Citizens of the World

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

One of the funniest conceit of our age has to be the idea that the sophisticated and “bien pensant” are “citizens of the world.”

I was profoundly amused that Alvin Toffler fell for his in his last book I read sometime in the 90s. Keep in mind that, despite everything else, I believe his Future Shock is brilliant and explains a lot of life in the US in the last fifty years. (Note in the US. I’m not sure about the rest of the world. And I could explain why, but it would sidetrack us a lot more than this.) However the book about how the most powerful were the ones who had the most information (arguable) also pushed the “citizens of the world, not a country” thing as being the one for most powerful people.

I was amused because, though I agree this is the CONCEIT of most self-styled international elites, it is also in practicality, a load of stinking Hooey. (Or as we call it around here, #2son’s pre-school teacher. Yes, that really was her last name.)

Part of the reason the “elites” believe themselves multinational or “citizens of the world” is oikophobia. They believe themselves to have risen above their co-citizens in their lands of origin, who are …. well, in their minds, stupid and uneducated, which is a way to say “less rich” than the “elites.”

Therefore, in the same way that the nobility of old had more in common with other nobility from other lands than with their own country, they think they are a caste set aside and by reason of existing or having money inherently superior to all those who are loyal in and interested in their homelands.

Part of it is the belief that “nationalism” is bad and it led to WWI and WWII. Having been taught that (at this point it, drank it with mother’s milk) the richest and “best” (Most expensively) educated want to get as far away from that as possible, and be at a level when they’re free from that irrational passion, since it’s their conceit that they can rule “impartially” and from above for the good of all.

The problem with it is that not only is none of it true, but they are in fact both more provincial and less well educated than their countrymen. And also that what they aspire to is not only impossible, but really easy to manipulate.

So, the long war of the 20th century was not because of nationalism. In fact, the only explanation I have found for its being assumed to be so is that the international socialists who dominated intellectual discourse for the rest of the century despised the fact that, against their theory, workers of the world didn’t unite, but rather rallied to defend their homeland.

However, if you do a deep dive into the reasons for the first war, ignoring the opinions of those writing about it — which I did, because I was profoundly unsatisfied with the reasons given and none of it made sense — the war’s causation was attempts at internationalism. yes, the interantionalism wasn’t of the “supra-national, pseudo worldwide” type (Actually the mask worn by Russian national imperialism) but of the ‘extended noble family trying to grab the entire world’ type. But it was still internationalism, with all the problems of internationalism. (More on that later.)

And the current elites are not “better educated” and don’t rise above much of anything. In fact the world-renowned establishments most of them attend take so many “legacy” and “endowed an entire specialty” students, not to mention “admitted because diversity of skin color or origin” that their meritocratic requirements (I.E. knows or gives a damn about the subject), might be lower than your average state university. Also, once admitted, these people are guaranteed to graduate. Or at least will, barring some particularly egregious violation of code or “everybody knows.”

Look, guys, we’ve all Michelle Obama’s Harvard paper. I’ve taught high school kids. I wouldn’t let one of them skate by on something that vapid, much less an ivy league college student. But she, and her distinctly non-intellectual husband, graduated.

I have no idea where Chelsea Clinton graduated from, but I have a vague idea that she has a law degree, and let’s face it, she was too stupid to keep a talk show going. And the very fact that Kamala Harris couldn’t enter the college her parents attended (An ivy and I THINK Harvard) should be a fire alarm. However, she too has a law degree, despite the word salad betraying an IQ that wouldn’t rival my cat Havey, who has the brain of a peanut.

Heck, because these days the people chosen for financial and political (that they’re linked betrays that the fascists did indeed win, at least in the century-long run) advancement are chosen mostly on the basis or how well they chugged the Marxist koolaid, most of them aren’t so much educated as Marxist-indoctrinated.

Which both explains their belief they were made/educated to rule us all — the Intellectuals, leading the working class to socialist paradise, sing it with me! — and their utter, abject inability to see the problems with that.

This was brought home to me this morning, when I came across a discussion on X where a hapless gun-control advocate said he was tired of the government doing nothing, and they should just go door to door and confiscate all guns and arrest all gun owners.

Let alone that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, and mentally ill people kill people in vast numbers. I think still the largest mass murder in American history was a bomb set in a school at the turn of the twentieth century. (If you don’t count 9/11 because act of war, though you know? Could be counted.) And you can’t confiscate all the means to make bombs, not if you want people to be able to function at all. Heck, Great Britain’s attempts to stop murder are getting to the point of confiscating butter knives, and yet the murders continue. (Partly because criminals don’t obey laws, but also because if you want to kill someone, you’ll find a way. I find it darkly amusing that the same people who think teaching abstinence doesn’t work in sexual matters, think rules will stop humans killing humans. Their approach to stop violence, if applied to sex, would require a license to buy a condom, careful mental examination of any woman wishing to take the pill, and probably forbidding diaphragms and implants. And they’d be astonished that people are still sleeping together.)

However, what betrayed the person posting that comment as a part of the imagined “citizens of the world” was his (or hers. The name could go either way. So using “his” because that’s what the English language prescribed before people went nuts) utter and complete certainty that going door to door in the US would work, and that people would meekly hand over their guns.

First, let’s talk about “who is going to do that?” Because I can tell you, having known a lot of policemen and sheriff’s over the years, I happen to know all of them have people they will not approach even to say “good morning” because “that crazy summabitch will shoot me if he sees my car.”And in fact, they won’t go anywhere near those people, unless there is a major crime reason to. Or what do you think all the “people of interest” who are left alone are? Tell your average policeman or sheriff dept deputy to go door to door and confiscate his neighbor’s guns, and they will find that they’re really sick that day. It’s probably Covid. They don’t want to spread it, you know? And it will last as long as the order is operative. Because they’re not stupid. And even leaving aside the known crazies, they know the rest of the population will at best lie about whether they have guns. And if they force the issue, it will get ugly fast.

But more importantly, these “Citizens of the world” have no clue how their country is constituted, nor how many miles of miles and miles with the occasional house there are in this country. Or that each state has a different culture. Or–

In fact, these people who by and large don’t mix with local populations have a vague idea that the country has a lot more cities/apartments than it does, and that people act more compliant than they do. Because like Europeans, what they know about America is what they see in movies, not realizing movies are made by people like them and are feeding their assumptions back to them.

They also have a vague idea most of the country is easily led, because of course the only reason to disagree with them is that we’re being lied to by extremely persuasive evil people. (that it never occurs to them this might be happening to them, is a measure of lack of self awareness.) Hence their reason to try to get Trump. Because without his evil persuasion, we’d be fully on board with their crazy-cakes insanity.

As for the European elites, I don’t know. I used to hobnob with them, in the sense that I tended to hobnob with the over-educated which were, definitionally, better off than I, but it’s been a minute. However, judging from that and what I see now, my belief is they’re not really “citizens of the world” so much as citizens of their homeland which they secretly believe should rule all nations due to the “nationality”-race/breed being obviously superior.

What I do know is that there is no such a thing as a citizen of the world, no matter the level of self delusion that induces people to believe they are such.

We are all members of our culture. While we can believe everything about our culture is bad and evil, we still project it on everything else we see. Therefore, you know, well to do Americans keep believing criminals and terrorists don’t really exist, and must be decent people driven to extremes by need or oppression. (The results of these beliefs would be hilarious, if they didn’t more or less break everything.) Heck, they keep believing the LAZY or lacking ambition don’t exist, and if people aren’t working hard to succeed it must be because of a terrible condition. (Look up “Bee sting” theory of poverty sometime.)

When the various international elites meet abroad, they each read in the other what they themselves would do, but don’t actually understand each other beyond vague fashion sense, and spending money like water.

Ultimately their entire attempt to be “international” seems to consist of an idea that if they just become the people of the song “Imagine” and don’t believe in or care about anything, they can lead people better.

They are wrong because it’s not only impossible to divest yourself of all passion and interest (well, without offing yourself or doing a lot of drugs) but also because it’s impossible to totally divest yourself of your basic culture. (You can acculturate, but that involves a lot of work, and ACQUIRING another culture, which defeats their purpose. The “citizen of the world” culture doesn’t exist, beyond some shibboleths like “humans are killing the Earth” and “The proles are really stupid, eh?”). MORE IMPORTANTLY, even if they managed it, that wouldn’t make them impartial or able to lead anyone to utopia. What it would make them is very, very people-stupid and unable to realize why certain people do certain things, and others don’t. Or why certain countries are the way they are.

In fact, to the extent they’ve managed to shed their culture and replace it with Marxism, all they’ve done is become an unreasoning cult, unable to realize the population isn’t in fact exploding — because people lie in census, and so do nations — but also that there is not only no necessity but no benefit in “eating bugs.”

What they’ve managed in fact is to become rulers completely detached from the nations/locales they’re supposed to read, and completely unable to conceptualize individual freedom and will.

In that they completely replicate the “nobility” and “elites” pre WWI.

And so, there is it. “Citizens of the world” leading us into chaos and war for a hundred years.

225 thoughts on “Citizens of the World”

  1. I think there’s also an economic aspect, since most of the self-identified elites have interest in corporations that span the globe. Because of the way they’re structured, these corporations and trusts tend to be supranational. It would make sense for the families that rely on them to start thinking they were above, or apart from, any government.

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  2. What guns? Why would I have guns? The safe? Yes. Where we keep the digital cameras, my jewelry, and the laptops when we are away. Want to see? 100% truth. Front closet. No guns.

    I know of people that it’ll take a huge moving truck to confiscate their firearms. Not more than a few of them are the city, county, and state, officers TPTB are sending out to confiscate said firearms. Sick out? Heck they are home protecting their own 2nd amendment stashed pond.

    ………………………….
    Guns are locked in the pond where we had the canoe accident. Heck of a note, we don’t even need a canoe to lose them in a canoe accident in the pond. The pond is not in the front hall closet.

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    1. I don’t have firearms. At best, I have flabby arms. Sometimes I have tired arms. But no one would ever call them “firearms.” Unless I go out in the sun without sleeves, I suppose.

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      2. I do have wings, called humorously “bingo” wings because when you wave your bingo card they flap in the breeze. And if the breeze is strong enough, they flap. Which makes your shadow pretty funny.

        I think “firearms” might be a hotel in Montana somewhere. The Fire Arms.

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        1. There was the Jeff Foxworthy routine, done to the old Batman theme:
          “Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, GRANDMA!”
          Referring to older ladies’ “wings.”

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  3. I’d peg them as 18th century French aristocracy. And we know what happened to them…
    ———————————
    Those who do not remember the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the mistakes. Those who do remember are doomed to watch everybody else repeat them.

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      1. The guillotine will claim her bloody prize!

        Unfortunately, the first time I remember hearing “citizen of the world” as a phrase was in a Rush song…I tend to skip that one these days. Even the Great Ones made a misstep now and then.

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  4. I heard the first person to use the term “citizen of the world” – cosmopolitan – was Diogenes, who used it as a dodge, pledging himself to an entity that didn’t exist and could make no claims on him in order to refuse his responsibilities to the polis – the society that raised and shaped him.

    How horrified would he be to find that this entity now indeed existed, and would indeed make more demands on him than the polis ever could.

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        1. To be fair, Diogenes was living naked, in a foreign town, in a broken clay jar the size of a wine barrel. People still traveled from all over to see him and invited him out to eat, so being a citizen of the cosmos was not wrong about him.

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    3. Diogenes was from Sinope, up on the Black Sea. (Now Sinop, Turkey.)

      Athens was not his polis. Neither was Corinth, where he went from slavery to freedom in Cynic total poverty.

      Now… Mind you, either he or his dad or both were responsible for debasing Sinope’s currency when he was young, so he really didn’t do much good for his polis (except for later tourism). But Sinope did not want him back, during his life, even after he got famous, so “citizen of the world” was also a bitter joke on himself.

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  5. I was today old when I had this minor epiphany:

    The same people who claim that teaching youngsters about the risks and dangers of indiscriminate premarital sex won’t alter their behavior one iota demand that we ‘teach men not to rape’ because it will reduce the incidence of sexual assaults.

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    2. At the same time they give tacit permission to engage in indiscriminate premarital sex. The goal is to erode the sexual mores of Christendom – what’s left of it – which they hate.

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    3. They’re also the people that believe they can stop things they don’t like by taxing them, but raising taxes on things they approve of will never change the behavior of taxpayers.

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  6. That’s what gave me a giggle about the scandal with celebrity actors getting their kids into Ivy League schools by bribery. The kids went on to get degrees from these schools. They were not qualified for an “elite” school, right? They should have flunked out their first semester. But oh, no, off they sailed to graduation without a hitch. Ivy league degrees are not worth the paper they’re printed on.

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    2. If the degree isn’t in science, engineering, or math- it can be awarded to pretty much anyone who puts in the slightest effort.

      At one point in time, a liberal arts degree meant something. For some small colleges, it still does. One example of one that hasn’t dumbed down (I think) would be St John’s in Annapolis. This is their freshman reading list: https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/classes/seminar/annapolis-undergraduate-readings/freshman-seminar-readings
      Nothing directly useful, but the few I’ve known who’ve gone there at least know how to think. Which is most businesses is the most important attribute.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. The Johnnies I’ve met all do well in various professions. True, it’s not a “hard science” school, but graduates can think, they know how to read for ideas, and how to write. Plus some basic math. That’s a better package than a lot of fancy colleges can provide.

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  8. Not citizens of the world, they see themselves as masters of the world, a big difference.

    Those that consider themselves citizens of the world are rather silly but harmless, in my opinion.

    However those calling themselves world citizens but believe in their hearts they are, or should be, or could be or after the very next revolution will most certainly be masters of all they survey and of all to whom they purvey, are a very different, dangerous stinking kettle of fish.

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  10. “Part of it is the belief that “nationalism” is bad and it led to WWI and WWII” … My wife is from France and I can assure you they think that way in France. Heck even showing the French flag somehow = gas chambers for someone … they are raised to “trust” their betters … even if, like my wife, she attended the best schools and would be considered among their elite herself … yet she knows her own flaws/biases but somehow magically assumes that the people in government are above all that … (she voted for Marcon but in moments of weakness she admits that “something is not right with him”, something in the face/eyes … something evil)
    there is a reason the French seem easy to beat … someone in authority says “You are beaten” and they all go … “Oh, OK … if you say so” … (Of course, not ALL Frenchmen but a huge percentage and especially among their elite …) (and that person in authority can be German, from the EU,WHO or Davos … no difference since everyone wants to be a good “global citizen” …)

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    2. A few of the 18-year-olds I work with feel that way. No sense of nationalism or loyalty to country, and they kowtow without knowing it’s kowtow. The others feel just like I do–Love the country or leave.

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      2. The reason we don’t see any anarchies around the world is that they have a very short timespan, on the order of days or weeks. After that government-type structures start to arise and those structures are usually co-opted by the most ruthless people to gain power and control.

        Democracy follows the same process, but there’s an added step where tyranny of the mob leads to fighting mobs that leads to anarchy.

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  11. “Citizen of the World,” or as I prefer, “Citizen of Earth” is a concept best forgotten until such time as humanity is a multi-planetary species.

    I first heard the “door-to-door” suggestion in grad school back in the 80s. That faculty member’s reasoning was that it “worked in Germany after the war.”

    I find it amusing that not a single one of these lefties who suggest going door-to-door is willing to stack up and try.

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  13. I don’t know about bomb-related mass casualty events in the US. But the Happy Land Nightclub Fire in 1990 was an arson that killed 87 people in New York. That’s more than have ever been killed in an American mass casualty shooter event.

    The other thing that I like to draw attention to is China’s stabbing sprees. The CCP’s censors usually manage to stop word about them from circulating. But occasionally news about one gets out, and they rival the deadlier American mass shootings for death toll figures.

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      1. Yep. Related, but not identical, to berserker, which tends to mainly happen in melee combat. And I suspect all (or nearly all) cultures have similar behavior; they’re all human.

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    2. It looks like the bombing incident was in 1927 where a school was hit. (Spoiler: the bad actor looks like your basic nutjob with a horrible temper and equally bad reputation.) It was in Bath, near Lansing, Michigan. It was (probably still is) the largest school bombing. The Oklahoma City bombing in ’95 seems to count as the biggest bombing in the US.

      Link to the bombing article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1927-bombing-remains-americas-deadliest-school-massacre-180963355/

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      1. If I was self-destructive, and wanted to kill the maximum number of defenseless people with a kitchen knife, I could probably hit 50 without much trouble. And unlike guns, knives are very quiet.

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        1. While still in Denver, I was riding the bus, sitting in the back one day and noticed how many people were buried in their phones. I wondered how many of their throats I could slit before anyone even noticed.
          Then I was mildly horrified I had had that thought.
          Then I realized that if I did from behind, the people in the next seat would get covered in blood and realize what was going on fairly quickly.
          Then I was horrified, again.

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    5. And the biggest mass shooting event was not by some random nutter, but by the US government at Wounded Knee as part of a deliberate campaign of genocide.

      But yeah, everyone giving up their guns and leave only the government (including all those cops that are supposedly racists just itching for an excuse to murder “PoC”) armed will be just fine…

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    6. While I’ve pretty much always been pro-gun, I had a major realization about how you don’t need a gun to kill a lot of people if you don’t care if you die (as the mass shooters never do).

      I was standing outside a conference center, waiting to get into a Jeff Dunham show. The line was huge, stretching out into the parking lot. And I was a little bit nervous about all the cars driving past us. Of course, they were driving very slow to get by, and there was ultimately no risk.

      However, all it would have taken to produce a mass casualty event was someone with the will to do so renting out the highest mass vehicle they could find, and slamming the gas into the line. It was a very target rich environment, and we were all just letting people pass right by us in ‘weapons of war’, so the first few people to be hit wouldn’t even see it coming.

      That solidified my belief that it really isn’t the guns that kill people. I knew that, but it drove into my head how guns are hardly the only thing you can use to kill a lot of people. Guns don’t make indiscriminately killing unarmed and unaware civilians any easier than a wide variety of improvised weapons, especially if the user is willing to die.

      Of course, I just realized as I was writing this, that the elites are trying to take away our cars too. Only in the very early stages of that, but I’m sorry for giving them ideas for propaganda. But, I suppose, once England reached the point where you have to get a license in order to purchase cutlery, they’ve probably already had it themselves.

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      1. Nice, France.

        Where they hijacked a truck to drive into a crowd, and the Polish guy driving it died fighting them.

        If he’d had some sort of effective means of self defense…..

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      2. you don’t need a gun to kill a lot of people if you don’t care if you die (as the mass shooters never do).
        ………………………………

        Now we have self driving vehicles. Think about it. I am so not describing what I’m thinking for a number of reasons. Don’t want to give any lurking wackos (Feds) any ideas. Besides I know most here have more vivid imaginations than I do, they write fiction. Just two reasons.

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      2. “Did you really think we want those laws observed? We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”

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        1. I read Atlas Shrugged as a fresh high school graduate. It changed my life. Marinated in leftism in government schools, I always felt there was something wrong about what I was taught. This full throated defense of capitalism was a revelation to me.

          I think this speech is Toohey, from The Fountainhead. I think of that as her warm up to her opus magnus. I feel no need to re-read The Fountainhead. But every few years I re-read Atlas Shrugged.

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        2. I read Atlas Shrugged when I was in junior high. (Yeah, I read everything.) It prevented me from becoming a typical leftish brain full of mush, and made me a Reagan supporter when I was 16.

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      3. I believe you’re referring to Daniel Webster.

        “There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

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    2. Why anyone would want to rule the world is beyond me. What a headache! What an endless nuisance! What a distraction from things I actually want to do!

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      1. That’s because your priorities, like those of most sane and rational people, differ significantly from theirs. Stick with yours.

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  15. At one time, that “citizen of the world” nonsense could be partly explained by the fact that world travel was very expensive and most of the self-proclaimed cosmopolitans had never actually seen the world and its huge variety of mutually incompatible cultures. Take travel-hating Isaac Asimov as an extreme example of this.
    But travel is much cheaper today, and a much larger fraction of the population has actually been to a few other countries.
    But on the gripping hand, nearly all of those “world travelers” have only been to the places that tourists visit, and have only interacted with people like themselves.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. One of the unsolved mysteries that just got announced as solved this week was a trio of murders done with a butter knife, among other things.

    Two tweenage kids, by their dad who had probably been sexually abusing the girl, as well as the mom who was killed/disappeared first. Back in the day, but they finally did the DNA.

    True crime buffs advise not looking this one up. I accepted this judgment.

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    1. I too will trust the recommendation to not look that up.

      Instead I will comment that I have heard that ‘bagel related injuries’ are supposedly a thing in ERs. As I understand it, while it may be a nutter knife with no cutting edge, the amount of force sufficient to drive one through a frozen bagel is reportedly also enough to drive it through your hand as well. Not cleanly, since it has no cutting edge, but enough to go in one side and out the other.

      I have not demonstrated this myself, and hope to never be a party to such a demonstration. But I can see how someone can be seriously injured via butter knife.

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      1. Almost anything can be used as a weapon. The pen might not be ‘mightier than the sword’ in a fight, but you can still kill somebody with it. Even if the elitists try to take away everything that might be used as a weapon, there are still rocks and sticks. Belts and shoelaces. Knees and elbows.

        Trying to ban weapons only punishes the innocent and rewards the guilty.
        ———————————
        The Democrats trust violent criminals and terrorists with guns more than they trust you.

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        1. David Drake’s Northworld books, and the main character standing down a tank with a plastic folding chair in the world with no weapons. “I’m sorry, but you are a weapon.”

          (quoting from memory)

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        3. Almost anything can be used as a weapon.

          Back in the day, when I was a teacher’s aide, my assigned student once announced to the entire class, apropos of nothing at all…

          “I know how to make a bomb using my own pee.”

          The other students turned to look at him, shrugged, then went on with class.

          They believed he could do it, mainly because people on the spectrum are considered some sort of geniuses because they are odd, but apparently thought I would stop him before it got that far.

          Nowadays he would be reported, I’m sure.

          He had the same chance of making anything from his own pee besides a mess than the average four-year old. But he could parrot anything he’d ever read and so sounded smart.

          He couldn’t actually successfully make a PB&J by following a recipe. Not even after we practiced for years. But he could rattle off the equation for just about any compound or solution.

          But he was sort of like the average four-year degree lefty. No idea how to Adult at all.

          The thing is, many odds ARE actually brilliant and they are smart enough to extrapolate forward to consequences.

          Normals think odds are brilliant because they have been taught by Hollywood to equate oddity with brilliance.

          We actual odds know better.

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        4. Better to hang on to that Garand and bayonet, than trying to eye-gouge a brownshirt with a Bic.

          And if you are resistance-shopping for arms, I recommend the garote. Quieter.

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        5. “There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.” – Sgt Zim (from “Starship Troopers”, Ch 5)

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  18. There is too much overgeneralization going on here. I’ll speak for myself, but I will note that I do know a lot of folks who are quite similar. Most of us, however, are pretty quiet about it. As someone who could be called elite in terms of income, wealth, education and former employment, and for whom the phrase ‘citizen of the world’ has some appeal, let me explain.
    First, American that I am, I am not stupid. I do understand that there are a lot of bad actors out there. Some are local – the angry mobs that break into stores because… reasons. Some are far away – pick your favorite terrorists. I don’t think most (nearly all) terrorists behave as they do because of anything rich people can easily fix. They behave as they do because terrorism is an effective means to the ends they desire.
    As someone who has lent out a lot of money, and offered to loan out even more, I well understand how many people are lazy. Friends, and children of friends have come up with ways they could possibly improve their lot. I ask for a simple bit of a game plan in return for a loan or gift. It goes nowhere. Or I make a loan on exceedingly generous terms – and it is never paid back.
    As American becomes less and less like the country of my youth, I wonder why I should stay. Should the government start to destroy my wealth and my safety, I would have good reason to leave. But where to go? Nowhere else has very solid appeal. Perhaps I should sell nearly all I possess and wander from place to place as makes sense.

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          1. There are many expatriates, but they will find that, in many cases, they simply jumped from the frying pan to the fire.

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    2. What is the saying? Oh, I remember:

      “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

      To those who say “If Donald Trump is elected in 2024, I’m taking my marbles/game money and leaving the USA.” Dang it already. You said that in 2016 and you are still here. Go. Just Go. Crappy flounce follow through last time. Can you just follow through, for once? Oh, wait. No one wanted you last time. Sigh. Darn it.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Similar was said about Bush Jr’s re-election.

        It was just as much empty talk in 2004 as it is in 2016 or 2020. AFAIK only one of those actually left after Bush’s reelection, Pierre Salinger, and he was living in his native France half the time at that point anyway so it was no big issue for him.

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        1. Johnny Depp did, (forget if it was 2000 or 2004, wanna say ’04) and decided quickly that all of France wasn’t quite the nice place he had been visiting. After a few riots and “car-b-ques” by “asians” mostly (the code word for islamics in the press), not far from where he was residing, he decided that the USofA under GWB was not all that bad of a place, after all.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Did he say anything about it? A quick search in several search engines brings up nothing at all about him leaving over Bush.

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            1. He did, I can remember pointing out he was basically the ONLY example of “if this guy wins, I’m leaving the US” who actually did it.

              Search engines are freakin’ useless, though.

              Liked by 1 person

                1. All the comments made by celebrities proclaiming they would leave the USA if GWB was elected President vanished from the oligarch controlled websites as soon as the Democrats decided that GWB was the Republican ex-president that Republicans should be like rather than candidate or President “insert name here” who is “literally the next Hitler”.

                  The left’s Minitrue is always scrubbing the past in order to conform to their present narrative. Just like in the Soviet Union “the future is known; it is the past that is always changing”.

                  Like

            2. He was quoted (CNN?) as calling the USA “… A dumb puppy …” and later did the “never said that,/out of context/etc” bit, but (quick search says 2003 on that quote) so anyhow, made some variations of the “If GWB wins, I’m leaving” and when Bush won, he left and went to France, but was close to one of the never making the news here or often enough abroad hot spots for Car-B-Ques and general riots, got disgusted and returned with little said. Was maybe a year, likely less.

              Liked by 1 person

        2. The entertainer Madonna went to live in England, but got pregnant and returned to the U.S. about a year later. Seems she didn’t have total confidence in British National Health’s maternity care
          ———————————
          There is nothing so simple that the government can’t f*k it up.

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          1. Not just the NHS, but even the Private Care there was lacking in her opinion. I forget who else, like her , was married to a Brit at the time and moved over there, and Madonna told her to make sure to return to the US to have the kid.

            Liked by 1 person

              1. I saw a bit of a Dentist office there, but that seemed high end. The dentist’s son is MotoGP rider Miguel Olivera, and from time to time he acts as her assistant.

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              1. Use to chat with a woman in Cornwall who was trying for a job that as a perk had Private Dental Care coverage. After I quipped about what was wrong with using the NHS, she said “I’d like my teeth looked at while I still have them, thank you.”
                There was a NYT(?) reporter who wrote a story about care in the UK, from the experience of his wife having a stroke while visiting London. Long story short: the NHS was a several beds to a room ward, workers seem to try hard, are vastly underpaid (anyone not a doctor cannot make enough to actually LIVE in London), and several encouraged him to get her in private care ASAP. The private care was still lacking (he went and bought bleach and cleaned the room himself) but was an obvious step up, though no private rooms. Finally well enough to travel they transferred to NYC, Mount Sinai hospital, and while she still shared a room, the Doc she got was top of the line, and the roommate was a homeless lady with the same doctor (shooting his thoughts on uninsured not getting care in the foot). Being Pre0bamacare, his cadillac coverage from the Times (iirc) paid for everything. His story was also what the changes being bandied would have cost him, and the uninsured fallacy. It was largely ignored, of course.

                Like

      2. I want to say it was about the time Trump was elected, I was talking to one of nieces (she needed to interview someone for something, and I was who she picked,) and somehow the whole “leave and go to Canada” thing came up.

        I told her I had looked up the requirement to immigrate to Canada.
        And I wouldn’t qualify, unless I already had a job lined up. Basically, putting paid to the whole idea that random barista with a “humanities” degree or such, would have a chance to move to Canada.

        Now, obviously Mr / Mrs “I’ve got more money than everyone in the state of Tennessee” could basically BUY themselves Canadian citizenship, but how many of them would actually follow through? No, they’d buy themselves a compound outside one of the cities, never give up their US citizenship, and figure out every possible method to avoid forking over taxes to Canada.

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        1. figure out every possible method to avoid forking over taxes to Canada.
          ……………………

          No kidding. They think taxes are bad here? Even the worst tax state in the US proper and territories, is nothing compared to Canada, or anywhere else in the world. Other locals may not call it “taxes”, probably bribes, protection money, etc., but taxes by any other definition.

          Liked by 1 person

    4. “Elite”

      Not hardly.

      Nor, apparently, American in any meaningful way.

      And you don’t measure up to “troll” standards here, either. Go. Enjoy your stated self-hell.

      You want what you won’t make.

      Liked by 1 person

  19. The “we know better” types are definitely in charge in California. “We’re going to all electric vehicles by 2035!” sayeth folk who have never been more than twenty miles away from an urban core. I mean, even if you fix the grid supply issues, you can’t get batteries to run well in sub-freezing temperatures, they have a limited distance, and there are still VAST tracts of the state away from power.

    Like most of the places I take scouts camping. INCLUDING proper summer camps. Well, okay, they may have power at the lodge, so that cooking isn’t a huge issue (some cook with propane, but generally anywhere in fire country prefers electricity for some odd reason.) But they don’t at the parking lot, which is generally dirt, with some gravel if you’re lucky.

    But then again, these are the same folk who keep approving all the builds on the arable land, waving away the water requirements for new developments. Because they don’t like to eat. At least, that’s the idea I get from their policies which penalize farmers in the most productive farmland in the country. (10% of the good farmland in the US and 25% of the food—and most of the premium food rather than the bulk cereals.)

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Like most of the places I take scouts camping. INCLUDING proper summer camps.
      ………………………

      As parents and scouts quickly find out. We stopped bothering to confiscate cell phones unless we saw them. Either the scout managed to get them wet (Oregon, most campouts), wasn’t that a parental screaming session (they screamed, we ignored, “what part of rain don’t you understand?”), or devices ran out of power. Even if said device started out fully charged and checked by parent. 1) Cold drains power. 2) If you don’t put said phone on airplane mode, or better, turn it off, continuous tower and wifi search, drains power. Put the two together and cell phones are out of power before Saturday morning. Come Sunday pickup, overheard some interesting parent/scout conversations, that were ignored.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. They don’t intend to fix the grid supply issue. The grid can supply the personal-transport needs of the nomenklatura. The ambulatory carbon to be reduced can make do with the bike, the bus, or Shank’s mare until their time for reduction comes.

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    3. With respect to propane in fire-prone areas, I can think of a couple of things.

      If there’s flammable vegetation around the tank (shudder), in a wildland fire, things can get awfully sporty. There was a fire near us about a decade ago that hit a heavily forested (and overgrown in many spots) with several houses in them. I was listening to the tactical communications and at least one home was left without structure protection because the idiot owners had a bunch of brush and grass right by the tank. Our own propane tank is oriented so that if it were hit by a BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion), the end of the tank would go straight through our bedroom. We’re careful about making sure that doesn’t happen. FWIW, 30 homes were lost in that fire. Places where the vegetation was cleared to make a fire break did OK, the others and myriad empty, untended lots, not so much. It’s an interesting area, one I stay away from.
      Transport charges for delivered propane can be high. We’re 40 miles from the terminal, and while there’s no separate line item, that propane runs $0.80 to $1.00 a gallon more than bottled propane filled at that same terminal. We cook with propane, but only the backup heater is propane. OTOH, one shop heater uses propane. (The other should but the #$%^& heater has something clogging the air intake, and the area of interest is sealed and welded out of reach. I’m not a fan of Ashley heaters…)

      Like

        2. A rodent would have to be able to climb rough siding. Since I’ve had a colony in insulation for the roof of a pole barn (they climbed up one of the overhead door pole, some 20′ up), I’m not counting it out, but flyers are more likely.

          I’m now suspecting either mud dauber or paper wasps. I had an old sweatshirt in the garage and wore it for some messy work. On taking it off, noticed lumps. A couple of mud dauber nests, with wasps in the pupa stage. I knew of paper wasps around here, but the daubers were new to me. OTOH, paper wasps are endemic around here. I’m slightly allergic to their sting, and it hurts like hell, so I use a stand-off spray when necessary. Those nests are fragile, unlike the mudders.

          I can’t get access to clear the gubbage out. The best luck I had so far let me have a pilot light burn for a minute or three. The combustion chamber has minor access, a small port for the pilot/sensor/ignitor module, and that’s pretty much it. So now I’m using excess capacity from the solar system to give some heat. The inverter idles at 20 watts, and occasional 100 or 200 watt bursts took care of the cold mornings, so far. We had 12F this morning, but there’s a lot of insulation and a small building.

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          1. Idles at 50 watts, not 20. The pumphouse (with 80 gallon surge tank and all the solar system electronics/batteries) is 8 x 12 x 7 (with 6″ walls, so it’s 539 cubic feet. Don’t need much heat, and the pilot of the gas heater did most of the additional needed.

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    2. It would be more accurate to say that Lenin and Stalin disarmed St. Petersburg and Moscow.

      Though its not like the Czars were big on private gun ownership for the peasants.

      Liked by 1 person

      2. it’s simply not true: hunting weapons was quite usual for peasants pre revolution
        Anyway, I mean small arms brought home from wars

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  21. Take a little stroll around your hose, and start counting the many things that could go from “common household items” to “deadly weapons” in a short time.

    Now, here’s the fun part: Think of the many, many people out there with technical skills and access to serious tools and supplies.

    Or, as I like to put it: “If you make your living making things work, you can find a million more ways to make things break.”

    Liked by 2 people

      1. “The director at the supermarket went on about you weren’t really likely to take out a bad guy with a thrown can of peas. Well, of course not. Heading to the restaurant kitchen, if possible, would help.”

        “The kitchen?”

        “A place with hot oil, hot water, sharp knives, frying pans, fire extinguishers, and allies that likely have some aggression to work out.”

        “You’ve thought about this quite a bit, haven’t you?”

        “Not really.”

        “Now, that’s scary.”

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        1. And let’s not forget all the lovely chemicals available in almost any kitchen, even home kitchens, and just about any shop. There are so many ways to combine things for “interesting” results… :twisted:

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    2. Every screw driver is a seni-blunt stabbing weapon. Wrenches are saps. Sockets are great throwing weapons, and stick a handful of them in a sock and you can swing it. Saws are just plain nasty. And a can of WD40 and a cigarette lighter make a handy blow torch.

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    3. The thing is, most people don’t think about things that can be weaponized on the spur of the moment. That takes practice. People also don’t think tactically about self-defense of their homes either. Here’s a quick exercise for you.

      Take a laser tag pistol, or even a laser pointer. Climb into bed, and then pretend you just woke to a strange noise in your house. Pretend there is a shape standing over your bed in a threatening manner. Hit them with the laser and hold it, don’t adjust your aim. Did you actually hit what you thought you were aiming at? What did you actually hit? If it’s the wall, what’s on the other side of it? Depending on the firearm and ammunition, frame and sheetrock walls don’t stop bullets well unless you hit a stud. Which can be important if you have a child or other family member on the other side. It’s also important to know that if an intruder is on the other side, you can reach out and touch them through the walls. You may not severely injure them, but you may drive them into the open where you can get a telling shot. Also remember that they can shoot through walls to get to you too. Walk through the rest of the house, imagining where an intruder could be in each room or hallway, and how you would shoot them. You can raise the ante by imagining multiple hostiles, or a hostile with a family member as a hostage. And change up what type of weapon(s) the hostile(s) have.
      When you’re done, I recommend taking a real stiff drink.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Or even two. Or more.

        There’s a reason why urban combat, especially the “clear that building” part, is the sort most detested (and feared, if they’re smart) by experienced troops.

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  22. I recently spent a month in Thailand. It was educational. Thais are extremely nationalistic (like at least some other Asian countries). They were also polite and easy to get along with. In addition, there is what is known as the “Farang Price”. As a foreigner, you can expect to pay a premium compared to a Thai. That’s just the way it is. People are fine with it.

    In contrast, Western Nationalism and particularly White Nationalism is vilified as one of the greatest sins that can be committed. The same with charging a foreigner a greater price would be decried as “racism”. This is taken to extremes in Texas where people who come here unlawfully get in-state college tuition, while folks from Oklahoma have to pay a premium.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I recall my uncle, a merchant sailor, telling me about a place in Lebanon, fancy and upscale- for the area – that had 3 openly posted prices. Americans, Europeans and others, Local. Guess which one was highest. That was for basic services only… Shortly after WWII.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Not the same, not exactly, but I saw one RenFaire vendor who told everyone when they asked about some item, “It’s $Price, but for you, $LowerPrice.” Well, almost everyone. One obnoxious person only got $Price. It was.. well, a jerk tax.

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        1. Chuckle Chuckle

          I suspect that any retail business where the owner has to manufacture the goods, sets his own prices and deals with the customers may have (or want to have) a jerk tax. :lol:

          In Barbara Hambly’s “Stranger at the Wedding”, one of the characters is planning to be a high-fashion dress maker and mentions to her sister about having a jerk tax.

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  23. On the topic of self-selected elites, did anyone else notice that the new Speaker of the House opined that (his) God had specifically raised up the members of Congress and other elected criminals because of their judged fitness to rule the rest of us? Talk about hubris.

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          1. And I’m curious…did he use the word “rule”, or is that an interpretation of some other term? “Serve in Congress”, perhaps?

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    2. I this instance, he appears to have been trying to install a sense of responsibility in them instead of the usual corruption. So I’ll let it go.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. Biblicly speaking, all leaders were put there by Him, for his purposes.

      The Bible also includes examples where said use wasn’t fun for specific kings. Not at all.

      As I was told by a Drill Sergeant, sometimes one’s highest purpose is to serve as a bad example for wiser folks.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I learned a huge amount about personnel management from the worst supervisor I have ever had the displeasure to encounter. Today, I ask myself, “What would Harry do?” and then do the opposite.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. That’s how I parent. But something different, not necessarily the opposite.

          Also works for success in marriage- 46 years and counting.

          My father was a really bad example.

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        1. King Saul never wanted to be King though. He was the youngest son of a poor family from the smallest tribe in Israel. When the prophet Samuel said Saul would be King, Saul ran off and hid, saying he didn’t want the responsibility and pressure of being King, so Samuel should choose someone else. Samuel had to go find Saul and talk to him, saying basically “Hey, I know being King will suck, and there will be a lot of hard tasks and difficult decisions to be made, but God has chosen you to be King and you must not disobey Him. Rest assured, I will be there to help you every step of the way.” And Samuel was with Saul…until he wasn’t.

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    4. He did NOT say his God raised them up for their fitness to rule.

      He said God raised them up. Fitness has nothing whatever to do with it. They are adding that part.

      Judas Iscariot was raised up to be one of the Twelve. Not because of his fitness but because he had a part in God’s plan.

      From whom much is given, much will be expected. Wow betide them as cannot give a good accounting for how they have done with what they have been given.

      Liked by 2 people

    6. Oh, so his god is responsible for all the election fraud?
      ———————————
      Candidate Joe Biden, August 2020: “We have assembled the most extensive, comprehensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”

      Minutes later: “What do you mean, I wasn’t supposed to say that?”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Oh, so his god is responsible for all the election fraud?

        His God is responsible for free will

        Humans are responsible for election fraud.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Human sin. Covers it quite thoroughly.

        Also, you may be the recipient of an exaggerated account, as noted by someone else.

        Were you seeking a theological debate? Our hostess asks us to refrain.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Quite right. We here are of many religions and none. I don’t ask you to endorse mine, but I’ll let you express yours. Unless you make a repeated habit of quoting Bible verses out of context and then I’ll put you in “Must watch carefully for other weird habits.” I.E. all of your comments will be moderated.
          And if you come in and tell me that we’re all going to h*ll because we were born after Vatican II or that the US will be completely destroyed because of abortion? You get banned, because both of those are a question of: If you’re so sure of this, why are you telling me? There’s nothing I can do, already.

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          1. Argh. The “common lectionary” used in a good chunk of US liturgical churches had the reading about Cyrus/Xerxes/Khosroes (or whatever the Persian is) on the Sunday of the wheeling and dealing.

            God tells Cyrus that he is giving Cyrus power only for the benefit of Israel, even though Cyrus had never “known” the God of Israel.

            I realize that the reference went whoosh! over the heads of reporters, as well as those not using the “common lectionary,” but it was not totally obscure.

            Liked by 1 person

              1. Heh… I think the problem is basically Biblical illiteracy; or even an inability of supposedly educated people to recognize the existence of a reference to, say, Shakespeare.

                Western civilization’s texts and oratory are full of shortcut references, used in all sorts of rhetorical ways. If you don’t have the basic framework, you are deaf to most of what’s being said.

                And to be fair, Cyrus did give a fair amount of religious rights to the members of his empire, probably for political reasons, and probably as an attempt to quiet Babylonian pagan concerns. But it did help Israel’s people, as it happened.

                The Cyrus Cylinder is interesting.

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                2. On “Biblical illiteracy; or even an inability of supposedly educated people to recognize the existence of a reference to, say, Shakespeare”, a few years back John Ringo & Linda Evans released a BOLO novel titled “The Road To Damascus”.

                  I commented in Ringo’s Tavern at that time, that the title was an obvious clue to the story line but it was surprising just how many Ringo Fans didn’t recognized the idea of a “Road To Damascus” experience. :sad:

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  24. Throughout all of history, there’s been been one group of world travelers that has consistently seen the seedier side of live and the lower class wherever they travelled. Sailors, both merchants and Navy. Members of travelling caravans also saw that, but travelling caravans have only existed a few times in a few places.

    The upper class doesn’t mingle, and never has, with anyone other then other upper class. If we’re being completely honest, the upper class in 10 BC in many ways really wasn’t much better off then the lower classes, except for the wielding of power. They had it.

    Nowadays while the material gap between, let’s say, Bill Gates and me, is far far larger then the material gap between a peasant and king in 10 BC, I am far far better off then that king. Servants? He had many, I have none. I have a washer and dryer and running hot and cold water- don’t need a servant to heat up a pot of water over a fire then add it to my tub. Grooms to handle the horses? I park one car in the garage, one outside, and if repairs are beyond my knowledge, pay someone to fix them. Entertainment? Don’t need a troupe of minstrels and dancers- I’ve got a 70″ television and fiber optic cable.

    More importantly, I have 5 children who lived into adulthood without stressing out about whether a minor illness might kill them.

    If you observe when you travel, courtesy of the USN or other organization, you can see a lot. For example- dhows. Look ’em up if you’re not familiar. They’re still being used in international trade. Watching a Mercedes being loaded onto an Indian dhow in Jebel Ali one time was entertaining. A few planks between the pier and the deck, and the Mercedes pushed aboard to be deck cargo in transport to wherever. May have been India, could have been somewhere else on the trading route. Surprisingly, nothing and nobody ended up in the drink. I’d be willing to bet that in whatever villages the crew members were from, the huts still had dirt floors. Barefooted line handlers in Djibouti. From 1978 to 1988 a huge difference in living standards in Korea. And zero change in the grinding poverty in the Philippines. (cultural or genetic? I know what the Korean answer is…)

    Having lived in 7 different states, spent time from weeks to months in one US territory and other states, and having visited, albeit briefly for some, over a dozen different countries, living in any state over any other country is my choice from what I’ve seen. I have friends, world travelers, who talk about how magnificent it was where they were- hanging out with other people just like them, never visiting the places where the lower classes hang out. Who talk about how great it would be to live there. One of us has a warped view. I’m going with them.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Why would they consort with the lower classes? The paid help is to be seen, and not heard. Except maybe the prostitutes, depending on the kink involved.

      I’m reminded of the pictures of the parties by Democrats during COVID where all of the help wore masks… and none of the attendees did.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Two very similar things: In Peru, we had hired a guide for the day, asked him to pick a dinner spot near the beach, but had to insist that he join us at the meal. Even had to reassure him that he was getting his same tip in addition to the meal. He said everybody else– Germans, etc. made no such offers. Then in Tanzania, every party at the lodge had their own table, and ours was set for three. We were going to request that our guide sit with us but here it was simply assumed. Very interesting people, you Americans, one of the first in world history establish a nominally classless society.

      Liked by 1 person

  25. Chelsea Clinton graduated from Stanford. There was much hullabaloo in the fawning Bay Area press when she was there.

    Looking online I found: “…undergraduate degree at Stanford University and later earned master’s degrees from University of Oxford and Columbia University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in international relations from the University of Oxford in 2014.”

    Liked by 1 person

  26. If one wrote a story of one these people of alleged superiority with wealth and self-claiming power pulling a “sneak out of the palace and see how the average person lives” would anyone take it all seriously? Sure, it was fantasy in the reign of kings, but this lot seems even less likely. “Imagine” is the song they wish, but they really are more “Strawberry Fields” – Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. (Except it does NOT “all work out,” not really.)

    Liked by 1 person

      1. There is a great picture of John and Yoko waiting for the maid to change the sheets in their bed so they can lie in it all day for peace.

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    2. The problem with that story is that unless they were forced out by a coup, they can always go back after they’re done pretending. Unlike the poor they’re hobnobbing with, they know they have a fall back to a better position any time they want.

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        1. https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/akbars_bridge.html

          “Then he wearied-the mood moving-of the men and things he ruled,
          And he walked beside the Goomti while the flaming sunset cooled,
          Simply, without mark or ensign-singly, without guard and guide,
          Till he heard an angry woman screeching by the river-side.

          ‘Twas the Widow of the Potter, a virago feared and known
          In haste to cross the ferry, but the ferry-man had gone.
          So she cursed him and his office, and hearing Akbar’s tread,
          (She was very old and darkling) turned her wrath upon his head.

          But he answered-being Akbar-“Suffer me to scull you o’er.”
          Called her “Mother,” stowed her bundles, worked the clumsy
          scow from shore,
          Till they grounded on a sand-bank, and the Widow loosed her mind;
          And the stars stole out and chuckled at the Guardian of Mankind “

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          1. So we can apparently add Jelaludin Muhammed Akbar as a third possibility. Assuming, of course, that he was a real person and not a product of Kipling’s imagination (Gunga Din, Kamal, Harendra Mukerji, Kim, et al…) ;-)

            Lots of tales about rulers traveling incognito for various reasons. How many were real? Damfino…

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            2. It’s said that Peter the Great (of Russia) toured Europe under an assumed name/title.

              I suspect that any powerful man who wanted to go incognito would not travel as a commoner but travel as some sort of noble (or maybe as a powerful merchant).

              He would do so both as “to not lower himself” and because it easier for him to play the assumed role.

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              1. OK; thanks. Peter the Great is a new one for me; I’d never heard that. As for traveling incognito, I have no idea what Harun’s assumed “persona” was, but Gustav’s was as a captain in the Swedish army; the “Gars” appellation was a (thinly) disguised acronym: “Gustavus Adolphus Rex Suedica”.

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              1. From the poem, Kamal was both more far more intelligent and far more ethical than The Kameltoe. But then, who isn’t? (Non-leftists, that is.)

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    1. The Daily Mail said he did it by shooting himself in the head….twice (implied, they said he had two shots in the head). In a deserted area. Hmm.

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      2. Dig a bit.

        You will find that many suicides have “hesitation marks”.

        The first wrist cut or two is shallow and non lethal, finally getting the artery on number three. Witnesses report the jumper ran up to the edge several times. There are multiple gunshots into the ceiling and one under the chin.

        In rare cases, the intended head shot glances off the skull. Ouch. Possibly even to unconsciousness. Then they try again and get it right. (If they still can.)

        And military lore, and military awards documentation, are full of instances of the mortally wounded continuing to function for a time.

        So, yes, sometimes a suicide by gun has more than one bullet hole.

        Crazy folks sometimes accomplish really crazy things.

        Liked by 1 person

  28. As to bringing your own cultural lens to how you view others, particularly foreigners, I can vouch for that personally. I’m a movie buff, but I’ve watched Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai, as well as La Cage aux Falles, and others, and I greatly prefer the Americanized versions, even if the spaghetti westerns were made by Italians shooting in Spain, they were designed for the American audience. And didn’t Kurosawa make a Japanese-ied version of MacBeth? (Yes I claim Shakespeare as American because for at least half our history, Americans suckled at the teats of Shakespeare and the KJV bible. Even illiterates had them read to them.) I watched those movies with the reverence of an acolyte about to be shown the real story. Bored the crap out of me.

    But then, I’m a whacko. In college I used to skim over passages that made no sense to me in our required reading. One day I decided that I wasn’t doing it right, so I reread a paragraph that didn’t make sense to me three times, so I could finally grasp it. What I finally grasped was that the paragraph’s concluding sentence flatly contradicted the paragraph’s introductory sentence, rendering the whole paragraph nonsense. Thereafter, I felt no guilt after that when I skipped passages that made no sense.

    But that’s just silly me. :)

    Liked by 1 person

    2. “And didn’t Kurosawa make a Japanese-ied version of MacBeth? ”

      I believe so, though I can’t remember the name of it. However, I’ve seen his movie Ran, which is an excellent version of the King Lear story (which Shakespeare also borrowed from an older source, IIRC).

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      1. I think that was Yojimbo, based on ‘the Scottish play’. :-D

        Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress was based on The Tempest, and Forbidden Planet was derived from that.
        ———————————
        Adams: “Nice climate you have here. High oxygen content.”

        Robbie: “I rarely use it myself, sir. It promotes rust.”

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          1. “Throne of Blood”, black and white, saw it in college on a screen.

            SCARY! Because the Lady Macbeth was one of those quiet, steel ladies who would sit still and command terrible things, and then she broke in an equally scary way.

            I think the Macbeth was kind of a bluff awkward country lord who turned into a supervillain, but couldn’t attract enough following. But I could be mixing that up with other Kurosawa movies.

            Seven Samurai is great, but in a totally different way than Magnificent Seven, Battle Beyond the Stars, or any of the other remakes. You get to know what seems like every inch of the village, and also every bit of the men fighting. And then at the end, you say goodbye to the village…

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          1. George Lucas has stated on several occasions that The Hidden Fortress was the inspiration for Star Wars.

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            1. Nod, it inspired Lucas but the plot isn’t much like the first Star Wars movie.

              IMO about the only similarity in the plots is the existence of the Old General and the Princess.

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  30. Regarding the whole “citizen of the world” thing, it’s amusing (in a somewhat bent manner, admittedly) how those who claim to be so are often some of the most parochial, blinkered ignoramuses out there, naively believing (“thinks” is far too generous for that sort) that everyone is like them, only with funny accents and weird clothes.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “When all philosophies shall fail
      This word alone shall fit;
      That a sage feels too small for life,
      And a fool too large for it.

      “Asia and all imperial plains
      Are too little for a fool;
      But for one man whose eyes can see
      The little island of Athelney
      Is too large a land to rule”

      —GKC, =The Ballad of the White Horse=

      Liked by 1 person

  31. “Citizen of the World” never really struck me as a valid title. Which world? Certainly not the whole Earth, of which there are thousands of sub-cultures and millions (now billions) of people. It is a very narrow slice of “the world”, one that makes for their ease and comfort and entertainment.

    And power, of course. Always the ability to exercise power.

    When the “Citizens of the World” spurn their first world and authoritarian proclivities and start living as most of the world lives, perhaps I can find time to listen to them. Not act, mind you. But perhaps listen.

    Liked by 1 person

  33. “Citizen of the World” is a lame excuse to not support and defend the society that made the refusenik possible, while avoiding any replacement obligation that would be burdensome.

    Sure. Some folks reason a change of venue. They often so value the new they out patriot the locals.

    “Citizen of the World” is a cop-out with less than usual effort.

    Liked by 1 person

  34. Pingback: “Citizens of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your illusions!” « Quotulatiousness

  35. I was watching a Yoo Toob video about the Niagara steam engines and the narrator mentioned an interesting fact in passing. Right after WW2 there was a lot of competition between steam engines and diesel engines. The two types were fairly evenly matched until the coal miners strike in 1946 made coal both more expensive and less reliably available. This greatly accelerated the replacement of steam engines with diesels.

    That’s where the narrator left it, but I know what happened afterward. When the strike ended, the demand for coal was much reduced and continued to decline as replacement of steam engines with diesels proceeded. Coal mines went out of business and thousands of coal miners were rendered not only unemployed, but unemployable. Those jobs were gone, never to return. Whole towns were plunged into poverty when their primary source of income disappeared.

    The coal miners had cut not only their own throats, but tens of thousands of other people’s who had little to do with coal mining.

    The union bosses didn’t lose their money, though.
    ———————————
    It takes a lot of smart, competent people to design and build a car. Only takes one idiot to wreck it.

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  36. }}} if they just become the people of the song “Imagine”…

    I will assert that “Imagine” is the most evil song the world has ever known. The Devil himself was whispering in John Lennon’s ear that day, because he managed to describe Hell Itself, and peeps think it’s a description of Utopia.

    Seriously. “Nothing to kill or die for”.

    Really? No lover, no kids, no family. No art, no music, no adventure, or passion.

    NOTHING to CARE about whatsoever.

    Because that’s what is being described, here. Absolute boredom and disinterest, because anything else leads to a desire and desire is what leads to passion and passion is what gives one any reason at all to kill or die.

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  37. Part of it is the belief that “nationalism” is bad and it led to WWI and WWII.

    Nationalism was a necessary but not sufficient condition for the war. It was less essential to it occurring (with one glaring exception) but was crucial to its side and its length.

    First, the glaring exception: Serbian, or more broadly Southern Slav, nationalism was the motivation of Princip and his cell. Yes, they may have been funded by nobility (or people playing at that level), but without nationalism they would not have been able to recruit his cell.

    The irony is Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the leading proponent of a separate Yugoslav kingdom as the third kingdom of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to address nationalism in the Balkan possessions. And the leading opponents were the Hungarian nationalists who saw loss of national prestige and position in becoming one of three instead of one of two.

    But nationalism’s biggest affect was in driving the size of the war. Germany, in particular the German general staff, knew there had to be a war with France which led to the entire entangling alliances and the structures that brought Germany and France into a dispute between Russia and the Hapsburg Empire.

    The key reason was French nationalism and the desire to avenge the Franco-Prussian War and the loss of the region the German Empire called Alsace-Lorraine (it contains portions of both but the entirety of neither, although it did contain a vast majority of Alsace). France had been ruled by French nationalism for over a century since the Revolution except perhaps under the two restored Bourbon monarchs. The two Bonaparte emperors might have been nobility (of their own creation) but they were sustained by French nationalism more than any divine right. Louis Philippe is hard to pin down, but his openness to liberalization leads me to put him in the nationalist camp if barely.

    Without French nationalism the alliance structure which turned an imperial fight over the Balkans into the first general European war since Waterloo would not have occurred.

    Moreover, one major power and various minor powers entered the war over nationalist claims against the original powers, the Central powers mostly. Greece, Italy and, Romania all entered to bring co-nationalists into their nation as spoils of war. Romania perhaps can be chalked up to nobility wanting conquest or alliance to their families given the influence the English born Queen of Romania had on the nation’s entrance, but neither Greece or Italy had such allegiances. Not that they had been effective in keeping Willie and Nicky (the German and Russian Emperors) from going to war.

    In fact, another significant mistake of Princip’s cell was in who they killed. Franz Ferdinand was a close friend of Wilhelm II. His death is arguably why he supported the war the general staff wanted when he’d failed to agree two years earlier during the Moroccan Crisis of 1911.

    The reason this wall of text is important is the nature of the nationalism that swept Europe in the 19th century leading to insanities such as the purification of the Romanian language in the name of national pride.

    It was all modeled on the French Revolutionary idea of nationalism, a Leftist nationalism befitting the first Leftist revolution to succeed.

    And being at its root Leftist it informs the new nationalism the Left is spreading the West such as African Nationalism among blacks in the US. The idea of an African Diaspora paralleling the Jewish one is faulty as there is no Pan-African culture. Yet in the name of such culture and a Pan Latin American culture, division is sown in the US along the same lines as throughout Europe, especially Central Europe and the Balkans.

    We even have the purification of the Romanian Language being replayed in the attempts to make 17th and 18th Century Midlands English the “pure” African-American language of Black English.

    We need to learn the real lessons of nationalism in Europe in the 19th century: that it is a tool to carve up people otherwise living in peace. FFS, even post Cold War it still infected European politics not only in the breakup of Yugoslavia (whose existence was a goal of Slavic nationalists circa 1914) but the more peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia.

    We also need to understand better the roll nobility and semi-nobility played, especially in the Hapsburg Empire whose ultimatum was driven as much by embarrassment in prior crises than the actual assassination (a much more common political method at the time). Our own elite are driving towards war for similar reasons today.

    But that learning should not push nationalism to the side.

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    1. Kind of. Again, it wasn’t so much nationalism, except for the lower classes, who fought for their country, but then again, the lower classes remembered stories of the country being overrun (I still heard first-person accounts of the Napoleonic wars, passed via my grandmother from her grandmother and possibly further before.)
      The desire for revenge, etc. was a supra-national nobility. Citizens of the world, you could call them.

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      1. Yes, but the ability to keep the war going as long as it did required that lower class nationalism. Even then, it barely did.

        It’s failure in Russia knocked Russia out of the war. The French army mutinied in 1917 and had the US not entered the war a peace either of the map (people held what they got), a return to the status quo in the West, or a mix of the two, with Germany retaining their gains in the East, would have prevailed.

        It was when nationalism failed that Germany gave up despite having their army still in France.

        Even after the war both Mussolini and Hitler would play on wounded nationalism for the first war to justify the second. Both could have been easily avoid by keeping prewar promises for the first. The second could have been avoided by either having a status quo peace in the east with the exception of the minor border switch (no reparations or disarming of Germany) or a spring 1919 offensive that drove the German army back into Germany thus neutering the lie of the stab in the back (basically, to impose the conditions of an absolute victory you have to do the work).

        And I still say that model of nationalism is being fostered in the US between races today.

        Hell, at least some of it in the 19th century was driven by nobility to continue to mobilize the lower classes after divine right started failing. The rest by intellectuals determined to make themselves the new nobility.

        How much does that parallel today? A lot I’d say.

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          1. Just to let you know, if you are correct and nationalism was irrelevant I’m probably going to conclude the Cold War was just the same thing given I’ve been questioning that the past seven years. :)

            At this point, is there any war that wasn’t just our “betters” sending us to die for their honor/amusement?

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