Monthly Archives: April 2021

Feelin’ Groovy

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Maybe it is the rush of spring, but this felt like a good week. Here in Lagos, the trees are starting to bloom and the weather is just about perfect. For me, anything above 75 is uncomfortable, so temps in the mid-60’s are pretty nice. There is also the fact that the day job has been hassle free lately. Since the onset of the plague, my schedule has been packed with people demanding my immediate attention. The last few weeks it has settled into something of a comfortable pattern for a change.

In the political realm, the absurdity of it all is too much to ignore. I was talking with a friend who was never fond of Trump. He voted for him, at least that is what he said, but he thought Trump was a clown. He said to me, “You’re my age. Did you ever think Joe Biden would be President?” It was one of those moments when the ridiculousness of the age jumps out at you. Normal white people are walking around with the same thought in their head. We live in clown world.

At lunch the other day, the economy was the topic. One person would mention the bad news, like the rising cost of most things. Someone would counter with the stock market or the supposed hiring spike. This went back and forth until someone finally said, “You know, none of this could be true at all. No one knows what’s going on because we can’t trust anything we’re being told.” Again, I detected that detached bemusement that comes when you stop pretending it matters.

I think the thing that did it for me was when I checked out some clips from the Chauvin trial the other day. The state had called a doctor who was supposed to be an expert on cardiovascular issues. The guy was such a ridiculous ham, that it felt like satire. He clearly went to the William Shatner School of Acting. He did a dramatic performance of lifesaving doctor for the jury, but then the defense lawyer asked, “So what you are saying is George Floyd would be alive if just got in the police car?”

I think if I were on that jury, I would have bust out laughing. Everything about that trial feels like a joke on us by the people running this simulation. In fact, that is true about most everything these days. Joe Biden as President would have been a punch line to a joke not so long ago. Men in dresses playing girls’ sports? You just have to step back and admire the absurdity of it all. We cannot know what African scholars will call this time, but it will most likely focus on the silliness of the age.

Reality does not like to be mocked, so you can be sure a corrective, and a very large one, is lying out there in the distance. Maybe the fantasy economy will suddenly slam into mathematical realty. Maybe Russia and China will figure out that our military is a wreck and the leadership is a joke. Maybe Mother Nature decides to send a real plague to teach those mask wearing idiots a lesson. Who knows? For now though, it is spring, the flowers are blooming and clown world is in peak form.

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. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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***@mi*********************.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

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

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/2kdaSEZ5fsw

The Narcotic Of Unreality

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Imagine that fifty years ago, someone walking along a beach stumbled upon a lamp, out of which popped a genie, offering to give the person a glimpse into the future as a reward for releasing him from the lamp. The person probably would be able to suspend their disbelief and give it a go. Once he got the glimpse of the future, he would be so stunned by what he saw, that he would quickly assume he is having some sort of hallucination and run off in terror. That cannot possibly be the future.

There is no getting around the fact that our present is unimaginably weird, relative to our standards of just a generation ago. People like to laugh at what people a century ago imagined was the future, but those past predictions were based on the assumption that crazy people would not take over the country. They feared that left-wing radicals would win and impose communism. That was a legitimate fear, but mentally disturbed men in dresses was not a concern. Why would anyone think such a thing?

What makes it weirder is that we are not living in an age of bliss. We have real problems that need attention. Yet during the transition from Trump to Dementia Joe, supposedly serious people sat around a conference room table wondering how they could recruit a man in a dress to join the administration. No one in the room, presumably, bust out laughing. Some take comfort in believing that they know it is ridiculous, but there is no evidence to suggest this.

In his confirmation hearing, not a single Senator dared ask Rachel Levine to explain how we test for transgenderism. We have a simple test to determine sex. A mouth swab alone is enough. If we were to come upon the remains of person who claimed to be a third sex, how would we know? What is the difference between someone who thinks they are invisible or imaginary and someone who thinks they are a sex other than what their DNA says? Does Dr. Levine accept genetic science?

The point is, there were any number of ways to politely reveal that this person is either insane or a sociopathic grifter. Richard Levine would never have gone very far on merit, but Rachel Levine could be president one day. No one dared take this approach, because they are not allowed to challenge the orthodoxy. In the case of Senators, they have been selected precisely because they have been conditioned to never challenge the prevailing moral orthodoxy.

This is how our public discourse has become increasingly bizarre. As soon as you exclude realty from the debate, you are left with various forms of unreality. Since none of the unrealistic options can possibly lead to a solution, the debate breaks free from the problem itself. The measure acceptance is no longer about facts and reason, but some other standard. In a liberal democracy, the standard becomes attention, as in what gets you the most attention.

Take the case of Saint George Floyd, peace be upon him. The state put on a medical expert who explained Floyd’s cardiovascular condition. It is hard to know, given the bizarre testimony that followed, but the state probably hoped he would add authority to the claim that the cops were negligent when handling Floyd. On cross, he was asked a simple question. “Would George Floyd be alive today if he had just followed instructions and got into the police car as the cops asked many times?”

If Chauvin is acquitted, that is probably the moment the jury realized the absurdity of the show going on in court. This question never gets asked in any of these traffic stops that go bad, like the latest one from Minnesota. In every one of these cases, the guy getting shot could have avoided the problem by simply not being an asshole. The prevailing moral orthodoxy says you can never question the actions of a nonwhite, so the conversation veers into increasingly weird logic.

Another example is the voter ID stuff. Right now, we have the largest corporations on the planet holding secret meetings to figure out how they can overturn election laws like the one just passed in Georgia. No one dares ask these people why they think blacks are too stupid or lazy to get a driver’s license. The fact that they have no trouble getting a license is another relevant factor. Voter ID is racist because it just is. Not one dares question it, so we have these bizarre public debates.

That is the thing about the time traveling guy from the past. He probably would not notice the trannies and perverts. So much of our public debate operates outside the bounds of reason, those things would be lost in the traffic. The fact that Joe Biden is president would be enough to cause him to question his sanity. In his time, Joe Biden is just a crooked fabulist that was the butt of political jokes. No sane people would put that simpleton in charge of anything.

Twenty years ago, the great John Derbyshire once described pseudoscience as “elaborate, plausible, and intellectually very challenging systems that do not, in fact, have any truth content.” The fact that the people who are so good at creating pseudoscience have an outside role in shaping society probably explains why we live in a world dominated by boutique ideas untethered from reality. These parlor games are much more fun that facing up to the reality of life.

In fact, reality avoidance may have become something of a narcotic. Anytime reality starts to sneak into the mind of the addict, they demand some new drug or a bigger dose of the old drug, in order to solve the problem. When the reality of sex differences undermines feminist theology, a new drug called transgenderism is cooked up and distributed to the panic stricken members of the ruling class. When the reality of transvestites cannot be ignored, we get a new perversion.

The real crisis in America is not the opioid pandemic, but the unreality pandemic plaguing our rulers. As the range of acceptable debate narrows, they are left with an increasingly bizarre set of choices. In order for them to get attention, which is the currency of democracy, they must outdo the last bizarre idea. Like an addict searching for the next high, our rulers are riding a dragon of depraved reality avoidance, taking the rest of us into the abyss where all addiction leads.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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***@mi*********************.com.

The Spring Of Society

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Montesquieu observed that different political systems have different internal motivations, an engine that drives the people in it. He used the term principle as the thing that gave the system energy. In aristocratic systems it was the desire for honor that drove people to act. In a republic it was virtue. Instead of serving a man who was the manifestation of the state, the republican man served the institutions. He respected the office, not necessarily the office holder.

The principle of liberal democracy appears to be morality. The language of this age is drenched in moral claims. The mantra of the age is diversity, inclusion and equity, which is shot through with sentiment. How much diversity is a good thing? There is no limit, of course, as diversity is a good in itself. Equity is a purely subjective term as it means distributing resources based on the needs of the recipients. The people who make that decision are those who are at the top of the moral hierarchy.

In addition to echoing and updating sentiments from the beginning of western racialism (liberté, égalité, fraternité), the point of these sorts of slogans is to communicate civic piety between the speaker and listener. Alone they are just echolalic babbling, but when spoken or written for an audience, the speaker feels virtuous, as she assumes the listener, upon hearing these code words, will see that the speaker is pious. These terms are about signaling and confirming piety.

The problem with this is morality needs authority. In a theocracy, like in Iran, this problem is solved with Islam. The mullahs are the defenders and chief promotors of their form of Islam, so they sit atop the moral hierarchy. They provide the limits on democracy and a scale against which to measure piety. Similarly, Puritanism provided the moral authority for the early settlers in what is now New England. They had democratic societies, bound by Scripture.

Liberal democracy does not have or tolerate a belief outside the fingertips of man, so it cannot rely on established religion for moral authority. Instead, it relies upon the marketplace to provide that authority. The will of the people is formalized in elections and the marketplace. This is why the most powerful people work to make sure their opinions seem to reflect popular will. Rigging an election or faking a public opinion poll makes perfect sense when placed in the framework of liberal democracy.

The god of the marketplace has always had one very serious flaw. If Herodotus is to be trusted, the Persians were the first to notice this. They saw the Greek marketplace as nothing more than brothers lying to brothers. The seller misrepresented his products in the hope of fooling the customer. The customer misrepresented his interest in the hope of bargaining down the price. The spirit of the agora was deception, which makes the god of the market a fickle liar.

We are seeing this playout with the Covid vaccine. A mass vaccination campaign requires public trust. After all, letting someone put something in your body that you do not understand is a leap of faith. In a high trust society where the people believe the rulers have their best interest in mind, this is not difficult. In a low trust society, the rulers must search for external sources of authority. In the case of Covid, they have paraded out hundreds of experts from medicine and science.

The problem is those experts are products of the marketplace. They work for pharmaceutical companies, the political system, research outfits supported by the Chinese communist party and so on. These experts are fully democratic men in that they are products of the marketplace. They represent the interests of whoever is paying their salary at the moment, not the interest of the people. We can no more trust them that we can trust the salesman at a used car lot.

Because we are now fully democratized people, we are conditioned to assume that everyone is a product of the marketplace. Their interest in the truth is meaningless as the truth is what the market says at the moment. They are either making the market or following the trends of the market. In the case of Covid, everyone looks at the experts and wonders whose interests they are representing. The moral authority of liberal democracy turns out to be a cynicism without limit.

Something Montesquieu never mentioned, but that is relevant to this age, is the relationship between the principle of the system and its durability. John Adams famously said in a letter to John Taylor, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself”. A republic, it seems, does not do much better. The one Adams helped found was quickly dashed to pieces by his descendants. Monarchy seems to be the most durable, having been with us since the start.

The reason for this is democracy has no room for religion, while republicanism tries to contain religion within the civic institutions. Aristocratic systems, even without religion, reflect the reality of the human condition. They begin with the assumption that there is always someone one charge. The question is how that is decided and blood turns out to be the most predictable. There is no debating lineage. It is far from perfect, but it seems to be the most stable of mankind’s political systems.

Of course, just about any political system can work in a high trust, competent society, which means a homogeneous society. Both of those qualities are inversely proportional to diversity. Liberal democracy, as we see, places diversity as its highest goal, which is why it eventually murders itself. It burns the social capital built up by the preceding system until that fuel is exhausted. It turns out that liberal democracy is the sign that a people are finished and are ready to shuffle off into the history books.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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***@mi*********************.com.

Liberal Democratic Anarchy

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In theory, the difference between mob rule and liberal democracy is that the former operates outside of authority, while the latter is limited by a set of principles. The former is operating in the moment while the latter is deliberative. Instead of just doing what feels right in the moment, like exacting revenge, liberal democracy has processes and limits, forcing people to think about what they are doing before they act. It is majority rule slowed to a crawl by the ideals of western liberalism.

The problem is that liberal democracy is an industrial age political philosophy that is unsuited for the technological age. Fifty years ago, information flowed primarily by words on a page, carried around by men. Television and radio sped up the flow of information, but the information still got into those networks by foot. Before it could be on television, someone had to go out to the scene, make video, carry it back to the studio and then edit it. It was still a slow world.

Today, information flows at the speed of light. A conspiracy theory can be hatched and promoted to millions on-line in a matter of minutes. As the old expression goes, a lie is around the world before the truth is out of bed. It is why the race hoax has become a phenomenon of this age. By the time the truth of the incident has been revealed, we are onto the third or fourth race hoax. These stories collectively build up in the system to the point where they cumulatively become a truth of their own.

An easy example is the Chauvin case. There are people absolutely sure he stood on the man’s neck for nine minutes. They were convinced of this by the bombardment of lies they experienced on-line. They never bothered to watch the whole video when it was finally released. Why would they? They knew and everyone around them knew that Chauvin stood on Floyd’s neck until he suffocated. It is just another example of racist cops murdering an innocent black body for the crime of being black.

In a mass media society like ours, there can be no deliberation, so the psychology is that of the mob, not liberal democracy. There can be no concern for limits and process, as we are all forced to decide by those around us on-line. That is what happens in a mob of people excited by some event. As with a school of fish or a flock of birds, each person is responding to the actions of those around him. Mob psychology is an emergent property that transcends the mentality of the members.

A very good example is the behavior of corporate America. Supposedly, the heads of the largest corporations have been plotting to undermine what is left of election integrity in America. They had a “first of its kind” conference call about Georgia. They were compelled to act because, well, everyone around them is sure that Georgia has just reinstituted Jim Crow. They know this because everyone around them knows this and all of those people are good people like them.

We live in an age in which the most powerful people on the planet, some are the most powerful who have lived on this planet, truly feel they are in a twilight struggle against forces greater than themselves. The heads of the big banks think they are the little guy facing off against some invisible goliath. Others helpfully anthropomorphize it with pictures of people waving Trump signs. The insurrection hoax is all about validating the very real fear of the most powerful people on the planet.

This is the psychology of the mob. Whatever drove the people to show up on the street is soon confirmed and becomes the identity of the whole. The individual shows up because he is angry about something. Quickly he is just another corpuscle in the organism that is the collective anger of the members. He is now swept up in the mob, like a cork on an angry sea. Even though he could have real power in his own right, he feels powerless as a part of the mob swarming around him.

This is liberal democracy in the technological age. Democracy cloaks the people who are naturally in charge of society with the concept of the public will. Public policy is not the result of one man or a group of men, it is democracy. The price and supply of goods is not the result of decisions made by specific people, but by the invisible hand of the marketplace responding to millions of silent decisions. In a democracy, no one is responsible, because everyone is responsible, so no one is accountable.

In the slow motion world of the industrial age, this headless system can work reasonably well because people have time to stop and think. In the technological age, where no one can think about anything, cooler heads are trampled into the dust by mobs pushed along by forces external to themselves. Worse still, the mob mentality is amplified, so it is not just a mob, but a deafening mob. Those will real power fear the mob, so they lend their power to the mob.

Critics looking at what is happening, assume the people in charge, the people with real power, see some benefit in the chaos. Like liberal democracy, bourgeois objectivism is an artifact of a bygone age.  In the technological age, the age of instant communication, the mob mentality is what prevails. What is good for the individual is no different than what is good for a liver cell. Individual good is subsumed into the emergent properties of the whole and the mentality of the individual is the mentality of the mob.

So much of what is happening today is just a replay of mistakes made a generation ago, often by people still in power. The assault on law and order is right out of the cultural revolution of the 1960’s. Most of the people in charge today were young adults back in those days. They should have the wisdom to see what is happening, but they care caught up in the moment like everyone else. They don’t feel like they have power, so they act like they are as powerless as the rest of us.

Liberal democracy in the technological age results in anarchy and mob rule. The consequences are inevitable. America is shaking itself to death over problems that could be mitigated with a little deliberation and respect for limits. No one has time for that as there is always another crisis, another mob demanding immediate attention for the object of their rage. Mob rule always ends in blood, either the blood of the mob or the blood of the innocent. This age most likely ends in both.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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***@mi*********************.com.

Wish-Casting

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Note: The weekly Taki post is up here. This week I go back to an old favorite of comparing modern day America to Russian, past and present. There is also a cornucopia of items behind the green door. Since so many were vexed with me about my position on crypto, I suggest proving me wrong by sending me your crypto.

Hope and optimism are the two things that propel life forward. Sometimes they lead to disaster, but often enough they lead to good results. Innovation, after all, is rooted in hope and optimism. If cynicism were the default for mankind, we would never have taken a shot on that new thing called the wheel. Risk taking requires a degree of foolish optimism and a hope that this time things will be different. On the other hand, too much optimism becomes escapism, a way to avoid reality.

If it were possible to measure hope and optimism, specifically misplaced hope and optimism, in a society, it would probably be a useful metric. A people unrealistically hopeful for the future are probably filled with dread, because their current situation is seemingly hopeless. Instead of grimly facing the reality of their situation, many choose to cast their hopes and aspirations onto someone or something. The popularity of wish-casting increases as the situation declines.

An example of this would be the Obama presidency. Few people talk about him these days, even though his term ended just five years ago. When he ran for office, however, his fans talked about him like he was Jesus. Despite his embarrassingly thin resume, they projected onto him the image of black Lincoln. There was little reason to think this man would do much of anything, given his nature and the people around him, but his fans were sure he was going to usher in the golden age.

It feels like a long time ago, but it was a very strange phenomenon. The people who had heralded Hillary Clinton as the new model woman suddenly treated her as the locus of evil in the world. Their new champion defeated her in the great contest and then he ascended the throne. Party stores had special Obama themed items produced so believers could have their Obama parties on inauguration day. For millions, it was the rapture, except it happened entirely in their imagination.

Something similar happened with Trump at the end of his term. Unlike Obama, he did not immediately develop a cult following. He won mostly because the alternative was so unpleasant that anything had to be better. It was during his term, as it became clear he was never going to do what he promised, that he developed a cult following. By the end, he was Trump the guy with a secret plan to win the election. When the shenanigans hit home, he became a superhero with a secret plan to overturn the result.

The Trump and Obama comparison offer an insight into how this wish-casting phenomenon works in liberal democracy. The people disappointed by Bill Clinton and then disaffected by Bush, turned to the escapism of Obama. The same sort of thing happened with Trump, except it required his victory in 2016 to trigger the process, as he was too much of a known quantity in 2016. Obama was a blank slate, while Trump’s slate needed a lot of scrubbing to clear some space for the wish-casting.

The Q-phenomenon is another good example. What started as an internet prank on the MAGA people became a weird fantasy cult. It combined the elements of conspiracy theory with the essentials of wish-casting. Every event was turned into proof that the prophesies would come true and the faithful would be rewarded. The size of the Q-cult was exaggerated by the media, of course, but a lot of people preferred that fantasy over the reality of the present, which says a lot about the age.

The crypto cult is looking a lot like the Q-cult all of a sudden. This one combines the silly promises of Austrian economics, the reality avoidance of libertarianism, with a form of techno-futurism. Bitcoin is going to usher in the anarcho-capitalist future, where the power of the state is broken and all of the bad things about the cultural war are rolled back to some happy place in the past. How this will happen does not matter, as what matters is the dream of a new reality, free of the present.

You can probably fit the insurrectionist fantasies of our political class into this phenomenon as well. Rather than face the reality of their situation, they focus on bizarre conspiracies about invisible white supremacists. Reality is we live in a tripartite system of corporate interests, radical cultural interests and the state. The result is a doddering old man as the face of a nation slowly tipping into crisis. Instead of facing that, they are obsessed with secret conspiracies about white people.

That last bit becomes more interesting when you put it in the context of the cult of Obama and how it ended. The lunacy that erupted on the Left when Trump won in 2016 was never about Trump. It was about the final end of the Obama fantasy. Not only was he not black Jesus, he was never the savior. The people who worshipped him and hated Hilary, had transferred their love for him onto Clinton and their hate for her onto Trump during the 2016 election, especially toward the end.

What all of this suggests is we are moving further into a collective psychological crisis as the cultural situation degrades. Rather than face the reality of a fading empire that should have been dismantled thirty years ago, people are escaping into these aspirational cults. Even the political class is embracing escapism. There is always a bit of irrational exuberance. Progress requires a degree of optimism. What we are experiencing today is closer to systemic mass delusion.

This may not be entirely without precedent. Historians debate why the Athenians waged the Peloponnesian War as they did. The decision to attack Syracuse is a legendary blunder that defies reason. Perhaps it was the result of the same phenomenon that we are seeing today. A thoroughly democratized people, unable to face the reality of what that entails, indulges in wish-casting, placing all hope into a person or a plan. What lies at the other end is a shocking corrective that breaks the spell.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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***@mi*********************.com.

Crypto Debate

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Today at 3:00 PM I will be debating cryptocurrencies with Kart Thorburn. He is the house cryptocurrency enthusiast for Counter Currents. The topic is whether crypto can threaten the hegemony of the dollar and fiat currency in general. My position is that cryptocurrency can be useful to dissidents on the margins, but it will never be a threat to legal tender, regardless of who holds power

The replay is here: https://dlive.tv/p/nixjeelvy+9HRrOkXGg

Tomorrow I’ll post the mp3.

I had a good time and I was not too unpleasant about it.

Various Stuff

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Another week is in the books and we are a little closer to what is shaping up to a summer of madness. If you have been paying attention to the Chauvin trial, you will see that we are headed to a very bad place. The state’s case so far boils down to “He may have not paid careful attention in a safety class years ago, so he is guilty.” They have not even tried to address the key questions of the case. In a first world country, this trial would not exist. The court would not allow it.

If you read the summaries of the trial, you cannot help but wonder if both sides are trying to throw the case. The state called one witnesses that was so bad for their case, the defense added her to their witness list. Another witness had to admit that the cops probably should have been rougher with Saint George. Unless you are there every day, it is hard to get a read on these things, but it looks as if the state is not even trying to give the jury a reason to convict this guy of anything.

The defense has not been stellar either. At this stage they are limited to cross examination, so we will see when it is their turn to put on a show. So far, they seem to be happy to let the state’s witnesses do their best to undermine the state’s case. Given the levels of corruption in modern America, you have to wonder if the defense has not been told to throw the case. In a banana republic like America, in the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls. The fix is always in.

Again, it is hard to judge these things from a distance. The O. J. Simpson trial is the obvious parallel. A blind man could see that Simpson was guilty, but the defense was allowed to turn the trial into a racial circus. For the jury, it stopped being about facts and law and became a weird sort of beauty pageant. They picked a winner based on how it made them feel at the moment. This jury could have made up its mind in advance and they not paying any attention to any of this.

The thing that may save Chauvin is the jury does not have many whites on it and has quite a few black women. For starters, this is Minnesota, so the white people there are thoroughly and completed cucked. If this were an all-white jury, they would be arriving to court with shirts reading “we’re so sorry.” The black women know all about guys like Saint George Floyd. If the state cannot make him look like their son, instead of their son’s ne’er-do-well father, the state has a problem.

Like people, societies make their own luck. This is a terrible case to use for a remake of To Kill A Mockingbird. Floyd is not a sympathetic character. The world is better place without him. On the other hand, Chauvin is not a good guy either. The cops everywhere are out of control and people are increasingly sick of it. The prosecutors are incompetent, and the defense thus far is not much better. The way to bet here is the jury will turn out to be just as bad as everything else with this case.

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. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

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***@mi*********************.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Opening
  • 02:00: Cauvin Trial
  • 22:00: Math Voodoo
  • 37:00: Vaccine Trust
  • 47:00: The Russians

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

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/KkBMUuNm6sI

Time For A Divorce

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Elections in America have always been contentious things, as the point of them is to get all sides as agitated as possible. If you wanted to find the point at which our elections turned ugly it would be when the concept of turnout became the focus. The surest way to get your guys motivated to vote is to convince them that the alternative is pure evil, the worst thing imaginable. Since one side will always lose, it means something close to half the country is always angry at the result.

The thing is though, it was always a game and most people got it. The candidates would say the vilest things about one another, but then carry on like old pals during a debate, showing the world they did not really mean those things. In fact, this is why the Left has controlled the country. Everyone else has always been sure the Left was not really serious about what they were saying. Despite it all, many people remain convinced that the Left today is just putting on a show.

That may be one of the factors creating the current crisis. The eruption of mass media over the last couple of decades puts the Left in our face all the time. There is no escaping politics today, which means there is no escaping the Left. Watch a sporting event and there will be lefty political preaching. Check the weather for your trip to the beach and you get a lecture on global warming. Go outside and you see people wearing three masks in their car, letting you know they are in that cult.

Of course, social media is like standing in front of a firehose. Even if you only want to follow something banal like entertainment news, you will be drenched in political commentary, almost entirely from the Left. The carnies all fashion themselves as philosophers now. The athletes have made politics a feature of their act. These are the dumbest, crudest people in our society, but they are sure you need to know what they have to say about current events.

There is another part to this. Along with not being able to escape the left-wing crazies, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no living with them. Politics, regardless of the system, is about compromise. The opposing sides find some middle ground that they can accept or some combination of their proposals that prevent either side from feeling cheated by the other. In a democracy, compromise is based on the understanding that both sides want what is best.

How do you reach a compromise with someone who thinks invisible men from a faraway land used mind control to change an election? On top of that, they were perfectly willing to destroy the country over it. If one side is sure the other side is evil, there can never be a compromise. The best you can get is a truce in the hostilities, but eventually one side will attack again. After all, any compromise with evil is immoral on its face, so the only more thing to do is confront it.

Take a look at this tweet from a man who is the former Director of CIA & NSA. He is convinced that we need to round up citizens and put them in concentration camps because they said things he does not like. The regime has already imprisoned dozens of people on trumped up charges. America is now a country with political prisoners being tortured while in prison. This ghoul wants to institutionalize the persecution and torture of Americans who disagree with official policy.

How can you compromise with a person who literally wants you dead? Even if you dismiss him as a fanatic, look at the responses. The people replying to him are both demented and delusional. It is not unreasonable to say that many of them are suffering from a form of mental illness. If you think the capitol protests were an insurrection or comparable to a terrorist attack, you need to be institutionalized. There is no reasoning or compromising with someone in this condition.

The thing is, of course, is the majority of the ruling class truly believes they are confronting an invisible army of white supremacists. If you polled the media, you can be sure that the overwhelming majority think the protestors are getting off easy. At the same time, they think the two blacks who killed the Uber driver in DC were given rough justice, because racism. We live with people who think it is fine for blacks to murder people, but you cannot question the results of the last election.

The old civic nationalist response to this is “well we just have to make sure to vote for the Republicans in the next election.” Even if conservatives were something other than apologists for their masters on the Left, it does not change the fact that close to half the country wants to murder you. They are not going to lose an election and then think, “Geez, maybe I don’t need to murder that guy with the Trump flag.” Instead, they are going get even more deranged and murderous.

Again, politics has always been contentious, and the Left has always thought they were on a holy mission against the forces of evil. The pretty lie that made it possible to live together was that we all wanted what was best for the country. Like a couple realizing they no longer love one another, we have reached the point where we know we can no longer live with that 20% called the Left. The only possible compromise is with ourselves, which is just another way of describing surrender.

If there is to be a solution to the current crisis it will come when enough white people give up on this relationship with the Left. The people living in whites-only neighborhoods chanting about antiracism are beyond reason. The people demanding the state torture citizens who question official policy can never be trusted. The only peaceful solution is peaceful separation. The only compromise is how best to divvy up the property and even that is only to expedite the divorce. It is time to move on.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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***@mi*********************.com.

Who Is Behind This?

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Most Americans have always understood that their politicians are not really in charge of the government or even their own offices. The secret hand of “special interests” guide the daily functioning of the state. In the old days this meant rich guys from the world of business, local interest in the home state of the representative and powerful people with connections inside government. These days it is those things plus government unions and foreign powers like Israel and China.

Despite the role of special interests, people still participated in the democratic process on the assumption that everything has a limit. Those special interests manipulating the system would have to yield to popular will eventually. After all, those politicians have interests too. If they keep finking on their voters, they will find themselves on the losing end of the next election. Even the most craven politician would eventually have to draw the line with the money men telling him how to vote.

A regular plot in movies and television is the politician who has a crisis of conscience over some issue and he turns on the money men in support of the people. Alternatively, and now quite amusingly, a heroic member of the press exposes the shady backroom deals to the public. The public, having been informed of the shady dealings, turns on the participants. Sometimes it is a combination of these plots, but in the end the public will triumphs over the shady backroom dealers.

When you stop and think about it, the way in which politics and the media are presented in movies and television is a masterful bit of propaganda. On the one hand, it fully acknowledges the corruption of all democratic politics. The people in the system are always bad people. On the other hand, the bad guys always lose to the good guys, the voters, so it is proof that the system works. In other words, political corruption is turned into proof that the system works. That is some real 4-D chess.

If you want to take the 4-D chess idea further, you can add in the occasional arrest of a shady politician for political corruption. These scandals are always turned into morality tales by the authorities and the media. The FBI starts dishing dirt about the target to stenographers in the media. Then they coordinate with the media for the big day when the scoundrel is hauled away in chains. Often, the story is then forgotten, as it has served its purpose in reinforcing the narrative of democracy.

Of late, something seems to be broken with the system. It started with the governor of South Dakota, who vetoed a bill banning men from playing girls sports. Krisiti Noem, despite spelling her name like a stripper and looking like the antihero of a country music video, was being prepped for a national role. Then all of a sudden, for no clear reason, she decided to support men playing girls’ sports. She was forced to go on Tucker Carlson to humiliate herself in service to the “trans” agenda.

Just this week, this same bizarre pattern repeated itself. Asa Hutchinson, the neocon governor of Arkansas, vetoed a bill that would have banned the mutilation of children, whose hysterical mothers believed were another sex. Even if you think men should be allowed to mutilate themselves with sex change operations, subjecting children to things like chemical castration is monstrous. Yet, Hutchinson vetoed the bill and then went on Tucker to humiliate himself in service to the “trans” agenda.

It is not unreasonable to ask what in the hell is going on here? Normally this is the sort of issue that politicians love. They get to pretend to heroically oppose something without risking any political capital. After all, only deviants and sadists support the mutilation of children, so opposing it is risk-free. It is not as if there is a lot of votes in the transvestite community or some philosophical point here, like with drug legalization. Transvestites are few and most are poor due to their mental illness.

In the case of Noem, she was responding to demands from the NCAA, who threatened to pull their events from the state. One of Noem’s donors owns facilities that would profit from these events. That just leads to a further question. Why does the NCAA, which promotes the hell out of women’s sports, want to support the destruction of women’s sports by transvestites? What is their interest here? In a way, they are being put in the same humiliating position as the politicians.

The answer seems to be corporate America. In the interview with Asa Hutchinson, Tucker asked him repeatedly if the mega-corps in his state like Walmart had pressured him to support the mutilation of children. Hutchinson got very uncomfortable, as if he suspected Tucker knew the answer before he asked. The governor denied he talked to any of those companies, but the viewer was left with the impression that he was being forced to do what he was doing by those companies.

The trouble with blaming corporate America is they have less of a reason to support these monstrous policies than the politicians. The political class is largely insulated from the voters these days. Over 95% of incumbents win reelection. The number of contested seats in the House, for example, is 25-50, depending upon the election and who is in the White House. In other words, the pols can afford to embrace boutique ideas, like allowing men in drag to play girl’s field hockey.

Corporations, in theory at least, are not insulated from the public. A boycott of Walmart is not going to bankrupt them, but it can impact the business. Even if they are not worried about that, what is the point of embracing this madness? It is not going to increase business. Surely, they have to know it. The fact is though, it appears that the engine of revolutionary social change, like the ritual mutilation of children, is being driven by global corporations.

The motivations at work here are important, but the issue at the moment is that this naked display of power is breaking the old myth of democracy. Suddenly, those “special interests” are not a force to be checked by popular will. They are not operating in the shadows, fearing exposure. They are right out in front. Using these cases to tell the people their opinions do not matter. It does not matter what they think. The people in charge are the mega-corps and they will do as they please.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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***@mi*********************.com.

Truth Versus Justice

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Note: If you missed the livestream of me and Frodi discussing the great Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, then you can catch the replay here. It was a very good show, even if you are not a movie buff. It was mostly about ideas that our side should discuss more often. The more views it gets the more credits he accumulates, so check in for a few minutes, even if you are not a big into movies.

In his essay Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Ever since it has been a useful dismissal of the pedant, but it is also a useful way of understanding American politics. One side in the political fight spends all of its time fussing about inconsistencies of the other side, while the winning side is happy to dismiss their own hypocrisies. As Emerson understood, it is the latter who always has the edge over the former.

It is the Right, of course, that spends all of its time fussing about inconsistencies on the Left, while the Left just wins every fight. The American Left, unlike the European Left, grew out of that peculiar form of American Christianity that has informed its worldview since the 19th century. Filled with self-righteous fury over the inequity of the world, the righteous are free to do as they please to right the wrongs of the world. Even their own past statements are no impediment to them.

Of course, in 18th century America, radicalism was still bound by Scripture, if not literally then morally. Those new Prometheans springing up to oppose things like slavery were relying on a moral framework they inherited from the past. Today, free of that moral framework and free of factual reality, those old urges have curdled into petulant and nasty partisanship. The American Left is now just a hysterical tirade against anything or anyone that represents order.

You see this in the reaction of the court taking up a case regarding the power of the tech monopolies to control public discourse. This Slate writer flew into a purple faced rage on Twitter about the alleged inconsistencies of Clarence Thomas in comparing these sites to common carriers. He then followed that up with an amusingly unhinged essay in Slate titled, “Clarence Thomas’ Attack on Social Media Companies Is a Paranoid Marxist Delusion.” That is a man detached from reality.

Not to be outdone, this guy, looking for attention, posted his condemnation of right-wing hypocrisy on Twitter. His claim is that only through giving a handful of corporations absolute control of the public square can we have genuinely free expression. It is an interesting mix of fascism and Orwellian language. It shows how the Left’s response to any effort to rein in these companies, will be whatever they think will work, even if it means condemning their own words from yesterday.

The facts here are important only in that they help us understand the mentality of the people who are closing off the public square. The explicit intent of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 was to curtail censorship. The tech companies argued that they did not want to moderate their forums and that it was practically impossible for them to do so. In order to encourage free expression, Congress carved out a special exception for them in the law.

Now, if you point this out to the Left, they will laugh in your face. After all, they are defending our democracy. They are not going to be bound by the words and intents of people long since gone from the scene. There is that old Emersonian inclination at the core of the American Left. Tradition and custom can never be a restraint on man in his pursuit of justice. For the Left, the law is always whatever it needs to be at the moment, as theirs is an ends justifies the means world view.

On the other hand, the Left is endlessly fussy about the tiniest of inconsistencies in their opponent’s positions. If none exist, they will make some up. You see that in the claim that there is some contradiction between allowing a baker to express his religious convictions, while preventing a trillion dollar company from crushing dissent. There is no contradiction here, but that is not important. The righteous man is free of mere facts, so he is at liberty to find inconsistency where he must.

The Right, of course, responds to this with long recitations of fact, which have no impact whatsoever on the debate. Politics in a democracy are always about morality, which is why the Left is endlessly yapping about it. They see themselves as the fullest expression of democratic morality. Each of them is a finger on the reified hand of the public will, so the more democratic the society the closer it is to achieving that ideal of the public will. They are the instruments of that public will.

You can no more reason with someone who thinks they are the sword of a secular god than you can reason with someone who thinks they are a god. On the other hand, the people will naturally side with those who they see are morally correct. When Ocasio-Cortez famously said being “morally right” is more important than being “factually right”, she was expressing the very essence of liberal democracy. People will go along with the most insane things if they feel their gods demand it.

The other part of the Emerson quote is “With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.” That right there is American politics in a nutshell. One side sits staring at the wall, certain they are right, while the other side speaks hard words in pursuit of justice.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. 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.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

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***@mi*********************.com.