Feb 15 2022
When nimrods like this talk about “reimagining” what humans have come up with over the millennia I look forward to what they have in store for us. I has to be good and they certainly don’t have a hidden agenda.
Yes, let’s have things decided by 500 leftist twits.
PS — Our “democracy.”
Feb 15 2022
If you’ve never seen the acronym “RHIP,” it stands for “Rank Hath Its Privileges.” Today we inaugurate a new version of that old maxim, Class Hath its Privileges. For it isn’t just “rank,” interpreted narrowly as elevation within a hierarchy, that decides who can do what to whom, without penalty even if with malice aforethought. It helps just as much to be:
Got that?
First up, we have this “shocking” revelation:
Lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a technology company to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower, and later the White House, in order to establish an “inference” and “narrative” to bring to government agencies linking Donald Trump to Russia, a filing from Special Counsel John Durham found.
Durham filed a motion on Feb. 11 focused on potential conflicts of interest related to the representation of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who has been charged with making a false statement to a federal agent. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.
The indictment against Sussmann, says he told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016, less than two months before the 2016 presidential election, that he was not doing work “for any client” when he requested and held a meeting in which he presented “purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel” between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin.
But Durham’s filing on Feb. 11, in a section titled “Factual Background,” reveals that Sussmann “had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including a technology executive (Tech Executive 1) at a U.S.-based internet company (Internet Company 1) and the Clinton campaign.”
Durham’s filing said Sussmann’s “billing records reflect” that he “repeatedly billed the Clinton Campaign for his work on the Russian Bank-1 allegations.”
Is this news? It was already known during the Trump Administration. Yet nothing was done then. Who wants to bet that anything will happen to Hillary and her confreres now? Anything legal and above board, that is.
Let’s whisper the secret word: “Arkanicide.” Do we win $100?
A colorful but sadly untrue tale about the Roman Emperor Caligula is that he installed his favorite horse in the Senate. According to some sources, he wanted to do so, but was assassinated before he could act on the impulse. Perhaps that was the inspiration for this Biden appointment:
A recent, high-level hire at the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy is a drag queen, LGBTQ+ activist who has “lectured” on kink at college campuses and participated in interviews about fetish roleplay. In one interview, Sam Brinton – now a top Biden official – even discusses having sex with animals.
Brinton – who has written in opposition to “gay conversion therapy” – was recently tapped to serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy. He also goes by “Sister Ray Dee O’Active” – his drag queen alter ego.
In his own website’s bio, Brinton reveals:
Sam has worn his stilettos to Congress to advise legislators about nuclear policy and to the White House where he advised President Obama and Michelle Obama on LGBT issues. He shows young men and women everywhere he goes that they can be who they are and gives them courage. Once, while he was walking around Disney World in 6 inch stilettos with his boyfriend, a young gay boy saw Sam with his boyfriend and started crying. He told his mother, ‘”t’s true, Mom. WE can be our own princess here.”
Brinton is an active member of the Washington, D.C. chapter of a drag queen society known as the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” which lists him as the principal contact on its 2016 and 2018 tax forms. During the group’s “Lavender Mass 2021,” Brinton can be seen referring to Anthony Fauci, who was declared a “saint,” as “Daddy Fauci.”
Could any Republican president have gotten away with such an appointment? What have the mainstream media said about it? Anyone? Bueller?
Hey, it’s not just us in America, you know. Canada’s Ruling Class has been asserting its privileges, too:
For those who just discovered me, I am the French Quebec journalist for Rebel News.
This is the question I asked @JustinTrudeau during the leaders debate.#FreedomRally#convoytoottawa2022 #TruckerConvoy pic.twitter.com/HaGz2QNgvJ
— Alexandra Lavoie (@ThevoiceAlexa) February 10, 2022
You see, members of the Ruling Class don’t have to answer questions whose answers would embarrass them. Instead, they can just disparage the asker. Justin Trudeau has made it plain that he considers himself every bit as much an R.C. member in good standing as our own Dodderin’ Joe. He’s just got fewer peons to lord it over, is all.
There are precedents, of course. Trudeau wouldn’t have sounded quite so haughty otherwise.
The pictures of Ruling Class members defying their own mandates have become legion. There’s no reason to recount them all. Nor need I recap the many instances of Congressional insider trading, a practice forbidden to us of the Great Unwashed. And of course Ruling Class members are exempt from other requirements of the law, such as the minimum-wage laws, the Social Security Act, ObamaCare, and other yokes fastened upon our shoulders. But really, why should such godlike beings be bothered to conform to the rules the rest of us must obey? Didn’t they ascend to the Ruling Class for that very reason?
A class is defined by its legal and social privileges. The aristocrats of medieval times were not distinguished by their lineages or their deeds, but by the things they were allowed to do, without penalty, that commoners were not. There is reason to believe that the majority of medieval aristocrats were fairly responsible stewards of their lands and of public order within them. That does not justify the creation of a class of men who could wield high, middle, and low justice over others, but who would normally escape all consequences for deeds for which a commoner would be severely punished.
The members of the Twenty-First Century’s Ruling Class aren’t there by right of inheritance…well, not most of them…but they assert the same privileges as those medieval nobles. There isn’t a microgram of humility or shame to be found among them. Nor is there any privilege, great or small, that they won’t award themselves or one another.
It didn’t start with Barney Frank’s catamite running a brothel out of their apartment. It didn’t end with Charles Rangel ignoring the very tax laws he helped to write. And it won’t end with our current Ruling Class, either…unless we end them.
I’m waiting to read about taxpayer-funded Congressional junkets to “investigate” this important new development. Aren’t you?
Feb 15 2022
It’s quite a rarity for someone to stand up for their right to speak their mind. It’s even rarer in the elevated locations in the corporate world.
Feb 15 2022
The Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL) has cataloged significant errors in the UN IPCC AR6 [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report] Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) and distributed this error listing and analysis to the IPCC Chair and other world leaders to inform them of these errors.
The identified errors result in the SPM failing to meet standards of objective scientific integrity and therefore [it] misleads world leaders regarding appropriate climate policy by erroneously pointing to a “climate crisis” that does not exist in reality. The seriously flawed SPM is “inappropriately being used to justify drastic social, economic and human changes through severe mitigation, while prudent adaptation” would be much more appropriate.
“IPCC AR6 SPM Credibility Destroyed by “Disappearing Medieval Warming Period.”” By Larry Hamlin, Watts Up With That?, 2/15/22.
Feb 14 2022
That’s what yesterday meant to most people. Not football. A social gathering with plenty of nosherai. Here at the Fortress, yesterday had another, far more significant meaning, which I shall refrain from disclosing, out of regard for the feelings of my Significant Other.
Yes, this is the introduction to yet another “assorted” column.
As we no longer follow football, the C.S.O. and I watched two movies yesterday. One was very serious, the other was rather tongue-in-cheek. Both are to be recommended.
The first movie was Eye in the Sky, a 2015 military-technological thriller starring Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman. It concerns an attempt to eliminate an Islamic terrorist cell that’s complicated by the presence of an innocent: a young girl. I shan’t spoil the movie for you with more details. Suffice it to say that it’s a stunner, and that Mirren and Rickman give their usual superb performances. See it!
The second movie was Jolt, starring Kate Beckinsale, Bobby Cannavale, and Stanley Tucci. Beckinsale’s Lindy has a problem: owing to “too much cortisol,” when irritated beyond a certain threshold she tends to “snap” in a homicidal fashion. As the cortisol also makes her stronger and faster than most other human beings of either sex, this poses a certain problem for her in social interactions. She controls her impulses with a shock vest designed for her by her psychiatrist, played by Stanley Tucci…but matters go somewhat awry when she’s told that her brand-new lover has just been murdered. This one is available through Amazon Prime. It’s both high-body-count for the action junkies and delightfully funny for…well, anyone who can endure a little profanity. Highly recommended.
I would like to give a bit of advice to other indie novelists, and so I shall:
This is not about having “a right to your own opinion.” It’s about effectiveness in promoting your works and the ideas they contain. You will do those things more effectively if you refrain from castigating, slandering, or condemning others who have their own opinions.
If this point seems a bit too abstruse for you, perhaps you’d be better advised to write children’s books. After all, children don’t usually choose the books they’re given to read. They virtually never pay for them.
I have become violently sick of the words democratic and democracy. They have a semi-honorable history, having been integral to the political ascendancy of Andrew Jackson, but over the years they’ve been shriven of both objective meaning and innocent application. Consider the rantings about “an attack on our democracy” we’ve heard recently, and reflect.
“Democracy,” stripped of all its rosy connotations, means majority rule, unlimited by anyone’s notions about rights or freedom. A lynch mob is “democratic,” locally at least. The United States is emphatically not a “democracy,” even if we use a quasi-democratic process – elections – to choose some of our public officials. It is a constitutional federated republic, in which individuals’ rights are recognized and protected, and regional variations in law and policy are permitted.
At least, that’s what it was.
Consider this little bit of news:
The Satanic Temple recently opened an after-school “Satan Club” in a Moline, Illinois, middle school, as part of its nationwide campaign to push back against the Christian Good News Clubs offered to schoolchildren after regular-hour classes….
Lucien Greaves, the Satanic Temple spokesperson, told Fox News about the clubs, “I’m hoping that with our presence, people can see that good people can have different perspectives, sometimes on the same mythology, but not mean any harm.”
Greaves also said, “We’re not including items of religious opinion … We’re not teaching children about Satanism. They’re just going to know that this is taught by Satanists.”
The Satanic Temple is not hiding the fact that it created the clubs to take on the Christian club called the Good News Club — which has become its No. 1 nemesis.
Said Greaves, “The after-school Satan Clubs were conceived of in order to give an alternative to [the] religious indoctrination [of] after-school programs.”
The Satanists’ aim could hardly be clearer. “Oh, we don’t intend to preach Satanism to your little darlings. On the other hand, if they should ask about it…😁”
We’re living through a real-world re-enactment of Stephen King’s horror novel The Stand, though the disease in that one was far more virulent than the Kung Flu.
Today CBD at AoSHQ laments a technological failure:
A 500gb SSD drive that failed after barely five years! You know…a drive that just a few years before I installed it was unimaginably expensive, and a couple of generations before that, was simply unimaginable!
“Solid-state drives” are a marvel, to be sure. They have near-instantaneous response times. They’re virtually ideal for read-only or read-mostly items such as program images. But they do have some downsides, and they are more expensive than conventional rotating magnetic media: i.e., disks.
Quite recently I purchased a 2 Terabyte SSD for a new computer. It cost about $250, which by today’s standards rates it as “expensive.” But I’ll bet CBD paid much more for the 500 Gigabyte SSD that just failed him, five years back. That’s how fast technology has been moving lately.
About forty-two years ago, I purchased a microcomputer. It had a Zilog Z80 eight-bit CPU, two eight inch floppy disks, and 64 kilobytes of RAM. It ran the CP/M 2.2 disk-operating system. It required a separate ASCII terminal, interfaced to it by RS-232 asynchronous communications, to operate. I had to program it in assembly language. It cost me nearly $4000. And to my eyes, it was the marvel of the age.
You young folks don’t know how lucky you are.
Concerning the Canadian “Freedom Convoy,” what more is there to say? The Tyrant of Ottawa has sent everything but the Boy Scouts to attack the truckers and force them to disperse. Justin Trudeau, arguably the second-worst chief executive in the First World – hey, America’s still Number One, baby – simply will not allow anyone to defy him. Unfortunately, it appears he’ll get his way.
But an American Freedom Convoy is forming as we speak. I wonder what sort of reactions that one will get, considering how our domestic tyrants are steadily backing away from all their authoritarian decrees? And have you noticed that the vaccine makers themselves are backing away from their unqualified claims that their product is perfectly safe for toddlers?
Word gets around. The lie might travel faster, but the truth will get around. In time, people will know what they need to know – and those who’ve tried to keep them from knowing it will pay. We’ve seen that with race, we’ve seen it with sexual perversions, and now we’ll see it with government-imposed “lockdowns,” “mandates,” and “vaccines.”
Today, Valentine’s Day, is actually the feast day of a Catholic saint by that name. Saint Valentine was a Third Century priest in Rome at the time of Emperor Claudius II. The Emperor, as emperors sometimes do, issued an insane decree forbidding Roman citizens to marry. He thought it would help to promote enlistment in the Roman Army. Valentine went right on conducting marriages for Roman Christians. This made the Emperor very unhappy.
Claudius ordered Valentine’s arrest, but it didn’t work out quite as he had imagined. While in prison, Valentine restored sight to his jailer’s blind daughter, causing the jailer and his entire extended household, forty-six people in total, to immediately convert to Christianity. The news made Claudius order Valentine’s execution. Saint Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended, and signed it “From Your Valentine.” He was beheaded on February 14th, giving us Valentine’s Day.
Behead someone you love today!
That’s all for the moment, Gentle Readers. I intend to spend the rest of the day away from this monstrosity and all other things digital. See you tomorrow, I hope. (Have some chocolate and think of me.)
Feb 14 2022
Addendum to my last post and to the great relief of the Weather Channel:
An 1871 dataset of sea temperatures across the Great Barrier Reef in Australia has been compared to recent measurements logged at the same reef areas. No differences in temperature were found by Dr. Bill Johnson, leading him to conclude: “Alarming claims that the East Australian Current has warmed due to global warming are therefore without foundation.”
“Sea Temperatures at the Great Barrier Reef Haven’t Increased in 150 Years, Newly Uncovered Data Show.” By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, 2/14/22.
H/t: Aletho News.
Feb 14 2022
Ok, this full-court press on the Weather Channel’s shilling for climate change is just amazing. When I think I’ve hit it pretty hard already they just crank it up ad astra. It makes you wonder if you live, like, 24/7 in a propaganda soup no matter the topic:
2/14/22 — “Serious Drought Worsens in Spain, Portugal.” “Experts say climate change is worsening droughts across Europe.”
2/14/22 — “25-Year-Old New Hampshire Event Ended; Climate Change Blamed.” “New Hampshire town ends annual event due to climate change.”
2/13/22 — “Home Collapses into Ocean on Outer Banks.” “Scientists say that as the world warms and glaciers melt problems like this will only get worse. Some homes built on the barrier island years ago are now sitting at the edge of the water.”
2/12/22 — “More Bad News for Coffee Drinkers.” “Climate change is coming for your morning cup of Joe. A new study found regions that grow coffee plants will be hit hard by 2050. The main reason is rising temperatures. . . . Droughts have already caused coffee prices to spike.”
2/12/22 — “Exclusive Winter Horse Race in Jeopardy Due to Global Warming.” “A winter horse race in Switzerland that’s over a century old may be in trouble because of rising temperatures.”
2/11/22 — “Gas Stoves Release Methane Even When They’re Off.” Methane is about 25 times a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Studies suggest that gas stoves could have the same global warming effect over 20 years as half a million gas-powered cars.
2/9/22 — “US Army’s First Climate Strategy: Cut Emissions in Half By 2030.” “The Defense Secretary stressed how climate change is already a threat to troops. Supply chains and Army infrastructures have been impacted. And working in extreme temperatures, hurricanes, and wild fires is taking its toll on soldiers. So part of the plan includes a road map to adapting troops and bases to climate extremes.”
2/9/22 — “Famous Iceberg Drops 152 Billion Tons of Freshwater As it Melts.” It seems that warmer sea water is causing the iceberg to melt faster.
2/8/22 — “Climate Change Creating More Intense Smell of Snow.” “Here’s an impact of climate change you might not have thought of. It’s changing the way snow smells. Researchers say that as the air and ground get warmer that encourages the circulation and intensity of odor molecules. So snow is producing more intense smell as a result of climate change.” We’re done for, Mabel.
2/8/22 — “Even Mount Everest Is Melting.” “Climate change is causing the highest glacier on Mount Everest to melt frighteningly fast – and it has far-reaching effects for more than one billion people.”
2/4/22 — “West Coast Could Face More Blackouts Due to Climate Change, Study Finds.” “Climate change is causing more extreme weather events.” So it’s not just warming but extreme events.
2/1/22 — “Great Barrier Reef Could Face Another Mass Bleaching.” “Greehouse gas emissions in the atmosphere are leading to climate change that’s making the world’s oceans hotter. And experts say bleaching will become more frequent.”
1/25/22 and 2/9/22 — “California Desert Plants Threatened By Climate Change and Thirsty Animals.” “Unfortunately solutions won’t be easy to come by. The true need is to eliminate greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
1/24/22 — “Back-to-Back Landfalls To Become More Frequent, Faster.” “New study found time between landfalls decreasing as world warms.” Here comes another one, Mabel.
1/20/22 — “Glacier Photos Offer Sobering Glimpse of Future.” Much future peril.
1/20/22 — “Rose-Shaped Resilient Reef Appears Untouched by Mass Bleaching Event.” Climate change making devastating bleaching events more likely.” Shocker.
12/26/21 — “Dramatic Photos from 2021 Show Depth of World Climate Crisis.”
12/25/21 — “Afghans Suffer in Extreme Drought Made Worse By Climate Change (PHOTOS).” “Amid decades of war, the coronavirus pandemic and the chaos of the Taliban seizing power and U.S. and NATO troops withdrawing earlier this year, Afghanistan is in the grips of a second year of crippling drought that experts say is made worse by climate change.”
12/23/21 — “Beavers Heading North as Arctic Permafrost Disappears.” Warmer temperatures due to climate change suspected. Surprise, surprise.
12/21/21 — “Drought, Fires, Floods, Mudslides and One Devastating Deep Freeze: The Images of 2021.” “While this year’s climate change-driven weather disasters brought immeasurable suffering and destruction . . . .”
12/20/21 — “Drought, Fires, Floods, Mudslides and One Devastating Deep Freeze: The Images of 2021.” “We’ve compiled a slideshow of both the most devastating and awe-inspiring imagery of the last year. While this year’s climate change-driven weather disasters brought immeasurable suffering and destruction, photographers still caught fleeting moments of beauty . . . .”
12/30/21 — “Time-Lapse Shows Insane Snowfall in Lake Tahoe.” Hey! How’d this get in here?
12/28/21 — “Record Snowfall Blankets West Coast.” Ok. Who’s the wise guy?
Feb 13 2022
[As I’m coming off an unsatisfactory book giveaway, and the question “Why do you style yourself a curmudgeon?” has been asked afresh, I shall give myself an easy day by reposting this exegesis, which first appeared at Liberty’s Torch V1.0 in March of 2020 — FWP]
Long time Gentle Readers are aware that I style myself “The Curmudgeon Emeritus to the World Wide Web.” And it is so. I am a grumpy sort. It’s a cultivated variety of grump, carefully refined over the decades, best summed up in the classic phrase “Get off my lawn.”
The curmudgeon is ever ready for disappointment, degradation, and disaster, for these are the most frequent visitants to every society in every era, from the most primitive to the most advanced. He looks toward the clouds rather frequently, for experience has made him certain that either the Flying Purple Shaft is hovering nearby, waiting for a moment of inattention in which to strike, or it will rain soon.
If you hear a curmudgeon laugh, put one hand on your wallet, the other over your genitals, and get to shelter right away. You’ll thank him later.
The curmudgeon is not the most accommodating of folks. He neither throws parties nor attends them. He keeps his toolshed locked. He has no interest in joining Neighborhood Watch. Whereas other sorts will mumble “I told you so,” he proclaims it to a fanfare of trumpets.
Alexander Pope once said that “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” Old Alex was wise to get his name on that sentiment, for it is inarguably so. Any curmudgeon will tell you.
If the average age of curmudgeons is greater than the national mean, should that come as a surprise? Experience is the forge in which the curmudgeon is formed. He probably started out as optimistic and sunny of outlook as any other untraveled fool. It takes time to beat that crap out of a man.
The great majority of curmudgeons are men. Women, with their innate inclination toward “support groups” and consensus thinking, are more resistant to the condition. It is not yet known whether there’s a causal connection between that aspect of the female psyche and curmudgeonry among married men, but research continues.
Those puzzled by my curmudgeonry have often asked me, “Don’t you believe in people?” Oh yes, I believe in people. After all, they’re everywhere. And they are what they have always been and always will be: wishful-thinking ignoramuses, good for at most one thing. They treat facts as opinions and opinions as facts. They dismiss data and events that conflict with their preconceptions, no matter how well verified. They mangle the punchlines of jokes while talking with their mouths full. They’re useful mainly as the butts of pratfall gags.
For a capsule characterization of the curmudgeonly attitude toward things, it’s hard to beat this brief description by Sam Leith:
[T]he curmudgeon is a pessimist, whose grumpy outlook is born of long experience, and of the realisation that what good there is in the world has been hard-won and is perpetually vulnerable to the hare-brained schemes of dreamers, utopians, and idiots of every stripe….
The curmudgeon greets the day by wondering “What fresh hell is this?” The curmudgeon greets a stranger by wondering: “What are you trying to sell me?” The curmudgeon greets an exciting new idea by thinking of all the disastrous ways in which it will go wrong. And, given a bit of time, the curmudgeon more often than not turns out to have been right. The financial writer Christopher Fildes, I think it was, who had the theory that financial crises occur whenever the last bank employee old enough to remember the last one retires. That is classic curmudgeon wisdom.
Leith also provides this observation:
In this respect the curmudgeon is the very praetorian guard of conservatism…Conservative politics, as our own Ed West points out in his fine new book Small Men on the Wrong Side of History, has its historical origins in the need to resist what was then called religious “enthusiasm”. It has continued to honour that mission, and the curmudgeon has always been at the forefront of resistance to enthusiasm of any sort, religious or otherwise….[A] society without a very hefty proportion of curmudgeons is the sort of society that careens down the hill to chaos very fast indeed, and that will, as Peter Cook warned of Britain, “sink giggling into the sea”.
Indeed. Someone must resist the fads and fashions, the panics and passions, the mad manias that sweep through a nation and carry its rationality away. Someone must stand fast against the tides, upholding the banner of reason. For reason, like the curmudgeon, has always been unpopular. It defeats the airy-fairy fancies, the dreamy what-ifs and why-nots that catapult a people into disaster. It upholds the tragic vision of existence:
In this vision, as in wine, there is truth – and this vision has fewer calories.
So you who, like your Curmudgeon, maintain shrines to Marvin the Depressive Robot:
…deserve to be recognized for your “service.” Your role might not be glamorous, but neither was that of Sandburg’s nail. Perform it with pride.
Feb 12 2022
For today, February 12 only, until Midnight Pacific time, the most daring science fiction novel since Stranger in a Strange Land:
When the remnant of the anarchist Spooner Federation fled Earth before the genocidal wrath of the States, the fugitives had only the slimmest chance of finding a habitable world orbiting a benign star. Yet 544 years after embarking on their planetoid-ship, they found one that seemed too good to be true. They named it Hope.
Like all things that are too good to be true, Hope isn’t what it seemed.
For 1200 years, a secret Cabal has elevated powerful psi talents to the management of Hope’s crust, at the eventual cost of their lives. The alternative was a choice between mass death by heavy-metal poisoning and mass death by starvation. But the pool of psi talents has dwindled till only two remain: Armand Morelon, heir apparent to the richest and most prestigious clan on Hope, and Victoria Peterson, a young woman of great beauty and intelligence immured in poverty and abuse. But one is utterly unwilling and the other is murderously insane. And the survival of Mankind hangs in the balance.
Get it while it’s free!
Feb 11 2022
You may have already heard about this offer of assistance:
U.S. officials have offered to help the Trudeau government end an anti-vaccine mandate protest blockade that is sending ripple effects through the American economy and causing increasing concern in Washington.
The White House says U.S. officials had multiple conversations on Thursday with their Canadian counterparts about the blockade on the Ambassador Bridge, a major trade artery which connects Windsor, Ont. with Detroit.
The White House said Thursday the U.S. federal cabinet and senior administration staff are now seized with this issue.
“[They] have been engaged around the clock to bring this to a swift end,” the White House said in response to questions from CBC News.
How interesting! An authoritarian regime – which is definitely illegitimate – is offering to assist a totalitarian regime in quelling a nonviolent protest of its policies. From one perspective, it’s perfectly understandable. Bad guys see other bad guys as kindred spirits. And there is that old saw about honor among thieves, isn’t there?
But let’s look at the thing from another angle. Why do men accept that governments are “necessary?” What dispreferred outcomes are governments supposed to thwart?
The two major arguments for governments are and have always been:
Well, gee. Here we have the U.S. federal government offering to use the powers of the U.S. federal government to aid the Canadian federal government in ending a peaceful protest. That protest is against Canadian federal policies that are harming thousands upon thousands of Canadians. Who’s protecting whom, and from whom, and why?
The facade has crumbled, Gentle Reader. We are staring at the naked face of evil.
For anyone who’s been having trouble with the tenor of my recent essays, I’ll reduce it to fundamentals. Governments are instruments of power: power over others. Ergo, governments are always hostile to freedom. Even a government that exercises its powers solely to protect life, liberty, and property is a potential threat to all those things…and you may be sure that there will be factions inside even such a government that seek to turn its powers to evil ends. It’s in the nature of the power-seeker. And as power-seekers tend to have no other items on their agenda, they are also monomaniacal and relentless. They persist until they are dead.
You may be equally sure that the supply of power-seekers is bottomless. They will always exist, because Man is fallen. Destroy one group, and the Hydra will produce another…unless you lop off the Hydra’s head with a sword fresh from the forge, one hot enough to cauterize and sterilize the wound. There is only one forge that produces a sword hot enough for the purpose: the forge of absolute and unqualified freedom. That forge says that to pre-exculpate and indemnify any organization for its uses of coercive force is inherently evil and not to be borne. Engraved upon its sword is the maxim that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
This is the hour. Freedom is the theme. Are we the people for it?
Feb 11 2022
“Only one thing do I know, and that is that I know nothing,” – Socrates of Athens
“All this has the disadvantage of being clean contrary to the observed laws of Nature,” observed MacPhee. The Director smiled without speaking, as a man who refuses to be drawn.
“It is not contrary to the laws of Nature,” said a voice from the corner where Grace Ironwood sat, almost invisible in the shadows. “You are quite right. The laws of the universe are never broken. Your mistake is to think that the little regularities we have observed on one planet for a few hundred years are the real unbreakable laws; whereas they are only the remote results which the true laws bring about more often than not; as a kind of accident.”[C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength]
If one of the greatest of all philosophers and teachers regarded himself in that fashion, you’d think we lesser sorts would draw the moral. But it’s rather the other way around today. That might have something to do with the removal of all mention of Socrates from American educational curricula. Or it might have something to do with a seldom heard maxim: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
No one has more than a little knowledge…a very little. And for most of us, what we think we “know” is largely a tissue of opinions and simplifications. Even such things can be useful, but to regard them as immutable truths of reality is dangerous.
One of the little digs one can hear from the scientifically inclined pertains to technological suggestions from less educated people. “That would be great…if it didn’t violate the laws of physics.” Usually the speaker will believe that he knows those laws, or a relevant subset of them. He’s nearly always wrong.
Virtually everything we mean when we speak of “the laws of physics” consists of a model of reality, whose applicability is bounded by limits of size, speed, and time. Today, physicists believe that the seemingly elementary law of conservation of mass-energy is violated at the quantum level, for periods of time short enough that we can’t detect the violation. When evidence of those violations was discovered, it shook the “conservation absolutists” rather badly. It also won Arthur Compton a Nobel Prize.
The wise man does not assert that he “knows” unless he can also predict with accuracy, within the applicable bounds on his knowledge. Such predictions flow from the mathematical models we have made of the behavior of matter and energy as we have observed them. But outside those bounds he must admit to ignorance. Not to do so displays arrogance.
We have a recent example of such arrogance before us today:
If you thought the last few years on planet Earth were bad then you’re in for another letdown – a scientist has now claimed that life after death is “beyond the realm of scientific probability”.
A professor who has dedicated much of his life studying the laws of physics and claims that the laws of the universe does not allow consciousness to continue to operate after we die.
Dr Sean Carroll, who is a cosmologist and a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology in the US argues that for there to be an afterlife, consciousness would need to be something that is entirely “separated from our physical body.”
And here’s the bad news – that’s a possibility that the laws of physics deny.
His conclusion on life after death is built on the understanding that “the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood”, so everything occurs within the realms of this.
Dr. Carroll has omitted to consider that physics can only deal with what physical instruments can detect and measure. His assertion that “the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood” is itself absurd, when “everyday life” includes the mysteries of consciousness, self-awareness, and volition, none of which have physical explanations. But he’s not alone. Many scientists, though not all, are equally arrogant about things they cannot see, hear, smell, touch, or taste.
It’s a besetting fault of those who regard themselves as knowledgeable to think they know more than they really do. The trichotomy of human thought:
…doesn’t enter into their considerations. If it were otherwise, they would speak in much more measured tones about matters in that third category.
Under the veil of Time, Man cannot know with absolute certainty that God exists, that human souls exist, that there is a second life after the death of the body, or many other things. These propositions are neither provable nor disprovable given our limitations. Indeed, there are things we cannot know about physical objects. For example, astrophysicists have been grappling with the gravitational closure of the universe for some time. At this time the consensus postulate is “dark matter,” which interacts gravitationally with normal matter but in no other way. It “makes the equations balance.” However, the universe is indifferent to our equations, which are merely models that describe the behavior of things we can see, hear, and so forth. For my part, I await developments.
What we can know is this: the spatiotemporal environment we call the universe exhibits a persistent sense of order. That persistence allows us to probe its properties. Even though at any given moment in the advance of human capability, we can only probe so far, the enduring consistency of our discoveries leaves us with a conviction that order prevails – that there are laws that reign, even if we can only know them partially and conditionally. James Blish stated the matter most succinctly:
May God bless and keep you all.
Feb 10 2022
You know, this quoting-other-novelists business is fun:
“We’ve waited a long time to get something on you. You honest men are such a problem and such a headache. But we knew you’d slip sooner or later—and this is just what we wanted.”
“You seem to be pleased about it.”
“Don’t I have good reason to be?”
“But, after all, I did break one of your laws.”
“Well, what do you think they’re for?”
Dr. Ferris did not notice the sudden look on Rearden’s face, the look of a man hit by the first vision of that which he had sought to see. Dr. Ferris was past the stage of seeing; he was intent upon delivering the last blows to an animal caught in a trap.
“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against—then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
For all its flaws, Atlas Shrugged is proving to be a monumentally useful book in this time. All right, Rand didn’t anticipate the government’s employment of illegal drug use as a tyrannizing technique. Neither did she give much emphasis to welfarism. She was principally concerned with power-mongers’ desire to subjugate the most productive members of society.
By the way, take note of that word subjugate. I chose it quite deliberately. Etymologically, it means “to put under a yoke.” There are several different yokes being fastened upon us. To name just a few:
None of those things is Constitutionally licit, of course. Item #4 is particularly pernicious. Federal drug law isn’t Constitutional in any way, but neither is a federal subsidy for crack pipes. A twofer!
The “emergency powers” bit might seem superficially plausible to persons unacquainted with constitutionalism. The word emergency appears nowhere in the Constitution of the United States. It ought not to appear in any state-level constitution or charter, for it is an undefined and undefinable term. Yet the governors of many states have claimed to exercise “emergency powers.” By what right, code, or standard? Who decides what shall qualify as an “emergency?” To what superior authority can we appeal for redress from the oppression that has followed?
Quite some time ago, I noted that governments don’t give refunds:
It is obvious that many a State policy formulated to bring about some well-conceived end has failed to do so. Sometimes the failure was inherent in the policy conception; sometimes it was the result of discontinuity in administration or application. What matters is that the result upon which the policy was founded was not achieved. How, then, shall we defend, morally or practically, the imposition of collective decision-making that overrode individuals’ claims to rightful autonomy, when the very good they were promised in exchange for their rights has failed to materialize? Shall we make restitution to those who were deprived of their lives, liberties, or properties in service to the unachieved goal? If so, what becomes of collective utility’s conceptual superiority to individual rights? If not, why should individuals agree to submit to the usurpation of their rights, however conceived, in the first place?
If we look back at the damage – the carnage — inflicted on this nation by the recent “pandemic” restrictions alone, we are owed restitution that boggles all my arithmetic. Tens of thousands have suicided. Children’s lives and minds have been sacrificed. Trillions of dollars in trade and ruined businesses have fueled the flames. Families have been torn asunder. Nothing imaginable could possibly correct for this…but the blood of the criminals who forced it on us with their “emergency powers” would provide some sense of closure. I doubt we’ll see any of it spilled, my preferences to the contrary notwithstanding.
Men who understand law, justice, and freedom should be apoplectic with rage:
“I want to know what the law is, what it permits, requires, and forbids. I want my clients to know. And the only way to reach that result is to insist that the words of the law have exact meanings, not arbitrary, impermanent interpretations that can be changed by some supercilious cretin who thinks he can prescribe and proscribe for the rest of us.
“The Constitution is the supreme law, the foundation for all other law. If it doesn’t mean exactly what its text says—the public meanings of the words as ordinary people understand them—then no one can possibly know what it means. But if no one can know what the Constitution means, then no one can know whether any other law conforms to it. At that point, all that matters is the will of whoever’s in power. And that’s an exact definition of tyranny.
My character Stephen Graham Sumner speaks for me. What about you?
Feb 09 2022
The following comes from an old novel: Robert Sheckley’s The Status Civilization. I believe it will be illuminating to persons struggling to understand why the Usurper Administration is effectively promoting the consumption of the most dangerous recreational drugs:
“Let the prisoner rise,” a voice said from behind the screen. The voice, thin, flat and emotionless, came through a small amplifier. Barrent could barely understand the words; tone and inflection were lost, as had been planned for. Even in speaking, the judge remained anonymous.
“Will Barrent,” the judge said, “you have been brought before this court on a major charge of non-drug addiction and a minor charge of religious impiety. On the minor count we have the sworn statement of a priest. On the major count we have the testimony of the Dream Shop. Can you refute either of these charges?”
Barrent thought for a moment, then answered, “No, sir, I can’t.”
“For the present,” the judge said, “your religious impiety can be waived, since it is a first offense. But non-drug addiction is a major crime against the state of Omega. The uninterrupted use of drugs is an enforced privilege of every citizen. It is well known that privileges must be exercised, otherwise they will be lost. To lose our privileges would be to lose the very cornerstone of our liberty. Therefore to reject or otherwise fail to perform a privilege is tantamount to high treason.”
There was a pause. The guards shuffled their feet restlessly. Barrent, who considered his situation hopeless, stood at attention and waited.
“Drugs serve many purposes,” the hidden judge went on. “I need not enumerate their desirable qualities for the user. But speaking from the viewpoint of the state, I will tell you that an addicted populace is a loyal populace; that drugs are a major source of tax revenue; that drugs exemplify our entire way of life. Furthermore, I say to you that the nonaddicted minorities have invariably proven hostile to native Omegan institutions. I give you this lengthy explanation, Will Barrent, in order that you may better understand the sentence which is to be passed upon you.”
Read and reflect.
All my best,
Fran
Feb 09 2022
This is a very short clip, yet critically important.
Tucker Carlson asked why public officials ignore the significantly irregular rise in deaths in the last quarter of 2021. Adding “Why aren’t they screaming.” For some reason Charlie Kirk simply did not come up with one particular motivation even though he broke the story. It is not like he didn’t have time to think about it.
The motivation I speak of, one that when explored here in the past, usually generated very few responses. Thus our Gentle Readers may themselves be able to explain why that one motivation somehow didn’t get air time.
So actuaries — whose business depends upon historically based statistics — have sounded the alarm. Public officials ignore it. And their friends in media, in response to this video, gaslight us by asserting that any link to WuFlu vax is “disproven” in the same manner that election fraud has been “debunked” even without trial. I.e., baseless assertions.
Honestly, there may be a legitimate reason why Carlson and Kirk overlooked one motivation in a world where megalomaniacal thoughts such as Eric Pianka’s get repeated frequently.
Please speculate on a few good reasons. Maybe then a proper response will be aroused in the intended targets.
Feb 09 2022
…the harder it gets to say anything much about it. Consider these two developments:
The “president” and his Homeland Security thugs are appalled that millions of Americans have reached evaluations and opinions that differ from the Official Story. This must cease! Of all things under heaven, only The Narrative is sacred. Therefore freedom of expression must be curtailed. Henceforth only “responsible speech” shall be deemed acceptable – and we’ll make sure of it!
And what’s with this “freedom of choice” stuff, says the American “Civil Liberties” Union. We can’t have that, especially not in schools! Parents could make the wrong choices. They could endanger their children and their neighbors’ children. American families must not be permitted to choose risk!
Even though the Left’s true intentions are now plain to anyone with eyes to see, it doesn’t mean that we can sit back, confident that the restoration of freedom is drawing near. For one thing, millions of Americans – well, they call themselves that, anyway – still support the Left and its totalitarian ways. For another, as Tucker Carlson has pointed out, a regime that feels its grip slipping always doubles down. In its last throes, it resorts to undisguised force – outright violence.
Indeed, we may already have entered that phase of the action.
This is not a new subject for Liberty’s Torch. I’ve ranted about anarcho-tyranny several times already. Yet the subject is far from exhausted. One aspect of out current condition deserves special emphasis.
At this time, the federal government is striving to find a way to take firearms out of the hands of law-abiding private citizens. This isn’t new; it’s been going on since 1934 at least. However, at the same time, governments across the country have been “standing down” in the face of huge outbreaks of violent crimes and crimes against property. They’ve been refusing, de facto, to enforce the laws that protect life and property. For example, in several major cities, when a retailer reports a “smash and grab” attack on his establishment, the local police shrug. “We weren’t there, so what on Earth could we do about it?” seems to be the message. But for retailers to arm themselves and their employees is regarded as beyond the pale. Why, that would suggest that the streets of San Francisco aren’t safe! The “authorities” step on it at once.
Some time ago – I’ve misplaced the link – another commentator drew what seems to me to be an irresistible and irrefutable inference: America’s criminals are acting as arms of the State. In effect, they’ve been exempted from the laws that bind the rest of us. They’re imposing a new standard upon us – Thou shalt stand ever vulnerable and undefended — and they’re doing it with the tacit approval of the “authorities.”
Meanwhile, whatever we might do to protect ourselves is being ever more closely restricted. Even in those circumstances where a citizen does wield force lawfully in protecting or preventing a felony, he immediately becomes a target for prosecution. This is the deadliest of all the State’s methods for inflicting punishment. Whether the accused wins through to acquittal is almost irrelevant, for he will be impoverished and his reputation destroyed; the minions of the State will make certain of it.
I seem to recall another writer who held forth on this most memorably:
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world?’ You are.”
What other way is there to read the tea leaves?
So the Usurpers are determined that we shall not speak against their precious Narrative. Their quasi-private cat’s-paws – there are many such – are determined that we shall not choose what they disapprove. Meanwhile the very worst criminals — outside the corridors of power, that is – rampage unchecked except for occasional acts of heroism by private citizens. And it goes on.
I’m growing weary. I can’t keep repeating the same propositions without feeling a “What’s the use?” twist of the guts. I know I’m not alone that way. But the need is as great as ever. The demonstrations of the utter necessity of mass rebellion multiply daily.
But I will repeat myself once more:
So also with safety, as elusive a commodity as that always is.
Feb 08 2022
If your insanity meter hasn’t pinned yet, it will after you read this:
The Biden administration is set to fund the distribution of crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its plan to advance “racial equity.”
The $30 million grant program, which closed applications Monday and will begin in May, will provide funds to nonprofits and local governments to help make drug use safer for addicts. Included in the grant, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, are funds for “smoking kits/supplies.” A spokesman for the agency told the Washington Free Beacon that these kits will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and “any illicit substance.”
HHS said the kits aim to reduce the risk of infection when smoking substances with glass pipes, which can lead to infections through cuts and sores. Applicants for the grants are prioritized if they treat a majority of “underserved communities,” including African Americans and “LGBTQ+ persons,” as established under President Joe Biden’s executive order on “advancing racial equity.”
Glory be to God.
I once thought my task as a commentator was to explore connections that others might not see otherwise. I thought it would demand some analytical and synthetic skill. I put my strengths in those areas to work in composing each day’s essay. I often took pride in the result.
It’s becoming impossible to do that. The connections among events and political developments are all too tragically clear. The Usurper regime is openly funding and encouraging every sort of evil, insanity, and social dissolution. Its fans in the Establishment are cheering it on, as if there’s money to be made from it. Perhaps there is.
The United States of America isn’t just “at a crossroads.” It faces complete collapse – and its supposed government is orchestrating and promoting the collapse. The fruits of the stolen election have been revealed to us in all their infernal majesty:
How can this go on? Why are we permitting it?
It should be enough to note that the federal government is not just illegitimate by reason of the stolen elections, but openly in league with America’s enemies…but there’s that word again. A nation populated by free and patriotic citizens would not allow this to go on. The implications are too bitter to consider.
This lunacy would make the “bearded Spock universe” look rational and benign.
Time to back away from the keyboard. I’m running out of spit. Perhaps I’ll be in a better mood later.
Feb 08 2022
Namely, in trying to understand US dissembling about Russia, just factor into your thinking that there’s zero Russian advantage to invading Ukraine; all the rest is just manufactured hysteria. Moreover, note the complete absence from NATO and State Department maneuvering over eastern Europe of even the slightest recognition of any legitimate Russian interest in keeping hostile actors somewhere other than on its very borders.
We’ll decide what your interests are, Russian peasants. Pay not attention to these nuclear-capable cruise missiles out by your mailbox. This is just us providing the “leadership” for which the world yearns. You may pound sand.
Instead of a real military threat from Russia and China, the problem for American strategists is the absence of such a threat. All countries have come to realize that the world has reached a point at which no industrial economy has the manpower and political ability to mobilize a standing army of the size that would be needed to invade or even wage a major battle with a significant adversary. That political cost [reality?] makes it uneconomic [unwise?] for Russia to retaliate against NATO adventurism prodding at its western border trying to incite a military response. It’s just not worth taking over Ukraine.[1]
Nor is there slightest advantage to Russia in taking over a basket case like Ukraine.
Where the US starts is from the unshakeable position that “we” have a vital interest in expanding NATO eastward in order to prevent Putin from recreating the USSR and dominating eastern Europe as in the good old days. However, every day that passes it’s clear that the US is re-enacting Woody Allen’s classic lobster scene with the new woman in “Annie Hall.” The US absolutely refuses to get over itself and its awesomeness and move on to just being one of a multitude of nations on the planet. Our fiscal, monetary, and economic stupidity will ensure that that epiphany lights up the odd Deep State skull in the US soon enough. But that’s another story.
Notes
[1] “America’s Real Adversaries Are Its European and Other Allies.” By Michael Hudson, The Unz Review, 2/7/22.
Feb 07 2022
“Death is the price we pay for life, and for all life.” — Ursula Le Guin
It is so. All that lives must die. Whether it’s by accident, disease, violence, or simply old age, all that lives must die. Realists know it. We know it couldn’t be any other way.
That doesn’t make it any easier to cope with the loss of a loved one.
Way back in the dim, dark ages of 2005, I adopted a kitten. It wasn’t something I’d set out to do. I’d simply shown up at my preferred pet-supplies store when there was a woman there with a kitten in her arms that she hoped to adopt out. The little guy was about six weeks old, jet black, and had the most brilliant blue eyes I’d ever seen on a feline. I took him home then and there. I named him Uriel.
Uriel grew swiftly. He proved to be a big boy at full growth. But his size didn’t prevent him from being a cuddlebug. From earliest kittenhood to full maturity, a human lap – usually mine – was his favorite thing in all the world.
He had a typical Fortress of Crankitude life. That is: he was loved and pampered by all the residents of this dump, and he returned love for love. He made friends with all the ambulatory creatures here, regardless of size or species. I don’t recall any of our other pets ever having a conflict with him, and we’ve always had a lot of them.
The years pass too easily. We forget too easily, too.
Early this morning Uriel’s life ended. He was worn out. He’d lost most of his weight and coat, and had caught an infection of some kind as well. From all indications, he simply surrendered to what had become inevitable. When I arose I found him lifeless, arranged for his cremation, and…well, that’s all there is to say about that.
Except that it isn’t.
We humans are blessed – or cursed – with too much awareness, too much comprehension, and too great an ability to love. Over the course of a typical life we love others of our kind, but also members of other species: dogs, cats, horses, hamsters, ferrets, three-toed sloths, what have you. I’ve loved pets of every kind. I once had a Norwegian white lab rat that my wife saved from a pointless death because “they didn’t need him.” I loved him too.
You can’t love without the possibility of loss. What makes it a possibility rather than a certainty is only this: you might die first. They they’ll mourn you, to whatever extent they’re capable.
From the moment you first choose to love – and it is a choice, always – you open the door to loss. If your loves include creatures of less lifespan than is given to Man, you’re likely to face loss several times on that account alone. It’s part of the bargain.
But love enlarges you. By loving, even in loving an animal, you grow to be more than you were. Love is never wasted. Neither is the grief you feel over loss.
That last bit is the part that’s hardest to accept, and to remember.
Uriel had a good life. We made sure of that. But no power can defeat death. Not permanently, anyway. Uriel had used up his allotted span.
I was taught long ago that animals’ souls die with their bodies. I’d rather not believe it. I know quite a lot of other Catholics who don’t. But I won’t know the facts of the matter on this side of the veil of time. I suppose I’ll just have to wait a while longer…not too much longer, matters being as they are.
Goodbye, Uriel.
Feb 07 2022
Someone, at some time in the past, said something similar to this:
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
The original source is heavily disputed, so let’s not go there. The core of the sentence is perfectly plain: To impose an alien ideology upon Americans, employ their most cherished symbols as camouflage. And indeed, that’s what the proto-fascists of our nation have been doing for more than a century. They’ve been getting away with it, too.
People argue – naturally – about what constitutes Fascism. My preferred definition for Fascism comes from the originator of the doctrine, Benito Mussolini:
“The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism, the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative….All within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Thus, in a Fascist polity:
Keep that paradigm in mind as you read what follows.
The American form of Fascism comes under a twofold cloak: “Emergency powers” claimed and wielded by the executive branch, and “compelling government interest.” These notions allow the regime to rationalize the “suspension” of Constitutional provisions and guarantees.
Anyone who’s lived through the two years just behind us will be familiar with how governments use “emergencies” to arrogate previously uncontemplated powers for themselves. The assertion of such powers proceeds under a “government interest” which is claimed to take precedence over any individual’s rights. From that earlier essay:
“Rights are an archist concept. Rights have no meaning except when confronted with superior power. They are what is left to the people after the government has taken all its wants. Your country’s Bill of Rights defines your most cherished freedoms how? By limiting the legal power of government to encroach upon them.” [Eric L. Harry, via fictional anarchist theorist Valentin Kartsev in Harry’s novel Protect and Defend.]
It would appear that “superior power” acknowledges no rights. The rationale is almost always “compelling government interest:” that is, the State’s interest in…what? How can the State, a fictional creature made up of individuals such as you and I, hired to do the relatively simple jobs (NB: “simple,” not necessarily “easy”) of keeping the peace in the streets, operating a court system, and defending the territory of the United States, have “interests?” It’s a BLEEP!ing hireling, and hirelings have no interests; they have responsibilities and delegated, enumerated powers, nothing more.
The State’s “interests” are nonexistent. However, the individuals at the levers of power don’t see it that way. They want power, and as much of it as they can grab. Your “rights?” Sorry, buddy, they were just an Eighteenth Century philosopher’s idle fancy. Just a few words on a scrap of parchment. At any rate, we shan’t concern ourselves with them today. There’s
oppressingwork to be done!“Your government’s” work.
The above brings us to this graphic, which I swiped from 90 Miles From Tyranny:
Actually, the “woke” are just fine with racism: racism against whites. Indeed, it’s one of their main tools for fastening a yoke upon us. Apart from that, Miss Smith’s assessment is quite accurate. Were the “woke” presented with an anonymized description of government power in the Third Reich, they would approve of all of it, with the possible exception of its anti-Semitism. Even genocide is all right with them, as long as it’s in support of the “woke” agenda: to remove “ineducable dissenters” from the body politic, for example. Remember Bill Ayres’s Weather Underground comrades discussing the necessary execution of 25 million Americans who would resist “re-education?”
Because individuals will always retain some grip on reality and some sense of ineradicable moral bounds, once a Fascist regime gets rolling, there will be outbreaks of horror – moral horror – over its operations. That’s when the “woke” start openly quoting Stalin about eggs and omelets. The ineducables were impeding the work of the State, and that must not be impeded! It was a tragic necessity that they be lined up along a trench lip, shot dead, and their bodies tumbled into a mass grave, but a necessity even so. Now sit down and shut up, Citizen…unless you want to join them.
I’m not going to enumerate the many ways in which the Republic has degenerated into a neofascist construct. My Gentle Readers are observant and intelligent enough to note the correlations for themselves. But we might take note of an episode from some years ago, when Jonah Goldberg addressed a left-leaning college audience. He asked them a single pointed question:
“Other than the racism and genocide, what was so bad about fascism?”
Let’s start asking that question of the “woke.”
Feb 07 2022
Two years after leaving the EU Britain has made almost none of the promised progress towards economic liberalisation. While Brussels hasn’t been helpful, libertarian ministers in the Tory government have been both conquered by the bureaucracy of the civil service and even turned into high spending statists. There has been no attempt to reduce the state’s suffocating dominance over the economy.[1]
Forget the sophistries of left-right, socialism, fascism, capitalism, trickle down, stimulus, free trade, cheap labor and the like. All topics that stimulate the lizard brains of grasping, conniving, race-baiting, grifting, spirit cooking midgets to be sure. But here is a issue of the ages staring us right in the eyes: We’ve allowed massive power to drift into unaccountable hands that have brought the West to its knees.
Roughly 50% of our income, give or take, goes to fund the most asinine, poisonous, and destructive stuff imaginable yet there’s only position that ever prevails in the politics of this garbage — the government’s. Day in and day out, month after month, we hurtle to disaster because government has got the bit between its teeth, screwed the pooch, circled the wagons, and flown the coop.
Productive people see the money they work hard for turned over to contemptible buffoons, liars, and demagogues. But it’s ALWAYS steady as she goes. Defiticts to the moon and lesbian storybooks in the schools. And old Mitch is red hot on anyone’s messing with the filibuster. Theft of a presidential election? Not so much.
So there’s a campaign issue for the ages, if not a way of life. Remove evil, conniving, goofy, dishonest swine from power. Make it impossible for them to jimmy elections, profit while in office, or silence our voices. Destroy their sinecures, unearned privileges and immunities, and their intolerable, liberty-destroying, vicious laws, regulations, and court decisions that turn free people into serfs and destroy our families and the peace and security of our neighborhoods. Destroy the Department of Justice, disband the FBI, and repeal the United States Code. Have Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ron Paul be in charge of what statutes get re-enacted.
No more welfare and no more civil rights law for damn sure. Turn federal offices into condos. Have the Supreme Court hold hearings in the Dollar Store parking lots. Appoint at least one veteran, one cop, one victim of violent crime, and one truck driver to the Court. Expel all students who can’t read or solve simple mathematical problems, or who are disruptive. Destroy the Fed.
“Clean fucking house” in words of few syllables. Can you bastards who mewl about the rule of law and preserving [stuff] actually do something for a change? America — the entire Western world — is unrecognizable. A cowardly, whimpering, helpless shadow of its former glory, terrified into silence and immobility lest the cry of bigotry and meanness be heard throughout the land. You disgust us.
Notes
[1] “The UK And Its Lost Opportunities.” By Alasdair Macleod, ZeroHedge, 2/6/22 (emphasis removed).
