All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Ben Boychuck has a nice take on the whole “Diversity is our Strength” meme. The article on American Greatness ends in the middle and has a link so I linked to the whole article on the Sacramento Bee. He makes a good point.
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article189654789.html
We’ve done Christmas. Enormous quantities of delicious, toxic foods have been ingested and now clog our arteries and brains. Ancestors and descendants, siblings and their relations, friends and in-laws have been hosted, feted and dispatched. Enormous sums have been expended for gifts that no one will care about or even remember six months from now. With nothing to look forward to until Memorial Day the bleak winter climate of cold and perpetual twilight saps your very will to live. What a perfect time to make life altering decisions about your future!
But let’s not waste the opportunity. Tradition is a powerful force that binds us to the past and informs the future. So, without further ado…
Happy New Year to all you folks out there. I’ve been enjoying a holiday with friends and family. I’ll be gathering my wits and starting to output new material for the site this week. There are some interesting new things coming up soon including some updates to the site. So, apologies for the sparse output the last few days but I am only slightly superhuman.
Ben edits American Greatness but the article is in the Sacrament Bee (see link). This short piece captures a lot of the feel of modern Christmas. Give it a try.
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article190639684.html
The day before the day before Christmas this year is turning out to be climatically challenging but not without its charms. To start off there is an ongoing freezing rain falling. What this means is that a deadly coating of ice is accumulating on the roads and driveways of New England generating the dreaded “black ice” that all Yankees fear and also use as an excuse for “working from home.” Luckily, I have the day off. As a matter of fact, I’m into the second day of a vacation that lasts until January Second. So, even though I will have to address the ice problem sooner than I’d like, my current outlook and world view is serene. The waves of laziness and the glow of indolence are soothing my soul and generating a “Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men” vibe that surprises even me. Now, don’t get me wrong, “Men” is a poetical rendering for “Men of Good Will” which excludes democrats, deviants and malefactors in general. But it still encompasses a great many people that annoy me most of the time. So today is the beginning of that great period of the year when I have almost no homicidal rage and I truly feel that most people aren’t irredeemably evil. Falalalala … lalalala.
And going along with this general benevolence I feel I must mingle, commune and otherwise hob-nob with my fellow wizards here at OCF. I feel that anyone who can read my rambling nonsense and still come back for more is in some way a kindred spirit and must be encouraged to return and possibly shout back across the ether. So, here’s a loud and heartfelt Merry Christmas to all of the folks out there and a Happy New Year too. Feel free to leave a return greeting in the comments.
All indications are for a better year ahead and better days to come. Even the imbeciles in Congress were able to get out of their own way and pass a reasonably helpful tax bill. Anyway, I should have time over the course of this week (between family get togethers and other festivities) to publish at least a few posts. With all the events and activity going on in Washington it should be easy for me to gin up some outrage and elevate my blood pressure sufficiently to produce something apoplectic and apocalyptic enough to match my usual output. I’ve been perplexed with how the Mueller investigation is interacting with the Trump Administration. I can’t figure if the President is naïve or cornered or biding his time. But without a doubt 2018 will be another year of high political drama. And #metoo will continue to provide incredible comedy value for your money. So, stay tuned but don’t forget to leave time for pumpkin pie, roast beast and hanging out with family. Ho, Ho, Ho.
Julie Kelly has a very entertaining article about the NeverTrumpers starting to call each other out. Some of them are waking up and recognizing the dishonesty of the real fanatics. Or maybe instead of being fanatics, they’re just enjoying the face time and cash over at MSNBC and CNN. Go over and enjoy the fun in this one. One gem, David Frum claims Joe Scarborough is “center-right.” Oh, the humanity!
Back in September of 2016 I read an essay that continues to provide me with insight into the state of present day America. That was Angelo M. Codevilla’s, “After the Republic.” His thesis was that regardless of whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump won the presidency, thinking of restoring the United States to the same kind of governance that existed before the 20th century crises was futile. As sad as this conclusion makes me, I agree with it. Even if the appearance of our government remains the same, what we are now dealing with is not one where the loyal opposition negotiates with their partners across the aisle to give the American people the moderate government that made American life feel temperate and fraternal. The Democrats (and to a lesser extent, Republicans) are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Cultural Marxist Combine and to think of them any other way is delusional and suicidal. With the advent of the #metoo tactic even their own pawns and bishops are now sacrificed to capture the opposing King. We have reached the level of conflict where it is hard to imagine any action so heinous or bizarre that the Democrats would not use it if it provided sufficient progress in their war of attrition.
In such an environment of total war the priority is to destroy your enemy. During war you set aside the normal priorities of growth and equilibrium and marshal all your resources and strength to dealing a fatal blow to your enemy. Because if you don’t, he will.
So, the strategy is clear. But the details of the landscape make tactics complicated. The enemy knows full well what is going on. But the American public is still only partly aware that a war is in progress. Fully half of our nominal allies are sleep walking through this battlefield under the impression that we are at peace. Of course, they realize that these are troubled times but they think we are still one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. They must be awakened. In the meantime, they are part of the problem. They can inflict damage to our side through ignorance and gullibility. This complicates things. Subterfuge and misdirection becomes part of the tactical palette. An extremely Machiavellian environment is inevitable. So be it.
We have reached a very sad state of affairs. We must adopt the tactics of the enemy in order to defeat him. Honesty and chivalry won’t work. Power politics and deals with the devil are the order of the day. Look for a leader who can hold his own against the lies of the press and is undaunted by their attacks. Forget flowery promises of future victories. Measure actual results. Be undaunted by minor flaws in your allies. If you need reason to work with them just look at your enemies and the goals they embrace. That should convince you of which side you should be on. The politics of personal destruction will become the order of the day. It is much easier to destroy the man than the idea. Polarization will increase. Friendships will be destroyed across the divide. Sides will be chosen inside families. Many men will lose wives and girlfriends as women will be the last to awaken to reality. Jobs will be lost as cultural-Marxism converged companies purge the unbelievers. It will get much worse before it gets better. So be it.
How do you enjoy life in such an environment? You build new friendships and associations. Reach out to kindred spirits. Support them. Network with them. We are not few. We are many. We just need to be connected. Form some recreational or cultural groups with like minded individuals. You can even pick activities that self-identify the participants. For instance, how many left leaning hand gun target shooters do you think there are? Or Bible study groups? I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to come up with a few more. And even relatively neutral activities are enhanced when shared with people who won’t throw a moral hand grenade at you from time to time. For instance, I have a co-worker who shares an interest in photography with me. Our relations are friendly. When the Las Vegas shooting occurred, he spent a measure of my time that I’ll never get back trying to get me to say that gun control laws were the answer to this problem. It was a futile conversation that left a bad feeling between us. Wouldn’t I rather spend time with someone who wants to talk about something we agree on, like photography? Yes.
And it doesn’t matter how unzealous you are for the cause. You don’t have to be a hero. You can tend to your own garden and just throw support of whatever kind to our side. Even if it’s just friendship. Just don’t be part of the problem. Don’t attack to the right. Are there people on the right who are outside of your comfort zone? Fine. Just don’t engage with them. But don’t make it your mission to attack them. If you need someone to attack look to the left. It’s a target rich zone. Every variety of degenerate and sociopath is represented on the left. If you need something to strike go there. My current project is to identify right-leaning businesses and organizations and maintain a list. That way if I have a choice between Amazon or someone who wants to fend off a future solely inhabited by blue-haired cat ladies and footsy pajama wearing latte boys I can consciously make that choice. If you know of any businesses or groups like that then stop by and add them to the list. Be part of the solution.
Merry Christmas to all you folks reading this out there. It is at this time of the rolling year that leftists suffer most from Hadephobia (the fear of going to hell) and do all within their power to discredit religion and especially Christmas. You see, they rationalize in their hearts that if everyone else is going to hell with them then it won’t be as bad. Maybe they figure they can convince Satan to put them in charge of handing out the torture. After all he seems like their sort of guy.
So, it’s up to us to neutralize their efforts and make them the ones who feel discredited and dispirited. And since making lists is part of the nature of Christmas, let’s make one to help focus the effort:
So, there you go, twelve suggestions on how to recapture some of the special quality of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Now try to come up with a list of your own. Bet some of mine will end up on it.
Back in the Paleolithic Epoch I read a story by Brother Heinlein called “The Year of the Jackpot.” In the story a statistician named Potiphar Breen has detected a convergence of all the various human and natural cycles. Everything from the sunspot cycle to stock market crashes are headed for a simultaneous crescendo that he predicts will shatter normal human patterns. Proof of his thesis is detectable in a rash of lunatic behavior in every human grouping. Aberrant behavior like transvestitism is becoming commonplace, ordinary women are spontaneously stripping in public and in general, people are becoming unhinged. Based on his calculations he believes it will come to a head within a year and will result in cataclysm. Not to ruin the story, which is actually quite fun, but as predicted, all hell breaks loose when all these metaphorical evil slot machines pay off at once.
As is typical in the age we live in, all Heinlein’s predictions fall short of reality. His fictional transvestitism is now a feeble half-measure compared to the reality of transgender lunacy that we currently endure. And all other aberrations he predicted pale in comparison to the actual insanity that currently reigns on our streets and in our homes.
As far as The Year of the Jackpot, well, all the trend lines for disaster have been pegged out as vertical asymptotes for so long that we’ve forgotten that they can slow down, never mind actually reverse direction. Predicting catastrophe is meaningless. We’ve been in a perpetual train wreck for decades. All the stored-up reserves of stability and normalcy are completely depleted. Every societal structure meant to support our civilization is dry-rotted and hollowed out. The only real question is what straw will break the camel’s back. So, in the spirit of Heinlein’s story I’d like to examine our current world and extrapolate where the trends will lead.
Probably most significant of the latest developments is the #metoo phenomenon. The ongoing media circus is consuming movie, news and political celebrities in Hollywood, New York and Washington at a pretty good clip. I think I read the current count is about one hundred accused. The great majority of these are lefties so the entertainment value is undeniable. But the hoped-for target is the President. What is the likelihood of it succeeding? I’d say extremely low. The current targets all work for liberals (either in corporate leadership or as a constituency). Trump owes exactly zero allegiance to feminists and their rules. But will there be any other upshot of the continuing rollout of this phenomenon? I think there will be. As the numbers start to increase I predict that even the feminists will see the downside of removing all functionally heterosexual men from the liberal institutions. What it will do is reinforce that politically correct rules of behavior are not only inherently anti-male but obviously unjust. Due process and the presumption of innocence have no part in these proceedings. All men are presumed guilty with no possibility of appeal.
All this will have a two-fold effect. In the case of leftists their friends will throw them under the bus to toe the line. Eventually, as the offenses become more and more trivial these men will start hiring lawyers to defend their interests. The backlash promises to be substantial and equally hilarious as the accusers are made to look rightly ridiculous in their paranoia and pettiness. In the case of right wing individuals not associated with left wing institutions, they will defend themselves against these charges and begin the process of rolling back some of this extra-judicial overreach. Hopefully this will have the effect of discouraging exaggerated accusations. It will also draw attention to the ridiculous state of sexual harassment laws and their irrational double standards of application.
But the much bigger story is the ongoing Trumpocalypse. The enormity of this phenomenon is almost impossible to exaggerate. Regardless of whether President Trump can achieve an actual reversal of the in-progress vivisection of the legacy citizenry of the former United States of America, he demonstrates just how desperate the situation actually is. All the harassed non-protected groups banded together and elected a reality tv comic book character to be their savior. And against all odds and expectations he has proven to be an heroic figure. Almost single-handedly he has taken on both parties in Congress, the various tentacles of the Deep State and the entire Hollywood Media Complex. While doing this he has provided endless entertainment and moral support for every down-trodden man in this troubled land. So, if he succeeds in reversing the direction we’re headed and begins fixing the worst of the problems the leftists have inflicted on us (mass immigration, affirmative action) then that will be against a might upheaval of the cultural Marxist establishment. There will be riots in the streets and insane propaganda unheard of since Baghdad Bob was running Saddam Hussein’s public relations office. But even if he is brought down by the leftists I forsee him providing the spark to finally blow this whole powder keg sky high. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that there would be a march on Washington that will make the various million-man marches look pathetic. He has awakened a very large force of really pissed off men.
To get back to my original thesis, the Year of the Jackpot is upon us very soon. Will things fall apart or improve? Yes. Maybe even both. And it’s actually a relief. Realizing that things cannot continue along the same trajectory is encouraging. Something’s gotta give and hopefully it’ll be them. But even if it’s actual dissolution it is better than the slow collapse. This way at least something may be saved. And as more people wake up to just how bad things are it adds to the weight pushing against the locked door of the burning barn. We may get out alive. Here’s to the Jackpot.
In an earlier post, I defined my position in the spectrum of the political right by saying that I recognized the uselessness of the establishment republicans but was not ready to accept the balkanization of the United States as predicted by the Alt-Right. That’s how I defined it but I didn’t specify what I believed was the actual trajectory America would trace in the near future. And I didn’t specify it for a very good reason. I have no idea what will befall us. By which I mean that unlike some others I think we have several possible paths and I can’t decide if any are close to certainty. In fact, I can’t even say which I think the likeliest.
Up until Donald Trump’s unexpected end-run around both the GOP Establishment (GOPE) and Hillary Clinton, I was pretty sure that America as a free republic was over and we were headed for the kind of corporatist socialism that Europe has descended into. I anticipated the stripping of first and second amendment rights and the continuing importation of a new third world population to strip the sovereignty from the legitimate citizens of the United States. Let’s call this the default option for our future. That’s the trajectory that President Trump is trying to deflect us from. In my gloomier moments I believe we will continue on this course.
Another possibility is what I call the Hays Code version or “Happily Ever After.” That’s where we come to our senses and start reversing all the damage done since the 1960s. This requires a Supreme Court to strike down large swaths of the affirmative action legislation of the sixties and seventies (and beyond), and a Congress to reverse the unsustainable immigration policies of the 1960s and an agenda that returns to policies that encourage strong families, safe communities and prosperity. This is the fondest hope of my sunniest moments.
And then there are the other less peaceful scenarios.
A mild version would be an insurgency in one or more states during a Democratic presidency. Something that is too large to be handled by the FBI or ATF. Say a revolt based on gun rights being violated by the Supreme Court or Presidential executive order. Once the events escalated past civilians shooting federal agents and they shooting back it would be very hard to put the pieces back together again. In a particularly right-wing state like Texas I would guess there would be little popularity with state officials for rounding up their citizens for resisting unconstitutional actions by the feds. Resistance by the state governments could lead to a breakdown in federal credibility. And that could lead to a re-examination of how out of whack the government is becoming. That might cause a change for the better and possibly constructive changes in the way our country works. Or it could break the whole thing apart.
The Alt-Right vision is of some kind of ethno-nationalist revolt with an insurgency that leads to a division of the country into separate states. This is a possibility but honestly, the outcomes are completely unpredictable. So many factors, including unfriendly foreign states, rogue military actions with weaponry varying from small arms to nukes, disruption of food and fuel supplies leading to everything from starvation to bloody insurrection and worse. Can you imagine a Yugoslavia style civil war with multiple sides? I’m just not smart enough to imagine a scenario in this that I look forward to.
There’s the possibility of a military coup by the right, or the left. The latter never seemed an option before but after Obama has peppered the ranks with leftists it’s a possibility, if a slight one. The former case is completely possible. A right wing coup might unilaterally impose secession of all but the Northeast and West Coast. If this coup managed to monopolize the nuclear armament it would de-facto create a reality that couldn’t be easily resisted.
Here’s a weird one. California has been talking about secession. But what if the “sanctuary state” in California is interpreted as a rebellion against the Federal government and Congress and the President declare California in rebellion and strips it of voting rights and installs a military governor to restore order. Can you imagine a Federal program to repatriate all of California’s illegal aliens? That is almost science fiction. But how different is it from the Japanese internment camps?
And the possibilities become weirder from there.
Suffice it to say that I am much more comfortable with a more normal path forward. But I fully realize that we must push back against the leftists. They are confident that no one will push back the clock to undo whatever they have captured today. This must be changed. First up is a new Supreme Court to reverse the worst aspects of the new society. If Kennedy does not find for the cake baker in the gay wedding case then we have to wait until he leaves or one of the older democrats is forced to vacate by reason of health problems. Or maybe we get enough congressional seats to vote in a larger Supreme Court. But without a doubt we have to push things back in every way we can.
One thing that has become completely clear is that leftists can’t be negotiated with. They must be defeated at the ballot box and in every other venue. They won’t be satisfied until they have removed everything in life that is wholesome and good. They say they don’t believe in evil. But everything they are fighting for is evil. That seems clear. We can’t wait for them to come to their senses. We must push for the change that is needed to preserve the good that once existed in this country. And there’s no time to waste. In late installments I’ll try to figure out how we can avoid everything but the “Happily Ever After” scenario. Wish me luck!
I seem to find some pretty strange but interesting stuff.
https://theanti-puritan.blogspot.com/2017/12/dont-hang-on-my-every-word.html
This is on a website called The Anti-Puritan who is I think an Anarcho-Capitalist. He has some relation to the Dark Enlightenment, possibly that just means they think Enlightenment Civilization is a dead end. Anyway, it was interesting and I thought I’d provide a link and I’d love to get some feedback from any readers interested in discussing the gist of what he is saying, regardless of whether it’s supposed to be serious or just an observation of how our world is devolving into meaningless existence.
I think it’s interesting that even folks who don’t seem to have any religious beliefs come back to religion because human beings need to believe in something absolute. If it’s not God, then they make a god called communism or science or social justice. I think there’s something true in that. If you’re interested in talking about it go ahead. If the comments get long we can always take it to a forum topic.