Social Issues – Blogs For Victory

Enlightened Insanity

April 6, 2021April 6, 2021Mark Noonan14 Comments

Do you realize why there was an Inquisition? That is something I think most people don’t ponder much. Most just consider it to have been a uniformly horrible thing which we happily dispensed with as the Enlightenment instructed us in the value of tolerance. To a certain extent, there is some truth to such a view, but it doesn’t cover the entirety of it.

That which we call the Inquisition started in response to the Albigensian heresy in the 12th century. If you read secular history about it, you’ll find that the poor Albigensians were horribly persecuted by the Church because they simply wanted to practice their simple faith. Ok, fine. But they also believe that sexual reproduction was inherently wrong – that the physical world was something created by an evil god and it had to be renounced so that the human spirit could unite with the good god. In other words, if the heresy had been allowed to continue, it would have ended civilization. The Church, of course, was also concerned with what happened to human souls – being rather interested in their winding up in heaven rather than hell and so looked in horror upon a sect which pretty much ensured via its beliefs a one-way trip to hell. So, there were two reasons to go after these guys: they’d imperil your soul and end civilization. That is why there was an Inquisition – to root out people preaching insane, destructive ideas.

To be sure, any institution run by human beings is going to mess up. It is in the nature of things because we’re human. Whether or not the attempt should have been made or whether or not the right methods were used in the attempt is a matter for debate. But the fact that lunatic ideas which bring death should be stopped is not something I will debate about. Lunatic ideas bringing death are bad. And bad things are to be held at arms length to the best of our ability.

But, in the event, those who argued against the Inquisition and in favor of tolerance won the debate. The Enlightenment – so called – happened. And people were free to express themselves in any way they chose. This did have the benefit of giving us the Declaration of Independence…but it also gave us the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf. Bit of an up and downside on that – and the Declaration of Independence could easily have been written by St Thomas Aquinas…the Manifesto and the Kampf, not so much…because both of those were heresies and St Thomas would have seen right through them.

Now, why do I bring this up? Because earlier today I saw a Twitter thread by a Muslim which expressed the view that Islam needs an Enlightenment. There is much merit to such an argument on the face of it. But I also immediately had my doubts.

First off, of course, is my belief that Islam is itself a heresy – Mohammed taking various aspects of Christianity (and a little Judaism) that he liked and dispensing with the bits he didn’t like. The classic heresy model – leaving something or things out. Be that as it may, if it started as a heresy, it developed rather rapidly into its own thing. And as a Christian I can and do take various issues with it. But whatever one wishes to say about it, for quite a long time it was just another part of the world tapestry. Violent as all things can be, but also beautiful, as all things can be. Yes, I can list for you a large number of Muslim sons-of-bitches but any Muslim out there can come up with a list of Christian SOBs to match – but in neither case were the SOBs the thing about the religions or the civilizations they created. I’ve read quite a bit of history of Islam and I do have to say that something changed over the ages – and the change was rather recent.

Some time in the 19th century or maybe a little earlier, the historical records start to document people of the Muslim faith acting in ways which they simply had to know were wrong. Not just in Christian ideals, but in Muslim ideals. There is a difference between fighting for your side – however brutally you may do it – and committing acts of cruelty. One early example of this is the massacre of about 50 British captives in Delhi during the Mutiny of 1857. But it got worse as time went on – acts of supreme cruelty which had no justification and which the perpetrators knew were wrong when they did them (on the simple fact that they would never want such things done to them). It wasn’t, after all, backwoods Muslim peasants who set the bombs which started the Battle of Algiers in 1956 – it wasn’t, that is, regular, old fashioned Muslims who came up with the idea of setting a bomb off specifically where children gathered so as to cause the most horrific death and injuries to people who could have in no way caused offense.

That takes a modern, Enlightened mind to come up with.

You could say that the things like the bombing in Algiers was provoked – and, to a certain extent, that is correct. The French, far more than the British, could be very brutal overlords when challenged. There were plenty of reasons for the Algerians to be displeased with the French. But it should be noted that the first serious effort of the Algerian rebels wasn’t so much to go after the French, but to kill those Algerians who were friendly to France. And kill them quite brutally, without sparing women and children. That sort of thing isn’t done in response to provocation – that is a cold blooded act of murder. So were the bombings. So, later, were acts like the Munich attack and the Avivim school bus bombing (seriously: what sort of a sick person even thinks up a target like that?). Muslims were involved in these things, but to deliberately seek to murder – usually very cruelly – people who specifically can’t fight back…no, sorry, I’m not going to say that is a Muslim thing. That is an Enlightened thing – that is what happens when people are allowed to pursue insane ideas to their logical conclusion.

Given things like bombed school buses and, well, Treblinka, I’m going to have to come down a bit against the Enlightenment – the idea, that is, that everyone should be able to proceed unchecked wherever their thoughts take them. I’m going to assert that there needs to be a corrective, here and there, which will tell the insane to sit down and shut up – before they get gas chambers or bombed buses into their heads. I think that I’d rather have to deal with the most deeply orthodox Muslims around as they deal with me, a deeply orthodox Christian. I think we’d probably get along better than modern, Enlightened folks. Even if we ended up fighting each other, it wouldn’t be a contest to see who could be the most merciless.

Anyways, this is where my thoughts are leading me these days. A sort of Endarkenment…where being a lunatic gets you a padded room rather than a tenured position or a promotion to Dear Leader.

Our Primary Duty is to Truth, Not Theory

August 1, 2020August 1, 2020Mark Noonan49 Comments

A little comic strip was put out (see it here) and the premise is that we gun-totting red-neck morons are hypocrites because we’re not using our guns to stop the Feds from arresting Antifa (though the cartoonist cleverly uses a “mom” as the person being taken away by Drumpf’s Gestapo, rather than a molotov-throwing fanatic). My response to this was:

Remind me again why I’m supposed to defend people who think I’m inherently racist.

And this is even supposing the police are Gestapo and it was an innocent mom being rounded up. But, of course, it isn’t Gestapo and it isn’t moms. It is regular, clearly identified federal officers arresting people in the process of committing federal crimes (like one idiot who was ID’d as an arsonists because he had his name tattooed on his back). None of us feel the 2A gives us the right to shoot at police officers in the performance of their normal duties. 2A, as you and I know, is only if the police try to enforce unconstitutional laws. Like, say, a law (the Left wants) making “misgendering” someone a hate crime.

But getting to the point I made: why should I defend my enemies? I know the True Conservative/Libertarian premise has been that we must defend our enemies in order to prove we are in favor of freedom. I used to believe that. Trust me: 20 years ago, I’d have gone to the mat to defend the proposition that I had to protect a Commie’s right to speak.

I have revised my views.

Communists, Nazis and Fascists definitely have some things in common. One of them is a firm desire to suppress any ideas which aren’t their own. Another commonality is that they will all use a liberal, democratic system to advance themselves into power and once they have the power, they then use it to make sure no one can ever get rid of them. In the Trio of Totalitarianism, regardless of what the three may kill each other over, the unified front is that only the Totalitarians get to have power and everyone else gets suppressed (often very brutally and unto death).

This is the truth. There is no way around it: and the Truth shall not be forced to give ground to lies. That is what our real problem is – all up and down in our society. In an effort to be fair, we conceded that disgusting lies have a place alongside the most beautiful truth. We have to stop that. Lies are wrong and bad and have no place in a civilized nation. In theory, of course: free expression of ideas. In practice, we can’t allow lying ideas to be expressed without let or hindrance.

But Mark, you say, who gets to define it? Well, we do. You know: you and me and that guy down the street. It was only a Libertarian pinhead and a liberal judge who decided we have to let lying Commies walk around free in the USA. Make a law – even if it requires an amendment – saying that the propagation of Totalitarian ideologies is illegal in the USA. Then let the Commies and Nazis and Fascists try to prove their ideology isn’t that…love to hear a Commie explain that he’s totes ok with people retaining private property after the Revolution…and then show him in his own damned book that he is not ok with it. But the main thing is that we’ll no longer be saying “see, we let you spout your evil lies, we’re in favor of freedom!”. Instead, we’ll be saying, “your lies are vile; convince me they aren’t or stop saying them.” It is a whole world of difference.

If you wonder why things are so screwed up in the USA, look no further than the fact that we have allowed a host of lies to walk free. If you wonder why doors are locked; kids are fat and on psychological medicine; bums are defecating on the streets; purple haired weirdos are given power… it is all because we allowed liars to lie with impunity. We said – how stupidly! – that if we didn’t allow the liars to lie, then we’d have no chance to speak the truth! What happened is that the cacophony of lies drowned out the truth…until, now, telling the truth in public may get you fired, arrested or at least hounded out of public life.

Our primary loyalty must be to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And if reaffirming truth requires some quite brutal actions (it almost certainly will), then that is what we’ll have to do. It is either demand adherence to truth, or live in nothing but lies. It is our choice.

Stop Reacting. Start Thinking.

June 30, 2020June 30, 2020Mark Noonan16 Comments

Earlier today, I got myself into trouble on Twitter: I had suggested that we shouldn’t immediately dismiss an idea because it conforms in some to what BLM might want. I got a pretty consistent explosion of outrage directed my way. And, I understand it and am sympathetic to it. But it was difficult to try and explain myself in a series of Tweets…so, here is a larger exposition of my ideas.

Our opponents aren’t a rag-tag bunch of Bolshevik wannabees: they are a well-funded and tightly organized Ruling Class which is determined to have its way. The rag-tag rioters out there shouting to kill the police and such are just the bought and paid for operatives of this Ruling Class. And the key is that the rioters don’t know it.

Some of them don’t know, simply: in other words, they are just ignorant fools following along with whatever seems cool at the moment. But others have a level of sincerity against injustice and simply think they are fighting the Establishment when what they are doing is the Establishment’s bidding. You’ll note how quickly “Defund the Police” got discarded…and even when it has advanced a bit, as in Minneapolis, the big shots are merely hiring private security details (on the taxpayer dime, of course). The target of the mob is, what? It is Trump. It is religion. It is you and me. It isn’t Nike and Hollywood. It isn’t Pelosi. It isn’t Yale’s gigantic endowment. It isn’t the actual system of control: the government bureaucracies; the intelligence agencies; the megacorporations; popular culture manufacturers.

My idea is that there is, indeed, a great deal of injustice out there – and a great deal of this is visited on the poorest Americans, who are disproportionately minority. I’ve talked about this before: poor people simply ground up in a legal system they can’t navigate their way out of. Some times, of course, because they are incompetent…but some times simply because once you get caught in it, there’s no way out unless you have a bucket of money. From the perspective of such a person, it seems at times like things are stacked against them…and then they see us, on our side, backing the blue…the same blue which the Establishment set up and which goes lightly where it can get burned (ie, rich and middle class neighborhoods) and drops like a hammer where it can (ie, poor neighborhoods). It can seem to such a person that you and I are the problem…that we set this up.

We know we didn’t. We back the blue not because we’re bastards, but because we know that law is a must. But even our side has been a little blind here: what if the laws, themselves, are insane? Shouldn’t the blue we back have gone, at some point, and said “I won’t enforce this insane law. Fire me if you want, but I became a cop to make sure justice and peace prevail.” Never a peep like that – and, finally, we got our taste of it with the lockdowns: we were finally the people being targeted for the enforcement of insane decrees of government. And the ground shifted and we were prepared for deep reforms of the police…which also entailed a willingness for deep reforms of all government and how it interacts with the people. Hey, presto!, riots…and we’re all back to “back the blue” and lets crack some heads. We’re forgetting that the same people who sent the cops out to arrest kids in a playground also let the rioters run wild…and in both the arresting of kids and the allowing of riots the police did as they were told.

How about we stop being suckers, at least for a bit?

We really have to start thinking and stop reacting. The riots do need to stop. The police do need to enforce the laws. But the laws have to be sane – and we can’t get sane laws until we get power and we won’t get power until the overwhelming mass of the people swing in line behind us. 51% won’t do it. That’ll just lead to our eventual political defeat or civil war…or both. We need 60 and 65%. We need to convince huge masses of people who ostensibly hate us to come over to us. This means we must talk to them – and talk to them about what they think is important. And do things they would like to have done. Not the Bolshevik stuff (the Establishment tolerates the odd Bolshy in the realms of power…but keeps them on a leash: eg, Bernie). But stuff like reforming the police. Instituting neighborhood militia for routine patrols. Pouring in buckets of money confiscated from liberal moneybags (Yale’s endowment would be a good place to start).

It comes down to this: what are you trying to conserve? A theory, or a civilization? The institutions are corrupt to the bone. Our Ruling Class is un-American and merely interested in keeping its wealth and privilege; and to do so it feels it must destroy family, property and religion. I think it is time we thought anew and acted anew…that we cease to fall into the categories the Ruling Class has provided for us and start to reach out to all. Some will spit on us. That’s ok. But some will come over if we show that we want justice…and if we show them who their real enemies are.

National Divorce or Civil War?

February 16, 2020Mark Noonan26 Comments

The other day I saw on Twitter an article about a Canadian case where a father was forced by a judge to address his daughter as a boy because that is what his daughter claims she is – a boy. This was, naturally, a minor child. It caused a lot of outrage but the real issue here isn’t whether or not a kid should transition or whether a parent should accept such a thing. These are important issues, of course, but the most crucial aspect of it was the judge ordering the father to do something he believed to be wrong – in this case, lie about his daughter’s gender. And that, really, is the point of the whole exercise: to force the lie. Either tell a lie – that your daughter is a boy – or be held in contempt of court and go to jail…where you won’t be able to do anything for anyone, least of all your daughter who is being destroyed before your eyes. But, also, if you agree to say the lie then you’ve just lost the most important thing you can be for your daughter: someone who is fearlessly honest. If you’ll lie about something like that, what won’t you lie about?

Another case that caused some comment was the Utah Senate’s vote to de-criminalize polygamy. From the article:

Sen. Deidre Henderson stood on the Senate floor Friday and asked her colleagues to reconsider a decades-old state law classifying bigamy as a felony and making implied criminals of the state’s polygamous residents.

Rather than deter or eliminate polygamy, the Spanish Fork Republican said, the state code’s threat of harsh punishments had driven polygamous communities underground; cut families off from jobs, education and health care; and given rise to a subculture that gives predators “free rein to prey upon vulnerable people.”

Note how our Conservative Republican is busy Conserving…we have to legalize polygamy because if we don’t let these weirdos do what they want, they’ll be weird. Argument sound familiar? You have heard it before. Its the way Conservatism cements Liberalism…because the real reason they are doing this is because SSM became legal and once that was done, there was no argument to be made against polygamy except the same arguments used to attack SSM…it is against Natural Law (which Conservatives are supposed to Conserve). But we jettisoned that with SSM…and by “we” I mean “we Conservatives”. Not all of us, of course, but a large enough number that made the imposition of SSM a bipartisan event in the United States.

And we were all so happy about it, weren’t we? Love is love, right? Two men. Two Women. Three Woman and a Man. A 40 year old and a 15 year old…hey, wait! What are you saying? No one is advocating for that! You insane, mean spirited bigot! The very idea!

But, you know its coming. I’m sure if I dug around enough I’d find serious scholarship arguing for no age barriers, or at least much lowered age barriers. I won’t look for it because I don’t really want to see it – and if it doesn’t exist at this moment, it will in a short while. And you know it. And the argument which will be made – and eventually by Conservative Republicans Super Conserving Conservatism – is that if we don’t lower the age bars, we’ll be giving predators “free rein to prey upon vulnerable people.”

But still in all that, the worst aspect of it all is that we are not being asked to tolerate, but to actively approve. That’s the real problem here: we definitely live in a post-Christian world which not only lacks a mechanism to enforce morality, but wouldn’t even agree most of the time on what is moral – but it isn’t enough, for those running the show, that we who still retain the old morality to live and let live. No: they insist that we participate and approve. We Christians are rather back to square one, as it were: just waiting to be rounded up and led to the arena to provide dinner for the lions. Because it is going to be like that – the Christians of 100 AD made no effort to stop the storied infamies of 1st century Rome. There was no demand that the Games be cancelled or that the licentiousness be curbed…and yet still the Roman world went mad against Christians and tore them to pieces…because they wanted the Christians to approve of the Pagan lifestyle. When such approval was withheld, off the Christians went to provide bloody entertainment to the offended Pagans. Do you get it? Your lack of immorality offends.

So, what to do?

I’m not sure – but I am inclining towards those who simply want a divorce. That the portion of America which believes a person can change their gender separates from that part of America which doesn’t believe such a thing can happen. It would take some sorting out – how much territory each side gets; divvying up the national debt and military assets; will people have a period of time where they can move freely from America I to America II (and vice versa) with immediate full citizenship status? My guess is that we’d vote by county – and if a majority votes for America I, they are America I…America II, America II. It would make for a bit of a chopped up America II (the Left side) as they have majorities in far few counties but that could be address by negotiation…which would also be a drawn out process.

But, if we don’t divorce, we’ll have to fight. One thing I can’t see is us staying together and at peace when the two sides differ not just on trivia like forms of government, but on basic things like “2 plus 2 equals 4”. For our citizens who really think that “genderfluid” is a thing, 2 plus 2 equals whatever the hell they want at the moment. I’d rather we divorced – because if we fight, then the losing side doesn’t get to live in the America of the winning side. And I mean, at all.

Who’s the Nazi?

December 8, 2019December 8, 2019Mark Noonan9 Comments

Lately there has been much back and forth about just who is a Nazi. To be sure, all of us on the right have, at one time or another, been accused of being Nazis of one sort or another. But this latest game of Expose the Nazi is different in that plenty of people on the right are joining the left in the hunt.

I suppose this has been coming for a while – remember how we were all supposed to be in a panic about the Alt-Right in 2015/16? They were Nazis out to set up the Fourth Reich…to be run, as it turns out, by the flamboyantly gay Milo Yiannopoulos. Which didn’t – and doesn’t – make any sense, but the real purpose of the exercise was to un-person Yiannopoulos as having a gay spokesman for the right who was also wickedly funny just wrecked too many Progressive Narratives while also displeasing the Tru-Cons; who have no problem with gay, but do have a great deal of problem with anyone on the right who may actually advance a conservative notion or two.

The latest explosion was caused by a guy named Nick Fuentes. I honestly don’t know much about him. I knew zero about him – had never heard of him – before the explosion and even after looking him up, I can only find that a lot of people really, really dislike the guy. There doesn’t seem to be a political party run by Fuentes and he hasn’t created a political program…seems to me that he’s just this guy and his thing is to make outrageous statements for attention. Among the outrageous statements are anti-Semitic and anti-Immigrant statements. From what I can gather, this makes him out to be an a**hole…but I can’t discern a plan on Fuentes’ part to unify the nation under a Leader, eliminate all non-Aryans (with special attention to the Jews) and conquer increased Living Space for the Aryans. This would, of course, be the plan, if you were a Nazi. Fuentes being a Spanish name, I’m wondering if the guy even has any Kraut blood?

Part of the controversy resulted in Michelle Malkin being fired by YAF for coming to the defense of Fuentes. This is another jarring note in the concept that Fuentes is a Nazi because Malkin is of Philippine blood. It seems these days that “Nazi” is becoming a catch-all for “people I don’t like” and “people I have to get out of the public square because they might win an argument with me”. Good to keep in mind that while all Nazis are anti-Semites, not all anti-Semites are Nazis…unless you want to assert that Ilhan Omar is a Nazi. I somehow doubt that the likes of Fuentes and Malkin are planning a Nazi takeover of the United States.

Does this excuse any statements from either of them which I may consider wrong? Of course not. Either of them may have in the past – or may in the future – say things which I find outrageously wrong. But until they set up a National Socialist party and start trying to take over (while providing a logical explanation for why they’d want a system which would imprison and kill them as Untermensch) I’m not going to call them Nazis, or even think that they might have that goal in mind.

Are there any actual Nazis out there? Yep. I’ve even come across a few of them on social media – briefly, before I blocked them. There are in the world today genuine, dyed-in-the-wool Nazis who want to set up a Nazi system…the only slight variation on Hitler’s Nazism is that most of today’s Nazis consider anyone white to be Übermensch. This isn’t strictly in keeping with Nazi ideology which held that only Germans were the master race and while other white people could be superior in this way or that, none could compare to Germans. But, hey, when you’re running a con about Nazism in modern America, you have to cast a wide net for clicks and donations. I wouldn’t think that more than a few tens of thousands of Americans adhere to Nazi ideology.

There is, though, a larger group which, while not explicitly Nazi, do share a lot of Nazi notions. These people can more broadly be classified as “White Nationalists”. They generally support democratic self-governance. They are not advocating for wars of conquest. In economics, its a bit of a mish mash of welfare State and free market. Many of them don’t even argue that non-whites are inferior. But what they do argue is that whites should be separate from non-whites: that there should be places set aside where only white people live – and part of this desire is that the United States no longer allow immigration. What we have here, in my view, is an attempt to make out that since Malkin, Fuentes and many others on the right are anti-immigration, they are akin to White Nationalists who are, in turn, akin to Nazis…and so Malkin and Fuentes, and everyone who won’t condemn them, are Nazis.

That is an incredible level of nonsense – but it is in keeping with the times. What is really desired here is to make being anti-immigration socially unacceptable. That if you take a position that immigration should no longer happen – or even that it should be highly restricted – then you are acting entirely from base motives. That you are a racist Nazi. Crucial to such a program would be to un-person anyone non-white who is taking the position that immigration should be stopped…and so the non-white voices of Malkin and Fuentes have to go.

I’m not going to do that: I will not let my opponents define me. I still don’t really know who Fuentes is. If he’s making the anti-Semitic statements that he’s accused of, then he’s an idiot and wrong in those statements. But I refuse to go along with deplatforming and destroying him. I don’t care what he says. I have no connection with him and have no moral requirement to prove I’m not like him by adopting positions I think wrong. I’m especially not going to do it because it seems pretty clear to me that the heart attack being had over him is mere political garbage designed to destroy those the Establishment want destroyed. The Establishment wants not only continued immigration, but increased immigration. Their solution to illegal immigration is to make it so easy to immigrate that no one would bother with doing it illegally. I’m not going along with that.

Demonstrate to me that someone is an actual Nazi and I’ll condemn that person. So, too, if you can demonstrate that they are racist, anti-Semitic, in favor of tyranny…prove to me that someone wants wicked things, and I’ll condemn the wicked plans and work to ensure they aren’t carried out. But don’t dare try to call someone a Nazi because you simply want me to run away from a political position. I happen to think that it is time to call a halt to immigration, at least for a period of time. For refugees, I’d set up refugee camps which will have as their goal the return of the refugees to their homeland…a temporary, safe harbor where they can be safe from dying but which is no ways is a step towards becoming a resident of the United States. Rely on it: set that up and you’ll only get people who are in actual fear of their lives showing up…because “camp or death” means “camp” while “camp or just staying home which isn’t so bad” means “just staying home which isn’t so bad.”

I am Catholic. I am part Jewish in blood. I have non-white relatives by blood and marriage. I live and work among non-white people. I am not in any way, shape or form racist and I could never be Nazi – or Socialist or fascist or Communist or any other such evil twaddle fit only for criminals and idiots. I will advocate for what I think is right and I will not be scared off on it because someone out there might slander me. Nor will I take anyone’s uncorroborated word for it that someone is evil. It is time for us on our side to call an end to this game: this “insult to win” garbage the Left – and, truth be told, part of the Right – has engaged in because they can’t win an argument.

What are the Limits of Tolerance?

December 2, 2019Mark Noonan28 Comments

A couple things I saw recently struck me with some force. Once was some weird Church out there – used to be Christian, claims to remain so…but, they’re lying very badly – which put up a Garden of Eden picture with same sex couples. Other thing was this nitwit Never Trumper whom I used to respect yammering on about how True Conservatives don’t want Conservative judges because that might overturn Roe. This, plus a few other things, got me wondering: what are the limits of tolerance? That is, in an admittedly pluralist Republic, just how much difference can there be before the whole thing comes crashing down?

I think we’d all agree that, by and large, we don’t care what goes on in San Francisco. Our only real complaint, to this point, has been that San Franciscans seem to care very much what we do and want to force us to be like them. Our theory has been that we can beat them back and they can have their multi-gendered otherkin SJW San Francisco while we have, well, sanity; everyone is happy. But, would we really be? Would they?

I strongly doubt they would – Crusaders out to free the Holy Land would envy the zeal with which our SJW Left pursues it’s enemies. They can’t leave well enough alone – they seem to have a built-in need to harass, hector and bully everyone. When they can’t find out an outright enemy to pester, they simply turn upon one of their own. It is just the way they are – and only the power of God can possibly convert them. We can’t. And even someone officially not SJW Left – like the Never Trumper mentioned above – still revealed a desire to impose…for all his talk about small government, the last thing he wants is a small government out there looking after itself. That is, he doesn’t want you and me getting together to decide what we want in our little corner of the world. Nope: we all have to be the same.

How are we supposed to live with people like that? Also, would we be wise to even try? How smart am I if I commit to the absolute defense of some nutcase “Church” which puts up pictures deliberately to insult me? If I commit to defend people who are then free to undermine my ability to govern myself? We know, with certainty, that a free society will generally produce the best results because when people are able to dare and to dream, they will resolve problems which have bedeviled humanity for ages. So, we know we must have freedom – but does this include tolerating the freedom to destroy?

I’m really just asking the question here. I don’t know the answer. I am hopeful that a bit of debate about it might produce some point I’m missing or enlighten some dark patch in my mind. But as it stands right now, I’m really puzzled as to whether or not we can, as we are, survive as a nation…and whether or not we should.

Yeah, I Guess I’m a Revolutionary

August 25, 2019Mark Noonan132 Comments

I got into a slight Twitter tiff with a friend – and no hard feelings, at all. Just a short exchange which made me realize something: we need to have a Revolution.

It had to do with a discussion surrounding Prince Andrew’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein – which seem rather extensive and continued long after Epstein’s first conviction. Andrew, of course, being the second son of Queen Elizabeth…which means you can’t get more social or economic elite than he is. As the discussion went on, I blurted out (as it were) a desire to confiscate the wealth of people like Andrew and distribute it (via lottery) among the people. This rather upset my friend – being as we’re both Conservative and thus defenders of Property. And I do defend Property…but I also despise a traitor. And that is, first and foremost, what Prince Andrew is: a traitor. A traitor to civilization.

And he’s not alone: he is legion among the Ruling Class. Think of all the people who had connections with Epstein for decades, and continued after his conviction. There is a story in the Daily Mail – British papers still engaging in actual journalism from time to time – about a party at Epstein’s after his conviction which included among the guests Prince Andrew, Woody Allen, Katie Couric, Chelsea Handler and the daughter of a former Australian Prime Minister. This was, as I said, after Epstein’s conviction. From the story, it seems that Epstein has pornographic pictures on the wall and liked to blurt out astonishing sexual crudities during conversation. And this is where the son of the Queen of Great Britain said, “hey, bro, cool place to hang out”.

Prince Andrew lives a life of extreme luxury. He’s worth an estimated 75 million dollars and he’s never had to earn a penny of it – and, remember, he’s the second son of the Queen. As soon as Diana pushed out William in 1982, the chances that Andrew or anyone descended from him would ever sit on the British throne became nil. He’s a biological dead end, as far as royalty goes. But, he’s got 75 million dollars…and all of it, ultimately, because a distant ancestor built a castle in Milan in the 11th century and so became the founder of a dynasty which eventually produced George I. Now, one should never fuss about the good fortune of others – envy is a sin, after all. But you’d think that someone sitting on a vast fortune of unearned wealth who has no particular purpose in life would at least try to sustain the civilization which provided and protects his gigantic privileges. But, no: he’s hanging around with the Pimp to the Stars. And so were lots of other people just as rich and privileged (but most not having the lineage).

And I think that is what has been gnawing at me, unspoken, for many years, now: that those who are in charge of our civilization are traitors to it. Not all of them, of course. There are rich people who do try to live decent lives – even some of the old noble houses (the Hapsburgs, long dethroned, do seem to keep their act together); the Koch family (whom I mostly disagree with, politically) seem to be upstanding as well as generous. But time and again we find that the rich are living lives of gross immorality – and if not directly participating in it, keeping their mouths shut about it. They defend nothing which the common people hold dear – not God; not family; nothing…except their own wealth and position, of course; they are fierce in defense of their money…and their private, secluded, heavily guarded playgrounds where, it would seem, quite a lot of the sons and daughters of the poor are brought in to be abused by the layabout sons and daughters of the rich.

But here’s the thing – if they were just destroying themselves, it wouldn’t be any concern of ours. But people with vast fortunes and social prestige have a gigantic effect on everything and everyone else. If I drop $10 into a collection plate, it is only a ripple…a rich person dropping a million dollars is a tidal wave. And if the money is dropped into the plate of a group out to destroy us (you and me, I mean), then it is horribly destructive. That its dropped to keep the anti-Civilization dogs off the backs of the rich just makes such things an insult on top of an injury. What this tells me is that we can’t just let matters be: we’ve got our billionaire on our side in Donald Trump and he’s one heck of a fighter for us…but he’s one guy, and no later than January of 2025, he’s gone. Meanwhile, these malefactors of great wealth (Teddy Roosevelt’s exquisite phrasing) will still be around…being nauseating and still providing money and prestige for interests which want us destroyed. What do we do? Just let it keep on going?

I can’t say that I agree with that – I can’t say, that is, that my defense of private property extends to the defense of private property being used to destroy what I hold dear (which includes property…it isn’t poor people demanding that zoning laws be changed and property seized by government for transfer to rich developers). It is, in short, time for a Revolution – and kicking over the tables and a chasing of the money-changers out of the Temple. We can no longer endure a Ruling Class which is working directly against our interests…they either have to get on board with us, or be removed. And we won’t get rid of the current Ruling Class if they are able to retain their money…money is power; it is, really, the ultimate power, in any form of government. Whomever commands it has absolute power, unless there’s an equally large sum of money opposed…but we see it that, in general, our entire Ruling Class is on the same side, even if they call themselves variously Liberal or Conservative; all of them are at war with us…with what we want. Which is things like common decency; the Rule of Law; equality under the Law; a defense of faith, family and property.

I can’t see how we win the battle if we leave the Ruling Class in possession of their money. If you’ve got a way to leave Soros and his heirs with billions of dollars without their being able to wreck us, then I’m all ears…but unless someone has a way to do just that, then self defense requires us to relieve quite a large number of rich people of their wealth.

We Need to Oppose Evil

January 6, 2019Mark Noonan22 Comments

I happened to obtain a copy of Judgement at Nuremberg and, so, I naturally watched it. Who wouldn’t? Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Burt Lancaster, Maximilian Schell…and even a small role by an exceptionally young William Shatner. I had seen the movie once before, many years ago, and it was far better than I remembered. What I liked about it is that it didn’t just go for the easy take a movie like that could have. It showed the Germans as all too human. The speech by Schell portraying the German defense counsel pretty much summed up the attitudes of the War generation Germans who emerged from Nazism: boiled down, “if we’re guilty (but we’re really not), then everyone is guilty!”. At the end of the movie, with the Cold War dawning, Spencer Tracy’s character (he playing the chief judge) is urged by nearly everyone to just drop the matter – find the Nazis not guilty or, if guilty, impose mild sentences. None of that: they are all sentenced to life in prison. And he sentences them because evil must be opposed. Which is true. And in that is the real tragedy of the 20th century.

Because evil wasn’t really opposed. Not in any vigorous and consistent manner. The war against the Nazis was a spasm, not a determination. It was only because Hitler forced the issue that anyone fought him. Had he refrained from war in 1939, he would have lived on until his natural death. His regime would have continued. Everyone would have kept trading and negotiating with it. The internal inconsistencies of the Nazi regime might eventually have brought a crisis, but not for decades. Just as the internal inconsistencies of the Soviet Union yet allowed it to live 70 years. And even when Hitler forced the issue and the world went to war against him, it still wasn’t really opposing evil, because the USSR was in partnership in fighting Hitler. If you use one gangster to kill another, you really aren’t fighting against gangsterism.

It used to be that evil would be opposed. The Romans were bloody minded about the Carthaginians because the Carthaginians were evil. Cortez was in quest for gold and glory, but after he and his men found out what the Aztecs had been up to, it became war to the death, because the Aztecs were evil. These days, we barely recognize evil when we see it. Even in our use of the Nazis as the standard of evil, most of the people referring to the standard couldn’t tell you one thing about the Nazis – they couldn’t tell you why the Nazis were bad, that is.

But it is more than just Nazis. They are the exemplar of evil, and deservedly so, but its not like anyone is really trying to do Nazism again. I bring this up because right about the time I was watching Judgement, I saw this series of tweets from a Conservative hammering Tucker Carlson for pointing out that our Ruling Class is doing bad things. The basic thrust of the tweets is that if things are bad, it is because we, the people, made them bad. In response, I tweeted this out:

The outcomes we’ve been having for 60 years have not been the result of the free interplay of public actors. We’ve had things we never wanted imposed on us.

Did you ever vote to legalize abortion? To have millions of illegals here? To have big banks bailed out after they screwed the pooch? When did you pass judgement allowing functional illiterates to graduate high school?

You did none of these things. They happened without your permission. You were promised abortion would be rare: that we’d amnesty and that would end illegal immigration: you were told we’d get better education.

You think it was an accident that you got the opposite of what you wanted? An accident that you’ve got policies that are a negation of facts and logic? No: this sh** was intentional.

And now how do you propose to switch it back? To get a government that does what you tell it to do? By working with the people who, wink and nod, gave you what you specifically didn’t want? Wake the F up

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve long seen that Conservative on twitter and I think he’s probably a pretty good guy. Certainly very intelligent. But, like all too many, he doesn’t recognize evil when he sees it. Think about just one thing I said for a moment: functional illiterates are allowed to graduate high school. You know that shouldn’t happen, but have you realized that it is immoral to allow it to happen? That it shouldn’t have happened even one time? That anyone who allowed it to happen is worthy of severe punishment? And, yet, no one calls for the arrest of those who allow it to happen. We, in fact, have people who insist that we allow such people to continue to be in charge. No one would approve of an illiterate graduating…but, without any consent of anyone, it happens. How? I’ll tell you:

Because those in charge of the education system don’t have your priority in mind. To them, the education system isn’t to provide educated citizens. That takes effort and is a real pain in the neck. No: what those in charge have other priorities. First off, high pay for themselves. Hiring more people like themselves. Making sure no one ever gets rid of them. These are all far more important than making sure Johnny can read. Johnny is a gigantic problem. They’d like to not have him, at all; but that would rather expose the game. They used to flunk Johnny out, but that brought attention to the fact that Johnny isn’t reading. So, now, Johnny gets his diploma. Which action is evil – Johnny and the taxpayers are both being cheated. And the cheaters pass out the bogus diploma and collect the ill-gotten gains. This is what is traditionally known as fraud and theft.

But we don’t call it that. Because we don’t call anything by its proper name any more.

Part of the appeal, for me, of Donald Trump is his willingness to call things by their proper name. Even his gross insults are really no more than calling people what they are. It is this truth telling that makes him hated more than anything else. I remember how ballistic people went when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire”. The phrase was strictly accurate – no one in possession of their senses could argue otherwise. But people were furious that Reagan had said it. Why? Because he was committing that horrible sin (in modern eyes) of calling something by its proper name. That had to be nipped in the bud. Same thing when Bush called our enemies an “axis of evil”; remember how much people hated that, too? But such things were rare until Trump: he calls things what they are 20 times a day.

But we do have to get back to it. To call wrong things, wrong. To call evil people, evil. To refuse to voluntarily provide any power or prestige to those who make and do the wrong things. Only if we see evil and oppose it can it be stopped. We’ve been blind and silent about it for a very long time and so it has eaten very deep into our civilization. We still have, I think, time to purge it – but only if we see it and say it, first.

Thinking About Art

January 27, 2018September 4, 2018Mark Noonan30 Comments

So, I’m still writing the novel. Just past 57,000 words, now. I figure I’ve got about 20-25,000 left to go. Very importantly, I figured out how it ends. Meaning, I knew in general how it ended all along, but now I know how to get there. I’ve re-read what I’ve written from time to time…make a few changes here and there, but the main thing is the story is compelling. At least, to me it is. I do hope other people like it. To me, it’s a real page-turner…and I already know what’s on the next page, being the author of it, and all. There will be a lot to do in the re-write after the first draft is done…increasing the descriptions, diving a bit more deeply into character development, making the overall Narrative flow better. I’m having a lot of fun writing it. Though it will take longer than I first thought – originally hoped to have it out in May, but now that will slip by several months. Partly because I got dragooned into working on another project which will absorb some writing time over the next month or so.

The other day the news did what Chesterton pointed out is the primary purpose of the news: telling people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive that Lord Jones is dead. In this case, Lord Jones was Ursula Le Guin. I had never heard of her until I found out she was dead. In case your ignorance matches mine regarding this lady, she was a famed sci-fi/fantasy author…writing lots of books and winning all manner of awards. Someone quoted a passage from one of her books and said this was the most beautiful opening paragraph he had ever read:

Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of the ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moon-driven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will.

If you like that, then I’m afraid my novel is going to be a terrible disappointment to you. It is just a bunch of words strung together, in my view. I initially thought the guy who posted that on Twitter was joking – and maybe he was (it is hard to tell), but the comments from people about it indicates that some people actually think this is meaningful stuff. Deep. Thoughtful.

Its about a freaking jellyfish drifting with the tide! Its drivel!

It got me thinking about the whole concept of creative arts – and thinking that it is in a very bad way. Ms. Le Guin wrote that on purpose and people read it and gave it awards. I am flabbergasted. I’d be embarrassed if I wrote anything like that. I’m hoping that she wrote it as a joke – that the rest of her writing was better and that she merely put that out once securely rich and famous as part of an “I wonder if they’ll really just buy anything I write?” experiment.

Then I read a bit from Andrew Klavan about how he was viewing the upcoming Oscar awards:

The Oscars as a glamorous, televised, fun event are a relic of the days when film was the central American art form, the way America told stories to itself. When an art form is at its peak — which usually comes pretty early in its life cycle — the greatest works and the most popular works are usually one and the same. The movies, for instance, peaked around 1939 when the nominees included Gone With The Wind, Dark Victory, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, and The Wizard of Oz. All are still rightly considered classics and all were in the top ten at the box office.

I’ll have to agree with that. My Mrs gently chides me for my preference for old movies, but I really find most modern movies unwatchable. There have been a few recent offerings I liked. In sci-fi, for instance, I liked Interstellar. It got panned, but I thought it the most interesting sci-fi movie since, say, Planet of the Apes in 1968. But, mostly I just keep watching old movies. They are just better, in my view. For instance, for most of my life I had ignored Citizen Kane: mostly because I figure a movie that praised couldn’t be as good as people were saying. Then I watched it all the way through. And then watched it again. It is the best movie ever made in my view. I’ve watched Lord only knows how many movies, but I’ve never seen anything as interesting as that – something so crisply done, such great dialogue, such phenomenal acting and cinematography. Klaven has hit upon something – the movies are worn out. So is fiction writing. So, too, is writing in general (Matt and I were most pleased with those who opined Worst was well-written; we really appreciated that…but, I can’t argue against the people saying it…most books written these days are simply badly written…I mean, just terrible, and they are written by people who supposedly went to school and learned how to write. I just started writing in 2003 and slowly got better at it).

It occurred to me that part of the reason I’m writing my novel is the same reason that C S Lewis wrote the Narnia series: he took one look at what people were reading, was appalled and set about trying to write something worth reading. So am I. I don’t know if anyone will read it; I hope they do. But my purpose is clear: to write a story which will be interesting and fun to read.

And I think that is where the modern arts have gone wrong: they aren’t trying for interesting and fun. They are trying for something else…a message, or a moral, or simply to be as weird as they can, because that is where the awards and book contracts are. I’m writing a fairy tale – and that means I’ve taken some average folks and put them in strange, dangerous situations where they can only rely on their courage and each other to triumph over evil. You know – it is a story which you can imagine yourself landing in, and then imagine how you might react. There is no sex in my book; though there is love. There is violence, but not gross violence. No one is depressed. They are, at turns, afraid and unsure…but they aren’t wallowing in self-pity and trying to get to some cosmic truth because they have it hard. Having it hard is just part of life, and you take it with as much grit and good humor as you can.

We need to recapture the sense of wonder and hope which art is supposed to provide us. We’ve had quite enough of weirdos and psychopaths. Maybe my book flops. Doesn’t matter. I’m writing it because it is fun to write…and I’m going to keep on writing it. I just hope that other people will join in – we’ve learned that our experts in most areas are rather dumb. The experts in the arts are no less so. If you’ve got a song in your heart, a story in your mind, a painting that is waiting to be done…do it. After all, the really great art wells up from the people…and perhaps it is time for we, the people, to take back the arts, too.