Treason, Up Close and Personal

According to a forthcoming book, "Peril" by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made two secret phone calls to the Chinese military stating that he would give the People's Liberation Army, and hence the Chinese Communist Party, advance warning of any US attack against them.

These calls were made during the end of Trump's time in office, when Milley believed that "the president had suffered a mental decline after the election" and that Trump would use nuclear weapons against them.

During the first call, on October 30, 2020 - before Trump's supposed decline, Milley is quoted as telling his Chinese counterpart:

"I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay... We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It's not going to be a surprise."

Parts of this book were released by the Washington Post, which states:

"[Milley] called the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing the military exercises, according to the book. The admiral complied."

It gets worse:

"Milley also summoned senior officers to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, saying the president alone could give the order — but, crucially, that he, Milley, also had to be involved. Looking each in the eye, Milley asked the officers to affirm that they had understood, the authors write, in what he considered an “oath.”"

The second call was made on January 8th - two days after the protest on the Capitol - when China doubted US stability. Milley calmed them down, stating

"We are 100 percent steady. Everything's fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes."

None of this was communicated to Trump, but Milley did discuss this with Nancy Pelosi.

Woodward and Costa used only unnamed sources, according to the WaPo, but Milley has just released a statement affirming that he did indeed make those calls.

When asked about Milley's actions, Biden said, "I have great confidence in Gen. Milley." The cycle of incompetence thus continues with this ringing endorsement.

 

Excusing the Inexcusable

Defenders of Milley's actions would say that Trump was "squirrelly", and that this somehow necessitated communication between Milley and the CCP. But what evidence is used to justify claims of squirrellyness? That Trump required NATO members to pay their dues? That he called mass illegal immigration for what it is - an invasion? That he put terrorists on notice that there would be swift retribution for their attacks? That he pissed off the left-wing media?

Well, Trump did indeed piss off the left-wing media. Milley saw this, stuck his finger in the air to determine which way the wind was blowing, and acted accordingly. He started by apologizing for inspecting the damage done by Antifa and BLM rioters while standing next to Trump. Then came his House Armed Services Committee testimony in which he was offended that people would call the military "woke" while simultaneously stating that he wants to understand critical race theory and the roots of "white rage":

"I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it. What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? I want to find that out."

Now, we find that he has been working with at least one enemy. His actions were based on political expediency and nothing more.

Imagine that the United States did indeed choose to attack China - how would the Chinese use the information that Milley would provide? Further, did Milley actually believe that his tango with the Chinese would end with Trump being out of office? His naiveté is staggering.

 

The Context

Milley was not acting in a vacuum.

Even before the disastrous exit from Afghanistan, you had a West Point cadet advocating for communism, former high ranking officials making disparaging remarks about their Commander-in-Chief like Mister James Mattis and his inexcusable "bone spurs" comment, and the National Guard being used to protect the Capitol against "insurrectionists and violent extremists" - while not providing them with any ammunition.

And of course there's the woke Army recruiting video.

Then during and immediately after the loss of the Kabul airport you have Defense Department spokesman John Kirby admitting that he doesn't know how many Americans are still in Afghanistan, and General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. stating that he was sharing information with and relying on the Taliban to provide security.

At the highest level there is Joe Biden. He admitted that lists of Americans and American sympathizers were given to the Taliban so that they can expedite their exit (presumably from Afghanistan, not from this mortal coil). Biden stated that he accepts responsibility for the exit, then immediately lays blame for the Taliban takeover on the Afghan National Army and on the left's perpetual whipping-boy, Donald Trump.

Between the exit from Afghanistan and the woke military, the latter is the most damaging to us, for it indicates the criteria used to measure the worthiness of any military action. Potential actions will not be judged upon whether they further America's safety and security, or on the possibility of success. No. Instead, actions will be judged on whether they act against the cis-normative hegemony and deliver a blow against the patriarchy, all while being culturally sensitive and minimizing our carbon footprint. To quote Trump, "everything woke turns to shit." You, gentle reader, can complete the syllogism.

 

Signs of Hope

All is not lost, however, for there are dissenting voices. One of them belongs to USMC Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller who, following the Kabul airport terrorist attack that killed 13 service members including 11 Marines, released a video in which he absolutely excoriated the higher-ups for their shortage of accountability over the events in Afghanistan:

"I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever, but I am saying: Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say ‘hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone. Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say 'we completely messed this up.'

That one man with his one video has proven that there are some men with a spine left in the US military. Hence the importance of dissent - it allows us to separate the institution from some very rotten apples.

And Scheller's not alone: others have come out against the leadership vacuum.

And they're not alone, either: those of us with friends who are either active duty or retired military cannot help but see the courage and patriotism in their eyes.

 

The Fallout

Both Milley and Scheller should be concerned for their future (as should we all), but notice the difference between them: Milley, in his "desire to understand white rage" comments, expressed his opinion without concern for personal repercussions. This could mean that either politicians would accept those comments as obsequious bromides, or more likely that the expression of those sentiments was the goal itself, consequences be damned. That's called virtue signaling, the sine qua non of wokeness.

Scheller explicitly acknowledges the personal consequences that would befall him after his video goes public. There is nothing wrong with doing so. It does not prove that he has a martyr complex; rather it shows a man who is fully aware that opinions and actions have consequences, the opposite of wokeness.

Shortly after the release of that video, Scheller announced that "I have been relieved for cause based on a lack of trust and confidence." Whose trust? Whose confidence? No one of any merit.

Popular opinion holds that only tragedy awaits those with principle. This is incorrect - those with principle are resilient, and that resiliency comes from having a spine. Those with principle understand that an individual must stand up one more time than he is knocked down. Men with principle can move the world; those without merely stand with their fingers in the air, waiting for the winds to change.

Scheller is a man of principle, hence he will land on his feet.

For Milley, the wind is shifting against him. Christopher Miller, the Secretary of Defense during the time Milley made at least one of his calls with the Chinese military, stated that he did not and would never authorize such calls. Supposedly, several Pentagon officers present in Milley’s secret meeting are willing to testify against him under oath. He even lost the support of never-Trumper Alexander Vindman.

So, what of Milley? Biden, in his quest to accept responsibility, is looking for a new whipping boy, and Milley just moved to the front of the line.

The Last Fourth

We remember important first events - the first time you met the person who will become your significant other, the first words and first steps of your growing child. We also remember important last events - the last time you visited your alma mater, the last time you spoke with a dying parent.

Some events, though, are taken for granted - we didn't correctly identify the importance of an event until after it happened - so we remember neither the first nor the last time they occurred.

For example, my ex significant other and I always used to drive at least an hour to some random small town just to have pizza for dinner. The particular town or restaurant didn't matter - all small towns have good local Italian restaurants. What mattered is that we did this together, and that we enjoyed it. It was such a simple thing, and neither of us at the time realized how important those weekly outings were. For that reason, I cannot tell you the name of the town or restaurant we first ate at. I thought these road trips would go on forever, and now that he and I are separated, I can't remember the last place we went to. All I know is that there was a first town and restaurant and a last town and restaurant, and that there will be no more such road trips.

The same goes with holidays, Independence Day in particular. I have a childhood memory of my first fireworks show: the symmetry of the explosions, the three-dimensionality of the trails of sparks, how the bursts looked like flowers, only loud! At the time I didn't know why there were fireworks on that day, the Fourth of July, but I knew that that day must be important.

Years and years later, I also recall the last fireworks show I attended, which was in 2010. In the time between the first fireworks show and that last one, I became extremely averse to their sounds as well as to crowds. This may sound stupid, but there it is.

In an attempt to cure myself of this, I attended the 2010 Fourth of July celebration at a beach town in Maryland. I arrived very early, found a place on the beach as close as possible to the fireworks launcher, laid back on my towel, stretched my arms out, and watched. By the end, I was tired from the conscious effort needed not to move, and my hands were sore from grabbing the sand and towel for dear life! As I returned to my car, several strangers on the boardwalk asked if I was OK. I wasn't, but it didn't matter, for I made it through the whole thing.

This brings us to the Fourth of July 2020. Most large fireworks displays were cancelled because of the China Flu. Even if they weren't canceled, the meaning of Independence Day has changed for some Americans. Instead of being a time to celebrate our freedom, for them it has become an occasion to disparage our country.

There are three groups of people doing this.

First, there are the gay rights activists. They claim that homophobia exists, but to justify this they must add letters to what used to be only LGB. By doing so, they drop the idea that what makes a gay person gay is who he or she is attracted to, and replace it with an "assigned gender preference." They elevate fetishes to the status of sexual orientation. They also make a lack of self-awareness into an orientation, calling such people "transgender," "non-binary," "questioning," "pansexual," or "gender fluid". Further, some of them are attempting to normalize pedophilia, saying that the adult participants in this are "minor-attracted people" and trying to add a second "P" to the ever-growing initialism of non-cis-heterosexual "orientations".

Instead of "LGBTTQQIAAP," activists should save time and letters just by using "ABS" - anybody but straight.

With each letter added to "LGB" and each color added to the rainbow flag, someone claims a victory. But victories are meaningless when the opposition is negligible and the cost of losing is nonexistent.

If they want a true victory, these so-called activists should attempt to end the lawful execution of gays in Muslim countries. But they won't even try, since they are convinced that all cultures must be respected.

Then there is the Black Lives Matter movement, which is composed either of guilty white liberals or people looking for any opportunity to loot and burn. Black lives matter to them as long as it is a black man who was killed by a white cop, or if the black in question votes for the Democrats.

Of course there was slavery, but we fought a war to end it. The people who claim racism still exists are the same ones rewriting the history of the Civil War and destroying monuments describing that war. BLM continues to fight a war that ended in 1865 while completely ignoring the fact that slavery is still common in Africa and that there is an active slave trade in the Arab world.

Finally, there are the socialists calling themselves Antifa. They despise capitalism while living off their parents' trust funds and organizing their permanent revolution by using capitalist-made computers, all while enjoying overpriced coffee at Starbucks.

These modern-day Trotskyites operate in a logical and historical vacuum, ignoring the mass genocides that occurred in the countries governed by the very leaders that Antifa idolizes, all while favorably comparing themselves to American D-Day troops.

The commonality to these groups is that their members don't know how good they have it, and they have to invent nonexistent enemies to aggrandize their otherwise unremarkable lives. They are fueled by a vacuous education system, encouraged by their over-indulgent parents, enabled by left-wing politicians and judges, and operate unopposed by spineless cuckservastives.

The people doing this denigration are either ignorant of our history or were taught a straw-man version of history. We're the country that built the Transcontinental Railroad in only six years. We conquered the Axis Powers in under six years. We landed men on the Moon nine years after Kennedy set the direction. We've cured diseases, invented technologies, raised the standard of living for everybody. We're the ones who coined the term "self-made man," and many of us live that American dream.

These same people who deprecate this country have the whole world in their pockets, literally, either in iPhone or Android format. Yet the best they can do is defecate in their own kitchens.

Given all this, one must wonder if the July Fourth that ended a few hours ago is indeed the last Independence Day we'll see that hasn't been eviscerated of content and celebrated only out of habit.

While all the local fireworks shows were cancelled, some individuals at nearby apartment complexes decided to have their own shows. This is America at its best - private individuals taking up the slack left by our spineless representatives. I went to one of these apartment complex shows; while the crowds weren't very big, the noises were still nerve wracking. For if this is to be the last real Fourth of July, I want to experience it, and I want it to hurt.

No Burka, No Hijab, No Service

The recent pandemic and rioting has lead me to frequently ask the following question: "Is there no shit you will not eat?" It is sort of a line out of an e e cummings' poem, and I'm not the only one asking this.
 

Rise of the Karens

State and local governments’ responses to the China Flu have led to the rise of the “Karens.” These are people who have gorged mightily the propaganda coming from media, politicians, and supposedly credible medical organizations, and who aren’t afraid to impose their will on those of us who realize that the China Flu is nothing but a sham pandemic – a shamdemic.

These Karens are to be derided not only for their uncritical acceptance of the details and timing of the shamdemic but also their unwillingness to let others act according to their own best judgement.

Karens are nothing new. In previous times they were called by the more accurate term: collaborators. But we are living in an age where honesty is seen as aggression, and truth must be sugared over or else be rejected as hate speech.
 

Narrative Collapse

What fuels the Karens' control freak binge is not only the relentless social programming coming from the media and left-wing politicians, but also the gaping holes in the stories. Inconsistencies and absurdities became clear very early in the shamdemic - and these weren't just the usual "fog of war" uncertainties but ongoing narrative revisions and obvious political jockeying made by people wishing to frighten a nation and who assume Americans have no memory beyond the immediate now. Not only history being rewritten, but current events are being reworked in a feverish quest to find something that sticks.

Examples of the inconsistencies include:

• Early overestimations of the virulence and fatality of the Bat Soup Flu based on models formulated without the input of empirical evidence
• Requiring masks, even if the masks are useless at best and harmful at worst
• Requiring masks, but only for certain races
• Allowing certain businesses to provide curbside service whereas others must be completely closed
• Hospitals inflating the number of Covid-19 cases in order to get increased government funding. Meanwhile, the Navy hospital ships sent to New York City and Los Angeles were mainly unoccupied, as were field hospitals.
• Drive-through clinics were even caught on video inflating the number of clients.

The public policies based on these inconsistencies and ordained by our representatives have done nothing but reveal their incompetency and expose their contempt and malevolence towards those that elected them.

Prisoners were released under the excuse that keeping them confined would increase their risk of becoming infected. Masks apparently don't work inside prisons. As can be expected, many of these released prisoners immediately repeated the kinds offenses for which they were originally being held.

Companies that were deemed "inessential" were ordered closed, unless, say, a governor had a personal stake in the business, for example a "life-sustaining" cabinet supply company.

Most damning of all was the decision by several states to move patients with China Flu into nursing homes, senior care centers, and similar facilities. One nurse at a nursing home in Illinois said, "our patients are dropping like flies." New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo understood the danger, stating that illness would go through elderly patients like "fire through dry glass." He ordered nursing homes to accept China Flu patients anyway. Nationally, the number of nursing home deaths has been reported to be 16,000.

Of course, putting China Flu patients into nursing homes is acceptable for us commoners but not for the ruling class - Pennsylvania's secretary of health Rachel Levine (formerly Richard) moved his mother from a nursing home into a hotel as the death toll rose. Richard was the one that allowed nursing homes to accept China Flu patients in the first place. Stunning and brave, Richard, stunning and brave.

These acts are criminal, and hopefully the governors and secretaries of health who implemented all this will receive the swift and severe retribution that they are due.
 

The Magical Virus

Meanwhile the magical powers of the virus causing Szechuan Sickness continue to expand!

The virus is attracted to small businesses, churches, weddings, and funerals... unless the deceased was a black man killed by a white police officer. Then multiple nationally televised funerals with dancing pallbearers and horse-drawn carriages are safe, because the church doors are marked with the blood of a fentanyl user who also tested positive for the Mandarin Malady.

The virus knows not to infect people who "social distance" (what an oxymoron!) by standing 6 feet apart (not 5'11"), except at certain types of protests. The Asian Affliction is attracted to shutdown protests and Trump rallies, and it is able to be detected without waiting for the usual 14-day incubation period to elapse. BLM and Antifa riots, however, have the Cantonese Contagion's approval, as well as the approval of least 1000 health professionals.

In fact, BLM protests actually may have slowed the overall spread of the virus. All hail the woke virus!
 

The Timing

Then there is the timing. The governors and mayors who are most adamant about keeping their states in lockdown or who devise the most circuitous staged reopening plans are Democrats. Amazing, isn’t it, that the China Flu began getting press almost immediately after the impeachment proceedings against President Trump fizzled. Then the George Floyd riots began just as the press realized that people were experiencing Covid-19 “burn out.” Now that the riots have mostly stopped, Covid-19 coverage has increased, with a focus on squaring away the importance of “social distancing” with the proximity of the rioters to each other.
 

But Back to the Karens

All of this – the narrative inconsistencies, the stupid policy decisions, the timings, as well as the fact that not many people directly know anyone who has had the China Flu – should give people reason to be just a little skeptical, and everybody should be outraged at the nursing home deaths. The Karens aren’t, for Karens don’t have time for suspicions, common sense, logic, the evidence of the senses, or for outrage beyond their own indignation – they’ve got religion, and they are oftentimes the same people who believe in global warming cooling climate change, a theory that has not produced one accurate prediction over all the decades it has been in existence.

For everybody else, all of this is a bill of particulars.

Some people would excuse the Karens by claiming that they are just exercising their freedom of speech. Notice that these apologists only allow Karens to use their First Amendment rights, and when the Karens do so, it frequently is in the form of either muttered insults or explicit threats directed at the no-mask wearing people and their families.

Unmentioned by the apologists is the harm that Karens do: some states maintain "snitch" websites that allows Karens to report individuals and businesses to state authorities for violating the dictates, or for companies to report employees for unemployment fraud. The state authorities can then take action, especially against small businesses.

On several occasions the snitch lists have been published. The Karens were incensed - how dare the businesses and individuals they reported have the right to face their accusers!

After she was exposed for using Missouri's snitch website, one sniveled "I'm not only worried about COVID, I'm worried about someone showing up at my door, showing up at my workplace or me getting fired for doing what is right." Welcome to the club, Karen. One would hope that the level of fear implied by that individual would lead to just a little character improvement. It won't, for when Karens get called on their bullshit, they turn all Manga eyed like that one did, and if you turn your back on them for one minute, they will revert to their old informant ways.

Never asked about these informants is whether they have ulterior motives: it is easy to foresee situations where one business owner may snitch on another, thereby using the power of the state to gain a competitive advantage that the informant's ability and determination never will provide.
 

Corporate Karens and the Problem with Masks

Karens aren't limited to being individuals - there are corporate Karens, too. These are businesses that not only meekly cooperate with the dictates coming from local and state governments, but are enforcing them on their customers and employees as well. And the companies insist of calling these dictates "laws" instead of what they are: orders.

This happens in particular with the mask orders.

The most common defense of businesses that require their customers and employees to wear masks is this: "No shirt, no shoes, no service wasn't affecting your rights. Neither does no mask, no service." When you call these apologists on their bullshit, the response is always "well that's very progressive of you, it is their private property after all." They no doubt say this while sipping the Libertarian equivalent of a Starbucks Vanilla Bean Mocha Frappuccino.

This is not only the most common defense, it is also the most disappointing, for they might as well be saying "no burka, no hijab, no service." Companies wield powerful economic and social forces and are in some ways and some situations as powerful as armies. To insist that we wear rose-colored blindfolds to this fact is criminal, and it is a gateway to innumerable abuses.

One has to wonder how far these apologists would go with this excuse: should government or semi-government offices have the same right to refuse you service? What if all private businesses of a certain type all decide to deny service? Are your rights still not being infringed?

And there's this: some cities and states, like New Orleans, are requiring companies to have their customers and employees participate in contact tracing. Logically, the apologists must still excuse this by saying "they're private companies, they aren't infringing your rights."

Again I ask: is there no shit you will not eat?

Perhaps these apologists may have good (though not well reasoned) intentions, or they may be "going along to get along," or they may just be cowards. Regardless, the result is inaction on their part and criticism of those who refuse to be inactive.

Let's analyze the "private companies get a pass" remark: the ownership of a particular business is not in question. What is in question is the propriety and overall wisdom of their enforcement of Peking Plague ordinance.

It is not a company's job to enforce dictates on their customers or employees - a business doesn't come with a badge. Law enforcement is and must solely be the responsibility of the police, and the China Flu dictates are orders, not laws.

"But, but, but... does that mean Christians should be forced into baking wedding cakes for gays?" Nope, for they (the Christian bakers) aren't acting as collaborators or dictate enforcers.
 

What to Do?

What responses are warranted by those denied entrance or service for not wearing a mask, not maintaining "social distance," etc.? Are we to simply fold like one of Ron Paul's cheap suits?

One proper reaction is to use "the power of the purse," but it must be done in an effective manner, not merely as lip service.

Do not simply go to another store. Make sure that the store denying you entrance or service knows that you are not going to be purchasing from them because they are in bed with fools. If you make it to the cash register and are denied service, make them understand that it is they who will be the ones returning the stock to the shelves, and why they will be doing so.

This is the real power of the purse: you have to make sure the business not only knows they are losing money, but why they are losing money. Otherwise all they see is a small downtick in revenue when they do their books, and they can easily explain it away as random.

Another approach is to protest outside the homes of health officials, or to dox them. According to one report, these actions have caused some officials to resign their posts out of fear for their safety. Good.

Coordinated actions are possible too: go mask-less shopping with friends, participate in boycotts and class-action lawsuits, etc. Coordinated actions can fail, but individual actions will always result in at least a small victory.

Whatever the approach, make it expensive for them not to accept your money. Make those businesses understand in concrete terms that your patronage is not a given, and that their actions will come at a cost.
 

Conclusion

The immediate goal of the scamdemic is to cause division.

In day-to-day terms, ask yourself how many calm and rational in-person debates have you had with people who hold the opposite views on the China Flu? Before the shutdowns and the masks, it was an almost daily thing with me. The last one I had was with a dental technician whose office was shut down and who now works at a convenience store. With the coming of the masks, every interaction - if interaction was even possible - has become either an enforcement act or a shouting match instead of a healthy debate.

How much of the unemployment, the business closures, the economic suffering, and most importantly the level of political animosity and vitriol would we have now if companies didn't blindly follow these orders? Animosity and vitriol are the thing we should be most concerned about because we are now much closer to mass civil disorder or even civil war than we ever were over the last 12 years. Masks are just one more wedge issue used to divide and conquer us.

A second goal is to swing the 2020 election. The one accomplishment that even leftists cannot deny is the incredible economic prosperity that resulted when Trump began to roll-back policies of the previous several administrations. The shutdowns have thrown millions of people out of work (the "inessentials") and have forced the shuttering of thousands of small businesses - some forever, thus ending this prosperity.

The ultimate goal of the masks, the shutdowns, and all the rest is to normalize fear and instill control. The concrete symbol of the control is the mask, and it signifies submission. The enforcers of the control are collaborating companies, their employees, and the Karens.

That is to be the new normal, something that must be resisted at all costs.

Gillette So Woke

Gillette's new commercial opens with a montage of real-life and on-line bullying, men cat-calling, a row of men standing behind a row of barbecue grills chanting "boys will be boys." It continues with scenes of "mansplaining", "toxic masculinity", and a news announcer decrying sexual harassment, thus making tie-ins with the #MeToo movement. Throughout the ad, the sanctimonious narrator asks "Is this the best a man can get? Is it?", thereby mocking Gillette's 30-year-old motto "the best a man can get." Near the end it shows men standing up to sexual harassment and stopping bullies. The commercial finishes with the obligatory link to a .org website.

This advertisement was made by Grey Advertising and was directed by Kim Gehrig, who produced last year's "Viva La Vulva" commercial that featured singing sock puppet vaginas.

Grey Advertising may or may not subscribe to P.T. Barnum's maxim that "there is no such thing as bad publicity," but they certainly advocate the older version of that phase: "success through scandal" ("succès de scandale"). But success for whom: for Gillette or for the advertising company?

Commercials are supposed to maintain a customer base and encourage others to use their product. Does the new Gillette commercial do either? It does - especially if you use one of Gillette's competitors.

Commercials are supposed to sell a product, not to proselytize. The act of shaving is just that: shaving. If you do it in the morning, you do it to look it to look professional, not to virtue signal.

Commercials are supposed to generate profits. Does this advertisement do so? It's too early to tell for Gillette and parent company Proctor and Gamble, though they did promise to pay $1 million per year for three years to "worthy nonprofits." So profits were generated for somebody besides Grey Advertising.

Here's the real problem with Gillette's ad: it is condescending AF. It portrays men acting as gentlemen and interfering with bullies as something new and hip and edgy, not as ordinary chivalry that was commonplace before the rise of the soy boy and the culture of victimhood.

Further, imagine if the ad decried the bad habits of Muslims, blacks, gays, etc — there would be an uproar! Instead, the ad is about the bad habits of men, so not only does it get a pass, the commercial is lauded by AdWeek for "flipping the narrative" and Gillette is celebrated for being "woke."

Finally, if there is any honest substance to the #MeToo movement, doesn't Gillette's new commercial trivialize that substance? Indeed it does, for the ad is basically saying: "I wake up in the morning feeling guilty for having a penis and balls. I'm not yet ready for gender reassignment surgery, so whatever should I do? I know, I'll shave with a Gillette razor, thereby symbolically castrating myself!"

Am I "triggered" by that ad, like certain news outlets claim I should be? Nope. Am I tired of companies committing suicide by becoming politicized in general, and by shilling for the left in particular? Yup. Right now, I'm laughing as I order razors from the Dollar Shave Club. And Grey Advertising is laughing all the way to the bank.

Why I'm a Racist

Racism is a form of determinism: it is the theory that the content of an individual's mind is innate and determined (somehow) by their genetic heritage. An individual's virtues or vices are not determined by his choices, according to this theory, but rather by the collective "blood" of his ancestors.

The central problem of racism is that it short-circuits our ability to make accurate judgements about a person. Euclid, the ancient Greek mathematician, reportedly told his student Ptolemy I, who later became one of the successors of Alexander the Great, that "there is no royal road to knowledge." This is what racism is: a royal road to knowledge of an individual's character, without any cognitive effort beyond noticing that individual's skin tone.

So, why am I a racist?

Easy: the standard of what constitutes racism has changed.

It used to be that lynching was considered a racist act. Here's a partial list of what constitutes modern racism:

• Math
• Logic
• Physics
• English grammar
• Meritocracy
• Medical school admissions
• Hiring standards for police and fire departments
• Classical sculpture
• Allowing restroom access only to paying customers
• Business hours

Notice the commonality: all of these examples constitute a replacement of objective standards by some ill-defined subjective criteria with the stated goal of "increasing diversity." Racism is thus "eliminated" by eliminating rigor and high expectations, and hoping that the outcome is somehow "fair." Everybody gets a participation trophy when equality of outcome replaces equality of opportunity.

One consequence of this redefinition of racism is that it mocks and cheapens the achievements of those who fought against actual racism. It equates microaggressions with lynchings, thus elevating the banal to the level of evil.

A second consequence is that it lowers the standards of doing good. It allows people to fool themselves into believing that they are achieving something important when they obstruct traffic or kneel at a football game. Anybody can be Sojourner Truth or MLK without leaving the comfort of their keyboard - all they have to do is play the victim and be offended. What such people do not understand is that achievement is only possible through rigorous standards; remove those standards, and significant accomplishments will not arise. Sending men to the moon required exacting standards of physics and mathematics; protesting the Apollo 11 launch only required four mules and two wagons.

Third, this redefinition of racism allows anti-white prejudice to be acceptable and to go unchallenged. White guilt is "earned" for having and demanding high expectations, and there is no way of atoning for this "sin", since ignoring race is itself racist, as is noticing race.

The ultimate problem of redefining racism in this manner is that it significantly reduces the quality of life for everybody, not just whites, all while misplacing the responsibility on the wrong party. For example, when a person receives substandard care from a graduate of a medical school boasting affirmative action as an admittance criteria, who will get the blame: the student who took advantage of this lowered acceptance criteria, or the administrator who decided that admission by reason of diversity was a good idea?

Those who promulgate this redefinition of racism thus offer us the following choice: be called a racist, or abandon strict standards of excellence. Rational people must not allow themselves to be skewered on the horns of this false dichotomy - rational people want both rigorous standards as well as the right to make objective judgements. But if wanting to retain math, logic, and the other beneficiaries of exacting standards makes me racist, then I'm a racist. I'm going to own the "fact" that I'm a racist. Just don't expect me to go to a Klan rally.

No Hiding Place

It starts in the crib.

Young children spend an inordinate amount of time exploring the physical world - they learn how balls bounce, how liquids splash, why they shouldn’t touch a hot stove, etc. They’re not limited to physics, though: they learn about poison ivy, they learn why one should never pull a cat’s tail, they learn to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly dogs. Their investigations include people, too - they trust their parents, and they learn that the vast majority of people in the world are kind. More than that, they begin learning how to distinguish between people who wish them well and those who desire to harm them.

The world is a wonderful place, according to this perspective, and we are confident in our ability to survive and to be happy in it.

That is, until the world stops being benevolent.

In the first week of January, in Chicago, a white special-needs teenager was kidnapped and held captive by four black teenagers for 24 to 48 hours. One of his captors was an acquaintance. The victim was bound and gagged, partially scalped, forced to drink from a toilet, and verbally abused by his captors, who said things like "fuck white people" and "fuck Donald Trump". Parts of this attack were livestreamed on Facebook.

Thanks to Facebook Live, we have photos of the victim as he is being assaulted, and there's one in particular showing him cowering in a corner, looking directly at the camera.

Oh God, that photo.

Anybody who has been so assaulted saw that photo in their mind whenever they closed their eyes. They were unable to sleep the night they read the news. They were extremely angry, and irritable to those around them for days afterward. They went to work the next day, in part to avoid thinking about the incident, but mostly out of fear of just what they would do if left to their own devices.

There's a popular phrase to describe what the four thugs did: they "objectified" their victim. That's a euphemism, for objects cannot experience fear, or betrayal, or helplessness, or any of the other emotions the victim experienced. Just look at that photo.

It's also easy to assume that the thugs got a sexual thrill, as if the event were an elaborate BDSM scene gone awry. No, they were thrilled over the fact that they could torture with impunity, that there was nothing stopping them - not the victim, not the police, not bystanders, and certainly not their own consciences.

The attackers didn't stop because the victim capitulated to their demands. There were no demands, at least of the type this victim could understand. Rather, the thugs stopped because they got bored.

Surely the police would show some courage about this event, wouldn't they? They didn't. Speaking of the four assailants, Chicago Police Commander Kevin Duffin stammered: "You know, although they are adults, they’re 18... Kids make stupid decisions — I shouldn’t call them kids, they’re legally adults, but they’re young adults and they make stupid decisions. That certainly will be part of whether or not a hate crime is — seek a hate crime and determine whether or not this is sincere or just ranting and raving."

You know, the very fact that the four perpetrators did adult stuff makes them adults. And it is irrelevant whether they were sincere or just ranting and raving: those four adults acted as the feral animals that they are, and "ranting and raving" cannot be used as an excuse for what those feral animals did. You'd almost expect Duffin to say it wasn't a hate crime, since Trump-supporters aren't a "protected class".

Later, the four thugs were indeed charged with a hate crime. Was it because the attackers were black and the victim white? Or was it because the victim has special needs? That ambiguity is the police commander's safe space, or as he put it: "It’s half a dozen of one, six of the other", which is another euphemism, meaning that he's more than happy with that ambiguity.

One would hope that the good Commander got a fair price for his spine, for he has clearly sold it.

Commander Duffin's handwringing was matched by the quality of media coverage - Duffin may not have explicitly provided the main stream media their soundbites, but his doubts certainly gave them license.

CNN's Don Lemon essentially echoed the Police Commander's words: "I don’t think it's evil. I don't think it's evil. I think these are young people and I think they have bad home training. I have no idea who is raising these young people, because no one I know on earth who is 17-years-old or 70-years-old would ever think of treating another person like that. It is inhumane. And you wonder, at 18-years-old, where is your parent, where is your guardian?"

On the same Don Lemon program, another member of the press described the attack as an example of "man's inhumanity to man" - that's yet another euphemism, meant to absolve the perpetrators while allowing the speaker to signal his "concern".

At least Don Lemon mentioned the race of the victim and the attackers - he had to, since TV is a visual medium. In the "This Week in Hate" column, the New York Times described the events in a race-neutral fashion: "Four people have been charged with a hate crime, among other charges, in the beating in Chicago of a teenager with mental disabilities, which was broadcast on Facebook Live on January 3. The video shows one of the suspects shouting about Donald Trump and 'white people.'"

Most reprehensible of all is the CBS Radio's report which acknowledged the race factor but reversed the races of the victim and the attackers:

"The viral video of a beating and knife attack in Chicago suggests the assault had racial overtones. CBS’s Dean Reynolds tells us the victim is described as a mentally-challenged teenager.

"In the video he is choked and repeatedly called the n-word. His clothes are slashed and he is terrorized with a knife. His alleged captors repeatedly reference Donald Trump. Police are holding four people in connection with the attack."

The hate crime debate, the media's distortion of the events, the police commander's cowardice, all of these, are distractions from the actual events. It is the substitution of politics for ethics - and look at the type of politics involved. All these actions are the actions of cowards, substituting fairness in place of justice, thereby achieving neither. With their dissembling, the media and the Chicago Police are excusing monsters and the evil that they do.

Justice can be achieved only if one has the pertinent facts, and excusing evil requires that those facts be obscured; justice is thus precluded.

Any bystander with a shred of decency would interfere. They certainly wouldn't stand and do nothing but watch, or take videos with their cellphones like those thugs did. They wouldn't stop to wonder whether the attackers were adults or "just kids". They wouldn't try to decide whether they were witnessing a hate crime. They wouldn't attempt to psychoanalyze the attackers. At the very least, they would use their cellphones to call the police - and hope that Commander Duffin would not answer.

At best, bystanders would put away their cellphones and set upon the assailants. Their need for justice exceeds society's "desire" for cultural sensitivity and abrogation of personal responsibility. They would stop the thugs not with necessary force, but with overwhelming force - proportionality be damned. Why? Because that will be the only opportunity for justice to be served.

That opportunity is now past. All we can do is watch, observe the helplessness, observe the betrayal of a lifetime's worth of experience, and witness the abrupt end to the victim's childhood.