Last Call

 

It seems obvious that God is helping Donald Trump. There is his miraculous survival of an assassination attempt, obviously. But we have just seen something else miraculous.

Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally should have been a powerful ending to his campaign. It seemed to me to make the point that all the coolest and smartest people were supporting Trump: Musk, Carlson, Ramaswamy, Vance, Gabbard, Kennedy, Hogan, Melania Trump, Dr. Phil. People with a lot of charisma and with independent followings.

This it seemed to me was an important message. The left has been able to run for some time on the premise that they were the cool kids, the club you wanted to join, with the parties you wanted to be invited to. The glamorous red carpet crowd.

MSG seemed well calculated to end that. Now there was a cooler group of kids.

An essential part of that was to have a good comedian to warm up the crowd; show “we” are the ones who have fun at our parties. Comedians have been in the forefront of the culture war, for this reason, all along.

Unfortunately, the chosen comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, a fine comedian, made a serious misstep. He referred to Puerto Rico, jokingly, as “an island of garbage floating in the Atlantic.” It did not matter that the joke obviously fell flat with his audience—he was not expressing the opinion of the room, let alone of Trump, who was not present. This was a gift to the opposition that looked about to overshadow the entire affair, and end Trump’s campaign on a bad note. To kill all the good of the rally.

But then God intervened. Harris held her own closing rally, at the Ellipse in Washington. As she was speaking, Joe Biden was on a video call responding to Hinchcliffe’s joke by calling Trump supporters the real garbage.

Now any harm caused by Hinchcliffe’s ill-advised joke was miraculously turned instead on the Democrats. Not fair to blame Harris for what Biden said? Surely more reasonable than to blame Trump for what some comedian said. Hinchcliffe was joking; comedians have license to say outrageous things. Biden was not joking. Biden obviously meant the people themselves—and Hinchcliffe probably did not. The most reasonable interpretation of what Hinchcliffe said is that he was referring to actual garbage. Which is a recognized problem in Puerto Rico. If he did mean the people, Hinchcliffe was calling 3 million people garbage. Biden was calling 150 million people garbage. Hinchcliffe can be forgiven for saying something politically unwise; he’s a comic, not a politician. Biden is an experienced politician and president of the US. His words matter far more, and must be taken far more seriously. 

Levels of magnitude worse.

Now both Hinchcliffe’s joke and Harris’s closing message are totally eclipsed by Biden’s remark. What looked like a blow to the Trump campaign has become a serious blow to Harris’s, in the dying days of the campaign.

I now predict Trump will not only win all the “seeing states”: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. He will also win Virginia and New Hampshire.

Not because the polls are wrong. It has long made me nervous that Republicans have casually assumed the polls will undercount Trump supporters. First, being a Trump supporter is more acceptable now than it was; we should see fewer “shy Tories.” This needs to be taken into account. Second, this assumes the polls have not been able to correct for previous undercounts. Surely they are trying to do so; how can we just assume they have failed? Third, the concept of “push polls,” partisan Democratic pollsters faking their results to make Harris look stronger, makes no sense. The political polls are done primarily as advertising by the pollsters to attract corporate clients. Publicizing a poll that turns out to be inaccurate is obviously against their interests. At least close to the voting date, their polls are bound to be as accurate as they can make them.

But I predict a stronger than expected Trump showing because, as they say, polls are just a snapshot. You need to look at trends. Trump has the momentum, and that momentum should continue up to polling day, pushing his numbers higher than they look now. The Biden comment ensures the momentum for Trump continues, perhaps grows. Second, any voters undecided this late in an election cycle tend to break against the incumbent party. They are almost by definition unsatisfied with the most obvious choice, which would be the incumbents. They are looking for alternatives.

Mostly on the US Debate

 

Events are moving quickly; this is not a quiet summer. The Tories in the UK are in a panic. Reform is in a panic. The Republicans in France are in a panic. The Democrats in the US are in a panic. Things are almost moving too fast for commentary. What I say now may be obsolete in a few hours.

In the US, even all the left-wing commentators have turned on Joe Biden. His performance in the debate was historically bad. The best they can muster is the claim that, while Biden was incoherent. Trump was lying about everything. 

They never cite any particular lie. That perhaps says everything.

I did track down a list on CNN’s web site:

Trump: “Hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth. It’s crazy.”

Trump went on to cite to the former governor of Virginia, Ralph Northram. Here’s what Northram actually said, referring to his proposed legislation:

“The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

But that legislation was, in the end, voted down in the legislature.

There were other close calls in New York and California, but the bills were amended before being passed.

So Trump was not correct. Directionally true, perhaps, as his supporters often say, but an exaggeration. But it might also be unfair to characterize it as a deliberate lie; Trump was speaking without notes. He may only have been foggy on the details. “Have tried to pass” would have been correct.

Trump: “I say, let the states decide. This is — every legal scholar wanted this to be where abortion should be.”

And of course, not EVERY legal scholar wanted the states to decide on abortion. To begin with, obviously, the justices of the Supreme Court count as legal scholars, and a majority of them voted for Roe v. Wade fifty years ago. A minority voted to keep Roe V. Wade last year. 

But given that the strict literal sense of the claim was obviously false, surely it was clear to everyone that Trump was not speaking literally, but using the common exaggeration, as in “everybody knows.”

The network counts as a lie Trump’s claim that there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency: “we didn’t have an attack for four years.”

CNN then cites an attack in New York that killed eight people in 2017, right after his election; and an attack by a lone gunman that killed three soldiers at an army base in Florida in 2019.

Another case of Trump being directionally correct, but exaggerating. He did not mean literally “none.” Just as we might say, “nobody loves a rainy day,” without expecting to be challenged with an example of someone who does.

They also count as a lie Trumps’ claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen.” Which is, at a minimum, a legitimate opinion. 

And they counted Trump’s claim that Biden got money from China as a lie because it was presented “with no evidence.” There certainly is evidence of this; although it has not (yet?) been proven in a court of law. 

And the commentators never point out that, apart from not making sense, Biden told many lies. As, to be fair, all politicians do, pretty much all the time. Yet, mysteriously, it is only Trump who is ever accused of this. Biden actually claimed that there were fewer illegals crossing the border now than when Trump left office, and that the numbers are declining. He claimed to have gotten inflation down from where it was under Trump. There was essentially no inflation under Trump. He claimed that Trump initiated the policy of “children in cages,” which was inherited from the Democratic administration in which Biden was vice-president. He claimed that there were people wearing swastikas marching in Charlottesville, and that Trump had called them “fine people.” This has even been debunked by left-wing Snopes.

And so it goes.

Surely Biden now has no chance against Trump. And there is no good way for party insiders and powers to swap him out at this late date.

They did this to themselves, by forcing RFK Jr. out of the primaries and out of the party. Were RFK coming into the convention with a pledged minority of delegates, they could have plausibly coalesced around him at the last minute.

But even if the convention were to turn to someone other than Biden, the backroom powers have tied their own hands. The convention is scheduled for so late in the season that, if the nominee turns out to be anyone other then Biden, it will be too late to get them on the ballot in at least the critical swing state of Ohio.

Bottom line: Biden is not the only incompetent in power on the left.

DeSantis Just Folded His Tent

 

And in a backhanded way endorsed Trump. He needed to go now, before Trump had it all sewn up, so he could get some credit for putting him over the top. 

Hard to believe Trump won't smoke Nikki Hailey in New Hampshire now. 

Hard to believe Hailey will want to hang on now to be humiliated in her home state. I expect her too to drop out once the NH results are in.

Trump will have his nomination secured now. But Biden may look shaky after New Hampshire.

On Responsible Henhouse Management

 

Why is the government of Canada, the USA, and the Catholic Church now so historically awful?

It is simple. We have the foxes in charge of the henhouse. 

Trudeau dislikes Canada; he says there is no Canadian mainstream. It’s all just a romper room to him. Not admirable, like China.

Biden and his backers consider “Make America Great Again” an objectionable sentiment. They’re explicitly not on the side of America.

And would anyone who loves Catholicism and its traditions want to prohibit its central ritual for centuries, the Latin mass? A recent commentator insists that the modernists are well-intentioned, and think they are saving the church. I do not believe it. You do not increase your appeal by denying some option.

Of course these people are going to do what they can to trash the place while they have the chance. 

One might ask, would a moral person seek and accept a position running an institution they despise? Isn’t this deceitful? 

But we needn’t assume these are moral people. It would still be a good career move.

We can’t do much about Francis, but as voters, it was also unwise to put someone who condemns “populism” in charge of a democracy.

I hope there is still enough love for Canada, for America, and for God Incarnate, among ordinary people, those of the Beatitudes, that we can outlast this, outvote this, and salvage it all.

Why Trump Should Win in 2024

 

Pundits are saying a race between Biden and Trump is a tossup, that the polls are neck and neck.

But polls also show a large majority of people do not want to see another contest between Biden and Trump.

So if that is what is offered to them—which seems at this point most likely—what happens?

Those who support Trump will come out in huge numbers to vote, over the dead bodies of wild horses. The people who do not want a second matchup are anti-Trumpers dissatisfied with Biden. They don’t want Trump; but they don’t want Biden either. 

There is already at least one unusually strong third-party candidate in the race, Cornell West. And he is on the left. The general dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates is likely to draw others in: perhaps JFK Jr.; there is talk of a “no labels” candidacy by either Joe Manchin or former Maryland governor Larry Hogan.

They are not going to pull votes from Trump. You either love him or you hate him. Those who have him are never going to vote for him anyway. Those who love him will never vote for anyone else if he is running.

So ther support comes entirely from the anti-Trump side; which means entirely for Biden. Nobody feels that strongly about voting for Biden.

The resulting split in the anti-Trump vote should throw the election to Trump.

Because Trump’s voters back him more strongly than Biden’s voters back Biden, this predictable strong showing by third parties should throw the election to Trump.

Asymmetrical Warfare

 

It is an unnerving thought, but it seems increasingly clear that Justin Trudeau here in Canada, and Joe Biden in the States, have for years been in the pay of the Communist Chinese government. And that this has influenced them to go at times against the interests of their own country.

And after all, why wouldn’t this be so? Bribery is the standard way to do business in China. Now that China is the second-largest world economy, their government has vast financial resources. Plenty enough to bribe foreign leaders. Why wouldn’t they apply their business culture abroad?

In past generations, even were this attempted, we could probably count on our leadership, our political elites, to be too committed to the ideals of Canada, or the USA, to their homeland and its people, to take such bribes. But now, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, our elites no longer feel this way: Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden have made it no secret that they do not feel this way. There is, we are told, no Canadian mainstream culture. Biden and Trudeau and those around them have open contempt for Canada, or the US, as patriarchies, “white supremacist,” and “settler colonies.” They pretty much must be torn down. This can surely justify, at least in their own minds, dealing with the enemy. Especially if they is a lot in it for them. 

It is telling that much or all the money seems to have gone to close relatives, rather than to the two politicians themselves. To the Chinese way of thinking, the family is an indissoluble unit: money given to any member is money given to “the big guy.” It is also an essential part of Chinese culture that any gift implies a quid pro quo. This is not optional; they will keep accounts and balance sheets.

Which may explain why they were so livid at Canada’s detaining the HuaWei CFO.

Without assuming this Chinese control, it is hard to account for many of the actions of the Trudeau government’s, or indeed Biden’s. They often seem to go against the national interest. Or they resist and stall when action against China seems advisable.

Why is this coming out now, and at the same time in both countries?

It is “whistle blowers” somewhere in the security service.

Why are they leaking now?

Because a few years ago, such payments might have looked corrupt, but not alarming. 

Since Xi Jinping has gone totalitarian, and seized Hong Kong, the bribery has begun to look more like a direct threat to national security. Making  it seem now necessary to take the risk of blowing the whistle.

If Canada is worth the subverting, we can be sure the CCP is doing the same in many other places. New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, show evidence of this. I wonder about France, the Netherlands, South Korea. That they have bought many African leaders is common knowledge.

Sun Tzu says that the war is won before the first shot is fired. This is what the CCP is doing. They are undermining Canada and the West from within.

Darth Biden

 

Biden appeared last night before a darkly lit blood red backdrop, with marines at attention behind him, and declared “MAGA Republicans” an existential threat to American democracy.

People are calling this tone-deaf. After all, it made him look and sound like a dictator.

I don’t think this was unintended. It is too obvious. 

The idea is to intimidate. 

It is of a piece with what Biden said earlier that day, mocking gun rights: “you need something more than guns to fight the government. You need F-15s.” 

That was a threat. Just try to come at us, little people.

Biden’s America is following Trudeau’s Canada, Ardern’s New Zealand, Witte’s Netherlands, Xi’s China, in rapidly becoming authoritarian, totalitarian, fascist. In turning on their own population.

They would not do this if they were not scared. This is the “fight or flight” response.

Something is going to give, I think within the next year. Things cannot go on much longer in the direction they are going.

Governments are going to fall.

Narcissist in Power

 

It is clear that Joe Biden is a narcissist. The revelations on his son’s laptop and in his daughter’s diary put this beyond question.

Why do Biden’s children have this odd and seemingly self-destructive tendency to leave their secrets lying around? 

It is a cry for help. It is a way to cry for help without being held by the narcissist to blame. 

Ashley Biden’s diary reveals at least a strong suspicion of pedophilic incest. 

This is a common feature of a dysfunctional family.

We think of narcissism as self-love; but what is “self”? Narcissists can be self-destructive. Better to see it as addiction to one’s desires, one’s vices. Sex is pleasurable. A child of the opposite sex readily available behind closed doors makes a target of opportunity.

Another child, readily available behind closed doors, makes a convenient target to vent your bad feelings. It seems, however, that Biden at least did not have this malicious streak. He also had enough self-control, or cunning, not to mess himself up with drugs or alcohol or public scandal.

Scapegoats will be considered wrong no matter what they do. But to those children not selected as scapegoats narcissists are likely to pass on the ethic of indulging every desire. Indeed, this will be encouraged. Children of narcissists therefore often themselves become narcissists. We see Ashley’s and Hunter’s sex addiction and drug addictions.

A narcissist will lie convincingly whenever it is to their advantage. What they desire to be true is more important than the truth. Biden has shown this tendency throughout his career.

A narcissist will worship his own body. It is, after all, the instrument of pleasure. He will expect others to adore it as well. Hear Biden talk fondly about how the hair stands up on his legs, and children like to stroke it. Witness Hunter’s endless naked selfies.

Narcissists are almost always personally charming. Because they lack morals, they are free to say whatever seems in their interest to say. Find someone who has no enemies, and you have probably found a narcissist.

As Confucius said, “If a man has no enemies at court, it is necessary to make enquiries.”

It is therefore alarming how everyone around Washington claims that Joe Biden is a nice guy personally.

Remarkable how the media and the FBI run interference for him, trying to suppress and ignore all the evidence. But this is a familiar phenomenon when dealing with narcissists: the flying monkeys.

At the same time, many call Trump a narcissist. Trump’s kids are evidently well-adjusted, personally happy and successful. Trump is accused of constantly lying. To the contrary, unlike Biden, he is strikingly truthful: he says what he thinks. Lots of people love him, lots of people hate him. This is the sure sign of a man of principle. 

Rather than a narcissist or bully, Trump is a man who stands up to narcissists and bullies. Unlike most of us, he refuses to be a kapo or a flying monkey.

That is why we hate him. He won’t play the game. He is a threat to the narcissists, and he shames the rest of us. 

We are, most of us, cowards. Narcissists will go great lengths to get what they want. If you oppose them, they will set up an infernal howl. If possible, they will bully you. So most of us go along with them immediately, and even help them destroy others. If we do not, we fear ourselves becoming the scapegoat.

It works this way in a dysfunctional family, and it works this way in a dysfunctional nation.

So all the flying monkey gang up against Trump.

We are in a particularly bad situation now, because for several generations, the “experts” have been telling us the most important thing is to make sure children have “self-esteem.” That is, are coached towards narcissism.

Now we have a critical mass, and all hell is breaking loose. And few are available to stop it.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Joe Biden the Pedophile

Ashley Biden.

Apparently a diary of Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden has surfaced, and reveals he showered with her as a child. This, in her own estimation, caused her to develop an addiction to sex.

Another piece of the narcissist puzzle. Biden is a classic narcissist. The narcissist puts the greatest worth on satisfying their desires. As a result, they are highly likely to indulge in sexual activities that violate norms. In fact, aside from the pleasure derived, this reinforces their sense of superiority: the rules do not apply to them. This often means incest: their own child is highly available, highly vulnerable, and in their control. And this completes their control.

It is a troubling fact that the US is being run by a narcissist; and Canada is as well. Narcissists tend to destroy those with whom they come in contact. This was the traditional basis of Greek tragedy: hubris is what they called narcissism, and the hubristic protagonist generally left the classic stage piled with corpses, and the land devastated.

To some extent, this is probably deliberate. And it is hard to account for some of Biden's or Trudeau's actions in government without assuming they want to destroy their respective nations.

After all, to the narcissist, they must be greater than the nation.

The American Constitutional Crisis

Apparently over 70% of those who see Dinesh D’Sousa’s new documentary “2,000 Mules” are convinced that the last US presidential election was illegitimate.

This puts the American system in a predicament. In the Westminster system, the Queen or Governor-General could dissolve Parliament and call a new election. America has no mechanism to rerun an election, so far as I can see. All they could do is impeach Biden. But that would not correct the error; the presidency would be thrown to his vice-president, elected at the same time by the same suspect vote.

And impeaching is difficult. It must be done for cause, there must be a formal trial, it can tie the legislature up for months. It is much simpler in Westminster. Boris Johnson is right now undergoing a caucus revolt, and they might vote him out as of this evening.

Update: Johnson survives with 59% of the vote.

The Madness of King Joe

 

Recently on an internet forum I follow, an English teacher asked for podcasts she could use to teach English. Someone suggested Joe Rogan—an obvious choice. By far the most popular podcast in the world, currently. She rejected the idea: she could not introduce her students to such extreme right-wing opinions.

Joe Rogan supported Bernie Sanders in 2020.

A New York Times article I used in my own class referred to Oath Keepers as an extreme right-wing militia. I go to their web site. The oath they say they keep is to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” This is the oath all members of the military, and most police forces, take. Are they all extreme right-wing organizations? And is everyone but the “extreme right” now not prepared to defend the Constitution?

And how can everyone but a small minority be “extreme right”? Isn’t any very large proportion of the population, by definition, not “extreme”?

In a recent speech, Joe Biden began by saying that on January 6, 2021, “a dagger was literally held at the throat of American democracy.” Assuming Biden knows the English language, and is lucid enough to understand what he is saying, this is a –literally-- delusional claim.

And in the same speech in which he accuses Trump of insurrection for claiming an election could be stolen, he asserts that the Republicans are trying to steal elections by not consenting to his Voting Rights Act. If not blatantly dishonest, this is a level of lack of self-awareness that is delusional. And the latter seems the more likely explanation. Because otherwise it seems a dumb trick to try to pull.

I come to believe that the right is making a naïve mistake in taking the left seriously, and trying to argue such claims; as if they were even marginally reasonable. It might be time to simply, loudly, and at every opportunity point out that they are barking mad.

A Narcissist in Charge

 

Never trust anyone who strikes this pose for a photo. It is as phony as a three-dollar bill.

Almost everybody, including many who should know better, have been saying that Donald Trump is a narcissist. He was not; his character was pretty much the opposite of narcissist. Joe Biden, by contract, clearly is. We are now seeing what a real narcissist in power looks like.

Trump was notable for making a real effort to keep his campaign promises. He governed just as he campaigned. He did duck and compromise under pressure, but not to an unreasonable extent for a politician—politics, as they say, is “the art of the possible.” Biden, by contrast, ran as a moderate, but is now governing well to the left. Trump would stand and fight with the media at press conferences. Biden ducks questions and avoids the press. 

The latter is what you expect from a narcissist. A narcissist has no spine, and no principles other than his personal convenience. Denied, they will throw a tantrum; but if genuinely challenged, they will back down. After all, their self is to them the most valuable thing; they do not want to risk it any injury. So Biden takes whatever position is most convenient at the moment, depending on whom he is talking to.

Part of this is not keeping promises, including campaign promises.

Consider the Afghanistan pullout. Biden took no heed of America’s implied commitment to their allies on the ground, or to the people of Afghanistan, or to the sacrifices of American soldiers over the past twenty years. He also took little heed of possible future consequences. He did what was convenient in the moment. Typically for a narcissist, he acted impulsively, enjoying the imposition of his will.

Biden similarly impetuously halted construction on the border wall and ended Trump’s “stay in Mexico” policy. There seemed no calculation behind this, no plan for what it would lead to, only the exercise of will for its own sake. Again, with his massive spending packages; there seems to be no consideration for the likely inflationary consequences.

When the offal then inevitably hits the ventilating system, rather than accept responsibility, a narcissist will scapegoat. We see this again in the Afghanistan situation. Biden has publicly blamed the Afghan government, the Afghan army, his military advisors, and Trump. He insists he made the right decision—illogically, at the same time he blames it on them. His excuses begin to look comical. A narcissist has no honour.

Blaming the military advisors also again demonstrates the narcissist’s impulsiveness, his lack of foresight. Biden ought to have foreseen that the brass, to protect themselves, would have to publicly contradict him. 

It is dangerous to put a narcissist in a position of power. It is like letting a three year old drive your car.

Biden is now scapegoating the unvaccinated for the continued existence of COVID, and for the continued lockdowns and disruptions. This is obvious nonsense. If the vaccine works, the vaccinated need not care about the unvaccinated. If it does not work, what’s the point of anyone getting vaccinated?

A narcissist will lie with abandon. Biden will lie with abandon. He will say with apparent conviction anything that helps him at the moment. He is a fabulist. 

Trump of course has been accused of this, of lying, but Trump’s “lies” are merely the exaggerations of a salesman. It is how the game is played. They are not intended to deceive about the product; a good salesman lives or dies on repeat customers. They are meant to make you feel good about your purchase, feel as though it puts you on the winning team. 

Biden, by contrast, lies to deceive, which is the proper definition of lying: claiming false biographical details, plagiarizing, falsifying his record, citing false facts in debate. A narcissist cares only for self; truth is not a value.

Everybody says Biden, personally, is a nice guy. Some say the same of Trump, some say the opposite. This again is proof that Biden is a narcissist, and Trump is not. Biden, a narcissist, will say whatever the person with him at the moment wants to hear: whatever is to his advantage. Never trust a man who gets along with everyone. Trump has principles, and so some will find him disagreeable. 

Another way to identify a narcissist is to look at his children. A narcissist is never a good parent. He or she will always either spoil a child, or bully them, as an exercise of will. Either way, children will struggle in later life. Having no morals, he will not teach his children any, or model any to them.

Now compare Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, or Ivanka Trump, to Hunter Biden. Whom do you think was raised by a narcissist?

Wow

 

Biden Their Time

 

One thing about the American withdrawal from Afghanistan strikes me as insane. But I see no one else commenting on it.

Before and since the pullout. Biden and his people were saying they expected the Afghan army to hold out for another nine months. 

But if it was clear enough to them that the country was likely to fall in nine months, wouldn’t it have been clear to the Afghans? And if you are going to lose in nine months, why would anyone continue fighting? You would be risking death for nothing, and ensuring the Taliban would see you as an enemy once they came to power.

Accordingly, the idea that the Afghan army could or would keep fighting for nine months was always delusional, and obviously delusional. Yet Biden and his team made policy based on it. Only on such an assumption did it make sense to leave so many American civilians in country.

This is the sort of self-serving delusion that is typical of a narcissist. Biden is not rational.

A Day that Shall Live in Infamy

 

The actual situation in Afghanistan is rapidly looking worse. Geraldo Rivera, who is Fox’s representative for the Democratic Party viewpoint, is condemning Biden’s handling of the matter in unambiguous terms. Kamala Harris is nowhere to be seen. It is all looking bad enough that other Dems do not want to be associated with it. They are starting to turn in order to hang it all on Biden.

This is, I think, a historic debacle. The fall of Kabul is something everyone will remember for generations, as a watchword for incompetence. People will remember it the way they remember 9/11, or Kennedy’s assassination, or the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are now hearing that on top of perhaps 40,000 Afghans and their families who have legitimate claims to US protection after having aided the US and allied forces, perhaps 10,000 or more American citizens are stranded in Afghanistan. Are they all now abandoned to their fate? People are angry.

The Taliban may turn out to be a bunch of softies. But that is not the lesson of history. When an army conquers, the first troops in are usually well-disciplined and well-behaved, but after a few days, realizing victory is won, discipline breaks down and the troops are inclined to celebrate, rewarding themselves as they see fit. Even if the Taliban leadership wants to act nice to the Americans—which is unlikely—I doubt they will be able to control their ragtag forces. A series of atrocities is more likely.

Biden is now trying to blame the Afghan army and the intelligence agencies. Bad idea. People are going to feel pretty sorry for the Afghans who supported the US and were abandoned. Blaming them looks monstrous. Someone has pointed out that the Afghan army lost 60,000 soldiers in the fight with the Taliban—more than the US in Vietnam. And everyone in the military and intelligence now has an urgent need to leak to the press how it was all Biden’s fault, to cover their own stern parts. If Biden were a little more intelligent, he would have chosen one fall guy. Now it has to be him.

I think this has to end with Biden’s resignation or removal under the 25th Amendment; failing that, impeachment. Incompetence can’t be the charge, but between Hunter’s laptops and Biden’s extraconstitutional eviction moratorium, there are obvious grounds on which he could be impeached if necessary.

Biden Keeps on Truckin'

 

There’s a lot of current buzz about Joe Biden claiming at a trucker convention that he used to drive an 18-wheeler. Of course he hasn’t—that requires special training and a special license. Why would he tell such an obvious lie?

Senility. Imagining things in just this way is a classic symptom. My elderly uncle insisted in a matter-of-fact way he had seen sea serpents in the Saskatchewan River. More specifically, a senile narcissist. He sees a truck, and imagines it is about him.

War by Other Means

 

Joe Biden is working for the government of China.

I was recently watching a video on the history of Iran. As a matter of policy, Britain controlled the government of Iran for years in the early 20th century simply by strategically bribing key officials.

Why not? In the end, it is the cheapest option: cheaper than fighting a war, or sending foreign aid, or making any sort of a government-to-government deal. And it avoids provoking possible conflict with other powers also seeking influence.

So why not China? Now that China’s prosperity gives its government some serious money to work with, why wouldn’t they do the same thing Britain once did? They are not strong enough to overcome the US in war; strategic bribery costs much less.

Especially since, unlike in the case of Britain, bribery is a part of the traditional Chinese way of doing business. 

Surely, then, they will have tried; they will have tried to bribe key figures in a country as important to them as the USA.

If this has not previously been an issue, it is because, in the developed world, we could count on most of our elite being too honourable to sell out their country. That was in some significant part why Britain could control Iran through bribery, but Iran could not control Britain. 

But we have seen a visible decline in the morality of our elite in the past few decades. That sort of patriotism is long dead on the left. They will openly declare the US evil in its inception.

We know, in fact, that the Chinese are doing so: they are bribing, infiltrating, and compromising. We heard recently of prominent academics accepting secret funding from China. We hear of Diane Feinstein’s office, and Eric Swalwell’s office, being infiltrated by Chinese spies. We hear of huge numbers of Chinese spies present in the US. 

Joe Biden, as a longterm senator and then VP, on the left and not publicly predisposed to be anti-CCP, would have been an obviously worthwhile target. He must have been approached.

Biden has a reputation of being for sale. He has acquired a personal fortune in office. He has long been understood to be in the pocket of the insurance industry in his home state.

And we have direct evidence he is on the Chinese payroll, from his son’s laptop, confirmed by his son’s business partner.

I think Biden spoke with surprising openness when asked about China’s treatment of its Uyghurs at a recent town hall:

“So, the central -- to vastly overstate it, the central principle of Xi Jinping is that there must be a united, tightly controlled China. And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that. I point out to him, no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn't reflect the values of the United States. And so the idea I'm not going to speak out against what he's doing in Hong Kong, what he's doing with the Uyghurs in western mountains of China, and Taiwan, trying to end the One-China policy by making it forceful, I said -- by the way, he said he gets it.

Culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow.”

He is excusing the Uyghur genocide as “different cultural norms.” And he seems to have assured Xi Jinping that his opposition to the genocide or to the Hong Kong takeover is purely pro forma, to satisfy public opinion. It does not reflect his own views, and he is not actually going to do anything.

The same attitude could have maintained good relations with Hitler in 1938. Biden sees himself as fundamentally on the same side as Xi, and essentially in opposition to the US population. They must just be kept quiet so business can be done.

If China owns Joe Biden, who else have they bought? 

Justin Trudeau probably need not have been bought. He looks to me like what Lenin used to call a “useful idiot,” with delusions of glamour about Communism. On the other hand, Trudeau has shown himself to be buyable by others. And his actions towards China seem contrary to good sense and Canadian interests. To be sure, his government has also been in conflict with China; but that seems to have been forced on him by the need to honour an extradition treaty with the US.

I suspect from their actions and public stances that China has down payments as well on President Duterte of the Philippines, and President Moon of South Korea.

Nobody in China goes in through the front door. Everything has a back door.

The US, or Britain, or someone, ought to be smart enough to buy Xi Jinping.

Of Fig Trees and the Banality of Evil

 

Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves. He said to it, “Let there be no fruit from you forever!”

Immediately the fig tree withered away.

- Matthew 21, WEB

Many find this passage odd; yet versions appears in three of four Gospels. What does Jesus have against an innocent fig tree?

Perhaps it is meant to repeat and reinforce a message found often elsewhere in the gospels, in different ways: by their fruits you will know them.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits you will know them. Do you gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree produces good fruit, but the corrupt tree produces evil fruit. A good tree can’t produce evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree produce good fruit. Every tree that doesn’t grow good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

--Matthew 7, WEB.

The traditional understanding of “fruits” here, especially for Catholics, is of course “good deeds.” Moral behavior. 

This does not work well, however; because Jesus elsewhere says we should perform our good deeds in secret. And any clever con artist knows enough to perform good deeds in order to deceive--what else does “wolf in sheep’s clothing” mean?

So what then are our fruits?

Fruits may instead mean works of art or craft. This may then be what Jesus means when he tells us to “let our light shine,” “be like a city on a hill.” A city is, after all, a massive work of art or craft.

But then the image is not perfect; since fruit suggests nature rather than handicraft or manufacture.

The most obvious, literal meaning is simply that we can judge a person by looking at their children.

I think that is right.

If some young person is in turmoil, engaging in self-destructive behavior, seems spiritless, or acts immorally, the parent is probably at least in part to blame. If a child’s life seems significantly less successful than their parents, then the parent is liable to be at least in part to blame.

And this is in turn the surest way to spot a bad person. For it is difficult otherwise. Bad people who are at least halfway intelligent are going to wear sheep’s clothing; their malice will be carefully hidden from view. But their children are defenseless, their power over them, when young, absolute. Everything is literally behind closed doors. Their own children are the perfect victims.

Which brings us to Hunter Biden, and his spectacularly self-destructive behavior.

You might object that the son or daughter of any very prominent person might suffer as a result of living in their shadow, and so be tempted to such errant behavior.

Yet this is demonstrably not so. Compare Donald Trump’s children. They all seem to be doing well. Notably, Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, is himself a successful businessman with a prominent role in her father’s administration. This is striking, because any narcissistic father will resent the spouses of their children, especially their daughter. George H.W. Bush’s sons also obviously did quite well.

Hunter is acting out the classic role of black sheep, familiar in almost any dysfunctional family. His father is a monster. Joe Biden is the banal, congenial, classical mask of evil.

The Manchurian Candidate

Biden His Time?

A big point of having a democracy is that the leaders are beholden to the people. The problem with letting Biden become president is that he apparently is not. He is beholden so some unknown person or persons who engineered his nomination and election.

We do not know who they are; we do not know what they want. But they will have their demands, it must be something important, it must be something they cannot afford to let the rest of us know about,  and he will have to accede.

A Trump Endorsement

 

Time to say it straight out. This US election is a contest of good against evil.

Those inclined to pshaw will pshaw. We adults are not supposed to think in these terms, are we? Where’s our civil discourse, if we are going to demonize our opponents?

But the demonization is already well-advanced, by the side I would identify as the axis of evil. It is they who first declared this war. Never mind references to “deplorables.” Never mind cheap accusations of racism. The Biden camp has apparently now released a campaign video depicting Trump as a Nazi.

If the curtain were ripped away, we would see that this universe is always a war of good against evil. Not good men against evil men; not most times. We speak of spiritual forces, of powers and principalities, warring across as well as among human hearts.

But at this moment, the sides seem to have strangely parted and coalesced. The forces of destruction and giving in to animal urges are all to one side. Ranged behind Biden are voices supporting chaos in the streets. Voices threatening and trying to silence any voices with which they disagree. Voices supporting killing the unborn. Voices spreading slanderous falsehoods, “fake news.” Voices subverting the democratic system seemingly in any way they can: with voting that is obviously open to fraud, and likely to result in a contested result. Suppressing news. Threatening to stack the Supreme Court, undermining any public trust in it. Calling for defunding the police. Calling for statues to be torn down. Calling for the constitution to be abandoned. Calling to elect a man who is senile, as if they deliberately want a power vacuum and nobody in control—or to pass the seat of power to some unknown force. It all looks like an urge to destroy for the sake of destruction: a satanic urge.

The left now aggressively endorses all kinds of sexual promiscuity; now at last seeming to semi-openly include pedophilia. Surely we all knew this was coming; Jeffrey Epstein was their prophet. They are increasingly hostile to religion, targeting it as their enemy, trying to limit or end religious freedoms and freedom of conscience. They are now increasingly open about being antisemitic: the ultimate historical litmus test of evil.

Some will counter, of course, that Trump is personally immoral. 

It is traditional too for his defenders to apologize for this and admit that he is an imperfect vessel. I will not; I do not care. Abraham was an imperfect vessel. King David was an imperfect vessel. Winston Churchill was an imperfect vessel. Moses was an imperfect vessel. Mother Teresa was an imperfect vessel. I am an imperfect vessel, and so are you. What matters is not our personal sin, but that, when the clarion calls, we form up on this side or on that in the cosmic battle.

I make no predictions as to the upcoming election; the Holocaust is ample evidence that God will let evil have free rein. 

On the other hand. If he were to let Trump miraculously win decisively—it might be shocking enough to begin to turn the culture around.

Happy Hallowe'en.