Month: March 2018

The Allegory of the Sinking Ship

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I had a good friend who died a few years ago.  He was about ten years older than I was and had served in the Green Berets during Vietnam, was a chemist, became an engineer as a second career, raised a family, was a musician and late in life took up sailing.  He was also universally acclaimed an honest, hard-working, friendly and just Christian man.  He kept me around, I think, as a mascot and probably, by comparison, as a cautionary tale for the young.  One day after he retired he called me up and asked me if I wanting to go sailing with him on Narragansett Bay.  He was in remission from cancer and I hadn’t seen him in a while so I said sure.  After all I was in relatively good health and younger than him so I figured I’d go along and enjoy a peaceful and restful morning sail.  Well, by the time we came back I was sun-burned, wind-burned, and aching in bones and muscles I had never known I had.  Suffice it to say my knowledge of boats can be written in billboard sized letters on the narrower face of a grain of rice.  I did learn that starboard probably means right.  So, there’s that.

Now this is what we call foundation material for a call back later.  So, hold on to the nautical theme.

There exists a range of opinions of how things will unfold in the future.  The Alt-Right has claimed that the hypocrisy about race that prevails today precludes the possibility of honest relations in a multicultural society.  But they go well beyond that idea.  Their claim is that different ethnic and racial groups cannot coexist in harmony.  They contend that the open immigration of the last fifty years has drowned out the former nation that existed in America before and that the new population shall produce a third world society closer to Brazil or South Africa than to the former United States with respect to culture, stability, prosperity and quality of life.  Their draconian solution is partition of the country.  The Establishment Republicans on the other hand, contend that all that’s needed to restore America is a good illegal alien amnesty bill and some inspired After School Specials.

Over the course of the last few years I have concluded that the Establishment Republicans are worse than useless.  They have ignored or abetted in the steadily increasing damage done to the native population by off-shoring of whole industries along with wholesale destruction of jobs through competition from illegal aliens.  In addition, they ignore the ceaseless and ever worsening assaults on the foundational institutions of a healthy society by the Leftists.  In fact, they continuously adopt the latest assault as if it were a cornerstone of traditional society.  You only have to watch the NeverTrumpers embrace gay marriage or transgender identity rights to see how far they’ve travelled down the road to nihilism.

At the same time, although I readily concede that the Alt-Right was correct about many critical issues,  I don’t concede that it is impossible for significantly different groups of people to coexist in a society that follows the founding precepts of the United States of America.  While I grant that it will differ from the nation existing at the Founding and even the country that existed fifty years ago I have not surrendered all hope that it could maintain the traditions and institutions that have existed here.  And as a practical matter I even think I can outline a program that will answer the most pressing issues afflicting the American people while allowing a fair test as to whether something short of apartheid will preserve the character of the country as it was two generation ago.  This is my olive branch, such as it is, to the Alt-Right.  Having been right about so many things that everyone else got wrong, I feel they deserve it.  Here is my modest proposal.

And so, I unveil the Allegory of the Sinking Ship.  Plato eat your heart out.  See how I came back to the sailing theme?

Let’s compare our present situation to an ocean-going ship striking a reef.  What are the steps needed to save the ship?  Let’s enumerate them.

Step One – Plug the hole.

Step Two – Pump out the water.

Step Three – Repair the damage.

Step Four – Review cause of crash and take measures to prevent recurrence.

Now let’s identify the analogous steps to save our “Ship of State.”

  • Plug the Hole. – In our case that would be shutting down replacement immigration. And that means reducing legal immigration to just about zero.
  • Pump Out the Water. – That equates to deporting the illegal immigrants that are here or that continue to “leak through.” This also includes legal immigrants and naturalized Americans who break immigration law or otherwise show themselves to be criminals.
  • Repair the Damage. – In our situation this means restoring the life of the country to what it was like fifty years ago.
  • Prevent Recurrence. – In our case that means figuring out how we got into this mess and changing the Constitution to prevent a repeat of this existential threat.

The first two steps are self-explanatory and for the most part only require normal executive and legislative actions to proceed.  President Trump has taken the first baby steps toward these actions.  Much more is needed but part of that process is his moving of the Overton Window on what can and what needs to be done on illegal immigration.  Hopefully some gains in the midterms and possible improvement of the conservative leaning of the Supreme Court will accelerate the actions being taken by the President and Congress.

The third step is an enormous task.  So much needs to be repaired that it’s hard to believe it wouldn’t be easier to start from scratch.  But I’ll throw some things out here for consideration.  One of the requirements is the re-establishment of the freedom of association.  Basically, the government has to get out of the business of telling people who they associate with.  And that means eliminating affirmative action and all of the protected groups that have been created.  This is an enormous change.  And basically, it will decriminalize being a straight white man.  It is the cornerstone of getting back to a functional America.  Another requirement is reducing the overreach of the federal government and stifle its impulse to redistribute wealth.  And finally, we must restore Constitutional authority.  This means the Supreme Court is going to have to strike down all the unconstitutional over-reach that has occurred in the last fifty years (and in some cases more).  This overlaps the first requirement because a number of the anti-free association rules were court mandated.  But there are many more that impinge on the rights of the various states to follow the will of the people in their states.

The fourth step is completely unknown territory.  How do you protect the United States from nihilists?  Perhaps a number of Constitutional Amendments can be put in place to protect us from the Marxist ploys we’ve run up against but it seems that you can’t legislate common sense.  This step will require a lot of thought.

So that’s the outline.  And throwing in one last analogy to the sinking ship is my point about it being a way to test the possibility of restoring the country.  If at any point along these steps the ship starts to sink you can always resort to life boats and escape.  In our situation that equates to the situation where we fail to stop illegal immigration and the Democrats achieve a permanent majority and immediately institute the full Marxist program including functional elimination of the First and Second Amendments.  At that point it will be obvious that I was wrong and the Alt-Right civil war can commence.  See, no fuss no muss.  My plan is just an interim step if you’re convinced of Armageddon.

The way I see it, following a plan like mine is no worse than waiting for the apocalypse and depending on outcome could be a whole lot better.  Now as I alluded to earlier, my maritime knowledge is less than comprehensive but anyone who has dealt with a busted pipe knows that the first order of business is shutting off the supply.  After that comes the cleanup.  But we need to start at the beginning.

 

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3MAR2018 – Quote of the Day

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(Let’s continue the Herodotus theme.  In my history class in fifth grade we learnt that Vasco da Gama was the first man to circumnavigate Africa.  But apparently the Phoenicians were contracted by the Egyptians to prove that there was a sea route around Africa (or as the Greeks called it Libya).  And this was over 2,500 years ago.  It’s also interesting to see what mistaken views Herodotus had about the comparative sizes of Asia, Africa and Europe.)

 

Herodotus, The Histories. 4.42

I wonder, then, at those who have mapped out and divided the world into Libya, Asia, and Europe; for the difference between them is great, seeing that in length Europe stretches along both the others together, and it appears to me to be wider beyond all comparison. [2] For Libya shows clearly that it is bounded by the sea, except where it borders on Asia. Necos king of Egypt first discovered this and made it known. When he had finished digging the canal which leads from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he sent Phoenicians in ships, instructing them to sail on their return voyage past the Pillars of Heracles until they came into the northern sea and so to Egypt. [3] So the Phoenicians set out from the Red Sea and sailed the southern sea; whenever autumn came they would put in and plant the land in whatever part of Libya they had reached, and there await the harvest; [4] then, having gathered the crop, they sailed on, so that after two years had passed, it was in the third that they rounded the pillars of Heracles and came to Egypt. There they said (what some may believe, though I do not) that in sailing around Libya they had the sun on their right hand.22 43.

 

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The Promethean – A Science Fiction Book Review

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I previously read Owen Stanley’s novel “The Missionaries.”  That was a satire about primitive people running up against the insanity of United Nations social engineering.  Because I enjoyed his writing I figured I’d give “The Promethean” a whirl.  This book takes place in the same world as “The Missionaries” but since the subject involves humanoid robots and human-level artificial intelligence I’ve slightly stretched the definition by including it in science fiction.  But it also could be called a social satire or a social comedy.

The title is an echo of the full title of Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus.”  In our case Dr. Frankenstein is represented by Harry Hockenheimer, a depressed American billionaire approaching forty and feeling like a failure.  The mundane source of his vast wealth left him scientifically unfulfilled.  He desired to create a scientific marvel and what he decides on is a robot so advanced in mind and body that it can fool all even the most intelligent audience.

The story proceeds from his plan to secretly build his man in England to the adventures of his creation, Frank Meadows interacting with modern British society in its various facets, from a small town pub, to appearing on a day time reality television show, to a University faculty dinner, and finally to an invitation at 10 Downing Street.

Along the way we meet several interesting characters who represent various facets of society and various philosophical bents including the scourge of our age, the Social Justice Warriors.  But from my point of view, the most interesting character is a Scotsman academic, Dr. Habakkuk McWrath, Reader in Extreme Celtic Studies.  His pugnacious and colorful speech inspires Frank to assert his humanity even in the face of the Three Laws of Robotics.

And the book concludes at its absurd climax.  And what is the lesson of this social satire?  I really don’t know.  Perhaps it is just that humanity has reached a point where a rational appraisal of modern life can no longer find a reason to continue.  The absurdity of what we do and why we do it has finally reached a point where scrapping the whole enterprise and starting over is the best way forward.  But that is just my guess.  Let’s just say it is a tale questioning the definition of intelligent life.  It’s a moderate length story, about 170 pages and moves right along.  I liked it but I will caution that it is a mild tale and cannot be mistaken for an adventure story.  More of a droll cautionary tale of the world we now inhabit.

 

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2MAR2018 – Quote of the Day

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Could the multi-milennial “War Between East and West” be based on a girl?  Here’s what Herodotus learned.  And if you don’t believe it, well what can I say.  You must hate history.

The Persian learned men say that the Phoenicians were the cause of the dispute. These (they say) came to our seas from the sea which is called Red,1 and having settled in the country which they still occupy, at once began to make long voyages. Among other places to which they carried Egyptian and Assyrian merchandise, they came to Argos, [2] which was at that time preeminent in every way among the people of what is now called Hellas. The Phoenicians came to Argos, and set out their cargo. [3] On the fifth or sixth day after their arrival, when their wares were almost all sold, many women came to the shore and among them especially the daughter of the king, whose name was Io (according to Persians and Greeks alike), the daughter of Inachus. [4] As these stood about the stern of the ship bargaining for the wares they liked, the Phoenicians incited one another to set upon them. Most of the women escaped: Io and others were seized and thrown into the ship, which then sailed away for Egypt. 2.

In this way, the Persians say (and not as the Greeks), was how Io came to Egypt, and this, according to them, was the first wrong that was done. Next, according to their story, some Greeks (they cannot say who) landed at Tyre in Phoenicia and carried off the king’s daughter Europa. These Greeks must, I suppose, have been Cretans. So far, then, the account between them was balanced. But after this (they say), it was the Greeks who were guilty of the second wrong. [2] They sailed in a long ship to Aea, a city of the Colchians, and to the river Phasis:2 and when they had done the business for which they came, they carried off the king’s daughter Medea. [3] When the Colchian king sent a herald to demand reparation for the robbery and restitution of his daughter, the Greeks replied that, as they had been refused reparation for the abduction of the Argive Io, they would not make any to the Colchians. 3.

Then (they say), in the second generation after this, Alexandrus, son of Priam, who had heard this tale, decided to get himself a wife from Hellas by capture; for he was confident that he would not suffer punishment. [2] So he carried off Helen. The Greeks first resolved to send messengers demanding that Helen be restored and atonement made for the seizure; but when this proposal was made, the Trojans pleaded the seizure of Medea, and reminded the Greeks that they asked reparation from others, yet made none themselves, nor gave up the booty when asked. 4.

So far it was a matter of mere seizure on both sides. But after this (the Persians say), the Greeks were very much to blame; for they invaded Asia before the Persians attacked Europe. [2] “We think,” they say, “that it is unjust to carry women off. But to be anxious to avenge rape is foolish: wise men take no notice of such things. For plainly the women would never have been carried away, had they not wanted it themselves. [3] We of Asia did not deign to notice the seizure of our women; but the Greeks, for the sake of a Lacedaemonian woman, recruited a great armada, came to Asia, and destroyed the power of Priam. [4] Ever since then we have regarded Greeks as our enemies.” For the Persians claim Asia for their own, and the foreign peoples that inhabit it; Europe and the Greek people they consider to be separate from them. 5.

Such is the Persian account; in their opinion, it was the taking of Troy which began their hatred of the Greeks. [2] But the Phoenicians do not tell the same story about Io as the Persians. They say that they did not carry her off to Egypt by force. She had intercourse in Argos with the captain of the ship. Then, finding herself pregnant, she was ashamed to have her parents know it, and so, lest they discover her condition, she sailed away with the Phoenicians of her own accord. [3]

 

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