2025 Various and sundry (3)

Introduction

This is my “various and sundry” page for 2025, September 12–?. It was preceded by 2025 (2) and succeed by 2026 (1).

For more information on the purpose of these pages, reading order, update policy, notes on terminology, etc., see the category description.

For the other pages, see the category navigation.

The entries

Flawed health insurance (2025-12-31)

Recent news includes claims of an old lady whose Ozempic was dropped from insurance coverage, increasing her monthly costs from USD 25 to USD 1000, forcing her to quit the medicine. (Prices below should all be taken relative whatever monthly quantity was involved.)

While some Leftist nits might now clamor that “See! We need subsidies! We need socialized medicine! We need [whatnot]!”, a thinking view reveals the exact opposite.

The makers of Ozempic want to make money. If they can get away with charging USD 1000 to an insurance company while the actual user only pays USD 25, they can combine a high price with a high volume and rake in money. If, on the other hand, the full cost of the medicine was carried by the user, they would have great incentives to lower prices, to sacrifice profit margins per unit sold in order to keep the number of units sold up. In a next step, there might be incentives to e.g. lower production costs, because the effect of cost on profit margin is the higher the lower the price. And, often forgotten, the difference of USD 975 was always paid by someone, be it through insurance fees, taxes, or some other mechanism—it is not just a USD 975 reduction of profits to an insurer drowning in money, or money just magically appearing out of nowhere, but mostly a USD 975 increase in the burden on others.

Now, what the new price would be, I leave unstated, but chances are that it would be far less than USD 1000, because too few can afford something such exorbitant, because Ozempic is not needed with the urgency of, say, insulin shots for a diabetic, and because there are competing products. (However, generic versions, as opposed to more general competing products, are not yet legally available in most countries.)

Here is a general rub: What is too expensive for the users, contrary to the claims of the Left, will usually be too expensive for the makers, too. Dividing the roles of payer and user, or otherwise diluting the connection between use and payment, gives incentives to keep prices up.

The borders between the type of dilution can be hard to draw, but extremes include using tax-payers’ money to pay for everyone, regardless of individual need and individual ability to pay, and simply having an “insurance” scheme where the individual pays more or less the same in aggregate but does so by giving money to a pharmacist in exchange for medicine in one case and to an insurer in increased monthly fees in the other (while the insurer pays the pharmacist). This, of course, with the reservation that the “more or less the same” will usually be quite a bit more with an insurance scheme, for reasons like skewed incentives and additional overhead. Here we see both the need for a clear connection between use and cost and the need for proper insurance schemes that actually cover proper insurance cases—the big things that go wrong. By analogy, a car insurance is for cases like a bad collision—not for filling the tank twice a week.

Now, an obvious objection is that insurers want to make money too. (Which, of course, is why the insurer of the old lady dropped the implicit USD 975 subsidy per month.) If and when sufficiently many insurers reduce coverage, this can have a similar effect of forcing prices down, but in the interim there will be problems like with the old lady. Moreover, the effect will be weaker unless a very clear majority goes down the same road or if insurers try a road that does not push prices and demand down sufficiently strongly (notably, by still covering most of the costs while increasing co-payments—say, to USD 100 in the case at hand). Moreover, this can fail entirely when the government has “must cover” mandates. Moreover, such a development is highly unlikely with a fully socialized system, e.g. with medical costs covered by tax-payers’ money.

Some leeway might be found by negotiations, e.g. in that the insurance company negotiates a rate of USD 900, instead of USD 1000, with the makers, but even such approaches are unlikely to match a more proper supply-and-demand pricing, and are made the more complicated by the number of parties involved. (Notably, the pharmacist, who buys drugs from the makers and sells them to some constellation of user and insurer.)

Germany provides many illustrations of a flawed system, where some mixture of government regulation and a wish to out-do other insurers in services provided leads insurers to cover as much as they humanly can—and then to demand that the government allows them to raise the blanket fees that they can charge the insured. (Specifically, as a high percentage of income. The user can switch insurance companies, to get roughly the same service for roughly the same price, but has no choice of e.g. significantly less service for a significantly lesser price, be it by changing companies or by switching policies with the same company.) A far saner system would reduce the scope of mandatory services as much as possible, to cover the metaphorical colliding car, and to open the door for elective coverage for those who wish for it.

Wokeness in graduate admissions (2025-12-31)

Apparently, James Hankins, a former Harvard professor, has written a damning piece on problems with graduate admissions, including how many universities seem to give White men a blanket rejection, even when extremely well qualified.

While I will not go into depth (the more so, cf. side-note, as I cannot access the original text in full) there are several big-picture problems with this, even the sheer unfairness of it aside, including that:

1. Putting wokeness over excellence is a recipe for further destruction of science and education.

2. This risks cementing the ideological hegemony of the (increasingly far) Left in academia and the echo chambers that result, giving students an even more one-sided and distorted view of various topics, because today’s graduate students are not only tomorrow’s researchers but also tomorrow’s teachers. (Also note, among many other texts, two semi-recent entries on this page: [1], [2].)

3. Access to more intellectual (non-academic) work, various professions, management, political careers, etc., is often governed by formal criteria, and a distortion of who-works-where and who-works-as-what will almost invariably continue—even aside from the ongoing problems with discrimination in hirings and promotions that are pushed by many woke HR departments, causing problems to spread further outside of academia. This includes that a switch from ability to woke criteria (be they direct, as with sex-/race-based discrimination in the office, or indirect, as with such discrimination in admission to education). will lead to worse outcomes for businesses and society.

4. It can indirectly distort statistics on e.g. “scholastic aptitude” and achievement. (My main motivation behind this entry.)

   In particular, there has been a strong drift in education rates, in that the relative proportions of men and women on various levels of formal education have swung from strongly male-dominated to strongly female-dominated. While Feminists have attributed past male dominance to various claims in the extended “discrimination” and “Patriarchy” families, even long past the point where such were credible, they like to paint the current state as a sign of female excellence and as further indirect proof of that past “discrimination” and “Patriarchy”—because without them women would have dominated back then too.

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   Side-note:

   At least for the time being, this is largely a matter of sex, with race and other woke criteria being less relevant than for the other items. Race, etc., does involve a similar distortion and statistics are similarly distorted as a consequence; however, the statistics do not (yet, at least) have a similar effect of distortion of perception, be it because of the size of the various groups relative the groups of men and women or because there is no equivalent of the Feminist propaganda machine.

   Also note that specifically White men form such a large proportion of men (in general) that more neutral admissions in other groups of men cannot make up for the difference—even the considerable risk aside that the mistreatment would extend to men in general, even be it in a less extreme form. This the more so, as Jews and East Asians, among the most academically strong groups, are similarly disfavored and mistreated by the Left as Whites—arguably, more so.

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   Here we see the exact opposite taking place, discrimination based on sex to the disadvantage of men being a significant contributor to outcomes. How are men to keep up in graduate degrees when many universities do not even consider them, based on their being men? When many others will consider them, but only while imposing a severe handicap in metaphorical “brownie points”? When similar, if less extreme, claims apply even on the undergraduate level?

   This the more so, as there are number of other factors, that play in to distort ratios (some harmful to men, some more neutral but still distorting). Consider how critical thinkers who might question a teacher will see negative effects far more often today than in the past, how grading is increasingly based on effort and decreasingly on achievement, how the economics of gaining a college degree have changed dramatically for the worse relative “the trades”, how female teachers and teaching styles dominate lower (and, increasingly, higher) levels of education, how anti-scientific political propaganda has become an ever greater part of education, etc.—and how this will affect males and females in their respective choices and chances at success.

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   Side-note:

   While I will not attempt a deeper discussion of such off-topic factors, the difference between education and formal education or, even, outright school[ing] is worthy of note. What if men, matching my own impressions, are far more likely to be able to successfully gain an education on their own, based on books, own thinking, and whatnot, than women? (While formal education is still set on the idiocy of lectures and increasingly amounts to dumbing-down and spoon-feeding with little own thought necessary. In the case of strongly ideological fields, with little own thought wanted.)

   Similarly, a difference in ability distribution could shift college and whatnot demographics: Men tend to dominate the top and bottom ranges; women, the mid ranges. The consequence of a continual lowering of graduation and grading criteria, and of a continual push for an ever greater proportion entering higher education (even at the cost of this education becoming increasingly less high...) could then easily be a demographic shift. For instance, it might be that men have a clear dominance if only the top few percent are admitted, things are even if half the population is admitted, and women have a slight dominance when more than half (but not all) of the population is admitted—even assuming that there were no discrimination based on sex or other distorting factors.

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To some of the above, note that there are very clear differences in ideological lines based on demographics, in that White men form the major group the least affected by Leftist brainwashing and one that, through a constant vilification by the Left, is more likely to have an outright adverse reaction to this brainwashing, vilification, etc. Further, that there are great signs that women are weaker in areas like critical and independent thinking than men, and more prone to “drink the Cool-Aid”. (Apart from the strong signs that their greater likelihood of a Leftist orientation gives, in and by it self, note e.g. who is how likely to believe in various superstitions, to fall for various types of advertising, to go for consensus-for-the-sake-of-consensus vs. to search for the truth of a matter, etc.)

The Left and its inconsistent recognition policies (2025-12-29)

Apparently (cf. side-note), Israel has recognized Somaliland. One might now expect that those lambasting Israel for the situation in Gaza, the West Bank, whatnot, would raise their glasses in celebration or, on the outside, take this is an excuse to demand that Israel also recognizes “Palestine”.

But, no, now Israel is suddenly condemned and viewed as evil because it gave recognition to a state in a similar situation to “Palestine” (but, cf. side-note, likely with a more legitimate claim to statehood/recognition).

Similar inconsistencies are recurring. Note e.g. how some regions (formerly?) of the Ukraine that want to become independent and/or join Russia are seen as evil and the, at best, inconsistent and cowardly treatment of Taiwan.

At the end of the day, it does not seem to be a matter of ethics, actual territorial control, international law, or any reasonable other set of criteria—instead it is a matter of whether the Left favors or disfavors the involved suggested states, their peoples, their ideologies, whatnot, relative the opposing states (and so on). This, possibly, combined with an attitude of “Israel can do no right”.

Battle of the Sexes and comparing apples and oranges (2025-12-28)

Apparently, yet another “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match is upon us. This time, Nick Kyrgios is put against Aryna Sabalenka in something that is pointless except as a curiosity—and, of course, a money-making opportunity.

Looking from almost any perspective, there is an apples and oranges problem, in that Sabalenka has been given advantages, including that Kyrgios must hit into a smaller playing field than she. (I have not reviewed the exact details, which are not important for my purposes.)

Firstly, this creates a problem from a “Battle of the Sexes” point of view, because it is no longer a comparison on fair criteria. Should Kyrgios win, despite handicaps, this can, in some sense, be viewed as a male victory, but a win from Sabalenka would tell us very little. Not only would she very likely have lost without that leg up, but a Kyrgios win under fair conditions could always be turned into a Sabalenka win by skewing the conditions enough. Indeed, given enough of a leg up, even I could win against Kyrgios.

What would be enough for me to win, I leave unstated, because the difference in playing strengths is so ridiculous that I cannot judge the matter beyond the blanket claim that great enough handicaps can be found. However, to give an easily understood illustration of both this and how handicaps create situations where the handicap can be more important than individual strength: Take a (pseudo-)100-meter dash where I am pitted against the Olympic champion under fair rules—except that I get a head start. With a head start of 10 meters, I would still lose disastrously; with one of 90 meters, I could literally walk and win; somewhere in between, there is a break-even point, where we would tie; etc. (In a pitting of male vs. female Olympic champion, 10 meters might be enough.) Here we also see a “calibration problem”: Were I to win, it would be because the handicap had been chosen large enough that it outweighed the difference in ability. (And, as with Kyrgios–Sabalenka, the loss of the party given a leg up tells us something; its victory, very little.) Now, what head start should then be viewed as “fair” in a race that tries to make a less absurd comparison, say, by pitting the Olympic champion in pole vault against the one in the 100 meters? Impossible to tell. In particular, any head start based on “make it a close race” would be fundamentally flawed; any handicap based on other athletes might be highly misleading (e.g. because one pole vaulter might excel in speed, another in technique, another in strength, ...); there are many more runners than pole vaulters, which can point to the pole vault being less competitive; etc.

Secondly, similar problems arise when we look at Kyrgios–Sabalenka from a more individual point of view. Chances are that Kyrgios is simply better outright and by some distance, which would make a match under equal/fair conditions pointless. (When viewed as competition or a test of “who is better”. Other uses, including play-for-fun, as a training exercise, and to find out how large the distance is, can still be very legitimate.) Introducing handicaps can make the match more competitive or even turn the tables, but is, again, pointless from a “who is better” point of view (for causes discussed above; again, other reasons to play can be legitimate, e.g. that playing with a handicap makes the match more fun for the players).

However, from a “Battle of the Sexes” point of view, the problems do not end here. Consider the pairing of Sabalenka (the current women’s number one) with Kyrgios (very talented but never even close to number one among the men and still struggling to come back from a long layoff and injury problems; also cf. above side-note). Whatever the match might tell us about Sabalenka vs. Kyrgios on an individual basis, it tells us very little about men vs. women. Or consider the risk that the one party is more motivated than the other, the one going all out as if playing a Wimbledon final and the other playing for fun. (Indeed, in the case of the Briggs “Battle of the Sexes”, many have later claimed that he did not take the match seriously—or might even have bet against himself and lost deliberately. While I have no idea how credible those claims are, he was certainly far, far away from his prime playing days.) Or consider how any individual pairing need not tell us much, because playing styles and combinations of strengths and weaknesses matter. Ditto any individual match for reasons like daily form, surface preferences, etc. (Note e.g. how round-robin tournaments often see A-beat-B, B-beat-C, and C-beat-A.) Etc.

A more reasonable type of competition could include testing some specific ability, e.g. how close to a certain point of the court a player can place a serve. This might tell us little about who is the better player, but it can make for a more interesting comparison and, at least for some tasks, one more naturally fair and one with no need to institute handicaps. (A test perfectly independent of sex differences might be hard to find. For instance, someone taller and with longer arms might have an advantage when it comes to reaching a point closer to the net without hitting the net in the process. Other tests, e.g. for who has the hardest serve, might be entirely unsuitable for a male–female competition.)

A good illustration is, again, pole vaulters in the 100 meters: This example arose through a race between Duplantis (pole vaulter) and Warholm (400m hurdler). Duplantis won somewhat comfortably in this gimmick race, which at least told us who was the better in the 100 meters on the day at hand. It told us very little about who was the greater athlete, however. (And it might even leave some question marks around who was the better in the 100 meters more generally, as, again, a one-off competition can be misleading.)

State of the military as an indication of its purpose (2025-12-26)

The state and strength of the military forces of a country can vary for a great number of reasons, beginning with the size of the country, the perceived risk of war, and the (in)competence of political leadership. However, such reasons also include the purpose(s) of the military. This, maybe, in particular with a military that has outdated equipment, poor training, and similar:

For instance, a military that is not primarily intended to discourage or fight foreign enemies but to keep potential internal rebels down only needs to be better off than those rebels. The strength of the military forces of other countries (especially, neighboring and/or believed to be hostile ones) is then of little importance.

For instance, a military that is more intended to serve as a propaganda tool (“Look at our magnificent army!!!”) or to flatter the ego of a dictator (e.g. on a “Mine is bigger than yours!!!” basis) might get away with having impressive numbers and looking good during parades, even while the fighting strength is low. Two hundred WWII tanks would lose in a humiliating manner to a hundred modern ones, in almost all scenarios, but the numbers sure look good. Two hundred thousand untrained and poorly equipped conscripts would be similarly over-challenged by half the number of professional soldiers with proper training and good equipment, “but numbers”. Etc.

A potential corollary is that a country that puts great focus on parades and other demonstrations focused on optics, not performance, is likely to have a weaker military than it superficially seems. It might even be somewhat common that parades are held (etc.) because the military is weak. (It is usually cheaper and easier to mislead about a problem than it is to actually fix it.)

Consider the case of North Korea (thoughts around which were the motivation for this entry) or note e.g. how the U.S. and Soviet militaries compared, were portrayed, etc., during the Cold War.

COVID-vaccine damage and suppression of information (2025-12-23)

Catching up on Swedish videotext, I find the notice that a Norwegian biathlete, Sivert Guttorm Bakken, has been found dead in his hotel room at a mere 27 years of age. This (non-archived) source also claimed that he had had a major career interruption after developing pericarditis following a COVID vaccination.

Curious about the details, I hit the Internet and found that neither the hits from duckduckgo nor his Wikipedia page made any mention of this connection. If his medical background was mentioned at all, it was in the form that he had developed peri- or myocarditis—period.

I made a more targeted search to include the COVID vaccination as a search criterion—and now found only a few Swedish and one Norwegian page(s) as results. (Note e.g. the Norwegian source^e.)

Now, I cannot rule out that specifically Swedish media have misunderstood something (such things happen), but the more likely explanation is that Sweden is a rare exception to a media refusal to make statements that could put the COVID vaccines in a poor light. (Remember that Sweden has had a much more scientific and rational approach to COVID since more or less day one.)

Furthermore, assuming that the COVID-vaccine angle holds true, he did not only suffer a severe career setback from the COVID vaccination, but he might well have lost his life because of it. (But I stress that no source even in Swedish has yet declared this the indirect cause of death—and it would indeed be premature to do so before an autopsy has taken place.)

The issue is the more tragic as a young elite athlete is extremely unlikely to have benefited from the vaccine, the more so as (according to the Norwegian source) problems occurred after his third shot, which had an even lesser likelihood of being beneficial than the first.

As to the damage to his career, which is less speculative, sources make claims that put him as very promising up-and-comer until 2022, when the vaccine issue occurred. He was then forced to a two year break from training (not just competition) and an operation. He came back with a vengeance after these two years, with successes including a European championship in early 2025 (confirm e.g. the Norwegian source). (Disclaimer: This is puzzled together from several sources, not all of which are consistent. I do not vouch for the exact details, in particular, around the interruption. The big picture should be correct, however.)

Literacy levels, international comparisons, etc. (2025-12-22)

A common complaint family (especially, from Conservatives) is that great percentages of school children do not “read at grade level”, that high-school students struggle with middle-school math, and similar.

While I concur that there is a considerable problem, discussing this problem in terms of e.g. “grade levels” is inherently misleading, because these “grade levels” are, in turn, inherently arbitrary.

There is, for instance, no true objective standard for what a 10th grader “should” know or be able to do—just like there is no true objective standard for how tall he should be. Looking at height, which should be free from political controversy, we can e.g. say how someone compares to his age peers of today and of fifty years ago, but only rarely is it truly possible to say that someone is too tall or too short, and even giving a narrow interval of “correct” height is impossible—a foot might or might not work, an inch certainly does not. The we have the issue of sub-populations, where the “right” height for a boy might differ greatly from that of a girl of the same age, that of a Swede greatly from that of a Japanese, etc.

Likewise, it makes far more sense to e.g. say that “a typical 10th grader in 1975 could handle [some given text], but a typical 10th grader of 2025 cannot” and conclude that something is amiss, that something can/should/must be improved, or similar, than to think in terms of these arbitrary “grade levels”.

Something similar to a “grade level” can have a justification as a calibrated target for education, e.g. in that some text–percentile combinations are given, with the target for schools or, even, the overall education system (not individual students) that someone at the nth percentile of reading ability in the 10th grade should be able to read (with sufficient speed, comprehension, and whatever else might apply) all texts that are at this or a lower percentile.

Such a percentile based system would also resolve an ambiguity with ideas like “grade levels” and counter flawed attitudes of many politicians and educators. Chances are that a reasonable definition of “grade level” would correspond to the “right” level for the median or average child, with close to half of the children reading above and half reading below this level—by design. (The “almost” arises because those who read exactly “at grade level” will be neither above, nor below, while any sensible test and criterion would make this group comparatively small—just like only a small proportion of 10th graders are at, say, 170 centimeter in height, but very large proportions are above and below that height.) To, in contrast, define “grade level” as something that any student can manage with the right support would necessarily drop that level to something pointless. Picking some lower guiding percentile might work, e.g. in that “grade level” is taken as a realistic expectation for the 20th percentile, but then we still have an expectation that 19 percent, by design, will not reach “grade level”, and we will still need to set “grade level” comparatively low.

A similar problem exists in international comparisons: If we pick a hundred countries, give their students a standardized reading test, and then rank the countries based on average score, then some country will place 1st, another 25th, another 100th. (For simplicity, I unrealistically ignore the possibility of ties.) This is a necessity of the exercise, which will only fail to manifest if the test is too undiscriminating (and, therefore, pointless). Causes for strong reactions and countermeasures can be very relevant if a “high budget” country like the U.S. were to lose against a “low budget” country, as this is a strong indication that the “high budget” country is doing something wrong. (Ditto some other criteria, e.g. school employees per student and general state of development of the countries compared.) A hypothetical claim that “The U.S. only ranked 20th in reading, behind half of Europe and all of East Asia—the world will end unless we do something!!!” is bullshit. There is nothing wrong with the U.S. wishing to improve in future rankings, but there is really nothing remarkable about being 20th in a group of reasonably comparable countries that exceed 20 in number. In contrast, had the U.S. been beaten by half of Africa instead of half of Europe, there would be cause for concern.

Another sign that can be just cause for strong countermeasures is a continual worsening for some country over multiple tests—but even here the international comparison is of secondary importance. What matters, instead, is the absolute performance of the country and how it compares to past own performance. Indeed, if the absolute and/or own performance improves, a drop relative other countries might be of little importance.

Other signs yet include when two comparable countries have greatly different absolute scores. If two countries come in as first and second but the former has a score 20 percent better than the latter, this is more interesting than if they come in with a dozen countries between them but a score that differs by 2 percent.

What is or is not political violence? (2025-12-15)

As I have noted repeatedly, including in the previous entry, political violence is mostly a Leftist matter—not a “Rightwing” one. (Note that Islamist violence is typically either Leftwing or irrelevant to the outdated Left–Right scale, and/or not political.)

To better understand this, and to understand why Leftist narratives on political violence are wrong, it is important to understand what political violence actually is.

For obvious reasons, the borders can be hard to draw, but the core category is violence used for political reasons and, especially, against political opponents—as when some Antifa shits beat up a free-speech proponent. A rule of thumb might look at issues like to what degree an act of violence is motivated by a wish to interfere with formation and expression of political opinions, with election results, with the continued functioning of democracy, and similar; and to what degree it is likely to have such effects. Here the dominance of the Left is very great, ranging from acts like the murder of Charlie Kirk to the throwing of eggs on those trying to express the “wrong” opinions in public.

A non-category is violence that has non-political motivations. For instance, if a member of one ethnic group beats up a member of another ethnic group merely because of a dislike of members of that group, this is not political violence. Other labels might well apply (say, “racial violence” or “religious violence”) but not “political violence”. The same holds even more strongly when the motive is something generically criminal, e.g. a wish to beat someone up, no matter who, or when the beating is part of a robbery motivated by a wish for money. Ditto when the dislike is not for members of some group but for the specific individual at hand (if still for non-political reasons, of course).

A particular problem arises when this type of non-political violence is also ascribed to the “Right” based on the identity of the victim instead of the perpetrator. In Germany, e.g., circular and/or pseudo-logic of “victim belonged to a minority; to beat up minorities is to be Rightwing; ergo, this was an act of Rightwing violence” abounds, notwithstanding that the perpetrator might have been an Antifa shit or an active member of one of the several far-Left parties—or someone not political at all.

In contrast, a case for political violence can be made when e.g. violence against some (non-political) group is motivated by a political agenda. An obvious and clear-cut example is some of the Nazi atrocities against Jews (e.g. the Kristallnacht), which were not directed at a political opponent but did serve highly political purposes. Lesser potential, but could-be-seen-either-way, examples include someone beating up an immigrant in the hope of deterring immigration. Other tricky examples include when someone beats up a (non-Israeli) Jew through a failure to understand that Jews are not automatically Israelis (let alone members of the IDF or the Israeli government) or Zionists. Here, too, however, the Left and/or Leftist adjacent, Left favored, whatnot, groups tend to dominate, as with the Leftist violence against Jews worldwide, acts of violence against Whites or Christians for similar political reasons, etc.

Throwing a wider net on another dimension, we have questions like what type of non-physical violence might be included. However, looking at typical candidates, including U.S. lawfare and attempts to shout down speakers at U.S. colleges, the Left still dominates.

A particular field of non-physical violence is entirely out, however: Idiocies like trying to paint “words as violence” or, even, “silence as violence”, where saying something disliked by the Left is, ipso facto, considered violence resp. where failing to speak in favor of the Left is viewed as violence. Here we truly see the loony Left earn its epithet. This is not only not political violence—it is not violence.

Idiotic takes on violence / Bondi Beach massacre (2025-12-15)

The previous entry repeatedly dealt with the risk of a measure being ineffective or hitting at the wrong target. With the recent Bondi Beach massacre, we see a variation of similar problems: Jews were murdered by (likely) deranged Islamists, which, if anything, should lead to measures like greater scrutiny of Islamists, possibly, aided by additional police protection of public Jewish events. What follows instead? Calls for more gun control...

Worse, here there is reason to suspect that we do not just have a matter of incompetence and lack of judgment—but of outright instrumentalisation of the massacre to push a Leftist agenda of making it hard for (even law-abiding) citizens to own guns. (And never mind whether this has any effect on the safety of Jews.) Note, similarly, how there have been U.S. cases of Black criminals killing victims with illegal handguns and Leftist politicians demanding bans on (currently) legal rifles in the hands of law-abiding Whites based on these same killings.

Likewise, chances are that there is a deliberate aspect of distracting from e.g. an Islamist or anti-Jewish angle. (Possibly, as with mainstream media, out of some fear that knowing the truth could lead to averse feelings towards certain groups—which, in their eyes, seems to be worse than a few dead Jews. Also note that Australia are among the several nations which have recently given a considerable indirect support to Hamas by recognizing “Palestine”.)

To make matters worse, independently of the Bondi Beach massacre, there is still a continual pushing of a narrative of “Rightwing” violence, extremism, radicalization, whatnot—even in light of political violence (etc.) being a largely Leftwing and/or Islamist problem. (The two, to boot, are often overlapping, be it in an explicit manner or through having largely shared values on more detailed political scales.)

Poorly conceived laws / “femicide” (2025-12-14)

Apparently, Italy has just passed a law against “femicide”, with the specific meaning of killing a human for being female.

This is yet another example of a poorly conceived law—and one more aptly described as a “loss for Rechtsstaatlichkeit” than as the “victory for women” claimed by some sources. Consider the following diverse problems:

1. It takes a term and gives it a disputable meaning. The natural meaning of the term would be killing a human who is a female, with no automatic attribution of cause or motive. Note how the same applies to more established terms like “homicide”, “patricide”, “suicide”. Even “genocide” is not an exception, because the victims are not targeted merely for being or belonging to a people, but for the specific people concerned—as manifested in how e.g the Nazis targeted Jews but not members of the German people. Also note that not all these other terms necessarily entail something criminal. (Homicide, for instance, refers to a killing, which might or might not be a murder or otherwise illegal. Suicide, for instance, has a history of illegality but is now typically legal in at least the Western world—even outright pushed by the government onto some in e.g. Canada.)

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   Side-note:

   For ease of formulation, I will stick with “wom[a/e]n” over variations of “human female” and e.g. “girls and women”. (The latter, incidentally, demonstrates another asymmetry likely to go back to propaganda or some other problem—if not, that phrase would not be absurdly more common than “boys and men”.)

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   To boot, at least some source claimed a limit to “by a man”, which makes a complete mockery of the definition, because the same crime committed by a woman, for the very same reason, would not count. (And the involvement of women in e.g. matters of strict morality or “honor” must not be underestimated.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   I have tried to get a look at the actual legal text, but of the several links that I found, all ended in an error message, a demand to enable JavaScript, some CloudFlare nonsense, or similar. This while the journalist reporting (which did not see similar obstacles) cannot be trusted—which, of course, is why I wanted to look at the actual text in the first place. Correspondingly, my comments must be seen with some reservation for deviations between reporting and the actual law.

   The theme of “killed for being a woman” was present throughout reporting, however. Some sources additionally spoke vaguely of other and adjacent causes of e.g. “discrimination” (in an abuse of that term) and/or seemed to have an implication of “honor killing” (but without using that term). As noted, at least one restricted the crime to “by a man”.

   ---

   To this, note the very real risk that legal definitions, which usually are restricted to a legal context where they act as stipulative definitions and/or technical terms, take precedence in everyday language, be it through media use, because too many fail to understand that the law does not define the meaning outside a legal context, or because some partisans push the legal definition for their own purposes.

2. It fails to be sufficiently general, and it does so in an obvious manner. At a minimum, the law should have been generalized to include any and all killing based on sex—not just on being a woman. This applies for all such laws, even if only some groups are deemed by the lawmakers to be targeted, both because they can be wrong and because circumstances can change. Likewise, it applies because a failure to be general opens the doors for lobbying groups, vote buying, and similar, by which one group can be artificially favored over another.

   This generalization should, of course, go in both directions: If (!) the aforementioned limitation to men as perpetrators holds, this would not only be a gross asymmetry but would also be an extreme case of “discrimination” in that abused sense. Imagine, by analogy, if women were met with harsher punishments for some act than men and how Feminists would raise hell in light of this. Ditto if women were punished and men were not.

   ---

   Side-note:

   In the comparison with the “femicide” law, note that while the crime of “femicide” is new, killing a woman was already illegal (cf. a later item). The true effect is then, with reservations for details of the law, not to make certain legal acts illegal but to punish them more harshly.

   Here another point of criticism might be found, namely that if more than one law affects whether a single act is legal or illegal, this can reduce the ability of the citizens to judge whether they are violating laws. As I have noted in the past, the principle of “ignorantia legis non excusat” requires that laws are sufficiently limited in number and complexity, and sufficiently close to reasonable expectations, that an awareness of the law is conscionably achievable. If not, another Latin quote is more apposite: corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.

   (But I grant that concerns about e.g. the number of laws in place are more relevant for less obviously criminal acts.)

   ---

   From another angle: Unless there is some strong moral (for want of a better word) reason to give some specific group a better protection (or whatever might apply to the law at hand), it is wrong to extend better protection to that group. Here, it is not a matter of it being a greater wrong to kill a woman than a man, but that a killing based on sex is wrong and this should be reflected in the law—even should it be that killings of women-for-being-women are more common. (In contrast, a law imposing harsher punishment for killing a child, regardless of reason, than for killing an adult could be argued to have such a moral reason.)

   Yet another: With asymmetric laws there is always a risk that crimes against the one group is given a certain attribution of motive for spurious reasons, e.g. in order to get a harsher punishment or (in the spirit of the next item) to further some political cause.

   ---

   Side-note:

   While the U.S. constitution has no bearing on Italian law, it would be interesting to see how such laws, with such asymmetries, would stand up to the U.S. “equal protection” clause.

   ---

3. It simultaneously fails to put the spotlight on the underlying problem and succeeds in opening doors for further Feminist rhetoric and defamation about men being violent against women. (Cf. e.g. the Swedish Feminist hate slogan of “mäns våld mot kvinnor” and the systematic attempts to build a grossly faulty worldview of violent and oppressive men and poor innocent women who constantly fall victim to these men. Ditto how news reporting in Sweden, very similarly, makes great noise about increasing rates of rape, while remaining conspicuously silent on what the cause is—perpetrators from certain immigrant groups. Instead, the unwary reader is left with an image of men, in general, becoming ever more violent and oppressive against these poor innocent women.)

   The underlying problem, of course, is not that men would be out to kill women, but that some groups of immigrants would. (But note the next item for great reservations on “out to kill”.) The true point at which to shine the spotlight is on these groups of immigrants and whatever motivating causes, cultural differences, whatnot, are involved.

4. However, chances are that even members of these immigrant groups are not actually out to kill women for being women. (Although it is very conceivable that some might view a woman’s life as worth less than a man’s.) I have not done the legwork on what goes on in Italy, but looking at my impressions from other countries, including Germany, chances are that much goes back to honor killings (especially common in Muslim groups) and/or sexual violence (common among e.g. Somalis) that takes a turn from rape to murder. Others yet could conceivably go back to a wish to kill (in general) or to kill members of the “wrong” race or religion (note the many acts of Muslim, Black, and/or Arabic violence against Christians, Jews, Whites, whatnot) with women potentially being targeted for being easier victims.

   If so, chances are that the new law misses the mark again, with a better approach being to target the more specific problems involved—including the cases of “honor” whatnots that do not go as far as death and the cases of rape or other sexual violence that does not turn to murder.

5. All that aside, it is disputable whether a separate law is at all needed, will be effective, and/or addresses the right problem on the government’s side: Murder already is illegal—even should the victim happen to be a woman. (Although Feminist propaganda might try to claim the opposite.)

   What then goes wrong is an insufficient enforcement of existing laws, insufficient actions to integrate immigrants sufficiently in Italian society, insufficient filtering of who is allowed into the country, and similar. (Some vagueness is again needed, because I have not done the legwork on Italy.)

   This the more so as the associated punishments are draconian, with “life in prison” being cited as the norm—but increasing punishments absent ability to enforce a crime is likely to do more harm than good through doing a greater evil to those who might be innocently convicted, removing or reducing the chances of rehabilitation for younger offenders, etc. (While any positive effect naturally hinges on ability to enforce, be it directly or, through mechanisms like deterrence, indirectly.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   Note, similarly to some of the above, that the increase in punishment is not contingent on the crime being more horrible than murder or the murder of a man for being a man, but merely on frequency, making it the more misguided, both in principle and through the fact that this frequency is a current phenomenon and need not hold in the long-term (with or without this law).

   Moreover, because the frequency arises from immigration groups but all men are equally affected by the increase in punishment, there is a problematic aspect of something akin to collective punishment—and punishment of a collective for the deeds of a small minority.

   ---

6. Making punishment strongly contingent on the motive carries danger. In particular, it can be far trickier to gain a reasonable certainty of the motive of a perpetrator than of the act perpetrated and there is a risk of unwarranted mistreatment of members of immigrant groups relative native Italians (and/or some immigrant groups relative others). What, e.g., if a member of an “honor”-centric culture kills a woman for some entirely different reason and receives twice the punishment of a native Italian for the identical crime, with the identical motive, whatnot, because the former is incorrectly ascribed an “honor” motive and the latter is not?

   ---

   Side-note:

   No, this claim is not in contradiction with the previous item: When it comes to e.g. crime statistics, the realizations are central that (a) the individual group member and the group might have very different characteristics, (b) a problematic difference between two groups might still only involve a minority of the members of either group. For instance, if 1-in-1000 in one group ever commits a murder and 1-in-100 in another, this could bring disastrous differences—but the other 99-in-100 in the more murder-prone group do not commit a murder.

   ---

   A similar problem is present with e.g. “hate crime” laws, in that a “hate” motive can be ascribed where none is present. In Germany, e.g., many seem to have a knee-jerk reaction of “victim belonged to a minority; ergo, it was a hate crime”, while the U.S. is inundated with cries of “Racism!!!” based on things happening to Blacks that also happen to Whites. This should already be a warning sign against similarly misconceived laws. Various “hate speech” laws and the U.K. atrocity of “non-crime hate incidents” the more so.

In a bigger picture, it is noteworthy that (again, contrary to Feminist propaganda) the typical and traditional Western male attitude towards women has not been one of e.g. violence and oppression but one of support and protection. Indeed, this typical attitude is likely a strong reason why Feminists have been able to push through so much nonsense, why preferential hiring/promoting of women for being women has become so common, etc. (The term “affirmative action” is specific to the U.S.) If the type of defamatory caricature of men held true that Feminists like to paint, Feminists would have been stomped into the ground, preferential hiring would have been a niche phenomenon, etc. Indeed, in as far as this attitude has weakened among “native” Western men (as opposed to later immigrants currently living in the West), it appears to correlate strongly with a lack (!) of male role models, through high divorce rates, schools dominated by female teachers, etc.

Obey Trump—get shot! (2025-11-28)

My last entry dealt with Trump, insinuations about unlawful orders directed against him, and clamor that his orders should not be obeyed; while other entries have dealt (at least, tangentially) with matters like the deployment of the national guard to preserve law and order in light of a Leftist failure to do so with regular law enforcement.

On the same day as I published that last entry, two members of the West-Virginian national guard doing duty in Washington were shot. One of them has since died; the other is alive but still in grave danger.

Now, the motives of the perpetrator have not been clarified (at the time of writing and beyond what might be speculated from his being Afghan); however, there is a distinct and very disturbing possibility, namely, that this was directed at members of the national guard because they were obeying orders from Trump. (If, presumably, with several intermediate layers of command.) Obey Trump–get shot!

Even absent such a motive, however, a grave chilling effect can still occur, in that e.g. many might be reluctant to join the national guard, that those already in might become more reluctant to deploy, and similar—for fear of being shot out of the blue. The same, m.m., can apply to other groups, notably potential resp. current policemen, be it for, in some sense, obeying Trump or for doing something in the line of duty of which the Left (Islamists, whatnot) disapproves (say, arresting criminals from the wrong minority group or apprehending illegal aliens for deportation).

This the more so if we consider the apparent circumstances (with great reservations for what might be misreported): The two victims had signed up for duty less than 24 hours (!) before the attack. The diseased was a woman a mere 20 years (!) of age.

Further, the more so, as some Leftists have tried to blame the event on Trump—if he had not sent in the national guard, no-one would have died. (A take on the matter almost as deranged as the attack/murder it self.)

Trump, the Ukraine, and unlawful orders (2025-11-26)

In recent news there have been two points of interest in understanding Trump vs. traditional politicians resp. Leftist debate methods.

Firstly, Trump’s attempt to reach peace in the Ukraine (ditto, some other international situations): Where many take an entirely uncompromising and morally absolutist stand or, worse, might use the conflict to score political points, Trump is looking for a peace that is sufficiently acceptable for both parties that an agreement can actually be found—much like when trying to put a business deal together. (Whether he will be successful is yet to see; however, unlike so many others, he at least has a chance.)

At an extreme, Zelenskyy has been pushing a peace plan that effectively amounts to a Russian capitulation, including surrender of Crimea (which was taken long before the current war). What are the incentives for Russia (in general) and Putin (personally) to agree to this? In fact, it is hard to see that such a plan would have any chance at all of being implemented as long as Putin is in power—and not necessarily much chance after he is gone, at some unspecified point in the future.

It might well be that an uncompromising and morally absolutist position on the peace reflects what, in some sense, is “fair” or “just”, but what use is this if such a peace can never be reached?

This the more so, when the true costs of the war are not carried by those who take such a position but by the Ukrainian people, which has little say on the matter.

Secondly, recent clamors that e.g. the U.S. military would have a right or duty to refuse unlawful orders from Trump. This is a variation of the “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”:

Such a right or duty does exist, regardless of the issuer, but there has been no true sign of unlawful orders. (While a strong case can be made against e.g. the Biden regime’s forced vaccinations of military personnel.) Notably, orders that the Left does not like do not automatically become unlawful because the Left does not like them.

As noted in some earlier text, such clamors are more directed at: (a) Creating a false impression among the naive that Trump is issuing, or is bound to issue, unlawful orders (for reasons that include artificially harming Republican election chances, fear-mongering, and furthering the fake “Trump is a dictator” narrative, which, to boot, was a better fit for Biden). (b) Making it easier to falsely paint future orders as unlawful. (Cf. e.g. false prior claims that Trump would refuse to leave office on inauguration day 2021—and that this-or-that military branch should stand by to physically remove him from the White House.)

(An interesting question is how the Left would treat a situation where Trump, in a Zelenskyy-like manner, had been kept in office past the expiration of his first term through a war with Russia. Possibly, it would have resulted in yet another Russian-collusion hoax, where the Russians allegedly invaded for the specific purpose of keeping Trump in office...)

More on the rise and fall of Wikipedia (2025-11-25)

Earlier in November, I wrote an entry on Grokipedia, Wikipedia, and the decline of the Internet, referencing an interesting take on the rise and fall of Wikipedia. Since then, I have encountered a set of suggestions for a better Wikipedia by Larry Sanger, in the form of nine theses^e (note that most of the contents are on child pages). Sanger, as a co-founder and early force in the development of Wikipedia, gives considerable insight both into the current problems with Wikipedia and how Wikipedia has changed for the worse in many regards (on top of the suggestions, as such).

While I will not attempt a deeper own analysis of his theses, a few remarks:

1. The problems and misdevelopments of Wikipedia discussed by Sanger to a high degree reflect similar problems and misdevelopments in society at large and in other more specific areas (e.g. academia and journalism). This includes an intolerance of dissent and an aversion to free debate and scientific inquiry, FIFA-ization, and destructive bureaucracy. (Some other cases will be mentioned below.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   FIFA-ization is how I think of how various organizations tend to turn away from their ostensible or original raisons d’être to become causes in their own right, to turn into vehicles to further the private interests of central figures within the organization, and similar. (The name, because I originally illustrated the problem with FIFA and/or UEFA.)

   Throwing a wider net, similar problems can include “institutional capture” (which might be a partial problem with Wikipedia) and Conquest’s Second Law, that all organizations not explicitly Rightwing eventually become Leftwing (which very much applies to Wikipedia; note that both the exact number and whether Conquest actually came up with this law are debated).

   Throwing an even wider net, a very general idea of “perversion of intent” holds for Wikipedia—as with a great many other societal institutions and whatnots.

   ---

   ---

   Side-note:

   While I will often speak in terms of e.g. “the Left” in this entry, not all problems are exclusive to the Left. FIFA-ization, e.g., is often rooted in a politically neutral drift over time, abuse by power-hungry individuals, or similar. It often coincides with Leftism and the developments of “Animal Farm” (Soviet allegory and an easily digestible example) are a decent match, but there is no natural law that forces a coincidence.

   In particular, while Sanger is well aware of the Leftist problems on Wikipedia, his theses are written much more generally and neither he nor I claim that Leftism would be the A and O of the problems. (And while I have a very strong personal focus on the problems caused by Leftism, Sanger is, for natural reasons, much more interested in the state and development of Wikipedia.)

   ---

2. A specific problem is evil hiding behind anonymity, as with much of the Left. (Where, for my current purposes, “evil” might imply incompetence, short-sightedness, narrow-mindedness, or similar—not just maliciousness.) An interesting point is an asymmetry of anonymity in that e.g. administrators are largely protected from identity revelation (even in cases, say, when someone wishes to sue for defamation), while the average user has a much more conditional anonymity, and in that those who dissent have a weaker protection than those who conform.

   This well matches the real world, where we have problems like some governments (notably, the German) trying to exterminate anonymity online when it comes to anything considered “Rightwing” speech, while physically violent Leftists hide behind masks (note e.g. many Antifa actions) and (at least in Germany) civil servants minimize identifying information in their communications. (For instance, a letter from a civil servant might come with a mere “Schmidt”, where common courtesy, standards for efficient communication, and, above all, transparency and accountability would have required “Herr Johann Schmidt”, “Frau Johanna Schmidt”, or whatever is relevant.)

3. Another problem similar to those with citizens vs. civil servants, and/or vs. the government in general, is a lack of recourse. Looking at my own experiences in Germany, the matter of right and wrong does not enter into the matter, because the citizen vs. civil servant constellation trumps everything else. Something similar seems to apply to e.g. user vs. administrator conflicts on Wikipedia, according to Sanger’s text. (Assuming that the first civil servant resp. administrator is problematic.)

4. Sanger tells of a great amount of pseudo- and anti-intellectualism on Wikipedia (which matches my own observations). The same applies to the Left in virtually all its incarnations. In both cases, this includes the frequent issue that dissent as such is often viewed as a literal or metaphorical crime.

5. Sanger has published the same theses in parallel in his user area on Wikipedia (the above link goes to his private website). I had a look at the history^e of the page and that history illustrates some of the very problems of which Sanger writes, including a number of malicious or spurious seeming edits by others, at least one no-debate deletion of the entire page, and at least two “debated” attempts to bring about a deletion (keyword “MfD”). Generally, at least some users seem to be entirely oblivious to the possibility that Wikipedia and/or they personally could be doing something wrong—exactly one of the problems of which Sanger complains. (And an attitude frequent in e.g. Leftist academia and with the likes of Fauci.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   Another issue is when and whether it can at all be justified to edit someone else’s words in this manner (note that this is not a free-for-all Wikipedia page, but a page in Sanger’s private user space, published as his personal opinions). While there is legitimate scope for such edits in exceptional cases (e.g. publication of illegal contents), the bar for such edits must be very high and edits clearly marked as not reflecting the original. Else we can have problems like a reader taking the edit to be the words of the page-owning user, while these words are grossly incompatible with his actual opinions. (This includes the risk of malicious editing in a deliberate attempt to mislead others.)

   ---

6. A particularly interesting parallel is an apparent contempt for founders, founding documents/ideas/principles/whatnot, that well matches the take of many Leftists on the U.S. “founding fathers” and documents like the U.S. constitution. Note e.g. the dubious developments of many Wikipedia policies vs. the fiction of a “living constitution” (or, better, “zombie constitution”).

   ---

   Side-note:

   Unlike the U.S. constitution, Wikipedia does not have a legal framework for how the constitution (resp. its Wikipedia equivalents) should be changed. The abusive and anti-constitutional judicial activism that hides behind the euphemism “living constitution” is, then, not present in the same manner on Wikipedia. The resulting problems are similar, however, and Sanger does make some suggestions for a more formalized process of developing the “constitution” of Wikipedia.

   ---

7. An ongoing problem in society overall is Leftist groups taking over various societal institutions and whatnots that have great leverage (e.g. schools, press, some governmental bureaucracies) and abusing them to push Leftist agendas. Wikipedia is a great example.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Note that this does not require e.g. a concerted action or a conspiracy of some sort. The same result can follow from individual actions accumulated over many independent actors, be they acting deliberately (e.g. in that some individual decides to become a teacher in order to further a “march through the institutions” or to indoctrinate the students) or more incidentally (e.g. in that some naturally tend towards both a certain type of career and a wish to achieve certain Leftist purposes, and that the two tendencies are strongly correlated)—this, especially, when combined with a hostile and intolerant attitude towards those with different ideas, priorities, opinions, whatnot, who might then be driven out.

   ---

8. The topic of consensus and, especially, false consensus and abuse of consensus claims form an important part of Sanger’s text. While his take on consensus does not match mine, I have long been worried about similar issues, including the weak consensus approach of many Wikipedia editors, utterly unscientific claims of what is or is not a scientific consensus (in society at large; at an extreme, it can be argued that the idea of a consensus is anti-scientific—and “argument by consensus” certainly is so), and the way that many (especially, women) seem to have a “consensus for the sake of consensus” mentality.

   Looking at some of the above items, the use of consensus as a quasi-democratic means of running Wikipedia can be a partial explanation for various problems—just like democracy so often goes wrong in the real world, through factors like voter ignorance/stupidity (note the election of the likes of Biden/Starmer/Mamdani), votes by special interest over who/what is the objectively best choice (“Hillary for president—because she is a woman!”), and similar. I suspect that Wikipedia qua democracy is a nut-shell demonstration of democracy problems—remember that democracy is merely the “least evil” form of political governance and might be entirely unsuited in many other cases, e.g. for many business decisions. (But I stress that I have not put in the legwork on Wikipedia and democracy.)

As an aside on formation of opinion, of some relevance to Sanger’s text: My own approach to reading Wikipedia in days gone by included giving the talk pages a thorough reading, not just the article pages. Many of these are empty or contain little of value, but many contain extensive discussions that show aspects of the topic at hand not present in the actual article and/or that give insights into what controversies exist, how editors think, why an article looks like it does, and similar. This can be a goldmine, and has some overlap with Sanger’s ideas about comment functions for articles, alternative articles on the same topic, etc.

Gulf of America, free speech, etc. (2025-11-23)

Earlier discussions have dealt separately with issues like the press spuriously invoking freedom of speech ([1]) and the change from “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America” ([2]; some scrolling might be required). Recent news have included mentions of a legal dispute between AP and Trump, which provides a good illustration of the problems with misunderstanding freedom of speech.

Specifically, in my understanding:

1. Trump has decreed a change of name from “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America”.

   When it comes to U.S. governmental use (and maybe some other types of use) this follows a precedent set by Obama. As, further, AP does not seem to argue against this decree, as such, that matter can be seen as closed.

2. AP argues that it caters to an international audience, that the old name is still more common internationally, and that it, therefore, will stick with the old name.

   This seems reasonable and the use of alternate names are certainly within the realms of free speech. (If with the reservations that the use of alternate names is a source of confusion, the consequences of which the user must carry, and that too inappropriate names are to be avoided. What constitutes “too inappropriate” is beyond the scope of this text.)

   A separate argument favoring AP’s position is that the next Democrat POTUS might very well change the name of the gulf again, leading to uncertainty, repeated need to change style guides, and similar. (Whether AP has raised this argument, I do not know.)

3. Trump is peeved and has reduced press access to AP.

   As discussed in [1], this is his good right. (Even if, should this be the sole reason, his reaction seems childish. Maybe, it is a piece of a bigger puzzle of a hostile press.)

4. AP has gone to court, claiming that such reductions in access would limit free speech and, by the First Amendment, be unconstitutional.

   For reasons discussed in [1], this is a very dubious take. Indeed, in my layman’s eyes, it borders on being a frivolous lawsuit.

   In contrast, had Trump tried to prevent AP from actually speaking or issued some type of punitive fine, AP would have had a much stronger case. Note e.g. how Biden-era government intervention pushed hard to remove dissenting content from online platforms, and how much more dire and how much more damaging that was.

   (Also note that, in defamation disputes with other parties, Trump has not imposed fines using governmental power but sued or threatened to sue in a manner similar to that open to any other private person.)

Follow-up: Colleges and viewpoint diversity vs. freedom of thought, etc. (2025-11-18)

Since writing an entry on topics around viewpoint diversity, I have encountered two separate texts by others dealing with similar questions in light of an absurd condemnation of viewpoint diversity by a Leftist professor. I did not keep a link to the first text, but the second (which triggered my wish for an update) can be found at both Minding the Campus ([1])^e and the author’s substack^e.

The aforementioned condemnation of viewpoint diversity can be found at [2]^e. (Disclaimer: I read it at the time of encountering the first text, maybe a week or so ago, and rely on memory for the below.)

I will not attempt a detailed discussion of [2] (I might have, had I been aware of it at the time of my original entry). Instead, I recommend [1], which gives a number of strong arguments against it. (Without necessarily reflecting my own opinions or preferred argumentation on all subtopics and/or in detail.)

In a big picture, however, I note that [2] (a) has some justification in as far as it attacks results of the “teach the controversy” fallacy, of which I warn in my original entry, (b) goes far beyond what is justified, even beyond the metaphorical mistake of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and proceeds with a line of argumentation that gives great appearance of bad faith. (Alternative, some combination of stupidity, lack of insight, and hypocrisy—possibly, combined with a fallacy fallacy of assuming that any and all arguments against the Leftist take on matters like scientific debate, free speech, whatnot, would base on the “teach the controversy” fallacy and, therefore, be fallacious.)

In particular, [2] fails to consider the more legitimate criticisms and problems that I mentioned (including that it is not primarily lack of viewpoint diversity, but intolerance of dissent, etc., which is the main problem), and seems unable to comprehend that anyone could attack the current problems for any other reason than a nefarious political or ideological agenda—while it is obvious that the Leftist behavior in colleges (on topics like viewpoint diversity, free speech, etc.) is it self often steeped in a nefarious political or ideological agenda. (The Left does love to reverse the accusation. I limit my claim to “often”, because many cases might go back to e.g. stupidity.)

A particular danger with the “teach the controversy” fallacy is that it can serve to distract from serious and intelligent debate in favor of texts like [2] and that it can give the Left easy ammunition, which makes it all the more important to follow a line similar to the one from my original entry.

Remarks on the conclusion of U.S. shutdown (2025-11-13)

The U.S. shutdown (cf. several earlier entries) is over, after a record length and with a non-trivial probability of a renewed shutdown once the new “continuing resolution” expires end of January and/or at a later date.

A few further comments:

1. Who won?

   Likely, no one. In the sum, this appears to have been a pointless and destructive waste of time, if with the provision that it shows that government is overrated and gives some pointers on where future course changes can be beneficial, e.g. in improvements and reductions to SNAP (cf. earlier entries), e.g. as to whether it makes sense to have air-traffic controllers on the government’s payroll and/or whether air-traffic controllers might be given some special financing regulation to decrease the risk of disproportionate “collateral damage” on the overall economy.

   The Democrats appear to have been given a concession in that a separate vote for ObamaCare subsidies will follow, but, absent an agreement from the Republicans to actually vote in favor, this might amount to nothing. (And I sincerely hope that the subsidies go. Note an earlier entry on ObamaCare subsidies and the following item.)

2. A significant problem was the Democrat abuse of the process to push for ObamaCare subsidies. (According to some, also highly unethical attempts to give free health-care to illegal aliens; however, I have not verified this.)

   Such problems could be greatly reduced by ensuring that bills for continuing resolutions truly are reduced to matters of immediate financing, with no possibility to add extraneous contents. In particular, no such bill should be allowed to add further costs on top of what applied before the expiry of its predecessor (or other financing agreement) minus independently expiring costs (of which the ObamaCare subsidies are an example). A continuing resolution is for continuing something—not to e.g. push through some wishlist.

   To prevent deals that involve separate bills might be hard or impossible, but a reduction to immediate financing would at least be likely to reduce the problems and/or to make abuse of process more obvious. It might also be beneficial to focus on more targeted voting, e.g. in that financing for A is up for vote in one small bill and for B in another, for C in a third, etc.

   A secondary benefit is that smaller bills make it easier for members of Congress to actually know for what they are voting and to make informed decisions. (A focus on smaller bills that deal with fewer issues might be a very good thing much more generally and well outside the issue of continuing resolutions.)

3. An issue in the bigger picture is the filibuster, including that reducing the filibuster further (which was ultimately not necessary) gives more power, here and now, to the party currently in charge but at a cost of more power for the opposing party down the line. (Generally; not restricted to the current situation.)

   Moreover, while the filibuster is a bit of an historical accident and a poor means of achieving a certain safe-guard, that safe-guard is positive—to make it harder for government to pass decisions on questionable or controversial issues, to extend government interference with the people, and similar.

   Now, this safe-guard works because the government is disproportionately more likely to increase than decrease taxes, to increase than decrease handouts, to increase than decrease regulation, etc. The filibuster is symmetrical in that it applies in both directions, but becomes a safe-guard because the metaphorical travel is largely one-way and largely in the wrong direction. (The Trump era is a partial exception, where attempts are actually made to travel in the right direction. Also note my call for constitutionally guaranteed small government.)

   A better and more targeted approach would be to remove the filibuster and to put in a more official “traffic control”, in that that certain decisions (e.g. to raise taxes) require a qualified majority, while others (e.g. to lower taxes) only require a simple majority. (Exactly what decisions should require a qualified majority and how large the qualified majority is to be, how to prevent a continual hollowing out paralleling the hollowing out of the filibuster, and other details, is beyond the scope of this text.)

   Such a targeted approach might also reduce the risk of bartering relative the filibuster as well as remove the waste of time that goes hand in hand with the filibuster.

4. Whether the length of the shutdown related to election day (cf. earlier remarks) remains unclear. Based on the timing, factoring in various natural delays in going from point A to point B, it seems plausible; however, the timing remains within what is explainable by coincidence—the more so, as the change in the overall voting pattern in Congress was small. A particular complication is that there might have been some few individual Democrat congressmen who wanted to stop the shutdown but “held out” until after the elections, without there being any bigger Democrat scheme.

   A more interesting question might be to what degree the shutdown affected outcomes on election day. To judge that, however, would require investigations that I am not in a place to make. Two important sub-issues are (a) to what degree the electorate saw the shutdown as a “Democrat” (correct) or a “Republican” one, (b) to what degree the temporary disturbance in income and living conditions affected the outcomes. To the latter, reporting points to questions around “affordability” as unusually important this time around—and votes based on such criteria do not necessarily give proper consideration to questions like “Who caused what?” and “Who is more likely to improve matters for the future?”. Indeed, Mamdami, e.g., is far more likely to make New York less affordable than more affordable. Indeed, a recurring risk with Leftist policies is that they prevent growth, drive up living costs, or otherwise cause hardship, which paradoxically makes many weaker thinkers more likely to vote Left.

   In a next step, chances are that this (and any further/future shutdowns) will hurt the natural development of the “Trump economy”, which, as with the crash caused by the COVID countermeasures, could give a misleading impression and/or lead voters concerned with topics like “affordability” to poor voting choices, which would play into the hands of the Democrats.

5. Seguing from the previous item, we have the issue of the damage done the economy per se. (As opposed to the consequences of the damage to voting that might result from damage to the economy.)

   I will restrict myself to two sub-issues, namely:

   Firstly, a difference between a government and a business: If a business shuts down temporarily, this means an interruption of value-creating activities, which in turns means less revenue and profits, a risk of loss of market share, employees who are still contractually entitled to wages/salaries but now perform no work, etc.—as well as a potential societal loss through a reduction in product/service/whatnot supply. Government? Well, a shutdown can have a negative effect on tax revenue but not one as drastic and obvious-to-observers as with the business and its regular revenue; the government has a monopoly and will also see a loss of market share if there is shutdown-driven emigration (likely to be very small); the point of the shutdown is largely to not have to pay employees, receivers of hand-outs, whatnot.; etc.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Government activities rarely create value. On the contrary, they are quite likely to destroy value through factors like the costs of running a low-productivity bureaucracy. Generally, most of the activities of a modern government amount to taking money from the one (mostly, a tax-payer) and giving to the other (a receiver of handouts, a receiver of a governmental salary, a contractor for the government, whatnot), which merely redistributes existing value (created by someone else) while incurring various overheads—and often very large overheads.

   (To which more indirect factors, including distorted incentives, can be added.)

   ---

   Secondly, the situation does have some similarity with the destructive type of striking in which many unions engage (especially, for some years now, in Germany). The Democrats (prior) refusal to pass a continuing resolution unless there are further ObamaCare subsidies parallels a strike for higher wages by a union—including that the one is likely to hurt the overall economy, leading to less money to go around for the government (including for ObamaCare), and the other the business prospects of the employer, leading to less money to go around for the business (including for wage raises). As there (for now, knock on wood) were no further ObamaCare subsidies resulting from the strike, there was not even an upside for the Democrats to compensate for the damage...

   ---

   Side-note:

   For more on unions and strikes, see e.g. a page centered on unions.

   ---

6. A minor negative with the resumption of financing is that the SNAP lawsuits are unlikely to progress, which removes the possibility of a clarification by the SCOTUS and makes future chaos, controversy, and whatnot more likely. (Cf. earlier entries.)

BBC and the doctored Trump speech (2025-11-11)

Recent news has figured the revelation that the BBC has aired a doctored version of a Trump speech, geared at creating the impression that he was indeed inciting a riot or, even, an insurrection during the events of J6—while, in reality, he called for peaceful protests.

Considering the repeated similar revelations in recent times, it should be manifestly obvious to anyone that neither can partisan news sources be trusted, nor is “evidence” in digital, video, audio, whatnot form reliable. If in doubt, the ability to outright “deep fake” even a video is now or is likely to soon be sufficient (depending on the perpetrator) that virtually anything can be brought to a screen—regardless of veracity. The BBC has certainly shot an own goal, as its persistent denial of manifestly present pro-Left bias has lost much credibility.

An interesting question is how many have seen such distortions, be it by BBC or someone else, and taken them at face value—and what effect this has had on public opinion. Notably, with the many Leftists who are stubbornly stuck in their echo chambers, there might be a great many who have genuinely and for-a-good-seeming-reason believed that Trump did call for riots/insurrection, based on such falsified evidence, while remaining ignorant of what those outside the echo chambers knew from other sources—that he called for peaceful protests.

Another question is whether we are moving from an era where the Left and/or its messengers simply lie about what others said (what positions they take, whether they are or are not e.g. racist, etc.) and to one where they instead aim to falsify convincing-seeming evidence suitable for TV broadcasts and the like. (Or whether we would be at the risk of such a move without sufficient counter-measures from the likes of Trump—a scandal here and a one-billion-dollar lawsuit there can be strong deterrents.)

At the same time, there is nothing new under the sun. For instance, in terms of deep fakes, “Forest Gump” was made more than 30 years ago and had convincing-to-the-layman scenes e.g. of Forest shaking hands with Nixon. For instance, in terms of propaganda falsification, the Soviet Union was known for the oddity of various persons disappearing from photos long after they were taken. (In an interesting reversal of the insertion of Forest into archive films.) Indeed, fakes like the BBC one require less technological excellence than they do a lack of morals. I can e.g. recall seeing examples of Soviet propaganda in some TV documentary, which included a cross-country ski race cut to give the impression of great excitement and a near win for the Soviet competitor, while the reality had been quite different. (My watching might have been in the early 1990s, so I cannot give any details.)

Some notes on recent U.S. legal battles, the shutdown, and tariffs (2025-11-07)

A recurring recent issue is courts involving themselves in the government shutdown, notably with orders to continue SNAP payments (also see some earlier entries for more on the shutdowns and/or SNAP).

Firstly, to me, this seems very dubious on its face, because it amounts to an involvement of the judicial branch in matters of the legislative branch (which has to reach some type of funding agreement) and the executive branch (which has to make the best of a bad situation until such a funding agreement has been reached) and in a manner that is hard to defend. There should be clear rules for what does or does not happen and what leeway the executive does or does not have during a shutdown. If there are not, it is the job of the legislative branch, not the judicial, to provide them. A court involvement would only be reasonable if these rules were violated, in need of interpretation, or in need of enforcement. As best as I can tell, this is not the case here. (But I make the disclaimer that I have not studied the respective judicial proceedings.)

Secondly, such involvement brings a very great risk (of which I have also warned in the past), namely, that different courts come to so different conclusions that an impossible situation arises. Even looking just at SNAP, we could at some stage have had the one judge demand that payments for single mothers be given priority over all other receivers, while another demands that payments for Blacks be given that priority. Throwing a wider net, there is nothing magical about SNAP, and we might have one judge demand that SNAP payments be continued with whatever contingency/emergency/whatnot funds are available—and another that some other area be given priority. (E.g. salaries to some group of governmental employees.) Or what if some court declares that these contingency funds are off limit for SNAP? At an extreme, someone could have declared that government was obliged to continue all payments—period. (Maybe, in the guise of everything-must-continue-as-before-until-the-next-continuing-resolution-is-reached.)

Another big current law issue is Trump’s tariffs, which has reached the SCOTUS. First impressions show a considerable skepticism from the justices, because tariffs would be taxes and the power of taxation rests with Congress. While I will not attempt to analyze that issue, it does give me an excuse to discuss a difference between wanting and wishing, between what the law is and what we wish the law to be, and how judicial activism results when wishes are given priority or wants and wishes coincide too strongly. (Where I use the noun “want” so that “want” as noun and verb parallels “wish” as noun and verb.)

I want the justices to come to a conclusion that reflects the actual law, the actual precedence, whatnot. I wish that they will come down in favor of Trump on this issue. (With the combined implication that I wish that the actual law, etc., is in favor of Trump.)

Should the justices go against my wish, I will be disappointed, but I must live with that. Should they go against my want, I have real reason to be angry on top of being disappointed. (Not because matters would go contrary to what I want, but because this want matches the duty of the court.) Indeed, I have such reason even if my wish were to come true. (But with the important reservation that detecting a deviation from my wish is easy, while it might be hard to detect a deviation from my want.)

Likewise, I understand that if the law does not match my preferences, this is a matter for the legislative branch to correct (or not correct)—not for the judicial branch and, in particular and had I been a judge/justice, not for me personally.

Exactly this is where judicial activists go wrong: They wish for a certain outcome and/or for the law to say something—and they are willing to abuse their power to make it so. (This can be given a formulation of the type “they want the outcome to match their wish instead of the law” or similar.)

Asymmetric reporting in Germany (2025-11-05)

An interesting indication of how Left dominated, propagandist, and/or ignorant/incompetent the German press is, is how, on the one hand, the victory of far-Left nutcase Mamdami is reported in terms of e.g. “Democrat Mamdami”, while the murder of Charlie Kirk was reported in terms of e.g. “far-Right speaker”, which turns matters on their head. Not only is the extremist trivialized by description by party association and the non-extremist painted as extremist, but the one is mentioned by name and the other by (for want of a better word) vocation. This matches a recurring pattern of asymmetric reporting.

To names, note that only a small proportion of Germans are likely to have any idea of who Mamdani is beyond what they might have read in the last few days, maybe even just today, implying that a juxtaposition “unknown campus speaker” vs. “internationally renowned politician” do not apply in the slightest. Go back to before the recent campaigns and it was a very, very small proportion. Even I would have had no recollection of the name at, say, this time last year, while I had at least a vague awareness of Kirk at the time. (I cannot give a more detailed time frame than that, but chances are that it can be made much smaller than that whole year.) In a similar contrast, George Floyd was virtually immediately identified by name, while being utterly and entirely unknown even to the U.S. population (outside friends, family, whatnot) before his death.

To “Democrat” and variations thereof, there is the additional complication that this is typically translated into the German “Demokrat” (and variations), which opens further doors for confusion as to whether a member of a party or a proponent of democracy is intended. With the already great ignorance of the average voter greatly increased by the move to foreign politics, there is a large risk that some readers interpret this to imply “democracy-proponent Mamdani won (and someone anti-democratic lost—yay!)”, which is not at all what happened. (The Democrats do not appear to give two shits about democracy and, to boot, the main competitor in the race, Cuomo, was another Democrat.)

The horror of Mamdani (2025-11-05)

The results of yesterday’s U.S. elections appear to be largely finalized—and highly disappointing.

A particular horror is the election of Mamdani as mayor of New York, which shows the bottomless stupidity and ignorance of all too many voters. Not only is he an outspoken Leftist extremist, anti-Semite, and whatnot, but he has promised actions that are set to do far more harm than good to New York and its citizens. Anyone who understands the matters at hands knows this, the hurdle for such understanding is low enough that a high-school graduate should have it, and sufficiently many have warned strongly and publicly against them that even complete ignorants should have been vary. (Even Cuomo, himself someone too far to the Left, has raised objections!) Even the likes of Newsom look moderate in comparison. This is a matter that goes well beyond merely having broadly Democrat vs. broadly Republican priorities—we are talking a complete train wreck.

If he actually implements such actions, New York will fall even further relative the rest of the U.S. The main hope at the moment, for New York, is that political realities prevent him from doing so; for the rest of the U.S., that his failures give sufficient warning to voters elsewhere to avoid the errors of New York.

To make matters worse, New York comes off a mayor, Adams, who also was an obviously poor choice—the best that can be said of him is well-short-of-Mamdani. The one before that, Blasio, can at least be understood as someone consistent with Democrat voting, as opposed to loony-Left voting, but was also someone harmful. Moreover, New York has a long history of misguided Leftist policies, including crime-furthering nonsense and the extremely destructive rent controls that have hampered the city for decades, which have given plenty of opportunity to learn the right lessons—an opportunity obviously not taken.

There is also a disturbing parallel with Joe Biden, who, while nowhere near as extreme, was set to be one of the worst presidents in U.S. history if elected, based on policies proposed, low competence, budding senility, and an affirmative-action running mate—and he spent four years proving his critics right. Anyone with an understanding of politics could tell this in advance, many warned in public, and he was still elected.

Vetting visa applicants by social-media (2025-11-04)

A recent Minding the Campus text ([1])^e, deals with U.S. social-media vetting of visa applicants and foul cries about e.g. limitations on freedom of speech (presumably, mostly from Leftists); and has some overlap with yesterday’s entry on Grokipedia, Wikipedia, and the decline of the Internet.

With two important reservations, these cries are out of line: Inspecting speech is not a limitation on speech, what a user has chosen to speak about in a public forum must be viewed as open to analysis, and any country has a legitimate interest in being restrictive with visas to e.g. potential terrorists. If (!) there are problems with the approach, they are only indirectly related to speech (via some “chilling effect”, but one dwarfed by various Leftist chicanery), while angles like right to privacy would be more natural. (From another angle, concerns might be raised about matters like costs vs. benefits, but that is off topic for today.)

The first reservation, obviously, is the risk for abuse of similar ideas by other parties, e.g. in that a later Democrat government might chose to prevent vocal, but peaceful, non-Leftists from entering. However, such abuse would be equally likely or unlikely to take place regardless of what the current Trump administration does. Moreover, non-Leftists of some importance are already vulnerable to such issues, even social media aside, because they usually have published books, held speeches, or otherwise created a “public record” (for want of a better phrasing) outside of social media. Here, as so often elsewhere, it is important not what general approaches are taken but for what reason, as when someone like me applies an “evil is as evil does” view and wishes to stop terrorists vs. when a Leftist decides that some particular opinion is evil and that anyone holding or expressing that opinion must be denied a visa, the right to speak, or similar. (Generally, while some actions might be absolutely wrong or too dangerous as precedents, most others depend on the “why”, e.g. in that locking someone up for the “wrong” opinion is unconscionable but not for having committed a felony.)

The second (and my motivation for this text) is that such inspections must be limited to what is freely published and publicly available. By analogy, I have no objections to any government reading and forming opinions about me based on what I publish on this website. (Apart from severe doubts as to whether this would be a good use of government resources and strong suspicions that some nefarious purpose, beyond reading and forming opinions, and beyond legitimate causes like filtering out terrorists among visa applicants, would be involved.) However, if the government were to spy on, say, my private communications, my as yet unpublished writings, or otherwise intrude upon my right to privacy, this is a very, very different matter—regardless of the reason.

Exactly this turns out to be a problem. however, as [1] claims that visa applicants are asked to turn all their social-media profiles public, which effectively nullifies the division between the private and the public. This part is not OK. The same in other settings is equally not OK, e.g. if a prospective employer would demand access to social media or when schools demand (as some have) that students hand out the actual passwords (!!!) to their accounts.

Looking at the comments (one, at my time of reading), “Dr. Ed” points to a risk of public profiles being a help to child molesters and suggests a new security setting of “Homeland Security” as a better option. This is likely to be highly ill-advised, because it raises questions about what other countries might want the same access and how to solve that, which will likely degenerate into a state of governments having very free access, regardless of settings, or of poking hole in security, because a too freely used such setting will open doors for intruders. (By analogy, the “TSA” locks on travel bags are in so far useless that the corresponding keys soon became available on the Internet as instructions for 3D printers.) Private is private, public is public, and so it must remain, without fiddling and special rules for governments.

Further observations around the U.S. government shutdown / ObamaCare / SNAP (2025-11-04)

Almost a month has passed since a previous entry on the U.S. government shutdown—and the shutdown is still ongoing, reaching a record length.

Some suggest that the Democrats are deliberately extending the shutdown to reach “election day”, i.e. today, in order to motivate their supporters and/or to trick the gullible into an anti-Trump vote in non-Trump elections. (If so, something truly despicable.) In a day or so, we will have some idea of whether they were correct.

A more significant point in the big picture is how events prove how problematic big government/the nanny state is and how important it is to seek a true long term solution by reductions to saner levels. There are at least two major issues (and, likely, many smaller) that demonstrate this:

Firstly, the insistence of the Democrats on extended subsidies for ObamaCare—subsidies that are predominantly needed or “needed”, because the approach of ObamaCare (“the unaffordable care act”) is fundamentally flawed and have given further poor incentives in a system that already had an incentive problem, while simultaneously pretending to solve a problem of healthcare costs by “The government will pay! Yay!” and failing to address the great problem of undue costs. The failure of ObamaCare was not only predictable but outright predicted by a great many observers. Now is the time for the Democrats to stop pretending that it would be a great boon for the people, to admit its disastrous failure, and to work for a transition into a saner system. Throwing on continued subsidies in order to cover up the failure is not only irresponsible but unconscionable. (The more so as it can also be easily predicted that such subsidies will be extended not only in time but, in the long term, in amount per person and number of persons subsidized, unless/until a true change is pushed through.)

Secondly, the issue of SNAP (“food stamps”): It appears that around one in eight are currently receiving such support, many over very prolonged time intervals. There is no reasonable justification for such an extensive program in a country as rich as the U.S. If, say, one in eighty received support, this might be reasonable. With one in eight, we have proof of a systematic problem that, similar to ObamaCare (if not necessarily for the same reasons), must be fixed. Firstly, chances are that only a minority of those one in eight actually need the support, and instead just see it as free money and/or have a pseudo-need because the combination of various support programs have given them enough incentives to not look for enough work on their own. (Also note the fundamental difference between “needs” and “relies on”.) Secondly, in as far as such support is needed to something even close to the scale of one in eight, this shows underlying problems of different types.

Grokipedia, Wikipedia, and the decline of the Internet (2025-11-03)

I have been in two minds about writing something about Grokipedia—an attempt by Elon Musk to provide a better alternative to the Left-dominated and (at least, on political topics) often very unbalanced and distorting Wikipedia.

On the one hand, I favor the attempt. The more so, as several other attempts with lesser backing have not panned out as hoped (e.g. InfoGalactic^e), while Wikipedia has grown worse and worse. On the other, my brief experiments to date have not left me enthusiastic (but keep in mind that Grokipedia is still taking its infant steps and that my experiences might become rapidly outdated). Negatives include problems with at all reaching the site, search functionality that does not seem to work without JavaScript, a worse-than-Wikipedia page layout (with reservations for browser used; I have only tested it with my default of w3m), and several odd misses when trying to access pages directly by URL. (For instance, https://grokipedia.com/page/Grokipedia^e would by reasonable expectation have shown the Grokipedia page for Grokipedia, but, at the time of writing, this page either does not exist or is found elsewhere. In contrast, https://grokipedia.com/page/Wikipedia^e does show the Grokipedia page for Wikipedia.)

At the moment, Grokipedia is not in a position to deliver (but I hope for great things in the future). However, earlier today, I encountered a very interesting read concerning the rise and fall of Wikipedia^e on Brownstone, which brought my mind back to my more general frustration with the Internet.

Notably, there are many great promises of the Internet that were once true but have since reversed in the opposite, seemed to be becoming true but have since reversed, were hoped for but have either not manifested or have seen the reverse come true. While many of my complaints in this direction relate to non-political issues (cf. e.g. [1]), there are many political issues involved, including that “rise and fall of Wikipedia”. However, consider how the Internet seemed to be a great source of freedom of speech and is now increasingly a place for only strictly controlled speech or something of a honeypot, where those who do attempt to engage in free speech are caught in the traps of ideologically driven governmental agencies. (Note e.g. [2], quite a few other examples, and countless examples that I have not mentioned.) Or consider the original anonymity or near-anonymity of the Internet, which is often replaced with users tracked by various and sundry in great detail—and where malicious government have implemented or proposed strong legal limits (notably, exactly to reduce free speech).

Wikipedia, then, is just one piece of a bigger puzzle of deterioration—and Grokipedia a very welcome countermeasure. We can only hope that Grokipedia actually pans out and that it is joined by more alternatives to current services or “services” that are either politically neutral or take a stand against various Leftist idiocies.

Colleges and viewpoint diversity vs. freedom of thought, etc. (2025-10-28)

A common complaint among Conservative debaters in the U.S. and on sites like Minding the Campus^e is that colleges lack “viewpoint diversity” (by that or some other name) by having a dominance of “Liberal” professors and/or otherwise being Left-dominated.

This portion of the criticism of U.S. colleges is at least partially misguided and is partially a parallel to the “teach the controversy” fallacy concerning Creationism. (With the critical difference that it is the metaphorical Creationists and, with an eye at the below, metaphorical Geocentrists that dominate colleges.)

The more important point is not whether colleges have a diversity of viewpoints, but whether differing viewpoints are accepted/rejected/critiqued/criticized/whatnot based on their merits or based on spurious criteria like conformance with a Leftist and/or a government-approved dogma/narrative/whatnot.

Consider various takes on Geo-/Heliocentrism, the shape of the planetary orbits, and similar: Today, any college would be adamant about the sun being (the approximate) center of the solar system, the planets moving more or less elliptically, etc.—and no one proposing spherical orbits + epicycles around the earth would be taken seriously. That there is little “viewpoint diversity” in this area is not a problem, because the one set of opinions has won “on the merits”. On the other hand, it would be a major problem if someone came in with a further refinement and that refinement was rejected and mistreated in the dogmatic way that e.g. the ideas of Galileo were by the Catholic Church.

Exactly such problems abound in U.S. colleges, however: Those with the “wrong” political, ideological, and/or politics adjacent opinions stand a risk of not being hired/promoted, of receiving disparate treatment in grading, of being shunned, even of being exposed to violence, etc.—and this even on questions where the evidence favors Conservative/Libertarian/whatnot viewpoints, where the matter is inherently subjective or a matter of personal priorities, where e.g. a Leftist professor is manifestly not driven by scientific motivations but by some private agenda or an ideological fanaticism, whatnot. (A good recurring example is the popularity of the outdated and long debunked “nurture only” belief, which is implicitly at the core of much Leftist policy and ideology. Moving away from “nurture only” would cause the Leftist house of cards to crash down.)

I do not rule out that a lack of current viewpoint diversity as such can also be a problem (when it comes to e.g. politics, but not when it comes to Geo-/Heliocentrism), but even a Left-dominated college environment would be far less of a problem if differing views were tolerated, debated on their merits, etc. If in doubt, there is always the option of going to other sources and older literature for other viewpoints—just like someone, even today, can read the works of medieval or classical astronomers (in as far as they are preserved).

Indeed, here we see the depth of the problem with current colleges: There are deliberate attempts to stamp out such other sources and such older literature, to pretend that other voices do not exist or are inherently “evil” (e.g. through, usually entirely unfounded, accusations of “racism” or “White supremacism”)—much like the medieval church did with some opinions deemed heresy. Students should not only not debate opposing ideas on the merits—they should be kept from exposure to such ideas at all. (Unless in a much caricatured form intended to “prove” how “evil”, “unenlightened”, or similar they are.)

The Left, the mote, and the beam (2025-10-19)

Looking at the previous entry, the contents show potential examples of how the Left often obsesses about the mote in someone else’s eye while overlooking the beam in its own.

For another example, consider censorship in various forms: The Left has a long history of trying to prevent the reading of “unwanted” materials entirely—something that I probably first encountered in a U.S. context with the (highly misguided) controversy around “The Bell Curve” in the 1990s. (Earlier U.S. examples are likely to exist; earlier non-U.S. examples, e.g. in the USSR, are plentiful.) This includes outright censorship; refusals to sell certain books in bookstores (even when demand is present); various types of reprisals that chill speech (and potentially preempt writing and publishing of such materials—and might e.g. cause a bookstore to not carry an existing book); misleading labeling with “racist”, “sexist”, whatnot (often by those who have not even read the work at hand) to deter potential readers and buyers; and, over the last years, increasing “fact checks” that do less to check facts and more to check conformance with Leftist dogma. In parallel, we have attempts to re-write children’s books (the age aspect will shortly be relevant) to fit Leftist ideas and/or a modern worldview, to not include the “wrong” words, etc.

Nevertheless, every now and then, I hear some Leftist group shrieking about evil Rightwing censorship, how free speech is being suppressed, and whatnot—because some book or other is deemed unsuitable for a school library. Nothing more; nothing less. Just a book being deemed unsuitable for a school library. This while the book is still published, is still available in non-school libraries, can still be found in bookstores, etc.

This is the more demented as there might well be books that are unsuitable for children without any ideological, political, or whatnot angle. To boot, there might be issues like literary value, budget priorities, and other factors that can affect what is bought by the library regardless of what might be a suitable reading age.

For instance, if a school tops out at third grade, could a book like “50 Shades of Grey” be considered even remotely suitable for children that age? Something that any library should waste money on when there are so many better and/or more-relevant-to-education books to read?

For instance, will any of the kids (or the average teacher...) in that school be able to understand books on calculus or works like Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”? Would it not be better to buy something from which the kids actually can benefit? (Note that I would consider these very welcome additions, bordering on “must haves”, to any high-school library.)

For instance, should any school library (maybe, any non-specialist library) carry books on how to make IEDs?

To boot, in as far as demands to remove books from a school library come from the non-Left, it is usually because these books try to push a Leftist agenda on the children in an artificial manner. There is a world of difference between, say, removing a book intended to indoctrinate young children into a Whites-are-evil worldview and one that attempts to objectively discuss an issue like early U.S. slavery.

Similarly, there is a massive problem with suppression of speech, threats of violence or actual violence, shunning, mistreatment by professors, whatnot directed at e.g. Republicans and by Leftists on U.S. colleges. Ditto, since the October 7 massacres, of Jews by Leftists, even when the Jews have no real connection with Israel, let alone the Israeli government. Nevertheless, every now and then, I hear shrieking Leftists complain about how some comparatively minor infringement on the Left by some Republican would be a horrible crime. (Usually, with not one shred of proof provided; often, with no more than a vague claim of “feeling threatened” or “feeling uncomfortable”, and no justification for why this feeling arose.) For instance, after the Kirk murder, there have been repeated complaints that TPUSA would somehow intimidate students or professors—and therefore must be banned from campus. Well, even ignoring the lack of both proof and details, this would be a drop in the ocean compared to the massive Leftist problems in the other direction. And, oh, yes, a slight detail: Charlie Kirk was murdered by a deranged Leftist shit. He was not just threatened, defamed, or whatnot—he was outright murdered. Beam–mote.

Similarly, the Left engages in large-scale actual physical violence, including against dissenters, including against innocent store owners (at least, during riots), including against police officers—sometimes, as with Kirk, with an intent to kill. But when someone else uses the “wrong” pronoun, it is an act of violence...

Etc.

No Kings, March for Science, etc. (2025-10-19)

The “No Kings” protests exemplify Leftist ignorance and the great number of useful idiots in a tragic manner—as do much of the post-Biden rhetoric and distortions in general.

Allegedly, these protests are aimed at countering an “authoritarian takeover” (or some such) by Trump. However, the fact is that it was the Biden regime that attempted an authoritarian takeover, trampled human rights, tried to weaken democracy, curtailed free speech, whatnot. Likewise, looking at the 20th century, it was predominantly Democrats who pushed for more executive power, more federal power at the cost of the states, and generally pushed for variations of “big government” and centralized control. Likewise, it is the modern Left and the modern Democrats who move against the ideals of the founding fathers, by whom the principle that the POTUS is no king was established. This to the point that e.g. the U.S. constitution and a constitutionalist approach to its interpretation (which should be a given) is condemned as “White supremacist”. Etc.

Indeed, much of what Trump does is aimed at reducing the power of the government and/or the executive, as with the reduction of government bureaucracy and government interference with the citizens. Some acts, including attempts to hold those accountable who tried to impose government censorship or engage in lawfare during the Biden years, have a very direct aspect of protecting the people and/or democracy from governmental overreach.

In turn, much of what Trump has been most strongly criticized for, including deportation of illegal immigrants and alleged overreach relative the states (notably, by using the national guard to restore order) goes back to an abject Democrat failure: A core task of the government is to uphold the law, protect the borders, and, generally, to perform “night-watchman” duties. The likes of Biden and Newsom have neglected these duties in a horrifying manner and it is not wrong for Trump to intervene and ensure that their failures are countered when relevant to the federation. On the contrary, he has an own duty to do so.

Similar applies to the earlier “March(es) for Science”, which seemed geared at leveling Leftist accusations that Trump and/or the Republicans would, in some abstruse sense, be unscientific. In reality, it is the Left which pushes an anti-scientific agenda, including a destruction of the social sciences, attempts to infect even STEM education with gender-this-and-Whiteness-that agendas, rejects established economics in favor of what fits the Leftist agenda, pushes the long debunked “nurture only” myth, etc. Indeed, the later COVID-countermeasure era showed a gross prioritization of the “right” narrative over proper science by the Left and the likes of Fauci.

This is the more annoying as I, when I first heard about a “March for Science”, took it for granted that a point had come where science proponents would finally get their asses out of their respective couches to take a stand against gender studies and other pseudo- or outright anti-scientific problems. (My disappointment was grave when I learned the truth. With hindsight, I should have known better, in light of how such marches tend to be Leftist publicity stunts.)

Gaza peace deal II (2025-10-19)

In the interim, I have encountered various claims that make Hamas and the Israel-is-evil narrative look even shadier, including that Hamas would now be murdering Palestinians for allegations of having “collaborated” with Israel and be engaged in violent fights with other Palestinian groupings, that claims of a famine would be misleading, that most aid allowed into Gaza would be looted and/or confiscated by powerful groups, and that various aid stations would see a high death toll among Palestinians coming for aid (without any Israeli involvement). None of this is necessarily surprising (for instance, it is well known to anyone who pays attention that Hamas is a murderous bunch and that foreign aid and whatnot, generally and by no means limited to Gaza, tends to be misappropriated), but it does raise the possibility that more and more eyes are opened to how problematic Hamas is and how distorting the anti-Israel propaganda has been.

(I have not kept sources, but the prompt for this entry was encountering [1]^e, which covers some of this ground, earlier today.)

Gaza peace deal (2025-10-09)

While I have not made a study of the details of the deal (and likely will not in the future), I have great misgivings based on the surface reporting, as the peace deal implies that the war is ended before the most important objective of that war was reached, viz. the extermination of the hateful and genocidal terrorist organization Hamas. To boot, there seems to be yet another case of Israel paying a disproportionate price in terms of exchanges of prisoners, likely to not only put great numbers of terrorists back on the street but giving Hamas et al. great future incentives to take further hostages.

To say that the war has been in vain, and all that came with it, would be to go too far. Certainly, much has been reached in terms of setting Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran back. However, weeds grow back fast, the Hamas still exists, ditto Hezbollah, and the temporary hopes of a toppling of the Iranian regime have not come true.

At the same time, Leftist and Islamist hate propaganda has been able to push that noxious “Israel is evil” angle, based on both distorted reporting and cheap stunts like the Global Sumud/Greta Thunberg Flotilla, causing a rise in anti-Israel and anti-Jew sentiment, and, among other things, leading to ideologically driven recognitions of Palestine that reward Hamas and limit future options in the region.

(An indirect positive might be that the war has exposed how common and strong anti-Semitism is in many Leftist groups, but whether that will be of much future use is still to be seen.)

Observations around U.S. government shutdowns (2025-10-07)

One of the major current sources of news is the ongoing, partial, U.S. government shutdown, rooted in another failure to pass a “reconciliation bill”.

A few somewhat general observations:

1. The word “partial” is important and its absence from most discussions is unfortunate, because an impression of a complete government shutdown is created.

   Even on the federal level, there is still considerable activity performed, and many expenses being met, in areas that cannot be shut down. To boot, it truly is the federal level that is affected, not e.g. the state level. (With reservations for any constellation where the state draws on temporarily blocked federal money.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   In more of a quibble, it can be debated whether “U.S.” in context implies “federal”, whether “federal” needs to be separately stated, and/or whether we can just leave it at “partial” without mentioning of “federal”. (A mention of “U.S.” is important on this website, but not necessarily elsewhere, to specify the country at hand.)

   ---

2. Such issues occur quite often in the U.S. but not, or only very rarely, in other countries where I have sufficient exposure to political news (most notably, Sweden and Germany). This raises the question of whether the U.S. system is in need of a general change—or, as a counterpoint and depending on how pros and cons are viewed, whether the other countries are.

   (I have not looked into such pros and cons in more than a superficial manner and express no deeper opinion.)

3. By and large, I consider it better (within the current U.S. system) to allow shutdowns than to just pass a bill, no matter its contents, for the sake of avoiding the shutdown. This the more so, for the party in opposition.

4. An unfortunate side-effect, however, is that extortion scenarios can easily occur, where an opposition party demands additional handouts or whatnots in order to allow the bill to pass. Likewise, even absent extortion, that the bill might need sufficient padding to satisfy sufficiently many throughout both parties.

   The result can be that what should be viewed as a sign to cut spending actually results in an artificial increase in spending.

5. And, of course, the proper solution to “we have run out of money for the umpteenth time” is not to, for that umpteenth time, borrow more and more or to print more and more money. The solution is to cut costs to ensure that the government “lives within its means”—just like an individual citizen, a family of four, a business, whatnot, has to. Had the U.S. government not become so ridiculously bloated, financing problems would be far less likely and/or have a far lesser effect. (To boot, if government dealt with just the essentials, there would be a far lesser risk of disagreement between parties about what makes a suitable bill, should the need still arise.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   This with two reservations:

   Firstly, an individual citizen (etc.) has the option to try to earn more money. This is a very legitimate road (assuming some additional constraints, e.g. that the means of earning are legal) and might even be for the good of overall society. If (!) the government could do the same, that too might be legitimate. Government income, however, is almost invariably “other people’s money”—and often in a manner that would be viewed as theft or other crime if an individual citizen tried a variation of the same. Borrowing is an exception to theft, but still differs significantly, in that the individual citizen is still responsible for what he has borrowed and will either have to repay or go into bankruptcy. (Barring some exceptions, e.g. death, that cannot, or can only in truly exceptional cases, apply to governments.) Governments, on the other hand, have a position of power that allows them to borrow ever and ever more, while the politicians currently holding the reins lack own responsibility and can rely on the problem being handed over to a new set of politicians, who in turn will not solve the problem but, some years later, just pass the buck (live hand-grenade) down the line to the next set.

   Secondly, excessive government interference can remove or reduce such issues for an individual citizen (etc.) too, creating flawed incentives and similar problems as with the government on another level—while giving an excuse for ever more government spending... (Note the difference between helping the one who truly cannot manage and the one who is just lazy, the one who is in trouble once and the one who is in trouble again and again, the one who wants to learn how to fish and the one who wants a fish, etc.)

   ---

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   Side-note:

   It appears that Trump intends to use the current shutdown to implement some cost cutting. This is good, but, from the reporting that I have seen, it is not clear to me how the shutdown would make this easier.

   These cuts are also a bit off topic, as they are not a reaction to the shutdown (as in e.g. a “we need to cut costs, as proved by the current shutdown”) but merely use the shutdown as a window of opportunity.

   ---

6. The true battle of a shutdown appears to be less a matter of “How do we solve the problem?”, “How do we find a mutually acceptable bill?”, or similar—and more of “How do we angle this so that the other party has to take the blame with the voters?”.

   A particularly annoying manifestation of this is that the set of propaganda arguments depends less on political positions and more on whether the party at hand is in power or in opposition, e.g. in that the party in power claims that the opposition would be “irresponsible” for not rubber stamping the latest bill.

Harry Potter, school, and perception (2025-10-06)

I am currently re-watching the “Harry Potter” movies and am, specifically, shortly before the half-way mark of “Order of the Phoenix”.

An interesting observation is how easy the events the first half of that movie could be misapplied to something like the current U.S. situation. (I could, indeed, imagine some Leftie, who does not understand the overalls, doing his own re-watching and drawing very direct parallels.) Among them, in particular, we have the beginning takeover of Hogwarts (a school) by a meddling government minister (Dolores Umbridge), for nefarious purposes. (As is conclusively revealed later on and, for the first time viewer, very strongly hinted in the earlier parts of the movie.) This the more so, as Umbridge begins her tenure with a speech that seems a parody of a Conservative. (While she, at a later point, seems to be a parody of Fauci and his self-obsessed “I am science!” nonsense, replacing “science” with, maybe, “the government”.)

Looking more in detail, however, such comparisons flop. Consider e.g. that:

1. Trump is not trying to control universities and schools as such. He is trying to prevent them from abusing tax-payers’ money to push destructive wokeness and whatnot onto students, ensure that student admittance is not skewed for ideological reasons and in violation of the law, and similar.

   In particular, it is the presence of tax-payers’ money that gives him a lever (not just a reason): Harvard, e.g., could just turn down further tax-payers’ money and would then be free to do whatever it likes (within what is legal). Note, in particular, that the application of the “Bill of Rights” on universities is contingent on a sufficiently strong connection to the government, which is why state universities are more strongly tied than Harvard with tax-payer’s money, and Harvard “with” is more strongly tied than Harvard “without” would be. As is, Harvard has a gigantic endowment, ridiculous tuition fees, and whatnot—and still wants tax-payers’ money. What it does not want is to accept that tax-payers’ money comes with strings attached.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Off topic, it might be for the best if the government did not give tax-payers’ money to any university, with or without strings.

   ---

   Now, I cannot rule out that Trump would try to exert some control anyway, as the state of U.S. education is horrifying because of e.g. the aforementioned woke excesses, but (a) that is not what is happening right now, (b) just like I do not know that he “would not”, those criticizing him do not know that he “would”—and a man should not be hanged because he might steal a horse. (Whether I would support or oppose such a hypothetical intervention by Trump is a question that I cannot answer without knowing the details.)

2. One of the core problems with Umbridge’s approach is that the teaching of actual skills and actual development of the students is removed from the equation in favor of conformance, indoctrination, and credentialism—but that is exactly what has happened in the U.S. under Leftist government and Leftist dominance of academia. Ditto the removal of own thought in favor of sponge-like acceptance of “revealed truth” from Umbridge resp. some Leftist professor/administrator/politician/whatnot.

   ---

   Side-note:

   At some point, she says something along the lines of the purpose of school being to pass tests (I do not remember the exact phrasing). This might be a sign of credentialism or might point to some other problem. I note, in particular, that many Leftists (politicians, in particular) seem to genuinely believe that the more students pass a test, the more adults have diplomas, whatnot, the better—and never mind that this could go back to too lax standards and that passing a test or having a diploma is, in and by it self, not necessarily proof of anything.

   School, of course, if properly done, has a purpose of student development, while the purpose of tests is to ensure that only those who are at the right level of development are also passed resp. given a diploma. (An idea increasingly condemned as e.g. “White Supremacy” by the loony Left.)

   ---

3. Another is the way that teachers are limited in a similar manner and how even a teacher with something contrary to say can refrain from saying it. (Be it out of actual fear or based on a thinking that it is better to “play nice” and be able to do some good than to take a stand, be fired, and lose any influence.) This is very much the same in U.S. academia.

   ---

   Side-note:

   However, in all fairness to Umbridge, the only one that she had fired at this point (at least Dumbledore follows later in the movie) was the almost entirely useless “Divination” (read: underwater basket-weaving) teacher—the type of waste of time and resources that Leftist academia actually seems to embrace.

   ---

4. Umbridge, by her nature and despite an appointment as “Defense against the Dark Arts” teachers, is more of an administrator than a teacher, let alone academic, and exemplifies yet another problem with the current U.S. system—that administrators are in charge to too high a degree.

   Not only are these administrators often Leftist or far Leftist, but they have played a truly major role in skewing academia, imposing “diversity” hiring, forcing “diversity statements” upon faculty, destroying due process and the presumption of innocence after campus related accusations of rape, etc.

5. The ban of all student organizations is, again, something that matches the Left well. Now, normally the Left has its eye on particular types of organizations (including, in many U.S. colleges, fraternities and those who support the “wrong” causes), but the apparent difference is likely misleading, as the ban seemed to have the immediate purpose of stopping a group of dissidents around Harry Potter—and a general ban is easier both to enforce (it is enough to prove that some group is an organization than that it has a particular purpose) and to portray as a non-partisan measure. (To boot, more general bans and/or bans of non-government/-Party/-whatnot controlled organizations have been common when the Left has had enough power.)

(Likely, with quite a few other points that could be added upon closer inspection.)

While the aforementioned Leftie re-watcher is hypothetical, he does illustrate at least three different issues of great general relevance: Firstly, evil is as evil does and we should look at methods over opinions and ideology when judging who and what is good and evil. Secondly, that it is important to look sufficiently deeply at a situation to draw the right parallels and not to jump to conclusions based on superficialities. Thirdly, that very many Leftists simply do not understand for what various political groups and ideologies actually stand (which goes a long way to explain why they are Leftists).

Looking at a bigger picture, similar remarks can apply in other areas. Consider the recent controversy over Trump’s attempts to use the national guard: While the legality or illegality of this has yet to be settled by the SCOTUS, it is clear that both Trump’s motives and his implementation are misrepresented. No, he is not e.g. trying to “invade” this-or-that state or city—or to establish a police state. The problem is a disastrous failure of the states/cities at hand to uphold the law and protect its citizens from criminals. Ditto, in some cases, a failure to give federal agents due protection from e.g. Antifa terrorists. Trump is just trying to solve grave problems created by Leftist politicians—if they would have done their jobs, kept law and order, fulfilled their duties relative the citizens, etc., there would have been no need to bring in the national guard. A comparison with, say, a military takeover to ensure that dissidents or rebels against a far-Left regime are struck down, is greatly misleading.

Empty ships in flotilla stunt? (2025-10-04)

I have been reading a bit on the recent capture of Thunberg’s flotilla (officially, the Global Sumud Flotilla). Finding real information is tricky, because accounts are contradictory and most sources (found after an Internet search) seem to report the events predominantly from the point of view of the activists and/or to give the activists Tolkningsföreträde.

However, the Israelis appear to claim that the ships, while filled with activists, where empty of aid, only contained aid in symbolic quantities, and/or contained no aid that could not have been delivered more easily through official channels (and would, then, have reached the residents of Gaza sooner and with less fuss and conflict).

This is strongly compatible with my earlier view of the flotilla as yet another stunt aimed at gaining publicity and skewing international perceptions (e.g. in the form of “Israelis are evil and try to block aid from poor innocent helpers to poor starving Palestinians—Nazis, Nazis, Nazis!!!”). Cf. a more general discussion of hidden agendas in activism and, in part, the previous entry.

I lack the insider knowledge to say with certainty who is fudging the truth, of course, but the compatibility with this earlier view speaks against the activists, as does the fact that they have far more to gain by lying than the Israelis, as does the fact that a constant observation in my contacts with Leftism over decades is that the Left lies. (And if there is any doubt about the Leftist drive behind the flotilla, consider e.g. that I encountered claims about “anti-colonial resistance”, or some similar nonsense of a far-Left variety—and, of course, both the anti-Israel stance and the strong presence of known Leftists, including Thunberg.)

Looking at what the Israelis have to gain or lose from this-and-that:

They have a very natural interest in preventing weapons, explosives, and whatnots from reaching Hamas, but I have yet to hear any good explanation for why they would want to prevent legitimate aid (as such and as opposed to intercepting claimed aid to avoid that weapons, explosives, and whatnots reach the Hamas under the disguise of legitimate aid). Instead, the idea seems to be that the Israelis are evil and want the poor Palestinians to suffer, which is not only implausible but would involve a fair amount of stupidity, because e.g. a lack of food in Gaza creates a PR problem internationally and risks that more Palestinians turn hostile, making Hamas stronger and creating a further generation of terrorists. The assumption, then, is not just that the Israelis are evil—but that they are stupid. (Not only is stupidity a very rare accusation to hear explicitly raised even by the enemies of Israeli or the Jews, but said enemies very often posit a world-class PR/propaganda/whatnot machine in the services of Israeli, “world Jewry”, or some such, which makes this type of stupidity incongruent with the view of Israel otherwise pushed by those who now seem to rely on alleged Israeli stupidity.)

Without a legitimate fear of illegitimate contents, it would have been far better for the Israelis to just leave the flotilla alone. (To which I note that letting specifically the current ships through on a “good faith” basis would have brought more ships and a demand for more exceptions to the blockade, which ultimately would have undermined it entirely. And this even assuming, which would have been dangerous, that the current ships actually contained only aid and activists.) Moreover, if the Israelis were lying, why go with, say, “empty ships” instead of “ships filled to the brim with weapons, explosives, and whatnots”? Indeed, if the Israelis were lying, why not just quickly put up a false panel in a cargo room, hide some incriminating objects behind it, and then show international journalists how these objects are “found”?

Vice versa, if the flotilla had significant quantities of legitimate aid, why the reluctance to show that aid, to quickly hand that aid over for distribution, etc.?

The overall events, claims, actions, whatnot, make far more sense if we assume that the activists are lying than the Israelis, that the flotilla is a publicity stunt than a legitimate mission of aid, that Israel is trying to defeat a terrorist organization than starve Palestinian civilians, etc.

Political Schadenfreude (2025-10-02)

I just heard that Greta Thunberg had been detained by the Israeli’s in the course of her latest propaganda stunt. (More on that stunt in an entry from exactly one month ago. Speed of travel does not seem to be her strength.) My immediate reaction was one of Schadenfreude or “serves her right”.

In a bigger picture, I do not deny that even some deaths have left me with a positive feeling, be it in a “serves her right” direction or something else, e.g. a “one less threat to mankind” feeling. The most notable case is the death of Khomeini in 1989, with other cases including the likes of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and more recently (but in a more generic way) various Hamas/Hezbollah/whatnot terrorists.

With an eye at my recent writings on the murder of Charlie Kirk: Am I in a position to throw the first stone over this-and-that reaction from the nutcase-Left?

There are at least two major points that arise from this question:

Firstly, the acknowledgment that I am not perfect and that it is always a good idea to keep one’s own lack of perfection in mind. This includes considering what criticisms extended to others might apply to oneself. (And I have spent quite a bit of time thinking on such issues in the wake of the reactions post-Kirk.)

Secondly, the observation that there are worlds between some of these situations. In a Kirk–Khomeini comparison, e.g., note that:

1. Kirk was murdered. Khomeini (presumably) died of natural causes.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Natural causes is not the case with others aforementioned, but death has still been of a nature different from a vigilante murder, e.g. a death sentence imposed by a court of law for known and indisputable crimes or a drone strike against a terrorist and/or military leader in the course of warfare.

   ---

   To boot, Kirk was only 31 and would have had a long life ahead of him, while Khomeini had already lived a long life (a little shy of 90)—and one far longer than the typical life expectancy in Iran at the time of his birth (or, even, today).

2. Evil is as evil does and while many had strongly negative feelings about Kirk’s opinions and speech, there was, at a minimum, no public knowledge of evil actions—likely, because Kirk had committed no evil actions beyond those of a random man on the street. (Also see an earlier entry on what the Left absurdly considers “evil” opinions/speech/whatnot.) Khomeini had countless lives on his conscience and had done enormous amounts of other actual evil throughout his life and, in particular, his years as leader of Iran. Certainly, Khomeini had far more in common with Hitler than did Kirk, who appears to have been an outright anti-Nazi. (And the alleged anti-Fascists of Antifa are certainly more Fascist than Kirk was.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   And in case some idiot intends to raise accusations of e.g. racism or Islamophobia against me based on whose deaths I mention above: These were all men who had proven themselves evil by evil actions—and often extreme actions, at that. The simply truth is that such extreme and evil actions are disproportionally common in certain groups and that good examples for the above, then, are disproportionally likely to come from such groups. (And this regardless of why the actions are disproportionately common.)

   ---

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   Side-note:

   Throwing an eye at Thunberg, there might be disagreement on whether the acts that brought about her detention were e.g. “good” or “evil”, but they were indisputably acts—not mere words. (And chances are that she counted on being detained or, even, intended to be so for propaganda purposes. In a next step, this potentially makes my immediate reaction misguided for an entirely different reason.)

   ---

3. I propose a system of reciprocity, e.g. in that those who push for death for others for a spurious reason lose their own right to life. Kirk had not done so; Khomeini had.

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   Addendum:

   (2025-10-04)

   For the sake of precision: Losing the right is not the same as losing the life. The implication is not that someone should automatically be taken straight to the nearest gallows, but might, depending on the details, be limited to e.g. a lack of police protection in case a threat to life occurs or that others can claim “served him right” in good conscience, should he be struck by lightning. (Contrast a call for action against a specific person, e.g. “Kill X!”, with a vaguer general opinion, e.g. “All Ys deserve to die!”—and both with actually killing someone.)

   More generally, the issue of what reciprocal actions should follow is tricky. It might e.g. be that a spurious call for a ban on party X by party Y should result in the ban of party Y, while a spurious call for a murder might better result in prison than a hanging, while a hanging might be on the table for an actual murder. (To boot, neither ban, nor prison, nor hanging should follow without some type of trial.)

   ---

   Indeed and again, Khomeini had not just pushed for countless deaths—he had countless actual deaths on his conscience.

   The fatwa against Salman Rushdie is a drop in the ocean in comparison to the sum of Khomeini’s evil actions, but it is worth mentioning here for three reasons: Firstly, it is an extremely well-known and hard-for-apologists-to-cover-up case. Secondly, it shows Khomeini extending his hand outside the borders of Iran, outside any reasonable or unreasonable interpretation of (secular) jurisdiction. Thirdly, it puts Kirk and Khomeini on opposite sides of the matter—Khomeini issued a fatwa to achieve the death of someone for wrongspeak; Kirk was killed because of wrongspeak.

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   Side-note:

   To cast an eye at the active killings of e.g. Osama bin Laden, these were not performed for spurious reasons, but were, in the system proposed in the linked text, justified because of the killings-for-spurious-reasons that bin Laden et co. had themselves brought about and were likely to bring about in the future.

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4. Many of the reactions to the murder of Kirk could have devastating further effects through justifying political violence in the eyes of further potential murderers and whatnots, through further chilling free speech, through sowing further hate and divisiveness, etc. (And such sowing was not what Kirk did, in any statement of his that I have so far seen. The likes of Joe Biden, the Squad, Jesse Jackson, and many, many other Leftists, however, do.) My reactions to the death of Khomeini had no such effects.

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   Side-note:

   There are also issues like whether we actually have to express all opinions that we have and how we time that expression. Having feelings of Schadenfreude after a death might be a bad thing, in it self, and a human flaw—but it is worse still to make these feelings public immediately after the death. If nothing else, the potential effects on the surviving near and dear must be given some consideration.

   Ditto in how we express them. There is e.g. a difference between what is said in a casual conversation and what is published on the Internet for all to read, said in a televised interview, whatnot; and between a “Good riddance.” and a “Burn in Hell you stinking Nazi!!!”.

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5. The case of Khomeini might be the only one where I have reached the strength of feeling that matches some or many of the Leftists making absurd statements post-Kirk. I was 14—most of them are legal adults and many are much older than even 18. (I will not bother with finding out who said exactly what/reached what level of feeling/whatnot, and how old they respectively are, as this would require a great amount of legwork, but Kimmel, just to have a reference point, is currently 57, according Wikipedia.)

(Other differences yet are likely to be relevant on closer inspection.)

Aleysha Ortiz and issues with the U.S. education system (2025-09-28)

Yesterday, I belatedly encountered the sad case of Aleysha Ortiz. (A particularly extensive treatment can be found at [1]^e; I also read another half-a-dozen shorter treatments.)

The typical angle in reporting is some variation of a “poor special-needs girl did not receive the right help in school and now she must cope in college without being able to read”, but this misses other points of importance.

Above all, the largest error made here is not the failure to give her proper help but promoting her even when she was well below where she should have been and, ultimately, allowing her to not just graduate but to do so with honors. The result, then, is that a high-school diploma is worthless as an indicator of e.g. scholastic accomplishment, which is grossly unfair to those who did accomplish something but do not wish to proceed to college (and college, too, is rapidly being hollowed out in a similar manner), while creating a major stumbling block for employers attempting to filter those suitable for hiring from those not suitable. From another perspective: By passing her, the problems in the system were covered up, deficits in the education system could go unaddressed (generally), and what Ortiz claims befell her (specifically) actually could befall her. Without such blanket passing, she would have stood a better chance of receiving help and would likely have been better off in terms of accomplishment.

Then we have that pervasive and perfidious myth that learning is something that takes place by instruction (in particular, schooling) and that instruction leads to learning. For instance, most of the time that she spent in school seems to have been wasted, so why was she forced to sit through it? Well, the myth dictates that the more years of schooling someone is pushed through, the better, which is why so many countries make school mandatory or quasi-mandatory up till high-school graduation. (Even the superior alternative of home schooling is denied in many countries, including Sweden and Germany. This often based on the sub-myth/using the excuse that only those properly instructed in teaching could conceivably teach others properly—and, of course, that a teacher is needed in the first place and that own learning is an impossibility.)

But if school failed her, why did she not go out of her way to learn on her own? If she did not seriously attempt it, at least to the point of gaining a reasonable ability to read, she must shoulder a major part of the blame. If she did and failed, well, chances are that even a more attentive school would have failed too, e.g. because a too serious neurological impediment against reading cannot be made to magically disappear through a teacher waving a wand. (Whether she did make a serious attempt is not clear from my sources. [1] does mention that she had tried to learn by using picture books in the library, but it is not clear how much effort she actually put into this.)

As case has it, Ortiz was not just college age but in college. Well, what makes her think that she could handle college when she could not handle high school? The more so as college students are supposed to be more self sufficient and, on average, more intelligent, better at studying, etc., than high-school students. (This is not always the case, sadly, through the mixture of academic inflation, dumbing down, and whatnot that is destroying higher education.) It might be that she is looking for a diploma and hopes to have it gifted, but let us assume a less calculating student. (And I stress that I have no insight into her true thoughts, motivations, and whatnots.) Does she really believe that a few years in college will teach her how to read (even after all previous failures) and give her the educational benefits of a college education? (Notwithstanding, again, that these benefits are increasingly lost through academic inflation, etc.) If so, she is extremely optimistic. From another angle, let us say that she manages to earn a college degree, gets an office job, and her employer finds out that she cannot read?

How did she at all get into college? Well, colleges increasingly forgo tests like the SAT in favor of looking just at GPA (remember that she graduated high school with paradoxical honors), and the U.S. system wastes time on nonsense like recommendation letters (show who, not what, one knows) and essays (reward bullshitters and those who know how to write what the admittance readers want to read—and might be passed off to AI these days). In the specific case of Ortiz, being a Hispanic woman with special circumstances might have helped in today’s flawed systems of favoring e.g. “human interest” and DIE criteria over scholastic fitness in admittance. Here we have another sign that it is important to cut out the bull and focus more strongly on aptitude tests.

Then we have issues like how much money can reasonably be spent on any given child. (While education might be more important than money, money is finite and money spent on the one is money not spent on the other, which parallels parts of a discussion of money vs. lives.) For instance, in [1], Ortiz is quoted as claiming:

I should have had the help of a special education teacher, a paraprofessional, lessons designed to meet me where I was and challenge me, speech therapy, and occupational therapy.

Maybe, this would have helped her sufficiently; maybe, it would not. What is clear is that it would have been expensive. The more so, if non-trivial numbers of others had similar needs or requests. Better, then, to just have a more generic approach of individualized schooling and more flexibility, including (but by no means limited to) more home schooling, more own learning, and a less grade-centric and more course-centric approach to school.

Charlie Kirk and the violence of the Left (2025-09-25)

The immediate aftermath of the murder of Kirk seems to be over, if with ongoing waves here and e.g. controversy over Kimmel there.

Something that really sticks out in that aftermath, and strongly demonstrates differences between the Left and the non-Left, Democrats and Republicans, etc., is that there was no rioting and no looting. What Republicans did was to call for an end to political violence and Leftist hate rhetoric, while Erika Kirk (Kirk’s widow) appears to have made a public statement of her personal and Christian forgiveness of the murderer. (So much, cf. an earlier addendum, for Christians being evil.)

Harsher reactions have been limited to variations of anti-Leftist cancellations, but there is a far step from that to rioting, beating up innocents, looting stores, whatnot—and these cancellations, at the end of the day, are just a matter of giving the Left a dose of its own medicine and, usually, for far more legitimate reasons than what has brought cancellations of non-Leftists in the past. Someone who throws stones at others, while sitting in a glass house, should not complain when victims begin to throw stones back. (And, just maybe, this might make the Left rethink its approaches to others.)

In an earlier text, I made a very casual comparison between Kirk, King, and George Floyd, to which a further point can now be added:

Kirk and King were both Christian and (based on statements from their near-and-dear) both would have opposed the idea of riots in the event of their murder. Both were murdered, but only one got his wish: In stark contrast to the Kirk murder, there were major riots after the King murder.

I have no idea how Floyd might have thought on these issues, but there certainly were riots, looting, occupations of government buildings, and whatnot, after what by any reasonable standard seems like an unintentional killing—while Kirk was murdered in cold blood, following extensive planning and premeditation by the murderer.

With Floyd, we have a likely act of incompetence by someone non-political leading to enormous political riots; with Kirk, we have a definite murder for political reasons leading to peaceful reactions.

Antifa acknowledged as terrorist (2025-09-23)

In a piece of great news, Trump has finally officially classified Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization”—and may many others follow his example.

For my part, I have referred to Antifa as terrorist for years, as well as consistently viewed it as evil/Fascist/whatnot on a “X is as X does” basis—it is actions and not opinions that determine whether someone or something is evil. In detail, I note that Antifa is terrorist in a very literal sense of using fear as a means to achieve its purposes and, in particular, by targeting civilians and instilling fear in them.

I do have some concerns about the label “domestic terrorist”, however, as I see little benefit in differing between purportedly domestic and non-domestic terrorism, and as that label has been abused rhetorically (maybe, practically too), e.g. by condemning parents who object to Leftist agendas in school, which would be less likely to happen if a plain “terrorist” was used. (But, of course, this is absurd even with a “domestic” tagged on—so who knows?) To this the additional problem that Antifa is very much an international phenomenon, including having a large presence here in Germany. Firstly, then, it is better to just stick with the idea of “terrorist” in general; secondly, Antifa, specifically, deserves the unqualified label, regardless of other use.

There might also be some concerns as to whether Antifa can be called an organization or whether it is more of an informal grouping, a more general movement, or similar. However, allowing such technicalities to stand in the way of a proper classification and/or to reduce the means available to law enforcement would be absurd. Note, e.g., how some disingenuous Leftists, even high-ranking Democrats, have tried to play the “Antifa does not exist” card (with an implied “so stop talking about Antifa”, “so stop law-enforcement efforts”, or even “so stop spreading conspiracy theories”) based on the absence of a known formal organization. (The wind is not formally organized either, and might, to boot, be hard to spot, but it certainly does exist.)

Recognition of Palestine masquerading as an anti-Hamas act (2025-09-22)

According to recent news, the U.K., under far-Left Keir Starmer, has recognized Palestine with (among others) the paradoxical and utterly idiotic claim that it would be an anti-Hamas measure, and would give hope to Palestinians and Israelis alike—while handing Hamas an indirect major credibility booster, giving Hamas hope, and being a slap in the face to many Israelis. Indeed, considering the overall timing, with an increased offensive by Israel, it is hard to credit coincidence and suspicions of a direct and deliberate stab at Israel and/or Netanyahu seem plausible. To boot, it risks a further shift into anti-Israel positions and/or a further painting of Israel (not Hamas/Hezbollah/whatnot) as evil and/or a cementing of positions and loss of flexibility that is likely to reduce long-term peace chances.

To make matters worse, he was followed by the strongly Leftist governments of Canada and Australia. (Whether they joined in Starmer’s claims was not clear from my readings, however.)

To make matters worse, Portugal seems set to follow.

To make matters worse, the Left-led coalition government of Denmark appears to be at least contemplating the same.

Was Jimmy Kimmel censored? (2025-09-20)

Yesterday, I encountered a text on Brownstone with the title “Was Jimmy Kimmel Censored?”^e, which I highly recommend with an eye at some of my own writings over the last few days. Some selected quotes follow.

While it does not necessarily answer the question, it juxtaposes Kimmel and his fate with a long list of non-Leftist and/or COVID-dissenting (Brownstone arose in the context of COVID-countermeasures and COVID-whatnot, and COVID is still a central topic in its reporting) victims of Leftist censorship and/or persecution with government resources, saying e.g.:

From Peter Brimelow to Tucker Carlson to Bobby Kennedy to Mark Steyn to Alex Jones, the victims of the war on free expression were all independent voices who committed no crime other than deviating from the tenets of the deep state. That heresy led a parade of Democratic figures, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, Tim Walz, Hillary Clinton, law professors, and left-wing media to call for the removal of First Amendment protections that obstruct their agendas.

With regard to media:

Corporate media and its kept activists have howled in response to Kimmel’s suspension, but none of its leaders offer an answer to a simple question: why should the First Amendment protect an ideologue’s right to make millions from lies on government-subsidized public airwaves, in defiance of market trends, but not independent Americans’ right to dissent from predictable media orthodoxy?

With regard to Tucker Carlson:

Perhaps most ironically, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanded that Fox News remove Tucker Carlson from the air in 2023, telling CNN, “We not only have a right to tell Rupert Murdoch and Fox what to do, but an obligation.” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) used his perch in the House of Representatives to insist that Fox stop airing Carlson, deeming his reporting to be “lies” and “propaganda.”

With regard to Kimmel and ABC:

Unlike cable outlets, ABC enjoys the government subsidy of “public airwaves” and therefore has an obligation to ensure programming is in the “public interest.” Moreover, it now appears that the decision to fire Kimmel was independent of the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission’s threat. 

Leftist hypocrisy after the murder of Charlie Kirk (2025-09-19)

While (cf. an earlier entry) there have been some positive signs of attitude shifts in the wake of the murder, there has also been an immense amount of Leftist hypocrisy and reality distortion—even by the already extreme standards of the Left.

For instance, large parts of the Left have spent years spreading hate, sowing conflict between groups, and/or promoting violence, but now similar groups claim that Kirk brought his death upon himself by spreading hate, etc.

For instance, there are now large complaints about censorship and cancellations of Leftists, with no acknowledgment that the Left has, for many years and on a large scale, tried to censor and cancel dissenters and those not adhering to arbitrary Leftist rules on speech and actions—to the point that some have been canceled merely for not denouncing e.g. a spouse who broke these arbitrary rules.

For instance, there are complaints that Trump and/or the Republicans would “instrumentalise” the murder. Now, I cannot rule out that they are, because the border between instrumentalisation and normal, strong reactions can be hard to tell. Ditto, e.g. the border between instrumentalisation and highly legitimate attempts to prevent repetitions, solve the underlying problems, and similar. However, the Left has a long history of abusing murders or “murders” through such instrumentalisation—and often in cases that point to a far lesser, or even no, underlying problem, give far lesser, or even no, legitimate reason to make noise, etc. Consider e.g. the “murder” of George Floyd (also cf. entry from 2025-09-13).

For instance, some nit demanded that Trump should prove how serious he was about opposing political violence by revoking the pardons for various J6 victims. Leaving aside whether this is legally possible, which I doubt, the J6 events were a far lesser issue than e.g. the riots around George Floyd or the murder of Kirk; very few did anything wrong resp. had reason to believe that they did anything wrong; J6 has been hyper-instrumentalised by the Left; and what happened to the J6 victims was (in, at a minimum, the clear majority of cases) a miscarriage of justice and/or political persecution. How is restoring this miscarriage of justice going to stop violence? And how will this look when far worthier targets are walking around freely, including various BLM rioters and Antifa terrorists? For that matter, the true scandal on the day of J6 was arguably that a Black policeman lethally shoot a White woman—in cold blood and for no discernible legitimate reason. (And he got away with it, while the results in the reverse scenario, a White policeman killing a Black woman during a Democrat protest in that manner, would have been a virtually certain life sentence and riots that shook the nation.)

To this might be added disinformation of other types—including the attempt to paint the murderer as a MAGA supporter, including by the aforementioned Kimmel. (An idea, which does not make sense on the face of it, while, on the contrary, Kirk has long been a subject of Leftist hate and, again, political violence is a predominantly Leftist phenomenon.)

What is extremism? (2025-09-18)

A problem with the Left-dominated political climate is that the idea of what is extremist (or similar) is highly distorted, to the point that opinions that are extremist by any reasonable standard and/or the standards of just a few decades ago have been (or are in the process of becoming) normalized, while opinions that should be viewed as perfectly mainstream and/or were perfectly mainstream just a few decades ago are derided as “extremist”.

Among what I have heard condemned as one or more of “extremist”, “far Right”, “White supremacist”, “hateful”, a variation of “-phobe” or “-ist”, whatnot, in recent years and by at least some, we find e.g.:

1. Support of free speech.

2. Acknowledgment of two biological sexes.

3. The use of grammatically correct pronouns.

4. The idea that whether an answer is right and wrong matters in school—including in math.

5. The belief that all life matters.

6. The belief that it is wrong for rioters to vandalize stores with no connection to whatever grievance is behind the riot.

7. Any support of Israel and/or criticism of even Hamas.

8. Being a Christian.

9. Objecting to gender-surgery on minors.

10. Constitutionalism and/or opposition to (Leftist) judicial activism.

11. The wish for better voter-identification measures to prevent double voting, voting in the name of someone else, voting without being eligible to vote, etc.

12. Questing COVID narratives—and narratives that have, in the last few years, collapsed.

    (Indeed, even the idea that we should have free and fair debate on the topic, even among medical scientists, as opposed to everyone unquestioningly expressing support of any official narrative, has had a tough time—up to and including censorship and ostracism. I am not certain that I have heard claims like “extremist”, however.)

13. Questioning the mental presence of Joe Biden. (Until the sudden U-turn by the Democrats on the issue.)

14. Voting for Trump and/or DeSantis.

15. Supporting free markets.

16. Opposing affirmative action.

17. Preferring to watch men’s tennis over women’s tennis.

    (Specifically, some Feminist nutcases opined that the only reason why more viewers show an interest in men’s tennis would be “sexism”. Similar attitudes have occurred around various questions around men’s and women’s soccer.)

18. Questioning that Serena Williams would be competitive among the elite male players.

    (The originally published text referenced Venus Williams, in a mistake of sisters. I do not rule out that the same claim has held for Venus too, however.)

19. Preferring Caitlin Clark over Angel Reese.

This just from a short brainstorming, with basically only one non-trivial break from typing, namely to dig up the names of the two basketball players—and with not the slightest claim of having a complete listing. (As might be suspected, from the list, I took this break as a reason to stop. And, no, I do not follow basketball for either sex and, with reservations for height, I would not be able to pick Caitlin Clark out in a crowd.)

As a general remark, note the difference between disagreeing with something and considering it extremist/whatnot. I am an Atheist, for instance, and do not agree with central theological points in Christianity (such as the existence of God). However, I see no reason to view Christianity as more extremist than many of the quasi-religions on the Left, and if derogatory terms should be used against Christians, then based on being religious in general—not being Christian in particular. The anti-Christian attitude is the odder, as any criticism of e.g. Islamism is likely to be met with “Islamophobe!!!” or, even, accusations of being anti-Muslim. (As I noted, the above list makes no claim at completeness.)

(However, unsurprisingly, I favor most of the items on the list. If in doubt, I am more likely to observe and remember what implicitly is an attack on me too.)

Reading Charlie Kirk (2025-09-14)

Over the weekend, I have read two of Charlie Kirk’s books (“Time for a Turning Point”, “Campus Battlefield”), in part out of curiosity, in part to reduce the risk that I lean too far out the window at some point. (While neither book was exactly current, they do match both my more superficial pre-murder impression of Kirk and what has been written about his opinions in non-Leftist media since the murder. I also tried to visit the associated tpusa.com^e website, but was met with a rude demand that I activate JavaScript.)

A first piece of good news is that Kirk, unlike what some Leftists claim, is pretty much the opposite of a Nazi, which prompted me to write an excursion on Kirk in a text on political scales.

I will not attempt to give these books a deeper analysis, but a few remarks:

1. There are some statements in the books that seem outright tragic in hindsight, as when he speaks of the expectation of an “actuarially normal life [span]”—and now he is dead at 31.

2. For a larger part, they border on being inspirational in the “one man can make a difference” manner, and they do contain much interesting information about problems with contemporary U.S. society (in my case, he is preaching to the choir, but it is easy to see why the Left would not want his books to be read by those still lacking in knowledge) and the negative experiences that he and his associates of Turning Point (the organization, not the book) have had on college campuses (consistent with much that I have read on e.g. Minding the Campus^e).

3. In some parts, the books are a bit naive (maybe, because of the great youth of the author at the time of writing, years short even of that 31).

   His “Julio” (a broadly Libertarian counterpart to Obama’s infamous “Julia”) might be a particular misstep and (like “Julia”) might be more likely to draw justified criticism or provoke humor from serious thinkers than to convince—the type of exaggerated and naive take on free markets that I try to explain to the Left that Libertarians do not have. (Which might be a later problem for me.) Free markets are far better than anything that the Left has to offer, but they are not as good (at least, within a foreseeable future) as portions of the “Julio” scenario paint them.

   A laudable point, however, is the contrast between the active and self-sufficient “Julio” and the passive and dependent “Julia”.

   One claim that almost had me spit my coffee was that LBJ was a classical Liberal. While I admit that I have not studied LBJ’s ideology, as such, this claim is very hard to reconcile with (in particular) his economic and big-government policies while in office. (That he beat out Goldwater in 1964 borders on a tragedy, comparable to an alternate reality in which Carter beat out Reagan in 1980.)

4. A particular personal annoyance was his constant abuse of “they” where it did not belong. (Note my own repeated writings contra “they”.) This while, on the one hand, one of Kirk’s main issues is Leftist subversion of society, and, on the other, this pushing of “they” is one of the means and/or results of that subversion.

5. A point that I had not myself previously considered was the use of ObamaCare as a potential control instrument. (Make Government Giant Again? Yes. Create a dependency of the people to the government? Yes. Use as a control instrument? Had not occurred to me before reading.)

   Once you take responsibility for people’s health care you can use that to take control over nearly every other aspect of their daily lives. The argument goes something like this: Since society has taken on the responsibility of making sure that you have health care coverage, then the leaders of society have the obligation to make certain that you make choices that are consistent with preserving your health.

   Of course, as shown by the COVID-countermeasure era, ObamaCare was not needed to achieve similar control, but that was not to come until years after his time of writing.

6. Some aspects of Kirk’s experiences (and much of whatever else has happened over the last few decades) might be best explained by abandoning attempts to draw on what is factually right/wrong, sound in light of theory, matching practical experiences and experiments, whatnot, to instead focus on what is good or bad for the Cause. (Where the implications of “the Cause” can vary from Leftist group to Leftist group, time to time, country to country, whatnot.)

   He banged his head on a wall of unreason, because reason was either absent or directed at the success of the Cause, not e.g. the good of the people, the quality of education, or anything reasonable seeming. (In this, he was neither the first non-Leftist, nor will he be the last.)

7. Likewise, as he, himself, observes repeatedly, the Left thrives on the ignorance of its believers and its useful idiots. Particularly telling is his hands-on experiences with how shaped by Leftist propaganda the students’ impression of Conservatives, free markets, and similar, are—and how much can change when someone actually bothers to inform himself.

   There is a reason why the Left tries to prevent the reading of books with wrongthink—no matter how well reasoned, well researched, supported by science, whatnot, they are. Indeed, in particular when they are well reasoned, etc. Ditto, other sources of wrongthink, including free speech on college.

   While the exact motives of the murderer have yet to be clarified, preventing exposure to Kirk’s own wrongthink and his push for more intellectual exchange and openness are certainly strong candidates. (Current speculation by others, based on the current main suspect, include an apparently male-to-female boy-/girl-friend, which reminds me of “Dog Day Afternoon”, if replacing a mere bank robbery with murder.)

Murder of Charlie Kirk / Improvements to the political climate? / Creation of a martyr? (2025-09-13)

The sheer amount of news reporting and commentary around the murder of Charlie Kirk has taken me by surprise. Even adjusting for the combined effects of a horrifying murder (and one politically motivated at that) and the popularity bonus that the recently diseased often see, he appears to have been a bigger deal than I had originally realized. (But with the caveat that this amount varies with the political leanings of various sources.)

One of the positive effects (a proverbial silver-lining on a very dark cloud) of the murder is that there seems to be an early trend to shifting political positions, in particular: in that the portion of the Left is growing that understands that much of the rest of the Left is entirely out of bounds; in that many more politically neutral might recognize that who is “good” and “evil” in politics does not match Leftist propaganda and defamation; and in that the mainstream Left might realize that if hate propaganda is allowed, it will ultimately backfire on the Left and/or not be worth the price in terms of societal consequences. A particular issue might be the many far Leftists, e.g. Ilhan Omar, who have made such statements in the wake of the murder that their true faces are revealed to the naive masses. A particular positive is that some such speakers (unfortunately, not Omar) have been fired, suspended, semi-cancelled, or similar, in a reversal of the years of cancellations and whatnots against those who violate Leftist dogma. (Omar also stands out for her hypocrisy of trying to brand Kirk a hatemonger, while she, herself, is one of the worst in that regard.)

There are also strong early signs that Kirk is turning into a martyr, in another reversal, where we have seen absurdities like George Floyd (a petty criminal and drug user) raised to the skies under extremely dubious circumstances. Even if Floyd had been murdered (of which I am still very far from convinced; the whole scenario does not make sense), he was so fundamentally unworthy of his later exaltations that they beggar belief. MLK is easy to understand—but George Floyd?!? With a Conservative martyr, and one fundamentally more comparable to MLK than to Floyd, the tables might be turning, whether it be just as a Conservative gathering point or whether an effect in society at large will occur.

Murder of Charlie Kirk / Political murders and fiction (2025-09-12)

As a follow-up to yesterday’s entry ([1]):

Co-incidentally, I was watching the “John Wick” film series in the days before the murder of Kirk and I, to my surprise, find myself asking what negative effects such works can have on the youth of today; on attitudes towards killing in general and killing someone deemed “evil” in particular; the view of others as expendable or, worse, obstacles to be removed; and similar. (A sign of aging, I suppose. Less violence and more story would certainly not have hurt from a movie-making perspective.)

Worse, there are some works that have an outright political angle and where I have long feared such effects in a narrower field of encouraging murder and violence directed at those not sufficiently conformant to whatever the Leftist dogma of the day is. It is, for instance, only some two weeks since I wrote about “Demon 79” ([2]), a very disturbing episode of “Black Mirror” with an even more disturbing apparent message around killings and politics. (Where, indeed, parallels can be drawn between Leftist caricatures and defamation of Kirk and the politician that “should” have been killed in order to save the world.)

Of course, even outside murder and violence, fiction has long posed a problem through giving an extremely distorted view of what various non-Leftists actually do and what they actually believe, through misrepresenting societal groups, through exaggerating or inventing one type of problems and downplaying or outright ignoring another type of problems, and similar, which goes a long way to give the naive a correspondingly extremely distorted worldview. Note e.g., as mentioned elsewhere in [2], how “The Rookie” pushes an “evil gang” story in California, while forgoing the obvious choice of a Hispanic gang in favor of the weird conceit of a “White supremacist” gang, and soon followed this with a ridiculous pushing of “nationalist” terrorists, where a far-Left or Islamist grouping would have been far more plausible. (Even with an eye at the often less-than-plausible choices in fiction in general.)

We might, then, have a three-pronged push towards violence against the likes of Kirk (and definitely at least two-pronged; whether with a deliberate aim towards violence, I leave unstated):

1. Reality distortions to fit a Leftist or far-Leftist worldview—no matter how contrary to reality. (And, especially, with angles like “Rightwing bad; Leftwing good”, “men bad; women good”, “Whites bad; Blacks good”.)

2. A justification of violence against those deemed evil by the Left. (Ditto, but less on topic, censorship, cancellation, debanking, whatnot.)

3. More speculatively, a general lowering of the respect for human life.