Closing Fast

Interesting take by ZMan over at Taki’s Mag:

One of the remarkable things about the collapse of the Soviet Union is that it just melted away without a struggle.  It was as if everyone could not think of a reason to keep it going.  The reason for that is the trust in the key institutions had drained away.  There was no reason to defend them or participate in them.  The people running the institutions had used up all of the social trust to maintain their positions.  When it was gone, the institutions collapsed.
Something similar is happening in America.

Many years ago, a dystopian novel entitled The HAB Theory  was published, whose premise was that as the ice caps grew larger, the added weight would create an imbalance in the Earth’s rotation — and when the “wobble” became too much to support, the Earth would upend itself, the heavy poles would realign along the equator (and eventually melt), whilst new ice caps would naturally form in the northern and southern latitudes, as before.

While that theory is (rightly) regarded as nonsensical now, what was interesting was that when the tipping point arrived, the collapse was very sudden — anyone who’s ever spun an old-fashioned top with string can attest to that.  Everything’s fine when the top is spinning fast, but as it slows it begins to wobble — and in less than a second, it’s flying all over the floor on its side, still spinning uselessly in its death throes.

I just wonder, given ZMan’s hypothesis, how close we are to that point in the U.S.

 

It’s Not Hypothetical Anymore

A Black intellectual asks this question, talking about a White man:

Confronted by someone who is constantly bludgeoning me about the evils of colonialism, urging me to tear down the statues of “dead white men,” insisting that I apologize for what my white forebears did to the “peoples of color” in years past, demanding that I settle my historical indebtedness via reparations, and so forth—I well might begin to ask myself, were I one of these “white oppressors,” on exactly what foundations does human civilization in the 21st century stand? I might begin to enumerate the great works of philosophy, mathematics and science that ushered in the “Age of Enlightenment,” that allowed modern medicine to exist, that gave rise to the core of human knowledge about the origins of the species or of the universe. I might begin to tick-off the great artistic achievements of European culture, the architectural innovations, the paintings, the symphonies, etc. And then, were I in a particularly agitated mood, I might even ask these “people of color,” who think that they can simply bully me into a state of guilt-ridden self-loathing, where is “their” civilization?

Good question, because there is no answer.

And as the title suggests, this is no hypothetical question because it is asked and answered every day by us White people.

The plain and simple fact is that the sum of our civilization, whether technology, sciences, language, philosophy and culture has been created almost exclusively by “Caucasian” or “White” men, and the contributions by “other races” — all of them — have been practically zero or at very best, minimal.

Prove me wrong.

Quote Of The Day

From Ace:

“There is no end to the wokification of hobbies. Cooking, knitting, Magic the Gathering, comic books, RPGs; movies and sports — the Nazi infiltrators take over each and every hobby and group to make sure you are never free of constant pro-Nazi propaganda messaging.”

Curiously, our shooting hobby seems to be more or less immune to this bullshit.

Although I expect that any day now, the NRA will issue a statement that they’ll be adding board members from the ranks of the Brady Foundation and Violence Policy Institute in the interests of “fairness” and because “all points of view are important”.

You heard it here first.

Reversing Course

Finally, a Woke Corporation looks at the nonsense it’s been doing, and cancels it.  Here’s an example:

3. No more committees. For nearly all of our 21 year existence, we were proudly committee-free. No big working groups making big decisions, or putting forward formalized, groupthink recommendations. No bureaucracy. But recently, a few sprung up. No longer. We’re turning things back over to the person (or people) who were distinctly hired to make those decisions.

“Management by Committee” is another of those Marxist-collectivist mantras which have two sources: from old Karl himself, as taught in schools;  and from women, for whom “participative management” (i.e. by committee) has long been touted as a Good Thing when, in fact, it’s nothing of the kind.  Camels emerging from committees (from a brief to create horses) is so old a joke that it’s actually become a truism.  Of course, it makes people feel better when they’ve had input (the disgusting modern term “stakeholders” should have a stake driven right through its fucking ethos);  but then again, “feeling better” seldom has any place in a corporate workplace except when Alka-Seltzer is freely dispensed from the vending machines.

So yes, Basecamp has done well by trimming back the weeds [sic], and best of all:

Who’s responsible for these changes?  David and I are.  Who made the changes?  David and I did. These are our calls, and the outcomes and impacts land at our doorstep.

That’s called leadership.  And it’s damn time some of it came back into corporate life, at the expense of Wokism and collectivism.

In A Nutshell

From Max Morton at American Greatness [irony alert] :

On one hand, you have traditional Americans. They come in every race, creed, and religion. They believe in law and order, expect everyone to follow the rules, and mostly just want to be left alone.
Family-oriented, self-reliant, and armed, traditional Americans populate the working-class ranks of the military, law enforcement, and industry. Sadly, most are technically illiterate. They underestimate the threat from the surveillance state and Securitate. Many still believe the FBI only goes after bad guys, and they cannot grasp that the national security apparatus now views them as the enemy. They rightly bristle when slandered with “white supremacist” or “terrorist” labels. A habituated trust in authority makes them vulnerable to snitching on others and collaborating with those they shouldn’t. Many are infected with white knight conspiracy theories that counsel remaining submissive. In general, they have nearly zero control of the nation’s money, media, government, academia, legal system, and surveillance state.

On the other hand is the ruling elite. They advocate a multi-tiered justice system and expect others to follow their rules, beliefs, and norms. They are politically savvy and disciplined. They view traditional Americans and their beliefs as an impediment to their wealth and utopian dreams, going so far as routinely to advocate extreme actions such as genocide, re-education, and the removal of the children of their political opposition.
They employ proxy forces, such as Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and journalists to bully ordinary Americans and weak-willed corporations. In order to intimidate and discredit their political opposition, they’ve weaponized the use of labels such as “white supremacist” and “terrorist” on their enemies. They are generally opposed to religion and personal firearm ownership, and they cannot allow you to be left alone. They will attempt to nudge wrong-thinkers into accepting the ruling elite’s ideology. If that doesn’t work, they’ll force compliance via law enforcement, military, and the intelligence agencies they now command. They control most of the national wealth and all of the media, government, academia, legal authorities, and surveillance state.

Not much I can add to that.  For various options for us to combat the above, read the rest of the article.

Be warned:  much of that is not only difficult, but beyond the reach of average Americans like me.