In a previous post, I  contrasted Trump and Biden on foreign policy. Trump was obviously a lot more serious about protecting taxpayers from violent criminals and from terrorists. You might remember how Obama pulled out of Iraq and allowed ISIS to take a lot of ground. Trump got them back under control. And now Biden is repeating the same mistake with Afghanistan and the Taliban.

One thing that taxpayers should care about is the cost for creating crises. We have two going on right now. The first is at the border, where Biden is letting in unvaccinated illegal immigrants. I wrote before about how taxpayers get the bill for that. The second is in Afghanistan, where Biden’s decision to pull out has created a refugee crisis. But Biden has an answer for that – he’s going to let in tens and thousands of refugees who can’t speak English or pay their own way. These are not skilled immigrants who play by the rules.

So who is going to pay the bill? Biden? My friend Neil did a survey of Democrats to see how much they give to charity. Biden doesn’t give much:

And consider how these Liberal heroes want to take your money to “give” to others but can’t manage any real and significant giving themselves.  If Joe Biden, for example, can’t afford to give more than 0.2% over his roughly quarter-million-dollar income (that is point-two percent, not two percent — only $369 per year), then how could he possibly afford to pay increased taxes?  Oh yeah, there will be loopholes for him and those who vote for the tax increase bills.

His 0.2% giving and the percentages below are even worse than they look because they are based on Adjusted Gross Income, which is typically much less than gross income.

Biden isn’t going to pay for this. So who will?

The Washington Examiner explains:

The expected welcoming of 65,000 Afghan refugees by the Biden administration is likely to hit local welfare agencies hard if the current use of Medicaid and food stamps by those already here is any indication.

In a thorough review of the 133,000 Afghan migrants already in the United States, the Center for 1mmigration Studies found that they are nearly three times more likely to tap into welfare than native-born Americans.

What’s more, the share of those in poverty is about twice as high as native-born Americans, according to census data used in the new report.

[…]“The Census Bureau data analyzed in this report indicates that a large share of Afghans in this country have modest levels of education, with many living in or near poverty and dependent on the welfare system. It seems likely that a large share of Afghans allowed into the United States in the future will also struggle in a similar manner,” said the report’s authors Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler.

So far, following the bungled military withdrawal from Afghanistan, about 24,000 refugees have arrived in the U.S., and about another 45,000 are set to enter, according to the State Department.

The article notes:

The educational level of Afghan immigrants has fallen both in absolute terms and relative to the native-born. The share of Afghans (25-64) with at least a bachelor’s degree fell from 30% in 2000 to 26% in 2019, while increasing from 27% to 35% for natives.

Many Afghans have low incomes. Of persons in households headed by Afghan immigrants, 25% live in poverty — more than twice the rate of 12% for people in households headed by native-born Americans.

In 2019, 65% of Afghan households used at least one major [welfare] program (cash, food stamps, or Medicaid), while the usage rate in native-born households was 24%.

The Democrats aren’t kidding about making taxpayers pay for their “generosity”. Daily Wire says they have a plan to come up with the money:

Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee have drafted a proposal that would hit the American public with an additional $2.9 trillion over 10 years in tax revenue.

And the refugees will get “quick citizenship” too, according to Breitbart:

President Joe Biden’s congressional budget request would offer tens of thousands of Afghans arriving in the United States a host of welfare and quick naturalized American citizenship, a new analysis states.

The analysis, conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and shared with Breitbart News, details Biden’s request to Congress for $6.4 billion in American taxpayer money to resettle 95,000 Afghans across the U.S. over the next year.

Specifically, Biden’s plan would provide an “expedited path to citizenship” to tens of thousands of Afghans who arrived via “humanitarian parole” by giving them green cards after just a year of residing in the U.S.

Then, after only a few years of holding a green card, those Afghans would be eligible to apply for naturalized U.S. citizenship. The FAIR analysis suggests that the Biden administration will fast-track the citizenship process by backdating green cards for Afghans to the date when they initially secured parole.

In a previous post, I talked about feelings-based voters. These voters listen to advertisements and biased news media, and they form an impression about which candidate will make them feel good about themselves, and look good to others. They really shouldn’t be voting at all, but they have so much confidence in their feelings and intuitions, that they do it anyway.

Next time, we need to fight the feelings-based voters a little harder, OK? We need to judge them a little harsher. We need to shame them a little more with the facts. And we need to be a little less bothered by their tears. Because we don’t have enough money to keep electing Democrats. I have other things to do with what I earn than spending it cleaning up Sleepy Joe’s messes. And so do you.

I have an ongoing disagreement with a female friend about how to restore marriage and family. We both agree on the harm that is done to children by the redefining marriage to remove the traditional marriage norms of exclusivity, permanence, heterosexual romance, etc. But she thinks that it’s better to approach men and get them to change, whereas I think it’s better to approach women and get them to change.

So, in a previous post, I argued that we should focus on telling women to stop choosing hot bad boys, and trying to get them to commit. I said this because I don’t think you can change the hot bad boys and make them commit. They want s3x, and that’s what they are getting when the normal women throw s3x at them. They don’t have to commit if they get what they want before committing.

But is there anything constructive to say to the normal men, who are not getting s3x thrown at them from many different women? Well, yes. There is something to say to them. Although they are not smashing up families, they are doing something wrong. They are giving attention to the wrong sort of women, for the wrong reasons.

Consider this article about the web site Only Fans, from Business Insider:

OnlyFans, the subscription-based adult-entertainment site, boomed during the pandemic.

Revenue at the UK-based company grew by 553% in the year to November 2020, and users spent £1.7 billion ($2.36 billion) on the site, a seven-fold increase, the Financial Times reported.

The site allows creators to sell video clips, photos, and messages directly to subscribers on a pay-per-view basis, with OnlyFans taking a 20% cut. Customers pay between $5 and $50 per month.

User numbers grew from 20 million before the pandemic to more than 120 million over 12 months, as adult entertainers and their customers signed up during lockdowns to share X-rated content.

Only Fans is a web site where the most impulsive and reckless women make easy money by showing off their bodies and performing s3xual activities for subscribers. It’s voluntary, not coerced. They want to get rich quick without having to care about doing well in school or getting a job. They aren’t interested in marriage, because they know that good men don’t marry women who make themselves available to millions of other men. They are not conservative. They don’t want men to lead them. They don’t read anything that makes them wiser or more noble. Men shouldn’t be paying women like this any money, or even giving them attention.

I want normal guys to give better women their time and money – preferably in a relationship, but at least in a friendship. Even if the majority of women are using their young and pretty years to try to land hot bad boys, there are always a minority of women who are busy with better things, like doing computer science degrees. I think that the normal guys should be paying attention to them.

In fact, if I could just convince these normal guys to read more useful stuff, I’m sure they would realize that there is a lot more to a woman than youth and beauty. They would probably find the Only Fans girls pretty repulsive, once they realized how much different women can be if they are trained and prepared to commit to men and respect them. And by trained, I don’t mean “I’m a Christian, you can’t judge my past”. I mean bookshelves of good books, read and highlighted. I mean a public record of conservative Christian achievements.

If normal guys can’t find good young women to pay attention to, then they should try to make friends with older, wiser good women. That way, they won’t be lonely, they will learn something from the older more conservative women , and they will avoid making the wrong sort of women richer. I used to have a half-dozen older women advisors who would fill my head with wisdom chirped out in their cute girly voices whenever I wanted. Getting wisdom from conservative older Christian women is a lot better for me than throwing dollar bills at online strippers, who take your money, but have no interest in getting ready for marriage.

And if a younger woman came along who read good books, was conservative, and wanted marriage and children, you can start the marriage evaluation process. The important thing is to have the money to close the deal on a marriage if you find a real marriage candidate, which is why you don’t waste money on Only Fans women. Good women are the ones who trust you, respect your leadership, and achieve things when you lead and support them.

I don’t really care much about the Only Fans women, but I don’t think that getting attention and money for how you look is good for them in the long run. Women who get attention for stripping and doing s3x acts don’t learn anything that’s useful for them to be content in a stable marriage. They get used to seeing men at their worst, and they lose their ability to trust and bond with one guy. Giving them money to do something temporary that cannot be sustained as their looks fade isn’t good for them either. I don’t think it’s good for society long-term to have a bunch of shallow, immature women voting for bigger government and less liberty when they reach age 32 and can’t find good men to marry them.

Basically, what I would like is for men and women to get better at understanding moral character, religion and relationships, so they can choose quality relationship partners. And the best way to do that is what the Bible recommends – by renewing your mind. And how do you renew your mind? Well, you have to convince yourself that the world works a certain way. And how do you do that? By reading difficult challenging books that show you how to achieve the goals that are best for you, even if you have to sacrifice happiness in the short term. Men and women need to read better books.

I’m going to keep recommending to young people that they try to get out of the chaos of this generation by reading better books. Start with Philippians and John in the Bible. Then, I like “Is God Just a Human Invention?” by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow. Read some Thomas Sowell economics, and some military history. There is no shortcut to valuing good things, and making good decisions. You have to change your mind by keep out the culture’s junk, and putting in the good stuff.

I sometimes feel that I am very weird compared to other people when it comes to work. I have this terrible fear that the secular left will force me to choose between being a Christian and being able to earn enough money to not starve. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I never married, and never had children. And it’s only going to become more difficult for younger Christian men.

Here’s an interesting article that Randy posted from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

It says:

CEOs tripping over themselves to prove how “woke” they are has become de rigueur, but the news that American Express subjected its employees last year to what can only be described as Marxist “re-education” sessions has struck a chord—and rightly so.

[…]It would seem, though, that AmEx doesn’t want to hear any dissent. One ex-employee, Brian Netzel, just filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that he was fired for voicing his opposition to these sessions.

I’ve been blogging about how people get fired for being conservative and/or Christian from all sorts of big corporations, and not just in Big Tech. Even with good technical skills, it’s challenging to find a job where you can just earn money, and not have to deny your own convictions and worldview. That sort of thing is common in secular left regimes of the past and present, but I’m still getting used to it.

More:

As one of America’s top investigative journalists Christopher Rufo has reported, American Express has demanded that its employees map out their degree of privilege, determine whether they are in an oppressor or marginalized category, and then asks whites to act subordinately to members of minority categories.

AmEx’s workforce has even heard speakers demand that the company discriminate racially by charging black customers lower premiums.

Moreover, the company’s handouts lead employees to the group Critical Resistance, which advocates for the dismantling not just of police but also of the prisons system.

[…]Critical Resistance was founded in 1998 by three committed Marxists: Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Rose Braz. Davis herself ran twice as Vice President on the Communist Party ticket.

American Express also brought in Khalil Muhammad to harangue its long-suffering employees about how capitalism is racist and steeped in “racist logics and forms of domination.”

I’ve written before about how the problems and solutions of BLM / CRT people are different than the problems and solutions of Christians. No Bible-believing Christian can sign off on BLM / CRT. Destroying the family and implementing Marxism are not the Bible’s solutions to the problems of wealth and poverty.

How are Christian men who reject BLM / CRT problems and solutions for the Bible supposed to survive in corporate America? And if they can’t keep a job, then how can they marry and afford to raise children? It seems like the man would have to compromise.

For example, a Christian man who marries and has children might:

• mitigate job loss risks by cutting back on charitable giving
• not have a public ministry under his own name
• not participate in any serious discussions at work
• learn to compartmentalize their faith, which can lead to secularism and eventually atheism (I’ve seen this happen)
• be exposed to harm from leftists in community and schools

What makes this situation even harder is that the Christian man is all alone. Most churches have embraced a new feelings-based version of Christianity that agrees with the priorities of woke corporate America. Christians no longer defend the Bible. Instead, the new feelings-based Christianity says that people can do whatever they want and never be judged. There is a horror of making anyone feel bad by not agreeing with them about following their heart. And if that blows up in their faces, then it’s the fault of other people who made better decisions and got better results. This is the new feelings-based Christianity – moral standards and accountability are out, affirmation and non-judgement are in.

The new Christianity teaches that you determine God’s will for your life through your feelings. If it doesn’t work out, then no one can judge you or teach you to do better – because that might make you feel bad. And if you happen to have some abortions, frivolous divorces or fatherless kids along the way? Well, too bad for them – we wouldn’t want to lose our non-Christian friends by warning them about the likely consequences of their actions. The goal of the new Christianity is to never tell anyone that they should obey God instead of doing what they feel like doing. The goal is to feel good and be liked.

As a Christian man, what I have learned is that if I try to promote a Bible-based moral view in public, that not only will there be trouble from the corporate world, but there will also be trouble from the no-judgment Christians. In the corporate world, telling people that their problems are the result of their own actions will get you fired. In the church world, telling a single mother that her problems are the result of her own choices will get you thrown out of the church. You can’t tell people anything that places the blame for their actions on them, even if the Bible agrees with you.

So, as a Christian man, you have to lie about your convictions at work to keep your job, and you have to lie about your convictions in church to avoid the wrath of the feelings-Christians. You can’t teach any exclusive theological truth claims. That’s intolerant. You can’t teach any exclusive moral truth claims. That’s lacking compassion. Just where are Christian men supposed to go to say what we really think?

The no-judgement Christian crowd needs to understand that in order for Bible-based men to marry, they have to be able to hold down a job. We don’t take on additional responsibilities like marriage and children when it is hard enough already to put food on the table for ourselves and still be faithful to the Bible. If feelings-based people want Christian men to marry, they better dump this new feelings-based version of Christianity, and start doing actions to make it safe for Christian men to earn a living without compromising our convictions. Otherwise, Christian women can marry men who don’t have those convictions. See if that works out.