Tag: decline and fall

The consequence of quality

Pat Buchanan notes that immigrants have proven to be no adequate substitution for the native stock:

Since Roe v. Wade, abortions have carried off 53 million of the generations that were to replace the boomers. While those 53 million lost have been partially replaced by 40 million immigrants, legal and illegal, our recent immigrants have not exhibited the same income- or tax-producing capacity as boomers.

Perhaps a better name for Generation X would be Generation M, for murdered. Now, the idea that one group of people can be expected to adequately fill in for another is hardly new. Military historians trace the evolution of the Roman legions from nearly pure Italian stock to mostly barbarian over the course of the Republic and Empire, and it is hardly surprising that the barbarian generals showed themselves to be much more inclined to march on Rome and declare themselves Emperor than the Romans brought up in the patrician traditions did, Gaius Julius Caesar being the obvious exception. In his book on Stalingrad, Anthony Beevor notes the way in which the Soviets particularly targeted the Nazi’s Third and Fourth Romanian armies in the massive counteroffensive known as Operation Uranus and were thus able to encircle and destroy the German Sixth Army. Had the Red Army been facing 600,000 German soldiers rather than 250,000 Germans, 150,000 Romanians, and 220,000 Italians, it is very unlikely that their attack would have succeeded.

It is impossible to deny that the United States would not merely look very different, it would be very different if, instead of 40 million non-Americans bringing their genetic traits, societal behavioral patterns, and cultural traditions into the country – we can no longer reasonably describe it as a nation – there were 40 million more black and white Americans raised within the American tradition. It is not necessary to declare if change is for the better or for the worse to note that it has taken place. And with regards to the question of whether it is for the better or not, it should be readily apparent that the direction of the migrational pattern shows which society is deemed superior by everyone except those charged with protecting the more desirable one.

But what has happened has happened. That world is lost. The 53 million black and white Americans of my generation and the succeeding one are already dead. While Karl Popper argues against “historicity” and that predictions based on historical patterns are no better than soothsaying, I think he is wrong and the eventual consequences are readily apparent. We have always known that the USA would eventually fall, since all kingdoms and empires do in time. But now, we can be reasonably confident that we know why, if not necessary when.

The exits close

A lot of people failed to understand the point of my controversial column “Against a Fence”, having been distracted by the deportation discussion. Even fewer understood my reasoning behind it; many critics found it hard to wrap their minds around an anti-immigration, anti-border wall perspective. But it has always been a tautological truth that a wall designed to keep people out is just as useful for keeping people in. The proposed law to strip passports in order to better hold Americans hostage to the IRS would appear to be an indication that the time in which one easily leave the United States is rapidly coming to an end.

The Republican House of Representatives may soon follow the Democratic Senate and give the IRS the power to confiscate your passport on mere suspicion of owing taxes. There’s no place like home, comrade.

‘America, Love It Or Leave It” might be an obsolete slogan if the “bipartisan transportation bill” that just passed the Senate is approved by the House and becomes law. Contained within the suspiciously titled “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,” or “MAP 21,” is a provision that gives the Internal Revenue Service the power to keep U.S. citizens from leaving the country if it finds that they owe $50,000 or more in unpaid taxes — no court ruling necessary.

It is hard to imagine any law more reminiscent of the Soviet Union that America toppled, or its Eastern Bloc slave satellites.

In a free and well-governed society, exile is a punishment. In an unfree and misgoverned one, exile is impermissible. There is no stronger indication that America is no longer free than the fact that its leadership is seriously contemplating the idea of attempting to imprison its citizens within its borders.

And of course, one tends to doubt that Warren Buffett will lose his passport despite Berkshire Hathaway owing massive back taxes, or that any of the 98,000 federal employees who owe a combined $1 billion in back taxes will be deprived of their ability to travel outside the country. And while the writer is correct to say that “if House Republicans pass this assault on our Constitution, their credibility will be in tatters”, this presumes that the House Republicans still possess any credibility after permitting the continued growth of big government by raising the debt ceiling last year.

For all that the Congressional actions are egregiously unconstitutional and directly opposed to the foundational principles of America, one shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. This behavior is completely typical of financially desperate states that can no longer afford the costs of empire. The collapse of the Soviet Union was only the most recent example; there are many to be found throughout history. “Valentinian III, who remarked in 444 AD that new taxes on landowners and merchants would be catastrophic, still imposed an additional 4% sales tax… and further decreed that all transactions be conducted in the presence of a tax collector.” But however harsh the crackdown, however totalitarian the government, strict tax enforcement never works because its objectives are inevitably based upon a static revenue model that fails to account for Man’s unwillingness to work and to obey the law when the state claims an excessive share on the fruits of his labor.

Enjoy the decline… preferably from a distance.

Repent

The West’s political and banking elite are running out of time to repent and make amends for their crimes against their various nations.

“The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all hope for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not give me any way to react (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans to survive.

I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945.”
– Dimitris Christoulas

WND column

Dissolution and Post-Democracy

It is always difficult for those who live through transitional periods in history to recognize that they are taking place.

While we distinguish between the Roman Republic and the Roman empire, and mark the birth of the Byzantine empire with the establishment of its capital at Constantinople, it is unlikely that the average person living under Roman rule understood, much less cared, that he was a citizen of the Roman Republic, the Eastern Roman Empire or the Western Roman Empire. Indeed, although we call them Greeks and Byzantines, the men of the Eastern Roman Empire still called themselves Romans and believed they, and not the barbarian-infested ruins of the city on the seven hills, were the true heirs to Romulus and Caesar Augustus, even though they no longer lived in Italy nor spoke Latin.

Roissy tells Murray to “man up”

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?

To Hell with secular society

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.

Libertarianism in one country

It’s too late for the USA, but from a theoretical perspective, Steve Sailer is correct about the impossibility of using liberty to lead by engaged example:

It’s time for us good guys to take a lesson in prudence from the bad guys. As you may recall, Trotsky and Stalin had a little falling out. Trotsky wanted to pursue “permanent worldwide revolution.” In contrast, Stalin thought it wiser to concentrate on “revolution in one country,” and only pick off buffer states as circumstances allowed. Stalin won the debate with Trotsky through the penetrating power of his logic (and ice pick), and went on to be the most enduringly successful of the 20th Century’s sizable cast of monsters.

This is what libertarians must realize: There is staggeringly too much inequality in the world for America’s love affair with capitalism to survive importing massive amounts of it.

As my Southern Baptist pastor used to say, it is much easier to pull someone down than it is to lift someone up. Free trade and open borders have turned out to be nearly as significant factors in the American decline as increased government spending and women’s suffrage. None of which, of course, were as important as the establishment of the third central bank, but it is worth noting these things in the process of the ongoing decline and fall in the hopes that future generations will turn out to be wiser than we were.

Just as many of the arguments that pervade our political debate today were presaged one hundred, and sometimes one thousand years ago, we can reasonably expect politicians of the far future to be arguing over whether free trade with the aliens in the Gar Zephrod sector will be of benefit to the economy or not. And we can also expect that leftist equalitarians of the far future will be shocked when the carnivorous Hleetongs of Xpicol IV, who were permitted to settle en masse among the posthuman colonists of New New York, begin devouring their neighbors.

Dutch Einsatzgruppen

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.

Is the goose tapped out?

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.

You’ve come a long way, baby

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.