Questions for Muslims

Collective Punishment?  What about Collective Beliefs?

When it comes to Gaza and the Palestinians, there's a lot of talk about the evils of collective punishment.  And maybe that is correct.  Israel and the IDF are certainly trying to avoid it.  But I think it's long past time to have a serious discussion about what Palestinians and Muslims collectively believe.

Let's start with some questions:

What percentage of Palestinians support Hamas?

What percentage believe that Israel should not exist?

What percentage believe that homosexuals should be killed?

What percentage believe that apostates should be killed?

What percentage believe all Jews should be killed? 

Here's a few more to ask them:  What should be done with a woman who commits adultery?  What should happen to a woman who is raped?  What should be done with a Palestinian daughter who wants to marry a Jewish man?

How much moral ambiguity do these questions allow?

And then, just for fun, ask these same questions in other Muslim countries.  Start with sunni Saudi Arabia and shia Iran.  Even with their supposedly vast theological divide, you'll get a lot of agreement on these questions.  You know, questions that matter today.

I would love to add that we should ask these same questions to Muslims residing in the West.  But I don't think you could get honest answers.  Muslims behave so much better when they are less than five percent of a society than when they are, say, twenty percent.  Although we have learned that if they cover their faces and go protest in the street with their coreligionists, they're more likely to tell you the truth.

Here's another question to ask Muslims:  What should happen to the infidels?  And especially as the percentage of Muslims in a society rises?  You know, all those people who do not see, in fact refuse to see, that a murderous, pedophile, rapist, polygamist, warlord was the perfect man for all time.  Can these non-believers breathe the same rarified air as Muslims?  Here again, not when Muslims are a well-behaved five percent of a population, but when they are approaching twenty percent, or more.  What then Muhammad?

In fact, why is it that the only peaceful Muslim societies have either less than five percent or more than ninety-five percent Muslims?  And between these extremes, we find bloody conflicts and generational wars of attrition.

Should we not look to history for the answer to these questions?  Sweden, are you not interested in these questions?  Maybe the Humanitarian Superpower should consider all of these questions before it becomes another Bosnia.  Of course, the bombings have already started.

And while we are looking to history, here are some additional questions.  Whether you believe in the divinity of Jesus, or not, he was a Jew living where?  In fact, how many Jews were then living in the area we call Israel today?  And finally, how many Muslims?  I ask these questions not for myself, because I do not think they are terribly important, but rather for Muslims and their decolonization allies.

Now, just for fun, let's answer these last few.  Jesus was a Jew living in what we today call Israel.  How many Jews lived there at the time?  ALL of them.  Yes, at the time, every Jew in the world lived there.  And how many Muslims?  Exactly zero.  Let that sink in.

To be fair:  Were there also pre-Islamic Arabs?  Undoubtedly.  Nomadic, tribal, and warring to be sure.  But the religious injunction to hate and murder Jews came only with the birth of Muhammad and his creation of the Islamic faith – 600 years later.  Six hundred years.

I remember when the particularly nasty Helen Thomas said that Jews are occupiers, and that they should go home...to Poland and Germany.  So many Muslims and decolonization types think this way.  At the time, I remember thinking, why does no one ask her Where the Jews came from?  That is, Where were they before they fled to Poland, and why did they flee?

No, the question of Who was there first? does not help the Muslim argument.  And while I don't find the question very important or relevant today, I am not the one asking it.  If Muslims and decolonizers want to argue We were here first, I think they have a historical problem.

The Nakba of 1948 followed the Nakba of 570 with the birth of the murderous maniac Muhammad.  Both continue to this day.

Now, as the argument goes, one is ancient history and the other is within living memory, and therefore, somehow actionable.  Whatever that might entail and however bloody that might need be.

But in the 1,400 years since Muhammad’s reign of terror, Islam has conquered its way from the Atlantic coast of north Africa to Indonesia just off the Pacific.  That's from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the long way.  Now it’s working its way north and south over this same multi-continental span.  We cannot and will not dismiss over a millennia of Muslim aggression and conquest because it had a setback in 1948.  So yes, we can carve out a little space for a Jewish homeland, and yes, we can defend it.

But in fact, they only ask the question as an excuse – A justification to eliminate the state of Israel and to murder Jews.  That's it.  Helen Thomas knew this.  Palestinians know this.  Iran knows this.  Muslims know this.

The decolonization types don't know anything other than the doctrine of virtue signaling.  They only know that they are on the side of the oppressed.  More accurately, they are on the side of those they have been told are oppressed.  As if Muslims do not have fifty-seven nations of their own...including the richest nations in the history of the planet.  And as if the Jews are not the most oppressed people in the history of the world...with one tiny little sliver of an enclave, about the size of New Jersey.  You raging ignorant lunatics.

So our Muslim Question is:  What should be make of all this and what should we do about it?  At a minimum I think all of us who believe in western civilization need to understand who we are dealing with and what they believe.  Until then, we will never be able to address the civilizational problem before us.

And for those of you in the West who do not believe in western civilization, well I have never seen one of you, of any background, who did not reap the benefits it offers.  Not one.

One final question for Muslims:  What do you think should happen to someone who asks these questions and shares this opinion?  Try to be honest.  Let everyone see who you are.

But show us your hands.

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Secular Christianity as a Religion

Ayaan Hirsi Ali:  Why I am now a Christian

Yesterday, Ayaan Hirsi Ali declared herself a Christian.  I am not going to revisit her background here, but it is a remarkable story.  And if you do not know it, I encourage you to look it up.  The problem that I have with her declaration is it is completely devoid of faith.

Now I was raised a Methodist.  Every Sunday, my congregation clearly declared what we believed.  This is how it went:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord;

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, dead, and buried;

the third day he rose from the dead;

he ascended into heaven,

and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

This was the creed of my congregation and of the United Methodist Church.  To my knowledge, it remains so.  All Christian denominations, Protestant and Catholic, recite some version of the Apostles' Creed.  And in my view, if you do not believe something along these lines, you are at best a secular Christian.  Which is perfectly fine.  But I think it is important to understand, for yourself, that you are something short of a Christian.  No matter what else one might say about Christianity, it does require faith.  Absolutely.

But to declare oneself a secular Christian, that has no resonance.  So I guess Hirsi Ali felt that in order to have impact, she needed to declare herself a Christian.  Are there reasons why one might declare oneself a secular Christian?  You bet.  For a perfectly clear and well-reasoned example, just read her essay.

These are deeply personal decisions, and obviously she can believe anything she wants.  But to me, it seems a bit dishonest.  If you cannot clearly state:  I believe in God.  And I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.  And all the rest of it.  In an essay entitled Why I am now a Christian, the only reason to omit the Christian articles of faith is that you do not share them.

Any faithful Christian, having read this essay, would first ask:  Yes, but do you believe in God?  Because it is completely unaddressed.  This cannot be an oversight.

One can value all the gifts of the Judeo-Christian tradition without faith in God.  You can even attend church and bathe in the rituals and music and fellowship.  Some will refer to these folks as secular Christians.

Others call these people atheists.

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Narcissistic Wannabe Thugs

The other day I was in the supermarket and I noticed an American fellow covered in tattoos.  Of course, it's a pretty common sight these days.  But I noticed something about this fellow and it made me think back to what I have noticed about other heavily tattooed men.

This guy sort of strutted around.  You know, chest puffed out, lots of swagger and bravado, etc.  It was as if he was walking through the prison yard and he wanted to make sure he was sending the right message to his...fellow travelers.

There seem to be two types of men who get heavily tattooed.  The beta males who want to appear more masculine.  They most often fail – Hey, they are what they are.  And the alpha males who are over-invested in their masculinity and they need others to know it.  The guys come closer to their goal; it's sort of an in your face aggressiveness.  The don't mess with me prison yard meme.  And I guess that's fine, if you are actually in a prison yard.  But it looks a bit out of place in the supermarket.

And yes, I think these guys have turned themselves into memes.  I mean, I know some legitimate bad asses.  Believe me, they don't need a bunch of tattoos to convey the message.  And I've certainly never seen them strut around.  Not once.  In fact, all legit bad asses that I've met are pretty low key.

I can only assume this peacocking is what peacocking is always about:  Women.  I've seen recent polls that confirm young women think men with tattoos are more masculine and dominant.  And I know that there is a certain type of woman who likes the Andrew Tate, aggressive male persona.  Nowadays these women are easy to spot because they often have their own share of tattoos.  Though mind you, not in every case.

I've made the point before that the degeneration of men that we see today largely stems from the abandonment of standards by women.  That is, if women did not like this behavior, then men would not behave this way.  Men would not dress like thugs and act like thugs if women did not want thugs.  Or at least thug wannabes.

Now there is at least one other element of the strutting tattooed man worth considering.  Acquiring so many tattoos is a fundamentally narcissistic pursuit.  One might argue that one or two tattoos are a personal artistic indulgence or remembrance.  But to get a sleeve or more, that has the look at me quality of the true narcissist.  Tattoos have become a manifestation of narcissism:  Look at me, look at me!

The self-esteem movement, followed by social media proliferation have turned a whole generation into raging narcissists.

Tattoos were sure to follow.

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Articulated Rage

Douglas Murray has long been one of my favorite commentators.  He has always been a rather levelheaded conservative.  But in this new video one senses an undercurrent of rage.  Which I completely share.

But I do not share his confidence that the people of Britain will stand up to the intolerance in their mist.  Or that the people in the United States will.  It is nice to think so.  But to believe that this will happen, in either of these countries, one has to believe that we have, still, a moral and principled public.  I no longer believe this is true.

Near the end, Murray says:  It is not Jews who should be fearful in the UK, it is the people who would make Jews fearful.  Dear reader, just ask yourself, is this true?  Or just wishful thinking?  Righteously enraged wishful thinking, sure.  But wishful thinking nonetheless.

And the UK and the US sit at one end of the spectrum.  Ask yourself also, what are the French going to do?  That is, their entirely useless government or their public which can be summed up as one big Gallic shrug?  And Germany, Belgium, Sweden?  The idea that these nations will do anything, at either the government or public level, is absurd.  These nations have not had anything resembling a moral, principled public in well over a hundred years.  The idea that they'll develop one to deal with the genocidal manics currently in their mist is ridiculous.

It is interesting to note that there are at least two types of genocidal manics running around the streets of London and New York.  Those we have allowed in through irresponsible (and anti-western) government policy.  And those we have created ourselves with an incompetent education system, capped with a college indoctrination program.  Our very own homegrown Hitler Youth.  If you listen to these sociopaths, they share all the self-righteous zeal of their progenitors.  All that's left is for them to re-enact their destiny.  And they will.

And if there was any doubt that the woke fanatics were transforming into our Hitler Youth...I think their performance since Saturday, October 7th finally puts that question to bed.

Oh sure, eventually, the Muslims will kill them.  I mean good Muslims can only suffer Queers for Palestine for so long.  Not to mention, the trans activists, other alphabet people, atheistic types, and those on the intersectional hierarchical spectrum.  But for now, can you just imagine the surprised glee of the Islamists?  For the unexpected help.  These useful idiots offer invaluable service, and faux intellectual cover, for the immediate program:  Killing the Jews.

Now, as a First Amendment absolutist, should these idiots, of both varieties, be allowed to spew their venom?  Absolutely, er...well maybe.  We need to clearly understand that they are calling for a second Holocaust.  Certainly the Islamists mean it.  Our Hitler Youth are too stupid to mean anything they say.  They should be held accountable nonetheless.

Let's come back to accountability.  Here, let's stop and ask:  Should incitement to Holocaust be allowed under our current conception of free speech?  And no matter where you come down on this question, it is a question worth asking.  As Bruce Bawer famously pointed out years ago now, tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance at all; it is suicide.  So how much tolerance are we going to allow before we say enough?  Personally I am not feeling very tolerant of this river to the sea crowd that we are currently witnessing globally.  Again, this is not some innocent slogan; they mean it.

And although they could not find the Jordan River on a map, our Hitler Youth are clear accessories.  Accessories to Holocaust.  Their parents must be so proud.

Back to accountability:  Who is going to hold them accountable?  Joe Biden?  His string-puller, Barack Obama?  New York governor Kathy Hochul?  Or New York City mayor, Eric Adams?  How about British prime minister, Rishi Sunak?  Or my personal favorite, London mayor, Sadiq Khan?  So that leaves our amoral and unprincipled public.  A public which tolerates immigrant rape gangs in the UK and castrating children in the US?  A public completely bullied, and frankly cowed, by nonsensical woke fanatics?  You know, the very same Hitler Youth.  That public?

Public support for our Hitler Youth is the problem.  But, but, we read, most people do not support the woke agenda.  Even those on the left do not support the woke fringe, we're told.  And sure, if asked, they may not agree with castrating children, immigrant rape gangs, vandalizing artwork, cancel culture, censorship, pronoun insanity, DEI nonsense, academic intolerance, open borders, and most importantly, the Oppressor/Oppressed narrative.  But they nonetheless vote for people who will not stop it.  Time and time again.

I have made this point many times before:  At least half the public either believe in the woke cause, fully support the cause, or tacitly support the cause.  And it is actually much more than half of the public because so many of these supporters do not vote or cannot vote.  But it is the tacit supporters who are the most pernicious.  If you are a moderately left-of-center voter, who excitedly voted for Barack Obama (twice), and then unexcitedly voted for Joe Biden, who goes on to support gender-affirming care for minors and all the rest of the woke agenda, well moderate though you may be, you are the problem.  Stop and read this paragraph again if you must.  You are the problem.

And if you are a left-voting Jewish American, who now finds the Biden administration rather weak on anti-semitism, you are also the problem.

These voters are the public.  The point is, it is the public that is the problem.  They will not save us.

So no, there will be no consequences whatsoever.  Much as I value and appreciate Douglas Murray, he's just understandably and wistfully wrong about this.  The moral and principled public on which he relies, well they no longer exist.  And without it, we will see our societies fall first into anarchy and then later into authoritarianism.

We have the unique distinction of witnessing the death of the West.  I did not think it would come in my lifetime.  Yet here we are.

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On Andrew Tate

Ep. 9 The Andrew Tate interview pic.twitter.com/0KKMzSVmMO

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) July 11, 2023

Andrew Tate offers a comic book concept of masculine excellence and what it means to be a man, which no doubt appeals to young, uneducated men with undeveloped principles and limited prospects.  Go to the gym and be a bad ass.

Of course they eat it up.  It's like feeding red meat to the jackals.

Okay fine.

But what I don't hear from him is:  Finish your education, speak and write proper English, read widely, play chess, learn to code, write poetry.  Not to mention:  Be honest and generous, treat people fairly, integrity in all things, etc.  There seems to be no place in his idea of masculine excellence for these qualities and skills.  I wonder if he thinks Magnus Carlsen is a real man?  Maybe.

But how about the youth pastor at your church, who also leads the choir and appreciates a quiet game of chess?  Is he a man of masculine excellence?

Ironically, Tate's father, now deceased, was a noted chess master.

Today, no doubt, Andrew Tate would describe Bill Gates as a man of masculine excellence.  What, with his fleet of private jets and all.  But just imagine if Tate had met Gates in 1975.  Nerdy, scrawny Bill, hapless with women, had just dropped out of college.  And all he could talk about was sorting pancakes.  We can just imagine Tate's sneer.  I mean, if you waste time sorting the pancakes, they're gonna get cold.

I don't really have a problem with Tate's advice.  But he is a simpleton who appeals to other simpletons.  He does strike me as a leader of a pack of wolves.  And I actually think he'd appreciate that comparison.

Let's add more to his definition of a man.  How about get married and be a faithful husband and father.  In this interview, Tate lets it slip that he has children with multiple women.

Here's an idea for what it takes to be a real man:  Be responsible.

Now no discussion of Andrew Tate would be complete without talking about women.  That is, Tate's take on women.  Let's set aside his predatory tone and the fact that he seems to view women as just another possession.  His argument is that the market for high value women is now international.  And if you want a high value woman, you are no longer competing only with the car salesman across town, but also with some hotshot Parisian property magnate with a private jet.  This is no doubt true.

But I think men should carefully evaluate the definition of a high value woman.  Just as the definition of masculine excellence extends far beyond Tate's limited comprehension, surely the definition of high value woman extends beyond a caricature of Meghan Markle or Kim Kardashian?  If a Parisian high-flyer can seduce your high value woman, best to let her fly.  Ask yourself:  Is she really high value?  You might even wonder about the high value status of the Parisian.  It's not a given; far from it.  Turns out, Bill Gates is an unfaithful cad.

But Tate says it doesn't matter.  He makes it clear that fidelity is not part of masculine excellence.  And there's no doubt, Tate's concept of masculine excellence appeals to a certain type of woman.  And yes, there are a lot of them; you see them everywhere.  So of course, Tate preaches his success.  But are these women really high value?  High supply and high demand means cheap; like the market for Tiktok videos.

To the extent that Tate's message is successful, and of course it is, it's due to the deterioration of women's standards.  Ironically, when Tate argues that women have more choices, this should imply that their standards have risen.  But the reality is that women's standards have never been lower.  And using this obvious fact, Tate promotes transactional relationships based on a shared character of the basest variety.  If you doubt me on this, just Google Andrew Tate's PhD course.  There's your man of masculine excellence.

In fact there are very few high value women.  The real problem is that we, as a society, have lost sight of what exactly is a good man and a good woman.  The problem is so bad that young men are turning to a charlatan like Andrew Tate for advice.  Men and women should consider their own definition of high value.  Here's mine.  Certainly do not allow a simpleton to define it for you.

But sure, if you want a Kim Kardashian type, take Tate's advice.

Update

30 July 2023

Yesterday Candace Owens also posted an interview with Andrew Tate.  Another long (three hour) interview.  It did not really change my mind about Tate.  But I did watch it to see if it would.

Two notes.  First, I noticed how Tate "reverted" to Islam.  Candace let this go.  But it's a supremacist religion.  You don't convert to Islam, you revert to it.  It's appropriate, a supremacist religion for a supremacist man.  I'm sure he fits right in.

I also note Tate's comments on how when he meets a man, any man, he considers whether or not he could beat the man in a fist fight.  I actually know this is true for many ruffians.  But it's never true for men of good will.  Decent men of substance.  These men.  Besides, there are all kinds of fights.  I know it's trite, but you can take the man out of the ghetto, but it is much more difficult to take the ghetto out of the man.

Tate is nothing but a common thug.

Owens X Tate: The Interview https://t.co/c7TwEcSZFY

— Candace Owens Podcast (@CandaceOwensPod) July 28, 2023

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Covid and the Nuremberg Code

Everyone should watch this

Let's make this simple:  All actions taken during the Covid medical response should have been tested against the Nuremberg Code.  And since this was not done at the time, we should do so now.

I also believe that there should now be severe penalties for anyone and everyone who mandated, pressured, or coerced others to act without informed consent and/or against their will.  No, we cannot hang all of these people.  But at a minimum, they should be named and shamed.  None of these people should ever hold positions of responsibility again.

Finally, there should be penalties for anyone who disallowed open debate and discussion on what was going on and how to stop it.  Surely this active, real time censorship slowed effective treatment and promoted ineffective treatments, causing death for many.

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Tales From Baobaoan

Part Three:  How to be an idiot in the Philippines

So one day last week, we are out for our morning walk.  It's the same everyday.  Three and a half miles through the rice fields.  This is what it looks like.  We walk up to the National Highway and back again.

The thing about rice farming in the Philippines is, it is farming.  When someone says I am a farmer, he means rice farmer.  Any other crop would make him less of a farmer.  Maybe even, less of a man.  The other thing to know about rice farming here is that all the farmers grow rice on these tiny plots.  Anywhere from, say, a quarter of an acre to maybe ten acres.  And ten acres would be an extremely large farm here.

Needless to say, they don't make any money.  I mean, year in and year out, they don't make money.  There's just too many farmers growing rice on too many tiny plots.  So none of them benefit from any economies of scale.  For all their efforts, the rice is expensive to produce.  And the worst part of it is that the farmers don't seem to understand this.

But rice farming is not just an occupation here, it is identity.  The farmers have a familial and intimate attachment to the land.  It is what and who they are.  Further, their cultural conviction that rice is the only crop worthy of their efforts borders on Stockholm Syndrome.  So naturally, the economics don't seem to matter.

Anyway, on this day we ran into a group of people all wearing the same logo shirts.  So I asked what kind of a group they were.  One of the leaders says:  We are an organization encouraging organic farming (sponsored by the government).

Me  You mean organic rice farming?

Leader  Well yes.

Me  Why not organic vegetable farming?  Say onions.

Onions have recently been very expensive here.  The leader mumbled something about how onions don't need a lot of organic material to grow.  And hey, what do I know?  I do know that all vegetables are generally expensive here.  It's a question of limited supply and limited demand.

Me  So where is all this organic material going to come from?  I mean, I never see any livestock here.

Leader  Yeah, we have to import it.

Me  Well wouldn't it be a good idea to encourage the raising of livestock here?  Then you could make your own organic fertilizers.

Leader  No, we don't have room for that here in the Philippines.

I scratch my head.

Me  Well, how about right there?

I point to the rice fields across the street.

Leader  No, no, it would be impossible to raise livestock there.

Me  Why is that?

She looked at me like I was an idiot.

Leader  Well obviously...because those are rice fields.

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Philippine Beauty Standards

The High Demand for Filipino Porcelain

For an expat living in the Philippines, Roger & Ismi Rupuesto have an informative Youtube channel.  But here, I think they are a bit off.

It's an interesting topic; one my Filipina wife and I often talk about. No doubt Roger and Ismi are correct about how Filipino men view Filipina beauty. But in my opinion, they are way off on the foreign men. Well, at least the American men. I can't really speak for the others. But for Americans, Filipina beauty is not new. For Americans, it is not a question of "newness" or "uniqueness." Rather it is a question of access and availability. Because I can assure you, there are many beautiful women in the US. By any standard of beauty. Remember, America is a nation of immigrants. It might be worth pointing out that more Filipinos live in the US than any other country, other than the Philippines itself. In any case, in the US there is no single ethnic standard for beauty.

The American men who come to the Philippines just don't have the same access to beauty in the US that the Philippines offers. So while Filipino men may turn up their noses to the "common" beauty all around them, the American expats know better than to be so cavalier with what is right in front of them.

However, an increasing number of Filipino women have come to believe that Korean and Chinese porcelain paleness is the ultimate standard of beauty. And then they try to mimic the porcelain dolls with harmful Michael Jackson style skin bleach and worse, dodgy pills, and you may not believe this, a weekly intravenous solution of glutathione. Of course, all of this just makes them look pallid and unhealthy. In the US, when we say someone looks "pale," we mean sick.

And yet so many Filipinas are now doing this. I mean, did they behave this way a generation ago? I'm not sure. But personally, I think it is an unnatural cultural contagion. No doubt heavily fueled by a pervasive and pernicious social media. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that social media has reached dystopian levels in the Philippines. The smartphone zombies and their attached devices are everywhere. But the saddest part of the advancing Philippine zombie apocalypse is the ubiquitous pageant of porcelain dolls. It is a travesty.

But it doesn't end there. Once a Filipina achieves this porcelain doll status, because it is status and not beauty that she is seeking, she then turns around and looks down on other Filipinas with a more natural beauty. Authentic natural beauty; read brown skin. Filipinos call it morena. The doll says: Oh, she looks like a nanny. And what she means is, she looks lower class. It's similar to Chinese culture, where they look down on darker skin tone as a sign that someone works in the fields. My point is, this is not even about beauty so much as it is about class. Or at least striving to appear higher class. That's what it's about: Striving.

And these Filipinas are so very proud of their paleness. Just like an American or European might like to show off a nice tan, Filipinas like to show off their paleness. Short skirts and short shorts, with legs whiter than an Irish grandmother's. It seems really twisted. I would go so far to say that Filipinas are willing to sacrifice their beauty in order to appear higher class. To an American, the contrived paleness and associated haughtiness just seem sort of...sad and pathetic. I am embarrassed for these women.

But twisted is the correct word. I mean, here we are in the tropics, eight degrees above the equator, and these women look like they could be from Edinburgh. So today, the Philippines is a tropical paradise inhabited by raven-haired apparitions of tropical beauty. The Filipinas create this dissonance themselves and at the same time seem casually oblivious to their very real sacrifice. Dissonance squared; it is surreal.

Again, it doesn't end there. No doubt there are social and professional environments that discriminate against dark-skinned Filipinas. For instance, if you go into my bank, all the tellers are women, and they all have unnaturally light skin. So whoever makes the hiring decisions, simply does not hire morena Filipinas. I mean, they don't want tellers that look like nannies, right? So yes, it is definitely striving, but sadly, some may feel an element of necessity – At least if you want certain jobs. Or perhaps to fit into certain social settings.

And so now Filipino men and women no longer recognize their own innate beauty. Which is terribly ironic, because everyone else in the world does recognize Philippine beauty, Philippine natural beauty. Yes, I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But still. Plus, the Philippines has an above average number of men who identify as gay or some other LGBTQ+ variant. End result: Below average western men flock to the Philippines for ready access to beauty. Of course they do.

It is said that when Cecil Rhodes first got to South Africa, he could pick up diamonds on the beach. The natives did not appreciate what they had. But that did not make the diamonds any less valuable.

And one natural Filipina is worth more than all the diamonds in the world.

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The List

Corporations supporting gender ideology and the radical trans agenda

You cannot just not buy Bud Light or Jack Daniels.  No one at Bud Light made this most recent marketing decision, no matter what Alissa Heinerscheid might have you believe.  These decisions are simply not made at the brand level.  Rather, they are made higher up the corporate food chain.  So it is not just Bud Light, but all of the AB Inbev brands that we should boycott...er, reconsider.

Anyway, I think we should start a list:

AB InBev (Owner of Bud Light – All brands)

Brown-Forman (Owner of Jack Daniels – All brands)

Diageo (Owner of J&B Scotch Whiskey – All brands)

Hershey's Chocolate (All brands)

L'Oréal (Owner of Maybelline – All brands)

Nike (Owner of Nike women's wear – Also Converse)

Proctor & Gamble (Owner of Gillette – All brands)

Plus consider this:  Isn't it funny that AB Inbev chose to target the Bud Light customer base rather than, say for example, the Michelob Ultra customer base?  Surely the Ultra customer base would have been much more receptive to this advertising scheme.  So why did they choose Bud Light?  The only possible answer to that question is that this is not a beer marketing campaign.  It is rather a pro trans campaign (and lecture), which the company has decided is more important than this particular brand.  In other words, they decided to sacrifice the brand and its customers for what they believe to be the greater good.  Clearly they hold the Bud Light customer base in contempt, people in need of a good lecture.

In any case, how hard is it to choose a Heineken?  Or switch to Jeremy's Razors or pick up a Cadbury bar?  Jeremy has chocolate too.  All I can add is thank God Diageo sold Bombay Sapphire to Bacardi 25 years ago.  But will Bacardi be far behind?  I have never been a Bud Light drinker.  I'm not even a big beer drinker.  But on occasion when I have had a taste for a beer, I have quite often picked up Michelob Ultra.  I wonder if AB Inbev factored that into their analysis?  They are not stupid, so clearly they just don't care.

Of course, the decision makers are managers, not owners.  So hey, it's not their own money they're throwing away.  And the bulk of their owners are other institutions, also run by the management class.  So turns out, there is little or no accountability for these decisions.

Anyway back to the list, if you look at it in this comprehensive way, well that's a lot of products.  Too many to keep up with.  But I hope this list helps.  We all do what we can.

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Half-Assed as a Cultural Norm

In the Philippines bahala na yields half-assed results (for everything)

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines half-assed as:  Done with little effort or care; incompetent or inadequate.  There do not seem to be any really good synonyms.  I wish there were; I'd be happy to use another term.  But, for example, unserious just does not seem to convey the same level of complete disregard and utter indifference for sufficient care and due diligence.  It just doesn't.  Apathetic may be closer, but it does not capture the inferior results.  Halfhearted and lackadaisical are good, but they lack the proper vigor.  No, it's a half-assed attitude which, of course, produces a half-assed result.  There really is no substitute.

So what is bahala na?  The video above explains it very well, and I prefer to leave it to a Filipino to explain anyway.  She deals with the issue with good humor, and I think that is exactly how it needs to be addressed.  Though I'm not sure that I can agree that the Philippines should blame the Spanish for this.  The Spanish left over a century ago.  A point she acknowledges at the end of the video.

A while back, I met a Filipino seaman.  As an island nation, many people here work in commercial shipping.  This guy worked as the second officer on a cargo ship.  He told me that mariners from other countries do not like working with mariners from the Philippines.  I asked why and he shrugged and said they are prejudiced against Filipinos.  At the time, I just accepted that as true.

But today, I'm not so sure.  Could it be that the foreign mariners just do not like working with people who consistently do a half-assed job?

And that is not all.  Bahala na breeds genuine contempt for anyone who wants to and tries to do a good job.  They think these people are just plain stupid for making the completely unnecessary extra effort.  There is an element of peer pressure involved.  Forget pride in a job well done.  In the Philippines there is no shame for a sloppy or unfinished job.  The only shame seems to be for the poor sap who puts in the extra effort.

In America, we have an expression:  Perfect is the enemy of good.  Well in the Philippines, adequate is the enemy of just barely enough to get by and not one bit more.  It is a cultural phenomenon.  I think it is worth pointing out that, expression or not, many many people in the West strive for perfection, or at least as close as they can get to it.  Certainly, you also see this in Japan.  Of course a Japanese mariner is going to dread the idea of working with a Filipino mariner.

So if we reject Spanish responsibility for this attitude, where does it come from?  One is tempted to blame sheer laziness – Everywhere you turn, there is a noticeable lack of industriousness.  And while that is certainly part of it, I don't think that is the whole story.

No, perhaps I am speculating, but I think it is a question of exposure.  Exposure to quality, craftsmanship, precision, durability, diligence, completeness, consistency, accomplishment, integrity, fidelity, etc.  And even things like excellent customer service, critical thinking, openness to change, self-improvement, learning and curiosity, attention to detail, punctuality, organization and planning, etc.  The list could go on and on.  But if you are not exposed to these hallmarks, you cannot possibly understand and value them, and you cannot possibly know to strive for them.

For instance, not all Filipinos share this attitude.  Many of the most ambitious and hard-working Filipinos leave to work in other countries.  Countries where the bahala na attitude will quickly get you fired.  And I notice that people who return to the Philippines after working long stints overseas seem to have lost the attitude.  Why?  Again, I think it is exposure to these qualities.  Even here in the Philippines, there are people who seem to have moved beyond bahala na.  But they are pretty rare.  I would guess you find more of them in the cities.

In any case, I would call bahala na the dominant cultural attitude of the country.  And it is crippling.  Economically, financially, culturally, socially, politically.  It spans all aspects of Filipino life.

As she said at the end of the video, the Philippine people must decide what kind of country they want.  This is the most important point:  It is a choice.  Not only as a society.  But also for each individual.

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Maybe it's the Hair

FTX head honcho, Sam Bankman-Fried (left) and WeWork boss, Adam Neumann (right)

Am I the only one who notices that an adult haircut might be some type of indicator of... er, financial responsibility?  I mean seriously, would you invest money with these guys?

You cannot use the same logic based on what they wear.  We've seen photos of both of these guys in business attire.  They are willing to put on a coat and tie when necessary.  But they are unwilling to get a proper haircut.  Maybe we should pay attention to that.

I have written previously about all the beards.
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Crazy Times Demand Principled Choices

Compliance is always a choice

Yesterday we made a trip to the Philippine Bureau of Immigration in order to extend my visa.  While our local office is never particularly busy, naturally one does tend to run into other expats.  Yesterday this fellow walks in behind me and he looked American or European.  He was late twenties, early thirties.

So I asked him:  "Hey brother, where are you from?"

"Russia."  I did not expect that.

"Oh" I said, thinking that he was definitely conscription material, "well, I'm glad you're here."  He smiled and gave me a knowing look.  I think he must have instinctively known I was referring to Putin's war in Ukraine.

After a bit of chit-chat in perfect English, I learned that he was waiting on his Russian (not Filipino) wife to join him here.  How interesting is that?  Then he asked me:  "So why are you here?"

I thought about giving him my customary answer to this question:  "My wife is from here."  It's true, but essentially evasive.  Instead I said:  "Well, the US has gone crazy."

He did not miss a beat:  "Yes...Russia too."

We both nodded knowingly.

By this time I was done, and he was being called to the counter.  So I left wondering how many of his contemporaries are here?  And in other countries?

I wish them good luck and long life.

It is one thing to be patriotic, and fight for your country.  It is quite another to risk your life for the whims of a corrupt political class.  Clearly this applies to Russian conscripts in Ukraine; just as it once applied to US conscripts in Vietnam.  Some people, especially in the US, especially during the Vietnam War, viewed conscription as a no choice situation.  Or worse, a patriotic duty.

But looking back at the Vietnam War, can anyone explain the US interest?  Of course not.  It was not about patriotism, much less fighting for your country.  No, it was about a corrupt political class and their self-serving misconceptions.  Remember, these are the same people who let Cuba go, but decided a poor country on the other side of the world, was worth dead Americans.  No, no, Cuba may have been worth war, but certainly not Vietnam.

I think it is worth noting that even George Kennan, father of our containment strategy, thought involvement in Vietnam was a preoccupation and a mistake.  But Johnson and McNamara, and Nixon and Kissinger, did not care about poor dead midwestern farm boys anymore than Putin cares about young dead Russians.

Here's a rule for you:  If you give corrupt politicians the tool of conscription, they will use it to further their corruption.  Every time.  And they only get away with this with our sanction.  Just don't give it; always question everything.  And just like with the Covid vaccine, there is always a choice.  Unpleasant though it may be.

Compliance is always a choice.

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McDonald's is Wasting Ray Kroc's Legacy

It is a slow motion corporate suicide

When I was a kid, I always liked McDonald's.  But I stopped patronizing them when the bad experiences became the rule, rather than the exception.  In the last, say, twenty-five years, I have only eaten at McDonald's in a pinch.  Here in the Philippines, my wife and I have been to McDonald's exactly three times.  Each time for breakfast, when it was the only available option.  Our orders were wrong every time.  It is no big deal to me.  Bad service; I just quit giving them money.

But for many years it has been obvious to me that there is something very wrong with McDonald's.  It is a management problem.  Without caring enough to do some research, that's about all I knew about it.  But their bad behavior stretches back to the early 1970's when they ripped-off their whole McDonaldland ad campaign.  More recently, McDonald's managers failed to warn franchisees about abusive hoax phone calls.  Courts ruled against McDonald's in both of these cases.  But for McDonald's, the judgments were peanuts.  What kind of people act this way? 

Well, people who figure it will be cheaper to pay a judgment rather than act in a responsible manner.  Nevertheless, over the years, I have known many people who have bought McDonald's stock, and swear by it.  I never joined them.

The video above is almost two years old, but it only popped up on my YouTube home page today.  Now "broken" ice cream machines are a well-known and longstanding problem with McDonald's.  And like many people, I always assumed that the problem was that McDonald's employees just did not want the hassle of cleaning the machines.  So they would tell everyone that the machine is out-of-order.  But it turns out, the problem is much more systemic.  This is yet another corporate management problem.  And I suspect, at its core, this is another ethical problem.

The video confirms what I have long suspected about McDonald's management and management attitude.  While I am rather leery of franchising in general, it is worth noting that McDonald's corporate managers do not work for the franchisees.  No franchisor does.  To my mind, it's just a bad business model for the franchisees.  But I am not even convinced that McDonald's managers know they work for the shareholders.  And they sure-as-hell don't work for the customers.

After World War Two, it took forty years for Montgomery Ward to go out-of-business.  Sear's utterly incompetent management followed, but somewhat faster.  I do wonder if McDonald's is going down the same path.  These corporate fat cats become complacent.  And entrenched.  And deaf.

That is what this story is really about.  Broken ice cream machines are not the problem; they are a symptom.  The root problem is bad, unresponsive management.  They are, at best, incompetent.  At worst, they're still the unethical management organization that they were fifty years ago.  Judge for yourself.

You see, after a management team goes bad, they tend to perpetuate their problems, however they manifest.  At upper levels of an organization, it is almost impossible for a bad manager to hire and/or retain a good manager.  It just doesn't happen.  Gresham's Law kicks in:  The bad drive out the good.  There is just no way a bad manager, incompetent or dishonest, can keep a competent, honest manager around.  So what do they do?  They hire people as bad or worse than themselves.  This can go on for years.

I mean what are the odds that the CEO of McDonald's is unaware of their ice cream problem?  One can only speculate why he has not fixed it.  And make no mistake, this is a fixable problem.  Just ask Wendys, or Chick-fil-A, or even Burger King.  Ask Dairy Queen.  The current CEO has been with the company since 2015.  He was appointed CEO in 2019 after the board fired the previous CEO.  No surprise there.  It is also worth noting that the company has had three CEOs in the last ten years.

This whole thing is an unmitigated disaster for McDonald's.  That video has over eleven million views.  And just think about it.  To watch a half hour video on something as esoteric as McDonald's ice cream machine problem.  Who would do that?  Well, perhaps the millions of frustrated customers.  Perhaps all of their competitors.

At this very hour, two years later, twelve percent of McDonald's machines are down.  Note, that is two years since the video came out; the problem was around for years before that.  So where is the CEO?  My guess?  He's out playing golf with the Taylor (ice cream machine) CEO.  Also, I would not be surprised if he hasn't spent a good part of the last two years bullying Google to take down that video:  Take that video down or McDonald's will pull all advertising off YouTube.  Though, I am surprised he has failed (so far).  I'd be willing to bet that he has spent more time on the PR aspects of this problem than on the actual, fixable, problem itself.  Actually, we know this is true because otherwise, the problem would be fixed.

In any case, at some point it becomes impossible to turn around an organization without outside intervention.  And I don't mean bankruptcy; I mean a Carl Icahn type intervention.  Someone who will come in and fire everyone.

The franchisees can only hope.  They're pretty much stuck with the bad McDonald's management.  Though yes, they did volunteer.

The customers can only hope.  But they might just eventually decamp to Wendy's and Dairy Queen.

And, the shareholder's?  Well so far the management problem has not had a major impact on the company's performance.  But how long will that last?

And Taylor?  I cannot end without some comment on their role in all this.  Evidently Taylor does make ice cream machines that work.  So they make a number of machines that work, plus they make the McDonald's machine which does not work.  So clearly they are intentionally selling McDonald's franchisees defective machines in order to juice their repair business.  And that is bad and also unethical.  But here's the thing.  McDonald's knows about this problem and yet they have forced their franchisees to buy the machines anyway.  Taylor is not forcing them to buy the defective product; McDonald's is.  As bad as Taylor's role in this fiasco may be, McDonald's is so much worse.

Again, no surprise.

Now almost six years ago, there was a report (behind paywall) in the The Wall Street Journal that McDonald's would allow franchisees to purchase a machine from a Taylor competitor.  I have no idea what happened with this.  You would think that would have been the end of it.  But clearly not – when twelve percent of their machines are still down.  Could the franchisees not also buy other model Taylor machines?  You know, the ones that work?  If an alternative has been available for so long, why is there still a problem?  One suspects the answer to that question points back to McDonald's management.

In any case, what would be the "worst case fix" for this problem?  Well, McDonald's could pull out all the defective Taylor machines.  Sure, sue Taylor if you like.  But first get rid of the machines.  One wonders why they don't do this?  Cost?  In a cost versus reputation contest, what wins?  But my guess is that it is not cost or reputation that really matters.

No something stinks.  There's an ethical problem here somewhere.

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