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My latest at PJMedia VIP. If nothing is inherently sacred then anything you can get away with is permissible. The only thing that superior people have to fear is lacking the nerve to squash the bugs. Or is it?

The Return of Rodion Raskolnikov

When Feodor Dostoevsky wrote the novel “Crime and Punishment” in 1866 to describe a world made possible by Russian nihilism, he was describing not only a literary character, Rodion Raskolnikov, but a whole future philosophical point of view. Raskolnikov, who regards himself as a well-educated and superior but powerless person, asks himself: “Why not kill a wretched and ‘useless’ old moneylender to alleviate human misery?”

New at the Belmont Club. For now at least, the incentive to create a stable and prosperous Syria may outweigh the impulse to war.

Belmont Club: The Road From Damascus

The collapse of the Assad dynasty may not have been specifically predicted by diplomats and intelligence agencies but it was anticipated. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held up a map of the Middle Eastern potentialities without Russia’s and Iran’s proxy empire — an empire which at the time included Lebanon and Syria – during a speech before the UN General Assembly on Sept. 27, 2024.

At PJMedia VIP. The rule of authority has temporarily been weakened by the rise of the Internet and the opening of limitless frontiers. But among the ruins of fact-checking a new dark power is stirring.

The Curse of the Black Box

Every event takes place within the spirit of an age. The peculiar character of a social and political development may be symbolized by a leading figure but it rarely proceeds from him alone. Rather it arises from the cumulative effect of developments too diverse to be easily described, from things come upon us so gradually that we don’t notice their arrival until suddenly we find ourselves enmeshed without realizing it, expressing aspirations that we have never thought before. The 2024 election of Donald Trump reflects culmination of trends that have long been building up. Two worth mentioning are:

My latest at the Belmont Club. Are there better and worse ways to live? Does it matter what the foundation stones of civilization are? How can we tell?

Belmont Club: On Rights and Wrongs

If ethics are entirely subjective, then any path chosen by a sentience will be no better or worse than another. Values would be orthogonal to outcomes in a universe that is indifferent to a choice of ends. We know the words: Anything goes. If it feels good, do it.

My latest at PJMedia VIP. Why did the punditry fail to see the oncoming 2024 train?

Preference Falsification

Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election by a significant margin, and people should ask themselves: Why didn’t the experts see it coming? Why did pundits think it would be so close when it was not? The impulse that the NYT, the Wapo, and the TV news networks stood guard against was “hidden information.” Invisible. Negligible. What witchcraft did this? It was hidden by something that many analysts are familiar with: preference falsification, which occurs when people don’t disclose their true feelings because they are afraid of being excoriated.

My latest at the Belmont Club. The Hall has stood set in its ways above its vast root network of support for many decades, beyond any hope of reform. Can these outsiders mount a challenge where so many have failed?

Belmont Club: The Hall Versus the Strangers

They say there are only two kinds of stories: ones that begin with a man leaving on a journey and ones that start with a stranger riding into town. But there is a third type: one about a man who goes on a journey and returns four years later with a bunch of formidable-looking strangers.

New at PJMedia VIP. Is dismay at being let down the same thing as sowing chaos? Why trust is treated as a test of relationship loyalty instead of the outcome of customer experience.

Losing the Ability to Trust Just When We Need It Most

Lack of trust in institutions, especially the media, is often blamed for the breakdown of Our Democracy. The decline in trust, according to some, is the result of rumor mongers, conspiracy theorists and paid misinformation and disinformation agents. If we trust our leaders, we will be united once again and the remembered Golden Age will return. But can you force the public to trust a source—for example, “the news media” or “our leaders”— even to save democracy?

My latest at the Belmont Club. Elon is simultaneously a principal source of the U.S. bureaucracy’s greatness and locus of rebellion against the venality, dysfunction and stupidity of the status quo. How does the establishment contain yet exploit him?

Belmont Club: Excellence in the Service of Mediocrity

The New York Times describes the federal government’s efforts to both exploit and control Elon Musk. His genius is simultaneously a principal source of America’s greatness — and by extension the U.S. bureaucracy’s — and locus of rebellion against the venality, dysfunction and stupidity of the status quo.

My latest at PJMedia VIP. How it became bad to succeed and victimhood became synonymous with virtue.

The Embarrassment of Success

For those who believe “property is theft,” success as exhibited by SpaceX’s catching of a huge booster or South Korea’s prosperity compared to the north is prima facie proof of guilt. How could anything be so successful without diabolism? By contrast, destitution and dysfunction are irrefutable signs of virtue because failure is — to some people’s way of thinking — caused by victimhood. Recently North Korea blew up some of the few roads it had in rage at the unfairness of it all. Self-multilation enhances the virtue effect because the previously pitiable become even more so.

New at the Belmont Club. The cruel disappointment you feel when you view the world through the window rather than the TV screen.

Belmont Club: Waking Up

Totalitarianisms work by mass denial. Although living conditions can actually be bad, the public can be brainwashed through hypnotic sloganeering into willing reality away. The result is a kind of mass dishonesty called “preference falsification.” But it is fragile. The danger for the hypnotist is if the public snaps out of it. Once the subject wakes up the problem for the hypnotist becomes reality itself. We all know the movie dialogue:

New at PJMedia VIP. Hezbollah learns that you can’t live in someone else’s civilization with impunity. But will the West realize that when the world one makes determines survival, the culture which defines it is supremely important?

The Meaning of the Pager Strike: Mind Over Matter

Israel’s devastating strike on Hezbollah’s command and control structure, by turning the militants’ consumer devices into bombs against them, confirms what many have been suspecting since the war in Ukraine began in 2022: The entire modern world can be turned into a weapon by those who understand it against those who don’t. The pager attack maimed thousands of Hezbollah’s militants.

My latest at the Belmont Club. After the USSR collapsed in 1989, the progressives turned their efforts to taking over the institutions of the West. To their surprise resistance to their coup has emerged. Who and what is forcing a showdown?

Belmont Club: Dusk or Dawn?

There is a feeling among some that the November 2024 election is special. It is useful to consider why.

My latest at PJMedia VIP. Is today the “hinge of history” where activists have a right, indeed a duty to do extraordinary things, act with unlimited license, attempt unprecedented transformations because the future depends specially on them?

Do We Live in a Special Time?

Peter Baldwin examines the question of whether we live in a special time. “Over a decade ago the late British philosopher Derek Parfit included the following statement in the conclusion of his last book, On What Matters.”

My latest at the Belmont Club. When fantasy has a price. How pretending to be Green made Europe vulnerable to red, red war.

Belmont Club: Coming to Terms With Our Needs

You may be surprised to learn that Russian natural gas is still flowing to Europe across Ukraine. Kyiv lets it happen, and even the pipeline at Sudzha in Kursk captured in the recent offensive will remain unmolested. “Even after 2 1/2 years of war and repeated rounds of sanctions, Russian natural gas keeps flowing through Ukraine’s pipeline network to customers in Europe. That hasn’t changed despite Ukraine apparently taking control of a gas measuring station near the Russian town of Sudzha as part of Kyiv’s push into Russia’s Kursk region.”

My latest on PJMedia VIP. The credibility of the media is a function of the credibility of the system, whose spokesmen they are. So the fundamental credibility problem is not with the Mouth of Sauron, but Sauron himself.

Why Nobody Believes the Media

The U.S. presidential candidates’ inability to agree on a Fox vs. ABC presidential debate venue is another indication that the belief in a neutral, impartial media is dead. News now travels down two separate channels. The only way for the establishment to regain signal dominance and re-merge these streams into one channel is to suppress their rivals as “disinformation.”

My latest at the Belmont Club. A ringside seat to drama. Miraculous misfortune versus miraculous fortune.

Belmont Club: The Battle of the Miracles

Why was there no security posted on the rooftop from which the would-be assassin of Donald Trump took his shot? Not for any profound reason but because the Secret Service was afraid of its agents falling according to Director Kimberly Cheatle. “There’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.” It is part of a succession of marvels that occurred on July 13, 2024. First there was the rapid preparation of the alleged assassin Thomas Crooks, a 20-year-old cook in a nursing home, for the task of killing an ex-president. Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was advertised approximately ten days before the shooting. “Donald Trump will be holding a rally at the Butler County Farm Show grounds this Saturday … Doors for Trump’s appearance are set to open at 1 p.m. Saturday; Trump himself is scheduled to speak at 5 p.m.” reported Pittsburgh’s WSA. ’In the 48 hours before he opened fire on former President Donald Trump, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks made a series of stops,” reported CNN.

My latest at PJMedia VIP. The rise of virtual politics. No human candidates are required for an election between two ideas, both characterized by the same media outlets.

Virtual Politics: No One and Possibly Nothing Is Real

The administration courtiers are working overtime to keep their jobs as “Joe Biden.” Joe Biden is more a brand name for a political package than a reference to a specific person. Staffers speak for him, think for him, and possibly decide for him. There’s no way of knowing for sure to what extent things come from him personally because the individual in the package is only part and possibly the least important aspect of the overall product. The Huffington Post explicitly suggested that the president should actually be synthesized to avoid burdening his youthful, progressive message with his tired old body.

My latest at The Pipeline. We know what we can eat from a 100 thousand years of human trials. Suddenly we’ll replace all that hard won knowledge with …

Now They’re Coming for Your Food | The Pipeline

The greatest social-engineering project in history.

New at the Belmont Club. All over the Western world the status quo is being challenged. A countdown clock has started. We must adapt or face disaster.

Belmont Club: Countdown to Destruction and Renewal

It has been a momentous week with three nearly simultaneous developments: 1) the exposure of the senile Joe Biden to the public in the presidential debate; 2) the SCOTUS body blow to lawfare in the form of a 6-3 decision holding that “the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and 3) the political collapse of the center-left in Europe fueled by a grassroots rejection of unlimited migration are challenging the status quo as never before.

My latest at PJMedia VIP. Suddenly the public has discovered that the President is missing, substantively speaking. With the chief missing, the race between those who would replace him and foes who would seize their chance is on.

The Man Who Was Not There

What was scheduled to simply be the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden rapidly became a full-blown political crisis after Biden’s manifest collapse into incoherence on stage. Within hours of the exhibition, stalwart Democratic publications like the Atlantic and multiple authors in the New York Times were openly imploring Biden to step down.