Stephen Roney's Blog, page 255

The Max Bernier Show

Maxime Bernier and the People's Party of Canada have launched their own YouTube channel. I found the first episode unexciting, pretty wonky, but it should be worth keeping an eye on going forward.




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Shootout in Nevada

I’m sorry I skipped the Democratic debate last night. They had been getting tiresome and predictable. But this time, with most candidates facing elimination, they came with the brass knuckles.

And just when it looked as though they might have found a plausible candidate after all, in Bloomberg, the rest of the field have critically wounded him.

A lot of people are alarmed at the idea that Bloomberg might buy the election in any case. I am less so—I think that risk is self-limiting. Nobody can compel people to vote for them; and big spending can turn people off as well as on. Mulroney lost his first bid for the PC leadership because his campaign looked too slick and well-funded. Hillary Clinton outspent Trump last cycle, yet he won.

I think Bloomberg might be a formidable opponent for Trump, too, if the economy goes sour by next November—with the COVID-19 virus, a likelihood. He could come across as a steadier hand at the helm.

But I suspect now there is no way he can sneak past the Democratic primary voters.

I think Buttigieg got off the best lines of the night, on neither Sanders nor Bloomberg being actual Democrats, and on Klobuchar not knowing the name of the President of Mexico. Warren’s opening barrage against Bloomberg seems the most posted clip, but I’m not sure it helped Warren as much as it hurt Bloomberg. It was too obvious a line of attack to make her look impressive in using it. I’m also reminded of Harris landing a solid body blow on Biden re school busing, but not gaining any benefit; and Tulsi Gabbard absolutely ending Harris, and gaining nothing by it.

The strong performances of Warren and Buttigieg may boost both past Biden. I predict a Nevada caucus finish of Sanders first, but I really have no idea who will come in second, third, fourth, or fifth.

Given that Sanders comes in with a convincing first, it is going to be hard for anyone to beat him going forward.

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Trump the Comedian

A commentator I watched recently predicted that Trump would dominate Bloomberg on a debate stage. The reason, he argued, is that Bloomberg has no sense of humour, while Trump is spontaneously funny.

He pinpointed another Trump superpower, that I had overlooked. Trump is actually a first-rate improvisational standup comic.

That is the draw at his huge rallies. He goes on without a script, and he is consistently funny. He is doing a monologue.

This is another proof that Trump cannot be, as so many claim, a narcissist. Narcissists lack a sense of humour. They cannot relax enough for that. They might laugh at a pratfall, but they cannot make a spontaneous joke.

People who are not narcissists can lack a sense of humour; but if you have one, you cannot be a narcissist.

A sense of humour can be faked, it is true, by hiring a speechwriter and reading the lines. But Trump is clearly not doing that.

Is there any evidence of a good sense of humour among the Democrats?

Biden quips like “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier” do not seem to me to qualify. They seem more like slightly masked abuse. This is actually a typical narcissistic “joke”: an insult, but one disguised as a “joke” so that you cannot respond without opening yourself up to further abuse.

You will protest that Trump also uses insults; that they are his typical joke.

But there is a difference. He jokes about people in their absence, so the immediate point is not to abuse them. He also seems scrupulous in not insulting anyone who is not a declared enemy, and so fair game. Biden was speaking to a supporter. 


Trump’s insults are also artful, like those of Don Rickles. They are enjoyable on that level. Pete Buttigieg as Alfred E. Newman? Kim Jong Un as “little rocket man”? There was nothing artful or intrinsically humorous about calling a female supporter about whom he knew nothing a “lying dog-faced pony soldier.” It was evidently just a memorized line, a stock insult.

The only Democrat I have noticed who will sometimes seem to say something spontaneously funny is Bernie Sanders. He can sometimes give a funny response to a question. Asked if Hillary Clinton was right to say that nobody in the Senate liked him, he responded, “on a good day, my wife likes me.”

These might be scripted too, but at worst, he has good timing. That suggests he gets the joke. There is a reason why so many popular stand-up comedians began as comedy writers.

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Dawkins and Eugenics

Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is apparently in trouble for saying that eugenics would work.

I am no fan of Dawkins’s philosophy.

But he is a geneticist, and he is simply stating a fact, obvious to anyone who knows genetics. Or any farmer or gardener.

If your political views require denying reality, there is something wrong with your politics, not with reality.

Of course it is possible to selectively breed for desirable characteristics. We do it all the time, and have always done it, with plants and animals. Why would it not work with humans?

The rap against eugenics is not that it would not work, but that no government has the moral right to decide who may breed, and with whom. Government belongs to the people; the people do not belong to the government.

To make it turn on purely practical issues—that it would not work—is to endorse it, the moment it is plain to you that it does.

In fact, we all practice eugenics individually. What attracts us in a member of the opposite sex? Whether we are aware of it or not, we are selecting what we think will be the best genes. We are deciding what characteristics we want to pass on to our children.

And it is not just individuals. Cultures also spontaneously practice genetics. Whatever that given culture values, it is breeding for.

This accounts for that other scientific fact nobody is allowed to mention now without being declared a racist: that different cultures have different levels of average IQ.

In the tribal societies that until recently dominated sub-Saharan Africa, those who rose to the top socially would be the best hunters and the best warriors. These cultures therefore selectively bred for fast physical reflexes, physical strength, and physical endurance. It is not simple “survival of the fittest”; but such a man would be widely admired, have his choice of marital partners, and be able to raise more children in better health. So sub-Saharan Africans dominate in sports and athletics. High intelligence has little value in a tribal society; so they did not breed for IQ. Sub-Saharan Africans have a relatively low average IQ, and that is now part of their genetic makeup.

In the Confucian system in China, by contrast, those who rose to the top socially did so by passing rigorous academic exams; or, failing that, by success in trade. So the brightest got their choice of marriage partners, and were able to raise more children in better health. Athleticism and fast reflexes had little value in such a settled society; so they did not breed for them. East Asians have a relatively high average IQ, and that is now part of their genetic makeup.

Ashkenazi Jews had similar views: social prestige was based on learning, or success was in trade. As a result, they are the second cultural group with an unusually high average IQ.

And so it goes. Every culture practices eugenics informally as part of the culture. Some cultures breed for courage, some for physical beauty, some for even temper, and so forth.

To admit this obvious truth is “racist” only to people who do not understand the concept of human equality. It does not mean that everyone is the same; that is obviously untrue. It means that everyone is equal in intrinsic worth, equal in the eyes of God, and so must be treated equally by government.




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New Survey Proves Leftists Are Mentally Ill

A recent study finds a definite correlation between having a diagnosis of mental illness and being politically left-wing. The more left-wing you are, the more likely you are to be mentally ill.

This, of course, can be embraced on the right as evidence that leftist are nuts.

But it is instead a useful illustration of how little we can learn from social science studies. For there are too many possible explanations, and we cannot tell which is true.

It may as well be that the mentally ill are more compassionate, and leftist policies are more compassionate.

It may be that mental illness is inclined to make you poor, and the poor see more benefit in leftist politics.

It may be that mental illness comes with high intelligence, and leftist politics are, on the whole, better ideas than rightist views.

It may be that leftist politics ameliorates or even cures mental illness—attracting the mentally ill to it.

It may be that leftists are more inclined to use psychiatric services and to take psychiatry seriously—and so more likely to have gotten a diagnosis.

The survey relied on self-reporting; it may be that left-wingers are more honest.

It may be that psychiatrists have simply wrongly diagnosed certain political opinions or tendencies as “mentally ill,” making those who hold the opinions, by definition, mentally ill.

It may be that being mentally ill makes you left wing, but this is unrelated to the reason that most people are left wing. Nazis like highways; but most people who like highways do not like them because they are Nazis.

It may be that being left-wing is more socially acceptable, and people who are mentally ill are afraid to stand out. So they will say they are left-wing.

It may, conversely, be that being left wing makes you mentally ill because people reject you for your left-wing opinions—not because the opinions themselves are wrong. 
Shall I go on?

Just about any social science survey can be used to prove opposite hypotheses; the human soul is too complex to be understood in such simple terms.


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The Salt of the Earth

Pentecost.

“You are the salt of the earth,

but if the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men.
You are the light of the world.

A city located on a hill can’t be hidden. Neither do you light a lamp and put it under a measuring basket, but on a stand; and it shines to all who are in the house.

Even so, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus ends the Beatitudes with this call to action. It is not enough to simply believe, know you are saved, and go about your business. Something is required of us.

And not only that—it seems to be required as well to rescue us from our present difficulties, our experience of oppression. If we do not do this, we are going to be trampled underfoot.

But what, exactly? “Good works,” the last verse says. And that is how it is commonly read: to go about doing good deeds, acts of mercy.

That seems reasonable enough; but those Jesus is calling here are already doing such good works. This is covered by “blessed are the merciful.” They are doing the corporal and spiritual acts of mercy.

So what is it they are now supposed to do differently?

Something resembling what salt does in food, or a lamp in a dark room.

And what is that? In a phrase, draw attention. Do something public and visible.

This cannot be good works in the conventional sense. For Jesus also tells us explicitly that we must do such good works in secret.

It must be some other kind of works.

The opposite is being tasteless, or hiding your lamp under a bushel.

This work is something that enhances, heightens, the senses.

The obvious example of a thing that enhances the senses? Art; beauty.

In fact, the primary meaning of the Greek word translated as “good,” in the phrase “good works,” is actually “beautiful.” “That they may see your beautiful works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

The passage immediately prior says we are like the prophets.

Yet there is no need for prophets in the old sense: revelation is complete in the Bible.

Nevertheless, the Bible itself says prophecy continues.

At Pentecost, St. Peter addresses the crowd, and explains that these are now the last days. And he quotes the prophet Joel:

“It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams.”

The apostles at Pentecost were prophesying; and prophesying is the essential Christian act.

What we call art today is simply what was called prophecy in ancient Israel. All true art is a glimpse of eternity, of God in heaven.

Granted that there is lots of immoral art. There were always false prophets. Immoral art is simply bad art.

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Going Viral

I am out of my area of expertise in speaking of the COVID-19 outbreak. I can only rely on the news reports. And even the experts probably have little to go on.

But I can at least speculate on the psychological effects.

The authorities in Hubei have now banned all vehicular traffic. Streetlights have all been shut off to discourage people from leaving their homes. Eighty percent of international air traffic to China has been suspended. Russian TV reports that the Chinese government has been intervening in the stock market, buying up stocks to prevent a collapse.

Inside China, it could go either way: either the people rise up against the government, or they are cowed by the government’s show of strength against the virus.

Outside China, this has to hurt the China brand. China is bound to have an economic slump, even if the rest of the world does not.

But globalism and globalization in general will probably also be hit. People in the developed world were already getting fractious about all the immigration and all the foreign influence. This now gives them a graphic image and a further powerful argument: foreigners and growing foreign contacts spread disease. There are apparently very practical reasons for nations to have borders and the ability to close them in an emergency.

I am a globalist. I do not say this with joy.

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Christian Prophets

Elijah in the desert.

Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

This passage implies that all good Christians are prophets.

The implication is stronger if you read “for my sake” as referring not to the historical Jesus of Nazareth, but to the cosmic Christ, the Logos. As, surely, it must, to be sensible. Thus it reads, “blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for the sake of Truth and the Right.”

Which is again just what the Old Testament prophets did, speak out for the Truth and the Right, without knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth.

Why are people commonly reproached, persecuted, and slandered for saying the truth?

John 3:19-20:

“This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn't come to the light, lest his works would be exposed.”

Everyone who does evil hates the truth, and so will hate an honest man.


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The Northern Strategy

And the Dem establishment seems to hate the one non-white candidate still standing, as an outsider.
Consider for a moment these two lists of recent Democratic presidential candidates: LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama.

Now: Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Hillary Clinton.

What is the difference between the two lists?

The most obvious difference is that all in the first list won the presidency. The second list all lost.

But there is a second difference that is almost as consistent. Everyone in the first list except Obama came from a Southern state, a member of the old Confederacy.

And everyone in the second list came from a northern state. Gore is a bit of an outlier, from Tennessee. But Tennessee is still only a border state—and Gore did win the popular vote. And he was running against a more solidly southern candidate, in George W. Bush.

Obama, the other outlier, was from Illinois—but being black meant that he held special appeal to a large segment of the Southern vote, the black vote. He notably had that southern cadence in his speech.

Since about the Second World War, the math has seemed obvious: if the Democrats ran a Southerner, they won. If they ran a Northerner, they lost.

This was the Democrats’ own “Southern strategy.” They had to do this to, as James Carville once put it, “pick the lock” of the otherwise reliably Republican South.

And the Democrats seem now to have utterly forgotten this. Look at their current crop of candidates. Sanders and Warren, New England Yankees. Bloomberg, New York. Klobuchar, Minnesota—could not get much more northern than that. Buttigieg is from Indiana, but far northern Indiana, close to Chicago. And he seems aggressively preppy. Biden is from Delaware, technically a border state.

This might be explained, in part, by a weak front bench. Who, after all, do the Democrats have to run who comes from the South? They are reduced to circling the wagons in their traditional regional strongholds. But that is not the full story—for nobody seems to have noticed or expressed concern over the lack of any prominent Southern candidate.

Sure, there is concern about the ability to appeal to black voters. But that is not the real issue. Nor is it so much about ideology. The South, black or white, is culturally distinct from the North, more emotionally attuned, and finds it hard to warm up to stiff preppy types like Buttigieg, or schoolmarmish figures like Warren. Blacks who have migrated North simply tend to preserve these characteristics.

The Democrats seem to be living in a bubble, huddled with their own, and either not interested in anyone outside their familiar circle, afraid of them, or contemptuous of them.

This shows too in their policy platforms: all the candidates seem to the left of the general public.

This is suicide for a political party.

Compare the Republicans. In their last presidential race, they scared up prominent candidates from Louisiana, Texas, Florida, and Arkansas, and then also from New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California. And the New York candidate won.

Trump was able to go after the Democratic “firewall,” in the rust belt, and take three critical states. He picked their northern lock.

Now, with excellent political instincts, he is working on the black vote. Which has great cultural affinities with the white Southern vote, to which the Democrats have lost all sensitivity. It may not take much more for them to shift Republican in large numbers, just as did the white working class in the North.

At this point, whomever the Democrats nominate, and barring some economic disaster, I call it for Trump.

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Blessed Are the Persecuted

Kurelek, "The Hound of Heaven"

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

This Beatitude strikes some folks as strange. Righteous people are beloved by everyone, right? Who is persecuted for righteousness?

Just read the New Testament. Did everyone love Jesus? How did he end up crucified?

Just read today’s news: the Wuhan doctor who first raised the alarm about the COVID-19 virus was hauled in and berated by the authorities, and forced to sign an admission that he lied. He has now died of the virus—or perhaps through government action.

Social groups of all kinds are predictably less moral that their average member—on the premise that more selfish people are going to fight harder and less scrupulously for power over others. And bad people who have a guilty conscience will viscerally resent others who do not.

Good people, when they sin, feel bad about it, try to make amends, and to do better. They will admire the righteous. Bad people commit to continuing to sin. For these latter, relative sinlessness in another feels like an implicit rebuke. Worse than that--they are dangerous. They might start speaking truth out loud, and so wreck everything.

This is why, for example, it was never enough to legalize gay sex or gay marriage. It had to become illegal for anyone to criticize it, unacceptable to refuse to participate in a gay pride parade or a gay wedding. This is why it was never enough to make abortion legal. It had to become tax subsidized, implicating everybody. It had to become intolerable to speak out against it.

And so the righteous will often be persecuted rather than rewarded. They will always be persecuted by some. How severely they are persecuted is a good measure of how morally depraved the society or group is in which they find themselves.

Confucius advised that, when appointing an official, “if he has no friends, it is necessary to make enquiries. If he has no enemies, it is necessary to make enquiries.”

Either is an indication, although not proof, of a bad person.

Someone who has no friends is probably a cutthroat; although he might just be extremely introverted—or extremely righteous.

Someone who has no enemies is probably someone who simply agrees and goes along with whomever he is speaking to. He is duplicitous and has no principles.

A good person will be loved by good people, and persecuted by bad people.

Which is no doubt part of the divine plan. If one were being righteous only for the hope of worldly rewards, there would be no particular merit to it.



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