Author: photog

What Do We Keep and What Let Go? – Part 1 – The Family

photog Current Events, Reclaiming the Family ,

The Left’s dominance of the culture and institutions in America has undermined many of the customs, behaviors and attitudes that we once took for granted here.  Things like patriotism, respect for the military and even loyalty to the local ball team have all been tarnished by the changes that the Left has created in these things.  If the military now takes as its mission reinforcing deviant sexual behavior and championing societies that adhere to these beliefs, why would I want to have respect for such an institution?  Or if the local baseball or football team starts kneeling during the national anthem how will that make anyone more patriotic or want to cheer for such a team?

And these are just a very few examples of the many things that have been spoiled through the agency of leftist activism.  And this damage has been done.  What remains for us to do is to decide what things we ourselves value intrinsically and want to maintain for ourselves in our culture going forward.  And which things that we formerly embraced should be abandoned either because maintaining them will be too difficult or because we’ve found that they strengthen our enemies.

I won’t pretend that I have all the answers completely thought out but I think it might be helpful to think about some of these things.

One thing that has been relentlessly attacked for the last century is the traditional family.  The “liberation” of women has done the most damage in this attack.  The dislocation caused by women working outside of the home has been the largest factor in the diminution of happiness and mental health in our society.  Specifically, the damage done to children has been the worst.  But the effects have been all-encompassing.

Other attacks on the family come from the role school has played in undermining the authority of parents and in propagating harmful doctrines on such subjects as deviant sexual behavior, critical race theory and so-called gender ideology.  Currently the whole practice of transgenderism being introduced to grade school children is a criminal enterprise that should not be tolerated.

And finally, the laws in this country with respect to marriage have also done untold damage.  Divorce laws make it easy for parents to break up their marriages when small children are depending on them for security and direction.  Also, the tax laws must change.  The state and federal governments need to make it possible for a man and woman to raise a family with the mother staying home while her children are young.

And in the same way that the government puts a brake on the cost of drugs by acting as the largest provider of medical insurance through Medicaid and Medicare they can put a brake on the costs of college tuition and other expenses.  Instead of just passing along the absurd tuitions that these colleges charge, they can cap these costs and force the colleges to compete for the government backed loans.  Most of these colleges have become havens for bloated administrative bureaucracies that add nothing to the education process but waste and leftist ideological indoctination.

But just as important as the financial help that the government needs to give to families, it must also return sovereignty to the parents over their children.  No more bureaucrats and teachers should be allowed to challenge the authority of the parents to protect their children from the dangerous influence of those who want to proselytize them on behalf of ideologies like feminism, homosexuality and various other aberrant beliefs.  One thing that would help is a school voucher system that would allow parents to avoid the problematic public schools that now infest out country and instead find a school that respects their values.

Now in all these things, the federal government has been a disaster.  It might turn out to be the case, that the only way any of these things get done is if they are relegated to state government to make them happen.  But among the things that need to be restored to our world the restoration of the conditions that allow family life to survive are fundamental.  Without healthy families our society is doomed.  So this should be the first priority when we try to restore life in this country back to normal.

Getting Rid of Dark Energy and Dark Matter

photog Current Events, Fake Science, Science , , ,

A theory has been proposed that allagedly explains the missing cosmological dark energy and dark matter by instead invoking the non-conservation of energy associated with the so-called expanision of the universe.  Some physicist in Russia named H. R. Fazlollahi has written a paper that outlines his idea on how this non-conservation would account for the missing energy.

Now, my tensor calculus is more than a little bit rusty (in point of fact, it’s extinct) so I won’t pretend to know what the details of his math show.  Instead I’ll fall back on my contempt for scientists that invent a universe where 90% of the mass and energy are invisible and indetectable in order to explain the data they observe.

So two cheers for Fazlollahi and here’s hoping that some of the brighter lights in the physics community start to look a these discrepancies with a more discerning eye.  Either that or let them go find jobs in something they’re more qualified to do like delivering the mail.

FISA Law Coming up for Renewal

photog Current Events , ,

“FISA Section 702 allows intelligence agencies, mainly the NSA and FBI, to surveil foreigners without a warrant. This extrajudicial power inevitably sweeps in vast troves of information on American citizens in the dragnet that can then be tapped by federal authorities, despite a warrant never being served. The FBI alone engaged in over 200,000 of these “backdoor searches” in 2022, including on political activists. Additionally, government authorities also obtain information on citizens through data brokers, because of a legal loophole in how the Fourth Amendment is implemented.

In December, a temporary extension of Section 702 was inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act, but it is set to expire in April.”

There is enormous pressure on Congress to re-authorize this law.  And if it were allowed to sunset, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the FBI arranged for a terrorist attack to occur on American soil just to blame it on the Republicans for trying to stop the intelligence agencies from spying on us.

So, I can see how Mike Johnson would be on the spot when it comes to a reauthorization.  But I’m very interested to see which way this goes.  From my point of view, I see more benefit from letting the law die and taking the hit politically if the FBI allows an attack.  But I’m an extremist at this point and don’t have to stand for re-election.

But think about it; 200,000 searches in a single year.  These people spy on us relentlessly.  Taking away this tool would do a great deal to reduce their power against us.

Tell me in the comments what you think should be done and what you think will actually happen.

Civilizational Identity

photog Current Events ,

I was listening to the ZMan today and he was talking about Russia which is an interesting topic but the thing that got me thinking was the end of the hour where he discussed a type of society not based on ideology or even national identity but instead based on civilizational commonality.  So instead of talking about democracy or communism or British or French nationality we think about the civilization we adhere to.  So, countries with nationalities as different as Arabs, Persians, Afghans and Berbers all recognize a civilization based on the traditional Moslem world view.  And similarly, parts of the world with a long history of common culture like medieval Europe or Latin America have a similar ability to interact naturally under the same system.

Now the ZMan said an interesting thing.  He said North America was such a place.  It was different from a national identity such as exists in European countries but rather is a sort of generic society based on the common customs and stable institutions that exist in both Canada and the United States.  His point was that the liberal democratic system in place in the United States was not the only type of governance that could work here.  In fact, in a sense it really isn’t a democratic system currently.  But it masquerades as one.  Another system that provided continuity for most of the services and functions of modern life would serve just as well, maybe better.  After all, the current system is actively disrupting things like families, religion and communities.

He was comparing this situation with what exists in Russia which is a society that incorporates about 20% non-Russian peoples in its society but manages to maintain the Russian cultural and civil activities for the whole of the society.  The idea was that a similar condition could exist here based on the common culture that currently exists but without the liberal democracy running things.

Well, all of that is fine.  But I think what’s going on is already a civilizational system.  The order that runs North America is also the one that runs Europe.  The Global American Empire is a civilization.  It intends to infiltrate all areas of the globe and it has a very definite culture and ethos.  And it is doing a very thorough job of indoctrinating people of European descent and also the people that live with them in the countries where they are in control.  So, clawing control away from the people currently controlling the empire is much, much harder to do than to say.

Now maybe certain areas have a culture that can successfully resist infiltration.  Sub-Saharan Africa seems to be one and the Moslem world has so far been another.  But Europeans and their descendants are absorbed by it effortlessly.  If some competing culture is going to wrench away the Left’s grip on America it will require a call to action that can motivate the younger generations out of their lethargy.  I have to admit I can’t imagine how this can be done other than to say that it will require a charismatic man of their own generation to come forward and inspire their imaginations with a vision of the future that overshadows the woke orthodoxy of self-hate and decline.

But I see no indication that anyone like that exists or might even appear.  But we are living in an age where things seem to be coming to a head.  Eventually the times will make the man.

 

“Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.”

 

“The darkness drops again; but now I know  

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

Guest Contributor – Milo Mindbender – 23FEB2024 – Election Follies of Yesteryear

photog Guest Contributors, Milo Mindbender , ,

Rachel Maddow’s meltdown over the 2016 election was priceless. Another zinger is all the “celebrities” planning to move to Canada, or Europe over that election. I didn’t hear anyone threaten to leave America in 2020, nor 2008, 2012 over not winning.
The slow dawning that Hillary had gotten done to her, what slick willy did to the US in 96, by having her supporters vote in the open primary to give her a punching bag to run against. This backfired on her, the junior representative from IL, and community organizer deployed people voting for him, and by the time she caught on the nomination was lost to her.

Our Roller Coaster

photog Current Events ,

The times we live in seems to induce a manic-depressive mindset where we balance out our despairing reaction to the horrors of our political reality with an almost hysterical glee over the absurdities all around us.  So, one minute we’re nearly suicidal over the complete destruction of the constitutional freedoms we’ve lost but the next minute we can be rolling on the floor laughing at Joe Biden’s imitation of a sleezy, stupider version of Forrest Gump.

And so yesterday I considered the case that 2024 will be another stolen election.  Today let’s lighten things up a bit.  All of us got to laugh at the nakedly manipulated logic that forces the algorithms that control Google’s “AI” Gemini to generate black female popes and Chinese Vikings whenever confronted with a request to render some historical category of people from European history.  Admittedly it’s a pathological situation.  Trying to erase the legacy of a billion people is pretty twisted.  But the absurdities that it creates when, for instance, it’s asked to draw a medieval knight are just too hilarious to neglect.  For this particular imaging there was an Asian woman wearing an armor breastplate shaped like something made by Victoria’s Secret for one of its bustier models.

Admittedly the Left provides many more groans than belly laughs for us.  Most of their agenda involves harm to us and our society in a systematic and relentless fashion.  But still, when we look around the examples of laughably warped fruitcakes abound.  Many of these people are so hapless that you almost feel sorry for them.  But not quite.

Personally, I like to make fun of the zanier cases I see.  And it would be nice if someone arranged an annual awards ceremony for the various categories of people on the lunatic Left who can provide us with mirth.  Someone with a talent for classification could divide the various categories of mental illness into an entertaining show.

One of my all-time favorites was back on election night 2016 when Miley Cyrus had her post election meltdown.  She was weeping and wailing about how unfair it was for Hillary because, “It was her turn!”  And another oldie but goodie is the picture of some androgynous lunatic kneeling outside in a winter coat emitting some kind of despairing primal scream because of some unknown kind of leftist defeat.  Maybe it was Trump again.  In fact, there could be a whole category just for his victims.

And even all these years later these classics still cheer my heart.  The sheer nuttiness on display reinforces my belief that just based on Darwinian selection these people must soon disappear from the Earth simply because the societal breakdown they espouse will certainly finish them off.

So, yes, I know that soon enough another assault on sanity and decency is due to explode on the scene during this Bidenian annus mirabilis.  Dementia Joe will give away another trillion dollars to windmill vendors and itinerant terrorists of one sort or another.  And I will shake my fist and growl at the injustice.  But it would truly be a shame if I lost sight of the upside to living in a mental hospital.  And that is laughing at the clowns on parade.