A One Question Quiz

What does one call a musician, actor or performer whose oeuvre is satirizing, mocking or aping a culture one is not part of?

Say, in this case, the lyrics to creepy gay transvestite Dylan Mulvaney’s, uh, “song” Days of Girlhood?:

Monday, can’t get out of bed

Tuesday morning, pick up meds

Wednesday, retail therapy

“Cash or credit?” I say, “Yes”

Thursday, had a walk of shame

Didn’t even know his namе

Weekends are for kissing friends

Friday night, I’ll overspend

Saturday, we flirt for drinks

Playin’ wingman to our twinks

Sunday, the Twilight soundtrack

Cues my breakdown in the bath

If you guessed “Minstrel Show”, you’re thinking what I’m thinking.

The Racket

Walter Hudson asks a great question:

Once I get Juan and Goncalvo to cough up the money…

…I think it’s time to guy that 1960 Les Paul Standard.

What are you doing with your cut from the illegals?

Some Feelings Are More Equal

In the modern world, and to the two generations raised in it, feelings are paramount. Your feelings are reality.

Unless they, er, intersect with more important, vogue-y feelings:

Then, those feelings are supposed to be suppressed; “shut up or get cut up”, as Elvis Costello put it.

Retirement Planning

I think this’d be what the kids today call “saying the quiet part out loud”…

…except it’s really saying the part they keep yelling at the top of their lungs, even louder, really.

Senator Erin Maye Quade thinks parents shouldn’t be bringing their children up with any sense of basic morality when it comes to sex:

That’s right – just cast them out into the world, and let the teachers and Planned Parenthood do the teaching for you.

Which will help keep the meat coming through the doors at Planned Parenthood, who most generously supports her political career (and, one suspects, will be providing amply for her when she one day “retires from politics”).

An American Hero

For like the 21st year in a row, I didn’t watch the State of the Union. I’ve joined the crowd that considers it a useless exercise at best, a nod to monarchy or worse at worst.

But I almost wish I had tuned in, for this alone:

“Thirteen Marines”

Including his son, LCPL Kareem Nikoui, whom I’ll bring out from under the rug under which he and his comrades were swept:

And I salute you, Steve Nikoui, wherever you are.

Mark Your Calendars

This particular bit of elitist Pauline-Kaelery needs to re-appear around November 1.

In fact, I’m going to make sure it does.

The Case For Letting The Mainstream Media Burn To The Ground

This – letting major but utterly corrupted institutions burn to the ground – is becoming kind of a theme, isn’t it?

OK – so read this entire AP piece on the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.

And when you do, tell us what’s missing:

Ready?

No mention that the alleged murderer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, was an illegal alien with a rap sheet as long as a Walgreens receipt.

It’s almost like someone wants this sort of thing – unrestricted illegal immigration by people whom no country wants – to be the norm.

Somone, like…:

“hEeY! ThaT’S fRoM sIX yEArS aGO!” Yes, and now she’s the Senate Majority Leader, and arguably (!) more powerful than the Governor whose shock collar remote her “progressive” movement controls. Think she’s changed?

So many institutions.

So little fire.

Remember…

…while it’s always the Democrats who fantasize [1] about turning the military loose on Americans…:

…it’s the Republicans who are really the “Fascists”.

Representative Wu went on to bleat…:

That’s right – a guy who openly fantasizes about shooting missiles at Americans is concerned about “dangers to his community”.

Gene Wu may be the modern Democrat party’s intellectual thought leader.

[1] One suspects “arousal” to the level of, uh, showing physical symptoms, at least in Mr. Wu’s case.

Let’s Stir Up Another Republic-Threatening Hornets Nest: Part I

I saw “The Fall of Minneapolis” again last week.

Now, when I first mentioned seeing it a few months back, a few smart people whose opinions I never discount asked “is there anything new that the courts didn’t settle?”

That brings up a couple of questions.

In our society, we usually think that if a court – an impartial jury of our peers, a couple of adversarial attorneys patiently digging out the facts, a fair and impartial judge facilitating it all via “due proces” – decides something, that’s that. The truth has been found.

There’s problems with that.


The was this guy, James Fleming, a Facebook friend, shooter and criminal defense attorney. He used to snap at people who referred to “due process” by itself as a reason to trust something. Paraphrasing: due process isn’t a guarantee of fairness, much less justice. It means the proceedings all check the same checkboxes and standards. The fairness and justice is all in the details.

So – how can that go wrong?

Years ago, I was *very* tangentially involved in the case of a man who’d been accused of a fairly grisly rape and murder in 1982. He had been kind of a lowlife, a petty criminal and drug addict, the kind of guy you’ve seen on a thousand episodes of “Cops” insisting to the officer “I have NO IDEA whose gun and cocaine that is!” He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

The courts settled the matter.


A decade and change later, a group of people did enough digging and agitating on his behalf to get the attention of “The Innocence Project”, a group of pro-bono lawyers that works on what they believe to be unjust convictions.

The lawyers found that the original conviction had been secured via:
– A jailhouse snitch with a history of perjury whose testimony nonetheless was allowed
– A District Attorney hiding exculpatory evidence.
– An incompetent public defender.

The exculpatory evidence included forensic evidence that, with modern DNA testing, could have shed some light on who the attacker was. But it vanished as completely as whispering “due process” in the wind.

After years of legal wrangling, the lawyers found the evidence – and with more modern DNA testing, determined that the man, who’d been convicted “beyond a reasonable doubt” after “due process”, couldn’t have possibly been the murderer. In 2003 he was released, after 21 years on Death Row.

And he’s not alone. In the past 50 years, *185* inmates have been released from Death Row. Not granted new trials. Not commuted to lesser sentences. *Released* from Death Row to the world – because their “convictions beyond a reasonble doubt” were in error, due to perjury, official misconduct, incompetence, and even some honest but terrible mistakes.

So – do I think the answer to “is it true?” is “the courts have spoken?”

Let’s just say I believe in (grudging, conditional) trust but verification. Throw in a heaping dollop of skepticism about the integrity of public officials and systems.

More later this wee4


I Read Deena Winter In The “Minnesota Reformer” So You Don’t Have To

Earlier this week, the Minnesota Reformer – a news outlet financed by “progressive” plutocrats iwth deep pockets – did its review of AlphaNews’s “Minneapolis Has Fallen”.

The claims – well, I’ll let the tweet do the talking for the piece, entitled “I Watched Minneapolis Has Fallen So You Don’t Have To”.

Let’s go briefly through Winter’s claims.

Restraint

The biggest hit Winter has against Collin is that, according to her, the movie’s revelation that Chief Arredondo and his training officer lied about whether “Maximal Restraint Technique” was part of the MPD’s training and policy. Collin showed cops, and Chauvin’s mother, opening the manual to the exact section, and showed multiple current and former MPD officers saying they’d been trained in the technique. The movie also said the jurors were not allowed to see the body cam footage that showed that Chauvin did the technique correctly – with his knee on the shoulder blade, rather than on George Floyd’s neck.

Winter claims that yes, the jury saw both.

OK – so if that’s true, and the jurors saw the same training that the officers had, then could someone explain to me why Chief Arredondo still lied about it?

Neither reporter has clarified that for me, so someone else has to.

UPDATE: Danger Close

And as I wrote this in a hurry, I forgot this. But as “Bigman” noted in the comments – why the fact that Cahill failed to sequester the jury – who came to and from a courthouse that was being fortified like the Green Zone in Baghdad, and who were being told more or less directly that if they reached the “wrong verdict” that they were in huge trouble – not being discussed?

I’ll ask the question because Winter didn’t think she had to.

White Riot

Winter goes on to discuss the parts of the film dealing with the riot, most specifically the evacuation of the Third Precinct (on which. apropos nothing much, I scooped the entire Twin Cities media), I’m trying to figure out what Winter’s point is.

I’ll dispense with the fact that Winter…lacks a certain amount of empathy, or at least insight outside her own apparently narrow experience (emphasis added):

Collin also spends considerable time questioning why the MPD and local and state officials were slow to take action as protests devolved into riots and arson that destroyed hundreds of buildings across the metro.

Retired MPD officer Jason Reimer tells Collin what bothered him the most is “they let people throw rocks and bricks and firebombs and we’re supposed to just put on a helmet and take that.”

Well, helmets, but likely also bulletproof vests and eye-irritant spray, handcuffs, Tasers and semi-automatic pistols.

Bulletproof vests don’t keep you from burning to death. Spray and tasers are useful to get control one on one, not against a mob.

And I’ll let Deena Winter’s idea of shooting into a crowd of rioters hang out there, because I sure didn’t want to have to do it for her.

Winter cites some fairly wrenching scenes in the movie (that reflect what I reported in May of 2020), to which I’ll add some emphasis:

“We were in the middle of a war zone,” Herron said. “We were ordered not to do anything.”

She said the fire department wasn’t responding to calls, and officers were “wandering around aimlessly, waiting to be told what not to do next.”

They weren’t doing anything to control the riot,” she said. “They wouldn’t let us do our jobs.”

All true – but keep the emphasis in mind – the “they” that left them wandering around were the city and MPD leadership. We’ll come back to them.

Winter adds:

The city and state’s failed response and inability to quell the violence and arson are well documented, but it’s inaccurate to claim police were standing down. 

They went on joyrides, fired rubber bullets at protesters (see Jaleel Stallings); an officer, who went on to run an actual banana stand, was caught on video by a journalist macing protesters for no discernible reason; lots of cops in riot gear teargassed crowds

They shot protestors like Soren Stevenson with a rubber bullet and blinded him in one eye. They maced a journalist from Vice News in the face. They fired rubber bullets at journalists, including Reformer reporter Max Nesterak and Star Tribune reporter Andy Mannix.

Side note: anyone but me notice how journalists only get really irate about injustice and official overreach when it’s other members of the Journo Club who are affected? Lake Street – and a fair chunk of the Midway, my neighborhood – got burned. The Minneapolis Police Department was, and remains, gutted. Crime soared, and is still double what it was as recently as 2018 – enh. But journalists got attacked ZOMG!

Not that Winter’s article tells you, but the main contention of the cops in the movie was that the city and the. MPD leadership – the “they” in the emphasized text in the first round of quotes, above:

  • Had no plan to deal with the riot
  • More specifically, abandoned the Third Precinct (apparently to “give the rioters ‘space to destroy'”), without having the foggiest idea about what the officers marooned there were supposed to do.

So when Winter snarks:

To the people on the other end of a rubber bullet or tear gas or mace, the police response sure didn’t feel like “standing down.” 

Stop me if I”m wrong, but everything she cites supports the cops contention. Some cops, operating in a complete vacuum, followed the normal human inclination to fucking hit back.

Either way, there was no plan. They were left danging in the breeze.

Winter doesn’t write about that, so I have to.

Who’s The Boss?

Winter goes on (and I’ll add emphasis):

[retired MPD cop Jason] Reimer says the weak response was all a deliberate attempt by politicians to use Floyd’s police killing to their advantage.

“The elections were coming up,” he said. “They were gonna use this incident for a political narrative, and they did.” 

Let’s hope Reimer was a better cop than he is a political analyst: The riots were a political disaster for the mayor, the governor and the entire DFL establishment. DFL political operatives blamed the riots and the defund/abolish police movement for key suburban losses that prevented a 2020 DFL trifecta. 

Although both Frey and Walz won reelection, they did so in part by hitching themselves to police during their reelection campaigns and would soon be accused by partisans on the left of being too cozy with cops.

I’m tempted to get cute and “hope that WInter is a better political analyst than Jason Reimer” – because it’d be more accurate to say the riots were a disaster for one city political establishment; the one where Jacob Frey and Andrea Jenkins and Lisa Bender were the “middle” and Alondra Cano was the loony left.

And for them, the riots were a disaster. For the new establishment, the one that gained huge ground in the ’22 elections and is poised to take the city over, the one led by the Democrat Socialists of America, against which Frey and Jenkins barely survived, and Bender and Cano retired lest they be seen as “too conservative” (literally the language the DSA droogs use to refer to Jacob F*cking Frey and Andrea Jenkins – the riots, and the aftermath (including the far far far left’s well-funded and well-organized response to whatever backlash there was in the ’20 elections) were a prime organizing opportunity.

But I won’t call Winter a myopic political analyst. Someone else will have to.

A Bonus I’ll Answer So You Don’t Need To

“Minneapolis Has Fallen” refers to quite a number of former MPD cops. Winter reminds us that a number of them are living on disability pensions and workmens comp settlements.

Someone needs to explain why that’s relevant (as opposed to, frankly, kinda pointlessly bitchy) since Winter will no doubt say she doesn’t have to.

Pronouns: Ass/Kicked

I have a few transgender people in y social circle. All of them did their transitions, for whatever reason, as adults. I treat them with respect. They (mostly) reciprocate – I’ve had no ugly little moments over pronouns.

Because that’s kinda the point – voluntary human interaction requires some degree of mutual respect, as opposed to using every interaction as an excuse to try to squeedge a publicly-airable grievance out onto social media – something that might be equally well-termed “narcissism”.

And some of the LGB crowd is seeing it the same way.

Gay black guy comments on videos of Trans people complaining about being “misgendered”:

And I think he nails it.

One of many highlights: “If you’ve been to 25 restaurants and everyone’s calling you “Sir’, there’s a theme and consensus“.

Of course, as Camille Paglia points out, it’s not all laughs and games:

Take The “W”

It’s been a rough 3-7 years to be a conservative, a Republican, an originalist.

An American who believes in what America was intended to be, really.

But let’s enjoy some good news. This past two weeks have been a speedbump – it’s way to early to say “Battle of Waterloo” – for “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI), the Neo-Marxist corporate obedience training and consultant-enrichment racket masquerading as a business practice.

Charles C.W. Cooke on why Claudine Gay’s pre-emptive ouster at Harvard matters:

That Harvard lost this one ought to serve as a warning to those who have convinced themselves that the purpose of the American citizenry is to furnish a few members of a distant caste with ever-increasing tithes and never to ask how they are being spent. Commenting on the affair, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, “a professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School,” told the New York Times that the architects of Claudine Gay’s ouster “will only be emboldened by Gay’s resignation.” If, by this, Muhammad means that they will no longer be willing to tolerate brazen double standards, open racial discrimination, and the subjugation of the entire human experience to a vicious scheme of antediluvian identity considerations, then he is absolutely correct. They will be emboldened, and they deserve to be. Claudine Gay did what she was accused of having done, and nobody has denied it. The critics were the good guys. Let’s hope they come back for more.

That was a nice appetizer, to be honest.

I do want more.

In Search Of A Solution

Mere days after the Biden regime sued Texas for trying to stop illegal immigration – i.e. doing the Feds job – we see this:

Doesn’t compute?

Of course it does.

The Biden Administration is holding up the spending for the border and Ukraine because it removes the funding “Biden” wants – to process “asylum seekers” – and spends it on Border Patrol agents.

The Mexicans can (hypothetically) regulate the flow long enough to accomplish the regime accomplish its two main missions:

  • make the backlog a little more hypothetically manageable
  • create the misguided impression that “things are getting better” long enough to arrest Bidenn’s slide in the polls.

When you remember that, it all makes perfect sense. .

A Small Win

Mia Schem is a 21 year old Israeli who was kidnapped at the Nova EDM festival on October 7, after her arm was mangled by a terrorist with an AK.

She tells her story on Israeli TV.

I’m trying to imagine a 21 year old American of either (any?) gender responding to 55 days of psychological and physical torture like this:

In fact, given the number of Zoomers who are siding with “Palestine”, it’d seem they’ve been programmed out of this sort of resilience.

Amicus Curiae

In a conversation with a couple of other conservative alternative media pluggers a few months ago, the question of where the trans argument goes from here popped up.

The consensus was that eventually, given the exceedingly experimental nature of the “treatments” involved, is that eventually the courts are going to settle this – making a lot of plaintiffs attorneys exceedingly wealthy.

Exhibit for the plaintiff provided – the initial tweet is included with the entire thread unrolled in text below (numerous attached references available in the Tweet thread):

To understand what PBs [puberty blockers] do to cognitive development and IQ, you first need to understand what IQ is, how it is constructed and how it’s measured. The following explanation is of one model of IQ. There are others. 

Definition: IQ is a property of the mind encompassing many related intellectual abilities, eg the capacities to reason; to plan, to solve problems; to think abstractly; to comprehend ideas; to use language; and to learn. 

Definition: When aggregated, these factors determine the individual’s ability to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with their environment. This is their IQ, or their level of cognitive functioning. The average IQ falls between 85 and 115. 

Types of IQ: Intelligence can be split into two subtypes: Crystalline (Gc) and Fluid (Gf). Gc (Crystalline IQ) is LEARNED or ACQUIRED knowledge: eg ‘When was the Magna Carta signed’?; ‘What is the name of the Earth’s satellite’? It is heavily dependent on education. 

Gc remains stable and/or increases over time as knowledge is gained. Gf (Fluid IQ) is related to novel problem solving, eg, how to put up an Ikea wardrobe, or how to plan a journey from say Cornwall to Aberdeen. Gf increases as the brain matures from childhood to adulthood. 

Because Gf measures NOVEL problem-solving it is largely independent of educational attainment. 

IQ is usually measured using the 3 Weschler scales:
WIPPSI young children (2-7); WISC children (6-16); and WAIS adults (16-91). There are between 10 and 15 subtests, aggregated to give the overall FULL SCALE IQ score (FSIQ). The test also yields separate Index scores. 

Impact of PBs: PBs are given when the brain is maturing, through the creation of neural connections and the laying down of fatty tissue (Myelination). PB’s interrupt this process. The following table shows the cognitive decline in a Brazillian child over 3 years on Lupron

Her FSIQ fell from 80 to 70. From Low Average to Borderline Learning Disabilities. Her performance also fell on EVERY Index score. This is unprecedented. It is really important to know that IQ is a very STABLE construct. It does not change significantly over the lifespan. 

Using the various Weschler scales, IQ should be roughly the same measured at ages 5, 25, 55 or 85. There will be some small changes (depending on external factors like fatigue, rapport, testing conditions, etc). These are accounted for by reporting the Confidence Interval 

But generally, IQ does NOT change significantly over the lifespan. Unless there is an ‘insult’ to the brain: eg head injury, infection ordisease etc, IQ absolutely SHOULD NOT be dropping by 10 points over 3 years!!!!! 

In 30 years of giving hundreds of IQ tests, I have only seen such a decline ONCE (a few weeks ago), in a man with severe Autism. Otherwise, a fall of this magnitude, without a head injury, tumour or other disease process, is simply unprecedented. 

This finding ALONE, in this single child, should have been enough to immediately halt ALL administration of PBs worldwide until more data was collected. In medical terms, this is almost as unusual and alarming as if her blood type or fingerprints had changed. 

But here’s more evidence: Below shows an average 7-point drop in IQ of 25 kids after 2 years on PBs. This rate of decline is consistent with the Brazilian finding. It’s not an ‘artefact’ of testing. Something very serious and dangerous is happening as a result of PBs.

This data is known. This information is out there, yet PBs are still being pushed as ‘Affirming’ and ‘lifesaving’ care for children. In reality, PBs are causing significant and possibly IRREVERSIBLE BRAIN DAMAGE. They are impacting both Gf and Gc. 

ALL children should routinely have their IQ tested at the beginning of ‘treatment’ and periodically whilst on PBs. But gender clinics are not collecting this data, so the true scale of the disaster in terms of the cognitive damage to children is not yet known. 

It’s possible these children’s IQs are CONTINUING TO FALL. A 10-point drop is the difference between getting a degree or not. A 20-point drop is the difference between living independently or staying at home with parents because you cannot manage life without help. 

This is a scandal of unprecedented and unimaginable proportions. But there’s also mounting evidence that X-sex hormones are also causing a decline in IQ in adults even AFTER the critical Myelination process is complete (age 25 to 30). I will do another thread on that. 

 Please Rx. Transgender ‘healthcare’ for children is a Crime Against Humanity. It MUST be stopped. By us. 

PBs do have a role: For a 4-year-old who starts menstruating, the risk of cognitive impairment is less than the psychological consequences of CPP. But they have absolutely NO place in ‘treating’ the psychological dysfunction of otherwise perfectly HEALTHY children. 

Somehow, shockingly, puberty is now seen as an illness which must be blocked. Regardless of the consequences to children. But PBs affect the ENTIRE body. Not just sexual development They don’t mysteriously and miraculously stop working above the shoulders! 

And, before I get all the usual, nonsensical pushback: I am a ‘real’ psychologist; I do have a DClinPsych; I am not, and have never claimed to be a medical doctor; I’m not a ‘crackpot’; my views are not outliers; every clinical psychologist knows the truth of this thread. 

Side question: so what do PBs do to the adult brain?

And in the case of adults – is transition a treatment for mental illness, or a symptom? Or self-medication?

A Parable For Our Time

You’re on a cruise ship. It hits an iceberg and sinks. You climb into a lifeboat with nine other people, and break out the oars.

One of the people starts rowing toward the cruise’s destination. They paid for it, dammit.

Another starts pulling toward Florida, because Florida would be cool.

A third starts rowing toward where they think the nearest land is.

#4 starts rowing toward their home, in Cleveland.

A fifth just starts pulling. She hasn’t gotten her cardio and she’s feeling stale.

Six? She just complains that #3 is “mansplaining”, and pulls in a random different direction.

#7 just sits and heckles the other rowers, dangling the oar cynically in the water.

An eighth person stars rowing toward the light of what might be a rescue ship.

Number nine just says “We’ve got to dooooo something” and just picks a random direction.

You? You pull in whatever direction the current is taking you.

After an hour, the boat has just been spinning about, the light has disappeared, and you’ve moved nowhere.

“Diversity” in and of itself isn’t a virtue. It’s only meaningful if everyone is pulling in more or less the same direction.

Prediction

I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and say that either…

  • Her husband is a shriveled little low-T millennial Twerp who agreed that he was in fact gay on Christmas morning, or…
  • He’s on the market as of today.

For his sake, I’m going to cross my fingers and hope for “b”.

Settler Projects

Among the “setter projects” that Americans established as we (yes) conquered the North American continent, along with representative democracy, were universities.

And I’m thinking that those are among the “settler projects”…

…that actually need to be dismantled.

Or at least, it’s time for an actual honest-to-god McCarthy-style purge of Universities.

Mirthy

SCENE: Mitch BERG is loading some garage junk into a truck. He doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE, whjo is walking up the alley writing down the addresses of homes without handicap parking spots.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Uh…

LIBRELLE: Christian Nationalists can’t handle freedom of religion! They’re having a cow and melting down over a Satan Club at a school!

BERG: Huh.

LIBRELLE: What do you have to say about that?

BERG: Other than “Satanism is a religion in exactly the same way as “The Onion” is, only even less funny? It exists only to mock faith. Well, to mock Christianity. It’s not a worldview. It’s a running adolescent jape.

LIBRELLE: You’re gonna crrrryyyyyyyyyyyy…

BERG: So, if a school had an “Amos and Andy” club, or a “Speedy Gonzales” club, or an “Apu” Club, or a “Boring Basketball” club, do you think Blacks, Latinos, Indian-Americans or women might take umbrage?

(But LIBRELLE is already skipping, literally, down the alley.

And SCENE>

Open Letter To Every Republican Candidate, Everywhere

If you aren’t running on this…

…for the love of all that is holy, please tell me why?

I’ve Noticed

…that the Venn diagram of people who were dumping on Lauren Boebert’s drunken (and let’s be honest, tacky and ill-advised) make-out last summer…

…and people who are excusing, celebrating and even…uh…

…celebrating a couple of Democrat aides filming gay porn in the US Senate is a circle.

I can’t help but wonder – when he said “I would never disrespect my workplace” – what does he think doing the nasty in the nation’s upper deliberative chamber is? And what would “respect” look like?

Chaser: At least one rumor says Maese-Czeropski’s, uh, film set was Amy Klobuchar’s desk.

Watch out for flying binders!

Converts

Wonder why Big Left’s noise machine was so quick to try to gundeck The Fall of Minneapolis?

Because they’re smart enough to see that it coud change some minds.

In this case, the minds of academic Glenn Loury and the NYTimes’s John McWhorter – both of whom formerly bought Big Left’s story on the events of May 2020.

And both of whom re-evaluated things pretty radically:

Haven’t seen it yet? Make up your own mind.

Junk Food For Thought

One the current tropes among the populist right is that “college is useless, and you should send your kids to learn a trade”.

There’s a truck loaded with cinder blocks full of truth in there – for many 18 year olds, a year or two spent learning how to weld, be an electrician or mechanic or tool and die maker would be a much faster path to self-reliance than four years at college racking up debts while learning little or nothing that one needs to succeed in the world.

Now, let’s be clear, here – I don’t think college needs to be a longer more expensive trade school; there can be value to learning a “liberal art”, something traditionally intended to teach one to think rather than strictly to design, build or fix something…

provided that that that education actually teaches how to think.

We’ll come back to that.


As I’ve noted elsewhere, my father was a great teacher. He taught. high school speech, writing and literature, and college-level education classes. He was one of the two best teachers I ever had. He also used to agree, at least hypothetically, with the likes of Mike Rowe – the ideal education, he said, was spending a few months or years learning a trade, and then going on to some other course of more abstract study after one could pay the bills.

This, of course, may have been a little idealistic projection from a man who, on good day, knew which end of a screwdriver to hit the nail with. He was and remains a brilliant teacher – and one of the least handy people I’ve ever met, myself included.

When I was in high school. and college, I had not the slightest interest in going to trade school – not out of any sense of college being “above it all” or “better” – I was every bit as peripatetic back then as I am today, and if could have squeezed in learning how to machine metal or be an electrician, I would have.

But to my Dad’s point, I also figured I already had a trade; I’d started in radio when I was 15, and had learned a lot. I figured my fallback would be working at some station, somewhere. It wasn’t the dumbest idea, at a time when radio was a tough but viable way to make a living. It’s not advice I’d give a kid today, but that was then.

With the “trade” part figured out? I sought a life living in my head; I majored in English and minored in History and German. I also majored in Computer Science almost long enough to get the minor, but I hated it, and didn’t touch a computer for seven years after I graduated – but that’s another story. And for me, at least, the promise of a “liberal arts” education was fulfilled; I learned how to think, and when the opportunity to jam a bunch of different facets from my background together into a new career fell into my path, I was able to jump on it.

Of course, I’m not sure colleges today teach critical thinking the way Dr. Blake did.

But I come here not to wallow in nostalgia, but to weaponize it.


While I don’t disagree in the least with my Dad, or Mike Rowe, I also think this is a lousy time for conservatives who are so inclined to completely abandon the academy, if only because it’s people from Harvard and Penn and MIT who will write the histories and the textbooks and play an inordinate role in defining our culture…

…and if you see the people who are driving our system toward collapse and calamity today, that should be pretty terrifying. Because just as Califonria-style government followed Californians who fled to Colorado, a society run by the products of our crypto-Maoist university system – the judges, politicians and culture-definers of tomorrow – will follow you into your shop van or plumbing business.

Big Left has been ‘marching through the institutions” for over fifty years; they’re not going to be set back to square one by a season of scrutiny. But it’s an opportunity. And the future of a free society demands that some young conservatives, and the older ones that still control some levers of power (if only their checkbooks) take a shot at that tackle, before the current wave of barbarism completely rewrites the definition of “freedom” for a few more generations.