Author: Mark Noonan

Open Thread

Mark Noonan25 Comments

Little follow up to my post from two days ago: after discussing what is brave and so forth, got into a similar debate about what are rights. It was rather heated for a while and I think I’ve identified why: I thought after a while that we were talking past each other because I realized I hadn’t pointed out that with rights come responsibilities…and that’s when it all really fell apart and I found out that lots of people don’t even have a mental conception of responsibilities. And, guys, this was me arguing with the Right. The Left never even showed up.

To nutshell it, I pointed out that we are under no obligation to allow bad and/or insane people to occupy the public square. That among the rights we as citizens hold is the right to a peaceful, polite, orderly society so that we may conduct our lawful business without let or hindrance. This caused the explosion – one guy considering me a fascist over it. The bottom line is that those opposing me do not believe that we have a right to decency and neither do people have a responsibility to be decent. Sure, they conceded that someone causing direct harm could be arrested…but only in very narrow circumstances and if I didn’t like the way things we, too bad: we can only be free if lousy people are allowed to be lousy.

This shows how far the rot has gone – first that people believe a bum or a gangster is someone exercising freedom rather than representing the mentality of a slave. Secondly that decent people have to put up with the lousy…that if we don’t do that, we can’t be free. The truth, of course, is that if you don’t have an orderly, polite society you can’t be free…because a disordered, rude society is swiftly run by the most barbaric among us and barbarians do not respect the rights of anyone. This is why we have people waltzing into stores and just swiping everything. You can say the changes to the law caused it and I’d agree that it was a proximate cause of the event, but the bottom line is that you and I – even if absolutely assured we wouldn’t get prosecuted – simply would not go and steal stuff. We know its wrong and we don’t have a right to take what belongs to others. Barbarians don’t know its wrong and figure anything they can grab is theirs by right.

And how are we supposed to survive like that? The answer is that we can’t. It is already starting to fall apart (and the suburban people who figure they can just shop on line are gonna love it when their Amazon delivery trucks start to get hijacked in droves). Eventually those who produce or who have goods to sell will retreat behind walls and only allow select people in…and they’ll only produce in small amounts for fear that goods available for sale are also readily available for theft. Shortages, lack of access, rising prices are going to come unless this is stopped.

And they way you stop a barbarian is to hit him. Very hard. So that it hurts a lot. And you keep hitting him until he stops. It is the only way. It isn’t fascist; not even akin to fascism. It is saving civilization and thus freedom.

So, Hunter had his plea deal and the judge tossed it because it absurdly granted Hunter immunity from future charges…in case anyone following up on his actions found even more crimes (spoiler: there are more crimes. A lot more crimes). So, he plead guilty. Now, don’t get your hopes up: Team Pudding Brain isn’t going to allow Joe’s spawn to go to jail and they will want all possible charges wrapped up before election day, 2024, for fear that if a GOPer – or even a hostile or indifferent Democrat – gets in for 2025 the jig will be up. Rely on it that they are already working on a modified slap on the wrist. And the Biden’s are too arrogant to understand that the way out – the way to make this all go away – is for Hunter to see the inside of a jail cell. Say a 3 year rap, out in 18 months. Be good for Hunter: his best chance to get clean before he overdoses. It would still be a wrist slap, but everyone is going to figure “at least he went to jail” and stop looking into it. The hope is the nitwits keep screwing it up and a GOP President gets to have his team look into it.

DeSantis said something mildly approving of RFK (who is a nut) and the world went mad – and mostly is was DeSantis supporters who went mad. They’re busy writing his political obituary over it. But I do detect something: some RDS supporters clearly only backed RDS as the non-Trump without much hope he’d actually win the nomination and thus provide these people with an excuse to vote Biden in 2024. As for me: it wasn’t that bad and RDS has plenty of time to repair whatever damage was done. What I’ve been advising people is to not get committed to any particular candidate too early. The Trumpsters and the DeSantis-stans are both making the mistake of getting too deeply invested when the first primary is still months away (though I suspect DNC pot-stirring is playing a role here). I’ve committed to vote for the GOP nominee – of late I’m not even saying who I prefer. Any GOPer is the moral and intellectual superior of every Democrat.

In line with that, do you feel the shift? After the 2022 midterms I think most of us expected rather resounding defeat in 2024. I sure did. But Dobbs fades and Pudding Brain’s utter nastiness comes ever more to the fore. I think people are disgusted with him. A lot. Sure, Trump has his negatives – and rely on it that if RDS or someone else gets it, their negatives will be driven sky high by the MSM – but Trump didn’t abandon a grandchild. Isn’t talking about “gender affirming care” for minors as if the very concept weren’t an abomination. Without getting too deep here, for the first time in a while I do think we can win next year. Steep hill to climb. We still have to win outside the margin of fraud (which will be a lot lower than in 2020), but I think we can do it. Stay tuned.

Bravery is Good and Should be Honored

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Had a rather interesting day on Twitter (or is it Xitter, now?). It started with me seeing an NRO article which condemned Aldean’s tune by saying we need songs about virtue, not violence. That started me off by saying that one of the manly virtues is the use of violence to defend the community. Next up was a Tweet asserting that what ails us is that so many of the very best in the West died in the two World Wars and so we’re just breeding from the dregs. To that I objected that while it is true that the best die in the highest portion in war, what was really the poison was our lack of honoring the fallen.

Oh, to be sure, we’ll build them a monument. We’ll say we honor the troops – but we don’t honor what was most important about them: their valor. Bravery. Guts. The fact that they went into the worst situation, behaved like lions, and defeated evil enemies. That is what we should be talking about, and quite endlessly, because it is worth talking about. It is an example and an aspiration for all of us – to show even a tenth of the courage of those who prevailed in war.

But, instead, our stories are all about how lousy it was and what were we fighting for and dammit that guy died and all we want is for this to be over with. All of these are true enough sentiments as any combat veteran will tell you but they aren’t the story.

I think this stems from the aftermath of World War One and especially the play Journey’s End. Some years back I spoke about this play in relation to a recent adaptation and it really is a good play but when I saw it I felt that it was missing the key aspect of the setting.

The play, itself, is set in the days just before Operation Michael was launched by the Germans. This was the start of Germany’s Spring offensive of 1918. Their supreme effort to win the war in France before the full power of the United States could be brought to bear. The basic German plan was to destroy the British army and in service of this goal they put together an army of picked men, specially trained and equipped for the offensive. They culled out of all German divisions the very best men, gave them the best weapons, backed them up with the most massive artillery Germany could create and then launched them against a British army which was worn down by years of fighting and was being denied reinforcements from home for fear of the British command launching more fruitless attacks against the German front. It was, as Churchill wrote, the most powerful onslaught in military history. Still is to this day; no particular offensive in World War Two can compare the the power the Germans directed against British line on March 21st, 1918.

And the Brits held. Sure, they had to withdraw, pretty deeply by Western Front standards, but at no time was their front broken. At no time did the troops panic and flee. Outnumbered at the point of attack two or three to one, the British soldiers bled that German assault, with many British units fighting until exterminated. In the end, this massive attack representing the very best Germany had pushed forward into a completely useless salient about 15 miles into the British lines. It was without a doubt the most sublime defensive stand in history.

And what does the world know about it? Journey’s End – it was all just a waste.

But it wasn’t a waste. It was a victory. It was bravery. To this day young British children should thrill to oft-retold tales of their ancestors standing up to the most powerful army ever and giving it a drubbing so that freedom could live. I’ll bet not one in a thousand has ever even heard of it…and if they hear anything about World War One it was that it was just nothing but bad. This isn’t to excuse the political and military leaders of Britain or the other combatants in the war – they truly were downright awful on all sides for the most part. But to take the courage of men pitted against the fires of war and insult it is more disgusting than the worst strategic or tactical blunders of the leaders. It is a betrayal of the warriors.

And now I’ll get to the last thing which got me sitting here writing – that was after I had defended the brave and the fulfillment of duty I got the pushback that things like the strategic bombing campaign of Germany was a crime and the men who did it evil – one person actually comparing them to Auschwitz camp guards (“weren’t the guards doing their duty? Huh; what about that, smarty pants!”). And that is when it really hit me; we’ve been heavily propagandized, especially since the end of World War Two. Propaganda which has made us forget and/or denigrate bravery and doubt ourselves – “maybe we weren’t any better than the Nazis?”. It was the putting of Journey’s End on steroids. At least in the play the protagonist is shell-shocked after years at the front…but now the very best we’ve ever had sent out into the worst thing to ever happen are either pathetic victims or criminals in their own right.

This is very insidious and I have to figure it was cooked up in Moscow – because the USSR really was no better than Nazi Germany in most respects and it was terribly weak compared to us and so something had to be done to make sure America never flexed its power. What better way than a campaign of slander against our troops and against our nation? How better than to say that the bombing of Dresden or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima were just the same as a Nazi concentration camp? The merest bit of thought shows they weren’t remotely alike. Even if we in the aftermath decide that the strategic bombing campaign was wrong, the fact remains that we did it for the right reasons: we were trying to end the war by the swiftest means available (thus reducing the overall death total) while defeating inhuman tyranny. Meanwhile, the Nazis were trying to exterminate people who couldn’t possibly fight back. Not even remotely the same sorts of actions – but they were compared, with a subtle implication that somehow we were a little worse (“we’re better than that!”).

We have to get back to honoring bravery. To look at our troops and see what they did. Sure, you can point out that they weren’t all saints, but it must immediately be said that it doesn’t matter. What matters as regards our soldiers is that they went out and fought for us and did it well and beat evil enemies. I have wondered for years why no movie was ever made about Ernest Evans and the USS Johnston – I’ve mentioned Evans before: to remind, he was the skipper of the Johnston and when he sighted the enemy battle fleet – which included the super-battleship Yamato – he immediately charged the enemy and fought like mad – him and his whole crew – until the Johnston was shot out from under them. We can’t make that movie – because all we can do with it is show how incredibly brave they all were and that isn’t the sort of story we’re allowed to tell these days. If we ever did anything with it, it would probably be to find some poor survivor who suffered PTSD over it. But it was brave; and the actions of that crew – and the crews of other small ships who also joined the charge – saved the day at Leyte Gulf…after the admirals had screwed up and got themselves decoyed by the Japanese, leaving small ships like the Johnston out on a limb, with only their hearts and their blood to stand against the Japanese.

But we must relearn those stories. We must relearn to honor heroes. It is the only way we can survive – the only way to have hope.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

I hear the Barbie movie is a woke-fest – but it is making huge money, likely because they didn’t push it as a woke-fest. Gotta say that’s some clever marketing…Barbie, of course, having huge market just on the name so large numbers of little girls and their parents would go see it if they thought it was just a Barbie movie. We’ll see how it does long-term as the woke comes out.

The other big movie release is Oppenheimer – which I am suspecting is a good movie based on Nolan directing; he usually doesn’t disappoint. I bet, though, it will have all that nuclear weapons angst which Soviet propaganda generated during the Cold War to make sure the USA never pressed its overwhelming advantage in nuclear weapons. The other aspect to look for is just how much they explore Oppenheimer’s Communist connections. I figure if Oppenheimer, himself, had been a Commie that would have come out some time after the end of the Cold War…so, he probably wasn’t a card-carrying member. But his social and professional connections were shot through with Commies. Of course, part of that was the times: the intellectual class, which has always been a little stupid in practical affairs, fell hook, line and sinker for Communism in the first half of the 20th century. A portion of them woke up about it but not before the damage was done – not just in allowing spies to run wild, but also the deep infiltration of American institutions, public and private, by Communists.

We’ve talked about atomic bombs before so I’ll just briefly re-state: it is just a big bomb. The only legitimate hesitation in using one is the immense amount of death and destruction it causes. That is, do you need to destroy that city and end all those lives? In a lot of war situations, you simply would not have to and so use would be gratuitous and immoral. But in the context of Japan in 1945, there was at that point no other way out for us or the Japanese. It was either fight it out conventionally at the cost of millions of lives (mostly Japanese but quite a lot of American and allied as well) or blow up a couple cities at the cost of a couple hundred thousand lives and end it. Whether or not we and the Japanese should have got ourselves into that predicament is an entirely separate issue – and not just in Japan’s decision to attack, but our decision to demand unconditional surrender in 1942…my view is that we should never have done that and should have opened negotiations in 1943 after the Battle of the Philippine Sea for a peace deal which got Japan out of the Philippines and China proper but left the Japanese Empire intact as a counter balance to Russia and China.

But, such wasn’t to be. And because we had Commies and because we got ourselves jammed with Japan…we were pretty much prevented from using nukes during the Korean War when the obvious best way to get the Chinese out of Korea was an ultimatum to get out or Shanghai gets nuked.

The latest trope in the Reparations issue is the insistence that “black people built America”. I see it more and more often – so, you see, we owe it! As I’ve discussed before, there is an injustice here which can be corrected without inflicting a new injustice – that is, out of the national wealth (public lands and mineral rights, mostly) provide funds to the descendants of slaves in order to help them catch up given their ancestors were illegally prevented from building wealth at all from 1776 to 1865 and then hampered in it from 1865 to 1965. But the concept that slaves built America is not just a lie, it is a stupid lie. Slave labor is a moral abomination and lousy economics.

The South was economically and intellectually backwards by 1861 – not just behind the North but massively behind and falling back further year by year. The Southern leadership thought they had the talisman of power in King Cotton but the fact of the matter is that by 1860 the agricultural products of free labor in the North were more valuable than what the whip could drag out of Southern soil. The whole project of the Confederacy was a con – I’m willing to concede that some of the leaders of the Confederacy conned themselves along with the mostly middle class soldiers who did most of the dying (that is North and South, by the way), but it was still a con. A stupid, regressive idea who’s only possible beneficiaries were the tiny class of wealthy slave drivers (who weren’t all that wealthy; they were heavily in debt because the costs of keeping slaves was very high). The leaders of the South would have been better off – and cost a lot less lives – if they had just freed their slaves and hired them.

But the main point here is that there was no building of America by slaves. Having slaves was probably a net economic loser for the USA as a whole. But if it did generate any net wealth, it was small and all of it was burned down in the Civil War. And you’d think black radicals would want to understand that slavery doesn’t work…but what they’re essentially saying is that it was the most effective economic system ever.

This is because they’re very, very stupid people.

Little bit of shift out there, guys. We dumped Bud Light and their sales are down like 30% or some such. The Left tried to shut down Jason Aldean for his latest song…and all it did was drive the tune to number one. We can win this. The more insane the Left gets, the harder it is for them to defend themselves and attack us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Today’s prime example of why I want to burn it all to the ground is this thread. Do read it, but to nutshell it a couple of gay guys rented out a woman’s womb to produce their designer child and when the mother came up with breast cancer they essentially ordered the child killed. The mother was willing to take the child as her own – she just needed it born premie so she could get cancer treatment. Nothing doing: kill the kid! And when she gave birth anyway, they (under the power provided to them by California law) refused any medical treatment for the premature boy, and so he died.

Hate to break it to everyone, but gay and straight are not the same thing. “Love is love” is an absurdity. We are what we are – and if you are a person who has a deep-seated sexual attraction to the same sex and you decide that that is how you will live your life then having kids is precluded. It just is what it is. I’m not condemning anyone for being gay, but I am going to insist that you don’t try to twist life to fit some bizarre desire you may have to engage in gay sex and be a father. Pick one. Stick with it. Don’t bring kids into a mix where they can only happen via the rather disgusting act of renting a human body for breeding purposes.

Another example is the Michigan AG indicting a group of elderly GOPers who produced a slate of Trump 2020 Electors. They’re seriously going to criminal charge these people – with the real “crime” being, “you supported Trump.

Hung Cao is running as a GOPer for Senate in Virginia – gotta say that this web ad of his is rock solid. He’s the son of Vietnamese refugees so he knows – and emphasizes – that he knows what our domestic Communists are up to. Aside from the “kid of immigrants makes good” story line, he’s also an American warrior – naval officer with lots of combat experience. Youngkin as Governor is trying to change Virginia’s blue trajectory and I think he’s having some success. Getting Cao into the Senate would cement it.

Word is that they’ll indict Trump. Again. This time for speeches he gave in the run up to January 6th. I think the Left is simply insane on this now – or they are looking at some polling indicating that Trump is at least on par with Biden and they are panicking. Whatever their motivations, this is yet more Death of the Republic stuff. Once Trump-Russia was proven to be a fraud, any official action against Trump will be seen by his supports as just more Trump-Russia. Even if you can prove that something Trump did was a crime, it won’t matter at this point. You had your shot and you burned it on a transparent lie. If we keep going down this route, then civil war is at the end of it. Maybe not today. Maybe not even for some years, but it will come. People who feel like they can’t get a fair shake will eventually resort to violence. It is as certain as night following day.

Autonomy and Responsibility

Mark Noonan39 Comments

Been seeing some discussions lately regarding that Supreme Court ruling saying, essentially, that you don’t have to bake the cake. The complaints – mostly from the Left but a lot of Righties have problems with it – revolve around a belief that a civil society cannot have people refusing to serve except for the most narrow (on the Left, none, really) exceptions. But I find it curious that none of the people saying we must bake the cake insist that we must carry our weight. It is rather a one way street – I have to bake the cake, but the lazy a** collecting bogus disability payments doesn’t have to get a job.

Chesterton pointed out that learning philosophy is important even though it can be a bit of a bore. The reason for this is because we’re either going to live by thought that has been thought out, or thought that hasn’t been thought out. For at least the past century, its been living by un-thought-out thought. How’s that been working for us?

The dichotomy of Bake the Cake/Sit on Your Butt is the result of simply not thinking about it. It seems like it is unfair to not bake the cake, just like it seems like it is unfair to force the lazy to work. But once you sit down and think about it for a bit, the opposite becomes clearly true.

The problem with slavery isn’t that you have to work. Heck, it doesn’t even require any great cruelty…and some of the largest slave owners of the past treated their slaves pretty well; so well that at times people were able to unfavorably contrast the treatment of free labor in the North with slave labor in the South. No; even if the slave is well treated and given every comfort that free labor would provide, it would still be wrong – and it is wrong because it is compelling someone to do for another. It is the refusal to acknowledge that the slave is a person who can choose to do or not do that is the problem with slavery. The fields do have to get plowed. The house does have to be cleaned. If anyone agrees to plow those fields and clean that house, great; but the moment you can tell a person they must plow your fields and clean your house, you have done evil no matter how nicely you otherwise treat the person. And, of course, treating them with brutality merely multiplies the basic evil of compulsion.

So, too, with any action where someone is doing something for another. You can plow your field. You can hire someone to plow your field. But you must not be able to force someone to plow your field. Or bake you a cake. Or so much as pass the salt. That a person may in some situations even have a moral obligation to do for you – such as sees you drowning and being fully capable of assisting, refuses – this does not entail any legal obligation to do. It must never involve a legal obligation to act.

We got this wrong because in our very understandable and morally correct desire to end and correct the injustices of racism, we fell into the trap of saying that discrimination is wrong rather than correctly identifying the problem as unjust discrimination. Words really do matter a lot! We ridicule the notion of our ancestors fighting whole wars over the definition of a word but they fought because it is important: what words mean and how you use them determine what sort of people you’re going to be. Because we’re lazy and rather ignorant – and don’t think out our thoughts – we fell into a trap: Discrimination is wrong! And so we went out to slay the dragon called Discrimination. Except we didn’t. And we can’t. But we did create a new tyranny to replace the old.

You see, we can’t end Discrimination. It would be impossible to live without Discrimination. For instance, we very much discriminate against blind people who want to be airline pilots. We also discriminate against 5’2″ men who want to play center for the Lakers. When you make out your Thanksgiving guest list and don’t include the wino who lives behind 7/11, you just discriminated. To discriminate is just to choose – and wisdom dictates that your choices be based in reality.

But we still gave it the old try, now didn’t we? And so, unable to end what is necessary for living, we got into the absurdity of saying that to end Discrimination, you must bake the cake. The person demanding the cake discriminates all day but the moment someone denies the cake: Bigot!!!! Off to court we go you homophobe! This is just wrong. Just as a person can decide who to have over for Thanksgiving, so they can decide who to do something for. It must be this way. To be free at the end of the day is the freedom to refuse. To say, “no” without let or hindrance. Doesn’t matter why – good reason, bad reason, no reason: if a person doesn’t want to do it then that’s the end of it: they don’t want to do it. No power on Earth should be able to compel a person to do anything for another.

But what about that bum, Mark? You said early on that we can’t allow people to sit on their butts: aren’t you saying that we can’t compel action? Huh? Explain that!

I will: here goes.

We do have our autonomy. Our ability to choose and our bedrock right to refuse. But we also do live in a society and doing so places certain obligations upon us. First is that we do no harm to the society. Obviously don’t break, steal or kill. We have no right to destroy or take what belongs to others – or to society collectively, like a bridge or a nature park – and we must not kill other people. But beyond these rather bare-bones requirements, we also have an obligation to not unduly burden our fellows. The difference can be illustrated by your neighbor asking you for a ride because his car broke down and your neighbor demanding you chauffeur him around. We, as a people, do carry a price of civilization around with us, and that price is to be reasonable. Someone needs a little help and you can provide it, it is morally incumbent upon you to do so. Not a legal obligation, but if you coldly refuse aid you could render at no significant cost to yourself, you have busted the societal deal. But it is all of us carrying the price of civilization. A man who does demand you chauffeur him around is breaking the deal as badly – maybe more badly – than the person refusing aid.

The pragmatic facts of life are that anyone who is physically fit refusing to work is breaking the deal. Anyone who is begging for money so they can get high or drunk is breaking the deal. Anyone working the system for unearned money (and this from welfare cheats to people using personal injury attorneys for bogus claims) is breaking the deal. Without getting into forcing these people to do for others, we are within our rights to force them to stop being a burden. That is, we can use compulsion to get the bum to go to work, to get the druggy to quit, to get the grifter to pay back what he’s stolen. I can’t order the bum to get a job, but I can set up a situation where he’s either going to get sober and get a job, or be sent some place where in return for being housed and fed – rather than living on the streets high – he will work. Of course even in such a place he can refuse to work…but we will adhered to the Biblical command of if a man will not work, let him not eat. We can and must enforce the deal – you can’t be a bum, you can’t be a drug addict, you can’t be a thief. We will give you every opportunity to become a responsible member of society but when push comes to shove you are either going to do your duty or you will find yourself without the means to live.

Now, this might seem a bit like a paradox but that is only because it is. You see, human life isn’t something that fits into neat, little boxes. Humanity isn’t a series of blocks of wood to be shaped and kept in line. The same society which diligently protects the right to refuse will refuse to allow people to take advantage of others in the name of a right to refuse. You don’t have to remain sober. You don’t have to work. But if you are a lazy drunk we won’t feed you after you spent a night sleeping on the streets in a puddle of your own urine. We will strike a balance, which is how all human society exists; the general rule and then one or more exceptions to it; applied with such wisdom as we can muster, but never allowing ourselves to be suckers.

NATO Must Go

Mark Noonan41 Comments

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. – Article 5, North Atlantic Treaty, 4/4/1949

This is the teeth of NATO – the part where all contracting Parties agree to come to the aid of any Party attacked by a Third Party. But do note the wording: it does not require any NATO member to use military force in support of an attacked NATO member. I think this was put in place to make sure that the Europeans could weasel out of helping the United States if we weren’t attacked by the Soviet Union. The treaty, of course, had the purpose of keeping the USSR out, the USA in and the Germans down. It was built for the very particular circumstances existing in Europe in the immediate aftermath of WWII. I would like to note that WWII ended 78 years ago.

There are hardly any people left alive who can even remember the war.

But here it is, 2023 and NATO is going strong – expanding. There’s talk of even letting Ukraine in. This has caused some comment about it immediately triggering WWIII but as you can see from the text of the treaty, it would only do that if Russia decided to treat it as a de-facto declaration of war by NATO. But if Russia refrained from attacking outside Ukraine it is almost certain that no other NATO member would declare war on Russia in support or Ukraine. In other words, Ukrainian membership in NATO would be symbolic. Kinda like the whole NATO exercise has been since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Ronald Reagan once said there is nothing so akin to immortality as a temporary government program. This has been true ever since government programs were invented. But the newest innovation of this is to keep treaties going eternally, regardless of changed circumstances. And just as we must at last kill off the idea of an eternal government program, so much we kill off the idea of an eternal treaty. Government programs are to be used to deal with a particular need or problem. So, too, are treaties.

In the aftermath of WWII with that horrendously bloody conflict and its shameful origins fresh in mind, what the leaders of the free world wanted was some assurance that they wouldn’t have that problem again: that is, a megalomaniac launching wars of conquest and extermination. In retrospect: figure the odds. Hitler was unique: never had been one like him, can’t imagine a set of circumstances where we get another. But you can at least see the logic of the people who signed the NATO treaty in 1949. Stalin was also a megalomaniac and the USSR was committed to carrying Communism all over the world. It was felt – reasonably – that a bit of collective security by the non-Communist powers would guarantee against the USSR launching a war of conquest.

We should have been paying a little more attention to Stalin’s history on that – it was Stalin who shut down the Leninist/Trotskyite project of using direct force to spread Communism. Stalin – correctly – felt the USSR lacked the power to do that and, also, that direct conflict had incalculable possibilities which could easily end in disaster for the USSR. Stalin would grab what he could, subvert as much as possible: but he was never going to launch a direct attack on the West…and his successors, sitting pretty with swell lives, were even less inclined for any direct conflict. And if they had been a bit frisky, the fact that it was the mid 1960s before the USSR recovered from WWII was also a restraining factor.

Be that as it may, the NATO treaty was signed and we had our collective security against the remote possibility of the USSR launching an attack through the Fulda Gap. NATO provided zero security against internal subversion by the USSR of NATO States and as this was the primary means of Soviet attack that is…kinda strange that it wasn’t integral to NATO. Almost like, just maybe, some of the people in charge of crafting NATO put together something only useful at stopping what wasn’t going to happen but did nothing to stop what was already happening in spades. Weird, huh? But, the Cambridge Five were still active as NATO was created – as were various spy networks in the US State Department…and it isn’t like even to this day we’ve uncovered everyone who was working for the USSR at the time. Interesting thing to look into, but it need not detain us here for long. Though I would like to point out that the Cold War would have been over in a few years if NATO was a replacement for the UN with all NATO members breaking off relations with the USSR and allies and refusing to have any dealings with them. But, such was not seen as the thing to do at the time.

At all events, we had our defense against the 8th Guards Army – we were definitely ready at a moment’s notice to stop it from driving to the Rhine. But just FYI, the 8th Guards Army – currently constituted as Russia’s 8th Guards Combined Arms Army – isn’t in the Fulda Gap preparing to drive to the Rhine. It is, in fact, in Ukraine. It is, then, nothing we need to be too concerned about. It would take a rather stunning bit of Russian military success to bring the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army into a position threatening NATO. And yet we still have NATO as if the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army were an imminent threat (which is never really was, even way back when). So, why are we keeping NATO?

Same reason we are keeping the government programs: vested interests. Financial and political powers obtain a great deal of their money and political influence via NATO. They will keep it going forever if they can – and just like the government bureaucrats inventing new problems for bureaucrats to solve, so NATO keeps finding new security threats to guard against. But still nothing about the internal subversion of the West. NATO didn’t care about that then, doesn’t care about it now. We’ve got Marxist nimrods destroying our nations but NATO isn’t fighting against that! Nope: gotta worry about the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army trying to conquer the Donbas. As if that matters when domestic threats are trying to destroy family, faith and property.

It is time for a bit of a reality check.

59% of the world’s population lives in Asia. 17% lives in Africa. Only 9% lives in Europe. It is just a fact that Europe is not remotely the most important region on Earth. By far it is Asia with Africa coming in second. American political, trade and military thought should be geared towards dealing with the risks and rewards of Asia and Africa. Europe is a backwater. Declining share of global GDP. Declining population. Militarily nearly impotent. There is absolutely zero chance that Europe would send an army to help us fight a major war in Asia or Africa, let alone help defend American territory here in North America. There is nothing we need in Europe. World War Two was a long time ago. There will not rise in Europe a Hitlerian monster to threaten the world…no matter how much NATO propagandists try to make out Putin to be Hitler’s mini-me. And even if Putin were a Hitler…Russia’s GDP is along the size of South Korea’s. They simply don’t have the physical power to threaten the USA.

Whatever use NATO ever had for the United States is long past now. We don’t need NATO. In fact, by remaining in NATO and keeping significant military resources in Europe we actively weaken our ability to influence the course of policy in Asia and Africa. To put it bluntly: remaining in NATO is tailor-made to help China flex muscle in Asia and Africa. And the Chinese are flexing that muscle. Just look up how deeply Chinese money and influence have penetrated Africa (and now moving into South America) and you can see how downright asinine our concentration on Europe has been. If our foreign policy was directly controlled from Beijing they wouldn’t do it any different than we are right now. It is time to move in a new direction.

It is time to leave NATO. Pull out of it: give our notice and leave. Our risks and rewards are in Africa and Asia. But cutting our ties to Europe we’ll no longer have the political disadvantage of ties with those Powers who colonized Africa and Asia. We’ll be able to craft policy based entirely on identified mutual needs with Asian and African nations. Rely on it, India doesn’t want a powerful China. Russia doesn’t, either, but we’ve burned so many bridges there it will be a while before we can sensibly talk to the Russians. But not being in NATO would be an immense relief to Russo-American relations. If you look at a map of the globe, the USA and Russia are natural allies. It was a shame we came into conflict with Russia. Well past time to bury the hatchet. But even absent that – Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia and a host of other Asian nations have a vested interest in curbing Chinese ambitions. An alliance with the USA – with our absolute pledge to remain out of their internal affairs – is just what they need…just as what we need is a collection of powers bordering or near China tying down Chinese power which would otherwise be directed against us. Meanwhile, over in Africa and freed from our connections to the former colonial overlords, we’ll be able to work deals with Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, etc to build up their economies and tie them to us rather than to China (much more valuable to us to build an Interstate quality highway in Nigeria than to spend money on NATO). A China directly challenged by the USA and allies in Asia and Africa will have no resources to spend on penetrating South America. It is all win. If we change with the times.

Or we can hang on to the antique NATO alliance, be tied down uselessly in Europe while China builds alliances with India and Russia against us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan15 Comments

The Establishment is really going after The Sound of Freedom – the anti-child trafficking movie. They are going ballistic…and that tells you the tale: there really is a huge amount of child trafficking in the Ruling Class. There’s no other explanation for going to hard after the movie. Think about it – they’ll try to scare you into thinking eggs are poison just to get some viewership…talking about this issue would get eyes on TV. They don’t want any eyes on this movie. And that can only be because they know all about it and are afraid it’ll all come out before they can normalize it.

Odd man out?

It has flown around the interwebs…and it might be a little unfair to Zelensky as it might have just been a bad looking moment, but he does appear in many ways to not be part of the club there at the NATO summit.

Solid information about the course of the Ukraine war is very difficult to find. The only rock-solid thing we know about both sides is that they lie. If we have an MSM we’d have people on the ground who could check claims against observed reality but the Russia MSM is as subservient to Putin as the Western MSM is subservient to Zelensky; they both just repeat what they’re told. The proof, then, must be in the puddling – the much anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive ground ahead a short distance, possibly at enormous cost, and now the Russians are starting to push ahead again. The main thing is that this isn’t working out as the Establishment hoped…and that picture might merely symbolize the Establishment realizing that the game is up and now its time to back away slowly and let things play out as they will.

As I said at the start of the war, absent an immediate, deep offensive strike by Ukraine into Russia, this war could only have one outcome as long as the Russians didn’t quit: Ukrainian defeat. Anything short of a very quick Ukrainian victory akin to the Israeli victories in the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars could only end disastrously for Ukraine because they simply lack the numbers to fight a war of attrition with Russia. Some people tried to make out that it was like WWI where the lower-population Germany won a war of attrition with Russia…except it wasn’t just Germany it was Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey and, in the end, Russia won the war of attrition (as they were bound to do). On the day before the Revolution, Russia had won WWI…had won it since they mastered their Great Retreat in 1915. Once the Russian army got away from the Germans after Gorlice-Tarnow, all Russia had to do to win was stay in the field. Keep in mind that the German’s unleashed the U-Boat war because they didn’t perceive any weakening in Russian power and so turned to submarines in a desperate gambit to knock Britain out of the war. It was Russia’s misfortune that at the moment of victory, the Czar was universally despised. Absent that, Russia would have been at Versailles helping to dictate terms to Germany in 1919.

How this particular war turns out remains to be seen – Russia is bleeding a lot, too. How much does Putin want? Be nice if someone asked him…because that might be the way out. If nobody asks him and Putin feels that he can’t stop for fear of losing domestic support then what could have been a negotiated peace in 2023 ends up with the total destruction of Ukraine in 2025.

The Hollywood writers have been on strike for a while now – and it appears that the TV writers may join in.

Absolutely nobody in God’s green Earth cares.

The latest Indiana Jones moving is flopping – partially because they have absurdly cast a geezer as the lead in an action movie, partially because they had to go woke as per usual these days. I came up in 30 seconds with a new Indiana Jones movie guaranteed to break box office records; Reboot Indiana with a new, younger actor (like they do with the Bond movies) and make the story Indy’s effort to save Priam’s Horde in Berlin, 1945. Make the conflict between Indy and Gestapo Muller because given that Muller disappeared on or about May 1st, 1945, you could have Indy kill him in the climactic scene. You’d get youth, killing Nazis, you can cast some Russians as heavies which plays into current politics. Lots of things blowing up. This is the formula…and, sure, it is formulaic. But it is cracking good fun and would make a ton of money. If Hollywood wants to start making money, I’m right here…got buckets of great ideas.

There’s a video Pudding Brain put out in 2020 saying he’s always got time to take a call from his grandkids…with the video showing him talking to same. It is turning out to be a devastating indictment of Biden because he has not – and apparently will not – acknowledge his youngest grandchild by Hunter. Perhaps 100 years ago you could get away with trying to ignore a bastard…but we don’t even use that word any longer. And good riddance to it. Stipulating that we must do far better to get people married first and then have kids, the bottom line is that no matter what the parents are, it isn’t the kid’s fault. Suppose the woman did totally blindside Hunter on it – said she was on birth control, that sort of thing – and further suppose that she’s just the worst person in the world while Hunter is the innocent man (stop laughing!)…none of that matters. The little girl is Joe’s flesh and blood. She’s family. However she got here, she’s here. And Joe – and the rest of the Biden family – have denied her. The more this gets out – and it is spreading around out there – the worse Joe looks. Remember, his whole thing (a complete lie) is “good ol’ Joe”. That he’s at bottom this nice, decent guy. He never has been, but that has been the image presented in the MSM…but you can’t explain away his refusal to welcome his granddaughter. There’s just no possible excuse for it. And it shows Biden to be the utter creep he is.

Now, why is this suddenly spreading? That is, why is the MSM starting to talk about it it just now? The girl has been around for years. It hasn’t been a secret. So, why just now?

The rumor is that the Democrats are thinking about dumping Biden and picking someone else for 2024. All we can do on that is watch and wait.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan64 Comments

The White House won’t emphatically state that the coke isn’t Hunter’s. It is a fairly simple thing – it either is, or it isn’t his. And as I’ve said before, don’t buy any story claiming they have no idea…they know exactly who the coke belongs to. That they won’t forthrightly state it isn’t Hunter’s means they know it is his. And, yes, coke-heads are like that – very irresponsible to the point of sheer idiocy. He really did leave his laptop filled with incriminating evidence at the repair shop. Because he’s a stupid drug addict. You don’t have to overthink this. More than likely, he brought a little blow into the White House (it seems that 53 year old Hunter has taken up residence there as being there is bullet-proof as far as getting a summons goes)…he probably took it out to give himself a little boost and simply forgot about it. End of story.

But the thing is that simple possession is 3 years in jail – in other words, if it is Hunter’s coke (and it is) then he has to go to jail. So, the White House will continue to spin this thing with the most absurd lies and rely on it that DOJ has been told to keep hands off on it.

I just want it noted at this point that bringing decency back to the White House has involved a lot more hookers, blow and abandoned grandchildren than I thought it would.

And about that grandchild – I guess the case has now been settled but the fact of the matter is that Joe Biden refuses to acknowledge the child. Some rumors exist that Hunter pressured the mother to get an abortion; it is in keeping with the sort of low-life Hunter is and I could easily see him and his garbage father being pissed off that she didn’t agree to that expedient. Not that I’m calling her a pillar of virtue – it could well have been a set up by a clever girl looking for a payday. That does happen – normally with sports stars and the like, but any moron with access to cash is a target of such things. But regardless what sort of people mom and dad are, the child isn’t responsible…and that child is Joe’s flesh and blood. Family. And he’s rejected her. That right there shows what a lousy creep Joe Biden is.

But we already knew that – when his first wife was killed Joe showed up at the hospital with cameras in tow…so that they could get dramatic, heart-wrenching shots of Joe’s reaction. Think about it: at a time when his wife was dead and his child injured, Joe spared thought for how to wring some political advantage out of it. Joe Biden has been trash as far as we can determine all his adult life – some time after he rose to adulthood, and it seems early, he decided that being a lying, backstabbing grifter was the way to go.

More and more people are thinking that Trump has the nomination in the bag. I’m not one of them. Mostly because I’ve given up making any sort of hard and fast political predictions. Been burned too many times when what is obvious turned out to be wrong. Things are just strange out there and anyone telling you that they know what will happen is trying to make a sucker out of you.

But speaking of the upcoming election – that is another wrinkle in the coke story; at least for a time, the White House was trying to imply that Team Harris might be responsible for the coke. They dropped that – my bet because someone Team Harris knows for certain who’s coke it is and threatened to spill it – but it brought to mind that Gavin Newsom has been acting a lot like a guy who wants to run for President…and not in 2028. As California continues to crash and burn, Newsom has been out on the hustings helping State Democrat parties and politicians. You know: laying the groundwork. To be sure, it could just be groundwork for 2028 but if he was laying the foundation just for that, he’d be front and center stumping for Joe and Kamala. He isn’t. What’s going on?

Once again, nobody knows – even the people doing it might not know. Might just be keeping irons in the fire. But there is that chance that Team Democrat is planning on scratching both Joe and Kamala…and that means they’d need a new guy and Newsom is the major Democrat doing the preliminary work to be that guy.

I guess we’re sending cluster bombs to Ukraine – lot of people upset about that because of the type of ordnance. I’m meh on it: the only reason cluster bombs are rated as bad is because when we used them in the past, the American Left worked up the accusation that use of such munitions counted as a war crime. That was ridiculous then and it remain ridiculous today. They are just bombs…and they are excellent for anti-personnel and for making runways at least temporarily unusable. As I’ve said before: there really aren’t war crimes. There are crimes, of course – the Holocaust being the worst. But war crimes? You’re engaged in mass slaughter and you’re going to try to parse this type of slaughter as good while that type is bad? Attempts to humanize war are attempts to humanize hell; the thing just can’t be done. Additionally, no enemy of the USA will ever adhere to any rules – if they think it will give them an advantage against us, they’ll do it. The reason we, as a people, should not engage in brutality (rapine, slaughter and the like) is for our own sake…and because clemency towards enemies is the mightiest engine of war. But just get stuffed about “war crimes” when we’re blowing the enemy up…the purpose of the war action is to kill the enemy. How he’s killed is irrelevant.

Speaking of Ukraine – we’re sending the bombs because they’re said to be out of ammo. The Ukrainians have been on the offensive for some while now and they’ve only advanced a few miles and are now out of ammunition. This doesn’t look like raging success to me.

It is All About Power

Mark Noonan29 Comments

Mao (in)famously once said that power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Do note how he phrased it: he’s not saying that guns equal power but, rather, that using guns equals power. It grows out of the barrel of the gun and, of course, what comes out of barrel from the smallest pistol to the heaviest artillery is a lethal projectile. He’s advising his followers to ruthlessly shoot their way into power.

This is cruel and ruthless but it is recommended by one of the primary tests of human experience: it works. Mao and his people killed anyone who got in their way and so obtained power. Chiang and his people – who were capable of killing quite a lot of people – lacked that last bit of supreme ruthless cruelty to impose their will on China. The Nationalists viewed the people on the other side as Chinese. As people they could, in the end, work with. They did not or would not see them for what they were and are: people entirely alienated from God who will do anything to win.

Couple of things crossed my TL over the past 24 hours or so and that is what got me thinking about power and how it is used. The first was a story in the AP:

Mass shootings broke out at festivals, block parties and other gatherings in a handful of cities this week as the U.S. celebrated July Fourth.

Gun violence left more than a dozen dead and almost 60 wounded, including children as young as 2 years old.

The second came my way via a link from @varadmehta on Twitter (who is a genuine must-follow if you have an account: you will not always agree with him, but you’ll learn stuff all the time) to this story:

After previously pledging to support school choice, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announces that he will cave to the teachers union bought and paid for Democrat majority in the PA House and line item veto the full $100M appropriation for voucher programs and scholarships that provide educational opportunity to low-income children.

Shapiro surprised a lot of people by his support for school choice – something which Democrats denounce as a Nazi White Supremacist homo-/transphobic blah blah blah totes evil thing that no decent person can support. We know why: breaking up the public school monopoly is a body blow to the Democrats. But Shapiro said he’d buck the party and back it…but now he’s flipped. We don’t know what pressure the unions and other Democrat interest groups brought, but they brought it. Likely threats of political and personal pain of a high order. The proposal, itself, is quite popular among Pennsylvania voters (as it is everywhere). Shapiro would almost certainly not lose a general election by supporting it…but he could have faced a primary challenger and if he’s got even the slightest skeleton in the closet, that could be brought up against him in the worst possible way with all elements of the MSM hounding him. So, he caved; lacked courage. But, that is nothing new in politics. But notice what the Democrats did here: in order to protect something hideous – the public schools and the teacher’s unions – they went to the mat. It doesn’t matter that the proposal was popular…what mattered was who had the power and the willingness to use it. The Democrats told Shapiro, one way or another, that they would use power against him if he didn’t repent.

Now, over to my first link: all those shootings. They are all in deep Blue areas and are the direct result of the collapse of police authority combined with now several generations of teaching people that barbarism is ok. Think about this: the same people who are calling a minor riot in DC an “insurrection” and sentencing people to years in jail for what amounts to trespassing set up the situation in the Blue cities where heavily armed savages would have the means of going on a rampage at the drop of a hat. This is no coincidence. This is intentional. Both are exercises of power.

It is very easy to establish and maintain public order. People have been doing it for a long time. And in America, it is in our national heritage. The stories of people like Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok are the stories of order being imposed on chaos. The hell-roaring mining towns were filled with young, aggressive men with lots of booze available. People like Earp, sometimes very roughly, brought order to such places. People were instructed by the ruthless application of power that drunken brawling and gunfights weren’t allowed. And, so, they stopped. We could easily do it again. Sure, some people would have to die, but not most – just some. Enough to get the message across; movies tell us that Billy the Kid and his friends all went down fighting. Truth is that while Billy was killed, most of the rest died of old age…the killing of Billy getting the message across. But nobody sends the law into these areas, now do they? And these days even less than before (the cops are likely unwilling to make arrests in certain minority-heavy zip codes for fear of losing their job and/or being send to jail on trumped up charges). This means that the chaos – the barbarism – is wanted. It is a desired end. As I’ve said before, the end here is the Left’s very Leninist view that all crime is actually the result of private property and a Capitalist system. When one of these thugs robs or kills, it isn’t the thug’s fault…it is yours. And you’re being justly punished. And to stop it you’ll have to give up your guns! See how that goes?

What we see in both instances – Shapiro caving and barbarians murdering – is the ruthless exercise of power by people who are determined to rule no matter what. By any means necessary, as they say. They have no sense of decency. They have utterly rejected God. What is moral is what gives them power. What is immoral is anything that denies them power. And everyone who is not of them is on the chopping block. No, not everyone today, but everyone eventually…and they systemically use power to divide and confuse us so that we can be easily picked off. We can hope that God speaks to them and they repent – but as long as they are as they are, they can only be stopped.

And it will take the quite ruthless use of power to stop them. I’ve talked about this before; confiscations of wealth. Expulsion from institutions public and private. Jailing for some. The absolute insistence upon public order and decency. Armored against the false tears of the Left; unconcerned with what they call us. Just getting it done because if we don’t, we’re doomed. And I’m not talking about doomed to lose an election – I’m talking about doomed as in done to death. The Left never takes prisoners. It always keeps going. The punishments always grow more severe and applied to ever more people. What is unimaginable today is going to be commonplace in a few years. Just think of how they’ve moved the ball in the last ten years. They will not stop; so, we have to stop them.

Trouble is, I don’t think one in a hundred on the Right realize what is needed. A very few voices are now being raised stating the bleak truth…but not many. Still far too many looking at someone saying “ACAB” and thinking, “there’s a fellow citizen I can cooperate with!”. It isn’t like that. You may not hate them and wish them dead – but they hate you and wish you dead. The only question is which one of you will emerge triumphant?

It isn’t a matter, by the way, of becoming cruel and dishonest like the Left. We’ve no need to become inhuman. But we do have to be strong and allow no compromise. There is no mid-point between us; no way for each to be content with half a loaf. They left off that more than a century ago – they want it all and they will never stop until they get it all…or we take all from them and leave them incapable of further effort.

Our choice. We’ll see what we choose.

Happy Fourth of July

Mark Noonan

Sorry I didn’t get to this earlier – got busy writing on Ghost Tower (Book X) last night and then had to be up and busy early as our 4th barbecue went off earlier than usual due to part of the family having flight plans in the afternoon. Anyways: hope its all been great for you! No fingers blown off or nothing.

The Democrats went heavy into “we’re all on stolen land and America was built by slaves” for their July 4th messaging…which probably doesn’t appeal to a lot of demographics but I don’t think they really care about that. This is what I’m calling the Pudding Brain Effect. With an entirely ineffective man on top, there’s nobody to ride herd on these nitwits and so they just go further and further Left and are louder and louder about it. We know the Left despises the United States – and this includes people on the Left like the Clintons and the Obamas – but under their leadership it was kept muted. Back of the class; nobody shouting it. All in good time, as it were. But now the nuts are front and center. We’ll see how it plays out.

It really comes down to just how many people still believe TV. If its a majority, the Democrats will win no matter how insane they get because the TV simply will not tell people what is going on. If, however, a majority has come to mistrust the TV, then we might have a surprising result…and it could be the growing insanity of the Left which finally turns the tide. Nobody wants what the Left is selling other than a very small minority living in some of the deepest Blue cities and insulated from the disastrous effects of Left policy.

Word is that cocaine was found in the White House. I find it hard to believe that any such thing could get in without someone high up knowing about it. No, the Secret Service wouldn’t search Hunter’s suitcase…but they would be aware of what is in it. They have to be: a threat to the President can come from any direction. The Service is good at keeping Presidential secrets – they have to be in order for the President to trust them – so it isn’t like they’ll talk about the exact circumstances of such a thing…but they simply had to know. Or someone high up had to know. So, my question: is someone high up in Team Pudding Brain setting him up for a fall? Someone co-opted by Team Harris or some other faction in Democrat leadership to usher in Biden’s downfall in return for some benefit afterwards?

Officially – ie, in the MSM Narrative – Pudding Brain is cruising to re-election against a divided and weak GOP. This is something I thought was correct as little as a few weeks ago. But now I’m not so sure: things seem to be shifting. Biden is reaching new lows in approval polls. The Culture War stuff is turning off lots of people from the Democrats. Some Democrats might be looking at the situation and starting to think that if Joe is the nominee, even Trump might get back in…and a Trump who will be burning for revenge. But even if it is DeSantis, he’s already declared war on the Establishment. Truth be told, any GOPer who is elected will have to gut the Establishment simply in order to survive in office. The Democrats might be getting terrified…and in a mood to knock Joe out. We’ll see.

Muslims in France are on a rampage – officially in response to a Muslim being shot by the cops. Who the heck really knows? But the barbarians are now burning down libraries. They’ve also defaced Holocaust memorials.

Guys, the area known today as Algeria wasn’t known as the Barbary Coast for nothing back in the day. In fact, the reason the French moved into Algeria in the 1830s was to suppress the barbarian pirates who infested the area and who lacked all control as Ottoman power withdrew. From the fall of Rome until the French conquest Algeria was a miserable, impoverished backwater populated by thieves and slavers. The French mission was to civilize the land – and they did so. In the century after the French conquest massive development was set afoot with a revival of art, architecture and learning in Algeria. But nobody likes an outsider overlord so the Muslim population remained aloof. Eventually turning to armed rebellion…but not just any armed rebellion. It was quite savage – and the people treated most brutally by the rebels were Algerians who either preferred to remain French or at least wanted some sort of compromise between French and Algerian culture. The French eventually threw in the towel and simply handed power over to their most barbaric enemies. Small surprise that Algerians, transported to France, are not quite up to French standards; and less surprise that when angered, they turn specifically against defenseless people and symbols of civilization.

I don’t know how France gets out of this mess. Don’t know if France can get out of this mess. Its all very sad – and it all stems from simple lack of courage.