Assorted 2021-03-25

     Things are rather difficult at the Fortress just now. We’re having a patio of sorts built in the back yard, which has had a curious consequence: Joy, our one-year-old Newfoundland puppy – here she is:

     …is absolutely terrified of going outside. We think it’s because of the Bobcat the workmen have been using to move their materials.

(The photo above is a stock image from Bobcat. The one in our back yard is yellow and camera-shy, possibly because it has quite a few miles on it.)

     Joy dislikes any suggestion that there might be something – other than her humans, of course – that’s bigger than she is. (She especially dislikes that it’s louder than she is.) So she keeps getting me up in the middle of the night to let her out. Probably wants to check if her nemesis is still out there.

     I keep telling her that she won’t reach her full size until she’s two years old, but so far such reassurances have had no effect. Kids these days!

***

     I’ve been holding onto a few links for a few days, in part because I didn’t want to write about them just yet, and in part because I’ve been preoccupied with matters irrelevant to the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch. Anyway, here they are, all of them pointers to articles eminently worth reading:

  1. Censoring Marvel
  2. Bernie Sanders Slams Elon Musk for “Unsustainable” Greed
  3. 9th Circuit Emasculates 2nd Amendment
  4. Joe Biden Wants to Emasculate 4th Amendment
  5. The World Turned Upside-Down

     The long video in the first article is only a jumping-off point for Mark “Mad Dog” Sherman’s subsequent exposition. The bit I’d like to emphasize is this:

     What makes this video so interesting is that Hollywood and even [director Joss] Whedon are all in on the idea of totalitarian tyranny. Still, even they cannot help themselves, so they make films that show the destruction and dangers that will come with the achievement of their dystopian nightmares. Age of Ultron, Firefly, Serenity, Captain America: Civil War, and many more show the dystopia for what it is. It is almost as if many of these progressive stalwarts understand the horrors of the goals they seek and cannot help but out themselves. It is the parable of the criminal who wishes to be caught because he cannot stop himself from the injury and damage he perpetrates.

     The lockdowns, the masks, the War on Drugs, the Cancel Culture, the unrelenting Deep State need for eternal war, and so much more are all driving the need for the progressive left to succeed in its battle to achieve totalitarian control over all Americans. Every new legislation or rule uploading power to the government to “protect the people” is little more than a bald grab for power.

     There have been more than a few “outings” by soi-disant “progressives” striving to shove us into socialist totalitarianism. The second article cited, concerning a man who isn’t competent to operate a lemonade stand yet inexplicably holds a seat in the United States Senate, is a good example of their “thinking:”

     Progressive Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders suplexed tech billionaire Elon Musk in a Sunday tweet, excoriating the SpaceX CEO for pouring money into interplanetary space travel ambitions while inequality persists here on Earth.

     “Space travel is an exciting idea, but right now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive tax system so that children don’t go hungry, people are not homeless and all Americans have healthcare,” Sanders said. “The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy.”

     Got the idea? Sanders doesn’t want Musk to spend Musk’s money as Musk pleases. Musk’s private fortune, the greater part of which he earned by creating and operating PayPal, should be taken from him and used “for the people.” Private property rights? Fourth and Fifth Amendments? Irrelevant! There’s “inequality” to be addressed!

     G. K. Chesterton, as I was recently reminded, has written that “progress,” in and of itself, isn’t anything. The notion of progress depends completely upon the end being sought and whether it’s both moral and beneficial. If what you’re “progressing” toward requires immoral means to achieve it, or would conduce toward harm rather than good, there’s no progress in it.

     None of that is of the least interest to “progressives.” They have their ends in view, they mean to achieve them, and they don’t much care who gets hurt in the process…as long as it isn’t them, of course. Which is why they’re gung-ho for the elimination of the right to keep and bear arms, the subject of articles three and four. It would be really hard to keep enough “equality enforcers” on the payroll while Americans retain the ability to resist them with guns. As John Ross put it in Unintended Consequences, the undertakers would be working three shifts.

     In the fifth article, novelist Celia Hayes (who opines as “Sgt. Mom”) asks what all this is trending toward:

     Now there is a political measure afoot to pressure businesses into pledging loyalty to the regime by publicly affirming that the 2020 Election was completely fair and above-board. Or else. What is the eventual endgame in all of this? Pushing ordinary and patriotic citizens into a violent reaction, and thereby justifying further repression of non-prog thought?

     Well, yes, but it deserves a close look from a serious analyst. I’ve written on more than one occasion about the power of gradualism: the slice-by-slice diminution of Americans’ freedom, one slight infringement at a time, until we are so habituated to bondage that our ability to resist is gone. Gradualist tactics are highly effective, but they come with a temptation that many power-mongers cannot resist: the temptation to dramatically, arrogantly, and prematurely enlarge the slices. (Hey, if you’re gonna split an infinitive, make it know it’s been split!) That can – and often does – trigger a violent counteraction to the reigning regime.

     There’s a chance that the Usurper Regime has succumbed to that temptation. If so, a true uprising against the anti-Constitutional powers in Washington D.C. won’t be long in coming. But if not, we could be at “the last hill” – the elimination of our ability to defend our rights, whether we ever use it – for real.

     Just a few thoughts for the Feast of the Annunciation.

3 comments

    • robert william orians on March 25, 2021 at 10:05 AM

    The locals here in the flyover hills of Buckeye country are getting very serious about this current administration and the tyranny of same . When I went into a local grocery store , a tiny little old lady was preaching to the 4 good ole boys in there that “you can’t let them take your guns boys ” . She is one of the few left that endured Hitlers holocaust and survived . She was showing them her tatoo with the number . Gave me chills and I seen a few tears in some eyes . Anger is building and it ain’t gonna’ be purty . 

  1. Thank you for the link. I’ve been remiss of late in posting. 
    Mark “Maddog” Sherman

    • Mark on March 26, 2021 at 9:59 AM

    About diesels and dogs:  I know folks who traded up from their gasoline truck to a diesel.  Their dog, who previously loved to travel, now hates getting into their truck.  My suspicion is that in addition to the increased low-frequency noise,  the louder ultrasonic sounds, especially for turbo-diesel engines, is enough to bother dogs (as you know, dogs can hear frequencies well above those that we can hear).  At least that’s my best guess.

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