"'Give us this day our daily bread', and cakes, lots of cakes, and puddings and fine foods of all kinds from all over" So say the customers in the Tavern's fine dining rooms. Our chef works hard but does not have a sense of humour to write about. So I invited someone to teach him a thing or two, and I am happy to show him and his wares here.
Italian chef Matteo Strucchi. For a young fellow he is certainly making his mark. And he does have a sense of humour.
The pastry chef from Lecco in northern Italy has been featuring his intricate pieces on Instagram through his account I dolci di Gulliver, which has garnered around 67,000 followers.
“I wanted to present my desserts differently from others."
"There are lots of artists who create miniatures using food, but I focus on desserts. I try to use my imagination as much as possible in order to surprise people."
Imagine a world made of pastry... chocolate rivers, gingerbread houses and buildings made of dough. That's exactly what he does. Strucchi has been working as a pastry chef in Lecco, northern Italy, for two years, but since this summer, he's also been working on a passion project: a food photography account on Instagram which transforms his delicious desserts into a landscape for tiny people.
The account, I Dolci di Gulliver, takes its name from the book Gulliver's Travels which sees an ordinary man travel to Lilliput, a nation of miniature people. Using models of people and vehicle, Strucchi creates scenes showing the people of Lilliput living in a world of pastry. From sailing down a chocolate river to building complex desserts using trucks and cranes, Strucchi's characters have clearly captured people's imagination, and scores a visiting chefship in the Tavern.
As for how he comes up with the unique ideas, Strucchi says he first focuses on making a beautiful pastry, and then tries to look at it from a new perspective. "Then, I think about how I can make my characters interact with it," he explained. The proof is in the pudding. I will show a few more here but then, for more, you will have to go and find him yourselves. Eat up.
Just how much tolerance can we tolerate? And why has 'tolerance' suddenly become so over-ridingly important? OK, I know, I tolerate all sorts in the Tavern but even I have my standards. And whatever happened to Standards, for goodness sake? It used to be that we looked to 'Virtues', of the predominantly Christian sort, but in our modern, all-singing, all-dancing, modern, relatavistic secular world these have been replaced by 'values'. To have standards these days is to be a bigot. But just how do we measure Tolerance?
For the engineer, tolerance can be measured by size, distance, degree or some other physical property, but in our society, I think, Tolerance is measured by time. The time it take for the average person to throw up.
Tolerance, for me, is measured by the Time it takes for my Bouncer to be thoroughly pissed off by a customer's bad behaviour.
Intolerable behaviour.
I say 'thoroughly' as I am the first to lay down the rules and oblige him to take care not to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat, if you will excuse the mix of metaphors. He knows my limits. But, putting the Bouncer aside, the terminology of the engineer's instrument, the Micrometre, is telling: he has the Anvil, upon which our society has been laid: the ratchet knob, and we have all too many knobs ratcheting their 'values' up on us, 'progressively'; the lock which seems to have stopped any movement toward sense; and the Frame, of course, with the PTB and the wreckers forging the frame of reference that we are all obliged to work in, and which puts so many ordinary law abiding folk 'in the frame'. Tolerance, for the ordinary chap, is a dimension, with zero at one end and everything goes at the other.
Just where you are on any matter is your unique, and often erroneous, take on things.
And we have many 'things' to have an erroneous take on.
There's the Religious thing: the Race thing; the 'Whiteness' thing: the Homosexual thing; the Marriage thing; the Muslim thing; the Nationalist thing; the Neo-nazi thing; even the friggin' Gluten thing and the Obesity thing. To top all there is the 'you must accept me as I am' thing. In fact 'me, me, me' is the thing of things, no matter that the me doing the demanding is a total half-wit. And such people take advantage.
We are to be excoriated for our errors.
The rubbish and evil, and even the banal, we are told to tolerate is overwhelming us. We are bullied by half-wits daily in the media and politics if we as much as hint at 'standards'. We must learn to discern. We must learn the limits of tolerance, for even a virtue can become a vice when taken to the extreme.
How long will it take you to throw up?
The paradox of tolerance, first described by Karl Popper in 1945, is a decision theory paradox. The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance. He defined the paradox in 1945 in The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1.
"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.
If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.
But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance,
the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
He concluded that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance. But that does not mean abandoning discenment and the use of calm judgment.
And that discernment will, more often than not, show just who the intolerant are that we should not tolerate. The Same-sex marriage brigade have car-bombed the Australian Christian Lobby, and 'powder' has been sent to the organisation in the mail. It is they, the homosexuals who are intolerant, while simultaneously whineing in a fit of emotional blackmail that any debate at all will bring intolerable angst to homosexuals such that they may harm themselves. Someone has their back, and they have a car bomb too. And will post white powder. Hello? Muslims in Canada are claiming that horrid people are discriminating against them and 'hate' them.
Canada: Hate crimes against Muslims increase by 60%
TRENTON, Ont. (AA): Hate crimes against Muslims have increased 60 percent, according to the latest figures released Tuesday by Statistics Canada.
There were 159 incidents in 2015, a significant jump from 99 the previous year, the agency said on its website.
The numbers have been steadily increasing and are up 253 percent since 2012, although overall instances of police-recorded hate crimes were down 3.8 percent in 2015 to 1,362 from 1,424 in 2012.
Khalid Elgazzar, board vice chairman of the National Council of Canadian Muslims and an Ottawa-based lawyer, termed 2015 as a “difficult year.”
No detailed mention of what these 'hate' incidents were, mind you. The ordinary Canadian simply being worried when people threaten to behead him for being an 'Infidel', is considered a 'hateful' worry, it seems. Your Canadian has to 'tolerate' moslems carrying threatening signs in the streets and cutting heads off where they can.
A man with a sausage is a rapist
Oz Universities are terrified of the 'Rape Culture' when in fact barely any rape to speak loudly about occurs in Oz at all outside of our small indiginous and moslem 'communities' and even fewer in our Universities. But what is one to expect when a 'look' by someone in a pub is considered 'rape' by hysterical feminists. Grilling a sausage is prima faci evidence. And we are to tolerate such outrageous slurs against the ordinary Australian male in our Universities, where he is becoming an endangered minority. We are to 'tolerate' feminazis riding roughshod over sense and sensibility. One could go on, but I shall have a customer have the last word.
It is up to you. When are you going to be sick and tired enough of being bullied by the intoleratti, in order to stop them. How much are you willing to take before you call an end to their thuggery? When are you going to call time? Pax
I have driven a Morgan only once. I was reminded by a fellow driving up the mountain to the Tavern this morning. It was to and from the Reception after a wedding, at which I was the Groom. (Not the chap's this morning !) Unfortunately the beautiful little ride belonged to a friend and I had to give it back. What an honest little car it was. Unlike the Bride. I should have taken the car for swaps. Perhaps I can talk this fellow into a ride.
Quintessentially British from chassis to badge, the Morgan is not only a hark back to a golden age of 'motoring' but one of those few truely 'Hand-made' vehicles left, and were you to pass by the factory you could go in and have a guided tour. The Morgan Motor Company is a family-owned British motor car manufacturer that was founded in 1910 by Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan. Here, take a short tour.
Morgan is based in Malvern Link, an area of Malvern, Worcestershire and employs 177 people. Morgan has stated that they produce "in excess of 1300" cars per year, all assembled by hand. The waiting list for a car is approximately six months, although it has been as long as ten years in the past.
H.F.S. Morgan's first car design was a single-seat three-wheeled runabout, which was fabricated for his personal use in 1908, with help from William Stephenson-Peach, the father of friends, and the engineering master at Malvern College. Powered by a 7 hp (5.2 kW; 7.1 PS) Peugeot twin cylinder engine (from an abandoned motorcycle project) cycle, the car had a backbone chassis, an idea retained for all following Morgan three-wheelers, and used as little material and labour as Morgan could manage.
A single-seat three-wheeler with coil-spring independent front suspension, unusual at the time, the driveshaft ran through the backbone tube to a two-speed transmission (with no reverse), and chain drive to each of the rear wheels. The steering was by tiller, and it had band brakes. It also had no body.
With financial help from his father and his wife, the car was put into production at premises in Pickersleigh Road, Malvern Link, and three single-seaters exhibited at the 1910 Motor Show at Olympia in London. In spite of great interest being shown, only a few orders were taken, and Morgan decided a two-seater was needed to meet market demand.
This was built in 1911, adding a bonnet, windscreen, wheel steering, and crank starting; it was displayed at the 1911 Motor Cycle Show. An agency was taken up by the Harrod's department store in London, with a selling price of £65. The Morgan became the only car ever to appear in a shop window at Harrods Every Morgan is expertly hand crafted using three core elements: ash, aluminium and leather. By pushing the boundaries of how long-established techniques can be applied, each Morgan car celebrates traditional manufacture while embracing modern design. In spite of their traditional design, Morgans have always had sporting or "sports car" performance, due to their extremely low weight. Among their enthusiasts, Morgans are affectionately known as "Moggies". OK, you want a test drive.
Morgan cars can be found in many areas of motorsport, from club and historic racing to more prominent examples, including the Le Mans 24hr race. A notable Morgan racecar was the Aero 8 GT car that campaigned in 2008 Britcar races and the 2008 Britcar 24hrs at Silverstone, prepared and run by Mark Bailey Racing.
Having celebrated its Centenary in 2009, the Morgan Motor Company continues its proud tradition of building fine English sports cars for discerning enthusiasts. The mainstay of the company is the Classic Morgan range. The Morgan Motor Company has been building the Classic range for over seven decades. Although the classic and timeless appearance of the Morgan is retained, ‘under the skin’ the Classic Morgans now offer the performance, efficiency and safety enhancements required today. The Classic range is available in four models, two 4-cylinder models, the 4/4 and Plus 4, a V6-engined Roadster and the recently introduced V8-engined Plus 8. In 2001 Morgan added an innovative Aero 8 as the flagship of the model range. This was succeeded by the limited edition AeroMax.
In 2009 Morgan launched the current ‘head-turning’ Aero SuperSports followed by the Aero Coupe in 2012. These models feature a lightweight race proven aluminium chassis and coachwork, powered by a 4.8 V8 engine. The unique styling of the Aero Coupe and SuperSports, coupled with outstanding performance and handling combine to showcase the pinnacle of Morgan's 100+ years of driving passion. Morgan continues to provide unique driving experiences with the return to the roots in 2011 of the car that started the company in 1909, the Morgan 3 Wheeler. Just right for open-top driving on Tasmania's similarly hark-back roads. Drink up, but after a drive, not before. Pax
"Should we bring back the Death Penalty, especially for terrorists?", someone asked in the Tavern the other day. I hummed and haared and pulled pints like a busy Tavern Keeper. But later came back to a spirited, if a tad gory, conversation going on. I gave it some thought. Should I really say what I thought, to my pleasant customers. My thoughts are far from pleasant in this matter. Dark.
Most modern nations have had the death penalty at some time and most have abandoned it. Indeed one difference between the current Muslim scourge and our own 'western' practices in handing out 'Judicial' death sentences can be seen largely as one of Time. One only has to go back 150 years in Britain, for instance and we could see people hanged at Tyburn or Coventry's Gibbet Hill infront of huge crowd of jeerers. Before that the French were quite adept with the Guillotine and the Anglos were even more gory with the 'hang, draw and quarter' practice. Occasions were funfairs.
But we are past all that now, aren't we? America still has some vestige still operating. Should the rest of the West follow suit and bring back the rope? I do not think we should bring back torture or the more gruesome punishments but what are the arguments pro and con and what does a christian - a Catholic - have to say? The debate wandered around with the occasional quite nasty utterances which needed a stern look and even a call to the Bouncer. But several points could sum up. I shall give my view later but you can gauge for yourselves here >>>
If the penalty is not severe, the act is bound to be repeated more frequently. The penalties for any crime are only a deterrent, there is no way to stop it 100%; but effective curtailment is crucial, so the consequence of breaking any law (secular/moral/religious) must be relative to the desired impact(in this case these highest)
Its simple, yes of course.
If they are willing to kill hundreds or thousands of people, to the point they'd give up their own life to do so, surely we can't be blamed for wanting to rid ourselves of such dangers? Terrorism is like smallpox, we just don't need it and it does nothing but bad, i say if you want to be a terrorist, fine, but you give up all your human rights and if caught i say we should be able to do whatever we want with you, what about your human rights i hear you ask? Well what about ours?
No they should not.
No one deserves the death penalty, even terrible people who wish to only do us harm. We all have our beliefs and way of living and even though theirs is not right and causes problems and hurts others, it is not right to stoop to their level than turn around and say we are better than them when we just did the same thing.
No, not all terrorists should get the death penalty.
There are many lower level terrorists that commit terrorist crimes that are not extreme. It is for this reason that I do not believe that all terrorists should get the death penalty. Only those terrorists that commit crimes deserving of the death penalty should be executed for their crimes, not all of them.
The warrior at war, even the footsoldier, may - indeed is encouraged to - kill the enemy. But what if the enemy is captured and can no longer act against you? To that I would hazard that in the field Rule 303 has been implemented on more than just the one occasion of Lt 'Breaker' Morant. What of the sentences given for captured terrorists? Is jailing for ten years enough? Should they hang? Guantanamo Bay went down like a lead balloon after a decade of whining and accusation and politicing.
What of the 'low-level' not-quite but wannabe terrorist who does not (yet) go blowing up folk or running them down in the street with a car or truck, but just limits himself to, say, raping dozens of young girls as part of a grooming and rape gang (as per Rotherham) that sees 'infidel' girls as 'meat'? Should they get suspended from a rope instead of suspended sentences? What for those who covered it up, lied, excused, enabled it? What of the policies for having people who have left one's own shores to fight for and with a Terrorist organisation and now wants to come home? Should they be kept out, never to darken our doorsteps again or allowed home and hanged?
Is there a Moral Injunction against Capital punishment?
I turned to a Priest who was supping a pint: Fr. C. John McCloskey III
The Traditional Case for Capital Punishment
A group of Catholic publishers recently issued a joint statement urging an end to capital punishment. I have great respect for all of them – I have written for all of them at one point or another. I disagree with them on this issue, however. And it may be good to give some background about why I and many others disagree.
Most importantly, the Catholic Church’s Magisterium does not and never has advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty.
The U.S. bishops have conceded that Catholic teaching has accepted the principle that the state has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime. Even the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin – hardly a conservative – never stated that every criminal has a right to continue living, nor did he deny that the state has the right in some cases to execute the guilty.
St. John Paul II, although opposed to most applications of the death penalty, thought the same.
Let’s hear what St. Augustine had to say on this topic:
“ . . . there are some exceptions made by the divine authority to its own law, that men may not be put to death. These exceptions are of two kinds, being justified either by a general law, or by a special commission granted for a time to some individual.
And in this latter case, he to whom authority is delegated, and who is but the sword in the hand of him who uses it, is not himself responsible for the death he deals.
And, accordingly, they who have waged war in obedience to the divine command, or in conformity with His laws, have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked men; such persons have by no means violated the commandment, You shall not kill.”
(City of God, Bk I, 21)
Augustine also said that capital punishment protects those who are undergoing it from further sinning, which might continue if their life went on.
If this is not enough, consider the thoughts of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, on this topic. Citing Exodus 22, which specifies that certain categories of wrongdoers shall not be permitted to live, Aquinas unequivocally states that civil rulers can execute justly to protect the peace of the state.
St. Thomas finds frivolous the argument that murderers should be allowed to live in hopes of their repentance, questioning how many innocent people should have to suffer death while waiting for the guilty to repent.
While capital punishment is not justifiable as an act of vengeance,.....
according to Aquinas it is justifiable to help secure the safety of the community by removing a dangerous wrongdoer and deterring others from his example; in addition, it is an act of justice, allowing expiation for the wrongdoer’s sin.
St. Paul in his hearing before Festus says, “If then I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death.” (Acts 25:11)
Very clearly this constitutes an acknowledgment on the part of the apostle to the gentiles that the state continues to have the power of life and death in the administration of justice. And of course when we first encounter Paul (Saul at that point), he is cooperating in the stoning to death of St. Stephen for the crime of blasphemy.
Pope Pius XII said, “In the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life.”
The Catechism of the Council of Trent, composed under the supervision of St. Charles Borromeo, stated: “Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thou shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives.”
None of the figures mentioned above were bloodthirsty individuals. All probably would have agreed with several modern popes that great care be used in modern conditions in applying the death penalty. But it’s doubtful they would have supported abolishing it.
Indeed, for any son or daughter of God, it is a great grace to know the time of one’s death, as it gives us the opportunity to get right with the Lord who will judge us at our death.
Perhaps many people have been saved in this way by the death penalty. Who knows what would have happened if they had been allowed to linger in this life, one day possibly killing other people?
And there are other, utterly unexpected effects. The great Catholic convert and evangelist Frank Sheed wrote a book called The Map of Life. In one edition of the book, he tells of a man sentenced to death for murder. After reading Sheed’s book, the man wrote Sheed that, if what he had put down in that book about heaven and forgiveness was true, though he was offered clemency by the State, he decided to allow the execution, because he would be going to heaven now as a Catholic convert.
Now as a (possibly, trying to be) Good Catholic Knight, I take the Magisterium quite seriously. It is the basis of what in secular terms became English Common Law. Like that law system, based upon precedent and argument over ages, it may differ in some respect from Canon Law, or as in secular terms, Statute Law. But in all event is it based upon 'Authority.
I do not wholly agree with some outmoded 'Authority' edicts. Ceasars are long gone and we do not have any obligation to render unto them. The State is no longer overseen by a King who might wish to claim a 'Divine Right', a dubious enough concept. Most modern western States are democratic in some manner, and it follows that God did not appoint any MPs or Congressmen:
I did and you did.
I may sometimes make foolish choices and I know full well that you do.
They answer to us. Now it may be that for some of us, God's hand may have nudged us to vote for a Good person, but that is more Hope than Known.
I have mentioned before my own view that God allows much of which He disapproves. I cannot for the life of me (now and in the Hereafter) accept that God appointed Pol Pot. I see no need whatsoever to go by any Authority that takes away my own. I answer and will answer, personally to God. He will hold me accountable, not some MP in New South Wales or Arkansas. So whether we hang terrorists is MY decision, and yours. We shall agree or disagree. But we shall be accountable.
"So, Sir Knight", asked one customer.
"Just what IS your view?"
Yes. Terrorists should be hanged. Or dispatched by some means, with finality. It should be done and seen to be done, but not as a spectacle. But that is not all. I do not like the death penalty, as most reasonable people do not either. But there are necessities of society and of the Spirit. These need to be considered. The death penalty, as with all penalties, is to punish and deter others It punishes for a crime, in this case so heinous, one of such emormity that it calls for not just loss of freedom but being removed from life altogether. Seeing a miscreant punished may deter others from miscreance too. Many lesser penalties also seek redemption - or in civil terms, rehabilitation - a chance to become a useful and reasonable citizen. This latter aspect must be available, for a time at least, even for a terrorist.
And the miscreant, in this instance a murderous Muslim, intent of being the best Muslim he can be, terrorising with killing, deeply imbued with a creed so horrific and wicked, who cares nought for his own life and even less for innocent victims, needs to be punished severely. He or she should be locked away for five years, in a man-made purgatory. Then hanged. One does not need to emulate the abject cruelty and physical mutilations that he would give to his victims. But his purgatory should be punitive. Isolation. Never to speak with a human being again. At least not for a long time.
Sent to Coventry.
This in fact was a punishment handed to Some Englishmen of yore. One hypothesis as to the origin of this phrase is based upon The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. In this work, Clarendon recounts how Royalist troops that were captured in Birmingham were taken as prisoners to Coventry, which was a Parliamentarian stronghold. Indeed, the dungeons under St Mary's Hall saw many men locked into darkness and left to die of starvation. His living conditions should be sparse. He should be hosed down in pig fat on arrival so he knows he must abandon any thought of going to meet Allah. His diet should be non-Muslim. He should be subjected to 24/7 Bible readings from just the New Testament. Christian hymns too. These should be piped into his cell and he have no way of stopping them. (they can be at a whisper while he sleeps). Films should be projected onto his cell wall. The Passion of the Christ would be a good start of a long list. He should be given a Bible when he asks for it, after one year. After a year of isolation and mindbatheing he may be offered a chance to convert from Muslim to Christian.
Then he can be hanged.
The sooner he converts the sooner he gets hanged. It is something for him to look forward to. (Of course, the conversion must be sincere). And his family? What of them? No Muslim stands much of a chance of avoiding becoming a psychopath, being born into an evil, psychotic society, totally immersed in hatred and violence. It is there from birth in his family. He does not act his terrorism as a rebellion against his parents but in accord with their deeply held and lived beliefs in the destruction of 'Infidels'. His entire extended family should be deported. Immediately. His mosque should be closed down and any objectors deported. Immediately. That might be a deterrant too, and at least it will thin-out the numbers of possible future wicked next-door neighbours. People who stride the streets holding signs like those above, making threats and calling for wicked punishments should be arrested and deported. IMMEDIATELY. I did say you might not like my dark thoughts. But what of your own? What say you? I shall pour your drink while you think. I shall await comments. Pax
Money cannot buy happiness, the old saw goes, but neither does grinding poverty or even being poor. For most of human existence most people, the vast majority, have been poor. Of those who were not 'poor' there were far more in grinding poverty than living high on the hog. There was little in the way of 'abundance' about.
The past couple of hundred years has seen a transformation of this seemingly natural order of things. Where before there was not much to go around and the very powerful kept most of it to themselves, today there is plenty and it is held by many. This is undeniable. Robin Hood apparantly did some work on the side redistributing what he could lay his hands upon. An exception to the rule. Mind you, again, the seriously rich robbed mainly amongst themselves, where the wealth was. There was just one Robin Hood but many robbing hoods in high places. When King Richard was captured in Europe on his way home from the Crusades, his captor demanded as ransom the equivalent of the entire GDP of Britain. But the attitudes of the hoi poloi remain very much the same. The poor envy the rich, and where they may have had some 'cause' to be envious through much of history, today that vice is more difficult to sustain. But effort is made !
Today some carp and complain about the 1%, failing to understand or even acknowledge that to be in the 1% of humanity today is to have the average wage of an Australian sheet metal worker or a plumber. Even our Oz leader in waiting reckons that earning just a bit less each year than Au$180,000 makes you 'Rich' and you should be excoriated. Not that he counts himself amongst those he rubbishes: him with his millions. He does not like it shouted about.
Talking heads continually carp about the high pay of CEOs who might make several millions a year running businesses employing several thousand people - and paying them - but few such 'commentators' point the finger at people like 'talk-show' hosts who take home US$50 million and employ only personal housemaids, or 'pop divas' who manage to tuck vast millions in their skimpy stage attire. The real poor are not found in the Western world. Most are in the third world. But they are getting fewer by the day. Marian Tupy came by to give some good oil in exchange for good grace.
The Most Important Graph in the World
There has been a massive increase in wealth throughout the world in the last two centuries.
Jonathan Haidt, the well-known psychologist from New York University, started as a "typical" liberal intellectual, but came to appreciate the awesome ability of free markets to improve the lives of the poor.
Earlier this year, he penned an essay in which he pointed to what he called "the most important graph in the world."
The graph reflected Angus Maddison's data showing a massive increase in wealth throughout the world over the last two centuries and which is reproduced, courtesy of Human Progress, below.
The "great enrichment" (Deirdre McCloskey's phrase) elicits different responses in different parts of the world, Haidt noted. "When I show this graph in Asia," Haidt writes, "the audiences love it, and seem to take it as an aspirational road map…
But when I show this graph in Europe and North America, I often receive more ambivalent reactions. 'We can't just keep growing forever!' some say. 'We'll destroy the planet!' say others.
These objections seem to come entirely from the political left, which has a history, stretching back centuries, of ambivalence or outright hostility to capitalism."
Haidt's experience mirrors my own. When giving talks about the benefits of free markets, audiences in Europe and America invariably note the supposedly finite nature of growth and express worry about the environmental state of the planet.
Why?
In Haidt's view, capitalist prosperity changes human conscience.
In pre-industrial societies, people care about survival. "As societies get wealthier, life generally gets safer, not just due to reductions in disease, starvation, and vulnerability to natural disasters, but also due to reductions in political brutalization.
People get rights."
This more prosperous generation, then, starts caring about such things as women's rights, animal rights, gay rights, human rights, and environmental degradation.
"They start expecting more out of life than their parents did."
All that is fine, of course, so long as the pampered youth in the West and newly empowered youth in the Far East remember that roughly 800 million people in the world, many of them in Africa, still live in absolute poverty and experience the kinds of existential challenges that only free markets can solve.
Denying dirt-poor people access to cheap fossil fuel energy, for example, can mean a death sentence to a newborn child on life support in an electric-powered incubator in rural Africa.
Let me conclude with two final thoughts. First, there is no obvious reason why growth should not continue indefinitely—although future growth will likely be more dependent on technological change than in the past.
In the West, for example, we cannot replicate the growth boost that resulted from the entry of large number of women (50 percent of the population) into the labor force.
Second, let's not fall into the trap of thinking that, because the initial stage of industrialization was bad for the environment, pre-industrial society saw man and nature coexist in harmony.
Part of the reason why the Industrial Revolution started in England was that the country had to switch from almost depleted wood to coal as a source of energy.
Industrialization, and subsequent enrichment, saved European forests, and it can do so in Africa as well.
This old Tavern Keeper used to be quite well off. I am now poor. Poor by western standards that is. I can attest from just my own personal experience, that I am quite happy, thank you. I am pretty sure I could be just as happy rich. A rich man can help more people than a poor man. If he so chooses.
He /she can do more damage too. Drink up now. Pax.
I am not a naturally patient fellow. I keep a sword beneath the bar-top. My Supplier often sends me little notes with the ales and wines and Spirits, reminding me to 'be nice: be kind; Love your fellows'. I am often in need of the advice. For we live in crybaby times and tantrum-throwing brainwashed folk seem to be the only growth population around, demanding this and that and throwing their toys around - and damaging many of our precious possessions. Statues, peaceful streets, even long standing living arrangements are all under attack.
Would that being patient was a job for which we could be paid for our practice. But wait, it was once for me. I could sit and patiently listen to the most awful drivel and gently help the driveller to examine their thinking and emotions and behaviours, and point them toward a different and altogether more satisfactory way of living. All they had to do was cease damaging themselves and all around them. I was paid handsomely by the hour and had a deep well of patience to draw from. But that was then and now I run a Tavern, dispensing fine Ale. We had a couple of folk in today giving their views on how to go about the task, unpaid. It was particularly useful advice too, and aimed at that medium we all share these days, the internet, with its squabbles and folk of varied competence, maturity and intelligence, and the lack of such qualities all in all too many. Jim Goad, was all for goading. He put patience in second place to action. Dereck Hunter was one for showing how it was done in a specific instance, from which we can all learn. He talked about a fine man - Mike Rowe - and how he dealt with a tantruming crybaby.
I do have an issue though with Dereck's overview, about which I will say something when he speaks. First though, Jim. He quite rightly sees that most of the crybabies dominating the scenery outside the Tavern's hedges, have been brainwashed in Hilary's Village. It is a village which supplies other villages with Idiots. And Witches. Almost universally in our society they are 'leftists'. Leftards. Those that are not, once they go through 'grown-ups learning centres' - which used to be called Universities - they are brainwashed into being Lefties. And often very nasty ones too.
How to Deal With the Brainwashed
I awoke this morning to the creaking sound of the Western mind closing shut.
I felt it squeezing in on me like a car crusher. Public discourse is more controlled and political dissent more squashed than at any point in memory.
Try as I may, all the evidence suggests we are on the brink of an ideological Dark Age the likes of which America [indeed the westen and Anglophile civilisation] has never seen. It seems we’re only inches away from living in a world where stating the obvious will be criminalized.
Online, the chief enablers of this situation are the smirking young progtards, who are unwilling to even touch any viewpoint that hasn’t been spoon-fed to them in school or beamed into their eyeballs via TV.
Their brains have never hatched a single original idea in their lives. They are mere hollow carriers of infectious ideas, not so much Trojan horses as little pink Trojan ponies.
The modern young leftist is a weak, wretched, psychotic creature, at once nasty and cowardly. Notice how these bespectacled, bearded nerdlings didn’t have one shred of bravado until they had the full weight of the government, media, and academia on their side. They are the sort of cowards who were terrified to make a peep until it was absolutely risk-free. They are extremely bold—at least behind a keyboard—until directly confronted when there’s no crowd around to protect them. A lone earthworm has more spine than any hundred of them.
“They are immune to logic as if they’ve been vaccinated against it—so go for their emotions.”
Bandwagon-riders that they are, they tell everyone who doesn’t think in lockstep with them to “Get with the times,” which is a dishonest way of saying, “Be a conformist like I am.” Hence their smugness as they tilt at windmills that were destroyed generations ago. They are still deluded that they are fighting the power rather than working for it—often without pay or benefits.
It’s one thing to be unwittingly brainwashed, yet quite another to assent to one’s brainwashing once it’s been made clear. These hateful little f**kers are defiantly brainwashed, and whether it’s cognitive dissonance or doublethink or pathological lying, they’ve made it impossible to rationally engage with them. Believe me, I’ve tried. For decades. Honestly. Foolishly.
It took decades for me to realize I was dealing with fundamentally dishonest people.
I naively thought I could politely discuss ideas with people for whom “reason” is a dirty word. But you can’t debate the brainwashed. Their cognitive dissonance is too powerful. The truth doesn’t matter to them at all. This is why, in nearly all cases, they will flee from the gentlest offer of an earnest discussion.
Only when they are charged a modest fee will they sit still. Even then it takes patience, simply waiting for the lights to go on. Their wheel turns but their hamster is dead. The generator has stopped. Then, of course, they will take the pay of any super-wrecker that has deep pockets.
There is to be no debate. There is a reason they won’t engage, and it is not because they are certain they are correct. Censors are motivated by insecurity in their own beliefs, but they are not remotely honest enough to admit it.
Their holy cause is all that matters to them, and they feel they’ve already established—or, rather, declared—that the cause is unassailable. And anyone who challenges the cause must be vilified. So they don’t ever engage in debate, only vilification.
To be a modern leftist is to embrace a constellation of lies.
They eat lies as if they were corn flakes. Leftism is based on a false premise, and all political systems whose roots are planted in quicksand will inevitably sink into totalitarianism. They start with one flawed premise—equality, which is a laughably obvious lie—and embrace it as an untouchable truth. And they will tell a billion other lies to protect that main lie.
You’ve heard the lies again and again:
*There’s a clear line between free speech and hate speech.
*Rape has nothing to do with sex.
*If you dislike something that we like, you suffer a mental disorder known as a phobia.
*Race doesn’t exist, but racism is ubiquitous.
*Evolution is real, but somehow, inequality isn’t.
*There is no such thing as an anti-white hate crime or anti-white racism.
*Whites are the only group in world history that has ever been ethnocentric.
*The nations and peoples who were colonized were peaceful and advanced, and it’s not as if they would have been colonialists themselves if only they’d had the technology and organizational prowess.
*Conformity is a sign of virtue rather than weakness.
*Women can’t be every bit as nasty and violent as men.
*Homosexuality is genetic and has nothing to do with possible childhood sexual trauma.
*Children need to be taught to be racist, which is why, um, we spend so much time teaching them not to be racist.
*We want equality rather than power.
*Two wrongs make a right; in fact, it’s known as “justice.”
*We are open-minded atheistic humanists, which is why anyone who disagrees with us is a subhuman piece of shit who needs to rot in hell.
As the saying goes, the first casualty in war is truth. These little creeps have clearly shown that they feel no compunction to play fair. Leftists are fighting as if they’re in a war, and they’re acting as if they smell blood.
They interpret your fairness as weakness.
If you don’t even realize that someone has declared war against you, you’re probably going to lose that war. But you can’t win a boxing match when your opponent is swinging a mallet.
People who accuse you of being insincere unwittingly reveal a lot about themselves. Same goes for those who accuse you of being hate-filled. Or of being intolerant.
I noticed his Patience reserves were being tapped. I anticipated that he'd soon be out of it altogether. I took steps.
Psychological projection is the currency of the hysterical moralist.
People usually play their hand by attacking you with whatever line of attack would work best on them.
If their consistent MO is to lob one ad hominem Molotov cocktail after another at you, that’s a tacit admission that they fear nothing more than public humiliation.
By dictating the rules of the game, they unwittingly let you know precisely what it would take to beat them.
They are immune to logic as if they’ve been vaccinated against it—so go for their emotions. Mock them. Endlessly mock them. Publicly mock them. Take their cancerous hatred—which they’re openly projecting onto you—and smash them back in the face with it. They’re begging for it. They are only being relentless because you’ve been too nice. Despite how boldly they act, they are obviously horrified of their own shadows.
I was obliged to pull a long pint of cooling Ale for him at this point, just to reduce the heat. "Now, now", I said. "Be a nice gentleman".
They’re going to call you a “hater” anyway, so you might as well blow off some steam at their expense. Sure, you may have a compulsion to drag them out into the streets and beat them toothless, but that would only validate their fantasies and get you arrested.
No, do what they do—only harder. Humiliate them. Publicly.
Point out that they are hate-filled, intolerant liars.
Toss that bomb right back at them where it belongs.
So many—if not all—of them are obviously reacting against childhood bullying. [Really?] And even though no one has dared bully them for years, they can’t seem to let it go. So bully them back with such soul-crushing gusto, they’ll start praying that they were back in high-school gym class. Tie them in pretzel knots made of their emotions.
All it takes to blind them is to hold a mirror in their face. This way they’ll know that when confronted, they were the ones who blinked. Never let them forget that.
This is why they will hate you far more than they did when they first picked this fight. It is also why you will win.
I would not go so far as to advocate running away. By all means remove yourself from brain-dead company unless they are paying you handsomely for your good office and patience, and have an intent of recovery, but otherwise do not risk infection.
No. One has to confront. Chose how to with care though. Dereck showed how it can be done but leads with an unsound initial description. A tad too 'clickbaity' for me. His claim for 'destroying' a person is not quite a lie as an exaggeration too far. Mendacious bravado. Resist that. The aim is not to 'destroy' an opponent. They bring the fight to you but your job is to defend yourself and your fellows, defeat and send the attacker to the King. That is, to Him Up Top. If you are to destroy someone, use a sword or a double-tap with a small ballistic weapon of your choice, or a long one under #Rule 303. I am anticipating quite a bit of that in the coming few years. But responding to attacks in the media requires some candid and firm retort, replete with Truth. It should be designed to 'right' the wrong rather than double-wrong it. It should be to take the attacker's argument down and him down a peg or three, not cut his legs off.
So, to Dereck and his example of Mr Mike Rowe: a first-class Knight.
Mike Rowe Absolutely Destroys Guy Who Accuses Him Of Being A White Nationalist
“Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe had some choice words Tuesday night in response to a question he got accusing him of harboring “white nationalist” sympathies.
Rowe posted a question submitted to him on his Facebook page that accused the TV host’s advocacy for the skilled trades of amounting to anti-intellectualism, and therefore racism.
“One of the tenants of white nationalism is that college educated people are academic elitests. Comment? No? I’m not surprised. You never take a political stand because you don’t want to alienate anybody. Its bad for business. I get it. But there is a current of anti intellectualism in this country – promoted by Republicans. Those people love you, and they think your initiative is their initiative. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is kickin our ass academically.”
Rowe, a popular jovial TV personality, went off in a long, brutal response.
“Since we’re being candid, allow me to say how much I dislike your post. Everything about it annoys me – your smug and snarky tone, your appalling grammar, your complete lack of evidence to support your claims, and of course, the overarching logical fallacy that informs your entire position,” Rowe wrote.
“What really bugs me though, is the fact that you’re not entirely wrong. It’s true; I haven’t shared any political opinions this week, in part anyway, because doing so might very well be ‘bad for business.'”
“What can I say? I work for half-a-dozen different companies, none of whom pay me to share my political opinions. I run a non-partisan foundation, I’m about to launch a new show on Facebook, and I’m very aware that celebrities pay a price for opening their big fat gobs. Gilbert Gottfried, Kathy Griffin, Colin Kaepernick, Milo Yiannopoulos…even that guy from Google who just got himself fired for mouthing off. There’s no getting around it – the first amendment does not guarantee the freedom to speak without consequences. And really, that’s fine by me,” he continued.
“So no – I’m not going to share my personal feelings about Charlottesville, President Trump, or the current effort to remove thousands of statues of long dead soldiers from the public square. Not just because it’s ‘bad for business,’ but because it’s annoying.
I can’t think of a single celebrity whose political opinion I value, and I’m not going to assume the country feels any differently about mine,”
Rowe wrote. “So, rather than blow myself up, or chime in with all the obvious observations about the cowardly scum in the pointy hats, I’m going to talk instead about my belief that comments like yours pose a far greater threat to the future of our country than the existence of a memorial to Thomas Jefferson, or a monument to George Washington. Ready?”
Then Rowe started in on Adkins’ insinuations.
“You say that White Nationalists believe that everyone who goes to college is an ‘academic elite.’ You then say that Republicans promote ‘anti-intellectualism.’ You offer no proof to support either claim, but it really doesn’t matter – your statements successfully connect two radically different organizations by alleging a shared belief,” Rowe said. “Thus, White Nationalists and The Republican Party suddenly have something in common – a contempt for higher education. Then, you make it personal. You say that Republicans “love” me because they believe that my initiative and ‘their’ initiative are one and the same. But of course, ‘their’ initiative is now the same initiative as White Nationalists.”
He continued “Very clever. Without offering a shred of evidence, you’ve implied that Republicans who support mikeroweWORKS do so because they believe I share their disdain for all things ‘intellectual.’ And poof – just like that, Republicans, White Nationalists, and mikeroweWORKS are suddenly conflated, and the next thing you know, I’m off on a press tour to disavow rumors of my troubling association with the Nazis!”
“Far-fetched? Far from it,” Rowe continued.
“That’s how logical fallacies work.
A flaw in reasoning or a mistaken belief undermines the logic of a conclusion, often leading to real-world consequences. And right now, logical fallacies are not limited to the warped beliefs of morons with tiki torches, and other morons calling for ‘more dead cops.’ Logical fallacies are everywhere.”
Not near done, Rowe wrote, “As I type this, a Democrat on CNN is making an argument that says, ‘because Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, those Republicans now opposed to tearing down his memorial are ‘pro-slavery,’ and therefore aligned with the modern day KKK.’ That’s a logical fallacy.
“Over on Fox, a Republican is arguing that ‘any Democrat who has not yet condemned the Senator from Missouri for publicly wishing that Donald Trump be assassinated, is guilty of wishing for the exact same thing.’ That’s a logical fallacy.
“Yesterday, on The Science Channel, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, a noted astronomer, tweeted that the ability of scientists to accurately predict the solar eclipse, was proof that predictions of global warming were also accurate. That’s a logical fallacy.”
Then Rowe turned the tables on his accuser, continuing, “Want to hear another one? Imagine something like this, unfolding over on MSNBC.
“‘Good Evening, America, our top story tonight… Chuck Atkins is a racist! Why? Because he can’t spell. Just look at his grammar! In a recent post on Mike Rowe’s Facebook page, Mr. Atkins, while bemoaning America’s global academic standing, not only misspelled ‘elitist,’ he used ‘tenants’ when he meant ‘tenets.’ He neglected to use a hyphen in ‘anti-intellectual,’ and he misplaced several commas and apostrophes! But why is he a racist, you ask? Simple. Because everyone knows racists are ignorant. Chuck Atkins is clearly a poor speller. Poor spelling and grammar are signs of ignorance. Ergo – Chuck Atkins is a racist! Boom! The matter is settled!”
“There’s not much we can do about the news, but here on Facebook, I think we can do better. This isn’t Twitter,” Rowe said. “We’re not limited to a few inflammatory sentences and a flurry of emojis.
Now here is where the Good Knight attempts to send the defeated foe to his King.
Take a moment, Chuck. Think. Make a rational argument. Otherwise, just link us to a cat video. People love those, and they’re almost never ‘bad for business.’ (Unless of course, the cat gets hurt. People hate that.) Just don’t assume that people will care about your beliefs, if you’re not willing to back them up with some relevant facts and a rational conclusion. Here, for instance, are a few facts that matter to me, with respect to my foundation and the recurring charge of ‘fostering anti-intellectualism.'”
Rowe then defended his charitable work, writing:
“mikeroweWORKS is a PR campaign for the skilled trades. For the last nine years, we’ve partnered with numerous trade schools, raised millions of dollars for work-ethic scholarships, and called attention to millions of jobs that don’t require a four-year degree. But that doesn’t mean we’re ‘anti-intellectual.’ We’re not even ‘anti-college.’ We simply reject the popular notion that a four-year degree is the best path for the most people.
And we’re hardly alone.
“Millions of reasonable people – Republicans and Democrats alike – are worried that our universities are doing a poor job of preparing students for the real world.
They’re worried about activist professors, safe spaces, the rising cost of tuition, a growing contempt for history, and a simmering disregard of the first amendment.
These people are concerned that our universities – once beacons of free speech – now pander to a relatively small percentage of students who can’t tolerate any political opinion that challenges their own. And they’re concerned – deeply concerned – that millions of good jobs are currently vacant that don’t require a four-year degree, or any of the catastrophic debt that comes with it.”
Returning to the original attack, Rowe concluded, “Again – these are not the concerns of ‘anti-intellectuals.’
They are the concerns of people who care about the future of the country.
I don’t know how many of these people are Republicans, but I can assure you that no one who actually supports my initiative is remotely confused about my feelings on education, because I’ve been crystal clear on that topic from the very beginning. To quote Thomas Jefferson, (while I still can,) ‘If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.’ On this point, my foundation does not equivocate.
“In other words, Chuck, I have no idea what The White Nationalists think about my efforts, or the Republicans, the Democrats, the elitists, the Italians, the Presbyterians, the unions, or the self-proclaimed anti-intellectuals. And really, I couldn’t care less. My question is, why do you?
Mike”
After his long rant, Rowe added two postscripts to lighten the mood a bit.
“PS. Ok, I’ve just re-read this, (in a desperate search for typos,) and I want to apologize for pointing out that you’re a lousy speller. This is probably not the time to trot out The Grammar Nazi, but your tenor and tone pissed me off, and I responded in my own snarky way. Sorry,” he wrote.
“PPS Maybe this is how political correctness begins? Maybe we start by correcting each other’s grammar, and then move on to the business of correcting everything else? Today a missing hyphen, tomorrow a missing monument. Or, maybe not,” he concluded.
I think we can all take lessons from that. Read it all again. Patiently. Don't rush like you just did. Drink deep. Pax.
