Category: Politics

A constitutional change that we all can agree on.

This year, constitutional change is in the air. But like so many previous attempts to alter the Australian Constitution, this one – the creation of an Aboriginal Voice – is being shown to be every bit as controversial as most earlier attempts at change. In medical parlance: “the patient is not looking good.”

But the Government may save its constitutional face if another question was submitted to a vote, and one that we can all agree on: a referendum to deny the state the power to enforce lock downs and control of citizens.

Ever since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, many Australians continue to ask how the state could have completely overridden their rights. To say we were dismayed would not cover the frightening reality of what living through the pandemic brought to these shores. And if for any reason we were returned to that state of lost liberty now, again there would be no remedy at the removal of our rights, unless we raised pitchforks in defiance.

But while we and the rest of the western world succumbed to this abuse of citizens, one country did not: Sweden. In Sweden, unlike anywhere else, there were no lock downs.

On April, 19, 2022, The Washington Monthly https://washingtonmonthly.com/2022/04/19/what-sweden-got-right-about-covid/ reported that,

‘While most countries imposed draconian restrictions, there was an exception: Sweden. Early in the pandemic, Swedish schools and offices closed briefly but then reopened. Restaurants never closed. Businesses stayed open. Kids under 16 went to school…Sweden seems to have been right. Countries that took the severe route to stem the virus might want to look at the evidence found in a little-known 2021 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The researchers found that among 11 wealthy peer nations, Sweden was the only one with no excess mortality among individuals under 75. None, zero, zip.  That’s not to say that Sweden had no deaths from COVID. It did. But it appears to have avoided the collateral damage that lockdowns wreaked in other countries.’

https://healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-pandemic-related-excess-mortality-and-potential-years-of-life-lost-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/

Initially, Sweden received much odium for its outlier response with claims that the country was putting at risk their people by not locking down. But since then, as that article points out, Sweden’s approach to Covid-19 has been vindicated.

But the larger question still remains. Why was it that Sweden managed Covid without control orders over its people, when at that time the “jury was still out” on whether not locking down would work to stop the virus. How was this small Nordic country able to withstand the on-line abuse, including what must have been significant pressure from external forces, such as the WHO and the EU, from not enforcing the full gambit of freedom-destroying policies. Why was Sweden different during Covid?

In her article, The truth about Sweden’s voluntary lockdown in The Spectator (22/9/20), https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-myth-of-sweden/ Dr Rachel Irwin addressed the novel Swedish management of the pandemic, writing that under the Swedish Constitution,

‘Swedish law does not allow for many types of lockdown measures. Even something as simple as closing a beach is tricky because, in general, beach access is covered by the Right of Public Access which, in turn, is enshrined in the Swedish constitution. The limitations of Swedish law partly explain why the parliament passed temporary amendments to the Communicable Diseases Act in the spring, which would have allowed for the closure of shops and other commercial spaces (this provision expired at the end of June without being used).‘

So Sweden did not refuse to lock down; rather it was not a legal option for the country. 

Irwin goes on to say:

‘The Public Health Agency also believed that voluntary measures would work as well as compulsory ones and that people could be trusted to act responsibly. However, Swedes are not inherently more responsible than other people. But by repeatedly and consistently telling us that we were responsible and could be trusted to use our judgement, the government and authorities performed an extremely effective Jedi-mind trick: we were told that we were responsible, so most of us were responsible.‘

So when people are treated like adults, they act like adults! Well, how surprising is that! Who knew?

Irwin continues:

‘That said, high levels of societal and institutional trust meant that we were already comfortable with following official recommendations. About 60 per cent of Swedes agree that ‘most people can be trusted’ compared to just 30 per cent in the UK, and institutional trust is also higher in Sweden. Size matters, as well: while Swedes have political scandals like any other country, our politicians and civil servants are not faceless bureaucrats, but fellow Swedes. If I email a public official, I usually expect a response, not a formal letter written by an administrator. However, societal and institutional trust are not intrinsic, and can work in large countries. Trust is earned and nurtured, and it can be lost — an encouragement and warning to any government.‘

Yes, trust is a cornerstone of a free and open society (and, to repeat, is earned and nurtured). Unlike in Sweden, however, during the pandemic (and now), we lost trust in our institutions. Here, not only were our freedoms taken from us, we were belligerently and repeatedly lied to.

We know this from Scott Morrison’s interview with Sharri Markson on Sky News last week, and his assertion that neither he nor National Cabinet’s expert advisory panel – the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – supported widespread vaccine mandates: https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/03/09/no-vaccine-mandates-pull-the-other-one/

In his article, Lars Jonung expands on Sweden’s constitutional limitations of controlling its citizens: Sweden’s constitution decides its exceptional Covid-19 policy, (CEPR, 18/12/2020). https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/swedens-constitution-decides-its-exceptional-covid-19-policy

The relevant sections of the Swedish constitution (Regeringsformen) are Chapter 2, Article 8 (personal liberty), and Chapter 12, Article 2 (independence of administration):

On personal liberty, Chapter 2, Article 8 declares that,

‘Everyone shall be protected in their relations with the public institutions against deprivations of personal liberty. All Swedish citizens shall also in other respects be guaranteed freedom of movement within the Realm and freedom to depart the Realm.’

Under independence of administration, Chapter 12, Article 2 states that:

‘No public authority, including the Riksdag, or decision-making body of any local authority, may determine how an administrative authority shall decide in a particular case relating to the exercise of public authority vis-à-vis an individual or a local authority, or relating to the application of law.‘

According to Jonung, ‘the Swedish system is based on administrative dualism, where the public agencies are set up outside the ministries of the central government.’ This means that the government (politicians etc) may not extend influence over public agencies for political advantage.

If Australia had similar constitutional limitations then neither the Commonwealth nor the States could have used as medical camouflage health bureaucrats to enforce arbitrary controls on the people. If constitutional constrols had been in place in this country, like in Sweden, government overreach could never have been an option and the trust between the citizen the state would not have been lost.

In the comments section of my post for New Cat – ‘No vaccine mandates?’ Pull the other one – 8/3/23, one comment stood out:

Kneelsays:
March 10, 2023 at 12:49 pm
‘As per the post, he [Morrison] declared a federal biosecurity emergency, giving him (OK, his “Health Minister”) near unlimited control and requiring very specific circumstances to be met – that is, “due process” is part of this legislation.

So he could have gotten that power and said something like:

“There WILL be NO mandates and no coercion from the states to get a vax. If the states try to do this, they will be charged under federal law, as will any company or government department that demands personal health information from Australians to enter their premises, regardless of whether they are an employee, a customer or for any other reason. Such health discrimination is completely unacceptable, and I will put in place systems to ensure that anyone who attempts such bastardry is prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The Australian people have given us their trust to run the country, we must reciprocate that trust, and trust their own judgment on what is best for their own health. There can be no argument that it is ‘my body, my life and my choice’, as every state health department currently recognises with some sort of ‘right to refuse treatment’ policy.

While we certainly encourage all Australians to obtain the vax for this horrible disease, it is ultimately between them and their trusted medical professional as to what is right and best for them, and no government – local, state or federal – has the right to interfere in such decisions, much less demand it. Shame on anyone who thinks they have the right to control another persons health decisions.”

But he didn’t have the balls to stand up to the “worriers” and fright-bats – too worried about “the optics” and getting blamed if grandma died.’

Kneel is right. Our former Prime Minister could have shown our nation true leadership, rather than the twisted mea culpa we endured at his National Press Club address in February, 2022, when he declared that his job was getting everyone (the premiers) in the room and getting an agreement.

If Australians are going to continue to vote into power such low value politicians then we need a Plan B that will limit the power of government over us (outside of war) like Sweden has.

While we may not wish to embrace any additional features of the Swedish Constitution, certainly the limitation on control of citizens and control of (all?/some?) public agencies would ensure that were we ever to experience another pandemic our rights as free people could not be removed.

When the framers of the Australian Constitution conceived our national document, they sought among other things to ensure a system of free trade, which included free intercourse between the states. Subsequent constitutional challenges, however, have reduced that original intention to make trade and intercourse absolutely free to more exactly a determination by the states, with the consequence that our right to absolute free movement has been and can be, given the “right” set of circumstances, restricted when politicians deem it necessary.

A referendum proposal that would enshrine unambiguously the limiting of the power of the state over the people, would ensure that one constitutional change will get up this year. That is a referendum we can all vote yes to!

‘No Vaccine Mandates?’ – Pull the other one.

This week, former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, in the jargon of the media, sat down with Sky News journalist, Sharri Markson. Though the interview covered a range of subjects, there was only one area that interested me: vaccine mandates.

In the interview, Morrison asserted that he and his Government never supported widespread vaccine mandates. Neither, he said, did National Cabinet’s expert advisory panel – the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, (which is the standing committee of all State and Territory Chief Health Officers, with the Australian CMO as Chair). In fact, apart from “aged care and sensitive health settings,” which were mandated by the Commonwealth, Morrison claimed that it was the State Governments who forced vaccine mandates on to Australians.

Continue reading “‘No Vaccine Mandates?’ – Pull the other one.”

Some thoughts on mothers, drag queens, trans, groomers & grooming

Why are parents, and in particular mothers, taking their children to drag queen shows and drag queen story hours in public libraries? This phenomenon of provocative drag queens performing in front of children was unheard of as little as five years ago yet now, probably because we are living in the middle of a woke revolution, every day hear of more stories and we see more footage of mothers with children, even infants, attending highly sexualised shows and “cabaret” acts, where scantily clad males parody women by putting on “women face”, and where these same males in “women face” lewdly gyrate and thrust themselves sexually in front of young children. Why do parents willingly take their children to view such lewd acts? This question was asked by Rita Panahi on Outsiders this week. As an aside, methinks Rita is having some regrets voting yes to the SSM debate. I have no such regrets because I did not vote yes back in 2017, I voted no and the reasons why I voted no are on display every single day.

But back to the question, why do parents, particularly mothers, actively participate in this?  Until now, drag queens have only ever been considered adult entertainment so, I am curious as to why we are suddenly seeing this phenomenon emerge where a society permits and even encourages drag queens to dress up and perform before children in highly sexualised and provocative ways. Whilst not all drag queens are paedophiles, I find it odd that any self-respecting drag queen would want to perform such acts in front of children, and such a willingness to do so reeks, to me at least, of something far more sinister. It isn’t rocket science to see that exposing children to drag queen shows and having drag queens read stories to children is a manifestation of the whole transgender cult but there is also something more dangerous and insidious at play, it is a manifestation of queer ideology’s open intent to sexualise young children, to make children sexually accessible, and to legitimise minor attraction, aka paedophilia. I believe that the push for SSM was the Trojan Horse to mainstream queer deviancy and degeneracy. And it has worked a treat, because silly and naïve parents, mainly mothers, are so drenched in woke progressive ideology that they fail to see the obvious dangers, dangers that aren’t just lurking beneath the surface, they’re bubbling away for all to see.

Look closely at the video clips from the US that show the degenerate drag queen shows.  Note that when you do you will see that, apart from the homosexual men and the degenerate drag queens, you will usually only see children with their mothers at the shows. I don’t see many straight males. Where are the fathers? Well, I know where they are, they’re missing, gone, absent, AWOL. And it seems to me that the mothers who are taking children to such shows are doing so because they are so desperate to prove their loyalty to woke ideology, and to accumulate woke brownie points that they willingly expose their children, not just to questionable content but more disturbingly, to questionable people.  We know paedophiles groom children, but they are also adept at grooming parents, particularly mothers.

I wrote the following a few days ago on C.L.’s blog and I apologise to those who’ve read it already but I’m going to repeat what I wrote. I know some might find what I wrote contentious, but it is something I have thought a lot about lately and I have discussed this with female friends and family.

It is an indisputable fact that it is some parents, and particularly mothers, who place their children at physical, emotional and psychological risk. Sometimes this is accidental, sometimes deliberate. Some mothers do so because they are naive, some because of rank stupidity, and some are happy to endanger their children in order to adopt a particular lifestyle or be accepted into a particular cult or group. They fail or refuse to understand how certain people, certain lifestyles and certain practices are dangerous and will harm children emotionally, psychologically, and physically. We hear examples of this weekly, where a child has died or been murdered by a mother’s de facto or boyfriend, where a child has been sexually abused by a mother’s de facto or boyfriend or someone she has invited or allowed into the home. Years ago, I remember reading a story about a young child who went missing decades ago. Whilst it took many years for the truth to unravel, the child’s paedophile abductor was known to the mother. The mother had associated with some unsavoury people. Whilst she didn’t set out to deliberately endanger her child, there are tragic consequences when you associate with dubious and dangerous people, and you leave your child in the care of people who should not be near children. 

The sudden emergence of children attending drag queen shows and drag queen book readings in public libraries is a phenomenon that would vanish today if mothers stopped taking their children to such events. But too many mothers are now so indoctrinated into a progressive woke world view that they refuse to acknowledge the obvious dangers posed by some individuals, beliefs, and practices. In other words, they refuse to acknowledge the reality of deviancy. The mothers who are taking their children to these drag queen shows are wilfully ignoring these dangers to satisfy woke ideology, with the result that they are jeopardising the future psychological, emotional, and physical wellbeing of their children. No good mother takes a child to watch drag queens perform. But what is more worrying is how our society, if it is not at the stage where it actively celebrates and applauds such deviancy, is just happy to shrug its shoulders and says, “what harm can drag queens do”.  It is this rank stupidity and apathy in the face of such obvious deviancy and degeneracy that proves that it is no longer only children and parents who are being groomed, our whole culture is being groomed, and we are willing participants in modern day child sacrifice. If this doesn’t ring alarm bells, we are doomed.

Nietzsche’s foreboding insight

From the outset, it must be said that German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a troubled individual who suffered a wide range of afflictions during his relatively short life.   Having said that, in the preface to his work ‘On the Genealogy of Morality’, Nietzsche wrote:

What if a regressive trait lurked in “the good man,” likewise a danger, an enticement, a poison, a narcotic, so that the present lived at the expense of the future? Perhaps in more comfort and less danger, but also in a smaller-minded, meaner manner?

Considering Nietzsche wrote that in 1887, it was a foreboding insight into our modern world and the decline of the West’s morality.   Nietzsche considered it “the danger of dangers” – namely, that all individuals, even those with the potential to rise above the mediocre mass, are pressured into becoming a ‘herd animal’ whose only apparent goal was to please or acquiesce to the rest of the herd.    

This is most evident in today’s social media platforms, often with enthusiastic reinforcement by the MSM, where critical thinkers are hounded when their conclusions don’t match the groupthink.  Globally, Governments have harnessed this phenomenon to keep those individuals in check who dare to question the approved narrative.   Within our small community at the Cat for example, there are numerous individuals who have been subjected to a variety of punitive responses on social media or by government for daring to question the official orthodoxy during Covid. 

Where an individual is independent and questioning the orthodoxy, that person is deemed by the herd to be ‘bad’ and must be hounded into silence.  Alternatively, those who belong to the herd and conform, are deemed to be ‘good’.   Social media, government and the MSM can combine to judge the outspoken individual and on many occasions, the pile-on can be vicious.  At a minimum, the person’s social standing is damaged and for some, their professional standing is destroyed.  Yet this herd behaviour can overturn society’s growth and evolution.  

So, is this a new phenomenon? 

For millennia, humans have gathered together to form societies (whether tribes, clans, villages and so on) and those societies must have rules for peaceful and productive cohabitation.  As many humans were naturally inquisitive and, necessity being the mother of invention, humankind flourished.  

Of course, assorted rumours, speculation and vendettas arose every now and then with terrible consequences for those deemed outside the accepted orthodoxy.   There are near endless examples in our human history of the persecution of minorities for some alleged or even actual ‘slight’ against the established status quo.  But there is also a veritable conga line of independent thinkers from before Aristotle to after Isacc Newton that made vital contributions to society’s evolution, yet many were initially ridiculed or persecuted.    

Whilst we consider ourselves far more civilised today, is the persecution of the outspoken independent thinker via social media really much different to the baying mob armed with pitchforks advancing on the hapless individual?   Those events usually happened with the consent of the local Chief (who may even lead the attack) – why is this different to our government inciting, and in some cases orchestrating, a vengeful mob? 

Social media has a lot to answer for in our modern society with its insidious and destructive impact on our society being fanned and encouraged by every Western government on the planet.  Government recognised the opportunity to frame the narrative in a social media context and apply (un)official enforcement via the mob.   The rate of transformation, and ferociousness of self-imposed enforcement, must exceed their wildest dreams.   

The MSM, for their part, have long recognised their dependence on government largesse via advertising (or ownership) and that their very existence is governed by legislation.  Every one of us can point to numerous examples where journalists have utterly failed to challenge the government’s statements or actions.   The hand inside the media glove unquestionably belongs to the government.    

Will things change?  The malevolence of the vested interests, and sometimes outright contempt for the people they are supposed to govern, would suggest that the voice of those who question the official pathway will continue to be threatened.  Only sites such as the Cat offer refuge.

Although Nietzsche couldn’t have imagined our society, the principle of silencing questioning thinkers remains – in our time it is a cohort of anonymous social media assailants, MSM and government who persecute those who would rise above the dim-witted and complaint masses; how often have we seen a call to correct some perceived inequality coupled with implied allegations of an anti-social phobia for the non-compliant?

Of course, the desire for control extends far deeper and includes the covering up of government excess (even criminality) or collective censorship of legitimate news or opinion.   If it challenges, embarrasses or confronts the official narrative, the attack dogs of social media and the MSM will do their master’s bidding.  

Finally, Nietzsche’s pertinent warning:

Our highest insights must – and should – sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when they are heard without permission.  Why has an anti-natural morality – a poison which has spread through the entire body of mankind – gained dominion over Western civilization?

I doubt that Nietzsche could have imagined, even in his wildest dreams, the extent to which our social structure has deviated nor the depths to which our morality has descended.  Indeed, many of those who contributed greatly to our developing society over the millennia would struggle to be heard in our enlightened ‘modern age’.     

Battle on Cats, battle on.   

Perversity under liberalism

This is a rather good thread on the pseudo-medicalization of psychological conditions that are often, in other instances, nothing more than perverse sexual fetishes and I recommend it to you. One of the interesting aspects here is the status of perversion under liberalism. To put it bluntly, liberalism not only lacks the philosophical and moral framework and vocabulary to distinguish and elaborate the perverse from the good/ natural, it is actually and increasingly hostile to any such architecture and vocabulary.

The framework and vocabulary that distinguishes and elaborates the perverse from the good/natural is one that is able to identify what certain things are as well as what they are for. The problem for liberalism is that it abandoned this framework from its inception and overtime the remnant vocabulary was purged as it ceased to make any sense within the framework of liberalism. Now, whenever we are confronted with what was formerly understood as perverse conduct, within the framework of liberalism, only the ideas of consent and harm are our guides. While these ideas are serviceable within their limited range, as guides they in no way exhaust the legal or the moral, and they certainly provide no assistance in identifying or dealing with perversity.

And it’s precisely because of this absence and hostility that our understanding of perversity follows a pattern of first being psychologized, medicalized, and finally normalized via a program of de-stigmatization. We now see the reverse occurring; that is, people that maintain an understanding of this or that conduct as perverse are, firstly, stigmatized as extremists, bigots, and the like, and, finally, psychologized as suffering from irrational fear (homo/ trans/ –phobia). Many such cases, indeed.

Prideland

I have often wondered what it must have been like for ordinary people in Russia, China, Germany, Cambodia, Korea, Iran, and other countries, to wake up and realise they were living in a country that had been overtaken by a sinister, fringe, and radical political ideology. Did they think the political madness would pass and everyone would finally come to their senses? Perhaps some people were bewildered, bamboozled, puzzled, confused and overwhelmed by the radical change. I am sure some understood what was happening, but no doubt most people thought they could wait it out. As a student of history I understand how radical ideologies, once they obtain power, be it through elections, revolutions, or coups, never waste any time consolidating power and never waste any time implementing radical social, political, economic, sexual and racial agendas. The left are masters of this. It happened very quickly after the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, and it was replicated fifteen years later in Germany when Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933. And once in power they never voluntarily relinquish power. They use state apparatuses to propagandise, to indoctrinate and to groom. Communism, Nazism and Fascism enforce their agendas by grooming.  All totalitarian ideologies groom, they are experts at it.

In democracies like Australia we do not have the excuse of sudden radical ideological change (although the jury is out with this current Albanese government). No, instead we have allowed radical and fringe ideologies to gain influence and power slowly, by infiltrating and corrupting our mainstream political parties, government departments, media, academia, education, entertainment, charities, even religious groups. This process of infiltration and corruption has been slow, but it has been highly successful, and it is now entrenched. And nowhere has this process been more successful than with the whole LGBTQI+ ideology. What began as a genuine and sincere campaign for equal rights for gay men and gay women has now morphed into a sinister campaign for the compulsory acceptance of radical queer theory, and as part of this compulsory acceptance, the push is to normalise sexual perversion and to breakdown societal and sexual taboos. Queer theory is unapologetically revolutionary in its desire and intent to destroy heterosexuality (or as they prefer to call it, “heteronormativity”), to destroy the family, to destroy biological reality, to destroy male and female, to destroy our Judeo-Christian heritage, to destroy religion and to destroy consent laws. In queer theory, all children, even infants, are regarded as sexual beings who can consent to sexual activity. LGB has now evolved into LGBTQI+ and it’s the last three letters and the plus symbol that now runs amok through western societies. I call it LGBTQI+ fascism and this fascism is now entrenched across western societies.

I live in inner-city Sydney and the city is currently hosting “WorldPride,” a festival promoting global LGBTQIA+ pride. Sydney is currently drenched in LGBTQIA+ pride propaganda, there are banners, flags and murals everywhere, almost every shopfront displays the LGBTQIA+ pride logo and flags, walking through David Jones today I noticed how even the ground floor of the store has been painted with LGBTQIA+ pride colours. It is everywhere, you cannot escape the propaganda. Building facades are painted and daubed with pride colours, one hotel near Hyde Park has LGBTQIA+ pride ribbons hanging for metres down the front of the building. Footpaths, steps and roads have been painted with the LGBTQIA+ pride colours. As I walked through all of this today, I became increasingly bewildered, puzzled, disturbed and irate, and then I realised something, it was akin to walking through Berlin in 1938, where the swastika and other Nazi imagery were omnipresent, in 2023 I walk through Sydney’s streets and stores and the LGBTQIA+ pride colours are omnipresent.  Just like the Nazis used the swastika as a symbol of its sinister ideology, just like the Soviets used and the Chinese and North Koreans still use murals and military parades to symbolise and promote totalitarian ideology, the LGBTQIA+ pride colours are also designed to intimidate, to indoctrinate and to promote, and all of this is a message to ordinary Australians that they no longer have the reins of power in this country, that power now belongs to fringe, radical ideologues.

I felt sickened by the display today, it is everywhere. I now live in LGBTQIA+ land. This has nothing to do with equal rights for gay men and women. This is state sponsored grooming and indoctrination. I will have nothing to do with it. Yet if I dare protest, I am the reactionary, the bigot, the homophobe, the transphobe, the racist, and the Nazi. And all of this will only get worse, so I am prepared for the day when I hear a knock on the door and I will be confronted by police who will question why I refuse to celebrate LGBTQIA+ pride, why I think paedophiles are dangerous and should not be allowed near children, and why I believe in biological reality. The police will probably say that they want to check my thinking. I am ready for all of this. And do not laugh, such police visits are already happening in the UK.

Once upon a time East Germans lived in Stasiland, Australians now live in Prideland.

Sliding towards polyamorous ‘marriage’

It was clear during and following the public discussion of gay ‘marriage’ that there was no in-principle argument among the majority of its proponents that could present a stumbling block for polyamorous ‘marriage’. If people could not recognize that marriage was a union of the opposite sexes, given its ends, how could they further recognize it was also an exclusive union?

So it’s not surprising that the Economist, no less, is gently suggesting, in much the same way it and other outlets did re gay ‘marriage’, that polyamourous arrangements face discrimination, are misunderstood, and so on. There is, of course, an acknowledgement that marriage is in many respects institutionally inapt for polyamorous arrangements,

Triads and quads are what Laura Boyle, a relationship coach, calls “poster-child polyamory”: comprehensible to monogamous people who can grasp the concept of a closed unit living together. In fact networks are often more complicated, represented by v- and n-shaped configurations that don’t imply mutual attraction among several people. Ms Boyle lives separately from her three partners; she co-parents with her ex and his wife. She calls polyamorous people “folks with a scheduling kink” and thinks they are more willing to accept some fluidity in their relationships, for which marriage is a poor framework,

but the recognition is nevertheless sort in order to obtain the tax, workplace, health care, immigration benefits and the like that marriage affords. What is often missed in these discussions is that marriage includes these benefits because the institution itself was understood as a public good and thus worth promoting through these benefits, not because of its benefits to individuals. It’s not clear at all that these relationships (polyamorous, gay, and so on) that fall outside of the nature and form of marriage confer the same or similar public goods typically associated with it.

But this will likely be ignored, and the focus will be on whatever ‘discrimination’ is faced by those that want to engage in polyamorous arrangements. This will be the case both at the juridical and political level. The only likely impediment is the absence at present of a victim class. Gay ‘marriage’ was aided by the category of ‘sexual identity’, there ‘homosexual’; whereas, polyamorous arrangements can involve hetero/ homo/ bi- sexual individuals. Of course, given the propensity to multiply the number of sexual identities by the variety of sexual inclinations, there is nothing to stop the creation of the sexual identity ‘polysexual’; in fact, it is already with us.

The only way to stop and reverse this slide is to ask what marriage is for, and any failure to do so allows for the continued dissolution of marriage as a meaningful institution, which may be the point.

It’s time to celebrate men and masculinity

There is a Yiddish word I am sure many here have heard of before. The word is “mensch”. Mensch, in its original meaning, is not a word to be used flippantly. Calling a man a mensch is a serious compliment, to be used sparingly, it’s a word of praise that extols the virtues of a man, a man who is good, who does good, who takes responsibility, who is physically, emotionally and mentally strong, who is loyal, who is kind, who uses his masculinity to love, protect, build, and nurture. As we know, not every male is a good man, just like not every female is a good woman. There is nothing worse than a weak man. If you want an example of a man who is the antithesis of a mensch, look no further than Harry Mountbatten-Windsor, who is revealing to the world just how weak, disloyal, treacherous, irresponsible, dissolute and narcissistic he is. For me personally, there is nothing more attractive in the world than a strong and masculine man comfortable in his own skin.

Sadly, in 2023, men of all ages are routinely demonised, disparaged, ridiculed, and smeared. Masculinity is denigrated. The appalling term “toxic masculinity” is used recklessly to the point now where it’s routine, nobody blinks an eyelid on hearing it, and it’s commonly used against white men of European background. Male masculinity is trivialised and mocked in advertisements, in media, in entertainment, in education, in academia, and in writing. Men are made fun of, and all men are presumed to be sexual predators. Men are now deemed guilty until proven innocent. This constant denigration and disparagement of masculinity starts early in life, so that we now live in a culture where boys are growing into adolescents and young men without purpose, they’re lost, bewildered, angry, sidelined, marginalised, and mocked. Too many boys are growing up without fathers and positive male role models. The consequences of this are catastrophic, we are witnessing teenage boys, and young and older men committing suicide in ever increasing numbers, we are seeing staggeringly high numbers of homeless men (young and old), boys’ educational outcomes are lagging significantly behind girls, and over the last decade we have seen the rise of the “incel”, young males who are socially awkward and are unable to communicate, preferring a relationship with a computer rather than a human being. What is an “incel”? The Oxford Dictionary describes “incels” as….

a member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually, typically associated with views that are hostile towards women and men who are sexually active.

I believe the online “incel” phenomenon is a version of an age-old male phenomenon, the gang. Marginalised, disaffected, socially alienated males have always been attracted to gangs, it is in those gangs that they find other males like themselves. The gang gives boys and young men purpose, direction, meaning, it provides them with a community of other males, and they depend on and feed off this community. It should surprise no one that in 2023 there are online gangs of young men who roam the internet, who play violent online games, and who watch pornography. These socially awkward and alienated males, many of whom have grown up without fathers and in highly feminised environments, have testosterone which has never been channelled into positive masculinity, and so an online community has mushroomed of males angry with the world and particularly with women. Many of these socially awkward and alienated males are highly susceptible to grifters such as Andrew Tate and Jack Murphy, to name just two. Tate, currently under arrest in Romania, has allegedly pimped young girls, US based Murphy pimped his wife. These grifters created businesses to extract money from lonely, impressionable and awkward young males, and once they received the money, they would provide pseudo masculinity recipes to young men which contained fraudulent elixirs to pursue their “positive masculinity”, except the recipes were made up of snake oil masculinity promoting misogyny, pornography and the emotional and sexual subjugation and abuse of women. That is not real masculinity, it is a perversion and debasement of masculinity. Snake oil masculinity is costly, fraudulent and misogynistic, real masculinity is free and character building.

If the West is to be saved, and I believe it can be, then the current demonisation of men and masculinity must stop NOW. And this initiative needs to come from women. Why? Because I believe that women have created this problem of disaffected, disillusioned and socially alienated males. I do not want to live in a culture dominated by females and where boys and men are smeared and ridiculed. I want a society where the masculine and feminine are complimentary to each other. I want men to be men, where the words “be a man” are mandatory and celebrated, where boys and men are provided with male role models who encourage them to be good, to do good, to take responsibility, to be physically, emotionally and mentally strong, to be loyal, to be kind, to use their masculinity, not to subjugate or manipulate women sexually, physically and emotionally, but to love, protect, build, and nurture.  In other words, we need to cultivate the mensch in men.

A Small Price (for us) To Pay

On 25th of March, 2022 (keep the date in mind) Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Defence Minister, released figures for Russian army casualties in the month-long war, or “special military operation,” in Ukraine. 1,351 Russian servicemen had been killed, and another 3,825 wounded. NATO sources put the number killed at between 7,000 and 15,000.

On 22nd of September, Shoigu updated the figures to 5,937 Russian servicemen killed. Neither of these numbers included Donbas militiamen, or the Chechen forces, or mercenaries of the Wagner Group. Up to that time, much of the fighting in northern Donetsk and in Luhansk had been conducted by the Donbas militias, who had been carrying the main burden of the fighting with the Ukrainian army since 2014, by the mercenary Wagner Group, and by forces comprised primarily of Chechens under a Chechen leader. Both of the latter were engaged in the fighting around the city of Bakhmut, a vital supply link for Ukrainian forces which had been shelling the city of Donetsk since the war broke out in 2014.

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Arizona Election Contest

Barnes summarizes the case from 1:47:40 on.

Over the weekend, lawyers for Kerri Lake filed a lawsuit against Katie Hobbs, both as contestee and in her capacity f Secretary of State, and various election officials of Maricopa County, re the gubernatorial election in Arizona this past mid-term election. You can find the lawsuit filed here.

The vote margin at present is 17,117 for Hobbs. Lawyers for Lake allege that hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots (p. 4) contaminated the final count. They also allege that tens of thousands of election day voters (p.3) were disenfranchised by tabulator and printer failures across a majority of voting centres across Maricopa County. Taken separately or together, the numbers involved are greater than the margin of victory.

According to Arizona law, citing Findley v Sorenson, “the Arizona Supreme Court held that mistakes, omissions, and irregularities in the conduct of an election may void it if they “affect the result, or at least render it uncertain.”

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