Patton Would Be Proud!

Sanctuary city county

Posted on November 30, 2023December 1, 2023 by Mike 1 Comment

About damned time.

Town Forms Militia to Resist Whitmer’s Gun Control Laws
The Second Amendment reads, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” We who oppose gun control tend to recognize that nothing in the introductory clause negates that whole “shall not be infringed” bit.

A lot of other people focus on that first part, arguing that “well regulated” means the same thing today as it did back then. Some will even say that if you want a gun, you should join a militia.

Now, they mean the National Guard, but they failed to be specific and that’s on them.

In Michigan, though, gun control laws seem to be rolling steadily down the line. One town, however, is in that “shall not be infringed” camp and declared itself a Second Amendment sanctuary. They also formed their own “well regulated militia” to try and make it stick.

A township in Muskegon County has declared itself a Second Amendment sanctuary and created a maximally inclusive militia in hopes of protecting citizens’ constitutional rights from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s gun control laws.

…The resolution stated that “the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of our nation; … the Second Amendment to the Constitution states, ‘A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’; and … the United States Supreme Court has affirmed that the right of an individual to ‘keep and bear arms,’ as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporated by the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against the states.”

Noting that board members will remain steadfast in upholding the the U.S. and Michigan constitutions and oppose “any law that would unconstitutionally restrict the rights of the citizens of Holton Township to keep and bear arms,” the resolution called for the technical establishment of a militia.

Accordingly, all legal residents with primary residency within the township who are 18 or older, capable of passing a federal firearms background check, and desire to do so can become a member of the Holton Township Militia simply by indicating their intent “on open media or to friends and or family or by letter.”

Divemedic frets that this move may bring us one step closer to CW II, and he may well be right about that. As disturbing a prospect as that is, though, the fact remains that if 2A people had stepped up in defense of their Constitutionally-enumerated rights like this long ago, we wouldn’t be in this mess to start with. Ref: Mike’s Iron Law Nos. 1, 213, 873, and 1,246. The underlying principle applies in other contexts beyond the 2A—far too many of ‘em, actually.

Real Americans from 50-60-70 years ago might possibly be excused for being unaware of the implacable, insatiably-rapacious nature of the Goosesteppin’ Left, maybe, but not today. We’ve surely seen enough by now to understand that, with authoritarian Leftards like Fraulein Whitler, if you give ‘em an inch, they’ll take absolutely everything you have. Rights not defended are rights lost; as the Founders warned, they are never restored willingly—they must either be taken back, or surrendered forever.

I believe I’ve just come up with a new Iron Law: In the face of creeping tyranny, complacency is death. It’s sad, it’s scary, it’s unpleasant to contemplate, it’s tragic, even. What it also happens to be is the cold, hard truth.

Update! Mike’s Iron Laws have been duly revised.

Conor McGregor for Taioseach!

Posted on November 27, 2023November 27, 2023 by Mike 10 Comments

I’m down with that. In fact, I could wish we had one like him over here.

Today’s headline may become a regular feature here at SteynOnline – because in the vibrantly multicultural west the stabbing of the native population is becoming a routine event. Following Saturday’s pogrom at a village dance in rural France, in Dublin yesterday three schoolgirls and a member of staff were stabbed. Or as the BBC put it, lapsing into the passive voice:

Three children and a school care assistant were injured in a knife attack in the city centre.

Oh, that’s so sad. Did the knife attack them all on its own or was there a human being as its accomplice? Ah, well…

The “extraordinary outbreak of violence” had come after “hateful assumptions” were made based on material circulating online in the wake of the stabbings…

It is understood that included false claims that the attacker was a foreign national.

Sources have indicated to the BBC that the man suspected of carrying out the attack is an Irish citizen in his late 40s who has lived in the country for 20 years.

Really? You’re being a bit coy, aren’t you? If “sources have indicated to” you, maybe you could indicate to us a bit more about what those sources indicated. The “false claims” online were that the stabber was an “Algerian immigrant” or “a man from Algeria”. So is the BBC saying merely that this “Irishman” may well have originated in Algeria but he managed to procure an Irish passport so that makes him as Irish as Paddy O’Peat-Bog? Because while that may be true as a matter of law it doesn’t render the underlying claim in the least bit “false” – or the broader point: that a certain percentage of immigrants to the west enjoy stabbing infidels.

So the only “falseness” here is on the part of the Beeb, in seeking to airbrush, as they always do, the fruits of diversity.

To be fair, the Dublin media are not quite as invested in the multiculti omerta as the French press, which spent the days after the Crépol attack reporting it, much to the fury of the locals, as a teenage “brawl” – or une rixe. A brawl requires two sides – Sharks rumbling with Jets in West Side Story. This was a one-side story: A gang of North Africans rode out from the big town for the express purpose of killing whites, bringing 25cm blades with which they intentionally stabbed sixteen-year-old Thomas in the throat and in the heart. Notwithstanding the media-government omerta, everyone in France who wants to know the truth knows it.

Back in the real Ireland that Commissioner Harris purports to police, 75 per cent of people think the country has taken in too many refugees – whatever that word now means. And that figure rises to 83 per cent among supporters of Sinn Féin – who, a third of a century back, murdered Mr Harris’s dad but are not generally regarded as “far right”. The Shinners do, however, appear to discern an existential question for today’s Irish state: what’s the point of throwing off the Protestant Ascendancy only to replace it with an Islamic Ascendancy?

Given the choice between the French reaction to Saturday’s stabbings and the Irish reaction to Thursday’s, I’ll take the latter. “Virtue-signalling” is a cutesy phrase but, if it can encompass the sacrifice of your own children on the altar of diversity, then our society does not deserve to survive. If you can’t summon righteous anger over attempted re-enactments of the Massacre of the Innocents, when can you?

That seventy-five per cent poll response ought to be the baseline in the nations of the west. The political class has embarked on a mad and unprecedented experiment that discards all the most basic maxims of prudence: They have determined to transform our nations into something other. You can vote, as Britain did, for a party that promises to reduce immigration to mere thousands only to wake up to hear that its wretched and traitorous leadership have admitted 1.2 million migrants last year alone. That’s over four times as many immigrants as the United Kingdom took in during the nine centuries between 1066 and 1950 (about 200,000 Jews, 50,000 Huguenots, and a bit of flotsam and jetsam from hither and yon). What western governments are doing to their peoples is not normal, and should not be treated as such.

Twenty years ago, I still hoped we might be able to vote our way out of societal suicide. But that is increasingly unlikely. The media coverage of the Crépol and Dublin stabbings confirms that, when asked to choose between the multiculti madness and their lyin’ eyes, the elites are too invested in the former to be in the least bit susceptible to reality.

So there will be more stabbings of children. And there will be more responses to it – some like the passive weepy vigils of Wednesday but, eventually, more like the Dublin rampage of Thursday. The Irish, of all people, should surely be aware that, when push comes to shove, violence does not remain a monopoly of one side.

A shame, but the conduct of officialdom this past week suggests that in the chancelleries of Europe and the rest of the west they will leave the citizenry no other option.

Indeed so; as I’ve said more than once, if said citizenry is left with no hope for justice but vigilantism, then vigilantism it will surely be, sooner or later. Ah, but where might McGregor fit in to all this, you ask? Why, rat cheer, I fire back.

Is Conor McGregor Running for Office? Fed-Up UFC Legend Makes Vow After Violent Attack in Ireland\
Friday on X, formerly Twitter, McGregor threw down the gauntlet and promised to fix what ails his home country.

“There will be change in Ireland, mark my words. The change needed,” McGregor wrote as part of a lengthier post.

On Thursday, riots erupted in the Irish capital of Dublin following a knife attack that wounded five people, including three children. Irish journalist John McGuirk identified the suspected assailant as “an Algerian national in his 50s who came to Ireland several decades ago.”

McGregor condemned the riots but also acknowledged the rioters’ concerns.

“Last nights scenes achieved nothing toward fixing the issues we face. I do understand frustrations however, and I do understand a move must be made to ensure the change we need is ushered in. And fast!” he wrote.

“I am in the process of arranging. Believe me I am way more tactical and I have backing,” he added.

That last line undoubtedly raised eyebrows. At minimum, it raised the question of whether McGregor might attempt to follow the likes of Milei and former U.S. President Donald Trump as celebrity outsiders-turned-populist leaders.

McGregor then cited immigrant violence against Irish citizens as the context for his promised change.

“In the last month, innocent children stabbed leaving school. Ashling Murphy murdered. Two Sligo men decapitated,” the former UFC champion wrote.

“This,” according to McGregor “is NOT Ireland’s future!”

“If they do not act soon with their plan of action to ensure Ireland’s safety, I will,” he added.

Naturally, the goobermint responded to such threats of violence, Islamophobia, and bigotry exactly how we in Amerika v2.0 have come to expect.

Irish Authorities Investigate Conor McGregor for “Hate Speech”
It looks like a lot of Irish have had enough. Farmers are ordered to kill cows, crime is increasing, and illegal aliens are pouring in. The new Prime Minister thinks the country is too white at 93%, so he’s doing something about it. His election was lauded because he’s of Indian descent and gay. Maybe they should have gone for actual qualifications.

As Elon Musk said, the Prime Minister hates the Irish people, making his hate speech laws very ironic.

McGregor called out the police.

“Innocent children ruthlessly stabbed by a mentally deranged non-national in Dublin, Ireland today. Our chief of police had this to say on the riots in the aftermath. Drew, not good enough.”

“There is grave danger among us in Ireland that should never be here in the first place, and there has been zero action done to support the public in any way, shape or form with this frightening fact. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.”

“Make a change or make way. Ireland for the victory. God bless those attacked today, we pray.”

He also posted on X: “Do not let any Irish property be took over unannounced. Evaporate said property. It’s a war,” he added.

Run, Conor, run! As increasingly seems to be case across the Western world, your government has declared itself your enemy. So be it, then—let them be treated as such, in all ways great and small. To wit:

MMA Superstar Conor McGregor has been outspoken about the potential alien issue in the stabbings. He’s effective so he’s a target.

“McGregor’s posts are being assessed by the gardai, the Irish police, as part of an inquiry into the dissemination of online hate speech,” reports the Times.

“Disgraceful! Conor repeatedly condemned any illegal activity and is only expressing the view of the majority of Irish people on uncontrolled immigration,” remarked Keith Woods

“This state is at war with its own people,” he added.

Some Irish people are talking about having Conor run for PM. So, what does the government do? The Irish authorities investigate him for “online hate speech.” It’s a Soviet-style tactic used throughout the West, especially in the United States.

They investigated him for an alleged sexual assault in June, but couldn’t come up with charges.

Of course they couldn’t. There, as here, the process is the punishment. Godspeed to Conor McGregor, another stout lad who’s had a bellyful of it, whatever he may choose to do going forward.

Update! In case you didn’t know—I didn’t myself, until I’d read Caim McDonnell’s wonderful Bunny McGarry series of novels—the Irish PM is generally known in-country as the Taioseach. Pronounced “tee-shercchhh,” more or less, in that baffling way the Gaelic language has about it.

Update From Barry:
At the risk of stepping on the great ones toes*, Mike, I’ll link to Tucker and Bannon discussing this very topic:

Ep. 41 Dublin in flames. What’s happening in Ireland will happen here, at scale. Steve Bannon explains. pic.twitter.com/KzrRUJq0ZL

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 27, 2023

*If Mike had toes, but being the “Worlds Greatest One Legged Blogger” does require sacrifices 🙂

Happy Armistice/Remembrance/Veterans Day!

Posted on November 11, 2023November 11, 2023 by Mike

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, by tradition, the time and date in 1918 the Armistice bringing hostilities to a close was scheduled to go into effect.

Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, at 5:45 am for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at 11:00 am—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918 although, according to Thomas R. Gowenlock, an intelligence officer with the U.S. First Division, shelling from both sides continued for the rest of the day, ending only at nightfall. The armistice initially expired after a period of 36 days and had to be extended several times. A formal peace agreement was reached only when the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following year.

The date is a national holiday in France, and was declared a national holiday in many Allied nations. However, many Western countries and associated nations have since changed the name of the holiday from Armistice Day, with member states of the Commonwealth of Nations adopting Remembrance Day, and the United States government opting for Veterans Day. In some countries Armistice Day coincides with other public holidays.

As might easily have been foreseen, at least according to the usual 20/20 hindsight, the War To End All Wars did no such thing; a mere twenty years later, the folly of indulging such wishful thinking would be established for all time.

Closely juxtaposed with Veterans Day every November 11th, there’s another martial anniversary well worth remembering for American patriots: the founding—in a bar, natch—of the philanthropical and charitable organization revered far and wide as Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.

Here are some badass stories to help ring in the Marine Corps’ birthday
When Samuel Nicholas was tasked with raising two battalions of Marines in Philadelphia, he knew just where to go: a bar.

Nicholas headed to Tun Tavern that fateful Nov. 10 in 1775, and — so the traditional story goes — the Continental Marines were born.

Two hundred forty-eight years later, Tun Tavern is gone, but the Marine Corps is still around.

Happy birthday, Marines. Before you head out to your local birthday ball, celebrate with this roundup of some of the great things Marines have done since turning 247.

Marines step up in malls, embassies and Chick-fil-As
In December 2022, Marine recruiter Staff Sgt. Josue Fragoso and applicant Scott Elliott were going through paperwork in a California mall when they heard glass shattering. They proceeded to nab two suspects who apparently were in the middle of a smash-and-grab heist of the mall’s jewelry store.

In April, three Marines who had recently graduated from Marine embassy security training at Quantico, Virginia, broke up a fight during a lunchtime excursion to a nearby Chick-fil-A. One of the Marines, Lance Cpl. Nicholas Dural, managed to break an alleged assailant’s knife in half.

Then Dural went to get a haircut — and didn’t tell his barber what had just happened.

“I try to be as humble as possible,” he told Marine Corps Times.

Obstacle course is no obstacle for 4-foot-7-inch Marine
The 4-foot-7-inch Pfc. Nathaniel Laprade made it through boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, in September, becoming possibly the shortest U.S. service member ever.

Many of the obstacles in the obstacle course were taller than Laprade, but he made it over without much trouble. He just had to jump a little higher, he said.

Laprade said of his peers in boot camp, “I think they kind of looked up to me in a way. I had one recruit, now a Marine, who told me that I was his motivation.”

During his enlistment process, Laprade heard from recruiters about Richard Flaherty, a 4-foot-9-inch Green Beret who became known as the “Giant Killer” for his service in Vietnam.

“The main part that inspired me was that he was Army and 4 foot 9 inches,” Laprade said. “If I go Marines when I’m 4 foot 7 inches, I will beat him in two ways.”

More still at the link, just a few among so many wonderful stories of Gyrene aplomb, pluck, and derring-do that form an important part of Marine Corps history. And lest we forget, there’s also the legendary Marine’s Marine Chesty Puller.

Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller (June 26, 1898 – October 11, 1971) was a United States Marine Corps officer. Beginning his career fighting guerillas in Haiti and Nicaragua as part of the Banana Wars, he later served with distinction in World War II and the Korean War as a senior officer. By the time of his retirement in 1955, he had reached the rank of lieutenant general.

Puller is the most decorated Marine in American history. He was awarded five Navy Crosses and one Distinguished Service Cross. With six crosses, Puller is second behind Eddie Rickenbacker for citations of the nation’s second-highest military award for valor. Puller retired from the Marine Corps in 1955, after 37 years of service. He lived in Virginia and died in 1971 at age 73.

Again, just the lead-in to a much larger, longer story.

7 Legends About ‘Chesty’ Puller, the Most Decorated Marine in US History
Lewis “Chesty” Puller (1898-1971), was a 37-year veteran of the USMC, ascended to the rank of lieutenant general and is the most decorated Marine in the history of the Corps. He served in World War II, Haiti, Nicaragua and the Korean War. The concrete facts surrounding his military service are astounding, but his grassroots legacy is carved out by stories echoed through generations of Marines that sound crazy enough to be true only for Puller.

His Nickname “Chesty” Came from the Legend that He Had a False “Steel Chest.”
There are many legends surrounding how Lewis “Chesty” Puller got his nickname. One says that it came from his boisterous, commanding voice that was miraculously heard over the sounds of battle. There are even some that say that it is literal — and that his chest was hacked away in the banana wars and replaced with an iron steel slab.

“All Right, They’re on Our Left. They’re on Our Right. They’re in Front of Us. They’re Behind Us. They Can’t Get Away This Time.”
This is one of the most iconic quotes from Puller. His men were completely surrounded, and what initially seemed like doom would soon be revealed to them as the beginnings of victory.

He Always Led by Example.
Puller famously put the needs of his men in front of his own. In training, he carried his own pack and bedding roll while marching at the head of his battalion. He afforded himself no luxuries his men did not have — usually meaning a diet consisting only of “K” rations. When in New Britain, Papua New Guinea, legend has it that he slept on the bare floor of an abandoned hut and refused to let the native people make him a mattress of banana leaves. And he always refused treatment when wounded until his men had been attended to.

The traditional American nation, battered, bruised, and bloodied as it now is, will always have need of such men, as many of them as it can possibly get. Amerika v2.0, on the other hand, is not only incapable of producing them, but actively scorns and shuns them, favoring…well, other, far lesser breeds, shall we say.

Happy birthday, Marines, and many happy returns. May God bless and keep you all.

USMCNormal

So obvious only a “liberal” could fail to understand it

Posted on October 17, 2023October 17, 2023 by Mike

Just another typically brilliant Daniel Greenfield essay.

As highly civilized people, we’ve lost touch with some basic concepts. Like war.

We complain that we never win wars anymore, but that’s because we don’t fight them. Instead, we have limited interventions against insurgents. We try to stabilize failed states. Sometimes we go in, take out a few terrorists, and then go back home. Veterans, whose wounds are very real, sit around wondering what it was all for. So do the families of the men who died fighting in a war that was never a war.

To win a war, you have to fight one.

If your enemy is fighting a war and you’re fighting something less than a war, the enemy will win.

A few rules of thumb, from people who knew a little something about it.

We fight things that are not wars to ‘stabilize’ regions. Wars are not fought for stability, but destruction. To win a war, destroy the enemy. That’s what the United States and its allies did in WWII, raining mass death and destruction on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in ways that still make modern liberals cringe.

“The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them,” said Arthur Harris, the Royal Air Force chief of Bomber Command, in 1940.

“The harder we push, the more Germans we kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing harder means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that,” General Geroge Patton told the Third Army.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s obsession with taking the war to Japan led to the Doolittle Raid. One of the bombs from that raid hit a school. “It is quite impossible to bomb a military objective that has civilian residences near it without danger of harming the civilian residences as well. That is a hazard of war,” Doolittle had warned.

That is what war is. It’s why wars should not be fought lightly. But when you fight them, fight to win.

Indeed so. Or, as the rockabilly folks always like to say: Get hot or go home.

Heroes

Posted on October 11, 2023October 11, 2023 by Mike

Though the term has been cheapened on these shores after having been spewed across the entire landscape like water from a firehose, in some places it still has meaning. The Nir Am kibbutz would definitely be one of those places.

Israeli Woman Who Helped Save a Kibbutz: ‘I’m Not a Hero, I Wasn’t There by Myself’
‘I hope you won’t have too much to do,’ Inbal Lieberman was told when she first took the post of security coordinator for Nir Am less than a year ago

Inbal Lieberman doesn’t want to be everybody’s heroine. She refuses to grant interviews, rebuffing the attention. She would like to remove the crown placed on her head by the masses online. Like many others living in the vicinity of Gaza, Lieberman just wants a little peace of mind and a safe space to grieve.

Last Saturday, she and her colleagues in Kibbutz Nir Am’s guard detail saved hundreds of people, but they too knew people who were killed by invading Hamas forces in the neighboring communities. The hundreds of calls and texts reaching her at her hotel in Tel Aviv contrasted starkly with her state of mind.

During the first hours of the ongoing war, while Liebstein (head of the Sha’ar Hanegev regional council Ophir, from whom came the pull quote in italics above—M) was meeting death trying to defend other people in the area, Lieberman encountered the test of a lifetime. At 6:30 A.M., as rocket sirens wailed, everybody in the kibbutz – seasoned in these matters – ran for shelter. Lieberman also went into a shelter, but then she heard other noises. Unusual ones.

Ofer Lieberman, her father, is a different kind of parent. Unlike others, he evades the expectation that he will hail his daughter. He finds it more comfortable to reconstruct the event as he experienced it. “The electricity went out because of the rockets and she ordered that the power not be restored so nobody could open the gates to the kibbutz,” he says. “The security detail had woken up and she took the decision to arm them and place them in positions.”

And so it was done. Like in the mythological stories of early Zionism, Lieberman and 11 other kibbutz members stood guard and waited.

Like in any of those mythological stories, the precise details of her heroism were inflated. Social media messages reported “25 terrorists killed” while actually one had been killed and one wounded. But for three hours, Lieberman and the security detail fought from positions within the kibbutz and with militants some dozens of meters away from the entrance.

Other kibbutz members could hear the whole thing from their shelters. Her father, though, though left the safe room for the kitchen at the height of the battle to fry an omelette. “She called us at some point, asking for a sandwich,” her father explains. “So I left the shelter, made her an omelette sandwich and brought it to her.”

You see what I mean about heroes, I’m sure. Lieberman père and jeune fille both qualify as such, eminently. Cross-dressers and Nee-grows who collapse into paroxysms of hysterical grief claiming “genocide” anytime someone looks at them disapprovingly for, respectively, public acts of pedophilia and looting/burning of entire cities assuredly do NOT.

Coast to coast road trip in a 75 Dart

Posted on September 26, 2023September 26, 2023 by Mike

First question that occurs to me is, why on earth would you WANT to? Myself, I wouldn’t trust a Dart to get me to the corner liquor store. But then, some people are just natural-born risk takers, and love taking on a challenge so daunting, so obviously insane, even the Gods Themselves would tremble at the prospect.

Dart Across America: Adventures of Driving a 1975 Dodge Dart 3,300 Miles in Six Days
The 225-cid. slant-six engine is touted for being bulletproof and able to handle all kinds of abuse. That’s one major reason why Erik Jesperson chose a 1975 Dodge Dart as the classic car for his coast-to-coast road trip adventure from Ocean City, Washington to Ocean City, New Jersey. The other solid reason was its mostly clean, rust-free body.

The road trip was arranged after Erik’s friend Josh asked what he wanted to do for his bachelor party before his wedding on December 1, 2023. A road trip across the country had always been on Erik’s bucket list, and he’s not the type to turn down an excuse to buy another project car.

After locating the 1975 Dodge Dart at a dealership, he had the car inspected by a local mechanic before fully committing to the trip. The mechanic came back with good news, simply recommending a tune up and stating the wipers didn’t work and the suspension was worn, nothing that would immediately jeopardize the 3,300-mile six-day drive.

“The Roadkill and Vice Grip Garage type shows have always spiked my interest,” Erik began. “Being a mechanic, I knew if I had the tools and supplies, I could probably make it happen.” Another piece of reassurance came from Josh, who works for U-Haul and had the ability to locate and rent a truck and trailer anywhere in the country at a cheaper rate (worst case scenario, of course). “My fiancé, Kristen, loved the idea of us acquiring an older car that we could use in the wedding as well as take to car shows and cruises together,” he added. That was the icing on the cake. Erik finalized the purchase and worked with the salesperson to pre-order any parts that could be needed for the trip, such as a mini starter, alternator, cap, rotor, fuel filter, and fluids. He packed items like spark plug wires and a few other parts in his luggage before catching his flight to Washington.

Wise move. The old MOPAR PoS did better than anyone intimately familiar with the road-apple abominations might expect, actually; minor annoyances like a broken fuel gauge, a rotted-out heater core, and getting becalmed in Sturgis H-D rally traffic were dealt with, until…wait for it…WAAAIIIT FOR IT…

DodgeDartRoadTrip

Gee, didn’t see THAT coming.

Our intrepid duo did indeed make it to Ocean City, NJ in the end, which speaks volumes about their pluck, ingenuity, and good old can-do spirit. Jesperson and his fiancé plan to keep the “car” for some reason or other, which speaks volumes about their mental health, far as I’m concerned. Then again, though, I’ve never been known for being at all hesitant about embarking on high-risk, no-net road trips myself. Remember, I’m the guy who rode a 1971 Shovelhead FLH, replete with apehangers and suicide shift, from CLT to NYC just to see a pretty girl.

TWICE; I did that TWICE. So, y’know, maybe I ain’t exactly the one to be sitting in judgment on Eric and his affianced, eh?

(Via Ed Driscoll)

The kids are all right

Posted on August 30, 2023August 30, 2023 by Mike

This kid is, at least.

A twelve-year-old named Jaiden is the new face of liberty in America after refusing to remove his Gadsden flag patch from his backpack when school officials ordered him to. His mother secretly recorded her meeting with school officials in Colorado Springs who told her that Jaiden isn’t allowed to wear the symbol of the American Revolution because it has “its origins in slavery.” This ridiculous and false assertion was made by a sour-faced woman, the school’s director, who glared at Jaiden as she admonished his mother.

“The reason we do not want the flag displayed is due to its origins with slavery and the slave trade,” she said while gesticulating wildly as if her hand movements would hide the absurd drivel coming out of her mouth. Jaiden’s mother responded, “The Gadsden flag?” and the administrator responded affirmatively, vigorously nodding and repeating, “the ‘don’t tread on me.’”

This ridiculously uneducated educator continued to tell Jaiden and his mother that he would be allowed to take his things out of his bag and go to class but not to take the bag with him due to the district’s desire that other students would not be exposed to America’s Revolutionary War flag (that a bunch of college-educated morons think is a white supremacy flag).

Even after being told that the Gadsden flag has nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with the American Revolution, the administrator kept wildly waving her arms and repeating, “I’m just here to enforce the district policy.” A review of the district policy did not find any mention of a ban on patches of any kind. Nor does it mention the Gadsden flag. What the policy does say is that teeshirts depicting violence or alcohol or drugs are not allowed.

And then there were…developments. For my money, I think the kid’s face as he listens to this finger-wagging shitlib “administrator” (ought to become universally recognized as the expletive it so truly is) babbling on in total ignorance of real American history is totally, totally priceless:

JaidenFace

And then there’s this Tweet X whatthefuckever, which underscores just how thoroughly young Jaiden understands precisely who and what he’s up against, and that his (and our, and America’s) Enemies understand nothing whatsoever:

This is Jaiden, the 12 y/o Patriot who refused to remove the Gadsden flag from his backpack

School officials said it was “distracting” and “offensive” to other students

After being asked to leave school for refusing to comply, he took this picture near the car of a school… pic.twitter.com/0VXHGhsbgr

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino)

August 29, 2023

And then there were…further developments.

BREAKING: Colorado school who kicked a kid out of class for having a Gadsden flag patch on his backpack has decided to allow him to keep wearing the patch to school! pic.twitter.com/vEUDpnFgJs

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok)

August 30, 2023

GOOD on ya, Jaiden. Never yield a single inch to them, not one, not ever. Unsolicited advice from an admittedly Old Dude: NEVER give in to them, NEVER bend the knee, NEVER stop hurling liberty in their very teeth, until they’re screaming in pure agony from it. Because as you already know, to give an inch is to lose it all. I whipped up a little something in honor of your courage and old-school patriotism, although it might be considered a tad salty for tender young ears and/or eyes.

GadsdanJaiden

That’s all anybody needs to say to the rotten bastards. Anything more wordy or elaborate than that just wastes your time, and annoys the (fascist) pig.

Update! Don’t know how it is that I didn’t think to include this before, considering what I titled this dang post.

Townsend’s Rick is hardly what you’d call unexpected, but man, dig that crazy Mosrite bass Entwistle’s thumping on.

Historical Musical digression update! Guitar geeks will find this backgrounder on Townsend’s Rickenbacker from the above link intriguing. I sure did.

His first purchase of a Rickenbacker was likely a Rose, Morris Co., LTD, 1998 model (ie, model number, not year—M) in early 1964, either directly from Rose Morris or from Jim Marshall’s music shop in Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, West London. This 1998 was fitted — either when purchased or later by Pete — with a Gibson ES-175 “zig-zag” tailpiece. His second was a 360/12 “Export,” from Jim Marshall’s, for £169, both of which are likely pictured below in the 1964-era High Numbers photos.

Chris Downing (guitarist, The Macabre), in Eyewitness The Who regarding The High Numbers appearance at the Railway Hotel, Harrow & Wealdstone, in July 1964:

This was the first time I actually saw them. Pete had the 360 Rickenbacker then, which cost £169 out of Jim Marshall’s shop. It was one of the first five that came into the UK, and I had one of them as well. He liked it because it had a very mod look, and it was great for playing chords. That big power-chord sound he got wasn’t just his amps, it was partly that he used really thick strings.

The 1998 was pictured in the infamous “Maximum R&B” Marquee Club poster. This guitar was the first (of many) to turn to smithereens, when its neck snapped off against the ceiling of the Railway Hotel, Harrow and Wealdstone, in September 1964 (according to Eyewitness The Who, 8 September):

“I started to knock the guitar about a lot, hitting it on the amps to get banging noises and things like that and it had started to crack. It banged against the ceiling and smashed hole in the plaster and the guitar head actually poked through the ceiling plaster. When I brought it out the top of the neck was left behind. I couldn’t believe what had happened. There were a couple of people from art school I knew at the front of the stage and they were laughing their heads off. One of them was literally rolling about on the floor laughing and his girlfriend was kind of looking at me smirking, you know, going ‘flash cunt and all that’. So I just got really angry and got what was left of the guitar and smashed it to smithereens. About a month earlier I’d managed to scrape together enough for a 12-string Rickenbacker, which I only used on two or three numbers. It was lying at the side of the stage so I just picked it up, plugged it in and gave them a sort of look and carried on playing, as if I’d meant to do it.

“The next day I was miserable about having lost my guitar. Roger said, ‘You shouldn’t have smashed it up, I could have got it repaired for you.’ Anyway, I’d obliterated it.”

Pete claims he smashed only about eight Rickenbackers total. He would repair destroyed ones for further stage use and eventually, began using another, more solid-bodied guitar that could withstand the smash-up routine and be repairable.

That would be the Telecasters he’s most well-known for favoring, with brief flirtations with a Les Paul or three along the way. The “Jim Marshall’s shop” mentioned, of course, would be the same London music shop where the famed Marshall amplifier was born. In particular, the 100-watt Super Lead Pro, created by Marshall at the specific behest of one Pete “Pete” Townsend, ironically enough.

You can drop a Tele off a building and it won’t so much as go out of tune. Or, say, drive into a ditch in Pennsylvania at 70+ mph and roll the band van over on top of it, same result, as the BPs did back in ’96.

The van’s roof ended up tent-poled over and around the upright headstock of my poor Tele, which was in a soft bag, so I feared the worst. But LO, when we got out of the ER and went over to the salvage yard to retrieve whatever salvageable gear—precious little of it, as you might well imagine—might be left in our newly-purchased van (bought it on a Tuesday, totaled it early Sunday morn on the way home from NYC), the only discernible damage to said Tele was one (1) tuning-machine knob broken off. The sturdy little beastie was, yep, you guessed it, still in tune. I replaced the tuning machine and kept on a-rocking that Tele for many years afterward.

The guitar ended up in the possession of my dear departed friend Chris Pfouts, who hung it proudly on his living room wall. When he died in Indianapolis, I got a call from a friend of his there who asked if I wanted to come out and get it back. I told him nah, just keep it, which I assume he did. Hopefully, somebody out there is still playing it, using it as God intended it to be.

Moar Oliver Anthony, PLUS!

Posted on August 20, 2023August 20, 2023 by Mike

TL has a look in.

It’s the government in Washington DC that’s turned on all of America, taxing us out of our budgets, inflating our grocery store intake down to a minimum, frustrating our efforts to get ahead with regulations and green energy initiatives that only demand more taxes while also increasing our per hour cost of electricity. The future is even more depressing. Suicides are up at the same time as excess mortality. When we aren’t killing ourselves, they’re doing it for us with vaxx mandates and wave upon wave of Executive Order assaults on our freedoms and financial liberty.

Oliver Anthony (Chris) simply expresses everything I’ve written for the last decade in a three minute song of frustration, but what does Rolling Stone focus on? The mention of obese people milking welfare and Epstein’s island, hoping that the reader will then vilify Anthony and drive him out of the limelight before people start to recognize the true villains in our lives are not our neighbors, but the Rich Men North of Richmond.

Anthony has so far refused the music industry’s attempt to co-opt his music, turning down an eight million dollar offer and I hope he refrains, because I know that accepting the offer would be akin to giving up the voice that has garnered his success. They will quickly edit out such honest lines about welfare and pedophilia and turn him into the type of artist I haven’t been able to listen to for more than 20 years, because it’s dull, lifeless, emotionless, but with all the right hooks and gimmicks to get one to sing along.

Anthony brings soul and pain when he brings out a song. That’s what made Country music my favorite when it was sung by the likes of Haggard, Cash, either Hank Williams and Waylon. Their songs felt like they’d been there, suffered that, dealt with it in inappropriate ways, perhaps, but lived it, lived life, felt life, they didn’t just go from day to day stumbling along. They provided inspiration or a vent for frustration. Their songs could be guidance in a dark time, because they came from someone who had suffered the same.

If Oliver Anthony recognizes he can make all the money he needs by remaining independent and singing about what matters to him and the rest of us, he will inspire a resurgence of the protest anthem song that beats in the heart of every American right now. There’s so much wrong and so much pain in this nation and the people need to express it, use it to make change, drive the Rich Men North of Richmond out of our lives.

A-fuggin’-MEN to that. Meanwhile, the spontaneous groundswell of support from millions of much-put-upon and abused Real Americans just goes on a-building, with even dreadlocked white rappers now expressing their own fed-up-itude with the intolerable stolen-nation status quo.

You all know that I will never be mistaken for any kind of fan of the rap crap, but the lyrics to this one are actually pretty good, I think. “It’s not your America”? Damned right it ain’t, Rich Men North North of Richmond. Unfortunately for you and your Enemies, Domestic ilk, it looks more and more as if millions of us are just about ready to take it back from you again.

Maybe this one really is just an attempt at cashing in on a trend; I can’t say, and won’t speculate. But in the end, it isn’t going to matter; as I said in a comment over at Sido’s joint last week:

Songs have a funny way, once they’ve been released into the wild and have gotten loose (so to speak), of ricocheting off in all sorts of directions, almost none of which were ever even imagined by the people who wrote them. At that point, it’s beyond control; people will make of them whatever they will, no input from the original creator either asked for or welcome.

Ask me how I know. 😉

S’truth, folks. How many times have I spoken with a fan after a show, and he/she would be gushing on about how my lyrics had really touched them deep down, the meaning behind them being this, that, or the other thing—none of which I had even remotely had in mind when I wrote the blasted thing. It made me ask a few times if we were even talking about the same damned song, because if we were I sure couldn’t tell. Music wants to be free, untrammeled and unpredictable, regardless of its original source and/or the intentions of its creators, and it will always find a way to get there.

Update! Yep, there’s definitely something happenin’ here.

See what I mean about the innate tendency of music to take on a life all its own? I’m pretty sure the conventional, Mark-1 Mod-0 Lefty hippies in Buffalo Springfield never dreamed that their anti-Vietnam War protest anthem would one day become so profoundly relevant to the bizarre idea of millions of Real Americans rising up to throw off the shackles of the (Lefty) Man. Duuude, it’s mind-blowing!

Doxx their asses!

Posted on August 17, 2023August 17, 2023 by Mike

May or may not be true, but I sure hope that it is.

ATLANTA — The purported names and addresses of members of the grand jury that indicted Donald Trump and 18 of his co-defendants on state racketeering charges this week have been posted on a fringe website that often features violent rhetoric, NBC News has learned.

NBC News is choosing not to name the website featuring the addresses to avoid further spreading the information.

Because OF COURSE you are.

The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment. District Attorney Fani Willis faced racist threats ahead of the return of the indictment, and additional security measures were put in place, with some employees being allowed to work from home.

The grand jurors’ purported addresses were spotted by Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan research group founded by Daniel J. Jones, a former FBI investigator and staffer for the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.

Founded by a former Fibbie and Swamp Senate staffer? Hey, sure sounds “nonpartisan” enough to me. I’m quite confident that this “Advance Democracy” bunch is nothing at all like those nasty “fringe” websites with their “violent rhetoric” and all, yesirreebob.

Me, I’m with Divemedic:

Remember back during the Chauvin trial, when people were threatening witnesses? The defense attorneys in the trial received death threats? Or when the jury members were found to be members of BLM and Antifa marches? All of that was not a problem.

Now that news outlets are claiming people are doing the same in the Trump case, it’s a problem again. I hope they are. Goose, gander, all of that. However, I don’t believe that it’s happening. This is the tail wagging the dog- the news is creating content to get people riled up.

If I *do* locate such a website, I will of course link to it.

As will I. These commie motherfuckers who stole our country from us want a fight, they by-God ought to get themselves one—a bruising, bare-knuckles brawl in which we deploy every imaginable weapon and/or stratagem available to us, in any way we can find to use them. Period fucking dot.

WHOA, that’s good squishy!

Posted on August 16, 2023August 16, 2023 by Mike

As CF Lifers will know by now, I often like to commend skillful writing here on Ye Aulde Colde Furye Blogge when I run across it, if only because I enjoy it so much my own self. Also well-known is my fondness for military history/historical fiction, which is where this post comes in.

I’ve lately been reading one called Wings Over Summer, a sort of prequel which covers the lives—and deaths—of the Spitfire pilots serving in the RAF’s (fictional) 646 Fighter Squadron during the Battle of Britain, with the second (really, the first) volume of the two-part series recounting their exploits during the Siege of Malta. The author, a chappie yclept Ron Powell, definitely has some writerly chops, as this extremely amusing excerpt confirms.

WingsOverSummer 1

WingsOverSummer 2

Since I couldn’t find a way to simply C&P the above passage in the Kindle Unlimited application, I had to screen-cap the above passage in two parts, hence the size discrepancy. But still: great stuff, no? A little biographical info on the author:

After 32 years in the Royal Air Force, from which he retired as a Group Captain (full Colonel) pilot commanding the first stage of flying training for the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, Ron moved to south Wales to pursue his long held ambition of becoming a writer. Since then, he has written an illustrated history of events in the skies above Britain in the summer of 1940, The Battle of Britain, Hitler’s First Bloody Nose; an acclaimed novel, Wings Over Summer, set in the same period; a sequel, Wings Over Malta; and two volumes of memoir, Shropshire Blue: A Shropshire Lad in the RAF, the first, Preparation For Flight, about growing up on the English/Welsh border and his early years in the RAF, including working on Vulcan nuclear bombers on a Cold War air base, the second, On The Buffet, about his RAF pilot training. He has also written numerous short stories and articles and gives talks on a range of topics, including the Battle of Britain.

There’s also a website with more on Group Captain Powell’s life and RAF career, perusable here.

Argumentation Vs action

Posted on August 9, 2023August 9, 2023 by Mike

No comparison: one wins, the other…doesn’t. Ever.

You have different rules for enemies and non-enemies, that shouldn’t be hard to understand.

When your opposition is ruthless, not being ruthless means you lose. You would rather lose than entertain even temporary and selective ruthlessness.

Day of the locker soon, nerd. https://t.co/G00JjSXqug

— 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛 (@Aristos_Revenge)

August 8, 2023

Screencap of the best of the rest of the thread:

AristoThread

Most salient point: “You cannot debate an enemy to death, you cannot discourse them into relenting.” Particularly when The Enemy is one as ruthless, determined, and utterly, utterly bereft of empathy as the Left is. Period fucking dot.

Nabbed via WRSA’s Wednesday Edition meme roundup, which is extry-extry-good this week.

Update! Completely unrelated, but since it involves another Twitter X thread, I’m a-putting it here anyhoo.

More slap pranks is just what the world needs😂😂 pic.twitter.com/Jikd8aaC9I

— They tried but it went wrong 😆 (@TriedWrong)

August 8, 2023

He’s right, y’know: it IS just what the world needed right now, even if it didn’t know it needed it. Heh.

Update within an update update! Know what just might be my favorite aspect of the above vid? The great good humor displayed by the women being pranked. I mean, just look at ‘em: after the initial stunned puzzlement over what just took place, every one of the prankees just about kills herself laughing in response to it.

Good answer, ladies. Quite apart from the language in the signage, it couldn’t be more obvious that the vid isn’t set in this poor country, and that those definitely are NOT the kind of sour, bitter broads—women who can barely even make it down the street under their own power, so huge and burdensome is the FemiNazi chip on their shoulders—that younger American men are saddled with.

Or, y’know, saddled by.

Just say NO, Mr President

Posted on August 6, 2023August 6, 2023 by Mike

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for.

Folks, we’ve entered the part of the drama where the evil ghouls shave off Aslan’s majestic mane and mock him on the way to his slaughter. Trump is dutifully visiting the stations of the cross he bears. But Trump isn’t Jesus — he’s a lion, not a lamb — and there’s no reason why he should take one more choreographed step in the Left’s disgusting dance. It’s not fair, so let’s stop pretending it is.

What if Trump simply says, “No”?

Remember, we’re cascading down the face of the cliff at this point. Every step of the way will become increasingly debasing and humiliating for the former President of the United States and front-running candidate for office in 2024 (who is, after all, the representative of the political will of half the country — you and me). What if Trump simply refuses to show up for Fani’s hate-indictment arraignment and Labat’s cuffs-and-mugshot routine?

I would pay good money to see the look of frustrated rage on the Leftists’ faces when they realize he’s not coming. Trump should force their hand. Make them send armed forces to arrest him like the thugs they are. Show the captivated world that yes, it’s true — America is gone, replaced by just another failing fascist state.

It’s not like the former president has anything to lose at this point. We all know where this is headed — Trump forcibly imprisoned. He could save himself the years of ratcheting-up humiliations and tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars (donors’ dollars!) and just cut to the chase. Run his campaign from prison if need be against the now fully exposed fascists who put him there. The next president — even if it’s him — can pardon him and save us all the drama of this endless law-war. Shoot the moon, as they say in Crazy Eights.

Please, President Trump, do something. We remain ever grateful to you for what you did to stop the decline when you were in office. In your influence alone, you remain the most powerful leader America has today. Please lead again. Tell them you’re not going to be their gulag-bound victim, their Emmanuel Goldstein. Tell them you ain’t gonna dance no more. If they want to keep abusing their authority to attack you, don’t help them.

Don’t go to Georgia, Mr. President. Just say no.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine why not, but we all know there’s no way he’ll do it. But hoo boy, talk about your consummations devoutly to be wished! The ensuing mass uprising in support for such a move amongst Über Ultra Mega MAGA Americans™ would make the phonus-balonus J6 “riots” look like the busman’s holiday they truly were.

Alas, t’ain’t bloody likely, I’m afraid. Which is a crying shame; a large part of why we are where we now are is the inexplicable failure to serve up platter after steaming, stinking platter of the exact same shite the shitlibs have been giving us, tit for tat and measure for fucking measure.

So go ahead and pull that trigger, Mr President; believe me, there are millions upon millions of Real Americans out here who are waiting with bated breath for you to do precisely that. In fact, I’d bet even plenty of folks who AREN’T necessarily diehard, MAGA-type Trump partisans would flock to your banner. If shitlibs want a showdown, then let them by-God get one—all they think they want of it and then some, until they choke to fucking death on it.

Let’s get this party started update! The more I think about this idea, the more I absolutely love it all to pieces. It does raise a vital question, however: is it even remotely conceivable that nobody in the Trump camp has already thought of it, possibly even floating the possibility with his colleagues, only to see it immediately shot down in flames by those who think of themselves as cooler, wiser, more judicious heads?

From all we know of Trump, such an action would certainly cut against his usual grain. Trump is a law and order guy, one who still deeply, passionately believes in now-moribund America That Was and all the dreams and potentialities resident therein. For him to stop cooperating and start openly resisting would therefore amount to an irrevocable admission that those dreams have died—been murdered, actually—and that all Real Americans must now relinquish them forever. It’s an incredibly harsh reality for any true patriot, such as Trump has over and again shown himself to be, to have to face up to. But reality it is.

No, he isn’t going to do any such thing. The charade will carry on as before; the persecution of Donald J Trump will be neither thwarted, abated, nor even slowed just a little bit. The Enemy will either see him behind bars rockin’ orange, or if they must they’ll have him assassinated. The one sure thing is that they will NOT back off, not one iota. Please refer to Mike’s Iron Law #873 for further explication.

On the upside, I do believe I’ve found the topic of tomorrow’s Eyrie submission. Cold comfort, perhaps, but what the hey.

Bearded Spock update! It’s a way-out, whacked-out, topsy-turvy world.

Trump is being punished for refusing to recant his belief, a reasonable one, that the political process was fatally corrupted in 2020 and that Biden, consequently, is illegitimate. The indictment is a shot across the bow at anyone who shares Trump’s “false” unbelief in “our democracy.” Of course, when “our democracy” was perverted from its natural end, as it was during the Trump interregnum, the rules shifted dramatically. Back then, it was courageous to call the president a traitor and a usurper; it was “resistance” rather than “coup.”

In 2020, Democrats censored a major scandal about Biden and imposed sweeping administrative changes that resulted in an abnormally messy, delayed, and opaque vote count. But it’s Trump who caused “mistrust.”

Now, Democrats say it’s crazy to speculate that there is anything political about the prosecution of a presidential candidate in an upcoming national election. Come on, do you really think Jack Smith would arrest the chief political enemy of his boss if he didn’t have a good reason? Hold on a moment: his boss? Jack Smith is independent! He doesn’t work for Joe Biden. Stop spreading lies. He works for…well, who exactly?

The Trump indictment is politics at its purest. Machiavelli would have no trouble understanding it. But Democrats would have everyone believe the “rule of law” magically enforces itself. In the pollyannaish world of “our democracy,” the corrupt motives that have driven political elites throughout history to faction, intrigue, conspiracy, assassination, slander, bribery, and the like do not exist. There are two kinds of people: the good guys, people like Jack Smith, and the bad guys, like Trump.

Can’t say their black-and-white, bad guy-good guy worldview is incorrect, or not entirely. It’s just that they (mis)perceive themselves as the Good Guys, and Real Americans the Bad ones. Nothing, but nothing, could be further from the truth. Which, having already mentioned them, has inspired the spanking-new Mike’s Iron Law #462.

Happy Pearl Harbor Payback Day!

Posted on August 6, 2023August 6, 2023 by Mike

Surber just comes right out and says it.

We should have dropped three bombs
Sunday marks the 78th anniversary of the Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Three days later, we dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The Japanese warlords still voted 3-3 on surrendering. Intervention by the emperor ended the war and the Japanese told the allies it planned to surrender, which it did on September 2.

With the new movie Oppenheimer‘s debut last month and the end of the teaching of American history in a positive light, lefties have resurrected the argument against using the A-bomb to end World War II.

The Atlantic published the first and perhaps only rebuttal you need to read to this daft argument in December 1946. Written by Karl T. Compton, an atomic physicist and president of MIT, one of the many people involved in the development of these two bombs, the article addressed the argument against the bombings.

Compton wrote, “About a week after V-J Day I was one of a small group of scientists and engineers interrogating an intelligent, well-informed Japanese Army officer in Yokohama. We asked him what, in his opinion, would have been the next major move if the war had continued. He replied: ‘You would probably have tried to invade our homeland with a landing operation on Kyushu about November 1. I think the attack would have been made on such and such beaches.’

“‘Could you have repelled this landing?’ we asked, and he answered: ‘It would have been a very desperate fight, but I do not think we could have stopped you.’

“‘What would have happened then?’ we asked.

“He replied: ‘We would have kept on fighting until all Japanese were killed, but we would not have been defeated,’ by which he meant that they would not have been disgraced by surrender.

“It is easy now, after the event, to look back and say that Japan was already a beaten nation, and to ask what therefore was the justification for the use of the atomic bomb to kill so many thousands of helpless Japanese in this inhuman way; furthermore, should we not better have kept it to ourselves as a secret weapon for future use, if necessary? This argument has been advanced often, but it seems to me utterly fallacious.”

The Japanese would rather die than surrender. They proved this in battle after battle.

That’s about the size of it, yeah; as Don goes into later in the piece, if you don’t think so, ask any survivor of the Bataan Death March or the Rape of Nanking about it, if you can find one. Truman knew it too:

Bombing Japan into surrender was the only option. Harry S. Truman considered the bombing to be his biggest achievement as president and rightly so. He had survived as a field artillery officer that meatgrinder we now call World War I.

Truman wrote a letter to Compton in response to that Atlantic article.

The president said, “Your statement in the Atlantic Monthly is a fair analysis of the situation except that the final decision had to be made by the President, and was made after a complete survey of the whole situation had been made. The conclusions reached were substantially those set out in your article.

“The Japanese were given fair warning, and were offered the terms which they finally accepted, well in advance of the dropping of the bomb. I imagine the bomb caused them to accept the terms.”

The only reason we did not drop three bombs is that we did not have a third one.

We do now.

Heh. Yep. Roger Kimball says it wasn’t only American lives that were saved.

The atomic bomb saved Japanese lives, too
The choices we face are often not between good and bad but between bad and worse

Something else that has contributed to the fraught atmosphere is the war in Ukraine. After all, one side in that conflict, Russia, controls the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, more than 6,000 warheads. My friend Roger L. Simon is right: atomic weapons are “as close or closer to being used today than ever since World War Two because of the endless war in Ukraine.”

That is a sobering thought.To his succeeding questions “Was this worth doing? Was it moral to build such an extreme weapon?” I would answer “yes” and “yes.” I also, by the way, support our use of this most horrible weapon in Japan. Why? Because its use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War Two. In so doing, it saved hundreds of thousands of American lives. Data point: the military is still using the huge supply of Purple Hearts it manufactured in anticipation of an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

But put the number of American lives saved to one side. The use of the bomb, by ending the war, also saved millions of Japanese lives.

This was widely understood at the time. In subsequent years, however, a new, mostly left-wing, narrative has grown up which faults President Truman for using the bomb. Today, as Oliver Kamm noted in the Guardian, “Hiroshima” and “Nagasaki” are often used as a shorthand terms for war crimes.

That is not how they were judged at the time. Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave laborers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire — and for Japan itself. One of Japan’s highest wartime officials, Kido Koichi, later testified that in his view the August surrender prevented 20 million Japanese casualties. The destruction of two cities, and the suffering it caused for decades afterwards, cannot but temper our view of the Pacific war. Yet we can conclude with a high degree of probability that abjuring the bomb would have caused greater suffering still.

What is the essence, the core, of conservative wisdom? One part is that when it comes to the real world, the choices we face are often not between good and bad but between bad and worse. This is particularly true in times of war. A difficult lesson. But crucial for those who wish to do good as well emit good-sounding slogans.

Of course, for the Left there is no sincere regard for numbers of lives lost or saved; by their facile, jejune calculus, they don’t really care about such mundanities at all. No, what chaps modern-day shitlib asses the hardest is that American won.

SIDE NOTE: my post title was hijacked from WRSA.

Johnny Shiloh

Posted on August 4, 2023 by Mike

What an amazing story.

In May of 1861, 9 year old John Lincoln “Johnny” Clem ran away from his home in Newark, Ohio, to join the Union Army, but found the Army was not interested in signing on a 9 year old boy when the commander of the 3rd Ohio Regiment told him he “wasn’t enlisting infants,” and turned him down.

Clem tried the 22nd Michigan Regiment next, and its commander told him the same. Determined, Clem tagged after the regiment, acted out the role of a drummer boy, and was allowed to remain. Though still not regularly enrolled, he performed camp duties and received a soldier’s pay of $13 a month, a sum collected and donated by the regiment’s officers.

The next April, at Shiloh, Clem’s drum was smashed by an artillery round and he became a minor news item as “Johnny Shiloh, The Smallest Drummer”.

A year later, at the Battle Of Chickamauga, he rode an artillery caisson to the front and wielded a musket trimmed to his size. In one of the Union retreats a Confederate officer ran after the cannon Clem rode with, and yelled, “Surrender you damned little Yankee!” Johnny shot him dead. This pluck won for Clem national attention and the name “Drummer Boy of Chickamauga.”

Clem stayed with the Army through the war, served as a courier, and was wounded twice. Between Shiloh and Chickamauga he was regularly enrolled in the service, began receiving his own pay, and was soon-after promoted to the rank of Sergeant.

He was only 12 years old. After the Civil War he tried to enter West Point but was turned down because of his slim education.

A personal appeal to President Ulysses S. Grant, his commanding general at Shiloh, won him a 2nd Lieutenant’s appointment in the Regular Army on 18 December 1871, and in 1903 he attained the rank of Colonel and served as Assistant Quartermaster General.

He retired from the Army as a Major General in 1916, having served an astounding 55 years. General Clem died in San Antonio, Texas on 13 May 1937, exactly 3 months shy of his 86th birthday, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Back in the long-ago days when Disney was still in the family-entertainment business—well before they’d lost their way and veered wildly off into Blasting The Squares with child-grooming and the lionization of mentally-disturbed freaks—they did a made-for-TV movie about John Clem. I believe there’s a DVD available out there, don’t know whether Amazon has it it not. The bare biographical facts:

John Lincoln Clem (nicknamed Johnny Shiloh; August 13, 1851 – May 13, 1937) was an American general officer who served as a drummer boy in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He gained fame for his bravery on the battlefield, becoming the youngest noncommissioned officer in the history of the United States Army.

He retired from the Army in 1915, having attained the rank of brigadier general in the Quartermaster Corps; he was at that time the last veteran of the American Civil War still on duty in the United States Armed Forces, although others similarly aged and experienced such as Peter Conover Hains and Albert A. Michelson rejoined the military after World War I started.

By special act of Congress on August 29, 1916, he was promoted to major general one year after his retirement.

A most remarkable saga of perseverance, gumption, and sheer force of will, I must say.

Ghosts in the Machine

Posted on August 3, 2023 by Mike

Jason Pepe puts it to ya straight up, no chaser.

What is really happening to America in 2023?

The indictments have nothing to do with Trump. Not really. Conversely, the cover-up of impeachable crimes have nothing to do with Biden.

Don’t kid yourself. Joe Biden is not powerful or smart. He’s barely alive. And that’s the point.

This is a pure exercise in POWER by those who truly *wield* power in our society: The security state.

The ‘security state’ is made up of a constellation of permanent Washington DC apparatchiks who cling to the power center like fossilized barnacles.

The security state *never* puts their names on a ballot. Too dirty. They would not dream of stooping that low.

They are the 𝑮𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆

It’s far superior to control who CAN run for office. And who is allowed to WIN that office. And who is allowed to STAY in office (i.e. Nixon & JFK)

Presidents come and go. This system stays the same. The security state system has been in place for more than 70 years. All Presidents kneel. No President crosses them and survives…until the great breaking of the system in 2016.

He goes right on nailing it down clean and tight from there, and it’s a thing of joy and wonder to behold. Really, by the end it all boils down to a deeply stirring challenge, a throwing down of the proverbial gauntlet. Kudos and a tip of the CF chapeau to ya, Jase.

(Via Renegade Thor)

John Wilder on Sanctuary ~~city~~ countyFFS, Civil War 2.0 is coming. It's not if, it's w…
Barry on Conor McGregor for Taioseach!Tough damn time for sure. I'm not sure that I woul…
Mike on Conor McGregor for Taioseach!Oh, they weren't lost, they were taken. I had no s…
Barry on Mastectomy woes"Justice will eventually be served. It won’t surpr…
coelacanth on Mastectomy woesThis is hideously sad. As noted above, mental illn…

CF Search

Login, RSS, &c

Latest Posts

Latest Comments

CF Archives

Categories

Comments policy

Ye Aulde CF Blogrolle–now with RSS feeds! (where available)

2A/Mostly Guns

Alt-American

Big Dogs

Essayists

Mil

Nuttin’ But News

Odds Bodkins

Overseas/Non-US

Portals

Pure Bloggery

REAL Journalism

The Funny Pages

Subscribe to CF!

Shameless begging

Correspondence

Allied territory

Notable Quotes

RSS feed