On Wednesday afternoon I was live in studio with the great John Oakley at Toronto's Global News Radio 640. The topics of discussion ranged from government by fax machine to the name of Harry and Meghan's baby. Click below to listen:
In this birthday week of The Mark Steyn Club, I notice that many of the ideas I first advanced at SteynOnline are slowly - too slowly - percolating around the world. Here's a random sample from the news sites of the last twenty-four hours. Cam Brown at American Thinker contemplates the violence that will follow western demographic eclipse:
Others who have made similar claims, based on these and other studies (notably Mark Steyn and Douglas Murray), have similarly argued that a fully multicultural Western world will not end well and that any negative aspects will assuredly show themselves once the Baby-Boomer generation has disappeared.
Laura Perrins across the pond at Conservative Woman writes about the accelerating destruction of the past:
I have been watching this cultural revolution that Mark Steyn spoke about with increasing dread. By cultural revolution I mean: the removal of many historical figures physically in the form of toppling of statues, or the attempted distortion of their record and reputation in the public eye such as Churchill on accusations that they were racists. Remember, whoever controls the past controls the future, and this is the Left's attempt to control the past. They want to erase it and/or rewrite it.
Nathan Giede in British Columbia's Prince George Citizen points out the utopian delusions of globalism:
Of course, the reason Plato's Republic and its many imitators never succeed is due to human nature. And given that idealists, whom are often intellectuals like Prof. Hancock, imagine a regime of total power wielded by benevolent experts, the problem arises that if any nefarious people do manage to seize control, violence is the lone recourse of the citizens. To quote an entirely original man, Mark Steyn: "where do you go to vote out global government?"
And Douglas Ernst in The Washington Times reports on how the Democrats are not so much de-legitimizing Trump as the very possibility of politics:
"The Democrats essentially provide political cover for all these FBI-types monkeying around, wiring tapping, and surveilling the opposition," [Steyn] said Monday evening. "If the Democrats didn't lend it political cover, we would all see it for what it is: the deep-state gone rogue. At the same time, the deep state's investigation into George Papadopoulos and Co. provides cover for the Democrats as to why Trump's victories, Republican victories, are never legitimate. So, in a sense, these two things operate on twin tracks and support each other."
Feel free to chip in your thoughts in our comments section. Some of them we may pick up on next week's belated birthday edition of our Clubland Q&A.
If you enjoy me in non-visual formats, I'll be back this evening with the penultimate episode of our latest Tale for Our Time - The Island of Dr Moreau. On the other hand, if you're one of that small, brave band who prefers me on camera, I'll be on the telly south of the border with Tucker Carlson live coast to coast across America at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific.
The Mark Steyn Club is celebrating its second anniversary, and, if you're finally getting around to maybe considering perhaps becoming a member at some point in the course of this third year, we'd love to have you with us: for more info, please see here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership. In this birthday week, we are grateful for the support of all our friends around the world - from London, Ontario to London, England, via Longueuil, Londonderry, and Long Beach - and look forward to welcoming many more in the years ahead.
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When I first heard the new royal's name, I was reminded of this schtick from the "Trust Me" album.
https://youtu.be/wkBuMcEzV7k
"What name do you use as the President?"
"Jimmy."
"Just like Georgy Washington and Tommy Jefferson, eh?"
A funny album, especially "State Dinner" and "The Interpreter", in the vein of Vaughn Meader's "First Family".
I was hoping they would name the baby Philip.
What meaningless names, did they just pluck those names out of thin air as their fad names of the moment ? Totally vacuous couple they are.
What a huge disappointment and waste of space most of these so called royals have degenerated into today. They could, with their immense wealth, power, influence and fame, really support and champion the British citizens. No..... Instead they have mostly aligned themselves with the Christian European-hating globalist elites' agenda and simply watch as Christian Europe is destroyed.
All this is very interesting, but my question is: who is the Duke of Earl?
One winner of a Q for the birthday Q & A next week, Steven!
Excellent links. But will Cam Brown, Laura Perrins, Nathan Giede and Douglas Ernst risk being sacked for favourable Steyn reviews - as happened to UK businessman Michael Willis for tweets of similar content?
From the previous column: "Without a healthy respect for free speech you have no culture of honest inquiry."
https://www.steynonline.com/9369/the-post-free-speech-world
Will the lynchings by forces hostile to honest inquiry ever end?
Regarding that new Earl, is the given name really Archie? One would think that if a parent really liked that name they'd have made it Archibald formally. Then they could call the kid Archie to their hearts content. Now I suspect if they keep with the theme the next male child will have to be Jughead.
What about Educating Archie?
You're right Mark, as the 1st son of a Duke, he's an Earl. And, I understand that, when Charles is King, Archie will be a Prince, as all the grandchildren of the Monarch are Princes or Princesses.
Whether Archie will be as woke as his parents though, well, I wonder. Many people growing up under intense parental beliefs take great delight in doing the exact opposite! ;-)
The Oakley Show installment seemed to me to address both sides of much the same coin, as I see it. Shades of Kafka's castle.
I was very pleased that a faint sign of impatience with the British aristocracy has crept in. They quite often give me the creeps, and their adorers invariably do, so now I can feel a little less odd.
As to bureaucracy, spare a thought for the bureaucrats in ex-communist countries who now find that their positions are in privatised businesses whose success does to some measure depend on customer service. I was vastly entertained by the antics of such individuals (especially when one suggested that their superiors might come to hear of their behaviour) during a recent visit to central Europe. There is hope in this lack comedy: socialism fails, and eventually will in Canada too, and an abject, protracted career finale awaits many of the microcephalics who lord it over one today.
The "Democratic People's Republic of Europe" needs all the bureaucrats it can muster. All it can do is punish transgressions, and for those you need a constant flow of regulation.
To illuminate a previous post, hope this helps: "On September 30 2017, Maren Morris sang at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas. "I remember walking away from there thinking, 'I usually don't like coming to Vegas but that was really cool'," says Morris, a 28-year-old Texan who pipped Loretta Lynn to the Grammy for best country solo performance earlier that year. "The crowd was great. It was such a fun show." She pauses. "That was the night before the shooting."
The following day, a gunman opened fire on the festival crowds from his window on the 32nd floor of the city's Mandalay Bay Hotel, killing 58 people and injuring a further 500. Among country music's predominantly conservative fan base, the massacre prompted awkward conversations about gun control, but for Morris it wasn't a time for prevarication. Within 24 hours, she had released Dear Hate, a ballad (that she'd written three years earlier) whose pretty tune belies its firm stance against firearms."
Thanks, J. Enjoying your comments. Also, just noticed my reference to "lack comedy". That was meant to read "black comedy", of course. I fear that my clumsiness compares poorly with your wit. Oh well, best I read more and chirp a great deal less less. Still, having a great deal of fun!
The Vegas shooter was not a country boy, but a high stakes gambler. Maybe he had a hatred of hayseeds and cowboys and country music. Why react to his murders by disarming the people he hated? Rural people do not indulge in shooting masses of strangers. Better to disarm all high stakes gamblers.
The role of the hotel in this event is still obfuscated. Some statements from staff and security attest that the employees knew where the shooter was right at first, and could have directed police there immediately. That compounds their stupidity in allowing him to carry an arsenal of dozens of rifles to his room.
Given the money invested in SWAT equipment, for a couple thousand dollars you can equip a police car with a drone with GPS, a live camera, an infrared camera that reveals a perp hiding in the dark, spotlight, microphone that can triangulate the origin of gunshots, even a speaker to order a criminal to surrender, a tear gas grenade launcher, and a shotgun. A couple of them at a scene like the Las Vegas attack could quickly locate the shooter in a high position, distract him and interrupt his attack, even blind him with a 1000 lumen light. A lot cheaper and faster than a police sniper in a helicopter. Nellis AFB in Las Vegas is the control center for attack and surveillance drones in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Air Force could easily adapt their technology to a cheap police version.
At any large outdoor event, the security team should have surveillance drones that can have a high vantage of the venue and zero in on threats, recording video evidence and guiding guards and police to the scene.
An analogy:
You get married. At first it's pretty happy. Sure, you fight as couples do, but you always make up and the marriage seems strong. But slowly, your spouse becomes ever more irrational and demanding. Now the spouse demands that they always get their way about everything, even demanding that you use the language they choose for you. If they don't get their way, there is hell to pay until they do get their way.
This leaves you three choices:
A. Always let them have their way about everything.
B. Resign yourself to a life that is a hellish nightmare.
C. Get a divorce.
Now you don't want A and you certainly don't want B. That leaves you with C. You may look back on the happier days of the marriage's past, but those days are gone now and divorce (hat tip to Carl below) seems to be the only option.
That, my friends, is the position I think the right is on in the U.S.A. The problem is, no one knows how to do a divorce and we can be assured that the attempt would be very, very messy.
Your analogy is 100% correct! (I lived it...)
If this analogy is applied on the current national scene, then the obvious course of action is to Buy More Ammunition! [And a note to Our Glorious Heroic Peoples Revolutionary BATFE: I have completely disposed of ALL my firearms and All ammunition. You won't find anything here! Hey, stay out of that room unless you have a search warrant...]
Rather than a divorce, Steven, can't the whiny b*tches--sorry, Resistance--just move home to mother? They threaten to go to Canada, but that's not fair to Mark's people. New Zealand is also a popular threatened destination, but I don't think the kiwis make it easy. Curiously, the open-borders crowd never threatens to move to Guatemala or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I say we wait them out. These are just the proverbial tears before bedtime.
Isn't "Nobody Needs a Woke Earl!" a lost Wodehouse title? Maybe they should name him Bertie.
You've gotta admire the 'flexibility' of today's media. With the 'fake' border crisis now being too obvious to ignore the AP today shifted the narrative and blamed it all on Trump's cruel immigration policy. The only source cited was Sen. Dick Durbin - whom might get my vote as the dumbest Democrat in Congress but of course that's a very deep field these days. We were treated this week to a sneak preview of what the dems have in store for gun owners. Cory Booker came out with a national gun license initiative. Every gun owner would be required to take a gun safety course in addition to obtaining the license. Gun registration would be a by-product of course and likely would include serial numbers and whatever other personal info they could think of. It's all about safety of course and what rational person would oppose that? By the way if Trump's policy is so cruel why are 100,000+ central Americans streaming over our border every month? Apparently no editor at the AP thought to ask Colleen Long that rather simple question.
I work in healthcare and the fax is considered secure communication by HIPPA (Which rules our lives).
...well technically it is, in the sense that receipt and dispatch are effectively verified, in a way that an email or text is not. You won't be surprised to learn that the International Telecommunications Union, which is the body which establishes and oversees the protocols for international communications, still insist on communications by fax with each national regulator, even if the same message is sent by email and or snail mail.
Re: getting a passport. Hasn't anyone in Canada been on a ride at Disneyland? Just when you think you are ready to board the ride you go around the corner and see the next holding bay of the queue. This can happen multiple times. They have consultants to design those diabolical lines.
fax machines are required in American health care communications. They are considered secure, and not like the internet communication methods that are considered insecure.
While you can consider them to be secure they are not. You cannot be sure the message even arrived. Fax machine out of paper, noisy telephone land line, pulled from the machine by the wrong person and when the fax arrives the information can be transposed as it is entered into the computer. There is only one reason why faxes are still used, inertia.
I am not arguing, I am just citing HPPA standards. One does know that the message arrives becasue the fax can be set to give that feedback.
We're just lucky HIPPA wasn't passed when telegrams were the gold standard of business communications.
Remember, when health care is a right, you are a slave.
Easily more secure than email. All electronic communications are sorted through. I'm guessing fax is discouraged.
HIPPA - Always thought it was stupid. Just more forms to sign. Theatre. More cost. The gov't requiring the use of fax machines is laughable as Walt points out. HIPPA - another bureaucratic hindrance to efficiency.
Mark replies:
Just so, Lisa. HIPPA is theatre.
Great column as usual, Mark. First time I've ever been able read it the day before it was written, though.
Ref the Democrats. Why is their symbol an ass and that of the Republicans an elephant?
Just off the top of my head and not searching this to make sure, I think the late 19th century political cartoonist Thomas Nast came up with the donkey for Democrats and the elephant for Republicans. The premise being, I suppose, that at the time anyway, Democrats were noisy and working-class and Republicans were lumbering and have long memories. Democrats - certainly not the people who run the party and provide its most ideological supporters - are no longer working-class, although they like to think they are. But Republicans remain for the most part lumberers with long memories.
The Democrats have given up their ass to a camel.
One hump or two?
Tearing up, here!
Newt Gingrich stated in his TV appearance that he told President Trump recently that no president since Abraham Lincoln has faced the kind of unending bias and hostility from the media that he is living through. The Democrats and their media are as hostile to the Republicans and President Trump now , as they were following the election of Abraham Lincoln in November, 1860. I think that if the theory of Philosopher Gorge Santayana that history repeats itself is correct, then a civil war may be in the cards.
I'm a hopeless optimist, but it's a big country, can't we just have the biggest no fault divorce in history and split the thing up?
I am hopelessly pessimist, wherever I look in the world at places that may affect our near term future (less than 10 years) I see storm clouds and the darkest clouds are over the USA, Iran and Israel. Hope is not an action plan. The hopeless mess that USA finds itself is the direct result of the changes initiated by the previous administration and you see it in the daily news headlines. However the problems go back to end of WW2 when the horrors of WW2 were broadcasted on TV and the leftist took control on the MSM and tilted the bias to compassion and hope. The previous administration just put the decline on a steeper slope. Unfortunately, we cannot rewind the clock and we have to live with the situation as it is today at this hour around the globe and go from there.
"Nobody needs a woke earl" has to be one of the greatest--and briefest--orations since Cicero. At seven syllables, it could be incorporated into the middle of a haiku--between Baby Dumbarton's name, now that I think of it:
Archie Harrison
Nobody needs a woke earl
Mountbatten-Windsor
Well someone took my device filled with podcasts and downloads of your work. I hope they become "WOKE." For many people your ideas a new perspective.
More of your ideas and courage are needed out in the world.
thank you.
Mark replies:
Sorry to hear that, chicken. But it's more likely the poor robber will get traumatized because he accidentally stole a pile of hate speech.
Well Chicken, hopefully the crook changes his way after accessing Mark's work, but the reality is that after he is caught down the road after another theft, he will claim the device is his. Of course (after viewing the contents of the device) this will result in the media reporting the nitwit as being a mindless drone of the Mark Steyn "cult" (not club). This will enable the thief to plea bargain for re-education camp after blaming Mark for all his misdeeds. Hopefully no new lawsuits to follow.
Aloha Snackbar!
Well if you hear that I was arrested for disseminating hate speech... think of me kindly!
Some things are giving me hope today....the young students walked out of a Colorado gathering where leftist Dems made pleas for gun control. Perhaps some of the young are waking up??
I think this has to do with them being in a STEM school where they actually learn science and math and real stuff, and don't live in the imaginary emotional world of Democrats who think that wishing hard will make it so. I think that realistic mindset also was behind the fact that several students immediately charged a gunman, and disarmed him even as they were wounded and one died.
Apparently the shooters were a gay teen and a transgender girl becoming a guy, haters of Christian's and their morality and President Trump. Why aren't the news media going to Democrat hate mongers in Congress and confront them with the violence they have been calling for ever since Trump's election?