Monthly Archives: March 2013

Easter

Jesus Before Pilate

Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.” And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.” But they were urgent, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.”

Jesus Before Herod

When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. And Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other.

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.”

Pilate Delivers Jesus to Be Crucified

But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”—a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

The Crucifixion

And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

The Death of Jesus

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

Jesus Is Buried

Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.

On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

The Resurrection

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

On the Road to Emmaus

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Jesus Appears to His Disciples

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

On Advice Columns

I enjoy reading advice columnists. I check out Dear Prudence at Slate and a couple columns from my local papers regularly and Dear Wendy on occasion.

I do not read them for the advice. The advice tends to be either common-sense (don’t date that abusive, alcoholic, unemployed jerk seems to be a common theme), not applicable to anybody who isn’t insane or living near someone insane (and I try to keep only sane people within my circles), or fem-centric, liberal, and given to secular immorality.

Rather I read them for entertainment and insight.

It is highly entertaining to see the insane situations some people manage to get themselves into or how some people insanely overreact to the weirdest things. There is also a heaping dose of schadenfreude as people somehow manage to screw themselves and their relationships up in such novel ways.

But not only are these columns entertaining to read, they are also informative. You can learn so much about people’s rationalization hamsters, (un)thinking processes, emotional quirks, and such by reading these columns.

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One thing you notice about these columns is the female focus of them. Females seem to represent the large majority of the columnists and the majority of those who write into them.

One wonders why there is not a market for a male columnist for male issues. Slate has recently hired one, but, quite frankly, he writes like an overcompensating, intellectually pretentious twat. That and so far the problems he’s had posed have been rather simple and not very entertaining. (Maybe that’s why? Maybe men’s problems are mostly too straightforward and not insane enough to make an enjoyable column). There’s also Dan Savage, but as a flaming, liberal hedonist, I don’t know why any man would trust him.

Roissy, Athol, and some others on the manosphere will occasionally print answers to e-mails they receive, but you wonder if something more systematized could be useful to the manosphere. A place where (an) expert(s) could answer those specific, situationalized life, game, or relationship questions some might have coming from a place of masculine frame.

But that’s well beside the point, I was originally meandering into, which was insight, entertainment, schadenfreude, and mockery.

I’m going to highlight a few letters from columns from the past couple weeks.

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Here’s part of the letter that inspired this post. It’s exemplifies too large a part of modern Western humanity.

My older sister is married to an abusive alcoholic asshole. She and I both grew up in a very conservative Christian household and neither of us have a close bond with our parents because they don’t like that we left home and formed our own adult lives that are very different from how we were raised. About 10 years ago, she moved 1500 miles away, met a guy, and got pregnant quickly. They both worked at a Christian school under a signed “morality clause” so they rushed to get married in an effort to not lose their jobs over the unplanned pregnancy. Well, they both got fired anyway and proceeded to have two more kids together.
…
I brought it up on a recent visit with my parents and they basically said she made a choice so they don’t care what happens to her. That made me so angry.

Revel in the hamster. Bask in its glory.

To fully understand this miracle of rationalization, I’ll run this through my universal hamsterlator:

We rebelled against our wise parents who tried to protect us from the poor choices we might make while young. In our rebellion, my sister ended up in exactly the situation our wise parents tried to protect us from. When, while still in a state of continued rebellion, I tried to force my parents to save her from her own rebellion they treated my sister like an adult capable of agency, just as we demanded they treat us. How dare they treat us like adults when we demand to be treated like adults.

This most perfectly sums up to many modern people. Complain when people don’t give you the rights you feel you deserve as an adult with agency, but complain about cruelty when people treat you like an adult with agency .

Of course, instead of slapping down the insanity of this, Wendy simply ignored the parent-child relationship.

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Here’s one letter that exemplifies the misery some people inflict on themselves for the weirdest reasons:

Ten years ago a friend who I’ve known for 14 years told me her husband beats her. Through the years she’s continued to keep me updated but in the past few months she’s started texting me pictures of the abuse. He’s her high school sweetheart, they don’t have any kids, and he’s now the sole provider (which wasn’t always the case). The thing is she won’t leave him because she doesn’t want to leave her pets. I’ve tried to get her to leave repeatedly, but I don’t know what to do. I have these pictures, but no proof that he committed these acts because she won’t put his name on them, something that I gently suggested she should do for evidence or the police can’t prosecute him. I toss and turn, at night worrying that one day I’m going to get a phone call telling me he killed her. What can I do?

Remember that: she doesn’t want to leave her pets.

Insight: Some people don’t want saving. Don’t bother trying.

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Here’s one illustrating why you should choose your marriage partner carefully:

My husband and I married a few years ago after just months of knowing each other. I have never once doubted our decision to marry, and on the whole, we are exceptionally happy. He is my perfect partner and an ideal father for our daughter—but, of course, there’s a but. During our very brief courtship, there is one habit he intentionally hid from me—online gaming. Apparently, he didn’t want me to think him nerdy. When he first disclosed this after the honeymoon, I thought it was funny and cute. A couple years later, I’m bitter—we have routine marital disagreements, but this is the only issue we ever fight about. He spends several hours a week (10-20) playing these online games! Every time we fight about it, he’ll cut back or promise to stop … but within a week or two, it’s back to at least a couple of hours every day. This is a man who has quit smoking and quit his pseudo-addiction to energy drinks, but can’t (or won’t) quit online gaming. I can’t imagine life without him, but this is making me miserable. I’m not willing to leave him over it; how can I get him to stop or change my own attitude to accept it? (For clarification, I have no suspicions of any online infidelity—it just bothers me that he spends his leisure time gaming instead of reading a book, watching TV with me, etc.)

2 hours!!! How dare he enjoy himself for two hours a day!?!

What a controlling, insane shrew. If I had the misfortune of marrying her, I’d probably be gaming a good 40+ hours a week just to avoid her.

On the other hand, some men find a keeper:

Re: Husband’s Gaming: My husband did this early in our relationship as well. I took a different tactic … I joined him. That way we spent time together and I learned something new about myself as well. Sometimes it takes giving a little to get a little.

And some women can be reasonable:

RE: Husband’s Gaming: I, too, am married to a gamer. And I’m completely happy with it, because it gives him an outlet to unwind after a stressful day. He’ll often play games while I watch a TV show in the same room. That way we’re still around each other, but we both get to do our own thing. (How much interacting would you do while watching TV anyway?) This really is no different than reading a book—you get lost in an imaginary world there, too.

It’s amazing how not being a crazy, controlling harpy can lead to an enjoyable marriage.

As an aside, what is it about women and TV? How is watching TV somehow better than playing video games?

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Here’s one that illustrates the insane pettiness and nosiness of some people:

There’s a young woman at work who uses a ton of hand soap every time she uses the bathroom. If you are in the toilet, you can hear the auto dispenser chug 10 times while she is washing her hands. I never noticed this until someone pointed it out to me, and now it is driving me nuts. I’ll go to the sink and there’s like a foot of soap bubbles that she will have left behind. Should anyone intervene with her about her OCD tendencies and advise her that all the girls are talking about her and think she’s wasteful and weird?

Even more insane is that this is not just one woman, but multiple women gossiping about something so pointlessly insignificant. How this merits even a comment, let alone a letter to a national advice columnist boggles my mind.

Some women are insane.

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Here’s a recent one that from which I have no lesson or insight to draw, but it really amused me in a WTF sort of way. It’s the kind of letter you read these columns for:

My parents and I are huge animal lovers and have been feeding a feral cat colony for a few years now (they are all spayed and neutered). Our neighbor however cannot stand them and has been very vocal about it to us. He trapped them for a while whenever they would come into his yard and take them to animal control. However, since they are microchipped to our address, animal control would call us and we would pick them up. Upon their return, the organization that got them spayed/neutered has tried working with our neighbor to no avail. However a last month two of the cats started acting funny. We took them to the emergency vet only to learn they had antifreeze poisoning and there was nothing we could do but end their suffering. We thought of our neighbor, but wanting to give him the benefit of doubt, we dismissed it as an accident. However two weeks ago a third cat acted the same exact way and another vet visit confirmed antifreeze poisoning. We now no longer think it’s a freak accident. Several friends and family are telling us to call animal control and report our neighbor. However we have no proof that it is actually him putting the antifreeze out, only a hunch based on past interactions and experiences. What should we do?

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I might have been somewhat unfair earlier. Sometimes, the advice columnists actually do take some idiots to task:

I am a second wife to my husband who for years was married to a very difficult woman. A couple of years ago, he finally divorced her and married me soon after…At the same time, his adult children, a son and daughter, both in their 20s, have been a bit withdrawn around me, and I very much want them to be as close to their new younger sibling as possible…

The response:

What is wrong with his kids? Dad finally dumps their shrew of a mother, finds someone younger, hotter, nicer (and fertile to boot!), and they’re not celebrating. What ungrateful little beasts.

Hehe.

Although, really this should not have needed to have been written. Is it really so difficult for a replacement wife to understand why the children of the wife she replaced don’t care for her that she needs to ask a professional?

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Anyway, the prime point of this post: advice columns are an endless source of entertainment and insight. Human stupidity is the most boundlessly renewable resource we have; if only we could harness its energy for electricity we’d be set.

The secondary point is simply this, the vast majority of the problems in these columns could be avoided simply by following traditional values: be responsible, don’t be crazy, mind your own damn business, don’t shack up or get knocked up, marry someone responsible, don’t divorce, raise your kids right, and choose decent, responsible friends.

Lightning Round -2013/03/27

Getting to the point of the red pill.

There are 3 logical endpoints to the red pill.
Related: Red Pill bitterness. Vox’s response.

The fundamental premise: “Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap.”

Amusing ourselves to death.

You people make me sick.

Last Psychiatrist with another thinker: “The feminism debate, labeled equivalently as “gender discrimination” or “women sabotage themselves”, is not about women, it is about LABOR COSTS, making working for something other than money admirable.”
Related: You are emotionally retarded.

Why are men silent?
Related: They are not.

“The hallmark of the inferior, the sure sign of the self-admitted inferior, is the individual who demands others live up to standards that he refuses to accept for himself.”

Dominance and the constant crisis mindset.

Raise your boys with masculine virtue.
Related: What the schoolteacher actually teaches.

“A man’s job is to not engage in silly cat and mouse games with women; especially with those women are who purposely initiating and playing these games. And when that happens, all a man can do — and must do — is to get up and walk away.”

Why you shouldn’t date feminists.
Related: The only relationship game you’ll ever need.
Related: 8 signs you should break up with her. It sounds almost like a Cosmo article title.

Easy day game tip. My friend, who is opposed to game, is always like this. Everything he says is filled with positive superlatives. He has a lot (and I do mean a lot) of female friends. He doesn’t have sex with them though, because he is morally opposed to it. I’m unsure if he could or not if he tried.

Julius Evola and femininity.

The more I read, the more sympathetic I become to Vox’s WRE.
Related: More from CR.
Related: WRE, Tech conference edition.
Related: Why make tech more female-friendly?
Related: A (somewhat) happy ending.
Related: The problem is the cowards who give in.
Related: We need black knights.
Related: Men are beginning to fight back against feminists.
Related: The feminist media warps the story.
Related: What kind of person volunteers as the thought police?
Related: What a developer evangelist is.
Related: Equality means women have a right not to be offended.

Young Hunter on natural slaves.

Oneitis and the Ponzo Effect.

The Captain finds a selfish, entitled little princess. EW’s response.

Men need to be “re-educated” so they can man-up.

Why do we encourage college, but punish marriage?

What’s in a number?

“[Old men dating young women seems wrong] because you’re a miserable cow who just spent a decade or more using sex to emotionally manipulate your partner and now you can’t stand that men have pretty much had enough of your shit and are looking to greener pastures?”

Rationalization hamsters.

“Work for THE Man = Freedom. Work for YOUR Man = Slavery.”
Related: How much it costs for a yuppie woman to “have it all”.
Related: The chore gap is really a care gap.
Related: A lesson for women.

Female age and market value.

The Proverbs 31 idol.
Related: Home-making and entitlement.

Breaking Beta: the boob test.

Comment of the week: “The amusing thing about the ignorant, is they tend to be entirely ignorant of their own ignorance.”

Character trumps diversity.
Related: When effort matters more than results.

What society values.

Study of Men’s Falling Income Cites Single Parents.
Related: Men will choose women over money.
Related: Interesting discussion thread.
From the thread: “if you want be married with 2 kids at 30 you need to have the first kid at age 26 (to space them). If you want to be married at 26 you need to be engaged by 25. If you want to be engaged by 25, you need to find a good boyfriend by 23. If you want to find a good boyfriend by 23, you need to start thinking about marriage at 21.”

The problem is you.
Related: “A victim, a real victim, is a person who has been wronged through no fault of their own.”

Career advice: Be a climber.

So you want to be a professional blogger, part 2. (Part 1).

What if I told you a philosophy book predicted all this?

A micro-lesson in alpha.

Alpha vs. beta on display in sex diary.

Ultra vires and American sovereignty.

No wonder McCarthy drank himself to death.

On propaganda.

Cyprus “saved”.
Related: It’s amazing what you can do to an unarmed populace.
Related: Have the rich Russians withdrawn their cash?

Kudokushi: The reward of progressivism.

Government stats on gun deaths.
Related: Cracked on guns.

Get the fuck off Facebook.
Related. Anybody who reports something like that should be strung up, as should the child welfare agent who investigates.

Race relations in Philly.
Related: The reaction.

Dan Freedman’s babies.

GOP suicide.

Leftists hate it when science has Unapproved Results.

University student suspended for not stepping on Jesus.

Fox News critics wrong.

Good. Let them burn.

The unseriousness of the administration.

The joy of Obamacare.

Mainstream economics, in charts.
Related: Krugman is wrong. Just shocking.

(H/T: Maggie’s Farm, SDA, Foseti, the Captain)

The Bookshelf: Enjoy the Decline

Are you young, unemployed,in debt, and worried about the future? Is the decline of the West getting you down? Does the prospect of a desk job, marriage, and kids sound bleak to you?

Fear not, for Aaron Clarey, the infamous Captain Capitalism, will provide. Having already advised you to eschew university, he is now giving you advice on eschewing the modern life path as a whole in his new book, Enjoy the Decline.

Enjoy the Decline, like the rest of the Captain’s books and his blog, is written in a straightforward manner, there is no flowery BS here. The writing is engaging and entertaining and keeps you reading.

It also seems like he may have read my reviews of his earlier books, because, in a departure from his earlier books, it reads like he actually got someone to proofread Enjoy the Decline. I did not notice the grammatical errors and awkward sentences which plagued his earlier books.

The essential argument of Enjoy the Decline is that America is in a terminal, nigh irreversible decline and you should accept that fact. Having adapted yourself to this reality, you should instead spend your time enjoying your one, finite life instead of investing in a society will not only fail to reward you for your investment in it, but actually punish you for it. He then provides some advice to do so.

Clarey marshal’s a good amount of economic data showing you just how screwed the US is and, by extension, how screwed you are, you poor Yank. He supports his contentions. Having done so, he then tells you what yo do about it.

Life is too short for wasting on being angry or sad about, instead the Captain tells you to live it up in hedonism. Work less, avoid (non-STEM) university, live minimalistically, take advantage of government programs, and don’t save for retirement are just some of the advice he gives that would make your mother cry when implemented. He gives some less controversial advice to enjoy your friends and family and to choose your partner well.

The book is kind of depressing and it seems like a metaphysical defeat, on the other hand reality is reality, and I don’t see western civilization improving any time soon, so maybe we are defeated. The advice is solid if you accept the premises. I plan on taking some of the advice but, as a government bureaucrat (parasite!) with a cushy job, only to a degree.

My main problem with the book comes from the Plunder chapter, where he advises taking advantage of government funding and private charity. While I have no problem with people working for government (see government bureaucrat above) or using government programs when needed, I believe men should avoid the regular use of government programs for their own sakes. It will create dependency in a man, not something a man should allow. Also, taking advantage of government is one thing, but taking advantage of private charity just rubs me wrong.

That being said, the book was a good read and it’s an excellent introduction to the MGTOW theme that exists throughout the manosphere.

Recommendation:

I would highly recommend reading Enjoy the Decline. It’s a perspective on life that you don’t often hear from the mainstream and even if you don’t plan to go Galt, its good to expose yourself to a different way of thinking and living and some of the advice may still be applicable.

I also think it would make a decent red pill starter guide for some types of people.

Enjoy the Decline

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Reviews of previous books by Aaron Clarey:
Worthless
Behind the Housing Crash
Top Shelf

The Problem of Natural Slaves

The problem with libertarianism is that most people don’t care about freedom. In fact, I would go farther: most people aren’t just apathetic about freedom but actively hate and/or fear it.

Freedom is naturally frightening. It is inherently risky and a free man’s actions will have consequences. The freedom to choose is the freedom to choose poorly.

A free man will face this fear, accept the risk, and live with those consequences, for good or ill.

Libertarianism and English liberalism are based around the concept of the free man and made for the free man.

Even right-wing ideologies that eschew freedom and abhor libertarianism still require the free man. Personal responsibility is an aspect of every right-wing ideology and only the man free to act, can be responsible for those actions. Organic community can only grow through free interactions, it can not be forced by the state. Even will-to-power fascism and related ideologies require free men, in the form of Nietzchian ubermensch and Platonic philosopher-kings, at the top to lead the natural slaves.

The free man is whom right-wing ideology is geared towards.

On the other hand, many, if not most, people are natural slaves. A natural slave is not capable of freedom, in fact, the natural slave loathes freedom.

Aristotle was the first to write on the natural slave in his Politics:

For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.
…
For the words slavery and slave are used in two senses. There is a slave or slavery by law as well as by nature. The law of which I speak is a sort of convention- the law by which whatever is taken in war is supposed to belong to the victors.
…
for it must be admitted that some are slaves everywhere, others nowhere.
…
We see then that there is some foundation for this difference of opinion, and that all are not either slaves by nature or freemen by nature, and also that there is in some cases a marked distinction between the two classes, rendering it expedient and right for the one to be slaves and the others to be masters: the one practicing obedience, the others exercising the authority and lordship which nature intended them to have. The abuse of this authority is injurious to both; for the interests of part and whole, of body and soul, are the same, and the slave is a part of the master, a living but separated part of his bodily frame. Hence, where the relation of master and slave between them is natural they are friends and have a common interest, but where it rests merely on law and force the reverse is true.
…
For there is one rule exercised over subjects who are by nature free, another over subjects who are by nature slaves. The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head: whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals. The master is not called a master because he has science, but because he is of a certain character, and the same remark applies to the slave and the freeman.

Essentially, some are slaves of circumstance but not of soul, while others born to subjection and will be slaves no matter the circumstance. The latter are called natural slaves, the former we will refer to as circumstantial slaves.

What makes a slave?

For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be lord and master, and that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave; hence master and slave have the same interest.
…
Hence we see what is the nature and office of a slave; he who is by nature not his own but another’s man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be another’s man who, being a human being, is also a possession. And a possession may be defined as an instrument of action, separable from the possessor.

Some are so afraid of acting self-destructively or choosing poorly as they are incapable or unwilling of choosing that they would rather have someone exercise their mind and foresight for them than to have to exercise their own mind in freedom. These people are naturally another man’s as they are incapable or unwilling to be their own man.

These are the natural slaves.

****

In Western society, direct slavery is mostly extinct (barring some illegal sex slavery) and even when it did exist it was slavery by law and by war, circumstantial slavery, rather than natural slavery.

Natural slavery on the other hand is a dominant political thought-stream throughout the west.

The natural slaves continually beg for their own disarmament. They plead for themselves to be left at the mercy of predators and their masters.

Half of the US population is on government benefits while the government controls 41% of the economy, and still the natural slaves demand more government and more dependence. While the US is self-destructing, the natural slaves debate frivolities. Most of the rest of the West is as bad or worse.

Feminists, and women in general, get on their knees begging for the state to control their bodies and provide them with choice at the expense of freedom. They believe themselves entitled to the enslaved labour of men.

We already see the end result of the natural slavery mindset in Black Americans. A group that whole-heartedly supports the political party that dedicated itself to their slavery. The party that continues to purposely force dependence and weakness on them, enslaving them through the welfare state.

White society is following rapidly behind.

Westerners are becoming so afraid of freedom, that they are willingly and purposely selling themselves into dependence and slavery.

****

Now, admittedly, many modern people with servile minds may not be natural born slaves. The state indoctrination system has had a large hand in training modern society to a mind state of servility, and so many of the people who may appear natural slaves, may simply be circumstantial slaves who have been trained that way. But having been indoctrinated so thoroughly in the servile mindset, I fear many, if not most of them, will not become free men any time soon, so I will, for the purposes of this post, count them as natural slaves.

****

The problem is, how should a free society do with natural slaves?

The will-to-power right-wing ideologies can answer this question easily, have the ubermensch be their masters.

But freedom-oriented right-wing ideologies have a conundrum: how can the natural slave be integrated into a society created for free men?

It is cruel to oppress free men with a slave society, but is it not also cruel to impose a free society on those whose very natures revolt against against it?

How can a society oriented around exercising freedom be anything but oppressive for those incapable of exercising freedom?

Even if the natural slaves are integrated into a free society, given sufficient time, won’t their natural hostility to freedom assert itself, leading to the decline of freedom in that society, as is currently occurring throughout the English-speaking nations?

I don’t really have answers to this.

The existence of natural slaves poses the probably the greatest ideological conundrum for the libertarian.

****

That’s not to say I don’t have any ideas, but I’m not sure if any will suffice as an answer.

Could children are educated as free men from an early age, could we not make circumstantial free men, just as a slave-mentality oriented education produces circumstantial slaves? Is that possible? I don’t know, but it seemed to work, somewhat, for English-speaking countries prior to the mid-1900’s.

We could create a voluntary program, where natural slaves can contract away their freedom to the government or to other individuals in exchange for the protection and provision of the government. It’s a possibility, but it seems prima facie unworkable and impractical.

The best bet is probably subsidiarity; we could concentrate power locally. This way natural slaves and free men could self-segregate. Free men could live in municipalities and states/provinces where freedom was valued, while natural slaves could live in municipalities which took freedom away in exchange for comfort. The US and Canadian federal systems could, with some tweaking, provides a good backbone for this sort of system. but how long could this last until the natural slaves envy and hatred of free men and their masters’ lust for power led them to try to re-assert centralized authority?

Maybe free men could simply create their own country and refuse natural slaves entrance? But how would you test for natural slaves and keep them from the country? Who’s to say they wouldn’t invade out of their hatred for freedom?

I’m not sure what the proper response to natural slaves it. What do you think of the problem posed by the natural slave?

Lightning Round – 2013/03/20

“What makes a man? Being a victim damn sure doesn’t… A man is Conqueror.”

Maintain your I frame.

The harem, the tribe, and the pride.

Looks like Matt’s first book is about to drop.

3MM just launched it’s new project: Best of the Manosphere.

It seems Roosh is on the path to reforming.

Where the good men are.
Related: Where the good women are.
Related: Where are the women?

Generation alpha widow.
Related: Comment with some good data.
Related: The science of alpha chasing.

Failed female strategy of life-splitting.

Ian with a message for women contemplating divorce.

That men only want sex is a myth.

Overspending women seek retarded millionaires.
Related: Liberated women blindsided by reality. A seemingly never-ending source of amusement.
Related: “Successful, Gorgeous, and Amazing friends.”

The rise of single-motherhood for 20-somethings.
Related: Smart women have babies in their 20’s.

AG with a chart of sexual frequency.

Moldbug with an amazing take on economics.

Being betrayed by your own country.

We’re wiping out the savings class.

Potential bank runs in the future?
Related: It can happen here.
Related: A game-changer.
Related: A future banker-assassination policy?
Related: Your money is not safe.
Related: Left-wing economists think they aren’t stealing enough.
Related: It did not pass.

Is the tide starting to turn on home-making?
Related: One reason women stay home.

How a wife can handle a troublesome mother-in-law.

Science: Shared life history is a strong predictor of relationship satisfaction.

Intellect and dopamine.

“Gun horror is not a productive emotion, but learned helplessness disguised as moral superiority.”

“America does not have a gun violence problem. Obamerica does. And Obamerica has a gun violence problem for the same reason that it has a drug problem and a broken family problem. These social ills cannot be solved by banning something.”

Who should have guns? Everyone.
Related: Guns are a natural convergence between libertarians and consevatives.

Because you invaded their country.

Tazing the Statue of Liberty sends the wrong message.

Kindness as weakness.

Schelling Points and the Catholic Church: the last bastion of civilization.

Last week in the land of the free.

Your future under socialism, in the US.

The making of black America.

The change in law enforcement.

Foseti with an oldie, but goodie on government employment.

Patent law may have outlived its usefulness.

How to make a water well.

Indoctrination starts early.

SPLC lies.

The global cooling scare.

A quarter of women lie on social media at least once a month.

Canadian politics: the “Conservatives”.

(H/T: Shining Pearls, the Captain, SDA, Instapundit, Roissy, Vox Day)

College Education and Impossible Standards

Here’s another one of those whinefests from a liberated career woman about how she and her “successful, gorgeous, and amazing friends” in their 30’s can’t find a man to save them from themselves.

This stood out for me from the article:

For one, it’s not as if we are holding out for Jake Gyllenhaal, but we do have certain non-negotiable expectations for potential mates that include college degrees and white-collar jobs. Life has always gone according to our plans, so why wouldn’t we land a man with these (reasonable) requirements?

This point has been made before, but I will make it again.

A woman requiring an education from a man is not a reasonable requirement, at least if she actually wants to find a man.

There are 1.3 females graduating for every 1 male who graduates. For every 10 females that may potentially find a man with a college degree, it is an absolute impossibility for 3 of them to.

I repeat: it is a mathematical impossibility for at least 23% of college-educated women to find a college-educated man.

The article, like most of these types, does mention this, but glosses over and understates the severity of it:

But increasingly, there aren’t enough of these men to go around. Women now outnumber men on college campuses, and single, childless women out earn their male counterparts. In fact, as author Liza Mundy writes in her book, The Richer Sex, Millennial women are increasingly finding two options when it comes to romance: marry down or don’t marry.

It’s not that there just “aren’t enough”, it’s that there is a major shortage.

And men know this.

Can a women honestly think that a 30-year-old college-educated man, knowing that he’s in very high demand is going to settle for a 30-year-old career broad, rather than the newly minted 23-year-old college grad or the cute 22-year-old waitress?

Honestly?

Sure, I said absolutely nothing new, but it bears repeating. While some seem to recognize the problem, it is always understated.

It is an absolute impossibility for 1-in-4 college-educated women in the US to find a college-educated man.

If you are a women looking for a college-educated man, look hard and when you find bite hard while young before both you and the college-educated man enters your 30s and he realizes his high value, otherwise you could be in the 25%.

On the bright side, if that happens you could always write freelance articles complaining about how you can’t find a man.

****

For those women who don’t want to be in the 25%, the Captain runs down how to capture your college-educated man. You simply have to be:

A physically attractive woman who is
nice
responsible
reasonably intelligent
and likes sex

That’s it. May probability be with you.

The Bookshelf: How to Read a Book

I finally finished How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler, my first book from the Free Man’s Reading List.

As implied by the title, the book essentially tries to teach you how to properly read a book to best understand it.

The book divides reading into four main types: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and syntopical.

Elementary reading is, more or less, being literate. It’s the ability to read something and understand what it says on a basic level without having to regularly stop to use a dictionary. This is talked about but very briefly; the author seems to, rightly, assume that if you are reading “How to Read a Book” you’re already capable of this level of reading.

Inspectional reading is essentially skimming. It’s going through the main sections, the introductions, the conclusions, and the headers, while skimming the rest to get a general idea of what a book is like. This is what you did when you procrastinated on an essay in college and needed to get a few more sources to meet the minimum requirements for your paper. It is properly used as a prelude to real reading or to find out if a book is worth reading fully.This makes up a short part of the book.

Analytical reading is the next step up. It is reading the book in a thorough manner to be able to fully categorize, summarize, understand, and properly criticeze a book. The discussion of analytical reading is the bulk of the book.

The highest level of reading is syntopical reading. This is reading numerous books on a similar topic and linking them together in the context of each other. The Free Man’s Reading List is essentially a syntopical reading project. This makes up the last few dozen pages of the book.

The book is divided into four main parts.

The first part explains some theory of reading and advice on how to be a demanding reader, as well as the explanations of elementary and inspectional reading.

The second explains how to read analytically in the general.

The third explains how to read analytically in relation to specific genres of work (such as literature, philosophy, social science, etc.).

The fourth explains syntopical reading and encourages you to rad to grow your mind.

There’s also two appendices, the first being a recommended reading list of the classics of Western Civilization and the second having a few exercises (which I did not read or do) to test yourself on the four levels of reading.

The book itself carries a lot of information, almost too much information, on reading and is very thorough on it’s topic matter. It really teaches you how to read a book. This is both a blessing and a curse, some of the information is great, while some of it seems so obvious you almost think the author is condescending to you. As well, given the large amount of information presented, some of the good points are drowned out.

As for the writing style, it was dry. The author has a tendency to use 15 words where 10 would do and sometimes explain things far too precisely or in too much detail instead of assuming the reader has basic competence to understand. Adler could have been more concise.

The first sections and most of the second were not too bad, slightly dry, but nothing all that bad, but the last chapter of the second section and the entire third section was simply mind-numbingly dull; it was so dry it was often hard to concentrate. I’d read on the bus, get through 2 or 3 pages, then fall asleep. Hence, why it took to long to finish. The fourth section was on par with the first and second.

Overall, the first, second, and fourth sections were worth a read, with the occasional skim, but skim over or skip the third section, reading only that which is of particular interest. The book is well-organized, so finding the parts that might interest you is easy.

Recommendation:

If you are embarking on a major reading project, such as the Free Man’s Reading List (hint, hint) I’d definitely recommend reading the first two and fourth sections of How to Read a Book, so you can get the most out of your reading.

As well, read the first two section goes if you are desiring to be a better reader and/or want to better understand what you read in the future.

If you read mostly popular or genre fiction, this book will be worthless to you, don’t bother reading it. The book is designed for helping you read either the intense literary classics, non-fiction, and scientific/philosophical works.

But honestly, give section three no more than a skim. That was almost painful, and was definitely not worth the time/effort which could have gone to reading something else.

Housework, Independence, and Entitlement

The issue of men and housework seems to have sparked renewed interest among the chattering classes. It seems to have been sparked by this Tide commercial of some vaguely metrosexual father washing his daughter’s princess dress.

Judgy Bitch had some fun with this and CR points out the biological origins of the issue, but I’m going to weigh in as well.

Now, honestly, I don’t care if men do housework. Doing the laundry, cooking, or cleaning because you want to makes you neither more nor less of a man. If stuff needs to get done, men get stuff done.

A family should pursue whatever division of labour works best for them.

On the other hand, being a kitchen bitch is emasculating and will ruin your marriage. If you are a man, avoid it, it won’t go well for you.

Of course, all this assumes that there’s actually a chore gap. Which is unlikely as the time-use studies on this tend to ignore traditionally male chores.

I’m not going to write about proper housework division, that’s a personal issue. Instead, I am going to write about how this debate relates to independence, entitlement, and the society.

****

First, independence and strength.

Feminists, you wanted careers, you wanted to work outside the house, you got your wish, please shut up.

What these women don’t see when they complain about the “patriarchy” and being “oppressed” by staying at home rather than work mindless corporate drudgery, is that they now are doing what men have always done.

In the industrial era, men have always gone to work, they have always come home to do house work (home repairs, renovations, garbage, car repairs, yard work, finances, BBQing, etc.), and they have always participated in family life (to a greater or lesser degree).

The thing is, they didn’t, and still don’t, bitch about it. They didn’t write articles about how “over-whelming” it was. They didn’t demand that women step up and do they’re jobs for them. They didn’t whine about how unfair life was.

They just did their jobs, because that’s what independent adults do.

Independent and strong people don’t whine about how tough life is, about how unfair it is, they just do what needs to be done.

Women, you are now in the position those “oppressive” men have always been in.

Working all day for somebody else then coming home to take care of the house and family is what men have always done. You wanted to do it, now you are doing it.

You can not complain about women being “oppressed” when you do not have men’s responsibilities, then whine about having men’s responsibilities when you have spent decades demanding them.

From the Atlantic article:

The good news is that many men already seek out these responsibilities. I like to call their actions “small instances of gender heroism” or “SIGH”s, in honor of the intense pang of gratitude and relief a damsel-in-distress feels when a superhero notices her especially—amidst a crowd—and swoops in to enact a rescue that was so unexpected that its impossibility had become the central pillar of her fierce independence. You know, like the dreamy effect Mr. Darcy has on Elizabeth Bennet, Superman on Lois Lane, and Antonia on her line through Danielle and Therèse.
…
Find a working mom and lead with the following SIGH: “What do you need, in order to raise your children and advance in your career at the same time?” Just swoop in and help her out, not because you’re obligated to rectify an injustice, but because you can. Responding to the misery of the people you care about is what you do.

Independent and strong people don’t need SIGHs.

What the hell is wrong with you people?

If you need someone else to help you, you are, by definition, not independent. You are, by definition, weak.

If you want to be independent, be independent, but then don’t beg others to pick up your shit for you, do it yourself.

Don’t demand men clean your houses, don’t demand men come to your rescue, don’t demand others do things for you. You are independent now, deal with it.

****

Second, entitlement.

If you read these articles, you get a strong sense of entitlement.

The SIGHs talk above and the rest of the Atlantic article reek of entitlement, but as usual Jezebel just does horrible, entitled bitch so much better than anyone else.

The title of the Jezebel article (no link, if you’re curious see JB’s article) displays this perfectly:

“How to Make a Dude Sweep the Kitchen Floor (Correctly), Without You Even Having to Tell Him”

What kind of world-class bitch writes this? It sounds like a manual on training dogs to urinate outside.

In this mentality men exist to do what women desire, in the way women desire, while telepathically understanding both.

A few gems of overactive entitlement:

It’s not just that you’re tired and pissed, it’s that you never get the feeling of having your own life, or free time, or time to recharge, if you feel like you are the only person overseeing the household’s concerns and making sure they are handled, or worse, if you are re-doing the work your husband or partner did poorly.

Because the entirety of everything revolves around the women’s feelings. As well, men are incompetent and everything must be done to the women’s standards or its worse than not having done anything at all.*

The Atlantic has some fancy sociological theories for this well-documented disparity as to why humans with peens can’t scrub a bathroom right without a lot of rigmarole:

Remember, all the jobs have to be done to the women’s standards, because men are incompetent and their standards don’t matter.

They Can’t Be Bothered (Motivational Hypothesis)

Of course they can see what needs to be done, but in their eyes, it’s just not that important to do it, especially when other stuff matters more. Homemade valentines for your class party, kiddo? Why bother when we can just buy some and save time?

No matter how useless the man may think the project is, if the women desires it must be done and he’s a jerk for not counting it as important housework and sharing the duties.

Later, Travis wonders why Alice can’t just constantly leave him notes to tell him what he has to do? Sure thing mister, right after she cuts the crust off your PB&J.

Because men should know what women want. We’re all mind-readers.

Here’s an idea for the women complaining: go fuck yourself.

If you want to be a controlling bitch and demand things be cleaner, do it yourself. If you want the house cleaned to your spoiled, exacting standards, do it yourself. If men’s standards are not up to those that your entitlement complex demands, do it yourself. If a man doesn’t think your little social-climbing and status games are important enough to act on, do it yourself.

Essentially, quit trying to force your neuroses and perfectionism concerning cleanliness and social status-seeking on men.

Do it yourself, and stop bitching that men don’t care about your neurotic desires.

****

Third, society.

From the Atlantic:

Only a handful of working parents have the “village” they need to care for their children during the period in which career opportunities slam up against pregnancies, births, years of nursing, and other crucial forms of caregiving. Most of us have to buy the village, and it’s expensive—so expensive that almost everyone has to stop hiring once they have paid for childcare and, in the very best cases, a cleaning service, despite the fact that there is much more to do.

To completely eliminate the destruction that childrearing exacts on your mind, body, and career, you would have to hire workers to handle your finances, home repairs, pets, laundry, afterschool commitments, errands, and shopping, among other responsibilities. Add to these costs the overtime that most working parents pay to accommodate the fact that their childcare needs extend well beyond the presumed eight hours a day, and you’re talking about a lot of cash. No one has this kind of money.

Because no one can afford to fully replace themselves at home while they are at the office and because, when it comes to more important tasks like selecting afterschool lessons and resolving playground disputes, no one wants to replace themselves, working mothers have famously picked up the slack for both partners, subsidizing our market with their free labor, enabling our companies and institutions to charge artificially low prices for their goods and offer artificially high salaries to their employees.

All of this means that mothers are important, in all of the ways in which socially conservative forces routinely note. But it could also mean that mothers—especially working mothers—are exploited. They are being used as a means by their partners, our institutions, and our economy in a system they did not design, to do more than their fair share of the family’s work, all without compensation. No one yet has asked or empowered working mothers to reimagine and restructure their workplaces to suit their own ends. So the basic lack of self-governance and self-determination, combined with the unpaid labor, raises the specter of injustice.

I’ve written about all this before, but it bears repeating. Nobody is meant to work, take care of family, keep home, raise children, and all those other responsibilities at once. Of course child care is expensive. This is why we once had a division of labour in the family. It made it so people could manage all these things.

An you know what? It worked, at least until whining feminists destroyed it.

Now that they’ve destroyed the family division of labour which “oppressed” them, they are now whining that there is no division of labour and they actually have to take on multiple roles.

Well, boo-dee-fucking-hoo.

Feminists, you got what you wanted. Why are you so unhappy?

Please stop complaining about the changes you wrought on society.

Enjoy what you created.

****

Anyway, to sum, the whole housework debate, assuming that it is not a myth created by statistical manipulation, is simply women acting entitled.

Women wanted the “prestige” of the careers of men, so they “liberated” themselves and started to work outside the home.

Now that they are working outside the home, they are realizing it’s a lot of work, but instead of simply sucking it up and being strong and independent like men always have, they are bitching about how hard it is to work both outside and inside the home.

Instead of engaging in self-reflection on their own choices, they are choosing to blame men.

In addition, they are choosing to force their neurotic standards of housework on men and whining that men don’t comply with their controlling attitudes.

The whole housework debate is a ginned-up non-issue created by controlling, neurotic feminists who want to blame the hardship created by their own personal choices on men.

****

* As an aside, the sentence “or worse, if you are re-doing the work your husband or partner did poorly.” sort of validates some aspects game theory. It is better to forgo helping women at all then to be a beta about it. They may dislike you doing nothing, but they will hate obsequiousness that isn’t perfect obedience even more.

Lightning Round – 2013/03/13

Be straightforward, be direct, be a man.

A teenager’s guide to the red pill.

“If you’re contemplating change, then you’ve already made your decision.”

What I learned from death.

“The nuts and bolts of being a man is to produce more than you consume.”

Althouse has an insightful comment on the same article I wrote this post about. “The stereotypical traditional male works so that a woman would have him and he could have love. Love was the end, not the means. If, for the woman, love is the means and the end is career advancement… then what? And why?”

The Thomas Carlyle Club tackles masculinity.

Seems SSM went down.
Related: Orthosphere women rank pro-marriage manosphere men on dating appeal.

Many women are simply not worth courting.
Related: Hehe… The solipsism of a female banker.
Related: Danny’s bubble gum analogy.

Fighting your nature.

The importance of marriage.
Related: The marriage strike is real.
Related: Are pre-nups no longer valid?

Alpha male power moves.

The real problem is laziness and entitlement.

Conservative Sociologist should remember that not everyone wants help. There is nothing for her to do.

An excellent introduction to reactionary thought from a non-reactionary.
Related: McCarthy was right.

Men turning their backs on modernity.

It’s about tribe. Also, Adam Corolla has a pirate ship.

CR on racial social interactions.
Related: Liberal terminology translation dictionary.

How to respond to “you don’t know how it feels.”

On offensiveness.

Cooking and game.

Keoni enjoys the Heart Attack Grill.

Banning porn is ugly women’s attempts to control male sexuality.

Matt runs down the basics of starting your own blog. Part 2.

Gun control is male control.

A fairly unbiased piece on why firearms research is unreliable. Part 2.
Related: Why do pro-freedom advocates oppose funding for science research?

Hmmm… It seems the US still has an ammo shortage. Odd, we don’t here in Canada. I went to Cabela’s last week and picked up 2100 rounds of .22LR for the regular price. They had tons. You’d think they’d send some of that south.

80% of NYC high school graduates need to relearn the 3 R’s before entering community college.
Related: The school system is designed to prevent learning.
Related: More on the lobotomy factories.

New teaching methods could be hurting autistics and the socially awkward. The school system is increasingly becoming about creating rabbit people.

Fuck the mancave.

A general rule for social science research.

Study: Feminized boys like smaller breasts; real men like big ones.
Related: Judgy Bitch comments.

Christian television and popularity.

“When all is said and done, big business demands cheap labor, and then imports a bunch of illegal immigrants who work illegally for wages that American citizens can’t legally compete with on price.  And then the government makes it exceedingly difficult for Americans to circumvent big business by starting their own business.”

“To be perfectly honest, the fundamental problem with free trade is not that the federal government allowed foreign companies to sell their goods in the US, but that the federal government imposed a massive regulatory regime on domestic producers, as well as costly taxes, and generally onerous labor laws.”

Hiring tips.

The stupidity of Ygglesias. Related.

The paradox of libertarianism. A response.

You are miserable because you are free.

Trade-offs and decisions. The corruption of government.
Related: Why leftists cut essential services instead of trimming waste.
Related: 310k federal workers and 40 Obama aides have not paid their taxes.

Remember, voting twice is only a crime if you’re old and have dementia.

Some Canadian politics stuff on our “Conservative” party.

The 3 axis of politics.

YOU are probably a child pornographer. By the standards under which this person was charged, my parents are.
Related: On trial for thought-crime.

“Still, I blame the storm more than I blame the computer models.”

Some science on the first Y chromosome.

Did the Neanderthals die out to the sapiens because of rabbits?

(H/T: GCBH, Smallest Minority, Foseti, Maggie’s Farm, Troglopundit, Middle of the Right, Instapundit)