Author: Mark Noonan

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.

Affirmative Action Open Thread

Mark Noonan43 Comments

So, no more Affirmative Action with one, small problem: they’re still going to do it. They have to – ideologically they are committed to two things here:

  1. That America is systemically racist and the only way non-white people can get ahead is via set-asides.
  2. You can’t indoctrinate the best of the best – so, get people in there who really don’t know and aren’t capable. Indoctrinate them and then credential them. As stupid and ignorant as they are, they’ll now be inserted into power all up and down the government and corporate bureaucracies.

There is the additional “butts in seats” thing, as usual – the more people they have jammed into the colleges, they more money they make (and via student loans, the more government dependents they create). But that is secondary to getting mindless zombies credentialled and into power.

So, how will they do it? That is, how will they violate the law?

Well, first off, they’ll only move when specific court orders force them to move – and even then only if the State and local government puts some effort into enforcement. So, we’re still just at the start of many years of litigation. And we haven’t really started in the private sector: that, too, is going to have to be sued. And that will take even longer because the private sector is, well, private: it has more flexibility. First up will likely be major government contractors and then it will spread out from there. One again: years long process.

Secondly, they’ll back-door it. They’ve already started a bit of this, starting with the dumbing down of requirements. Much easier to get the unqualified in there when you drop the qualifications. But now they’ll take it to the next step: they’re just going to stop accepting grades and test scores as criteria for admission. Oh, for some there will be a side-door requirement: the elite universities will try to pull a significant portion of their entrants from elite primary education on the theory that these people will have some minimal level of competence (they won’t over time: the elite prep schools are also rapidly dumbing down). But for most it’ll be just “we need diversity – so, without telling us your race or giving us your test scores, just what is your background”. Kids will be coached in what to say to be properly oppressed and so meet diversity quotas on the sly; and this will get funny at times as full-blown upper class crackers take advantage of it.

The point here is that you can’t just win a fight with these guys; you have to win the war. If they are defeated in one area, they’ll just try another. They never give up; they are mostly taxpayer and foundation funded and they’ve got endless resources and all the time in the world. So, we must win the war. And that is actually fairly simple in this area:

In the Red States where we have total control, fire all the woke teachers and administrators and then toughen up the academic standards for entry. In just a few years, the private sector will quietly drop the Ivy League as the criteria (though for a while they’ll give lip service to it) while they seek out Red State grads simply because such will be educated – because in just a few years, you mark my words, the Blue State colleges will be passing out diplomas to illiterates (it isn’t good enough to have diversity in, you must have diversity out…and if that means the moron gets a degree, then the moron gets a degree).

We must dismantle their power, step by step. I’ve been saying this for years and finally some halting steps are being taken in that direction. Both Trump and DeSantis are pledged to war against the Establishment…just ten years ago, nobody on our side would have thought it possible, but here we are. We’re still a long way from anything like victory…but we are moving in the right direction.

And do keep in mind that Affirmative Action is very unpopular. Polling shows somewhere around 70% against. Even in Deep Blue California, the voters banned it in 1996 and then reaffirmed the ban by a wider margin in 2020. People have a deep mistrust of any system which awards points or punishment based on anything but objective criteria.

We all understand that black Americans got entirely shafted 1776-1865 and then significantly shafted 1865-1965. Some of us are even willing to entertain some measures designed to help bridge the wealth gap caused by nearly two centuries of black Americans not being able to build wealth due to legal and social disability. But the bottom line is that no matter how unfairly anyone was treated, either you can do the job, or you can’t (and, lets face it, with each passing year there is simply less and less unfairness directed at non-whites in general and blacks in particular…Elizabeth Warren didn’t fake being a Native American in order to punish herself…she did it because it was more advantageous to be non-white than white). If you can’t do the job, then you shouldn’t get the position over someone who can.

Sure I’d like to see more black doctors and engineers (and please note that far too many black college students are channeled into the “soft” subjects). But before we send a kid to college to learn medicine or engineering there are certain minimal requirements without which the advanced education can’t even start – in other words, just to start going to medical school, you’ll need some specialized knowledge which only a relatively small number of people have the capacity to learn. And that is just to get started! To get to the finish successfully takes an enormous amount of work and intellectual capacity. And if you don’t have that then you shouldn’t be a doctor.

What we’re faced with now in the name of diversity is people who aren’t good enough at the start, cannot catch up in the process and are passed out of the system and into jobs when they do not and never did have the capacity to do it. Meanwhile, other kids who were good enough didn’t even get their chance because they came in second in the Intersectional Olympics…so we not only get more incompetent doctors and engineers than we’d normally have (any human system will allow a percentage of the worthless to slip through even in the best of circumstances), but we’re also getting fewer competent doctors and engineers.

I do feel bad for people who can’t hack it for any reason other than personal laziness. I know that in a really good system we’d be able to get far more of the best to rise to the top early so that we can cull them to get the best of the best into the most crucial areas like medicine and engineering. But I can’t fix the past – if a person today, here in 2023, for whatever reason can’t do the work then for goodness sake, they can’t do the work. There could be a score of other things they can do to be useful and productive members of society. It is ok to be an electrician rather than an electrical engineer….and by turning the guy into an electrician I’ll be getting him into a position where he’s well paid and so far more likely his children will be able to reach their full potential. I’m not here to make anyone feel good today – I’m here to help build the best tomorrow. I turn what would have been a good electrician into a bad electrical engineer and I’ll I’m doing is making a mess of things.

It is time and way past time for us to give race the heave-ho. It doesn’t matter. All the races are human; by background they have different gifts and levels of achievement (you know, like Asian kids being amazing at math far in excess of what we’d expect). Everyone is where they are right now. We can’t fix the past; all we can do is root out any remaining unjust barriers based on irrelevant criteria (like race) and move forward. We can, that is, make an ever better world – but we can’t ever make the perfect world.

We Must Restore Civilization

Mark Noonan8 Comments

There was a story I saw of a police call to deal with some squatters in an apartment and when the cops arrived they found several children in the home living in utter squalor and clearly suffering from malnutrition and abuse. Do keep in mind, that the filth – which must have caused a stench – and the neglected/abused children did not trigger police action. It was that there were squatters. The cops can come out for that, I guess – but for massive health hazards and abused human beings, not so much.

This happened just now – in an America which is awash in social programs for people who are poor. Heck, even people who aren’t all that poor can avail themselves of large amounts of government assistance. The USA spends a total of about $5 trillion per year in social spending. This does not include the massive amounts spent in private charity. This is federal, State and local government spending. That’s about $15,000 per year for every man, woman and child in the United States. It isn’t that we’re not spending money to help. The adults in charge of those children could easily have obtained lots of assistance for rent, utilities, food, education, health care and so forth. They did none of that – the kids were basically left to starve unless they could pick up some food that the adults left lying around when not high as kites.

This is barbarism – with a little worse as at least barbarians will make an attempt to look after the helpless. But, make no mistake about it, that wasn’t a priority. In barbarian tribes the men eat first and most, then comes the women, then the children and old people; with old people kicked to the curb in times of dearth. What we have done is created brand, new barbarians – and they didn’t even have to hammer down the gates; we made them out of our own people.

It took a thousand years of whippings and hangings to turn wolves into men and we’re undoing all that in far less than a century. Those videos you see of mobs of people engaging in street brawls are another part of it: barbarians easily take offense and view violence as a first resort. The decay of our cities. The decline of knowledge and enterprise (barbarians are also lazy – doing just enough to get by and always willing to steal in preference to work). If this trend persists for just another few decades, it is done – civilization will be gone.

We can still avoid such a fate – but we have to act now and with great force. You can’t reason with a stoned person living in filth while their children starve. You can’t reason with someone who loots the only store in their neighborhood where they can buy medicine. You can’t reason with thieves and street brawlers. No more than the builders of civilization could reason with their savage populations. You can only force people to be decent. There is no other way to do it. All of you who remain well mannered and adhere to standards of decency only do so because you were told to…and in the long run, the reason you were told was because an ancestor of yours saw a man drawn and quartered for being a barbarian. Civilized behavior is force reduced to habit and hiding its claws. It is time for the claws to come back out.

But as of this moment, I don’t enough people see the need. It isn’t so bad just yet. Sure, a neighbor had his car stolen from his driveway a couple blocks over and that is unusual in my suburban world, as is the sudden appearance of one or two abandoned shopping carts. But no need to worry, right? It’ll be fine. Just go with the flow. Don’t get upset! And the further you get out from the centers of decay, the less urgent it all seems.

But make no mistake about it – it is creeping day by day closer to you. Your completely stable, small community of like-minded citizens is under siege…and the barbarians, once they are done looting their own homes, will come for yours. As I said, a barbarian prefers to not work…stealing your stuff is easier, and fun (for them; not so for you). We must wake up now.

That is, we must take whip and noose in hand and simply start to deal with these people. They aren’t citizens. The only reason we don’t kill them all is because underneath their savage exterior is a human being – God’s creation. But outside of that, they are a menace to be controlled, not citizens to discuss matters with. We have to start beating the savages into submission. To make them obey the rules even though they very much don’t want to.

Or, we can drift along hoping it all blows over. You know, like the Romans in, say, 390 AD.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

So they had a whole bunch of “Pride” parades this past weekend and the usual suspects among the Democrats were out there with their social media posts holding up a “Pride” flag and saying how happy they were to attend. But this year things went a bit different – given that Twitter, especially, isn’t as subjected to censorship as it used to be, when people posted the other photographs from “Pride”, it got into a lot of places…so many places that the Left went nuts. Not over the naked guys flashing their dangly bits in front of kids…no; they were mad that we noticed naked guys (and enormously fat, old and ugly guys, into the bargain) were waving the short arm.

Of course, we’ve known this all along – and, indeed, a few old degenerates showing off their privates is actually fairly tame for a “Pride” parade. The actual sex acts are a bit more grotesque. I’m sure that was posted as well but I’ve a fairly decent “follow” count on Twitter and so none of that got Tweeted into my time line.

It did get me thinking that a lot of the real freaks at these things aren’t so much gay as, well, freaks. Sure, they talk up the gay aspect of it, but they’re mostly about the freakiness. What “Pride” really means to this type is the ability to engage in their perverted kink without censure. I’m very firm on this because none of the gay guys I know and have known – including some really good looking guys – ever felt the urge to whip it out in public.

But, that aside, the Left had a meltdown about it. And rightly so – most people simply do not know what is going on. What they’ve seen of “Pride” is highly sanitized by the MSM. Just as what most of them have seen of transgenderism is some nice, soft spoken person who isn’t threatening…the six foot two weirdo in a pink miniskirt is a bit more off-putting and so not shown (yes, I’ve really seen this; the Left likes to think nobody on the Right gets around – but, for instance, I’ve been the only white guy at a Mexican bar and the only white guy at a black house party. Heck, I once hitched a ride at 2 am from a gangbanger. I like people; I get along with them. I’m not afraid of people, not even the weird ones. I can shift in an instant from biker bar to classical music concert). A lot more of this stuff gets out – if people actually see it – then the game is up for the Left. The way they get what they want is slow, incremental change until the Far Left is implemented – the guy with the fake breasts and three foot dildo strapped around his waist kinda kills that plan.

Both Trump and DeSantis are campaigning on ending birthright citizenship – it has become the price of entry into the GOP field. Oh, sure; some of the candidates will reject it, but anyone who wants a serious shot at the nomination will embrace it.

And it has to be done. I’m of the position that birthright citizenship does not cover persons born to non-citizens and certainly not those born to non-citizens illegally in the country. I know the arguments saying the 14th says anyone born in the USA, but one has to place things in their historic context, and that is precisely what the Left – and part of the Right – refuses to do; to them, it is a “living document”. Except for this one thing. They are only literalists in this tiny area – which happens to be the area where GOP moneybags and Marxist Democrats agree on the outcome. In the time it was enacted, what was intended by the 14th was a complete shutdown of any ex-Confederate attempt to refuse citizenship to any freed slave or their descendants. It was ratified in direct response to Southern States attempts to write their citizenship laws in a manner with de-facto excluded black Americans from citizenship.

Now, this won’t be easy! And eventually it may take an Amendment. But we start with what we can: in this case, Trump and DeSantis promising Executive Orders. This will naturally generate lawsuits. That is good. It gets the issue into the public square and it will force Democrats to take what is bound to be the unpopular opinion: just get across the border and your kid is as American as apple pie! Most Americans probably don’t even realize this is an issue…it isn’t something the MSM talks about. Just by getting it into the debate, we gain the advantage…and a fight over this means other things like border walls and strict deportation for adult illegals will become easier.

The MSM is busy trying to downplay the Hunter Biden scandal – seriously saying it is all about a father’s desire to help his addict son. Yeah, sure…every addict son gets $10 million from foreign entities funneled through a raft of offshore shell companies. They’re caught and they know it – but there’s also nothing anyone can really do about it. Its all Federal and Pudding Brain’s people simply won’t allow anything to happen.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

I guess there is some coup-like activity going on in Russia at the moment – nobody really knows what is going on but it appears that Putin’s Wagner mercenaries are angry and they are claiming they are heading to Moscow to wipe out the Ministry of Defense. Could be a host of things running from a fake coup set up by Putin to consolidate power and eliminate enemies all the way to a real coup attempt. In a few days, we’ll know. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians should be attacking all along the line right now with whatever they’ve got – if it is a real coup attempt. Because if it is, they’d likely find a demoralized enemy in front of them who might collapse at a blow. But if they keep just slogging it out with the Russian army in their counter-offensive as for the past couple weeks, then it means at least Ukrainian intel doesn’t think its a real coup.

I retain my standard position: don’t care. Not our problem.

So that jury-rigged sub apparently imploded pretty much right away after it got down to the ocean floor. It was made at least partially with carbon fiber material and from what I understand, never make a sub out of carbon fiber material. Something to do with the nature of carbon fiber that makes it unsuitable for submersibles. The nimrod zillionaire who built the thing was warned about this but he wasn’t going to let experts who know what they’re talking about stop him! The event is an exemplar of modern life: narcissists who don’t know anything wasting money doing things which don’t need to be done but which give an ego boost. I’ve no sympathy for anyone on that sub – even going down there in a properly constructed sub is horribly dangerous and unless you are a scientific researcher you’ve no business going there. To go down in a rich guy’s vanity boat is simply stupid.

The release of all that Hunter Biden info pretty conclusively shows that Hunter has been running a scam based on his father’s name for years. Naturally, Never Trump’s reaction is: “well, we’re still not sure there was a crime”. They assert this because they are so filled with hatred of Trump it has made them stupid. You see, they can’t admit that the DOJ is letting Hunter skate because if they do, it calls into question the indictment of Trump. After all, if the DOJ is so corrupt as to let obvious law-breaking slide for political reasons, what’s to stop them from prosecuting an innocent man for political reasons? On the other hand, you do have to give Hunter credit for trying to write off the sex club membership fees on his taxes – that takes some guts. On the other, other hand, it let me know there are “elite sex clubs” in the USA…which makes me want to burn the system down to the ground, twice.

Garland is now claiming that if we complain about his corrupt DOJ, we’re a threat to Democracy. Don’t take this lightly: he is threatening you. The FBI has become a de-facto secret police along the lines of the NKVD.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

Hunter skated. Of course he skated. We all knew he would skate. He’s the son of a prominent Democrat. Even if Pudding Brain hadn’t been installed into the White House, Hunter would have skated. That Daddy was given the office just makes it even more existentially sure that a skate would occur.

This doesn’t really make any of us mad. We’re already angry with the two-tiered justice system. What we’re mad about is supposed fellow Righties justifying it.

The most absurd take – so widespread on the Never Trump Right that it must have been a memo sent out – was “well, Hunter cooperated and this is what happens when you do that, unlike Trump!”. FFS…cooperated on what? He committed several obvious felonies – especially given Democrat shrieks regarding guns his weapons violations. When you play ball with the prosecutor it is to get a light sentence as you drop dime on your criminal partners…Hunter isn’t dropping dime on anyone. He doesn’t have to: he had a “get out of jail free” card issued to him the moment his Dad showed himself to be a loyal Democrat Party foot soldier. So, like back by 1975. Getting to the VP slot and the White House just gold plated that ticket. Hunter got off because his name is Biden; plain and simple and that is all there is to it. Meanwhile, Trump is indicted not for breaking a law, but for being Trump. He’s guilty on an infinite charge of being Trump.

But what should also be noted here is that to justify this deal – to either participate in making it happen or excuse it after the fact – indicates sheer sociopathic behavior. Narcissism of the serial killer variety. It really is that stark; no person with any sense of decency can say other than the evidence in the Hunter case at least merits felony charges be issued. Whether or no Hunter could beat the rap in court is an unknown…but sending him to trial is warranted. Not allowing him to plea out with no jail time. But people are out there saying just that – it is all cool! These are the people who will happily shove you into a boxcar for the death camp. Who would happily inform on you to the secret police. Who would shout the loudest during a show trial.

Heard about that missing tourist sub on the Titanic? More I read, the more ridiculous it becomes…seems like it was a home-brew submersible with off-the-shelf equipment. I’m pretty confident those poor people are dead. But I would like to point out that the Titanic sits at 12,500 feet deep and the pressure is 390 times greater than on the surface. My point: it is dangerous. Even the best designed sub with the most experienced crew can be killed in an instant if something goes wrong. People simply should have a little more sense – certainly a greater understanding of risk/reward.

Looks like we “accidentally” sent an extra $6.2 billion to Ukraine. Yeah. Accident. How much you wanna bet me we never see a dime of that back and it all wound up in Swiss bank accounts?

A Muslim-majority town in Michigan banned the display of the “pride” flag on public buildings. A completely reasonable stance to take and one which Christians should duplicate in communities where they hold a majority. Naturally, this has caused some problems on the Left – how to square that “refugees welcome” and “pride” circle? After a few days to think it over, they’ve arrived at their solution: tell Muslims they are being fooled by White Supremacists and they better get their kids into transition indoctrination centers right quick.

I don’t think this will work.

South Africa’s Failed Promise: A Warning for the USA

Mark Noonan1 Comment

How are things in South Africa? Not too well:

The peace of a normally tranquil suburban road near South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, is being shattered by the sound of drilling.

These are not prospectors looking for a new source of the country’s mineral wealth, but workers digging for an arguably more precious resource: water.

Private boreholes – like this one being excavated in Garsfontein – are springing up across the wealthier neighbourhoods in the country’s economic heartland, where taps have been running dry.

Why have they been running dry? Not for lack of water – it is for lack of power to keep the pumps running:

South Africa’s state power utility Eskom may have to increase power cuts to an unprecedented level this winter, a company executive said on Thursday, as the country grapples with its worst power crisis on record.

This is leading to some interesting, new experiences of South Africans (aside from having to drill their own wells):

The death toll from a cholera outbreak in South Africa has climbed to 26 in recent days, with dozens more hospitalized while frustration mounts over the government’s response to the disease, which is common in several areas of Africa but rarely spreads in this country…

…Analysts point to chronic power outages that have left economically impoverished areas of South Africa without electricity for up to 12 hours a day as winter takes hold in the Southern Hemisphere.

The South African government response? Blame (and punish) whitey:

Newly-drafted regulations in South Africa are sparking anger over water usage for white people. The nation continues to grapple with the idea of race quota politics aimed at addressing the inequalities caused by apartheid.

Last month, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government published draft regulations that would implement race quotas for the allocation of water use licenses for businesses.

South Africa is a civilization in collapse. And it is rather sad – I had some hope early on that they’d avoid what the rest of Africa went through when it transitioned to majority black rule. Mandela, especially, impressed as he did speak strongly for racial reconciliation and then, most incredibly, voluntarily left power when he could have easily set himself up as yet another African “President for life”. I figured that after a while of trying Socialism (the ANC emerged out of Communism, of course) wiser heads would prevail and they’d get to work building the wealth necessary to raise the black majority up to First World economic standards. South Africa is a very large country (doesn’t look like it on the map, but its more than 471,000 square miles) which is just slopping over with natural resources. It also inherited a functioning, First World economic system and infrastructure. All it would have taken was work – lots and lots of hard work. And time: at least a century to fully complete the process.

But who wants to work and take all that time?

After Mandela, the ANC opted for favoritism and graft. They took the wealth of South Africa and spent it on themselves and their cronies. This did have the benefit of keeping the ANC in power against its weak and divided opposition but that money was supposed to be spent extending the economic system and infrastructure to black South Africa. It wasn’t spent on that – and over the last decade or so, they didn’t even allocate enough money to maintain the infrastructure they inherited…and so the power and water crisis. And as that crisis deepens the ANC is opting for ever more strident racial politics – it is all whitey’s fault! The legacy of Apartheid! Aside from their proposal to dole out water based on race there is also a growing movement to confiscate white-owned farms (white South Africans do own most of South Africa’s agricultural land) – this is a page out of Zimbabwe.

And it is useful to recall what happened in Zimbabwe. As the post-white government there floundered deeper into corruption and economic decline, they confiscated almost all the white-owned farm land and passed it out to cronies. The drawback here (aside from the injustice) is that these people had no idea how to run a modern, cash-economy farm. Most native African farmers are still subsistence farmers – that means they grow enough for themselves with a small amount leftover to sell for the goods they can’t make themselves. There is a huge difference between subsistence and market agriculture and you can’t just willy-nilly switch from one to the other. You have to learn how to modern farm – and it takes time to do so.

In the end, those confiscated farms (which used to be a breadbasket for Africa) collapsed under mismanagement. The white farmers mostly left but some stayed…on the small plots they were able to keep these (mostly older) white farmers set to work, and taught young black Zimbabweans how to farm. In a few years, these small farms were doing great and while still white-owned, the now very aged white farmers were pretty much retired while the black farm workers were doing well. The Zimbabwe government had a response for all this: confiscate the farms and kick out not just the few remaining white farmers, but also the skilled black farmers working the land. These farms then, too, collapsed under mismanagement.

This is what many in South Africa are proposing to repeat.

And it all comes down to racism, though not as the Global Racial Narrative holds. It isn’t whitey keeping people down. Sure, under Apartheid (and Jim Crow here in the USA) that was the case…but once Apartheid (and Jim Crow) are gone the whole thing becomes a matter of learning and working.

The learning is rather crucial. You don’t just know how to do things. Everything you know was taught to you. You were instructed, even if you don’t remember it. Everyone has to learn.

The economic system and structure of South Africa on the glad morn when Apartheid ended was the product of Dutch and English knowledge applied to South African conditions over a period of centuries. It didn’t just happen – and it wasn’t stolen from anyone. When the Boers showed up in what became Orange Free State there simply wasn’t much there. They reached agreement with some local chiefs about where they could settle but other chiefs were marauding through the area and the Boers had to fight them to secure their lands. That done, they just set to work. It wasn’t easy. They were pioneers in what was mostly a howling wilderness; they had to learn how to farm and work the land to best effect. And they did so.

Make no mistake about it – from the get-go the Boers considered black Africans inferior and would not admit them into Boer society outside a subservient role. They did treat blacks unfairly. You can’t forget that nor undo what happened. But what is crucial to understand is that the Boers worked – they built up out of nothing a modern, functioning society. Around the edges of this society lived black Africans…who also started to learn. But the learning curve was steep and the Boers were exclusionary so there was no full imparting of knowledge from Boer to black African. But there was some and over time black Africans started to enter the modern society the Boers (and, later, the British) were building in South Africa. But most did not; weren’t interested, didn’t like the whites (for good reason) and so kept to their immemorial ways.

But the thing about old ways is that they can’t compete with modern ways. As South Africa went ever higher, more and more black Africans wanted a piece of that pie. The Boers, though, didn’t want to give them a piece and so developed Apartheid. They did want black labor, but not blacks as social equals. Part of this was, of course, sheer malevolent racism…but they also knew that to turn over the country to black Africans would be a disaster. Black Africans wouldn’t know how to run it – just in a practical, day to day sense. It takes time for a people to integrate into new ways of doing things. The Romans governed Britain for more than 350 years – bringing all sorts of social and material advancement to what had been a very backwards people. When the Romans pulled out, the British people forgot how to make bricks.

Bricks. You know: simple rectangular things anyone can make.

Except not everyone can make them. You need the skills – and you also need the settled, regular economic and political system which allows people to take the time to make things like bricks. When the Romans exited they took the skills and the system with them. At the end of Apartheid the black majority simply wasn’t ready to do things like maintain and expand a modern, electrical production and distribution system. White South Africans knew how – and the post-Apartheid government should have had these whites instruct. Instead, they systemically fired the white workers and replaced them with blacks who didn’t have the first clue and only got the job because they were cronies of some ANC power broker.

We’re not supposed to say that, don’t you know? That is, we can’t say that a population of black people is incapable. But it is what it is. Certainly, part of the reason they were incapable was white refusal to teach them over a period of decades. That was grossly unjust – but once again, it is what it is. For whatever bad or good reasons, the black majority simply didn’t know what needed to be done. To get them to the level of the white South Africans was going to take a long time. But nobody can campaign on a promise that you grandchildren will be doing great. The political reality of the sudden transition to black majority rule was always going to be: “vote for me and everything will be perfect”…soon to be followed, after inevitable failure, by “that wicked minority has sabotaged us.”

And it is racism – now just directed at the white minority instead of the black majority. The only way the ANC can fix South Africa’s problems is to enact policies which will eventually lead to ANC political defeat. Can’t have that, right? Much easier (if you’re rich, juiced in and have a government-supplied power generator) to just keep with the current system behind your walled and privately-guarded neighborhood while everything outside goes to hell in a handbasket (yes, Ruling Classes are that cruel and indifferent: they really don’t care how much suffering there is as long as they stay rich – not for nothing did Our Lord say the love of money is the root of all evil). I can easily see the ANC eventually going for anti-white pogroms…which will lead to lots of death and destruction and increased poverty for poor blacks, especially. But what of it? As long as the bosses keep theirs…and as long as the Global Elite looks the other way because the last thing the Global Elite wants is for everyone to pay attention to what is going on in South Africa.

Here’s the bad news – they are bringing this to the USA. Via affirmative action placement in all our institutions and an increasingly brazen racial spoils system the physical infrastructure of the USA collapses in pace with the social collapse as racial animosity increases because people are perceiving that there is a double standard (almost Apartheid-like double standard) in how people are treated by the system. Just as in South Africa, it is unsustainable. Eventually you either have to have people who know what they’re doing, or the infrastructure falls apart (you know; like with bridge collapses and train derailments)…and as the racial divide becomes more stark in how people are treated, social cohesion collapses as people break up into warring tribes, each just looking to loot a bit more than the other tribes.

If we want this to stop then we simply have to stop it. All racial considerations must be dropped. In fact, probably best if we made racial categorization illegal; that is, explicitly forbidding people to take race (or gender, religion, orientation, etc) into consideration on any decision. Merit must be the absolute dictator – from kindergarten to the heights of economic and political power. Anyone who can’t cut it…well, they can’t cut it. Maybe the reason they can’t cut it is because of some injustice in the past. Doesn’t matter. Either you can, or you can’t. If you can’t, then the world still needs ditch diggers…be a good ditch digger and maybe your kid will go to college and be one of those who can cut it higher up the ladder. Sorry that life can suck at times – but all work is honorable and we’re trying to build for the future, not make you feel better today.

What we certainly can’t do is go on as we are – because if we do then in 10 years we’ll have “load shedding” for electricity use as cholera spreads…and while a corrupt Ruling Class steals the last nickel we have. Better for a time a of reality – where we simply call things as they are, and build up from where we are, not where we wished we were.

You Can’t be Half Bad

Mark Noonan1 Comment

Someone tweeted out “what President would you make a movie about?” and this in relation to the excellent Lincoln which covered a short span of time where Lincoln ushered the 13th Amendment through the House. My pick was for a movie about Eisenhower dealing with the period of time covered by the Suez Crisis.

I’ve talked about this before but the more I think about it, the more crucial this event becomes in my mind. It set in motion so many disastrous effects.

First off, it essentially terminated the idea of a treaty as binding on all contracting parties. The genesis of the crisis was Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal which abrogated several treaties – and was also unnecessary because when Nasser nationalized it was only 12 years before the treaty which allowed the construction of the canal in the first place was set to expire. You might think, then, that it was rather trivial and in a certain sense it was – but it was still a violation of a treaty and nobody is allowed to do that. Or, at least, nobody is supposed to do that. If treaties can be broken at will, then what is the point of them?

Well, since then the point of a treaty has been to merely paper over a problem of the moment – something which allows people to say a problem is solved when it isn’t and nobody really has any intention of solving it. The best example of this sort of mindset post-Suez was the Paris Peace Accords ending the Vietnam war. We entered into them without getting South Vietnamese agreement and it was clear from the get-go (and became clearer as time went on) that the purpose wasn’t to end the war but give us time to get out with a “decent interval” before South Vietnam fell to North Vietnamese aggression. It would have been more honorable if we had just pulled out without so much as a word of explanation.

But it wasn’t just in the practical sense that it is wrong – it is also in the moral sphere. If your word isn’t your bond then you have deliberately made yourself a bad person. And as has been pointed out, you can’t maintain a level of bad…if you start down that slope you’ll just go from bad to worse. Now we don’t even make treaties – we sign a memo and we’ll honor it, or not, depending on whatever political and economic calculus seems best at the moment. This is how we got into Ukraine – we don’t have a treaty. But there is a memo! The memo doesn’t call for us to render aid…but the Biden Administration needed to make out that Russia was this huge enemy and so when Russia attacked Ukraine is dovetailed perfectly into Administration needs…and so we’ve got a proxy war. We also had agreements with the Afghan government but it was time to leave, so you see how that came out. Why go above and beyond with Ukraine while abandoning Afghanistan? Morality has nothing to do with it – it is all expedience.

But we didn’t have to come here – that is, Eisenhower didn’t have to take Nasser’s side in the Suez Crisis. Britain and France were perfectly within their treaty rights to intervene while Israel was within her rights to assist the Anglo-French because the Egyptians’ were illegally blockading Israel’s access to the sea. We took Nasser’s side ostensibly because we feared a Muslim-world backlash if we didn’t. We should have stood by the law. We didn’t. Now we’re here.

And that is the main point: you can’t go halves. It is all or nothing. You’ll either tell the whole truth, or you will lie. You will either uphold all laws, or you will be lawless. You will either be brave at all times or a complete coward. You can’t be half bad. We tried to be, and now we’re all bad.

And that extended to one thing after another. If our government and institutions are shot through with corruption – and they are – then it all stems from a desire in the past to have it both ways. To have honor while lying. But once you start being bad in one area, you won’t remain good in other areas. After all, you abandoned honor…what’s left to hold on to? To be sure, we don’t have to blame Ike – we can go back to Truman allowing us to fight a war without a desire for victory. We can go back to FDR and his serial mendacity. Wilson implementing anti-American policy to “make the world safe for Democracy”. But I’ll still lay it as Ike’s feet. He was an old school West Point graduate – back when they really did impart, “Duty, Honor, Country” as ideals. He knew the deal, and yet went along with an attempt to reward lying and treaty-breaking. And if someone like Eisenhower could play that sordid game, who wouldn’t going forward?

Everyone would, of course; and they all did. Increasing as time went on and infecting more and more institutions and ever more deeply…until we get what we have today: any person of wisdom assumes the government is lying. All other institutions, as well. Our operational thesis is that whatever they’re saying it is a deflection from what they are doing. And the country is disintegrating because of it.

I’m Back Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

We had a great time – best was actually the last day where we wound up at Aliso Beach…and got to see dolphins not ten yards off shore (the beach is peculiar in that is very steeply goes into the water and so its pretty deep very close to shore). There my granddaughter came up with the clever idea of leaving one of my books in the “take one, leave one” book library there…we’ll see if it generates any sales! So, I’m tanned…but not really rested because grandpa keeping up with an 11 year old took its toll on the knees (fellow geezers will understand).

But it was pretty cool and rainy – which is remarkable for June in the San Diego area. Highest temp we experienced was about 68 or so. So, back to Vegas and the heat, right? Nope: it has been raining all morning so far and the forecast is for off and on all day. To remind: the average rainfall in Las Vegas for June is 0.0 inches. So, this is a total global warming fail.

I did continue monitor the Trump indictment stuff and I remain flabbergasted at the number of people on the Right to continue to lend it credence. For heavens sake, it was put together by the same people who did Trump-Russia! In the end, we might just be too stupid to win.

Latest polling (pound of salt, as usual) shows Trump running away with the nomination and beating Biden. I’ll believe either when I see them. But the fact is that Biden remains catastrophically unpopular. Conventional Wisdom (which is never right) says that is ok because Trump is even more unpopular. We’ll see. DeSantis is still in the mix but he’s got a minefield to cross – attacking Trump while getting Trumpsters on board. If he can do it, then he’s sheer genius.

The pushback against TQ+ continues to grow – and more and more LGB are joining it. Honestly, isn’t everyone just sick to death of this? A whole month to celebrate the particular sexual activities of a small minority? It is that they are pushing the TQ+ on kids that is driving it, but as it is being driven the whole concept of “gay pride” is coming under attack. Ok, we get it: you’re gay. Whatever. All the laws criminalizing homosexuality are gone. Nobody cares. Move on.

But the Left can’t stop, can they? And they are getting ever more absurd. Saw a ridiculous MSM report earlier where there’s a “rainbow underground railroad” rescuing gays from Texas. I mean, come on! What is it – phone number for U Haul? But they are on and on about the “genocide” of gays and transgender…which, when you dig down into it, comes out to mean they’re mad at straights for not letting them turn their kids into transgender. I don’t really know how this will play out – Team Pudding Brain and every Democrat is fully committed to it – they’re even working on a law in California which will strip kids from any parent who doesn’t affirm their chosen gender. This is absolute objective evil…but the Democrats are all-in on it. Might this start to create a suburban backlash? For every Karen who wants a designer Trans kid might there be a hundred who are horrified at the prospect? We’re going to find out.

Looks like Uncle Grabby made an attempt to grab Eva Longoria’s breasts…TBF, that is an urge all men have but, my goodness, if this is what he does when the cameras are rolling, just what does our Creep in Chief do in private?

Anyways – did you hear that my Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup?