Month: August 2015

I think we have reached the point where a Politically Incorrect store could do well.  If it gets picketed, that will only increase its credibility.  And if it is on-line, it can’t get picketed, at least easily.

I wonder if we could roll back out all those joke books from the 1970’s, with Pollack jokes, and black jokes, and Italian jokes.

It might be a flash in the pan, but I think for a time it would do a handsome business.  There are so many of us who are SICK with the abuses of truth and decency which are perpetrated by the Thought Police.

No black or Jewish person is helped if you don’t tell that joke about the Jew, the basketball and the Greek.

In fact the ENTIRETY of the speech restrictions we are seeing work to reduce awareness of ACTUAL failures.  The more we fail to address important problems, the less we talk about them, and the more we talk about how we are talking.

The essence of talking about talking–which is more or less what occupies the time of the Communists in most Humanities Departments–is avoidance.  Or, to use a term I just learned, displacement, which is where you know you should be doing one thing, but instead do another.

We know that black babies are being born daily to teenage mothers and that the fathers are not in a position to, or willing to, take care of those babies, to father them, to nurture them, to provide for them what they need, and that this failure is going to create an enormous emotional strain on the mother, who will be even less emotionally available for that child, who in turn will eventually act out in socially dysfunctional ways, creating yet another generation of failure, but we TALK about the Confederate Flag.  We talk about “racism”, as if this kids emotional well-being was not at risk from the start, as if the entire social world he was born into was not more or less geared to fill him with fear, self loathing, anger, and violence.

I seem to be touching some angry energies.  Good: anger has a place too.  I own it.  I admit it.  I am capable of anger.  I am capable of a great deal more, too.

Read the comments on this article, which is plainly propagandistic in its intent: https://www.yahoo.com/tv/s/univision-jorge-ramos-comes-swinging-not-donald-trump-041857581.html

I only read about the first 30, but they told me clearly that Trump can win the nomination, and likely the general election.  Both Democrats and Republicans are forced in every election to vote for someone we don’t really believe in.  A lot of people believed in Obama, but all but the most stupid have long since realized he meant very little of what he promised, that he is a cynic, and that he cooperates with the power elite just like Republicans do.

And I say again that the working class white vote–for that matter, the working class Hispanic vote, the “Mexicans” who don’t speak Spanish and never have, who have been here for generations, as well as the working class black vote–is up for grabs.  Democrats assume that people should buy their propaganda, and not look out for their own interests, which they know better than anyone.

And, again, Hispanics are not stupid.  It is my ideological opponents, the Jorge Ramoses of the world who think they are.  They KNOW that the whole nation of Mexico can’t come up here while preserving what is good about this country.

If you give them a nation, what do they do with it?  They create Mexico.  This is tautological.  And do THEY want Mexico?  Fuck, no: otherwise, why come here?

I think this might be seen as a synonym for addiction.

Black people know that their culture, by and large, is fucked up in this country.

Mexicans know it is unreasonable to ask us to take everyone who wants to come over here and provide them numerous public services for free.

What is lacking is the courage to point this out.  When you respond to the unreasonable with cowardice, you empower it.

If you can get them to admit it, I suspect 8 out of 10 white people would say that as the proportion of blacks in a neighborhood increases, so too do all the petty annoyances that go with it, including loud music, increased crime, litter in the streets, poor property maintenance, and simple lack of respect for other people on the street.

I tell my kid there is no group “black people”, but I do tell them there are TYPES of black people, and a certain type EVERYONE, white and black, says oh shit I wish they didn’t just move in there.  You know your walls and windows are going to vibrate every time they start up their cars.  You know you are going to smell weed in the air, and that especially on weekends they are going to be standing out in the street making noise until at least 1 or 2 in the morning.  You fear that sooner or later you will hear gunshots.

Now, the bulk of white people have solved this problem by white flight, by moving to places where black people don’t go. Many of these people are self identified “liberals” who nonetheless would not under any circumstances live in a ghetto.

And you know there is no historical connection between a ghetto and poverty.  The term ghetto, if memory serves, was first used in Italy to describe a strong concentration of Jews.

It means poverty in this country simply because it is mainly–certainly not exclusively, since the various Chinatowns are ghettos too–blacks who wind up in homogeneous neighborhoods, and most of them are poor.

I see these kids–and I live in a very mixed neighborhood–and I KNOW that their homes are fucked up.  I KNOW they are acting out and playing the fool, and don’t give a shit if they wind up in juvie or jail again, because they don’t RESPECT themselves. Nobody ever loved them.  Nobody ever made them feel special.  Their mother was a child herself, and their father–himself the son of an absentee father–skipped town the moment he heard she was knocked up.

And so it goes.  Nobody speaks these truths, because nobody REALLY cares.  The Left doesn’t care.  Their whole system is oriented around generating feelings of self importance, moral superiority, and very concrete financial benefits.  How many of us would not love to get the speaking fees Hillary and Bill command?  Neither has done anything outside of politics.

The backdrop to all this is I just nearly got in a fight with three black teenagers, because they were smoking weed more or less at my front door, and I told them to stop.  They lied about it–as if you can conceal the smell of marijuana–and I told them not to lie to me.  They didn’t like that.  One told me to “watch my mouth”.

The thing about me is I have a scary temper.  I may or may not have admitted it here, but the flip side of terror is rage.  I only fully lose my temper about once every 3-4 years, but it is like a hurricane.  There is nothing, I am convinced, I am not capable of in the throes–in the control, the thralldom, of rage.

So I am going to move where there are no black people, or few.  There have been some here for some time who were quite congenial.  As I tell my kids: those people are not the problem.  They are just like you and me in every important respect.

But you know what?  I am speaking a truth, here, which has been spoken quietly in kitchens around this country–and no doubt in France, and Germany, and England and elsewhere–for some time.  You can call me racist, but I derive my opinions from experience.  Is the problem that I draw rational conclusions from accurate data, or that the data reflects a severely dysfunctional culture?

You cannot look at the statistics on black culture–or for that matter spend a significant period of time downtown nearly anywhere–and fail to conclude that there is a lot of violence, most of it directed against other blacks, but still by spillover likely more than whites direct against whites.

Can we perhaps coin the term Tacit Political Correctness, which does not accept the non-truths which the Thought Police attempt to force on us, but which also does not speak out against them?  They simply move to a neighborhood with half acre lots, and the rest takes care of itself.

In Europe, most of the “blacks” are Muslims.  I can just picture 14 year old Swedish girls saying “Mommy, those people make me uncomfortable”, and “Mommy”–who is an emotionally detached ideologue–saying,
“they are just different than us, make them feel welcome.”  When she gets gang raped at 17, “Mommy” wonders how these people can be reformed, how their “fundamental Goodness” can be made to shine.  She will never answer honestly: by rejecting the horrific demonism of Islam.  She will make excuses.  And her child will realize she is alone, that her mother does not actually love her.  And another excited youthful heart will grow cold.  And hard.

You know, I think all decent people of all cultures have a good, innate, idea of the differences between right and wrong.  I think historically many Islamic-based societies have found ways to reconcile Islam with their abhorrence of rape, or pedophilia, or the murder of innocents.

What I also think, though, is that the nihilism of the modern era often intersects with the worst impulses of various groups, resulting, in the case of Islam, to a recidivism back to the 7th Century.

Oh, we can all get along.  But it is reasonable to ask that people obey certain rules, hew to certain principles.  That they respect both themselves and others, and that they teach their children respect.  That they work honestly, and toil with diligence.  That they dream of better days, and work to make them happen.  That they value love and compassion and courage, and inculcate these values in their children.

As things stand today, most white kids are taught little, and most black kids are taught NOTHING; nothing but violence, anger, and a deep, deep sadness they cannot name or do away with.

If you picture a young man, filled with a sense of shame, anger, depression, anxiety, remorse, and defensiveness, does it matter what race he is before you conclude that he will act out, and that his actions will tend to be less than successful?

This is a nice video on addiction: https://video-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xtp1/v/t42.1790-2/11290294_10153015585575983_595379980_n.mp4?efg=eyJybHIiOjMwMCwicmxhIjo1MTIsInZlbmNvZGVfdGFnIjoicWZfNDI2d19jcmZfMjNfbWFpbl8zLjBfcDBoYzBfc2QifQ%3D%3D&rl=300&vabr=107&oh=844f10d1875913b1984300ec0236b882&oe=55DF6920

At root, it is a sense of disconnection from self and others, and as he points out, our culture is founded, economically and psychologically, on emotional dissociation, on methods of distraction.

It feels to me like an important part of spiritual growth is learning to accept and process ALL emotions.  As I continue my Kum Nye practice, I see that there is an other side to despair, and to loneliness, and to desolation and horror.  I see that to be useful, I need to be on speaking terms with all possible emotions.

You have to know yourself, what you are capable of, what might come out of you.  All of us can feel, potentially, all the “shadow” emotions, and it is not enough to simply make contact with them.  You have to learn to manage them, to master them, like training wild beasts.

And you don’t do this violently.  This is a major mistake emotionally unintelligent people and systems make.  You do not get angry at anger.  You expand it, and then trace it back to its roots, in feelings of helplessness and fear.  You understand that you are in part a biological organism, and that that organism has needs which you cannot avoid, even if you can learn to meet them in non-traditional ways.

And I ponder, how do you put a value on something like Kum Nye, which can give you EVERYTHING and MORE than you could get from the most successful career?  That can make you more free than the richest billionaire with his beautiful women and expensive toys, and absolute freedom of action?  He can go anywhere, do anything.  But until he changes who he is–or rather, until he makes contact with his inner recesses, and learns to see in new ways–nothing really changes that matters at all.

I likely spend too much time introspecting.  I should be out drumming up new business.  My bank account is not what it could be.  But at the same time, these processes are so intriguing, so interesting, so satisfying, even when hard, that I have been tending to get driven by necessity rather than planning properly.

I make things work.  I always have.  It takes some ingenuity sometimes, some audacity sometimes, but I have plenty of both.

I was reading what Big Sister has done in California.  I would not have thought it possible, but this is perhaps even more abusive that what she put in place at the TSA:


Surprisingly enough, this list of taboo microaggressions included many common questions and phrases seemingly devoid of any ill intent. One of the banned, supposedly offensive phrases is “America is a land of opportunity.” According to Napolitano and her politically correct cohorts, such a phrase is a form of coded, covert racism that creates a toxic campus culture.Other phrases university faculty were banned from saying include “America is a melting pot,” “I believe the most qualified person should get the job,” and “There is only one race, the human race.” Another banned phrase was “When I look at you, I don’t see color.” Colorblind professors everywhere began quivering in fear.Faculty were also banned from asking students basic small talk questions, such as “Where are you from?” and “Where were you born?” These questions can be construed as racist. According to Napolitano, banning these microaggressions from California’s universities was part of an initiative to “improve campus climate.”


What you need to see here is what happens when no actual moralities are in play, when nobody truly believes ANYTHING. A morality is a reason to live.  It is a means of transforming the pains of life into meaning.

But if you reject in principle the idea that life always includes pain and difficulty, you have no reason for a morality.  Not having a reason for a morality, you instead live a life of avoidance, of evading truth, of denouncing the very idea of truth, precisely because your world view is counterfactual.  It is wrong.

This is the root of what I term Sybaritic Leftism, which I contrast with true Liberalism, which is a means of multiple moralities coexisting in peace.  And the vacuousness of this form of Leftism leads inexorably to Cultural Sadeism.  It cannot resist it.  It starts out nice and playful, and becomes cold and cruel.

All the ex-hippies teaching at the University of California cut their teeth on opposing “the System”.  Now they ARE the system, and they are showing they have no ideas, nothing original to live for, nothing to add, nothing interesting to say.

This is always the case.  Communism–and these people are spouting Communist propaganda, using Communist methods of analysis, and proposing Communistic solutions–never adds anything any life.  What joy has Fidel Castro brought Cuba?  What joy did Mao bring China?  They brought death, fear, famine, and the collapse of all the soft traits, like trust and openness, which alone make life worth living.

Communism is the death of human beauty, and it is what is being preached in our best universities.

And we need to be clear that these kids are being conditioned to live in little boxes, to suppress all authenticity, to conform their views to what they are taught and not the evidence of their own eyes.  They are being talk to accept propaganda willingly, and to obey their elders, no matter how crazy they are.

So we really have to look at two forms of conditioning.  First, the actual ideas of Communism are being taught, which reject all moralities in favor of conformity to an arbitrary dictator, and the modes of being of Communism are being taught, which are fear and bullying.

And in the process moral reasoning is lost entirely.  On one day they decry rape.  On the next, they decry “Islamophobia” despite the fact that Islam allows and even encourages both the rape and murder of unbelievers.  And they can’t denounce ISIS, because that is a thought crime, despite the fact that most of their crimes are being committed against people who are ALSO Muslims.

As I have said often, Leftism is emotionally cartoonish.  It thinks in simplistic ideas of good and bad, and has no ability to differentiate among the “others” it allegedly wants to protect.  Who do you think most of the illegal aliens in America who are criminals criminalize?  Other illegals, and fellow Mexicans.  Almost all crimes are committed within groups.  You know who would be helped if these people were deported?  Mexicans living in the US.

I can only watch and hope that the sheer excesses of these anti-moral zealots will bring about a backlash.  We are already seeing it in Donald Trump, who I think will most likely be the Republican nominee.  And I think he will get bipartisan support, because Americans KNOW that we have many problems nobody has the balls to fix.

I’m telling my old friend alcohol again that we need to spend some time apart.  It has been a profoundly useful emotional anesthetic for many years.  And I am contemplating again living without it.

My dream is to help build another world, an actually better world, one which is peaceful, prosperous, and happy.  Given the sheer number of people who wish the other people on this planet rack and ruin, it is perhaps a foolish hope.  You can never know what is possible until you try, though.

But I am a student of history, and I cannot but watch in my mind all the great minds and spirits who failed to find a way forward, all the bodies I am stepping over.  Most of human history is a history of failure, is it not?  Have not wars and injustices and stupidities been our common lot for most of the recorded life of our race?

Has trauma not been an important fact of the lives of most people who have ever lived, and indeed who live even today? Obama was traumatized.  I have no doubt of it.

To think new thoughts, you have to step over bodies, you have to have a ridiculous sense of the possible, which necessarily means that you–I–think I am better able to express my intelligence usefully than they did.

And this thought makes me laugh.  It has aesthetic merit.  It has beauty in it, profound beauty.  And this comforts me.   And I need comforting.  We all do.  We all do.

Edit: do you get the feeling sometimes that no important cultural experiments have been done since the 1960’s?  That we are stuck looking back, sorting through the rubble and wreckage?  That the major cultural changes have been a gradually tightening noose of conformism backed by the threats of social, political, and even physical violence?  That “love” is a marketing term, to be abused in the service of consumerism and quarterly results?

I remember the movie “My Dinner with Andre”, and this felt sense that nothing new was going on.  No new ideas were being tried.  The revolutionary spirit was dead.  Everyone got ties, good jobs, mortgages, and life foreclosed on their dreams.

Obama, self evidently, was pushing focus group tested buzzwords when he spoke of Hope and Change.  He was touching deep needs that exist in this country at a fundamental level.  His appeal was obviously cynical, opportunistic, and abusive, but that does not mean that these words can no longer be used, that there are no causes for hope, that good change is not possible.

Hope.  Dare to hope.  Dare to dream of a better world, an actually better world.  We may just be able to pull it off.

Pyrrhus noted that the Romans died like men, facing their enemy.  There is no safety in this world, no absolute safety.  In fact, I guarantee Death will get you, like it gets everyone (the Singularity is bullshit).  What you can trust is your own resilience, and your own willingness to laugh in the face of everything, to make sport of this eternal game.

I was going through some old posts, and saw this one from 4 years ago.  Remains quite true.




Bit slow today, checking some things off lists. The entirety of Peter Bauer’s “Equality, the Third World and Economic Delusion” is quite wonderful, and well worth the read. As I argue constantly, to fail to consider the consequences of actions you conceive to be well intentioned, is to not be well intentioned at all, but self important and narcissistic, if not outright power mongering. YOU MUST CARE ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES, to all people, and over time.

Here are a couple quotes from the concluding chapter of a book in which he has ably demonstrated that foreign aid frequently does little but support income inequalities, autocracy, and continued generalized poverty, all claims that fly in the face of “conventional” wisdom, then (1981) and now.

what explains the curious situation of contemporary economics, especially the acceptance of evidently insubstantial, even bizarre, notions?

The expansion of the subject since the Second World War and the circumstances surrounding it must be considered together. Unlike the expansion in the natural sciences in recent decades, especially in physics and chemistry, the expansion in economics (and other forms of social study) was not an instance of the growth of knowledge leading to a quantum jump in the number of people and money attracted. The expansion resulted from the belief that economists could help significantly in solving social and political problems; and that their capacity to do so depended largely on their numbers and on the money at their disposal. . . But, as the term is usually understood, economic problems are different. Economic problems do not typically present themselves because of perceived gaps or inadequacies of knowledge. Rather economic problems are said to exist wherever there are differences between proclaimed norms and observed reality. Such problems evidently cannot be solved by improvements in knowledge alone. Indeed, as suggested in chapter 1 (and noted repeatedly elsewhere), economists and other social scientists generally create problems rather than solve them [emphasis mine].

In academic study unwarranted claims are apt to inhibit the advance of understanding. Attempts to justify unfounded claims, or to mask the failure to live up to them, encourage the proponents of such claims to shift their ground. For example, when certain policies widely canvassed by development economists as necessary for raising living standards, such as large-scale public investment, domestic production of capital goods, or the collectivization of agriculture, fail to bring about the expected results, the policies themselves come to be regarded as the very stuff of progress rather than as what they are, unsuccessful instruments for its promotion.

“When certain policies widely canvassed by development economists as necessary for raising living standards. . . fail to bring about the expected results, the policies themselves come to be regarded as the very stuff of progress rather than as what they are, unsuccessful instruments for its promotion.”

Can there be a shorter summary of what is wrong with the leftist mindset, which does the same things over and over and over, always getting the same result–failure–and yet which fails to learn the lesson? As Bauer says, economics is not actually complicated. It is made complicated by people whose jobs depend on a lack of transparency.

Consider in that regard this quote he excerpts from a Professor Leontief.

Continued preoccupation with imaginary, hypothetical, rather than observable reality has gradually led to a distortion of the informal valuation scale used in our academic community to access and to rank the scientific performance of its members. Empirical analysis, according to this scale, gets a lower rating than formal mathematical reasoning. Devising a new statistical procedure, however tenuous, that makes it possible to squeeze out one more unknown parameter from a given set of data, is judged a greater scientific achievement that the successful search for additional information that would permit us to measure the magnitude of the same parameter in a less ingenious, but more reliable way. . . a natural Darwinian feedback operating through selection of academic personnel contributes greatly to the perpetuation of this state of affairs. Thus, it is not surprising that the younger economists, particularly those engaged in teaching and academic research, seem by now quite content with situations in which they can demonstrate their prowess (and incidentally, advance their careers) by building more and more complicated mathematical models and devising more and more sophisticated methods of statistical inference without ever engaging in empirical research.

This is how smart people become stupid: they makes things so complicated that the forest is lost for the trees. This is exactly the same dynamic in play with Global Warming. Rather than planting thermometers all over the poles, which is where the warming is supposedly happening, they develop statistical algorithms to in effect guess what the temperatures “must” be, based upon the sensors they have hundreds of miles to the south. This is not science. Statistics can NEVER substitute for measurements, when measurements are possible.

As I have said often, you can “prove” anything, if you start from the right premises. Garbage in, garbage out.