Monthly Archives: July 2021

A Holiday Ramble

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It is Fourth of July here in the empire and our rulers will be out congratulating themselves on their wonderfulness. The late Washington columnist Robert Novak used to say that he “loved his country but hated his government.” That was my sentiment for a long time as well. The orchestrated celebrations with politicians and other state actors always made me wince, but I could still feel the stir when hearing myths about the founding or stories about certain patriots from our history.

That last part has faded for the most part. If we take Ben Shapiro at his word, patriotism just means a love of ideas. If that is true, then there is no reason to have an emotional bond to the state or the history that created the state. The celebrations and flag waving around holidays like Independence Day are wildly out of line with his conception of patriotism. Instead, your emotional bond should be to your people, not the conditions in which they temporarily find themselves.

It is ironic how many on the Right now hold the same view of patriotism that the Left used to hold a generation ago. Just a few decades ago it was the Left that said patriotism was a con to keep people from noticing what was happening. In the Bush years, they said dissent was the highest form of patriotism. Today, they put dissenters in prison on trumped up charges. They orchestrate elaborate plots to frame people for schemes that were cooked up by state actors.

I talked about that Revolver story in the show. It reminds me of the old gag about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. “People would stop believing these conspiracy theories about Clinton if they stopped being true.” It is increasingly looking like the so-called insurrection was another hoax. Protestors did clash with cops, and they did barge into the capitol, but it was at the direction of state actors. That does not absolve them of what they did, if any of it was criminal, but it stinks, nonetheless.

It is not just the issue of patriotism. Look at how attitudes have shifted on the issue of corporate power. A generation ago the Left was the alleged enemy of big business, while the Right offered a limited defense. Bill Buckley famously said that “the problem with socialism is socialism, but the problem with capitalism is capitalists.” The roles are reversed now. The Left, which has now absorbed the Buckley Right entirely, loves big business and they use it as a weapon against the Right.

We have traveled far since the heyday of Conservative Inc. There you have a sitting senator asking corporate America to crush the democratic process. No one thinks it is odd that a Democrat is the one doing it. The entirety of corporate America is now far Left by the reckoning of the day. The same is true of sports leagues, which are happy to punish locals for getting too uppity with their masters. This Independence Day, I feel like Jeremiah Johnson in the final scene of the movie.

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.

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This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Me Talking A Lot
  • 57:00: Me Closing The Show

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

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/7rqMIRegdR0

The Kakistocracy Is Real

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An easily ignored aspect of the Tucker Carlson spying story is just how ham-fisted this caper was executed, regardless of the reason. Carlson is a relentless critic of the regime, but his audience is relative tiny. His average total audience is roughly 3 million people per night. Even if every night is a new crowd, that is an audience of 15 million in a country of 330 million people. He may be the biggest name in cable news, but the reality is, cable news is a low impact medium.

This was always the lesson of the Trump phenomenon. The entirety of the mass media, including the so-called conservatives, aligned against Trump but he was able to win the nomination and the general election. These are people who were sure they were the king makers in national politics. This TV carny comes along and walks right through their lines as if they were not there. Then he turned them into objects of ridicule and mockery by calling them childish names.

If the intelligence agencies were what they imagine themselves to be, they would see that Tucker is never going to be much of a problem. They could just ignore him, like most everyone does, or they could use him. Carlson is one of the few serious people on television, but he is still on TV. He wants ratings, so a shrewd intel operative could feed him some juicy tidbits that serve the interests of the regime. Instead, they are in a petty spat and making him the sympathetic victim.

These sorts of thumbless capers raise an important issue. Our managerial elite is rapidly getting dumber. This is plainly obvious in the military side. Sure, rural peasants armed with Russian surplus were able to defeat the US army in the 1960’s, but that theater negated the primary American advantage at the time. Armor and advanced transport are useless in a jungle. Air dominance is not terribly effective against guerilla tactics in urban and jungle conditions.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the US military could exploit every technological advantage against a poorly equipped and trained opponent. In Afghanistan, the US faced off against a Bronze Age opponent. After two decades the white flag has gone up and the Taliban will take over this autumn. In Iraq, a ragtag force of insurgents led by a cleric came close to defeating the US army. The final peace looked more like a concession by the US, as Iraq is now an Iranian client.

The gross incompetency of the military is not unique. The entire managerial class is suffering from a rapid decline in intelligence. The truth is the system evolved for an adult population of the last century. It reflected the demographics of the population as a whole, but also the demographics of the ruling class. Over the last couple of generations, the people taking up positions in the system are significantly dumber, reflecting the changing demographics of the country.

This IQ decline will only become more acute in the next decade. The great Baby Boomer retirement will hit the civil service harder than the dreaded private sector, because the civil service is much older. The average age of the private workforce is roughly 35, depending upon who is doing the measuring. Similarly, the average age of the government workforce is 50. The leadership class is even older. In other words, the people running the system are geezers, not long for the world.

This is most stark in politics. Joe Biden is so old he has been in office longer than most people have been alive. The leadership of both parties is close behind. Pelosi, Schumer, McCarthy, Hoyer and McConnel reflect the sensibilities and the mating decisions of the disappearing past. Their replacements, Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Tim Scott, and so on, reflect the rapidly approaching future. Repeat this throughout the civil service and you can see the problem. The kakistocracy is real.

This decline in IQ is evident in the current upheaval. The great Progressive awakening of the 1950’s and 1960’s was driven by idealism. They really thought they were going to create a better world. It was also driven by the big change in the ruling class. Jews had taken up positions in the post-war ruling elite. They were making their mark by leading many of the cultural revolutions, like civil rights. Self-interest played a role, but social justice has always been a part of the Jewish cultural outlook.

Today, the revolts we see look like a cargo cult. They are reenactors playing parts they heard about in school. They think if they can replay the events of the past, the past will come alive and the great do-over begins. They are led by a carnival of simpletons and lunatics who mostly like smashing things and making noise. Antifa and BLM are the short bus passengers in the story of street activism. None of what we are seeing makes any sense or has any point. It is just mayhem for the sake of it.

The institutions of a society are the tools of the people running the society, designed for their use over the course of time. The institutions of America were made for people a full standard deviation smarter than today’s rulers. Those tools were also created with certain cultural assumptions missing from the current class. The next generation of rulers are the opening scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey compared to the men who created the tools used to run the empire.

It will not end well.

The crackdown by the oligarchs on dissidents has had the happy result of a proliferation of new ways to support your favorite creator. If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

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