The Manosphere and Blasphemy

"Since madness is very often a combination of cold reason with a fantasy severed from all reality, we are faced here with madness in a pure form." - Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.” – Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

I’ve pointed out before, more than once, that the Manosphere is pretty much facts-free. The True Believers – what I call the Lost Boys of the Manosphere – will do everything in their power to prove that everything and everyone fits into their deluded little boxes of “Game,” “negs,” Alpha/Beta/Whatever. Including engaging in blasphemy.

I’ll post some of the article.

The Redeemed Societal Ranks of Men

The societal or sociosexual ranks of men, namely alpha, beta, delta, gamma, sigma, and omega, are in themselves non-moral aspects of men. Although we place societal value on each, since a man does not fully choose his rank but is subject to it by nature, he cannot be morally judged on account of it. Like the sexes, each one has its own peculiar strengths and weaknesses that must actively be cultivated or suppressed.

Naturally, every man falls and is dragged into sin, and normally into the sins of his rank. But in Christ a man is redeemed, and redeemed according to the godly aspects of his own nature. The question posed is what redemption looks like in each rank, what a man in Christ ought to strive for in the knowledge of his placement in the Body. A sinful gamma will not be a redeemed alpha male in the church, but will be a redeemed gamma who will fulfill his role and his own manliness as it is reflected in Jesus Christ.

As we believe Jesus is fully God and fully Man, I also believe him to have fully exhibited the redeemed traits of every rank of men. In the Teacher we each see our own place in his Kingdom and our own wavelength of light to the world, forming together as his Body now on earth the same pure light that shone through his flesh many years ago.

α: Christ was the alpha male when he overturned the tables in the Temple and drove out his enemies with a whip. He as the alpha male when he rebuked the Pharisees to their face in public, demolishing their power and credibility in the most humiliating way possible.

The glory of the alpha male, redeemed, is the power he exerts over immoral and weak leaders. When he asserts his dominance over the corrupt he brings justice to the world as no other can, and he provides upright leadership and inspiration that other men and women thirst for without even realizing it. The alpha has the power and energy to inspire in his followers the best of themselves for his cause.

β: Christ was a beta when he claimed two witnesses to validate his judgments, including himself. “If I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father.” His fanatical loyalty to the Alpha God, and his supreme confidence in their solidarity, left crowds breathless as he walked through them untouched, though they were full of enemies. He was beta when he planted his feet before heaven and irrevocably declared, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” He possessed the absurd confidence of the wingman of the Almighty, and when it was time, he followed his Alpha to the death. The bond between Jesus and the Father was beyond unbreakable; it was even beyond comprehension. He did exactly what the Father desired him to do, and the Father glorified him above every creature and every power in heaven and on earth.

The glory of the beta is the unshakable confidence that comes from his loyalty to God and to a godly alpha. His self assurance makes his team seem impenetrable from the outside, and he is a credit to the faith he espouses. He is the right man to have around when someone is spouting insolence toward God or toward a fellow Christian. He is a defender and an encourager, a Barnabas, who perpetuates the divine spark among men and fuels the Spirit’s fire. He draws out of men the best that is in themselves, and in so doing exhibits the best in himself.

δ: Christ was a delta when he turned away the stones from the adulteress, when he comforted as a daughter the woman who touched his cloak, when he lifted Mary from her wretched state into his blessed ministry, and when through her he unveiled the secret hidden through all ages, his resurrection from the dead, to the world.

The glory of the delta, the White Knight, is to find in a humble woman the beauty she can become, and through his vision of her lead her through a transformation. She, no matter what wretched state or rank of women she inhabits in the world, becomes in his eyes a daughter of the King, and the true potential that lies in her can be realized in Christ.

γ: Christ was a gamma when he declared his Kingdom not of this world, the one true Secret King. He knew what power lay in himself, while the world only saw his ordinary flesh from a mundane family of some small town. He hinted at his origins and his authority, but shunned the crown and the worship, and would not even stand to be called “good.” Ten thousand legions of angels at his command, he died without unleashing his power, and in his restraint he revealed a power even greater than was ever imagined, the power of humility to redeem the world.

The glory of the gamma is to embrace the humility of his low status in the flesh, even knowing the power of God that inhabits him through Christ. He is content to be recognized by God and hated by the world, thus storing up treasure in heaven. He rises to the challenge among men only when the occasion absolutely demands it, and then returns to his humble state. It is his restraint that allows other men receive their glory and teaches them the humility to temper it.

σ: Christ was a sigma when he ditched the crowds and his own apostles, and appeared later likes a ghost on the stormy sea, walking on the water without a care in the world. He was pure sigma when his brothers dared him to appear in Jerusalem to challenge the Pharisees and he declined, humiliating them in their cozy unbelief, then showing up anyways to change the world when he invited all who are thirsty to come to him and drink. Jesus was a sigma when he prayed alone in Gethsemane, and spat at his disciples for falling asleep in the midst of battle. Sigma was his most consistent role; he was a complete mystery to all around him, a wild card who played by his own rules and beat the world at its own game, even in death.

The glory of the sigma, the loner, the wild card, when truly redeemed, is to leave the world alone in order to pray. When he seeks God alone he attains wisdom and strength that other men do not understand. He is a visionary unbound by the limits of culture and societal status, thus his words have an unexpected depth that command attention. His strength does not come from his social standing but emanates from his experiences with God. In this way he fulfills a priestly role.

ω: Christ was an omega when he died on the cross. Denied by God the cup to pass from him, he endured the show trial, the humiliating slap, the utter torture of the flail tearing his flesh apart piece by piece. He wore the purple robe, felt the pricks on his brow from the crown of thorns, heard his enemies worship him with mockery dripping from their tongues. He carried his own cross. The entire world turned its back on him, even those closest to him; they denied his name like it was a plague. The crowd embraced a rioter and a murderer over him. Uplifted on the cross to the lowest state attainable by a man, marred beyond the appearance of a man, he looked down on the world with mercy, and forgave it.

The glory of the omega is to receive his lot in life, the lowest of the low, and then extend to the world the hands of forgiveness. In this way he carries the heaviest burden, and also receives from God the most handsome reward. He also is rewarded in the church, the realm where the low are exalted, the weak are indispensable, and the unpresentable are treated with special modesty. The omega is honored by his low status in the world, and the community learns from him as from no other the power and blessing unleashed by washing his dirty feet, and the unexpected strength God can reveal in those the world has overlooked.

This is blasphemy. And does the nut who wrote this really believe it? Can you imagine this crap being taught in church to children? “Wingman of the Almighty?” What the hell is wrong with this fool’s mind?

This is someone making up his own religion. This is someone proclaiming, “I know more than St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and everyone else. It’s not just claiming, “I know what Jesus really meant” but that “I know the thoughts of God.”

Here’s some more blasphemy:

The attempt to trace the origins of Game are the most clear refutations of the pretentions of Game itself. Some have traced it to Jung, to Byron, to Shakespeare. Nope, way too shallow. Game was invented by Jesus. You think I'm joking? I'm not. Of course, it wasn't Game that Jesus taught, he taught us how to be men (the principles of positive masculinity), and how to deal with women. Read on:

Jesus, master of the neg (as recorded in Mark 7): Greek woman approaches Jesus, "Please heal my daughter." Jesus replies, "You are not worthy, you little dog." Jesus's neg gets the proper response too, leading the woman to grovel further: "Even the dogs get a scrap of bread." Happy with her full submission stated out loud, Jesus provides the requested healing.

(I’m going to interrupt here. The word Jesus used can be translated as “puppies,” as in puppies which beg at the table. She responded that even the puppies get scraps. She bested Jesus with her wit and He was clearly amused by it, which is why He said, “If you can give me an answer like that…” This is what happens when you try to shove everything into those pathetic Alpha/Beta/ “Game”/”neg” boxes - you completely miss the truth.)

Jesus, master of the alpha demand and validation (as recorded in John 4): Coming upon a strange woman at a well, Jesus starts off by straight up ordering her to fetch him a drink. The woman gives him a shit test, throwing up some religious bullshit excuse not to do it for him. Jesus responds by elevating his own status: "If you knew who was asking this request, you would do that and more, because I give the living water." The woman continues her shit test, asking him to prove it.

Jesus then negs the girl, shifting the subject, demanding "Where is your husband?" This begins to break her down, shifting the ground to her uncomfortable zone, as she admits she has no husband. Jesus drives the woman down even harder: "Darn right you don't have a husband, you are a little slut [five previous husbands, living with man currently]." The woman is totally owned by this, and sees to it that Jesus is fed and housed for the next couple days in her village.

Jesus refuses any woman's attempt to order him around, even his mother (recorded in John 2): Jesus is at a wedding party when his mother tells him, "We are out of wine." Jesus replies, and I quote, "Don't tell me what to do". His mom, being put in her place, then turns to the servants, and validates Jesus, to them, "Do what he tells you." Jesus then orders the servants about, and creates some high quality wine for the party.

When you start perverting religion what you have is a cult. And throughout history cult after cult has been squashed because they have been very destructive. And yet they keep popping up over and over and over.

I’ve pointed out before, more than once, if you truly believe in that Alpha/Beta babble you have to believe in polygamy – “alphas” get all the women and everyone else gets none. And 1000 women would rather share one “alpha” than touch a disgusting “beta.”

Does anyone believe any of this stuff is new? There is nothing new in the Manosphere. A lot of it is old worthless crap that was dismissed a thousand years ago.

Probably when I was about 20 years old I read an interview with a now-deceased polygamist named Alex Joseph. Mormon, of course (and if anyone knows about the history of the Mormon Church they know the violence and even homicide that followed this cult and, which is why it was forced all the way into Utah.

Joseph swore that Jesus had a bunch of wives and that it said so in the Bible. He actually convinced several women to marry him. And he was no “alpha,” just a nut.

Today the Lost Boys would claim Joseph was “Red Pill” and an “alpha” who had “Game” and was the master of the “neg” rather than some sociopath targeting screwy, weak-minded women and founding a cult – which is what sociopaths do. They’re into power, domination and control, which they do to cover up their weaknesses and self-hate.

The Manosphere is overwhelming about covering up your weakness because you hate yourself. Not changing yourself, not being the best you can be, but instead covering it up.

Including up to engaging in blasphemy.

“Fantasy and cold reason” indeed!

“For the character and destiny of a group are often determined by its most inferior elements.” – Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

”For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some new doctrine , infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.” – Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

"10 Troubling Habits Of Chronically Unhappy People"

This is from Forbes and was written by Travis Bradberry.

Happiness comes in so many different forms that it can be hard to define. Unhappiness, on the other hand, is easy to identify; you know it when you see it, and you definitely know when it’s taken ahold of you.

Unhappiness is lethal to everyone around you, just like second-hand smoke. The famous Terman Study from Stanford followed subjects for eight decades and found that being around unhappy people is linked to poorer health and a shorter life span.

Happiness has much less to do with life circumstances than you might think. A University of Illinois study found that people who earn the most (more than $10 million annually) are only a smidge happier than the average Joes and Janes who work for them.

Life circumstances have little to do with happiness because much happiness is under your control—the product of your habits and your outlook on life. Psychologists from the University of California who study happiness found that genetics and life circumstances only account for about 50% of a person’s happiness. The rest is up to you.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” – Benjamin Franklin

Unhappy Habits

When people are unhappy, it’s much more difficult to be around them, let alone work with them. Unhappiness drives people away, creating a vicious cycle that holds you back from achieving everything that you’re capable of.

Unhappiness can catch you by surprise. So much of your happiness is determined by your habits (in thought and deed) that you have to monitor them closely to make certain that they don’t drag you down into the abyss.

Some habits lead to unhappiness more than others do. You should be especially wary of the ten habits that follow as they are the worst offenders. Watch yourself carefully to make certain that these habits are not your own.

1. Waiting for the future. Telling yourself, “I’ll be happy when …” is one of the easiest unhappy habits to fall into. How you end the statement doesn’t really matter (it might be a promotion, more pay, or a new relationship) because it puts too much emphasis on circumstances, and improved circumstances don’t lead to happiness. Don’t spend your time waiting for something that’s proven to have no effect on your mood. Instead focus on being happy right now, in the present moment, because there’s no guarantee of the future.

2. Spending too much time and effort acquiring “things.” People living in extreme poverty experience a significant increase in happiness when their financial circumstances improve, but it drops off quickly above $20,000 in annual income. There’s an ocean of research that shows that material things don’t make you happy. When you make a habit of chasing things, you are likely to become unhappy because, beyond the disappointment you experience once you get them, you discover that you’ve gained them at the expense of the real things that can make you happy, such as friends, family, and hobbies.

3. Staying home. When you feel unhappy, it’s tempting to avoid other people. This is a huge mistake as socializing, even when you don’t enjoy it, is great for your mood. We all have those days when we just want to pull the covers over our heads and refuse to talk to anybody, but understand that the moment this becomes a tendency, it destroys your mood. Recognize when unhappiness is making you antisocial, force yourself to get out there and mingle, and you’ll notice the difference right away.

4. Seeing yourself as a victim. Unhappy people tend to operate from the default position that life is both hard and out of their control. In other words, “Life is out to get me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” The problem with that philosophy is that it fosters a feeling of helplessness, and people who feel helpless aren’t likely to take action to make things better. While everyone is certainly entitled to feel down every once in a while, it’s important to recognize when you’re letting this affect your outlook on life. You’re not the only person that bad things happen to, and you do have control over your future as long as you’re willing to take action.

5. Pessimism. Nothing fuels unhappiness quite like pessimism. The problem with a pessimistic attitude, beyond it being hard on your mood, is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you expect bad things, you’re more likely to get bad things. Pessimistic thoughts are hard to shake off until you recognize how illogical they are. Force yourself to look at the facts, and you’ll see that things are not nearly as bad as they seem.

6. Complaining. Complaining itself is troubling as well as the attitude that precedes it. Complaining is a self-reinforcing behavior. By constantly talking—and therefore thinking—about how bad things are, you reaffirm your negative beliefs. While talking about what bothers you can help you feel better, there’s a fine line between complaining being therapeutic and it fueling unhappiness. Beyond making you unhappy, complaining drives other people away.

7. Blowing things out of proportion. Bad things happen to everybody. The difference is that happy people see them for what they are—a temporary bummer—whereas unhappy people see anything negative as further evidence that life is out to get them. A happy person is upset if they have a fender bender on the way to work, but they keep things in perspective: “What a hassle, but at least it wasn’t more serious.” An unhappy person, on the other hand, uses it as proof that the day, the week, the month, maybe even their whole life, is doomed.

8. Sweeping problems under the rug. Happy people are accountable for their actions. When they make a mistake, they own it. Unhappy people, on the other hand, find problems and mistakes to be threatening, so they try to hide them. Problems tend to get bigger when they’re ignored. The more you don’t do anything about a problem, the more it starts to feel as though you can’t do anything about it, and then you’re right back to feeling like a victim.

9. Not improving. Because unhappy people are pessimists and feel a lack of control over their lives, they tend to sit back and wait for life to happen to them. Instead of setting goals, learning, and improving themselves, they just keep plodding along, and then they wonder why things never change.

10. Trying to keep up with the Joneses. Jealousy and envy are incompatible with happiness, so if you’re constantly comparing yourself with others, it’s time to stop. In one study, most subjects said that they’d be okay with making less money, but only if everybody else did too. Be wary of this kind of thinking as it won’t make you happy and, more often than not, has the opposite effect.

Bringing It All Together

Changing your habits in the name of greater happiness is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. But it’s also important for another reason—taking control of your happiness makes everyone around you happier too.

An Indispensable Genius Once Every Century

When I was 21 years old I read a truly impressive novel titled A Canticle for Leibowitz, by one Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Except for this novel Miller wrote some completely forgettable short stories. If it hadn’t been for this novel (which he worked on for five years) he too would have been completely forgotten.

This late ’50s novel is about the world being returned to the Stone Age, courtesy of (as always happened in novels and movies in those days) a nuclear war.

Of course it took the world some 3000 years to get back to normal, including interstellar flight. Then, again, the world repeats with another nuclear war – only this time there is an escape to the stars.

In the second part of the book one of the characters made the comment that every century or so there appears an indispensable genius who completely changes the world.

In our time, in the early 20th Century, it was Albert Einstein (when I understood what E=MC2 meant I thought, “How did the universe end up like that”).

In the early 21th Century that indispensable genius is Stephen Hawking.

In the past there has been Isaac Newton, Adam Smith, Aristotle. Each one changed the world.

There have been many others, far less known, who have expanded on these men’s discoveries.

I have no idea what produces these men.

I used to know a woman who told me her brother got a M.S. in Electrical Engineering. Their father was a baker and their mother a home-based seamstress and they lived in what wasn’t much more than a shack. One of her brother’s teachers, she told me, told him, “You are the student I’ve been waiting for my entire life.” (Hawking was working on his PhD in Physics when he was 20.)

And where were they from? Mount Vernon, Illinois, a nasty little town which I once visited.

How did this man come out of parents such as his, and a town like that? Again, I have no idea.

But I do know that when you are a once-a-century-genius you are born one. The proper education is also indispensable (the word “education” really means to draw out what is inside you) since no one can start at the beginning and do it all by themselves.

Even the ones who expand on what these men did are born that way.

Now what about the average man? What he does is maintain. That’s actually me. I don’t invent, I don’t discover – I maintain what exists. It’s men like me – and as I written before, there are millions of us (actually tens of millions) – who maintain civilization. That’s not something Hawking or Einstein or Aristotle or Adam Smith could ever do. They are the men who advance culture and civilization – but they can’t maintain it.

That’s why I never have had any problem with garbage men or plumbers or whatnot. They are indispensible to maintaining civilization (I’ve written before that I consider garbage men more important than doctors, since it’s possible to live your life without seeing a doctor, but what the hell are you supposed to do with your garbage?).

I’ve also written before of Carl Jung’s comments that men are indispensable because they are the culture-makers (and maintainers) and women are indispensable because they are the baby-makers.

Now what we have today is women wanting to give up being baby-makers because they delude themselves they can be culture-makers or maintainers. Sometimes they want to be both culture-makers and baby-makers (Have It All TM )at the same time.

It’s not going to happen. While there may be occasional women (one out of what? a hundred million?) who can be a culture-maker, there never has been, and never will be, a female Aristotle or Adam Smith or Einstein or Stephen Hawking.

Women overwhelmingly cannot create or even maintain culture/civilization. That is why, as I’ve mentioned before, P.J. O’Rourke has written that if civilization was in the hands of women it would last until the next oil change. Or, as Camille Paglia noticed, if civilization had been left in the hands of women we’d still be living in grass huts.

Contrary to leftist delusions people are not blank slates, which means they can be anything they want. If it was true we’d have a hell of a lot more Einsteins and Stephen Hawkings. Especially female ones. But we don’t have even one, do we?

Good Wine in Old Bottles

I am a believer in Natural Law. That is, there are laws in the universe, and human nature, and they can be discovered. You don't have to have a Ph.D. to discover them, or to understand if you follow them things will work out for you and society, and if you don't, instead bad things will happen.

Many of these laws have already been discovered thousands of years ago. Since Natural Laws are universal, you can find them in the moral codes of all societies and all religions.

Let's take a little book called the Tao Te Ching, a book written a few thousand years ago, by Lao Tze. I have a few translations of this book. Here are some of the sayings in it:

"Why are people starving?
Because the rulers eat up the money in taxes.
Therefore the people are starving."

I have modern-day books by Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises, both of whom have expanded greatly on that comment above. I have hundreds of books, with thousands of pages. Yet, those three lines, millennia old and true as can be, stay in my mind.

"Why are the people rebellious?
Because the rulers interfere too much.
Therefore they are rebellious."

Well, that's certainly true, isn't it? The State never learns that lesson, does it?

"The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people will be."

Hey, Lao Tze was a smart guy! Rules and regulations make people poor.

"The more rules and regulations, the more thieves and robbers."

Yep. Not just the average joe, but the people in the State stealing people's money through misnamed "taxes."

Therefore, The sage does nothing and people govern themselves,
Provokes no one and people are peaceful,
Does not interfere and people prosper,
Is without desire and people fulfill themselves."

Throw out all the Ph.D.s in Political Science from Harvard and Yale and Princeton and the places down. Instead, teach the sayings in this article starting in grade school.

"The more people are controlled, the less contented they become.

But when will leaders understand the significance of this? "

Apparently leaders will never understand it.

“The best rulers are scarcely known by their subjects;
The next best are loved and praised;
The next are feared;
The next despised:
They have no faith in their people,
And their people become unfaithful to them.”
I think I’m not going to make any more comments. Lao Tze doesn’t really did them, since he’s self-explanatory.

“When the best rulers achieve their purpose
Their subjects claim the achievement as their own..
“When harmonious relationships dissolve
Then respect and devotion arise;
When a nation falls to chaos
Then loyalty and patriotism are born.
“Those who wish to change the world
According with their desire
Cannot succeed.
“The world is shaped by the Way;
It cannot be shaped by the self.
Trying to change it, you damage it;
Trying to possess it, you lose it.
“Powerful men are well advised not to use violence,
For violence has a habit of returning;
Thorns and weeds grow wherever an army goes,
And lean years follow a great war.
“A general is well advised
To achieve nothing more than his orders:
Not to take advantage of his victory.
Nor to glory, boast or pride himself;
To do what is dictated by necessity,
But not by choice.
“For even the strongest force will weaken with time,
And then its violence will return, and kill it.
“Armies are tools of violence;
They cause men to hate and fear.
The sage will not join them.
His purpose is creation;
Their purpose is destruction.
“Weapons are tools of violence,
Not of the sage;
He uses them only when there is no choice,
And then calmly, and with tact,
For he finds no beauty in them.
“Whoever finds beauty in weapons
Delights in the slaughter of men;
And who delights in slaughter
Cannot content himself with peace.
“So slaughters must be mourned
And conquest celebrated with a funeral.
“To reduce someone's influence, first expand it;
To reduce someone's force, first increase it;
To overthrow someone, first exalt them;
To take from someone, first give to them.
“This is the subtlety by which the weak overcome the strong:
Fish should not leave their depths,
And swords should not leave their scabbards.
“Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily released;
So ritual enthralls generation after generation.
“When government is lazy and informal
The people are kind and honest;
When government is efficient and severe
The people are discontented and deceitful.
“Who recognizes his limitations is healthy;
Who ignores his limitations is sick.
The sage recognizes this sickness as a limitation.
And so becomes immune.
“When people have nothing more to lose,
Then revolution will result.
“Do not take away their lands,
And do not destroy their livelihoods;
If your burden is not heavy then they will not shirk it.
“When rulers take grain so that they may feast,
Their people become hungry;
When rulers take action to serve their own interests,
Their people become rebellious;
When rulers take lives so that their own lives are maintained,
Their people no longer fear death.”

Who needs all those books when you have this?

How Samuel Huntington Predicted Our Political Moment

This is from the American Interest and was written by Jason Willick.

In 2004, the eminent political scientist offered key insights into the nationalist-cosmopolitan divide at the heart of our society.

Samuel Huntington, the professor of government at Harvard University (and member of The American Interest editorial board from its founding until his death in 2008) was a titan of 20th-century social science. Several of his books, including Political Order in Changing Societies, The Third Wave, and The Clash of Civilizations, are classic works that will shape political thought for generations.

Huntington’s final book, however, has been denied a place in that pantheon. Who Are We?—a wide-ranging treatise that argued, among other things, that American elites were dangerously out of touch with the American public when it came to issues of patriotism, foreign policy, and national identity—was panned by most mainstream reviewers in 2004 as an ideological and careless screed that flirted with xenophobia. At 77, the eminent scholar was accused in respectable circles of losing his marbles. But as the Republican Party prepares to hand its nomination to Donald Trump—a self-described “America First” nationalist, running on a platform of immigration restriction, trade wars, and Jacksonian foreign policy—Huntington’s thesis is looking more prescient than ever before—not as a prescription, but as a way of describing the divisions running through the heart of American society.

Since Trump’s rise, many sharp analysts have identified the clash between nationalism and cosmopolitanism as the fulcrum of American politics and even suggested that our parties are in the process of a long-term realignment driven by these competing understandings of American national identity. But Huntington saw the crucial importance of this fracture more than a decade before the gifted New York demagogue declared his candidacy for president:

The views of the public on issues of national identity differ significantly from those of many elites. The public, overall, is concerned with physical security but also with societal security, which involves the sustainability–within acceptable conditions for evolution–of existing patterns of language, culture, association, religion and national identity. For many elites, these concerns are secondary to participating in the global economy, supporting international trade and migration, strengthening international institutions, promoting American values abroad, and encouraging minority identities and cultures at home. The central distinction between the public and elites is not isolationism versus internationalism, but nationalism versus cosmopolitanism.

According to Huntington, postwar globalization had given rise to a new class of “global citizens” at the highest echelons of American academia, industry, and (bipartisan) politics—a “de-nationalized” elite whose “attitudes and behavior contrast with the overwhelming patriotism and nationalistic identification of the rest of the American public.” The jet-setting cosmopolitans tended to be far more supportive of free trade, open immigration, and activist foreign policy than most Americans. Huntington described this wide and allegedly growing gap as a major source of the decline in trust in democratic institutions since the 1960s.

The internationalist understanding of America’s place in the world preferred by the ruling class came in two flavors. The first might be called liberal cosmopolitanism. Under this philosophy, Huntington wrote, “America welcomes the world, its ideas, its goods and, most importantly its people. The ideal would be an open society with open borders, encouraging subnational ethnic, racial and cultural identities, dual citizenship, diasporas, and would be led by elites who increasingly identified with global institutions, norms and rules rather than national ones.” This description closely tracks the official view of today’s Democratic Party, which grew increasingly cosmopolitan under President Obama, and seems poised to continue this trajectory during its (still likely) second Clinton era.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the Cold War, conservative intellectuals developed their own distinctive spin on the prevailing internationalist philosophy. Huntington called this “the imperial alternative.” In this view, instead of allowing the world to transform American society, America would transform foreign societies. “At the start of the new millennium conservatives accepted and endorsed the idea of an American empire,” Huntington wrote, “and the use of American power to reshape the world according to American values.” This variety of internationalism might be seen as an effort to accommodate the mass public’s patriotic populism within the elite cosmopolitan vision. The American eagle would bestride the globe.

The imperialist (or, to put it differently, neoconservative) synthesis sufficed to hold the Republican Party together during the Bush years, even though the cosmopolitan-nationalist distinction still manifested itself in a number of ways, including the 2007 derailing of comprehensive immigration reform. By 2016, however, the floor fell out from under the internationalists in the Republican Party altogether. With conservative internationalism vanquished, the 2016 contest pits liberal cosmopolitanism against a vulgar expression of pure nationalism inflected with racial overtones. The gap Huntington warned about now seems very real.

Though he would surely see through Trump’s opportunistic demagoguery if he were alive today, Huntington was rightly concerned about the tendency of the political class to ignore the public’s preferences on issues related to America’s identity, culture, and role in the world. Disillusioned by both liberal internationalism and neoconservatism, he advocated for an alternative approach. “Cosmopolitanism and imperialism attempt to reduce or to eliminate the social, political and cultural differences between America and other societies,” he wrote. “A national approach would recognize and accept what distinguishes America from those societies.”

Huntington is almost certainly right that the internationalists in both parties have gone too far for their own good, and for the country’s. At the same time, the kind of nationalist populism now flaring up across Western democracies is less an alternative approach than a white-hot reaction. And the elite perception that a certain level of globalization and American leadership brings distinctive benefits that the public is slow to recognize will always endure, not only because elites are stubborn and insular, but because their view also contains a significant element of truth. The point is not to kick internationalism to the curb; it is for elites to rediscover the delicate balance between cosmopolitanism and nationalism that they started to lose in the mid-20th century and abandoned altogether as the Cold War came to a close.

As Francis Fukuyama, Huntington’s former student and protege, wrote last month: “The intellectual challenge is to see whether it is possible to back away from globalization without cratering both the national and the global economy, with the goal of trading a little aggregate national income for greater domestic income equality.” Figuring out how to do this should be one of the defining challenges of American politics over the next generation.

Bad Fantasies to Worse Realities

My last year in college a lieutenant colonel from the Army spoke to one of my larger classes. He wanted us to join. We'd be made officers, he said. We'd be "taken care of," he told us. As for the others (he meant the front-line grunts who did the fighting), he smirked as he commented, "we don't care what they want."

In a flash I understood what was going on. There had been riots over Vietnam. People had fled the country. The military had learned its lesson: you don't draft the smarter and the well-to-do and turn them into cannon fodder. Instead, you turn them into officers who don't have to fight, and put those of average, or less than average, intelligence in the front lines.

It’s the middle class versus Hooterville, Georgia.

As I heard an Army sergeant once say, "Sorry people in front, good people in back." The less-intelligent, the military has decided, are expendable. They're thow-aways. The military does not care about them. They may pretend they do, giving them artificial legs and whatnot, but they really don’t.

I don't know how many people joined from that class. I didn't. It didn't seem conscionable under the circumstances.

I wondered then, and still wonder now, how easily those destined to be cannon-fodder fall for such empty words as "patriotism," "honor," "defending your country," and "liberating the oppressed."

My paternal grandfather spent eight years in the Army so he was to tolerate it, but then, he was a Scots-Irish hillbilly from Tennessee via Appalachia – cannon fodder. My uncle and cousin spent four years in the Navy and both told me, “It was a waste of four years of my life.”

I know some people fall for those impressive-sounding words a lot easier than those who could be officers.

Those words are just fantasies in people's heads. They don't mean much of anything. In 30 years the war in Iraq will be as forgotten as the "war" in Vietnam. A new generation won't understand it at all, just like the current one doesn't understand Vietnam. It might as well be the War of 1812 to them.

But what happens when those fantasies in their heads runs up against reality? I mean those who come back permanently maimed. What do words like "patriotism" and "honor" and "liberating the oppressed" mean then? What do they mean to those blind and missing limbs?

I suppose at first those wounded will try to convince themselves it was for a good cause. I understand that. No one wants to believe you ended up in a wheelchair for nothing. You want to think it was for a noble cause.

Some years ago I saw a TV interview with an Army Ranger who had been in the invasion of Panama. He ended up shot through the spine and permanently in a wheelchair. The interviewer asked him if it was worth it. He said, "Yes."

One of the reasons for the invasion was to stop the flow of drugs to the U.S. Yet drugs still come out of Panama, just the way there are still poppies being grown in Afghanistan.

What comes after the permanently wounded can no longer say, "Yes"? Unending hate and bitterness because of what has been permanently lost? How many kids is a quadriplegic going to have? How many are even going to have a marriage?

There was a man in a small town I once worked in who had been clipped across the back of the neck in Vietnam. What clipped him was a bullet. He was 19 years old. Had he fallen forward in the rice paddy he was crossing, he would have drowned. He fell backward.

He spent the next 30 years lying in a bed before he died of pneumonia. I'm sure he was never visited by Robert McNamara or Lyndon Johnson or any of the other men who started the undeclared Vietnam non-war.

Of those coming back now who are permanently wounded, how many have been visited by those who are the most rabid for war, but did everything they could to avoid serving? How many times did Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld visit those hidden back wards of a VA hospital?

You'll never see any Chickenhawk visit the wounded. Ever. They don't want to see them. It intrudes on their fantasy world of believing the wars are worth it. Seeing the maimed would pop the bubbles the live in. Instead, they'll mouth phrases like "heroes making the ultimate sacrifice" and asking God to bless them, and for people to pray for them. They'll do it from a distance, though. They'll try to avoid thinking about the fact those words won't make limbs grow back, or the blind see, or the crippled walk.

The bad fantasies for those in the front lines are beliefs in a just war, patriotism, liberating the oppressed. The far worse realities for those who come back from those front lines permanently maimed are different. It is to be forgotten.

War as a False Religion

The last 15 years of wars have been enlightening to me about how some people react to them. The last few wars the U.S. was in -- the first Iraq war, the "war" on Serbia, and Panama -- were so short I couldn't draw any conclusions. We haven't been in such a long conflict since Vietnam -- and for people born since then, for all they know about it, it might as well have been a century ago.

I was a kid during Vietnam, too little to pay that much attention. I do remember the ghoul Robert McNamara, who'll be washing several million gallons of blood off his hands for a long time to come. He was such a catastrophe, and so incompetent, he made Donald Rumsfeld look like a tactical and logistical genius.

I also remember the evil, power-mad Lyndon Johnson. LBJ, a pathological liar (as all true politicians are), said he would get us out of Vietnam and instead escalated the war. Then after his first term he ran away, dumping the war in Richard Nixon's lap. Close to two-thirds of the casualties in Vietnam occurred during Johnson's administration. There is a special place in Hell for him, as there is for McNamara.

But now, with these current wars, so I've had plenty of time to think about the effects of war on some people. The conclusion I've come to is that war, for some people, is a religion.

Admittedly it is a false religion, but it is a religion nonetheless. The word "religion" means "to tie, fasten or bind." That is exactly what war does to some people -- it brings them together into a community. It gives meaning and importance to their lives. And that makes war a religion, albeit a ghastly one.

Robert Nisbet, an influential conservative sociologist -- and "conservative sociologist" almost sound like an oxymoron -- wrote in his book Community and Power, "The power of war to create a sense of moral meaning is one of the most frightening aspects of the 20th century...one of the most impressive aspects of contemporary war is the intoxicating atmosphere of spiritual unity that arises out of the common consciousness of participating in a moral crusade."

The book, indeed all of his books, is about the alienation that comes from the loss of community. Such as loss always happens with the expansion of the State. As it expands, it destroys all the intermediary institutions such as religion, neighborhoods and families. Finally, what could be left is nothing between people and the State. There are various names for such a condition -- fascism, communism, Nazism. The State becomes everything, and people become absorbed into it. Think of the Borg.

Writers such as Erich Fromm and Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn have pointed out many people want to be absorbed into a group as an escape from their alienation. It gives them a sense of community and security. Nisbet adds there is something else -- such people don't give up their individuality in these groups, but instead exalt their selves, as they now believe they are part of something they believe is much larger than they are.

They become, you might call it, a community of deluded self-worshippers. They believe the group itself it god-like, or blessed of God, so they partake of that "divinity" by being part of the group. They are literally worshipping their selves, a worship that always means those outside of the group are devalued into sub-humans whose murders are dismissed as "collateral damage."

As Russell Kirk noted, "the monstrous self is the source of all evil." The Nazis, the communists, and the fascists were that monstrous self writ large. I believe this is why Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote, "'I' is from God and 'We' is from the Devil." That "We" can only be of the Devil when the State destroys the intermediary institutions, and the only "We" left is the combination of the people and the State.

During long-term warfare society becomes militarized and in doing so damages, destroys or absorbs such intermediary institutions as churches. Then we end up with disgraces such as the Satan-worshipping Jerry Falwell claiming "God is pro war," which of course means God supports only the wars of the United States.

When the interests of religion and the interests of the State coalesce into supporting the same unjust wars, what we have left is no true religion at all. The State instead becomes God on Earth. War then becomes the fist of that god, one to smite the "wicked."

"When the goals and values of a war are popular," writes Nisbet, "both in the sense of mass participation and spiritual devotion, the historic, institutional limits of war tend to recede further and further into the void. The enemy becomes not only a ready scapegoat for all ordinary dislikes and frustrations; he becomes the symbol of total evil which the forces of good may mobilize themselves into a militant community."

In short, war can give meaning, importance and community -- and an intoxicating power -- to some people's lives. That makes it a religion, a false one based on hubris and being drunk with power. Power does more than just corrupt; it intoxicates. In The Lord of the Rings it was that power that turned Smeagol into Gollum. The same thing could happen to people in reality.

Always ignored, of course, is what war does to those on the receiving end. If not ignored, then rationalized. "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them," noticed George Orwell.

This meaning and community -- this religion -- is a false one, destined to bring disillusionment and destruction to those who believe in it. War is a false god. Perhaps sometimes war is unavoidable, but it is an idol that can never give true meaning to a person's life.

Men Do All the Hard, Dangerous Work, Then Women Follow and Whine, "Give All of Good Stuff to Me"

I've pointed out before, more than once, that you can feel envy or gratitude, but not both at the same time. That’s been noticed for thousands of years.

I've also pointed out before, again more than once, that leftism (feminism is leftist) is about the murder of the archetypical Father. And that leftism (and therefore feminism) is based on envy. Which means there is no gratitude or appreciation whatsoever.

Envy, more than anything else, wants to overthrow and destroy. And that is why you get such concepts as Dead White Males and "patriarchy" - destroy them! Overthrow them! Give it all to me! I should rule!

I've been thinking about this for decades, long before the Internet and certainly long before the Manosphere (which is why I know so much of it is adolescent nonsense).

Ingratitude is one of the worst vices in the world. It's a species of envy: "You've got it, now give it to me."

Men invented everything in the world. Okay, maybe not everything. Just 99.99% of it. Women did invent some things (who has ever heard of Grace Hopper?) but those women are extreme outliers.

And it's not because of "oppression" and "patriarchy." It's because men and women have different brains. Hell, different everything.

Not only was it men, it was specifically white men (specifically Western European), who created/discovered/invented about 98% of everything in the world. Of course the envious are going to say they stole it and did it on the backs of those they “oppressed” and “enslaved” - or destroyed all those wonderful ancient societies that had jet airplanes and advanced brain surgery 50,000 years ago. But again, that's what the envious claim, and again, it's easy to tell who the envious are - they consistently, chronically, put down those who are better than they are – who've done a lot more than they have.

Men invent, discover, create (sometimes losing their lives in the process), then many women follow, feel sorry for their selves, start whining about a non-existent "oppression" and "patriarchy," then howl, "Since you've done all the hard, dangerous work and now that things are easy with air conditioning and cars and airplanes, give me my cut! No, wait! Give all of it to me because I can run it just as well as men! No, wait! Better!"

Astonishing.

Why should men give women a say in anything when men created everything? Would I give a child a say in running society and civilization?

It didn't surprise me decades ago when I found both Schopenhauer and Lord Chesterfield referred to women as big children. I've seen it myself, as have all my friends.

I've had women tell me, "Men are responsible for all the problems in the world" (what is this, 1967?) All of them were unmarried, middle-aged, and made about $45,000 a year from jobs created by men. Gratitude? Appreciation? What are those? But envy? Certainly.

Women would be up shit creek if men didn't love them – and many women are doing their damndest to screw that up. Those goofy evo-psych/Manosphere hallucinations about it all being about sex - goofy as hell. It's about love - and if love didn't exist we'd be on the same level as cats and dogs. Both men and women.

I've mentioned before about "The Little House on the Prairie Books," which everyone should read. There is a scene in which Laura Ingalls Wilder's father ("Pa") builds a house basically with an ax. He chops down trees, has the horses haul them to the site, makes logs out of them, builds a house, then splits logs lengthwise, smoothes the insides, then uses them for the floor. Then he builds the furniture!

This is what he did for his wife and children. And bulldog, for that matter.

His wife ("Ma") did the cooking, cleaning, canning, etc. Could she have built the house? BWAHAHA!!! Could he do the cooking, canning. etc.? I’d rather build the house!

And I don't think Pa was as big or strong as I am. I know what he went through, since my father was a general contractor and I started building houses when I was 12. It was pretty horrible at times. I almost got killed once and hurt myself several times - smashing your thumb with a hammer is not funny, no matter what the cartoons tell us.

I once found the tip of a guy's finger when he fell off of a ladder and grabbed the wrong thing. I've also seen guys run power saws over their hands and fingers and shoot themselves in the foot with nail guns.

I occasionally ask women what would happen to them if men withdrew from running and maintaining the world. No more water or electricity or food. Poof! Just like that.

Now what have I done to create/discover/invent? Nothing! But guess what? I can maintain civilization – which women cannot do. And there are hundreds of millions of me!

One woman told me, "Men wouldn't get paid," to which I responded, "You just don't get it at all, do you? Men invented everything in the world. And 'getting paid' is a concept men discovered. Just like they discovered economics."

Carl Jung understood this. Men are culturally indispensible since they created everything and women are biologically indispensable since they have the babies. Until we create artificial wombs and sexbots!

I've mentioned before about the wisdom of the story of the Garden of Eden. Women's greatest flaw is envy (the "serpent" is a symbol of envy) and men's greatest flaw is listening to envious women - and apparently being unable to perceive that they are envious!

Envy wants to drag people down. It shows no gratitude and appreciation. So when women put men down and demand things from them (especially without giving anything in return), those are the main signs of envy.

Take Hillary Clinton, for an example. She got everything she's gotten on the coat tails of her husband. Without him where would she be? A second-rate lawyer fixing traffic tickets?

This envy of women, with men unable to recognize it, is part of the Battle of the Sexes, which has now apparently taken on the dimensions of a war!

Marriage rates have collapsed, which of course women blame on men - since they refuse to look in the mirror. And babies being born? Not so much anymore.

Why should men get married and have children? What's in it for them anymore? Being the object of envious attacks and having every problem in the world blamed on them? Who needs that?

These problems have happened in the past, which is one of the reasons all past societies have collapsed.

Yet people don't learn from history. In fact, if there is one lesson from history everyone should know, it's that people don't learn from it.

The Six Killer Aps of Prosperity

I don't agree totally with this article because I am not politically correct.

I put modern medicine, property rights, competition, the work ethic, the consumer society and the scientific revolution under under the free market, which created these things. I'd add European ancestry, which is what created all of it.

So, in simplest terms, the U.S. government is trying to get rid of minimal government/free market (they go together) and white people.

This is from the site The Dollar Vigilante.

The Six Killer Apps of Prosperity that the US Government is Destroying

"It is worth your while to watch it as it brings up a number of interesting points. More importantly, it does something that no one ever seems to think of nowadays: It looks at the past and tries to figure out not only what happened but what worked and what didn't.

"We now have enough evidence of political and financial systems to be able to come up with some ideas on what works and what doesn't. Yet, rarely is this analyzed by the public.

"Niall tries to look back into history and see what created the most amount of wealth and freedom. He says it boils down to the following six items:

Competition
Scientific Revolution
Property Rights
Modern Medicine
Consumer Society
The Work Ethic

"You may agree or disagree with some of the points... but in general most rational people would say this is a fair list.

"So, let's go through that list from the perspective of the current state of affairs in the United States, and most western nations, today.

1. COMPETITION

"Nial makes the point here that this not only includes competition between free-market entities but also competition between political systems. As he states, 'Not only were there a hundred different political units in Europe in 1500 but within each of these units there was competition between corporations as well as sovereigns.' He goes on to state, 'Nothing like this existed in China where there was one monolithic state covering a fifth of humanity.'

"This is an excellent point. Competition between political systems is very healthy. The founding of the US explicitly encouraged this by attempting to give the majority of the power to the States and not to the Federal Government. This, of course, has been mostly erased over many decades as all the power has been taken over more and more by the U.S. Government itself. In fact, this process began 150 years ago with the US civil war when the south tried to secede but was brutally put down in its attempt.

"Today, in the U.S., there is virtually no political competition and even corporate competition is constantly restrained or manipulated by regulations and subsidies.

2. SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

"By 'scientific revolution', Niall's simply means using evidence to form opinions and ideas and testing those opinions and ideas. Today, in the U.S., the Government has become such a major player in the field of science that it has turned science itself, on its head. As example, economics is still taught in the U.S. from the Keynesian perspective - which has all but been debunked and proven to be wrong. And other areas, including things like physics (as we denoted in our piece, 'The Day Science Died'), have seen the Educational Industrial Complex completely skew it towards maintaining the status quo rather than doing real science.

"Not to mention that the U.S. Government outlaws truly revolutionary forms of science such as research on stem cells. Of course, all this does is ensure the U.S. falls further behind in the sciences. And, as Peyton Manning showed, it just ensures the poor and middle class do not get access to scientific advances while the rich have the ability to jet off to countries for treatment.

3. PROPERTY RIGHTS

"This is the reason the U.S. is still hanging on somewhat. It still has fairly reasonable property rights. However, it should be made clear that people in the U.S. do not own their houses. They rent them from the government. Try not paying your 'property tax' and you will see who owns your house. The same goes for businesses and other assets... try not paying all the license fees or your capital gains tax or dividend tax and you'll quickly find out who really owns your business or assets.

4. MODERN MEDICINE

"Niall's point here is mainly about how advances in medicine in the last few hundred years doubled life expectancy due to things like antibiotics. However, in today's 'medical system', the system itself has as its main focus to keep people sick. Rarely are the root cause of problems identified (which would almost always be diet or exercise related) but only the symptoms are treated... usually putting most people into a downward spiral where they become more and more dependent on toxic chemical medications that make them sicker and sicker. Today, in the U.S., because of things like corn subsidies causing a massive increase in fructose corn syrup and a medical establishment beholden to the pharmaceutical companies who disallow natural, healthy medicines to be used, such as marijuana, most people are not only dependent on expensive pharmaceuticals but are all much sicker than they would have been without government involvement in the food and pharmaceutical industry.

5. CONSUMER SOCIETY

"Aha, here you say, the U.S. is doing very well! But, no. Niall's point is that in a society where everyone is a Buddhist monk who does not desire material items the economy would be very small. And, he is right. It is healthy for an economy for people to desire things. However, what has happened in the U.S., thanks to the criminal Federal Reserve banking cartel, interest rates are always kept artificially low leading people to stop saving and spend more... however, this does not lead to a prosperous economy. An economy prospers when it produces more than it consumes. This should be obvious to anyone except those who get Ph.D.s from places like Princeton and Harvard. The American society today believes it can become prosperous by consuming more than it produces... the effects show in the jobless rate and the poor economic conditions in the US today.

6. THE WORK ETHIC

"Here the U.S. is still above many parts of the world although it has been losing against many parts of Asia. But the entire structure of American society is so warped by government involvement that most of the 'work' goes for naught. With Government subsidized 'education' it means that most Americans will spend 16-20 years in school - and in many cases learn next to nothing during that entire time - and then be encumbered by student loan debts and other debts, such as mortgages (which are mostly needed because the price of housing has been artificially inflated by the U.S. Government's involvement in subsidizing interest rates and mortgage loans). Just ask many of the young '99%ers' at the Occupy Wall Street rallies. Many state that they have 'worked hard' and done 'everything right' but they have no job, no assets and have overwhelming debt. This is because the government's interventions led everyone down the wrong path. There is no doubt many of them worked hard for many years but they were doing the wrong things.

"Thanks to the internet, education is completely free today... a fact that won't help many who wasted 4-8 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a piece of paper.

CONCLUSION

"Milton Friedman once said, 'If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there would be a shortage of sand'. As can be seen above, in Niall's 6 'killer apps of prosperity' the government's involvement has either ruined or is in the process of ruining each of them.

"Now, in reaction to the collapse of the U.S., many people have taken to the streets in the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests. However, many of them are asking for MORE government involvement in the economy and the lives of Americans as a solution.

"Sadly, thanks to 12-16 years of government funded or regulated education they cannot see that the solution many are rallying for is the cause of most of their problems today."

Watching Sleazy Politicians Commit Political Suicide and Enjoying it Immensely

"Cruz must now accept that his political career is over." - Nicholas James Pell

I watched the creepy-looking Ted Cruz (who looks like the offspring of Lyndon Johnson mating with Richard Nixon) commit political suicide at the Republican National Convention. What was he thinking?

If Trump wins Cruz will never have a post in his administration. If Trump loses he still has changed the Republican party beyond it ever going back to what it is. Cruz is going nowhere for the rest of his life.

How can it be that someone like me, descended from Scots-Irish Appalachian/Tennessee/Kentucky hillbillies, sees this - and Cruz cannot? Maybe because I’m smarter and more knowledgeable than he is – and the Bushes and Clintons?

The same applies to the Bush crime family. There will never be another Bush as President – and I thank God for that. There will never be another Bush in any administration.

My God! I’ve always known politicians were stupid and narcissistic – but this is nearly beyond belief! What kind of morons commit political suicide when politics is their life?

Do they really think people care if the Bushes or Cruz endorse Trump or not? It reminds me of the senile George Will whining he’s left the Republican Party because it's no longer to his liking.

Honest to God – who cares?

I suspect all of them are eaten up with envy, especially after seeing Trump introduce his impressive family. I can imagine George and Barbara watching them and thinking, “Jesus, compare my alcoholic, crackhead offspring with his! ARRRRGGHHHH!!!”

Trump is certainly a flawed man. But he’s less flawed than the Clintons and Bushes combined.

I’m laughing at the whole circus.

By the way, does anyone really believe a short, dumpy, post-menopausal woman, who was never attractive, and who covers up what she is with $10,000 sack-like dresses, can beat beat a 6'2" multibillionaire with a successful, attractive family?

If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.

Built by Slaves Under the Whip and Sword

I don't remember exactly when I realized it. It might have been watching The Ten Commandments as a teenager. These people spent their lives as slaves building huge worthless monuments? Under the whip and sword? Dying by tens of thousands? Jesus, what an awful life!

Later I realized all these glorious monuments and even cities were built by tens of thousands of expendable slaves. I have mentioned the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal. These things weren't built by highly-paid, voluntary workers. By slaves! With a sword at their throats!

Recently I saw a PBS program about Machu Picchu, which was an amazing Inca city pretty much built on a top of a small mountain for Inca royalty. It was built of various sizes of stones chiseled into bricks. It was never quite finished.

Scholars don't know much at all about its history. But consider this: since all those other places were built by slaves, I think it's obvious that Machu Piccu was built by life-long slaves who toiled for what? Fifty years? A hundred years? To build this place!

Whenever you see something large and amazing built a thousand or two thousand years ago it was always built by slaves. And those societies are always the same: a vanishingly small minority of that "1%" using the police and military to oppress and crush the povery-stricken peasants. Who dropped like flies working.

I'm sure all those amazing engineering feats of the Romans were built by slaves. And as for Greece, the smarter ones spent their times creating philosophy while the slaves did all the work.

Slavery, of course, even infected the United States, which was why the South created nothing of value. The planters were a indolent and lazy class. Everything of value was created by the non-slave states.

I've mentioned Saudi Arabia recently. The "royalty" doesn't work. They've imported tens of thousands of Third Worlders to do all the work. Who are paid a pittance. And if their "employers" keep their passports...well, just too bad. For all practical purposes they've got slaves! Indentured servants!

Thank God slavery didn't last very long in the West - not even 200 years, if I remember correctly. The British used to send warships out to intercept slave ships, and they even sent said warships to Brazilian harbors to put a stop to slavery in Brazil.

I was raised in Illinois and once visited when I was 19 the Old Slave House, which is in far southern Illinois. It was in the only county in Illinois in which slavery was legal. The stories the curator told us were horrifying. For one thing he told us no one had been able to spent a night in the house.

Many years ago I read a story by the late Manley Wade Wellman (I still have a copy of the magazine in which it was published - "Cavalier," perhaps) in which slave ships tossed their slaves overboard - in chains - to drown them when they saw a British warship coming their way. Of course, the story ended with the dead slaves coming up out of their watery graves and dragging the captain down with them.

Actually the West never got really going until it got rid of slavery.

Of course there are people in the West who think certain people (it always seems to be Republicans) who want to impose slavery.

I used to be a newspaper reporter and editor. I once interviewed an idiotic middle-aged woman who wrote a novel (which she had published by a vanity press) which was about how Reagan wanted to impose slavery on women - to keep them barefoot and pregnant. I thought, is this stupid woman serious? She was.

Good Lord, people really are imperfect, to do the things they've done! And they always rationalize why it's a good thing.

As Robert Heinlein once said: people aren't rational. They're rationalizing. And they'll rational everything. Slavery, child molestation, murder. Everything.

Comic Books and the Loss of Chivalry

There is a local coffee house I frequent. The last time I was there the woman who took our order – who appeared to be about 25 – also made our drinks. I didn’t see anyone else behind the counter.

“Are you the only one working here?” I asked. In response she put her hands akimbo on her hips and turned her head sideways. I started laughing.

“What are you, Superman?” I asked.

“Supergirl,” she answered.

I crossed my wrists at my chest and said, “You look more like you’ve got the Wonder Woman thing going.”

“Well,” she answered. “She did have the uniform and bracelets.”

Then something struck me. “You read comic books,” I said.

“I certainly do,” she answered. That’s why she knew about Superman putting his hands on his hips and turning his head sideways. And that Wonder Woman had bracelets. She didn't mention anything about her golden lasso, though.

That encounter got me thinking. I was never that much of a Superman fan – I much preferred Commando Cody flying around with that jetpack on his back and blasting evildoers with his .45 – but he and Superman and all the rest of the comic book heroes were chivalrous. That’s why they were superheroes – at core knights with superpowers.

But not so much anymore. Superman has now given up his U.S. citizenship and is supposedly a citizen of the world – a demented, indeed perverted, fantasy if there ever was one. Whatever happened to Truth, Justice and the American Way?

Chivalry is a Western invention. Or should I say discovery? It came from Christianity and is based on the better warrior virtues (which means it’s not based on murdering innocents and calling them “collateral damage”). It’s about protecting the weak and helpless, and about righting wrongs and punishing evildoers.

All comic book heroes were originally chivalrous, be they Superman or Batman or the Phantom or the Green Hornet or the Rocketeer (who is the modern-day version of Commando Cody). Before them it was King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

I originally learned about chivalry from Edgar Rice Burroughs, specifically his novel, A Fighting Man of Mars, which I encountered when I was 12. (You can argue that ERB wrote novels, not comic books, but I’d respond that his novels, as wonderful as they are, are actually comic books that happen to not have drawings, although some of the cover artists, such as the late Frank Frazetta, did comics.)

Some of the superheroes were more of knights errant than not. Batman, for one, who was a bit of a psychological mess. But he still tried to be a chivalrous knight.

We’ve lost the chivalrous ideal. Organizations where young boys can learn the basics, such as the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, are now considered by the “elites” to be embarrassing. That’s one of the reasons, among many, why our “elites” are anti-American traitors.

The military no longer teaches chivalry, not when soldiers are just cannon fodder to be used up by our treacherous and cowardly elites to advance the destined-to-collapse American empire. The last time the military was half-way chivalrous was during the War between the States. The syphilitic brain-damaged homosexual Lincoln and the insane alcoholic Sherman put a permanent end to that.

It’s too bad the South didn’t win. I’d take Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson over any Northern general every time. (I find it interesting the South evolved from Celtic warrior culture, while the North was dominated by greasy merchants who put money-making above everything – just as we have today with what I call Cosmodemonic Transnational Corporations.)

People are imitative animals, as Thomas Jefferson noticed. It’s how we learn, as he also noticed. When boys and girls have poor models, mentors and mirrors, they’re going imitate degraded values and grow up confused. It’s not hard to see that today, what with chivalry and Christianity both on life support.

Feminism, which has founded by man-hating females and then taken over by envious man-hating, hairy-legged lesbians, certainly hasn’t helped. Leftists think human nature doesn’t exist and people aren’t much more than Lockean blank slates. That is why feminists, even today, are trying to turn little boys into little girls, usually with Ritalin.

If I had my way I’d close down the public schools. These days it’d be impossible to teach Edgar Rice Burroughs in them (he wasn’t taught when I was in school). And the Greek myths. And the Brothers Grimm. And Rudyard Kipling and H. Rider Haggard. As for comic books? God forbid. The deluded and self-righteous would wax wroth and froth at the mouth.

When it comes to boys, I’d teach them how to read with the stories in comic books. I’d teach them Edgar Rice Burroughs starting when they were six. I’d guarantee you they’d Hoover those stories right up. They’d learn what chivalry really is – and they’d be better for it (I never heard the word “chivalry” mentioned in school or even college).

Teaching boys means more male teachers. Some women have enough sense to let boys be boys. Most women teachers don’t, though. I’ve met enough of them to know that many of them shouldn’t be teachers. Education degrees, no matter how advanced, are worthless.

Men have lost their way. They’re finding it again, fortunately. It’s a healthy reaction to the evils of feminism, which, being leftist, has damaged and destroyed everything it touched. Including the characters of many men.

I had mentioned three words – mentor, model, mirror. A mentor is obvious. Boys and girl need mentors. These days, even a fair number of parents are not mentors, since they leave it up to the schools to do their jobs. And what a job many schools do!

A model is someone you model yourself after. A mirror is someone who reflects back to you. A bad mirror will humiliate and abuse a child. Children will see that and then they become what they behold. A good mirror builds children up.

Boys today lack mentors. They lack models – decent models, at least. I see a noticeable number of boys who are “aspiring rap artists,” which is worse than merely embarrassing - it's downright retarded. It can be dangerous. And guess what kind of lowlifes these boys took for their role models? And since people are educated by imitation…

The mirrors for boys in schools today are mostly terrible ones. We all know what is reflected back to boys, and what attitudes are directed at them.

Incidentally, I’ve seen children, especially boys, dress up as Harry Potter. He’s a model for kids to imitate. When my nephew was little he was such a huge fan of BraveStarr he had his mother make him a costume of him that he wore for Halloween.

Unfortunately, if private schools imitate public schools, they aren’t going to be any better than the public ones. But, in the long run, competition improves everything. Including the schools.

And someday, maybe, just maybe, boys might come out of school knowing who John Carter is. And Woola the loyal Martian hound dog. And Barsoom. And Tarzan (who was created by Burroughs). And all the whole pantheon of chivalrous comic book heroes.

"Hi! I'm Woola the Martian Hound Dog and I'm the best part of the movie!"

It even works for girls, as in the case of my nerdette friend who was such a fan of Supergirl and Wonder Woman. It might even help stop young girls from falling for the destructive and dangerous delusion of feminism.

Fortunately, in the long run, people and society will straighten themselves out. The pendulum always swings back.

Trump, His Kids and his Wife

Compare to the Homosexual Half-Breed, his "wife," and his kids (whom you will never see interviewed because I suspect they're appalling ignorant, if not downright stupid), Trump and his family came across an All-American family.

How many people are going to think, "I hope my kids turn out like Trump's" as compared to those thinking, "I hope my kids turn out like Obama's."

The answer is as clear as can be.

I'm sure Trump waited until the convention to introduce his family.

As for the plagiarism accusation again Melanie Trump...it's going exactly nowhere.

International Free Trade has Never Existed

I understand the theory behind international free trade. The U.S. exports its less productive jobs to developing countries and the jobs lost here are replaced by higher-paying, more productive jobs. As the developing countries become more productive they buy more from the U.S., creating more jobs here. Everyone benefits.

Unfortunately, there has never been a case of international free trade. Developing countries have always used tariffs to bar imports, and also supported developing industries. It’s what Japan and South Korea did to develop their economies. It’s also what the U.S. did at its beginning. It worked in all three cases.

I would believe in international free trade if every country did it and there was a level playing field. Since these things don’t exist I cannot support "international free trade."

These days, international trade is managed trade for the benefit of corporations – which I call Cosmodemonic Transnational Megacorporations. They have hollowed out the U.S. industrial base by exporting it, and have enriched dictators and tyrants in Third World countries – but not the workers exploited and impoverished by their oppressor. These workers are closer to slaves than anything else.

Free trade works between free countries; it does not work between a country that is free and one that is not. In fact, the phrase “free trade” when applied to a poverty-stricken country ruled by a dictator or a brutal junta is an oxymoron.

Here’s why: free international trade between two equal counties, say the U.S. and Canada, benefits the citizens of both countries. “Free trade” between a free country and an unfree country, say the U.S. and Zimbabwe (God knows what the place has to export) does not benefit the citizens of either the U.S. or Zimbabwe.

Such international trade between a free country and an unfree county benefits the Cosmodemonic Transnational Megacorporations, and the brutal rulers of the totalitarian countries. No one else benefits.

These corporations will hollow out the U.S. to export jobs to a totalitarian country where child slaves work 12 hours a day, six days a week, for a dollar a day. The more deluded “libertarians” support this exploitation of these children, claiming their lives are better than they would have been otherwise. They don’t know that and the claim is sheer rationalization.

None of these “libertarians” have ever heard of the English Clearances or the Scottish Clearances. The “capitalists” of those eras had the government forcibly remove people from their land and to them into the cities to work in factories.

Those factories were so horrible the poet William Blake called them “dark Satanic mills” and Charles Dickens is very well-known for writing about how horrible the places were. Yet apologists even today the people who were forced into these mills had their lives improved. They are the same people who today support child slaves, still claiming their lives are better than they would have been.

How does this managed international trade only benefit corporations and multibillionaire dictators?

Strictly speaking, no country today is totally free. Some are far freer than others. The West is still quite free. The rest of the world is not and never has been free. If it ever becomes free, it won’t be for a long time.

Richard Maybury, author of such books as Whatever Happened to Justice? and Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? divides the world into the free countries (essentially the West) and the Third World, which he calls “Chaostan.”

He doesn’t recommend anyone invest in Chaostan. Trading with them is an iffy proposition at best. As an example, a lot of companies are finally pulling out of China due to their stealing and poor products.

Again, there is no such thing as international free trade. All of it is managed trade for the benefit of those Cosmodemonic Transnational Megacorporations - which have the legal status – and rights – of persons, which is not only ridiculous but has shown itself to be a grave danger to freedom and prosperity.

Still, trade between two relatively free countries, such as the U.S. and Canada, can, and often does, benefit the citizens of both.

However, trade between a “free” country, such as the U.S., and a totalitarian hellhole, such as Zimbabwe, doesn’t benefit the citizens of Zimbabwe. In fact, Zimbabwe’s citizens are impoverished by “free trade.”

Why?

Since Zimbabwe is a totalitarian dictatorship – as is most of the Third World – free trade (sic) only enriches the dictators and his friends. The army and police forces have to be relatively well-paid. They have to be because they’re necessary to oppress the impoverished citizenry.

As David Hume wrote, “The soldan of Egypt, or the emperor of Rome, might drive his harmless subjects like beasts, against their sentiments and inclinations; but he must at least have led his mamalukes or praetorian bands like men, by their opinion.”

As Jerry Pournelle comments about Hume’s observation, “In a word, one may rule through force and fear; but there must still be some way to convince the police and other agents of power.” One of those ways to convince them is by bribing them financially and giving them power and privilege.

The citizens of those Third Word hellholes – including children – are forced into working 12 hours a day, six days a week, for a dollar a day. No matter how productive these slaves are, their wages don’t go up (or else barely budge), since it would mean less wealth for the multibillionaire tyrants.

An ideologue is someone who believes in a simplistic philosophy they think can be applied universally. They ignore reality, as all ideologues do. A lot of libertarians are ideologues and such have their minds closed to the facts.

Take the idea of tariffs. To the more simplistic libertarians they are always bad. In reality they are sometimes good. (The fact so many “libertarians” think they understand economics – but don’t – is what makes their brains hurt when faced with something that doesn’t fit into their simplistic model of the world.)

I am again going to restate some reality. We don’t have free international trade. We have managed trade for the benefit of corporations.

Corporations will always go to countries where costs are lowest, even if it’s ruled by a tyrant, even if the workers are slaves. And the money Americans spend only enriches those tyrants so they may continue to enslave and impoverish their countrymen.

Saudi Arabia, which imports hundreds of thousands of workers, does it so their "royal" thugs don't have to work

Whoever heard of a transnational corporation overthrowing a tyrant? Everyone has heard of them enriching dictators and juntas. But helping to overthrow them? It’s never happened.

Some definitions are in order. The words “freedom” and “liberty” are Western words. The concepts have never existed in any culture or country outside of Europe.

Some countries – Maybury’s Chaostan – are never going to be “free.” The countries in Africa are never going to be free. The Islamic countries are never going to be free. The countries in Asia are never going to be free.

There is a scene is Full Metal Jacket where a high-ranking officer tells Private Joker, “Inside every gook there is an American trying to get out.” Not everyone in the world wants to be an American, and they will kill us to try to prevent it.

Not everyone wants to be “free,” not in the way we define freedom. And the people in other countries are not wogs with Americans in them trying to get out.

Traditionally the U.S. has murdered millions of foreigners to force their inner American to emerge.

And that has nothing to do with free trade.

Americans Are Finally Disgusted With Being the World's Policeman

The Bushes are RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). They're closer to the worst aspects of Democrats - liberals.

It was the first Bush - father of the moron war criminal Dubya Shrub - who came up with the concept of the New World Order - America as the world's policeman. Globalism. Imperialism.

The American people have always been of a non-interventionist bent. The U.S. government has been interventionist for a long time - probably since 1898, when we obtained the Philippines after the Spanish-American War.

Before World War II there was an organization in America known as America First. It's most well-known member was Charles Lindbergh. They wanted the U.S. to stay out of World War II, which was a European war. As was World War I, for that matter.

Obviously, "America First" is not original with Trump. Now as to whether or not he knows about the first America First I do not know.

Americans are tired of a war that has gone on for 15 years and only made things worse in the Middle East, they're tired of the several thousand American soldiers dead and wounded, tired of soldiers' suicide (20 a day last I heard), tired of jobs being exported, tired of bad trade deals, tired of the trillions spent on foreign countries that spend their time trying to wreak havoc on us. Tired of resentful 85-IQ minorities murdering eight police officers in about a week (one in my area was recently shot in the throat and paralyzed from the neck down).

And those in government and the media tell us, "Your opinion doesn't matter. Just let us handle things, because we are morally and intellectually superior to you. Just suck it up because you're just cannon fodder anyway. And if you're poor because we've exported your job and flooded the country with Third Worlders? Well, just suck that up too."

It didn't surprise me that none of the Bushes showed up at the Republican National Convention because Trump was the nominee. Clearly they're pissed off that the White Hispanic Jeb! was completely and utterly repudiated by the American people. The whole family is composed of spoiled children!

Apparently the Bush crime family does not realize there will never be another Bush in the White House. And apparently they think the office belongs to them.

If I had my way all of them spend the rest of their lives in prison.

All empires fall, without exception. And ours is going to fall, too. It's going to come home. That's one of the things the coming Presidential election is about.

We can wait until we're forced home or we can be smart and start closing down the mess now.

Nationalism Trumps Globalism Every Time

"Economic nationalism is the future." - Patrick J. Buchanan

I understand what globalism is supposed to be about: when countries are bound together by trade there is little reason to go to war. That's been noticed as far back as Frederic Bastiat. And it's worked pretty well.

It's also about enriching the 1%. And increasing their power - but those are a bit different of a story.

But as for the first paragraph...a different kind of war has sprung up.

Here are some examples. The Chinese and the Russians, for whatever reasons, very much lack innovation. On the other hand, the U.S. leads the world and is so far ahead of everyone else it's leaving every other country in the dust.

So what are China and Russia doing? Stealing everything they can from us.

Why? Nationalism.

Seems like every time some naive American company hires Chinese nationals they steal software and millions of dollars and get back to China as fast as they can. The last one I read about was about a married couple that stole ten million dollars from a scientific company in southern Missouri and zipped right back to China.

God knows how many Chinese and Russians and Israelis are spying in the U.S.

I gave up the belief in "free trade" a long time ago. We've sent trillions of dollars to the Middle East for their oil. And what did they do? The Saudis stabbed us in the back by funding the Wahabis who pulled off 9-11 (don't try that remote-controlled airplanes/bombs in the towers/Bush-Cheney did it/Jews did it crap on me – I refer to such people as Conspironuts).

We've sent trillions of dollars to China and they're using it to build up their military, which is not a threat to us but every Asian nation anywhere near China - Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines.

The U.S. finally figured out what to do: in a few years we will be energy self-sufficient (the reason you never hear of OPEC anymore is because we destroyed it). It's been estimated we've only used one to two percent of all the oil in the world.

As I've mentioned before, why is there any Chinese steel in the U.S.? I was raised in a steel mill town and the mill is having problems staying in business and is currently not hiring at all - and these are jobs that paid very good starting wages...with a high-school diploma!

Now we're involved in a cyberwar with foreign nations who are trying to, again, steal everything they can from us.

I knew Brexit was going to pass. Actually it's the first warning shot signaling the end of globalism as we know it. And why did it pass? Nationalism.

I have a fair understanding of cybersecurity, which is why I know the Internet is fundamentally insecure, and there are about four million open IT jobs in the U.S. Especially cybersecurity.

I call cybersecurity people Warrior Geeks, because it's all about offense and defense against other counties continually probing our defenses. It's a lot better than World War III but it's still war.

Foreign geeks could probably screw up our power grids pretty bad if they wanted. But we can screw up theirs even worse. It’s “You attack me and I’ll attack you ten times as bad.”

Obviously the free flow of goods and people is not working. France has found that out hard way, more than once. Germany and northern Europe has found out the hard way, too, with all their Muslim rapists and pedophiles.

I don't have any problems with a trading bloc consisting of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico (the more jobs in Mexico the more those 87 IQ Mexicans will stay in Mexico).

Every country is trying to do the best it can for itself. Except the U.S. and Europe - both of which created about 98% of everything in the world. A lot of which we’ve given the world and now they’re trying to steal the rest.

But that's starting to change. No matter how hard our traitorous "elites" howl and fight against it, nationalism is starting to assert itself again.

Nations – which are just tribes writ large – have been around a lot longer that globalism.

That’s why America first - and for Americans. And that is why "globalism" is circling the drain.

Trump is Going to Beat Clinton Like a Rug

The peasants are revolting! Revolution!

I don't believe a word the Mainstream Media says about Trump. They are clearly on Hillary's side, to the extent they consistently lie about Trump. And they obviously think the public is so stupid they'll take everything they say at face value because we're so gullible and ignorant and stupid and childish we need guidance about the simplest things.

There are tens of millions of uncounted Trump supporters. The media pretends they don't exist, being that they are considered troglodytes and Morlocks who deserve nothing but utter contempt and shouldn't even be allowed to vote - or even live. The MSM pretends they don't even exist - or if they do exist they are a horrifying undifferentiated damnation of inbred hillbillies scratching their balls in public and farting in church. Candidates for euthanasia! For Soylent Green!

I have a degree in journalism and was a newspaper reporter and editor. Even as an undergraduate I was surprised at the ignorance and stupidity of the journalism students. And after I graduated and got a job - whoa! Morons!

Most of them were doctrinaire liberals, which means anyone to the right of them is considered evil. Not merely mistaken, but twisted and evil. That's why they keep comparing Trump to Hitler. They really believe this.

Want to read a novel that illustrates this mentality perfectly? Don't buy it; find it at the library: Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America, which is about the U.S. turning Nazi - which Roth is convinced Americans are waiting for do in an eye blink!

Fortunately most Americans are not doctrinaire. They tend to pick and choose from political ideologies.

And Trump has his hand on the pulse of many Americans. If he didn't he wouldn't be so popular and wouldn't have had so many people support him. That's why he destroyed every idiot Republican candidate who opposed him.

Speaking of his hand on the pulse of people, let's talk about my hometown, which is a blue-collar, Democrat-voting steel mill town. When I was in high school it had 50,000 people and when you graduated high school you could go straight to the steel mill and start out with big money.

Today it has 30,000 people, a a hundred or so empy middle-class homes, the steel mill is in trouble and not hiring, kids are graduating high school and can't find anything but minimum-wage jobs or dealing drugs - and why the hell is there any Chinese steel in the U.S. at all when we can supply all our needs? And why has the U.S. been sending its knowledge and technologies - our immense wealth - to our enemies so they can stab us in the back and arm against us? The Soviet Union? The Middle East? China?

My formerly-Democrat town has turned toward Trump. And when I grew up there being a Democratic was your religion!

Trump has in fact changed the Republican Party. Actually he's blown it up. And this is a good thing. It needed to be destroyed - my God, it tried to run that imbecile Jeb! And the media still interviews him, as if his opinion isn't anything but a big steaming pile of horseshit!

Liberals don't have a clue about the U.S. Every time there is mass shooting liberals think the answer is gun control - but everyone else goes out and buys more firearms.

Business conservatives are all for open borders and flooding the U.S. with low-IQ, low-wage workers. But everyone else wants to shut the borders and have rapist Mexicans and terrorist Muslims deported. And so does Trump.

Trump doesn't come across as a liberal or conservative. He picks up the most popular parts of both. That makes him a populist.

Both parties have lost touch with Americans, to the extent both of them need to be changed completely. As I said - destroyed. The Jewish socialist Bernie Sanders (Communism was originally called "Jewish Bolshevism") tried to portray himself as Someone New and Different - and then turned around and endorsed the Hildebeast! That hypocritical sumbitch!

The last time there was this kind of sea-change in American politics was with FDR, who did some terrible things.

Now, for good or bad, we're looking at another sea-change. And it's not just Trump. There are a lot of people coming up who sound like Trump, only without all the baggage.

As I have mentioned, this is what is called Steam Engine Time. When it's time for the steam engine to be invented, it was invented. When it's time for a sea-change, there will be a sea-change. Things will continue until they can't continue anymore - and they can no longer continue anymore.

Trump has changed the Republican Party - and it's not going to change back. And yay for that!