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I highly recommend people spend some time watching the SABC coverage of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission on YT. It's uploaded in full (albeit split annoyingly into early 2000's 10min video limits). I continue to be fascinated by South Africa. It's history mirrors the US imo.

I don't think there's any saving that country tbh. You'd probably have to return to Apartheid style governance. But even if you had the political support in the US and EU, I don't think it's possible to perenially govern a majority population that's incapable of maintaining basic societal function. There's a little town called Orania (I'm sure people who read Nic have heard of it.) All Afrikaners, tgeyve managed to build schools, sewage treatment and power plants. I sincerely wish them luck.

On smoking, if you'll pardon the crassness, is the absolute gayest liberal cause celebre. I'd take these people a lot more seriously if they weren't legalizing smoking weed and treating drug addiction with "safe use centers." Everyone seems to think they'll get insta-lung cancer if they breathe in second hand smoke. You can sign up for the military at 18, but can't smoke (or drink) until you're 21 in most states. That is, simply, fucked up.

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Problem with Orania is that they’ve ghettoized themselves and are at the mercy of the benevolence of the majority government. Even the loophole they’ve been granted is the language group, they do not allow Anglos.

The second they can be targeted for political purposes they will have to fight.

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Exactly. It's a simple numbers game. Theyre very smart and very capable, but theyre gonna need a lot more than that if they're going to hold out indefinitely.

And it's not just Orania vs the ANC, it's Orania vs the World.

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Speaking about pro-natalism and South Africans, Elon Musk's had a secret project designed to stop the population decline. He had 11 kids with 3 different women. The man executes potential solutions as soon as there is a problem.

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The areas where smoking is allowed in Canada are clearly indicated. Just look for butts strewn all over the ground.

Smoking areas should be as common as pigsties.

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smoking 👍🇮🇱👍

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If BRICS were a convoy, I imagine the S leading them boldly into the future. They all have issues with corruption, some of it legendary.

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founding

Excellent, as always. As to early fertility drop in France, I discussed this here, nearly five years ago, in the context of Ibbitson's "Empty Planet."

https://theworthyhouse.com/2019/02/12/book-review-empty-planet-darrell-bricker-and-john-ibbitson/

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I've never smoked and don't understand people that do. Nonetheless, the argument that people should be banned from smoking outdoors because it's offensive to non-smokers is ludicrous. What about homeless people, or ugly people or badly dressed people? I may find all of those offensive but that doesn't mean they should be banned. Also, it makes zero sense to focus on eliminating outdoor smoking while at the same time allowing/promoting pot smoking everywhere. The streets of major cities now smell like pot shops, and it more than drowns out cigarette smoke.

One idea that I'd be okay with is removing smoking-related diseases from national health coverage. A smoker's lung cancer is voluntarily accepted along with the smoking habit, and there's no reason for non-smokers to foot the bill. No need to attack this in the comments; I know it could easily extend to illegal drugs, alcohol and lots of other things. I still like the idea despite the impracticality.

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The pot legalization thing is all gas no brakes. Completely irresponsible. Very little regulation and seemingly no interest in enforcing it.

I find it funny how pot is the one thing the states can openly throw a middle finger towards the fed government about. Anything else and theyd send the feds in immediately

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I dunno. Is being taxed high enough to keep people going the illegal route a regulation?

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Barely. My big issue is how casual marijuana/thc use is in comparison to alcohol. I'll be driving behind someone and catch a whiff of marijuana smoke. In the US you can't really drink in public, a cop will write you up for sipping alcohol on the sidewalk, but the whole block smells like pot and no one does anything. Where's the line? Pot is a drug. It has it's benefits, but no one cares about the negatives. We can't even be sure of the negatives yet tbh

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It's always cheaper to get illegally but convenience plays a bigger role these days. Weed delivery is now a thing. Both illegal weed and large scale commercial weed are probably here to stay, though we will see the commercial guys continue to try to snipe the illegal ones

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In CA, the black market for weed is alive and well, as the taxation of "legal" weed makes using dealers more financially attractive.

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Aha, you see. It's to neutralise a potential massive swathe of opposition for when they bring in digital currency. I know most chronic pot smokers are pretty neutralised already but it's a massive swell of normal people who would be pushed towards resistance and alternative currencies otherwise. You don't want gangs of normies wandering off the corral

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People smoke because nicotine is amazing. It's a subset of the general maxim that people do drugs because they're fun (alcohol included). The negative consequences are the price or tradeoff of this reality. Many people never find the balance.

I think an interesting, probably unanswerable question is what is worse over a large population - a sizable amount of slim smokers who expire early owing to the very well documented deleterious effects of cigarettes or the 40% and rising obese who's litany of health issues keep the hospitals full and medical costs on a rocket ship upward. I think we can all surmise who pharmaceutical companies and the like prefer.

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I don't disagree with any of that except the first sentence (and I wouldn't know, never tried it)

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Well, if you're looking for the upside of cigarettes - it's that simple. And necessarily it has to be extraordinarily powerful to win over all the well-known downsides.

Cigarettes and coffee, cigarettes and alcohol also have different 'feels' than just cigarettes alone. For some, these feelings are can't-live-without. If you've thus far avoided the curiosity or temptation I wouldn't encourage it - nicotine is probably the most addictive thing commonly consumed and while there's safer ways to have it (things like Zyn pouches come to mind) like any substance being able to live without it is probably wiser.

In all cases abstinence is really the only sure way to do so - it's what's kept me away from things like Adderall or coke. I know I'd probably love both so just opting out from the get go lessens that fear of missing out and has a positive impact on my own personal finances.

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Its just Karen and Ken being petty power players, there’s no other justification.

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"Had France’s population increased at the same rate as England’s since 1760, there would be more than 250 million French citizens alive today."

That's the kind of stat I'd never have known about without the Saturday Commentary. What a find!

Also interesting, re: South Africa—when reports were first surfacing about the blackouts, and pointing out that thorny fact immediately led to a "White Supremacist-beyond-the-pale" labeling, I found it fascinating that numerous Springboks (I'm a rugby fanatic) were linking those types of articles on their Twitter feeds. Of course it was happening, but it's going to be one of those questions historians puzzle over: why weren't we allowed to notice it?

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The failures of the ANC reflect directly on their sponsors in Washington and London. South Africa pioneered/road-tested race-based crony capitalism (Black Economic Empowerment) which is a very sensitive subject for regimes that are 'diversifying'.

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It won’t work in the USA. They’ve known for decades. Some people never fail to disappoint.

Che Guevara observed same.

That’s why they opened the borders to Mexico, in the process letting in tens of millions of congenital Falangismas. Saying they’re natural conservatives is something so insipid only a Bush* would utter it, they’re born Fachas. Spanish Fascism WORKS. And they just want to be ....fully white. Of which they are quite capable. Quite.

America isn’t going to be South Africa, America’s going to be Mustache Man + Pinochet + Koba . The 3 Amigos of our United Front of America 🇺🇸.

FORWARD.

It’s a future so bright, I almost would quit smoking to see it.

Almost.

*Speaking of Bush they just lost to Paxton in Texas. That’s a real loss, West Texas Permian Basin has more oil than Saudi Ghawar field.

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Agree 100%. Anglo-Castizo populism (with a distinctly unsentimental edge) would offer superior prospects than anything the Obama/Biden forces have in mind. Can easily see a blend of serious repression (to restore order in the cities and break-up resistance) combined with a degree of class compromise and the aesthetics of Ralph Lauren's POLO, Abercrombie and Fitch and The Man in the High Castle.

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The Hispanics are becoming the Italians very fast, I mean Italian Americans.

This we still can do; and assimilation is work, not all theses silly classes. They’re not even funny anymore since kids went on the menu for trannies.

Not funny at all.

The Rulers are uniting us - against the ruling class.

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Hispanics don't hate America, they just want to grill. Giving a constituency like that good cause to mobilise to defend their kids was pretty stupid. Add the provocation of hostility to small business and spectacular indifference to the property rights of shopkeepers and you have the basis for an explosion. Will never forget Thatcher's response to scenes of rioting in the UK: "oh those poor shopkeepers". No way any member of the current US ruling class would talk that way...except Orange Man (peace be upon him).

The tranny thing is really pushing it. The recent disclosures about Soetoro have the potential to eventually focus attention on the way the personal and the political combine at the top. Midway through Soetoro's first term was told by a career member of the IC who had once worked in Washington that the commander in chief was gay. That this is now getting traction suggests fissures that some faction or other has calculated that their best interests are served in rattling cages or simply cleaning house before it burns.

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Well even ruthless psychopaths recoil at kiddie diddling, never mind fiendish surgeries that target the already damaged or mentally ill or triple profile winners of already sexually abused children who come to sex abuse clinics .... where the predators have found the perfect job. This is most horrifically not sarcasm. < its an increasingly open secret.

That the kids are already victims and mentally ill or drug dependent; This was just made public a few months ago by a nurse who worked in the gender affirming care clinic.

There’s no future for these sorts when they are exposed. These fiends couldn’t pull this off in Thailand, never mind anywhere else. This is actually the fiends living out their doctor Menegele fantasies and it can only end one way.

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The farther I move away from liberalism, the more I realize the importance of demographics. But improving them seems exceptionally difficult.

There are many factors, each of which I could write paragraphs about:

-the impracticality of large families in modern life

-the expense of raising a child and the further expense of investing in their success

-the vast amount of pleasures that people choose to consume over choosing to raise children

-the antagonism between men and women

-the cultural derision of parenthood and children in the West

To expand on one point, I almost exclusively see men talking about this. But it’s women who are giving birth and (primarily) raising the children. So regardless of anything else, if women don’t want to have children, this problem isn’t going to be solved.

I don’t know... Most solutions I have seen are fantasies focused on returning to the past; this isn’t viable. Even if we had a solid plan, implementing it would be difficult in the West

The future will be interesting

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founding

The expense factor is something that could be fixed but likely won't. There was a good twitter thread awhile back from a Korean about how utterly impractical it is to raise a child in Korea. Essentially children have become such a huge investment in both money and time that only the rich can really afford the luxury.

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I watched a Rising (The Hill) segment recently wherein Brianna Joy Gray said she sincerely felt inundated with pressure to get married and have kids. I thought, what world is she living in?

I think among the UMC strivers you still see it. But at the bottom of society - or even at the top, if you so choose - you can absolutely distance yourself from all that. That's what I think people are getting at when they say society is no supportive of family formation. It gets easier all the time to avoid feeling the walls of fecundity closing in.

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Like many atheists who are not content with not believing in God but they actively spread anti-christian propaganda there is now a growing group of "child free" people who are actively spreading anti-natalist propaganda. As they are often the same demographic with the chattering class we are going to see increased social pressure NOT to have children. After all misery loves company.

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Constraining the capacity of the masses to reproduce is cost-effective if you can substitute people via mass migration. People with kids want decent schools and full employment at family-friendly wages. The system cannot meet such expectations on a mass scale. Ultimately elites see no benefit in maintaining the genomic continuity of the workforce.

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Agreed; I don’t see the West implementing any policies to increase birth rates.

I do wonder how various non-Westerner states will approach this, such as Russia and China. Advanced countries who will likely attempt to increase fertility rates instead of open up to mass migration.

I know Russia has implemented a few policies (more state support for mothers, more money for larger families) but they’ll need to go much farther if they want to truly make a difference.

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Russia is bringing millions of workers from Central Asia and Caucasus while they are sending their own young men in the meat grinder.

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Yes, unfortunately... they are not a perfect example, just one I am familiar with

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Russia is reportedly becoming more immigrant friendly: young Slavs with STEM degrees or trade skills get priority. Tiny numbers of others (Afrikaners even a few Aussies) have gone there too.

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Nature and Natural selection shall handle fertility.

Let things collapse just a bit more and men shall come to the fore, or die. It’s not a return to the past, it’s a cycle known for thousands of years. No, we won’t go back to the 1950s, we’ll go back to the 1650s (at best!) but with better technology.

Women will find strong men, or die.

As if women aren’t simply brainwashed into believing they want to be Corporate Karen women, then discover how empty it is....

The future belongs to Catholics, Muslims, Hindus and Orthodox Jews. They have babies.

The rest of you soon enough were never really here...

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On smoking, there's the old Tex Williams song... Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) -- my preferred "brand" is that of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD3e-L2Tuis

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"when there is nothing left to steal, that’s when the killings begin." - what a statement. The old saying, "when the money's gone, it's time to move on" certainly doesn't hit the same. Yikes

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There’s plenty to steal, once they kill each other off. That was always the point of Free South Africa. Free it for... unencumbered exploitation.

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> Now 77, Kleinschmidt says he often wonders what caused honorable fellow anti-Apartheid campaigners to mutate into such horrible politicians. A photo from 1990 hangs above his desk showing him together with Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie, the icons of the South African fight for freedom, a photo from those years of transformation.

NECKLACING

"Oh man these people brutally murdered all their political opponents but I never imagined they'd try to murder _me_!"

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The South African revolution is pink clouded big time. I feel like people think it was like the Civil Rights movement in the US (which is also pink clouded tbh). The rebels and the apartheid govt are equal in atrocious behavior. For every murder by guys like Coetzée and De Kock, there was an equally gruesome one by ANC cadres.

It technically wasn't civil war, but it may as well have been imo. The ANC won, and theyve consistently blown it for 30 years.

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Poisoning is interesting.

Perhaps they can evolve...🤔

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Smoking is a magical thing. Look up the article in Wikipedia on tobacco use in the antebellum South; the amount that was consumed was unbelievable. I quit cigarettes three years ago, but I smoke a pipe almost daily. A nicotine buzz is like caffeine and zanex melded together: it calms you down and helps you focus.

On a related note, notice how smokers will universally preface their habit of smoking in quasi-confessional terms (i.e., as if going to Confession). They will always begin talking of their use of tobacco as an admission, e.g., "I know its bad, but...", "I want to quit, but...", etc. Meanwhile, we have rampant use of pornography, contraception, fornication, and all sorts of sexual perversity condemned even as recently as a decade and a half ago. Note that few if any couch their participation in such actions as an admission of guilt. Notice third that this all has taken place in the last 50 years.

Take away from the second part: we have, as a society, seemed to decide that it is more sinful/consequential to smoke than to engage in sexual action (perverse or otherwise).

Tell me what's going to affect your actions and outlook more: sex or a smoke?

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I lived in the UK 25 years ago, and visited pubs often. One of the most attractive aspect of a pub, or at least something viscerally nostalgic, was the scent of old beer and tobacco smoke deep in the upholstery. You could often smell it just walking past the door of a pub! I've been back to the UK only a couple times in the last 20 years, and honestly pubs are just not the same (also, they became loud, when they used to be almost like libraries). It's a lovely bit of British heritage that has been lost, that the present generation never even knows existed.

These days I am a heavy cigar and pipe smoker (I never smoked when I lived overseas), and am thankful I live in a state where I can find bars where I can smoke, especially in winter.

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"Now 77, Kleinschmidt says he often wonders what caused honorable fellow anti-Apartheid campaigners to mutate into such horrible politicians."

Surely, in the year 2023 he would have a clue.

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