GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Vaclav Havel: still alive and well

Gab’s Andrew Torba stands up and cheers, and rightly so.

I recently finished reading what I believe to be the most important political essay of our time. It’s called The Power of the Powerless and it was written by Václav Havel, a political dissident in the Communist Czechoslovak Socialist Republic who went on to become the President of Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Communist Regime.

His essay is so profoundly illuminating and refreshing to read as an American dissident under the Communist Oligarch Regime of the United States. Havel uses a Green Grocer as a central character throughout the essay to illustrate a prototypical Regime slave. People we would mock today as “NPCs” of the system.

The Green Grocer hangs up a sign in his store window, “Workers of the World, Unite!” not because he believes in workers of the world united but rather to virtue signal to the world that he is an obedient slave of the Regime. This is not unlike the businesses that fly pride flags or hang up Black Lives Matter signs in their establishments today. It’s not unlike the teens posting black squares on Instagram. It’s not unlike the people putting their pronouns in their email signatures.

As I read the essay I was captivated by Havel’s description of what it was like to “live within the lie” of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. The parallels between his descriptions of the people, the culture, and the political system of his time were all too familiar to what American right wing dissidents are witnessing and experiencing today.

“The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his or her ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power; and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything.”

Sound familiar?

All too, I’m afraid. Which, given the close relationship between the ideology underpinning the old Czech Socialist Republic and the Amerika v2.0 version of same, can’t come as any big surprise.

So what is Havel’s solution to this madness?

Not politics. He mentions several times that it’s useless to participate in a rigged political system with fixed outcomes. Instead, he calls for the same thing I am calling for right now: the formation of a parallel systems.

There can be no way around it: no matter how beautiful an alternative political model may be, it can no longer speak to the ‘hidden sphere,’ inspire people and society, call for real political ferment. The real sphere of potential politics in the post-totalitarian system is elsewhere: in the continuing and cruel tension between the complex demands of that system and the aims of life, that is, the elementary need of human beings to live, to a certain extent at least, in harmony with themselves, that is, to live in a bearable way, not to be humiliated by their superiors and officials, not to be continually watched by the police, to be able to express themselves freely, to find an outlet for their creativity, to enjoy legal security, and so on. Anything that touches this field concretely, anything that relates to this fundamental, omnipresent and living tension, will inevitably speak to people.

Abstract projects for an ideal political or economic order do not interest them to anything like the same extent–and rightfully so–not only because everyone knows how little chance they have of succeeding, but also because today people feel that the less political policies are derived from a concrete and human ‘here and now’ and the more they fix their sights on an abstract ‘some day,’ the more easily they can degenerate into new forms of human enslavement.

People want to be able to live authentically in the truth as themselves. To speak and express themselves freely. They aren’t interested in more false promises from politicians. They want something in the here and now that can instantly solve this problem for them. Sounds a lot like Gab to me, which is why Gab continues to grow and resonate with tens of millions of people.

All boldface Torba’s (or so I assume), not mine. Yes, you’ll surely want to read the rest of it.

1

Smoke, mirrors, and the fog of (pseudo) war

I wish I could argue with TL on this, any of it. Alas, I cannot.

We find ourselves under more tyrannical oppression than at the time of the Revolutionary War. I’d say that we’re under more oppression than the Soviet population during Stalin. American citizens don’t readily recognize it, because a lot of it’s going on in the background. Whereas Stalin had to send troops to a person’s door, the federal government comes right in, taps into SMART phones, refrigerators, electric meters, Wi-Fi connections and home speakers, which are actually microphones. This is equivalent to having British troops quartering with every family in America and the British didn’t even do that. Instead they recognized people for their opinions toward independence or resistance and quartered troops in their homes. Now, the Feds invade every home, every phone, everything posted or even written on Wi-Fi connected computers, like this one.

Free speech is dead, though many continue to verbalize their opinions, they’re forced to recognize the possible consequences. The wrong words can lead to unemployment and increasingly, with ESG and DEI, outcast, literally exiled from public interactions. It worked during the pandemic and that set up the model for the future of government interactions with the serfs, aided wholeheartedly by compromised corporations, who eagerly sign on to these discriminatory measures in order to receive government grants and positive representations in their increasingly hostile regulatory environment.

Like many readers, I knew somehow McCarthy would cave. I thought that fear of losing the Speaker of the House role through a motion to vacate the chair would deter him from making it too bad, but my understanding is that not only did he give Biden everything he could have wanted from the debt deal, he also agreed to align openly as the uniparty by requesting Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat Leader, to join him in passing the deal in the House where more Democrats voted for it than Republicans. For those 73 Republicans who voted no, well I’d say good job, but that’s the only thing they were sent there to do and they did it. I hate telling someone “good job” for doing what is expected. I usually save that for someone who outperforms.

People like Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene surprisingly voted for the bill. Intellectually, I know they did so for assurances that they would be able to expose the January 6th videos or to be able to bring impeachment charges to the floor for several members of the Biden Administration, but Steve Bannon made a good point when he acknowledged that if they voted for the debt limit increase bill, they don’t have the stomach to fully prosecute anything else; they won’t be able to hold the DOJ or FBI accountable, because they gave away the purse strings to Biden and Jeffries.

When it comes to vacating the chair, McCarthy doesn’t have to worry. Sure, some Republican will call that to a vote, but now we know that a significant part of the Democrats in Congress will vote to retain him. What would be interesting is if they betrayed him on that promise and got enough RINOs to go along and they elected Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House in a Republican congress. While that would destroy the purpose of having a majority in the House, who cares at this point when the people have been so thoroughly betrayed?

Not me, for one. God, how I would LOVE to see ’em do precisely that. At that point, even the pretense of a sham of a Kabuki of a fraud would be well and truly finished, beyond any possibility of further debate—even on the part of the most adamant “but muh DEMUHCRACY!!” reality-denialist.

Not just Republicans, either. The House bill that McCarthy went into negotiations with was supported by 75% of the people, including Democrats and Independents. If this were a vaunted “democracy” as they claim, they just proved that it’s not even that.

Most of what is going on in our country is illegal, unethical, or in violation of some operating principle. You just have to find your niche and dig into it. If enough of us who feel betrayed and daily insulted by the woke/DEI/green agenda would do that we would find some means of pushing back that would be effective and could be repeated.

There’s always a workaround, and humans will always find it eventually. It’s bringing enough of them around to wanting to, to finally admitting to themselves that they really need to, that’s tough.

3

The soldier’s faith

Excerpts from a Memorial Day, 1895 speech given to that year’s Harvard graduating class by Massachusetts SC justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The society for which many philanthropists, labor reformers, and men of fashion unite in longing is one in which they may be comfortable and may shine without much trouble or any danger. The unfortunately growing hatred of the poor for the rich seems to me to rest on the belief that money is the main thing (a belief in which the poor have been encouraged by the rich), more than on any other grievance. Most of my hearers would rather that their daughters or their sisters should marry a son of one of the great rich families than a regular army officer, were he as beautiful, brave, and gifted as Sir William Napier. I have heard the question asked whether our war was worth fighting, after all. There are many, poor and rich, who think that love of country is an old wife’s tale, to be replaced by interest in a labor union, or, under the name of cosmopolitanism, by a rootless self-seeking search for a place where the most enjoyment may be had at the least cost.

Meantime we have learned the doctrine that evil means pain, and the revolt aginst pain in all its forms has grown more and more marked. From societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals up to socialism, we express in numberless ways the notion that suffering is a wrong which can be and ought to be prevented, and a whole literature of sympathy has sprung into being which points out in story and in verse how hard it is to be wounded in the battle of life, how terrible, how unjust it is that any one should fail.

Even science has had its part in the tendencies which we observe. It has shaken established religion in the minds of very many. It has pursued analysis until at last this thrilling world of colors and passions and sounds has seemed fatally to resolve itself into one vast network of vibrations endlessly weaving an aimless web, and the rainbow flush of cathedral windows, which once to enraptured eyes appeared the very smile of God, fades slowly out into the pale irony of the void.

And yet from vast orchestras still comes the music of mighty symphonies. Our painters even now are spreading along the walls of our Library glowing symbols of mysteries still real, and the hardly silenced cannon of the East proclaim once more that combat and pain still are the portion of man. For my own part, I believe that the struggle for life is the order of the world, at which it is vain to repine. I can imagine the burden changed in the way it is to be borne, but I cannot imagine that it ever will be lifted from men’s backs. I can imagine a future in which science shall have passed from the combative to the dogmatic stage, and shall have gained such catholic acceptance that it shall take control of life, and condemn at once with instant execution what now is left for nature to destroy. But we are far from such a future, and we cannot stop to amuse or to terrify ourselves with dreams. Now, at least, and perhaps as long as man dwells upon the globe, his destiny is battle, and he has to take the chances of war. If it is our business to fight, the book for the army is a war-song, not a hospital-sketch. It is not well for soldiers to think much about wounds. Sooner or later we shall fall; but meantime it is for us to fix our eyes upon the point to be stormed, and to get there if we can.

Behind every scheme to make the world over, lies the question, What kind of world do you want? The ideals of the past for men have been drawn from war, as those for women have been drawn from motherhood. For all our prophecies, I doubt if we are ready to give up our inheritance. Who is there who would not like to be thought a gentleman? Yet what has that name been built on but the soldier’s choice of honor rather than life? To be a soldier or descended from soldiers, in time of peace to be ready to give one’s life rather than suffer disgrace, that is what the word has meant; and if we try to claim it at less cost than a splendid carelessness for life, we are trying to steal the good will without the responsibilities of the place. We will not dispute about tastes. The man of the future may want something different. But who of us could endure a world, although cut up into five-acre lots, and having no man upon it who was not well fed and well housed, without the divine folly of honor, without the senseless passion for knowledge outreaching the flaming bounds of the possible, without ideals the essence of which is that they can never be achieved? I do not know what is true. I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.

Most men who know battle know the cynic force with which the thoughts of common sense will assail them in times of stress; but they know that in their greatest moments faith has trampled those thoughts under foot. If you wait in line, suppose on Tremont Street Mall, ordered simply to wait and do nothing, and have watched the enemy bring their guns to bear upon you down a gentle slope like that of Beacon Street, have seen the puff of the firing, have felt the burst of the spherical case-shot as it came toward you, have heard and seen the shrieking fragments go tearing through your company, and have known that the next or the next shot carries your fate; if you have advanced in line and have seen ahead of you the spot you must pass where the rifle bullets are striking; if you have ridden at night at a walk toward the blue line of fire at the dead angle of Spotsylvania, where for twenty-four hours the soldiers were fighting on the two sides of an earthwork, and in the morning the dead and dying lay piled in a row six deep, and as you rode you heard the bullets splashing in the mud and earth about you; if you have been in the picket-line at night in a black and unknown wood, have heard the splat of the bullets upon the trees, and as you moved have felt your foot slip upon a dead man’s body; if you have had a blind fierce gallop against the enemy, with your blood up and a pace that left no time for fear –if, in short, as some, I hope many, who hear me, have known, you have known the vicissitudes of terror and triumph in war; you know that there is such a thing as the faith I spoke of. You know your own weakness and are modest; but you know that man has in him that unspeakable somewhat which makes him capable of miracle, able to lift himself by the might of his own soul, unaided, able to face anniliation for a blind belief.

War, when you are at it, is horrible and dull. It is only when time has passed that you see that its message was divine. I hope it may be long before we are called again to sit at that master’s feet. But some teacher of the kind we all need. In this snug, over-safe corner of the world we need it, that we may realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous untamed streaming of the world, and in order that we may be ready for danger. We need it in this time of individualist negations, with its literature of French and American humor, revolting at discipline, loving flesh-pots, and denying that anything is worthy of reverence–in order that we may remember all that buffoons forget. We need it everywhere and at all times. For high and dangerous action teaches us to believe as right beyond dispute things for which our doubting minds are slow to find words of proof. Out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism. The proof comes later, and even may never come. Therefore I rejoice at every dangerous sport which I see pursued. The students at Heidelberg, with their sword-slashed faces, inspire me with sincere respect. I gaze with delight upon our polo players. If once in a while in our rough riding a neck is broken, I regard it, not as a waste, but as a price well paid for the breeding of a race fit for headship and command.

We do not save our traditions, in our country. The regiments whose battle-flags were not large enough to hold the names of the battles they had fought vanished with the surrender of Lee, although their memories inherited would have made heroes for a century. It is the more necessary to learn the lesson afresh from perils newly sought, and perhaps it is not vain for us to tell the new generation what we learned in our day, and what we still believe. That the joy of life is living, is to put out all one’s powers as far as they will go; that the measure of power is obstacles overcome; to ride boldly at what is in front of you, be it fence or enemy; to pray, not for comfort, but for combat; to keep the soldier’s faith against the doubts of civil life, more besetting and harder to overcome than all the misgivings of the battlefield, and to remember that duty is not to be proved in the evil day, but then to be obeyed unquestioning; to love glory more than the temptations of wallowing ease, but to know that one’s final judge and only rival is oneself: with all our failures in act and thought, these things we learned from noble enemies in Virginia or Georgia or on the Mississippi, thirty years ago; these things we believe to be true.

As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top.

Three years ago died the old colonel of my regiment, the Twentieth Massachusetts. [Web note: Col. William Raymond Lee] He gave the regiment its soul. No man could falter who heard his “Forward, Twentieth!” I went to his funeral. From a side door of the church a body of little choir-boys came in alike a flight of careless doves. At the same time the doors opened at the front, and up the main aisle advanced his coffin, followed by the few grey heads who stood for the men of the Twentieth, the rank and file whom he had loved, and whom he led for the last time. The church was empty. No one remembered the old man whom we were burying, no one save those next to him, and us. And I said to myself, The Twentieth has shrunk to a skeleton, a ghost, a memory, a forgotten name which we other old men alone keep in our hearts. And then I thought: It is right. It is as the colonel would have it. This also is part of the soldier’s faith: Having known great things, to be content with silence. Just then there fell into my hands a little song sung by a warlike people on the Danube, which seemed to me fit for a soldier’s last word, another song of the sword, but a song of the sword in its scabbard, a song of oblivion and peace.

A soldier has been buried on the battlefield.
And when the wind in the tree-tops roared,
The soldier asked from the deep dark grave:
“Did the banner flutter then?”
“Not so, my hero,” the wind replied.
“The fight is done, but the banner won,
Thy comrades of old have borne it hence,
Have borne it in triumph hence.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
“I am content.”

Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass,
and the soldier asks once more:
“Are these not the voices of them that love,
That love—and remember me?”
“Not so, my hero,” the lovers say,
“We are those that remember not;
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled,
And the dead must be forgot.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
“I am content.”

Stirring, powerful stuff, no? So powerful, in fact, that after Teddy Roosevelt read it seven years later, he was moved enough to decide to appoint Holmes to the US Supreme Court. The wisdom expressed in these words is profound, the fundamental truth timeless, eternal. We fail to pay heed to them at our direst peril.

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1

DeSantis lets ego and ambition get the better of him

And with that, I’m all done with the guy.

Ron DeSantis Busts the Media’s Stranglehold
Months of speculation and questions of “Will he or won’t he?” came to an end on Wednesday evening as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) made it official that he is indeed running for president in 2024.

DeSantis made his announcement on Twitter, appearing in a live Twitter Space with CEO Elon Musk. The announcement was initially riddled with technical errors because the number of listeners crashed Twitter’s servers multiple times. That may sound like a major problem, but it reflects the interest in a DeSantis candidacy.

Twitter ended the Space after about 20 minutes without a substantive announcement, but the stats showed that 387,000 people tried to tune in. A new Space opened up shortly after that, and host David Sacks said, “I think we melted the internet.”

“I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback,” the governor began. He highlighted some of the issues that are plaguing our country under Biden’s leadership: the border crisis, crime, the economy, and woke cultural domination, among other issues.

“We must return normalcy to our communities,” he added.

DeSantis promised to “reestablish integrity in our institutions.” He mentioned bringing the U.S. military back to its mission of defending the country, citing his military service.

Not a single item of which he will be allowed to accomplish as Under-Siege “pResident,” even assuming TPTREALLYB allow him to “win” in the first damned place. Thus is the curtain brought down at last on for-real, genuinely worthwhile accomplishments like this:

DeSantis Signs Law That Strips Illegal Aliens of Their Drivers Licenses; Leftwing #Resistance Media Shrieks That Minorities Are Terrified of DeSantis
Ace

So let’s get this out of the way.

DeSantis just signed a law that has illegals worried and the leftwing #ResistanceMedia shrieking.

Axios:

An undocumented 22-year-old woman sat on her bed in Tampa last week and called her mother, listening to the ringing tone, hoping for another option. When her mother answered, the sound of her soft voice reminded the woman there weren’t any.
“We have to leave Florida,” the woman said.

What’s happening: A new law that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed this month to tighten restrictions on Florida’s undocumented community is driving immigrants out of the state.

The legislation voids out-of-state driver’s licenses for those without proof of citizenship, bars municipalities from using state money to issue identification cards for undocumented immigrants and requires most companies in Florida to verify the immigration status of new hires, among other restrictions.

It also repeals a state law that allowed some undocumented immigrants to obtain a license to practice law in Florida.

[…]

State of play: Some undocumented workers in South Florida are not coming to work or they are leaving job sites because of the law — which will come into effect July 1, CBS Miami reports.

CNN cries that blacks, Hispanics, and LGBTQ+ers aren’t “safe” in Florida and should flee the state in terror!

Which, far as I’m concerned, is just another add to the long list of Ron the (once) Great’s accomplishments as FLA Guv. It’s a sad day, folks, whether you like DeSantis (yes, I know plenty of y’all don’t) or not. With this foolish, onanistic fuck-up, we didn’t just lose a great governor; we now stand in very real danger of losing Florida too.

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2

The wrong question

PJM’s Kevin Downey ax’s it.

The Warped Unreality of the Leftist Mind: How Many Lies Will These Idiots Swallow?

A: All of ‘em, as many as it takes. The REAL question, though, is: How many can they make the rest of us swallow, or at least pretend to?

There are people who can’t admit when they are wrong. Some folks are reluctant to admit they’ve been conned. But pinkos are emotionally weak toilet people who tie their political leanings to their self-esteem. They’ll swallow lie after lie, lest their political peers call them a horrible name — like, say, a “conservative.”

In other words, the Bolshies will eagerly lap up lefty lies to stay in the commie club, because it’s better than being considered a (gulp) Republican.

When asked why he was having trouble with working-class voters in the Midwest, then-president Obama said the following:

And it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

In one sentence, the great orator managed to remind threaten people that those who do not vote for him are to be considered angry, racist, xenophobic, gun-toting hillbillies. Mind control 101.

Leftists also need to feel they are better — dare I say superior — to someone, and that someone is you.

The better to see hear genocide you with, my dear.

3

A long train of abuses and usurpations

The parallels are obvious, incontrovertible, and quite numerous.

RISE TO REBELLION – A FOURTH TURNING PERSPECTIVE
From their writings and correspondence at the time…you realize Adams, Franklin, and Washington were all reluctant revolutionaries. Firebrands like Sam Adams and Patrick Henry had no doubts about going to war. Adams and Franklin did everything in their power to defuse the brewing conflict over many years. Adams even defended the British soldiers accused of murder during the Boston Massacre and got them acquitted by an American jury. Franklin spent years in London trying to negotiate on behalf of the colonies, while constantly being ridiculed, scorned, and humiliated by arrogant parliamentarians and an ego-maniacal king.

When chosen to lead the Continental Army, Washington was hesitant to accept the position. He didn’t believe the martial skills he gained during the French & Indian War were sufficient to lead a ragtag army of militia misfits against the greatest military on earth. These men did not conclude a military revolution was necessary to end the British tyranny lightly. After much soul searching and angst, they realized there was no choice. They had been pushed far enough and it was time to push back. They also knew if they failed, they would hang.

In 1770, Franklin was 64 years old, suffering from gout and bladder stones. With life expectancies of less than 40 years in those days, he had far outlived most, while accomplishing more as a scientist, writer, publisher, and statesman than almost anyone in history. He had every right to just live out his remaining years in peace and tranquility. But instead, he risked it all on helping birth a new nation, using all his wisdom, guile, and political acumen to help guide the younger revolutionaries Adams, Jefferson, Washington, among others.

He was 70 in 1776 when he signed the Declaration of Independence and died in 1790, shortly after the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789. He spent his twilight years working tirelessly to birth this Republic. As I and many others enter our 60s, it feels like it is too late for us to make a difference in helping change the course of our troubled nation. But Franklin should be an inspiration to all real patriots fighting impossible odds to try and defeat an arrogant brutal regime bent on crushing those who believe in freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, and a Constitution written in the blood of patriots 250 years ago.

When narrow minded linear thinkers scoff at the notion of the common people rising up and taking down a corrupt, evil, traitorous government, which no longer works in the best interest of the people, but for their own enrichment, I must anchor my thinking in the cyclical nature of history and inevitability of the existing social order being swept away in a river of blood during Fourth Turnings. The acolytes of the regime in political offices, government bureaucracy blood suckers, the media propaganda outlets, the woke military, and corporate boardrooms scoff at the thought of losing their wealth and power.

They control the narrative. They control the technology. They control the government. They control the media. They have superior firepower in the hands of their police and military mercenaries. Their hubris knows no bounds. Their comprehension of history and human nature is non-existent as their sociopath desires overwhelm their ability to think critically and see what lies ahead.

Technology hasn’t made us smarter. Technology hasn’t made us kinder. Technology hasn’t made us less violent. Technology hasn’t made us less likely to kill or wage war. Technology hasn’t made us safer. Mankind is just as prideful, greedy, wrathful, envious, lustful, gluttonous, and slothful as they were in centuries past. Human nature never changes; therefore, we can analyze the actions of King George, Lord Dartmouth, General Gage, and other key characters of the American Revolution Fourth Turning to assess how Biden, Schumer, and Miley will react and over-react to events unfolding during this Fourth Turning.

There are numerous parallels between the political, societal, and military dynamics of the American Revolution Fourth Turning and our present day Fourth Turning, which is accelerating towards its bloody climax, yet to be labeled by future historians – if there are any historians left to write the history.

Whereupon we delve into the many parallels between then and now—between the words and deeds of the tyrant King George III and those of the tyrant King Joe Biden I, between Gage and Milley—those, and many others. Ominous as they are, we do still know how the uprising against King George and the world’s most powerful military at the time turned out, which is grounds for at least some degree of optimism. One last parallel before I tell y’all to go read the rest:

The symbolism of Biden making the most divisive presidential speech in history at the most important location in the founding of the United States, Independence Hall, with blood red lighting and soldiers in the background was as clear a declaration of war against half the country as King George’s proclamation (The Proclamation For Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, as supremely spiteful and arrogant a document as is recorded in the long, hateful annals of tyranny—M) in 1775. Biden spewed hatred and vitriol towards the 74 million Trump voters, essentially proclaiming them traitors and insurrectionists. Biden and his handlers, who wrote the satanic verses demagoguery delivered by Biden, clearly were threatening to use the military against their opponents and use any means at their disposal to retain their power.

Their illegal incarceration and persecution of average Americans who sauntered around the Capital taking selfies, instigated by dozens of undercover FBI agents trying to provoke violence, is proof they have declared war. The barrage of frivolous lawsuits and criminal charges against Trump by the Biden regime and their Deep State acolytes is a blatant attempt to use the power of the State against a political opponent.

It certainly is, among several other equally abominable things. One has to wonder sometimes whether the tyrant King Joe I and his backstage meatpuppet-masters are truly cognizant of what it is they’re setting in motion here, and the very real risk to them it represents—or if they are, whether they even care.

Okay, now: go read the rest.

7

Counteroffensives

Molly and Mark Hemingway offer a counter-revolutionary counterproposal.

Unrigging Our Elections
Republicans need a serious counter-offensive if they want to stand a chance.

It might not matter whom Republicans run for president in 2024.

MIGHT not? You funny, girl. Git on witcha bad self.

America’s propaganda press traffics in disinformation. Its Big Tech oligarchs censor news and information helpful to conservatives, while elevating biased news and information that helps the Left. And its election systems have been overrun by privately funded groups that run Democratic “get out the vote” campaigns to traffic ballots into ballot boxes. We catalogued this particularly complex problem in Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.

Instead of election day, we now have an “election season”—during which, over a period of months, we flood homes across the country with tens of millions of mail-in ballots, regardless of whether secretaries of state or local registrars have any idea if those ballots are being sent to the correct addresses. This in a country where 11% of residents move every year. We then wait for sophisticated partisan turnout operations funded by activist billionaires and run by ideological statisticians to round up those ballots in entirely selective ways.

In this world, concerns about candidate quality are irrelevant. If we don’t fix this complete capture of election infrastructure, it might be impossible for anyone with a sincere desire to prioritize the interests of voters over the ruling class to win a national election.

AGAIN, with that “might” bushwa. Mark and Molly go on to offer serious proposals for unfucking this seriously fucked-up mess, at least some of which might actually have merit. But honestly, I couldn’t get interested enough to finish reading ‘em. For my money, even Buck Throckmorton’s not-quite-despairing cynicism only barely begins to express it.

There is a vicious smear campaign going on by Democrats and their media allies against conservative Supreme Court justices, especially Clarence Thomas. The purpose of these attacks, of course, is to neutralize the authority of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and perhaps to even remove a member or two by impeachment. Others in conservative media have done a great job covering this coordinated media attack, so that is not what I am writing about today.

Beyond removing justices, the left has made it clear that if it has lost its iron-fisted control of the judiciary, then the judiciary’s role in governing the country is henceforth illegitimate.

Good. I agree. The judiciary’s role in governing our lives is illegitimate, and has been for a very long time.

A country that considers itself a “democracy” (or a “representative republic,” or whatever term indicates that the people elect their government) cannot have an unelected, unaccountable, and unreplaceable judiciary that has arrogated unto itself the power to govern, irrespective of laws and lawmakers.

Don’t misunderstand, wherever the right has gained control of the courts, we should use the courts to advance our agenda, just like the left did. There is nothing principled about judicial restraint if only one side employs it. But any control we currently have over a subset of the nation’s courts is itself fleeting, since the left conquers all unelected institutions.

Bottom line, for me at least: despite whatever fleeting and temporary inroads we might have made during Trump’s one and only term as PoTUS, the simple fact remains: Amerika v2.0 is clearly not a country that is capable of self-government. Not in any meaningful sense, it ain’t. As such, it is also no longer deserving of the opportunity.

There are many, many other issues more immediately in need of addressing before whatever emerges from the existential conflict against the Evil Left can renew any claim to be capable of self-government. Which doesn’t mean that any and all avenues such as those suggested by the esteemed Hemingways aren’t worth attempting, at least; they probably are. That said, though, I can’t say I expect much from ’em.

As I’ve so often said, I’d be happy indeed to be proven wrong about this. Alas for us all, I won’t be. In my view, any “counterrevolutionary” movement that preemptively rules out the very means by which America That Was itself was founded—ie, revolt by force of arms, violence, and bloodshed—is preemptively doomed to failure. Until sufficient numbers of us have confronted that fundamental truth and made their peace with it, all else is no more than futile head-shedding. The Left is now too firmly entrenched, the institutions it has co-opted too massive and powerful, for it to be otherwise. No amount of optimism and misplaced “hope” can overcome that.

Update! My longtime chum and compatriot Aesop spells it out frankly and explicitly, with nary a punch pulled, as is his usual wont.

You believe in individual responsibility? Great. Stop looking for Fearless Leader to hold your hand, wipe your butt, and tell you what to do, when, where, or to whom.

I’m not telling you to do or not do anything.

I’m telling you to figure it out for yourself. And do what seems best in your own mind. Nobody can hack that, nobody can read that, and nobody else can ever predict that. If in any one month 1000 Leftards randomly selected had themselves an accident, by the month after that, the species would be on the Endangered List.

And that could no more be stopped – by anyone – than you could command the waves to cease crashing ashore.

And the minute any thousand people on one side decide it’s time to dish out their own version of a cut apiece, the Death Of A Thousand Cuts stops from the other side. With all the suddenness of Moldylocks getting punched in the face, or Trayvon becoming a good little criminal, or a BLM rioter or two getting Rittenhoused.

Without any plan per se, no video, no trials, just a sudden surplus number of casualties of what has been, thus far, a largely casualty-free operation: the destruction of civil society.

When egregious civilizational destruction needs skin in the game, the lemon will rapidly become not worth the squeeze.

As an added bonus, the other side is suddenly 1000 Useful Idiots lighter on the scales.

Excellent advice, seems to me. His closing line is nothing short of priceless, IMNSHO. Bravo, my friend.

3

Rand was RIGHT

Over lo, these many years, he’s developed a funny little habit of that.

Rand Paul says Democrats know the ‘consensus is switching’ on Fauci
Rand Paul says Democrats are “quietly” beginning to understand they got it wrong on COVID orthodoxy and the imagined infallibility of Anthony Fauci.Remember back when the senator would question the nation’s top doctor about the U.S. funding gain-of-function research and Fauci would get mad?

“Sen. Paul, you do not know what you’re talking about. And I want to say that officially: You do not know what you’re talking about!”

After jousting a few more times in Senate hearings, Paul kept asking important questions that no reporter was ever going to ask about the U.S. National Institute of Health’s alleged involvement with the Wuhan lab in China.

Fauci just kept saying, pretty much every time, that the senator didn’t know what he was talking about.

Then we learned Paul knew what he was talking about.

In a broad interview about the pandemic and its legacy released this week, Sen. Paul told Free the People’s Matt Kibbe (who is on the board of BASEDPolitics) that Democrats have been humbly admitting to him and other Republicans that they might have got some of the pandemic narrative wrong. 

On Fauci and gain-of-function research in particular.

“Even now, Democrats are quietly coming to us, they know the consensus is switching on this,” Paul said.

“They still don’t want to be part of it because Fauci’s the leader of the Democrat party now for them,” Paul told Kibbe. “He’s this icon and they don’t want to do anything that tarnishes him. And they see it as a partisan effort.”

Paul continued, “They’re coming quietly to me and saying, ‘well, we probably would work on a bill to maybe regulate gain-of-function research, how taxpayer dollars are spent on this.’”

Hrm—maybe I’m wrong on this, but it’s been my understanding all along that gain-of-function research already WAS illegal in the US, which is why Fauci had to sneak his megabucks into other nations’ facilities to get it done more or less under the radar. Bold in the original, by the by, not mine.

Question now is, when will the homunculus Fauci be made to PAY for his decades of evil skullduggery and blithering incompetence? Instead of being allowed to just quietly slink away into a plush, cozy retirement, overgenerous Federal pension fully intact?

3

Moar Tucker

I repeat: If you strike him down, he shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

‘I’M PROBABLY THE FIRST UNEMPLOYED PERSON YOU EVER INVITED TO SPEAK’: TUCKER CARLSON TO SOLD OUT CROWD
Tucker Carlson had a great joke for a sold out crowd in Alabama as he talked about being ‘fired’ and some other things. The crowd wasn’t huge, but it was sold out as 1,189 people showed up to see him speak at the Oxford Performing Arts Center for a fundraiser for Rainbow Omega. Jokingly, Tucker Carlson started off with the epic one-liner saying “I’m probably the first unemployed person you ever invited to speak.” Then Carlson said, “It’s funny. I never give speeches because I’m working. When I accepted this speech six months ago or something, I didn’t realize how much free time I would have. One never knows, does one?”

What else did Tucker Carlson say during his speech? Well, here’s some quotes thanks to AL.com who posted it in a news story about the former Fox News host:

I accepted for two reasons, one shallow and one a little deeper. One is, I do love Alabama. I’m not just saying that. We spend a lot of time in rural Maine, which is so close to this culturally, you have no idea. In a great way. The food is not very good in rural Maine. The food here is unbelievable. I’ve spent a lot of time in this state, and part of the reason is you have great hunting and fishing. The real reason is it has everything that I like. It has really nice people. It has amazing food. I have the world’s worst eating habits and here that’s not judged. Fried Oreos? Okay! I love that. I love the lack of judgment.

The perceptions, national perceptions kind of shift very slowly, then you wake up in the morning and everything’s different. The rest of the country’s view of Alabama is one of those things that just changed completely. Nobody makes fun of Alabama, at all, because they realize actually that’s how you’re supposed to be living. The only way to know what people think about something is to not listen to what they say, I say this as someone who has talked for a living for a long time, ignore the words. Watch what they do. Watch how they live. That’s the only accurate measure of what people really think. Ignore that. Be like your dog, who understands not a single word of what you’re saying but knows exactly who you are.

Are people moving to Alabama? Oh, yeah. I love that. Why are they moving here? They’re moving here because Alabama’s everything that you would want in a place that you live. It has cohesive communities, super-nice people, gentle people, people who care about their neighbors, and it has an abundance of nature, something that we I think undervalue. We went through this weird, kind of mass hypnosis where everyone was convinced we had to move to some horrifying concrete city in order to make a living and forgot that actually you need to see green, or else you’ll go insane. If you’re alienated from God’s creation, you become fundamentally alienated. Nature is the most beautiful thing. Driving around here today, I thought to myself, you think of Alabama, if you don’t live in Alabama, as a place that has a lot of past attached to it. And I thought today, especially reading the numbers about what’s happening in your state, Alabama is not the past, Alabama’s the future.

We’d damned well better hope it is, yeah. Thankfully, as Tucker implies, that’s something that just kinda-sorta happens when nobody’s really looking, or expecting it to.

2

Never too old to rock and roll

Divemedic recounts the incredible story of a bona fide American hero—a valiant and doughty warrior I’ve written about here myself. DM includes some aspects of the story, most notably a memorable quote, that I hadn’t heard before.

There are so many times that I have heard people, including myself, say that we are getting too old for the conflicts that are to come. It’s easy to think that the trials that we all see as inevitable are for young men, and let’s face it, many of us cannot consider ourselves to be young any longer. So let’s take comfort in the story of Samuel Whittemore.

Comfort? I hardly see it as comforting. Confers a YUGE burden of responsibility, and imposes a very real debt of awestruck gratitude, more like. At the very least, Whittemore’s story is enormously humbling for any present-day Real American with half a lick of sense and a knowledge of US history.

Anyways. Onwards.

Samuel was not a young man when he enlisted in the Third Massachusetts Regiment and fought the French in Canada. He was 49 years old when he killed a French officer and took his sword as a war trophy.

Mr. Whittemore wasn’t done. He fought again against Chief Pontiac in the Great Lakes region at 67 years old as he led troops against the French and Indians. During that conflict, he took a pair of dueling pistols as war trophies.

For the next decade or so, he became a respected leader in the civic arena. He lobbied against the government, speaking out and being a general pain in the ass. He protested the government’s actions, complaining about this and that, went to meetings of government, and represented his town as a member of the Committee of Correspondence. That was how it came to be that, in 1772, Whittemore was one of the three contributors to Cambridge, Massachusetts’ statement in objection to the Tea Act:

If we cease to assert Our rights we shall dwindle into supineness and the chains of slavery shall be fast rivetted upon us 

Then came the day when Samuel Whittemore’s family found him in his farm’s field, lying in a pool of blood, and even the town’s doctor didn’t believe that he would survive. British soldiers had left Samuel Whittemore in a pool of blood alongside a stone wall in Menotomy, Mass. after shooting the old farmer in the face, then bayoneted him at least six times and clubbed him, apparently, to death as they retreated from the skirmish at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Samuel was 78 years old.

Located near him were the bodies of three British soldiers: one shot by a musket, another by a dueling pistol, and a third run through with an ornate French sword.

Samuel survived that day, against all odds, and lived to the ripe old age of 96. He is currently buried in Arlington, Massachusetts.

This is the reason why we stand for the National Anthem, to honor men such as this.

Indubitably so. It’s to our everlasting disgrace that, were you to ask any random “American” schoolkid nowadays, he/she/its/zhir/zhimz would have no idea who Samuel Whittemore even was. Hell, he/she/its/zhir/zhimz parents wouldn’t know either. I very much doubt whether their teachers would.

As Founding Father Patrick Henry so unforgettably implored the flock at St John’s Church in Richmond:

Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Amen. May we all draw strength from history, from the deeds of our glorious forebears; may we resolve to live up to their illustrious example. May the memory of that history, that example, never fade from our hearts and minds. In awakening Real Americans from their long, torporous slumber, Leftards know not what they have done. Let them reap the whirlwind, then, in fullest possible measure.

6

Do you Kipple?

Our friend KT—she of the much-beloved AoSHQ Saturday Pet and Gardening threads, among other fine and notable things—posts an excellent deep-dive analysis into one of the great Bard’s very best pomes.

Rudyard Kipling first published The Gods of the Copybook Headings in 1919, soon after the War To End All Wars. And it has been a decade since Bill Whittle slightly revised Kipling’s poem “for modern ears”, replacing “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” in the poem with The Gods of Wisdom and Virtue. He also replaced “The Gods of the Market Place” with The Gods of the Here and the Now.

The word choice of “The Gods of the Here and the Now” seems to me to be especially relevant to our culture and politics at the present moment. Some gods, especially the human ones, seem to fall out of favor in just a news cycle or two. Sometimes the descriptions of the non-human gods will be transformed in a news cycle or two.

So, what and who are the Gods of the Here and the Now, at this moment?

Safe to say that answering that question will automagickally provide the answers to a whole lot of other ones into the bargain. Read all of it. Then, from there, browse through my “Kipling” section, linked in Ye Olde CF Menuebarre up top yonder. There’s bound to be something in there that will be new to you, I’d bet. If you’re not a Kipling fan yet, then it’s high time you became one.

Gee, some wisdom, it turns out, truly IS eternal. Whodathunkit?

The impossible dream

If you can get past all the fantasy, melodramatic cheerleading, and wishful thinking, this isn’t such a bad article.

Nolte: Trump Edges into National Lead Against Biden Post-Indictment
Former President Donald Trump enjoys a national lead against His Fraudulency Joe Biden in a potential 2024 rematch.

In 2020, Biden (allegedly) beat Trump by 4.5 points nationally. Polling at the time, according to the RealClearPolitics (RCP) national average, suggested Trump would lose by 7.2 points. In other words, Trump out-performed the polling.

Also of note is that not once during the 2020 election did the average of RCP national polls show Trump with a lead. Throughout the campaign, the closest Trump came to Biden was a four-point deficit.

Today, the RealClearPolitics poll of national polls shows Trump with an outright lead of 1.7 points. It bears repeating that this never happened once in 2020. Even left-wing pollsters show Trump doing well. The Marquette poll shows a tie. Quinnipiac only has Biden up two points. Rasmussen, one of the only pollsters that show Biden with a respectable approval rating, has Trump up by seven.

Uh HUH. Up 1.7—well within the margin of error; tied; down by two; and up by seven—still well within what Limbaugh famously dubbed the all-important “margin of fraud.” Yeah, this one’s a lead-pipe cinch for Trump, no doubt about it.

Moreover, and this should be a wake-up call to the obnoxious and insufferable types in the #OnlyDeSantis camp, Trump polls as well against Biden as the Florida governor. In a hypothetical 2024 presidential race, DeSantis enjoys an average lead against His Fraudulency of 1.6 points, compared to Trump’s 1.7.

Wow, so it’s a real blowout, then!

Now, we know that polls are the bunk; anyone who ever took even a single entry-level statistics class in college (which I did, actually) knows that they can easily be jiggered, “interpreted,” and just generally fucked with to produce any result desired. As a snapshot of political opinion at the current moment, while not entirely bereft of any value whatsoever, they should always be taken with not just a grain but a veritable ziggurat of salt.

My above semi-tongue-in-cheek objections aside, this next is the part of Nolte’s piece I really wanted to put up here; the painful yet funny Biden slam therein is note-perfect.

I like both DeSantis and Trump, but the numbers are the numbers. Granted, DeSantis has not yet announced he’s running, and that could scramble to board considerably, but it could scramble it either way. The Florida governor’s interview with Piers Morgan was not impressive. He will have to come across a lot stronger and with more stature if he’s going to defeat Trump.

As far as why Trump is polling better against than Biden now as opposed to 2020, the reasons should be obvious. Biden is an unpopular incumbent who can no longer hide in his basement. Biden is president now, and his every appearance is a reminder of how dumb, frail, and dishonest he is.

What’s more, he’s doing a terrible job: energy prices, inflation, open border, war fever in Ukraine, mutilating children to appease his transvestite base…

Which will make it all the more painful, then, when he once again gets more “votes” than any other presidential candidate in history, cruising on to win another “landslide” “election” next year. Assuming the demented old crook lives that long—no mean assumption, that, as is more in evidence every day.

I’ve always liked John Nolte’s work, and have excerpted him plenty over the years. But after reading this one, my initial gut-reaction was that Trump Derangement Syndrome might cut in more than just the one direction.

And THEN what?

VDH, bless his poor old heart, recites a long litany of stuff we knew already.

Indict One—And All?
Were the opposition to match tit-for-tat these Democratic means, then the republic would not survive.

Ummm, Victor ol’ buddy ol’ pal, hate to have to be the one to break this to ya and all, but…IT DIDN’T.

It is the revolutionary Left that attacks institutions deemed unhelpful for its current political agenda—one that rarely warrants 50 percent public approval—whether that effort is defined by threats of ending the filibuster, scrapping the Electoral College, adding two more states, packing the court, or radically changing balloting laws and customs to turn elections into a 70 percent no-show of voters on Election Day.

And so on and so forth, etc etc fucking etc. We know what they’ve done, we know why they did it, we know what they’re liable to do next, we know what they hope to accomplish by it; in sum, we know all anyone should ever need to know about them. Happily, Bayou Peter understands the pointless futility of these endless recapitulations—that the only pertinent question at this late date is what, if anything, is to be done about it.

It’s a persuasive argument. If conservative and middle America were to say “So far and no further”, the progressive left would erupt in demonstrations, violence and anarchy, seeking to impose their will by intimidation. Sadly, a great many Americans would be cowed by such uprisings, and prefer to back down rather than risk what might come from such confrontations.

Of course, the only way forward – the only way to stop such progressive machinations – is to accept that risk, and stop them in their tracks. That means accepting the necessity to answer in kind: to meet provocation with resistance, to answer violence with violence. There’s no other way to do it. Gandhi’s non-violent solution worked in India, in a colonial situation, but he wasn’t facing an opponent that welcomed violence and embraced it as a political and social strategy. We are.

Christians, in particular, are going to have to harden their hearts in this regard. It’s very easy to say that we should turn the other cheek, as Christ commanded: but in this case, if we do that, they’ll rip it off, along with the first cheek we turned. The progressive left knows no other approach except intimidation and dominance. Anything less is seen as weakness. That’s why they’ve made so much progress, and they have every intention of continuing their progress until all resistance is at an end.

It’s time to stop them…if necessary, by using their own tactics against them. To begin with, that can be to use the same legal tactics against them that they’ve used against us. If they take that to the next level, well, we can do that too—and we must, or be steamrollered by those with everything at stake and absolutely no inhibitions of conscience.

Precisely, indubitably so. I’ll say this much: if stooping to adopting their own tactics is the absolute worst thing we have to do to end this, we can count ourselves fortunate indeed. Evergreen rerun:

That one ain’t ever getting old. Would that there might come a day when we can all look fondly back on it as no longer immediately relevant, just another well-written and skillfully-acted scene from a fine old movie—as a piece of classic cinema, not an imperative, a most urgent call to arms.

2
1

“No one is above the law,” eh?

Ooooh, tell me that fairy tale again, Daddy. That one’s my favorite.

No One Is Above The Law? Give Me A Break
Plenty of people are “above the law.” James Clapper, who lied under oath to Congress about spying on the American people, is above the law. John Brennan, who lied about a domestic spying operation on Senate staffers, is above the law. Unlike Trump advisor Peter Navarro, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was never going to be handcuffed and thrown in prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena. He is above the law.

Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, is also above the law. The then-Secretary of State set up a private server in her home to circumvent transparency surrounding her slush-fund foundation. She sent 110 emails containing marked classified information, and 36 of those emails contained secret information. Eight of the email chains contained “top secret” information. Every one of those instances was a potential felony punishable with up to ten years in prison.

We learned all of this from James Comey, then FBI director, who noted that Hillary had been “extremely careless” in conducting her business. Comey didn’t recommend charges because, he claimed, the state couldn’t prove Clinton’s intent — even though “gross negligence,” not intent, was the only standard he needed. Gross negligence and extreme carelessness are synonyms. Comey concocted a new standard to protect Clinton because she is above the law.

When Hillary’s husband, also above the law, perjured himself under oath, Democrats argued that puritanical conservatives were only pursuing Bill because of some trumped-up charge over “sex.” Using that logic, Trump’s campaign finance charges related to Stormy Daniels’ “hush money” are also about sex. This is different because Trump is the boogeyman, and everyone knows he’s guilty of something. The important thing is getting that mug shot.

Don’t worry, though; former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, “Everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence.” By “everyone,” she means Republicans. And if you think this authoritarian formulation is an accident, you haven’t been paying attention. When Democrats were smearing Brett Kavanaugh as a (gang) rapist a few years back, Mazie Hirono was asked whether the then-nominee deserved the “same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America?” After all, this wasn’t about any judicial disagreement but about alleged criminal behavior. The Hawaii senator responded, “I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases.”

In other words, if you’re a conservative, your politics are evil; and if your politics are evil, you’re probably evil. I imagine that was the rationalization used by Kamala Harris when reading obvious fabrications about Kavanaugh into the Congressional Record. It is likely the rationalization of Lois Lerner or Merrick Garland — both above the law — when they weaponized government agencies against political opponents. It is almost surely the rationalization of Alvin Bragg. This is what justifies the contemporary left’s increasing comfort with deploying the state to punish and destroy political enemies. For many progressives, the legal system isn’t merely a tool for criminal justice (if that) but a way to exact poetic political justice.

Like every other soiled, battered American institution which has been perverted and warped by them, the “justice” system is there strictly as a convenience for them—a tool, yes, to be used as they see fit in pursuit of their malignant authoritarian agenda. Nothing more, nothing less.

2

America under indictment

There are indictments, and then there are, y’know, indictments.

The Indictment of America
Theoretically a grand jury has indicted President Trump, but in truth the indictment is of the American regime itself.

Like all of us, Donald Trump is a flawed man, but he has become a symbol to those who vested him with a sacred trust. He was made president by us to lead our nation. He fulfilled his part of that bargain, as far as he was able. But too late. The government we asked him to administer was already too corrupt to allow him to do the job, lest they themselves be held to account. Now his persecution for doing what voters asked him to do is breaking the very covenant of government under which we live.

The political drift of the last 100 years has, with a few brief exceptions, been toward authoritarian rule. With the subversion of the English Common Law that had been our foundation, the last bastion of the Republic has fallen. The why and how are worth considering, but the “what” is now before us.

Nancy Pelosi gave away the game (yet again) last week when she said that President Trump had every right to “prove his innocence,” a sentiment applauded by her fellows, who share a total lack of understanding of just how this reverses the presumption of innocence as well as the foundational direction of our nation. When she tore up the president’s State of the Union speech behind his back after he spoke, it was enough to make her sense of the world clear. Her haughty response to a question about the details of the Affordable Care Act—“we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it”—was another. And her mocking laughter in the face of a query about the constitutionality of Obamacare was still another.

A grand jury in New York City has indicted President Trump, but this is problematic. The allegations against him are unworthy of grand jury attention, even after the penalties for these so-called crimes were increased, post facto, from potential misdemeanors to felonies by the wave of a single judicial hand. Laws are now made that way, as if by magic, and not by legislatures as the Constitution once demanded. We are now ruled by men, not laws, and the struggle for power amongst them will ruin us.

Correction: HAS ruined us, plainly. Covering bases that may not have occurred to you, chock-a-block with historical detail, if you only read one essay discussing the Trump indictment—as heinous, sordid, and despicable a sham as ever has been perpetrated—it should definitely be this one. As good as it is, no mere excerpt could possibly do it justice.

2

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John Adams

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."
Bertrand de Jouvenel

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."
GK Chesterton

"I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free."
Donald Surber

"The only way to live free is to live unobserved."
Etienne de la Boiete

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"To put it simply, the Left is the stupid and the insane, led by the evil. You can’t persuade the stupid or the insane and you had damn well better fight the evil."
Skeptic

"There is no better way to stamp your power on people than through the dead hand of bureaucracy. You cannot reason with paperwork."
David Black, from Turn Left For Gibraltar

"If the laws of God and men, are therefore of no effect, when the magistracy is left at liberty to break them; and if the lusts of those who are too strong for the tribunals of justice, cannot be otherwise restrained than by sedition, tumults and war, those seditions, tumults and wars, are justified by the laws of God and man."
John Adams

"The limits of tyranny are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Frederick Douglass

"Give me the media and I will make of any nation a herd of swine."
Joseph Goebbels

“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan

"Ain't no misunderstanding this war. They want to rule us and aim to do it. We aim not to allow it. All there is to it."
NC Reed, from Parno's Peril

"I just want a government that fits in the box it originally came in."
Bill Whittle

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