Thursday, August 24, 2017

A Geopolitical Pipe Dream

Six days after the Muslims attacked America on 9/11/2001, President George W. Bush spoke at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. and declared Islam a religion of peace.  I could not know, at the time, that the imbecile actually believed this.  By November, American forces were in Afghanistan, and I had not yet come to any conclusion.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan are rather small fish, but Iran is a larger, far more dangerous, beast.  So, in 2003 when G.W. Bush sent the American army into Iraq, "a thrill went up my leg".  The bullshit over weapons of mass destruction always seemed like a ruse to me (there were good reasons to attack, so why the bullshit?), but you have only to look at a map to know why the thrill.  Iraq is to the west of Iran, Afghanistan is to the east of Iran, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain, putting a powerful Navy to the south of Iran.

In other words, G.W. Bush surrounded Iran on three sides, and I was sure G.W.'s real purpose was clear.  I expected to wake up one morning to the news that Marines were in Qom hanging ayatollahs and the Army was sweeping up the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) across the country while special teams were dismantling Iran's nuclear facilities which, quite unlike Saddam's vaporous WMD's, have a distinctly concrete existence.

To my bitter disappointment, none of that happened because the imbecile actually believed, and may still believe for all I know, that Islam is a religion of peace.  If you base your strategies on stupid ideas, you are bound to be disappointed in the outcomes.  In due course, Barack Obama became president and Iran is now a global disaster waiting to happen.  (Although the Iranians are not waiting for anything.  They are busy bees building up their nuclear capabilities.)

Which brings us to President Donald J. Trump, who just announced a new military initiative in Afghanistan.

No words, fit for polite company, come to mind to describe sixteen years of wasted blood and treasure in a place of no strategic value to America, and Trump appears to be doubling down.  Unless Afghanistan is not the point.

Of course, G.W. and Barack had smart generals, too, but they were not about listen to their generals.  They had IDEAS.  But, if Donald Trump is not G.W. or Barack, and if he listens to the impressive James Mattis, his defense secretary, we might just wake up one morning to the news of American Marines in Qom.

That's my Christmas wish.  That's my geopolitical pipe dream.

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Climate Change And The Church of Latter Day Aztecs

With all this talk of climate change, I can't get the Aztecs out of my mind.  Particularly, the Aztec religion.

The central doctrine of the Aztec religions was, "Blood fed the gods and kept the sun from falling."  So, to keep the sun from falling, the Aztecs killed people.  Lots and lots of people.  It has been asserted, for example, that at the re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over four days.  Other sources say, "Nah", over four days they could not have killed more than about 4,000 victims.  (Oh, ok then.)

In a good year, goes one extravagant claim, the Aztecs sacrificed 250,000 people.  Others say 20,000 is the more likely figure.  It's all pretty extravagant to me.  And to have that many people to sacrifice, every year, the Aztecs were in a state of perpetual war with their neighbors, solely for the purpose of harvesting humans for sacrifice.  You can admire one of their skull racks, a "tzompantli".

So, the Aztecs believed that if they did not spill human blood, the sun would not rise.  You have to meditate on this idea, for a moment.  Where could such an idea possibly come from?  The sun has been "rising" over the earth every day for about, oh, four billion years.  Without fail.  No exception.  No living creature on this planet can have any personal experience of the sun not rising, or anything like that.  Except, possibly, for the solar eclipse, an event that you might---might---see once in your life in the place you live.  (The solar eclipse can be perceived several times a year, somewhere on earth, but in any one spot, say Mexico City, it will be perceived, on average, about once every 350 years.)

Now, think of it.  Some guy sees the sun rise and set, rise and set, rise and set, every day of his life.  Until, one day, for no apparent reason, unless it is the seven minutes of a solar eclipse, he is consumed by the fear that unless he starts killing people, he will never see the sun again.  (Even though the seven minutes have passed and, having done nothing, he already sees the sun, again.)

Not only does Guy Zero (like "patient zero") believe this, but he has to convince his fellow citizens of this bizarre fear.  Convinced, they reorganize their entire society around this fear.  An entire society dedicates its physical and spiritual energies to perpetual war with their neighbors to harvest, sacrifice and, often, eat other human beings.  Consumed with this effort, there is nothing left for progress, as we understand the concept.

All this to influence a natural phenomenon over which they had no control, whatsoever.  Which brings me to climate change.

The earth has warmed and cooled, warmed and cooled, warmed and cooled every year for the last, oh, four billion years.  No creature on earth, with a lifespan of more than a couple of years, can have any personal experience of a planet that does not warm and cool every year.

A little harder to comprehend, and yet something we understand perfectly well, is that our planet has cycled into and out of ice ages many times over the millions of years of its existence.  Millions of years during which industrialization did not exist---indeed, during which human beings did not exist.

And yet, one day Al Gore is seized by the panic that if we do not completely re-organize our society the earth will---well, I'm not sure what it will do.  Al used think it will get too warm, but there seems to be something wrong with that theory so we do not call it "global warming" any more.  Rather, we talk of "climate change".  So, Al Gore is afraid that a global climate that has been changing all his life, that has changed for millions of years will, all of sudden, do something I'm not sure what, if we don't do something, I'm not sure what.

Actually, I'm pretty sure what.  Climate change appears to require of us two things:  truly massive wealth transference from the First World to the Third World, and de-industrialization.

Oddly, de-industrialization has been a plan since industrialization.  See "Luddite".  And income distribution has been a plan since socialists first walked the earth.

In other words, it's the same old socialists and the same old luddites with their same old master plans for social engineering, this time with the excuse that you will influence a natural phenomenon over which you cannot possibly have any control, whatsoever.

Just like the Aztecs.  And, just like the Aztecs, if we fall for this tripe, we will fall for some weirdo with a few men and some guns.  If we are not first crushed under the weight of our own stupidity for falling for the same old hustle.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Evolution Is Like Pork

My thoughts on the occasion of Earth Day and the March for Science.

Why does everybody know that Jews do not eat pork, and why does anybody care?  It seems to be a big deal.  It did not used to be a big deal.  Pork was not a big deal among the Jews in that the pig was not singled out, among all other ritually unclean animals, as being uniquely unclean.  The pig, not specifically named and along with other animals, merely falls into that category of animals with a split hoof that do not chew their cud.  That's it.

There is nothing special about the pig, except that for the long centuries that Jews lived among their Christian hosts in central and eastern Europe, pork was the chief distinction in the dietary habits of Christians and Jews.  And people tend to notice differences, no matter how small, no matter how meaningless.  And such differences, the less meaningful the better, are frequently the focal points of bigotry and violence.

So now, let's think for a moment about the debate over teaching evolution in the schools.  Why do we do it?  Is it because evolution is true and important?  I doubt it.  Taxation is true and important, and vastly more relevant to the lives of most Americans, but we don't teach that.  Think of it this way, would an auto mechanic be better at his work because he was taught the theory of evolution?  A tax accountant?  A lawyer?  Not even physicists and electrical engineers would be better at their work for knowing about evolution.

Pretty much nobody needs to know the theory of evolution, except biologists.  So educators are making an awful big deal of a subject that is irrelevant to most people.  They talk about the teaching of evolution as if every public school child is a budding research geneticist.  This is preposterous, and it requires some thought.

One of the main arguments for the teaching of the theory of evolution in the public schools is that American citizens should know something about the principles of science.  I agree with that, but that is an argument for a general science curriculum, not for evolution.  Not even for biology.  Not only does biology not need to be part of a general science curriculum, but if you are teaching biology, evolution should not be part of the biology classroom.

The study of biology does not begin with evolution.  Rather, you have to explore a lot of elementary biology before you have any hope of making sense of evolution.  This is quite like the teaching of the theory of relativity in physics.  Physics does not begin with relativity.  Rather, you have a lot of work to do in physics before you can hope to understand relativity.

Absent a good scientific foundation in physics, relativity is just catechism.  And, absent a good scientific foundation in biology, evolution is just catechism.  So here is the position in which we find ourselves.  Educators insist on teaching a subject that is

(a) unnecessary for their stated aim (conveying the principles of scientific thinking),
(b) irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of Americans, and
(c) in the wrong place in the curriculum if you do insist on teaching biology;

And they are hysterical about this.  If we do not teach evolution in the schools, they say, we would descend into medievalism.  Hardly, so what is really going on, here?  Since the teaching of the theory of evolution does not make sense on its own terms, I feel free to speculate.

I believe that evolution is a central issue in the debate over public education because it is the chief distinction between Christians and socialists.  In other words, there is nothing in Christian doctrine that conflicts with, say, the laws of thermodynamics, or relativity, or quantum mechanics.  Christians do not object to factoring polynomials or to the double-angle formula in trigonometry.  Christians have no problem with any part of the general curriculum, and with no part of the science curriculum---except the theory of evolution, a theory that is wholly irrelevant to everybody except that minuscule fraction of the world population that is occupied with research in biology.

I should add that the people who care about the theory of evolution least of all, and understand it least of all, are the Leftist educators who so shrilly insist upon it.  If Leftists actually understood the theory of evolution we would never hear that race is a social construct, and we would never, ever hear that gender is a social construct.

Clearly, the theory of evolution is important to the Leftists not for the science of it, but because it is a central part of their war on Christianity in particular, and on Judeo-Christian civilization in general.  The theory of evolution is the chief distinction between Christians and socialists in just the way pork was the chief distinction between Christians and Jews in Medieval Europe.  And, just as pork was the focus of anti-Jewish bigotry in Medieval Europe, the theory of evolution is the focus of anti-Christian bigotry in 21st century America.

And that is how evolution is like pork.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

The Chemical Weapons of Bashar al Assad

We read in the NY Times that the Obamarrhoids are starting to think that maybe, just maybe, they were deluded in thinking that Barack Obama sweet talked chemical weapons out of the hands of Bashar al Assad.  Let's think about this.

Bashar al Assad did not decide one day to attack "his" people.  Possibly, the initial unrest in 2011 was agitation for civil rights, but that unrest was quickly appropriated by Sunni fighters and converted into a jihad against the Alawites.

Bashar al Assad is the leader of the Alawites.  Contrary to popular belief in the West, Alawites are not a denomination of Shia Islam.  They may have started that way in the 9th century, but their syncretistic faith, that includes a strong resemblance to the triune god of the Christians, puts them beyond the pale in the eyes of mainstream Islam.

Depending on their mood, Muslims view Alawites either as heretics or apostates.  Either quality is perilous for the Alawites.  Historically the Alawites were severly oppressed and very poor.  Only by the machinations of the colonial French did the Alawites become a military elite and, after colonialism, a ruling elite.  And that is intolerable to the Muslims.

If al Assad loses the fight, there will be a genocide of the Alawites, that is why he will do anything to win.  There is no atrocity he will not commit.  He will fight to the death.  He will make a pact with the Devil, if he has to.  Making deals with Russians and Iranians was a no brainer for him.

Into this grisly scenario enters Barack H. Obama with a fetish for chemical weapons.  Barack wanted al Assad to give up one important weapon in exchange for...what?  Was Barack going to send in the Marines to protect the Alawites?  Was he going to give aerial support (as the Russians ultimately did)?  Was there going to be an endless stream of military supplies and financial support?  What, exactly, was Barack offering, beyond words on paper?

Bashar al Assad was bargaining for the salvation of his people, and the unserious Barack Obama was talking shit.  And today, the Obamarrhoids are scratching their...heads...and starting to think that maybe, just maybe, that deal they thought they had with al Assad did not go quite like they thought it went.

It is hard to fathom just what kind of a nitwit you would have to be to think that Bashar al Assad would gamble the safety of his people on the empty assurances of a transparent poseur.  This is what I thought in 2014 when the oafish John Kerry said, "...we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out", and today the NY Times admits it.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

The Paradox of Socialism

For a long time, I had been contemplating a long essay on the paradox of socialism.  And then, it came to me.

Like the Laws of Thermodynamics, capitalism is difficult to understand but it is always true and you can see it working.

Like the idea of the flat earth, socialism is easy to understand but it is not true and you can see it failing.

Over and over, people choose that which is easy to understand and they reject the plain evidence of their "lying eyes".

Socialism is a testament to the power of propaganda and ideology over reality.

The real mystery is how a market-based liberal democracy arose in the first place.  That it lasted this long is astonishing.  How much longer?  I am not optimistic.  It's not even that capitalists are bad at propaganda while socialists are very good at it.  Capitalists aren't even fighting the propaganda war.  They seem to think that only facts and logic are required.

They could not be more wrong.

The New York Times to The Defense

This is how the "New York Times" runs interference for communism.  Hugo Chavez was not a "leftist populist", whatever that is.  He was a plain vanilla, garden variety communist, like Bernie Sanders.

Chavez admired the murderer Che Guevara, he believed "the military should act in the interests of the working classes when the ruling classes were perceived as corrupt" (the ruling classes are always "perceived" corrupt, unless they are communists), and he founded the "Fifth Republic Movement" political party which merged with the "United Socialist Party of Venezuela", which Chavez also led.  Hugo Chavez was friends with Fidel Castro and other communists in Latin America, and he despised Augusto Pinochet and the United States.

Finally, consider what Chavez actually did while in power.  He nationalized "key" industries and created "participatory democratic Communal Councils".  Oh, what's that?  Participatory democratic Communal Councils are soviets.  Soviets, or workers councils, are just good, old fashion Trotskyism.

Honestly, you really don't have to go through the weeds of socialist theory, and the historical record on Hugo Chavez and Venezuela.  All you have to know is that Venezuela, one of the world's largest exporters of oil, suffers from chronic shortages of gasoline and electric power, in addition to shortages of all other kinds, like food and medicine.  Shortages are the hallmark of socialism.  Socialism fabricates shortages.

Of course, other political economies can suffer shortages from time to time.  Shortages can arise naturally from floods, droughts, earthquakes, pestilence, or whatever "acts of god".  There was, for example, the famous Irish potato famine, caused by the potato blight.  Only socialist countries manufacture shortages.

For example, between 1958 and 1962, about 50 MILLION Chinese STARVED TO DEATH in the greatest MAN MADE famine known to history.  No drought, no flood, no earthquake, no pestilence, no infestations, nothing.  They died of socialism.  Starting in the late 19th century, colonial Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa.  Robert Mugabe transformed post-colonial Rhodesia into communist Zimbabwe and turned a "breadbasket into a basket case".  One could go on.  And on, and on, and on.

Socialism manufactures shortages from the large and consequential, like shortages of food and medicines, to the sort of minor shortages that just grind down your will to live, like shortages of fresh fruit, toilet paper, sugar, soap, etc.

Any time you hear of shortages, absent some "act of god" the most reasonable assumption is that socialism is at work.  For a domestic example, there was no housing shortage in New York City or any other major American city, until price controls were imposed on rents.  Today, New Yorkers have the pleasure of paying inflated prices for inferior housing, if they can find housing.  This is the inevitable result of price controls, a standard socialist practice.

When Hugo Chavez assumed power in 1999, I predicted shortages.  Of course, I did not know exactly when or exactly how, but I knew shortages were coming.  And so it is.  Venezuela was no paradise before Hugo Chavez, and the people were desperate to improve their lives.  Too bad for them, they got communism, instead.

The New York Times knows all this.  So, why do they try to misdirect their readers ("Oh, look!  A leftist populist!")?  Because, dear reader, they are communists.  They will misdirect you on Venezuela and they will misdirect you on Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and on any other person and on any other subject to further the cause of the Revolution.

For the New York Times as for every communist revolutionary, "The issue is never the issue.  The issue is always the Revolution."

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Donald Trump: A Man For Our Times

If you can get past the snark, the insufferable Paul Krugman is, unbeknownst to himself, actually groping his way to an important point, even if he never gets there:  it is depressingly clear the Republicans are "A Party Not Ready to Govern".  Why?

Consider Obamacare.  For seven years the Republicans have been chanting "repeal and replace."  So how, exactly, should they go about doing that?

I imagine that early on they would have formed a working group.  That group would have consulted with think tanks, economists, lawyers, and actuaries.  Seven years is enough time to put together a serious plan.  Likely, they would have written pro-forma legislation.  And, over seven years, Republican leadership would have had time to educate, inform, cajole, and sometimes threaten their membership to get on board with the plan, for when the time came.

Amazingly, they did none of that, and that requires---nay, demands---an explanation.  I, of course, have no such explanation, but I do have an hypothesis.  To paraphrase The Three Stooges, "Hypothesis means I'm guessing and I have a college degree."

Like most of us, I suspect the Republicans are surprised to even be in power.  But even if they did not expect to be in power, they should have had blueprints for their idea of the ideal health care system.  In this way, they would have had some plan of action for influencing the development of Obamacare.

The Republicans have nothing.  Krugman implies they have nothing because they are idiots.  He writes, "they have no idea how to turn their slogans into actual legislation, because they've never bothered to understand how anything important works."

That is just a stupid remark.  I think the Republicans do not have a plan of action on health care because they never intended to repeal and replace Obamacare.  I think they like Obamacare just fine.  In the matter of health care, the Republicans and the Democrats are as one.

Does that seem unlikely?  It should not.  We have exactly the same thing regarding immigration.  Year after year, at least since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the American people wanted the borders controlled and immigration reduced.  Year after year the Republicans would promise.  And, year after year, nothing would get done.  At some point, you have to conclude that the Republicans are happy with things just the way they are---just as happy as the Democrats.  As with Obamacare so with open borders, the Republicans and the Democrats are as one.

Oh, you still don't believe me? Then take it from "Jeb!" Bush, 
many who illegally come to the United States do so out of an "act of love"
Don't you just want to punch him in the mouth? I think a lot of Americans finally caught on to the evident fact that there is no important difference between Republicans and Democrats, and that is why Donald Trump swept the field during the Republican primary elections.
Furthermore, this explains why so many Republicans share "Trump derangement syndrome" with Democrats.  They like things just the way they are, and they hate Donald Trump for upsetting the apple cart.  The election of Donald Trump is as much a defeat for the Republicans as for the Democrats.

The failure of the recent effort to repeal and replace Obamacare merely confirms my conviction that Donald Trump is "A man for our times."  We have an apple cart that needs overturning in the worst way, somebody has to do it, and it looks more and more like Trump is our guy.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Build It and They Will Come

On March 22, 2017, Damon Hewitt published an op-ed in the NY Times critical of the admissions process for the specialized high schools of New York City.  His argument is self-refuting on three levels.

First, Mr. Hewitt argues that an admissions process that is meritocratic in theory is not meritocratic in fact because not enough Black and Latino students are admitted.  But skin color is not a measure of merit.  To make an admissions decision on the basis of skin color is the opposite of merit.  It is blatant racism.

Stuyvesant High School wants to admit students who can solve a certain class of mathematical problems so they test on the math and select the students who can solve them, irrespective of skin color or national origin or religion or any other irrelevant and extraneous factor.  That is meritocracy, plain and simple.

To demonstrate there is something nefarious with this process, Mr. Hewitt would have to show that there is a significant number of Black and Latino students who can solve these problems but who are still not selected.  He did not even attempt to do that.

Second, Mr. Hewitt then declares that by focusing exclusively on one single test, specialized high schools ignore all the "traditional hallmarks of a great student," which he enumerates, and again concludes the test is discriminatory.  And this again is an evident non sequitur.  Whether it is solving calculus problems or declining Latin nouns, every test filters on something (eg, those who can decline Latin nouns and those who cannot), and so long as it does not filter on skin color it is necessarily not discriminatory in the sense Mr. Hewitt uses that word.

Finally, Mr. Hewitt implies that he knows better than the principal and teachers of Stuyvesant High School what should be done in Stuyvesant High School, a highly dubious proposition.  Imagine, he says, if a test to determine who could become a firefighter had little relation to the actual job.  So, Mr. Hewitt knows what Stuvyesant should be doing and he is sure the admissions test has
nothing to do with that.  I do not believe Mr. Hewitt knows any of this.

However, let's suppose Mr. Hewitt is right.  First, if the admissions test ignores all the traditional hallmarks of a great student, as he claims, then there remains a sizable pool of great students available to someone who wants to serve them.  Second, if the existing admissions test does in fact align with what the specialized high schools are doing, then they are doing education all wrong, according to Mr. Hewitt.  So, why does he want to send great students to bad schools?

If Mr. Hewitt is right, and he has the courage of his convictions, there lays before him a fantastic opportunity.  Let him and his friends band together and create a school on the principles he espouses, and let them admit students by the criteria he recommends to others.  If he is right, he will have created a great high school and done much good in the world.

This is exactly what the president of Bard College did.  Around 2001, Leon Botstein thought he had a better idea for a New York City high school, so he called then chancellor Joel Klein, and Bard High School Early College was conceived over lunch.  So far as I know, Bard High School is a great success, and they did not have to wreck Stuyvesant High School to create it.

It seems to me that Mr. Hewitt and his colleagues are more interested in wrecking Stuyvesant and the other specialized high schools than they are in serving the interests of the students he claims to champion.  If Mr. Hewitt were sincere in his beliefs, he would build a new high school rather than work so hard at tearing down an old one.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Defending Islam against Muslims

There is a strange tendency among Westerners to defend Islam against Muslims.  So, when Muslims do horrific things, the Westerners, who themselves know nothing of Islam, will instantly rise to the defense insisting, "Oh, this is not the correct interpretation of Islam."  Or, they will say there are many interpretations of Islam and this is not the canonical one.  As if they would recognize the canonical interpretation when they see it (it will look remarkably like Methodism, in their eyes).  Essentially, they claim to know Islam better than the Muslims.

Specifically, they know Islam better than Osama bin Laden knew Islam.  They know Islam better than the Caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi or even the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.  And better than the millions and millions of Muslims who see things just the way these gentlemen saw them and whose lived experience of Islam comports entirely with their views.

The enormity of this claim still leaves me speechless.  Recently, however, my discussion with a friend centered on one specific point:  apostasy in Islam.  It is widely understood that apostates from Islam must be killed by Muslims, but my friend was certain---certain, you understand---that this could not possibly be true.

It's true.

As with every religion, much of Islam remains debatable.  Even the apostate is debatable in Islam, but not in the way naive Westerners might imagine.  The doctors of Muslim law (the "ulema") dedicate much thought to apostasy and the issue is discussed all over the ahadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad) and fiqh (Muslim jurisprudence).  In several verses, the Koran is highly suggestive, but the definitive ruling comes from the ahadith,

Sahih Bukhari (52:260) "The Prophet said, 'If somebody discards his religion, kill him.' "

There are several other such verses that specifically state that a person who leaves Islam must be killed.  But Sahih Bukhari (52:260) is the verse that introduces uncertainty.  This verse does not restrict apostasy to Islam.  So, there is no doubt about what must happen to a Muslim apostate, but the gravamen of the debate among the ulema is whether a Christian should be killed, by the Muslim authorities, for leaving Christianity or if a Jew should be killed, by the Muslim authorities, for leaving Judaism.

The conclusion is a tad complicated.  After all, Islam invites converts, so it would be strange indeed if a Christian were to accept the invitation to Islam and then be killed for leaving Christianity.  Furthermore, while Christians and Jews have Koranic standing as "People of The Book" and are tolerated (under certain social and legal disabilities) in Muslim society, most other religions, especially polytheistic religions like Hinduism, are intolerable.

So, the basic Muslim position on apostasy is this.  A Muslim who leaves Islam must die.  Polytheists must convert to Islam or die.  Christians and Jews who convert to any religion other than Islam should probably die, but Muslims may not care enough about that.  That is, Muslims can't get too exercised if a Christian converts to Judaism or a Jew converts to Christianity.  I.e., in most times and most places, Muslims saw that as merely a pointless act and nothing more, but sometimes it would have been a dangerous act.

The discussion necessarily continues.  How do you know when a person is a Muslim and how do you know he has apostasized?  Must there be an official adjudication?  Is there a process?  Who is obliged to take action?  And so on.

These are not questions I will explore to any length, but I leave you with an outline.  In most cases, it is easy to know if a person is an apostate from Islam.  He can declare his apostasy in words or reveal his apostasy in actions.  An apostate must be invited back to the sharia (the righteous path) three times.  If he declines a third time, his life is forfeited.

Responsibility is a matter of debate as we might understand the concept.  In matters of religious law, Islam separates personal responsibility and communal responsibility.  For example, offensive Jihad is strictly a communal responsibility while defensive jihad, while certainly a communal responsibility, is also a personal responsibility.

In the matter of apostasy, one tradition places the responsibility squarely on the individual.  If you believe I am an apostate, you must make a definitive judgement and invite me back to the faith three times.  If I decline a third time, it is your personal responsibility to cut my throat.  A more liberal interpretation prefers the involvement of the state in this matter.

I hope you agree all these issues are mere quibbles.  In Islam, in one way or another, an apostate's life is in danger.  Apostates are going to be secretive, and that is why it is hard to know just how many Muslim apostates there are.  There are reasons to believe the numbers are much larger than is generally acknowledged.  And that is why death is the answer in Islam.  Islam is such an obviously perverse ideology it is widely believed, even among Muslims themselves, that if death were not the punishment, Islam would have long since evaporated.  Islam is the original "bucket of crabs."

In other words, these people are not just gratuitously crazy.  Death for apostates is one of the earliest, most persistent, and clearest tenets of Islam.  And it is one---and only one--of the several reasons I believe Islam is a fragile religion.  If the West, itself, were not so culturally weak at this moment in our historical development, we might have seen the end of Islam as we know it, in our lifetimes.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Feminism, The Left, and The Private Sector

Fascinating presentation, for many reasons.  Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, discussing aspects of feminism.  At minute 8:40, Peterson says,
Just imagine for a minute trying to run a billion dollar corporation...those things are complicated.  And you have enemies and they are trying to take you out all the time.  You look at Apple and Samsung and they are just torturing each other in the courts non-stop.  If you are running a big corporation you'll be handling two or three hundred lawsuits at a time.
So, Peterson is describing the natural order of things.  And then I think of the Leftist criticism of our President because, as a businessman with national and international interests, Trump gets sued a lot.

Officially, I am agnostic on this question:  do the Left actually understand the situation and are just talking shit to score political points, or do they really not know?  I have to believe that some of them know.  And then there is the case of the famous Leftist U.S. senator George McGovern.

George McGovern (d. 2012) was the Elizabeth Warren of the 1960's and 1970's (except he was a decent person), the Old Battle Axe of the Left.  After spending most of his adult life in public service, McGovern retired, and purchased and operated an inn in Connecticut.  For the first time in his adult life, he worked in the private sector, responsible for employees and customers and meeting a payroll and paying vendors, etc.  His reaction?
In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business, especially during a recession of the kind that hit New England just as I was acquiring the inn’s 43-year leasehold. I also wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender.
He went bankrupt.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Suckers!

Are you a feminist in the 21st century?  Sucker!

Every once in a while, the curtain is momentarily pulled back and we catch a glimpse of the sordid underbelly of Leftist politics.  Just this happened during the campaign for DNC chair.

Everybody understands First Wave Feminism.  Women should have the vote, they should be able to make contracts, inherit property, and so on.  Adult female citizens should have all the rights (and the obligations, with the possible exception of military service) of adult male citizens.  So, "Yes" to First Wave Feminism.

Second Wave Feminism seemed like a fraud from the start.  It's the lies, you see.  Betty Friedan was never the house-bound house-frau she claimed to be.  Feminists still man the barricades for equal pay even though equal pay has been the lay of the land for at least the past 30 years.

Or, how about domestic violence?  Remember when Super Bowl Sunday was the most dangerous day of the year to be a woman?  No?  That's good, because it ain't so.  But feminists made up this lie and successfully promoted it for years before it finally died a slow, painful, and long delayed death.

My personal favorite is the Rule of Thumb.  Legacy systems of weights and measures arose organically.  The inch is approximately the width of a man's thumb at the first knuckle, a foot is a man’s foot, a yard is his stride, a grain is actually a grain of wheat or barley, a stone is a stone, and so on.  To this day horses are measured as so many "hands" high at the shoulder.  So, a carpenter marking off wood might in some cases naturally use his thumb for an approximate measure---the Rule of Thumb.

So, the Rule of Thumb seemed an obvious, and innocuous, concept until the feminists explained that Medieval Common Law allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.  According to the feminists, the Rule of Thumb was a limiting concept, a first effort of a barbaric society to limit the brutality of men (who are still brutal and something should be done about them, like taking away their Super Bowl).

Except it ain't so.  The Rule of Thumb means exactly what you think it means, and nothing else.  Feminists just made up the rest.  (Really, they took a Medieval joke and dressed it up as a modern truth.)

Why all the lies?  Because feminism, the Second Wave stuff, is not about women.

David Horowitz, author, publisher, founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and former far-Left radical, explains it this way:  “The cause is never the cause.  The cause is always the revolution."  Feminism is not about women, racial justice and the BLM movement are not about Black people, gender dysphoria is not about gender, immigration is not about foreigners, etc.  All these seemingly disparate things are really about one and the same thing.  They are about the revolution.  The socialist revolution.  And to implement any revolution, first you have to tear down the Existing Order.  That is why the Bolsheviks shot dead the Tsar and his entire family.

In the 21st century, the single greatest impediment to the socialist revolution is the spectacular success of Western Civilization, so that has to go.  And to tear it down, you have to undermine its foundations.  That is what Antonio Gramsci’s “Long March Through The Institutions” is about.

To undermine the West, you have to undermine democracy, undermine the family, even cast doubt on the biological reality of men and women.  And, you have to find allies.  Here is an icon of Western feminism finding an ally in a representative of the greatest oppressor of women in the modern world, "Gloria Steinem Endorses Keith Ellison for Democratic national Committee Chair."

And here is a socialist finding an ally in a representative of the greatest retrograde force in the modern world, "Join Bernie Sanders and Support Keith Ellison for DNC Chair."

Birds of a feather flock together? You bet! And enemies of the people make common cause.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

The Truth Is Not Enough

Alan Dershowitz is a great champion of Israel, and here he is arguing that Truth is a powerful weapon in Israel's defense.  I like Alan Dershowitz, and I agree that Truth is a powerful weapon.  But, like any weapon, it has to be used correctly, and Dershowitz is not doing that.  Consider the First Sino-Japanese War (1895) as a counter-example.

China and Japan fought the first modern naval battle in the western Pacific, for control of Korea.  Both sides bought modern ships from the Europeans but the smart money was on China.  However, the Chinese admiral was an old cavalry officer, and in the decisive battle of that war he brought his ships out line-abreast, like a cavalry charge.  The Japanese blew them to bits, and all of Korea became a slave-labor camp for the Japanese, culminating in the "comfort women" of WW II.

Admiral Ding Ruchang indeed had a powerful weapon at his disposal, but he did not know how to use it.  Disaster followed.

Alan Dershowitz is not an old cavalry officer, he is an old trial lawyer and a professor of law who uses the truth like a defense attorney.  But, just as Ding Ruchan was not in a land battle,  we are not in an American courtroom (or in the Oxford Union).  We are in a global propaganda war.  In a propaganda war, if you play defense you will lose.  Israel has been losing the propaganda war for 40 yrs.

In a propaganda war, the only winning strategy---not the best strategy, the only strategy, if you want to win---is attack.  To paraphrase Georges Danton, in a propaganda war it is "l'attack, encoure l'attack, toujours l'attack!"  Or, as we might say in English:  Attack!  Attack!  Attack!

The other side says we eat babies for breakfast?  Alan Dershowitz says, "No, we don't."  He lost that battle.  And, if you lose enough battles, you lose the war.

When the other side says that Jews use the blood of Muslim children to bake Purim pastries (the Blood Libel is very much alive and well in Muslim lands) the only effective response is to say that Muslims bugger little girls.  And then produce photographs, videos, testimonials, etc.  It's the truth.

If the other side organizes an annual Israel Apartheid Week, we organize a monthly Apartheid Week.  In January it is Saudi Arabia Apartheid Week, in February it is Pakistan Apartheid Week, in March it is Iran Apartheid Week, etc., for every month colleges are in session.  And we show pictures and videos of women being stoned, 12 yr old girls getting married, gays being thrown off roofs, Christian girls being kidnapped and raped, etc., etc., etc.

In 1967, Israel was the darling of the global community.  Today, it is a pariah.  How did that happen?  The Muslims and anti-Semites have been winning the propaganda war for 40 years.  We must figure out how, and learn the lesson.  And they do not even have Truth on their side, but they attack, attack, attack.

I would bet most of you reading this hate my suggestion.  You are wondering how will we ever make them our friends.  Do not worry about being their friends.  Let them worry about being our friends.  Get over yourselves.  This is not about you and your delicate sensibilities.  We are in a real war.  Real people really are dying and propaganda is an essential part of that war.  The only question is:  Do you want to win?

Yes?  The rest follows.

I leave you with that awesome introductory speech by George C. Scott in the movie "Patton". At one moment, Patton says,
Some of you boys are wondering if you are going to chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood, shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do.
After 40 years of losing the propaganda war, surely we know what to do.  And we had better get to it.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited

I have been reading the fascinating "Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisted."  Emmett Scott is revisiting the question of what destroyed the classical Greco-Roman civilization in Europe and brought on the Dark Ages.

A lot of credible people have long held that it was the barbarian invasions that ultimately took down Rome.  It turns out, however, there are some pretty good reasons to think it was not that simple, and that other factors were at work.  Mohammed's name in the title suggests where the argument is going.

However, I was troubled.  On the one hand, "Mohammed and Charlemagne" has the look and feel of a scholarly work.  It is well written, the arguments feel right, and there are plenty of citations.  However, I can find nothing on the author.  The book gives no university affiliation, an internet search brings up little beyond describing the man as "a historian," and the book is published by New English Review Press, not an academic publisher, so far as I know.

Part of my concern is that I have read other books with the look and feel of true scholarship that yet turned out to be bunkum.  A famous modern example is "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews," by the " Historical Research Department of the Nation of Islam." "Secret Relationship" is a clever work, sophisticated and with lots of citations.  If you knew nothing about the Atlantic Slave Trade you would be persuaded.  In fact, the book is a superb instance of how to lie with facts.  Yes, Jews were part of the economic life of England and Holland but were they the driving force behind the Atlantic Slave Trade?  Not even close.  So, being troubled by Emmet Scott's lack of scholarly pedigree, I was going slow with the book.

To pick up the slack, I started reading "The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise."  This is a wholly different case.  Dario Fernandez-Morera is associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University and the book is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.  OK, ISI is not Oxford University Press, but they are a known, credible organization.  The book, itself, is extensively researched and beautifully written.

In his introduction, Fernandez-Morera explains the controversies and motivates the need for a revisionist history of "al Andalus."  On page 9, paragraph 2, he writes,
   Some recent scholars in the English-speaking world have done excellent work, but with the exception of Emmet Scott they have either concerned themselves mainly with the Jewish experience or not adopted the approach of the present book, which looks at these cultures synchronically and comparatively..."
Bingo!  I now have a credible scholar credibly referring to Emmet Scott as a credible scholar.  I have established what the Muslims call "isnad", the chain of authority, and I can now proceed with "Mohammed and Charlemagne" with confidence.

So, if you are interested in the subject, you should feel free to get the book.  I will let you know what I think, in due course.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Betsy DeVos (redux)

A word about my attitude regarding Betsy DeVos.

Our schools have been in a state of constant reform for over a century.  John Dewey published "The School and Society" in 1900.  Public education went on steroids with massive IV money infusions in 1957 with the Sputnik scare.  In 1968 the teachers organizations transmogrified from professional associations into trade unions.  And in 1983 the commission empanelled by President Reagan issued their report, "A Nation at Risk."

President Reagan's commission delivered at least two famous phrases:  the "rising tide of mediocrity" phrase and the "act of war" phrase.  I quote,
(a) The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people,
and
(2) If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
That was 1983.  Thirty-four years later, the public schools are in much worse condition.  At this point in our historical development, we can fairly say they have collapsed.

This collapse is not an "act of G-d".  It does not arise from drought or flood or earthquake.  There is no actual war or widespread starvation or social disruption.  And there is no mysterious "Invisible Hand" (pace, Adam Smith) that works against us.

Rather, our public schools are the necessary consequence of policies and practices that have been knowingly and intentionally implemented by individuals known to us, mainly the education schools professoriate ("The Ayatollahs of Education") and the leadership of the teachers unions, to whom I refer collectively as "The Education Mafia".  They have massive political power, they have been in charge of our schools for generations, and they are responsible.  It's all on them.

And, they cannot be persuaded.

Friends, there are only two possibilities left to us.  Either the Education Mafia remain in charge, and nothing happens until educational collapse leads to societal collapse, or we prise their death grip off the throat of public education.

The only important thing about Betsy DeVos is that she is not of the Education Mafia.  All the rest of what you read about her, in the NY Times and the Washington Post, is irrelevant shit.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Yeah, Whatever.

The NY Times does not like Betsy DeVos, President Trump's nominee for secretary of Education.  Yeah, whatever.

The president should close the U.S. Department of Education (or, as I like to call it, the Dept of Public Education, "DOPE"), which was Jimmy Carter's pay off to the teachers unions for their support in the 1976 elections.  There is no indication that Betsy DeVos, if confirmed, will do that, so meh.  On the principle that the alternative will probably be worse, however, DeVos should be confirmed.  A word on what "worse" means.

Let's not mince words, American public education has collapsed.  The numbers are grisly, and the underlying reality is much worse.  You must remember that most of the numbers we have, to weigh and measure public education, come from the Education Mafia themselves, and they have been cooking the books for three generations.

For example, any right thinking person will groan in despair when learning of the enormous gap in high school graduation rates, between White students and Black students.  At 47% graduating nationwide, an absolute majority of Black males will not graduate at all, giving rise to a nearly 30% gap from their White peers.  So, that's bad, but the reality is worse, and it is worse in at least two dimensions.

First, the average Black student who does graduate high school reads and calculates at the level of the average White 8th grader.  How and why this happens is your homework assignment, but it should be immediately obvious that, bad as the graduation rate is, reality is much worse.

Second, this terrible problem has existed for generations, so the Education Mafia is well aware.  And yet, knowing that many students, Black and White, fail to graduate or graduate with inadequate skills, they do nothing about it leaving these large numbers of students woefully unprepared for life.  Oh, the Education Mafia work really hard a remediation, but consider carefully what that means.

Remediation means they force students to remain in an endeavor for which they have amply demonstrated the lack of interest or aptitude or both, never mind that it patently does not work (we have been at it a while, you know).  Remediation is mainly a harbinger of educational failure.  What about something else?  Vocational training, anyone?  Nope.  Oh, there is some.  Not remotely enough.  Why?  Why not a lot more vocational training or something else, anything else, just not the same old, tired, failing program that has afflicted us all our lives?

The people who have been in charge of our schools for the past 60 to 100 years (depending on how you count), the architects of this disaster, the people whom I affectionately call the Education Mafia, are prisoners of their own ideology.  If you read their literature, which I have done as penance for my sins, there is not a hint of an alternative to the Existing Order.  To the contrary, they circle the wagons against any possibility of reform, hence their animus towards Betsy DeVos.  The Education Mafia are incapable of reform.  With the Education Mafia firmly in charge, the public schools are unreformable.

(BTW, I am talking about true reform.  It is easy to tell when you do not have it.  If any proposed reform ends up leaving the same people in charge, and the same people are doing the same things in the same ways, you have not achieved reform.  Contrariwise, when the Education Mafia scream like banshees, you know you are on to something different.)

So, if we are not going to close the DOPE, the next best thing is to bring in an outsider, somebody who has not drunk the Kool-aid of the schools of education, someone who is not a votary of the "ayatollahs of education", as I like to call the education school professoriate.  This person should bring in the experts, both the ed school ayatollahs and the serious critics of the ayatollahs, of which there are a few.

We need a person who is able to look at the problem with new eyes.  Let this person listen to the arguments on both sides.  Let him, or her, consider the track record of the Education Mafia, and let him proceed accordingly.

Is Betsy DeVos that person?  Probably not.  By all accounts, DeVos is, herself, slave to an old idea, charter schools, that has an uninspiring record nearly 30 yrs long.

So, if President Trump will not close down the DOPE and Betsy DeVos is not the reformer we so desperately need, then <<<YAWN>>> pardon me while I go get a cup of coffee and sort out my sock drawer or something.  Oh!  Will ya look at the time...

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Don't Open That Door (Or You'll Be Sorry)

In his February 2 op-ed, Charles Krauthammer explains former senator Harry Reid's mistake, "Thank God For Harry Reid."  Thinking that the ends justify the means, Harry Reid took steps that the Democrats are now bitterly regretting.

The moral of the story is that process matters.  A lot.  I am reminded of the 1973 SCOTUS decision, Roe v Wade, which the Leftists and Democrats may come to regret in the same way they are already regretting Harry Reid.  Allow me to explain.

Before 1973, abortion was governed by state law, and legality was a matter of degree.  Nowhere was abortion totally illegal.  Every state allowed abortion for some reasons, like rape, incest, and the life of the mother.  The main problem was abortions of convenience.  About 15 states, including NYS, were quite liberal about abortions of convenience, and many other states not so much.  Although this, too, was a matter of degree.  Women could travel for an abortion.  Yes, I get it, it is a hurdle.  For some women less of a hurdle and for some, more.  For some, an insurmountable hurdle.

It remains that abortion was more or less available to a lot of women.  And---very important---the trend was towards more liberalization of abortion laws.  However, this was a slow process and the Leftists were impatient.  Roe v Wade was the short cut through the state legislatures, and the Leftists may come to learn the meaning of that old saying, "Short cuts make for long journeys."

Two types of people object to Roe v Wade: Christians and conservatives.  The two are frequently, and wrongly, conflated.  Lots of Christians are not conservative (with rare exception, anytime you make somebody else's personal business your business, probably you are not a conservative), and lots of conservatives are not Christian.

For the Christians, the issue is the life of the child, an issue not to be lightly dismissed.  Conservatives have another problem altogether with Roe v Wade.

The argument for Roe v Wade is that abortion is a Constitutional right.  The problem is that the Constitution is entirely silent on this topic.  The Constitution is a miraculous document, but it is silent on very many things, abortion among them.  If the Constitution is silent on your pet idea, then you cannot escape the heavy lifting of talking to your fellow citizens, trying to persuade them, and making law.  A long, slow process with no guarantee for success.

So, if the Constitution is silent on the subject, on what was Roe based?  Penumbras.  In the 1965 Griswold case involving Planned Parenthood, the precursor to Roe, Justice William O. Douglas "stated that the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights have penumbras "formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance," and that the right to privacy exists within this area."

Penumbras?  Emanations?  Really?  Is this law?  What does it mean?  I think, penumbra means that the law says whatever I want it to say.  And there's the rub.  Leftists are not the only people who can see penumbras.  Donald Trump can see penumbras.  The justices he appoints to the SCOTUS can see penumbras.

As a conservative, I'm telling you that once you open that door, you may not like what walks through.

I feel very sure that Democrats are already regretting Harry Reid and his "nuclear option."  That is Krauthammer's point.  Neill Gorsuch is a sure thing for the SCOTUS.  And, if President Trump gets one or two (or three) more appointments, Democrats may well come to regret constitutional penumbras.

PS:  Leftists, don't hold your breath.  If President Trump builds that wall, or anything like it, he will be a two term president, and penumbras will be the fabric of your nightmares.

You should not have opened that door.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

How Does The Left Lie? Let Me Count The Ways.

Chelsea Handler says she would not bother interviewing Melania Trump because "She can barely speak English!"  Let's unpack this dog turd, shall we?

First, Melania speaks five languages: her native Slovene, plus French, Italian, German, and...English.  Now, this may sound extravagant to Americans who struggle (not always successfully) with one language, but I know as a matter fact this kind of linguistic virtuosity is very common in Europe, especially among the small nations of central and eastern Europe.

For example, my father spoke five Languages:  his native Romanian, plus French, Italian, German, and English.  Yiddish might be a sixth language, but he did not speak it well.  Ok, my father was a very well educated man, so consider my mother, a brilliant woman but with only seven formal grades of education.  She spoke:  her native Yiddish, plus Romanian, French, and English.  Four languages.

My parents were not unique.  In Amsterdam I watched the cafe manager speak English, German, and French to his customers, as required, and he was bantering extensively, not just settling the bill.  As I was paying my bill and expressing my admiration, he shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly explained that "nobody comes to Holland speaking Dutch".

At a restaurant that straddled the Franco-Belgian border, I watched a young waitress do exactly the same thing, as she moved from table to table.  I did not have a chance to express my admiration to her, but I already knew the explanation.

Pretty much everybody in all of Europe (with the possible exception of the French, who are as linguistically chauvinistic as the English), speaks one or three of the major world languages:  English, French, and German, and very commonly two or three of the minor languages.  For example, I encountered Hungarian speakers in Romania and Romanian speakers in Jugoslavia.  In Paris, I even encountered Romanian speaking Greeks (sic!).  Thessaloniki, you see.  Lithuanians speak Polish, Scandinavians speak German and English, and so on.

I could go on just from my own experience, but on the basic proposition it would be strange if Melania did not speak several languages with credible fluency, especially the world's Lingua Franca, English, and especially since she has been living in the U.S. at least since 2001.

So the basic conclusion is inescapable:  Chelsea Handler is malicious and stupid.  What makes Chelsea Handler's stupid assertion interesting to me is that I have seen this sort of thing before.

In the long and bitter debate about Israel and her Muslim neighbors, people who tend to be sympathetic to the Arabs despise Bernard Lewis. Now, this is an odd thing, that should be explored another time.  Until his retirement a few years ago, Bernard Lewis was the pre-eminent scholar of Islam and the Near East.  For his work, he had full mastery of Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, classical Turkish, and he was a fluent speaker of modern Turkish.  Lewis had more than a nodding acquaintance with Aramaic.  He is a gifted man.  (Wikipedia says he is still alive at age 100.  May he live to 120.)

It came to pass that I was in debate with a man of the Left (let's call him Thomas), a scholar poseur, sympathetic to the Arab cause.  In discussing some question of fact, I referred to Bernard Lewis.  Thomas dismissed Lewis with a wave of the hand, saying his opinions are worthless in such matters since he doesn't even speak Arabic.

Friends, you have to think about this for a moment.  Here is what could not have happened:  Thomas never investigated the life of Bernard Lewis or came to know him, or his work, in any way.  Either someone simply told Thomas that Lewis did not speak Arabic, and we now have an isnad of lies, or Thomas simply made up his assertion.

If Thomas had simply made up his false assertion, then he is an asshole.  This is the very definition of intellectual dishonesty.  If Thomas accepted this false fact on somebody else's authority, then Thomas is a very poor scholar, indeed.  Not only was he accepting an outrageous and incredible assertion about a recognized scholar without checking sources, he was not even aware that it is not possible to do any scholarship on the "Near East" without the mastery of at least three difficult languages:  Persian, Arabic, and Turkish.  With considerable justification, some would include Hebrew and Aramaic in that list.  So, yeah, Near Eastern scholarship is really difficult, which is why not many people do it (well).

The point is that somebody, Thomas or someone else, made up the slander that Bernard Lewis does not know Arabic. Why on earth would anyone make up such a thing?  To discredit Lewis, of course!

For the Left, any lie will do to discredit the opposition.  I saw this first hand with Bernard Lewis, and we are seeing it first hand with Melania Trump and the contemptible Chelsea Handler.

BTW, Melania and I have something in common.  She once lived in the Slovenian city of Ljubljana, on her way to becoming First Lady of the United States.  I once at a plate of spaghetti Bolognese there.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

I Feel Your Pain, Really I Do

Dear Socialist Friends (of whom I have a few),

I know you feel wounded by the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the presidency of The United States, and I am sorry for you loss.  I want to tell you that I feel your pain.  Probably, I feel your pain more acutely than you felt mine on the election, and re-election, of the anti-Semitic and endlessly destructive Barack Obama.  But, never mind that, now.

I write to confess what you already sense:  that as much as I feel your pain, I cannot take it very seriously.  You will get over it.  I know this because, however real the pain seems to you right now, the cause is an illusion.  You are suffering from a political form of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.  In other words, Hillary Clinton wanted power so she and her friends abused you to get attention for themselves.

You see, controlling borders is what every normal nation does.  There is no war on women.  There is a war on Black men, but it is not being waged by the police departments of our metropolises and certainly not by Donald Trump.  And so on down the list of Democratic talking points.

During most of my adult life I have tried to understand the socialist mentality.  Gently and with respect, I poke and I prod, but most socialists are uncomfortable having their cherished misconceptions questioned, let alone challenged, so they tend not to be forthcoming.  When I do get a little further in the discussion, I usually find "no there, there."  Let me give you an example.

I have a good friend, let's call him Jack, who is maximally risk averse.  He pays a premium for rent on a shitty little Brooklyn apartment because it is rent stabilized.  He understands perfectly well he could get more apartment for less money, but he would have to give up rent stabilization.  For Jack, rent stabilization is insurance against the market uncertainty he cannot tolerate, and the extra rent is the premium he is willing to pay for that insurance.

I, for one, never saw such a thing coming.  Most people (I think) think of rent control as a way of keeping rents down.  It never occurred to me that someone would pay more to have rent control, which has become a good in itself.  But, never mind that, now.

Jack also tends to be politically disinterested, so it came as quite some surprise when he vehemently expressed a deep antipathy to Donald Trump.  Jack was so agitated by Trump that he was reluctant to even discuss the subject, at first.  Eventually, his concern came out.

All that Jack knows of Trump is that Trump wants to tear down regulations.  Jack concluded that Trump wants to eliminate rent control in NYC, so he felt personally threatened.  Hence the profound animus.  Jack has no concept of the federal structure of American government.  He was flatly unaware that some things are the business of the federal government and many things are not.  I tried to explain to Jack that the President of The Republic has no authority over NYC rent regulations, which are a matter of state law.  And, more than likely, the POTUS has much bigger fish to fry than Jack's rent stabilized apartment.

Jack was glad to hear it, but remains unconvinced.

What am I to think?   On the one hand, Jack is a friend and his pain is very real.  On the other hand, the pain arises out of a profound ignorance of American government.  Jack is terrified by an eventuality that will never happen.  Oh, NYC rent control may well be repealed someday (when Hell freezes over), but not by Donald Trump.  And yet, it is Donald Trump that Jack hates.

So yeah, I definitely feel poor Jack's pain.  But I can't take it seriously.  And so it is with most of my socialist friends and their political night terrors.

Monday, January 9, 2017

Globalize This!

At first, you might think this is getting tiresome.  The NY Times, in the voice of Charles M. Blow, calling our president-elect a "Troglodytic lout" (now can I call Hillary Clinton a lying cunt?).  But wait!  There be brilliance, here.

In Part The First, Blow writes,
"While Russian hacks “were not involved in vote tallying,” the publishing of pilfered emails and promulgation of fake news altered the zeitgeist, poisoned the political environment and shifted public opinion, all of which redounded to Trump’s benefit."
In Part The Second, Blow characterizes Russia's work (assuming it was Russia that really did this) thusly,
"...this is no different than physically breaking into an American office and carting off boxes of written letters — and funneled that stolen material to a willing conspirator, Julian Assange."
And I think, we've seen this before.

In the notorious Pentagon Papers case, breaking American law Daniel Ellsberg (paraphrasing Blow)
"physically broke into an American office and carted off boxes of written documents---and funneled that stolen material to a willing conspirator, the NY Times."  
Very much to the effect of (paraphrasing Blow)
"poisoning the political environment and shifting public opinion"
And it hits me, the NY Times and their media friends have lost its minds over the DNC and HRC hacks because they feel History leaving them behind.

Once upon a time, The NY Times was the Great Arbiter of the political firmament.  The public hanged on every word of "the paper of record" and politicians quaked in their boots.  No more.  Today, foreigners are doing the political work that the American mainstream media does not want to do, and the NY Times and their mass media friends are fading into irrelevance.

It seems the NY Times is as angry with Globalization as the "Angry White Men" they love to sneer at.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Barack Brings a Knife to A Gunfight

The New York Times asks and answers the question,
"Why did it take the Obama administration more than 16 months to develop a response?
The short answer, suggested by the report the agencies released on Friday, is that the United States government is still responding at an analog pace to a low-grade, though escalating, digital conflict."
In other words, Barack brought a knife to a gun fight.

Like Donald Trump says, it gets tiresome being right all the time.  Five minutes into the first Barack speech I ever heard I knew that, if we were going to elect him, we would be electing a 19th century man for a 21st century job, and that it could not possibly end well.  Of course, I had in mind social and economic policies.  This was a guy, I thought, whose mental landscape is uncluttered by the monumental events of the 20th century.  He is still a socialist, despite everything.

What I did not appreciate at the time, though I should have, is that his 19th century mentality would ramify outside of social and economic policies and into Cyberia.  The first major instance of this was the sad case of the Obamacare website, which you must remember had a very difficult birth.

Yes of course, complicated websites are difficult to produce, so you have to meditate on this for a bit to fully appreciate the enormity of that experience.  We are not talking about some cash-strapped start-up, we are talking about the United States of America.  The USA is home to a deep bench of the best digital talent on the planet, and most of that talent is highly sympathetic to Barack.  Furthermore, major private companies have long experience in health insurance and in developing and maintaining online services.

With an essentially unlimited pot of money and a deep well of sympathy, Barack could have easily organized an enthusiastic working group of the best talent on earth to develop the Obamacare website.  It would have been a model of how to get things done.

Barack Obama did none of that, and you have to wonder why.  The only answer that comes to me is that Barack simply did not know better.  He is a 19th century man in a 21st century job.  Too bad for us.

If you suppose that Barack, and the people who surround him, simply do not know better, that they are 19th century people living, rather uncomfortably, in the 21st century, then the recent hackings, of the DNC computer and of Hillary's personal server, must come as no surprise.  These are the people who, when confronted with a phishing link, "Send Me Your Password," click on it.

Why did the DNC's technical support not respond to multiple warnings by the FBI?  Only because they did not know better.  What other answer could there possibly be???

And none of this is new.  The U.S., both government agencies and private companies, have been under intense cybernetic assault for years.  This is not about a slow response over 16 months, as the NYT suggests.

In other words, we have the answer to a question that the NY Times failed to ask.  This abject failure of Barack Obama to protect the most fundamental interest of the United States, the integrity of the electoral system:  was it malice or incompetence?  People like me tend to suspect the worst, i.e., I suspected malice.  It is now obvious that I was wrong.  That the DNC, itself, actually had no digital defenses clearly reveals that these people are incompetent.

I had violated "Hanlon's Razor":  Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.