The Real Supply Chain Crisis

Posted on November 17, 2021 by thezman

Note: Behind the green door is a long post on the Star Trek franchise. I have been watching these off and on for a couple of years and have some thoughts on how the series evolved foreshadowing today’s events.

A popular plot in science fiction shows is that the human stars of the show discover technology from an ancient race. In trying to figure out how it works, they set off a reaction that puts them at risk. They realize they have to figure out the ancient alien technology in order to save the day. Usually, the moral of the story is that humans are infants in the universe. They may have conquered interstellar travel, but they are nowhere near ready to handle the complex stuff.

It is a popular storyline in science fiction shows because it allows the writers to cook up exotic technology without thinking about how it works. The technology can operate like magic to make the plot happen. It also lets the writers do some finger wagging at the enemies of Hollywood. The white cast members are humbled to learn that they are not at the top of the humanoid hierarchy. Mostly it is just an easy way to grind out a script for a television series like the Stargate franchise.

This concept is not without some parallels in this world. There were people in the early Middle Ages confronted with the same issue. They inherited things like aqueducts from the Romans but lacked the social capital to keep them going. The ancient Greeks assumed the Mycenean ruins were built by a race of giants. They could look at the ruins and imagine what they were at their peak, but they had no idea how they were built or who had built them. It was beyond their knowledge.

America may be entering a similar period. One of the growing complaints in the dreaded private sector is the lack of talent. The mass media notices the labor shortage in things like retail and hospitality, but the real scarcity is upstream. Finding people with the cognitive ability and work ethic to fill important roles is not easy. Often the choice is one or the other. The person has the talent but is unreliable or they are reliable but maybe a click below what the position demands.

The main driver is demographics. The Baby Boomer swan song is upon us, and it is showing up in the payroll registers of American companies. The first wave Boomers are in the prime retirement range. Covid has led many to clock out early. The second wave is in their early sixties, so they are planning to wrap things up. Generation-X is a much smaller cohort, and the Millennials are not ready for prime time. The talent – work ethic dichotomy is very obvious with Millennials.

Of course, it is with Millennials where the glories of diversity appear. They are the second least white generation. The Zoomers are mostly nonwhite. That talent – work ethic dichotomy is exacerbated by “the tax”. The cost, in terms of human capital, in hiring the younger generation is much higher, which means the talent for other things is decreased even further. Basically the private sector is facing a smart fraction problem that promises to get much worse in the near future.

This talent shortage is showing up in strange places. College football coaches are not considered super-smart guys, but it is a challenging job. They run what amounts to a mid-sized business with hundreds of employees. They also have to master the complexity of a game that has reached its peak in complexity. Here is an example of one part of a college football playbook. Finding men with the required skillset to run a college football program is becoming increasingly difficult.

The solution in sports like football is to simplify things. This is the new trend in the game to reflect the demographic reality. Instead of complex passing plays the offense just gives the ball to a fast guy and lets him run around with it. One of the top young quarterbacks in the NFL is Lamar Jackson. He scored a 13 on the Wonderlic test, which is what you would expect from a janitor. Lamar is not working a Rubik’s cube in his off hours nor is he studying a complex offensive system.

The dreaded private sector is going the same way. Automation is the way to reduce the need for talent. Using robots is one way to do this in manufacturing. Another way is software systems to atomize and control the required tasks. In the office, software is doing more of the analysis and decision making. Dispatchers, for example, are being replaced by software that routes field personnel. Those people in the field have mobile devices that fill in the blanks of their knowledge.

Part of what is driving the ruling class is the belief that technology can replace those retiring white Baby Boomers. The dream of the multicultural paradise, free of white power structures, assumes the robots will take over from the white people. No one thinks much about who is going to code, operate and maintain the AI. That is the fatal flaw in the plan. There will never be a time when the machines become self-sufficient and anything but super-racist.

The fact is, there is no escaping the ramifications of the cognitive decline. We have created a society that requires an average IQ of about 97. The distribution of smarts provided sufficient talent at each layer of society. The smart fraction was large enough to carry the rest. Now that IQ has dipped below that threshold, we are starting to see problems like the supply chain issues. This is just the beginning of a systemic collapse brought on by the lack of social capital.

That is the real supply chain crisis. Each generation is supposed to build on the next but starting in the middle of the last century this system started to break. The Baby Boomers did not create enough replacements. Worse yet, they did not train them to take up their positions. The waves of immigration have watered down the system further, creating shortages that will only get worse. Soon, Americans will be like those humans in the sci-fi shows, unable to operate ancient technology.

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

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Rittenhouse Trial

Posted on November 16, 2021 by thezman

The Kyle Rittenhouse trial has gone to the jury after both sides presented their closing arguments and the state presented its rebuttal. Wisconsin stacks the deck against the accused by not only allowing the state the final word but giving them a chance to address the closing argument of the accused. That means before the jury got the case, they had to sit through a long day of the state making unfounded claims about their case as well as the case of the defense team.

Putting that aside, the trial has not exactly riveted the country, but it has become a symbol of the problems facing America. For example, there were the howler monkeys of the new religion writhing in agony whenever the judge enforced the basic rules of criminal procedure. Immediately they labeled the judge a white supremacist fascist and issued a fatwa against him. The death threats came pouring in and he is now under police protection. Welcome to America.

Twitter sponsored people on their platform calling for volunteers to show up at the court and get the names and faces of the jurors. This is not an official Twitter position, but as a publisher, they chose to allow their members to post these calls. In a sane society they would be liable for the people they boost on their platform. In present day America corporations are immune from all consequences. As long as they are true believers, they can do as they please.

On the other side of this you have people slowly waking up to the reality of the situation, who are glued to the case. They hold out hope that the jury does the moral thing and clears Rittenhouse of all charges. They do not want to see an innocent man condemned for holding the wrong opinions, but mostly they do not want to see the ugly reality of this age piled onto the head of a baby-faced young man. This trial offends the decency of the remaining honest men in this society.

For those who have had their awakening long ago, this trial is a continuation of the trend that now defines society. On the one hand we have America descending into a great terror aimed at the white population. The new religion is all about vengeance against white people. Juxtaposed to this are the people who see it, trying to find some way to wake up the rest of the people. This trial is another example of the aware desperately trying to warn the world.

Of course, that brings up the confused audience in this tragic drama. Most white people are trying to avoid looking at this trial. The grotesque nature of it turns their stomach, as it should. The ugliness of the human condition is on display. There are the savage calls for mob vengeance and the cruelty of fanaticism. This trial is a human sacrifice carried out by a mob of fanatical lunatics. Most white people thought we had evolved beyond this sort of thing. Welcome to America.

It is a good reminder of something said by John Stuart Mill. “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

This has been the story of the last five years. The overwhelming majority of people in America, regardless of race or national origin, just want to live quiet lives enjoying the benefits of their circumstances. They are Burkean conservatives in that they do not want to flip over the tables and begin anew. That understandable and justifiable desire for stability and normalcy easily gives way to passivity in the face of evil. The story of the last five years is a nation of good men doing nothing.

This trial is probably a pivot point. The good men looking away do so with the certainty that their fellow citizens on the jury will do the right thing. They still trust the system even though they see the systemic corruption. If the jury sends this young man to prison many more eyes will be opened to the reality of this age. Not all, as some people put all of their efforts to remaining blissfully unaware. Theirs is a life of willful ignorance and a selfish disregard for the suffering of others.

On the other hand, the just verdict will allow most people to extend their holiday from reality a bit longer. They will comfort themselves in the belief that the system still works, despite what they have seen. Like a high wire performer who miraculously survives a fall and returns to his act, these people will learn nothing. Thoreau was right about most men living quiet lives of desperation. It is just that most men desperately wish to live outside of the great currents of history.

For those who have made the journey to this side of the great divide and see things as they are, this trial is just another opportunity. If the jury does the right thing, then the issue is why this kid was persecuted by these ghouls. If he is found guilty then the issue is the grotesque injustice at the hands of a savage mob of fanatics. The dissident is an opportunist, using every event to press a partisan case. The Rittenhouse case is just one more story in a long struggle for Western civilization.

Left-Wing Grifters

Posted on November 15, 2021 by thezman

Note: The regular Monday Taki post is up. This week I have some comparisons of our present state to the old Soviet Union. Behind the green door is the Sunday podcast and two movie reviews. If you are a subscriber, thank you for your support. If not, may Allah send the fleas of a thousand camels to nest in your groin.

A popular topic on this side of the great divide is who is and who is not a grifter, a shill or controlled opposition. The general assumption is that the people with perches in Conservative Inc. are working some sort of con. Maybe their racket is to keep people from looking over the great divide. These are the gatekeepers. Others may co-opt a dissident idea and then neuter it. They say things like Critical Race Theory is actually an attack on nonwhites so white people can oppose it.

Often forgotten is that the other side has their fair share of grifters who make a comfortable living working the true believers. Here is an example from the Daily Beast of what can be called woo-woo for the wokies. The writer is telling them that their newly minted hero, Liz Cheney, and an old has-been named Chris Christie, will give Trump a run for his money in the 2024 Republican primary. The Twitter thread on this topic is an amusing window into political mental illness.

The writer is someone calling himself Matt Lewis. He used to play the role of snarky conservative, but that was just an act. At a young age he was harvested and cultivated by the neoconservatives. When the fortunes of the neocons faded, he did what all rats do on a sinking ship. He now peddles his wares as a reformed conservative to a gullible audience at the Daily Beast. It is a trip that so many have made that it has become a stock figure in the American political drama.

As you see with the grifters of Conservative Inc., the left-wing variety sells the true believers the latest items from the one true faith. In this case the item for sale is that Liz Cheney is a folk hero for finking on her party and her voters. She has signed onto the Stalin-esque show trial called the January 6 Commission. This is where the Left gets to claim that normal white people exercising their ancient rights are white supremacist insurrectionists and a threat to “our democracy”.

The main difference between the woke grifters and the conservative grifters is the former works in a world of pure imagination. Say what you want about Ben Shapiro, but he is not wrong about the “constitutional principle” business. If we had a ruling class that enforced the old rules, things would be better for everyone. His grift lies in convincing people that it is still possible with this ruling class. He turns a virtue into the vice of defending the enemies of the people.

Because the left-wing grifter operates in the world of fantasy, he has an easier time of it, but is barred from factual reality. At some level, they must believe the same nonsense as their intended suckers. In the case of neocons like Matt Lewis, he harbors the same hatred for the white people as the true believers. The neocons may be driven by hyperviolent fantasies about world conquest, but they also detest the heritage population every bit as much as the wokest wokie.

It is that blind hatred that allows the crazies to now embrace Liz Cheney. You have to admire the skill with which the neocons have ingratiated themselves with their old friends on the Left. Not long ago the name “Cheney” was spelled H-i-t-l-e-r by the readers of the Daily Beast. He was the master of the Haliburton Hurricane Machine that devastated New Orleans and unleashed hell on the Arabs. It requires a special brand of crazy to do a heel turn like that in such a short time.

Of course, what wads a lot of this together into a slimy ball of hatred for the average American is a sense of class consciousness. The new religion is the religion of the new class, the managerial class that now commands the high ground. The middling celebrities of the commentariat are driven as much by their duty to their own class as they are by genuine belief. To people like Matt Lewis, those Trump voters outside the hive walls are a threat to his people.

It is completely bonkers that anyone would think that Liz Cheney has a future in Republican politics. That is one of those bits of good news, a little green shoot, that should give the good guys a little hope. The people on the other side are increasingly driven mad by the contradictions of their new religion. If the good guys could create and insert chaos agents into the system, Liz Cheney would be a good example. Every time she speaks in public, another dissident is born.

Another bit of good news in stories like this is that the neoconservatives have really fallen on hard times. That cabal now exists on an island off the coasty of crazy-ville, supported by a billionaire Persian who thinks he may be Cyrus the Great. The second generation of neocons squandered the tribal fortune and the third generation makes the Kennedy gene pool like deep. Like so much of the managerial class, neoconservatism now reeks of its own decay.

Reforming Normie

Posted on November 12, 2021 by thezman

The days are getting short, and the year is getting short, so it is a good time to clear out the backlog of ideas on the idea list. I keep a running list of possible show topics that tends to get out of hand over time. This time of the year is when I try to impose some order on things and get ready for the next year. This week is actually a few show ideas combined into one two-hour show.

Another motivation was to address the whole “what do we do about normie” topic from a couple of different angles. This is a popular topic on this side of the great divide, especially around an election. It seems that some people cannot accept the reality of their condition, no matter how many times they get bonked on the head. How can you reach someone who seems to be immune from observable reality?

The problem with the “what do we do about normie” problem is people start with democratic assumptions. That is, the point of politics is to get fifty percent plus one of the people to agree. That does not make a lot of sense for a political movement that rejects the claims of democracy. Dissident politics is never going to be about winning over the majority of the public. It is about ending that nightmare.

Of course, dealing with the sorts of people who still read National Review or listen to Ben Shapiro is frustrating. Every normal man is tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin strangling civic nationalists. One reason for addressing these people is to learn how to do it without becoming homicidal. A good salesman knows the difference between a prospect and a contact.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

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

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This Week’s Show

Contents

00:00: Opening
05:00: Introducing Normie
25:00: Reform & Normie
65:00: Positive Agenda
105:00: Set A Good Example

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

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/BpEkOyTSFXU

Concepts of The Hive

Posted on November 11, 2021 by thezman

The opposite rule of liberalism says that whatever the Left is saying, you should start with the opposite and that is where you will probably find the truth. For example, if they are accusing one of their bogeymen of something, most likely the target is not doing it and is not the bad guy. Odds are, it is the Left engaging in the activity. Whether it is latent guilt or deliberate distraction, the Left tends to accuse others of the things they are doing or plan to do in the future.

It is not always simple like we learned with the Russian collusion hoax. The Left is fond of creating elaborate and plausible concepts that they can use to frame issues so that they are the default moral position. Homosexual marriage is an example where they inverted the morality of the issue. Normal people felt the need to explain why we should maintain normal marriage, as if it was a novel concept. The opposite, of course, was the truth but it was hard for people to see it.

The idea of the social construct is a good example of how it is not easy to tease out the truth from what the Left is saying. It is tempting to use the opposite rule of liberalism and say that there is no such thing as a social construct. Something like sex is obviously not an invented thing and people are not assigned sex at birth. While their concept of gender is nonsense, there are gender roles in society. These are closely tied to biological sex and the natural differences between the sexes.

Where the opposite rule of liberalism applies in regard to something like social constructs is that it is not the normal world that is a construct but rather how the Left engages with the world that is a creation of their mind. Like the simple example of the Russian collusion hoax, the Left is accusing Mother Nature of creating constructs of the mind when it is the Left that is doing it. In fact, everything about the Left relies on an invented moral framework that does not exist in realty.

A good example of this is the “hate researcher”. There are people running around now with that title. Another flavor of this is the extremism expert. Whenever the media wants to label someone a heretic and have them hurled into the void, they call on people with one of these titles. The target is identified, the hate researcher provides the “data” proving that this person meets the definition of a hater or extremist, and therefore they deserve to be hurled into the void.

The fact that there can be no such thing as a hate researcher, or an extremism expert is never questioned. Hate is an entirely subjective term as used by the Left. It does not actually mean an intense or passionate dislike. Instead, they have created a new definition that means something close to unorthodox and taboo. Most of the people accused of being a hater do not, in fact, hate anyone. They simply disagree from the prevailing orthodoxy with regards to the human condition.

Of course, “extreme” is and must be an entirely subjective term. Extremes are relative, so it all depends upon your perspective. People into “extreme sports” are not all that crazy to the people in those sports. Someone holding an extreme opinion is only considered to be an extremist in relation to others. Researching extremism, beyond explaining the subjectivity of the term and how it is used, is like researching UFO encounters or Big Foot sightings.

What the Left has done is create a moral framework. Inside the framework are the acceptable truths and outside are the taboo ideas. Wrong and right are not determined by factual accuracy but by the rules of the moral framework. Accepting the facts of table 43 of the Uniform Crime Report is wrong even though it is factual accurate. When the Left accuses the world of creating social constructs, it is because everything about their understanding of the world is through a social construct.

The hate expert and extremism researcher are similarly inventions that can only exist within the rules of the moral framework. In actuality there is no such thing and can be no such thing without the warped moral code of the Left. What the Left is doing, what they are expert at doing, is creating the required social constructs that allow them to anathematize things that contradict their current beliefs. It is how something can go from taboo to virtuous in the blink of an eye.

Another good example of this is the concept of “racism”. It is another invention that does not exist in the real world. The Left defines this as prejudice plus power and power is only held by white people. The reason for that is society is a social construct made by and for white people. This mean the lowliest white guy has power, while Barak Obama is his powerless victim. Therefore, by definition, the only people who can be racist are white people, because they have power.

It is only in the matrix of the Left’s fantasy world that this idea can seem real. The moral concept of racism would have been baffling to people a century ago. Prejudice was certainly something people have always known. They also considered it perfectly normal as tastes are subjective. Some people hate lima beans while others love them, but that says nothing about the nature of lima beans. The same applies to people’s taste in other people and other tribes.

This is why clarity of language is such a powerful weapon against the Left, even when wielded by crude people. When a leftist uses the term “hate speech” and someone corrects them with “you mean taboo speech” they will get very nervous. At some level, the Left knows the moral world they inhabit is a fiction. Using clear language to turn the lights on and expose the fiction is horrifying to them. Their fantasy world works only when they can commit to it totally.

Maintaining this fictional moral universe may be why the Left is so prone to accusing others of what they are doing. It is a defense mechanism. By shifting the focus to outside their safe zone, they get to avoid see the reality of their world. It is an extension of their natural self-loathing. The fictional world replaces their hated sense of self and the projection onto enemies of their own fears about themselves provides a necessary distraction from the reality of their condition.

Revanchism

Posted on November 10, 2021 by thezman

Revanchism is a political movement based in the desire to reverse territorial losses after a war or cultural upheaval, like a revolution. The term originated in France in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War. Nationalists wanted to avenge the French defeat and reclaim the lost territories of Alsace-Lorraine. It is often mingled with irredentism, the desire for lost territory based on legend. Israel’s territorial claims in the Levant are an example of both concepts.

In the West, revanchism is generally associated with the Right and especially with nationalist politics. The revanchists wish their nation to reclaim lost turf on perhaps fulfill its destiny by reclaiming its ancient territory. It can also mean a reassertion of the old culture and traditions, rolling back the current culture which is seen as foreign or illegitimate in some way. Revanchists want to go back to some point in the past where they think the break occurred in the culture.

An example is this American Conservative post by Sohrab Ahmari, Gladden Pappin, and Chad Pecknold. It is titled, “In Defense of Cultural Christianity”, an apologia for the traditional Christian order. It is not a defense but rather a call to reassert a pre-Reformation Catholicism and the political and social elements required to do it. Theirs is a “throne-and-altar” conception of conservatism that seeks to restore the Church as the partner of the secular state.

This wing of the Revanchist Right is responding to the modern Gnosticism of the Left, especially its view of the material world. Since the modern Left does not believe in an afterlife or God, their view of the material world as being hostile to the sacred essence of man leads to a war on the material world itself. Rather than transcending this life, like the Gnostics of old, the modern Progressive seeks to conquer nature and transform it into the tool of the fully self-aware man.

These Catholic revanchists are not the first to note the utopianism of modern liberal thought or its connection to Gnosticism. Conservative gadfly William F. Buckley popularized Eric Voegelin’s phrase “Don’t immanentize the eschaton!”, which became a conservative slogan in the 1960’s. Immanentize the eschaton means trying to bring about the final, heaven-like stage of history in this world. Hans Jonas, a century ago, noted the link between Gnosticism and modern thought.

This link between Gnosticism, Progressivism and the Catholic response to ancient Gnosticism is clear in the essay. “The thoroughly anti-gnostic Augustine, moreover, viewed Catholic cultural Christianity as an elongation of the Incarnation. It was its incarnational, anti-gnostic realism about our social and political nature that lent the Christian order of Europe its radiant vitality, its longevity and strength.” In other words, the proper response to the modern is the ancient.

The authors go on to point out that the secular state that subordinates all religion inevitably leads to a deracinated, gnostic form of Christianity. You can enjoy your faith in total private, but it can have no place in the culture or society. In the modern context, Christianity becomes just another hobby that can have no impact on this world or the people in it. You are left with a form of Rod Dreher-ism, in which you must retreat from the material world and wait for salvation in the next.

As an aside, it is interesting that this essay is posted on the American Conservative website, where Rod Dreher promotes his bespoke Gnosticism. He does not sell it as such, but that is what he is selling. His form of orthodoxy is just the special of the day at the cafeteria of Christianity. From the point of view of the revanchists, his call to retreat from this world is just another manifestation of the deracination and degradation of man by the liberal moral order.

Putting that aside, the revanchists are correct for the wrong reasons. They correctly see that the throne and altar are inevitably linked. They seem to think this is a Catholic innovation, but that is incorrect. The joining of the supernatural with human hierarchy is as old as human society. Every ruling elite needs authority, and that authority comes from legitimacy. There is no better way to solve this problem than to claim the ruler or ruling elite are the will of the gods or actual gods.

Once belief is understood as a natural part of man’s nature, like intelligence or the desire to reproduce, the question becomes, what should man believe? This has been the engine of human conflict and human progress since the beginning. The Catholic Church was a late comer to this battle for the soul of man. Modern liberalism may have roots in the ancient past, but it too is late to the party. It displaced that old order the revanchists seek to restore.

That is the central problem of revanchist thinking. It is not hard to make a compelling case in favor of the old throne-and-altar but there is a reason why it was abandoned in favor of the liberal order. Simply dismissing that reality as a wrong turn in the arc of history or a sign of moral decline avoids the issue. The Catholic Imperium has a defined beginning, the conversion of Roman emperor Constantine the Great in 312 CE, and a less well define end, possibly the Treaty of Westphalia.

To make the claim that this is a universal or timeless moral framework has to address why it did not exist for most of human history and why it was pushed aside. This is a problem shared by all cultural revanchism. In its reaction to the present, it blinds itself to the failings of the past. As a result, it becomes a form of escapism, where the past becomes fantasy literature. In this case, the Catholic integralist gets to imagine what it would be like to live in Medieval Europe.

The anti-Gnostics, however, should not be dismissed. Their observations about modern liberalism are useful, if incomplete. What we see with liberal democracy is an effort to solve its own internal conflict. It rejects the supernatural, but like all political orders, it needs an external source of legitimacy. It is trying to evolve one that only hints at the supernatural by leaving out large swaths of reality that can only be filled in with an undefined faith in the present order.

This is why the term “woke” is popular. These people are aware of their eternal identity, which is analogous to being aware of their divine essence. The great war between those “defending our democracy” and the so-called fascists is a rework of the old Gnostic dualism where the material world is evil, and the god is pure good. Critical theory then becomes the logos connecting the two. Modern Gnosticism is the quest for legitimacy and authority in a secular world.

In the end, revanchism can only be a starting point to model a new moral order that incorporates the old while recognizing its flaws. A new moral order will have to appeal to people as they are in this deracinated modern state. That means what comes next must be a continuation, rather than a rollback. That is both difficult and frightening, which is why revanchism will grow in popularity. Even so, the path is always forward. There is no going back to a prior age, no matter how much we desire it.

The Radical Middle

Posted on November 9, 2021 by thezman

Note: For those who Allah has blessed with a soul, there is a review of the near classic Western, Dance with Wolves up behind the green door. Those without a sub, condemned to a life of darkness, may Allah have pity on you.

For generations, one of the ironies of American politics is that the rank and file of the two main factions never get what they want but they stick with their side. The recent election is a good example of this as the “winning team” was immediately finked on by their party. They thought the message they sent to their leaders and the rulers is they are done with the craziness. The Republican leaders promptly supported the Democrats in generating more crazy.

It has been noted before that for the people who call themselves conservative and support the Republican Party, their best president was Bill Clinton. His was the most conservative administration since Eisenhower, according to the modern definition of conservative. The worst president was George W. Bush, the guy the Republican Party claimed was the epitome of conservatism. Conservative voters still hate Bill Clinton and mostly ignore Bush.

The Democrat side is not much better. The typical Democrat thought was Bush was Hitler reimagined, but he gave them almost everything they wanted. They opposed his crusades against Islam, but only because he was leading it. They forgot all about their antiwar rhetoric when their guy was installed to lead the crusade. Their most recent hero, Barak Obama, delivered on none of his promises to them. Instead, he catered to the party’s ideological and financial interests

There have been many attempts to explain this. The ideological march to the Left has been described as the ratchet effect. The political dynamic is the Left proposes, the Right opposes, and the synthesis is 80% of what the Left demanded. The cycle repeats with each election to one degree or another. The result is that America has become increasingly ideological in its politics and increasingly left-wing. The subsequent policy changes reflect the ideological march to the Left.

This may have been true in the Cold War with regards to domestic policy and perhaps the muscle memory remains but there is something else. Since the end of the Cold War, the American Left embraces cultural Marxism. The old liberalism, which was very lightly decorated with Marxist rhetoric, has given way to a politics of critical theory and Gramscian cultural politics. The Left is now purely about agitation and menticide in order to undermine and collapse the dominant culture.

This has led to a change in what conservatism sells to its side of the fight. The subplot of Republican politics is now stability, safety, and normalcy. The constant crisis of corruption that marked the Clinton years was replaced by the patriotic normalcy of the Bush years. The Republicans are now selling this as an antidote to the uncertainty and instability of the Trump – Biden years. The Virginia election was all about a return to normalcy so conservative voters could go back to grilling.

The new dynamic, new as in the last thirty years, is a clash of visions divorced from actual policy disputes. The one side promises to subvert, disrupt, and confront the prevailing order. The other side promises to supply stability, safety, and a sense of normalcy to society. One side wants to shake the snow globe until is it destroyed and the other side wants to place it back on the shelf so it can settle. Both sides agree on the shared premise of their position.

That shared premise is supplied by the Left. The core assumption of the modern Left is the Marxist assumption. Man is naturally communistic. The old Marxists thought it was the economic arrangements of capitalism that locked man into a competitive struggle with himself, rather than settling into his natural communism. The new Marxists think the villain is culture. They have seized control of the means of cultural production so they can liberate man from bourgeois society.

The so-called conservatives, perhaps unwittingly, accept this premise. They seek to prevent the Left from shaking society apart with their endless disruptions. Their defense of the status quo is not so much a defense of the natural order, something they now fear uttering even in private. Instead, their defense of the present order is simply to provide them with a role in the process. The Left proposes and the Right opposes is now the Left disrupts and the Right cleans up the mess.

This was why both sides feared and hated Trump and his supporters. It is not a policy issue or even a presentation issue. It is the clash of visions. The people most enthusiastically on the side of Trump think that man’s natural state is not communistic but orderly and hierarchical. They think if the prevailing orthodoxy collapses, what rises from the ashes is not communism but a new traditionalism. More important, the Left will no longer have barricades behind which they can hide.

This is why the critiques of Trump by people claiming to be outside the political dynamic are narrow and childish. He was not the Pinochet they imagined, so they slammed their rattle on the highchair and threw a tantrum. Just as the Trump phenomena exposed the hollowness of conservatism, it revealed the shallowness of what is often fobbed off as a dissident critique of it. They failed to understand that Trump was just a wrecker who wanted to tear it down and let nature take its course.

In fairness, Trump may not even get this deeper meaning of his politics, as he is not inclined to intellectual introspection. Most of his red-cap wearing loyalists are blissfully unaware of this sort of analysis. That is not the point. The point is they start from the assumption that if they could burn it all down, what would naturally rise up in its place is the sort of orderly hierarchy the genuine Right thinks is man’s nature. It is a rejection of the core belief of the ruling orthodoxy.

The lesson here is that a genuine opposition should look at the calls for stability and normalcy the same way they view the calls for subversion and disruption. They are two sides of the same coin, two dancing partners heading to the same end. The antidote to left-wing disruption is not stability, but right-wing disruption that helps break the white middle-class of its addiction to stability and compromise. A genuine alternative seeks to radicalize rather than anesthetize the middle-class.

The Eloi State

Posted on November 8, 2021 by thezman

Note: The weekly Taki post is up. It ties in with the post this week. Sunday Thoughts, the weekly podcast for the elect, is up behind the green door. If for some reason you did not notice it, I was on with RamZPaul Saturday and you can listen that here.

A truth learned from the study of economics is that competition between suppliers tends to create better products and services. Better in the economic context does not always mean more innovative or better quality. Sometimes the better product is simply more cost effective than the alternatives. The Wintel computer was never the technologically superior option, but it was the most cost effective. Competition often arrives at the solution that is merely good enough.

On the other hand, when companies or industries are able to shield themselves from competition they tend to decline in quality. The prices creep up as the quality and selection declines. The domestic car makers in America experienced this in the middle of the last century. By the 1970’s, their cars were silly and unreliable. Competition from overseas forced them to compete and that made for better cars. Competition is the economic equivalent of accountability.

The time traveler in the H. G. Wells novel The Time Machine observed that “It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble.” A corollary is that responsibility and a sense of duty is the compensation for accountability. A natural consequence of accountability is a duty and obligation to the rules under which you operate. When you are held accountable for your actions, you act in private as if the world is watching.

We see this in the whole “go woke, go broke” meme. The fact that none of these woke firms go broke is the important piece. That is the reason corporate America is rushing to embrace the most absurd things. They know they will never be held accountable for their actions, so they have no duty to the rest of us. The people who made the perverted Twix commercial did it because it costs them nothing. Mars is a massive global enterprise immune from the marketplace.

The tech sector is the most obvious example. They have spent decades colluding with one another to suppress wages and deny people their civil rights because they never have to worry about consequences. They may compete with one another at the fringes, but in essence they are a cartel with monopoly power. It is not as if you are going to build your own internet. The market forces we think should exits to hold these firms accountable no longer exists, so they do as they please.

This has been true of politics for a long time. The CIA put out a report in the late 1980’s claiming that the Soviet Union is getting stronger due to the massive success of the Gorbachev reforms. A few months later the Soviet empire collapsed. No one was ever held accountable. In fact, it is fair to say that the power of the Soviets had been overstated for generations. No one was ever held to account, so this was pushed aside with the other lies and blunders.

More recently, many of the same characters were involved in selling the world on the great Muslim threat. The West was turned into a police state because the Muslims wanted to impose Islam-o-fascisms on us. Trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives were spent on a problem that never existed. Since no one would ever be held accountable for the result, not one felt a duty to be right. They just made up whatever would benefit them at the moment.

Even closer to home, there was a local election last week that got national attention as a referendum on the parties. The Virginia governor race was a big success for the Republicans, who immediately used their new political capital to fink on their voters and support the other side. They did it because they know they will never be held accountable for it. Politics is now entirely immune from the marketplace of ideas, so there is no accountability and therefore no responsibility.

We see the same thing in the media. For half a decade they sold the Russian conspiracy hoax to the public. The recent indictments shows that they knew it was a lie when they were selling it. Everyone involved knew it was fake. No one will resign in disgrace or offer a tearful apology. They simply laugh and move onto the next hoax they are told to peddle. There is no shame because there is no accountability. What are you going to do, build your own mass media?

The lack of shame is perhaps the final stage. A reckless disregard for duty can still elicit shame, even if the person knows they will never be held accountable. Once this lack of accountability is normalized, morality collapses. Without morality, there can be no shame, which is what we see with the media. They are shameless because the people in the media no longer possess the normal moral coding. If they have a moral code at all, it is based in a disdain for the rest of us.

The central question posed by The Time Machine is whether life can go on without struggle and if so, should it? The two halves of future humanity, the Elois and Morlocks were scarcely human. They had reached a point where they had conquered the necessary conditions of human civilization. Once struggle had been eliminated, the skills to win the struggle atrophied. What the time traveler observed was not the apex of humanity, but the end of it.

A similar question can be asked about the collapse of accountability. Can a society survive when the people in charge of it are no longer responsible for it? The climax of the Enlightenment project appears to be a world in which the people at the top have finally been insulated from all accountabilities. Oddly, they are the Eloi ruling over the Morlocks, feckless children oppressing what they view as the lesser beasts. Is this the apex of Western civilization or the end of it?

Happy Homelands

Posted on November 6, 2021 by thezman

I will be on with Paul and Sasha today at 1:00 PM

https://youtu.be/6K1n33Wh5V8

A Rambling Tirade

Posted on November 5, 2021 by thezman

One of the unnoticed things about the current crisis is that the people getting what they want are increasingly angry, while the people getting worked over by the system are remaining calm and patient, for the most part. The crazies got what they wanted through the Trump years. They snarled his administration in a made-up plot and convinced his own party to sabotage his efforts. This required little effort, as the GOP is just their dull-witted flunkies.

Then they purged him from the system. The 2020 election should have signaled the end of the madness. The evil orange man had been removed from office. The Republicans could crawn back under their beds and the Democrats could waste everyone’s time with their crackpot ideas. The media would not have hear every day that they are fake news or the enemy of the people. Everything was back to how it was. You would think that they would be celebrating in the streets.

Instead, it has been a year of tantrums and vitriol. The more the lunatics get, the more they want and the more they want, the angrier they get. Their response to the mild bit of pushback on Tuesday was to promise more attacks on normal people. Pelosi promised to ram through their Build Back Better scheme. Biden promised to fire millions from their jobs for not worshipping Covid. Of course, these responses are always accompanied by an endless stream of lies and deceptions.

Of late, the question that keeps coming to mind is how much longer are we going to put up with these lunatics? The stock response from most is something about normie just wanting to grill and watch sportsball. It is certainly true that people will tolerate a great deal as long as their bellies are full, and they are entertained. It is also true that no tree grows to the sky, meaning there is a limit to everyone’s patience. The American Revolution was not about the lack of food or entertainments.

It is not even about the people at the top. The real issue is the fruitcakes and lunatics that have been unleashed into a daily life. How can normal people expect to live with the sorts of people in this Twitter thread? For ideological reasons they are making up nonsense about how food is a luxury item. How long can any sane person put up with people who lie like this? How long before normal people snap and slap the smug off the moonbat in their life?

Imagine having to tolerate this stupid shrew? We all have a Covidian in our life and have had our patience tested by them. This ridiculous dingbat could not count her boobs twice and get the same number both times, yet she floats around lecturing the rest of us on vaccinations. These people are why we had things like the dunking stool and the branks. At some point, even unlimited amounts of food and sportsball is not going to be enough to tolerate these people.