All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Anglers have a way of romanticizing their battles with fish and of forgetting that the fish has a hook in his mouth, his gullet, or his belly and that his gameness is really an extreme of panic in which he runs, leaps, and pulls to get away until he dies. It would seem to be enough advantage to the angler that the fish has the hook in his mouth rather than the angler.
Ernest Hemingway
The author’s thesis is that Putin losing the Ukraine war is probably the least likely alternative. I thought it was a pretty good analysis of the likelihood of the various outcomes in the Ukraine War.
I think those in the West misunderstand the dynamic at work. NATO has an agenda. When that agenda threatens Russia too much it acts to push it back. and now they’ve gone beyond a red line and may have permanently antagonized Vladimir Putin. And that is a bad outcome for the West. It is no longer a monopole world. Russia, China, India and other states are starting to realize there is life outside of the West. That is a very big deal.
I can almost hear Simon and Garfunkel crooning, “Where have you gone Fran Fukuyama, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo, woo, woo. What’s that you say Mrs. Robinson, Feckless Fran has left and gone away, hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey.
So, history ended with the fall of the Soviet Union. Liberal Democracy was a global panacea where everyone would have all the stuff they wanted and nobody had to work and transgender soldiers wearing miniskirts and go-go boots would keep us safe from the Neanderthals until such time as we had them rounded up into reeducation camps. Someone neglected to send the memo to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
I’m actually glad that the fantasy bubble has been popped. I despise the boring stupid world of the future where Jean Luc Picard sits in the captain’s chair and endlessly drones on to his boring associates on how his warp engine powered mobile UN will make the galaxy safe for gender equality NGO’s.
Vladimir Putin has provided the wake-up call. Realpolitik is real. Hard power is the only power. Everything else is sleight of hand. As soon as the rest of the world saw the debacle in Afghanistan play out in real time, they knew that US military power has been dissipated. Woke trannies call the shots at the Pentagon and other than the nuclear arsenal the United States is a paper tiger.
China will assert itself. Its neighbors will recalibrate their own positions based on the weakness the United States has demonstrated. Our military and economic clout have both been brought into question. And without that aura protecting our interests, things will change. That’s just harsh reality. And Europe is also in a bad spot. They depended on America’s prestige and example to lead the way. If Vladimir Putin has his way in the Ukraine, then maybe Russia becomes the strong horse in Eastern Europe. If nothing else, they provide the gas and oil that allows the Europeans to pretend to be green. After all, when you eliminate your nuclear power plants and many days the wind and sun aren’t around it’s Russian natural gas that keeps the Germans and other Europeans from freezing in the dark. It won’t be long before Russia starts using petroleum as a bargaining chip when its neighbors annoy it. I expect to see Europe changing its tune.
All of these changes aren’t some end-of-times catastrophe. All they reflect is the intentional self-crippling actions of the American Left. Our military can be the strongest in the world. We have the capability of rebuilding our industrial infrastructure at any time. We have the resources to make this the premiere country on the planet again. But what is required is for the American people to undeniably reject the world view of the Left that Western civilization is somehow something to be ashamed of. The Left which is mostly the young have to wake up and see that the rainbow fantasy version of human life is just that, a delusion. Power is real, the old values represent the formula for existing in the real world and all the feel-good blather about female and trans-whatever warriors might as well be comic book nonsense when actual men show up on the battlefield with actual guns.
The owner of DuckDuckGo informed the world that he down ranks sites that don’t say what he likes about Russia. Upon hearing this Larry Sanger, the founder of Wikipedia and a self described conservatarian decide to see if he could find any alternatives that provided unbiased search results.
He looked at Brave and Quant and a few others and describes what he learned and why he thinks he didn’t find any that were both unbiased and competent. Interesting.
I use Brave as my browser and DuckDuckGo as my search engine. If DuckDuckGo is biased it’s still better than Google because it doesn’t track my every keystroke and sell the tracking to Amazon and Pepsi Cola.
But I do confess I would love to have an honest search engine. As Sanger discusses, a useful search engine would be one that you could program yourself. It would be easy to provide the user with sliders for ideology, nationalities, source size and ratings.
Until then, I do what I can with what I’ve got.
Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.
Ernest Hemingway
This morning Camera Girl and I are headed out to the car show. As her name implies Camera Girl will serve as my native bearer, a sort of female photographic Sherpa carrying my gear and also acting as a body guard, ready to throw herself at any danger giving me the chance to flee for my life. She feels it is her duty and a great honor. Look I don’t make the rules I just follow them!
For that reason there will be a lull in my responses. But I shall return!
I was talking to some old friends today. Mostly we were discussing a get-together at the end of April. But one of us mentioned watching a clip of Kamala Harris at a press conference in Poland. I replied that I had seen it and my reaction was that she’s a blithering idiot. He disagreed. He was sure that some kind of tragic neurological accident must have recently rendered her unable to speak coherent English. I countered that the event wasn’t recent, it was her birth. I speculated that she might be one of those rare cases where the attending obstetrician drops the newborn on her head. That seemed the least unlikely explanation. After all, if the event happened right at the beginning of her tenure on Earth, then no one would notice any decrease in intelligence.
We left that speculation and talked about the prospects for reform of our present disastrous status quo. We all agreed that the Republicans would regain control of both houses of Congress. But I asked what good would that change do for us? The Idiot in Chief would still be in office for two more years and the damage already done to the economy and every other facet of life in these United States would continue to afflict us.
My friends were of the opinion that the push back that we’re seeing in places like Florida and Texas over puberty blockers for young children and CRT in the classroom and men competing in women’s sports showed that the pendulum was swinging in our direction decisively. And further they were excited by the news that Latino voters were trending Republican and that Hispanic women were running for office as Republicans in Texas. To my friends all of these things were undeniable proof that we were “winning.”
I told them that I had seen this script play out before. I reminded them that Ronald Reagan was followed by George Bush and Bill Clinton. I reminded them that some of the worst cultural damage was done under Republican presidencies. And some of the worst Supreme Court decisions were made by Republican appointees. My point was that I did not doubt that America would respond to the awful policies and actions of federal and local Democratic leaders by voting for Republicans to replace them. My doubt was that the Republicans would use the opportunity to change things for the better. This was answered with rueful agreement.
Then we talked about who should be the 2024 Republican presidential candidate. Both of these guys were convinced that Donald Trump should not be the candidate. They wanted Ron DeSantis and added that a Latina should be the Veep candidate. I said I liked DeSantis but that unless Trump declined to run DeSantis would not be able to claim the mantle. This was greeted with silence.
These friends of mine are a good stand-in for the mainstream of the party. They are conservatives but they worry that Trump is too divisive. They want someone who attracts groups like suburban women. I think they’re wrong. Trump attracts the right people. He received more votes in 2020 than any Republican candidate before him. He will get enough votes as long as the count is honest. I think the ticket should be Trump/DeSantis. I think DeSantis will bring the political managerial savvy and Trump will bring his instincts.
The conversation I had today reinforced in me what I imagined mainstream conservative opinions run to. There is optimism that a rejection at the ballot box is coming in November. This optimism seems overblown and doesn’t question whether the Republicans will blow the opportunity to roll back some of the damage to the culture and laws. Also, I see the white-collar Republicans continue to misunderstand Donald Trump’s appeal to the non-elitist components of the United States population. What this tells me is that a lot more education will still have to happen before we’re past believing in the GOP establishment. But it was, on the whole, a reasonably lucid discussion. No one mentioned Marco Rubio or Nikki Haley. No one freaked out about the Supreme Court ruling in favor of abortion restrictions. People are waking up.
You make your own luck, Gig. You know what makes a good loser? Practice.
Ernest Hemingway
Warning: This is Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly Week on OCF.
