Tag: decline and fall

In which Charles Murray’s cowardly refusal to take on female hypergamy is correctly criticized:

Women’s improved employment numbers, education and earning power (some of it contributed by government largesse) has had the effect of SHRINKING their acceptable dating pool. Material resources and occupational status are one way women judge men’s mate worthiness (not the only way, but the one way that viscerally matters to most beta males), and the innate female sexual disposition to be attracted — ANIMALISTICALLY ATTRACTED — to men with higher status and more resources than themselves necessarily means that financially independent women and government-assisted women are going to find fewer men in their social milieu attractive.

Result? Men slowly discover that the effort to win women’s attention via employment is not rewarding them the way it did for their dads and granddads, and that now only herculean efforts to make considerably more than women will give them an edge in the mating market. The male fecklessness that Murray lambasts is actually a rational male response to a changing sexual market where the rewards of female sexuality go disproportionately to charming, aloof jerks over meager beta providers.

And make no mistake, the jerks are exactly to whom women, particularly lower class women, are dispensing their favors. When earning power and employment as a male attractiveness criteria has been subconsciously debased by women who don’t need male provisions, then women will shift their sexual adaptation algorithm to sexy cads for their thrills and romantic chills.

Knowing this, it makes more sense to shame women equally as vigorously as one shames men for social and family breakdown. In fact, as I have argued, if a prosperous, civilized, self-reliant society is your goal it actually makes sense to shame women MORE than men, because women are the gatekeepers of sex, and as such their combined sexual marketplace decisions carry more import in the direction the culture takes.

Read the whole thing. Roissy is absolutely correct. Murray has made a mistake in focusing on a consequence instead of one of the primary causal factors. Murry himself needs to man up and target the real problem, which is the sexual liberation of women from the civilized standards that are required to maintain the continuation of civilization.

The logic is impeccable. Consider:

1. IF women are permitted to have sex with whomever they please.
2. AND women show an observable preference to have sex with men who do not exhibit civilization-building or civilization-maintaining behaviors.
3. THEN men will increasingly cease to engage in civilization-building or civilization-maintaining behaviors.

After that, it’s just a matter of time before the civilization collapses and it’s back to the barbarism of mud huts, rape, and pillage. Or, alternatively, preventative action is taken regarding points (1) and (2). Which one is more feasible? Women often like to angrily demand of men of sufficient foresight if they want to control women’s sexuality. That’s the wrong and irrelevant question. The correct one is: do you like electricity, a reliable food supply, and the ability to live peaceably without having to shoot strangers on sight?

I no longer have any use for it. None whatsoever. I was raised and indoctrinated in the ideal of the “separation of church and state” and genuinely believed that it was best if religion was not permitted to dictate societal rules or even unduly influence society. But this has finally convinced me that the Muslims have the right idea and secularism merits nothing more than being stamped out, ruthlessly and without remorse:

It is a world-renowned work of literature and one of the foundation stones of the Italian language, but Dante’s Divine Comedy has been condemned as racist, homophobic, anti-Islamist and anti-Semitic. The classic work should be removed from school curricula, according to Gherush 92, a human rights organisation which acts as a consultant to UN bodies on racism and discrimination.

Dante’s epic is “offensive and discriminatory” and has no place in a modern classroom, said Valentina Sereni, the group’s president….

Schoolchildren and university students who studied the work lacked “the filters” to appreciate its historical context and were being fed a poisonous diet of anti-Semitism and racism, the group said. It called for the Divine Comedy to be removed from schools and universities or at least have its more offensive sections fully explained.

Consider this. The Papal States produced La Commedia Divina, Catholic Italy produced Vivaldi, Anglican England produced Shakespeare, Christian Austria produced Mozart and Haydn. What have two generations of modern secularism produced despite its lofty claims concerning the female liberation and the unchaining of the human spirit? Avatar, Twilight, and The Vagina Monologues.

Camille Paglia was right. “Great art can be made out of love for religion as well as rebellion against it. But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy.”

Secular progressives are totalitarians and book-burners every bit as fanatical as religious extremists they decry. They always have been, they just build their cultural walls one stealthy and dishonest brick at a time.

Humanity continues to progress towards Seculatopia:

A controversial system of mobile euthanasia units that will travel around the country to respond to the wishes of sick people who wish to end their lives has been launched in the Netherlands. The scheme, which started on Thursday , will send teams of specially trained doctors and nurses to the homes of people whose own doctors have refused to carry out patients’ requests to end their lives. The launch of the so-called Levenseinde, or “Life End”, house-call units – whose services are being offered to Dutch citizens free of charge – coincides with the opening of a clinic of the same name in The Hague, which will take patients with incurable illnesses as well as others who do not want to die at home.”

“In 30 years Holland has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia of people who are terminally ill to euthanasia of those who are chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for mental illness, from euthanasia for mental illness to euthanasia for psychological distress or mental suffering, and from voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia or as the Dutch prefer to call it “termination of the patient without explicit request”.”

In related news, German officials recently announced that they are considering the establishment of a federal Bundeslebensende which would provide involuntary euthanasia services to individuals of Jewish descent regardless of age. The amusing thing is that the Dutch actually profess to be upset by the fact that Rick Santorum is drawing American attention to their murderous practices. Santorum appears to have exaggerated, but is otherwise correct; the figures I have read show that involuntary euthanasia accounts does not account for one-half of all euthanasia cases, but only one-quarter.

James Cameron is only the latest member of the super-rich to exit America:

Cameron’s decision fits the trend of wealthy Americans pulling their money out of the country and reinvesting it to buy land in the southern hemisphere, escaping spiraling tax rates and protecting themselves against the potential for widespread social dislocation.

In 2010, John Malone, billionaire chairman of Liberty Media, announced that he had bought a retreat on the Quebec border as an insurance policy to “have a place to go if things blow up here,” adding that he was concerned about the survival of the dollar and whether or not “America (was) going to make it” through the economic crisis.

“My wife, who is very concerned about these things, moved all her personal cash to Australia and Canada,” Malone told the Wall Street Journal, “We own 18 miles on the border, so we can cross. Anytime we want to we can get away.”

The political class are also seeking financial refuge in foreign land buys. The Bush family purchased 100,000 acres in Paraguay back in 2006.

Growing concern that economic stagnation could lead to widespread civil unrest, allied to crippling tax hikes, is causing many members of the super-rich to abandon the United States in pursuit of more stable countries with friendlier financial conditions for those with wealth. According to the Census Bureau, “The top-earning 1% of US taxpayers are leaving the USA at the highest rate in history.” In addition, a Zogby International poll found that more than 3 million US citizens relocate abroad every year, as record numbers of rich US citizens renounce their citizenship to escape punishing levels of taxation.

Now, it’s entirely possible that these elite individuals are all moving abroad for the Tuscan sun and New Zealand sheep-shagging. But that seems unlikely. I don’t think it’s so much a taxation issue as it is a sense that the goose doesn’t have a lot of gold remaining in it.

And yet, it would certainly be interesting to know what it is these very wealthy, very connected individuals know that is driving them to take such drastic, life-altering measures.

One needn’t fail to feel genuine sympathy for the victims of a stupid showboating Italian cruiseship captain to nevertheless be amused at the complaints from women who suddenly find they aren’t so keen on that all-important equality when push comes to shove:

Survivors from the Costa Concordia spoke angrily yesterday of the nightmare evacuation from the stricken ship as women and children were left behind. In the terrifying moments after the giant vessel began to list, fights even broke out to get into the lifeboats. Men refused to prioritise women, expectant mothers and children as they pushed themselves forward to escape. Crew ignored their passengers – leaving ‘chefs and waiters’ to help out.

In heart-rending footage, recorded on mobile phones, British children could be heard shouting ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mummy’ in the melee. As she waited for a flight home from Rome, grandmother Sandra Rogers, 62, told the Daily Mail: ‘There was no “women and children first” policy. There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats. It was disgusting.’

This was not so much predictable as predicted. Women have methodically attacked the concept of male duty and honor through every possible means for the past ninety years, and now they are whining that they don’t get special treatment simply because a ship happens to be sinking. Why, exactly, should any man “prioritise women, expectant mothers and children”? On what grounds can they be reasonably expected to do so, those outdated traditional grounds that the schools teach is hateful, sexist, and bigoted?

Those big, burly crewmen shoving aside women as they prioritized their own escape should have been wearing t-shirts that said “this is what a feminist looks like”. Enjoy the crash.

Sometimes, I wonder if perhaps I am being too negative about the way in which the historical and economic patterns I see appear to be playing out. It’s not as if I spend all my time preparing for disaster, in fact, most of my professional activity is still predicated on the idea that some form of recessionary muddle-through will take place.

And then one encounters these responses of various young adults to their Christmas presents and realize that societal collapse may not be as probable as it is desirable.

One could hardly damn America in a more devastating and conclusive manner than to point out that this is what we have done with our historical freedom

Even a murderous, totalitarian government isn’t enough to maintain complete control sometimes:

For the first time on record, the Chinese Communist party has lost all control, with the population of 20,000 in this southern fishing village now in open revolt.

The last of Wukan’s dozen party officials fled on Monday after thousands of people blocked armed police from retaking the village, standing firm against tear gas and water cannons.

Since then, the police have retreated to a roadblock, some three miles away, in order to prevent food and water from entering, and villagers from leaving. Wukan’s fishing fleet, its main source of income, has also been stopped from leaving harbour.

The Chinese Communists will win this one of course. But they won’t always win. And they have to win every single time to maintain control. The rebels only have to win once. It is interesting to see how even communist societies have to deal with the realities of socionomic pressure once the credit boom ends.

Congratulations, Americans! You are now officially living in a police state patrolled by machines in the skies:

Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm on June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said. Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three counties. He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead, its sensors helped pinpoint the suspects, showing they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

That was just the start. Police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since then. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

“We don’t use [drones] on every call out,” said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. “If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don’t call them.”

The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country’s borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

I have little doubt that 99 percent of all Americans who hear about this will dismiss it as any serious cause for concern “because at least the drones aren’t armed”. The interesting question is what will come first, the first use of an armed drone to kill American citizens inside the US, or the first shooting-down of a military drone by American citizens.

Forget the hacking involved in the capture of a Sentinel drone by Iran. A $200 souped-up Hawk Sky radio-control plane is all that’s needed to take down a $5 million Predator or a $30 million Reaper. I note that 70 of the 223 Predators and Reapers in operation through 2009 were “lost during combat operations” although the military has only admitted to four of them being shot down.