Tag: society

Seeds of societal destruction

Desiderius, a commenter at HUS, draws an interesting connection between Rome’s destructive foreign policy and the U.S. university system:

The empire/Unis identify the best and brightest of the
tribes/flyover communities. They wow the parents with the grandeur of
Rome/Uni-degree caché. Parents send promising youth off to Rome/Unis.
They are indoctrinated with values hostile to the communities that
raised them.* In the Roman case, the now-mature youth were then returned
back to the tribes to sow discord, which they did in spades due to the
contempt they’d been trained to feel for the communities that raised
them and the values those communities held dear.

In the present case, when the economy is good, they just stay in the
big cities and live the life of Roissy. Bad economy -> the Roman case
becomes a more real possibility. I’ve seen some teachers like this,
although to be fair, also some teachers pushing back. We’ll see if the
result is just impotent discord. The alternatives range from Alaric to
Washington.

The irony is that the values of the tribes more closely approximated
the republican values that allowed Rome to rise in the first place than
the decadent ones that precipitated it’s fall. Likewise today. It is the
liberal values that have been corrupted.

* I’d argue in both cases violently less egalitarian, but I’m a little
original that way – suffice it to say in the present case that Yale Sex
Week wasn’t what the parents signed up for, or if that feels too
judgie/SoCon for you, one can peruse the syllabi for rampant
illiberalism, anti-semitism, radfem, anti-western, you name it. It’s
bad. I call it anti-humanism.

This is a cogent summary of one of the various downsides of the so-called meritocracy.  Another one is the way in which the destruction of the old WASP network on Wall Street and its strong sense of noblesse oblige led to the rapacious, mercenary culture that has devastated the American economy, created vast quantities of debt, and led to major malinvestment throughout the nation.

Suzhi and the sheng nu

It’s strange, isn’t it, that so many organizations formed for the advancement of women’s rights were established by left-wing parties like the Fascist Party in Italy and the Communist Party in China.

They are articles about single, professional women published on the Web
site of China’s state feminist agency, the All-China Women’s Federation.
The Communist Party founded the Women’s Federation in 1949 to “protect
women’s rights and interests.” 

It must be a coincidence.  But these days, it isn’t hard to imagine either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama agreeing to establish a state feminist agency, assuming of course that Housing and Urban Development doesn’t already qualify.

I do rather like the idea of referring to unmarried women over the age of 27 as sheng nu, however.  Especially since comes with the imprimatur of an official international State Feminist Agency.  It would really be sexist to refer to them any other way.  However, looking at it from the long-term perspective, it is ominous that China has been actively seeking to encourage its best and brightest women to breed instead of pursue an education since 2007.

Iran is doing this.  China is doing this.  The USA and the nations of the West, on the other hand, are encouraging their best and brightest women to sterilize themselves.  Which societies would you bet on in the long run?

WND column

Debased Money, Debased Marriages


“When a government compulsorily overvalues one type of money and
undervalues another, the undervalued money will leave the country or
disappear from circulation into hoards, while the overvalued money will
flood into circulation.” 
– Gresham’s law, Sir Thomas Gresham

When gasoline prices are rapidly approaching $5 per gallon, it is no
secret that U.S. money does not buy what it used to. Even if we use the
CPI-U, which significantly underestimates historical inflation, the
value of a dollar in 2012 is approximately one-twenty fifth of a dollar
in 1913, when the Federal Reserve was first given the responsibility of
ensuring stable prices. How a relentless increase in prices is somehow
equated with price stability remains a mystery to everyone not working
for the Federal Reserve or seated in Congress; if this performance is
considered successful, one can only wonder what would constitute
failure.

The decline of human capability

Bruce Charlton posits a dark possibility:

I suspect that human capability reached its peak or plateau around
1965-75 – at the time of the Apollo moon landings – and has been
declining ever since.  This may sound bizarre or just plain false, but the argument is simple.
That landing of men on the moon and bringing them back alive was the
supreme achievement of human capability, the most difficult problem ever
solved by humans. 40 years ago we could do it – repeatedly – but since
then we have *not* been to the moon, and I suggest the real reason we
have not been to the moon since 1972 is that we cannot any longer do it.
Humans have lost the capability.

Of course, the standard line is that humans stopped going to the moon
only because we no longer *wanted* to go to the moon, or could not
afford to, or something…– but I am suggesting that all this is BS,
merely excuses for not doing something which we *cannot* do.

It is as if an eighty year old ex-professional-cyclist was to claim that
the reason he had stopped competing in the Tour de France was that he
had now had found better ways to spend his time and money. It may be
true; but does not disguise the fact that an 80 year old could not
compete in international cycling races even if he wanted to.

As true as this rings, I think Charlton is mistaking the decline of the West for the decline of humanity in general.  While our generation is the first in many generations to be less wealthy than its predecessors, while I am without question less generally capable than my father, and while it is easy to imagine most of the idiocracy starving or descending into savagery about one month after the system breaks down, all of these things only apply to the West.

Unlike the West, the East has not lost its values.  Even the Middle East may hope to see an imperialist renaissance of sorts once the New Caliphate is constructed and it continues the expansionary phase that began back in the 1950s.  But as for the USA, it is important to keep in mind that Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the medieval caliphates all saw a significant decline from their technological heights.  It would not be surprising, therefore, if 1972 was one day seen as the peak of America. 

Especially given that 1973 marked the point at which real wages began declining as the increase of women and immigrants into the workplace finally outpaced the exit of older white men from it.  There is no singular cause of societal decline, but it increasingly appears obvious that the secular equalitarian ethic that replaced the traditional Protestant one over the course of the 20th century was one of the more important factors.  Certainly, we have not seen the unleashing of human potential and capability that was repeatedly promised by its progressive advocates.

Gay marriage eliminates motherhood

Time exposes yet another lie from the pro-homogamy crowd:

France is set to ban the words “mother” and “father” from all official documents under controversial plans to legalise gay marriage.  The move, which has outraged Catholics, means only the word “parents”
would be used in identical marriage ceremonies for all heterosexual and
same-sex couples. The draft law states that “marriage is a union of two people, of
different or the same gender”. It says all references to “mothers and fathers” in the civil code –
which enshrines French law – will be swapped for simply “parents”. 

The homogamy advocates often like to ask how government-approved “gay marriage” could possibly affect normal heterosexual marriages.  Here is the answer: by eliminating both maternal and paternal status in law.  Nor is France the only place this legal assault on the traditional concepts of motherhood and fatherhood are taking place; the California Senate has sent up a trial balloon in its bill 777 which appears to be an attempt to remove the traditional concepts from the state educational system.

The interesting thing will be how this end to the legal statuses of “mother” and “father” will affect divorce law.  After all, it won’t be possible to assume that child custody will be given to the mother, once that position is legally abolished.  One wonders if the pro-homogamy members of the more progressive sex will rethink their support for the fake institution if they realize it may eventually result in their losing a substantial portion of their family court advantage.

Another mass killing

Teenager kills 8, wounds 5!

Sigh…. Another senseless, unnecessary tragedy caused by America’s primitive lack of gun control…. wait a minute:

A teenager killed eight people with a knife and wounded five more in northeast China after falling out with his girlfriend, state media said Thursday.

In other words, a guy with a SCARY ASSAULT RIFLE managed to kill all of four more people than a guy with a knife. So much for the gun control argument.

Backfire

We may have to rethink who was behind the possible false flag in Denver given the local response:

Colorado gun stores are seeing a big jump in demand for firearms since last Friday’s massacre at a midnight movie showing in Aurora.

Background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado reportedly increased more than 41 percent after last week’s Aurora movie massacre. The Denver Post reports that firearm instructors have also seen increased interest in training needed for a concealed-carry permit.

“It’s been insane,” Jake Meyers, an employee at Rocky Mountain Guns and Ammo in Parker told the newspaper Monday.

Between Friday and Sunday, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a firearm — a 43 percent increase over the previous Friday through Sunday and a 39 percent jump over those same days on the first weekend of July.

So, it wasn’t the Tea Party after all… it was the NRA! The rabbit hole, it runs deep indeed. But here is a serious point. Since Holmes isn’t talking and appears to be in a massively drug-addled state, how can anyone be certain that he was the shooter? No one saw him in the mask except perhaps the policeman who captured him, and it seems to me that drugging up a patsy dressed in SWAT gear, then sticking a smoking gun in his hands as soon as your colleague comes out the door and hops in the squad car would be trivially easy in all the darkness and confusion.

I’m not saying this scenario is likely, merely pointing out that it would be plausible in the absence of a coherent confession or blood matching the DNA of the victims all over Holmes’s clothing. After seeing that video of Holmes at the arraignment, hearing of his unintelligible rambling on his voice message makes me wonder how functional this highly intelligent individual was last weekend. And speaking as one who read the Unabomber’s manifesto because no one at the Pioneer Press could make heads or tales of it as well as a volume of Stalin’s works, I can attest that most intelligent individuals who turn murderous are not only willing to talk, they won’t shut up about their endless justifications for their actions.

Mailvox: Aussie logic

Freddy suggests that America should follow Australia’s example in fighting crime by banning guns:

Australia has very strict gun laws following several mass shootings. People get shot but mainly as a result of gangs who fight their vendettas out between themselves. It is rare for people to shot in domestic violence or random attacks. Most people don’t carry or own guns. Americans would do well to consider that many non Americans think it is insane to be able to buy a firearm off the counter.

Actually, if the Australian Bureau of Criminology can be believed, Americans would be insane to concern themselves with what non-Americans think about American gun rights.

In 2002 — five years after enacting its gun ban — the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.

Even Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.

Moreover, Australia and the United States — where no gun-ban exists — both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America’s rate dropped 31.7 percent.
During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

So, if the USA follows Australia’s lead in banning guns, it should expect a 42 percent increase in violent crime, a higher percentage of murders committed with a gun, and three times more rape. One wonders if Freddy even bothered to look up the relative crime statistics.

The International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations. Twenty-six percent of English citizens — roughly one-quarter of the population — have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized. The United States didn’t even make the “top 10” list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime.

I wonder why that might be?

This is why you must carry

The Batman shooting in Denver:

A masked gunman shot dead 14 people and wounded 50 others at a midnight screening of the new Batman movie in Denver. The 6ft tall man, dressed in black and wearing a gas mask opened fire at the showing of The Dark Knight Rises in a mall in Aurora, Colorado and set off a smoke or tear gas bomb.

Witnesses said that the man, thought to be in his early twenties, burst through the emergency exit at the front of the auditorium, wearing body armour, and began firing into the audience with a rifle and two handguns as he made his way up the stairs, picking his victims at random.

It will be interesting to see if Obama is dumb enough to try running on gun control after this. The gas mask bit is certainly unusual and one wonders if the shooter was inspired by Bane or perhaps the local airport.

The great intergenerational con

America should have known the Boomers were evil from the moment they made “never trust anyone over the age of 30” mantra. It’s always the liar who assumes everyone else is lying:

Today’s youth, both here and abroad, have been screwed by their parents’ fiscal profligacy and economic mismanagement. Neil Howe, a leading generational theorist, cites the “greed, shortsightedness, and blind partisanship” of the boomers, of whom he is one, for having “brought the global economy to its knees.”…

The screwed generation also enters adulthood loaded down by a mountain of boomer- and senior-incurred debt—debt that spirals ever more out of control. The public debt constitutes a toxic legacy handed over to offspring who will have to pay it off in at least three ways: through higher taxes, less infrastructure and social spending, and, fatefully, the prospect of painfully slow growth for the foreseeable future.

In the United States, the boomers’ bill has risen to about $50,000 a person. In Japan, the red ink for the next generation comes in at more than $95,000 a person. One nasty solution to pay for this growing debt is to tax workers and consumers. Both Germany and Japan, which appears about to double its VAT rate, have been exploring new taxes to pay for the pensions of the boomers.

The huge public-employee pensions now driving many states and cities—most recently Stockton, Calif.—toward the netherworld of bankruptcy represent an extreme case of intergenerational transfer from young to old. It’s a thoroughly rigged boomer game, providing guaranteed generous benefits to older public workers while handing the financial upper echelon a “Wall Street boondoggle” (to quote analyst Walter Russell Mead).

It’s not just in the USA either. The “youth movement” was international, and so, unsurprisingly, is the cancer of Boomer-created debt. It’s fine to blame today’s young for taking on credit card and school loan debt, but let’s not forget that it is the Boomers who created the massive public debt as well as making it impossible for those who followed them to do what they did, and shed their school loan debt in bankruptcy.

Fortunately, the time is rapidly approaching when the younger generations can band together and permit the Boomers to experience the consequences they deserve by shutting down their overly generous pensions and refusing to pay for their medical care. They’ll keep voting for anyone who promises to serve their self-centered interests, but that will become increasingly irrelevant as more states and localities simply don’t have the wherewithal to live up to their contractual obligations.