So, HBO Max is now just Max.
Your move, Peacock.
*.*
A waiter brings the customer the steak he ordered, with his thumb over the meat.
"Are you crazy?" yells the customer. "What's with your hand on my steak?"
"Sorry," answers the waiter, "I don’t want it to fall on the floor again."
*.*
We visited our newly married daughter, who was preparing her first Thanksgiving dinner. I noticed the turkey thawing in the kitchen sink with a dish drainer inverted over the bird. I asked why a drainer covered the turkey.
Our daughter turned to my wife and said, “Mom, you always did it that way.”
“Yes,” my wife replied, “but you don’t have a cat!”
*.*
Top five things that Bigfoot has to say to people every summer:
"No, I'm not with ZZ Top"
"Keep that Nair away from me!"
"Size 35, if you must know."
"Hanson's Plumbing? Yeah, the shower drain is clogged again."
"How do you know that hair in your soup is from me?"
*.*
Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito is coming under fire for accepting a luxury fishing trip from a Hedge Fund owner and Republican megadonor who has appeared in front of the Supreme Court 10 times.
I'm not one to judge, but I would for a luxury fishing trip.
Quote of the Times;
“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.” - Lynd
Link of the Times;
Hyped Ukraine Counteroffensive Flops:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/hyped-ukraine-counteroffensive-flops-zelensky-msm-have-admit/
Issue of the Times;
The Issue that must Not be Mentioned by John Hinderaker
Over the last few years, the establishment, including government agencies like the FBI, the hegemonic tech companies that control social media, and the press generally, has tried hard to suppress information on several topics. These topics include, among others, the effectiveness of anti-covid measures and treatments, the safety of covid vaccines, Joe Biden’s corruption, and the existence and prevalence of voter fraud. Wrongspeak on any of these topics has been branded as disinformation, and has been likely to result in a ban from Twitter, Facebook and so on.
Despite these efforts at censorship, Rasmussen finds that most Americans have no illusions about the integrity of our elections:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters believe cheating is likely to affect the outcome of the next presidential election, including 30% who think it’s Very Likely. Forty-one percent (41%) say election cheating is unlikely to affect the 2024 outcome, including 24% who consider it Not At All Likely.
***
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters believe it is likely that state and federal officials are ignoring evidence of widespread election fraud, including 36% who think it’s Very Likely. Forty percent (40%) say it’s unlikely officials are ignoring election fraud, including 27% who view it as Not At All Likely.
***
A majority (52%) of voters now believe that cheating likely affected the outcomes of some races in last year’s midterm elections, including 30% who say it’s Very Likely. Thirty-eight percent (38%) don’t think last year’s midterm elections were affected by cheating, including 25% who view it as Not At All Likely. Another 10% are not sure.
So, to the extent that liberals have tried to instill confidence in the integrity of our elections by banning discussion of that subject, they have failed. Actually, I suspect that pretty much everyone understands that talk of voter fraud is more or less verboten, and many probably infer that election fraud is a worse problem than it actually is. Similarly, I suspect that censorship of discussion of adverse side effects of covid vaccines has created in some minds a perception that the vaccines are more dangerous than they really are.
Probably the instance where censorship was most successful was the boycott on information about Joe Biden’s corruption in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election. In that case, the boycott undoubtedly delayed widespread knowledge of the evidence of corruption that had emerged, but not for long. Current polls indicate that most Americans correctly believe that the Bidens have been taking money from foreign interests in influence-peddling schemes.
It must frustrate liberals no end to see that their apparent control over the flow of information, via their dominance of the press and social media, avails them so little, and in some instances may actually be counterproductive.
News of the Times;
Durham Goes Off On FBI, CIA, Schiff During Wednesday Testimony:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/our-findings-were-sobering-john-durham-gives-fiery-testimony-fbi-abuses-schools-schiff
Confidence In America Is Collapsing:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/ecm-armstrongeconomics101/confidence-in-america-is-collapsing/
Here's how NATO trainers knowingly sent Ukrainian troops to their deaths:
https://www.rt.com/russia/578411-nato-ukraine-counteroffensive-training/
Kids' reading scores have soared in Deep South states:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mississippi-miracle-kids-reading-scores-040628304.html
Former CNN producer sentenced to 19+ years in prison for sexually assaulting 9-year-old girl:
https://notthebee.com/article/former-cnn-producer-sentenced-to-19-years-in-prison-for-luring-9-year-old-girl-in-for-sex-acts/
Vegan Activist Group Goes After Minor League Baseball Team:
https://pjmedia.com/culture/chris-queen/2023/06/22/vegan-activist-group-goes-after-minor-league-baseball-team-n1705520
Dem lawmaker equates American Muslims with 'white supremacists':
https://www.wnd.com/2023/06/democrat-equates-american-muslims-white-supremacists/
12 killed, more than 100 shot in Juneteenth celebrations:
https://thepostmillennial.com/twelve-killed-more-than-100-injured-in-juneteenth-celebrations-across-the-us
House Democrat Stacey Plaskett says Trump 'needs to be shot':
https://thepostmillennial.com/delegate-for-uvi-stacey-plaskett-says-trump-needs-to-be-shot-then-corrects-herself-to-stopped
Council Member Who Wanted to Tax White Owned Businesses Loses Reelection:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/denver-city-council-member-who-wanted-tax-white/
The trans school conspiracy exposed:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12202901/Midwest-teachers-trade-tips-subversively-quietly-transitioning-kids-without-telling-parents.html
University of Cincinnati gender studies professor giving ZERO grade for using phrase 'biological women':
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12180019/Gender-studies-professor-BRAGS-failing-students-offend-woke-gender-beliefs.html
Democrat Donor Arrested for Starting Massive California Fire that Destroyed 100 Homes:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/democrat-donor-lincoln-project-democrat-campaigns-arrested-starting/
Four nursery children, aged 1 to 3, stabbed at random in play park:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-france-school-knife-attack-30181994
45,000 still without power in Houston area as extreme heat returns:
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-power-outage-18167416.php
Issue?
Deniable?
About 1500 people will be treated in emergency rooms this year after getting hurt playing Ping Pong.
As a public service, this is where I'll remind you this is NOT the sport where you jump over the net when you win.
*.*
Judge: "Haven’t I seen you before?"
Man: "Yes, your Honor. I taught your daughter how to play the drums."
Judge (banging the gavel): "Twenty years!"
*.*
Oneliners:
We get to the point where A.I. mows my lawn and I'll be a fan.
Mothers of teenagers know why animals eat their young.
Non-conformists are all alike.
The trouble with doing it right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was!
The extra mile isn't half as long as all those other miles.
A grown-up is someone who suffers from responsibility.
They who are afraid to ask are ashamed of learning.
Sign in a travel agency window: "Please go away."
Hummingbirds have forgotten the words,
Everything on land is within walking distance.
*.*
Nothing looks good on me anymore,” wailed a customer modeling an outfit in front of the department store’s mirror.
“Nonsense, ma’am,” soothed the salesclerk. “That dress says it all.”
“That’s the problem,” the woman replied. “I need a dress that keeps its mouth shut.”
*.*
In Star Wars, anyone can jump into any spaceship and know how to fly it.
I've just spent 20 minutes in a rental car and can't figure out how to turn on the headlights.
Quote of the Times;
If God believed in free speech, blasphemy would not be a sin. - Vox Day
Link of the Times;
What Is Cognitive Dissonance:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012
Issue of the Times;
Why Propaganda Works by Caitlin Johnstone
It’s not really deniable that western civilization is saturated with domestic propaganda geared toward manipulating the way the public thinks, acts, works, shops and votes. Mass media employees have attested to the fact that they experience constant pressure to administer narratives which are favorable to the political status quo of the US empire. The managers of empire have publicly acknowledged that they have a vested interest in manipulating public thought. Casual naked-eye observation of the way the mass media reliably support every US war, rally behind the US foreign policy objective of the day, and display overwhelming bias against empire-targeted governments makes it abundantly obvious that this is happening when viewed with any degree of critical thought.
To deny that these mass-scale manipulations have an effect would be as absurd as denying that advertising — a near trillion-dollar industry — has an effect. It’s just an uncomfortable fact that as much as we like to think of ourselves as free-thinking sovereign agents immune to outside influence, human minds are very hackable. Manipulators understand this, and the science of modern propaganda which has been advancing for over a century understands this with acute lucidity.
By continually hammering our minds with simple repeated messaging about the nature of the world we live in, propagandists are able to exploit glitches in human cognition like the illusory truth effect, which causes our minds to mistake the experience of having heard something before with the experience of having heard something that is true.
Our indoctrination into the mainstream imperial worldview begins when we are very young, largely because schooling is intertwined with the same power structures whose information interests are served by that worldview, and because powerful plutocrats like John D Rockefeller actively inserted themselves into the formation of modern schooling systems.
Our worldview is formed when we are young in the interests of our rulers, and from there cognitive biases take over which protect and reinforce that worldview, typically preserving them in more or less the same form for the rest of our lives.
This is what makes it so hard to convince someone that their beliefs about an issue are falsehoods born of propaganda. I see a lot of people blame this problem on the fact that critical thinking isn’t taught in schools, and I’ve seen some strains of Marxist thought arguing that westerners choose to espouse propaganda narratives because they know it advances their own class interests, and I’m sure both of these factor into the equation to some extent. But the primary reason people tend to remain committed to their propaganda-installed perspectives actually has a much simpler, well-documented explanation.
Modern psychology tells us that people don’t just tend to hold onto their propaganda-induced belief systems; people tend to hold onto any belief system. Belief perseverance, as the name suggests, describes the way people tend to cling to their beliefs even when presented with evidence disproving them. The theory goes that back when humans lived in tribes that were often hostile to each other, our tribal cohesion and knowing who we can trust mattered more to our survival than taking the time to figure out what’s objectively true, so now we’ve got these brains that tend to prioritize loyalty to our modern “tribes” like our nation, our religion, our ideological factions and our pet causes.
This tendency can take the form of motivated reasoning, where our emotional interests and “tribal” loyalties color the way we take in new information. It can also give rise to the backfire effect, where being confronted with evidence which conflicts with one’s worldview will not only fail to change their beliefs but actually strengthen them.
So the simple answer to why people cling to beliefs instilled by imperial propaganda is because that’s just how minds work. If you can consistently and forcefully indoctrinate someone from an early age and then give them a mainstream ideological “tribe” with which to identify in their indoctrination, the cognitive glitches in these newly-evolved brains of ours act as sentries which protect those worldviews you implanted. Which is exactly what modern propaganda, and our modern political systems, are set up to do.
I often see people expressing bewilderment about the way the smartest people they know subscribe to the most ridiculous propaganda narratives out there. This is why. A smart person who has been effectively indoctrinated by propaganda will just be more clever than someone of average intelligence in defending their beliefs. Some of the most foam-brained foreign policy think pieces you’ll ever read come from PhDs and Ivy League graduates, because all their intelligence gives them is the ability to make intelligent-sounding arguments for why it would be good and smart for the US military to do something evil and stupid.
The Oatmeal has a great comic / https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe about this (which someone also made into a video if you prefer). Importantly, the author correctly notes that the mind’s tendency to forcefully protect its worldview does not mean it’s impossible to change one’s beliefs in light of new evidence, only that it is more difficult than accepting beliefs which confirm one’s biases. It takes some work, and it takes sincerity and self-honesty, but it can be done. Which is happy news for those of us who have an interest in convincing people to abandon their propaganda-constructed worldviews for reality-based ones.
Sometimes just being patient with someone, showing empathy, treating them how we’d like to be treated, and working to establish things in common to overcome the primitive psychology which screams we’re from a hostile tribe can accomplish a lot more than just laying out tons of objective facts disproving their believed narrative about Russia or China or their own government or what have you.
And above all we can just keep telling the truth, in as many fresh, engaging and creative ways as we can come up with. The more we do this, the more opportunities there are for someone to catch a glimmer of something beyond the veil of their propaganda-installed worldview and the cognitive biases which protect it. The more such opportunities we create, the greater a chance the truth has of getting a word in edgewise.
News of the Times;
The Most Depraved Crime I Ever Handled:
https://resistthemainstream.com/transgender-activist-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-the-most-depraved-crime-i-ever-handled/
Lesbian couple 'beat one woman's 5-year-old son with a Hammer:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3398118/Lesbian-couple-beat-one-woman-s-5-year-old-son-HAMMER-duct-taped-eyes-kicked-groin-bled-suffered-two-strokes.html
Biden Baffles US Audience, Closing Speech With 'God Save The Queen':
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-baffles-audience-closing-speech-god-save-queen
'If You Love Your Children, Flee The State': California GOP Lawmaker:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/if-you-love-your-children-flee-state-california-gop-lawmaker
New Jersey Schools Report More Than 4,200% Increase In Nonbinary Students In Four Years:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-jersey-schools-report-more-4200-percent-increase-nonbinary-students-four-years
Instacart driver allegedly leaves infant daughter in 100-degree car for nearly an hour:
https://lawandcrime.com/crime/bodycam-instacart-driver-allegedly-leaves-infant-daughter-in-100-degree-car-for-nearly-an-hour-while-shopping-in-publix/
Burisma Energy Accountant, Who Blew Whistle on Biden Bribery Scheme, Found Dead:
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/burisma-energy-accountant-who-blew-whistle-on-biden-bribery-scheme-found-dead/
Cabinet secretary admits to lying under oath - why does she still have her job:
https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2023/06/10/cabinet-secretary-admits-to-lying-under-oath-why-does-she-still-have-her-job-n557053
Illegal border crossers so far this year outnumber the population of 8 states:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_3227124e-0b78-11ee-9599-97d6d9962e84.html?a
Five Dead:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/five-dead-democrats-to-blame.php
Migrant-Smuggling "Influencers" Use TikTok To Advertise:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/migrant-smuggling-influencers-use-tiktok-advertise-illegal-border-crossing-services
Celebrate Good Times, Come On! Patriotic Boycotts Cost Woke Corporations $28 BILLION:
https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2023/06/17/celebrate-good-times-come-on-patriotic-boycotts-cost-woke-corporations-28-billion-in-market-value-n1704126
Massachusetts middle school students tear down rainbow decorations and chant their pronouns are 'U.S.A.':
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12190331/Massachusetts-students-tear-rainbow-decorations-chant-pronouns-U-S-A.html
Penn State Professor and Dog Lover Accused of Bestiality is a Longtime Liberal:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/comfirmed-penn-state-professor-accused-bestiality-is-longtime/
Politicians In Our Major Cities Have Decided The Solution To The Crime Wave:
http://endoftheamericandream.com/politicians-in-our-major-cities-have-decided-the-solution-to-the-crime-wave-is-to-help-criminals-commit-more-crimes/
As a public service, this is where I'll remind you this is NOT the sport where you jump over the net when you win.
*.*
Judge: "Haven’t I seen you before?"
Man: "Yes, your Honor. I taught your daughter how to play the drums."
Judge (banging the gavel): "Twenty years!"
*.*
Oneliners:
We get to the point where A.I. mows my lawn and I'll be a fan.
Mothers of teenagers know why animals eat their young.
Non-conformists are all alike.
The trouble with doing it right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was!
The extra mile isn't half as long as all those other miles.
A grown-up is someone who suffers from responsibility.
They who are afraid to ask are ashamed of learning.
Sign in a travel agency window: "Please go away."
Hummingbirds have forgotten the words,
Everything on land is within walking distance.
*.*
Nothing looks good on me anymore,” wailed a customer modeling an outfit in front of the department store’s mirror.
“Nonsense, ma’am,” soothed the salesclerk. “That dress says it all.”
“That’s the problem,” the woman replied. “I need a dress that keeps its mouth shut.”
*.*
In Star Wars, anyone can jump into any spaceship and know how to fly it.
I've just spent 20 minutes in a rental car and can't figure out how to turn on the headlights.
Quote of the Times;
If God believed in free speech, blasphemy would not be a sin. - Vox Day
Link of the Times;
What Is Cognitive Dissonance:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012
Issue of the Times;
Why Propaganda Works by Caitlin Johnstone
It’s not really deniable that western civilization is saturated with domestic propaganda geared toward manipulating the way the public thinks, acts, works, shops and votes. Mass media employees have attested to the fact that they experience constant pressure to administer narratives which are favorable to the political status quo of the US empire. The managers of empire have publicly acknowledged that they have a vested interest in manipulating public thought. Casual naked-eye observation of the way the mass media reliably support every US war, rally behind the US foreign policy objective of the day, and display overwhelming bias against empire-targeted governments makes it abundantly obvious that this is happening when viewed with any degree of critical thought.
To deny that these mass-scale manipulations have an effect would be as absurd as denying that advertising — a near trillion-dollar industry — has an effect. It’s just an uncomfortable fact that as much as we like to think of ourselves as free-thinking sovereign agents immune to outside influence, human minds are very hackable. Manipulators understand this, and the science of modern propaganda which has been advancing for over a century understands this with acute lucidity.
By continually hammering our minds with simple repeated messaging about the nature of the world we live in, propagandists are able to exploit glitches in human cognition like the illusory truth effect, which causes our minds to mistake the experience of having heard something before with the experience of having heard something that is true.
Our indoctrination into the mainstream imperial worldview begins when we are very young, largely because schooling is intertwined with the same power structures whose information interests are served by that worldview, and because powerful plutocrats like John D Rockefeller actively inserted themselves into the formation of modern schooling systems.
Our worldview is formed when we are young in the interests of our rulers, and from there cognitive biases take over which protect and reinforce that worldview, typically preserving them in more or less the same form for the rest of our lives.
This is what makes it so hard to convince someone that their beliefs about an issue are falsehoods born of propaganda. I see a lot of people blame this problem on the fact that critical thinking isn’t taught in schools, and I’ve seen some strains of Marxist thought arguing that westerners choose to espouse propaganda narratives because they know it advances their own class interests, and I’m sure both of these factor into the equation to some extent. But the primary reason people tend to remain committed to their propaganda-installed perspectives actually has a much simpler, well-documented explanation.
Modern psychology tells us that people don’t just tend to hold onto their propaganda-induced belief systems; people tend to hold onto any belief system. Belief perseverance, as the name suggests, describes the way people tend to cling to their beliefs even when presented with evidence disproving them. The theory goes that back when humans lived in tribes that were often hostile to each other, our tribal cohesion and knowing who we can trust mattered more to our survival than taking the time to figure out what’s objectively true, so now we’ve got these brains that tend to prioritize loyalty to our modern “tribes” like our nation, our religion, our ideological factions and our pet causes.
This tendency can take the form of motivated reasoning, where our emotional interests and “tribal” loyalties color the way we take in new information. It can also give rise to the backfire effect, where being confronted with evidence which conflicts with one’s worldview will not only fail to change their beliefs but actually strengthen them.
So the simple answer to why people cling to beliefs instilled by imperial propaganda is because that’s just how minds work. If you can consistently and forcefully indoctrinate someone from an early age and then give them a mainstream ideological “tribe” with which to identify in their indoctrination, the cognitive glitches in these newly-evolved brains of ours act as sentries which protect those worldviews you implanted. Which is exactly what modern propaganda, and our modern political systems, are set up to do.
I often see people expressing bewilderment about the way the smartest people they know subscribe to the most ridiculous propaganda narratives out there. This is why. A smart person who has been effectively indoctrinated by propaganda will just be more clever than someone of average intelligence in defending their beliefs. Some of the most foam-brained foreign policy think pieces you’ll ever read come from PhDs and Ivy League graduates, because all their intelligence gives them is the ability to make intelligent-sounding arguments for why it would be good and smart for the US military to do something evil and stupid.
The Oatmeal has a great comic / https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe about this (which someone also made into a video if you prefer). Importantly, the author correctly notes that the mind’s tendency to forcefully protect its worldview does not mean it’s impossible to change one’s beliefs in light of new evidence, only that it is more difficult than accepting beliefs which confirm one’s biases. It takes some work, and it takes sincerity and self-honesty, but it can be done. Which is happy news for those of us who have an interest in convincing people to abandon their propaganda-constructed worldviews for reality-based ones.
Sometimes just being patient with someone, showing empathy, treating them how we’d like to be treated, and working to establish things in common to overcome the primitive psychology which screams we’re from a hostile tribe can accomplish a lot more than just laying out tons of objective facts disproving their believed narrative about Russia or China or their own government or what have you.
And above all we can just keep telling the truth, in as many fresh, engaging and creative ways as we can come up with. The more we do this, the more opportunities there are for someone to catch a glimmer of something beyond the veil of their propaganda-installed worldview and the cognitive biases which protect it. The more such opportunities we create, the greater a chance the truth has of getting a word in edgewise.
News of the Times;
The Most Depraved Crime I Ever Handled:
https://resistthemainstream.com/transgender-activist-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-the-most-depraved-crime-i-ever-handled/
Lesbian couple 'beat one woman's 5-year-old son with a Hammer:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3398118/Lesbian-couple-beat-one-woman-s-5-year-old-son-HAMMER-duct-taped-eyes-kicked-groin-bled-suffered-two-strokes.html
Biden Baffles US Audience, Closing Speech With 'God Save The Queen':
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-baffles-audience-closing-speech-god-save-queen
'If You Love Your Children, Flee The State': California GOP Lawmaker:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/if-you-love-your-children-flee-state-california-gop-lawmaker
New Jersey Schools Report More Than 4,200% Increase In Nonbinary Students In Four Years:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-jersey-schools-report-more-4200-percent-increase-nonbinary-students-four-years
Instacart driver allegedly leaves infant daughter in 100-degree car for nearly an hour:
https://lawandcrime.com/crime/bodycam-instacart-driver-allegedly-leaves-infant-daughter-in-100-degree-car-for-nearly-an-hour-while-shopping-in-publix/
Burisma Energy Accountant, Who Blew Whistle on Biden Bribery Scheme, Found Dead:
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/burisma-energy-accountant-who-blew-whistle-on-biden-bribery-scheme-found-dead/
Cabinet secretary admits to lying under oath - why does she still have her job:
https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2023/06/10/cabinet-secretary-admits-to-lying-under-oath-why-does-she-still-have-her-job-n557053
Illegal border crossers so far this year outnumber the population of 8 states:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_3227124e-0b78-11ee-9599-97d6d9962e84.html?a
Five Dead:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/five-dead-democrats-to-blame.php
Migrant-Smuggling "Influencers" Use TikTok To Advertise:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/migrant-smuggling-influencers-use-tiktok-advertise-illegal-border-crossing-services
Celebrate Good Times, Come On! Patriotic Boycotts Cost Woke Corporations $28 BILLION:
https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2023/06/17/celebrate-good-times-come-on-patriotic-boycotts-cost-woke-corporations-28-billion-in-market-value-n1704126
Massachusetts middle school students tear down rainbow decorations and chant their pronouns are 'U.S.A.':
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12190331/Massachusetts-students-tear-rainbow-decorations-chant-pronouns-U-S-A.html
Penn State Professor and Dog Lover Accused of Bestiality is a Longtime Liberal:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/comfirmed-penn-state-professor-accused-bestiality-is-longtime/
Politicians In Our Major Cities Have Decided The Solution To The Crime Wave:
http://endoftheamericandream.com/politicians-in-our-major-cities-have-decided-the-solution-to-the-crime-wave-is-to-help-criminals-commit-more-crimes/
Slowly?
Must be Father's Day on Sunday.
My family just asked, "So, how do you want to get this over with?"
*.*
It's a good time to not be in Texas.
With tarantula mating season being in May, it’s around now that baby Tarantulas start popping up out of their burrows. A female spider can lay as many as 1,000 eggs in a location. And get this - after a female finds a partner and mates, she often eats the father of their offspring for two reasons: added protein, which creates "larger eggs" and it gets rid of the need to worry about a Father's Day gift.
It's a win-win.
*.*
I was just having a conversation with someone who is about to buy a Mac computer. I was against it and an argument started.
I said there were too few people supporting the Mac.
He responded, "When was the last time you heard of a virus on a Mac?"
And I said, "See, even people who write viruses don't support them!"
*.*
A man went to the doctor and said: “Doctor, I keep having visions of the future.”
“When did these start?”
“Next Thursday.”
*.*
Twitter is a lot like hockey.
I only watch it for the fights.
Quote of the Times;
“A man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he fells for those around him.” – Alexis de Tocqueville
Link of the Times;
Tucker on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson
Issue of the Times;
Merrick Garland Is Slowly Defining A New Criminal Class, And Soon You’ll Be Part Of It by Michele Sosa
What do Kyle Rittenhouse, Donald Trump, Nick Sandmann, Mark Houck, Sarah Comrie (the so-called “Bike Karen”) and Daniel Penny all have in common?
All of them are victims of the “two-tiered justice system” and the leftist media court of public opinion. Conservatives often protest this double standard, understandably since none of these people committed any crime. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has effectively become a symbol for this kind of persecution in tandem with its local lackeys, criminal foot soldiers and the corporate press.
Crying about double standards or “two-tiered justice,” however, misses the point. There is no “double standard” — only a hierarchy without you in it. Their persecution of everyone from political opponents to everyday people is designed to remind you that they are the elite and you exist at their pleasure.
To enforce this new hierarchy, Garland and his allies have created a new category of criminal straight out of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917: the “political criminal.”
Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in Gulag Archipelago (pg. 505 if you’re interested) that in the early days of the USSR, thieves and murderers were often treated with kid gloves. They could be rehabilitated, the party line went, and they were often allowed to commit crime if they targeted the right people.
Not so for anyone considered a “political criminal,” either directly or by association. Those people eventually ended up in the GULAG. Now this might seem unsurprising, until you realize that the crime of opposing the state could be something as simple as having more money than your neighbor, belonging to the wrong ethnic group, being Christian or simply existing.
Such people were referred to as “terrorists.” Sound familiar when Joe Biden and the media constantly harping about “white supremacist, ultra-MAGA terrorism?” That label should terrify you.
We’ve seen how we deal with terrorism abroad. We lock them up, don’t give them any due process, or just kill them. That is what Biden and co. are implying they want for you, the political terrorist.
In the leftist mind, conservatives who oppose them are peons. Leftists and their minions are the elite (or at least above you in the social hierarchy) and can do whatever they want without consequences. As long as they serve a purpose, the party has their backs no matter how evil or depraved they are.
In practice, this relationship means that Kyle Rittenhouse was supposed to let his attackers bash his head in. They supported our corrupt system and held all the right views. Kyle Rittenhouse, regardless of his political views, was wrong for opposing them, making him an enemy of the state.
Donald Trump was supposed to roll over and surrender the presidency without a fight. His crime was opposing the Swamp. Same with Daniel Penny. Jordan Neely was part of the left’s strategy to foment chaos. He had every right to be a criminal. Penny had no right to stop his activities as far as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is concerned.
Don’t want your kids to be sexualized in schools and raped down the road? That makes you a terrorist too. You don’t even have the right to defend your own children.
As for Sarah Cowrie, even if she paid for that bike, as far as the left is concerned, she had no right to it because in the left’s twisted world, white people are always wrong – the facts be damned. And if things had gotten violent, you bet the media would have justified it all the way or covered it up.
And the list goes on, and on, and on.
Meanwhile, violent criminals get a pass every time. They are victims of society, liberals say. They can be rehabilitated if only we give a little more money to the system – usually money coming from the political enemies they persecute.
But the reality is that the criminals are coddled not because leftists love them but because they are useful. The Soviets even had a term for this – “social allies.” And for the left, every type of anti-social, child-grooming, murderous criminal is indeed an ally to knocking down the system that allows free people to flourish.
And one more thing: if leftists are trying to lock conservatives up for “terrorism” now, it won’t be long before they start trying to kill you.
News of the Times;
Owner of two of San Fran's largest hotels STOPS making payments on $725 million loan:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12165817/The-owner-San-Franciscos-two-largest-hotels-STOPS-making-payments-725-million-loan.html
Doom Loop Accelerates As Westfield Abandons Largest San Fran Mall:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/cre-doom-loop-accelerates-westfield-abandons-largest-san-fran-mall-stops-paying-558-million
US Air Force tweets image of soldier saluting the LGBTQI+ Pride flag:
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-us-air-force-tweets-image-of-soldier-saluting-the-lgbtqi-pride-flag
Man Arrested While Attempting To Read Bible Verse at Pennsylvania Pride Event:
https://resistthemainstream.com/man-arrested-while-attempting-to-read-bible-verse-at-pennsylvania-pride-event/?expand_article=1
UN Sending Home Peacekeepers Implicated in Sexual Abuse:
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2023/06/mil-230609-voa02.htm
Assisted Suicide Deaths Up 35% in Canada:
https://www.lifenews.com/2023/06/12/assisted-suicide-deaths-up-35-in-canada-as-more-than-13500-people-killed-in-2022/
Maryland Democrat declares White women should be struck down from leadership:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/maryland-democrat-declares-white-women-should-be-struck-down-from-leadership-to-dismantle-systemic-racism/ar-AA1cld0A
Ellen Page was violently punching herself in the face and hearing voices in her head:
https://notthebee.com/article/this-actress-began-violently-harming-herself-and-hearing-voices-in-her-head-a-few-weeks-later-a-doctor-approved-her-for-transgender-surgery
The US is building factories at a wildly fast rate:
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-building-factories-census-data-chips-act-inflation-reduction-act-2023-6
Biden and ATF just created 29 million felons:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/biden-and-atf-just-created-29-million-felons
WaPo out with helpful "How NOT to get carjacked in D.C." guide:
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/06/09/wapo-out-with-helpful-how-not-to-get-carjacked-in-d-c-guide-n556746
Agency lets workers individualize email signature lines, then bans Christian symbol:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/06/agency-workers-individualize-email-signature-lines-bans-christian-symbol/
U.K. Royal Navy ‘Distressed and Concerned’ by Illegal Chinese Salvage of WWII Wrecks:
https://news.usni.org/2023/05/25/u-k-royal-navy-distressed-and-concerned-by-illegal-chinese-salvage-of-wwii-wrecks
Nottingham triple murder suspect:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12193333/Nottingham-triple-murder-suspect-refuses-answer-questions.html
Federal jury awards regional Starbucks manager $25 MILLION for being fired because she is white:
https://notthebee.com/article/federal-jury-awards-white-starbucks-manager-25-million-for-being-fired-due-to-her-race
My family just asked, "So, how do you want to get this over with?"
*.*
It's a good time to not be in Texas.
With tarantula mating season being in May, it’s around now that baby Tarantulas start popping up out of their burrows. A female spider can lay as many as 1,000 eggs in a location. And get this - after a female finds a partner and mates, she often eats the father of their offspring for two reasons: added protein, which creates "larger eggs" and it gets rid of the need to worry about a Father's Day gift.
It's a win-win.
*.*
I was just having a conversation with someone who is about to buy a Mac computer. I was against it and an argument started.
I said there were too few people supporting the Mac.
He responded, "When was the last time you heard of a virus on a Mac?"
And I said, "See, even people who write viruses don't support them!"
*.*
A man went to the doctor and said: “Doctor, I keep having visions of the future.”
“When did these start?”
“Next Thursday.”
*.*
Twitter is a lot like hockey.
I only watch it for the fights.
Quote of the Times;
“A man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he fells for those around him.” – Alexis de Tocqueville
Link of the Times;
Tucker on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson
Issue of the Times;
Merrick Garland Is Slowly Defining A New Criminal Class, And Soon You’ll Be Part Of It by Michele Sosa
What do Kyle Rittenhouse, Donald Trump, Nick Sandmann, Mark Houck, Sarah Comrie (the so-called “Bike Karen”) and Daniel Penny all have in common?
All of them are victims of the “two-tiered justice system” and the leftist media court of public opinion. Conservatives often protest this double standard, understandably since none of these people committed any crime. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has effectively become a symbol for this kind of persecution in tandem with its local lackeys, criminal foot soldiers and the corporate press.
Crying about double standards or “two-tiered justice,” however, misses the point. There is no “double standard” — only a hierarchy without you in it. Their persecution of everyone from political opponents to everyday people is designed to remind you that they are the elite and you exist at their pleasure.
To enforce this new hierarchy, Garland and his allies have created a new category of criminal straight out of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917: the “political criminal.”
Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in Gulag Archipelago (pg. 505 if you’re interested) that in the early days of the USSR, thieves and murderers were often treated with kid gloves. They could be rehabilitated, the party line went, and they were often allowed to commit crime if they targeted the right people.
Not so for anyone considered a “political criminal,” either directly or by association. Those people eventually ended up in the GULAG. Now this might seem unsurprising, until you realize that the crime of opposing the state could be something as simple as having more money than your neighbor, belonging to the wrong ethnic group, being Christian or simply existing.
Such people were referred to as “terrorists.” Sound familiar when Joe Biden and the media constantly harping about “white supremacist, ultra-MAGA terrorism?” That label should terrify you.
We’ve seen how we deal with terrorism abroad. We lock them up, don’t give them any due process, or just kill them. That is what Biden and co. are implying they want for you, the political terrorist.
In the leftist mind, conservatives who oppose them are peons. Leftists and their minions are the elite (or at least above you in the social hierarchy) and can do whatever they want without consequences. As long as they serve a purpose, the party has their backs no matter how evil or depraved they are.
In practice, this relationship means that Kyle Rittenhouse was supposed to let his attackers bash his head in. They supported our corrupt system and held all the right views. Kyle Rittenhouse, regardless of his political views, was wrong for opposing them, making him an enemy of the state.
Donald Trump was supposed to roll over and surrender the presidency without a fight. His crime was opposing the Swamp. Same with Daniel Penny. Jordan Neely was part of the left’s strategy to foment chaos. He had every right to be a criminal. Penny had no right to stop his activities as far as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is concerned.
Don’t want your kids to be sexualized in schools and raped down the road? That makes you a terrorist too. You don’t even have the right to defend your own children.
As for Sarah Cowrie, even if she paid for that bike, as far as the left is concerned, she had no right to it because in the left’s twisted world, white people are always wrong – the facts be damned. And if things had gotten violent, you bet the media would have justified it all the way or covered it up.
And the list goes on, and on, and on.
Meanwhile, violent criminals get a pass every time. They are victims of society, liberals say. They can be rehabilitated if only we give a little more money to the system – usually money coming from the political enemies they persecute.
But the reality is that the criminals are coddled not because leftists love them but because they are useful. The Soviets even had a term for this – “social allies.” And for the left, every type of anti-social, child-grooming, murderous criminal is indeed an ally to knocking down the system that allows free people to flourish.
And one more thing: if leftists are trying to lock conservatives up for “terrorism” now, it won’t be long before they start trying to kill you.
News of the Times;
Owner of two of San Fran's largest hotels STOPS making payments on $725 million loan:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12165817/The-owner-San-Franciscos-two-largest-hotels-STOPS-making-payments-725-million-loan.html
Doom Loop Accelerates As Westfield Abandons Largest San Fran Mall:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/cre-doom-loop-accelerates-westfield-abandons-largest-san-fran-mall-stops-paying-558-million
US Air Force tweets image of soldier saluting the LGBTQI+ Pride flag:
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-us-air-force-tweets-image-of-soldier-saluting-the-lgbtqi-pride-flag
Man Arrested While Attempting To Read Bible Verse at Pennsylvania Pride Event:
https://resistthemainstream.com/man-arrested-while-attempting-to-read-bible-verse-at-pennsylvania-pride-event/?expand_article=1
UN Sending Home Peacekeepers Implicated in Sexual Abuse:
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2023/06/mil-230609-voa02.htm
Assisted Suicide Deaths Up 35% in Canada:
https://www.lifenews.com/2023/06/12/assisted-suicide-deaths-up-35-in-canada-as-more-than-13500-people-killed-in-2022/
Maryland Democrat declares White women should be struck down from leadership:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/maryland-democrat-declares-white-women-should-be-struck-down-from-leadership-to-dismantle-systemic-racism/ar-AA1cld0A
Ellen Page was violently punching herself in the face and hearing voices in her head:
https://notthebee.com/article/this-actress-began-violently-harming-herself-and-hearing-voices-in-her-head-a-few-weeks-later-a-doctor-approved-her-for-transgender-surgery
The US is building factories at a wildly fast rate:
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-building-factories-census-data-chips-act-inflation-reduction-act-2023-6
Biden and ATF just created 29 million felons:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/biden-and-atf-just-created-29-million-felons
WaPo out with helpful "How NOT to get carjacked in D.C." guide:
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/06/09/wapo-out-with-helpful-how-not-to-get-carjacked-in-d-c-guide-n556746
Agency lets workers individualize email signature lines, then bans Christian symbol:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/06/agency-workers-individualize-email-signature-lines-bans-christian-symbol/
U.K. Royal Navy ‘Distressed and Concerned’ by Illegal Chinese Salvage of WWII Wrecks:
https://news.usni.org/2023/05/25/u-k-royal-navy-distressed-and-concerned-by-illegal-chinese-salvage-of-wwii-wrecks
Nottingham triple murder suspect:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12193333/Nottingham-triple-murder-suspect-refuses-answer-questions.html
Federal jury awards regional Starbucks manager $25 MILLION for being fired because she is white:
https://notthebee.com/article/federal-jury-awards-white-starbucks-manager-25-million-for-being-fired-due-to-her-race
Complex?
I couldn't find a parking spot at my job this morning, so I just left.
They must have enough people.
*.*
I need to re-home a dog. It's a small terrier and tends to bark a lot.
If you're interested, let me know and I'll climb over my neighbor's fence and get it for you.
*.*
Today marked the end of an era, as the Mafia announced it was officially closing its Chicago branch due to the rising wave of violent crime in the city.
"We just can't operate under these conditions," said street boss Albert "Albie the Falcon" Vena, speaking on behalf of Salvatore "Solly D" DeLaurentis, who has run the Chicago organization since 2002. "How are we supposed to conduct respectable business — loan sharking, bribery, racketeering, illegal gambling — with so much crime going on? It's insane!"
The Windy City has long been known for its organized crime operations, dating back even before the days of Al "Scarface" Capone in the 1920s Prohibition Era. Today's mobsters now lament the difficulty they face in doing horrible things behind the scenes in the city while so many even more horrible things are being done in broad daylight. "One of our best leg-breakers got his legs broken by a gang of 40 high schoolers last week," said organization member Frank "Toots" Caruso. "They recorded it and put it on TikTok. We just don't feel safe around here. I'm afraid to just walk down the street!"
Rising crime rates have become a staple under Democrat leaders, resulting in skyrocketing numbers of violent crimes and shooting deaths, despite the city having some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. "You think we're gonna be out there working?" asked Nicholas "Jumbo" Guzzino. "Are you kidding me? I don't wanna get shot!"
*.*
Oneliners:
The fridge is a perfect example that what matters is on the inside.
You know you're over 40 when you have 'upstairs ibuprofen' and 'downstairs ibuprofen'.
People write 'Congrats' because they can't spell 'Congratjulayshun'.
Without a doubt, the cashew is my favorite nut that sounds like a sneeze.
Studies show the most expensive vehicle to operate is a Costco shopping cart.
My toxic trait: Let's see if that food that normally hurts my stomach hurts my stomach TODAY.
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life but adding more cheese than a recipe calls for is not one of them.
Loved are the ones who are told of their faults in private.
Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
Say nothing, often.
*.*
Word of the day: Exhaustipated.
Definition: Too tired to give a crap.
Quote of the Times;
“What percentage of gun crimes are committed by Republicans?” - Scott Adams
Link of the Times;
Target reaffirms partnership with LGBT group pushing explicit homosexual books in schools:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/target-reaffirms-partnership-with-lgbt-group-pushing-explicit-homosexual-books-in-classrooms/
Issue of the Times;
Complex Systems Won’t Survive the Competence Crisis by Harold Robertson
At a casual glance, the recent cascades of American disasters might seem unrelated. In a span of fewer than six months in 2017, three U.S. Naval warships experienced three separate collisions resulting in 17 deaths. A year later, powerlines owned by PG&E started a wildfire that killed 85 people. The pipeline carrying almost half of the East Coast’s gasoline shut down due to a ransomware attack. Almost half a million intermodal containers sat on cargo ships unable to dock at Los Angeles ports. A train carrying thousands of tons of hazardous and flammable chemicals derailed near East Palestine, Ohio. Air Traffic Control cleared a FedEx plane to land on a runway occupied by a Southwest plane preparing to take off. Eye drops contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria killed four and blinded fourteen.
While disasters like these are often front-page news, the broader connection between the disasters barely elicits any mention. America must be understood as a system of interwoven systems; the healthcare system sends a bill to a patient using the postal system, and that patient uses the mobile phone system to pay the bill with a credit card issued by the banking system. All these systems must be assumed to work for anyone to make even simple decisions. But the failure of one system has cascading consequences for all of the adjacent systems. As a consequence of escalating rates of failure, America’s complex systems are slowly collapsing.
The core issue is that changing political mores have established the systematic promotion of the unqualified and sidelining of the competent. This has continually weakened our society’s ability to manage modern systems. At its inception, it represented a break from the trend of the 1920s to the 1960s, when the direct meritocratic evaluation of competence became the norm across vast swaths of American society.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea that individuals should be systematically evaluated and selected based on their ability rather than wealth, class, or political connections, led to significant changes in selection techniques at all levels of American society. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) revolutionized college admissions by allowing elite universities to find and recruit talented students from beyond the boarding schools of New England. Following the adoption of the SAT, aptitude tests such as Wonderlic (1936), Graduate Record Examination (1936), Army General Classification Test (1941), and Law School Admission Test (1948) swept the United States. Spurred on by the demands of two world wars, this system of institutional management electrified the Tennessee Valley, created the first atom bomb, invented the transistor, and put a man on the moon.
By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement. During the period from 1961 to 1972, a series of Supreme Court rulings, executive orders, and laws—most critically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—put meritocracy and the new political imperative of protected-group diversity on a collision course. Administrative law judges have accepted statistically observable disparities in outcomes between groups as prima facie evidence of illegal discrimination. The result has been clear: any time meritocracy and diversity come into direct conflict, diversity must take priority.
The resulting norms have steadily eroded institutional competency, causing America’s complex systems to fail with increasing regularity. In the language of a systems theorist, by decreasing the competency of the actors within the system, formerly stable systems have begun to experience normal accidents at a rate that is faster than the system can adapt. The prognosis is harsh but clear: either selection for competence will return or America will experience devolution to more primitive forms of civilization and loss of geopolitical power.
From Meritocracy to Diversity
The first domino to fall as Civil Rights-era policies took effect was the quantitative evaluation of competency by employers using straightforward cognitive batteries. While some tests are still legally used in hiring today, several high-profile enforcement actions against employers caused a wholesale change in the tools customarily usable by employers to screen for ability.
After the early 1970s, employers responded by shifting from directly testing for ability to using the next best thing: a degree from a highly-selective university. By pushing the selection challenge to the college admissions offices, selective employers did two things: they reduced their risk of lawsuits and they turned the U.S. college application process into a high-stakes war of all against all. Admission to Harvard would be a golden ticket to join the professional managerial class, while mere admission to a state school could mean a struggle to remain in the middle class.
This outsourcing did not stave off the ideological change for long. Within the system of political imperatives now dominant in all major U.S. organizations, diversity must be prioritized even if there is a price in competency. The definition of diversity varies by industry and geography. In elite universities, diversity means black, indigenous, or Hispanic. In California, Indian women are diverse but Indian men are not. When selecting corporate board members, diversity means “anyone who is not a straight white man.” The legally protected and politically enforced nature of this imperative renders an open dialogue nearly impossible.
However diversity itself is defined, most policy on the matter is based on a simple premise: since all groups are identical in talent, any unbiased process must produce the same group proportions as the general population, and therefore, processes that produce disproportionate outcomes must be biased. Prestigious journals like Harvard Business Review are the first to summarize and parrot these views, which then flow down to reporting by mass media organizations like Bloomberg Businessweek. Soon, it joins McKinsey’s “best practices” list and becomes instantiated in corporate policies.
Unlike accounting policies, which emanate from the Financial Accounting Standards Board and are then implemented by Chief Financial Officers, the diversity push emanates inside of organizations from multiple power centers, each of which joins in for independent reasons. CEOs push diversity policies primarily to please board members and increase their status. Human Resources (HR) professionals push diversity policies primarily to avoid anti-discrimination lawsuits. Business development teams push diversity to win additional business from diversity-sensitive clients (e.g. government agencies). Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), such as the Black Googler Network, push diversity to help their in-group in hiring and promotion decisions.
Diversity in Theory and Practice
In police academies around the country, new recruits are taught to apply an escalation of force algorithm with non-compliant subjects: “Ask, Tell, Make.” The idea behind “Ask, Tell, Make” is to apply the least amount of force necessary to achieve the desired level of compliance. This is the means by which police power, which is ultimately backed by significant coercive force, can maintain an appearance of voluntary compliance and soft-handedness. Similarly, the power centers inside U.S. institutions apply a variant of “Ask, Tell, Make” to achieve diversity in their respective organizations.
The first tactics for implementing diversity imperatives are the “Ask” tactics. These simply ask all the members of the organization to end bias. At this stage, the policies seem so reasonable and fair that there will rarely be much pushback. Best practices such as slating guidelines are a common tool at this stage. Slating guidelines require that every hiring process must include a certain number and type of diverse candidates for every job opening. Structured interviews are another best practice that requires interviewers to stick with a script to minimize the chance of uncovering commonalities between the interviewer and interviewee that might introduce bias. Often HR will become involved in the hiring process, specifically asking the hiring manager to defend their choice not to hire a diverse candidate. Because the wrong answer could result in shaming, loss of advancement opportunities, or even termination, the hiring manager can often be persuaded to prioritize diversity over competence.
Within specialized professional services companies, senior-level recruiting will occasionally result in a resume collection where not a single diverse candidate meets the minimum specifications of the job. This is a terrible outcome for the hiring manager as it attracts negative attention from HR. At this point, firms will often retain an executive search agency that focuses on exclusively diverse candidates. When that does not result in sufficient diversity, roles will often have their requirements diluted to increase the pool of diverse candidates.
For example, within hedge funds, the ideal entry-level candidate might be an experienced former investment banker who went to a top MBA program. This preferred pedigree sets a minimum bar for both competence and work ethic. This first-pass filter enormously winnows the field of underrepresented candidates. To relax requirements for diversity’s sake, this will be diluted in various ways. First, the work experience might be stripped. Next, the role gets offered to MBA interns. Finally, fresh undergraduates are hired into the analyst role. Dilution works not just because of the larger field of candidates it allows for but also because the Harvard Admission Office of 2019 is even more focused on certain kinds of diversity than the Harvard Admission Office of 2011 was.
This dilution is not costless; fewer data points result in a wider range of outcomes and increase the risk of a bad hire. All bad hires are costly but bad hires that are diverse are even worse. The risk of a wrongful termination lawsuit either draws out the termination process for diverse hires or results in the firm adjusting by giving them harmless busy work until they leave of their own volition—either way, a terrible outcome for the organizations which hired them.
If these “Ask” tactics do not achieve enough diversity, the next step in the escalation is to attach carrots and sticks to directly tell decision-makers to increase the diversity of the organization. This is the point at which the goals of diversity and competence truly begin displaying significant tension between each other. The first step is the implementation of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) linked to diversity for all managers. Diversity KPIs are a tool to embarrass leaders and teams that are not meeting their diversity targets. Given that most organizations are hierarchical and pyramidal, combined with the fact that America was much whiter 50 years ago than it was today, it is unsurprising that senior leadership teams are less diverse than America as a whole—and, more pertinently, than their own junior teams.
The combination of a pyramid-shaped org chart and a senior leadership team where white men often make up 80 percent or more of the team means that the imposition of an aggressive KPI sends a message to the layer below them: no white man in middle management will likely ever see a promotion as long as they remain in the organization. This is never expressed verbally. Rather, those overlooked figure it out as they are passed over continually for less competent but more diverse colleagues. The result is demoralization, disengagement, and over time, departure.
While all the aforementioned techniques fall into the broad category of affirmative action, they primarily result in slightly tilting the scale toward diverse candidates. The next step is simply holding different groups to different standards. Within academia, the recently filed Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College lawsuit leveraged data to show the extent to which Harvard penalizes Asian and white applicants to help black and Hispanic applicants. The UC System, despite formally being forbidden from practicing affirmative action by Proposition 209, uses a tool called “comprehensive admission” to accomplish the same goal.
The latest technique, which was recently brought to light, shows UC admissions offices using the applicants’ high schools as a proxy for race to achieve their desired goal. Heavily Asian high schools such as Arcadia—which is 68 percent Asian—saw their UC-San Diego acceptance rate cut from 37 percent to 13 percent while the 99-percent-Hispanic Garfield High School saw its UC-San Diego acceptance rate rise from 29 percent to 65 percent.
The preference for diversity at the college faculty level is similarly strong. Jessica Nordell’s End of Bias: A Beginning heralded MIT’s efforts to increase the gender diversity of its engineering department: “When applications came in, the Dean of Engineering personally reviewed every one from a woman. If departments turned down a good candidate, they had to explain why.”
When this was not enough, MIT increased its gender diversity by simply offering jobs to previously rejected female candidates. While no university will admit to letting standards slip for the sake of diversity, no one has offered a serious argument why the new processes produce higher or even equivalent quality faculty as opposed to simply more diverse faculty. The extreme preference for diversity in academia today explains much of the phenomenon of professors identifying with a minor fraction of their ancestry or even making it up entirely.
During COVID-19, the difficulty of in-person testing and online proctoring created a new mechanism to push diversity at the expense of competency: the gradual but systematic elimination of standardized tests as a barrier to admission to universities and graduate schools. Today, the majority of U.S. colleges have either stopped requiring SAT/ACT scores, no longer require them for students in the top 10 percent of their class, or will no longer consider them. Several elite law schools, including Harvard Law School, no longer require the LSAT as of 2023. With thousands of unqualified law students headed to a bar exam that they are unlikely to pass, the National Conference of Bar Examiners is already planning to dilute the bar exam under the “NextGen” plan. Specifically, “eliminat[ing] any aspects of our exams that could contribute to performance disparities” will almost definitionally reduce the degree to which the exam tests for competency.
Similarly, standards used to select doctors have also been weakened to promote diversity. Programs such as the City College of New York’s BS/MD program have eliminated the MCAT requirement. With the SAT now optional, new candidates can go straight from high school to the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 exam in medical school without having gone through any rigorous standardized test whose score can be compared across schools. Step 1 scores were historically the most significant factor in the National Residency Matching Program, which pairs soon-to-be doctors with their future residency training programs. Because Step 1 scores serve as a barrier to increasing diversity, they have been made pass/fail. A handful of doctors are speaking out about the dangers of picking doctors based on factors other than competency but most either explicitly prefer diversity or else stay silent, concerned about the career-ending repercussions of pointing out the obvious.
When even carrot and stick incentives and the removal of standards do not achieve enough diversity, the end game is to simply make decision-makers comply. “Make” has two preferred implementations: one is widely discussed and the other is, for obvious reasons, never disclosed publicly. The first method of implementation is the application of quotas. Quotas or set-asides require the reservation of admissions slots, jobs, contracts, board seats, or other scarce goods for women and members of favored minority groups. Government contracts and supplier agreements are explicitly awarded to firms that have acronyms such as SB, WBE, MBE, DBE, SDB, VOSB, SDVOSB, WOSB, HUB, and 8(a).
Within large employers and government contractors, quotas are used for both hiring and promotions, requiring specific percentages of hiring or promotions to be reserved for favored groups. During the summer of 2020, the CEO of Wells Fargo, was publicly shamed after his memo blaming the underrepresentation of black senior leaders on a “very limited pool” of black talent was leaked to Reuters. Less than a month later, the bank publicly pledged to reserve 12 percent of leadership positions for black candidates and began tying executive compensation to reaching diversity goals. In 2022, Goldman Sachs extended quotas to the capital markets by adopting a policy to avoid underwriting IPOs of firms without at least two board members that are not straight white men.
When diversity still refuses to rise to acceptable levels, the remaining solution is the direct exclusion of non-diverse candidates. While public support for anti-discrimination laws and equal opportunity laws is high, public support for affirmative action and quotas is decidedly mixed. Hardline views such as those expressed in author Ijeoma Oluo’s Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America—namely that “any white man in a position of power perpetuates a system of white male domination”—are still considered extreme, even within U.S. progressive circles.
As such, when explicit exclusion is used to eliminate groups like white men from selection processes, it is done subtly. Managers are told to sequester all the resumes from “non-diverse” candidates—that is, white males. These resumes are discarded and the candidates are sent emails politely telling them that “other candidates were a better fit.” While some so-called “reverse discrimination” lawsuits have been filed, most of these policies go unreported. The reasons are straightforward; even in 2023, screening out all white men is not de jure legal. Moreover, any member of the professional managerial class who witnesses and reports discrimination against white men will never work in their field again.
Even anonymous whistleblowing is likely to be rare. To imagine why, suppose incontrovertible evidence was produced that one’s employer was explicitly excluding white male candidates, and a lawsuit was filed. The employer’s reputation and the reputation of all the employees there, including the white men still working there, would be tarnished. That said, we can expect to see more lawsuits from men who feel they have little to lose.
This “Ask, Tell, Make” framework, under various descriptions, is the method by which individuals with a vested interest in more diversity push their organizations toward their preferred outcome. Force begins requesting modest changes to recruiting to make it “more fair.” Force ends with the heavy-handed application of quotas and even exclusion. The American system is not a monolith, however, which means that the strength of the push and its effects on competency is not distributed evenly.
Competency Is Declining From the Core Outwards
Think of the American system as a series of concentric rings with the government at the center. Directly surrounding that are the organizations that receive government funds, then the nonprofits that influence and are subject to policy, and finally business at the periphery. Since the era of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race, the state capacity of the federal government has been declining almost monotonically.
While this has occurred for a multitude of reasons, the steel girders supporting the competency of the federal government were the first to be exposed to the saltwater of the Civil Rights Act and related executive orders. Government agencies, which are in charge of overseeing all the other systems, have seen the quality of their human capital decline tremendously since the 1960s. While the damage to an agency like the Department of Agriculture may have long-term deadly consequences, the most immediate danger is at safety-critical agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The Air Traffic Control (ATC) system used in the U.S. relies on an intricate dance of visual or radar observation, transponders, and radio communication, all with the incredible challenge of keeping thousands of simultaneously moving planes from ever crashing into each other. Since air controlling is one of the only jobs that pays more than $100,000 per year and does not require a college diploma, it has been a popular career choice for individuals without a degree who nonetheless have an exceptionally good memory, attention span, visuospatial awareness, and logical skills. The Air Traffic Selection and Training (AT-SAT) Exam, a standardized test of those critical skills, was historically the primary barrier to entry for air controllers. As a consequence of the AT-SAT, as well as a preference for veterans with former air controller experience, 83 percent of air controllers in the U.S. were white men as of 2014.
That year, the FAA added a Biographical Questionnaire (BQ) to the screening process to tilt the applicant pool toward diverse candidates. Facing pushback in the courts from well-qualified candidates who were screened out, the FAA quietly backed away from the BQ and adopted a new exam, the Air Traffic Skills Assessment (ATSA). While the ATSA includes some questions similar to those of the BQ, it restored the test’s focus on core air traffic skills. The importance of highly-skilled air controllers was made clear in the most deadly air disaster in history, the 1977 Tenerife incident. Two planes, one taking off and one taxiing, collided on the runway due to confusion between the captain of KLM 4805 and the Tenerife ATC. The crash, which killed 583 people, resulted in sweeping changes in aviation safety culture.
Recently, the tremendous U.S. record for air safety established since the 1970s has been fraying at the edges. The first three months of 2023 saw nine near-miss incidents at U.S. airports, one with two planes coming within 100 feet of colliding. This terrifying uptick from years prior resulted in the FAA and NTSB convening safety summits in March and May, respectively. Whether they dared to discuss root causes seems unlikely.
Given the sheer size of the U.S. military in both manpower and budget dollars, it should not come as a surprise that the diversity push has also affected the readiness of this institution. Following three completely avoidable collisions of U.S. Navy warships in 2017 and a fire in 2020 that resulted in the scuttling of USS Bonhomme Richard, a $750 million amphibious assault craft, two retired marines conducted off-the-record interviews with 77 current and retired Navy officers. One recurring theme was the prioritization of diversity training over ship handling and warfighting preparedness. Many of them openly admit that, given current issues, the U.S. would likely lose an open naval engagement with China. Instead of taking the criticism to heart, the Navy commissioned “Task Force One Navy,” which recommended deemphasizing or eliminating meritocratic tests like the Officer Aptitude Rating to boost diversity. Absent an existential challenge, U.S. military preparedness is likely to continue to degrade.
The decline in the capacity of government contractors is likewise obvious, with the largest contractors being the most directly impacted. The five largest contractors—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon Company, and Northrop Grumman—will all struggle to maintain competency in the coming years.
Boeing, one of only two firms globally capable of mass-producing large airliners, has a particularly striking crisis unfolding in its institutional culture. Shortly after releasing the 737 MAX, 346 people died in two nearly identical 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The cause of the crashes was a complex interaction between design choices, cost-cutting led by MBAs, FAA issues, the MCAS flight-control system, a faulty sensor, and pilot training. Meanwhile, on the defense side of the business, Boeing’s new fuel tanker, the KC-46A Pegasus is years behind on deliveries due to serious technical flaws with the fueling system along with multiple cases of Foreign Object Debris left inside the plane during construction: tools, a red plastic cap, and in one case, even trash. Between the issues at ATC and Boeing, damage to the U.S.’s phenomenal aviation safety record seems almost inevitable.
After government contractors, the next-most-affected class of institutions are nonprofit organizations. They are entrapped by the government whose policies they are subject to and trying to influence, the opinions of their donor base, and lack of any profit motive. The lifeblood of nonprofits is access to capital, either directly in the form of government grants or through donations that are deemed tax-deductible. Accessing federal monies means being subject to the full weight of U.S. diversity rules and regulations. Nonprofits are generally governed by boards whose members tend to overlap with the list of major donors. Because advocacy for diversity and board memberships are both high-status positions, unsurprisingly board members tend to voice favorable opinions of diversity, and those opinions flow downstream to the organizations they oversee.
Nonprofits—including universities, charities, and foundations—exist in an overlapping ecosystem with journalism, with individuals tending to freely circulate between the four. The activities of nonprofits are bound up in the same discourses shaped by current news and academic research, with all four reflecting the same general ideological consensus. Finally, lacking the profit motive, the decision-making processes of nonprofits are influenced by what will affect the status of the individuals within those organizations rather than what will affect profits. Within nonprofits, the cost of incompetent staffers is borne by “stakeholders,” rather than any one individual.
While all businesses subject to federal law must prioritize diversity over competency at some level, the problem is worse at publicly-traded corporations for reasons both obvious and subtle. The obvious reason is that larger companies present larger targets for EEOC actions and discrimination lawsuits with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. Corporations have logically responded by hiring large teams of HR professionals to preempt such lawsuits. Over the past several decades, HR has evolved from simply overseeing onboarding to involvement in every aspect of hiring, promotions, and firings, seeing them all through a political and regulatory lens.
The more subtle reason for pressure within publicly-traded companies is that they require ongoing relationships with a spiderweb of banks, credit ratings agencies, proxy advisory services, and most importantly, investors. Given that the loss of access to capital is an immediate death sentence for most businesses, the CEOs of publicly-traded companies tend to push diversity over competency even when the decline in firm performance is clear. CEOs would likely rather trade a small drag on profits margins than a potentially career-ending scandal from pushing back.
Whereas publicly-traded corporations nearly uniformly push diversity, privately-held businesses vary tremendously based on the views of their owners. Partnerships such as the Big Four accounting firms and top-tier management consultancies are high-status. High-status firms must regularly proclaim extensive support for diversity. While the firms tend to be highly selective, partnerships whose leadership is overwhelmingly white and male have generally capitulated to the zeitgeist and are cutting standards to hit targets. Firms often manage around this by hiring for diversity and then putting diversity hires into roles where they are the least likely to damage the firm or the brand. Somewhat counterintuitively, firms with diverse founders are often highly meritocratic, as the structure harnesses the founder’s desire to make money and shields them from criticism on diversity issues.
The most notable example of a diverse meritocracy is Vista Equity Partners, the large private equity firm founded by Robert F. Smith, America’s wealthiest black man. Robert F. Smith is one of the most vocal advocates for and philanthropists to historically black U.S. colleges and universities. It would be reasonable to expect Vista to prioritize diversity over competency in its portfolio companies. However, Vista has instead been profiled for giving all portfolio company management teams the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test and ruthlessly culling low-performers. Given the amount of value to be created by promoting the best people into leadership roles of their portfolio companies, one might imagine this to be low-hanging fruit for the rest of private equity, yet Vista is an outlier. Why Vista can apply the CCAT without a public outcry is obvious.
The other firms that tend to still focus on competency are those that are small and private. Such firms have two key advantages: they fall below the fifteen-employee threshold for the most onerous EEOC rules and the owner can usually directly observe the performance of everyone inside the organization. Within small firms, underperformance is usually obvious. Tech startups, being both small and private, would seem to have the right structure to prioritize competency.
The American System Is Cracking
Promoting diversity over competency does not simply affect new hires and promotion decisions. It also affects the people already working inside of America’s systems. Morale and competency inside U.S. organizations are declining. Those who understand that the new system makes it hard or impossible for them to advance are demoralized, affecting their performance. Even individuals poised to benefit from diversity preferences notice that better people are being passed over and the average quality of their team is declining. High performers want to be on a high-performing team. When the priorities of their organizations shift away from performance, high performers respond negatively.
This effect was likely seen in a recent paper by McDonald, Keeves, and Westphal. The paper points out that white male senior leaders reduce their engagement following the appointment of a minority CEO. While it is possible that author Ijeoma Oluo is correct, and that white men have so much unconscious bias raging inside of them that the appointment of a diverse CEO sends them into a tailspin of resentment, there is another more plausible explanation. When boards choose diverse CEOs to make a political statement, high performers who see an organization shifting away from valuing honest performance respond by disengaging.
Some demoralized employees—like James Damore in his now-famous essay, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber”—will directly push back against pro-diversity arguments. Like James, they will be fired. Older, demoralized workers, especially those who are mere years from retirement, are unlikely to point out the decline in competency and risk it costing them their jobs. Those who have a large enough nest egg may simply retire to avoid having to deal with the indignity of having to attend another Inclusive Leadership seminar.
As older men with tacit knowledge either retire or are pushed out, the burden of maintaining America’s complex systems will fall on the young. Lower-performing young men angry at the toxic mix of affirmative action (hurting their chances of admission to a “good school”) and credentialism (limiting the “good jobs” to graduates of “good schools”) are turning their backs on college and white-collar work altogether.
This is the continuation of a trend that began over a decade ago. High-performing young men will either collaborate, coast, or downshift by leaving high-status employment altogether. Collaborators will embrace “allyship” to attempt to bolster their chances of getting promoted. Coasters realize that they need to work just slightly harder than the worst individual on their team. Their shirking is likely to go unnoticed and they are unlikely to feel enough emotional connection to the organization to raise alarm when critical mistakes are being made. The combination of new employees hired for diversity, not competence, and the declining engagement of the highly competent sets the stage for failures of increasing frequency and magnitude.
The modern U.S. is a system of systems interacting together in intricate ways. All these complex systems are simply assumed to work. In February of 2021, cold weather in Texas caused shutdowns at unwinterized natural gas power plants. The failure rippled through the systems with interlocking dependencies. As a result, 246 people died. In straightforward work, declining competency means that things happen more slowly, and products are lower quality or more expensive. In complex systems, declining competency results in catastrophic failures.
To understand why, one must understand the concept of a “normal accident.” In 1984, Charles Perrow, a Yale sociologist, published the book, Normal Accidents: Living With High-Risk Technologies. In this book, Perrow lays out the theory of normal accidents: when you have systems that are both complex and tightly coupled, catastrophic failures are unavoidable and cannot simply be designed around. In this context, a complex system is one that has many components that all need to interact in a specified way to produce the desired outcome. Complex systems often have relationships that are nonlinear and contain feedback loops. Tightly-coupled systems are those whose components need to move together precisely or in a precise sequence.
The 1979 Three Mile Island Accident was used as a case study: a relatively minor blockage of a water filter led to a cascading series of malfunctions that culminated in a partial meltdown. In A Demon of Our Own Design, author Richard Bookstaber added two key contributions to Perrow’s theory: first, that it applies to financial markets, and second, that regulation intended to fix the problem may make it worse.
The biggest shortcoming of the theory is that it takes competency as a given. The idea that competent organizations can devolve to a level where the risk of normal accidents becomes unacceptably high is barely addressed. In other words, rather than being taken as absolutes, complexity and tightness should be understood to be relative to the functionality of the people and systems that are managing them. The U.S. has embraced a novel question: what happens when the men who built the complex systems our society relies on cease contributing and are replaced by people who were chosen for reasons other than competency?
The answer is clear: catastrophic normal accidents will happen with increasing regularity. While each failure is officially seen as a separate issue to be fixed with small patches, the reality is that the whole system is seeing failures at an accelerating rate, which will lead in turn to the failure of other systems. In the case of the Camp Fire that killed 85 people, PG&E fired its CEO, filed Chapter 11, and restructured. The system’s response has been to turn off the electricity and raise wildfire insurance premiums. This has resulted in very little reflection. The more recent coronavirus pandemic was another teachable moment. What started just three years ago with a novel respiratory virus has caused a financial crisis, a bubble, soaring inflation, and now a banking crisis in rapid succession.
Patching the specific failure mode is simultaneously too slow and induces unexpected consequences. Cascading failures overwhelm the capabilities of the system to react. 20 years ago, a software bug caused a poorly-managed local outage that led to a blackout that knocked out power to 55 million people and caused 100 deaths. Utilities were able to restore power to all 55 million people in only four days. It is unclear if they could do the same today. U.S. cities would look very different if they remained without power for even two weeks, especially if other obstructions unfolded. What if emergency supplies sat on trains immobilized by fuel shortages due to the aforementioned pipeline shutdown? The preference for diversity over competency has made our system of systems dangerously fragile.
Americans living today are the inheritors of systems that created the highest standard of living in human history. Rather than protecting the competency that made those systems possible, the modern preference for diversity has attenuated meritocratic evaluation at all levels of American society. Given the damage already done to competence and morale combined with the natural exodus of baby boomers with decades worth of tacit knowledge, the biggest challenge of the coming decades might simply be maintaining the systems we have today.
The path of least resistance will be the devolution of complex systems and the reduction in the quality of life that entails. For the typical resident in a second-tier city in Mexico, Brazil, or South Africa, power outages are not uncommon, tap water is probably not safe to drink, and hospital-associated infections are common and often fatal. Absent a step change in the quality of American governance and a renewed culture of excellence, they prefigure the country’s future.
News of the Times;
Stanford University and UMass Researchers Uncover Disturbing Pedo Network on Instagram:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/stanford-university-umass-researchers-uncover-disturbing-pedophle-network/
Leaked Video Shows D.C. Cops Were 'Rioters' and Instigators at J-6 Protest:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/06/09/leaked-video-shows-d-c-cops-were-rioters-and-instigators-at-j-6-protest-n1701634
Nearly 30% of people under 30 support government surveillance cameras in every home:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/nearly-30-of-people-under-30-support-government-surveillance-cameras-in-every-home-poll/
76 percent of Princeton students say it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/76-percent-of-princeton-students-say-its-acceptable-to-shout-down-a-speaker-survey/
San Francisco Homeowners Lose $260 Billion In Value:
https://www.hoover.org/research/san-francisco-homeowners-lose-260-billion-value
Solar panels - an eco-disaster waiting to happen:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65602519.amp
America Signs Global Climate Agreement to Crack Down on Farming:
https://slaynews.com/news/america-signs-global-climate-agreement-crack-down-farming/
Target circulates memo that claims those who don’t support trans mutilations of children are “extremists”:
https://dcdirtylaundry.com/target-circulates-memo-that-claims-those-who-dont-support-trans-mutilations-of-children-are-extremists/
American Icon KitchenAid Pulls Its Products From Target: “We Have Different Values”:
https://breakingnewspapers.com/index.php/2023/06/09/american-icon-kitchenaid-pulls-its-products-from-target-we-have-different-values/
Vermont school district settles with family punished for opposing male student in girls’ locker room:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/family-punished-after-opposing-locker-room-policy-settles-lawsuit.html
Feds spent over $1.3 billion in Russia, China on controversial projects:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_a1444bb6-03c5-11ee-93ab-c73ba17b7f10.html
Thank the green-energy cult for major blackouts this summer:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/05/thank-the-green-energy-cult-for-major-blackouts-this-summer/
Woman Accused Of Dismembering, Grilling Remains Of Her Mother:
https://newsradio1290wtks.iheart.com/content/2023-06-06-woman-accused-of-dismembering-grilling-remains-of-her-mother/
"We Are Not Alone": US Has Retrieved Craft Of 'Non-Human Origin' Says Whistleblower From Govt. Task Force On UFOs:
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/we-are-not-alone-us-has-retrieved-craft-non-human-origin-says-whistleblower-govt-task
Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn Burns the Climate Change Argument to the Ground:
https://thelibertydaily.com/astrophysicist-piers-corbyn-burns-the-climate-change-argument-to-the-ground/
They must have enough people.
*.*
I need to re-home a dog. It's a small terrier and tends to bark a lot.
If you're interested, let me know and I'll climb over my neighbor's fence and get it for you.
*.*
Today marked the end of an era, as the Mafia announced it was officially closing its Chicago branch due to the rising wave of violent crime in the city.
"We just can't operate under these conditions," said street boss Albert "Albie the Falcon" Vena, speaking on behalf of Salvatore "Solly D" DeLaurentis, who has run the Chicago organization since 2002. "How are we supposed to conduct respectable business — loan sharking, bribery, racketeering, illegal gambling — with so much crime going on? It's insane!"
The Windy City has long been known for its organized crime operations, dating back even before the days of Al "Scarface" Capone in the 1920s Prohibition Era. Today's mobsters now lament the difficulty they face in doing horrible things behind the scenes in the city while so many even more horrible things are being done in broad daylight. "One of our best leg-breakers got his legs broken by a gang of 40 high schoolers last week," said organization member Frank "Toots" Caruso. "They recorded it and put it on TikTok. We just don't feel safe around here. I'm afraid to just walk down the street!"
Rising crime rates have become a staple under Democrat leaders, resulting in skyrocketing numbers of violent crimes and shooting deaths, despite the city having some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. "You think we're gonna be out there working?" asked Nicholas "Jumbo" Guzzino. "Are you kidding me? I don't wanna get shot!"
*.*
Oneliners:
The fridge is a perfect example that what matters is on the inside.
You know you're over 40 when you have 'upstairs ibuprofen' and 'downstairs ibuprofen'.
People write 'Congrats' because they can't spell 'Congratjulayshun'.
Without a doubt, the cashew is my favorite nut that sounds like a sneeze.
Studies show the most expensive vehicle to operate is a Costco shopping cart.
My toxic trait: Let's see if that food that normally hurts my stomach hurts my stomach TODAY.
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life but adding more cheese than a recipe calls for is not one of them.
Loved are the ones who are told of their faults in private.
Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
Say nothing, often.
*.*
Word of the day: Exhaustipated.
Definition: Too tired to give a crap.
Quote of the Times;
“What percentage of gun crimes are committed by Republicans?” - Scott Adams
Link of the Times;
Target reaffirms partnership with LGBT group pushing explicit homosexual books in schools:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/target-reaffirms-partnership-with-lgbt-group-pushing-explicit-homosexual-books-in-classrooms/
Issue of the Times;
Complex Systems Won’t Survive the Competence Crisis by Harold Robertson
At a casual glance, the recent cascades of American disasters might seem unrelated. In a span of fewer than six months in 2017, three U.S. Naval warships experienced three separate collisions resulting in 17 deaths. A year later, powerlines owned by PG&E started a wildfire that killed 85 people. The pipeline carrying almost half of the East Coast’s gasoline shut down due to a ransomware attack. Almost half a million intermodal containers sat on cargo ships unable to dock at Los Angeles ports. A train carrying thousands of tons of hazardous and flammable chemicals derailed near East Palestine, Ohio. Air Traffic Control cleared a FedEx plane to land on a runway occupied by a Southwest plane preparing to take off. Eye drops contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria killed four and blinded fourteen.
While disasters like these are often front-page news, the broader connection between the disasters barely elicits any mention. America must be understood as a system of interwoven systems; the healthcare system sends a bill to a patient using the postal system, and that patient uses the mobile phone system to pay the bill with a credit card issued by the banking system. All these systems must be assumed to work for anyone to make even simple decisions. But the failure of one system has cascading consequences for all of the adjacent systems. As a consequence of escalating rates of failure, America’s complex systems are slowly collapsing.
The core issue is that changing political mores have established the systematic promotion of the unqualified and sidelining of the competent. This has continually weakened our society’s ability to manage modern systems. At its inception, it represented a break from the trend of the 1920s to the 1960s, when the direct meritocratic evaluation of competence became the norm across vast swaths of American society.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea that individuals should be systematically evaluated and selected based on their ability rather than wealth, class, or political connections, led to significant changes in selection techniques at all levels of American society. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) revolutionized college admissions by allowing elite universities to find and recruit talented students from beyond the boarding schools of New England. Following the adoption of the SAT, aptitude tests such as Wonderlic (1936), Graduate Record Examination (1936), Army General Classification Test (1941), and Law School Admission Test (1948) swept the United States. Spurred on by the demands of two world wars, this system of institutional management electrified the Tennessee Valley, created the first atom bomb, invented the transistor, and put a man on the moon.
By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement. During the period from 1961 to 1972, a series of Supreme Court rulings, executive orders, and laws—most critically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—put meritocracy and the new political imperative of protected-group diversity on a collision course. Administrative law judges have accepted statistically observable disparities in outcomes between groups as prima facie evidence of illegal discrimination. The result has been clear: any time meritocracy and diversity come into direct conflict, diversity must take priority.
The resulting norms have steadily eroded institutional competency, causing America’s complex systems to fail with increasing regularity. In the language of a systems theorist, by decreasing the competency of the actors within the system, formerly stable systems have begun to experience normal accidents at a rate that is faster than the system can adapt. The prognosis is harsh but clear: either selection for competence will return or America will experience devolution to more primitive forms of civilization and loss of geopolitical power.
From Meritocracy to Diversity
The first domino to fall as Civil Rights-era policies took effect was the quantitative evaluation of competency by employers using straightforward cognitive batteries. While some tests are still legally used in hiring today, several high-profile enforcement actions against employers caused a wholesale change in the tools customarily usable by employers to screen for ability.
After the early 1970s, employers responded by shifting from directly testing for ability to using the next best thing: a degree from a highly-selective university. By pushing the selection challenge to the college admissions offices, selective employers did two things: they reduced their risk of lawsuits and they turned the U.S. college application process into a high-stakes war of all against all. Admission to Harvard would be a golden ticket to join the professional managerial class, while mere admission to a state school could mean a struggle to remain in the middle class.
This outsourcing did not stave off the ideological change for long. Within the system of political imperatives now dominant in all major U.S. organizations, diversity must be prioritized even if there is a price in competency. The definition of diversity varies by industry and geography. In elite universities, diversity means black, indigenous, or Hispanic. In California, Indian women are diverse but Indian men are not. When selecting corporate board members, diversity means “anyone who is not a straight white man.” The legally protected and politically enforced nature of this imperative renders an open dialogue nearly impossible.
However diversity itself is defined, most policy on the matter is based on a simple premise: since all groups are identical in talent, any unbiased process must produce the same group proportions as the general population, and therefore, processes that produce disproportionate outcomes must be biased. Prestigious journals like Harvard Business Review are the first to summarize and parrot these views, which then flow down to reporting by mass media organizations like Bloomberg Businessweek. Soon, it joins McKinsey’s “best practices” list and becomes instantiated in corporate policies.
Unlike accounting policies, which emanate from the Financial Accounting Standards Board and are then implemented by Chief Financial Officers, the diversity push emanates inside of organizations from multiple power centers, each of which joins in for independent reasons. CEOs push diversity policies primarily to please board members and increase their status. Human Resources (HR) professionals push diversity policies primarily to avoid anti-discrimination lawsuits. Business development teams push diversity to win additional business from diversity-sensitive clients (e.g. government agencies). Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), such as the Black Googler Network, push diversity to help their in-group in hiring and promotion decisions.
Diversity in Theory and Practice
In police academies around the country, new recruits are taught to apply an escalation of force algorithm with non-compliant subjects: “Ask, Tell, Make.” The idea behind “Ask, Tell, Make” is to apply the least amount of force necessary to achieve the desired level of compliance. This is the means by which police power, which is ultimately backed by significant coercive force, can maintain an appearance of voluntary compliance and soft-handedness. Similarly, the power centers inside U.S. institutions apply a variant of “Ask, Tell, Make” to achieve diversity in their respective organizations.
The first tactics for implementing diversity imperatives are the “Ask” tactics. These simply ask all the members of the organization to end bias. At this stage, the policies seem so reasonable and fair that there will rarely be much pushback. Best practices such as slating guidelines are a common tool at this stage. Slating guidelines require that every hiring process must include a certain number and type of diverse candidates for every job opening. Structured interviews are another best practice that requires interviewers to stick with a script to minimize the chance of uncovering commonalities between the interviewer and interviewee that might introduce bias. Often HR will become involved in the hiring process, specifically asking the hiring manager to defend their choice not to hire a diverse candidate. Because the wrong answer could result in shaming, loss of advancement opportunities, or even termination, the hiring manager can often be persuaded to prioritize diversity over competence.
Within specialized professional services companies, senior-level recruiting will occasionally result in a resume collection where not a single diverse candidate meets the minimum specifications of the job. This is a terrible outcome for the hiring manager as it attracts negative attention from HR. At this point, firms will often retain an executive search agency that focuses on exclusively diverse candidates. When that does not result in sufficient diversity, roles will often have their requirements diluted to increase the pool of diverse candidates.
For example, within hedge funds, the ideal entry-level candidate might be an experienced former investment banker who went to a top MBA program. This preferred pedigree sets a minimum bar for both competence and work ethic. This first-pass filter enormously winnows the field of underrepresented candidates. To relax requirements for diversity’s sake, this will be diluted in various ways. First, the work experience might be stripped. Next, the role gets offered to MBA interns. Finally, fresh undergraduates are hired into the analyst role. Dilution works not just because of the larger field of candidates it allows for but also because the Harvard Admission Office of 2019 is even more focused on certain kinds of diversity than the Harvard Admission Office of 2011 was.
This dilution is not costless; fewer data points result in a wider range of outcomes and increase the risk of a bad hire. All bad hires are costly but bad hires that are diverse are even worse. The risk of a wrongful termination lawsuit either draws out the termination process for diverse hires or results in the firm adjusting by giving them harmless busy work until they leave of their own volition—either way, a terrible outcome for the organizations which hired them.
If these “Ask” tactics do not achieve enough diversity, the next step in the escalation is to attach carrots and sticks to directly tell decision-makers to increase the diversity of the organization. This is the point at which the goals of diversity and competence truly begin displaying significant tension between each other. The first step is the implementation of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) linked to diversity for all managers. Diversity KPIs are a tool to embarrass leaders and teams that are not meeting their diversity targets. Given that most organizations are hierarchical and pyramidal, combined with the fact that America was much whiter 50 years ago than it was today, it is unsurprising that senior leadership teams are less diverse than America as a whole—and, more pertinently, than their own junior teams.
The combination of a pyramid-shaped org chart and a senior leadership team where white men often make up 80 percent or more of the team means that the imposition of an aggressive KPI sends a message to the layer below them: no white man in middle management will likely ever see a promotion as long as they remain in the organization. This is never expressed verbally. Rather, those overlooked figure it out as they are passed over continually for less competent but more diverse colleagues. The result is demoralization, disengagement, and over time, departure.
While all the aforementioned techniques fall into the broad category of affirmative action, they primarily result in slightly tilting the scale toward diverse candidates. The next step is simply holding different groups to different standards. Within academia, the recently filed Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College lawsuit leveraged data to show the extent to which Harvard penalizes Asian and white applicants to help black and Hispanic applicants. The UC System, despite formally being forbidden from practicing affirmative action by Proposition 209, uses a tool called “comprehensive admission” to accomplish the same goal.
The latest technique, which was recently brought to light, shows UC admissions offices using the applicants’ high schools as a proxy for race to achieve their desired goal. Heavily Asian high schools such as Arcadia—which is 68 percent Asian—saw their UC-San Diego acceptance rate cut from 37 percent to 13 percent while the 99-percent-Hispanic Garfield High School saw its UC-San Diego acceptance rate rise from 29 percent to 65 percent.
The preference for diversity at the college faculty level is similarly strong. Jessica Nordell’s End of Bias: A Beginning heralded MIT’s efforts to increase the gender diversity of its engineering department: “When applications came in, the Dean of Engineering personally reviewed every one from a woman. If departments turned down a good candidate, they had to explain why.”
When this was not enough, MIT increased its gender diversity by simply offering jobs to previously rejected female candidates. While no university will admit to letting standards slip for the sake of diversity, no one has offered a serious argument why the new processes produce higher or even equivalent quality faculty as opposed to simply more diverse faculty. The extreme preference for diversity in academia today explains much of the phenomenon of professors identifying with a minor fraction of their ancestry or even making it up entirely.
During COVID-19, the difficulty of in-person testing and online proctoring created a new mechanism to push diversity at the expense of competency: the gradual but systematic elimination of standardized tests as a barrier to admission to universities and graduate schools. Today, the majority of U.S. colleges have either stopped requiring SAT/ACT scores, no longer require them for students in the top 10 percent of their class, or will no longer consider them. Several elite law schools, including Harvard Law School, no longer require the LSAT as of 2023. With thousands of unqualified law students headed to a bar exam that they are unlikely to pass, the National Conference of Bar Examiners is already planning to dilute the bar exam under the “NextGen” plan. Specifically, “eliminat[ing] any aspects of our exams that could contribute to performance disparities” will almost definitionally reduce the degree to which the exam tests for competency.
Similarly, standards used to select doctors have also been weakened to promote diversity. Programs such as the City College of New York’s BS/MD program have eliminated the MCAT requirement. With the SAT now optional, new candidates can go straight from high school to the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 exam in medical school without having gone through any rigorous standardized test whose score can be compared across schools. Step 1 scores were historically the most significant factor in the National Residency Matching Program, which pairs soon-to-be doctors with their future residency training programs. Because Step 1 scores serve as a barrier to increasing diversity, they have been made pass/fail. A handful of doctors are speaking out about the dangers of picking doctors based on factors other than competency but most either explicitly prefer diversity or else stay silent, concerned about the career-ending repercussions of pointing out the obvious.
When even carrot and stick incentives and the removal of standards do not achieve enough diversity, the end game is to simply make decision-makers comply. “Make” has two preferred implementations: one is widely discussed and the other is, for obvious reasons, never disclosed publicly. The first method of implementation is the application of quotas. Quotas or set-asides require the reservation of admissions slots, jobs, contracts, board seats, or other scarce goods for women and members of favored minority groups. Government contracts and supplier agreements are explicitly awarded to firms that have acronyms such as SB, WBE, MBE, DBE, SDB, VOSB, SDVOSB, WOSB, HUB, and 8(a).
Within large employers and government contractors, quotas are used for both hiring and promotions, requiring specific percentages of hiring or promotions to be reserved for favored groups. During the summer of 2020, the CEO of Wells Fargo, was publicly shamed after his memo blaming the underrepresentation of black senior leaders on a “very limited pool” of black talent was leaked to Reuters. Less than a month later, the bank publicly pledged to reserve 12 percent of leadership positions for black candidates and began tying executive compensation to reaching diversity goals. In 2022, Goldman Sachs extended quotas to the capital markets by adopting a policy to avoid underwriting IPOs of firms without at least two board members that are not straight white men.
When diversity still refuses to rise to acceptable levels, the remaining solution is the direct exclusion of non-diverse candidates. While public support for anti-discrimination laws and equal opportunity laws is high, public support for affirmative action and quotas is decidedly mixed. Hardline views such as those expressed in author Ijeoma Oluo’s Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America—namely that “any white man in a position of power perpetuates a system of white male domination”—are still considered extreme, even within U.S. progressive circles.
As such, when explicit exclusion is used to eliminate groups like white men from selection processes, it is done subtly. Managers are told to sequester all the resumes from “non-diverse” candidates—that is, white males. These resumes are discarded and the candidates are sent emails politely telling them that “other candidates were a better fit.” While some so-called “reverse discrimination” lawsuits have been filed, most of these policies go unreported. The reasons are straightforward; even in 2023, screening out all white men is not de jure legal. Moreover, any member of the professional managerial class who witnesses and reports discrimination against white men will never work in their field again.
Even anonymous whistleblowing is likely to be rare. To imagine why, suppose incontrovertible evidence was produced that one’s employer was explicitly excluding white male candidates, and a lawsuit was filed. The employer’s reputation and the reputation of all the employees there, including the white men still working there, would be tarnished. That said, we can expect to see more lawsuits from men who feel they have little to lose.
This “Ask, Tell, Make” framework, under various descriptions, is the method by which individuals with a vested interest in more diversity push their organizations toward their preferred outcome. Force begins requesting modest changes to recruiting to make it “more fair.” Force ends with the heavy-handed application of quotas and even exclusion. The American system is not a monolith, however, which means that the strength of the push and its effects on competency is not distributed evenly.
Competency Is Declining From the Core Outwards
Think of the American system as a series of concentric rings with the government at the center. Directly surrounding that are the organizations that receive government funds, then the nonprofits that influence and are subject to policy, and finally business at the periphery. Since the era of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race, the state capacity of the federal government has been declining almost monotonically.
While this has occurred for a multitude of reasons, the steel girders supporting the competency of the federal government were the first to be exposed to the saltwater of the Civil Rights Act and related executive orders. Government agencies, which are in charge of overseeing all the other systems, have seen the quality of their human capital decline tremendously since the 1960s. While the damage to an agency like the Department of Agriculture may have long-term deadly consequences, the most immediate danger is at safety-critical agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The Air Traffic Control (ATC) system used in the U.S. relies on an intricate dance of visual or radar observation, transponders, and radio communication, all with the incredible challenge of keeping thousands of simultaneously moving planes from ever crashing into each other. Since air controlling is one of the only jobs that pays more than $100,000 per year and does not require a college diploma, it has been a popular career choice for individuals without a degree who nonetheless have an exceptionally good memory, attention span, visuospatial awareness, and logical skills. The Air Traffic Selection and Training (AT-SAT) Exam, a standardized test of those critical skills, was historically the primary barrier to entry for air controllers. As a consequence of the AT-SAT, as well as a preference for veterans with former air controller experience, 83 percent of air controllers in the U.S. were white men as of 2014.
That year, the FAA added a Biographical Questionnaire (BQ) to the screening process to tilt the applicant pool toward diverse candidates. Facing pushback in the courts from well-qualified candidates who were screened out, the FAA quietly backed away from the BQ and adopted a new exam, the Air Traffic Skills Assessment (ATSA). While the ATSA includes some questions similar to those of the BQ, it restored the test’s focus on core air traffic skills. The importance of highly-skilled air controllers was made clear in the most deadly air disaster in history, the 1977 Tenerife incident. Two planes, one taking off and one taxiing, collided on the runway due to confusion between the captain of KLM 4805 and the Tenerife ATC. The crash, which killed 583 people, resulted in sweeping changes in aviation safety culture.
Recently, the tremendous U.S. record for air safety established since the 1970s has been fraying at the edges. The first three months of 2023 saw nine near-miss incidents at U.S. airports, one with two planes coming within 100 feet of colliding. This terrifying uptick from years prior resulted in the FAA and NTSB convening safety summits in March and May, respectively. Whether they dared to discuss root causes seems unlikely.
Given the sheer size of the U.S. military in both manpower and budget dollars, it should not come as a surprise that the diversity push has also affected the readiness of this institution. Following three completely avoidable collisions of U.S. Navy warships in 2017 and a fire in 2020 that resulted in the scuttling of USS Bonhomme Richard, a $750 million amphibious assault craft, two retired marines conducted off-the-record interviews with 77 current and retired Navy officers. One recurring theme was the prioritization of diversity training over ship handling and warfighting preparedness. Many of them openly admit that, given current issues, the U.S. would likely lose an open naval engagement with China. Instead of taking the criticism to heart, the Navy commissioned “Task Force One Navy,” which recommended deemphasizing or eliminating meritocratic tests like the Officer Aptitude Rating to boost diversity. Absent an existential challenge, U.S. military preparedness is likely to continue to degrade.
The decline in the capacity of government contractors is likewise obvious, with the largest contractors being the most directly impacted. The five largest contractors—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon Company, and Northrop Grumman—will all struggle to maintain competency in the coming years.
Boeing, one of only two firms globally capable of mass-producing large airliners, has a particularly striking crisis unfolding in its institutional culture. Shortly after releasing the 737 MAX, 346 people died in two nearly identical 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The cause of the crashes was a complex interaction between design choices, cost-cutting led by MBAs, FAA issues, the MCAS flight-control system, a faulty sensor, and pilot training. Meanwhile, on the defense side of the business, Boeing’s new fuel tanker, the KC-46A Pegasus is years behind on deliveries due to serious technical flaws with the fueling system along with multiple cases of Foreign Object Debris left inside the plane during construction: tools, a red plastic cap, and in one case, even trash. Between the issues at ATC and Boeing, damage to the U.S.’s phenomenal aviation safety record seems almost inevitable.
After government contractors, the next-most-affected class of institutions are nonprofit organizations. They are entrapped by the government whose policies they are subject to and trying to influence, the opinions of their donor base, and lack of any profit motive. The lifeblood of nonprofits is access to capital, either directly in the form of government grants or through donations that are deemed tax-deductible. Accessing federal monies means being subject to the full weight of U.S. diversity rules and regulations. Nonprofits are generally governed by boards whose members tend to overlap with the list of major donors. Because advocacy for diversity and board memberships are both high-status positions, unsurprisingly board members tend to voice favorable opinions of diversity, and those opinions flow downstream to the organizations they oversee.
Nonprofits—including universities, charities, and foundations—exist in an overlapping ecosystem with journalism, with individuals tending to freely circulate between the four. The activities of nonprofits are bound up in the same discourses shaped by current news and academic research, with all four reflecting the same general ideological consensus. Finally, lacking the profit motive, the decision-making processes of nonprofits are influenced by what will affect the status of the individuals within those organizations rather than what will affect profits. Within nonprofits, the cost of incompetent staffers is borne by “stakeholders,” rather than any one individual.
While all businesses subject to federal law must prioritize diversity over competency at some level, the problem is worse at publicly-traded corporations for reasons both obvious and subtle. The obvious reason is that larger companies present larger targets for EEOC actions and discrimination lawsuits with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. Corporations have logically responded by hiring large teams of HR professionals to preempt such lawsuits. Over the past several decades, HR has evolved from simply overseeing onboarding to involvement in every aspect of hiring, promotions, and firings, seeing them all through a political and regulatory lens.
The more subtle reason for pressure within publicly-traded companies is that they require ongoing relationships with a spiderweb of banks, credit ratings agencies, proxy advisory services, and most importantly, investors. Given that the loss of access to capital is an immediate death sentence for most businesses, the CEOs of publicly-traded companies tend to push diversity over competency even when the decline in firm performance is clear. CEOs would likely rather trade a small drag on profits margins than a potentially career-ending scandal from pushing back.
Whereas publicly-traded corporations nearly uniformly push diversity, privately-held businesses vary tremendously based on the views of their owners. Partnerships such as the Big Four accounting firms and top-tier management consultancies are high-status. High-status firms must regularly proclaim extensive support for diversity. While the firms tend to be highly selective, partnerships whose leadership is overwhelmingly white and male have generally capitulated to the zeitgeist and are cutting standards to hit targets. Firms often manage around this by hiring for diversity and then putting diversity hires into roles where they are the least likely to damage the firm or the brand. Somewhat counterintuitively, firms with diverse founders are often highly meritocratic, as the structure harnesses the founder’s desire to make money and shields them from criticism on diversity issues.
The most notable example of a diverse meritocracy is Vista Equity Partners, the large private equity firm founded by Robert F. Smith, America’s wealthiest black man. Robert F. Smith is one of the most vocal advocates for and philanthropists to historically black U.S. colleges and universities. It would be reasonable to expect Vista to prioritize diversity over competency in its portfolio companies. However, Vista has instead been profiled for giving all portfolio company management teams the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test and ruthlessly culling low-performers. Given the amount of value to be created by promoting the best people into leadership roles of their portfolio companies, one might imagine this to be low-hanging fruit for the rest of private equity, yet Vista is an outlier. Why Vista can apply the CCAT without a public outcry is obvious.
The other firms that tend to still focus on competency are those that are small and private. Such firms have two key advantages: they fall below the fifteen-employee threshold for the most onerous EEOC rules and the owner can usually directly observe the performance of everyone inside the organization. Within small firms, underperformance is usually obvious. Tech startups, being both small and private, would seem to have the right structure to prioritize competency.
The American System Is Cracking
Promoting diversity over competency does not simply affect new hires and promotion decisions. It also affects the people already working inside of America’s systems. Morale and competency inside U.S. organizations are declining. Those who understand that the new system makes it hard or impossible for them to advance are demoralized, affecting their performance. Even individuals poised to benefit from diversity preferences notice that better people are being passed over and the average quality of their team is declining. High performers want to be on a high-performing team. When the priorities of their organizations shift away from performance, high performers respond negatively.
This effect was likely seen in a recent paper by McDonald, Keeves, and Westphal. The paper points out that white male senior leaders reduce their engagement following the appointment of a minority CEO. While it is possible that author Ijeoma Oluo is correct, and that white men have so much unconscious bias raging inside of them that the appointment of a diverse CEO sends them into a tailspin of resentment, there is another more plausible explanation. When boards choose diverse CEOs to make a political statement, high performers who see an organization shifting away from valuing honest performance respond by disengaging.
Some demoralized employees—like James Damore in his now-famous essay, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber”—will directly push back against pro-diversity arguments. Like James, they will be fired. Older, demoralized workers, especially those who are mere years from retirement, are unlikely to point out the decline in competency and risk it costing them their jobs. Those who have a large enough nest egg may simply retire to avoid having to deal with the indignity of having to attend another Inclusive Leadership seminar.
As older men with tacit knowledge either retire or are pushed out, the burden of maintaining America’s complex systems will fall on the young. Lower-performing young men angry at the toxic mix of affirmative action (hurting their chances of admission to a “good school”) and credentialism (limiting the “good jobs” to graduates of “good schools”) are turning their backs on college and white-collar work altogether.
This is the continuation of a trend that began over a decade ago. High-performing young men will either collaborate, coast, or downshift by leaving high-status employment altogether. Collaborators will embrace “allyship” to attempt to bolster their chances of getting promoted. Coasters realize that they need to work just slightly harder than the worst individual on their team. Their shirking is likely to go unnoticed and they are unlikely to feel enough emotional connection to the organization to raise alarm when critical mistakes are being made. The combination of new employees hired for diversity, not competence, and the declining engagement of the highly competent sets the stage for failures of increasing frequency and magnitude.
The modern U.S. is a system of systems interacting together in intricate ways. All these complex systems are simply assumed to work. In February of 2021, cold weather in Texas caused shutdowns at unwinterized natural gas power plants. The failure rippled through the systems with interlocking dependencies. As a result, 246 people died. In straightforward work, declining competency means that things happen more slowly, and products are lower quality or more expensive. In complex systems, declining competency results in catastrophic failures.
To understand why, one must understand the concept of a “normal accident.” In 1984, Charles Perrow, a Yale sociologist, published the book, Normal Accidents: Living With High-Risk Technologies. In this book, Perrow lays out the theory of normal accidents: when you have systems that are both complex and tightly coupled, catastrophic failures are unavoidable and cannot simply be designed around. In this context, a complex system is one that has many components that all need to interact in a specified way to produce the desired outcome. Complex systems often have relationships that are nonlinear and contain feedback loops. Tightly-coupled systems are those whose components need to move together precisely or in a precise sequence.
The 1979 Three Mile Island Accident was used as a case study: a relatively minor blockage of a water filter led to a cascading series of malfunctions that culminated in a partial meltdown. In A Demon of Our Own Design, author Richard Bookstaber added two key contributions to Perrow’s theory: first, that it applies to financial markets, and second, that regulation intended to fix the problem may make it worse.
The biggest shortcoming of the theory is that it takes competency as a given. The idea that competent organizations can devolve to a level where the risk of normal accidents becomes unacceptably high is barely addressed. In other words, rather than being taken as absolutes, complexity and tightness should be understood to be relative to the functionality of the people and systems that are managing them. The U.S. has embraced a novel question: what happens when the men who built the complex systems our society relies on cease contributing and are replaced by people who were chosen for reasons other than competency?
The answer is clear: catastrophic normal accidents will happen with increasing regularity. While each failure is officially seen as a separate issue to be fixed with small patches, the reality is that the whole system is seeing failures at an accelerating rate, which will lead in turn to the failure of other systems. In the case of the Camp Fire that killed 85 people, PG&E fired its CEO, filed Chapter 11, and restructured. The system’s response has been to turn off the electricity and raise wildfire insurance premiums. This has resulted in very little reflection. The more recent coronavirus pandemic was another teachable moment. What started just three years ago with a novel respiratory virus has caused a financial crisis, a bubble, soaring inflation, and now a banking crisis in rapid succession.
Patching the specific failure mode is simultaneously too slow and induces unexpected consequences. Cascading failures overwhelm the capabilities of the system to react. 20 years ago, a software bug caused a poorly-managed local outage that led to a blackout that knocked out power to 55 million people and caused 100 deaths. Utilities were able to restore power to all 55 million people in only four days. It is unclear if they could do the same today. U.S. cities would look very different if they remained without power for even two weeks, especially if other obstructions unfolded. What if emergency supplies sat on trains immobilized by fuel shortages due to the aforementioned pipeline shutdown? The preference for diversity over competency has made our system of systems dangerously fragile.
Americans living today are the inheritors of systems that created the highest standard of living in human history. Rather than protecting the competency that made those systems possible, the modern preference for diversity has attenuated meritocratic evaluation at all levels of American society. Given the damage already done to competence and morale combined with the natural exodus of baby boomers with decades worth of tacit knowledge, the biggest challenge of the coming decades might simply be maintaining the systems we have today.
The path of least resistance will be the devolution of complex systems and the reduction in the quality of life that entails. For the typical resident in a second-tier city in Mexico, Brazil, or South Africa, power outages are not uncommon, tap water is probably not safe to drink, and hospital-associated infections are common and often fatal. Absent a step change in the quality of American governance and a renewed culture of excellence, they prefigure the country’s future.
News of the Times;
Stanford University and UMass Researchers Uncover Disturbing Pedo Network on Instagram:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/stanford-university-umass-researchers-uncover-disturbing-pedophle-network/
Leaked Video Shows D.C. Cops Were 'Rioters' and Instigators at J-6 Protest:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/06/09/leaked-video-shows-d-c-cops-were-rioters-and-instigators-at-j-6-protest-n1701634
Nearly 30% of people under 30 support government surveillance cameras in every home:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/nearly-30-of-people-under-30-support-government-surveillance-cameras-in-every-home-poll/
76 percent of Princeton students say it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/76-percent-of-princeton-students-say-its-acceptable-to-shout-down-a-speaker-survey/
San Francisco Homeowners Lose $260 Billion In Value:
https://www.hoover.org/research/san-francisco-homeowners-lose-260-billion-value
Solar panels - an eco-disaster waiting to happen:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65602519.amp
America Signs Global Climate Agreement to Crack Down on Farming:
https://slaynews.com/news/america-signs-global-climate-agreement-crack-down-farming/
Target circulates memo that claims those who don’t support trans mutilations of children are “extremists”:
https://dcdirtylaundry.com/target-circulates-memo-that-claims-those-who-dont-support-trans-mutilations-of-children-are-extremists/
American Icon KitchenAid Pulls Its Products From Target: “We Have Different Values”:
https://breakingnewspapers.com/index.php/2023/06/09/american-icon-kitchenaid-pulls-its-products-from-target-we-have-different-values/
Vermont school district settles with family punished for opposing male student in girls’ locker room:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/family-punished-after-opposing-locker-room-policy-settles-lawsuit.html
Feds spent over $1.3 billion in Russia, China on controversial projects:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_a1444bb6-03c5-11ee-93ab-c73ba17b7f10.html
Thank the green-energy cult for major blackouts this summer:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/05/thank-the-green-energy-cult-for-major-blackouts-this-summer/
Woman Accused Of Dismembering, Grilling Remains Of Her Mother:
https://newsradio1290wtks.iheart.com/content/2023-06-06-woman-accused-of-dismembering-grilling-remains-of-her-mother/
"We Are Not Alone": US Has Retrieved Craft Of 'Non-Human Origin' Says Whistleblower From Govt. Task Force On UFOs:
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/we-are-not-alone-us-has-retrieved-craft-non-human-origin-says-whistleblower-govt-task
Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn Burns the Climate Change Argument to the Ground:
https://thelibertydaily.com/astrophysicist-piers-corbyn-burns-the-climate-change-argument-to-the-ground/
Defense?
A human fart is louder than a trombone.
I discovered this at my son's school concert last night.
*.*
Filming on the next "Mission: Impossible" movie has been put on hold, due to the writer's strike.
I'm not trying to be critical here, but wouldn't you want to have the script written before you started filming?
*.*
Language learning company Rosetta Stone announced today it was introducing a new course designed to teach users the difficult language that had previously only been spoken by President Joe Biden.
The course, named "Bidenese," fully immerses the user in Joe Biden's unique dialect. "Millions of people are eager to find out what the President is saying," said Rosetta Stone CEO & Chairman John Hass. "We're excited to unlock this previously indecipherable language for the entire world."
Pre-orders for the course were already coming in by the thousands, with many of them coming from journalists, members of Congress, and foreign leaders from around the globe. "We've spent the last two and a half years having no clue what he was saying," said a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "You can imagine how difficult it is to negotiate important policy agreements when no one on Earth speaks the other person's language."
Surprisingly, Democratic Party strategists were privately expressing concern that having the public at large know what Biden is actually saying may work to his detriment. "He's been able to sneak by using the whole ‘unintelligible old man' gimmick for a long time," said media personality James Carville. "If voters gain the ability to translate what he's saying, it could turn them off in droves. It would be disastrous."
*.*
Top 5 Signs You Probably Should be Exercising More:
Your five-year-old walking shoes look brand new.
Underneath that pile of cobwebs is your rowing machine
That gym you signed up for has reported you as a missing person
You've switched from wearing belts to bungee cords.
You're got winded just reading this list.
*.*
People say that cracking knuckles is the most annoying personal bad habit.
Apparently, the survey was conducted among people who have never pulled my finger.
Quote of the Times;
The meaning of life is to at all times have a purpose. – Frankl
Link of the Times;
Trove Of Nearly 10K Hunter Biden Laptop Photos, Docs Appear On Organized Website:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trove-nearly-10k-hunter-biden-laptop-photos-docs-appear-organized-website
Issue of the Times;
An Unapologetic Defense Of The Crusades by Auguste Meyrat
Fewer moments in history are as misunderstood and revised as the Crusades. This series of violent clashes between Christian and Muslim cultures spanning three continents and nearly a millennium has been characterized as a futile war of aggression. In the telling of most modern historians, belligerent, greedy, and racist Christians in Western Europe were periodically guided by a bloodthirsty theocrat in Rome to channel their savage energies toward embattling a rival faith in the delusional belief that this would guarantee their admittance into Heaven, if not an earthly kingdom to rule over. What resulted was hardly more than pointless slaughter on both sides.
Nearly all of this is false. The Crusades were wars of defense, with Christians attempting to drive out foreign Muslim invaders in lands that were formerly Christian. Far from being unenlightened savages, the Crusaders were a highly organized force that pushed the boundaries of what was possible in warfare, government, and religious practice. The great personal sacrifice of the Crusaders, along with moral arguments against the use of violence, disprove the idea that they did this for personal gain.
By contrast, the Muslim invaders greatly profited from their conquests. They essentially took ownership of the preexisting wealth from their opponents. They subjected people of these areas to mass enslavement, regular persecution, and crippling taxes — all of which were sanctioned by their holy books and scriptures. And nearly all their victories against opposing forces were attributable to superior numbers and the domestic dysfunction of their opponents rather than superior strategy, logistics, or technology.
Unfortunately, few historians will risk professional ruin by challenging the prevailing narrative of the academy and telling the true history of the Crusades. However, to his great credit, Raymond Ibrahim dismisses such concerns and offers riveting profiles of eight great heroes of the Crusades in his newest book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.
As an Arabic linguist and expert in Islamic history and theology, he is able to tap into primary sources from both sides of the conflict to give a more objective, unbiased account of the Crusades. More importantly, he makes a point of prioritizing the reader and telling a story. In his introduction, he fully agrees with Carlyle’s thesis that history is “but the biography of great men.” Whereas most modern historians tend to attribute developments in the past to impersonal forces (what is known as “historicism”), Ibrahim recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of heroic individuals and the effect they have on the world. By doing this, he shows that these men were not only important for their time, but can still serve as models for people today.
The War for the Holy Land
Although Ibrahim organizes his chapters chronologically, his biographies work better as a framework for three different regional conflicts: the war for the Holy Land and Byzantium, the Reconquista of the Spanish peninsula, and the Balkan defense against the Ottoman Turks. As Ibrahim relates, each war had its own share of successes and failures for the West, but so much of this depended on the leadership and how unified the Christian kingdoms were. When the leaders were strong and unity existed, they would have long-term victories (as in Spain); when the leaders were strong, but unity didn’t exist, they would have only short-term victories (as in the Holy Land and Balkans).
The war for the Holy Land and Byzantium presents the best overall view of the Crusades. While the first Crusaders recaptured many of the kingdoms along the Eastern Mediterranean, Crusaders in the following centuries devoted most of their resources to securing those kingdoms and establishing outposts to facilitate supply lines. Finally, these kingdoms and outposts were eventually lost, as Western leaders lost interest in crusading.
In the first group was Godfrey of Bullion, a noble who was “strong beyond compare, with solidly built limbs and stalwart chest,” according to William of Tyre. Moreover, he was extremely religious, often praying and fasting before battles. Both qualities proved necessary as Godfrey encountered a completely different kind of enemy, one that had few qualms about murdering and torturing innocents and using terror tactics to intimidate their opponents. Despite this, Godfrey and the other Crusaders managed to retake Antioch and other fortresses as they marched toward Jerusalem.
At that point, they were exhausted, starving, and dying of thirst. Added to this was news of Muslim atrocities where Christian men were massacred and women and children were brutally ravished and sold into slavery. These tactics effectively prevented sympathizers from helping the Crusaders who were forced to depend on their feckless Byzantine allies and fragile supply lines stretching back many miles. Eventually, Godfrey ordered the construction of a siege tower and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. What resulted from the prolonged frustration and ongoing atrocities was the famously bloody massacre of everyone in the city: “the carnage was so horrific that, once the battle frenzy had subsided, ‘even the victors experienced sensations of horror and loathing.” Sadly, showing mercy just wasn’t a luxury for Crusaders if they hoped to be successful.
Nowhere was this lesson better demonstrated than in the two kings who tried to build on Godfrey’s first victories a century later, Richard the Lionheart of England and Louis IX of France. Displaying amazing toughness and intelligence, King Richard lived up to the moniker of Lionheart. In battle after battle, Richard recovered and reinforced the Crusader kingdoms along the coast and conquered Cyprus, which was then ruled by a Byzantine rebel, Isaac Comnenus.
Most of Richard’s success could be attributed to a realistic approach to warfare, understanding the dynamics of negotiation and leverage and outmaneuvering the famed (and exceptionally duplicitous) Saladin: “Richard … marched some twenty-six hundred Muslim captives outside in full view of Saladin and ordered their execution.” If actions like these weren’t taken, Richard would have quickly succumbed to enemy forces or retreated early like his old friend King Philip-Auguste of France.
In contrast to Richard’s accomplishments, King Louis IX (St. Louis) was a “tragic hero” of the Crusades, showing amazing promise and having the best intentions, only to experience continual setbacks during his campaign in North Africa. Unlike Richard, a giant of a man who commanded authority through example and shrewdness, Louis was more sickly and saintly. Although he enjoyed respect from his people and his peers, he struggled to hold them back at critical junctures of the fighting, which led to a number of ambushes inflicting heavy losses. There were also bouts of plague since the enemy poisoned wells and clogged the river with rotting corpses — he had the bad luck of fighting the Mamluk (“slave-soldier”) leader Baibars, an even more vicious and duplicitous ruler than Saladin.
Finally, Louis himself was taken captive, but he bravely endured taunts and torture before he was ransomed. In the end, Louis died of sickness in his second Crusade, and with him died the crusading movement. Meanwhile, Muslim invaders recaptured what was won by the Crusaders and inflicted egregious persecutions against the Christian population.
The Victors
In the profiles of El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz) and King Ferdinand III, Ibrahim is able to tell a happier story about the Reconquista. Considering the incredible odds they faced after being forced into a literal corner of the Iberian peninsula, each of the Spanish Crusaders deserves a chapter for their contributions. From about 712 to 1492 A.D., the tiny Christian kingdom of Asturia, which held only a few hundred Christian refugees, would spread to retake all of Spain and eject the occupying Moors.
As Ibrahim demonstrates in his biographies of El Cid (1043-1099) and King Ferdinand III (1200-1252), there were a few factors that led to this. One was the superior leadership and prowess of the Christian leaders, exhibited in both El Cid and King Ferdinand (also a saint) who cut through the hordes of Moorish armies and orchestrated extensive sieges of enemy fortresses.
The second factor was that the Christian kings were usually unified in their mission while the Moors were often disorganized, complacent, and therefore vulnerable. And third, the Spaniards came to understand the futility of allowing an enemy religion to live among its people. While El Cid and many others would allow Muslim residents to practice their faith, Ferdinand forced them to leave because “no matter how lenient a Christian ruler was with his Moorish subjects, and no matter how docile the latter appeared, whenever the opportunity arose, the Muslims immediately revolted.” This helped Ferdinand solidify the victories of previous Spanish Crusaders by reconquering most of Spain and neutralizing possible insurgencies.
Perhaps the most interesting chapters of the book concern the Balkan Crusaders who held off the Ottoman Turks from the late 14th century to the late 15th century. In what amounted to a thankless task that earned them infamy both from their contemporaries and later historians, these heroes faced even more impossible odds than the earlier Crusaders.
Ibrahim begins with Hungarian King John Hunyadi who bucks the trend of paying tribute to the Ottoman Turks and instead launches a guerrilla campaign against the gargantuan armies of Sultan Murad. He was one of the first leaders to show the weakness of the Turks, who never really had to defend their territory: “Both Christians and Muslims were especially impressed that, instead of taking a defensive position, Hunyadi was actually taking the offensive — crossing rivers and mountains to confront the Turks in their own domains.”
Despite Hunyadi’s success, few other kings or nobles followed his lead. Rather, the rulers in Western Europe were preoccupied with other, more self-interested affairs. Only the Italian city-state of Venice was involved — and they helped the Ottoman Turks nearly as much as they fought them. The other exceptions to this general indifference were the two men Ibrahim writes about in the following two chapters: George Kastrioti (whom the Turks called “Skanderbeg,” or “Lord Alexander — after Alexander the Great of Macedon”) and Vlad Dracula III (whom rival nobles smeared as a vampire).
Because both men were captives of the Turks for a number of years, both had personal reasons for liberating their kingdoms and a deep understanding of how the Turks operated. Like Hunyadi, Skanderbeg and Dracula turned their small numbers into a strength by picking apart large, poorly organized Turkish armies. While Skanderbeg’s previous training as a janissary (elite troops of the Turks) helped him to lead his forces efficiently and effectively, Dracula made infamous use of impalement (hence the name, Vlad the Impaler) and night raids. Both men were able to turn the tables on their foes and successfully stymie the Turkish advance into Europe.
A Worse Alternative
For some readers, the greatest strength of Defenders of the West may feel like its greatest drawback, which is Ibrahim’s graphic descriptions and lack of sympathy for the Muslim civilizations. Even if most of these gruesome details come from the sources Ibrahim weaves in, it’s apparent that he wants to cast the Moors, the Turks, and various Arab dynasties in the least flattering light — and if the descriptions aren’t enough, he draws more than a few parallels with them and modern-day Muslim terrorists.
However, the violence and the harsh descriptions give important context that helps to explain the extreme measures taken by the Crusaders, particularly Dracula. This may be off-putting for readers preferring a more sanitized and equivocating approach to history, but this would be misleading and false.
In terms of what it meant for Western civilization, Ibrahim proves that the Crusades were not only necessary but ultimately moral and justified. As ugly as they often were, the alternative of surrender and submission would have been far uglier.
News of the Times;
Tucker on Twitter Ep. 1:
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1666203439146172419
American Retail Giant Notices Change in Customer Behavior Historically Signaling Recession:
https://www.westernjournal.com/american-retail-giant-notices-change-customer-behavior-historically-signaling-recession/
The slow-motion trainwreck everyone sees coming:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/the-slow-motion-trainwreck-everyone-sees-coming/ar-AA1c8ljS
‘Boycott Target’ Jumps Past Morgan Wallen, Taylor Swift to Become No. 1 Song on iTunes:
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/05/31/boycott-target-jumps-past-morgan-wallen-taylor-swift-to-become-no-1-song-itunes/
Children’s Choir Stopped Mid-Performance While Singing National Anthem at US Capitol:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/outrageous-childrens-choir-stopped-mid-performance-while-singing/
Mom of preteen who fatally stabbed brother in ‘demonic’ rage says she was on ADHD meds:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/02/mom-of-girl-12-who-fatally-stabbed-brother-said-she-was-on-adhd-meds/
Elementary School Turned into LGBTQI+ Pride Indoctrination Camp:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/videos-elementary-school-turned-lgbtqi-pride-indoctrination-camp/
$1 million bond set for man charged with shooting prominent businessman to death:
https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/police-investigating-shooting-crash-on-75-northbound
Nothing wrong with' murder of Trump supporter:
https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=15640
South Africa Drafts Water Usage Regulations to Limit White People’s Access:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/south-africa-drafts-water-usage-regulations-white-people/
South African Couple Tortured to Death, Set on Fire While Still Alive:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/south-african-couple-tortured-death-set-fire-while/
UMD course aims to remove the 'whiteness' from LGBTQ+ studies:
https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=23374
Suspect in custody after 1-year-old punched in face:
https://www.wbtv.com/2023/06/04/cmpd-suspect-custody-after-1-year-old-punched-face-south-end/
Norway bans child sex changes, joins Finland, Sweden, and UK in rejecting gender ideology:
https://www.sott.net/article/480555-Norway-bans-child-sex-changes-joins-Finland-Sweden-and-UK-in-rejecting-gender-ideology
Border Patrol K-9 sniffs out $2M in fentanyl — enough to kill 48M people:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/04/border-patrol-k-9-sniffs-out-2m-in-fentanyl-enough-to-kill-48m-people-during-traffic-stop-in-arizona/
I discovered this at my son's school concert last night.
*.*
Filming on the next "Mission: Impossible" movie has been put on hold, due to the writer's strike.
I'm not trying to be critical here, but wouldn't you want to have the script written before you started filming?
*.*
Language learning company Rosetta Stone announced today it was introducing a new course designed to teach users the difficult language that had previously only been spoken by President Joe Biden.
The course, named "Bidenese," fully immerses the user in Joe Biden's unique dialect. "Millions of people are eager to find out what the President is saying," said Rosetta Stone CEO & Chairman John Hass. "We're excited to unlock this previously indecipherable language for the entire world."
Pre-orders for the course were already coming in by the thousands, with many of them coming from journalists, members of Congress, and foreign leaders from around the globe. "We've spent the last two and a half years having no clue what he was saying," said a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "You can imagine how difficult it is to negotiate important policy agreements when no one on Earth speaks the other person's language."
Surprisingly, Democratic Party strategists were privately expressing concern that having the public at large know what Biden is actually saying may work to his detriment. "He's been able to sneak by using the whole ‘unintelligible old man' gimmick for a long time," said media personality James Carville. "If voters gain the ability to translate what he's saying, it could turn them off in droves. It would be disastrous."
*.*
Top 5 Signs You Probably Should be Exercising More:
Your five-year-old walking shoes look brand new.
Underneath that pile of cobwebs is your rowing machine
That gym you signed up for has reported you as a missing person
You've switched from wearing belts to bungee cords.
You're got winded just reading this list.
*.*
People say that cracking knuckles is the most annoying personal bad habit.
Apparently, the survey was conducted among people who have never pulled my finger.
Quote of the Times;
The meaning of life is to at all times have a purpose. – Frankl
Link of the Times;
Trove Of Nearly 10K Hunter Biden Laptop Photos, Docs Appear On Organized Website:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trove-nearly-10k-hunter-biden-laptop-photos-docs-appear-organized-website
Issue of the Times;
An Unapologetic Defense Of The Crusades by Auguste Meyrat
Fewer moments in history are as misunderstood and revised as the Crusades. This series of violent clashes between Christian and Muslim cultures spanning three continents and nearly a millennium has been characterized as a futile war of aggression. In the telling of most modern historians, belligerent, greedy, and racist Christians in Western Europe were periodically guided by a bloodthirsty theocrat in Rome to channel their savage energies toward embattling a rival faith in the delusional belief that this would guarantee their admittance into Heaven, if not an earthly kingdom to rule over. What resulted was hardly more than pointless slaughter on both sides.
Nearly all of this is false. The Crusades were wars of defense, with Christians attempting to drive out foreign Muslim invaders in lands that were formerly Christian. Far from being unenlightened savages, the Crusaders were a highly organized force that pushed the boundaries of what was possible in warfare, government, and religious practice. The great personal sacrifice of the Crusaders, along with moral arguments against the use of violence, disprove the idea that they did this for personal gain.
By contrast, the Muslim invaders greatly profited from their conquests. They essentially took ownership of the preexisting wealth from their opponents. They subjected people of these areas to mass enslavement, regular persecution, and crippling taxes — all of which were sanctioned by their holy books and scriptures. And nearly all their victories against opposing forces were attributable to superior numbers and the domestic dysfunction of their opponents rather than superior strategy, logistics, or technology.
Unfortunately, few historians will risk professional ruin by challenging the prevailing narrative of the academy and telling the true history of the Crusades. However, to his great credit, Raymond Ibrahim dismisses such concerns and offers riveting profiles of eight great heroes of the Crusades in his newest book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.
As an Arabic linguist and expert in Islamic history and theology, he is able to tap into primary sources from both sides of the conflict to give a more objective, unbiased account of the Crusades. More importantly, he makes a point of prioritizing the reader and telling a story. In his introduction, he fully agrees with Carlyle’s thesis that history is “but the biography of great men.” Whereas most modern historians tend to attribute developments in the past to impersonal forces (what is known as “historicism”), Ibrahim recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of heroic individuals and the effect they have on the world. By doing this, he shows that these men were not only important for their time, but can still serve as models for people today.
The War for the Holy Land
Although Ibrahim organizes his chapters chronologically, his biographies work better as a framework for three different regional conflicts: the war for the Holy Land and Byzantium, the Reconquista of the Spanish peninsula, and the Balkan defense against the Ottoman Turks. As Ibrahim relates, each war had its own share of successes and failures for the West, but so much of this depended on the leadership and how unified the Christian kingdoms were. When the leaders were strong and unity existed, they would have long-term victories (as in Spain); when the leaders were strong, but unity didn’t exist, they would have only short-term victories (as in the Holy Land and Balkans).
The war for the Holy Land and Byzantium presents the best overall view of the Crusades. While the first Crusaders recaptured many of the kingdoms along the Eastern Mediterranean, Crusaders in the following centuries devoted most of their resources to securing those kingdoms and establishing outposts to facilitate supply lines. Finally, these kingdoms and outposts were eventually lost, as Western leaders lost interest in crusading.
In the first group was Godfrey of Bullion, a noble who was “strong beyond compare, with solidly built limbs and stalwart chest,” according to William of Tyre. Moreover, he was extremely religious, often praying and fasting before battles. Both qualities proved necessary as Godfrey encountered a completely different kind of enemy, one that had few qualms about murdering and torturing innocents and using terror tactics to intimidate their opponents. Despite this, Godfrey and the other Crusaders managed to retake Antioch and other fortresses as they marched toward Jerusalem.
At that point, they were exhausted, starving, and dying of thirst. Added to this was news of Muslim atrocities where Christian men were massacred and women and children were brutally ravished and sold into slavery. These tactics effectively prevented sympathizers from helping the Crusaders who were forced to depend on their feckless Byzantine allies and fragile supply lines stretching back many miles. Eventually, Godfrey ordered the construction of a siege tower and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. What resulted from the prolonged frustration and ongoing atrocities was the famously bloody massacre of everyone in the city: “the carnage was so horrific that, once the battle frenzy had subsided, ‘even the victors experienced sensations of horror and loathing.” Sadly, showing mercy just wasn’t a luxury for Crusaders if they hoped to be successful.
Nowhere was this lesson better demonstrated than in the two kings who tried to build on Godfrey’s first victories a century later, Richard the Lionheart of England and Louis IX of France. Displaying amazing toughness and intelligence, King Richard lived up to the moniker of Lionheart. In battle after battle, Richard recovered and reinforced the Crusader kingdoms along the coast and conquered Cyprus, which was then ruled by a Byzantine rebel, Isaac Comnenus.
Most of Richard’s success could be attributed to a realistic approach to warfare, understanding the dynamics of negotiation and leverage and outmaneuvering the famed (and exceptionally duplicitous) Saladin: “Richard … marched some twenty-six hundred Muslim captives outside in full view of Saladin and ordered their execution.” If actions like these weren’t taken, Richard would have quickly succumbed to enemy forces or retreated early like his old friend King Philip-Auguste of France.
In contrast to Richard’s accomplishments, King Louis IX (St. Louis) was a “tragic hero” of the Crusades, showing amazing promise and having the best intentions, only to experience continual setbacks during his campaign in North Africa. Unlike Richard, a giant of a man who commanded authority through example and shrewdness, Louis was more sickly and saintly. Although he enjoyed respect from his people and his peers, he struggled to hold them back at critical junctures of the fighting, which led to a number of ambushes inflicting heavy losses. There were also bouts of plague since the enemy poisoned wells and clogged the river with rotting corpses — he had the bad luck of fighting the Mamluk (“slave-soldier”) leader Baibars, an even more vicious and duplicitous ruler than Saladin.
Finally, Louis himself was taken captive, but he bravely endured taunts and torture before he was ransomed. In the end, Louis died of sickness in his second Crusade, and with him died the crusading movement. Meanwhile, Muslim invaders recaptured what was won by the Crusaders and inflicted egregious persecutions against the Christian population.
The Victors
In the profiles of El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz) and King Ferdinand III, Ibrahim is able to tell a happier story about the Reconquista. Considering the incredible odds they faced after being forced into a literal corner of the Iberian peninsula, each of the Spanish Crusaders deserves a chapter for their contributions. From about 712 to 1492 A.D., the tiny Christian kingdom of Asturia, which held only a few hundred Christian refugees, would spread to retake all of Spain and eject the occupying Moors.
As Ibrahim demonstrates in his biographies of El Cid (1043-1099) and King Ferdinand III (1200-1252), there were a few factors that led to this. One was the superior leadership and prowess of the Christian leaders, exhibited in both El Cid and King Ferdinand (also a saint) who cut through the hordes of Moorish armies and orchestrated extensive sieges of enemy fortresses.
The second factor was that the Christian kings were usually unified in their mission while the Moors were often disorganized, complacent, and therefore vulnerable. And third, the Spaniards came to understand the futility of allowing an enemy religion to live among its people. While El Cid and many others would allow Muslim residents to practice their faith, Ferdinand forced them to leave because “no matter how lenient a Christian ruler was with his Moorish subjects, and no matter how docile the latter appeared, whenever the opportunity arose, the Muslims immediately revolted.” This helped Ferdinand solidify the victories of previous Spanish Crusaders by reconquering most of Spain and neutralizing possible insurgencies.
Perhaps the most interesting chapters of the book concern the Balkan Crusaders who held off the Ottoman Turks from the late 14th century to the late 15th century. In what amounted to a thankless task that earned them infamy both from their contemporaries and later historians, these heroes faced even more impossible odds than the earlier Crusaders.
Ibrahim begins with Hungarian King John Hunyadi who bucks the trend of paying tribute to the Ottoman Turks and instead launches a guerrilla campaign against the gargantuan armies of Sultan Murad. He was one of the first leaders to show the weakness of the Turks, who never really had to defend their territory: “Both Christians and Muslims were especially impressed that, instead of taking a defensive position, Hunyadi was actually taking the offensive — crossing rivers and mountains to confront the Turks in their own domains.”
Despite Hunyadi’s success, few other kings or nobles followed his lead. Rather, the rulers in Western Europe were preoccupied with other, more self-interested affairs. Only the Italian city-state of Venice was involved — and they helped the Ottoman Turks nearly as much as they fought them. The other exceptions to this general indifference were the two men Ibrahim writes about in the following two chapters: George Kastrioti (whom the Turks called “Skanderbeg,” or “Lord Alexander — after Alexander the Great of Macedon”) and Vlad Dracula III (whom rival nobles smeared as a vampire).
Because both men were captives of the Turks for a number of years, both had personal reasons for liberating their kingdoms and a deep understanding of how the Turks operated. Like Hunyadi, Skanderbeg and Dracula turned their small numbers into a strength by picking apart large, poorly organized Turkish armies. While Skanderbeg’s previous training as a janissary (elite troops of the Turks) helped him to lead his forces efficiently and effectively, Dracula made infamous use of impalement (hence the name, Vlad the Impaler) and night raids. Both men were able to turn the tables on their foes and successfully stymie the Turkish advance into Europe.
A Worse Alternative
For some readers, the greatest strength of Defenders of the West may feel like its greatest drawback, which is Ibrahim’s graphic descriptions and lack of sympathy for the Muslim civilizations. Even if most of these gruesome details come from the sources Ibrahim weaves in, it’s apparent that he wants to cast the Moors, the Turks, and various Arab dynasties in the least flattering light — and if the descriptions aren’t enough, he draws more than a few parallels with them and modern-day Muslim terrorists.
However, the violence and the harsh descriptions give important context that helps to explain the extreme measures taken by the Crusaders, particularly Dracula. This may be off-putting for readers preferring a more sanitized and equivocating approach to history, but this would be misleading and false.
In terms of what it meant for Western civilization, Ibrahim proves that the Crusades were not only necessary but ultimately moral and justified. As ugly as they often were, the alternative of surrender and submission would have been far uglier.
News of the Times;
Tucker on Twitter Ep. 1:
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1666203439146172419
American Retail Giant Notices Change in Customer Behavior Historically Signaling Recession:
https://www.westernjournal.com/american-retail-giant-notices-change-customer-behavior-historically-signaling-recession/
The slow-motion trainwreck everyone sees coming:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/the-slow-motion-trainwreck-everyone-sees-coming/ar-AA1c8ljS
‘Boycott Target’ Jumps Past Morgan Wallen, Taylor Swift to Become No. 1 Song on iTunes:
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/05/31/boycott-target-jumps-past-morgan-wallen-taylor-swift-to-become-no-1-song-itunes/
Children’s Choir Stopped Mid-Performance While Singing National Anthem at US Capitol:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/outrageous-childrens-choir-stopped-mid-performance-while-singing/
Mom of preteen who fatally stabbed brother in ‘demonic’ rage says she was on ADHD meds:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/02/mom-of-girl-12-who-fatally-stabbed-brother-said-she-was-on-adhd-meds/
Elementary School Turned into LGBTQI+ Pride Indoctrination Camp:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/videos-elementary-school-turned-lgbtqi-pride-indoctrination-camp/
$1 million bond set for man charged with shooting prominent businessman to death:
https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/police-investigating-shooting-crash-on-75-northbound
Nothing wrong with' murder of Trump supporter:
https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=15640
South Africa Drafts Water Usage Regulations to Limit White People’s Access:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/south-africa-drafts-water-usage-regulations-white-people/
South African Couple Tortured to Death, Set on Fire While Still Alive:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/south-african-couple-tortured-death-set-fire-while/
UMD course aims to remove the 'whiteness' from LGBTQ+ studies:
https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=23374
Suspect in custody after 1-year-old punched in face:
https://www.wbtv.com/2023/06/04/cmpd-suspect-custody-after-1-year-old-punched-face-south-end/
Norway bans child sex changes, joins Finland, Sweden, and UK in rejecting gender ideology:
https://www.sott.net/article/480555-Norway-bans-child-sex-changes-joins-Finland-Sweden-and-UK-in-rejecting-gender-ideology
Border Patrol K-9 sniffs out $2M in fentanyl — enough to kill 48M people:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/04/border-patrol-k-9-sniffs-out-2m-in-fentanyl-enough-to-kill-48m-people-during-traffic-stop-in-arizona/
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.