My favorite part of this and the reason you know it's all bullshit is when you turn the tables on them and push back they just don't know how to respond, other than rage. Stick to the programing; they just can't deviate from the cartoon running in their heads.
They just can't fathom it, because, as you say, their ideology is Self, and they've never really had to experience it.
It's because Leftism is the only ideology that demands total subjugation and will treat you like garbage after you die for it.
Anyway, back to my taxes where I owe The Somali Pirate Fund $10k.....
There is objectively nothing more important that a strong trade relationship with the largest market in the world (which happens to share a border), and the elbows up crowd chose feelings over practicalities. And just ignore the issues with the border (immigration, drugs, cartel infiltration) that were reasonably raised.
One of my favorite games is to see how long it takes to get an "F*@% you" from one of the creatures who hang with the furries on the overpass, waving limbs and signs. They have NO ability to engage in thoughtful give and take; its all panic and rage. Sad, really.
I would argue that this a problem stemming from women who raise children on their own. Very few women have enough natural agency of their own to teach it to their young ones; instead, the Weaker Sex™ teaches their own weakness and dependency if there is no constant input from a male parent.
When we created a government Sugar Daddy to replace husbands and fathers, women were free to reject the compromises that come with marriage and family life; instead, society supported them in rejecting the importance of fathers except as ATMs.
It's no accident; Marxism explicitly seeks to destroy the family and substitute the state. And certainly believers know who the Father of that ideology is, and why he seeks the downfall of our culture.
Well....that's a highly debatable beginning statement. To blame the women certainly has a lot of truth to it, imho, but not the part of being a single woman. I was such a woman, divorced single mom, but my sons are definitely not weak-kneed soybois. I was an adult during the 60/70s femlib movement, the most destructive societal movement. That movement changed its initial goal of women working outside of the home in non-traditional jobs to making men more like women...they destroyed the concept of men and, to be honest, men allowed it. Basically, men want two things: Peace and sex. They allowed what we have today to take place.
Of course not all women are incapable of raising children alone, but a great many are, and you know that's true. No reason to take my comment personally.
I am a Boomer woman and I don't blind myself to the problems with others of my gender. I think perhaps 50% of women are truly the Weaker Sex™. The rest are conservative.
Young single women are the main reason young school boys are on Ritalin and other drugs to lobotomize their natural male growth. These young women have no experience with the rambunctiousness of boys. The best answer to this is homeschooling, but better training, an end to teachers unions (and all public-sector unions), public schools, school boards and Nurse Ratchet school nurses would also help.
I don't take it personally...I am an end of Silent Generation...I simply don't like that generalization...a bad female role model in a two parent home is just as destructive as a single mother who maybe has a difficult time hoeing that row by herself. Ideally, stable parents both in the home is the goal. But that is not always possible. But, to be honest, my observation over many decades is that the (or a) mother is behind non-functional children. No other animal species does this. Offspring are prepared to survive (except for the runt in a litter).
Dancingtime, your line "men want two things: Peace and sex" is brilliant. I will use it (with attribution) because it summarizes why there is so much grief in the current situation. Getting peace and (rare) sex by being a soyboy is one way to get there I suppose...but the peace is stultifying and the sex is awful. Getting there in the traditional way, while often rocky to get to peace, was and is far better. Inspired short phrase that says so much.
You don't have to be a soyboi....You have to pick what is important to you (the guy) and stand by it....Don't just "yes, dear" to everything. It's a give snd take and, unfortunately, far too many men and women who are first and second generation offspring of the femlib movement women have no example to fall back on.
My younger son once said to me "All my married friends say that their wives tell them to deposit their balls in a bowl by the door and pick them up on their way out in the morning.....but not me.." oh yeah....
Actually, my two boys both became Eagle Scouts. I was very blessed that there was a great Boy Scout leader and troop where we lived for their tweener and teen years. The guys in that troop were great examples....Being an independent woman, I raised my sons to be independent.
for what is worth (probably not much but a fun memory): in the late 1950's, our adult scout leader (a badly wounded WW2 combat veteran) upon seeing us smoking home-made grape vine cigarettes, told us to get some real cigarettes if we were going to smoke........which we did and smoked Winstons around the campfire (no smoking outside of camp unless on a long hike).......we were 10,11,12 years old and learning our way......BTW several of us did reluctantly go to VietnamFuckingNam and that's where I stopped smoking Winstons!
Is Gender Socially Constructed? – Argues There are 3 Fatal Flaws in the “Gender as a Social Construct” Position – HUM210 Introduction to Women and Gender Studies
I wish I could waste my time reading that link to gender studies but I am a naturalist….there are two sexes in the law of Mother Nature strictly for the propagation of the species….all species. (Hermaphrodites are, unfortunately, a scientific abnormality….) I can no longer be bothered with women studies stuff. I was an adult working woman during the 60/70s femlib movement. I lived that history….and became an unlikely advocate for men as a result of the damage which that movement did to this country. And no…I wasn’t a happy pink collar worker….
In retrospect, it’s the casual divorce that did Western society in, not the casual sex (+ shameless access to abortion).
In my USA, we’re now three generations deep into motherlessness, as a result of mothers working f/t outside the home. GenZ has grown up grandmotherless as well; their grandmothers are still chained to the loom.
Motherlessness & grandmotherlessness occur in families where there is no divorce, no single moms. This is the conversation that people aren’t having.
I argue that masculine fatherly guidance is easier to replace than the loss of feminine motherly nurturing. Today’s loonie political activists are neglected children, but in adult form.
Whether there be casual divorce or lifelong marriage, the child psyche is still damaged by motherlessness, i.e. emotional neglect as the direct result of mothers working f/t outside the home.
After my husband moved out and with two sons 4 & 7 at the time, I had to go from p/t to f/t. Their dad would have them every other weekend, so my sons knew their father thankfully. I had next door neighbors that were like a surrogate grandmother and grandfather to my two boys. I also had my mom that could help out if needed. Both of my boys have grown up to make me extremely proud of the type of parent they have become and have raised beautiful children of their own. They both wanted to consider marriage as a lifetime commitment. It is a sad state when children are left alone without having a mother, or a father, they can talk to. I agree with your comment that children need both parents in their lives and grandparents share a special role in children’s lives. My younger son asked me to retire and move where he was currently living. It was a 2000 mile difference, but I felt blessed that he wanted me close in his life and happy to help with the grandchildren whenever needed.
I’m alive today thanks to the democratization of divorce. Divorce does save lives. In an earlier era, my mom, sister, & I would all be killed (domestic abuse). That said, I still argue that it’s casual divorce that has damaged Western society, possibly a mortal wound to Western society.
… I hardly ever hear Western women admit that they casually divorce father of their children. But statistically speaking, no way, no how did all of these Western women have as poor taste in men as my mother did 😂😂😂
And this is why I always encourage our young “trad wives” that stay home and do their best. 🥰
Also, I encourage homeschooling! We are finishing up our 26 year with two more years to go. My husband is a schoolteacher and every day is a story… and it’s getting worse and worse and worse! 😱 He is trying his best in a completely broken system!
This is what happens when you take God out of society… Out of the home… out of schools and out of government. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🔥
That came about because of welfare rules....couldn't have a man in the house. Welfare, as ai recall, was started to help single mothers. The working poor at that time, as I recall, were not eligible but many did not take it when it was extended to them....they were too proud....
Not sure, but think it was CBS that sent an investigative team to a Florida panhandle county that had a very high level of poverty and a very low level of welfare participation to see how many starvation cases they could find, or something like that. This would have been late 60s, early 70s, when welfare entitlements were taking off.
What they found and reported was people growing most of their own food and having a culture of being ‘poor, but proud’ and refusing ‘handouts’. This is a true story.
Which caused the destruction of the family unit. Nature provides for both the masculine (preparation) and feminine (nurturing) in the raising of a child. Both are required for a well-adjusted adult to be produced.
Breaking this down causes all sorts of societal problems.
I can say that my kids never suffered from lack of love or attention but I had a good paying job. I was involved in all of their activities including scoring for the Little League games and doing the newspaper call in of the plays. I was involved in their scout activities and was a Den Mother for Cubs. I was active duty Navy. I worked my butt off for both the Navy and my kids. What has been detrimental to US families has been mobility. Extended families are fractured. Families who remain around other family members have that continued familial contact. Grandparents remain important in their lives.
For the sake of argument, let’s grant that your household wasn’t motherless. There are exceptions to every rule. But agreed, “mobility” is also devastating to the family, and to the child psyche. I’ve been making that critique as well, for decades.
Young women are now taught as an actual strategy to find a stable guy with good finances that they can hold their nose around, marry and have a few kids, then divorce and take all his money and property. Then they can be free to pursue the 6'7" multi-billionaire minotaur of their dreams on the "starter husband"'s dime.
This was made possible by the courts generally defaulting to always giving the women the kids and the house in a divorce. As always, government interference ruins everything. A few states have passed laws requiring everything to start at 50/50 and the circumstances judged from there, and divorce rates in those states have plummeted.
The minotaur may be on the way out, by the way. I just saw yesterday that ICE agent bondage fantasies are in high demand from liberal women now. Gives a whole new context to Renee Good's smirk at the agent she was trying to run over.
I do not agree that single women raise kids to be needy. In my family, I raised my kids to be so independent and resourceful, they don't even need me anymore!
I moved the wife & 5 kids from my native USA back to her native Japan eleven years ago in 2015 for the traditional three-generations-under-one-roof lifestyle. 3-under-1 roof was still traditional USA culture in my Depression Era grandparents’ day ‘n’ age (b. 1910’s & 20’s).
The Western communist pop cultural revolution destroyed intergenerational interdependence, e.g. 3-under-1 roof. Now we send our unloved seniors to the Medicaid Concentration Camps, i.e. State dependence instead of family strength.
Even in cases when there’s yet a Mother Natural loving willingness to babysit Alzheimer’s Grandpa 24/7, and change his diaper, etc., our USA “middle class” womenfolk are all locked up in the workforce till 65/ 67.
We were duped by androgyny-in-the-workforce, aka 1960’s style 2nd-wave “feminism.” They called it a victory for women, but it’s simply a fundamental communist principle.
Here in Japan, the cultural norm remains intergenerational interdependence. The gov’t does not provide Medicaid Concentration Camps for Abandoned Seniors.
Androgyny-in-the-workforce isn’t (yet!) normalized. The COL is still calibrated to a breadwinner-homemaker lifestyle; children still have mothers at home. Japan still celebrates motherhood & childhood.
Intergenerational interdependence is real strength, real freedom. In the USA, we were duped. Now we’re slaves to the welfare state.
another root cause of this problem is the loss of children to their far away jobs after College. Lots of my HS class students stuck around the home town and had families-- about 50 to 60%. But, the rest, like me went off to college and never returned to the hometown-- taking jobs often far away. This led to the dissociation of the family units, dropped the relocated kin into a culture new and different and with no family or even friends. Now our kids are out-state and there is not much left of what was a traditional family.
WHat is needed is educational and high end jobs more evenly dispersed which is not likely to happen.
Agree. I’ve been making this very same criticism of our post-WW2 socioeconomic system. Here in Japan, it is normal for countryside youth to move to the cities for employment. Agriculture has been undercut by imported foreign labor, and imported cheap foreign food, including produce Made in China.
This doesn’t pencil out for me. Single moms who don’t have time to parent should produce more independent kids no? You don’t teach a kid agency. They just grasp it when they must. If they never must they never will.
Hmmm? I think you have that backwards. It is the desire to avoid the loss of independence that motivates one to take measures to secure it. If you don't care about having independence why would you care about security?
That sounds like the female position; someone else will give you security. Men are the ones who have to create independence. Those who would trade liberty for safety will have neither, and feminism has decided to make that trade.
I'm not suggesting trading liberty for safety, believe me. We all need security, a foundation of which serves as the best way to the independence that we ALL (both genders) also need. Though I can't agree with you in this regard, I support your right to express your opinions. 😉
Marxism: the abolition of property, which includes your children. The state then becomes the parent and its leader the father. Same playbook for religion.
Oprah Winfrey convinced the crew of "The View" that she wasn't overeating, which made her obese; she had the obese gene. She just admitted in an interview that when she stopped getting the Mounjaro shots, she immediately gained twenty pounds and had to start taking the shots again. Damn that obesity gene, also known as her fork.
Exactly. The 20 pounds didn’t magically reappear due to a gene; 20 lbs due to overeating. But of course, Oprah loves to be a victim. Her blackness, her womanhood, her weight, her obesity gene, but not her riches, have held her back🤦♀️
All that up and down dieting and junk and medications she took destroyed her metabolism plus no doubt added insulin resistance. That means when she started just eating normally again, her metabolism sort of said “Yay, I’ve got food and nutrition again, let’s go”. The insulin resistance and slow metabolism packed on weight even though she is eating a normal nutritious diet—and NOT overeating at all. Starving weight off too bites you in the end with 600, 800 to 1200 calories—actually not enough for proper health plus not enough fuel with glucose, puts the weight on again and has starved your thyroid which kind of regulates everything. It’s a complicated problem. Move more, eat less is a crock in this modern toxic food environment all around us. Ask me how I know this.
It’s 100% that it’s her dietary choices causing it. I’m sure she’s like the majority and consumes an absurd level of carbohydrates, particularly sugars. The average is 250-300g per day. Just reducing this by half is enough for most people to shed weight quickly — you don’t really even need to reduce food intake, just adjust the types of food. Starvation diets are unsustainable, but changes in diet composition absolutely can be.
From another substack article recently:
“Medieval monasteries maintained detailed, private health records, tracking the well-being of their communities. In the early medieval era, monks regularly ate meat such as fish, pork, and game when accessible. They also ate cheese and eggs every day. These health records show common medieval health trends: injuries, occasional illnesses, and mostly active lives into old age.
Church doctrine evolved, leading to stricter rules among religious orders. Meat was considered spiritually corrupting, prompting monks to adopt bread-based diets with beer for liquid nutrition. However, health records from 50 years later show a contrasting story from the same monasteries, with meticulous records indicating very different health outcomes.
Obesity often appears in historical records, with gout becoming known as a typical “monk’s disease.” Documentation of arthritis also rises notably, describing symptoms like lethargy, swelling, joint pain, and metabolic issues. Monasteries with the strictest meat restrictions tended to have worse health results. Conversely, monks who ate fish and cheese on fasting days experienced better health than those who ate only bread and beer.
The irony is striking. They banned meat for spiritual purity but caused physical decline. They believed animal food corrupted the soul, so instead they ate grain, which damaged their metabolism. Medieval doctors documented this clearly: they prescribed meat to sick monks who recovered, then returned them to bread and beer diets, and watched them deteriorate again. The monks kept detailed records of their own decline, blaming it on spiritual weakness rather than nutritional harm.”
> this manifests in WILD ways. we saw a whole government medical establishment tell people that acquired immunity from exposure to covid was ineffective and you needed a vaccine.
When the covid vaccine first came out, my doctor tried to convince me to get it.
However, I had had a mystery illness in March 2020. I had told my doctor about this, and he had said that it sounded like I had had covid.
So I asked him: "If I already had covid, doesn't that mean I'm immune? Why do I need a vaccine?"
And he just, very matter-of-factly said "Well, we don't know how long that immunity lasts"
And I said "Well, then, why do you think the vaccine immunity wouldn't wear off?"
And he said "I don't think that. Obviously, you would need to get a covid vaccine like, every year, or every two years, or however long it lasts"
And I said "That's not what the president is saying on TV"
And my doctor straight up said "well, obviously. People are dumb. If we told them they'd need to get a shot every year, they wouldn't. But it's easier once they get the first one"
I politely declined the shot and, to his credit, after that, my doctor never tried to persuade me to get it again. But I thought that was telling. I don't have a wider point
One of the more deceptive tactics of the pharma/gov chimera during covid was the elimination of the Phase 3 trial control group as quickly as possible with the excuse "they could be killed by covid" meanwhile the shot was not even available to the general public yet.
That switch in message in mid 2021 was the first to set off my BS detector, from "get a vax so we all benefit from herd immunity" to "oops, that didn't work, everyone needs a booster". Bay about August, when the FDA published "you are not a horse" (and I grew up in agriculture with a rudimentary knowledge of common meds between humans and livestock), I had lost all trust of talking white lab coats and it has not come back since. I have great respect for those that smelled the rat long before I did, but I remain dumbfounded by the 50% of today's population that still can't smell the sink.
Love your stuff Gato! This is also a theme in Christian religion where the devil is set in contrast to the Savior. One wants you to think that you have failed and are incapable of redemption. The other tells you that you can become something wonderful, just follow his example and he will make up the difference. The better path is harder, requires more effort, and is challenging. But the reward is exceptional. The alternative is eternal misery.
I have grand nieces and nephews that don’t have any desire to drive. I started driving around the farm and down dirt roads as soon as I could see over the tearing wheel. Three on the tree Chevy. Of course by then I had already mastered horses and shoot a .22 rifle.
My 16 yr old, who has her own car (yes quite spoiled), nevertheless wanted me to drive her to a bday party because "I don't want to drive that far in the dark." I said, you drive or stay here, I don't care, but I'm not spending 1.5 hrs on the road on a Friday night because you want to be chauffeured. She drove herself.
Yeah, I don't get that at all - I started driving at 14, the same year I started working for an actual paycheck. In high school, my boyfriend and I spread manure from a mammoth John Deere after school, on his family's dairy farm. Driving was something my peer group did as soon as we possibly could!
I've reached the conclusion that "leftists" (or whatever you call them in your neck of the woods) remain in an arrested state of development, still stuck in the school playground, tugging on the teacher's sleeve, wailing "It's not fair! It's not fair!"
I was just commenting on this very point in a reply to a previous comment (above). My conclusion is like yours.
…
Agreed, but allow me to take it farther.
In retrospect, it’s the casual divorce that did Western society in, not the casual sex (+ shameless access to abortion).
In my USA, we’re now three generations deep into motherlessness, as a result of mothers working f/t outside the home. GenZ has grown up grandmotherless as well; their grandmothers are still chained to the loom.
Motherlessness & grandmotherlessness occur in families where there is no divorce, no single moms. This is the conversation that people aren’t having.
I argue that masculine fatherly guidance is easier to replace than the loss of feminine motherly nurturing. Today’s loonie political activists are neglected children, but in adult form.
Whether there be casual divorce or lifelong marriage, the child psyche is still damaged by motherlessness, i.e. emotional neglect as the direct result of mothers working f/t outside the home.
I think the major motivator for most leftists is, "Look at me. Look at me." "See my superior sense of justice in the nuance of my curated, virtue signalling, awesomeness." "Hey! Over here! Me, Me, Me., Me!"
EGM, Love all your work but this is the best piece you have written in a long time. Laden with so many universal truths I had to make a list. Thank you for taking the time and having the intelligence and chutzpah to lay it all out so clearly. (P.S. You still need a copy editor. I volunteered to do this for you years ago and got no answer, but you definitely still need one. This stuff is too good not to be expressed perfectly on the pedestrian lexical axis.)
They are all wind up outrage machines, and the Left has been training them since they took over the education system. Started back in the 70's and has just gotten worse.
Imagine being so brainwashed with Leftist propaganda that you protest against safer streets!
I mean, why waste time discovering the truth when you can easily "create" it. Getting their acolytes to be reflexive (whether it's opposing ham sandwiches or safe streets) is the most assured way to keep their allegiance.
Excess sitting is the new smoking for the twenty-first century. Excess sitting is linked to a myriad of disorders including osteoarthritis, osteopenia, degenerative disc disease, lumbar disc protrusions AND obesity. Yet, people fallacious believe the 'health care system' can save them from these scourges. While the system can guide them, ultimately, the onus is on them to take accountability for these problems. Otherwise, they will always be a source of insufferable pain for them.
Brilliantly insightful, one of your best! Isn't that what the Founding Fathers fought for and what the American Revolution was all about? Responsibility for ourselves and collectively as a new nation composed of individual and national sovereignty; freedom to follow self-realization while being supported by a vision based on rights with responsibility which was what America was supposed to stand for; " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, that among these are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Pure gold: "...why learn to be good at a job if you can learn to be good at pressing the “ism” button until you get a raise based on your intersectional attributes or aggrievement?"
Cargo cults of woke grievance, indeed. For years, in corporate and educational organizations, I have watched the aggrieved wokesters "fail upward" into ever higher rewards and authority based on everything but effort and competence. I see the results firsthand.
All this has done is make the US prime for takeover.
I also survived the 1980s when it was the Republicans who were a$$#oles, planting the seeds for what is happening now, by pretending our meritocracy was in full swing and that things like critical thinking and education were for personal competitiveness instead of stabilizing the whole of society.
Let's hope we even survive this pendulum swing, since the Chinese aren't training their kids to hate China. Dividing the US against itself is making SOMEONE's plan easier to implement and I don't mean OURS!
Great write up. Went to Calif in my VW bug, slept in car in state parks, went into a Porsche dealer in Monterey, can I be an apprentice mechanic? And here I'd only changed plugs before, ridiculous but I blessedly did not know that. Ditto in SF. And from my teen love of cars, while working in a Dairy Queen (boss: "did you sleep in that shirt??"), learned of a former LeMans driver whom I ended up working for of all things. Quitting school to do that was a life changer. Later, back to school and now wanting to learn coming from within instead of from outside, got a scholarship to grad school. Never would have happened had I not gotten out into the big wider world from small town Ky. El Gato, check out 'The Preparation', book on Amazon, and the youngster Maxim Smith, guinea pig for the adventure, has a Substack, hopes to ignite similar spark in other youngsters.
In my case, at 19, we threw everything we owned, including the dog and roommate, into a 72 Nova and headed for the West Coast. I had been a PT waitress in greasy spoons up to that point, but in the place we wound up I asked for a job at a posh cafe and when they asked me if I could wash dishes I emphatically said 'yes'. The training I got from that job set me on a nearly 40 year path in fine (and not so fine at times, LOL) dining- a trade that I will always be grateful to have found.
Its sad to see that kind of adventure go out of young people's lives
It is so weird to see these kids on current social media having anxiety because they spent all this money on a 'degree' but don't know how to use it to get a job, in fact can't get a job because they have no work experience at 20 something and bring their parents to interviews. Crazy.
Besides, to top it off, because of the inevitable results of the kind of leniency that is discussed here, it is becoming increasing illegal to sleep in your car- or even RV or camper. Kids will never know what they missed...
Another epic commentary on our society. I also concur that "In Praise of Lawn Darts". is your best ever. It's the one that, once I read it, caused me to say "I have to subscribe and support more of this from this mysterious fellow!". It's also the article that I've shared the most widely - not just by you, but by any online writer. It's the perfect articulation of what I've felt for many years as a child of the 60's & 70's, but never could quite put into words. I go back and reread it every once in a while just to enjoy it another time. And, well, the Sunday memes have been an excellent replacement of the "Sunday Funnies" that we all used to enjoy back then, and were further motivation to become a subscriber... :-)
> bikes and skateboards and the bewildering variety of janky hand made ramps and jumps we used to build for them.
When I was between the beginning of kindergarten and the middle of fourth grade, right across the street from my house was a very large empty lot that had been zoned for something that hadn't been built yet, and right next to that was the elementary school I went to, Meadowland Elementary.
And in this large, empty lot in Northern Virginia (and therefore full of good, moldable, Virginia red clay) generations of school children between the ages of five and fifteen had built the infamous "Meadowland Jumps". We all had "BMX" bikes, or at least we treated them that way. And gods above and below, the injuries we did to ourselves there would go far past "hyperventilation" in today's mothers and straight into "stroke" or "myocardial infarction". But when one of the rear support struts for the "banana" seat on my bike rusted through at one of the piercing holes put through it for adjustability, and then broke, leaving a jagged, rusty, sharp tube sticking straight up from the frame, and I went over "The Mountain" (the largest of the jumps, a pile of clay and rocks some 8 feet high, with multiple crossing paths over it with different angles of attack and descent) and landed and jammed that same jagged, rusty, sharp chromed steel tube a couple of inches into the back of my right thigh (at eight years old or so) my mom just taped a washcloth over the wound, and a plastic bag over that, and put me in the car and took me to Bethesda, and they scrubbed it out and gave me a tetanus shot. And nobody questioned *why* I had been doing such a thing in the first place, and while it *was* the most grievous injury I suffered in that place, it was certainly not the *only* injury I did to myself chasing the thrill of speed and flight on a bicycle there.
And afterwards, my father replaced the seat with a more regular "pear" style, and I went right back to it. No knee pads, no helmet, most often in shorts and a t-shirt and a pair of Zips. This would have been between middle of '82 and the end of '86. Good times. Eventually they built a church in that lot (or so I discovered many years later via Google Maps) and children were denied that experience, not that they'd have been allowed to have it these days anyway.
I love this. We too had an empty corner lot in our neighborhood, about a block from my house, and strategically located in the center of all of us kids. We dug forts in the dirt, reinforced and covered with pilfered plywood found on nearby builds. Glorious days!
Oh, yeah. The whole neighborhood was (and still is) full of little pockets of trees, large enough for treehouses, forts, games of hide and go seek, and all the joys that should properly belong to children. There were little paved paths going all over the place, so kids had their own little freeway system to use for their bicycles when we weren't trying to break ourselves jumping them over obstacles like "The Coffin" which had a ramp followed by a 1 foot deep, 2 foot wide, and 6 foot long squared cornered pit. (Which is where in retrospect I presume the dirt for the ramp came from originally.) There were at least a half dozen playgrounds with exactly the sort of terrifying death merry-go-round pictured at the top of that article, jungle gyms, slides, swingsets, and so forth. Not quite as brutal as the ones which were just straight concrete underneath, these did at least have a bed of pea gravel.
When I was 6 or so, I performed experiments in inertia and physics, taking the time to carefully cover the entire top of the merry-go-round with the pea gravel in a nice even layer, and then spin it faster and faster until even the bits in the middle shifted and flew off. Marvelous stuff.
Thank you - professor Arnstberg (who would have been made Emeritus ten years ago if not for his political views and outspokeness) has sacrificed a lot for the sake of truth, and our nation and people.
His marriage. His daughter has cut all ties both due to being branwashed and because doing so is essential to have any career.
I have exchanged views with him on and off for some 8-10 years now, over the internet since he lives mainly abroad in semi-voluntary exile; here in Sweden, he may well have faced fines and imprisonment. Which brings me to this from the review:
"So, knowing this, how should one avoid such a calamity? This is where the book falls somewhat short. Arnsterg offers a detailed diagnosis of the Sweden Syndrome, but he never bothers with any prognosis that could treat it."
The reason for the lack of remedies so to speak is simple:
The book would not have been published. To recommend in detail what must be done, would cause the Dep. of Justice to put out an order for his arrest and extradition, since any thing prof. Arnstberg might have recommend as direct action could constitue incitement.
An example of how bad it is:
Currently, an Iranian expat to Sweden is under arrest in the USA. Last year, his friend and fellow Iranian refugee Salwan Momika was murdered by moslems here in Sweden, because Momika had burned a koran at a free speech manifestation. Salwan Najem, the survivor who has been convicted of "hate crime" went to the USA last year and has asked for political asylum, according to Najem's attourney.
If he is sent back here, and is sent to prison, he will be murdered inside the prison.
---
Professor Arnsteberg has a blogg-page (in Swedish) at [https://morklaggning.wordpress.com/]. I'm sure software translation is good enough, should you or anyone else be interested in checking it out.
A good essay! And how appropriate that, in the middle of it, an ad was placed entitled "How to Get Rid of Embarrassing Man Boobs? 3 Best Home Exercises for Men Over 45," illustrated with an exemplary photo of the humiliating condition.
This is an awesome article.
My favorite part of this and the reason you know it's all bullshit is when you turn the tables on them and push back they just don't know how to respond, other than rage. Stick to the programing; they just can't deviate from the cartoon running in their heads.
They just can't fathom it, because, as you say, their ideology is Self, and they've never really had to experience it.
It's because Leftism is the only ideology that demands total subjugation and will treat you like garbage after you die for it.
Anyway, back to my taxes where I owe The Somali Pirate Fund $10k.....
Abdul thanks you.
I paid Somalia a big chunk yesterday.
It was a tough decision.
Do I write "Ukraine" or "Somalia" in the memo line of my check?
Or the “UN”
Have we moved past Nigeria?
When it comes to whos first in corruption i think Nigeria bribed Ukraine to take first place....
Since I funded it, can I write off all the losses in Ukraine.
My comment should have said "Ukralian". I didn't catch the autocorrect.
I like it
🤣 do it!!
Your form should have a line reading, "My favorite NGO."
When Xi is done with Marx Carnage all of us here up north outside of the golden dome will owe him ten grand in social credit taxes.
He's such a dope.
There is objectively nothing more important that a strong trade relationship with the largest market in the world (which happens to share a border), and the elbows up crowd chose feelings over practicalities. And just ignore the issues with the border (immigration, drugs, cartel infiltration) that were reasonably raised.
Disgusting.
You didn't have your CPA show you how to identify as a Somalian on your return?
I forgot to bring my zebra, pirate hat and bone through my nose.
Oh no! How will we recognize you?
And the reason this affliction affects women more than any other group:
Solipsism - one's own view is what defines the world, and everything is subjugated to that.
One of my favorite games is to see how long it takes to get an "F*@% you" from one of the creatures who hang with the furries on the overpass, waving limbs and signs. They have NO ability to engage in thoughtful give and take; its all panic and rage. Sad, really.
What gets me is how fully they harbor hate.
I mean wouldn't that get old? The more you hate; the more you hate; and the deeper its claws get in you.
Seems like it would be exhausting.
Imagine living with NO SENSE OF HUMOR. Rage and hate are no substitute.
No doubt. That's a really good way of putting it. Boils it down
Alas, I also pay into that fund all too regularly.
I would argue that this a problem stemming from women who raise children on their own. Very few women have enough natural agency of their own to teach it to their young ones; instead, the Weaker Sex™ teaches their own weakness and dependency if there is no constant input from a male parent.
When we created a government Sugar Daddy to replace husbands and fathers, women were free to reject the compromises that come with marriage and family life; instead, society supported them in rejecting the importance of fathers except as ATMs.
It's no accident; Marxism explicitly seeks to destroy the family and substitute the state. And certainly believers know who the Father of that ideology is, and why he seeks the downfall of our culture.
Well....that's a highly debatable beginning statement. To blame the women certainly has a lot of truth to it, imho, but not the part of being a single woman. I was such a woman, divorced single mom, but my sons are definitely not weak-kneed soybois. I was an adult during the 60/70s femlib movement, the most destructive societal movement. That movement changed its initial goal of women working outside of the home in non-traditional jobs to making men more like women...they destroyed the concept of men and, to be honest, men allowed it. Basically, men want two things: Peace and sex. They allowed what we have today to take place.
Of course not all women are incapable of raising children alone, but a great many are, and you know that's true. No reason to take my comment personally.
I am a Boomer woman and I don't blind myself to the problems with others of my gender. I think perhaps 50% of women are truly the Weaker Sex™. The rest are conservative.
Young single women are the main reason young school boys are on Ritalin and other drugs to lobotomize their natural male growth. These young women have no experience with the rambunctiousness of boys. The best answer to this is homeschooling, but better training, an end to teachers unions (and all public-sector unions), public schools, school boards and Nurse Ratchet school nurses would also help.
Truth in that.
Keep preaching. Appreciate the insight.
I don't take it personally...I am an end of Silent Generation...I simply don't like that generalization...a bad female role model in a two parent home is just as destructive as a single mother who maybe has a difficult time hoeing that row by herself. Ideally, stable parents both in the home is the goal. But that is not always possible. But, to be honest, my observation over many decades is that the (or a) mother is behind non-functional children. No other animal species does this. Offspring are prepared to survive (except for the runt in a litter).
Dancingtime, your line "men want two things: Peace and sex" is brilliant. I will use it (with attribution) because it summarizes why there is so much grief in the current situation. Getting peace and (rare) sex by being a soyboy is one way to get there I suppose...but the peace is stultifying and the sex is awful. Getting there in the traditional way, while often rocky to get to peace, was and is far better. Inspired short phrase that says so much.
Every guy I say that to gives me that grin.....I usually add "and ends up getting neither"....
Sadly, both short statements are true...lol.
You don't have to be a soyboi....You have to pick what is important to you (the guy) and stand by it....Don't just "yes, dear" to everything. It's a give snd take and, unfortunately, far too many men and women who are first and second generation offspring of the femlib movement women have no example to fall back on.
My late grandfather had sayings like yours. One was, “Don’t sweat petty things, and don’t pet sweaty things.”
Wise phrase to live by as a husband.
My younger son once said to me "All my married friends say that their wives tell them to deposit their balls in a bowl by the door and pick them up on their way out in the morning.....but not me.." oh yeah....
I don't hear him blaming Mom, rather, I hear him blaming feminized, irresponsible absentee Fathers....
You’re right that men are wired to provide for women, and sometimes it’s hard for men to say no, as was the case with Adam’s sin.
I’m pretty sure your “three” boys fought among themselves and that provided sufficient masculinity.
Actually, my two boys both became Eagle Scouts. I was very blessed that there was a great Boy Scout leader and troop where we lived for their tweener and teen years. The guys in that troop were great examples....Being an independent woman, I raised my sons to be independent.
I'm sure their Scout leader was a father figure for them.
for what is worth (probably not much but a fun memory): in the late 1950's, our adult scout leader (a badly wounded WW2 combat veteran) upon seeing us smoking home-made grape vine cigarettes, told us to get some real cigarettes if we were going to smoke........which we did and smoked Winstons around the campfire (no smoking outside of camp unless on a long hike).......we were 10,11,12 years old and learning our way......BTW several of us did reluctantly go to VietnamFuckingNam and that's where I stopped smoking Winstons!
Smokin' vine. I was told it's a mild hallucinogen, but achieved no results smoking vine.
GREAT scout leader.
Speaking of “women,”
Is Gender Socially Constructed? – Argues There are 3 Fatal Flaws in the “Gender as a Social Construct” Position – HUM210 Introduction to Women and Gender Studies
https://viva.pressbooks.pub/hum210/chapter/is-gender-socially-constructed-argues-there-are-3-fatal-flaws-in-the-gender-as-a-social-construct-position/
I think that “social construct” was used in the arguments yesterday. https://youtu.be/saHNTej9y30?si=ZdJuTspZfL2-CAfP
I wish I could waste my time reading that link to gender studies but I am a naturalist….there are two sexes in the law of Mother Nature strictly for the propagation of the species….all species. (Hermaphrodites are, unfortunately, a scientific abnormality….) I can no longer be bothered with women studies stuff. I was an adult working woman during the 60/70s femlib movement. I lived that history….and became an unlikely advocate for men as a result of the damage which that movement did to this country. And no…I wasn’t a happy pink collar worker….
Both comments are good
Exceptions prove the rule. Just because you were different doesn't mean the generalizations are not true.
No, it isn't debatable, but like al things life is a bell curve and you were on the right side of it.
Agreed, but allow me to take it farther.
In retrospect, it’s the casual divorce that did Western society in, not the casual sex (+ shameless access to abortion).
In my USA, we’re now three generations deep into motherlessness, as a result of mothers working f/t outside the home. GenZ has grown up grandmotherless as well; their grandmothers are still chained to the loom.
Motherlessness & grandmotherlessness occur in families where there is no divorce, no single moms. This is the conversation that people aren’t having.
I argue that masculine fatherly guidance is easier to replace than the loss of feminine motherly nurturing. Today’s loonie political activists are neglected children, but in adult form.
Whether there be casual divorce or lifelong marriage, the child psyche is still damaged by motherlessness, i.e. emotional neglect as the direct result of mothers working f/t outside the home.
After my husband moved out and with two sons 4 & 7 at the time, I had to go from p/t to f/t. Their dad would have them every other weekend, so my sons knew their father thankfully. I had next door neighbors that were like a surrogate grandmother and grandfather to my two boys. I also had my mom that could help out if needed. Both of my boys have grown up to make me extremely proud of the type of parent they have become and have raised beautiful children of their own. They both wanted to consider marriage as a lifetime commitment. It is a sad state when children are left alone without having a mother, or a father, they can talk to. I agree with your comment that children need both parents in their lives and grandparents share a special role in children’s lives. My younger son asked me to retire and move where he was currently living. It was a 2000 mile difference, but I felt blessed that he wanted me close in his life and happy to help with the grandchildren whenever needed.
I’m alive today thanks to the democratization of divorce. Divorce does save lives. In an earlier era, my mom, sister, & I would all be killed (domestic abuse). That said, I still argue that it’s casual divorce that has damaged Western society, possibly a mortal wound to Western society.
… I hardly ever hear Western women admit that they casually divorce father of their children. But statistically speaking, no way, no how did all of these Western women have as poor taste in men as my mother did 😂😂😂
And this is why I always encourage our young “trad wives” that stay home and do their best. 🥰
Also, I encourage homeschooling! We are finishing up our 26 year with two more years to go. My husband is a schoolteacher and every day is a story… and it’s getting worse and worse and worse! 😱 He is trying his best in a completely broken system!
This is what happens when you take God out of society… Out of the home… out of schools and out of government. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🔥
We already know how rampant fatherlessness works out for male children. Black society is the culture dish of that experiment.
That came about because of welfare rules....couldn't have a man in the house. Welfare, as ai recall, was started to help single mothers. The working poor at that time, as I recall, were not eligible but many did not take it when it was extended to them....they were too proud....
True, but it still proves my point.
Not sure, but think it was CBS that sent an investigative team to a Florida panhandle county that had a very high level of poverty and a very low level of welfare participation to see how many starvation cases they could find, or something like that. This would have been late 60s, early 70s, when welfare entitlements were taking off.
What they found and reported was people growing most of their own food and having a culture of being ‘poor, but proud’ and refusing ‘handouts’. This is a true story.
Which caused the destruction of the family unit. Nature provides for both the masculine (preparation) and feminine (nurturing) in the raising of a child. Both are required for a well-adjusted adult to be produced.
Breaking this down causes all sorts of societal problems.
I can say that my kids never suffered from lack of love or attention but I had a good paying job. I was involved in all of their activities including scoring for the Little League games and doing the newspaper call in of the plays. I was involved in their scout activities and was a Den Mother for Cubs. I was active duty Navy. I worked my butt off for both the Navy and my kids. What has been detrimental to US families has been mobility. Extended families are fractured. Families who remain around other family members have that continued familial contact. Grandparents remain important in their lives.
For the sake of argument, let’s grant that your household wasn’t motherless. There are exceptions to every rule. But agreed, “mobility” is also devastating to the family, and to the child psyche. I’ve been making that critique as well, for decades.
Young women are now taught as an actual strategy to find a stable guy with good finances that they can hold their nose around, marry and have a few kids, then divorce and take all his money and property. Then they can be free to pursue the 6'7" multi-billionaire minotaur of their dreams on the "starter husband"'s dime.
This was made possible by the courts generally defaulting to always giving the women the kids and the house in a divorce. As always, government interference ruins everything. A few states have passed laws requiring everything to start at 50/50 and the circumstances judged from there, and divorce rates in those states have plummeted.
The minotaur may be on the way out, by the way. I just saw yesterday that ICE agent bondage fantasies are in high demand from liberal women now. Gives a whole new context to Renee Good's smirk at the agent she was trying to run over.
I do not agree that single women raise kids to be needy. In my family, I raised my kids to be so independent and resourceful, they don't even need me anymore!
I moved the wife & 5 kids from my native USA back to her native Japan eleven years ago in 2015 for the traditional three-generations-under-one-roof lifestyle. 3-under-1 roof was still traditional USA culture in my Depression Era grandparents’ day ‘n’ age (b. 1910’s & 20’s).
The Western communist pop cultural revolution destroyed intergenerational interdependence, e.g. 3-under-1 roof. Now we send our unloved seniors to the Medicaid Concentration Camps, i.e. State dependence instead of family strength.
Even in cases when there’s yet a Mother Natural loving willingness to babysit Alzheimer’s Grandpa 24/7, and change his diaper, etc., our USA “middle class” womenfolk are all locked up in the workforce till 65/ 67.
We were duped by androgyny-in-the-workforce, aka 1960’s style 2nd-wave “feminism.” They called it a victory for women, but it’s simply a fundamental communist principle.
Here in Japan, the cultural norm remains intergenerational interdependence. The gov’t does not provide Medicaid Concentration Camps for Abandoned Seniors.
Androgyny-in-the-workforce isn’t (yet!) normalized. The COL is still calibrated to a breadwinner-homemaker lifestyle; children still have mothers at home. Japan still celebrates motherhood & childhood.
Intergenerational interdependence is real strength, real freedom. In the USA, we were duped. Now we’re slaves to the welfare state.
another root cause of this problem is the loss of children to their far away jobs after College. Lots of my HS class students stuck around the home town and had families-- about 50 to 60%. But, the rest, like me went off to college and never returned to the hometown-- taking jobs often far away. This led to the dissociation of the family units, dropped the relocated kin into a culture new and different and with no family or even friends. Now our kids are out-state and there is not much left of what was a traditional family.
WHat is needed is educational and high end jobs more evenly dispersed which is not likely to happen.
Agree. I’ve been making this very same criticism of our post-WW2 socioeconomic system. Here in Japan, it is normal for countryside youth to move to the cities for employment. Agriculture has been undercut by imported foreign labor, and imported cheap foreign food, including produce Made in China.
But apparently city folk stay put.
And you are probably (like me) one of the exceptions that proves the rule.
Why are you okay with specifying from your solitary example that single woman as a class do not exhibit a particular behaviour ?
Same
This doesn’t pencil out for me. Single moms who don’t have time to parent should produce more independent kids no? You don’t teach a kid agency. They just grasp it when they must. If they never must they never will.
But it's security that encourages independence.
Hmmm? I think you have that backwards. It is the desire to avoid the loss of independence that motivates one to take measures to secure it. If you don't care about having independence why would you care about security?
Security is a universal human need, and it doesn't come from independence but from someone being there for us when we couldn't yet fend for ourselves.
That sounds like the female position; someone else will give you security. Men are the ones who have to create independence. Those who would trade liberty for safety will have neither, and feminism has decided to make that trade.
I'm not suggesting trading liberty for safety, believe me. We all need security, a foundation of which serves as the best way to the independence that we ALL (both genders) also need. Though I can't agree with you in this regard, I support your right to express your opinions. 😉
Marxism: the abolition of property, which includes your children. The state then becomes the parent and its leader the father. Same playbook for religion.
Oprah Winfrey convinced the crew of "The View" that she wasn't overeating, which made her obese; she had the obese gene. She just admitted in an interview that when she stopped getting the Mounjaro shots, she immediately gained twenty pounds and had to start taking the shots again. Damn that obesity gene, also known as her fork.
Exactly. The 20 pounds didn’t magically reappear due to a gene; 20 lbs due to overeating. But of course, Oprah loves to be a victim. Her blackness, her womanhood, her weight, her obesity gene, but not her riches, have held her back🤦♀️
Whatever happened to Stedman? Did she eat him?
You win The Internet today!
😂😂😂
All that up and down dieting and junk and medications she took destroyed her metabolism plus no doubt added insulin resistance. That means when she started just eating normally again, her metabolism sort of said “Yay, I’ve got food and nutrition again, let’s go”. The insulin resistance and slow metabolism packed on weight even though she is eating a normal nutritious diet—and NOT overeating at all. Starving weight off too bites you in the end with 600, 800 to 1200 calories—actually not enough for proper health plus not enough fuel with glucose, puts the weight on again and has starved your thyroid which kind of regulates everything. It’s a complicated problem. Move more, eat less is a crock in this modern toxic food environment all around us. Ask me how I know this.
You are well-informed or have lived through it yourself.
It is never an AWFL's own fault. Never!
And lack of exercise
It’s 100% that it’s her dietary choices causing it. I’m sure she’s like the majority and consumes an absurd level of carbohydrates, particularly sugars. The average is 250-300g per day. Just reducing this by half is enough for most people to shed weight quickly — you don’t really even need to reduce food intake, just adjust the types of food. Starvation diets are unsustainable, but changes in diet composition absolutely can be.
From another substack article recently:
“Medieval monasteries maintained detailed, private health records, tracking the well-being of their communities. In the early medieval era, monks regularly ate meat such as fish, pork, and game when accessible. They also ate cheese and eggs every day. These health records show common medieval health trends: injuries, occasional illnesses, and mostly active lives into old age.
Church doctrine evolved, leading to stricter rules among religious orders. Meat was considered spiritually corrupting, prompting monks to adopt bread-based diets with beer for liquid nutrition. However, health records from 50 years later show a contrasting story from the same monasteries, with meticulous records indicating very different health outcomes.
Obesity often appears in historical records, with gout becoming known as a typical “monk’s disease.” Documentation of arthritis also rises notably, describing symptoms like lethargy, swelling, joint pain, and metabolic issues. Monasteries with the strictest meat restrictions tended to have worse health results. Conversely, monks who ate fish and cheese on fasting days experienced better health than those who ate only bread and beer.
The irony is striking. They banned meat for spiritual purity but caused physical decline. They believed animal food corrupted the soul, so instead they ate grain, which damaged their metabolism. Medieval doctors documented this clearly: they prescribed meat to sick monks who recovered, then returned them to bread and beer diets, and watched them deteriorate again. The monks kept detailed records of their own decline, blaming it on spiritual weakness rather than nutritional harm.”
This is fascinating.
🤣
> this manifests in WILD ways. we saw a whole government medical establishment tell people that acquired immunity from exposure to covid was ineffective and you needed a vaccine.
When the covid vaccine first came out, my doctor tried to convince me to get it.
However, I had had a mystery illness in March 2020. I had told my doctor about this, and he had said that it sounded like I had had covid.
So I asked him: "If I already had covid, doesn't that mean I'm immune? Why do I need a vaccine?"
And he just, very matter-of-factly said "Well, we don't know how long that immunity lasts"
And I said "Well, then, why do you think the vaccine immunity wouldn't wear off?"
And he said "I don't think that. Obviously, you would need to get a covid vaccine like, every year, or every two years, or however long it lasts"
And I said "That's not what the president is saying on TV"
And my doctor straight up said "well, obviously. People are dumb. If we told them they'd need to get a shot every year, they wouldn't. But it's easier once they get the first one"
I politely declined the shot and, to his credit, after that, my doctor never tried to persuade me to get it again. But I thought that was telling. I don't have a wider point
"I prefer to remain in the control group", of the Covid1984 human experiment....
One of the more deceptive tactics of the pharma/gov chimera during covid was the elimination of the Phase 3 trial control group as quickly as possible with the excuse "they could be killed by covid" meanwhile the shot was not even available to the general public yet.
https://totalityofevidence.com/timeline/pfizer-unblinds-placebo-control-vaccine-trial-group/
That switch in message in mid 2021 was the first to set off my BS detector, from "get a vax so we all benefit from herd immunity" to "oops, that didn't work, everyone needs a booster". Bay about August, when the FDA published "you are not a horse" (and I grew up in agriculture with a rudimentary knowledge of common meds between humans and livestock), I had lost all trust of talking white lab coats and it has not come back since. I have great respect for those that smelled the rat long before I did, but I remain dumbfounded by the 50% of today's population that still can't smell the sink.
Love your stuff Gato! This is also a theme in Christian religion where the devil is set in contrast to the Savior. One wants you to think that you have failed and are incapable of redemption. The other tells you that you can become something wonderful, just follow his example and he will make up the difference. The better path is harder, requires more effort, and is challenging. But the reward is exceptional. The alternative is eternal misery.
I have grand nieces and nephews that don’t have any desire to drive. I started driving around the farm and down dirt roads as soon as I could see over the tearing wheel. Three on the tree Chevy. Of course by then I had already mastered horses and shoot a .22 rifle.
My 16 yr old, who has her own car (yes quite spoiled), nevertheless wanted me to drive her to a bday party because "I don't want to drive that far in the dark." I said, you drive or stay here, I don't care, but I'm not spending 1.5 hrs on the road on a Friday night because you want to be chauffeured. She drove herself.
Good response mom.
💥
And survived, I am guessing. Well done
Yeah, I don't get that at all - I started driving at 14, the same year I started working for an actual paycheck. In high school, my boyfriend and I spread manure from a mammoth John Deere after school, on his family's dairy farm. Driving was something my peer group did as soon as we possibly could!
I've reached the conclusion that "leftists" (or whatever you call them in your neck of the woods) remain in an arrested state of development, still stuck in the school playground, tugging on the teacher's sleeve, wailing "It's not fair! It's not fair!"
I was just commenting on this very point in a reply to a previous comment (above). My conclusion is like yours.
…
Agreed, but allow me to take it farther.
In retrospect, it’s the casual divorce that did Western society in, not the casual sex (+ shameless access to abortion).
In my USA, we’re now three generations deep into motherlessness, as a result of mothers working f/t outside the home. GenZ has grown up grandmotherless as well; their grandmothers are still chained to the loom.
Motherlessness & grandmotherlessness occur in families where there is no divorce, no single moms. This is the conversation that people aren’t having.
I argue that masculine fatherly guidance is easier to replace than the loss of feminine motherly nurturing. Today’s loonie political activists are neglected children, but in adult form.
Whether there be casual divorce or lifelong marriage, the child psyche is still damaged by motherlessness, i.e. emotional neglect as the direct result of mothers working f/t outside the home.
I think the major motivator for most leftists is, "Look at me. Look at me." "See my superior sense of justice in the nuance of my curated, virtue signalling, awesomeness." "Hey! Over here! Me, Me, Me., Me!"
EGM, Love all your work but this is the best piece you have written in a long time. Laden with so many universal truths I had to make a list. Thank you for taking the time and having the intelligence and chutzpah to lay it all out so clearly. (P.S. You still need a copy editor. I volunteered to do this for you years ago and got no answer, but you definitely still need one. This stuff is too good not to be expressed perfectly on the pedestrian lexical axis.)
"it sprouted everywhere like mushrooms." - And we all know what it takes to make mushrooms sprout, es verdad?
They are all wind up outrage machines, and the Left has been training them since they took over the education system. Started back in the 70's and has just gotten worse.
Imagine being so brainwashed with Leftist propaganda that you protest against safer streets!
I mean, why waste time discovering the truth when you can easily "create" it. Getting their acolytes to be reflexive (whether it's opposing ham sandwiches or safe streets) is the most assured way to keep their allegiance.
And now here we are.
That Kids in the Hall sketch... there is *no* way the CBC would allow that now.
Excess sitting is the new smoking for the twenty-first century. Excess sitting is linked to a myriad of disorders including osteoarthritis, osteopenia, degenerative disc disease, lumbar disc protrusions AND obesity. Yet, people fallacious believe the 'health care system' can save them from these scourges. While the system can guide them, ultimately, the onus is on them to take accountability for these problems. Otherwise, they will always be a source of insufferable pain for them.
Brilliantly insightful, one of your best! Isn't that what the Founding Fathers fought for and what the American Revolution was all about? Responsibility for ourselves and collectively as a new nation composed of individual and national sovereignty; freedom to follow self-realization while being supported by a vision based on rights with responsibility which was what America was supposed to stand for; " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, that among these are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Brilliant!
Pure gold: "...why learn to be good at a job if you can learn to be good at pressing the “ism” button until you get a raise based on your intersectional attributes or aggrievement?"
Cargo cults of woke grievance, indeed. For years, in corporate and educational organizations, I have watched the aggrieved wokesters "fail upward" into ever higher rewards and authority based on everything but effort and competence. I see the results firsthand.
All this has done is make the US prime for takeover.
I also survived the 1980s when it was the Republicans who were a$$#oles, planting the seeds for what is happening now, by pretending our meritocracy was in full swing and that things like critical thinking and education were for personal competitiveness instead of stabilizing the whole of society.
Let's hope we even survive this pendulum swing, since the Chinese aren't training their kids to hate China. Dividing the US against itself is making SOMEONE's plan easier to implement and I don't mean OURS!
Great write up. Went to Calif in my VW bug, slept in car in state parks, went into a Porsche dealer in Monterey, can I be an apprentice mechanic? And here I'd only changed plugs before, ridiculous but I blessedly did not know that. Ditto in SF. And from my teen love of cars, while working in a Dairy Queen (boss: "did you sleep in that shirt??"), learned of a former LeMans driver whom I ended up working for of all things. Quitting school to do that was a life changer. Later, back to school and now wanting to learn coming from within instead of from outside, got a scholarship to grad school. Never would have happened had I not gotten out into the big wider world from small town Ky. El Gato, check out 'The Preparation', book on Amazon, and the youngster Maxim Smith, guinea pig for the adventure, has a Substack, hopes to ignite similar spark in other youngsters.
A lot of us did similar things back in the day-
In my case, at 19, we threw everything we owned, including the dog and roommate, into a 72 Nova and headed for the West Coast. I had been a PT waitress in greasy spoons up to that point, but in the place we wound up I asked for a job at a posh cafe and when they asked me if I could wash dishes I emphatically said 'yes'. The training I got from that job set me on a nearly 40 year path in fine (and not so fine at times, LOL) dining- a trade that I will always be grateful to have found.
Its sad to see that kind of adventure go out of young people's lives
It is so weird to see these kids on current social media having anxiety because they spent all this money on a 'degree' but don't know how to use it to get a job, in fact can't get a job because they have no work experience at 20 something and bring their parents to interviews. Crazy.
Besides, to top it off, because of the inevitable results of the kind of leniency that is discussed here, it is becoming increasing illegal to sleep in your car- or even RV or camper. Kids will never know what they missed...
Another epic commentary on our society. I also concur that "In Praise of Lawn Darts". is your best ever. It's the one that, once I read it, caused me to say "I have to subscribe and support more of this from this mysterious fellow!". It's also the article that I've shared the most widely - not just by you, but by any online writer. It's the perfect articulation of what I've felt for many years as a child of the 60's & 70's, but never could quite put into words. I go back and reread it every once in a while just to enjoy it another time. And, well, the Sunday memes have been an excellent replacement of the "Sunday Funnies" that we all used to enjoy back then, and were further motivation to become a subscriber... :-)
Agreed. This in particular struck me:
> bikes and skateboards and the bewildering variety of janky hand made ramps and jumps we used to build for them.
When I was between the beginning of kindergarten and the middle of fourth grade, right across the street from my house was a very large empty lot that had been zoned for something that hadn't been built yet, and right next to that was the elementary school I went to, Meadowland Elementary.
And in this large, empty lot in Northern Virginia (and therefore full of good, moldable, Virginia red clay) generations of school children between the ages of five and fifteen had built the infamous "Meadowland Jumps". We all had "BMX" bikes, or at least we treated them that way. And gods above and below, the injuries we did to ourselves there would go far past "hyperventilation" in today's mothers and straight into "stroke" or "myocardial infarction". But when one of the rear support struts for the "banana" seat on my bike rusted through at one of the piercing holes put through it for adjustability, and then broke, leaving a jagged, rusty, sharp tube sticking straight up from the frame, and I went over "The Mountain" (the largest of the jumps, a pile of clay and rocks some 8 feet high, with multiple crossing paths over it with different angles of attack and descent) and landed and jammed that same jagged, rusty, sharp chromed steel tube a couple of inches into the back of my right thigh (at eight years old or so) my mom just taped a washcloth over the wound, and a plastic bag over that, and put me in the car and took me to Bethesda, and they scrubbed it out and gave me a tetanus shot. And nobody questioned *why* I had been doing such a thing in the first place, and while it *was* the most grievous injury I suffered in that place, it was certainly not the *only* injury I did to myself chasing the thrill of speed and flight on a bicycle there.
And afterwards, my father replaced the seat with a more regular "pear" style, and I went right back to it. No knee pads, no helmet, most often in shorts and a t-shirt and a pair of Zips. This would have been between middle of '82 and the end of '86. Good times. Eventually they built a church in that lot (or so I discovered many years later via Google Maps) and children were denied that experience, not that they'd have been allowed to have it these days anyway.
I love this. We too had an empty corner lot in our neighborhood, about a block from my house, and strategically located in the center of all of us kids. We dug forts in the dirt, reinforced and covered with pilfered plywood found on nearby builds. Glorious days!
Oh, yeah. The whole neighborhood was (and still is) full of little pockets of trees, large enough for treehouses, forts, games of hide and go seek, and all the joys that should properly belong to children. There were little paved paths going all over the place, so kids had their own little freeway system to use for their bicycles when we weren't trying to break ourselves jumping them over obstacles like "The Coffin" which had a ramp followed by a 1 foot deep, 2 foot wide, and 6 foot long squared cornered pit. (Which is where in retrospect I presume the dirt for the ramp came from originally.) There were at least a half dozen playgrounds with exactly the sort of terrifying death merry-go-round pictured at the top of that article, jungle gyms, slides, swingsets, and so forth. Not quite as brutal as the ones which were just straight concrete underneath, these did at least have a bed of pea gravel.
When I was 6 or so, I performed experiments in inertia and physics, taking the time to carefully cover the entire top of the merry-go-round with the pea gravel in a nice even layer, and then spin it faster and faster until even the bits in the middle shifted and flew off. Marvelous stuff.
"...other state actors might do with such prerogative at some later date."
And not just state actors.
International actors, of both state and corporate capitalist varities.
Religions, transinhumanists, new Malthusians, and oodles of other breeds of progressive utopian.
I thought of you when I read this this morning:
https://thefederalist.com/2026/01/16/how-mass-migration-destroyed-swedens-scandinavian-utopia/
Enjoy. Exactly what you've been saying for 5 years.
Thank you - professor Arnstberg (who would have been made Emeritus ten years ago if not for his political views and outspokeness) has sacrificed a lot for the sake of truth, and our nation and people.
His marriage. His daughter has cut all ties both due to being branwashed and because doing so is essential to have any career.
I have exchanged views with him on and off for some 8-10 years now, over the internet since he lives mainly abroad in semi-voluntary exile; here in Sweden, he may well have faced fines and imprisonment. Which brings me to this from the review:
"So, knowing this, how should one avoid such a calamity? This is where the book falls somewhat short. Arnsterg offers a detailed diagnosis of the Sweden Syndrome, but he never bothers with any prognosis that could treat it."
The reason for the lack of remedies so to speak is simple:
The book would not have been published. To recommend in detail what must be done, would cause the Dep. of Justice to put out an order for his arrest and extradition, since any thing prof. Arnstberg might have recommend as direct action could constitue incitement.
An example of how bad it is:
Currently, an Iranian expat to Sweden is under arrest in the USA. Last year, his friend and fellow Iranian refugee Salwan Momika was murdered by moslems here in Sweden, because Momika had burned a koran at a free speech manifestation. Salwan Najem, the survivor who has been convicted of "hate crime" went to the USA last year and has asked for political asylum, according to Najem's attourney.
If he is sent back here, and is sent to prison, he will be murdered inside the prison.
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Professor Arnsteberg has a blogg-page (in Swedish) at [https://morklaggning.wordpress.com/]. I'm sure software translation is good enough, should you or anyone else be interested in checking it out.
That Swede really nailed it. Thanks for the link. I would wonder why this is not more widely discussed, but we all know why.
Its our path if the Left retakes power
A good essay! And how appropriate that, in the middle of it, an ad was placed entitled "How to Get Rid of Embarrassing Man Boobs? 3 Best Home Exercises for Men Over 45," illustrated with an exemplary photo of the humiliating condition.
I thought of America when I read that this morning. Thank you for the link.