On Colonialism

In the wake of the recent attacks on innocent Israeli civilians by Hamas, radical leftist groups have clamored at the opportunity to support the terrorist act.  Black Lives Matter Grassroots, an organization not affiliated with the BLM national organization, put out a statement saying, “Black Lives Matter Grassroots stands in solidarity with our Palestinian family, who are currently resisting 57 years of settler colonialism and apartheid."  The Democratic Socialists of America of Long Beach echoed a similar statement, affirming they “fully supports and stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle for liberation from military occupation, colonialist oppression, and the brutal apartheid system imposed by the state of Israel.” 

The common theme among these leftist organizations is anti-colonialism.  According to leftist ideology, colonialism is one of the great “sins” of the West.  In their view, colonialism was used as a means for the more powerful and advanced European nations to subjugate less powerful nations, oppress the native populace, and plunder their resources to enrich themselves.  As a result, any violence, no matter how heinous, can be justified in the name of anti-colonialism.  Ironically, they seem to give Islam a free pass for colonizing the entire Middle East along with North Africa.

The left presents a very one-sided view of colonialism while disregarding any of its positive contributions.  And yes, there were positive contributions.  That’s not to say that there were no wrongs done.  Imperfect human beings will rule imperfectly, which has been the case all throughout history.  There were certainly instances of oppression, slavery, and exploitation to be found.  King Leopold’s II rule of the Congo is one example, although he didn’t rule the Congo as a colony but rather as his own personal property.  However, not all colonies were created equal, and in general, colonies under British rule fared the best.  What is needed is a more balanced view of colonialism.

The left’s disdain for colonialism is tied to their disdain for the West in general.  During the Renaissance, the West made huge technological leaps ahead of the rest of the world.  For roughly the past 400 years, the West has dominated the globe.  First, through the British Empire, which controlled 23.8% of the world's entire land area at its height, and then continuing with the United States as the premiere superpower.  But instead of attributing the West’s success to better ideas, the free markets for fostering competition and technological advancements, intellectualism that started in Greece, and Christianity, which paved the way for universities and science, the left instead attributes the West’s success to empowering and enriching themselves through colonialism.  But how accurate is that?

In reality, colonialism was an expensive endeavor.  While some individuals and companies did profit, most did not.  The European empires themselves typically lost money to maintain and defend a colony.  In fact, this was the reason the British Parliament imposed taxes on the thirteen colonies, which culminated in the American Revolution.  Any profits made from colonies were too small to have any substantial impact on the economic growth of the West.  Moreover, even when colonies did plunder their colonies, it didn’t necessarily enrich them.  Take Spain, for instance.  Between 1521 and 1590, Spain exported two hundred tons of gold and more than eighteen thousand tons of silver from the New World.  Yet, despite this massive influx of precious metals, Spain went bankrupt eight times from 1557 to 1653.  Today, Spain is but a shell of its former self.

One would expect that if colonialism were so evil, all the post-colonial countries would have fared better after gaining their independence.  Yet, this hasn’t always been the case. At one point, the Europeans controlled nearly all of Africa.  Yet today, Africa is no better off than when it was under colonial rule.  Africa remains the poorest continent on the planet, riddled with social and economic problems, wars, and diseases, despite being rich in natural resources. Latin America is no different.  Though they also have abundant resources, Latin America is plagued with crime and poverty.

And what of the countries that have never been touched by colonialism?  Consider Iran and Saudi Arabia. These are two countries that have never been colonized, yet today they remain among the least moderate countries in the Middle East.  Up until recently, women in Saudi Arabia were not even allowed to drive.  The Saudis continue to have some of the harshest laws and the worst human rights abuses. The same can be said of Iran, where speaking out against the government can land you seventy-four lashes across the back.

What is never acknowledged from the left are the positive contributions that colonialism left behind.  Colonialism brought civilization to the underdeveloped parts of the world.  It created infrastructure that did not exist before and introduced Western medicine, science, education, and law, which have benefited the native populace.  In India, for example, they still retain the British legal system, despite having gained their independence from the British in 1947.  Colonialism is also responsible for ending barbarisms. Missionaries in China helped to end the age-old practice of foot binding, which left women with lifelong disabilities.  In India, European influence helped to end the practice of widows burning themselves alive atop their husband's funeral pyres. In the New World, Spanish conquistadors ended millennia of human sacrifice and cannibalism that were commonly practiced among the Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, and other native tribes.

Colonialism may have yielded mixed results.  There were certainly some bad things that came out of it, but there were good things that came out of it as well, and they shouldn’t be forgotten.  The left likes to present a very biased picture of colonialism.  However, the truth is more nuanced than they would ever admit.  We shouldn’t let the left get away with using the history of colonialism to demonize the West. And we certainly shouldn’t let them get away with using anticolonialism as an excuse to justify acts of murder and violence.

The Trouble with Masks

Viruses are extremely small. The Coronavirus is 0.1 to 0.5 microns in size. In comparison, a human hair is 50 to 180 microns. They are so small that they can go through masks like pollen can go through a chain-link fence. In theory, masks are supposed catch the tiny droplets of moisture that the coronavirus clings to.

But for masks to be any effective it has the be the right kind of mask, preferably N95. That automatically rules out cloth masks, which are useless. It has to be fit-tested to be effective. You are not supposed to touch the mask only the loops and nose of the bridge. You are not supposed to reuse the same mask. You shouldn't wear the same mask for too long, otherwise the pores in the mask become blocked by moisture from breathing, and the air stream simply diverts around the mask. Even if you do everything just right there are no guarantees.

That's why masks are pretty much useless for the general population. No one ever does any of those things. They are always touching their masks or wearing it below their nose. In fact, they probably touch their face more when they have a mask than when they don't. The general public is never going to do everything correctly as a trained medical professional would, and we shouldn't expect them to. The late Dr. Donald Henderson agreed. He was epidemiologist who helped to eradicate smallpox worldwide. He believed masks should only be worn by trained medical professionals in a hospital setting. The real world is a far cry from the controlled environment of a hospital.

We don't have to guess if masks work or not. By now we have a year's worth of data that proves masks are not very effective. We can compare the states that had mask mandates to those that did not and there's not much difference between the two in terms of Covid cases. In fact, the states that had no mask mandates or severe lock-downs sometimes fared better than those that did.

2020 Election Voter Fraud Questions

 For those who don't believe there was fraud in the 2020 election, I want you to consider these questions:

1) How did Trump gain 10 million more votes than in 2016 and still lose?

2) How did Trump win House seats and lose while Biden lost House seats and won?

3) How did Biden win without winning Florida, Ohio, and Texas? These are states typically every presidential candidate needs to win.

 4) Why did the media say a water main broke in Georgia that stopped the counting on the night of the election when we now know that wasn't true?

5) Why did several states stop counting in the middle of the night, something that has never happened before, and then there was a sudden spike in Biden votes that put him ahead?

6) What was is in the crates that Ruby Freeman pulled out from under a desk in Georgia while counting was supposed to have stopped?

7) Why were Republican observers shut out on election night?

8) Why were Dominion machines not allowed to be audited?

9) Why was there so much resistance to looking into claims of voter fraud if it was in fact a fair election?

10) Why did judges refuse to even look at the evidence? 

11) Why were those who challenged election results harassed if there was nothing to hide?

12) How did Biden under-perform in every state except in strategic swing states?

13) How did Biden, who barely campaigned and has zero charisma, get more votes than even Obama? 

14) How did Biden get 13 million more votes than there are eligible voters?

15) Why did  Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia illegally allowed to change their election laws prior to the election?

16) How did Trump win 2497 counties and still lose but Biden won only 477 counties?

17) How did Biden win with only one bellwether county going for him?

Just one of these would be a curiosity, a couple would be an irregularity, but together they become highly suspect. And this only begins to scratch the surface. The thing is it doesn't matter if anyone else thinks there was fraud or not. It matters that a large portion of the electorate believes there was voter fraud and feel disenfranchised. One poll showed upwards of 77% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats believe there was voter fraud. These concerns were not addressed but instead ignored, suppressed, and swept under the rug as if nothing had happened. That represents a serious problem going forward and a lack of trust in the voting system and all those involved from the legislators to Congress. This is not a problem that will go away in time, but only grow in resentment.

The Truth about Gender Theory

Gender theory postulates that masculine and feminine characteristics and gender roles are merely a social construct of the culture in which we live. The reasoning then is that there is no difference between boys and girls, and we can change genders as easy as changing our clothes. Much of modern gender theory can be traced back to sexologist\psychologist John Money. John Money was a deviant who among other things supported pedophilia. This will become evident in an experiment he conducted that much of gender theory is based upon.

John tested his gender theory by essentially using two twin boys as lab rats. The twin’s names were Brian and David Reimer. David had lost his penis as an infant in a botched circumcision attempt, his testicles were also later removed. His parents took him to John Money who convinced them to raise David as a girl. So as an infant David was raised as a girl named Brenda and not told the truth about his identity. During David and Brian’s sessions with John Money, he directed the twins to inspect each other genitals and forced them to reenact sexual positions and motions. In at least one of these sessions they were even photographed.

When David grew older he became discontent with his identity and when he was a teenager his mother finally told him that he was born a boy. From the age of 15 onwards David decided to live life as a boy, but the psychological scars remained for both him and his brother. Brain took his life in 2002 by overdosing on anti-depressants. David took his own life two years later by shooting himself in the head with a sawed-off shotgun. This sad and twisted tale is what gender theory is based upon.

First things first, gender is a linguistical term, not a biological one. In recent years, sex and gender have been obfuscated, but this hasn’t always been the case. Any pre-politically correct dictionary will tell you that sex and gender are synonymous. The 1828 Webster’s Dictionary defines “gender” as “sex, male or female.” In simplest terms, it means “beget, or to be born”. A person can conceive of an infinite number of genders, which have no scientific basis, but biologically there are only two.

Gender theorists will claim gender is solely a social construct. It’s true that some things could be considered a social construct. For instance, in the West the color blue is associated with boys and pink has been associated with girls. However, our gender roles are not purely a social construct. Men and women each have different hormone profiles that affect our behaviors differently. Men have more testosterone which makes them more aggressive, competitive, and physically oriented. Additionally, they produce more of the hormone vasopressin which makes them very protective of their loved ones. Women, on the other hand, produce more estrogen and oxytocin which them more sensitive, emphatic, and nurturing than men. This is the reason why in ancient cultures, with few exceptions, traditionally the men were the warriors and hunters of society while the women were the homemakers and caretakers of society.

Gender and biology are intertwined, and biology is not a social construct. The gender roles we have developed organically over thousands of years. You can’t artificially change gender roles and identifies without disrupting the social fabric of society. What gender theory has done is to create new problems that have not existed before. They have created an entire generation of confused kids who will grow up to be dysfunctional adults. This will be the true legacy of gender theory.

The Worst Pandemic that Never Happened

COVID-19 was sold to us as the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide and caused 675,000 deaths in the United States.  On March 16, 2020, the Imperial College London (ICL) predicted that an unmitigated epidemic would cause 2.2 million deaths in the US alone.  Adding, even in the best-case scenario, with extreme mitigation and treatment, 1.1 to 1.2 million Americans would still die.  Gabriel Leung, chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, said that COVID-19 could infect 60 percent of the world’s population and kill 1 in 10 of those infected -- killing 50 million people worldwide.

These dire warnings inevitably snowballed and created widespread fear and pandemonium.  Panicked shoppers stocked up toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and other goods creating a supply shortage.  The media predictably jumped on the bandwagon with their nonstop media coverage.  Governors and mayors, in turn, responded by enacting extreme quarantine and social distancing policies effectively shutting down the US economy.  This same scenario played out all over the globe causing the greatest viral panic the world has ever seen.  However, it didn’t take long for the initial projected deaths to become revised:

On March 29, 2020, NIAID director and White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci lowered initial estimates to between 100,000 and 200,000 American deaths.  

On April 8, 2020, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) revised their estimates from 94,000 deaths to 60,400 deaths, a decline of 26 percent.

April 9, 2020, Dr. Fauci said the final toll currently looked more like 60,000 deaths rather than 100,000 to 200,000 deaths.  Incidentally, an article co-authored by Dr. Fauci had predicted that COVID-19 “may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.”

In less than a month the estimates were revised from 2 million to 60,000 deaths.  Currently, there are 21,993 deaths in the US as a result of COVID-19.  No doubt that number will increase before this is over, but it has yet to compare with a bad flu season.  For instance, according to the CDC 61,000 Americans died during the 2017/2018 flu season.  There were no mass quarantines, stay-at-home orders, or economic shutdowns when that happened just two years ago.

According to Dr. Fauci, the models were revised down because social distancing has been effective, but how can we know that for sure?  There’s a certain degree of plausible deniability involved no matter the outcome.  If the initial estimates were correct then the experts can say “See, we told you so.”  And if the initial estimates were wrong the experts can say “See, we saved you!”  In other words, even if they’re wrong, they’re still right.

It appears unlikely that even with extreme social distancing measures the initial estimates could be lowered so drastically within such a short period of time.  Especially considering many of the models did factor in some degree of social distancing.  Regardless, how do we account for countries like Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Iceland, and Sweden among others?  These countries are dealing with COVID-19 without taking the same extreme social distancing measures, and they haven’t experienced exorbitant death tolls as a result.  Taiwan, for example, currently has had 388 cases of COVID-19 and only 6 deaths.

There are several things we must reevaluate in light of current events.  The first is the blind faith we put in computer models.  Models are not crystal balls, they can’t predict the future with any degree certainty.  They are designed to persuade and change behavior, and that is exactly what they have done.  Second, we should reevaluate the faith we put in the “experts”.  Experts are good at what they do, but it also makes them prone to tunnel vision.  They see problems and solutions only as it relates to their field of expertise. The experts do not take into consideration the social or economic ramifications of their recommendations, and are often unable to relate to life outside their own narrow field of specialization.  Expert advice must be balanced with the real world and the people that live in it.

Finally, we need to reevaluate if these drastic measures were warranted in the first place.  We’ve had pandemics before, such as SARS in 2003 and H1N1 in 2008, but we’ve never taken these kinds of actions before.  Not even during the Spanish Flu were such actions taken.  Yes, they had quarantines and partial economic shutdowns due to labor shortages, but not a nation-wide economic shutdown like we are experiencing now.  The actions we are taking are unprecedented and we don’t fully know the extent, especially to the economy.

The economy is our life-blood. There is never a good reason to shut down the entire economy because if we lose the economy we lose everything.  If that happens a pandemic may be the least of our problems.  A depression would cause untold misery, unemployment, and food shortages.  In addition, if the economy goes so goes our healthcare system, leaving us in a worse position if we need to battle another pandemic.  As President Trump said, "We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself."

At the time of this writing, there are approximately 113,902 deaths globally as a result of COVID-19.  While a single death is still a tragedy, it must also be put into perspective.  Seasonal flu kills an estimated 291,000 to 646,000 people worldwide each year.  The H1N1 pandemic killed 151,700 to 575,400 people globally.  In comparison, COVID-19 is shaping up to be the worst pandemic that never happened. However, the consequences of our actions will have long-lasting repercussions.  It may take us years if not decades to fully recover from it.

How sexual revolution exploded (and imploded) across 1920s Russia

Travesti parties, Vladimir Lenin advocating sexual freedom, nudist anarchists aboard trams, a nude beach near the cathedral of Christ the Savior… such was Russian life at the beginning of the Soviet state. What could possibly go wrong?

“Stark naked people wearing armbands reading “Down With Shame!” have recently appeared in Moscow. A group was seen boarding a tram. The tram stopped, the public was outraged,” Mikhail Bulgakov, the famous Russian writer, wrote in his diary in 1924. Just 15 years prior to that, women could not think of going out in a knee-long dress. But did these changes happen overnight?

Pre-revolutionary Russian society, especially in the capitals, was not puritanical in nature. An anonymous soldier born at the end of 19th century recalls (link in Russian): “at 10, I had already been exposed to all kinds of lewd behaviour… Pornographic pictures were not exactly a rarity.”

Cross-dressing, travesti and gay parties were popular in artistic circles, with even a certain few noblemen having been known for being gay. Party life, often involving multiple partners, was a regular pastime for some. However, male homosexuality was a criminal offense… until Bolsheviks came onto the scene.

‘Glass of water’ – fake theory? 

 

Ideologically, sexual liberation was one of the key weapons in fighting Orthodoxy, and the old order in general. Among early Bolsheviks, the key propagandist of a new family order was Alexandra Kollontai, Russian revolutionary and later, a diplomat. There’s a popular theory often attributed to Kollontai – that of the ‘glass of water.’ It states that love (and consequently, sex) should be available to anyone as easily as asking for a glass of water. This, however, is a gross oversimplification of Kollontai’s idea. 

 

Kollontai promoted a concept of the ‘new woman’ – one freed from the oppression of marriage, household work and the business of  raising children; all these chores must be taken on by society and state. They would take on children’s education (including sexual), urge a move toward a nationwide catering industry, collective housing, foster care and so on. For Kollontai, love was to be freed, too – civil partnership would take the place of traditional marriage.

Obviously, Bolsheviks were building their policy on family along the most progressive lines – something that would not be seen in the West for decades. However, the onus was now on the individual, and such all-encompassing freedom was simply too much for the agricultural, barely urbanized Russian society of the 1920s.

New world's dark corners

“On the abolition of marriage” and “On civil partnership, children and ownership” were among the first decrees of the Soviets in 1918. Church weddings were abolished, civil partnership introduced. Divorce was a matter of choice. Abortions were legalized. All of that implied a total liberation of family and sexual relations. This heralded the beginning of the raunchiest epoch in recent Russian history.

A relaxed attitude to nudism was a a vivid sign of the times: on the bank of the Moskva river, near the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, a nude beach formed, the likes of which Western Europe could not have dreamed of at the time. The aforementioned “Down With Shame!” society had held numerous marches, one numbering as many as 10,000 people. Alexander Trushnovich, a monarchist, recalls (link in Russian) one of their gatherings: “‘Down with philistines! Down with deceiving priests! We don’t need clothes – we’re children of the sun and air!’ – a naked spokesman was shouting from a stage in Krasnodar’s main square. Walking past this place in the evening, I saw the stage dismantled... and somebody beat up the ‘child of sun and air’”.

All of these wild developments had been taking place while Russia was still in the midst of the World War, as well as the Civil War. Amnesties in 1917, 1919, 1920 and beyond freed a great many criminals in a country where state power had only begun to form. The masses of criminals were joined by defecting and discharged soldiers.

Rape by 1920s has become an epidemic. Quite strikingly, sexual violence towards former noble and bourgeois women was for a time even considered “class justice” among the proletarian males. Meanwhile, up to 20 percent of Russia’s male population had carried sexually-transmitted diseases (although in Tsarist Russia in the beginning of the century, the numbers were 25-27%). New laws on marriage and the overall atmosphere of breaking with the past encouraged promiscuity and casual approach to sex, unthinkable just years ago.

Soviet society was breeding a dangerous generation of homeless orphans – official reports indicate that, by 1923, half of the children born in Moscow had been conceived out of wedlock, and many of them were abandoned in infancy. The pendulum of sexual revolution had to swing back – and if it didn’t, it had to be pulled forcibly.

‘Winged Eros’ of Soviet oppression

Already in the first half of 1920s, when sexual liberation was still in full swing, the Soviets had set about promoting traditional values… again.

In 1924, psychiatrist Aron Salkind publishes ‘12 Sexual Commandments of the Revolutionary Proletariat’, that read “love must be monogamous”, “sexual intercourse must only be the final link in the chain of deep and complicated feelings connecting two people in love”.

Even as “Down With Shame!” were parading naked through the Moscow streets, People’s Commissar of Public Health Nikolay Semashko wrote that such behaviour “must be most categorically condemned… At a time when capitalistic monstrosities like prostitution and hooliganism are not yet eliminated, nudity aids immorality… That is why I consider absolutely necessary to stop this disgrace at once, with repressive methods, if needed...”

Soviet leaders did not want the population to squander its energy on self-gratification anymore. Severe austerity and cutbacks were introduced. Women’s rights groups were in decline. Moreover, the women themselves now barely had any reason for the education the feminists had so desperately fought for: no sooner had the woman been freed from the traditional, patriarchal society the Bolsheviks sought to remove that she was being brought back into the kitchen, having to cook for her worker husband; meanwhile,  factory rations were already being redistributed, which made home cooking a necessity. Kollontai’s “new woman” was new for just about a decade.

Now, the family was once more the basic unit of society. Decrees were reversed one after another. Finally, by 1934, homosexuality had been re-criminalized, and a ban on abortion reintroduced (1936). This did not lead to a reduction of the free woman’s propaganda value, of course. Because now, she could “do it all” – perform the communist task of forging the revolution, while also being a mother, wife, cook and cleaner.

For decades to come, sexuality and erotica would be completely shunned by Soviet culture and society – and considering this, it is no wonder Russian society had become so hypocritical about sex. The next sexual revolution would take place only in 1990s.

Original article: https://www.rbth.com/history/328265-russian-sexual-revolution

From the 45 Communist goals for America:

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural and healthy."

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.