The Sick Man of North America

Sorry for the delay: Not that many could have noticed or cared, but some time, over a month, has gone by between my posts and I feel like grandiosely apologizing as if someone both noticed and cared.  I came down with Covid in early February. Actually, coincidentally, my first symptoms started the day of my last post. It got worse as it progressed. I did not go to the hospital, although on day ten it was a close call and I had tough flu-like symptoms for the next four days, after which my temperature broke. Obviously, it got better or I wouldn't be writing now. I'm 99% better. But, even after I was 95% better, some weeks ago, it was difficult to even start or complete a blog or do almost anything that took concentration. There is something called "Covid brain fog," which I'm pretty sure I had - maybe still do. New York Presbyterian Hospital's website describes it as "headache, fatigue, and dizziness, and clinicians across the country similarly report patients who complain of these symptoms along with memory loss, confusion, and difficulty focusing." In the beginning I had the first three, but after my temperature broke had complaints about the last three, which I have italicized. Sometimes, for example, I'd say to myself, okay, let me start writing that letter . . . or let me call John. But, then, half an hour later or longer, I'd realize I hadn't done it - even started. This might go on all day. Now, those who know me well might say, that pretty much just sounds like you - but I assure you it was worse than usual. I tried but couldn't get word one down on a post. I think I'm over it. We will see as this writing goes on.

The big segue: Just to use it as a very available, if initially unintended, segue, I was sick, but nowhere near as sick as our country. What is wrong with us? Most people I know who I consider moderates or moderate conservatives worry about it every day. It's not like it was back when I was disappointed when the country elected Obama, an inexperienced and obviously far left president (although, he was moderate compared to the left now), though I expected he would do, and think he did, an awful job. But, now, I think we face an existential threat - perhaps not one that we won't survive (but I wouldn't swear to it), but will survive in a diminished state, much like the elves that remained in Middle Earth after the age of man began. Too literary? Okay, I'm reaching then, but I'm quite serious about our plight. I don't watch the news, or any tv, anymore, but I do see news feeds on my laptop (I just found out how to it off) and read articles during the day, many of which I learn about through friends sending me links, usually with comments like "WTF?" or "This is insane?" And, I know I am diligent in looking at both sides of an issue (which does not mean they are always both legitimate in my mind) and in reading documents myself. It's the only advantage I have over many other people, and, it is also why I don't put stock in many people's opinions. Many opinions are often (obviously, not everyone) those people hear on CNN, MSNBC, the NYTimes, etc. I consider these companies not only extremely dishonest, but anti-American, racist, supportive of fascists like Antifa and BLM, groups which seek to force their views on others by force or violence based on their racist beliefs, if not fascist themselves.

The Cold War and Zombies: And it is happening as fast as the radicals can make it happen. A few months ago I quoted here from a book I was reading on the cold-war, as it seemed to me that the same tactics the communist USSR would apply to Eastern European countries, rapid fire - attack relentlessly, were techniques being applied in our country here and now. And, it seems to me most of the conservatives in congress barely fight back. I realize they are not in the majority now, but only a few of them call out the left for what it is doing. Thank God (said the atheist) for Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley, even Marjorie Taylor Greene (despite that she admits to believing the QAnon conspiracy theories a few years back) and some others. Worse, it seems more than half the country, zombified by the media they rely on, no matter how smart some of them are, have no idea it is going on or think this is all normal and fine, just the usual change when a new administration comes in from another party.

The D assault on pretty much everything you care about: And, maybe though I don't hate with a passion those Republican Senators and congresspersons who voted against Trump on impeachment - it definitely lessened my respect for their intelligence and worthiness, as, not only is there zero evidence he could have known what some of the trespassers were planning - apparently for weeks before his speech, but he also urged them to be peaceful. Not to leave aside, of course, the fact that he was no longer president and this was just one more ridiculous attack by the Ds to use in their attempt to take over the government. But, even if in some twisted way those Republicans believed he caused or incited the riot (which, by the way, was unarmed despite being called armed, and not much of an insurrection. Not even Brian Sickwick, it appears, was killed by the rioters (not surprisingly, our FBI refuses to say he why he died in their opinion; my guess because it doesn't fit the narrative) - but one trespasser, Ashli Babbitt, was murdered in cold blood on video - but, I will be surprised if charges brought). But, by supporting the insane D attack, it gave cover to that party as if what they have been doing for over four years was somehow justified. I'm talking about the non-stop assault on our culture (cancel everything, including free speech), the attempt to destroy democratic institutions (the border, the electoral college, the Supreme Court - and, of course, capitalism), not to mention Trump - almost justifies their endless attempt to impeach him for anything they could think of, the gross embarrassment of the Kavanaugh hearing which still sickens me, the attempt to keep Trump from having a cabinet by means fair or foul, and so on) and the twisting and attack on virtually everything he said or did. 

Though I have never been what you might call a Trump supporter - I did not want him to run and have said for ten years he would bring down the R party - I do think he did a great job, much of which will be undone now in a frenzy of orders by Biden, and he did it while fighting off the most aggressive political assault on a U.S. president since Lincoln was shot in the head. 

Dr. Seuss? Pepe Le Pew? Seriously?: My main point today is not to list for you the almost endless daily craziness - true absurdities, but I can't seem to help myself. It's so crazy you just want to scream - just to go back a few days: Dr. Seuss's estate taking I believe six books off the market in a cancel culture suicide, because they supposedly had racist portrayals (and the WH taking him off their reading proclamation for kids, E-Bay and Chicago libraries, and I'm sure others, joining in the cancellation); Pepe Le Pew is being excised from the movie Space Jam because - get this, he comes on to females - because, I guess they think it helps women to pretend it does not happen - as if Pepe Le Pew is highly regarded for his character; Coca-Cola, which I might never drink again, actually issuing a racist statement against whites; the attempt to impeach NY's governor Cuomo or force him to resign - not because he covered up the death of thousands of people in nursing homes (the excuse - Trump would have used it politically if they admitted it) but because he's bad at flirting - you know, the usual over-the-top excesses of metoo that took that movement from one about women not having to put up with actual sexual assaults or harassment into a "bonfire of the vanities" type war of the sexes attacking men for having testosterone or just wanting to sleep with women. Not that Cuomo, a bully and sometimes demogogue, doesn't deserve it for backing the astonishing notion that if a man and woman sleep with one another in college - it's presumed rape by the man unless he can prove consent - the opposite of innocence until proven guilty. 

I thought I was done, but I have more in me - California's bill to force toy stores to have a gender-neutral toy section, whatever that even means; a renowned Dutch translator having to give up an assignment because she's not black like the author (is there anything more racist in the modern age than what some call "justice" in this day and age?); Amazon, a racist and I think fascist organization none of us can escape without getting off the internet, banning books for undefined "hate speech" - what amounts to digital book-burning; an idiot singer claiming that gender-reveal parties are transphobic (I guess because we are supposed to pretend that 99.x% of babies are not either clearly male or female);,, an idiot actor, whose talents I admired, demanding that criminal charges against BLM rioters be dropped, and; just to round it out yes - pretty much everything that AOC says, not least her wanting to archive the names and addresses of Trump supporters somewhere (I'm guessing so she can fill a dream of filling re-education camps), her assaults on American business and hatred of the same freedom of speech that allows her to spew (I normally avoid "spew" and "ilk," but she deserves it) what I think is actual hate speech and general craziness. 

The difference between right wing and left wing craziness: You can say those are anecdotal and also that there certainly are right wing equivalents. True. But, here's the difference - the crazies on the extreme right are pariahs to the right - nobody likes the Klan!!!!!. But the craziness on the left is the new norm for so many Ds, and those who don't agree with the excesses - don't condemn it or run from it either. I have to add, many moderates and some Rs too now fall into that fold. 

I'm not even considering here the craziness in the Biden WH that is so determined to show us that he is not Trump that he will risk our borders (if you want to believe we don't have a new crisis there - which Trump had previously solved - go ahead), our moral obligation to Taiwan, it seems Israel (never mind the obvious brewing of anti-Semitism of a large portion of the left - still no one Jewish voter can tell me how they justifying voting for a party of which 70%! of their congressional representatives voted against including anti-Semitism as prohibited discrimination). Can anyone even tell me how the Ds want to impeach Cuomo for unwanted flirting (if that), but won't stand the mention of the fact that Biden likely - literally - digitally violated Tara Reade (which I only believe because I've seen the many videos of him groping women and children). But, if I go down the Biden road, it will be a longer day here than I intended. Another day.

Wherefrom this sickness?: Now that I got some of that off my chest, my real question is this - where did this sickness come from? The sickness that believes that cops are shooting unarmed blacks, when the statistics show it is extraordinarily rare, the sickness that wants us to divide our country by reparations, which is, as Larry Elder puts it: “. . . the extraction of money from people who were never slave owners to be given to people who were never slaves,” the sickness that wants to do away with two sexes and allow trans-men to take over women's athletics, the sickness which has turned "I disagree with you" into "hate speech," the sickness that has modern day fascists blocking speech, trying to institutionalize one-party power, corrupting our young (teaching young whites that their white skin makes them evil or privileged and young blacks that they are victims and can only succeed by being given advantages), the sickness that has knuckleheads claiming that (sorry, I'm still a little traumatized by this one and repeat it often) Baby, it's cold outside is about date rape, the sickness that leads some to believe that socialism, which has been rejected by the world except for a few places that are economic/political disasters like Venezuela, Cuba, N. Korea, China (yes, a behemoth, but their per capita GDP is a little more than 1/6th our own) and so on. What is going on and what caused it?

Relax, I'm long-winded, but I have an answer: Well, sort of an answer. I think it is largely a combination of many factors, none of which will be thought well of by a lot of people. 

First, young people are ignorant and they are the heart of the cancel/woke culture. If you want, we could say "stupid," though I'm sure that would freak people out. You know, how dare you  call children stupid?  They aren't  inherently ignorant, but by lack of experience. The real stupidity is the adults who want to let them lead. I'm not picking on them. I was a stupid kid too. I believed all the crazy stuff my family told me about politics. It was only after a lot of studying, literally dozens of books, and watching C-Span for years to see the sausage being made in congress, that I feel that I was reasonably educated enough to vote - something I'd already done in my ignorance numerous times. Certainly I was not qualified to vote by any rational measure when I was allowed to at age 18. If you told me tomorrow, that the Constitution was being amended so that only those 30 years and older could vote, I'd get it. Because most people will not study, and are hopelessly girded to their partisanship they imbibed early on. Though there are many people over 45 I disagree with heartily whatever their education or experience, there is no way people who do not study, who just listen to cable news or perhaps their office mates or parents, can have the experience necessary to say, maybe my Dad wasn't right. 

But, little kids - which is what teenagers, even 18 years olds are, even to some degree many kids in their 20s and 30s - to suggest they should instruct us, have a say in what we do - that's plain nuts. There is an argument that if they are old enough to get drafted, they are old enough to vote (and drink), and there's a point there. But, we have a voluntary military now, one which will become increasingly fought by technology, AI and machines, so it is not much of an argument. Yet an idiot like Sen. Warren, who, in my opinion, is also vicious in a way I cannot like personally, the way I did, Barack Obama or Marianne Williamson, both of whom I also disagreed with, wants teenagers to decide our gun policy, wants some yet to be named trans-child to approve who her Secretary of Education would be. Is she nuts? Yes. of course she's nuts. I hate that Biden won, but definitely better him than her.

Second, while we slept, the far left took over education, big tech and entertainment. The virtually open anti-white racism and even fascism of companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and others helped win the election for Biden, partly by blocking conservative argument. They have triple, quadrupled down on it, simply going along canceling conservatives books, videos, and so forth. Someone uttering a conservative view probably wouldn't last one day teaching in schools in many areas, probably more metropolitan ones, but even many suburban ones. The school's aberrant racism favoring blacks kids, which is not just harmful to white, but to black children, who are essentially being told they can't make it on their own. These morons running schools who dictate that math should be taught as a sub-topic of social justice, or that learning about white privilege is more important than education in general - are destroying a generation of young, impressionable kids, including, perhaps especially blacks. If you fail, it's because whitey hates you. That is literally the administrations take in some lefty areas. 

The entertainment industry is lost, and though they have clearly not yet felt the titanic effects of my one man boycott, are fascist supporters (in some cases fascists) never the less. I used to not hate, up to a few years ago, but, the "dark-side of the force" type hatred of the left and the almost insane hatred of Trump that affects even many otherwise normal and intelligent people, has convinced me - when faced with such hatred, we must fight fire with fire. I hope we don't all lose common decency, as so many already have.

I'm not going boogaloo on you - I detest violence except for self-defense. But, in some areas in America, normal government has given away to the fascism. The arrest of Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of it, as he was clearly defending himself against race-baiting fascists. Compare the quickness with which Rittenhouse, and the zealousness of the prosecution in trying to put him in jail, with the slowness to prosecute the murderer (again, on video) of Ashli Babbit. I think of that murderous mob trying to kill Rittenhouse - some armed with guns, and I lament how much of our youth seems lost to the proselytization (Hitler: "Whoever has the youth has the future"). Big tech, which we have foolishly (me too) let control our speech, has made itself not just obnoxious, but capable of taking away our freedoms in way we couldn't even imagine a few years ago. I didn't approve of the unarmed, mostly peaceful, democratic love fest in the capital (if you don't know, I'm making fun of the Democratic former mayor of Seattle, when young fascists took over several city blocks, before it all went to hell) at the Capitol building. But, I get their frustration at the lack of parity. Frankly, many of them seem like idiots who just wanted to get arrested or pose for pictures, not realizing they would be treated completely differently and much worse (because Biden is wrong about most everything) than BLM and Antifa. But, they see our country being lost and themselves frozen out. It is hard to answer the question of when do we fight back? I don't have an answer. But do you have to wait until its too late (or just on the nub of it)? That is normally the American way. Late to WWI. Late to WWII. Etc.

Third, in America today, almost everyone is Private Benjamin.  For those of you too young to remember or have seen the film Private Benjamin, Goldie Hawn played a young woman who, disappointed in life after her husband of a few hours dies, joined the army, only to find it was not what she had in mind. In response to another soldier calling her by her last name, military fashion, she makes a classic speech ruing having joined up which ends with: "I wanna wear my sandals... I wanna go out to lunch. I wanna be normal again!"

This is us. We want to putter around, play on the internet, watch sports, go to work, raise our kids, and generally not fight in the streets. I don't know about you but I was raised a pacifist and have not changed much. But, not that I'm praising bullying, macho-ness or psycho-aggressiveness, whether we like it or not, Teddy Roosevelt was right: “If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life, then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations in the years of their decay.” 

I could do a whole post on Teddy's wisdom. Though yes, he was certainly a racist by today's terms - he was certainly not a virulent one and was far less so than most of the rest of the nation and one of the most stalwart supporters of justice for blacks in an age when they were not privileged, as now. Here's another of his quotes: “The worst lesson that can be taught a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings.” That's us. 

 

We are who we are, a nation of whiners and enablers. Instead of celebrating those who want us to be stronger just to the point of resisting the bullies, the psychos, the criminal - we tend to throw them in jail or fire them, particularly if they are the wrong color (i.e., white) and don't follow the narrative. It has become dangerous - because even the Roman Empire became soft and was prey to virile, energetic and aggressive Vandals, an apt metaphor for the vandals who think it is nothing to burn and loot cities today.

I can't tell you how many people have told me in essence, sometimes directly, that they would prefer to live in a fascist state than to have to give up television than defeat fascism. Our lethargy (mine too) is an addictive drug we may need to go cold turkey on. Blackmailers, Bolshies and Revolutionaries don't stop when you think you've paid for your appeasement.

Maybe capitalism has been too successful. Because people, and even many of the poor, have it so good now - smart phones, televisions, cars, paved roads, running water, heat, medicine, schools (which is also day care) and so on, that we live better than kings 100 years ago, and are content to let the world fall apart so long as no one rings our doorbell. Most people aren't capable and don't want to contend with the angry, energized mobs of young people who will beat them up, destroy their property or ruin their dinner. It has ever been so that a few energized people, if well organized and motivated, can change the world. The defund the cops movement is a perfect example. Who wants it? Only gangs that seek to brutalize or rob others. The radicals want it because then no one is protecting people from them and they can get their version of justice (which, of course, means justice by virtue of skin color)? Yet, a survey during the height of the BLM riots last year showed over 80% of blacks wanted the same or more police - they don't like the radicals either.  

Right now, the socialist wing of the D party is energized, and though not every D is a socialist, most are now not so concerned about it or refuse to acknowledge how many of their party, particularly the youth, want it. Maybe they forget what their president said (I mean Barack Obama, the worship of whom, I will never understand, as it seems to me he hurt the country in almost every way - but he was black, and that is what mattered to many people): "It is important to remember that capitalism has been the greatest driver of prosperity and opportunity the world has ever seen." Well, pretty hard to rationally deny it. Not that he would probably say that again now and make himself irrelevant to his own followers. Of course, for every good thing Obama said, he usually hedged and said something pretty much the opposite. But, he also said - in 2016 - 3 years after BLM was founded:

"If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be–what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you’d be born into–you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in America, you would choose right now."

I doubt he'll be saying that these days either. 

Fourth, we are ruining our children. It started happening a long time ago, before I was born. Not that I don't think not beating your kids is a good idea, or that many parents aren't (still) too abusive to kids. But, we have turned them into fragile little flowers who are too easily offended, who get too much, who we think are too young to learn to share or to behave, and can't do any hard work. I'm going to refer you to a racist/fascist website - Youtube (that I constantly use because there is no real competitor - I tried), owned by the company whose platform this blog is written on, Google, another racist/fascist company (who I'm sure would cancel me if they ever realize what I write here) to refer you to one of the greatest stand up comedians of my generation  - George Carlin. He specified the problem much better and funnier than I can in - (57) George Carlin Fuck The Children - YouTube (and no, it is not sexual or perverse). It's one of the best routines I ever saw. Take a few minutes and listen.

But, it's gotten  much worse since Carlin recorded that. What have we done to our kids now? Parents (and teachers) are teaching little children that if they are "minorities" (who, of course, actually are the privileged now) that they are victims and can only succeed by demanding advantages or subscribing to myths, or by fiercely and violently protesting, and if they are white kids that they are privileged (even if poor) and racist, and will only succeed by their "whiteness." I expect Martin Luther King, Jr. is looking down from heaven saying - "What the . . . ?  Because they have taken his teachings, encased them in concrete, and tossed them overboard. They've taken the righteous Montgomery bus boycott, organized because blacks were literally not allowed to sit up front in busses - and turned it into boycotting My Pillow and Goya Beans because the owners support Trump. They've taken the great courage shown at Selma by refusing to react to mob violence - and turned it into violent, even murderous rampages that would explode King's head to see. They've taken "We Shall Overcome" - and turned it into "We shall burn your house down if you don't do what I want." They taken the righteousness of being actual victims once subject to all of the horrors of slavery, lynching and Jim Crow, and turned it into the false victim narrative of Adolf Hitler, that the Czechs and Poles were killing Germans and must be invaded. They've taken the notion of mostly peaceful - and turned it into a synonym for violence. 

I'm not bragging about how I was raised myself. No, Sirree. I was pampered like the rest, not pressured to do or accomplish much with almost no responsibilities. My siblings and I like to joke that we were raised by wolves. But, it has gotten much worse these days. Every parent should be teaching their kids that "sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can never hurt me," instead of the way to get ahead is to be offended or afraid. 

Fifth, diversity is not our strength. Back on August 29, 2016, I posted on my thoughts on women in the 21st century and argued this - some people believe that -

"When an identifiable group has been historically oppressed, it is "just" to give them an advantage or to practice reverse discrimination, even at the risk of damage to people who do not share their superficial quality and even to themselves."

I haven't changed my mind on this. In fact, the last few years have solidified it in my mind. Of course, by no means do I mean all women or any historically oppressed group feel this way, but these practices are a basis for promoting identity politics or social justice. Clearly, for me at least, that is no help in ending discrimination at all (which I think since the '70s, we had moved towards with great strides, and people still maintain, despite the assaults on civil life), but furthers it, just with a different top and bottom.  

Frequently, we hear how wonderful Denmark or other Scandinavian countries are, or are confronted with lists of the happiest countries (based on various statistics which may or may not relate to actual happiness). Finland is on top these days. I note that according to Indexmundi, a respected gatherer of demographics, that country is 69.8% Lutheran, with no other stated religion being more than 2% of the population. As of 2018, migrants made up 0.26% of the country. Switzerland is next after Denmark on the happiness scale - it's ethnicity is nearly Swiss 69.5%, German 4.2%, Italian 3.2%, Portuguese 2.6%, French 2%, Kosovo 1.1%, other 17.3%, unspecified .1%. In other words, also very homogenized. There is only one religious specified religion with over 5% of the population and that is Muslim, followed by only 0.3 percent Jewish. Although Islam is still small there, the influx is fairly recent, and, in 2018, a wopping 40% of Swiss stated they mistrusted Islam or Muslims, about triple what it had been only 2 years earlier, and in 2017 Switzerland passed a new law to limit immigration. You can go down the list yourself. You can look at the rest of the top ten yourself, but they are relatively homogenous countries. You can argue that the homogeneity is not the reason, but it seems like the burden might be on you to show that. You might not like this, you might even thinks it is racist or unfair. Okay. But, still, diversity does not seem to be a great strength, at least in some ways. Given our history, and what is going on now, it does not seem so at all. It is neither racist nor wrong to suggest so.

And, so long as teachers and parents are teaching kids that what matters is not merit, character, hard work or (more luck than anything), it is not going away either. It is a problem we almost solved, which socialists and activists are exploiting, and our biggest challenge. 

Listen up, now. This is my big finish. 

If you think this post is about discrimination against blacks or women or any group, you just have no idea what you are saying. My position is always anti-racist (not the popularized kind which is actually racist, but actual anti-racist). I wholeheartedly believe that the worst thing you can do to children is indoctrinate them in this skin color only mentality.  Though I don't know the numbers, it at least seems to me that more whites support the radical nonsense than blacks, as it is largely populated by socialists.  Any time I have seen videos of the riots, it sure seemed like it was often more white kids than blacks, although there are still considerably more whites than blacks in whole in the country (not necessarily in urban areas where most riots occur). However, according to Pew, almost twice as many blacks as whites have at least a somewhat positive view of socialism (35%/65%) and Hispanics more than half. I presume most blacks, like most people, just want to go to work, school, watch tv and eat ice cream than agitate, protest or fight. My problem is not with any ethnic group, but racist groups like BLM, Antifa (fascists whose disguise as anti-fascists is more transparent than Superman putting on glasses to become Clark Kent), and other radical groups. They must be de-popularized, defunded (they are the richest gangs in America, it seems) defeated. I'd hope they could be defeated at the ballot box and there not be violence. I cannot say I am optimistic.