority of the economy face of our god. Even when someone points out that the Nazis were pretty good at running their economy for a while, no one seems to pick up on the fact that GDP is not the measure of a people.

There are a lot of ways to characterize the civic religion that animates our ruling class, but one of them is that they believe the right ceremonies will make the stuff god happy. That is why they insist that diversity makes businesses more profitable and universities more intellectually dynamic. One of the bloggers at Marginal Revolution has argued that open borders is a moral imperative because it makes the economy stronger. He literally believes the stuff god is carefully monitoring immigration policy in the West.

When put together, the worship of democracy and the economy is the thermite reaction that is destroying America. If democracy is a good thing, then more of it must be a better thing. The result being the expansion of the franchise to hostile aliens. If the GDP is all that matters when measuring the health of society, then any criticism of the ruling oligarchy is an offense to the stuff god. It is not an accident that the worship of both democracy and the economy has increased as social cohesion has declined.

This may be at the root of the strange hostility to the past. Modern America is a strange place, in that the ruling class is composed of amnesiacs. What they say today has no connection to what they said yesterday. It is as if every day is a new day, and the past never existed. Mendacity certainly plays a role, but the never-ending quest for more requires ignorance of the past. To remember yesterday is to contemplate the trade-offs that made today possible. That calls the worship of the economy into question.

There is also the sad dearth of beauty in this age. The classical period featured a celebration of human beauty. The artists strove to capture the ideal of man in those beautiful statues we still have today. The medieval period had the celebration of God and his love for man. Walk into an old cathedral and you immediately feel the essence of that relationship. Of course, our canon is packed with poetry exploring the beauty of life, all of which was composed in a prior age, by men who are strangers to us now.

Walk into a modern building today and you know what it is like to be in the chute at a slaughterhouse. Modern art is a mockery of the idea of art. It is a celebration of pointless vanity and nihilism, if such a thing can be called a celebration. Stroll through the modern parking lot and it is like being in a black and white movie. The cars all look the same and come in black, white or some shade of grey. A time traveler could be forgiven if he thought the communists had won the Cold War and imposed their aesthetic on America.

That is the result of worshiping democracy and the economy. The stuff god is a selfish god, who takes the hopes of the faithful and turns them into cheap goods from China, that get tossed away to be replaced by more cheap stuff. It is a pointless form of worship that treats life as a transaction. Just as Evangelicals love Israel, despite the fact Jews despise Evangelicals, Americans worship the stuff god, despite the fact he hates humanity. It is a lethal codependency that can only end in death.

October Grab Bag

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It was a struggle this week. Sometimes, I have more material than I need and other times the opposite is true. It may be the result of the Kavanaugh circus. We are in a letdown period while the crazies rest up for the election. It could be me. It has been a melancholy week, and the weather has changed suddenly. It has been a very tropical summer here in Lagos and then all sudden it changed to mid-autumn. Autumn is by far my favorite season, but we usually get a transition period in September, where we ease into it.

It is weird. It seems like suddenly it is getting dark early, and the leaves are falling off the trees. We have skipped that wonderful time when the leaves change, and you get the smell of autumn in the air. As I said, I like autumn, it is my favorite season. I like winter too, so I am cool with the short days and long nights. We somehow skipped the normal transition, and it feels a little depressing for some reason. Maybe I am just getting old.

By the time I was putting the show together, I got interested in the Proud Boys saga and I did not have time to do as much on it as I would have liked. Maybe next week. There is also the story of the Rise Above persecution that deserves attention. This is the group the Feds are harassing over Charlottesville. It really is an egregious case, but one that should put to bed any notions that we live in a lawful republic. We are not all that far away from the government snatching people from their homes in the middle of the night.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below. I am now on Spotify, so the millennials can tune in when not sobbing over white privilege and toxic masculinity.

This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Opening (Music)
  • 02:00: Believe Anarcho-Tyranny (Link)
  • 12:00: Progressive Paranoia (Link)
  • 22:00: Debt & Deficits (Link) (Link) (Link)
  • 32:00: The Wages Of Diversity (Link)
  • 42:00: Proud Boys (Link) (Link)
  • 52:00: Dead From Lagos (Link) (Link) (Link)
  • 57:00: Closing (Link) (Music)

Direct Download

The iTunes Page

Spotify

Google Play Link

iHeart Radio

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

Between Barbarians And Fanatics

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For most of human existence, the great conflict was between ordered civilization and chaotic barbarism. The Bronze Age societies had to contend with barbarians from the north. The Greeks and Romans had to deal with various barbarian tribes to their north and east. Medieval Europe had to deal with the Viking raiders and the Mongol invaders from the east. Then there were the Muslim invasions from the South that threatened Christendom. The story of the West has been the story of fighting barbarians.

By the time the West reached the Enlightenment, barbarian invasion was a thing of the past. In fact, it was inconceivable. The Nordic people were just as settled as the rest of Europe. Their days of raiding and pillaging were over. The idea of Asian tribes crossing through Russian into Europe was equally ridiculous. Of course, the Muslims had been beaten back and were no longer a threat. In fact, it was the West that was now heading south into the Middle East and Africa. The barbarians were no longer an issue.

Instead of organizing to keep the barbarians from coming over the horizon, it was the West sailing over the horizon to conquer the barbarians. The thing is though, all those years of organizing to defend civilization from barbarians, however one wants to define the terms, meant a degree of internal vigilance. There could be no tolerance of internal actors and actions that weakened the social and political structures. Civilization was a near-run thing so anything that weakened the West internally could not be tolerated.

The Catholic Church gets a bad rap for being intolerant of science during the Middle Ages, but that’s mostly left-wing nonsense. In an age when dissent could pull the support posts out from society, intolerance of troublemakers made a lot of sense. Of course, from the perspective of the secular rulers, a theological consistency, one that supported the order atop which they presided, was seen as essential. Anything that threatened the internal logic of the social order, even unintentionally, had to be treated very seriously.

That meant an extreme intolerance of religious fanatics. The post the other day about the Flagellants is a good example. The Church and secular rulers suppressed the movement because their fanaticism threatened order, by questioning the legitimacy of the Church. After all, if God was punishing people with the plague, that implied the Church was not on good terms with the Almighty. Throw in the fact the Flagellants were preaching about a coming age of bliss, and it is easy to see why the Church suppressed them.

The point is, the West was good at policing the ranks for fanatics, because they had no choice. The very real threat from beyond the borders coupled with the fragility of the feudal order meant anyone coloring outside the lines was a mortal threat. As the alien threats receded, the need to impose a uniform intellectual order receded with it. While it resulted in a great intellectual flourishing in the West, it also let all the fanatics off their leash. The result is the West has been convulsed by fanaticism since the Enlightenment.

That is how you must look at radical ideologies like Marxism. These theories defy observable reality and imagine something that has never existed. There is simply no way for a sober-minded person to accept the idea of the worker’s paradise. Only a true believer is willing to commit their life to something that has never existed on earth. It is the same cognitive tool set that allows someone to think they can appeal directly to God or conjure miracles, simply because they believe. The fanatic is the fuel of radicalism.

In The Inequality of Man, the great natural scientist J. B. S. Haldane argued that fanaticism was a Judaic-Christian invention. That is most certainly wrong, but he was not wrong to think it had been a feature of mankind for a long time. It is the fuel that drives people to build a great culture. As we saw in the last century and now in our present age, it is also the fuel of great raging destruction. Other than allowing the rage of the fanatics to run its course, no one has yet to come up with a way to meet the challenge of the true believer.

That really is the challenge of this age. Lacking anything resembling a unified religion, our overabundance of fanatics are free to indulge in whatever is handy. One minute they are threatening order if gays are not allowed to marry. The next minute they are tearing down the borders, inviting in the barbarians our ancestors pushed over the horizon. It’s as if some strange mind virus is sweeping our societies, turning the afflicted into berserkers, beyond the reach of reason. As a result, we edge closer and closer to collapse.

What is happening in America, at least, is a replay of what happened in the Pennsylvania colony at the founding. The eastern part of the state was home to many fanatics, convinced they were part a project to immanentize the eschaton. To the west were the borderland people, living in the hills as pre-settled people. In between was where the civilized people lived, just looking to live peaceful, orderly lives. Eventually the middle aligned with the east to keep the hillbillies in the west from overrunning the middle.

To a great degree, this was true for the country as a whole. The emotional energy of the crazies, mostly located in the northeast, fueled the expansion across the continent. The Indians never stood a chance, not because of technology, but because the pale face was driven by a sense of destiny. It powered the northern conquest of the South and the expansion of America into a global power. It came with a price. Just as Pennsylvania is still dominated by Philadelphia, America remains captive to the Northern crazies.

That said, geography kept the crazies on their leash into the 20th century, except for the Northern invasion of the South. As technology made it possible for the fanatics to extend their reach into every corner of the country, the threat of nuclear annihilation forced a degree of discipline on the elites. With that gone, the fanatics were free to run wild, pulling at every support beam and cable they can find. That is where we find ourselves today. There are no barbarians at the walls, just our own fanatics.

If the West in general and American in particular, is going to survive this age, it will mean coming up with a way to control the fanatic. Perhaps it will mean finding a DNA test to look for the lunacy gene or simply changing the culture to fear fanaticism. We were once willing to do what had to be done to ward off the barbarian.  Maybe we learn how to cull our herd to remove the crazies, no matter how unpleasant. Civilization lies between the barbarian and the fanatic. Both must be tamed if we are to survive.

Death In The Afternoon

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I had to put the cat down on Saturday afternoon. It was a sad thing, of course, as it always is when you have to say goodbye to a pet. The cat was diagnosed as a diabetic a few weeks back, which is not unusual with dogs and cats these days. It is a treatable condition, that is easier to manage in animals than humans. Your animal is not going to cheat on its diet or forget to take its insulin. With a little discipline and the willingness to master a few medical skills, you can manage a diabetic pet with little trouble.

On Friday night, the cat took a turn for the worse, so I went into the vet not entirely sure what to expect. They took blood and sent me home with some instructions. I figured they were humoring me, so I spent the night making my peace with what I expected was coming. The next day I learned, after further examination, that the cat had a rare type of cancer that was the real cause of the diabetes. They found tumors on his pancreas, which is not treatable, so I made the decision to put the poor thing out of his suffering.

While waiting to see the vet on Saturday, a woman I know came into the office. She was there to say goodbye to her dog. Apparently, they called her with the bad news, and she came into to complete the process. That was my guess anyway. The girl at the desk seemed to know what to do, despite the fact the woman was sobbing uncontrollably. She sat down on the bench next to me. Out of instinct, I guess, I do not know, I slid over and put my arm around her. She collapsed against me into a mess of tears and wailing.

I do not know what it is, but the sound of a woman crying touches some unexamined part of my being. It is crazy, I am sure, but that sound reminds me why a man is willing to fight another man to the death or leave his lands to sack the city of some bastard who insulted his people. My grandfather always said that a man protects those who need protection and defends those who need defending. Maybe that is all there is to it and the sound of a woman crying just triggers those lessons I heard a million times as a kid.

There was nothing I could do for her, obviously, other than to be a shoulder to cry on, as she waited to say goodbye to her dog. Sitting there, being kind to a neighbor, my burden felt a bit lighter. There are always others worse off than you. That is something I always try to keep in the front of my mind. My life is not a walk in the park, but it is not an endless stream of misery either. Most people, it seems, carry around a lot more baggage than me, or they are less able to carry the load than me. Either way, I am a lucky guy.

Coming home, alone with my thoughts, I thought about how serendipity had intervened to make a tough situation a bit less difficult. My first pet, as an adult, was a cat. Growing up, we had dogs, so I had a bias against cats. The women I was dating at the time thought I needed a pet, and she suggested a cat. I was skeptical about the whole thing, but a man does what he must at that age, so I got a cat. It turned out that cats are just like dogs, in that they are what you make of them. Me and the cat went on great adventures together.

At the end of his time, he got sick, and I did the back and forth with the vet as you do with pets. It was new to me as an adult, so I got caught up in the process, thinking that there was a potentially good result. When it was time to put an end to it all, I struggled with the decision. I just could not bring myself to say goodbye. Then one night the cat staggered down the hall with his old toy in his mouth. He could barely walk, but to the very end he was going to be all the cat he was ever going to be. I was quite touching.

That night, I could not help but think that maybe I just learned a great truth. That cat was just a cat, but he was never cheated. Who knows what goes on in the head of a pet, but they are here to be our pets. It is literally what they are made for, and they are that fully and completely. We lose sight of that as people. Our point in life is to use all our time completely. There are no do overs or restarts. You just have the time you have, and you better use all of it being all the you possible. Life is for living. Do not cheat yourself.

Perhaps that is why we keep pets. Long ago, domesticating dogs for work or allowing cats to live among us to keep down the rodent population made practical sense. Keeping animals solely as pets has no obvious purpose, other than to make the time we have more enjoyable. Maybe seeing these little critters come into the world and become their purpose fully and completely makes understanding our own purpose easier. It is a lot easier to grasp the purpose of a dog or cat than the purpose of that crazy relative in the family.

I will say that this time was a bit more difficult than other last trips to the vet. I have had a lot of animals over the years. Some were better than others. This was a good one. Just about every post I have written was done with him lying behind the keyboard. Every podcast was done with him lying next to the microphone. For over a dozen years he was a comforting fixture in my life. He was there at the door when I got home and at the door when I went off to work every day. As pets go, he was a good one and I will miss him.

The New Flagellants

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Flagellation is the beating of the body with special implements such as whips, lashes, rods, the cat o’ nine tails, etc. Usually it was done involuntarily, but in the medieval period it became a voluntary form of penance. The Benedictine monk Peter Damian is credited with introducing self-flagellation as a form of penance in the 11th century. Later, an Italian monk named Dominic Loricatus introduced self-flagellation as a form of self-mortification, which when performed in public, also became a public demonstration of piety.

The Flagellants were a 14th century movement, that sprung up in response to the black plague. These fanatics would parade through the streets beating themselves bloody to cleanse the town of sin. It was assumed that the plague was the result of sin, so the cleaning of sin would, presumably, please God enough for him to end the plague. The movement started in northern Italy but quickly spread to Germany. There they took on the white robes and rhythmic chanting that has come to be associated with the movement.

The Church initially tolerated the movement but soon realized that fanatics are worse than barbarians in times of trouble, so they suppressed the movement. Secular rulers were not all that thrilled with them either, as anyone claiming to appeal directly to God is an obvious challenge to earthly authority. Compounding matters, many of the flagellant groups were influenced by messianic ideas about the coming age of bliss. As a result, the Church condemned them and the secular rulers had them burned at the stake to make the point.

While the movement is long gone, the idea is still with us. The link between piety and self-denial has probably been a part of human society since the beginning. Holy men have walled themselves off from society and earthly pleasures, as a sign of their piety, but also as a way of avoiding temptation. Prophets have given up all earthy pleasures to warn society of their doom. In the West, self-denial has always been closely tied to piety, while pleasure, especially carnal pleasure, is associated with sin.

This is most obvious in the climate change movement, which blends Old Testament prophecy with pagan nature worship. The true believers are sure that man’s hedonistic exploitation of the environment is making the earth angry. The result is rising global temperatures, which will lead to an apocalypse. When Al Gore said the earth had a fever, he did not mean it like an infection. Instead, the fever is due to the earth becoming increasingly angry as human activity. Earth is boiling mad, so to speak.

The first iteration of the cult focused on energy. The earth was angry because humans were using fossil fuels. On the surface, it sounded like the old environmentalism dressed up as a science. The greens always hated industry. A key part of environmentalism has always been a hostility to modernity, particularly industry, which was viewed as immoral and at odds with nature. By going after fossil fuel because of global warming, they were turning their moral opposition to modernity into a scientific claim.

Lately, the movement has shifted away from their claims about fossil fuels, which went nowhere with the public, to attacking other modern pleasures. A recent “study” claims that modern farming is making the earth angry, so we will have to stop eating tasty food and switch to a diet heavy on unpleasant stuff. That means sharp reductions in meat eating and dairy, while sharply increasing our consumption of beans, seeds, and gruel. The promise of this approach is it now gives vegetarianism the veneer of science.

You will note that vegetarianism was never about health. Spend five minutes with a vegan and they will, of course, have told you they are a vegan, but make it clear they are better than you because they no longer enjoy their food. That age old desire to please the gods by eschewing earthly pleasures. Now that the warmists have joined in, a meal of grass and twigs is not just a personal act of piety. It is a sacrifice for the planet. The only thing missing is a good beating with a cat o’ nine tails, along with that soy burger.

Mencken famously said that Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. That is a good way of describing all forms of environmentalism. They never come forward with a plan to save the earth that does not require misery. Of course, it is not their misery that haunts them. Environmentalism is focused on your misery. The vegan is no longer happy being smug and self-righteous with his kale juice. He demands the state force you to drink the stuff. Their piety heavily depends on your misery.

Like everything else about this age, the Gaia worshipers are not appealing to the gods, but to our rulers. In an age where the state is worshiped, it is no wonder that it fills the role of God for the modern flagellants. The thing is, unlike the flagellants of old, the new version is not appealing to God for relief on our behalf. They are demanding the god of this age punish us for our sins. Instead of the faithful whipping themselves to a bloody pulp in the town square to appease God, their piety requires them to whip us.

Time to bring back burning them at the stake.

The Leverage President

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One thing about the Kavanaugh drama that did not get enough attention, is how Trump leveraged the event to transform the Republican Party into his party, one that is looking to him for leadership. Just listen to some of the things GOP senators are saying now and it is as if they have gone through some sort of religious experience. Not only are they operating like a real political party, but they are also standing up to the left’s morality play. It is a remarkable transformation.

Two moves by Trump seem to have set all of this in motion, as well as making it possible for Kavanaugh to get confirmed. One is Trump did not take the bait and get into a media fight with the left. In fact, he remained remarkably quiet, even as the media tried everything to goad him. Maybe it is just his natural inclination to not go through the door his opponents open for him, but he seemed to know that it was part of the trap Feinstein, Katz and Bromwich had cooked up over the summer.

The other thing he did was put the whole thing on the Senate GOP, particularly Mitch McConnell. This was the key move. By explicitly saying he was leaving the issue to the Senate to resolve, the focus shifted from him to the Senate. More important, it put the Republicans in a bind. They could either face the wrath of the left or they could face the wrath of their voters. Trump correctly figured out that survival still counts for something in the GOP, so McConnell had no choice.

What this says is Trump is getting better at being president and better at using his brand as a weapon in Washington. I have said since the beginning that Trump is a very rare guy, who instinctively knows how others view him. He uses your perception of him as part of the sales pitch. It is why people find his boasting to be amusing. When he does it, his supporters feel like they are in on the joke. They get that he knows it is boast and that it irritates the left.

That is the thing with understanding Trump, something a brilliant observer pointed out three years ago. Trump operates like a famous real estate developer. He is always looking to leverage his assets to take advantage of whatever opportunities that may present themselves in the future. In the case of the Kavanaugh hearing, his best play was to stand aside and let Mitch McConnell handle it. Regardless of the result, he was getting something from the transaction.

This is not the 4-D chess nonsense. Trump is not a master strategist, in the sense that he is four moves ahead of everyone. It is that his inclination is to always play the game, any game, to maximize his options when it is his next turn. That is how the world of commercial real estate development works. You never know what will present itself next, so you make sure you are able to seize on whatever pops up. Trump’s applying this to Washington now.

You see this with the Rosenstein situation. The thorn in Trump’s side right now is Mueller, simply because he has the power to be a nuisance. Mueller is supervised by Rosenstein, who is clearly compromised in the FBI scandal. When Congress demanded the FBI documents be declassified, Trump was ready to leverage it. That gave him the excuse to review all the requested material, without anyone claiming he was meddling in the investigation. It also forced Rosenstein’s hand.

At that point, Trump had leverage on Rosenstein. It is why days after Trump decided to hold off on declassifying the documents, the left-wing media was running stories about how Rosenstein was going to be fired. Those stories most likely came from the camp of the conspirators. They just assumed that once Trump knew the facts, he would fly into a rage and fire the crooked Rosenstein. Instead, Trump put a saddle on him and is now riding him around Washington.

That is unlikely the end game. I have always thought that Trump is waiting until after the election to make his next move in this thing. Instead, what he has been doing for the last year is maneuvering so that he has options. There is a very good chance that what Congress has uncovered, what is in those secret files, implicates former Obama officials and maybe a few high-ranking Democrats. That is pretty good leverage for Trump if he is suddenly faced with a hostile House and Senate.

The other play if the election goes poorly is to simply dump all of it out during the lame duck session after the election. At which point he can fire Mueller and Rosenstein, while demanding Sessions appoint a second special prosecutor to handle the FBI scandal, including the role of Mueller and Rosenstein. That assumes there are some real bombshells hiding in those secret files. Given the panic about the effort to declassify them, it is a safe bet that there is some bad stuff in those files.

Of course, it is now looking like the brown wave the liberal media has been predicting is not going to happen. Left-wing outlets are now talking about maybe a very narrow House win and losses in the Senate. Given the Kavanaugh loss, it is not out of the question that the GOP holds the House. Winning has a funny way of motivating the winners and demotivating the losers. If this momentum carries the GOP to victory next month, then the options for Trump multiply.

Of Mobs And Men

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I have been on the road for most of the last week, but I decided to do a show anyway, as it seems like a good idea to stick with a regular schedule. I just got back in town, and I did not have time to prepare for the podcast, so I am just winging it this week. It sort of worked out as the media is full of hyperventilating about angry mobs. It is one of those times where the show wrote itself. The first three stories I found in the Post were all about the angry left-wing mobs that either did not exist or were the potent of great happenings.

Even after all these years of following politics I am still impressed with the hive mentality of the Left. They really are like a school of fish. When one responds to a threat, all of them respond, as if by direction from central authority. It is like a highly choreographed dance of lunacy. There is some degree of direction and coordination, to be sure, but most of what we see is the loons all responding to what they see the other loons doing, as they peer out over the hive walls at the rest of us. it really is incredible and a bit scary.

I go back and forth on what we see happening. This Kavanaugh thing seems to have poleaxed the establishment GOP. Poor old Lindsey Graham is still in shock over what the Democrats tried to do. He may never be the same. On the other hand, the Left is equally stunned that their gambit failed. This feels like an inflection point, but what comes next is still a mystery. Maybe after the election the ruling class comes together behind closed doors to renew their shared hatred of the rest of us. Time will tell.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below. I am now on Spotify, so the millennials can tune in when not sobbing over white privilege and toxic masculinity.

This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Opening (Music)
  • 02:00: Whatever It Takes (Link)
  • 12:00: The Gaslight Gang (Link)
  • 22:00: Mob Talk Is Racist (Link)
  • 32:00: Lessons Of The Mob (Link)
  • 42:00: Our Friend, The Government (Link)
  • 47:00: Even Hitler Hates Trump (Link)
  • 52:00: Left Wing Terrorism (Link)
  • 57:00: Closing (Link) (Music)

Direct Download

The iTunes Page

Spotify

Google Play Link

iHeart Radio

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

Travelogue: Normieville

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I have been traveling this week to the lands where the great white normie is most common, which means the Midwest and Southwest. If you do not travel or your travel is limited to the coasts, it is easy to forget that America is a big country with a diverse culture. As I am fond of saying, it is a mansion with many rooms. Even though we have a lot in common, there are a lot of differences between the regions. Put another way, we already had all the diversity we needed. There was no reason to import more of it.

Unlike the coasts, the Midwest and southwest is where you can still find lots of heritage America and lots of heritage Americans. In the upper Midwest, there is an early 1960’s vibe to things that you do not get on the coast. I am speaking culturally, not technologically or materially. They have all the same stuff everyone else has. The Southwest has the old Mex-American – Western culture, but layered over it is the Midwest culture that reflects the people who moved there by the millions the last few decades.

The result for me this week was like stepping back in time. That is not to say these people are throwbacks. It is just that the echoes of old America can still be heard when socializing and even doing business. They still trade business cards at conferences and enjoy wearing name tags. They will walk right up to you and start using your name, having read it off your name tag. There is a genuineness about the people of the Midwest you rarely see on the coasts these days. It is all very wholesome and normal…

I did a little drinking with a guy from Minnesota, who spent a considerable amount of time telling me about the softball team he sponsors. His daughter used to play on the team, but he continued to sponsor the team after she moved on. He sounded like a character from the movie Fargo, so it added to the old-world charm. I could not help but wonder why anyone thought this sort of community spirit needed to be replaced with the crude transactionalism of cosmopolitan globalism, but then I remembered who was behind it…

I was amused in the airport over the weekend by the people watching the Kavanaugh vote on the big television screens. The airport is a good reminder that very few people watch CNN and that most people ignore politics. The big screen had a few young single women watching the vote, one was in tears. A smaller screen had the Texas – Oklahoma football game on and it was surrounded by people cheering the game. It is a nice reminder that to most people, these events are not all that important or emotional…

The funny thing that I learned is that the rank-and-file liberal male really does think Kavanaugh is a serial rapist. I ran into a group of guys from Northern California who described themselves as liberal Republicans. They really wanted me to know they were sick to their stomach about what was happening in Washington, especially with what Trump is doing to the Republicans party. They really seemed to be convinced that Kavanaugh spends his nights stalking and raping middle-aged white women

It is an odd form of virtue signaling, because it has no audience. I asked one of them why he bothers being in a party that opposes everything he supports, when he could join the other party. California is a one-party state now, for the most part. It is an obvious question that they apparently did not consider, but they did not like me asking it. I suspect this type has been doing the concern troll act for so long it is as much a part of who they are as breathing and walking upright. They no longer realize it is a pose…

At dinner one night I was seated next to a young guy, and he revealed that he had an interest in the human sciences. We talked a bit, and he was floored to hear that I did not think environment has much to do with how you turn out. I was surprised at first, given that he is bright and has an interest in the subject, but then I remembered that he is of a generation that has been immersed in the blank slate theology. I did my best to red pill him on some things, but the presence of heresy vexed him greatly. I felt like Lucifer…

For a long time, I resisted going to things like AmRen or Mencken because I imagined them to be academic conferences full of old racists. It was not the latter that worried me, but the former. I do not like conferences. There is something old fashioned and dated about how they are organized. I have been in the workplace for three decades now and the business conference has not changed much, in terms of organization. The same is true of the academic conference. It is still 1950’s America with these things.

That said, there is no replacing in-person interaction. You inevitably learn things about people that makes it possible to see them in three dimensions. The internet and telephone do not allow for that. One event I attended seemed to get that aspect and built the thing around the socializing, rather than building the social elements around the event. It was quite effective as it not only felt more modern but allowed to people to customize the event to their tastes. The result was a much more relaxed and enjoyable experience.

What occurred to me though is the old-style business or academic conference was built on the assumption that you had a social life outside of your professional life. Men had families. Women had kids. People gained their social happiness outside of their work life, so at a conference, it needed to be all business. Today, people work longer, travel more and have disorderly personal lives. Work events are often the times when they get to socialize and relax. Old world America would not recognize us now…

Phoenix Arizona is the least authentic place on earth, I think. In fact, most of the Southwest, including California, feels like the QVC of cultures. Everything is new and everything is clean, relative to the east coast. That said, there is something to say for everything being new and in good working g order. Streets without craters is something we do not have here in Lagos. You cannot beat the weather, which is why so many Boomers moved there, but I like four seasons, so I will stay on the coast I think…

I talked to a guy about California. I mentioned that half the state does not speak English, and he responded by claiming the economy depends on Mexican immigrants. I did not challenge him on it, as there would have been no point. I mention it as a reminder that lots of white people still believe the open borders mythology, because they still think the point of life is increasing the GDP. They will literally sacrifice themselves and their posterity to the economy god. A lifetime of worship is hard to overcome…

I was drinking with some guys who were very nice and very Midwestern. I noticed that they went to great pains to correct me when I said “black” instead of “African American”, which I found rather annoying. No black people use that ridiculous phrase, unless they are around whites. Eventually they stopped and after a few drinks one asked me why I used the term black. He asked in a hushed voice like he was asking me for drugs. I told him that black people prefer black, so I use black. He was quite shocked to hear it.

I have run into this a lot, and it is a good reminder that most white and especially liberal white people, have no clue about how black people live and think. Blacks have become objects of worship or objects of fear. Even in the South, this cultural distance is starting to creep in as they are whipped into conformity by the dominant culture. The people who talk the most about race relations, know the least about it and they have the least humanity toward black people. In the future, old racists will be the last friend of the black man…

The Wizards

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In the 1980’s, one of the great puzzles for conservatives was how left-wing economists could not bring themselves to acknowledge the obvious. The Soviet economic model was a failure in absolute terms, as well as relative terms. Even long after the Soviets collapsed, guys like Paul Krugman remained puzzled by the inability of the communist system to keep pace with the West. His answer was that the Soviets either lost their will or lacked the moral fiber to make revolutionary socialism work.

As Greg Cochran has pointed out, the failings of socialism were obvious to anyone willing to look at what was happening. Once the Soviet Empire fell, it was undeniable, but economics never paid a price for being so wrong. In fact, the status of the field went up after the Cold War. Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz became a shaman to the ruling class, despite a miserable track record. He is another guy who thinks the morality of socialism should make it work.

Now, part of this is something that John Derbyshire pointed out in his infamous review of Kevin McDonald’s book, The Culture of Critique. “Jews are awfully good at creating pseudoscience—elaborate, plausible, and intellectually very challenging systems that do not, in fact, have any truth content.” In fairness to John, he was summarizing what McDonald had written, but he largely agreed with the assertion. There is a fair bit of this in economics, where smart Jews conjure alternative reality.

That is a fun point to make, but that is not the reason for economists to be wildly wrong about so much, yet immune from criticism. By now, someone in the field should have pointed out that Joseph Stiglitz is a crank. Someone like Christine Romer, who was Obama’s top economist, was completely wrong about the effects of his stimulus plan, yet she was rewarded with a plum job in the academy. In most every field, even astrology, being that wrong is disqualifying.

Now, it is fun to mock economics, but it really should be a useful field and play a positive role in public policy debates. There are useful observations that come from the field, with regards to how people respond to various economic policies. In theory, the economics shop should provide objective analysis of government performance, policy proposals and basic data about the state of the economy. Government is about trade-offs and economics should provide the details of those trade-offs.

Of course, there are reasons for the field being a mess. One reason is that economics is not science. It is a basic set of immutable truths swimming in a sea of pointless analysis, clever models that mean nothing, and wishful thinking. Then there is the fact that there is money to be made in putting your stamp on the polices. When Christine Romer was selected by Obama, it was the golden ticket to elite of the New Keynesian Economics cult. She and her husband are now senior clerics.

There is something else that can be teased out of this phenomenon and that is the corrosive effect of democracy on objectivity. Democratic forms of government lack legitimacy, because they start with the assumption that anyone can hold any office within the system. No one is going to respect the office of legislator if the job can be won and held by anyone. Even in a republican form of government the assumption is that anyone can enter the process.

Unlike other forms of government that can rely on the blessing of the religious authority, democracy inevitably obliterates any threat to itself. Christians like to believe that the decline in faith corresponds with the rise in public corruption, but it is the reverse. The spread of democracy is what drives the decline in faith. Everywhere democracy becomes ascendant, religion moves into decline. This is an observation Muslims have made, which is why they oppose democracy.

That need for moral authority is still there, so inevitably democratic system evolves a civic religion and before long a civic clerisy. This intellectual elite, supported by the political elite that control the democratic institutions give their blessing to the whims of the office holders. The role of economist is that of the court astrologer in Persia or Merlin in the court of King Arthur. They appear to be consulting hidden knowledge, but they always end up endorsing whatever their patron desires.

The other side of this coin is there is no reason for the political class to attack their court magicians, even when they are completely wrong, because they will need them to bless the next set of policies. Romer is the worst case. Her and her husband have lifetime positions at an elite university. Stiglitz gets treated like the senior shaman by all sides of the political elite, because someone must fill that role. It is a lot like how the Catholic Church handles pedophile priests, when you think about it.

The Death Of The Cuck

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A few years ago, I had a run-in with Tom Nichols on twitter. I no longer recall the details, but he posted something that was obvious nonsense, and I responded with a link to the facts. His instant response was to call me stupid and then block me. That left me with a bad impression. It is the sort of behavior you get from insecure drama queens, who worry that one day people will discover that they are complete phonies. That is, of course, the story with Tom Nichols, who has just posted this long hissy fit.

Unlike Senator Susan Collins, who took pages upon pages of text on national television to tell us something we already knew, I will cut right to the chase: I am out of the Republican Party.

Imagine how hard it was for him to write that while wiping away the tears. Prepubescent girls have hardier constitutions. Given his hysterics over Trump the last three years, what took this guy so long to figure out he was no longer wanted? George Will got out early, making it clear he did not like the sorts of people who voted for Trump. Bill Kristol and the other freaks in the neocon clown car became Democrats. Self-professed genius Tom Nichols needed three years?

Small things sometimes matter, and Collins is among the smallest of things in the political world. And yet, she helped me finally accept what I had been denying. Her speech on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh convinced me that the Republican Party now exists for one reason, and one reason only: for the exercise of raw political power, and not for ends I would otherwise applaud or even support.

I have written on social media and elsewhere how I feel about Kavanaugh’s nomination. I initially viewed his nomination positively, as a standard GOP judicial appointment; then grew concerned about whether he should continue on as a nominee with the accusations against him; and finally, was appalled by his behavior in front of the Senate.

What self-professed super genius Tom Nichols is telling us is that his opinions are formed in the minds of others. When it looked like Trump had selected a Kennedy clone that would pass muster with the Democrats, self-professed super genius Tom Nichols was down with the nominee. Then the Left went crazy and self-professed super genius Tom Nichols realized Kavanaugh was a monster. When the Left attacked Kavanaugh for defending himself, self-professed super genius Tom Nichols agreed with them.

What a coincidence!

Self-professed super genius Tom Nichols is a fine example of the right-wing edgytarian that I described in this post. The short version is that he stakes out his positions just inside the line of what Lefty finds acceptable. That way he can pretend to be a conservative of some sort, but never get in any real trouble with Lefty. This type of feckless weasel has been a feature of Lefty chat shows for years. In order to maintain the act, these guys operate like a shadow, following the Left around, always aware of that line.

The remarkable thing about this tirade by self-professed super genius Tom Nichols is that it reveals he is not much of a super-genius. He’s shocked to learn that “the Republican Party now exists for one reason, and one reason only: for the exercise of raw political power.” This is guy who claims to be an expert on political science, but he is shocked to learn that politics goes on in political parties? The funny thing is there’s no reason to think this is a pose. He really is that dumb. He is surprised to learn politics is about politics.

There is the possibility that these so-called principled conservative have been smelling their own farts for so long they are delusional. Their endless chanting the last dozen years about principles may have created some strange form of Stockholm syndrome, where they have become emotionally attached to the excuses they were making for the disaster that was the Bush years. That’s something that does not get enough mention. These guys all became principled conservatives when their polices nearly destroyed the country.

The Republicans, however, have now eclipsed the Democrats as a threat to the rule of law and to the constitutional norms of American society. They have become all about winning. Winning means not losing, and so instead of acting like a co-equal branch of government responsible for advice and consent, congressional Republicans now act like a parliamentary party facing the constant threat of a vote of no confidence.

Self-professed super genius Tom Nichols is apparently unaware that the GOP, in fact no political party, is a co-equal branch of anything. That’s not their job. Only a complete ignoramus could think that a political party has some special duty to undermine the interests of its coalition. Democratic government is exactly the opposite of that. It is factions and coalitions jostling to get their way at the expense of others. That’s how it is supposed to work. That’s how it always works. How does he not know this?

Of course, the real issue for fake tough guys, like self-professed super genius Tom Nichols, is Trump is ripping the cover off their act. By actually fighting and winning, Trump is exposing fakers like self-professed super genius Tom Nichols. These guys were always a fraud. More important, this Kavanaugh incident has revealed the Left to be something other than wily opponents. They were outsmarted by the GOP and by Trump, which self-professed super genius Tom Nichols said was impossible.

The thing is, guys like Tom Nichols, who hilariously wrote a book lamenting the decline of expertise, were always favored by the Left because they were dumb. Sure, self-professed super genius Tom Nichols has a head for trivia. Just ask him. He stops people on the street everyday to tell them he is a five time jeopardy champ. Otherwise, he is just another hired man tasked with guarding the border between us and them. Maybe we get lucky and he and David French decide to go out like Thelma and Louise.