This is awkward but not surpising _ Pakistan Saudi Arabia Defense Pact

My thoughts

Pakistani military wants to renew its contacts with the US military. Chinese weaponery which Imran Khan faced was shown to be inferior. Both countries are not trustworthy in my opinion. Saudi Arabia still has a strong Wahhabist influence and Pakistan is a failed Sunni state. Lets not forget that Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi and Pakistan gave him refuge in his hour of need.

Reflection XXVII - Through Life's Looking Glass

The United Nations is a toothless beast that became irrelevant less than a decade of its founding. If it weren’t for a global longing of what it ought to be (but won’t) then it should have been euthanized some time ago. Today it is a country club catering to the worst of humanity.

Extremists have a tendency to oscillate from one polarity to another for they have a mindset drawn to bad ideas regardless of where they reside on any political spectrum. Mussolini for one went from Socialism to Fascism while Peron in Argentina entertained all sorts of bad ideas.

Sometimes I think that the story of history is a tale of recovery from bad ideas implemented.

Every leader given enough time will come crashing down from their pedestal.

The function of bureaucracy in the modern state is to protect the power structure from radical change and circumvent reform. Democracy is the illusion sold to the public that the change is possible.

The best way to violate people’s rights and do so with their consent is to rebrand it under the labels of safety and security. The Covid lockdowns typified this.

The greatest apocalyptic threat isn’t war, famine or disease but the embrace of bad ideas by the population who have been coerced to forgo common sense.

14 Thoughts on the Charlie Kirk Assassination

1. Nobody should be violently attacked let alone killed for exercising their right to freedom of expression. If you want to defeat a person you dislike then do so with rational argument.

2. People celebrating or justifying such violent action need to check their moral compass. I have unfortunately seen this with people I know personally.

3. Advocating tit-for-tat violence in response to such an attack or killing is deplorable as well.

4. Unless you are advocating violence I don’t believe a person should be canceled from their job even if their opinions are tasteless. Those using their platforms however to spread hate on this issue to a captive audience (school children) need to face the consequence of their actions as per the mandate of the specific institution that employs them.

5. Now to the specifics....Charlie Kirk was not a saint and he had, like all of us, his faults. However I do believe that he was a good man with great qualities who was making an honest attempt to change the dialogue on campus which unfortunately been compromised by wokeness, cancel culture and divisive identity politics.

6. Kirk was not an ethnic identitarian which is why both the Far Left and Far Right (check out the Groypers) didn’t like him. Nick Fuentes was a persistent critic and I don’t believe his crocodile tears for a second.

7. He was an unapologetic Christian and was consistent in his Christian belief. He was not however a Christian Nationalist and supported the model of the Republic consistent with the US Constitution.

8. Youth outreach was his bread and butter and his energy, verbal fluency and positive demeanor were well served.

9. I agreed for the most part with Charlie Kirk in his opposition to illegal immigration, support of free debate and meritocracy. He was correct in calling out various failures in our modern cultural world and was on target when taking on DEI and other bad ideas which have become part and parcel of the intellectual and sociological milieu.

10. I disagreed with him on his strong stance on abortion as I don’t believe that life begins with conception and I think that his take on gun rights were too dismissive of background checks. However I respect the consistency of his stance. His platforming of Tucker Carlson on TPUSA was a mistake. However he did pride himself on not promoting a one thought bubble. So such an invitation ought to be viewed within this framework.

11. On foreign policy he was usually on the ball despite the best efforts of American Isolationists to push him into their camp. Having said that I think he would admit that foreign policy was not his strongest area.

12. Kirk was a huge fan of the Jews and a great ally of Israel. There are clips going around criticizing him from either side on this issue but almost always these are fully de-contextualized for click bait purposes.

13. I wish his family all the best and hope that others will take on the mantra where he left off. He seems to be a man of character who had friends on all sides of the spectrum. He was not racist or homophobic but like all public figures was often straw manned as such.

14. In short I see Kirk as a Classic Liberal albeit as one schooled in the Burkean Conservative mode. The problem is that the overton window (range of ‘allowable’ opinions) especially on universities has shifted so far to the left that for many people such a take is seen as extreme when they are really just mainstream conservative takes for the general public.

Reflections XXVI - Sunday Thoughts

The United Nations is a toothless beast that became irrelevant less than a decade of its founding. If it weren’t for a global longing of what it ought to be (but won’t) then it should have been euthanized some time ago. Today it is a country club catering to the worst of humanity.

Extremists have a tendency to oscillate from one polarity to another for they have a mindset drawn to bad ideas regardless of where they reside on any political spectrum. Mussolini for one went from Socialism to Fascism while Peron in Argentina entertained all sorts of bad ideas.

Sometimes I think that the story of history is a tale of recovery from bad ideas implemented.

Every leader given enough time will come crashing down from their pedestal.

The function of bureaucracy in the modern state is to protect the power structure from radical change and circumvent reform. Democracy is the illusion sold to the public that the change is possible.

Reflections - XXV - Necessary Reflections

The modern world has been built on the notion that materialism is realism. This has had the consequence of imprisoning us in a convenient thought cage.

Media News is designed to elicit emotion. Transmission of Information is at best an afterthought. Nuanced accounting is never desirable.

An act of unapologetic evil is easily identified. This is not the case with those who produce harm through supposed good intention which makes the latter all the more dangerous in the long run.

Once you have accepted the fact that your control is limited then life’s jigsaw starts to make more sense.

You can sell any lie by addressing it in enough pomp. This is the business model for large swathes of organized religion.