I was interviewed yesterday afternoon by Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center.  Subject:  Government by Judiciary, specifically the Incorporation Doctrine.  Here is the podcast.

The following list, currently circulating by email on the web, has apparently been lifted from church newsletters. We here at TakiMag thought you might want to know what Americans do when they are not watching television or eating. Or, what a more literate American does when he or she yearns for amusement…

Next weekend’s Fasting & Prayer Conference in Whitby includes all meals.  

Sunday morning sermon: “Jesus Walks on the Water”
Sunday evening sermon: “Searching for Jesus.”

Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community.    
Smile at someone who is hard to love. 

Don’t let worry kill you off—let the Church help. 

Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice. 

Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

Scouts are saving aluminium cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children. 

Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM—prayer and medication to follow.

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.

The school drama group will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church hall on Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance. 

The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday: “I Upped My Pledge—Up Yours!”

Why should conservatives allow Morris Dees, Mark Potok and Heidi Beirich monopolize the hate-monitoring racket? According to them, we have so much first-hand experience with hate, we should be expert authorities on the subject by now.

Therefore, I’ve appointed myself research director for the Theodoracopulos Anti-Kook Institute (TAKI), and launched my first major investigation, seeking to determine if Andrew Sullivan is a blood-libeling Jew-hater.

Sully’s enemies point to suspicious evidence of bigotry After exhaustive research, however, I have concluded that Andrew Sullivan is probably not a hard-core Holocaust-denying anti-Semite. He’s just a dope-smoking, AIDS-infected, lunatic subversive immigrant menace to American society who should be immediately deported.

We at TAKI are happy to have helped clear up this misunderstanding.

Until recently I thought the most extreme example of (to use the Yiddish phrase) chutzpah had come from the lips of that very successful American historian Eric Foner. In response to a question in the socialist periodical Dissent  by historian Eugene Genovese in the summer of 1994 about why he had never apologized for being, like his father and uncle, an unabashed Stalinist, Foner explained that he had wanted to do something for American blacks. He was particularly distressed by “residential apartheid,’ which he ascribed to “a putatively free market economy.” Joining the Communist Party seemed to be the best way to pursue Foner’s goal. My friend Wes McDonald responded to this reasoning by asking whether Stalin protected civil rights in the gulag. Apparently Foner wishes us to think that he did.

But now FOX-news, the voice of the GOP, may have gone beyond Professor Foner as a perpetrator of outrageous hypocrisy. Last Tuesday night various talking heads, led by Sean Hannity and Karl Rove, were lamenting “all the political correctness” they found on the American left. American military leaders and prominent Democrats just wouldn’t admit certain obvious facts, despite the massacre at Fort Hood. They still wouldn’t come clean that Islam may not be a religion of peace. Rove was particularly concerned about “where this political correctness could lead,” and he urged his fellow-media personalities, politicians, and military brass to become critical of this fashion.

As I listened to Karl Rove yammer on about the PC epidemic, I thought I was hearing the equivalent of a plea by Adolf Hitler to end German anti-Semitism. There is nobody I can think of who has exerted himself more tirelessly than Rove to make the GOP a “minority-friendly” party. And as Steve Sailer has underlined multiple times, none of this pandering has yielded the slightest electoral benefit. But whether pushing for sub-prime loans for Hispanics, urging the removal of Confederate flags from just about everywhere on the planet, or advising Bush to give his self-abasing speech in Senegal in July 2003 about America as a penitent, recovering slave society, Karl has always been for the wearing of sackcloth and ashes as well as for giveaways as means by which the GOP can win over minorities. Karl, of course, is not an original. He stands entirely in the tradition of Newt and the late Jack Kemp, two GOP congressmen and party leaders who could never do enough to talk up the redemptive mission of Martin Luther King or sing the praises of the civil rights movement.

Like other Republicans, Newt and Jack even back in the 1980s were indignant about how little their party was doing for racial and ethnic minorities, even though the GOP was disproportionately involved in enacting the landmark liberal legislation of the 1960s and, moreover, introduced affirmative action under Richard Nixon. I suppose Republicans can never reach out far enough to please their leaders and advisors, who nonetheless continue to bewail their party’s lack of outreach. Thus we read last month about the RNC’s black chairman visiting a black college in Little Rock, where he deplored the “subtle forms” of racism that still exist in American hiring practices and college admissions. This was a not very “subtle” promise of affirmative action in a future GOP administration (or what George W. called in 2000 during a debate with Al Gore “affirmative recruitment”).

What exactly is this unsettling Republican outburst against “too much political correctness”? It is nothing more than a synchronized outburst against people whom the neoconservative sponsors of FOX wish to have their mouthpieces rant against, namely Muslims. Note I am not calling for the importation of more Muslims into the U.S., and particularly not of the Fundamentalist kind. Moreover, were I a European, I would try to expel as many Fundamentalist Muslims as possible from my country and from the European continent. But in the U.S., political correctness has taken a more noxious form than letting embattled Muslims enter American territory. It has created through public education, government policies, and the entertainment industry a mindset that is helping to destroy a recognizably Western civilization.

Political correctness sanctifies feminism and homosexual lifestyles; and its condemnation of a traditional white Christian bourgeois society is far more ominous than the treatment of Muslim lunatics as privileged victims. This newest manifestation in the case of Muslims is simply the most recent excretion of a cultural disease that has already paralyzed our civilizational defenses. Even if all the Muslims vanished from the West, this PC mindset, disguised as economic need, which permitted and even encouraged the Muslims to settle in Western countries, would remain. And without Muslims in the U.S., the GOP and the Democrats would go on courting the usual designated victims.

Denouncing the politically correct treatment of Muslim terrorists allows the GOP to seem to be saying something courageous without departing from its conventional behavior. Although GOP and neocon journalists seem to be defying the Left by mocking PC, they are only catering to those who dislike anti-Israeli Muslims. Gen. George Casey and his officers should be ridiculed not only because they won’t attach “murder” to the crimes of a Muslim zealot. They should also be exposed for the kind of multicultural indoctrination they put their recruits through. Don’t expect the Wall Street Journal or Weekly Standard to blow the whistle on the PC educators. I had to learn about this by reading the “extremist” publication American Renaissance. In an outstanding article “Diversity in the Army,” (January 2008), there is information about the true extent of the political correctness besetting the armed forces. One may conclude after reading this brief that the selective, anti-Muslim critiques of PC in the military which is coming from FOX and other GOP outlets reek of dishonesty.

Circa summer 2007, when the market music was still blaring and Wall Street block partiers were still dancing, we were coming off a period where virtually everything had taken flight; stocks, gold, agricultural commodities, even art. Recently we’ve been in a similar situation. Gold has been hopping, oil has been hopping, stocks have been hopping, and long term bonds, which should be getting kneecapped by the rise of commonly perceived inflation indicators like gold, still haven’t buckled. These trends have left some commentators sounding bewildered.

I might have a partial explanation: the same phenomenon we now use to explain what we experienced just two years ago; liquidity. The world’s central banks have been printing money like silent movie villains in a push to reliquify everything. Now it looks like we’re seeing the effects. And like we observed just two years ago, in the short run, the “fundamentals” don’t much matter. The motive for the globewide quantitative easing was reflation, and now that we’ve beheld reflation, the commentators who inked it into the vernacular are looking every which way for the “fundamentals” to justify these reflated gains.

I mentioned art earlier. Recently, a Warhol silkscreen went for over 43 million. Could this be a sign of a reflation top? Who knows? The fact that any art could sell for 43 million is remarkable. The fact that anyone would value Warhol’s non-art above 99 cents certainly seems a symptom of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds.

I was tormented as a child by a rather unsettling sense, that was in many ways, not unlike one of the story lines in a Woody Allen movie.  I felt a mysterious and powerful presence scrutinising my every move.  This omniscient observer was palpable, yet imperceptible.  I tried very hard to explain my feelings, often to little avail.  I ruled out insanity.  Instead, I did my best to act cool, and pretended I was being eyeballed by prince charming.  At times, I wondered if God might be the perpetrator.  Other times, I thought George Orwell’s fictitious predictions had come true.  Many years have passed, but no concrete clarification has ever presented itself, until now.  The explanation is disturbing because there is little choice but to surrender, or live under a tree.

The average American is recorded on tape at least seven times a day.  Whether it is at work, in traffic, shopping, or at the airport, we are indeed being watched.  If one isn’t living in oblivion, one knows the eye in the sky is there, somewhere.  In London, there are more cameras per capita than any other place on earth.  Like on red double-decker buses, cctv cameras exist to record criminal behavior.  Likewise, in airports, surveillance is paramount.  High-tech mood and heat sensors are being used to “prevent” another September 11th.  Thanks to these marvels, and the criminals who make them necessary, we can all feel like terrorists.  This means, you might think twice before stashing your dope in your shorts when crossing state lines, or picking your nose on the bus. 

Similarly, and without unanimous public consent, Google has x-rayed the planet and much of its contents.  The technology that makes it possible to see what is happening on the ocean floor is undoubtedly sensational.  But, does the average person with a laptop really need access to video footage of the ocean floor, or for example, a random street in Switzerland?  One has to ask, are these conveniences truly valuable, and if so, to whom, and for what reason? 

Swiss data protection commissioner Hanspeter Thuer is taking Google to court to determine whether Google’s activities are an affront to Swiss privacy.  In the meantime, several requests by Thuer demanding Google suspend its Street View capability in Switzerland until the case is heard, have been ignored, and so Google continues its quest to rummage through the world’s garbage. 

Executives over at Google know more about information than we do because they have, for better or worse, most of humanity’s data logged in their data base.  The question is: Is documenting and sharing information such a bad thing?  In most cases it isn’t.  We all benefit from access to information.  In regard to Street View, Thuer says there are more delicate situations to consider, like when a person walks in or out of a prison or hospital. Clearly, privacy would be a priority in such a situation, except that those institutions give way to public streets,  and therefore one simply has to assume one will be seen by others.  Same goes for people going in and out of strip joints or brothels—it’s best to invest in a good disguise. 

On the other hand, what if you and your sweetie get a little carried away when you decide to sunbathe naked on the front lawn one sunny afternoon.  Google Street View cameras can peer right over your fence and shoot you in flagrante delicato.  This puts a private act in a private place on the other side of a virtual paparazzo’s lens, and potentially, on everybody’s desktop.  Precautions would likely be taken by Google to prevent a situation like this.  But assuming nothing is infallible, any measures taken now to prioritize privacy are likely to be welcomed by ordinary people.   

As a public person, you need to take extra measures to protect yourself against unsolicited intrusions, and now, private people may too.  Retaining a personal sense of privacy, or restricting access to personal information is becoming increasingly difficult.  A publicly traded company like Google is unlikely to use the information they gather against the public, though it is not impossible.  Put Google in collusion with a warring nation like America, and Big Brother is a reality. 

When bureaucracy takes over as it has in many countries, there is without exception, a threat to personal freedom.  Theoretically, so long as governments like the United States are controlled by their constituents, the average person need not worry when it comes to concealing their dirty little secrets from the government.  We are beyond that point however, and in the wake of 9/11 the U.S. government has taken numerous liberties. Fortunately, we have people like Hanspeter Thuer, and organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, to fight these battles for us.  We must offer these individuals and institutions more support if we believe in what they are fighting against.  As well as lobbying for better legislation. 

Regardless, we are voyeuristic people.  There is nothing wrong with this per se, except when privacy makes it easier to indulge our amoral proclivities.  It seems one should want to be an open book, especially now that technology makes what we once considered private, overt.  Why not surrender to the technological age we live in, and adapt to a world where Blackberries can show us the GPS coordinates of our loved ones?  It isn’t necessarily wrong, just different.  Otherwise, technology need only be considered in a negative light when it interferes with one’s ability to connect with actual people. 

For those looking for a movie to rent, I would recommned Taking Chance, an HBO movie that premiered earlier this year.  The movie is based on an essay by Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, who was moved to record his thoughts after escorting the body of fellow Marine Chance Phelps from Dover Air Force Base to burial in Dubois, Wyoming.  Phelps, who enlisted after 9/11, was killed in Iraq in April 2004.  The movie is agnostic with respect to the wisdom of our involvement in Iraq, and focuses instead on Strobl’s experiences accompanying Phelps back to his hometown.  Strobl encounters only one unsympathetic person, an officious TSA screener at the Philadelphia airport.  His other encounters recall the patriotism that briefly took hold after 9/11.  Kevin Bacon does an excellent job portraying Strobl, and the movie is spare, intelligent, and moving.  Most of the films inspired by Iraq have been eminently forgettable; this one is not.

More than a few have alerted me to Eric Cartman’s soulful, white-nationalist plaint. 

Regarding my conclusion that “sisterhood” is overrated, a reader reports,

Decades past a weathered criminal trial lawyer told me that he always tried to load a jury with middle aged or older mothers in rape cases rather than men. Two reasons: One, they would look at the accuser and say, “I was never like that,” and, Two, they would worry that their son(s) might get ensnared by such a creature. His summation: The only thing that exceeds man’s inhumanity to man is woman’s inhumanity to woman. This cynicism was the result of 50+ years in the courts of Boston’s toughest neighborhoods.

A commentator at Sailer’s blog writes of a recent episode of The Late Show that “9 out of 10 of the Marines on Letterman’s Top 10 were minorities, and half were women.”

I went out and found the video:

Although school prayer became illegal in the early 1960s, by 1990, 92 percent of Americans still identified with a major religion. Ten years later, only 86 percet did, making secularists the fastest growing group in America. According to a 2007 poll cited in the Washington Post, among those 18-22 one in four is atheist/agnostic/secular.

Among the opinion making class, the percentage of nonbelievers is most certainly at least a few times higher than it is in the general population. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we’ve seen that the diversity cult has grown at about the rate the traditional belief has been sinking. There was never an exact date when the Christian era ended and the diversity one began, but historians may use Obama’s election as the convenient dividing point between the two. 

I was on a college campus during the Obama campaign, and something had changed. Supporting him and thus showing your openness to the other went from being one marker of social status among many to being the main thing dividing the enlightened and ignorant.  To test my theory, I dug up another Letterman Top Ten list involving military personnel from before Obama’s victory so I could see the demographic composition. 

In this video posted in April of 08, whites are 40 percent of the personnel instead of 10.
A white male still reads number one in both segments, for whatever it’s worth.

Although I was unable to find any videos to verify this, I would bet that ten members of the armed forces picked for a Letterman Top Ten list in the 1990s would’ve been majority white while such a skit from the 1980s would have had no more than one or two token blacks, if any.

Why couldn’t society have kept its Christian character while descending into ant-white insanity?  I propose that it’s because adherence to one set of beliefs will often temper keeping up with the practices of another. Evangelical Christians don’t avoid being obsessed with diversity because their creed is incompatible with it, but because their minds are too focused on other measures of status and morality. After all, it takes a lot of thought and effort to find blacks, Hispanics and women in suitable numbers for every single public display an organization partakes in.  Only people who have been stripped of all racial pride, sense of traditional morality and faith are desperate enough for some kind of meaning in life to bother with it.