The Death of Penalty

Mark Noonan25 Comments

There’s been a lot of comment about the morality of executing Kenneth Smith via nitrogen hypoxia; basically, a mask is put over the inmate’s face and he breaths in nitrogen…which is a harmless gas in itself (our atmosphere is mostly nitrogen) but without the oxygen you die. And so Kenneth Smith died. The comments revolve around execution via suffocation (which is what it works out to) and the apparent suffering Smith went through before the end. This sort of this is first off irritating in that an execution isn’t supposed to be a spa day; the purpose of the operation is to kill someone. But there’s more to it than that.

As you guys know, for the longest time I’ve been opposed to the death penalty. This is based upon two things:

  1. The moral desire to allow even the worst among us the chance to repent as well as concerns for what sort of people we become when we execute.
  2. A mistrust of government having the power to decide that a citizen should die.

But I have of late been rethinking this subject. I’ve mentioned this before but it really comes down to understanding that our ancestors were not insensate brutes in their chosen methods of punishment and that the veneer of civilization is thin. Razor thin.

Human beings are not of nature civilized. We come into this world having to learn everything we’re ever going to be. We can’t walk or talk or even feed ourselves when we come out. It takes years of parental care just to ensure we survive and have the barest skills to live from day to day. To make us into people who won’t knock our neighbor on the head and take his stuff is an even lengthier process and if it isn’t imparted starting very early it becomes increasingly difficult to impart it later. By the time a kid is, say, 12 if morality has not been transmitted then it is increasingly unlikely that it will be transmitted. It can only past that point be learned by coercion. Coercion by other people or by circumstances.

It doesn’t take centuries to lose civilization. In fact, it can be done in just one generation. All you have to do is not teach it and, bang, it is gone when the kids of today become the adults of 20 years later. That we haven’t entirely lost civilization is because of the un-even application of anti-civilization teaching and the fact that parents still retain some vestigial authority. But you can see that it is very threadbare when packs of well-fed people systemically loot stores while mobs of ignoramuses shout pro-Hamas slogans because their tribal elders tell them to.

And it all comes down to the death of penalty. We don’t punish. Heck, not only do we not punish, we actively reward wrongdoing. And this from highest to lowest…from the Hollywood star who writes a best-seller about what a crappy person they were to the bum on the street being given welfare when he could work. Whether or not you’ll be punished for any particular wrong act is entirely capricious. There is not a 1 for 1 thing here – do bad, get whacked. It is do bad and if the prosecutor wants to make a case and you don’t have a good lawyer and if your victim’s family actually cares and so on and on. Smith eventually got his, but it was 36 years later. Think about that.

The man was paid $1,000.00 to kill Elizabeth Sennett. The guy who hired him (Sennett’s husband) gave Smith money to buy a gun for the job, but Smith chose to blow that money on drugs and so he did the deed by beating and stabbing Sennett to death. And even the $1,000.00 is only about one wild weekend for a druggie. That’s the price of a life in Smith’s estimation; a weekend party. And think about the method – beating and stabbing someone to death is not the easiest thing in the world.

There’s a reason the ancient’s used swords. The gladius of Rome weighed more than two pounds and was more than two feet long. They had to make it that big and heavy because stabbing or slicing someone to death isn’t easy…so, they needed a hefty, large blade to get the job done. If you tried that even with a combat knife of modern times then unless you get lucky and stab right into the heart, what you’re probably going to do is hurt rather than kill. Maybe hurt badly, but not kill. Same thing with beating someone to death – unless you get the lucky blow on the head, you’re probably going to be at it for a while.

So, what Smith did was quite horrific. It took a lot of stabbing and beating to kill Sennett. And the horrific nature of the crime is why he was given the death penalty. Had he just shot her in the back of the head, probably wouldn’t have. But that’s as if the method of being killed matters. It doesn’t. What matters is being killed. Smith took a life. He took every last thing Sennett had and was going to have. She had kids and grandkids. She had a life and she was 45 years old at the time. She could very easily still be alive today, spending a few last years in the loving embrace of her family. Smith took that from her. For a grand. And he took it in the most brutal way possible. Think about her for a second: a suburban housewife who never harmed anyone in her life is suddenly, violently set upon by men inside her home. What a horror! What must have gone through her mind? So, that is why Smith died – because of the extreme nastiness of what he did.

Those who were or are trying to gin up sympathy for Smith are simply beneath contempt. Those who call executing him – by whatever method – barbaric 36 years after he took everything from Sennett are just disgusting in their immorality. I really can’t express how low and vile such people appear in my eyes. To even talk about Smith without prefacing it with what he did – and explaining the really horrible nature of what he did – is just wrong. It is to act like Smith is some sort of victim. He isn’t. Smith was 22 years old. A full grown man. He knew what he was doing was wrong by simple fact that he tried to prevent his own execution: and if he knew he didn’t want to die, then he knew that Sennett didn’t want to die. He had not the least mitigating circumstance in his action – his only hope once he did the deed was repentance and a plea for God’s mercy.

But, he’s dead, now; so, we’re square, right? No, not really.

First off there is the capricious nature of it all – plenty of people who have done vastly worse than Smith aren’t on death row. Dahmer murdered 17 in a manner that makes Smith look innocent and he got life imprisonment (though his murder in prison still seems to me to be a sort of backdoor execution). Smith gets death for 1 murder, Dahmer gets life for 17: does this make any sense at all? And do keep in mind that Dahmer should have been caught long before he got to 17 – but regular folks and law enforcement just let it all slide because, well, there’s no penalty these days. Be bizarre. Have the smell of rotting corpses emanating from your apartment: we won’t do anything about it! Who are we to judge, right?

You see, it isn’t just about the murders and other worst crimes. It is the general sense that nobody is responsible and that punishment is never really warranted. Certainly not for small stuff. But the small stuff rather leads to or hides the big stuff, doesn’t it? In Dahmer’s case it might have been rather small when a naked man fled from his apartment and the police treated it as such and turned the poor man back over to Dahmer. Who then killed and ate him. You’d think that the naked guy running down the street would raise an eyebrow or two but in our modern world without penalty…nothing doing.

The morass of social collapse we are enduring today is the result of 60 years of inflicting no penalty, or inflicting penalty entirely at random where one poor sucker gets it in the head while the other guy gets a book deal. To stop social collapse it will be necessary to reimpose penalty. And quite uniformly. Maybe we still shouldn’t execute people, but those who murder and rape need to be very severely punished in a uniform manner. Whipping and rock breaking seems best to me if we aren’t to kill…make it 100 lashes for each rape and each murder in addition to imprisoning them. It is fair. It is just. And it is a penalty. And there must be a penalty.

And I very much do mean for all transgressions. Each theft, each vandalism, each public disorder, each broken oath…each crime must have a set, severe punishment inflicted without fail upon those who are convicted. It must become painful and humiliating to break the rules. The ancients knew this; they weren’t trying to be cruel when they broke a man at the wheel…they were trying to be just and instructive. Just in making the transgressor pay and instructive in telling everyone else that rule breaking has a high price.

Because rule breaking must have a high price. Remember that if you really break God’s rules – if you really, knowingly, choose to reject God’s mercy then you will be cast into hell. God doesn’t want that to happen to you. God will give you every opportunity to not choose that. But if its what you choose then that is what you chose. Same thing, on a lower level, for human society. Each of us, unless actually insane (a very tiny percentage at any given time) has a choice to make. We must decide what we are going to do and we must live with the consequences of our choice. If a person chooses to steal, rape and rob well then that person had every opportunity to choose otherwise but went ahead. Now, caught and convicted, must come the price. And, yes, a high price.

For goodness sake, do people really think about what a rape or murder entails? Do any of us want that to happen? And what in heck makes a man think he has some right to do such things? No, no, no and no. He wanted to do evil and did it and if we catch him when he’d better feel the punishment on his back. He must on his body feel every ounce of pain and humiliation he inflicted and then some. The price has to be paid. So, too, with all other transgressions, great and small. Naturally, the lesser offense gets the lesser punishment…but each offense must be punished and punishment for each type of offense must be the same for everyone convicted of it. No more plea deals: did you do it? If so, then punishment is X. The end.

So it must be, if we want to restore and retain civilization. It might seem a paradox but only because these days we have decreed that violence is inherently barbaric. It isn’t. Barbarism can be and often is violent, but it is also indolent. The barbarian has to steal because he will not work. The civilized man keeps violence at his side to ensure the indolent and violent barbarian is kept at bay. It is just the way human society works and it will be thus until Christ returns. Deal with it.

And start acting like men and women who care.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

The now-former head of the Arizona GOP was caught on tape trying to bribe Kari Lake to quit the Senate race. He’s former because Lake said she’d release the rest of the tape if he didn’t quit and he bailed out.

In case you were wondering the real reason we lost in 2022.

I’ve been pretty sure for a while that they cheated Lake out of a victory in 2022, now I’m very sure of it. Clearly, the Establishment GOP (still mostly owned by McCain people, though not for long, it would seem) worked with Democrats to sabotage Populist/MAGA candidates in Arizona all up and down the ballot. And when sabotage wasn’t enough to do it, they turned a blind eye to (and maybe helped?) Democrats do some last-minute box stuffing. It can’t be emphasized enough that most of our recent defeats have been because of treason.

The good news is that the old GOP fades away ever more rapidly. Most GOPers now signing on for Trump is proof of this. They still might not like the Populist/MAGA base, but they’re afraid of it. Sure, they also still hope for a miracle turning back the clock, but the smarter among them know that isn’t happening. It is either go Left and work to transition minors, or go MAGA and resign oneself to no longer being able to rake it in from corporations. We’ve already lost most of the GOPers we’re going to lose – the last bits of Never Trump will become Only Democrat over the next 10 months as they find that all along they wanted to be disarmed soyboys with a strange love for Hamas. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

We are not 100% sure what we’re gaining in return…but there are some hints that as the old line GOPers move left, black and Latino people are starting to move our way. Who knew that getting rid of some officious jerks would work out like that? I know of plenty of hard working black and Latino people who are ready for a GOP vote; and now we can talk to them because we’re not longer committed to lower corporate taxes, forever wars and figuring out how to lower labor costs for the Chamber of Commerce. In this, guys, Abbott’s busloads of illegals to blue cities has been a stroke of genius. It is really opening some black and Latino eyes as they see these guys get off the bus and into hotels, free food and free phones. They say the “Great Replacement Theory” is a bit of rightwing, racist conspiracy-mongering…maybe, but right now black and Latino Americans can see it in the flesh.

Speaking of Abbott, his defiance on the border issue is also beautiful. It is the perfect set up for us – either the border remains closed by the Texas National Guard, or Biden forces it open so that illegals can flood through. Either way it is a political win for us – and a massive political win.

To be sure, some are convinced that the damage is already done. That is, Democrats are willing to take the loss on immigration in 2024 knowing that these illegals will never be forced out and they, and their children, will become reliable Democrat votes. This supposition is based on the idea that as soon as the MSM shows one family of crying illegals being sent back, there will be a groundswell of opposition to deportations and that will be that. I’m not sure – in fact, I’m pretty sure it won’t go like that at all.

Oh, make no mistake about it – if a future GOP President starts to deport, the crying illegals will be on TV. All over the TV. It’ll be 24/7 Crying Illegals. All of whom were all set to become brilliant doctors who will cure cancer as they pilot the first ship to Mars. But I just don’t think it’ll work. CNN is getting beaten in the ratings by the History Channel. The Los Angeles Times just had to axe more than a hundred employees. The MSM just doesn’t have the oomph it used to have – and even the people still watching/reading it don’t really trust it. And at the end of the day, everyone outside the fever swamps of the Left knows we can’t take in 20 million people. It just isn’t possible. We don’t have the money, space or jobs for them. They have to go back.

So, if we get a GOP President and deportations start up, I expect to hear the shrieks from the Left…but the busses heading down south, as well. And the majority of the American people grimly determined to see it done.

Trump, 2024

Mark Noonan30 Comments

With DeSantis out, that’s pretty much it for the primaries. Haley is still in but it is shaping up to be a blowout win by Trump in New Hampshire and I imagine she’ll bow out before she gets humiliated in South Carolina. So, we’ve got Trump. For the third time.

Can he win? As I said the other day: sure he can. Make no mistake about it that this will be a high hill to climb. He has a lot of strikes against him.

Even accounting for fraud, the fact is that he’s been rejected once. It isn’t impossible to get accepted in politics after rejection, but it isn’t easy. The two most famous cases are Cleveland and Nixon. Keep in mind that in both cases, the people felt that the other guy, the initial winners, didn’t measure up and so were primed to flop back the other way. Without a doubt, Biden isn’t living up to expectations, especially since expectations were for peace, prosperity and no political problems here at home. We’ve got war, spreading poverty and more and more people are broaching the subject of civil war these days. Trump can very much say, “I told you so”.

It won’t be hostile press: it is hostile every American – and, indeed, global – institution. Especially after Argentina, the Global Ruling Class will not want Trump to get in. For goodness sake, it is bad enough that Argentina – if it can but stay the course for 3 years or so – is about to prove that the post-WWII Social Democratic order is a failure, if the USA proves it between 2025 and 2029 then that is all she wrote…everywhere in the West people will start to wonder why they have to keep the Progressives around. They will go after Trump with everything they’ve got. They will lie and break every law on the book. There is no cost to them higher than Trump winning. Can Trump survive that? We’d like to say he definitely will, but the purpose of the exercise is to convince moderate voters to stay away from Trump even as they can’t afford gas and groceries. Will it work? Only time will tell.

The Never Trump Right is already going ballistic – showing that they also never really were DeSantis supporters but were using him as a cat’s paw to scratch Trump. DeSantis swallowed his pride and endorsed Trump. Trump then said kind words about DeSantis. Everyone who is interested in defeating Democrats accepts this at face value and prepares to unite for November. You can absolutely rely on it that almost every last person who is still on the Never Trump side would have turned viciously on DeSantis had he got the nomination. They aren’t Never Trump – they are Never Rebels. They are Always Ruling Class. The Ruling Class hates DeSantis, too. But, while the Never Trump Right retains a semblance of being GOPers/Conservatives, they will be able to muddy the waters…and that is their purpose right now. To get moderates to mistrust the GOP before Never Trump announces it is voting for Biden. As for me, DeSantis is my guy for 2028. Obviously that is a long way away and things can change…but all else being equal, it is going to be hard to get me to switch to someone else next time around.

To me, 2024 has always been about GOP No Matter Who. The particular candidates are irrelevant. Sure, we all have our favorites and we all want the perfect person…but any GOPer is better than any Democrat. The objectively evil policies being advanced by Democrats must be stopped by whatever means we can find. Right now, for the Presidency, our only means to the end is Donald Trump. I will be enthusiastically supporting him going forward.

Post Iowa: Now, What?

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Over the past 48 hours I have seen enormous amounts of hurt feelings over the Iowa result. I don’t really know why – I mean, come on: a white, Evangelical State. That is Trump’s meat and potatoes. There was little chance anyone was going to gain traction against Trump in that electorate. I was a bit surprised that DeSantis staked so much on it: he’s a much better fit for the New Hampshire electorate. But, nobody calls me up for campaign advice.

But a lot of DeSantis supporters are very upset about it all – and not just the Never Trump plants who were paid to go on social media to talk up DeSantis as a means of harming Trump. I’m talking about some sensible people. I can only assume they just invested too much emotion in their guy. Never do that: no matter what, they’re all politicians. All politicians are at least a little bit insane and they all hedge a bit even when they don’t outright lie. The people running for office are the merest tools – and sure I’d always like to have a perfectly made hammer to drive the nail in, but the nail must be driven and if all I’ve got is a wrench, I’m still going to pound away at it.

But it was also a pretty big result for Trump. True, the turnout was lower but the weather wasn’t just bad, it was downright awful. But Trump’s 51% was astounding and probably would have carried through in a high turnout. To compare, the 2016 winner got 27%, 2012 24%, 2008, 34%, 2000 40%. You generally don’t get close to a majority because the field is usually very crowded and so the votes are split up. Bottom line is that the GOP base is still solidly behind Trump. There isn’t much chance of anyone knocking him off – they’d have to win NH and SC to have a shot and polling in both States is favorable to Trump and likely to go more favorable now. Nutshell: it is highly likely that Trump is the 2024 nominee.

That the base is so solid for Trump is, I think, another reason for the anger – people were talking themselves into believing that the Orange Man, being Bad, was done for. When the results came in for Iowa that theory was proved wrong. But do keep something in mind: everyone who hates Trump (this is different from someone who might not want Trump for policy reasons) does so because the TV told them to. Tell them this and they will hotly deny it. Usually claiming they’ve hated Trump since he first became famous. But that is absurd: why in heck would you invest in hating a real estate tycoon/television personality? Nobody would do that. Nobody hated Trump before he came down that escalator. It has become for many a negative feedback loop: they took the Orange Man Bad position, have diligently sought arguments supporting the Orange Man being Bad and are absolutely shocked to find that for a lot of people, the Orange Man ain’t all that Bad.

Make no mistake about it, there was a drift away from Trump in 2022. I saw it. I talked with ardent Trumpsters. They were ready to move on. They were casting eyes at DeSantis as RDS went his most Trumpy in fighting woke ideology. But then the Mar a Lago raid happened and the GOP, on the whole, did not rise to Trump’s defense in what was clearly a politically-motivated prosecution. On the sly – and it could be seen – they, too, hoped that this would sink Trump. At that moment, I started saying that the only way to beat Trump would be to out-Trump him: in this case, it would require people to get up and loudly condemn the raid, condemn 2020 as a fraud and call for the pardon of all J6ers. That would show the Trump base that you’re serious…and failure to do that makes you a RINO/Commie traitor. And so it is happening.

Some are saying that the indictments, etc of Trump are 4D chess where the Democrats are hoping to make Trump a martyr and so get the GOP to nominate the guy they think they can beat. No. They’re not that smart. They are, in fact, enormously stupid. They are indicting Trump not as 4D chess but because the TV told them to. Yes, I know that the TV was told to say that by the DNC, but the actions of the DOJ and others are motivated by what the TV said. They consider indicting Trump a righteous act and they are certain everyone wants them to do so…after all, everyone on TV says that is what everyone wants. Maybe Trump will lose in November and the Democrats will luck out…but it is just as likely that they needed Trump as much as they needed a hole in their head.

Can Trump win? Sure. There’s a non-zero chance he wins big but don’t make any plans on that. Right now, given polling, he’s well positioned to get past 270 outside the margin of fraud. A lot of people are harping on suburbanites and Independents hating Trump. True, they do. But at least the Independents also hate Biden. Stepping away from the fraud that actually installed Biden, he did do better among Independents in 2020 than Hillary did in 2016 – but at that time he was still a mostly unknown quantity and the MSM pumped him up as kindly Uncle Joe who was going to end the stress of the Trump Era and let America just move forward…we were supposed to get the late 1990’s and this time without even so much as a blue dress to disturb the peace.

Didn’t get that, did we?

The MSM is still relentlessly covering for Biden but what the MSM can’t do is make us not see the price of gasoline and butter. Can’t spin the Afghan defeat into a win. Can’t make us think that Ukraine is going well. Can’t shake us from seeing that under Trump the middle east was largely peaceful while under Biden it has exploded. Sure, the MSM will never talk about the border crisis…but it is a crisis and via non-traditional media, people are seeing it…and the GOP sending illegals to Blue cities is also making it more noticeable. The pragmatic facts of life is that the Independents now hate Biden at least as much as they hate Trump…and as Biden is the person currently making them mad, the jump ball for independents slightly favors Trump at the moment.

As for the respective party bases: who is going to be more motivated in November? My bet is on the GOP base. Democrats are trying to work up “democracy” and abortion as their key campaign messages but that is thin gruel…especially as a crucial part of their base, black voters, is very much angry when they see illegals getting free housing and phones while black Americans get nothing. Not saying these people will vote Trump…but staying home works out just the same.

It is a wide open race and there are so many variables that nobody can say what is going to happen. For goodness sake, Biden might keel over at any time now and that would just put a tornado into politics as Democrats scramble for a replacement. And imagine if that happens in, say, September? Buckle up, kiddos, we’re in for a wild ride.

The Fight for Survival Starts Now

Mark Noonan33 Comments

The Iowa caucuses are tonight and I don’t think I’ve ever been less interested in them. Sure, there was that period of time in my 20’s when I was having too much fun to care about anything but the fun, but even then I at least took a peek at the caucuses. But this year I just don’t care. I suspect that Trump will win them handily based on some polling which has rolled across the time line but it occurred to me just yesterday that the people who are pouring over the polls and arguing this, that and the other thing about what may happen are just like a used to be. But now I’m not.

And as I analyzed this realization it hit me: I’m supposed to care about the caucuses in one, small State as our nation falls apart? That if I somehow care about these caucuses and do my political junkie thing it will alter the fact that our government, our corporations, our education institutions and just huge swaths of every other facet of American culture is assuming that there are trans kids? That it is a self-evident truth that some people are born in the “wrong” body and need to be surgically and chemically altered to “correct” the “mistake” that Nature made?

And then the phrase “abortion is healthcare” came to mind and think about it: what they are saying is that pregnancy is a disease and it must be treated by abortion. And at least half – perhaps more – of my fellow citizens hear the phrase and nod along. Do you realize the level of ignorance and evil that has to be reached to accept “abortion is healthcare”? That you have to simply deny the biological facts of life and come to a conclusion that the normal, healthy activity of the human reproductive system is a bane?

And we can go on; there are many millions who wonder if we really should be controlling the border. Whether or not we should have an economy where we produce our own goods. We can slide into the climate cult where we’ll find people seriously saying we have to restrict agricultural production in order to lower the global temperature. Do you realize how stupid, ignorant and evil you have to be to think that reducing food supplies is a good idea? Right now people are working out ways to make sex robots which are so real you can’t tell they’re not human; and there are people – I’ve seen them! – arguing that for a man a sex robot is superior to a human female. My goodness, the levels of evil stupidity we are plumbing!

But wait: there’s more! We’re funding a war of attrition in Ukraine because somehow defending a Donbas packed with Russians from Russia is the most crucial thing in the world. But, meanwhile, Israel fights for her life against people who want to exterminate Jews and we’re tut-tutting about how Israel is fighting her battle. Hooray Ukraine if they can bomb a Russian city – damn those Israelis if they bomb a Palestinian city.

Huge crowds come out almost daily in our major cities to support Hamas, a group dedicated to genocide of the Jews…and in a really bizarre twist these crowds are demanding we stop an Israeli genocide of Arabs which isn’t happening! Do you realize the level of mindless ignorance it takes to get huge crowds out in support of genocidal rapist/murderers and to condemn the civilized? What in heck am I supposed to do with such people? Let them vote? Let them have an equal say along with me in how things are going to be? How can I possibly?

Ok, Mark; take a breath. God is in control. Relax.

So, what I will do come November is vote for the GOP. Not because they are any good but because they aren’t overtly evil, like the Democrats are. But I have no illusions: I’m not voting GOP in any expectation that the GOP will fix things. I’m voting for them as the merest stop-gap; an attempt to slow the roll of destruction as we work out on the local level what we’re going to do to save ourselves. Governor Abbott is actually leading the way here – sending the illegals to Blue States and using his National Guard to secure the border of Texas. Florida has made “woke” largely illegal. We need more and more of this, even if it provokes a permanent split in the nation. That is, we must protect ourselves…and if that drives such a wedge from those Americans determined upon national suicide, so be it.

Because we can’t proceed as if the Left (the Woke, the Progressives, the Democrats, the Communists, the Chamber of Commerce types: whatever you want to call them) is legitimate. They are equal parts insane, stupid and evil. What we must do is prevent them from having a say in our lives…and this means making laws on the local level, ignoring contrary federal court rulings and, if necessary, physically moving ourselves to parts of the country where insane stupidity doesn’t rule. We’re heading that way – and maybe towards national divorce. We’ll see about that: there is a chance the Left gets so crazy that their support dries up even in their strongholds. Not holding my breath on that, of course.

But now it is about survival. Can we preserve out of the wreck something sane and decent? We’re going to find out.

The Conservative Left

Mark Noonan36 Comments

I’ve seen several posts from the Right on social media over the past few months, though increasingly recently, of people now eschewing the Conservative label. This does not surprise me because I pretty much dropped it years ago – after all, what has Conservatism conserved? But the latest raft of them seems to be people who want to take a more Libertarian label, with a very firm rejection of the Populist label. Populism: that is the real bad thing. I mean, seriously: Left and Right people are saying endlessly that we must crush Populism.

Some seem to be impelled by a desire to put a huge distance between those Right voices who have gone overtly anti-Semitic since 10/7 (a not insignificant number; vastly less than Left voices going overtly anti-Semitic, but it is there) while others just don’t like the idea of having, for lack of a better phrase, supernatural moral codes – you know, codes that are based upon a belief in God and revealed Truth.

The one I saw today – until today I never knew the person existed but her account has many tens of thousands of followers – took both tacks: she didn’t want to be associated with any Right anti-Semitism and she didn’t want to be associated with Christians who take it seriously (she did assert her Christian faith). And then it sort of struck me: outside the far Left kooks, she’s probably where the vast majority is…socially Left, economically right, rejecting the latest Leftist fad of transgenderism and claiming she just wants to move on and have a good life. Yeah. Sure. Seen this movie before.

She was basically being a rock-ribbed Conservative from any time 1950 to 2020.

Sure, to her - and many like her – this was like a new discovery but the primary reason Conservatism hasn’t conserved anything is because of people on the Right dispensing with this or that aspect of what was to be conserved…until, decades on, there’s nothing left to conserve. And what really flashed in my brain is that the basic person on the Right hasn’t the foggiest notion of what they believe. In fact, it mostly seems now to just be a distaste for the latest bit of Leftist drivel. And so the lady’s assertion that she rejects transgenderism but has nothing but praise for LGB. You see where its going, right? Ten years from now people like her will be seeking to conserve “gender-affirming care” for minors.

And I understand it. Heck, I can even sympathize with it. It is all for the quiet life. After all, here in 2024 to point out the obvious – that two men cannot, in fact, get married no matter what the law says – would outrage most on the Right. Easier to just accept that Progressive innovation…and stand tall against 11 year olds getting sex changes. Until 2034. Then the story will be how, hey, I’m totes cool with all the wonderful LGBT but I just can’t go with those who are marrying their cats.

For now.

Give it a little while.

Here’s our real problem: the Left, when it doesn’t have the power to have you shot for Wrongthink, has this particular cachet which is irresistible to Fallen humanity: the getting of one off the hook. If you really want to boil it down, the appeal here is the endless reasons for getting out of going to Church on Sunday. I know that sounds trite, but think about it: it is the Left which said it was ok to break your promise (get a divorce!). Left said it was ok to get a girl pregnant and not “do the right thing”. Left said it was ok to be on welfare. Left said it was ok to lie. On and on and on like that – and what a relief! Don’t have to go to Church. Don’t have to actually care for the poor. Don’t have to stick with the guy/gal once they’ve become a little boring. Off the hook! And even better for those of the Right/Libertarian views…because they don’t immediately approve of the latest, worst thing the Left is doing, they can pretend they have morals. What fun: being a completely amoral piece of garbage and thinking you’re smart and good!

If you really do the full Libertarian-Right thing then not only all that, but you can pile up money by any means necessary, grind the faces of the poor and still feel good about yourself.

But here is something I’ve noticed among those dropping Conservatism (and condemning Populism) as they take up some sort of Libertarian label…they’re all well off but don’t do any particularly useful work. In other words, among these Libertarian-ish Populism-rejecters what you won’t see are plumbers. Farmers. Stay at home moms. Truckers. You know: the people who actually make things work and who are raising up the next generation of people who make things work.

Donald Trump’s constituency.

Because that is another thing about these people condemning Populism: they don’t like Trump. And it has puzzled me but I think I can see that the reason they hate Trump isn’t anything Trump has done (in fact, these people desperately crave being just like Trump) but the people who support Trump. That’s who they hate. That is who they want to keep down and keep out of power. Why? Because such people want there to be rules – basic rules of human decency which have been rejected by the Left and the Right. They aren’t against Populism – in fact, they probably don’t even know what it is. But they are against the Populists. Likely from a deep understanding that the Populists, triumphant, would hold them in as much – or perhaps even more – contempt as they hold the Left.

The good news is that this species of people is shrinking. No surprise, really; who the heck wants people like that? Don’t let the door hit ya, as far as that goes. The bad news is that they are going to do everything they can to help the Democrats. This is because, at bottom, they’re really rather stupid, silly people. I saw one such account the other day going on about how everyone should vote for “moderate Democrats” until the GOP and the Far Left are destroyed…as if there is such a thing as a moderate Democrat! I mean, other than Fetterman and he’s already being attacked for going off the ranch about Hamas…while the other moderate Democrat, Sinema, isn’t polling 20% in her re-election bid. I mean, just stupid to think you can help Fetterman take over a Democrat party which considers AOC to be a worthy member. Give it up – Fetterman is a Left Socialist Revolutionary trying to make nice with the Bolsheviks. Ain’t gonna happen.

But that is how very stupid these people are – and wow have they dragged us down over the past few decades. Good riddance to bad rubbish. If we can somehow get a Populist win in 2024, that will spell the end of them. Before the next Presidential cycle they will announce their conversion to the Left and that will be that.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan23 Comments

The Woke Legions determined to remove the statue of William Penn from Welcome Park in Pennsylvania. Nobody was 100% sure what the specific reason was though it was surmised that some Native American drivel was used to justify it. In general, of course, the reason is that the Woke hate Western Civilization as a whole…so even an anti-Slavery, pro-Native Quaker had to go. Looks like enough people got outraged and the removal is cancelled. Rely on it, that is only temporary. Joe Biden’s approval rating in Pennsylvania is in the sewer and Democrats are fearful of a blowout loss in the State come November. But if Pudding Brain gets back in, Penn will go…and even if Pudding Brain loses, the next Democrat Administration will try to get rid of the statue. They hate us; that is their prime motivation.

As of this point, I’m now insisting that we retain all statues – don’t care what they were placed for. I’d make the rule that if the statue or other public art has been there for more than fifty years, it stays forever. We’ll need local, State and federal legislation on this – but I am bound and determined to prevent the Woke occupation army from erasing American history. I’d rather be selective but I can’t – if I am not universal about it, they’ll eventually tear down the Washington Memorial.

The Fulton County, GA DA who is prosecuting Trump hired her boyfriend as special prosecutor…and paid him more than 600 grand. The lovely couple has already taken a couple cruises. There is no level of vile the Left won’t sink to. They lack all sense of morality.

The Establishment is still trying to get us to be shocked and horrified by what the IDF is doing in Gaza but it isn’t working. I don’t think we care what they say any more. As for the pro-Hamas demonstrations – that is clearly some Antifa/BLM astroturf…most Americans couldn’t point to Gaza on a map and simply don’t care about it. That they’re having thousands out almost daily disrupting normal life means they’re paying them…and we should be trying to find out who is funding it all.

As for the Gaza campaign – from what I understand the entirety of northern Gaza is in Israeli hands and they are systemically wrecking all of Hamas’ infrastructure before they move to the south part of Gaza to clear that out. My guess is that they’ll allow Gazans to move north as the IDF moves south…carefully screened at IDF checkpoints, to be sure. This is taking a lot longer than I thought it would but so far there seems to be no shaking in Israel’s resolve. I assume that is because as the full story of 10/7 has come out, it is so horrific that Israel is willing to take a lot of casualties to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The Democrats – led by Pudding Brain – are still trying to triangulate their way out of this: that is, still trying to talk out of both sides of their mouth, on one side assuring Progressive Jews that they are for Israel while also assuring BLM types that they want Israel to stop. I don’t think it is working – more than one hard core Leftist out there has said he can’t back Biden for 2024 over this. And they’re right to do that – pick a side and go with it. Trying to straddle both sides here is weak and pathetic.

Getting Old

Mark Noonan15 Comments

I turned 59 this past November and I can already feel that 60 this coming November is going to be a major event. I realize that 60 isn’t all that old but it is, nevertheless, old. You’re definitely on the backside and heading down fast. Things like retirement and death do loom ever larger. There just isn’t all that much time in front of you.

My dad lived to 82 and there’s no particular reason to think I can’t match that – though mom passed at the age of 70. Neither parent took care of their health and while both smoked (as do I) mom smoked like a chimney and some of the harshest tobacco I ever came across. She smoked these hideous little cigars called Erik’s; I did try them and nearly choked they were so harsh. So, 70 to 82…somewhere in there. That’s 11 to 23 years from now. That’s it. And I know any youngster out there of, say 25 years or so will think that 20 or so years is a long time, those of us past 40 know just how fast 20 years go by. It is a blink of the eye. And, yes, with modern medicine I can stretch that out…to, what?, 85? 90? Not much a difference there.

I’m not afraid of dying. I used to be; round there in the ages from 35 to 45 when the fact of mortality came into view I did have a fear of it. Long past that now. As Salisbury said, one might as well be afraid of falling asleep. It is going to happen – sooner or later in a more or less painful manner. As a Christian I do believe in the resurrection and I do work out my salvation in fear and trembling (per Philippians 2:12). Of course, no matter how strong our faith, none of us really know what is going to happen. That is why death is a fearful thing even for saints: you are stepping through a door which you will only go through once. But, no matter: God is with me. Salvation awaits. And if I’m wrong then my surprise at it will be much more short-lived than the surprise an atheist proved wrong will be.

What brought this all up was a bizarre video of Madonna taken on New Year’s Eve. She was wearing some strange, skin-tight suit and dancing like a maniac…but the skin under the suit wasn’t the skin of 25 year old Madonna and it showed. And she had to steady herself with a railing and she just looked absurd. A 65 year old woman trying to live as if it were 1984 forever. I felt sorry for her. I like getting older. No, I don’t like my bum knee. Nor do I like that I have to take pictures of things and use the zoom function to read them. But getting older has many advantages – not least of which is that I’m no longer expected to compete. I am what I am; take me or leave me. And I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. If you don’t like me, that is a you problem, not a me problem. I’m under no obligation to fit myself into your concepts of what I should be. It is nice to have very pretty, young girls smile at me and know that they’re smiling because they know I’m harmless – that I’m a man they can interact without any worry that I have an ulterior motive.

And I like being able to tell young people about the past. Sometimes you can really surprise the kiddies. One of my best surprises was calling the ‘fridge an “ice box” and my granddaughter asking me why and then explaining it. It gave her a glimpse into a different world, especially when I explained that one of her great-great-grandfather’s delivered ice for a living. She connected it with the movie “Frozen” which opens with men cutting blocks of ice from a lake – until that moment she didn’t know why they were doing that. This was just a cool thing – and it is something she’ll remember. Long after I’m gone; and maybe one day she’ll explain to her granddaughter what an “ice box” is?

And that is another fun part of getting old: thinking about what will be after you’re gone. My granddaughter will be my age in 2071. Think about that. We’ll all be long dead by then. She’ll still be here. And probably a mother and grandmother. I pointed that out to my granddaughter the other day when she was once again making fun of my white hair. And then I really got her thinking – and I could tell she was – when I pointed out that my grandfather was born in 1896. She’s only 11 and so time frames like that are still hard for her to comprehend but I think putting it like that got it driven home – about time, and how it passes.

Anyways, just me thinking about it as I enter the last section of my life. Not the end! Not yet! But I’m out of the rat race; I’m just living and seeing and enjoying those around me. The best part about getting old.

The Need to Punish

Mark Noonan11 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jail is not punishment.

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome to 2024: Nightmare or Liberation?

Mark Noonan33 Comments

Not sure. Could go either way. But someone noted on X the other day that the actions of the Ruling Class (DNC/MSM/Corporate America/Deep State/GOPe, etc) are the actions of people who are losing control, know it, and are now lashing out irrationally.

As all of us have agree for a long time, polls are not to be trusted but we have had poll after poll now indicating that the only core, Democrat constituency – that is, core, Ruling Class constituency – who are staying on side are white, college educated women. In all other areas there has been erosion of Democrat support. Not necessarily resulting in gains of GOP power, but certainly ebbing away from the Democrats. And voter registration trends in places like Pennsylvania and Delaware are favoring the GOP. Yes, Delaware. Perhaps there is a limit? Perhaps there’s a point where things are so bad that even the deepest Blue areas start to shift?

We’ll have to see how the year goes but if it ends of a collapse of Democrat support then I’m going to identify the “stunt” of shipping illegals to sanctuary cities as the catalyst. The pebble that started the avalanche. Remember, the MSM simply wasn’t telling anyone about the invasion at the border. If any reports were made about illegal immigration it was couched in “poor, suffering Jose who just wants a better life”…not hundreds of thousands of fit, military-aged males surging across the border unchecked. Certainly nothing about the human costs this disastrous migration has caused. And absolutely not a word about the amount of taxpayer money, funneled through NGOs, paying for the migration. But start sending a few thousand of these illegals to blue cities and the lid was ripped off…mostly because the idiot leaders of the blue cities dumped the illegals in black and other working class/poor neighborhoods as if these people would be pleased (and I guarantee you the upper class liberal whites thought they would; nobody is more racist than a white liberal). It became something nobody could ignore and it placed in sharp relief just how lousy the Biden Administration is. At this point, whether its corruption or incompetence is irrelevant. It is just bad; people hate how things are going and have lost any faith that Team Pudding Brain can fix it.

The really important thing is going to be whether or not our civilization still can be saved. Sure, we might well elect a trifecta MAGA government this November. It could happen. In fact, probably 50/50 right now that we will. But supposing we do, will we then do what is necessary? Like most on the Right I hailed the rise of Georgia Meloni as Prime Minister of Italy in 2022…but we found out by the end of 2023 that she had pretty much entirely sold out. Now we’re all praising Javier Milei…and I strongly suspect he won’t sell out. He’s really taking a hatchet to the system…attacking the very founding ideas of the Progressive Social Democratic State. My thinking with him is that the global Ruling Class will try to have him killed. But if we win, we have to be like Milei…but even more so.

Milei has the good fortune to be in a country where the President has far more unilateral power over government than the USA. He’s able to just shut down things without so much as a by your leave from anyone. But, here’s the thing: we’re going to have to do that anyway. Sure, there’s laws saying that certain classes of bureaucrats can’t be fired without a tedious, time consuming process. Fire them anyway. Even if its initially just telling them to stay home while still getting paid. There was a ridiculous federal judge which ruled a State law banning medical mutilation of minors is unconstitutional: enforce the law anyways.

It is going to take that level of determination. That level of courage. It will take actions that might provoke an extreme reaction. What it will come down to is: do we want to win? I mean really win?

We’re going to find out.