The Crowhill Journal

P&C drink and review Crowhill’s Amber German Ale, then discuss homeschooling.

Homeschooling has been on the increase as a result of the pandemic. What exactly is homeschooling? Is it legal? What about socialization? Where do you get your curriculum? How do you get started? What about sports, and band, and clubs?

The boys discuss.

P&C drink and review a cherry stout, then review Florida Man, an alternative history by Allen Hunter.

The novel features a different species of man — Homo Floridius — which occupied North and South America rather than modern man, so that when Columbus arrived he didn’t discover modern man, but this primitive relative. The book delves into how modern man might interact with such a distant cousin.

How much candy do you buy this year? P&C drink and review a pumpkin ale, then discuss Halloween.

They remember trick-or-treating, comment on how the left ruins Halloween, discuss Halloween decorations, then review a few horror movies.

For some weird reason, Crowhill recites Jabberwocky.

What are the things I’m worried about, and which candidate is more likely to move things in a direction I’d like? In order of importance …

Woke culture — Woke / cancel culture is a direct assault on free speech, and it’s turning us all into sheep. People say things they know are not true, and won’t say things that are true, because they’re afraid some sissy pants morons will have a fit. It’s ruining peoples’ lives, and it has to end. I think it’s quite clear that Trump would do more to stop this. As an example, he ended those “anti-racism” training classes in the federal government.

Big tech — They need to be reined in, but that’s up to Congress, not the president.

Riots, BLM and the move to delegitimize the U.S. — This one is more difficult because if Trump wins, you can be sure there will be lots of riots. In fact, it might be a good idea to save up food in case Trump wins. Also, the president has limited ability to stop riots if the governors don’t allow federal authorities to help. In terms of the on-going delegitimization of the U.S., the only way to curb that is to reform our educational institutions, and I don’t think either of these guys can do that. So I don’t know who wins on this one.

Economy — I have no doubt Trump will do more to get the economy going.

Coronavirus — It’s not clear to me that it will make any difference who’s president. Countries have tried lots of different things, and there have been outbreaks anyway. I think we’re still learning. Trump has made a huge effort to mobilize national resources to address this, but I suspect Biden would do the same, so I call this one a tie. (Except that Joe might re-institute lockdowns, but that falls more under the economy heading.)

Health care — Neither of them have a plan that’s worth beans. I think the healthcare situation is a mess that won’t be solved for a long time.

China — Trump has been tough on China, which is good. Biden might be tough on China, but based on his history, he probably wouldn’t.

War — For all his bluster, Trump has done a good job keeping us out of wars and promoting peace in the Middle East. Advantage Trump.

Having said all this, the real question is Trump vs. Harris, because I don’t believe Biden would stay in office for long.

This post is not about lions, but I think you’ll see the reason for the reference.

Do / did women live better lives under socialism?

Yes, at least in some ways, according to this article.

It makes a few interesting points.

[W]hen women have economic independence from men, they don’t stick around in bad relationships.

I’m sure that’s true. When women feel they need the income and protection of a man, they’re more likely to put up with a man they might not put up with if they got the income and protection from the government. That may be better for women in some ways, but does that mean it’s better?

So if a man is heterosexual and he wants to be in a relationship with a woman, it’s not that easy to get a woman by providing her economic security she doesn’t have, or buying her something that she needs. He has to be kind, thoughtful, attractive in other ways. And it turns out that when men have to be “interesting” in order to attract women, they are. They actually end up being better men. It’s not that difficult a concept. I don’t know why people are so shocked by this.

No, it’s a rather obvious concept, and I don’t believe people are shocked by it. This is a common red herring — to pretend that people disagree with things they don’t disagree with.

In the former Soviet countries, women may not have been able to take part in free elections or find a diversity of consumer goods, but they were guaranteed public education, jobs, housing, health care, maternity leave, child allowances, child care, and more.

And if for some reason they had to make a choice between the two, which would they choose?

State socialist feminists … understood women to have different needs from men, and sought to implement policies to meet those needs. We’re not talking about gender or sexual equality in exactly the way that it was articulated by Western feminists in the second wave. The idea was instead that men and women were both making valuable contributions to society, but doing so in different ways. Women’s role as mothers was often assumed. To that end, there were many state policies put in place to deal with the work-family balance issues that women are still dealing with today in the West.

That’s remarkably refreshing.

The western idea that women and men are exactly the same (except when that’s inconvenient) is lunacy of the first order. Recognizing that women and men make different but valuable contributions to society is so unbelievably obvious that it’s a wonder anyone has ever doubted it. But at least it’s nice to know that some people kept their sanity in the face of that nonsense.

Alexandra Kollontai, who was the commissar of social welfare … tried to put into place the socialization of child care in the creation of children’s homes. She wanted to create public canteens where people could eat. She wanted to create public laundries.

That reminds me of the scenes in 1984 where the poor dolts had to eat in the state-sponsored cafeteria.

It reminds me a bit of some of the homeschooling debates. Sharon Battles argued that the state had a right to require her to feed her children. It did not have a right to dictate the menu. In the same way, the state could require her to educate her children without having to approve the curriculum.

There’s a long way between wanting to keep the population from starving and setting up public canteens.

In any event, the article has a perspective that’s worth understanding.