Neo Bigots

 The current slogan of the Washington Post is “Democracy Dies in Darkness” though they should re-brand with the new slogan - ‘Democracy Dies under DEI’; not that any article addressing this concept will ever show up in that rag. Written in 1215, the Magna Carta Libertatum (L. "Great Charter of Freedoms ") attempted to provide a level legal playing field for all Englishmen, this was done in the effort to replace Feudalism as Feudalism put forward the idea that all Englishmen were not equal as they held a ‘position’ within the social hierarchy; a position from which they could not easily escape. The Magna Carta along with its descendants such as the constitutions of England, The US, and Canada, seem have had a good run, all things considered.

 A feudal system is based on pigeon-holing people where all people are restricted to their allocated pigeon-hole; the children of peasants remaining peasants and children of Royals remain Royals with all of the hierarchal layers in between. The parallel between the pre Magna Carta feudal system and the current ongoing drive towards social re-allocation based on the ‘Oppression Olympics’ seems obvious. Both systems are predicated on pigeon-holing with the only difference being that the first tried to drag the majority of the population out of the pigeon holes, while the latter is seeking to populate and/or repopulate the available holes.

 Unfortunately this is not a war on a single front and when one has a war on many fronts it is never a trivial matter. Metaphorically, consider the following two situations, the 300 Spartan versus Xerxes’ army and WW2-Germany versus the English Commonwealth, the USA, and the USSR.

 A second frontal assault on maintaining the standards of Western society is being led by the eco-champions; for the sake of clarity, an eco-warrior is the person on the ground. The eco-warriors are literally on the ground as they seem to like to glue themselves to the road, slow march along a road, or attempt to spoil things that members of the public in general find enjoyment in. The eco-champions are those who fly to global destinations, with the exception of China, to hold fancy parties where they myopically discuss the primary food for plants, thus encouraging the regression of Western societies back to the days of old in feudal Europe, in regard to general energy security.

 Some people believe that the ideals behind Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) are waning within the corporate sphere. This view is understandable when one considers that a DEI department is a cost centre and many people see their economy is hurting, and so many companies will need to cut costs. DEI is not waning; it is being supplanted by both ESG (Environment, Society and Governance) and BRIDGE (Benchmarking Race, Inclusion, and Diversity in Global Engagement). ESG is a scoring system within both the fiscal and corporate worlds, a distinction without a difference some might say, it can be used as both the stick and the carrot towards ensuring compliance as it is a factor used to set interest rates and market capitalization recommendations. BRIDGE is still fresh faced and so understanding its impact will have to wait for some day in the future.

Perhaps coincidentally, the British band The Stranglers released a song titled ‘Skin Deep’ in 1984 and it is strongly recommended the reader listens to that song. Within DEI the diversity seems to be focused mostly on skin colour with religion coming in a close second and gender comes in third; thus making more pigeon-holes and stuffing in more pigeons. Oddly enough, it seems that for some people the determining difference between peoples is only skin deep, evidence of this can be seen by searching Google for ‘Larry Elder black face white supremacy’.

 While DEI sounds good in its full title, it falls on its face in practice. The acronym would be better matched to it praxis if DEI stood for ‘Differential Enforcement Ideology’. It is said that hindsight is 20/20 and the reader is asked to look to back to the past 10 years or so and see how well the DEI mantra has played out. Those who ran BLM post George Floyd were not diverse, did not provide equity of outcome and most certainly did not include the people whose businesses were hollowed out by fire nor any inclusion regarding the vast sums of monies donated; meanwhile the BLM leaders did end up with some very nice homes.

 Another possible expansion of DEI is ‘Dependency Encouragement Incentives’ and this one is probably the most insidious.  One has only to dawn their history glasses again to see examples of how this has been done before and some of the consequences. The American’s Affirmative Action policy is possibly the best example of this DEI derivative and so once again the pigeon holes got stuffed. Incepted on Sept 24^th 1965 as part of LBJ’s Great Society plan, this policy eventually became a quota system, a quota system with the unforeseen consequence of increasing the drop-out rate of those it was intended to help. This happened because in order to meet said quota, some schools lowered entry standards thus placing the ‘protected’ persons underwater within their educational experience; where as the same person may have done well at a not so prestigious institution. The Supreme Court of the United States of America (SCOTUS) overturned Affirmative Action in June of 2023.

 Sticking with the expansion above, another unintended consequence was disproportional incarceration and once again LBJ and his Great Society initiative is the source. According to Dr. Thomas Sowell, in the 1950s the fatherless homes within the black American community was around 20% and now it is around 80%. Dr. Sowell has posited that the cause for this meteoric rise was a government program that to this day is providing tax based funds to single mothers on a per child basis. Stepping outside of Dr. Sowell’s characteristic politeness, it seems that the general tax payer is getting screwed for the benefit of others without any conjugal benefit.

 The next expansion to play with is ‘Disinformation Exaggeration Incitement’. It is said that in the USSR a man would take the two papers Pravda (Truth) and Izvestiya (News) then riffle-shuffle them together like a cut deck of cards making both papers un-open-able, then the man would proclaim “finally there is truth in the news and news in the truth, unfortunately we can not read it”, his friends would then laugh.

 Phrases like ‘fiery but mostly peaceful protest’, ‘a one size fits all solution’, ‘YOU don’t know MY truth’, and ‘Trump has to be taken off the ballot to save our democracy’, all of which seem straight out of Pravda. Some will say that “the Internet” ruined the NEWS outlets, this is an overly simplified talking-point in these transitional times; the transition of note is the shift away from ‘one of us’ towards ‘not one of us’ seemingly all across Western societies. In days gone by the citizenry was more amicable exposing themselves to many sources with different perspectives, yet since those days the ‘different perspectives’ have: drifted further apart, become more anchored in place, and are increasing in number.

 The information highway is as equally culpable as a printing press when it comes to the distribution of information, from the good, the bad and the ugly, with disinformation somewhere in between; with the exception of post publishing edits. It is the opinion of this author that the pre-Internet era publishing can be characterized by two conditions: history and money. Modernity has reaped the benefit of history curating all of the trash out the public syllabus, money use to be a measure of meritocracy, a practice which seems to have ended with “modern art”.

 Another acronym many people may remember is PC, Politically Correct, or perhaps Provocateur and Contrarian depending on your attitude. Another gift from the USSR the term Politically Correct means that while a narrative may not be technically correct it is made in support of ‘the Party’; Lysenkoism being the prime example of this. Lysenko and his PC ideas added millions of deaths to the event known as the Holodomor. Other recent versions of this line of thinking can be found in the phrases such as “safe and effective” or “gender affirming care for children”. While the parties may have changed, the ideological tactic has not.

 This article has reached its conclusion with the intention of showing that words do matter. Then when presented as an acronym thus obscuring the actual words, further enhancing the confusion, thereby masking the true intent even more. While words are important, actions are literally more impactfull, hence why words that call for violent action are typically frowned upon; that is unless both the call and the violence ‘works’ for those who already have power or desperately want it.

  

From: V for Vendetta

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.”

 

Moderating Moderation

 

The term ‘everything in moderation, including moderation’ or any slight variant has been passed down throughout the ages, has been attributed to the likes of Socrates, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Oscar Wilde, as well as Mark Twain. It now seems that this saying cannot honestly be passed down to the next generation as now it seems we to have run out of moderation.

Moderation must be looked at as being some sort of un-extreme within the constraints of ‘too much’ or ‘too little’; a middle ground as it were. Of course the two extremes define where the middle is made manifest, though this too can be quite broad depending on where an individual looks; and as such things must shift over time as the societal focus shifts from topic to topic.

A societal talking-point often used is ‘disgust’ as it is a very strong driver, though it is best used in moderation. Disgust is most likely an evolutionary trait that developed out of a sense of safety, an over abundant disregard for cleanliness has led to disease and death, while an over abundant regard for cleanliness has led to the othering of people and death; that was the Holocaust and yes Hitler is reported to have been a germophobe.   

Another societal talking-point often used in the Western world is ‘liberty’ as it is a very strong driver, though it is best used in moderation. John Locke (1632-1704), known as ‘the father of liberalism’ is accredited with saying “every man hath a right to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of nature.” Then from Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), we get "A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals." The final quote for this part comes from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935), who is said to have said ‘The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.’

Of the three men named above, Dostoevsky’s words are of the most interest. Locke’s words are simply a justification for the ideal of setting a jury. Oliver Wendell’s words are simply a justification for self restraint. The words provided by Dostoevsky on the other hand are what may best be described as a comparative contemplation.

The Dostoevsky quote requires a party of three parts because it can be broken down into the following: ‘outstanding citizens’, ‘criminals’, and the ‘reader’. In reading the words of Dostoevsky, one has to make the choice of which sort of citizen is granted the moral high-ground. Some people will take the side of the criminal by putting the blame on anyone other than the criminal, thus putting the outstanding citizen at a disadvantage. A criminal will often crime is, by definition, a truism. To those who lean towards denying personal responsibility, the following questions must be asked: a) what message is being sent to the ‘outstanding citizen’ when the ‘criminal’ is no longer treated as an offender, b) what message is being sent to the ‘criminal’ when he learns that his fist no longer has to stop and the nose of the ‘outstanding citizen’ and c) what sort of society will be made?

When moderation becomes overly moderated at the societal level shit happens, a thing which can be seen in real time at the time of this writing. If by chance you are reading this in the future, simply look to the news section of your search engine of choice and enter ‘New York City 2024’ to see what shit looks like. So long as history has not been scrubbed or rewritten then you the reader should see a number of stories of people being pushed in front of subway trains, at least one story of officers of the law being physically attacked, at least one officer of the law being shot dead by a criminal who had been arrested and charged twenty-one times, countless number of car jacking incidents, and stories of many outstanding citizens having a general feeling of distress. At the time of this writing 2024 is just emerging from its first quarter of the calendar year and so this the current year is nowhere near completed.

Of course there are many “experts” with many accreditations, who have written many papers that we, as a society, selectively trust to give explanation to situations. It does not take a highly accredited expert to understand what is going on, people act based on incentives and those incentives are being set, managed and enforced by persons driven by their own incentives. Of course disincentives are also a plausible tool for convincing people how to behave, though without moderation a society risks moving towards tyranny.

Typically, the Government holds ownership on the application of force within the society over which they govern; when the society decides that the government is no longer granted said license, the peasants are revolting, literally. Unfortunately, through law and regulation the Government has licensed-out the application of force to groups in need of ‘protecting’, these so called protected classes came to the realize they were handed a leg up over other members of their society and leveraged their newly licensed power.

One example of this was and still is the bastardization of English grammar through the assertion of personal pronouns. Pronouns are simply: in the first-person (I), in the second-person (you), and in the third persons (he, she, they, and them). The reader can do there own litmus test on this new grammatical paradigm by conjugating any verb, only in the present tense is required and then accept the level of their self confusion as a form of informal polling. Of course like any focus group or social-political poll ever, the extrapolation of the polled as a representative of the gen-pop must be considered and accounted for when honest societal representation becomes front of mind.

For many people the purpose of Government is to provide the citizenry that which they can not provide for themselves with the primary purported focus being on security. This creates a tantalizing conundrum for the political class as they will be tempted to make unrealistic policy promises in the race to ‘purchase’ voters.

 Many a Government will make an appeal to empathy via the phrase ‘we are thinking of the children’ and then said Government will typically add in yet another protective law that extends their control over the population at large, thus adding even more cogs to the bureaucratic machine and yet still those people will be paid.

So now the children will actually be thought of. Margret Thatcher is accredited for the phrase, ‘The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.’ As the bureaucratic machine grows so will the payroll grow, this leaves the Government with only two choices: raise taxes, or print money; regardless of which path a Government takes, the children will suffer today or they will suffer the day after tomorrow. Overly burdensome taxes will impact the nutritional value of the foods eaten by children, especially for those who have no access to arable land as the parents will seek food at lower and lower cost. Money printing on the other hand limits the future of a child today being able to create generational wealth and security as  more money is chasing the same amount of imported goods, inflation, and thus by extension limiting the pursuit of happiness for the children’s children many days after tomorrow.

 Paraphrasing an easily recognizable historic saying, ‘with great liberty comes great responsibility’, and the second portion of this version and the original seems to have been forgotten by those who want both liberty and power. Persons, who want liberty and power without the guardrails of responsibility, self-imposed towards avoiding some sort of enforcement, are usually referred to as tyrants; historically those tyrannical people come to realize that reality kicks in right around the time that they became about seven inches shorter, as Charles I of England found out in 1649.

 Of course there will be those… (Screeching car halt or needle dragged over record sounds, take your pick.) Ending this article was becoming a challenge; until just now.

  

 A conversation ensued in the elevator just now where I was told that my holding a door for a woman could be insulting to the woman could be insulting; oddly enough this was told to me by a woman. In the telling it was stated that I could get in trouble, my retort was ‘insults are hurled and offence is taken’, a cliché I’ve explained in previous articles. The ride in the elevator wasn’t long enough for this woman to take offence and I didn’t care enough to be offended by said person; words like coddling and patriarchy where part of her rhetoric.

 What this woman doesn’t know is that I also hold the door for men, children, and pets. I don’t care who I provide kindness too, with self-proven assholes being the exception. My comment, ‘people should accept kindness when they can as there seems to be a global shortage’ fell on deaf ears. This left me wondering how the conversation would have gone if I changed the gender of the target of my kindness to male. Interestingly, the patriarchy is a problem all the while the matriarchy walks unchallenged. The centre of power can be known by witnessing who is not allowed to be challenged. I was threatened by a woman, leaving me to wonder where my Government is on this.

 Sir Thomas More: ‘This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!’ – "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"