Stephen Roney's Blog, page 29

Keeping it Under America's Hat

 

Trump’s win is moving the Overton window rapidly in the US. Some people are going to be caught with their pyjamas down. The NYT and The View have caught the smell in the wind, and are trying to shift their tone. Trumpism, is now demonstrably the mainstream, and they risk either bankruptcy or irrelevance. The woke will soon be laughing stocks.

What does this mean in Canada? For Canda, just as for the rest of the developed West, the US sets the tone—more now than ever before, because we are so interconnected. Pierre Poilievre, in particular, has a tricky path. He needs to make rapid policy changes to more closely conform to Trump’s agenda, or start to look stale and conventional. He needs to make some striking new policy proposals to keep people’s excitement. He can’t just talk about the carbon tax.

This is a revolutionary period, and the revolution eats its children. You must race to stay in front of the parade, or be trampled by it.

Is Poilievre, and are the Conservatives, up to it? If not, Maxime Bernier might steal his thunder.

Trump’s drive to cut taxes and regulations and unleash oiland gas is also going to force whomever is in government in Canada to do thesame. Otherwise investment will flood out of Canada into he US; the resultswill be too obvious. Voters will not stand for it.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Justice League of America

 

The times are bringing forth the heroes we need: the “Justice League” of superheroes that many are recognizing in Trump’s cabinet: Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Trump himself, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, J.D. Vance, and the rest. Even Ron Paul has apparently signed on. 

What do they all have in common? That they bucked the consensus of those around them, in the various fields they are now about to be in charge of, and demonstrated moral courage.

The essence of the hero is moral courage. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, courage is the one essential virtue without which no other virtue is possible. Therefore, to be declared a saint in the Catholic church, one must have demonstrated “heroic virtue.” 

Only when the social and cultural consensus in some time and place is in serious error is heroism either possible or necessary. Bad times generate heroes. Heroes emerge as the social background recedes from them, recedes from obvious truth, need, or virtue, exposing them. 

The 1980s spontaneously generated heroes: Ronald Reagan in the US, Margaret Thatcher in Britain, John Paul II in the Church after years of confusion and managed decline. The Sixties and Seventies were pretty messed up.

Similarly, the crisis of the Second World War forced to the front Churchill, Tito, and De Gaulle.

We are at such a point, and quite evidently at a greater such inflection point than either of these former ones. The gravity of the situation is reflected I the fact of so many heroes emerging at once.

Not just in the US; the rot is everywhere. Milei in Argentina, Meloni in Italy, Wilders in the Netherlands. Farage in Britain; Poilievre in Canada; and so on. Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, Tamara Lich, Chris Barber, Billboard Chris, Tommy Robinson, the pundits and risk-takers at the Daily Wire, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and on and on. The heroes are mustering everywhere.

We are living in a heroic age, and the dark night may be over.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Dracula as Feminist Icon

 

I am tutoring a high school student with his regular English literature course. They are studying Bram Stoker’s Dracula. They have been asked to interpret it using three lenses: a Marxist perspective, a feminist perspective, and a psychological perspective.

What is missing?

The obvious significance of Dracula is religious: it is all too heavy-handedly about the nature of evil and the nature of the human soul. This is not even touched on.

Stoker and his audience might have been familiar with Marx. Feminism or modern psychology would have been unknown to them.

I am told all texts in the course are subject to the same three analyses.

This is not knew. It was true when I was going through college and grad school in the 1970s. Religious or ethical concerns were never whispered at in English lit classes. Even though, as a historical fact, this would have been the primary concerns of any author up to at least the beginning of the 20th century.  I often wondered why the later work of so many authors was ignored. I assumed poets must burn out. Instead, it was because with age they all tended to get too obviously religions.

We had to fill our essays and theses with Marxist, or feminist, or Freudian, or Jungian, or structuralist, readings of each text, knowing that they could not possibly be correct, and that the underlying theories had usually been discredited. A complete waste of time, made bearable only by the excuse to read the texts themselves. Much sound and fury, signifying nothing. While all the time, the meaning we were searching for was perfectly clear by reference to Christian principles.

We are deliberately avoiding religion and ethics in our education system, as though it is the proverbial third rail. Our children and youth are being deliberately directed away from any spiritual or ethical concerns.

And this has spread throughout society.

I have for almost two years been trying to set up a group of “Poets of Faith,” “who believe their craft is in service to a Supreme Being.” Yet over these two years, whenever I get a group together, and start a meeting, someone begins by objecting to the mention of a Supreme Being. The meeting dissolves in chaos, and I must start all over. Sisyphus, move over. Despite the stated purpose of the group, the premise under which it was convened and under which people agreed to attend: “who believe their craft is in service to a Supreme Being.”

I think this is the same problem, the same cancer. Even allowing others to form a group acknowledging the existence of God and some responsibility to him is not to be tolerated. 

It is the same reason churches are being burned down across Canada, and priests assaulted at the altar. And black legends are spread about mass graves near residential schools.

This is no doubt why our arts are moribund and our civilization in decline. It is decadence.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Rubio for State

 

Bad cop

The rumour is that Trump will name Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. This has caused consternation in some MAGA circles. Rubio has a reputation as a hawk, a “neo-con.” What happened to Trump’s commitment to peace? Couldn’t he have picked Tulsi Gabbard, say?

This is faulty thinking. I love Tulsi Gabbard, but she would be wrong for Secretary of State. She is too closely identified with the anti-war position. The only way to keep the peace is through deterrence. Trump needs somebody threatening, a bulldog, someone ready to pull the trigger, and, more importantly, someone adversaries believe is ready to pull the trigger. He needs a good cop/bad cop team.

Note how Trump has handled things before when conflict loomed: not just by rattling sabres or making threats, but by firing missiles and dropping bombs. Once by dropping the mother of all bombs. Then he can make a deal.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

It's the China Virus

 

All my Chinese students, surprisingly, and all my friends in the Philippines, seem to support Trump.

Why? Trump seems to want to be tougher on China than the Democrats.

One student today tried to explain. The bottom line is that they believe Trump means peace. He may fight China economically, but he does not want war. They appreciate that. Of course all American presidents are for America, not for China, But they don’t want chaos.

And, my correspondent says, although Trump is tough on China in trade talks, Trump’s economic sanctions against China do not really seem to have been a big problem. He forced them to buy a huge quantity of American soybeans. A year later, Covid hit, and China was lucky to have those soybeans. Okay, he kept Huawei out of the US market; Huawei is now bigger than ever. 

Perhaps these trade concessions were actually better for China. After all, what was lost by Chinese producers was generally gained by Chinese consumers.

As a Canadian, I had the same feelings about Trump’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. I was hoping the Americans would force the Canadian government to drop their egg and milk price-fixing. It would have been of great benefit to the Canadian consumer.

Beyond that, my student says, the Chinese find Trump humorous, and always interesting. They are accustomed to not taking anything at face value, and therefore do not get agitated by his rhetoric. They probably understand this, and get his sense of humour, better than Americans do: it is about face, about bargaining. You bargain for everything in China. You do not take it personally. Of course he is all about America first, but they think he is generally well-disposed enough towards China. And very funny.

This bodes well, I think, for Trump genuinely bringing about a period of peace and prosperity.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Good News for Stray Cats

 

It all began, not with the pill, but with the development of mod cons after the Second World War: washing machines, driers, refrigerators, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners. The automation of the household.

At this point women lost their traditional role. Before about the fifties, a woman’s work was a full-time job. A man could not get by alone. If he was not married, and not with his parents, he lived in a boarding house. 

Hugh Hefner capitalized on this change. A man could now manage his own “bachelor pad” and be a playboy. There was no need to marry. Women were just for sex.

At the same time, with automation, women were bored; there was not enough to fill their days. This was what Betty Friedan capitalized on: how boring life was in the suburbs. It is her actual complaint in The Feminine Mystique. 

First they experimented with just making themselves busy by having a lot of children—the Baby Boom. Not good—work had not changed for men. The added financial burden with nothing in it for them drove men further into the Playboy Philosophy. 

So, with Freidan's feminism, women used their free time instead for political agitation. And they demanded careers outside the home to fill their days. 

So why marry? 

The most common and obvious remaining reason, if the marriage .was not for love, was to guarantee regular sex Not a great incentive. 

At this point, women had an advantage over men. Men generally want sex more than women do. It’s genetically programmed. 

Exploiting this advantage, and their free time, feminism was able to run roughshod over men for a generation or two. 

But now that has changed--with the ready availability of porn on the Internet. Men no longer really need women for sex. No doubt live sex is still better, but throw in the draconian laws feminists have imposed making marriage, sex, or any contact with women risky for men.

Women have overplayed their hand.

Young men are beginning to ask, what does a woman bring to the table, making a relationship with them worth the risk?

If the relationship is transactional, it is hard to see an answer. 

For children? Yes, but women are programmed by nature to want children more than men do. They can physically have children with just a one-night stand, but it is hard to raise children on your own.

A man is also still valuable to a woman for protection, and for heavy lifting around the house. Women are simply not as physically strong as men. 

But what does a real woman bring to make a man’s life better anymore? What can she do that he can’t do for himself? What does she bring that is worth the expense and the risk?

Suddenly men have all the chips in this game.

Women do not seem to realize this yet. They have been raised to view themselves as immensely valuable. Just for existing.

The result will be a rapid increase in the number of angry cat ladies, who will wonder what happened.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Prices Will Go Up!

 

Since the call came down early this morning, I have encountered three leftists lamenting their loss to Trump. What most concerns them surprises me.

“Prices will go up,” one says. 

“Don’t those stupid people realize it is not China that pays the tariffs? It’s the consumer!” another says.

So they don’t fear some Trump Nazi dictatorship, or the supposed loss of abortion rights. Those were just a cover story for the rubes, I guess. Of course they were: those were absurd on their face.

It is tariffs.

But then, how can their concern really be that prices will go up? After all, prices held steady through Trump’s first term; they went up dramatically under Biden. Their guy.

It is not prices. It is tariffs.

And not just any tariffs either.

After all, not long ago, it was the left that was opposed to free trade. The Canadian Liberal Pary lost my support over just that issue. 

The only way I can see this making sense is that they fear tariffs will hurt China, and they are secretly rooting for China to defeat the evil capitalists to show that the Marxist system is best.

To be fair, not just China. They of course also want tariffs and trade barriers on Cuba dropped as well.

Trump does says he wants to impose more tariffs. It does seem common sense that this will raise prices. I have always been a free trader myself. But I am open to Trump’s arguments.

If it will raise prices, it will do other things as well. I was convinced by Trump’s argument for tariffs on steel: it is strategically important not to rely on some foreign source for essential materials. This makes you vulnerable to blockade in time of war. Or, as we have seen recently, times of epidemic.

It will further encourage more manufacturing, and more economic activity, at home. This is Trump’s current  argument. Things may cost more money, but more of the money stays in the USA, instead of being drained away to China or some other nation. When you look at it in those terms, of the economy as a whole, might tariffs actually conserve, i.e., save, money? Don’t you save money by keeping it in the household, making your own things, darning your own socks, growing your own garden, instead of spending it at the store?

And Trump has raised another issue. The extra money from tariffs goes to fund our government. Trump suggested this might even replace income tax.

The argument that tariffs are being paid by the consumer, not by China, is being made by the same people who keep selling or buying the idea that taxes on “big corporations,” or a raised minimum wage, is money taken from the corporation, and not the consumer. Same to same.

So the real question is whether it is better to pay your taxes as tariffs, or as income tax. The foreign goods actually remain the same price. 

Paying taxes on consumption rather than income  is more voluntary, and that seems a good thing. Taxing income naturally serves to suppress initiative or hard work, and takes money the individual might have better use for—such as investing it to improve their business, hence the economy. With a tax on consumption, you can reduce your tax burden by reducing your consumption of foreign goods. It encourages saving and investing rather than spending.

Granted, an economy needs consumers as well as producers. But on balance, surely someone who overproduces is more valuable to the economy and to the rest of us than someone who overconsumes. And if producers can be found abroad, as now, surely consumers can be too.

The idea is worth a look, and perhaps a trial.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Kamala Chameleon and the Big Lie

 

Look! The Moon is Green!

Kamala Harris has by come commentators been nicknamed “Kamala Chameleon,” because she seems to tell every interest group whatever they want to hear. She is against fracking; she is for fracking. She is against a border wall; she is for a border wall. She wants to confiscate guns; she is for the Second Amendment. 

This, since she herself raised the comparison, is something else she and the Democrats have in common with Hitler. This is why historians have trouble classifying Nazi ideology, have trouble defining what Nazism actually was. As William L. Shirer observed in following Hitler’s rise, he would simply promise every crowd whatever he thought they most wanted to hear.

This makes sense, because Nazism’s core value was simply power, ultimately power in the hands of one man. Like the modern left, it saw all of human society as a power struggle. The goal was (and is) to get more power for yourself, not to advance anyone else’s interests. So you make whatever promises will achieve this. Once in power, you then do as you like.

Another way in which the modern Democrats echo the Nazis is in their embrace of the propaganda technique of the “big lie”: that if you keep repeating something often enough, it comes to be, or be accepted as, truth. This is the fundamental ideology of postmodernism. It is why they can assert that men become women, and vice versa, by saying so, and it must then be illegal for anyone to say otherwise. They use the big lie on the hustings again and again, asserting the Russian collusion hoax, the fine people hoax, the Vance sofa hoax, the Liz Cheney firing squad hoax, the drink bleach hoax, and a dozen others, knowing they are debunked.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Final Polls

 

The popularity of polls over fortnights

It is the eve of the US elections, and the polls are contradictory—Including polls from previously highly accurate pollsters. Just the other day, one highly reliable pollster showed Harris up by three in Iowa, and another that Trump will win by seven. That’s no margin of error.

I think polling is no longer a science; I guess because people no longer answer their phones or are prepared to tell a stranger how they will vote. It is hair-raising to hear a pollster talk about all the adjustments they make to the raw data. I also keep hearing them cite polls, even their own, and then say “but I can’t believe that’s right.” In the end, they are guessing.

We should have a clearer idea by this time tomorrow. 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

A Storm in a Peanut

 

God seems to have intervened again in the US election, again in Trump’s favour. The issue of the day is, unexpectedly, the killing of Peanut the squirrel by the NY state government. This seems well timed and calculated to endorse Trump’s message of less government regulation. It should also remind everyone of his “they’re killing the dogs. They’re killing the cats!” comments at the Harris debate; and seems to reinforce them. Big government does not care about animals. And people generally care more about their pets than other people.

Incidentally, it irritates me that commentators, even those opposed to the government’s action, keep referring to Peanut and Fred the Raccoon being “euthanized.”  “Euthanasia” properly refers to mercy killing. This includes when it is done to animals—we do not refer to a chicken or a cow being “euthanized” at the abattoir, even though every effort is made to make their death painless. It counts as euthanasia if the likely alternative is suffering for the animal. Peanut and Fred were executed or killed by the state, not euthanized.

And since I mentioned it, about the phrase “they’re killing the dogs. They’re killing the cats!” Notice how often Trump’s comments are made into rap memes. It shows his profound talent as a rhetorician. His cadences are naturally musical. They are also naturally comic; timing is everything in comedy, and Trump has a perfect ear for rhythm and timing. This makes him always enjoyable and memorable to listen to. 

He is completely aware of this; he works at it. Talking to Joe Rogan, he demurred that “Communist Kamala” was not an ideal insult, because it is hard to say. The rhythm is not great. He knows what he is doing.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.