thanks for that. Completely different man after-all. Kolker once posted here under the name Bob Kolker.

Robert L Kocher has never posted here.

Olivia writes: "I have seen Mr. Kocher post here on Solo some time ago. I wish he'd post more."

I suspect you're thinking of Robert J. Kolker, not Robert L. Kocher.

The former has been a big poster on O'ist/libertarian-type lists and is strongly complimentary to Rand's views on politics, though he has some criticisms in other areas.

I think he did post a few things on SOLO for awhile, but I'm not sure.

Ellen

However, his essays on this topic go to great lengths to show the psychological impact of mindless, valueless sex, which is the predominant force of sexual culture...

IMO, I think he greatly overstates this. Also, he makes a direct causal connection from this valueless sex to Leftist politics. This, again IMO, is a mistake. Both Leftist politics and valueless sex are symptoms of a far deeper malevolence. That is of course post-Kantian subjectivism. But Kocher argues that the one causes the other. This attempt to place the blame for all of society's ills on sexual liberation is extremely common amongst Paleo/Traditionalist Conservatives.

Forgive me for constantly mentioning them but I have great experience with these types as I was once heavily influenced by them. Kocher has read Rand - you can tell this by some of his wording especially his use of "A is A", where else would he get that from but Rand - but he is still a traditionalist at heart. The way he approaches both sex and race confirms this for me. And there is a malevolence, IMO, to racialism, and from the quote I lifted from Kocher's essay (see below) on race he is definitely a racialist. No matter what science ultimately has to say about racial differences, to me all racialists are creepy. That goes for Kocher.

I must admit I am conflicted about Kocher. He is arguing against nihilism and that is to the good. Plus some of his psychological insights are fascinating. There are gems in his essays to be mined no doubt. But his ultimate framework is traditional morality and that is rationalist poison. For that reason I do not trust ANY of his conclusions about modern sexuality. I would much rather live in today's world and deal with today's sexual culture - warts and all - then liver under a traditionalist non-"permissive" (I hate that word and Kocher uses it constantly) sexual ethics. But Objectivists can certainly have legitimate differences of opinion on this.

Sex at its best is tied to long rang sharing of values. But sex does not have to occur under ideal circumstances to still offer great value to human beings.

I agree that sex offers value to human beings even if the context is not necessarily long range nor ideal. If honesty is involved between two lovers, the circumstances can be anything from one night to a lifetime.

I've never heard the term Paleoconservative before you brought it up, so I have no idea whether Kocher is one or not.

However, his essays on this topic go to great lengths to show the psychological impact of mindless, valueless sex, which is the predominant force of sexual culture and it is this point of view which I find to be so valuable.

For this I greatly credit his insight... and wordiness.

Sex at its best is tied to long rang sharing of values. But sex does not have to occur under ideal circumstances to still offer great value to human beings.

Indeed. As I've argued myself. http://www.solopassion.com/nod... Currently, though, we suffer from saturation with slut/sleaze, and it's refreshing to see it get a good bollocking.

IMO, Kocher is ultimately a rationalist, as all traditionalists must be. Despite his insights I see in him the misanthropic view of humanity and sex that is common amongst conservatives.

He certainly over-writes. And did anyone else notice the use of "principle" instead of "principal"? Strange for such a stickler. I never fully trust anyone who makes that mistake!

I saw that section of Kocher's essay and I agree with it. But I still don't like Kocher. Kocher's best, and really his only, point is that post 60s sex has become disconnected from values. He also argues correctly that since people have lost a rational value orientation, they value short-term gratification over long-term value-oriented relationships. As Objectivists, we know this and could have said so in far less voluminous language than Kocher uses to make his point. This guy is extremely wordy.

But Kocher goes further if you read him closely enough. The guy is still a traditionalist and a cheerleader of the pre-60s era - a very common sentiment with this type of traditionalist conservative. IMO, he is arguing that sex MUST be connected with a family oriented worldview to have value. He sees ALL non-marital sex as a sign of Leftist psychosis. This I adamantly disagree with.

I dislike the Left as much as any Objectivist but I am not ready to say that the entire sexual liberation movement was Leftist nihilism. Human sexuality was liberated in a good way post 60s despite the nihilism of the New Left. Men and women are free to discover, experiment, choose their own sexual destinies free from SOCIAL SHAMING mechanisms - shaming mechanisms Kocher thinks were good things and indispensable for a healthy society. Kocher would say that what I just said was delusional "liberalism" and that unless sex is tied to family values it has no value. This is rank conservatism, and I for one despise it which is why no matter how many kernels of wisdom Kocher offers, in the end, to me, he is still poison.

Sex at its best is tied to long rang sharing of values. But sex does not have to occur under ideal circumstances to still offer great value to human beings. IMO, Kocher is ultimately a rationalist, as all traditionalists must be. Despite his insights I see in him the misanthropic view of humanity and sex that is common amongst conservatives.

Getting back to sex... whether Paleocon or Objectivist I find Kocher's observations to be super salient.

This is taken from his Evolution of the Deteriorated Relationship Between Men and Women... Continued.

Sex and Maturity

"Perhaps an explanation of certain aspects of sexuality is in order to explain this point. Sexuality is an organically-based process which produces a burst of desires and impulses at the onset of puberty and which takes place regardless of intellectual development. For a period of time, sexual impulses are at a more advanced level of development than is intellectual development. Or it could be said a person's collateral maturity lags behind sexual development for some time and a developmental period is required for collateral intellectual and emotional maturity to catch up to, and integrate with, sexual maturity. During this period substantial collateral development should be emphasized and should occur in terms of life experiences, in capacity for responsibility, in self-discipline and in growth of personal values of a non-sexual nature. When these are developed, there is a transfer or channeling of this growth into sexual values and sexuality. A person should first develop a personality, then integrate that personality into sexuality. This supports a person's sexual growth—and self-confidence. It allows for the development of wisdom. People do not learn about sexual maturity from sexual activity at age 15, but from personal development in other areas. Without personal development in these collateral areas, people are not adequately equipped to make decisions about sexuality—or about anything else including choice of a marriage partner. A basic set of sound values is necessary to make a wise choice and form a basis for attraction in a marriage partner. People are marrying other people and are hopping into beds with other people who are not suitable for anything worth while. They are doing it because they don't have any values to be used in evaluation and they are consequently unable to make evaluations. [Emphasis mine]

Trial and error sexual activity is no substitute for collateral personality growth and personality support. In most cases trial and error sex only burdens participants with the destructive consequences of trial and error sex. Sexual activity should not be engaged in before collateral maturity is substantially developed. If such activity is engaged in before collateral growth takes place, it is at the expense of collateral growth, resulting in a stunted shallow system of sexuality and sexual values.

Premature sexual activity concurrent with deficient collateral development has been one of the causes of people viewing each other as sex objects and other problems. If two people are at a stage of development, or at an arrested stage of development, so that they have no maturity, values or personal substance, there is no way for them to relate to each other on the basis of substance. As undeveloped personalities, they are unable to engage in anything but infatuation and sexual infatuation. They have insufficient levels of substance development to look for substance and appreciate substance in another person. Nor can they offer anyone else any substance. They are unable to be anything but sex objects. The prevalence of this condition is one of the reasons people are attempting to make sex do too much in America. It's all they have and are capable of. This has been particularly true in a culture where in recent years 21 and even now 50-year-old people are struggling to attain what was once a 12-year-old level of maturity. For confirmation reference the Clinton White House.

American culture has become fixated at the pre-substance level of sexuality. Many people are in such an arrested state of development that if they met anybody of any substance, it would put them in so far over their head that it would be impossible or they would drive the other person away." [Robert L Kocher from The Analytic Papers]

As if the Clinton administration weren't bad enough, this is exactly how an Obama got elected. How many people considered him to be Presidential material because he was handsome and [choke] articulate?

A whole generation or two of Americans fixated at the pre-substance level of sexuality, casted their votes.

Well, if Cornell West [et al] can talk about race the way he does, not about the individual but rather about collective constructs of power, and be honored for it, then Kocker feels he ought to be able to make collective generalizations as well. West would come back "yes but the black race is the one oppressed, so we cannot be judged."

West would probably label Kocker a racist.

They are both making the same error, as you have pointed out.

John,

Racialists will argue that they are not racists, that they are just laying out the hard facts about race differences. My experience is that many of them are in fact explicit racists. But I use the term racialism just to refer to that branch of the social sciences that deals with racial differences in intelligence, crime rates (pathology as they call it), etc.. I may be wrong but I don't think a racialist must be a racist.

Kocher, in his essay 'Spoiled Blacks' writes:

There are some brilliant and dignified black people. There are some incredibly shallow stupid people of other races. But the difference in average developmental level corresponds to differential proportion of characteristics between the black race and other races. It results in too great a racial proportion that is incompetent to order their lives comprehensively. It results in inadequate critical proportion of people with those characteristics necessary to create or maintain a civilization. It results in too small a racial proportion of people capable of perceiving and following critical quality leadership capable of maintaining a civilization. It results in too large a proportion of people whose critical reasoning capacities are too primitive to prevent embracement of lunatic ideas and lunatic leadership. The absence of ego and superego functionality produces a mentality that is impulsive and produces conceptualizations dominated primarily by immediate experience and immediate conditions without sufficient concern for what produced those conditions.

John, would you say this, especially the bold part, is racist? I'm not sure, but it definitely is racialism and it is everywhere in the PaleoConservative and related movements.

Doug it is interesting that you use "racialism" as opposed to racism.

Rather than just assume why, although i have a good idea, can you say why exactly?

I am not afraid to talk about any of the issues you raise, especially as noted the space between lovers.

I agree that inability to escape bigotry and 'proactive critical racialism" (as the Harvard guys like Cornell West call it) is epistemological...failure to think and value in essentials.

John

"Whether Kocher is a conservative makes no difference to the validity of his critique. As far as it goes, it's on the money—never mind that his solution may go awry."

Yes this is true and well stated. I just wanted to note that his solutions are not going to be in line with Objectivism / rational libertarianism. I have read a few of his essays now and he is beholden to altruism at his core, he does not understand laissez-faire economics (he is something of an anti-free trade Neo-Mercantalist as most Paleos are) and he also does not operate at the epistemological level. His starting point is psychology and his analysis of the Left is that everything it believes is a form of psychosis. I have some sympathy for that but the deeper answer always lies with epistemology. The Left may be psychotic but they are that way because they have rejected reason and they have rejected reason because they are the descendants of Kant, etc..

I have many dealings with the likes of Mr. Kocher as I came to Objectivism from a PaeoConservative background and I am very familiar with this brand of social and cultural analysis. In fact I would like to raise many of these issues on Solo. Issues like racialism, race and IQ, non-white immigration, sexual liberationism and its consequences (both heterosexual and homosexual), muslim immigration, birth rates, etc. Kocher deals with all of these in an insightful way but not in an Objectivist way. In fact, many Objectivists just don't want to discuss these subjects. Racialism for example is a subject no Objectivist has really tackled.

So, I am glad that Olivia pointed him out. Read him by all means but be aware that you are not being offered liberty oriented solutions.

I remember Mr K's appearance on SOLO only vaguely. So vaguely I wonder if it ever happened. I can't seem to bring him up. In any event, I share his and your revulsion at what passes for romance nowadays (actually, does it even pretend to approximate to romance?). The posturing, game-playing, gratuitous competitiveness, deification of hormones uninformed by reason ... it's all part of why "say what you mean and mean what you say" and the stress upon sincerity are part of the SOLO Credo.

Whether Kocher is a conservative makes no difference to the validity of his critique. As far as it goes, it's on the money—never mind that his solution may go awry. Two observations in particular are telling: prior to Kennedy there was a reliable sanity to public life. I am ancient enough to remember it. Conservatives, and liberals for that matter, had a coherent bottom-line respect for reality and logic, notwithstanding the gulf between that and their stated beliefs. Contemporaneously, honour and decency were important in personal relationships, especially intimate ones. I am ancient enough to remember that, too. Between my parents, for instance. Now, all of that has gone. To paraphrase Hobbs, life is nasty, brutish ... and long. "Morality," to paraphrase the ancient Cynics, is simply a matter of what you can get away with. Young folk like Kasper think that to say this is merely Old Fartism. It isn't. It's tragically true ... and their own lives would be richer from knowing it.

The historic burden upon Objectivists is to persuade a sufficient number of their fellow-humans that the antidote to the Culture of Slut-and-Sleaze is not an equally irrational Christianity, but an ethics based on reality and reason aimed at human survival and flourishing. There I agree entirely with Mr Bandler. I'm sure we all do.

Just found the other part to this. I knew there was more. Evolution of the Deteriorated Relationship Between Men and Women - #2. Part 11 from the series Politics in America.

Game is pure nihilism. Yet many 'Game' practitioners would argue that they use 'Game' only because today's women won't respond to decency and compassion. But that seems to be exactly Kocher's point.

I still have problems with Kocher though, and the more I read of him the more I see that he is incredibly insightful but yet he operates from a traditionalist conservative perspective. Not to mention that he is also an extreme racialist. Just read his essay on blacks to see his racialism on display. I don't necessarily disagree with his racial analysis - I have no developed opinion on racialism - but from my experience, racialists in the end are never friends of laissez fairre or rational libertarianism. True enough, Kocher is anti-immigration and I am willing to bet no fan of abortion. This doesn't mean he is worthless but just that he is not writing from the perspective of liberty. Scratch him deep enough and I guarantee he is a collectivist.

He is interesting yes, but his ideas pose alot of problems for a committed Objectivist.

mentality is disgusting beyond words, and comes from such a place of pain and cynicism in men that the fact that it has been adopted by so many tells a massive tale about the grotesqueness of the modern dating/sex culture. Emotionally crippled men expertly bedding emotionally crippled women with such "cool" arrogance. Could only have been born out of the Air-head America climate.

The very first thing these men do when attracted to a beautiful woman is zero in on her insecurity to knock her off balance and exploit it under the guise of being "insightful."

And women all over the globe fall for it!!!

Pure fucking malevolence. I don't know who is more stupid - the women or the men, but there it is in all its anti-glory.

The very existence of "The Game" phenomenon would point to how spot-on Kocher's take on sexual culture actually is.

Doug I picked up the "Game" thing from your posts below. Since I am an artist I see this played out in films, "novels", television, music and theater. I am not in a position to write extensively about it from an essayist/theoretician perspective.

My goal is to supply an example of the "world as it might and will should be" with regard to love/sex relationships. I set myself to writing about love interactions while leaving on the sideline betrayal, indifference, adultery, frozen libidos, boredom, gamesmanship, cruelty and abuse of any kind. My readers will decide if there is anything enjoyable and complelling in the book after all that effluvia is omitted!

Howard Roark is not in there. "Reina" is the closest (in the story 'see the world in color'). But these couples all share a certain sense of life (I hope) with Roark, namely that seeking the other and risking the heart is worth it.

John

"I fear that the only reason most Conservatives support capitalism (and keep in mind the small 'c') is because it is rooted in tradition. When capitalism was a new and radical idea, many Conservatives were rather fearful of it."

Excellent point. The 19th century Conservatives were all opposed to capitalism, (true) liberalism and the Enlightenment. They saw them as destructive influences which were tearing down the feudal / traditionalist / Christian order.

"The is no possible world in which man is prospering and growing in happiness if love and sex are about cruel Games and War."

This is both poetic and powerful. I am in complete agreement.

Could you briefly describe what your book is about as it sounds compelling? Also, are you familiar with the phenomenon of 'Game' and the BioConservative (Human Bio Diversity movement as they call themselves) community which champions it. A big BioCon / PaleoCon writer who writes on these issues is a man by the name of Roger Devlin. But he is approaching this from an evolutionary psychology / genetic determinism perspective which is just as bad as the Feminist / Leftist one he attacks. His answer is to counter Feminist female supremacism with male chauvinism.

It would be nice to read commentary on the cultural nihilism which is destroying the relationship between the sexes from a philosophically sound perspective.

I am posting in agreement with Olivia's expression of urgent concern. The supporting comments already posted below are sharply on point. I think we all know that when world culture turns harsh and cruel about about love and sex and joy between people we are in trouble. There is no possible world in which man is prospering and growing in happiness if love and sex are about cruel Games and War.

I wrote a book in response. It is on the verge of publication. This is a perfect thread in which to announce it to all of you.

My pen name is J.J.Kirnan
http://jjkirnan.com/index.html

There is a preview link on the home page.
Send me a private message here if you want more.

John

"The standard argument from these anti-Feminist social commentators - who are all various types of Right Wingers - is that Feminism is the product of "liberalism" and "liberalism" is ultimately the consequence of moral relativism and "radical individualism"."

Spot on, Doug. Many professed Conservatives are as anti-individualism as Leftists.

In fact, I fear that the only reason most Conservatives support capitalism (and keep in mind the small 'c') is because it is rooted in tradition. When capitalism was a new and radical idea, many Conservatives were rather fearful of it.

I agree that today we have a slut culture and that feminism' war against men and masculinity has created an environment where not only are men not very protective of women but where men and women are, in effect, in an adversarial relationship - the "Arms Race" as some call it. In fact there is a cultural phenomenon called 'Game' that has arisen just to deal with today's super spoiled, super bitchy women. 'Game' describes the Machiavellian seduction techniques that many men use in order to manipulate women with sex as the ultimate goal. Neil Strauss describes his transformation from geek to pick-up artist using 'Game' tactics. Its based on very controversial evolutionary psychological theories of psycho-sexual male dominance and psycho-sexual female surrender. 'Game' exists precisely because of the Leftist/Feminist assault on men that Kocher describes.

However, there is a danger here for Objectivists. The standard argument from these anti-Feminist social commentators - who are all various types of Right Wingers - is that Feminism is the product of "liberalism" and "liberalism" is ultimately the consequence of moral relativism and "radical individualism". The religious Conservatives will argue that this moral relativism is the consequence of abandoning God. Secular Conservatives will argue that moral relativism and Feminism are the consequence of abandoning traditions. Neither of these types would agree with the Objectivist / Laissez Fairre worldview and many of them would say that we are the problem not the solution. In fact there are hordes of various BioCons and PaleoCons that are at this very moment blaming libertarianism for the victory of ObamaCare. Why? Because libertarianism has allowed open immigration to flood America with non-whites who vote Leftist and libertarianism has given women the right to vote and they vote Leftist. Libertarianism, let alone Objectivism, is actively HATED by Paleo/Traditionalist/Bio Conservatives.

Also, and I am not sure if Kocher believes this, but many critics of today's Feminist world believe that the solution is to undo:

1) the post 60s sexual revolution
2) Women's sexual freedoms
3) abortion & contraception
4 Women's careerism

None of these is compatible with Objectivism's vision of an autonomous, free individual pursuing his/her own happiness. So, Kocher is a fascinating guy and I intend to read his writings over time. But it should be noted that he is commenting on a very difficult subject and one which is deliberately misdiagnosed by religious and traditionalist conservatives to advance their own ideologies.

I would love to see a brilliant Objectivist social scientist deal with this issue. But Objectivism hasn't produced one of those yet. We desperately need to.

I agree. I am reviewing my sentiments below.. They don't quite stack up.. But I won't edit them as they are what I've said so far.

As with this article that Olivia has linked to written by Robert Kocher, the reader is taken on this totally opinionated, speculative and arbitrary journey of the historic changes in the culture of sex in society. Oh how conservative and innocent we all were back then – the picture of history between men and women painted in a virgin-like puritanical amost child-like fashion - and how utterly vulgar and slutty we all are now. The hideous state of our culture, oh how horrible, boo hoo.

Sexual culture now is vulgar and slutty. Mindlessly so.

I wasn't alive before 1969 so cannot speak about ages past, but what Kocher is getting at - and what strikes me as true - is that there was a time when sexual exchanges between men and women held a little more honour at their core, as well as a degree of empathetic concern with the emotional impact of such exchanges.

Women and men are different sexually. What's good for the gander ain't necessarily good for the goose. Kocher is onto something here when he highlights the fact that the feminist movement and the militantly reactive "independent liberal woman" undermined a certain protective quality that men once felt for women in general. Instead, women insisted on their right to conduct themselves as sluts and then turned around to blame men for treating them accordingly.

I think he's correct when he says that the modern sexual lifestyle of today - indeed for the last 35 years - is incredibly hard on the human heart to actually live. To do it, the modern woman makes a monumental effort to compromise her natural capacity for intimacy and vulnerability to the point where they no longer exist in her. Actually this happens to the modern man also, but he is perhaps better at compartmentalizing sex and love into two different filing cabinets.

I have heard female friends resentfully express their wish to be able to "fuck like men," that is, to be able to fuck and just walk away without any degree of emotional attachment. They can't. They are women. And when they do try to live that way for any length of time, they become emotionally calloused and their loveliness dies. It's ugly.

Thanks for the links to Kocher's writings. He's interesting. But I don't know if I would say the he has an Objectivist bent. I get a sense that he has some affinity for Paleo-Conservatism. Take this for example:

"A secondary consequence of the deterioration, which has become diffused throughout the Euro-Anglo world, is that the white race is not reproducing itself and will disappear from the face of the earth over coming decades. It has become highly apparent and a matter of concern since this material was originally written. The pervasive pattern of loss of serious long term interest, or even toleration, of genuine close relationships between the sexes, coupled with abortion, is resulting in the loss or destruction of a race."

Kocher summarizes one of his essays with this paragraph. This is standard Paleo-Conservative cultural analysis; i.e. sexual freedoms + women's sexual liberation + abortion and contraception + modern liberalism = lower white birth rates and the end of the white race and Western civilization. This is racialism 101. Its very common with the PaleCons and the "race realism" Right.

I am not trashing Kocher. He seems like a man well worth reading. But I suspect that there are huge differences between Objectivism and Robert Kocher.

I've just read a paper handed to me by my mother, passed on through her from my step-sister, written by some sociologist, a pomo-wanking-academic, at Otago's school of midwifery entitled: Framing disease—The example of female hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

The paper of course went on and on, as Kevin Owen does, about how the big bad company did this research study with its big bad capitalist interests to create a problem - low sexual drive in women. The company advertises in its media campaigns how a fantastic study (theirs) "proves" that 1 in 5 women suffer from pathological low sexual libido and that their new wonder drug, Flibanserin, can solve this problem. Of course the writer conspires that drug companies created this whole problem and then exploited a market driven at selling sex, with women’s weekly's and women’s day magazines informing women on how to please their man, making them feel inadequate, that their low libido (by whose standards?) is somehow pathological.

As with this article that Olivia has linked to written by Robert Kocher, the reader is taken on this totally opinionated, speculative and arbitrary journey of the historic changes in the culture of sex in society. Oh how conservative and innocent we all were back then – the picture of history between men and women painted in a virgin-like puritanical amost child-like fashion - and how utterly vulgar and slutty we all are now. The hideous state of our culture, oh how horrible, boo hoo.

In the case of the female hypoactive sexual desire disorder paper the reader is put through this tiresome sociological perspective touting its bullshit using feminist, sexist and male-chauvinist theories intertwined with its political big bad companies taking advantage of innocent consumers adjoined with the humanists' rebellion against the monopolistic scientific medical establishment with its certain views and objective measures.... How dare they claim to know anything for certain yet alone have the temerity to express it in numerical form… Gasp!!!! The arrogant audacity of it all.

Quite frankly I find the state of the humanist establishment whether it be sociological or even historical to be quite depressing.

Isn’t everyone tired of being told how to interpret their state of sexual desire or its intensity? Freud will tell you it’s you desiring your mother. Academics will tell you it’s a number of things - technology, magazines, porn, feminism, sexism, the church, repression, expression, the degradation of values…….

Doesn’t one just stand back for a second and think this is bull shit??

Quite frankly I think that we want sex because it is natural. Of course by that I don't mean evolutionarily for the purposes of procreation. The boundaries around sex, when to engage, what to do beforehand and how long one must withhold before engaging in it will always change. So does the bloody speed limit on the motorway.

Having a look at some of the essays on sex available on the internet some things do resemble sensibility. There are many half truths expressed in the opinions of their writers.

Freud links sex to mothers, Rand limits it to a volitional choice of values and neglects the animality part, academics see it as a social institution conforming to different social players - companies, advertising, technology. The church confines it to strict marital institutions, determinists in the medical establishment talk about procreation despite the presence of homosexual and masterbational activities.

It has been suggested to be that the conservative versus permissive may be two sides of a false dichotomy. I think I would agree. As the epistemology of Objectivism would preach one should take a concept and omit the measurements. How often, how long you have it for or the amount of things one does before getting it are not the essential considerations necessary when viewing sex.... None of these change sex in its fundamental form.

If you have it too quickly, in that you have it with someone you've just met, ok then you may have omitted the values part and reduced sex solely to your animality. But that is not a consequence of having sex too quickly but of not observing the values component of sex that would enrich your sex life to full and whole satisfaction.

He has some work here.

"A good handicapper seldom bets favorites or easy races. He looks for difficult races and long odds that other people miss. He never bets large sums of money. Anyone who bets more than 20 dollars on a race is an amateur. This man would, quite consistently, betting only small sums of money, quietly win from $200 to $15,000 per day at the race track while experienced people around him floundered around in confusion complaining the races must be fixed, that the horses aren't running right, you can't bet horses and win, horses are unpredictable, and so forth. Many of them have developed "systems" which don't work. Although they do poorly, they still rationalize their systems work, but somehow things just go wrong.

Things don't go that far wrong. The fact is, horses, like everything else, are absolutes. There is an absolute lawfulness, an absolute cause and effect, absolute consequences, to how they run. There is little ambiguity involved in horse races. This man was intelligent enough to have figured out those absolute principles of horse races. He'd spend the night studying a racing form. The next day he'd go to the races and win, often not bothering to see the final races finish or cash in winning tickets. Occasionally something would intervene, such as a horse breaking a leg or a jockey falling off. But, on the average, he'd hit it close."

I certainly agree with Kocher's opening: I remember this country when it was sane. That was more than 40 years ago. The end really started with John Kennedy. The minute I first heard him, I recognized there was something terribly wrong with that man. He was lying to me without shame or conscience.

It's been the slippery slope ever since Kennedy's collectivist, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."