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This Boomer gets it

A Boomer explains the mission:

A @voxday post linked to a suggestion that Boomers as a generation need to seek God’s forgiveness for the sins of the group. As a “Generation Jones” Boomer, I see the wisdom of that. There was an earlier post that listed seven things that should have been done all along. I’ve done my best to do all seven — and I’ve mostly succeeded — but that shouldn’t bring pride, since those seven things are just a bare minimum.

Here’s the mission that must be accepted by Boomers of all stripes — be the guardian of your family. Protect the younger generations by becoming the rearguard. There’s a shitstorm coming, a fact that doesn’t require genius to recognize. Your job is to cover a retreat if needed, and soak up the bullets (real or metaphorical) to allow the younger generations to regroup and attack the wickedness of this world.

As a group, we’ve had it easy. Boomers have written a blank check, and at some point payment will be required. Settle the debt properly and be prepared to accept the costs.

The charge is to leave things better than you found them. Do it, and quit bitching about it.

If you don’t have much time left, then make it count. Plant the trees – maybe they’ll be for your great-grandchildren rather than your grandchildren – but you’ll still leave a positive legacy in the end. It’s not about “your stuff”, it’s about doing what is Good, Beautiful, and True.

A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.

– Proverbs 13:22 

And if you can’t bring yourself to do anything positive, at the very least, sit down, shut up, and get out of the way of those who are attempting to salvage what can be salvaged and reclaim what was lost.

It’s not over

President Trump points out that he has not conceded:

Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he has not conceded the 2020 presidential race,  that if the election is proven fraudulent it will be up to the public and “perhaps politicians” to decide how to respond, and that if Mike Pence had sent disputed election results back to state legislatures for review the country “might very well have a different president right now.”

“No, I never admitted defeat,” Trump told Just the News’ “Water Cooler” in an exclusive interview on Real America’s Voice. 

“We have a lot of things happening right now … all you have to do is read the newspapers and see what’s coming out now,” he said, adding that he has “not conceded.”

Last week during an interview with conservative commentator Sean Hannity Trump had remarked about the 2020 contest that “shockingly, we were supposed to win easily at 64 million votes and we got 75 million votes and we didn’t win, but let’s see what happens on that.”

Trump told the “The Water Cooler” host David Brody Monday that if the election was tainted by fraud any decision on reinstating him as president would fall to the public or possibly to politicians.

Something appears to be up. What, exactly, I don’t know, but the Chinese are very quiet, the Russians are being openly scornful of the Fake President, and the European governments are either falling, preparing to be ousted, or distancing themselves from the USA. 

So the Swedish socialists and the Swedish nationalists are cooperating. Now isn’t that just a fascinating combination?

They actually think it works

Of course, similar thinkers used to believe that sanctioning Russia would work too:

“Deplatforming works,” boasted former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao, who became notorious among Reddit users for her pro-censorship policies during her brief tenure as head of the company, in a tweet posted this week.

Pao made the tweet in response to a study that showed the decline in attention for a group of right-wing commentators in the wake of their bans from YouTube.

“Deplatforming hate works,” said Pao. “It worked on reddit in 2015, and now it’s working on YouTube.”

It’s true that deplatforming people from YouTube, and to a lesser extent, Twitter, has reduced the size of their audiences.

Of course, this also demonstrates the truth inherent in the Nietschean concept “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Every deplatformed individual or organization that hasn’t simply given up and gone away has become more independent and less reliant on elements under SJW control. While it’s a short-term blow, in the long term, the effect is decidedly positive.

For example, Castalia was susceptible to Amazon’s interference a few years ago. By the time it was briefly deplatformed there, it wasn’t a major concern. Now, we would barely notice. YouTube is close to irrelevant to the Unauthorized creators already, and by the end of the summer, will be completely irrelevant as the apps and livestreaming functionality come on line.
And it’s already too late for SJWs to make effective use of payment deplatforming, as Alipay is already active in Europe now and is more than happy to take advantage of the competitive opportunities that Silicon Valley’s determination to shed itself of at least one-third of its potential customers have presented it.

Mailvox: Absolution for the Boomers

A Catholic Boomer suggests how Boomers can seek absolution for their sins against the succeeding generations:

I am a traditional Catholic and a boomer who agrees with you that as a generation, the boomers are a wicked generation. No fact is needed to prove this beyond the reality of the boomers having murder tens of millions of their children by abortion. What I want to write here is what boomers should do to repent of this sin, and all their other sins, in the years of life they have left— so as to obtain God’s forgiveness and absolution. I will use as model the Catholic “sacrament of reconciliation” or “penance.” The first step is repentance: to truthfully admit the sin and feel sincere sorrow for the offense to God and for the harm it is has caused to others. All traditional Catholic spiritual writer and all Saints emphasize what Vox has emphasized: stop making excuses or looking at the sins of others and concentrate on your own sins and correcting your own faults.

Sincere repentance requires restitution: if I have stolen another’s money, I must restore that amount to him, or at least as much as I am now able; to refuse to make the restitution I am able to make means I have not yet sincerely repented, I have not yet seen the seriousness of my sin. The boomer generation has stolen so much from future generations, there is now no way to pay back in full; but the repentance of each boomer should include at least turning over assets like their second homes to children and grandchildren and start leading a simple, ascetical life (for example, no cruises) in order to leave as much inheritance as possible.

Sincere repentance also requires a firm decision to cease committing the particular sin; included in this firm decision is avoiding the near occasions of sin: an adulterer must agree not to voluntary meet with the partner in sin; the alcoholic renounce going to bars, a glutton avoid expensive restaurants, etc.  Finally, receiving absolution includes accepting an appropriate penance: that is, accepting to increase the time in prayer, of reading Scripture and “good” spiritual books; also to practice the types of asceticism that will free me from the habitual tendencies that lead me towards particular sins.

Finally, saying a generation is wicked does not mean every individual within it is wicked. But even the “non-wicked” or the relatively good must answer this question: why did I fail to stop the wickedness, why did I fail to cooperate with the graces God was sending to turn this generation from its sinful course. Considering our many sins of omission, even the relatively good boomers still have much for which to seek God’s forgiveness and absolution.

Frankly, I am extremely dubious that any Boomers will repent of their collective crimes, much less actively seek absolution of the sort he recommends. But it would certainly help both them and their children and grandchildren if they were to do so.

As for me, I would settle for simple silence and staying out of the way while the younger generations attempt to salvage what can be salvaged from a broken society and a severely wounded civilization.

A young athlete is vaxxed out

While I understand that most people only pay attention to the mainstream news, and not much attention at that, there is no reason to have any sympathy for those who experience the adverse effects of the experimental RNA modifications being pushed upon them:

Greyson Follmer, an Ohio State University (OSU) student, was an elite athlete and member of the university’s chapter of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). But, according to his mother, the 19-year-old from Ohio is looking at a very different future now, after he developed severe heart complications following his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.

In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Marie Follmer said nobody warned her about the potential for increased risks of COVID vaccine-related adverse events for people like her son, who already had COVID and had acquired natural immunity.

Greyson has played sports since he was 4 years old. He was an athlete who played in the state soccer championship in high school and then went on to OSU and started college during the COVID pandemic. He also joined ROTC his freshman year and was very active — running several miles every day with heavy packs on his back.

Greyson was perfectly healthy and had no underlying conditions except for asthma — which didn’t affect his athletic abilities — and food allergies.

Like most students early on in the year, Greyson and his friends got COVID. Though most had no symptoms, Greyson experienced mild flu symptoms — though they were nothing like his post-vaccine symptoms, Follmer explained.

The university required students who had COVID to quarantine. It also required them to get a heart MRI before they could return to school. Follmer thought that was strange, but she made sure her son got one.

When the cardiac MRI came back it showed Greyson’s heart was enlarged with slight inflammation. The cardiologist thought it could be related to being an elite athlete, and signed a release for Greyson to return to school.

“He wasn’t 100{cc08d85cfa54367952ab9c6bd910a003a6c2c0c101231e44cdffb103f39b73a6}, but he was recovering. He was able to go skiing, return to ROTC and went on spring break,” Follmer said.

Follmer and her husband got vaccinated first with Moderna. When a friend of Follmer secured appointments for the kids to be vaccinated, she drove to OSU, picked up Greyson and told him he was going to get vaccinated.

Greyson received his first dose of Pfizer on April 16, and a second dose on May 7. After the first dose Greyson experienced minor symptoms, but his mother didn’t connect them to the COVID vaccine.

It was after his second dose that things really changed, Follmer said. Greyson experienced significant symptoms shortly after his second dose. Three times he was taken to Nationwide Children’s Emergency Hospital.

“My son feels like he’s having a heart attack 24/7,” Follmer said. “He now has high blood pressure, severe chest pains, back pain, elevated kidney levels, hypothyroidism, inflamed lymph nodes in different areas of his body, and he can’t work or exercise.”

Follmer said Greyson feels like he’s dying and has to sleep all the time. He likely won’t be able to go back to ROTC and doesn’t know if he will be able to return to school in August.

The mother claims no one told her about the potential of risks related to her son already having had COVID, but that is almost certainly misleading. Every single person I’ve tried to warn about the not-vaxxes and who subsequently ignored those warnings was, at the very least heart, already aware that there were potential adverse effects, but they felt those risks were worth taking.

The reality is that the average person want to feel protected and they are ignoring the ancient medical principle: “First Do No Harm”. Which is why so many readers here are finally beginning to understand that the MP in MPAI genuinely means “most people”. From SG:

Its amazing how fast I lose the argument on the not-vax, I’m giving up again and will now just enjoy the time I have left with the sheep until whatever is going to happen happens.

One thing I have observed is that pretty much all the contrarians I know who read alternative news of one sort or another have refused to take the vaxx and cannot be pressured into do so, while everyone else is hell-bent on taking it as soon as possible. So, I don’t worry about it. I’ve made my opinion known whenever asked – that it is reprehensibly stupid and indicative of both a Darwinian lack of fitness and a complete inability to calculate risk/reward ratios – but otherwise I don’t talk about it anymore with anyone.

Remember, Man is not a rational creature, he is a rationalizing one.

Hand Over Fluffy Pillow

When you’re weary, feeling old,

With regret in your eyes

I will take control

I’m at your side

For when times get hard

And your kids aren’t around

Like a hand over fluffy pillow

I will press it down

A gentle hand with a fluffy pillow

I will hold you down

When your time runs out

When you’re in your bed

When evening falls so hard

I will hold your head

I’ll take your part

Oh when darkness comes

And loneliness abounds

Like a hand over fluffy pillow

I will press it down

A gentle hand with a fluffy pillow

I will hold you down

Sail on, silver one

Sail on by

Your time has come to fly

Your children are far away

You’re all alone

So if you need a friend

I’ll send you to your end

Like a hand over fluffy pillow

I will give you peace

A gentle hand with a fluffy pillow

Grant you sweet release

The liberal perspective on US decline

 This is a long and thoughtful article on the decline of the USA from the perspective of a good liberal Democrat. It’s worth reading, if only to see how completely the author manages to miss the point while rather comprehensively, for the most part, describing the Four Americas as he sees them.

Just America’s origins in theory, its intolerant dogma, and its coercive tactics remind me of 1930s left-wing ideology. Liberalism as white supremacy recalls the Communist Party’s attack on social democracy as “social fascism.” Just American aesthetics are the new socialist realism.

The dead end of Just America is a tragedy. This country has had great movements for justice in the past and badly needs one now. But in order to work, it has to throw its arms out wide. It has to tell a story in which most of us can see ourselves, and start on a path that most of us want to follow.

All four of the narratives I’ve described emerged from America’s failure to sustain and enlarge the middle-class democracy of the postwar years. They all respond to real problems. Each offers a value that the others need and lacks ones that the others have. Free America celebrates the energy of the unencumbered individual. Smart America respects intelligence and welcomes change. Real America commits itself to a place and has a sense of limits. Just America demands a confrontation with what the others want to avoid. They rise from a single society, and even in one as polarized as ours they continually shape, absorb, and morph into one another. But their tendency is also to divide us, pitting tribe against tribe. These divisions impoverish each narrative into a cramped and ever more extreme version of itself.

All four narratives are also driven by a competition for status that generates fierce anxiety and resentment. They all anoint winners and losers. In Free America, the winners are the makers, and the losers are the takers who want to drag the rest down in perpetual dependency on a smothering government. In Smart America, the winners are the credentialed meritocrats, and the losers are the poorly educated who want to resist inevitable progress. In Real America, the winners are the hardworking folk of the white Christian heartland, and the losers are treacherous elites and contaminating others who want to destroy the country. In Just America, the winners are the marginalized groups, and the losers are the dominant groups that want to go on dominating.

I don’t much want to live in the republic of any of them.

It’s common these days to hear people talk about sick America, dying America, the end of America. The same kinds of things were said in 1861, in 1893, in 1933, and in 1968. The sickness, the death, is always a moral condition. Maybe this comes from our Puritan heritage. If we are dying, it can’t be from natural causes. It must be a prolonged act of suicide, which is a form of murder.

I don’t think we are dying. We have no choice but to live together—we’re quarantined as fellow citizens. Knowing who we are lets us see what kinds of change are possible. Countries are not social-science experiments. They have organic qualities, some positive, some destructive, that can’t be wished away. Our passion for equality, the individualism it produces, the hustle for money, the love of novelty, the attachment to democracy, the distrust of authority and intellect—these won’t disappear. A way forward that tries to evade or crush them on the road to some free, smart, real, or just utopia will never arrive and instead will run into a strong reaction. But a way forward that tries to make us Equal Americans, all with the same rights and opportunities—the only basis for shared citizenship and self-government—is a road that connects our past and our future.

It’s fascinating how concepts such as “immigration” and “offshoring” and “real wages” and “1965 Naturalization Act” and “surveillance society” don’t even enter into the thought processes of the liberal attempting to understand the current situation. And it’s informative to see that despite this, even the self-styled Smart American can see that the situation is untenable.

It’s impossible to resolve the situation through dialogue because all of the assumptions upon which the dialogue is based are fake. The Smart Americans are not that Smart and their beloved credentials are fraudulent. The Free Americans are not Free. Many of the Real Americans are not actually Americans, and the Just Americans are neither just nor are most of them even actual Americans.