Quick Reactions IV

Society is judged by how it treats its lowest members.

Some version of this is often evoked in the impassioned plea to bequeath a pet group (and, more often than not, the speaker's identity group) with rents and other resources. This phrase is one of those rhetorical tricks designed to ensnare the ever unwary conventional conservative. They open their mouths, the bait falls right in and without so much an effort the speaker sets the hook. And so, without so much as a word (though much comes after), the argument is lost. The conservative accepts his opposite's morality, which places him in a paradoxical state from which he has no hope of return.

Here's a hotter take on that idea:

Society is judged by how it treats its lowest members, only this judgement is post facto. By distributing rents to the low, without a selection process filtering out the unworthy, we subsidize and therefore greatly expand the numbers of those individuals with the worst sort of qualities. The substantial decline of the quality of African-Americans since the Civil Rights era and the inception of the welfare state is entirely caused by massive subsidies their progressive overlords bequeathed upon them. Whether this was intentional or not is irrelevant, as the result was the same: The elimination of the Black middle class and the conversion of the remainder to profligate chattel.

A common argument used in defense of particular pet causes evokes a naturalistic order. This was particularly evident during the crusade for homosexual rights, although you hear it less now because attempting to pass off transexuals as 'natural' is probably too obvious a baited hook for even the dumbest conservative to swallow (although, God help them, it doesn't stop them from trying). I would gently remind our sneering moralist peers that there is indeed a natural order for us to follow, although this path, unrestrained, is a path of immense pain and suffering. We did not move from primitive, single celled organisms to Homo sapiens in a handful of billions of years without killing off a lot of individuals in the process. Refinement requires that what cannot be saved or molded into a better form be discarded. A society that follows natural 'law' is a society that periodically culls - through some means - the least fit among its number. The idea of exclusion is of course abhorrent to the proponents of popular Millennial progressivism, because exclusion carries the risk of destroying or removing the individual. In the case of Millennial progressives, an overwhelming majority of them are from the bottom half of the fitness barrel. Progressives must lean on the fake glamour of Hollywood for aesthetic credentials precisely because the visibly attractive or at least superficially healthy are so rare among their own number.

We will be judged for allowing the numbers of our worst to swell, but it will likely be by the archaeologists who excavate the ruins of early 21st century Western Civilization.

The Thrill of the Hunt

I took my first deer the weekend before last. He died well, and I am glad to think that this creature caught a dignified, one-way trip to deerhalla at the barrel end of a shotgun, as opposed to the grill of car. The man who taught me how to hunt told me that you relive a good kill forever. I don't doubt it.

That I took life is not something I necessarily relish. Although I have killed many fish over nearly a quarter century, I've never felt particularly bad about it. They all ended up on a plate, excepting the few bluegills I accidentally killed as a small child, when I didn't exactly know what I was doing. This guy, on the other hand, I felt a little bad for. He never knew what hit him. But like I said, he died well. It was quick, and his skull will forever adorn my wall.

What was thrilling, though, was the process. He moved out of the thick brush at somewhere between 55 and 60 yards from where I perched, and what I kept remarking later to curious questioners was that I couldn't believe how fast the whole process was. Not just his death, which was mercifully quick thanks to one ounce of high velocity lead through his lungs. No, what startled me in retrospect was how all the time I spent at the range snapped into place with zero thought whatsoever. Without thinking it I knew he was walking away from where I was hiding. I knew that with a maximum effective range of 100 yards he would quickly pass out of reach. I knew, without thinking, that he had only a handful of steps until he reached my effective ethical range, where I would no longer risk a shot for fear of causing undue suffering. The entire time he was in view I had my front post on his chest cavity, lined without thinking, the butt of my gun pressing against my cheek without so much a thought. I think it was the best cheek-weld I've ever made. It just happened naturally. No thought, just action. Smooth. Quiet. Still.

Boom.

I barely heard the gun's report, even without ear protection, and I never felt the kick. He made three bounds, collapsed on his side, and continued to gallop for about six or seven more paces without actually travelling. Then he stopped moving. That's when I realized the adrenaline had been pumping hard. I was shaking as I climbed out of the stand, and I cautiously chambered a new slug as I approached him, fearing that  he might rise up at my approach. He didn't. He was still making slight movements when I finally stood over him, and as far as I could tell he breathed his last in front of me.

It was a strange feeling.

The field dressing, of course, is not for the squeamish, and the rest was that and hauling a warm corpse to the pickup truck so we could butcher him. We discovered that the round had passed through his lungs and ended it's traceable path against his opposite ribcage. I never figured out where it went, because it didn't pass through the other side. I guess it lost too much energy over the span between the tree stand and him, plus all the meat it pushed through. There was a pretty nice dent on the other side, but as far as we could tell the slug vanished, and the bits that remained are probably poisoning the coyotes that came for his organs. 

The next week at work I stared at that computer screen and the order slips and the ringing phone and my mind was stuck in those woods. I reached out and touched something primal that day, and part of the excitement once you've controlled for the pure adrenaline rush is that hunting is something men are naturally conditioned to do. Sitting in an office chair, staring at a screen... It will never be the same again, now that I've been to that place where I did what I was always meant to do. Even though I wrapped it in a modern veneer, and even though it's been upgraded with modern technology.

One of my coworkers recoiled when I told her.

You hunt? That's barbaric.

I am a barbarian.

Quick Reactions III

All scientists are liberal because liberalism is for smart people is the sort of phrase you may find hanging over the lips of very smart and very thoughtful people.

Perhaps it is worth noting that at one point in time all scientists were Catholic and rather conservative by today's standards. Actually, since 'conservative' is a word that has lost it's meaning, perhaps it would be more accurate to call the learned men of yore 'reactionaries', a term I lovingly borrow - and gently abuse - to place myself relative to my opposites. The modernist, when confronted with this bit of information, shrugs and says something to the effect of well they didn't know better.

The irony is lost on them.

I have had a number of rather embarrassing encounters with close friends (now mostly formerly close) where it was revealed through the course of the conversation that these individuals had succumbed to the false flattery of progressive idealism. There are a many great and terrible things to wonder about the philosophy-cult as a whole, and there are many interesting, thought-provoking, or otherwise clever observations about progressive idealism made by the great heretics of the current year. Small among them though this may seem, the more often I encounter the surety of progressive idealism's devotees, the clearer the question becomes to me:

What makes you think that someday humans will not look back on what you believe in utter embarrassment, as you look back upon yesterday's reactionaries?

Whatever virtues devotees of progressive idealism may have, I am quite certain that humility is not numbered among those few.