Tag: New Right

Chucking Pebbles

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Last week I was listening to the Friday morning Power Hour podcast that the ZMan produces.  And during the discussion he mentioned that he was surprised when a particular civ-nat pundit who was usually very mainstream normie-con started exhibiting a lot of the talking points that the ZMan associated with the dissident right perspective.  I don’t think ZMan was very specific about the exact context and exactly how far to the right this fellow had gone, but I guess the change from the pundit’s usual rhetoric to this new point of view was sufficiently great to merit surprise.

I found this interesting.  Usually, ZMan is extremely dismissive of civnattery.  He finds their points of view hopelessly naïve and foolish.  So, his surprise caught my attention.  Now what exactly the details of this change were, I can’t say.  But what I assume was that this pundit started using the vocabulary of the dissident right.  Maybe he used a term like anti-white racism or just anti-white as a description of someone on the Left or some policy.  Something like that might surprise coming from someone who has up until now avoided racialist terminology.  Maybe it was a comment about the dishonesty of the establishment Republicans and their phony struggle against the Left’s policies.  Or maybe it was an opinion against the war in Ukraine.  But whatever it was it’s part of a trend that is no longer possible to ignore.  The normies, a lot of them, are waking up.

I have a theory about why the Dissident Right has been at the cutting edge of the awakening on the Right.  I think many on the dissident Right have their roots in the blue-collar working class.  And that is the segment of White America that was impacted first by the policies and prejudices that the Left and their minions installed during the last fifty years.  It was the working class that had a ringside seat for the Great Society upheavals with welfare culture destroying the schools and neighborhoods that they inhabited.  And it was the working class that were the first and hardest hit by the off-shoring that went hand in hand with the globalization program of the Left.

And so, the most discerning of the working class were able to express the things they saw and they became the vanguard of the Dissident Right.  But now that the whole program of the Left has emerged the white-collar workers and the entrepreneurial community have been impacted and now the intelligentsia.  Even leftist journalists can see what’s happening and recognize the Orwellian nature of what’s going on.  In that environment it makes sense that even the blindest of normie-con pundits would stumble onto the truth.

Now the funny thing is that even tripping over facts doesn’t mean that unanimity will break out between the Dissident Right and the people to their immediate left.  The folks on the Dissident Right talk about a river that they cross that separates them from the rest of the Right.  And that difference has more to do with their beliefs about the incompatibility of different ethnicities and races of people.  And they see this as part and parcel of the problems that are afflicting this country.  And they don’t believe that the possibility exists for different types of people to live together under one set of laws even if it were fairly enforced.

Currently the dissidents and those on the other side of the river just shout back and forth at each other and shake their fists because it’s an academic question.  The administrative state, since the 1960s, has used things like affirmative action and other forms of discrimination to stir up animosity between various communities.  It’s currently illegal to hire people based only on their individual talents.  A quota must be filled regardless of whether qualified applicants can be found based on race and gender.  If this ever gets fixed then we could find out if the Dissident Right is correct in their belief that different people can’t coexist amicably.  Until then it’s just speculation and we can stay on separate sides of the river pointing at each other and maybe chucking pebbles across from time to time.

When Our Worlds Collide

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When a chemical engineer is tasked with designing a mixing system for insoluble liquids, he has to calculate the amount of energy needed to turn the liquids into an emulsion.  So, these liquids that completely repel each other like water and oil can be suspended in each other and thereby come in intimate contact with each other.  And in that state they can be smoothly reacted with each other by some catalyst or chemical.

Something similar has occurred between the different camps on the Right.  Michael Anton describes himself as a lecturer and research fellow at Hillsdale College, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and a former national security official in the Trump Administration.  He became well-known for writing the “Flight 93 Election” back before the 2016 presidential election when he advocated for Donald Trump as our last chance to stop the country from sliding into leftist tyranny.

He is as far philosophically as anyone on the real Right can be from the Z-Man when it comes to beliefs about the nature of government.  And yet these two men have now made contact.  Specifically, Anton has written a (very) long post at American Greatness defending the concept of natural rights against an assertion that the Z-Man made that natural rights do not exist.  And in fact, the Z-Man’s post was a reaction to an Anton post that was itself a reaction to an essay by yet another personality on the Right the paleoconservative Paul Gottfried.  Enough agitation is occurring in our environment to bring these various species in contact with each other and the interaction is yielding change and reaction.

Now suffice it to say that what passes for debate here is more like low intensity warfare (especially in the comments sections).  But I think the fact that, at least, they are beginning to acknowledge each other’s existence is the beginning of communication.  And this communication is important.  Not so much for the writers but for the readers.  Currently the ideas of the various groups on the Right are pretty thoroughly siloed.  Having the readers get a taste of the other opinions around is all for the good.  These ideas need to be banged around against each other a good deal for some clarity to emerge.  People need to compare the words to the world around them and decide which model is right or mostly right.  Because chances are no one model is completely correct.  There could be valuable insights from more than one camp.  And it’s possible that minds could be changed on certain points if a wider consensus is formed.

So, this is just talk.  But it’s a beginning.  One thing that’s been totally lacking on the right is any kind of open discussion of the taboo subjects.  We’ve allowed the Left to control the allowable agenda for discussion on the Right for generations.  What we’re seeing is the beginning of the breakdown of that control.  It hasn’t reached the point where the establishment Right will acknowledge the relevance of the dissident opinions but the middle is starting to address them.  Once the majority of the non-Left has shifted to the edge of the dissident territory the establishment will be forced kicking and screaming to the right.  What happens after that is unknown.

It may turn out that the Left will outright win and all this will be moot.  But if the Right manages to push the country in our direction, then the establishment Right will convince themselves that they were always in the vanguard of this great movement and deserve all the praise and benefits.  And eventually the Right will overstep itself and some reaction will occur.

But that’s hardly anything for us to worry about.  It will take a generation just to stop the leftward swing of the cultural pendulum, never mind getting it back to the center.  But it is encouraging to see the center acknowledge the dissident position and even begin to give grudging approval to some of their ideas.  Let’s see what’s next.

The Leftist Journalists are Starting to Cover the New Right

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I just read an article in, of all places, Vanity Fair.  The writer went to the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando back in October and interviewed Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance and Blake Masters.  He was trying to find out what the New Right is all about.  The journalist sounds like a progressive, which would be no surprise.  But it is apparent he has figured out the nuance that differentiates the New Right from what passed for conservatives back before 2016.  And so, the very long article (about 9,600 words!) provides an interesting account of the New Right through the eyes of a member of the leftist media elite.

The writer was surprised at how many of the attendees were in their twenties.  I found it amusing to hear how shocking it was for him to see all these young and hip people “falling under the spell” of evil Nazis.  Of course, a lot of this shock may be for the benefit of his leftist readers at Vanity Fair.  If he didn’t feign surprise that young people could find fault with the world that the Left has created, he might be drummed out of Vanity Fair and have to get a real job.

But beside the entertainment value of this mirror on the New Right, I was excited to know that the Left has become extremely worried about the increasing popularity of what they think of as extreme right-wing politics.  Or maybe they’ve been aware all along and they hoped if they ignored it, then it would go away.

One thing I notice is that the part of the New Right that this reporter covered is the least threatening branch.  Specifically, Peter Thiel and his proteges are the most respectable, least controversial group that could still be labelled as part of the New Right.  Even Curtis Yarvin, for all the screeching that the Left has done about his “racist” statements in the past, is more of an intellectual figure than a revolutionary.

By keeping the rest of the New Right out of the mainstream media’s view maybe they’re trying to preselect who is acceptable and thereby limit the damage from the upcoming elections.  But either way, the Left knows that anger and disgust over what they’ve done in the last two years is pervasive and is creating a groundswell of support for the new ideas coming out of the New Right.

But as much as I’m interested in the success of New Right candidates in the November election, I’m much more focused on the concrete steps that red state leaders are making to push back against unconstitutional federal laws and actions.  Inevitably there will be a showdown between Washington and these rebellious local leaders.  I think this is where we’ll see the first true test of cultural resistance to the globalist, anti-freedom regime.  And the state leader who gets the feds to blink is going to be man to watch in the future.  Maybe it’ll be DeSantis, maybe someone else.

Until then it’s interesting to see these first indications of the Left’s panic.  The network pundits now openly admit Biden’s poll numbers are abysmal.  And they list all the same factors that we’ve been talking about for more than a year.  Inflation, crime, foreign policy incompetence, supply chain failures, COVID tyranny and woke lunacy.  So, this act that they’ve kept up, that all of this is just a COVID hangover, has collapsed and at this point they’re praying for the Stupid Party to implode.  Usually, I’d think this likely.  But somehow, I think we’ve finally reached critical mass and things are going to change in a meaningful way.  All I have to do is hold out until November and things will come into clearer focus.  Fingers crossed.

Curtis Yarvin Talking to Alex Jones, a Sign of the Apocalypse?

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Yesterday I said the Right has to start getting organized and eliminate divisions.  Almost on cue my e-mail sends me Curtis Yarvin’s newsletter and I see a link to his appearance on Alex Jones’ show.  Watching this was almost surreal.  Two more dissimilar individuals existing on the same political “side” is hard to imagine.

Of course, the question could be asked whether this is a positive or negative sign.  Could it be that the ravages of cancel culture have thrown these polar opposites into each other’s arms out of desperation I guess it’s possible.  But if so, it seems to be happening quite a bit.

I’ve watched several conversations between Yarvin and Michael Anton.  And then one between Anton and two infotainment guys called the “Good Ol Boyz.”

On the more dissident end of the spectrum paleoconservative Paul Gottfried serves as a bridge between the more hard-edged thinkers like ZMan and the more civic nationalist crowds at American Greatness and the Claremont Institute.  And reading these two mainstream outlets I notice edgier material gaining on more mainstream essays.  And this is happening on many mainstream publications like the Federalist and American Conservative.

Maybe my post was just resonance with a process already occurring.  Either way, I see all of this as movement in a positive direction.  The Left has gone so far into radicalism that it has alienated a wide swath of people from the far-right to moderate progressives.  Our side can use this reaction to take back territory and prove ourselves rational and competent.  And that will make it harder for the Left to demonize us when the inevitable pendulum swing heads the other way.

What it doesn’t mean is that we should “reach across the aisle” to adopt the status quo.  The current state of American culture and governance is already a leftist nightmare.  We must aim to reverse the current shape of things and restore the things that made the United States a healthy and sane society.  Just because the voters of San Francisco recalled three of their school board officials doesn’t mean I would want to get the advice or approval of Left Coast weirdos before picking a presidential candidate.

I’ll be watching for further signs of a loosening of the gatekeeping on the right.  If a lot of the Trump approved primary candidates displace the RINO’s I expect that after the Republicans take control of Congress there will be investigations and scrutiny of the more outrageous excesses of the Biden Justice Department with respect to the January 6th witch hunts.  And we might see more emphasis on legislative topics that align with the agenda that goes beyond the weak priorities approved by the Republican establishment.

But even if we have to wait for 2024 to see any large changes in government actions, I am very interested in seeing Republicans of all stripes communicating with each other honestly.  We’re each different.  We represent a continuum of beliefs and priorities.  And it will take negotiations and compromise to find a platform that a solid majority will stand behind.  But if we don’t talk it will never happen.

We Gotta Get Organized

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I read the reports of Marjorie Taylor Greene being denounced for speaking at Nick Fuentes’ AFPAC convention.  And while she was careful to say that she doesn’t know all his views and therefore doesn’t go on record as supporting them she went to the convention to speak to the thousand of attendees there who are fans of the MAGA movement that she does support.

Fuentes is called a white supremacist even though he’s Hispanic.  I guess he must be one of those dangerous “white Hispanics” we hear about.  He is a white nationalist and he is on the dissident right.  He’s also being persecuted by the January 6th investigation and all of his assets have been seized and his life turned upside down.  He’s on a no-fly list and I’m sure other lists equally debilitating.  But what Greene did was important.  She connected with the untouchables and thereby lessened their isolation.  We need more of that.  Much more.

What’s especially needed is some legitimate organization to start bridging the gaps between the deplorables and the untouchables.  Fuentes isn’t some hatemonger raving against non-white people.  He is a conservative, America first type who isn’t mealy-mouthed about the anti-white bigotry he sees all around him.  I don’t doubt that he could sit down at the same table as conservatives of various ethnicities and look for common ground and a coalitional agenda.

To be totally honest I think what the right needs to do is start being honest about identifying the specific pain points that various identity groups express under the Democrat regime and forge that into an agenda that can strip some of these ethnic groups away from the Democrat coalition.  The obvious 600-lb gorilla is the Hispanic or Latino population.  This is the largest non-white population in the United States and is also relatively conservative compared to the rest of the country.  Finding common ground with them should be relatively easy.  Some of the Asian populations are also quite upset about Democrat moves to eliminate test-based admissions to gifted school programs.  There’s a natural entre into bringing them aboard the Right.

So, there are opportunities to build a coalition.  What is needed is leadership that can smooth over the trouble that the media causes when it characterizes pro-white advocacy as white supremacy.  And it will be important for the dissident right to start thinking in terms of how to open lines of communication with these other groups.  What Marjorie Taylor Greene did was a first step.  What Donald Trump did at CPAC acknowledging her presence there was a second step.  That’s the first shaky steps toward bridging the gap.  When the dissident right starts sharing a stage with Latinos and Asians and even Blacks and can find something to talk about, that will be the point at which we can cut out the Democrats and start directly negotiating the future.

So, there’s my mad dream.  My kumbaya moment.  I’d like to see the various communities in America honestly addressing their differing agendas and hammering out a modus vivendi.  They don’t have to all love each other; they just have to find the best deal available.  Without the Democrats to inflame hatreds and demonize Whites, chances are, there would be enough common ground to live in relative harmony.  Once again all it takes is an organization that can deal with people, as opposed to the Republican Party which is basically the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

The Sorting Process

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Nowadays you hear the term binary thrown around more and more.  Famously the sexual deviants and even those who pretend to be sexual deviants for the sake of being trendy declare that their sexuality isn’t binary, meaning neither male nor female.  Apparently, they not only believe in more than two sexes but they think there are infinite gradations of sexes.  And being deviants or idiots or both they spend a lot of time talking about their pronouns and other insanity associated with all this non-binary choice.

But there is a binary phenomenon going on right now and that is the choice we all will have to make in the future.  The choice is to resist the “great reset” or go along with it.  And it is an active choice.  If you do nothing then you get sorted into the group ruled by the progressive elements.  They are on a moving conveyor belt heading into the machine that will grind up all of that protoplasm and spit out the pod people from the back of the machine.  The only choice you have is whether or not to jump off the conveyor and join up with the others rejecting that fate and try to build a different future.

In fact, it will be a series of binary choices because the Left doesn’t take no for an answer.  At every turn there will be another choice where if you do nothing you will be assimilated.  Every facet of life has been weaponized and every facet has a passive default that puts you back on the conveyor belt.

The upside of all this sorting is that anyone who doesn’t end up in the machine has consciously made the decision to resist.  It’s a foregone conclusion that you want to be outside of the collective, outside of the hive.  And of course, there will be some who resist for a good long time and then give up.  Despair and exhaustion will take their tolls.

And even after all this, it will be necessary for the survivors to put together their own organization or fail to organize.  That isn’t a binary operation at least not in the long term because men are naturally contrary and difficult to come to perfect agreement.  Eventually factions will arise.

But in the short term the resistance will form one organization simply because we’ll have to.  The strongest will become the leader and everyone else will find a spot to line up in the hierarchy.  But until an organization is finally assembled, we each have to spend our time avoiding the fate of the cattle who daily advance on the conveyor belt to their fate.  Each day we have to look for choices that we can make to avoid the worst of the poison that the Left throws at us and our children.  And we have to search for political leaders who can represent us and say no to all the madness that the Left has cooked up for us.  Critical Race Theory, slavery reparations, institutionalized voter fraud, sexual mutilation of children, grade school propaganda about race and sex, anti-white discrimination, anti-Christian discrimination, anti-male discrimination and more.

So, this is the sorting process that is going on.  You’re going to have to expend a lot of energy to resist the momentum of the system but as the sorting process continues, you’ll more and more find yourself surrounded by other people who have had to make the same choices you have.  And eventually those will be the only people you’ll find left in the world you will have chosen.

Who Will Represent Us Going Forward?

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On Saturday my favorite evil thinker of the Dissident Right, ZMan said the best path forward is to stop voting for the Republicans.  After hearing that several Republican senators including Little Marco Rubio were already negotiating with the Democrat amnesty crew it was mighty tempting to agree with him.  After all, when you subtract Mitt Romney and what’s her name in Alaska and what’s her name in Maine it’s not like we have this unbreakable lock on the Senate anyway.  What if the Democrats took the two seats in Georgia and Biden is given the White House?  Would that be the end of the world?

Let’s talk about that.  If the Democrats have the Presidency, the Senate and the House I assume they will go ahead and go the full nuclear option by eliminating the filibuster altogether and go for a wholesale change in the way things are done.  There would be a very strong possibility that they would pass legislation to add seats to the Supreme Court to allow for all the things they’ve always wanted.  They would effectively nullify the first and second amendments.  Hate speech would be found to be unprotected and they would define hate speech as needed.  The right to bear arms would be interpreted to mean the National Guard.  Freedom of religion would be hand waved out of existence and we would be in a position where saying anything the Democrats didn’t like would be enough to get you fired from your job and dropped by your bank and credit card company.  As bad as things are now, that would be a quantum leap in oppression.

Would we gain anything by this turn of events?  The theory that the accelerationists hold is that letting things slip into outright despotism will raise the political temperature so high that it will cause an explosion among the freedom loving Americans and they will rise up in open violent insurrection.

They could be right.  And in fact, maybe we’ll get to find out regardless of whether the Right votes for the senate seats in Georgia.  After all, the Dems stole the election in Georgia last month.  What’s to stop them from stealing these also?  If they do, we’re probably going to find out soon enough what it’s like to live as slaves.

As far as what I think is the best political option we have going forward, I think it’s necessary to start a new party.  Even if President Trump prevails and is President for another four years, we have to start taking control of our government away from the UniParty that currently controls it.  Some leader with a lot of clout and a lot of money needs to build an organization that espouses the agenda of the Right.  There has recently been talk about President Trump and his friends leading an organization that does just this.  There’s also talk about him starting or joining a right-wing media company that will provide us with a source for news and information that isn’t fake.  I think both of these things are good ideas.  Right now, President Trump is the only man in America with the stature and resources to put something this ambitious together.

My vision for how this political party would work, is for it to clearly define the platform that the American Right wants and then find candidates that can compete in the Republican primaries of any Republican politician who is obviously a progressive.  And if our candidate wins, he can become the beginning of the reformed Republican party.  And if he loses then we have our candidate run as a third-party candidate and act as a spoiler.  Knocking out the RINOs will be a consolation prize if we can’t win the Republican nomination.  Think of how much fun it would be to primary Rubio or Romney.  Imagine Romney trying to explain how he is severely conservative when an actual conservative is running.  And with these candidates being endorsed by President Trump they will have an enormous advantage over the RINOs in most states.  This party can also build a rapport with the Republicans who are conservatives.  It can help influence policy at all levels of the political leadership because it will have popular support.  And it can call out even conservative Republicans if they falter.

If you look at how often the Republican establishment has supported politicians who don’t even pretend to believe in what we believe in you’ll realize that they’re not much better than the Democrats.  Romney is only the most egregious example.  There are plenty of other Senators and Congressmen who sell their vote to the highest bidder and have no interest in fixing this country.  We need a new party and if we start this way, we’ll start to get one.  Eventually maybe we can co-opt the Republican party or possibly we’ll just replace it with our own piece by piece.  Either way we will begin taking back the country with our own people.  And this new party will also allow us to negotiate with the Republican state politicians and influence their agendas too.  It could be the strongest special interest group lobbying these state governments because it will be representing tens of millions of Americans and their interests.

For those who say third parties never win I say when was the last time a mainstream Republican ever won anything for us?  The last time we elected a mainstream Republican to the presidency he gave us two wars and John Roberts as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  We either try to get our own people in Washington or we abandon any hope of taking our country back peacefully.  If President Trump wants to build a party that represents us then I say give him the chance.  If that doesn’t work, I think I’ll have to change my mind and agree with the dissident right.

Guest Contributor – The Portly Politico – The Concerns of a 35-Year Old Man in 2020

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[Update] – I saw what a nice intro Tyler gave to my post over at his site so I decided I should try to follow suit.  As part of a cross-posting agreement, Tyler from over at the Portly Politico has kindly agreed to talk about what it’s like for the millennial generation to try to follow in the footsteps of their parents’ lifestyle.  I think it will be valuable for Boomers, Xers and Millennials alike.  Highly recommended.

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By Tyler James Cook, The Portly Politico (https://www.theportlypolitico.com)

When photog proposed swapping blog posts in the comment section of The Fat Man’s “Cityscape at Night,” I was intrigued, and quite enthusiastic.  That was before I succumbed to a gnarly head cold and worked a thirteen-hour day.  But that sickly plight leads nicely into photog’s suggested topic:  what are the major concerns of a young American today?

At thirty-five, I don’t know how “young,” I am, but it’s one of those ages where older people tut-tut when you suggest you’re aging.  I suppose their advanced years have taught them otherwise, and that they’d much rather be a slightly creaky thirty-five than a croaky eighty-five.

Surprisingly, I am considered part of that great, reviled generation, the Millennials.  I certainly don’t feel like one, what with my love of tradition, Christianity, and President Trump.  I was born in a time when Internet usage was limited to college campuses and obscure Bulletin Board Systems, when we weren’t handed a Star Trek communicator with access to all the world’s knowledge—and it’s basest, filthiest indulgences—when we were five.

But we had Nintendo and cable TV, and all manner of luxuries and gadgets our parents could only dream of (although my parents apparently played Pong while dating).  Suburbia was kind to my generation—too kind, as we grew up spoiled and allergic to hard work.

That said, not all Millennial whining is unjustified.  Our parents—the latter Boomers and the early Gen-Xers—could support a family of four or five on blue-collar salaries.  They also didn’t pay a fortune for college, and their college education taught them something useful, rather than Derridaean deconstruction of everything good and decent.  That degree was also their ticket to the middle class.

We grew up being assured that if we followed the same path, we’d end up with similar outcomes; indeed, we’d be better off than our parents.  For many Millennials, that was true:  both of my brothers, for example, make very good livings in academia and the law.  Access to the credentialed classes was greater than it had ever been in American history for my generation.

But one of the problems is that we could no long sustain a family on a working man’s family.  Indeed, the girls we grew up claimed they didn’t want that.  They wanted careers and academic accomplishments; the highest accolades of their chosen fields.  Never mind that most of them finished out college with a useless B.A. in Psychology (the go-to degree for girls who don’t know what they want to study) and loads of debt; that just began their long 20s, that period in which they could explore and “find themselves.”  Or they got married straight out of college after all.

The problem is that with excessive credentialing, degrees have become increasingly worthless.  For example, I hold a B.A. and M.A. in History.  That M.A. paid off in that it gained me a small initial boost in my teaching salary, and it made it possible for me to adjunct at a local technical college (never mind that I’m teaching the same material—often at a slower pace—to the college classes than to the high school students; the State wants to see that M.A.).  Otherwise, it’s been largely an ornament, something my school can tout in its statistics about faculty qualifications.

I’ve managed to carve out a decent living for myself in rural South Carolina, but it’s required constant hustling and budgeting.  To sustain myself (and sock away money for retirement), I work full-time at the high school; adjunct one or two classes online each semester; teach multiple private music lessons after school; organize and book my own shows to bring in revenue (mainly through merch sales); teach summer classes and camps; and, until this summer, work maintenance at school.  For all of that effort, I scrape together around $50,000 to $55,000 a year (although I came close to $60,000 one year).

Self-employment taxes eat away at a good chunk of my private lessons business, which The Virus temporarily shattered (along with live gigs).  I do fine for myself—I managed to buy a used car with earnings from music lessons in 2019—but if I had a stay-at-home wife and kids, there would be no way we could make it work.

For one, my health insurance would outrageous if I didn’t game the Affordable Care Act.  In order to avoid paying $400 a month in premiums for a plan with a $6750 deductible (you read that right), I max out 403(b), traditional IRA, and HSA contributions, which gets deducted, for the purpose of ACA subsidies, from my gross income.  That modified adjusted gross income, or MAGI, is low enough that the ACA considers me sufficiently destitute to pay out subsidies, so my $400 a month premium drops to around $1 a month.

Again, for a single man at thirty-five, it’s not a bad deal.  I’m in relatively good health (and am dropping some extra fat) and have managed to squirrel away enough in my emergency fund to reach my deductible without touching my HSA contributions (I’m treating my HSA as an investment vehicle, with my contributions invested in various mutual funds).  But if I were married with kids, it would be a whole different story.

I’m also blessed to have made it through college and graduate school debt free, and to have never had a car payment.  That is a luxury—really, the result of extremely generous gifts from my parents and grandparents—that has enabled me to pursue a life of financial asceticism.  If I had student loans and car payments, like many of my peers, it would be far more difficult to save and invest.

As it is, I feel like I work constantly just to provide a good life for Future Portly.  The cost in the here and now, though, is palpable.  Not only have I sacrificed energy, I’ve sacrificed some of the enjoyment of life.  Those are necessary sacrifices to avoid becoming a ward of the State in my dotage, but the price seems very high—and one that it seems I must now bear alone.

To be clear, I don’t mean to complain.  I am blessed to live a good life, and to own a house, free-and-clear.  I enjoy a degree of financial autonomy that strikes awe in my peers.

But I don’t know if it’s sustainable with a family—what I want more than anything.  The debased nature of modern dating—the topic for another guest post, perhaps?—puts a man with a traditional worldview and sound financial sense in a precarious situation.  Having built my legacy, I don’t want to squander it on some Tinder harridan with a butterfly tattoo and blue hair.  But the inflated nature of the modern dating marketplace makes even the greasiest of girls believe their beauty queens with only redeeming qualities.

02AUG2019 – OCF Update

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It was a busy week for me and for the world.  Work’s a bear but nothing new there.  The Democrats have been incredibly busy shooting themselves in the foot and everywhere else.  And that gives me plenty to write about.  And we had a ton of visits from folks linking from WhatFinger News.  That’s a great thing.  Welcome to all you new folks.

And I survived to the weekend so I’ll be able to put some fun stuff up.  I just listened to Tyler Childers’ new country music album, Country Squire.  It’s got several songs I like a lot.  I’ll review it this weekend.  I’ve got some classic SF books I’ve been rereading that I think merit review.

And I’ve got some ideas for a post looking at how the various groups on the right wing agree and disagree and how I think they can mutually benefit from the present situation and going forward.

And as entertaining as the Democrat Debates were, I’ll have to say seeing the insanity on display was a little off-putting and depressing.  Even Bill Clinton could pass for normal.  These people are putting on display beliefs that really should qualify them for straitjackets.  We’re going to have to reclaim the psychiatric field from the lunatics at some point.  These people need to be off the streets.  Oh well.

Stay tuned.