"Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail." ~ Theodore Roosevelt
"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism." ~ Thomas Sowell
There needs to be real punishment. For example strike a cop (you see it all the time in cop cam videos) immediate 20 year prison sentence. No early release. Build more prisons. Bring back the death penalty. Make prison a very horrible experience. Allow robust self defense laws.
Prison already is a horrible experience, often literally an open sewer of feces and slime.
But now the corrupt Woke courts releasing the stabby violent non-whites and letting off the (non-white) perpetrators of massive fraud, and jailing any prominent critics of this or systemic election theft for thought crime (and in Europe, it's almost ANY critics, period).
I think bringing back corporal punishment might be a preferable substitute to warehousing criminals. I absolutely believe we need to make more use of capital punishment and to imprison dangerous offenders for as long as they are likely to be a threat, but for non-violent offenses, especially related to lack of impulse control, I think a caning might be both cost effective and more of a deterrent.
I believe it was Adam Smith that said “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” As you know, I’m a Bible guy and in the Old Testament there are two different Hebrew words used for killing and murder. That’s because killing is not wrong, murder is.
I agree with your ethical claims here. When it comes to matters of justice and interpersonal disputes, you're absolutely correct: predators and incorrigible antisocial personalities ONLY respond to threats of punishment.
This widespread misapprehension (which I see broadly applied in education and which we see in homelessness policy and mental health restraint laws and in the criminal justice system) that violence and force is ALWAYS reprehensible is certainly a symptom of feminization: people who've never had to use violence themselves (because others - police and soldiers and CO's - use it on their behalf) imagine that it's unnecessary. And it makes them feel uncomfortable and like bad, mean people to support the use of violence, even when it's deserved... so they simply construct a fantasy world in which "violence is never the answer."
The truly striking thing about this kind of attitude is how flimsy it is. Simply ask a believer what should be done about these kinds of situations:
A teenager hitting another student in the face with a stapler?
A schizophrenic man menacing people on the subway?
A predicate offender who badly beats an old woman?
You'll get some vague, flowery, expert-talk saturated with social desirability bias. Put the believers in these situations and they will squeal for a man ready and willing to use force to restrain, incapacitate and, yes, punish the belligerent. It's all very silly.
Women have no say in how men deploy violence to protect the home and the village. Men need to ignore them, and we can, because they can't actually *make* us do what they want. And they don't know what they want anyway. As soon as their frilly fantasy world breaks down and the rapist is upon them, they're screaming for the men with guns.
Men need to tell women "this is men's business, and you are excused."
Yes! In the schools the most violent win. I was a long term substitute teacher at the last place I thought was safe in the city. I got put in some dangerous situations where my physical safety was in question. If something happened to me I have no health insurance or disability as a sub. Who will care for my little family ? As a petite white woman I have no chance against even the accidental violence of getting trampled as kids and adults rush to a fight. So I quit. I had to. I have no fantasy that anyone would protect me and no interest in being injured by out of control children.
Josh! This is brilliantly eye-opening insight! I read it and my mind stretched. Heck yes, I've been conditioned/brainwashed as a white Christian to turn the other cheek. So we've effectively just laid our bodies down to be kicked and murdered in a misguided effort to "be kind".
Thank you, very genuinely, for recognizing that you've been brainwashed, and that this "be kind" ethos is not, actually, "Christian." Few people are that honest.
"Then said he unto them: But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword."
As my friend Kevin Dixie says in his firearms instruction: "Be prepared for when there is no other choice." We avoid violence until there is no other choice. Usually there's another choice, but sometimes, there isn't.
Oh, no! I lost a paid subscriber over this one. Substack has a feedback mechanism that lets people cancelling their paid subscriptions give a reason for that cancellation. This time it was "the content."
People are very resistant to reality.
This is good. This is the chaff separating itself from the wheat.
"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." ~ H. L. Mencken
This devolution is orchestrated on purpose so that it gets so bad that people accept a technocracy can institute 24 hour surveillance and social credit score
"We should be able to rely on the state and its monopoly on violence to direct that violence appropriately for the best interests of the citizenry. But we cannot. Not today. Perhaps we never could, and I’ve still got a vestige of fantasy thinking myself. "
I submit that the reason we have the Second Amendment in this country is because, fundamentally, our Founding Fathers recognized that granting the State an actual monopoly on violence only ends badly for all concerned.
I would also argue that the more we yield to the problematic benificence of the State when it comes to violence the more we get State-sponsored, State-sanctioned violence.
I would rather live among an armed citizenry, where each individual is capable of however much violence is necessary to protect both family and property.
Yeah, baby. You got it right. This is where we are heading because the "violence has no place" overarching, thought control experiment has led us here. The pendulum must swing back.
and some Men he makes Slaves and some he makes Free."
Heraclitus (Fragment 53, circa 500 B.C.)
Now I've seen that "War" translated as "Conflict", so you could dial up or dial down the intensity, but you can't dispute the ultimate truth of the matter.
Everything you have was made and gained in a conflict, and everything you lost was likewise. We've lost enough already and I don't propose to lose anymore.
I'm not ready to support death penalty. That might be because I haven't yet fully woken up from the fantasy.
At the very least, death penalty should be strictly limited to the most serious crimes and the burden of proof should be much heavier than in other forms of punishment. The risk of executing an innocent person should be as low as reasonably possible.
I don't see how death penalty could be reasonably to applied to rapists, because rape cannot be 100% clearly defined, is always subject to interpretation, and in the worst case you get the feminist/woke idea of something like "a husband having sex with his wife is a rapist unless he receives 17 stamped copies of explicitly informed consent every time".
Also, I'm not convinced that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. For some psychopaths, it might even motivate them to commit more crimes, as increasing the stakes of the game, and being able to escape death penalty (for a while at least) might satisfy their narcissistic grandiosity. Life without parole is a much bleaker end to their criminal career than execution.
Having said all that, I agree with 95% with what you are saying. Thank you for another insightful essay.
I don’t care about deterrents as much as I care about killing psychopaths so they have no chance of ever harming an innocent again. I don’t want to pay for their prison upkeep.
And I won’t dither in the world of “well sometimes courts convict innocent people so we can’t do this.” Nope. It’s not impossible to do this right. We used to. Yes, there will be an error rate. That is part of nature.
I appreciate you being willing to read my essay and think it over. Thank you.
It's not a deterrent, because it takes 20+ years before the sentence is carried out. Cut that down to something reasonable. And, it may not prevent the crime, but it does ensure that criminal won't be a repeat offender.
""Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of mankind among them are fully given to do evil." --- Ecclesiastes 8:11.
"Life without parole is a much bleaker end to their criminal career than execution." True, but why should the rest of us have to pay for their life behind bars?
Regarding your concerns about rapists... you make a valid point that not all accused of this crime are necessarily guilty. A possible corrective: those found guilty of making false accusations receive the penalty the "innocent accused" was supposed to receive.
In the absence of punishment, nothing will change.
"Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail." ~ Theodore Roosevelt
"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism." ~ Thomas Sowell
There needs to be real punishment. For example strike a cop (you see it all the time in cop cam videos) immediate 20 year prison sentence. No early release. Build more prisons. Bring back the death penalty. Make prison a very horrible experience. Allow robust self defense laws.
Prison already is a horrible experience, often literally an open sewer of feces and slime.
But now the corrupt Woke courts releasing the stabby violent non-whites and letting off the (non-white) perpetrators of massive fraud, and jailing any prominent critics of this or systemic election theft for thought crime (and in Europe, it's almost ANY critics, period).
The apple is rotten to the core.
To your point, *women* striking cops (and men) is absolute insanity and needs immediate, overwhelming response. AND teachers/students.
I think bringing back corporal punishment might be a preferable substitute to warehousing criminals. I absolutely believe we need to make more use of capital punishment and to imprison dangerous offenders for as long as they are likely to be a threat, but for non-violent offenses, especially related to lack of impulse control, I think a caning might be both cost effective and more of a deterrent.
I believe it was Adam Smith that said “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” As you know, I’m a Bible guy and in the Old Testament there are two different Hebrew words used for killing and murder. That’s because killing is not wrong, murder is.
I agree with your ethical claims here. When it comes to matters of justice and interpersonal disputes, you're absolutely correct: predators and incorrigible antisocial personalities ONLY respond to threats of punishment.
This widespread misapprehension (which I see broadly applied in education and which we see in homelessness policy and mental health restraint laws and in the criminal justice system) that violence and force is ALWAYS reprehensible is certainly a symptom of feminization: people who've never had to use violence themselves (because others - police and soldiers and CO's - use it on their behalf) imagine that it's unnecessary. And it makes them feel uncomfortable and like bad, mean people to support the use of violence, even when it's deserved... so they simply construct a fantasy world in which "violence is never the answer."
The truly striking thing about this kind of attitude is how flimsy it is. Simply ask a believer what should be done about these kinds of situations:
A teenager hitting another student in the face with a stapler?
A schizophrenic man menacing people on the subway?
A predicate offender who badly beats an old woman?
You'll get some vague, flowery, expert-talk saturated with social desirability bias. Put the believers in these situations and they will squeal for a man ready and willing to use force to restrain, incapacitate and, yes, punish the belligerent. It's all very silly.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-feminization-of-politics
Women have no say in how men deploy violence to protect the home and the village. Men need to ignore them, and we can, because they can't actually *make* us do what they want. And they don't know what they want anyway. As soon as their frilly fantasy world breaks down and the rapist is upon them, they're screaming for the men with guns.
Men need to tell women "this is men's business, and you are excused."
Yes! In the schools the most violent win. I was a long term substitute teacher at the last place I thought was safe in the city. I got put in some dangerous situations where my physical safety was in question. If something happened to me I have no health insurance or disability as a sub. Who will care for my little family ? As a petite white woman I have no chance against even the accidental violence of getting trampled as kids and adults rush to a fight. So I quit. I had to. I have no fantasy that anyone would protect me and no interest in being injured by out of control children.
As you wisely said Josh, “Some things you can’t meditate away.”
Josh! This is brilliantly eye-opening insight! I read it and my mind stretched. Heck yes, I've been conditioned/brainwashed as a white Christian to turn the other cheek. So we've effectively just laid our bodies down to be kicked and murdered in a misguided effort to "be kind".
Thank you, very genuinely, for recognizing that you've been brainwashed, and that this "be kind" ethos is not, actually, "Christian." Few people are that honest.
Jesus was not a peacable hippie.
"Then said he unto them: But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword."
Luke 22:36
As my friend Kevin Dixie says in his firearms instruction: "Be prepared for when there is no other choice." We avoid violence until there is no other choice. Usually there's another choice, but sometimes, there isn't.
https://nootherchoice.com/
Peacenik: Violence is never the answer.
Me: What's the question?
Oh, no! I lost a paid subscriber over this one. Substack has a feedback mechanism that lets people cancelling their paid subscriptions give a reason for that cancellation. This time it was "the content."
People are very resistant to reality.
This is good. This is the chaff separating itself from the wheat.
"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." ~ H. L. Mencken
I love Josh 3.0.
Best Josh yet!
Dude. I don’t think you need another firmware update. You’ve fully activated. 3.0 is where you stay (maybe with a minor dot release 3.0.1a sure. )
Good
This kind of content is exactly why I am a paying member. So few of us are willing to say these obvious truths, but we need reminding of them.
Thank you.
You gained a paid sub in me today - thank you!
Thank you very much. I do appreciate it.
You may have lost a subscriber, but I sent you ten bucks for coffee! This was an amazing read.
Thank you very much indeed.
This devolution is orchestrated on purpose so that it gets so bad that people accept a technocracy can institute 24 hour surveillance and social credit score
I’ve had a pit in my stomach for years about this very thing.
That is my fear. The chaos isn't chaos. It's purposeful.
Reality (at last)
"We should be able to rely on the state and its monopoly on violence to direct that violence appropriately for the best interests of the citizenry. But we cannot. Not today. Perhaps we never could, and I’ve still got a vestige of fantasy thinking myself. "
I submit that the reason we have the Second Amendment in this country is because, fundamentally, our Founding Fathers recognized that granting the State an actual monopoly on violence only ends badly for all concerned.
I would also argue that the more we yield to the problematic benificence of the State when it comes to violence the more we get State-sponsored, State-sanctioned violence.
I would rather live among an armed citizenry, where each individual is capable of however much violence is necessary to protect both family and property.
Man or woman, teen or adult: If you're in my house uninvited, you forfeit your right to live.
It's really that simple.
Yeah, baby. You got it right. This is where we are heading because the "violence has no place" overarching, thought control experiment has led us here. The pendulum must swing back.
"War is the Father of all and the King of all,
and some he makes Gods and some he makes Men,
and some Men he makes Slaves and some he makes Free."
Heraclitus (Fragment 53, circa 500 B.C.)
Now I've seen that "War" translated as "Conflict", so you could dial up or dial down the intensity, but you can't dispute the ultimate truth of the matter.
Everything you have was made and gained in a conflict, and everything you lost was likewise. We've lost enough already and I don't propose to lose anymore.
I will fight.
I'm not ready to support death penalty. That might be because I haven't yet fully woken up from the fantasy.
At the very least, death penalty should be strictly limited to the most serious crimes and the burden of proof should be much heavier than in other forms of punishment. The risk of executing an innocent person should be as low as reasonably possible.
I don't see how death penalty could be reasonably to applied to rapists, because rape cannot be 100% clearly defined, is always subject to interpretation, and in the worst case you get the feminist/woke idea of something like "a husband having sex with his wife is a rapist unless he receives 17 stamped copies of explicitly informed consent every time".
Also, I'm not convinced that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. For some psychopaths, it might even motivate them to commit more crimes, as increasing the stakes of the game, and being able to escape death penalty (for a while at least) might satisfy their narcissistic grandiosity. Life without parole is a much bleaker end to their criminal career than execution.
Having said all that, I agree with 95% with what you are saying. Thank you for another insightful essay.
I don’t care about deterrents as much as I care about killing psychopaths so they have no chance of ever harming an innocent again. I don’t want to pay for their prison upkeep.
And I won’t dither in the world of “well sometimes courts convict innocent people so we can’t do this.” Nope. It’s not impossible to do this right. We used to. Yes, there will be an error rate. That is part of nature.
I appreciate you being willing to read my essay and think it over. Thank you.
It's not a deterrent, because it takes 20+ years before the sentence is carried out. Cut that down to something reasonable. And, it may not prevent the crime, but it does ensure that criminal won't be a repeat offender.
Public hanging was a deterrent.
Being flogged in the main street while bound in the stocks was a deterrent that worked a treat.
Justice must be seen to be done. And when it is seen, it works.
""Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of mankind among them are fully given to do evil." --- Ecclesiastes 8:11.
The Chinese will execute rapist, but that's for what we would call multiple aggravated rapes, even when there's no actual homicide.
Do you want to wait for the homicide?
The calculations of deterrence and crime reduction change if the state will carry out the punishment consistently over many, many generations.
"Life without parole is a much bleaker end to their criminal career than execution." True, but why should the rest of us have to pay for their life behind bars?
Regarding your concerns about rapists... you make a valid point that not all accused of this crime are necessarily guilty. A possible corrective: those found guilty of making false accusations receive the penalty the "innocent accused" was supposed to receive.