Author: VD

The disappearing US doctor

It occurs to me that there are two ways to address the problem of the growing doctor shortage:

The doctor is disappearing in America.

And by most projections, it’s only going to get worse — the U.S. could lose as many as 1 million doctors by 2025, according to a Association of American Medical Colleges report.

Primary-care physicians will account for as much as one-third of that shortage, meaning the doctor you likely interact with most often is also becoming much more difficult to see.

Tasked with checkups and referring more complicated health problems to specialists, these doctors have the most consistent contact with a patient. But 65 million people live in what’s “essentially a primary-care desert,” said Phil Miller of the physician search firm Merritt Hawkins.

Without those doctors, our medical system is “putting out forest fires — just treating the patients when they get really sick,” said Dr. Richard Olds, the chief executive officer of the Caribbean medical school St. George’s University, who is attempting to use his institution’s resources to help alleviate the shortage.

Dr. Ramanathan Raju, CEO of public hospital system NYC Health + Hospitals, goes even further, saying the U.S. lacks a basic primary-care system. “I think we really killed primary care in this country,” said Raju. “It needs to be addressed yesterday.”

Interesting. 65 million people lack primary care. There are at least 61 million post-1965 immigrants. One way to assure that all Americans have sufficient health care is to repatriate those 61 million people. Wouldn’t having primary medical care be considered in the American national interest?

But I don’t see what the problem is. Have we not been repeatedly assured that those 61 million immigrants are here to do the jobs that Americans won’t do? I’m sure Dr. Dirka, Dr. Jose, Dr. Wang, and Dr. Awolowo will do a bang-up job, despite their lower average IQ, under the guidance of Dr. Raju.

The connection may seem a little strange to you, but just as the changing ethnic demographics significantly altered the behavior of Wall Street bankers, I suspect that they have also changed the specialties pursued by med school graduates.

The most likely solution is to relax the accrediting standards for med schools, which should have been done back in the 1980s.

A Jewish case for white nationalism

Mytheos Holt explains why Donald Trump appeals to so many dispossessed and disadvantaged whites, as well as why white nationalism is on the rise:

This brings me to the first and, arguably, the most important lesson
that Sylvia taught me about what drives people into the arms of white
nationalism: that urge comes not from economic dispossession, nor
spiritual dispossession, but cultural dispossession.

No, I don’t mean the sort of “where has my country gone”
ignorance that I and my fellow coastal cosmopolitans like to mock over
cocktails. I mean the sorts of people who are attracted to white
nationalism are people whose own communities have been hollowed out by
economic and cultural forces beyond their control, and who are now
adrift in a society they perceive to be universally hostile to their
heritage for no good reason.

That heritage, as white nationalists in America see it, is the
heritage of Western civilization. If you wonder what that means (which
is reasonable), let me spell it out: It means historically Western
European cultural norms. Specifically, norms like respect for agents of
the law, aspirational pride in work, willingness to accept the
consequences of one’s actions, disdain for laziness and welfarism, and
reproductive responsibility (i.e., not having children you can’t afford
to keep).

They respect these norms not merely because these are what their own
communities follow, but also because they think these norms make
constitutional government, liberty, and classical republicanism
possible. If you have to pick between the two, defend the norms every
day, since temporary cessations of liberty will naturally recover if
they’re still in place, whereas the institutions without the norms will
become meaningless: the Constitution will become a pointless scrap of
paper to which people pay only lip service, and constitutional
government will become bureaucracy hiding behind the fig leaf of a
separation of powers.

Where this otherwise perfectly respectable, conservative pride
in Western culture atrophies into white nationalism when the person
holding it comes to believe that respect for liberal Western
civilization is inextricably tied to one’s race. One particularly
irreverent white nationalist YouTube songster sums this attitude up in a video mocking libertarians: “It’s not that freedom is bad/But only whites think it’s rad.”

Moreover, and this cannot be stated enough: these people genuinely
believe that to be proud of the history of Western European
accomplishment, and one’s own descent from the people responsible, is
taboo in modern America. If you look at what cultural studies
departments, much of modern media, left-wing college students, and the
crazy wing of the Democratic Party says, this is probably at least
partially accurate. Unfortunately, however, it’s not just leftists who
are responsible for the rise of white nationalism in communities like
Sylvia’s. We conservatives bear some blame too, though in this case,
largely because of misunderstandings of how our own behavior is
perceived.

It’s a fairly honest assessment, although I would say that it is not a misunderstanding of how conservative behavior is perceived, but rather a straightforward failure of conservatism to defend or conserve Western civilization. Conservatism is not, as Red Eagle and I chronicled in Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America, a set of principles or a coherent ideology. It is an attitude, and more, it is an attitude that is intrinsically incapable of holding its ground against the forces that assail both Western civilization and the various white nations that built and value it.

Now, I am not a white nationalist for the obvious reason that I am a red nationalist. Also, and more importantly, there is no white nation; only in America can anyone even contemplate the concept. When one lives in Europe, it is considerably more clear that the English nation is not the German nation is not the Dutch nation is not the Italian nation.

However, just as the Jews who historically considered themselves German discovered that it didn’t matter what they considered themselves to be, many Americans of various European descents are learning that in the eyes of those who hate and envy them, they are nothing more than “white”. And, as Holt observes, it should be no surprise that they are beginning to band together and respond to the tribalist attacks on them with a tribalism of their own.

But whether it is intellectually coherent or not, white nationalism is entirely Constitutional. Freedom of Association is an unalienable and Constitutional right. Diversity, imposed and involuntary, is intrinsically anti-Constitutional, anti-American, anti-human rights, and anti-Western Civilization.

Perhaps it takes a Jew to understand that if white nationalism is immoral, so is Jewish nationalism and the State of Israel.

So brave

Lee Stranahan courageously resigns from Breitbart:

My Statement: Why I Have Resigned From Breitbart News
by Lee Stranahan

Tonight I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation.

As a close personal friend of Andrew Breitbart, I am wicked sad to announce that as of 12:01am Eastern Time, I said “I divorce Breitbart News” three times which officially renders any contract we had null and void, including that thing I signed voluntarily about non-disparagement.

Andrew Breitbart centered his life on just one mission: fight the bullies. His only stated purpose was: more voices, not less. The solo creed he lived by was: e priebus unum. More than anything, be believed in: loyalty. The thing he cared about to the exclusion of all other things was: ‘Merica. His top priorty was: family.

That singular goal has been betrayed.

This sad chain of events leading up to me began in New York City, where Donald Trump’s campaign manager came out of nowhere and yanked me to the ground with a touch that I believe he delivered from several thousand miles away. He seems to have an invisible touch.

Rather than supporting me, Breitbart News instead published an article by me. Then, Breitbart News completely ignored my plight by calling on Mr. Lewandowsky to apologize. After that slap in face to my feeling’s face, they ignored the material that I leaked about the incident to other publications until they wrote about it immediately. I was shocked when they betrayed me by once again calling for an apology by Lewandowsky. Shockingly, at no point during my ordeal did Breitbart News refer to Donald Trump as “Hitler.”

I hope you will all join me in lighting a candle for this brave, brave man, who has suffered so much at Mr. Trump’s hands.

America is the world

A Broadway producer agrees to pretend to consider white people:

The hit musical “Hamilton” has drawn widespread praise for its use of a diverse cast to explore American history. But a casting call seeking “nonwhite men and women” to audition for the show drew criticism from the union representing theater actors, prompting “Hamilton” to say Wednesday that it will amend its language to make clear that anyone is welcome to try out for the show.

The dispute is in some ways semantic — audition descriptions of many of the characters in “Hamilton,” as for other Broadway shows, often specify the race, gender and age range of the characters, and that is standard practice in the theater industry. But Actors’ Equity said that auditions should be open to anyone.

At the end of the day, the producers of “Hamilton” said that they would change the posting that had drawn criticism, to make it clear that people of all ethnicities are welcome to audition, but would not back away from the show’s commitment to hire a diverse cast.

I don’t see a problem here. As we all know, Americans can be born anywhere in the world. George Washington may well have been Chinese and Thomas Jefferson from Papua New Guinea, for all we know.

America is the world. Posterity is not the children. Diversity is our strength. Islam is the religion of peace.

No wonder they hate the truth-tellers. There is no room for the truth in their consciousness.

Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times that “‘Hamilton’ is, among
other things, about who owns history, who gets to be in charge of the
narrative.”

You don’t say….

Feminist faux-cons drink the Kool-aid

You will probably note that NONE of these women have ever been featured on this blog, with the exception of Dana Loesch, aka Mamalogues, who once played the part of a punching bag when she took umbrage concerning my lack of respect for mommyblogging. That’s because none of them are anything but feminists of one wave or another who are attempting to make media careers out of the female imperative.

Female Media Members ask Trump Campaign to Fire Core Lewandowski

The press is to have an adversarial, yet civil approach to those in, or running, for elected office. Never in this line of work is it acceptable to respond to reasonable and legitimate questioning with use of physical force. The photographs, audio, videos, and witness accounts documenting the treatment of Michelle Fields by Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, are inexcusable and unprofessional. Donald Trump should immediately remove Lewandowski from his campaign. However unlike the Trump campaign, we believe in making a statement on the record to clearly highlight the difference between right and wrong,” it concludes.

Signed.

Dana Loesch (Radio America, Blaze TV)
Katie Pavlich, (Townhall, Fox News)
Meghan McCain, (America Now Radio, Cosmopolitan, Fox News)
S.E. Cupp, ( New York Daily News, Glamour, CNN)
Mary Katharine Ham, (CNN, The Federalist)
Christine Rosen, (New Atlantis, Commentary)
Christina Hoff Sommers, (American Enterprise Institute)
Bethany Mandel, (The Federalist, Acculturated)
Emily Zanotti, (American Spectator)
Elisha Krauss, (Ben Shapiro’s radio co-host)
Karol Markowicz, (New York Post)
Kristen Soltis Anderson, (Washington Examiner)
Mona Charen, (Ethics and Public Policy Center, Creators Syndicate)
Sarah Rumpf, (freelance)
Brooke Rogers, (National Review)
Mary Chastain, (Breitbart)

Now notice who is not on it. Ann Coulter. Helen Smith. Ilana Mercer. Camille Paglia. Even Michelle Malkin, who was my original model for a conservative media whore, had more sense than to sign on to this collective conservative career suicide note. If I were a right-wing publisher, I would no sooner rely upon any of them to contribute than the average Jezebelle.

The only real disappointment is Christina Hoff Sommers, but this demonstrates that no woman who calls herself a feminist of ANY kind should be trusted to reliably stand up to the Sisterhood.

Chaos Horizon predicts Best Novel finalists

I respected the work that Brandon Kempner does at Chaos Horizon even before he went six for six in correctly predicting all the novels nominated for the 2016 Nebula Awards. Sure, the SJWs are getting more than a little predictable, but even so, that was an impressive performance.

He’s onto the 2016 Hugo Awards now, for which the nominations are now closed, and he has attempted to sort out how the three major factions, the Not-Puppies, the Rabid Puppies, and the Sad Puppies, are going to turn out in order to predict the Best Novel shortlist that will be announced on April 26th.

Some of his assumptions, all of which are reasonable, but not necessarily correct, are as follows:

  • Turnout will be higher than normal, but generally in line with past percentages of total eligibility.
  • There is no whisper slate among one or more groups of Puppykickers.
  • The Rabid Puppies are subject to normal group indiscipline.
  • The 2016 Sad Puppy list indicates how 2015 Sad Puppies will vote.

The latter is the most questionable assumption, and is almost certainly incorrect. The others are more reasonable and may well hold. His numbers indicate a maximum turnout of 709 nominations for the top Not-Puppy novel, 440 for all of the Rabid Puppy novels, and 360 for the top Sad Puppy novel. And although there is no formal Not-Puppy list, as noted before, the behavior of the SF-SJWs in fandom is so predictable that he was able to assemble the equivalent of the Not-Puppy slate, which is as follows:

  • Uprooted, Naomi Novik
  • Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie
  • The Fifth Season, NK Jemisin 
  • Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson 
  • Seveneves, Neal Stephenson

Note that I correctly identified three of them back in December. The notable omission is any novel published by Tor Books; if Chaos Horizon is correct, 2016 would mark only the third time since 1997 that Tor Books was not represented on the Best Novel shortlist. (This may explain the Torlings’ determination to push through EPH and guarantee Tor a permanent slot on the shortlist.)

Chaos Horizon presented 27 possible models. I selected max Not-Puppy, max Rabid Puppy, and max-min Sad Puppy to come up with these results, with the first five qualifying for the Best Novel shortlist.

918 Seveneves
853 Uprooted
800 Somewhither
782 The Aeronaut’s Windlass
774 Ancillary Mercy
522 The Fifth Season
522 Aurora
480 Golden Son
440 Agent of the Imperium

This was in line with Chaos Horizon’s own conclusions, which were revealed in the comments of his most recent post:

Jacob:
My prediction of the five nominees: Uprooted, Seveneves, The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Somewither, and Ancillary Mercy

chaoshorizon:
Way to spoil the surprise! But that’s what I think as well.

However, no one should start celebrating or cursing their stars yet. I suspect the Hugos will turn out to be less easily predicted than the Nebulas. First, the Rabid Puppies may outperform. A disciplined Rabid Puppy performance combined with half the Sad Puppies turning Rabid would mean Golden Son (which may be the best SF novel of the entire lot) would get 810 votes, which would allow it to knock Ancillary Mercy off the shortlist. Combine that with a half-hearted Not-Puppy effort, and the much-feared Rabid Puppy sweep becomes theoretically conceivable.

On the other hand, if the Puppykickers show the same ability to march in lockstep on the nominations that they did in voting No Award last year, even Seveneves won’t be nominated. In that case, we’ll probably see Barsk, The Fifth Season, and The Traitor Baru Cormorant in addition to Uprooted and Ancillary Mercy. And then there is always the possibility that one or more authors decline a nomination and render the entire nomination process irrelevant.

NOTA BENE: as Marc DuQuesne points out, the predicted outcome can be accurately characterized as a Puppy sweep, since both Ancillary Mercy and Uprooted appear on the Sad Puppy list. However, since only Uprooted
appears in the Sad Puppy top five, I don’t think that would be a
reasonable characterization of a shortlist containing the Leckie book.

Regardless three of five in Best Novel (four of five if we count SP) would exceed last year’s net Puppy performance, and would be quite satisfying in light of our known numerical disadvantage versus the entirety of SF fandom. It would also suffice to put EPH through, which would be very useful by guaranteeing the Puppies a permanent seat on the Hugo Security Council. And considering that Uprooted is not only a Sad Puppy recommendation but a pretty good fantasy to which I gave serious consideration to putting on the Rabid Puppies list, if Chaos Horizon is right, we would be very pleased should the outcome he anticipates come to pass.

Better late than never

Austria closes the borders:

Austria has announced tough new plans to reject almost all asylum-seekers at its borders as it continues a crackdown against migrants.

Under the new measures, all asylum claims will be decided within an hour at the country’s borders. Only migrants who have an immediate relative already granted asylum in Austria will be allowed to enter.

Applicants who are at risk of death or inhumane treatment if they are not granted asylum will also be allowed in. But in practice almost no one will be able to claim asylum on the grounds of physical danger as they will be judged to be safe in the neighbouring European countries they have travelled through.

All migrants whose claims are rejected will be turned back at the border.

That’s a good first step. Soon it will be time to proceed to step two, mass repatriations. To Germany, if necessary. Or to whatever nation protests.

Clutter and Clean Cycles

Thanks to all those Americans born everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, even those who are enamored of diversity are beginning to notice that ethnically heterogeneous societies don’t tend to survive economic crashes very well:

While it is difficult for anybody who knows the Pentagon well to
imagine American generals and admirals getting together to overthrow the
civilian government — that would require obscene amounts of PowerPoint
and might endanger top brass golden parachutes with Beltway Bandits —
the notion of a Civil War 2.0, however terrifying it may be, needs to be
faced squarely, if we wish to avoid that awful fate.

America in the 21st century runs little risk of becoming Honduras Grande,
but if current politico-economic trends continue much longer, we might
well wind up a lot like Yugoslavia. That statement is sure to be
controversial, since few Americans, citizens of the global hegemon and
to many of them a most exceptional country, like to be compared with a
relatively small Balkan federation that collapsed into wars and genocide
a generation ago.

Yet the collapse of Yugoslavia offers several cautionary tales to
Americans today, and if they are wise they will heed them and set the
United States on a correction course before it is too late. As one who
witnessed the dreadful collapse of Yugoslavia and its terrible
aftermaths — including the seemingly permanent impoverishment of
Southeastern Europe, mired in crime, corruption, and extremism — I would
very much like America to discover a far happier fate. However, some of the parallels are eerie and troubling….

Managing this increasingly fissiparous country as economic prospects diminish will challenge the most gifted politicians. Indulging in ethnic resentments as a substitute for solutions to vexing politico-economic problems only makes things go from bad to worse, sometimes rapidly and painfully. With both our parties increasingly beholden to Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, average Americans of all backgrounds will not be happy that they are bequeathing a life of less affluence and opportunity to their children. In such a time of troubles, playing ethno-racial political games as a substitute for reform is deeply irresponsible.

It would be nice if Democrats and Republicans played better together, particularly on the budget and borrowing money. It would be especially nice if they seriously addressed issues of rising economic inequality and diminishing opportunities for average Americans.  But it is imperative that they not fan the flames of ethnic and racial resentments if they wish to avoid a terrible outcome for our country.

The nation is already broken and divided. What is now being done to the nations of Europe was already done to the USA back in 1965. There is no longer an Anglo-American nation with a moderate admixture of other European nations, now it is a merely a political entity with dozens of rival ethnic and religious interest groups jockeying for power and a share of the income redistribution.

As with Yugoslavia, the structure will hold so long as it doesn’t come under excessive financial stress. This is why I have long predicted the 2033 timeframe, as I thought that’s about when the US dollar will fail as the global reserve currency. Considering the current state of China, it’s possible that timeframe is too optimistic, but regardless, there is still time to prepare for the Yugoslavication and dissolution of the USA.

Choose your location carefully, and with an eye to the future, as who and what you are is likely to matter with regards to your ability to remain there. I can assure you that the idea of ethnic cleansing and forced relocations on the North American continent is neither a new nor an unthinkable idea. Just ask any American Indian.

Just as there are economic boom and bust cycles, there are longer-term demographic clutter and clean cycles. We are at the peak of the greatest demographic clutter cycle in human history, one that has lasted nearly 200 years. This tends to suggest that we are in for the mother of all clean cycles.

The abortion misstep

Trump mishandles a media ambush on abortion:

  • Host Chris Matthews presses Trump on anti-abortion position, repeatedly asking him, “Should abortion be punished? This is not something you can dodge”
    • “Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, it should,’” Trump answers
    • “How about you?” Matthews asks
    • “I would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?” Trump says
    • “I’m asking you,” Matthews says
    • “I am pro-life,” Trump says
    • “How do you actually ban abortion?” Matthews asks
    • “Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it,” Trump says
  • Matthews then presses Trump on if he believes there should be punishment for abortion if it were illegal
    • “There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump says
    • “For the woman?” Matthews says; “Yeah,” Trump says, nodding
    • Trump says punishment would “have to be determined”
    • “They’ve
      set the law and frankly the judges, you’re going to have a very big
      election coming up for that reason because you have judges where it’s a
      real tipping point and with the loss of Scalia, who was a very strong
      conservative, this presidential election is going to be very important,”
      Trump says
    • “When you say what’s the law, nobody knows what the law is going to be. It depends on who gets elected,” Trump says

Obviously, this was “gotcha” journalism on Matthews’ part (once he established that he was referring to illegal
abortions he knew he could pin Trump between having to either say women
should be punished or that women could break the law with impunity),
and as we saw last year with the whole Kurds/Quds Hugh Hewitt debacle,
Trump is susceptible to badgering. The other problem here is that it
isn’t clear that Trump truly believes some of the things he’s forced to
say as a Republican candidate, which leads to exchanges like that
recounted above. “Don’t overthink it: Trump doesn’t understand the
pro-life position because he’s not pro-life,” a Cruz aid tweeted. Here’s
Politico with a bit of context:

Trump’s policy idea is a departure from most state abortion
restrictions, which don’t impose penalties on the women who get
abortions. Typically, any penalties are imposed on the physician who
does the procedure.

The anti-abortion movement in recent decades has shied
away from the perception that it is “punishing” women for getting
abortions. Instead, it has focused on penalties for the
physicians who provide them, such as imposing medical or legal
restrictions on their practice. In some rare situations, women have
faced charges associated with abortions they have attempted on their
own.

Having realized this had become a PR fiasco, Trump promptly walked back his comments.

This is a statement released just moments ago, in which the
billionaire revises his statement, calling the women “victims”, and
stating it is doctors who should be held legally responsible for
performing the illegal act:

If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and
the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted
to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other
person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be legally
responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the
life in her womb. My position has not changed – like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.

That’s one of the risks of being outspoken and unafraid. People will lay traps for you, and from time to time, you will step in them. Trump made an initial mistake by hemming and hawing, thereby letting Matthews know that he didn’t have an effective position staked out and encouraging him to press on it. Then, he made the mistake of answering the dilemma posed instead of falling back on the trusty old “I’ve got people for that” evasion.

And finally, he compounded his error by backing down. The correct thing would have been to stand by his correct position in the abstract – women absolutely SHOULD be punished for murdering children  – while providing a practical temporization of it by observing that the primary goal is to save children, and politically, it will be impossible to stop legal abortion in a female-majority democracy if women are punished for having abortions.

In other words, he should have said that while he believes women are responsible for their criminal actions, and ideally should be held responsible for them, in this particular case, the interests of the unborn children should be prioritized and the punishments focused on the abortion providers.