Conservative Values

The Declaration Test

Mark Noonan24 Comments

On July 4th, 1776 we said, among other things, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. In fact, we asserts this as a self evident truth. You know: like the sun in the sky. I don’t have to prove this is correct, it is what it is. If you reject it, you are a liar or insane, just as you would be if you said at noon at the sun wasn’t up in the sky. To be sure, people can dispute this dogma and the United States is the only nation in the world – and likely will always be the only nation in the world – to assert such a thing in its founding document. But being an American requires subscription to certain dogmas, much as being a Catholic or Evangelical, Muslim or Jew requires subscription to certain assertions. The only way America works is if, by and large, everyone accepts certain things as a given – in America’s case, the Declaration of Independence is bare minimum…if you don’t believe what’s in it, why in heck are you here?

I believe that the problems of America today – as a society – stem from the atrophy of belief in American dogma. That is, we have increasingly ignored the Declaration and gone about doing things which directly contravene what the Founders fought for. This is not some novel idea: all nations and religions eventually have the same problem: a collapse of belief. Some nations and religions recover, others don’t – but they only recover by harking back to first principles and rigidly enforcing them. This is what we must do to save America: we must make belief in America near-universal among Americans. All things we decide to do must pass what I call the Declaration Test: is the proposal in conformity with the Declaration of Independence? If it is, then let us do it. If it is not, then it is abhorrent and must be rejected.

Think about this for a moment: right now, China runs various psy-ops on us while also bribing our institutions to work against American interests. This is part of China’s asymmetric warfare model against us. China reviewed her options in the mid 1990’s after the Gulf War showed American military superiority and decided that any sort of direct military confrontation with the USA would be a high risk operation. At least, that is, until America was massively weakened. Using the lever of “free trade”, China entered the USA and set about the program of undermining us from within while continuing to build up traditional military and industrial might for themselves…so that if a war came, it would be the USA in the morally and physically weak category. And even if war didn’t come, then the erosion of American confidence would leave China the dominant power in east Asia, Africa and South America. There were many arguments made in the 1990’s about why we needed to engage in the China trade – we’d make money! We’ get a strategic partner! Wealth would moderate China’s political system! This was all drivel, as we can see in the results but what was wrong from the beginning is that the USA, as an institution, could not legitimately engage with China. Why? Because China’s government does not have the consent of the governed. The PRC is a standing insult the the ideals of our Founders. It is a rejection of American dogma from start to finish.

It must be understood that under American beliefs, the government of China has not the just authority to do anything. Sure, they have the physical power to do things, but that isn’t the same as having the just power. Never in Chinese history has there been a Chinese government which had the consent of the governed (with a Taiwan exception, of course). If we as Americans enter into agreements with China, who are we agreeing with? A treaty binding on America is a treaty negotiated by the elected President and then ratified by the elected Senate – with any further legislation needed to enforce the treaty created by Congress and signed by the President. In other words, on our side, a binding treaty is something done with the consent of the American people via the mechanisms those people have devised to determine popular consent. China’s government is a corrupt oligarchy which shot its way into power in 1949 and never let go. If we make a deal with China then it means we’ve just made a deal with what amounts to a Mafia. Deals with the mafia are never a good thing – sure, mobsters are noted for keeping their word at times, but you’re still dealing with mobsters. You know: liars and thieves who will twist the deal to suit themselves.

Think about how it would be if we had never dealt with China – certainly never dealt with China since 1949. China, herself, would still be an economic backwater and a distinctly third rate military power. We wouldn’t have Chinese money corrupting our politics and society. Our position in the western Pacific wold remain supreme…we wouldn’t have Taiwan, South Korea and Japan furiously building up their military forces, almost certain to eventually encompass carrier battle groups and nuclear weapons. If we had merely obeyed the dogmas of the USA – if we had put China to the Declaration Test, the USA and the whole world would be better off.

So, too, with one thing after another, in both foreign and domestic affairs. All of our problems stem from a rejection of the wisdom of the Declaration and the embrace of ideas contrary to it. Deep State? Where and when did the American people in Congress assembled really consent to domestic spying? When was it announced before hand that the government would collect masses of data on us and then, after reviewing that data without a warrant, launch criminal investigations of us? The Russians are kicking us out of our base in Niger…when was consent obtained from the American people for us to have a base in Niger? I’m pretty up on things…I don’t recall that debate and decision. When did we consent to sending billions of dollars to NGO’s to transport millions of illegals to the US border? Oh, sure, it was in a law enacted somewhere…but I don’t remember us having a debate about it like, say, we had an open and lengthy public debate about building the Panama Canal. All the time now our government and institutions are trying to slip things in on us – the whole trans thing came out of nowhere with no popular demand and no public debate. It was just decided one day that people can change gender and everyone just had to conform to that. On and on and on like that. Keep in mind, I’ve made no judgement on the merits of the issues I’ve listed – my complaint isn’t that we have a base in Niger or that a guy in a dress wants to be called “ma’am”. My complaint is that we did not obtain the consent of the governed on either issue. Do whatever you want – as long as there’s a debate and decision. As long as consent is obtained.

The Declaration Test must become our go-to thing. Anything that anyone wants – or any thing we discover going on – must be referred to that document and a determination must be made as to whether or not it conforms to it. This is not a Right/Left debate – it is an American/Un-American debate. If we are to be Americans – if we want to be Americans – then we’d better start being Americans.

An Atomic Lie

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Got into a very long debate on X about the morality of the use of the Atomic Bomb. It is seriously gotta be the biggest engagement post I’ve ever had there: as of this moment, 56,600 views, 358 reposts, 3,100 likes and 474 comments. In strict X parlance, I have been “ratioed”. This means you have more comments than reposts and usually means you’ve said something ridiculous. Not in this case. If you clicked on it, you’ll see that my post was a picture of my Dad as a young Marine, the notation that he was waiting on Okinawa to invade Kyushu in November of 1945 and finishes up with a small, editorial comment about those who say that A Bomb was bad.

Some of the comments are bad faith but most, in my view, simply betray ignorance. Some times well meaning ignorance, but ignorance nonetheless. And that actually has me a little worried. If you go through the comments you’ll see that several times I pointed out the four options available to Truman in July, 1945. They are, sometimes very briefly stated:

  1. Blanche at the cost of finishing off Japan either by nukes or invasion and agree to negotiate a peace which would force Japan to surrender their Empire, but leaves in place the Japanese Ruling Class which waged the war…and that Ruling Class now convinced that their suicidal fight to the death got us to blink. That they are our moral superiors and just need better material for Round II. In other words, this end almost certainly means another war – and maybe a nuclear war as Japan did have a nuclear weapons program. So Pearl Harbor Two might have been Los Angeles and San Francisco getting nuked.
  2. Starve Japan to death. The Japanese were incapable of feeding their population from domestic food production. Like Britain, it was import, or starve. Japan had no means of obtaining resources of any sort as our command of the sea was absolute. We could have just stood off and let starvation kill Japanese until they quit. This would have been up to tens of millions…and they might not have quit. Once their population dropped to sustainable levels, they might have still refused.
  3. Invade Japan. This is a very well known option and all post-War analysis indicates this would have been a horrific affair with maybe a million American casualties and untold millions of Japanese deaths.
  4. Drop the Atomic Bombs and so instruct the Japanese that we could kill them with no loss to ourselves; that any future dying would only be Japanese and to no avail.

As I also pointed out at various points, commanders in war, civil and military, are besieged by a host of information arriving all at once from every point of the compass. Some of it is false. Some irrelevant. Some flat contradictory with other information arriving at the same time. Out of this morass of data, the commander must tease out the correct information or lose. This is not an easy task. It is not a neat and tidy exercise as it can sometimes appear in a history book. This is why when looking back, caution must be taken. We weren’t there. We weren’t under those particular stresses. We benefit from hindsight no matter how much we try to set that aside. In my view, Truman made not just the best of a bad situation, but the correct moral decision. The intention was not to massacre Japanese, it was to end the war by the swiftest means…to end the effusion of blood, Japanese as well, as quickly as possible. And it was done; in the end, no matter what else, it worked. And if you want to call it wrong, you simply must come up with an obvious, superior option which was known to the decision makers at the time. There simply wasn’t any beyond these four. None of them were perfect, all of them posed risks: Truman chose the best one.

Do keep in mind that the comments condemning Truman as a monster issued from both Left and Right. People are getting united in a shared insistence that there was simply no justification at all for dropping the Bomb. What this tells you is that the general propaganda line has worked. And, of course, we know that propaganda does work. But this is doubly disturbing this propaganda issued to condemn the Bomb originated in the Soviet Union to denigrate our effort in WWII – to make out that we were bad, and so excuse Soviet actions. This line was picked up by Nazi-apologists as a means of getting around the Holocaust. But now it has morphed into a general belief that America is morally tainted. When added to slavery, it is being used to make out that America is the bad guy in the world. That we’re the nation that has to be destroyed. And the Right is participating in this – going along with it. And from what I can tell, they are doing it mindlessly…just so they can have something they agree with the Left on. A “see, I hate that, too” moment.

When we combine this with the “anti-colonialist” attitude of the Left and the increasing number of people on the Right who are condemning Israel’s war in Gaza, we can see our problem: basically, our entire civilization is in the dock and it is being found guilty. That it is ignorant people making the ruling is neither here nor there: ignorant jurors get a say. And the USA is being found guilty.

This is worrying not just for the fate of our nation, but for the fate of anything resembling civilization. Islamists savages went on a rape/murder spree and that’s in the Memory Hole while college kids riot on campus in favor of the savages. We’re being told we have to save Democracy in Ukraine even though elections have been suspended there. The Free World we defend with NATO arrests people for misgendering. China buys whatever influence it wants – and our open border and drug addiction may very well be a Chinese op. But we’re not allowed to fight against it because we’re the bad guys…the people who held slaves and who cruelly and needlessly nuked Japanese children. You see?

We really have to win this November. Not for Trump. Heck, he’s not even the guy we remotely need right now. He’s just massively the superior of the alternative. But we, the Americans – those of us who are left – have to take control of our country. Or we simply won’t have one – it’ll be falsified out of existence. We must find the ways and means of getting the liars out of all power and influence and simply re-instructing an ignorant population on what America actually was, and can be again.

Just Some Thoughts on Government

Mark Noonan4 Comments

I’ve always been a Monarchist at heart. Ever since I was a kid and I read things like The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights and The Lord of the Rings, the concept of the Lord’s anointed has appealed to me as the most logical method of human government. Anyone who reads my books can easily tell that there is Monarchism deep at the heart of it all. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, Christ is King, right? Heaven isn’t a Democracy; and Heaven is hierarchical. It is said that there will be greatest and least in Heaven…of course, even the least in Heaven has it better than the greatest on Earth; and given that it is Heaven, there isn’t a matter of jealousy or ambition. The least will be pleased that the greatest in Heaven are the greatest. I can imagine myself – certainly not the greatest – living in one of the very small mansions in my Father’s house, and gladly serving the greatest. I honestly can see in my mind’s eye a heavenly abode for me; it is made of stone and set in a meadow. With eternity, imagine the stories I could eventually tell? My joy would be complete.

There have been many kings and queens, good and bad, in history. Descent does have a bit of the luck of the draw in it. But if you look at the royal lines over time, what you see is that for the most part, most monarchs were trying to do the right thing. Sometimes ably, sometimes less so. Only rarely was a real idiot or criminal raised to the throne. Democracy is far more apt to raise the unfit on the simple fact that anyone who aspires to power is predisposed to be an idiot or criminal. What fool, after all, would really want to be in charge? To seriously have the fate of a nation in your hands? The wise person flees from such a burden, if he can. A good example of this wisdom is a scene in the 1956 movie of War and Peace. Natasha (Audrey Hepburn) tells Pierre (Henry Fonda) that she would give him absolute power over Russia because his heart is pure…Pierre is asked what he’d do and his answer is, “I’d hesitate”. That is wisdom, as such.

To be sure, as I’ve said before, I am also the last democrat left on Earth. Maybe not exactly the last, but certainly there aren’t many like me. That is, people who really do trust the people. But one must keep in mind what “trust the people” means. It isn’t taking a public opinion poll of dependent people who have been relentlessly lied to by an overwhelming popular culture. It is simply accepting the decision of people who are free and as independent as society can make them. A mature man or woman who owes nobody making a decision: I ratify it, even if I think its wrong. I do think that voting is crucial, even in the most venerable of a Monarchy. The king does need to know the desires of the people; and the only way to really assess that is to ask them. But just as Monarchy is highly dependent upon the quality of the Monarch, so Democracy is highly dependent upon the quality of the People. Garbage in, garbage out is ineluctable.

We are, as we all know, in a complete mess right now. I saw a video clip of a young lady wrapped in a Palestine flag saying she was terrified that climate change would kill her. Just think of the amount of lies she had to be fed over years to get to such a pathetic state. And in our current system, she gets a vote. That is, she gets to cancel me out – not that I’m any great person, but I have at least some knowledge and so I’m not supporting the massacre of Jews nor am I afraid of the temperature rising a couple degrees over the next 100 years. The bottom line is that getting out of the current mess is going to be a problem as long as people like that poor girl get a say. She’s simply incapable of making a valid decision – even about her own life (though we will always remain wary of interfering in the personal choices of even the greatest fool). We must find a method to nullify the votes of fools – because if we don’t, then we’ll never be able to get at the liars who make the fools.

Because that is the crux of the matter: the lies. If we didn’t have quite so many liars, we wouldn’t have nearly so many problems. But the liars lie because lies work – and in a system where only voting matters, then the best liar is going to usually prevail. Only rarely will someone even partially moored to truth rise to the top in a Democratic system. Our riddle is how to preserve freedom while making sure fools serving liars can’t destroy freedom.

Angry and Hopeful

Mark Noonan26 Comments

Where are we? Here:

A man was just charged with 20 counts of sex abuse with minors. Teacher at a church school. That is bad, but it does get worse: the man is an illegal immigrant deported multiple times. You know: someone who isn’t supposed to be here but who keeps coming back in because, why not? Why shouldn’t he come back? It is clear we don’t enforce our laws – that deportation is just a bureaucratic checklist which has no baleful affect. Just go, and then come on back…if we get around to it, we’ll deport you again. Maybe; but mostly only if you let us deport you…because if you run off, its not like we’ll chase you down. Heck, you can even get a job – even though everyone who gets a job in the United States has to fill out an I-9 form where they state their citizenship/residency status under penalty of perjury.

Has anyone ever been prosecuted for lying on an I-9?

But it also just get worse than that – with Israel still reeling from the 10/7 attacks and Christians, Jews and homosexuals routinely oppressed/murdered by Muslims, all our Democrats noted that today is something like the international day to fight “Islamophobia”. As if that is a problem. Yeah, the poor, little Muslims out there being phobia’d all day long! Hey, Nigerian, your congregation was massacred by Muslims? Better not get Islamophobic about it! That would be bad.

Do I sound a little bitter here? There’s a reason: our Ruling Class hates us. Wants us gone. Is trying to replace us with illegal immigrants. Is kowtowing to our enemies. There’s just no other way to put it – Pudding Brain’s social media intern put out a lying statement in support of a “non-binary” kid who killed herself but still no mention of Lanken Riley, murdered by an illegal immigrant deliberately and maliciously allowed into our country. Oh, and let’s not forget that as cannibal gangs are allegedly roaming Haiti, Biden’s people are flying in thousands of Haitians…one of whom just raped a 15 year old girl. Can’t wait for the cannibals to get here!

The good news – and there is some good news – is that voter registration trends are still favoring the GOP. Even with the previous weak RNC leadership and a Congressional GOP knifing the base at every turn, people are turning to the GOP. Not because of love, but because it is the only way to stop the Democrats who are determined to destroy the nation they hate the most, the United States of America. Now with Trump people in charge, I expect this to continue – they’ve hired Scott Presler who has spent years, unpaid, registering GOP voters. They’ve pledged to legal ballot harvesting. They killed the old phony minority outreach team and they’ll replace it with some people who actually go and talk to minorities.

Then there are the polls; no matter how you slice it, if the election were held today, Trump would get 312 electoral votes. That’s low end; could be higher if a couple of light blue States flip his way. People are starting to look back on the Trump years as a good time…mostly because they were. Until the CCP and the DNC manufactured the Covid drivel, everything was going very well. People want that; peace and prosperity, that is. Someone said that Trump was first elected to make sure Hillary didn’t get it and then Biden was elected to make sure Trump got out. Maybe – but Biden’s people went on a radical left bender…and the more they do that the more people realize that some mean Tweets aren’t all that bad.

But, also, I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that the “chaos” of the Trump years was manufactured – by Trump’s enemies. With the supposedly non-partisan federal bureaucracy leading the way. That is, people are understanding that Trump got a raw deal. That the current charges are nothing more than political theater. It is now doubtful that any of Trump’s trials will take place before November…and even if they do, any guilty verdict is likely to boomerang. Probably most sensible Democrats are hoping the trials just go away…but the Resist nitwits aren’t having it. So, Democrats are stuck on this ride they’d rather get off.

So, I am angry. I think that came through here. But I’m also hopeful. Just maybe we can save our nation; not that Trump is the answer, but if we can get him back in, it’ll break the system for good. There will be no more cobbling it back together. And with people like Fetterman, we might even see the Democrats start to wake up to the fact that the people don’t want unlimited illegal immigration and medical mutilation of minors. We might become sane again.

Let’s hope.

The Divided States of America

Mark Noonan46 Comments

It was pointed out on X today that if you take the Democrat-governed urban areas of Missouri out of the mix, the murder rate in six times less than in those cities. Do you realize what a remarkable thing that is? In fact, there are counties in Missouri which go years without a homicide. And this is why the gun rights people get angry about the whole debate – another person used words to the effect of “a couple black kids shot at a bunch of brown kids and this means me, a white man who doesn’t live there, has to have his rights violated?”. That was a very crucial observation to make. It illustrates the dual nature of America in 2024. A house divided.

Keep in mind that the murder rate is high in Democrat-run cities on purpose. I refuse to concede that anyone is that stupid: you know what will happen if you let criminals go or let them off lightly. They’ll just go and commit more crimes. I don’t care how many studies you have or supposed arguments that this will lower crime, you know it won’t. It can’t. The person who commits a robbery, rape or murder isn’t a petty criminal just starting out on the life of crime – but the time you’re sticking a gun in a store clerk’s face, dragging a girl into an alley or ending a human life, you are a hardened criminal. And it doesn’t really matter how young the criminal is. You can become a hardened brute very young. Heck, Hitler did it with his people in just a few years with his Hitler Youth savages committing heinous war crimes at the age of 16 in some cases. However the person got to the store clerk, girl or person about to die, by the time they got there the only way to stop them is with force – and with lengthy incarceration if caught.

And everyone knows this.

But they let them out – if they even bother going after them. One of the dirty secrets of American policing is how badly policed most minority neighborhoods are. Huge amounts of crime in such areas go entirely unreported and only the worst aspects of it show up in the records. And as I said, it is desired. All of those who run Democrat cities are infused with Marxist-Leninist thought. It started to come here in the 1930s with German commie refugees (ie, cowards who wouldn’t stand up to Hitler) and it has just entrenched itself ever more deeply. By now, most of them don’t even know they are just aping Lenin’s “who, whom?” and “loot the looters”. But it is what they are doing; their belief is that crime is the result of the system and those who benefit from the system must be punished by crime until they abandon the system.

But then, also, today Trump was ruled guilty by a fraud masquerading as a judge. Guilty of what? of nothing. He borrowed money with the consent of the lender and then paid it back on time with interest. They say it was a crime – they say the assets used to back the loans were inflated. Not according to Trump or the banks – not, that is, according to the people involved. But according to a “judge” Trump is guilty of fraud. The same system which lets rapists and murderers walk is throwing the book at Trump. And pro-life protestors. And J6 defendants. And whistle blowers.

Why? Because it is, once again, not about justice or law: it is about punishing political offenders. You are to have rapists wander your streets because you are guilty of the political offenses of being middle class/white/Christian/Republican. Trump is being charged on the political grounds that he threatens the dominance of the Left. The rapist and the murderer does not threaten the political dominance of the Left (and the Ruling Class is confident that private security will keep them safe). This is all very obvious by now. And yet plenty don’t see it.

Also today we learned that some Russian dissident got offed in prison and we’re all supposed to be horrified by it. Honestly, I had never hard of the guy. Some people I know have claimed some knowledge but, lets face it, he’s only news because they want another $60 billion for Ukraine so stoking emotions about his death is politically useful at the moment. But in light of this – and Tucker Carlson having some nice things to say about Russia – we’re being told that to question American moral superiority over Putin’s Russia is tantamount to treason. Really? Yes, I get it that the Moscow metro system is a showpiece in no way reflective of how Russian life is. But the rat, crime and drug addict infested New York metro system is entirely reflective of how American life is in the cities. Maybe Russia does suck, but why can’t we – supposedly free and responsible people – at least have a subway system where people aren’t urinating on the cars? Not having human feces in public places – and people smoking crack on the train – doesn’t seem like an unreasonable ask. To me, it is kinda basic decency. The glittering art of the Moscow train station is obvious a front…but there are no human feces there. So, plus one for Russia.

We’re not actually free if there are bums wandering our streets in a drug-induced haze. They’re dangerous…and so we avoid the areas they congregate and we hope they don’t find their way to our immediate neighborhood. We’re not free if the crime rate is high; we have to lock our doors, perhaps arm ourselves, and pray that the criminals will pass us by because even if armed we don’t want to actually shoot someone. Sure, they aren’t free in Russia. In fact, there are hardly any free places left in the world – with rural America being the freest, but even there year by year it is less. And it gets less and less because an overpowering government sticks its nose in more and more…while also allowing criminals to wander freely, and persecuting anyone who steps out of line.

Another person said they are much freer in America than anyone in Russia is. Perhaps. But only marginally. And even with that, it is only because the government hasn’t got around to you yet. Think about it – if you were to be arrested as a white supremacist terrorist tomorrow, how confident are you that you could beat the rap? How long would it take? Think about your friends and family: how many would really stick by you knowing that doing so places them on the radar and at risk of arrest, themselves? The government can instantly ruin the life of any American citizen – and count on the MSM to take the government’s side, as long as the person arrested has been identified as an enemy of the Ruling Class. The Constitution won’t show up to help you – it is just a piece of paper. It only has power as long as people abide by it. That you could, by effort, get out of such an injustice doesn’t really mean anything – in that case, the process was the punishment. But in a nation really obeying the US Constitution, you’d have no fear of it even happening except by some bizarre mistake. Now we all know it can happen – and know that the only reason it hasn’t happened is that the Ruling Class is still a bit afraid of us…and, of course, we are armed. In the UK and Australia they are sending people to jail for trivial offenses…all of this, naturally, occurring after gun confiscation for your own good, dammit.

This is why we must steel ourselves to harsh actions. We don’t need a court ruling in our favor ten years after the violation…we need to start sending Leftist Ruling Class foot soldiers to jail. These corrupt and political judges, police officers, DA’s, NGOs etc all need to start seeing the inside of cells. For a long time. It is the only way we can possibly stop them short of violence.

These people – those who are persecuting people like Trump and pro-lifers – are not Americans. They are aliens. They are enemies. I don’t care if they have Mayflower ancestors…somewhere along the line they broke the mystic chains of memory and became anti-American. Out to destroy America and the Americans. It is either stop them, or they stop us.

The Need to Punish

Mark Noonan11 Comments

So the Epstein list was released – as it turns out, just as it was I started watching The Sound of Freedom, that movie last year which got all the Establishment types upset. Now we know why. Or maybe, now I know why.

Of course I’ve long been familiar with both the trafficking and the vile nature of our Ruling Class, but I guess the juxtaposition of the two events sort of drove it home for me. I considered as I watched it that one of the victims portrayed in the movie is about as old as my granddaughter. And it really exposed, though subtly, just how many powerful people must be involved in it all. One of the scenes shows the kids being transported via a merchant ship – one of those large, modern container vessels. Ships have crews, you know? It isn’t like you can actually have a container filled with people over a days or weeks journey without someone outside the container noticing…if nothing else noticing the smell of human waste which must rather pile up inside the container.

Everyone not directly involved is paid to look the other way, of course. This ends up being lots of people…from average Janes and Joes to quite senior corporate and government people. Anyone not paid to look away is probably kept in line by fear. The people who traffic the kids have a well-deserved reputation for being cruelly violent. But, still, how can you look away? Sure, you’re just some poor slob on the crew of a merchant ship, or driving a bus to the border…but you know what is going to happen to those kids. You know. Maybe in the dark of the night you try to tell yourself that you don’t know, but you do.

Nobody knows how many kids are trafficked each year but its likely in the hundreds of thousands around the world. Maybe into millions if we consider the number of kids who are working in mines and such and I suspect a lot of them not necessarily voluntarily. Just physically moving them around takes a huge logistic system…after all, the traffickers don’t want them dead or even seriously abused in transit. They want the kids looking healthy and fresh when placed on the market, whether that market is sex or labor. This means that at least at points along they way there must be food, medical and housing facilities for the kids.

As I pondered all of this I jumped out at me: why we have this. Why, indeed, we have all sorts of miseries and hideous, anti-human actions. It is simple: we don’t punish.

The movie, as is the way of such things, has a happy ending: the particular kids taken are rescued and the culprits are jailed. Good. But it doesn’t stop anyone. No more than taking down a drug shipment ring takes down a Cartel. Nobody is punished.

Jail is not punishment.

To the criminals, it is just part of life. To be avoided, but not something to be afraid of. Remember, they’re amoral animals…people who can transport drugs or children are not people who have the same sorts of likes and dislikes you and I have. To them, being brutal and in charge is what matters…and sure, they all dream of being another Pablo Escobar lording it over a country (for a time), but if all they can lord it over is their cell block, that’ll suit them just fine. They don’t have higher thoughts. They are the gutter and so only gutter considerations exist. I’ll pause here and note that even the very worst of these people can repent and become saints…but unless and until they do, they are worse than beasts in the jungle. More cruel, absolutely irrational in motives.

To end this cruelty – and all the cruelties we see these days – is going to take something more. As I was thinking this over through the day, I saw a report pass on the time line about two men who had held a woman at knife point and raped her…they had just been released without bail. Another report was about a pack of savages looting a bakery. You think jail is going to stop such people? Knife wielding men breaking into a middle class home to rape are not afraid of jail. In jail they’ll just rape their weaker cellmates and consider that just as good a thing to do. Packs of roaming savages looting stores don’t have the wit to even think about jail. All they are thinking about is how fun it is to steal.

We’re going to have to break these people. And I mean that in the sense that once upon a time, we used to break them at the wheel. If you are not familiar with it, then I’ll ask you to take my word on it: very brutal. And it was used on robbers, not just murderers. We’re conditioned here in modern times to think of such punishments as the unreasonable actions of our cruel and ignorant ancestors. I’ve been drifting away from that over the years and now I completely reject the notion. They knew precisely what they were doing and why.

We’re dealing with people who make sane life impossible. Just what in heck are we really supposed to do with someone who views a child as a way to make money? A store as a place to steal? A woman as someone to be raped? How are we to instruct? And I don’t mean instructing the miscreant – by the time someone is selling a child it is only God who can change that person. I mean instructing everyone else. That is, telling the people that if they decide to do such things, their end will be one of prolonged, agonizing pain. Not jail. Not a plea deal. Not a probation. You’re going to be tied down and then very heavy objects will be used to break your bones and mutilate you – starting with your feet. And our hope is that you survive the breaking so you can live for a couple days without so much as a sip of water before you expire. Quick and painless executions are for decent people, folks. We can hang a politician who takes a bribe or a safe cracker who robs the rich…but the person who steals from the working man’s store or violates the honor of a woman is someone who isn’t worthy of a quick end. Needless to say, anyone who sells a child should endure weeks of pain.

And here’s the thing – and I’ve noted this before – it works. The polite society that existed pretty much universally just 75 years ago was the result of a thousand years of ferocious violence being applied by society against the bad guys. As far as I can tell, there’s no other way we’re going to get out of this. Until we find the iron in our blood to really punish, the savages will just continue to run amok.

Why Civil War?

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Apropos the obvious decline of our nation and increasing polarization, the Civil War has been on a lot of people’s minds of late. But the current spasm of talk about it was generated by Nikki Haley giving an unacceptable answer about the cause of the Civil War. No matter what you might know, the “correct” answer is: slavery. Only slavery. Nothing but slavery. If you are a politician and you are asked what caused the Civil War, you are only permitted to answer, slavery.

Which is true as far as it goes. But it is more true to say that if there hadn’t been slavery, there would have been no Civil War. That is, if the slave system hadn’t produced a class of people running things there would not have been a class of people fearful of losing their position as slavery was shown to be grossly inefficient in addition to being morally wrong. What existed in America prior to, say, the 1840’s was a Ruling Class which was based in the South and had its wealth in land and slaves. Because they had the wealth, they had the power and though Northerners did get into office, the South dominated the Republic. Just take a look at the first 15 Presidents – all Southerners (with a fair number of slave owners) or Northerners dependent upon Southern influence. The reason Lincoln was such a watershed is because he came to power entirely without the South. While Lincoln got just under 40% of the total vote in 1860, his total in the North was a majority and in the upper North, a landslide win.

And therein lies the real reason for secession and Civil War. No matter how you sliced it, the American Republic was going to become ever more Northern in character as time went on. Mass immigration and natural increase was increasing Northern population at a phenomenal rate. But, more than that, the rise of an industrial North was leaving the South economically in the dust. The slave labor economy of the South simply could not compete with the North. There was no way for the Southern Ruling Class to remain in charge in the USA as a Southern Ruling Class. That class, or at least a substantial part of it, would have to make a deal with the rising North and become a subordinate part of a coalition which would ultimately be based on Northern money and political power (votes, eg). And any such deal with the North would mean an eventual extirpation of slavery. The Southern Ruling Class looked upon this and decided: we’re out.

Only in a Southern Confederacy could the Southern Ruling Class remain in charge. Only in such a Confederacy could a slave economy be maintained long term. Only in such a Confederacy could poor whites be kept out of power and wealth and thus dependent upon the Ruling Class. If you take a look at the early proponents of “State’s Rights” and secession what you won’t find is lots of poor, white farmers leading the way. It was an upper class thing marketed to the lower class – mostly by playing on racial fears. The Abolition Hordes were going to force your daughter to marry a black man! Even then, it didn’t really work too well with the poorest whites. Most Confederate soldiers were upper class, middle class or dependents of upper class people. There were large parts of the Confederacy where Confederate officials didn’t dare show their faces (mostly back country areas and especially from 1863 forward).

It is my view that all wars – every last one of them – is the result of someone wanting to steal something. You can look to economic factors, political factors, dynastic factors, etc, etc but what it really comes down to, when you really look at what started the fracas, it was always someone thinking they could steal on the cheap. A bit of fighting, get some loot, live in power and wealth. Nobody enters a conflict thinking its going to be a long, bloody slog with victory bought so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat. They’re always certain it’ll be short and easy. And, sometimes, it is. Our war with Mexico did entail some hard fighting but in return for about 13,000 dead from all causes (and only about 2,500 battle deaths) the United States obtained 529,000 square miles of territory – and territory which has proven itself exceptionally valuable over time. You can look at this or that reason for the war but the bottom line is that we wanted Mexico’s land. We had our excuses for why it should come to us (most of the land we took only had a theoretical connection to Mexico based on previous Spanish colonial claims, themselves tenuous) but what we did not have was clear title to it. So, we just took it.

That is just how wars are. What the Confederate leaders wanted to do was steal power they couldn’t obtain by legal means – and, of course, to continue to steal the labor of black Americans. The only legal path to national power in the USA was via compromise with Northern interests increasingly hostile to slavery. But, if you could form a Confederacy – sort of steal half of America from itself – you could retain your dominance without any need for compromise. And that is what they did – the ground prepared by a decade of anti-Northern polemics and enacted so fast that Unionist sentiment had no real chance to coalesce in the South before the deed was done.

The crucial lesson here is to learn about people of power and position. Ruling Classes are always most keen about maintaining themselves. The British Ruling Class is probably the most successful – through all changes, it has kept itself in wealth and still exercises a great deal of power officially and unofficially. There will never be another hereditary Lord as Prime Minister (the last was Salisbury early in the 20th century), but they control large swaths of power. The Duke of Westminster is descended from a man who got himself knighted by James I in 1617…and he and his descendants just parlayed that into more and more until the current Duke is worth $9 billion. Think of all the changes over 400 years…and here’s this guy sitting pretty because an ancestor did a service for James Stuart. That’s a first rate self-perpetuating Ruling Class! Most Ruling Classes aren’t that clever. In fact, most of them are very stupid and pigheaded about things and end up destroyed.

This is important to realize because we also have a Ruling Class which cannot sustain itself legally in power any more than the Southern planters could in 1860. The only way out for the Ruling Class is to compromise with the rising power – in this case, the populist Right currently represented by Trump. And like that Southern Ruling class of 1860, the modern Ruling Class is more than willing to go outside the law if it means they remain in power and wealth. This makes for a very dangerous time for our Republic. But keep of good heart: Ruling Classes who don’t give way are always pushed away. Their time is up, and their days are numbered. The only question is how much destruction they’ll cause on their way down.

There is Always Censorship

Mark Noonan1 Comment

I have said many times in the past that all education is indoctrination and all law is the imposition of morality: it is just a debate over what dogmas and morality will be imposed. The Left and the Libertarians reject this with scorn and even most on the Right would be uncomfortable in saying it, but it is nevertheless true. Something will always be imparted to the rising generation. We can see this right before our eyes when we see polls showing something like 25% of youngsters say they are something other than straight. The idea that a fourth of humanity would not be biologically geared towards reproduction is both theologically and biologically absurd, but the kids say they are. And they say this because they’ve been told to say this. Like all young people, they want to know what to say and do in order to be accepted into society and the sure-fire pathway to acceptance these days is to be a weirdo…and so weirdo they are.

But there is a follow-on to both my assertions that I’ve only tangentially brought up before: and that is there is always censorship to defend the reigning dogma. I’ve hinted as this before when I’ve discussed things like the Inquisition and pointed out that it wasn’t set up to prevent thought and development, but to ensure that thought and development went in the right direction. Most people these days would condemn such an idea but such it was, and something like it is necessary in any society. These days the reigning orthodoxy is not defended by learned men backed up by the rack but, instead, is defended by ideological gatekeepers backed up by social ostracism. But it all works out the same: heresy is rooted out and those who transgress are punished. With today, in my view, being worse than the Inquisition because our current gatekeepers are not only determined to prevent thought and development but, indeed, to ensure that various obvious falsehoods are asserted by society. At least Torquemada was trying to defend something true; the modern Inquisitors are determined to defend something false. But the main point here is that there is always a mechanism in society to hound those who don’t conform to the reigning orthodoxy.

This is why when I see current debates about free speech I do believe that a lot of people are missing a crucial aspect of it. This is especially true on the Right which almost universally adheres to Voltaire’s “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. Perhaps Voltaire really would have (he was never put to the test), but most people won’t really. It is philosophical boilerplate. But the attitude underlying it has been used to push our civilization to the brink of extinction. Thinking it wise, we’ve allowed all manner of false, evil and downright anti-human speech to be made. And made by people who are bound and determined to exterminate everyone who disagrees with them. Most importantly, those who have imposed the current reigning orthodoxy don’t hold to Voltaire’s dictum for a minute – and they are now busily enforcing their speech codes on us.

There are, after all, things we already can’t say in public. Things we’ll only say in private, quietly and only around people we trust absolutely. And year by year the things we won’t say in public grow – because the new Inquisitors are always listening, always ready to destroy the next person who states a heresy. Don’t be too harsh with them on it. When our views dominated, to even say “damn” in a movie was a shock. Our civilization at its peak had a very strict set of rules of behavior and speech and they were enforced by a mixture of law and custom. We were told (or, actually, mostly told ourselves) that we could dispense, one by one, with these laws and customs and that we would somehow still retain our civilization. We have now found out how false that notion was…and our backs are against the wall as the ideas we let lose are getting ready to destroy us.

To be sure, those who wrote the First Amendment lived during the peak of our civilization. When they wrote those words “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” they weren’t stupid or naive. They just didn’t realize – couldn’t realize – that later generations would assume that the words meant there were no rules. These were educated, responsible men; they were sure that the First Amendment would only secure the right to say things within the rules. De Sade lived when the Constitution was being written and he was writing his vile works…I am absolutely confident that Madison would have led the charge against anyone advocating de Sade’s ideology. In the end, we allowed de Sade and his heirs free reign. How is that working out for us?

There are certain things which must be in order for a civilization to survive. For instance, the Albigensians of the 13th century held that physical reality is evil. This in stark contrast to the orthodox Christian view which asserts that God called His creation good and, of course, became incarnate. In our modern mind we would allow the Albigensians to propagate their ideas freely on grounds of who are we to say who is truly right? Those back in the 13th century didn’t and this is held as a sin against them. But the reason they exterminated the Albigensians wasn’t to stop people from thinking, but to prevent a monster from growing all powerful. A society based on the belief that matter is evil is a very different society than the Christian. It despises life and seeks only the end of all things. On balance, the people then preferred an explicable world ruled by God and eventually to be redeemed by Him.

Were they right? Well, lets take another case: Islam. Suppose it had totally triumphed instead of being fought tooth and nail for centuries. What then? Well, just take a look at the Muslim world in, say, 1823: no real advancement since it had emerged in the 7th century. Ancient nations of once-great prosperity reduced to poverty. A completely stagnant society; once the scourge of Christendom and now the plaything of European buccaneers. The Muslim worldview is different from the Christian. It is much more gloomy; deterministic and, because of this, greedily materialistic…but it is a greed only of taking and hoarding…not the materialistic greed of the Calvinists who at least asserted that one had to build.

The point here is that if you want what you have, you must defend it. If you don’t defend it, then it will be replaced by something else which will then exterminate what you have. It can’t freely compete with other world views; it must triumph, or die. As much freedom as you want, as much as you, personally, want to think and say what you want, there must be a limit. And an enforced limit. Some things that are just outside the pale and may not be openly advocated for in the public square. In short, no matter how much freedom you want, you’re going to need some censorship…just as you’ll have to use law and custom to ensure your dogmas are transmitted in the schools.

Do keep in mind that there is no correct answer. No Euclidean certainty. You’re dealing with human beings so things don’t work like that. What you will determine tolerable is a prudential judgement and may vary over time. But what must be is the hard and fast rules: what you cannot do, no matter what. To give an example: we know that Nazi ideology is evil and has no merit whatsoever. It should, then, be illegal to propagate it. If not in law, then in custom. And, of course, overt adherence to Nazism is banned in our society – you can almost ensure your social ostracism if you proclaim your adherence to Nazism. You might still have some Nazi friends, but forget a career in most avenues and be prepared for routine harassment. Do you see what I’m saying?

Just as the Nazis would arrest us all if they were given power so, too, will what we currently call the Left. The rising reigning orthodoxy. The thing which is already causing us to self-censor and now increasingly demands we overtly proclaim our support for. They don’t have any truck with the idea that speech should really be free. They believe you should only be free to say what they find acceptable. Spoiler: you aren’t acceptable. Eventually you will be squashed.

Unless you squash them, first.

This is what I mean when I talk of us using power to destroy the Left. It is an effort to place their ideas beyond the pale. When I say things like “confiscate their money” that is just a means to an end – a way to get them to stop saying things which undermine civilization. But do note that I go on to say things like, “use their money to educate the rising generation in our views.” I’m not just trying to switch my power for theirs – I’m really in the business of stamping out heresy. Of getting rid of those who assert things which are at defiance of what I consider basic, human decency.

As we brace ourselves for this battle for our civilization it is important that we start to think about things. To really determine who we are, what we believe and what we want at the end of the fight. Just opposing the Left isn’t good enough. It needs to be replaced. What will we replace it with? What will we do to prevent a repeat? What ideas will have a social and legal ban imposed?

And we must do this; because it is the only way we survive.

The Lies Are the Problem

Mark Noonan19 Comments

I saw that in a recent poll something like 67% of 18-35 year olds disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza. To back up this poll, we’ve seen very large mobs of youngsters out at the pro-Hamas rallies where anti-Semitism is rife; so the poll is at least correct in general. This is very distressing – our youth are being consumed by an ideology which is anti-human in every respect. Why is it like this?

Because of lies.

For some time now – probably thirty years – there has been an increasing level of lies about Israel. Like all such things it started small and as a fringe thing but as we know, anything the Left latches on to will move rapidly from fringe to mainstream. We can use the founding of the Boycott Divest Sanction movement in 2005 as the moment when anti-Israel attitudes went mainstream. At that point, Israel routinely was accused of being an Apartheid State which was systemically destroying the Palestinian community. A false history was created to back up the ideology – a history which starts in 1948 with a claim that it was the Jews, without cause, who set upon the innocent Palestinian Muslims in order to commit genocide against them. This is all drivel but that doesn’t matter – it is what was said, endlessly, and by many premier elements of the Western Establishment. As we know, repeat a lie long enough and people believe it. This lie has been repeated well more than long enough…and now after Hamas sent in rape/death squads to commit acts of unimaginable brutality, we’re finding that huge numbers of young people are siding with the rapists.

And its not all on the Left: there are plenty of people on the Right parroting the lies about Israel. The lies about Israel have sunk very deep; our whole debate on this issue is warped by the lies. The pragmatic facts of life are that even if every crime charged to Israel were true, it would still not justify sending out rape/death squads against them. But that is being justified. It is being placed “in context” as the Left demands. We have people who have been so well trained by liars that they can find out that Israel girls were raped to death and it doesn’t outrage them. They see it as justified…and they see it that way because for decades now they have been fed a story about a horrendously anti-human Israel which is just murdering Palestinians by the bushel.

And do keep in mind that a large number of young men from Gaza set out to do these rapes and murders. Like all military forces, probably most of them range from late teens to mid twenties in age. In other words, these are people who were born in this century. If any of them have family who lost something in 1948, it goes back to great-grandparents. You know: people these kids never met. But just as in the West our youth have been fed a steady diet of anti-Israel lies, the kids of Gaza have got it on steroids. They’ve been told endlessly and since preschool that the Israelis – the Jews – are beasts in human skin who engage in all sorts of inhuman cruelty against Palestinians. That is why when these Gazans were unleashed in Israel they took delight in raping, torturing and murdering. To them, they were just getting a pound of flesh back from the Jews.

What is boils down to is that a series of lies, told over decades, brought about October 7th…and those same lies are now hampering the only proper response to October 7th. Lies are not just a theoretical bad thing: lies kill.

And not just in Israel and Gaza. Those same sorts of lies are causing Muslims to attack random people all over the West and in Africa, too. Did you know that over the past fourteen years about 52,000 Christians have been murdered in Nigeria by Muslims? Of course you don’t know that; the MSM doesn’t cover it. The “Bring Back Our Girls” thing was an aberration. And quickly forgotten. And, aside, most of those girls are still being held as slaves. The Muslims of Nigeria are fed anti-Christian lies so they go out to kill…and the world doesn’t do anything about it because of the lie of omission: as anti-Christian violence doesn’t fit the Establishment Narrative, it isn’t talked about. But 52,000 are dead…and Lord only knows how many are now chattel slaves.

Its not just in this type of action, either. We’re fed a bunch of lies about immigration, too, and lots of people die from those lies. The people who are left to die in the desert. The people murdered by coyotes. The people killed in the USA by illegals. It is quite a pile of corpses and it keeps getting higher because there’s a series of lies being told about immigration and border security. Drugs, too, of course; 110,000 died in the USA of drug overdoses in 2021…and it is happening, once again, because a bunch of lies are told both about border security and whether or not there is even a drug problem.

On and on: lies about policing have led to a collapse of policing in the big cities and so murder rates are rising. Lies about race have lead to packs of non-whites attacking whites. Lies about homeless people lead to who knows how many people dying in gutters. Lies lies lies – and they are destructive and getting worse.

It has to stop. The lies must be stopped

And that is where we immediately run into trouble. You see, most people who call themselves Conservative in the West these days are actually Libertarian. It is good that they have a healthy suspicion of government power, but it is entirely unhelpful that they haven’t a concept about what well-ordered liberty means. Your basic Western Conservative just assumes a sane society. They don’t realize that you can’t have a voluntarily sane society – it must be enforced in law and custom. If you don’t enforce decent behavior, you won’t get it. Just today a viral video went around where this guy steals a Christmas tree from another person’s car roof. The thief had his own car. A nice car. It is obvious the guy can pop the $50 for a tree. But he steals one, instead. Because he’s an indecent person. And he’s indecent because he was never taught to be decent and there is no mechanism to force him to be decent.

We have always have liars amongst us – and until Christ returns, they will remain with us. But there’s a difference between a society with liars and a lying society. Right now, we’ve got a lying society. We enforce no standards. We punish nobody for transgressing basic human decency. We’re barely able to convict for rape and murder these days (worse in Europe – a gang of boys, some foreign and some German, raped a girl and only one of them is going to jail…the others are skating; with the reason given that the court wasn’t sure the boys knew they were doing wrong). The whole fabric of civilization is collapsing around us. And it all stems from the fact that we tolerate liars.

I have talked a bit about this before but that 2/3 of the kiddies think Hamas is justified is an eye-opener. We are running out of time. We’ll be lied into total destruction if we don’t stop this. However difficult it is, we must build the mechanisms for punishing liars. And I mean quite severely. Lying is the thing we must take our stand against. All else will fall our way if we can smack down the liars. And all we hold dear will be destroyed if we don’t smack them down.

Our position must be that the First Amendment does not protect lying. That is going to be a hard pill for most of the Right to swallow – once again, because most on the Right are actually Libertarian rather than Conservative. But if you want to retain your freedom you’ll only be able to do it by denying the freedom of liars. Either you GULAG the liars or they will GULAG you. It is that stark – and the danger is not in some far off year; its like three to five years from now. It is snowballing that fast. You may want to stand on the idiotic Voltairean “I will defend to the death your right to say it” and I hope you and your principles enjoy the work camp. As for me, I’d rather not wind up in GULAG – and if that means I have to find the means to bankrupt and/or jail liars, I’m going to do it.

Is Reform Possible?

Mark Noonan38 Comments

Javier Milei was elected President of Argentina yesterday and the global Left is having a conniption fit, as per usual when someone not Left-approved gets in. There is much positive to be said about Milei as his proposals work out to a wholesale rejection of the Social Democratic order imposed around the world since WWII. He is saying everything a populist Right politician should say. And it will be a great thing if he’s able to carry out his reforms. The big question: will he?

Last year Italy surprisingly elected Georgia Meloni Prime Minister and the global Left also had a fit about her…but in her tenure illegal immigration to Italy has massively increased. This was the issue that brought her to power – it is what the people of Italy elected her to do: stop illegal immigration. It has increased. In other words, had Italy elected a Left-approved government, it would have been no different on this issue. The latest step she’s taken is to come to an agreement with Albania (which is not an EU member) to take in the migrants as they are processed. This is being slammed on the populist Right as a betrayal…mostly because it is. It is a concession that the people flooding from Africa to Europe have a right to do so and the only thing Europe can do is play around the edges and maybe stop some small number of them on one pretext or another and only after some sort of judicial review.

My bet is that after her election those people in the West who fund and organize the migrations (I have no proof of this: but penniless Third Worlders cannot cross thousands of miles without massive support…someone is backing the movement) put it into overdrive to put Meloni on the spot. This has worked. Her plan to send them to Albania won’t do a thing to stop the migrations, it just adds another step to the process.

Italy does have a Navy – a pretty modern one, too. Plenty of patrol craft can ply the waters between Libya and Italy to intercept the slow moving migrant ships and simply send them back to Libya. Just a few weeks of aggressive patrolling will put a lid on it. Nobody is going to make an effort to cross when the almost invariable result will be interception by the Italian Navy and return to Libya. They’ll find some other country to go to or go back to wherever in Africa they hail from. If there is a concern that some of them are genuine asylum seekers, then Italy could open up a consulate in, say, Benghazi protected by the Italian military just for processing asylum requests…with the asylum-seekers remaining in Libya under Italian protection until their case is heard. The Prime Minister of Italy controls the military; she could just order the Navy to do this. She didn’t. She just worked out a bogus plan to make it seem like the migrant crisis is being solved but which will do nothing to stop the migration.

Why did she opt for bamboozlement rather than a solution? Almost certainly because Italy wants EU cash. From what I’ve read, Italy is trying to get 90 billion Euros in aid…and EU aid always comes with strings attached. What we have here is the Ruling Class paying the piper and Meloni dancing to their tune. Such it always is, right? He who has the gold makes the rules. To be sure, Italy could cut itself off from the EU, engage in deep economic reforms – suffer a massive recession and then take about five years for the economy to recover. This would be the wise and patriotic thing to do and by telling the EU to get stuffed, Italy could also solve the migration crisis as the people of Italy demand. But there’s a catch: do that and all of the sudden the people will switch from wanting the migrants kicked out to wanting their EU-funded welfare checks. In other words, Meloni’s party would likely be wiped out at the next election if she did what was right for Italy. She should still do it…and if she were a true patriot, she would. But she’s in office and once someone gets in office their primary concern almost invariably becomes staying in office (especially with all the perks being in office provides these days – seriously, guys; look it up – those who get into office are coddled in luxuries that even kings of olden days couldn’t dream of).

And, so, now we’ll see how Milei does. Like a lot of populists he’s talked a great game. He has first rate proposals. But like all populists the global Ruling Class hates him and will do everything it can to undermine him. Right now, Argentina is pretty much an economic basket case – a century of Progressive policies have turned what was once a First World nation into a joke. It will take massive reforms at all levels to get Argentina out of its plight. If Milei is a true Argentinian patriot (as Nayib Bukele is a true El Salvadoran patriot) he’ll damn all the critics and just get the job done for his country. In other words, he won’t be worried about staying in office, but about saving his country. He’ll have a smile on his face as he contemplates near-certain defeat at the polls as he goes about saving his country. He’ll know that even if his people hate him for what he’s doing, he’s doing what is right and one day the people will understand that. Audacity is the key for any real reformer; to just press ahead…to move so fast and on so many levels that the critics are left in confusion…shouting in impotent rage about the last thing done while you’re already on to the next. I wish Milei well and I hope for a new Argentina.

But make no mistake about it, the chances that Milei will win are low. He’s now going to be in office and from the first minute he’ll be submerged in all those temptations. The global Left will be working behind the scenes to make economic life even harder for Argentina. Just about forget any foreign loans unless you’re willing to torpedo your own reforms. Make no mistake about it: this can be done. Argentina is a nation slopping over with wealth – large territory, huge natural resources, educated population. In just a few years the whole thing can be turned around and real prosperity set in. It is getting through those few years that are the trouble…that usually cause populist reformers to fail.

For reference, see what was done to Trump. Pretty much ever lever of power around the world was turned against him – including and especially those Constitutionally under Trump’s control. Rely on it that the bureaucracy of Argentina – sitting fat on the government – will do everything they can to save their own bacon. But on the plus side, Milei is saying his priority is to get rid of the bureaucracies. That might be the key – if you get rid of those within your own government who are against you then your reforms can proceed unimpeded. If Milei is able to pull it off, it will only be because he got rid of his fiercest enemies: his own government. If so then the lesson for us should we in in 2024 is that job one is simply to fire everyone. To get rid of them; they can whine and complain about it all they want, but they won’t have any levers of power to use against us.

We’ll see, won’t we?