Peace Making

Mark Noonan14 Comments

I don’t think people understand peace-making. We understand war. We understand a cease fire, but we don’t understand peace. This is because there hasn’t been much actual peace-making in a long while. I’m thinking about it and there is the Israeli-Egyptian peace of 1979, the Israeli-Jordanian peace of 1994 and that’s about it since World War Two. We don’t count the peace treaties between, say, the USA and Japan post-WWII because that wasn’t a real negotiation to end fighting – the war was long over and it was just to regulate relations between the two powers. Every other conflict ended in a ceasefire or complete subjugation of one side to another. The process of actually sitting around a table and negotiating the permanent end to a war is rather alien these days, we’re not used to it. I suspect we don’t really know how to do it.

Peace making isn’t easy. The really grand peace treaties – Westphalia ending the Thirty Years War, Utrecht-Rastatt ending the War of the Spanish Succession, Aix-la-Chapelle ending the War of the Austrian Succession – could take months or sometimes years to get done. This is because when you make peace, you have to get people to agree to a permanent solution. Even though you know the parties to the treaty might want to try again at a later date, you still have to work on the assumption that this is it – all claims are to be settled in one document that everyone agrees to. And the kicker is that both the victors and the defeated have to take some hits in the process. The defeated for obvious reasons, but the victors daren’t press the matter too far or the defeated will just keep on fighting…part of the reason the War of the Spanish Succession went on so long even after France was effectively defeated in 1709 was because the terms offered for peace were too humiliating for France…so, the French just dug in their heels and kept fighting until they were offered better terms. You have to give to get – and that is another thing people just aren’t used to these days. Everyone wants it all.

Trump is trying to arrange a peace between Russia and Ukraine and he’s pretty much getting no help from anyone. Our “allies” are undermining, the Ukrainians are trying to sabotage and the Russians are trying to extract every ounce of advantage. This is tough, as Trump would say. And it is made doubly so because I don’t think any of the principals involved – except Trump and his team – understand that the goal is peace. You know: peace. End of the war. Armies are demobilized. Troops go home. People get on with their lives. What the world is expecting is another cease fire…which keeps the armies in place taking pot-shots at each other until some time in the future when it all blows up again. Trump doesn’t want that. And the whole world shouldn’t want that…but they simply don’t understand the basic concept of peace…of being done with it all.

The Russians have won the war – they invaded, took large amounts of territory and absent a NATO army intervening, Ukraine lacks the power to expel them from Ukraine’s territory. But for there to be peace, Russia is going to have to give back a bit of what they stole. And the Ukrainians are going to have to ratify most of the Russian theft. Is this ideal? No. But this is how wars sometimes go…there has been a winner and a loser, but there hasn’t been a total destruction of one side like there was in WWII. This means Ukrainians and Russians have to meet and talk it out until they come to a resolution…and a resolution that neither side is going to be totally happy with (the Ukrainians less happy than the Russians). And once an agreement is struck, sign the treaty – have it ratified by both nations (and anyone else who wished to be a party to it), demobilize the armies, resume normal diplomatic relations and get on with life. If Ukraine won’t accept a deal then it becomes a matter of just how long the West will be willing to sustain their war effort. If Russia won’t offer a deal where they give back at least some of what they gained, then Putin will have to decide how long Russian can sustain it’s war effort. That will be as it will – but the first step to peace is to get the two sides talking. Trump is trying to get that rolling…but I think that the Ukrainian leadership is hoping they can outlast Trump…maybe make it to 2029 still alive and then the no-questions-asked aid will resume…for Putin, his worry would be similar…that once Trump is gone the Western powers will start to stir the pot and encourage a Ukrainian war of revenge.

I hope Trump succeeds. This would be a huge part of his effort to restore norms (all of Trump’s policies are just that – an attempt to get us back to the sane way we used to be). The world isn’t perfect and the arrangements the world makes will also not be perfect. But a bit of good will – and even the least recognition that war involves killing people – and we can get to an agreement which even if not perfect, at least stops the shooting and allows people to live in peace.

And, heck, its got to be better than just grinding ahead. As nobody will ever actually agree to send a NATO army to Ukraine, the hope of the pro-war people is that we can just keep the killing up long enough until Russia suffers and internal collapse. This is not totally insane because Putin’s regime is not totally secure. But Putin has also been in power for quite a long while and the Russians soldiers continue to obey orders so the chances of an internal upheaval defeating Russia as it did in WWI are small…and meanwhile day in and day out, kids are being killed in battle. How many more dead before its ok to talk peace? I think quite enough blood has been shed.

I understand that Ukrainians might feel very different about it…if your house was under Russian occupation you’d much rather keep fighting. I understand the Russians also might feel differently… they’ve expended a lot of blood and maybe figure a much larger slice of Ukraine is their due? I can’t speak directly to that – I’m neither Russian nor Ukrainian. I can only say that I understand it…and I still say that it is better to talk peace. Sure, maybe at some point Putin will tumble from power…and sure, maybe the Russians will finally figure out how to break the Ukrainian line…but, how long? How many dead before either of these events happen? What if they never do?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God…I’m hopeful that Trump will manage to get them to peace.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan16 Comments

I’ve read some articles which assert that Democrats believe they have a winner in the Maryland Man issue – they figure they can move off from defending the man but garner support by pointing out the procedural error which got him back to El Salvador.

No. Serious! They seem to really think this. That the American people will rise up in outrage over deportations because the forms weren’t filled out correctly.

At first glance we just laugh – but then it dawns on us: the Left are the people who run the bureaucracy, public and private. All they’ve ever done in their life is check off boxes and make certain forms are filled out. They consider this an accomplishment and the height of intellectual achievement. Think about every issue: the Experts says it is so and so and with this report from the Experts there is nothing further to discuss. Just check off that box and move on! And heaven help you if you don’t…because they love to find the clerical or spelling error…makes them feel smart.

We are, as I’ve said, dealing with some very stupid people. And we really should have figured this out a long while ago – we thought the Green stuff was Secret Communism…and it is but it is also very, very stupid…anyone can see that if your goal is to reduce CO2 you’ll build nuclear plants by the dozen. Nope: place mirrors in the desert that don’t work! Student loans – how often do you hear anyone suggest making them dischargable in bankruptcy? Hardly ever, if at all – and it is the simplest solution. If the grad simply isn’t making enough money post-college to carry the freight, file for bankruptcy and be done with it. But they don’t want that – they want to annul the debt. After the forms are filled out, of course. This is the dumbest way to go about it. But the Left is wedded to it (to be sure, this could also stem from a lot of well-off grads just not wanting to pay the bill…if the solution is bankruptcy but you make too much money for that, then where’s the advantage for you?).

I’ve seen a lot of Doomers on X – people who are saying it is all over, Trump has failed, the GOP is finished…and it all would have been better if Trump had done Y instead of Z. We are on Day 92. Just past three months. The Doomers are getting irritating. Sure, maybe the whole Trump experiment fails…but it’ll take a couple years for it to happen. And even if we get whacked in 2026 that doesn’t mean Trump has failed…Reagan got whacked in 1982, after all. Keep in mind as we go forward that there is money to be had in clicks…and hate clicks pay as much as love clicks. Some people will just say things to get clicks. As for me, when I see a Doomer on X or other social media, I hit the mute button. Won’t engage. Not going to give them money for poisoning the well.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard appears to be wary of engaging in military action against Iran. This, and her unwillingness to go to war over Ukraine, is upsetting a lot of hawks. Anyone who has hung around the blog knows that I want no war with Russia but have long figured we should go to war with Iran. These are my opinions informed by my understanding of the facts. Others can come to different conclusions. That’s ok. It is possible for honest people to look at the same set of facts and conclude differently. Nothing doing with some people – because Gabbard doesn’t want war with Russia she is now a Putin stooge and because she’s wary of an attack on Iran she’s also a Mullah stooge.

Stop it, people. Gabbard may be right or she may be wrong – but she’s not a traitor. She’s an honest, patriotic American citizen. She also doesn’t call the shots – Trump does. She gets to say what she thinks and then Trump decides. And only fool would want Trump to only receive one point of view on policy matters. Lets hear every honest opinion and try to sift through them to the best result – understanding that there might not be an actual good choice in a situation…some times it is just picking the least bad option.

Got into an argument on X yesterday. Surprise! Anyways, it started with someone noting a Leftwing account arguing that every Confederate should have been tortured and killed post-war. Naturally, this clickbait was generating a lot of outrage (as was its intent) but I noted that the real problem wasn’t that we didn’t mass murder Confederates, but simply that Johnson pardoned them all. And he did this because he was trying to curry favor with the former Planter Class (whom he despised) for an 1868 Presidential run as a Democrat. It didn’t work – they wouldn’t forgive him for remaining loyal to the Union and being Lincoln’s running mate. But that, really, was the entire post-Civil War failure…it created the whole problem. Which wasn’t the Klan (insane violence is always only a temporary problem) – the problem was we let the Confederates vote themselves back into power and, by outnumbering black Americans in the South, vote black Americans into Jim Crow. If the former Confederates were disenfranchised for good, it never would have happened. The race issue would have resolved itself in a generation or two – by 1920 at the latest.

This, in turn, got me a bunch of “how dare you!” from the Right…the usual blather about how the Confederacy was spotlessly honorable and the men who served her needed to be reintegrated back into civil life. Balderdash – the Confederacy came about because the Planter Class had lost power at the Federal level and wanted to keep stealing the labor of black Americans. There were decades of propaganda built up for it – keeping in mind that the idea of the Confederacy was born under Jackson’s Administration – playing upon racial fears, disdain for Northern tradesmen (greasy mechanics, the South considered them), prospects for conquest south of the Rio Grande and a rather hypocritical view of States Rights (ie, they wanted their States Rights…except in the case of the Fugitive Slave Act which essentially made every State a slave State), the Southern Ruling Class got their war.

And it was a catastrophe. The least justified Civil War in history and then they botched the execution (Washington could have told Lee that his job was to remain in being and free to maneuver; not being tied down to defending one city while the rest of the war was lost out West). A million or so people ended up dead (war, disease, hunger-related illness and so on). They got their arrogant, upper class, Plantation butts handed to them on a platter. Repent? Offer reparation? At least admit it wasn’t such a great idea? Nothing doing – they started working up justifications for themselves, lobbied for pardons and then recaptured the political system they had failed…the worst aspect of it was the fact that the Union was merciful. Nothing is quite so American as Grant’s “let ’em up easy” policy. This should have lead to that repentance (it did in some, most notably James Longstreet, but there were others), but the mercy was spat upon…with a spasm of Klan violence and laws mandating smaller water fountains among other ridiculous indignities.

Look, I get it – great-great-grandpa who served in the Alabama 5th Infantry was a good man who fought for what he thought was right. No, we don’t need to be tearing down statues. There was a greatness in Lee, and the sublime courage Confederate soldiers showed even against hopeless odds still shines across the ages. But lets also not kid ourselves about what happened. Lets keep in mind all those corpses and only say the war was justified if we could go to them and say, “it was good you died for this cause”. It was good for Billy Yank … Johnny Reb? Not so much. He shouldn’t have had to show his sublime courage in a lost cause. Wiser heads should have prevailed. And so it goes with most wars – and that it the primary point I make these days. Sometimes you do have to fight – but only because someone else is doing something so egregiously immoral that there is no other way to stop them.

Pope Francis, RIP

Mark Noonan16 Comments

And Democrats breath a sigh of relief: nobody will be talking about Maryland Man for a week.

That aside, this passing hits a lot differently from the death of St John Paul II. There is a deep divide over Pope Francis among Catholics – and probably among all those who take religion at all seriously. I’m not at moved as I was by John Paul’s death. This is because Pope Francis never captured the public imagination – but, then again, most Pope’s don’t. A John Paul II is a rare bird – someone universally respected and deeply beloved by the faithful. So, let’s not try to fuss with comparisons here.

The Papacy of Francis was ordained by God. We Catholics cannot believe otherwise. We might not fully see the reason, but there is one and it will all work to fulfill God’s plan. My view remains as it has been since Francis was elected: we did need to break down the barriers to entry into the faith. Too many were starting to look at being Catholic as a checklist…you must do A, B and C or you’re not Catholic. To be sure, there are the unmovable things of the faith – and Pope Francis was vigorous in defending these things. But he was right when he said that the Sacraments were medicine on the battlefield of life, not a reward for perfection.

I have prayed for the repose of his soul and I hope everyone will. From what we can tell, he did live a blameless life and I’m confident he is with God at this time. The Church will now select a new Pope and we will go on…and it should be noted that all around the world, the number of people entering the Church seems to be increasing. That is part of Pope Francis’ legacy and should not be forgotten.

Happy Easter!

Mark Noonan13 Comments

Lots of things going on in the world…but this kinda reduces them to unimportant:

On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead. – John 20:1-9

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

I think we’re all a bit amazed – and outraged – at Democrat’s going to bat for “Maryland Man”…you know, the guy who seems increasingly likely to be an MS-13 gangster and human trafficker. The whole concept of it is rather insane: he’s an El Salvadoran who was deported to El Salvador. I get that an order from 2019 – before the gangs were cleaned up in El Salvador – prohibited deportation to El Salvador but the bottom line is the man is back home. Nothing bad was done to him by us. And if he really didn’t want to go back to his home, he could have left the USA voluntarily over the six year period since the final deportation order was issued. In other words, there’s just nothing to be too upset about. So, why all the fuss?

We can’t ignore the possibility of sheer stupidity. As I’ve been saying for a while now, the Left is really stupid. They only manage to hold power by ruthless suppression of dissent in the institutions they have captured and taxpayer subsidy. They are dumb enough to drive over this cliff just because Trump pointed to it. But we must also consider the possibility that it isn’t sheer stupidity – always assume your enemy is smarter than he appears, right? And once I started rolling it around, I came up with an answer: 2026 and 2028.

So far a bit quietly, there is a far Left revolt brewing on the Democrat side. The people who are certain that Trump is Hitler II are in deadly – if rather stupid – earnest about it. They really do believe that unless Trump is stopped, all good things will come to an end. This is why we still see sotto voce appeals for lunatics to take another shot at Trump…but another area of battle is the threat of primary fights. The far Left is saying that anyone who doesn’t go flat out to stop Trump is a traitor and will be primaried. We’ll see if they can actually get this rolling…but part of what van Hollen is doing could be to lock down far Left support. “See? I’m out here Resisting! Love me! Don’t primary me!”. And, of course, if he’s got ambitions for 2028, he’d also want to lock down far Left support for the early Democrat primaries…you gotta figure that a straight, white male is going to be at a huge disadvantage in any Democrat Presidential primary…so, be More Commie Than Thou. And this will go for all of them who get that Presidential bug. Keep in mind that Democrats always figure they can tack Right after the primary…they’re foolish to believe this because (a) their base is infuriated by any tack to the Right and (b) they don’t have total domination of information any longer…with X and other platforms out there, you can’t successfully pretend all that Commie stuff didn’t happen. Harris learned this the hard way last November.

But my goodness does this look bad for them – Democrats who wouldn’t dream of meeting with the families of illegal immigrant victims flying all the way down to El Salvador for a chat over coffee. Not a good look. Horrendous look, in fact. The attack ads are already written: “Democrats are for illegal immigrants, we Republicans are for you, the American people.” Do keep in mind that in 1934 things were absolutely horrible in the United States and it was FDR’s first mid-term. This confluence of events should have walloped the Democrats pretty hard – Democrats gained 9 House and 9 Senate seats. This was because in spite of how horrible it all still was in the depths of the Great Depression, the GOP was so toxic that the people remained with the Democrats. And right now the Democrats are making themselves toxic. Fighting Trump on cutting waste, illegal immigration and protecting girls sports isn’t going to play well. Democrats are certainly hoping that the economy is bad come next year…but if they keep playing this game then even if it is bad, I still give the GOP a 50/50 shot at winning…and if the economy is in good shape (and I expect it will be) then, look out! Nobody can really assess how things might turn out.

Varad Mehta over on X (@varadmehta – a definite must-follow) has been talking up MAGA’s disdain for and lack of patience with the Judicial Resistance to Trump II:

It isn’t so much that we don’t want Courts. It isn’t that we don’t want Judicial Review. But we’re not going to endure a system where after great efforts – and our Candidate being shot – we find that a few judges get to stop us. It simply wouldn’t be fair – and it is also not remotely Constitutional. Reminder: the primary purpose of our independent Judiciary is to ensure that the Executive can’t jail us on a whim. The Founders didn’t want a system where a judge is beholden to the King. Nor a system like that in France where the King could use lettres de cachet to imprison anyone who offended him without trial or appeal. The Founders did NOT create a Judiciary to second-guess every issue under the Sun. A republican system of government presupposes that the elected representatives of the people decide what shall be…with the Courts only intervening when one or both of the other branches does something egregiously in violation of the written Constitution. Deporting a guy to El Salvador, firing redundant bureaucrats and cutting off USAID funding are not Constitutional issues. There is no reason to have the Judiciary speak to these matters. Anyone who doesn’t like what the current government is doing here is free to argue against it and try to get to a different election result next time…but only a different government can decide differently, not some district court judge appointed via political favoritism.

And if the Judiciary does not curb itself, then it will be curbed. As Varad has pointed out repeatedly, the Courts have already lost the respect of the Democrats – there is already a movement to simply pack the Courts with sufficient Democrat operatives to ensure all Judicial decisions line up with current Democrat policy. As of this moment, only Republicans still want to preserve an independent Judiciary. But patience is wearing thin. If Roberts and the rest of the Supreme Court want to retain any authority, at all, they’d better quickly smack down the district court judges.

Trump’s True Grit

Mark Noonan9 Comments

Many years ago on this blog I pointed out there are two types of courage: physical and moral. Physical is obvious: a person is willing to place themselves in harms way to obtain some end. Moral is a little bit different and is actually the more sublime: it is doing the right thing regardless of the personal cost. We are all amazed by physical courage and we rightly honor the soldier who charges at the enemy or the firefighter who charges into the burning building…and, indeed, the world would not survive if we didn’t have that sort of courage. But vastly more important to civilization is moral courage.

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Actually, it is very hard. Remember what Solzhenitsyn was saying – you can’t partake in the lie. Doesn’t say anything about lying, of itself. You don’t have to utter the lie to partake in it. All you have to do is go along with it. The bravest person is one who won’t partake in the lie.

Trump’s biggest sin right now, in the eyes of the Establishment, is his refusal to partake in the lie. It is especially infuriating to his opponents who are allegedly on the Right. On the matter of immigration, we’re all supposed to partake in the lie that immigrants – legal and otherwise – are almost entirely honest people who just want to help build the American Dream. And, given this, to boot them out is something that should be done rarely and only for the very worst actors. As JD Vance pointed out on X, however, this is an absurdity: it is telling us that one President could facilitate 20 million arriving in a short time without any vetting and once they’re in, the next President has to provide a trial for each of those people before deporting them. As Trump has pointed out, it would take more than a century to hold hearings on all the illegals in our country. It simply can’t be done if they are to be deported…and that is the lie we’re contending with here: the Establishment doesn’t want them deported, at all. Not one single illegal.

The Establishment wants us tied up in knots over is so that by the time Trump leaves office, only some trivial numbers have been deported and then we can get back to normal where they’re just flooding in, never to leave. They’ll lie and say all sorts of things, but their actions reveal their lie. And in the past, the GOP partook in the lie…also pretending to want to fix immigration but actually just wanting it to remain an endless flood of illegals who are never deported. Trump will not partake in the lie. He’s calling what it is – and the American people by and large support him in it. And it is infuriating the Establishment.

There is no doubt that Trump has physical courage after Butler, PA. I hope never to be shot at but if I ever am, I hope I show a tenth of the aplomb Trump showed that day. The man has a yard of guts. But in his refusal to partake in the lie is his real courage. And it isn’t just on immigration. All up and down the line – the cutting of USAID, the demand that Ukraine negotiate for peace, the taking the gloves off on the Houthis, his defiance of China’s paid “free trade” lobbyists…on and on it goes and on issue after issue, Trump will not partake. He’s calling it all what it is and demanding that we stop lying…stop doing stupid things because liars will profit off it. This, alone, secures President Trump’s place among the great ones of politics. If he can actually accomplish even a fourth of what he’s set out to do, then the list will be Washington, Lincoln, Trump…and, don’t forget, both Washington and Lincoln also had that moral courage which is so rare to see.

The real question now is, do we have courage? Will we take that simple step and not partake? So far, MAGA is standing firm…and seems to be gaining in support, especially among the young (don’t doubt the joy people feel simply at seeing a politician actually do what he said he’d do). But every day and all day the Establishment is whispering in our ears…”just this one lie, partake in it. Just one! It won’t hurt. You want to be able to say you don’t support Trump all the time, don’t you? Come on…just one, little lie!”. We have to stand firm. We have to show some guts, ourselves. To show that we have the moral courage of a New York billionaire former-playboy Real Estate tycoon.

This shouldn’t be hard. But it will be. Because once someone starts telling the truth, lots of people get mad and start to do really horrid things to the truth-tellers…and the truth-teller’s friends. Brace yourself! And stay strong.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan11 Comments

We’re supposed to be upset about the arson attack on the Pennsylvania’s governor’s mansion and…I just can’t work up anger. I mean, sure, the guy who did it should have the book thrown at him but ’round about the time Democrats were saying that Antifa/BLM just “needed space to destroy” I kinda lost my sympathy for Democrats under attack. Of course, the primary way to end political violence in the USA is to cut off the funding for it – and we’re already finding that the termination of USAID is a massive hit to Leftwing funding.

A lot of people on the Right are just now realizing that the invasion of illegals was largely funded by the American taxpayer via NGO’s. To me, it was obvious all along that the invasion was being paid for and quite a lot of the money was ours. What happened under Biden was a fast-track of what happened in the EU over a 20 year period – demographic replacement in order to secure the power of a dying Ruling Class. Bottom line is that if it weren’t for the recent immigrants in Europe, the governments of France and Britain would be different right now – both are sustained by the overwhelming votes of the recently arrived. The Democrats could see the writing on the wall – the political shifts in Florida and Pennsylvania have been going on for years and if not countered will just continue. Democrats could counter it by jettisoning the far Left but that was also risky as if the far Left formed a Party commanding 10% of the nationwide vote, Democrats would fall to permanent minority status…and, so, the choice was made: bring in people who would vote Dem no matter what (even if by only filling out a voter registration form which would result in bogus absentee ballot).

The funds for it are now cut off and the passage of people north has dropped to nearly nothing. Seems there isn’t this actual wave of people who want to uproot themselves from kith and kin to move north. Someone had to pay for it – and now I go on to the next part of this: none of the movement of people during the past 4 years would be allowed to happen without Cartel cooperation. Thing about criminal Cartels is they aren’t made up of nice people…they fleece everyone to the maximum amount possible and they don’t care how harmful it is to the victims. The passage of millions of people north was not a target which would be passed up. In fact, with all that NGO money floating around to get people north, it would be easy for the Cartels to realize that the more people moved, the more money they could steal from the process. I’m pretty confident if we look into it we’ll find quite a lot of people who had to come north with their family remaining at home under threat if they didn’t.

And all of this would mean that the NGO’s involved moving people north – and the government officials in the USA who facilitated the money for the NGO’s – had to work with the Cartels to get those people north. This, by the way, would be illegal. Like very, very illegal. Like 20 years in a federal penitentiary for each person moved north. That is what I think Team Trump should look into.

Some MAGA influencer types are starting to pitch a fit that 10,000 Democrats haven’t already been arrested. First off, we need to stop falling for click-bait. Social media accounts with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers are money-makers for their owners…and they need a continual stream of clicks to keep making money. Last year just by being pro-Trump and anti-Democrat they got all the clicks they could want…here in 2025 with Democrats out of power this isn’t enough to generate lots of clicks. Saying that Trump is doing well and complaining about powerless Democrats just isn’t all that click-baity. So, on to why hasn’t Trump perp-walked Schiff and “did you know this person in the Trump Administration is a neo-con Globalist spy?!?!?” Best way to answer this sort of thing is to point out it hasn’t even been 90 days yet. Sure, it seems like a lot longer but we’re not even 3 months in. Huge amounts have been done but, also, a lot of what has been done is still very preliminary work…you can’t just arrest 10,000 Democrats. You first have to get your key people in. Then weed out the clearly partisan hacks. Then start the investigation with a mind to it all might wind up in front of a Democrat judge so better make sure it is air tight. On and on like that – it will not happen overnight.

Arizona has begun the process of cleaning up their voter rolls – it naturally took and extended lawsuit to get this done because Democrats can’t survive with clean voter rolls. Estimates are that 50,000 or more bogus voters could be removed…which, curiously, is pretty much the Democrats routine margin of victory in Statewide races. Funny, huh?

Trump has authorized the US military to take control of a strip of land along the US/Mexico border – heavy emphasis on New Mexico, Arizona and California. This is necessary because the Democrat governors of those States aren’t exactly helpful in this matter and, also, there is likely some percentage of our border security people who are in Cartel pay. The mass flood of people has stopped, but that doesn’t mean the drugs and other contraband has.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

I think that quite a few Americans don’t realize how large the United States is. I’ve seen MSMers and some regular folks on X wondering where we will get lumber if we place a tariff on Canadian lumber? I get that we Americans are an insular folk but, my goodness, do people in the cities ever get out into the country? I did look it up and from what I can tell, in our national forests there are a trillion square feet of lumber. This doesn’t count all possible lumber sources in the USA. We don’t lack wood, people. Like not even a little bit. Maybe its all the decades of Environmentalist lies? People think we’re down to our last tree or something? There is more forested land in the USA than when Columbus arrived in the Americas. We’ve got lumber coming out of our ears…we just don’t harvest it. Until now: Team Trump is reviving logging.

Trump is pausing the tariffs on everyone but China – where he’s jacking them up even higher. This is good. The official word is that with everyone but China coming to the table, its time to make nice (except to China)…the quite rumor is that it is this plus some GOPers in the Senate were wetting their panties over the stock market. This is probably true. I’m hoping that Trump is trying to completely decouple us from China…but if we must have relations with them, then I want some hard-nosed deals. Like this:

China is still building coal-fired power plants like there’s no tomorrow. China doesn’t have much coal in their ground and what they do have is about the worst in the world…doesn’t burn very hot and it pollutes horribly. Meanwhile, we’ve got some of the largest coal reserves in the world and our coal is among the best: burns nice and hot and very clean even before you put devices on the chimneys to cut down on pollution even more. If I were in charge, any trade deal I made with China would include China exclusively using our coal. I don’t want to screw them over – I’d sell it to them at the market rate, but only our coal…ten year deal. Ten percent of the estimated price up front. The Chinese are using 5 billion metric tons per year; $102 per ton times 5 billion is $510 billion per year.

This is the kind of deals we have to make with predatory powers like China. If we are to buy from them, they must also buy from us. I’m sure China imports lumber. We know they import oil and natural gas. Feeding China’s population requires massive imports. All from us until the value we buy from them is met…and if it can’t be met by Chinese purchases of our goods, then we cut back on imports from China until the exports/imports come into rough balance. No more free ride – and do keep in mind that China needs that free ride. It is how the PRC sustains itself; taking in US dollars and using that money to essentially bribe sufficient amounts of China’s population to remain in control. If they have fair trade with us that will be disastrous for the PRC’s future – but that is their problem, not ours.

I saw a report that in the UK more British people attend Catholic Mass each Sunday than any other Christian service…that’s the good news. The bad news is that from what I can tell, probably not a tenth of Britain’s population is actually Christian. That sort of thing is doom for Britain – with the Muslim population rapidly rising and Muslims not being shy about asserting dominance once they reach that 20 percent or so of the population. What will happen is unknown – I’m doubtful of good outcome…but no matter how you slice it, the Britain which emerged from the Reformation is dead and it will not come back…the UK will become Catholic/Evangelical (which is also rising fast in the UK) or Muslim…the Church of England pretend-Christianity is gone and with it will soon go its trappings…the Monarchy, the nobility…the whole system. This, by the way, was fated to happen the moment Henry VIII broke with Rome…he thought he could keep Catholicism without the Pope (he was actually very deeply Catholic in his core dogmas)…he was wrong. I mean, it had a good run and the world will always have a place in its heart for people like the Duke of Wellington and Churchill…but the system that made them has died.

Speaking of Brits the world owes a debt to – and this is entirely off any topic – I was thinking not too long ago about Montgomery. We Americans have inherited Patton’s disdain for the man – his preening self confidence irritates and he’s rated as the poorer commander to Patton. But I happened to notice that in 1940 when the British were trying to get their army to Dunkirk to evacuate, Monty (then a major general) kept his Third Division intact during a fighting retreat – and that division was the only one to arrive back in Britain ready to fight. Anyone with knowledge of military affairs will tell you that any fool can attack…the real genius of command is shown when you have to retreat. How did Monty do this while everything was disintegrating around him? Simple: he saw it coming and vigorously trained his division in both attack and retreat so that everyone knew their job and all he had to do when the guns went off was calmly give the orders. That’s first rate generalship, guys. And it casts in my mind new light about how magnificent El Alamein really was and, furthermore, shows that Monty really screwed the Germans hard in Normandy – pinning them to useless positions around Caen while Patton got all the glory breaking through weak German defenses to the west.

And, once again: we all need to think carefully about what we think we know. Maybe it is true – but maybe its just a story we’ve been told?

Get a Grip on Economic Reality

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Not quite the meltdown we were promised, is it? Oh, I get it – we’re not out of the woods yet. A reshaping of the American and global economic order isn’t going to be easy and there will be rough patches…but after global markets melted down we were promised a new Back Monday this…well, Monday. You know: something like a 25% drop in stock prices. Didn’t happen. A slight drop after all was said and done…and so far today things are positive. Maybe it ends positive or negative…but it isn’t a Crash.

People went into panic mode because they’re stupid and ignorant. A bad combination. The Official Economic Narrative is that tariffs caused or exacerbated the Great Depression. This is dogma – people believe this with the faith of a Christian in the life of the world to come…perhaps even more so. As I’ve said many times over the years, this Narrative is drivel. And we’ll go back to the other Great Depression to illustrate my point.

Other Great Depression? Yes, folks: history didn’t start last week. Been going on for a while now and there really is nothing new under the sun. The Other – or earlier – Great Depression started with The Panic of 1873. Like the Great Depression we’re all familiar with, it was triggered by a financial crash in Austria (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire). But that was just the trigger – a series of bank failures which rippled out through the economic world…not really causing the Depression so much as exposing the underlying economic malaise. The real problem was excess production capacity in the world – and this was created largely by we Americans and the Germans.

For America, in the aftermath of the Civil War we went on a boom of investment in new enterprises, especially railroads. Everyone is familiar with the trans-continental railroad completed in 1869 but that represented only a small amount of the new tracks laid. We had a positive mania for building railroads – and this called forth a lot of attendant economic activity to support this construction. It was all great except for one thing…we were building far more than we needed. The trans-continental was needed but the amount of people and freight to ship across it was limited. The far west still having very low population and there not being a huge Pacific trade like we have today. Meanwhile, over in Germany, the Krauts were slopping over with money they extracted from France after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 – five billion francs in gold. This infusion of cash plus the euphoria of victory in war cause the Germans to also go on a mania of building capacity they didn’t need at the moment. Oh, sure, like the American railroads what the Germans built (also a lot of railroads) would eventually be extremely useful but it was a very hothouse climate of building capacity that simply wasn’t needed at the moment. And to get all this done the Germans, like the Americans, also created a debt bubble which could only be sustained as long as the building mania lasted. Once the financial crisis was triggered in Austria, the debt bubble came crashing down and started what the people of the time called The Great depression.

And it was a bad one. Around the world all major economic powers felt it and it went on for five or six years. Lots of unemployment, businesses closing, reduced production. Just a miserable lousy time but back in those days Keynes wasn’t born and writing his drivel so everyone just tightened their belts and kept working until the years went on and the economy recovered. And so it did. For the USA, we emerged from it around 1879 and things were swell until the Panic of 1893 tossed us back into a shorter but actually more severe Depression. Lets say, though, that by 1880 the whole world had emerged from the Depression following ’73. With one exception: the richest and most powerful nation in the world: the United Kingdom. It didn’t emerge from Depression until after the Depression caused by the Panic of 1893. In that country the period 1873 to about 1899 is called the Long Depression. It wasn’t as severe as what happened in the USA or Germany, nor as bad as the 1930’s Depression but it was, as you can see, a very long time to be in the economic doldrums. Here’s the curious thing about it – the German and American economies which recovered faster were Protected, while the British economy which was mired longest was Free Trade.

According to our Official Economic Narrative the US and German tariffs should have mired those countries in Depression longer while the Free Trade regime of the UK should have resulted in rapid recovery. Because, you know, a tariff is a tax on consumers and they always cause a Depression. Except, as we can see, history doesn’t show this. It doesn’t even show it for the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

Nothing in economic history was more severe than the Depression of the 1930’s – both for adverse effects and length of time, it was the worst of the worst. This is because there are two things which will cause an economic crash:

  1. Overcapacity.
  2. Decline of demand.

It can be one or both in combination. If you have too much capacity you will hit the wall as you won’t have consumers for all your products. If you lose demand then, well, duh; people aren’t buying your products. The Great Depression of the 1930s was the worst ever experience because it was a very savage combination of both things. And as I’ve said, it all stems from World War One. Really can’t emphasize this enough – the War killed at least 10 million fit, young men. The stored wealth of a century was shot out a cannon. Gigantic additional production capacity was created to feed the insatiable maw of the armies. And then just as the War was coming to a close, the Spanish Flu showed up – to this day nobody knows for sure how many people died of it but estimates run from a low of 17 million to a high of 50 million. Given what happened in the 30’s, I lean towards the higher figure. And that flu wasn’t just any, old flu: for some bizarre reason it mostly killed fit, young men and women (most flu kill the very old and very young). You just gotta think of that scythe through the population of the future…the people who would be having children, building homes, buying products…just gone. Wiped out and over a total period of just six years. As many as 60 million…and this out of a global population of 1.5 billion. It would be like 320 million people dying in the next 6 years. Imagine the dislocation of that!

And that, my friends, was why the Great Depression happened. Not tariffs. Not monetary policy (ie, being on the Gold Standard). Not anything but the fact that while the world built massive capacity 1914-1918 it was losing massive demand…while simultaneously blowing through its entire life savings and then piling up huge, unpayable debts. And the reason why the proposed “cure” for the Depression didn’t work was because the Keynesian model said that if consumer demand is down you can stimulate it with government spending. First off, wow what a stupid concept: the government money is extracted from the people with low demand…how does that do other than harm? But supposed by some magical operation it didn’t harm, how could it help? The people were already out there – needing food, clothing, housing, etc. The demand was there. It doesn’t need to be stimulated. In fact, it can’t be stimulated. Our problem was we could make far more than the people needed while having a web of unsustainable debt honeycombing the financial system. Honestly, the way out of the Depression was probably just an annulment of global debts…just pretend nobody owed anyone anything and start from scratch. Would still have caused a Depression but probably only for a year or two. But here’s the thing, no matter what you did, the only way to get more demand – to get back to that happy time of 1913 – was for the demand lost in War/Disease to be replaced…and that takes new people.

And eventually the world got it – in the post-WWII Baby Boom and a generally more survivable environment for humanity. And it was everywhere all at once. Sure, the Third World had the least immediate improvement but improvements in survival were global – and from infant to adult (lost in the press of events post-WWII is the fact that the introduction of modern, Western hygiene practices during the American occupation of Japan saved more lives 1945-1950 than were taken during the war). This huge increase in population – 2 billion to 8 billion in just a century – is what has made the wealth of today possible. There are 4 people in the world today for every person there was a century ago…all needing food, housing, clothing, etc. A tariff will not close down this demand. The market will remain. And remain insatiable. Trump’s tariffs wouldn’t kill this goose laying the golden eggs…the only thing that can kill it is massive overcapacity or massive population drop (which is coming starting in 2100 but we won’t concern ourselves with that today). All Trump is trying to do is to move some of the capacity back to the USA so that American workers can fill some of this insatiable global demand…like we used to until some moron decided that Free Trade was the way to go. Side note: he’s not really going for zero-zero on tariffs…that’s an element which will be prudentially applied case-by-case but the goal is to get production back home. Bottom line: the tariffs aren’t going away.

Real world, guys. Real world. It is time for us to get back into it. We’ve been living in a fantasy world constructed by morons who are mostly trying to justify continued Moron Rule. The people who have run our system – and run it into the ground – really have no clue what they’re doing. They’re just in charge of it and rich off it and so don’t want it to change. They don’t care that the nation is dying and the world is on fire (the Ruling Class left off any concept of God or morality decades ago)…they got theirs and they want to keep it. Trump isn’t actually threatening their wealth…he’s threatening their position and that is why they are so firmly opposed…but being stupid they can only oppose him via stupid means (but, be careful; stupid people can pull a trigger, as we saw twice last year).

As I said, there will be shocks and even outright failures as we MAGA. Going to happen. Won’t be easy. But we’re on the path to success. Just stick it out.

MAGA: It Won’t Be Easy

Mark Noonan33 Comments

One of the objections to MAGA Tariffs is, “who wants to work in a factory?”. It is usually delivered with snark by someone who probably doesn’t know how to change a tire but it is also a real issue – and not nearly the only one we have in re-shoring production to America.

A couple days ago on X I saw a post by a guy who described the time he decided to build a steel mill. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t have too much problem on the tax and regulatory sides. It was there, of course, and some communities do NIMBY such things to impossibility, but the pragmatic facts of life are that some community is going to welcome your mill with open arms and knock down barriers to construction. No; his problem was that he couldn’t get the machines in America. That is, the tools that allow you to make steel.

One thing our Knowledge Workers don’t know (well, one of the very, very many things they don’t know) is how complex industrial processes are. Another guy on X did note that most of these Knowledge Workers would be reduced to drooling confusion if they tried to do the math he does day in and day out to get engineering projects completed. There are, for instance, a large variety of steels and they are all made with different elements added at different times to get the desired results. It takes thought, planning and skill to get this done. And, of course, the right machines. None of which are made in the USA these days.

Imagine that – the USA used to be the world’s premier steel maker and when WWII kicked in we massively expanded our productive capacity so that at the end of it all, we produced more war material than the entire Axis combined – equipping our own large military force on a lavish scale while also sustaining the military forces of our allies. Can’t do it these days, guys. We can’t even try to do it. We can’t make the machines to expand production and we don’t have sufficient people with the basic skills to install and run those machines. We can attend a 2 hour powerpoint meeting discussing our diversity targets, but not much else.

So, the question is actually two-fold: who is to work in these factories and how are we to obtain the skills for the work to be done?

We’re probably going to have to import some skills. That is, if we find we simply don’t have enough skilled people (and we almost certainly don’t) then we’re going to have to shop for them around the world. But, don’t get upset – this is not like importing Third World peasants as we’ve been doing. We’re looking for people with know-how who are willing to become Americans. Like if we want to build a shoe factory in the USA, might be smart if we just pinched a couple shoe factory foremen from Vietnam. They’d probably be delighted to come. Same thing with people who know how to make machines to produce steel and so on and so forth. Once we have the people with the skills, we can then really set to work. But with what workers? I might be ok with a Vietnamese guy running the shoe shop floor, but I don’t want to import the workers from Vietnam. I want Americans working there. How do I get them?

Positive and negative incentives. We’ll tackle negative first.

We have huge numbers of fit people on welfare. Another huge pool of people isn’t fit because it is drug-addled. We must disincentivize the ability of people to sit on their butts swiping the EBT cards…and also disincentivize the ability of people to wander our streets in a drug-induced haze.

Whole bunch of ways to do this – first off, get rid of EBT cards. Why in heck are we making it easy for these people? Paper food stamps. Next, food stamps are only good for basic staples: meat, vegetables, bread, milk, cereals. That’s it. You want a coke? Not with the stamps. You want some cheetos? Not with the stamps. For goodness sake you aren’t using your welfare benefits to go to a restaurant. And while you’re on it – I want you harassed beyond reason to get a job. If you can’t find one after a period of time you’ll be called in to do grunt work cleaning streets and so forth. Nobody gets to sit on their backside getting fed unless they are physically incapable of work. And all of this stops if you do one, simple little task: get a job.

Secondly, stop letting bums be bums. No, you can’t sleep on the streets. No, you can’t be unwashed…so dirty that you could be used as a Walking Dead extra without makeup. No, you can’t be drunk or high in public. And we’re going to harass you even worse than the welfare bums…you’re going to be rousted, ticketed, and spun six ways to Sunday…until you sober up and get a job. Sure, we’ll help. For the welfare bums there will be skills training – including such things as housecleaning and managing finances. For the druggies there will be treatment to get off the sauce. But for both the primary thing will be to make it a gigantic hassle to not have a job. You get what you pay for: right now we’re paying for laziness and druggies. We’re going to have to start paying for sober workers.

Now, some positive reinforcement! For our druggies and welfare bums, there will be a skills deficit, especially early on. Keep in mind that for some welfare people, they’re third generation or more – its been a long while since anyone in the genetic line held down a job. Point blank: these people are at the start only going to be marginally employable and simply won’t be able to make enough money. That’s where we step in and say if you are showing up your 40 hours a week and doing the best you can, we’ll make up any difference between income and basic cost of living. We’re not just helping these people – we’re trying to build a culture of work and responsibility so the kids of these people will start on a higher level and need ever less support to get rolling.

For others – especially youngsters – it is a different set of incentives. Like this: if you are willing to go to college to learn a technical trade (like, say, architecture) then if you’ll work part time in construction while going to school, we’ll free ride or at least heavily subsidize your college tuition. We won’t do a thing for people looking for a “Knowledge Worker” degree…but if your goal is a career where you actually do something, we’re going to help you out…and you’re going to learn the nuts and bolts of how things are done in the real world. The basic thrust here – and people can come up with other incentives – is to make it smart to learn how to do things. To make, mine and grow things. Heck, I’ll take a willing kid out of the ghetto and send him to a college to learn agricultural science while having him work the fields nearby for an existing farm. Think about what we’re totally getting in that exchange. He’s no longer in a place that produces druggies and gangbangers, he’s replacing the illegal working the fields and he’s learning both the theory and practice of agriculture which is going to turn him into someone who is tremendously useful in improving American agriculture going forward. On and on like that.

It is not snap of the fingers and America is Great Again. It is going to take some work. Some thought. A willingness to fail and then just start all over again with a new approach. The first step is what Trump is doing – Tariffs and cutting government waste. That is going to prove the easy part.