Wisdom Is Where You Find It

     And who would know better than history’s most celebrated villains?

     And they dreamed big.

The Political Problem, Distilled To Its Essence

     A lot of people are justifiably disgusted with the total nonperformance of the Republican Party since President Trump returned to the Oval Office. That’s given rise to the notion that maybe we can only awaken the GOP to its responsibilities by punishing it: i.e., by refusing to support its candidates in the 2026 midterms, and perhaps in the 2028 elections as well.

     Consider the following rejoinder to that suggestion:

Tell me how you win.

I wave a magic wand *poof* The Democrats now hold all three branches of government comfortably, the Republicans are suitably chastised.

They feel great shame and sorrow over the loss.

Now the Left, firmly in bed with everyone from the cartels to the CCP to… https://t.co/TmWCWPBnLr

— BLACK DUMPLING™ (@BlackDumpling) September 16, 2026

     Black Dumpling’s conclusion is worth highlighting:

     You have gotten everything you asked for Nick. It's all burned.
     Now, tell me how you win. Tell me this wasn't all just an exercise in sacrificing children to Moloch because you're disappointed in the Trump administration not doing enough or doing too much of the wrong thing.
     Tell me how you and "The Good Guys" wrestle back control via whatever means you suitably desire. But no wishes there, we need concrete answers.

     That, I propose, is the essence of our political problem.

* * *

     I have periods during which I feel much like BD’s interlocutor “Nick.” As William E. Simon put it in A Time For Truth, we have two major parties: the Evil Party and the Stupid Party…except that I don’t think the Republican Party, its elected officials, or its strategists are stupid. They just look it to a casual observer.

     Human nature tells us that in any situation that demands a decision, when a range of possibilities are available to an individual, he will naturally be most attracted by the course that most benefits him personally. That’s Mankind for you: we look first to ourselves and our well-being. Not a surprise, is it?

     Now consider the political dynamics that prevail in a legislature whose component districts have largely polarized. That is a configuration likely to emerge over time, as private citizens and businesses move about to serve their own interests. It prevails today in the United States: the great majority of Congressional districts and states are regarded as “red” or “blue.” For a “red” candidate to defeat the “blue” one in a “blue” locale, or vice-versa, is significantly against the odds.

     The consequence is a steadily increasing indifference toward the perceived values and desires of voters. The elected official, having the backing of the party most aligned with his district, feels safe in his seat. Barring “being caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy,” he trusts in his perpetuation in office. He feels he can confidently pursue and defend his personal interests without fear of electoral reversal.

     Today, the majority of the GOP Congressional caucus represents such safe districts. Overall indifference to such minor considerations as the party platform and the values it espouses is only to be expected. Why risk funding, bad press, or the loss of admission to high Washington society just to act on a campaign promise? Especially as you have “strength in numbers:” i.e., you can claim that the fault lies with the rest of your caucus, deflecting the odium from yourself.

     When election time nears, you can play the game called “Vote for me or you’ll get him! He and his party are The Enemy. They’re a threat to your values! I, your Republican stalwart, am the only defense against what they want to do to you.”

     That dynamic synergizes with the natural corruptibility of men whose principal drive is for power over others. Having become safe in their seats, their attention veers ever more toward possibilities for personal gain at public expense.

     “Well, well, it’s all very natural, Wormwood.”

* * *

     More than the above, what pro-freedom Americans want to know is what we can do about it. Sadly, the answer is: Barring a successful revolution, not bloody much.

     The major parties are effectively impossible to depose. There are only two, and voting Democrat is unthinkable. Voting for a minor party isn’t quite as bad as voting Democrat, but it doesn’t advance the defense of what remains of your freedom, your property, or your Constitutional republic. You’re caught between the would-be despoilers of your country and a gaggle of men who will mount a token resistance to them.

     Moreover, the major parties have established de facto control over the electoral mechanisms. They’re entrenched; they “own” the media and the major conduits of funding. Note that during election reporting, the minor parties are ignored almost completely. There are a significant number of people who can’t even name a minor party, much less its candidates for office.

     I speak from experience here. I was once an official of the Libertarian Party. Even if we omit consideration of the predominance of marginal personalities in that party – it’s fallen a long way since the days of John Hospers, Roger MacBride, David Berglund, and Ed Clark – the party exists mainly to provide a relief valve of sorts to the most disgruntled citizens. The other minor parties are about equally ineffectual.

* * *

     Electoral politics offers very little hope to the pro-freedom / limited-government advocate. Your defense of yourself, your values, and your personal interests practically compels you to vote Republican. Yet if you’re not a cockeyed optimist, you’re aware, even if only subconsciously, that you can’t expect significant improvements. Even when the GOP controls all three branches of the federal government, the likelihood of major reductions in taxation, spending, regulation, oppression by law, and the general politicization of American life is vanishingly small. Republicans have little incentive to do anything constructive. They’ll deny votes to Democrats and keep their seats warm, but little else.

     We who miss what America was are looking at a bleak future.

A Monitory Message For America

     If you enjoy historical fiction, you may already be familiar with the work of Taylor Caldwell. Her great historical novels are among the foremost gems of that field. But Caldwell wasn’t just a writer of historical fiction. Her novel Dialogues With The Devil is a particularly striking work that I would recommend without hesitation to any Christian. Her novel The Devil’s Advocate, about a near-future Communized America, is equally impactful.

     Taylor Caldwell was a thinker – an impassioned one.

     What follows is an article Caldwell published in 1957. I stumbled upon it not long ago. I was massively impressed by her insight, for the article speaks, softly yet quite audibly, of a nation that permitted itself to be overcome by envy, sloth, and the desire for power… a nation gone from the world, and only dimly remembered today.

---

The Story of Honoria

     This is a true story about a nation which was once great. At the outset, we will call that nation Honoria; but you will readily guess her true name, as the story unfolds.

     Once upon a time, some courageous men decided to leave their own country, which did not encourage freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the individual. They wanted to establish a new country where men could be free.

     So, these men who wanted freedom became Pilgrims. They migrated to an uncivilized land inhabited only by barbarians, enduring terrible hardship to get there. When they landed in that savage region, they stood upon a great rock. There, they did homage to their God -- for guiding them during their arduous journey.

     To this day, that rock is one of the most famous monuments in the world.

     Pilgrim Fathers

     The Pilgrims weren't very kind to the natives of the region; but kindness is not usually an attribute of the human race, not even among just men earnestly seeking freedom and justice for themselves. They drove off the natives, and built their rude shelters in the inhospitable wilderness. They also engaged in flurries of small wars and massacres with the natives, and they went armed into the fields to set their crops and take care of their cattle. They taught their wives and half-grown children how to handle arms and protect themselves when the men were away.

     One of the first things these Pilgrims did was to build a house of worship in the wilderness -- a crude, rude house, but still a house of worship. There they would gather, not just on holy days, but every day, to pray. They had a special day in the year, too, to give thanks for their blessings; and they would walk through the silent fields and wild forests on that day, armed and watchful against the savages.

     The Pilgrims were stern and austere men. They believed in their God, but they also believed in work -- hard, driving, determined work. They established schools, under religious leaders. These schools, in a way, were the first public, free education in the world -- education such as had never been before in the old, corrupt countries.

     The old, corrupt countries laughed at the Pilgrims -- laughed at their poverty, their hard work, their educational efforts, their single-hearted devotion to religion, their dedication to a simple, strenuous, virtuous life. In fact, in one of the old countries, a famous playwright wrote a most amusing play on the Pilgrims -- a sensationally funny piece that brought many honors to the playwright. You can still read his play today, if you wish.

     People in the old countries -- rich and decadent -- called the Pilgrims savages. They did not know that these Pilgrims -- these obscure, work-stained men; these men with the soil of the earth under their fingernails; these men in their rude shelters -- would, through their descendants, build the most powerful nation in the world, one to which the old, corrupt countries would look in envy, hatred and contempt while they demanded more and more support for their tottering governments, their tyrannies, and their starving people.

     The Pilgrims were intolerant of wrongdoing. They used whips and gallows to punish criminals. Their clergymen preached stern virtue and selfless dedication. They had no patience with the weak and degenerate, who, if they are pampered, become the cancer of a nation. And, as the Pilgrims had endured so much to come so far, there was no place in their community for those who would destroy them and what they were building.

     The Pilgrims engaged in trade as their community grew. They set sails on the ocean. More Pilgrims joined them. They became moderately prosperous. But still they retained the severity and devotion of their lives, dressed very simply, loved the good earth which nourished them, gathered in their churches for prayer. Their tiny villages became small towns, and then small cities. All this took a long time.

     Other colonists came and established other colonies -- over a period of more than three hundred years. But these colonies, and the colonies of the Pilgrims, were not yet one nation. They were small, unintegrated colonies under the shadow of powerful nations, from which the colonists had fled.

     But all the colonists had one thing in common: They had fled from oppression, hoping to live in peace, with as much justice as men can dredge up from themselves. They had had all they could take of endless wars, endless taxation, endless bureaucrats, endless arrogant rulers. In the sight of their God, as they wrote over and over, they had established a new nation.

     Over three hundred years went by. The colonies were flourishing everywhere. The breath of freedom blew over them like a mighty wind, clear, sharp, invigorating, stirring men's souls, lighting up their hearts, strengthening their arms, making their spirits incandescent.

     Some of the noblest literature ever written by men was created in those colonies, some of the noblest architecture, some of the noblest precepts. Facades of our modern government buildings bear some of the legends written in those days: "Liberty," "justice," "freedom of worship."

     The cobbled streets of the colonial cities began to ring with the footsteps of great men, with the sound of heroic voices. A new day was dawning in this cluster of colonies I have called Honoria.

     Eventually the Pilgrims -- those severe, strict men -- became more tolerant of their neighbors, and did business with them. They sent their best writers, best artisans, best agriculturists, to the other colonies, and in return received a little laughter and gaiety. For three hundred years that went on; and God blessed the colonies, this new nation, not yet one nation, which I have called Honoria.

     Three hundred years -- and then the terror.

     Colonies Unite

     One of the old, corrupt countries, greedy for exploitation, despising the simplicity and moral laws of the colonies, and anxious to tax them and put them once more under oppression, sent tax agents to the big city of the Pilgrims.

     Word of the terror ran through the colonies like the sound of a drum awakening freemen to the knowledge of peril. The colonies sent their greatest men as representatives to a general assembly of all the colonies. They knew that their destinies lay together. They looked about for a leader, and found him: a prosperous gentleman farmer, a man concerned only with agriculture, but a man of learning. Above all, he was a man. They sent representatives to him, as he stood in his fields, with his hand on the plow. He shook the dust of the fields from his feet and went to the city.

     One of the most famous cities of the United States is named after him. He became known as "the father of his country."

     Now, this man united the colonies. This noble man -- who will never be forgotten so long as free men dare to speak -- won his fight against corrupt politicians, and he returned to his fields.

     The united colonies became a nation -- Honoria. The day of their great and growing power had dawned.

     The new nation had two houses of government. The more powerful was the Senate. No one could be elected to the Senate unless he was a man of probity, honor, patriotism, and religion. But that was in the early days of the Republic. For Honoria was a Republic, though she is a Republic no longer. Honoria, in those days, distrusted militarism, hated wars. Her ideal was freedom under divine guidance.

     The Senators knew that they must support the Republic and shun intrigue with foreign nations -- or suffer severe punishment. For a long time, a very long time, the Senators did not betray their people.

     A civil war ultimately divided the Republic, a bloody, fratricidal war. A leader of the Republic was assassinated. He had led the country in a war to keep the nation united, but he had enemies. Many plays and books have been written about this leader. I do not argue for or against this man who was assassinated in the warm spring of the year, in the very shadow of government buildings. You have read about him; you have seen him in moving pictures, and on television. He was murdered, and one of the greatest playwrights of all time immortalized him in a noble play. One of his most trusted friends, a general of the army of the Republic, avenged his death most terribly; and Honoria never really did recover from that vengeance, and that death.

     Honoria, after that bloody civil war, and after many men were executed because of it, suddenly and mysteriously changed direction. She was a real power in the world now. The old, corrupt countries, which had hoped to see her divided and ruined by the civil war, had to take her into their calculations, although she was still being called vulgar and uncultured and gross.

     The old, corrupt countries sent ambassadors to Honoria. Tens of thousands of immigrants came to Honoria from the old countries. Many of them went like the ancient Pilgrims, fleeing from oppression. But many came because Honoria was rich, and they cared nothing for her traditions.

     Prosperity does not automatically bring virtue, nor does it always sustain it. Honoria was powerful. Her ships ranged everywhere.

     Many of her Senators became ambitious, and ambition for power brought corruption. They began to make deals with leaders of important factions. They became arrogant, and often depraved. They forgot their Spartan beginnings. They began to sneer at the Pilgrims and their severe laws and austerities. The Senators, many of them, became rich in worldly goods, but very poor in knowledge of what had made their nation great. They began to despise the very Republic for which they stood. For a price, they would even betray their country.

     The Republic, which had grown strong by not engaging in foreign entanglements, now became entangled. What was the purpose of the entanglements? Oh, the leaders said alliances were necessary to defend the civilized world -- but the real purpose was to satisfy the greedy ambitions and allay the sickly fears of the leaders.

     The alliances brought wars, and the wars brought taxes. But the citizens of Honoria did not resist, because war also brought an increase in trade and industry.

     The citizens of Honoria, blissfully enjoying their new prosperity, did not mind the taxation -- at first. Their leaders had told them it would be imposed only "on the rich fellows," the "fellows with big houses and servants." The silly citizens nodded their heads soberly. Let the rich fellows pay and support the rest of the country.

     The citizens were beginning to think of security. They wanted public auditoriums for sports, paid for by tax money. They wanted bigger and better roads. They wanted pensions, support at public expense when they felt disinclined to work. And more and more citizens were becoming disinclined to work. Farms? That was for the horses! Industrious toil? That was for the stupid.

     Now the farmers moved into the scene. They were resentful of the special interest groups in the city. They sent petitions to their Senators. They demanded subsidies, price supports. The Senators, wanting support for their own schemes, passed laws granting subsidies for the farmers; and the government bought up surplus crops and stored them in warehouses, where they rotted away. Now the industrialists moved in -- they must have tax benefits. It never occurred to them -- or perhaps it did -- that taxation in itself was an evil.

     Finally, government, urged on by greedy groups and minorities, became the all-powerful state. It guaranteed to protect the people from all the forces of nature -- floods, hurricanes, land-slides, failure of crops. And taxation grew and grew.

     Death of the Middle Class

     Honoria had always been distinguished by a strong, sturdy, industrious middle class, composed of farmers, artisans, shopkeepers -- virtuous and sane and devout. But the middle class presented a threat to an all-powerful government, determined to protect the rich and the strong -- and the worthless, the mean, the haters-of-work, the whining cowards who wanted everything for nothing. So the government decided to get rid of the middle class.

     The middle class of Honoria stood in the way; it must be destroyed. Then, the elite could rule by oppression; and the craven, the despicable, the cowards, the worthless, could live on the bodies of the nobles and the heroic -- through taxation.

     But the greedy mobs could never be satisfied. They made endless demands on the Senators. They stood in government offices and howled. They howled for subsidized housing. And they got it.

     The government, corrupt and vile, subsidized housing, for "low income groups." It built huge projects in the very heart of the city for the mobs -- with swimming pools, of course, and hot free food. Within a year or two, those housing projects became slums, for people with slum personalities inhabited them. The swimming pools collected garbage. But still the howl went up for more and more; and the Senators, now the creatures of the mobs, tried to provide everything the mobs demanded.

     And the middle class, the backbone of the nation? They were reduced to despair. They dared not have children; they couldn't afford them. While the mob enjoyed their public housing, their free sports, their free meals, the middle class worked ceaselessly, trying to get ahead of their tax bills, trying to live, trying to keep their schools alive for their children. It was all no use. They began to dwindle away. They had to leave their houses. The mobs moved into their houses and turned them into slum dwellings. Crime became so commonplace that it was dangerous to be on the streets at night. Morality was dead.

     The middle class, the hardworking, the self-reliant, slowly smothered from despair. Who cared? The mob had a full belly today and government promised to fill it again tomorrow.

     The monstrous state, the top-heavy bureaucracy, was happy. The cynical laughed among themselves. Freedom? Why, the people didn't want freedom. They wanted free entertainment, free bread, free housing. A degenerate nation deserved no freedom, no consideration.

     But ere long there was no laughter, even among the cynical. The politicians, who had begun by manipulating the mobs, became tools of the mobs. The productive citizens were taxed more and more to provide benefits for the worthless.

     An evil old man, crippled and malformed, led the nation into more wars and foreign entanglements -- he was the ruler of Honoria. Patriots were considered scoundrels. The rulers of Honoria were tools not only of the mobs, but of foreigners.

     An old general, who had been victimized by the government, stood up and cried aloud to Honoria to remember her past, to return to honor, to decent government, to the principles of the Founding Fathers, to God. The people hooted: He was a reactionary. He was eliminated. He retired, with bitterness, and thought his anguished thoughts.

     A Senator dared to stand up in the Senate and cry a halt to foreign subversion of Honoria and to constant foreign aid and the draining away of the people's money. Other Senators shrieked him down and called him vile names. He, too, was liquidated. And the nation fell deeper and deeper into debt, became more luxurious and rotten.

     Honoria joined a league of the world, with her enemies. They exploited her. She taxed her citizens more and more to send her wheat and meat to those nations.

     In one of Honoria's stupid wars she allied herself with powerful barbarians who were full of hatred and envy, and the lust for power. Honoria sent "experts" to the barbarians to teach them the latest scientific discoveries.

     Honoria had become a corrupt and monstrous nation. Foreign tyrants and domestic mobs called the tune, and the spineless rulers of Honoria danced. The very walls of government echoed to the ever-growing demands for more foreign aid, more security, more bread, more sports, more government, more restrictions on the proud and the self-respecting.

     And the middle class finally died.

     And what of the barbarians? They looked on Honoria with contempt. They were fierce and dedicated men. They had allies in the government of Honoria. Who could oppose them, with their savage ferocity? The time had come for them to take over Honoria, and destroy civilization.

     And the barbarians moved in.

     Who had made the barbarians so strong? Honoria, of course. Honoria had given the barbarians access to the wealth of Honoria, at the expense of the betrayed and ruined citizens of Honoria. Honoria had sacrificed her people so that her alleged allies could make common cause against her with the barbarians.

     Road to Ruin

     What is the real name of Honoria?

     Ancient Rome.

     You know what happened to ancient Rome. The barbarians, in the fifth century, invaded Rome and destroyed her; and for hundreds of years, there was a long, black night of slavery and despair and ruin. Rome had not only betrayed herself but all the civilized world with her. The barbarians ranged over that civilized world; and the cultures of thousands of years were destroyed, so that only fragments have come down to us, mere fragments of great and mighty literature, and law, and beauty.

     Fortunately, one thing did survive: The Twelve Tables of Common Roman Law. For that we can thank the early Christians. Those Tables of Law formed the basis of English Common Law and, more indirectly, of the American Constitution.

     Had Rome retained her Constitution, she would perhaps have survived and her splendor would not have been extinguished. But she permitted the slow erosion of her Constitution, just as we are permitting the quicker erosion of our Constitution.

     Everything which strikes at our Constitution brings us closer to death as a free nation, just as Rome died. Each time a new treaty of alliance is signed with foreign nations, we die a little more, as Rome died. Each time the Supreme Court or the President violates the Constitution, we come closer to slavery -- as Rome came.

     Nearly two thousand years stand between us and Rome. Never before the rise of Rome, and never since, did two nations so remarkably resemble each other, in history, in splendid rise in civilization, in magnificent communication between nations, in grandeur and wealth. In strange and amazing ways, we are the counterpart of ancient Rome. Her history, almost step by step, is our history.

     Shall we continue along the path which led to the extinction of Rome? We have made her terrible mistakes; we have duplicated her crimes and stupidities, almost to the letter. We are destroying our Constitution, the only safeguard we have in the face of domestic and foreign enemies, just as she destroyed hers. We are permitting government by men, now, instead of government by law -- just as Rome finally did.

     So long as Rome remained Rome -- patriotic, proud, virtuous and healthy -- she remained a strong and powerful nation. When she became internationalistic, underwrote the economies of other nations, permitted her rulers to become dictators, enmeshed herself with the problems of aliens and taxed her own people to support those aliens, she began to die.

     When she became militaristic, and had her armies spread on foreign soil, the fabric of her life was weakened and strained, and the wild sword of the barbarian cut it easily.

     It is a stern fact of history that no nation that rushed to the abyss ever turned back. Not ever, in the long history of the world. We are now on the edge of the abyss. Can we, for the first time in history, turn back? It is up to you.

     ________________________________________

A few notes on similarities:

• The "prosperous gentleman farmer" who responded to the call of duty and saved his country in a time of crisis, who became known as "the father of his country," and in whose honor a famous American city was named ... was the ancient Roman, Cincinnatus.
• The "evil old man, crippled and malformed," who led his nation into wars and foreign entanglements, was Caligula, Emperor of Rome.
• The "old general, who had been victimized by the government," and who "stood up and cried aloud" for his country "to remember her past, to return to honor," was Mark Antony.
• The Senator who "dared to stand up in the Senate and cry a halt to foreign subversion" of his country, while "other Senators shrieked him down," was Cicero.
• The "great rock", comparable to Plymouth Rock in American history, was the rock which became the foundation of the Temple of Jupiter in Ancient Rome.

---

     That was Taylor Caldwell speaking, in 1957. Please reflect on her foresight, and what it means for us today.

     “Give a nation war and she’ll be only too happy to surrender the sentimentality of freedom.” -- Taylor Caldwell, The Devil's Advocate, 1952

Showing Their Colors

     The contemporary Left is a vile thing. Its adherents behave atrociously whenever they get to “acting out.” Yet many of us in the Right cannot help but assume that there’s a bottom to their depravity. After all, we say to ourselves, there are limits beyond which we would never go; surely they have such limits too… ?

     Well, maybe not:

It is genuinely terrifying that a MASSIVE group of people in this country believe that the appropriate response to speech they disagree with, is m*rder...

...and they celebrate it with horrifying glee

I don't know where we go from here.pic.twitter.com/4ly4IRdqns

— Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) September 13, 2026

     Vandalism and general defacement of public statues and such has been in the Left’s wheelhouse for some time now. As Charlie Kirk, who was murdered a year ago, has become something of martyr for us, defacing his statue – which is in front of the Phoenix, Arizona headquarters of Turning Point USA – isn’t out of character for them. But have a gander at the first reply to Matt Van Swol’s tweet:

Hey propagated racist ideals while disguising them. Dude was a wanna be Rush Limbaugh and we know that fucker was racist.

The world became a better place.

He, if not Trump, would have led us to a Nazi Germany type situation

— pauly (@GreatInHD) September 13, 2026

     Let that sink in for just a moment before continuing on.

* * *

     Sometimes, it’s possible to get a feel for the Left’s premises from fiction. That’s especially the case this time around. Consider the following dialogue, in which the protagonist of a famous, much-loved novel has asked a Supporting Cast character a question many real people have contemplated: If you had a time machine, would you go back to 1932 and kill Hitler?

     “Is this one of those trick questions?” Chuck asked.
     “Nope.”
     “Well, would they catch me?”
     “Pardon?” That was a question none of the others had asked.
     “If I killed him. Would they catch me? Hang me from a lamppost? Make me do the funky chicken six inches off the ground?”
     “Well, I don’t know,” Johnny said slowly. “Yes, I suppose they would catch you.”
     “I don’t get to escape in my time machine to a gloriously changed world, huh? Back to good old 1977?”
     “No, I don’t think so.”
     “Well, it wouldn’t matter. I’d kill him anyway.”
     “Just like that?”
     “Sure.” Chuck smiled a little. “I’d rig myself up with one of those hollow teeth filled with quick-acting poison or a razor blade in my shirt collar or something like that. So if I did get caught they couldn’t do anything too gross to me. But I’d do it. If I didn’t, I’d be afraid all those millions of people he ended up killing would haunt me to my grave.”
     “To your grave,” Johnny said a little sickly.

     [Stephen King, The Dead Zone]

     Wonderful! A magic formula for deciding that murdering someone is quite all right: He’s going to become Hitler! Mind you, the real Hitler hadn’t yet killed anyone in 1932. So anyone who might have murdered Hitler in that storied year would have been killing an innocent man, regardless of his political positions. Also, why would you assume – if we first assume that travel into the past is actually possible – that the traveler’s appearance in 1932, where he had never been before, wouldn’t result in changes to the timeline? Maybe detoxify Hitler, or even remove him from public life altogether?

     Think about that. Then reread “pauly’s” tweet above.

* * *

     Time travel is one of the less plausible ideas entertained in science fiction. I actually embedded a passage about that in Doors:

     “Carol?”
     “Hm?” The sound of her name pulled her back from the edge of slumber. “What is it, sweetie?”
     “Do you ever think about…time?”
     What?
     She shook her head and looked at him. Their lovemaking, as boisterous as it had been, had tired her out. Apparently it hadn’t done the same to him.
          He’d assumed a semi-reclined, semi-sitting position. She elbowed herself into the same posture. “What brought that on?”
     He smiled faintly. “You.”      She started to reply, checked herself. She knew her still-new husband was more thoughtful than most. His question was unbounded, but there had to be specifics behind it that she could tease out.
     “Go on.”
     “I was thinking,” he said, “how much different my life would have been if I’d known you in high school. I never even talked to a girl back then. Do you think, if you’d lived up here then, you would have talked to me?”
     She took a breath and tried to unscramble the question.
     “Are you asking,” she said, “if Carol as she was then would have approached you, or if Carol as she is now would have approached you?”
     “Well,” he said, “given our ages the first case doesn’t work, ‘cause when I graduated high school you wouldn’t yet be old enough even to be a freshman. The second case would require time travel. So I guess it’s a silly question. But I couldn’t help thinking about it.”
     She chuckled. “What makes it silly? Lots of writers have speculated about time travel, haven’t they?”
     He scowled gently. “Time travel is a ridiculous notion. For travel into the past to make sense, everything that’s ever happened would have to be still going on now. But if that were the case, there’d be no possibility of changing anything. A time traveler wouldn’t even be able to enter the past in a meaningful way, because he’s not there already.”
     “Well, then what about travel into the future?” she said.
     “That’s just as silly if not sillier. Everything that ever will happen would have to have happened already!”
     “Damn,” she said. “You’re right. I never thought it through.”
     He ran a finger along her cheek. “It’s the kind of thing I used to think about before we met.”

     For travel into the past to be possible and meaningful, the traveler’s own past would have to be alterable. Not only would he have to be able to “enter” the past at the point of his choosing, he would have to be able to alter events at or subsequent to that point in a way that could change “history” further on. Yet at the point of entry, the events he hoped to change would not have happened yet. He would be working from an assumption that without what he was planning to do, they would occur as his future self knew them. But those changes might also eliminate him! Unworkable.

     But that’s peripheral to the main point: Entering the past prior to a given event means that the event has not yet happened. If you believe that the human will is free – you do, don’t you? – then at that point it remains possible that the event of interest might never happen.

     So much for the wholly specious notion that what Hitler did in later years would justify murdering him in 1932.

     But the Leftist monster who goes by “pauly” is forward-looking. He predicted that a future with Charlie Kirk in it would resemble Nazi Germany. What powers of prognostication! And what incredible godlike stature they imply for him and his fellow travelers! Not only can they foresee the future; they can also assume the power of life and death on the basis of what they foresee.

     You may rest assured, Gentle Reader, that if permitted to go on as they have to date, they’ll get around to you and me.

* * *

     I once wrote that the Left regards everyone in the Right as either stupid or evil. That era has passed. Now – today – leftists regard all of us as evil. By “pauly’s” logic, that categorization implies that it would be quite all right to kill any of us. Never mind the law.

     Consider yourself warned. You’re not safe around them. Therefore, unless you have a reason so powerful that it overrides your personal safety, stay away from them. They consider themselves licensed to kill.

     James Bond never had it so good.

Indictments

     Relax! You haven’t missed a stunning development in some high-profile legal drama. This is just your old Curmudgeon warming up for an “assorted” rant. Bear with him.

* * *

     I’ve been seeing comments on X from various sources arguing that “we should legislate Christian morality.” The proponents uniformly refrain from specifying what they have in mind. I’m occasionally moved to ask them “Exactly what do you mean?” I know that’s my cruel side coming to the surface, so I force it back into its cage before I can surrender to the impulse.

     For a few months not long before I retired, there was a young Nigerian woman, a graduate student at a university near me, who relied upon me to get her home from work each day. She too thought it proper to “legislate Christian morality.” Back then I was more curious about such views and the persons who espoused them, so I asked her for a specific example. She proposed the death penalty for adultery and fornication. I decided to let the subject drop right there.

     I don’t know if there’s ever been a Christian society that executed people for having sex outside marriage. I’m fairly sure that the idea wouldn’t have a lot of supporters in the First World today. But if that’s what would appeal to supporters of “legislated Christian morality,” I have to question their premises – and whether they’ve ever read the Gospel According to John.

* * *

     Among the things I’ve learned these past seven decades is how indoctrination works: how the process is structured, what it must include and exclude, and its underlying goal. Indoctrination in a particular doctrine seems to be about that doctrine. To some extent that will always be true. But the foundation beneath it is common to all attempts to indoctrinate. The aim is to suppress resistance to the doctrine by making an attempt to think about it more painful than the target can bear.

     The obvious method of doing so is to punish dissent from the doctrine. The punishment could be anything from the infliction of physical pain to an expression of scorn from a respected authority figure. The point is to associate dissent inseparably with suffering in the targets’ minds. If that can be achieved, the doctrine becomes self-enforcing.

     In our time, the promulgation of political positions has the flavor of indoctrination, but with a twist of lemon. “You can’t be one of us if you think that.” Denial of fellowship with those one ardently wants as fellows can be a severe punishment. This is especially the case when commercial opportunities are involved.

* * *

     There are two basic approaches to the discovery of important norms: the teleological and the divine. The divine method is simple: “God said so.” The teleological method requires the study of history, and the processes by which men and societies rise or fall.

     When what God said – or what some authority figure tells us God said – clashes with rules and practices that have advanced a society over its history, trouble will ensue. Authority figures lose standing. People ask “Did God really say that?” If some rule or practice with a lot of adherents is involved, social fissures will arise.

     But the other possibility is of equal if not greater import. If what God said does indeed favor human advancement, those who promote it will gain followers. Faith in divine benevolence will be strengthened. Those who dissent will be marginalized. And – dare I say it? Oh, why not? – God will be pleased.

     We’re in the middle of a century-long test of the rules, practices, and mechanisms that undergirded the rise of the West. In particular, we’re testing whether America can survive the hypertrophy of tolerance, which has swollen to embrace any and every imaginable deviance, no matter how demonstrably unhealthful or destructive. Whatever your personal inclinations, it would be well to keep an eye on the scoreboard.

* * *

     I say and write a lot of things that elicit finger-wagging and clucking, but I think I could get general agreement to this proposition: It’s socially unacceptable to be seen giggling and joshing during a public expression of profound grief.

     Two of the least acceptable figures in public life, Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, did a lot of giggling and joshing during the 9/11 memorial ceremonies on Friday: specifically, during the reading of the names of the fallen. Perhaps they were confident that their behavior couldn’t lower the public’s opinion of them any further. No matter. But midterm elections loom, and a vigorous attempt to oust Mamdani from Gracie Mansion is in progress. Do please remember their giggling and joshing when the time comes to take a stand.

* * *

     That’s all for today. As usual, I’m behind on many things. Worse, I have customer-assembled furniture to bang together a little later. Remember me in your prayers, and try to have a good day.

The saviors

     Yes, yes: I know there’s only one Savior. That’s why I departed from longstanding practice by not capitalizing the word in the title. But I have something in mind to which the word saviors is relevant.

     It’s about you, Gentle Reader.

* * *

     Long, long ago, for a website far away, I wrote a piece titled “A Beautiful Older Woman With A Breadbasket And A Great Big Gun.” It’s reprinted here. It was stimulated by a squib from Britain’s Daily Telegraph about the chaos and violence in Liberia in 2003. That squib quoted a Liberian woman, Fanny by name, who said this:

     "There's no food anywhere," said Fanny, a Liberian refugee who had trudged for two days to reach the stadium. "People are dying. The Americans must come. We want peace."

     Listen to Fanny once again:

     “There’s no food anywhere.”
     “People are dying.”
     “The Americans must come.”

     Suffering, tragedy… and a plea for rescue. “The Americans must come.” Had Fanny ever met an American? Perhaps, but more likely not; there aren’t many reasons for Americans to go to Liberia. But it’s plain from her words that she knew us.

     It’s commonplace to praise “the men who run to the sound of the guns:” those who dash toward danger and violence to place themselves between the victims and what threatens them. We have them among us. Just this past Friday we commemorated an atrocity, visited upon us by savages who had to steal the weapons with which to strike us, in which we lost many of them: the bravest and best members of our species. But even those of us who lack that particular response will “run” toward the sound of suffering and tragedy. We do so, not to feast upon them like vultures, but to relieve them as best we can.

* * *

     Just now there’s a lot of bad feeling among us. Political divisions, significant social pathologies, finger-pointing, even a lot of genuine suffering. Times like these incline us toward self-doubt. Paul Simon caught the flavor of it many years ago:

I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Oh, but it's all right, it's all right
For we've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

     Simon wrote that in the early Seventies, which historian Paul Johnson characterized as “America’s Suicide Effort” in Modern Times. Things didn’t look good for the U.S. back then. But we recovered. Indeed, we resumed our place as “the indispensable nation.”

     What makes us “the indispensable nation?” Why is ours the nation relied upon by other nations to maintain the peace of the world? Why do billions of human beings immediately look toward the United States of America when disaster strikes and tragedies accumulate? Why, given the general impression of Americans as brash, crude, and violent, is it our role?

     The late P.J. O’Rourke, in telling off a disparaging Englishman, leaped to the brash, crude, and violent:

     Back in London, I was having dinner in the Groucho Club—this week’s in-spot for what’s left of Britain’s lit glitz and nouveau rock riche—when one more person started in on the Stars and Stripes. Eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about “Your country’s never been invaded.” (This fellow had been two during the Blitz, you see.) “You don’t know the horror, the suffering. You think war is—”
     “A John Wayne movie,” I said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie—with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You’re right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD.
     “We’re the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.
     “You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right, little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying ‘Cheerio.’ Hell can’t hold our sock hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer, and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.”

     [From Holidays in Hell.]

     That’s the typical American response to being denigrated by some supercilious foreigner. We do it there, and we do it here:

     Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro colleagues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:
     "See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, there’s a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..."
     After which he and many of my Euro colleagues laughed out loud.
     And then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.
     I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose --
     "Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want?
     Something with its own inexhaustible power supply?
     Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water?
     Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?
     Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies?
     Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?
     Well "Franz", us peasants in America call that kind of ship an "Aircraft Carrier". We have 12 of them. How many do you have? Oh that's right, NONE. Lucky for you and the rest of the world, we are the kind of people who share. Even with people we don’t like. In fact, if memory serves, once upon a time we peasants spent a ton of money and lives rescuing people who we had once tried to kill and who tried to kill us.
     Do you know who those people were? That's right Franz, Europeans.
     There’s a French Aircraft carrier? Where is it? Right where it belongs! In France of course! Oh why should the French Navy dirty their uniforms helping people on the other side of the globe. How Simplesse...
     The day an American has to move a European out of the way to help in some part of the world it will be a great day in the world, you sniggering little f**knob..."
     The room fell silent. My Hindi friend then said quietly to the Euros:
     "Can you let your hatred of George Bush end for just one minute? There are people dying! And what are your countries doing? Amazon.com has helped more than France has. You all have a role to play in the world, why can't you see that? Thank God for the US Navy, they don’t have to come and help, but they are. They helped you once and you should all thank God they did. They didn’t have to, and no one but them would have done so. I'm ashamed of you all..."
     He left the room, shaking and in tears. The frustration of being on the other side of the globe, unable to do anything to assist and faced with people who could not set aside their asininity long enough to reach out and help was too much for him to bear. I just shook my head and left. The Euros stood speechless.

     [Written by Frank Martin of varifrank.com, after the Christmas Tsunami]

     If we stipulate that yes, we are brash, crude, and violent, then why are we considered “the indispensable nation?” Why not the more civilized Britons? Why not the more refined and artistic French? Why not those masters of overcoming tragedy after tragedy, the Russians?

     Because we are, and they’re not. Because it’s what we do.

* * *

     We’re not all heroes who “run toward the sound of the guns.” We know those men and love them. May they forever be celebrated as the very best of us. But we’re something else that’s more creditable than is usually admitted.

     Americans are the most charitable people who’ve ever existed. When we see privation or desperation, we give. Some give money; others give time and effort; still others give prayers and encourage their fellows to do the same. We give with both hands, and we never demand a reckoning or a counting-up. If we’re not bodily among those who distribute our gifts, nevertheless we’re with them in spirit.

     In 2025, American material charity from private sources amounted to over $600 billion. That was in one year. And we keep going, year after year. Human suffering and tragedy never cease, so neither do we.

     Sniggerers in other lands can say what they please about us. They don’t do what we do. Mostly, they can’t, but even the wealthiest of them come nowhere near to our generosity. Millions of faceless, nameless persons have benefited from our giving. Some are alive for no other reason.

     No, our gifts aren’t always sufficient unto the need we seek to relieve. We know that; we give anyway. We give out of hope: our own and the hopes of those in need.

     The Savior exhorted us to give. Christians are often told by their clerics to “be the hands of Christ in this world.” All those who do so, no matter the magnitude of their gifts, are saviors of a lesser order.

     Fanny knew where to find us.

Today’s Thorn In My Flesh

     Get a load of this:

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm over escapism as fiction's driving force. It's been something of a stitch in my side for a while now.

I'm not against escapism. It's good to dream. I'm concerned that too much escapism, without the moral compulsion to pioneer what we…

— Daniel P Riley (@Misterdpriley) September 9, 2026

     Bloody hell. Just how far would I have to travel to get away from people who try to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do? Now it’s come to what I read and write. That is the veritable “crossing of the line,” the unforgivable sin.

     People read fiction for a variety of reasons, but paramount among them is the desire to step away from their real lives and cares. In other words, to escape! Escapism is at the root of all consumption of fiction. Stories about the lives and cares of fictional characters provide us with some distance from what bedevils us personally. If that temporary separation from reality brings usable insights, that’s a wonderful bonus, but the great majority of fiction readers don’t insist on that.

     A lot of fiction tells us what we already know to be true. Indeed, the reinforcement of the “eternal verities” is one of fiction’s principal services to us. The truly great storytellers all do so. But telling someone what he already knows doesn’t detract from a story’s value as a personal escape hatch.

     Some of the very worst fiction ever written is anti-escape. Those stories practically demand that the reader suffer. I have a few “classics” in mind, though I shan’t name them here. Well, all right, but just one: A Death in the Family. If you want to put a young person off reading for the rest of his life, insist that he immerse himself in that dreary exercise in grief.

     If there is a maxim every storyteller must follow, it’s this:

Give the reader
Something he cannot get
From “real life.”

     If you can’t – or won’t – do that, you have no business telling stories. No matter how literate you are, how erudite, how eloquent in print or in speech, you will not serve the reader.

     I do it by telling stories about heroes that don’t exist, places the reader can’t visit, and events so improbable that they can only occur in fiction.

     Take it from a grizzled old veteran of the Pixel Wars: that is how to make your readers love and praise you. And who knows? They might even make you wealthy and famous. But they assuredly won’t do any of that if you mire them in troubles much like the ones they read to escape.

Anniversaries

     Anniversaries pile up on us as we get older. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, the days of our beloveds’ passings, other significant events accumulate until the calendar seems to hold nothing else. We’re chided about forgetting them, sometimes very harshly. We’re asked what we’ll do to commemorate the ones we remember.

     This whole year has been treated as an anniversary: the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which the late Gene Burns called the birth document of our nation. In truth, it announced our political separation from the Crown of England and proclaimed the thirteen original colonies to be “free and independent states,” but that’s mostly word-mincing. George Washington led a unified army against the British, and there was little doubt that the liberated colonies would unite politically after the Revolution was won.

     But today, specifically, is an anniversary of another sort.

     I have no fresh fountain of words to spew about Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I’ve emitted enough verbiage on that subject over the years behind us. If you’d like to pick at some leftovers, nibble on these. I have nothing new to say about it.

     The date remains vivid in my recollection for both historical and personal reasons. I’m sure it will remain so for as long as I live.

     I lost friends on that day twenty-five years ago. Of course, many other Americans could say the same. I have no idea whether the day remains as vivid for them as it does for me. It’s a subject I’m reluctant to broach.

     Today, in this Year of Our Lord 2026, we’re not the nation we were back then. We were united, animated, energized. We were ready to put forth our power to take vengeance, to slay and spare not. We could have taught the whole would the unwisdom of striking the United States of America. We could have made it a lesson that would ring down the centuries.

     Needless to say, we didn’t. We restrained ourselves. President George W. Bush, a good man if a so-so president, limited our counterstrike to the nation that harbored the architect of the atrocity. No doubt he felt that wholesale slaughter would be morally and geopolitically wrong. I haven’t got it in me to argue with his decisions.

     But from where I sit this morning, it looks like those who struck us are winning.

     A memorial event has been scheduled for later today, at the World Trade Center site. I can’t be there, and in truth I wouldn’t attend even if I were capable. Perhaps some of my Gentle Readers will go. If so, please let me know about the mood of those that gather there. Bloodthirsty? Weary? Defeated? What and who are we today, anyway?

     And however you choose to spend the twenty-fifth anniversary of the greatest atrocity ever inflicted upon these United States of America, the day nearly three thousand American lives were ended by murderous Muslim savages in service to the most violent and primitive creed ever foisted upon men, the day that Muslims here and elsewhere were seen celebrating the deaths of our countrymen and the destruction of New York City’s proudest edifice… well, do have a nice day.