Meme of the Day: Not With A Bang, But With A Whimper

    I see that California has achieved its dream of becoming essentially a third world country. And as California is a social trend setter for the United States, this is a foreshadow of what will happen elsewhere. From UnHerd, "The corruption of California" by Matthew Crawford, as summed up by California's Department of Motor Vehicles and his resort to a "fixer" appropriately called "Smog Lady" to get a smog certificate. Some excerpts:  

    I grew up in California, moved away in the early Nineties, and moved back in 2019. One of the new things I noticed upon my return was small signs stuck to the side of a car, or printed on posterboard and erected on a street corner, advertising “DMV services”. After some intercourse with a few of these, always conducted in halting, heavily accented English, I came to understand that these entrepreneurs are “fixers”, a species that most Americans are unacquainted with. If you want to get something done in the developing world, you often need to engage the services of a fixer. This is someone who has connections in the bureaucracy, often by virtue of kinship. Being a naïve visitor without connections, you couldn’t possibly know whom to bribe, how to approach them, or what forms must be observed. These things must be accomplished with delicacy. You, brainwashed to believe in the Weberian version of bureaucracy as impersonal rationality, are too naive to navigate a real one in most parts of the world. Too European.

    They say California is the future. However that may be, the state has become more like the rest of the world, less like the erstwhile United States. The old European ways of procedure-following are anomalous, and perhaps never made a lot of sense. Or maybe they made sense only within a framework provided by something like Calvinism, Prussian organisation, ecclesiastical administration, or some similarly ascetic institutional morality that is “no respecter of persons”. By contrast, ties of kinship are easy to grasp, more robust, and make sense to more of the world’s peoples as the ground of cooperation, particularly in societies where the clan may be as far as trust extends.

* * *

    ... California has become a polyglot of unrelated diasporas, opportunity-seekers, guest workers, tech Brahmins and multiple-passport-holding functionaries posted to the Pacific Rim economic zone. It is more like the bar scene in Star Wars than like Tolkien’s Shire. We are all wanderers.

    I think Smog Lady is not to be understood as a service nomad, then. Rather, the necessity of her services may be taken as an indication of the direction that state bureaucracy takes under conditions of multiculturalism (think Brazil), particularly in the absence of partisan political competition (think Soviet Union). These two features, multiculturalism and political monopoly, interact in interesting ways.

    With the collapse of the Republican Party in California, there soon emerged a political landscape resembling what the Yugoslav Communist official (turned dissident) Milovan Djilas termed the “party-state”. That is to say, there is little meaningful distinction to be made between the government and the Democratic Party. Competition for control of California takes place, not between two rival parties with different political visions and corresponding electorates in a general election, but between aspirants within the Democratic Party, under a shared political vision. In practice, this means competition for money from organised interests that fund the activist networks, which in turn translate those interests into various moralisms and thereby shape the vision of the party. The electorate largely drops out of consideration as a constituency.

    Only what happens within the Party matters. In Yugoslavia in the Fifties that meant the deliberations of the “political forums”. In California, what happens within the Party is mostly determined by NGOs and foundations, public sector union leadership, expert bodies willing to generate Science in support of the Party’s program, and tech firms that are permitted unlimited capital accumulation on condition of alignment with the Party. Together these entities make up a sort of government-by-cabinet that is effectively insulated from the pressures of electoral politics. The citizenry isn’t feared.

* * *

    Having now spent some time in DMV offices in the new California, my impression is that the shop floor operates along the lines of ethnic fiefdoms that overlap somewhat, and work fairly smoothly together when necessary. The Hispanic customers speak their own language with a Hispanic teller, the warm tones and easy gestures of which seem very unlike the bureaucratic mode of address that institutional English is adapted to. There are other languages spoken as well, each with its own characteristic emotional repertoire, and some of these seem better adapted to the haggle — at least to the naïve and suspicious ear of one feeling beset by a cacophonous Babel.

    The occasional appearance of an unaffiliated Anglo-American such as myself is accommodated easily enough, and in such cases tellers are able to code-switch into officialese. But one does wonder if one is being offered quite the same menu of services as those who can make appeal to one of these fiefdoms. In 2021, five employees at a DMV office in the Los Angeles area pled guilty to taking weekly cash bribes to process drivers licences for unqualified drivers. According to ringleader Atanacio Villegas, a licence registration examiner in Torrance from 2010 to 2016, “a network of ‘brokers’ would contact him on behalf of drivers who could not pass their driver exams”, and then forward the drivers’ bribes to DMV employees. The scheme involved sending the drivers to the window of a participating DMV employee who had an “identifier”, such as a red hat, as reported in the Press Democrat and LA Times.

He goes on to discuss other instances of bribery rings and operations involving the DMV. He concludes:

You, tender reader, might be scandalised by the ways of California’s DMV, but such a response is a hangover from another era. Under conditions of bureaucratic dysfunction typical of a party-state, corruption isn’t a problem, it is the solution. These new populations have found ways to get things done. Bribery is more efficient (and far less crazy-making) than clinging to first-world expectations in a world that has changed. For my part, I am sincerely grateful for the services of Smog Lady. Diversity is our strength.

 And, in truth, it is hard to tell if some of the "bribes" he describes are really bribes per se--paying someone to make a discretionary decision in your favor--or a "grease payment" intended to simply get the bureaucrat to do his or her job in the first place. The former has always existed in the United States, but the latter--although a fixture in the Third World--has largely been rare. But import lots of people from foreign cultures and they bring that culture and how it operates with them, even the dysfunctional parts.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivered a speech in California this past Sunday, railing against California and its progressive policies, blaming its "woke" policies for the exodus of people and jobs leaving California. Notwithstanding his quip about Florida being where "woke" goes to die, the reality is that California is our future because California represents what happens when you have uncontrolled immigration. And the country, as a whole, has uncontrolled immigration.

    Brian Lonergan, writing at American Greatness, writes on this topic, noting that "Biden’s White House Is Infested with Foreigner Supremacists." Lonergan explains:

Foreigner supremacy is the belief that non-Americans are intrinsically endowed with greater integrity, work ethic, and value than American citizens. Therefore, local, state and federal policies should prioritize the rights of foreigners over Americans whenever possible because, after all, they deserve them more than we do.

He continues:

    The most glaring example of the Biden Administration’s foreigner supremacist beliefs can be found in its immigration policies. 

    Start with the 5.5 million foreigners who have been allowed to enter the United States illegally since Biden took office. That deluge has run roughshod over border communities, ranches, police and healthcare resources. What about the rights of those residents who have had their lives turned upside down as a result? At the highest levels of our government, those people have no advocates, no voice, and no one concerned for their plight.

    Under this pernicious ideology, those from other countries also have a greater right to work in the United States than Americans do. The White House is currently weighing a rule change that would allow temporary and seasonal workers to apply for permanent U.S. residency, which would only serve to increase the competition American workers face for jobs and drive down wages.  

    Such a change, however, complies with the goals of agribusiness, Big Tech, and other sectors to flood the country with a pool of comparatively cheap foreign workers to reduce bottom-line labor costs. ...

Because lax immigration benefits big business, Lonergan observes, it is championed by Republicans as much as it is by Democrats. And, he warns, "[w]hether it is borne out of self-loathing, political opportunism or something else, foreigner supremacy is very real, and it is contributing to America’s decline."

    Of course, it isn't as simple as saying that immigration caused all of this. Obviously, this country was built on immigration, but immigration that was overwhelmingly from a small number of culturally and linguistically similar states in north-western Europe. What came later was immigration from increasingly dissimilar cultures and peoples. 

    This latter immigration is as much a symptom or result as it is a cause. "[T]he love of money is the root of all of evil," wrote Paul, and it certainly has been the case with America and immigration. In particular, the quest for ever lower labor costs has been one of the main drivers of immigration, particularly from those cultures and peoples that are incompatible with American culture: the importation of slaves in the 18th and 19th Centuries, the allowing of mass immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century, and the justification for renewal of open borders since 1965. And as each wave of immigrants were enfranchised, the country has lurched farther left on the political spectrum and felt more obligated to become involved (or entangled) in foreign matters. There is a difference between maintaining a strong navy and open trade routes and, as an example, taking the side of Israel over that of pro-Western Arab countries as we did in the 1960s.

    And each wave of immigration reinforces the subsequent waves. For instance, today's radicals pushing for every greater immigration benefited from the Immigration Act of 1965. That Act was the result of the work and political pressure of progressive forces in the 1940s and '50s. Those progressive were largely led by the immigrants and their children that came in the early 20th Century. 

    It's hard to quantify the changes wrought on the country and decline in the American nation due to this influx. But one thing is clear: Absent this influx the United States would be much more conservative. Certainly the statistics and polling data from the last several presidential elections show that white men and married white women overwhelmingly voted for the Republican candidate. I would further argue that without the large foreign contingent, single white female voters would have followed the herd, so to speak, and voted more conservatively as well. This isn't to say that Republican party would have politically dominated in an American nation (as opposed to our polyglot United States) but that the Democrat party would not have moved so far to the Left.

  Related articles and headlines:

• Trapped in hell: "'Atlanta would die': Georgia senators slap down wealthy suburb Buckhead's independence bid 'for now' - as leaders claim Governor Brian Kemp 'coordinated behind closed doors to kill the bill'"--Daily Mail Online. One politician quoted in the article described the suburb as the "heart of Atlanta." Buckhead is 93% white versus Atlanta, overall, being 49% black. 
• "Terrifying moment United passenger threatens mass-murder, before trying to stab flight attendant in neck with broken spoon and attempting to open emergency exit in mid-air"--Daily Mail Online. Name of the would be terrorist? Francisco Severo Torres.
• "'A strong black woman runs this b***h now': Staten Island superintendent claims text messages appearing to show her vowing to sack white principals amid push to hire more BIPOC staff are fake"--Daily Mail Online. The Department of Education claims that the texts are fake, but they did appear at the same time as the black superintendent was pushing to hire more BIPOC staff.
• "SPLC lawyer charged with domestic terrorism over Antifa attack on police facility in Atlanta"--The Post Millennial. I've long contended that the Southern Poverty Law Center is, itself, a hate group, so no surprise that one of their own would be a domestic terrorist and member of Antifa. But other Antifa terrorists arrested included members from Canada and France. Most of the other members of the terrorist group had the normal "woke" credentials, including a handful of trans activists.

Not all will be sporting multiple piercings or pink hair!

• This seems to be cropping up more and more where Bible verses are deemed hate speech or racist: "Texas Tech suspends men's basketball coach Mark Adams for citing Bible verses referring to 'SLAVES serving their masters' to a player as University acts after 'inappropriate, unacceptable and racially insensitive comment'"--Daily Mail Online. 

    'On Friday, Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt was made aware of an incident regarding a coaching session between Adams and a member of the men's basketball team. 

    'Adams was encouraging the student-athlete to be more receptive to coaching and referenced Bible verses about workers, teachers, parents, and slaves serving their masters. Adams immediately addressed this with the team and apologized.

* * *

    Adams spoke to Stadium and insider Jeff Goodman, saying, 'I was quoting the scripture. It was a private conversation about coaching and when you have a job, and being coachable.'

    'I said that in the bible that Jesus talks about how we all have bosses, and we all are servants,' Adams added. 'I was quoting the bible about that.'

    Stadium also reported that Adams addressed the team the next day to explain what happened. 

    'One of my coaches said it bothered the player,' Adams said.

• "Mass. school under investigation after barring white students from auditioning for school play"-- Daily Mail Online.

    The Massachusetts school's Theater Ink program put on a show titled 'Lost and Found: Our Stories as People of Color,' which according to the show's audition packet acted as 'a reserved safe space for this exploration and for people of color to be vulnerable and support one another.' 

    At the time of auditions last fall, the student director posted a video to the company's website declaring that 'All BIPOC [Black, indigenous and people of color] students at North are invited to audition.'

    It was at that point that the grassroots national movement Parents Defending Education got involved and filed a complaint with the federal government that the school districted discriminated against students on the basis of race.

    The claim noted that the audition criteria, which included asking students about their race and ethnic identities violated 'both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 … and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.'

    PDE President and Founder Nicole Neily told Fox that the school's administration 'failed their student body by allowing a racially-segregated production to move forward - and missed the opportunity to impart the lesson that racial discrimination is always wrong.' 

    In the Lost and Found audition packet, students were told that weekly rehearsals for the production would include 'organized discussions about race and identity in our lives.'

There is plenty of precedent for actors to play the role of a historical person of a different race from that of the actor, so that is no excuse. 

• I think this is called "blackmail": "Now California reparations panel RAISES amount it wants to give 1.8m black people from $220,000 to $360,000 each in $650 BILLION give away - as hearing is told payments are 'only way to stop our children busting into liquor and grocery stores'"--Daily Mail Online.
• "Cops investigate after black schoolkids attacked white students and forced them to say 'Black Lives Matter' on camera at Ohio elementary school"--Daily Mail Online. 

    A criminal investigation at an Ohio elementary school has been launched after black students forced their white peers to say 'Black Lives Matter' on camera and assaulted those who didn't.

    The incident at Kenwood Elementary on February 10 showed the altercation play out as two students were initially seen escorting their peer to an area on the playground while punching the student in the head.

    Footage of the 17-minute video showed the student being tossed on the ground while another student joined seconds later. About 10 minutes later a third student was thrown right beside them.

    The students involved in the incident were interviewed by school staff as Springfield Police attempt to charge the suspect for menacing and assault for knowingly harming a victim, according to Dayton247now. 

    The incident is being treated as an Anti-White hate crime and lists at least four students involved. The names of the students weren't immediately available.

• She certainly got the exciting relationship she was seeking: "U.S. swimming champion's boyfriend who 'found her' dead on floor at her Virgin Islands home is 'bad boy' who was jailed for ten years for his role in beating death of U.S. tourist in 2007"--Daily Mail Online. The dead swimmer is Jamie Cail, 42, who was white and blonde. The alleged killer is Kamal Thomas, who is black. 

Note: most of the memes were found at Western Rifle Shooters Assoc.