Friends, Elon Musk recently tweeted at length about the stakes in this election, and he makes a persuasive case. Basically, he asserts that Democrats are using mass immigration to alter the nation's demographics and turn it into California -- a deep blue one-party state. I believe he's right about Democrats' intentions, but he may be mistaken about the ultimate outcome. Florida has become extremely diverse in much the same way that California has, and it is moving from purple to red. Likewise, DJT is earning record levels of support from Hispanics and Asians, which suggests that Democratic one-party rule may not be inevitable as whites recede into minority status. Musk's argument may be speculative, therefore, but he's basically correct that Democrats are seeking to negate the competitiveness of American politics by changing the nature of the voters themselves. And you have to hand it to them: their strategy has borne fruit in places like Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. Who's to say it won't work nationally, in the final analysis?
Meanwhile, there's a lot of hubbub this cycle about how masculine Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff are, and the implication is that men ought to be flocking to the Dems' colors, because it's the macho thing to do. Of course, the Democrats have ignored men and their problems for decades, so it's interesting that they're choosing this moment to play catchup. Will it work? Will all those stupid men fall for it? Well, we are stupid, and violent, and smelly, and "weird", so maybe... Anyway, if one asks the question: which gender has it worse in America, the answer is not necessarily clear.
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/young-american-men-lost-c1d799f7?st=4RfwSW
In Europe, the "far right" is celebrating a big election win in Austria, while in France Marine Le Pen and other nationalist, anti-immigration leaders are on trial based on what may be a European version of lawfare. I wouldn't be shocked if Europe gradually took a more authoritarian approach to the suppression of the populist right, would you?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rdygy5888o
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jw967zg0eo
Finally, the U.K. has passed a singular milestone: it's closing its very last coal-fired power plant. Now, if you know anything about the industrial revolution, you would be aware that it started in Britain and it relied overwhelmingly on coal. Thus, the abandonment of coal is both a signal of Britain's commitment to fighting climate change, and a reflection of Britain's deindustrialization, as increasingly the hard, dirty work of "making stuff" is outsourced to countries like China -- which most certainly burn coal, and lots of it! Anyway, it's a remarkable shift for Britain, and it comes with one major caveat: "sustainable" energy is proving a heck of a lot more expensive!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Its fascinating in the abstract; we may be living through monumental history this year!
ReplyDeleteIt's quite possible that an "end of history" has not been reached; perhaps humanity is far from it. "Liberal" democracy , recently and popularly theorized as such an end, may well be a stage in a continuing evolution into something quite different from what we know of it in the West. Perhaps future historians will perceive in our democracy features which in retrospect predictably led to the "fundamental transformation" into the polity, economy and legality which would obtain in their time.
What factors? I think our political culture's overemphasis on "rights", particularly those accruing counterintuitively to the lawless who merrily misuse them, produces a perhaps understandable but fatal cynicism about "rights" enforced at the price of public safety and protection from the amoral and venal.
Considering some of the places which generate the massive illegal invasion of our southern border (and I know, Dr. Waddy, that you know much about these places), it is understandable that the antiamerican left would seek to import such multitudes. Many of them come from countries where law enforcement is very corrupt; they have had to develop extralegal defenses against this in their daily lives. When they come to the US they may well expect law enforcement to be equally degraded and that the measures they took to protect themselves from it must still be exercised. And then of course, from such amoral settings there are no doubt also many among the illegals who have led lives which any society would consider criminal: robbery, rape, extortion and murder. For some of them it is all they know.
The antiamerican left, which purposes the destruction of American civilization preparatory to its "fundamental transformation" into a totalitarian entity ruled by a Platonic elite, sees this invasion, a ringing success of the Biden era, as key in the necessary undermining of America. Might future historians see this as a plausible consequence of the development of democracy since the 18th century?
That might be answered by considering two vital developments: the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries and its PERHAPS inevitable "progress" through Kant, Hegel and Marx to the curse of the 20th century and our time: Marxism and its spawn. Was democracy's possibly unwise tolerance of the esconsement of doctrines inimical to individual freedom in key institutions like the judiciary ,the academy
and government productive of an inherent flaw in democracy itself?
Much of the ethnic makeup of the southern border invasion is Hispanic. To doubt that they would necessarily bring an inclination toward far leftism is plausible. First, there is the influence of Catholicism. Second; like the Cubans of Florida and present day Venezuelans they may harbor great hostility to far left rulers.
As always, the antiamerican far left assumes the loyalty of ethnic groups it facilely champions but for whom it has only vicious contempt when they dare to stray off its regimented plantation (eg. courageous black conservatives). One thing is for sure: should that left ever take over it will suppress and enslave those groups along with everyone else. One need only see how Marxists in Russia and China cruelly betrayed peoples who once poignantly sought justice of them.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I think I may have some understanding of the significance of the apparently present end of coal usage in mass energy production in Britain. Its mining and distribution was a way of life just as the now expunged heavy industry in Buffalo , where I grew up, was.
ReplyDeleteThe UK then will no doubt garner much attention as a test case for "green"energy. Of course much of the subsequent reporting will be filtered through leftist lenses in order to assure that it be perceived as a smashing success free of any disadvantages. For the far left, it is vital that their raging already decided doctrinal emotions be mollified, free of any objective challenge. Their object is, of course as always, the acquisition of comprehensive, incidental and arbitrary power and the crusade for environmental purity is simply an otherwise dismissable means to that end.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: In the give and take you have described as taking place in Austria and France perhaps we are seeing another manifestation of an unavoidable crucible or arena through which democracy must pass if it is to prove itself yet viable. The outcome is not at all clear. Democracy could be judged a failure. Yes, that did happen in the 20th century and was perhaps temporarily turned back but it still lives. One need only behold some of our elite campuses in the US to know that.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I know I pitied Hillary's running mate Tim Keane; I could just imagine how it would be for him (any "him") in her administration. The same is true with this Dem man hater running now: should she win, to be her subordinate and of that of her lowest ranking female cadre would be an experience endurable only by a gelding.
ReplyDeleteHarris's campaign is a model of disingenuous preemption which honors and exemplifies the Clinton tradition now firm in the Dem party. Tokens of all sorts will be displayed and, upon victory, sent to the rendering plants.
RAY TO DR. WADDY AND JACK
ReplyDeleteI have some friends who are both voting for Trump, but have resigned themselves to Harris winning. They can't imagine that the DemoCRAZIES won't do something to make sure they win, no matter what they have to do. That type of thinking speaks for itself, don't you think?
Ray from Jack: That the dems will cheat: I have no doubt of that. They are frantically dreadful of a DJT victory. But will their deceit succeed ? That may not be at all assured.
ReplyDeleteThe country may be catching on to their amoral conviction that ANY MEANS" are justified in defeating DJT's fundamental threat to them: that of the denial to them of a perhaps never to be repeated chance to follow up on their terrible discrediting of our southern birder and to end the Trumpian heresy. Their intense anxiety is very apparent and and it shows in them an objective admission that he may win.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Can it be that a Nazi revival is underway in Austria? Have common sense Austrians been as burned by leftist overreach as to be amenable to truly extreme far right rule?
ReplyDeleteThe use of the term "far right" by the BBC in the article you cited is suspect. Of course when you are sitting firmly on the left, then distant, heretical conservatives do appear to be extremists. But Nazis!? How could any people who endured the Hitlerian boot consider such a thing? Certainly the incipiently totalitarian left fosters much grievance in its unending advocacy and imposition of counterintuitive policies. It is a hopeful thing to see extensive reaction to it finally in Western Europe (and I hope we join the parade in Nov.). But is any country as disaffected as Germany was in the '30s?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: When I referred in my first comment to"a fatal cynicism toward rights enforced at the price of public safety. . . " I meant a potentially catastrophic animus toward all rights and/or a disingenuous use by totalitarians of this contradiction to justify abrogating all rights.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Well, what's going to happen now, after the Iranian barrage? One commentator said that Israel , after having staggered both Hamas and perhaps Hezbollah, and having repelled an attack of missiles considered better than the ones Iran used in April, will be relatively restrained in its , notwithstanding, effective response.
ReplyDeleteBut "no" said another observer; he maintained that Israel is fed up and determined to end this unrelenting state of siege it has endured for three generations now. Perhaps this means whatever it takes to end Iran's nuclear dreams (?) Might that involve Israel's use of nukes to vaporize those no doubt well protected facilities? But of course Iran may have "hid" them in populated areas. What then?
Without nukes, Iran and its carrion eating allies cannot defeat Israel by direct combat and I would guess they have realized that for awhile now. For now they may hope instead to drive Israelis to national despair over an unending state of war and provoke a mass exodus or a takeover by an Israeli left wing decisively corrupted by culture relativism and doubt about Judaism. But that is probably a forlorn hope; Israel was born from oppression so intense as to be beyond empathy ;it has long since resolved to do ANYTHING to survive and that with verve!
I do not think Iran could defeat an Israel which has had nukes for 50 years in a nuclear exchange but Israel would of course be loath to let it come to that.
It would appear that we are at defacto naval and air war with Iran and other states of militant Islam. As an ancillary effect of this assault today it is reported that Iran used "hypersonic" missiles. The Chinese have probably deployed such weapons against our Pacific fleet and they are supposed to go so fast that they cannot be intercepted. Initially it looks like the Israelis and perhaps some of our ships shot them down quite handily.
We have two vital interests in this conflict: one is moral and one is economic. Our fuel supply is at hazard again due to our antiamerican left dominated administration's attack on our domestic oil and gas supply.
Of transcendent historical and human existential importance is this: Israel's high civilization is fighting for its life against quasi medieval barbarians. No doubt, in addition to physical assault, Israel's dominantly antisemitic foes will delight in packing up with their jackals to howl and tear at Israel in the UN. The civilized world must choose to live in the 21st century, not the 8th century and it can begin at that much compromised "forum". Israel's heroic PM has rhetorically and eloquently challenged the world to do so and it must rise to the occasion, for its own redemption from militant inhumanity.
Jack, you are wise to suggest that democracy may have incubated the very ideas and forces that would someday destroy it. It would be surprising if that were not the case, eh? I mean, if you allow the human mind to play over every fancy, no matter how false and irresponsible, it's inevitable that someday it will be captured or entralled by one of them, no? Or maybe several. What we call "leftism" may be, in fact, an ingenious or artful combination of several toxic ideas rather than, say, "Marxism", whatever that term has come to mean.
ReplyDeleteRay, I sympathize with your friends. I find it very hard to imagine that an establishment that has worked THIS HARD to avoid another term for Trump will ever concede defeat. As always, it comes down to a question of how much FARTHER they are willing to go...
Yeah, I forgot to mention that in the UK, as here, the prerequisite for the advance of "green energy" is massive central government subsidies. As far as the Left is concerned, the only flaw in this plan is that the subsidies can never be massive enough...
ReplyDeleteJack, the return of a form of authoritarianism in Europe cannot be ruled out, but "Nazism"? Nothing that bears any meaningful resemblance to Nazism, or that calls itself Nazism, could ever emerge as a governing philosophy in any European country. For one thing, all the other European countries would never stand for it. No, "Nazism" is today a handy slur -- nothing more.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: In King Lear, Shakespeare held forth on how suffering can generate wisdom. Could it be that great suffering is NECESSARY in order to impart that profound wisdom and rationality which necessarily informs lasting civilization (eg. the Pax Romana or the Pax Brittanica).
ReplyDeleteIn 5000 years we've never managed to discredit war; we lament it but we cannot free ourselves of it. That pretty well guarantees that there will be plenty of suffering in the foreseeable future. Will we ever figure out how to end it?Can't blame countries with peaceful intent from arming themselves against aggressors.
Will assured suffering someday afford us the wisdom to live with more rationally? I hate to suggest it but with that might come changes in the way we govern ourselves which gainsay "liberal" democracy. Perhaps an increased emphasis on personal responsibility and a subsequent denial of personal rights to those who flout this concept may develop. But the terrible persistence of marxism and its poisonous fruit(eg, unlimited "wokeness") suggests that the possibility of the triumph of perceived wisdom framed around concepts foreign to freedom and individual rights still looms.
Jack, I would say that human nature, and maybe just plain nature, provide plenty of ammunition for those who wish to undermine democracy. Indeed, democracy is in many respects a very bizarre, unnatural way to run a society. Of course, some would say that democracy is always more of a myth than a reality. I would be one of them.
ReplyDeleteIt may seem that, in the last 80 years, we have more or less abolished war between the major powers, but "abolished" is probably too strong a term. "Suspended" may be, alas, more accurate.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Well, we did progress to the point where the "most powerful man in the world" was required to admit his having committed sordid offenses, on TV. Even despite the lack of modern communication, it is hard to picture Ramses II suffering such humiliation.
ReplyDeleteThere have been creditable thinkers (eg. Plato) who thought popular sovereignty to be unwise. Perhaps that kind of thinking may yet prevail, though I would hate to see it come at the hands of the modern far left. We may well have to admit that our emphasis on rights is one of the main founts of our terrible crime rate and we may subsequently resolve to stop paying that onerous price . Philly Mayor Frank Rizzo got it right: " a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged". Even when projected beyond the effects of street crime, this aphorism holds up. Eg. our polity is being mugged by antiamerican left lawfare.
Quite so! The desire for order and safety will trump the desire for freedom or "rights" or the rule of law almost every time. That's why the demonization of conservatives as "insurrectionists" is so brilliant. Of course, they will need to dig up a lot more right-wing nutjobs to seal the deal.
ReplyDelete