“Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”

― Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm

If Churchill could say that about Russia, what would he say about China today? The link to the article below takes us on a journey into totalitarianism in its most perfected form. Using the tried-and-true methods of population control (secret police, informers, intimidation, etc.) and the worse applications of modern-day technology (millions of cameras, tracking of mandatory cell phones, etc.), China has become a state ruled by the whim and power of one man.

The article provides a glimpse into the tensions of being a subject of the Chinese Communist Party; it rules without a popular mandate and has imposed a regime of spying and intimidation on Chinese citizens around the world. How long can such a regime maintain its power? Who is there to stand up to the power of such a State? Finally, we must remember that the man at the very top of the totalitarian regime, China’s Xi has learned from the failures of the old Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc in terms of survival. Xi sees himself as a modern-day Mao, a man who instituted policies which lead to the deaths of millions of his own subjects. He realizes that there is no retreat from his pinnacle of power and if challenged there is little doubt that he would take actions which would make the ten-thousand dead of Tiananmen Square pale in comparison.

Being a subject of the CCP means always being vigilant.

https://quillette.com/2022/11/27/the-loneliness-of-the-bridge-man-generation/

America, unlike so much of Europe, does not have a long history of notable and/or noble families who have served the State for so many generations.  We do not have a history of producing and respecting great philosophers, such as Hagel, Kant, Nietzsche, Voltaire, Hume, etc. In fact, the closest thing to a group of philosophers that we have ever produced was our Founding Fathers who are held up to ridicule by so many of our self-appointed elites today.  There are those in the Ivory Towers of universities, those in many of the newsrooms and even political leaders who look down on the great mass of American citizens and think of them as rubes and deplorables who do not understand that only these same elites know what is best for the nation.  And yet, it is the great gray mass of our citizens that have and continue to create the jobs and means for the next generation to go further and create an even better life for themselves. It is that very gray mass that creates the wealth that is such a magnet for millions around the world.  Why is that?  It is because the mass of Americans are mediocre; they simply do not realize and do not believe that they are gifted or chosen. They succeed because they do not know what obstacles are before them and do not believe they will fail.  American is great and was built on a system of mediocracy, a place where the mass of citizens simply tries; tries to survive, tries to create a business, ties to be the best they can be. If you tried and failed, then you were encouraged to try again, and again until you succeed or quit. For much of our history, government pretty well stayed out of the way of those who tried although we see more rules, and more regulations as an ever expanding government at all levels attempts to justify their very existence.  

This is not true in Europe. Europe developed a bureaucratic and elitist mindset that was shunned by our Founding Fathers; America has traditionally encouraged entrepreneurs, Europe does not.  It takes a brave European to attempt to become an entrepreneur.  The laws for incorporation are more difficult than in America and, if you should fail with your dream in Europe, getting a second chance is much more difficult and possible only after a number of years. 

The linked article discusses this concept of American mediocracy.  It has resulted in more freedom, an easier life, and more choices for all.  Let us hope that “those who know better”, stay in their Ivory Towers and newsrooms. While they are untouchable and will continue to tell us how we should live, but at least we can try to defend ourselves against the professional politicians who write laws and regulations to guide those whose lives they little understand.  If we are successful, we will help to create a better union, a better land for all.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/11/a-more-perfect-mediocracy

Several years ago, while on a visit to the U.K., I stopped at a small village north of the Cotswolds for some fish and chips.  While I was happily munching on the excellent treat, I struck up a conversation with a local and the one thing led to another, and we began to discuss the NIH.  I mentioned that I did not see any signs for a doctor’s office in the village.  He replied that of course there were no signs or advertisements as the village had no doctor and that the nearest GP was some fifty miles away.  I stated my amazement, and he went on to tell me that everyone in the village was excited as the traveling government dentist was coming to town for two days. 

Never having heard of a traveling dentist, I asked for clarification.  It seems that once a year, the dentist visits the village and sets up shop.  There are no appointments, everything is on a first come, first served basis which of course, leads to quite long lines. You wait your turn; a procedure is done and out you go.  I mentioned that the service must be quite perfunctory, and he agreed.  What I asked if you need to come back for a follow up procedure.  “Simple: come back the next day and get in line, no preference given.  When it is quitting time, he packs up and leaves.”  It was an amazing conversation and like the rich American, I sat there wondering how such a system could be endured.  But as my new friend said, the service is free! 

Here is a link into an interesting article on cohabitation and the financial cost of such a decision.  It is an interesting phenomenon and one to be considered by anyone thinking of cohabitation. 

“I care a little bit less that I thought I would about marriage” she said. “Once you start living together, it almost feels like you made that commitment.”  So ends a recent article on why unmarried couples face a wealth gap. 

Nearly fifty-nine percent of adults aged 18 to 44 are living with a partner, sharing rent and food costs, but maintaining separate checking and investment accounts.  Yet, despite their two income lifestyles, the “net worth of cohabiting couples age 25 to 34 was … a quarter of that for married couples.”  Why is that?  Unmarried couples are willing to purchase a home jointly, but they are not willing to mingle their assets on an everyday basis.  And they wonder if there is some magical reason why their married friends are doing so much better than they.

This wealth gap also exists in Black and Latino groups, where marriage rates are lower than among Whites and Asians.  Yet, in addressing poverty in these two groups, planners and leaders seem to ignore this glaring fact.  Why?  Is the truth too difficult to hear?  Perhaps bringing it up is an act of white privilege?  Can poverty in these groups ever been really attacked until this issue is addressed in an adult manner, regardless and despite those who shun the concept of personal responsibility.

As the comment in the opening paragraph shows, living together may feel like a commitment, but it is only a convenient means of splitting expenses.  The secret that married couples know that seems to be beyond the comprehension of the individuals mentioned in the article linked below, is that actual marriage is a commitment.  In that commitment, a couple begins to focus less on themselves and more on that commitment.  There is a shift in one’s mindset as one believes that an error, and there are plenty of errors to be made in marriage, can destroy years of work and compromises in planning for a future together.

The amazing thing about the article is that the interviewed woman does not seem to have any idea of what happens in a marriage. There is an old dialog where a man says to a woman that marriage is only piece of paper and that he really loves her.  She turns and say that if marriage is “only a piece of paper”, then he should not be afraid of it.  Could the value of marriage not be appreciated because it is considered judging someone?  Then perhaps it should be taught as an exercise in economics.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/moving-in-together-doesnt-match-the-financial-benefits-of-marriage-but-why-11667761626?page=1

• 1967: Dire Famine by 1975
• 1969: In 20 years, everyone will “disappear in a cloud of blue smoke” (air pollution)
• 1970: A new Ice Age by 2000
• 1970: The U.S. will be subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980
• 1971: A new Ice Age in 50-60 years
• 1972: A new Ice Age by 2070
• 1974: Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast
• 1974: Ozone layer will be destroyed
• 1980: Acid rain is a major problem
• 1988: Increased drought in the 1990s
• 1989: Rising seas to “obliterate” nations by 2019 per the U.N.
• 1989: NYC’s west side highway will be under water by 2019
• 2000: Children in the U.K. will not know what snow is due to warming
• 2002: Worldwide famine within 20 years
• 2004: The U.K. to have “Siberian climate” by 2020
• 2006: Per Al Gore, withing 10 years, the Earth will be turned into a “total frying pan”
• 2008: Artic to be ice free by 2018
• 2009: Only 8 years to save the Planet
• 2009: Per the U.K. PM, only 50 days to “save the Planet from Catastrophe”
• 2013: Ice Free Artic by 2015
• 2014: Per a French Minister, only “500 days to avoid climate chaos”

I could expand that list, but it does remind us that there is a huge environmental industry that thrives on painting a picture of death and disaster. They are seldom if ever held to account, so in that way they mirror government: action without oversight. But perhaps there is hope?

The articled linked below discussed the admission by Green Peace that the attempt to recycle plastics has been and will continue to be a total failure. Amazing! The cost and effort of collecting, sorting, recycling, etc. actually contributes to damage to the environment. Of course, Green Peace does not apologize for the decades of their crusading for recycling and the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars that might have been spend on something worth the effort. In fact, Green Peace suggests even more draconian actions which if their recycling campaign is a measure, will cost more money in the pursuit of a fool’s dream.

You might wish to save the list above to remind you that the environment industry will never rest. Given the incorrect predictions above, many of them from the U.N. itself, we need to be a bit more skeptical of the science and motives of those who proclaim the most. In a recent U.N. report, it stated that even if all the promises and goals of all the nations were kept, the original U.N. goal for controlling the Earth’s temperature could not be achieved. At the same time, in a backhanded manner, the same U.N. report admits that its original projection was incorrect (shocking), and that even more drastic action must be taken to save if not humanity, at least the Earth. How drastic? Once proposal is to slaughter any animal we use as food and that we all become vegans. No, I am not kidding.

Let us hope we can be saved from those who wish to save us and create their own Brave New World.

https://www.city-journal.org/greenpeace-admits-recycling-doesnt-work

Decades ago, science fiction writers described a future filled with totalitarian states, where the rights of individuals were sacrificed to the needs of the State. Novels such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, An Excess Male, and others, paint a bleak picture of surveillance, dogma, indoctrination, and soulless everyday living.

With the advance of technology, we are speeding toward those dark visions and in no country is it truer than in Communist China. What started to provide services in a timely manner has morphed into a means of intense control of the individual via mandatory apps which track every individual’s movement, purchases, and contacts. Such monitoring is supported by a series of rewards and punishments from which the individual cannot escape. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and others of their ilk could only dream of such power and control.

The link below will take you to a recent editorial on how China is now using that type of power on the international level by controlling foreign diplomats accredited to work in China. It is a tale of how weak willed our State Department and political leadership is in their desire to maintain open links to a nation which has openly stated that they wish to supplant the United States as the premier power in the world and is willing to use any tactic or weapon to achieve that end.

History is again ignored by those who should be the best versed in its lessons, especially lesson number one, that weakness in the face to aggression only leads to more aggression. China is willing to violate international laws and norms which go back centuries and has found that the dictum that “might makes right” has truth. Let us hope that our leaders will demand that China obey the simplest international conventions and that ignoring such rules will only serve to isolate them.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-abuses-u-s-diplomats-beijing-covid-cables-emails-congress-whistleblower-11666729612

While driving the other day, and being bored with the news, I decided to listen to an excerpt from a collection of the great speeches of history. At random, the first speech was of Martin Luther at his trial for in 1521 before the Holy Roman Emperor and the Diet of Worms. That speech is considered the tipping point between the old world and the modern world as it threw down the challenge of a person to believe as they wished.

It was a wonderful speech, firm and positive, a brilliant discourse on his beliefs and the errors of his accusers. I was struck by the level of language and the phraseology which made one listen and think at the same time. It was in short magnificent. At the end of the speech, I continued onto the speech by Sir Thome More in 1535 and again, the level of intellect and the sharpness of mind forced me to marvel at how the leaders of their time risked all for their beliefs. The same was true for the speech by Queen Elizabeth I in 1588 as she rallied her subjects to defend the realm from an invasion by the Spanish. Her speech showed her leading by example with a willingness to die for her people.

The series of speeches start with one by Socrates in 399 B.C. and include speeches by Patrick Henry, Cromwell, Lincoln, Churchill and more. Listening to them, brought home to me the fact that unlike the “Reckoning” interpretation of history which we have today, the power structure of Western Man is not the result of some vast conspiracy against everyone else, but rather the result of thousands of years of inquiry, discourse, the struggle of ideas and ideals, and a quest for knowledge. 

There is a story, possibly a fable, that when the great Chinese fleets sailed hundreds of years ago, one ship brought back to the Imperial Court, a giraffe. Everyone was amazed but the emperor asked what good is the animal? It does not look tasty, it gives no milk, one cannot ride it. In the end the emperor decreed that the native Chinese animals were better and, the great fleets with their magnificent ships were left to rot. How different from Western man! The record of inventions that have come about by the desire to learn, to make more efficient, to increase productivity are legend and most were done by individuals seeking something better not only for themselves, but for humanity.

The Western system is not always fair, or kind. But would anyone care to live life without the inventions and tools of the Western system? That is the cost if you want to be fair. Do not take the fruits without paying the price. Trivial things like electric light, modern medicines, fertilizers which have saved hundreds of millions from starvation, air travel, the automobile, telephones, etc.? Were wrongs done? Yes. Was there justice in the societies conquered by the West? No. They like the societies of the West were flawed. In the end, we need to give the devil his due and move forward. Beating one’s chest due to the belief that one’s ancestors had been wronged will not move one forward. Self-pity is never attractive.

https://quillette.com/2022/10/08/reckon-with-this/

What happens when an “oppressed” minority becomes the ruling majority? Do they learn from their history of “oppression” and shed the traits and habits of that time, or do they institutionalize those very traits and habits in the institutions which they control? If it is the latter, how do we determine that those institutions are improving, providing better service or a finer product?

Over the past half century, women have made major strides in the world of academia. As the linked article points out, they have gone from less than ten percent of doctoral degrees to over fifty percent, while composing over fifty percent of the faculty at postsecondary institutions. No matter where you look, women are becoming the driving force in our education system. Is that a positive or a negative? What do they bring with them and how will their hopes, fears, likes and dislikes shape those institution? According to numerous studies, the results can be serious in the long term. Why? Consider:

• Women believe colleges should protect students from “offensive” ideas at a higher rate than men
• If controversial claims are made by speakers, such as  men are better at math, all white people are racists, etc.,” women opposed allowing those speakers to speak at a rate several times higher than men
• Women by a margin of almost forty percent believe that colleges should not invite speakers if students threaten violence
• Women are more willing to support dismissal campaigns than men against colleagues whose research resulted in controversial conclusions

Studies have shown that women are more willing to suppress science for moral reasons as women are more focused on social justice and egalitarian norms. This is censorship and goes directly counter to the very concept of a liberal education. By placing themselves as the arbiters of what is acceptable and what is not, women create a system based on their narcissistic belief that they possess the only correct vision and path for the future.

The concept of safe places, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) committees and Deans as well as DEI Commitment Statements, trigger warnings, etc. brush too closely to censorship and authoritarian group think. It is time that we return to a system that is mores free, more objective and allows an ebb and flow of ideas and discourse.

Toxic masculinity ignores that males overwhelmingly were responsible for the gains in wealth, health, the rise in living standards, progress in science and so much more that has provided women with the opportunities they have today. It is doubtful that a toxic femininity can provide a path to a freer and better world.

https://quillette.com/2022/10/08/sex-and-the-academy/

“Talking about ‘healthy masculinity’ is like talking about ‘healthy cancer” and “Traditional masculinity has oppressed girls and women and limited the identity construction of all boys and men.”  But let us not forget, “we need to call masculinity out as a hazardous ideology and denounce anyone who chooses to identify with it.”  Thus begins a review of No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men by Anthony Esolen (the review is by Noah M Peterson.

Mr. Esolen has written a rebuttal to statements like those and others that attack the concept of masculinity that has evolved for thousands of years. His rebuttals include examples of how civilization was built by the very forces that are condemned so readily today; men’s drive to create and conquer (which motivated technological development), men’s willingness to fight (not only physically but mentally) and other traits that have moved humans forward from the darkest caves.

Peterson, points out that while the author is only half right in some areas, such as his assertion that “Every typical difference between the behaviors of boys and girls can be seen as the natural expression of the forms of their bodies”, he is consistent in following his views to their logical if controversial conclusions.  For example, are women incapable of “dispassionate analysis”? Was government created by men to protect women and children?

 Esolen fails in his discussion of virtue in that he does not “provide a standard of virtuous masculinity that men can strive for….”  If virtue is a means of restraint, how is a boy growing into manhood be taught when to use his strength and drive and when to temper it? This is a question that cannot be answered by a secularist for what is the higher universal standard of a secularist? Perhaps the answer regarding virtue can be more easily answered by those who believe in a higher purpose and being? This is not covered in this discussion.

The questions and conclusions Esolen cover may infuriate some, but all we need to do is recall the quotes at the start of this review and then remember that we are also told that no one is attacking masculinity.

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/boys-to-men-2/

We constantly hear cries about income inequity in our nation and how we must immediately correct this problem. Yet, as so often the case, the cries of panic from the Left do not stand up to any degree of investigation. The following paragraph from the attached article says so much but the actual article will provide you with the hard facts. Yes, there is income inequity, but the real victims are not those at the bottom of the economy but rather the middle class which works so hard but receives so little for their effort.

“The average second-quintile household earned almost five times as much as the average household in the bottom quintile, because it has 2.4s times as many working-age members working and on average each worker worked 80% more hours. The average middle-quintile household earned almost ten times as much and had 2.6 times the percentage of its working-age people, each working twice as many hours. Yet the bottom 60% of American households received essentially the same income after accounting for taxes, transfer payments a household size.”

If you are upset about your level of taxation, be sure to be sitting when you read this article.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/income-equality-not-inequality-is-the-problem-labor-force-participation-income-taxes-transfer-payments-middle-bottom-rich-household-size-census-11661781351