I’ve heard enough about the Crusades, that America was built
on stolen land or that Israel sits on occupied land. That’s life. Get over
it.
The reality is, for most of mankind’s and civilization’s
history, the world has been ordered by the most physically powerful individuals
and civilizations.I mention the
Crusades first because for the last quarter century we’ve been told that Muslim
terrorism is somehow understandable because of the Crusades. We’re led to
believe that the evil European Christians were invading the lands of the
innocent peaceful Muslims and trying to steal the Holy Lands.Well, that is partially true.Beginning in 1095 and lasting to 1291 various
Christian expeditions were indeed sent to the Holy Land in order to reconquer
Jerusalem and its environs.The First Crusade succeeded
in in 1099 and established four Christian states in the area that would stand
until the last was conquered in 1291.
It definitely sounds like the Christians were the
aggressors… until one actually picks up a history book. In 600 AD the Eastern Roman Empire,
what we today call the Byzantine Empire, stretched from the Strait of Gibraltar
to the eastern most part of modern day Turkey and included half of Italy, all
of Greece, all of Egypt, Israel, Syria and Jordan.It was a Christian Empire and it had been
built by the military power of the Roman legions over the previous 1200 years.
By 640 the Byzantine Empire was a shadow of itself but would remain a regional
power for the next 800 years.
This is the actual backdrop upon which the Crusades were
launched.And just to be clear, that
caliphate was not established, enlarged or maintained by peaceful
acquiescence.Muhammad alone fought
27 battles against “unbelievers” and the bloody conquest continued for
centuries after his death.
The British killed millions building an empire upon which
the sun never set.The Americans killed
hundreds of thousands of Indians during the establishment and growth of the
United States. But they were no different than the Aztecs,
the Māori, the Comanche, and most
civilizations around the world.
Indeed, right up until the middle of the 20th
century conquest was how much of the world ordered itself and violence was how
it was decided who would be ruling a country.In much of Africa it
has remains so.Violence, or the
threat of it is how problems were solved in most interactions for most of human
history around the world. The guy with the physical power to make others obey
usually makes the rules.
While violence remains and sometimes breaks out in conflicts
between or within nations, the truth is that the last 75 years has seen, admittedly
largely midwifed by the United States power, an historic
collapse in the number of deaths from war. Violence, at least in the west,
has, for the most part, been abandoned in favor of other forms of decision
making. Whether it’s economic trade, international bodies like the UN or
diplomatic negotiations, when mortal conflict does break out, its typically the
last of a long series of resolution attempts.
Why is this relevant in 2025?Because the civilization the west has
developed has metastasized into idiocy on the part of much of the population, particularly
among elites. Prosperity has, apparently, dulled their senses. They have zero
understanding of actual history. They recline in their comfortable chairs and
watch movies and TV shows and read social media posts that tell them that the
world is oppressed because of western imperialism and that it was the violence
of white Europeans that shattered humanity’s peaceful harmony.
The consequence of this historical ignorance and self-hatred
is suicidal
empathy. Across the west leftist
elites have indoctrinated much of the population to think that somehow the
institutions and civilization Europeans built will exist forever.That somehow – while simultaneously being
evil – the building blocks of our relatively peaceful and prosperous
civilization can and will survive regardless of who actually inhabits the west.
They take Francis Fukuyama literally when he suggested history
basically stopped because liberal democracies had won.
The logical result of this delusion is, rather than
strengthening the foundations of liberal democrat civilizations elites instead
import millions of mostly military aged men who harken from a completely
different worldview, Islam. With the expectation that they will assimilate and
internalize those western values.
Anyone paying attention recognizes that’s not happening.
Jordan Peterson articulates
the reality:Forty out of fifty
Muslim majority countries in the world are authoritarian hell-holes. And only
three are democracies: Morocco, Indonesia and Turkey. And I wouldn't put them
in higher echelons of stellar states. Why is that? Is that a deviation from Islamic
principles or is it the consequence of Islamism? Now nobody wants to have a
discussion and it's no bloody wonder.
There are certainly doctrines in Islam that are very,
very difficult to square with free, liberal, western Christian democracies. And
those differences are not just apparent, they are deep!
Islam is a problem for the west and it’s growing. But the
western elites, with their bodyguards, Swiss bank accounts and exclusive
neighborhoods have no clue about the chaos they are inflicting on their
nations. This is an invasion just as much as the 4th
and 5th century barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire were. The
difference is, the Romans at least fought until they were defeated whereas most
western leaders are embracing
those who will eventually subjugate them.
To understand exactly how serious this ostrich like behavior
is, one need only look at Britain’s latest attempt to address its violence
problem. Deportation of criminal aliens?No.
Severe enforcement of laws?Of
course not. No, the Brits
are now banning Samurai Swords and giving white men longer prison sentences
for… checks notes…
being white.
Western civilization has created more prosperity, freedom and
technological advances than any civilization in human history.The result of those advances has been to make
westerners soft, fat and willingly ignorant of the nature of mankind and the
history of civilizations. That’s unfortunate, because bondage has a way of clarifying
reality, and that’s exactly where the west is headed if it doesn’t wake up
soon. The world will once again become a violent place ruled by those with the
most power and the least compunction about using it. That won’t work out well
for anyone, but on the upside, at least the elites will finally have to face
the consequences of their actions…
I was
walking down the street yesterday, and suddenly, I heard honking from a bunch
of cars. Not sure what it was, I looked over to see a cavalcade of cars driving
by, waving big Palestinian flags out their windows. This went on for about five
minutes until, eventually, they had all disappeared.
This
comes on the heels of seeing the Palestinian flag painted on the sides of
buildings or on overpasses or stickers stuck to signs and the windows of
various McDonald’s –and not put there by the store’s owners! Thankfully, there
was no real disturbance other than a bit of annoyance.
They
are, of course, protesting the alleged “genocide” that’s being carried out in
Gaza by the IDF. We’ve been told that, in the slightly over 100 days since the
beginning of this war, there have been more than 24,000 civilian casualties at the
hands of the IDF. Given that that information is coming from
Palestinian “authorities” which, in Gaza is Hamas, that number is likely highly
exaggerated. Even so, if the actual number is 10% of that total, it’s a
tragedy. One civilian death, never mind 2,400 or 24,000, is a tragedy. It’s not
genocide, but it’s a tragedy nonetheless.
Simply,
it’s war, and most wars include civilian deaths, many of them.
And how
did we get to this war? As everyone knows, it started on October 7th when Hamas
sent terrorists (“freedom fighters”) into Israel who raped, tortured, and
murdered some 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, with victims ranging from
10-month-old babies to 80-plus-year-old men and women. And they kidnapped 200
more.
The
depravity of the attacks was extraordinary, something along the lines of Dr.
Mengele or the Rape of Nanking. We’re told, however, that while the events of
Oct 7th were indeed despicable, the Israeli response has been disproportionate
insofar as civilians have died. And as such, we’re also told that Israel needs
to be stopped. And punished.
Solely
for argument’s sake, let’s pretend that there is some moral equivalency here
and agree that the terrorist attack by Hamas and the so-called disproportionate
response from Israel are somehow equal.
Then the
question becomes, how did we get to this place? In November, someone posted a
TikTok video showcasing “Beautiful Gaza that you never saw
before. Filmed just before Oct 7th, 2023.” The video shows
bright Mediterranean colors, beautiful smiling faces, and everything from
bustling stores to beach resorts to crowded restaurants and much more. It looks
like a Madison Avenue marketing job seeking to induce the world to spend their
next vacation in Gaza. (See also this tweet describing what soldiers saw: wealth
and militarization.)
Nevertheless,
we’ve repeatedly been told that Gaza is a modern concentration camp. That’s
why, pro-Hamas factions insist, Hamas was forced to attack Israel in an attempt
to break the Israeli chokehold on the Palestinians.
But, if
indeed it is true that Israel was turning Gaza into a giant death camp, where
was the rest of the world? Why weren’t they helping? Well, it turns out, the
world was helping… A lot. And I mean a lot!
The
average works out to about $3 billion annually for a population of
approximately 2.3 million people or about $1,300 per person living in Gaza.
That $1,300 makes up a little less than half of the per capita income of the
average citizen of Gaza. Other sources of income are primarily small businesses
and agriculture.
We’re
told that the citizens of Gaza live in poverty that Israel imposes upon them.
The approximate $3,000 per capita income of the citizens of Gaza puts them at
about 165 in the world rankings,
ahead of 30 nations, most in Africa.
What’s
more, and far more deadly, is that Hamas spends billions of dollars a year on
things that have nothing to do with supporting Gazan citizens. Firstly, they
have spent over $1 billion on a 350-mile-long network
of tunnels under Gaza, a 141-square-mile strip of land. Every mile of those
tunnels represents piping or concrete or steel that could have gone to building
schools, shopping malls, hospitals or anything else that could have positively
affected the lives of Gazans. But they didn’t.
Those
tunnels had to be used for something, of course, and that something was and is
preparing to attack and actually attacking Israel. Of course, to do that, they
need weapons and Hamas has spent $5 billion on weapons over the
last decade and a half. Everything from small arms to bombs to
missiles.
Together,
the total theft for the tunnels and the military spending equals $17 billion or
42% of the world’s contributions to Gaza over that 15-year period. But here’s
the thing: As bad as it was that Hamas squandered at least 42% of Gaza’s
donations, the reality is that the real damage isn’t the money. The real damage
is that, instead of focusing the people on building a thriving, robust economy,
Hamas instead focused on teaching children to hate Israel and
launching tens of thousands of rockets into
Israel.
So,
Hamas pushed the hate narrative and launched missiles into Israel on a regular
basis, actions that would, of course, prompt reprisals, which would, in turn,
reinforce the hate. It was and is a never-ending cycle of victimization, hate,
and poverty. Hamas, not the Gazans, profited from this. Yet, somehow, the money
keeps coming... because most relevant actors don’t care about actual progress
or peace.
Nonetheless,
they say that hindsight is 20/20. That’s true, and so too is the reality that,
had Hamas taken a different path and its leaders pushed for living in peace
with Israel rather than cultivating a perpetual war footing, we wouldn’t be
watching Gaza turned into a parking lot. But they didn’t, and we are.
This is
simply another example of leaders using their citizens as cannon fodder so that
they can accumulate fortune and power. When the dust settles, one can only hope
the Gazan people look at the difference between their world and the luxury
their leaders enjoy and decide to vote for a different path forward, one that
doesn’t include perpetual war and tragedy. Sadly, I’m not holding my breath.
This past summer there were a lot of American flags ripped,
walked on and set on fire around the country.Protesters pulled down statues, looted stores and set buildings on fire
across the country.They claim that
America is racist.They claim Donald
Trump is a fascist.They suggest
Capitalism is a cancer and must be replaced.And the Constitution, as it has been a tool of oppression since its
writing, must be eliminated.
To listen to protesters speak, the United States is a
cesspool of racism and oppression where only the rich thrive.
Maybe they’re right.Maybe America is nothing but one large work camp where citizens are
oppressed by their overlords where they have no freedoms and experience a
quality of life that is something out of Dickens. Maybe…
If that’s true, it should be easy to spot.Below are a variety of tables listing measures
of life ranked by country.The sources
for each set of data is different but most evaluate between 180 & 210
countries, depending on how that term is defined.
So what do the data say about this fascist, oppressive American
country? Well, as a journalist might say... lets's go to the data.
How about we start off with the basics… Life
Expectancy.Below is a table of selected
countries for life expectancy.The world
average is 72.6 and the United States comes in at 78.9, putting it solidly in
the top 25%.That’s not terrible.
Then of course there’s earning a living.Below is a table with the average incomes
around the world and the United States comes in at #5, with not a single
country above the United States having more people than the city of New York. That
matters of course because like herding cat, having a country where people are
spread out over vast areas, have extraordinarily different backgrounds and
heritages it’s far more difficult to get everyone on the same page in terms of
what works to achieve prosperity.America has done that.
And of course everyone talks about GDP, the sum of all of
the goods and services a nation produces. Below is a table of the 15 nations
with the largest GDPs in the world.The
United States, with 5% of the planet’s population produces 24% of the world’s
economic output:
Another way of looking at this is GDP on a per capita
basis.Here too none of the nations
above the United States has a population above that of New York.Again, none of the other countries on this
list comes close to being similar to the United States in terms of size and
diversity of our population, and with only Australia being similar when
compared to geographic footprint.
Of course it’s not all about income, it’s about what you can
do with that income.Below is a table showing
the top 20 countries (out of 101) based on the cost of living which measures
what one can actually purchase with the money they earn.And the United States comes in at 4.
Most of us work for a living and sometimes things work out
well and we accumulate significant assets, making us millionaires!Sadly, I’m not one of them, but there are a
LOT of millionaires in the United States.As a matter of fact, the United States, which again is 5% of the world’s
population, is the home of fully 40% of the world’s millionaires:
Millionaires: (in thousands)
1
United
States
18,614
2
China
4,447
3
Japan
3,025
4
United
Kingdom
2,460
5
Germany
2,187
6
France
2,071
7
Italy
1,496
8
Canada
1,322
9
Australia
1,180
10
Spain
979
11
Netherlands
832
12
Switzerland
810
13
India
759
14
South
Korea
741
15
Taiwan
528
And not only that, the number of millionaires as a
percentage of the population is higher in the United States than any nation on
the planet other than Switzerland… but in our defense, Switzerland has really
good chocolate.
Particularly important in this discussion is who those
millionaires are.The makeup of American
millionaires is below.Minorities,
making up 40% of the nation’s population, make up 24% of the millionaires.
And what’s equally important about achieving economic success is mobility into
America’s economic elite.Forbes, which
publishes its annual Forbes 400 chronicling the 400 richest Americans reports
that fully 70% of America’s richest individuals are self made while only 30%
inherited their fortunes.
American Millionaires By Race (and Population Race
Breakdown):
But of course not everyone will end up millionaires, but
opportunities exist nonetheless.Below
is a table that chronicles social mobility, which is roughly characterized as
the ability to move from one economic level to another.Of the approximately 180 countries in the
world this table looks at the 82 with the most measurable opportunities.The average of these 82 countries is 62.2,
and the United States comes in position of 27 with a mobility score of 70.4,
while Denmark is first with a score of 85.2 and Côte d’Ivoire is last with a
score of 34.5.A significant element of
this measure is education and healthcare, both of which drag down the United
States significantly thanks to excessive government intervention.
The reality of the fact that government intervention in
healthcare and education handicap the country is be demonstrated by the
following table that looks at the ease of doing business.This metric includes starting a business as
one of its measures, along with things like regulations, taxes, rule of law and
others.Starting a business is one of
the most effective ways in which one might improve their family’s economic
situation.To the degree that the United
States is ranked sixth out of 180 nations in terms of the ease of doing
business yet 27th in terms of social mobility suggests that that economic
opportunity is very real, while other measures hold the country back.
How about getting to work to run that business or make that
money – and hopefully have some fun too!Americans love to drive.As such,
the price of gas is a big deal.Below is
what people pay in different countries for gas.The world average is $3.80 and the US comes in at $2.15 per gallon while
in France they pay $5.94 and in Hong Kong they pay $8.49!
But it’s not just gas, but there’s buying a car and
maintaining it.Below is a table that
shows the percentage of annual salary it would take to buy a family car and
operate it for one year.These costs
include not only the car and its gas, but insurance and maintenance as well.
And where might an American drive?How about home!Below is a table showing the size of homes
for various countries around the world.The only nation where homes are bigger on average than in the United
States is Australia, but that should be expected as apparently all Australians
keep pet crocodiles!
It’s not just the freedom to drive around that American’s
like.For a nation that was founded on
the pursuit of freedom, freedom of all sorts is still important.Below are two tables, one measuring Economic
Freedom and the other Personal Freedom.
The freedoms in the following two tables in this analysis encompass
a variety of measures including these: Rule of Law / Security and Safety /
Movement / Religion / Association, Assembly, and Civil Society / Expression and
Information / Identity and Relationships / Size of Government / Legal System
and Property Rights.The numbers below
are the top nations of the total pool of 162 nations measured.
And of course the number one freedom someone can have is the
freedom of speech. Without the freedom to say what’s on your mind without fear
of retribution from the government is the strongest tool available for keeping
a government honest.Below is a table
demonstrating something that anyone paying attention this summer would
recognize, Americans have a level of free speech unfettered by government
authorities that is unprecedented in the world.
Another part of freedom is access to information, which is
increasingly delivered via the Internet.Below is a table that looks at the percent of the population with
Internet access for 214 countries.
While the United States may lag far behind on academic
success in primary education, our university system is the best in the world by
far.Below are the 15 best universities
in the world and the only two on the list that are not from the United States
are Oxford and Cambridge in the UK.
Then there is charity.The United States spends more money on charity than any other nation by
far.That is a function of both the
largest GDP as well as the percentage of giving.That is reflected in the table on the left
below.The table on the right measures a
more holistic giving approach that combines donations, volunteering and helping
strangers.Here the United States sits
at number two.
But it’s not just charity that demonstrates America’s
willingness to help, it’s the total social welfare spending.For whatever one’s views on such endeavors,
the United States is behind only France in social welfare spending.This measure includes things such as public
and private social expenditure, the effect of direct taxes (income tax and
social security contributions), indirect taxation of consumption on cash
benefits, as well as tax breaks for social purposes.
We are slight slackers however when it comes to spending on
video games.Americans come in number 3
behind Japan and South Korea on this important measure.
There is one last measure that must be looked at.That is Defense.The United States spends more on defense than
the next 10 countries combined.For some
that might sound problematic, but the reality is that American spending on
defense has allowed the world, particularly Europe to thrive.The second table below shows defense spending
as a percent of GDP.One of the reasons
that European nations are able to generate such extensive welfare spending programs
is that they have kept their defense spending low for decades while the United
States defense expenditures brought about the longest period of overall peace
in Europe in history.That spending may
not show up in happiness measures or salary measures, but it most certainly
shows up in the fact that both Europe and the United States remain bastions of
freedom, democracy and peace, and the carnage of a world war is a distant
memory we read about rather than something we all experienced firsthand. The
first table shows absolute defense spending and the second shows spending as a percentage
of GDP.
At the end of the day, this is piece is a chronicle of the
reality of America. America is indeed imperfect, no doubt for every table here
someone can find their own tables that paint a far darker picture using their
own sources.America does have
inequality, dysfunctional education and healthcare systems and too much
government regulation, but at the same time, Americans have done more with what
they have than any nation on earth.America offers economic opportunities on a wider scale (both geographic
and occupational) than any nation on earth. From Florida to New York to
California to Wyoming the opportunities are simply staggering from doctor to
scientist to graphic designer to business consultant to startup founder to
mechanic to plumber to Instagram model…
What many of the protesters don’t care about is the fact
that the United States Constitution guarantees Americans freedoms that people
in most of the world can only dream of and to the degree that others share some
of them, those freedoms are often at the mercy of political majorities.That includes minority opinions because
things that the majority agree with don’t generally need protection.
At the same time, the United States regularly receives more
immigrants from more places than any nation on earth and gives them opportunities
and freedoms most would or could not dream of at home.And it integrates immigrants at a pace that
no nation has in history.
While there are racial tensions in the United States as
there have been since its founding, in the last half century the country has
made extraordinary leaps which can be seen in both culture and economics, the
former can be seen on televisions, on sports shows and regularly on the radio
while the latter is demonstrated by the fact that 8% of American millionaires
are black, 8% are Asian and 7% are Hispanic.I’ve not found a source thus far, but one can imagine that those numbers
were far smaller during the 1950’s and 1960’s. But I can say that the story the Democrats and the media try and foist on us that America is indeed a bastion of racism is fiction. (https://imperfectamerica.blogspot.com/2020/06/data-shows-driving-while-black-meme-is.html)
For those who want to tear apart American culture because it’s
not what they like, denigrate American values because we’ve not achieved them
on their timetable, want to overthrow America’s capitalist system because they’d
prefer the “equality” promised by socialism or Communism, I’d ask, what place
in the world today, or in world history has a nation done a better job than
America of giving opportunity to its citizens, generating prosperity for its
citizens, protecting its citizens’ freedoms and at the same time helping drive
prosperity and peace around the world?If such a nation exists perhaps I’d certainly be interested in reading
about it.
Tomorrow there are two choices on the ballot.One candidate, a very flawed but passionate man,
understands that the United States is the greatest nation to ever grace the
face of this earth and sees his role as protecting that legacy and rolling back
government intervention to allow Americans of all stripes to address the
country’s shortcomings and achieve even greater success in the future.
The other also an imperfect man, but he sees the United
States as a highly flawed nation, he sees Americans of various identities as
victims and the Constitution as a roadblock to change rather than a guarantee of
freedom and a limit on government intervention on behalf of the majority.
If you like what you’ve seen in the streets of America over
the last six months and would like to see more of it, Joe Biden is your man and
the Democrats are your party.If however
you believe like Ronald Reagan that America’s best days are ahead of her and
that freedom and opportunity are the solutions to most of the problems we face,
Donald Trump is your man and the Republicans are your party.
