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Call It What It Is: Degeneracy

Portfolio Armor's Photo
by Portfolio Armor
Tuesday, Jun 13, 2023 - 11:31
Gay Trans Flag at the White House
The gay-trans flag given the position of honor at The White House.

Life Imitates Art

You may recall seeing a lot of clips from TED talks in the previous decade. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, and TED talks were popular speeches given at that organization's annual conferences. Their popularity led to TEDx talks, which were speeches given in a similar format in various locations, outside of the TED conference. These speeches were often earnest ones about improving the world. 

Ten years ago, the rightwing comedian Sam Hyde decided to mock the genre by giving a ridiculous TEDx talk at Drexel University, in which he gave his predictions the future, one of which (at about 14:52 in the video below) was "state-enforced homosexuality". 

Flash forward ten years to 2013, and this happened at the Biden White House's gay pride celebration:

That prompted some observers on the right, such as Logan Hall, to suggest that Sam Hyde's prediction had come true.

"Wokeness" Doesn't Capture This Insanity 

In a recent post on his Substack (Stop Saying Woke), the pseudonymous pundit "LoFi Republican" offered a couple of excellent suggestions for conservatives arguing against this insanity. First, calling things "woke" makes you sound lame: 

Its lameness scales up: the more important-seeming someone is, the dumber they sound when uttering it. Hence why everyone from Trump to Petri dish-bred Soros catamite David Hogg are scoring easy dunks on DeSantis for his rampant overuse of the phrase. The official line is that conservatives can’t define it (stupid and mostly false) but the real reason their critiques land is because saying “woke” all the time makes Ron and co. sound like massive geeks (not a good look when you’re trying to position yourself as the force to “destroy leftism”).

But more importantly, there are better terms to describe what just happened at the White House, leftism, or degeneracy:

If I were advising, say, a presidential candidate who really wanted to tap into the frustrations of normal, generative members of society I’d highly encourage him to reintroduce this one into common parlance. “Degenerate” is a handy top-to-bottom descriptor of social ills which cuts to the heart of most issues in America today: decline; moral, material or otherwise. There are lots of issues effectively branded “woke” that would be better described as “degenerate”: things such as the sexualization of children via LGBTQ culture, the tyranny of mentally ill public school teachers and the societal trend of racial animus directed towards whites.

Furthermore there are many, many problems in modern America that “woke” obviously fails to address. Urban crime, homelessness, rampant drug culture, young people’s diminishing financial prospects and overall lack of cultural/vocational pathways, pollution, pharmaceutical over-application, the wretched state of industrial farming, etc—all represent different shades of degeneracy. “Degenerate” also serves to describe all manner of evil motives plaguing our culture, from greed to perversion and everything in between.

Good advice. You can read the rest of LoFi Republican's excellent post here. 

Let's wrap up with a brief investing note that tangentially touches on the leftism permeating through our society. 

Even An Oil Company Has To Respect The State Religion

Doing some research over the weekend, I found a phenomenal small cap oil company, one with a compelling chart as well as these outstanding fundamentals. 

This is a company that managed to stay profitable and pay a dividend in 2020 despite the oil crash caused by the COVID lockdowns. 

Everything looked great until I got to the inevitable ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) slide in their investor presentation, which included this line, 

Fostering and cultivating a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion

I worried the next slide might feature the company's resident transgender HR exec or something, but no: it just showed the management team (three-fourths normal-looking white guys) and the board (two-thirds normal white guys).

Crisis averted. 

I've got a couple of bullish options trades teed up on this oil company; if you'd like heads up when I execute them, feel free to sign up for our trading Substack/occasional email list below. 

 

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