Tag: decline and fall

Downgrade and the debt sectors

Daniel Indiviglio makes some relevant points in his article about the downgrade at The Atlantic and he was one of the few who correctly saw it as a real possibility, but I think he ultimately goes off-track when he calls into question S&P’s decision to downgrade the U.S. sovereign credit rating:

S&P was not happy with the $2.2 trillion minimum debt reduction plan. That’s understandable. A bigger deal would certainly have been preferable from a fiscal soundness standpoint. But does the agency really estimate that the deal is is so dangerously small that there’s a realistic chance that the U.S. could now default at some point in the future? In particular, does U.S. debt really look significantly riskier now than it did in, say, April?

The bond market certainly doesn’t think so. Treasury yields are near all-time lows, despite all that political nonsense. And remember, the interest the U.S. pays on its debt is far, far smaller than its tax revenues. If the Treasury prioritizes interest payments, then there’s no conceivable way the U.S. could default.

I defended S&P’s initial decision to put the U.S. rating on negative watch back in May when politics were becoming poisonous. But to actually downgrade the U.S. after Washington managed to avoid its self-created crisis is another story. S&P should have acted like the other agencies and affirmed the U.S. rating, but kept it on negative watch until more deficit reduction plans were put in place over the next couple of years, as I explain here.

In fact, this might not turn out well for S&P. The firm might think it’s acting boldly or proactively. Instead, the market may question S&P’s reasoning skills. The rating agency is acting here on an assumption not shared by its peers at Moody’s and Fitch: that U.S. politics are so screwed up that they could render the nation unable to live up to its debt obligations. That’s despite pretty much everyone agreeing that the nation will be financially able to pay for its debt in the short-, medium-, and long-term.

Indiviglio did a great job of demonstrating that the U.S. downgrade was be almost perfectly in line with the historical Japanese downgrade, which took place when its net government debt reached 60% of GDP.  (It is presently around 225%).  However, he reaches the wrong conclusion, as many have, by getting sidetracked over the way in which S&P’s analyzed the political situation in the U.S.A. And while there was never any question of short-term default, (despite the scare tactics of both Democrats and Republicans), I very much disagree that the nation will necessarily be able to pay for its debt in the medium- and long-terms.

The real reason that the downgrade was not only inevitable, but correct, and not only correct, but the first in a series of downgrades, can be seen in projections based on the historical patterns in the Z1 debt sector charts. These show the S&P’s worst case scenario to be far too optimistic to be credible.

While the debt figures don’t match up perfectly, as August “Net debt held by the public” is a little different at $9.78 trillion than Q1-2011 “federal government debt outstanding” at $9.65 trillion, they are close enough for the purposes of comparison. Utilizing the Q1 figure provides a federal debt/GDP of 64.3%, which is much lower than 74% presently estimated by the end of 2011 by S&P’s. However, we can see how they reach that number by plugging in the expected growth in the amount of debt at the post-2008 quarterly average of $365 billion. This indicates an end of year federal debt figure of 10.74 trillion and a GDP figure of $14.513 trillion.

In other words, S&P’s is probably assuming that either GDP will contract $490 million in the second through fourth quarters or the rate of federal borrowing will slow down.  Either way, the so-called “double-dip recession” already appears to be baked in the S&P’s cake, assuming that its analysts are as capable of reading the Federal Reserve reports as Karl Denninger is. But that’s not the interesting aspect, from my perspective. What is interesting is the debt/GDP projections under the three future scenarios, Upside, Base Case, and Downside. Consider these projections of future federal debt to GDP ratios:

UPSIDE: 2011 74%, 2015 77%, 2021 78%
BASE CASE: 2011 74%, 2015 79%, 2021 85%
DOWNSIDE: 2011 74%, 2015 90%, 2021 101%

Where I suspect S&P’s has gone amiss, (and perhaps it had no choice in the matter due to its professional obligations), is by taking the CBO scoring figures seriously and thereby utilizing GDP estimates as the primary variable. Based on my calculations, it is also possible that S&P’s is simply plugging in the 66-year average rate of increase of federal debt, 5.92%, into their spreadsheets.  But it isn’t GDP that has changed so drastically over the last three years and significantly modified the debt/GDP ratio, it is the rapid 82.89% increase in the federal debt over the last 11 quarters. If we utilize federal debt as the primary variable and plug them into S&P’s GDP estimates, we get some very different results. (I’m going to ignore the inflation and tax estimates in order to reduce the number of variables; these are estimates for the purpose of critical comparison, not predictive projections.)

The S&P’s GDP estimates are as follows:

UPSIDE: 3% GDP growth + lapsed tax cuts
BASE CASE: 3% GDP growth
DOWNSIDE: 2.5% GDP growth

However, net GDP growth over the 13 quarters from Q1 2008 to Q2 2011 is $729.9 billion, or 5.1%. That is an annual rate of growth of 1.57% and assumes that overall credit continues to remain flat at $52.6 trillion while federal debt continues to rise at the rate that private debt contracts. Call it the CURRENT CASE. Plugging in 1.57% annual GDP growth and 22.7% annual federal debt growth provides the following debt/GDP ratios if one begins with the firm numbers from the end of year 2010.

CURRENT CASE: 2011 77%, 2015 164%, 2021 509%

And if we substitute actual rates of federal debt growth for the S&P estimates of it that are based on the notoriously unreliable CBO scoring, it becomes very clear that the debt/GDP projections are wildly inaccurate regardless of what rate of GDP growth is assumed and shows that the problem is not one that economic growth can possibly solve.  In fact, the revised UPSIDE case which takes historical debt growth into account is much worse than the Base Case that does not.

Notice that while the end of year 2011 figure (actually 76.8%) isn’t much worse than S&P’s is projecting at 74%, it is considerably worse than the DOWNSIDE in 2015 (164% vs 79%) and more than six times as bad in 2021 (509% vs 85%). But are these astronomical ratios even remotely possible? Could federal debt really rise to $26.1 trillion in 2015 from $9.6 trillion at present? After all, that would amount to 39.4% of all U.S. debt outstanding, assuming that the private sectors shrank at the same rate that the federal government sector expanded, and would indicate a Game Over default sometime in between 2016 and 2018.

This chart, which shows the historical percentage for each of the major debt sectors since 1946, demonstrates that at least the 2015 rate is clearly within the bounds of possibility. The Federal Government sector represented more than 39.4% of total U.S. debt until 1955. Furthermore, it also shows that the decline of Financial sector debt, which has contracted $3 trillion since 2008 and fallen from 32.7% of the total to 26.8%, could conceivably continue to dwindle away to less than one percent of the total, which would amount to an additional $11.2 trillion in debt-deleveraging that would need to be replaced by federal debt in order to prevent concomitant economic contraction. (It also, by the by, shows very clearly the real source of America’s current economic woes.) Government spending and borrowing is not the root cause of the problem, it is merely a failed attempt to cure the disease of massive private sector debt expansion and contraction.

Now, I am not making any predictions here, other than a general one that because private sector debt will continue to fall, there will be tremendous pressure to continue to increase federal spending and borrowing at rates more similar to that of the last three years than the historical norm. This is because the alternative is an immediate and sizable contraction of GDP.  As ugly as it appears, the CURRENT CASE scenario I have outlined is not a worst case scenario because it does not account for the economic contraction I expect to finally begin showing up in the GDP numbers later this year and in 2012.  The determining factor will be whether the rate of increase of federal debt is closer to the 22.7% annual rate of 2008-2011 or the 5.9% rate of 1946-2011.  Just out of curiosity, I looked at the latter, which in combination with the 1.57% 2008-2011 GDP growth produces the following scenario:

HISTORICAL CASE: 2011 66.3%, 2015 78.4%, 2021 100.9%.

Which of these five scenarios appears to be playing out should be readily apparent by the time the Q4-2011 debt sector numbers are published in the Federal Reserve’s Z1 report.  If the Household and Private sectors continue to decline and end-of-year federal debt/GDP is over 75%, then CURRENT CASE is probably in effect.

UPDATE – More like 3 in 3, I would say: “A Standard & Poor’s official says there is a 1 in 3 chance that the U.S. credit rating could be downgraded another notch if conditions erode over the next six to 24 months. The credit rating agency’s managing director, John Chambers, tells ABC’s “This Week” that if the fiscal position of the U.S. deteriorates further, or if political gridlock tightens even more, a further downgrade is possible.”

A Metaphor for Vibrant America

VDH on a murder that is not only a snapshot of a sick society, but serves as a cogent metaphor for Vibrant America:

A woman found slain at a Hanford car wash this week was killed randomly when a 17-year-old gang member happened to see her while taking a walk, Hanford police said Thursday. Denise McVay was washing her car — something she did several times a week — early Tuesday morning before work.

The teen was wandering the streets after leaving a party when he saw McVay at the Royal Car Wash on Garner Avenue at about 5 a.m. and decided to kill her, police said. The teen “simply wanted to kill somebody that night” and McVay, 49, was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Capt. Parker Sever said. “It was a purely random act.”

The teen stabbed McVay several times and slit her throat.

The teen took McVay’s money and her car, Sever said, and drove to the home of a fellow gang member, Mauricio Ortiz, 18, of Hanford.

Consider the societal changes that have taken place in order for this incident to have taken place. McVay was likely unmarried, otherwise she wouldn’t have been washing her car, her husband probably would have done it for her. In pre-Vibrant America, there is a two-thirds chance she wouldn’t have been working at all, but would have been supported by her husband. In neither case would she have been at the car wash at 5 AM.

Prior to LBJ’s Great Society, the “teen” would likely have not been free to wander around at 5 AM, as he would have been sleeping or getting ready to go to his own job, as the various levels of government were far less likely to providing funds for unemployed youth to spend their days and nights in aimless partying.

And, of course, without the efforts of Senators Kennedy and Hart, and Rep. Celler, it is far less likely that either the murderous teen – who is almost certainly Hispanic – or his fellow gang member, Mr. Ortiz, would be in the country to commit the murders that Americans would not commit.

The picture of the future Vibrant America is becoming increasingly clear. It is shaping up to be a place where childless and unmarried white women will be expected to fend for their interests against the perceived interests of the growing third world underclasses. Somehow, I don’t think this was quite the gloriously liberated future that the feminists had in mind.

The scales fall from the eyes

Mr. Farah now recognizes the reality of the bi-factional ruling party:

[W]e don’t have two competing parties in Washington. We have one-party governance, totally unresponsive to the will of the people and the rule of law. Republicans and Democrats represent two wings of the same party – both of which, at the end of the day, don’t really covet a return to constitutionally limited government.

Disaster?

Catastrophe?

Outrage?

Yes, but none of these words even comes close to adequately characterizing the betrayal perpetrated by the Republican establishment in Washington over the last few days.

The era of big government is back with a vengeance – and apparently here to stay.

There are no limits. There are no restraints. There is no accountability. There is no end to red ink as far as the eye can see.

As I have been telling you for ten years, voting Republican will NEVER be a panacea for the cornucopia of ills that have rendered America a revenant. There probably is no panacea, as it is hard to envision any workable solution that does not involve the division of the country into at least three parts. There simply aren’t the votes to “take back America” because too many nominal Americans dislike historical America, disvalue its freedoms and despise its Constitutional values.

And, thanks to the post-1965 influx of third-world immigrants, there will never be the votes. No Hispanic nation, no African nation, no Arabic nation, and very few European nations have EVER placed any value on “the rights of Englishmen” that were asserted in the Declaration of Independence. One need only read the aberrant parodies of the Declaration in the various UN and EU versions or national constitutions to see this is the case. Mere change of geographic location has not sufficed to significantly modify the core philosophies or ideologies, or in many cases, even the national identities of those immigrants.

It is time to pull out of the Republican Party altogether. This may mean that Obama will win a second term if he is not put out to pasture by the Democratic Party elders during the nomination process. This will almost surely mean that there will be no meaningful opposition in Washington to the bi-factional ruling party in 2012 and possibly 2014.

But the complete inability of the Republican Party to do anything of substance, to cut so much as a single dollar from the current amount of spending, means that the “realistic” forty-year strategy of “elect more conservative Republicans” has completely failed. It failed when Reagan was elected. It failed in 1994. It failed when Republicans held the White House and both houses of Congress. It has failed after the 2010 success of the Tea Party. Because it is clear that it is no longer even possible to prevent the bi-factional swan dive from the economic Tarpeian Rock, it is time to shift focus and to begin preparing for the post-mortem rebuilding.

The end of the public school

It is becoming increasingly difficult for parents with even a vestigial respect for traditional morality to sentence their children for 12 years of gay and feminist propaganda complemented by intellectual lobotomization:

Public schools in California will be required to teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans starting Jan. 1 after Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed a controversial bill to add the topic to the social sciences curriculum. Textbooks now must include information on the role of LGBT Americans, as well as Americans with disabilities, though California’s budget crisis has delayed the purchasing of new books until at least 2015….

Gay rights advocates said they will be vigilant about making sure schools across California comply.

Again and again, the wicked are forced to learn the hard way that the fact that God is slow to anger does not mean that He can be safely mocked. I wouldn’t be surprised if those gay textbooks are never printed.

It’s certainly informative to know that in a time of educational crisis, when many California schoolchildren can’t read, write, or even speak English, they will be well-trained to serve as fodder for the California chickenhawks.

Ten years ago, I argued that the public school system should be outlawed, the school buildings dismantled, and the grounds sown with salt. I suspect that not a few of those who disagreed with me then are finally beginning to come around and realize that the purpose of public school is not education.

Failing to show up for the future

This is why the 21st century will is unlikely to be an “American century”.

The latest 2010 census data show that children of immigrants make up one in four people under 18, and are now the fastest-growing segment of the nation’s youth, an indication that both legal and illegal immigrants as well as minority births are lifting the nation’s population.

Currently, the share of children in the U.S. is 24 percent, falling below the previous low of 26 percent of 1990. The share is projected to slip further, to 23 percent by 2050, even as the percentage of people 65 and older is expected to jump from 13 percent today to roughly 20 percent by 2050 due to the aging of baby boomers and beyond.

In 1900, the share of children reached as high as 40 percent, compared to a much smaller 4 percent share for seniors 65 and older. The percentage of children in subsequent decades held above 30 percent until 1980, when it fell to 28 percent amid declining birth rates, mostly among whites.

So, thanks to the late and unlamented Irish-American senator and an English Jew’s ideal of “the melting pot”, the USA is about to discover what happens when a young population of European descent is exchanged for an old population of half-European, one-sixth African, one-third Mestizo descent.

Even if you genuinely subscribe to the theory of multicultural vibrancy and strength through diversity, I would imagine you have to be at least a bit concerned about the probable outcomes here.

Mailvox: it’s raciss!

Huey Freeman staunchly defends the peaceful, law-abiding non-Asian minoritiesmajority in Milwaukee:

I wonder why he doesn’t post on the fact the crime rate is on the decline since 2006?

Vox is cherry picking by pointing out how whites are not the minority anymore than bringing up one single incident where a bunch of blacks jump some whites, while completely ignoring the fact that the crime rate went down. I don’t know what story vd is attempting to paint, but it seems to me hes is trying say that when whites are no longer in the majority, things like the above will become more and more common, while completely ignoring the fact that the official crime rate has gone down in the past couple years which undermines what he’s trying to say (again, assuming that is what he was attempting to convey). I’m sure if he expended his energy into proper research instead of wasting it using sophist rhetoric in poor attempts to hide his racism he would’ve done a simple google search for the official crime rate.

The reason I didn’t bother to respond to Huey’s inept defense of riotous, but law-abiding African youths is that, as anyone who bothered to read his link would have immediately recognized, the statistics do not disprove my contention that Vibrant America will increasingly bear more similarity to the nations that are providing the vibrancy than they do to historical Western America. But since he kept returning to the point, I will point out the errors of his statement.

Presumably due to his low IQ, Huey claimed that the Milwaukee crime rate had fallen from 2006. But this is only true if one looks at 2006 and 2009; the crime rate actually rose from 2006 to an all-time high in 2007, then abruptly fell 20% in two years. (Upon further research, 23% in three years.) Moreover, there is no discernible trend; the crime rate fell 25% from 1999 to 2004, then rose 44% from 2004 to 2007, then fell 23% again. Note, however, that while overall crime is generally down, assault – which is exactly the sort of crime involving “where a bunch of blacks jump some whites” – has risen 21% since 1999; it was up 67% as recently as 2007.

During that time, the African population has gone from 36.9% to 40% of the population. The European population has gone from 45.4% to 37%. And the Hispanic population has risen from 12% to 17%. Huey’s second error is that he failed to notice that the demographic figures from the article are from the 2010 census and are therefore newer and more accurate than the pre-census statistics he cites from 2009. In other words, he is wrong and whites are no longer the majority in Milwaukee.

However, it should be kept in mind that it is not necessarily pure demographics that matter with regards to crime, but also the demographics of the power structure. For example, South Africa had a fairly similar population mix during the white-ruled Apartheid years that it does now, but its violent crime rate has risen dramatically since the end of Apartheid in 1994.

It is true that total crime in Milwaukee has continued to drop, at least according to the official statistics. “Total violent crime was down 7.1 percent in 2010 from 2009, and decreased 23.1 percent since 2007.” The problem is that, as was reported in the article I linked, it appears that this decline may be attributable to the police refusing to take statements or report crimes. If a mass assault by dozens of African “youths” and multiple thefts show up in the headlines, but not in the police reports, then it is readily apparent that the crime rates not only have no discernible pattern related to racial demographics, but are entirely unreliable. The incredible decline in assault in only two years tends to support the anecdotal evidence suggesting the apparent improvement in crime rates is primarily the result of intentional police under-reporting.

The fact is that it doesn’t matter if you want to describe a hypothesis as vibrant, Correct, or raciss, it will nevertheless be supported or falsified by subsequent events. In this case, we can simply wait and see what happens as Milwaukee becomes increasingly vibrant. If Huey is correct, it will not become less law-abiding and more violent. If I am correct, it will, and Huey will forced to be concede that the “raciss” perspective is, in fact, the correct one. I am not the least bit bothered by insinuations or even direct accusations of racism because I recognize that the objective facts are simply what they are. My like or dislike for any individual, of any genetic type, does not determine Asian IQ ranges, African homicide rates or Arab predilections for rape. They are what they observably are.

The tragedy of the multicultural debacle is that while it is incorrect to prejudge any individual by his genetic makeup, it is absolutely correct to make macrosocietal judgments about groups of people on that basis. This is why one can empathize with the individual man who wishes to move to the suburbs to help his family escape the ghetto while simultaneously recognizing that the man’s rational action will likely bring about the eventual destruction of the very haven he seeks.

Sam Harris once told me that it is tribalism, not faith, that is the cause of conflict. But our tribalism is bred into our very DNA, and cannot be eradicated through any amount of Correct thinking and reality denial. There are only three possible solutions to the problem, each rife with its own terrible costs. The problem is that most people incline towards one solution or another without any understanding of what those costs entail.

The Amalgamation solution, favored by Arthur C. Clarke and other SF fans, will necessarily involve the eventual subsumption and elimination of every historical nationality and tradition and reduce humanity to its lowest common denominator. It is the world of Idiocracy. It is, I would argue, the least likely outcome and the worst for humanity as a whole, as it is the only one that would appear to risk humanity’s survival as a species. Another way to look at it, you see, is a low-IQ world with inherited nukes.

The Separation solution will necessarily involve a tremendous amount of disruption and bloodshed, as the elite of the less-favored groups will actively resist being sentenced to live among their own. But, as China, Japan and other relatively homogeneous countries have shown, this is ultimately the most stable, least violent solution.

And finally, the Elimination solution, which is the one that totalitarian governments usually resort to in the end. This is Stalin and Mao on a scale that is an order of magnitude higher. It may sound unthinkable, but history shows that it is the most probable one. There is no reason to think that the fascists of the EU will be any more merciful to the Africans and Arabs in their midst than the Turks were to the Armenians, the Poles were to the Germans, or the Zimbabweans were to the European Rhodesians.

The Correct view of different but mixed and vibrant is simply not a long-term option. Even the Czechs and Slovaks couldn’t make it work. So, in this case, that which is simply will not be tomorrow.

Calvin Coolidge on the 4th

Chad the Elder highlights an important historical speech by one of the greatest American presidents:

“Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man…are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions…Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish.”

He also observes that the Declaration’s principles are final, not to be discarded in the name of progress. To deny the truth of human equality, or inalienable rights, or government by consent is not to go forward but backward—away from self-government, from individual rights, from the belief in the equal dignity of every human being….

We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first…If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things which are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshipped.”

This illuminates the great blunder of the self-styled “rational materialists”. Because they know nothing of history, they assume that the fruits of Christendom are its foundations. Christianity alone did not create the freedom and subsequent wealth of the West, but it was one of the most important elements. And without that element, without a population steeped in that element, it is logically apparent that the fruits of it will gradually wither, one by one.

Coolidge was merely recognizing a truth that was equally obvious to the Founding Fathers and astute visitors such as de Tocqueville alike. The concept of “Progress”, which itself is an evil fruit of a 19th century Christian heresy, is nothing more than a descending return to the historical norms of impoverished slaves forcibly ruled by an immoral and unaccountable elite.

Mexicans in Minnesota?

Operation Wetback II is long past overdue:

Many middle class people are leaving the state for Texas, Colorado, Nevada and Arizona, where taxes and the cost of living are lower. In the past decade, 1.5 million more people left California for other states than came to California from another part of the United States, according to analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California.

New births and international immigration make up the difference, but even immigration has slowed from sky-high rates in the 1990s, according to demographers, as people such as Maribel Mota, a recent arrival from Mexico, find themselves unemployed and behind on rent in the Golden State.

Mota, a 38-year-old who spoke to CNN through a translator, said she wants to go to Minnesota, where she hears there are more job opportunities and rent is lower. She’ll trade sun for snow, she said, if it means she can make ends meet.

No doubt those Californians won’t take long before setting about californicating their places of refuge. The problem is that if the legal immigrants are not sent back along with the illegal ones, it won’t be more than 20 years before the Aztlan independence movement becomes an issue. It’s pretty simple. Either the idiotic “melting pot” ideal is not only abandoned but aggressively rejected or the nation collapses amid civil war.

The socialisthistorical end game

VDH notes the historical pattern of corrosive parasitism:

History is not kind to such collective states of mind. Pay an Athenian in the fifth century BC a subsidy to go to the theater; and in the fourth century BC he is demanding such pay to vote in the assembly as well — and there is not to be a third century free democratic polis. Extend to a Roman in the first century BC a small grain dole, and by the late first century AD he cannot live without a big dole, free entertainment in a huge new Coliseum, and disbursements of free coined money. Let the emperor Justinian try cutting back the bloated bureaucracy in sixth century AD Constantinople and he wins the Nika riots that almost destroy a civilization from within even as it is beset by hosts of foreign enemies.

Social Security started out as a few dollars a month to the elderly, in their last two or three years of life, to ensure that they could feed themselves without the indignity of borrowing from their children. It has morphed into someone living well for twenty years on far more money taken than was put in — or a young family with a dyslexic child on “disability” for life. To cut any for the latter would cause far more riot and mayhem than not to have given the former anything in the first place — despite the fact that the 21st century recipient was far less needy and got far more than the early 20th century recipient who needed more and got less.

VDH points out that there isn’t actually anything properly socialist about the nominal socialists who build their careers on transferring wealth from one party to another. And as we’ve seen demonstrated very clearly since 2008, the banks and large corporations are every bit as willing to play the “socialist” game as any labor union. It’s all about utilizing government power to forcibly redistribute tax income, and this is an old, old game that long precedes Marxism or any other form of socialism.

In the end, it is merely a rancid form of political corruption, and one that Aristotle would recognize as readily as Julius Caesar. In fact, Caesar may well have been the original Too Big To Fail, as one technique he used to guarantee continued support from the moneyed class was the gargantuan debts he incurred as he worked his way up the cursus honorum. His creditors knew that if he did not succeed to the Praetorship or the Consulship, they would never see their loans repaid, and so they were forced to remain solidly behind him.

Societies have a life cycle that is as obvious to the educated observer as the difference between a young Sports Illustrated model and a decrepit Social Security recipient. What we’re seeing in the USA and other Western countries isn’t progress, it is straightforward and unmistakable decline.

Call it what you want

It still isn’t marriage:

New York made history last night by becoming the sixth and largest state to legalize gay marriage. The state Senate passed the bill by a 33-29 margin and Gov. Cuomo quickly signed it five minutes before midnight.

To paraphrase F.A. von Hayek, the adjective modifies the noun. The mere fact that homogamy is described as “gay marriage” is sufficient proof that it is not actually marriage. And the ironic thing is that as has been seen in other states and nations, virtually no gay men are going to pretend to get married anyway, since monogamy is generally considered about as desirable as ebola to the male portion of the same sex community. I look forward to seeing feminists go ballistic when the next step begins and everyone who claimed that homogamy would not inevitably lead to polygamy begins to pretend that they never said anything of the sort.

Homogamy is an interesting test of the level to which an individual worships the State. My question to those who assert that a marriage is valid simply because the state said so is this: if the state in which you are resident passed a law declaring that the sum of two and two was five, would you still believe that the answer to 2+2 was 4 or would you insist that it was, in fact, 5?

The historical fact is that homogamy is not new, it is not progress, and it is not a human right. If Barack Obama were to come out of the closet and marry Reggie Love tomorrow, this would permit the United States to finally catch up with that epitome of modern social progress, the Roman Empire of Nero and Elagabalus.