Tag Archives: Reaction

Superior and Inferior

The Wright/Malcolm monarchy debate has ended. I’m late to the debate, but I’m not debating, instead I just want to comment on something Wright said and implicated a number of times:

I have never met anyone who talks like you before. Even the zany materialist Dr Andreassen, who thought himself nothing more than a meat robot, did not think himself my inferior. Quite the opposite.

Then you are a slave in spirit, if not in law. If so, there is nothing to discuss: for you are a man willing to have another decide your fate. If so again, I decree that, as a free man who outranks you, I have unilaterally decided you should enjoy, while in America, the rights for which I but not you are willing to die.

If you argue with my high handed decision, then you are either being presumptuous (as you say) or you are secretly possessed of the belief that you should be allowed to participate in the decision about your life as if you owned it, and were equal with me. But this would indicate that you believe yourself possessed of an inalienable right to equality. But If we are equals, and I am free, you are free. In which case you believe in an inalienable equality of rights. This is in directly logical conflict with the legal theory of monarchy, which holds that the civic power passes by inheritance, as a family property, down a bloodline set aside by law as superior to all others.

So merely by entering into this discussion at all, you cast doubt upon your position. Freedom is not something discussed between equals. Superiors need not discuss such matters with inferiors. The superiors merely decide. The inferiors show respect, show deference, and obey.

First, political freedom is not freedom true. Political freedom is the right of the mob to force their will upon the rest. Republicanism is only superior over democratic mob rule insofar as it is anti-democratic and explicitly hierarchical. Whether you are ruled by a king and ruled by a mob, you are still ruled, although, in the former you are ruled only by one, in the latter by all. Having laws outlining how you are ruled and a judge who “interprets” those laws, doesn’t mean you are any less ruled, it simply means you are ruled by an unelected judge rather than a king.

Second, no man is free. We are born into the world the subject of our father, become the subjects of our teachers, and are always the subject of the state, be it autocratic or democratic. “Freedom” is impersonal authority rather than personal authority. The “free man” wishes to be a servant without a master. To be ruled by a constitution (manipulated by politicians and “interpreted” by judges) is still to be ruled, only it is the rule of impersonal forces set in motion by faceless elites, rather than the personal rule of a known individual. The free republican wishes to be ruled by the Star Chamber rather than the king. Base anarchy is the only true freedom, and nobody wants to live in base anarchy because it means getting brained by the stronger man who wants to eat your venison and rape your woman. (Admittedly, the stronger man might enjoy himself, at least until he is no longer the stronger man).

Third, the consent of the governed doesn’t exist. You are born into a society and indoctrinated in its ways from before you can even speak consent, let alone meaningfully understand the concept. The ideas of your fathers control your mind before you are even capable of realizing it. The liberal may respond, ‘but I rebel against the ways of my fathers’, not knowing rebellion is the way of his fathers. The consent of the governed is the consent of a women not protesting because she has inadvertently consumed rohypnol.

Fourth, republican freedom is not a sign of superiority, but inferiority. The superior man’s superiority comes from the responsibilities for the burdens of others he bears. He is free to act only insofar as others trust him to act for them. The free republican man is free because he bears no responsibility for the burdens of others, only his own. Even the inferior man is superior to the free republican man, for the inferior man bears the burdens and responsibilities entrusted him by his superior. (Of course, it need not be said, the slave is lowest of all for he does not even bear his own burdens. Even so, a slave can still be of value and worth).

The defining feature of the free man is that he rules no one as he himself is not ruled. To call oneself superior to another is to deny one’s own freedom.

Fifth, being a subject is not being a slave. A slave obeys force. A subject obeys a man, an office, and a tradition.

Sixth, being inferior to one is not being inferior to all. Kneeling before the king does not imply kneeling before Mr. Wright. Relatedly, being inferior in one aspect does not make one inferior in all. The king may kneel before the priest come mass, but the bishop kneels before the king come court.

Order, Chaos, and Regimentation

Reaction is about establishing order. A reactionary society is an ordered one, an ordered society is a conservative one. A disordered society is chaotic. Civilization is order, chaos is barbarism.

Regimentation is not necessarily order. A communist society is heavily regimented, but also chaotic. There is not order. Our growing anarcho-tyranny is heavily regimented, disordered, and chaotic all at once.

Natural order flows flow naturally from the relationships men are inclined towards. Regimentation is artificial, it is unnaturally forced upon society rather than flowing from it.

Regimentation may be necessary at times: a soldier in the army is artificially regimented as opposed to the naturally ordered warrior of a warband, but an army of soldiers is necessary for survival, as the warrior has been made obsolete (for now, 4G looks to be changing that).

Just because something is lined up nicely in a row or is heavily controlled does not mean it’s ordered. In fact, it is likely means it is regimented chaos. Chaos requires regimentation, order does not. In fact, order may look disorganized to the casual observer who doesn’t know better.

Regimentation is not order.

Culture Loss

Why not bring in immigrants and refugees? These people just want a better life, why not open the doors and let them in?

Spandrell found a thread of a Belgian couple sharing their journey through the Congo in 2008, and it is interesting, and answers why we shouldn’t.

Big mistake. We were stuck. The water came to the bottom of the door. This particular mudpit had a bit of a funny smell. It was the favourite place of the pigs so it probably contained a fair amount of sh*t. It sure smelled like it. The entire village gathered round us while we got out, knee deep in sh*t.

They did not offer help.

We started clearing the wheels. Josephine hurt her foot on a stick, the pain could be seen on her face. The people thought this was extremely funny and burst out laughing. This was very humiliating for Josephine and I could see the anger on her face. We looked at eachother and understood that this was not the time to get angry or start discussions with 50 or so people. We continued to work. As I bend over to clear the mud from underneath the car my pants get wet up until my ehrm.. ‘privates’.. . Once again this is the funniest thing these people have ever seen. Hilarity ensues. This was very humiliating to us.

Eventually they offered to help us if we pay them. I tell them that I do not have money. They did not move an inch.

The same thing happens a little bit later:

No surprisingly nobody they offered their assistance, they even had some shovels. But they wanted money first. By now you probably think we are just stupidly stubborn and naive. We probably are, but we refused to give in to corruption. I once again told them they were free to help, but we would not give them money. So I continued to dig on my own with an entire village as an audience.

Here man meets tribal culture. He calls it corruption, but it isn’t, it’s culture. Why would people help others outside their tribe without a reason? Why would someone honestly expect unrelated others to help them?

I live in Canada. Everybody gets stuck in the snow on occasion. When you do, you’ll always have someone stop to help push your car out and get you on the way. One time I slid up the curb and got stuck in a small snowbank at 2 am on New Years (it was a patch of ice, not alcohol). The family in the house came out and helped me push and dig it out for 15 minutes, until someone in a 4×4 showed up and gave me a quick tow. I’ve stopped to help others push as well. Helping to jump-start someone else’s car is barely worth remarking on. It’s just something you do because you trust people will help you out when you need, and so we all get to avoid freezing to death trying to get our cars going.

This is a cultural practice built up by an uncountable number of positive interactions over a unnumbered years. The Canadian experience is the unnatural outlier, the Congolese experience is the natural norm. Helping strangers get their car unstuck is an unnatural cultural practice held by a limited number. It is just one of many western Europeans have built up. These practices have not built up in many (most?) other countries.

If you import foreigners from Congo who do not have this cultural practice, fewer positive interactions and more negative interactions build up, and eventually a some tipping point, you no longer have the cultural practice.

This is the harm immigration causes, it wears away at built-up cultural practices. The insidious danger of it is that this regression is barely noticeable until one day you get stuck, look around, and wonder, ‘why is nobody helping me?’

Of course, cultural practices go far beyond simply pushing someone’s car.

****

I asked them if they would want us to help them if they had a problem. The acknowledged this. I said what they would think if we asked for money before we would help them. They called us racists and immediately demanded money from us.

Welcome to your future.

Also, the demands for money or free stuff is omnipresent throughout the trip. Everywhere they go, someone is demanding money, drinks, phones, or the like from them. Is this the cultural practice you want imported to your country, where ‘le Blanc’ is seen primarily as a source of free stuff?

We opened a can of Coke (still from Zambia) and a jar of pickled onions to eat with our bread.

Those ‘horrible’ people did not have a Coke, even if they had the money to buy it, it was not avaialble. They did not have pickled onions either. And between the two of us we ate as much bread as an entire family would eat for an entire day.

We tried putting things into perspective. Maybe we shouldn’t be here after all?

This is what immediately follows their ‘stuck in a mudpit’ story. The answer to the question is ‘correct, they don’t belong there’.

But more interesting is how they do not seem to make a connection. Maybe there’s an underlying reason why people who won’t help others stuck in mud don’t have Coke and pickled onions available. Coke and pickled onions require cooperation in the marketplace, but how can there be cooperation when you can’t even trust your neighbour to help pull you out of the mud?

****

If you want to know why there’s no social trust, here’s an illustrative example:

We came across a small motorcycle. You’d see them from time to time, it is the most luxurious transportation people have here. They are litte chinese 50cc (or 125cc) bikes. We stopped to let him pass and he stopped to greet and ask us if we had some oil for his engine.

All over the world there is an unwritten rule that in remote or difficult to travel areas people help eachother. That is why in the sahara everybody says hi to eachother. That is why in the Mongolian steppe people drive for kilometers just to check up on you. People help when needed as they know they will be helped when they are in need. We very much honour this unwritten rule and will always assist when we can.

So when this guy asks for oil, I do not hesitate and take out a my spare can of oil. I warn him that this is oil for diesel engines, but that does not matter to him. It is probably the best oil he would ever find to put in his little bike. As I am pouring oil from my can in his can the passenger of the bike starts begging with Josephine. I am not impressed when Josephine tells me. And when the bike owner too start to ask for money, it really pisses me off. We are helping this guy and still he begs for more? So I pour the oil out of his can back into mine and tell them to sod off. In our car and off we go.

For almost a month now we were in a serious fight with Congo. We were fighting against corruption. We were fighting against the roads. A constant battle. Congo was giving us a serious beating, but we stood strong and did not give in. Slowly but steadily we were winning this battle against the Congo.
But while we were so busy battling the roads and the corruption, Congo sneaked in from behind. It had transformed us into loud and angry people. With no remorse, no compassion, and a total lack of rules.

What happened to the unwritte rule of the road less travelled? The rule we nohour so much? All out of the door..

Congo had beaten us a long time ago already. Just like it had beaten most of its own citizens.. And we didn’t have a clue

The defections finally got to our generous tourist and finally defected himself. I wonder if this will cause him to further defect in the future?

Foreign cultural practices are acidic and burn away your cultural practices.

****

Here’s the price for not having a culture of trust and cooperation which would allow for road-building:

As said, traffic is always local. They somehow manage to get cars into larger towns and then drive it around town, but no trough traffic. So cities/towns/village that are not on a river or on the limited railroad network have very limited supplies.

Up to 600kg of goods are transported on these bicycles. They do not ‘ride’ them, but push them instead. You can see there is a stick connected to the bikes handlebars.

This is the major transport method in Congo. It is probably one of the most ‘popular’ (this does not seem like a good wordchoice) jobs. There are fixed routes and people often travel in groups. For security reasons but also to help eachother on the hills.

At regular intervals on the main “bicycle” tracks there are “service stations”. This is usualy a small hut where one can eat a meal of fufu. They would also have a pump and some basic tools to fix flats.

We saw many of these overloaded bicycles before, but on this stretch of the road it seems to be the only means of transportation.

It must be very hard work to get these loads over the sometimes very rough roads. The ‘drivers’ are away from home for weeks on end and probably barely make any money out of it.

And here’s another cost:

We came across a truck that was parked in the middle of the track. Luckily the surrounding area was pretty open, so we could pass it.

Us: “Bonjour, ca va?” – “Hi, how are you?”
– Them: “Ca va un peu bien ” – “I am doing a little bit ok” -> typical Congelese answer this!

Us: “Votre vehicle est en panne?” – “Did you truck broke down?”
– Them: “Oui, mais ils vient avec des nouveaux pièces” – “Yes, but they are coming with spare parts”

So we chat a bit and we ask what their problem exactly was. They left Ilebo for Kananga with a load of building materials for a rich guy in Kananga. Their engine had completely seized. Their cargo was transferred onto another truck and they had taken the engine out and transported the engine to Kinshasa to get it rebuild. In the meantime the truck ‘crew’ stayed onsite to safeguard the truck. But they were very happy as they just received news that the necessary parts for the engine were now ordered in Germany, so the parts would come arrive in Kinshasa in a few weeks time!

A fascinating story, and they told it as if the was the most normal thing in the world. Fair enough. We said our goodbyes and asked them one more final question. How long had they been here?

“Un peu plus qu’un an maintenant” – “Just over a year”

“The most normal thing in the world“. Is this the culture you want to import?

****

After the preceding stories, someone did help them:

It took three more attempts to drive out before the village priest (7th day Adventist by the way) encouraged a few strong men to help.

***

Some other people in the Congo were more proactive:

When we continued on the same road we would pass other smaller mudpits. These bogholes always had a “crew”. When a truck arrived, they would throw in rocks so the truck could pass… for a fee ofcourse. After the truck passed they removed the rocks again. A lucrative occupation!

In our books this is just plain wrong and we refuse to support such behaviour. So we always charged trough in 4×4, hoping we would not get ourself stuck.

The corruption is omnipresent and not just limited to roads. The tourists can hardly go anywhere without some official or another demanding a road toll, a non-existent “tax”, or a “fine” for some made-up infraction. As the tourists note, despite all the road tolls:

Nothing ever returns to the maintenance of these roads, or anything remotely related to the province it is in. It shows:

All the roads are like that or worse, My favourite is the one with the tree in the middle of it:

Here’s there first two days of travel. Remember, day one was the fast part of their trip with the best roads.

Less than 200 miles in day one, barely 50 in day two, while driving a sturdy 4×4. That’s how bad the roads are.

But between the corruption and and distrust, why would anyone build a decent road? Who would build a decent road?

There was one group who tried, the Belgians, which brings me to the next point.

****

At some points the trip reminds me of Skyrim. The Congo resembles a pre-civilized society but there’s the (sometimes functioning) ruins of an ancient civilization scattered about.

Fallout 4 or a Belgian Ruin in the Congo

They’re driving down unkempt, potholed dirt roads, then suddenly:

The bridges were something we were very concerned about upfront. Congo has a lot streams and rivers and we knew the roads had not seen maintenance in many many years. If a bridge broke down, that could be a major problems. Up until now however we did not have any problems with the bridges. Some of the smaller bridges might have been dodgy, but all of them were passable. Most of the large bridges were fortunately made out of steel and in reasonably good nick.

Take the bridge we just crossed for example. I find it amazing that is still there. Numerous armies have crossed the Congo in the last 20 years, chasing their enemies down to the capital. Now, I am not a military expert, but if my army was losing terrain to the enemy army and I have to retreat. The one thing I would certainly do was blow up all bridges after me. Had it happened but was the damage so small that it could easily be repaired? Or did they just not bother? Or did they lack the explosives and time to actually blow it up? Who knows…. but at least the outcome is good for us now!

A bridge made by the evil Belgian colonialists over a half-a-century ago still functions, but the Congolese can’t keep basic roads functional. Here’s the ruins of “what once must have been a grand building… marked with logos from a Belgian University… [that] must have once been some scientific study centre of sorts.”

Everybody talks shit about imperialism and colonialism, but when the Belgians were there the people of the Congo had peace, order, bridges, working roads, a functional bureaucracy, non-corrupt police, and scientific study centres. Are the Congolese better off being ‘free’?

Here’s the tourist on the dark Belgian history:

I presume you are referring to the “not so nice” role Belgium has had in the history of Congo. For a while I thought that would be a problem as well, but it isn’t. Just about anything that still exists in Congo is made by the Belgians. The older generation who had their education from the Belgians really have fond memories of that era. And at the moment Belgium is still one of the main funders of the country (via aid). The dark pages of history during the Leopold 2 era is not what the Congolese people think about. All in all I think being Belgian was actually a plus. As a matter of fact, a lot of people asked how things were going with the “war” in Belgium :-o

****

Speaking of functional bureaucracy, mismanagement is not limited to infrastructure. Here’s the tourists on getting a permit to be tourists:

Nobody really know what kind of permit one needs, let alone where to apply for it. But everybody agrees that a permit is required. Officially it has got something to do with the many mining areas to be crossed. We contacted the few people who have attempted travelling trough congo but they too never managed to get hold of the permit. One of these guys did get arrested and deported because he could not provide a permit.
Our Belgian Consulate really tried hard to get this stupid little piece of paper for us, but to no avail. They even managed to get us invited with the governer of Katanga, but he too could not give it to us. After many days of trying we asked the consulate to give us some sort of official looking letter with an official looking stamp. We would chance it without the permit!

****

There are some actual functional paved roads around, made by foreigners:

So, why is there an asphalt road in the middle of Congo? Not connected to the rest of the road system (due to lack of road system).

There reason is simple: Diamonds. This is the main diamond center of Congo. This has attracted many people ofcourse, but the local people barely benefit of the natural wealth of the region. Officially it is the third largest city of Congo, after Kinshasa & Lubumbashi. Although by now it is probably the second largest city with over 2 million inhabitants. It also a politically important region. Most of the recent political problems start here. When Mbuji-Mayi “explodes” the rest of the country usually follows shortly after.

The diamong mining companies ofcourse need transport. Most is done via air, but the heavy supplies (fuel) are brought in by train. The nearest train station is in Mwene-Ditu. Hence the tar road between Mwene-Ditu and Mbuji-Mayi.

It’s hard to say “the local people barely benefit” when the mine is the only reason there’s a decent road in the area.

Here’s an interesting tidbit on who they talked to while prepping for their trip:

2) Coca-cola company: If there is ony thing you can find anywhere in the world it is Coca-Cola. They should know how to get their goods in the country. We had no response on mails, so we called them up. Their answer was pretty short: They do not have a distribution network outside the major cities in Congo 8O And it proved to be true, Congo is the first country we have visited were Coca-cola is hard to get once you leave the major cities.

****

An interesting thing about the trip, is the number of Catholic missions in the Congo, how often that’s where the tourists stay at them, how much the tourists appreciate them and their kindness, and how much a relief the priests are. From the way the tourists talk about them, Catholic monks seem to be what keeps the country even somewhat functional. I’m not going to quote all of the references, but here’s a few.

Here’s some priests picking up the white man’s burden. It speaks for itself:

The priests (Brothers actually) are nice guys. There are 4 of them, young and smart. All of them have studied in Lubumbashi or Kinshasa. After they finished the seminary they were sent to a mission. They cannot choose which one. We could hear the sadness in their voices when they told their stories.

They sampled the “world” when studying, they have a degree (one of them had a masters in engineering) and then they are sent to a mission. They know they will probably never have the chance again to live in a city. At the mission they take care of the kids, teach, etc.. A noble and rewarding job. But they carry all this knowledge that they cannot put in practice here. They have no computers, no tools, no electricity, no budget, …

Their living quarters were very comfy and clean for Congolese standards. They had a radio and a TV set. Because of their proximity to Lubumbashi they had a regular supply of newspapers.

The priest-engineer was setting up a project to generate clean energy from a river. He had a recycling project. A radio project. An irrigation project, … He had to run all these projects without any funds, without material. So many ideas, so little chances.

They remained positive but you could see it in their eyes that they were sad. Without a doubt they would take the first opportunity to get out of there. It would be a great loss for the mission and the village but I couldn’t blame them. In the way our talks went we thought we could hear them crying for help. To take them to Europe, to give them funds, to supply them with material. They did not speak these words, but to us it was clear that they really longed for those things. We were not able to provide this. It made us sad and we felt guilty.

Here’s another set of priests carrying the burden and the thanks they get for it:

We rolled into Kamina and had a warm welcome by several “frères” (Brothers), among them Frère Louis, the belgian brother that hosted us in Luena. The other frères were Croatian. They all have their missions deep in the brousse, but this week they had their annual gettogether.

The missions was big and well organized. They had all the facilities, even a workshop. They were responsible for almost everything functional in Kamina. Churches, school, farms, factories, …
…
That night we talked for hours with Frère Louis. Our little adventures here dissapear in the nothing compared to everything he went trough. He had been in DRC for over 40 years, he stayed during all the wars. He had to abandon everything and run for his live three times as teams were sent out to kill him. But he always returned. Many books could be filled with his adventures.

He is also responsible for most of the bridges Katanga. He build hundreds of bridges himself. He has a small working budget from Franciscans, but he funds most of it all by himself. He has put every last penny in the Congolese people. That is why his house in Luena was so rundown.

He also told us about the Mayi-Mayi rebels that still roam the jungle. We were not prepared for the horror stories we would hear. I still have problems giving these stories a place. They are not just stories though, he gave us a 100 page document with his interviews of victims. If you thought, like us, that cannibalism was something that belonged in comic books and dusty museums about Africa. You are wrong. :cry:

But not everybody is called to the self-sacrifice of the mission field:

Unfortunately the father of this mission was not there, but his apprentice was. A very young guy, fresh out of school. He was not happy to be here, that much was clear. He did nothing else but complain and he would whine on endlessly. He was not a bad guy, but was wan’t very good company either.. oh well.

And not every priest remains uncorrupted:

We discussed our plans with Abbé Omer in the garden of the mission (it must have been a wonderfull garden back in the days.. now it looked a bit rundown). The good news was that there was good ferry here that could take us across the mighty Kasai river. The bad news was that nobody every uses that ferry and it does not see any regular action.

Omer knew the guy who was responsible for the Ferry, a chap called Barthélémy. He even has his phone number, but he does not have credit on his phone. No problem, he can use ours. A conversation in Lingala starts, it takes about ten minutes until we run out of credit on our phone. I actually think they talked 1 minute about the ferry and the other 9 minutes about other things, but anyway. Here was the deal:

– Price for a two-way trip is 50$US
But,
– we have to supply our own diesel the engine of the boat. 150 liters is required (!). that’s about 200$US (Diesel here is cheaper because they have a regular supply via boats from Kinshasa).
– we have to supply two batteries to start the engines of the boat
– the ferry is on the other side of the river and they would only be able to get it across somewhere next week

That’s just great!

We immediatelly uttered to Omer that that was a ridiculously high price, one we would never pay. And that we wanted to cross as soon as possible. preferably tomorrow.

What followed was a very difficult negotiation. Abbé Omer insisted that he acted as an intermediate person. According to him to protect us from getting ripped off (because we were white). I was actually convinced that he was playing a game with his mate Barthélémy to make some money out of us. It took us many hours on the phone to finally convince this Barthélémy to come to see us to discuss the price. He would come at 8 the next morning.

Later that evening Omer suggested that we he would have to inform the police of our presence (c’est normal!), it took us a lot of persuading for him not to ‘give us in’.

Interesting that Omer is a local.

****

Of course, some secular non-profits are there to, but they are not as effective as the evil Catholics, MNC’s, and imperialists:

They told us about the mysterious roads. Apparently some NGO (they did not know the details… or they told the details and we forgot) has funded the construction. Several teams started working at several locations. The different bits were supposed to connect at one point. As of recent, work had nearly stopped… no more budget. It was unclear if more budget would become available or not. In any case the idea of the construction was to invest all the money in labour instead of buying an expensive CAT. Great idea ofcourse, that way all the money stayed in DRC, instead of filling the pocket of some bigwig at CAT. If you look at the road it was quite a feat. They thought about drainage and everything. Unfortunately they could not compress the earth enough with the tools they had. We already started a few ruts, it would only take 1 heavy truck to completely destroy these roads again. These roads would not last a rainy season.

Here’s Barthélémy’s ferry:

We couldn’t believe our eyes when we finally saw the ferry.

It looked brand new!
It wasn’t..

A German (?) NGO had funded the restoration of the ferry recently. It had received a nice fresh coat of paint, but the money to rebuild the engines had gone missing.

****

Here’s some more local cultural practices excerpted from a 131-page document by a priest:

“Y”‘s brother went fishing in Missa and saw mischief like cutting of ears. They fry the ears in a pan eat them. They make the victims look at how their own ears are being fried and eaten. They are being accused of cooperation with the Congolese FAC army. The May May continue to eat humans. Y’s brother managed to escape to Bukama, this is where I met him.
…
They kill those four soldiers and eat them. They then carry one of the heads of the murdered soldiers to Kintobongo and put the head on the table in our mission. They do this as warning not to attack hem, if not this is what happens.
…
..The hunters (May-May) asked food at the woman of Chef Kitumba. The women told they did not have food. The hunters then demanded that they roast their children for them to eat.
…
The commander Bati dared to display a naked woman. With a pen he pointed at every part of the “intimate organs” and told the onlookers the names in dialect. What a humiliation.
…
We are living in a situation of pure and simple cannibalism. The may-may plunder, rape and kill the civilian population. They then eath their meat, raw or smoked. This is true for the May-MAy chief Kabale, who was killed recently (15/05/2006) by the population of Kayumba.

Do we really want to bring these kinds of cultural practices here?

****

Of course, it’s not all bad:

We stopped in the first village. A car in the village.. with white people in it. Now that is an attraction ofcourse. And if they are covered in mud from head to toe it is even more interesting.

I do not have to explain we drew a bit of a crowd?

But people were actually quite nice. They offered us to use their shower (a tree with a mud wall before it and a bucket) and after an hour or so they actually left us alone.

Later that evening some kind of custom officer came to see us. He wanted to see our permits and whatnot. We kindly told him to bugger off and come back tomorrow. Surprisingly, it worked. Next day we were gone before he came back ;-)

As soon as it got dark we got into our tent and looked outside. We could see several fires in the village were people would gather around and sing and dance (mostly women). Small groups of men were having discussions. Peaceful village.

But small villages aren’t all good either:

The first village we encountered seemed deserted at first, but as soon as we entered the village we saw people coming at us from all sides. They had machetes and sticks and were shouting. “Des Blancs. Argent!” – “White people. Money!”. They were all over the place. This was not good! I floored it and sped out of the village. A rock hit the back of our car.

What in gods name was that all about?

Very few Congolese had made us feel welcome, but this was plain agression! It scared the hell out of us.

We passed another village, and once again a mob formed as soon as they heard us coming. Machetes flying round, racist slogans shanted. Once again we did not give them the chance to get near us and blasted out of the village. They tried following us. This was turning ugly, if we would get stuck here we would be in big trouble, these people did not want a chat!

****

Anyway, I’m about twenty pages into the thread and it goes on for almost 100 pages. I’m done reading and commenting on this (for now?), but I hope you found this illuminating, or perhaps endarkening?

Dear Pagan Reactionaries

The perpetual discussion between Christians and atheists/pagans on the hard right has once again come to the fore. Now I have nothing against you pagans, and am willing to work with you to remove the leftist virus. If you do work together with us, I am fine with the restored society allowing you all to drink mead and sacrifice goats to Odin, or whatever made-up rituals you guys invent for yourselves, as long as it’s not too degenerative. I have no problems with virtuous pagans, I respect them and endorse a live and let live attitude. I even have taken some shine to certain aesthetic aspects of paganism.

I also have no problems with reasoned discussions if Christianity is pozzed (it is and has been for a few decades at least). Although, paganism (and atheism for that matter) is far more feminized and pozzed than Christianity, so you don’t exactly have the high ground here. We can discuss history, and you can pretend it was Christians who destroyed Rome, even though Rome was already dying well before Constantine and Christians saved and preserved what was left to save in the Eastern Empire for another millennia. You can brag about how Odin and Thor are superior gods and complain about how Christians were evil destroyers of germanic paganism, even though everything you know about the Norse gods comes from manuscripts written and preserved by Christians. You can pretend your made-up rituals and religion represent authentic germanic culture and religion, while you reject the religion of your ancestors for the last thousand years to try to resurrect long dead gods. You can brag about the superiority of Western civilization while ignoring that there was no germanic civilization prior to Christianization.  That’s all fine. I have no problems with that.

But please don’t pick a fight with us. All the “cuckstains”, “dead Jew on a stick” and other silly attacks on Christianity add nothing to the discussion and have no purpose but to drive your allies away. I would prefer not to have in-fighting amongst us. Even so, while focusing on eliminating leftism would be preferable, we will fight you if you force us to. Christians outnumber you and every time Christians and pagans have gone against each other, the final result has been the same. If you force a conflict this time, it will be no different.

Instead, of fighting against each other and insulting each other, let’s work together to bring about the restoration. There’s no need for us to quarrel amongst each other. Then when all is set right, we can share a pint of mead.

 

On Theonomy

A few theonomists read my blogs, so theonomy comes up in the comments on occasion. Last week, Mycroft Jones asked me why I wasn’t a theonomist. So, here’s a response.

First, for those who don’t know much about it, theonomy is the political idea held by Christian reconstructionists, an offshoot group of Reformed calvinist fundamentalists (not those calvinists) who believe in theocracy, that the Mosaic law should be observed by modern societies.

The main reason I’m not a theonomist is that it is made clear in the New Testament that the law has been fulfilled, we are under a new covenant and are not longer beholden to the rituals and laws of the Mosaic covenant.

The symbol of belonging to the Mosaic and Abrahamic covenants was circumcision. The Mosaic covenant was memorialized through the ritual of passover and enacted through the blood of sacrifice. Those not of the covenant, ie. the uncircumcized, could not participate in passover and could not enter the temple to participate in sacrifice rituals. Jesus was the final, ultimate sacrifice and his death created a new covenant, the ritual of sacrifice was fulfilled in him and the ritual of passover was replaced by communion.

In the Jerusalem Council, Paul, Peter, Barnabas, and the other disciples, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit decided that circumcision was not required of Christians.

The Jerusalem Council

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
…
Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
…
Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

(Acts 15:1-29 ESV, selected)

From this it is clear that Christians are not under the Mosaic covenant. This reaffirms Peter’s earlier vision:

The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood at the gate and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” So he invited them in to be his guests.

The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”

(Acts 10:9-29 ESV)

Here is made clear that once was unclean was made clean. As Paul wrote in Galatians, we are no longer under the law:

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

(Galatians 3:10-29 ESV)
http://www.esvbible.org/Galatians+3/

We are no longer under the law but under faith. He continues, specifically linking this to circumcision:

Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!

(Galatians 5:2-12 ESV)

We are not under the law, we are under grace. We are no longer to be circumcised as we are no longer in the Mosaic covenant, so we are not under the Mosaic laws. Christ has fulfilled the law. Theonomists are trying to bring the whole of the law upon themselves, to be justified by law, which leads to a falling from grace.

We are to follow the commandments of the new Covenant, those that are (re-)affirmed in the New Testament. The civil laws of the Mosaic covenant are nowhere reaffirmed.

That being said, I’m not necessarily opposed to theocracy, if it were a Christian theocracy and not a Mosaic theocracy.

None of this is to say that Mosaic law is to be ignored. It can and should still be used as guide and reference, but we are not bound by it.

****

Also, Jacob asked:

When you say “your people”, do you mean God’s people (Christians), or whites?

Both are my people.

Swimming Right

Last week, we found that politics is moving left, a conclusion which should be obvious just from government spending numbers. So why do leftists think that politics is somehow moving rightward? I have a guess.

When we say politics are moving left we look at real, existing political laws, outputs, and outcomes. We see that laws for higher spending have been put in place, that government spending has increased, and that government spending as a percentage of GDP has increased. We see that gay “marriage” has been enforced by courts, that gays are “marrying”, and that Christians are losing their businesses anti-Christian laws.

When the left say politics is moving right, they look at only at actual outcomes as compared to intended outcomes. They look at what they expect should happen if politics moves left, see that that is not occurring and declare politics are moving right, whatever the actual laws and outputs may be.

For example, the leftist believes all men are equal and have equal abilities, if they do show these, then (right-wing) discrimination must be holding people back, so if proper left-wing policies are put in place people would demonstrate equal abilities. So, if education policy were moving left, the achievement gap would be disappearing and all students would be moving towards equally high performance. The achievement gap is not disappearing. Because of this, the leftist thinks education policy is not moving left, so, it must be moving right.

The leftist ignores that he is getting the actual laws and political outputs he wants; public education spending has been ballooning and the the staff:student ratio has been increasing. He ignores the fact that actual public policy is increasingly left because he’s only looking at outcomes and he’s not getting the outcomes he thinks should happen.

The leftist is religiously egalitarian and blank-slatist, so if government programs are not producing the desired outcomes, they must not be the desired programs, hence if the outcomes are not the expected left-wing outcomes, the programs and policies must not be left wing. He can not countenance that the achievement gap is probably genetic in origin, so failures to achieve his expected outcomes must be due to the wrong (ie: right-wing) policies being implemented.

We can see this elsewhere as well. The leftist believes that left-wing policies will reduce poverty and reduce income inequality. He looks at the charts and it’s obvious that for the last half-century poverty rates have stayed level and income inequality has risen. Therefore, policies must not be left-wing, and therefore must be right-wing.

Never mind that most of the federal budget goes to income transfer/poverty alleviation programs, never mind that spending on poverty-alleviation has been increasing at a rapid rate, never mind that we spend enough on poverty alleviation programs to simply pay every person enough to not be poor, never mind graduated tax rates, the spending and laws don’t matter. It can not be that poor people are poor because they are the kind of people whose choices, abilities, and (lack of) virtues lead to being poor, because all people are equal. Therefore, the policies must be right-wing because left-wing policies would result in equality. (In reality though, left-wing schemes usually backfire).

The reason the leftist think politics is moving rightward, is because the leftist is utopian and egalitarian. He believes that left-wing policies will necessarily bring about left-wing utopian goals. When the expected egalitarian utopia does not arrive, the leftist can not believe that this is due to the impossibility of an egalitarian utopia or because left-wing policies don’t work, so he believes the absence of utopia must be because politics is moving right-ward.

Swimming Left

Forgot to post on Friday. I’m sure you all were heartbroken.

Scott had a piece on Trump where he said:

Everyone knows that America is getting more ideologically polarized these days. The right is getting rightier. The left is getting leftier.

I responded on Twitter:

It is fairly obvious we have been moving left. I then finished the piece and looked through the comments. Many of the people there seemed to think the US is actually moving right. Are they insane?

In the US you can now lose your job or your business for having the same opinion on gay marriage that almost everyone 15 years ago would have had. This is leftward shift happening in real time with no ambiguity to it.

But maybe on other issues this is not the case, so I’m going to look at the top 10 most important political issues to Americans to see how they’ve moved. (Oddly, despite the huge amount of attention placed on it, the number of people who think gay “rights” is the most important issue ranges from “*”, almost non-existent, to 1%). I’ll ignore two of the top three as they are non-partisan issues with no discernible left or right positions: dissatisfaction with government and unemployment. Everybody hates unemployment and dissatisfaction is non-partisan. This leaves 8 issues that 4% or more of Americans thought are the most important issues.

1) Economy in General – Generally, the left is for more state economic intervention, the right for less. Government spending as a percentage of GDP is a decent proxy for state intervention. Other than a temporary dip in the late 90’s, government spending has been consistently rising. On the economy the government is moving left.

2) Immigration – The left is generally pro-immigration, the right generally anti. The proportion of immigrants has been increasing since the 1950’s, although, this mirrors a decrease in the first half of the 20th century. As well, due to the removal of country of origin laws by the left, immigration has become increasingly “diverse”. Immigration has become more left.

3) Race Relations – The president is black. 50 years ago the US legalized racial marriage and public opinion has been growing consistently in favour of it. Jim Crow laws have disappeared. The last lynching was in 1964, while today, black mobs burn down black-run Baltimore and injure over 100 cops with the establishment’s approval because a black man was killed while being arrested for possessing an illegal weapon (a crime that is only a crime because of the left). Society has moved left on racial relations.

4) Healthcare – Obamacare was just passed a few years ago. The Bush public drug plan was introduced a decade before that. Moving left.

5) Education – Public education spending, staffing levels, and funding per student have all been increasing at a rapid pace. Moving left.

 

6) Debt/Deficit – The right is generally anti-deficit, while the left is generally in favour of Keynesian deficit spending. The debt has been consistently increasing, barring a decline following WW2 and a temporary drop in the lates 90’s. We’ll say it’s been moving left.

7) Terrorism – The War on Terror continues and was right-wing in origin, although the left has instigated the Libya and Syria theatres of the war. But we’ll say the (mainstream) right won this one, now that the left is playing the game.

8) Foreign policy/foreign aid/focus overseas – I’m not actually sure how to look at this one. Foreign aid is declining, a right-wing win, but I highly doubt it is the main component driving the importance of this issue. There’s more hate against Russia and ISIS more nowadays, but those aren’t particularly partisan issues. The opening of Cuba and the Iran deal are vaguely left. The Cold War is over; NATO’s still around. Free trade agreements are increasing, but that issue is largely non-partisan: the elites vs everyone else. I don’t think this one is able to be judged along a left/right axis, so I’m not going to assign anything to it.

The following three I looked at as well, because at first I accidentally was reading the May column, not the August Column, but they’ve been written so I’ll include them:

9) National Security – See terrorism. Us defence spending as a percentage of GDP has been on a fairly steady decline since the 50’s, with a leveling-out/small rise since the mid-90’s. The number of defence personnel follows a similar trend (in absolute numbers, so, percentage wise it has been decreasing even more so). The trend has been moving left.
http://www.cfr.org/defense-budget/trends-us-military-spending/p28855

10) Gap between rich and poor –  The Gini coefficient has been rising since the 70’s, but that was following  a fall in the first half of the century. The left is opposed to the gap; the right is neutral on it. While the right isn’t in favour of a gap, they aren’t really opposed, and the left are very opposed, so we’ll say this has been moving right.

11) Ethics/Moral/Religious decline – See gay marriage above. The number of religious people has been declining and church attendance has plummeted. Marriage rates have declined. Divorce rates have increased. Fertility rates have plunged. Bastardry has increased. Female-headed households have increased. Things are moving left here.

Conclusion:

So, on a total of the 13 of the most important issues to Americans, I didn’t rate 3 of them. Of the remaining 10, 8 have been moving left and 2 has been moving right.

On the majority of the issues that matter most to Americans the left has been winning. The US is moving left.

I realized after writing this that the question I ended up answering has changed slightly from the initial question, which was where the party’s are moving, not where the country is moving.

 

Hail the Donald!

Land is wary of the Trump enthusiasm from some of the NRx crowd, and rightfully so, we can’t become demotist around here. Being one who occasionally joins in on the Trump enthusiasm, I thought I’d respond. I should note that I’m Canadian and can’t vote in the US and that I wouldn’t vote even if I could, but here’s why NRx should support Trump.

Before I begin, Trump won’t win and even if he does, not much will change (except maybe the wall). No matter how popular Trump becomes, he won’t win the presidency. I doubt he’ll even win the Republican primary. There is no way the Cathedral will let him win; they will do everything in their power to destroy him, and it will work. If, by some miracle, their efforts fail, Trump will lose against the bureaucracy and if he manages to get past the bureaucracy, the Supreme Court will shut him down. Nothing real will change (except maybe the wall). Whatever minor changes he gets through will be reversed a decade later.

#1: lulz: Everybody worth hating hates Trump. Lapping up their tears as he succeeds beyond what anybody expected is a worthwhile endeavour in its own right. There are two things that makes me consider voting and liberal tears is the second (gun freedom is the first). Sure voting means nothing, but it sure is fun to watch liberals suffer when their candidate loses.

#2: The destruction of the Republican Party. The Republican establishment are afraid and are doing what they can to try to stop him, but Trump speaks for the base. By trying to destroy him the GOP will destroy itself. If Trump somehow wins the nomination, the establishment will have suffered a huge blow and maybe the base can use it to clean house and heighten the ideological conflict. But in the more likely event the GOP rigs things against Trump (as they did with Ron Paul) and Trump loses, the GOP’s credibility will be destroyed. How many libertarians were alienated by the GOP’s treatment of Ron Paul? (How much did his treatment do to drive some to NRx?) And he was just a small side candidate. How fully will the base be alienated when the GOP destroys Trump? Unless Trump pussies out (and he does not seem the type to do so), Trump’s run could spark a bloodbath in the GOP no matter what the result. One of NRx’s goals is to get conservatives to realize that the GOP is no more than the controlled opposition who exist to lose and Trump could be a catalyst for endarkenment.

#3: Immigration. Immigration is the issue all the elites try to suppress. Trump is bringing it to the forefront and the people are responding. When he gets shut down and it is further drilled in that their elites hate them, how much endarkenment will that engender among the masses?

#4: Flowing from this: the truth of democracy. If the Trump train starts chugging for real: the Cathedral will bring all the rigging, all the slandering, all the viciousness, all the lawfare, etc. it can against Trump and his supporters and he will almost inevitably lose. How many of his supporters will realize how much of a sham democracy is as this occurs? How many people will people will come to understand the Cathedral and its ways through this?

#5: The Wall. If against all odds Trump wins, the wall will go up. There is no way I could see him back down from it, as the wall is his campaign, and I can’t see anybody who will be able to bring a clear enough threat against him to stop him. Once the wall is up, bureaucratic self-preservation will keep it up.  The wall is good because collapse is coming; it is nigh unavoidable. The question is the conditions under which the collapse comes. Living out in Asia, Land may be mostly insulated when the American Empire (and its dependencies: the Commonwealth and the EU) implode, but for those of us who refuse to leave our homeland the on-the-ground conditions when the collapse occurs do matter quite a bit. There are two main issues relevant to collapse: immigration and guns. Guns is obvious: will we have the ability to defend and hold our own when the happening goes down? This issue has mostly been won in the US and is the only real victory conservatives have ever achieved. When the happening occurs, people will inevitably split along tribal lines: when this happens how many of them will there be at war with us? The wall will lessen the number of them and maybe savagery can be prevented or at least mitigated.

#6: The punishment. Trump is both rich enough and bombastic enough to punish those activists attacking him. He’s already suing Univision for $500M and is threatening to sue the Hispanic Media Coalition and NBC for dropping him. Trump has the resources to really bring the heat against those who cave to activists and show that there are consequences for bowing to liberalism.

#7: The fluke. Have you read Caliphate by Tom Kratman? In it, a future-history tells of not-Patrick Buchanan winning the presidency and establishing a dictatorship through manipulation of presidential powers that freezes the decline. While he probably won’t do that, Trump is a wild card. I wouldn’t put much past him if he had the opportunity. If somehow he wins, you never know what could happen. (King Trump, anyone?)

As for the man himself:

Sure, Trump may be clownish, arrogant, and self-aggrandizing, but it’s an honest arrogance. The entire system holds you in contempt and wants to destroy your culture; every wanna-be chekist, SJW, bureaucrat, and politician is arrogant enough to think they should be able to dictate what you think, what you say, what you eat, what guns you can own, what you buy, what you drive, etc. Compared to that contempt, that insufferable, smug, all-consuming arrogance hidden under a thin veil of ‘the greater good’, a bit of honest old-fashioned arrogance is a breath of fresh air. As for clownishness, nothing Trump has done or could do could possibly compare to ‘a thrill up my leg’ and the outright worship everybody bestowed upon Obama 8 years ago. Democratic politics is clownish by its very nature; Trump is the only influential person awake enough to see it.

Sure, it’s hard to tell what is theatre and what is real, but it’s honest theatre. Everybody knows Trump is playing to the audience and he’s not even trying to conceal that he is. Compare that to the democratic theatre we regularly have. The GOP pretending to stand for something, the barely concealed corruption of the iron triangle, the farce of a democracy where Judge Roberts can single-handedly rewrite the law, the delusion we are free when we pay taxes even serfs and slaves of bygone days would think harsh. At least Trump’s show is a fun spectacle, rather than mind-killing, soul-draining drudgery of lies that is our normal politics.

So, however much you hate democracy, however useless you know politics is, however doomed you think we are, you should still agree:

Viva la Trump!

Nakedly Corrupt

Here’s a NYT article about the quest to legalize a women’s libido pill. I don’t really care much either way on the issue, other than a general dislike of the FDA, but the view into this fight is a fascinating just how nakedly corrupt the process is.

To summarize some firm has developed flibanserin, a ‘female viagra’, and the “women’s health community” (ie. the people dedicated to sterilizing women and murdering babies) is in a minor civil war over the drug, with the FDA approval process as the battleground. The pro-pill side is arguing SEXISM!, the anti-pill side is arguing SCIENCE!

The drug was rejected once in 2009 because “it was not very effective and had side effects,” which in reality means that “women taking the drug had about one more satisfying sexual event per month than women receiving a placebo” at the cost of “fatigue, fainting, dizziness and nausea”. Is one more sexy time a month worth it, not mine but to, but I will note that these are women, so if they just said yes to their husbands a bit more, they could probably have one more sexy time a month without a pill. But I digress.

After the rejection our main player, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, bought the drug, which was again rejected in 2013. In response, Sprout rallied. They put a women in charge, solely due to merit I’m sure.

Some critics speculate that the company wanted a woman as the face of the brand.

It seems that you can reject affirmative action without being sexist if you are also a feminist.

This is where the fun begins.They then started to rally feminists to to fight for their barely effective pill. Some saw the ploy for the blatant commerical hijacking it is:

From my perspective, that was a really inappropriate strategy, and I really didn’t like it,” said Susan F. Wood, director of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health at George Washington University. She said the company had “made the rounds,” asking for the support of women’s health organizations, including hers. “There are some very important issues around ensuring that women get studied and women’s health needs are addressed,” she said. “This trivializes that work.”

But a bunch of other feminists were more gullible and signed up to fight for this pill.

Advocates who support the libido drug, flibanserin, say they believe it has the potential to improve the lives of millions of American women and strongly reject the charge that they were in any way co-opted by the company. They say passionate supporters are needed to move impassive federal agencies to action, and cite Act Up, which pushed the F.D.A. on AIDS drugs in the 1980s.
…
It was not clear what role, if any, the company had in the trip. Ms. Scanlan, who was among the participants, said they “went out there under our own steam.” Ms. Greenberg said her nonprofit group had paid for the bus. Dr. Anita Clayton, a paid consultant for Sprout who helped in the drug’s testing and who is a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia, said she had accompanied the participants as a medical expert.

A “medical expert”. Here’s a nice HuffPo piece by her where she advocates against the FDA’s “discrimination” while neither mentioning neither the drug nor her getting paid as a consultant, although, her HP bio has a nice list of paid consultancies.

To help in their fight Sprout enlisted PR firm Blue Engine Message and Media, which if you check their source-watch is pretty much an independent PR arm of the Democratic Party.

Audrey Sheppard is one of the spearheads of the campaign and the one who approached Blue Engine. She was the director of the FDA Office of Women’s Health appointed by Clinton and has been deeply involved in Democratic politics for decades. She is also a paid advocate for Sprout.

Together they created a campaign called Even the Score. Take a look at the site; it’s all vague pablum about equality for women. Not one specific mention I could find of the drug they are actually campaigning to support, and the only mention of Sprout is on the supporters page, which is itself amusing. It contains a bunch of random medical-sounding organizations nobody has ever heard of such as the International Society for The Study of Women’s Sexual Health (Dr. Anita Clayton is a director), two pharmaceutical companies (Sprout and Trimel, who are creating their own ‘pink viagra’), and, for some reason, Jewish Women International.

Susan Scanlan is chairing Even the Score and is the other leader of the campaign. She’s neck-deep in the Democrat Party and the bureaucracy, as well as having been a lobbyist for the defence industry in the past. Her husband (who I mention primarily because I could not pass up linking to his insane website) has a work history that reads like a typical Cathedral worker.

The Blue Engine spokeperson for Even the Score is Jaime Horne, who’s also worked the Democrat machine, as well as progressive Air America Radio and some progressive non-profits.

So those are a few of the players in this campaign, I have no time or will to go more in-depth, maybe someone paid to can do so, but here’s how the players describe fighting for the pink pill:

“I’ve been accused of bullying the F.D.A., and I say, ‘No, it’s called advocacy,’ ”

They barely conceal that they’re nakedly mau-mauing the flak-catchers. I like that quote though as it sums it up quite clearly: there is no difference between bullying and advocacy other than if the cause if righteous or not.

Continuing on, here’s what Scanlan has to say about her pay:

She said she believed in the drug’s potential, and was not doing it for the money, which she described as an “extremely modest stipend.”

“I’m not going to be taking any vacation to the Riviera on it,” she said.

Maybe it’s just my blue-collar roots but to me the term “modest stipend” conjures up the thought of ‘not quite covering your gas expenses‘, not ‘not quite covering a fancy vacation to France.’ Maybe I have different definitions of modest from the denizens of the iron triangle.

Beyond the luncheon, which took place at the restaurant Ris, Even the Score paid for dozens of people, including patients, to get to a public workshop on female sexual dysfunction at the F.D.A. last fall. It also gave them teal scarves.

At this point I’m surprised, Ris is more expensive than where I usually eat, but is less ritzy than I thought, cheeseburgers are only $13, $20 with a side and entrees cost $25-50. But Even the Score seems to have deep pockets coming from somewhere (Sprout?) to feed, transport, and house that many people.

Daniel Carpenter, a scholar of regulatory policy at Harvard University, called the campaign for the drug’s approval “the most extreme case of companies using social lobbying to get a drug approved in years.”

He disputed the advocates’ analogy to the AIDS movement, saying Act Up was as suspicious of the drug companies as it was of the F.D.A. “How independent are these groups?” he asked. “Would they turn their backs on the company if the price was really high or if there were safety issues? If all they are doing is greasing the wheels to approval, it’s kind of one-sided.”

Heh. If you want more, here’s a sexologist and a psychiatrist on the claims of Even the Score from last year.

Ms. Horn of Even the Score strongly disputes the contention that the campaign put pressure on the agency.

Yes, there’s absolutely no impropriety here. None at all. But the next quote clinches it:

“People who claim that the F.D.A. advisory committee’s decision was based solely on a public-relations campaign are giving us too much credit,” she said in an email. “If the science didn’t support approval, the F.D.A.-appointed advisory committee of doctors, clinicians and other safety experts wouldn’t have approved it.”

“Too much credit.” She doesn’t even dispute the charges of pressuring the FDA, in fact she seems almost flattered by it, she just says that they helped but not as much as you might think.

Painting the F.D.A. as sexist did not sit well with some potential supporters. Stephen T. Wills, the chief financial officer of Palatin Technologies, which is also developing a drug to increase women’s libido, said the company asked this month that its name be removed from Even the Score’s website.

When even other pharmaceutical companies think you’ve gone too far…

Palatin had declined several requests to contribute to Even the Score, including one for $5,000 or $10,000 to pay for patients to travel to the F.D.A. workshop last October.
…
Many people wanted to testify, the vast majority in favor of the drug.

Absolutely nothing untoward here.

There was loud applause when some people spoke in favor of the drug, and when the vote was announced at the end. There was less applause for people testifying against approval.

That last line just kills me. That has to be intentional dry humour.

So, to summarize the situation, a pharmaceutical company has rallied the Democratic political machine, the feminist community, the women’s sexual health community (which somehow exists), and a Jewish Woman’s organization for some unknown reason, to bully the FDA into approving an ineffective form of female viagra. The separation between these bureaucracy, the lobby groups, the Democratic Party, industry, the feminists, the media, and the women’s health groups is practically non-existent; almost everybody involved has worked for most of them.

The major players pretty much define the iron triangle. It’s almost astounding how openly corrupt of the process is.

How often does this sort of stop go on that the NYT doesn’t write about because it isn’t as sexy as ‘libido pills’?

Guest Post: Strategy

Today we have a guest post from Curt Doolittle, the advocate for propertarianism.

Our opponents attacked us with better leadership, better organization, outright lies, obscurant rationalism, pseudoscience, and propaganda: repeated over and over again. Most effectively by achieving by judicial activism and immigration, what could not be achieved by persuasion. And of those who could be persuaded, it was predominantly women who, like they were by Christianity in Rome, most easily fooled. And who, being fooled in large numbers, tilted votes, taught children in schools, provided income and incentives to universities as a new customer base, and staffed marketing departments and advertising agencies.

Contrary to current opinion, it is very easy to do something about it. It is merely costly, not hard. Because contemporary civilization is fragile.

But to succeed in any campaign, we must have a better idea, better articulated, better leaders, better organization, and a means of persecuting lying, deceit, pseudoscience, and propaganda. Because gossip and deceit are cheap and easily made plentiful. That is their tactic. Women evolved to use gossip to rally against alphas.

By contrast, violence and truth are expensive and hard to make plentiful. But that is both our tactic and our objective: truth and the threat of violence for those who gossip and deceive.

We require: A goal. A plan. A moral justification for violence. And the will to pay the high cost of saving our civilization from the age of lies and propaganda made possible by the introduction of women into the politics of our high trust polity under open enfranchisement representative democracy, without houses of government that represent our competing class and gender interests.

Our opponents’ strategy is purely verbal – so they need numbers. We don’t. We need a few good men willing to risk life and liberty. Because the liars have created pervasive fragility that can easily be exploited.

Once we have actionable demands, we can raise the cost of not meeting those demands by taking advantage of that fragility. Whether it be nullification, secession, revolution, or civil war, is merely a measure of the cost that the people are willing to pay to preserve their tyranny of the masses. We need a solution to post-democratic equalitarian government, the construction of immoral laws, judicial activism in order to do something other than just rebel.

Which is what I work on full time.

Thankfully, success is more possible now than it has ever been.

Liberty, truth and rule of law and natural aristocracy in our lifetime, or tyranny, deceit, propaganda, Brazil and castes in the next.

Curt Doolittle