The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Cause and Effect: Cultural Decadence

Posted on | October 23, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

One of the Bad Ideas of recent years that bothers me most — because it is both widely believed among the elite and easily demonstrable as wrong — is Richard Florida’s theory of the “Creative Class”:

While I was in Massachusetts last fall for a book event hosted by Pete Da Tech Guy, we visited a Mexican restaurant in Worcester, a somewhat run-down city that was once a major manufacturing center. Picking up the local free alternative weekly Worcester Magazine, I was thumbing through it and noticed an ad proclaiming the city’s enthusiastic devotion to LGBT rights.
I doubt that anyone in America, asked to name a city notable for its vibrant homosexual community, would name Worcester, Mass., off the top of their head, but it was obvious the local Chamber of Commerce had bought into Richard Florida’s analysis, which uses “a gay index (ranking cities by the concentration of gay couples in the population)” as one metric of urban growth potential within his “creative class” theory . . .

The problem is that this is a reversal of cause and effect. Prosperity attracts artists and intellectuals to a city, but they are not the ones who create the basis of prosperity. Ancient Athens was famed for its architecture and philosophy, but its prosperity was due to the success of the Athenians in commerce and in war. Through the Aegean port of Piraeus, the ancient Athenians developed a vast merchant empire, establishing colonies throughout the region, as far as modern-day Turkey and Italy, and the wealth obtained by trade enabled the Athenians to equip a powerful army and navy. The Athenians were an adventurous, enterprising and warlike people, and it was these qualities that made their city wealthy, thus attracting the artists and philosophers. Richard Florida’s “creative class” theory gets this causation exactly backwards, confusing certain traits of wealthy places (especially tolerance of homosexuality) as the reason those places became wealthy.

The kind of thinking that produces those “Worcester Pride” ads — the idea that advertising their pro-LGBT sentiments will revive their rundown industrial city — is a cargo-cult mentality. What called this to mind was the report by a traveler to Sweden in September:

You’d think, walking around Stockholm (as I recently did), that Sweden’s national flag is rainbow gay. After all, it’s more ubiquitous here right now than the Scandinavian nation’s own beautiful emblem (a bold yellow cross on a royal blue field). Everywhere you look you see the queer colors: as a pennant on top of a hotel, a sign in front of a restaurant, and even flapping as ensigns from the ships in the harbor. The waitresses are sporting the colors on their suspenders, and the waiters have rainbow ties. Rainbow sunglasses, socks, and decals abound. Why, you ask, is Stockholm afflicted with such a bad case of homophilia these days?
Why, money, of course. The Nordic capital is hosting some kind of homosexual convention, and the flags are meant to show how “gay friendly” the city is. . . .
Gay pride marches, parades, festivals, and such advertise the power of the homosexual lobby to governments and institutions that are already predisposed to be sympathetic to them. They also serve to normalize such displays in the national consciousness so that future generations will be inured to such grotesquery.

You can read the rest of that. All this rainbow-pride celebration of gay life in Sweden obscures, but cannot completely conceal, the profound demographic crisis in Sweden, where 17 percent of the population is foreign-born, and three of the top five countries of origin are Iraq, Syria and Iran. Sweden is also home to many tens of thousands of immigrants from Somalia, Turkey and Afghanistan. With what result?

Gang-related gun murders, now mainly a phenomenon among men with immigrant backgrounds in the country’s parallel societies, increased from 4 per year in the early 1990s to around 40 last year. Because of this, Sweden has gone from being a low-crime country to having homicide rates significantly above the Western European average. Social unrest, with car torchings, attacks on first responders and even riots, is a recurring phenomenon.

Let’s talk cause-and-effect in a way that Richard Florida’s “creative class” theory ignores: Population growth is correlated with economic growth. A community that becomes more prosperous will attract new residents, but what happens if conditions of prosperity lead to a declining birth rate among the people who actually created this prosperity? And what if the new arrivals can’t sustain this prosperity? This is by no means an uncommon phenomenon in history. The decline of the Roman Empire was correlated with (if not caused by) decadence and luxury among the Roman upper classes, as the empire became increasingly dependent on foreign-born soldiers to man the imperial legions.

Swedes are finally waking up to their demographic problem:

Sweden held general parliamentary elections [Sept. 9], and preliminary results confirmed a big change in the political landscape from liberal ideals toward a more nationalist, populist agenda.
The Social Democratic party, Sweden’s largest party whose ideals have dominated Swedish politics for most of the last 100 years, got their weakest result since 1908. . . .
The biggest winner of this election were the Sweden Democrats, a populist party whose program has a strong focus on nationalism and social conservatism. They have been able to rally people who fear immigrant crime and oppose a change in the national fabric of Swedish society. . . .
The rise of Sweden Democrats has not been obvious to the establishment; otherwise, the phenomenon would have been taken more seriously. After all, the rise of populist parties is old news in Europe. There is one crucial difference with Sweden: Populism is rising despite of strong economic performance and good employment. . . .
According to the most recent official survey from 2005, foreign-born Swedes are more than twice as likely to be suspects in criminal investigations.

The thing is, as the population of Muslim immigrants grows, Sweden’s tolerance toward homosexuality is endangered, because the new immigrants come from notoriously intolerant cultures.

Liberals have tut-tutted the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, but whose fault is this phenomenon? Isn’t it true that the European elite have created this problem by encouraging cultural decadence? “If you don’t want the Third Reich, don’t welcome the Weimar Republic.”



 

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Category: Culture, Gays, Immigration, Sweden

New Must-Read Book: ‘Cult City’

Posted on | October 23, 2018 | Comments Off on New Must-Read Book: ‘Cult City’

Daniel J. Flynn and his new book, ‘Cult City.’

Daniel J. Flynn is one of my favorite authors. His 2008 book, A Conservative History of the American Left, is a classic, and now he’s published an important new history, Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco:

I toiled over my sixth book, off and on, for the last decade. . . .
The writing came mostly in my attic. The research primarily took place at the California Historical Society, San Francisco Public Library, and Library of Congress. I interviewed about 30 eyewitnesses to history, including one of three people still with us — and one of just nine total 40 years ago — in Jonestown when the killing began to live to tell the tale, Dan White’s chief of staff who detailed a startling confession of violence that his boss made to him, and former friends and rivals of Harvey Milk who shared his homosexuality but not always a fondness for him. It got really interesting for me. . . .
The basic theme is this: before the poor drank the Kool-Aid in South America, the powerful in San Francisco did. The same people who made Jim Jones unmade him, at least his associations with politicians, journalists, and celebrities. Many took pains to obscure the truth, which helps explain why this book comes out all these years later. The truth is never too late, and, for me at least, was never so interesting.

What was the connection between the Left in San Francisco, including gay-rights radicals like Harvey Milk, and the cult that died in Jonestown? Anyone who lived through the 1970s — I was a sophomore in college the year Jonestown happened — remembers the reckless hedonism of that era. Even though I was in the Deep South, and far from San Francisco, the carnival of drugs, sex and disco was really everywhere then. Count on Daniel Flynn to connect the dots in this cultural pattern.

 

Category: Books, History

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 10.22.18

Posted on | October 23, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Nick Kristof Has GOP Daddy Issues
Twitchy: Trump Administration To Render 1.4 Million Trans People Nonexistent?
Louder With Crowder: Crowder Closes – Why The Left Hates Successful People

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Ex-Good Wife, also, The Great Danger Of Losing Your Frame Overseas
American Power: The Truth About Jamal Khashoggi, also, The Nightmare Of The Democrats’ Leftist Agenda
American Thinker: Migrant Caravan Points Way To GOP Midterm Success
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
BattleSwarm: How Many Illegal Aliens Can Fit In A Car?, also, Texas Early Voting Starts Today
Camp Of The Saints: “Heralding Angels Of The Anti-World”
CDR Salamander: Crimes Of Command With Michael Junge On Midrats
Da Tech Guy: That Time When Capitalism Beat Racism’s Butt, also, The Trump Economy Makes Criminal Justice Reform Possible
Don Surber: Press Ignores The Fizzling Of Mueller’s Indictments
Dustbury: Strange Search Engine Queries, also, Tales Of The Deformation
The Geller Report: Man Steps Forward With Sexual Assault Allegations Against Sen. Booker, also, Jewish Journalist Killed By Racist Black Man, But No Media Will Report It
Hogewash: More TERF Wars Stuff, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
JustOneMinute: Don’t Shoot!
Legal Insurrection: Hillary Smiles & Nods When Introduced As “The Real President”, also, “Conservatives Are Using Identity Politics To Destroy Liberalism From Within”
The PanAm Post: Venezuela Is What Happens When “Democratic Socialism” Runs Its Course
Power Line: Farewell, Gay Patriot, also, Bar Complaint Filed Against Blasey Ford’s Lawyer
Shark Tank: Shalala Won’t Return Money From Castro Sympathizer
Shot In The Dark: Image To Remember
The Political Hat: Nevada Early Vote (First Weekend)
This Ain’t Hell: A Congregation Of Bigoted Cretins Endorsed By The Pentagon, Says Mikey Weinstein, also, Amendment The 1st Says…
Victory Girls: Beto’s YMCA Flash Mob Follies, also, PETA Claims Milk Drinkers Are White Supremacists
Volokh Conspiracy: Heritage Foundation’s Clerkship Boot Camp
Weasel Zippers: Migrant Caravan Estimated At 7000 With Mexicans Joining – Mostly Young Single Men, also, AZ Moonbat Arrested In Southern Mexico While Participating In Caravan
Megan McArdle: Reducing Partisan Rancor Is Going To Require The Human Touch
Mark Steyn: Perfumes Of Arabia, also, Sagebrush Troubadour


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Category: Linkagery

Sincere Opinion, Epic Troll, Or Both?

Posted on | October 22, 2018 | Comments Off on Sincere Opinion, Epic Troll, Or Both?

by Smitty

SQLite (“sequel light”) is used all over the place, for example, within the FireFox web browser to hold configuration settings. It is “Small. Fast. Reliable. Choose any three.” It’s also public domain. Truly a wonder of our day. The author, D. Richard Hipp, apparently does just fine by offering support for the product.

But SQLite didn’t have a Code of Conduct. The code offers a BSD license, which is kind of a step up. I seem to recall that he used to offer a blessing instead.

Apparently, because even the Linux kernel has adopted a Code of Conduct, SQLite decided to, as well. Again, those who have been around a while sort of inferred that Hipp is a man of deep faith. So, when Hipp adopted the Rule of Benedict for his CoC (with a huge prefatory disclaimer about not enforcing any of the “more introspective aspects”) one should not be too surprised.

What also shouldn’t be surprising, but still is, that in the Age of Outrage some would start demanding we quit using some great code due to Ancient ThoughtCrime:

“Well, it looks like it may be time to stop using SQLite as it’s readily apparent that my kind is not welcome there,” sighed programmer James Hollingshead.

Oh, bless your heart James.

A Twitter search on “sqlite” revealed a river of bile as well. The idea that people reject the Orwellian foolishness of Progress and adhere to wisdom is the ultimate heresy of our day.

Category: Uncategorized

Nationwide Manhunt for Ga. Cop Killer

Posted on | October 22, 2018 | Comments Off on Nationwide Manhunt for Ga. Cop Killer

Left to right: Tafahree Maynard and Isaiah Pretlow; Officer Antwan Toney.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

With the search for Gwinnett County Police Officer Antwan Toney’s alleged killer about to shift from a localized manhunt into a nationwide fugitive investigation early Sunday night, word came that a SWAT team was serving a search warrant on a residence just down the street from where the fatal shooting occurred.
But the shooting suspect, 18-year-old Tafarhee Maynard, was not there. Gwinnett Police spokesman Sgt. Jake Smith said it was “50/50” that Maynard was still in Snellville.
“It’s equally possible he got in a car and is in Arizona now,” Smith said.
James Joyner, acting commander of the U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, echoed the uncertainty over Maynard’s whereabouts.
“I can’t say he’s not in the area. I can’t say he is in the area,” he said Sunday afternoon. “But we have to broaden our search.” . . .
[Saturday night] Toney and another officer approached a vehicle reported as suspicious by a resident on Crump’s Landing in unincorporated Snellville. Investigators believe there were three others in the car, though only one has been identified: 19-year-old Isaiah Pretlow, 19, who was arrested late Saturday night and charged with aggravated assault. Bond was denied.
Several shots were fired, but Smith said police are confident Maynard fired the the bullet that felled Toney. . . .
Neighbors who heard the gunfire were stunned by the violent reaction after an incident that had all the trappings of a routine traffic stop.
Police initially suspected the suspects were smoking marijuana, but could not confirm that as of Sunday evening.
“For an 18-year-old to go from smoking a joint to just start shooting is insanity,” said Scott Elzy, whose friend, Rick Green, lives just a few doors away on Crumps Landing Road, where the incident occurred.
Green said that corner of the neighborhood, with scattered vacant homes, has become a popular, and somewhat threatening, hangout for area teens.
“I don’t get out of my truck without my gun in my pocket,” Green said. “I got my pistol on me right now.”
The suspects sped away in their car before crashing nearby. Pretlow, Maynard and the vehicle’s other occupants fled on foot. . . .
Maynard’s capture may bring closure but no solace for those who knew Toney best.
“He was a warrior,” said friend Reginald Pierre of Snellville. Toney always wanted to be the first man on the scene, Pierre said, but it wasn’t a macho thing.
“He believed in justice,” he said. “He thought of himself as the guy who could defuse a tense situation. To protect and serve meant something to him.”

Talk about a bad neighborhood! If the law-abiding citizens are afraid to leave their homes without a pistol, it must be rough.

Why did this teenage dopehead decide to kill a cop? Notice that police already had a mugshot on file for Maynard. That would indicate he had a prior record, perhaps as a juvenile. It’s possible Maynard was on probation and/or wanted on an outstanding warrant, and to be caught with marijuana and a pistol? Yeah, he was going to prison if the cops got him, so he decided to put that pistol to use. Stupid dopehead. Georgia is a death penalty state. Maynard killed a cop. Pray for the officers searching for this armed and dangerous suspect, who has nothing to lose.

 

 

Category: Crime, Georgia

Do Not Trust Polls, Period

Posted on | October 22, 2018 | Comments Off on Do Not Trust Polls, Period

This morning, I woke up and clicked the TV over to CNN just to see what they were talking about. They were touting a new CNN poll that shows Democrat Andrew Gillum leading by 12 points (!!!) in the Florida governor’s race. My immediate thought was, “What the f–k? Trump won Florida two years ago, but now they’re going to elect the mayor of crime-ridden Tallahassee as governor?” So I fixed myself a cup of coffee, logged onto the computer, and clicked over to Real Clear Politics, where I learned that three previous polls had shown the Florida governor’s race neck-and-neck between Gillum and Ron DeSantis. How could it be that Gillum had suddenly opened a double-digit lead?

Here: Compare the CNN poll of 759 likely voters, conducted Oct. 16-20, to the St. Pete Polls Oct. 15-16 survey of 1,974 likely voters. CNN’s poll was conducted by a Pennsylvania-based firm, whereas St. Pete Polls is a Florida-based firm, and this may or may not reflect on the validity of the results. However, notice this in the CNN poll:

Among the entire sample, 32% described themselves as Democrats, 29% described themselves as Republicans, and 39% described themselves as independents or members of another party.

Whereas the St. Pete Poll reported their sample was 39.4% Democrat, 37.1% Republican and 23.6% independent. Why the apparent oversample of independents in the CNN poll? We don’t know, but the difference in the party affiliation numbers between the two polls is entirely sufficient to explain the dramatic difference in the topline numbers.

Anecdotally, a friend in Florida tells me that he’s seeing more Gillum ads than DeSantis ads, and if the Republican is being outspent on TV, that may account for why Gillum is doing surprisingly well, but I seriously doubt that Gillum could win Florida by double digits. What we know is that midterms tend to be “base” elections. It’s about getting out the vote among the core supporters of each party, and if anyone thinks the people who vote in Florida on Election Day will be 39% independent, they’re out of their minds. That is a bad poll. Don’t trust it.

Also, don’t trust polls in general. The DeSantis campaign insists their own internal polls show the Republican actually leading. Considering the popularity of Florida’s outgoing Republican governor, Rick Scott, who’s challenging Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson, and considering the state’s large population of prosperous senior citizens, the campaign fundamentals favor Republicans in a state where, as say, Trump won in 2016.

A midterm backlash against the new president is possible, of course, and historic precedent favors Democrats this year, but nothing is certain, and what counts is who votes on Nov. 6. Trust no polls.

UPDATE: I solicited the opinion of a source who is in the polling business, who replied: “Your analysis is spot-on. No way the independents are that high. I do believe there are more independents because Democrats have been drifting away from the party but not 39%.”

Let me add something else: On Election Day 2012, I believed Romney would pull off an upset victory. This was based on analysis of county-by-county turnout by experienced operatives. What went wrong? Well, the operatives were running numbers based on 2008-2010 party alignment in the electorate, and the Democrats had succeeded in reaching enough so-called “low-information” voters to make the winning margin for Obama.It is very difficult to know in advance what the actual electorate — the people who show up to vote — will look like on Election Day, and attempts to “model” the electorate involve mere hypotheticals. Honestly, Republicans have to be worried about the poll numbers in Florida, considering what I’ve heard anecdotally about there being more Gillum ads than DeSantis ads on TV. But worried voters are also energized voters: If you’re a Trump voter in Florida who wasn’t necessarily fired up to vote this year, the danger that Andrew Gillum might become your governor should be all the incentive you need.

Oh, Scott Adams predicts the biggest GOP turnout ever.



 

 

Category: Election, Florida, Polls

Early Morning With Rule 5 Monday: Coffee FFS

Posted on | October 22, 2018 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Not going to lie, I could use a cup right now, but this room has no coffee machine, and I stupidly left my container of Folger’s in the storage locker last week. This week’s appetizer is a girl who knows what’s up with tread juice.

She’s right.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick Of The Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #412, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

Animal Magnetism: Rule Five DNA Test Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Teresa Wright, Sophia Reaney, S.E. Cupp, Kerry Bishe, Marie Antoinette, Sarah Jane Morris, #MeToo Snow White & Cinderella, National Pasta Day Rule 5, and Christina Hendricks.

A View From The Beach: The Mutable Portia di Rossi, Fall Color Friday, Making the Weather Seem Good – Yanet Garcia, Another So So Year for Chesapeake Bay Striped Bass, Oh No! Not Beer!, Russiagate: Stormy Daniels Denied!, Even Supermodels Get the Blues, Monday Morning Water Buffalo and Full Metal Belly Dancing. 

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Gabrielle Anwar, his Vintage Babe is Jill Ireland, and Sex in Advertising is covered by Yvonne Strahovski. At Dustbury, it’s Inna and Kathy Kirby.


Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!


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Category: Rule 5

Who Is Funding the Foreign Invasion?

Posted on | October 21, 2018 | Comments Off on Who Is Funding the Foreign Invasion?

 

The election-year propaganda campaign continues:

A growing throng of Central American migrants resumed their advance toward the U.S. border in southern Mexico on Sunday, overwhelming Mexican government attempts to stop them at the border.
Their numbers swelled to about 5,000 overnight and at first light they set out walking toward the Mexican town of Tapachula, 10 abreast in a line stretching approximately a mile (1.5 kilometers).
Several hundred more already had applied for refugee status in Mexico and an estimated 1,500 were still on the Guatemalan side of the Suchiate River, hoping to enter legally.
It was not immediately clear where the additional travelers had materialized from since about 2,000 had been gathered on the Mexican side Saturday night. But people have been joining and leaving the caravan daily, some moving at their own pace and strung out in a series of columns as they moved across Guatemala. . . .
Olivin Castellanos, 58, a truck driver and mason from Villanueva, Honduras, said he took a raft across the river after Mexico blocked the bridge. “No one will stop us, only God,” he said. “We knocked down the door and we continue walking.”

Gosh, I guess this is just another random coincidence:

As a mob of thousands of migrants made their way north from Honduras toward the U.S. border last week, events in a closely-watched congressional race took an important turn. Politico reported that Democrats had pulled resources out of their campaign against Republican Rep. Will Hurd in the 23rd District of Texas. If their national leadership has ceded TX23 — one of the most competitive districts in the country — Democrats’ chance of a Nov. 6 “blue wave” is now in serious doubt.
The connection between the American midterm election and the northbound caravan of Honduran migrants is probably not a coincidence, although liberals in the media will scream “conspiracy theory” at any Republican who points this out. If your cynical hunch is that the latest “refugee” crisis has been manufactured by the Left as an election-year propaganda effort, however, you’re not alone. A Google search for the terms “Soros + Honduras + caravan” turned up nearly 300,000 results Friday. You don’t have to be paranoid to suspect that billionaire George Soros is paying the bills whenever you see any allegedly spontaneous “grassroots” activism on behalf of Democrats. When a left-wing activist was arrested last week for assaulting the female campaign manager for Nevada GOP gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt, it turned out the suspect was on the payroll of American Bridge 21st Century, an organization funded by — you guessed, didn’t you? — George Soros.
Without regard to whether the Honduran migrant caravan is another Soros-funded project, the timing would seem to indicate it was organized with the aim of impacting the midterm elections. The caravan began heading north just as Democrats were raising alarms about a lack of interest among Hispanic voters. . . .

Read the rest of my column at The American Spectator.



 

 

Category: Election, George Soros, Honduras, Immigration
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