Fauxahontas: High Priestess

Here is the text of a recent by Elizabeth Warren:

I'm going to say something really crazy: I believe in science. Climate change is real and we have a moral obligation to protect this Earth for our children and grandchildren.

Now you have to ask yourself, what information is being conveyed by this message? It couldn't be called an argument about climate science. Nothing empirical is provided. Some might call it climate advocacy, but it's not really that either. No one is going to be swayed by these two sentences. It's really just a profession of belief. It says it right there. I believe in science. Most on the alt right would call this virtue signaling, but it could more accurately termed as belief signaling. The major qualitative difference between Warren's tweet and, say, the Nicene Creed, is that the Council of Nicea wasn't limited to a 140 characters. She is reminding everyone that she is a high priestess of The Cult.

Let's look at the tweet bit by bit.

I'm going to say something really crazy.

We know, Liz. No need for the disclaimer.

I believe in science. Climate change is real.

The Taoists taught that, to truly understand anything, you must also understand its opposite. You can't understand warmth without knowing cold. You can't understand light without experiencing dark. A good analytical tool of these kinds of statements is to consider what the opposite statement would be. I don't believe in science? Who has ever said something like that? It'd be like saying, "I don't believe in wrenches." Science is a tool. It doesn't make sense to state a belief in something that no one doubts the existence of. Climate change is real. As opposed to...climate change is fake? No one doubts climate change happens. Her statements don't have any literal meaning. They don't profess a logical adherence to empirical evidence. They profess an adherence to their version of anthropomorphic climate change (and more importantly leveraging that for desired social change) in spite of the flaws in the evidence. It is all just a profession of faith. No real information is conveyed.

We have a moral obligation to protect this Earth for our children and grandchildren.

As opposed to what? We have a moral obligation to destroy the planet? Another non-statement. Just "think of the children!" emotional pandering. Of course she doesn't really care about children, or she wouldn't advocate the dismantling of a carbon-based economy that has alleviated the previous condition where most children died before the age of 5. Also note the capitalization of Earth, like Christians might capitalize Him when referring to God. The Cult is something like a form of paganism, but instead of powerful gods and goddesses, they worship deified victims. Mother Earth isn't a powerful spiritual force, but just another victim of evil western civilization who must be protected by enlightened liberals.

These are the kinds of people who are highly concerned about a separation of church and state, yet have no problem taking to Twitter to make grandiose professions of faith. The Soviets famously outlawed religion, but really we know they just banned the competition. Only worship of the state was permitted. Similarly, people like Fauxahontas aren't really serious about separation of religion and state. They just want to marginalize any belief system that competes with The Cult. Elizabeth Warren is a US Senator, and she has every desire to translate her irrational belief system into law. The Christians aren't doing so. There won't be a law defending the sanctity of the sabbath. The biggest threat to separation of church and state comes from the left.

Megacowards

The Washington Post decided to run an article where they laid out a case against the historical existence of Jesus. On Christmas morning. It is quite a statement, I suppose. A sharp thumb into the eyes of Christians around the world. Or it attempts to be. But I wonder, do any Christians really care? Yes I'm sure there is annoyance at such deliberate provocation from what is supposedly a respectable news outlet. I'm annoyed and I don't even go to church. But does anyone really care about their analysis? Do Christians, at least the more thoughtful ones, really care if there is a case against the literal existence of Jesus? Maybe he is, after all, a fictional character, an archetypal depiction of the ideal spiritual being, leading his followers toward peace and inner salvation. Who cares? If the Washington Post could absolutely prove, beyond a doubt, that Christ never actually walked the Earth (or on water for that matter), do you think it would stop even a single Christian from practicing their faith? Certainly it wouldn't be enough to matter. Christianity is much deeper than a story about a guy.

Here's what gets me about people who make these kinds of arguments, and I probably used to be one of them. Some of the most annoying conversations I've ever had are with people trying to logically or empirically disprove the literal word of the Bible. The arguments go something like this: the Bible can't literally be true because [reasons], therefore those who believe in the Bible are unsophisticated rubes. They assume that the least sophisticated interpretation of the Bible is the literal and verbatim interpretation. Fair enough. But then they denounce the Bible using that same interpretation! They are making the least sophisticated critique of the Bible possible, then they strut around putting on airs like they're enlightened intellectuals. They call themselves progressive, and the rest are backwards. These people are worse than useless, not because they're ignorant, but because they don't realize they are professing the exact same ignorance they pretend to be against.

So there's that, but who cares? Of course the Dunning-Krueger effect exists; that is nothing new. Even more profound is the deliberate display of hatred towards western traditions. You don't get much more western traditiony than Christmas. But that's nothing new either. The modern left and their media mouthpieces are hotbeds of anti-Western hatred. We know that. Everyone reading blogs like this is doing so for a reason. You literally trust strangers on the internet to give you social analysis more than you do the lying media. What is most extraordinary to me is the sheer level of cowardice that such a piece reflects, given the context. Trashing Christians, there's a dangerous route. Has anyone in the western media ever been killed for saying bad things about Christians? What about for saying bad things about Islam? This doesn't need to be explained. It's the reason they'll drive past 6 Muslim bakeries to "shop" at the Christian baker. Here's a prediction: you will never ever ever ever (ever times infinity) read an article out of a major mainstream outlet that makes the case against the existence of the prophet Mohammad on the first day of Ramadan. They would never dare, out of ideology sure, but more out of fear. If it ever happens, I will renounce this blog and shut it down forever, because I will have been proven as wrong as possible. But it won't happen. What's most striking is that, just like how these Christophobics think they're very sophisticated, they actually believe they are very brave! I guarantee you that all associated with the article are proud of how they bravely stood up to oppressive Christianity on its most holy day. They think they're brave. But they'd never do the same against Islam. Because they don't want to end up on the wrong side of a Charlie Hedbo-type of massacre.

I call this post Megacowards because I don't know of a proper term to describe these people. They're a mix of cowardice and treason. But it's bigger than normal individual cowardice. That is micro-cowardice. What's going on here is more like macro-cowardice; a civilizational fear to confront the obvious enemies. Treason isn't quite the right word either, if only because it conveys an element of strength. I think treason gives them a bit too much credit. And it doesn't convey that they are ironically cowardly. (Damn hipsters!) Megacowardice will have to suffice for now.

There is one fault in Christianity exposed by all this. It has made us too nice. It's the New Testament that has done it. It taught us to see the good in everyone. Not a bad lesson, particularly because the Bible is meant as a lesson in spiritual salvation, not a treatise on political theory. It is beneficial for us spiritually and emotionally to see others as sharing the spark of divinity, rather than as "others" who must be always treated as a threat. But there must be some balance. Yes, being afraid of everyone is exhausting and is no way to live a meaningful life. However, we must also strike against evil wherever it exists. That was more the theme of the Old Testament. (Growing up with my Children's Bible, I was only ever interested in reading the Old Testament stories.) The Christian world has taken the New Testament into domains for which it was never intended, and discarded the Old Testament entirely.

The concept of evil in the world, the works of Satan, have drifted from their original meaning. The common notion is of intentional malice, the deliberate infliction of harm and pain. That is certainly the ethos of the left! Their constant cries of oppression and injustice are just a modern version of those who used to see the works of Satan everywhere they looked. But Satan wasn't really a major player in the Bible, and the forces of evil weren't deliberate malice, but the winds of chaos. God is order, Satan is chaos, and Jesus is man's struggle between those forces. If there is one thing that could rope me back into being a church man, it would be the resurgence of that old idea. Entropy is evil, disorder is the devil. And in fact, not to get too grandiose, but that is the one missing piece of the puzzle that could restore the west. If we had the religious conviction that equates disorder to the devil, we would have no choice but to take the proper actions. This Washington Post article isn't just annoyingly unsophisticated. It's evil! It really is, in the sense that it is the seductive song of disorder. It is the serpent in the garden. Western society is the most ordered civilization to ever exist, with all flaws considered. We've tamed nature, solved countless mysteries of the universe, scattered the fruits of our victories over entropy throughout the world. And these people want to destroy it and everything it stands for. They side with Muslim foreigners over us, an ideology that knows only conquest and submission, and has hardly a thing in its long history to be proud of.

The problem with Christians these days is they are weak. They don't know what evil really is. Only a cartoonish version similar to what the left believes in. And they never name the devil when they see it. The word “devil” means “false accuser” or “slanderer". Need I say more? If Christians today can't call the devil for what it is, then what is the the point of their faith at all? They are not being even slightly pious and soon will be destroyed by the biggest cowards to ever walk the Earth. None of this is very righteous. I think we're about due for a prophet.

Winning the Noise-to-Noise Ratio

It looks like I inadvertently took a weeklong break. I took my computer with me on our Christmas vacation to a little cabin in the Colorado Rockies, but couldn't quite gin up the motivation to delve into political and social commentary when there was hiking and hot tubs in the fresh snow. Idle time went to drinking and playing guitar. I'm sure you can understand. I hope your Christmas was as enjoyable as mine was.

Before the break a few people had reached out to me asking what I thought about the proposed tax cuts. I was surprised that anyone would ask me about that subject, let alone multiple people. It seems pretty straight-forward. Of course I support the tax cuts! It is the second-most important plank in the platform, after immigration reform. Nearly everything the Washington Leviathan does works against our interests. The city is infested with liberals and neocons. They take our money and use it to fund programs that destroy us. That Congress is actually passing substantial tax cuts is almost too good to be true. It's a Christmas miracle.

The only aspect that peeves me is that they are temporary. Why would that be so? If anything, increasing taxes should be temporary. We're going to take some more of your money, but only for a while. Such temporary taxes have occurred frequently throughout history, usually to fund wars. But a temporary tax cut reveals the mindset that our incomes naturally belong to the government, and they are gracious enough to grant us a short-term reprieve. I'm not sure if anyone truly believes that the Trump era, as great as it is, is really going to "save America". We all know the liberals are going to revert his actions and raise taxes the first chance they get. So why make it any easier for them than it needs to be?

Although supporting tax cuts sounds straightforward, it's understandable that people would be skeptical about anything they hear. In fact, people who are naturally suspicious of the tax cuts are probably the people paying attention, as we've learned so often that government actions tend to be the opposite of whatever they were advertised as. It's perfectly consistent to assume that tax cut is just Washington-speak for tax increase. Welcome to the Orwellian present. And, in fact, that is what has happened, but in reverse. The major propaganda was that the tax cuts were going to ravage the middle class. It is, as expected, the opposite of the truth. The new tax plan will significantly alleviate the burden of the middle class, increase taxes at the very top, and leave the bottom pretty well unaffected. (I'm sure you can figure out why a tax cut plan would not greatly effect the lower income brackets.) I even saw a headline on MSNBC predicting that increasing deductibles would cause less charitable donations. They are willing to propose that taking less of people's incomes will cause them to give less to charity. Nothing is too absurd for the mainstream press.

But the people asking me about tax cuts know the media is bunk. They are accustomed to assuming a very low signal-to-noise ratio from these institutions. The noise is nothing new. I think the difference here is that nearly all the noise is coming from the left on this issue. There isn't a great blitz in conservative media arguing for tax cuts, no viral meme campaigns, not even much going around on social media. There's just not much to say on the subject. That tax cuts are desirable is almost self-evident. The left has all kinds of propaganda fodder because they just make shit up and fuel their opposition through fiction-induced rage. They don't have any facts in their favor, but they sure do have emotions. Nancy Pelosi actually called it an apocalypse. The government taking less of peoples' incomes is literally the end of the world! Have you ever heard anything more hyperbolic?

This seems to be a very good example of emotions vs. dry logic in the realm of public persuasion. It's not that the right doesn't engage in emotion-driven persuasion, but they haven't done much on this issue. The alarming outcome is that the left seems to be winning the propaganda battle. One survey found that when asked if they supported the Republican tax plans, 2/3 of Americans reported they did not. Yet when they were asked about the individual components of the plans, there was overwhelming support for almost all of them. If that isn't empirical proof of propaganda, I don't know what is. Public opinions on a subject depend greatly on whether they are forced to think of that subject in terms of public branding or if they are forced to analyze the subject themselves.

We may be winning the signal-to-noise ratio, but are losing the noise-to-noise ratio. The first is important. We try to ensure our messaging contains a high degree of truth. For unpaid hobby blogs like this one that is especially apparent, as the whole point it to try to dig towards the truth and share with anyone willing to follow along. But from a partisan propaganda perspective there is utility in having a high truth signal. For one, people will trust us. It is certainly more persuasive to be trusted than untrusted. I so distrust the left that I assume the opposite position from their's by default on any issue I'm uninformed on. It's a pretty reliable heuristic. For people like me, their propaganda efforts yield a negative return. A second benefit of a high signal-to-noise ratio is that there is a significant market for that. Many people will eventually be driven away by the low signal-to-noise ratio of the left after growing weary of the constant distress of cognitive dissonance. At some point the truth begins to feel like a breath of fresh air. This is a nice effect too, because it means we draw on the most capable from the left, and the dullards stay glued to the corporate boob tube.

Signal-to-noise ratio may be beneficial in the long run, but in terms of individual political battles it doesn't amount to much. The noise-to-noise ratio is far more important. We learned that during the election. The internet's guerrilla campaign to elect Trump was wildly successful because of meme warfare, not because of cold political commentary. Normal people, the swing voters that are needed to sway elections, realize the signal-to-noise ratio in media is weak, and they tend to distrust both sides. However, when they only hear noise from one side, they tend to be influenced by that side, even if the truth signal is practically zero or, as is so often the case, less than zero. It's unfortunate, but it seems that, in our current environment, influence is given to the most noisy, not the most truthful. Perhaps that is Democracy in a nutshell, but here we are nevertheless.

If there is one thing we must be doing it is increasing our noise output at any cost. The major approach to this is not to become some ideological cult. As formulated before on this blog, cults demand purity. Thus they drive away those who would be natural allies. Allies are essential in noise warfare. The noisier the ally, the more valuable. A simple rule of thumb is this: if a public figure tends to pull society in our preferred direction, they are an ally. It may be the case that one day they will push society the wrong way, but we deal with that day when it arises. The normal example I go to is Milo. He's a gay libertarian, certainly more liberal than many on the far right are comfortable with. Still, he sits on our side of the divide, and he's very noisy. He's a valuable ally. Perhaps one day society will shift so far to the right that Milo ends up on the other side. That's not a bad problem to have, and either he will adapt to the new environment or he will lose support from the right. It's not really a big deal. What is a big deal is that we keep in mind that we are engaged in noise warfare, and we desperately need noisy allies to win the persuasion battles.

The Uncouth Coup

Bombard's Body Language did an analysis on Rosenstein's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

Her takeaway is that Rosenstein's body language was loudly broadcasting the answers he didn't dare verbalize. Yes, the investigation has expanded its scope beyond mere Russian election interference. Yes, the family finances are being generally targeted in a desperate play to find evidence of any possible legal infractions, including process crimes. Yes, it's a political witchhunt, a coup against the sitting president by the deep state contingent at the Department of Justice.

But there's another aspect to consider, which is just how inept Rosenstein seems to be at his job. He's simply not able to properly execute his role, which includes going before Congress and telling convincing lies that are slippery enough to evade perjury charges. While on the one hand the testimony is alarming because it confirms that the inquiry is itching to oust Trump, on the other hand Rosenstein's performance gives some reassurance that the deep state operatives aren't capable of carrying out their intended mutiny.

His performance reminds me a bit of Robby Mook, Hillary's campaign manager whose interviews always revealed him as someone far out of his league. Why do the lefty's seem to promote noobs to powerful positions?

The phenomenon is just a natural consequence of the left-wing ideology. Spandrell laid it out pretty well in his most recent post. Left-wing governments operate by granting status to people who would never attain such status by their own merits. Thus the lefty base is highly loyal and motivated, because they know it is the best deal they're going to get. But here we see the downside of the strategy, which is that their high-ranking officers are under-qualified for their posts. This is a serious coup attempt, and they're playing hardball. But their roster is weak. Boil away all the politics and propaganda and what we have is a battle of strategic acumen. And the real question to be answered is whether Trump is up to the challenge. Certainly we can now appreciate his sharp instincts when he publicized Rosenstein's recommendation letter when he fired Comey. (Rosenstein was likely attempting to set the stage for obstruction of justice allegations). If Trump wins, he finally owns the government, and can implement his ambitious agenda. If not, he will be largely marginalized, at best. 2018 will be another interesting year.

Process Crimes are Punishable

The latest rumor from the left is the Trump plans to have Robert Mueller fired as special counsel, possibly around Christmas. The White House responded that they have no intention to do so. And of course they won't. The Mueller investigation has been the Golden Goose that keeps on giving. Trump's best interests are that the disastrous inquiry continue for some time. Every few weeks something new falls into his favor. Proof that his team's communications were unmasked. Evidence of extreme partisanship by lead investigators of both Trump and Clinton. The only success they've had, after many months of this, is in charging Flynn, a prior Obama-appointee caught in a bizarre perjury trap regarding legal activities. They were so desperate they nabbed him for a tangential process crime.

This is a wonderful precedent, if you're Trump, because the whole investigation is starting to look like one big process crime. Not only do we have texts showing that the intentions of the investigators are legally seditious, Trump's lawyers are now claiming that Mueller's team illegally gained access to 15,000 of Trump's emails. Sounds like a process crime to me. Someone better get charged. Not now, of course. The Mueller fishing trip must be allowed to come up embarrassingly empty-handed. Any attempt by Trump to shut down the fiasco will just give credence to his enemies' claims of obstruction of justice. Let the process run its course, and then the DOJ can pick up where Mueller left off: hanging political opponents up on process crimes.

Religious Warfare on the Gridiron

What's going on in football these days amounts to religious warfare. Clearly the kneelers and hand holders and other protestors are doing so for one and only one reason: to signal allegiance to The Cult. The actions are intended partly to advance liberal ideology, but mostly as plays for status. The Cult denounces heretic and non-believers, but gives great regard to virtue signaling. Players are kneeling for the same reason that people have always made grandiose public spectacles of piety.

However, they aren't the only religion jockeying for position on the playing field, because the anthem itself is already religious signaling. It represents what many people might call Americanism, but I would call something more like Pan-Americanism. It is its own belief system. When spectators stand before the match with hand over heart reciting the national prayer with fighter jets flying overhead, they are signaling allegiance to the American empire, to Enlightenment virtues, and to the belief that all the people contained within the borders of the USA constitute a single unified nation.

The two major national religions are competing for control of the public spaces. We might be tempted to say that the liberals are politicizing football, but the truth is it was already politicized when it was decided that reciting national prayers was the best way to start the games. Anything that is politicized invites lefty intrusion. Look at Christianity, which became politicized, from what I hear, in the 1980s. Every church in my neighborhood is painfully liberal, to the point of pandering to gay marriage on their websites. The best defense to keeping something you like from being overrun by liberal fanatics is not to let it become politicized in the first place. There is no reason at all for football to be just another venue for political theater. There are rumors that Vince McMahon is considering resurrecting the XFL in light of the new market potential for uncucked football. The smart move would be to make it strictly non-political. But you can bet that they will be unable to help themselves from making it a big patriot bonanza to rub it into the noses of the anti-American National Felons League. The XFL won't be a reprieve from the religious wars, just an alternate arena where a more preferable religious sect holds dominance.

Is it Worse to be Ruled by Yankees or by Stalin?

In The Fourth Stage of American History, the ZMan describes American nation in four major epochs. First was the colonial stage. The successful war of independence ushered in the constitutional stage, where there was some balance of power between north and south, with presidents tending to arise from the near south. The Civil War gave political dominance to Yankeedom (and to some extent the Midlands), which is where we find ourselves today.

There were 15 presidents before Lincoln. Six of them were from Yankeedom or the Midlands. The rest were from the Tidewater or the South. Virginia used to be called the Cradle of Presidents because seven pre-Civil War presidents were from there. Only one post-Civil War president, Woodrow Wilson, has been from Virginia. Of the 30 since the war, 25 have been from Yankeedom or from the Midlands. There have been 19 from parts of the country that fall into the dark blue portion of that linked map.

Since the Civil War, America has been dominated by one region of the country. It stands to reason that politics would be rooted in this region as well. Because Progressives, in various manifestations, are dominant in the North, they have been the driving force in America politics and culture as a whole. Naturally, any reaction to this would be culturally rooted in the North as well. Put another way, politics in America has been a lover’s quarrel between the two halves of Yankeedom since the Civil War.

That Yankeedom should rise to dominance is perfectly understandable given the way we think about things around here. Democracy's Demographic Demonry gave a look at how different regions of the country were settled. In Hawaii, the natives were displaced by imported laborers from Asia, which, when coupled with the imposition of head-count style democracy, led the Hawaiians to constitute a powerless minority in their own homelands. A similar thing happened in the south. The natives were evicted, but then African slaves were imported. The rest of the country behaved similarly. In the southwest Hispanic labor is used in agriculture. The west engaged in the importation of Asian labor. In all these places, profit-seeking was the foremost concern, with little thought to long-term consequences.

Only in Yankeedom and the Midlands were things done the right way. Or in one of the right ways, anyway. It seems there are about three ways a nation can rightfully behave towards another with acceptable long-term results. The first is to respect their sovereignty. That is the peaceful option. The second is to evict them from some (or all) of their lands. That is the conquest option. The third is to dominate the nation by force or other coercion. That is the colonial option.

The second two options might not seem very "rightful" as they involve force and cruelty, but we're looking from the perspective of the long-term health of nations. Colonialism can actually preserve the subservient nation, and can help strengthen them. Many nations on earth today were drug into the modern era from a primitive state by western powers. Conquest is a dirty business as well. Nations may be evicted from their homelands, or eliminated entirely. But that is the natural order and we owe our existence to millennia of conquests, where more capable peoples ousted the inferior. It has been the primary driver of our evolution of higher intelligence.

Only in Yankeedom and the Midlands were things done rightly, through conquest. The invaders took the lands and used them for their own nation-building, and created something of far greater value than the natives had ever built. Nowhere else was one of the rightful approaches taken. Nowhere was the sovereignty of the existing nations respected. Nowhere in present-day USA were natives colonized and controlled, but otherwise allowed to persist. The Hawaiians would be been far better off had they been merely exploited, rather than demographically reduced.

So it stands to reason that Yankeedom would come to dominate. That's where the real nation-building was happening, and civilizations are build on the back of nations. So far this is all perfectly understandable. What is more confounding is why Yankeedom, in itself the most powerful and influential civilization that ever existed, would then become the host for liberalism, which now dominates politics in the US and even globally. It's troubling that they could, in just several generations, do everything right to create the world's foremost civilization, and then in just a few generations become intent on doing everything wrong to destroy itself.

What's troubling is that there seems to be something baked into the very core of humanity that doesn't allow us to do the right thing for very long. Success makes us soft and naive. You almost wonder if it would be better, in the long run, to be an exploited nation, rather than the exploiter. Ask yourself, if your goal was the long-term success of your nation, would it be better to be a dominant nation like America, or to be dominated by America? What about dominated by Nazi Germany? What about dominated by Stalinist Russia?

Clearly you don't want to be America, where the strongest political movement is all about national suicide as fast as possible. Being dominated by America isn't much better. Because then you're Western Europe and see national suicide as some sort of race. But, you might also be Japan, who have done very well keeping things together, so long as they can correct their serious fertility dilemma. So based on evidence, you're overall better being dominated by America than being America, because at least you have some chance. Being dominated by Nazi Germany would be very bad, because they were all about conquest and you were at risk of extermination. But what about domination by the Soviet Union? They were about political domination of their satellites. It was a form of colonialism. It was all very Russo-centric, but the dominated nations remained intact. Not only that, but we notice something peculiar. The nations formerly dominated by the USSR are the same ones acting with any sense of self-preservation today. In one of the greatest ironies of the world ever, communism turns out to have been an inoculation against liberalism. Although, give it time. They will probably rise to prosperity in the coming decades, only to fall prey to the same forces of decay.

Conquest is great for the conqueror but cataclysmic for the vanquished. A weak nation is replaced by a strong one. The world mourns and moves on. Colonialism & exploitation can be fine for national preservation, even great, so long as the stronger power isn't willing or able to destroy the vassal demographically or culturally. Being the dominant power helps protect against being invaded or exploited, but nevertheless leaves the host nation vulnerable to ultimate destruction. Why times are good, the people get soft. And no one is willing to do the legwork to maintain society when they are physically and materially secure. All social policy becomes viewed from the lens of economic utility. It's the great paradox of civilization. Too little and everyone is poor and destitute. Too much and the whole thing collapses. Under Yankees, everything is headed for collapse, and they seem hell-bent on destroying every western nation on their way out.

Muslim Kill Liberals pt 7

A terrorist attack in New York was partially thwarted by Darwin when the device donated early. Many took to Twitter to condemn the attack because...he picked the wrong target! He should have gone after Trump Tower. This is a natural reaction from r-selected lefties, who import Musilms as foot soldiers to fight against western civilization. They expect the Muslims will attack their common enemy and yet, as we've seen in numerous posts here, Muslims tend to kill liberals. Even if liberals manage to destroy oppressive western civilization, they are sure to destroy themselves in the process.

It's also worth noting that many are trying to blame the attack on Trump's decision to move the Israeli embassy, as requested by Congress. They want American foreign policy to be dictated by violent outside threats. Which only shows that at some point violence will be our only option. The left is not swayed by reason, logic, or evidence. Only violence. They are cowards who naturally prostate before those most likely to cause them harm. It's not that violence is preferable, it's just the only option. Look at the migration dynamics. Nonviolent places like Scandinavia are being invaded. Muslims are doing most of the invading, but many also flow from Latin America, the most violent place on earth. It's peculiar that the left, who fashion themselves as sophisticated, have created a world where violence is the answer.

Antiprofitability and Economic Independence

Charles Hugh Smith took on the premise for universal basic income (UBI) today in his post Marx, Robotics, and the Collapse of Profits. The premise for UBI is that, as more industries become automated, wealth will consolidate into the hands of fewer and fewer people. In the inevitable future a few capitalists will own the robots that create all the goods. However, the people will mostly be unemployed. The only way to provide for the welfare of the masses, and the only way to supply buyers for the robot-manufactured products and keep the economy running, will be to redistribute wealth from the barons to the people. Many support a scheme where the government provides a UBI for all citizens (and all resident non-citizens, no doubt) funded by taxing the producers.

There are many social arguments against UBI, which often can be boiled down to the old adage, "idle hands are the devil's playground." There is also great moral hazard in having a democracy, where leaders are elected by the people, in charge of issuing paychecks to the people. Men would not do well under a UBI. "Don't worry, the government will protect and feed your family. You go watch football." Men decay in such scenarios, and their nations will quickly follow behind them.

Smith approaches the issue from an economic perspective, and insists that the UBI premise is false because the economy-by-robots is ultimately unprofitable and, if anything, it is the remaining human-led economies that would be taxed to subsidize unprofitable robots. It is good to see economic arguments against the UBI-driving scenario because there is an equivalent to Murphy's Law for socioeconomic systems. If a venture tends to destroy society but it is profitable, eventually it will be tried. If Smith is correct then we don't really need to have the UBI debate, because the conditions for it will never arise.

Unfortunately his argument is based on some flimsy assumptions. Because profits tend to fall, he says, industrialists will only be able to maintain profits by massively investing in production capital to increase output. Eventually the robotic industries will become unprofitable and significant capital investments will be destroyed. Marx believed that, because profits tend to fall, eventually the driving force of capitalism would be eliminated through natural forces and the whole capitalist order would destroy itself through exhaustion. So the robotics scenario is just the Marxian debate put into a format that is easier to grasp intuitively.

Smith's big flaw here it to assume that the tendency of profits to fall means profits will fall perpetually; to zero and beyond. Not just unprofitable, but antiprofitable. The problem is there is no supporting evidence for such a claim. That's not to say that industries never become antiprofitable, but not for the reasons he provides. What industry has even been driven to antiprofitability by over-investment in itself? I suspect there's a very good reason he provided no examples.

Let's look at some ourselves. Take farming. That's an industry that has become so heavily automated, so commoditized, that it certainly fits the the kind of scenario that Smith describes. By his theory, farmers would have so over-invested in machinery that farming would run at a loss and invested capital would be destroyed. Historically, farming was done manually. Grain was sown by hand, harvested with reapers, and then ground by hand or with the aid of machinery such as water mills. Was hand farming done in because landowners over-produced reapers and grinding stones, driving profits below zero? Of course that doesn't make any sense at all, and has never happened. Farming has always been profitable, because investment follows demand. When demand is being met, the incentive for investment wanes.

As long as an industry is profitable it will continue. So why is it no longer profitable to cut wheat by hand anymore? For thousands of years it was, and there's no reason it couldn't happen now. Anyone could pick up a few acres of land and advertise for a couple of laborers if they were so inclined. A hundred years ago or so it would be profitable to do so if you had the investment capital. Today it's not, and the reason is pretty obvious. You wouldn't make enough off the grain to pay the workers. The cost of labor has gone up! No one is going to come toil in your soil for a sack of corn. The government even forbids it. Commoditization drives down profits, but not to zero. Antiprofitability is caused pirmarily by increasing labor costs. If labor is replaced by automation, and automation is always getting cheaper, then actually it ensures that the industry won't be driven to antiprofitability. The only other way it might happen then is if other costs increase, such as energy prices or tax bills. The author has it backwards and flipped. Commoditization won't lead to antiprofitability that demands tax subsidies, but increasing taxes on those industries could lead to antiprofitability.

So where does that leave us now, in the context of UBI? If Marx and Smith are wrong and automation isn't actually self-destructive, then what's to stop the trend of the commoditization of industries? Well, besides even larger maladies like an energy crisis or political instability, nothing. But that may be okay. The wrong assumption that UBI promoters make is the conflation of commoditization with the monopolization of the means of production. It's very troubling if true, because economic power yields political power. Even if their assumption is true, UBI is not a good solution in that context, as it advocates giving all the economic control to the government. If certainly satisfies the rule that all liberal policies must make the problem they are addressing even worse. Let's take away excessive economic control from the hands of global capitalists (okay, I'm listening) and give it to the government. Idiots!

Well here in the dissident right we are not idiots (definitely not!) and we have a different economic agenda. Instead of concentrating economic power in the hands of global capitalists (bad) or centralized governments (worst), let's put economic power in the hands of the people. Gee, it's so simple it might just work, although it sounds a bit platitudinous or cliche (power to the people!).  But I do believe that the commoditization of industry is actually putting more economic control into the hands of the people already. Economic independence occurs when people are self-contained units that can generate profit. The opposite of economically independent would be a factory-employee who has no capacity to generate income without the company's machinery and other business capital. Even more the opposite of economically independent is the welfare dependent, which is what UBI enthusiasts want us all to become.

There's a luthier in my town who I have commissioned to build a guitar. He has a day job where he makes a modest income, but has nonetheless put together a shop where he can construct an entire guitar by hand. His ambition is to transition to full-time luthiery. He is on track to achieving maximal economic independence. He would never be able to do so if it wasn't for the commoditization of the tools of his trade. Without them he'd never be able to afford the capital costs and his only option to build guitars would be to work in a guitar factory. While he can't compete with those factories on efficiency, overall the benefits of industrial efficiency have given him increased economic independence.

Many occupations are seeing increasing economic independence thanks to the benefits of commoditization. It hasn't been that long since computer programming meant gaining employment at a place that could afford the massive computers. Today the tools of the trade can acquired from a week's pay. You need a computer and an internet connection. Maybe some software. Many programmers are self-employed and work from home. This would not be possible without the commoditization of the processor and other computer hardware.

People tend to be too narrowly focused when they think about industrial robots. Say a factory that makes wrenches fires its workers and buys wrench-making robots. Ah, social plague, we must redistribute wealth or the factory worker is destitute and no one will be able to buy wrenches! But think of the auto mechanic. If wrenches become cheaper, it's easier for him to acquire the tools to open his own shop, rather than working for a wage. From our perspective this is mostly positive. The jobs being created are much more economically independent than the ones being destroyed. Economic independence means less centralization of economic power, from which follows less centralization of political and social power. The result is a freer, more natural, and more holistic society. Compare this to the liberal plan where everyone is a wage slave for the biggest corporation of them all, FedGov. Our goals give people independence and a sense of meaning. Their goals destroy everything natural and good about life and are doomed to catastrophe.

Marx believed the tendency of profits to fall would be the ruin of capitalism. Charles Hugh Smith believes that profits will tend to fall below zero. The reality is that industries don't inherently drive themselves to antiprofitability, and the falling profits of commodities permits more economic independence for workers. It may be our foremost goal on the right to do everything possible to transfer economic power away from the government and corporations and into the hands of ordinary people.

Celebrating Perversity

Some months ago this flyer appeared on a campus in Canada. One wonders how many letters have been added since then.

It's notable that their alphabet soup, which includes three sexual orientations for the letter T, and two for G, Q, A, and P, is missing one very significant letter: H, for heterosexual. If everyone is included but the biggest, most obvious group, isn't that deliberately exclusive? They do put allies as a group, who are presumably straight people who will be tolerated just so long as they're the right kind of straight people. Virtue signaling is a requirement. Don't really care about gays one way or another? Sorry, you're not included in the inclusiveness club.

It's apparent that the marketers of this event will soon have to start text wrapping their accelerating acronym or switch to a smaller font. The problem with defining every possible sexual orientation is that the upper limit is the population size. Each person is a unique snowflake, and so is their sexuality. Hey inclusiveness club, I prefer brunettes with curly hair (but not too curly). Give me a letter. Bill here has a shoe fetish, give him an S. Larry only like red shoes, so he needs a different letter. The list is doomed to become an ever expanding catalogue of kinks. Can you honestly think of a more degrading measure to categorize humans? Describing everyone by what they like in bed then to post it all over campus likes it's enlightened. One of the biggest mistakes our society ever made was to start letting stupid people into colleges. This is what happens. They think this filth is sophistication! The whole point of civilization is that we are supposed to tame our baser instincts for a greater purpose. Here these lunatics are out trying to subvert everything. If Satan is walking amongst us, he's surely posting these kinds of flyers on campus, encouraging everyone to cave to their carnal desires and calling it "progressive".

The Winds are Shifting

During a hot week in summer it can often feel like reprieve from the cruel heat is just a fantasy. The weather forecasts say a cold front is due in. And then you feel it. A sudden uptick in the breeze that rustles the leaves and feels slightly cooler than it should be. It doesn't seem like much, but it's the first sign of what's to come: an intense storm followed by more pleasant weather.

The political world feels like that today. CNBC ran an article calling out all the media for being anti-Trumpers who are out to harm the president however they can. Some newspapers are calling for an end to the Mueller investigation, even the Washington Post! Granted, it was an opinion piece by one of their token quasi-conservatives, not an editorial, but still, that article couldn't have been printed a week ago. Not even two days ago. Something has changed.

No one has been sure what to expect from the Mueller fishing expedition. Theories have run rampant on both sides. On the right we hear nothing will be found, or they'll offer up a couple sacrificial pawns on both sides and move on, or that Mueller is "our guy" and the whole thing is a clever trap to prosecute Democrats, or that the whole thing is a coup and they'll find anyway to ring Team Trump up on bogus charges or so-called "process crimes." The last item is probably the most true, but the coup seems to have landed with a thud. And the blundering media has, as always, found a way to turn a minor victory into a stinging defeat. It should have been a nice trophy. They got one of Trump's guys. But then ABC ran with the bogus claim that Flynn had pled guilty to lying about Russian communications before the election. Suddenly this wasn't just a pawn, but proof of the collusion narrative! The media latched onto the story with a frenzy, the stock market took a massive dive. This was HUGE NEWS! The left-wing talking heads were giddy with euphoria. Finally, what they've been saying is proven true, and Trump is finished!!

Then ABC was forced to issue a "clarification." Actually, it wasn't proof of collusion. The crime was for neglecting to inform the FBI about perfectly legitimate actions of an incoming administration. This was barely even in the ballpark of what the Mueller team set out to investigate. Suddenly their big victory was just an Obama political appointee pleading to a minor charge after likely being caught in a perjury trap, for actions we've known about for many months. Had the media kept it's pants on the event could have been a nice bump for left-wing enthusiasm. Instead it became a depressing setback. Sometimes you almost have to wonder if these hysterical pundits aren't working for Trump the whole time. The left was taken to a soaring high and then swiftly brought crashing back to reality. What a beautiful thing to behold!

And the reality is this: the Flynn indictment is a strong indication that there is nothing in the realm of collusion, or any major found wrongdoings. It's just too far off the path of inquiry. Trump is surely safe. But the conspirators may not be. Attempting a coup is always dangerous, and the sheer magnitude of the deep-state machinations to remove the head of state say a lot. Why are they so afraid of Trump? We've grown pretty pessimistic at the notion that Democrat criminals will ever face justice. I'd say now is the time to dial that pessimism back a notch, or even two. The coup is up, and even Washington Post readers are being told it was all a big scam. People like McCabe are in the hot seat now, not Trump. Will we see actual prosecutions of deep state operatives as this fizzles out? I predict we will. Trump has shown great determination to keep his campaign promises lately. I think he'll go after them if the evidence is there (and surely it is). Trump is not a pushover. He's not operating from the beltway playbook; he's channeling the Art of War. (He actually tweeted some Sun Tzu quotes a few years ago.) If Trump is the political jiu jitsu master we suspect he is, there will be brutal retribution. You don't lure your enemy into a vulnerable position and then decline to counterattack. He has every reason to do so. Out of strategic pragmatism. For personal vengeance. To set an example to future foes. To deal the left so many punishing losses that they lose their will to fight. Oh, and look at what the left's response has been. To instead direct their rage towards the tax cut bills. Focusing on another major political defeat! Are you happy with your president yet?

There is still the open question of why the hell Flynn perjured himself to begin with. As before, theories run rampant. The left suspects there must be sinister motives. The right suspects he was caught in a perjury trap. But if he was, why plead guilty? If it was an honest omission then he'd likely prevail in court. The prosecution must prove willful intent to mislead. (And we know how those intent things can go.) Trump must have thought he lied too, since Flynn was fired. So what's going on? Some are saying the whole thing was a ruse, and Flynn was the bait. Now his NDA is lifted and he is free to talk about other crimes committed. But that doesn't hold water. You don't plead guilty to perjury to place yourself as a key witness, because your testimony then carries little credibility. It's certainly strange.

What's more clear is how ridiculous the situation was that put Flynn in a perjury situation to begin with. The FBI interviewed Flynn a mere four days after assuming office, and then compared that to his communications to prove he wasn't be completely forth rite. Well, why was Flynn being interviewed by the FBI, and how did they have record of his communications? The answer to both questions: the piss-gate dossier, the expose of absurdity that just won't die already! The dossier (as well as constant howling by the DNC and the media) were used to justify FISA warrants against the Trump team for alleged collusion and then to justify the special counsel. What a position! You can spy on your opponent, grill him over the his recorded activities, and then prosecute for any discrepancies. It's called a perjury trap because you could prosecute just about anyone this way. But in this case they were using the foreign intelligence powers of the state to attempt to unseat the elected president. Now that sounds like a coup to me! I think they genuinely believed they'd find something to hang Trump with if they could just get the surveillance. Establishment hacks naturally assuming their political opponent is a rampant criminal just sounds like petty projection. I believe Sun Tzu said something about not knowing your enemy or yourself.

Yes, the winds are shifting. Trump is carrying on with a lot of vigor and enthusiasm. He doesn't seem subdued by the unfolding events, but pleased that all the pieces are falling into place. The left is nearly out of ammo once the collusion hooey backfires. They'll go back to their old routine of just reacting to everything Trump with ever decreasing rage. And if the Prophesy of the Triggering holds, we'll see more and more start to act as if they had never even been radically anti-Trump at all.

r/K Themes in Moana

Moana is the current blockbuster sensation in the young children's market. I finally watched it last night after some intense lobbying by my four-year-old. It's a good movie, I enjoyed watching it with her, but I'm always on alert during children's shows for any subtle messaging or propaganda. Often the messaging isn't deliberate, but it can say a lot about the internal biases of those producing the film, as well as what they think is marketable in the current culture. I believe Moana falls into that category. It's not deliberate propaganda, but the contents of the movie say a lot and give a lot to chew on for social commentary. So let's begin.

Moana is a Polynesian princess whose tribe encounters a food supply crisis. Fish stocks have collapsed and the coconuts fallen to disease. Moana suggests fishing the outer waters but her father, the chief, insists it is too dangerous. Eventually Moana is compelled by her grandmother and the ocean to embark on a journey to save her people. Aided by her male counterpart Maui, a human-turned-demigod voiced by The Rock, she faces off against pirate coconuts, monsters of the deep, and finally Tikal, a powerful volcanic demon. Ultimately she discovers new fertile land, returns to her home island, and convinces her tribe to make the ocean voyage.

Societies become K-selected when they live at the carrying capacity of their environments. It has always been my assumption that island nations, like the Hawaiians, were probably very K in nature. That means they were competitive, hierarchal, and valued chastity and delayed sexualization of children. Leaving for richer lands is sometimes the best option, but r-type people are more likely to want to escape competition for limited resources than Ks are. The Moana scenario was very common in history. Sometimes there was a successful exodus, but most of the time the results were less poetic: a lot of people starved to death. K-selected society isn't all roses and honey. Those who can't compete for the limited resources die. In time of food shortages the weak and low-ranking die of starvation and illness. There's a reason Polynesians are so well-adapted to store fat, much to their detriment in the modern era.

The conflict between Moana and her father is a conflict between r and K. Moana wants to flee for greener pastures. Her father, the strong chief, wishes to stay and face the difficulties. Ultimately Moana has her way. The movie is a tale of r winning over K. How very Hollywood. 

There is more to the story than just that, of course. The main character embarks on a journey of personal growth that also benefits her society. This is a heroic epic. Other writers have bemoaned the death of the heroic epic, yet here we have one in the greatest blockbuster out right now. Or we almost do. In a heroic epic, the protagonist overcomes some tragic flaw in their journey. Moana has no tragic flaw. She was always right; she was just restrained by those around her. Stupid, backwards K societies are always standing in the way of utopia. The movie is all about girl power, so instead the flaw is given to her male companion. Maui is a demigod in a reduced state. Without his magic hook he has no power, and we find him marooned on a desert island. His flaw is that he is self-interested, vain, and overly individualistic. Ultimately he overcomes his flaws, helps deliver his estranged tribe from harm, and becomes more empowered himself. He is actually the hero of the tale. Moana was supposed to be, but the writers just couldn't bear to depict her as flawed.  

It's worth noting that the tribe-oriented heroic epic is still permitted at all. The reason seems pretty obvious. National identities are permitted, but only for non-whites. I don't watch many movies, but I can't think of many exceptions to the rule. The Lord of the Rings would be, but it's been over 15 years since that franchise started. Much has changed since 2001. Back then white did not equal racist. The rule has pretty well held for the last five years or so, and I predict we'll see no sort of "Moana for white people" for a long, long time, if ever. Not at the mega-blockbuster level, anyway.

One counter-example that might be offered is Frozen, the girl-power mega hit that preceded Moana, which, quite surprisingly, featured an all-white cast. But Frozen isn't a heroic epic. Elsa is certainly flawed, but she isn't a hero. She does nothing for the better good, and in fact she doesn't really ever overcome her flaws. Her lack of self control just vanishes after Anna's sacrifice, but it was nothing Elsa achieved. Anna is also not a tragic hero, as she was never particularly flawed. She always had a good heart. Frozen is all about Elsa's narcissism, so powerful it nearly destroys her own nation! Surely that's a vastly different story than Moana, a girl without flaw who delivers her people from tragedy.

Even the children's heroic epics of the last couple decades had much stronger K themes than were permitted in Moana, where there is never direct resource competition. Mulan, a heroic epic where the protagonist saved her people from doom, was a resource struggle between the Chinese nation and the evil Huns. The Lion King, a fantastic heroic epic, pitted lions again hyenas in a battle for resources. Simba is drawn into a listless life of abundant resources, but his fate compels him to return to jump into the resources struggle and take top spot in the hierarchy. It was a story of K winning over r. Oh, how things have changed in a couple decades!

One other thing you can't help but notice watching the movie is the extreme sexual dimorphism. The princess is portrayed as usual by Disney, described by Stefan Molyneux in his analysis of Frozen as neoteny. Massive eyes, subdued chin, and tiny little noses. Here's a look at Frozen. 

Anna and Elsa were both extremely overdone, Elsa looked like an alien to me, but the male lead has nearly normal eyes, a large nose, and protruding chin. They certainly didn't make Christoph a wimp, but his demeanor is fairly passive, and bumbling around women. His masculinity was kept in check. There's a hilarious scene at the end where the bad guy is exposed. Christoph takes after him, fists clenched, ready to unload some pain. Anna stops him, and instead punches the baddie herself, sending him flying off the ship into the water. They can't have male aggression! But just look at her tiny little wrists.

Counter to that, here are the Moana characters.

They couldn't display more sexual dimorphism if they tried. (I don't believe Moana is quite so muscular in the film.) She retains the normal princess features. The male is gargantuan, with biceps the size of her waist, beady eyes, a wide nose, and an enormous chin that is nearly as large as her whole head. Now, it might be that he's a demigod, so he has to be portrayed bigger than puny mortals, but Moana's father is also massive. What's interesting is that dimorphism is a K trait. K environments prefer strong fathers and nurturing mothers who can protect the child until they are able to face the harsh, competitive world. r strategy is to reproduce early and often, so their is no driving force for highly masculine men. Those women tend toward "bad boys" who exhibit r traits. Look at all the women who swooned over the recently deceased Charles Manson, who oozed r-selection but was very diminutive, barely five feet in height.

The question that arises is, is sexual dimorphism more acceptable when the characters are ethnic? It sure seems like it. Disney also showed a great divergence between Mulan and her army captain. It would sure fit the trend. Liberals complain endlessly about toxic masculinity and rape culture on college campuses, which is nonsense, yet defend it in the Muslim world. The left is before anything, even before being feminist, opposed to western culture and the white race. It's hard to imagine a caricature of masculinity like Maui being depicted for a white character. The character may have drawn extra masculinity because he is voiced by The Rock, a hyper masculine fellow who has recently said some pretty lefty things. Mortal sins like toxic masculinity can always be ignored for those who pledge allegiance to The Cult. I'd also note that the primary songwriter for the movie was lefty hero Lin-Manuel Miranda, the same guy who berated Vice President Pence at a showing of Hamilton for...being there, I guess. But this just goes to show you who's involved in the movie. The only two I'm familiar with are noted lefties. In a move praising r-selection. Go figure.

There is nothing that makes the movie unfit for consumption. Just keep in mind that it is largely centered around r values. Your kid isn't going to be forever converted to leftism because she watched Moana. Still, it's a sign of the mindsets of the people who make children's movies these days, and it's good to know about the subtle signals kids are receiving. My daughter loves Moana, but not nearly as much as the Lion King. I'll take that. There's nothing wrong with a movie praising Polynesian culture. This blog has already shown remorse at the destruction of the Hawaiian nation by global capitalism and democracy. They certainly deserve their own Disney movie, at the least. Still we must be mindful of the cultural signals being sent out to our littles, so that we may counter them. In this case, the Polynesian culture has been co-opted to deliver a lesson in favor of r-selection, even though their nation was destroyed because other people envied their resources. Moana was a story for r-selection, but reality a lesson against it.

Our Marxist Allies?

Serious question, prompted by a couple posts that have sprung up in the last couple days. One is from the ZMan, whose post The Corporate State reminds us that the bulk of the thought policing and stifling of free speech going on these days is done not by a Orwellian tyrannical government, but by global corporations. This isn't necessarily true in the entire western world. In most of Europe, and even Canada, people are actually sent to jail for their sins when they dare to express disapproval for a protected class of people. (Such as by stating a dislike for immigrants.) In America you won't be jailed for saying those things, not yet anyway, but the left still has great capacity to deplatform those speakers, unperson them, and destroy their careers. Twitter, while private, is something of the national commons. On Twitter one can make assassination threats and say the most vile things about white people and still keep their little blue checkmarks, while prominent right-wingers are kicked off at every opportunity. One made a game out of it, making new accounts and seeing what ridiculous things he could be suspended for. Eventually he resorted to just posting picture of puppies. (Puppy complacence is genocide.)

The second post was written in response to a column that appeared in the Independent recently by an old-school Marxist who defends the Alt Right and Steve Bannon. The blog post was called Marx Would Line Today’s Leftists Up Against the Wall and Shoot Them which fairly well gets the entire point across. If you ever read the Communist Manifesto - which is freely available online and not really that long - you'll be struck by two observations. First, at how much of the modern left comes straight out of the Communist Manifesto. The book is all about class struggle and oppression, and the modern left is absolutely obsessed with oppression. And second, at how much of the modern left stands in stark contrast to the ethos of the Communist Manifesto. Instead of class warfare, they focus on identity warfare. (We refer to them as Cultural Marxists, but a better term would be Identity Marxists.)

In Marx, there was oppression, but their was a clear bogeyman: the bourgeoisie, what we'd today call the global capitalists and global corporatists. (Or for short, just globalists.) The Communist Manifesto actually bemoans the destruction of national identities and the erosion of the patriarchy by globalist influence. Can you believe that? Marx was a white supremacist and a misogynist, at least by the modern left's attitude towards such opinions. They have taken the oppression dynamics from Marx but turned around allied with the bad guy! Especially since Obama took office. That's when things really changed. Before Obama, the left held protests against American imperialism, rioted at NWO meetings, despised the EU, and railed against cronyism. Now they defend all those things! Just another example of the ol' libtard switcharoo, as I call it. And as the Republican Party is being taken over by anti-establishment conservatives, the left is becoming even more unhinged in their defense of such things. There is nothing in the current environment that could please Marx. Look at all the welfare. We call it socialism, but it's not truly Marxist, it's just democratic governments bribing their voters. It's socialism where people yield power to the state instead of gaining it. Under Marxism the people are supposed to take control of the means of production. (From economic power comes political power.) Instead the corporations are taking the means of production, and they are using their positions to exert political power. Look at Twitter policing political discourse, and all the Congressmen on the corporate dole. The left never even tried to account for the fact that their candidate was somehow worth nine figures.

It's strange to say, with as much as we rail against communists around here, but true Marxists are our natural allies at this point. We have the same common enemy, and share some degree of their complaints. The question is, how many genuine Marxists exist these days? The left today somehow managed to select the worst aspects of socialism and global capitalism and combine them into a single soul-crushing nation-wrecking cancerous ideology. Marx looks pretty decent in comparison.

The Prophecy of the Triggering

Apologies for the slow output. I've had a computer issue.

One of the lessons we've learned in the last couple years that would should make sure not to forget is that antagonizing the left is a worthy goal in and of itself. We learned the lesson from many angles. Writers like Vox Day theorized that leftists always project. Thus, their constant insults and and accusations reveal their own weaknesses. Trump goaded the media into producing massive media coverage for himself, fueling his presidential victory. The heroic autists of 4chan showed that the left couldn't be reasoned with, but memes carried enormous persuasion potential. Their recent "It's Okay to be White" campaign has been brilliant. These are the key lessons to take away from the wildly successful and highly unexpected emergence of the non-establishment right.

The media attack Trump for being petty. I sometimes feel inclined to agree with them. There was recently a video where Trump met with children of the White House Press Corps. I believe they were dressed up for Halloween. He spent most of the time berating the press. A couple jabs were okay, but it seemed excessive. I'm not much for politicizing children, and after things like that you can understand why some people dislike him.

More recently, Trump took the opportunity to hijack a ceremony honoring Amerindian military veterans to jab at Elizabeth Warren for crafting a fake Indian ancestry to get employment advantage. He's not wrong to do so, but at that particular time, it seems a little crude. And that's the difference between regular people, and Trump, who seems to act on a whole different level.

Shortly after the election, Anonymous Conservative - who analyzes politics through psychology and the effect of the brain's amygdala - predicted that in the coming months liberals' amygdalae would become so agitated that many would only find relief by dropping out of politics altogether. He also suggested that Trump would become increasingly popular through his term and that by the 2020 election many would have no memory that they were ever rabidly opposed to his candidacy. The strategy he proposed was to keep relentlessly driving away at their amygdalae. If I were Trump, I would have relented. I wouldn't be able to make those constant petty jabs. He does. He's the relentless madman. And it's working. Here was Keith Olbermann's tweet right after the incident.

He's quitting! Of course he makes an excuse, but this doesn't end Trump, who has referred to Warren as Pocahontas many times already. This hasn't ended his presidency; it's ended a rival. Olbermann is a liberal nut job and has been increasingly unhinged in the last view months. Someone made a collage a while back of his tweets, and it's just manic profanity, beneath even the dignity of this lowly blog to publish. We've been expecting him to snap. Well, now he's quitting. AnonCon was right. And so was Trump. His insults seem unnecessary, but only when you don't understand how this political war is being waged at a psychological level. Whether Trump is intentionally shorting their circuits or he just comes at this naturally is immaterial. The results are the same either way.

Here's another example from today.

When Pelosi and Schumer didn't attend a meeting called by the president to discuss North Korea's latest display of nuclear aggression, he re-arranged the chairs so that their seats would be clearly visible on the television broadcast. Can you imagine McCain or Romney pulling such a stunt? Of course not, which is why they lost to a limp-wristed communist. Was it childish? Pelosi sure thinks so.

Trump made sure everyone knew that Pelosi and Schumer skipped the meeting, then Pelosi turned around and made sure everyone knew that Ryan and McConnell attended. What a dunce! To most of his supporters, the fact that he'd relegate Ryan and McConnell to "props" is just icing on the cake. The cost of all this? Trump appears petty. Okay, so be it. But that's nothing new. And it's a relief. Because they said he was a Nazi. Compared to Nazi, petty is pedestrian.

Being petty costs Trump nothing. He is driving his enemies to defeat, at almost no cost. He drives them mad and saturates their bandwidth. In the latest Project Veritas video (consider donating to them this Christmas season) a Washington Post employee admitted on hidden camera that the organization is constantly distracted from other things by it's need to respond to Trump. This is insider confirmation that Trump is indeed Saturating the Media Bandwidth. The media is the primary weapon of the left and they are hindered from their agenda of destroying America because they just can't stop spewing Trump hatred, and he keeps handing them all the petards they can get their hands on. So far the prophesy is holding up nicely. He is driving his opponents off the field entirely.

Who is Outing the Pervs?

Something big is happening in The Cult right now. Leaders are being deposed by sexual abuse / harassment claims in two of the three major liberal institutions. (Media and government, with academia being the third.) Those destroyed in the past few weeks have included some of the biggest players in that world, and all rumors are that there's more to come. What is going on here?

The most apparent answer is that these men are just paying a debt that has naturally come due. It's an open secret that Hollywood is run by perverts and pedophiles. It makes sense that accusations long held secret would snowball if they ever got started. Once some women came public about Weinstein, and he was under the gun, it was much easier for many women to come public. But we're seeing it spread other places. An NPR talk-show host. A long-standing Democratic Congressman. It's entirely possible that outing former harassers has just become the trend, but the timing is a little suspect. Why now?

Anytime powerful people are exposed for hedonism we should at least raise an eyebrow because much of the elite are tied together by their hedonism. There is a world of evidence out there, much outed by Alex Jones who even managed to go undercover at Bohemia Grove, and confirmed to a fair degree by the Podesta emails, that the powerful engage in lewd sexual acts and occult rituals. That is the loyalty pact. Not only do they signal their allegiance by engaging in such silly deeds as worshiping Moloch or participating in mock cannibalism rituals, but they make themselves vulnerable. Each in the circle can be trusted, because anyone who gets too far out of line can be destroyed by the others. Think of Bill Clinton flying on Jeffrey Epstein's Lolita Express plane to his private island. Everyone knows what happened on those flights. He indulged in underage prostitutes. Epstein no doubt has substantial evidence. Thus he has power over Clinton, one of the most powerful people in the world. The elite power structure is welded tight with those kinds of leverage relationships.

So, again, anytime someone powerful is exposed for hedonism, we should raise an eyebrow. Was this coincidental, or were they outed by someone else powerful? So there are a couple other theories that must be considered here. One is that the liberal power elite are imploding. The Democrats are largely evicted from power in Washington, and they are spasming in their death throes. We can only hope. Another possibility is that they are being done in from the outside. Who could have surveilled the power landscape, probed for weakness, gathered the necessary evidence, and is now using it to crush his enemies? Could it be Trump? Our instincts tell us he isn't that savvy, and that he's too new to the game, but on the other hand we've learned never to underestimate him. We're just speculating at this point, but the thought that Trump is playing serious political hardball behind the scenes and using their own internal leverage against them is, well it would be political jiu jitzu on a level we've never seen before. 

That might just be too good to be true. Either way, we'll still get to enjoy watching the scumbags drop like flies.

Live and Let Die?

A commenter on one of the blogs linked on the sidebar said that today is a sad day down in Australia because a gay marriage referendum just passed 60%-40%. Another commenter responded:

Why is that a sad day? Marriage is a commitment between two people. What difference does it make what sex either of those two people are? And just exactly why is that any of your business at all?

It's a seductive argument. It's also a quintessentially libertarian argument. Of significant note is that it's an argument at all. We're so used to "debating" liberals that we almost get surprised having to combat opinions that have any rational merit to them. Liberals are infuriating, but eventually taking the time to explain all the ways they are wrong gets boring. Libertarians are in a higher intellectual weight bracket, so let's beat up on someone our own size for a change, huh?

Before we get into this, I'd ask the readers here to take a minute and think about this comment. Do you agree with it? Disagree? Try to craft a counterargument in your own head. If you read this blog regularly it's likely you disagree, but can you explain why? I'll take my stab at it below.






The comment isn't quite an argument, but it's close. An argument consists of a claim supported by evidence. In this case, the claim is that one should not care who gets married. The evidence is that no one who is not gay married is affected by gay marriage. That's not technically evidence, it's more of a claim in and of itself, but it works. We shouldn't expect him to prove a negative. He can't prove we aren't personally affected by gay marriage, but he can challenge us to provide countering evidence and, if none is provided, his original claim holds. Let's take up his challenge.

Let's generalize his statement a bit. What we're talking about is ethics or morality. The underlying principle is that one has complete license so long as they don't directly harm another. That is the core of libertarianism. But what about indirect harm? Does one have complete license if it indirectly harms another?

It is not easy to quantify the effects of morality on civilization. Take Rome for example. It is largely believed that late Rome's decadence led to its fall. We can't be for sure to what degree that behavior contributed to collapse. Maybe Rome was doomed to fall anyway because it was over-extended, and the morality of the people was of little consequence. To know for sure, we'd need many Rome-like examples, and an approach for quantifying morality in ancient civilizations.

Another approach is to make analogies to domains where we can make measurements. Instead of morality, let's look at intelligence. One's intelligence is correlated to one's economic success. Few would contest such a notion, and statistical analysis supports the claim. Here's the key question: does the intelligence of others affect one's outcomes? Does national intelligence affect personal wealth? It would seems so, but the degree to which it does really is surprising. The correlation between average national IQ and personal wealth is six times higher than the correlation between personal IQ and personal wealth. That is remarkable. One's success is more tied to the attributes of the nation than one's own personal attributes. It's better to be a dummy in a smart nation than the Einstein of the idiots. Those of us living in America surely note the phenomenon. Thus, when someone chooses to be less intelligent, it does harm us, albeit indirectly.

To round out the argument, we must make the case that wealth follows national morality in the same way that it follow national intelligence. We can look at history to settle this one. The question should be, did nations that rose to power tend to have strong or loose morals? This is so obvious it hardly needs to be discussed. Look at the great powers of last century. America, Russia, Japan, Germany, England...all rose with strict moral codes. It's amusing that so many Americans these days like to mock Victorian-era prudes, yet those prudes built the advanced civilization they so frivolously disregard today. And in no great or wealthy civilizations in all history was gay marriage remotely tolerated. Even in the closest example, the Athenian empire, where homosexual behavior was common, it was in temporary arrangements between men who still married women and raised children. If gay marriage gives a national advantage, then why was the behavior shunned by nearly every culture and civilization?

Darwin answers the question pretty easily. Civilizations tend not to permit gay marriage because it tends to lower the chances of success. It's as simple as that. Libertarianism and liberalism both assume we live and die as a collective of individuals, rather than as a society, despite all evidence to the contrary. The best they can claim is, but now things are different! It's possible they're correct. Maybe technical advances are so profound that they negate the hard lessons our ancestors learned over many thousands of years of trial, error, and death. It's possible, but it's also very risky to assume human societies are that much different than they ever were.

The Left Keeps Cultural Cohesion With Minimal Cost

The last post discussed how the left, having been brutally contradicted over the past year or two by reality, almost seem to invite humiliation on themselves, in a masochistic sense. The theme of that post was something to the effect of they aren't even trying anymore. This post will look at it from a slightly different perspective, which is they don't have to try.

Societies benefit from cultural cohesion, and engage in activities to maintain that cohesion. Throughout most of history those cohesion behaviors have tended to be religious or at least superstitious. Societies developed priestly castes to enforce the cultural cohesion. That cohesion gave the nation a survival advantage. They were able to punch above their weight versus tribes that were less united. But those cohesion behaviors carry a cost. In the very first book of the Bible we are given the story of Cain and Abel making food sacrifices to their diety. That is quite a cost. Less food means fewer people can be fed; a smaller population means a weaker nation. The benefits of cultural cohesion must have outweighed the energy costs. This should be a familiar event for those familiar with the work of Dr Joseph Tainter. Societies adapt complexity to solve problems, which comes at a cost in energy.

The Romans kept order through rule of law, effective provincial administration, and through military force. But even they also made sure to maintain cultural cohesion through religion, with magnificent temples and rituals. They paid for those costs through conquest of increasingly distant opponents, and by control of agriculturally productive regions such as Sicily and Egypt. In pre-European America the natives engaged in human sacrifice, notably of children, to appease the gods. Those societies were willing to pay an extreme cost to maintain the priestly caste's imposed social order. It's interesting that the civilizations noted for human sacrifice, the Mayans, Incans, and Aztecs, were the only highly complex nations, who also built great pyramids and monuments. The far less complex, semi-nomadic tribes of North America aren't know for their human sacrifice. We can reasonably suppose that previous complex societies of North America, such as the one that built the burial mounds in Cahokia, also engaged in human sacrifice or similarly costly cohesion behaviors. It's also likely that the incurred costs contributed to their collapse. But that's something of a truism. All costs contribute to the collapse.

Non-religious societies have their own cohesion behaviors. Japan is enormously cohesive, and largely non-religious. They are kept in line by social expectation and judgment. Think of the Japanese salarymen, who lose face if they come home too early. They must not be very important to come home so early. So they come home late. They dilly dally at work, then head to the pachinko bar for a spell, before finally coming home at a respectable time. The inefficiencies are obvious, but more costly is that households are practically fatherless. The results show, with the "grass eaters" afraid to leave the house and the shocking number of young people who just don't have sex at all. Fatherlessness destroys societies, especially in a place like Asia, where the men are low-T to begin with. Think about it: the Japanese are about the smartest and most conscientious and most orderly people on Earth, and they're headed to extinction if they can't fix their social cohesion imbalances.

America is similar to Rome in that cultural cohesion has been maintained through religion and rule of law, but there are some uniquely American cohesive attributes, such as a social code of reciprocative personal liberty, an ethos of equality, and the conviction that success can be found in industriousness and hard work. Modern secular America has its own quasi-religious rituals, such as the 4th of July and standing for the national anthem before baseball games. There are costs to cultural cohesion in America, with vast resources dedicated to indoctrination, but they fall far short of murdering our own children. Perhaps that's part of our great success. We can suppose the following principle: nations have the greatest survival advantage when they can get the most cultural cohesion for the least cost.

And that brings us to the left. They are their own unique culture defined by r-selected psychologies and an innate rejection of traditional society. There are great institutions enforcing their cultural cohesion in media, education, and government. However, the left don't shoulder the burden for maintaining those institutions; they compel everyone to support them through taxation, requiring educational credentials for employment, controlling information channels, etc. Sort of like with corporate welfare, which engages in Privatizing Gains and Socializing Losses, the left is constantly striving to extract the most gains from national institutions while minimizing the costs to themselves. (Nearly all of Bernie Sanders' platform, save for some anti-corruption rhetoric, follows from this foundation.)

Co-opting institutions with minimal cost isn't their only advantage. The most potent lefty cohesion behaviors seem to bear almost no cost at all, which are virtue signaling and lying. In the last post we examined how the left is routinely embarrassed when their outrage is contradicted by reality. We supposed that they may actually enjoy humiliation. And indeed we see examples to confirm our suspicions, like Antifa's Professor Giraffe, a total lefty nutjob who engages in sexually humiliating behavior. So self-hatred is certainly an aspect. But also we have to note that leftists don't have to be right because they pay almost no cost for being wrong. They're not even trying, because they don't have to. They can get all the cohesion benefits of virtue signaling and lying but incur few of the costs.

Let's look at a recent example. Recently it was discovered that an act of racist vandalism at the Air Force Academy was false-flag vandalism committed by the alleged victims. When it originally happened, the media was on it like flies on fruit. The general in charge gave a wonderfully "virtuous" response which condemned the racism and garnered millions of YouTube views. If it wasn't intended as an attack on Trump, it certainly was treated as one. The media praised it to the moon and back for its moral clarity, in juxtaposition with Trump's morally ambivalent stance regarding the Charlottesville fiasco. To us, it was just incredible. Because after Charlottesville, Trump, who loves to kid and clown, was the only adult in the room. The alt-right & neo-Nazi protesters looked bad, Antifa looked bad, the media and mainstream politicians looked bad. Only Trump had the fortitude to call it for what it was; an ugly event where idiots on both sides were engaging in unacceptable behavior. The left was outraged. Trump is head of America's largest and most powerful institution. America's institution's are supposed to condemn the misdeeds of the right, not the misdeeds of both sides!

As tends to happen, reality had her way. It was found that it was, in fact, false-flag vandalism. Trump's "moral ambivalence" was justified to the maximal possible extent. It was savage karma. Did the media outlets admit the reality, or pay any price whatsoever for their outrageous coverage? Of course not! They doubled down. CNN described the revelation as "unfortunate." Can you imagine that? They found it unfortunate that there weren't, in fact, gratuitous acts of racism in the Air Force Academy! They also argued that the general's words were powerful and true no matter what the specifics of any particular incident. All attacks on Trump are valid, whatever the facts.

No one is going to be punished for any of this, the false vandalism, the hysterical reaction, the complete lack of journalistic integrity, none of it. Generally speaking, political lefties are only punished when they absolutely have to be. In the Giraffe Boy link, the professor was in fact suspended, but for hoping for the deaths of his own students! That's how far they have to go. Even if he is fired, he'll quietly be hired by some other sympathetic college. He'll be fine. They just don't get punished. Look at all we know the Democrats were doing in the election. There were some token firings, but they're all fine. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is still a Congressman; Donna Brazille lost her CNN slot but has a great book deal. The only person in jail is Anthony Weiner, serving a short sentence for, again, soliciting minors for sex. To be punished, liberals have to engage in the most egregious behaviors: wishing for the deaths of their students, getting caught rigging their own election, and pedophilia. Even then, the consequences are minimal or even trivial.

The point of all this, if you're concerned I've run off the rails here, is that liberals get enormous cultural cohesion with almost no cost at all. They are united in hate under a false narrative and when reality rears her head they just scurry along to the next faux outrage. According to our postulate from above, they must incur a survival advantage. They seem to. There is evidence of some long-term costs. CNN's viewership is down; Fox News is leading the pack. The kids coming up in school are pretty conservative for their age bracket. The problem with the long-term is that, in the long-term, the Democrats shift the demographics enough that the lefties and foreigners can outvote the American nation in every national election. We're very close to that point, right now. Saying that there are long-term costs to liberal cohesion behaviors is not very helpful when, in the long term, given the current trajectories, they win anyway.

This post is running much longer than normal, so we'll leave it here, at the statement of the problem, with no suggestion for solutions. The problem is that those who hate us and want to kill our nation maintain cultural cohesion with minimal cost. Right-wing cohesion comes with great risk and cost. This is the number one problem we face. If we don't find a way to change the equation so that leftist cultural cohesion is more expensive than our own, we lose. No matter what else do. We'll address this problem more in another post very soon.

This Wreckage Will Self-Destruct

The Democrat party is a dumpster fire. They have been almost totally ousted from power in Washington by the electorate. The suffered a humiliating defeat at the hand's of a man they routinely depicted as an incompetent bozo. They had all their dirty laundry aired for anyone willing to take a peak. The total embarrassments have been devastating. Here are just a few, of many. They asserted Trump had no real mathematical chance to win the primary or general elections, and he won both handily. They said the electors would throw the election to Hillary, and then she had the most deserters of any candidate in over a hundred years. They gave Jill Stein $7 million for recounts that were to overturn the election, and they actually expanded Trump's lead, thanks to all the voter fraud in places like Detroit. They promised across the board they would leave the country if Trump was elected, and yet no one left. These are just a few examples. There are many more that could be listed.

If there's anything we learned from the great Dr Drew of Loveline, it's that people subconsciously find ways to relive past traumas. Such a theory is the only thing that can explain the left's behavior. They aren't even really being embarrassed by the right anymore. They seem intent on doing it to themselves. Have you noticed that we haven't seen any prominent examples of Trump media-baiting with his Twitter account like he did so successfully during the campaigns? Probably because he doesn't need to. He doesn't have to try. All he has to do is be himself, have fun, feed fish, stuff like that, and watch the left implode around him.

Yesterday the media outlets, most notably The Guardian, ran with the depiction of Trump committing an embarrassing faux pas in Tokyo. During a Koi-feeding ritual, Abe gently cast food into the small pond, while Trump, the blundering ogre, gracelessly dumped his whole box of food into the pond, which actually threatens the health of the fish! But the thing is, like all public presidential events, it was videotaped. The depiction was thoroughly debunked within minutes. Both used the spoons to cast food, then Abe dumped the remainder of his box in, and Trump followed suit. It's just boring mundane ceremony. Literally feeding carp. The left created a scandal out of it that lasted but a few mere minutes. We might be tempted to explain the blunder as a result of desperation; the left is so thirsty for any win that they grasp at anything. But this case was so trivially debunked that we have to suspect they actually wanted to be humiliated. Not even a fake journalist could expect the ruse to succeed. We've seen the media stop trying to do real news, and now it seems they aren't even trying to do fake news. One wonders how low this can all go.

There was another terrible shooting this weekend. Anyone paying attention has surely noticed the trend. After every shooting, the left flies into a fury before the bodies are even cold, blaming evil Republicans and calling for more federal gun laws. Even a few months ago they were more careful about it, waiting for some facts before they totally ran with it. But now, after being routinely contradicted, they rush right into it. They must love being wrong so much they just can't help themselves! And the facts in this one sure don't disappoint. The assailant was a convicted domestic abuser, who spent a year in military prison. He was already prohibited from gun ownership by federal law. Not only that, but he was brought down by a civilian who was an NRA member with a legal AR-15. This is brutal karma for the left. Not only were the desired laws already in place, but the shooting spree was ended, not executed, by a lawful gunowner. It's hard to imagine a scenario to more decisively shatter the left's gun-control agenda. They ran right into it.

In more fun news, Donna Brazille has written a scathing book against Clinton, describing how she commandeered the DNC to rig the election against Bernie Sanders. As recently as last week Democrats were ridiculing right-of-center outlets like Fox News for covering fairy-tale Hillary scandals instead of Trump/Russia. They must ridicule their own now, I suppose. And in fact the Clinton camp responded by accusing Brazille of buying into "Russian-fueled propaganda." Isn't this marvelous? Truly enjoyable to watch all of this! I never would have thought that Brazille would come out guns blazing like this. I could see her piling on as it was already falling apart, but she's leading the charge! There were many rumors that Clinton treated Brazille like shit. They must be true. Brazille was constantly humiliated, she was publicly exposed sneaking debate questions, and lost her CNN role over the incident. She wants revenge.

Since the motif under examination here is the Democrats doing themselves in, we really must look at the Mueller probe. We won't really know if the probe is a political witch hunt or a reasonable attempt at enforcing the law until the pieces started to fall. We suspect the former, but let's suppose the latter, for a moment, and imagine that Mueller is all about bagging crooks, whoever they are. If that's the case, then that's the only way key criminals from the Obama or Clinton orbits will ever see justice. Think about it. Trump can't go after them. Recently he received a lot of criticism for spurring the justice department to go after Clinton. The criticism has merit. We don't want things to devolve to the point where each incoming administration starts rounding up political opponents of the previous tenure. There's a lot of conflict of interest for Trump to take some of the desired swamp-draining action. Even if Trump pushed for an independent counsel himself there would be widespread cries of impropriety. But it was the Democrats that set up the independent counsel. While we don't have much reason to trust Mueller, we also note that the left specialize in hoisting themselves with their own petards. There may be a lot of poetic justice ahead for us.