152 thoughts on “The Core Problem, Again”

1. The Apostle Paul, in the office of a prophet, told the people of Thessalonica the character traits of the people who would be alive in the last days. Those people would be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, incontinent, untrustworthy, backstabbers et al. In the second half of the first chapter of his letter to the Romans, which was written in Corinth (read Las Vegas or Hollywood), he describes what we have become as the result of believing what we want to believe instead of subscribing to the Truth.
   I have been studying what you have described as the Core problem for the past 20-25 years as I cannot abide non sequiturs. I feel that for every effect there must be a cause. My studies have taken me beyond the surface appearance to the motivations and even the guiding ethos of people. I have come to the conclusion that we are sheep who without a shepherd will head straight for the edge of the cliff or the quicksand because that is what we want. When the quicksand looks pleasant staying out of it is a chore because we want to feel good and that is what we think quicksand will do for us.
   At the risk of being preachy we do need Jesus Christ as our Lord because in that role He is our shepherd and will lead us beside the proverbial still waters if and when we allow Him to be Lord and take charge of our lives. Otherwise, we will make our own short-sighted choices and end up like Mr. Wine Stein or Moonbeam because we will be doing what we think and feel is right for the moment in which we do it with no thought for the future. The more extreme examples have waltzed into the waiting arms of the devil and have given their hearts to him. When you look into their eyes you don’t see a human, only the pit of hell. I have seen that twice in my life, and that’s why the antifas frighten me as without Christ, that is what I would become.
   Thank you for hearing me out and putting up with my bad puns in earlier posts.
   BTW, California was admitted to the Union as a Republic. I believe on that basis California could easily and legally secede. All kidding aside, I think the rest of the country would say good riddance. That would mean that I would have to go to Arizona and attempt entry as an undocumented immigrant. Cute.

   • “I have been studying what you have described as the Core problem for the past 20-25 years…”

     I hope in your copious studies, you have given some consideration to biological causes and effects as an explanation for suicidal behavior of populations. Since you’re obviously religious, consider that it is sacrilege to ignore a clear process shown by science. In other words, if god decides to work through clearly describable processes and consequences, who are you to deny him?

     A lot of what I describe can be found in the very biologically-oriented “The Genius Famine” http://geniusfamine.blogspot.com/ .

     The fact is, there is a constant rate of harmful genetic mutations in every living organism undergoing reproduction. The quality of populations is maintained through selective pressure: in other words, the individuals weakened by damaging genetic mutations die early and do not get the chance to reproduce. A damaging genetic mutation that does not interfere with reproduction gets carried on into future generations.

     There are many factors in modern societies that relax selection pressure. Just the prevalence of food and shelter is major. The welfare state specifically not only makes possible the survival of damaged individuals, but allows and encourages them to have children. You don’t have to be a genius to see the results of that.

     One manifestation of modern society is that according to reliable measurements, the general IQ of western populations have been going measurably down over the past century or so, ever since anything close to IQ measurements were being taken. There are disputes about that, specifically something called the Flynn Effect, which I won’t discuss here, but is thoroughly dealt with in my reference.

     The decline in the quality of the population, in my opinion, (I have no scientific studies to cite) includes character traits as well as IQ: to include public virtues like courage, perseverance, integrity, honesty and truth-seeking. So, if my thesis is true, it is not surprising that western populations, the biggest benefactors of technological prosperity and political liberalism, would become noticeably susceptible to the infusions of aggressive, intolerant peoples.

     There are other factors involved in the decline of western countries. One factor is the expansion of the size of countries. Another factor is the growth of bureaucracies.

     You can find a detailed historical description of the growth of empires and its effect on the original populations in Law of Civilization and Decay . The original carriers of the culture and vitality of a young country are pushed off their lands through the consolidation of trade and the development of markets in finance. In other words, the shift in power changes to traders specializing in finance and debt. The moneylenders in the late Roman Empire eventually owned all the land. I mean all of it. The crowds of shiftless plebeians receiving handouts of bread and circuses in the Roman cities used to be solid small farmers, who were forced off their lands.

     Another factor is the development of bureaucracies. Every bureaucracy is a guaranteed wage for people whose entire focus is expanding the size of the bureaucracy they’re in. If you oppose a bureaucracy, you have to supply your own money and take time from your own interests. To the bureaucrat, expanding his scope and power is subsidized by his wage and is his entire focus and interest. Unfortunately, we have huge bureaucracies whose power and income depends on bringing in more immigrants and finding reasons why white prejudice is the cause of black, brown, and gypsy dysfunction.

     I believe there are humane solutions to these problems, consistent with Western humanism (and perhaps religious philosophy as well, although that is not my forte). It consists of supplying a comfortable and happy life for damaged or sub-par individuals, but not allowing them to reproduce. Or, should I say, not supporting their reproduction. Do I trust governments to make that type of decision? Absolutely, emphatically no!

     • I have long thought the same regarding the long term decline of the quality of Western populations due to two factors. The first factor is modern medicine, which enables those who otherwise would have died in times past due to early death from susceptibility to disease or defects. The second factor is the encouragement and support of those morally unfit to breed being enabled to do so like muslims due to the welfare state removing any concerns over food, shelter, income, medical care, etc.

       Since there is no voluntary sterilization in exchange for taxpayer largesse, the numbers of low information voters and lazy individuals continues to increase. Add a war or two to remove the most fit and courageous individuals from the breeding pool, and the necessity for both men and women to spend their reproductive years slaving away unceasingly just to afford to keep their heads above water instead of having children – another unaffordable expense, and one begins to understand why Western countries are in the fix they are in.

       You nailed the problem on the head; it is not that people are not reproducing; it is thst the wrong kinds of people are reproducing while those who are the most productive are being discouraged from doing so by their own sense of responsibility.

       • Let me add something briefly.

         In the absence of selection pressures, ie, selection of the fittest, even an isolated population without government welfare or intrusive immigration, will deteriorate. This is due to the natural and constant damaging mutation of genes. The technical term for the systematic deterioration of an isolated population is “mutational meltdown”.
         http://geniusfamine.blogspot.com/

         In other words, to maintain the quality of our population, there has to be a positive action or condition. Nature’s way is cruel: the weak die of starvation or by predation. I think we can improve on the cruelty of nature, but we can’t deny the cause and effect which occurs.

         • humans are not within this logic anymore.

           because of modern medicine, and rational civilization in general.
           the weak don’t die of starvation or predation.
           the weak sometimes even become holy cows.

           you want salvation – stick to better philosophy.
           one small thing remains, to define what it is.
           …

         • Add in a Civil War and Two World Wars wiping out a significant portion of the traditional male population with the drive to defend their home and families and you have another huge genetic drain. Especially when you add in who was mating while the men were away, dead, or destroyed physically and emotionally forever after.

     • I agree with what you have said, and you are correct in saying that we are following the same path that Old Rome did and we will end up in the same place.
       As for the pervasive effects of technology, I saw the beginnings of it 35 years ago and then shuddered when the video games came out. I watched in horror as my own son became addicted as any drug addict.
       What you described as the softening and dumbing down of western society as the result of the easy life that was supplied by technology was in my observations running in tandem with the philosophical and spiritual aspects of life that was likewise softened and dumbed down as the result of interactions with computers. The more we work with computers and depend upon them the more we think like them. Not only have I experienced this in the work that I do that uses technology as an adjunct, but I have also observed this change in others to the extent of them appearing to have been re-programmed by computers.
       Thus the material aspect of the softening and dumbing down that you described is working in tandem with the spiritual aspect that I described to produced a populace that is readily manipulated, to what ends Yah only knows. Computer-driven zombies would be an extreme description, yet that is what appears to be on the horizon.

     • I read recently that average intelligence is increasing, but can’t remember where.

       • The claim that average IQ is increasing is the theory of the Flynn Effect. Briefly, there are problems with a correlation between the Flynn Effect and actual gene biology. The closest real relationship we have between biology and IQ scores is reaction time measurement, that has been taken for over 150 years. The reaction time scores show a steady decline over that time period.

       • I realize my previous post needs a clarification.

         Reaction times have been increasing, implying a lowering of the general intelligence trait.

         • Of course, it is not possible to have an increased IQ in the future if the most incapable idiots are reproducing in droves.

   • I have been thinking about this situation for some time as well. You will be familiar with Ian Kershaw’s theory that many of the Nazis were “working towards the Fuhrer”.

     To understand this “core problem” perhaps we should see Adolf Hitler (aka “the Vienna vagabond”) as more of a gatekeeper than a dictator/control freak, in that he gave people permission to let out what was truly in their hearts.

     He didn’t put it there. He didn’t overtly command them to commit evil acts against their will. But he gave them a vision to strive for, and it soon became known that committing evil acts would be approved of retrospectively. If it was in line with the leader’s vision. And that was it, off everyone went …

     They just listened to Hitler’s dream-visions, and did whatever they thought would work to bring those visions about.

     If that meant doing evil, then so much the better. Once they headed down that slippery slope, they went faster and faster towards the bottom …

     We’re experiencing a similar phenomenon today. There may not be a single leader, a Fuhrer figure, here on earth – not yet, anyway – but the god (little “g”) of this world doesn’t need one to bring the world to ruin, and make ready for the day when a single leader will appear, full of false promise.

     Human beings have evil in their hearts. It’s just below the surface, and it doesn’t take much of anything for it to come out. They just need “permission” from the “authorities” (recall the Stanley Milgram experiment). And if they have the idea that other people will “approve” of their actions (aka “virtue signalling”) then away they go, and there’s no stopping them …

     “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6: 5)

     “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” (Matthew 24: 37)

     • Humans are reacting of their own volition on a massive scale. And the vision in their heads has little to do with their inexpressible dark dreams and everything to do with a sappy, stupid, ignorant, bogus compassion and charity that would almost make Al Sharpton throw up.

   • I agree with your point that this what millions of people want. Such widespread destruction and faithlessness to one’s own is not accidental or the result of propaganda. It is what people want. They see the same events we do and they desire it. Some huge assumption about the world validates what they vote for.

2. Because we all can’t see the forest for the trees. Did you ever ask yourself why you believe in this religion which is so dear to you? Nigh impossible to do, because to a believer it is sacrosanct and even doubt is a sin. If someone came and challenged your belief system, you’d automatically go in defense mode and, if found the heretic is civilized enough to refrain from outright hostility, make a polite statement of your firm commitment together with your “tolerance” of the other one’s right to exist with theirs. A different response if they are found genuinely hostile. But you would not falter or even allow a thought of doubt to occupy you for any length of time.

   Before the age of TV, religion was the main, or only source of “mainstreaming”. The majority of people wants to “go with the flow”, consciously or not. Rather more of the latter. Conscious vs. unconscious mind is like the famous iceberg, the biggest part of it is under the surface. These belief systems have more strength than we can see easily. Trying to yank someone out of their chosen subjective reality is a battle against its immense gravitational force. To put it more concretely, it is as much as it would take to convince you that Christianity is false. Which from your viewpoint must be beyond infinite!

   Now, apostates do exist in all religions who fall off through their own conscious effort or through painful experiences which trigger a thought process. The same applies to the current mainstream delusion. Every terror attack is a sting with a needle. But these are all isolated incidences so far. There will be many more of them, to the extent of open war which seems ever more likely given Islamic doctrine and the multiplication of its adherents. The “mainstream” doesn’t come around voluntarily without a major disaster that matches its own power. This is our near-term future.

   • I believe in Christianity because I find it to be essentially true, just as I find islam to be essentially untrue, but not because I want to go along with the flow (I was raised as a rational atheist). When I use the word “true”, I mean not in a scientific meaning of the word, but true in a philosophical meaning. Religion is not science, and I wish both religion and it’s skeptics would quit trying to make it so. The argument that religion needs to be disposed of because some biblical reference does not conform to what we can observe in our current position in time and space has no merit with me. What exactly do you propose to replace it with? True secularism is extremely destructive as one can observe in our current state.

     That being said, I consider the atheist proposal that life and the universe to be the result of random chance to be mathematically impossible. If you question this, consider the mathematical probability of a single, simple protein consisting of 400 base pairs to be the product of random chance. That probability is .25x.25x.25 ……multiplied out 400 times! Now consider that you see this same improbability repeated again and again over all of the unique life forms existing on the planet, each one having thousands of such proteins in each individual species. Astrophysicists have also asked this same question regarding the universe to be the result of random chance with the same results. Makes you think doesn’t it. It’s more believable that “little green men” populated the planet than it being the result of random chance, but then that begs the question, “who created the little green men?”.

     When I was a child, I loved to read E. E. Doc Smith science fiction novels. The universe was populated by lots of different species, all uniquely adapted to their particular environment, with a hierarchy of life forms that varied greatly in their knowledge, beliefs, and abilities, that served a binary evil or good. Through effort, one could advance on this evolutionary scale to a state of being more enlightened. This is obviously not true. Life does seem to be unique to us, and is the result of a sequence of very unique events occurring, which makes the existence of God much more believable, and evolution less believable.

     Yes, we have an insurmountable obstacle in the form of the education system, the media, entertainment, and even Christianity itself working against solving this issue. People go along with it because the alternative of a “fix” is too horrible to contemplate. I’m way too comfortable to want to rock the boat too much and drive the society toward that.

     Revolutions never start with people like me who have too much to lose to want to change things in that manner. It is my belief that the reason you see the main stream narrative is that “fixing” the problem is too horrible to contemplate at this point, so it’s easier to pretend that multiculturalism works. Events like what is happening in South Africa to whites destroys that myth, so they are glossed over, or ignored, but South Africa is the canary in the coal mine. Revolutions begin at the bottom of society. That is why the only fix is a total collapse when the whole mess becomes unsustainable. Then all the people like me who can clearly see the problem will then act because they have nothing to lose at that point.

     • I’ve said nothing about a specific atheist proposal, there are really many. Not the subject matter here anyway. I believe in the individual’s right to believe what they find best for themselves and nothing else. I realize how the above post may offend some people, and couldn’t avoid it since this is exactly the point which answers the question posited. The reason it is so mystifying how all these people fall for the false propaganda is that it’s all equally subjective. Everybody holds their own worldview dear and feels attacked when somebody challenges it. They are equally offended as you are when some pesky atheist dares to dismiss your holiness again. Whether it’s called religion or not, all the same.

       The achievement of Enlightenment was not merely to push back the envelope of religion, but to create a civilization where different views can coexist at all. This is being rolled back currently, and not just by the returning Islamic threat. All these Lefties, SJW’s, PC evangelists are as intolerant and toxic as any absolutist movement in history you can name. There are basically only two types of people — those who want to gain power over others, and those who have no such desire. All ideologies attract the wrong type who take it too far eventually. I appreciate that modern Christianity does its part to control this.

       To those who propose if we just all believed in Jesus, there would be no conflict… well, guess what the Mohammedans want. Or those Commies. If we just all believed in the same thing, we’d live happily ever after, wouldn’t we? Jesus himself would have a few choice words about this, I am sure. He is a very quotable philosopher I can read with great gain. All the cult and mystique around him was built by others.

       • PS: Sorry, my usage of the expression “push the envelope” was wrong, I doubted and looked it up only afterwards. I meant “reign in” or “curb the power of” or something to that tune.

       • If you think there is any sort of coercion in Christianity, then I don’t think you understand some of the basic tenets. In Genesis, Adam and Eve were given free will. I don’t demand that you believe anything, but merely invite you to look for yourself. If you don’t believe in God, or see the bible as true, then probably the worst you will hear from Christians is that you face an afterlife in hell. Given that you do not believe in any of this anyway, that should not concern you in the least. I never understood why this bothers atheists at all (maybe they don’t like to be reminded that they might be wrong). As a Christian, all I can do is invite you to see the truth. According to Christianity, you are free to choose. My choice is I would prefer to live in a Christian society, not because I believe it would be some sort of utopia (because of man’s imperfect nature), but that it is preferable to the alternative. The choice is yours.

         In my mind, secularism is a total failure, as it leads to self determined morality, which is just another term for a race to the bottom of the moral pit for a lot of the population (yes, I understand that some atheists can actually be very moral people, you consider yourself to be a very moral person, and some self proclaimed Christians can be immoral), but as a famous Christian apologist noted, “subjective morality is why I lock my doors at night”.

         I have not seen a lot of toxic Christianity in my lifetime, nor would many Christians want to return to the Inquisition. We would like to be free to believe, and we would like to ask others to join us in believing so that a more cohesive society exists to confront truly toxic ideologies such as islam. If you find that so reprehensible, then I would suggest that the intolerance you dislike so much is found within yourself.

         • It has become a crucial matter for Christians to better define their terms so they’re more likely to be understood. As Peter Drucker reminded us, communication is the act of the recipient, the listener. It behooves the speaker to remember this, especially given the very limited ways that even Christians can talk to one another with acrimonious dogma getting in the way.

           I’ve seen a great deal of “toxic Christianity” in my lifetime, as the certainties eroded. That is not a wholly bad thing, but just hang around any leftist Christian church, with its emphasis on interfaith “dialogue” with Islam – even going so far as Chrislam – and you’ll get the idea.

           Questioning one’s own heart doesn’t lead to the Inquistion – can we be done with that piece of history, and with Hitler now, please? Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

           When someone says do you believe in the Bible and the Cross, my response is to ask them to define their terms:

           What does my interlocutor mean by “belief”?
           What does he mean by belief in the Bible? Which parts?
           What does he mean by the Cross?

           And, for that matter, what does his idea of Heaven and Hell encompass?

           As for subjective morality, I’d suggest that the first law of objective morality is that “an owner must act like an owner”. In other words, a good steward recognizes there is great need in the world (especially in this epoch of drug abuse). He would be morally wrong not to “lock his doors at night”, leading others to temptation.

         • Dymphna:

           “I’ve seen a great deal of “toxic Christianity” in my lifetime, as the certainties eroded. That is not a wholly bad thing, but just hang around any leftist Christian church, with its emphasis on interfaith “dialogue” with Islam – even going so far as Chrislam – and you’ll get the idea.”

           One has to ask if this is actually Christianity anymore. This is why I attend a more fundamentalist church. I want to study actual Christianity, not someone’s interpretation of what they want Christianity to be.

         • ” (maybe they don’t like to be reminded that they might be wrong)” —

           This is the essence of it. It applies to all of us as much as to those we criticize up there. Each and everyone. Why the defense that there is no coercion and the rest? I did not claim that. It’s the pendulum swinging over when feeling attacked. Many will not even want to admit that but it’s a human reaction. Same reason why you can’t easily shake the beliefs of those deluded lefties. In the end, we all consider each other deluded to some degree if we can’t agree on a theory of the universe. The way these arguments always turn out is screaming evidence of it. Some time about 200 years ago we’ve at least learned to live with such differences, but this achievement is very much in peril.

       • Ah, well, if you’ve ever perused The Acts of the Apostles (Luke’s coda to his gospel) or the Epistles of Paul, then you know “just believing in Jesus” isn’t enough. To put it metaphorically, that snake in Eden followed them out the gate.

         • Sorry that is citing way too much material for a simpleton like me to understand exactly what you are referring to. Specific quotes would be an improvement.

       • “That being said, I consider the atheist proposal that life and the universe to be the result of random chance to be mathematically impossible. If you question this, consider the mathematical probability of a single, simple protein consisting of 400 base pairs to be the product of random chance. That probability is .25x.25x.25 ……multiplied out 400 times! Now consider that you see this same improbability repeated again and again over all of the unique life forms existing on the planet, each one having thousands of such proteins in each individual species. Astrophysicists have also asked this same question regarding the universe to be the result of random chance with the same results. Makes you think doesn’t it.”

         “I’ve said nothing about a specific atheist proposal, there are really many. Not the subject matter here anyway.”

         Except it is. Instead of trying to side-step the issue, you may wish to try to deal with it. Because if what the other fellow said is correct, then there are intellectual consequences which you must face …

         • I realised there is God when I realised the the earth is not a globe.

       • “To those who propose if we just all believed in Jesus, there would be no conflict… ”

         This appears to be a straw man, for I do not know of anyone who is actually proposing such a thing. Perhaps you have misunderstood what some other people have said?

         “well, guess what the Mohammedans want. Or those Commies. If we just all believed in the same thing, we’d live happily ever after, wouldn’t we? ”

         See above.

         As someone else has noted, the whole idea behind talking to someone about Christianity is to put certain ideas before them, that is all.

         It is up to each individual to decide for themselves what they believe. That is an essential part of the Christian worldview.

         A Christian may desire to get the message out to as many people as possible, but rather crucially, that is not the same thing as desiring, or even expecting, that everyone everywhere will “believe in the same thing”. Hardly! The point would be to give as many people as possible the ability to make a fully informed choice about what they believe. At that point, it’s up to the individual. If you see what I mean …

         Obviously, this is not at all compatible with the straw man in your earlier comment. And yet this is all true … therefore …

     • Population transfer is not too horrible to contemplate. We have no obligation to commit suicide (and accept prior betrayal) and people who came here believing we are terminally stupid have no reason to complain when politely but firmly directed to return home. Violence does not have to be part of that process if firmness is shown.

   • “Did you ever ask yourself why you believe in this religion which is so dear to you? Nigh impossible to do, because to a believer it is sacrosanct and even doubt is a sin. If someone came and challenged your belief system, you’d automatically go in defense mode and, if found the heretic is civilized enough to refrain from outright hostility, make a polite statement of your firm commitment together with your “tolerance” of the other one’s right to exist with theirs. A different response if they are found genuinely hostile. But you would not falter or even allow a thought of doubt to occupy you for any length of time.”

     This is nothing more than mind-reading, and I have to tell you that it is completely and utterly wrong.

     • Keep believing. Keep being mystified about their believing.

       • ???

       • I’ve been pondering your statement and have a few thoughts that are hardly dispositive of any issue raised here.

         One close relative who was a competent engineer and of a very even, though unemotional, temperament was a leftist all his life. Whitefish Bay in Wisconsin was “Whitefolks Bay” to him. The idea that whites simply have interests of our own, let alone legitimate ones, was a silly, if not absurd one. More interesting was his focus on the future and The Other. He was quite taken with transcendental meditation and that became a big part of his life though he later was somewhat disillusioned when he discovered that fellow meditators could be as unpleasant as any other mortal. Nothing in the past was instructive or worthwhile. His library was full of New Age stuff, forever, I suppose, imploring him to think outside the box and frolc in new fields. An admirable and kind man by any standard let it be said.

         None of that seems illuminated by pondering Quo_Fan’s faith which I take to involve contemplation of a supreme being and man’s sinful nature. Also recognizing that that nature does not involve rejection of the world (and the past) and self mortification for normal people whereas the normal leftist embraces both with great energy. “@#$& you! @#$& you!” in the immortal words of Trigglypuff. All authority illegitimate and redemption in rejection of what is and all lessons of the past. Forever on guard against some new pogrom, Inquisition, slave regime, or Jim Crow/colonial spasm but never against concentration of political power and the 100% pure, Grade A, guaranteed, FDA-approved moral depravity that comes with it. Never!

         The distinguishing feature of life in the contemporary West is illustrated by the amazing Yiddish expression, “Send a fool to close a window and he’ll close them all over town.” Look! There is Frans Timmermans bleating about a wholly multicultural world! If one beer is good, 100 beers must be amazing! Where are Merkel and Specter?!

         This built-in imperative of excess, life without limits, hedonism, and reckless experimentation seems a long way from the Christian faith and its idea that man himself is flawed. What light does understanding that faith shed on thinking that there are no limits and that the world itself and all human experience are utterly debased? Christians in my experience seem overwhelmingly grateful for the wonders of existence and seem most vexed by their own flaws.

         • Nailed it Bunny! The book of Genesis is about the fundamental flawed nature of humanity, and our own imperfect nature.

         • Thank you, dhans.

           I think Joe Sobran observed that we have a sort of non-aggression pact with our friends and relations. We are aware of each other’s failings but politely ignore them and make the best of our times together. My own defects and, um, missteps are a constant source of vexation . . . but they work to the advantage of others in that I try to cut others some slack. Most of the time, anyway.

           It’s all very humbling.

3. As far as Im concerned, I know the king of this world, and I know that mankind is being played, and as Acuara above: Were it not for Jesus Christ, I’d be played as well. It is an all out secret conspiracy, hell bent on destroying mankind connection to the divine internet, and turning as many individuals as they can into narrow minded useful idiots. All that because a Man is the best farm animal in the world, a true source of power!

   This issue is touched upon in Conan the Barbarian: ‘It is not the sword, but the hand that holds the sword is the source of true power’

   Protocols of the learned elders of Zion, the synagogue of Satan, talk rather extensively about the methods used.

   Even your average marketing course will teach you about Unconscious influence on human minds: That is ‘sorcery’ as I understand it.

   So, that’s how I see it: People are victims of supernatural conspiracy, and there is very little they can do about it except getting some supernatural protection. All religions know that! But Christianity is exceptional because the Bible actually explains what is really going on.

   When the Pagans realized they are unable to destroy Israel, for Israel was being protected by the LORD, they devised a plan to lure Israel into carnal sin: Sex, drugs, and Rock&Roll…

   The LORD will not protect sinners for ever, you see…

   • The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were an invention of the Tsarist secret police.

     • Maybe, maybe not. Nevertheless, control of the masses through mass media, control of the politicians via blackmail, or subversion of morals, are quite real. Pretty prophetic text, I agree with Henry Ford that it is a must read.

       There is a synagogue of Satan, and real Jews would do well to take heed and understand that they also are being played, and will be played untill Armageddon.

       • I recognized you Abdul.

         the more discord among Westerners – Jews vs non-Jews, Americans vs Europeans, Liberals vs Conservatiwes, etc. – the more happy you will be.
         …

         • What are you talking about?

4. “How is it that people keep re-electing the same politicians”

   No, it’s not mass insanity at all. There are several aspects to consider:
   – years of marxist indoctrination and infiltration. Culture, media, politics, entertainment, schools and public institutions are full of it and their main target are young people and young voters.
   – the ever-increasing welfare state. People with small pensions and those dependent on welfare will vote for those politicians who promise them a little bit of “fairness”. It’s the single issue that matters to this group.
   – the ever-increasing migrant demographics. During the second half of 2016 and first half of 2017, there have been almost 900.000 first-time asylum requests registered in the EU. Very high birth rates, very high immigration and family reunification combined with handing them citizenship translates in an ever-increasing number of votes for more of the same (migration, welfare, islam).

   What you are left with is a year-on-year shrinking number of voters who desire a change from the current path of destruction, who are constantly brainwashed by the media to vote against their interests. The alt-media (the internet) has helped, but its reach is nowhere near that of the legacy media. “Political correctness”/censorship is also very effective, as people are afraid to speak their mind for fear of being fired from their jobs or even physically attacked.

   There’s an interesting discussion here https://youtu.be/-0M1NoZ8Njo about a political solution vs. civil war. A fair point is that in the case of civil war, the police and army would be unavailable to protect the borders and MENA would be free to invade. The political solution would be the most effective option to pursue. The communists worked by identifying the biggest threat against their interests and putting all their efforts in destroying it, then identifying the next big threat and destroying that and so on. It’s a good strategy.

   • You’re still not addressing my main question: Why does the indoctrination work on others, but not on you and me? You may be smarter than all the others, but I’m not. How did I escape, when all those smart people have succumbed?

     What makes the propaganda effective on some, and not on others?

     If we had any insight into the answer to this one, we might be able to enlarge the pool of those who escape being brainwashed by the propaganda.

     • Baron.

       Consider that the problem of the susceptibility of a population to invasion, and the resistance of the population to its own government are not necessarily the same question.

       Imagine a country where the population is completely under the control of its government. And yet, the population is extremely tough and smart, and totally nationalistic and xenophobic. The conditions of life are extremely hard, weak individuals die off quickly, and the road to survival for an individual is through a fierce loyalty to the government, expressed through joining an extremely rugged military or supporting the government efforts at technological subversion of other countries.

       I wouldn’t worry too much about a Muslim or African invasion of such a country, but it’s not a place I would be particularly happy to be in. And yet, if we remain in denial on the real factors of causality in the world, it’s very likely the picture of the future.

       • But the causality I’m investigating right here is what causes my [exact relative redacted] to buy the standard progressive, multicultural, cultural Marxist line, while I don’t.

         Our genetic material is very close to the same, not different enough to be significant. We were raised in the same culture, in more or less the same time period, with similar educations. Yet we arrive at diametrically opposite positions on the critical social and political issues of our time.

         Why did we turn out that way? And, more importantly: why is my position very much a minority position?

         If it’s all due to stochastic factors that cannot be determined or analyzed, I guess I just might as well pack up and retire. But for the moment, I prefer to believe that there may be some chain of causation yet to be discovered.

         • “If it’s all due to stochastic factors that cannot be determined or analyzed, I guess I just might as well pack up and retire. ”

           Baron,
           May I remind you that stochastic factors are not causality, but descriptive? In other words, we cannot predict the actions or placement of individuals, but we can describe and control mass effects. Traffic flow is stochastic. Highway engineers can predict the frequency of traffic jams from technical factors, but not exactly when they will occur.

           Similarly, quantum effects are famously random for individual quanta, but predictable and controllable as a mass effect.

           So, in my opinion, the relevant question is not what individual factors caused your particular psychology, but what can be done to harness the population as it is right now to achieve a society we see as desirable?

           I’m in the same situation as some of the commenters: my family is leftist Jewish, my sister a totally committed leftist/communist and I’m a right-wing, freedom-loving, white-loving (without hating any other race) individual. Do you want to know the specific genetic alignment which takes two in individuals from the same parents and background, and creates very different personalities?

           I believe that reality is susceptible to logic, knowledge and science. It’s simply that reality has to be approached on its own terms, rather than through the lenses we wish to construct for it.

         • For the mathematician, the word “random” has no meaning. There are only data of lesser or greater stochasticity.

           In mathematical terms, a stochastic event is one whose cause is indeterminate. In some cases (e.g. events at the quantum level), it has been proven that cause cannot be determined, that is, such processes will always remain stochastic. Other processes may move from the “stochastic” to the “determined” category as our instruments and computing power improve. That was the essential premise for the development of the discipline of “Psychohistory” in Isaac Asimov’s novels — improved technology would eventually allow processes that had hitherto been stochastic to be determined and analyzed.

           If the distribution of political/social opinion is entirely stochastic, and will remain so for the rest of my lifetime, then my investigation of these matters is pointless. For the time being, however, I prefer to believe that at least some causative factors may be teased out of all the chaotic social-psychological data.

     • Baron,

       Having spent many years among the indoctrinated I have come to believe that the reason it is so successful on so many individuals is that it is the path of least resistance. If everyone you know spends their hours outside of indoctrination in school being indoctrinated in front of the tube for hours on end, and then being surrounded by those who do the same once they reach adulthood, that programming and socialization becomes very difficult to spontaneously overcome.

       Another barrier to overcoming indoctrination is the tendancy by our society to delay the onset of adulthood and adult responsibilities later and later. How many parents buy their children a car, clothes, gas, insurance, pay for college, and allow them to remain in the home rent free well into their 20’s or even 30’s? Granted, among the readers of your site it is probably a far smaller percentage than amongst the general population.

       The power of delaying adult responsibilities and shielding the young from the realities of life should not be underestimated when trying to understand why we are in the situation we are in. How many men in generations past spent a few years in the military in their formative years; how many young women married shortly out of high school and were already wives and mothers in their early twenties instead of whoring it up in the college dormitories? The social pressures and controls that encouraged men to become responsible and hardworking at an early age in order to get access to young women for marriage and fatherhood, and likewise encouraged young women to choose their mates wisely and become mothers at an early age have disappeared or been willfully destroyed by the commanding heights of media and entertainment, and accelerated by cascading effects as social controls and mores fall away in response.

       How to turn it around? I don’t think anything short of another serious depression or even economic collapse leading to destruction of the welfare state can reverse it. Even then, entire generations have been indoctrinated too completely to ever become free of it, and they will have to either die off (or most likely be killed/starved off) before social controls and traditional mores can be reasserted.

       • Re: “young women to choose their mates wisely”. When my daughter went to college I told her that she should now look at men differently; that she should ask herself if he would be a good provider and father to children. She told me very definitely that was crass and old. I think your analysis of almost laziness in both parents and adult children is correct.

       • I agree 100% with your view. I have been working since 13 years old. Part time after school. My dad told me if I wanted my own car ( 64 yrs old now and still a car nut )when 16 that I need to work hard, save , and purchase and care for my own car. He could have purchased me one, but did not. He taught me how to rebuild, and repair almost anything on it. I still rebuild my own engines to this day. By doing so he kept me under the old car rather than hanging on the corners getting into trouble. Had 4 children by 24 years old. I never had time to get into trouble. All 4 are doing well ( 10 grandkids ) as I treated them the same way. They had to earn there way. No free ride! I still work 6 days a week and love it. Will never retire.
         Free stuff and idle time causes a great many problems.
         I sadly agree with your last paragraph. We are in the same place Rome was in their decline!

     • “Why does the indoctrination work on others, but not on you and me?” Indoctrination/propaganda/persuasion works to various degrees on everybody and there’s a mountain of psychology studies to prove it, but that wasn’t the question I was trying to answer.

       There was a study some time ago on (if I remember correctly) convincing people to switch to energy saving light bulbs. The study determined that the most persuasive argument wasn’t “you’ll save money” or “it’s good for the environment”, but by far that “your neighbors are switching to it”. The more people move to the right, the more people learn about islam, the more acceptable it will be for others to hold such views.

       Also, with more well liked charismatic young people speaking out, the “nazi racist islamophobe” narrative won’t be as effective in keeping people away. In other words, it’s not that the left has better arguments, it’s that they’ve been successful in silencing the right.

       Lastly, the left has been laying the groundwork since the 60’s, so of course their message is more effective at the moment.

       • Pretty much on the mark regarding why people buy into the propaganda. What we have on our side is reality. When what you observe no longer matches the propaganda, then you see it for what it is. Eventually even the most deluded people get smacked right in the face by reality.

         • We certainly live in interesting and exciting times.

           I remember, for example, the body of Aylan Kurdi being found on a Turkish beach , the picture plastered all over the news and the only acceptable point of view one was allowed to have: those poor refugees, we must put a stop to this tragedy. A couple of months later, thousands of migrants were pouring in every day and the “mean” Hungarians were hindering them from going forward. Merkel then gave the go-ahead and then the “refugee welcome” crowd with teddy bears and banners became the only acceptable point of view one was allowed to have regarding the migrants. Then, several months later, the Paris terrorist attack took place. Candle vigils and “muslims are the real victims” became the only acceptable reaction to such tragedies.

           Public views such as the ones mentioned in these examples become so strong, that after (the Brussels terrorist attack, if I remember correctly), when a group of football fans showed up at the vigil with a message against ISIS, the candle vigil crowd boo-ed them away and the media called them
           thugs and hooligans. The media did the same with anybody who voiced a point of view against the invaders, calling them “far-right”, “nazi”, “racist” etc.

           It’s very, very hard to break through the generally accepted public opinion and it often comes at great sacrifice and risks, but some people succeeded to do so. There are now identitarian and white nationalist movements who are trying to break the death grip that the left has on higher education and anti-immigration parties are beginning to get elected into governments. What I meant to say with my previous comment is that it is difficult to reach a point when “your neighbors are doing it” applies, but we are getting there (e.g. the other article here “Is Austria Moving to the Right?”). And from there onward it gets easier.

           I’m sure Baron has been trying to “wake up”/red pill people for many years, but the fact is that those who come to these sites already realize there’s something wrong with the publicly accepted view. There is no article that he could have written that could have completely changed many other people’s minds.

           But, the neighbors’s minds are changing.

     • There can be many individual explanations to why a given person manage to break free from the indoctrination but it may be possible to sort them into a limited number of categories …

       some people where just lucky to have the best possible parents, strong independent personalities who showed the way

       …others like myself developed a kind of Allergy to the false rewriting of history ….many others are wakened by the shock-effect of female domination-behaviour …there should be at least 6-10 categories, none of which are mutually exclusive …

       Perhaps we lack a modern word for what connects them all ….but 200 years ago they would probably have called it character or breeding …a more modern explanation might hang on the negative effects of Kindergarten.

     • For one can generally say this about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, and greedy for gain.

       Machiavelli, Niccolò; Peter Bondanella; Maurizio Viroli. The Prince (Oxford World’s Classics) (Kindle Locations 1618-1619). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

       Men are so simple-minded and so controlled by their immediate needs that he who deceives will always find someone who will let himself be deceived.

       Machiavelli, Niccolò; Peter Bondanella; Maurizio Viroli. The Prince (Oxford World’s Classics) (Kindle Locations 1668-1669). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

       HOW praiseworthy it is for a prince to keep his word and to live with integrity and not by cunning, everyone knows. Nevertheless, one sees from experience in our times that the princes who have accomplished great deeds are those who have thought little about keeping faith and who have known how cunningly to manipulate men’s minds; and in the end they have surpassed those who laid their foundations upon sincerity.

       Machiavelli, Niccolò; Peter Bondanella; Maurizio Viroli. The Prince (Oxford World’s Classics) (Kindle Locations 1650-1653). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

       1, 2, 3, and here we are …

       Because I know that many have written about this, I am afraid that by writing about it again I shall be considered presumptuous, especially since in discussing this material I depart from the procedures of others. But since my intention is to write something useful for anyone who understands it, it seemed more suitable for me to search after the effectual truth of the matter rather than its imagined one.

       Machiavelli, Niccolò; Peter Bondanella; Maurizio Viroli. The Prince (Oxford World’s Classics) (Kindle Locations 1545-1548). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

     • I cannot answer the main question for you. But it might help if we look at the difference of the various peoples in Europe.

       For example a nation like Hungary. The Hungarians have been exposed to communist propaganda since 1945 and for some reason this propaganda never took hold in the minds of the Hungarians.
       They were exposed to it day and night but they never “internalized” it and after 1989 they simply shrugged it of as is was just dust of history.
       Same can be said for other East-European countries like Poland and notably Russia. Russians were being spoonfed communist propaganda since the revolution and they quickly discarded it in the dustbin of history after the SU collapsed and today hardly a trace remains.

       Lets take another example, Sweden.
       Sweden has been exposed to communist propaganda at least since 1945 and for some reason they have “internalized” it. The came to believe every word of it and still do today though they should know better by now. A prime example of “The March of Folly”

       Both peoples share in general a common history. Same genetic makeup, same Christian values, Dark Ages, Enlightment, Industrial Revolution.
       Wherein lies the difference between the peoples of Eastern-Europe and Western-Europe?

       • The point I was trying to make Baron there seems to be a clear ideological divide across Europe. This divide follows the same path as the old Iron Curtain. How come?

         • Yes, that’s part of the great mystery. Was communist propaganda so clumsily done that no one really believed it? In contrast with the NWO-PC-Multicult, which seems to be genuinely believed by many millions of people.

           If this is the case, give Central Europe another 10-15 years, and it will be just like the West. Because the collapse of the Iron Curtain allowed mass importation of multicult propaganda along with cars and bluejeans. There’s lots of the usual dreck on TV in Poland, Hungary, etc.

       • Is it that the Swedes were given the illusion of democracy? When they voted, they actually thought they were choosing between genuinely different options? That would make it all a matter of ‘marketing’.

         • Perhaps my experience in Czechoslovakia as a youngster in the 1950’s is relevant. The real problem in Czechoslovakia, and probably the other Iron Curtain countries was that the contrast between the propaganda and people’s daily reality was just too stark. And it was precisely the ordinary people that were bearing the brunt of it. To be told that it was wrong for the people to be under poverty and seeing the Communists living like the capitalists that they were supposedly replacing, it was just too graphic. I was certainly inoculated against that propaganda by what I saw. Later, when I returned to America, I read just about every book about the experiences of escapees that I could get my hands on, at that time many were readily available in the public library, and tended to confirm what I had seen.
           Not that my contemporaries believed me. When I was in graduate school, a fellow student informed me that I had probably never been to Czechoslovakia. Didn’t convince me, but certainly is a confirmation that people believe what they want to.

     • This is the best explanation for “the problem” that I have found, by far: https://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/the-theory-2/ It’s probably safe to say that most readers of this site believe that there are differences between ethnic groups (IQ, behavior, etc.) that at least in part have a biological basis. It’s time to start entertaining the idea that biological differences resulting in divergent survival strategies have shaped our political divide.

       Leftists are rabbits, we on the right are wolves. It’s getting to be damn near irresponsible to assume that we’re simply dealing with an information gap, and if only we logically explain X, Y, and Z to leftists they will understand. I left California in part because it has been invaded and colonized by leftist rabbits, both American and Mexican, nothing short of a major societal collapse will lead to change in California. Seen through the prism of “r/K theory”, our political landscape make a lot more sense.

       • I don’t think anything short of a major social collapse can change the trajectory we’re on anywhere in the West. California, Sweden, and Germany will just be the ones to go first. I’ve basically given up hope that the current system can be preserved more or less as-is. It has to collapse — and millions of people have to feel the resulting intense pain — for change to occur.

         However, I reason that the more of us who understand the dynamics involved, the better. Someone will be pulling together a new, truncated civilization After Things Fall Apart (as the title of Ron Goulart’s novel had it). Warlords, demagogues, and ruthless predators will almost certainly part of the mix. But the more people who at least partially understand the deep reasons behind the process preceding the collapse, the more likely that there will be pockets of humane civilization emerging from the chaos.

         • Spengler predicts/calculates that the next great culture will form in poland.

     • Might not satisfies you and I quote it with a broken heart:
       2 Thessalonians 2:
       “10 and in all deceit of unrighteousness in those being lost, because they did not receive the love of the truth in order for them to be saved.
       11 And because of this, God will send to them a working of error, for them to believe the lie,
       12 that all may be judged, those not believing the truth, but who have delighted in unrighteousness.”
       After thirty years of study I cannot come up with anything better, it has to be “supernatural” influence affecting both side. There is no reasonable earthly explanation for people to throw away their culture, heritage and future, comitting national suocide.

       • I’ve arrived at a similar conclusion about the atrocities committed by the Islamic State and other jihad outfits. You can bounce around all the sociological and psychological explanations you want, but in the end there is no accounting for it by ordinary causation. I can’t describe what is happening in any meaningful way without using the word “satanic”.

         • Yep, and you look at the theology of islam and it almost exists in exact counter point in its foundational practices to Christianity. Accidental???

         • I concur. There are other factors that can be examined of course. I look back at my own parentage: I was drilled over and over since I was at lest 3 years old — “Think for yourselves and think before you speak or do”. I am inherently stubborn and hate being told what to do and always rebuffed against manipulation. Even as a child and couldn’t put words to it, I could recognize it in others. I also have a really good memory (the fact I can remember my parents’ lectures at age 3) so when the powers that be say one thing and then not even a few months later act like it never happened or say the exact opposite. It would confuse me so I asked myself the questions. My closest family ask the same questions so I’ve always had my haven to rant and discuss and speculate.

           But in the end, that verse quoted in Thessalonians seems to be the only one that makes sense at the core. I’ve seen others with similar backgrounds take the bait hook, line and sinker.

         • The Quran tells you exactly who “Allah” is even at it’s very beginning (hint: it’s someone other than God).

           Quran 1:2 “Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds”

           Quran 3:54 “And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers.”

         • I was going to make the same point about satanic. I’m a wannabe Christian. I’d like to be part of such a great faith but the Divine plan just doesn’t resonate with me. I don’t get the “loving Father” part at all. The Deist view that there is a God but He’s indifferent to humans makes the most sense, but even then I can go no further that agnosticism.

           In short, I see zero evidence of a Divine presence but boy us there a ton of evidence for a malign power reigning over the earth. Tom’s point about throwing everything away is correct. There’s simply no rational or decent foundation for ANYthing pertaining to globalism, “gender” nonsense, open borders, adoration of Islam, worship of minorities, slobbering over foreigners, perversion, feminists, subsidies for bastardy and crime, utter and complete denigration of one’s own, etc. It is all utterly evil beyond all imaginings.

     • Dear Baron,

       I’ve noticed the same already at a very young age, but didn’t make too much out of it: I simply considered these kind of people as vulgus pecus. Lateron I also started wondering why, because some of these morons were actually intelligent! The point is however that they were intelligent in a different way: more focused on one issue and not on the world, and usually lacking the educational background or interest to look sideways, up and down, back and forth. Most of the time they also lack a philosophical background (I received mine from catholic priests during secondary school)

       In general people with above average intelligence and a very generalistic, broad view on every aspect that makes mankind so unique are immune to Poco (Note: I Always think poco loco). And obvious this type of character is more scarcely spread.

       An example: there are scientists that are able to construct a cyclotron on their own, but so absorbed by it that they hardly realise what it takes to get a steak on their dish. When then someone approaches them with good sounding arguments that Islam is peace they’l swallow it bait, hook and everything else. Being an engineer I have many friends like that. Point is that they have no reference .

       Additionally most people are sheep and love authority: it is sooo easy to do what you’ve been told and not have to torture those two braincells you have.

       I rest my case, but am wondering whether I should write an essay on the matter?

5. The novel “Submission”, by Michel Houllebecq gives some insight into the problem, and should be read by everyone.

6. Baron, you are at it once again, in trying to understand the mind of Humanity that is chock-a -bloc full of individual souls who tend to all have their own outlook on life.

   It’s a little like a crime scene where there are ten witnesses to a murder and all willing to tell what they saw, and in my experience as a police officer, I could almost guarantee to you, that all ten of those witnesses would have a different description of the murderer.

   Multiple witnesses to major crime can be a prosecutors nightmare!

   But back to politics, it is my observation that when elected leaders believe that they can win over those who will vote for them by telling them sweet lies and pretending to listen to their concerns, that they will hold onto office for as long until someone who is able to recognizably call them out for what they are – as in Trump versus Clinton – comes along.

   But that is in the national sense where state politics takes a back seat.

   We need to remember that San Francisco was the epicenter of the ‘hippy revolution’ in the U.S. which led to California being a leader in undermining the moral values of the Christian/Judeo system, and in very quick order under Hollywood’s influence, not too mention all the other anti- American movements that have come and gone ever since the 1960s, such as the Weather Underground.

   And they have all had their influence.

   By the late 1970s I believe it is fair to say, that California was well on its way to become the leading Socialist State of America – and come to our times now – things have only gone deeper into the stupidity of where Socialism will always lead. It has become a mindset, a badge of honor if you will, to go against the United States and to live in California for the majority of those who take to voting for their own eventual suicide, such is their lack of concern for their own culture or kind and the apathy it produces that any ethnicity apart from the white man has more value to adhere to.

   It grieves me that my own younger brother is of the same mindset and we are from the same family.

   It is like trying to understand the ‘issues’ that caused the American Civil War for which there are so many variables that not one single ‘flash point’ will ever be made responsible for.

   • I would say that it is a cultural and spiritual attack, and America didn’t see it coming… It takes a few generations of ridicule against Puritan hard working never complaining and self sacrificing mindset of the old Americans, and you end up with a wicked generation that destroys everything, because now they see hard work, self sacrifice and high morals as stupid and ‘hellarious’.

     It might be lack of their morals that propels their virtue signaling: Like ‘let’s help everyone’ says the one without job…

     There is a strange thing, that people who have experience and wisdom don’t show it, while those who lack experience and wisdom tend to over do it.

     • Yes, many of us have been witness to the cultural and spiritual attack only against the West, but this recognition has been in hindsight only because the attack was stealthily carried out by incremental means so that the majority of those who lived through it, even now, have failed to notice.

       A most successful operation carried out and still continuing on its agenda – to destroy the Western religious and cultural norms that made the West THE leading culture of the planet.

       Many will only see what they want to see and reject out of hand that which does not suit their view of the world. Such narrow thinking precludes them from ever recognizing the agenda that has caused them to think that way.

       • It’s quite astonishing to me to realise that this has happened in my lifetime. Where’s Winston Churchill when you need him? We got stuck with Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon. No wonder the country’s in a shambles.

         • And Cousin Theresa. Don’t forget her.

         • I didn’t even want to mention the name. I was trying to enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit, and didn’t want a nippy taste in my mouth …

         • Nigel Farage is your man, should he decide to take on the establishment.

7. I am Christian. If I post something similar to acuara, K and alike will put defense similar to what K wrote. Yet for the Christian audience, I will quote the Bible as the
   first and foremost; call me whatever you want, that’s my stand. The subsequent core problems below are just the variations of transgressions.

   Now, for the non-christian audience, I will say that the second core problem is Islam, the third core problem is the leftists, and the fourth core problem is the fearful (Co-dependent) mentality of non moslems.

   Majority of moslems (not Islam, mind you) strike the terror, and causes fear. Phyiscally and verbally. Leftists as the voters want to subjugate the non-moslems, while being afraid of moslems (or believe they can beat moslems when there are only two groups of people remaining: leftists and moslems). Humans want power.

   The fourth core problem is the co-dependent narcisist psyche of non-moslems. Voters of this category want PEACE AT ALL COST. This is what makes moslems and leftists
   winning. Ali Sina said he is not pacifist; unfortunately, most non-moslems are too pacifist. Perhaps the pacifist is not even correct, dhimmitude may be the correct one.

   How to ‘win’ the war, what can we do about it? For a start, revise the classic thinking and theology. Revise the classic thinking: free speech, freedom; revise it with PARTIAL free speech, PARTIAL freedom. Explicity qualify the term. By not explicitly restricting the speech and freedom; moslems will ALWAYS find a way to creep.

   Revise theology. Whether you’re Christian, Buddhist, or Hinduist; recheck whether your scripture DENIES your right for self defense and forcing RECIPROCATE. I read
   Bible, and the way I see it, Gods do not forbid the Christians for self-defense (see Ester for violent self-defense and Paul for verbal self-defense). The ‘turn the other cheek; if someone grab your cloth, give him your coat too, respond crime with love’ is mainly valid in personal relationships only, not in the relationships among communities or even countries. I believe the relationship of countries is still governed by the reciprocal principle like ‘an eye for an eye’. If your country wants something from another country, you should give something. If another country torments or invades you, it’s your Gods’ given rights to fight back and reciprocate.

   With the revised theology, nurture your courage. Start raising the issue of banning the Koran and Moslems; even better pursue and do it. This is related to the solution of partial free speech and partial freedom. One way to prevent partial free speech and partial freedom being abused by tyranny is to specifically limit the free speech and freedom to Islam and moslems. Others (e.g., Marxism) may not be needed to be banned, at least not in the first phase.

   That’s my two cents.

   • Bret,

     Does your concept of Christianity allow the science of biology and evolution?

     Muslims are a huge problem, but not the only problem. If you allow in millions of animist, sub-Saharan, extremely-low IQ Africans who are not Muslim, you will still have existential problems with your country and your population. It’s the same for low-IQ, child-abusing Mexican Indians, who are not Muslim.

     • The science of Biology when properly applied without preconditions or assumptions has discredited evolution. The harmful effects of Solar UV radiation that has shortened human life by damaging the replication of DNA should put to rest any possibility of evolutionary improvements or upgrades. Actually, we are degrading, and if weren’t for the advances in medicine our lives would have been drastically shortened.
       I am a Christian by the grace of Yah who was patient with me when I insisted that I check Him out before fully committing my faith to Him. It is written, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” I did, and He is. I still continue to do my homework and the deeper I dig the truer He becomes. He has said that he values His Word above His name. I have seen that as well, in life and as evidentiary proof, the 2,000 year old scroll of Isaiah.
       I am content in the knowledge of my Lord and my God and deeply frightened at the emerging anarchy I am seeing. In my opinion the inflection point was reached and passed by the slaughter at the Las Vegas concert and the Northern California brush fires.

       • “The science of Biology when properly applied without preconditions or assumptions has discredited evolution. ”

         There are two branches of evolution: intra-species and inter-species.

         Darwin actually studied examples of intra-species evolution: the adaptation of finches and lizards to the coloration of their environment. Intra-species evolution can be modeled mathematically and experimentally observed. You should avoid any doctor who denies intra-species evolution because he will not understand the development of antibiotic-tolerance in bacteria or the adaptability of the HIV virus.

         Inter-species evolution purports to account for the development of man and chimps from a common ancestor and the development of man from African primates. There is much coincidental evidence for inter-species evolution, but there is no mechanism which can model inter-species evolution at present. In other words, there is an element of faith in believing man descended from a non-human primate ancestor. I do believe in inter-species evolution, but would have no problem with a doctor who does not believe in inter-species evolution, as it does not affect medical practice.

         The exploding field of evolutionary genetics has detailed many complex and wondrous common features in common between the genes and genetic mechanisms of non-human species and humans. The findings of migration patterns of Africans and common features of Neanderthal DNA and present-day European populations are quite beautiful and aesthetic. Nevertheless, in the absence of an actual developmental model, they are not quite conclusive. So, denying inter-species evolution is not the same as denying the effects of gravity.

         However, as they say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If you think that evolution has been discredited, rather than simply not proven, please give me some references. And again, please distinguish between inter-species and intra-species evolution.

         • You are correct, I did not make a distinction between intra and inter specie evolution. A good example of the adaptability that is written into each specie is skin color. We know that sunlight is needed for Vitamin D production but too much will result in Melanoma. Hence, the Lord has wired the gene for skin pigment after the manner of a variable potentiometer (volume control). The Dalit who live in India have skin whose color is darker than most negroes to prevent damage for UV radiation. The Scots and Norse have skin that is as white as snow because the weather is sunny for only about one-third of the year, if that, and they need all the sunlight they can get. The black children around Detroit suffered from sickle cell anemia because they lacked Vitamin D, which was then added to milk.
           I am of the mind that each specie was created with the ability to adapt to a wide range of environmental and ecosystem changes. But as DNA is a four-unit code that resembles some computer programming and has not shown adaptability beyond the specie (as yet), I take that as evidence for intelligent design on the part of a Creator, who knows us better than we know ourselves. Quo erad demonstratum.

       • Agree!

         • However, the leftist, socialists were preparing our culture since Woodrow Wilson started about 100 years ago.

   • Exactly. US law allows for citizenship after a short time and after a formulaic recitation of allegiance. For some white Europeans that was sufficient but now we grant all privileges to people with hostile and savage beliefs. Now there should be only permission to reside (if that) and citizenship made possible only to the third generation. Slobbering over immigrants and their heavenly “contribution” (i.e., job theft) must end.

     Outlawry should be brought back to deal with recidivists and self defense laws radically relaxed. Mistakes? Too bad. Tens of thousands die in auto accidents every year. Avoidance of others’ residences uninvited should be the prime directive. Does the deceased have a criminal conviction in the last 20 years? (Loooong wait for rehabilitation.) Murder/manslaughter/wrongful death case dismissed.

     Receipt of welfare benefits as a single mother should entail sterilization and loss of voting privilege as conditions.

     Flogging should be brought back. Islam must be banned. If that makes anyone unhappy, go home.

     Borders must be defended with deadly force, mine fields, and electrified fences. ALL illegals deported. Want to appeal? Do it from home.

     Chinese dynasties began with vigorous, aggressive males in charge but over the years the rustle of skirts in the palaces of the emperor became deafening. If that isn’t modern Britain, Germany, Sweden and the US, I’ll eat my MAGA hat. Mr. Trump is just an aberration by all appearances.

     These ideas will horrify the virtue signalers and the deluded but variants of them are in our future. One way or another we are going to encounter Solzhenitsyn’s “pitiless crowbar of events.” So-called “liberal compassion” has had its chance and it proved unable to pull back from the precipice. Whatever isn’t a joke today about Western “civilization” is a lie.

8. They suffer from self-inflicted stupidity.
   Facts are the building blocks of the mind.
   Read 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12

9. A combination of (a) a genetic predisposition towards out of group generosity and (b) brainwashing.

10. I am reminded of the character Winston Smith in the novel 1984. You remember how our Winston actually believed his boss, an executive of Big Brother, convinced him that he would help Winston overthrow Big Brother? Figure out how our Winston’s got this way.

11. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a heroic Lutheran Christian martyr who helped in the plot to assassinate Hitler, and who was hanged by the Nazis, tried to turn the flow of the mainstream Lutheran church of his time. Many of them either supported the Nazis, or at least quietly went along.

    I believe it is the grace of God which lets a small remnant not fall into mass insanity zeitgeists when evil seems triumphant. Keep the faith! The Bible assures us that Good wins in the end.

    • Amen.

      It is hard to watch many churches trying to appeal to islam by joining forces with them or helping to bring more ‘refugees’ into the country. Our church considered it but we ended up voting it down. There wasn’t any guarantee we could bring in a Christian or Yazidi family and they were the ones who needed help. These same Christians are the first ones to speak out against the ones who voice the problems of the invading muslims.

      • Good to hear that your church voted down collaborating with the Islamic invasion.

        The pastor and many of the congregation here, lean left, unfortunately. I’ve put in writing my objection to spending any church money for Islamo-“refugees”, voiced support for Trump during his campaign, and spoken favorably about scriptural truth concerning sodomy being an abomination, although I speak cordially enough to 2 known “gays” in the congregation (I know we’re ALL sinners. But we’re expected to try to reform).

        But I haven’t found any other congregation or pastor that is reliably better, more conservative, more Biblical. And I know I myself am far from perfect. So I just soldier on, trying to influence fellow congregants. And I don’t overspend on the collection-plate, so they can’t misuse any large amount on my behalf:).

        Blessings.

12. We are an astonishingly social species. It is more importent for us to be accepted by our group than it is for the group to be doing something that makes sense. Just think of the thousands of men who left their trenches and walked into the machine gun fire in the Verdun and the Somme battles in WWI….to nearly certain death. Over and over they jumped into the buzz saw of flying metal in the air over their heads.

    This fact of our soecies makes it critical that we select the right leaders. And, in what imaginary era of our history, have we not made many mistakes in this process? Over and over we screw up and fail here, because almost everyone we select is human and filled with ego or pride or fanaticism or toxic ideology.

    But, we may be able to do better–we have to hope–now that we are all connected in an information network. But we have to be able to keep most of the information flowing in that network true and not adulterated and then trust in our ability to select someone who adds to our survival chances…otherwise we might be in worse shape than we were before.

    Have optimism. After all, we have made it so far–although barely . [look up “founder effect”]. And, besides our sociability, we have a sort of amazing ability to love and be altruistic. How nice is that?

13. K. from Germany on October 22, 2017 at 12:53 am said:
    “Because we all can’t see the forest for the trees.”

14. I suspect there is a persistent belief amongst people that politicians may be shysters but surely at root they are Englishmen who love their country?

    It seems to me that there are many people in goverment both elected and permanent that have no affection for our green and pleasant land and couldn’t give a fig for what happens to it. They have no qualms about making noble Britannia the whore of Europe. Filthy traitors the lot of them.

    • Traitors – the term has no meaning today, such is our fall from grace.

      • I do understand the charge of treason has been abused in the past and used to squelch political enemies but I do think it should have been kept.

        I really think our Canadian PM deserves the charge. I didn’t vote for him, but I was hoping against hope he was just an idealistic, out-of-touch brat who thought he was helping but now I think he actually wants to destroy our nation. His love for globalists is no secret.

        But he wore cool socks so what do I know?

        • It is no coincidence that ALL of our political systems, how they work and why they are in place, are no longer taught as a mandatory subject in our schools.

          Politics may be lightly touched upon as a subject, here and there, but there is no longer any in depth analysis of why we as the people who elect the now political class must keep a constant eye on what they do.

          It is all part of their agenda to undermine everything that once made us great.

15. I believe it is stunningly simple and almost impossible to correct We have allowed the education AND socialization of our children to be taken out of our hands, the bulk of future kindergarten and grade school teachers to be graduated with no allegiance to this society and a misguided belief that the only morality is what they want it to be. And the result is clear. At the earliest point in entering organized society children are taught to scorn patriotism and admire perversity. The enemies of our culture have completed their “March through the Institutions” down to the cornerstone of it all–what children learn. And the only way to take it back is to start at that level.

    The problem is the answer to why some of us are immune. We are so old that we grew up without someone laughing at us when we said the Pledge of Allegiance, or “teaching ” us about sex. Can we expect that to be true of the parents of today? If not, who is there?

    • Hi, jlh: Of all the answers to today’s quetion, I find yours to be the most convincing. Today’s children are raised by committee, the guiding principle of which is consensus. I suppose that some home-schooled kids and kids naturally inclined to pessimism still have a chance, although those kids will need to fight for their lives.

    • What you have put up is most certainly a contributing factor in our downfall but, you have not taken time to consider who indoctrinated the Teachers of our brainwashed kids who started to graduate during the 1950s.

16. Since we are being religious/metaphysical/Christian about the question as to “why” so many are taken in; and therefore “why” some of ‘us’ seem immune……….

    …………..check no further than man’s FALL from the Garden of Eden. Man got kicked out for our disobedience– true–but WHAT DID WE GET???

    We got “the knowledge of Good and Evil”–or at least SOME of us did.

    I think that it is THIS KNOWLEGE that is the difference between those of us and those who take up with the various Communist/Fascist/Islamist/Etc. heresies that lead man down the garden path to perdition.
    Like it or not, it is our own consciousness of our OWN sinful nature that keeps us suspicious about– and ultimately rejecting of– these false “isms”.

    The “others” who do NOT………………
    ……………………MUST be converted back to reality.

    REAL reality–not those of the “isms”.

    • You have left out the aspect of ‘criminality’ that plays its part in any God fearing culture – even Islam has its share of ‘criminals’.

      Those of the Left tend to either have or later acquire, criminal leanings, particularly among the political class, and a greater majority of them tend not to believe in God.

17. “Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Congress on Wednesday, saying it would likely take action by Congress to shut down the loopholes the migrants are using.” No it would not, all President trump NEEDS to do is sign 2 executive orders 1) make overstaying your visa or illegally entering the US a class E federal felony 2) once deported if you reenter the US it is now a class D federal felony. An added benefit is once the executive orders are signed and go into effect, if ICE arrests a class E or D illegal alien in a sanctuary city the mayor and city councils ( or governor and state legislature ) can be arrested by the FBI for harboring a federal felon, which is also a felony.

    • The president has no such power. Congress makes the laws.

18. I have grown children, neighbours, and friends (some poor, some very well off) with whom I am very careful in conversation. The prevailing sentiment seems to be ‘don’t rock the boat’. They are all normal people, work hard, are polite and just want a quiet life. They want their house, their car, and what is best for their children – which is more of the same. While I would hesitate to call them stupid, they are in the majority not political and I think that even in the midst of a civil war, when these same people saw death and destruction all around them, they would be hard pressed to be able to identify the cause. They want other people to do the dirty work of maintaining their lifestyle. They are just not up to doing it themselves. It is not really cowardice. They lack raison d’etre, energy, the will to fight. They go with the crowd. If it looked like the other crowd was winning they would change sides in a heartbeat. Yes, they would convert to Islam if it meant being left in peace and quiet but Islam would mean nothing to them. They have no spiritual dimension and no need for one. They are worn out drones. Fifty years of bureaucratic regulation of their lives has left them half dead. They will go to their graves believing they lived a good life.
    I can’t say that religion would prevent the PC behaviour because the religious people I know are the most incredibly pro-immigration, charity giving to other races, pious hypocrites god ever put breath into.

    • What you describe may be projected into most aspects of human history – those who believe they have a comfortable lifestyle and do not wish to lose it, will generally be those who will bend with the wind of change to suit their selfish lifestyle.

      One cannot shift this type of person from their sense of reality except by force.

      In effect, they stand for nothing and will fall for anything.

    • What Jayem wrote is pretty much our “Czech” experience: First we got taken over by the Nazis, and produced a lot of Nazi collaborators, then we got under the Russian boot, and produced a lot of communist collaborators, only to end up in liberal democracy – and we are now producing a lot of “Entrepreneurs”, just like our ex KGB soon to be prime minister, billionaire who got rich on government subsidies…

      It always seems to be about one third of the population that goes with the flow wherever it goes, and never hesitate to switch sides once the the wind changes.

      • And yet the Communists got something like 5 to 10 percent of the vote, at the first chance for free elections. That percentage did increase some when they were able to make some hay criticizing their successors, not always fairly.

        • There’s still the problem of the forms. AntiFa thuggery is precisely what prevailed in the streets of Weimar, theirs being the tactics of choice of both communists and National Socialists, leftists all.

          Europeans and Americans now look with utter horror on “nationalism” and “Nazis” but are blind to actual leftist thuggery. The left is like some tropical diseases that keep changing their shape so the immune system cannot learn to respond.

19. Can you guess who said this?

    “Our culture divides people into two classes: civilized men, a title bestowed on the persons who do the classifying; and others, who have only the human form, who may perish or go to the dogs for all the ‘civilized men’ care.

    Oh, this ‘noble’ culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different color or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across the seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights…

    I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them, let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic ‘gifts’, and everything else we have done… We decimate them, and then, by the stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all…

    If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be ‘Christian’—then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states is blasphemed and made a mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity—yours and mine—has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus’ name, someone must step in to help in Jesus’ name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless.

    And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night…”

    Answer — Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the great humanitarian, (from his Wikipedia page, half way down, under the headings “Schweitzer’s views, Colonialism”). You might say he would be the great-grandfather of Doctors Without Borders, or any number of United Nations agencies. The essence of his message above is now taught to schoolchildren, thanks to Howard Zinn and others. It is noteworthy that he said this in 1905, prior to World War I, prior to Hitler.

    So how long must our “atonement” last? How does Schweitzer compare with the current Pope as a Christian, or as a “human being”, whatever that is? What do you make of the Ashura ceremonies, where the Muslim men chant and slash themselves with sharp blades, juxtaposed with us opening our treasuries and allowing our wealth to flow forth, offering our daughters equipped with “Welcome Refugees” placards?

    “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy”. In my experience, the most atheistic of liberals down deep inside believes that he will be judged according to his actions, by someone, even if only by themselves, and will be rewarded or punished accordingly, in their own future (whatever they may conceive that to be). They commonly express this in terms of bad or good karma, which manifests as something as trivial as a traffic ticket, or easily finding a parking spot, or as major as a cancer diagnosis, or a promotion at work. The most shameful sin seems to be selfish opportunism, and secondarily any murder of theft which may flow from that. You can see how Schweitzer’s statement above makes all European/White/civilized culture automatically guilty. What the atheistic liberals do not have is any means of real forgiveness for themselves. Any sort of forgiveness is seen as just another fairy story or magical thinking, like loaves and fishes raining down, or walking on water, or a virgin birth. The only thing they can forgive is when others less fortunate than themselves are ‘forced’ to steal, kill or rape.

    • Those who have not learned to love themselves will never learn to love others or ever find true happiness. There is no love within the Left, and all so called liberals tend to gravitate far left where there is only envy, jealousy and hate.

    • Yes, I feel guilty for what some guy in Africa said.

20. Not an explanation, just a little illustration 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QereR0CViMY

    • Great illustration!

      • 🙂

21. Hello Baron,

    I think there are two things here that need to be understood to find an answer to your question:

    1 – The differences you mention, the why of different views and attitudes, are not a phenomenon of our times. They are eternal and human.

    2 – Human beings are hardwired to certain aspects of their individual personalities. When you look at the “big five” personality traits,

    Agreeableness: Compassion and Politeness
    Conscientiousness: Industriousness and Orderliness
    Extraversion: Enthusiasm and Assertiveness
    Neuroticism: Withdrawal and Volatility
    Openness to Experience: Openness and Intellect

    you will find that much of our individual social behavior are a function of who we are and what configuration of the above personality traits we were born into.

    You and others here are very likely a) low in agreeableness, especially politeness, b) high in assertiveness, c) high in volatility and d) high in openness and intellect.

    Once we realize those archetypal traits and their inevitability we can go on to a better understanding of the world and some of its unchanging phenomena.

    My personal path to a better understanding and less despair was the reading of Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago among many others like C.G. Jung and Robert Bly.

    Thus I keep an eye on the world and the struggle but always go back on my path of introversion and make meaningful, archetypal and symbolic ART.

    • I think what you are suggesting here is that we are all pre-programmed automatons?

      If that is the case, then you have ignored that each of us has a soul, a spirit or what some term as a sub-conscious aspect to our lives that enable us to choose a path to follow in this world.

      And while the human body has a number of instinctive actions that are not controlled via our soul, such as breathing, it is the learning aspect of our lives that enable us to choose which directions and actions we take based on what we accept or reject into our learning existence. The free will that allows us those decisions throughout our lives is just one aspect to our soul that inhabits a mortal and fallible body, as you suggest, is generally controlled via our DNA and for which we (our souls) are in a constant battle for control of.

      Some of us give in to the body and its urges, while some of us don’t.

      • Well….an amazingly large part of our abilities, character and personality is determined by genetics. Our latitude due to free choice is very small, but we have to act as if free will is predominant.

        For example, psychopathy and low intelligence are very heritable. A low-intelligence, sociopath murderer is likely a matter of his genetic heritage. And yet, the best way to deal with him is to make him responsible for his actions and suffer the consequences. You don’t treat a murderer as patient or victim; not if you wish to live in a habitable society. But, you shouldn’t fool yourself as to the superiority of your natural virtue. You’re lucky in that you have ethics; someone else is not so lucky. They do, and they ought to, get the short end of the stick. It’s the way of the world, but don’t set yourself up as more virtuous.

        Of course, I’m not implying that you yourself put on airs about being virtuous. I’m simply saying that free will is not really free except in a very constrained circumstance of a lot of luck and a measure of will and self-control, both very influenced by genetics.

        • Have you considered that during the act of procreation, we make a child in our own image?

          I have seen it many times: Professional sportsmen producing good young sports-children… Professors producing brainiacs and drunkards producing total idiots?

          I read somewhere that it has been proven that heavy alcohol consumption before and during pregnancies – on both mother and father side – have a guaranteed effect of reducing their children’s IQ into oblivion.

          We make children after our own kind, and the big secret is you can make them good, but you can make them bad.

          Like: Having unprotected sex during and after a heavy-drinking night is a guaranteed degenerative factor. Funny that the Brits of today are famous for such behaviour, and that their drunkard women are generally not known to be supermodels…

          • “We make children after our own kind, and the big secret is you can make them good, but you can make them bad.”

            Well, you can always screw up a good thing, but sometimes you can’t make something good. For example, you aren’t going to raise a Mozart, regardless of how you treat your child from the embryo stage on.

            Similarly, if you have certain genetic defects, your children will have them, and you shouldn’t procreate, period. There’s nothing you can do to correct certain defects…and, if you could alleviate the symptoms, your progeny would still carry the defective genes. The consequence of this would be that your progeny would be extraordinarily susceptible to any disruption in the function of our commerce networks.

            North Korea probably has very few genetically defective individuals for the reason that there is a constant shortage of food and other necessities in the country. Also, transportation and power networks are chronically out of order. North Korea is not susceptible to disruption by military action, while the US could be brought to a halt by one EMP burst 100 miles in space.

        • Hello Ronald. I looked at your comment last night and really could not think of an immediate reply as I had other things on my mind.

          But, it’s marvellous what a good night’s sleep can generate the next morning.

          So, here goes. When I was locking up baddies as an occupation it began to bother me after a few years how some who fell into criminality would continue (some became familiar faces to me) on their choice of ‘career’ while others could take their ‘medicine’ and get themselves back on the straight and narrow.

          In a general sense, those who became repeat offenders were of low self-esteem and intellect, but not all. Some were quite intelligent and could hold their own on current topics and general knowledge, however, when pressed on their ‘career’ change into criminality, some would blame influencing factors throughout their life while others were quite adamant they simply enjoyed being the bad guy because they thrived on their notoriety. To them, their ‘career’ choice was their passion.

          But there were some who were real let loose psychopaths -and thankfully, I did not come across many of this type of criminal. Talking with them was like conversing with something not human and they were generally lacking in normal human emotions except for when meal time came around or they got to spruik – and that is exactly what they did – about what they did to their victims.

          Being a witness to this kind of criminal forces one to accept that there are two driving forces in this world that affects all of humanity – good and evil.

          My point is this: We are all given choices in life and regardless of genetic or external influences that may tend to exert some influence in personality traits, we are still able to decide what is most suitable for us to accept and to reject what we do not accept.

          Even the village idiot has this choice in life, as too does the psychopath who has little regard or empathy for his fellow man.

          In my opinion we come into this world to learn what it is to be human so that we may progress to our next level of existence. We are given bodies with which to experience human emotions to make our experience an education rather than just a happenstance event.

          Some will excel in this world while many others will not, but all of us learn in some way or other, and what we do with the knowledge gained is what promotes or demotes our progress to the next world.

          Genetics and the building block of life, DNA, may influence how a person lives in this world, but it is the actions of the soul within the person that echoes throughout all eternity.

      • Nemesis,

        the only conclusion I can derive from your answer is that you haven’t really understood what I wrote.

        My contribution was meant as the possible basis for an answer to the Baron’s question why some resist the prevailing paradigm and most don’t. Some combinations of personality traits simply make it easier or harder to follow certain paths.

        Naturally, one will not realize what you term the “learning aspect of our lives” if there is no openness, especially intellect. Just that personality trait alone will make for huge differences in potential.

        • My response was posed as a question Ron.

          Personality traits are exactly that, inherent traits that can be generally traced back to the parents, but they are not the defining aspect to the individual or the determining factor in how an individual will progress through his or her life with any particular certainty.

          Dissecting the human aspect to our lives is resulting in pigeon holing particular types of people based on perceived observations. Like the IQ test, observations and determinations from those tests should be suspect on the results obtained because the ‘tests’ are based on a few individuals understanding of how certain individuals taking those tests should react.

          But who has tested the testers?

          In this life nothing is set in stone as some would have us believe on our one way trip to artificial intelligence which can only end badly for the human race if not countered.

    • Robert Bly – yes I remember reading Iron John years ago.

      Would that even get published today?

    • Yes, I am very disagreeable and volatile. Police fear me.

22. It is almost amusing how this so predictably turns out the same every time. Drop a morsel and watch who throws a tantrum. I’m not interested in discussing individual aspects of belief, because it inevitably always makes everyone go ballistic over their own immutable stance, or as they feel about it. The only thing I am interested in is learning who would be liable to use force to promote their creed. This includes violence by proxy, i.e. whether they would turn it into law if they ever got the power to do so (there are signs of it in some suggestions even in this thread, and throughout the comments on this site). This determines friend or foe. Hold it as a private worldview, and we’re allies in the battle for the freedom to think whatever you like. (But… but religion is political by its very nature…)

    • Yes it is almost amusing to see atheists trot out their fanciful theories on genetics, free will, and morality. All of it based on … nothing!

      And it is amusing to see atheists a) avoid dealing with any problems with their theories, b) hang on to their own beliefs come what may, and c) project these traits on to other people.

      • It includes your freedom, buster. We will have to defeat Islam and the violent Left together, whether anyone of us likes it or not. If I want to spend any time with religious bickering is independent of that, but as said I find it not fruitful usually. I actually find it less amusing than drilling a hole in my kneecap and filling it with mustard. The owners of this site aren’t like that, and for this I have great respect and sympathy for them. I don’t want to abuse their site for this kind of sparring game. I have said what I said to address a specific point in question, namely why people’s belief systems are so firmly rooted that they’re not reachable by reason or evidence of reality.

        Didn’t occur to me to mention it at the start, but there is a great book illustrating this. It’s a bit rare and probably unknown: Ingo Swann, Reality Boxes. Anyone interested should try and find a copy.

        • @K
          “why people’s belief systems are so firmly rooted that they’re not reachable by reason or evidence of reality”

          In childhood we are instilled with a system of beliefs that will be “frozen” by the time we are adults and will stay with us for the rest of our lives. It becomes hardwired in our brain.

          When confronted with hard evidence these beliefs are false most people will reject this evidence. The realization their lives are based on lies is for many a crushing realization and will be rejected and they will continue their march of folly.

          • I could perhaps accept this as a simple and logical explanation if my own experience wasn’t so different. I grew up in a catholic family and they tried. Of course. It didn’t work for me from start to finish. Not even as a small child I could believe all I was presented with, not as older child, and not as adult. Nobody ever bothered to resolve the obvious contradictions. I wasn’t sure why at first, now I know of course that they couldn’t in a lifetime. It’s just faith. When I had enough strength to go on strike against the mandatory Sunday mass at about 12-13 years old, there were several months of shouting matches and acrimony every week until I won. This is no criticism against my parents, short of a few issues they considered good manners they were no dictators. Not long after this they stopped going themselves, admitting that it’s not about belief anyway, but a socializing thing, and after the singing stops folks all go back to their politics and hating the guts of each other anyway. All of this harkens back to another thing said above we’re wondering about: How come that mainstreaming just doesn’t work for a minority of us. What makes us different, why can’t a few of us just go with the flow and be happy? It doesn’t matter whether we’re fleeing into or out of religion or whatever dominant mindset there is. The effect is the same, you spend your whole life feeling like an outcast while everybody else dwells in their self-imposed ignorance, as from your (and everybody else’s) viewpoint. Reality Boxes everyone…

          • You may not realize it K but your lifestory confirms what I have been saying. In childhood, for whatever reason you have been an independant thinker.
            Someone looking for answers outside the mainstream and going your own way. Perhaps a “loner”
            Today you are an adult but you still have the same mindset you had when you were a kid otherwise you wouldn’t be here on GoV.

        • Ingo Swann’s books are sold by Alibris.com as well as Amazon. Scientologists know who Ingo Swann was. He was one of them.

          • Heard of that, and also that many fell for it at the time. He said he left in 1975, but some dispute that, too. Guess it’s like in all “churches”… once baptised they consider you theirs forever, even if you declare otherwise. His work on human perceptual abilities is noteworthy though, esp. since collaborating with physicist Hal Puthoff (also scientologist back then, cough). Nobody’s perfect.

23. “The only explanation I can come up with is that some sort of mass insanity has taken hold.
    But even then we’re left with the question: Why do some of us fail to succumb to it?”

    …..

    This “mass insanity” is the result of skilful, evolutionary psychology-based indoctrination, especially in school and higher education.

    Jordan Peterson is social psychologist available on youtube, and he defines several types of individual human motivation – if I remember well – eroticism, conscientiousness, openness, agreeable-ness and extravert-ness.
    Also, there are cognitive “archetypes” – father, mother, son, maiden, hero, trickster, and “shadow”.

    The task for propagandists is to pack their ideological narrative into corresponding sets of special wrappers, to satisfy all and every of the above.
    They also should
    – promote notions of “inherent virtue” and “victim” status of both targets of propaganda and “those of us who know better”,
    – show the image of the “enemy”,
    – justify “sacrifice”, and
    – have “positive plan for future”. Be it 72 virgins or whatever.

    That some of us weren’t susceptible, one can explain by the combination of typology/archetypology mismatch and poor quality of propaganda itself.
    Also some of us were lucky to have some traditions of scepticism, fairness and compassion around, during our formative years.
    …

    • I was thinking about it overnight, and it occurred to me that one of the main differences may be between those who are predisposed to examine actual data, versus those who rely on conclusions handed down by others, and who never examine data closely.

      This would help explain the divide on “climate change”, for example. If you’re not interested in looking up lots of difficult-to-understand numeric figures, you just accept the “consensus of the scientists” that the TV, newspapers, and magazines hand you. But if you’re intrigued by the data itself — and some of us are like that — you start looking at the numbers, and draw different conclusions.

      A similar process may occur with, say, crime committed by recent immigrants and their descendants. A few hours spent with the statistics will inoculate you against any belief in the “culture-enriching” aspects of mass immigration.

      • Baron,
        this is an exceptional thread. I wish we could have more of this kind of conversation.
        Picking up where I left off with my comment on personality traits:

        Looking into data instead of just believing what the upper echelon representatives of your ideology feed you requires low agreeableness and high intellect, high assertiveness and probably a dose of neuroticism (no that’s not a bad thing per se). You don’t necessarily become a rebel with these traits but all rebels have them. And I’m using the term rebel to define the archetype here. It is also the archetype of the hero that is defined in that way. That word, unfortunately has a completely warped meaning in our society.

        Ideological possession, on the other hand is easy to come by when one is low in intellect and high in agreeableness. For certain, ideological possession is not limited to the Left but can be found every day among neocons and even true conservatives and organized religion.

        • that looks reasonable but it all works both ways.
          near circle of Napoleon, Hitler etc., – were all archetypical heroes.

          actually, the recipes I listed above are standard “patriot’s kit”.
          because of that one needs to be very cautious when endorsing “patriotism” and “sovereignety”.
          it is always at a hair distance from supremacist, tyrannical order.

          the key separator here is, – surprise-surprise, – the Commandments.
          Don’t kill, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t worship propaganda idols.
          One can add – respect Golden Rule, know Truth and try to help others, try to reduce human suffering.

          If you do that, your “patriotism” and “sovereignety” are worth something.
          If you are also witty, funny and your heart is open to Beauty, you score even more.

          But those who preach ideological poisons, are always or boring, or/and hysterical, or/and inconsistent, or/and slimy, or/and threatening, or/and aggressive.
          And they always play zero sum.
          …

      • Yes. This feels more right than everything else I’ve read in this thread, however interesting or not. It has to do with wanting to find things out for ourselves, of enjoying the research, of trusting our instincts, having a knack for spotting phonies (Obama et al), not buying into whatever scientific theories some self proclaimed authority comes up with (climate change), certainly being a lover of truth, having a healthy skepticism, not having a need to be accepted or liked by everyone, having a natural curiosity, having a love of learning and discovering, having a sense of justice (applied to everyone equally), enjoying solitude, loving nature. I don’t think anyone who loves nature would rather be part of a mob holding up some ridiculous sign protesting whatever. I have an idea of what one side is made up of, but for the life of me I cannot understand the other side. It just does not make sense. And if it doesn’t make sense, how can it possibly be understood? Or stopped? Good night. I am totally addicted to Gates of Vienna. Thank you for being. It makes one feel less isolated with ones thoughts.

24. ”Why do some of us fail to succumb to it?” …this question suggests that we are talking about a disease to which it is possible to be or become immune, and this thought can be carried much further: Computers can get ‘infected’ with something we call a virus (a better name might be virtual virus), so perhaps our culture can be ‘infected’ with a parasitic Meme ( or Virtual Virus) as well?

    The thing we call Political Correctness has many similarities with a disease: it operates against the self-interest of the individuals infected, it causes its victims to produce fewer children and more PC, it makes the individuals WEAK in a way that makes them easy victims for anything else…

    IF the decease-theory holds there can be several results:

    1. it can cause the death of our culture and its replacement by a resistant One such as Islam…
    2. if there is time enough the victim might develop resistance and recover…
    3. given even more time the virtual virus might mutate into a less deadly strain (we could call it PC light)…
    4. evolution might invent a new tool to deal with a new problem.

25. Too many large California industries – Science & Tech, Arts & Drama, Healthcare, Agribusiness, etc rely on Government subsidies and investment to survive.

    Combining that with the large number on welfare and you end up with too many people dependent on Government getting larger and larger.

    Those that have chosen jobs that are not government-reliant, small businesses and independent contractors, all know people that have ‘sold out’ and gone to work for larger companies with government contracts, sold small stores to larger multinational stores, or who have been run out of business competing with illegal workers (construction industry) and are now on welfare or other disability.

    The morality of giving up your individuality in order to be employed gets systematically assaulted from all sides as it becomes harder to compete or even survive this way and as a person gets more and more responsibilities, children or parents relying on you, house payments, gets older, it is harder to resist taking one of those jobs and once you do, harder to not do as you are told to keep employed or voting for whomever your union tells you.

    Children are taught to go for these industries right from the start and fewer and fewer graduate and want to be independent businesspeople.

    This is the same in Europe. Except there, many jobs are supplemented by the EU instead of their country.

26. One part of the solution is to teach and show the immorality of being paid with the public money, especially when the public is so deeply in debt.

    The next is to cut welfare and require work for any govt program.

    Last is to also remove subsidies which are essentially buying votes in various industries across the nation.

27. I’m deliberately going to give my answer without reading other comments first (not to be influenced), and I’ll speak mostly of my spouse.

    At one level, she sees the same problems that we do.

    At another, she wishes it weren’t so. She also doesn’t think that much can be done. And dislikes other policies of the more conservative parties. I think that she’s also influenced by the social unacceptability of airing views such as ours.

    So that has so far kept her voting Liberal.

    But I detect a willingness to change. This may be largely driven by members of her own ethnic group, who are really starting to freak out about what’s going on. Interestingly, many *Muslim* members of her ethnic group, who left their land of origin in part to get away from these messes, are *also* freaking out (in private) and sound pretty much like us. Even some of the somewhat religious ones. That’s a perspective that not everyone out here is aware of and which I get a front-row seat to, unlike most.

28. What a fantastic thread!
    Several thoughts come to mind about why I think the way I do and why others do not and continue the destruction of Western Civilization. BTW, I think this is akin to blind men poking an elephant… Most everyone seems to have gotten some of it right.

    My father was a scientist and my mother an avid reader. When I was young we raced sailboats. My father determined that the marine paint, loaded with lead, was a drag on performance. He sanded off the paint in our back yard, which permanently killed the grass, and had “Earl Shives” car paint put on the boat.We then dry sailed the boat and won every race. The first year people were very angry and actually disavowed us and took our first place trophy away. The second year a few other people dry sailed their boat and by the third year anyone that wanted to be competitive dry sailed their boat.
    I watched this happen at quite a young age, I was probably 10.
    My mother OTOH did not race the boat with us. She was on the race committee and was charged with running a fair race. She was also on the protest committee which adjudicated any race protests. This was a very large part of my upbringing.
    So my father’s scientific brain found a better way to race a boat and my mother insured a fair race.
    Fast forward to 1978. I took a course in the media at community college. This was pre computers/internet. The course was very simple. While the lectures consisted of the history of the print media, your grade consisted of the following: You were asked to chose one paper from column A and one from column B. No textbook was required, just the subscription to two newspapers. You were required to find a news story, weekly, that both papers covered and compare and contrast the coverage. I chose the Denver Post and the Christian Science Monitor. This was an amazing eye opener to me!
    So, between the influence of my father and my mother, who was a mental bear trap on rules and fairness, I came to question, I came to listen and I came to find ideas.
    Not many have been as blessed as I was. They just muddle on watching Modern Family and going with the unrelenting social line.
    I think it is a combination of what you have been exposed to and what you are mentally able to assimilate. Let’s face it, Modern Family is a lot easier to take then the road we have taken.

    • I think you are right. My own view is that of Machiavelli, as outlined above. Human beings are, by and large, a pretty desperate bunch. However, some people (the Baron’s minority) have had certain life experiences which equip them in certain ways to deal with a situation such as the one we are facing. And not only do they have the tools, they like using them, & don’t see any reason not to.

      As for my own background, I was a marine engineer (who enjoyed your story about the yacht racing) who often worked alone, had to problem solve, etc. I then did some work in computing, and later on took a p/t degree in philosophy, which involved studying logic. All of this gave me a few tools, over the years, which rattle around inside the old toolbox. So like you, I can point to things in my past that I would now say let me think “differently” about things.

      When I started studying logic at university level, one of my first thoughts was that it should be taught formally at school! I remember thinking: a lot of things in my life would have been so much easier if I’d known all this years ago!

      More people should be given the tools to think for themselves – and they should be encouraged to do so – but so far as I can make out, that doesn’t happen in schools nowadays. Maybe that’s one aspect of the problem.

29. Maybe this simple?:

    Stochastic processes, genetic effects, and environment shape one as he/she enters the ambient social environment. If you gain more than you lose by being a loyal follower of the group, you are going to be indoctrinate-able. If you lose more than you gain by being a tight member of the group, you are not going to be indoctrinate-able.

    A great writer and his spouse, living in the hinterlands, who attract
    and are praised by independent thinkers and iconoclasts, are not going to be indoctrinate-able.

30. I think this issue was summed up succinctly by a commenter in New Zealand responding to an article wondering why so many young people had voted in the UK for the neo-Communist Jeremy Corbyn: – “He promised to give them lots of other people’s money.”

    I tend to be a fan of Ockham’s Razor, and I believe the American version is: “Follow the money.”

    But Socialism is rather like the old English technique for poaching pheasants: lay a trail of enticing corn leading into a dunce’s cap stuffed with treacle. Stupid pheasant gobbles its way greedily into the cap, which then sticks over its head. Paralysed by its inability to see, it waits for the poacher to come along and gut it for dinner. The voters, like the pheasants, are kept in the dark about that bit.

    Thus we in the West are stuck with politicians determined to import legions of low IQ foreigners, knowing they are more easily conned into a dunce’s cap full of welfare. We must hope that when sufficient dunce’s caps are stuffed with the heads of congenital idiots (bottoms raised to their Masters) to give the rest warning of the servitude that awaits them, it will not be too late. I optimistically believe there are finally signs of such stirrings in Europe.

31. Ok, so I will be the 121rst commenter?

    So, does belief in God help? If I may borrow from our extensive culture, which I always do…. In this case I will borrow from G.K Chesterton, C.S. Lewis or possibly Mark Twain, I do not remember which and I can only try to paraphrase. Satan himself believes in God more than any man can, he has met him. Belief in God does not make you good, bad or indifferent.

    I would expand on that by asking if the God of truth and goodness believes in you or me. Are we making an effort? It may well be that the number of people who believe in God is far larger than the number of people in whom God believes. Jonah and others could testify that God is pretty lenient. No doubt, somewhere in our culture, this has also been said before.

    Well then how about the need to have a solid moral code? Wandering about in our culture, long before Leftism or Islam or even Christianity we can consider any one of several times in the Old Testement when many Hebrews went running after Baal. I would bet a lot of money that a lot of those running after Baal believed that they could bring their moral codes with them. Most of those running after Baal had to have known that God of the Hebrews had been known to be invisible for a thousand years or more, likely. Why would they pursue a pile of lumber with gilding on it? Were they leaving their sense behind? Ah yes and could people without their sense even maintain a moral code?

    Because they wanted belief to be easy and to do so in a world where nothing is easy. How, exactly, does anyone bring a moral code with him in a world where everything is supposed to be easy?

    So my two cents is, those who will look at and consider the obvious even if they do not like it are not the people who think everything is supposed to be easy.

    In the above I think I am addressing the moderately decent people who will not to know better. They are easy prey for those who seek power over others rather than power over themselves.

    Just speculating. I do not have the answer.

    • Oops…the moderately decent people who WILL not to know….

32. That’s a lot of words. Here’s some more.

    Can a man learn his way to understanding? Logic his way to truth? Educate his way to intelligence?

    Back in the beginning, all that is not Heavenly was created, call it the Universe. Time went on for who knows how long – there was no time. Jealousy, pride, greed, lust, sloth, gluttony, vanity, developed into a war among the heavenly host. The good won and the evil was cast out of Heaven. A new place was created to contain the evil, call it Hell. Since all the Heavenly host had the same access to the Universe, evil and good, had the same access to the Universe after the war. Man, with an innate, intimate understanding of good – from the moment of his creation – had to learn evil as a SECOND nature. Man conflicted with his TWO natures, chose evil over good, and time was created, by man, mostly to measure the length of his life which then became limited. Since that moment, all men must struggle with his two natures, which are both fighting for his ultimate capture. All politics, morals, and religions are a mixture of good and evil – some more a measure of one than the other.

    So, why did man choose his second nature over his first? Because he could touch it, taste it, smell it, see it, hear it and measure it. Mans first nature can only be innately sensed by Faith – it is not physical, it is not of this Universe. Since Faith cannot be touched, it cannot be learned – even though all of us are born with it – it must be accepted without proof. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

    As to why one man chooses one path, and one man next to him chooses another? One man has chosen a greater measure of faith. Faith is not measured by intelligence, or experience, or education. Even the stupidest infant is filled with faith on the day he is born, he must be “learned” to suppress it.

    Of course there is more to this, but call it a crib note. Dante was very close, as was Milton, maybe someday Gaston will find the answer and write it down.

    • “Even the stupidest infant is filled with faith on the day he is born etc.” I’d love to see proof of that. Actual proof.

33. Everything we had for two hundred thousand years was stolen. Everyone was so hungry all the time. Our food, our carcasses, our berry and nut bushes, our wives, our caves, our wood, our fur clothing….we lost everything if we didn’t watch it constantly, if we didn’t learn to fight, if we were not clever and conniving, if we didn’t keep the fires going and the children and the women protected, and the dogs. And the cold…my god it went on forever. Our mean, cruel genes survived. Even then, with our improving genetic toughness, everyone was dying all the time. People around us were all youths. Kids had to invent everything. We didn’t know old and wise. It was no surprise that we–who had to love to fight–survived. Later, when life became easy, we wondered why we had those nasty traits….when the answer was plain.

    We had to be like that to be here.

34. Maybe Karl Popper, from “the Open Society and its Enemies” is another way of putting the main point. He points out that the decision to be reasonable or not is basically a moral choice. This choice does not depend particularly on intelligence. Therefore, a very intelligent person who chooses to be unreasonable, can use that intelligence to defend his (or her) decision more effectively.

    • Please define “unreasonable”

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