A Win Condition

 "Capitalism has a win condition. Socialism does not. Here's why, explained so simply a 10-year-old could get it. It starts with a book written in 1944 by an Austrian economist named Friedrich Hayek: The Road to Serfdom. Imagine a classroom of 30 kids. One day the teacher says: "From now on, I decide what everyone eats for lunch, which games you play at recess, and who sits next to whom. It's fairer that way." First problem: the teacher doesn't know what you like. You hate carrots. Your friend is allergic to peanuts. Lucas wants to play football, Emma wants to draw. 30 kids, 30 different wishes. Nobody can know all of that, not even the smartest teacher on Earth. Hayek called this the knowledge problem. The information needed to run an economy is scattered across millions of heads, and it can't be gathered in one office. Second problem: the kids start fighting. "Why does he get the window seat?" "Why football again?" Before, everyone just chose for themselves. Now every choice is a fight, because every choice is made for everyone. Third problem: the class can't agree on a plan, so someone says "we need one person in charge who just decides." This is Hayek's key insight. Planning doesn't fail because planners are evil. A plan needs everyone to agree on the same goals, and free people never agree on everything. So the plan needs force to work. Fourth problem, and it's the scariest one: who wants that job? The kind kid doesn't want it, because the kind kid doesn't want to force 29 people to eat carrots. The job attracts the one who likes giving orders and doesn't mind punishing those who disobey. Hayek wrote a whole chapter on this, called "Why the Worst Get on Top." It doesn't happen by accident. It happens by selection. Here's the trap. When the person who controls your lunch also controls your job, your home, your shop and your newspaper, they control your whole life. You can't say no, because there's nowhere else to go. Controlling the economy doesn't mean controlling one part of life. It means controlling the means to every goal you have. That's the road to serfdom. Nobody votes for a dictator. People vote for "someone should fix this," then for "give them more power to fix it," and one day they wake up with no one left to say no to. The USSR, Maoist China, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela. These are different countries with different cultures and languages, and the story has the same ending every time. When a script produces the same ending every time, it isn't bad luck. It's the script. Now capitalism. Back to the classroom. Instead of one teacher deciding everything, every kid can trade. You give me your carrots, I give you my apple, and we both walk away happier. Nobody needs to know what everyone wants, because prices do that job. A price is a message telling millions of strangers what's scarce and what's wanted, with no one in charge. That's the win condition. In capitalism, you get rich by making something other people freely choose to buy, so your success depends on serving others. In a planned system, you get ahead by pleasing whoever holds power. One rewards usefulness. The other rewards obedience. And this isn't theory. Two centuries ago, almost every human being was extremely poor. In 1990, about 38% of humanity still lived in extreme poverty. Today it's under 10%. More than a billion people escaped it in a single generation. It happened when China, India, Vietnam and South Korea opened up to markets, trade and private enterprise. The largest reduction in poverty in human history came from letting people trade. So why do so many people hate capitalism? Because what they hate usually isn't capitalism. They hate the bank that got bailed out with their taxes while they lost their house. They hate the giant company that writes the regulations so no startup can compete with it. They hate rent they can't afford because building new homes has been made nearly impossible. They hate the lobbyist who gets a subsidy while the small business owner drowns in paperwork. Look closely at each one, and you'll find a state handing out privileges. A bailout is not the market. The market would have let the bank fail. A regulation written by incumbents is not competition. It's protection from competition. None of this is capitalism. It's cronyism, which is what happens when businesses stop competing for customers and start competing for politicians. People see the symptom and blame the wrong cause. They say "capitalism failed" and ask for more state. That gives more power to the same people who created the problem, and it puts us right back on Hayek's road. The answer to bad capitalism isn't less freedom. It's less privilege. That means fewer bailouts, fewer protected incumbents, fewer permits, and more people allowed to build, compete and trade. Capitalism has a win condition: make things people want. Socialism has an end condition: someone has to be in charge. And history keeps showing us who ends up in that chair."

It's Not Immigrants, But It Is.

This thread is one that is full of videos that tell a pretty clear story.  Choosing ignorance in this case is idiotic.   

 The "palestine flags" couldn't possibly be an indicator of the composition of most of the rioters and of the sympathies of the rest.  

 https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2112455480656454005?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

 "A second or third-generation migrant from Africa explains why Chinese businesses are targeted by looters: “The Chinese living in France have become too wealthy. It's unfair”"

Let me get this straight. One group of immigrants feels entitled to destroy the businesses of another group of immigrants because the first group of immigrants has been successful and prosperous. But, no, it's not immigrants who are doing the rioting.

 

 https://x.com/pippaisright/status/2112301451997225189?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

" Mohammad the security guard stops the music on the London public piano (Allah says music is Haram)"

 https://x.com/buc97552/status/2112535128610353621?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

" Strange how, during the “protests” by disgruntled “French students”, some businesses were looted and destroyed, while others emerged miraculously untouched."

 

 https://x.com/mattvanswol/status/2112200010146492818?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

" A liberal Italian woman SCREAMS at police telling them they are being too mean to the 3rd world migrants. "What are you doing?! Why are you GRABBING them by force like that?" Seconds later, a rioter THROWS AN EXPLOSIVE at her and police. You cannot make this up."

 https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2112579058248950201

 "The Italian city of Bologna became a real war zone after devastating overnight riots by wild looters and radical leftists with Palestinian flags."

 https://x.com/the_jefferymead/status/2112624563733590459?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

" These people are dangerous to Western Civilization and our way of life. This is the primary reason why I talk about this. I do not want these type of people having any real level of influence in the United States."

https://x.com/ericmmatheny/status/2112489223727304769?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

" It’s not a protest. It’s a conquest."

 https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2112469093882183755?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

 "A French woman says that the rioters and looters broke into her building and threatened her with rape while she was holding her child in her arms. “That’s collateral damage” responds the feminist activist Bettina Zourli who holds a Master’s in gender studies and focuses her work on gender norms, motherhood, reproductive rights, and voluntary childlessness (“childfree”) She describes herself as “feminist, childfree and Antifa” Zourli also says that all the stores getting looted also constitute a case of collateral damage and that the revolution, which she supports, must be violent. She has lectured in gender studies, including at the University of Lille and Université Rennes."

 

So, a feminist activist calls attempted rape "collateral damage".  That's a great example of how good people really are. 

 

 

 

 

 

BOT

 https://www.instagram.com/reels/Det1wx3gXyQ/

The fact that Thunberg is some sort of progressive icon, is simply insane.  

 https://www.instagram.com/reels/DerlzwNRuWp/

 https://substack.com/home/post/p-736821

 https://substack.com/home/post/p-217414650

 https://substack.com/home/post/p-221167988

"It is unlikely that American liberals will draw the needed lessons from the French mayhem. The New York Times, which sets the table for the rest of the major media, barely hints at the underlying causes of the disorder. Everyday protestors, for instance, don’t use a battering ram to storm a nineteenth-century landmark and burn it to the ground."

 " If the Times editors shied from the immigrant angle, they did acknowledge that French officials were placing the blame for the chaos “on a far-left party,” La France Insoumise (LFI)—France Unbowed. For the editors to use the term “far-left” is a rare concession, perhaps a way to distance the Times from the madness LFI has unleashed."

Even the NYT acknowledges that the carnage in France is the result of leftists.  Given that 49% of Paris is composed of immigrants, it seems safe to conclude that immigrants are very much a part of this destruction.   

 

"Knowing Saturday’s potential for violence, LFI still went ahead and promoted the protest. Like the RN, the party is actively gearing up for the May 2027 elections. Candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his comrades have, to date, established exactly 1,069 “concrete measures” that it plans to implement immediately upon taking office. The featured measures include retirement at 60, a green regime, price controls, a solidarity tax on wealth, and a higher guaranteed minimum wage.

Strategically, the LSI homepage does not reflect its aggressively pro-migrant immigration policy. As to foreign policy, given that even its Communist allies have condemned LFI’s rhetoric on Jews, you can guess its position on Israel. The “common future” that the LSI promises might come soon. As the Times reports, “Jean-Luc Mélenchon, stands a chance of beating centrists to the runoff in next year’s presidential election to succeed President Emmanuel Macron.”"

 "The largely peaceful protests of 2020. A warm-up for the protests of 2026?

One “conspiracy theory” traced to the American Right is that the 2020 George Floyd riots were orchestrated to enhance Democratic chances in November. In an extraordinary article published by Time magazine in February 2021, insider Molly Ball confirmed that the conspiracy was no mere theory. The organizers who led what she called “the racial-justice uprising” hoped to “harness its momentum for the election.” As Ball explained, rioting was the leverage leftists used to keep business interests in line. The summer’s chaos showed them what could happen if Trump won a contested election.

To make the decision easier for American liberals in 2020, Democrats chose to run an unthreatening front man. Come May, liberal French voters will have no easy out. Marine Le Pen is no Joe Biden. The LFI has already shown these well-meaning souls what could happen if they make the “wrong” decision. If American liberals are any model, few of them will."

 https://substack.com/@zionismtoday/note/c-364850292

 https://substack.com/@tantominchiata/note/c-361806739

https://agentmax.substack.com/p/tired-of-pretending-yet?r=28q7xt&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

 https://spyridonandrews.substack.com/p/the-seattle-freeze?r=28q7xt&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

 https://substack.com/home/post/p-220734587

 https://furtherupfurtherin.substack.com/p/by-aslans-mane-a-defense-of-cs-lewis?r=28q7xt&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

Poverty, Crime

 https://x.com/brivael/status/2112199646361649397?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

" 

"You reduce crime by eliminating poverty." This is one of the greatest intellectual confusions of our century. It sounds compassionate. It feels obvious. And the moment you actually test it, it falls apart. Let's look at the data. First, the correlation is real. Nobody serious denies that poorer areas have more crime. In Sweden, kids from the poorest 20% of families are about 7 times more likely to be convicted of a violent crime than kids from the richest 20%. But correlation is not causation. So Swedish researchers did something brilliant: they compared siblings. Same parents, same home, same upbringing, but different family income at different points in their childhood, because parents' income moves over time. Result, on more than 500,000 children (Sariaslan et al., British Journal of Psychiatry, 2014): once you account for what's shared inside the family, the effect of income on violent crime goes from 7x to nothing. The hazard ratio drops to 0.95. No effect. Finland ran the same test on 650,000 people. Same result: the income-crime link disappears when you compare siblings. What predicts crime isn't the bank balance. It's what travels inside families. Second test: what happens when poverty spikes for everyone at once? 2008. US unemployment doubled from 5% to nearly 10%. 15% of Americans officially poor. If poverty creates crime, crime should have exploded. Instead it fell. Year after year. Robbery, the most "economic" crime of all, dropped 10% in 2010 alone. Criminologists literally said they were stumped. Same story in the Great Depression: 25% unemployment, and crime went down in many cities. Third test: take families out of poverty and see. The US government ran a randomized lottery called Moving to Opportunity. Thousands of families in public housing got vouchers to move to low-poverty neighborhoods. For boys, violent arrests dropped at first, property crime arrests went up, and over time the effects faded. New zip code. Same behavior. Fourth: the claim that police don't matter. This one is just false. Chalfin et al. (American Economic Review: Insights, 2022): each additional police officer prevents about 0.1 homicides. And per capita, the lives saved are twice as many among Black victims as among white victims. The people who suffer most from "police don't matter" are the poorest neighborhoods. So what does predict crime? The Dunedin study followed 1,000 children from birth to age 32. Self-control measured between ages 3 and 11 predicted adult criminal convictions, even after controlling for social class and IQ (Moffitt et al., PNAS, 2011). Cognitive ability matters too: across 700,000 Swedish men, lower cognitive scores at 18 track with violent convictions, and the link barely moves when you control for childhood socioeconomic status (Frisell et al., 2012). And here's the part nobody quotes: in Dunedin, kids whose self-control improved over time did better than predicted. Behavior can change. Which means responsibility is real. Why does this matter? Because "poverty creates crime" isn't just wrong. It's toxic. It turns criminals into victims. The man who robbed you becomes a symptom of "the system," and you, the real victim, become a footnote in someone else's narrative. It merges two completely different things. "You're poor, we'll help you" is one policy. "You're poor and you committed a crime, so we'll excuse you" is another. Fusing them insults the millions of poor people who work, raise their kids, and never hurt anyone. The vast majority of poor people are not criminals. That alone kills the theory. It removes responsibility. Build a political system on "your circumstances made you do it" and you destroy the one thing that actually changes behavior: the certainty that you own your choices. Every excuse the state manufactures is an incentive. And it feeds the state forever. If every crime is a social failure, every crime justifies a new program, a new budget, a new agency. Crime becomes the business model of bureaucracy. The alternative is simple and old. A lighter state that protects instead of explains. The same rules for everyone, from the projects or from a gated community. Certain, swift punishment for anyone who commits a crime. And never, ever telling someone their crime was written in their social condition. Treating someone as responsible is respecting them. Excusing someone because they're poor is the most condescending thing you can do to them." 

 

 

 https:  

  /justjargons/status/2111891771760554282

Compare And Contrast

 https://x.com/tabukthinks/status/2112270543110258958?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

 "The German channel DW produced a documentary about immigrants in the Paris suburbs, focusing on two groups living in the same area. On one hand, there are about 70,000 French people of Chinese origin. In Aubervilliers, in the northern Paris suburbs, they built Europe's largest wholesale clothing sales center. Their lives are simple—they get up early and work until late, running small workshops, managing their shops, and delivering goods. They reinvest what they earn into their businesses, and if things get tight, they sort out their affairs and try to push through on their own. They're usually calm and stay out of the spotlight, rarely asking for special government aid, and they don't take to the streets to stir up chaos. And over the years, the number of families who bought homes and grew their businesses has increased. On the other hand, immigrant communities from North Africa, living in the same neighborhood. Their economic integration in the area hasn't advanced much. But the documentary captured a subtle shift in mindset—a perspective that's starting to spread quietly, one that sees self-reliance as a kind of threat. According to what the film observed, some of those who faced difficulties integrating tend to see themselves as victims, feeling like society owes them a lot. But when they look around and see the Chinese people right next to them, their view changes. Instead of learning trade from them, they treat them as competitors. So, where does this hostility come from? The clearest point of friction is that the more the Chinese succeed, the harder it becomes to cling to the victimhood narrative. Everyone here came from outside, facing the same hardships of alienation. Even the Chinese, when they first arrived, many of them didn't speak French and had no connections in the country. So if there's someone who can grind 12 hours or more a day and gradually organize their life, it becomes tough to keep repeating the phrase ("We're struggling because the world is unfair") and have anyone believe you. The one who builds themselves through effort and without fuss often annoys those accustomed to blaming circumstances and the world, living in a victim mentality. And there's another deep difference in understanding wealth. Many of those demanding aid see wealth as a fixed-size cake—people divide it up and that's it. They don't see how these wholesale shops came to be, how their owners hauled the goods with their own hands, carton after carton. All they see is that the profits from the Chinese shops come at their expense. Add to that the fact that the Chinese are used to patience and brushing off problems. If there's a dispute, it's normal—they choose to let it pass to keep the peace. And with this mismatch in thinking, the issue quickly turns into security problems. Robberies, stakeouts, and street assaults repeat against these people who just want to live quietly and earn a living."

https://x.com/AsianDawn4/status/2111900067993182487

For the video to the story referenced above.  

 

Straw Men Galore

Someone trying to justify voting of Talarico.   Not that progressive christians need to justify a vote for this schmuck.  

 

"Without trying to oversimplify, I have long observed that there are a series of major divisions in the Church that don't necessarily invalidate the believers on either side so much as they define or at least describe those believers.

This is a post about James Talarico, my brother in the faith.

I will name three of these divisions in no particular order. Feel free to suggest more.

DIVISION ONE: The Great Commission.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭28‬:‭19‬ ‭NRSVUE‬

Does this mean "Make everyone in every nation into a Christian" or does it mean "Go to every nation and make disciples from folks you find there"?

Many Christians lean into the first. They say everyone should be saved, so everyone should be baptized.

Others point out that Jesus commissions his followers to go to every town and share the Good News. If there are those who aren't interested, we are to move on--not force the issue: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭10‬:‭14‬ ‭NRSVUE‬‬

Thus, the split here--in impact if not intent--is between those who insist upon conversion and those who honor a person's right to decline.

DIVISION TWO: Salvation and True Faith

Are all people saved? Or, to put it more pressingly, "What happens to non-Christians"?

This is where some folks really trip up with Talarico, who suggested that there are legitimate paths to the Divine outside the Church.

Quoting Scripture here is less useful, though it can be done; mostly, this argument is rooted in reason.

In 1992, the Methodist theologian Schubert Ogden published a lovely little book called *Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many?*

His conclusion was simple: a Christian need not worry about whether another faith IS true; we should simply be able to lovingly acknowledge that they COULD be and stop fighting about it.

It comes down to control: do we really believe God is in charge, or do we make ourselves into God and claim that power?

How can Christians claim they have the only right path when our own stories say that the Jews are a chosen people and God is faithful to God's covenants? One of those covenants was with Abraham and Sarah, and they are counted as ancestors of THREE traditions: Judaism through Isaac and Rebekah, Christians as a split from there, and Islam through Ishmael.

Christian tradition itself doesn't deny this. Moreover, Jesus was Jewish.

So even before considering non-Abrahamic faiths, Christians must grapple with how to love our nearest related neighbors, and that aptly illustrates Split Two. Do we honor their right to choose their own path, or do we insist that our path is the only one?

DIVISION THREE: The Bible

You have Christians who say the Bible is the Word, a holy text written by God or Jesus (and often "inerrant" and internally consistent).

Then you have Christians who read the Bible as a collection of ancient writings by people, with many persisting as oral traditions long before they were written down. These writers were engaged in "theological reflection," which can be described as a process of asking "Who is God?" and "What's it mean to be God's people"?

Just like the other two splits, we see a difference in approach and application. The "literalists" of the first camp tend to force the issue, insisting that there is only one valid way to read the Bible.

The non-literalists tend to believe that everyone encounters the Bible differently, there are often multiple possible and even valid interpretations, and the human authorship makes this process of interpretation complex and worthy of rigorous academic study.

SUMMATION:

All three of these divisions I have named boil down to power and control. Who has it? Who gets to decide?

On one side of the division are Christians who believe Christians should hold and wield the power.

On the other side are Christians who believe all people have agency and authority to hold and wield power.

One tends to impact people as power-over, and the other impacts as power-with.

As a Presbyterian (USA), James Talarico is aligned with the latter. He stands in the Mainline Protestant tradition that, perhaps not coincidentally, helped shape more than the first century of the USA.

Ken Paxton (and Donald Trump) are supported by Christians on the other side of the division, Christians who have arguably had a larger impact on the USA in more recent decades.

The Christian supporters of Paxton are often more comfortable saying that Talarico is wrong, that you "cannot" be both Christian and Democrat, and all manner of other declarations.

The Christian supporters of Talarico are often more comfortable acknowledging each person's relationship with God as invitation, not dictation. They're far less likely to insist upon power and control.

As a pastor who supports Talarico, I ask:

Which approach impacts people as truly loving?

I know how I answer that.

Christians absolutely can and do legitimately support James Talarico."

 

 "Many Christians lean into the first. They say everyone should be saved, so everyone should be baptized."

 

The only people I know who say things like this tend to be progressive or universalists. They argue that somehow all will be saved. Which seems to render the Great Commission pointless. These are the folx who tend to argue that "the world" in John 3:16 literally means everyone in the entire world. 

 

  "Thus, the split here--in impact if not intent--is between those who insist upon conversion and those who honor a person's right to decline."

 

The implication here is that it is the anti-Talarico folks who "insist on conversion", yet I know of absolutely no Christian on the conservative side of the theological divide who would "insist on conversion".   It seems that the real divide is between those who believe that a Sovereign God chooses those who will be saved, against those who believe that human free will trumps YHWH's sovereignty. 

 

 

"Are all people saved? Or, to put it more pressingly, "What happens to non-Christians"?

This is where some folks really trip up with Talarico, who suggested that there are legitimate paths to the Divine outside the Church."

 

Well, this is where folx like Talarico really trip up with Christ who said "I AM The Way", and who compared the path to salvation as a "narrow gate".  Most orthodox Christians would agree that there is a path to Christ which does not involve the ecclesiastical church in it's organized form. Yet does provide for the ecclasia or for those who are led to Christ through the evidence that they are given outside of the church. 

 

"Do we honor their right to choose their own path, or do we insist that our path is the only one? "

 

We honor their right to choose the path that is wide and leads to destruction, while acknowledging that the narrow gate is available for them to choose if that is YHWH's will. 

 

 

"You have Christians who say the Bible is the Word, a holy text written by God or Jesus (and often "inerrant" and internally consistent)."

 

Actually most of these folks would say that the text is "God breathed" or "inspired", not literally "written by God or Jesus".  

"Then you have Christians who read the Bible as a collection of ancient writings by people, with many persisting as oral traditions long before they were written down. These writers were engaged in "theological reflection," which can be described as a process of asking "Who is God?" and "What's it mean to be God's people"? "

 

This is an artificial distinction being made here, because virtually everyone (no matter how "literalist" they are) acknowledges the above facts regarding the transmission and authorship of The Bible.   Further, I can think of no one who would deny that Scripture contains the information necessary to learn about "Who YHWH is" and "What does it mean to be YHWH's people." That it denies that Scripture contains more than "theological reflection" seems to diminish Scripture. 

 

"Just like the other two splits, we see a difference in approach and application. The "literalists" of the first camp tend to force the issue, insisting that there is only one valid way to read the Bible."

 

Please, show me one person who insists that there is "only one valid way to read the BIble".  

 

 "All three of these divisions I have named boil down to power and control. Who has it? Who gets to decide?"

 

Yeah, one side thinks that YHWH holds the power and gets to decide, and the other thinks that humans get to.  

 

 "As a Presbyterian (USA), James Talarico is aligned with the latter. He stands in the Mainline Protestant tradition that, perhaps not coincidentally, helped shape more than the first century of the USA."

 

The current iteration of the PCUSA has literally nothing in common with any historic Presbyterian/Reformed theology or doctrine. It's literally a bunch of progressive heretics who've taken the mantle of a once orthodox denomination to wear as a skin suit for heresy.  

 

 "The Christian supporters of Talarico are often more comfortable acknowledging each person's relationship with God as invitation, not dictation. They're far less likely to insist upon power and control."

 

These are the same lemmings that salivated over forcing people to abandon their convictions and demanded that they take the jab, who regularly demonstrate and advocate for all sorts of power for their side. Hell, the goal of electing Talarico is to GAIN POWER and to force the US government to adopt their political policies. 

 

 "Which approach impacts people as truly loving?"

 

Is it "truly loving" to tell people that things which are false or harmful, are actually True and helpful? 

Rape Is Bad

 https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeryCMPul4X/?mdxt=MXh2MGh1aWx3cHJweQ==

So, the UK has to provide immigrants with a pamphlet which tells the immigrants that rape is not acceptable behavior in the UK.  

1.  In what culture or cultures is rape acceptable?

2.  Why would the leadership of any country welcome thousands of immigrants from a culture which was unaware that rape was unacceptable.

3.  If you already had enough evidence that a culture considered rape as acceptable behavior, based on thousands of rapes by people of that culture, why would you not immediately jail or deport those of that culture immediately?

Is this not a problem that can be laid at the feet of the political leadership?