What is Individualism?

Individualism is sometimes described as what separates Western Civilization from the rest of the world. But what is it?

Typical definition:

individualism, political and social philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual.

The Center for Individualism should know, and it defines:

Individualism is an idea of society that champions individual liberty, creativity, and self-reliance. A thriving society cannot be engineered by the collectivist designs of central planners, sociology professors, or government economists. Rather, it is is the combined effects of individual actions and the spontaneous collaborations of free people that produce economic growth, cultural vitality, and social wellbeing.

A philosophy site says:

Although individualism has cropped up here and there throughout history, it first became known as a philosophy in the early 19th century, following the American revolution and Declaration of Independence, a statement of extreme individualism:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

This is liberalism, a political philosophy almost synonymous with individualism.

I thought that individualism meant Ayn Rand egoism, where every man is selfishly out for his own interests. Individualism also means that strangers cooperate for mutual benefit.

About a millennium ago, Western Europe diverged from the rest of the world by becoming individualistic. That meant that people looked out for their individual interests, and also strangers learned to cooperate to form business markets, guilds, and governments. I suspect that the stranger cooperation was the most important part of individualism.

There are theories that Europe succeeded because people evolved higher IQ. That may be true, but I suspect that the larger effect was that Europe developed a higher collective IQ, as a result of strangers learning to cooperate towards common goals.

The paradox here is that Europeans became more cooperative as they became more individualistic. In the rest of the world, people would only cooperate within their clans, and progress was more limited.

Maybe there should be a better word for the individualism that made Western Civilization. And there should be a better understanding of what made it possible. Was it genes? Christianity? Other aspects of European culture?

Therapist advised taking Non-binary Kid to Ireland

News:

Rosie O’Donnell has “no regrets” for choosing to leave the U.S. for Ireland with her child after President Donald Trump won the election.

The comedian told CNN’s The Situation Room Tuesday that she had already decided to leave the country if Trump won the presidency, saying that “not a day has gone by that I thought it was the wrong decision.”

“I knew after reading Project 2025 that if Trump got in, it was time for me and my non-binary child to leave the country,” she said. “And although I was not one of the celebrities who announced that that’s what I would do, I made the decision within my family and my therapist should he win.”

She said that her and her 12-year-old, Clay, who is non-binary and has autism, were “gone before he was inaugurated.”

So her therapist advised her to move to Ireland? And advised her to turn her child non-binary, I guess. This is really sick.

Harvard could lose Tax-exempt Status

AP reports:

For more than a century, the majority of colleges and universities have not paid most taxes. The Revenue Act of 1909 excused nonprofits operating “exclusively for religious, charitable, or educational purposes” in order to continue acting in the public interest.

President Donald Trump is looking to challenge that designation, complaining that colleges and universities are “indoctrinating” their students with “radical left” ideas, rather than educating them. And he has decided to start with the 388-year-old Harvard University, one of the world's most prestigious institutions of learning and the first college founded in the American colonies.

This is not as ridiculous as it sounds. The precedent here is Bob Jones University v. United States, where a college lost its tax-exempt status for similar reasons, and in 1983 lost 8-1 in the US Supreme Court. Bob Jones eventually gave into pressure and changed its policy in 2000, and got its tax-exempt status back in 2017.

Perhaps you will say that the case is not comparable, because Harvard is noble and honorable, and Bob Jones is so repugnant. The Bob Jones issue was that it was religiously opposed to interracial marriage. The Court acted as if there were a national consensus to promote interracial marriage, and so the Congress laws can be ignored.

I do not think that there was any such consensus, but that is not for me to say. That was considered racial discrimination, and now Harvard has been found guilty of even worse racial discrimination. It fought and lost at the Supreme Court, and it appears to be continuing its previous practices. It is also doing many other things that Trump could declare to be against the public interest.

You might say that the President should not have so much power. Or that colleges should have some First Amendment rights. But who spoke for Bob Jones in 1983? Almost no one. Even the court lone dissent was weak.

For some expert legal opinion, here is a famous Harvard Law professor predicting that Harvard would lose a court battle. The administration wants to settle, but the faculty does not.

Douglas Murray make a Fool of Himself

I have commented favorably about Douglas Murray before, here and here. But he has been all over the media lately plugging his latest book, and he is alienating a lot of people.

He is a neoconservative who believes in fighting wars all over the world to suit his ideals. Currently, he is on the side of Israel against Gaza, and Ukraine against Russia.

I used to think that he was an effective polemicist, but now I wonder why I thought that. He is making a terrible case for these wars, and not addressing opposing views very well.

I do not see how there is anything to be gained by the USA getting involved in either of these wars.

Sec. of State Marco Rubio announces:

During his historic comeback campaign in 2024, President Trump vowed to close the book on a dark chapter in America’s constitutional history: the weaponization of America’s own government to silence, censor, and suppress the free speech of ordinary Americans. The American people responded to this promise by giving President Trump a landslide victory last November.

Everything this administration has done since then has been laser-focused on fulfilling the promises made during that campaign. Today, it is my pleasure to announce the State Department is taking a crucial step toward keeping the president’s promise to liberate American speech by abolishing forever the body formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC).

I never heard of it, but apparently my tax money was funding left-wing propaganda.

USA was Funding Mutilations, in India

News:

NEW DELHI, Feb 28 (Reuters) - India's first three clinics for the transgender community closed last month following a stop-work order from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that funded them, disrupting services for nearly 5,000 people, two sources said on Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid in January pending a review to ensure all projects funded with U.S. taxpayer money are aligned with his "America First" policy.

I had no idea the USA was funding stull like this. It should all be shut down, and reassessed.

A NY Times op-ed asks for continued USA aid to Haiti:

Almost every night, I get phone calls from people in areas of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, under attack by gangs. “Please ask the police to send officers,” one friend said. “Please help me. We’re going to die!” he told me. Haiti’s emergency phone line, our 911, is pretty useless — often, no one even answers. The police are spread thin and outgunned by murderous gangs, ...

Since last spring, when gangs in Haiti banded together to attack the government, they have mostly stopped fighting one another for neighborhood control and instead work as a united front to rape, torture and kill. Gangs also fight the police and jointly seize territory. They have attacked hospitals, pharmacies, schools and banks. Gang leaders are finding new ways to block security forces, by digging ditches in tracks and drilling holes into walls to sneak into buildings.

Infected by Unconstitutional Animus

There are dozens of court cases against Trump administration policies, if not hundreds. Judges have been getting bolder in trying to obstruct.

Here is a typical order, blocking Trump from deporting aliens from Venezuela and Haiti:

Plaintiffs assert, inter alia, that the decision to terminate (like the decision to vacate) was infected by unconstitutional animus.

No, there is nothing in the US Constitution about animus. It is all made up.

You may hear Democrats complaining about Rule of Law. The complaints should be directed at any judge using the word animus.

The argument goes like this. Trump says alien criminal gang members are bad for America, and should be deported if they have no right to stay. That is, they do not qualify as immigrants.

So leftist lawyers rush into court saying that Trump has animus towards alien criminal gang members, and therefore his orders are unconstitutional.

Sounds crazy, I know, but a number of federal judges have accepted this argument. The US Supreme Court accepted a similar argument, when it ruled that couples could claim benefits under federal law as if they were same-sex married. I do not think that it has made any other animus rulings.

Netflix G20 is Silly

Video movie review:

Want to watch an almost-60 year old girlboss throw stunt men around and do her best to imitate Die Hard? Then G20, the most unintentionally hilarious movie of the year, might just be the film for you!

The USA President is a 60yo Black woman who beats up a team of terrorists, and gets expert computer help from her teenaged daughter.

I wonder what the market is these Black and girl boss movies. Maybe they made the movie when it appeared that Kamala Harris would be he next President, but she is half-Hindu half-Jamaican, has no kids, and is not capable of beating anyone up. Or even playing the role of a competent President.

I don't want to sound racist, but Black people do not show up very well on my tv screen. I can see the facial expressions of White actors much better. Moviemakers should cast actors that are going to look good on the common screens that people have.

In the end, the old Black woman saves the world, and sends her female rival to prison!

Ritalin and Adderall do not Work on Kids

NY Times reports:

In the years since the consensus statement was published, however, the evidence for each of these A.D.H.D. biomarkers has faltered. Attempts to replicate the studies that showed differences in brain electrical activity came up empty. And though scientists have identified complex collections of genes that together may be signs of greater risk for A.D.H.D., they have failed to find a specific gene that predicts the disorder. “There is no single-gene story,” John Gabrieli, an M.I.T. neuroscientist, told me recently. “Fifteen years ago, there was incredible optimism, and now we realize how far away we are.” ...

Though Swanson had welcomed that initial increase in the diagnosis rate, he expected it to plateau at 3 percent. Instead, it kept rising, hitting 5.5 percent of American children in 1997, then 6.6 percent in 2000. As time passed, Swanson began to grow uneasy. He and his colleagues were continuing to follow the almost 600 children in the M.T.A. study, and by the mid-2000s, they realized that the new data they were collecting was telling a different — and less hopeful — story than the one they initially reported. It was still true that after 14 months of treatment, the children taking Ritalin behaved better than those in the other groups. But by 36 months, that advantage had faded completely, and children in every group, including the comparison group, displayed exactly the same level of symptoms.

So use of the ADHD drugs has been increasing, but the evidence is that they do not work.

Harvard Deserves to be Defunded

Academics are claiming McCarthyism about the Trump administration putting conditions on grants to Columbia and Harvard universities.

Let's get this in perspective. Columbia and Harvard have the worst free speech ratings of any USA colleges.

Harvard has a $50 billion endowment, and gets about $10 billion in federal grants a year.

The federal government has a long history of using such conditions to force wokism, leftism, feminism, and DEI on colleges. Boys sports programs were abolished to make room for girls sports programs, and then trans-identifying boys were allowed to compete against girls. Sexual behavior trials were held without the most basic fairness. Incompetent Blacks were promoted to the highest positions.

The colleges are now mostly anti-White, anti-man, and anti-Trump.

The Trump policies may seem a little heavy-handed, but it will take much more to get the colleges to be racially and politically neutral.

Curt Weldon Tells his Story

New interview:

Rep. Curt Weldon: It’s Time to Finally Tell the Truth About 9-11

The Tucker Carlson Show

After twenty years in congress, Curt Weldon was about to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee when he publicly questioned the accuracy of the 9-11 report. In retaliation, the Bush administration sent federal agents to his daughter’s house and ended his political career. At 77, Weldon has decided to tell the truth about what actually happened on September 11, 2001.

According to him, Osama bin Laden was in Iran in 2001, not Afghanistan. He got destroyed for asking the wrong questions.

He also has theories about 9-11-2001. He says two 9-11 hijeckers were CIA informants. He has info about why Libya was invaded, and Kaddafi killed.

Ukraine is Losing with German Tanks

From a Yahoo news op-ed:

German tanks are failing in Ukraine for the same reasons they lost the Second World War

The leaked report from the German Defence Ministry about the shortcomings of the Leopard 2 tank in the Ukraine should come as no surprise to anybody who even has a cursory understanding of German tank history, or even western tank history in general. ...

The first issue identified is how difficult it is for Ukraine soldiers to mend these tanks and keep them battle worthy. If the engine breaks down it must be taken hundreds of miles for repair in a specialist facility, whereas the old, simple engines of the Russian tanks can be easily fixed by any automotive mechanic, in situ if necessary. ...

We must avoid the same old German tank story from WW2. We must avoid the temptation to make our tanks too complex, too easy to hit, too difficult to maintain and too few.

German cars have this reputation today. Over-engineered, and hard to repair. People praise German engineering, but only if you ignore maintenance as an essential part of good engineering.

Yes, Trump turned out better than Harris

I just listened to some rants by Trump-haters. They have endless complaints, but mostly about Trump's personality, and how they are embarrassed to have him as President.

Funny, I did not hear any arguments that Kamala Harris would have done a better job. Or that she would have made more competent appointments.

Remember her? She was the only alternative to Trump. She ran on open borders, transgenderism, and DEI. Her bold plan for change was to prosecute grocery stores for price gouging. In the campaign, she hid from reporters and was unable to answer simple questions.

For four years of Biden being President, we still do not know who was running the White House. Whatever you think of Trump, he is actually doing the job that he was elected to do. Biden and Harris were incapable.

Optimizing Human Life

The term eugenics has always been a bad word at the NY Times, such as this story relating it to Hitler and other evils.

Now it publishes a pro-eugenics opinion, mirrored here.

Other advocates such as the Collinses believe widespread adoption of the screening could be a boon for public health by lowering health care spending on heritable diseases and, more controversially, for social ills such as violent crime by raising a society’s overall IQ. “Societies that have more intelligent people will have lower rates of crime, of rape, of violence, because intelligence correlates negatively with those societal blights,” Ms. Collins told me. Such population-level engineering, when done by a parent as opposed to the state, has been called liberal eugenics by its advocates.

This Harvard survey shows a lot of support for eugenic embryo screening.

The Vanishing White Male Writer

Jacob Savage writes:

t’s easy enough to trace the decline of young white men in American letters—just browse The New York Times’s “Notable Fiction” list. In 2012 the Times included seven white American men under the age of 43 (the cut-off for a millennial today); in 2013 there were six, in 2014 there were six.

And then the doors shut.

By 2021, there was not one white male millennial on the “Notable Fiction” list. There were none again in 2022, and just one apiece in 2023 and 2024 (since 2021, just 2 of 72 millennials featured were white American men). There were no white male millennials featured in Vulture’s 2024 year-end fiction list, none in Vanity Fair’s, none in The Atlantic’s. Esquire, a magazine ostensibly geared towards male millennials, has featured 53 millennial fiction writers on its year-end book lists since 2020. Only one was a white American man.

Over the course of the 2010s, the literary pipeline for white men was effectively shut down.

What to conclude from this? That there are suddenly no good white men writers anymore? That no one wants to hear what they have to say? That publishers know better what is good for us?

No, all of that is ridiculous. This has become an anti-white-men age.

We canot get a fictional white man President anymore.

News got you down? Need a break from politics? Want to forget your country’s troubles? If substance abuse isn’t your thing, luckily Amazon Prime Video dropped a new movie on Thursday called G20. It’s set in a far-fetched fantasy world where a Black woman was elected president, she is a principled and heroic figure, and the United States still cares about its allies and is respected on the world stage. I know, it’s a leap! But if you can suspend your disbelief, you might just be able to waste over 90 minutes of your time watching this preposterous popcorn thriller just like I did!

Casting a black woman as President was obviously a very deliberate decision. What was the rationale for that decision? To try to make a point that black women are better than white men? To get an audience among those who hate white men?

I don't know, but I see no good explanation. It cannot be to just gain black women viewers. I am not going to watch it, as I am apparently not part of the target audience.

The Corruption of Christianity

News from 2019:

Sweden's first openly lesbian bishop says she has more in common with some Muslims than with conservative Christians and believes Christians and Muslims pray to the same god.

Eva Brunne, a Church of Sweden bishop in Stockholm, has also said Muslim worshippers in churches are "angels" and that churches should remove all crosses that might offend them and instead mark the direction to Mecca for prayers.

This follows a trend in the Swedish Church to find common ground with Islam. During a church meeting last November, a motion to ban the Islamic call to prayer in Swedish cities was voted down, with some church officials saying it would be an "amazing" opportunity for more people to meet the "love of Allah."

Perhaps some see this as a sign that the Christian Swedes are broad-minded and tolerant. No, they are not.

First is the obvious contradiction. Moslems would hate a lesbian bishop.

Second, believing in Christianity means rejecting rival religions like Islam.

I understand Christians who believe in the Bible, or those who accept the teachings but reject the miracles, or atheists who reject it all. But why would someone attend a Christian church headed by someone who seems to think that Islam is a better religion?

Maybe that is inaccurate. A lesbian bishop cannot possibly think that Islam is a better religion. But what is her message? Is she preaching Christianity or not?

I am afraid that European Christianity is dying, and she is a symptom.

Update: Here is an Episcopal Church, supposedly Christian, but really all-gay.

People are Hysterical over Tariffs

NPR Radio reports:

And higher tariffs translate to higher prices for American consumers. Martha Gimbel of the Budget Lab at Yale takes an imaginary walk through a big box store to look at how much more people might pay for t-shirts, rice, medication and other staples.

It goes on to give scary percentages like 45%, but not how cheap this stuff is already.

I pay about $0.10 per serving for rice, and about $4 per t-shirt. These prices are small compared to trips to fast food restaurants, car maintenance, and many other common expenses.

I am not referring to sale prices either. Regular prices for quality rice and t-shirts at those big box stores.

Not that I like being taxed, but government spending is out of control, and we all pay for it somehow. I am not sure tariffs are any worse than any other tax.

The New Facebook Rules

Facebook announces:

We remove dehumanizing speech, allegations of serious immorality or criminality, and slurs. We also remove harmful stereotypes, which we define as dehumanizing comparisons that have historically been used to attack, intimidate, or exclude specific groups, and that are often linked with offline violence. Finally, we remove serious insults, expressions of contempt or disgust, cursing, and calls for exclusion or segregation when targeting people based on protected characteristics.

This list seems like an improvement over their system of fact-checkers. They put a lot of thought into this, so it is interesting to see what they concluded.

Harmful stereotypes historically linked to intimidation or violence, such as Blackface; Holocaust denial; claims that Jewish people control financial, political, or media institutions; references to Dalits as menial laborers; and comparing Black people to farm equipment.

I did not know that any of those things were linked to intimidation or violence. Blackface was mainly done for entertainment. You could run into trouble with Jews by just stating facts.

Finally, sometimes people curse at a gender in the context of a romantic break-up. Our policies are designed to allow room for these types of speech.

So if I just broke up with my girlfriend and I am upset about it, I guess I can say that I hate women.

Fascism Expert leaves the USA

CNN reports:

Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, who is leaving the prestigious Ivy League university for Toronto as the Trump administration’s battle with higher education in the US continues,...

Stanley set off a firestorm at the highest levels of American academia last Friday, when he decided to leave Yale and the United States largely, he said, because of the direction of the country under the Trump administration. ...

Amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses, Columbia was the first to experience funding cuts as President Donald Trump threatened to halt federal money going to colleges accused of tolerating antisemitism amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that started in October 2023.

“It’s just humiliating,” Stanley told CNN. “They’re humiliating the universities and I don’t see the universities standing up to it.”

So you think he is a Palestinian Arab subject to deportation? No, he is a New York Jew!

This is crazy Jewish Leftism at work. He had a completely secure job and life, and Trump policies have made his life better. And yet he pretends to be persecuted.

Dems Say Deadnaming is Child Abuse

News:

A proposed bill in Colorado could transform a simple slip of the tongue — or even a deeply held personal belief — into a legal nightmare for parents, schools, and businesses.

The bill, HB25-1312 or the “Kelly Loving Act,” is sponsored by three state Democrats: Reps. Lorena García and Rebekah Stewart Faith Winter and Senator Chris Kolker. If passed, it would classify so-called “misgendering” or “deadnaming” as child abuse or “coercive control.” In other words, parents who don’t condone a child’s transgender self-identification will be subject to punishment — including but not limited to losing custody of their own children.

This is really sick. Fortunately, Pres. Trump is standing against this nonsense.

America is Not just an Idea

Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy tweeted in Sept. 2024:

Two competing views of national identity:
1. Heritage, blood, soil.
2. Ideals, allegiance, duty.
Most nations are built around #1. Ours is built around #2. That’s what makes American exceptionalism possible.

The most liked reply was:

If America is an idea,
Why do people need to physically come here?
You can have an idea anywhere

Apparently most of the world would rather live under White rule, than non-white rule.

Vivek's argument is often used to justify importing non-White foreigners. I wonder where it comes from?

America is about 250 years old. Did anyone express this early on? I asked Grok3.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s tweet suggesting that America was founded on ideals, allegiance, and duty rather than heritage, blood, and soil reflects a particular interpretation of American identity—one that emphasizes a civic rather than an ethnic or ancestral basis for nationhood. This idea aligns with the concept of America as a "creedal nation," defined by shared principles like liberty, equality, and self-governance, rather than a common lineage or territorial origin. Let’s explore whether this perspective traces back to the Founders and their writings.

The Founders didn’t use the exact phrasing of "ideals, allegiance, duty" versus "heritage, blood, soil," but their ideas, as expressed in key documents and personal writings, lean heavily toward a nation built on principles rather than ethnicity or heredity. The Declaration of Independence (1776), penned by Thomas Jefferson, is a prime example. It grounds the American experiment in universal ideals: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." This isn’t about bloodlines or soil—it’s about a shared belief in rights and governance by consent. Jefferson later wrote in 1813 that America’s strength lay in its ability to attract "the virtuous and industrious" from abroad, suggesting openness to those who’d embrace its principles, not just those born on its land.

James Madison, in The Federalist Papers (No. 14), argued that America’s government was a bold experiment in liberty, distinct from older nations tied to monarchy or tribal roots. He framed it as a union of people choosing a system, not inheriting one. Alexander Hamilton, himself an immigrant, reinforced this in Federalist No. 1, emphasizing a nation built on "reflection and choice" rather than "accident and force"—a rejection of destiny tied to heritage.

That said, the Founders weren’t uniform, and some views complicate the picture. John Jay, in Federalist No. 2, described Americans as "one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion." This nods toward a cultural homogeneity that sounds closer to "blood and soil." Yet, Jay’s point was more about unity as a practical advantage for governance than a defining essence—context matters, as he was arguing for ratification, not codifying an ethnic state.

The Constitution itself avoids ethnic or hereditary language, focusing on "We the People" and their agreed-upon framework. It’s silent on ancestry as a qualification for citizenship, unlike, say, European monarchies rooted in dynastic bloodlines. The Naturalization Act of 1790 did limit citizenship to "free white persons," reflecting racial biases of the time, but this was a legal restriction, not a philosophical statement about the nation’s core identity.

Vivek’s framing echoes later thinkers too, like Abraham Lincoln, who in 1858 called America a nation dedicated to the "proposition" of equality, open to those who’d swear allegiance to it. This civic nationalism contrasts with European models—like Germany’s historical emphasis on Volksgeist (spirit of the people) tied to ethnicity and land.

So, did the Founders express this opinion? Broadly, yes—they prioritized ideals and voluntary commitment over ancestral ties, though they operated in a context where cultural similarities were assumed. Vivek’s tweet distills this into a modern dichotomy, amplifying the creedal aspect. The idea isn’t a direct quote from 1776, but it’s a fair reading of the Founding spirit, filtered through centuries of interpretation.

I replied:

You say that the Constitution itself avoids hereditary language, but it specifically says that its purpose is to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". That seems like hereditary language to me.

It said:

You’re right to point out the phrase "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" in the Constitution’s Preamble—it does carry a sense of inheritance, and it’s worth digging into what that means in context. The word "Posterity" literally refers to descendants, those who come after, which can sound like a nod to a familial or hereditary legacy. But let’s unpack whether this implies the kind of "heritage, blood, and soil" foundation Vivek’s tweet contrasts with, or something else.

In the Preamble, "ourselves and our Posterity" follows a list of goals: forming a more perfect union, establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, and promoting the general welfare. These are civic aims, not ethnic or ancestral ones. "Posterity" here seems to mean the future generations of the political community—the "We the People" who’ve signed onto this system—not necessarily a bloodline tied to a specific race or lineage. The Founders were setting up a government to perpetuate a way of life based on liberty, not to preserve a tribal identity.

This reading fits the broader document. The Constitution doesn’t define "the People" by heredity or restrict its benefits to a founding stock. It’s a framework for anyone who joins the compact—citizens by birth or naturalization. Compare this to, say, medieval charters tying rights to noble blood, or later nationalist ideologies like 19th-century German romanticism, where "soil" and "blood" explicitly meant ethnic purity and ancestral land. The U.S. Constitution lacks that flavor. Even the "Posterity" line doesn’t gatekeep who gets to be part of "the People" based on descent alone.

The Founders’ own words elsewhere support this. Jefferson, in his 1801 inaugural address, welcomed "the stranger" who’d "acknowledge" America’s principles, suggesting the nation’s future wasn’t just for biological heirs but for those who’d adopt its ideals. Madison, in Federalist No. 52, tied representation to "the People" as a living electorate, not a fixed hereditary class. The practical context matters too: they were building a republic amid diverse colonies—English, Dutch, German settlers, and more—where a strict blood-and-soil unity wasn’t feasible.

Now, your point still stands— "Posterity" has a hereditary ring to it, and it’s not wrong to see a literal intent to pass liberty to their kids and grandkids. Some Founders, like Adams, worried about virtue decaying in future generations, implying a hope their literal descendants would carry on. But the Constitution’s lack of mechanisms to enforce this hereditarily—like tying citizenship or rights to specific ancestry — suggests it’s less about "blood" as a defining trait and more about ensuring the system endures for whoever’s part of it down the line.

So, while "Posterity" evokes inheritance, it’s not hereditary in the sense of locking America’s identity to a founding lineage or ethnic core. It’s closer to a temporal promise—liberty for those who come after, under the same civic banner. Vivek’s “ideals, allegiance, duty” angle still holds up: the Founders weren’t handing down a kingdom or a tribe, but a set of principles meant to outlast them. The tension you’ve flagged shows how their language can pull in both directions, though the document’s thrust leans civic over ancestral.

It says diverse colonies meant English, Dutch, and German White Christians. They certainly knew about Negroes and Indians living in the area, but did not include them.

It is fair to say that there is an argument for and against Vivek's tweet. Decide for yourself.

British Schools watch Sick Netflix Drama

Australia news:

Author Douglass Murray discusses the policy by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer allowing the Netflix drama series Adolescence to be shown in secondary schools across the country for free.

"Keir Starmer has been labouring under the misapprehension that the Netflix series Adolescence is, in fact, a documentary," Mr Murray told Sky News host Rita Panahi.

"You would have to be pretty idiotic to think that what that is."

Starmer talked about “the devastating effect of misogyny on our society.”

I commented about this show and I am wondering what he thinks is the lesson.

The show was apparently partly inspired by a knife crime by an older Black teenager. A crime like this from a 13-year-old seemingly-harmless White kid like the one in the show would be very improbable.

The police have video proof that the boy committed the crime, so there is no doubt that he will be found guilty. Nevertheless, he has a right to a defense, and to tell the court how he was provoked by bullies. Much of the show is about steps to accord him that right.

Except that he never gets that right. His own lawyer hires a female psychologist who acts more like a police interrogator than a defense witness. She bullies him, and tries to get him to incriminate himself. She speaks completely inappropriately to a 13-year-old boy. His parents are not there to protect him from this abuse.

I know this is just a fictional movie, and I would not take it seriously, except for all the people who rave about this as if it were making a serious statement about toxic masculinity and violent incels. No, a 13-year-old is not an incel.

If you think a 13-year-old killer should be dealt harshly, then I understand that. But I do not agree with giving him a defense lawyer who hires a woman to abuse and humiliate him.

Update: There is a real teenaged stabbing in the news. A 17yo Black boy stabbed and killed a 16yo White boy in Frisco Texas.

Trump Demands Smithsonian be Corrected

Biology professor Jerry Coyne criticizes a NY Times analysis of a Pres. Trump executive order:

The tenor of this article, which is poorly researched but laden with quotes, is that human races do not exist and are merely a social construct. A few excerpts to that end:

The president’s order noted, among other things, that the show “promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating ‘Race is a human invention.’”

In interviews, several scholars questioned why the executive order appeared to take issue with that view, which is now broadly held. Samuel J. Redman, a history professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst who has written about scientific racism, said that “the executive order is troubling and out of step with the current consensus.” He added that pseudoscientific attempts to create a hierarchy of races with white people at the top were seen “in places like Nazi Germany or within the eugenics movement.”

He cowrote a nice 2023 article:

1. Sex in humans is not a discrete and binary distribution of males and females but a spectrum.
2. All behavioral and psychological differences between human males and females are due to socialization.
3. Evolutionary psychology, the study of the evolutionary roots of human behavior, is a bogus field based on false assumptions.
4. We should avoid studying genetic differences in behavior between individuals.
5. “Race and ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological meaning.”
6. Indigenous “ways of knowing” are equivalent to modern science and should be respected and taught as such.

As he explains, these 6 views have become fashionable in academia, but they are all false.

DNA tests can identify race, and that matches the self-identified race 99% of the time. So obviously race is a real biological classification, and not just a social construct.

They cannot show that Trump is wrong, so they say he "is troubling and out of step with the current consensus". The consensus of the academic race agitators is wrong, and this all the more shows the need for an executive order.

30 years ago biologists tried to take the scientific high ground, and lecture us endlessly on how Darwinism is scientific and creationism is not. Now it is just the opposite. Academic biologists have joined the woke religion, and insist on saying nonsense as if it were scientific. Coyne is an exception, as he is a retired old curmudgeon who can afford to stick to science.

The New Red Scare

The Princeton U president writes in The Atlantic magazine:

The United States is home to the best collection of research universities in the world. Those universities have contributed tremendously to America’s prosperity, health, and security. They are magnets for outstanding talent from throughout the country and around the world.

The Trump administration’s recent attack on Columbia University puts all of that at risk, presenting the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s. Every American should be concerned.

The rise of the American research university in the 20th century depended on many factors, including two crucial turning points. The first, at the start of the century, was the development of strong principles of academic freedom that allowed people and ideas to be judged by scholarly standards, not according to the whims or interests of powerful trustees, donors, or political officials.

This is the same college that fired a tenured classics professor because he denounced a student group, the Black Justice League, as “a small local terrorist organization”. Or maybe it was because he married one of his former students, it is hard to tell. At any rate, Princeton has already sold out its academic freedom.

Columbia and Harvard sold out even worse.

So why is he so upset? The Trump administration demands that recipients of federal funds do not racially discriminate, support free speech, and stop harassing Jews.

These colleges get a lot of federal money, with not much accountability to what taxpayers want. I think that they will have to face some cutbacks. Princeton is extremely rich, and does not need any federal money.

The Red Scare of the 1950s primarily affected professors who advocated Communism at a time that Communist countries were doing horrible things and were enemies of the USA. I am in favor of free speech, but the Commies were terrible and did not deserve taxdollar support.

Toddler Expelled for Transphobia

The London Daily Mail reports:

A toddler has been kicked out of nursery after being accused of transphobia, new figures reveal.

The child, aged either three or four, was suspended for 'abuse against sexual orientation and gender identity', data from the Department for Education shows.

The offences took place in the 2022-23 academic year at a state school, according to The Telegraph.

Statistics indicate 94 pupils at similar primary institutions were suspended or permanently excluded for transphobia or homophobia in the same year. ...

Sally and Nigel Rowe, whose sons attended a Church of England school, said they received a letter from the headteacher and chair of governors which declared pupils could be designated the term if they showed 'an inability to believe a transgender person is actually a ''real'' female or male.'

Most Christians do not believe in transgenderism.

French Lawfare Wrecks Election

CNN reports:

French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for political office for five years after being found guilty of embezzling European Union funds, in a politically explosive ruling that has shattered her hopes of winning the presidency in 2027. ...

The court’s presiding judge, Bénédicte de Perthuis, said Le Pen’s actions amounted to a “serious and lasting attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but especially in France.” She said Le Pen’s immediate ban on standing for office was tied to “democratic public unrest” that would result from the election of a person convicted of embezzlement.

Le Pen slammed the ruling as a purely “political decision” during an appearance on French TV station TF1 on Monday evening.

Those judge comments make it obvious that the decision was political. The purpose was to keep her from winning the next election. The EU could have withdrawn the money, if it did not like how she was spending it.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Le Pen’s conviction was a “very big deal.”

“She was banned from running for five years and she’s the leading candidate — that sounds like this country,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Also like Romania and Brazil, where lawfare blocked right-wing candidates.

Nothing in the article justifies calling her "far-right". She is more center-right, and does not advocate anything radical.

Canada Pays for Man to have Vagina and Penis

From Canada news, last year:

K.S. appealed OHIP’s decision to Ontario’s Health Services Appeal and Review Board, arguing that forcing her to have her penis removed would invalidate her identity and be akin to an illegal act of conversion therapy.

He won the appeal. The surgery is not done in Canada, so he will go to Texas for it, and Canada will pay.

When Airline Pilots Suffer Mental Illness

Today's NY Times podcast is about male homosexual airline pilots who cover up mental illnesses because they would be considered dangerous:

When he wasn't crying, he slept.

I've got to find a therapist, he told himself. And he did. Quickly, if that therapist didn't write down depression, Merritt would be okay. He could still fly planes, keep his job, as long as he wasn't diagnosed with a mental illness.

After several sessions, The therapist gently suggested that he might need medication.

Merritt adamantly refused.

The therapist never raised the subject again.

Merritt's husband, also an airline pilot, hoped he would break out of this funk.

It says that the FAA started allowing pilots with diagnosed depression, in some cases.

Covid was Widespread by Early Dec. 2019

There has been some reassessment of the covid-19 pandemic. I thought that it started in Wuhan China in Dec. 2019, and in the USA in Jan-Feb. 2020. Actually, it was earlier.

Some people blame China for not acting more promptly. But they acted much more quickly than the USA. The virus was widespread in California in Dec. 2019, and the health authorities did nothing.

Here is what is known. It appears that the virus was already out of control in California by Dec. 1, 2019.

The first proven case of COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is traced back to November 17, 2019, according to a retrospective analysis of medical records in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. This finding comes from a report by the South China Morning Post on March 13, 2020, which cited unpublished Chinese government data. The case involved a 55-year-old individual who exhibited symptoms consistent with COVID-19, though it wasn’t identified as such at the time due to the novel nature of the virus.

Key Details:

• Initial Identification: The virus wasn’t recognized until a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown origin emerged in late December 2019. On December 31, 2019, Chinese authorities reported this cluster to the World Health Organization (WHO), linking many cases to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan.
• Confirmation: The earliest confirmed case with a known onset date is often cited as December 1, 2019, from a study published in The Lancet (January 24, 2020), based on a patient who fell ill without direct market exposure. However, the November 17 case predates this, identified later through contact tracing and symptom analysis.
• Genetic Evidence: Subsequent genomic studies (e.g., from Nature, November 2020) suggest the virus may have been circulating in humans as early as mid-November 2019, aligning with the November 17 case as the earliest documented instance.

Why "Proven" Matters:

• Earlier suspected cases exist (e.g., anecdotal reports from October 2019 or claims of imported cases), but they lack definitive lab confirmation (e.g., PCR testing or sequencing) or official documentation. The November 17 case is the earliest with evidence from Chinese health records, though it wasn’t lab-confirmed until later.

Timeline Context:

• November 17, 2019: First symptomatic case (retrospectively identified).
• December 8–31, 2019: Cluster grows; Wuhan doctors like Dr. Li Wenliang raise alarms.
• January 11, 2020: China publicly shares the SARS-CoV-2 genome, confirming the new coronavirus.

So, based on available evidence, November 17, 2019, marks the first proven case of COVID-19. Let me know if you’d like more details on the science or early spread!

Based on retrospective evidence, the first case of COVID-19 in the United States is believed to have occurred as early as December 13–16, 2019, according to a study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This finding comes from analyzing archived blood samples collected from American Red Cross donors.

Key Evidence:

• Study Details: Published in Clinical Infectious Diseases on November 30, 2020, the CDC study examined 7,389 blood samples donated between December 13, 2019, and January 17, 2020, from nine states (California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin).
• Findings:
  • 106 samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, indicating prior infection.
  • The earliest positive samples were from December 13–16, 2019, in California, Oregon, and Washington—weeks before the first officially recognized U.S. case.
  • Specifically:
    • California: December 13–16, 2019
    • Oregon: December 15–16, 2019
    • Washington: December 15–16, 2019
• Methodology: The samples were tested for IgG and IgM antibodies, which typically appear 1–3 weeks after infection. This suggests infections could have occurred as early as late November or early December 2019, though the exact onset is uncertain due to antibody development timelines.

Context:

• Official First Case: The first confirmed U.S. case was announced on January 21, 2020, involving a 35-year-old man in Snohomish County, Washington, who had returned from Wuhan, China, on January 15 and tested positive via PCR on January 20 (reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, March 5, 2020).
• Retrospective Insight: The CDC study indicates community transmission was likely occurring in the U.S. before this, undetected due to limited testing and awareness of the virus at the time. These early cases were not diagnosed contemporaneously because COVID-19 wasn’t yet identified as a circulating pathogen in the U.S.

Limitations:

• No Symptom Data: Blood donation records don’t include symptom onset dates, so the exact timing of illness is inferred.
• Possible False Positives: While the antibody tests were specific to SARS-CoV-2, cross-reactivity with other coronaviruses was a concern, though the study used multiple assays to minimize this.
• Travel vs. Local Spread: It’s unclear whether these early cases were imported (e.g., from China) or represented local transmission.

Earlier Claims:

• Some anecdotal reports (e.g., a California death certificate listing COVID-19 from February 6, 2020, later backdated via autopsy to late January) and wastewater studies (e.g., Santa Clara County detecting viral RNA from mid-January 2020) suggest early presence, but the CDC’s December 2019 antibody evidence is the earliest robust retrospective data.

Conclusion:

Based on retrospective serological evidence, the first cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. likely date to December 13–16, 2019, in western states. This predates the officially recognized January 21, 2020, case by over a month, highlighting how the virus was silently spreading before detection systems were in place. Let me know if you’d like more on the study or its implications!