Lock them all up? Can we afford that?

 

Over the past few months I've been noting the number of calls from both sides of the political spectrum to lock up - i.e. imprison - those they don't like, or whom they think deserve it.  If all those calls were heeded, our prison population would be at least ten times higher than it is today - and, let's not forget, the USA imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any other First World nation.  When it comes to locking up people, we're the winners and still champions, by a very long way.

What people forget is the backstory to prisons.  They're a relatively modern phenomenon, in the sense of long-term incarceration.  Short-term detention (say, between arrest and trial, or trial and sentencing) has been with us for centuries, but long-term imprisonment as a punishment is only two to three centuries old.  The reason is simple:  it's expensive!  If the State imprisons a man for a period of months or years, it is responsible for his upkeep during that period.  It can't be any other way, because he has no means of supporting himself while incarcerated, and it's unlikely his family and/or friends will be able to do so.  Metrasens estimates:

The cost of incarcerating an inmate varies significantly by state, facility type, and inmate population. According to recent estimates:

• The median annual cost per prisoner in the U.S. is around $65,000.
• Some states exceed $100,000 per inmate per year, such as California, New York, and Massachusetts.
• The lowest-cost states (e.g., Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana) spend around $23,000-$30,000 per inmate per year.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports an average cost of $36,300 per inmate annually.

There's more at the link.  Those figures cover accommodation, clothing, food, medical care and essential legal services (as ordered by the courts).  Incarcerating illegal aliens between their arrest and deportation is adding enormously to those costs right now.  It's been estimated (I don't know how authoritatively) that a single alien costs in excess of $5,000 per month to house, care for and provide security against escape.

Our problem at the moment is how to reduce expenditure on jails and prisons, because we can't afford the ones we've got!  As long as the drive to round up and deport illegal aliens persists, prison and jail costs will continue to soar out of reach of budget-cutters.  It's simple economics.  Increase the demand (for prison cells) and you force an increase in the supply (of money to build, maintain and operate them).  I entirely agree with deporting illegal aliens, but we have to face reality too.  That's why illegals who self-deport are being offered free flights to their home countries plus $1,000 apiece to go voluntarily.  It saves us a lot of money compared to doing it the hard way.

It's also worth noting that only relatively wealthy countries can afford large prison systems such as ours.  Most nations can't afford them, so they don't bother.  Anyone who's lived and worked in the Third World will be able to tell you horror stories of prisons crowded to three or four times their capacity, resulting in gang conflict and all-out riots (as, for example, in Ecuador and Brazil);  prisoners starving to death because the money to feed them was misappropriated by underpaid prison officials;  and families being forced to bring food and clothing to their loved ones every day, or see them gradually die of hunger.

Being a wealthy country with touchy-feely public morals (well, sometimes, anyway), we've chosen to build a prison system to house incarcerated persons in at least minimal comfort.  Trouble is, we (the taxpayers) don't like paying for it;  and it's going to get a lot more expensive as we increase the number of inmates, whether transient or otherwise.  Deporting illegal aliens comes with a hefty price tag.  The question is, do we want them gone badly enough to be willing to pay that price?

Peter

He's not wrong

 

Fellow blogger Divemedic brings a timely warning.

Alarm bells should be ringing with the news that the government sold $694 billion in Treasury securities spread over 9 auctions in only three days. Yeah, our national debt now stands at $38.2 trillion. The most alarming thing about this news is that T-bill yields are rising. The 10-year Treasury yield is now at 4.15%. At that rate, the interest on our debt will be more than $1.5 trillion per year. Since Americans only pay about $2.4 trillion in Federal taxes each year, we are edging closer to the point where our debt will begin to grow like a snowball rolling down a mountain.

The only way to keep the government solvent at that point would be to inflate the currency in order to pay it with lower valued money. At that point, inflation will be higher than interest rates, and it will no longer be financially possible to invest in government bonds. This will in turn cause higher rates, which will also create a need for higher inflation. In other words, hyperinflation is the only way out, but that will cause a complete collapse of the US dollar.

There's more at the link.

I can't disagree with anything he says.  We've spoken often about debt in these pages, whether government, business, or individual.  The inevitable result of too much debt is bankruptcy, in one form or another.  A government can't really go bankrupt in the classical sense of the term, because it has laws (and can pass more) to protect it:  but it will still not be able to afford the routine expenditure we expect from government.  (Even if it tried, savvy businesses would refuse to accept government checks or money orders if they weren't sure they'd be able to cash them.)  If you are reliant on government money to feed, house and clothe your family from month to month, you'd better be making plans for when that money is no longer available, and/or has been so (deliberately) inflated that it will no longer buy you all you need.

I also repeat our earlier warnings to get out of debt if at all possible.  Sometimes this can't be done, due to factors beyond our control:  but certainly don't take on any more debt, unless it's a matter of life or death (e.g. an emergency medical procedure), and don't neglect paying down (and hopefully paying off) debt you already owe.  Don't carry balances on your credit cards - pay them off in full every month.  Don't run accounts at stores - buy for cash, or do without.  Forget "payday loans" or other ultra-short-term loan options (including buy-now-pay-later schemes).  They're only designed to enrich the person or institution making the loan, not the one repaying it.

In particular, prepare now for what might hit us if the dollar does lose much of its remaining value.  Try to have one to three months' worth of food stockpiled and ready for the day you can't afford to buy more.  Try to have an emergency fund of at least one months' expenditure on normal bills, and three to six months if possible - and make sure that includes rent, electricity and other utilities.  There's no point in having food available if you have no electricity to keep it frozen or to cook it!

All these are basic measures, to be taken during good (or at least better) times in order to make it through the bad times.  Take as many of these step as you can afford, and plan ahead (and around) to deal with those you can't afford.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 286

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

(A quick note for readers:  Some weeks (as last week, and again today) I won't have many memes to post.  That's because I try to only select memes that really did make me smile or laugh.  Sometimes there are lots of them, but other times, I find they're mostly re-runs of older memes, or I simply don't find them very funny.  Other times, I may not have had time to do a lot of Web browsing that week.  So, during weeks like that, please bear with me.)

Sunday morning music

 

To pull together the threads of the past week's historic tragedies - the end of World War I in 1918, and the terrorist massacres in Paris, France in 2015 - here's a musical eyewitness to another tragedy.

Vedran Smailović (born 11 November 1956), known as the "Cellist of Sarajevo", is a Bosnian musician. During the siege of Sarajevo, he played Albinoni's Adagio in G minor in ruined buildings, and, often under the threat of snipers, he played during funerals. His bravery inspired musical numbers and the novel The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

. . .

Smailović caught the imagination of people around the world by playing his cello, most notably performing Albinoni's Adagio in G minor for twenty-two days, in the ruined square of a downtown Sarajevo marketplace after a mortar round had killed twenty-two people waiting for food there. He managed to leave Sarajevo in 1993, during the second year of the siege that ultimately lasted 1,425 days, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996.

In Smailović's honour, composer David Wilde wrote a piece for solo cello, The Cellist of Sarajevo, which was recorded by Yo-Yo Ma. Paul O'Neill described Smailović's performances as the inspiration for "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" by Savatage and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

There's more at the link.

David Wilde died last month.  In his memory, and to honor Vedran Smailović's courage, here's Yo-Yo Ma performing "The Cellist of Sarajevo".

Peter

A heartfelt "Thank you!" to my generous readers

 

In early October I asked for your help for James and Tirzah Burns, two friends of long standing.  James had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic disease, and was in hospital, and another friend had launched a fundraiser to help them with related expenses.  Many thanks to those who donated.

Sadly, James' illness was too far advanced.  He died on October 29th.  I mentioned it in these pages, and again asked for your help for the family with funeral and other expenses.  Again, some readers were generous, and helped a great deal.

Tirzah is now dealing with all the post-funeral bureaucratic paperwork, and preparing their two children for life without Dad at home.  It's going to be tough for them.  Despite all the distractions and the pain of her loss, she sent me this brief text message this morning:  "Peter, please thank your readers for me for such kind donations".  Together, we helped her keep the family afloat, financially speaking, while James was no longer able to earn a living, and now his life insurance and other assistance are in the process of kicking in (once all the paperwork is done).  They should be able to cope for several months at least.

I'd like to add my personal thanks to Tirzah's.  She's good people, as are her children.  My wife and I hope to have them visit us sometime soon, to relax and get over the stress of the past few months.  They're definitely the kind of people worthy of our support.

Peter

If there's a hell, those guilty of this should fear it

 

I'm sure that by now, many of my readers have heard the allegations that during the Bosnian War, elements of the Bosnian Serb forces invited outsiders - foreigners - to pay for "safaris" to hunt and murder Bosnian civilians in Sarajevo.

The foreigners, from Italy, the US, Russia and elsewhere, are accused of paying Serbian forces to take part in the shooting spree during the Bosnian War.

They were allegedly motivated by sympathy for the Serbian cause, sheer bloodthirstiness or a combination of the two, investigators say.

. . .

The amateur snipers paid the modern-day equivalent of €80,000 to €100,000 (median £80,000) to take part in the chilling “sport”, according to La Repubblica newspaper.

. . .

The case has been taken up by an Italian journalist and writer, Ezio Gavazzeni, with the backing of two lawyers and a former judge.

There was “a price tag for these killings: children cost more, then men, preferably in uniform and armed, women, and finally old people, who could be killed for free,” said Mr Gavazzeni.

There's more at the link, including earlier allegations that now appear to be vindicated by the latest evidence.  It appears that people from Italy, America and Russia were among the "tourist snipers".

When I first read that report, I got a sick feeling in my stomach, very similar to what I experienced when I realized the magnitude of the Catholic clergy child sex abuse crisis.  The thought of anyone casually handing over large sums of money for the "privilege" of hunting innocent civilians, murdering them for no reason except that they were available . . . it's almost beyond belief.  I've seen that kind of callous indifference among combat troops who'd been exposed to a war environment for too long, and had left at least part of their humanity behind, but I'd never dreamed that "normal" people might do the same.  (They're not "normal", of course:  they're monsters in human form, who've drowned their souls in the dregs of existence by their own choice.)

You'll understand that I still view life through the lens of a clergyman's calling, despite not having been professionally active in that field for a long time.  I wonder what I would do if someone who'd done that came to me and asked me to hear his confession of sin, and give him absolution?  I hope and pray that I wouldn't turn away from my calling, and would minister to him as best I could . . . but it would be extraordinarily difficult.  It was the same for me as a prison chaplain, when a multiple murder or rapist or whatever would feel the touch of grace, and want to repent before God.  To sit and listen to the litany of pure evil they unleashed in their confession was probably the hardest thing I had to do as a clergyman.  I can only hope and pray that God's mercy would reach out and cover their sins, even though as a human being I didn't know that such mercy would be possible.  I suppose it's a good thing I'm not God . . .

I can't say any more about it.  I've run out of words to describe the horror I felt reading this, and remembering those video news images of civilians being cut down in the streets of Sarajevo.  May those guilty of this repent of their sins;  but if they don't, may they suffer condign punishment and retribution in the hereafter.

Peter

Ten years ago today, the Paris massacres still horrify us

 

On November 13, 2015, a series of terrorist attacks took place in Paris, France.  Nine attackers, assisted by a tenth who escaped, used suicide bombs and assault rifles to strike a stadium, several restaurants, and the Bataclan theater.  137 victims died, most at the Bataclan, with a further 416 injured.

The echoes of the attacks continue to this day.  France commemorated them with public memorial services and other functions;  extremist Muslim terrorist groups celebrated them with paeans of praise to the "martyrs" who carried them out.  They are, in a sense, France's equivalent to the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States:  a landmark in our history that will never be forgotten.

As was only to be expected, the attacks inspired a wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric in France and elsewhere, and also inspired would-be fundamentalist terrorists to intensify their efforts.  Incidents like this always do that - they make the extremes more extreme, whilst driving most of society from the center towards those extremes.  The day after the attacks, I wrote:

The terrorists haven't thought about it, I'm sure, but they're going to produce a similar and even greater tragedy for their own people than they've inflicted on France.  The reaction from ordinary people like you and I won't be to truly think about the tragedy, to realize that the perpetrators were a very small minority of those who shared their faith, extremists who deserve the ultimate penalty as soon as it can be administered.  No.  The ordinary man and woman on the streets of France is going to wake up today hating all Muslims.  He or she will blame them all for the actions of a few, and will react to all of them as if they were all equally guilty.

One can't blame people for such attitudes.  When one simply can't tell whether or not an individual Muslim is also a terrorist fundamentalist, the only safety lies in treating all of them as if they presented that danger.  That's what the French people are going to do now.  That's what ordinary people all across Europe are going to do now, irrespective of whatever their politicians tell them.  Their politicians are protected in secure premises by armed guards.  They aren't.  Their survival is of more immediate concern;  so they're doing to do whatever they have to do to improve the odds in their favor.  If that means ostracizing Muslims, ghettoizing them, even using preemptive violence against them to force them off the streets . . . they're going to do it.

I've written before about how blaming all Muslims for the actions of a few is disingenuous and inexcusable.  I still believe that . . . but events have overtaken rationality.  People are going to start relating to 'Muslims' rather than to 'human beings', just as the extremists label all non-Muslims as 'kaffirs' or 'kufars' - unbelievers - rather than as human beings.  For the average man in a European street, a Muslim will no longer be a 'person'.  He's simply a Muslim, a label, a 'thing'.  He's no longer French, or American, or British, no matter what his passport says.  He's an 'other'.  He's 'one of them' . . . and because of that, he's no longer 'one of us'.  He's automatically defined - no, let's rather say (because it's easier to blame him) that he's defined himself - as a potential threat, merely by the religion he espouses.  He may have been born into it, and raised in a family and society and culture so saturated with it as to make it literally impossible, inconceivable, for him to be anything else . . . but that doesn't matter.  It's his choice to be Muslim, therefore he must take the consequences.  We're going to treat him with the same suspicion and exaggerated caution that we would a live, possibly armed hand-grenade.  He's asked for it, so we're going to give it to him.

That's the bitter fruit that extremism always produces.  It's done so throughout history.  There are innumerable examples of how enemies have become 'things'.  It's Crusaders versus Saracens, Cavaliers versus Roundheads, Yankees versus Rebels, doughboys versus Krauts . . . us versus them, for varying values of 'us' and 'them'.

. . .

And in the end, the bodies lying in the ruins, and the blood dripping onto our streets, and the weeping of those who've lost loved ones . . . they'll all be the same.  History is full of them.  When it comes to the crunch, there are no labels that can disguise human anguish.  People will suffer in every land, in every community, in every faith . . . and they'll turn to what they believe in to make sense of their suffering . . . and most of them will raise up the next generation to hate those whom they identify as the cause of their suffering . . . and the cycle will go on, for ever and ever, until the world ends.

There's more at the link.

And, sure enough, the cycle of the Paris attacks has produced yet more bitter fruit.  The BBC reports:

A former girlfriend of the only jihadist to survive the November 2015 attacks has been arrested on suspicion of plotting her own violent act.

The woman - a 27 year-old French convert to Islam named as Maëva B - began a letter-writing relationship with Salah Abdeslam, 36, who is serving a life sentence in jail near the Belgian border following his conviction in 2022.

When prison guards discovered that Abdeslam had been using a USB key containing jihadist propaganda, they traced its origin to face-to-face meetings that the prisoner had with Maëva B.

. . .

With France commemorating 10 years since the worst attack in its modern history, the arrest has focused minds on the enemy that never went away.

Six plots have been thwarted this year, says Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, and the threat level remains high.

Again, more at the link.

Say a prayer today for those who died in Paris that day, and their survivors, who live with the burden of their loss.  Pray, too, for those who work day and night to protect us against more such attacks.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #1,126

 

Today's award goes to a bank robber in Ohio.

A 42-year-old man was arrested Friday morning after robbing the Huntington Bank on West State Street, marking the city’s first bank robbery since 2010.

According to the Alliance Police Department, Jauan L. Mason, recently moved to Alliance from Akron, entered the bank around 9:20 a.m. and claimed he had a weapon. He demanded cash and fled on foot with approximately $400 in one-dollar bills.

Police responded immediately and searched the area. Patrolman Paul Vesco located Mason walking on South Union Avenue near State Street. Mason had changed clothes and was carrying the stolen money.

. . .

During his arrest, he reportedly asked police to deposit the stolen cash into his jail commissary account.

There's more at the link.

It's weird how many criminals regard what they've stolen as theirs.  "If I steal it, it's automatically mine!" - except that the law doesn't see it that way.  I've encountered that attitude time and again among prison inmates during my time as a chaplain.  I'm sure the police had a lot of fun pointing out to him that his deposit was going to be a big fat zero.

In this case, kudos to the teller who kept several big bundles of $1 bills in his/her drawer.  It looks like a lot of cash, but in actual value it's not worth much.  The robber simply grabbed the big bundles, doubtless congratulating himself on his score, and ran off with them without counting them.

Peter

Tortoise wins, hare left town long ago

 

I had to smile at an award recently conferred in New York City.  It reminded me of Aesop's famous fable.

The M42 Crosstown was just crowned the slowest bus in the Big Apple — a title that its riders say comes as no surprise.

The MTA shuttle earned the first “un-coveted Pokey award” from the New York Public Interest Research Group in three years after clocking in at an exhausting 5.25 miles per hour on average.

At that pace, the M42 would have fittingly finished in 42,232nd place of the 59,226 runners at this year’s NYC Marathon.

At a press conference Monday, MTA Chief of Policy & External Relations John McCarthy acknowledged the M42’s Pokey win, but said the award should have been given to 42nd Street instead of the shuttle.

“It’s really not the bus’s fault. The bus wakes up in the morning and it wants to provide great service; it wants to go fast. That’s what it’s equipped to do and the bus operator wants to drive the bus quickly. The problem is that things are in the way,” said McCarthy.

“I’d like to take this award and hand it to 42nd street because it’s the street, it’s the road and it’s the vehicles that are blocking buses that are the problem and continue to be the problem.”

There's more at the link.

The report amused me, but I had to concede that the explanation offered by Mr. McCarthy was most likely all too accurate.  I've driven in New York and Massachusetts, and almost universally drivers there proved to be the least polite, most aggressive and unhelpful of any I've found in the rest of the United States.  In New York, there seemed to be a competition among drivers over who could be the most obstructive and just plain nasty to tourists and visitors.  I loathed my time on the road in those two states, and won't willingly return to them for that reason.

I'm sure city-proud New Yorkers will object to my comparison, and insist that it's really not that bad there.  To that, all I can say is that if the average New York City driver of my [admittedly limited] experience tried to drive as he's accustomed in Dallas or Houston, he'd be jailed in short order by the local cops - if, that is, local drivers hadn't administered a short, sharp lesson in manners before then!

Peter

An alternative point of view concerning extremism

 

Yesterday I cited Rod Dreher at some length concerning right-wing extremism.  As usual, the responses were mixed:  some for his views, some against.  I find it concerning that some were absolutely dogmatic in their views - it was their way, or the highway, and their agreement or disagreement was absolute.  That's very dangerous.  You'll recall Oliver Cromwell's words to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1650:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.

Too many of us (including me, sadly) can assume that we are not mistaken, whereas our opponents are.  In many (but by no means all) cases, it would be a lot better for us to listen to the other side and see whether there's any common ground to be found, or a better approach to achieving something of importance to the society in which both of us live.

An anonymous reader, commenting on yesterday's article, provided a link to this post on X.com by a user calling himself "Wokal Distance".  I thought it made sense.  The reader who posted the link thought it rebutted Rod Dreher's perspective, but I think it does more to sustain it overall.  I decided to re-post the whole thing here, so you could compare and contrast them for yourselves.

I despise the Groyper movement, but if you want to understand where Fuentes gets purchase with young men I will tell you how it happened by telling you about my experience at the orientation night when my son joined elementary school band:

My 11 year old son son joined the elementary school band, and so I went to the parents orientation night which was held at a local high-school. As the night went on it became obvious to me why young men rage against the larger social system.

The classrooms were inundated with DEI messages and trans pride flags. On the walls there were posters, stickers and various decorations that all invoked the various totems if diversity. Black lives matter messaging, decolonization messaging, LGBTQ+ messaging, and basically ever sort of race and gender social justice messaging you can imagine was present. The advertisements for post secondary opportunities featured social justice education prominently, including advertising a course on indigenous ways of knowing" as something grade 12 students should pursue upon graduation.  Many of the teachers has "this is a safe space" sticker son their doors, and others had variations of "in this house" messaging on their doors or on the walls of the classroom.

The entire aesthetic which dominated the decoration of classrooms was the progressive leftist coded "in this house" and "be kind" aesthetic. As soon as you walked into a classroom there was no doubt as the the political leanings of whichever teacher occupied that classroom. The only way I can describe it is to say that progressive social justice activists have colonized the school and marked their territory. 

A woman in a mask (who was in charge) got up and read a number of land acknowledgements before acknowledging the contribution of indigenous people to ways of knowing. Standard leftist land acknowledgement boilerplate. Additionally, every interaction was done in the style of HR style professionalism mixed with progressive leftist coded gentle parenting.

When it comes to how the teachers behaved I am going to draw on both that night and the other times I have been at my sons school in order to explain it. To begin, the boys are treated almost as though they are defective girls. The feminine modes of interaction and socialization are treated as though they are the only legitimate modes of interaction and serve as the taken for granted way to properly interact and navigate the world. Almost all the authority figures at my sons school are women with almost no exceptions. One day my son found out that the school had hired a single male education Assistant, and my son came home and told me, in wondrous amazement, that he saw a "boy teacher" at school. The level of wonderment and surprise he expressed was on par with what I would expect if he had walked into school and seen a triceratops walking the hallways. 

My son often comes home from school and expresses utter frustration at the fact that his preferred way of communicating, as well as the things that are aligned with his temperament are treated as though they were somehow inferior. As he is 11 (and being assessed for autism) he lacks the correct technical language to describe this, so it generally shows up as him getting in trouble for being insufficiently "gentle" and "kind" in response to various passive aggressive power plays and instances of bullying carries out by his more socially developed (often) female peers. 

To say that band night was feminine coded would be an understatement. It would be more accurate to say that feminized modes of behavior and communication were embedded in every single interaction. It was a totally alien environment for anyone who isn't well versed in navigating the social codes of progressive leftist institutional spaces. It was like the slogan "the future is female" was taken to be a command delivered from God Himself turned into an education program.

Now, I want you to imagine what it is like for an 11 year old boy to be saturated in that environment day after day. he is an alien in his own school who is treated essentially like a ticking time bomb who needs to be effectively managed rather than engaged with an taught, and he knows this is happening. It is hard to overstate the level of hostility towards boys that is  floating around in the ambient culture of the school system. It isn’t so much that there is an explicit form of anti-male bigotry (although examples of that exist) it is more that there is an overall attitude of distaste for anything masculine and an utter indifference towards the interests, fortunes, and inner lives of young boys. The expectations, norms, rules, and standards of behavior cater to the sensibilities of girls and women.

This is the entire social system that a young boy goes through from when he is 6 years old all the way until he is graduated from university.

It’s an old trope on the right to say “imagine if the roles were  reversed,” but that would be to miss the point. I know that many on the left will say that all of this is perfectly acceptable because of historical injustices and the pursuit of Social Justice. What I want to  point out to you is how absurd the world must appear through the eyes of  the average 11 year-old boy. He is basically told he has a host of social advantages (white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, etc) that he has never experienced and will never benefit from, and this justifies the system which he is immersed in. And the worst part is, if young men point any of this out, the very people who are doing it will look them in the eye with a straight face and deny that any of this ever happened. Making matters worse these men begin to figure out that the institutions have been used to advance a leftist political agenda that scapegoated their group (young white men), and when they point this out everyone in authority calls them evil bigots.

And all this happens during their formative years.

Now, Imagine you are a young white male.

You graduate from the school system and are released into the world only to find that the feminine modes of socialization pushed on you are entirely unfit for purpose. That the social skills you were taught fail utterly in both the job markets young men tend towards (construction, engineering, building, landscaping, etc) and have no purchase in the dating market where highly agentic, masculine, wealthy men have a huge advantage over the passive, docile "nice boy." On top of that, imagine that a great deal of the job listings that you peruse make it clear that preference will be given to women and "diverse" candidates, and that the job interview itself is full of shibboleths, coded statements, and trap questions meant to elicit responses that allow the hiring party to exclude anyone who isn't sufficiently versed in and aligned with the priorities of the DEI/Woke/Social Justice paradigm.

On top of that, that if a you do get a job you will exposed to various sensitivity trainings, DEI trainings, and intersectionality workshops in which your group (straight white men) are repeatedly scapegoated as the source of all the worlds pathologies. Laid at your feet are patriarchy, colonialism, racism, sexism and a great number of other social evils for which you are taken to be complicit in and have a responsibility for fixing in virtue of being a white male.

While all this is going on a series of scandals (COVID, Men in womens' sports, trans kids, etc) reveal to you the degree to which the institutions that make up the society you live in have adopted an ideology that is actively hostile to you because you are a straight white male, and have been denying you opportunity while scapegoating you for all societies problems and treating you like you are a defective girl.

Once you understand this, the real question is not "why are some young men radicalizing?" the real question is "why are there any young men at all who have not been radicalized?"

None of this is to excuse any of the extremist radicals who are attempting to harness the resentment and anger of young men for their evil purposes. The point is to get you to understand why young men will attach themselves to any voice who is willing to stridently call for the obliteration of the social system and ideology which lied to them during their formative years and is currently doing things which rob them of opportunities for advancement and success.

The institutions have totally blown their credibility with young men, and have completely destroyed young men's trust in institutions. Young men view the current set of social institutions as ideologically corrupt and totally illegitimate, and they view the narratives that emerge from those institutions as being expressions of as nothing more then a story told to legitimize an ideology which seeks to hold them back. As such, the institutions and their narratives have absolutely no normative pull on young Gen Z men. 

I am not saying the situation is hopeless, but unless you acknowledge what I have laid out here, and engage in a good faith attempt to understand what the school system, Universities, non-profits, HR departments, and other civic institutions have done to young men, you will never be able to gain their trust enough to lead them away from guys like Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, Andrew Torba, and other pathological influences.

That certainly highlights why so many of our young men are attracted to extremism in one form or another.  It's a chilling condemnation of what we've allowed our schools to become:  institutions where our children are brainwashed and propagandized, rather than educated.  I can't think of a better argument for home schooling than the description above.

Compare and contrast that to Rod Dreher's perspective, as covered in these pages yesterday and ten days ago.  What do you think, readers?

I've come out of a background where differences of opinion led - literally - to civil war, mass murder, and the utter destruction of the fabric of a nation.  I've seen it at first hand in the Third World far too often to be under any illusions about how bad it can get.  I would far rather talk than start shooting, unless and until the latter option becomes the only way to defend what one believes in - and yes, I've done that, too.

Only those who've seen and experienced how bad it can get have any real idea of the ultimate development of the mess we're in.  Ask those who served in Mogadishu, or "hot spots in Afghanistan or Iraq.  They know . . . and they don't want that to come here . . . but if we don't get a handle on extremism on both the left and the right wings of our body politic, it's going to come here.

Peter

Extremism redux: what's happening in Washington D.C.

 

About ten days ago I published an article titled "The tragic poison of extremism".  I quoted Rod Dreher at length, and his warnings about how anti-semitic and far-right-wing thinking were becoming real dangers on the right wing of American politics.  A lively discussion ensued in Comments, with some for and some against those views.

Yesterday Mr. Dreher published a follow-up article titled "What I Saw And Heard In Washington".  Here are a few excerpts.

It was an intense and busy long weekend for me in the capital city. I learned a hell of a lot about the new radicalism racing through the young Right there. What I’m going to say about it is to inform you. Nobody talked to me on the record. What I say is my impression of a number of conversations I had with people (conservatives) who are directly involved in this world. Every one of them is appalled by what’s happening (well, maybe not one of the guys, but he always plays his cards close to his vest), and all have serious doubts about the ability of the institutional Right to deal with it. It’s easier for me simply to do a mash-up of all the things I heard, rather than try to attribute them to people I can’t quote by name anyway. Remember, this is a diary, not a newspaper.

. . .

I asked one astute Zoomer what the Groypers actually wanted (meaning, what were their demands). He said, “They don’t have any. They just want to tear everything down.”

Then he went on to explain in calm, rational detail why his generation is so utterly screwed. The problems are mostly economic and material, in his view (and this is something echoed by other conversations). They don’t have good career prospects, they’ll probably never be able to buy a home, many are heavily indebted with student loans that they were advised by authorities to take out, and the idea that they are likely to marry and start families seems increasingly remote.

Moreover, they grew up in a country that had lost its common culture. Many of these young men are fatherless. Most of them spent their youths being told that as whites, and especially as white males, they are what’s wrong with the world. Their own speech was policed with Stasi-like ruthlessness for racism and bigotry, while people on the Left routinely slandered whites, males, Christians, and heterosexuals — and were even rewarded for it.

F—k that, seems to be the reaction now.

. . .

The inability of us older people — Boomers, Xers, and older Millennials — to comprehend the world through the eyes of Zoomers is a big, big problem. Another strong theme: while it’s important to take a clear stand against anti-Semitism in the ranks, there is no way to gatekeep our way out of this. You cannot simply point at the Zoomers and say, “Thou shalt not,” and expect it to work. The problems are too deep and complex, and anyway, they have learned to have no respect for authority.

Why should they? The institutions of our society, as they see it, have lied and lied and lied, and still lie. They still lie in many ways about race (e.g., refusing to be honest about black crime), they lied about Covid, they lied about males and females, and they forced the insanity of gender ideology on us all. The military lied about Iraq. The universities embraced and enforced ideologies of lies. The Catholic Church lied about sexual abuse, and the connection to the prevalence of sexually active gay priests honeycombing the institution. They lied about the benefits of mass migration and diversity. They lied about Trump and Russia. The political parties and their corporate allies lied about what globalism would mean for ordinary people. The media have lied and do lie about most things.

. . .

I could go on — boy, could I — but you get the idea. Trust in the system is gone. Hell, I share most of these conclusions myself! The difference is that I am not a nihilist; I don’t want to tear it all down, but rather reform it. There are no historical examples in which “tearing it all down” produced a better, more just, more functional order. The Zoomers don’t seem to have any knowledge of history, nor do they care about it.

They don’t even take Trump all that seriously, it appears. They see him as an out-of-touch Boomer whose value lies in how he can be used to achieve the system’s destruction. It has not escaped their notice that the ten months into Trump’s second term, the economy is still crap. As an American living abroad in a more affordable country, going to coffee shops, bars and restaurants, I was stunned by how expensive everyday life is in the US. The recent opinion polls showing that by a large margin, most Americans (not only Zoomers) are down on the Trump administration’s handling of the economy — that reflects the good judgment of the American people, I’m sorry to say. If the Republicans don’t get their act together, and fast, they’re going to be shellacked in the 2026 midterms.

There's more at the link.

As I said in my earlier article, I highly recommend that you click over to Mr. Dreher's latest essay and read it in full for yourself.  You may not agree with all that he says, but he'll certainly give you plentiful food for thought.

Peter

Armistice Day

 

All over the world (except the United States), this date, November 11th, is solemnly commemorated as Armistice Day.  On the eleventh day of November, 1918, at the eleventh hour, the guns fell silent across Europe as World War I, the so-called "War To End All Wars", finally ground to a halt.

Both of my grandparents fought in that war.  My paternal grandfather and his wife came to live with my mother and father in their declining years (as was common in an earlier generation - they weren't dumped into old-age homes).  One of my earliest memories was of my grandfather's constant hacking cough, the result of injuries sustained from a German gas attack on the trenches during that war.  His lungs never fully recovered, and the injury shortened his life appreciably.  Thus, even though the war had finished decades before I was born, it still touched my memory.  He died when I was three or four years old, I don't recall precisely which.  The house was somehow very still without his coughing . . .

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Peter

Happy birthday, USMC - and thanks for helping to keep me alive

 

Today is the 250th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, founded on 10 November 1775.  Congratulations to the Corps and all its members.

I have a particular reason to thank the Corps.  After the Vietnam War, a number of former US Marines didn't want to go back to the USA, because anti-war sentiment was rampant and they were fed up with being accused of being "baby-killers" and sundry other pleasantries.  Instead, they wanted to go on "killing commies", as some of them put it.  A number of them made their way to southern Africa, joining the armed forces of South Africa and Rhodesia.  I met several of them in both countries.

I've never forgotten one of them in particular.  I won't name him, at his request some years ago.  I was a raw recruit, lying prone on the firing line during basic training.  I was bored, shooting a few rounds, waiting for score, then doing the same again ad nauseam.  The blistering hot African heat didn't help matters.  I muttered something to the man alongside me, something like "When are we going to stop wasting time on this **** and do something more interesting?"

I felt a kick on my outstretched boot. Rolling halfway over and looking up, I saw one of our instructors, a former US Marine now wearing South African Warrant Officer insignia.  I shriveled internally, waiting to be reamed for talking out of turn and assigned punishment PT.  Instead, the Warrant Officer just looked tired.  Glaring down at me, he said, "Recruit, an amateur practices until he's got it right.  A professional practices until he can't get it wrong!"  He didn't wait for a reply, but turned away to sort out another recruit who wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing.

I've never forgotten that moment, or his words.  They became a mantra for me, and I'm sure they kept me alive in some engagements during my military service and afterwards.  From 1976 through 1994, South Africa was plagued with constant internal unrest, terrorism and authoritarian crackdowns.  I had the misfortune to be on the scene, in and out of uniform, for over 100 shooting engagements.  I bear some of the scars of those years to this day.  I kept that former Marine's advice firmly in mind through it all, and that mental and physical preparedness (as well as, of course, the grace of God!) is probably the only reason I survived those years.

So, thank you, USMC.  I have personal cause to be grateful to you!

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 285

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Back in 1988, the world was more than usually in turmoil.  The Soviet Union was in its death throes, with political instability the order of the day.  Economies all over the world weren't doing great, and a lot of people were very uncertain about the future.  Amid all that, the 1992 Barcelona Olympics organizing committee decreed that songs wanting to be considered for the anthem of the Games had to be published and submitted no later than 1988, so as to give adequate time for them to be compared and considered.

Freddie Mercury of the rock band Queen (already dying of AIDS) and Montserrat Caballé (whom he regarded as the best soprano of the time) launched a bombshell hit into all that.  Their duet "Barcelona" was an instant hit, and would undoubtedly have been the primary anthem of the 1992 Olympics if Freddie had lived that long and been able to perform it live at the opening ceremony.  Sadly, his illness was too far advanced.  Nevertheless, it's remained a perennial favorite among his fans, and one of mine as well.

Here's an extended live version of "Barcelona".

I'm very sorry we lost Freddie Mercury when we did.  He might have brought us several decades more of his unique style in music.  However, this was a heck of a swan song for him.

Peter

"The Internet was a mistake"

 

So postulates Stephan Pastis, anyway.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

On the other hand, the modern world literally could not function without it, so I guess we have to put up with its quirks and quibbles . . .

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  The cartoon above reminds me of this 2008 classic from XKCD:

Nothing much has changed, has it?

Too cute!

 

I had to laugh out loud while watching this.

Good dogs!

Peter

An unforeseen danger in a sleep supplement

 

I've used a melatonin supplement as a sleep aid for over a year.  I take one tablet at night before going to bed, and have found it helps me sleep more regularly, with less waking up in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, I may have to stop that.  A new report says melatonin can be a two-edged sword.

New research has linked long-term melatonin use with a significantly increased risk of heart failure, hospitalization and death.

An observational study from the American Heart Association (AHA) examined five years of health records of 130,828 adults with insomnia, half of whom used melatonin for at least one year. The other half did not take the supplement.

People who were prescribed other sleep medications or already had confirmed heart failure were excluded from the analysis.

The researchers found that long-term melatonin use in those with chronic insomnia was linked to a 90% increased chance of incident heart failure compared to non-users.

Additionally, participants who filled at least two melatonin prescriptions at least 90 days apart had an 82% higher risk of developing heart failure compared with those who did not use melatonin, according to the observational study.

A secondary analysis revealed that participants who took melatonin were nearly 3.5 times as likely to be hospitalized for heart failure and twice as likely to die.

There's more at the link.

What I found particularly depressing was that this study deliberately excluded people who "already had confirmed heart failure".  That would include me, after two heart attacks.  If melatonin increased cardiac risks to the extent reported in people with healthy hearts, what about folks like me with unhealthy ones?

I know a number of people who use melatonin as I do - some of them recommended it to me.  It does work as a sleep aid, in my experience.  However, no matter how effective it may be in the latter capacity, if it's going to add to the stress on my heart, I'm going to have to stop using it.

Have any readers had experiences that might bear out this report?  If so, please tell us about them in Comments.

Peter

Health update

 

I figured it was time to give you all an update on how my health situation is progressing (particularly those generous souls who donated to my fund-raising appeal).

My right kidney was removed on September 26.  It's been a long, slow recovery since then, with stringent restrictions on how much I can lift and what I can do.  The incisions (multiple) have been healing a lot more slowly than I'd like, and are still not fully covered with skin, but then they were very deep.  Also, as my surgeon has repeatedly pointed out, in one's late 60's one's body doesn't recover as fast as it did in one's late 20's!  Fortunately, the progress is all in the right direction, albeit a lot too slow for my impatient self.  With luck, I hope everything will be "skinned over" (if I can put it that way) by the beginning of December, when my other restrictions are scheduled to be eased.  That means I can get on with rehab and rebuilding my strength.

I've had a first consultation with a highly-rated local rehab facility, planning for post-operative reconditioning and extended work on strengthening my core and (hopefully) getting the muscles around my lower spine in better condition to support the surgery that's planned for that area.  It's going to take time to build up to three sessions a week, but I'm going to work at it.  Hopefully I'll combine stretching and conditioning (under supervision) with swimming and exercise bicycle/elliptical workouts.  I hope to start that in December, and plan to work on it for up to (and if necessary more than) a year, depending on what happens next.

I'm still undergoing tests to help the neurosurgeon decide what surgery would be most effective to address my spinal issues.  Unfortunately, the tests are uncovering complications that we hadn't expected.  On Monday this week I went to a neurologist for an electromyograph, both surface (using electrodes) and subcutaneous (using needles).  If I understood the technicians correctly, this is supposed to reveal current drop through the nerves and muscles, showing precisely which muscles are most affected by problems.  From that information, the neurosurgeon can deduce which part(s) of the spine are most affected, because it'll be the nerves flowing from it to the muscle(s) concerned that are the ones needing attention.  It's a bit complicated for a simple man like me (ahem), but I think that's the gist of it.  The test revealed definite deterioration since the last one I had, twenty years ago, but in different areas of the legs - which is not very helpful!

The test also revealed an additional nerve problem, peripheral neuropathy, which must now be tracked down to its source and taken into account when planning surgery.  I wasn't aware of that problem, but the neurologist explained it was because the level of pain from my already-damaged nerves was high enough to "mask" the lower-level pain and discomfort caused by the neuropathy.  What next?  Your guess is as good as mine.

(Oh - and further thanks to those of you who donated to my fund-raiser.  Monday's test billed at a cool $6,300 for a couple of hours being poked and prodded by two technicians and a neurosurgeon.  Thanks to you, that's no longer the financial headache it might otherwise have been.)

My next step, probably in early December, will be another consultation with my neurosurgeon, bringing together the results of all the tests I've been through over the last four months or so.  He'll tell me what he's diagnosed as a result, and the surgery he recommends to fix the problem(s).  At that point I'm going to put matters on hold locally, get full copies of all the tests and their results, and go see another neurosurgeon in DFW to get a second opinion.  Given the cost of this exercise and the potential for things to go wrong, I want to be very sure of my options before I move forward.  That will probably happen during the first quarter of 2026, after which we'll see what happens.

Thanks again for your help and support, and particularly for your prayers.  They're greatly appreciated.

Peter

Electoral fraud that preceded the election: hijacking the 2020 census

 

It seems that the 2020 census deliberately mis-apportioned state populations, which in turn led to mis-allocation of electoral seats per state.  Nice when you can fix the results before the election even begins!

Redistricting is a sum of blocks. Distort the blocks, and you distort the districts, the legislatures, and the House. This practice is not merely bad policy; it is plainly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Department of Commerce v. House of Representatives (1999) made clear that statistical sampling for apportionment is illegal on statutory grounds. Abowd’s algorithmic manipulation is statistical sampling by another name, an unlawful substitution of estimated data for an actual enumeration required by the Constitution.

The proof arrived in March and May of 2022 when the Bureau’s own quality checks exposed a lopsided pattern. Fourteen states had statistically significant coverage errors, eight with overcounts and six with undercounts. The tilt was unmistakable. Democratic-leaning states were widely overcounted. Republican-leaning states were widely undercounted. Florida’s undercount was roughly three quarters of a million people. Texas’s undercount was on the order of a half million. Minnesota and Rhode Island kept seats they would have lost under an accurate count. Colorado gained a seat it did not deserve. Florida and Texas each missed multiple seats they should have gained. Analysts estimate the net effect was a shift of nine House seats away from Republican-leaning states and toward Democratic-leaning states. The Electoral College moved with them. More than $86 billion in federal formula funds followed.

. . .

The stakes are immense. The Census Bureau’s operations across a decade cost taxpayers on the order of $25 billion. Citizens paid for accurate data and received a noisy approximation that tilted representation and shifted money. Republican states are projected to lose almost $90 billion in federal funds across the decade as a result of the miscounts. Democratic states are projected to gain $57 billion. This is not a rounding error. It is a reweighting of national political power and public finance by mathematical fiat.

There's much more at the link.  It provides graphic evidence of what I can only presume is Deep State manipulation of our electoral machinery, to give their approved candidates and causes a built-in advantage even before a single vote is cast.  That situation still exists, and will govern national elections for the next half-decade or more until a new census can re-calculate our population and fairly apportion its distribution.  It means President Trump is fighting a built-in, institutionalized disadvantage in every election he and his party fight.

Food for thought.  Remember to get out and vote today!

Peter

Yet more evidence of how US taxpayers have been robbed blind by left-wing progressive policies

 

Two reports caught my eye over the weekend.  Just remind yourself as you read them that they are the fruit of four years of the Biden administration - and if President Trump is forced to back down on his policies (e.g. through losses in the mid-term elections, or court rulings) we'll be back in the same situation in no time.

First:  "SNAP’s Hidden Reality: 83 Million Citizens and Illegal Aliens Are Dependent on Food Aid Each Year".

The most frequently cited statistic about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is that about 43 million Americans rely on it each month to feed themselves and their families. That number is often used to justify the program’s scale and reach. But this monthly average hides a far more disturbing truth. Because of high turnover, the real number of Americans who receive SNAP benefits at some point during a given year is much higher. Federal data show that 52% of new enrollees leave within one year, and 67% within two years. That means that across twelve months, between 63 and 83 million unique individuals participate in the program. In other words, about 22% of the entire US population uses SNAP to buy food during any calendar year. This is not a small anti-poverty program. It is a vast, parallel food economy. The only way such numbers make sense is if many more illegal immigrants are benefiting from the system than politicians admit.

. . .

SNAP benefits are set to be suspended on November 1 if the shutdown persists, and states like California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington have each announced that their food programs for illegal immigrants will be suspended at the same time. These programs were supposedly distinct from SNAP, yet their funding halts when SNAP halts. That coincidence exposes the truth: the money, the systems, and the administrative pipelines are connected. States have long played a shell game, quietly routing federal funds into state-level programs for illegal immigrants. The shutdown has revealed the link.

The implications are enormous. If SNAP were truly separate from these state programs, the shutdown would inconvenience them, not paralyze them. Their paralysis proves a shared infrastructure, shared databases, shared eligibility systems, and, most troublingly, shared funding streams. This confirms what conservatives have long argued: state officials are using federal welfare mechanisms to subsidize benefits for illegal immigrants. It is not a clean firewall between programs. It is a revolving door.

There's more at the link.

Next:  "Nearly $200M in Direct Federal Grants Has Been Aimed at Expanding Programs to Serve Illegal Immigrants".

Illegal immigrants have benefitted from at least $197 million in direct federal healthcare-related grants since fiscal year 2021, according to new research from Open the Books. This figure does not include indirect spending on illegal immigrants via Medicaid, which was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be around $27 billion from FY 2017-2023, nor does it account for education spending that benefits illegal immigrants and their children, which amounts to an estimated $70 billion annually.

. . .

Health-related spending is principally directed towards programs serving the neediest members of society, such as the homeless, drug-addicted, or otherwise medically fragile. The expansion of programs to include illegal immigrants both encourages illegal migration into the United States and directs spending away from high-poverty Americans.

. . .

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, illegal immigration costs taxpayers $150.7 billion per year [at] the federal state and local level. Meanwhile, this year’s budget reconciliation bill directs $45 billion to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s detention budget and nearly $30 billion to ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations over the next four years. The bill directs an additional $46.5 billion to border security infrastructure.

Again, more at the link.

So much for our taxpayer dollars.  So much for constitutional and legal provisions forbidding the expenditure of taxpayer dollars on those not entitled to such support.  The previous administration appears to have disregarded those provisions wholesale.  If these numbers don't demonstrate the absolute contempt that the progressive left wing of US politics has for taxpayers and regular citizens, then I don't know what will.

Even with all that President Trump has accomplished so far, we remain balanced on a knife-edge as far as our future fiscal policies are concerned.  If the progressive left gains control of the House and Senate during the 2026 mid-term elections, and/or if left-wing judges use the judicial system to block much of the President's program, then we're neck-deep in the financial dwang once again . . . and given how deep that noxious substance already is in our body politic, I don't know whether we'll be able to dig our way out again.  That's particularly troubling in the light of opinion polls suggesting that a majority of the electorate is not happy with the President's policies for one reason or another.  (Whether or not those polls are accurate is another question:  without knowing the exact statistics of who and how many were sampled, when and where, it's one I can't answer.)

It's up to all of us, individually and collectively, to keep up the pressure, encourage all those we know to think rationally and count their pennies (particularly those given to the taxman), and stop that from happening.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 284

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

I tend to be rather old-fashioned in my music tastes.  I'm unlikely to enjoy most songs written this century (with a few notable exceptions when composed and/or performed by older artists and groups, who were brought up to know what music was, as opposed to a noise!).  As for alleged rap "music", I refuse to dignify it with the label "music" at all.

However, there are always exceptions to every rule, and I came across one this week.  Shaboozey has been writing and performing songs since 2014, when he was only 19 years old.  His music "combines hip-hop, country, rock, and Americana", and he appears to carry off the blend with aplomb.

The track I listened to is called simply "Good News".  The lyrics may be found here, if you need them.  Give it a listen, and see what you think.

You'll find more of his music at his YouTube channel.  I plan to listen to more of it, to see how his undoubted talent develops.  This young man may have a serious musical future.

Peter