American Political Failure

Why is America Failing?

Sure, we can quibble about the exact numbers, the lines are definitely blurry, and perhaps we can even quibble about the order.  But this chart is close enough to get the point across.  I purposefully did not label the bar.  Consider it what you will:  Political Intelligence or maybe Voter Intelligence.  I am tempted to label it just plain Intelligence, but I am sure that would be unfair.  In my view, it is definitely some concept of reason versus emotion, religion, and self-interest.

One reason left-of-center elites (the Con Men) often outperform right-of-center elites is that they understand that it is not about policy.  Rather it is about making winning emotional arguments.  Meanwhile, the much less clever right-of-center leadership struggles to make good policy, which is extremely difficult, and often fails.  But this is not a problem if you don't really care about policy.

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Time to Flee?

The Psychosis of the American Left

First let's make a list.  In no particular order:

• Mass Narcissism  Social media use, tattoos and piercings, smartphone addiction, celebrity culture, the popularity of TikTok and OnlyFans.
  
  
• Urban Decay  Crime, lawlessness, homelessness, and an unwillingness to seriously address these issues.  The people who run our large cities are corrupt and/or incompetent, and as a result the cities do not work and are not safe.
  
  
• Gender  Pronoun madness and the cult of gender ideology, including transitioning children.  And the self-righteousness that surrounds these issues.
  
  
• Woke Ideology  The oppressor/oppressed narrative, the intersectional oppression olympics, patriarchy/privilege ideology.
  
  
• Racial Friction  The current movement against a color-blind society, the promotion of race over merit, DEI and CRT driven racial animus.
  
  
• Reparations  Using the fantasy of reparations to further gin up anger in the black community and interracial discord.  Reparations are a lose/lose proposition:  Pay them and go bankrupt; don't pay them and further aggrieve the black community.
  
  
• Free Speech  The rejection of free speech, censorship, and cancel culture.
  
  
• One-Party State  The desire for single-party rule (as in California) at any cost, and the end of free and fair elections to insure it.  This is why the Left hates the idea of any requirement to show identification to vote.
  
  
• Anti-Semitism  The rise of left-of-center anti-Semitism, and at the same time, the promotion of the ridiculous and factitious concept of islamophobia.
  
  
• Israel Attitude  Israel is the only western-style democracy in a wasteland of autocratic theocracies.  Yet many on the left actively support its enemies.  Hamas kills babies and takes hostages; only the truly psychotic would support these barbarians.  Yet there they are, overflowing on the streets and in our universities.
  
  
• Open Borders  Replacement theory, systemic stress, or merely leftist stimulated chaos?  Drug entry, use, and violence up.  Certainly we see economic migrants as well as an influx of military-aged males without families, most notably from China.
  
  
• Big Pharma  The doping of America:  Over 65 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription.  And over-the-counter drugs sit on top of that.  Further, big pharma has completely corrupted American healthcare, its regulators, and American media.
  
  
• Marijuana  Deregulation, because what we need are more non-productive citizens, who aren't paying attention.
  
  
• Covid Response  The utter insanity of how lefty elites responded to Covid, with lockdowns and vaccine mandates.  But that is not the worst of it.  The worst is how everyday, garden-variety left-of-center types went hysterical.
  
  
• Climate  The so-called climate emergency, the authoritarian possibilities it presents the left, using the Covid lockdown and vaccine hysteria as a model.
  
  
• Energy Policy  Whether it is oil, renewables, coal, nuclear, natural gas and LNG, electric vehicles, consumer appliances, whatever, everything the left does is absolute madness.  All of it.
  
  
• Government  The weaponization of the Justice Department and all other government departments.  The politicalization of the Border Patrol; the FBI has become the DNC's Gestapo.
  
  
• Media  The end of independent media, the rise of the government-media complex.  The end of journalism and the rise of narrative and dogma.
  
  
• Truth  The rise of subjective truth.  In the past we disagreed over the meaning of facts.  Today, we disagree over even the most basic facts themselves.
  
  
• Debt  Unsustainable (and still rising) sovereign debt.
  
  
• Education  The complete collapse of K-12 and post-secondary education, the rise of indoctrination masquerading as education.
  
  
• Foreign Policy  A completely chaotic foreign policy.  Entanglement in conflicts outside of US interests.  Which is part of a greater lack of focus, where our allies cannot depend on us, and our adversaries do not fear us.
  
  
• Political Globalization  Surrendering sovereignty to global entities such as the WEF, WHO, and the UN, run by unelected and unaccountable lefty elites.
  
  
• The Progressive Agenda  The entire academy-led progressive religion.  Let's call it the government is god doctrine.
  
  
• The Obama Factor  The coming Michelle Obama presidency.  This will start, January, 2025.  It will be Obama's fourth term.

Also coming soon:  The rise of political prisoners.  The Left will label right-of-center speech and assembly terroristic or incitement to terrorism and will prosecute accordingly.  They have been testing the waters on this strategy.  It will begin in earnest in the next administration.

That's quite a list.

And writing it out, I could not help but think that there must be some method to the madness.  It's insanity, but is there a purpose?  What we seem to have here is resentment, conflict, deception, and chaos, as political tools.  How long before we see widespread violence?  And maybe some level of violence is the intermediate goal?

But why?  One theory is:  Because then, the people will demand that government do something about it (the violence).  Right?  And the something will be something that ordinarily the people would never allow.  And whatever it is, it will lead to a more autocratic government.  Which of course, is the ultimate goal.  Call this the Rahm Emanuel theory.  Emanuel of course said, Never let a crisis go to waste.  But the part left unsaid is, Even if you first have to manufacture the crisis.

But we have to admit that, there is another other possibility.  What if there is no plan other than chaos and the breakdown of society?  Call this the George Soros theory.  Here I think the people controlling the biggest guns are assuming that it will work out in their favor.  And of course, they're probably correct.  In any case, we will again end up with a more autocratic government.

One final theory, and of course there may be others, is that the above list is completely organic.  Our culture and society have simply deteriorated to this deceptive, violent, and chaotic state.  This is the Occam's razor theory.  And to the extent that lefty elites would acknowledge a problem, this would surely be their argument.  But even if this is correct, at some point we'll see the rise of a strongman or competing strongmen.  And that'll be fun.

Now, who's to blame?  I make this point all the time, but it is impossible to overstate.  I do not blame Obama or Biden or Rahm Emanuel or any of their perfidious ilk.  These guys are simply power-hungry rent-seekers, taking advantage of the cultural milieu, broken as it clearly is.  These guys could not care less about the above policies, or any policies.  They are only interested in policy to the extent that it helps them achieve and maintain power.

No, rather, the fault lies with the half of the country that votes for these policies and votes for the politicians, like Obama and Emanuel, spuriously supporting and advocating for these policies.  That's your neighbors, your family and friends, your colleagues and co-workers, etc.  Half the people you know either actively or tacitly support the above listed insanity.  They are the problem.  They are not going to change.  And what, with their tattoos and drugs and subjective truth and woke ideology, they are too unthinking to change.  And most importantly, they are not going anywhere...

So, I cannot tell you whether it is time to flee, or not.  I can only tell you that I have already left.

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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 minor 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 we 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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