The classic definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  Western Europe has for decades put proof to this idea.  Massive social spending, increased government regulations, the pursuit of inefficient green policies, a plunging birth rate and a focus on working less and playing more has led to decreased competitiveness in an increasingly competitive world. 

The attached pod cast presents a very scary group of facts regarding the future of Western Europe, and this is without bringing up the elephant in the room, immigration, and the lack of assimilation by individuals who view the liberal values of Western Europe as nothing short of blasphemy.   Expanding welfare rolls (up to 400,000 new claimants in France alone each year) of individuals with neither the education nor skills to contribute only makes the calls for new EU immigration rules even more urgent.

There are lessons to be learn for the U.S. from Europe, but they unfortunately shall be ignored by those on the radical/Marxist/anarchist Left who inhabit the deep administrative state and who put ideology above science and common sense.  Listen to the podcast and then plan your visit to Western Europe while you still may and enjoy those golden days.

https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/google-news-update/europe-poorer-us-richer-as-wage-gap-widens/746b1896-2001-405b-9bee-79815842bf26?page=1

A short book, well written that breaks into three parts: 1) how the people of Rome managed to conqueror and incorporate many of the separate peoples of the Italian peninsula prior to 90 BC, 2) why those people rose in revolt against Rome and Rome’s triumph and 3) the war between Generals Marius and Sulla.  Woven into the history is a tale of governmental corruption on a vast scale by the Senators and Equity class which led to the revolt, the civil war, and the destruction of the Republic. The masses were bought off with entertainment and lost their old virtues.

Marius is painted in a most unflattering light, and to be fair, more should have been said of this General who won so many battles for Rome. The description of Sulla is excellent; pleasure loving but bound to duty, a harsh rule who never forgave a slight and who perfected proscriptions in Rome. The author unfortunately does not mention Sulla’s inscription above his tomb: “I have never had a friend or an enemy I have not repaid in full.”

In the end, it is a book about how a great Republic turned to dictatorship and later, rule by Emperors and finally by bribery.  At the heart of the degeneration is the decline of the populace which ceased to take an interest in their military and who succumbed to lives of entertainment and the public dole.  It is a lesson that should be taught to every child of every nation who wishes to survive.

As I write this, much of the United States is suffering under a heat wave and accordingly, the usual suspects are on television reminding us that if we do not follow their wonderful directions and stop flying to our vacation destination the temperature will continue to rise until we are all reduced to cinders.  After their forecast of doom, they nobly get on their private jet and hurry off to a luxury location where they are joined by fellow travelers who then congratulate themselves on their noble and brave appearances on television.

Certainly, if you were a member of the baby boom generation, you might take the news that we are all doomed unless we begin to cook using electric stoves with just a bit of skepticism.  Why?  Because we have heard it all before; in fact, we have heard the tales of doom multiple times.  Remember the fact that we were headed to a new ice age?  Or, that billions of people were going to starve due to a shortage of food?  How could we forget that the world would run out of oil sometime in the 1990’s, or that all the polar bears were going to die due to the disappearance of the ice caps?  Strange isn’t it that all of those and other forecasts were wrong and yet we are expected to blindly believe and follow the new messiahs as they want us to march bravely backward into the fourteenth century.

Yet, there may be some degree of truth in their dire forecasts, and if there is, individuals such as Bjorn Lomborg will help us all to put them into the proper perspective.  In the article linked below, Lomborg points out that people are not stupid, and that the history of mankind has been a lesson on how humanity lives with and adapts to the natural world. For example, the number of deaths from climate in the last century is down by over 95%.  How is that possible if the earth is going through a major climate change?  Perhaps it is because we have adapted to the world around us and by taking steps to shape our environment. Or, what about those “super storms” who are bearing down on us?  Actually, the number of hurricanes that have made landfall since 1900 is down slightly.

The article helps to put climate change in perspective, in terms of costs, impact, and realistic options.  It is a bit of fresh air that can help you judge better those talking heads and messiahs who somehow fail to lead by example; they continue to purchase huge houses by the shore, travel in private jets and leave behind the largest of carbon footprints. 

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Imprimis_Apr_8pg_5-23WEB.pdf

The link below to the video by Christopher Rufo outlines how the transgender empire is powered by big money, political ideology, and medical experimentation (often on the poorest in the minority community).

WARNING: YOU MAY BE DISGUSTED BY THE INFORMATION PROVIDED

https://manhattan.institute/multimedia/how-the-trans-movement-conquered-american-life-the-transgender-empire

Due to recent Supreme Court decisions, we have had the pleasure of hearing from numerous modern versions of chicken little (politicians and public pundits) that the sky is falling. OK, not exactly the sky but according to these modern purveyors of doom, we are about to lose our freedom of speech, our voting rights are about to be lost, some minorities are doomed to never attend a university and more.

We are told that we as a nation, has a problem, and that problem is the Supreme Court which is woefully out of touch with the American people. We are offered various solutions such as packing the court with judges who understand the American mind. Other suggestions include term limits (this from career politicians who spend their entire lives in the sacred halls of the Capitol), enforcing Justices to testify before Congress every time they make a decision that right-thinking politicians disagree with, etc.

Yet those very same politicians seem to live in a bubble where they believe the volumes of silliness they spew forth during daily diatribes. A recent SCOTUS poll of 2,209 Americans by research from the University of Texas, Stanford University and Harvard (NYT, 7/2/23, pp18-19) points to a quite different conclusion. It is the foaming at the mouth politicians who are woefully out of touch with the American public, not the majority of the judges on the Court. Let us look at the result of the poll.

I used to believe that child sacrifice went out of style, at least in the West, thousands of years ago, yet today we see child sacrifice in the name of a new religion, transgenderism.  How is it that after being disgusted by the crimes of a doctor named Mengele, less than one-hundred years later we are seeing blatant experimentation on the youngest and most innocent of our population, mere children.

What has happened that children who cannot vote, sign a contract, who are considered incapable of making common ordinary everyday decisions due to their inexperience in the world, are suddenly capable of taking unproven and dangerous drugs and approving irreversible surgery which they will carry only with the help of more drugs for the rest of their lives? And who are those who are going along with the mutilation of children?  They are those whom we consider the best and brightest of us, those who have taken an oath to do no harm, doctors.  Since when has the medical profession become an adjunct arm of a political or social fad? The attached article gives a glimpse into the freighting world that is existence today, where life-changing actions are taken very often with little or no consultation or support of medical science.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/transgender-ideology-and-the-corruption-of-medicine

On April 3 of this year, I posted an article from the Claremont Review of Books regarding the political atmosphere in India.  This quarter, Claremont provides us with an excellent article which asks if France is governable.  Lead by President Emmanuel Macron, a man who admires General Charles de Gaulle and imagines that the “Jupiterian” powers within the French Constitution allows him to lead France in directions which are clearly not supported by the majority of Franch citizens.  Although he has won two national elections, both through run offs, his base popularity during the elections stayed at about twenty-five percent and his current popularity rating is at about the same level.

France and Macron face numerous challenges, the most recent and visible being the French retirement system.  Fourteen percent of the GDP of France is dedicated to the pension system and while the high national debt (112%) and high deficits (5%) are within the range of the United States, the French currency is the Euro and France is under pressure to live within the restrictions of the EU regarding debt.  This at a time when there are calls for higher military spending as the French have allowed their military to decline since the Cold War.  Additionally, the basis for the French economy is being tortured by the rise in the cost of living as “producers” exit the cities for less expensive housing in the surrounding areas, only to find that whatever savings may be found are whittled away the high fuel costs. Increasingly, those left in the cities are those unable to escape, such as the lower working class and those who live on the hand outs of the State.  The time of the “yellow jackets” may arise again as Macron has lost the support of the major unions and farmers. 

Unfortunately, the greatest danger to France is not covered in detail in the article; Muslim immigration, the strain they put on the welfare system and their inability to assimilate (we suggest going to the Gatestone Institute and checking their article entitled, “France: Submission to Islamist Quickly Gaining Ground”).  Approximately ten percent of the Franch population is Muslim with hundreds of thousands arriving both legally and illegally each year.  There are over 750 “no go zones” in France and major steps are taken in the public sector not to “upset” the Muslim minority (one example being that the Holocaust is not taught in French schools).  This is a long-term problem which has no easy answer, but the strain on the French economy, security and growth is huge.

As stable and beautiful a nation may appear, this article shows that it is impossible for any nation or set of politicians to sit back and wile away the hours.  Challenges only seem to multiply and more than ever there is a real need for real “leaders” to accept the challenges they face.  The challenge for the average person is trying to find those politicians who can tackle the problems not only of today, but of the future while refusing to buckle to the often-outlandish cries of those who fail to understand the realities of the world.  

What exactly is the purpose of a university?  Over a thousand years, it has changed in many ways.  At one time, universities were places where religious individuals were educated.  Over time, the curriculum expanded to bring in more secular topics. Each topic, however, was based on certain time-tested precepts and had a rigorous set of standards.  Knowledge of Latin and ancient Greek was often required as the writings of the ancients were thought to provide a basis for both morality and discipline of thought.

Fast forward to today, where the very concepts of merit, objectivity and discipline seem to have gone by the wayside.  Instead, we often find that greater “truths” are being offered based on a view of the world that provides no concrete base of values.  Moral relativism is being offered which if followed to its logical conclusion, creates a system which only provides a shelter for those who are not capable of living a disciplined, logic world.  That is because moral relativism always offers an excuse for one’s failures and shortcomings.  The individual is always a victim.  Ultimately there cannot be any good or bad, for everyone ultimately becomes a victim, of race, sex, economics, height, weight, intelligence, self-discipline, and so forth.  The list is endless.

The attached article about a modern-day university, sponsored by tax-payer dollars (so far taxpayers have not been labeled a victim group) should make us all try to image living in a world filled with endless victims and excuses.  That would be a very scary brave new world indeed.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-university-of-houstons-radical-dei-bureaucracy

It must be disheartening to realize that even one’s virtue signaling was a cruel joke.  Wearing a mask did not have a positive impact during the time of Covid, wearing a mask could actually be bad for your health.  Oh, the agony of it all!  All that time in one’s car all alone, looking out on those fools who did not wear a mask, believing that one was making the world a bit safer.  All that righteous anger, the stern looks, and verbal abuse heaped on those mere mortals who did not adhere to those who “followed science”.  It was all theater, it meant nothing.  And then the indignity of finding out that one was taking an action that could have a negative impact on one’s health!  Say it isn’t so!

It does make one remember some of those silly folk sayings, doesn’t it?  Such as:

• If all your friends jumped off a roof, would you do it?
• Believe nothing you hear, half of what you see and only one fourth of what you know to be true.
• He who follows the crowd has many companions.
• Collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
• If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

The article linked below offers what could be, a very common-sense medical discovery.  Yet somehow this possibility was overlooked even though there are studies reflecting these conclusions going back over a decade.  And it does not address the question of hygiene from the repeated wearing of the same mask over a period of days or longer. 

Finally, one more saying:  man is the only animal that can be skinned more than once.  Next time, perhaps we all need to be a bit more skeptical of what the herd says, believes and does.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-harm-caused-by-masks

It is amazing how many of those who claim to “follow science” only look as far as the tip of their nose. I believe it is because sometimes they do not have the expertise or worldly experience to consider all the factors which may impact their own personal or messianic agenda.  At other times, it is because they do not wish to be disturbed by some inconvenient facts, such as cost, contributing factors, outside influences which might upset their wonderful vision, etc.  Sometimes, it is just plain ignorance and laziness that allows them to disregard important realities which would upset or even destroy their vision.

The attached article begins to bring up numerous factors which will impact the vision of EVs.  One of the most obvious questions is whether EVs are as “green” as proclaimed and why is it that certain key factors are ignored by their loudest cheerleaders?  Ignorance, laziness or just an age-old human desire to believe in something that is promised as a quick and easy “fix”?  Unfortunately, history has shown us that the “quicker and easier” the fix, the more costly it is in the long run.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/electric-vehicles-and-carbon-emissions