life issues

We Need Morality

Mark Noonan32 Comments

So one of the sob stories Democrats are putting out to make us feel bad about their shutdown of the government was this lady – I think in New Mexico – who was whining about how she needs SNAP…and has been on it for thirty years. Thirty! Since 1995!

Have you ever felt like a sucker?

I’m soon to turn 61 – and tomorrow I will get up and go to work. Put in my eight hours. Maybe slightly longer if its busy. I do this so that I can buy my food, my house, my car, my gas, my clothes, my cable service, my phone service…and those small, individually wrapped Reeces cups because I’m trying to keep my weight under control (successfully) and the craving for something sweet after dinner gets its fix with just one of those. You know: all my stuff. My wife works, too. That lady has been sitting on her ass since I was 30! Collecting benefits. And you know it isn’t just SNAP…I’m sure she’s raking it in with a lot of other programs and, of course, is isn’t like anyone checks when you show up at the local food bank for a bit of free grocery shopping.

Yes, we do have an absolute moral obligation to feed the hungry. The clothe the naked. To house the homeless. But it isn’t a one way street:

For you know how one must imitate us. For we did not act in a disorderly way among you, nor did we eat food received free from anyone. On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day we worked, so as not to burden any of you. Not that we do not have the right. Rather, we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you, so that you might imitate us. In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat. – 2 Thessalonians 3: 7-10

The poor have a moral obligation to work – and even it is make-work. Some contribution to society…to the people who are getting up each morning, going to work and providing the food, clothes and shelter. No human being physically capable of work and under the age of retirement has a right to receive without giving something back. Enough of this welfare scam. I don’t care what we have them do, as long as they are putting in a solid forty hours every week. Have them sweep the streets if there’s nothing else…but that EBT card only reloads when it is recorded that you did forty hours that week. Period.

And, in the end, this is what will get them off welfare…make them be responsible. There are people who are willing to live on the margins of life as long as it doesn’t require any effort on their part. But these days we’re lavishing so much money on welfare that the so-called “poor” are living as well as people who work for a living…and that’s just wrong. Welfare is to keep you this side of starvation and nakedness…not so you’re at home eating EBT cheetos while others are out working. If we make them do drudge work, they’ll for the most part find some other way to earn their daily bread. And, hey, if some don’t – then at least we’re getting clean streets and they’re getting the knowledge (and pride) that they aren’t just a burden…they’re doing something useful day in and day out. That is basic human dignity, folks.

But aside from that, this has exposed the lack of real morality in our society. It isn’t merciful to let people be on welfare for decades (and in many cases, generations). It is just wrong. It should horrify people that someone is on it more than six months. A year, tops. I related after my Dad died in 2009 that I found his food stamps ID card from 1970 in his wallet…I never knew but he kept that souvenir of the bad times…probably as a reminder. There is no shame in getting help. Dad was out of work and had kids to feed. You do what you gotta do. But you don’t make dependency a life style…or if you are to be dependent for your whole life, then you sure in heck shouldn’t have a say in how society works. That is, if you’re on welfare, no voting.

It is time for us to really get back to knowing what is right and what is wrong. Being on welfare except as a temporary expedient is wrong. Being massively overweight on welfare even more so (and we’ve all seen the overweight people on mobility scooters whipping out the EBT card at Wal Mart). But it is also wrong to be a bum on the streets. To be drunk or high in public. To father children with multiple women you never married. To engage in irresponsible sex in general. To be illiterate. To be innumerate. To be poorly dressed in public. To be loud and boorish in public spaces. To brawl over nothing in a fast food joint.

We have to start punishing this sort of thing. Loss of voting rights is just the start. There also has to be labor sentences for having that brawl at the fast food joint. For being high. For generally being a disreputable person who is making life hard for everyone else. And if a person doesn’t take the lesson the first couple times they are sent to labor to make up for their poor behavior, then the punishments must get progressively worse until they are permanently at work or finally get the message and stop acting like turnip-brained barbarians. We’re all human beings. On average, none of us are smarter than anyone else. I am not some specially gifted person that I have a house, cars, clothes and food. I just work and pay my bills and do my small part to keep things going as best I can. It isn’t a special burden: it is just life. And it isn’t really all that hard…sure, I get up some mornings and wish I could be doing just about anything else but going to work…but I go all the same. It is called being a man. Being civilized. Being truly human.

The world works. It really does. But it only works when we do. When all of us suck it up and get the job done. We can’t sustain ourselves if half of us are living off the other half. Everyone who is at all physically capable must contribute (and none of this “but my back hurts” nonsense – I live with constant pain in my right knee and I still get to work…because you offer up your pain to God and get on with it…when I’m saying “disabled” I mean you have to be disabled. Just not capable of doing any physical labor at all). And everyone who tries to slack or acts like a barbarian has to feel it – they can’t skate on that. It is the little things that matter the most…and for a well-ordered society, the bigger threat is the welfare bum, not the bank robber. A bank robber bets his life that he can steal and not be killed…a welfare bum bets your life that you’ll feed him no matter what. Time for that to end.

Not one person in America should be hungry, naked or homeless. But not one person in America should be taking without giving.

Mars or Bust?

Mark Noonan3 Comments

Pro Tip: if you throw any shade on the idea of colonizing Mars, a lot of people will jump on your social media TL to shout at you. It appears that the idea has become an article of faith in some areas.

My comment originated as a comment to a post Elon Musk had reposted about water ice on Mars. There is quite a lot of it. We’ve detected about 5 million cubic kilometers of it on or near the Martian surface. This ice isn’t probably suitable for your whiskey and soda – it may be massively toxic. But it might be fresh – that is, just good, old H20. Heck, there are some indications there might be liquid water a mile or so down in Mars…though this might be really no more than a salty, muddy slurry. But, still, pure or not, it is crucially important to any human activity on Mars…water to drink, oxygen to breath, hydrogen for fuel! But I decided to be a Debbie Downer and point out that, ice or no, Mars has nearly no atmosphere, the soil is poisonous, the gravity is much lower than Earth and it’s continuously bombarded by deadly solar radiation. It’s not actually a good spot for colonization. Big mistake!

The air pressure on the Martian surface is equal to 0.6% of Earth. Without a pressure suit, you die (quite horribly – the liquids in your body would almost instantly start to boil if you were exposed to the Martian atmosphere). Mars soil is filled with perchlorates, which are toxic to all known forms of life on Earth. The gravity is 38% that of Earth’s and while this would give some advantages (we could carry more around and build much larger structures of lighter materials) it is also less than the human body is used to – we know that after six months in zero g the human body suffers various problems. They are to an extent controllable but not entirely (for instance, normally about 70% of your blood is below your heart – gravity! But in zero g it just flows equally through your body…and that causes problems in your legs and feet). What would happen to the human body after, say, a year on Mars? We have no idea. And then there’s the problem of solar radiation – we’re in a happy, safe and warm bubble here on Earth – our magnetosphere keeps out harmful solar and cosmic radiation. Mars lost her magnetic field very early in her life and so is continually bombarded by radiation totally lethal to human and other life (Mars lost her atmosphere because of this – solar wind just ripped it away bit by bit until it was almost all gone…its still ripping away the Martian atmosphere).

So, anyways, I was just pointing out that this wasn’t going to be easy – and I got ripped to shreds in the comments. People have invested their mind and soul into this – and it seems to revolve around two ideas:

  1. We must make humanity multi-planetary to avoid extinction.
  2. We must become a sort of trans-human species.

The idea of saving us from extinction has some merit – and I’ve even got an outline for a novel about it: Survival. The premise is that the Earth is going to be destroyed and it is determined that in the time available sufficient craft can be created to bring 1,000 human beings, plus supplies, to Mars. Who gets to go? Who gets to decide? What would you do to be one of the thousand? How much effort would you put into saving others when you’re doomed? It’ll be cool – if I decide to write it. But story telling aside, there is some sense to it – but not much. The chances that Earth will get hit by something truly planet-killing are very small. Jupiter is out there still playing cosmic hoover for us and making sure anything large enough to do us in doesn’t get close. Its been a long while since even a really large impact – 65 million years! And life survived that – and human life would, too, with even minimal prep time.

As for the trans-human stuff: just weird. One comment had us building this gigantic platform in space to sustain millions of people and it just flies around the galaxy forever. I mean, sure – maybe we could build it. Why, though? Once again, makes for cool sci-fi but if we’re talking about having new lands for millions then lets just work out the ways and means of really fast and cheap water desalinzation and settle the Sahara along the banks of artificial rivers which have their water piped in from the Atlantic.

I do want us to go! And, in fact, we should already have gone. Except for very stupid budget decisions in the 70’s we probably would have had a permanent presence on the Moon in the 1980’s. And that, I think, is still where we have to go – after all, there may be ice on the Moon, as well. Main thing, its a heck of a lot closer – but also outside our magnetosphere thus allowing us to study that on humans and figure out the best methods to shield ourselves from it. Perhaps Musk can get his space ship to Mars…but I think we should stick to our neighborhood until we’re really mastered the art of long distance space travel.

Who is Innocent?

Mark Noonan11 Comments

As we just passed the anniversaries of the atomic bombings we got yet another round of statements about it…and I do note they are getting ever more stridently anti-American and more vigorous in asserting it was a crime…that we did something akin to what the Nazis did. This ultimately stems from two sources, neither of which are good:

  1. Soviet Cold War propaganda.
  2. Post-WWII Nazi apologists.

It is a bit of a shame that this worked so well – even the Church has tended to fall into it. Now, to be sure, I don’t dispute that intentionally destroying a city is wrong. If that is your intent. Never, ever intend to destroy a city. Heck, never intend to destroy a mail box. Destroying things is wrong. Killing people is wrong. Don’t do it! But this doesn’t really apply, in my opinion, to the atomic bombings.

What was our intent in August of 1945?

To kill? No.

To destroy property? No.

To take land for ourselves? No.

To steal the wealth of nations? No.

Our intent in August of 1945 was to end the war – with a bias towards the fewest additional American deaths. That’s it. All we were trying to accomplish. And as August 1st, 1945 came in, American policy makers were faced with these options:

  1. Invade.
  2. Continued blockade.
  3. Continued conventional aerial attack.
  4. Just call it quits and tell the Japanese we wouldn’t invade.
  5. Atomic bomb.

The first three options involved massive additional deaths. Just the naval blockade of Japan had already pushed the nation to the brink of starvation and a couple more months of it and millions would die (MacArthur’s first demand upon taking control of the occupation of Japan was for food; telling DC that it was either send him food or send him bullets; the Japanese were on their last meal by the time we got in). Invading would not only cost millions of Japanese lives but probably a hundred thousand Americans as well. Continued conventional bombing deaths would have probably run upwards to a million.

Now, we could have just called it quits: assessed all our options and decided we wouldn’t compel a Japanese surrender…too costly in lives. There is a case to be made for this. Japan was a ruin and at the time absolutely no threat to anyone. But, on the other hand, they still had millions of soldiers under arms and controlled vast amounts of territory in Asia and the Pacific. The only way to get Japan to give up all of this was to compel their surrender, so it was back to one of the other options. But suppose we decided to leave Japan in control of what she had…just too costly to finish. Ok. That would merely have confirmed the Japanese strategy post Midway: fight so hard that the Americans give up trying to conquer Japan.

And then rebuild and try again with a better plan. In other words, it meant another war. Millions more dead, just a decade or two down the road.

What you have here, guys, is a quandary: a very uncertain situation which has no easy way out. But we had to get out. The war had to end, one way or the other. The dying had to stop. Truman opted for the bomb. Can we second guess this? Of course we can. Would you want to be forced to make that decision? I sure in heck wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to be the man who has to decide how to end a hideous, bloody war. Truman, turns out, was the man – and by his lights, he did what he thought was best. Maybe it wasn’t best. Maybe one of the other options would have worked better. We’ll never really know – we can only go with what happened: seven days after the second bomb, the Japanese surrendered. The people who had not quit for a second…the people who jumped off cliffs on Saipan rather than fall into our hands…quit. It was over. The dying was finished. Judged by results, we have to say that Truman might have been on the right track.

But Mark (you ask), what of all those innocent people killed in the bombings? Men, women and children regardless of condition all killed in an instant with a city totally destroyed. How horrible! Sure, it was. Absolutely hideous. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Would prefer it had never happened. But it happened because the Japanese made it happen.

To be sure, Japanese minors were innocent..and perhaps there were some Japanese who fought against the course of Japanese policy. But the overwhelming mass of Japanese adults participated. Eagerly. They went into the Japanese military and fought to the death. They worked in Japanese factories. They cheered their victories and grimly fought on after defeat. They saw allied POWs used as slave labor inside Japan. They knew that their soldiers were behaving like beasts in human skin in Japanese occupied territory. Here’s the reality: they weren’t innocent. It wasn’t Martians who flew down and forced the Japanese to do what they did – they did it all on their own. They were happy to do it. Gloried in it! They just thought it wouldn’t happen to them.

And, in the end, it didn’t happen to them…American soldiers didn’t rape every Japanese girl they could get their hands on. Didn’t use Japanese men for bayonet practice. Didn’t dash out the brains of Japanese children. Their conquerors were gentler than the Japanese had ever been…showing mercy and forbearance and bringing food and medical aid to a stricken nation. What happened to the Japanese was quite horrific…and it was done to them because they asked for it to be done. And then when it was all over, their victims rebuilt the Japanese nation and, letting bygones be bygones, swiftly returned them to the family of nations.

The criminals in the Pacific War were the Japanese. Not we Americans. Even if we can make an absolute determination that the atomic bombings were morally wrong – and should have been seen to be morally wrong in 1945 – they still don’t constitute a crime. Nanking is not balanced by Hiroshima. Nothing can balance Nanking. Because Nanking was a crime as such; a deliberate attempt to use rape, looting and murder to advance national policy…at worst, the atomic bombings were a moral error committed by people under extreme stress.

Who is innocent? Those who are. Minor children, of course. Those who lack the mental capacity to make a choice. But everyone who can make a choice? Well, then you’re going to choose innocence, or not. A person who chooses not to participate in crimes is not merely by that choice innocent – you must also oppose crime, actively. So, for the regular Joe or Jane it isn’t enough that they don’t rob banks…they also have to turn in the man they witness robbing banks. Demand that the police arrest bank robbers. Demand that government do all in its power to deter bank robbery. After all, what would any of us think of the person who witnessed a crime yet did nothing? Not very much. To be fair, some times people can be intimidated by criminals…but this doesn’t make you innocent; it just mitigates your guilt. The only way to be innocent is to do the right thing. And that means come what may.

You know: like Sophie Scholl. She was innocent – of all that Germany did in WWII, she played no part in it and emerged from it with a clear conscience.

It just required her head: she was beheaded by the Nazis in 1943.

It doesn’t always require your life, but being innocent does come with a price. We pray God it never comes with a high price but we equally pray that if things go bad, we’ll remain innocent no matter what cost to ourselves and those we love. Other people in both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan saw what was happening and elected to play no role in it – some were killed, some were jailed, all of them suffered to a greater or lesser degree. But all of them remained innocent. If any of them were killed in Allied bombings then that was when our bombs truly killed an innocent person. But the railroad worker who calmly eats his lunch as a train of Jews goes by? Not all that innocent.

So, are you and I morally responsible for everything? Yes and no. Obviously I’m not directly morally responsible for an agent of my government committing a crime. But it slides on scale…from me being totally ignorant of it to my active participation. You can easily be totally ignorant of one action. Even a dozen actions. Once we start getting into hundreds of actions it becomes harder and harder to pretend you don’t know about it. As human beings we do have a general responsibility to foster a just society. Our personal and political actions must go towards these ends as best we can determine. Once again, not enough for us to just want it to be, we must actively make it happen. To be sure, one of us is just one of us – small and so small effect, but the effect of all of us trying to do right is remarkable…so, too, the effect of all of us either doing wrong, or turning a blind eye to it.

We must get out of this mindset that people lack agency. Today it is the people of Gaza we’re pretending are little children who bear no responsibility. Outside of actual minor children (and that means, morally, under the age of twelve; the age of reason, as it were), everyone in Gaza bears responsibility. Even if you’re a Gazan in terror of Hamas and so you go along…you’re still going along. You aren’t innocent. You’re guilt is mitigated…but not eliminated. I fully get it and I’m sympathetic to anyone under the boot of an oppressor. I hope that if it happens to me I’ll shine as bright as Sophie Scholl…but maybe I’ll be a coward and try to go along to get along? Who knows? I’ve never been placed in that situation. But if I did play the coward and went along…then I’m guilty. What the heck is my life worth? I’m going to die one day no matter what…is a few extra years worth going along with people acting like inhuman savages? I hope not – that is, I hope if I’m ever faced with that I welcome my death with courage and spit in the eye of my executioner.

We are all of us responsible. We all have choices to make and these determine what sort of people we’ll be – and if all of us refused to go along with evil and demanded it stop, it would stop. Even something as evil as a Nazi regime, a Communist regime or an Islamist regime. Not saying it would be easy. Not saying it would be without cost (the first few in are almost certain to die)…but it would work. Evil can only happen if people allow it to happen…and the larger the evil the more it requires cooperation from the population at large. Solzhenitsyn noted this in his writings…what of the little ladies in the office who, day in and day out, typed up the sentences handed out by the NKVD? If they had all just stopped typing…how would the system continue? Sure, for quite a few early on it would mean a bullet in the back of the head…but if everyone who could type in the USSR simply refused to type out the bureaucratic orders for tyranny…it would have all stopped.

I do not demand that everyone agree with me on the atomic bombings of Japan, but I do insist that we have only one rule of behavior and that every human being with reason follow it. If you want to have a rule where only some people are responsible, then say it…and please explain to me why some people are excused? And why it is the people you favor and not me? You see what I’m saying? It is all one thing or all the other – either all of us are free human beings able to choose, or none of us are. If none of us are, then there is no crime…if we all are, then the criminal is not just the person who pulls the trigger, turns on the gas valve or sets the bomb…it is everyone who didn’t stop it from happening. The truly innocent are those who not only didn’t do it, but tried to stop it, even if in the tiniest manner.

The Multi-Generational Lie

Mark Noonan41 Comments

It occurred to me yesterday that we’re on our third or fourth generation of liars. That is, those in charge are not only liars, but are the heirs of storied liars of the past. Like this:

In 1973 the Supreme Court issued the Roe decision – this was based upon a couple of lies: that there is a right to privacy in the Constitution and that the unborn child isn’t a human being and thus endowed with rights. This was the original generation of liars: people who knew full well they were lying but they felt the result – legalized abortion – was so important that they willingly lied to get it. But it didn’t just stop there.

After that lie, it went into the books as a “Constitutional right to an abortion” and the next generation was taught this as fact, especially in law schools. Arguments against were disparaged or completely ignored. It was seriously said that it was obvious the Founders intended it to be in the Constitution. Later rulings in the 80’s and 90’s struck down some pretty common sense attempts to at least restrict the practice with the Court essentially holding that obtaining an abortion is akin to free speech or going to Church…just about sacred. And this feedback loop continued into education and overall society until we got to the point where women were out there shouting their abortions and Democrats shifted from “safe, legal and rare” to Abortion Barbie in Texas and a full throated commitment to federally funded abortion on demand. All based on the original lie – right to privacy – but built up over decades with lie after lie until millions of Americans seriously believe that if we don’t pay for someone’s abortion we’re fascists. The people out there wearing the Handmaid costumes are sincere, guys: they really believe that if they can’t get an abortion then they’re nothing but oppressed breeding stock. They are third and fourth generation liars – that is, liars who think they are telling the truth.

And that is just one of ten thousand things, right? The lie that we had to engage in limited war in Vietnam was based upon the lie that limited war was a success in Korea. Later, both of those lies would create the lie that every war had to have an exit strategy and that US military action must be carefully regulated by lawyers checking us for possible war crimes. And so we’re eventually jailing our guys for killing the enemy in the Iraqi shooting gallery which was created because war had to be limited. Hegseth over at Defense is doing the most crucial work in decades right now – starting to re-implant a desire for victory in our military. Can he undo 70 years of liars? The Department of Defense is run by 5th or 6th generation liars; gonna be tough to fix.

And, overall, can we cure this in our society? The lie that freedom means we have to let a bum urinate on the street. The lie that we must let pop culture be a moral sewer or it won’t be interesting. The lie that we must maintain our alliances even if our so-called allies hate us. The lie that free trade is superior to protection. On and on and on through lie after lie after lie. Trump is getting the ball rolling…but its going to take decades…and the people we fight against will never understand why we’re doing it. They will be convinced to their dying day that we’re the actual liars…destroying all that is good. So deep have the lies implanted themselves.

How Do We Get Evil People to Stop?

Mark Noonan15 Comments

This initially started as a very long post on X but I ended up deleting it shortly after posting because I wanted to think about it some more. You’ll understand why as you read: it is a difficult thing to write about and no human being – if they have any wisdom at all – wants to presume too much. I worked into Book X of the Mirrors series (coming out later this year but it might slip to early next year) a bit where Fred is asking for a direct answer to what is going on from someone he’s certain knows: she gives an equivocal answer but rather than getting angry, Fred quotes Job 38:4, Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. And Fred, like Job, is comforted by this answer to all true Mysteries, continuing on with part of 2 Corinthians 12:10, for when I am weak, then I am strong. It is important, always, to be humble. To not be too sure and to ultimately rely on God, who’s judgements are true and righteous altogether. That said, I think this is important to say.

I was reading a post from a Catholic priest – a good priest, let it be noted – who was upset over the story that IDF soldiers were deliberately targeting Gazans coming for food aid. I noted that the story is almost certainly a lie – that its primary source is the Gazan health ministry, a known purveyor of fabrications. In jumped a Hamas-nik to deflect away from that indisputable fact to chime in with claims that the IDF routinely commits war crimes. Went back and forth a little bit there until it was certain the man was entirely wooden headed and would never think for a moment. But the whole interaction got me thinking about the concepts of justice and mercy. What, in fact, does love require we do here?

War is, of course, a nasty business. All we can learn of Our Lord tells against going to war. How can we love our neighbor as ourselves if we war upon him? On the other hand, the greatest – St John the Baptist – when asked by soldiers what they must do to enter the Kingdom merely replied – in essence – that they should be good soldiers. He didn’t say desert the army. This is pretty crucial if you ask me. That being in the military and carrying out your duties is pleasing to God. This indicates to me that Fallen Man is not going to stop being Fallen – and, of course, he isn’t. He still needs, every day, a Savior. Once we enter the Kingdom that is different – but until we do, we are prey to all the troubles of the world and war is one of those troubles.

That being said, it all comes down to why and how a person fights if war occurs. Naturally, no Christian may deliberately start a war. We are always to seek a peaceful resolution of differences and only engage in fighting if attacked or if an attack is so obviously pending that prudence dictates we strike the first blow. The only defensible war is a war of defense. Once a war starts, we are to act like Christians. We are not to be needlessly cruel to the enemy. We are to apply the necessary force to bring the conflict to its swiftest resolution, but no more than that. Nothing gratuitous. And these requirements are not just required of Christians – nobody wants as a result of war their own people to be massacred and despoiled. Muslim, Jewish, Hindu what have you, nobody wants that to happen to their side. And as they know they don’t want it to happen to them, so they know they must not do it to others. All human beings are morally obligated to be as decent as possible at all times, even the most difficult. So, in essence, there should be no war as nobody should attack unjustly and there should be no war crimes because everyone who engages in warfare should be as merciful as possible.

But what do we do in the face of the unjust attack? And, furthermore, what do we do in the face of an unjust attack accompanied by monstrous cruelty?

Naturally when attacked unjustly we are permitted to fight back in self defense. And the response must be proportional to the needs. In other words, if peace may be obtained by ten bombs then you shouldn’t drop ten thousand. But now we need to think a little bit. To consider just what we’re dealing with – and what response is proportional to it.

World War One morphed from a fracas in the Balkans into a World War for one reason and one reason, alone: the Germans unjustly attacked Luxembourg, Belgium and France. There was no reason for this German attack. Not the slightest justification can be made for it. The Germans did it because they thought they would win quickly and gain total mastery of Europe in six weeks. And the Germans, when they did it, knew they were doing wrong – because they wouldn’t want another power to invade Germany out of the blue in a bid for European mastery. They would have considered such an attack upon themselves as an outrage against all decency. And yet they went ahead and attacked France. They were in the wrong, totally.

By immense exertions and loss of lives, this German attack was defeated. The German army was forced to withdraw and enter into an Armistice before the German army was totally destroyed in the field. Germany then had a peace treaty imposed upon her designed to prevent a recurrence of the just-defeated attack. Germany’s army was limited in size and her economy was burdened with reparations payments designed to not only repay the offended parties, but to cripple Germany’s economic ability to wage war. This was an entirely just peace treaty given what had happened.

But it turned out that it didn’t punish the Germans enough. It left them intact enough to very swiftly rebuild their military might and try again – which they did a mere twenty five years after the first try. And this time their attack was accompanied by the most monstrous cruelty ever done by the hand of Man. People murdered by the millions. Rapes all over German occupied Europe. Massive looting not just of food and tools, but the very artwork of the conquered peoples. Meanwhile, over on the other side of the world, Japan had launched a totally unjustified war in 1937 – attacking China quite ruthlessly with the Rape of Nanking being a horror that would have made Attila the Hun sick to his stomach…an orgy of rape, murder and looting. And then, later, Japan just continued this in all the lands they occupied as World War Two became global.

War and cruelty go together. After all, even under the most honorable of circumstances, you are still seeking to end the lives of the other side. Who can say what lies and threats got that enemy soldier into uniform? Yet the soldier must kill – swiftly and without remorse. And in the heat of combat – with fear and hatred rising – at times even the most honorable of soldiers can commit acts which, in the cold light of reason, can only be described as barbaric. Of course, when such acts occur decent military organizations do seek redress. If for no other reason than to ensure good order and discipline in the ranks. But, often, because it is just the right thing to do. We understand why our boys might go too far at times and we want to be merciful to the man who may have been pushed too far…but right is right and sometimes we have to punish our own. But what the Germans and Japanese did in World War Two went far beyond this.

It is one thing for a soldier, or a few soldiers, or even a whole company of soldiers to go off their heads. At the Siege of Badajoz in 1812, Wellington’s army had to carry out an exceptionally difficult assault against an alert and entrenched enemy and the fighting was quite ferocious with no quarter asked or given. Those men were brave and disciplined British soldiers…but the cost of the assault seems to have set those men off their heads…once they had won they disregarded their officers from Wellington on down and went on a rampage of looting, rape and murder in the town. It was totally unjustified. A horrific blot on the honor of the British army. It took days for Wellington and his officers to regain control and turn their mob back into an army. It was horrible but not ordered by the command, nor sanctioned by the government, nor justified in any way by any British patriot. What the Germans and Japanese did was different from this.

What was done at Nanking and Babi Yar was the considered policy of the respective governments. The soldiers were ordered to carry it out. And they carried it out. As time went on and the monstrous cruelties increased in scope whole support systems were put into place so that Germans and Japanese could kill ever more people…and with ever more attendant cruelty, including torture and looting. Japanese soldiers didn’t go berserk at Nanking. No more than German soldiers went berserk at Oradour-sur-Glane. They carried out orders. And orders they knew were wrong as they carried them out because not one German or Japanese soldier wanted those events to happen in their home towns to their own people. Basic human decency required them to refuse to obey…but they obeyed. It doesn’t, in the end, matter why. Cowardice or cruelty or any combination of human failings – they were still responsible adults who knew better. And the sheer scale of the atrocities of Germany and Japan required that the whole populations of each country become intimately involved in them. After all, the guy who drove the train full of Jews to Auschwitz couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what he carried…nor that he never carried people away from the place. He knew. And so did his wife and children. Did they approve? It doesn’t matter: they went along with it when they knew they shouldn’t have.

You can excuse it and try to explain it away but the bottom line is that death is preferable to participation in such crimes…even the death of you and all you love. It just isn’t worth it if life requires you to participate, even second hand, in massacres. You think about the endless number of German families who just quietly went along – and then the Ulma family of Poland which harbored eight Jews and, when caught, was massacred down to Mrs. Ulma’s unborn child. The Ulma’s knew the risks – and think of Mr. Ulma, dedicated to the safety and happiness of his family. He could easily have said, “I hate the Nazis and I want to help the Jews, but I have my wife and children to think of” and done nothing. But he truly thought of his wife and children – and did what had to be done. It is when things are worst that we are supposed to do our best. The Germans and Japanese, in the whole, did not do this (and all honor to the few in each country who did do the right thing).

Now on to the really difficult thing to consider and I pray to God I don’t get this wrong – I do not wish to lead myself or anyone else astray!

As the children of Poland, China, Philippines, France, Norway, Burma, Russia, Greece and so many other nations were martyred by German and Japanese cruelty, did not their cries for justice rise up to heaven? They spoke in a multitude of languages and they had often very different ideas about God, but all of them were human beings and all of them were caught in a welter of cruel slaughter they in no way deserved. Surely out of their mouths and hearts went up the cry: my God, save me!

Of course it did. And I can’t imagine God not listening. Not seeing their tears. And while God gives us the free will to do as we wish God is also just and merciful and His will is always accomplished. The fact that the Germans and Japanese were utterly defeated is an obvious example of God’s justice operating in the world. That people so depraved were not able to win is just and merciful. And how were they not able to win? By being subjected to such ferocious punishment that total destruction resulted.

Much is said these days about the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan. From right after the end of the war, it has been derided as a failure. The advocates of strategic bombing swore up and down that it, alone, would destroy the enemy and compel peace. Clearly, it did not and so it must have failed. This, I think, was based upon a faulty understanding of just what happened in the strategic bombing campaigns.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the Germans and Japanese were forced to expend enormous resources fighting against the bombings. Every plane, every soldier, every bullet and shell shot up into the sky at Allied bombers was that much less they had on the battlefield against Allied armies. Each bomb that dropped in some manner hampered both nations in the conduct of the war…even the fact that craters had to be filled in to get the roads open took time and manpower and so there was less power to apply on the battlefields. In short, without the bombings the fighting on the ground would have been far more intense, lengthy and bloody. Maybe so much so that the Germans and Japanese could have prevented the total defeat of their nations.

In addition to that, Allied bombing power was still growing in 1945. It was only in 1944 that the Allied air forces could really be certain that a bombing raid would seriously degrade the selected target. It was all a matter of getting sufficient planes, sufficiently skilled crews and learning the difficult task of hitting a relatively small target from a great height. By 1944 the Allied air forces were nailing this down – and the destruction went from bad to absolutely horrific. We’ve all seen the pictures of the ruined cities taken post-War but they don’t really capture what it was like – meaning for the Germans and Japanese on the ground. To be absolutely helpless as a thousand enemy planes leisurely pass overhead dropping tons of bombs was likely one of the worst sensation any human being has endured. Small wonder that very often downed Allied pilots in both Germany and Japan were lynched on the spot by outraged people. Had the Germans and Japanese been able to keep us away – prevent Allied invasions of their own territory – then the bombings would just have gotten worse. Even absent the atomic bomb! Just worse and worse and worse. By 1945 Allied planes were ranging at will over Germany and Japan and Allied factories were turning out planes, bombs and aircrews at an increasing pace…suppose, for instance, that the Battle of the Bulge pushed us back to Paris and that the Germans had defeated the Russians January, 1945 offensive in Poland…so much the worse for Germany as the number of bombs dropping would have simply increased – perhaps to the point where it was simply impossible for the Germans to live (seriously: by 1945 even ox carts were being strafed).

And here’s the interesting thing I want to say: is it at all possible that Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay were instruments of God’s justice? That with all the cries to heaven for justice, it was those two men – and their intrepid air crews – who delivered the redress? I don’t know. But I can suspect. And I can definitely say that given what the Germans and Japanese were doing – as peoples – the bombings weren’t unjust even if not an expression of God’s justice.

What can we say? For the Germans this was round two. They had started a totally unjust war in 1914 and were totally defeated…but didn’t accept their defeat and so tried again in 1939 and this time were unbelievably cruel. So, too, the Japanese all over Asia and the Pacific…just simply mean and cruel…killing, raping, looting…both people lording it over the conquered even in the smallest ways. Simple military defeat in the manner of 1918 didn’t work…and so there was absolute crushing defeat on every level in 1945. And that did work. Nobody fears that the Germans or Japanese will ever try it again. So, just maybe the result of 1945 was totally just? Could be. This doesn’t excuse anything the Allies did which was actually wrong (like the behavior of Russian soldiers regarding German women), but the basic operation was just – it burned out of the Japanese and German populations any desire to carry on with their imperial and racist ambitions. And then we have God’s mercy working even for the Germans and Japanese: because of this massive application of power against them, the war ended before they were all killed and everything was totally destroyed. They, too, cried out to God for an end to it…and their prayer was granted.

And now lets go forward to today – the aftermath of 10/7. First and foremost, nothing can justify 10/7. Suppose Israel is guilty of every crime charged to her, there is no way to justify what was done on 10/7. First off, it was an unjust attack – there was no attack happening or pending on the people of Gaza. That they didn’t like the political and economic situation they were in doesn’t constitute a justification for war. To justify war you must be attacked or an attack is so imminent that you must attack to thwart it. Nothing like that was going on in Gaza on 10/7.

And then what the Gazans did: they didn’t enter Israel for a stand-up fight with the IDF: they came to rape and murder. Their primary method of warfare was to attack the helpless and treat them with inhuman cruelty. Even if someone did that to your people, you are not justified in doing it to theirs. Once again, as you do not want it to happen to you so you must not do it to others. And, of course, Israel has never sent in IDF units to rape and murder the helpless. What the Gazans did was a monstrous crime – something which hadn’t happened since the Germans and Japanese were doing it in WWII. And when the rapist/murderers returned to Gaza – often dragging their victims (living and dead) in their wake – the overwhelming mass of the people of Gaza cheered.

Cheered.

They cheered rapists and murderers bringing home the victims of their crimes.

They knew precisely what those men had done and they were happy about it.

Now, did every last person in Gaza approve? Almost certainly not. But the number disapproving is very small. It took years to develop the rape/murder squads. To get people to think that it is good to do these things is not something you just whistle up in a weekend. You have to mentally condition people to do it and approve of it. The Germans were all “oh, Hitler went mad in 1943!”…as if it wasn’t insane to deny Jewish humanity with the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Sure, a basic Gazan on the street might not have known ten years ago that it was specifically leading to 10/7, but that Gazan knew – knows and always has known – that propaganda denying the basic humanity of Jews is wrong. They know it because they would be aghast at propaganda which held that Muslims aren’t human. Bottom line, given what Hamas was doing in Gaza from the get-go, nobody could have the slightest illusion that very bad things were going to happen. The Gazans just hoped they’d only happen to Jews.

So, what is the best thing to do here? A ceasefire? You mean a pause until the next round? How is that good? What does that accomplish? Indeed, wouldn’t a ceasefire seem in the minds of the Gazans a victory? That they stood up to the IDF and forced them to quit? And what of the mindset of the Gazans – the mindset that approves the rape and murder of helpless people? Which, by the way, doesn’t just happen in Israel…you can see it happening all over Syria right now, as well as in Sudan and other places in the Muslim world where violence is becoming endemic. There is a mindset at work here – a belief system – which sustains such cruelty. Ceasefire with it? To what purpose? Negotiate a peace? What’s the half way point between rape and no rape? What’s the compromise position? A little murder?

Or is it time to emulate Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay? That is, apply such ferocious force on these people that they fully understand what they’ve done is wrong and they’ll never do it again.

Honestly, I am not certain. But I can’t see the use of going on like we have. As if, perhaps, we are the bad guys – that there is some justification for what the enemy is doing, or maybe we should feel guilty about Dresden and so we’d better hold back going forward. All I know is that the only bad thing here is a continuation – letting this go on and on and on. It is time to end this – and unless we want to end this via our surrender, we’re going to have to get very stern in action. And true justice might require us to act sternly. After all, what would we say of the cop who let a murderer go, only to have that man kill again? We’d be pretty furious – and justly so. If we go soft on Hamas and Hezbollah and the other fanatic groups of killers, then all we’re ultimately doing is ensuring that some poor innocent at a later date gets killed. And innocents on both sides, it should be noted; some poor kid in Gaza who is killed by a bomb or a stray bullet didn’t deserve to die…and I’d prevent that if I can.

To get back to the genesis of this post, suppose the story of IDF soldiers taking pot shots at Gazans lining up for food is true. Well, I have some bad news for you: the only way to ensure it doesn’t happen is the total defeat of the Gazan people. If you take the position that the way to stop it is to punish the IDF soldiers and impose a ceasefire, then all you’re doing is making sure other innocent people are killed later. And I mean its as definite as Euclidean geometry: you are definitely, consciously deciding that some poor sap will die next week, next month or next year…and you’re doing it because you just want people to think you’re the good guy, today. The problem isn’t the IDF soldier taking the shot – the problem is that the IDF soldier is there in response to the 10/7 massacre. Had 10/7 not happened then no need for Gazans to line up for aid and thus no possibility of an IDF soldier going off his head and taking a shot at the Gazans. Get to the crux of the matter, people. The problem is an anti-human ideology which holds that Jews aren’t people and may be raped and murdered at will.

If we want an end to this then what must end is the ideology which generates the actions. An ideology of peace and brotherhood is very unlikely to start a war. An ideology domination is highly likely to start a war. Hamas’ ideology – like similar ideologies – is one of domination. Rule. Masters and slaves. It has to go. If you can think of a way to talk them out of it, I’m all ears. But I believe that its going to be necessary to burn it out of them. To let them know they’re just plain and simple wrong. That God has not decreed they be Masters.

The Blood Libel

Mark Noonan

In olden days, this entry would have been in the “What Media Bias?” series but we all know about that – this isn’t just about the specific lie.

Rashida Tlaib posts on her X account the accusation that Israeli settlers – backed by the IDF – beat an American citizen to death in the West Bank. The American citizen being a man born in Florida but visiting family in the West Bank; with news accounts saying he was just there to have a good time (because people always visit war zones just for a lark). Then Tlaib issues the call for us to get on the stick and start punishing all Israel for this crime.

Tlaib is a known and egregious liar so you instantly take it with a grain of salt but you decide to check into it. The primary source for the stories is the Palestinian Health Ministry. These are the same people who claim that war in Gaza has claimed 55,000 Palestinian lives, over half of whom are children. So, you know: straight nonsense. So, in addition to knowing that Tlaib is a liar, we also know that the primary source of the story is from a liar.

What we do know for certain is that the man is dead because he was beaten. That’s about it. Everyone saying anything else beyond that is merely speculating when not outright lying. From what I can tell, there was some sort of confrontation with no confirmation of who started it. But, of course, Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank do not get along. The sort of Israelis willing to live in such a doubtful location are, face it, the most ardent of Zionists. And the Palestinians have been taught from childhood that Israelis are evil. Won’t take much to get a fight started – a shouted insult or even an insulting look might set things off and you’ve got a fight with people hurt or killed.

To be sure, just like all people around the world, there are Israeli jerks. That is, Israelis who are mean and stupid just like there are mean and stupid Americans, Brazilians and Gambians. And, of course, mean and stupid Palestinians. What I’m saying here is that, sure, it could have been an Israeli who started the fight. But I also note in one of the articles about the incident, the dead man – after being lauded as the kindest, warmest person who ever lived in the whole, wide world – is described by his family as a man who “[died] protecting his family’s land from settlers who were attempting to steal it”.

This is a bit of a jarring note. Now, perhaps his family is merely trying to give his death a heroic cast – Palestinian culture currently placing a high value on dying fighting the Jews – but to say he “died protecting his land from settlers” doesn’t indicate a guy who was merely visiting the West Bank for a good time. Like he went there with a purpose. Perhaps that purpose being to stir up violence which could then be used as Palestinian propaganda against Israel. This doesn’t mean the man wanted to be killed – or even should have been killed – but it does show that a deep investigation is warranted before we get all upset with Israel over it.

But that is not how things work in the modern world. Had a little discussion with a Jewish friend on X: he had brought up the fact that while people complain about Jewish bankers, the bottom line is that lots of Jews are bankers (and lawyers) in the West because for the longest time they weren’t allowed to be anything else. They couldn’t integrate. Specific laws prevented it – including bans on Jews owning land and so forth. To be sure, that isn’t the case today (pro tempore in Europe and Canada), but the Western Jewish culture just isn’t geared to get a Jewish guy going, “I think I’ll buy a farm in Kansas”. To be sure, there were Jewish people involved in all aspects of the growing USA (after all, Levi Strauss invented blue jeans), but America has always been a little odd as its always been easier to integrate into our life if you want to. But, still, even in America, lots of Jewish bankers and lawyers because, culturally, that’s what they were geared towards.

This brings us to try to understand what Zionism was and remains: it is an attempt to give the eternal alien a home. Technically, this could have been done anywhere in the world, of course. Could have carved out 8,500 square miles in the USA, Australia or lots of other places around the world and done the same thing as was done in Israel – given a land to Jews for Jews to live in and rule themselves. Israel was chosen because of the Jew’s historic connection to it and it was nearly empty at the time of the first Zionists who began arriving in Israel in the 1880’s (and there was, of course, a Jewish population already residing there at the time: as far as we can tell, since the time of Abraham there has always been some Jewish people in Israel).

And it really was pretty empty: according to the Ottoman census of 1849 – 99 years before Israel became independent – the population of Jerusalem was 5,800. To give you a good idea: in the Old City (which was pretty much the total city in 1849) there are currently more than 31,000 people. Modern Jerusalem has nearly a million people in it. So, 5,800 to start. Pretty small. And this was by far the biggest city in what is today Israel. Today between Israel, Gaza Strip and West Bank, about 15 million people live. This is more than have ever lived there (estimates are under Roman rule it was a few million, tops). Nobody really knows what the population was 200 years ago, but guesses are about 100,000, mixed between Jews, Muslims and Christians. Bottom line, almost everyone alive in that area today is descended from someone who arrived less than 200 years ago: they’re almost all Settlers. The point here is that when Jews started to immigrate in the 1880’s, they came to a nearly empty land which was bereft of civilization. Only Jerusalem was barely livable because it received a steady income from Christian pilgrims. Other than that, complete dump and wasteland. Minimal agricultural or other economic activity. Visitors were pretty much disgusted with how poor, ignorant and degraded the local population was. And that is why the Turkish authorities – and even the local authorities – welcomed the Zionists: they brought a chance for some economic growth.

Nobody else was going to do it. Not ever. The land lacks any significant natural resources. It isn’t strategically important (too far from the Suez canal to be either used to defend or attack it). If it wasn’t for Jews wanting to be Jewish there, it would still be an insignificant and grossly impoverished backwater of the world. The Turks were probably delighted that someone was willing to come down and spend some money there – anything to build up a bit of economic activity so that governing the area wasn’t just a drain on the Turkish treasury. And so the Jews came. And came. And came some more. Swamps were drained. Roads built. Schools and hospitals. Farming commenced. Now where there had been nothing of value, there was wealth…and the non-Jews looked at this and saw it was good…but also saw that the Jews kept coming. And coming, and coming and coming. Two and two were put together. Eventually, the Jews would be a majority.

Now, when faced with such a thing, you have two choices: just go along with it, or fight it. I do understand why “go along” wasn’t appealing. You’re a Muslim who is living in a Muslim majority land and even though you’re poor, you’re still of the Ruling Class. Muslims hold all official positions. Muslim law dominates. Your cultural and religious ideals are dominant. Here come Outsiders and they’re coming so fast that soon they will outnumber you and start to vote into place themselves. Most people would try to stop that, if they could. But it is important here to note how this fight was conducted: not a straightforward, “we’re Muslims and we’re just going to stay in charge, and if that means we have to kick out the Jews, then we’re going to do it”. Nope. It was The Jewish Conspiracy that is insidiously destroying us! Those Jews! Damned bankers! Cheating us out of what is ours! They didn’t buy the land and start farming, they stole it! Crafty sons of bitches! Kill them all! In other words, not a manly fight of people vs people for ownership, but a cowardly set of lies designed to instigate murder.

That is all this is really about: faced with a Jew sitting in the shade of a tree he planted on his own land, the opponent must cook up a reason for killing him for doing that. The tropes about Jewish Bankers and cabals and so forth is mere cover for “I just want to kill the Jews”. And that is what Tlaib is doing – keeping up the lie to justify murdering Jews. She, personally, might just be stupid – but whatever made her say that, the goal is specific: she wants Jews to be murdered. She and way too many tens of millions around the world: repeating the Blood Libel under varied forms all to get to the same result: murdered Jews…who are malevolent aliens everywhere.

And this goes for everyone who says things like “hey, I’m just asking questions”. No, you are not; you are participating in the Blood Libel. It doesn’t matter what happened in 1948. Or even last week. A Jewish guy pruning his rose bushes in his home didn’t do anything to anyone. But it is said that killing him is justified because of what other Jewish people are alleged to have done. Why? Because its all part of The Global Jewish Conspiracy! In other words, he has to die because liars want to lie. You can’t have an argument against Israel. It is there. It exists. Millions of people live there and have never lived anywhere else. They are not collectively responsible for everything that may or may not have happened in the past. You can’t call for “from the river to the sea” except as a call to murder the innocent…to murder people just because they are Jewish. Remember what Tlaib said in her post: it wasn’t “we must find the Israeli miscreant and punish him”. No. She said “our government continues to send billions to prop up the apartheid system that killed him and kills Palestinians like him every day. Arms Embargo Now.” The dead man wasn’t killed by an Israeli, but by The Jews.

And here’s where I get broken record: we have to punish lies. Tlaib is lying to get people killed. She’s hoping that some moron lunatic out there will take her words at face value and go out and kill a Jew. To Globalize the Intifada. Because in her mind The Jews are all one thing and purely evil. She won’t stop. Not ever. It doesn’t harm her to lie. In fact, she gets praise for it. She’s wealthy and powerful today because of lies. Until she is made poor and powerless by her lies, she’ll keep doing it. As will all the other liars. Just how many people have to die so that we don’t risk the financial and social position of anti-Semites? Just curious. Wondering if anyone can give me a number?

The Last Chance

Mark Noonan19 Comments

In poll after poll and in vote after vote what is happening all across the West is that youth is turning away from the Establishment. It is most marked among young Western men but it is also happening with women. Meanwhile, it is getting to be that the older the voter, the more likely to be Left…including among older voters who used to vote for ostensible Right parties in the past. None of this is too shocking – the youngsters see a dying world and don’t like it – and young white people especially don’t like the part they are being assigned in it: the evil ones who must be punished for the alleged sins of their elders and ancestors. For the older folks (call it 60 and up), it also makes sense they are going Left – the Left is defending the system the old folks grew up in and in which they became well off. They still watch TV news, of course, and sincerely believe the drivel put out there. But it is to youth that we look – because the future belongs to whoever is there. That ain’t you and me, fellow old folks!

Today I saw a video clip where King Charles III of Great Britain, visiting Canada, issued a “land acknowledgement” before his speech before the Canadian parliament. Basically, this was the King asserting that Britain and all her works were a crime. If he had an ounce of courage he would have abdicated before making such a hateful statement. But, he’s old and this is what the Ruling Class told him he has to say and that its an evil statement is neither here nor there…it is how he gets to remain King. Nothing quite so typifies the Boomer, does it? But one thinks about the heroic people of Britain’s past and you almost weep over it all – whatever one might wish to say about Sir Garnet Wolseley, when he burned Kumasi it was to clear out a nest of slave-traders. Today Charles would probably go there and apologize for that.

Another thing I saw today was a news report that 80% of Britain’s Down Syndrome babies are being aborted. One of the great achievements of Christianity was to end the practice of killing “unfit” children…but with the destruction of the Christian character of the West the barbarism has returned. Putting these two things together made be rather disgusted with quite a lot of things. I don’t want to be allied, for instance, with people who kill their children or insult their own past. And I don’t want the domestic versions of these people to have a say in how we’re governed. You see, I quite like living in a world where I have rights and I carry out my responsibilities and my property is protected, criminals are punished and weirdos aren’t allow to destroy the public square. Basically, I’ll see how Trump does: if he’s able to push through the necessary reforms, then I’ll be ok. But if the Establishment manages to stop him, then I’m seriously looking for a Sulla or Caesar.

And in that, I’ll be siding with youth – because youth has very little patience with or respect for the “norms” or the Establishment. They see through the scam. They are also, though, badly educated so they do, from time to time, fall for other cons as long as they are anti-Establishment cons. This is a problem and I’ll see my goal – if it comes to it – to guide youth away from these aberrations. And they can be guided it: I know it because I’ve already done it. They do listen to reason. You’d better have it all down pat! Answer for every objection! But if you do have knowledge and some patience you can reach this discontented youth…which is filled with a desire for freedom and is generous to a fault. But I won’t fight them on things I view as non-critical. They are youth and it is their world they are building. I offer my advice and my encouragement, but I do not offer myself as a leader. They’ll have to find their own.

I do see this as a time future historians will view as the breaking point – the end of one era and the start of another.

Ancient: European and Near-Eastern civilization to the Muslim conquest of Syria (638).

Medieval: Muslim conquest of Syria to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).

Modern: Treaty of Westphalia until today.

But the Modern Era is rather done. Nobody believes in the basic assumptions any longer. Too many lies and too many crimes…and, in the end, it didn’t even work. We see outrages against basic human decency and civil rights and we joke that the Constitution (the highest human expression of the Modern Era) will break out of its case any minute now and save us…but those charged with applying the Constitution are too stupid and corrupt to defend it. So youth sees it as useless and seeks something else…just as they seek for something else regarding all major issues and events. I don’t envy them their task if we do ultimately fail – and let us hope that this last, desperate hope we elected last November turns the tide.

A Little Courage, Please

Mark Noonan9 Comments

My Dad didn’t survive World War Two. He won it. Might not seem like much of a distinction but I think it important – survivors are people who merely endured…victors are people who did something. I think that we in the West have gotten into the habit of thinking of veterans as “survivors” because it suits the overall Left worldview that we should do so…the concept that war is always bad and never solves anything has been deeply embedded into the Western mind, and I do believe deliberately…to get Westerners out of the habit of defending the West.

I’ve talked about this a bit and it stems from World War One…which the Western elite started to talk about in terms of it being useless slaughter about ten years after the war ended. It really got going with things like the play Journey’s End in 1928…which, being written by a veteran of the trenches, can’t be totally condemned…but the whole depressing aspect of it with everyone miserable and doomed to die doesn’t cover all the ground. The play is set in the front lines in March of 1918 and the men there are, in a bit of a sense, doomed…it isn’t spoken of in the play but the characters are directly in the path of the most massive offensive ever conducted in war: Operation Michael. This was where the Germans sent the very best 72 divisions of their army against 29 British divisions in line…and it started with a 4 hour barrage where 3,500,000 shells were fired. The grim reality is that those British units in the front line were going to lose a lot – some were totally destroyed over a couple days fighting. It was quite horrific.

But it was also an amazing British victory. No operation of the war was more creditable to the British soldier than his response to Michael. The very best of Germany came at Tommy in overwhelming numbers and the British soldier stopped him cold…Michael was a total failure and that failure ensured Germany’s ultimate defeat in the war (the German plan was for Michael to knock the British army out of the war and then turn the whole German army against the weakened French and unready American armies). And remember, it was just regular British units…filled with average British men from all over the UK and the Empire. The German forces were picked men…units specially crafted and trained for this exact offensive. The best of Germany met the average of the British Empire…and got it’s Kraut ass kicked.

But the public mind on all of it is of a useless welter of slaughter deciding nothing. And it is like that for all great and brave efforts. Even our movies and stories about victories in World War Two have this element of the hopeless in it…that it was all bad. For post-WWII military efforts it just gets even worse…the hopelessness of useless effort and death often combined with a subtext that the West is a criminal enterprise. This, I think, is why we see all over the West a simple refusal to defend itself. We’ve all seen videos of “migrants” on busses and trains in Europe verbally and physically abusing women and a bunch of Western men stand around pretending their don’t notice it. Sure, if they did try to do anything they’d probably get arrested while the “migrant” skated…but the fact that they’ve allowed such a thing to be betrays complete cowardice…and I don’t think humans are by nature cowards. This is an imparted reality…something made. On purpose.

We do need to get a collective backbone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Audie Murphy. I’ve never faced combat. I have no idea how I’d behave in a life-threatening crisis. I hope I’d behave well…the lessons imparted to me by my combat-veteran father tell me that in a crisis I’m to swallow fear and do what needs to be done. I believe I’d give a good account of myself…that is, if I were on a bus and I saw a woman being abused, I would intervene. I wouldn’t care that I might get hurt or the authorities might arrest me afterwards…I would intervene because that is the right thing to do, consequences be damned. And we do see that in the USA when its totally absent elsewhere in the West…but we also know that it isn’t universal in the USA because we do get the stories where everyone did just stand around and let it happen.

Growing a spine is going to take a cultural shift – and that means a pop-cultural shift. We’re going to have to start retelling tales of heroism. More movies like The Alamo of 1960, less like Saving Private Ryan of 1998 – and, yes, I recognize the high quality in both films…but one is a tale of triumph in defeat the other a tale of defeat in triumph (after all, the key scene is a defense of a bridge against odds…and while most of the men died, the bridge was held…the evil Nazis were thwarted. A good outcome was obtained…but the movie ends it with it all being quite useless effort). It is a huge difference. And we need to get it back.

An Urban Homestead Act

Mark Noonan12 Comments

We do have to think long-term a bit. Our immediate need is to gain control of the government, de-fund the Left and set the stage where freedom and logic have a shot at winning. But the bottom line is that political success in a democratic Republic requires that the people feel like they’re getting advantage out of you being in power. This mostly translates into how are they doing economically.

Trump economic policy, carried through, will go a long way on this – we might be in for a rough year but the cessation of inflationary spending, the tax cuts and the regulatory easements will lead to rapid economic expansion. That’s good and if it comes soon enough it might even allow us to win – or at least hold our own – in the 2026 midterms. But we have to be cognizant of the fact that last November 75 million people voted for a talentless, ignorant person of zero accomplishments. A good number of those voters are just hate-filled, Democrat bigots – not reachable by us no matter what we do. But the fear is that a flip of just 1.5 million Trump voters means we lose. Think of the catastrophe we’d be stuck in right now if Harris was in office. We dodged a bullet – and we need to think of ways to ensure we dodge it going forward.

And the seeds of what we need to do are right there in the election results – Trump did better than any GOPer ever among traditionally Democrat constituencies. These people voted for hope: a hope that Trump would revive the economy and give them a shot. If we don’t deliver on that hope we’re doomed – but if we can deliver even better than expected, those voters might start to come over to us in droves, leaving the Democrats in the position of the GOP 1932-1952. Think of all the Democrats accomplished in that 20 year period we were out: total transformation of the USA. We can do that, too; if we have the power.

Lots of people will have lots of ideas on this and here is mine: an Urban Homestead Act.

All through the big cities we see swaths of totally abandoned residential and commercial land. You’ve seen the videos – just totally blighted buildings (when they’re still standing). Testament to a different America 60+ years ago when our urban cores were places of work and hope, not death and despair. I know what you’re thinking: not another urban redevelopment plan! It isn’t! Promise! Those old liberal urban plans were merely giveaways to cronies…if anything concrete was accomplished it was either useless or merely catered to upper class urban liberals (you know – building an arts center…places to display garbage liberal art and it is all staffed by well-paid liberal foot soldiers). I have something else in mind: to turn decayed neighborhoods back into thriving communities. Turning abandoned factories and stores back into thriving businesses. Here’s the nutshell of it:

The federal government does a survey in a city (let’s say min population has to be 100,000) and if they determine a certain percentage is blighted (I’d go with something like a figure equal to 25% of the blighted land in Detroit), it is seized under eminent domain and becomes federal land (not exactly what was intended with this provision but after Kelo totally reasonable, and what we’re doing is actually good). We don’t overly interfere with local zoning ordinances (except in such cases where they are just liberal NIMBY urban planning trash) – if it is zoned residential, it remains that. So, too, with commercial and industrial zoning. The government clears away the completely useless buildings, cleans up those buildings which are still usable (even if they need work). The resultant properties go into a pool and at fixed times and places, American citizens (only citizens, and never corporations) can stake a claim to the properties…just like the old Homestead Act, if you stay on it for five years and develop it (you know, build or repair the house; open a factory up in that industrial property, etc) then title is transferred to you.

First thing: this will cost. Probably a lot. Not in obtaining the property – under eminent domain the full market value has to be paid but we’re talking here about de-facto abandoned property. We’d have to draw up some rules on that but a rule of thumb would be if the city hasn’t collected property taxes on it for, say, five years before it is seized in eminent domain, then that is abandoned property – it has no legal owner. Sure, there would be lawsuits on it…we’d win them. But the real expense comes in clearing/cleaning the property. But that, my friends, is the first step in giving benefit to the people…this would open up a huge number of low skilled jobs in areas of highest economic blight. Anyone can haul away trash. We just created some jobs – sure, government funded, but still private sector (various contractors would obviously be employed here) and just in cleaning up the mess, that will start to improve the areas we’re working in.

Second thing: making sure we’re not screwing ourselves. One thing is to make sure that the corrupt city governments don’t get their greedy little fingers in here. That’s part of the reason to federalize the property…but it can’t stay federal forever and I don’t want, say, the mayor of Chicago licking his chops at how much property taxes he’s going to be able to collect in five years. So, such property after transfer of title remains federal land for twenty years – federal land, no local or State taxes on it. The provision against corporations getting the land is because I don’t want corrupt political machines in the cities setting up fake corporations to stake a claim and then in five years just selling it off at whatever price after Uncle Sam picked up the tab for cleaning the land. This act is for people, not for governments or corporations. After the title is transferred then what will happen will happen…but the connected are not taking this thing over.

Some incentives:

Aside from being property-tax free for a total of twenty five years, I would also make the labor and material costs of fixing/building on the properties tax deductible. Full ride on it – whatever you spent to get that house or factory into working order, write it off your taxes…and you can allocate those costs over a twenty year period (you don’t have to take the write off in one year…you spent, say, $100,000 on it, go ahead and spread that tax deduction over five, ten or twenty years as seems best to you.

For contractors actually doing the work (as most of it will be) profits from such work are taxed at half whatever federal rate you pay on profits. Massive incentive for contractors to get into this…and pass at least part of the savings on to the customer. So, too, with materials sold to people building on the Homestead properties – you sell lumber then the lumber you sell for this is taxed less. The key here is to kickstart the thing – to make everyone want to jump in. And, of course, the goal was two-fold from the start: to revive these blighted areas, and to provide an increased market for goods and services. Because then the final step here: all materials used in these properties must be American made. We’re not doing this so China can sell us more drywall (some care will have to be taken here – if there is some aspect of this that is genuinely not available in the USA or not available in sufficient amount then we can grant some easements on this requirement…but just think about what is needed to build any structure and you know that 90%+ of it is easily obtainable in the USA). Think of the ripple effects in the economy as more lumber, nails, drywall, ducting, glass, wiring and on and on and on have to be made in the USA to rebuild America.

Anyways, that is the basics of my idea. Sure it would actually need refinement and there would be lots of nuance based on local conditions but the basic concept is to get Americans to rebuild America using American materials for the benefit of Americans. And I’m sure other people will come up with other ideas or improvements to this one. But we need the ideas. We need to talk about them. Send them along to those in charge or who have influence. Even if its just a tiny bit…that is how things are supposed to be done in the USA. Bottom up – the people are the prime movers, the government just clears the decks. And if we do this – and a hundred other good ideas as well – we’ll leave the Left out in the cold. They can’t come up with positive, helpful ideas – because they hate the USA and Americans. They don’t want us doing well – they want us punished for our sins, real and imagined. But as long as they can talk a game about helping, their message will resonate…if, however, we show the people that we’re helping, all the talk in the world won’t change the result.

Where it All Went Wrong

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Some older folks will remember EvKL – he used to write a lot in National Review back in the days when it mattered. Upon this comment on X, another person noted that it really started with the Reformation. And then in the comments one wag noted it all started in the Garden. Which is true – it is because we’re Fallen that we’re ultimately in this mess…though we Christians believe we have been given the exit. But outside our hope in the life of the world to come, it is important to go back and see where the mistake was made. EvKL (who, like me, was a Monarchist at heart) believed it was in the tearing down of the old system of European Christendom with its monarchies and feudal loyalties. The problem being that the common people would not and really could not transfer their loyalty from their local lord and national king over to a parliament of fools endlessly arguing when they weren’t stealing. As the historian Edward Crankshaw noted, a king believing he rules by divine right is being pious…a elected official thinking he’s the only person in the world suited for the office is being arrogant. It is good to note here that EvKL fully approved of the American Republic at its founding. What happened since then he was much less pleased with but the concept of the Constitution with its king-like President, appointive Senate, popularly elected House and an independent but limited Judiciary combined the best of all government worlds.

All love to my Protestant brothers and sisters, I do fall into the camp where it was the Reformation which got the ball of destruction rolling. Not that reform isn’t periodically needed in the Church but that in denying there is a central authority outside of individual control it set the stage for all the destruction to follow. Sola scriptura might work if everyone always agreed on what the scriptura meant. Because we’re Fallen, we don’t. We can’t. And so a central body needs to exist which will decide in the end what it means. And to this decree all must bend. And that is how it was for a thousand years until some of the kings of Europe decided that backing Luther and the other Reformers was the way to go. This was mostly from mercenary motives (a Christianity lacking monks and nuns means there’s a huge amount of wealth available for confiscation) but the bottom line is that it worked. At the conclusion of the Thirty Years War in 1648, the unity of Christendom was broken forever. At first, it didn’t seem like much but the fact that people could now argue endlessly about the nature of God opened up a can of worms…worms eagerly devoured a century later by the so-called Enlightenment philosophers who proceeded to argue about the very nature of humanity and reality. All in the name of Liberty, of course. But as for Liberty:

Nothing is more pleasant, nothing more flattering to our self-esteem, than wholly unrestricted liberty. Liberty is the word which has supplanted the word religion in our enlightened century when every one thinks and acts in the light of his own convictions or calculations…They condemn the past for its ignorance and prejudice, while knowing nothing at all about the past and not much more about the present. Should I ever see that these so-called wise men and philosophers were happier in the undertakings and more content in their private lives, then I should be guilty of bias, pride, prejudice and obstinacy if I did not follow their example. Unfortunately, however, the experience of every day convinces me of the contrary. Nobody is weaker, nobody more cowardly than these strong spirits: nobody more servile, nobody more cast down by the least unpleasantness than they. They are bad fathers, sons, husbands, ministers, generals and citizens. And why? Because they lack foundations. All their philosophy, all their principles arise only from their own self regard; the least mishap throws them down, with no resources to fall back upon. – Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, 1717-1780

Maria Theresa was not one of those massively educated people. She had the normal education of a Princess of her time but, my goodness, did she get some experience of life. That was written in a letter to her younger son in regards to her older son and heir who was very much a fan of the Enlightenment. Her older son was arrogant, self-centered and cruel…so, a very modern man. He was trying to tell her how badly she was governing the Empire…and you think about it in context and its this privileged rich boy telling his mother who had governed for decades and had navigated the Empire through two massive wars that she had no idea what she was doing. You can see why mom was irritated in that letter! And she was right – if the Enlightenment was producing the better man, then she’d be a fool not to sign up for it…but she saw in her own son and his associates just what sort of person was being bred by Enlightenment philosophy and she was very much dismayed by what she saw coming.

And she saw correctly – take a look at our Left today. Our Progressives. Our people who claim they just want to be free to do as they like. Have you ever seen more servile and cowardly people? People more easily thrown into despair by the tiniest set back? The blue haired ladies putting out videos of themselves screaming in their cars about Trump are the final result of the Enlightenment. For heaven’s sake, get over yourselves! But, they can’t – because they have no foundation. They don’t really believe anything and so have nothing to ground themselves on. For us on our side, the joy remains…because we know that even if the very worst thing happens to us, God is there…we will be rescued. This allows for a sense of peace…and builds into us at least some measure of courage. We don’t want to die. We don’t want to lose all we have. But we can do both…knowing that in the end death is the path to life and what we have is nothing compared to eternal life.

The most important thing a person can have is humility. I can’t be emphasized enough how important it is to be humble. Remember, the most humble human being who ever lived was Jesus who is God. To understand that you can’t, on your own, figure it all out is the first step to sanity. We don’t bend to Authority because we’re slaves but because that is the path to real freedom. It is simply saying, “you know, I believe it might be this way and I won’t just accept what others say, but I admit that I may be wrong and I’ll accept reasoned correction”. That is what the arrogant moderns cannot accept. It is why we can argue with Progressives until we’re blue in the face and no matter the facts or logic provided, they won’t change. They have no humility – they believe they’ve figured it out. That they are the smartest people in the room.

I don’t know if we can, as it were, manufacture humility. That is, convince the arrogant to give up their pride. It might take events – lots of very bad events – to humble their pride. But no matter how you slice it, humility is the only path to victory here. That is, only by humbling ourselves are we going to find the right thing to do. That is what we lost between the Reformation and the Enlightenment…and that is what will be there when we do win.