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For generations in the West, it has been asserted that democracies do not go to war with one another. The claim is based on the extremely limited experience with democratic processes in the 20th century. The nations with democratic elements, as defined by the victors, did not go to war with one another. Britain (democratic) did not go to war with France(democratic) despite being a long time rival. Instead, Britain joined France against the anti-democratic states of the Axis powers.
This claim was a gratuitous assertion for the purpose of selling democracy as the cure for national conflict. In the same way that globalism is pitched as solution to war, democracy is pitched as the antidote to human conflict. It is at the heart of the claim the spread of liberal democracy in the post-Cold War world must inevitably remove war from the policy choices of nations. If liberal democracies do not go to war with one another, then a world of liberal democracies is free of war.
When you think about these claims from the post-Cold War period of American triumphalism, they are just repackaged claims from the past. Thomas Freidman’s argument in The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a post-modern retelling of the arguments in The Great Illusion. Fukuyama’s argument in The End of History is another iteration of the claims that have been made since Adam Smith. Human conflict can be tamed with rules and commerce.
It is an curious belief at the heart of liberal democracy when you stop and consider the mechanics of it. Trade between countries is just shorthand for the trade between individuals in one country with those in another country. Disputes between individuals in commerce are the norm. It is a game of each side trying to take advantage of the other and no one likes being beat this way. Scaled up and it means disputes between countries trading with one another are inevitable.
This is where the myopia and insularity of the managerial class, a creation of the haute bourgeoise, comes into play. This layer of middle managers and middle men are convinced they solve any dispute with the right credentials and a large enough committee budget. The managerial system is a self-licking ice cream cone, a self-referential process that prevents the participants from looking too closely at the mechanics of liberal democracy.
Democracy, of course, is a magical form of mob rule in which all of us are smarter than any of us. It just assumes that if the dumbest people are allowed to have input on the decisions, then somehow those decisions improve. In every other aspect of life, the goal is to keep the stupid people out of the decision tree, but with democracy the goal is to not only recruit them, but to elevate them. If prudence says to avoid war, then allowing the imprudent to rule means war is more likely.
The war-like nature of democracy is easy to see. Athens was the first great democracy and it was incapable of being a good neighbor. The greatness of Athens was the product of the wars with Persia. The golden age of Athens was between 480 – 404 BC and the Greco-Persian wars were from 499 BC to 449 BC. The Peloponnesian War lasted from 431 BC to 404 BC. In other words, the primary feature of democratic Athens was not cultural production by endless war.
America is arguably the first liberal democratic state. Like Athens, it was founded in war and like Athens has been at war throughout its life. A few years after the founding there was the War of 1812, then the Civil War. That ushered in an unusual few decades of peace, but then it was back to war with Spain, then most of Europe. The bodies were not even cold from the Second World War and the great liberal democracies were declaring war on Soviet Russia.
It is the post-Cold War period where you see the violence of democracy. The end of the long struggle with communism should have resulted in a great transitioning from the war economy to a peace economy. Instead, what followed was a generation of war against the Muslims. Now we have a new cold war, possibly even a hot war, with Russia over things no one bothers to explain. The reason for that is no one cares. Liberal democracy needs war. That is the reason for the war.
Once again, we see that the economic claims contained in the arguments about liberal democracy and peace do not hold up. Russia is an important part of the global supply chain for things like energy, food and raw materials. The liberal democracies are willing to starve their people to make war on the Russians. The same dynamic is shaping up with China, which is the manufacturer of many Western goods. Liberal democracy is unconstrained by economic concerns when it comes to war.
It is tempting to pin the violence of liberal democracy on the people at the top of the Global American Empire. There is some truth to it, but we have other examples of how the democratic ethos leads to violence. The French Revolution was the first flowering of the democratic ideal. It quickly descended into a bloodbath then Napoleon, a man determined in to conquer the world, in the name of the people of France. The birth of democracy in Europe was a very bloody one.
Communism is usually placed outside of democracy, but this is a gratuitous assertion by proponents of liberal democracy. Communism is probably the most democratic philosophy, as it is the most egalitarian. Once you assume universal equality, you inevitably assume universal participation in society. Of course, universal equality solves the moral questions, so there is not only no need for politics, but there is no need for the limits of politics. One hundred million people died to prove it.
The point of all this is that real world testing of the theories of democracy and liberal democracy make clear that it is a horribly violent pathology. Just as the real communism has never been tried, the real democracy has never existed, because the claims of democracy and now liberal democracy are incompatible with humanity. Rather than unleashing human potential, liberal democracy makes war on human nature and what follows is endless conflict to distract from this reality.
Perhaps the world war that is brewing between the West and the world is the final act in a play that started with the Enlightenment. In one final convulsion the monstrous ideas that were born in the “age of reason” will finally be defeated. Liberal democracy will be shown to be no better of an implementation of these ideas than communism or fascism was in the last century. One last effort to immanentize the eschaton will violently remove this lunacy from the mind of Western man.
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I bet if you ran a poll asking whether people would support Russia nuking DC on the following premise: all elected officials and all Federal employees must stand outdoors and inside the blast radius…that the poll would break 40%.
The wheels are coming off the country.
Democracy seems violent because it allows the real rulers to remain effectively anonymous as we pillage the planet for them.
You are correct in stating that pure democracy doesn’t exist. It is the worst form of government. The best government is some system that allows the best and brightest, who are also devoted to the welfare of the people they govern, to make decisions. Democracy depends on stupid people determining who is the brightest. Opinions of the peasant class are easily controlled. How absurd is it that we have accepted the paradigm of most $$ wins elections. The most votes win elections. However as Robert Heinlein opined 1000 people can’t make a better decision than one smart person.
The US was never intended to be a democracy. The founders never mentioned democracy other than to denounce the notion. They certainly never intended a popular vote. The “liberal” founders created a republic where government only exists to implement laws designed to limit government power and insure equal opportunity for citizens to “pursue happiness”, the only self-evident desire of every man. Global financial elites love democracy because they have unlimited fake $$ to make themselves invisible rulers. King’s authority to rule came from belief in their divine right. Bankers authority comes from financially owning the government theater and players. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
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The final paragraph is the strongest statement I’ve seen yet on this site.
In the 90s I predicted a future war between the ‘brutes’ and the ‘sensitives’ as the differences between the two sides became increasingly apparent. They are now viciously incompatible and I still think this will be at the root of a big conflict to come, probably towards the end of this century, as the insecurity of liberal democracies becomes unendurable.
I can tell them in advance it’s all madness. Neither side can win. It takes sensitivity AND brutishness to make a society, and those opposites must be allowed to oppose. The problem is that this natural opposition is currently being quashed, thereby throwing society completely out of shape. Of course that will lead to chaos.
Excellent observation. The decline of dad, or the influence of men in general, has led to our present state of utter sappiness. No political decision is taken with a regard for the consequences. If foreigners, even Muslims with hatred and disdain for infidels, present themselves on the north banks of the Rio Grande there is one – and only one – acceptable response: slobbering adoration and embrace. Is someone a rump ranger? How utterly precious and divine. Do you want a life as a mincing runway model? Why not, darling boy? Do you want to join an AntiFa gang? Who are we to even think of breaking every bone in your body?
I object to the Left being classified broadly here as the “sensitives.” They are the sociopaths, the hypocrites, the liars, the vicious, the power mad, the utterly perverse.
Truly sensitive people know there is such a thing as objective truth and things higher than finite man. The true brute only knows his mind and emotions and proclaims them as God.
We don’t need the Left, never did. They are parasites and criminals from the top and the bottom; they belong in insane asylums. It may well take the loosing of Armageddon to release their death grip on the world.
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The west or even liberal democracies of the last two centuries are really vestiges of the American Empire.
Before the US became a player on the world stage with the Spanish American war, the only other half way democracies were France and Great Britain. And “the West” excluded countries that are considered core ones now like Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan.
So a more accurate view of liberal democracy and the west is that the US militarily conquered peer competitors and installed governments in those countries that aped its own. And that smaller states in its orbit did similar to curry favor and avoid direct confrontation. That pattern has repeated throughout recorded history for thousands of years.
It’s a mistake to infer some general principle about the peacefulness of democracies in general from that pattern.
WRT the assertion that “democracies” don’t go to war against each other.
In what way was the British Empire in 1914 a democracy that does not equally apply to Germany?
If you can get the Merch to read “Lagos Trading Post” I will buy one of each.
Amerika is ruled by smallhat termite bankers, that’s not democracy. It’s a fucking slave plantation. Regular people never wanted wars, they’re convinced by puppets and media to become sacrificial meat for satan.
France hasn’t had population growth since its revolution after you account for immigration and population pyramid expansion due to increasing life expectancy due to modern medicine. America is a rhyme of France, in that it is similarly a demographic sick man but was propped up by generations of immigrants who were actually of good character before the welfare state dumbed down everything and attracted the parasites.
The key revolution in the 21st century is a stabilized world population and the end of mass immigration. America is going to start looking more like post-revolutionary France, a sexually libertine and diseased prostitute of all nations. This kind of character ages worst of all.
Another interesting essay. I am enjoying these reads. The Founders made very clear that they disliked democracy and were not establishing a democracy. Democracy is at odds with liberty which was their primary goal. The purpose of the government was to provide representation. My interpretation of the founding’s intent was that a nation of self governing individuals needed few laws and that the judiciary, (not the Supreme Court), was primary so citizens could resolve property disputes and contract disputes more or less fairly by jury of peer based adjudication.
Anybody who is prattling on about democracy or our democracy, which ZMan has rightly pointed out means, our right to rule despite how you vote, is not American. In any case, I think the conclusion here is correct which is that democracy will be thoroughly discredited whenever this thing implodes. As always when an empire dies, whoever controls the military will be who rules next. I pray every day that the deploreables and flyovers and sunshine belt boys who make up the bulk of the force and the bulk of its most lethal elements are still in sufficient numbers, and more important of ample quality, to prevent the neocons from commanding them. The globalist’s plans are very clear. They also look so full of holes and so fully untenable it is merely a matter of how much more damage they will do before they lose power.
The question we need to spend our time figuring out is what is the right form of government? I believe it is America as it was intended at its founding. But, I don’t think we have the cultural underpinnings to support that. So does it become Hans Herman-Hoppe’s neo-monarchical vision? I suppose more than thinking what comes next is just strengthening ourselves as best we can. Be physically strong, capable and fit. Be mentally sharp. Be erudite. Be in the physical world. Be financially stable and secure if not wealthy. Be organized, (meaning not a bunch of atomized blog posters and thread commenters), and connected and supportive. I suspect priority one is staying out of harms way and then ensuring that we and/or our progeny are the ones who take the seats at the table and elbow out the rats and their failed musical theater and “social studies” major front women to build the next nation that will fail from entropy after 2 or 3 generations have a good run.
Quite the spoonful of depressing reality, why I come here.Thank goodness Elon has cracked the Twitter code, and Fuentes is flying first class again or I wouldn’t have be able to get out of bed this morning …
…
All right, who’s gonna tell him?
That’s just it, Zman. All these “final solution” doctrines promise the same result: an end to war, then by extension suffering and injustice. All by social engineering of some sort, whether conservative or radical.
I go with the explanation found in a book, “Corporation Man”:
Women face death and die naturally in childbirth. Sperm producers do not, so they find excuses to thin their numbers by fitness contests.
Some 18 year-old, his sac fit to burst, gets his hair lit on fire by whatever, and off the young men go.
(Especial tip o’ the hat to c matt for “final solutions” concept and to 3g4me for her witnessing on East Germany and “women in charge along with the doctrines of equality and fairness”)
We have a performative- or pseudo- democracy on almost every issue that matters to the average working stiff. Nobody voted to offshore manufacturing. Nobody voted for open borders. Nobody voted to go into debt to subsidize endless wars against countries few could identify on a map. Yet here we are. Who exerts more influence: corporations or voters? Who always wins?
Who voted for heauxmeaux “marriage” and trannies in the ladies’ loo?
Corporations and the wealthy.
There was actually a decent paper out of Princeton, IIRC, that tracked political influence vs results in the US.
They convincingly demonstrated the people have almost zero influence.
I would say the biggest danger of late Stage Democracy is the Last Man apathy of the ordinary person no longer acting as a check against the technocracy of the Faucis, the Kagans, and the Larry Finks of Blackrock pushing for war because they feel its risk free.
The technocracy pushed on an open door in democracy to take power. They took power because no one cared enough to stop them. You can see this with the abortion protests. Elizabeth Warren went on the warpath and all she could draw as about 20 people. Even with cameras on. There was a communist riot in LA over the issue and it was 150 people max in a metro area of about 10 million people. Every single communist was there and that was it.
We slouch towards global war and perhaps global nuclear war out of apathy and a willingness to just delegate everything to “experts” who are basically just useless technocrats who amassed a bureaucratic empire. This includes Larry Fink of Blackrock who while controlling vast amounts of wealth and power, can not pass it on to his heirs. There will be no Second Duke of Blackrock.
Democracy has gone from Yellow Journalism whipping up war against Spain “Remember the Maine” to … not caring about possible nuclear war with Russia. As mass culture gets fragmented into various identity groups with the black one dominating (just look at broadcast or streaming TV).
The feel it’s profitable. And why wouldn’t they? What mechanism does democracy offer to vote against the few “Asset Management” entities who benefitted most from the money printing. Live paycheck-to-paycheck? Sorry you’re out. Disabled or on a fixed income eaten up by double-digit inflation? You’re out too.
“This layer of middle managers and middle men are convinced they solve any dispute with the right credentials and a large enough committee budget.”
This line reminds me of a passage in the autobiography of Dick Marcinko – the founder of Seal Team VI – as he described a meeting with some “Intel weenies” as he describes them, as he was in the early stages of planning a mission. Said weenies had no boots on the ground and no eyes on the target and no one on the inside who could offer any insight as to what his team might be facing once they were in country.
The weenies had some satellite photos, which gave them basic outlines of buildings in the area, as well as what types of vehicles were lying around, but that was it. What did they have that they claimed was foolproof? Computer models! One of them explained to Marcinko, ” Based on the information we have and after plugging it into our programs, this is what was happening then, so this MUST be what is happening now.”
Marcinko went on to explain to them that in real life it doesn’t work like that, in fact it NEVER works like that. They began to panic once he began asking real world questions like, That main building, will the roof bear the weight of an assault force? Can I land a helo on that roof, or will I have to have the team fast-rope from the helo to the roof? If it’s the latter, how many shooters will the roof hold/support? What’s in those other buildings? Do they have any armor? Rough guesstimate, exactly how many hostiles will my team be dealing with, etc.
He went on to say that the more questions he asked, the more the head intel weenie got uncomfortable and finally declared, “Look Commander, the smartest people in the Navy – yours truly included – spent a lot of time and a lot of man hours loading as many scenarios as we could possibly think of into the program we ran the intel through and I assure you that your concerns have all been accounted for.”
Marcinko did not go on to say what the end result of this exchange was. He did however, highlight the fact that things in the intel field had reverted to this because of the fact that people in that field no longer wanted to go do things the old fashioned way (following people around, sneaking into places and taking pictures, etc.) because that’s what “knuckle-draggers” do. No, the new crop of intel people were too smart for that and that the previous practice was a quaint holdover from the cold war era. The other big thing was that they might get caught and getting caught was a career-ender and anything that might endanger ones career was to be avoided at all costs.
he did go on to add that the intel weenies – including the ring leader – looked like accountants in uniform. Nothing physically inspiring, or intimidating abut them.
” The liberal democracies are willing to starve their people to make war on the Russians”
Correction: The [Jewish Neocons and their shabbos goyim] are willing to starve [the White] people to make war on the Russians.
I’m kind of politically bipolar and maybe actually bipolar. This alito guy seems like an evil Catholic monarch type and I wish the worst for him. But maybe having this war with Europe is kind of a punishment. Like if you keep putting theocrats on the court then maybe a worldwide depression is what we deserve.
If we still had enlightened guys like Blackman or Brennan, then I would oppose this war. Because if it’s your country, then you might as well make something of it.
The Catholics had to step in because the Protestants went crazy and started justifying abortion. They lost their way. For better or worse, the Catholics had to step up and TRY to impose some basic morality.
And as people here know, I truly believe that the abortion issue is the root cause of the mass lunacy we see all around. It has untethered people from the very basics of nature, a mind and spirit joined together to destroy life and living, in beings whose main function is to reproduce, and the internal conflicts and discord have resulted in lunacy. And it is not just a casual posture but an energetic and determined one. The ghost in the machine has a ghost at compete odds with the machine. How can it not lock up and go haywire?
I think it goes beyond religion. We are dealing with something much deeper. Religion is just an expression of it, and if takes a Catholic to bring light to shine on it, then so be it. Someone has to.
The issue of abortion, aside from the moral abhorrence, brings to light the different mindsets of those who support and those who oppose. The mindset of the supporters is that the individual man is the measure of all things. There is no reality outside of his perception of it, and what he makes of it (that whole “sweet mystery of life” drivel from the moronic Kennedy). Those who oppose abortion recognize that there is an objective reality outside of man, and he is part of reality, not its measure or creator.
With apologies to Dostoyevsky, under the first mindset, anything is permissible. Which is why the supporters rightly fear that undoing abortion will lead to undoing gay rights, gay marriage, tranny rights, and a host of other things at war with reality. Funny how they argued this slippery slope didn’t exist, and now they fear it.
Yeah but don’t you think that with abortion we are in an entirely different territory?
Everything about us, all the wiring, all the internal connections, the equipment, it is all there to make another person. Everything else is secondary and perhaps merely a byproduct of that. I know evolutionists even argue that the inescapable feelings of love and romance that everyone experiences are like some kind of natural narcotic needed to get people to procreate, on the idea they couldn’t be bothered otherwise. I am not necessarily an evolutionist, but I have noticed that the intensity of an orgasm is strongest when you are having sex knowingly, consciously aware of doing it to make a baby.
All of this being the basics facts of life, and for whatever reasons, means that if you go in there and start monkeying around you are going to break it. And the minds of these people, even their spirit and soul, is broken. Hence they have gone berserk.
And look at all the drugs people take. I find it hard to believe that there isn’t, deep down, some incredible pain and disillusion for what we have done and this helps dull the pain. I know many women who have serious regrets and emotional and mental problems from having aborted their kids. They at least have found a release in admitting to it and facing up to their crimes. But these other people, they embrace it with passion and gusto, and I think it has made them insane. And we are all paying the price for their crimes, their sins.
Agree, and this gets us back to the idea liberal democracy is at war with reality. I want to have all the shagging but none of the responsibility; in this I am just like everyone else, ever.
A good society places high costs on indulging this desire. A liberal democracy points out that, if you simply murder the child, you can have it like you wanted it. So, our society is at war with reality.
Child sacrifice is nothing new. Even though it’s conducted discreetly in clinics and justified by feminist dogma, it’s still an abomination. Only thing that’s changed is the framing.
And maybe it’s worse that the ceremony’s been taken out of it. At least in the past, people could feel good that they pleased Moloch, or whoever. You see these Jezebels puffing their egos with this abortion business— what an incredible burden to shoulder (with all due sympathy and understanding to those who were merely deceived and not wicked).
Civilization is a necessary artifice. But it’s supposed to be an artifice to serve the people. But the artifice has reached the point where people serve the artifice and thus they have gone mad.
Just a mild example: men and women go mad when they don’t have children early. Everything in their body and minds direct them to reproduce in their teens. And then it doesn’t happen during this passionate time and they mentally crack to some degree. Whether they know it or not, this HARMS them.
Civilization did this. It made kids be in school and jump through fake hoops for their greatest years instead of doing what nature and God Himself demands.
Back in my blue-pill days, I always assumed that people supported abortion reluctantly and regretfully because of reasons such as rape or severe birth abnormalities. You know, reasonable and understandable stuff.
But it was never based on reason or a reluctant and regretful action. It was a “sacred” act of murder for gaia and the self. It was hatred against men and God.
The abortion-fanatics are SATANISTS. These bug-eyed whores brag about how they sleep around and make their womb a killing field.
A true society would never countenance, never PRODUCE these kinds of people.
” … (that whole “sweet mystery of life” drivel from the moronic Kennedy).”
He was quoting the words of a song that was enormously popular in the 1930s and 40s. From “Naughty Marietta.” By Victor Herbert.
Popularized by Jeanette MacDonald.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xpKeabZlEs
“The Catholics had to step in because the Protestants went crazy and started justifying abortion.”
Absolutely correct. I wonder the odds Protestants snap out of it, and whether we’ll be rudely reminded why England shipped Puritans to the New World. Disgusted with my people these says.
Based on the comments sections of “edgy” Dissident Right sites, I’d say thank God for the globalist liberals, since, like Tito in Yugoslavia, they’re the only thing holding this country together. Otherwise, the Trad Caths and Puritans would be tearing each other apart, like N. Ireland or 1666. Or post-Tito Yugoslavia, to keep to the metaphor. Hmm, maybe that’s why most Americans reject the whole weird European religion-based “final solutions” you guys are trying to revive as “the answer”?
Is “Romanism” the solution or the problem? You guys presume to argue about The Way Forward for America but after 500 years you still haven’t figured out if it’s the Catholics or the Puritans that are secretly Jews. Pathetic.
How is wanting to protect the unborn in the womb a form of “Romanism”?
How is trying one’s best to live in accord with the natural laws evident all around us some kind of problem?
I think I get your point, but I think you have clearly jumped the gun in an effort to equate an issue that happens to be topical in nature among Catholics, namely the abortion issue, as something mutually exclusive to everyone else.
So you think the liberal globalist position on abortion is good? Beneficial?
Please explain how.
@ Painterstorms: child sacrifice is nothing new, to be sure, but in the millions ? I can’t imagine any society, in the west at least, that has carried on and has maintained its cultural sanity while engaging in the slaughter of millions of babies.
I do however see some rationale in all of this by the fact that maybe there are simply too many humans today. Quantity over quality. So getting rid of the surplus may be some natural way, some idea allowed to take root in our heads, so that we do the dirty work that otherwise nature may have handled. When we conquer disease, we then create machines like cars and weapons to the dirty work of tilling the human soil, keeping us fresh. Be that as it may, I am thinking more along the lines of human psychology when where everything about us is there to make babies and then we piss in mother Nature’s face by killing babies en masse. If millions of adults dying in wars is seen as a horrible tragedy no one wants who has endured it and seen it, then killing the youngest of us has to be much worse. If people were allowed to see it.
Let’s see those millions of babies with their brains sucked out get piled up all around us and let’s see how we feel then.
Anyway, I have just been around long enough and have known enough women and men who have been through the abortions and the process and they are plagued with guilt. The mass of guilt is sitting on our society like some kind of sick noxious smog and making people crazy.
Globalist liberals are failing. Butt plugs, race riots, booster shots, Ukrainian flags. Of course they’re failing, of course some people are growing intolerant of their shenanigans.
And I hardly know what a Jew is anymore, other than the bogeyman, or some people’s god.
Falcone:
I was a squish on abortion until I decided to look up pictures of aborted fetuses to see what the fuss is about. It changed me.
Maybe drove me nuts, too, in a way. I realize my position is probably extreme to some, but I’m comfortable with it, and I’ll answer for it.
As far population control, if our system compels us to megabutchery, we might consider a new system 🙂
” … why England shipped Puritans to the New World.”
Until the Puritans took over England, committed regicide for the express purpose of “democratizing the Church” and let the Jews back into England after 300 years without them.
History lesson for the young: Prior to Roe the issue was left up to the States to decide. Some states legal; some illegal. It was legal in NY where the majority population was Italian/Irish RC. It was illegal in MA where the majority population was Italian/Irish RC.
I didn’t know that. A lot has changed in 50 years!
Heres an update to my ideology which is that we all ja.ve a founding mythos/religion and we all get our stories from literature and pop culture.
It’s a wholesome movie and corny but the sound of music is a good example. The character played by Chris plummer (who died recently) was sort of a bad scary guy and then the new nanny teaches the kids new things and they eventually convert the dad (interestingly enough I went to the von trapp lodge in Vermont and they said the captain was not like that in real life). Every society has a Boogeyman and it’s either someone like the captain or marmalard and neidermeyer in animal house.
I’d always like to think that at some point there’s a hero who has sort of a conscience and enlightens is. I view Jonathan haidt Michael shellenberger and a few of the university of Austin people as the closest to that now. In the past it was someone like Allan bloom or Richard Feynman. In movies you have sort of the mentor figure who saves the day like in the way way back goodwill hunting or the temple grandin movie with clare Danes.
The story I told myself was that the 50s were kind of a boring time but that our success as a nation then was a necessity to bring about the enlightenment of the 60s and 70s. Then these people like Reagan schlafly meese viguerie weyrich etc came in and wrecked it all but once Obama became president that it was like a return and that we were out of the desert.
After the 2010 elections my new Boogeyman word was gerrymandering and I felt that that was holding us back but then we prevailed in 2018 and the gerrymanders broke down somewhat. But then the supreme court and the Senate became my new Boogeyman.
But my view was that the Dems were there own worst enemy and needed to show respect to people who worked with there hands also well as religious people. That way the Dems would never lose again. But after Ginsburg died I felt like why bother and I started to think that the craziness of summer 2020 COVID and the 2020 election was maybe a necessary thing to start everything over with a new blank slate.
The reason I started reading z was that I felt that the far right is blackpilled too and that there are actual signs that a new blank slate might happen where the old divisions of the past no longer matter. Plus z has a great dark humor. So I hope that explains my worldview be well.
.
Sorry if there are some autocorrect typos on there
You mention Jonathan Haidt, Michael Shellenberger, Allan Bloom, Richard Feynman and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Seems like you are looking for a rabbi. America needs fewer of these types not more. Maybe you should change you screen name to Kosherkurmudgeon
Outside of Ginsburg, is there anything objectionable about those people? Also, I dont think schellenberger is jewish
Weird that is from my old email which is why I still had the trump avatar
” … and we all get our stories from literature and pop culture.”
Rubbish.
Drivel.
Fool.
” … and we all get our stories from literature and pop culture.”
The only pop culture I get my stories from is “Triumph of the Will”
Reagan and Schlafly ruined it all? And Obama the savior? Will you be returning to your home planet soon?
And please damp down your fascination with “the blank slate.” Holy moly.
“Because if it’s your country, then you might as well make something of it.”
And you could contribute to that worthy effort by drowning yourself.
Brennan? The one-man constitutional convention? The god king? Please.
Democracy is a political system in which a well-organized minority rules over an unorganized majority.
It is a system where the people who enjoy life and living are not allowed to because they always have to be activated in some cause that takes them away from the very essence of their own existence
It is a system for fanatics and crazies. Why I am Rootin for Putin. I just want SOMEONE, anyone, to smash this shit pieces.
Democracy is the proposition that a room full of stupid people know what’s best.
A room full of stupid people that have been conditioned to repeat the answer they have already been given.
All political systems are “an organized minority ruling an unorganized majority” because this is human nature: the Iron Rule of Oligarchy (google it)
What makes democracy unique is the denial of this Iron Rule, who has been forever known by the human race. Do you think our ancestors thought they ruled the country? We don’t do it either but we are so deluded and proud to think we do.
This has a series of consequences. One of them is that the people has to be always being brainwashed to support the regime and vote the right way (when they vote the wrong way, they have lots of mechanisms to revert that)
The other consequences is that the real rulers assume no responsibility. In fact, they are usually unknown by the public. When something goes wrong, the people have nobody to blame. They think they have decided that and the solution is vote harder, as if this made any difference.
If a medieval country was invaded by foreigners with the help of the King and his nobles, you can bet on these guys losing the heads pretty quickly in a revolt. Now, we don’t know who is the ruler. We think the rulers are ourselves and the solution is “vote harder!”
Democracy is the perfect tiranny. As Goethe said, the worse slave is the one that thinks he is free.
“All political systems are “an organized minority ruling an unorganized majority” because this is human nature: the Iron Rule of Oligarchy (google it)
“What makes democracy unique is the denial of this Iron Rule, … .”
Okay, both of those statements cannot be true.
“Do you think our ancestors thought they ruled the country?”
What ancestors and what country?
If you mean America when it *was* America, I don’t know about you and yours, but my ancestors *did* rule this country.
And they knew it, too.
The guy who claimed to have written Reagan’s “tear down this wall” speech has written about his experience in Berlin during that time. He described West Berlin with busy sidewalks, modem architecture, bustling establishments. East Berlin was decrepit and dark with guard dogs and barbed wire. The comparison he made was a color television vs. a black/white television. His account was quite moving at the time. It was compelling to imagine the West as the Saviors, with democracy and freedom in their wings. That sentiment carried over into the Bush years and the Middle East. First and foremost, America means freedom and liberty for all.
History provides a clear understanding of the destruction caused by communism. But as we see the devastation in the name of “freedom and democracy!”, it’s harder to recognize that line between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’. Are there any Germans who now wish they could go back and reconstruct that wall?
I was born in the early 70’s and was fortunate to experience life in the 80’s.
The country we are leaving to our children is soulless. It’s not easy to come to terms with that fact.
Melissa: I was fortunate to be able to spend a week in Berlin in the spring of 1981. I saw that stark conflict between color tv and black and white that Reagan’s speechwriter described. It was a pivotal experience for me as someone raised a shitlib and immersed in all the standard media and civnat lies of my 60s and 70s youth. I still have the traffic ticket I was given by the East German vopos (military police) for crossing the street in the wrong place.
I was just aware enough, at the time, to realize that West Berlin had been made into an obvious showplace by choice – but the contrast with the Eastern half of the city was quite stark. Passing through Checkpoint Charlie with the guards and dogs scanning all the buses and vehicles was a very new experience for me. My subsequent year in Moscow was a continuation of that black and white experience. After the consumer culture of the West, the shortages and limitations of life under cold-war communism were in stark relief.
I cannot answer for the East Germans or anyone else, but from the beginning of my political transformation I learned and argued that the East Germans and Russians didn’t hate their people or countries and most didn’t desire political or journalism careers. They didn’t want to abandon their native lands en masse. All they wanted was more choice and ease – the ability to travel (but return home), the ability to purchase what they needed or wanted and to exercise their innate talents without so much unnecessary restriction and demonization.
While reunification may have originally provided greater ‘color’ and consumerism to East German life, I would propose they quickly learned that along with it came just as much bureaucracy and government control, as well as hostile Turkish ‘guest workers’ and their progeny permanently encamped among the German people (courtesy of primarily GAE pressure). Less than two decades later came the mass influx of Mohammedans and emerging tentacles of the globalist plan (Agenda 21, the Great Reset, etc.).
How much of a transition did they really have, after all? Estimates at the time indicated perhaps 12% of the East German population officially collaborated with the Stasi. Those people are still among them – and that same impulse for control. Germany’s Annette Kahan is still large and in official charge.
tl;dr (I seem to do this a lot – too damned verbose) – You can change the ‘system’ to a certain degree, but you cannot change human nature. There will always be people that want to control others. No official system of government will eliminate them; it’s up to the populace to control them – or better yet, mock, shame, shun, and evict them. With women in charge along with the doctrines of equality and fairness, that will not happen. I, too, have difficulty fathoming just how bleak the future will be for my children and grandchildren.
On the other hand, you could by Deutsche Grammophon records for 3 marks in Bad Germany.
Both communism and democracy rob your soul and dignity. I think communism robs them before you even get started and is very unapologetic about it, it just comes and takes as you hand them over to a fat palmed rooskie. Democracy robs them over time while seducing you with noises and flashing lights like at the casino
I guess, in a way, democracy is like an anesthetic. You are going to get your soul carved out of you either way and will have to hand it over to the state, so how shall it go? Quick and dirty or long and painless?
The Devil’s greatest trick was convincing you that communism and democracy are not peas in the same pod
I like that. Communism is the tax man clearing out your accounts, democracy is the casino getting you drunk and distracted while clearing out your accounts.
Falcone. Right. Communism is “1984”. Democracy is “Brave New World”. Two different paths with the same destination: totalitarianism
Good analogies. I nominate Orwell’s “Animal Farm” as — what? Clearly, it was a dryly humorous satire of socialism/collectivism/communism, far less dark than his “1984.” For a bunch of animals, quite true to life. They even have an electricity generating windmill that never comes to fruition and is destroyed by hostile action. I would nominate it as a case of fascism or perhaps, crony capitalism. The pigs and the humans win out at the end.
There even was a Ben, a layabout of sorts — Benjamin the Donkey, the occasional giver of old wisdom.
BNW is not set in a democracy. it and 1984 are very different in every way, including philosophical criticism. something like Atlas Shrugged is the best i can come up with to pair with 1984.
imnobody00: While I’m a fan of both books, the present cannot be accurately described without reference to Harrison Bergeron.
Mark Twain had it figured out 120 years ago:
From the New York Herald, October 15, 1900:
I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with he Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Phillippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do
I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which had addressed ourselves.
But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Phillippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . .
It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.
So nice to know that over these past hundreds of years that many a thoughtful soul wrestled with these same problems
Liberal democracy, like communism and evangelical religions, can’t stop expanding. They are on the side of angels. To not try and spread democracy is like not trying to save a soul from hell.
To its adherents, it’s literally immoral to allow anyone around the world to live under any system other than liberal democracy. They won’t quit. They can’t quit.
Democracy, at its theoretical core, is a noble sentiment. A godly one. That all people are equal under the eyes of a creator.
But in practice it is hardly about that. It is more about crushing everyone down to size and making them equal.
So, sure, when democracy and the evangelizing of it deal with that theoretical core, it makes for a good sell and how it was able to be sold to many a skeptic. But then the functionaries enter the picture and are let loose to wreak havoc on the natural order of things.
“That all people are equal under the eyes of a creator.”
These have always been wonderful words… but if the utterer has no respect for a creator then the words are empty.
Falcone said: “is a noble sentiment. A godly one. That all people are equal under the eyes of a creator.”
I disagree. In fact, I think that is the sin of presumption. God manifestly and obviously created no two people the same, so equality is not Godly: He made the exact opposite of equality. A certain rebellious angel on the other hand, desired equality….
What people are doing when they say equality is holy is this: “If *I* were God, I would have made humanity with equality.” To state the premise is to convict the premise-holder.
Equality is untrue, unjust, ugly, ignoble, and Evil with a capital E.
But I mean equal in the American founding sense, so that everyone is entitled to a fair trial and due process. If it came across that I meant something else, then my mistake for not elaborating and/or clarifying.
AMEN, brother!
I thought for a second there I was reading Rushdoony!
(that’s a high compliment, in case you’re not familiar with him)
And that, more than the distraction rationale, is why LD is warlike, even if it “only” prosecutes wars via proxy.
That’s another curious thing about another religion. They’ve been around for thousands of years yet never more than a few million worldwide. Very clannish, keep to themselves. And never, never do they proselytize. It’s as if they think they have the best thing in the world, and want to keep ti all to themselves. I suspect that (apparent) attitude is just one more factor that pisses off us outsiders 😀
“Very clannish, keep to themselves.”
IF ONLY!
I don’t care if people have their own ways just so long as they make good bagels, pizza, or curry, don’t destroy perfectly good cities, aren’t parasites, don’t think the criminal life is a life choice, and don’t freaking want to control, mock, subvert, transform, or destroy my country.
Ace: Anyone who would trade a racially and religiously homogenous population for diverse restaurants deserves neither.
What will haunt future historians is just how many effeminate ghouls ended up at the top of the food chain in “our democracy,” and just how long they lingered. As a matter of fact they lingered so long they had Alzheimers in office. It will be a miracle if we can avoid a hot war that goes nuclear. We should count our blessings if this thing is able to fall apart and be replaced with ONLY our ships sinking in the Strait of Formosa and not something far worse. We can easily mourn 10,000 trannies in Davy Jones’ locker. We can’t begin to mourn 100 million Americans being incinerated in their cities, unless I get to pick the cities of course.
The long-term goal of liberal democracy is to create a race of intelligent but weak, pathetic, and sniveling bug-creatures who are capable of swarming and killing the less populous but stronger warrior types. Of course, this requires, global domination, so that strong genes will have no refuge and get completely wiped out.
Think a world of Bill Gates clones.
Heck, I always thought it would end with Elois and Morlocks.
Huxley addresses this in “Brave New World”, where an Island of Alphas ended in civil war.
No one could agree on division of the duties, no one wanted to do the hard work.
Things have gotten so bad that fixing them will have to be painful.
Or put it this way, if things really as bad as we think they are, if we have veered so far off course and with such powerful inertia that it cannot be stopped and course corrected by gently moving the waves and tides in a certain direction, then some serious manhandling is going to be required.
And nature will do what it has to do. So if it means some serious violence, then that only means that, yes, things really are as bad as we think they are. If a few voting cycles can fix it, a few modest currents and waves moving in a new direction, then things are not as bad as we think they are. The response is going to be dictated by what really is.
Things seem to be heating up…just this week, the leaked Supreme Court decision: authentic? Apparently so; Chief Justice spoke to it recently. Cleverly timed call-to-arms for liberal Democrats otherwise under siege from sundry other issues that generally don’t appear in the legacy media? Both?
And Biden making these incendiary remarks:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10782537/Biden-calls-MAGA-extreme-political-organization-American-history.html
I just checked Google News (05-04 08:51 PM EDT) and they show the story, but curiously, only from Guardian. Curiously, there is no mention of this story on nypost (right-leaning) nor baynews9 (a Tampa news site, I suppose centrist). Nor does any appear at all on the Yahoo US news feed. Curious. Granted, this is only a spot check of US media, but being of a conspiracy mind, I would say it almost looks as though that US media is spiking Biden’s remarks.
Add a dash of a new DHS “Misinformation” agency, shake well, and we have real pot boiler election year coming up, don’t we?
“Pay no attention to the worsening war in Ukraine, our meddling in it, or the escalating inflation rate! The Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v. Wade! MAGA Republicans are the new domestic terrorists!”
“We can’t begin to mourn 100 million Americans being incinerated in their cities, … .”
Dresden.
Hiroshima.
Nagasaki.
At least in the late 18th through 19th centuries, our liberal democratic violence was pretty much internal – we were slaughtering each other (and injuns). It wasn’t until the 1900’s & 2000’s that we started exporting our violence worldwide and on an industrial scale – all in the name of making the world a better place, of course. It’s hard to look at all that, especially after being taught (and having felt) we were always the good guys riding in to save the day. Our decrepit leadership in these later days has certainly served to expose the true nature and history of our “vaunted” liberal democracy.
As Redlegs said in Josey Wales:
“Doin’ right….ain’t got no end….”
There was a famous (or infamous) gunfighter who, when asked how any men he’d killed, said “X (don’t remember the name or number) not counting Indians and Mexicans.”
“It’s hard to look at all that, especially after being taught (and having felt) we were always the good guys riding in to save the day.”
No Southerner has *ever* felt that.
> Democracies don’t war against each other
> What about the War of Northern Aggression?
> The South had slaves, so it wasn’t a democracy
> How do you explain Athens?
That was very elegantly done.
“That was very elegantly done.”
If you understood that, then “you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
With the Unites States, the biggest issue with transitioning to an undemocratic and unmilitary mythos is our founding was based on anti-monarchism and manifest destiny. Enlightenment values and aggressive expansion has been part of the American Story since its founding. Once we ran out of land to grab out west and take from Mexico, we turned to more advanced conquest through cultural warfare, essentially erasing through propaganda the past heritage of proud people and replacing it with Americanist consumer glop.
It’s hard to think of a new American mythos that can reject Enlightenment values and its own moral certainty. The Left is restructuring American History as the battle of minorities to create a multicultural and equal America it was meant to be with suicidal fervor, and the right is still clinging to ‘muh constitution’ and ‘muh freedom’ as Heritage Americans become a hated minority.
I see a couple of things that hobble democracy from its noble aspirations: an intractable paranoia and the corresponding moral necessity to spread itself, i.e. imperialism.
The democracy sandwich is that of the moral righteousness of constant, unmitigated political and moral self-propagation and the paranoia of constant threat by those neighbors less than entirely enthusiastic about being subsumed by the cleansing power of democracy.
So democracy must be spread. By force, if necessary. The necessity of which always presents. Because anything but democracy is a threat. Neighbors failing to recognize democracy as the apex of human governance is also then a threat. And all threats to democracy must be eliminated.
The natural paranoia of democracy, which lends easily toward war and even genociding neighbors as a preemptive necessity to preserve the democratic purity, falls upon itself once the imperialism becomes part of the moral authority.
To your point we are seeing what happens when that imperialism runs out of foreign political borders to ruin. She comes home drunk and angry. Heritage is a threat to democracy. And the sacred scrolls heritage clings to will not save the Greatest Threat to Our Democracy from the full force of the true religion of peace.
“To your point we are seeing what happens when that imperialism runs out of foreign political borders to ruin.”
The American South was the Judeo-Puritan’s first conquest. And it was not followed by a Marshal Plan.
The Left is restructuring American History as the battle of minorities to create a multicultural and equal America
That perhaps may become their undoing. Those minorities could simply end up creating the regional ethnostates the Left fears. Some are born to create ethnostates, others have ethnostates thrust upon them.
A recent Salt Lake rag celebrated the expansion of multiculturalism and diversity in a suburb. West Valley City …. synonymous with every crime imaginable.
A cynic would say what is actually happening is “white flight”.
It’s already happening.
Go look at Dearborn, MI or Islamburg, NY.
“It’s hard to think of a new American mythos that can reject Enlightenment values and its own moral certainty.”
It’s also unnecessary. We certainly do NOT need a NEW mythos. Returning to a strict doe of honor would do the trick. Bring back dueling. Make Ja’Quan face gunfire at 10 paces.
I was listening to AJ the other day. He was interviewing a Messianic Jewish hip-hopper, and they got into a brief discussion about how words are spells, how Hebrew and Aramaic are dense and metaphorical, English shallow and scientific, or something like that.
Meanwhile, I’ve been wondering lately about ideology and how it depends on education and propaganda— words, basically. The above interview reminded me of the idea that words are spells.
Not going to flesh it out to keep this as short as possible, but I suspect this is the root of the insanity. Words, ideology, spells. Not nature, body and spirit, not what’s real. A spell that’s breaking.
I was a kid when the Cold War ended. I was never really under its spell. I think this is a line that marks the end of an era. If there is hope of avoiding total disaster, the vanguard of the new era must get off its ass and exert itself to overcome the old one, with its obsession with the Apocalypse. Then we’ll have new problems for sure, but at least we’ll be around to tackle them.
All of the Age of Aquarius stuff was like the Great Reset, I think. A guilty conscience trying to dictate the mess it knows it’s creating— to keep the party going— instead of coming clean.
The GAE’s archons would certainly agree that words are spells. And that is why they expend so much effort in controlling language.
They wantonly redefine words to mesh with new policy and ideology positions. They categorize broad swaths of discourse as “hate speech,” which harms their preferred people. They wage total war on certain truths, which, of course, can only be manifested through utterance.
They believe that through suppressing some speech, mandating other speech, and warping the very definition of words, they can rejig–so to speak–the social hierarchy, elevating the deviant, dumb and destructive, and subjugating the normal, intelligent and productive. If they are correct, this way goes the annihilation of civilization.
Not sure what you mean by “spells” but words are certainly used to frame, create a mindset, and therefore shape perception of reality. Reminds me of the Wrinkle in Time book (not the atrocious movie) scene where the boy and sister are being fed by the aliens – the sister thinks the meal is fine (steak and potatoes or something) the boy recognizes it as some undifferentiated goop or slop. Has to explain (boysplaining?) to his sister that she thinks it’s steak because the aliens are able to penetrate her mind and make her see it as such, whereas he is able to block what is essentially the aliens’ propaganda and see the slop for what it is.
That scene explains so much.
“to frame, create a mindset, and therefore shape perception of reality.”
That’s a pretty good definition right there.
Pardon my Literature degree. It’s been drinking and feels compelled to pontificate. 😀
I don’t propose to give a whole treatise; indeed we only studied such matters most superficially. Words, particularly names, were believed to have supernatural powers in primitive times. Perhaps because, when consciousness, symbols and language were brand new, it really seemed an innovation: here was a series of sounds that referenced a real world thing, or an abstraction. From there it’s a small step to believe that the word = the thing. The belief in the magical power of words (names) persists to this day in certain niches. For example, devout Jews have a “secret” name of God. He is sometimes called YHVH or even just “hashem” (“The Name”). Others believe in magical spells. Etc.
Clearly, words spoken or written have their uses. On a spectrum between meaningless noises or scrawls to being the embodiment of supernatural powers, I suggest the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Today while driving in town with the windows down, an adjacent car had music that I can only describe as country hip-hop or rap (by its drum section). The voice was “country.” As far as I could tell, the song was NOT about hos, drugs, pimping or shooting rivals, but the beat was unmistakable. My tastes in music are very eclectic, but his was new to me.
I fear we are truly in the End Times 😀
“Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses.”
– H.L. Mencken
The “jackals” are the elites who control the system. The “jackasses” are those folks in the general public who somehow believe that they themselves control the system — or at least have meaningful influence over it. When the elites own all political candidates, who, in truth, controls the system through voting? When the bulk of power rests with unelected bankers and unelected bureaucrats, what importance does the sainted “will of the majority” play?
Democracy is bad theory from one angle. From a realist’s perspective, however, it is simply fraud. ALL governments are oligarchies. There is no Democracy.
“There is no Democracy.”
And there is no rule of law. Laws do not enforce themselves, and if those whose duty it is to enforce the laws do not enforce them, then there is no law, let alone a “rule” of law.
Men rule over other men.
That is all.
You ain’t wrong! So many of America’s so-called cherished values — consent of the governed, rule of law, universal equality, etc. — at best, represent blind-eyed idealism divorced from easily observable reality. At worst, they are cynical ruses propagated by a duplicitous ruling class.
In my experience people think we have a rule of law until they are on the receiving end of just how much this is untrue.
Nothing like a persecution in an unjust manner by the state’s many and self-referencing entities to get people to see reality for what it is.
“Men rule over men…and women rule over men”
“Men rule over men…and women rule over men”
Good one! Made me laff.
And matters have only worsened dramatically since Mencken’s day. In the past, there was at least some plurality. There were nodes of society that competed with and sometimes confuted the federal government. This is no longer the case. We are now confronted with a unitary Power Structure (DC, Wall Street, Harvard, NY Times, Hollywood, Silicon Valley) comprised of jackals. Formerly, the jackals had to contend with lions, tigers, rhinos and hippos. Now, all are jackals.
You gave the US more credit for peace then it deserves. After the country was established we immediately went to war against the Muslim Pirates of the Mediterranean, then after the War of 1812 we fought the Seminoles in Florida for twenty years, and then Mexico.
After the Civil War we spent the rest of the decade in constant war against the Plains Indians. Before World War 1 we invaded Mexico chasing Villa.
After World War 1 we fought in Russia and in the Caribbean and Central America. Since World War 2 we’ve been all over the place.
This of course just reinforces your point that we’ve been at war for many more years then at peace. We are a warlike people.
The US went to war with the Barbary pirates because they wouldn’t stop kidnapping US citizens and robbing US merchant vessels in the Mediterranean.
To me, those seem like decent reasons to go kick someone around until they change their behavior.
Better reason than most of the wars we have decided to wage since then. I can’t even remember why we started the last few. We are about to fight a nuclear superpower for no apparent reason at all.
To borrow a line from (I think) it was Z long ago, for entirely too many in our government, “The Cossacks* raped my grandmother!” is reason enough. 🙁
*The spell checker is flagging it, but that is the correct spelling. Relevant too: Southern Russia and Ukraine.
The War for Independence was necessary, and the War of 1812 was necessary. The US gov’t has never been involved in any other necessary war.
Never.
War of 1812? Hell we couldn’t even decide who to fight, France or England. Of course, once started and we were invaded… But isn’t that the way with all wars and why provocation such as in Ukraine so dangerous.
“War of 1812? Hell we couldn’t even decide who to fight, France or England.”
1812 did three great things: (1) won our independence for good; (2) Battle of New Orleans; (3) Washington was burned down.
Wild Geese: I think I’d separate wars fought by the early American state and the GAE. I would consider 1812 unfinished business from 1776, and the messiness involved in rebellion and establishing a new country. I agree with your take on the business with the Barbary pirates. One can similarly recognize the duplicitousness of our dealings with the Indians while also acknowledging their native savagery and the incompatibility of their primitive lifestyle. Manifest Destiny was certainly not holy, but neither was it innately evil nor intrinsically bad. Conquering territory is as old as mankind.
The Civil War marked the beginning of puritanical moral triumphalism. That was part and parcel of America’s early colonial misadventures. Wasn’t it Teddy Roosevelt who sent the Great White Fleet? Wilson was a progressive (I don’t know what epithet would best describe his wife) who propelled us into WWI and dictated its disastrous aftermath. All subsequent wars have been similar and expansionist and cloaked in the ‘spreading of democracy’ against yellow or brown or White ‘communists.’
My great-grandparents were under FBI surveillance from July 1917 until 31 Dec 1920 for publically denouncing “Mr Wilson’s War” (more than once).
My sister has the declassified docs. Weird reading!
there is an argument to be made that the mexica-american war was our original sin, vis-a-vis unjust wars.
Looks like Antifa is warming up for the summer season as violent RvW protests break out in LA:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cops-attacked-windows-smashed-during-abortion-protest-la
You have to admit, there probably isn’t a clearer dividing line between the good guys and the bad guys that this particular battle. Are you on the “yes” to killing babies, or “no” to killing babies.
Pretty easy battle lines to draw and defend.
Outdoorspro: It’s messier than that. Purported rights of women (see Citizen’s comments yesterday), subsidizing the propagation of the ‘marginalized’ (dysfunctional), enabling further White replacement. One can abhor White abortion on moral grounds and yet still feel relieved and grateful for its limiting affects on other races.
The point I keep trying to make to people is forget the nuance, this is a rhetorical club studded with rusty nails, just waiting to picked up and used to smash the faces of our enemies in. Always frame it as baby-killing and always characterize supporters as baby-killers.
tashtego: I do get your point, and for those who feel getting involved in political and social issues is worthwhile, it may be a solid tactic. Personally though, I don’t want to get involved in any of these debates. They’re not going to result in social or moral change; they’re just a distraction from everything else collapsing and a way to rally the unthinking single-issue troops. For heaven’s sake, McConnell has just pledged that once repukes take congress they’ll make banning all abortions the law of the land. Except they won’t, but all the rubes will fall for it yet again. Vote moar harder for the correct branch of the uniparty.
Sorry, not my monkeys. The non-Whites who get abortions or don’t get abortions, the Whites who champion them, those who insist a child can be killed right up to birth, those who insist it’s godly for a woman to bear a rapist’s child – I just don’t want to share a debate, let alone a country with any of them.
It is a vital moral question, but I consider the racial question more immediately vital and important.
The left is really good at quickly mobilizing their most violent elements.
Funny, right before they needed to make sure Trump wasn’t reelected they had the George Floyd stuff. Now right before they’re predicted to lose in the midterms the Supreme Court is suddenly interested in doing something that will get the left all riled up again.
Ploppy-
My prediction is that they will try to ramp this to a point where they can call the Insurrection Act, cancel the elections, declare martial law, and roll out jabs for food/debt forgiveness/CBDC/carbon allotment.
Of course, this could always be pre-empted by an open declaration of WW3.
Prep accordingly.
“One last effort to immanentize the eschaton will violently remove this lunacy from the mind of Western man”.
Excellent word-craft. Said effort will be violent and most likely remove Western man entirely – not just the mindset.
If we could only come to accept the fact that an imperfect creature cannot form a “more perfect union”, never mind a perfect union.
To correct the poet, a man’s reach should not exceed his grasp, for tis what’s a heaven for.
Faux democracy and capitalism operate hand-in-hand. They share the same basic ethos, competition. Just as capitalists compete against one another for sales and profits, elements of democracy compete for votes and policy positions. Democratic societies compete as well against non-democratic ones. The idea of cooperation is completely foreign to democratic capitalist societies, who consider life to be a zero-sum affair, any development that advances the case of someone else is of necessity a drawback to the democracy. Russian sales of hydrocarbons to Europe is a tragedy. The Chinese making agreements with the Solomons is a signal of approaching disaster. Negotiation and compromise may not result in what can be considered the optimum result. War is better.
mikey: Interesting comment. While I’ve learned to prize community over extreme individuality, one ought to note that competition is innate in human nature and ought not necessarily be pathologized. Natural male competition seems to me more open and lacking the bitter aftermath of the female type.
The lunatics may have finally bitten off more they can deal with in Russia and China.
We shall see.
The feminization of public policy is what drives me crazy and will probably do them in.
Emotional crap.
Cancelling an entire nation in Russia and now we will probably have to endure vagina marches all summer, screaming women and effeminate men.
I wish Democracy would do it’s natural Jonestown ending.
Jonestown ending? Well…screaming women and effeminate men disproportionately and enthusiastically got the Jonestown Jab…
Overwhelmingly black.
I do not follow you. Do you mean uptake of Covid-19 jabs? Not Blacks; they had much lower acceptance than honkies did.
Sorry, didn’t read closely. I was referring to the actual Jonestown
most of the poor fukkers who died at jonestown were forced to drink the kool-aid at gunpoint.
They’ve tipped their hand somewhat in Europe.
Basically, the plan in Europe is to convert the entire continent into proxy cannon fodder to grind Russia down.
Today it’s Ukraine.
Tomorrow it could be Poland.
Next week Romania.
The week after that, Bulgaria.
Eventually the Baltics, then Finland, Norway, etc.
Not sure what they will do with China. India has already shown it’s not going to fall in line.
The Taiwan howitzer delay to 2026 gives some idea how bad the supply chains are for the MIC.
“The Taiwan howitzer delay to 2026 gives some idea … .”
There will be a general war before ’26.
I’ve got a great big pitcher and plenty of ice, if you’ve got the mix.
“One last effort to immanentize the eschaton will violently remove this lunacy from the mind of Western man.”
Best concluding sentence I’ve read in a long time.
“…the claims of democracy and now liberal democracy are incompatible with humanity.”
You (Z) have written about that, often obliquely. Perhaps yuou might say more about how and why you’ve come to that conclusion. Maybe you discuss it in your forthcoming collection.
If world government could be successfully implemented, amid the proper proportion of diversity, equity and inclusion, at least here in the West, we might become a mega-Chicago, ducking behind the dumpsters in the hope of avoidng the frequent scatter of random gunfire.
Isn’t the central conceit of democracy simply that everyone gets an equal voice because everyone is equal? But everyone is not equal, so the idea of democracy is at war with reality.
There was an old term for war with reality, which we have become too smart to use any longer, but that’s what we have now. Democracy is literally rule by demons.
There is a sliding scale of democracy. Hence, AINO’s current franchise is colossally broader than it was in 1782. And it seems with every expansion of the franchise, the country itself deteriorated.
Precisely. Our (Founders) initial “conceit” might very well have been correct. Those at the time eligible for the franchise (suffrage) were equal—or equal enough—to have a say in the government. Everyone else along for the ride.
I think one of the biggest obstacles, or maybe that isn’t the right word, but what makes people scared of losing democracy is that it means people above them will then be allowed to treat them like garbage. And this is beside the point that they are already treated like garbage. But the idea lingers that if we get out of democracy, will people still be kind and humane? Is it possible?
The idea is so entrenched in the modern mind that being humane and kind and compassionate can only be possible in a democracy. That it is not instead a feature of humanity but something that only democracy can breed into people.
If there ever is to be another way, then disproving this idea will have to be front and center. Because otherwise people get real nervous thinking that without democracy there can only be slave masters and slaves.
“I think one of the biggest obstacles, or maybe that isn’t the right word, but what makes people scared of losing democracy is that it means people above them will then be allowed to treat them like garbage”
I think there is probably some truth to this. Just look at the “elites” today. What would they do if they thought they could get away with it? I’m sure quite a few of them have asked themselves, “why can’t we just kill them?”
I mean, that IS their goal, ultimately. Depopulation. And it’s a valid question from their perspective. They can get people to believe just about anything else with their lies, why not convince them to commit suicide in the name of Democracy?
Since we’re already treated like garbage, I suspect it’s more a fear that they would immediately revert back to overtly rubbing our noses in it through traditional ritualized forms of oppression.
Kissing the ring, bowing before them, having to address them as “my lord”, not being allowed to wear the color purple, primae noctis….and having to do all that for a bunch of psychopathic gremlins utterly lacking in any nobility whatsoever.
And then they had a mass injection programme driven by relentless propaganda for the entire western world.
Seems like they already answered their own question.
I already commented on that on anther Covid-19 thread today. If worst-case depopulation fears are correct (e.g. the jabs intentionally or not, will be fatal within several years), we are looking at the loss of quite a few million people. We won’t get anywhere near the “goal” of 500 million world population. But if you note which nations were the biggest consumers of the mRNA jabs, well, you’re looking at death or serious incapacity of perhaps half of the world’s Caucasian (European ancestry) population. If there really is some demonic plan to rid the world of Whites, I can’t think of a more efficacious way to do so.
For obvious reasons, the world’s standard of living will drop precipitously if that happens. But the hypothetical evil plotters probably could care less.
Falcone, it seems like you are articulating the argument that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
On the other hand, conservatives and the dissident right observe the existence of a natural hierarchy and sometimes argue that this hierarchy should be manifest in how society is structured.
The fear that you express, which I understand, is that if we acknowledge this hierarchy then the more fit will prey on the less fit. Since few of us are the best at anything, we fear being preyed upon in such a society.
Yet hierarchy exists, whether we acknowledge it or not. Democracy is an attempt to obscure this fact.
We want to choose the least bad form of government. My hope is that an ethnostate will foster feelings of kinship that will reduce the urge of the fit to prey on the unfit, but no system is fail-safe.
Line: Well said. I concur.
That’s why the feudal system seemed to work best. Sure, you had the king at the top, but he relied on the next level of royalty to supply his troops. And sure, the Lord was above the peasants, but he relied on them to harvest his crops, etc. With this level of interdependence and decentralized control or interlinked nodes of power it was hard for one node to get too out of line.
But the ultimate system does not exist because no system is self-executing. Garbage people in, garbage results out, regardless of the system. Good people in, good results out.
it seems like the yin and yang of democracies, is tied to their economic cycles. when the economy is healthy, they mostly engage in peaceful endeavors. when the economy is faltering, they engage in war like activities. weimar germany was a democracy that did not go into war mode (when the economy cratered) and ended up being taken over by a far more virulent form of governance. in the US during the depression, there was a lot of concern about the country going communist (or at least socialist) so the feds ginned up lots of make-work, and provoked japan into starting a war for them.
Every day is war in America. Been like that for the 55 years I have been on this planet. You always have to be on your guard. If you drop your guard for a second, some sheister comes at you and gets your money in a moment of your weakness. It is non stop. And in the constant physical threats from our beloved darker folks. And then the country at large does the same to the world.
This place has some of the trappings and ornaments of civilization but at heart is a glorified colonial outpost and fort. And with our current demographic, it is a glorified jungle.
But I can’t help but love it and remember all the great things about it. But I guess in the end it is my first love and has dumped me just the same.
Hypocrisy highlight time.
Today’s topic is, once again, a wonderful opportunity for Bongino bashing. Bongino is an hysterical advocate for peaceful societal relations and will come to your house and personally beat you if you resist his entreaty to vote harder in the upcoming elections. Furthermore, if you even hint at employing non-traditional means in political protest (read tangible acts of rebellion), he will feel compelled to kill you first because the “process” is more important than stopping enslavement or a genocide.
Like Carlson and Hannity, Bongino holds himself up as a paragon of liberal democratic virtue, but can’t see the forest for the trees. We live in an increasingly insane world in which a dementia patient is president, men compete women’s sports, elementary school teachers coerce kindergarten children into becoming trannies, and Nazi Jews are a real thing. Yet the process must be defended even if it means burning the heretics at the stake (peacefully of course).
Good post, but I’d just add that this —
“Like Carlson and Hannity, Bongino holds himself up as a paragon of liberal democratic virtue, but can’t see the forest for the trees.”
is just show biz. Or marketing.
They may or may not, as individuals, be able to see the forest, but it doesn’t matter b/c it’s not real. It’s show biz. It’s carefully scripted.
Hannity’s market is working-class blue-collar viewers who still watch NFL broadcasts.
Tucker’s is those with more schooling and money and more strictly bourgeois sensibilities.
Bongino’s market is veterans and the whole flag-waving “Thank-you-for-your-service” crowd.
All fake. All staged. All marketing. All merchandise. All carefully scripted show biz.
I wouldn’t group Tucker with those two others.
Yep, I like Tucker, but that doesn’t mean he’s not doing an act. The deer in the headlights look on his face when he expounds on the latest Leftist shenanigans is pure calculated act. It even amuses me, but that’s about it. I am no better educated, nor more enraged as to the latest recounting of our society’s decline.
“I wouldn’t group Tucker with those two others.”
Tucker’s every word is kept *strictly* “within bounds.” He *never* utters a single syllable that is beyond the acceptable and prescribed limits in any mass medium.
That’s why he is accused of dog whistling. He dare not speak the plain truth. And to make sure that he does not, all of his utterances are carefully scripted.
*None* of it is real.
Give Tucker Carlson some credit. It’s not every TV political commentator that the New York Times will devote a three part hit piece to. 😀
I read his book, reading about his lost senate race at the end of the book confirmed my belief that voted harder isn’t going to work. I guess he didn’t learn that lesson.
i think bognino should ritualistically burn his ass hair – on the air – each month. a kind of purification rite emblematic of the suffering and dying in ukraine; the regrowth of the ass hair symbolizing eternal hope.
This is writing worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.
It’s interesting to see that NATO and the most powerful military in the world are once again side-lined by a less powerful military. We heard for decades that the Western military machine was never designed for asymmetrical warfare. Which was one of the many reasons for the failure in Vietnam and every 3rd-world conflict since, up to and including Afghanistan – or at least that’s their excuse.
Now, for the first time since WWII, the US could stand up their conventional military to defend Ukraine against an equally conventional military in order to promote “freedom and democracy” just like they have everywhere else in the world. But they won’t.
And it has nothing to do with NATO treaties or because they fear a nuclear retaliation (even Putin isn’t that stupid) but because the current powers in charge are going to make the best of a crisis like they always do.
The Biden administration wasted no time with “Putin’s Price Hike” and you can expect that to continue as the excuse d’jour for every commodity shortage, rise in inflation and price hike in the future.
One of the things circulating in the war strategy focused channels on-line is how the Russians are using a relatively small force to pin down and attack a large force. Prior to the war, Ukraine had the best prepared army in Europe by conventional assessment. They had 250K combat ready troops with modern equipment. NATO had been training their commanders in modern warfighting and training their soldiers in modern small unit tactics. Most important, they had a lot of combat experience in the Donbas. A decade of war allowed for a lot of troops to be cycled into combat.
Despite all of this, the Russians are systematically degrading the Ukrainian military by pinning it down and relentlessly shelling it with artillery. The javelin and switchblade were supposed to be the great equalizer to Russian armor, but according to the Ukrainian army they have been ineffective. The truly baffling aspect is the Ukrainians have allowed themselves to be pinned down and cut off.
If this is happening to the Ukrainian army, imagine how the NATO forces would perform? After this is over, the West is going to have to do some very serious rethinking of its war fighting.
i would say the ‘fog of war’ has been lifted through comms technology. from my reading the ukraine forces have been herded into a small area, and can neither leave nor attack. they cannot be supported by the air, nor can they be resupplied. for some reason zelensky would rather the army be annihilated than allowed to surrender. it’s like a chess player who does not accept that he has been mated, and keeps moving pieces around the board (even though the game is over).
Is it really Zelensky calling the shots though or NATO? It makes sense when you view it from the perspective of insane Western elites who have no love or affinity for Ukraine or its people but rather as just another tool to attack Russia. Ukraine and her people isn’t the chess match itself, rather just another pawn in the larger overarching global chess match of global domination.
Not mutually exclusive. Zelensky no doubt has the goods on many a Western pol. Being of the Tribe, he knows how to use leverage.
What’s even stranger is that the general public (and politicians’) belief is that the Russian military has been an embarrassing disaster. They truly believe that the Russian military has terrible leadership, practically non-existent logistics, laughably outdated technology, worthless troops and a non-functioning air force.
Now, how this military is able to capture the eastern portion of a huge country against a larger Ukrainian army that was equipped and trained by NATO doesn’t seem to bother anyone. (The last part of that sentence is never brought up. Most people just assume that Ukraine had almost no military and what they had was ill-equipped and trained.)
The conventional view among at least the non-military elite is that the United States would utterly wipe out the Russian military. Our superior air force and missiles would obliterate the Russian military without NATO troops needing to do much of anything other than clean up the mess. Death from above.
Even when all of this is over, that will be the view of the American and European elite, which is very dangerous.
“Now, how this military is able to capture the eastern portion of a huge country against a larger Ukrainian army that was equipped and trained by NATO doesn’t seem to bother anyone.”
Nor does anybody seem to wonder where the great Ukrainian counter-offensive is.
The official story is simply that the Russians are in over their heads and …
And that’s it. That’s all that’s happening. Yet it is now into its third month of nothing happening.
The official story is that the Russian military is terrible but is simply overwhelming the Ukrainians with numbers.
Again, the official narrative never discusses the size of the Ukrainian military before the war nor that it was trained and equipped by NATO.
The official narrative is that the Ukrainians are a bunch of plucky citizen-soldiers outmanned and outgunned by the Russians. (Red Dawn: the Ukraine) But despite the huge odds against them, the Ukrainians are giving the Russians a run for their money.
That will be the narrative after the Russians take eastern Ukraine and will be the basis for trying to continue an insurgency in Ukraine against the Russians forever.
“What’s even stranger is that the general public (and politicians’) belief is that the Russian military has been an embarrassing disaster. They truly believe that the Russian military has terrible leadership, practically non-existent logistics, laughably outdated technology, worthless troops and a non-functioning air force”
My conclusion? They are trying to make it palatable to directly go to war against the Russian Federation. The NPC’s I work with seem to be buying it hook, line and sinker.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
Thankfully, so far, our rulers are going with the narrative that, “sure, we could crush those guys, but they have nukes, so what are you going to do.”
But the narrative certainly fits arming the Ukrainians forever.
I’d like to think that the demonstration of the highly effective Khinjal hypersonics would give them pause but this is clown world and if nothing else the idiots in charge get high on their own supply day in day out
That’s why I stated from the start that the “clock was ticking” for Putin. It is not enough to simply win. The expectation is that the win would be quick and decisive. That looks lost now and NATO is watching. Weakness (perceived or otherwise) invites provocation.
“The expectation is that the win would be quick and decisive.”
I’m afraid you are right, even though it was at all times a stupid expectation. The commonsensical expectation would have been that the Russians don’t want a smoking ruin for a next-door neighbor. That they don’t want a refugee crisis on their own doorstep.
But the AINO expectation was that OF COURSE Putin wants a smoking ruin right next door! Who would not want that??
We really are “citizens of a SILLY-ASS country.”
I’d take that 250K with a huge amount of salt. Ukraine is just a few places from Russia on the corruption list and does not have much of a country. According to the CIA World Factbook they had a population of around 3-4 million males ages 16-24. Their total strength military of 600K would be anywhere from 20 to 15% of their military aged population. Does that sound correct to you or off? Draft evasion was known to be an issue there before the war, and unlike Israel there is no path from military service to business success. I think those numbers were/are highly inflated with lots of graft.
“According to the CIA World Factbook … ”
I stopped right there.
Based upon basic stats for how few young are fit to enlist in our military, assuming similar standards, I would estimate (for an all-white population) that 15% are too stupid, and half medically unfit. Assume no crime/drug use restriction. Right there is ~ 2/3 of youth unfit for military. That means at most about 1.3 million eligible. So 600,000 sound quite reasonable to me.
The numbers (and any other data) should be suspect of course. My exercise just shows that it could be ballpark.
Meanwhile in the Bundeswehr –
The Bundeswehr has gotten more diverse. Women, men, people from an immigrant background, LGBTQ+ people, people with a disability, older and younger people are all a valuable part of the armed forces. They fill the troops with life, represent the diversity of the Bundeswehr and strengthen its ties to our – diverse – society.
The last time Germany military recruited women, children, old men and cripples was 1945. This just goes to show how desperate the modern German military really is.
https://www.bundeswehr.de/en/about-bundeswehr/identity-of-the-bundeswehr/equal-opportunities/diversity-bundeswehr
The problem with this theory is the enemy always gets a vote. With NATO and particularly America now being an open belligerent, our assets are legitimate targets for Russia. The American government wants to play this game where they publicly say we are not involved while actively supplying Ukraine in both offensive weapons and information.
Back in WW2, the rules were “cash and carry” for arms sales. Belligerent nations could sail to America in their own ships, pay for everything in gold on delivery (no credit) and then they sail their own ships back to their nation. Presumably, these are still the rules, only the cash part of cash and carry is with fiat currency. We are giving them advanced offensive weapons for free. That makes us a participant in the war just as much as if American GIs were fighting in Ukraine.
Back in WW2 the Swiss played the neutral card. But when the US realized they were selling weapons to Germany, the US bombed the factory in Schaffhausen. The Swiss retaliated by sending their own Me-109’s to intercept US bombers that flew over Switzerland.
If you want to know just how “neutral” the Swiss really were, read the story about American airmen who were imprisoned in Wauwilermoos.
Let’s not forget Switzerland collaborated economically with Nazi Germany, as well as keeping the assets of Jewish Holocaust victims.
https://www.historynet.com/pow-hell-switzerland/
“And it has nothing to do with NATO treaties or because they fear a nuclear retaliation (even Putin isn’t that stupid)”
They absolutely fear nuclear retaliation and that is why this hasn’t gotten hotter. You get brief flashes of this. The nuclear war prospect has kept the West sidelined. The Ruling Class has not had skin in the game since ’45 and won’t start now unless the crazies prevail, which is quite possible.
Putin doesn’t want it but it may be forced on him. It’s a terrible mistake to dismiss the prospect.
Don’t forget these are the decedents of the geniuses who slept-walked into WW1.
How will the West react if a carrier is sunk? Or if all these weapons being shipped are targeted successfully?
Don’t forget about small yield tactical nuclear weapons. I hear Russia has a large stockpile of small dial-a-yield tactical nuclear weapons.
Frankly, I have a lot more confidence in Russia’s ability to avoid making it a larger war than the West’s ability to avoid it. We are led by knaves and fools.
Friggin spell checker! descendants
At the outset of the multicultural push, I remember they were selling it using a similar logic.
If America had every nationality on earth living here, Chinese, Japanese, blacks, whites, Mexicans, then those countries would be less willing to attack us because they would be attacking their own people.
The more likely result is that we’ll be less likely to attack them because we’ll be attacking their own. America is currently a rent-a-cop used by various ethnic lobbies to attack their rivals overseas. But the regime is becoming so diverse that soon we can’t attack anyone without domestic blow back.
Consider Asian Americans of Chinese descent. That demographic is the only major one with a positive view of China’s CCP. That’s mostly ethnic pride. If that demographic assumes a major role in American finance and media, it won’t be possible to pursue our collective interests against China in trade or war because a fifth column won’t allow it. They’ll make up some excuse to disguise that fact, but they won’t agree to make war on their coethnics.
This is a common occurrence in American history. For example, we’re taught that we entered WWI to “make the world safe for democracy” but actually it was an ethnic conflict. The US was majority British and had a strong Anglo culture. We intervened to help our coethnics who were in trouble.
Woodrow Wilson & Franklin Roosevelt were both WASPs of British extraction, and the strongest support for both World Wars came from British coethnics in the South* (Southern Senators gave us Lend Lease). The strongest opposition to the wars came from Germanic groups and Germanic celebrities like Charles Lindbergh (whom I consider a true American hero). NYC had Nazi rallies attended by German immigrants prior to the invasion of Poland and Hollywood directors like Von Stroheim (Austrian Jew) were admired by German immigrants for his suave portrayal of Austrian officers. Southern WASP director D.W. Griffith made outright pro-war propaganda films trying to get the country to help his British coethnics in WWI.
*IHMO: The British heavily promoted the film Gone With The Wind because it was a sly pro-war film. The Yankee invader was the German Hun and The South was the brave British fighting against overwhelming odds. The South was the most heavily Anglo region and most pro-British. Without the support of Southern Senators, support for the British would have been much less. The movie adaptation of the book was simply an attempt to rally ethnic support for helping the British out against their common ethnic rivals.
I feel like the CCP has already bought so many people off with the cash from shopping carts full of savings that having their coethnics in place is nearly redundant at this point.
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” — H.L. Mencken
While allowing stupid people to have a say in governance is a problem, what is worse is the preponderance of truly venal people that are drawn to power in a democracy, as has been pointed out here before.
I don’t disagree with you but I would note that venal people are always drawn to power. The same amoral psychopaths would be angling for a position in any form of government. It’s how they roll.
Ronehjr: And that venality and craftiness/intelligence often go hand in hand.
If since Mencken made that quip we’d been governed in every detail by the average of American citizen opinion, we’d live in an unimaginable utopia.
Mencken so hated the average man, he gullibly accepted the propaganda of “democracy” as true, just so he could oppose it.
We live in the world he wanted.
It’s worth noting that none of the “communist” countries considered themselves Communist. They were “dictatorships of proletariat” – socialist countries preparing ground for communism. That was the official doctrine and the reality according to Marxist-Leninist theory.
Is it that democracies are more violent, or is it that they’re better at violence. Hanson’s book, Carnage and Culture, implies that having a stake in the game, real or perceived, makes the people better at war. I don’t think he’s wrong. I, for example, as a White male, have no intention of fighting for what is left of the United States. The Great and Sovereign State of Tennessee might be another matter.
it’s a good question. perhaps it has to do with every society having a certain amount of ‘violent energy’ that can be expended internally or externally. and democracies are better (or ore inclined) to direct this energy externally.
You mean you’re not excited to put your life on the line for a system that holds sodomy, child abuse, and grifting the tax cattle as its most sacred values?
No, Hanson’s book makes the point that Western ways of war tend to be more brutal end effective than non-Western ways of fighting. This is true under whatever system of government the Westerners were living.
I want to move to Tennessee. Any recommended areas, without necessarily giving your location away for privacy concerns?
Southern Middle and North West are still rural and relatively inexpensive.
Thanks!
I use city-data and areavibes to check livability of cities. The latter obnoxiously groups Hispanics with whites in demographics, but shows Hispanics % separately below the chart, so one can do the subtraction.
I had a friend name McCaleer. You too would make a good business name (perhaps stereo equipment purveyors) 😉
Unrelated to the article: Another of your commonly used phrases that could be used on merchandise is being “dumb as a goldfish.” Makes me chuckle every time and I use it often in my vernacular now.
My secret handshake with other Z readers is going to be based on the phrase “listener enthusiasm is not accepted at the bank”.