Category Archives: Economy

NEW COLUMN: Exporting Toxic Wokeism

America, Capitalism, Economy, Free Markets, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, Pop-Culture, Propaganda

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“Exporting Toxic Wokeism” is the new column now on WND.COM, The Unz Review, Townhall.com, CNSNews.com, The New American and American Renaissance.

And excerpt:

America has made a habit of exporting democracy at the point of the bayonet, be it by fomenting war or agitating for color-coded, plant-based revolutions, blessed and backed by the duopoly.

While not as lethal, cultural trends and products exported can be toxic, too. They, moreover, displace and contaminate indigenous culture. To wit, Wokeism is made in America, is entirely toxic, and, sadly, suffers no supply-chain disruptions in its spread abroad.

In case you’re not awake to it, woke is the current state-of-being in America. In particular, to be woke in America is to be anti-white and to be anti-white is to be woke. More so than “in” and “hip”—to be woke is existentially important; it will often determine whether one gets and keeps a job, a social media account, even a bank account.

Although Wokeism is a product of a distorted and deformed American marketplace of ideas—there is always a libertarian who sees a free and energetic agora worthy of defending and exporting, where there is only coercion and cruelty.

“Wokeism has passed a market test,” effuses Tyler Cowen, an economist writing for Bloomberg.com. “The woke movement could be the next great U.S. cultural export—and it is going to do many other countries some real good.”

Yes, Cowen, a libertarian, both explains and exculpates  an increasingly entrenched, coercive system of pigment-based prejudice and persecution. “Wokeism,” he further enthuses, “is an idea that can be adapted to virtually every country: Identify a major form of oppression in a given region or nation, argue that people should be more sensitive to it, add some rhetorical flourishes, purge some wrongdoers (and a few innocents) and voila — you have created another woke movement.”

Welcome to the quintessential, collectivist, libertarian Jacobinism—Cowen’s. Omelets can’t be made without breaking the few proverbial eggs. Cowen, like most of his ilk—and against all evidence—also thinks that, “American culture is a healthy, democratizing, liberating influence,” so he wants “to extend it.” …

… READ THE REST. “Exporting Toxic Wokeism” is now on WND.COM, The Unz Review and Townhall.com, CNSNews.com, The New American and American Renaissance

 

UPDATED (12/20): America: Aphorisms On Conformity

America, Critique, Culture, Economy, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intellectualism, Pseudo-intellectualism, The Establishment

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Fred Reed, former Barely a Blog columnist, offers this insight:

“America has always had a strong economic back and weak cultural mind, being anti-intellectual and given to envy and resentment of the smart and cultivated.”

De Tocqueville, Mencken and others made similar observations. “Certainly Tocqueville in the 19th century, and Solzhenitsyn in the 20th, noted that conformity of thought is powerfully prevalent among Americans,” noted the inimical Clyde Wilson, political thinker and foremost scholar of the South.

“A glorious commonwealth of morons,” Mencken called America. “The American moron’s mind”—this “mob-man’s” mentality—is that of a “violent nationalist and patriot,” to whom ideas are a menace, and who would always opt “to keep his Ford, even at the cost of losing the Bill of Rights.”

These are all Mencken’s words, not mine. See: “H.L. Mencken: Misfit In 21st-Century America.”

UPDATED (12/20):  This Facebook reader has the right approach. Relax and enjoy The Difference. Don’t be an Enforcer.

* Image courtesy of Picture Quotes.

Afghanistan And The Sunk-Cost Fallacy

Argument, Democrats, Economy, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Military, Neoconservatism, Republicans, War

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Joe Biden is right in his “Remarks on Afghanistan“: “… if Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, there is no chance that 1 year — 1 more year, 5 more years, or 20 more years of U.S. military boots on the ground would’ve made any difference.”

Tempting as it may be for right-thinking conservatives and paleolibertarians, in particular, to use the inevitable collapse of the charade in Afghanistan against Biden—honesty demand we avoid it.

TV Republicans, no doubt, will join the shrill CNN females and their houseboys, who love nothing more than to export the nanny state, in bashing Biden for his decisive withdrawal. The president said, “I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

Falling into the Republican line of partisan, tit-for-tat retorts is wrong. The man made the right choice—as opposed to Barack Obama’s. Afghanistan was a war Obama had adopted.

Beware especially the military men, who will flood Fox New with the sunk-cost fallacy. As I explained in “GOP Should Grow A Brain, Join The Peace Train“:

Military movers and shakers are heavily vested in the sunk-cost fallacy—the irrational notion that more resources must be committed forthwith … so as to ‘redeem’ the original misguided commitment of men, money and materiel to the mission.

“To that end, repeated ad nauseam is the refrain about our ‘brave men and women of the military,’ whose sacrifice for [Afghani] ‘freedoms’ will be squandered unless more such sacrifices are made.

The Skeptic’s Dictionary dispels this illogic: ‘To continue to invest in a hopeless project is irrational. Such behavior may be a pathetic attempt to delay having to face the consequences of one’s poor judgment. The irrationality is a way to save face, to appear to be knowledgeable, when in fact one is acting like an idiot.’

Besides, it’s time the military heed its paymasters, The American People, a majority of whom don’t want to send U.S. soldiers back into Afghanistan.”

 

 

 

 

NEW COLUMN: Justice Thomas’ Solution to Big Tech’s Social And Financial Excommunication

Argument, Economy, Individual Rights, Technology, The State

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NEW COLUMN IS “Justice Thomas’ Solution to Big Tech’s Social And Financial Excommunication.”

The column is currently on WND.COM, The Unz Review, Townhall.com, The New American and CNSNews.com.

The column is Part 2 of a 3-part series. Read Part 1, “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication.”

An excerpt:

… Fox News personality Tucker Carlson has vowed to stay chipper. This is not sufficient a solution from so powerful a persona as Mr. Carlson.

The requisite and fitting noblesse oblige comes from Justice Clarence Thomas.

As one of the few public intellectuals to grasp the gravity of social and financial excommunication by Deep Tech (to denote Big Tech’s enmeshment with The State), and for proposing a way to prohibit wicked social and financial ouster of innocents—Justice Thomas is my hero.

To blabber on about simply finding alternative outlets to Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, PayPal and other banking facilities is asinine verging on the criminal. Coming from political representatives, such advice ought to guarantee loss of face, even political expulsion.

The ordinary guy or girl (check) is told to go up against economic and political entities whose revenues exceed the GDP of quite a number of G20 nations combined.

“It changes nothing that these platforms are not the sole means for distributing speech or information,” inveighs Justice Thomas:

“A person could always choose to avoid the toll bridge or train and instead swim the Charles River or hike the Oregon Trail. But in assessing whether a company exercises substantial market power, what matters is whether the alternatives are comparable. For many of today’s digital platforms, nothing is.”

I’d go further. It would hardly be hyperbole, in driving home Justice Thomas’s ingenious point, to put it thus:

With respect to financial de-platforming, barring someone from PayPal is like prohibiting a passenger from crossing the English Channel by high-speed train, via ferry and by means of 90 percent of airplanes.

“Sure, some options remain for you to explore, you hapless loser. Go to it!” …

… READ THE REST on WND.COM, The Unz Review, Townhall.com, The New American and CNSNews.com.

Next Week: Part 3, “Mercer & Mystery Man’s Big-Tech Solutions.”