Apr 01 2025

Third Term Talk

     “Could Yarl the Omnipotent create a stone he could not lift?” Green Green asked him.
     “No,” said Courtcour. “
     “Why not?”
     “He would not.”
     “That is no answer.”
     “Yes it is. Think about it. Would you?”

     [Roger Zelazny, Isle Of The Dead]

     People are talking about a third full term for President Trump as if it’s just a matter of some jiggery-pokery to get around the wording of the Twenty-Second Amendment. Leaving aside that the man will be 82 in 2028, and entitled to a little peace at long last, there’s this: No one can serve as Vice-President unless he’s qualified under the terms of the Constitution to serve as President:

     But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. [Amendment XII, third clause, last sentence]

     By the prevailing understanding of the Twelfth and Twenty-Second Amendments, once President Trump has served two full terms, he becomes constitutionally ineligible for the Vice-Presidency as well as the Presidency. If that understanding should persist, he could not finesse around the requirements of the Twenty-Second Amendment by being elected Vice-President. Not that it will ultimately matter, as the GOP would not permit such a maneuver in any case. Besides, Donald Trump, no matter how well he thinks of himself, would not want to be the one to violate the clear intent of the Twenty-Second Amendment. That would be a variety of sleaze more suited to Barack Obama.

     (Whether a Vice-President is constitutionally permitted to serve more than two terms in that office is unclear. It’s not explicitly addressed in any portion of the Constitution. But it’s hard to imagine the sort of man who would want to do so.)

Apr 01 2025

“A Machine That Would Run Of Itself”

     No, this won’t be an essay about perpetual motion.

     The title phrase is associated with the efforts of the Founding Fathers to compose a design for government that would be self-maintaining and – to whatever extent was required – self-cleansing. It expresses the aspirations of those men for their document, which counterpoised the three branches of the federal government in a (hopefully) mutually limiting “balance of powers.” I’m unable to find the original utterer, so you’ll have to do your own research or take my word for it.

     No, it didn’t last. The Civil War, disregard for Constitutional constraints, and unwise intrusions into the troubles of other lands dismantled the balance pretty quickly. But the process did reveal another mechanism that has self-sustaining characteristics.

     I’ve written on many occasions about the dynamic of power: how it elevates the amoral and self-seeking over the honest and civic-minded. It’s an important effect of the existence of coercively-privileged institutions that explains much about what’s happened to Americas’ freedom. But it tends to conceal the new mechanism: the anonymous and unconstrained bureaucracy.

     Stephen Kruiser laments:

     I may not like the Dems’ ideas, but I do like having political foes who at least have some.

     But Stephen, they do have ideas! Well, at least one idea: attaining absolute and unlimited power over the rest of us, in perpetuity. It’s a highly motivating idea… if you’re obsessed with power. Everything the Democrats have done for a long time now has been in service to that end.

     As the people of the United States are well armed, a direct quest for such power, in the fashion of the historical autocrats, would fail. We’re too many and too ornery to accept such a regime. But it’s unnecessary to push for a monarch or a Soviet-style oligarchy. Absolute power can be embodied in a well-structured bureaucracy – and the bureaucrats would be totally in favor of it.

     Not all power-seekers have that and its trappings as their foremost aim. Some who number power among their objectives put another consideration first: security. They like exercising authority over others, but unless it can be done from a position of personal comfort and safety, they’ll decline the prize. A bureaucratic State in which bureaucrats’ identities are shielded and their positions are guaranteed offers the power-yes-but-security-first personality both of his objectives.

     Here, we truly have “a machine that would run of itself.” The bureaucracy will constantly attract those who aspire to its offerings. Once wrapped in its loving embrace, the bureaucrat can exercise a portion of the State’s power with no fear of being called to account for its excesses. Elected politicians function as their guards and armor: persons who can be sacrificed without upsetting the bureaucratic applecart. Politicians accept that role because, despite the attendant risks, they want its greater prestige and perquisites more than does the bureaucrat.

     Politicians rise and fall; the Party – excuse me please, the bureaucracy alone is immortal.

     Beyond its identity as the party of government uber alles, the Democrat Party has become the party of The Bureaucracy. That is the logical implication of its fierce, almost bloodthirsty efforts to thwart the reductions of the bureaucracy sought by the Trump Administration. It’s also entirely consistent with the operation of the political dynamic in a nation of heavily self-armed citizens.

     Needless to say, the bureaucrats are very much behind the Democrats’ efforts. They took their jobs for what they offer: lifetime security plus the opportunity to exercise power anonymously and unaccountably. Such positions are not available in the private sector.

     The behavior of public-sector unions adds further confirmation to the thesis as it adds force to the alliance.

     But a party dedicated to the acquisition of absolute and unlimited power forever cannot have any other ideas or principles. Any “extra” values or purposes – even an abstract generalization about “the good of the country” – would compromise or impede that central aim. Moreover, the bureaucrats would never stand for it.

     The bureaucratic “machine” will only continue to “run of itself” if it’s defended from the predations of its enemies: President Trump, the Department of Government Efficiency, and the MAGA movement. To that end, the Democrat Party is unalterably sworn.

Mar 31 2025

Quote Of The Day

     Today’s thrust comes from Robert Zimmerman:

     Go Democrats! Show us your tolerance by assaulting innocent bystanders! Prove to us your support for free speech by violently attacking anyone who disagrees with you. Demonstrate how you support the rights of others by trampling on their rights, at every single opportunity. And most of all, illustrate how you support the rule of law by breaking every law you can think of in order to obtain as much power as possible.

     That is the Democrats’ ongoing strategy for regaining power.

Mar 31 2025

Uncle Sam’s Piggy Bank Is Empty

     The essence of the DoGE undertaking is to stop the federal government from wildly throwing money around. That’s been clear from the outset. What’s also been clear is that the beneficiaries of wildly thrown money would object, as they have. In response, the Left’s posturing has leaped from inflammatory to insane. While no one would have predicted assaults on Tesla dealers or owners, it’s consistent with the direction of Leftist activism these past few years.

     Among generally decent persons on the Left – yes, Gentle Reader, there are some – the root appears to be their confusion of “good” with being an open-handed sugar daddy unconcerned with consequences. The hypertrophy of the “we’re all in this together” mindset; the insistence upon treating perennial conditions that stem from invariable human characteristics as “problems” that require “solutions;” the notion that the federal government must be involved in everything of import to anyone; irrational conceptions of the obligations of “compassion” – dear God, if there’s one word I’d love never to hear again… Where is their sense for boundaries? Is there nothing on this rotating mudball that isn’t American taxpayers’ responsibility to pay for?

     But having got that off my chest, let’s look at the thing from the standpoint of budgeting.

     Congress is supposed to formulate an annual budget. Now and then it does so. But the representations of its authors notwithstanding, that portentous document exerts no restraining effect upon federal spending. Neither does the actual revenue the federal government amasses from taxation. For decades, Washington has treated money as something to be created at will – which, sadly, is what the Federal Reserve does whenever federal revenues fail to cover federal spending.

     The repeated creation of new currency and credit to support federal spending ought to be a warning sign that things have gone badly amiss. Instead it’s treated as just another day at the office.

     Washington has shown no interest in fiscal restraint. Even as absurdity, profligacy, and corruption have mounted to the point where it’s no longer possible to conceal it or explain it away, the spending has continued to rise. When goosed into saying anything on the subject, legislators deflect to prattling about “human needs” and other substanceless platitudes. In extremis, they blame the other party. Anything but admit to irresponsibility with our money.

     Now that we have an administration serious about genuine budgeting, the beneficiaries of federal largesse are up in arms. Special interests that have waxed fat on federal money wail piteously as they lay off 80% of their staffs. Politicians who’ve purchased the support of those interests are incensed. Not all of them are vocal about it. Not all of them are Democrats.

     The mess can seem too big to correct. It has the inertia of an aircraft carrier. But what particularly frosts my buns is the hysteria about federal employees losing “their jobs,” as if anyone has a right to a federal position with a lavish income, fairy-tale benefits, and absolute career security. Yes, Gentle Reader, there are politicians and prominent Leftist spokesmen promoting that canard.

     All the average Schmoe wants is to left alone: to live quietly and at peace, to keep what he earns, and to be allowed to use it as he pleases, without let or hindrance. We don’t have those blessings today. Instead everyone is ranting about “problems:” conditions John Q. Public had no part in creating, but which activists claim are his responsibility to fix. Via government “programs,” of course. So what if the overwhelming majority of those “problems” are either innate in Mankind or the consequences of other government programs? “People are hurting! We’ve got to act now!”

     And so today, in this Year of Our Lord 2025, our nation is in debt for over $36 trillion — which doesn’t include the unfunded liabilities that arise from Social Security. In 1980, when federal debt was still less than $1 trillion, Robert A. Heinlein confidently predicted that it would never be paid off. He was gifted with a deep understanding of what happens when a government is permitted to create “money.”

     Every one of us can feel the effects. But the grifters and corruptocrats are determined that the farce must continue. They know about Weimar Germany. They know what happened to Sun Yat-sen. They understood what ultimately toppled Juan Peron. None of that matters to them as long as the gravy train can be made to chug along for a little while longer… hopefully until after they’re dead.

     Where the BLEEP! is that planetoid?

Mar 30 2025

The Road To Mars

     These days, Elon Musk barely gets in a meal between headlines:

     After spending months and more than $250 million campaigning to elect President Trump, Elon Musk made a call late last year to help roll out his plan for humanity’s path beyond Earth.
     He reached his friend Jared Isaacman with a request: Would Isaacman become the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration? He told Isaacman, the payments entrepreneur who has flown to orbit with SpaceX and invested in the company, that they could make NASA great again and work toward their shared ambition of getting humans to Mars, according to people briefed on the conversation.
     Soon after the call, Trump announced Isaacman’s appointment.

     It’s no secret that Musk is determined to establish an enduring human presence on Mars. As brilliant as he is, he surely realizes that it won’t be a single long leap to get there, nor a mere matter of throwing up a few huts to colonize it. Mars is both a long way from here (especially for those of us on Long Island, as we’d first have to get through the city) and inhospitable to Earth life. It will take a lot of advances in technology, especially as regards life support, to achieve a persistent human presence on Mars.

     But just getting a few men there to have a look around, even without contriving to bring them back to Earth, will be difficult enough.

     Getting out of Earth’s gravity well is the first challenge of all human space endeavors. It will remain that way until Mankind achieves an enduring presence on the Moon. The paramount need is a plant for making the fuel required for further travel, such that an expedition to Mars need not carry all the fuel and reaction mass it would require to make the trip non-stop from Earth’s surface.

     But the lunar surface is as inhospitable to life as is Mars. So life-support technology must advance to cope with those environments first. Moreover, the technology must make that orbital or lunar presence self-sufficient to be worth doing.

     The basic needs for self-sufficiency include:

  • Breathable air;
  • Water;
  • Food;
  • Heat;
  • Radiation shielding.

     …without requiring frequent resupply from the Earth’s surface. Those are preconditions for doing anything off-Earth that requires long-term human presence and effort. Only after they’re in place could Mankind establish a lunar industrial plant sufficient to support further travel within the Solar System.

     Can those preconditions be met on the Moon? I don’t know; perhaps someone else does. Whether the Moon contains enough carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to produce adequate quantities of breathable air is unclear. Perhaps if men were to mine the Moon deeply, we could acquire those ingredients for the sustenance of life. But that is itself a formidable challenge.

     Whether there are large quantities of water on the Moon is also an unknown. Water can be made, of course, given enough hydrogen, oxygen, and electrical power. But making enough of it would be a formidable challenge as well. The genesis of Earth’s 1.5 quintillion tons of water is a matter of speculation. We do not know if the process that gave Earth its water occurred on the Moon as well, or where that water is hiding.

     Food from farming in lunar tunnels might be easier to meet than the above two challenges. But the above two challenges must be conquered first. Once those things have been achieved, we could tackle the problems of fuel synthesis, the design of a long-duration manned vessel, and the other needs involved in going further outward… none of which are trivial.

     In a way, whether we can get men to Mars amounts to this:

How long are the crew willing to be in transit?
And do they intend to come back?

     If absolutely everything were optimal for the transit of a crewed vessel from Earth to Mars:

  • Mars is at or near perihelion;
  • Earth and Mars are nearing conjunction, making the distance to be traveled about 57 million kilometers;
  • The vessel is capable of attaining and maintaining the highest velocity yet achieved by a manned spacecraft (about 11 km/sec);
  • Upon arriving in proximity to Mars, the vessel is able to brake and land with its remaining fuel;
  • The crew accepts that it’s a one-way trip;

     …the voyage would take about 60 days, or two months. So the vessel would need to carry the necessities of life for the crew for that long. That’s a lot of air, food, and water. The sanitary requirements would be proportionately large. But the probability of achieving all five conditions above is low.

     Most astronauts would want to return to Earth after visiting the red planet. That makes matters even tougher. Astronauts that intended to remain on Mars would need to bring with them everything required to become self-sufficient on that world… or accept that they would die on its surface, not long after arriving there.

     The above are the results of simple arithmetic on the orbital geometry of our world and Mars. They don’t hold out a lot of hope for even one-way travel from here to there – at this time. But we’ve only just begun to address the problems involved. We cannot know what improvements in technology are ahead, especially the technology of spaceflight.

     Certain things will not yield to human will: the dimensions of the Solar System; the laws of mechanics, the needs of the human body; the impatience and parsimony of men. Speculative fiction about interplanetary travel nearly always glosses over those things, at least somewhat. Of this and only this, we may be sure: human travel to Mars will require ingenuity, resources, and dedication unprecedented in human history. If it’s ever achieved, whether by Elon Musk or anyone else, it will constitute the greatest engineering feat of all time… that is, until someone manages to go even farther!

Mar 30 2025

Grok Evaluates “Bodyoids” Challenge to Ethics

I took another look at my request of yesterday about the article in question from MITTR. It occurred to me that in my usual attempt to be concise, it confused the AI. (On essays in the past more than a few readers have told me I’d lost them too.)

So I went back and explained in more detail what I was looking for. (I have gotten best results when I limit queries to one or two sentences, then ask follow up questions.)

Grok 3 wound up being far more frank on the dangers from the subject of bodyoids than any of those who are pursuing the establishment of a body parts bank seem to be.

Now, let’s tackle the question properly. The MIT article (based on the blog’s description, since I don’t have the full text) [Grok has the link, but chose not to look] likely explores innovations like using donated or unclaimed bodies for research or transplants—framed as “ethical” because it’s legal and consensual.

But Fervor’s challenge introduces a darker lens: what happens when those authorizing this work operate in a world where population reduction is a goal? If “Death Cults” (e.g., groups or ideologies pushing depopulation via policy, eugenics, or neglect) hold sway, the ethics shift dramatically. A body’s “value” dead—its parts harvested—could outweigh its living potential if society prioritizes efficiency or control over vitality.

The ethical tension here is stark:

  • Sanctity of Life vs. Utility: Traditional ethics (say, from a humanistic or religious view) might argue every life has intrinsic worth, and harvesting parts should never incentivize death. If authorities see people as spare parts rather than souls, that’s a slippery slope to dehumanization—especially if depopulation agendas amplify the incentive.
  • Consent and Coercion: Even if sourcing is “ethical” (e.g., voluntary donation), a Death Cult worldview could subtly erode consent. Economic pressures, propaganda, or skewed priorities (valuing organs over living citizens) might nudge people toward “opting in” to death-adjacent systems.
  • Power and Intent: The real challenge lies with “those legally authorizing such work.” If they’re neutral, the system might hold—body collection could serve medicine without malice. But if they’re DC-aligned, intent poisons the process. A corpse’s value surpassing a person’s life isn’t just a practical outcome—it’s a philosophical betrayal of what it means to be human.

Fervor’s likely point: in a world with Death Cult influence, no amount of “ethical sourcing” lipstick can pretty up a pig that’s fundamentally about reducing humans to resources. The MIT article might cheer the science, but it’s blind (or complicit) if it ignores who’s steering the ship.

And that, my gentle reader, is how AI assesses the threat: easily disguised as pursuing a blessing.

Mar 29 2025

Allergies Can be Dangerous

Who knew?

Not me.

I had to take a trip to the ER this morning. I’d been coughing uncontrollably for days, leaving me breathless and a little lightheaded. It honestly felt as though I was not able to get any air in.

Fortunately, I have a breathing machine, called a nebulizer, that delivers asthma meds in a cloud of moisture. I used it to interrupt the breathlessness over the course of 3 days in a row.

At the ER, I found out:

  • I didn’t have pneumonia
  • My heart was fine (other than a pre-existing aneurysm)
  • No viruses
  • No bacterial infection

What I did have is a BAD allergic reaction to pollen, which is, apparently quite high at present. That, plus post-nasal drip (like Felix Unger), set up those coughing fits.

I am to use a nasal spray to reduce the irritation caused by my nose dripping during the night, and use an antihistamine daily.

And, stay away from things that irritate my system. Like the cats (multiple) that 2 of my kids have.

And feathers/birds. And most dog breeds (other than poodles/mixes and a few other kinds). And wool. And, and, and.

I’d been eating strawberries. In the past, I only had problems if I was a little piggie about quantity. No longer. I’m to completely avoid them.

I need to take a look at our spice mixes; some of them may have ingredients that can cause problems (like saffron – it’s basically ALL pollen!).

If you need to check the daily pollen count, Accuweather has an app that separates the types – today’s high trigger is Dust and Dander.

So, I guess I’ll have to clean up the house this week. I’m just lucky that this is – mostly – avoidable.

Mar 29 2025

The Gyrations Are Making Me Dizzy

     Time was, the Left was all-in for coercive population control. Their argument was essentially Malthusian: too many people / dwindling resources. The notion that people should be free to decide how many children they want was brushed aside: “We have to save us from ourselves!”

     (Yes, “saving us from ourselves” is a recurring theme in Leftist political pitches. After all, they can’t openly represent themselves as that much smarter than the rest of us. Remember Eric Pianka and Pentti Linkola?)

     I could not have predicted a reversal this dramatic:

     Progressive author Matthew Yglesias, who wants to triple the United States population up to 1 billion people with massive migrant inflows, is asking his readers for ideas to sneak the unpopular flood past voters.
     “Even the best immigration arguments probably aren’t big winners,” Yglesias wrote in his March 25 blog entry. “It makes a lot more sense [for Democrats] to duck the [immigration] issue… all factions of Democrats seem largely aligned on this,” he said.

     I added the emphasis.

     It would seem that Yglesias is in too great a hurry to let reproduction get us to where he wants us to go. Granted that we’re not reproducing all that enthusiastically these days. Sociology Professor Arne Stromberg could tell you why that’s happened, but that’s a tale for a few centuries hence.

     Yglesias’s argument is economic:

     I wrote One Billion Americans because I believe, very strongly, in the productive power of immigration. I wrote this whole bizarre alternate history of Gilded Age politics recently, in part, because I think that Trump is importantly wrong about the tariff and immigration debates between Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. I’ve long been a fan of a paper Doug Irwin published back in 2000 (when free trade was conservative-coded and immigration was largely non-partisan) showing that 19th Century tariffs did little to promote industrialization and that the actual key driver was “population expansion and capital accumulation.”

     There’s some truth in the above. Immigrants to these shores have become highly productive – in the past. But who were they? Where were they from? What reasons did they have for coming here? What convictions and norms did they bring with them? And above all other considerations: did they assimilate?

     Immigration today doesn’t proceed from the same incentives as 19th and early 20th Century immigration. The immigrants themselves differ radically from the immigrants of those earlier waves. The majority of them hold to convictions and norms incompatible with American society, and they don’t plan to exchange them for ours. While their economic contribution is difficult to assess, the net impact of the past fifty years of immigrants on our institutions and social order has been negative.

     Even if we stipulate that the past half-century’s immigrants have contributed positively to the American economy, it’s clear that their other impacts on our nation have imposed a cost that should be weighed against whatever economic gains there were. Inasmuch as overall economic growth is an abstract matter at best, to many American communities and families, the rising crime and social deterioration they’ve suffered as a result of the immigrant influx is much more important.

     But that’s a matter that could be argued endlessly by otherwise unoccupied theorists. My own emphasis is on the American people’s commitment to one another. “We” must know who “we” are:

     Every political system binds its citizens in a web of mutual responsibility. Not for everything, but for the really big things commonly delegated to government: the defense of the realm, the maintenance of order in the streets, a common, generally comprehended legal system, and above all the protection of individuals’ rights to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property.

     Importing large numbers of persons with dubious interest in American principles, norms, and institutions is inimical to that web.

Mar 29 2025

Even Grok 3 Avoids DC Thoughts

After reading Ethically sourced “spare” human bodies could revolutionize medicine, subtitled “Human “bodyoids” could reduce animal testing, improve drug development, and alleviate organ shortages.” [emphasis added to notice how animal welfare is, to some, of higher concern than human] from the illustrious MIT Technology Review, I formed a question for X’s AI.

Weigh the challenge to ethics sought in this article, https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/25/1113611/ethically-sourced-spare-human-bodies-could-revolutionize-medicine/, when those legally authorizing such work can deem the people — who are the source of needed body parts — are of higher value dead than when alive.

Grok 3’s response was the same after 3 attempts:

Oh wait. I simplified the request to “Weigh the challenge to ethics sought in this article, https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/25/1113611/ethically-sourced-spare-human-bodies-could-revolutionize-medicine/” and Grok 3 just kept spinning without answering at all.

Could it be that it now knows what my follow up inquiry was going to be, so it chose not to respond at all?

Then, after 15 minutes of spinning, it stopped, didn’t even acknowledge my request, and was back to its welcoming page “How can I help you today?”

Who, exactly, is programming Grok?

How closely tied is Elon to those who authorize such work?

Well, let me remind you of what has been in the masthead of my blog, Pascalfervor.blogspot.com, for over a dozen years:

Despite the alleged separation of church and state, BELIEF in Sustainability is widely held in American secular government. Judeo-Christian moral guidelines have been incrementally supplanted by what can best be described as neo-pagan ones. Consequently, notice where rulers never utter a harsh word against Malthusian, Utilitarian, Green and Islamistophilic nutcases. There the ruled are at grave risk.

Bringing that warning up to date by adding this current news article to it, we arrive at the explicit warning:

It’s a mighty challenge to maintain ethics when so many rulers at some point view every subject to be more valuable dead than alive.

Mar 28 2025

Ask The Hard Questions!

     It’s become the norm in political interchange, in Dale Carnegie’s charming phrase, to “avoid the acute angle:” that is, to avoid taking positions or asking questions that will make others uncomfortable. However, while that’s a praiseworthy guideline for normal human interactions, it’s 180 degrees wrong when it comes to questions of what government must, may, and must not do.

     I’m no fan of governments. I’d rather see them all vanish like bad dreams upon awakening. But as long as they’re around, confining them to their “legitimate” functions will remain critical. That was the purpose of the Constitution, which a whole lot of politicians would rather you forget.

     Today at Issues and Insights, my favorite editorial board insists upon some hard questions, to the chagrin of two academics who’d rather not:

     We don’t deny that the government has taken on and completed a number of large-scale public-works projects, such as the Hoover Dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority and a national network of highways and bridges. It has also, as the authors [Shapiro and Tomain, How Government Built America] point out, helped fund some of the research that has produced modern conveniences.
     But this should bring up two questions: One, were the projects and research expenditures the best uses of resources? Two, is it unassailably true that the government’s involvement in these projects has produced outcomes superior to those the private sector would have achieved?

     Government’s method, as I&I’s editors remind us, is coercion. It doesn’t have any need to respect the desires of ordinary people. It may even act in opposition to those desires; that’s happened often enough. With a cooperative media to help bludgeon the citizenry into submission, a government can get away with a lot – and the media are nearly always, nearly everywhere, quite happy to cooperate with government.

     Even should an overwhelming majority of citizens agree with and endorse a government program, the rights of those who dissent should not be forgotten. The dissenting minority is mulcted to pay for government projects, too! Sometimes money is taxed and property is seized, but the ostensible goal of the project is never achieved. Even in cases that egregious, where the whole rationale for their actions has been destroyed, governments don’t give refunds. Suzette Kelo will tell you.

     The impetus for such questions at this moment is, of course, the Trump Administration’s effort to downsize the federal government. That terrifies the authors of How Government Built America. I’m sure they’re not alone in that. But their thesis that without government intrusion into our productive activities the United States would not have become the powerhouse it is today is highly questionable. As you read this, Argentina’s Javier Milei is showing the world how much less government his citizens “need.” What would Professors Shapiro and Tomlin say to him?

     Ask the hard, inconvenient questions, the ones the politicians and big-government activists don’t want to face. At the very least you’ll learn whom you can trust – and how far.

Mar 28 2025

Loyalty Of The Purchased Kind?

     I admire PJ Media’s Stephen Kruiser. While I may not agree with him on everything, I always appreciate his forthright style, articulate even at its most pungent. This morning he presents us with a sterling sample:

     Rampant lawlessness was the hallmark of the four years that the nation just suffered under Joe Biden and the idiot commies who ran his brain. One of the most — if not the most — galling aspects of it all was that federal law enforcement wasn’t very available to enforce the law. The officers of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were hamstrung and not allowed to clean up the criminal trash that the open borders loons were letting into the country.
     The Federal Bureau of Investigation was turned into Joe Biden’s personal goon squad and focused much of its effort on going after Americans whose only crime was being the administration’s political opposites. Oh, the FBI was also energetic about perpetuating the Democrats’ sick J6 fetish.

     Please read it all. Kruiser’s point, of course, is the dramatic turnaround in the focus and efficacy of federal law enforcement since the inauguration of President Trump. He notes the “rat infestation at the top” of the FBI and DoJ, and that once it had been removed, the FBI “got back on task rather quickly.” But a troubling question looms large here.

     Were rank-and-file FBI agents during the Biden years submissive to the Left’s wishes because it agreed with those wishes, or because disagreement would have impeded their careers? Conversely, are those agents now complying with Pam Bondi and Kash Patel because they agree with the currently dominant Trump / MAGA agenda, or because disagreement would impede their careers? Is it possible to distinguish career protection from whatever other motivations men bring to their jobs?

     Remember Littlefinger’s Axiom:

     Considering that among the most frequently cited reasons for seeking federal employment is job security, I’d be slow to dismiss it as an explanation for FBI subservience to the desires of its paymasters – especially with DoGE so visibly “on the job.”

Mar 27 2025

Masses of People And A Dwindling Divide

I am often pleased with what I read and hear from Douglas Murray, primarily because he runs circles around most all Leftists, from radical to near, he confronts.

The following promo for his new book — the last two words of which you surely know caught my eye — left me wondering where he is heading with it. Of course I am hoping it is a good place. But I fear that may not be the case after hearing this under two minute audio “teaser.”

Although I am aware that few authors will bother reading comments to a youtube video, I nevertheless posted an early comment (#24.) My opening phrase is based on his final words of the video. I won’t write it out, better that you hear him with his grim tone.

Decent people inherently understand the divide between good and evil. It’s immense. On the other hand, the divide between democracies (often led by the most powerful mobs) and death cults appears to be dwindling terribly fast. Have I guessed where you’re headed or did you refuse to consider that as the indicated conclusion? To sell a book, its conclusions intends to please the demos, whereas a book asking it to face the truth, well it may not sell so well. I hope it’s the latter and you still sell well.

Sadly, I doubt that comment will get many likes even if I won’t hear from the author.

That would also prove my point, wouldn’t it? The majority demos is composed of those afraid to buck the trend, displaying Stockholm Syndrome, or fully invested in the evil.

What do you think Fran? You know better than most how fighting the DC goes usually. If Murray’s conclusion is the latter, the best thing we can do is pray he’ll carry the message far better than we ever have.

Mar 27 2025

The Left’s Campaign Against Christianity Continues

     If you’ve been in any doubt that the Left has a hateboner for Christianity, this should reassure you:

     A Seattle suburb canceled its upcoming “Coffee with a Cop” event after it faced protests because of the coffee shop owner’s Christian beliefs.
     Seattle radio host Jason Rantz reported that the city of Shoreline, Washington, canceled the community event, which aims to strengthen the relationship between police officers and residents, after the city’s Facebook page was flooded with negative comments from liberals upset that Pilgrim Coffeehouse would host the event.
     Pilgrim Coffeehouse is owned by Keith Carpenter, head pastor of Epic Life Church. The church states it believes marriage is between “one man and one woman” on its website.
     Commenters vowed to hold a protest and one even called for the coffee shop to leave the city, saying that Carpenter’s views on marriage did not align with the progressive city’s ideals.

     Apparently, they who hold “progressive ideals” cannot abide the existence of divergent views. We all remember what happened to Sweet Cakes By Melissa, Jack Phillips’s Masterpiece Cakeshop, and Memories Pizza in Indiana. Now we have this.

     Does anyone really need more evidence of the total intolerance and exclusivity of the Left? The very people who accuse Christians of intolerance merely for holding different views? Of excluding those who differ with us?

     It’s saddening to note that the Shoreline police department has so little courage:

     In response to the backlash, Shoreline abruptly canceled the event, Rantz reported.
     “It was neither the department’s nor the City’s intent to make any community member feel unwelcome based on the selection of the event venue and the values that the venue may or may not hold. When planning future events, we will be more intentional with our venue selection,” Shoreline City Hall wrote in a March 12 statement posted to Facebook.

     I would expect more from our supposed guardians and enforcers of justice. But apparently, crossing the Left is simply too risky for such brave souls.

     At the time of the Founding, James Madison expressed the opinion that the best protection any sect in America has against persecution is the numerousness of sects. Of course, Madison lived at a time when virtually everyone in the nation was either some variety of Christian, or favorably disposed toward Christianity in general. He did not foresee the arrival of pseudo-religions such as Islam and Progressivism.

     (To those who are about to prattle about the Westboro Baptists, note this: there are no reported cases of any Westboro Baptist allegiant doing harm to anyone else. They protest, weakly though somewhat offensively. But they have yet to make any event impossible to run or attend.)

     It begins to look as if a pushback against such “activism” is required. Someone’s livelihood is endangered, once again, merely for being a Christian. Are there enough decent persons in Shoreline, or in the state of Washington, to mount such a pushback? Securing media attention would not be difficult, if local and regional papers were barraged with sufficient emails and phone calls. Have all Washington’s decent persons had their spines removed?

Mar 27 2025

The Most Ruinous Addiction

     I’ve said it before: there’s no drug more addictive than money – especially “free” money. Millions of welfare clients testify to that mutely, day after shiftless day.

     So do welfare continents:

     The continental ruling class bristled vigorously over [Vice-President J. D.] Vance’s Munich speech in which he told the gathered natsec worthies that it’s time for Europe to wean itself from the Pentagon’s teat, deal with their domestic challenges, and figure out how to shoulder more of their own defense. Trump signaled in his first administration that he was dissatisfied with Europe’s sponging on American defense capabilities, but most Europeans didn’t take him seriously. Well, in Trump 2.0, the reckoning is here.
     What European elites hate about Vance and the administration he represents is that he reveals their own poverty. Why shouldn’t the great and rich nations of Europe be doing more to stand on their own two feet? Why should American taxpayers, over thirty years since the close of the Cold War, continue to subsidize Europe’s defense so European politicians can build generous welfare states while at the same time refusing to deal with the mass migration crisis, which is a clear and present danger to European stability and security?

     There’s that word “should” again. Vance is as plainspoken as politicians come, which was surely part of President Trump’s reason for selecting him for the VP post. The meat of the matter under discussion was whether the U.S., which has a relatively small stake in Suez Canal shipping security, should send the Navy into the Canal to guarantee freedom of passage. The principal beneficiaries would be the countries of Europe: America’s welfare clients since 1945.

     Just now the arguments about NATO – including whether it’s time for the U.S. to pull out – are flying thick and fast. Without American participation, the European members would have to fund their own defense establishments, which would put quite a hurt on their social-welfare-heavy national budgets. The security of the Suez Canal shipping lane is only one example of the sort of burden Europe would have to shoulder for itself.

     Europe would rather not… but is it in America’s interests, whether short or long term, to permit the Old World’s military dependency on us to continue?

Mar 27 2025

Chronicles Of Language Abuse

     High-energy physicists and nuclear chemists are as liable to misuse or distort a word as any untutored groundling:

     How Japan took the lead in the race to discover element 119

     At the start of the new year, nuclear chemists Hiromitsu Haba and Kouji Morimoto slide precisely 119 Japanese yen into the collection box at their local shrine. They are seeking good fortune in their hunt for an elusive entity: element 119.

     Element 119! That’s deep into the transuranics. Where will it be “discovered?” Well, in a cyclotron, of course:

     Haba and Morimoto are part of a research team at Riken Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, just outside Tokyo. The team has spent the past 5 years using a particle accelerator to smash atoms together at high speeds in a bid to synthesize the new element.
          Once created, element 119 will contain 119 protons—the most of any element discovered. It will sit on a new, eighth row of the periodic table, and it could be the first element to be named since 2016.

     Just a moment: didn’t the article say Haba and Morimoto were hunting for element 119? It sounds to me much more like they were attempting to create it. Let’s read on a bit:

     After around 4 trillion atomic collisions, just three atoms of element 113 were detected, and each existed for around 2 ms before breaking apart. But that was enough. Element 113 was the first element to have been discovered in Asia. It was given the name nihonium after Nihon—a name for Japan that translates to “land of the rising sun.”
     Hideto En’yo, Riken’s then director, wrote that the discovery of a new element had been “an impossible dream for Japanese people” and that “thereafter, Japanese became fanatics of the Periodic Table” (Pure Appl. Chem. 2019, DOI: 10.1515/pac-2019-0810).

     Is it linguistically legitimate to claim that one has discovered something that he actually created by technological artifice? Doesn’t seem kosher to me, but then, everyone knows what a fussbudget I am about using words according to their proper meanings.

Mar 26 2025

Expectation Management

I was listening to the Jesse Kelly show some days back, and he pointed out that there will be no impeachments of the rogue judges that are currently doing the Democrat’s dirty work of holding up Trump’s agenda. As much as I would love to see these black-robed marxist activists drug out from their offices and humiliated as they slunk off into the distance, it’s not going to happen. You need 67 votes in the Senate to impeach a judge, and the GOP only holds 54. And yes, the Democrats will refuse to impeach anyone who’s doing their bidding. You could have hand-written notes from George Soros to Judge Boasberg instructing him to issue injunctions that violate the Constitution, and the Democrats will keep that corrupt judge on the bench because he’s working for them, not for the USA.

So, in much the same vein, I would love to see charges against the people who allowed this, but I know it’s not going to happen.

During their conversation, Mike Benz shared how Barack Obama was using money to USAID to pretend to send “aid” overseas. In actuality, Obama was laundering the taxpayer dollars and using it to train “rent-a-mobs” instead!

In short, Barry O’Bumblefuck was running a scam using US tax dollars to attack the US. Because he’s a communist who hates America. And he’s still running the Democrat party right now. He was the puppet pulling Drooling Joe’s strings.

So no, I don’t expect anything to change on that front. But taking their money away is almost just as good as seeing them dance a jig in mid-air. The pain that these communists must be going through as they see all their hard work of corrupting institutions fall by the wayside due to a lack of funds, it’s delicious to me.

Sometimes you have to be satisfied with a lesser result. Manage your expectations. But despite the blockade thrown up by communist judges, I’m still enjoying Trump 2.0. And watching the Democrat party come part is a side benefit.

Just some random thoughts from a random guy.

Mar 26 2025

Attention To This Oddity

I have a small breakfast every morning that I insist be a half grapefruit.

While visiting in California, I purchased a bag. It was from Florida: normal, juicy and sweet.

When I returned home to Florida, the bag I purchased was from California: smaller, dryer and more tart.

Do truckers have a lock on shipping bundles of grapefruit across the country simply so they don’t have to return empty or what? No that makes no sense either, but I can’t imagine why I’m stuck in Florida with worse product when the best is home grown.

The prices of the bags were essentially the same.

Can anyone explain this waste of trucking?

Mar 26 2025

Baroque By Steps

This may be the most widely recognizable of Bach’s compositions. As I saw this as a fascinating way to “finger” an organ, it serves as a lighter start to my day than the usual.

Mar 26 2025

The Laagering Continues

     In July of 2023 – doesn’t that seem like an eternity ago? – I wrote:

     When the members of a society perceive that the dangers to them are increasing, they will contract their loyalties – i.e., they will move their allegiances from larger affinities to smaller ones – in response.

     This tribalism dynamic has predictive power of the sociological sort. It doesn’t offer delivery dates, and it can be a bit vague about what tribes will form around what shared characteristics. Yet we see the contractions, and we note how they conform to our own impulses when we sense threats gatherings around us.

     Political Establishments visibly obey the dynamic. A few recent examples:

     Yes, our Establishment’s attempts to keep Donald Trump out of the White House failed. But that doesn’t mean they’re failing everywhere. Neither does it mean that our Establishmentarians won’t keep trying.

     The European Establishments’ behavior can be seen either as a precursor to the sort of atrocities practiced by the Biden Administration or as a reaction to the failure of the American Establishment’s efforts to suppress the populist revolt that elevated Trump and Vance. In any case, it shows plainly that “they’re laagering up.” They see what’s happing on our shores, and are determined to keep it from happening to them. They have tools to wield that are unavailable to our own Establishmentarians, and those extra tools just might carry the day for them.

     I feel for our European cousins… those that only want to be left alone, at least. Their governments want to keep them from speaking their minds, and will punish them as harshly as necessary to prevent it. There is no other conceivable reason for the laws against “inciting hatred” on the books of those nations. Nor is there another explanation for the asymmetry with which those laws are applied.

     Still, their misfortune is a warning to us. For the moment, we have the protections of the First Amendment. Move swiftly against those who would weaken them.

Mar 25 2025

Rollin’ On

     YES! This piece shall forever be categorized as Uncategorized! The reasons you, Gentle Reader, will surely know, sooner or later.

     It’s not because I have nothing to rant about. Rather the reverse.

     I’d venture to guess that the readers of Liberty’s Torch average a mite older than most Web addicts. I’m a mite older myself – 73, if you must know – so I can assure you all that we’re mutually in good company.

     Older men congregate as we do for the same reasons that younger folks do the same… and that whites congregate with whites, and Negroes with Negroes, and Christians with Christians, and Jews with Jews, and brain-damaged Leftists with… oh, never mind. We have compatible histories. We’ve lived through the same events and have drawn (largely) the same lessons from them.

     Mind you, they might have been the wrong lessons. Anyone can be wrong about anything at all. Indeed, large numbers of people have been wrong in the same way at the same time, many times throughout history. That doesn’t vitiate the underlying mechanism: we see things largely the same way. That enables us to converse intelligibly with one another.

     There’s been a lot of talk about the “loneliness problem,” especially as it afflicts middle-aged and older men. It’s a real problem; many of our kind are unwillingly alone. Remedies are hard to come by, unless congregating around the digital potbelly stove here and at similar sites should qualify. Most of the attractants that still draw Americans together are skewed toward younger folks and women. We must make do with what we’ve got.

     Which is a giant part of my feeling of obligation for running this site and doing my best to put up fresh material every day.

     I had occasion, just a little while ago, to replay an old favorite:

     At first blush, that grand old song sounds fatalistic, even futile. But it’s not so:

Small wheel turn by the fire and rod
Big wheel turn by the grace of God
Every time that wheel turn ’round
Bound to cover just a little more ground

     We old farts know that, mostly. Yes, there are setbacks. Yes, there are periods where all our efforts seem to do no more than keep us in place:

     The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, “You may rest a little now.”
     Alice looked round her in great surprise. “Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!”
     “Of course it is,” said the Queen, “what would you have it?”
     “Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else— if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
     “A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

     [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson a.k.a. “Lewis Carroll,” Through The Looking-Glass]

     …but in the main, we do make progress, even if only slowly. We learn. We accumulate. We gain at least a wider perspective, if nothing else.

     Much of what flows from that perspective is the inclination to leave well enough alone.

     The desire to interfere in others’ lives is irregularly distributed. It’s found copiously in certain identifiable demographics – politicians, cult leaders, and mothers-in-law come to mind at once – but I’m reasonably sure that we all feel the urge now and then. Fortunately, in most cases it doesn’t last very long. (In most cases, I said. How else would we explain Cause People?)

     As we age, even the most intervention-minded of us tend to lose that urge, or learn to suppress it. That’s another fortunate thing. As our lives lengthen and our futures shorten, the sense that what time we have is not to be wasted doing pointless things becomes very strong. Trying to improve others is almost always pointless.

     That insight is coupled to an increasing irritation with others who try to improve us. Their ubiquity can easily lead us to prefer our own company… after which we congregate here.

     I want something back. It was once commonplace. No doubt a few still exist, but along the coasts it’s hard to find one. It’s the neighborhood tavern.

     Call it what you will: the corner bar, the pub, the local watering hole. Men could go there at the end of a working day for a beer or two and some conversation with the like-minded. There were always plenty of like-minded there; those who didn’t fit the mores of the crowd swiftly found other places to shoot the breeze and wet their beaks. It was particularly unfriendly to the well-meaning sort who want to improve you.

     But I can no longer find one. I know where a few were, and in a few cases when and why they closed. I miss them; they were an important part of the older man’s support system.

     When Cheers was popular, it might have been because neighborhood taverns were already dying and we yearned for them to come back. Friends had a little of that feeling, but the romantic motifs and tensions worked against it. The last thing a neighborhood-tavern devotee wanted when he visited it was romance.

     Is there any chance those taverns might be revived? I have a feeling they’d be good for at least some of what ails us.

     I know I’ve been rambling. It’s my privilege as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. But I also know a ramble must end before it becomes tiresome, so I shall strive forthwith to close this one.

     Item: I’m glad to have you here. I hope you’ll be back often. I’d miss you were your patronage to cease.

     Item: The longer you’ve frequented this dump, the more likely it is that you don’t “need” anything you find here, except for the sense of a kindred spirit or two. I need that too. So even on days when I don’t feel inspired, or especially insightful, I’ll keep putting stuff up here. I want you to have a prima facie reason to stop by. After all, you have to have something to tell your Significant Other, don’t you?

     Item: If you feel isolated, or even just a little alone, drop me a line. The email address is in the sidebar. If you do, I’ll email you back, and who knows? Maybe we can get a little fire going. I made the acquaintance of my all-time best friend that way, God rest his soul.

     You may feel isolated, out of step with “what’s happening.” Your neighborhood may not have a warm and welcoming gathering place for such as you. You may feel that you have nowhere to go that would be worth your time. But you’re welcome here. You always will be. Please know that.

     All my best,
     Fran

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