Friends, as my Christmas gift to you, I bring you this somewhat tongue-in-cheek article about how thankful we should we to crazy leftists for deciding to become celibate in reaction to the election victory of one Donald J. Trump. This author is having a little fun at the progressives' expense, which is always tempting, but he raises a valid point. Leftists believe that human beings, or rather human society, is inherently evil, oppressive, and environmentally destructive. They look forward to a world with fewer people rather than more. They often believe it is a sin against wokeness to have children yourself -- those little racist, sexist carbon machines that, after all, spoil our plans to get high all day and watch reruns of Barack Obama speeches. The upshot is that people who think cutting off your genitals is morally superior to using them to make babies are not terribly likely to be fruitful and multiply, and thus, in the final analysis, conservatism, of a sort, might win a resounding demographic victory over leftism, in its current, horribly disfigured manifestation. A comforting thought? Perhaps!
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/dec/23/finding-joy-abstinence-merry-christmas-crazy-miser/
Another sweet morsel for your Christmas stocking: Trump's favorability numbers are at an all-time high. What's more, we know many of these pollsters are underrating Trump's popularity, even now. Bodes well, I'd say!
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump
RAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteIf the "Leftists are the New Shakers" than the incoming administration are THE NEW PLUTOCRATS. Facing the reality of who is going to run the country now, means some very wealthy people are going to run it, who we can only hope will do something very good for the U.S. compared to our past Plutocrats.
RAY TO DR. WADDY AND JACK
ReplyDeleteWishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Dr. Waddy and Ray et al from Jack. The Shakers: there is a novel about Shaker life entitled The Believers. Dr.Waddy: you probably know this already but the Genesee Country Museum in Mumford N.Y. has at least one genuine Shaker building. Ray: Western NY state had at least one Shaker Community in the 19th century at Sonyea NY. I worked in a N.Y. state prison built there on the grounds of the then abandoned campus. As was typical the architecture, as was their furniture ,was austerely beautiful in its simplicity and very painstaking, fine craftmanship. I read an account by a person who lived in a Shaker community without becoming a Shaker. In a century in which want could mean destitution and death he said he found the barely necessary but very clean and orderly life there "all he needed". Obviously it was a very esoteric way and unlivable way of life for most but it had redeeming features (eg. a work ethic which produced beautiful products which are treasured by many to this day.) And it provided some proof that utopianism need not be murderous.
ReplyDeleteMy own view: many on the completely wacky fringe of the newly devastated far left, who have vowed to adopt bizarre and probably unsustainable measures involving demonstrative physical self effacement in order to bring widespread notice to their outrage, could if they are truly sincere, found insular communities requiring sustained devotion to their now tentative "convictions". Perhaps they could, thereby, if they have plausible concerns, gain some credit over time both from their efforts and from the disastrous consequences they predict for the new "regime". Again, NY state has several now "compassionately" emptied prisons and its far left dictatorship might well cede them to such visionaries (taxpayers "go fly a kite"). Relative isolation, regimentation, sexual abstinence and frenzied "transformative " dancing were Shaker staples which elite far leftists might find redeeming. But I would challenge these feckless dreamers to live the hard working constructive lives the Shakers lived. I don't think they have the guts for it.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I agree with you in so far as I think the far left finds vast swaths of humanity proven fundamentally but not irredemably evil for their doctrinal depravity. But there are some humans they hold essentially and inherently good and even elite. Of course these include all assumed in their perceived "oppressed classes". A telling example is found in their touching sympathy and compassion for vicious criminals.By their lights, those "mischief makers" are obviously fundamentally good people traumatized by endemic injustice(such as democratically promulgated laws) as much as to be unable to distinguish "right from wrong" ,and pitiably captured by their impulses, unable to resist victimizing others. Accordingly , justice is best served by subjugating those who have fostered in them such understandable cynicism: for example, the law abiding.
ReplyDeleteRay from Jack: I'd far rather be ruled by plutocrats, some of whom are among the most constructive and positive members of our civilization, than radical levellers whose past actions in power have manifested unalloyed evil.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteTotally agree.
Dr. Waddy, Ray, Richie, et al from Jack: The very best wishes to all for this glorious season, the perennial celebration of some of the best of our great Western Civilization!
ReplyDeleteDer. Waddy from Jack: It might be better under usual circumstances to avoid today of all days commentary on Biden's forgiveness of the death penalty for almost everyone under federal sentence for that humanely administered (in sharp contrast to the death sentences so many of them administered without attention to "due process") measure (I mean in contrast to hanging, the gas chamber , even the hot seat etc.).
ReplyDeleteWell, there are after all, the families of the immediate victims, who have probably endured many Christmases made far less merry by the memory of loved ones who were savaged by those for whom Biden has such touching sympathy. Each of those dolorous observances were mitigated perhaps by the expectation of justice served, if only belatedly . Now they are denied even that, by good 'ol Joe.
See, this why people oppose "life without parole" The knowledgeable know that some Dukakis type airy executive dreamer may come to the rescue of the monsters who casually introduced unspeakable horror into the lives of the innocent and gift them "furloughs" and "compassionate " commutations. Why Prince Cuomo in NY wanted to excuse the lifetime obligations of those who were 55 and had served fifteen "almost eternal" years in inconvenient prison settings. After all, no 55 year old is capable of mayhem and even though those who have suffered such extended incarceration are unlikely to voluntarily make obsequious restitution to those devastated by their freely chosen actions.
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Dr. Waddy from Jack : In our cold civil war, it is July , 1863.Lee has been repulsed at Gettysburg and Vicksburg is captured, The Confederacy is engulfed in despair made sharper by the contrast to Lee's brilliant victory at Chancellorsville just a month previous.
ReplyDeleteFew know it, but a General with the grit necessary to fight through to Union, U.S. and consequential WORLD victory, Grant, is at eventual hand. Our Grant is in command already .
RAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteAre you comparing Trump to Grant, or J. D. Vance to Grant? Vance looks more like Grant than Trump does, or at least resembles him with what passes as a beard in Vance's case.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Re the commutations again: BIden probably means well in his pathetic way but his misplaced sympathy is characteristic of the mindless kumbayaa style leftist morally relative humbug which has worked so much counterintuitive damage on our civilization. A very generous dose of common sense is what we need and we may be about to get it. Lead the redemption , Pam Bondi!
ReplyDeleteRay from Jack: I'm comparing DJT to Grant in that he is willing to take the hard measures to right the ship of state that Grant had the fortitude to face and accomplish. We have a guy in our reenactment brigade who looks just like Grant and does portray him. I think JD looks pretty good with his beard.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteI think that guy in your reenactment brigade needs to run for president in 2028.
RAY TO JACK
DeleteAll "joking" aside, I like Vance, but I'm not into beards, and never have been. Of course that is a personal preference. I like Vance, but he could be any truck driver on an interstate. Of course, that is probably why he would appeal to so many Americans, who look like him, as if they had emerged from a human "cookie cutter" factory.
I don't share your view that Grant did anything much to help or not help our country after the civil war. He was an honest man, although his administration had quite a few dishonest men in it. Anyway, I'm not a Grant expert, but my personal view is that the reunited U.S. was in worse shape after the horrible Civil War than it was before. Yes, the slaves were freed and all that, but were still being put down by White Southerners, and of course the South was devastated by the war. Yes, the settlement of The West continued, as did the extermination of many Indian tribes, although I don't have any delusions about the so called romantic way of life for pastoral nomads and hunter gatherers vs George Armstrong Custer.
Speaking of The Civil War, I remember one of the saddest books that ever was, which was made into a movie, was "RainTree County" which I have not seen in years.
And don't forget that by the late 19th Century, the U.S. decided to have a Empire, so we went and got The Philippines and Cuba, and all that, which was the real beginning of the military industrial complex. Ever you ever get a chance, read "War Is A Racket" by the late Marine General Smedley D. Butler, a two time Medal of Honor Winner, hardly a Leftist in any sense of the word, but a realist in every sense of the word.
Ray from Jack: THanx: I'll reply in more detail tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteI have nothing for or against Grant. However, there is no comparison between him and Trump. Grant was a military hero, that did save the Union with his military genius, and his memoirs attesting to this were some of the finest writings of such in history. Regrettably, his presidency was flawed by scandals, committed, not by Grant, but by people, in many cases, Grant trusted and misjudged. Maybe Trump's first term suffered from this. And of course, Trump is hardly a military type, although he looks like a general should. Trump is a political and business genius, in my opinion.
RAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteYou have probably read this book already, but if I were to read a book praising Grant for his accomplishments, I would read "The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace" by H.W. Brands.
Ray from Jack: My favorite Civil War movie is Gods and Generals. Stephen Lang, a very fine actor, did a studied portrayal of Stonewall Jackson in it. Reenactors were employed for the battle scenes and that , ironically, does put some limits on bloody realism. I wasn't in it but I've been a reenactor for 19 years and almost none of us are cinema pros. Still, some understanding of the sights and sounds (except for those most hideous) can be had and this film was the best at it.
ReplyDeleteIn reenactment, most of the time we fully realize we are in the 21st century. But in the big events, with thousands of us on the field ,there often are moments in which your surroundings and the particular circumstances make it possible to imagine actually being back there. Its quite a thrill. Of course we cannot (and would not) reprise the terrible dread they endured.
Ray from Jack: Thanx for the recommendation of the Brands book. I'll try my best to obtain (I am not always conscientious in following up as I should be). Gads, Grant was a compelling figure: in 1860 he was cutting firewood for a living; in 1869 he was inaugurated President.
ReplyDeleteRay from Jack: It is a reach to compare DJT to Grant, yes. But consider how it would be to be confronted with the real possibility and the fanatic intention on the part of those bringing the charges, of your being INCARCERATED. At this age, which he shares with you and I? It would be a terrifying and intimidating prospect; it would take guts of concrete to endure it, especially when you know that if you do their bidding and back off they'll lose interest. I think DJT has demonstrated a brand of intestinal fortitude which might redound to America's lasting favor. Will it bear final comparison to Grant's lifetime accomplishments? Its not inconceivable.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you as well!
ReplyDeleteRay, the men (and women) who will lead the new administration are not ordinary folk, by any means, but are they any more "plutocrats" than the people who staffed the Biden Administration? Surely that ought to be measured in terms more sophisticated than, say, average net worth. Worldview and ideology count for just as much as one's bank balance.
Jack, there was a time when many principled leftists DID withdraw from mainstream society to live a purified, communal existence. Now the Left is more evangelical than it is insular: it insists on conquering and dominating all aspects of modern life, and silencing dissenters even within its own ranks -- maybe especially within its own ranks. It's hard to see contemporary affluent, highly educated, extremely privileged leftists as realistic candidates for communal, egalitarian living, so I feel pretty confident that they will decline your kind invitation.
Jack: yes, the "oppressed" are by definition good, say the lefties, but their goodness is the negation of the badness of the society that oppresses them, so society itself is bad, ipso facto! If it wasn't bad, how would we know who its downtrodden victims, and therefore its real heroes, were?
That's an interesting question whether the U.S. was a stronger country after the Civil War than before. There are many ways to measure "strength", of course, but demographically, economically, industrially, etc. the Civil War hardly slowed us down. Culturally and psychologically, perhaps it wounded us very profoundly?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I wonder what turned insular utopian purists into murderous expansionists. Probably marxism, the aggressive and totalitarian essence of which we perhaps do not need to belabor.
ReplyDeleteOh those who hang "Che" posters on Ivy League dorm room walls are conveniently insulated from the proven onerous reality of life in regimes which have empowered what they so frivolously celebrate. Trouble has been: some of them never grow up and they have done their "level"best to actually bring their smoky dreams to life. They need comeuppance and maybe they are going to get it now.
Dr. Waddy from Jack:Perhaps the bare fact that the Union formally survived the maelstrom redeemed the unimaginably murderous conflict.
ReplyDeleteI know that you, from living in the south, are aware of still significant southern resentment to Yankee rule. Yet, the South, including essentially southwestern Texas, along with the mountain West,are the most patriotic stretches of America and they are the most resistant to arrogant, disdainful coastal elite imposition.
Deep cultural wounds attributable to the shortcomings and their subsequent complications, of Lincoln's "new birth of freedom" ,persist to this day. They may have come close to destroying our Union at the malevolent hands of a totalitarian neo marxist mob but we may have stopped them and perhaps manifested even a second "new birth of freedom" .
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I agree with you. The dominant far left does see "society" as essentially bad, not only because it countenances by definition unendurable "inequality by any measure" but because it holds that this evil is purposeful and meant to venally preserve privilege alone and laugh at "justice".
ReplyDeleteThis thoroughgoing condemnation is the tragic fruit of Marx's ruminations in the mundane setting of the British Library. And it has always been completely discredited in any of the multitudinous settings in which it tragically achieved dictatorial control.
"But because Marxists, not 'society'hold that this evil. . . ." Jack
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: And I should not have called the British Library "mundane". I've been there and I think its a transcendent, glorious place which honors Western civilization in a very objective manner. That Marx conceived such insupportable thought in it is tragic.
ReplyDeleteJack, for what it is worth, I encountered no meaningful hostility from Southerners during my sojourn in the Old Dominion, and I certainly would not view regionalism as a significant centrifugal force in the U.S. any longer. There are dozens of polarizing factors that I would consider more important.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that Marx spent so much time in the British Library. The bigger mistake, of course, was letting him into Britain itself. Freedom and tolerance are all well and good, but you can have too much of a good thing...