Civilization

The Coming Dark Age

Mark Noonan10 Comments

A few years back I mentioned that the Germans had recently finished a new destroyer for their Navy but when they launched it – put it in the water for the first time – they found it has a permanent list. That is, for you land lubbers, she was tilted to one side…I can’t recall exactly but it was significant: like eight degrees or some such. This was the Germans. The people who are superb engineers and workers. Except, maybe they’re not any longer?

That incident crystalized out for me that we do have a serious problem in the world – people just aren’t as good at things as they used to be. It isn’t just the Krauts! Remember, we tried to send up a new space ship to the space station and we couldn’t bring the crew back down because of a design flaw in the capsule. We were essentially doing no more on that mission than we did with Gemini in the 1960’s and it was a total fail. That bridge in Baltimore hasn’t even started the rebuild after it was crashed into by a merchant ship…which apparently didn’t have enough seamanship aboard to avoid a big ol’ bridge right in front of them. See where I’m going here?

A few days ago I was among a large group of mostly young people (I was the oldest there by far) and they were engaged in a serious talk about zodiac signs and how important they are. A few days after that, same thing with people at the grocery store…just happily chatting away about utter drivel as if it is important.

And then this morning at Mass I saw a woman wearing a mask.

My friends, we are in a very bad place right now.

Education is becoming non-existent. Superstition is becoming rampant. Basic skills are declining. This has happened before! Constantine won supremacy in the Roman Empire at the Battle of the Milvan Bridge in 312 and the Roman Senate commission the Arch of Constantine in Rome to celebrate this fact. It wasn’t at all the first triumphal arch erected…others had been built for Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius but here’s the thing: the decorative art on Constantine’s arch was taken from the Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius’ arches. In other words, by 312, the Romans had already lost the artistic skills they had a bit more than a century earlier. I mean, take a look:

Here’s a contemporary statue of Caesar:

And here is one of Constantine:

Big difference in artistic ability here, guys. And it wasn’t restored for a long time. The Byzantines kept a lot of ancient Greek statues on display in Constantinople as a sort of freak show…they just didn’t know how the ancients had been able to create such realistic depictions of the human body. What I’m saying here is that we’re on the precipice of a new Dark Age. That we are very rapidly losing the ability to make things and right behind that loss is the destruction of the capacity to maintain. The Aqua Alexandrina was built early in the third century for Rome and ceased operations in the eighth century…not because Rome no longer needed water but because nobody in Rome knew how to repair it.

It can’t be emphasized enough how fragile civilization is. If it isn’t passed down it simply disappears and then had to be relearned all over again. If enough of it remains to provide instructions to later generations! The future might be guys consulting the stars as they head out to the well to get water because nobody knows how to fix a water pipe.

This can still be fixed! The Romans weren’t able to fix it because their enormous military and stifling bureaucracy preempted so much funding that there was nothing left for the transmission of basic knowledge. We’re not in that bad shape – but we’re going to have to get quite stern. We must start insisting that people learn…and insisting that they work. Some people simply need to know how to build a bridge, forge steel, run electric wiring…and in the end, nothing is more important than this. No great dreams you have will happen if you can’t use the roads, don’t have fresh water and can’t turn on the lights. In the end, if people won’t volunteer to do these things, they’ll have to be compelled. We’d be fools to let the modern world die because we felt it would be mean to make people work.

Our Stupid and Violent World

Mark Noonan18 Comments

I got yelled at on X by an Irish guy. I had made a little joke about having my surname changed as I didn’t want to be connected with Ireland – and this in regards to the President of Ireland sending a congratulatory letter to the new “President” of Iran – you know, the fanatic anti-Semitic thug chosen by the Mullahs to replace the previous fanatic anti-Semitic thug. I momentarily pondered pointing out that his government had expressed condolences to Germany over Hitler eating a bullet in 1945 but I decided I was dealing with a lunatic and so just blocked him. But then I started thinking about it and I came to an odd conclusion: Irish independence has been a mistake.

Don’t get me wrong here: I’m not excusing things like Cromwell’s depredations nor the vicious anti-Catholic laws the Brits imposed on Ireland. Injustice is injustice and is always wrong. But the bottom line is that while the UK – and, previously, England – had made a huge number of mistakes and committed innumerable crimes in Ireland, by the time the Irish rose in rebellion in 1916, the whole cause of Irish independence was a moot point.

The Roman Catholic Relief Act had passed in 1829 so you could legally be Catholic. The Representation of the People of Ireland Act came in 1832, enfranchising the Irish population equally with the rest of the UK population. Ireland had proportional representation in Parliament and, indeed, at times the Irish Members held the balance of power in the UK (that is, nobody could form a government without getting them on board). After the Famine (which wasn’t deliberate no matter what some Irish guy might yap on about) ended in 1852, Irish prosperity grew rapidly with the Irish having access to work and live anywhere in the United Kingdom and the larger British Empire. What all this showed was that for all of the UK’s flaws, it was a Rule of Law State which afforded its people – of whatever background – all the Rights that people should have, even if securing those Rights took some political battling (as it always has everywhere). Just before World War One – indeed, it was a massive political issue in the UK just as the War came in – the Brits had even agreed to Home Rule: that is, setting up an independent Irish Parliament much as Scotland has today. It was delayed by the War but it was still coming. Whatever lingering feeling remained of being “ruled” by the English was coming to an end…peacefully and with Ireland getting the benefits of local rule combined with those of being part of a larger political, social and economic entity. So, what was the fuss about?

Mindless tribalism. The Irish Nationalist leaders simply didn’t want to be part of the UK because it was dominated by the English. Because great-grandpa had been hung for stealing a sheep. In other words, nothing. No real cause. Just hatred – and hatred which was fueled by German arms provided to the Irish rebels while the UK was fighting for her life against those same Germans. They say the Brit reaction to the Easter Uprising in 1916 is what turned the Irish people in broad majority towards independence. If so, that actually makes the Irish out to be pretty lousy people. What they heck did they expect? Britain was losing thousands of men a week fighting the Germans and here comes Paddy armed with a German rifle to start a rebellion in the rear? Yeah. Guess what: the reaction to that isn’t going to be nice.

But it wasn’t all that harsh. Once the Easter Uprising was suppressed, the Brits took about 3,500 prisoners, about 10 percent picked up for looting. Nearly half were released in a couple weeks. Only 187 were put on trial. Remember, this was an armed uprising against the government during wartime that was supported by the enemy! Thousands of Irish participated – 187 went on trial; 16 were executed. That’s it. For armed rebellion during wartime…and rebellion against a government which was equal for all citizens in the United Kingdom. It just wasn’t a totally Irish government. That was the only objection.

And that is the real problem here: mindlessness. People pick their tribe – or are born into one – and just pigheadedly defend their side no matter what facts might say. Chesterton pointed out that saying, “my country, right or wrong” is like saying, “my mother, drunk or sober”. Patriotism isn’t chauvinism. Love of country means, at times, admitting your country is in the wrong and needs to be corrected. The Irish never seem to have got to that point.

The Irish stayed neutral in World War Two simply because they didn’t like the English…as if that mattered. Some credit to the Irish people – especially some Irish soldiers – who joined up with the British, but Irish society and the Irish government were very much “a pox on both your houses” as they pretended that anything other than an Allied victory would save them. Think about that: the most titanic struggle in human history against the personification of evil…and the Irish stayed out because they didn’t like the English. You know, Mexicans do have some cause to be upset with Americans over various historical events…but in WWII the Mexicans declared war and while unable to provide much, did provide something to the Allied cause. It wasn’t like anyone was expecting Ireland to conscript her entire manhood and send them into battle…a just about symbolic declaration and maybe a regiment attached to an American division. Oh, and don’t go getting weepy eyed at the Nazi embassy after Hitler offed himself. Not much of an ask.

And this is why the Irish are, perhaps even by majority, rabidly in favor of the “Palestinian” cause – simple thickheaded hatred. The Irish do see kindred spirits in Hamas and Hezbollah. Keep in mind that even after independence, Irish people were setting off bombs in the UK into the late 1990’s in service of the cause of bringing Northern Ireland under the rule of Dublin. Why? Because in the distant past (like 300 years) the land had been majority Irish. That’s it. Forget that a huge number of events came between, say, 1650 and 1950: it had once been Irish and Irish it must become again. For…reasons. Can’t really think of any. Whatever might have happened in the past, by the time of Irish independence the majority of the population wasn’t Irish and didn’t want to be part of Ireland. That’s an end on it. There was no just cause for anyone to complain about this. But there was the IRA setting off bombs in British pubs in the 1970’s because of some mythical past in Ulster. So, too, the “Palestinians”. Not quite as much time but what happened on 10/7 is that the great-granddaughter of a Jew living in 1948 was raped to death by the great-grandson of a Muslim who tried to kill the Jew in 1948…the modern Muslim trying to annul the last 75 years and make Tel Aviv Muslim…which it hasn’t been by majority population since some time in the mid-19th century. But it was Muslim once upon a time!

As if that matters. It ain’t now. Whatever wrongs happened didn’t happen to the people today (the youngest Muslim who can have a complaint against 1948 is, of course, 76 years old…just figure it out for the youngest adult Muslim who can have a legit complaint: 94 years old). We’re not talking a large number of people even if there was a legit complaint…and the people with a gripe (if there are such) did not take part in 10/7.

And that brings us to a stark realization that we have, for a very long time, allowed very stupid people to disturb the peace of the world for nonsensical reasons. We’re on the brink of a regional war in the Middle East – which could eventually drag in the Great Powers – because of a very stupid concept: that there is some cause “Palestinians” are fighting for. It isn’t a cause. It is an idiocy. It is twaddle. It is infantile nonsense. But we treat it with great respect. We hold conferences about it. UN votes. It is disturbing our own domestic politics. We’ve imported some of the problem so that we can now have “Palestinians” beating up Jews here in the USA. But not just the ridiculous “Palestinians”…time and time again around the world since WWII we have seen these fights emerge as idiots decide to go on murderous rampages in service of stupid causes based upon alleged injustices of the past. Think about the Rwandan genocide as the worst sort of example: Hutu massacred Tutsi…because of some bizarre complaint about who was better off under Belgian colonial rule decades previously. It was just mindless savagery…and the world sat back and watched it happen because for whatever insane reason it has been decided that stupid people acting like lunatics are to be treated with respect.

We have to stop that. Understanding that we live in a big world with lots of different people. Understanding that our understanding of what is true and beautiful might be different from someone else’s. Sure. All that. But nobody can be allowed to act like savages over the past. Did he, that person, do something to you? No. Then shut up and sit down; we have nothing to discuss unless he does. And when some person or group or even nationality decides to go on a violent rampage based on some alleged past action – true or not – then that person or group or even nationality should be punished with exemplary brutality to make sure they – and everyone else – learns the lesson. We will not have any more of this nonsense.

The world is becoming increasingly violent and teeters on the edge of conflagration. We have to call a halt to it. Back in the 19th century, a halt was called to it. The Great Powers simply did not permit lunatics to go on rampages. The British sent a whole army to Sudan in 1898 to overthrow a thug regime which was practicing slavery. Not because it threatened the British – but because it was a thug regime that needed to be overthrown. No worries about national feeling or the pride of the locals…they were selling slaves. Stop that or here comes our army. When the Rwandan Genocide happened the world knew within days what was happening…and the world should have said, “stop it or we’re sending an army in to hang every Hutu caught with a machete”. They would have stopped. Heck, if we had a world where that sort of firmness was common then it probably would not have started. A bunch of Hutu dimwits would have been sharpening their machetes and really, really wanting to dice a Tutsi…but then they’d remember that each time savages go on a rampage the savages all end up hung…so, maybe find something else to do that day.

And this isn’t difficult. It isn’t morally murky. We Americans might get it wrong from time to time but we’re not setting off bombs because Cromwell burned an Irish farmhouse in 1650. Not massacring people because they had a privileged position the past. In short, we’re better than that – and better than any “Palestinian” setting up a rocket launcher in UNRWA school. And that means we get to tell them what they may or may not do and if they act like pigheaded, disobedient savages then they will be punished. The world is on fire and it is time to put it out.

The Failure of the Modern World

Mark Noonan40 Comments

That is Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribbesdale. He lived from 1854 to 1925. The painting was by John Singer Sargent and it is – or at least, was – very famous as it captured perfectly the 19th century British aristocracy. Just look at it – the man is serene. He knows he’s in the master class of the world’s master nation.

As a person, he didn’t cut a great swath in the world – a Liberal member of the House of Lords back when it was entirely hereditary and actually had some power, he was just a solid member of society. He had several children but his Barony died with him as both of his sons died as soldiers – one in a colonial campaign in 1904, the other at Gallipoli in 1915. Essentially, all that he was is gone, now. His line became extinct because of its devotion to duty and now the world looks upon him and his like with hatred and contempt. Why bring him up?

Because yesterday X was afire for a while with an allegation that the Pope had decreed it a moral obligation for us to accept migrants. As per usual with statements by Pope Francis, he didn’t actually say that. He merely reiterated long-standing Catholic teaching that migrants can’t be abused. No duh. But it caused quite a bit of heartache and the tail end of it had a video of a Spanish coast guard vessel apparently running over a small boat filled with migrants trying to break into Spain. The horror and all that – we were supposed to say, “I am in favor of border security, but this can’t happen.” Which is kinda dumb because if it doesn’t happen then you’ll just get more and more of them.

But that got me thinking and the vision of Ribbesdale’s picture came to mind. Here in 2024, we’re supposed to hate the man and all he represented. Imperialism. Colonialism. White Supremacy. Yadda, yadda, yadda. But it should be noted with great care that the descendants of those who were ruled by the likes of Ribbesdale are desperate to get into Ribbesdale’s country…while his descendants (and there are such) aren’t noted for their desire to break into Zimbabwe. It would seem to me that we have the world rather backwards. Or upside down. Or, perhaps, both.

One thinks about Zimbabwe. Known as Rhodesia in days of yore – names after Cecil Rhodes who as an ardent British Imperialist. We are all supposed to abhor Rhodesia. It was a white-minority government! Racist! It had stolen all the farm land from the Africans! It had to go. And it was destroyed. Because of course it had to be. But here’s something to think about – through most of Rhodesia’s existence, the majority of the Rhodesian army was black. Weird, huh? Sorta like the French war in Algeria where far more Algerians fought for France than for Algerian independence. Nobody asks these days why black Rhodesians would fight for a white government. Not allowed to ask. Probably should be asked, though. They had a reason! It wasn’t conscription: all volunteers. Men fully capable and free to choose…who chose to fight for the government that was officially oppressing them because they were black.

Without a deep study it would be impossible to really know the reasons but my guess is that they felt they had a stake in the system. Rhodesia was an island of civilization in a very barbarous area of the world. It was famously called “more English than England”. The government of Rhodesia – colonial and independent – was very selective in immigration. Only the best were allowed to come – and the best came. Certainly, they were taking land which in theory had been black-owned (in the sense that at one point all land in Sub-Saharan Africa was by nature black-owned) but which hadn’t been used for much – or in a lot of cases, used for anything – by anyone since the dawn of time. These people worked hard and built a society of prosperous, sober farmers. They didn’t see themselves as being the white minority rulers of anyone – they saw themselves as an English society ruling itself according to English law…and they did not want this society turned over to non-English people who, when not overtly hostile to English society, simply had no idea how to make it work. My bet is that the black men who joined Rhodesia’s army did so because they had fused themselves to the English society of Rhodesia and feared dispossession if the government fell. Maybe they didn’t like some aspects of white rule, but they liked the overall affect of it and probably bet that if they fought for it, they’d eventually gain full entrance into it.

But, none of that: if whites are in charge, then whites are wrong and gotta go. Off they went. And Rhodesia changed to Zimbabwe. Naturally the new government had to kill tens of thousands of fellow blacks who didn’t understand that the end of white rule didn’t mean the start of all black rule. Just some blacks. Those most juiced in with the new rulers. The white farmers had their land confiscated – and black farmers were given the land (based on political reliability, of course) but they didn’t know how to farm all that well so the breadbasket of southern Africa became a land of poverty and periodic famine. Disease ran rampant. Did you know that 128,000 Zimbabweans live in Britain? 65,000 in Australia? Heck, 50,000 or so in the USA? Kinda funny, huh? Fight to end white rule…only to move to places where…whites rule. Almost as if the whole concept of white rule being bad was…you know, drivel.

Don’t get me wrong here: it is absolutely wrong to exclude people from the political and economic system based on race. Just can’t do that. We are all children of God and have the same certain, unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But how any Republic is to be organized is a matter of prudential judgement and any changes proposed must be studied both for their short and long term effects and provision made against the possibility that a proposed cure will be worse than the disease. The bottom line is that while white minority rule had to come to an end in Rhodesia (just as it did in South Africa) this doesn’t mean it was necessary or wise to do it willy-nilly – to just all at once remove the people who ran things and replace them with people who had never run anything like it. For both Rhodesia and South Africa, change from white to majority rule should have been a process of decades, not an instant. After all, the disaster wasn’t just in Rhodesia-turned-Zimbabwe. There are nearly a million South Africans who have bailed out of South Africa – this diaspora, just like that in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, coming only after the end of white rule and with the overwhelming majority of immigrants being black…moving to white majority nations.

You’ll find, if you care to check, that in all lands formerly ruled by Europeans absolutely gigantic numbers of the natives have bailed out – and continue to bail out. Its why we have a migrant crisis. The former colonies are being drained of people as fast as transport to Europe and the Americas can be arranged. All of these black and brown people fleeing their black and brown lands…to move in with the crackers. Why? I’ll tell you why: because the end of colonial rule was wrong. The end of so-called white rule was wrong. It has killed and ruined far more than colonialism or white rule ever did. Of course, it wasn’t really “white rule”…it was Civilized Rule. It just turned out that the civilized people were white – men like our Lord Ribbesdale who was a kind, decent sort of man who wanted what was best for people as far as could be made in an imperfect world run by Fallen Man. And people like him by and large succeeded. Where there once had been slavery, now there was freedom. Where there once had been pagan ignorance, now there was Christianity and education. Roads and railways replaced dirt tracks. Water was brought to parched cities and farms. New crops were introduced. The cross polonization of cultures led to the improvement of everyone’s lives. It might have been a huge mistake for Europe to go out into the world to conquer – but the bigger mistake was ending that rule over a period of a mere 20 years, long before the ruled were capable running a modern society.

So, what do we do now? How to we cure this failure of the modern world…this asinine idea that the West which everyone is desperate to get into, is wrong? First and foremost, we must control our borders. It wasn’t just our failure – plenty of people of Africa and Asia fell for it, too. They really thought that the only problem was the paleface in charge…get rid of him and paradise will ensue. Now as they live in their tin shacks watching the new ruling class drive by in their Mercedes, they just want to get out…but they had a hand in setting this up and they can’t just evacuate. Nope: it is their bed, and they have to sleep in it. Back they go.

And if they do want our help? Then it comes with our rule. Not going to continue to hold that I have to work a deal with a tribal chief or local strongman. Our aid comes with our laws or it doesn’t come at all. Not talking emergency aid – but things like long term development assistance. More than happy to help…but we’ll be telling them what to do. Think of how much money we’ve tossed into the foreign aid rat hole over the past 75 years and what has it brought to the people of the world? Nearly half the world’s population lacks secure access to clean water and/or sanitation. This is basic stuff. This is something Romans figured out 2,000 years ago…why in heck does anyone lack access to clean water/sanitation? Because having clean water and sanitation comes with civilization. Western civilization. It is the only civilization which has consistently been able to do the whole water/sanitation thing over long periods of time. Westerners aren’t smarter than anyone else…but their overall cultural development built this mindset. You go with what you’ve got and if you want clean water and sanitation, you’ve got to have Western values…even if those values have to be imposed.

We must insist that our civilization is a good thing. We have to stop hating ourselves because some Marxist pinhead says so. If we want to survive – and if we want to help the world – we have to recapture the belief and self confidence of our ancestors.

Slowly and Then All at Once

Mark Noonan62 Comments

The bridge collapse was probably just an accident; nothing specifically nefarious was done. That said, my bet is that maintenance on the bridge was skimped in favor of paying out graft…and those hired to maintain the bridge were deeply infected by DEI hires who weren’t skilled in bridge maintenance. Also, my bet is the merchant ship crew is also substandard. The world doesn’t really make sailors any longer – that is, people who really know how ships operate given all the variables they encounter in a voyage. The real problem here is that we are rapidly losing the ability to maintain an advanced society – all up and down the line and all around the world considerations of ability are swept aside in a quest for the “correct” social outcomes and squeezing the last penny of profit out of any activity.

This has happened before. The Romans are justly famed as great builders, both in terms of art and in practical things but by the third century the skills were starting to atrophy and it became a long, slow decline into ruins. Keep in mind that later generations of Romans didn’t have to create the infrastructure – it was already there. Aqueducts sufficient to supply a city of a million people with fresh water. Sewers to carry away waste. Art and architecture which stands with the greatest achievements in history. Just maintain it. They couldn’t. They lost the ability – the skill, that is. We, too, are losing our skills. So, too, the entire world.

The actual racists like to complain that you can’t make Americans by getting foreigners on to the “magic dirt” of the USA. This is true; but then the racists go on to say that a functioning society is an outgrowth of being white. This is patently untrue. The flip side of this is the anti-white racists who are asserting that all good things white people have done were actually done by black people and the fruits of that labor was stolen. The actuality is far more prosaic: over a thousand years with often painful trial and error, European thought was applied to the problems of life. Now, all human history is the application of human thought to the problems of life but the difference for the Europeans is that as they emerged from the Dark Ages (say, 500 to 1,000 AD), they were deeply Christian and so were the first widespread people (the Jews were always insular and confined to a very small land) who believed the world was intelligible. That is, it was created by a God who was Reason; that every riddle we encountered had a solution. That it all fit together into a logical whole. Because of this the quest became not one looking for a pat answer to all problems (which, in any case, for a Christian was resolved by the Resurrection), but incremental answers to individually small problems. Presto – as it were, because it took a thousand years – the modern world came to be and Europeans found themselves possessed of skills far beyond any other people on Earth. The difference is that in 732 Charles Martel had to fight a desperate battle in central France to keep the Moors out. In 1757, Robert Clive with 750 British soldiers and about 2,000 Native allies defeated an Indian force of 50,000 troops and secured British mastery of India for two centuries.

And now we are losing all that. The bridge is down and we all know it’ll be many years before it is back up again. The nation that built 50 Casablanca class escort carriers between November, 1942 and July, 1944 is going to have some trouble building a bridge. Just as we have trouble building a jet that doesn’t fall apart in flight. Or getting a rocket ship to the Moon when we did that once in less than 7 years back in the 1960s. Think about that. Shepard’s sub-orbital flight was in May of 1961. Say what you want about JFK, but it took some real brass to look at that barely-a-spaceflight and say, “hey, we’re going to the Moon” in September of 1962. But, we did it. With time to spare. We established the Artemis program to return to the Moon in 2017 and we’re hoping for an Apollo 8-style Moon flyby in 2025. If everything goes very well. We hope to land on the Moon with Artemis 3 in 2027. Maybe. With luck. Guys: we did this before. We know how to do it. We should be able to do it with a year’s prep, tops. We won’t because we can’t.

Civilizations die very slowly and then all at once. If you were a Roman in, say, 390 AD you probably felt pretty good. The Empire was still massive and seemed to stand tall. Twenty years later, Alaric sacked Rome. We’re just about at the end of “slowly”. “All at Once” is right around the corner. Unless we change. Unless we get very serious about things and start compelling civilized behavior and standards. It is our choice. We will choose to live, or we will choose to die.

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.

A Coming Dark Age

Mark Noonan39 Comments

Over on X yesterday a mutual noted that he was watching Band of Brothers for the umpteenth time and he was wondering – even though he was a combat vet, himself – if he could have done what those soldiers did. I think everyone does wonder when they watch that. And it gets you also thinking of the men who took Tarawa, who sailed the USS Johnston into certain death. Of all those who have done incredible feats of arms in our past.

It is good to point out here that courage is the strongest desire to live combined with a complete willingness to die. It is a paradox; you’re only way to safety is through death. A soldier pinned down in a murderous crossfire has the choice: try to hide and hope he gets missed (unlikely as time goes on) or charge at the enemy and stop him from shooting. Of course, you do present a much better target when you’re charging. But if it works, the danger is over. He who would lose his life shall save it. You remember suddenly the men of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment who crossed the Waal river in canvas boats under murderous fire…and when they got ashore the Germans pretty much ran away, terrified at these demons who seemingly couldn’t be stopped. Do we have that any longer?

Well, another thing which crossed the time line was a report from 2014 that 41% of the newly commissioned Marine officers did not meet the minimum requirements – mental and physical – for being commissioned in World War Two. I can only assume it has gotten worse since then as Woke demands have further infested the military requiring an ever lowering of standards so that various demographic boxes can be checked off. Given this, it is almost a certainty that we do not have an officer like Julian Cook who led those men in the canvas boats…we don’t have officers who can take regular people and turn them into killers that battle-hardened Waffen-SS troops would run away from.

But it gets worse than just the fact that we’ve got substandard officers. There is such a thing as esprit de corps. This is the collective memory and ability of an organization. It isn’t dependent upon any single person but it is dependent upon the overall organism remaining true to itself. If you watched Band of Brothers you know that Captain Herbert Sobel comes off pretty poorly overall as an officer – and in truth he was roundly disliked by his men and appeared to lack combat leadership ability. On the other hand, he made Easy Company into what it became. The intensive training and stern discipline – which Sobel himself learned in officer training – turned civilians into tough as nails warriors who simply would not quit. After the war even some of the men who hated him as a CO acknowledged his part in making them into warriors. Sobel learned his trade from a man who learned his trade who in turn learned his trade and on and on back…and the men Sobel trained passed that corporate knowledge on down and they, in their turn, also passed it on and so the American military organism – in spite of individual failures – retained its ability to engage in combat effectively. But that chain has been cut; at some point fairly recently, the mental and physical requirements of being an infantry officer were dispensed with in favor of other criteria. It is gone; or, at best, almost gone. It is highly likely that our average company commander these days hasn’t the foggiest notion of what being a warrior is, nor how to impart that capability to subordinates. They might know the books; that is, they might know the mechanics of having a company assault a fixed position…but that technical knowledge is worthless if the officer can’t, with a scratch force, improvise an attack and be certain that the soldiers will carry it out.

And it is not just the military. Every area of expertise has suffered a dumbing down. A lowering of requirements in order to make certain demographic boxes are checked off. Have you noticed it? When I went to a doctor with my bum knee the doctor pretty much had no idea what might be the problem even though I described clearly what had happened and offered my informed amateur opinion that it was likely soft tissue damage. Nope. She just went to her checklist – and I was sent to get an x ray even though it was obvious no bones were broken. And after that I get sent for physical therapy. Huge sigh. I mean, I’ll have to do it because that is the way it works these days but what isn’t happening here is an actual physician thinking about my problem and coming up with a likely solution (and there may be no solution; I might just have a bum knee). I’ve heard of people watching their doctors Google their stated symptoms to see what might come up.

We’re breaking the chain. That is, we’re severing ourselves from our collective knowledge because mastering that knowledge is a difficult task which not everyone is suited to perform. But the deal the modern Left offers is that you can be whatever you want. And once the chain is broken it can’t be restored. You have to forge an entirely new chain. That is what the Dark Ages were – it wasn’t that people got stupid; but the late Roman world simply stopped transmitting corporate knowledge to successor generations. Everyone got more concerned with the latest avant garde art, their position at court, the acquisition of money. This is why the Romans pretty much stopped building their famed aqueducts and bridges by the Third Century and when Constantine built his triumphal arch in Rome during the Fourth Century he had to steal parts from monuments built in the Second Century. The Romans had forgotten how to do things. Side note; they also forgot how to build and maintain an army and pretty much as soon as the barbarians worked up the courage they overthrew the form of Roman power which had long since vanished in actuality.

And then they had to start all over again. The barbarians admired the Roman world and were astonished at what they saw around them. But they didn’t know how to maintain it. Neither did the Romans. It all had to be learned again and it took a thousand years to do it. We’re heading right to that. We haven’t entirely lost the ability but those who really know how to do things are rapidly aging out. Before too long there will be no resource to turn to…and people won’t even look for the resource because they won’t know that they don’t know. It could get very bad very fast; and worse than last time because the population has not only lost their skills, but they’ve also been taught that lying and laziness are ok. At least the barbarians who took over Rome knew that you had to put some work in and at least try to tell the truth.

I do think we can arrest this development. I’ve mentioned how in the past – keeping in mind that to love means to will the best for the beloved, the primary way for us to love our neighbors right now is to start punishing – sometimes with exceptional violence – the lazy and the dishonest. They have to be forced to do the right thing. To work. To keep their word. To be brave. Of course they don’t want to. Right now in America you can be the definition of a lazy, cowardly liar and you’ll still get enough food to get fat…and still have your ample leisure time filled with the products of pop culture. But we can’t allow it to go on. It doesn’t work unless nearly everyone works. Nearly everyone is brave. Nearly everyone always tells the truth. The decent can survive deviancy, but a society of deviants will kill the decent.

Civilization Requires Force

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Some years back, I wrote about Bill Buckley and National Review’s successful efforts to purge the Birchers from the Conservative movement. The problem Buckley and others perceived what the JBS’ penchant for conspiracy theories – the kooky idea that there was a genuine global Communist conspiracy to undermine America and that this conspiracy had agents all through the US government and other institutions. The breaking point came when Welch – the founder of JBS – implied that Eisenhower might be some sort of Communist agent. That was, of course, ridiculous and Welch, himself, later distanced himself from it. But the crucial thing was that the Communists, at the time entirely subservient to Moscow and now just operating on their own, really were trying to undermine the USA any way they could. There really were Communist agents all through the government and other American institutions. And the primary failure of Conservatism was in not rooting these elements out – which, in my mind, was really Welch’s primary complaint about Ike. Part of the reason Truman didn’t seek re-election in 1952 was because the penetration of the US Government by Communists had been exposed and it was a horrible scandal especially as American troops were fighting Communist forces in Korea.

Ike could have cleared out the infiltrators. He didn’t; for normal GOPe reasons, he let them go…some to retire, others to be transferred to some other agency. For all the Progressive talk of a anti-Communist witch hunt in the 1950’s, the reality is that there wasn’t a witch hunt. Had there been one, we’d be a lot better off today. Had we gone on a truly forceful anti-Communist crusade in the USA, purging them from all positions and jailing those who were de-facto Soviet agents (very many of the leaders were), think of all the societal decay which wouldn’t have occurred…a huge amount of our social and economic disintegration over the past 50-60 years was caused by people who hate us being left in positions of power and influence.

So, why bring this up? Water over the dam, right? Can’t undo the past. Nope; we can’t. But we can work on the future. And over at National Review they are informing us that we Conservatives had better not like Nayib Bukele.

I know: your first question is, who the heck is that?

I, too, had never heard of him before NRO told me he’s bad. Turns out, he’s the President of El Salvador and he’s gotten a bit infamous of late for his massive crackdown on the horrifically violent gang MS-13. It had gotten really bad in El Salvador, guys; with some sources claiming the murder rate a few years back was 40 for every 100,000 people (most recent stat for us is 7 per 100,000…which, BTW, is a huge spike from just a few years ago). The gangs pretty much did whatever they wanted in El Salvador (as they do in so many Latin American countries) and, remember, these gangs aren’t like the US Mafia or even things like the Crips and the Bloods…for whatever reasons, Latin American gangs are simply inhuman brutes in their violence. Not just killing (via unbelievably savage means) rivals and witnesses (the normal run of gangland killings) but seeming to go out of their way to cruelly kill people who pose little or no threat, just to keep people terrified of the gangs, as such. Bukele did mass arrests and the murder rate in El Salvador has dropped precipitously.

Naturally, the Ruling Class is upset with this. You know the real reason why: a lot of them are owned by the criminals via bribery. But they are officially upset that, to put it mildly, Bukele didn’t ensure that the legal i’s were dotted and t’s crossed on the arrests…and it looks like arrested gangsters who were defiant…didn’t end so well.

Cry me a river.

Bukele is fighting for his country. He’s a bit of an odd duck having risen out of the Marxist FLMN and then dumping them for a more populist/nationalist ideology (which is another likely reason the Ruling Class hates him: can’t abandon the Commies!). He’s also clearly an opportunist (as a young, ambitious pol often is); there are claims he made some side deals with elements of MS-13 from time to time (which is logical to do; hold off one band while dealing with another of more immediate concern). But the thing is you can’t have a civilized nation if crime is running rampant. Your right to free speech and to vote is worthless if at any time you can be robbed or murdered by criminals acting with near-impunity (especially while your Ruling Class is safe and dry behind well-guarded walls and secret deals with the criminals). Before anything else, we must be secure in our lives and property. It isn’t just the bedrock of civilization, it is the bedrock of any functioning society no matter how primitive or advanced. Bukele is simply reacting to reality – unless his people are safe, they can’t build anything.

In a civilization we have carefully constructed rules, written and unwritten, about how things work. And when everything is functioning, these rules are sufficient. Most of the time, we simply obey the unwritten rules: going to work, paying our bills, keeping our houses tidy, being polite to others. In those rare instances where something slipped, we then refer to the written rules and, being civilized people, we go to court and let lawyers, judges and the law figure out the best possible result. But at the back of it all, the thing which made it and ultimately must sustain it, is force. Brutal force. A force which can kill everyone who won’t obey the written and unwritten rules. Bukele is just demonstrating this – and it is causing some alarm among those who are continuing to live well as the current system globally collapses into lawlessness.

It is coming here, folks. When you see those videos of people looting stores and beating others and such, that shows you the problem – a complete rejection of the unwritten rules and utter contempt for the written. And that contempt is well-earned as those in charge of enforcing the written rules have simply allowed crime to slide almost entirely for ideological reasons. But people can’t live like that. We can’t live forever in a society where people can rob and kill with impunity. The robbers and killers must be stopped by any means necessary.

We may already be past the point where the normal system are capable of handling this – that is, our system may be so weak and corrupted that even if it tried to address the issue, it can’t. If we are past the time of working with the rules, then we will find that the people will turn to an American version of Bukele. Someone who says they’ll get rid of the criminals and then just does so – and law be damned. Just get rid of them will be the cry and nobody is going to care what a Court which couldn’t stop the cime is going to say.

Bukele is further accused of using the emergency to gather power to himself which Constitutionally the President doesn’t have. And that is likely true, at least to some degree. He pretty much feels he has to: his people want to be saved from crime and he’s going to save them from it. This does bear the risk of the end of freedom in El Salvador – strongmen who save nations have historically been unwilling to surrender power after the rescue is complete. They come to see themselves as indispensable. They are fearful if they surrender power, their successors will come after them. Ego! We’ll see how El Salvador works this out – but however it comes out, Bukele is saving civilization. And if we let crime get out of hand here – and we are – then the American people will also turn to someone like Bukele…some who will just bust heads until the criminal element is gone. And then we’ll see if that person gives up the power.

It all stems from the fact that civilization is thin: it is a veneer over the human savage. In just a generation or two it can be lost – and if lost, that is when you’ll start seeing a disintegration among the people. I think we can already see that disintegration. We wait now to see if those committed to civilization will step up and save it…or if they’ll weakly allow the collapse to accelerate until the people forth a Caesar.

It Is the Moral Collapse, Stupid

Mark Noonan27 Comments

This one has some staying power. The most recent massacre, I mean. We might be talking about this all the way to, you know, like next Monday.

And I know that sounds dismissive of tragedy but it isn’t really: it is dismissive of the official response to tragedy. A little earlier today I saw that the Yankees and Rays will forgo their game broadcast and will, instead, broadcast several hours of DNC gun control propaganda. They didn’t call it that, but that doesn’t change what it is. As I read the Yankee’s statement is just became blazingly clear what they could actually do to bring an end to this:

Fire the next top flight player who gets a girl pregnant and doesn’t marry her.

Because that is what this all is: what is wrong with our society is entirely the result of society deciding not to enforce standards. Sure, one ball player not doing the right thing didn’t cause this all to happen, but thousands of professional sports stars over decades acting like pigs in the off season played a huge role. They taught the young men of America – and especially poor, young men – that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you can deliver the goods. That only your ability to make money matters…everything else will be covered up, paid off and forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Years ago I wrote about Mick Jagger and his life and I pointed out that his persona, especially as young, was an act. He was a middle class kid. Nice, respectable life. His mother was a Tory. He did very well in school and had he not become a rock star, probably would have had a long and successful career in some square employment. But the persona, crafted to sell records, was of a wild, party man. A street tough telling it like it is via his music. Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll! But it was, indeed, all an act. A very successful act: Jagger is worth about $500 million. And I considered Mick Jagger, and many like him, and wondered how many people took it at face value and decided to live that life – live the act, that is. But by actually doing it and not having an army of people to keep things squared away and hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up all mistakes?

Given the popularity and endurance of the Rolling Stones, it was probably several million people around the world who wanted to be like Mick. Or like any one of scores of other famous rock acts…which were (and are) acts. Make believe. Those few in the business who really lived that life – Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon, etc – ended up dead at very young ages. Because living that life is suicidal. Neil Young sang about it being better to burn out than fade away – but he sang that in 1979 and he’s 76 now and very much fading away rather than burning out.

Let me quickly think of the people I know – friends and family – who are six feet under because they went along with all that: George, Todd, Rob, Pat, Jeff, Alex…that’s just top of the head. How many people can think of that many in a few seconds? Then we can add those who are simply a mess: a good dozen that I can easily think of. And then there’s their kids! Also a mess – though some of them have managed to rise above.

Certainly the sudden massacre of 19 kids in school is a shock – but in the grand scheme of things, in this War Against Decency we’ve been waging for 70 years, it hardly counts as a skirmish. More than 100,000 people died of drug overdose in the United States last year. That about 5,200 school shootings. And they passed almost unnoticed. Not dramatic enough. Can’t make a good DNC political point about it. And, heck, I actually saw pictures of NYC billboards which are telling drug addicts not to feel shame, but just use the drugs properly. But dead is dead – whether from a bullet or drugs. Or any other of the social ills which are causing people to die (I think I read that 28 people were murdered in Chicago last weekend…and not too long ago an adorable little girl was gunned down in a McDonald’s drive through…but, hey, she was black and so was the shooter and it was over gangland crap so nobody gonna do a major news story about that).

We can change and we will change. This cannot endure. Bad as it is – and looks to get worse – the strength to cure this will be summoned. The longer we wait, the more brutal the reaction. But it has to be. Civilization is necessary in order for 90% of us to live. When our backs are really against the wall, you’ll be surprised what people are capable of. But until then, I’m going to keep pointing out what is wrong and who contributed to it.

So that when retribution comes, the right targets will feel the heat.

The Edifice Commences to Crack

Mark Noonan47 Comments

Trends continue until they don’t. It is just the way things always have been. When you look at the broad sweep of human history and the story of cultures and civilizations it is actually easy to lose sight of the fact that, at some point, things stopped working. It all fell apart.

Think about a 20 year old Roman in 390 AD. Theodosius is on the throne. The Empire is unified. Sure, there are problems, but things seem ok. The administration rolls along. Taxes are collected. Laws enforced. Sure, there is a worrying drop in population and it is getting harder and harder to find recruits for the Army. And, yeah, there doesn’t seem to be enough money to fully maintain the roads and aqueducts, but things are patched up and held together. Life is fine.

Be the time that Roman turns 40, Alaric is sacking Rome. That quick. It was like a lightening flash to contemporary observers. It was unimaginable that the Eternal City, inviolate for 800 years, could fall to an enemy. But, fall it did…as a helpless Roman government looked on, and didn’t really care that Rome fell.

What we’re now experiencing is that sort of thing. It appears that all is fairly ok and none of us envision any sort of collapse…but the roads aren’t very well maintained and urban sanitation is in decline and we’re even having some trouble getting water to everyone and keeping all the lights on. It is not quite yet bad. It is all holding together. But the edifice sways and cracks and the keen ear can hear the foundations crumble.

Why is it like this? Well, to get into our current context: we have a massive transportation crisis. For a variety of reasons – mostly government actions in the United States and around the world – goods are not getting to market. We have, in our government, a Department of Transportation which is specifically charged with this issue: making sure transport runs smoothly. It is run by the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana who, as far as I can tell, has never been responsible for transporting anything. The kicker: he’s been on paternity leave for the past two months as this completely foreseen crisis emerged. What we have is a very complex system of living which requires continual attention from people well versed in how it all works. We don’t have that. And we likely, for the most part, don’t even know we don’t have it. We just assume that someone in there knows what to do. Just as, I’m sure, the average Gaius on the street in Rome assumed that someone would make sure an Army was available to stop Alaric.

NASA people were in their 20’s and 30’s when we went to the Moon. Now NASA people are in their 60’s. How many young structural engineers are there? How many 17 year olds being taught how to weld in an apprenticeship? How sure are you that if there was an explosion at your local power plant – caused by negligence at the plant as the people there weren’t well versed enough to see the problem coming – that there are sufficient people with knowledge on how to rebuild it? And what happens is such a disaster strikes two cities at once? What happens if the people who do know decide that they’ll look after their own and to hell with strangers?

We’re in a very bad way and worse – because not only do we lack sufficient people who know, we’re also deliberately creating things which weaken the resiliency of the system. Building windmills instead of nuke plants. Building high speed rail when what’s needed is a newer and better interstate. Telling people to stop watering their lawns when we need dams and aqueducts. And all systems can stand the strain right up until they can’t. The bridge rated for ten ton traffic is fine until that 10.01 ton vehicle arrives.

Can we stem the tide? We won’t know unless we do. We certainly can’t stem it with the current leadership. But will new leadership – even extremely Trumpist leadership – make a difference? I don’t know. I had a small back and forth on Twitter where a guy – and he’s a really good guy – was arguing that the squares should just chill while the out there do their thing. It immediately struck me as false and I pointed out that, no, you can’t do that. If you are one of the Bohemians, then your moral duty is to curb yourself so that the normal – who do the actual work of life – can get on with their business. That, in fact, a society is morally justified in banning and punishing odd behavior. Taking it further, I realized that allowing slums and bums to be as they are is a crime against humanity – because it is a crime against those who do. The man or woman who makes, mines or grows things needs order, cleanliness and public decency. They can’t function where bums are allowed to defecate on the streets while purple-haired weirdos smash windows for “justice”. Anything – even the slightest thing – which causes distress for those who make, mine and grow must be prohibited and maximum force must be applied to anyone who still wants to cause the doers a problem.

And, in the end, that is what will be applied to those who won’t do their duty: maximum force. It all turns on when it will happen – before or after our societal collapse. That is, and to put it crudely, will we bust heads as we insist everyone cuts their hair, pulls up their pants and get a job before or after things fall apart? It would be better if it was before – repairing what we have is a lot easier than rebuilding what used to be (last time we had to rebuild is was about a 500 year process). All this drivel about being genderfluid, an “influencer”, an aspiring transblack poet or what have you will be tossed aside. Society is for men and women and it functions because men and women do their duty…and everyone who won’t conform to the norm will find that nonconforming is no longer an option.

We’ll find out soon which way we go.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

Over the years, I’ve written a bit about how I hold one of the most decisive moments for civilization was the French quitting in Algeria. I’m just reading a book about it – A Savage War of Peace, highly recommended – and I’m just past the part where DeGaulle is returned to power (very much due to the political stresses caused in France by the war in Algeria) and he’s reforming France and sent out a first-rate military commander to Algeria who pretty much whacked the Algerian rebels from pillar to post. That is now the end of 1959. The bottom line is that France had won the war – the Algerian rebels were still here and there in the interior, but only in small, hunted groups and even many Algerians were tired of it all. And then, over the next two years, DeGaulle just gave it all away to the rebels. This has been held as wisdom: France had to get out of Algeria and DeGaulle cleverly played up to those who didn’t want out until he was strong enough to dispense with them and make a deal with the rebels. This, to the Ruling Class in the West, was the only way to go. But, was it?

First off, it involved the betrayal of more than a million French citizens in Algeria; about 10% of the total Algerian population. It also involved the betrayal of at least 100,000 Harkis – these were Muslim Algerians who fought for France. Their numbers may have been even higher. This was more active fighters than the rebel ALN army had. By a lot. And you figure that for the 100k fighters, gotta be at least some family/friends who were supportive, so that might work out to another million people there who clearly preferred to remain part of France. They were completely screwed over by the French government. The French citizens were evacuated (though some were killed on the way out) while the Harkis, considered traitors by Algeria’s new masters, were killed, imprisoned or otherwise made to suffer for many years after the war.

Now, why bring this up? Because what France did was cross a bright, red line. At the end of the day, they passed power over to a group of people who, in the course of the war, routinely targeted unarmed non-combatants for death…and not just death, but often quite horrible and cruel death. In the end, Algeria did have to be independent: their current population is 44 million against France’s 67 million and it is just about impossible for that to be a colonial relationship. But recognizing the inevitable doesn’t get one off the hook for basic morality. It was a crime – a French crime – to turn the people of Algeria over to a pack of brutes, which is all the ALN ever was. The correct course of action was to simply state that this would never happen – that the future of Algeria was going to be decided by decent people, not by those who set bombs in stores or tortured people to death. The Ruling Class holds that you simply make the deal with whomever is fighting you – end the war by any means necessary. Decency requires that you only give into brutes if they are so strong there’s no way to stop them. France had won. All they had to do was keep up the pressure until the rebels quit and then – only then – would it have been time for France to work with those Algerians who weren’t brutes about what came after French rule.

And so it has gone over and over again since the end of World War Two: repeated fights between civilization and barbarism where civilization – massively restricting its use of power – still comes out first against the barbarians and then civilization just hands things over to the defeated savages. No wonder they keep at it. If you wonder why, say, the Palestinian leadership keeps it up it is because of this: they know, from nearly a century’s experience, that if you just keep being savages and merely manage to survive the retaliation, you’ll eventually be handed all you wanted. This has to change if we are to save civilization. The barbarians have to be taught that the wages of savagery is death and nothing else but death.

Fauci helped create the Coronavirus and then, from his perch, pretty much ensured our response to it would be counter productive. He’s either stupid or a traitor: I go with stupid. I recall that he’s only famous because he stood athwart Reagan during the AIDS epidemic.

Yesterday was Tank Man day: the anniversary of when that guy stood in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square. What was entirely unsurprising was China’s efforts to censor references to it. The tech giants got caught and had to quickly re-adjust their algorithms, but for a while there a search of “Tank Man” brought nothing related to China up. Meanwhile, Facebook banned Trump for two years while China’s accounts were up and running, spewing out lies all the time. Our large corporations are owned by China: they have to go. If it takes confiscation, they have to go.

In the deep blue cities, the long term result of Floyd’s death has been a massive spike in crime, and a lot more black deaths. But, hey, at least they weren’t killed by cops.