Today we return to “Max’s Musings” series, where I quickly opine on a series of unrelated current events or anything which piqued my interest. Let’s begin.
Walking, Talking Stereotypes
You can’t complain about being stereotyped unfairly if you do everything possible to confirm it:
I’m going to talk about the Karmelo Anthony case in a bit more depth later on. However, anyone who doesn’t think that black people don’t go out of their way to confront or unjustifiably escalate even the mildest of confrontations is being willfully obtuse. It’s very obvious why rates of crime and violence are so high in the black community, why so many blacks end up arrested, incarcerated, or killed by police.
Of course, leftists also habitually threaten violence, so it’s not all about race. Even so, the sort of zero-to-sixty escalation you see in the example above is unique to black culture. It’s a problem that’s dogged America for generations and will continue to do so. Unfortunately, as long as blacks exist, it’ll remain an inseparable feature of our landscape.
Leftist Morality
A recent Gallup poll revealed something interesting about the personal morality of liberals:
As you might imagine, there aren’t many behaviors Democrats find morally unacceptable. It’s interesting, however, that they find polygamy and extramarital affairs overwhelmingly unacceptable. Liberals generally claim that nothing bothers them as long as it’s personal behavior, but is polygamy’s anyone else’s business? Is an extramarital affair anyone else’s business? That’s not to say cheating on your significant other is okay, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about whether it’s anyone else’s business other than the parties directly involved.
Liberals then qualify their stances by saying nothing bothers them as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. This is an untenable stance, of course. There aren’t many behaviors on that list which physically harm another person. But all behaviors on that list do have strings attached, they do have consequences that affect others. Dividing behaviors into ones that “hurt” anyone else versus ones that don’t isn’t a useful paradigm for viewing the world.
Note, for example, how much less favorable pornography is for Democrats compared to other behaviors, even as half of them still find it acceptable. Pornography is arguably the most private of behaviors on that list and arguably impacts nobody else except its viewer. It suggests that whether a behavior affects others isn’t the actual standard against which these behaviors are judged and liberals do have their own distinct, albeit inconsistent, moral code.
That code? Everything’s fine, as long as it doesn’t offend me!
Don’t Press Your Luck
One of the reasons liberals think mass immigration can be successful is because, well, it once was:
The part liberals often ignore is that early-20th century mass immigration to the U.S. took place when the country was still culturally and demographically dominated by White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. They also ignore that it didn’t go smoothly, t it wasn’t even until after World War II that the assimilation process truly did complete itself. Oh, and the U.S. imposed an effective moratorium on immigration for over 40 years. In other words, we recognized that enough was enough and we needed time to assimilate everyone.
If there’s any lesson America’s 20th century experience with mass immigration holds, it’s that it’s a vast undertaking with lots of risks and no guarantee of reward. As we’re discovering today, mass immigration’s consequences are irreversible. It’s a cautionary tale, not an invitation to open the floodgates. Sometimes, it’s when things turn out well in the end that you need to be most careful.
No Free Lunches
The question of whether food ought to be made available for free isn’t as complicated as people make it out to be:
Everyone’s tired of hearing the maxim There’s No Free Lunch, but it’s always been a true statement. At no point in history did a person eat without exchanging something for it. If they didn’t exchange money for it, they exchanged labor or risked their lives for it. Being able to exchange money for food is better than exchanging labor or risking life and limb for it, isn’t it? If you disagree, try feeding yourself and your family entirely through subsistence agriculture and hunting. Good luck.
That said, I find nothing wrong with finding other ways to allow people to afford food. If they can’t pay for it through food, why can’t they pay for it with labor? Again, you’re going to ultimately exchange something for it.
The answer isn’t to make food free. The answer is to expand the range of permissible exchanges. There’s no such thing as something for nothing. Ever.
Russia Is Nothing To Envy
The Russian Federation is often cited by some on the Western Right as an exemplar of conservatism, family values, nationalism, and traditionalism. It became a topic of discussion recently, during which high-profile figures like Candace Owens lauded Russia as a superior alternative to the increasingly decadent, godless West.
However, other voices on the Right pushed back, correctly noting that, despite outward appearances, Russia is anything but an example to follow:
Russia, even going back to the Communist era, has long since seen better days. Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, it has seen stability and a share of prosperity, most certainly. But not only do living standards remain well below that of the West, as explained above, Russia is a social wreck of a country, not to mention demographically crippled. Whatever problems they don’t have to deal with are outweighed by many more far worse.
America, to say nothing of the entire West, is on a road to hell. There’s no denying that. What we have here is still better than what they have in Russia.
Traditionalism: Better For Women?
I was viewing a post on social media by an influencer living in Bali talking about one of the pros of living in the tropical paradise:
The people. I’ve traveled many places and the locals here are legitimately some of the warmest, kindest, and most respectful people I’ve ever met. Like the fact that I’ve been driven by hundreds of male scooter drivers (basically their uber/lyft) and not a single one has made me feel even the slightest bit uncomfortable even though we’re basically touching the whole time is actually wild. America could never.
Bali is, of course, in Indonesia. It’s one of the most traditionalist countries in the world, deeply conservative by Western standards. Being the world’s most Muslim country likely has something to do with it. There’s a certain kind of young-ish Western woman who travels overseas and is smitten by countries like this, in large part because their traditionalism lends towards politeness and strict standards of behavior. This extends to gender relations.
Things aren’t, of course, exactly what they seem on the surface. Indonesia isn’t some feminist paradise - far from it, in fact. Yet their traditionalism and observance of strict gender roles is also why women seem to be treated with greater dignity and respect: because the lines between the two genders are clearly drawn and everyone, male or female, is expected to not only stay within those boundaries, but uphold them, as well.
Everything in life involves trade-offs. Traditionalism means stricter gender roles and less feminism, in return getting more predictability, better-defined rules governing gender relations, and well-behaved men. It also means women are better-behaved, since expectations are imposed on them as much as they are on men. In many ways, it’s a more equal society than the West’s gender-egalitarian societies, which trend towards imposing expectations on men while rejecting the idea any expectations can be imposed upon women.
It’s also interesting to note that these same women so taken by the benefits of traditionalism wholeheartedly reject it in their home countries in the West. Even with gender egalitarian norms, gender relations in the West are more fraught than ever, suggesting that maybe traditionalism and gender realism is what we need more of. It seems the rejection of traditionalism in the West acknowledges that the grass isn’t greener on the other side, that the respect women enjoy elsewhere comes at a price.
Still, if predictability and responsibility form the foundation of any cohesive, functional social order, I think a serious discussion needs to be had about finding ways to restore more traditional gender norms and roles. This isn’t about “retvrning” to “trad” lifestyles. This is simply about acknowledging that men and women are different, will always be different, and making them into competitors isn’t the way to create gender equality.
Feminist Fails At History - Again
Along similar themes, a feminist tried to make the argument that her ideology was the norm throughout history:
The thing is, she’s not wrong, not entirely. She’s just wrong in the way she frames it. Indeed, in hunter-gatherer societies, alongside early forms of human civilization, gender roles were narrower and not as strictly defined. However, this doesn’t indicate any kind of deep philosophical nor political thinking. Rather, this was simply a matter of sheer necessity. Unless everyone contributed to hunting and gathering, a tribe wouldn’t survive.
Nor did gender roles not exist. They absolutely did, and they were biologically defined. There wasn’t a whole lot of arguing over it, of course. When you’re fighting day-to-day for survival, you’re not going to have time to turn everything into a controversy like people do today.
Which brings us to the problem of how she framed her point:
Men took away our rights, and did so recently. Men and women continue to jointly correct the errors of female oppression precisely because it is not natural or inevitable.
Keyword: rights. The concept of human rights emerged during early modernity. For most of history, rights weren’t a thing. In fact, rights aren’t a thing at all. To quote former President Joe Biden, it’s an idea. It might be a good idea, but the point is they exist only insofar as people are willing to use violence to uphold them.
Early forms of human civilization, such as hunter-gatherers, didn’t believe in human rights. They simply didn’t see the world in that way. They instead saw things in terms of Yours vs. Mine, My Tribe vs. Your Tribe. To claim that “rights were taken” from women betrays the fact that women played the roles they did because that’s what it took to survive. There was nothing progressive about primitive society. They were reactionary, if anything.
That said, there’s much to learn from them. For one, if feminists think contemporary society is oppressive, they ought to know women in more primitive societies had no time to worry about being oppressed or hating men. That’s because they, alongside men, were deeply involved in the work of ensuring their tribe survived one more day.
There’s a lesson there.
Liberals Aren’t Misunderstood
Liberals remain undefeated in their lack of self-awareness:
From my experience, few people in this world are genuinely misunderstood. For the most part, anyone who thinks they are simply present the worst side of themselves. This is a phenomenon transcending the political divide. I’d say the same about Donald Trump as well - he’s not misunderstood, he just shows the worst side of himself at every turn.
Looks like leftists and Trump have something in common!
No, You Can’t Just Catch Them Later
A troubling incident out of Mississippi:
I’m not so cynical to think that there’s a way to justify the killing of a one-year-old by police. I’ll say though that anyone who really cares about why Kohen Kartier Wiley died should be intellectually interested in learning what actually happened instead of relying on politicized outrage for their understanding of the tragedy.
What I do want to address here and now is this pervasive belief among liberals that police should get into the habit of allowing suspects to get away to minimize the risk of death of all parties involved:
And the suspect was, what? Smart in trying to flee police? Most of these outraged liberals would never even think about doing that. It’s also interesting to see that they think this woman would be stupid enough to go someplace where police are most likely to find her.
More importantly, liberals seem to think catching criminals is easy. It’s not, which is why suspects need to be taken into custody at the first available opportunity. Catching criminals is resource- and time-intensive, demands physical effort on the part of law enforcement officers, and there’s no guarantee it’ll be made any easier by waiting. Letting them get away gives them more opportunities to commit crime, all the while additional emergency and service calls pile up. You can see how quickly things can get out of control if police make a habit out of letting suspects get away because it’s too difficult or unsafe to take them into custody at first opportunity. Might as well not even enforce the law at that point.
Then again, we all know liberals don’t really care about catching criminals, which is why they can never be allowed to be part of the discussion on how to create a safe, orderly society. Everything liberals do makes the task of running civilization much harder than it needs to be, all while failing to reduce the prison population or the number of people shot and killed by police.
Pride Is Truly The Worst Of All Sins
The San Francisco Giants Pride Night fiasco has stirred up more controversy than I’d anticipated. I’m not going to rehash the whole case, but both the Giants and the MLB have been on their back foot trying to address the outrage from both sides:
I have three thoughts. First, this is unfolding at a time when support for the LGBTQ+ agenda is flatlining, at best, or declining, at worst. In fact, Neil Howe, co-author of the Fourth Turning theory, has argued that America will shift in a more conservative direction during the current Fourth Turning. Whatever the case may be, it seems as though there’s a limit to how much of this can be force-fed to the public without some kind of reaction.
Second, this is a perfect example of why mixing politics and sports is a bad idea. Liberals would counter by saying that there’s nothing political about LGBTQ+ rights. This is highly disingenuous. LGBTQ+ may not be inherently political, but it’s most certainly a politicized issue. Not to mention LGBTQ+ goes way beyond simply demanding equal rights. It calls for the wholesale reordering of society along with trying to force people to think differently about fundamental philosophical as well as political questions. There might be a time and place for that, but sports is absolutely not the arena for it.
Which leads to my third point: controversies like these can be avoided simply by not having things like Pride Night in the first place. No reasonable person thinks a professional sports franchise hates the LGBTQ+ community because they didn’t hold Pride Night. That so many people do suggests our society is filled with unreasonable people who shouldn’t be trusted with a vote nor a voice in public affairs. Nor is “Pride” even a matter of acceptance and equality at this point. It’s about dominance. It really is the deadliest of all sins.
I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to a time when politics isn’t at the center of public life. That day can’t come soon enough, however, because our problems are intractable enough as it is. Constantly putting everyone and everything in a position where they have to pick a side isn’t going to make things better. The results speak for themselves.
What are your thoughts on anything discussed today? Discuss in the comments section.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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As with every single story reported by the cartel media, the Kohen Kartier Wiley story is a bit short on details. But let's stipulate that the death of a child is a nightmare, period. Was there bad judgement on the part of the shooter? It appears that way. But I was not there. I did not have to make a decision in 1.5 seconds. I do not know who else was potentially in danger if the person operating the car decided to use it as a weapon. But none of that diminishes the fact that this is a tragedy. So let's agree to that.
But let's agree that more and more, members of certain communities have adopted the position that they can do whatever they want.
And let's acknowledge that members of those communities kill each other in vastly larger numbers than police do.
Let's do a count on the number of black children who have died by gun fire coming from the barrel of a gang banger's gun. And while we are at it, let's step back, witness the inexplicable behavior of SO MANY leftists (who for example want to smash the patriarchy but wear headscarfs in solidarity with a culture that treats women like livestock) and ask ourselves, can we really have a conversation with these people?
Covid introduced me to a large number of formerly liberal white women who did a hard right rudder when they learned that the state was going to inject their kids against their will. Some of them became students in firearms classes I teach, so it CAN happen.
But damn, it sure seems like the odds are against it.
I just know that long ago I realized the UNSPOKEN fundamental assumption and agreement underlying what we now call "liberalism", or "woke" if you prefer, is "I won't say anything about your rotten behavior if you don't say anything about my rotten behavior". It's basically a "permission slip" for the worst tendencies in human beings with no built-in corrective mechanism, so it's hardly surprising that over time that's exactly what it produces.