Post-Democracy in Pakistan

As in the USA, the Pakistani government has forgotten that the primary benefit of representative democracy is avoiding violent partisan battles led by political leaders driven to hold on to power for fear of being punished after the fact:

All hell is breaking loose in Pakistan, amid fears there could be a slide into widescale civil unrest or even full-blown civil war, after on Tuesday the former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested and taken into police custody while he was entering the Islamabad High Court for a hearing in a case.

The 70-year-old cricketer-turned-politician has been pursued in court filings by Pakistan’s anti-corruption agency, but the dramatic move to actually detain Khan is a huge and unprecedented escalation, threatening to unleash mayhem in the streets of the nuclear-armed country.

His party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), immediately called for mass protests, which quickly exploded across multiple cities and in front police and military locations, including in the capital Islamabad, but also in Lahore, Karachi, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Peshawar, and Mardan – according to international reports.

Viral images and video of Khan being escorted by security forces in riot control gear and whisked away in an armored van are fueling anger in the streets. A government statement has said the arrest was “for the crime of corruption”.

According to Al Jazeera, “Khan has been slapped with more than 100 cases – including corruption, ‘terrorism’ and even blasphemy – since he was removed from power last April through a parliamentary vote of no confidence.”

The fact that most of the people around the world are very ill-suited for even modestly democratic forms of government when not forced to abide by them by an external power is rapidly becoming inescapable to even the most casual observer.

DISCUSS ON SG


Better Than Trump

On at least two issues, anyhow. Robert Kennedy Jr. comes out hard against the surveillance state on Twitter:

Here’s how I will dismantle the surveillance state. I will replace the officials that have been instructing tech companies to censor users. I will direct the justice department to stop prosecuting whistleblowers and start investigating the crimes they expose. I will rescind administrative policies that surveil Americans’ communications. In the long term, it is about forging an entirely different relationship between people and government based on respect. #Kennedy24

@RobertKennedyJr

Kennedy is a liberal, a Democrat, and a Kennedy. Most of his positions are anathema to me and many of the readers here, including his support for gun control. This is why it’s a massive mistake to get excited about any public figure who says one or two things with which one agrees, no matter how significant the subject happens to be. I do not support RFK Jr. and find it difficult to imagine any context in which I would do so.

But it is still worth noting that Kennedy’s positions on the vaxx and on the U-Stasi are both much better than either Donald Trump’s or Ron Desantis’s. And, to my knowledge, he’s the first politician or major media figure to openly come out against the surveillance state.

DISCUSS ON SG


End No-Fault Divorce

Ending no-fault divorce would be a very, very big winner for Republicans if they are smart enough to fully embrace the issue:

Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, Republicans are already looking ahead to their next moral crusades, and it sure looks like they’ve found one in… divorce. A new report from Media Matters for America shows a rising trend of right-wing influencers and Republican leaders and politicians, including U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance, advocating for the end of no-fault divorce—a policy that allows people to end a marriage without being required to prove wrongdoing by their partner, including adultery, abuse, or desertion.

No-fault divorce, which was first enacted in California in 1969, has always been a feminist issue. It’s allowed domestic abuse victims to leave a bad marriage without onerous barriers, and it certainly empowers women and all people to escape legally binding situations with someone they don’t love. One would think no-fault divorce is a no-brainer—a completely non-controversial issue decided half a century ago.

But Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe very clearly opened the door for further rights, particularly around marriage, to be reversed. “We have a duty to correct the error established in those precedents,” he wrote, while specifically calling the Griswold v. Connecticut (1965, birth control), Lawrence v. Texas (2003, same-sex intimacy), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015, same-sex marriage) decisions “demonstrably erroneous.” And already, the Texas Republican Party—the same people currently suing the Biden administration for the right to let pregnant people die—includes a proposal “to rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws and support covenant marriage and to pass legislation extending the period of time in which a divorce may occur to six months after the date of filing for divorce” in its 2022 party platform.

Ironically, marriage is one of the only contracts into which one can enter without being held liable to the terms of the agreement. Using an Internet site is literally more contractually binding, which only underlies the absolute absurdity of the legality of divorces that allow one party to unilaterally break the contract for no reason and without any penalties.

The fact that the feminist media is already worried about this possible development demonstrates how effective a wedge issue it would be for Republicans.

DISCUSS ON SG


The Clownfoolery Intensifies

The judicial clowns of Clown World actually convicted a meme lord for posting memes on Twitter:

A self-styled far-right propagandist from Florida was convicted Friday of charges alleging that he conspired to deprive individuals of their right to vote in the 2016 presidential election.

Douglass Mackey, 33, of West Palm Beach, Florida, was convicted in Brooklyn federal court before Judge Ann M. Donnelly after a one-week trial. On the internet, he was known as “Ricky Vaughn.”

In 2016, Mackey had about 58,000 Twitter followers and was ranked by the MIT Media Lab as the 107th-most important influencer of the then-upcoming presidential election, prosecutors said. He had described himself as an “American nationalist” who regularly retweeted Trump and promoted conspiracy theories about voter fraud by Democrats.

Mackey, who was arrested in January 2021, could face up to 10 years in prison. His sentencing is set for Aug. 16….

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a release that the jury rejected Mackey’s cynical attempt to use the First Amendment free speech protections to shield himself from criminal liability for a voter suppression scheme.

“Today’s verdict proves that the defendant’s fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality,” he said.

The government alleged that from September 2016 to November 2016, Mackey conspired with several other internet influencers to spread fraudulent messages to Clinton supporters.

Prosecutors told jurors during the trial that Mackey urged supporters of then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to “vote” via text message or social media, knowing that those endorsements were not legally valid votes.

The absurdity of putting Ricky Vaughn in jail for a tweet that was an obvious joke is self-apparent, particularly in light of what has been ruled “free speech” and “free expression” as well as the massive quantities of voter fraud in the 2020 election alone.

But it is also a serious warning about the way in which the clowns genuinely intend to utilize any excuse to use the institutions and agencies of government to harm Americans in every way they possibly can.

This conviction further demonstrates the wisdom of refusing to engage with the US political system any longer. The less contact one has with Clown World and its retarded inmates, the better. It’s not as if Americans are going to vote their way out of chaos.

DISCUSS ON SG


The Gatekeeper Makes His Move

In a move that will surprise precisely no one who has been paying any attention at all: Ron DeSantis has finally gone anti-Trump, just in time to announce that he’s running for President:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has finally taken the gloves off and launched a blistering attack on his former mentor, former President Donald Trump.

In an exclusive wide-ranging interview with me airing on Fox Nation’s “Piers Morgan Uncensored” on Thursday, he said “stay tuned” about his widely expected announcement that he’s running for president and declared: “I have what it takes to be president and I can beat [President] Biden.”

But it’s what he said about Trump that will ignite a firestorm in the Republican Party.

It was clear that the governor has had enough of Trump’s constant baiting and felt ready to take him on in what could end up being a ferocious battle for the White House.

And in a series of jabs at likely his biggest rival for the Republican nomination, DeSantis slammed Trump over his character failings, chaotic leadership style, and for his handling of the COVID pandemic — especially in keeping controversial health chief Dr. Anthony Fauci in his post helping to run the White House coronavirus task force.

Trump was an excellent president despite his massive failures. DeSantis has been a very good governor for Florida. But whereas Trump appears to have been defeated by an Establishment that hates him as much as it hates the American people, DeSantis is a creature of the Establishment disguised as an independent player.


That Will Not Shock the World

It’s being reported that Donald Trump will be arrested next week.

Fox News reports that New York City D.A. Alvin Bragg is preparing to arrest Donald Trump complete with fingerprinting and “normal processing” all under a felony charge federal prosecutors refused to pursue.

That won’t shock anyone. What would shock everyone at this point is if Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden were arrested. Wait, strike that, it would be even more shocking if Vladimir Putin were arrested on the basis of the ICC warrant.

But it’s no wonder they’re suddenly determined to try to shut him up, as if that were possible. If only he’d been perceptive enough, and courageous enough, to speak like this in 2016.

“There must also be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neo-con establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad, while they turn us into a third-world country and a third-world dictatorship right here at home,” Trump said. “The State Department, the defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services, and all the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted to fire the Deep Staters and put America First. The greatest threat to Western Civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves and some of the horrible, USA-hating people that represent us. It’s the abolition of our national borders. It’s the failure to police our own cities. It’s the destruction of the rule of law from within.”

That’s getting pretty… specific. But if you read between the lines, it’s very clear that President Trump is now fully aware that the USA is ruled by an imperialist foreign elite that does not have American interests at heart.

UPDATE: Trump himself confirms the coming arrest.

Donald Trump says he will be arrested on TUESDAY, as New York prosecutors move to indict him over $130,000 hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels

His statement is more than a little interesting in light of this observation from September 2022:

In any event, we’ll know this particular hopium is nonsense if Donald Trump is not arrested and China does not invade Taiwan before the end of March 2023.

DISCUSS ON SG


The Problem, Not the Answer

Voting Republican is not going to solve any – and I mean literally zero – of the growing problems facing a USA in deep decline. I described them as one faction of the “bi-factional ruling party” nearly 20 years ago and I see absolutely zero need to alter that description. They are arguably even more responsible for destroying the USA than the Democrats.

Republicans in the Idaho legislature are looking to approve a resolution that would ask President Joe Biden, as well as Congress, to flood the United States labor market with more foreign workers as well as to grant an amnesty that would give green cards to millions of illegal aliens holding American jobs.

A resolution, authored by State Sen. Jim Guthrie (R) and cosponsored by State Sens. Treg Bernt (R), Linda Hartgen (R), and Chuck Winder (R), asks the federal government to stem the flow of illegal immigration by requiring E-Verify for employers, among other things, while also expanding the number of foreign workers business can import to take mostly working class, blue-collar jobs.

The goal, the resolution states, ought to be to fill U.S. jobs with a constant stream of foreign workers. Amnesty, which would reward illegal aliens with work permits and green cards, should be part of any such legislation, the Republicans write in the resolution.

Yes, the Democrats are evil and stupid. But the Republicans are stupid and evil. Neither party is even remotely interested in defending the national interest of Americans.

DISCUSS ON SG


Discernment and the Lack Thereof

On last night’s Darkstream, I explained how a lack of discernment is the reason conservatives keeps falling for gatekeepers and accepting former enemies as their thought, opinion, and political leaders, which contributes greatly to conservatism seldom being able to accomplish more than lose gracefully over time. After which, an exchange on SG usefully illustrated how fruitless it is to point out these things to people who will persist in their patterns of behavior no matter what has been explained to them.

SG01: From Darkstream 1013 — “The more someone looks like a messiah, the more we should be worried they are an antichrist.” — Let those longing for a solution via Great Men take heed.

SG02: The antichrist will be widely hailed and pushed by globohomo as a savior. If globohomo hates and opposes him, it’s not a shoo-in, but he might be worth looking deeper into.

FFS, how is it possible that telling people “don’t do X” is somehow heard and interpreted by them as “you should totally do X”?

SG02 is exactly the sort of person who gets fooled on a regular basis by gatekeepers. One can just about guarantee his past enthusiasm for Ben Shapiro “owning the libs” and “making liberal heads explode” before promptly falling for Jordan Peterson’s brave opposition to custom pronouns and Candace Owens’s brave abandonment of her now-forgotten SJW past. In a previous generation, he would have embraced Irving Kristol and the neoconservatives on the basis of their staunch opposition to communism and the Soviet Union.

The “heel turn” is a much-used tool in the Clown World playbook. The Prometheans prefer to have their clowns in control of both sides, which is why I have referred to “the bi-factional ruling party” in place of Democrats and Republicans for more than two decades. Ronald Reagan was probably the most successful heel turn in political history, smoothly transforming himself from a Democratic Party activist to the most-beloved Republican President over a period of less than 20 years, from May 1962 to March 1981. And oh, how the Democrats hated and opposed him!

The only metric for reliably judging an individual is by the sum total of his actual words and deeds, never by his purported opposition or by who “hates and opposes him”. Attempting to objectively determine substance on the basis of an oppositional metric is literally retarded.

Consider: most people genuinely believed Jordan Peterson was opposed by globohomo, indeed, its leading opponent, on the basis of one single softball interview when he’d been working directly for them for decades, even though everything in his books pointed directly to him being an enthusiastic globalist and ticket-taker.

Not only is the oppositional metric reliably false, but it is based on a false foundation. The enemy of your enemy may be your friend, but he should never, ever, be accepted as your leader. And the convert who is ever so eager to help you, nay, to lead and advise you, is almost certainly an infiltrator whose objective is to destroy your organization.

DISCUSS ON SG


Anacyclosis in Action

This is a recent post from /pol/ that is well worth reading, especially by those whose knowledge of history and the classics is less complete than might be desired. And it correctly points to the way in which the demoralization and denationalization of Western civilization is rooted in the decline of the Christianity that is one of its integral elements. Polybios would definitely be an early candidate for a second history-based Library subscription.

This was already noted by Polybios in the 2nd century BC, and he referred to his own society – the Hellenistic Greece. Polybios is recognized as “father of sociology”, and he witnessed his own civilization falling and being conquered by Rome.

Anacyclosis is the circulation of governmental forms: warlordship-monarchy-dictatorship-aristocracy-oligarchy-democracy-ochlocracy. Which follows with societal collapse and back into warlordship. The cycle starts anew. The cycle can skip one or more phases or go backwards, but it will never stop on itself.

The theory of anacyclosis is based upon the Greek typology of constitutional forms of rule by the one, the few, and the many. Anacyclosis states that three basic forms of “benign” government (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) are inherently weak and unstable, tending to degenerate rapidly into the three basic forms of “malignant” government (tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy). They, however are disliked and not tolerated well, and people tend to seek the “benign” forms.

According to the doctrine, “benign” governments have the interests of all at heart, whereas “malignant” governments have the interests of a select few at heart. However, all six are considered unworkable because the first three rapidly transform into the latter three due to political corruption, and the latter three tend to collapse from violence.

Widespread Atheism is a sign of democracy transforming into ochlocracy – the mob rule – and Polybios himself witnessed that happening in the Hellenistic Greece. The rise of Materialism and philosophy had killed off the Greek Pagan religion, and it was nothing but an empty shell any more – he said nobody believed in the gods any more. The result was general hedonism, disinterest in upkeeping of the society, amassing of personal fortune and collapse of birth rates.

Polybios himself was a soldier, and he complained of the demoralization of the Hellenistic civilization in general. He lived through collapse of Macedon and defeat of the last king, Perseus, in the battle of Pydna 168 BC. Polybios stated that when a nation loses its faith on its gods, it loses its faith on itself and in the future. He also saw the Roman military, witnessed the Punic Wars and saw how Republican Rome was far less civilized than the Hellenistic sphere, but it was young and hungry.

Polybios considered democracy as the pinnacle of the anacyclosis. Yet in the same way that the descendants of kings and aristocrats abused their political status, so too will the descendants of democrats. Accordingly, democracy degenerates into ochlocracy, literally, “mob-rule”. In an ochlocracy, according to Polybius, the people of the state will become corrupted, and will develop a sense of entitlement and will be conditioned to accept the pandering of demagogues and Populist politicians. Essentially, government becomes a puppet show because a transition in power does not affect a civilian on a day-to-day basis.

This phase sees a widespread Atheism. People lose their faith in gods, and they lose their faith in the society and themselves and in the future. They rather concentrate on what they have here and now – and the result is widespread Hedonism, amassing of wealth and collapse of birth rates. Eventually an ochlocratic society will collapse – either into civil war and anarchy – or is conquered by an external conqueror. The cycle starts anew.

The same happened to Rome 400 years later with the Third Century Crisis. The Roman Polytheism was moribund already in the Early Imperial era, and it collapsed during the Middle Imperial. The Roman Empire was basically a religious vacuum – or a chaotic hotbed of religious competition – by the 3rd century, and the Empire tore in three parts by 242. Only the reconquest of Aurelianus and the reforms of Diocletianus saved the moribund empire and purchased it 100 years more time. But the Empire cleft in two in 395 and the Western Empire went bankrupt 476. Only the rise of a new religion – Christianity – consolidated the situation, and saved the Roman civilization in West and the Roman Empire in the East – the Eastern Roman Empire lasted for 1000 years more.

But also the fate of the Cordoba caliphate in Spain and its collapse is an example of anacyclosis, and the most striking example is the fate of USSR – and each and every Communist regime.

Not all Atheists are Communists, but all Communists are Atheists. The USSR was a acumen of an Atheist society, and Atheism was enforced on all levels of the society. The result was an Orwellian totalitarian dictatorship – the worst tyranny and oppression the world has ever seen, a genocide of millions of people and destruction od centuries of culture – and eventually collapse. USSR collapsed in less than three generations after it had been founded. The only way it could stay together was excessive use of lies, coercion and state violence.

Both Dima Vorobiev, Misha Firer and Dimitry Kosh can confirm my observations and tell how it was. They lived through the USSR. They have first hand experience of it all. And they can tell how it went and what happened to Atheism in the USSR.

Another way to inspect the deleterious effect of widespread Atheism in society are the fates of various ideal communities and ideal societies. All non-religious ideal societies, such as kolkhozes, kibbutzim, Hippie communities and Naturist communities, have collapsed in three generations at latest – due to internal disputes and strife – while religious ideal societies can last for millennia. The Hutterites are a primary example of this, but so are monasteries. Monte Cassino was founded in 529 AD and Heian in 711 AD, and both Christian and Buddhist ideal societies are still going strong. The only kibbutzim in Israel today are those which are religious.

There is also a third way to observe and confirm this phenomenon – that widespread Atheism is a sign of a collapsing society – and it is meme theory, 12 leverage points’ theorem and cultural evolution. The meme theory claims the cultural evolution is analogous to biological evolution – the nature works on analogies – and same principles apply. The meme theory insists that cultural evolution works on similar information carrying replication units as the biological, called memes – which form memeplexes like the biological evolution forms organisms and species. And for each species there is an ecological niche – and the same applies for memeplexes in the cultural evolution.

Religion is perhaps the oldest memeplex there is – it predates Homo sapiens, and can even be observed on some animals. There clearly is thus an ecological niche for it. An ecological niche can be vacated, but never destroyed. And when an ecological niche is vacated, it keeps getting re-occupied – the evolutionary race to occupy it starts anew.

In the 12 leverage points’ theorem, religion corresponds to the most powerful leverage point – the power to transcend the paradigm. Religion is the only thing which can overcome the Dunbar number, and it is the mortar which binds the individual human bricks of the society into a durable societal edifice. Religion is the basis of all ethics, social contracts, how we form the society, how we relate to society, to each other, what we value, what we shun, what we consider beneath our dignity, how we relate to work and labour and how we relate to outsiders. Every religion creates a society of its image. Not the other way – this was Marx’s tragic error. Lutheranism creates the Scandinavian model while Islam creates Talibanistan.

Atheism corresponds to an empty ecological niche. It is basically an all-bets-are-off situation. Remove the mortar, and all you have is a heap of individual bricks, which will collapse at the slightest push. An Atheist society cannot endure setbacks or violent challenges, while religious can.

And KGB knew all this. It did not know of memetics, but it knew of “cultural hegemony” by Antonio Gramsci, and it knew religion was the only force which could turn the Communist subversion back and restore the citizen society. This was the reason why anti-religious work was so important in the ideological warfare of the Communist world against the free world. By rottening the religion from inside, USSR aimed for the collapse of the free world. And it was a success beyond measure. But the irony of history is that USSR collapsed first.

There is also a fourth way to confirm these observations. Religions do not spread by conversion. They spread by breeding. Remember Polybios observed that widespread Atheism goes hand in hand with collapsing birth rates?

This is exactly what is happening in the Western world today.

DISCUSS ON SG


Political Deep Fakes

It was entirely obvious that the Patriot Front was a fake organization from the start, despite the protests of gullibles and glowies alike on Gab about how brave the protestors had been to go out and get themselves arrested. But what’s interesting is that in addition to astroturfing the fake “right-wing” extremist protests at Charlottesville, January 6th, and the Patriot Front, there is a growing body of evidence that the FBI is also responsible for producing the George Floyd protests as well as at least some of the Antifa demonstrations, as the same people keep appearing at various events across the political spectrum.

How anyone fell for any of these obvious acts of government theater is beyond me, but once more, we see that literally everything about Clown World is fake and gay. None of it is real, from the events to the media that reports on them and the commentators who comment on the media reports. The thing is, the entire system is going to collapse of its own weight and internal inconsistencies, not because people go out and demonstrate in the streets. All this sort of nonsense will accomplish is to completely destroy all societal trust and ensure that everything collapses, which, of course, may be the true objective of those giving these actors their orders.

DISCUSS ON SG