Tag: politics

LIVing it up

I don’t often talk about sports here on PPC. (As an aside, my original not-a-blog had a dedicated sports section. My, how things change in a generation!) The problem with major American sports is, like so many other parts of America, due to wokeness. The three major sports leagues—MLB, NFL, and NBA—all openly support a domestic terrorist organization. The NFL wanted to blacklist its best player for not getting an experimental and deadly gene therapy treatment; the tennis US Open actually did. NASCAR peddled a hate crime hoax and banned its biggest demographic from displaying symbols of their heritage. And the NHL might have backed off its requirement for players to support anti-human practices such as grooming and castration, but it never apologized for pushing them in the first place.

One of the few sports where the woke haven’t fully taken over is golf, and that’s for a few reasons. One, it’s an individual sport with low popular appeal, so Blackrock and the other ESG pushers just don’t see a need to inject idiocy into it. Two, golf is, unlike most professional sports played in the US, truly a global game. Many of the players are Asian, and Asians in general just don’t have time for the alphabet soup crowd. (And they hate “racial equity” nonsense. That’s something that’s common to Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans, as far as I can tell.) Yes, one of the greatest golfers of all time is black, but almost nobody cares about that. To anyone watching golf to enjoy the spectacle, Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods. He’s easy to pick out of a crowd, sure, but we’d much rather remember, say, his performance in the 2008 US Open than his response to George Floyd’s death.

Of course, the PGA Tour is an American institution, and thus it is vulnerable to woke influences. Over recent years, they have crept in. They still aren’t very noticeable, compared to other sports, but they’re there. Pride Month celebrations and rainbow logos are the main illustration, but being woke isn’t just about supporting those who hate humanity. It’s also about supporting the global neoliberal order. Much like in tennis, where the Australian Open tried to censor supporters of Russian players, the PGA has it out for anyone who doesn’t swallow the US-EU-NATO narrative. And that’s where our story begins.

Rock the casbah

Saudi Arabia is one of the most barbarous regimes on the planet. That’s indisputable. Their treatment of women, for example, is heinous by any standard other than their own deranged one. They use their leverage as one of the world’s major oil producers as a bludgeon to prevent their crimes against humanity from being investigated or prosecuted. True, they aren’t the worst, but they’re definitely near the top of the list.

But they’re also filthy rich. Much like the United Arab Emirates, the Saudis have begun investing in sports. Part of this is image rehabilitation, but the rest is just simple good business sense. The oil won’t last forever. (Well, it will, because abiotic methane production is a thing, but that’s a different post.) Investing in other ventures is a hedge against the future, and sports are always popular. They also draw huge crowds; even Qatar managed that for its ill-advised World Cup last year.

Thus, it’s no surprise that the Saudi government’s slush fund decided to get into golf. The problem is, they’re Saudis, and the woke hate Saudis. Now, this isn’t for the normal reasons you and I should hate them. Oh, no. Progressives will instead point to the execution of the journalist Jamal Kashoggi a few years ago, as well as the Riyadh regime’s religion-based stance against homosexuality. To the left, these are crimes far worse than torturing political prisoners or imprisoning rape victims.

Even though woke mind virus hadn’t infected the PGA to the point of killing the host, the Tour’s leadership wanted nothing to do with Saudi “blood money”. So the princes decided on the Bender plan: they’d create their own golf tour with blackjack and hookers. They called it LIV Golf, and they hired one of the game’s greats, Greg Norman, to build it.

LIV promised a refreshing change from the staid formula of the PGA. They announced that their tournaments would be 54 holes instead of 72, with no cuts and a team-based format that encouraged every golfer to carry his weight. Oh, and the purses would be massive. In all, it would be something like a Champions League of golf…assuming anybody joined.

Of course, they offered huge contracts to the world’s biggest names. Tiger Woods reportedly got an offer of nearly a billion dollars just to sign. He refused, but others did not, and the LIV roster filled out with a host of top-tier players, quite a few blue-chip golfers, and some younger stars who likely wouldn’t be able to make a name for themselves in the crowded PGA field.

The PGA leadership, as well as those who didn’t take the offers, called this treason. They accused the LIV supporters of selling out, taking dirty money, and (worst of all for a progressive) supporting an enemy of America. Never mind that the Saudis are technically our allies. They’re enemies of the woke, and that’s all that counts here.

Alien vs. Predator

The PGA and the progressive monoculture did its best to fight LIV. Mainstream media closed ranks, issuing hundreds of press releases disguised as news articles, all talking about the heroic PGA golfers fighting against the “defectors” of LIV. They mocked the small schedule, as if a nascent tour could manage more than 10 events on such short notice. They most likely interfered in negotiations to keep LIV off American TV networks, and apparently banned any coverage of the tour on their websites.

In every case, the reasons were the same, and the columnists repeated the talking points almost verbatim. LIV was “sportswashing”, a made-up term that goes back to the woke distortion of the concept of original sin: to the left, some crimes can never be forgiven, only avenged. No matter how many years pass, we’re not allowed to forget that the Saudis killed a journalist! They don’t support gay marriage! These two facts, according to progressive logic, mean that Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s worst abusers of human rights.

It’s okay if the US imprisons political protestors without trial or charge. It’s fine that Israel operates the world’s largest open-air prison. Child trafficking is just part of the Ukraine’s culture, apparently. And locking people in their homes, closing their businesses, and seizing the assets of those who didn’t comply? Just par for the course, if you’ll pardon the pun. But anything other than total obeisance before the protected classes is truly unforgivable.

A few years ago, sports columns rarely delved into politics. Lately, of course, they’ve been getting worse and worse about not staying in their lane, but golf was one of the few exceptions until LIV came along. And it got especially bad when the Saudi tour announced its schedule, and the progressives saw that it included courses owned by Donald Trump. That, I can only assume, was the final straw, and the reason why so much vitriol was poured into reporting for a sport whose usual scandals are drunk driving and divorce disputes.

A whole new world

Earlier this week, all that ended with the surprising announcement of a merger between the PGA and LIV, as well as the European tour that is so unimportant that I don’t even care to look up its name for this post. In the agreement, all three tours get to keep some measure of autonomy, but they’ll be overseen by a board that is, for the most part, made up of Saudi picks. And the PGA gets a Saudi on its policy board. Oh, and whoever’s running the princes’ sports fund has right of first refusal for any future investors into the PGA Tour.

That’s not a merger. That’s a buyout. And it’s hilarious.

All the talk about blood money and sportswashing and human rights abuses went up in flames with this announcement. The reams of digital paper spent trying to convince golf fans that they should care about a random journalist who died years ago were wasted. Vilifying Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau backfired, and now we get to watch Rory McIlroy, probably the most outspoken supporter of the PGA status quo, cry about it.

Progressives on sports news sites are so shocked that they can’t even write a coherent article about it. All they can do is parrot the usual phrases as if trying to recite warding spells. They’ve even expanded this to include the mainstream falsehoods about the 2020 election (which was rigged) and the 2021 US Capitol protest (which was not an insurrection), thanks to the Trump connection.

But all their objections are hollow. They’ve been exposed as hypocrites and liars. They never really wanted what was best for the game of golf. I’m not saying that LIV did, but it’s certainly willing to try new and interesting things like, you know, not destroying a sport for political gain.

The woke mind virus is our enemy. In that, we take the allies we’re given. Whether that’s Russia fighting to prevent the globalist cabal from completing their villainous agenda or the leaders of random African countries giving their lives to expose the truth of the so-called pandemic, those of us on the side of right, on the side of humanity and Enlightenment, will accept any aid. For this instance, it is the Saudis with their near-infinite pool of money that has put the progressives in their place. I’d still hold a gun pointed at them—trust is earned, not bought—but I’ll at least shake their hand while I’m doing it.

The war rages on

It’s been a year since Russia crossed over the border and began its “special military operation” to liberate ethnic Russians in the Ukraine. Since then, the war has grown in scope, evolving from a border skirmish into what might be the prelude to World War III.

But all that evolution, all that expansion, has been one-sided. NATO, and more specifically the US, has poured billions upon billions of dollars into the Zelensky regime. Meanwhile, Russia expanded its conscription call-ups, but has otherwise been patient. Too patient, really. They have ignored blatant threats from supposedly neutral powers, not to mention actual terrorist attacks carried out by the United States. Any one of the dozens of incidents would be a valid casus belli, yet Putin has ignored the very obvious provocations at every turn.

That’s good for all of us, of course, since it keeps us out of a war that could very well escalate into something that makes WWII look like a schoolyard slap-fight. One has to wonder, though, how much more it will take. How many more times can we poke the bear before he awakens to tear our face off?

Because this much is clear: the US cannot win a war against Russia. Why? The answer’s very simple, and it’s the reason why the first two world wars started at all. Any fight that reached that level wouldn’t be the US versus Russia. No, there are too many alliances and treaties and defense pacts for that to happen. Instead, Washington would call upon its allies in NATO, which effectively covers all of Western Europe, as well as Turkey. Meanwhile, calls would go out from Moscow, forcing China, Iran, and possibly India to make their own decisions.

Yes, the NATO bloc outnumbers Russia on paper, and even has a technological advantage, but the past few years have shown how hollow this really is. Growing unrest throughout the Americas and Europe would cause any mass conscription—the only way to get a manpower edge over China—to be met with outright revolt. Diversity hires in the military have hollowed out its core, pushing the best of the best out to make way for a new wave of globalist-friendly forces. The technology often requires specialized knowledge to even operate, and the latest versions have seen almost no use in the field yet.

In other words, all the supposed advantages have fatal flaws. On the other side, things aren’t as grim. True, China’s economy is teetering due to its aging population and low fertility—something the whole world shares, but the effect is most pronounced in East Asia. Other than that, where is the weakness? Russia’s military is top-notch; even their private paramilitary (i.e., mercenary) companies can run roughshod over Ukrainian regulars, as is currently being shown at Bakhmut. The Kiev regime has no counter for hypersonic missiles, or even a mass wave of cheap Iranian drones. Despite its glaring flaws, China still has an unparalleled manufacturing base that can be converted to a full wartime mode with devastating effect.

The best the West can hope for is a stalemate, a war of attrition that accomplishes nothing but millions of dead soldiers and, in certain parts of the world, civilians. Everything old is new again, history repeats itself, and we are on the cusp of learning first-hand why World War I was called “the war to end all wars”. Except that this one would end a lot more than that.

Worst of all, those in power know this, and yet they continue on their path. The only attempt at a peace talk was almost a year ago, not long after the war began, and it was sabotaged by the UK. Now that Zelensky sees he has effectively infinite money coming in from abroad, why even bother with the facade? No one other than Vladimir Putin can stop the Ukraine from sending every one of its able-bodied—and, in some cases, disable-bodied—citizens into the meat grinder, because the ones who otherwise have that ability no longer have the inclination.

That, more than anything, is why I continue to stand against Zelensky, against NATO, and against my own country’s so-called government on this matter. Putin is showing actual regard for his countrymen, his ethnic brethren. He has accurately called out the West’s hypocrisy and the rot of progressivism eating away at its foundations. He has taken a stand for humanity, rather than against it, and he’s one of the few world leaders brave enough to do so publicly. After seeing what happened to others who have tried (Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Shinzo Abe, among others), we could fault him for stepping down, or at least toning down his rhetoric, but he has done the opposite. We need more people like that in power, instead of the mental hospital that passes for the executive branch these days.

If you still support the Ukraine after all this time, after seeing the aims of Zelensky, NATO, and the globalist cabal, then I can only see you as anti-human, just as they are. You’re standing for Drag Queen Story Hour, for the mutilation of children, for mass imprisonment, for depopulation. You’re standing against the last defense of the Enlightenment, against the bonds of shared culture and nationality. “Slava Ukraini,” you say? How about “Slava miru” instead?

Great Books: Areopagitica

As I said last month, I plan to read 12 of the Great Books in 2023. In this dark time of censorship and anti-Enlightenment, where cancel culture causes good men to be barred from society through no fault of their own, it seemed prudent to begin with something that represented liberty and free thought.

John Milton’s Areopagitica is often cited as the seminal argument in favor of a free press and one of the reasons the Founding Fathers not only created the First Amendment, but fought for their freedom in the first place. Written as a letter to the English Parliament, the relatively short work (my copy from Project Gutenberg was about 60 pages at the high zoom necessary for my failing eyesight) manages to be dense with both content and allegory.

The history behind Areopagitica is the history of the Reformation and the English Civil War. To prevent supposedly heretical and seditious tracts from finding their way into the public sphere, the aristocrats of Parliament wanted to create an official printing license. No book could be printed unless licensed, and unless it made it through their handpicked censors. That way, they reasoned, all the “bad” works would be weeded out.

Milton expertly tears down this argument, and his counterpoints still stand strong four centuries later. Banning books doesn’t kill the ideas within them, and every attempt to control society in that way has failed—good Protestant that he is, our author continuously refers to the Inquisition’s index of prohibited literature as the most egregious failure. His other point is also a salient one: reading something awful doesn’t make you an awful person; conversely, if you were already prone to vile tendencies, not having a book about them isn’t going to change your mind.

The marketplace of ideas wasn’t a concept that existed in 1644, yet its roots are laid down here. Let people use their reasoning abilities, and they will see which books are worth studying, which are worth printing and selling and buying. Prevent them from exploring, and they will become slaves, intellectually stunted and only able to think what they are told. (One might also say that John Milton predicted the NPC meme, as his argument accurately describes those who support lockdowns, vaccine mandates, carbon credits, and the war criminal in Kiev for no reason other than because the TV told them to.)

Of course, even a work so defining has its flaws. Mostly, they come from the thick religious allegory. Areopagitica isn’t peppered with Biblical references, like so many other proto-Enlightenment works; it’s caked in them. And, while Milton correctly recognizes that the Bible would, if it were properly examined, be one of the first books on any blacklist, he can’t quite make the logical leap that it should be held to the same standards as any other book.

He also falsely equates “good” with “Christian”, stating that one category of books which deserves to be banned is those that are impious. But this would censor many of our greatest works. It would silence the voice of his contemporary, Spinoza, among many others. While common sense tells us that there is an argument, however weak, to be made for censoring outright lies and fraud, freedom of the press must also include freedom of religion. Milton’s failure to recognize this is a product of his time: England in the 16th and 17th centuries was torn apart by the Reformation, as monarchs and despotic “protectors” alike took turns using force of law to persecute their religious enemies.

Despite all this, Areopagitica was a good read. It shows that people nearly 400 years ago faced the same problems we face, and some of them had some of the same thoughts about how to solve them. Censorship is never the answer; on this, Milton and I agree. On the other hand, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the limits of the free press. For me, it is absolute. But that’s because I was born after the Enlightenment, rather than in the years just before it.

For art’s sake

I never liked art class in school. In elementary school, I skipped art assignments whenever possible, and only finished them reluctantly. Middle school? I became a teacher’s aide for no reason other than to avoid hitting art’s spot in the rotation. And I outright failed the class in high school, though that was as much because of a teacher who hated me as it was my apathy.

But that’s specifically visual art, and there are other kinds. While I can’t draw anything more complex than a stick figure, I’m no good at any musical instrument, and I wouldn’t make it five minutes into a clay sculpture without needing to wash my hands, I like to think I’m a decent writer. I’m a (self-)published author, after all. So, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m an artist.

Thus, the arts have become my concern. They should be yours, too, but not for the reason you think.

Art is an expression of culture. That’s really its primary purpose, when you think about it. Great peoples produce great, er, people, and those people produce great works of art. The Renaissance is rightly praised for its works in many fields, works which evoke a certain “feel” that we as human beings can sense. Even if you don’t know a thing about Florence in the 15th century, you still get the sense that Renaissance creations belong to the same general time and place. Likewise the Gothic cathedrals, classical Greek architecture, or elaborate Chinese calligraphy.

Looking at modern art, however, you can only see a culture in decline. A sick culture, maybe even a dying one. And it doesn’t matter which of the arts you investigate; you’ll find the same problem in all of them:

  • Mainstream popular music is now largely based on repetitive patterns of monotonic drumbeats instead of, say, harmonized melody and vocals. Lyrics—the only sort of poetry still produced for public consumption—are typically uncreative, bearing little fit to meter or rhyme, and restricted to a few set topics.

  • Television and film have all but given up on new ideas, instead preferring endless sequels, reboots, and adaptations. Most original content being produced is in the form of sitcoms catering to the lowest common denominator or scripted “reality” shows. Characters are more like caricatures, lacking depth or motivation.

  • Literature suffers the same characterization problems in fiction, added to the low quality of modern prose. No one, it seems, can write in a “high” literary style anymore. Popular books tend to be either biographies or wish-fulfillment fantasies, with everything else considered “niche” in some way.

  • Modern architecture has fully adopted the brutalist style, eschewing attempts at beauty or emulation of classical grandeur in favor of bland, forgettable constructions. Cookie-cutter homes, McMansions, and the ever-popular “box of windows” commercial building dull our eyes and make even a vibrant city feel lifeless.

I could go on, but the other arts are very minor today (sculpture and poetry) or, as with something like photography, simply repeat the same problems as above. Better than listing problems is finding causes, then solutions.

The cause, of course, comes down to politics. The arts are almost wholly controlled by progressives, and the destruction of culture is one part of the overall progressive agenda. It comes from communism, originally, and who would have guessed that the ideology responsible for over 100 million deaths would also want to kill cultures? But that’s the goal, really. Creativity is individuality, and culture is individuals of like minds building something greater.

While I never like to use absolutist terms, this is one case where it’s appropriate. Progressivism and communism are just plain evil. By definition, as anti-human ideologies, they must be. And, as Tolkien reminds us, evil cannot create. It can only destroy and pervert. It’s only natural, then, that corrupting forces would drag a culture’s creative output down to the low levels we see today.

Progressives control Hollywood, and so we see cardboard cutouts instead of characters, protagonists who are chosen based on how many diversity boxes they check, and transparent morality plays instead of stories. The same groups own the hubs of music distribution—radio, streaming, whatever—and that gives us a succession of rappers who eke out a couple of hits before being killed in a Chicago shootout. Their stranglehold on publishers led to a reader revolt some years back, and now they’ve brought the same drama to video and tabletop gaming.

It’s hard not to see this as a controlled demolition of culture. But the intentions are irrelevant. What matters is how we respond to what can only be considered a threat to our people and our history.

As content creators, we should always be looking for alternative platforms and distribution channels. Make our art available where the censors and gatekeepers can’t touch it. Sites like Odysee and Rumble for videos, Substack for short written works, and so on. Federated, censorship-resistant content platforms such as the fediverse. Anywhere indies can go, you should think about being.

Even before that, though, we should create great works from the start. Pen an epic novel where the hero is a straight white male if that’s appropriate. Write a song with an uplifting, complex melody and lyrics that tell a story about something other than drugs or relationships. Learn Blender or whatever so we can get cartoons that aren’t transparent indoctrination drawn in CalArts style. Embrace who we are: Americans, products of the Enlightenment, the Space Age, and everything in between. Let that identity shine through in your works. Be proud of your heritage, not ashamed of it.

And for those who have the means, where is your support? Where are the conservative and libertarian patrons of the arts? Those who wail and gnash their teeth about the Left’s iron grip on art do nothing to stop it. Even when they do step up, it’s entirely in a reactionary manner, and that just isn’t tenable. Where is the wholesome Hollywood? Where are the conservative counterparts to Tor and Penguin?

Ordinary people dislike bad art. Otherwise, “get woke, go broke” wouldn’t be a saying. But they also enjoy good art. There’s a market out there. Look at indie gaming. Look at streaming. Except possibly for blockbuster movies, we have the tools to make art that competes with the progressive drivel for a fraction of the cost. All we need is investment from those who claim their support.

It’s not enough to complain. You also have to do something about the problem. If you don’t, you’re a part of it. Creators, keep creating. That’s how we can win. Everyone else, be willing to put your money where your mouth is, because art requires an audience.

Absolute zero

The news from the social media space is all about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and the changes he has made. Predictably, most opinions on his moves have followed their authors’ political leanings: those on the left hate everything he’s doing, while those on the right are unapologetic cheerleaders. Very rarely does anyone have a nuanced view on the topic, which is, alas, entirely fitting with modern discourse.

I like to think of myself as an exception to that rule. Yes, Musk is making good moves at Twitter, clearing out some of the detritus and indeed trash that had accumulated over the platform’s fifteen years of existence. But he is not infallible, and a few of his public announcements, plus the implications of some of his policy moves, paint a very grim picture for the future of the West’s #2 social media platform.

Elephant in the room

Let’s start with the most recent media scandal attached to Musk: the repeal of Donald Trump’s permanent suspension. The ban itself was on questionable grounds, of course; the “official” reason given is that Trump lied about attending the inauguration on January 20, 2021. In reality, we know that hundreds of Twitter employees, indoctrinated by the dangerous ideology of globalism, were chomping at the bit to remove one of their few prominent and unabashed critics, and they used claims of “destroying democracy” and “denying the election” as their excuses to do so.

The facts are clear. Trump won the 2020 election, and only massive, systemic fraud in at least 7 states ever cast any doubt on that. The idea that a dementia patient who spent most of 2020 hiding in his basement, who can barely form a coherent sentence, and who wasn’t even the most popular candidate from his own party could legitimately earn the most votes in any US election would be laughable if it didn’t make such a mockery of America. Add in the documented cases of illegal ballot harvesting, the mysterious vote dumps that—despite probability theory and common sense—somehow went 100% for Biden, and the thousands of whistle-blowers that have come forth, and you see that the most vocal claim of the anti-Trump mob at Twitter, that of “election denial”, is mere projection.

Anyone sane can see this for what it is. Just as with the manufactured pandemic, Twitter banned those who spoke against the narrative. Democracy itself was at stake in the 2020 elections. Never mind that the United States isn’t a democracy; it’s a republic, as it has been since 1776. And of course someone who was cheated out of his victory is going to complain about it!

“Oh, but what about the January 6 insurrection?” you might ask, because that’s the other reason given for deplatforming Trump and his supporters. But think back to that day. There was no insurrection by the people. Those who gathered in Washington were exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech, peaceful assembly, and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. In this case, the grievance was election fraud, and there was no redress. The insurrection was by those who cowardly hid from their constituents, then waited until the dead of night to violate their oaths of office.

All that is old news, but those who wanted to silence Donald Trump—and who have, for nearly two years, succeeded—will have to face the consequences of their decision. That they are so terrified of even the idea he may be able to speak freely is telling, and it gives us a question to ask of any would-be censor. If they’re right, what are they afraid of?

Canary in the coalmine

Authoritarians the world over, in any era, have always feared two things more than any other: an armed populace and free speech. Social media has no way of defending oneself except through words, so only the second is of relevance in this case. But it is very relevant.

Free speech is the cornerstone of liberal society. When we are allowed to speak, to write, and to record without fear of reprisal from the state, we can achieve great things. Yet freedom of speech has been under assault almost since the concept was first formalized, and social media has become one of the biggest hindrances to this inalienable liberty. Entire topics are banned from discussion on Twitter, Facebook, and every other major platform. In recent months, those who wish to exercise their rights have been kicked off social media, removed from their web hosts or cloud providers, purged from global DNS servers, and even barred from using credit cards.

Those in favor of such extraordinary methods of silencing dissent always fall back to the same tired responses. “Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences,” they’ll say. “Hate speech isn’t free speech.”

Both of these are incorrect. The entire point of free speech is that you are protected from consequences, specifically government retribution. Now, with banks and global corporations effectively functioning as additional branches of government, we are faced with the very real threat of non-state actors who have state-level powers, and they should be treated as such. Every social media platform, every payment processor, and so on must be held to the same standards of the social contract that we expect from Washington.

If Twitter is to be the public square, then it must allow the protections of a public square, such as the First Amendment’s right to free speech, the Fourth’s right of privacy, the Sixth’s right to a fair trial, and the Eighth’s freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. All but the most extreme would accept that the death penalty is not justified as punishment for an insult, so why should a “permanent suspension” be any different? Yes, Twitter can act as a corporation and private club, banning anyone for anything, but then they lose all claim to being public. An open society is entirely at odds with unilateral decisions of guilt and innocence.

After announcing Donald Trump’s reinstatement on Twitter, Elon Musk was asked if Alex Jones would be next. He replied flatly and unequivocally, “No.” This single word speaks volumes. Musk usually has a witty (or at least sarcastic) retort, but here there was none. And there was no room for interpretation, either.

How, then, can we reconcile that statement with Musk’s claims that he supports free speech? Alex Jones didn’t commit fraud, didn’t use true threats, and incite others to commit crimes—along with obscenity, the only categories of speech seen as unprotected by the First Amendment. Conspiracy theories are not illegal, nor is sharing one’s opinions on them. Whatever you think of his comments about Sandy Hook, he has the same right to express them as anyone. And he should have the same platform for that expression as those spreading the lie that an experimental gene therapy is safe for toddlers.

The solution

Elon Musk isn’t the answer. His reign at Twitter will make a lot of noise, but ultimately will change very little. Yes, he may end the silencing of mainstream conservative voices, but what does that accomplish? The site is still a dictatorship, not a place for open discussion, and nothing about Musk’s public statements says that will be any different under his watch. There will still be people who aren’t allowed to participate due to their views on the sensitive topic of the day. Indeed, in some cases the censorship will get worse: Kathy Griffin was suspended for impersonation, which is protected as parody (as long as there is no intent to defraud) in any free society.

No, the real solution is to create a social network where there is neither censorship nor centralization. That solution already exists in the form of the fediverse: a network of servers who share a common protocol and communicate with each other. In theory, one user on the fediverse can talk to any other, and can see posts of his own choosing, no matter their source. (In practice, it doesn’t quite work that way, because too many server admins simply block other servers whose policies allow anything close to free speech, thus breaking the idea of federation.)

This is the way forward. It’s the way email worked until Google got its hands on it. It’s how Usenet was the top method of disseminating news for nearly two decades. And it’s how we can get back to an internet where all are equally free to express their opinions.

No quarter

A recent article on the far-left site The Atlantic asks for a “pandemic amnesty”, and the very idea leaves me so enraged that I have to comment on it. This post is directed at people like that post’s author, not my general reader. Bear that in mind as you read.

You stole two years of my life over a bad cold. You forced me to put everything on hold because of your fears at best, your thirst for power at worst. Your mandates and machinations took me to the brink of suicide multiple times, left me broken in such a way that I still haven’t even found all the pieces, much less started to put them back together.

Lest you think this is about me, know that my story is not unique. You left thousands to die alone, left millions more wanting to, if not wishing they had. You tore holes in our social fabric. You set education back a generation by closing schools, destroyed public trust in doctors, the media, and government. You ostracized anyone who dared speak against you, calling us deniers, indeed murderers. You strove to see us not merely thrown in jail for beliefs you deemed heretical, but removed from society altogether. You sought to deny us our livelihoods if we didn’t bend the knee to your mad depopulation schemes. And now you want us to forgive you?

No.

What you did to us—to the whole world—is unforgivable. Every virus death after April 2020, when we knew that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were safe and effective treatments, is blood on your hands. Likewise every death from your gene therapy disguised as a vaccine, every lockdown-induced suicide, every senior who died alone because you wouldn’t allow families to visit, every child who can’t read at his grade level, every toddler whose development has been stunted because he never had the chance to see facial expressions, every American fired for refusing to get the deadly shot, and every couple who may never have the chance to reproduce.

All those are your fault. Anyone who took an unbiased look at the data two and a half years ago could see that this virus was nothing major. Yes, it was novel, and that was cause for concern. After all, it was made in a lab, so of course it was novel! Once our immune systems had a chance to learn about it, however, that novelty wore off, and we were left with a particularly pernicious case of the common cold.

Early on, we knew this. The Diamond Princess provided the perfect case study, and its numbers matched the actual data you tried to hide from us: 2 out of every 3 people infected showed no symptoms, about 0.15% of cases were fatal, and children were almost completely immune. The weaker (but easier to spread) strains like Omicron are even less cause for concern. Certainly no reason to shut down schools and small businesses.

Instead of amnesty, then, why don’t we talk about reparations? That’s what you deserve. You should be paying for the damage you caused us as individuals and society as a whole. Pay for the funerals of everyone your fear-mongering killed. Pay back the hospital bills of those injured by your so-called vaccines, and the unemployment benefits for those who were unjustly fired for refusing them. Pay for therapy: psychiatric therapy for the millions who now suffer from crippling depression and anxiety, speech therapy for the children who are finally allowed to learn visual cues again, couples therapy for the marriages strained to the breaking point. Pay for surrogates and sperm donors for the people your shots sterilized. Pay for the cancer treatments that had to be put off.

Then, maybe we can start talking about forgiveness.

From Russia with love

The war between Russia and the Ukraine has been raging for about three months now, and everything I’ve seen so far only proves that my initial suspicions were on target. While mainstream Western media is quick to cast this war as the heroic underdog fighting for its very survival against overwhelming odds, the truth is far different. If you look at unbiased (or at least not as overtly biased so far in favor of the Zelensky regime) sources, you can see that truth. Russia is winning, and that’s ultimately a good thing for all of us.

Okay, I know that sounds strange, but think about it for a minute. First of all, the Russian army is showing everyone how to wage a modern war without overwhelming firepower. They’re doing something completely different from the usual American plan of Shock and Awe, of leveling entire cities to rubble, then hoping the survivors would welcome them as liberators. Instead, Russia is playing the long game, adapting old-school siege tactics and encirclement strategies to the 21st century as they force their foe to expend valuable materiel and manpower.

Better yet, now that the Ukrainians are almost completely out of domestic equipment, they are increasingly reliant on NATO and the billions upon billions of dollars we Americans have been forced to pay to prop up this dying regime. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that “our side” had no intention of playing fair. It exposes the rot at the top of Western governments by showing that they care more about the haven for their money laundering and sex trafficking than they do for their own people. With trust in the media and so-called “experts” cratering all across the US (well, with the exception of socialist utopias like California and New York, where you’re expected to wear two masks while you’re paying $7 for a gallon of gas), Putin’s move comes at the perfect time. Every American who turns of the propaganda machines and algorithms is quickly seeing the truth of the matter. One would hope they’ll start to do that for everything else, too.

At every point in this war, Russia has had the high ground, both tactically and morally. They have limited civilian casualties wherever possible. Their stated goal, the liberation of Donetsk and Luhansk, has all but been achieved, and it was done in a way that made the “heroes” in Kiev look like the petty tyrants they are.

But the victories stretch far beyond the Donbass or the Dnieper. Russia has struck a major blow against globalism itself, that festering evil underlying so many of the ills of today’s world. The oligarchs said to control Putin’s country are finding themselves isolated by both their homeland and the West. US biolabs, possibly including the sources of the deadly mRNA shots forced upon us and the likely re-engineered monkeypox virus currently making headlines, are being exposed for what they are. The sanctions against Russia have failed utterly—indeed, they’ve had the opposite effect, if their intent was to turn the Russian people against Putin and the war—and their economy has come out even stronger than before.

To be sure, it isn’t all cheerful news. The West’s isolation tactics have pushed Russia further into the arms of China, which is all the things our media claims Putin to be, and much more. A rising economic power allying with a human-rights disaster against us means that we need to be that much more watchful with our own government. And the sanctions have truly backfired, forcing the people of Western nations to go without.

At the end of the day, that’s the lesson we can learn from the Russia-Ukraine war. For over 300 million Americans watching from afar, it’s not about the subjugated peoples of Donetsk wanting independence, or the Azov Battalion taking prisoners into a factory, or anything like that. It doesn’t matter that Zelensky’s posturing is in front of a green screen, not the backdrop of the country he claims to represent. Nobody really cares that generals are using screenshots from the Arma games as propaganda pieces.

No, what we take away from this must be that the alleged elites in this country have openly crossed the line from incompetence to malice. Their every move since the first Russian crossed the border has been to hold us back, to make our lives harder. That they choose to defend the most corrupt nation in Europe over their own people shows that they no longer purport to represent us—they believe they rule us.

We’re fighting the same war here that Russia is fighting half a world away. And whether you like it or not, anyone who believes in the American Dream, in the ideals of liberty and justice for all, has the same enemies as Vladimir Putin. Because globalism doesn’t just want to destroy Russia. It seeks to destroy all nations, all freedom. And its media mouthpieces will gladly try to turn us against the one force opposing it.

Wading in

The recent “leak” of a draft Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade has been making the rounds, in case you haven’t noticed. Well, I have a few things to say about that.

The opinion

Let me first preface this with a simple statement: I’m a man, so I’ll never be pregnant. Yes, I know that chain of cause and effect is controversial these days, and some out there (including a certain cousin of mine) might argue otherwise, but facts are facts. It’s biologically impossible for me to ever bear children. So take my opinion with that particular grain of salt. Also bear in mind that I speak only for myself, not the people I hope to represent in District 27 this November.

By every other standard in our society, a human life begins at birth. We celebrate birthdays, not conception days. The age of consent and majority are based on time since birth—premature babies don’t have to wait to vote or drink. Every right and responsibility enshrined in our nation’s founding documents starts counting from the moment you’re born, and not one second before.

Biologically speaking, there’s a good reason for this. A fetus is not a human being. It’s not a baby. It is, at best, a proto-human. The whole point of pregnancy is to provide a chance for an embryo to develop into something that can survive on its own. That’s just how mammals work.

Does that mean I think women should get abortions? No. Becoming a mother means you are fulfilling your greatest and most fundamental purpose in life: creating another. You are throwing away something special, indeed magical, the same as if you willingly sterilized yourself. You’re not killing a baby, in my view, but you are killing a part of yourself.

The fact

Setting aside the moral quandary of abortion for a moment, we need to remember that there are serious legal matters surrounding this issue. These often get neglected in the emotional battle of choice, yet they are far more important from the perspective of a healthy, functioning society.

Most importantly, if Roe v. Wade is overturned, that doesn’t instantly mean abortion is banned everywhere. Instead, it returns to being a state issue, as it was fifty years ago. Each state can make its own decision, passing its own laws. Yes, red states will most likely enforce restrictive laws based on their misguided attempts at morality, but blue states like California will do the same thing from the other side. (In fact, that’s already happening. Some states are seriously considering legalizing “abortions” after birth, which really is infanticide.)

In a way, that’s a good thing. The Tenth Amendment is pretty clear on this matter: any power not explicitly granted to the federal government is within the states’ purview. As there is no freedom of abortion mentioned in the Constitution, nor an enumerated power to regulate it, the American thing to do is to let the states, and thus the people, decide for themselves. (Incidentally, the original Roe decision hinged on privacy, of all things. In my non-legal opinion, that should be its downfall, because the Supreme Court has made it clear in recent decades that it cares nothing for the idea of an inalienable right to privacy.)

Of course, this patchwork process will have knock-on effects. One, a black market will arise in red states, either to shuttle young women to the nearest pro-choice state, or to smuggle in drugs that induce abortion, such as misoprostol. Two, it may stop or slow the progressive infestation of those states, pushing the US back to a “Great Sorting” demography.

What the ruling and subsequent legal changes won’t do, however, is stop abortions altogether. They’ll still happen until we treat the root causes that lead to them. Unwanted pregnancies happen for many reasons, so we need to look at those as the ultimate problem.

No birth control or contraceptive is perfect; we’ve known that basically forever. Abstinence is neither enforceable or desirable. Sterilization is inhumane and anti-human. The best way to start cutting down on abortions, then, is to provide better sex education. Young men and women need to understand the risks involved, as well as the steps they can take to mitigate those risks.

Media also takes some blame. The over-sexualization of every part of entertainment obviously causes problems, but so to does the way in which women’s sexual liberation has been perverted. Having a hundred partners before you’re 30 doesn’t prove that you’re some sex goddess. No, it shows that you’re barely even a woman, because you have a childlike view of life as a game in which the most points wins. That’s not something to be rewarded on Instagram or on Netflix.

Worst of all, the erosion of the family unit takes away one of the major bulwarks against the perceived necessity of abortion. If a woman can’t depend on having parents, a husband, siblings, and in-laws who will help her raise a child, then it’s no wonder she chooses not to have that child in the first place. Our current spiraling inflation makes this even worse: too many people, especially in left-leaning urban centers, can’t raise a family on a single income, so they’ll think they have no choice but to abort.

When you look at it that way, you can see that the availability of abortion is not the true problem. It’s not the social disease conservatives would have you believe it to be. No, it’s a symptom of a more serious illness. We live in a country, a society, where the fashionable modes and choices all make abortion a more desirable option than reproduction. Change that first. Put the family at the center of your attention. Live your life in such a way that there is never an unwanted pregnancy, because the best chances of getting pregnant always come when you are prepared for the responsibilities that are to come. Then, it won’t matter what the Supreme Court says.

Free means free

The news everyone has been talking about this past week was Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. People on the left are apoplectic, people on the right overjoyed, and both of them are utterly wrong. No one, it seems, even remembers what free speech actually means, much less why it’s worth defending. So let’s back up just for a moment and set the record straight.

First, we have the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That’s pretty self-explanatory even if you aren’t steeped in the culture of 18th-century America. But a lot of commenters get hung up on those first five words. “Congress shall make no law.” Well, that just means that free speech is only a government thing, and that private companies can do whatever they want, right?

Wrong.

The First Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, was meant to limit the powers of the federal government. It did not grant us the right to free speech, because a granted right is no right at all. What was given may be taken away at any time, as we saw in Canada a few months ago.

The American Bill of Rights instead recognizes that these rights are inherent in being human. They’re inalienable. Only a tyrant can even try to take them from us.

Thus, we already have the right to free speech, government or no government. Since the First Amendment is part of a social contract between We The People and those we have chosen to represent us, it makes sense that its text would specify who shall make no law. That doesn’t make it the last word on the matter. On the contrary, it’s just the first and most important.

We are born with the absolute, natural right to speak our minds. That was one of the key ideas of the Enlightenment. Modern so-called liberalism, however, believes that rights are contingent upon others’ feelings. You can’t speak your mind, they argue, because it might upset someone you’ve never met. And that has led us down the rabbit hole of being forced to deny basic scientific facts (there are two biological sexes, natural immunity protects us from viruses, etc.) if we want to participate in public discussion.

But isn’t Twitter a private company that can moderate however they want? That’s the next argument from the thought police, and it is indeed correct from a legal standpoint. That doesn’t make it right from a moral one, however. And it is indeed morally wrong.

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and similar socially-oriented sites have, in effect, become public spaces. Their sheer size and their cartel-like hold over the internet cause them to attract meaningful discussion and debate, even as their business and engagement models try their best to prevent it. By advertising themselves as open to all, then gaining an audience comprised of the majority of American adults, these sites have lost any claim to being “private” in the social sense.

Somewhere like Twitter, in other words, is—rather, should be—the modern-day equivalent of the public square. Because we can’t very well gather a hundred million Americans into a national park, we need a place where all of us can use our inalienable rights, and social media sites should be honored to take on that role. Instead of crowding out rational or traditionalist voices, they should embrace them while providing a place for honest debate.

As for the “company” part of the Left’s objections, remember that every website is owned by someone. With few exceptions outside the .gov space, that someone is a private entity, whether a person, group, or corporation. On top of that, almost all American ISPs are private companies. The backbone routers are privately owned. The domain registrars are private. The root DNS servers are mostly private. How far down the stack do you allow censorship to go? (Interestingly, net neutrality was a liberal cause a few years ago, yet few of them ever made the leap from keeping ISPs content-neutral to doing the same for platforms.)

Finally, while Twitter and others are legally allowed to fight against free speech, the obligations to society they have gained by their position as market controllers have, in effect, made them governments of their own. They represent communities, after all. They have the power to imprison, banish, or execute. Should they not, then, have the same responsibilities as any other government, up to and including a respect for the natural rights of their citizens?

To end, I’d also like to remark on the limits of free speech, because those are much, much farther away than most on either side of the political spectrum care to admit.

The First Amendment is traditionally taken as having only a few limits. Notably, “true threats” are not protected; though the legal definition is, like all legal definitions, hopelessly opaque, the gist is that a true threat is one for which a reasonable person would assume that there is a definite risk. It’s understandable why that isn’t protected. The rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are just as inalienable, so direct threats to them can’t be allowed in a just society.

Likewise, direct calls to break a law or to defraud violate the principles of the social contract. The first is a little too strict, in my opinion, as it can also prevent the “petition for a redress of grievances” mentioned at the end of the First Amendment. But at least it makes logical sense.

Last of the major exceptions to free speech protection is the very nebulous category of obscenity. This, of course, should be done away with entirely. While there are some ideas so obscene they should not be spoken aloud, there are none which are so obscene that they should not be allowed to be spoken. The category is too broad, too ill-defined, to justify its continued inclusion.

Note, however, what isn’t on this short list, what does still have protection as free speech. “Hate speech” isn’t forbidden. Doxxing isn’t forbidden. Referring to a man as a man, rather than whatever he believes himself to be, does not meet the criteria to lose protection under the First Amendment. Neither does pointing out that a cold virus doesn’t justify a total lockdown, or that an election’s results were fraudulent, or any of the hundreds of other things for which Twitter’s thought police issued suspensions.

A social platform that, whether intentionally or not, has taken on the role of a public marketplace of ideas must allow those ideas to be traded. The First Amendment is a statement that government may not take away something we were born possessing, but we need the same protection for our speech when these pseudo-governmental corporations are the ones controlling every access point.

(To head off any potential objections, “just start your own Twitter” is not a valid argument. Gab and Parler tried that and found themselves barred from cloud providers, hosting providers, payment processors, and more. The fediverse operates mostly under the radar, but its larger instances still have to worry about being cut off economically.)

I don’t have a Twitter account. I don’t have a Facebook account. I’ve never uploaded a video to Youtube or even visited Snapchat. Why? Because I value my freedom more than the convenience these sites offer. If I can’t speak my mind, then I am not free. I’m a slave to those who control my words. If Elon Musk understands that, and he makes the appropriate changes so that his new acquisition respects the natural rights of its citizens above and beyond the extent required as a private company, then I’ll consider supporting him. But it’ll take more than words to get to that point.

Killers

I actually got a comment. That doesn’t happen on PPC very often, because this site was never intended to be a place for commenting, and the anti-spam measures I’ve put into place tend to keep most casuals away. But some random person decided to leave a reply to my Patreon farewell from the other day, trying to “shame” me for not supporting the “right” side of the Russia-NATO proxy war currently entering its second month.

Cry harder, I say.

If the Ukrainians want my support, they can start by kicking Zelensky and NATO out of their country. They can give the people of the Crimea, and the sovereign Donetsk and Luhansk republics the same basic human right of self-determination they’re demanding. They can stop committing the war crimes that are documented for the world to see: kneecapping, blinding, and castrating POWs; arming civilians and creating irregular partisan militias; and so on.

Zelensky isn’t the root of the problem, because he’s a puppet whose strings are held by more powerful individuals. That said, he has had every opportunity to show resolve and end this war in a civilized manner. Instead, he continues to put his people in jeopardy out of some vain attempt at either saving face or starting World War III. And for what? Two pieces of land his country doesn’t want?

Vladimir Putin is not a good person, but his commanding officers deserve some praise for the remarkable restraint they have shown over the past month. Despite all attempts at incitement, Russian forces have done their best to avoid civilian casualties, a far cry from the brutality and barbarism of Ukraine’s prized Azov Battalion or the “shock and awe” tactics my own country has employed for the past two decades.

The Russian goal, as far as anyone outside Moscow can tell, is simply to claim what they believe is rightfully theirs: the regions that are ethnically Russian. Funny how most on the left seem to hate the very idea, yet they care nothing for the ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong who have been fighting for their freedom the past few years. They were silent when Spain wanted to imprison the leader of Catalonia, which held and passed a democratic referendum of independence.

If you “stand with Ukraine”, you aren’t standing for freedom. You aren’t standing for the rights of the civilians caught in the crossfire. You’re standing for one of the most corrupt regimes in Europe, a money-laundering front for some of the most crooked people in the entire world. You’re standing for globalism, socialism, and depravity.

I, for one, will not.