Author’s note: this essay is extremely critical of certain social norms in The United States. No offense is intended for readers who, unlike this author, retain feelings of patriotism for this country, but words cannot be minced on matters like these. It is hoped that, for those readers in particular, matters on which there are agreement will mitigate any decision to unsubscribe.

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Readers of this publication know that The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective is hardly an expression of American patriotism or American exceptionalism—far from it. The criticisms and indictments against American culture and American society at large are seemingly unending. One particularly damning indictment of modern American society in particular is its absurd laws regarding alcohol consumption as well as the American legacy of puritanism in relation to alcohol more broadly. Some readers of various perspectives--from mainstream conservatism to those of a more radical right, reactionary persuasion—may disagree with this article’s thesis, but the many number of indictments against these absurd bodies of laws should be persuasive to most.

Skepticism of these laws should be founded on awareness of their dubious historical antecedents. Specifically, these laws are a direct continuation of the moral rigorism from certain Protestant sects in New England.1 This religious fervor exploded in the 19^th Century and the temperance movements that eventually culminated with The Eighteenth Amendment and the prohibition of alcohol. Both the temperance movements in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries and the religious fervor that propelled the nation towards teetotalism and then absolute prohibition of alcohol can trace their lineage to the puritan legacy. The body of dubious alcohol laws that have resulted in the wake of this legacy runs the gamut from absurd state laws that impose ridiculous, time-wasting restrictions on the sale of wine, beer, and spirits, to various “dry counties” as hold-outs of the prohibition era, to the outrageous drinking age of 21 that was imposed on state governments by The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.

Both those who live and reside in the States as well as those who have visited for any period of time can attest to many of the ridiculous state liquor laws that impose all sorts of absurd restrictions on the purchase and consumption of alcohol. These restrictions only serve to waste people’s time and burden the populace with all sorts of inefficiencies and costs on the purchase of beer, wine, and alcohol. Different states, quite obviously, have promulgated different sets of alcohol laws. Some states, like Virginia and formerly Washington state, have established state run liquor stores that have a state monopoly on the sale of hard liquor and spirits. Whereas in other states one can buy gin, vodka, and other spirits at any privately run liquor store, states with these laws require persons to purchase hard liquor at these state-run stores. Some states also restrict the sale of wine and even beer, limiting sales of these items to state-run stores as well. This leads to higher prices due to lack of competition as well as exorbitant state liquor taxes. Moreover, these state run liquor laws often have curtailed hours. This is done intentionally to curb sale of alcohol.

State laws impose ridiculous mandates in other ways. Pennsylvania is one of the worst offenders. Those who visit the Keystone State will soon learn that a six-pack of beer is often purchased at sit-down restaurants. This is because Pennsylvania law prohibits the sale of beer at any grocer or other institution unless that institution serves hot, prepared food as a sit-down restaurant. This imposes higher costs on both the consumer and grocery stores and other establishments, many of which, in response, operate a sit-down restaurant section at a significant loss in order to sell beer: carry-out only does not qualify. The sale and purchase of wine is largely restricted along with liquor to Pennsylvania’s “fine wine and good spirits” stores, so that a person who wants to buy beer, wine, and alcohol, either for a party or gathering or to simply acquire stock of one’s favorite alcoholic beverages must go to at least two different types of stores. That is not entirely unusual in different states, except the body of Pennsylvania’s laws can require trips to three or more stores: for example, no one store carries all three varieties of beer one wishes to purchase, so a person must go to two or more stores for beer and then another stop for wine and spirits. This is compounded by limited stock in different “fine wine and good spirit”stores as well, so that often one must visit more than one of these stores if buying several different items.

In Pennsylvania and in many other states as well, there is a state-mandated last call at 1:30 to 1:45 whereby bars must cease serving before 2:00 A.M. Some states, including Delaware, Maine, and Nebraska, last call is at 1:00 AM. For most young people, this is just when the party gets started in earnest, except in these handful of states with such an absurd cut-off time.

Virginia has a similarly ridiculous policy of prohibiting the serving of alcohol unless an establishment also offers restaurant food service. As a result, there are no bars in Virginia as the term is properly understood. All drinking establishments in Virginia must offer a restaurant food service to comply with this law, often at a loss which is either absorbed by the proprietor or, stated more precisely, is passed on to its patrons. Even worse, a mixed beverage license in the state requires that establishments may not have alcohol sales in excess of 55 percent of all revenues, and that food sales must be in excess of $4,000.00 a month.

Utah, due in large part to its Mormon heritage and influence, has the strictest laws in the country. Only beer with alcohol by volume of five percent or lower is allowed to be sold in grocery and convenience stores. Anything higher, as well as all wine and spirits can only be obtained through state run liquor stores. The state even regulates and calibrates mixed drinks, prohibiting any serving greater than 1.5 ounces in a mixed drink. Utah also imposes ridiculous food to alcohol beverage ratios of some 70 to 30 percent. Utah even reduced its maximum blood alcohol content to just .05 percent blood alcohol; anything higher invokes an arrest and charge for driving while under the influence. Other states have other absurd laws, including Indiana which only allows sale of beer at room temperature.

The absurdity of these laws is compounded by the number of “dry counties,” which prohibit the sale (but not consumption) of alcohol. These counties are little more than straggling holdouts left over from the prohibition era. Those who reside in such counties must travel to a different county to procure beer, wine, and spirits. Such an imposition is more than a mere inconvenience with ridiculously high gas prices in the wake of the current conflict with Iran. States with dry counties are found particularly in the South and Midwest, and often have similarly ridiculous laws at the state level. Kansas, the last state to repeal prohibition of alcohol at a state level in 1948, has many dry counties, with many establishments having to operate as private drinking clubs, as bars and saloons open to the public are prohibited by county law, not unlike the prohibition era.

Perhaps the greatest outrage of America’s backward alcohol laws is the drinking age of 21. The absurdity of prohibiting 18-year-olds—legal adults—from drinking beer, wine, or even spirits is both jarring and obvious, particularly when one considers that in this pathetic excuse for a country persons between the age of 18-20 are prohibited to drink (although most correctly defy such unjust laws) but are allowed to vote, enlist in the nation’s armed forces, and even appear in pornographic content either for commercial gain or for no compensation at all. The latter is of course the one activity that should be banned across the board, not drinking for persons under 21. Indeed, this point cannot bear enough emphasis. Lest there is any confusion as to how backwards and perverse this shit country really is, a young woman on her 18^th birthday can debut in some interracial gang-bang pornographic video, marketed and touted for its appeal to “just turned 18” and interracial fetishes, and yet she is prohibited, by law, from drinking wine, beer, or even spirits.

Until recently, such laws seemed as ridiculous as attempts to legislate against the sky being blue. Unfortunately, at least from this author’s admittedly controversial perspective, these measures seem to be working. Alcohol consumption by high school students has plummeted since the turn of the millennium. This, however, is attributed in no small part to other factors, including increased numbers of young people being shut-in recluses, which is in turn attributed to the sudden ubiquity of smartphones and social media as well as the death of the suburban mall. It also seems to coincide with a general curbing of what may be imperfectly described as teenage lust, or, as others have put it, a sex recession in young people. Teenagers, in the aggregate, have less high school romances, less instances of going steady than in generations past.

While there are certainly other factors at play for this drop in drinking among high school teens, the restriction of alcohol to anyone under 21 is certainly a factor. Before such data was released, it seemed that it was an inevitability that high school kids drink at peer parties in the weekend—certainly underclassmen in college did. The ones who did not drink were the worst social pariahs and outcasts, the sort who did not belong to any clique or social group whatsoever.

This is not to suggest that this publication or this author endorses binge drinking or even heavy drinking for teenagers and young adults in particular, or anyone. But as with matters of sex and sexual mores, in which neither stilted prudery nor abject profligacy is acceptable, this is another question that demands balance. In European countries, young adults and teenagers are allowed to drink and these societies and cultures do not have these problems. Prohibition of alcohol in this way makes it the forbidden fruit when there is no compelling reason for it to be so. Any proposed reform of this ridiculous law may lead to short term excess, but hopefully over time the legalization of consumption of alcohol by younger people would demystify the matter. Unfortunately, even a minimum age of 18 seems unlikely, so a drinking age of 16, as in Germany and other European countries, would be impossible, but at least 18 would be an improvement.

Apologists for these absurd laws cite the concerns over drunk driving. This was the rationale that led Congress to pass and President Reagan to sign The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984: the law requiring states to raise the drinking age to 21, on penalty of losing ten percent of federal funding for roads. This and the problem of binge drinking are cited by the sad sack, killjoy sorts who support this asinine policy. It does not occur to these cretins that binge drinking is only a phenomenon in American high schools and colleges because of this prohibition and America’s puritanical legacy with alcohol more broadly. That these phenomena are peculiar to the one country with such an absurd age restriction is a strong indicator that this pathology, at least to a notable degree, arises from misguided attempts to prohibit alcohol consumption to those under 21.

The attempt to justify the 21-age law has even less credibility when compared to other nations. Germany has a drinking age of 16 for beer and wine, 18 for hard liquor and spirits. In Britain, the age is 18 to buy beer or wine in a pub, restaurant or store. However, youths 16 and 17 are allowed to consume an alcoholic beverage at a pub or restaurant if bought by an adult—a most sensible and correct policy.

These and other considerations form the basis for the most sensible but so far unsuccessful Amethyst Initiative, a coalition formed by over 100 college presidents calling for a rational, dispassionate debate about the age restriction of 21. The statement published by this initiative declares the experiment has not worked, noting that “A culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’—often conducted off-campus—has developed.” The statement also recounts the other absurdities noted in this essay, namely that adults can sign contracts, served in the armed forces, and so on, but cannot drink beer or wine.

Apologists will contend that Britain and Europe are generally walkable, and that therefore the risk of drinking and driving is much higher with American teens. There are two problems with this blithe assertion. First, enforcement can and should be narrowly tailored against those who drive after having consumed alcohol to the point of inebriation, just as it is with those over 21. Beyond that, this silly “argument” overlooks that Canada in particular is no less stricken with the suburban blight that mars modern America. Australia also is hardly a walkable society with the sort of mass transit and walkable towns and cities that typify life in Britain and Europe. And yet both Australia and Canada—correctly—have a drinking age of 18, with some Canadian provinces having a drinking age of 19.

The prohibition of alcohol to persons under 21 does not just affect young adults and teenagers. The law has imposed untold nuisance and hassle on anyone who is not well into middle-age. Because of this law, everyone is constantly asked for identification upon purchase of alcohol at a store, or orders an alcoholic beverage at a restaurant or bar. Before entering a club and many bars, a bouncer or attendant will “card” those who seek entry. This practice of requiring identification is not imposed just on the young who could possibly be younger than 21. It is routinely imposed on people in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s. Instances of persons in their 60s and older being “carded” are not unheard of in the wake of this ridiculous practice.

One of the worst propensities of the law mandating a drinking age of 21 is how it has given fraternities an unnatural monopoly on party life in US college and university campuses. A matter discussed several times before by this author, fraternities have gamed the “dating” scene—now properly derided with the somewhat euphemistic term “hook-up culture”—by obtaining an unnatural monopoly on college parties and then inviting larger numbers of sorority women and “unaffiliated” women while largely excluding ‘unaffiliated” college men and less favored fraternities.

Lest there be any confusion or straw-manning on this matter, it must be disclaimed that “unnatural monopoly,” particularly in this context, in no way denotes or even suggests 100 percent of the “market share” of college parties serving alcohol. Nor does it suggest “unaffiliated students” do not have social gatherings or partake in “under-age” drinking (more power to them in defying a ridiculous and unjust law). These qualifiers and caveats notwithstanding, fraternities typically enjoy well over half of all parties serving alcohol on campuses with a “Greek presence.” This is attributed to many of the factors discussed below, as well as the fact that fraternities, unlike other college students, can hire dance halls and other venues to host large, extravagant parties, while also having fraternity houses available for these purposes. Fraternities use this as well as status and social proof to game the sex and dating game in ways that should offend basic considerations of fairness, equity, or even meritocracy.

This phenomenon was first identified by Willard Waller in “The Rating and Dating Complex,” an influential sociological essay published almost a century ago in 1938. This important tract first identified how fraternities have been gaming the social, dating, and sex game on campus, a practice that has continued and worsened over a century. Fraternity houses regularly host parties—and most importantly, parties serving alcohol—whereby both sorority women and select unaffiliated women are invited, but “unaffiliated men” are not. Jana Matthews, like Willard Waller and others before her, describes the strategy as part of a deliberate and conscious effort to “further manipulate the sex ratio in their favor. . ..” This strategy works in tandem with the “policy held by all Panhellenic sororities that prohibits alcohol consumption inside sorority houses.” As a result, “any social get-together involving alcohol (which is pretty much all of them) is displaced to fraternity houses or third-party venues.” This gaming of the sex dynamic combined with “no alcohol” policies in practically all other social contexts on campus “keeps fraternity row as the de facto campus party headquarters” in American college life.

Matthews and others fail to emphasize the two-tier system by which campus police and police departments more generally enforce—and do not enforce—laws restricting consumption of alcohol to persons 21 and over. While the Internet is awash with videos and news reports of police busting college and high school kids for drinking, as well as parents and adults procuring alcohol for minors and adults under 21, these law enforcement agencies never seem to turn such focus on the fraternities, even though fraternities are, as Matthews describes, the quintessential “party headquarters” for all colleges and universities in which the Greek system has a presence. It is this selective enforcement which perfects that unnatural monopoly held by fraternities.

Significantly, parties, social consensus, and above all a fixation on status explain why many college women, almost monolithically, gravitate to such an obnoxious and juvenile phenomenon as the frat bro douche bag. Women, being consensus driven and emphasizing the importance of group cohesion, love status and above all parties in ways at least some men find utterly foreign. As a result, many of the most physically desirable college women are rightly derided as little more than groupies for frat boys and student athletes, drawn in by the parties that only fraternities can host (at least at scale), in very large part because of this unnatural monopoly. It should be disclaimed that while many of them are physically alluring, almost all of them are quite vapid and hardly collegiate as the term is properly understood. On par or perhaps even superseding the element of sportsball in college life in America, whereby the American universities have whored themselves out as the de facto minor league for the NFL and NBA, the Greek system is a leading if not the greatest single factor in why a college education in America, although described as higher education, is often wanting of that sense of Bildung, which denotes both being educated and being cultured.

Some may charitably describe the unnatural monopoly that has been handed to douche bag frat boys as a mere example of the law of unintended consequences, but certain propensities in American life suggest this is likely not at all unintentional, but very much intended and deliberate. The purpose of any system is what it does, after all. And just as intent can always be reasonably inferred from the natural and predictable consequences that result from any given action, the systemic way college police and municipal police departments turn a blind eye to fraternities serving alcohol to persons under 21 smacks of more than just willful ignorance.

Despite these and other harms, inefficiencies, and absurdities caused by these ridiculous laws, a majority in America seem to support these laws. Despite the abject stupidity bound up in the 21 age restriction, a majority of Americans express support for the law time and time again in various public opinion polls. Indeed, certain circles in mainstream conservatism and even the more radical right have expressed some measure of apologism for the prohibition era, while others wrongly contend that alcohol is a far more destructive vice than marijuana and other illicit drugs that have no net benefit under a social utility analysis.2 Insofar as most if not all instances of such pigheaded stupidity are limited to America, this is easily attributed to the same puritanical legacy on which these laws are founded. It is not based on anything rational, nor does it make sense given other vices and harms that are far more destructive are tolerated and even encouraged in this backward society. The seemingly intractable status of the prohibition of alcohol for persons under 21 is compounded by the undue influence and power of M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) as a lobbying group. Few politicians have the gall to stand up to either the emotive, irrational rhetoric that is bound up in this question or the clout and purse strings of this special interest group.3

Expressions of unmitigated hostility to alcohol are particularly troubling for other reasons, not only because of the net benefit alcohol provides under a net social utility analysis, but because of the important—and overall positive—role alcohol has played in European culture and civilization. Alcohol, including beers, ales, and wine, is an indispensable component of the European culinary tradition and, with exception of Islam and perhaps the Puritanical societies that existed in the new world, in many advanced civilizations in world history. Imagine life in Germany or Belgium without beer, Scotland or Ireland without Scotch, or indeed many European nations beyond just France without the unending varieties of red and white wine.

Beyond just alcohol’s indispensable role in the culinary traditions of Europe and other cultures, alcohol is an important and overall beneficial conduit to socializing. This is evidenced in institutions such as the British pub and the German beer hall or garden. Many readers are likely to regard spectator sports—derisively referred to as sportsball in Internet parlance—as an unmitigated negative aspect of modern life, and not without good reason. Despite its many evils and drawbacks, there is something positive about its propensity to bring people together in common support for a team, a communal experience that is punctuated and indeed consummated by enjoying strong drink together in unison. Alcohol, as much or more so than good food, acts as a sort of adhesive agent, a social lubricant, that allows parties and other get-togethers to flourish. One of the worst aspects of the Covid lunacy that swept so many regions in this country and so many countries across the world is that, having been trained to be shut-ins during the lockdown, people are generally going to bars less and less, which means they are socializing less and less.

Beyond alcohol’s indispensable role in culture and culinary traditions and how it acts as a social adhesive, alcohol consumption is one of those great pleasures in life that would be sorely missed if killjoys in our midst had their way. It is a part of our culinary tradition because having a nice cabernet sauvignon with a porterhouse steak or a Barbera d’Asti with brick oven pizza is a great and indispensable pleasure. For white wines to go with poultry and fish, few pairings can beat a good Riesling that is not too dry or too sweet. Whether to calm the nerves in the wake of life’s stresses and battles or in celebration of good times or adversity overcome, enjoying a shot (or several) of one’s favorite libation is also one of life’s great pleasures. Cocktails, also, receive an express endorsement as one of the indispensable joys of life. Particularly in spring and summer, there are few things as delicious, refreshing, and invigorating as a gin and tonic served over ice with quality tonic water containing cane sugar—not high fructose corn syrup—and a decent gin. Beefeater is a personal favorite, although Tanqueray and Bombay Sapphire are excellent substitutes. As modernity becomes more insufferable, and as European civilization is faced with a number of existential threats against its very posterity, the irrational focus on such pleasures is exposed as particularly petty and bizarre.

Contrary to the insistence of those who defend such stupidity, these ridiculous laws are just one of many ways that life in America is but a mockery, a sick joke. Young men can sign up for this country’s armed forces, die or suffer horrible injuries in the wake of forever wars resulting from how this country is beholden to Israeli-Jewish interests, but they are prohibited by law from getting a drink. YouTube is awash with videos of do-goody cops busting seniors in high school and even adult college students. Now and then a European will rightly note in the comments section how absurd it is that this country treats adults like children.

Above all, such ridiculous laws belie silly this-and-that talk about how America is the land of the free. Such rah-rah blather is empty and wanting for many reasons, but few can compare with how backwards American life is in relation to alcohol. Indeed, America’s backward ways on the matter of alcohol, including the ridiculous laws prohibiting consumption by adults under 21, is just one of countless reasons how and why being an American really sucks. And yet so many are so deep in the kool-aid they not only put up with these absurd laws, they support them. One irony is the need for a drink now and then if not now and sooner is only exacerbated by the affliction of myriad dysfunctions and absurdities of life in America; these backwards ways and laws about alcohol are but one of many. Here is to a stiff drink, or several, replete with a toast to those who yearn for Mother Europa while rightly decrying life in America for what it really is: at best a backwards mess, at worst a dystopian abomination.

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One of the myriad flaws of mainstream conservatism is its inability to overcome the legacy of hyper-individualism. This is attended by an inability or refusal to repudiate the so-called “what consenting adults do” argument, as well as a lack of understanding of the number of flaws with that paradigm. “What consenting adults do is no one’s concern” is more of a mantra or catechism than an actual argument. Indeed, one is hard-pressed to call such exhortations “thought” as that term is properly understood; and yet it remains a strikingly powerful force in popular sentiment and discourse in America. This should be most disconcerting to anyone who reflects on what this consent paradigm actually entails. Catholic moralist Trent Horn describes this “consent ethic” to mandate the conclusion that “As long as the sexual activity involves consenting adults, it is not immoral,” but that paradigm extends, in actuality, to any activity engaged by consenting adults that does not create open, obvious, and immediate primary harm in the very instant such activity is occurring.

This weakness has been exhibited most recently on two popular social media platforms, particularly in relation to the absurd argument or suggestion that, provided actors can control for direct and secondary harms, it is difficult to argue why incest should be sanctioned with criminal liability or other social sanctions. Somewhat recently, Brendan Perry, better known as I Hypocrite, stated it is very difficult to articulate an argument why acts of incest or even necrophilia should be so sanctioned, provided actors in question can guarantee that all harmful effects can (somehow) be prevented.1 He cites “natural law” as the chief argument against incest that is not procreative, that the immoral nature of such things are “self-evident.”

This very subject was again mentioned early on in Andrew Wilson’s most recent appearance on Joe Rogan. Wilson noted that the supposed lack of direct harm bolsters a radically libertarian view that incest in such instances should not be subject to criminal sanctions. Wilson stated he is unable to argue with any precision why this view is faulty, but rightly insists such a view should be rejected, even though he is unable to articulate why. To his credit, he did assert that a brother and sister committing incest, even though incapable of bearing offspring, should be arrested in order to deter such conduct and such proclivities. While it is somewhat encouraging that Wilson explicitly rejects the libertarian position in this exchange, it is most troubling that he could not articulate, at least in this appearance, why it should be rejected based on a secular analysis of the issues presented. Both Rogan and Wilson limited their argument against incest in such instances as simply being “gross.”

Simply denouncing something as “gross” is hardly persuasive, nor does it demonstrate the sort of intellectual sophistication necessary to address such problems. Strong feelings of aversion held by most could have offered a segue into various considerations of import, including that incest is a taboo in virtually all civilizations and cultures in the history of humanity. Such strong aversion could have also led to a discussion of the Westermarck Effect, a mechanism in evolutionary psychology whereby persons develop a sexual and romantic revulsion with those they lived with as siblings in childhood.2 Instead of broaching these and other topics which inform a basis on why incest is reviled for any number of practical considerations, incest was simply denounced as “gross” by the guest and host.

It should be noted that in other contexts, particularly in this debate with libertarian Dave Smith, Wilson has argued that the immorality of evils like incest (procreative or otherwise) derives from divine commandment from God. This may be persuasive to those of a religious persuasion, but it is wholly unsatisfactory to those who are not. It also fails for those religious persons who believe that morality can, to at least a large extent, be explained and understood through secular reasoning—that the faculties of reason and discernment can reveal many of the primary and secondary harms identified later in this essay and perhaps by other writers and commentators as well.

These fundamental weaknesses in mainstream conservatism and to a greater degree the libertarianism have wreaked untold havoc on society, fostering an ethos of hyper-relativism whereby society has sanctioned a seemingly unending parade of harmful, destructive, and undesirable behavior. This parade of horribles runs the gamut from the rise of single motherhood several generations ago, to the increasingly popular sentiment that illicit drugs should be legalized, to any number of other vices from the legalization of gambling to the proliferation of on-line prostitution venues such as OnlyFans and the like.3 These phenomena, in tandem, also rendered the supposed fight against so-called gay marriage a farce, with little more proffered against the idea other than appeals to the Bible and other religious dogma. These and other ills do bear both direct and secondary harms both on the individuals who make such choices, to the very limited extent individual choice is real, and other individuals directly affected by such choices, as well as society at large.

The question presented in these and other examples is what if the direct and secondary harms associated with incest were (somehow) tightly controlled for? Is it then wrong, and should it be punished and deterred by society, either through criminal sanctions or social stigma and other negative sanctions? The scenario typically hypothesizes an of-age incestuous relationship between a brother and sister, where either the sister is barren, the brother had a vasectomy, or the sister is on birth-control, or the incestuous pair only indulge in oral and anal sex. As a point of reference, such instances of incest that supposedly eliminate direct harms will be referred to as “’ethical’ incest,” with the word “ethical” disowned in scare quotes.4 This notion of “ethical” incest presupposes the only negative harm from incest pertains to birth defects and other genetic maladies induced by incestuous breeding, which, as will be shown, is itself a preposterous suggestion. Aside from a seeming willful ignorance to what should be obvious direct and indirect harms, various genetic maladies through incest of close relations typically require several generations of inbreeding before manifestation. Interestingly, homosexual incestuous pairing, such as brother-on-brother and sister-on-sister as well as sexual congress with post-menopausal women would, by this twisted formulation, be considered “ethical” as an axiomatic, categorical matter.

The arguments as to why such conduct—even if seemingly controlling for primary and secondary harmful effects—should be strongly discouraged and prohibited by law appear nebulous and befuddling to far too many. Such failures to discern and understand notwithstanding, the arguments are actually not difficult to understand or articulate for those with a working understanding of human nature, group psychology, and basic dynamics of society. In an effort to expose and hopefully ameliorate some of these damning flaws with mainstream conservatism and libertarianism most especially, several of the most immediate arguments against this absurd thinking about “ethical” incest and other supposedly “victimless” crimes and evils are set forth below in this essay.

At the outset, it is rarely wise to base policy on the outlier (which is what “ethical” incest would be), rather than the general principle. Society often resorts to sweeping, categorical proscriptions against harmful or dangerous behavior because an attempt to apply such proscriptions on an individual, granular basis would be an overwhelming and exhaustive chore with little if any benefit. Consider for example the prohibition against persons under 16 from obtaining a driver’s licenses. Of course there are youngsters 14, 15 and even younger who do possess the maturity and intelligence to drive, and who are tall enough to operate the break and gas pedals and tall enough to sit over the steering wheel and look through the dashboard. Such instances are an outlier, and the process to single out the rare exceptions to this general principle would render the process of granting the first driver’s license to teenagers unworkable. Unlike the issues presented in this essay, driving at 14 or 15, if a youngster is mature enough to do so despite the categorical legal requirement to be of 16 is not intrinsically harmful or immoral, a key distinction.

This same consideration informs why women should be excluded from combat roles in the military, on-the-beat law enforcement, and other roles and occupations ill-suited to the sexual dimorphism that defines men and women. This, unlike the driving age example, has a number of negative effects in regards to gender roles and relations to the sexes, and thus invokes some of the harmful mechanisms discussed at length below. This outlier versus principal dynamic also informs against the racial and civilizational ruin that the multiracial experiment necessarily entails, particularly in relation to the black populace given its collective shortcomings and predispositions.

The most immediate problem with tolerating evils such as incest, even if primary and secondary effects are supposedly controlled for, pertains to how such tolerance defines deviancy down. This is a concept of vital importance, although it should be rudimentary to any element with a baseline modicum of intellectual sophistication. This concept has been discussed several times by this author, and is summarized as follows. Each and every society has a fixed quotient of what that society regards as deviant. A society of sinners and a society of saints—e.g. Sodom and Gomorrah versus a Puritan settlement—will have vastly different moral systems, as those moral systems will have very different conceptions of what is deviant behavior and what behavior is taboo. But the amount—the quotient—of deviant behavior will be the same and remains constant, both in comparison to vastly different societies and as degenerate civilizations in moral and societal decline define deviancy ever further downward. This is known as the Durkheim Constant. Had mainstream conservatives had even a rudimentary grasp of this important concept, there may have been an actual fight over gay marriage, just as gay marriage soon led to gay pride parades and the transgender menace in the exact manner this fundamental concept predicts.

While each and every society has a fixed quotient of deviant behavior, there is no fixed quotient of taboo behavior and conduct. Taboo behavior is that which is completely outside the realm of accepted and deviant behavior. Taboo behavior is that which is unthinkable, outrageous, and shocking because it is so far outside the realm of both acceptable and deviant behavior. As a society defines behavior ever further downward, behavior that was at once taboo then becomes deviant.

When a society defines norms and mores ever further downward, so that the most outrageous and shocking behavior becomes either deviant or even within mainstream, acceptable conduct, another negative consequence unfolds in turn. No society, not even the most morally reprobate and corrupted, is capable of accepting all behavior. There must be some behaviors, actions, and beliefs that are regarded as deviant and those that are regarded as taboo. As a society plummets to the depths of moral and societal decay, at least some of what was once regarded as normal and mainstream then becomes deviant. This phenomenon is readily exhibited in modern American life whereby those against racial integration are regarded as deviant or worse. This also includes those against interracial sex and marriage, a position which was once mainstream and even held by a large majority of the public.

As defining deviancy down proves that the slippery slope fallacy is no fallacy at all, the understanding of this vital concept is essential for refuting this absurd argument that so-called “ethical” incest should be tolerated, provided primary and secondary harm could somehow be controlled for. The very fact that “ethical” incest has been allowed and tolerated as a topic of discussion—in supposed right-wing venues, no less—has contributed to the infusion and installation of the idea of “ethical” incest into the stream of culture and the national conversation. Every time such a topic is broached, both the individual and collective resistance to it—the necessary aversion to this idea—is weakened through the process of exposure and acclimation. Those who doubt this should consider what an unspeakable outrage such topic of conversation would be only a few decades ago. This in turn reveals a particular absurdity of the argument that “so long as it stays in the bedroom, what consenting adults do is no one’s concern.” Once such an act ceases to be the most tightly kept secret and is uttered in private conversation or even worse the public discourse, it has escaped the confines of the much-celebrated bedroom; it is then no longer closed between “consenting adults,” despite blithe insistence to the contrary. While this author could not locate any studies offering hard evidence that instances of incest have increased across society as an observable phenomenon—at least not as of yet—certain signals on the Internet in particular indicate this is likely the case. These signals include increased stories of such incestuous couples, anecdotal postings confessing such relationships that at least seem plausible, as well as prevalence of supposed “incest role play” on various forums and platforms of ill repute.5

Above and beyond how the discussion and tolerance of such acts desensitize the individual and society while pushing it into the mainstream, the notion such acts could ever truly control for primary and secondary harms is laughable. And yet no one, except perhaps yours truly, has denounced and ridiculed such blather for the preposterous nonsense it is. Take for example a hypothetical brother and sister in an incestuous relationship, a scenario one fears is all too often not so hypothetical these days. Suppose the sister is barren, or on the pill, or the male has a vasectomy, or they partake only in oral or anal intercourse. One might even suppose that they use condoms during sex, notwithstanding condom failure rates or that condoms, so much like wearing a raincoat in a shower, are unfit for the purpose of indulging in certain carnal delights, not just from the male perspective but the female’s experience as well. As stated, homosexual and lesbian pairings as well as pairings with post-menopausal women qualify under this perverse paradigm categorically.

Despite absurd insistence to the contrary, this would not render such an incestuous coupling free of either direct or secondary harms. Contrary to the sort of reflexive response exhorted by the hivemind on venues like Reddit, one does not need exhaustive numbers of studies to understand that incest is detrimental to an individual’s well-being as well as other individuals in that person’s life and therefore detrimental to society at large. Guilt after the fact, the sort of family or personal dysfunction that serves as the antecedents for such unspeakable debauchery, predatory grooming and improper enmeshment that often serves as a precursor to incestuous sexual congress, and other pathologies all indicate real personal harm, even if some have difficulty discerning or articulating such harm.

Going beyond that, direct harm would necessarily be visited on those in the brother-sister couple’s lives. This may be regarded as a secondary harm in relation to the individuals who make these choices, but they are direct harms to those that suffer them. Consider for example a present or future wife or husband of the incestuous brother or sister. Even if the incestuous relationship were kept hush hush, either as it continues or after it has wound down, it is inconceivable that such actions would not play a deleterious if hidden factor in what would necessarily be a dysfunctional relationship, or at the very least a less-than-ideal relationship. Studies consistently show that a number of sexual partners beyond a certain threshold degrade and impair pair-bonding. How could this not be the case with having had an incestuous sexual partner?

How would this affect the son or daughter of such a woman who willingly had a sexual relationship with a brother, or even her father? It seems implausible that an incestuous past or even present would not also dramatically enhance chances of improper relations between a parent and a son or daughter. Nor is it any solace if the man or woman (the brother and sister in an incestuous relationship) waited till such offspring is of age.

There are also secondary harms to society. Men and women who engage in such an incestuous relationship are less fit as wives and husbands, if they can be fit at all for such a purpose. In this way, tolerating even an “ethical” incestuous relationship harms society in real ways, even if those harms are difficult to grasp for some. Promoting or even tolerating such deviance contributes in very real ways to a number of crises, including the lower numbers of people who marry and the birth-rate crisis in Europe and the Anglosphere whereby the death rate greatly exceeds the birth-rate. This is particularly so given that such things can never remain in isolation, as demonstrated at length below. Tolerance of exceptional circumstances will lead others to mimic and follow after such behavior. In this way, these problems will soon happen at scale. The number of persons partaking in “ethical incest” will then have a deleterious effect on the sexual marketplace, reducing the number of suitable, desirable prospects by some percentage.6

As stated, even if such persons do have kids with a non familial relative, such offspring will certainly be visited by various familial dysfunction, which in turn afflicts the offspring, in the aggregate, with any number of maladies, from increased rates of drug and alcohol abuse, to sexual deviance rubbing off on these offspring, increased rates of suicidal ideation, to any number of maladies that should at once be obvious even if difficult to prove by the constraints of modern statistical analysis and causation. Axiomatically, such indirect harms on associated individuals necessarily inflicts any number of costs and harms on society in turn.

This in turn reveals once again that these elements of mainstream conservatism and above all libertarianism fixate on the “choices” of the individual, while ignoring both the costs and harms suffered by the individuals tied to such persons by various familial and other relations and more importantly the harms such choices afflict on society as a whole. This is compounded by a sort of willful ignorance—an obstinate refusal to discern how these vices harm the individuals who choose to engage in such behavior directly. Such short-sightedness further betrays a complete disregard for the ways such radical individualism harms future generations—a creed at once so preposterous and libertine it contemplates the supposed advantages and alleged harmlessness of “ethical” incest.

This absurd moral system or ethos—to the extent one can call it a moral system or ethos at all—reveals staggering ignorance as to human psychology and basic fundamentals of human nature in other ways. Tolerating let alone condoning such evils not only defines deviancy down, that is wears down collective resistance to it by desensitizing both society and the individual to it, but further reveals a propensity to indirectly encourage such behavior in a variety of ways. This is done via a number of properties of human behavior and psychology that are readily observable even if in contravention to all sorts of dogma associated with hyper-individualism and “individual choice.” Such dogma has of course become a formidable legacy in the Anglosphere more generally and above all the American tradition.

In the briefest, most abstract terms possible, the individual is far more permeable and far less autonomous than the American tradition supposes. In so many ways, people are far more like a school of fish than a collection of rugged, autonomous individuals. Personal choice is largely, though not entirely, an illusion. That which is naïvely discerned as personal choice is determined, in seemingly incalculable ways, by a number of external factors in society and above all the cultural milieu that envelops the individual. Axiomatic to the human condition, Martin Heiddegger conceptualized this phenomenon as Geworfenheit: a word that defies perfect translation but has been loosely translated as “thrownness,” but is more aptly described as the state of being thrust into. This concept explains why taste in music, dress, and other predilections are far less incumbent on individual choice or disposition and far more influenced and indeed largely determined by the time, circumstance, and cultural milieu one is born into.

In modernity, this condition is exacerbated by the advent of mass media, first with large media conglomerates that acquired control of the press in the late 19^th Century as well as radio in the early 20^th Century, and later broadcast and cable television. This allows for manufacturing of opinions, tastes, and consent via mass media propagation in a top-down manner. At this moment in time, these considerations seem ancillary to the question of how moral relativism desensitizes the populace from things like “ethical” incest. However, once outrageous conduct gains a foothold in the information environment in accordance with the various mechanisms described below, that is certain to change, particularly if celebrities or other high-status persons engage in former taboos.

More relevant to such questions, at least for the time being, are matters concerning social contagion and how individuals mimic and adapt behavior and conduct of others. Much has been written about social contagion, particularly in relation to the transgender menace, but this is only one component of how permeable both individuals and groups are. This permeable nature takes many forms, with each defined by a propensity to adopt mannerisms and choices in a variety of ways, very often subconsciously or even unconsciously.

One form of contagion is known as echo contagion. Sometimes but not always spontaneous, this pertains to involuntary or unconscious to subconscious imitation and adoption of behavior and mannerisms observed in others. Consider for example an American who lives abroad in Britain, or is included in a social group of British expatriates living in America, or even who favors various British cultural expressions, such as music or film or television. Such a person is likely to have subconsciously or unconsciously adopted various British idioms, whether using the word “lovely” to express general approval or gratitude, or using other terms more associated with the British vernacular, such as “daft” or even “muppet,” or using “thick” or “thicko” to describe a stupid or slow person. Even if living in the United States while spending lots of time in the company of British expats, other expressions such as “bloody hell” might make incursions into his usage, sometimes even reflexively, or even his internal monologue. In relation to language and usage, this happens in any number of contexts. Natives of the northeast, midwest, west coast are known to adapt limited features and remnants of a Texan accent and vernacular after residing in The Lone Star State for extended periods of time. Those who have developed proficiency or fluency in certain languages may notice phonetic shifts in the pronunciation of certain words in his mother tongue, drawn from immersion in that second language. This tendency is further exhibited in hearing unique vocabulary or phrases by others that the individual then adopts, often in subconscious and spontaneous fashion. This phenomenon was even a joke in the very overrated and quite mediocre film The Big Lebowski, in which the title character hears President George Bush state “this aggression will not stand” in relation to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and then reflexively utters that line in response to aggression himself.

Any number of mannerisms and tics rub off from one person to another beyond just linguistic manners and quirks. This includes mimicry of facial expressions, cadence, as well as any number of little habits and quirks. Although somewhat tangential to the problem of social contagion in relation to vices such as incest—“ethical” or otherwise—, it does demonstrate how individuals adopt and mimic others in any number of ways that most are scarcely aware of and certainly are not conscious, voluntary decisions.

At the broadest, most abstract level, any number of mannerisms, behaviors, and habits are acquired by watching, observing, or being exposed to others. Beyond echo contagion which is largely unconscious, this occurs by way of both disinhibitory contagion as well as peer contagion and deviancy training, i.e. mutual reinforcement of rule-breaking speech and actions, often with positive reaction among friends and peers. Peer contagion is often more potent by way of high-status models (celebrities, highly successful or influential people), but it also pertains to persons in everyday life, which can be just as potent if not more so. Critically, absence of notable punishment or even the reduction in severity of social stigma renders adoption of deviant or borderline behavior more likely.

Indeed, despite naïve notions about the autonomy of individual choice, this sort of mirroring even pertains to the very desires and wants individuals adopt as their own. Rene Girard hypothesized the notion of mimetic desire, which correctly posits that human wants and desires do not, in fact, originate from the self as some autonomous entity unto itself, but mimic and adapt what is observed in others. Mimetic desire can stem from famous celebrities, storied heroes in present or in history past, or various persons in an individual’s life. It can also occur by what one sees on the Internet or other mass media. Understanding this mimetic quality to desire and wants reveals how dangerous it is to tolerate even so-called “ethical” incest. For by so tolerating such deviant, harmful behavior, such matters are inserted—so much like a vector of a pathogen—into the stream of persons, choices, and lifestyles that are observable by others and thus apt to generate mimetic desire in others.

These considerations as well as the concept of defining deviancy down explained above inform how truly absurd the notion is that instances of “ethical” incest can be contained to granular, individual outliers. Tolerating or even discussing such cases in any context other than severe and uncompromising denunciation ensures that the mythical, isolated “barren brother and sister incest” couple mentioned by Rogan and Wilson (and others) is a but a chimera and a lie. For by discussing and tolerating such things, such a paradigm becomes a model of behavior in the accessible universe of discourse—a model of behavior available for mimesis and adoption in accordance with the contagion and mirroring phenomena outlined above. Precisely because such isolated instances could never be contained, provided such behaviors are in the discourse in any form other than absolute, unwavering condemnation, the very idea that the proliferation of incest would remain strictly “ethical” is both preposterous and utterly fantastical. As formerly unthinkable incestuous relationships become less taboo and more commonplace—at first in dark recesses of society and then more and more prevalent—inevitably those who engage in such conduct would get sloppy about birth control, or decide that the woman can get an abortion, so on and so forth. Others would simply not care. Of course, the absurdity of the suggestion that the only real, practical harm associated with incest, “ethical” or otherwise, is the propensity for genetic maladies and birth defects associated with incest must be reiterated for emphasis.

The proliferation of evils like incest are particularly pronounced in the context of Internet, smartphones, and the ubiquity of pornography. In an utterly pornographic, sexually profligate society as modern America and much of Europe are today, this is particularly crucial insofar as the pornography epidemic has not been contained or dealt with appropriately. This underscores and emphasizes how utterly absurd it is to even suggest that “ethical” incest would ever stay “in the bedroom”—that is strictly within the confines of those individuals’ private lives—and not enter the stream of this sick, pornographic “culture.” Insofar as “ethical” incest is tolerated to any degree whatsoever or even talked about except in the context of the most forceful denunciation, it will—with absolute, mathematical certitude—enter the greater body of sexual perversions to which the populace has become susceptible to. Indeed, a taboo, properly understood and conceptualized, is something unthinkable, unspeakable. Even over a relative short period of time, merely speaking about a taboo except in terms of the strongest denunciation eventually renders formerly unthinkable behavior or desires something less than taboo. From that point forward, the process of desensitization and acclimation begins in earnest. From there, the progression will continue unabated unless and until it is counteracted with meaningful opposition and denunciation.

This is especially true given that pornography as well as different sexual vices and kinks have a desensitizing property, whereby more pedestrian, normal sexual proclivities lose potency as both the individual and society are immersed in hardcore pornography and an unending array of sexual vices more broadly. As normal and even healthy sexual proclivities lose potency through desensitization, individuals who have succumbed to such degeneracy will seek out more extreme kinks and fetishes. Because “ethical” incest has been tolerated, or at the very least been subject to less stigma than before, this will, axiomatically, induce increased interest in such sexual debauchery in some number of persons as the idea has been introduced into public consciousness while negative sanctions are weakened more and more. The mechanism by which this is so is reminiscent of the leftist idea of stochastic terrorism. Tolerating and allowing such discourse will obviously not lead to incest in most or even a large number of instances, but it will invariably lead to such couplings as a statistical inevitability. Once that happens, those individuals will be seen as a model of behavior subject to mimesis, at which point the number of persons engaged in such behavior will invariably increase over time, very much in accordance with a snowball effect.

This very same rationale applies in various other contexts in which shockingly vile subject matter is met not with searing, unequivocal condemnation but a wink and a nod. Dennis Prager infamously claimed that AI generated CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material), provided the production of such material does not involve sexual abuse of children and minors, is victimless and thus not immoral, or at least “not evil.“ Prager even had the audacity to describe such conduct as thoughts, not actions. Viewing AI generated CSAM—almost invariably as a masturbatory aid—is conduct. No consideration was given in his absurd blather to any of the phenomena listed above. No mention of how tolerating or allowing such material will invariably define deviancy down. No consideration is given how, once such things have entered public discourse and most particularly the Internet, such matters become a model of behavior that others will be exposed to and inevitably adopt or mimic to some limited extent. This is particularly so as more and more people get desensitized by less extreme forms of pornographic content and begin delving into more and more extreme content to experience the same level of titillation and arousal that more pedestrian fare no longer provides.

In relation to the particular matter of AI generated CSAM, the introduction and more importantly tolerance of such material will invariably, with mathematical certitude, shape and influence the sexual desires and kinks of at least some exposed to it. Invariably, with equal certitude, some will progress from computer generated material to the real thing. Some will eventually be tempted to molest children or underage minors and act on that temptation. As with “ethical” incest, the notion that the harms can be contained to instances theoretically free from direct and secondary harms is ludicrous on its face. Isolated “ethical” cases—from incest couples free from potential procreation to AI generated CSAM—cannot remain isolated once such horrible vices retain any sort of signal in society or public discourse.

Indeed, the degree to which a sizeable number of individuals will mimic and adopt harmful, repugnant, or monstrous behavior can scarcely be overstated. In the aftermath of the suicide of Marilyn Monroe, the national suicide jumped by some seven percent. Clusters of copycat suicides are known to occur in other contexts. It is for these reasons regulatory agencies in various countries and the press have promulgated stringent standards on the reporting of suicide to reduce the likelihood of copycat suicides to the furthest extent possible. Copycat mimesis seems to also apply to the infamous school shooting at Columbine. After this horrible event over 25 years ago, an event that was once unheard of if it existed at all, has occurred with increasing frequency since 1999, with some culprits making direct allusion to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, just as some troubled youth apprehended prior to such crimes being carried out have made similar allusions. This phenomenon is replicated time and again in any number of obviously harmful, destructive acts, from the Tide pod eating craze to the transgender menace.

These and other consideration reveal a variety of tangible harms that are certain to arise from tolerating evils like incest, “ethical” or not. These and other harmful effects that arise from equivocation and tolerance, although nebulous to some, are in fact rather straight forward and predictable. This in turn reveals how intellectually wanting much of the opposition to liberalism and moral decay are. Rather than discussions as to how difficult it is to articulate why even “ethical” incest is wrong and must not be tolerated, such opposition should be able to discern how this question reveals that the celebrated paradigm of consent—namely the “consenting adults” mantra—offers very little insight or value on questions of morality or even vices and undesirable or deviant behavior that is harmful to both the individual and society, even if some of those harms are difficult to articulate or quantify for some.7

An excerpt of the exchange between Rogan and Wilson is instructive, as Rogan advocates for a policy paralysis that eschews any semblance of moral conviction while also extolling a particularly noxious form of hyper-relativism:

I don’t think you should be a heroin addict, but I don’t think I should be the one to tell you not to do heroin. I don’t cuz I think that’s a slippery slope and then it’s don’t smoke cigarettes and then it’s cuz cigarettes are killing you and then it’s don’t drink whiskey because you could be a drunk driver and kill a family of five. Like it’s all the same.

In his view, there is no method by which to distinguish vices like smoking and drinking as opposed to heroin use or OnlyFans.

At the outset, it should be noted that, unlike smoking or heroin use, alcohol can be consumed responsibly and in ways that are overall beneficial to both the individual and society. Drunk driving and other ills are of course associated with alcohol consumption, but criminal sanctions, social stigma, and the like can be narrowly tailored to sanction drunk driving and other ills (such as coming to work inebriated) while still allowing the general populace to enjoy alcohol. This cannot be said of heroin use or arguably even smoking.8 This author submits that vices like Only Fans are also categorically harmful, unlike alcohol consumption.

Net positive social utility (or net negative social utility) provides a clear analytical framework that should disabuse anyone from entertaining such policy paralysis. This concept is foundational to law and economic theory as just one example, and yet remains foreign to a large contingent of popular discourse. Alcohol use, although involving various social ills, is a net social benefit insofar as the harmful effects it causes are offset by various advantages that render a net positive social utility.9 This “net positive” in social utility simply does not exist with heroin use, OnlyFans. sports gambling, and so on. This concept should be trite to any commentator or figure of minimal sophistication, as it is this concept which explains why, as just one example, automobiles are an integral and over-all beneficial part of society even though they cause tens of thousands of deaths a year, just as such social utility explains why fatalities and other injuries by cars is not reduced by requiring cars to have armor similar to that of a tank while reducing capable speed to 20 mph; the lives saved by such drastic measures is offset by the lost social utility derived from cost-efficient automobiles with these and other modifications and restraints.10

In addition to lacking any net social utility benefit analysis, or that some vices are categorically harmful while others are not, the discussion also exemplifies the error whereby slavish adherence to the “consenting adults” paradigm blinds so many to direct and secondary harms to the individual and society. Rogan interrogated Wilson as to what he would do about a brother-sister couple who were engaging in an incestuous relationship:

Would you arrest some guy and his sister if you found out they were boning each other?

When Wilson stated he would and challenged the podcast host with the rhetorical question ”how could that ever be a bad idea,” Rogan did (in somewhat less than convincing fashion) reply, “ I don't think it is [a bad idea].” But he immediately equivocated this answer by insisting that such instances of so-called “ethical” incest are “technically a victimless crime.”11 As explicated above, such naïve rhetoric exhibits an almost willful ignorance of the obvious if at times opaque primary and secondary harms associated with tolerating such harmful, destructive behavior.

It is revealing indeed that Rogan, like so many others, states he does not want society exercising such authority. This exemplifies the aversion to power that has characterized both mainstream conservatism and above all libertarians for decades. The left of course does exercise such authority whenever it wields power to do so, replete with a long-term agenda to advance so-called hate speech laws, which have already been promulgated in Europe and most of the Anglosphere. The left also uses the state to sanction conduct and views it disapproves of, including so-called discrimination against interracial couples and more particularly LGBTQ-Yuck and above all transgender “people.”

State power, that is the promulgation and enforcement of laws, is often, although certainly not always, an expression of moral conviction and moral authority. This is evidenced by any number of laws, from laws against murder and stealing, to anti-prostitution laws, as well as former laws against gambling.12 Illicit drugs beyond just marijuana seem likely to be decriminalized soon if society remains captive to such delusions bound up in the “consenting adult” paradigm. Promulgation and enforcement of such laws deter undesirable and harmful behavior, while also signifying moral condemnation of such behavior, which itself acts as a strong disincentive by way of negative social sanction and social stigma. The increasing compulsion to refrain from using or even contemplating such use of state power and laws removes important disincentives that deter and dissuade such behavior, as well as signify societal consensus that such behavior is wrong and detrimental. Alas, state power and law as an expression of moral authority and conviction have been entirely subsumed by the “consenting adults” paradigm.

This propensity, this ethos, which holds that neither individual nor society should want to take initiative on matters of morals and vice has proven incredibly destructive to the social fabric and the greater welfare of society. Those like Rogan who claim “I do not want to tell people what to do” and that therefore society at large should not tell others what to do are the root cause for the unbridled license and libertinism that has gripped Europe and the West particularly since 1945, but was a trend that started over a century ago in the roaring twenties. The number of primary and secondary harms emanating from evils like single motherhood, illicit drug use, the ubiquity of pornography and so many other vices are myriad and they are staggering. The social decay and the personal and societal harms that emanate from such social decay will continue until this perverse ethos of “the consenting adult” is discarded and dispensed with.

So much of this blather palmed off in the public discourse seems little more than a most idiotic parlor game: a parlor game whereby participants prostrate themselves by imagining the most absurd and unlikely scenarios in order to demonstrate how far their fidelity to the “consenting adult” paradigm really goes. So few are capable of discerning that very paradigm is not only shortsighted, but incredibly simplistic and downright harmful as well.

It is a striking set of affairs indeed that a political coalition purporting opposition to the left cannot articulate with specificity why incest is intrinsically wrong and needs to be strongly sanctioned, punished, and deterred. It also seems this “opposition” similarly fumbles on the same matters in relation to what should be absolute taboos, including AI generated CSAM, necrophilia, and the like. If opposition to the left cannot articulate a coherent, lucid argument against tolerating incest, “ethical” or otherwise, and similar taboos, it is a foregone conclusion that such figures will be utterly ineffective against what are far more pressing matters, including single motherhood, so-called gay marriage, the transgender menace, the push to decriminalize illicit drugs, and even the Great Replacement and multiracialism writ large.

These and other considerations reveal once again that mainstream opposition to the left—as it is currently constituted and has been for decades—is wanting of baseline intellectual competency, further compounded by a lack of will to either acquire or use power for the benefit of the individual and society, as well as the individuals who partake in such vices themselves. That lack of will is attributed to succumbing to hyper-individualism that has defined much of the American tradition as well as a fixation on the “consenting adults” paradigm which blinds any analysis or thought on how supposed “individual choices” affect and harm others and society. As such, this opposition, whether merely feigned or genuine but pathetic, lacks any fitness whatsoever for its stated purpose. Unless and until more effective opposition to the left can be founded on a sound intellectual basis as well as the will to obtain and use power for important ends, the prognosis for defeating either the left or the rampant libertinism that defines modernity is abysmal.

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Author’s note: an editorial decision has been made to classify this critique in the section “The World Wars” rather than “Books and Film.” This decision stems from the critique centering on issues concerning the history of World War II and the defamation of the German soldier and in turn the German national character.

PLEASE FURTHER NOTE: this critique contains spoilers. Despite some technical acumen and some “eye candy” in certain depictions of a tiger tank and its crew, this film cannot receive any sort of recommendation. No English language plot summary could be located. Readers who wish to view the film before reading this critique are urged to do so in a way that does not contribute monetarily to this film. The film receives a rating of two and half stars out of five, five stars out of ten, six stars out of ten at a push.

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A German language film--Der Tiger-had escaped this author’s attention upon release—until now.1 The film concerns a tiger tank crew on the Eastern Front in 1943. The film has been of some interest to enthusiasts of military history and German hardware most especially, although the film is very lopsided in its painstaking detail with certain technical aspects of the famed heavy tank, particularly in relation to its depiction of the interior fighting compartment. However, the film is also quite wanting in other technical aspects on a wide range of issues, including tactics, doctrine, and even the laws of war. While drawing on the mystique and appeal of the tiger tank and those men who fought in them, the film is one of the more egregious fits of defamation against the German soldier more broadly and the Panzerwaffe most particularly. It is that defamation on which this critique is centered.

The film concerns a tank commanded by Leutnant Philip Gerkens and his crew, and begins with a night battle as his tiger, alone, defends a bridgehead along the Dnieper River, repelling infiltration by Soviet tanks and infantry. Just as the engagement winds down, the bridge is blown up by Soviet aerial attack. The film then fast-forwards to some morning after, the tank and its crew seemingly surviving. Gerkens is given a laughably absurd assignment, whereby his lone tiger tank is to make an incursion behind enemy lines for an extraction and rescue mission of a captured officer, Colonel Paul von Hardenburg. The underlying premise of the mission is absurd: the colonel does not seem to have been captured by the Soviets, but is just stranded in a bunker so far ignored by the enemy. Those with even rudimentary knowledge of tactics of the time and the capabilities and dimensions of the tiger tank in particular will scoff at how utterly absurd such a mission is. The tiger tank simply does not have the speed or range for such an extraction mission. The tiger tank had an operational radius of only 60 kilometers, give or take, in cross country conditions and about 100 kilometers in streets. Moreover, unless lying in ambush, tanks require infantry support. The tiger tank was nearly invulnerable to frontal attack by tanks and anti-tank guns except at point blank range, but was vulnerable to certain anti-tank weapons wielded by infantry in close range. Among other weaknesses, the engine vents in the rear were highly vulnerable to Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices—if a Soviet infantryman could survive long enough to get close enough to attack this and other weak spots.

The laughable absurdity of the mission—which distracts and perturbs more knowledgeable viewers from the start—is only dispensed with in the ending, which reveals the entire mission to be an after-death hallucination or a journey to hell in the afterlife.2 Some have somewhat stupidly likened the film as a sort of ersatz Apocalypse Now, replacing the riverboat with a tiger tank, but the film is actually much more derivative of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” or perhaps even Jacob’s Ladder than the Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece. The film is also reminiscent of a made-for-TV movie, “The Sole Survivor, starring William Shatner. It should be stated outright that the narrative device where the entire film or story’s events are “just a dream” or a “hallucination” is, by this point, a tired, worn-out cliché. That is not to suggest such a concept cannot be well executed with writing that is both excellent and innovative, but this film does not meet that standard.

After a number of bizarre, uncanny occurrences—including repeated transmission of mass in Latin, the immediate decomposition of a soviet tank crew after destruction, and other strange encounters—the crew eventually finds Colonel von Hardenburg in an isolated bunker behind enemy lines. The spectacle has a surreal quality, replete with candlelight, loose women, and even “Ich bin die fesche Lola” playing in the background. After a brief exchange of pleasantries with an adjutant, Gerkens is led to von Hardenburg. This exchange reveals, among other things, both men were guilty of war crimes at Stalingrad—because of course the writers seem unfamiliar with any other battle on the Eastern Front, including Operation Mars or the Second or Third Battle of Kharkov. Von Hardenburg tells Gerkens “we reap what we sow,” and makes specific reference to the fate of Gerken’s wife and son who, it is then revealed, were burned alive in an allied bombing raid of Hamburg. Gerkens then realizes he is dead and in the afterlife, and it is then revealed to the viewer that Gerkens’ tiger was in fact destroyed on the bridge as it was blown up in an aerial attack by Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 ground attack planes. Why the Soviet air force would blow up a bridge that would be advantageous to capture intact is just one of the film’s many tactical absurdities.

The “war crime” that von Hardenburg and Gerkens were guilty of is foreshadowed in an earlier sequence whereby the crew encounters an “anti-partisan” operation by an SS unit, again behind enemy lines. The unit is shown rounding up Ukrainian villagers in a building and then burned alive with a flamethrower. This is done, ostensibly, to “save ammunition,” although the manner of Colonel Krebs displays sadistic intent and delight in such horror. Gerkens and his crew are visibly unsettled, and ask for gasoline before departing as quickly possible. That the tiger tank would be dispatched without having sufficient fuel, irrespective of the operational range of the tiger, is another error in the film, although it could be argued Gerkens’ crew is simply “topping off” after some fuel had been expended.

This apparition of villagers being burned alive comes full circle during the climactic revelation in the bunker of the underworld. Here von Hardenburg reveals that he and Gerkens also burned alive Russian civilians in a scenario so implausible as to not only be ahistorical but antihistorical. The dialogue first reveals both were at Stalingrad. The colonel does not survive, but Gerkens somehow does—this is yet another historical error, as few if any who were at Stalingrad were withdrawn before the Sixth Army was encircled and later destroyed. The flashback depicts German forces pinned down at a factory which contains both Soviet forces and civilians. There is an order to use a Flammpanzer to raze the factory, even though civilians are inside the structure.

Above and beyond the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane,3 both this scene and the apparition of German forces in “anti-partisan” duty clearly, unmistakably evokes the unspeakable atrocities of the Dirlewanger Brigade. That notorious unit, composed of violent criminals, sadists, and insane asylum inmates was an outlier of outliers.4 Oskar Dirlewanger and his brigade were denounced institutionally not just by das Heer but even the Waffen SS, with many high-level commanders in the Waffen SS demanding its dissolution and a court-martial. These complaints were of course denied by Himmler. The allusion to the Dirlewanger Brigade is unmistakable as one of its “calling cards” was to herd civilians in structures and then set the structure on fire, burning those inside alive. While they used Molotov cocktails, petrol, and other incendiaries, the Brigade, to this author’s knowledge, never used flamethrowers. This not withstanding, the “war crime” depicted at the end of this film links the atrocities of the Dirlewanger brigade and limited numbers of Einsatzgruppen and rear-guard security forces with those of the Panzerwaffe and more particularly those crews that served and fought (and all too often died) in tiger tanks. In the minds of the more gullible or ignorant viewers, the 503 schwere Panzerabteilung5— to which Gerkens and his men belong—becomes interchangeable with Dirlewanger and other criminal atrocities. As if the association were not clear enough, when Gerkens questions von Hardenburg about his interlude with Krebs and his men, Harbenburg admonishes him by stating:

Vielleicht war er nur ein Teil von dir, so wie wir alle. (Perhaps he was just a part of you, as he is a part of us all).

As more tells are revealed that both men are in the afterlife, in hell, the colonel accosts Gerkens further, stating:

Ich bin hier wegen dir. Wir alle sind hier wegen dir. (I am here because of you. We are all here because of you).

Going well beyond mere implication, the dialogue—with the subtlety and finesse of a sledgehammer—states unequivocally that Gerkens, von Hardenburg, and the men who served under them have been damned to hell, as have all those who served in Germand Armed forces.

There are many problems with such a scenario as presented to the viewer. The factory does contain a sizeable number of enemy forces, so civilian casualties in such an instance are correctly regarded as collateral damage. This is further bolstered when Gerkens implores von Hardenburg that the assault on the factory will fail if the order is not carried out. A direct excerpt of the relevant dialogue is in order to provide proof of what is doubtlessly a controversial assertion to some, as well as an extended video excerpt of the scene in its proper context. Here follows the original German dialogue, truncated for brevity, followed by an English translation by yours truly:

Gerkens: Paul, das sind Befehle. Die kommen direkt von der Division.

…

Landser: Einige sagen, der Feind habe sie im Visier.

Von Hardenburg: Die Meldungen deuten auf Frauen und Kinder hin, die da drinnen Schutz suchen.

Gerkens: Wir wissen aber auch, dass es voller russischer Kräfte ist. Die kontrollieren das Traktorenwerk und damit diesen Teil der Stadt. Unser Vorstoß wird scheitern, wenn wir jetzt nicht handeln.

---

Gerkens: Paul, these are orders. They come direct from division headquarters.

. . .

Soldier: Some are saying the enemy has them (the assault team) in sights.

Von Hardenburg: Reports indicate presence of women and children there, who are seeking shelter inside the factory.

Gerkens: we also know, that it is full of Russian forces. They control the factory works and, with that, this part of the city. Our assault will fail, if we do not act now.

The scenario is wildly unrealistic and a poor portrayal of tactical combat in Stalingrad, that period of history, and urban combat more generally. Among myriad other problems,6 German combat units pinned down in urban combat would be especially unlikely to radio headquarters for authorization of using flamethrowers. Such a scenario is in flagrant contravention to the German doctrine of Auftragstaktik, which decentralized command, giving initiative to officers and commanders at the lowest level possible.

Above and beyond the scene’s many shortcomings in depicting combat doctrinally and tactically, the filmmakers intend for this to be perceived as a war crime, which much of the audience does. This is unmistakable given the direct allusion to the vision of an anti-partisan unit herding civilians into a building before being burned alive with a flamethrower. However, the laws of war then and now dictate such an action as carried out by Gerkens would be legal. The occupation of a structure by enemy forces, particularly in the midst of ongoing combat, make that structure a legitimate military target; civilian presence, if any, becomes a question of proportionality and whether feasible precautions can be reasonably taken. Again, this is not intended by the film-maker and is not perceived by the dimmer and more gullible components of the film’s audience. This aspect is certainly not contemplated by the film-makers to add moral ambiguity to Gerkens’ dilemma and feelings of guilt. Rather, it is another instance of bad writing and historical incompetence. It should be noted that of course the film dares not explore the morality of refusing to follow these orders, which, if this poorly written scenario is taken at face value, would cost the lives of comrades in arms and may contribute to the defeat of the entire Sixth Army. That defeat obviously was the end result that ultimately transpired, but that had not yet transpired as the battle unfolded and those men fighting and dying in Stalingrad were compelled—by both instincts to self preservation and national duty— to do whatever was necessary to win the battle and save themselves.

Another problem is apparent to anyone with minimal knowledge of this pivotal battle. Very soon after the Battle of Stalingrad had begun, and certainly long before German forces had been stalled by Soviet resistance in the factory district, those civilians who survived had largely fled the beleaguered city on the Volga. Many civilians of course died in the earlier stages of the gruesome battle. The notion there would be large numbers of civilians holed up alongside Soviet forces in a factory is fantastical. Anyone who knows anything about the Battle of Stalingrad knows that aspect alone is absolute bullshit.

More particularly, the tactical use of a Flammpanzer and flame throwers more generally was to incinerate and destroy bunkers and strongpoints that were largely impervious to infantry attack but also provided strong defenses against conventional mobile armor. Flamethrowers were also used for urban fighting, which this film attempts to portray in rather ham-fisted, unbegabt fashion. Notably, the film depicts a Flammpanzer III, which was based off the Panzer III M chassis. Although the production of the Flammpanzer III was ordered once the assault on Stalingrad had began to stall, none were produced and delivered in time before the Stalingrad pocket was surrounded and destroyed. Indeed, the Flammpanzer III did not see service until the Kursk campaign over half a year later, and more particularly the remarkably successful defensive effort in Italy. The Flammpanzer III was contemplated, at least in part, for urban fighting, but it is questionable if this intended role could be implemented effectively in practice because of vulnerability from close quarter anti-tank weapons by infantry and anti-tank guns concealed in ambush positions.

Finally, tiger crews were generally—if not universally—selected from crews that had enjoyed great success manning other panzers in relation to engagement with enemy armor, namely panzer IIIs and IVs, as well as Sturmgeschütze, better known as Stugs. Michael Wittmann famously commanded a Stug III A at the onset of Barbarossa. To this author’s knowledge, no tiger crew or commandant ever manned a Flammpanzer. This is partly because Flammpanzers were somewhat rare, particularly as the earlier iteration, the Flammpanzer II, was not very successful in its intended role and was soon withdrawn from service. More importantly, crews were selected for promotion to schwere Panzerabteilungen because of their success in engagement with and destruction of enemy armor: not something the Flammpanzer was suited or intended for.

These and other considerations reveal the indictment against Gerkens—and by extension the German soldier categorically and the Panzerwaffe most especially—to be ahistorical fantasy. And yet large numbers of the German viewing audience seem to lap it up, even those audiences who are drawn by an affinity (however shallow and wanting) for military history and the Panzerwaffe and the tiger tank most particularly.

The film’s intentions are made explicit by the juxtaposition between the phantom “anti-partisan” unit burning villagers alive with a flamethrower and the crew’s disgust and the later collapse of this juxtaposition. The message is that the insistence of clean hands by any element—any element whatsoever—in the German Armed forces must be denied and repudiated, that panzer crews also and most especially are guilty of war crimes and even crimes against humanity.7 So few even discern how the film stupidly props up an unrealistic combat scenario as a “war crime” while failing to depict an actual war crime. That seems to be of no import, nor does it seem to matter how implausible or ahistorical such a scenario is.

This very subject matter has been raised in debates—both online and in person—about the supposed collective guilt of the German armed forces in World War II. This author specifically has given the retort, on many occasions, both online and in “real-life,” face-to-face exchanges, that panzer crews were not driving around the Russian steppes machine-gunning Jews or other civilians—they were engaging and destroying Soviet armor in combat and in valiant, tireless defense of sacred Germany and Europe more broadly against the hordes of the Red Army and the evils of Soviet Bolshevism. This film absurdly suggests the opposite—that panzer crews burned alive civilians with flamethrower tanks that did not even exist in the climactic battle so lazily summoned out of apparent ignorance of any other battle of import.

As the filmmakers are intent on promoting and propagating the Kriegschuldkult yet further, it is noteworthy that there are historical scenarios that do raise moral problems, although it is unclear to this author to what extent such scenarios involved panzer crews directly, as opposed to Landsers8, for example. One archetypal example of realistic crimes—or, at the very least, dubious actions—comes to mind in particular, as a repeatable fact pattern that was exhibited by multiple units in both the Heer and Waffen SS. Particularly during the height of Operation Typhoon, as well as in other engagements after, German forces of varying sizes would take shelter and a defensive position in a Russian village or town. With food shortages and an inability (either perceived or actual) to keep guard of its inhabitants, civilians were often deprived of any winter clothing that could be used by the unit in question and then made to flee with few if any belongings. In the worst of circumstances, this happened at night, sometimes in subarctic temperatures 20, 30 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, to certain death. A writer with abilities commensurate with that of a creative writing class in high school could easily have depicted such a scenario that is at once grim and founded in historical reality but also touches on various moral ambiguities. Instead, the writers proffer this preposterous scenario to lazily propagate collective and categorical guilt of all who served in the German armed forces, and the German people collectively.

Much of the blather about “the myth of the clean Wehrmacht” indicts the German soldier specifically and the German people more generally on a theory of complicity. Culpability through complicity posits that if, for example, an armored battalion (or division or regiment or whatever) is attached to an army corps at a certain location and rear guard or other units do nasty or unpleasant things, the men who served in that armored battalion, by simply being present or in the vicinity of reprisals or other nefarious actions, are guilty for not doing something to stop this. It is a variation of guilt by association. This theory of complicity also pretends as if men fighting on the Eastern Front—the most violent and brutal conflict in human history—ever had such luxury. They did not. This fabricated scene however escalates such guilt based on mere complicity to something active, something Gerkens did directly.

Above and beyond the insidious defamation of the German soldier generally and the panzer crews more specifically, the mainstream reaction to this film in Germany is at once revealing and distressing. Even though this film is overtly defamatory against the German soldier generally and the Panzerwaffe more particularly, many German critics denounced the film for somehow not doing enough to propagate the Kriegschuldkult yet further. Andreas Busche of Tagesspiegel denounced director Dennis Gansel for recounting “the fairytale of the good German soldier” and for leaving the “depiction of historical guilt” too far in the background.

Oliver Kaever of der Spiegel was critical of the film for many of the same reasons, even regarding parallels with das Boot not as an attribute, but a flaw. This includes the portrayal of men in films such as these as “obviously not Nazis,” but as war-torn men who just want to survive. Kaever states der Tiger fails as an anti-war film in part because of how the portrayal of the tiger crew in combat “lends itself too much to admiration.” Notably, Kaever admonishes that World War II, in its proper perspective in modern. post-war German society, does not permit any heroic narrative from the German side, just as the issue of guilt invariably weighs on any figures in any narrative from the German side of the war.

Andreas Kilb of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also condemned the film. His review asserts the singular horror and evil of the campaign against the Soviet Union as a Vernichtungskrieg, a war of annihilation, and further argues that efforts in the past to depict both warfare and mass murder in microcosm is, for some reason, no longer applicable or appropriate. He condemns Gansel for focusing on the narrative of Gerkens and his men with the moral condemnation only thrown in as, in his view, an afterthought. Through the Stalingrad scene discussed above at length and the attendant dialogue with von Hardenburg in the underworld, the film obliterates the distinction between frontline combat units with those of Krebs’ Einsatzgruppe burning alive Soviet civilians with a flamethrower, all while trying to proffer a war crime to the audience that is in fact not a war crime. But this is somehow not enough.

Interestingly, Ralf Raths of the Panzermuseum in Munster share’s this author’s conclusion that the factory scene in Stalingrad is not a war crime. However, he uses this as a basis to criticize the film in a very different way. He states that because of this, there is nothing unique about the action in Stalingrad, and therefore the film fails to portray the supposed singular barbarity of the German war effort in the East. Rath concurs with mainstream German critics that the film does not do enough to emphasize both national socialism and the War in the East as singularly evil and therefore requiring the sort of brow beating demanded by himself and the critics above. Indeed, he argues that for the film to succeed as Kunstwerk, as a work of art, the narrative needed to show one or two of Gerkens’ men delighting in murder and atrocity in a manner similar to that of Krebs.

Despite all the pretension and veneer of moral superiority, and with Raths as an exception, the collective reaction to the film in the German press reveals striking ignorance of the history of World War II and even the horrors of the Eastern Front—this despite the smug superiority and feigned moral righteousness with which these clowns carry on with their incessant, noxious blather. Anyone with minimal, baseline knowledge of the Eastern Front, the tactical history of armored warfare on both sides, and other facets of this period in military history should decry such fantasy for what it is.

When mainstream critics accept an invented, doctrinally absurd “atrocity” (a soon-to-be Tiger commander burning civilians alive in a Stalingrad factory) as a routine, representative aspect of life in the Panzerwaffe, and then still complain that such a contrivance somehow does not do enough to condemn the Wehrmacht and those who served in its ranks, the priority is clearly and unmistakably virtue signaling over not just factual accuracy but even historical plausibility. The specific details that would matter to anyone who actually knows anything whatsoever about not just World War II but the Eastern Front in particular—Flammpanzer employment doctrine, the historical introduction and deployment of flame tanks, the near-complete absence of remaining civilians in the relevant phase of The Battle of Stalingrad, the total absence of panzer crews in the documented record of that kind of direct massacre—are simply irrelevant to the required narrative: all who served in the German armed forces are war criminals and that the German populace deserved its fate collectively, if not far worse. The crimes must be presented incessantly and without remittance, and this must occur with ever increasing shock value. Whether such “crimes” ever happened or could have happened is of no importance. Nor does it seem to matter that the scene in question does not even portray a war crime under the laws of war.

Unfortunately, that pattern is not limited to this film. Since the early aughts with the exhibit on Wehrmacht war crimes as well as books like The Myth of the Eastern Front (which was originally panned in reviews before Amazon excised them), an institutional framework has been installed that treats the Wehrmacht as synonymous with systemic, categorical criminality. This, for now and for the foreseeable future, is a settled debate among the mainstream set, regardless of the historical record. It most certainly is not a topic that requires or deserves differentiation or the sort of “nuance” that leftist swine like to prattle on about. There is no differentiation between combat units as opposed to rearguard security units, no consideration of the reciprocal brutality that characterized the Eastern Front, or any consideration to the overwhelming majority of ordinary German soldiers who fought and all too often died without having personally committed war crimes. A silly, cartoonish “atrocity” that should not fool a lad in high school with baseline interest or knowledge in the subject matter works just as well as scenarios that did happen. Worst of all, tarnishing the memory of the German soldier with fantastical “crimes” of burning civilians alive with flamethrower tanks is to propagate the explicit admonition against the German people that allied war crimes are just and part of karmic justice. German women and children deserve to be burned alive because, in actuality, panzer crews, including tiger tank crews, did not engage Soviet armor as much as they incinerated innocent civilians with flamethrower tanks. They probably mowed down rows of Jews with a tank’s machine gun turret as well. Anyone who even so much as suggests otherwise is a dumb wehraboo who advances the insidious myth of the clean Wehrmacht!

This film as propaganda and the shocking criticism that it somehow does not do enough to propagate and advance collective German guilt is all the more alarming when compared with historical precedent just a few decades before. Das Boot never burdened the viewer with heavy-handed didactics about collective guilt with the subtlety and nuance of a jackhammer. Upon the theatrical release of U-571, which depicts a U-Boat crew committing war crimes by machine gunning survivors aboard a lifeboat from a torpedoed wreck in contravention to the Geneva convention, German critics rightly expressed outrage9 at the defamation of those who served in the Kriegsmarine because the U-boat men never committed such war crimes.10

Now such a film, if made from what is supposedly a German perspective, would be denounced for being centered on the lives and experiences of those who fought and died for Germany, rather than drone on (and on) about the real victims of the Third Reich. Such defamation would almost certainly be excused and condoned for being “accurate” in a more abstract sense insofar as it counters and refutes the “myth of the clean Wehrmacht” by propagating absolute bullshit that never happened.

Both the film and much of the critical reaction in Germany reveal how deeply the Kriegschuldkult has been ingrained in the German national consciousness. One of the most appalling aspects of this film is that it uses the allure, draw, and mystique of the tiger tank—and the men who fought in them—as a vehicle to propagate the war guilt complex. The outrage of using the tiger tank as a sort of draw is compounded by the lost opportunity of what the film could have been if only various institutions in German culture and society were not so fixated on propagating such blather. The tiger tank is iconic in its true, actual sense of the word. Somewhat overengineered to some limited extent, the tiger tank was rightly regarded as a Wunderwaffe, a most formidable weapon that instilled fear and terror in Germany’s enemies on the battlefield. The 8,8 KwK 36 cannon mounted on the tiger’s turret, inspired by the Flak 8,8 which first excelled as a tank killer in the French campaign, could destroy most any tank or tank destroyer a tiger encountered, from distances up to 2500 meters.11 This was mitigated somewhat with the advent of the T-34 85 in 1943 and its improved armament allowing the T-34 85 to engage the Tiger at intermediate distances. The Soviet tank destroyers fielded in 1944, the ISU-122 and ISU-152 with upgunned armament and thicker armor could engage tigers at intermediate rangers with lethal effect. Only the JS-2, introduced in late 1944, had sufficiently thick armor to be able to approach the tiger at short distances. Some Allied propaganda overstates the abilities of the Sherman tank, stating three Shermans could advance on one tiger with the “ant” tactics, with two sacrificing themselves so the third could score the “kill” against the tiger. That ratio is more like twelve to one.

There are many historical encounters that could have been the basis for a film centered around a tiger tank crew. There were many battles or engagements in which the Germans only held a position because of one or two tigers on the battlefield, destroying multitudes of Soviet armor. These historical battles could easily have been depicted even with the practical limitations of having just one replica tiger available. The exploits of Otto Carius come to mind, as do so many others. Michael Wittmann would be a most obvious candidate, except he belonged to the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and thus cannot be eulogized or depicted in any light other than unequivocal denunciation and vilification, despite being one of the very greatest warriors in the annals of history. Instead of having a morally neutral film separated from the propagation of war guilt, the filmmakers chose to depict fantasy claptrap, replete with implausible, ahistorical “war crimes” that never happened and would never happen.

This is punctuated further by the fact that Dennis Gansel is a very capable director, perhaps even a very talented filmmaker. He also directed Wir Sind die Nacht and die Welle, two films recommended by this author, with Wir Sind die Nacht receiving a very high recommendation.

Unlike these two films in particular, certain aspects of the film show bad writing in a variety of ways. A palpable shallowness about World War II and related subject matter is exhibited throughout the film’s writing. As stated, consider that Gerkens and von Hardenburg were at Stalingrad simply from ignorance of any other battle on the Eastern Front in 1942 into early 1943. One imagines “Ich bin die fesche Lola” was chosen simply from either ignorance of music from that time and period, although that famous song was first recorded and produced in 1930, thirteen years earlier.12 As it is revealed that Gerkens and his crew died on the bridge, von Hardenburg asks him “who Colonel Richter is anyway.” Richter means judge in English, so the writers effectively chose the name “Colonel Judge” to indicate that Gerkens is in judgment. Finally, one suspects the name Krebs was lazily taken from the infamous scene in der Untergang.

Because of the poor writing or more particularly the amateurish, tenuous-at-best grasp of military history and tactics, the film cannot receive a positive review, but it does have certain virtues and attributes indicating that a good or even great film exploring the trials and tribulations of a tiger tank crew could have been made. The initial night combat scene was mostly quite excellent, as the technical depictions of the interior fighting compartment are, for the most part, laudable. Although used to advance a defamatory and outrageous message, the visuals of the climactic bunker scene are well done from a technical aspect. The replica of the tiger tank used in the film, based on a T-55 chassis, is mostly convincing, although because some footage was not edited with CGI, those familiar with the dimensions and features of a Tiger should avert their eyes from the wheels and tracks in select footage.

Alas, such attributes, those admirable qualities of the film that stand out despite such flaws, were not to be utilized for a good, compelling narrative about a tiger tank crew or combat on the Eastern Front. Indeed, the current state of the German national consciousness has proven once again incapable of producing let alone embracing such a work, whether in film, literature, or some other medium.

These considerations in turn reveal just how dire the psyop on the German national consciousness really is. That institutional writers are revealed as pig-ignorant on the actual history of the Eastern Front would be mildly encouraging, except there are no institutional voices revealing such ignorance for what it is. Unless and until such national masochism is refuted at scale, there is very little prospect that the German national consciousness will be able to awaken from 80 years of indoctrination and programming. For this reason, the very defamation of men such as those Philip Gerkens and his crew pretend to depict will unfortunately continue for the foreseeable future. This in turn further reveals a very poor prognosis for recovering from the Great Replacement and the incursion of black and brown hordes into Germany and Europe, as well as the myriad other existential threats facing Germany and Europe directly. These very threats are of course what men like Philip Gerkens fought so valiantly against.

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Author’s note: this story is developing. Revisions and corrections are likely.

Late in the evening of July 24, 2026, at around 11:00 P.M. local time, the jury found Shiloh Hendrix not guilty for the first count of disorderly conduct, as it pertains to accosting the boy, but guilty on the second count for utterances on video. She was sentenced to 90 days in jail, but this sentenced was stayed (i.e. she has been given probation. She must pay a $1,000.00 fine and perform 200 hours in community service Given her notoriety, there are significant concerns about her safety if she should be made to serve that 90 day jail sentence kept in general population of a county jail.1

As readers are doubtlessly well aware, Hendrix was charged and tried for two counts of disorderly conduct, arising out of an incident at Roy Sutherland Playground at Soldiers Field Memorial Park in Rochester, Minnesota, on April 28, 2025. A Somali boy, now confirmed to be eight at the time, but was falsely reported as being five, stole an applesauce snack from Hendrix’s diaper bag. Shiloh accosted the thief, calling him a “nigger.” Alone with her then 18-month-old son, she was confronted by a grown Somali man, Sharmake Omar, who recorded the incident on his cell phone. She was defiant and, when he challenged her by stating “Why don’t you have the balls to say it again,” she responded by stating “Fuck you, nigger. Nigger, nigger, nigger,” replete with the “middle finger” salute. It was for this that Shiloh Hendrix was charged with two counts of disorderly conduct: one count for uttering a racial epithet at a child who stole from her, and one count for the utterances while being confronted by a Somali man. This latter exchange, once again, is the count for which she was convicted. Omar of course was never charged for accosting a woman alone with a small child. Significantly, Omar had been charged for fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a 16-year-old some time before this incident, but those charges were later dropped. He has since fled the United States and is back in Somalia, which is why he never took the witness stand.

Defense attorney Brian Karalus impeached the testimony of the boy’s father, Shire Jimale, on two important considerations: inconsistent statements and financial motive. During direct examination by the prosecution, Jimale testified (via two Somali interpreters) that he feared Hendrix would “strike,” “hit,” or otherwise physically harm his son. Karalus impeached this portion of the testimony by inquiring why this “fear” was never articulated or stated in the initial police interview some ten days later, after the video had gone viral. Jimale only mentioned the fear of being struck in a second interview the following day. Karalus further impeached the testimony for the financial motive involved, noting that the boy has received some $300,000.00 from a NAACP fund-raising effort. Any readers who have doubts about the perverse incentives for bad behavior—particularly from blackies and certain minorities—should consider the ramifications of rewarding a child for theft of a mother’s belongings with $300,000.00. This was bolstered by Day 4 examination by the defense of the detective who interviewed Jimale. As Tom Hennessy reported on twitter:

The detective confirmed the father never once claimed he feared Shiloh Hendrix would hit his son, in fact, he never mentioned any fear of Shiloh doing anything during their entire interview.

Hennessy further notes that “In his initial police interview on May 8, he showed zero emotion and never expressed any fear that Hendrix would harm his son.” This is stark contrast to his demeanor on the witness before the jury, when “he suddenly turned on the waterworks.”

As many well know, disorderly conduct is perhaps the flimsiest charge a person can face. Disorderly conduct routinely gets declined by prosecution, or alternatively gets thrown out by the presiding court. Charges for disorderly conduct are often wanting for vagueness. Usually, it is tagged on along with other more serious charges, from public drunkenness or DUI, to assault and battery, to other crimes for which people are routinely and rightly arrested and charged. In this instance, particularly as Hendrix committed no other crimes, the charges were predicated on a “fighting words” rationale. So-called fighting words were ruled to be outside First Amendment protection by Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. While Chaplinsky has not been formally overruled, it, like other cases (namely Miller and its obscenity test) has been repeatedly limited and qualified to such an extent it is practically a dead letter. The Shiloh Hendrix trial is remarkable in that the prosecution sought to reinvigorate the Chaplinsky doctrine for racial slurs. And, at least for the time being, the prosecution has succeeded in this effort.

Particularly with a guilty verdict, the case is another illustration of how facially neutral statutes and laws are selectively used to further leftist policy considerations, particularly regarding matters of race. Consider for example laws against graffiti, or defacing public or private property with stickers, bills, and other materials. Particularly with the remarkably soft-on-crime approach that has defined “blue” urban settings since the George Floyd controversy, prosecution for such petty crimes is non-existent. However, if one were to emblazon a swastika or other forbidden symbol, say certain runes or the Celtic cross, on a surface viewable in public, such an incident would make national and even international news. A “hate crimes” task force would be formed, as they have been for incidents like these. Overtime hours would be authorized and expended to pour over surveillance camera footage and other legwork to find those responsible. No stone would be left unturned to identify and apprehend the perpetrator. Once apprehended, such a person would face the maximum number of charges possible. In some jurisdictions, this would include so-called hate crime enhancers. The same principle applies to a bumper sticker or bill affixed on a city park bench or any other surface with an adhesive. One would be hard-pressed to get the police to even come out to file a police report in any other context concerning an affixed bumper sticker, flyer, or other similar media. But if the bumper sticker, flyer, or other media features a swastika, a confederate flag, or any number of other symbols, the same news coverage, the same task force, the same concerted effort would apply. Even mere utterances would such as “truth is racist,” “I do not like black people,” or even “it is ok to be white” would elicit a similar if not identical response and indeed have elicited such responses in past incidents.

The selective enforcement and application of facially neutral laws takes many forms. As has been discussed before, The Equal Opportunity Commission, an arm of the federal government that was established by and enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act has recognized display of the Gadsden flag as sufficient cause to state a claim for a hostile working environment, and yet would never do if a white individual were to complain about display of the Pan African Flag or a Black Lives Matter flag.

The most disconcerting aspect of the Shiloh Hendrix trial is that it marks significant progress in criminalizing racially charged insults in ways that are simply inapplicable in other contexts. If a substantially similar fact pattern had occurred, but an individual called someone a “mother fucker,” a “cunt,” or other profane insults—and such a scenario did not have this racial component interfacing whites with blacks and other minorities—it is highly doubtful charges for disorderly conduct would be brought by the prosecution. A person might get charged and taken to jail, but likely released thereafter. This fundamental distinction, this unique treatment of racially charged insults, confers a unique, special entitlement to racial minorities that is unavailable to white individuals and groups, particularly since racial epithets used to insult whites do not tend to cause such fits of violent rage or acrimonious public unrest of varying degrees of severity. Outside of the law, many aspects of American society already embrace this special treatment as a social norm. Most blacks and even many liberal whites strongly believe that the utterance of a racial epithet to a black individual and certain other minorities rightly grants the aggrieved person a right to respond with violence. Above all, such elements contend such insults are uniquely offensive and merit particularly stringent sanctions against those who utter them, while also conferring special privileges for those they are uttered against. As has been argued before, this “standard,” for lack of a better term, does not apply in a racially neutral manner in relation to other offensive language that is, in actuality, equally or even more offensive.

As articulated in “When D. K. Metcalf Attacks: Insults, Slurs, and Black Privilege for Violence,” this creates a two-tier legal system that confers special, unique status for minorities, not unlike nobility in times past. In “feudal Europe and other ancient civilizations as well. . .” the law applied “different legal standards to landed nobility” as compared to “mere peasants and serfs.” Indeed “a serf or peasant” would incur stiff legal penalties for “insult[ing] nobility. . ..” Moreover “in some time periods and contexts, nobility or other person afforded such special privilege could react with violence with few if any repercussions.” Are blacks royalty in this country, enjoying special legal status once afforded to landed nobility and the aristocracy? It sure seems that way, as are Somali migrants who simply do not belong here (or in Europe) and certainly should not be allowed to step foot here, let alone given free rein to accost and confront white women and mothers alone with their children in parks and other public spaces. And this conclusion remains indisputable even as one would be hard pressed to find a demographic group less deserving of being hoisted into such lofty status as quasi royalty. This “state of affairs must end, one way or another.” But how is this to be achieved?

Some aver that the outcome is not as important as it actually is, taking false comfort in appealing a conviction. While most readers probably understand this, it should be clarified that any appeals go through the Minnesota appellate courts. One would be hard-pressed to find a less favorable venue than Minnesota generally and the Minnesota appellate courts specifically. This is, after all, the land of notorious darkie Keith Ellison and “Tampon” Tim Walz, as well as that nutter wife of his, Gwen Walz.

While it is the case that the Minnesota courts have reversed convictions for disorderly conduct on free speech and other grounds, the racially charged element of this combined with the ideopolitical capture of the judicial system more broadly and especially the Minnesota appellate courts in particular raise serious doubts that a conviction would be reversed on appeal.

Some naïvely suggest appealing to The United States Supreme Court, but this would require exhausting appeals at the state level first. Moreover, and more importantly, The Supreme Court of the United States grants fewer than two percent of all certiorari petitions, sometimes as low as one percent or lower. It is also doubtful any prison sentence would be suspended after Minnesota courts deny an appeal.

Presently, Hendrix’s fundraising efforts have raised a sum in excess of $800,000.00. This is a sizeable sum that should provide the Hendrix family real economic security in these uncertain times. If invested wisely, it could provide generational wealth, but only barely so. Drafting, researching, and filing a certiorari petition to the United States Supreme Court alone can run from $50.000.00 and up. Higher end firms, including specialized boutiques in Washington D.C. that specialize in certiorari petitions would likely cost well over $100,000.00. If that petition is granted, which is always statistically improbable, there would be additional lawyer fees ranging from $100.000-300,000.00 to argue the case before the Supreme Court. This would be on top of appealing through the Minnesota court system. Without an additional fund-raising effort, such an effort would take a large portion of what has been obtained via fund-raising. That is unless a team of attorneys agree to do it pro bono, which seems unlikely.

Indeed, even if money were no object, that Shiloh Hendrix had an inexhaustible war chest, there is an additional problem. The syndicate of law firms with expertise in drafting and filing a certification petition and then arguing the case before The Supreme Court of the United States if such a petition were granted would, without question, refuse to entertain Shiloh Hendrix as a client for political reasons and for reasons of prestige and reputation. For these reasons, any appeal almost certainly begins and ends in the Minnesota appellate court system.

This verdict is a harbinger of bad tidings. Law often shapes social mores. Those who doubt this should consider how Supreme Court precedent has shaped social norms and mores regarding segregation and racial integration, abortion, the normalization and ubiquity of pornography and any number of issues. This is precisely the reason the Rochester district attorney’s office expended the time and resources to continue with a trial for a misdemeanor. Many aspects of American society already contend that racial minorities deserve special, unique privileges as they pertain to racial insults. This verdict, if left to stand after appeal, will punctuate this sentiment with binding precedent. Minnesota is an extremely liberal state—even New York, so far, has not considered charging Sydney Claire Goins aka “The Subway Queen” for uttering the same racial epithet in a New York City subway, at least not yet. With this result paving the way, more jurisdictions, particularly in blue states, are likely to follow suit. This development of course is in the context of legal “scholarship” arguing that so-called hate speech should not be protected by the First Amendment as well as increasing numbers of younger generations embracing that point of view. This result, and the perverse social norms underlying it, must be resisted, but at present, the means to do so via the legal system are extremely limited and highly discouraging.

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PLEASE NOTE: Readers who enjoy this essay are asked to press the “like emoji” to signify their favor and share with anyone who would find this insightful, interesting, or provocative. Giving an essay a like is crucial to attracting new readers and subscribers. Follow Richard Parker on twitter (or X if one prefers) under the handle (@)astheravencalls. Delete the parentheses, which were added to prevent interference with Substack’s own internal handle system.

Author’s note: this critique contains significant spoilers. It is therefore recommended that readers view the film before reading this. An attempt was made to write a critique that divulges fewer plot points, but this is not feasible. For those who either do not wish to view the film or want to read this critique beforehand, a more detailed plot synopsis is available at this hyperlink.

FURTHER NOTE: it is somewhat unusual for this publication to post two back-to-back film critiques in a row. A more evergreen substantial writing project is being contemplated.

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As many readers are likely well aware, an independent film Obsession (initial release 2025, general release 2026) became the biggest sleeper hit in recent memory. With a budget of just $750,000.00, the film so far has exceeded some $400 million in revenue, and it will likely earn more. The film is notable for eclipsing Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, as well as the latest instance of cultural necrophilia by way of the dead and tired Star Wars franchise, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. Obsession fits most comfortably in the psychological horror genre, although it draws from other genres as well, notably dark comedy. Given the years of cultural and creative bankruptcy that has afflicted mainstream film-making for decades, the film’s somewhat (but not entirely) unique story and premise offers audiences a bit of fresh air. This partly explains its unprecedented success. However, as will be revealed, the film is a very thin allegory for feminist talking points about “body autonomy” while offering some sharp commentary on unrequited love or desire, as well as what is often characterized as male entitlement. Above all, the film stands as the latest foray into attacking the so-called “nice guy” syndrome.

The film centers around one Baron “Bear” Bailey, who has an infatuation with Nikki Freeman that borders on fixation. He wants to express his romantic or sexual interest in her, but cannot summon the courage to do so. This continues the fateful night he gives her a ride home after trivia night, as he even fumbles with his words after she indicates possible interest and even asks him if he does like her.

En route to trivia night, he stops at a witchcraft novelty shop to get her a replacement tiger eye she lost that night, but instead buys a vintage novelty gag, the “One Wish Willow.” This turns out not to be such a gag after all. Trivia night comes and goes. The evening ends with Bear fumbling yet another opportunity to express his romantic or sexual interest in her as he drops her off at her home. After she goes in for the night, he sees the item (which he intended as a gift for her). He takes it, opens it (which sets off this novelty toy music), states “I wish Nikki Freeman loved me more than anyone in the world” and then breaks the wooden piece. Interestingly, Bear made an error in the order of operation, as the directions state one is supposed to open the “One Wish Willow” packaging, break the stick and then make a wish immediately after. In the tradition of the trope of “be careful what you wish for,” Bear soon regrets his wish as Nikki is both obsessive and possessive, and engages in a litany of psychotic and disturbing behavior that just worsens more and more in very short order. This climaxes with Nikki murdering Sarah out of possessive jealousy, as she later also kills Ian before Bear commits suicide.

Over the past month in particular, the film has engendered much discourse centered around tired feminist talking points. Many viewers have condemned Bear’s character, asserting he is unquestionably the villain of the film. A key, central component of the plot is Nikki does not act like herself after the wish was made. Over the course of Nikki’s psychotic episodes, it is revealed to the viewer (and slowly to Bear himself) that the woman he is with is no longer really Nikki. Much of the plot demonstrating that Nikki is not really herself involves events unfolding in the same long, fateful, horrible day, the day before the double murder and suicide takes place in the morning after. Nikki uses several rolls of duct tape to secure the front door to try and prevent Bear going from work. After he leaves, she stands frozen, waiting for him to return. At work, Bear finds two disturbing photos along with a packed lunch, one of him walking from a strange angle, with the handwritten caption “You” and a second polaroid of Nikki smiling in front of Bear sleeping, captioned “not me.” He later discovers the packed lunch consists of remains of his dead cat, Sandy. After he comes home, he finds that she had not moved all day from where she stood, covered in sweat while also having defecated herself. The film further demonstrates that the person engaging in yet another psychotic episode is not really Nikki when she momentarily breaks out of a psychotic episode during a Jenga drinking get together that night. She stops herself in the middle of an episode, saying “This is not me” before taking a bottle and striking herself in the head.

Then, with Nikki inside his place after a fruitless visit to the emergency room, Bear calls a number listed on the One Wish Willow packaging. A voice exuding at once boredom and contempt explains to Bear that the wish can neither be altered nor rescinded. After telling him that the wish is in effect until he dies—a not so subtle suggestion that suicide is the one way to rescind the wish—the voice asks Bear if he wants to talk to Nikki. Both Bear and the audience then hear Nikki screaming in torment. Critically, this is one of the plot details that audiences have used to bolster their condemnation of Bear.

The final, most obvious demonstration that Nikki is not herself comes later that night into the witching hour of the morning. He receives a text from Sarah at 2:45 A.M., indicating that she has something to say to him, and that if he will not come to see her, she is coming to him. He slips out of bed ever so quietly to evade detection and just as he is about to tiptoe out of the bedroom, Nikki’s voice speaks to him, instructing him to be quiet, so as not to wake her. The voice then asks Bear to kill her to spare her continued suffering. His response was “is it so awful being with me.” Nikki’s response: “I have never been with you, Bear.” This, more than any other detail, is cited above all to condemn Bear’s motives and actions. However, the fact that Nikki must then explain to Bear that “I have never been with you” further demonstrates he did not fully understand the dynamic at play.

This element of the plot, whereby Nikki is no longer herself, is used by both the filmmaker and much of the discourse surrounding this film to condemn Bear not merely for reacting to supernatural horror in less-than-optimal fashion, and not even for making the wish, but for entertaining what is arguably unrequited desire for a woman. Many, but admittedly not all, who condemn Bear as the villain of the film fail to discern or acknowledge that Bear does not think the “One Wish Willow” is real, at least not until well after the wish was made. Why would he or anyone think it is real? This is punctuated by his disbelief in seeing Nikki return outside her porch (in ominous silhouette). It is further demonstrated by Ian’s disbelief when Bear makes a final, desperate ploy to tell him he made this wish, that the One Wish Willow is real, and that the only hope is for Ian to take another “One Wish Willow” and wish that the wish never happened. Ian, in disbelief, flippantly breaks the stick and states “I wish for a billion dollars,” before bundles of cash gently rain down from the ceiling.

Notably, this element of possession,1 a phenomenon whereby the real Nikki is rendered as a sort of passenger in her own body, does not fulfill Bear’s wish. That Nikki’s body is animated by some other entity or personage that most emphatically is not Nikki is in direct contravention to the plain words of his stated wish: “I wish Nikki Freeman loved me more than anyone in the world.” The tradition of the wish-gone-wrong trope is that the wish is granted according to the strict, literal wording of the wish, but accompanied by unintended consequences that render the wish disastrous. An example would be someone wishes for ten million dollars, the wish is granted, but the money is acquired by some illegal means and the person is caught, tried, and convicted and sent to prison for life. The perversion or distortion of Bear’s wish does not conform to this trope. In a very real way, his wish was not granted by its plain terms, insofar as Nikki’s body was overtaken by some possessing spirit or personage that is not actually Nikki Freeman. Indeed, Thomas Thorogood points out that much of Nikki’s psychotic behavior, particularly digging up Sandy’s body as a bizarre memorial and later feeding the cat’s remains to Bear are also in contravention of this wish and, indeed, cannot be attributed to pathological obsession or possessiveness that occurs when a person “loves” another too much.

The film uses this device to condemn the notion of making such a wish, for harboring such a desire unless it is also clearly and unequivocally reciprocated. This is punctuated by a line from the voice on the hotline. In response to Bear asking if the One Wish Willow is real, the voice states “Just because you chose this for her does not make this any less real.” The insinuation of Bear’s wish as uniquely evil is further demonstrated by the two other known individuals who used the “One Wish Willow,” the second store clerk at the occultist gift shop, who tells Bear that he used that wish with no problem and, as stated before, Ian, who wishes for a billion dollars. As meaning arises from differences, Bear’s wish alone, of the three wishes known to the viewer, begets disaster. It follows that something peculiar or distinctive about Bear’s wish is the reason why his wish ends in disaster and the other two do not.

This is further punctuated by Curry Barker himself, the director of this film. Consider this excerpt from an interview he did, which incidentally reveals he is not the most articulate individual, stuttering with the constant use of “like” and other filler words and tics:

[What]Bear wishes for is cursed. Like, taking away someone’s autonomy, taking away someone’s self, that’s cursed. Like, it’s just the wish itself is. ..a very cursed thing. So I do think if you chose your words wisely the One Wish Willow doesn’t have to be [cursed].

Although stating the plainly obvious, it must be emphasized that the “One Wish Willow” or a genie in a bottle that grants three wishes and other similar tales are not real; they are fantasy. And yet the film’s use of such a device links Bear’s wish—and his desire to be with Nikki more generally—with the dire consequences that unfold throughout the film in the mind of the viewer. By linking such a wish, such a desire with such consequence in the viewer’s mind, the film overtly pathologizes male desire, provided that desire is either unrequited, or fumbled in clumsy fashion, or otherwise smacks of insecurity or adversity. The film and its adherents go so far as to suggest that articulating or even entertaining such desires requires consent of the woman. That a One Wish Willow is not real and pure fantasy does not seem to register with the myriad condemnations of Bear’s actions or characters or the greater pathologization of male desire with these and other negative characteristics.

In assessing the condemnation of Bear, the options available to him warrant examination. The voice on the “helpline” tells him that the wish will be in effect as long as he is alive. As stated, this strongly implies suicide as the last best option. After the murder of Sarah when he goes to try and get another “One Wish Willow” to use a wish to rescind the prior wish, a different sales clerk informs him that he already used his wish and even says that “maybe you could kill yourself—just spit balling here.” Bear ultimately does take his own life, which finally frees Nikki. In this way, the film invokes the Internet provocation “you should kill yourself” in relation to any “nice guys” who wish or want a woman to desire him when she either does not or it is unclear whether she does desire him or will desire him after courting or pursuing her. Indeed, both Bear’s fate and the repeated suggestion that suicide is the best and only option complements, in rather strident fashion, much of the online screeching about “incels” and “nice guys,” including constant insistence that such young men should kill themselves.

Consider also that at the moment when the real Nikki implores him to kill her out of mercy, this would almost certainly entail criminal liability for murder, particularly as it is doubtful that Bear could commit murder and get away with it. Thus, particularly without being able to foresee the pending murder of Sarah, it is understandable why Bear postpones any rash decision. In Bear’s defense, after the brutal murder of Sarah, he does try redeem both himself and Nikki by obtaining the two last “One Wish Willows” before beseeching Ian to use his wish to rescind Bear’s wish. This ploy does not work, only because of Ian’s actions. That he does eventually try and find a way to reverse the wish indicates that he is not fine or complacent about Nikki’s predicament as a passenger in her own body. In short, those who condemn Bear for not trying to reverse the wish or spell fail to discern or concede there is no readily available method to do so, other than suicide.

As is often the case with this sort of discourse, the condemnation of Bear as the villain has been particularly zealous and unreasonable. A popular YouTube channel, Alex Myers, publishing a video critique contradicting this interpretation, and the usual sorts reacted with predictable outrage, insisting the creator be “cancelled.” Myers soon took the video and a subsequent apology down. Fortunately, the video has been preserved in this archive.

The film does raise a somewhat interesting point about such a wish hypothetically. If such a wish were real—such wishes are of course not real—would it be ethical or moral for someone to wish another loves that person? If the love and desire is unrequited—a matter deliberately left ambiguous in the beginning of the film—that would arguably impinge on the subject’s free will and volition. What if Bear were to have massaged the language of his wish ever so slightly, so that he stated “I wish I could persuade Nikki Freeman to love me more than anyone on earth.” Would that satisfy these concerns over bodily autonomy?

Suppose someone did not like this author’s take on matters of race or a disdain for Katy Perry schlock and rap music and that person, possessing a “One Wish Willow” used that wish to change my views on these matters. That would—note the use of the unreal subjunctive, as, again, such wishes are not real—violate my individual autonomy. Would such a wish be less objectionable if from a relative or loved one? Would a disapproving parent or grandparent who disapproves of wearing a lot of black clothing or listening to angry or despondent music be wrong to use such a wish to transform such preferences and predictions? Certain figures in my familial past certainly entertained such sentiment during my adolescence and even young adulthood.

On the other hand, there are many millions both in the United States and in Europe who believe that the writings on this publication should be banned for so-called hate speech. Some of these individuals desire to put persons such as myself as well as readers of this publication in jail, to disenfranchise them of any meaningful employment, as well as any number of other grim consequences. Some think those who hold such views should be killed or worse. Are not these examples of individuals impinging on the autonomy of others?

Even though One Wish Willow is not real, that the genie in a bottle does not exist except in fantasy, feminist audiences have asserted that merely wishing Nikki would love him “more than anyone in the world” is a violation of her bodily autonomy, and they assert this irrespective of whether the One Wish Willow is real or fantasy. As set forth above, the director of the film, Curry Barker, has stated as much, repeatedly and explicitly. This underlying message of the film about supposed male entitlement and how expressing or harboring unrequited desire (or desire that may be unrequited) explains why the film breaks from the tradition of wishes being granted according to the literal wording of the wish and why has Nikki’s body possessed by something other than Nikki.

To underscore this message, namely that the wish itself is somehow a violation, the film portrays Bear in both a negligent and selfish light in other ways. The death of his cat, Sandy, attributed to carelessly leaving prescription pills about, is tantamount to criminal recklessness and serves as foreshadowing of the grim events about to transpire. He is also shown nonchalantly perusing Nikki’s social media soon after disposing of poor Sandy’s dead body and cleaning up the floor. Those who lead the charge denouncing Bear note the one sex scene in the film that depicts Nikki in an almost lifeless catatonic state. This is used to impute knowledge to Bear that Nikki is not really there.

As an aside, it is unclear that the filmmaker needed to write the plot this way. Rather than have Nikki’s body overtaken by some unstated, foreign state of consciousness, the wish could have operated like a hypnotic trance. Assuming hypnosis actually works this way, it would ostensibly be sexual assault for a person to hypnotize another with the intention to procure sexual congress.

That digression aside, consider what a radical proposition that desire that is either unrequited or is uncertain whether it is reciprocated or not is somehow a violation of bodily autonomy. The corollary that follows is that men in particular do not have a right to desire a woman unless it is certain that desire is reciprocated. How does this bizarre moral system work, when it is often uncertain whether desire is reciprocated? Consider also that such desire, in its more abstract form, is the driver behind most all efforts behind self-improvement. Academics, fitness, practically any endeavor in human affairs can be directly attributed to the will to sex, and has been since Helen of Troy and before. Beyond that, desire often begins in a context where reciprocation is uncertain. That very desire spurs the courting process which, if done successfully, wins the woman’s desire in turn.

One also wonders, using the strict logic of this twisted moral system, if it is a violation of a woman’s bodily autonomy to desire a woman featured in a swimsuit calendar or pinup, or is that circumvented by the fact that woman agrees to model in such media? What about a celebrity crush or infatuation? Suppose a man, either in relation to a celebrity crush or a real life acquaintance, harbors crude, lascivious thoughts. Is that also a supposed violation of a woman’s bodily autonomy? Women of course also routinely indulge in unrequited desire. Indeed, Sarah’s crush or infatuation with Bear is unrequited, until their clandestine meeting that ends in her shocking and brutal murder by “possessed Nikki.”

As is the case with many plot points and characters featured in films, literature, and all manner of story-telling, the question of what sociological and psychological phenomena contribute to Bear’s shortcomings should be of far greater interest to audiences than is demonstrated in much of the discourse of this film.2 Such matters are of course left unanswered in the film, but the film leaves some clues, some of which work against the feminist manifesto and naked misandry ingrained in the film’s messaging. The opening scene does not offer a flattering picture of Bear, in which he confesses his desire in a diner in a most pathetic manner. It is soon revealed that the woman he is speaking to is a young waitress who agreed to be a stand-in for Nikki. Next to him is Ian. On first viewing, it seems Ian has good intentions for his friend, but it is later revealed that Nikki and Ian have been hooking up on and off for the past two years. These and other clues signal to the viewer that Ian is not a good friend, and is likely purposefully sabotaging Bear to watch him crash and burn, either out of Schadenfreude, to see someone fail where he has succeeded, or as some sort of play to get Nikki back as a casual sex partner.

These and other aspects of the narrative as well as Bear’s mannerisms and character beg the question why Bear is the way he is. The screenplay indicates he is twenty-five. His grandmother recently died. The opening scene indicates Nikki was supportive of Bear during this time, and was supportive in ways that no one else was. Crucially, there is no mention of his parents. It is revealed that he lives in his late grandmother’s house and that he inherited it. On the first night when Bear takes Nikki home, she, in a state of possession, states she likes it better than his old place. Did he live with his grandmother during high school? Why is there no mention of his parents? Why would his parents not inherit the house? Is Bear an orphan, or did his grandmother take him in due to abusive or neglectful parenting? Although none of these and other questions are answered, these particular details suggest a less-than-ideal household where the grandmother did much of caretaking when Bear was an adolescent and perhaps also when he was a child. The antecedents underlying many of the underlying causes of such personal dysfunction and shortcomings include the rise of feminism, no fault divorce, the sexual revolution and so on. In this way, the same cultural elements that condemn men simply for desiring women in an unrequited or clumsy manner are the same elements that have created conditions in society that make such insecurity and other flaws much more prevalent in young men.

The likely absence of any sort of father figure explains his awkwardness and timidity, as well as how and why he puts up with such a shitty friend as Ian. It defies credulity that Bear is not at least somewhat aware of Ian’s sabotaging ways, particularly after Sarah told him that Ian and Nikki had been fuck buddies for two years. Young men need suitable father figures—masculine role models—to regulate and audit friendships and relationships. Father figures—masculine role models—help teach and guide youngsters to stick up for themselves, to not abide disrespect, sabotage, and the like. Bear is somewhat at a disadvantage as he is smaller than Ian, but decent father figures also provide guidance on strength-training, weightlifting, and even how to handle one’s self if things go to fisticuffs. Bear’s timidity and awkwardness—his real crime against Nikki when the narrative is read as an allegory rather than literally—is also a function of not having a suitable father figure, as well as a society that all too often fails to instill masculinity and confidence in young men.

Some who condemn Bear as the villain of the story liken him to the incel phenomenon. In large sections of modern discourse, this is regarded as one of the worst—if the not the worst—insult that can be levied against a man, however unoriginal, unimaginative, and uninteresting such an insult is. Such characterization is an error though, because it is revealed early on that Sarah is smitten with Bear, a matter that comes to a head in a climactic moment when a possessed Nikki comes from behind, breaks the driver seat window before violently smashing Sarah’s face against the driving wheel in quick succession until it is a bloodied, blackened pulp of a mess.

Rather, Bear fits the “nice guy” mold, another stereotype and characterization that is central to misandrist rhetoric in feminist dialogue. This, much like being an incel, is Bear’s “original sin” and the real nexus of his perceived pathology as it is fixated on in discourses which villainizes Bear and by extension any young man who experiences difficulty or setbacks in the sexual and dating marketplace.

While these and other problems in both the writing of the film and the greater societal context surrounding it impugns, to some degree, the Internet mob insisting Bear is the “villain” and a really bad guy who deserved to die, statements by Barker and others associated with the film have clearly and repeatedly stated this is the intent. Critics can always invoke the death of the filmmaker, interpreting a film or any work separate and apart from the stated intention of its creator, but the writing clearly tries to impart this message, however imperfectly. As stated, one mistake these voices make is they impute knowledge that viewers only gain after a complete viewing of the film to Bear not only overall but in the beginning of the narrative. Precisely because men continue to be demonized, and because fans of the film are using this film as a vehicle for the absurd position that merely harboring unrequited desire or even desire where it is uncertain or undetermined if it is reciprocated or not is somehow a violation of a woman’s autonomy.

While the film is hardly the masterpiece many are claiming it to be, Obsession is a reasonably well-made film, particularly given the recent dearth of even passable cinema in this age of cultural necrophilia and creative and artistic bankruptcy. Even granting such praise where it is due, it is clear that Obsession is just the latest in a long line of films that is entertaining while either well made or competently made that nonetheless carries a nefarious, harmful message. The films of Quentin Tarantino come to mind first and foremost, including Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained, even Pulp Fiction. There are however so many films that are entertaining and interesting that advance a destructive message. Obsession is just the latest iteration in a decades long trend.

Despite overt messaging this publication finds both repugnant and less than entirely original, the film is entertaining and above all provides a much needed respite from much of the bad filmmaking seen in the past decade or more. It raises interesting points, even though the viewpoint it advances is mistaken about a great many things. The film and plot would be better if it were not explicitly crafted to drive this message that male desire is pathological unless and until it is reciprocated. There are several inconsistencies or blindspots, including that the plain wording of the wish was never fulfilled, that no one can really explain or define what is, for lack of a better term, the possession of Nikki or her body, or that some psychotic fits (including the dead cat memorial and later feeding Bear remains of his cat) do not comport with possessive or obsessive behavior, Borderline Personality Disorder, and indeed cannot be explained by any coherent theory. Inde Navarrette, who plays Nikki, largely deserves the praise for her performance. The manner in which the film mocks the “mask smile” that is so typical of many aspects of American life resonated with this author in particular. Overall, the film is recommended, although with the caveats set forth in this critique. At the very least, people should watch the film to maintain greater awareness and understanding of the cultural milieu that envelops us all. Because of this film’s underlying message, readers are encouraged to watch this film in an ethical manner that does not contribute monetarily to this film, particularly as it has already profited so handsomely. Three out of five stars, 7 out of 10.

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Author’s note: one should never say never, but it is highly doubtful this essay will ever be released from behind the paywall. Regular subscribers are urged to upgrade to a paid subscription. As always, sincere gratitude for paid and founding member subscribers.

Please further note: readers are presumed to have seen this film at least once, if not multiple times. This essay contains significant spoilers. DO NOT READ THIS CRITIQUE BEFORE VIEWING THIS FILM.

Se7en is properly regarded as a modern classic and one of the greatest films of all time. This should not be controversial, although some dare to suggest it is overrated, that it is merely a marginal film, so on and so forth. As a personal favorite, I rewatched the film recently, for the first time in over a decade. As reviewing a film like this will often yield new insights and perspectives, this short note will impart these thoughts and reflections to the reader.

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Most readers are likely all too aware of the various auspices and portents of the so-called gig economy. These are most readily identified with ride share services like Uber and Lyft, but also services that make little economic sense, such as Instacart, DoorDash, UberEats and the like. While one would expect readers to use Uber and Lyft on occasion, depending on where one lives, readers would hopefully be unlikely to ever use services like DoorDash, UberEats, or Instacart, unless in a certain pinch, such as when traveling. One service however warrants the attention of readers of this publication and the American public more broadly: an entity called Roadie, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of UPS. The delivery service—or disservice, if one prefers—uses the same business model as Instacart and other services but for various consumer goods, ranging from everyday toiletries and household items, to hardware and home improvement, to even big-ticket electronic items. Critically, Roadie has implemented this dubious platform with far less vetting than Uber and Lyft. Whereas Instacart and UberEats can add enormous costs to the base price of an order—either for groceries, consumer goods, or restaurant prepared food—Roadie is used by an increasing number of chain stores in the United States for same-day delivery service, often with little or no extra cost. Because this service is often added at no charge or a small fee, readers of this publication particularly and the American public more broadly are more likely to (unwittingly) use the service.

Most critically, and doubtlessly of interest to readers of this publication, Roadie has become somewhat notorious for “lost” packages—or rather packages that are stolen. Some deliveries are either misplaced and lost or left at a wrong address in shockingly careless fashion. However, a cursory review of relevant search terms on any search engine or large language model chat platform reveals a number of credible accusations that Roadie drivers routinely steal packages they have been hired to deliver. Indeed, Roadie, above all, is defined by a pattern of behavior whereby drivers in contract with Roadie will take a picture as evidence of delivery before stealing that delivery.

When a package “delivered” by a contractor on behalf of Roadie is either lost or even stolen, customers will often face significant difficulties in getting a refund. This can happen with small dollar amounts at Walgreens and CVS, or with big ticket items from Best Buy and Home Depot. Reddit in particular has a number of credible complaints of purchases for large flat screen TVs, expensive gaming consoles (such as Xbox and Switch) and other big-ticket items that wind up missing or stolen. One instance in which a Roadie driver allegedly stole a flat screen tv from Walmart was covered by a local news outlet. Some accounts even recount a stolen or “lost” laptop that was supposed to be delivered by a Roadie driver. In these and most all other instances as well, the purchaser selects “same day delivery” for little to no extra cost. Soon after the customer finalizes purchase on the retailer website or app with “same day delivery,” the item promptly goes missing.

Best Buy and other associated retailers on one hand and Roadie on the other then stonewall the customer’s attempt to get either a refund or replacement as each entity points their proverbial fingers at one another. Best Buy and other retailers will refuse replacement or refund, stating that any such remedy will require an “investigation” by Roadie. Roadie in turn will either leave customers on hold for an hour or more before hanging up, or simply assert that the picture taken by a delivery driver is “proof of delivery,” thus providing sufficient cause, under their twisted reasoning, at least, to deny any claims for reimbursement. The customer is then left with little recourse with either the retailer or Roadie. At that point, the customer’s best option is to contact the bank and dispute the transaction. Purchases made with credit cards are much more likely to yield a successful challenge—so called check cards and ATM cards are less likely.

In some instances, aggrieved customers have been able to persuade store managers in issuing a store credit for or a replacement of the order, but this is no guarantee. Even in the event of a refund or replacement of the purchased item or items, the customer is still not made whole. Ordeals like this waste significant time battling with phone mazes in 1-800 numbers before speaking with useless customer service reps, who more often than not do not even possess minimal proficiency in the English language, as they are doubtlessly “off-shore” of the United States, i.e. the call center is based in India, Indonesia, or the like. More time is expended in appealing to a store manager for help, or contacting the police, filing a police report, and so on. There is of course the “psychic toll” that afflicts a customer who paid money for an item only for it to disappear, faced with the uncertainty of whether the purchase will be refunded or replaced, as well as how much time will be expended in dealing with such a problem. It is also quite plausible that instances of lost or stolen deliveries lead an aggrieved customer to wrongly accuse neighbors or other innocent parties, or at least harbor such suspicion.

Ordering from big chains like Best Buy, Home Depot, or even CVS and Walmart is of course distasteful, but sometimes in modern America it is the only pragmatic choice, particularly for big ticket items like large screen TVs whereby a small-business competitor might add hundreds to the purchase price. Some readers may only have a CVS or Walgreens within reasonable distance of their home or place of employment, making that chain store the only practical choice for every day toiletries and household items.

Because many readers in the United States are likely to patron these and other chain stores that use Roadie, even if on a reluctant basis, and precisely because same-day delivery is often offered at little to no cost, this epidemic of missing and stolen packages needs greater exposure. As disconcerting as this dirty little secret is, customers have little recourse in opting out of Roadie, other than to simply not use any same-day delivery option whatsoever, even if offered as a free service. Best Buy, for example, stipulates that same day delivery can be fulfilled by a number of vendors, including UPS, FedEx, Shipt, and, among others, Roadie. Both with this retailer and others, there is no option to deselect Roadie or any other service as a possible delivery provider. Perhaps a customer could write special instructions that an order should be cancelled if it is to be delivered by Roadie, but chances are that would just be ignored. Even worse, there are accounts that at least two airlines, Delta and Alaska Airlines, use Roadie to deliver luggage that was delayed, preventing the passenger from receiving his luggage upon arrival at the destination.

In the event a reader finds himself a victim of this scandalous “service”—namely, Roadie—the following measures are recommended. Call the 1-800 number of the retailer involved, but understand this is almost always a dead end, as explained above. This should only really be done to show that this avenue has been tried but did not yield any favorable result. Although an inconvenience, the best strategy is to go to the store that fulfilled this order (if applicable), and ask to speak to a manager. Then, when speaking to a manager, explain what happened.

If this does not work, and it likely may not, the customer will have to exert far more effort to claw back the money spent or get a replacement. The next step then is to dispute the charge with the bank. In order to maximize chances of a successful dispute, a customer should file a police report. It is recommended that an aggrieved party also compose a written testimony of what transpired as an affidavit to be submitted with the police report. This affidavit will need to be signed and notarized before it is presented to the police officer taking the police report. Very often, police will do little more than file such a police report, without making any effort to find out who stole the “delivered” package, let alone arrest such an individual. This is true even if a Roadie driver has been caught in the act on a ring camera; various posts on social media have posted such footage, but often the act of taking the package is off camera. The police report is not filed in hopes of leading to an arrest, but rather to increase the odds of a refund, either by the retailer or the bank that issued the credit or ATM card. In relation to RING cameras as a countermeasure against this problem and so-called porch pirates more broadly, it should be noted that some tenants of rental properties are not allowed to install RING or other such cameras. Others have very legitimate privacy concerns over installing and using these devices.

Finally, if the retailer and Roadie do stonewall, which has been shown to be a tried-and-true pattern of behavior by both parties, readers are encouraged to file a formal complaint with the consumer affairs division of the state attorney general’s office where the incident took place. This would usually be wherever any reader happens to reside, but, if, for example, one is traveling out of state, that state’s attorney general’s Office would be the point of contact. Because Roadie is based in Atlanta, contacting the Georgia State Attorney General’s Office is also recommended. Filing a complaint with the attorney’s general office is an informal form of conflict resolution; however, there are two important considerations to remember before discounting this option. First, most companies do not want to be on the proverbial radar of any attorney general’s office, and for that reason will be much more motivated to rectify such matters after a complaint has been filed. Beyond that, while any one complaint will not usually instigate a criminal investigation on its own, such investigations are often initiated once an attorney general’s office receives a threshold number of complaints about the same bad actor. Consider such a complaint to be like a brick in a wall or structure that is being built. In addition to these complaints, a complaint should also be filed with the Federal Trade Commission.

All of this is incredibly time consuming and vexing. The process can be streamlined somewhat by basing the sworn affidavit, state attorney general office complaints, and a complaint to The Federal Trade Commission by editing each document off a basic master document as a template.

The best strategy is to avoid being put in this position in the first place and refuse to choose same-day (or next day) delivery with any chain retailer that uses Roadie. The “free” to low-cost of supposed same-day delivery is more than offset by the risk of having a purchase stolen, with an uphill battle to get a refund or replacement. Chain retailers that use this service include, but are by no means limited to:

• Best Buy

• Home Depot

• Walgreens

• CVS

• Michaels

• Walmart

• Lowe’s

• Petsmart and Petco

• Delta Airlines

• Alaska Airlines

Armed with the knowledge set forth in this short article, readers are urged to decline same-day delivery service from these and other retailers that use Roadie. The risk is simply not worth taking. Unless and until Roadie is jettisoned altogether, it is worth it to pick up these orders in person, or take business elsewhere.

In addition to offering an important public service to American readers of The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective, this sordid instance of Roadie is a perfect microcosm—a case study—on how dysfunctional American society is. In fairness, it should be noted that when prorated by hour, it is doubtful most Roadie drivers even make minimum wage. Combined with soft-on crime policies in “blue” urban settings as well as the increased hesitancy of law enforcement to do anything about such matters, such perverse incentives render this sort of thing inevitable. It is practically a foregone conclusion drivers making $15.00 or less an hour are going to steal a thousand-dollar television. This is only exacerbated by weak to non-existent vetting policies and procedures that have given rise to a practice of “burner driver accounts.”

No statistical analysis of the racial makeup of Roadie drivers is available, but it is a pretty safe bet that the numbers are overwhelmingly black and brown. Indeed, this account of a brief confrontation on the phone with a Roadie driver who either misplaced or stole a package is illustrative:

[The driver] never drove on my street and supposedly delivered [the package] to the correct address when it was not. I contracted her through the app and she started yelling at me and hung up. Ghetto trash at its finest.

In this way, the scandal of lost and stolen packages attributed to this Roadie delivery (dis)service is yet another indictment of the supposed splendors of multiracialism and diversity.

Several other interesting observations are to be made from this sordid spectacle. Remedies provided both by civil law and our criminal justice are supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening at scale. And yet, despite the widespread—and credible—accusations across so many different social media platforms, there is yet to be a class action lawsuit, or even so much as an investigation by any state attorney general’s office. Scandals like Roadie, as well as horror stories from similar services like Instacart, DoorDash, and UberEats are a further indictment of unbridled, free-market capitalism. Many of these gig-economy “jobs” are hardly jobs at all, and often do not even pay minimum wage. Increasing frustration and outrage with the problems this has created in the loss or theft of big-ticket electronic items purchased at Best Buy and Home Depot in particular have so far done nothing to prompt either these and other retailers or Roadie to do better. Employees of UPS, which owns Roadie, are irate as to how this gimmick is in violation of the collective bargaining agreement and obvious ploy to avoid paying the wages and benefits that have been secured through collective bargaining. Because market forces have proven once again incapable of ameliorating such outrages, the power of state regulation is needed to address these grievances.

These and other scandals that have arisen from these sorts of “gig economy” services are of course predicated on societal tolerance of these and other crimes, which in turn is a reflection of what a low-trust, dystopic shithole American society is. Roadie drivers steal delivery packages for the same reasoning shoplifting and petty theft have skyrocketed since 2020, or rather the death of George Floyd and black and leftist outrage over that and other perceived injustices. A society that was not tolerant of these evils, that actually responded swiftly and effectively to these outrages would set an example and offer some sort of deterrence to disincentivize such criminal conduct.

Consider Singapore, a model authoritarian state in the modern world proving that right-wing authoritarianism can and does work. Graffiti is practically non-existent in Singapore in no small part because the state imposes caning as a criminal sanction for graffiti. While there are some foreign graffiti artists who have traveled there to test their luck, most are caught and are made to regret such a decision. Caning may sound quaint, just as some may stupidly mistake the term in this context for caning in a BDSM sado-masochist context. Contrary to such misconceptions, caning is an incredibly painfull form of punishment, whereby the convict is beaten with a rattan rod, often ripping chunks of flesh out of the prisoner’s ass. After caning, the prisoner often cannot walk for days, as caning often leads to permanent disfigurement of the stricken area. Amnesty International and other human rights groups consider it torture, but that should not matter at all. It deters graffiti to the point where it simply does not exist in that country to any appreciable extent, just as caning deters all criminal activity for which it is designated as an available punishment upon conviction.

Petty theft is also deterred to non-existence in fundamentalist Islam countries that observe the command in the Koran that a thief’s hand should be cut off by actually cutting the hands off of thieves. If the revolution against liberal democracy ever does come, perhaps a more elegant, precise solution can be inspired by the opening scene from Darkman, in which mob boss Robert G. Durant uses a cigar clipper to cut fingers off a rival gangster. As an alternative to the Islamic approach of cutting hands of, incorporation of the cigar clipper rule into a new criminal justice system would not invoke cutting all of a convict’s fingers off, just one or two as a first-time offense. Second time offenders or perhaps more serious offenders might just warrant receiving less mercy, set to the tune of “This Little Piggy Went to the Market.” Mete out the cigar clipper treatment with a certain sadistic bent and do it in public very soon after conviction, and petty theft would be reduced to such absurdly low levels it would practically cease to exist at all.

These proposals and observations may seem shocking, but they show how the liberal democracies have proven incapable of preventing avoidable social harms through pathological aversion to brutality when brutality is needed to advance societal welfare: to prosecute and advance societal intolerance of that which should simply not be tolerated and must not be tolerated. That social ills like a delivery (dis)service that flouts labor and employment laws while facilitating and enabling widespread theft demonstrates once again that our legal system and indeed liberal democracy itself do not work. As is so often the case, a higher sense of freedom is achieved through less freedom, namely existing in a society where petty theft and crime is not tolerated and regarded with apathy, inaction, and malaise. This in turn begs the question how much longer everyday people are expected to tolerate such dysfunction and disorder. The Roadie driver theft scandal is yet another instance proving the system does not work, and has not worked for some time. A much more radical, revolutionary approach to these and other problems is needed before any of this ever goes away. Until that time comes, which likely will not happen anytime soon, avoid any same-day or next-day delivery service with any retailer that retains Roadie as a delivery service provider.

PLEASE NOTE: Readers who enjoy this essay are asked to press the “like emoji” to signify their favor and share with anyone who would find this insightful, interesting, or provocative. Follow Richard Parker on twitter (or X if one prefers) under the handle (@)astheravencalls. Delete the parentheses, which were added to prevent interference with Substack’s own internal handle system.

In many mainstream conservative circles and even those of a more reactionary persuasion, Netflix has become an object of ridicule. Countless memes and other content lambast Netflix for a variety of faults, whether in relation to constant race-swapping for which the streaming platform has become infamous, or for churning out shoddy content that clumsily advances any number of pet causes of the hard left. An objective assessment of the sort of original content proffered by the streaming giant reveals such ridicule is well grounded in terms of ideological considerations and artistic and cultural merit. However, that is far from the only factor at play. A cursory review of the platform in terms of its financial success and significant popularity and influence—despite severe flaws in terms of artistic content—reveals such ridicule overlooks how powerful and dangerous the platform really is. Memes and other such content that seeks to ridicule Netflix and its patrons are of course an important way to try and diminish and counteract such influence to at least some very limited extent, but this is attenuated by a countervailing tendency that causes far too many to overlook the power, reach, and influence Netflix wields.

Although it may be difficult for many readers to fathom, Netflix remains wildly popular in American society as it also has a large base of subscribers internationally. In the United States, the platform enjoys between 81-82 million paid subscribers, or about 53 percent of all U.S. Households. Worldwide the platform enjoys some 325 million subscribers. Even though readers in alignment with the general worldview advanced by this publication may be scarcely aware of how dominant Netflix actually is, these and other numbers reveal such lack of awareness is fraught with peril.

Some may reach this epiphany by considering the influence of Netflix’s Wednesday series. As many might guess, the show is a derivative spin-off from 1960s sitcom series The Addams Family, focused on the show’s namesake and daughter of the Addam’s family, Wednesday. In this way, this lamentable instance of and indeed driving force behind American Unkultur exemplifies not only cultural bankruptcy but creative bankruptcy as well. Indeed, Wednesday is yet another iteration of the cultural stasis that has overtaken modern society since a little after the turn of the millennium. The show of course also exemplifies the sort of race-swapping for which Netflix has become so notorious for, casting Jenna Ortega as the show’s namesake. Apologists for such tripe claim this is an accordance with a perceived “Hispanic” heritage of the Addams Family, citing that the patriarch was named Gomez Addams. That however is his Christian name—the surname is Addams. John Astin, the actor most famous for portraying the spooky patriarch, was of Anglo-Scottish ancestry and phenotype. Indeed, it seems the first name Gomez was chosen spontaneously as some sort of lark. Carolyn Jones, who originally played the gothy, strangely alluring Morticia Addams is also Anglo in ancestry and phenotype. Nor is it the case Ortega is a European Castilian sort, such as Ana de Armas or the like, but is a mestizo, replete with darker skin and facial features that are strikingly alien to the European phenotype that had characterized The Addams Family in its original, classic iteration. It is interesting that makeup and other effects gave Ortega lighter skin and a somewhat more European looking appearance in the show than how she appears in photo-ops and other appearances when not playing the role of Wednesday Addams.

Despite these and other flaws and sins, namely aggressive race swapping and the sort of derivative cultural necrophilia of tired, worn intellectual properties from decades past, the series was incredibly popular and influential. The influence of the show is demonstrated, much to this author’s chagrin and consternation, by how it rendered an indie, somewhat underground American band called The Cramps almost as mainstream as Katy Perry, Cardi B. or Sabrina Carpenter, or at least mainstreamed one song by the Cramps, “Goo Goo Muck.” One episode in Season One depicts Wednesday at her high school prom, without a date, and as a confirmed, intractable outsider, an outcast. While roaming the confines of her high school prom, the episode then “needle drops” “Goo Goo Muck,” replete with a solo dance choreographed by Ortega. This montage gives a brief glimpse into how awful this show is, how it paints by the numbers according to diversity and representation and all other progressive orthodoxies, particularly with how the “mean popular kids” who ostracize Wednesday are not the beautiful but vapid All-American rich kids types, but a short-haired black woman and an effeminate, Asian male.

The scene went viral, appealing to the mind rot and sheep mentality so ubiquitous on TikTok in particular, which was then inundated with countless recreations of the scene set to this very song. As a result, the song went from 2,500 daily US streams on Spotify before November 28, 2022, to over 134,000 daily US streams. This is a 50-fold increase, attributed solely to an unfathomably stupid Netflix series offering nothing more than warmed over leftovers from a tired intellectual property that had become stale decades ago and was never really all that interesting anyway. This development is even more outrageous given that The Cramps are not that obscure, particularly in the age of the Internet when almost all music is available on demand. These people do not even have the curiosity to discover such music on their own; rather it is spoon-fed them via binge-watching and passive media consumption like the contemptible sheep-brained lemmings that they are.

A confession to readers is in order—I somewhat embarrassingly did not even know of this until a week or two ago. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. The mainstreaming and sullying of indie alternative music and related subgenres is of great concern to me personally and should be of concern to others of similar taste. And yet this escaped my attention, ostensibly because of a false comfort that Netflix is not part of my daily life and the mad delusion that it therefore does not matter, that a derivative rehash of decades old intellectual property is utterly uninteresting and, given how awful it is, cannot be of any import. This is a mistake. However, given the contradictory tension between insulating one’s self from cultural dreck and being above it on one hand and the importance of “opposition research” and monitoring elements in the Unkultur on the other, such oversights seem inevitable.

The same principle applies to the infamous Bridgerton series, which has not slipped under the proverbial radar as Wednesday had. Bridgerton “reimagines” regency period Britain not as the homogeneous nation she was (and must once again be), but as a diverse inclusive, multiracial society. The show at once coddles and placates notions of white guilt and an aversion for white homogeneity while also deconstructing and even defacing and sullying British and European culture as an expression of racial identity.

The series is, by all accounts, objectively awful. Bridgerton is nothing other than a third-rate soap opera that poorly mimics the feel and gestalt of Jane Austen. The obvious appeal of the show is that it allows urban leftist sorts to carry the pretensions of being literary or high brow while remaining firmly embedded in the worst sort of binge-watch schlock, with the added enticement of soft-core porn with a heavy interracial touch. The show provides those who consume it a semblance of such pretension without having to even think about reading Jane Austen or Victorian literature more broadly.

That these and other productions by Netflix are so awful has seemingly detracted very little from their popularity, and the popularity of Bridgerton should fill every reader with alarm and consternation. Season One garnered some 113.3 million views, as Season Three racked up some 106 million views. This is real influence and reach—reach and influence for the progressive messaging associated with Netflix more broadly and this cursed series in particular, including the on-the-nose progressive messaging, the promotion of multiracialism and race swapping with the subtlety and finesse of a madman swinging a sledgehammer. And it is compounded by seemingly unimaginable wealth. Netflix’s gross revenue and net income for the past five years are as follows:

Gross Revenue

2021: $29,698,000,000

2022: $31,616,000,000

2023: $33,723,000,000

2024: $39,001,000,000

2025: $45,183,000,000

Net Income (Profit)

2021: $5,116,000,000

2022: $4,492,000,000

2023: $5,408,000,000

2024: $8,712,000,000

2025: $10,981,000,000

These astonishing numbers demonstrate precisely how Netflix has dwarfed most Hollywood studios and was even poised to acquire Warner Brothers Studios, before backing out of the deal. Netflix has more money than God. Unless and until those elements opposed to such messaging develop or exert influence over some institutions of culture, those messages will be infused into the soft, pliable minds of the masses without meaningful refutation or rebuttal.

That series like Wednesday and Bridgerton are so successful despite being so objectively awful is telling. Part of this can be attributed to the further dumbing down of society. Indeed, Netflix executives have expressed criticism of content in terms of whether it is “second screen” friendly. This means that plot points and other components of a narrative must be delivered in such a ham-fisted way as to not be missed even by those who are not really watching their wretched content with any care, but rather are concentrating more on social media notifications, mobile games like Candy Crush and the like, and other distractions on their mobile phones.

At a more abstract, philosophical level, however, it recalls the warning at the end of Martin Scorsese’s King of Comedy. While there are theories that the ending was only in Rupert Pupkin’s imagination, similar to daydream fantasies earlier in the film where he imagines himself a guest on late night television or having lunch with Jerry Langford at a New York steakhouse, those scenes are distinguishable as they are shown to be Pupkin’s fantasy, whereas the ending is not. It is also notable that Jerry does not appear in the ending, whereas he does in what is shown to be a daydream fantasy. However one reads the ending of this film, it nonetheless serves as a dire warning that, for a sizeable contingent of the population, exposure on mass media alone is sufficient to create interest, irrespective of artistic or creative merit. Mass media of course means broadcast television during the era of King of Comedy and modern mass media today, including social media and streaming platforms as well as the remnants of cable and broadcast television even as they become more and more anachronistic holdovers. Just as the entranced masses applauded and were amused by Rupert Pupkin despite how terrible he was as a stand-up comedy, the masses will gravitate towards schlock like Wednesday and Bridgerton precisely because it is offered and promoted by an institution as large and influential as Netflix, and they will do so for no other reason than that. Increased grumbling at price hikes that are becoming more and more frequent, degrading baseline service to include advertisements with an extra premium to avoid advertisements, and other grievances will not break them from this trance. Fans of Wednesday even decried the dip in quality for the second season, although something more awful than what was less awful before is still awful. And yet they watched anyway. Although that series was not renewed, they went to consume some other iteration of Netflix slop.

These and other considerations demonstrate why complacency about Netflix in particular is so dangerous, just as complacency or dismissal of other drivers of far-left lunacy in modern society is also dangerous. “Go woke, go broke” is the most unconvincing sort of cope imaginable, and that is proven by Netflix’s numbers, both in terms of the number of paying subscribers in the United States and abroad, as well as the sort of viewing numbers that series like Bridgerton and Wednesday command. It is that sort of complacency that provides false comfort and sense of security in memes and jokes about how awful Netflix is. Using the power of memes and other edgelord tactics are an important component in the attempt to “disrupt the frequency,” but over the long-run, without more, it will not be enough. Tens of millions of people watch, enjoy, and even pay for this dreck, replete with the race-swapping, the ham-fisted promotion of multi-racialism, LGTBQ Yuck, so on and so forth. Those that watch and consume this media product are persuaded by it, as the leftist worldview held by such viewers is formed and then reinforced by it. These people, indoctrinated and entranced by these cultural and sociological elements vote and express these very sentiments and ideas spoon-fed to them in a constant, unremitting diet of binge watching and social media consumption. And unless something is done to wrestle the institutions of “culture” from insidious elements like Netflix, the agenda these elements propagate in such a clumsy, unbegabt manner will ultimately prevail, and will do so in relatively short order.

PLEASE NOTE: Readers who enjoy this essay are asked to press the “like emoji” to signify their favor and share with anyone who would find this insightful, interesting, or provocative. Follow Richard Parker on twitter (or X if one prefers) under the handle (@)astheravencalls. Delete the parentheses, which were added to prevent interference with Substack’s own internal handle system.

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A film titled Citizen Vigilante opened this week with a limited theater release as well as direct to streaming platforms. The film, directed by notorious film-maker Uwe Boll, has been denounced by the left and celebrated by some on the right for its overtly anti-migrant message. Indeed, the film was banned by the German government and some expect Amazon and other platforms to remove it soon. While the message the film ostensibly intends to convey is laudable, the film is severely flawed. The flaws are so severe and numerous it would be difficult to catalog them all, just as a detailed discussion of these flaws is somewhat tangential to the thesis of this short note. While it is arguable whether the message the film conveys outweigh its many disadvantages, it is nonetheless clear that unmitigated, unquestioning praise for the film is an error and liability. Indeed, praising the film unattended by severe qualifications and disclaimers as to the film’s poor objective quality will repel many who are beginning to realize the hard truths about so-called multiculturalism—better described as multiracialism—while also providing the left an easy target ripe for ridicule and derision.

Citizen Vigilante, filmed in Croatia and Germany, is set somewhere in Europe with no explicit country mentioned. The film’s dialogue is in English. Most viewers will recognize the settings as being in Germany, or at the very least any Western European country other than the United Kingdom. The film portrays a crisis of violence, rape, and mayhem by third world migrants by a shocking opening scene as well as small vignettes presenting news coverage of rape, murder, and other violent crime perpetrated by third world migrants as well as a mysterious vigilante who is fighting back with violence in turn. The film presents the viewer with social media clips from people around the world condoning the vigilante because the government in question refuses to protect the citizenry from these migrants. Armie Hammer, who was disgraced for leaked text messages to women involving a cannibalism fetish and other scandals, plays Sanders, the “citizen vigilante” and film’s protagonist. The climax of the film involves Sanders confronting a migrant minor involved in the gang rape of a European girl along with the boy’s family. He (incredulously) convinces the boy to summon all other “youths” involved to the apartment, before executing the boy and his family with a pistol and silencer, after which he lies in wait as the other perpetrators file into the apartment, dispatching the others as they arrive.

The flaws of the film are severe, just as there are too many flaws to enumerate at length. These flaws should be immediately obvious and, indeed, indisputable to any person who watches the film. Poor, amateurish screenplay writing as well as stilted acting all around. Hammer does a more or less adequate job with what he is given, but he is hardly an American thespian. Film work, editing, and cinematography are just some of the other flaws.

The character Sanders is very much a “Mary Sue,” a flawless character written for the fantasy fulfillment of the filmmaker and ostensibly the audiences as well. There is no character development whatsoever, nor is there any struggle to overcome any real adversity or challenge, either as a moral or practical dilemma or a dangerous, deadly adversary to overcome. He kills police officers, migrants, and judges alike with comic ease. Every attribute is not only fantastical, but explained in dialogue rather than shown. Through ham-fisted dialogue, Sanders himself explains that he is a fabulously wealthy American who owns rental estates in this country, who also has a background in the military.

As intimated in the introduction, Uwe Boll is a notoriously bad film maker. Readers are invited to search for his filmography as proof of this assertion. His notorious reputation precedes him in this film. Although I have only seen this film, nothing indicates his films even have that “so bad it’s good quality” of B movies from yesteryear. Because the film is commensurate with his notoriously bad film-making, embracing this film without caveat or reservation is further discrediting.

One particular flaw of this film is it that has the nuance and subtlety of a jack hammer. In many ways it is even more egregious than some of the far-left propaganda that Hollywood has been churning out for the past fifteen years. That is not to suggest that either Death Wish or Dirty Harry were subtle or advanced the film-makers’ point of view indirectly or with subtlety or even a veneer of nuance, but those films, unlike this, are classics for a reason.

These and many other flaws of the film are incidental as they are obvious and uninteresting. Unfortunately, a discussion on these flaws is necessary because many elements of the right are not only praising the film—which is somewhat understandable given that the film’s ostensible message is an important one—but are praising the film uncritically, without equivocation, reservation, or qualification. This is a mistake, for several reasons.

First, despite the confidences by some, a hard-right, race realist perspective that envisions remigration and a mandate and obligation for European nations to preserve their race, blood, and soil has not yet reached a critical mass by which those who correctly advance such views are even close to obtaining political power. Nor, as this flawed film demonstrates, does the reactionary right have any real influence on institutions of culture. For these reasons, blind endorsement of a film like this must take into account whether it is likely to gain support for this eminently correct and righteous worldview, or lose support. Because the film is simply ridiculous in many ways, supporting the film absent important qualifiers and disclaimers will discredit those who embrace the broader message this film is purported to convey.

Beyond that, even with the requisite disclaimers and qualifications, the film is almost assuredly an easy target by which political and ideological enemies can make those who endorse the film an object of ridicule. Qualifiers and disclaimers noting that film’s poor quality while embracing its intended message may offer some or even much protection against this, but such protection may not be sufficient to prevent those who endorse this film from being subjected to effective ridicule. That so many overlook this practical but important consideration is astonishing, given how this rule from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is so well-known:

Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.

Some have noted that the film’s distributors are Jewish. The distributor of this film is Quiver Distributions. Berry Meyerowitz and Jeff Sackman are the co-founders. One trusts there is no need to elaborate on what these names reveal about their “early life” background. This as well as the film’s many egregious flaws should give further pause. Indeed, some are questioning whether this film is perhaps yet another instance of black propaganda,1 although that precise term has not been used to this author’s knowledge. One individual on Twitter suggested the film is a “poison pill” by design, playing on many negative stereotypes of the Chud:

Sanders is a terrible protagonist. His character is a walking strawman that ticks every box on the Euro-leftist hate list: wealthy, white, American, veteran, landlord, gun nut, misogynistic (the gratuitous sex scene with the hooker during a property inspection is only ‘based’ if you’re horny), and murderously hypocritical.

It is for these and other reasons she concludes that “Rather than provoking thought, [the film] invites dismissal.”

The propensity for this film to act as a “poison pill” is further compounded by how the film subverts and weakens right-wing reactionary and identitarian outrage at the migrant crisis. Indeed, a close reading of the dialogue in the film’s climax requires particular focus and attention. Note this quote, in relation to the family excusing or otherwise diminishing the son’s role in the gang rape of a European teen girl:

You know what I think? I don’t think it was the good ones who got out of your country. I think it was the bad ones. And I think you brought with you an archaic value system. Your commitment to religion over democracy and anything else, including the rule of law.

Sanders, the obvious mouthpiece of Boll and ostensibly the audiences supporting this objectively awful film, does not state that Muslim migrants are categorically incompatible in European society. Indeed, the mouthpiece does not even mention Europe, the West, or European posterity, but simply cites incompatibility with democracy and the rule of law more generally. This is not why racial imposters must be expelled. They are not merely incompatible because of religion, Islam specifically, but are incompatible racially. Nor does it matter that they are incompatible with democracy (whatever that is supposed to mean—many great European traditions are anti-democratic. Rather, these imposters are to be condemned because they do not belong in Europe or the greater Anglosphere in the New World.

It is certainly arguable and perhaps even likely that there is a practical benefit of causing censorship of this film to backfire. By the same token, it is ridiculous that the German government or any other entity would ban Citizen Vigilante but not ban some of the worst instances of torture porn type fare, notably Hostel. This otherwise sensible consideration is offset however by the film’s many severe liabilities and defects. Some assert that the best recourse is to take the gambit, in order to discredit the effort to censor this film. That may result in more net gains than offsetting deficits and liabilities. Conversely, to praise this film uncritically, unattended by essential and strong disclaimers and qualifications as to its many flaws ensures any such gambit will result in disaster. The right—the real right, not ineffectual, fuddy-duddy conservatives—will be portrayed as embracing a film so bad it makes Paul Blart: Mall Cop look like a masterclass in high cinema. Unless any praise of this film is guarded against by attendant qualifiers and disclaimers, this sordid episode will turn out like so many other instances of cultural failure by mainstream conservatism and those of a more radical persuasion alike. Embracing a bad film without reservation or equivocation is reminiscent of other cultural debacles such as Christian Rock.

As with so much of the civilization and cultural ruin gripping Europe and the West, this problem is properly attributed to decades of neglect of and disdain for institutions of culture by mainstream conservatism. One important reason why no one other than the infamous Uwe Boll has made a film like this is because they are no decent right-wing filmmakers who could convey a film with such a purported message competently. Recapturing or building cultural institutions and subcultures capable of creating books, art, film and music will take time. That is a hard, unsettling reality. But that reality is not made any easier by pretending this ridiculous film is good cinema by any stretch of the imagination. Until a film maker can come forward capable of making a film with such messaging with minimal baseline competence, a better strategy remains to write essays and books, create video essays and streams, even perhaps produce documentary style long form videos. There may be reasons to applaud what is ostensibly this film’s intended message, but no one should pretend this is anything close to a good or even decent film.

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As many readers may have seen, the antics of a female student at University of Pittsburgh have caused quite a stir on Twitter and YouTube. The controversy surrounds a video published by the anti-abortion channel “Abolitionists Rising,” which was then discussed by another Twitter account. The reason for the controversy is that the video appears to feature one Emily Jean Whiteford. She incidentally is the same woman whose interaction with the late Charlie Kirk became famous (or infamous) as she purposefully flashed a nipple to try and get the Turning Point USA YouTube channel infracted for indecency. Because of the woman’s significant weight gain, there have been challenges to the claim this is the same woman. During the nipple flashing incident, Whiteford is shown having a different, smaller tattoo on her midriff. The woman from the recent video has a much larger tattoo at more or less the same part of her body. Some angles suggest this tattoo is in a different spot on her midriff, but, given that this tattoo coverup was spotted in an earlier photo of Whiteford when she was thinner, it seems all but confirmed that the plumper woman is the same.

Much of the controversy stems from what the woman said about Kirk, gloating over his death. Her exact words read as follows:

Are you a fan of Charlie Kirk? Why don’t you dig him up and fuck him in the neck hole?

These sorts of comments and this sort of behavior is offensive but hardly surprising. Large segments of the left in the United States have expressed similar views. In passing, it should be noted that the demonstrative grandstanding about forgiveness most particularly from Erika Kirk but others as well sapped all momentum from the outrage and backlash stemming from Kirk’s assassination. The failure to crackdown on Antifa and other hard left elements may ultimately prove dispositive in determining which side ultimately wins and which side loses. Beyond these somewhat obvious considerations, there is much more at play here besides a leftist college woman gloating over the death of a political adversary or ideological enemy. Stated bluntly, those opposed to the left must embrace a similar callousness to our political enemies soon, before it is too late.

Above and beyond such commentary is what this moment reveals about the current state of womanhood in modern society, namely how sexually crass and truly vulgar supposed liberated women have become. This tendency is evinced in the sentence “Why don’t you dig him up and fuck him in the neck hole?” However, overlooked by much of the outrage from mainstream conservatives and perhaps the real, reactionary right is how obscene almost every utterance out of her mouth really is.

Unfortunately, the video is edited: perhaps unedited footage will be published (or discovered by this author). In the footage that has been made available, after T. Russell Hunter asserts that “no, miscarriage is not murder” in response to an inane, idiotic “argument” for abortion, the woman blurts out this non-sequitur:

“Have you ever made a woman cum? Have you ever made a woman cum? Have you ever made a woman cum?

His response was “yes I have.” She responded with this retort:

Oh, really? Was she lying? Cuz you can’t really tell.

Her cadence strangely drifted into what sounds like a fake Irish accent for just a second. The exchange was then followed up by her assertion that “Every time you jerk off, you’re killing your babies.” In fairness to Whiteford, this was on the heels of a blackie who asserted that if abortion is murder, “than you should not be able to ejaculate or nothing.” Hunter offered the obvious rebuttal offering a remedial restatement of concepts that should be understood by anyone who completed 5^th grade sex education:

That’s so… that’s dumb. So, that’s dumb because sperm. . ..You think a sperm without an egg can make a human? Then you just answered yourself. So, obviously sperm are not humans. Human beings. . ..I hate to have to be the one to do this. . . human beings are created via sexual reproduction. The sperm has to meet the egg to produce a newly conceived human being.

Aside from the especially poor reasoning made all the more shocking that these are supposed to be collegiate women, this moment again underscores a shocking sexual crassness that pervades much of the Zeitgeist but significant portions of young white women as well.

While there are some particularly odious male specimens from the likes of Reddit who may engage in such antics, such propensities seem most pronounced in a certain sort of “liberated” young woman. To demonstrate how absurd and repugnant such conduct really is, imagine what a male counterpart might sound like. Imagine a woman advocating a particular policy position, and a man blurting out shocking sexual vulgarity if not obscenity as a supposed retort in response:

“Oh yeah, can you make a man cum? Can you suck his dick until he spurts down your throat?”

Obviously, such an utterance would be shocking, repulsive, offensive, and completely unacceptable. But given that such an utterance to a woman is shocking and offensive, what sense does it make for society to not only tolerate but encourage such behavior by women when directed at men? Similarly, a man who makes any reference to a woman’s masturbatory habits might get the police called on him, and not without good reason.

Whiteford’s interaction is notable in other ways, including the lewd manner in which she sticks her tongue out at Hunter, the crowd, and the viewing audience. Once again, outside of instances like Chaim Witz—aka Gene Simmons of KISS—or fellow yid David Lee Roth in a music video from decades past, such a gesture would be looked upon far less favorably if done by men. Her manner of speaking as well as poor reasoning also condemns and indicts the current state of education, referring to Hunter as “bro” and “my boy.” Aside from a shocking disrespect for one’s elders, it is confounding that supposed college educated men and women speak, write, and think this way.

This case study is part of a greater pastiche of sexual crassness exhibited by a critical mass of young women. These are not just isolated incidents, but an observable sociological trend that is occurring at scale. Both online and real life, more and more women are proving more and more likely to respond to any sort of disagreement or criticism with conjecture about penis size, along with the off-the-shelf, mindless exhortation that someone is an “incel.” Often this is done without knowing anything about the man, and with no reason to conjecture about a man’s endowment (or lack thereof).

Once again, imagine if men were to act the same way. Imagine a man responding to a disagreement with a woman—any sort of disagreement, right or wrong, reasonable or unreasonable—by blurting out conjecture that she has a loose vagina, or that her vagina smells bad, or that no sane man would either “lick it or stick it.” While such hypothetical behavior is more outrageous precisely because it is uttered by a man to a woman,1 in the same way that indecent exposure IS different for men than it is for women, it should nonetheless be no less acceptable from a woman. And yet this is the sort of crude, crass, even obscene behavior that has been encouraged by the cultural milieu that envelops society of late.

The curious case of Emily Jean Whiteford reveals other social maladies as well. Many have (rightly) commented on her significant weight gain. Because of this weight gain, there were more than a few challenges as to whether this is indeed the same woman. This was bolstered by a different complexion (olive skinned in 2024, fair skinned and pimply in 2026), as well as a different cadence and really different manner of speaking and interacting with the person making a public appearance on university grounds for a video on social media. The weight gain is particularly astonishing insofar as this woman is still in her early 20s—not middle-aged when metabolism slows, differences in bone and joint health make rigorous fitness routines more difficult, so on and so forth. She looks like she gained fifty pounds, on a less than statuesque, tall frame. Part of that may be bloating from a menstrual cycle, but only part. This too, not unlike the guttermouth that would make sailors in years past blush, is properly attributed to sociological factors observed at a cultural, sociological level. SSRIs are known to cause weight gain. Beyond that, the American diet is appalling, in no small part because the FDA is so ineffectual, coupled with the free rein given to corporate interests to not only peddle whatever they choose as supposed food products, but to freely advertise under the false pretense of “free speech.”

In relation to her astonishing weight gain, there is a further irony. Even though there is a pronounced asymmetry in terms of opportunities afforded to men and women for promiscuous and even ultra-promiscuous sexual behavior, perhaps a woman in her state should not be so keen on attacking another’s perceived sexual desirability (or lack thereof). Whereas Hunter is handsome, and whereas he looks healthy, stout, and masculine, (not to mention happily married), Whiteford not only gained a ton of weight, but also looks sickly. Others have also commented on her acne. Such crass and seemingly cruel insults directed at women are perhaps distasteful, but, absent other measures effective in deterring such behavior, perhaps such personal attacks are necessary until some minimal decorum has been reestablished in society. Aside from offending even baseline sensibilities for basic decorum and courtesy, such an unconventional, “gonzo” strategy begets other problems. Notable among such problems is the unpleasant, hard truth that, alas, a number of women who have succumbed to such unspeakable ugliness and vulgarity are, unlike Whiteford, very attractive.

The antics of Emily Jean Whiteford are just the latest paint stroke in what has become a most vulgar picture. Outrage at her gloating over Charlie Kirk’s death is not entirely misplaced, but the real outrage is the obscene and vulgar manner of speaking that characterizes her entire appearance on this video. So much of it is all too familiar as a sort of “script” that has become all too characteristic for so many young women and older alike. That so few have commented on this particular dynamic of this spectacle demonstrates how deviancy has in fact been defined ever further down, so much so that it strikes many as banal or commonplace. That it has become so banal and commonplace, that so many have been rendered numb to such offensive and objectively shocking behavior should at long last sound the proverbial alarms as to the true state of culture and modern society.

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PLEASE NOTE: Readers who enjoy this essay are asked to press the “like emoji” to signify their favor and share with anyone who would find this insightful, interesting, or provocative. Follow Richard Parker on twitter (or X if one prefers) under the handle (@)astheravencalls. Delete the parentheses, which were added to prevent interference with Substack’s own internal handle system.

                                     Like an ideal falling, tumbling to earth
                                     Its wings broken so like wisdom
                                     Grey steel holes
                                     Open behind me
                                     Dark pink scars
                                     Run along beside me.

                                     Endless pointless
                                     Gaping chasm
                                     Ill-chosen, disappointing
                                     With little meaning
                                     Snow-white ferocity
                                     Your image did deceive me.

                                                       - “Leopard Flowers” by Death in June

Historical and Personal Contexts

As many readers are doubtlessly well aware, the 2026 World Cup is taking place not just in the United States, but North America as a whole. Canada and Mexico are acting as co-hosts. Remarkably, I have become strangely complacent about the matter, as many readers are likely to be as well. In the past, I had been a staunch supporter of the German national team—which many Americans stupidly call “the Mannschaft; the correct term is of course die Nationalmannschaft, or as many Germans colloquially refer to the national team, die deutsche Elf or simply die Elf (the German eleven or the eleven). This process of jaded disinterest began in what was supposed to be the 2020 Euro Cup, but was held in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic. The German national team suddenly was not only far less German in a true sense, but started virtue signaling about diversity, tolerance, and, above all, so-called gay rights. This coincided with an initiative by Munich mayor Dieter Reiter to illuminate the stadium with rainbow colors for the group stage match between Germany and Hungary. Team captain Emanuel Neuer even wore a rainbow armband, in conjunction with a “one love” initiative by the team. It is for that reason Hungarian fans chastised both the German side and its fans with chants of “Deutschland, Deutschland, homosexuell” in a group stage match between those two nations. Part of me lamented that Hungary lost. A little over a year later during the last World Cup in 2022, the German national team was even more insufferable with its leftist virtue signaling, posing in a team photo in which players covered their mouths in protest to the host nation’s prohibition against promoting LGBTQ Yuck. The team was humiliated on and off the field, failing to even advance beyond the group stage in back-to-back World Cup tournaments for the first time since World War II.

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Such outrage is of course compounded by how the supposed French and English teams are hardly French or English at all, at least in so far as those terms “French” and “English” are properly stood. Thankfully, although the “French” team was favored, the Argentinians withstood a second half onslaught and won the world championship, increasing the number of titles held by Argentina to three world championships, just one behind both Germany and Italy.

Since early adolescence, I had always taken an interest in international soccer tournaments, namely The World Cup and somewhat later the Euro Cup. The first World Cup I remember watching with acute interest was the 1990 World Cup, over thirty years ago. Having spent a summer tour in Great Britain, and being aware of my British ancestry and heritage, I favored the English team. Although I had not yet started taking German in high school (I would begin German One the coming school year that autumn), I was even more smitten with the German side, despite the fact that England and Germany are bitter rivals.

In addition to the dynamic play of Jürgen Klinsmann and Rudi Völler, that summer Germany found herself once again in an historically important moment. The Berlin Wall had fallen the prior November. Perhaps sensing that the prospect for reunification was very much an opportunity that would only be available for a “limited time only,” Helmuth Kohl, the last decent chancellor of the CDU, worked tirelessly to secure reunification. By the time the tournament kicked off, German reunification was scheduled to be official later that year in November. As some who lived in this period may recall, there was much hand-wringing about what date reunification would occur, with concerns about any date selected for coinciding with Kristallnacht and other moments during the Third Reich. American Jewish groups were particularly vociferous and obnoxious on this matter, in ways uniquely peculiar to their kind. A. M. Rosenthal, New York Times Op-Ed and Jewish activist (more than a bit of a redundancy), and others even opposed reunification categorically. There was even controversy whether Germany should toll church and cathedral bells; the outrageous decision was ultimately made not to toll the bells, even though this gesture is made for many mundane matters, including the beginning of jazz festivals and the like. Even as Germany was succumbing yet again to the war guilt complex in a uniquely pathological way, celebrating the German national team’s world championship—actually still West Germany—was seen as an important step to normalize the German nation as she anticipated reunification at long last. Alas, such normalization never really took place.

As a sidenote, it should be noted that the world championship in 1990 is not the first moment that a German world championship coincided with a particular moment in history in which the Germans found themselves. 1954-Germany’s first world cup—similarly resonated, although in very different ways as West Germany was just beginning to undergo the Wirtschaftswunder that would characterize post war life in the rump state. This was prominently featured in the final moments of Die Ehe der Maria Braun, which portrays Germany as a grotesque caricature all while juxtaposing the announcer’s repeated exclamation “Deutschland ist Weltmeister” with the film’s sudden and tragic ending.

Some readers, particularly those in Britain and Germany, may take umbrage with the proposition of being fond of both teams. Although supporting two bitter rivals may seem counterintuitive, it makes some limited sense given varying degrees of affinity for each nation and people. Although I once supported England (and Scotland, even though that team has never been a serious contender), that of course is (or was) subordinated to an overriding affinity for Germany, so that when Germany did play England, I invariably supported the German side.

Similarly, I have never liked or supported the American team. This stems from my overall alienation with and even disdain for this country, and my overall shame and alienation from being an American, from being born here. When the United States played England in 2010, this came to a head when I walked in an Irish bar in the neighborhood I had frequented at the time. Despite large numbers of “off-the-boat” Irish nationals and first and second generation Irish, a few regulars were not displeased with the England jersey I was wearing as such, which I thought likely, but rather for simply not supporting the United States team and supporting their opponent.

As many readers well know, I say “do not ask what you can do for your country; ask what your country did to you.” Acutely aware of what this country has done to me and my generation (as well as succeeding generations), why should I or anyone support this country, or its soccer team, particularly given my ancestry or my affinity for the cultures and nations of both Britain and Germany? As regular readers also well know, almost all of the musical artists I enjoy—with very few, limited exceptions—are principally British and to some lesser extent from Germany, with others being from other European countries. The few American artists in my music library are nonetheless part of subcultures and genres originating from Britain and Europe and to this day are more popular there. Such artists include Velvet Acid Christ, Taktical Sekt, and a couple others. The Cramps, at least their early stuff before 1990, might be the only artist I really enjoy whose members are not only born in American but draw mostly from American influences.

The False Promise of the German National Team as a Conduit for Nationalist Fervor

As the years went by, many, such as myself, adhered to the theory that the success of the German national team was an essential conduit for restoring nationalist sentiment and fervor, for overcoming the myriad pathologies of the Kriegschuldkult, the war guilt complex. I saw this myself during one of my stints in Germany, as I was there during the 1996 European championship, witnessing first-hand the displays of exuberance and joy over Germany’s overtime victory over the Czech Republic at Wembley Stadium. The streets of the city I was in were overrun with revelers, and many of them were waving German flags in ways that, to this day, are unthinkable in any other context. In Germany, it is largely socially unacceptable to don the German banner in any context, except when the German national team is playing and, ostensibly at least, winning. This is somewhat ironic as the Black, Red, Gold tricolor was first established during the failed Revolution of 1848, and was the flag of the Weimar Republic, established at gun point by the victors of World War I, as it was again chosen by the victorious allies after propping up die Bundesrepublik as a rump puppet state in the wake of German capitulation and partition. Given the stigma involved for a German to wave his own country’s flag, one might think this was for waving not the black, red, and gold, but the black, white, and red.

This theory—that the success of the German national team could be instrumental in waking the German consciousness from its decades-long stupor—was bolstered by the eventual world championship in 2014, which concluded with the single goal by Mario Götze in the 112^th minute, securing overtime victory over Argentina just before the game would have gone to penalty kicks. In many ways, however, the championship felt consummated in the infamous German Brazil game. That year, of course, Brazil hosted the World Cup, and was largely favored to win the championship, even though the team’s overall performance was a little shaky before disaster unfolded—disaster at least for Brazil; stunning victory and cause for celebration for Germany, which, of course, is what counts.

With the eventual victory over Argentina, a plethora of videos document the huge fan gatherings of tens and hundreds of thousands of Germans, the displays of celebration in Berlin and throughout Germany replete with flag waving and national pride, and even the victory tour parade of the team in select cities. The Lufthansa plane charted to transport the team back to Germany was christened “Der Siegerflieger.” With the German flag flying from the cockpit, the “German eleven” disembarked the plane before thousands of supporting fans, all while attended by the most alluring German women as Lufthansa flight attendants. The open-air double decker bus displaying the players featured the caption “„Ganz Deutschland gratuliert der Nationalmannschaft zum 4. Stern.” (All of Germany congratulates the national team on winning its fourth star).

It should be noted words and phrases like “Sieger” and “Ganz Deutschland” carry certain historical baggage. Such words and phrases have, for lack of a better term, a certain Nazi ring to them, as the word Sieg (or Sieger) was thematic in Nazi slogans and propaganda. Various propaganda posters and slogans routinely used the phrase “Ganz Deutschland….” Particularly given how Björn Höcke was penalized with criminal sanctions for merely uttering “Alles Für Deutschland,” it is highly dubious even such modest phrasing would be uttered today, although given the decline of the German team, such considerations are largely hypothetical.

Just one year later Angela Merkel would do the unthinkable. Since Germany won the world title twelve years ago, everything in Germany and Europe has become so much worse. In far too many regions of Germany, a majority of school age children are from non-German and indeed non-European backgrounds. The German language has been assaulted by radical gender theory as well. More and more publications are engaging in a particularly odious butchering of the German language known as Gendern. This practice was most notably exhibited in Leonie Plaar’s horrible screed, Meine Familie, die AfD, und Ich (My Family, the AfD, and Ich. The practice is described thusly in “Leftist Indoctrination, Family Betrayal, and a Book Deal” as follows:

Regarded by its proponents as the newest iteration of geschlechtergerechte Sprache,3 this practice eschews using nouns referring to persons in their traditional, gendered forms. For example, rather than using die Lehrer (“teachers” with a generic masculine form). this affliction on the German language, known as the Gendersternchen, denotes “teachers” with the abomination “die Lehrer*innen,” using the plural feminine form of the noun for teacher (die Lehrerin and die Lehrerinnen) but with an apostrophe between the root noun and the feminine suffix to placate so-called “non-binary” people.

Recalling those lovely Lufthansa attendants mentioned earlier, consider that patrons of the airline will no longer hear such women greet passengers either with “Meine Damen und Herren” or the English equivalent “ladies and gentlemen.” Such classic turn of phrase has been denounced as not being inclusive of “gender non-binary” persons or those who do not “identify with the sex they were born as.” The Deutsche Bahn has embraced a similar practice. And despite this and that talk about how transgenderism has been defeated—it most emphatically has not—no such policies have been rescinded. Indeed, would be patrons of Lufthansa expecting to not just fall but be thrust into both love and lust at the sight of those lovely Lufthansa flight attendants should be advised that the German airline has since started hiring so-called male to female transgenders.

In relation to the political prognosis more broadly, The AfD is making appreciable gains, but there is no indication the party will ever be able to secure an absolute majority. This means unless the CDU can be convinced to rescind its decision to never a form a coalition with the AfD, even the modest proposals advanced by the party have little chance of ever becoming state policy. These and other considerations beg the question: did the world championship, some twelve years ago, contribute in any way to any meaningful resistance against these and other civilization destroying matters? Where is the newest generation of Germans to call itself the defenders of Germany? In both victory and defeat, the German nationalist team is purported to inspire such nationalist fervor. How is it then die Elf has played no role in sounding the call for these defenders that Germany and Europe so desperately need in the very throes of what may be the last, final death struggle before oblivion?

It is now apparent that this theory of using soccer—or football—as a conduit for national awakening was short-sighted. Would things have been different if Germany had not fallen short in so many painful losses, particularly in the semi-final stage, namely against Italy in 2006 and Spain in 2010, or the disastrous upsets in the quarter finals by Bulgaria and Croatia in 1994 and 1998 respectively? Probably not. Conversely, the deracination, the very non-white character of the English and French teams has been used as propaganda for the Great Replacement and for diversity writ large. The argument is that these teams could not compete without a majority of black and non-white players. Of course, in a parallel universe where World War II did not bleed Germany and Great Britain dry, those and other European teams would still be thoroughly European as that term is properly understood. If racial standards were upheld, at least in relation to the European cup, France, England and other teams would compete on equal footing, that is against teams that are more or less homogeneous and European.

The German national team is not quite as bad as France and England are in racial terms, but it is shocking how much the team’s racial and demographic makeup has deteriorated, even since the glorious triumph in Brazil. More than one third of the team’s starting rotation is either of non-European ancestry entirely or is the offspring of race-mixing—of Rassenvermischung. So far, the team has not been preoccupied with the sort of leftist grandstanding that marred the fateful foray in 2022, but that is of far lesser import.

For these and probably other reasons as well, I regard the World Cup with apathy. Presently residing in the United States, attending one of Germany’s group stage games would not be impractical, and yet I find I have zero interest in attending. To think that I would regard such an opportunity this way in 2012, particularly after the 7-1 thrashing of Brazil, would have been unthinkable. One suspects many erstwhile supporters of the German national team—or other favorite European teams—feel the same way.

Germany of course does not enjoy favorable prospects to do much this World Cup. Most odds makers put them at seventh best overall, with Spain and France prohibitive favorites. Another contributing factor to this malaise is this tournament seems to have a dearth of intriguing match-ups at the group stage. Part of this stems from the automatic qualification of the three host nations (The United States, Canada, and Mexico), which led to the inclusion of Haiti and Curaçao in the group stage of the tournament. A bigger reason is that the format was expanded from 32 nations, with eight groups of four teams each, to some 48 teams, with a whopping twelve groups with four teams each. Italy failed to qualify once again, as have Denmark and Poland. Chile, once a marginally competitive team capable of upsetting most teams have also again failed to qualify.

To add further insult to injury after impending injury, this World Cup will feature the last German national team to don uniforms designed and produced by German sports gear concern Adidas. Late last year, Nike placed a bid of some 100 million Euros to design and produce the German kit going forward. This is just another harbinger of how the Americanization and deracination of sacred Germany is seemingly inexorable.

Ultimately, I will still probably watch some games, notably the ten somewhat intriguing group stage matches selected above. I have not yet decided whether I will watch the Germany games at all, at least during the group stage. Both the Ivory Coast and Ecuador should be easy victories, but I have a sneaking suspicion there will be an upset in one of these two games, either a draw or perhaps a loss. I thus suspect I will probably watch the Ecuador game because winning that game may be necessary to advance. I used to watch England games with a comparable keenness, but the team’s racial composition is about as appalling as that of France. England needs to lose as much as France, because their success will be used to tout the advantages of so-called diversity.

In the final analysis, with the advantage of hindsight, soccer, like sportsball more broadly, may share some of the same attributes as pornography, at least in certain peculiar ways. In the same manner that pornography induces the sex drive and then channels and sates sexual desire and release in ways that are counterproductive and anti-natalist, this distraction does not fan nationalist fervor so much as it channels and directs such sentiment into the diversion of bread and circuses. This channeling contains and directs this fervor away from what matters, before such fervor and zeal dissipates it into something that is not only innocuous but actually conducive to the interests of the ruling class, with big money to be made by this spectacle. This was more difficult to discern in 1990, 1996, or even 2014. And indeed, given the overall gestalt of ultra fan culture that pervades many clubs in the Bundesliga, a phenomenon yours truly has witnessed first-hand, such a realization is quite counterintuitive, absent the advantage of foresight. The ultra fan subculture in Germany is something fearsome, characterized by large German men with more than a propensity for violence, usually clad in black clothing, marching through neighborhoods with drums and banners, as their demonstration during games with drums, flags bearing skulls and the like and even pyrotechnics is a spectacle that is at once uniquely Germanic and even reminiscent of medieval times. Be that as it may, it is abundantly clear now that such passion and zeal, although militant and awe inspiring, is utterly misguided and focused exactly on what does not matter.

That such passion is both misguided and has done nothing to resist societal decline and ruin is indisputable. When combined with the racial deterioration of the German national team, these considerations in turn raise the question how anyone could support the German team in 2026, regardless of how apathetic or conflicted such waning support may be.

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“The crime that the swift should be held back by the slow. . ..”

- Boyd Rice

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Jesse and Ashley Ridgway, a couple known as notable YouTube influencers, have recently ignited great controversy over their decision to abort a pregnancy that was screened positive for down syndrome. This story has drawn more and more controversy as the couple continue to talk about it publicly. Their decision both to abort the pregnancy—and the accusation they are churning this decision for social media content—has drawn outrage from many mainstream, mostly Christian conservatives. The couple claim to have received death threats, as the husband has also stated he now sleeps with a gun. Admittedly, the decision to announce this decision publicly and the manner in which they have used this decision for content creation strikes many (including yours truly) as distasteful. Over the last day or so, there have been an increasing number of challenges to their claims, namely assertions that Ashley was never pregnant at all. These and other caveats notwithstanding, the decision to abort a pregnancy that has screened positive1 for down syndrome is the correct one. Moreover, much of the conservative and religious rhetoric surrounding the decision to abort a down syndrome pregnancy in particular reveals many blind spots in this faction of mainstream conservatism.

In the United States in particular, there has been a concerted advocacy campaign set forth in the interest of down syndrome people. This campaign argues against aborting down syndrome pregnancies in particular but also advocates for the accommodation of down syndrome persons both in school and adult life. These campaigns invariably paint happy, sickly sweet pictures of family life with down syndrome children and adults. These efforts invariably prop up the extreme right-tail of the bell curve to advance this message. A key, central objective of this campaign is to encourage families to keep and raise children with down syndrome and to discourage abortion of down syndrome pregnancies to the furthest extent possible.

The reality however is far more harrowing. The average IQ of individuals with down syndrome is 50, with many below even that. Much of the propaganda on behalf of down syndrome individuals paint a picture of relatively high functioning individuals. However, only a small minority of down syndrome individuals are able to live independently. The vast majority require intense and constant supervision. This means those couples who choose to keep a down syndrome baby will take care of that son or daughter until they die, or are simply too old and frail to care for themselves let alone a down syndrome adult.

Many who denounce the Ridgway’s decision characterize it as “murdering” a baby for mere inconvenience, or for simply not being “perfect.” Both of these characterizations are wildly euphemistic. The financial burden to care for and raise an individual with down syndrome is staggering, with estimates some six times that of a normal child. This often amounts to a net difference of over one million dollars in net expenditures from the birth of a down syndrome child to adulthood, with even more costs to continue through that individual’s life. Down syndrome babies are often afflicted with various co-morbidities, including heart conditions in infancy, much higher risk for cancer and leukemia, and other medical problems. The cost for various surgeries, specialized care, and the battery of pharmaceuticals can be staggering, even with insurance. Insurance in the United States, as many readers well know, is often not insurance at all, but a mere subsidy. Deductibles, partial denial of coverage for highly technical exemptions in incomprehensible contract language of various medical plans invariably leave Americans with tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, even with insurance. This is no more true than in the particular context of the dubious decision to not terminate a down syndrome pregnancy and raise a down syndrome child.

Perhaps the most insidious element of the down syndrome controversy concerns the deprivation a decision to keep such pregnancies imposes not just on the couple but healthy, usually older siblings. The question of whether to abort a down syndrome pregnancy or raise a child with this affliction invariably raises the difficult question as to how much of a family’s resources are directed away from those with actual human potential to support what is, to put it bluntly, a genetic dead-end—recall that the vast majority of down syndrome individuals are unable to achieve independent living. On this most weighty matter—namely the degree to which resources are directed away from normal, healthy siblings—there is no data.2 Several inquiries, both on Internet search engines and several large language model chat platforms, reveal no studies, no data sets on how such a decision deprives siblings of material support they would have received but for the decision to keep and raise an individual with down syndrome. Because raising a son or daughter with down syndrome can easily exceed one million dollars in extra net expenditures in the first eighteen years, unless a family is endowed with extraordinary wealth, such a decision will lead to significant material deprivation of family resources in a large number of cases. This is undeniable—the question is simply to what extent such deprivation afflicts healthy siblings of down syndrome individuals.

This dirty little secret, which, by all accounts, seems to be deliberately hidden by down syndrome and other advocacy groups, is particularly relevant in relation to the matter of college funds. That such data is simply unavailable, to this author at least but probably society at large, strongly indicates a deliberate form of deception by omission. There are myriad publications, financed with grants by these down syndrome advocacy groups, indicating most siblings support their down syndrome sibling, that it makes them stronger, so on and forth. But in all these materials, which are little more than naked propaganda, such matters are curiously omitted.

To what extent are siblings in down syndrome families deprived of funds that would have been directed to a college fund but for the decision to keep and raise a down syndrome child and assume the crushing medical expenses and other costs bound up in that decision? How many bright siblings with native aptitude suitable for college either do not get to go to college, or have to “work their way through college”3 because an inordinate amount of funds are redirected from healthy siblings to the individual with down syndrome?

Such hard questions that almost everyone shies away from further pertain to other, seemingly less consequential matters, but are in fact issues that matter, and matter a great deal. How many siblings get cut off in other ways, either by having to resort to “hand me downs” while in middle and high school in affluent suburban settings? How many either do not receive birthday or Christmas presents, or receive far more modest gifts as a family’s entire wealth is sunk into a defective individual who will never show real promise or potential? How many students who have the interest, desire, and ability to gain proficiency in a foreign language are denied an opportunity to spend a year as an exchange student in a country that speaks the language they are studying because all the family’s resources are wasted on an invalid?

While matters of financial deprivation have been deliberately hidden and obscured from public discourse, this important moral and practical question has been addressed to some limited extent in terms of the psychological burdens afflicted on siblings of a significantly disable child —including down syndrome individuals categorically. Such siblings are routinely denied attention from parents in any number of ways, besides just in financial terms. The phenomenon, presently an informal psychological term, is known as “Glass Children Syndrome.” The moniker “glass child” pertains to the propensity for parents struggling with such burdens to “see through” other healthy siblings, most especially the younger ones. Glass children syndrome is expressed with any number of dysfunctional traits, including feelings of guilt for resenting the disabled sibling—their resentment is invariably justified in this context. Other traits include a pronounced desire to be a “people pleaser” to a fault, to deny own’s needs, even as a child or minor, and other maladies that these youngsters should simply not be afflicted with. While the financial deprivation this mad folly is an indictment of this perverse moral system, that it imposes other psychological burdens on the healthy siblings of down syndrome is also revealing.

The hardships endured by the couple—wife and husband, the mother and father—are significant as well. Very often, one parent must quit a job because caring for a down syndrome child is a full-time job unto itself. That represents an additional cost by way of lost income that would otherwise be available if the down syndrome individual had either not been born or put up for adoption. Very often, the job of caring for adult children with down syndrome never ends, because most down syndrome individuals can never live independently. Most cannot prepare meals on their own. This inability pertains even to prepackaged meals. The vast majority certainly cannot prepare a meal from scratch. Most must be supervised for any number of mundane things like going to the bathroom, showering and bathing, getting dressed, so on and so forth across countless day-to-day activities adults do on their own and have since childhood. Those who have spoken out against the mainstream, conservative outrage note that many boomers who expect to die soon are caring for an individual in his 40s or 50s who does not even have the mind of a child. Many have expressed anecdotal evidence of beholding individuals who are utterly drained and exhausted from a decades long burden. One individual stated he has “never met” the parent of a child with significant disabilities “who didn’t look like they had the life drained out of them.” When they die, or when they are no longer capable of caring for this albatross, what is to happen to the individual with down syndrome. Is the burden then shifted on siblings? The state?

Much of the advocacy for down syndrome individuals cherry pick among the most functioning, and play on the trope that down syndrome individuals are uniquely happy individuals. This is attenuated by rhetoric about the “boundless joy” such individuals bring. This sugar coats the life long burdens described above. Such emotive rhetoric also overlooks the reasons for this propensity for down syndrome individuals to be so happy. Those down syndrome individuals who do exhibit this trait (not all do as discussed below) do so because they are so cognitively deficient they do not understand let alone perceive the significant burden and hardship their condition imposes on everyone around them. In the face of inevitable accusations of being a “monster” or cruel, that should hardly be endearing to anyone. To the contrary, it is abhorrent.

Such misguided appeals to emotive sentimentality also gloss over a hidden reality for most adolescents and adults with down syndrome. Many down syndrome individuals—children, adolescents, adults—require the use of a leash to walk about in public, euphemistically referred to as a “tether.” Many are prone to outbursts of anger and frustration when they are not given what they want. Much of that frustration stems from significant cognitive defects that render them incapable of understanding every day matters with minimal understanding. Such glossing over omits the propensity to smear shit on walls in fits of frustration. Down syndrome males in adolescence and adults—fueled with the testosterone attendant to normal, healthy lads—experience the same urges as their healthy counterparts. But they lack the ability to reason or understand these urges in any way whatsoever, and so very often they will expose themselves, touch others in inappropriate or even illegal ways. This is because these individuals lack the intellect to understand that, for example, public masturbation or exposure of genitals in public is not only improper but illegal.

Much of the data surrounding down syndrome families seems calculated to maintain this rosy picture carefully calibrated by down syndrome advocacy groups as well as misguided Christian churches and other religious organizations. Families with down syndrome do have lower divorce rates. However, this, with absolute, ironclad certainty, is properly attributed to survivorship bias. Data indicates that between some 67-85 percent of pregnancies testing positive for down syndrome are aborted—a correct and sensible decision. Those who make that decision are less apt to have the significant financial wherewithal to absorb such a colossal, crushing burden. Couples with less financial security are more prone to divorce; those with greater financial security are less apt to divorce. This is compounded by the religious motivation that often attends a decision to keep a down syndrome child. Although modern Christianity suffers from any number of pathologies, religious conviction and upbringing is strongly associated with lower divorce rates. While couples with down syndrome children do divorce less, they suffer higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, stress, anxiety, and other disorders. Recent research also documents alarmingly high rates of suicidal ideation among parents of disabled children (including those with Down syndrome), with 41–42% reporting thoughts of suicide while caregiving —far above general population levels.

One interesting trend that many will observe is that most who express outrage over the Ridgway decision or who tout feel-good rhetoric about down syndrome persons and why keeping and raising such persons is a moral imperative typically come from very affluent backgrounds. This is rarely if ever stated outright, but rather is inferred from the context of various social media postings and other commentary. One video implores people to watch a video of a down syndrome adult riding a tractor before deciding to abort such a pregnancy. The video is, quite frankly, an obscene spectacle, as the individual cannot even drive in a straight line. Any right-thinking person sees such media as an emphatic argument for aborting such pregnancies. Going beyond that, the video shows three different lawn tractors, one for the down syndrome adult, and two cheaper tractors for either older children or younger adolescents. The video takes place in what is obviously an affluent rural or suburban setting.

Or consider one fellow, Steve Redmond, who posted a picture of his down syndrome adult child while bragging about going on a road trip to take him to see all 30 major league baseball parks and even attending the World Series on at least one occasion. The man is either independently wealthy and does not need to work or is in a financial position to take most of the summer off to go on such an expedition. The tweet in question also mentions staggering medical costs that would bankrupt most families. His son’s battle with leukemia likely cost between $500,000.00 to one million dollars. How much of that was paid out of pocket is anyone’s guess. Another prominent spokesman for down syndrome advocacy, Jared Kubin, is a hedge fund manager. His precise net worth is not readily available, but a reasonable estimate would be between 10-30 million dollars.

While obnoxious posts like these are tantamount to the worst sort of bragging typical of “facebook boomers,” these considerations reveal that such advocacy for down syndrome is a luxury belief. It is the Christian conservative counterpart to shitlib delirium about open borders and taking in tens of millions of black and brown hordes, on a seemingly indefinite basis. Contrary to popular belief, such staggering resources involved in both contexts do not fall from the sky like manna. Whether these costs are absorbed by the family, the state, or both, the cost is prohibitive and it is real. Some estimates on twitter suggest the upkeep of many down syndrome adults consumes the yearly tax contribution of several individuals—resources which, so consumed, cannot be applied for the greater good and for those who do have some actual human potential. The exorbitant resources that a decision to keep and raise a down syndrome child is either absorbed by the family unit, which can rarely take on such an undertaking without significant hardship and deprivation, or is absorbed by society and the state.

Some object that the Ridgways could easily afford to care for a down syndrome child, with an estimated net worth of some 11 million dollars. That may be true, but it does not pertain to the significant non-monetary costs alluded to above, including how unacceptable and illegal behavior including indecent exposure, masturbation, inappropriate touching even sexual assault, smearing shit on walls, and other nightmare scenarios are kept hush hush.

Others object that there is apparently a waiting list by couples with the financial means and desire to adopt down syndrome babies specifically. This however is also troubling, and reveals once again a perverse pathology in what is ostensibly Christian thinking, at least in certain segments of modern America. Recall the admonition about “the crime that the swift should be held back by the slow” in the epigraph at the beginning of this essay. Why does society or for that matter this segment of mainstream, Christian conservativism facilitate and encourage this bizarre fixation on the intractably disabled and defective when there are many hundreds of thousands of children and adolescents in foster care who need love, care, and support. At least a sizeable contingent of these troubled youngsters might actually show some promise of excelling in life. Some of them are bright, capable youngsters whose promise and potential is endangered by dysfunctional family life so egregious as to warrant removal from criminally negligent and abusive parents and who are so unfortunate as to lack caring and loving relatives to care for them. Why do these do-goody types expend lavish resources on a genetic dead-end, rather than care for bright, capable, but troubled youngsters? Is it because children and adolescents in foster care do not create quite the social media “street cred” as pictures of down syndrome babies and toddlers? Why is this tolerated at all, let alone encouraged and celebrated?

A final thought concerns how down syndrome has been romanticized by many segments of American society. This principally entails what are supposedly feel-good stories about, for example, how a down syndrome girl “made the cut” for a junior high school’s cheer-leading squad in Utah. In reality of course the girl was in no way part of the cheerleading squad in an actual sense, but was just a token figurehead for the feels and virtue signaling. There was however a controversy because the cheerleading squad took two official photos, one with the down syndrome girl, the other without. That one official photo without the down syndrome girl was selected for the yearbook, while the other was not. This caused an uproar. The hard, plain truth is that she should never have been allowed to join the cheer squad at all, even on a token symbolic basis that everyone but the down syndrome individual knows is a farce. There are also a variety of “feel good” stories about how the school’s prom king asked out a girl with down’s syndrome, or a down syndrome boy asked the prom queen, and she said yes.

In this author’s view at least, cheerleading, varsity sports, and other similar auspices of the American high school as social institution and cultural phenomenon are not a beneficial or desirable fixture of American education. Such reasonable protestations notwithstanding, they are not going away anytime soon. Cheerleading, which is generally open only to the most desirable young women who have the athletic prowess to do cheerleading successfully, is by its very nature exclusionary. If it were not exclusionary, it would cease to be what it is intrinsically. It is because of this nature that the word “cheerleader” is a sort of short-hand for very desirable, although often times quite vapid young women, not unlike other words like “model,” “beauty contestant,” or “centerfold.” This consideration reveals how hollow such gestures are. Normal, healthy adolescents must make an assessment whether cheerleading is a realistic option, or if it matches their personality, interests, and so on. Down syndrome persons are incapable of making such determinations, even presupposing they could ever have a snowball’s chance in hell of qualifying on the merits.

In relation to the stories about down syndrome individuals going out with the prom king or queen, the same rationale applies. These and other considerations reveal such “feel good” stories as nothing less than the worst sort of patronization—patronization of people who do not have the intellectual ability to understand they are being put upon, that when a prom king or queen goes to prom with a down syndrome person, there is no sincere romantic or sexual interest that should be the hallmark of any date, let alone prom night. There is also something deeply troubling about imposing such expectations on other youth, particularly in relation to prom nights and the like. Prom night is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and foisting the expectation for a healthy adolescent to expend that opportunity to humor an individual with down syndrome involves a significant lost opportunity cost, namely not taking a young man or woman that such a person does have a genuine romantic and sexual interest in.

Finally, it should also be noted that much of the advocacy for down syndrome children—that is the outrage over the Ridgways’ decision—has been associated with bizarre and disturbing religious rhetoric. This author has seen comments asserting that a decision—the correct decision—to abort a down syndrome pregnancy foregoes an opportunity for “divine suffering.” Others assert that down syndrome babies are created in the image of God himself, which surely must strike some as blasphemous. Irrespective of how each individual reader ultimately comes down on this admittedly controversial issue, surely all can agree such rhetoric is both distasteful and pathological. Whereas characterizing aborting a down syndrome pregnancy as making that decision for mere “inconvenience” or for being “imperfect” is nothing less than a striking euphemism over the realities of raising a down syndrome child, such rhetoric fetishizes the significant hardship and suffering such a decision entails.

It should be emphasized that the couple in question received death threats in conjunction with this controversy. While some have questioned the veracity of such claims, some, perhaps many, of a Christian conservative bent have excused and even condoned such conduct. This reveals a most undesirable trait among some in the Christian set, reminiscent of a pathological stance harping on the need for those harmed by others to forgive, often without expressions of contrition or remorse. Although this publication endorses the decision to abort pregnancies that screen positive for down syndrome, this matter is, at the very least, a difficult subject. This is bolstered by the fact that so many choose to abort such pregnancies. Ostensibly, many come to such a decision after much proverbial hand-wringing over such matters.

One would think those of the Christian persuasion would implore empathy for such difficult decisions. Indeed, a central tenet of Christian theology is that all of humanity is born in original sin. No one can live up to the paragon of Christ, who alone is born without original sin. Even if one were to conclude a decision to abort a down syndrome pregnancy is somehow wrong or sinful (once again, it is quite clearly the correct decision), would not such a decision be attributable to man’s supposed fallen state? Should Christians not be forgiving of such decisions, as they quite ironically so often implore others to be forgiving of that which often should not be forgiven? Instead, many of them seem to take delight in the suffering of others, replete with religious dogma asserting that a life ruining burden—not a mere inconvenience, as so many suggest—is somehow a way to get closer to Christ.

As has been amply demonstrated, the decision to carry a down syndrome pregnancy to term involves all sorts of collateral damage on the wife and husband, the family unit as a whole, and society at large. Difference of opinion on this matter is perhaps understandable, even as disagreement from the position advocated in this essay seems so incredibly wrong-headed and even foolish. To the extent there is difference of opinion, perhaps, at the very least, those who are grandstanding about this matter should show a little more humility and compassion. Even so, this most recent controversy reveals significant flaws and blind-spots embedded in mainstream conservatism.

Consider that the real moral wrong is a moral system that needlessly imposes such a crushing burden and indeed unimaginable suffering on families. Depriving resources from those with real human potential is the real moral outrage. These and other considerations reveal how desperately a new secular right must take form if there is any hope of saving Europe and the West. If the left are to be opposed and defeated successfully in the long-run, a different sort of opposition to the left must supplant these elements in mainstream conservatism with something far more radical, potent, and effective.

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Jeder für sich: das ist englisch; alle für alle: das ist preußisch.

Every man for himself: that is an English idea. Every man for every other man: that is the Prussian way.

- Oswald Spengler, Preußentum und Sozialismus (Prussianism and Socialism)

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Right Is Left: A Most Absurd Postulation

A recurring theme of mainstream conservatism in the United States and to a lesser extent Europe as well is to denounce various right-wing, reactionary, and other illiberal movements as somehow “left wing.” This peculiar view has been advocated by the likes of Elon Musk, Alice Weidel, and Dinesh D’Souza. Jonah Goldberg and Dennis Prager (both Jewish, obviously) have also taken this position. This rhetorical sleight of hand is applied with equal fervor to historical movements of the past, such as National Socialism in Germany, Italian Fascism, and other movements of the past as well as burgeoning schools of thought in the modern age. The notion that either Adolf Hitler or National Socialism (to name the classic target of this rhetoric) is somehow left-wing should strike any thinking person as beyond absurd. The proposition is so mind-jarringly stupid as to defy all credulity. And yet this rhetoric remains persuasive to a critical mass of persons beholden to mainstream conservative talking points. Indeed, a brief perusal and glance of many spaces online indicates these views have somehow become ever more convincing to a large contingent of mainstream American conservatives.

A successful repudiation of this absurdist thought, to the extent one can call it thought at all, requires an exacting prognosis of the underlying logical and historical errors on which such assertions are founded. At the most abstract, philosophical level, this absurd error is grounded in the false equivalence fallacy. These errors also demonstrate how large swathes of American conservatism have been unable to accept that maligned figures, including especially Hitler and Mussolini, were and remain part of what, for lack of a better term, could be described as far-right, as reactionary movements that opposed the excesses of liberal democracy on one hand and the evils of Soviet Bolshevism on the other.

Right and left are of course somewhat nebulous. But whereas this strain of American conservatism tends to ground such a schematic in increased or decreased state power and intrusion, the right more classically—and especially outside of American politics—emphasizes and defends values such as tradition, hierarchy, and particularly in the European political schematic—that inalienable right to blood, race, and soil. Some postulations include things like property rights, free speech, and free association, but more radical forms of reactionary populism do not prioritize these considerations, understanding the need for more extraordinary times while embracing a revolutionary spirit.1

These and other errors are further compounded by a dogged, persistent fixation on means, losing sight of the ends for which any givens means seeks to achieve, most particularly the seizure and application of state power to further and advance important policy positions. This last error most directly relates to an irrational fixation on the words “socialism” and “socialist,” and indeed this categorical aversion to anything that could be decried as either socialist in nature or more particularly socializes particular segments of the economy or society. Indeed, this latter fixation is the key to understanding and dismantling this error that is as persistent as it is perplexing and comical. Accordingly, this analysis will dismantle this error at its very foundation, and then expound to larger abstract principles emanating from it in conclusion.

A Concise Synopsis of Prussianism and Socialism

For well over a century, the words “socialism” and “socialist” have taken on an expansive range of meanings and connotations. Socialism pertains with equal validity to international socialism and Soviet Bolshevism as it does to the sort of “socialism” embraced in certain high trust and, at the time, homogeneous countries such as Japan and the Scandinavian countries. Although the Scandinavian countries were generally left-of-center during this period, this form of socialism, unlike the Soviet model, embraced a blend of socialization of key commodities considered a public good and modified, restrained capitalism. This blend of socialist and capitalist features achieves a greater balance between free market capitalism on one hand and the public good on the other through sensible and indeed necessary regulations conducive to the public good.

Spengler identifies this very phenomenon in the very introduction to Prussianism and Socialism:

The word “socialism” designates the noisiest, if not the most profound, topic of current debate. Everyone is using it. Everyone thinks it means something different. Into this universal catchword everyone injects whatever he loves or hates, fears or desires. Yet no one is aware of the scope and limitations of the word’s historical function. Is socialism an instinct, or a planned system? Is it a goal of mankind, or just a temporary condition? Or does the word perhaps refer simply to the demands made by a certain class of society? Is it the same thing as Marxism?

Many on the left have embraced these terms, namely “socialism” and “socialist,” as readily exemplified by the rise of so-called “Democrat Socialists,” attended by the rise first of Bernie Sanders and, far worse, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. For this and other reasons besides, many of those opposed to the left retain deeply negative associations with socialism, socialist, and the like. This is part of the legacy of Reagan conservatism and beyond, which traces its origins back to the (legitimate) red scare of the 50s and before that. Even though Oswald Spengler argues that Prussian statism is the true form of socialism as it is properly understood, many readers of Prussianism and Socialism will conclude that, in the modern age, these terms are only correctly associated with particular forms of what could now be called socialism. At the time of its writing, Marxism and international socialism were the prominent manifestations of this. Since the rise and export of the Frankfurt School in the 20s and 30s, this rubric of what could fairly be described as international socialism includes first and foremost Cultural Marxism, which has supplanted class struggle for the supposed plight of third world black and brown people at the hands of Eurocentrism, colonialism, so on and so forth, ad nauseam ad infinitum.

In this seminal tract, Spengler identifies a split between the two principal Germanic peoples, what he calls the English (actually British, which will be used hereinafter) and Prussians, ostensibly distinct from other iterations of the German people. He attributes this split to a fundamental distinction between these peoples, with one enjoying the “insular security” of an island nation and the other enjoying no such splendid isolation at all. The British of course retain the British Isles as their home, an island nation that has not been successfully invaded in almost a millennium—although, depending on how one defines the terms “invasion” or “to invade,” hordes of racial imposters, principally from the Indian sub-continent and Africa, are currently invading both the British Isles and the sacred continent of Europe, and have been for decades.

In stark contrast to the British experience, the Prussians in particular had to expand frontiers with no natural borders, a history which Spengler traces back to The Teutonic knights that “settled and colonized the eastern borderlands of Germany in the Middle Ages.” This history of Prussia most particularly and Germany more broadly is the very opposite of the “insular security” that had defined the British—as an island people and later empire ruling the waves with the Royal Navy that would allow the British Empire to span the globe. Germany does of course have the Rhine to the West and the Alps to the south. These natural borders did not, however, save Germany from centuries of foreign invasion, most particularly The Thirty Years War, The Napoleonic Wars, as well as the three wars2 Prussia was forced to prosecute in order to secure German unification in 1871. It is this key, fundamental distinction that explains why the British tradition attacks and limits the state, whereas the Prussian tradition embraced the role of the state before this tradition was largely eradicated with the surrender, capitulation, and partition of Germany in 1945. As Spengler articulates, the fault line between these two distinct, antithetical approaches lies “between a people whose soul has developed out of an awareness of insular security, and one that has been forced to maintain a frontier without natural borders to protect it from its enemies.” It is from this fundamental distinction between “insular security” on one hand and the frontier on the other that “splendid isolation” diminished the need for the organized state in the British Isles in ways it never could in Prussia in particular, but Germany more broadly and indeed much of Europe to some limited extent. This fundamental distinction is expressed in the competing traditions of John Locke and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

This fundamental distinction between “the spirit of the Vikings” and the “spirit of medieval knights” further accounts for how the Anglosphere has been defined by a vision of capitalism remarkably unrestrained by oversight and regulation by state power. The Viking ethos which characterizes the Briton and later the American “implies extreme independence of mind, the right to gain happiness at the expense of all others. . ..” With the “English instinct” giving power to the individual first and foremost, such liberalism is nothing more than a “free-for-all, [with] every man for himself, the stronger man wins.” Spengler even argues that in this model, “The state was to exist no longer;” an overstatement to be sure. And yet he is fundamentally correct in his observation that “everyone was to fight his own battles, for in the end it would [somehow] benefit all.”

As related above, Spengler further describes this as a sort of social Darwinism, a “free for all.” This Anglo style of business is nothing short of a “refined form of piracy.” Spengler further articulates that in this English model, defined by the spirit of the Vikings, the “aim is not to work steadily to raise the entire nation’s standard of living.” Rather, “it is. . .to produce private fortunes by the use of private capital, to overcome private competition, and to exploit the public through the use of advertising, price wars, artificial stimulation of the consumer, and strict control of the ratio of supply and demand.” In this view of the world and with the triumph of the Anglosphere over Germany, “the world” is not seen in terms of “the state” or “church, but as booty for pirates.”

The Prussian model envisages an entirely different view of the economy, commerce, and the role the state plays in these and other affairs. In the Prussian model, property is “not [seen] as private booty but as part of the common weal; not as a means or expression of personal power but as goods placed in trust, for the administration of which he, as a property owner, is responsible to the state.” In this model, “national wealth” is not “the sum of individual private fortunes; instead, he considers private fortunes as functions of the total economic potential of his nation.”

This is also accompanied by an entirely different conception of what merit means and indeed the role of the individual in society and the opportunities afforded him by society. In Great Britain, “[N]ext to noble parentage, wealth is the major condition for acceptance in the group; it is also the criterion for rank within the group’s social structure.” This is in polar opposition to the structure of Prussian society, “whereby the individual receives his place according to his ability, not according to the demands of tradition.” Implicit in Spengler’s formulation of the Prussian model and knightly ethos of “all for all” is the fundamental concept of Volksgemeinschaft, which posited a unity of the German people across classes, bound by shared blood, language, history, and tradition. Precisely because the British model, in the spirit of the Viking, allows powerful, moneyed interests to exert inordinate influence and profit off commerce as a “refined form of piracy,” those subject to the Anglo model—which, after World War II and more particularly the Fall of the Iron Curtain is all of Europe and the Western world—are deluded by a false sense of freedom, defined by the loss of a much more important “kind of freedom.” That in turn renders most individuals “inwardly a slave.”

Spengler concludes this formulation by asserting that Marx and socialism as it has come to be understood does not transcend the capitalist free-for-all which is the signature feature of the English model, but rather represents capitalism of sorts for the proletariat. He describes this sort of socialism, and the sort that has become largely synonymous with the word in modern times as a “a revised edition of capitalism.”

Whereas the Prussian model seeks to regulate, temper, and subordinate commercial activity for the public good, placing it in a trust for the betterment of all, Marxism particularly and socialism as it has come to be understood under its long, oppressive shadow seeks to expropriate wealth and capital not for the betterment of the nation or people, but the oppressed classes. With the unfortunate advent of Cultural Marxism, this has mutated only further, as modern leftism seeks to expropriate wealth not for the working class. Indeed, modern incarnations of the Democrat party and its European counterparts harbor pronounced malice and contempt for white working-class people. Rather, Cultural Marxism expropriates wealth for the benefit of black and brown hordes that are but racial imposters in and enemies of the Occident.

A Critique and Application of Spengler’s Formulation in Modern Times

Significantly, Spengler characterizes The Great War as a war of annihilation between these two forms of the Faustian Spirit:

Neither can accept a restriction of its will, and neither can be satisfied until the whole world has succumbed to its particular idea. This being the case, war will be waged until one side gains final victory.

As Germany lost the Second World War, a civilizational catastrophe that more likely than not will herald the death of Mother Europa and her posterity, that struggle seems to have been resolved and determined: the most negative resolution of history that has likely intractably doomed Germany and above all Europe to a bitter decline, fall, and eventual extinction. There are, however, several considerations and critiques of Spengler’s dichotomy between “refined piracy” on one hand and the Prussian statism on the other that reveal some errors or oversights in this formulation. As dire as the prognosis is for Europe and its peoples, this critique and application of Spengler’s formulation at least suggests a theoretical strategy by which Europe could potentially save herself before the last embers of her racial soul—once an indomitable inferno—are extinguished for all eternity.

One error Spengler makes is that he formulates this dichotomy as binary, as either pirate capitalism on one hand or “Prussian socialism” on the other. This dichotomy however exists on a spectrum. Indeed, his characterization of Marxism and international socialism can be conceptualized as existing on this spectrum. Soviet Bolshevism in particular and international socialism more broadly use the power of the state far more extensively than envisioned by the Prussian model, and, more importantly, for entirely different ends. Soviet Bolshevism in particular sought to abolish private enterprise and capitalism writ large, and did so, ostensibly at least, in the name of class revolution. The expressed aim of communism was to become the sole form of government throughout the world. While raw, naked megalomania lies beneath any rhetorical flourish, the very framework of this ideology concerns the international proletariat, with abject hostility to the notion of the nation state and those hallowed institutions which comprise the fabric of European tradition and culture. Despite pervasive insistence to the contrary by many of the mainstream, normy-tier conservative set, National Socialist Germany never sought to abolish either private enterprise, nor did it seek to nationalize various manufacturing concerns that were the titans of German industry: Krupp Stahlwerke, IG Farben, M.A.N., Mercedes, Messerschmitt, Rheinmetall, and so many others remained private corporations; they were simply subordinate to the oversight of the state, particularly and most especially during the exigencies of war.3

In the midst of what could be rightly decried as “Dinesh D’Souza Cope,” i.e. Hitler was left-wing and a socialist, the most absurd political schematics abound. These schematics typically define left versus right merely as the consolidation and use of state power on one hand and the absence of or abstention from state power on the other. This of course is so mind-bogglingly stupid as to defy comprehension. By this twisted logic, state power used to prevent parents, teachers, and others from “transing the kids” is—somehow—just as left-wing as various laws compelling acquiescence to transgenderism and radical gender theory. State power used to carry out remigration and expulsions of racial imposters is also, somehow, left-wing. Similarly, the censorship and banning of pornography, a policy position advocated by the late Robert Bork among others, is just as “left-wing” as European style hate speech laws which prohibit even the most sensible—but controversial—utterances about race, identity, and other matters.

Absurd as such schematics are, they do show that the consolidation and application of state power as well as the abstention from using state power runs along a continuum. Particularly outside of American conservatism which adopts almost all precepts of modern liberalism, any schematic describing this continuum offers little or meaning as to what is left or right, as the above examples indicate. Any schematic that designates Slouching Towards Gomorrah and Bork’s call for censorship of pornography and other materials as somehow “left-wing” is a mockery and a farce, deserving only the sharpest, most savage ridicule.

Beyond that, with radical libertarian sorts excepted, very few oppose socialism—or rather the socialization of certain segments of society and economy—in an absolute, categorical sense. Indeed, so very few of these libertarian sorts perceive what real anarchy and the absence of state power actually entails. Absence of the state is, as Thomas Hobbes so famously described, “war among all against all.” True absence of the state would lead to unimaginable horrors, including widespread rape and abduction, human trafficking and slavery, wholesale murder and banditry at nearly every roadside, and a seemingly unending list of terrors, crimes, and atrocities intimated in the expansive range of post-apocalyptic story-telling. The illegal trade for any number of harmful and even unconscionable matters already exists, and would only explode in the absence of the state, from trade of illicit and harmful drugs to the international black market for human organs. Silly blather about the “non-aggression principle” and other libertarian talking points are non-sensical in any other context outside of tedious parlor games, cushioned and protected by the safety and security made possible by the dormant violence of state power which makes social order possible. That which these simpletons decry as “left-wing socialist state overreach” is very often nothing less than the imposition of law and order.

A deep-seated revulsion for terms like “the state,” “the government,” and most especially “socialism” and “socialist” is, however, a powerful if also foolish and misguided strain in American mainstream conservatism. Any effort to abolish the obscene health insurance racket in this country is decried as socialism, with so few understanding that healthcare as a commodity is to a large degree both a need and a public good. For that reason, it ought to be socialized to ensure it is available to all rightful citizens4 to ensure their healthcare needs are met regardless of socioeconomic status or financial hardship. So few conservatives understand or recognize such principles, just as so few realize that their resentment of paying into a system that benefits all currently in this rootless, fractured society stems from existing in an increasingly fractured, balkanized society where no one really belongs and everyone is an alien to one another to some greater or lesser degree. The same rationale applies to the student loan crisis. “I do not want my tax dollars being spent to help other people who have these problems” and “I ‘got mine,’ screw everybody else” are just two examples of the sort of shorthand that epitomizes this deracinated, hyper-selfish mindset.

While Spengler notes the sense of duty that characterizes the Prussian model as he intimates at least implicitly the very concept of Volksgemeinschaft, this same duty to others is remarkably absent in the Anglo-American tradition. That pathology is characterized and augmented by the tradition of rugged individualism that traces its origins to the founding of the original colonies and later the various phases of westward expansion beyond the Appalachian mountains, eventually reaching the west coast: a phenomenon that lies partly in history and partly in myth.5

Consider however that, even in the United States, a number of public goods are socialized, including law enforcement, the fire department, schools, libraries, roads, and other public goods. Some libertarian sorts will cite the state of education in this country as an argument against socializing this public good, all while overlooking that so many of the undesirable traits6 of our education system stem from severe deficiencies and faults in American culture and society as well as an increasing number of undesirable races in the demographic makeup of this country. Such deficiencies include a pathologically egalitarian mindset that eschews stratification in education according to natural ability, a pernicious sociological and cultural phenomenon deeply embedded in the American tradition for democracy and which precludes the possibility of the academy in the most abstract sense. This same tradition renders anything akin to Germany’s gymnasium unthinkable, as it also explains how America’s literary tradition, to the extent it could be called literary at all, has persistently veered heavily to the crass commercial concerns and perverse egalitarianism of journalism rather than the belles-lettres that epitomize notions of the aristocracy and the elite, whether by supposed noble lineage or more preferably by native abilities and natural aptitude. Whereas the German and British literary traditions wield the likes of Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Theodor Storm and Thomas Hardy and George Eliot as respective figureheads, the United States not only afflicts the world with the drab gray prose of Ernest Hemingway, but champions sparse, minimalist prose that almost approaches the level of writing for children’s books—and does so as a supposed literary ideal.

Mainstream conservatives also fail to consider that the aversion to state power does not rightly impugn state power in the abstract. Rather, such aversion to state power is strictly an indictment of this government in particular and more particularly this form of government. The mainstream, normie-tier conservative who cites how awful the United States postal service is never thinks to consider how excellent the Deutsche Post is (or at least was prior to fall of Berlin), just as he cites how appalling Amtrak is, replete with surly, mostly black train crews while never imagining how excellent the Reichsbahn was; even the Deutsche Bahn was excellent in West Germany and after reunification until recently. Various attempts at regulatory oversight by the United States government have been at times counterproductive, but this, as with practically everything, simply implores the need for such measures to be implemented and administered with some degree of competency.

In relations to Spengler’s thesis envisioning a binary dichotomy between “refined piracy” on one hand and Prussian statism on the other, consider that the Progressive era spearheaded by Teddy Roosevelt which promulgated important and, indeed, vital controls over labor standards and the production and sale of food and drug products in this country. Spengler’s extreme characterization of the English model as the utter absence of the state is also contradicted by the legal history of the corporation, or rather the corporate charter. As set forth in “Corporate Rights and the Most Absurd Legal Fiction: A Reactionary History and Analysis of Corporate Personhood,” the early legal history of the corporation and more particularly its predecessor, the corporate charter, is in stark contrast to the sort of free for all afforded modern corporations in the modern world. Indeed, before the American revolution, a corporate charter could only be granted by the Crown if, in addition fulfilling a private objective of making a profit, it also served a public interest.

Before the reforms of Teddy Roosevelt, a variety of food and drug products contained adulterants, including brick dust in cinnamon, plaster of Paris, chalk, and other adulterants in watered down milk, as well as lead, arsenic, and a litany of other poisons in a wide range of everyday food stuffs. Notably, as America is in many ways an extension of this English model with even worse pathologies than its successor, the Food and Drug Act of 1906 finally put in place the sort of minimal regulation of food and drug products that had existed in Europe for at least 50 years before. Working conditions for the white proletariat were just as exploitative and abysmal, until state regulation rightly banned such abhorrent practices. Although such sensible and necessary regulation of commerce does not pertain to the socialization (or nationalization) of public goods, it is in concert with the “Prussian view” that “assigns to trade a subordinate rather than a dominant role within the complex of economic activity.” As Spengler further articulates, this view correctly discerns that “government officials must have the same effect on tradesmen as policemen on burglars and naval cruisers on the crews of pirate ships.”

Indeed, Spengler proclaims that “Socialism is power, power, and more power.” In this way, even though the vital reforms of Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive era of the early 20^th Century did not result in the socialization of those segments in the economy that are rightly seen as a public good, they do demonstrate how these seemingly antithetical opposites are part of a continuum. Beyond that, Spengler’s assertion that socialism—or really the seizure and application of state power to achieve vital ends—is simply characterized as “power” further evinces that mainstream conservatism is defined by a pathological aversion to the very suggestion of taking power and using such power to advance vital policy considerations. This of course creates a vacuum whereby such power will invariably be seized and used by political adversaries or, for that matter, corporate entities given carte blanche license to do as they will.

Beyond these and other important considerations—namely that pirate capitalism and Prussian statism do not exist along a binary dichotomy but rather on a continuum—another salient consideration comes to the forefront, one which Spengler also did not address or perceive. The insular security afforded to the British people by way of living on an island nation has largely been eviscerated by a confluence of circumstances defining the modern world. International airplane travel and other conveyances have rendered these barriers almost meaningless, even though these barriers, had, for centuries, provided this “insular security” that make this “Viking model” of “refined piracy” possible. This also pertains to the United States. Although enjoying two oceans for Eastern and Western borders, having weak neighbors to the south and north may not present the United States with the sorts of strategic threats that had always defined Germany’s political and military strategy for centuries, the migrant crisis, coupled with the rise and proliferation of Cultural Marxist claptrap and other exigencies of the modern age demonstrate that the “insular security” which had distinguished the British Isles and the Anglosphere more broadly no longer exists in any meaningful sense. These modern conveyances combined with the civilization destroying madness advocated by significant portions of the populace render borders even for the island nation and the United States far less meaningful than in eras past. Precisely because the Anglosphere no longer enjoys the insular security as it had in centuries past informs the realization that this Viking ethos must be, if not jettisoned outright, reformed as to provide some form of collectivism to protect the polity from a variety of evils.

These considerations are of course compounded in turn by how infinitely more powerful corporate and monied interests are in the modern world, from George and Alex Soros, to Larry Fink and Blackrock, to the greater pantheon of moneyed, corporate interests at large that harbor insidious designs backed by unimaginable, seemingly inexhaustible wealth. The degree to which the overall intensification of how these powerful interests use liberal democracy and free market capitalism as the most reliable conduit for their schemes has only worsened over time. This of course is one of the evils Spengler expressly warns his readers about, stating that “democracy and universal suffrage are reliable tools of capitalism has been proven in all countries that have adopted the English model.”

Although Spengler foresaw this very danger and, if anything, understated this peril, his observation that the English mindset takes it on blind faith that “in the end” this free-for-all “would [somehow] benefit all” is equally enduring. Even as the middle class in America continues to be eviscerated ever further and as wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of ever fewer, a critical mass of Americans continues to buy into the varied myths surrounding America as the land of opportunity. The malignant spirit of Horatio Alger continues to haunt the American consciousness, with far too many remarkably susceptible to these myths. An apocryphal quote famously—and erroneously—attributed to John Steinback quipped “that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” That modern quote pertains to other matters beyond just the appeal of classic international socialism, but any state oversight or regulation of commercial activity more broadly. That false myth that America is the land of opportunity and that anyone can be a millionaire informs libertarian rhetoric against any use of state power as incurring against so-called “free enterprise,” which blithely ignores basic concepts such as leverage, market share, asymmetric information, to say nothing of how moneyed interests without state regulation and oversight tend to corner the market on key goods and services and form de facto if not outright de jure monopolies.

These and other intellectual blind spots afflicting both much of mainstream conservatism and libertarianism most especially have largely rendered such elements in American politics a stooge for corporate interests. This is expressed in the affinity many mainstream conservatives have for such distasteful—and harmful—American corporate entities as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Walmart, to Conagra, Archer Daniels Midland, to various corporate bodies that comprise the military industrial complex. It is further demonstrated in other instances such as the disastrous Supreme Court decision Citizens United, which further extends constitutional rights rightly limited to individuals to corporate entities, while dictating that unlimited amounts of campaign finance contributions by these corporate interests are (somehow) tantamount to free speech protected by The First Amendment. It has even led far too many mainstream conservatives to rally around the likes of Brian Thompson, the slain CEO of United Healthcare, a psychopath whose “min-maxing” machinations have doubtlessly led to the deaths of Americans who were denied healthcare while imposing unconscionable economic hardship on millions of others. In this way, much of mainstream conservatives is but a grotesque caricature of the very worst American propensities toward crony capitalism and that more refined form of piracy Spengler warns against.

These considerations are further buttressed by Spengler’s aversion to liberal democracy, principally as a means to consolidate and project the power of the monied classes in the capitalist system. Indeed, Spengler decries liberal democracy as merely “a system of provinces and protectorates whose populations are being exploited by a business oligarchy with the aid of bribed parliaments and purchased laws.” He further insists that the “president, prime minister, or popular represent representative is the pawn of a party, and a party is in turn the pawn of those who pay for it.” It is for these reasons in tandem that he warns of the “frightful danger of an enslavement of the world by big business,” a warning which so far has been heeded by far too few for far too long.

Other Fallacies in a Most Absurd Political Schematic

There are of course other flaws with this absurd rhetoric from the mainstream conservative set. At a more abstract, philosophical level, the arguments proffered suffer from the false equivalency fallacy. The false equivalency fallacy occurs when two or more things are said to be equivalent (or very similar) because they share one or more characteristics, while overlooking other differences that distinguish these things in import and even profound ways. National Socialism and other right-wing authoritarian movements do share a limited number of similarities with Soviet Bolshevism and other left-wing movements in history and in modern times, but this is the case with most if not all polar opposites.

As argued in “Alice Weidel’s Most Absurd Statement,” Christian Crusaders and Muslim Saracens share a remarkable number of similarities. Both were warring factions during the middle to late medieval period, driven by religious zeal and fervor. Both had designs of conquest on Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Both, as warring factions of the time period, were characterized by military and other technologies of their time period. And yet despite these and other similarities, they were nonetheless polar opposites of each other. They were mortal enemies, in fact.

The same could be true of Soviet Communism and National Socialism. Both were ideologies and political movements in the 20^th centuries. Both led to authoritarian regimes. While each “gained a political mandate due to extraordinarily egregious circumstances,” the political leadership of each, namely Hitler and Stalin (and above all their cronies) “betray[ed] that mandate or cause in his own peculiar ways.” Both fought against each other on the Eastern Front in a cataclysmic death struggle—ein Vernichtungskrieg— that was the greatest and most horrific armed conflict in history. In addition to incredible innovations in tank design and manufacture, the militaries of both waged tremendous feats in combined arms although the Germans embraced the principles of Bewegungskrieg, while Soviet doctrine relied on human wave and other doctrines.7

Some may disagree whether Islam or Satanism is the true opposite of Christianity, but there again each of these three religions bear many similarities. Islam and Christianity are Abrahamic religions, as both stem from Zoroastrianism more broadly. Both are religious systems with over a billion followers. Both Christianity and Islam are governed by a religious text—or rather series of religious texts—designated and recognized as the word of God. Satanism too has many similarities with Christianity as well.

Axiomatically, any instance of polar opposition will reveal a number of shared similarities whereby the polar opposites share certain similarities. This is revealed by an illustrative diagram or schematic depicting one entity in opposition to another, joined by the axis which places each entity in opposition to the other. The list is practically endless: hot versus cold, love versus hate, the Union versus the Confederacy, the Hatfields and the McCoys, and on and on. One could even create a parlor game of sorts compiling an expansive list of opposites whereby players name all the shared traits each polar opposite shares with its antithesis. Indeed, this phenomenon was first postulated by the ancient Greek philosopher Heralictus, who described this phenomenon as “the unity of opposites.” One would expect that there would scarcely be much novelty to a concept articulated over two thousand years ago. Then again, experience proves again and again the folly of holding even the lowest standards given how intellectually vapid mainstream conservatism is.

This of course is attended by other sorts of shenanigans, including the bizarre fixation on the word socialism in “national socialism.” This particular tic betrays either ignorance of or inability to comprehend the various distinctions set forth in this tract as well as well as Spengler’s thesis over a century ago. As stated, any categorical aversion to socialism in a pure, absolute sense would require dispensing with any socialized good, such as law enforcement, schools, roads, so on and so forth. Beyond that, and going beyond the false equivalency fallacy more broadly, often times entities will embrace words in ways that are novel if not antithetical to their actual meaning. That the phrase urinal cake features the word “cake” does not mean it is a cake in the classic sense. Both a Sachertorte, a type of layered chocolate cake, and crab cake are perhaps a type of cake, but beyond both being food stuffs, to suggest both are of similar kind is preposterous. North Korea’s official state title is the Korean Democratic Republic, just as East Germany was Die Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), or the German Democrat Republic in English (GDR). And yet neither of these are democratic in any normal sense of the word. By this absurd logic, one could surmise that the Nazi party is of similar kind to any entity that also has the word party in it,8 from various communist parties throughout the world, the democrat or republican party in the USA, or indeed a video game called Super Mario Party Jamboree. Perhaps the next time readers attend an 80s dance party or goth industrial dance party, they can take quiet, smug satisfaction that such a past time is of kind to a mostly intellectually sound but ultimately tragic political and ideological movement that could have saved Europe and the West from the evils of the modern age.

Other formulations attempt to equivocate national socialism, fascism, and other far-right, authoritarian movements with their very antithesis under the supposition that all of these things ignore so-called human rights. This of course overlooks how such postulations by Locke and others are indeed not universal, but peculiar to the Western world and, before the rise of American hegemony which installed liberal democracies at gun point across much of Europe, were even more of an aberration limited to the “English model” Spengler identifies in Prussianism and Socialism. Even the United States has committed flagrant violations against human rights. In addition to committing atrocities against the German civilian population in World War II directly as well colluding with ethnic cleansing, rape, and murder at the hands of the Red Army at the close of World War II, readers are reminded of the introduction to Feindflug’s “Neue Sieger” and “Democracy as Pretext for American Hegemony” with begins with these lyrics as its epigraph. With this fallacy, too, there is something absurdly comical about the supposition that Augusto Pinochet was the same as the communists he rightfully eradicated by way of helicopter rides and other stern, drastic measures.

From the Ruins, A Return to That Knightly Ethos

These and other considerations reveal once again how intellectually hollow mainstream conservatism really is. But as the insular security identified by Spengler continues to evaporate in the wake of modern technology and the ‘fifth column” active within white populations that tirelessly work and advocate for the dispossession of white peoples across the Occident and, indeed, racial suicide and civilizational ruin, the Anglosphere has long since arrived at a point where it can no longer indulge such fanciful ideas that recoil at the very notion of state power, regardless of the ends the use of such power serves. Europe and the West must embrace some components of that knightly ethos that rejects the Anglo creed of “each man for himself,” and instead return to what Spengler describes as the Prussian, knightly ethos of “all for all.”

Unfortunately, these and other perverse formulations of the mainstream conservative set are deeply embedded in the American consciousness in particular. In the United States, the legacy of rugged individualism is a powerful element in the shared consciousness of the American public, most particularly those of the mainstream, conservative constituency. Consider also that an intense propaganda campaign has been underway for well over 60 years, which for most began in kindergarten and before, inculcating both the supposed evils of racism and national myths surrounding both world wars. That vital consideration further reveals that much of this nonsense stems from little else other than inability to acknowledge that Hitler, national socialism, and other maligned9 reactionary authoritarian movements are part of the right. This anxiety is so deeply ingrained in the consciousness of mainstream American conservatism that it may be impossible to overcome on any appreciable scale. No one on the left is burdened with such anxiety or reticence. This is in turn compounded by the legitimate red scare and Reagan’s rightful admonitions against the designs of the Soviet Union. The result is a twisted sort of logic that recoils against any use of state power, just as those who espouse these hollow ideas cower from the realization American society lacks the binding agents of common blood, race, and history necessary to unite a polity together. This makes any feeling of duty to others impossible.

Disabusing a critical mass of those opposed to the left of these and other fallacies will be a daunting if not nigh impossible task, but the alternative is unthinkable. Precisely as Spengler has forewarned, so much of what is taught in civics class, including this very blather about unbridled “free-market” capitalism and the sanctimony of liberal democracy has been proven to be racial and national suicide, particularly as it gives free license to those elements that are at once the most sinister and powerful. The only question is whether a sufficient number will disabuse themselves of these lies and fairy tales before it is too late.

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As most readers are doubtlessly well aware, a streamer known as Chud the Builder--real name Dalton Eatherly—was recently charged with attempted murder in connection with the shooting of Joshua Fox. This shooting occurred after Eatherly instigated a provocation by uttering racial slurs to black individuals. He did this outside the courthouse in Clarksville, Tennessee. He had a court hearing in connection with a refusal to pay a bill after being ejected from Bob’s steakhouse, an eating establishment on the strip at Nashville. Many on the dissident right are championing Eatherly’s cause, promoting a crowdfunding campaign to finance the bail bond for Eatherly and his legal defense. While there are certainly problems with this case and how it exemplifies the unique racial privilege enjoyed by blacks--whereby utterance of unkind words provides them a “fighting words” license to commit violence--it is counterproductive, to put it mildly, to associate opposition to liberalism and the multiracial experiment with support for Eatherly.

Many are comparing this incident to the Shiloh Hendrix matter, which was addressed by this publication, as well as other racially charged incidents in which racial epithets were uttered. There are, however, key, critical distinctions which render this incident inapposite to the others. Shiloh Hendrix is a stay at home at mom who took her child to a park. A black youth (accounts vary on age), tried to steal items from her day bag, and was then accosted by a Somali for calling the thief a “nigger.” In response to being confronted by a Somali man, she uttered the slur while brandishing the middle finger to him, before walking off. Although details remain murky in relation to the Crystal Wilsey and Sydney Claire Gains matters—the Cinnabon and “subway queen” incidents, respectively—there is a strong likelihood that black individuals in question instigated those incidents as well, which then led to utterances of the slur in the context of fairly extreme provocation. All of these individuals are women, but that also is inapposite. Another key, critical distinction is that in all of these incidents, the persons in question, who just happen to be women, were, as far as anyone knows, simply minding their own business before black individuals initiated the confrontation in question.1

Eatherly, on the other hand, is a streamer and underground Internet influencer who has gained notoriety by roaming around public and even private spaces, uttering slurs unprovoked, as well as antagonizing others with crude insults and profanity. He fits a larger trend of, among others, so-called first amendment auditors who have become a public nuisance. Jason Gutterman and his son of Amagansett Press are a prime example of this trend. He and his adult son go around filming the entrances of restaurants and stores, waiting for those who do not wish to be filmed to respond in a negative or hostile way. He then accosts these people, asserting that he (unfortunately) has a first amendment right to film in public. In several instances, after goading individuals who have made it clear they do not wish to be recorded, Gutterman has attacked such persons with pepper spray. This most famously includes an incident at The Sock Parlour in Truckee, California, where the owner, Jeremy Tucker, confronted Gutterman for blocking the entrance while filming his shop and its customers. Gutterman was not charged because he was technically filming in public, and because the officer on duty (who admitted to being a fan of Gutterman’s work) determined the owner committed both assault and battery during the confrontation with the obnoxious provocateur.

Eatherly cannot even abide by these parameters, as he tried this schtick inside a restaurant, as a guest on private property. Eatherly routinely uses profanity, slurs, and other activity that could fairly be described as disturbing the peace, among other criminal infractions. Persons such as Gutterman unfortunately do have the right to record on public property while harassing people who have stated they do not wish to be recorded, such as a sidewalk. Private property, including the interior of a private eating establishment, does not extend such protections. For that reason, the analysis Gutterman and others rely on to do as they do does not apply to the steak house incident, and perhaps other altercations as well. Provided an establishment does not refuse service for reasons of racial discrimination, a restaurant can refuse service and regulate conduct of its patrons, including the prohibition of streaming. Eatherly’s decision to leave without paying is also another key distinction.

In relation to the shooting of Joshua Fox more particularly, the facts of this matter are murky, and very much subject to the fog of war. Eatherly has so far been charged with the following counts:

• Criminal attempted homicide (also referred to in media as attempted murder or attempted criminal homicide) – Class A felony.

• Employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony – Class D felony (enhancement).

• Aggravated assault – Class C felony.

• Reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon – ranges from a Class C to D felony.

At the time of this writing, no complete video footage has been released showing the altercation. It is undisputed that Eatherly did shoot Fox, so the case rests entirely on a self defense claim. Among other factors, a self defense claim will not succeed if a defendant instigated the altercation in question. There are remnants of footage of Eatherly calling Fox and other black individuals “nigger” and other pejoratives. For this reason, it will be impossible for Eatherly to prevail on a self-defense claim. For this reason alone, he will be convicted, either by trial or more likely a plea deal. Beyond that, a defendant must show that deadly force was proportionate to the threat, namely that the defendant had a reasonable fear of death or seriously bodily injury. That perception must be both “objectively reasonable,” and subjectively experienced by the defendant. That element is highly specific to the facts. Video footage may show Fox lunging toward Eatherly, going for his gun, or acting in other ways that meet this requirement for a defendant to fear death or serious bodily injury. That will largely be a moot issue, however, as Eatherly will not be able to succeed on a self defense claim insofar as he instigated the altercation. If Eatherly can satisfy this element of a self-defense claim requiring a reasonable and subjective fear of death or bodily harm, it may be a mitigating factor at sentencing, but it will not exonerate him from the charges.

These and other considerations should deter race realists and the radical right from embracing Eatherly, but this has not been the case. Devon Stack has been particularly vociferous—and obnoxious—on this matter. On the Insomnia Stream dated May 17, 2026, he stated that “optics” do not matter, and that anyone who does not “get it” at this point is a lost cause. His Twitter account has also been adamant in supporting this crowd-funding campaign.

There are a number of considerations which belie these cavalier assertions. It is true that “black fatigue” is real and is growing more and more prominent as the wildly disproportionate crime statistics become widely known and as very poor behavior by many blacks is being discerned and recognized by more and more people, including some non whites. Such positive developments do not mean, however, that a critical mass of white people are going to look upon Eatherly’s antics—either in this shooting incident or more broadly—with any sort of favor. Championing Eatherly or linking him to dissident right, race realist circles will only discredit these elements by associating them with a boorish, vulgar provocateur who confirms mainstream stereotypes about so-called racists. His shtick seems as if it could be cut whole cloth from movies and television that manipulate the masses with emotional tugs a la Mississippi Burning.

As stated before, societal norms that afford blacks and other racial minorities an effective license to violence at the mere utterance of racially charged insults is ridiculous. Indeed, Bruce Rivers, who has a prominent YouTube channel offering legal analysis and commentary, absurdly contended that uttering such epithets is “hurting people.” Affording individuals a right to act with violence—often deadly violence—in response to unkind words might be more acceptable if society reformed laws and social standards so that “fighting words’ more broadly entitled an offended person to respond with physical violence in ways that are truly “race neutral.” Calling someone a “faggot” or a “piece of shit” should be seen as no less offensive than uttering racial epithets, just as calling a man’s wife or girlfriend a “cunt,’ “whore,” or other choice words will predictably evoke an excited response by the man to whom such utterances are made. Under the auspices of this absurd experiment of multiracialism, there is no such symmetry in relation to the license to respond with violence at the utterance of words. This is ridiculous and untenable, but this perverse social norm and even legal standard needs to be challenged with what is known in legal parlance as a “sympathetic defendant.” Eatherly does not come anywhere close to meeting this minimum threshold standard. Unfortunately, this incident will likely bolster this perverse social norm and legal standard—which is precisely why he should not have been acting this way leading up to the shooting incident. That aspect of this whole charade is water under the bridge. The worst mistake would be to double down on an obviously and intractable losing proposition such as that of Dalton Eatherly.

Indeed, a brief perusal of Eatherly’s conduct is fairly comparable to a lot of the conduct associated with the most objectionable and unsavory propensities of the black undertow. Bothering and agitating people in public with loud, antagonizing behavior is a key, defining feature of such behavior and conduct. Few unsavory actions are more closely associated with the black undertow than making a scene in a nice restaurant, to say nothing of walking out on a bill. Much of Eatherly’s conduct bears many similarities to the antics of Johnny Somali, who recently sentenced to six months imprisonment by the South Korean judicial system. Unfortunately, champions of multiracial experiment still control the levers of power, and still dictate much of the narrative. Persons should always abide by minimum standards of decorum regardless, but most particularly when the proverbial cards are stacked against us. This incident seems tailor-made for the purpose of discrediting and tarnishing those who dissent from conventional wisdom on matters of race, and far too many are falling right into that very trap.

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,,Die Leute erschweren es sich und andern. Doch,“ sagte er, „man muß sich darein resignieren wie ein Reisender, der über einen Berg muß; freilich, wäre der Berg nicht da, so wär der Weg viel bequemer und kürzer; er ist nun aber da, und man soll hinüber!”

“People make it hard for themselves and for others. Yet,” he said, “one must resign oneself to it like a traveler who has to go over a mountain; admittedly, if the mountain weren’t there, the path would be far more convenient and shorter; but it is there now, and one shall cross over it!”

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther)

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Less Than Optimal Reactions to Feminism and the Left

There has been a wide range of responses and reactions against various iterations and waves of feminism. While many of these responses have been quite laudable, many have been most unsavory in their own uniquely peculiar and pernicious ways. Some of the more undesirable phenomena includes figures like Andrew Tate, as well as the so-called MGTOW movement, which encourages men to be overtly hostile to women and withdraw any interest in women categorically. Consider much of the overt misogyny expressed by figures like Nick Fuentes and Matt Evans—who goes by that stupid moniker “Beardson Beardly.” These and other figures routinely engage in rhetoric so vitriolic and ridiculous it defies credulity. Nick Fuentes recently asserted that all women—not just those who hate white men, luxuriate in the sick thrill of abortions, and are utterly unfit as prospective wives or even girlfriends—should be condemned to “rape camps for breeding.” Evans is also a uniquely grotesque figure with his repulsive appearance and manlet stature, compounded by remarks—both unsavory and ridiculous—that only worsen relations between men and women. Given these and a myriad other liabilities from these two and other figures as well, one can only conclude two possible explanations. Either they are part of a black propaganda campaign or nefarious interests have propelled them to influence they do not deserve as part of the “nut-picking” method of discreditation. By either alternative theory, media and social media conglomerates boost unsavory figures in order to taint, discredit, and harm meaningful opposition to feminism and other platforms in left-wing ideology.

This essay concerns one particularly disconcerting outgrowth from the number of responses to feminism: a trend whereby a certain contingent of anti-feminists condone age-inappropriate relationships between older men and younger women, often much younger women. Examples of this phenomenon include a meme altering a famous Stonetoss cartoon, depicting Leonardo DiCaprio bedding yet another young woman in her early twenties, with both stating “I consent” in one panel, juxtaposed with a second panel of a woman in her thirties, a typical feminist shrew, countering “I do not consent.” This is a direct continuation of one of the worst strains in Amiland that celebrates and condones Hugh Hefner and others procuring and corrupting the most desirable white women, quite literally models, actresses and centerfold models. Memes, images, and other expressions in social media express approval of Bill Belichick having a sexual relationship with a 20-something beauty queen, Jordan Hudson. Other instances condone Tobey MacGuire (50) “dating” model and influencer Mishka Silva (21), as well as general approval of Anthony Kiedis (63) having a romance with Eileen Kelly, aged 30.

Interestingly, many such expressions trot out the tired old chestnut that these people are consenting adults, and thus such matters are of no concern to anyone but those individuals who engage in such behavior directly, as if the actions of others, most particularly famous celebrities, have no influence or impact on society, standards, or morals. Unfortunately, the examples of such fare that can only be derided as “manosphere slop” is quite pervasive. Even worse, such materials often not only drive engagement, but often do so with overwhelming approval and support by certain contingents of men.

Dubious Outcomes and Motives

Many foundational texts and videos encourage young men to undergo what has been described during their 20s as “the grind,” focusing on self-improvement and delaying serious relationships until the mid to late 30s, after someone is established in career and socio-economic status. While the emphasis on self-improvement is commendable, the second prong is not. During this period, young men are advised to categorically forego serious relationships with women. In lieu of any serious relationship, many of these gurus recommend “plate-spinning,” that is seeking casual sex and non-exclusive hook-up partners. According to this “philosophy,” only from one’s mid thirties or later should a man even consider the prospect of marriage, let alone a serious, long-term relationship. Rollo Tomassi, better known as “the rationale male,” even cites Aristotle in support of this model:

Therefore, it is fitting for the women to be married at about the age of eighteen and the men at thirty-seven or a little before—for that will give long enough for the union to take place with their bodily vigor at its prime and for it to arrive with a convenient coincidence of dates at the time when procreation ceases.
— Aristotle, Politics, Book 7, section 1335a

There are three important, critical qualifiers and limitations to this recommendation. First, only a small segment of young men are capable of playing the field in this way. As will be demonstrated, in the context of American college life, that ability is largely limited to fraternity men. Because of this and because of the religious and moral convictions of large numbers of men opposed to feminism and the sexual utopia—or rather dystopia—articulated by F. Roger Devlin, a variant of this scheme retains the “grind” aspect, but either advises young men to abstain from “plate-spinning,” or concludes that such prospects are unlikely to succeed. In addition to objections on religious or moral convictions, others are led to another dire assessment. Many conclude that the field of women in the sexual marketplace is in such a dire state that even “plate spinning” is either not possible or presents difficulties of exceeding severity for a critical mass of young men, thus rendering the “plate spinning” scheme infeasible. Finally, these sorts of utterances have yielded to the slippery slope phenomenon, as the same rationale is used to justify pairings with men in their late forties and even their fifties.

As will be demonstrated in this essay, this phenomenon is both harmful and counterproductive, to both society and the individual, and even hurts many (but not all) of the men such messaging is targeted at. This trend further exacerbates the dire state of the sexual marketplace, encourages and condones hypergamous and even mercenary, gold-digging tendencies in women, and fosters dysfunction, neuroticism, and discord in both men and women.

Much of this is in reaction to hypergamous tendencies that define female sexuality, particularly in the modern age. Encouraging men in their 30s and 40s to marry younger women is founded in equal or greater part on hypogamy, a counterpart to female tendencies to hypergamy. While hypergamy is a key, defining component of female sexuality, it is perhaps best known to readers of this publication from Devlin’s seminal tract Sexual Utopia in Power.

Because of this notoriety and association with a natural enemy of the left, there have been attempts to discredit, minimize, and even stigmatize any discussion of the concept. It nonetheless finds itself in more mainstream writing, even from those of a leftist persuasion. Citing Marcia C. Inhorn, a professor of anthropology, Daniel C. Cox describes hypergamy not as a phenomenon rooted in evolutionary psychology, which it undoubtedly is, but rather asserts that “mainstream cultural tradition has encouraged women to engage in hypergamy.” Inhorn further describes hypergamy as the tendency for women to “marrying up to a slightly older man, somebody who’s more career advanced, makes more money.” In complementary fashion, Inhorn describes hypogamy as the tendency for men to “marrying someone younger, less well off, and less academically accomplished.” It should be noted that the analysis provided by Cox discounts evolutionary psychology entirely, attributing these tendencies exclusively to “social norms.” That in turn leads Cox and so many others to utterly wrong conclusions, asserting that women do not reject men out of hypergamy, but rather the opposite:

Those norms are still so ingrained that as more women have made advances at school and work, many men have held it against them. That women’s hard-earned achievements disadvantage them romantically is a dark irony.

Most readers sense this is an utterly absurd statement, as that assertion is refuted at further length below. The predicament faced by most college aged and professional women derives from female hypergamy, not male hypogamy.

This, however, does not validate or excuse the sorts of inappropriate age-gaps recommended by certain circles. While advancing the idea that older men should pair up with (much) younger women at scale do have some basis in the complimentary phenomena of hypergamy in women and hypogamy in men, the dysfunction and harm emanating from these ideas far outweigh any utility or merit derived from this foundational basis.

One of the biggest drawbacks of this phenomenon is that such a scheme worsens and exacerbates the imbalance that already exists in the sexual marketplace, particularly to the extent it becomes a sociological and cultural trend exhibited at scale. Readers are directed to the explanation set forth in “Culture and the Sexual Marketplace.” A healthy sexual and dating marketplace targets a roughly one-to-one ratio of women of reproductive age in the dating pool for every corresponding male counterpart. When that ratio is placed out of balance with a higher ratio of men to available or suitable women, the costs, for lack of a better term, associated with the sexual marketplace go up. As set forth in “Culture and the Sexual Marketplace,” the term “Higher cost. . . signifies the increased competition that occurs between males when there is a smaller pool of suitable female counterparts, as well as the extra time, effort, and money expended in finding a companion in a dating pool characterized by diminished supply and increased competition among male peers.” The “higher cost” imposed on men “is expressed in many different ways, including greater time and effort invested in social gatherings to find a female companion, lesser odds and more time frequenting coffee shops and other venues that present the possibility of a chance encounter, fewer suitable women on dating applications with more men vying for their attention, and so on.” Any number of cultural and sociological trends which render women less suitable as companions, or increase the competition among men for the remaining pool of women worsen these higher “costs” associated with sex, dating, and the search for a suitable companion. Such nefarious elements can include the normalization of promiscuous and even hyper-promiscuous behavior in women, the normalization and even celebration of bisexuality and lesbianism, the transgender menace, and much more besides.

Worsening the Sexual Marketplace

As was contemplated in “Culture and the Sexual Marketplace,” imagine a small, self-contained pool of 5000 young men and 5000 young women at an imaginary college town. This mental exercise helps conceptualize this fundamental precept. That baseline pool of 5000 women to a corresponding subset of 5000 men is deduced by each contingent of women rendered undesirable by appalling and destructive trends in society and culture. The notion that the transgender menace is trite is repudiated by the consideration that greater numbers of young women have been susceptible to this social contagion than have men. If even two percent of women are seduced by such utter madness, that pool of 5,000 goes down to 4900. Those women, often the most desirable, who dabble in escort work or create profiles on sugar-daddy websites deduct another five, ten, fifteen percent or higher. Significantly, many of these “sugar-daddy” arrangements involve wealthy married men, as tolerating let alone condoning such mercenary gold-digging has also prompted many such men to divorce their wives (and often mothers of their children). Then add the sorority sluts who are effectively groupies for frat bros and so-called “student” athletes. And so on and so forth. When these and other harmful trends are compounded, that baseline pool of 5000 is quickly reduced by half or more, with a disproportionate number of the most alluring and attractive subtracted from that pool of young women.

Crucially, normalizing and even condoning young women to date and even marry older men further exacerbates this imbalance in the sexual marketplace, both as a negative influence on women and by raising the “costs” experienced by men in the sex and dating game by way of increased and often unfair competition. This becomes especially clear when one considers that older men typically have more resources than the age-appropriate counterparts that young women should be dating and taking a romantic interest in.

This simply worsens and compounds an already daunting problem faced by many young men who do not hail from the privilege enjoyed by the upper-middle and upper classes, and even some who do have such a background, but do not fit into the vapid gestalt of normie, mainstream American youth. For quite sometime America has had and continues to have a “rich kid problem,” as does Britain and Europe under the foot of American influence and hegemony. In addition to the princess complex, whereby affluent, mostly suburban white young women are spoiled and coddled first by their “daddies” and then soon their male counterparts within a certain radius, both higher education in the United States and American society more broadly have a “frat boy” problem as much as a “rich kid” or even “princess problem.”

As originally set forth in “The Rating and Dating Complex,” fraternities have been gaming the social, dating, and sex game on campus, and they have been doing so for over a century. The manner in which they have been doing this should have sparked an open revolt by “unaffiliated men,” and indeed the sort of revolt that even the most transparent propagandist would blush to describe as “mostly peaceful.” Fraternity houses host parties—and most importantly, parties serving alcohol1—whereby both sorority women and select unaffiliated women are invited, but “unaffiliated men” are not. Jana Matthews, like Willard Wallace and others before her, describes it thusly. As “fraternities exclude potential competitors from their parties,”—that is, by excluding unaffiliated men or even men from certain disfavored fraternities—they “further manipulate the sex ratio in their favor by opening their party doors to unaffiliated women students and multiple groups of sorority women.” This gaming of the sex dynamic combined with “no alcohol” policies in practically all other social contexts on campus “keeps fraternity row as the de facto campus party headquarters.” Parties, social consensus, along with fixation on status explain why college women, almost monolithically, gravitate to such an obnoxious and juvenile phenomenon as the frat bro douchebag.2

A more critical review and analysis of articles on this matter, such as the infamous New York Times article discussed and analyzed several times before by this author as well as Matthews and Cox utterly discredits and impugns the notion that women face an unfavorable ratio of men to women, insofar as women typically constrain the pool of men by an estrogen-distorted lens. Indeed, the appeal of fraternity men may be mystifying to some. Consider, among other things, the propensity to wear baseball caps backward as well as the absurdity of paying tens of thousands of dollars for others to be one’s friend. Fixations on booze, sexual profligacy, and the bread-and-circus distractions attendant to a school’s football or basketball team further define an ethos so utterly juvenile and boorish. Indeed, the Greek system—fraternities in particular--is antithetical to any proper understanding of what it means to be “collegiate.” This sociological phenomenon has tainted and sullied what is crudely palmed off as an “academic environment,” as its uniquely pernicious character is embodied in a constellation of other lamentable portents of American Unkultur: foremost among them, Barstool Sports, although there are oh so many others.

These circumstances are even more baffling given the performative theater about wanting respect, concerns about “date rape,” and not being made a sex object (before quickly objectifying themselves so very quickly). These are the sorts that a critical mass of college women are little more than groupies for. As hard as it may be to believe, young college women are extremely beholden to young men in fraternities, and are so because of social gatherings—women love parties!—and because of status. Encouraging men in their thirties and forties to make significant incursions on the pool of young women in their 20s and even of-age teenagers out of high school only exacerbates this unlevel playing field that is already well beyond the tipping point.

In addition to a target of a one-to-one ratio between men and women in the sexual marketplace, society must also foster social standards whereby young men and women desire each other romantically and sexually during young adulthood. A society must foster and promulgate a sexual marketplace and equilibrium consisting of young men and women who take a sexual and romantic interest in one another with the added social norm and expectation that men and women invest in each other while young. This deters mercenary, gold-digging behavior by women and optimizes the ability of both sexes to maximize their human potential by enjoying the essential advantages of companionship and intimacy when it matters the most. These social norms and standards are mutually beneficial to both sexes. As elaborated in greater detail below, when young women are encouraged to invest in young men as they seek to build their lives, the young men have an easier time succeeding in their academic or other endeavors envisaged to find a meaningful station and place in the world. For women, it affords them a companion that is age appropriate, and avoids the offsetting disadvantages of copulating with older men who are often not as physically attractive and who are not in their physical prime. The oxytocin and other hormones that are released in such optimal pair-bonding scenarios are far more conducive to long-term relationships and even marriage—successful, enduring marriages that avoid the pitfalls of divorce and infidelity.

Social Status and Social Proof: The Key Driver to Sexual Attraction in the Female Mind.

Aside from worsening the state of the sexual marketplace, these ideas are neither helpful nor advisable to young men. Nor are they reasonable. To the extent a variant of “the grind” strategy calls not only for eschewing any prospect of a serious relationship but also prolonged periods of celibacy (voluntary or otherwise), a critical oversight in this absurd idea is that it overlooks how social proof, also known as preselection, is a key, driving force in female sexual attraction.

Women are, to a large degree, attracted to male promiscuity—even those who insist they are not. While men seek and desire attractive women, attractive women are not as interested in young attractive men as they desire men who are desired—or are perceived to be desired—by other attractive, high-status women. This explains why the sorority girl interviewed in the New York Times article “The New Math on Campus” recounts that her frat boyfriend has fucked five or six or her frenemies, that she knows of, and does so without the slightest bit of disapproval. In the female, estrogen-laden mind, this is not seen as a liability or cause for concern, but validation. This in turn means that youth, good looks, even favorable economic status are not—by themselves—sufficient to attract desirable women, and it is questionable whether the first two attributes are even necessary conditions in a strict, absolute sense.3

Consider two anecdotes related by Matthews that illustrate this unsettling truth. The first concerns a sorority girl whose friends were “teasing her” for hooking up with a fraternity brother who is “unattractive and socially awkward.” Clearly, the social status associated with fraternity membership superseded what should be overriding negative factors under any sane, rational analysis, a qualifier that seems to be precluded by the female mind. The second is “Corbin,” a “portly but affable” senior who gloated, in relation to a fraternity party, how the fraternity system has gamed the college social scene:

Coming here for the first time, it’s just you, your fraternity brothers, and all of these women. . ..” So many that it’s almost overwhelming. And then you realize: They are all here for you.

As these and many other examples amply demonstrate, the existence or absence of social proof is often and indeed almost invariably a deal-maker or a deal-breaker. A young man could be a veritable James Dean, have attractive facial features and an athletic body, but if he is a social outcast or a loner, or lacks sufficient social status by, for example, not belonging to a fraternity, he will find that while gay men may look him over routinely, he faces significant more difficulty in attracting women, simply because other attractive women are not observed to be fawning over him. This in turn reveals what a terrible idea it really is to forfeit sex and dating through much of one’s twenties. Indeed, one can scarcely think of a better means of self-sabotage and personal ruin than this.

In a young man’s youth there is a small window to obtain such social proof, starting when youngsters are too young to be having sex (but have been having sex anyway for decades) at about 14-15 through high school. That critical, make-or-break window of opportunity is constricted but remains somewhat open to about 19-20, i.e. the first year or two of college. After that point, being a virgin or having less than optimal experience in sex and dating, to the extent young people still date at all in the age of “hook-up” culture, becomes a liability in attracting and meeting young women. And the longer that state of affairs continues, the more of a liability it becomes. In this way, encouraging or suggesting young men to undertake a decade or more of celibacy is the worst possible advice to give young men. That admonition pertains to both gurus and other sorts who advance age-gaps in relationships in effort to game “sexual marketpalce value” as well as the more rigid, unyielding expression of Christian and other sorts of prudery.

In addition to being a sure-fire way to repel most women, these foolish ideas beget other problems. Sexual intimacy is a psychological and even biological need. To expect young men to run the gauntlet through their entire young adulthood, i.e. late teen years through much or even all of their twenties, is antithetical to human nature and a healthy male sex drive. There are few conditions more likely to beget deep unhappiness, isolation, neuroticism, and much worse besides.

It is likely such a sexual embargo begets other disadvantages in life as well. The psychology racket currently seated in this ideologically corrupt and intellectually hallow university system would be unlikely to ever conduct a number of studies to prove this, but consider this most persuasive hypothesis. Young men with sexual experience, who are desired by attractive women, in no small part because they are desired by other attractive women, often do much better in life in other aspects, including professionally. Imagine a study with two control groups, one with the men who have dating and sexual experience during those critical time periods, and those who have, either by choice or involuntarily, run the gauntlet of prolonged, indefinite celibacy through much of the 20s if not into their early 30s. Which control group fares better with on-campus interviews (OCIs), either in four-year college, or in the post-graduate context of law school, masters in computer science, business school, medical school, and so on? Which control group is afflicted with a greater statistical likelihood of not making the run of four or five years through college or, with post-graduate education, six, seven, or more years, because of emotional breakdowns or other problems? Indeed, barring such catastrophe, the second control group may simply not perform as well merely on account of being afflicted with a sexual blockade while the other is not. While some men are presented with inordinate challenges to aver such a crushing, catastrophic liability, it is an affront and outrage to not encourage young men to avoid such debilitating circumstances.4

It should be noted that most who are proffering this absurd idea are not typically the ones expected to run this excruciating gauntlet. Much of it is just so ridiculous. Few if any are anything close to the sort of Lothario that Leonardo DiCaprio is. Nor do most come even close to comparing to a former, has-been “alternative” rock-star like Kiedis or a retired actor who made bank from the Spiderman movies during the turn of the millennium. The cringe-inducing memes and associated rhetoric allows these men to live vicariously through this wanton, profligate womanizing. On the other hand, those who do gain a personal benefit are not typically the sort who has remained celibate into his late 20s, mid-30s or even 40s before being paired with a teenager or young woman in her early twenties. While in no way equaling the notorious exploits of the worst sort of womanizers such as Leonardo DiCaprio, many of these men were the frat boy types who accumulated quite a few notches on the proverbial bedpost, just as many have already been married and divorced and now want to poach the dating pool that should be principally reserved for the succeeding generation of men. This consideration reveals the plundering and corruption of the younger generation of the women that much more of an outrage.

None of this is to suggest that either the state of young women, especially the zoomers and alphas, is anything close to ideal, let alone tolerable. But these ideas only worsen the matter. Certainly, the sexual marketplace as experienced by most young men is daunting, for many of the reasons set forth in this essay and with even greater detail in “Culture and the Sexual Marketplace.” But suggestions such as these provide no solution whatsoever, either to society or the individual.

Sound But Controversial Advice For Young Men

One bit of sound but in some ways unsettling advice to young men, particularly those men with more idealistic, romantic sensibilities, is to relent to the promiscuous sexual mores of our time. This circumvents the unrealistic expectation and sometimes even the unfortunate reality of prolonged, indefinite celibacy. If an otherwise idealistic young man partakes in certain sexual comforts, certain tawdry dalliances with a woman (or two or three) who is less than ideal and that he does not regard as suitable for love or marriage, this will ultimately provide him that critical element of social proof, of preselection, that is vital for him to ultimately build a relationship with a more suitable woman. “More suitable” is the operative language, as fewer and fewer young women come anything close to ideal with each succeeding generation, and that is no truer than now in this modern age where love, honor, and beauty have seemingly died in most facets of our sick society.

Many readers will balk at this, most especially those who object for religious reasons. Any sensible person must however react to the situation as he finds it and consider the “facts on the ground” as they are. Admittedly, such stop-gap measures do not advance the objective of improving social norms and mores on a macro, sociological scale, but nor does encouraging young men to entertain the mad folly and delusion of prolonged, indefinite celibacy.

A key, fundamental distinction between this recommendation and the classical “plate spinning” advocated by various gurus in the manosphere cannot be emphasized enough. Tomassi and others expressly disclaim considering any possibility of a serious relationship, and do so well into one’s thirties. This model, on the other hand, advises young men to always be open to a more romantically ideal, long-term relationship geared toward marriage, but to be open to other dalliances and forays until such time such an opportunity for a serious romantic relationship presents itself. It must be cautioned, however, that, in this day and age, such opportunities may never come.

This of course is not ideal but, provided the woman in question is not so skeevy as to preclude sexual arousal, and provided that her appearance and aura do not negate the social proof procured from such dalliances, either by being just flat out unattractive if not repulsive or strongly suggesting any number of serious and intractable venereal diseases by her manner and presence, it is a much better solution than the alternative.

This controversial assertion must further be qualified by another assertion, namely that such advice is different for men than it is for women. Because promiscuity for men is fundamentally different than it is for women, this allowance should only ever apply to men. Women are not stigmatized for chastity, celibacy (either on a voluntarily or involuntarily basis), or less than optimal success in the sexual marketplace. Men are mercilessly stigmatized for such circumstances. Although rare, there are some outliers of attractive women outside the mean girl, sorority sister, princess complex type that predominates much of white womanhood in America and the greater Anglosphere at large.5 Before the advent of birth control, abortion and modern medicine reducing the number of deaths associated with complications in pregnancy and child birth, sex always had much higher costs for women than for men. And even with such advances and innovations, sex still does impose a higher cost, by way of asymmetrical risk in contracting venereal disease, the risk of violence against women by the worst sort of men, and less desirability as a potential long-term girlfriend or wife that accompanies higher “body counts.” Finally, as most readers are well aware, there is no real challenge for all but the most unattractive women to find sexual partners, whereas men play the sex and dating game on a much more demanding “difficulty setting.”

While women are generally attracted to male promiscuity (see once again the sorority girl from “New Math on Campus)” men generally are not. And while it is unrealistic in this day and age to expect a “white wedding” in many segments of American society, eventually a woman, despite being quite alluring physically and sexually, passes a threshold with past sexual partners that becomes at first off-putting, and then down right revolting. A woman who has had multitudes of sex partners, sometimes a hundred or more, would compel most men to think long and hard about whether they would want to kiss that mouth, or whether to even stick it or lick it, with or without a condom. For these and other reasons, this recommendation, although far from ideal, is fundamentally different for young men than it is for women.

Restoring Balance in The Sexual Marketplace: The Prime Directive

Nor does this recommendation discount how difficult prospects are for all but those men who are born into certain advantages by way of family and wealth as part of the “rich kid, frat boy” problem discussed earlier. Elements in the culture encouraging any number of vices and destructive behaviors have tainted and ruined a critical mass of otherwise alluring, desirable young white women. These range from not just promiscuity but hyper-promiscuity, the attendant normalization and encouragement of so-called sex work, from traditional pornography to the veritable pariah that is OnlyFans and other such sex cam sites, to the rise of escort work and even “sugar daddy” websites where young women are paired with wealthy men in a thinly veiled pay-to-play scheme. The proper response is not to worsen the dire state of the sexual marketplace by compounding competition by encouraging older, generally more wealthy men to compete with young men who are trying to make a go of their lives. The prime directive must be to restore balance between men and women, create and restore a set of social norms and mores where white men and women desire each other once again free of most of these pernicious social influences and trends. Encouraging men in their mid-thirties and even into their forties and beyond to “date” young women and crowd the dating and sexual marketplace is antithetical to that prime directive.

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Author’s note: this short review and analysis is a companion piece of “Exposing Black Privilege,” which references the plot of this movie while discussing black propensity for noise pollution by way of Bluetooth speakers and many other conveyances.

Resistant reading—or, in this instance, resistant viewing—is an important concept that should be familiar to most readers. That approach is integral to what is often referred to as “opposition research.” In addition to monitoring and understanding subversive and undesirable trends and elements in the culture, a resistant critical approach allows one to articulate how a given book, essay, film or other artistic work actually works against the message intended. A classic example of this is American History X, a film obviously intended to be “anti-Nazi” and “anti-racist.” And yet, despite this intention, viewers often take away the opposite message intended, due to how the film ended (black violence leads to the death of the younger brother) and most especially the infamous dinner scene which proffers a number of irrefutable arguments and contentions for a more race realist perspective.

Although perhaps less obvious to some, the same method of resistant viewing easily applies to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, and indeed does so in very natural ways. The film of course has been lauded by critics since its release almost 40 years ago. This critical acclaim largely stems from who the director is, a want and desire to prop up “black cinema,” and to propagate the film’s dubious messaging on matters of race and society.

Indeed, the film’s near universal critical acclaim is repudiated in large measure by any number of defects in the film, especially the stilted acting by Spike Lee, who plays the film’s central protagonist “Mookie” and even that by Danny Aiello who plays Sal, the owner and proprietor of Sal’s Pizzeria. The film also meanders with pacing and even plot, as much of the first half of the film does little to advance plot, but is rather a pastiche of somewhat disconnected vignettes and scenarios set in the predominantly black neighborhood of Bedford–Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York. Some but not all of these vignettes do have a unifying theme of portraying increased racial tension during a heat wave that summer.

Outside of these vignettes, which do add some context and also introduce the viewer to certain characters, albeit in rather stilted, stodgy fashion, the plot and story is remarkably simple. Sal runs and owns an Italian pizzeria in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood with his two sons. He has also hired “Mookie” to deliver pizzas to customers in the neighborhood. Two interconnected incidents occur that day which lead to a race riot that loots and burns down Sal’s Pizzeria. Quite unrealistically, no other stores or locations in the neighborhood suffer this fate.

“Buggin Out,” played by Giancarlo Esposito, who would later play Gus Fring in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, enters Sal’s restaurant to order a slice. When placing this order, he is rude and confrontational in a way that is uniquely characteristic of much of the black population, even slapping the palm of his hands on the counter when haggling about price and toppings. After arguing with Sal about the price of a slice of pizza and that extra mozzarella cheese is an additional two dollars, this character berates the owner because the “Wall of Fame” consisting of photos of famous Italian Americans does not feature any black individuals. He does not even ask politely, but essentially shouts at Sal, demanding that images of black individuals be adorned on the wall as well. Sal refuses, and soon ejects “Buggin’ Out:” apologies to readers are in order, the character’s real name is never revealed, as is the case with most characters. For the rest of the day until closing, this character tries to convince others to boycott Sal’s Pizzeria until closing.

This incident is compounded by the behavior of one “Radio Raheem,” a 6’4 young black man who spends all day walking around the neighborhood blasting rap on his boombox. Unlike his real-life counterparts, he does not blast rap music generally, but only Public Enemy. Sometime in the afternoon, he walks into Sal’s Pizzeria while blasting this music from his boombox. Sal, rather curtly, correctly refuses service unless Raheem turns off the music. As with ”Buggin Out,” Raheem is not exactly polite in how he interacts with others. He simply utters “two slices,” while afflicting ownership and patrons with his music. When Sal continues to refuse service, Raheem reluctantly turns off the music. Then, as Sal puts two slices in the oven for him, Raheem bellows “yo, put some mozzarella on that mother fucker.” Sal’s response: “extra mozzarella is two dollars.”

Later that evening, Just as the pizzeria was supposed to close, Sal allows four patrons to purchase slices as a last call. At this time, both “Buggin Out” and Raheem storm back in, to confront Sal about not having black individuals on his wall of fame and because he would not allow Raheem to blast his music inside the restaurant. It should be noted that as “Buggin’ Out” was ejected earlier, his reentry is criminal trespass. An argument ensues about both matters. Raheem is blasting “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy, and Sal commands him to turn it off. Raheem does not and even turns the volume up. Sal then takes a baseball bat and smashes the boombox to bits. A physical altercation ensues—an utterly unrealistic one as Raheem gets on top of Sal for a ground and pound. Given his size (6’4) and that he is wearing knuckle fingers featuring “love” and “hate,” such an altercation would invariably lead to either serious bodily injury or death. And yet in the film Sal walks away virtually unscathed.

In the wake of this altercation, the neighborhood is further outraged after the police intervene. One officer subdues Raheem with a baton chokehold. This kills the black youth in short order. The depiction and acting of this climactic moment is very amateurish and is almost reminiscent of a bad high school drama production. Mookie, an employee of Sal’s, then leads the mob by throwing a trash can in the front window of the restaurant before the mob loots and then burns down Sal’s Pizzeria. Incredulously, in the morning after, Sal stands by his burned down restaurant together with Mookie, who bears direct responsibility for the looting and arson. Despite his role in destroying Sal’s business, Mookie demands Sal pay his wages. Sal, again incredulously, actually pays him, just as he remains civil to a man who burned down his restaurant—his business and livelihood. Relevant to the age of Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd riots in particular, Mookie avers that burning down Sal’s restaurant is ultimately inconsequential, because insurance payouts will compensate Sal for his loss. Sal correctly explains that his restaurant was his, something he built up. Sensible viewers will conclude that whether Sal gets to keep his business or collect insurance proceeds after its destruction is not a decision for others to make, particularly those such as Mookie. Insurance payouts are often less than fully compensatory and, in any case, society pays for this in any number of ways by higher insurance premiums (a cost which gets passed down, as everything does), and a myriad of other social costs as well, including that those who liked that pizzeria can no longer patron the establishment.

Some insist that any competent interpretation of this film precludes the assertion that the film excuses or condones bad behavior by various members of the black populace. Yet, both Mookie and the four patrons seem to regard the action of Buggin’ Out and Raheem as more or less ”morally neutral,” whereas Sal finally calling Raheem a “nigger” was what invoked outrage. Blasting music to a captive audience, on private property no less, criminal trespass and, for all intents and purposes, picking a fight is morally neutral, but uttering an unkind word, indeed a racial epithet is a moral outrage. Moreover, the film ends with “Smiley” putting a picture of Martin Luther King up on what remains of the “Wall of Fame” in the burned-out structure. This clearly signifies sympathy and at the very least concurrence with Buggin Out’s ridiculous demands.

Spike Lee and others have argued this film is a litmus test to determine if a viewer is “racist” or not. The idea suggested is that property could never be worth more than a human life. Thus, those who care more about Sal’s pizzeria being burned down care more about property than black lives. To that, consider the blithe retort “guilty as charged,” at least in relation to circumstances such as these. A less flippant reply will articulate that belligerence, rude and outrageous behavior, and even criminal conduct always increases the odds of bad outcomes, and does so by some order of magnitude. As stated, the death of Raheem is poorly acted and defies credulity. But even taking the narrative at face value, society must return to the notion of “unclean hands” when considering such matters. The outrageous and even criminal conduct of “Buggin Out,” “Raheem,” and later Mookie and the neighborhood set in motion the violence and destruction. The precursors to such outcomes are greatly reduced if not eliminated by acting with a minimal baseline of civility and manners, let alone abiding by the law.

The blackies even have an adage denoting this sound principle, although stated in that appalling excuse for English described as Ebonics, or “African American vernacular;” “don’t start no trouble and there won’t be no trouble.” This is intuitive to anyone with even the barest semblance of an upbringing. If a person goes about life speaking to people rudely, making demands rather than asking, shouting commands and even expletives, the chances for a serious disagreement or even physical altercation explode exponentially. When a person walks into a bar, especially a blue-collar bar looking for a fight, he may just get the shit beat out of him, get a broken nose, or worse. Those not inclined to afflict a captive audience with a Bluetooth speaker or, in decades past, a boombox have the decency and courtesy not to subject other people with music that many do not like and, in the instance of rap music, should not like. As much as any sensible person hates and detests rap, “Fight the Power” is not that bad of a song, even if its message is overtly black nationalist and even, arguably, black supremacist. It is at least somewhat listenable, compared to the vast majority of this forsaken genre which should simply be eradicated from the face of the Earth.

But that is incidental. It does not matter whether “Fight the Power” is a good song, a bad song, or whether it has some redeeming qualities or not. Someone could be playing Beethoven’s 9^th or “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure and it is still an imposition on others who may even correctly like this music, but do not want to hear that music—or any music—at that moment, or prefer not to hear it on less than ideal fidelity, or because someone has an earache, or is trying to have a conversation with someone else, and so on. As passionate I am about my own unique and somewhat acquired taste in music, I understand it is not only not for everyone, but would often clear the room in most circumstances. Thus, it would be unthinkable to go on mass transit or other public settings and blast “Pray for Life” by Velvet Acid Christ, “Rhetoric” by The Virgin Prunes, or even “Cracked” by The Jesus and Mary Chain. Or perhaps any number of selections from the album Spite by Sophia might fit the bill even better.

Indeed, imagine a society where practically everyone saw fit to play his own music in any and all public settings. Ten people on a crowded commuter bus or commuter passenger car, with one fellow playing gangsta rap music, another Creedence Clearwater Revival, while another likes hot jazz music. And yet another wants to play the most disturbing selections from Suicide Commando. Society simply could not function, and indeed is not functioning because this sort of behavior has been tolerated to any extent whatsoever.

The same principle applies to any number of matters covered by what is aptly described as decency, manners, and civility. Such considerations explain why sensible people shower daily and use deodorant, so that deficiencies in personal hygiene do not offend or adversely affect others. It is the same reason why those with that bare semblance of an upbringing learn to eat with their mouths closed, learn not to chew gum at all, or if they do, to do so with their mouths closed, as well as any number of good habits that are conducive to good manners and common courtesy, and to avoiding altercations. Conversely, these and many other offenses can provoke strong disagreements and even altercations. There are not many ways more likely to cause offense and potentially cause an altercation than someone saying to someone else “you stink,” even if that insult is fair comment. Those who wish to avoid such insults have the power to do so by taking a shower and tending to personal hygiene. By the same token, blacks who do not wish to be ejected from eating establishments and who do not wish to be called choice racial epithets also have the power to avoid these problems by simply not engaging in the behavior and even criminal conduct that makes such epithets so very fitting.

Despite this film’s reputation as an avatar for civil rights or black liberation or whatever else, there are not many better arguments for segregation and a parting of ways than this film. Mookie is a terrible person and employee. Taking ninety-minute breaks between delivery runs is bad enough, and certainly grounds for termination. Mookie cannot be held responsible for the actions of the other two antagonists, but he is directly responsible for something for worse—looting and arson. That he was not identified and arrested, let alone that Sal would not respond with violence, also stretches the viewer’s credulity.

The film depicts the dysfunction and ruin that defines multiracialism in many other ways, including the animosity between blacks populating the neighborhood and a Korean couple who own a convenience store. Much of the outrageous, criminal behavior characteristic of the black undertow is depicted in other ways, including especially Raheem blasting music on his boom box, a pernicious sociological trend which is exhibited in the modern phenomenon of blacks (and some others) blasting horrible music on Bluetooth speakers in many modern urban settings. In one scene, “Buggin’ Out” picks a fight with a white passerby for simply bumping into him, scuffing his Air Jordans in the process.

Do The Right Thing is not the great film that its many accolades suggest. The conduct and behavior it tacitly condones is appalling to any sensible viewer. That an overwhelming number of blacks as well as that fifth column of liberal, racially masochistic whites applaud both the film and its deplorable messaging underscores that the multiracial experiment has not worked and indeed cannot work. As with many other subversive and other elements in the culture, it does have at least one redeeming quality, insofar as it informs the viewer that these problems and tendencies are nothing new in the black populace, but have persisted and even worsened over the decades. To “do the right thing” can only mean finding a way back to segregation and, above all, effectuating a lasting and permanent parting of ways; that is, to reject the multiracial experiment at long last, once and for all.

ADDENDUM: although not without significant reservation, a playlist has been prepared on Spotify to better punctuate the point about broadcasting my own peculiar taste in music. Although this is offered for the uninitiated, readers are urged to acquire these tracks as hard digital files, as well as to keep and maintain a digital music library that precludes the need for streaming.

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PLEASE NOTE: Readers who enjoy this essay are asked to press the “like emoji” to signify their favor and share with anyone who would find this insightful, interesting, or provocative. Follow Richard Parker on twitter (or X if one prefers) under the handle (@)astheravencalls. Delete the parentheses, which were added to prevent interference with Substack’s own internal handle system.

Author’s note: this essay is somewhat beyond the usual purview of subjects typically covered by this publication. Hopefully it will be of interest to some readers. To those who do not take an interest, be patient, Attention will soon return to subjects more typical of The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective.

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Many who have played Railroad Tycoon III lament that, almost 25 years later, no suitable successor has been released. While this game and the subject of trains, railroads, and videogames is somewhat beyond the typical purview of The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective; some of this game’s qualities and themes tie to general interests of this publication and, ostensibly, at least some of its readers. These include most especially history and economy. Railroad Tycoon III is, as most everyone would correctly guess, a tycoon themed railroad empire game where the player builds a railroad managing both the economy of the railroad as well as managing economic matters more generally. The broader aspect of the economy includes both surveying and identifying profitable routes and industries for a railroad to serve and, ideally, purchase select industries (before they become prohibitively expensive), as well as managing the stock portfolio of the player, as well as issuing and repaying bonds. issuing and buy back of stock, and raising, lowering, or suspending cash dividends per share.

A Concise Introduction to Railroad Tycoon III

The game features a campaign to follow a progression with various maps representing different geographical locations and periods of time. These include campaigns in the early days of railroading in the Northeast in the 1830s, the transcontinental railroad where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific joined at Promontory Summit, Utah, the German railway during the time of Otto von Bismarck before reunification, and many others besides. There are also stand-alone maps featuring other geological locations and time periods. There is also a substantial library of user created maps available for upload into the stand-alone feature of the game. Unfortunately, no new maps have been created for some time, rendering the game long since stale for veteran players.

More crucially, no modern successor to this game has yet been published. Some point to Railway Empire (followed by Railway Empire II), but its many flaws render this series utterly unworthy to be mentioned along this seminal game. Such flaws include unrealistic terrain (including a laughable 4.0 grade along the Washington-Philadelphia-New York corridor as well as mountains in Indiana), a simplified, unchallenging economic model, and so much more besides. Perhaps worst of all, rather than having players and AI play as historical tycoons and other figures, the game afflicts players with these goofy cartoon caricatures reminiscent of bad Hanna Barbera animated series that are completely out of character for a serious, in-depth game focusing on railroading, investment, industry building, and history. One of these goofball characters is this silly New York mob like figure from the 20s and 30s, replete with a poorly rendered New York mobster accent. Even though no railroad tycoon was ever reminiscent of a prohibition era gangster, this clown is featured even in campaigns set in the 1850s. Most who take an interest in such a game do so from an interest in both trains and railroads as well as history. It is thus most befuddling why game developers would afflict the customer base with such juvenile, if not infantile, material that could not possibly appeal to anyone over the age of seven—worsened by some of the worst voice acting there is.

At the start of Railroad Tycoon III as well as its predecessor, the player surveys the map provided, assessing city locations to start a railroad. Unless the map or campaign is set in the post war era and other select scenarios in which case passenger revenue is generally minimal, a player looks for profitability both in terms of passenger and mail revenue as well as commodities to be hauled as freight. In addition to the initial seed funds, a railroad is funded by net revenue and, when circumstances warrant, issuing bonds and offering stock sales to raise cash. At the start of the game, a railroad’s credit rating is marginal, incurring higher interest rates and limiting the bonds available to just one $500,000 bond, sometimes two in rare instances. When a railroad becomes more profitable, and particularly during boom times when interest rates and credit availability are optimal, a player can issue more bonds to expand even more, and even refinance older bonds.

The most notable examples of freight commodities include shipping iron (and very soon steel) to tool and die works and other factories that require these commodities to manufacture various goods. Cattle yards produce livestock to be shipped to meat-packing plants, which is generally one of the most lucrative industries in the game. Shipping corn to livestock can increase the yield of cattle by fifty percent. Grain and even rice can be delivered to brewering distilleries to produce beer, and sugar and fruit can be delivered to wine distilleries to produce wine and spirts.

Steel plants become available in 1856. Steel production and manufacturing industries requiring steel are probably the most lucrative industry chain in the game. Steel plants requires both coal and iron to produce steel. Although sometimes both iron and coal mines are reasonably close, more often than not they require lines extending greater distances than is possible early on in the game. When iron and coal mines are far and distant, sound economic strategy requires building the financial portfolio of the railroad first before being able to build and maintain long distances of rail lines further away from a railroad’s original starting point. Other notable industry chains include logging camps to lumber mills, which then produce lumber which is in demand in cities and later some factories that require wood (toy factories and early on weapons factories come to mind). As reflected in the chart below, the number of foundational commodities provided and industries that these commodities support is incredibly rich, leaving out few commodities and industries served by railroads on large scales not modelled in the game.

One aspect of the game that renders RRTIII superior to its early successors, particularly Railroad Tycoon II, is how it models price based on supply and demand, with distance and terrain being key factors of this dynamic. If a city or region has a surplus of a commodity, e.g. coal in Newcastle or Pennsylvania or West Virginia, shipping that commodity will not be as profitable, and in many instances will be at a loss. Conversely, hauling coal in Western Pennsylvania to a steel plant where coal is not readily available will yield a high profit, provided that the other component, iron ore, is also supplied so that the steel mill can produce steel and operate at a profit.

Another advantage to RRTIII compared to its predecessor is that commodities will move on their own if there is a river or if the distance is not too great, or is not blocked by physical barriers such as mountains. International borders can also prevent commodities from moving on their own. In most instances, a player must purchase track rights to operate in foreign territory, for example Canada for a railroad in the United States or France, Switzerland, and other countries if playing a campaign in Germany; some American, Canadian, and other maps do, however, require purchasing rights for states and provinces, as the German campaign requires purchasing rights to operate in different Länder.

When a player toggles the map to economic mode, different commodities are represented by fractions of a railcar load. If not deterred from great distance, natural barrier, or international border, these commodities will move independently. The principal means by which commodities will move independent of a railroad is by water. This means that a railroad that moves a commodity-in-demand that is also transported by river or coastal shipping will be less profitable because of this alternative means of transportation, that is a competing method of transportation. A rail line that does not follow rivers or even coastlines along the ocean will be more profitable because there is little to no competition in alternative transport. If a line extends to mountainous or other difficult terrain, that commodity can yield an even higher profit, provided it is in high demand at its destination point.

In managing this aspect of the game, a player can either survey industries “ripe” for purchase or, unless a campaign or map has disabled this feature, build a factory. When allowed in game, industries can be purchased at a low floor price when either losing money or breaking even. Otherwise, an industry that is profitable can be purchased at roughly ten times its annual profit. This creates a strategic component whereby prudent tycoons will manage finances so that they buy lucrative industries just before they become profitable. A textbook example involves for example a player who has connected to a town where there is a meatpacking plant. One cattle yard ships cattle by river or is nearby, but the meat packing plant does not yet operate at full capacity because it is not being supplied five loads of cattle a year. A player who can connect to two cattle yards some distance away for, as an example $300,000 and has money left over to buy that meat packing plant while it is still breaking even is well advised to buy that industry before it becomes profitable. When there is an abundance of the foundational commodity, factories can be upgraded to double the output, making that industry even more profitable. As an aside, foundational commodities such as grain farms, logging camps, dairy farms, cattle yards cannot be built but will populate randomly as activity on the map stimulates growth on the game’s economic model. Particularly profitable foundational commodities should be bought as soon as they pop up, because once they become profitable in even a few months’ time, the price will go from $400,000 to a couple million or more.

It should also be noted that passenger traffic is much more dynamic in RRTIII than its predecessor. In Railroad Tycoon II, passengers were spawned and had no particular destination. The longer the distance, the greater the revenue. In RRTIII, a city spawns passengers with each station created, adding connections to a railroad’s network. This means a small, fledgling railroad line only connecting Chicago to Milwaukee will have very limited passenger revenue. The more connections a player has established, the higher the demand for passenger service, and the greater the revenue. Once connected to St Louis, Minneapolis, and other cities, the stations will have more passengers wanting to go to the increased number of cities and towns served by the railroad, as that process snowballs with the more connections a railroad makes. As with freight, cities and towns that can be travelled by river will be less profitable than connections that go inland or by that cannot be reached by river. Routes traversing mountains and international borders are generally the most profitable, provided the demand is sufficient to warrant the costly investment to build a more expensive expansion line. When profitable to do so, and if funds are not better spent elsewhere, players can build auxiliary structures that augment passenger revenue, namely restaurants, saloons, and hotels. Post offices will help keep mail revenue at stations longer before they disappear, to be taken by other conveyance (horse and later automobile).

While building a railroad in a profitable way may sound easy based on this description, that is often not the case, at least in the opening stages of the game. This is one of the reasons why a worthy successor is so needed. In Railway Empire, the economic model is such that profits are staggering with simple, straightforward connections along industry lines, such as cattle yard to a meat packing plant, and then hauling meat to cities without meat. While it depends on campaign and difficult setting, earning more than a modest profit can often be quite difficult in the early stages of most campaigns and scenarios in RRTIII. In many instances, a player may which to survey the goods map showing the seeding of commodities and restart until there is a more advantageous “roll.”

In some campaigns, particularly the Brenner Pass campaign, it is advisable to put seed funds into industry rather than a rail line at all for the first two or three years. If there are AI competitors, this can be dangerous. A map of the Midwest with the Chicago Milwaukee corridor is not a line most would want to cede, although those maps are rarely instances where investing in industry first is the best strategy. There are nonetheless campaigns where the best strategy is to buy dairy farms that pop up, or, if one can issue stock the economics work out, building a lumber railroad hauling logs to a lumber mill purchased at a bottom floor price, before expanding from the lumber mill to a nearby city to haul lumber.

One of the most important considerations in building or expanding a route concerns terrain. When selecting a route, a player can toggle to remove trees and show grade in planning a route. The best routes consider distance of track as well as grade and to what extent bridges and most especially tunnels need to be built, if at all.

Grade is an important aspect of railroading, and something new players often learn about for the first time if they have never played before, particularly those who are less knowledgeable about trains and railroads. Trains run optimally on a grade of 0.0—perfectly flat. Railroad grade is defined as follows: each point in grade corresponds to one foot in increased elevation for every one hundred feet. A grade of 1.0 pertains to a climb in elevation of one foot per one hundred feet in distance, a grade of 3.0 is a climb in elevation of three feet per hundred feet in distance, 6.0 is six feet every hundred feet. The higher the grade, the more expensive the track is and, depending on type of locomotive, the slower the overall speed is, if the locomotive can traverse such a higher grade at all. Many locomotives, particularly earlier models, do not travel well on intermediate grades at all, let alone steep grades. Indeed, any worthwhile successor should probably make it impossible for some locomotives to travel on a grade higher than 2.0. As will be explained later, the game suffers from significant limitations both in terms of grade and building track routes.

Securities, Investment, and Fraud in Railroad Tycoon III

Although somewhat simplified, the investment and securities aspect of the game adds another layer to this game as an economic simulator and sandbox. At the start of the game, the player must found a railroad company with his own money and seed money from investors. If, for example, a player contributes $100,000.00 (in for example 1850 dollars) and $1.400,000.00 of funds from outside investors, he will start with one-fifteenth share in the company. If the game is played at all competently let alone well, the player will want to increase his share in the railroad as much as possible as the railroad becomes much more profitable. As the railroad becomes more profitable, the stock will go up during positive economic cycles, and if the railroad does particularly well, stocks can split two for one, even three or more for one. Ideally, the player will want 50 percent plus share in the railroad as soon as practical, so that he cannot be voted out by other shareholders.

Both the player and AI players can buy stock in one’s own railroad as well as competitors. A player’s personal net worth is largely determined by stock holdings, which generally grow in value but can decline. This is supplemented by a comparatively small salary and stock dividends. Stock dividends only become a sizeable source of revenue once 1) the railroad has grown substantially in size and become very profitable, so that the railroad has excess funds to service dividends, and 2) the player owns a substantial portion of his railroad’s stock. Both the player and AI can buy stock on margin, that is a deficit with stock purchase leveraged against personal valuation based on current prices of stocks held. However, if a stock price lowers to a certain point, a player can receive a margin call from the broker, requiring a sell of stock so that the deficit from margin buys is not more than fifty percent of the value of one’s stock portfolio. This can be very dangerous, as selling of shares (done in 1,000 share batches) lowers the price temporarily, which can lower the valuation of the player’s portfolio even further. This can easily snowball, compelling the player to sell everything and wind up in debt of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. The game does model economic cycles, oscillating from normal economy, prosperity, boom economy, and back down to prosperity, then normal economy and then recession and, if one is really unfortunate, depression. Stocks rise or fall according to these different stages in the economy.

The ability to acquire stocks in competing companies adds an important dynamic to this aspect of the game, as does the ability to “short sell” stock. If a railroad run by AI (or another player in multiplayer) is doing well, and if a player’s stock portfolio and net worth allows him to do so, it can be advantageous to buy up stock in other railroads. This achieves two purposes. One is to increase net worth by acquiring stock in a competitor railroad that is performing well. The other is to gain a controlling share of a hostile railroad.

One trick unscrupulous players can use is a variation of a pump and dump scheme. If a player has a controlling or near controlling stake in his own railroad and a competitor, he can call an election for the competitor railroad, whereby shareholders vote on whether to fire the sitting president and elect the player. If a player controls any amount above fifty percent, the vote of other shareholders will not matter. If a player controls, for example, 40 percent of shares, he needs an additional ten percent of stockholders (based on shares held rather than headcount) in order to obtain control of the competitor railroad).

This should be done while on pause, because if the player is elected, he will temporarily lose control of his own railroad. The player then issues as many bonds as possible, sells industries owned by the railroad, and then buys back stock with these funds acquired, inflating his stock price share. Say for example the stock price is at $55.00 a share at hostile takeover. The buy-backs can raise the stock share price well over a hundred per share. Once about half the buyback funds are expended, the player then unloads the stock piecemeal intermittently with buybacks, buying back more stock with cash reserves from bonds and selling of industries to keep the sell price artificially high, until the player has liquidated all stock holdings at an inflated price. Players will often delete trains, bulldoze track, and sabotage the acquired railroad to doom it to bankruptcy. Then, the player either buys enough stock in the railroad he founded to acquire a controlling share or, if he already has a controlling share, calls an election to be reappointed president of his old railroad. After this is done, the player takes the game off pause and runs his railroad as before.

If a player has a sizeable cash deficit that approaches the 50 percent margin rule that can invoke margin calls, this is an excellent way to infuse a few million in cash in a player’s personal holdings, often giving the player surplus cash to buy more stock of his railroad or a competitor either for another pump and dump scheme or to simply diversify assets to help ensure the player has the highest net worth. Significantly, many campaigns have personal net worth goals, while others require that he be the last railroad tycoon standing. Notably, this is also why regulatory bodies like the Securities Exchange Commission were established. Despite libertarian nonsense to the contrary, unscrupulous robber barons regularly did engage in these sorts of securities scandals, and still do to some extent in modern times, although not in such flagrant fashion. Such wanton and atrocious breach of fiduciary duty would of course be grounds for afflicted shareholders to sue for losses, at least in the modern age.

The game is particularly laudable for how it models short-selling of stock, a bizarre option in securities investment that has been relevant to any number of current events, from the Gamestop Wall Street fiasco to how some investors sold short derivative funds based on sub-prime mortgages leading up to the 2008 financial scandal and disaster. This particular sort of speculation, which has also been used to artificially depress stock prices, should probably be banned, or at the very least much more tightly regulated. Learning to play RRTII and RRTIII has helped many players understand what short selling is, and it is a viable and even necessary strategy when a player identifies a railroad that will likely fail (often because of how bad the AI unfortunately is).

When a player (or investor in real life) sells a stock short, he takes advantage of a legal or financial fiction of “borrowing” that stock, with the requirement that he buy it back later. “Borrowing” that stock temporarily infuses capital at the valuation of the stock “sold short” at the time. If, for example, Enron stock is selling at $100.00 a share just before the scandal broke out. a prudent, insightful investor could “sell” that stock “short.” The amount of stock “sold short“is backed by and limited to net worth, capped at a margin of fifty percent against the personal net worth in cash and stocks (e.g. a player who holds five million in stock cannot be in a cash deficit of more than 2.5 million). A player who “sells short” a million dollars of stock at an aggregate price of $100.00 a share (for 10,000 shares) would get that value in cash, but would have to buy back at some point those 10,000 shares. A stock that goes from $100.00 a share to one dollar a share before bankruptcy would be “bought” back for practically nothing, $10,000 plus commission and other fees, netting a cash profit just short of one million dollars, $990,000.00 minus commission fees, to be precise. If a railroad goes bankrupt and is liquidated, the stock ceases to exist. Players and real investors must be careful, however, because if a stock that is “sold short” goes up, it can ruin a player—or investor. This, incidentally, is what happened in the Game Stop controversy. Hedge fund managers sold signigicant quantities of Game Stop and AMC shares short. Followers of wall street bets however bought those shares in larger quantities, driving the price up to a point where those hedge fund managers had to buy back those shares at significantly higher margins than the “short sell” price.

The Rich Potential for a Modern Successor

Unfortunately, in part because the game is so old, no new maps have been published by users in some time. This has unfortunately rendered the game long since stale for most veteran players. The game is also so old that it requires modifying to run on modern computers and operating systems. The game however suffers from other limitations. A worthy, modern successor to this game is thus sorely needed. One of the worst drawbacks of the game is the graphics. This is to be expected for a game released almost 25 years ago. However, even for its time, the graphics were often less than pleasing to the eye in many important ways. On anything other than flat, zero grade terrain, the railbeds often looked like they were built along a gray brick wall rather than an actual railbed. Building trackage on difficult terrain could at times create a goofy looking roller coaster appearance rather than a realistic looking rail line. The bridges often had these awful ramps that trains would run on, which also looked terrible. Some other visual aspects of the game are an eyesore, including the economic mode which reveals placement of and movement of different commodities. The terrain mode is also a strain on the eyes.

One innovation introduced by RRTIII that was absent from its predecessors was the ability to build tunnels. This was essential given how tunnels played a vital role in some of the historical constructions of many railroads, including the transcontinental railroad between the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads as well as the Donner Pass campaign, where a player must build a transcontinental railroad starting in Germany through Switzerland and the alps to Italy. Unfortunately, the game does not include an even more essential technology to the historic construction of railroads—blasting with dynamite and other explosives. Building tunnels, much more so than bridges, was prohibitively expensive. That prohibitive expense is modeled in the game; tunnels are really expensive and are rarely built in the early stages of a game. Like their historical predecessors, players will often reroute a line great distances to avoid building tunnels, or to at least reduce the number and length of tunnels.

Historically, an important tool—vital, even—to navigate such difficult terrain was blasting with dynamite, and before that was invented, nitroglycerine, although that substance was used more sparingly because of how dangerous it is. Often times a ravine would be carved in a mountain or hill, using blasting as well as the earth carving and earth moving implements available. And yet this important tool is missing from this game—a vital addition that a modern successor could easily employ. As most who have played this game know well, players quickly learned that building a post office (the cheapest accessory building one could add to a station) and then bulldozing it did much to flatten terrain. But players would be wise to scum save, as often this technique would render the terrain even worse. There is a mod that includes a terrain sculptor for less, which better mimics earth moving technology rather than blasting.

Grade is also imperfectly rendered in this game, in part because building track does not include earth moving and blasting technologies. Very often, particularly in the transcontinental route and other maps and campaigns that feature mountains, players would have to settle on utterly unrealistic grades that trains simply could not traverse in real life (cog railways and shay engines excepted). Some grades are in excess of 8.0 or 9.0, although sometimes just for shorter distances. If such ridiculously high grade was built in one or two sections of track, the game does not penalize such interruptions in grade, but for longer sections trains will operate at a prohibitively low speed and high cost. Most locomotives should not be able to traverse such steep grade at all.

Unlike its poor attempt at a modern successor, Railway Empire and Railway Empire II, RRTIII does convey some semblance of realism both in relation to terrain and locomotives. The shay and Mikado locomotives, for example, are modeled to traverse higher grades, with the shay engine excelling at otherwise prohibitive mountainous terrains, reflecting how these engines were used in both logging and lumber mines as well as some mining lines in the mountains. In the game, the Mikado engine can traverse track with a 6.0 grade, but in actuality could not climb a grade higher than 4.0, just as the Consolidation and other engines could traverse a 4.0 in game even though though could not historically.

Railway Empire infamously had a Matterhorn mountain in the middle of Indiana, and the shay engine traveled some 50 miles per hour. As alluded to earlier, the Philadelphia-Washington-New York corridor laughably features a grade of 4.0 in some spots, which is the grade at some of the steepest points along the Cumbres and Toltec line of what was the narrow gauge line of the Denver and Rio Grande!

With modern advances in CPU, memory, as well as AI technology, the general abstract theme of this game could easily be brought to a whole different level in scale, detail, and historicity. Far more detailed maps that better reflect geography could be devised. A successor could also implement a system of research technology, whereby players research any number of innovations from coupling, signaling, to improvements in blasting and earth moving technologies, so on and so forth. Although the commodities and industries offered in RRTIII are incredibly rich, a modern successor could even add a few more industry chains and commodities, or elaborate on industry and commodity chains that have existed in the franchise since inception. One example: steel production is somewhat simplified, as the game only requires the elements of iron and coal. Steel production also requires lime for the coking process. A successor game could also add more precious minerals, such as silver and gold, as well as copper. Gravel and quarry is another profitable commodity that railroads have hauled historically that could be implemented in a modern successor.

There are other aspects a successor could improve on, including signals, railyards, and moving beyond the simple binary of one and two track lines and more particularly stations with just one or two tracks. One simplification of the game is that while one must purchase locomotives, rolling stock, both freight and passenger, is just selected without cost. This is unrealistic. Implementing such a feature with technological limitations of the time would not have been feasible, but advances in computer technology could easily allow a component whereby a player must purchase, maintain, and eventually replace rolling stock during different stages of the game. A modern successor could even model buying and selling of second-hand rolling stock, or selling used equipment for scrap. In the modern age, this could evolve to car leasing and freight car pools like rail box and GATX tank cars as well.

Finally, although utterly infeasible with 2003 computing technology, a modern successor could easily allow players to customize livery and logos for both locomotives and rolling stock. This could be offered as part of the base game, with user provided modifications in the Steam workshop providing even more possibilities. A Germany campaign could allow a player to model the Reichsbahn with forest green passenger cars and crimson Mitropa sleeper and parlor cars. A campaign in the northeast could allow a player to adopt a maroon color scheme and livery to depict The Pennsylvania Railroad. In the diesel era, one could customize both locomotives and livery to replicate historical railroads with some accuracy.

Another limitation of the game is how it models servicing of engines, including service and repairs, which is done by a roundhouse, as well as a “service tower” representing water and sand towers that need to be installed more regularly. Water towers become obsolete once steam power is phased out. Particularly in games where average speed is a factor, but also as a part of best practices adopted by more seasoned players, players are well advised to build service spurs adjoining important stations. When a player buys a locomotive for a new train, he sets consists between stations, then unselects all cars, creates a stop for the locomotive at the service facility spur adjoining a station, then places another stop at the station, with a new consist of freight or passenger cars that are then directed to the next destination on route. This can be tedious and perhaps should be automated. On the other hand, it takes some expertise to know when an engine needs servicing. As players well know, an engine running in need of servicing drastically increases chances of a break down or even crash.

An expansion on track configuration could also be possible with three or even four track mainlines (one express and local or non-express route for each direction). Stations could be upgraded to include four tracks in the same manner. Some veteran players did this in select campaigns where pragmatic by building two separate stations, for example a north- and west-bound station and a south and east-bound station in Chicago, or a north bound and southbound station in Denver (one user created campaign starts with this very dynamic). In relation to campaigns based on the historic Denver Rio Grande and Western and other railroads that used narrow gauge, a separate track construction option could be selected for narrow gauge, offering lower construction and maintenance costs and improved performance for higher grade terrain, but requiring a separate roster of narrow-gauge locomotives and rolling stock. To better reflect the higher operating cost and operational realities of mountainous terrains, engine facilities for helper engines could be built at each end of mountain lines, requiring purchase of additional locomotives that are deployed to be attached to trains before climbing steeper grades.

Finally, a game that used somewhat more granular time compression could incorporate weather and the elements, for example requiring higher maintenance costs in mountain areas, requiring the purchase and stationing of snow-plow equipment, and so on.

Perhaps the biggest improvement offered by a worthy successor would be vastly improved AI. The AI in Railroad Tycoon III was horrible, and rarely presented a challenge except in some user-created scenarios where the railroad is already established. The game was always a solo challenge of sorts to build a railway empire that the AI could not. One user-created campaign requires the player to build the Feather Pass route as the Western Pacific, with the Southern Pacific already established. In that scenario, the Southern Pacific is already built to a point where it cannot fail. However, once a player gains a controlling share of the stock and takes over that railroad (always on pause, otherwise the AI will screw up The Western Pacific in ways that cannot be recovered from, including tampering with custom consists) a perusal of the trains run by the AI shows great inefficiency and even incompetency.

With superior AI and the potential for more in-depth campaigns and scenarios, the possibility for more historically accurate campaigns with far greater depth and detail would also be possible in ways never before imagined. A modern successor could offer Paradox sized maps allowing for operations and construction on a much larger, with much more granular time compression by weeks or even days, rather than months.

Consider the potential for a modern rendition of the transcontinental campaign, not only with blasting and earth moving technologies not offered in RRTIII, but with added dynamics reflecting government grants, struggles and tensions with the union, including labor strikes and even revolts, and many other aspects that the railroads faced historically. Another campaign could involve managing the Denver Rio Grande with a competent AI controlling its historical nemesis, the famed Atchisson Topeka and Santa Fe, offering the player the race to the silver mines through the Royal Gorge, as well as the challenge to build and run the narrow-gauge line from Durango down to Santa Fe with detailed, geographically accurate maps and accurately rendered models of the various narrow gauge steam engines fielded by the Denver and Rio Grande Western. Detailed, in-depth campaign maps offering an experience based on the histories of The Pennsylvania Railroad and particularly the Baltimore & Ohio in the 1830s would also be incredibly engaging.

Modern computing technology, allowing improved AI and more expansive maps would even make possible a detailed, century-long campaign involving the Great Northern and the other Hill railroads (after the “empire builder,” James J Hill) with campaign goals of first building the empire route from Minneapolis to Seattle, as well as the requirement to gain control of the other Hill railroads to eventually form The Burlington Northern railroad—unfortunately a fallen flag railroad that I will forever be beholden to and enamored with, given childhood memories as well as the aesthetic appeal of its cascade green, white, and black color scheme and livery. That might be a little too ambitious, a but a grand, centuries-long Great Northern/Burlington Northern campaign would truly be epic, in the actual, correct sense of the word.

With customizable color schemes and liveries, the steam engines could easily don the forest green boilers of the Great Northern as well as the Great Northern mountain goat emblem. Similarly, in the diesel era, after the player has completed the merger, the modern diesels could reflect the cascade, green, and white of that green monster, the Burlington Northern, which sadly only existed for a short twenty-five years. Perhaps merging with the Santa Fe could be the final campaign goal before additional campaign goals of acquiring The Frisco Line, Coloarado and Southern, and Texas Pacific, with the option to merge into a new entity, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and later just the BNSF, or remain as the Burlington Northern with its superior color scheme, livery, and interlocking “BN” logo!

These and other scenarios could introduce interaction with labor unions, advent of government regulating bodies like the ICC, the potential is endless. But until and unless a game developer actually undertakes the laudable—and this author would suggest wholly necessary—endeavor to develop such a game, such musings are alas purely fantastical.

Overall, Railroad Tycoon III was an excellent but now very dated game that scratches an itch to satisfy both enthusiasm for trains and railroads as well as offering a fairly dynamic economic simulator modelling both supply and demand of commodities and manufacture and transport of goods, as well as having a decent although somewhat basic financial securities component. Trains remain a tremendously popular subject, particularly among boys and men. Trains are one of those interests infused into our sex from a very early age, like dinosaurs, military, and tractors. The basic concept of Railroad Tycoon III could be wonderfully updated with the incredible advances in computer technology, offering both realism and depth that the game could never have dreamed of offering due to technological limitations of the time. Although the prospects seem dire, hopefully this piece will contribute to some impetus to getting some sort of worthwhile successor. The concept and potential is right there for the taking—it just has to be implemented and executed.

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Author’s note and disclaimer: as with all matters concerning race and intergroup conflict, this essay examines whites and blacks as a collective. As with almost any phenomenon under the sun, there are invariably outliers, exceptions to the rule. Although such outliers obviously exist, they do not negate overwhelming trends. Nor should they require constant mention in seemingly endless qualifying statements.

Readers are doubtlessly aware of the many insufferable harangues about so-called white privilege. That notion could not be more offensive to those whites alienated or even dispossessed by an increasingly dystopic society defined by increasing economic uncertainty as well as ever compounding social ills. Many suppositions of white privilege are an outright lie, a fantasy that all enjoy “undeserved benefits” and coast through life, as if this were the land of chocolate and sunshine, of gum drops and sweet kisses. Much of the rhetoric surrounding white privilege is not only non-sensical, but contradictory. Some of the rhetoric leaves the impression that, as part of “white privilege,” most whites are well-to-do, trust fund baby sorts. Many advocates of this lie insist this is not the case, acknowledging there are poor or disadvantaged whites, and yet, in practically the same breath, carry on about matters such as inter-generational wealth, while also endorsing false analogies such as race metaphors where different people start at different starting points, with whites invariably starting closer to the finish line than blacks. Much has been written to dismantle the lie of white privilege, and so it will be dismissed summarily and out-of-hand. Not nearly enough, however, has been written about black privilege. Unlike its fabled counterpart that has been droned on about incessantly by leftist pigs and the assorted band of multi-culti mousketeers and racial agitators of varying hues of brown, there is much to corroborate both the existence and pervasiveness of black privilege. As circumstances become ever more dire with ever worsening demographics, these and other related topics bound up in race will only become more pressing and urgent with the passing of time.

This examination of black privilege reveals three abstract tendencies, three general principles that characterize this pariah that so many are all too cognizant of, and yet so few dare to mention except in hushed tones in places where voices are less likely to carry. A key, central characteristic defining black privilege is the taking of seemingly endless race-centered benefits on a chronic, inter-generational basis. This is compounded with the most extraordinary license, a sense of entitlement, on any number of things as explained further below. Finally, such license and entitlement is afforded to blacks on a unique standard conferred solely on the basis of being black.

One of the most immediate and striking features of black privilege is the twisted social norm whereby racially charged insults or words of disparagement are given special, unique status comparable to the otherwise dormant doctrine of “fighting words.” In all other scenarios, harsh offensive words do not dispense with the societal expectation and legal duty to refrain from physical violence. As the “fighting words” doctrine has become more and more a dead letter in all other contexts, this pertains to even the most offensive insults directed at a wife or girlfriend. If, however, a white person insults a black person, particularly with a racial insult or slur, more and more elements of modern society regard it as increasingly acceptable for the insulted individual to react with violence. In many ways it is even encouraged.

As most readers are well aware, a black defendant in Portland, Gary Edwards, was acquitted of second-degree assault, for what should have been attempted murder. He was acquitted in no small part because his victim uttered a racial epithet. A brief perusal of social media reveals any number of utterances not just by blacks but by some white liberals as well that the utterance of certain epithets or even insults excuse and even justify a violent reaction, even including violence that causes serious bodily injury or even death. This perverse social order is reminiscent of laws in Medieval Europe whereby nobility were conferred special legal protections and privileges in relation to the utterance of insults or other disparaging words by commoners. Given crime statistics and the unspeakable vulgarity and crassness that typifies much of so-called black “culture,” and given that those of white European ancestry are the legitimate heirs and benefactors both of the American polity and European civilization more broadly, blacks are the last racial demographic that should be afforded special status reminiscent of European nobility in the Medieval age. And yet that is precisely what American society has done in so many contexts.

Unique, special status is conferred on blackies in other ways as well. In relation to whites in particular, much of American society is governed by racial norms and mores that have arisen in the wake of The Civil Rights era and desegregation. Sometimes referred to as the post war consensus (even though much of it came about in the 60s), this ethos has rendered many sensible positions as socially anathema. Expressing opposition to race mixing and interracial marriages has become largely socially unacceptable in mainstream society. So are most utterances expressing cognizance of white European identity or in-group preference for whites. Remarkably, these twisted social norms mandated by this perverse social order simply do not pertain to blacks in most instances.

To illustrate this, consider the recent incident concerning Emily DuBose Alderman, an alluring blonde and southern belle in South Carolina. Ms. Alderman posted a video in which she was in her bathroom wearing a bathrobe while expressing opposition to many of the inverted sexual mores that have come about in modern American society. She not only denounced homosexuality, but also denounced race mixing and more particularly media messages and social programming that advocate for race mixing. And rightly so. Unfortunately, her video soon became viral, drawing widespread condemnation. It is of note that unlike the incidents surrounding Shiloh Hendrix, Crystal Wilsey, or Sydney Claire Goins, Ms. Alderman never uttered any racial epithets, nor did she use any vulgar or demeaning language at all. She simply denounced race-mixing.

Despite incidents like those above, two of which rewarded these women for breaking social taboos, the Internet lynch mob came out in force, denouncing Alderman. They soon ascertained her identity, even contacting her employer. While it has not been confirmed that she was fired from her job, her profile on her employer’s website, or perhaps former employer, is no longer visible.

Note, however, that militant blacks, particularly black women, often denounce race mixing, invariably with no such adverse social sanctions or negative consequences. This reveals a bifurcated “moral” code that applies two, distinct standards based on race. Whites are subjected to a most exacting standard where any deviation from the post-war consensus can incur devastating consequences. Blacks, however, are largely excused from this exacting standard.

Black privilege reveals itself in other ways, again defined by a different set of moral and social standards than those applicable to whites. Until very recently, affirmative action was not only regarded as constitutional, but was embraced as official policy not just of the federal government but many state and local government as well. While the Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action policies in college admission practices is a positive development, the practical effect will be limited, particularly as the majority opinion even provided college admission boards a blueprint on how to get around the Supreme Court ruling:

[N]othing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.

While the Trump Administration has issued executive orders ending affirmative action policies formerly embraced by the federal government, there has been no Supreme Court or appellate court decision ruling such discriminatory policies in hiring and government contracts unconstitutional. Affirmative action policies nonetheless inform much of social policy, not just in terms of government policy at the state and local level, but also decision makers in the labor market. This explains why, in the wake of the George Floyd fiasco, Fortune 500 companies largely abstained from hiring white males at all.

A typical feature of the modern workplace is the same set of bifurcated standards applied to whites in particular and blacks on the other. In the American workplace, blacks and other racial minorities are not only allowed but encouraged to talk about their racial identity, and how it is important to them and to the “diversity values” of their employers. Many even put memberships in black organizations on their LinkedIn profiles and company biographies. This is complemented by the posting of any number of images and postings centered around such racial theater. Any such comparable counterpart would never be tolerated by whites.

In a never-ending pursuit of “diversity values,” blacks are courted both in the hiring process as well as internal promotion in ways that are never conferred on whites. These and other considerations bestow a perverse but also substantial social credit on black individuals in the American workplace. Many readers will doubtlessly have noticed a social trend whereby the manner of many black individuals in the workplace is wholly wanting. Outrageous conduct that is nothing short of rude, combative, and unprofessional is not only tolerated but tacitly condoned when exhibited by black employees and even managers. Because such behavior is not typically tolerated from other groups on a macro, aggregate level, this is tantamount to black privilege. Stated another way, blacks in particular are afforded undeserved license that excuses and thus enables such unsavory behavior to be so pervasive as to constitute not only a racial stereotype, but a stereotype that is reproduced and verified by the experience of most who have worked in the American labor market.

Consider also how black privilege factors into the application screening and interview processes. The vast majority of the interview process is largely defined by a lack of sincerity. In American corporate and business culture, applicants are encouraged to exhibit the very worst traits of American phoneyism: fake T.V. smiles that range from broad grins to a half-assed, open gape, enthusiasm that is relentless as it is hollow, and upbeat glad-handing of the worst howdy-do sort. These and other insufferable mannerisms define what is pejoratively referred to as demonstrative positivity; in leftist, brain-rotted parlance it is more often referred to as “toxic positivity.” In this particular context somewhat reminiscent of brain-rotting game shows, applicants, at least those not enjoying black privilege, are only encouraged to sell their candidacy in very limited ways, limited to a restatement of academic and other credentials, along with relevant work history, as well as a very limited set of other approved talking points. Any personal adversity, such as coming from a broken home that makes such credentials less common is most unlikely to ingratiate a candidate to those making hiring decisions, at least insofar as these practices pertain to white individuals.

Blacks, however, are given license to discuss challenges in their personal history in ways simply not available to whites. This is particularly so if personal challenges are cloaked in the garb of racial theater. Consider for example the case of one Carmen Allen Day. Day is a black attorney who made the news by using her troubled past as a talking point that convinced partners at a midsize, regional law firm to hire her. She recounted how she was in the juvenile criminal justice system and implored the judge to be lenient, suggesting that, with leniency, Day might once again go before the judge, not as a defendant, but as a lawyer. Critically, it was revealed these details of her personal history were a central feature of her interviewing strategy. A hiring partner, William Tambussi, stated this was a key, critical factor behind the decision to hire her.

Those familiar with the applicant screening processes of human resource departments and hiring committees know that these entities are extremely unlikely to indulge white applicants in the same way—and this assessment is no truer than the rigid, conformist culture of American law firms: big law firms most especially, but also mid-size regional firms like Brown & Connery. Blacks of course are not the only persons who face disadvantages that make graduation from college or even law school less likely. Despite blithe assertions about white privilege, many whites, particularly in this day and age, face disadvantages of their own. Simply being raised by a single mother greatly multiplies the likelihood that a person will be afflicted by any number of social maladies. In some instances, being raised by a single mother multiplies the occurrence of such maladies by some order of magnitude. No hiring committee, especially not in an American law firm, would look kindly on a white applicant trying to “sell” his application for employment by discussing what are regarded as deeply personal matters, but what are often in fact substantial adversity that makes certain credentials particularly extraordinary. Black applicants mentioning family disruption, absent fathers, or “systemic” barriers tied to race frequently—if not invariably—receive the benefit of the doubt. When uttered by a black applicant, the candidate is regarded as resilient. Indeed, such an individual’s candidacy is regarded most favorably as an opportunity for the hiring committee to follow through on the organization’s mission statement on “diversity values.” Conversely, a white person who comes from a disadvantaged background—perhaps a late bloomer in academics, or was an “at risk” youth in adolescence, or was not raised by a stable, two parent household—would be highly discouraged from divulging such struggles in any attempt to convey what makes his candidacy unique or compelling. Such details from a white applicant are invariably viewed as private family and personal matters, and would be dismissed either as a potential red flag for “fit,” or simply irrelevant to the preferred diversity goals. Blacks, however, are not only encouraged to divulge such personal matters in ways that are frowned upon if done by whites, they are often presumed to have such disadvantages because of “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” so on and so forth, ad nauseam ad infinitum.

Asymmetric standards in behavior and conduct are deeply embedded in the American workforce in other ways, in no small part because of the onerous body of so-called civil rights laws. Those who do not enjoy “protected class” status are subject to at-will employment in a practical, de facto sense that does not apply to racial minorities. Absent an employment contract, an employer can fire an employee for any reason, or even no reason at all, with very limited exceptions. Lest there be any confusion on the matter, whites can theoretically—as a technical, legal matter—sue for reverse discrimination. Title VII and other body of civil rights laws are facially “race neutral.” It should also be noted that term “protected category” is often used to describe this body of laws, although this is done in ways that are less than precise. In a strict legal sense, that term only really pertains to so-called strict scrutiny of judicial review of laws in relation to the equal protection and due process clause of the 14^th Amendment.

As a practical matter, however, various features of anti-discrimination laws do confer a de facto protected status on racial minorities—blacks most especially—as employers generally apply two different standards to whites on one hand and blacks as well as certain other racial minorities to some lesser extent. White employees, most especially men, are subject to the at-will employment doctrine that facially applies to all, but in practical reality does not. There are a number of exceptions to at-will employment, but most of these are protections from racial or sexual discrimination. One of the only exceptions that does apply—as a practical matter—to white men in particular pertain to so-called whistle blower exceptions to at-will employment. Whistleblower protections make it unlawful for employers to terminate or otherwise punish or sanction employees for reporting unlawful conduct by an employer. Such conduct runs the gamut from violations of OSHA and other safety regulations, to violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights laws and other bodies of law, to under-reporting taxable revenue and other unlawful conduct, to any number of other violations of the law. The practical effect of this is that, unless something the white male employee has done evokes whistleblower status, and absent an employment contract that removes from the employment agreement outside the parameters of “at-will,” an employer can terminate a white employee free of almost any encumbrance, just as an employer can demote or otherwise sanction a white employee in accordance with at-will employment.

With racial minorities and blacks in particular, this standard does not apply in practice. For all intents and purposes, blacks in particular are simply not at-will employees in the same way their white counterparts are. Obviously, so-called discrimination against racial minorities is illegal under federal civil rights laws, as well as various state and local laws. This would be bad enough if potential claimants simply had to prove, by some preponderance of the evidence,1 existence of racial prejudice. That, however, is not the standard. The body of civil rights laws features a number of legal mechanisms that shift the burden of persuasion and burden of proof on the employer, whereby the employer must prove, or at least demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that racial discrimination did not play a role. Indeed, the body of civil rights law allow for a claimant to assert that there is a “prima facie”2 case of racial discrimination by any number of circumstances, most notably disparate impact3 as well as a history of terminations or other negative sanctions directed at a disproportionate number of racial minorities, blacks most especially. Imposing legal liability merely by disparate impact is particularly Kafkaesque insofar as such disparate impact can be fairly—and rightly—attributed to dogged, intractable differences between the races, at least on the collective aggregate. Such a simple and obvious explanation, very much in conformance with Occam’s razor, cannot be uttered in much of polite society and indeed the mere suggestion by an employer, regardless of how sensible or obvious, would be tantamount to what is known as a statement against interest: an admission of “racial prejudice” that would be certain to impose stiff penalties for violating these onerous bodies of civil rights laws.

The practical effect of these burden-shifting mechanisms imposed by various civil rights laws is that racial minorities, blacks most especially, enjoy a different standard of review in the employment context than do whites. If a black employee is under-performing, or is engaging in unacceptable or undesirable behavior that is agitating other coworkers or even customers and clients, human resources does not, as a general rule, simply fire that person, or even impose any number of lesser sanctions such as a reprimand. Rather, an employer, usually the human resources department, will meticulously document each instance of behavior that justifies an adverse employment decision, from reprimand, to demotion, to termination of employment. Absent the most egregious behavior which demonstrates clear and obvious “for cause” grounds of termination, the employee is retained over a longer period of time than would typically apply to a white counterpart, with each supporting incident documented in an internal file. This is done as a prophylactic measure to protect the employer from racial discrimination lawsuits, or at the very least to protect employers from adverse outcomes in such lawsuits to the furthest extent practical. The purpose of such documentation is to provide affirmative proof that termination or other adverse decisions have been made for cause. A showing of termination for cause precludes the possibility of unlawful racial discrimination.

Such adverse employment decisions for whites require no such evidence for cause. White employees, unlike their black and other racial counterparts, are subject to the capricious and arbitrary standards of at-will employment in practice, absent some very limited exceptions. The ultimate and practical effect of this is that employers are less likely to terminate or negatively sanction black employees and that it will take longer to terminate black employees, which in turn often gives such employees a greater window of opportunity to remediate unsatisfactory performance and behavior.

While the body of anti-discrimination laws under Title VII and other laws and the number of state and federal agencies is facially race neutral, what is regarded as legally actionable hinges greatly on the racial identities of the plaintiffs and actors that are alleged to be engaging in discriminatory conduct or conduct that creates a hostile working environment. Consider how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that a black postal worker complaint about coworkers wearing clothing adorned with the Gadsden flag was sufficient to state a claim. These laws are supposedly race neutral, but this is belied by the practical consideration that any white employee who dared complain about, for example, the Pan African flag4 being worn or displayed by a black coworker, would be treated very differently. No prudent white employee would dare complain about such an expression of racial affinity. Indeed, such complaints could be considered as evidence of the white employee’s own racial prejudice or hostility against blacks.

As one might predict, the range of this asymmetry in standards is ever expanding, not contracting or even remaining static. Consider for example the latest iteration of so-called civil rights laws, whereby blacks receiver special accommodations for what are ultimately outlandish hairstyles. Known as the Crown Act, the House passed proposed legislation to the Senate, where it died due to a filibuster by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Some 27 states and the District of Columbia and over 50 municipalities have, however, promulgated and passed similar legislation, making it unlawful for employees to prohibit or sanction black employees from donning Afrocentric hair. This can range from long Afro hairstyles, to dreadlocks, to cornrows. Precisely because employers have proven time and again to be particularly risk-averse to any policy that could be even remotely used as the basis for a lawsuit based on anti-discrimination laws, the practical effect is that black individuals in these jurisdictions have a license to exhibit any hairstyle they choose, under the color of being protected by unique cultural identity and part of African heritage.

Of course, no such accommodations are made to whites for hairstyles that, although newer, are nonetheless an expression of modern European cultural identity. No white person, for example, could assert that ratting hair out like Robert Smith of The Cure as well as other figureheads in 80s alternative culture was somehow a part of his unique cultural expression or identity. Ancient hairstyles donned by the pagan Germanic tribes should similarly be immune from employer sanction if such standards were applied on a race-neutral basis.

Consider a somewhat more mainstream hairstyle that has nonetheless lost favor of late. The so-called Hitler youth cut, more properly described as the undercut, had gained tremendous popularity from about 2010 until Richard Spencer and others gave it pronounced notoriety. For this and other reasons which are not entirely clear, certain employers and, more particularly, more socially conservative areas of the labor market disfavor the hairstyle. The undercut hairstyle is especially discouraged if a man dons the haircut with the sides cropped with a zero razor, i.e. practically bald. Some readers may be incredulous, but various articles and message board discussions caution against sporting this hairstyle, particularly in certain professional settings, especially law and finance.

It is remarkable such a “clean cut” look could be discouraged, particularly as it has existed for centuries. And so American society presents ever more distorted social and even professional standards whereby the clean-cut look of the undercut is discouraged, all while employers can face legal sanctions in a majority of states and quite a few municipalities for disfavoring dreadlocks, cornrows, or other aggressively Afrocentric hairstyles. If blacks can compel employers to accept outlandish “Afrocentric hairstyles,” whites should be afforded the same privileges in relation to hairstyles associated with European racial and cultural identity. That blacks are afforded special privileges to exhibit outlandish or unusual hairstyles while whites are not should violate the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment, but of course constitutional law simply does not work that way.

While new legislation similar to the Crown Act is not racially neutral,5 other facially “race neutral” laws are applied very differently based on the race of the subject in question. So-called hate crime laws are notorious for this. Social media and news outlets are awash with instances of black-on-white violence that exhibit naked racial animus against whites, and yet these so-called hate laws that would surely apply in comparable instances of white-on-black interracial violence are rarely invoked by prosecutors. Indeed, a recent campaign highlighting racial violence against Asians collapsed quite quickly when it became apparent that most all such instances involved black perpetrators.

Perhaps as an outgrowth of these onerous body of laws, different sets of standards applicable to blacks that is not applicable to whites and other racial groups is exhibited in other social contexts as well, most particularly urban settings. With the advent of smartphone and Bluetooth technology, a social plague has arisen whereby a critical mass of blacks feel they have license to broadcast their shit “music” on mobile Bluetooth speakers.6 This has become a regular occurrence on mass transit and various other settings in American cities; Blacks are so notorious for it that the Carnival cruise line had to amend its passenger code of conduct and the rules and regulations of its cruise line to address this problem. Black passengers would routinely go to a swimming pool, deck, or other public area of a cruise ship and blast their garbage “music” on Bluetooth speaker, imposing on all other passengers, until Carnival amended its rules prohibiting such conduct. This of course was met with cries of racism, rather than an acknowledgement that such behavior is simply unacceptable or that, on a group, collective level, no other demographic group engages in such behavior to such an extent as to require promulgating a new set of rules and regulations to prohibit such obnoxious and unsavory behavior. Indeed, in a healthy, normal society, such express prohibitions would not need to be promulgated at all because basic decency and enforcement of basic societal norms would prevent the occurrence of such behavior from happening at all.

Of course, such behavior is nothing really new, as blacks have been known to engage in such behavior decades ago in the late 70s, 80s, and into the 90s. Rather than the Bluetooth speaker, the weapon of choice was the boombox.7 This was so prevalent as a cultural and sociological phenomenon it was even a plot device in the film Do The Right Thing. Radio Raheem, an imposing black youth at almost six feet four inches in height, roamed the neighborhood blasting Public Enemy nonstop, all while wearing “knuckle rings” bearing the words “love” and “hate.” These are considered dangerous if not lethal weapons in many contexts. Raheem went into Sal’s pizzeria blasting music from his boombox, was refused service unless he turned off his boombox. He later came back with “Buggin Out” (played by Giancarlo Esposito aka Gus Fring) at closing time to again confront the owner before. A physical altercation soon breaks out after Sal smashes the boombox with a baseball bat. All too predictably, Spike Lee, the blackie, sees nothing wrong with a ghetto thug roaming around blasting his shitty rap “music” on his boombox, making the entire neighborhood a captive audience.

The perverse social phenomenon whereby society tolerates the blasting of “music” on Bluetooth speakers in public settings demonstrates once again that there are two different standards based on race: special privileges conferred on blacks because they are black. Indeed, such asymmetric standards are becoming more prominent in society—not less—as whites are on a seemingly irreversible trajectory to become a mere plurality, rather than an absolute majority.

Black privilege and the astonishing asymmetry of standards and norms between blacks and whites even colors how much of the left—particularly white liberals—perceives and reacts to various crimes and news events. Consider the matter of Amy Cooper, better known as “Central Park Karen.” Cooper was accosted by Christian Cooper (no relation, obviously) for not leashing her dog in the ramble. Notably, he made a veiled threat against the welfare of her dog:

Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it.

He then reached into his coat to give her dog a treat, with the clear and unmistakable implication that the treat is likely tainted with poison or some other adulterant that would harm the dog or make the dog sick. There is also the alternative implication that the treat is used to draw the dog to him so that he could take the dog away from her. Cooper threatened to call the police, noting she will tell the police not that a man is threatening her, but that a black man is threatening her. This was sufficient to ruin her life, even though by all accounts she was a good, affluent white liberal and New Yorker. For the purposes of this essay, consider how the left would have reacted if a white man had accosted the woman, particularly in the context of the “#metoo” movement and the left’s preoccupation with violence against women that is out of all proportion to crime statistics, particularly in relation to white criminal suspects, as opposed to black. Cooper would have been praised and received sympathy as a victim of “verbal violence.” The same Internet lynch mob would have done everything to track the white man down and ruin his life. But, because Christian Cooper was a black man, and because blacks are so much higher on the progressive stack than “cisgender white women,” the tables were turned against the woman, causing her to lose her job and remain in hiding in Canada to this day.

A similar phenomenon applies to the heinous murder of Iryna Zarutska at the hands of Decarlos Brown Junior. It was remarkable how the mainstream media refused to cover this shocking murder. Murals honoring the memory of Zarutska have not only been disfavored by the left but even condemned, with one mayor denouncing such a mural as divisive, demanding it be removed. Had a woman been slaughtered in such brutal fashion by a white man, Zarutska’s tragic death would be embraced by the left as an appalling example of violence against women. But, because the accused killer is black, the left regards this matter in very different ways. These are just two immediate examples among countless demonstrating how the left’s disposition and attitude to a particular crime or news story is determined less by the facts underlying such incidents but how different actors in these incidents line up in the “progressive stack,” with blacks being at one of the very highest echelons of this perverse social order.

This ethnic, racial, and even ideological particularism is demonstrated in a wide variety of other contexts as well. It explains the vastly disparate treatment of upheaval, unrest, and organized violence in Black Lives Matter “protests”—which were often race riots and naked lawlessness—and the severity with mostly white January 6 protesters were subject to a political witch hunt and zealous prosecution by the Biden administration and the FBI. It also explains how blatant anti-white animus is tolerated and condoned in films like Django Unchained and most recently Sinners, but a comparable analog targeting any other racial group other than whites would be unthinkable.

The multicultural experiment—best described as multiracialism—would be untenable even if blacks were held to universal standards equally applied to all racial groups. As most readers are doubtlessly well aware, a myriad of deficiencies in the black population has, on the collective whole, proven utterly and totally intractable, despite some eighty years of concerted effort to rehabilitate this population. These efforts include the onerous body of civil rights laws, trillions in expenditures in Great Society programs, Section 8 housing, so on and so forth. Indeed, the degree to which white civilization has attempted to accommodate so many of their needs and intractable, incorrigible shortcomings is truly astounding, particularly as this insane project has continued on, in vain, for generations. None of these drastic measures have ameliorated what could amusingly be referred to as a “racial commitment to crime,” a collective IQ gap that falls between one to two standard deviations (or more) behind those of whites and Asians, and an ever-worsening ancient hatred against whites. This ancient hatred has only worsened over time, despite unquantifiable expenditures in blood and treasure to remediate alleged past wrongs—all in a vain attempt to emancipate and rehabilitate the black population.

This asymmetric set of standards makes this horrible experiment all the more intolerable, especially as this asymmetry is applied to more and more areas of life, not less. That blacks are conferred with more and more benefits, particularly in the workplace, is an absolute outrage. They enjoy a much more favorable standard for both college admissions and applicant screening processes and interviewing and hiring practices. In an age of insane, unreasonable applicant screening processes and the greater tyranny of the human resources department, a critical mass of employers has adopted a strong motivation to hire blacks, while being less than motivated to hire applicants more generally, particularly white applicants, by any standard that could be regarded as sane, let alone reasonable. As outlined above, a similar double standard uniquely beneficial to blacks pervades much of American society beyond the workplace, and does so across an ever-growing number of metrics and areas of everyday life. These insidious double standards conferring unjust and undeserved benefits on the black populace are just one way of many in which this multiculti delirium simply compounds injury and harm upon prior injury and harm. And the more such special benefits are conferred, the more outrageous the demands are, as seen in how much of the black population has only become more insistent on so-called “reparations” for slavery the more society has attempted to placate and coddle them.

Multiracialism is civilizational ruin, and such asymmetry in standards, what are in effect double standards favorable to blacks and unfavorable to whites, punctuates a hard but necessary and even undeniable truth. Far too few dare utter this obvious and undeniable truth, except in hushed tones in dark corners and hidden nooks. That trend must change if European civilization is ever to overcome the existential threat posed by this racial delirium.

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On Monday evening, April 13, 2026, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced that both Joy Division and New Order have been selected as inductees for 2026. Much to the chagrin of any sensible reader, they have not been selected as two different bands, which they were and are, but as one entry. Even though expressions of outrage, disapproval, and ridicule are not nearly as visible as they ought to be, this is nothing short of a travesty. The reasons why this is so should be fairly obvious, but, given how positive much of the reaction has been, need to be numerated and set forth with particular detail.

First and foremost, this institution—The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—is nothing other than a bad joke. It was founded as a desperate ruse to attract tourism to the blight of urban decay that is Cleveland, Ohio (no offense to its current or former denizens). Indeed, consider that inductees do not even make an appearance at the site in Cleveland. Rather, the induction is held in Los Angeles. Conversely, inductions into the Football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio are done on site. Despite the aversion many readers understandably have for sportsball, at least that institution has some semblance of legitimacy. Induction into the Football Hall of Fame is taken seriously, and is an actual honor that inductees, the media, and fans take seriously.

More relevant to Joy Division and the greater genre of post-punk, indie-alternative that exploded from the few short years of its existence and the myriad subgenres that comprise this subculture, this institution is hardly a “rock n’ roll hall of fame” at all, but covers modern popular music more broadly. In what world are Run DMC, Public Enemy, and N.W.A. “rock n’ roll?” Indeed, in many important respects, rap is a sort of antithesis of rock n’ roll. “Rock n’ roll,” properly described, pertains to boomer era rock music. Artists like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater, even AC DC fit comfortably in that rubric. One could argue—persuasively--that heavy metal is an offshoot of rock n’ roll, but few heavy metal fans describe it as such. It is highly dubious whether Joy Division, or the Smiths, or Sisters of Mercy, or The Cure, and so on and so forth can be rightly described as “rock n’ roll,” although actual “rock and roll” is doubtlessly an important, even indispensable antecedent.

However, even if one shoe-horns post-punk, indie alternative into a more expansive (and ultimately) false definition of “rock n’ roll,” a number of artists “inducted” are simply not “rock.” Run DMC and Public Enemy are rap artists, as ise of course N.W.A. Willie Nelson is firmly a country artist, as country, somewhat like rap, is oppositional to rock music. Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton are best classified as country artists, although some of their work defies clear classification with a great deal of crossover appeal—Cash in particular transcends genre classification in many ways. Sade, who will be “inducted” in 2026 as well, sure as shit is not “rock n’ roll” in any sense of the word.

Above and beyond these objections, this induction is a farce and outrage above all because this very charade goes against both what Joy Division in particular and the various genres and subgenres that emanated from it stand for. This music is not mainstream, and should not be considered mainstream. Anyone who has listened to Closer knows this intuitively, instinctively. It was bad enough that The Cure was “inducted,” offset by Robert Smith’s quiet, understated cynicism and annoyance if not contempt. The Cure though did enjoy some mainstream success with Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and Disintegration. “Just Like Heaven” became one of the most famous songs of the 1980s, doubtlessly because it is such an incredible song. Robert Smith and the Cure have been mainstreamed in other ways, including being featured in one of the more classic episodes of South Park.

Sadly, Joy Division has also become much more mainstream than old school fans should be comfortable with. The cover for Unknown Pleasures has slowly, quietly become increasingly iconic, in its true, actual sense of the word, rather than a vague, reflexive adjective expressing vague, diffuse positive connotations. Internet queries indicate the band has been popularized on the inane, mind-rotting social media platform TikTok. And then there is of course the Netflix series Stranger Things, which did much to place not only Joy Division but many of the formerly underground, obscure artists of 80s indie alternative in the mainstream. And now this.

With this “induction,” Joy Division will be fully initiated as mainstream, as something bourgeoisie, placed in the same company as artists like Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Bon Jovi. As stated, this is not what this music is about, but is the very antithesis of Joy Division and the number of artists, genres, and subgenres that stand on its foundation. Embracing this music was an act of rebellion against Madonna, or for that matter the awful rap music that a lot of suburban white kids were listening to from about 1989 onward, a consideration punctuated by the fact N.W.A. and Public Enemy are also, somehow, inductees into the “Rock N Roll” hall of fame. As set forth in “Blue Sunshine: The Whiteness of Goth,” as early as 1989 into the 90s, disaffected white youth who were properly alienated from offerings like “Me So Horny” or “O.P.P (yeah you know me) had a handful of less mainstream genres and subcultures to express defiance and rebellion:

[O]utside of perhaps some of the later martial-industrial and aggrotech works discussed later, one cannot imagine a better antithesis to “Me So Horny,” “O.P.P., (Yeah You Know Me)” or “Fuck the Police” than the Cocteau Twins romantic anthem “Love’s Easy Tears,” or “Marian” by Sisters of Mercy, or even the commercially successful “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure.

Before the advent of social media like TikTok, before the abomination of Stranger Things, Joy Division in particular was far less accessible, particularly for youngsters still in high school or even middle school. I was introduced to the band at fourteen, before entering the 9^th grade. Joy Division records were (generally) available at Tower Records, but not, as a rule, at Sam Goody or other mall stores catering to the normie masses. A young person, particularly in high school or middle school, generally learned about these and other more obscure artists from word of mouth, as they were not even played on 120 Minutes.

Accordingly, hanging a “Love Will Tear Us Apart” poster on the wall or wearing a t-shirt with the same artwork, was an act of rebellion, a signifier of being both an outsider and someone who has taken the initiative to discover important and meaningful music not generally known to most. Now it is as banal and as commonplace as Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, and Janet Jackson. Indeed, Phil Collins was also selected as an “inductee.” And so “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Transmission” are placed on the same footing as “Sussudio,” objectively one of the worst songs of all time. This alone evidences how this “induction” is an outrage.

To worsen things, Peter Hook has publicly expressed approval and excitement of the news. If his utterances are taken at face value, it seems he takes this seriously and as an accolade that somehow validates the work of both bands. The correct position is that the music of Joy Division most especially and to some lesser extent New Order needs no such validation, and indeed is sullied somewhat by this affront to the very ethos of post-punk indie alternative. It is interesting that, at the time of this writing, Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, and Gillian Gilbert have stayed silent so far. True enmity has lamentably developed between Sumner and Hook. It is highly unlikely that if Hook attends to accept “induction,” the other former members of Joy Division will attend. In this way, this travesty and abomination will not even provide the consolation of acting as a vehicle towards reconciliation between the two. In this way, it is an unmitigated disaster, a wholly negative development with no positive upside.

In reflecting how absurd and disappointing all of this is, readers are asked to consider how, as just one example, Jim and William Reid would respond if, God forbid, The Jesus and Mary Chain were ever nominated, let alone selected as “inductees” into this absolute shitshow. Admittedly, the Reid Brothers have chilled out quite a bit, and have dropped their schtick of being purposefully difficult in interviews and other public appearances. Readers can rest assured, however, they would decline, and probably would do so in rather spectacular fashion reminiscent of the acerbic personages that defined them during their youth. It is lamentable indeed that other artists who have become just a little bit more accessible have not adhered to precisely the same ethos of defiance.

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Faith in free-market capitalism remains a bedrock of American norms, most especially mainstream conservatism. At issue however is not free-market capitalism restrained and balanced by sensible regulatory constraints and a body of laws that regulates commerce for the common good, but seemingly radical, unrestrained capitalism whereby corporations and the investor class can effectively do as they will. This largely remains true despite an unmanageable regulatory body presently endowed by the federal government. A number of considerations belie such blind faith in this radical free-for-all. Consider how feckless and ineffectual antitrust law and enforcement really is in a nation that tolerates and facilitates the vertical monopoly wielded by Live Nation, or the failure to stop or curtail Amazon and Jeff Bezos from wielding an overwhelming portion of the market share in so many commercial spaces. Banks charge exorbitant ATM fees for a transaction that costs pennies. Printer manufacturers such as HP, Epson, Canon have engaged in unconscionable price gouging. Printer ink is currently sold not only at a higher price than gold per weight by ounce, but by exponentially higher prices. Gold is currently at about $100-105 per gram, whereas printer ink, absent the plastic cartridge, sells between $1000-2600 per gram. That regulatory authorities have not found price-fixing as a precise legal term does not mean it has not happened, even if by the sort of implicit understanding achieved through parallel business models. If antitrust law is unable to sanction such flagrant price gouging, then antitrust and other consumer protection laws need to be reformed so that such price gouging is sanctionable under the law.

High fructose corn syrup and other poisonous food additives are another example that impugns unrestrained, free market capitalism, as it is an example already familiar to many readers of this publication. More and more consumers are increasingly aware of the number of harmful effects of consuming food products laden with the high fructose corn syrup monster, and yet it remains in a surprising number of food products in the United States.1 This distressing state of affairs remains true despite an increasing public awareness of how bad it is. In contrast, while it is technically a myth that high fructose corn syrup is banned outright in the European Union, it is so tightly regulated and restricted as to be effectively banned: a de facto rather than a de jure ban. Sensible, effective, and, indeed, necessary food and drug regulations protect the European populace from this pariah; unrestrained free market capitalism has not. Detractors will of course object that the ubiquity of high fructose corn syrup stems from the lobbying efforts of Archer Daniels Midland which persuaded the United States government to impose sugar tariffs so high that the artificially processed sweetener is cheaper than sugar. This combined with lavish corn subsidies are what make the ubiquity of the high fructose corn syrup monster possible. Libertarians aver that this shows the danger of government. To the contrary, the problem lies in a government beholden to corporate interests that allows such entities to engage in what is effectively bribery by another, more euphemistic name. Prohibit such corporate activities, and problems like the government raising sugar tariffs and funding corn subsidies at the behest of corporate interests go away very quickly.

Another example that impugns such faith in free market absolutism relates to many of the hiring processes that characterize much of the labor market in the United States, and, just as importantly, how the process of job hunting has become an unbearable ordeal for far too many. It is these practices that are also the focus of the essay, particularly as these abuses have only grown worse in the absence of a regulatory response. As many readers well know, the United States and indeed the world is in the midst of a slow-burn economic calamity that traces its origins to absurd Covid policy that destroyed between one third and fourth of all small businesses and unleashed trillions of dollars of inflationary spending unprecedented in the first world. This economic reality has been largely diminished or even lied about by the mass media, particularly during the 2024 Presidential election as part of a bid to prevent Trump from winning the Presidency after four disastrous years of the Biden Administration. This of course stands in a large context whereby millennials and Generation X have been afflicted with three such “once-in-a-lifetime” economic calamities: the 9/11 terrorist attacks compounded by the Enron and Worldcom securities fraud scandals in 2001 and 2002 and the Great Recession—actually a depression—in 2008 which dwarfed the prior economic disaster considerably.

Hard truths about this economic reality are exacerbated and worsened by a number of obscene screening and hiring processes and policies embraced by more and more employers. The free market model of course has failed to address such grievances, demonstrating once again the need for sensible regulation. This obvious truth has of course been exhibited in history before, namely the fights and battles against moneyed interests and their abusive practices toward and even outright crimes against the white proletariat. If left to their own devices, moneyed interests will engage in such outrageous practices as child labor, 60 plus hour weeks at a wage that barely sustains a living, and practices even more barbaric. While there certainly must be a balance between labor unions and management that has rarely been exhibited in American history, labor unions fought to end truly barbaric practices by the moneyed interests that existed in those eras. And it was not free market capitalism that led to these changes, but populist revolt coupled with a strong, federal regulatory authority, beginning with Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive reforms. This era broke monopoly trusts like Standard Oil, as well as the greater fight against predatory laissez-faire capitalism. Another important reform was the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which put an end to unscrupulous actors placing poisonous adulterants in food and drug. Some of these adulterants included placing sawdust as a filler for coffee and other products, borax to mask the bad flavor and smell of spoiled milk, brick dust and residue as a filler for cinnamon, and so on. Later, in the post World War II era, the thalidomide tragedy once again demonstrated the need for regulatory controls and oversight, as it ushered drastic regulatory reforms both in Europe and transformed the Food and Drug Administration for the modern age.2

These same problems are present in these times, just in a different, somewhat more benign form. The outrageous practices embraced by an increasing number of employers are considerable in number. One practice that merits regulatory oversight is the practice of posting classified advertisements on job boards like indeed.com, linkedin, and others when there is no such position under consideration. Some instances indicate that as many as one third of such postings are made with no actual intent to hire anybody. These advertisements are placed to harvest resumes, to place feelers for the state of the labor market, as well as to harvest data more generally. This is nothing short of fraudulent, and, since private actors refuse to abide by even bare minimum standards in decency, such practices must be addressed through regulatory and legal reform to prevent such practices and to compel these actors, by the force of law, to act with minimum decency.

This practice would not be so terrible but for another development in the hiring and screening process: a development arising from the advent of resume screening software. Because of this software, increasingly few employers actually read the resumes submitted by applicants. Instead, human resources departments and hiring committees run resumes through various resume screen applications that match resumes according to key words and phrases. This practice effectively requires job applicants to undertake the absurd, unpleasant, and often fruitless task of editing and even rewriting a resume for each and every job posting. This reality multiplies the work involved in the job search by some order of magnitude. It also substantially increases the likelihood of some errant typographical error—hundreds if not thousands of small revisions to a core resume rather than having three or four variants. Obliging applicants to do this is made worse by the substantial volume of classified advertisements and job leads with false leads that bear no actual promise of getting hired. The free-market that mainstream conservatives and libertarian simpletons continue to trumpet about has failed to curtail or ameliorate what is effectively a fraudulent and deceptive practice (false posting of non-existent job openings) and an undue burden on those seeking jobs. Sensible regulations that prohibit and sanction such unsavory practices are thus necessary. There should also be some regulation or oversight in the abuse of resume application software so that job applicants are not afflicted with hours of pointless busywork customizing and editing a resume with key words and phrases, often for a listing or lead for which no opening actually exists.

Another odious practice pertains to the interview process. Instead of one initial interview and one call-back interview in a couple weeks, an increasing number of employers have dragged out the process along a timeline of months. This practice is known as the “marathon interview.” This trend originated from Google and was soon followed by Apple, Facebook (now Meta), and a couple other big tech giants. Exhibiting man’s conformist, herd mentality and nature, many employers—perhaps even most—followed suit. And they did so even though the vast majority of employers do not compare with employers like Google, which is one of the most sought-after employers in that or any field. When such practices are embraced by a large number of employers, it disadvantages job seekers tremendously, particularly those who do not have six months’ or more of savings to live off of while job hunting. This increases the leverage employers have vis-à-vis job applicants, and renders them more likely to accept “low ball” job offers that pay less than would typically occur in the absence of such leverage. This is yet another unsavory, harmful hiring practice born from the so-called free-market. Such practices must be regulated and sanctioned with fines and other penalties. One possibility is to simply require employers above a certain threshold in headcount and net expenditures to pay applicants for any time beyond a second-call back. Even that simple proposal would lead most employers to rediscover how to screen and interview applicants with one initial interview and at most one longer call-back interview.

Would-be employers waste the time and labor of applicants in other ways. An increasing number of employers are requesting—that is, requiring—applicants to complete a take home assignment for evaluation. There are many indications such projects can require several hours of work, sometimes eight, twelve, or more. Those of a more cynical persuasion aver—correctly—that this is nothing other than a labor extraction scheme, whereby would-be employers are able to coerce desperate applicants to work for free, often with no real intention of hiring that person. All too reminiscent as to how such entities would engage in horrific child labor practices if they could, these entities engage in these practices simply because they can. The free market has proven utterly incapable of addressing and ameliorating such practices, so they must accordingly be regulated and sanctioned by the power of the state. Any activity other than an employment application and one initial interview and one “call back interview” must be compensated for, with possible exceptions for small businesses. Request a finalist candidate to complete some PowerPoint presentation that requires eight hours of writing, research, and graphic design work? New reforms in employment law require such labor to be compensated for at the higher end of market value for any labor performed.

The same problem presents itself with various aptitude tests and even foreign language tests that can take several hours to complete, with the foreign language tests lasting up to an hour. It is rather shocking that some of these foreign language tests are less than encouraging in their accuracy or utility.3 Even setting aside whether such tests meet even bare minimum standards or the incompetency and ignorance that drives many employers to use such tests without scrutiny, the same principle applies—if an employer cannot get a French or German speaker to get a Fingerspitzengefühl for any given applicant’s language proficiency, employers should be obligated to compensate applicants for their time and trouble.

The abuse of internships further impugns and condemns the labor market under unbridled free market capitalism. Internships are of course (theoretically or marginally) regulated by federal employment laws and their governing agencies. By law, internships by definition are prohibited from bestowing a substantial economic advantage to, for lack of a better term, the employer. The key, defining feature of internship is the educational benefit that is supposed to be bestowed on the intern. In practice though, that is not how it works. Persons employed as interns regularly and consistently engage in labor that is in no way educational or vocational and bestows a clear economic benefit to the employer. This has led to class action lawsuits, including a more famous settlement with NBC that was using interns in place of entry-level employees. It is noteworthy that many of the corporate entities that engage in such practices wield unimaginable wealth. NBC studios is worth about $45-50 billion, its parent company as of 2026 between $140-150 billion and yet engages in such niggardly behavior despite being more than able to pay a fair and reasonable sum for labor performed.

Even worse, because players in the marketplace have embraced the experience paradox, whereby years of experience are required for even entry level jobs, college graduates or soon-to-be college graduates are effectively beholden to the internship fiasco. In addition to the obscene expectation that college graduates and others work for free up to a year, unpaid internships are often in some of the most expensive cities in the nation and the world—New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and so on. The left of course is to be condemned for its false postulations about white privilege, but there is a kernel of truth in the abstract, provided one supplants “white” with “class.” In order for a college graduate to play the internship game, a living allowance is required, invariably from a well-to-do family that can pay a year’s living expenses while working for free. Whites are doubtlessly over represented in this class, but many more middle and so-called “working class,” that is lower-middle or proletariat class of whites cannot. Of far greater interest to many readers of this publications, Jewish families are wildly are overrepresented in the number of persons that can afford to support a college graduate in this way—and yet so very few dare to mention these realities of Jewish privilege, wealth, and power.

So-called free market capitalism, once again, has failed to ameliorate this problem, or the institutional aversion to training potential hires for what is in effect an entry level job. Once again, sensible regulations will have to be imposed to get these monied interests to do what is necessary for the common good. And that is proven by our counterparts in the European Union and the United Kingdom. Great Britain has regulated unpaid internships, and requires minimum wage for internships that can be qualified as work. France has limited them to two months. Germany has limited them too, requiring payment after three months.

Finally, consider two other practices embraced by employers, until mostly “blue states” passed laws rightly banning them. Employers routinely demand, or did demand. a credit check, even for jobs that do not involve a fiduciary duty to an employer or client. How do these employers, in their infinite wisdom, help those in tough times help themselves? Deny them a job that would allow such individuals to pay their bills and rent. Even worse, employers started demanding social media profiles, even profiles that are quasi-anonymous. It is unclear what the response “I do not use any social media” would likely do to a prospective applicant’s candidacy, but given how fickle human resources departments and hiring committees are, one imagines it likely disfavors such candidacy to a crushing degree. And it would do so even though such social media postings are wholly unrelated to the work an applicant would do—provided someone does not use his real name or has such poor “opsec” to give away such an identity all but the dumbest and most foolish.

Critically, New York banned employers from such information in March of 2024, even though the same state government wants such information to apply for gun ownership, in flagrant violation of the Second Amendment and recent Supreme Court precedent on such matters. Notably, red states like Idaho, Oklahoma, and others have not promulgated such sensible measures. New York was also the 11^th state to rightly ban credit checks unless a job description involves some sort of fiduciary duty to the employer or the employer’s clientele. Those other eleven states are all blue states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. That they are blue states in no way impugns how essential and important such regulatory intervention is, although it does further condemn mainstream Republican leadership.

The rationale proffered by some observers of the labor market is that employers have become exceedingly—indeed, excessively—risk averse to making a bad or even less than optimal hiring decision. Some of the measures outlined above supposedly mitigate that risk, but it is highly dubious whether there is any real correlation between these ridiculous practices and reducing the number of bad or sub-optimal hires. Moreover, these and other developments further reflect a macro, sociological trend whereby employers will go to great lengths to avoid training employees. All of this and more is offset by the untold man hours lost by human resources departments and hiring committees administering such ridiculous demands and policies. Such a grind is almost certainly a much greater inefficiency, combined with the lost, underutilized, and in some cases destroyed human capital that has been wasted with such chicanery. In other words, these dysfunctional and harmful practices are a clear example of a market failure, or rather series of market failures. Precisely because the so-called free market has been unable to correct these and other market failures for several decades, regulatory intervention is urgently required.

Some, particularly those of a radical libertarian worldview, will counter that the human resources department which promulgated many of those odious practices arose because of the advent of so-called civil rights laws that obliged employers to come up with some organizational body to monitor and facilitate compliance with this onerous body of laws. This point is not entirely without merit, but the history of labor and employment proves this is not the decisive factor. Large, powerful employers did not engage in child labor or expose workers to hazardous conditions because of Title VII of The Civil Rights Act of 1964. They committed these and other outrages for greater profit, with a view of workers as expendable.

Consider how dubious a key, central assumption of much of the economy theory that justifies the license for moneyed interests to do as they will, namely that every economic transaction and indeed all human interactions are done on a rational basis. Both people and institutions composed of people are not the rational actors that such economic theory presupposes. That so many employers have followed the lead of Google and Meta regarding the so-called marathon interview phenomenon is part and parcel of the sort of conformity and mirroring that typifies a great deal of human affairs. The human resource department is, of course, archetypically a uniquely gynocentric phenomenon, as it is a profession dominated by women, often single women, with a few effete and even homosexual men mixed in. Helen Andrews confirms this:

It is no accident that women dominate H.R. Three-quarters of all H.R. professionals are female, a ratio that has been stable for at least thirty years. The “H.R. lady” is not just a stereotype. She is a statistical reality.

This explains why the “coomon thread uniting” the Human Resources Department as a sociological and corporate phenemonen “is they they are feminine.” Women of course are consensus driven, which explains the acute conformity and herd mentality that defines this phenomeno and the advent of ridiculous applicant screening processes and other harmful practices. Andrews also explains why “rules are ambiguous rather than explicit, as it also explains why “emotions and subjective perceptions are valued more than objective conditions.”

It is also noteworthy that mainstream conservatism has offered no solutions to these problems, and scarcely even acknowledges these and other problems that are harming many millions of Americans, particularly young Americans. This, in combination with other missteps, including a callous disregard for those trapped and even ruined by the student loan crisis, is a fundamental flaw of mainstream conservatism. If left unaddressed, it will—with absolute, mathematical certainty—contribute to the pending victory of the left, which is oh so very close to regaining power and consolidating power beyond the point of no return by returning to open borders lunacy and the infusion of democrat larvae through the importation of black and brown hordes. If mainstream conservatives and the more dim-witted among its natural constituency do not cease with such mad delirium, if these elements persist in telling disenfranchised young people and others to, as Kevin DeAnna described it, not only “eat shit,” but “enjoy it” as well, they will turn to the left, regardless of how flawed and dangerous the left is on other important matters.

Libertarians and Reagan conservatives will of course balk, countering that the federal government is massive, and that “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” For a very brief period of time, and without the advantage of hindsight, there was good reason for these ideas to be persuasive. Over the past quarter of a century, however, the American and world economy has oscillated between economic malaise and “once-in-a-lifetime” economic calamity, as outlined above. Some of that is attributed to lack of regulation and oversight. Some of it is also attributable to bad government policy, e.g. the home mortgage bubble that was predicated on government incentives to loan to persons who should not qualify for a loan. Even so, faith in free market absolutism (or fairly close to it) has not addressed these pressing concerns.

This, coupled with the myriad other failures and dysfunctions directly attributed to American society and more importantly liberal government as well as blind faith in unbridled free market capitalism, implore the need for a different type of government, one capable of facilitating and fulfilling the social contract that exists between the individual, society, and the state. It is not that government—in the abstract—worsens things, or that government alone worsens things. Rather, this type of government, namely liberal democracy bestowing universal suffrage with no meaningful constraints against vulture capitalism and other unsavory and harmful practices both in the labor market and commerce more broadly, is the problem, as it imposes practices that are either ineffectual, counterproductive, or harmful in their own unique, particular way. Such policies are of course exacerbated and punctuated by the myriad dysfunctions and evils of multiracialism, especially as it exists in liberal democracy. The jettisoning of liberal democracy and this particular form of government may be fantastical, at least for the foreseeable future, but so is relying on the good graces and whims of corporations and other powerful, moneyed interests. That axiom holds just as true in the labor market as it does for other pressing issues of the day.

Alas, no such revolutionary moment is anywhere in sight. Some who concede that the American federal government rarely works well—rather than state power in the abstract—will argue that this government is unlikely to promulgate regulatory reforms that are even nominally sensible and effective. Perhaps, but millions of Americans are still harmed by these ridiculous practices. A regularity response, regardless of how imperfect it may be, would at least ameliorate some of these issues, as have state laws banning credit checks and disclosure of social media accounts. Failure to correct these and other matters through state and regulatory power will, as stated, guarantee the appeal of the left among more and more disaffected white persons.

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Follow Richard Parker on twitter (or X if one prefers) under the handle (@)astheravencalls. Delete the parentheses, which were added to prevent interference with Substack’s own internal handle system.