Death of a Civilization

I have just read an article by David Deming from LewRockwell.com, entitled Death of a Civilization.

It's a great article that perfectly illustrates where Western Civilization is headed based on one of the more notable examples in history, and how a civilization destroyed itself by following an ideology based on lies. Here's the tragic story of that civilization...the Xhosa of Southeast Africa:

In the early nineteenth century, the British colonized Southeast Africa. The native Xhosa resisted, but suffered repeated and humiliating defeats at the hands of British military forces. The Xhosa lost their independence and their native land became an English colony. The British adopted a policy of westernizing the Xhosa. They were to be converted to Christianity, and their native culture and religion was to be wiped out. Under the stress of being confronted by a superior and irresistible technology, the Xhosa developed feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. In this climate, a prophet appeared.

In April of 1856, a fifteen-year-old girl named Nongqawuse heard a voice telling her that the Xhosa must kill all their cattle, stop cultivating their fields, and destroy their stores of grain and food. The voice insisted that the Xhosa must also get rid of their hoes, cooking pots, and every utensil necessary for the maintenance of life. Once these things were accomplished, a new day would magically dawn. Everything necessary for life would spring spontaneously from the earth. The dead would be resurrected. The blind would see and the old would have their youth restored. New food and livestock would appear in abundance, spontaneously sprouting from the earth. The British would be swept into the sea, and the Xhosa would be restored to their former glory. What was promised was nothing less than the establishment of paradise on earth.

Nongqawuse told this story to her guardian and uncle, Mhlakaza. At first, the uncle was skeptical. But he became a believer after accompanying his niece to the spot where she heard the voices. Although Mhlakaza heard nothing, he became convinced that Nongqawuse was hearing the voice of her dead father, and that the instructions must be obeyed. Mhlakaza became the chief prophet and leader of the cattle-killing movement.

News of the prophecy spread rapidly, and within a few weeks the Xhosa king, Sarhili, became a convert. He ordered the Xhosa to slaughter their cattle and, in a symbolic act, killed his favorite ox. As the hysteria widened, other Xhosa began to have visions. Some saw shadows of the resurrected dead arising from the sea, standing in rushes on the river bank, or even floating in the air. Everywhere that people looked, they found evidence to support what they desperately wanted to be true.

The believers began their work in earnest. Vast amounts of grain were taken out of storage and scattered on the ground to rot. Cattle were killed so quickly and on such an immense scale that vultures could not entirely devour the rotting flesh. The ultimate number of cattle that the Xhosa slaughtered was 400,000. After killing their livestock, the Xhosa built new, larger kraals to hold the marvelous new beasts that they anticipated would rise out of the earth. The impetus of the movement became irresistible.

The resurrection of the dead was predicted to occur on the full moon of June, 1856. Nothing happened. The chief prophet of the cattle-killing movement, Mhlakaza, moved the date to the full moon of August. But again the prophecy was not fulfilled.

The cattle-killing movement now began to enter a final, deadly phase, which its own internal logic dictated as inevitable. The failure of the prophecies was blamed on the fact that the cattle-killing had not been completed. Most believers had retained a few cattle, chiefly consisting of milk cows that provided an immediate and continuous food supply. Worse yet, there was a minority community of skeptical non-believers who refused to kill their livestock.

The fall planting season came and went. Believers threw their spades into the rivers and did not sow a single seed in the ground. By December of 1856, the Xhosa began to feel the pangs of hunger. They scoured the fields and woods for berries and roots, and attempted to eat bark stripped from trees. Mhlakaza set a new date of December 11 for the fulfillment of the prophecy. When the anticipated event did not occur, unbelievers were blamed.

The resurrection was rescheduled yet again for February 16, 1857, but the believers were again disappointed. Even this late, the average believer still had three or four head of livestock alive. The repeated failure of the prophecies could only mean that the Xhosa had failed to fulfill the necessary requirement of killing every last head of cattle. Now, they finally began to complete the killing process. Not only cattle were slaughtered, but also chickens and goats. Any viable means of sustenance had to be destroyed. Any cattle that might have escaped earlier killing were now slaughtered for food.

Serious famine began in late spring of 1857. All the food was gone. The starving population broke into stables and ate horse food. They gathered bones that had lay bleaching in the sun for years and tried to make soup. They ate grass. Maddened by hunger, some resorted to cannibalism. Weakened by starvation, family members often had to lay and watch dogs devour the corpses of their spouses and children. Those who did not die directly from hunger fell prey to disease. To the end, true believers never renounced their faith. They simply starved to death, blaming the failure of the prophecy on the doubts of non-believers.

By the end of 1858, the Xhosa population had dropped from 105,000 to 26,000. Forty to fifty-thousand people starved to death, and the rest migrated. With Xhosa civilization destroyed, the land was cleared for white settlement. The British found that those Xhosa who survived proved to be docile and useful servants. What the British Empire had been unable to accomplish in more than fifty years of aggressive colonialism, the Xhosa did to themselves in less than two years.

Sound like any Civilization-destroying ideologies for which the true believers NEVER renounce their faith, that we may know of?

Deming points to one of the most obvious:

Western civilization now stands on the brink of repeating the experience of the Xhosa. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century, Europe and North America have enjoyed the greatest prosperity ever known on earth. Life expectancy has doubled. In a little more than two hundred years, every objective measure of human welfare has increased more than in all of previous human history.

But Western Civilization is coasting on an impetus provided by our ancestors. There is scarcely anyone alive in Europe or America today who believes in the superiority of Western society. Guilt and shame hang around our necks like millstones, dragging our emasculated culture to the verge of self-immolation. Whatever faults the British Empire-builders may have had, they were certain of themselves.

Our forefathers built a technological civilization based on energy provided by carbon-based fossil fuels. Without the inexpensive and reliable energy provided by coal, oil, and gas, our civilization would quickly collapse. The prophets of global warming now want us to do precisely that.

Like the prophet Mhlakaza, Al Gore promises that if we stop using carbon-based energy, new energy technologies will magically appear. The laws of physics and chemistry will be repealed by political will power. We will achieve prosperity by destroying the very means by which prosperity is created.

While Western Civilization sits confused, crippled with self-doubt and guilt, the Chinese are rapidly building an energy-intensive technological civilization. They have 2,000 coal-fired power plants, and are currently constructing new ones at the rate of one a week. In China, more people believe in free-market economics than in the US. Our Asian friends are about to be nominated by history as the new torchbearers of human progress.

Deming is dead right on this...but there's so much more to this cautionary tale and our present day parallels!

But Western Civilization is coasting on an impetus provided by our ancestors.

As the institution of Patriarchy continues to crumble in the face of our Brave New World Order's war on the nuclear family, it's fairly obvious that we are in fact a Civilization that advanced so far and so quickly in terms of economic productivity and technological achievement because of the impetus of our past's largely Patriarchal-modeled society.

As everyday passes, and the institution of marriage is further degraded...as more and more single mother households dependent on collectivist government are created...as more children are born out of wedlock...as more families are ground up in the gears of the divorce court industry...as more and more men become apathetic to the state of society because they are no longer invested in it due to having been stripped of their roles as providers and Fathers...it becomes more and more obvious that we in fact are on the exact same trajectory as the ill-fated Xhostra.

We are not killing our cattle...we are killing our families.

Kill the family, kill the civilization.

Vegetarians Are Evil

The title for this post was taken from this humorous (but fact based) website: Vegetarians Are Evil.

While the website is a bit over the top, with articles like "Evil Vegetarians in History," the basic facts are pretty well documented.

I've gotten into plenty of arguments with vegans and vegetarians over the years about what is or is not a "healthy" diet.

I got into a protracted debate in the comment section with a few vegans at self-proclaimed libertarian (though she voted for Obama...go figure) Megan McCardle's blog, Asymmetrical Information.

In response to one of the vegan's, I wrote the following to once and for all settle the debate. My last post was a thread killer - seems to me all of the vegans and veg-heads couldn't respond at all. Here's what I wrote:

Everyone is entitled to make their own food choices.

Everyone is free to proselytize their lifestyle choices to try to convince others to follow them.

Please recognize that the human body has evolved or was created (whichever you believe) to be OMNIVOROUS.

Physiologically, our dental structure has incisors designed specifically for tearing flesh. We also have stomachs that produce hydrochloric acid.

These are physiological traits that are ONLY found in omnivorous and carnivorous species on the planet. Therefore, it requires no morality judgment or contention to say that consuming animal protein is quite natural and healthy, provided the source animals are natural and healthy.

Therefore, whether you believe in a religion based on the worship of an Omnipotent Deity or Deities as your source for moral principles, or if you are a Darwinist evolutionary atheist/agnostic/humanist, understand that you were designed to eat, digest and live off of animal protein. The physiological facts are indisputable.

Equating animals to humans or the predation of prey species as some kind of moral question is UNNATURAL.

Even if you cannot bear the idea of an animal dying to promote your own subsistence, there are still plenty of means of obtaining the vital animal protein's YOUR OMNIVOROUS BODY REQUIRES - humanely raised, free range organic chicken's allowed to eat their natural, omnivorous diet provide high quality eggs full of protein and essential fatty acids. Milk and milk fat produce derived from free range, pastured cows NOT PASTEURIZED, also provide a whole range of beneficial food products that your body will thrive on. And neither require cruelty or "exploitation." In fact, both sources require excellent husbandry of these animals to provide the highest quality foods that promote health and vitality.

On the question of environmentalism - the modern large scale industrial methods of producing meat and produce are harmful to the environment, inhumane to the animals, and provide substandard and even harmful "food."

Cows were not meant to be confined to feed lots, wallowing in their own offal and eating grains. They were designed/evolved to eat grass on pasture land - in which they exist in perfect symbiosis with their natural environment. They're eating the food they were designed/evolved to, and their offal fertilizes the land they just grazed, promoting new growth of the grass they just consumed. Also, naturally pastured cows provide milk and meat with high levels of Vitamin D, Conjugated Linoleic Acids and Omega-3 fatty acids...as well as Vitamin B12 - the one Vitamin your body absolutely needs, but cannot obtain through strict vegetarian diets.

Vegans and Vegetarians will often point to the produce of the Big Corporation Meat Production industries, their environmentally degrading feedlots and unhealthy reliance on preservatives and chemicals to extend shelf life and maximize profits as an indictment of all carnivorous dietary practices. This is akin to saying one should avoid eating all Spinach, simply because some unethical farmers spray neuro-toxic pesticides and use cholera-infected human feces as fertilizer on their Spinach crops.

There is a huge distinction in health and environmental benefits/detriments when discussing ANY food production techniques. But to say one's entire diet should be based on avoiding an entire class of food simply because SOME sources of that food are produced in an inferior and harmful manner is to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

Another physiological point of consideration is the bodies requirement of proteins and fats. Vegans and Vegetarians think plant based substitutes are adequate and/or superior to animal sources of proteins and fats. Soy is the most popular (note Megan's suggestion to add Tofu as a protein source.)

What they often do not know is that Soy for the most part is full of estrogenic isoflavones that upset the bodies hormonal balance and can lead to a whole host of health problems.

This site, Soy Online Service offers a very comprehensive but easy to understand explanation to back up what I just claimed about Soy. There are plenty of other sites dedicated to the health dangers of Soy foods. Google it yourself.

Finally, many vegans and vegetarians are under the mistaken assumption that avoiding animal derived foods is the healthiest diet possible. But even the modern feed lot, preservative laden denatured animal products are healthier for you than the primary culprits of the modern, industrial societies degenerative diseases that are found in abundance in the typical Western societies diets - simple carbohydrates (refined grain products & sugar), trans-fats, chemical preservatives and taste enhancers and the proliferation of vegetable oils that oxidize easily and upset the optimal ratio of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids.

Here's another article on the Omega 6 and 3 ratio (pdf) and how modern manufactured foods have it completely out of whack: Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them.

Veganism and Vegetarianism is based on emotional appeals (how you FEEL about the animals treatment) rather than an objective look at the scientific facts.

It relies on propaganda and scare tactics to try and convert people into adopting their own dietary practices...because anyone that truly and objectively researches the facts of the matter will come to realize that veganism is not a natural or health-optimizing diet.

Lorena's Red Wagon

My wife watches the national morning news every morning while we are getting ready for work. I cannot stand it, and usually am busy cooking breakfast and not paying attention to the TV...

...but this morning, the news did a feature on the "reunion" of John and Lorena Bobbit.

So, today, after I got into work, I googled "bobbit reunion" and did a little reading to see where America's most famous genital mutilator has been up to.

Fascinating to learn that in fact Ms. Bobbit has started her own website, entitled Lorena's Red Wagon.

From her "About" page:

Lorena has overcome many obstacles in her life, and has been able to reach a level of success that allows her to be heard once and for all. Domestic violence is unacceptable! Lorena was a victim of domestic violence herself- everyone has read the headlines and remembers the stand that Lorena took against domestic violence years ago.

Talk about Orwellian double speak!

Domestic violence is UNACCEPTABLE...unless it's a women cutting off a man's penis. THAT is TAKING A STAND!

From her front page:

What is Domestic Abuse?

* Violent and coercive tactics committed by one intimate partner against another

You mean like cutting your husband's penis off while he is asleep?

* A pattern of controlling behavior that consists of physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse

Hmmmm...so is cutting off your sleeping husband's penis sexual, physical or psychological abuse?

* A learned behavior

So who taught you, Ms. Bobbit, that cutting off your husband's penis while he was sleeping, was TAKING A STAND AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE!?

* Affects not only the victim, but the family, friends and co-workers as well.

Who was affected worse...John Bobbits family, friends and co-workers...OR HIS SEVERED PENIS?