The “Debate,” The “Donald,” And Other Detritus

     Yes, yes, I know alliteration is considered passé. I like it anyway.

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     Success, as I’ve said more than once, is its own best justification. (Political version: “The victors write the history books.”) That makes it hard to emit a complete and justifiable condemnation of Donald Trump, one of the most successful men in the United States in his proper field. But it’s quite easy to see and enumerate his flaws as a politician...which is why I’ll close that subject right here.

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     Debates of the conventional sort have disappeared from politics. The question-and-answer format favored by television has displaced them completely. That was for the mental and emotional health of the candidates: in the new format, rather than straining their brains to answer a competitor’s arguments, they can relax and spend their camera minutes reciting memorized talking points.

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     “Do we really have to endure fifteen months more of this?” – The C.S.O.

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     In his blockbuster The B.S. Factor, Arthur Herzog covered (among other things) the many ways in which the American political dialogue had become a torturous experience. One of those ways came to mind during the “prime-time” debate Thursday evening as I marveled at the candidates’ fixed determination not to respond to the questions being asked of them, in favor of whatever talking point they feel would be most constructive to their support.

     This is actually a step down from the sort of gaseous rhetoric Herzog cited in his concluding segment:

     The only solution to the Attica tragedy...[is a] genuine commitment of our vast resources to the American people. – Senator Edmund Muskie

     Organized religion—regardless of denomination—is an institution possessing a moral-ethical mandate – Vice-President Spiro Agnew.

     But let me say one other thing. I think it is important that out of this mission we realize that it was not a failure...the three astronauts did not reach the moon, but they did reach the hearts of millions of people in America and in the world. They reminded us in these days when we have this magnificent technocracy that men do count, the individual does count. – President Richard Nixon

     We have learned from the students—from you and your contemporaries—that we must come up with better answers to larger questions – Transportation Secretary John Volpe

     Mind you, those were samples of PolSpeak from the late Sixties and early Seventies. See how fast the lingo can deteriorate?

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     The Permanent Campaign appears to be well and truly fixed upon us. While “journalists” celebrate – it relieves them of the need to go looking for actual news – the rest of us should review the consequences more soberly.

     Consider how little has actually been done, at least in domestic American politics. Ponder how posturings, promises, and denunciations have risen to replace substantial developments. Now, in one way at least, this is a good thing (“No man’s life, liberty or property is safe when the legislature is in session.” – Gideon J. Tucker, 1866), as the politician at work – at anything other than campaigning – is a destructive force of incomparable power. In another, it reflects poorly on Us the People: we have accepted the posturings, promises, and denunciations in lieu of actual performance.

     Panem et circenses was the formula the Roman Caesars applied to the placation of the masses. Well, the Omnibenevolent Welfare State was already supplying the panem. That compels me to consider an ugly possibility: Is it possible that the GOP solicited a Trump candidacy for its entertainment value?

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     In the midst of all this, Barack Hussein Obama, peeved that yet again he wasn’t commanding 100% of the world’s attention, simply had to toss a turd into the punchbowl by suggesting that the Republican Congressional caucuses were in some way collaborating with the “Iranian hard-liners.” He did so not once but twice. Rest assured that it wasn’t because he thought he hadn’t been sufficiently clear the first time, but rather that it struck him as the best way to keep the cameras focused on him. Chuck Schumer’s brief intrusion into their field of view, temporarily demoting Obama to nineteenth place, must have pissed him off big time.

     There isn’t much that Obama hasn’t done to pollute the political environment. He’s usurped powers belonging to the legislative and judicial branches, or to the states and people. He’s forced millions of Americans into dependency or the underground economy. He’s divided the country along ideological, racial, sexual, and ethnic lines. He’s used various agencies of the federal government to harass and impede his opponents. He’s alienated America’s allies – in one case, allowing his “legacy” to trump the national survival of a longtime friend – while giving aid and comfort to powers that hate us and want to see us vanish. What’s left, apart from nuking a Super Bowl on the grounds of “national security?”

     I can think of only one man likely to take any pleasure from the Obama presidency – and Jimmy Carter will be off to that Great House-Raising In The Sky soon enough.

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     All that having been said, and by many other commentators as well (though hardly with such dazzling eloquence), we must turn to the truly central question of the day: the one which we must face before so much time has passed that a critical situation has become unsalvageable:

     Will the New York Rangers be able to contend for the Stanley Cup again this year, without Carl Hagelin and Martin St. Louis?

Sex: Some Thoughts

     This will be an unusual sort of “assorted” piece: one with a unifying theme. I trust you’ll allow me my little innovation.

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     In case you haven’t noticed, sex is now one of the most heavily politicized subjects in the history of the United States. Both the “doing” and the “being” are now political subjects – with right and wrong answers for each, according to which major political family one mentions. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, a very bad thing.

     Feminism has completely slipped its cams, as we can see from Robert Stacy McCain’s ongoing coverage of their various lunacies. However, this is partially counterbalanced by a strange resurgence of revulsion toward sex among some sectors of the Right, as if one extreme were somehow evoking the other.

     Few palliatives would do as much to lower our national blood pressure as the complete depoliticization of sex – i.e., returning it to something parents educate their kids about, and the rest of us fumble with in private. But as sex has been a major recruitment tool for the Left since the advent of oral contraception, that’s unlikely to happen within the lifetimes of Americans now living.

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     Sexual repression is an important tool of Islamic jihadism:

     We know the recipe for creating a psychopath: You take their normal sexual interests and you pervert them by telling them what is normal is sick and wicked.

     You confuse them sexually, and then all that sexual energy, diverted from its normal healthy channels, seeks another outlet for expression.

     Tell men that women are dirty, filthy whores created by Satan to mislead them and you'll create men who are attracted to the innocence of 13 year old girls. (And 13 year old boys.)

     Psychic energy, like all other energy, can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another.

     This is an important insight, though not an absolutely new one:

     'Haven't you gotten it through your head yet that the whole "pariah" notion is this tyranny's scapegoat mechanism that every tyranny requires?'
     'Yes, but—'
     'Shut up. Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil, limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic, release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.'

     There’s so much sublimated aggression in the sex act that the conversion of sexual energy into actual violence is a one-step process – really, no trouble at all. But we wouldn’t have expected anything complex from a gaggle of seventh-century savages.

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     Marriage, the most important social institution of all time, has its origin in the concept of sexual responsibility: i.e., responsibility for one’s dependents, both acquired and begotten. The man assumed responsibility for his wife and his children by her; the woman assumed responsibility for the nurturing of the children and was abjured against producing children by a man other than her husband. In a sense, the marital contract was the birth of the idea that one is responsible for the consequences of one’s actions. Inversely, the contract proclaimed that one cannot rightly be held responsible for something he did not do.

     Much of Western moral and ethical thought descends directly from the responsibility ethic embedded in the traditional marital contract...which is probably why the Left has been hostile toward marriage throughout its history and seeks to degrade it to meaninglessness with “same-sex marriage.”

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     Sex and love are separate phenomena. The relationships that intertwine them don’t magically transform one into the other.

     Sex is a biological function. We’re designed to want it, to seek sex partners and enjoy their bodies. However, men and women differ markedly in the incentives buried in our genes and psyches. Men have an innate incentive to “scatter the seed,” whereas women have a natural inclination toward securing a protector-provider by offering sex in recompense. This cannot change without radically altering the natures of the sexes.

     Love is an emotional response to another person one deems worthy of a deep commitment. It elevates the well-being of the other to a plane equal to one’s own. Clearly there can be sex without love, and love without sex. But less clear is how and when humans learned to love. (I doubt we needed to “learn” sex, other than its reproductive consequences.) It’s hard for me to imagine love among nonsentients, however charming their instinctual behaviors toward their young often appear.

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     The motif I employed in this novel notwithstanding, I remain firmly convinced that the unit of two – the monogamous heterosexual marriage – is the unit best suited to human beings. The responsibilities involved are perfectly clear, whereas larger groups tend to exhibit all sorts of murky ambiguities, with concomitant instabilities of loyalty and affection. “Big Love” is merely a misspelling of “Unreliable Commitments.”

     That having been said, there are cases about which I am uncertain. If the Old Testament is trustworthy on this subject, God did allow polygamy to the Hebrews while they wandered in the desert seeking Israel. However, much of the Old Testament is not trustworthy – a collage of morally edifying stories and allegories rather than a factual history of the Jewish people – so on this, my “jury” remains undecided. In particular, should the human lifespan be extended to hundreds or thousands of years, it is unclear whether traditional monogamous heterosexual marriage would survive. But perhaps that won’t come to pass, which would render the subject moot.

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     To close, allow me a small joke:

     “Where ya been, Garth?
     “Sunday meetin’.
     “Oh. What did the preacher talk about?”
     “Grace.”
     “Well? What did he say?”
     “He’s for it.”

     I feel the same way about sex. But remember to take appropriate precautions:

• Your partner should be a member of the opposite sex – a willing member.
• Do not consume garlic, beans, or a large quantity of beer beforehand;
• Do not begin until you have obtained privacy for yourselves. (Yes, that includes foreplay.)
• Make certain the area is free of weapons, fragile objects, and dangerous detritus.
• Most critically: if your partner is a new acquaintance, say her name to yourself several times before beginning.

     That is all.

     (P.S.: Under no circumstances say, “I’ve never done it that way before!” You won’t be believed.)

An Embarrassment Of Riches

I hardly expected to wake up this morning:

1. Half a pound lighter than I was on Thanksgiving Day morning;
2. With so many articles to cite and write about.

And you, Gentle Reader, will be the ultimate beneficiary.

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1. The Multiplicity Of Dividers.

Tom Maguire pens an interesting headline...and then fails to exploit it. The headline itself:

When Pundits Just Don't Get It, Part Forever

But the subsequent post fails to address why “pundits just don’t get it.” Maguire does make one pithy statement at the very end:

At the state and local level plenty of politicos from both sides of the aisle will ensure their fundraising success and continued power by promoting division rather than reconciliation. At the Presidential level only one of the strategies can succeed, but if the losing side is competitive and can envision success in the next cycle, the politics of division can continue for quite a while.

Isn’t it quite clear that “pundits,” and the media organs that employ them, have learned to emulate the politicos – that they, too, promote division as a tool for securing a loyal “base?” Once that’s recognized, doesn’t it become immediately clear that such a strategy is far more likely to be deliberate than accidental?

The syndrome isn’t confined to voices on the Left. Few op-ed writers with substantial followings haven’t “chosen a side” and resolved to promote and defend it regardless of all other considerations. And no matter which way your politics incline and which pundits you favor, that is not a good thing. But there I go, trying to talk sense again.

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2. It’s On, The Continuing Saga.

Jerry Pournelle cites an interesting development:

At least one black leader, a State Senator, has declared that we are now in a race war, blacks and their sympathizers vs. everyone else. She has no authority to declare any such thing, and she certainly does not speak for anything like a majority of African Americans, nor, I suspect, for anything like a majority of liberal intellectuals, but it is an astonishing thing to say.

Actually, it’s only astonishing because it was said by an elected official. The truth of the matter has been plain for some time, though American Caucasians have been reluctant to confront it and to respond appropriately. However, Pournelle is as race-shy as most white opinion-mongers:

We are not in a race war, but there are similarities to a barbarian invasion. We have a barbarian culture within the United States. The most common cause of death of black males is to be killed by another black male. There are other sub cultures in which homicide is common. Generally the barbarian culture does not interact with the majority of the middle class, but in so-called ghetto areas American citizens cannot avoid interactions with the barbarian culture. They live there, and they can’t avoid it.

If it’s not a race war, why are nearly all the thugs Negroes, and why are other Negroes so protective of them? Moreover, Pournelle’s take on the distribution of the malady varies from mine. It’s most definitely escaped the urban ghettoes and penetrated the bastions of middle-class America, though it’s left its pretense of “poverty” behind. But Pournelle makes an important observation:

The cure for barbarians within the gates is to educate the barbarian children. Humans are not born civilized. They acquire civility by living in civilization, and they learn it as they grow up in it....American citizens act civilized because they are civilized, not from fear of apprehension and punishment.

Say rather that American citizens once acted civilized because they had been civilized at the earliest stages of their lives, whether by the schools or by their parents. But we’re not quite finished here:

But the way to civilize barbarians is to do it in the schools, from the earliest grades on: enforcement of discipline, being polite, respectful deference to authority – not cringing fear, but respectful deference. But those values have to be instilled, and enforced.

And how, given the Left’s near to absolute control of American education from kindergarten to graduate studies, are we to bring that about?

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3. Barbarism.

The redoubtable Mike Hendrix moves from Pournelle’s piece to other fascinating citations. Here are the ones that knocked me for a loop:

Bosnian immigrants respond in the comment section of this post (which, you’ll notice, is oh-so-careful not mention the race of the black savages who perpetrated the attack):

Ok, Bosnian businesses in St. Louis, it’s time to show who’s in charge. Let us chase the animals away from our neighborhood. No tolerance. None whatsoever. You mess with us? You mess with genocide victims? You don’t stand a chance. We will wipe you out! No EBT cards accepted at any Bosnian businesses from now on. Bevo Mill neighborhood is our land now. We will use our language and we will do as we see fit. All are welcome, yes, this is America, the land of many peoples, but we will not tolerate any more of this nonsense. If any suspicious African-American woman or man comes onto Bosnian businesses, you will most definitely be stopped and questioned. Every single last one of you. You will be questioned and you will have to answer to us. You will be interrogated. If you do not keep up your properties, you will be forced out. If you do not pull up your pants, we will pull them up for you. It is now time. We are cleaning up the south side. No tolerance.

Another:

That’s it. Five Bosnians now have been murdered by black men. That’s the last straw. No mercy for these animals. We will drive them out of the neighborhood. Our Bosnian economy is getting stronger. We will not speak English to them in our stores. We will not rent to them. It is over, folks, completely over. We have suffered genocide and we will not suffer it again. I am a person who is very considerate. I love Croatians, Serbians, etc. I have friends from everywhere. But for those who will destroy us, I will not be friends nor will I give them my business. We will drive them out. We Bosnians will drive these animals out. I hope the media will take note. Because we will discriminate.

In Tom Clancy’s first, blockbuster novel The Hunt For Red October, Clancy has Jack Ryan muse, en passant, over the possibility that it would take immigrants attracted to America by American ideals -- not by America’s opulent standard of living – to keep those ideals alive and well defended. Perhaps the Bosnian immigrants who penned the above comments are part of such a defensive cadre. We shall see.

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4. The Rationalizers.

Fourth, have some observations and thoughts from the indefatigable Sara Noble:

“Demon” and “aggressive” are racist terms and whites don’t see black children “as worthy of being alive”. The problems affecting black society stem from slavery of their ancestors. All this is according to one liberal black writer and one has to wonder how many others believe exactly as she does.

Stacey Patton, in an article in The Washington Post last week, presented a bizarre piece to justify the violence and criminality we see in Ferguson and elsewhere.

Patton is a pretty, smart, accomplished black woman who made her own way out of dismal circumstances and came to the conclusion that slavery and white people are to blame for what ails poor black communities. Ferguson and Michael Brown serve as examples of police brutality and mistreatment of blacks in her mind.

Not once does she or anyone mention gangs and drugs when they discuss Ferguson but it is gangs that are destroying black communities.

Her premise is that whites, particularly white police officers, don’t see black children as children, they see them as threats. It is the reason they are disproportionately represented in prisons, it is the reason for much of their problems, according to Stacey Patton.

The reality is that absentee parents, drugs and gangs are destroying black youth.

Please read the whole thing.

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5. Polymath.

The novel is taking longer to complete than I first thought it would, because the final segment, which (for the first time since I first embarked on a novel-length project) is intended to act as a bridge to a sequel. Making it sound for both purposes – i.e., as a story in its own right and as a segue piece – is costing me considerable effort.

Yes, there will be further novels and stories in the Onteora Canon. Christine D’Alessandro, Malcolm Loughlin, Kevin Conway, Todd Iverson, and Stephen Graham Sumner will all be back. I hope you’re happy about that.

And yes, I really, truly do intend to finish the novel based on “The Warm Lands.” Honest Injun.

Have a nice, non-fattening Cyber Monday.

(Cross-posted at Liberty’s Torch.)

A Post-Black-Friday Nosegay

Had enough turkey yet, Gentle Reader? I haven’t. At least, that’s what the C.S.O. says.

(Note to self: For next wife, select one who wasn’t Chief Cook for the entire U.S. Army in some previous life.)

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1. “The Business Of Business Is Business!”

Our beloved Instapundit today cites a passage from a recent novel -- something that needs to be said more often, even though it shouldn’t need to be said at all!

    He looked at me curiously. “What was your main objective, Skipper? Improve the ship’s reputation?”
    I shook my head. “You can’t improve reputation by focusing on reputation, Avery. You always earn it by your actions.” I stopped to think for a couple of heartbeats. “I almost didn’t take the berth because of the Agamemnon’s reputation on the docks, but once I was here, my main goal was simple. Make money.”
    He cocked his head to one side. “Isn’t that rather cold, skipper? Make money?”
    “Maybe,” I shrugged. “But it’s why we’re out here. It’s why the ship exists. We’re all out here because we make money. If we didn’t make a living at it, we couldn’t do it.”

Quoth Professor Reynolds: “I wish more people understood that basic point.” At first I responded by nodding, but then I got to thinking: What evidence exists to the effect that many people don’t understand it?

Well, for certain values of many, it’s beyond dispute. But is that fraction of the American populace significant in comparison to the rest?

It’s an interesting question, really. A century ago, when most Americans were either self-employed or worked in small, family-owned businesses, the don’t-understand-it fraction would have been minuscule. Even persons employed for wages by large corporations would have grasped it, simply because of the overarching commercial environment. The matter is more elusive today.

Superficially, an individual’s attitude can often be discerned from his casually offered opinions. Phrases such as “obscene profits” and “corporate greed,” and exhortations toward “living wages” and price controls would seem a dead giveaway. But such a person can usually be led to see how irrational such notions really are...at least, if he’s not of the “won’t-understand-it” tribe.

The won’t-understand-its are a separate and less tractable case. Usually, they have to be beaten across the chops by reality. Sometimes even that won’t suffice. Yet there’s worse: the Left’s leadership cadre, the ones who understand it very well but are determined to efface that understanding from their followers, because to grasp it would fatally undermine their power and prestige.

I had an exchange with such a villain just yesterday. He was the sort of devil who cites Scripture for his purposes: in this particular case, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “four freedoms,” only two of which are logically or ethically defensible. His basic argument was that “freedom from want” is just as valid as any other interpretation of freedom. When it became clear that he would not grapple with political freedom as a category that precludes State action to feed people, I left him to play with himself. Yet his is the sort of pseudo-argument that has animated those who have traditionally been the American Left’s cannon fodder: those who demand the unearned as a “right.”

They can often seem quite numerous when they take their bullhorns and spittle-flecked mugs to the streets, as for example in the current foofaurauw over “living wages” for retail clerks and fast-food workers. But how many of them are there, really?

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2. The Left’s Hate Parade.

Liberal Logic 101 presents a highly illustrative piece today:

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of trying to attempt a polite discussion with your typical Liberal you’ll quickly find how full of hatred and venom they are. You can actually gauge how effective you are at defending your point of view, by how quickly they start calling you names. But their most intense hatred they reserve for a few people who they especially loathe.

Please read the rest. Note that the persons enumerated are all happy, successful, and admired by many Americans – essentially any American who’s also happy and successful. In other words, they’re admired by anyone who has grasped that his life and values are his own responsibility to act upon. But he who has taken his life into his own hands is not politically reachable with the Left’s indispensable tools: envy and hatred. If he’s outspoken about his convictions as well, that makes him a target the Left will strive to defame, degrade, and destroy. The more passionate and widely heard he is, the more effort the Left will give to bringing about his downfall.

In this connection, science fiction writer John C. Wright tells an important story:

There is an old Chinese legend of a golden scroll on which the secret of human happiness was written; and sages and warlords, merchant-princes and emperors sought the scroll with fervor. When found, they saw the secret of the scroll consisted of one ideogram printed over and over, an ideogram they could not read. However, there was a beggar girl who could read the mysterious word.

If you know that word, then you know the secret of human happiness.

The word is gratitude. Gratitude for one’s nature as a being of independent consciousness and volition. Gratitude for the ability to conceive of goals and ways to pursue them. Gratitude for the possession of an immortal soul and its equipage of conscience. Gratitude that even when times are darkest, as long as one lives and breathes one can still hope and work for better. Gratitude, in other words, for the gift of human life and freedom.

Gratitude is the Left’s most feared and despised enemy. He who has taken his life into his own hands cannot help but be grateful. He must be silenced at least, destroyed at best.

“The Fascists cannot argue, so they kill.” (Victor Marguerite) The Left has deliberately forsaken argument in favor of force, fraud, and intimidation because its arguments have all been defeated. The sort of street protests and pseudo-ethical shaming the Left employs today can all too easily give way to violence. Should that day come to America -- and by my reading of matters, it’s not far off -- make sure you're locked, loaded, zeroed in and ready to fight.

(Cross-posted at Liberty’s Torch.)