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.