The Coils of Oikophobia

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Of all the weird problems for our age to have oikophobia is probably the most bizarre.

Throughout history humans called their tribe “human” and everything else “the others” and bizarre ceremonies/sacrifices/rites developed out of keeping that distinction clear.

Our people hurray-good. Your people not even human. This is the beginning of human associations, and the basis of tribalism, which to an extent is the curse of mankind.

For all that I’m the first to say things like “Government, what is it good for? Killing its own people and enslaving them!” and loathe the over-extended nation-empires of the 20th century, the truth is that things are complicated when it comes to nations and empires.

Nations as a thing, governed by a distant centralized government suck rotten fish bits. But then again, it’s better than tribalism.

The dumpster fire that was the Roman Empire on many levels, with all its brutal colonial policies was much better than the tribalism before, and for that reason alone the Romans should be blessed, if nothing else. Because they invented nationality that transcended tribalism.

But how did we get from nation states where the leaders might perhaps be a little too proud of and chauvinistic about their own nation and their own people to governments — most of those in the West — that loathe their own people and want to destroy them?

Well, the short one word answer is “Marxists” which is actually hilarious because Marx loved Britain and was actually a nationalist.

Except that Marxism, being a totally effed up theory keeps going through a series of retcons to make it sort of work. And one of them was the Soviet retcon. As in “We’re international socialists, but international really means Russian.”

As the Soviet Union was the beau ideal of their fantasy, they thought of course it would lead the world to communism, and they idolized and wrote paens to this barbaric country at the edge of Asia. For… reasons. Their own countries must be run down and unfavorably compared to the splendors of the Soviet Union.

The wedge between reality and their love affair with Russia (the Soviet Union was a convenient mask Russia wore) just kept widening, but they kept clinging to it like a teenage girl with her first crush.

And when it all fell apart, they retained fury at Reagan who caused their beloved to fall. (As in the reason Obama wanted to be the Anti-Reagan, and said so. He managed it too, the traitorous little bastard.) AND they retained the certainty their own countries were evil for causing Russia to collapse. (“The good guys lost” being the catch phrase through the mid 2ks.)

They fanned out into the colleges carrying their open hatred and disdain for their countries, and taught it to a new generation, which was pushed into positions of power and–

Now, the oikophobia was there before. I know because I grew up with it all around me, directed at Portugal, and I saw it in the early eighties in the US, where everyone who was a leftist was anti-America, because America was the enemy of the USSR and therefore evil, and also so inferior to their ideal country.

I come across references, sometimes, in books of the era. And it’s startling. Like on a book talking about stargate, (the American psychic-research conducted by the military, not the TV series), apropos nothing, in the middle of it, the author tells us about this pill of some kind of natural compound that the USSR issues to all its citizens, which has been proven to extend life. Heaven alone knows if that was even true — I mean, if they issued a pill to all their citizens, let alone I’m sure the supply wouldn’t support that –and what it contained, but it was an article of faith to the bien pensant of the west at the time that the USSR not only could but would do this kind of thing, out of the goodness of its heart, for the good of all, while the US wouldn’t, because it was “capitalist” and “backward.”

You catch it too, in a lot of science fiction books of the period, that weird certainty that the USSR was more advanced and prosperous.

It is to our very great shame that we never publicized how bad things were behind the curtain when it fell. We thought of course the truth would out. Forgetting that the pictures of the concentration camps were essential in exposing Nazi horrors, and that without them the denial of what happened would be even more rampant.

Also we were hampered by the fact that by the time the USSR fell, the institutions of the west had been taken over by USSR sympathizers.

I could, here, adduce many reasons for this. There is the fact, for instance, that Marxism, as a simple, just-so story appeals to the type of sheltered, intellectual elites who don’t fit in very well in the real world but know they should be in charge because they’re “so smart.” Marxism with their “the intellectuals will lead the revolution” feeds their sense of unearned superiority. In that sense “who goes commie” is very similar to “who goes Nazi.”

But most of all, and overarching everything is the fact that commies hire only commies. They will forget everything else, and hire the ideological comrade (eh) over competence, over minority status, over connections, over in fact everything. That kind of selection bias, played hard, will replace all positions of any importance with the factor selected for more rapidly than you can imagine.

So, by the time the USSR fell all the centers of communication in the west were controlled by USSR-devotees and if not communists, communist sympathizers. This led to the misery behind the curtain never being exposed, but also to the utter fury of that class against their own countries for destroying their precious, which is how they experienced it.

As a result, what we have is elites who now not only favor a foreign country (or as they view it “internationalism”) but also hate their own countries and want to punish them.

This has led to their encouraging the outright invasion of their countries (the Gramscian retcon of Marxism said that third worlders are righteous and natural communists) by what they perceive as the dispossessed of the world. But which are in face the result of dysfunctional cultures. And also to their trying to curtail energy supply to the industrial societies of the west, because, of course, if they are rich other countries will be poor. (Amid the many sins of Marx his bloody stupidity about economics is paramount. That shithead never understood that it was not a finite pie.)

So, they need and want to achieve control of their countries, and then seek to destroy them in revenge.

This in turn is growing a strong nationalist trend, which is good and bad.

No, I don’t want us to get to the point we take no immigrants. In the US, at least, we will attract any number of people who WANT to become Americans. We should always choose the best of those, not by color or even perhaps formal qualification, but by a perceived willingness to work to be Americans. The “how to decide” can be solved by demanding they have some period of waiting and not requiring help before they become citizens. (We had all of those. They are fudged in various ways.) And by requiring assimilation. No Oprima dos para Espanol. Just… Fit In or Fuck Off. And weird as it might seem to you guys, there are people who consider themselves “naturally” some other nationality. French, or Italian, or English. And before the “refugee” bs, those countries had hard enough entry requirements to work on that.

I definitely don’t want humans to get to where if you’re another tribe you’re not human. Tribalism is a scourge.

But I also think internationalists are enemies of humanity. Some of them idealistic, unwitting, enemies of humanity. They don’t understand and never processed “culture” as anything more than colorful clothes and different food, and maybe skin color, which they think is somehow connected to all of that and language (which they don’t understand, most of them being linguistically slow and weird.) So they think it is possible to treat all cultures as “equally valid”, the ones that stone gay people and the ones that permit gay marriage, the ones that allow women to study physics, and the ones that insist women wear sofa covers all day everywhere, the ones that encourage people to experiment and learn how the natural world works, and the ones for whom knowledge consists of memorizing the accepted passages of a curated holy book, the ones that consider all humans as humans, and the ones that treat humans as “only those who are related to me” and everyone else should be exterminated.

Throwing all humans together in those conditions is a recipe for the most barbaric to come out on top and for the rebarbarization and retribalization of humanity. And it is precisely what it is doing, in reality.

Also, the internationalists never understood seemingly that one government, far away, who cares nothing for local conditions, is a recipe for disaster. Heck, the US is too large and too diverse for that, and we need to get back to a primacy of local authority tout de suit if we want to survive and remain civilized. The world as a “nation”? Bah. It’s a fantasy for stupid, illiterate children.

So that is the onslaught the West is under. Each nation is under the control of an “elite” who, for all intents and purposes, might as well be a hostile foreign group.

The good sign is that people, on the ground, are starting to wake up and fight back. And though it’s not widely reported, they have the “elites” treed and cornered in many places, and even here, we’ve been able to stop some of their worst excesses.

Can we win this?

As grim as it looks, yes, I think so. In fact I think it’s inevitable. The only question is how much of a mess we’ll allow them to make before patience is exhausted to the point fighting back is palatable, let alone inevitable.

Look, technically, the USSR should never have fallen. It was being propped up by the elites in our country, and they never lost faith.

And yet it fell.

Because their own system was so completely messed up that it would fall, sooner than later. With just a little less propping. It is the same now, nationally, regionally, locally.

And the push back has begun.

The only question is whether we allow nationalism to devolve to tribalism and factionalism. And how far into it.

It is my (and your) unenviable task to keep treading that fine line, and try to keep the ricochet from hitting too hard because a hard ricochet will only set us up for the next turn.

Steady as she goes. Love your country, but be aware other people are also human.

Keep at it, and be not afraid.

186 thoughts on “The Coils of Oikophobia”

  1. I started listening to the History of Rome podcast a while back, and then tapered off — I really should pick it up again — but I remember the first few episodes, about Rome’s early founding. They were a mix of different tribes right from the beginning, if I remember right, so it makes sense for them to carry forward that sense of an identity beyond the tribes. This tribe or that tribe, we are all citizens of Rome, that sort of thing.

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    1. My wife homeschooled our two youngest. They really dug into Rome…and discovered that when it was founded the penalty for breaking any law was death. Apparently they had too because if it was anythung less sooner or later charges of favoritism or corruption would break kut and tribalism was back on the menu.

      I did laugh when she had them reading a translation of the early laws….it was like the bit where Spock and Mudd are discussing the Denebians approach to crime….forgery ….death….robbery….death and so on.

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      1. Reminds me of the joke about the Chinese army division.

        “Men, what’s the penalty for rebellion against the emperor?”

        “Death.”

        “And what’s the penalty for being late?”

        “Death.”

        “Well, I have news for you. We’re late.”

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        1. In regard to that….

          https://www.tumblr.com/its-not-a-pen/757472172063244288?source=share

          Starts with, “first day as a small-town sheriff and you discover that some of the convicts you’re transporting managed to escape in the night and since the penalty for letting prisoners escape is death, and the penalty for being late because you were looking for escaped prisoners is also death, you decide to free ALL of them and go hide out in the wilderness for a bit, except the convicts are super grateful so they make you their leader and it turns out they’re decent guys who were exploited by a tyrannical government, so long story short you’re crowd-sourcing for a peasant uprising and would anyone like to chip in?

          3650th day and due to a series of unforeseen events you are now the emperor and founder of the han dynasty….”

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          1. That reminds me that I still need to read the Romance of Three Kingdoms. There used to be a site at https://www.threekingdoms.com/ that had a free-to-read translation, which I bookmarked years ago and never got around to reading. Sadly, I failed to anticipate that it might go offline and didn’t download an archival copy, so now I have to find another source.

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            2. Read it, and then go find a translated copy of “Record of the Three Kingdoms” for the more historically accurate version of those events. :P

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          2. Quite a few unforeseen events, including two different civil wars – the war to overthrow the Qin Dynasty, with allies, and the Chu-Han Contention, in which the two major groups on the winning side of the previous civil war went at it.

            One of the earliest bits of insurrection during the first civil war – possibly the first – is the origin of the quip that Robin Munn mentions, when an army unit was delayed due to heavy storms making it impossible to travel forward.

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  2. Xerxes’ Persia was also a polyglot nation, just differently organized, and way before Rome or Greece. The current Iranian government has never forgotten nor forgiven the upstart deplorable barbarian Greeks, and others, who didn’t kneel to their “betters” at Thermopylae and later.

    Heh. Up yer ass, wannabee.

    And plenty of Greeks did kneel, when they thought he going was too bumpy and Xerxes too scary. Fortunately some Spartans and Thespians dared contest the point to the end, buying time for the various City-States to get their collective heads together as team Greece and kick ass.

    Heh. Up yer ass, Ayatollah. Goat roper wannabee.

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      1. IIRC, both citizen soldiers of Thebes and Thesbos. but I have slept a lot (and also too little) since I last even looked at wikipedia.

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      2. Wikipedia, FWIW:

        Having learned of Ephialtes’ betrayal and witnessing the Persians outflanking him, Leonidas dismissed the bulk of the Greek army and remained to guard their retreat along with 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians. It has been reported that other Greek troops also remained, including up to 900 helots and 400 Thebans. With the exception of the Thebans, most of whom reportedly surrendered, the Greeks fought the Persians to the death in one of history’s most famous last stands.

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      3. So, Nazism and Communism were all academic theory based totalitarianisms. State cults or ideologies. Fake some statistics, propose central management, dadada. The academics don’t wnat to own it, and to be fair, the central figures were often not the sort of people that previous regimes really wanted to fund to work at their own universities for various reasons.

        Christian theology, and Muslim theology are not really all that categorically distinct from academic theory.

        I’m not sure that very many of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century were very far from some legitimating narrative and legitimating theory. but, some of them were probably coasting on ‘theory’ that other totalitarian regimes had put together, not being very invested in brewing their own.

        Adolph, Benito, etc. were actually pretty good at reverse engineering scholarship, and coming up with their own variations on academic theory, which were really no worse than a lot of the mainstream in academia right now; They were actively terrible theoretically, but if speech control limits who can say what, few people have the courage to attempt to tip over the cart of rotten apples.

        ‘global elite’ is basically a confusing way of saying international socialists, and academics who mainly identify with other academics, including overseas academics. Two distinct categories, that are aligned, and overlap a bit.

        Anyway, greater access to tertiary education is probably one of those things that had some good outcomes, and looks like a good idea in the first order approximation. It also had the effect of expanding academic communities, adn making them large enough to better self-sustain cults.

        American academia now is a bunch of cults, and plausibly a distinct sub culture from the rest of America. This may in fact be a destructively different culture.

        There’s an argument that countries around the world are empires ruled by a hostile culture, centered in academia.

        ‘Carbon’ as the climate scientists define it, and pass to the regulators, is mostly a proxy for human lives, and for human well being.

        ‘Addressing climate change’ can be understood as a murderous ideology, that is wickedly fixated on people outside of academia. It might be that only an academic could be so narrowly focused, and so lacking in common sense, to think that they can murder everyone else, and still live the same lives or better.

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        1. Oops. Was careless, and hadn’t thought about where comment I was replying to would end up. This was meant to be a root level comment.

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          1. Or maybe you did place it properly, and WordPress added it as a response to someone else’s comment. I’ve had it do that from time to time when I know for a fact that I confirmed I was not replying.

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        2. Closest we ever got to functional Communism was Sparta. The top fifty or so families had the same houses, food, income, clothing, etc.

          Everyone else, labor et al, was a slave. They got whacked if they did too little or too much. Or just to prove “terror is the Law, slave”.

          It worked for decades, even centuries, until some wives kinda unbalanced things, and power/land/wealth concentrated bit by bit.

          They tried collectivism -really hard-. -really- hard.

          Still failed. And took most of Greek civilization apart in the failing.

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          1. That was the theory. In reality, everyone who wrote about them said that the golden age when the Spartiates were all equal was at least a century in the past.

            And one way they had to keep everyone more or less on par was to expel any Spartiate who was not rich enough for their standard.

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          2. That’s not Real Communism(tm), it’s an oligarchy. But in reality, that’s exactly how communism always plays out: a few hundred privileged people at the top sharing alike in luxury while everybody else eats dirt.

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            1. Yeah, years ago some idiot on another forum was going on about how things were sooo much better in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez because a few hundred privileged rich assholes no longer owned everything.

              I said: “A few hundred assholes still own everything, only now you say it’s better because they’re a different bunch of assholes.”

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            2. Thats real True Communism then.

              never works

              never really equal

              mostly in the telling, not the doing

              the commissars loot it

              military folks make work what little actually works

              murderous terror

              slavery

              wreck civilization

              …

              yup. True Communism.

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              1. Was it Khrushchev that commented on groceries for “high party officials” not being up to the quality of cheap lower class stores here?

                A personal acquaintance told of getting her grandmother out of the old USSR, and going grocery shopping on the way home from the airport. One look at about a quarter acre of fresh produce piled high, and she fell to her knees believing she was dead and that Jesus was about to greet her into Heaven. In her whole life, she had never seen such plenty in one place, maybe even in aggregate. She honestly though she was dead and in Heaven. When convinced it was still earth, she was then terrified for having stepped into the “wrong” store, certain the USA’s checkists would punish her for trespass.

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      4. Thespiai. It was a smaller polis in Boeotia and viciously hostile to Thebes (and vice versa). There were also 400 Thebans there, probably the sum total of the anti-Persian group of Theban politicians.

        For the Spartiates it was their apotheosis, they had prepaRED THEIR WHOLE LIVES FOR THE BATTLE. For the Thebans they would just have been handed over to their the Persians be their political enemies, for them was no going home. But the Thespians could have gone home and lived to fight at Plataea the next year, they were the entire hoplite levy of their polis. Nevertheless they volunteered to stay and fight by their comrades from Sparta. Stephen Pressfield has a moving scene in Gates of Fire of the Spartan reaction to this courGEOS DECISION.

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        2. Thespian Drama Queens

          (grin)

          It’s one thing to “last stand” as a bunch of Professional Soldiers. It’s quite another Glory when a pick-up team of amateurs do it, and well.

          The non-spartans who stood and died made the greater stand. Not expected. Not required. Told not needed.

          F(HONK!)er’s stood their ground anyway.

          Much respect.

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  3. I just don’t know… with the developments of today, the VP selection for the Democrats, it seems like an effort to make it between “us” and “them” as there is no effort to politically or socially balance the ticket as happened in the past.

    I spent over twenty years in MN even worked in MN state government – the cabinet meeting with Gov. Jessie Ventura were very interesting. When I had to look for a new job one of the objectives (12 years ago) was it had to support us leaving MN for someplace else. It was becoming a crazy place and no longer felt safe, secure or a place to live. Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota and Iowa all had opportunities and at substantial cost – we moved to Iowa.

    Never looked back and feel it was the best decision for us and it’s been great. The only thing I see this democrat pick bringing to the political table is more progressive insanity. The other side has it’s issues and problems but they are at least coming up with logical and realistic policy stands. I am afraid it has devolved to the reality of sane normal people and the crazy irrational left. Sigh… While not outright ‘tribalism’ it sure looks like ‘us’ vs. ‘them’. Hope and pray that the election matters and provides a ramp back to sanity and reality.

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      1. They won’t go door to door. They have no need.

        Bans

        licensing

        Huge taxes

        1-800-RATLINE

        propaganda

        selective enforcement with occasional brutal examples

        patience.

        first sign of real resistance gets a fed-raid. Which may get massacred. Then they send Delta. Which annihilates them. Probably with no press at all. Just -gone- and the press told to say nothing.

        Yeah, folks boog anyway. They are Americans. But the carefully screw tightening will be there, just rushed too much. As will the botched warnings. But the fools won’t use the “silent terror” option. They will drop their hammer, bark their “triumph”, and thus unleash the hellstorm.

        Always helps when the tyrants pre select for incompetence.

        So vote “sane” folks. Too old for this s(HONK!)t but too stubborn to shut up.

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    3. Perhaps, knowing they are beat, stinkin, its a throwaway sop to the lunatics. Then they can say “See? Too far Left. Back towards the middle. And you barking moonbats, shut the (HONK!) up…”

      The have their “establishment” turdweasels too.

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        3. C.S. Lewis pointed out the concept of “progress,” meshes with the concept of, “evolution,” – and that both ideas actually predate Darwin. So the idea that first, societies can “evolve,” subject to the ” laws,” of evolution, and that all evolution was, “progress,” by definition and therefore automatically good/superior to what came before was, “in the air,” by at least the mid-19th century.

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    2. Gilbert nad Sullivan in The Mikado. Koko;s little list of society offenders who might well be underground includes ‘The idiot who praises with enthusiastic tones, all centuries but this and every country but his own.”

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  5. I think that we will mostly be OK in the US. It’s a big place, and there are 50 different experimental labs in determining what will work out best. But I am very worried for Great Britain, where the ruling class have basically given the place over to immigrant minorities who despise every decency that England ever tried to stand for, and have no compunction about punishing their own native English for objecting.

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        1. Observing the UK protests and immediate frantic demonization of those “I disagree with knifing little girls” protesters by their ruling upper class twits, it struck me the other day that, like the dark night of fascism, the predicted civil war that’s been inevitably descending on the United States could very well be landing over there.

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              1. To be fair. Doubt the people (not counting the elites) do not appear to be looking to Charles, the cheater, but William. Counting on the shortest reign ever.

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                1. Wll, there’s the cancer.

                  But the King and the Crown Princess both get cancer? I’d want a very thorough environmental scan of al, the royal quarters/living areas.

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                1. Mine was too. It’s use of the phrase c…l w.r, as the topic of ours is beyond the pale here.

                  Talking about the one they held over there wherin Charles I and his head were unamicably separated is not, but the trips the WP protections.

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                    3. What I figured. Kind of tongue in cheek and letting you know. I thought maybe WP just didn’t like my taking C’s name in vain. I mean I tried to be circumspect, cute, and not say that the rank and file were counting on/praying for C’s demise, didn’t I?

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                    7. Hey, I got moderation for mentioning the name of the trans-atlantic pilot (who apparently was hated with the fire of a thousand suns by FDR).

                      I see that LaWhorish’s VP selection was the origin of calling Trump and Vance “weird”, but it seems he has the “creepy” adjective locked down for himself. Left and Lefter! What a campaign pair. I want popcorn to see how they’re going to try to fraud that duo in place. (If it’s too blatant, I wonder if the LIVs and normies will take up pitchforks and torches.)

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                    8. And in other news. Another squad member lost their primary and is officially out as of Jan 3. Not gracefully either, by all reports. Apparently the loss has “radicalized” the individual. If they could be more radicalized.

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                    9. Radicalizing a soon-to-be former squad member. That’s trying to disprove the “you can’t wet a river” adage. :)

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                    10. And apparently Ilhan Omar (D-Somalia) is in a real battle to hold on in the primary. Good times, good times… 😊👍👍

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              3. Foreshadowing. She was rather shrewd.

                (grin)

                Would not a coup by Harry be just the thing? Soldiers rather like him, even knowing his epic party mistakes. Kind of like having a Royal E-4. (Grin)

                -That- lad has -balls-.

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            5. Nah, time before that. Charles I had the Civil War. Charles II was The Glorious Restoration. And while the man no doubt had his flaws, he was also smart enough to avoid pissing off the very people that had just given him back his father’s throne.

              Unlike his brother and successor, James…

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              1. There was a story that Charles II had a habit of going out in public without guards.

                His brother James was one of the people who criticized him for it.

                Charles II was said to have replied, “I’m completely safe among the public because if I’m killed, you would become King and nobody wants you as King.” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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              2. Since the Left treats “1984” as a training manual, maybe “V for Vendetta” could be used the same way… :twisted:

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      1. Britain is boned.

        We may see them rise again from the fire, but the burning fuse is about to hit the keg.

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      2. “The British public will support whatever we have to do …”

        Smacks of the Sun King’s remarks in the last years of the Bourbon dynasty, asserting that “C’est moi l’etat” or “L’etat c’est moi,” or both. Because it seems to me that even a (miraculous) supermajority of the population rising up against them no longer count as The British Public, because if they were they’d support the crackdowns.

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      1. Just remember that Britain has no constitution, nor freedom of speech. In that it is like pretty much all of the world apart from the USA.

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      2. It’s never their fault. Truckers convoy, J6, UK riots, the only “lesson” elitist parasites are learning is “We’re obviously not replacing them fast enough!”

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    4. The academic empire in the UK may have undermined their own imperial rule with the judicial bias that they pushed. The formal legal system only works as a method for resolving disputes so long as a significant majority does not know that they will always be improperly discriminated against.

      Vigilantism is hardly inherently a good, but it is a ‘remedy’ for certain failure modes of a more formal judiciary.

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    5. The urban areas in Europe have a lot of immigrants refusing to assimilate, and are thus divided between immigrants and natives. But the rural areas are still almost entirely natives.

      I’d call Starmer an idiot for triggering a civil war within a month of taking office. But in fairness, his Tory predecessors were almost as bad, and all of this was building up under their watch. He’s worse, but not to the extent that Sunak getting reelected would have changed any of this.

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      1. He is just the final Ineptizoid left standing when the music finally stops. The band has been playing the tune for about thirty odd years.

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  7. I was discussing “Masters of the Air” at a neighborhood party, and I mentioned the black airmen who were showcased in one episode, and how they were so patriotic and smart and how much they loved America.

    Acquaintance looked at me, squinting, because of course black Americans shouldn’t be proud of being American. And she told me so, as though this was an accepted fact. They have brainwashed so many.

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      1. Yes, blacks have been treated terribly throughout American history, one way or another.

        In comparison to the rest of the world? It’s like night and day. Is the Tusla Massacre a tragedy? Absolutely. In comparison to how things are handled in Africa on a regular basis? It’s not even a drop in the bucket.

        There’s no sense of perspective in the modern intellectual. No ability to understand how things really are in a lot of places. I’m planning a trip to Japan right now, and I know that for all of the beauty there, there are so many issues that will make me glad to come home, even if it is to California.

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        1. Maybe it’s a variation of the theme by which, “conservative,” Republicans trash their own side: “We have no right to criticize them, because we are not part of them, but it is our moral duty to chastise our own people when they fail to live up to our standards.”

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      2. Of all folks to quote on this topic, Muhammed Ali:

        (Wikipedia)

        In the early 1970s Muhammad Ali fought for the heavyweight title against George Foreman. The fight was held in the African nation of Zaire; it was insensitively called the “rumble in the jungle.” Ali won the fight, and upon returning to the United States, he was asked by a reporter,

        “Champ, what did you think of Africa?”

        Ali replied,

        “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!”

        There is a characteristic mischievous pungency to Ali’s remark, yet it also expresses a widely held sentiment. Ali recognizes that for all the horror of slavery, it was the transmission belt that brought Africans into the orbit of Western freedom. The slaves were not better off—the boat Ali refers to brought the slaves through a horrific Middle Passage to a life of painful servitude—yet their descendants today, even if they won’t admit it, are better off. Ali was honest enough to admit it.

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  8. I suspect that the oikophobia is an inherent part of the Marxist triad (socialism, fascism, and communism). It’s locking someone into that point in your life when you hate your parents and want to make your own life, but doing two specific things with that hate-

    1-Aiming it at the society at large, in the form of making mountains out of molehills of issues and
    2-Never letting go of that anger.

    The Great Aunt had an argument with a guy about electric cars on Twitter and how those cars were going to save the world. She asked him where they were going to get the power for this, pointing out that solar and wind don’t have the density. He kept saying that they’ll find a way, like a child looking at a magic trick.

    Then she suggested nuclear power and he did not like that at all…

    And that’s the sad thing. Most of these people have never grown up, not really, in the ways that adults should grow up. And because their anger is childish, they want to share it with the rest of the world-no matter how many people it hurts.

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      1. Ah, yeah, that was a point I’d meant to say.

        For all the extensive experiences and records we have of failure modes of Christian practice, there is a fundamental difference that sets the academic theory totalitarian thinkers up for being murderous nutjobs. That magical beleif in behavioral theory. The frustration of ‘why don’t they follow the prediction of the thoery, which I had used my knowledge of to game?’

        The end times prophecies of Christianity at least imply that there will come a day, when we are not all just peaceably living together as Christians, and that it will profoundly suck to follow Christ, for a while. So a Christian ‘should’ have at least a morsel of awareness that the theology does not say ‘pray, and then people will do exactly what you want’.

        Anyway, the opposition was raised badly, and abusively, from before the age of reason, and is generally not equipped to do any heavy lifting where theory is concerned. Repeating teacher verbatim, they can handle. The theoretical path they trace mentally, sorts for emotions and methods, and develops drives, that are not really suited to adult function. Party Truth wishcasting.

        Stockholm syndrome run amok. Because we tolerated the federalization of primary and secondary schools, and tertiary training of instructors.

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        1. It is by no means bad yet, but things are starting to be…less nice…for followers of Christ. It’s still at the level of mockery, which isn’t anything new, but the fact that it’s becoming so pervasive–and the fact that it is being actively encouraged by governments that previously either encouraged Christianity or stayed out of it is…not a great sign. But hey, it’s not gonna change my mind about Who I choose to follow, nor will it change the minds of many others. :)

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Seeing comments on Twitter that suggest the blatant antisemitism is much more prevalent than normal. Also that the younger you are, the more likely you are to be “pro Palestinian.”

            Liked by 1 person

      2. There are some versions of “if everyone” (note without the word “only”) that work. For example, one of my relatives who likes to jog usually comes home at the end of his jog with a piece of trash or two that he picked up by the side of the road to dispose of properly in a trash can. (He lives in California, in case you’re wondering). His philosophy is that he can’t clean up the whole world, but he can clean up this little bit of it, and if everyone did that then the world would be a lot better so he should do his part.

        That kind of thing works, but note it does not rely on “if only everyone”. I.e., even if just a dozen people do it and nobody else does, they’re still going to reap some local benefit of having a slightly cleaner town to live in. So that works. But any effort that relies on nearly everybody doing it, such as reducing manmade CO₂ emissions (which will have no measurable effect unless you get China and India to participate — good luck with that), is doomed to failure.

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      3. Anything that relies on “if only everyone” is going to fail inherently. You can’t get a whole office to sing “Happy Birthday” with free cake being handy(1), let alone any of these utopian ideals that many of these people believe in.

        That kind of assumption isn’t going to happen.

        (1-Mostly because my last office job always got the cake from somewhere that did crappy, sandy jam filling on sheet cake. It was a petty protest, but it was my petty protest.)

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      4. Reminds me of the woke pastor’s woker wife (“anything he can be, I can be woker”) who wanted everybody to have electric cars. Mind you, they had the smallest solar system possible on their house (the kids did homework by kerosene lamplight, or as was all too common, they stayed at the church and used “free” utilities).

        Naturally, she felt that the church would have to provide the charger for their electric car. (Bearing in mind that the church was in dire financial shape, and it was only the modest income from renting out the parsonage–maybe $400 a month–that kept the church from going under.

        Which it did, after the woke minister gave notice, then tried to ungive the notice–we took his earlier offer. Unfortunately, the chief clerk acted as minister and managed to be worse in a somewhat different way. I was surprised it lasted 3 more years before the synod pulled the plug and sold the property to another church. I was gone after the chief clerk made it obvious what the trajectory was going to be.

        But, yes, woker pastor’s wife was a true commie. “Our need is so expansive, your abilities to give must match our need.” Spit.

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  9. We always have had problems with immigrants. If you look past the sentimental propaganda forced down children’s throats in school (happy immigrants weeping with joy at the sight of the Statue of Liberty, the “melting pot,” and all that damn’d rot) there were very serious tensions from the beginning.

    We hear and hear and hear about riots targeting “African Americans” For No Reason What So Ever, but in the old days, Catholics of any sort got the side-eye from “mainstream Americans,” <i>at best.</i> There were riots caused by panics about girls who’d been “forced into convents,” and all sorts of lurid rumors about what went on in those places. As late as the 1920s, the (second) Ku Klux Klan got a lot more mileage out of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant feeling than it did from being down on blacks. Many Americans were suspicious of Catholics because they were afraid that in a crunch, their first loyalty was to the Pope.

    I wouldn’t be surprised, if something drastic isn’t done about uncontrolled immigration, to see the United States adopting the wise policies (slightly modified; Americans can leave and enter freely, but nobody else can) of the Tokugawa Shoguns. And instead of that stupid Emma Lazarus poem, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty (a monument to liberty in New York City? Why not an altar to Baphomet in the Vatican? It’s just as appropriate!) would be a quote from a much better author, J.R.R. Tolkien: “The way is shut. It was made by those who are Dead. And the Dead keep it, until the time is right. The way is shut.”

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    1. The “melting pot” and Romantic view of immigration to the US is great … for grade school kids who are learning the basic story and don’t need to read/see/hear “new residents went through h-ll because everyone hated them,” which is the version that seems to have replaced it. Once kids get older, then looking at the shadings, the changes over time, the questions about “Why are they coming here? Are any of them staying? What is an American culture? What do we all share?”

      I agree that sugar-syrup gets old, and that there needs to be something between what I got in the 1970s and what is taught today (1619 and all that). I disagree on the age it needs to start. I’m tired of the US being shown as nothing but evil, intolerant, and hypocritical from the Founding.

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      2. Then too. Immigrants weren’t “just accepted” at Lady Liberty when they showed up at the boats. If you were sick, you either got back on the boat or you went into the hospitals on the island, too often to die. Don’t know what it took to be accepted, but not everyone was. If not, back on the boat they went. Families were torn apart.

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        1. Non-citizens who had major problems while here were often bundled back onto the boats to return to their port of departure.

          One of my grandfather’s aunts may have been sent back–we’re not sure. She apparently had a nervous breakdown of some sort and was institutionalized.

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        2. You had to be healthy, have a sponsor or a job waiting, a certain amount of money (there are stories of family members passing the same wad of cash hand to hand) and a place to go. Beyond that I’m not sure.

          A distant cousin didn’t have all the requirements, so he got the destination and contact name of a fellow traveler, the guy’s cousin. Ended up marrying into the family. :)

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      3. Agreed, TXRed. Age appropriate teaching, and/or individual appropriate teaching (because some people are born fast or voracious learners) is better than what we have now.

        I will also say, hailing from a race that brought in a despised group of immigrants, that you can still love your nation even if it wasn’t kind to everyone who initially came in. “No Irish Need Apply” and the Know-Nothings were bad. Does that mean I hate America? If you can, find a copy of THE AMERICAN FLAG by Fr. Charles Constantine Pise. That should answer whether I love my country or not just fine.

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        1. When my stepson was working to get his German wife a green card, the immigration clerk (who had a strong non-American accent) mocked him for asking a question about one of the forms with, “I guess you don’t speak English very well.”

          It did not go over well.

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    3. Odd. We are all of immigrants. No humans are “native” to North America. We have harvested the most free of the Earth. And thus made a magnificent shining example, a beacon of Liberty to the world.

      It always was, is, and ever shall be, unruly and chaotic, and Free.

      Immigration is necesary, and helpful, done by law.

      We are a Creed, not some imaginary pure breed. No ethnicity is “true”. USA is a Creed. The Declaration remains it’s highest statement.

      Those who reject the Declaration are -not- Americans.

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      1. I have problems with MOST of the incomers. Not all. I see them here, actually trying to work, etc. BUT most are coming — not their fault — after being propagandized that they’re entitled to things here. And a lot of them are communists on that side. (The caravans are organized by communist orgs.)
        So, how do we tell them apart? We don’t. It’s going to be a goat rodeo.
        The other thing I have a problem with is that I had to FIGHT to assimilate. FIGHT. Because everything was against it.
        What to do for that? I don’t know. Except beat the leftists over the head with their “America is evul” books.

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        1. It might be time to do a Blast From the Past with that piece you wrote about how difficult it was to assimilate. That was one of the best pieces of writing I think I’ve ever seen on the realities of immigration.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. Most of the “born here” are a dogs breakfast.

          it’s the best pick-up team system ever devised.

          get rid of the government handouts. Go back to “mutual aid societies” that may have been tribal, or theological, but were -picky- and dumped the bums and focused on the salvageable.

          Get rid of income tax altogether. Go back to tarrifs and shrink the Federal to fit: War dept, courts, Marshals service, revenue, and the Coast Guard. Explicit agencies only. Explicit laws from explicit articles.

          Chainsaw mode.

          Probably a fantasy, but it is valid because it proveably worked.

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      2. No humans are “native” to North America. 

        Watch carefully when leftist institutions run up against Native American “we were always here, we were created here” tribal lore. They can’t be science deniers, they’re natives! We have to honor their special knowledge, even if it’s directly contradicted by DNA evidence! Error, Error, Landrue Guide Us!

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        1. I am a native American. Just means some of my ancestors arrived way earlier than the others. Also, one grandparent was originally from Poland. So I span quite a bit. Mom’s family had folks on the third ship landing at Jamestown, and some folks that waved hello to the first landing. (direct matrilineal NA, , and a subsequent additional NA marry-in in the 1850s, FWIW)

          So what? We are all immigrants or of immigrant stock. Humans are not native to North America. Thus there is no “pure” or “entitled” bloodlines for “American”. That “blood and/or soil” shit goes right back where it came from. This is a Creed based nation.

          Folks should have to sign the freakin Declaration to vote. ServicePeeps and Government folks should have to sign to serve, public Oaths to Constitution 2nd and Declaration -1st-.

          (grin)

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    4. Excellent post, Eric. A very THICK book indeed could be written about the immigrant experience, and how things shifted over the decades and centuries. And anti-Catholic sentiment being open and unabashed is living memory. (JFK was Catholic. There were news headlines questioning his loyalty and stating that it was a ploy for His Holiness to take over the U.S.) Texas Red is right too. (There has GOT to be a middle ground here.)

      Quoting your post over on the Book of faces. Credited by name.

      Liked by 2 people

  10. On tribalism: yes, the Romans got rid of that, in areas they controlled well enough and while they were there. Once they left it came right back. Charlemagne suppressed it to some extent in his lifetime but, like Alexander, his empire did not last beyond his death. Medieval Europe is a vast patchwork of little tribal areas and petty aristocratic fiefdoms. Remember that it’s generally stated that the “nation state” as we know it now was brought into existence by the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) which ended the 30 year and 80 year wars, the latter the Dutch war of independence. And even Holland, which isn’t all that tribal, shows the point: what emerged from the 80 year war isn’t so much a nation as a confederacy of independent provinces (think the USA under the Articles of Confederation, at best). One of those provinces was so much wealthier and influential that the effects of this weren’t quite as bad as they might have been. (This is why the country is known elsewhere by the name of that province: Holland, rather than by its actual name, the Republic of the United Netherlands.)

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    1. Minor objection. Christendom was a unifying force, even when Christians were bashing on each other because one was a Frank and the other a Saxon. The Hansa (Hanseatic League) was another unifying force, where it had cities and outposts.

      The tribalism, until the Reformation and then Wars of Religion (1520s-1650s, not counting fights with Islam/Ottomans), was somewhat toned down by the common faith and respect for Rome-As-We-Imagine-It. The rise of the legal entity known as the nation state changed that, as did the Reformation and gradual erosion of the concept of Christendom.

      Liked by 3 people

  11. FIRST, we had Empires,
    Ruled by Emperors…

    THEN, we had Kingdoms,
    Ruled by Kings…

    NOW, we have Countries,
    Ruled by …

    :-P

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  12. So that is the onslaught the West is under. Each nation is under the control of an “elite” who, for all intents and purposes, might as well be a hostile foreign group.

    A hostile foreign group to Western culture?

    So they would have to have control of the government, finance and media?

    We should run the demographics of these institutions and identify all the Russians.

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      1. And why, in the name of compound interest, are some, “America First!” type conservatives absolutely in the tank for Russia? “Russia is invincible! Russia has endless man power and once they get it properly organized the endless manpower of Russia will destroy Ukraine as they destroyed Napoleon’s and Hitler’s armies! It is inevitable!”

        Uh, guys….

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          1. Don’t confuse “in the tank for Russia” with “let’s not send American weapons and treasure to a bunch of corruptocrats when we can’t afford to.” That’s straight out of the WEF playbook.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Sigh. No. It’s a proxy war. Reducing Russia IS in our best interests. As opposed to letting it get to the point of swallowing Poland, say.
              I’m absolutely against OUR boots on the ground.
              As for corruptocrats…. compared to Russia? No, they’re not. The guy in control of the Ukraine is the equivalent of the opposition in Venezuela.. The guy he ousted was like Maduro if Maduro were a Russian plant.
              THAT’s not how Russia paints any of it. But then they are Russian.

              Liked by 2 people

              1. Yes, but due to the kneecapping of our extraction of natural resources and manufacturing, we have a limited supply of military goods we can send overseas. Those resources would be better spent, in my opinion, helping Israel eliminate the Jihadists and defeating Iran.

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              2. And don’t necessarily buy into the funny accounting of the value of what’s been sent. Lots of stuff that would have next been either scrapped or surplussed off was sent to Ukraine because they could make use of it, and almost universally the DoD booked it at replacement value.

                You can count on the pallets of cash sent to Iran being the amount the government said, but insanely high old equipment valuations by US DoD are just supply being supply, nothing new under the sun.

                The artillery shells and various guns were old war stocks. Then we ran out of shells, so now the shells are new production, because we didn’t really have enough for any war anywhere anymore. Paying to build up production capacity and building up our war stocks are a Really Good Thing and at the most mercenary and political (but I repeat myself) represent jobs and infrastructure here in the US.

                Bottom line, it is in the United States strategic best interest to reduce the capability of the Russians, who are not and will never be our friends, by proxy. I’d rather pay for the Ukrainians to do it than have to send US Armored Divisions over to Poland and Finland and the mountains of Romania to try and help them hold their officially-NATO borders.

                Forcing Ukraine to compromise, freezing the conflict, and giving Russia time to rebuild will not save us any money in the end, on the contrary, it will cost us more.

                And how much do you want to bet any such cease-fire-in-place agreement would put US “peacekeeping” troops right between them, underarmed, overlawyered, and vulnerable.

                No, the only way out is through. Heck, just cancel the SLS boondoggle, $26 billion down that black hole but it will save $4 billion-plus per launch going forward. Send them up on a Falcon 9.

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              3. The way Poland is rearming, in a few years no one will have to worry about anyone ‘swallowing’ them. OTOH, if I were a German, I might be a bit worried about Poland.

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                1. I should think Russians would be a bit worried about Poland too–wasn’t it a Polish sniper in the Winter War who happily offed hundreds and hundreds of Commies all by himself? (Or was he Finnish? He might have been Finnish. Also not a nation you necessarily want to piss off so hard they remember their ancestral roots….)

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                  1. Finn.

                    Once upon a time, a previous Poland -sacked- Moscow. Russia has certainly done “hard no grease” to Poland. Several times over.

                    At current rates, Poland winds up running Central Europe. Russia isn’t going to “save” Europe, or anyone else. They blew it in Ukraine. Probably done for, now.

                    Poland just might, given more time.

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                    1. Poland can either be a superpower or a throughway for other peoples armies. They’ve been both, most recently the throughway. Looks to me like they are thinking it is time for the pendulum to swing again.

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                    3. Apart from a throughway and a superpower, Poland also has been non-existent for a century or so in not that far off history.

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                2. No Polish army would invade Germany so the Poles could take over the German immigrant problems. Germany having the greenie+leftist stupids for so makes them a large poison pill.

                  Looking the other direction, turning Belarus into a client “safety buffer” between them and the Formerly Red Army? Other than the fact they can’t do that overtly and stay in NATO, the idea has merits. Maybe another go at a “color” revolution there? Hmmm.

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                  1. “No Polish army would invade Germany “

                    I haven’t laughed that hard in weeks.

                    Because they forgot 1939? (Grin)

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                    1. Given the current state of the Bundeswehr, it might be more along the lines of a heavily armed motorway tour that really tears up the pavement than an invasion. But as we (re)learned in Iraq, if you invade and don’t throw a parade and go home right away, you have to run the place. I doubt the new Polish Ascendancy would want anything to do with that.

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        2. Yeah, Napoleon and Hitler’s failure to invade Russia had everything to do with the quality of Russia’s armies, and nothing to do with Old Man Winter. And so Russia will be successful in an invasion outside their territory, because … step 3, profit, that’s why.

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          1. Russia would need a crapload more tires to invade past Ukraine. They couldn’t manage to reach Kiev with the last pile.

            Spent. They are now trying desperately to look victorious so they don’t get eaten. They need help to convince the crazy Ukies to quit. Desperately.

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            1. Blowing the dam in Crimea is now having predictable second-order effects: the area is drying out because there’s no water for irrigation. Russia is struggling to get water to their troops and there isn’t enough water. And oh, yes, the Dneiper contains cholera bacilli up the wazoo, so there are also reports of cholera outbreaks…

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            2. And the latest “gloriously advanced an entire suburban block” formerly Red Army “acheivements” are the explanation along those lines for the Kursk adventure – the news was all “Rooskies Advance!” so the Ukrainians needed some vids for their PR with Europe and the U.S. during the August news doldrums. Having Ukrainian regular units driving around at will in Russia-proper kind of puts the lie to “we’re invincible! Defeat is inevitable! Rooskie Mir!”

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  13. “But I also think internationalists are enemies of humanity.”

    Yes. These are the morons who decided that an All Europe driver’s license was a Good Thing, ignoring the fact that it meant an All Europe DVM headquartered in Brussels that you can’t force an answer out of, not even in your nation’s highest court.

    It also means that the lowest common denominator rules. Which leads to Turkish cowboys on the Autobahn driving a busted 1972 Super-Beetle, because hey, it’s legal in Turkey.

    These are the morons that decided Canada would go Metric. Despite doing 90++% of our trade with the USA, we would do everything in liters, meters and kilograms. The same as Russia, with whom we did zero (0) trade. Oh but not England, which at the time was still Imperial.

    Every decision made in Canada these days is the same decision. “Will it please the International Community?” is the only question they ask.

    Leading, inevitably, to things like the Freedom Convoy, and less politely the outbreak of unpleasantness in Britain. Once a government is caught red-handed enforcing a two-tier system of justice to please the International Community, it’s all over.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. …not England, which at the time was still Imperial.

      I would think those Canuckians pushing the adoption of the Obscure French System would likely very much view “different from England” as a primary positive.

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  14. I am a lifelong atheist but spiritual (yeah I know, kind of a cheat) … but I have always thought that Chritianity had some good ideas … well one, treat others as you wish to be treated … but becasue I’m not Christian I have another side to that coin … Treat others as THEY WISH to treat you … treat me as an enemy then I’ll be your enemy …

    Right now the Left thinks “some people need killing” (and I’m afraid I might be in that “some people” bucket)

    So I have no problem also thinking that “some people need killing” … and yes they are humans …

    The Isrealis have finally got to the end of their “nice people” rope and have decided that their survival depends on spnk … I hope they finish the job … and yes that means lots of “civilians” dead …

    I just hope if/when push comes to shove/beat/shoot our side follows the Keyser Soze method … (just spare the pets, they truely are innocent) … otherwise this cycle will just repeat for our children or grandchildren and they will be faced with the same scenario …

    Liked by 1 person

    1. To be fair, large chunks of Christianity do not ascribe “Do unto others” as meaning “don’t ever fight back, or kill your enemies.” :) Plenty of us believe strongly in being heavily armed. We just won’t START the fight. Be kind, offer friendship and compassion to all, do one’s best to share the good Word…but if they want to try and kill us, well, we are not currently in an age of martyrdom, so it’s fine (at least it still is in the US) to try and kill ’em right back. :D

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        1. Indeed! An awesome bunch, those (the ones I know about, anyway.)

          And no one has ever accused us Mormons of being particularly pacifist, either.

          I mean, they technically only rescinded the Mormon extermination order in Missouri sometime in the latter decades of the 20th century…we still remember.

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            1. Yeah, I’ve met a few. They’re pretty rare where I currently live, but there were a LOT of ’em when I lived in Colorado, largely transplants by way of California (And clearly I am NOT including BlondEngineer in that bunch :D)

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        3. The Archangel that’s known as The Healer first beat a guy up… just sayin’, Raphael played by DeForest Kelly as Bones with a heavy dose of cowboy, I would believe….

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      2. Rolf Nelson (in “Heretics of St. Possenti”) covered the Christian messages about self defense and personal weapons quite nicely. And for those who want to reach back a bit further, there is this quote I saved away a while ago. If I understand correctly this is from the Talmud:

        “If he come to slay thee, forestall by slaying him.” — Sanhedrin, folio 72a.

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  15. The hatred of the USA by those who adored the Soviet Union is the hatred Gollum would have had for Frodo and the West had he survived the destruction of the One Ring; his precious was destroyed and thus he was going to destroy those who destroyed it. This is of course born out of the lust for the Ring, the same way that Marxists lusted for, and still do, for the Soviet Union.

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  16. There’s an interesting juxtaposition of two headlines on currently-yahoo right now:

    Tim Walz has joked that Trump will attack his progressive policies: “What a monster!”

    Woman raped on Bronx street by stranger asking for directions

    The ‘progressive policies’ that contribute to such crimes should be attacked.

    Below those, there’s another one:

    Why Silicon Valley still has a gender problem

    That’s no mystery; relatively few women seek engineering careers. It’s not because of any opposition from male engineers. The geeks would welcome more women enthusiastically — maybe too enthusiastically :-D but most women’s interests just don’t run in that direction. Probably has something to do with gender roles forced on our primitive ancestors by a harsh and deadly environment.

    Never forget: the universe is constantly trying to kill you, and one day it will succeed. Left-wingers can shove their whiny ‘micro-aggression’ bullshit where the sun don’t shine.

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    1. Female engineers of my acquaintance told me stories from their university days of the incoming freshman Engineering School classes having fair number of females, who explicitly said to them that they were there because of the favorable male to female ratio – and the majority changed their majors that first semester because of the actual engineering and math in those intro courses. The much fewer that liked that kind of engineery-stuff did very well. My acquaintances said the male engineering students tended towards introverted geekdom anyway so did not bother them too much.

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      1. Note the cohort I interacted with went through engineering school back in the 80s and 90s, so before the academic current toxicity and rot spread – I have no insights into more recent years in the engineering pipeline at all.

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      2. The same was true in the ’70s, though women in the EE/CS group tended to drift to the computer side. By senior year, I can recall one or two (maximum!) women in the hard-core EE side of the school, and that was a couple hundred people. And one was offered a job microcoding processors at HP. Not sure where she went.

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      3. If you want an activity with a favorable male to female ratio, with significantly less prevalence of geeks and no major math requirement, consider skydiving.

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    2. At HP/Agilent I worked with & for women engineers (and some chemists–semiconductor processing draws heavily from the Chem crowd), and have a couple of female engineers (now retired/left) as relatives.

      One of the issues I saw at HP was burnout. Process engineering ain’t much fun if you aren’t developing a new process, and for a long time, our fab line was as far from the cutting edge you could get. So a lot of people got frustrated and found greener pastures.

      SIL and her daughter both were considered rising stars where they worked, and got the tough assignments, along with crazy travel and outrageous hours. The desire for something closer to a sane family life led SIL to retire early (her company being bought by one of the more toxic Big Names had a lot to do with it–hubby was another star engineer who quit after that acquisition), and the 24/7 on-call nature of her job led $NIECE to decide that raising kids was more rewarding than a paycheck. I heartily agree.

      One of the things I noticed at HP/Agilent: the women who didn’t quit ended up going into low level management a lot faster than the guys. Clever how that worked… OTOH, I didn’t run across any women in our division who had more than 10 engineers working for them. On the gripping hand, Carly Fiorina was CEO of HP when Agilent was kicked out of the company. That was an interesting situation in itself, and I was happy to be a former employee when her stint started to blow up in her face. (coughCompaqcough)

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      1. You mean that you didn’t release it?

        It was about a reported conversation between C2 and his babybrother James. [Crazy Grin]

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        2. I saw it. Either posted where you weren’t expecting or took it’s time. Where Charles felt safe to walk among the commoners without bodyguards which appalled James. Charles said “I know I’m safe. If I die you become king.”

          I LOLed.

          FYI, I get comments after my first one, to my email. If that makes a difference.

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