Almost but not quite

Second look at the Bundy Ranch standoff?

Posted on August 16, 2022August 16, 2022 by Mike

The Bundy family’s take on our awful central government’s true nature was more accurate than they’ve ever been given credit for.

BUNKERVILLE, NEVADA—The Bundy Ranch roundup has understandably stirred thin-stretched emotions as the federal government seizes cattle belonging to the Bundy family. The family settled in the late 1800’s and has ranched in the area since. The federal government allowed Nevada ranchers to graze their cattle on federal tracts of land adjacent to their private properties for generations. The federal government later created the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to administer and “protect” the vast swaths of federal land—including the land the Bundy family’s livelihood was—and still is—dependent upon. The BLM began restricting ranchers’ usage of federal lands to protect various species, and the BLM decided to restrict the Bundy family’s usage of the federal land they historically grazed. The federal government told the Bundy family that a tortoise existed on the land and therefore the land’s usage for cattle would have to decrease—thus creating a scenario where the Bundy family could make fewer resources. A 20-year legal battle ensued.

There exist a number of elements to the story that inject shades of grey into the dominant media narrative. Perhaps hundreds of Bundy supporters have already shown up to the ranch area to “protect” the family and their land—which is federal land—but federal land such usage was promised to the family in the government’s efforts to get people to settle the West after Mexico ceded the land to the U.S. Court documents—discussed later in this article—reveal that the Bundy family decided at some point that the federal government was illegitimate and that they no longer had to give heed to the federal courts. The Bundy family patriarch has openly stated his willingness to use force against federal agents if they take his cattle off of the federal lands; the federal agents stand ready to use force against the family or their supporters if they interfere with the cattle removal. Both sides are armed, both sides are frustrated, and the rhetoric and hyperbole surrounding the entire matter has left many onlookers from around the world confused as to what is actually happening.

In the immediate aftermath of the infamous cattle roundup, Cliven Bundy granted a number of high profile media interviews continuing to deny—to the point of absolutely ignoring family history—what the federal courts have twice told him.

“I believe this is a sovereign state of Nevada,” Bundy recently told a radio reporter. “…I abide by all of Nevada state laws. But, I don’t recognize the United States Government as even existing.”

Oh, it exists right enough, I’m afraid. Cliven and several of his compatriots ended up finding that out the hard way. The thing I remember being struck by more forcefully than anything else at the time was the near-universal condemnation of the Bundys from the Right. Even folks whose ideological inclinations might be taken as suggestive of deep antipathy for FederalGovCo, its minions, and its nefarious works were suddenly tripping over themselves to join [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”hw7r99ujes” question=”Comments? Complaints? Thoughts?” opened=”0″]the mad rush to take the Almighty State’s side[/wpdiscuz-feedback] on this one.

Golden opportunity: missed

Posted on August 3, 2022August 3, 2022 by Mike

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.'”

Pelosi Lands in Taiwan Amid Chinese Threats and Chinese Warplanes Patrolling the Skies
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan aboard a U.S. military aircraft late on Tuesday, amid threats of Chinese retaliation, and with Chinese warplanes flying along the Taiwan Strait ahead of her arrival, Reuters reported.

Since Monday, several Chinese warships have also sailed near the unofficial dividing line and remained there, a source told Reuters.

The Chinese aircraft repeatedly conducted tactical moves of briefly “touching” the median line and circling back to the other side of the strait while Taiwanese aircraft were on standby nearby, the person said.

Neither side’s aircraft normally cross the median line.

Four U.S. warships, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, were positioned in waters east of Taiwan on what the U.S. Navy called routine deployments. The carrier had transited the South China Sea and was now in the Philippines Sea, east of Taiwan and the Philippines and south of Japan, a U.S. Navy official told Reuters.

It was operating with the guided missile cruiser USS Antietam and destroyer USS Higgins, with the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli also in the area.

Since last week, China’s People’s Liberation Army has conducted various exercises, including live-fire drills, in the South China Sea, Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea, in a show of Chinese military might.

Pelosi and her delegation were greeted by Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu and Sandra Oudkirk, a U.S. diplomat serving as Director of the American Institute in Taiwan.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that U.S. politicians who “play with fire” on the Taiwan issue will “come to no good end.”

Yeh, yeh, yeh, you just keep them yaps a-flapping, ya punk-ass dinks. You coulda done us all a real favor, but after all that big talk, you decided the better part of valor was to fold up like a cheap accordion. Hopefully you goddamned zipperheads will have grown yourselves a pair by the next time the Gin Hag is over in your bailiwick, and you’ll redeem your cheapened manhood accordingly. I dare ya to. Hell, I’ll even go so far as to breach all known etiquette and TRIPLE DOG dare ya, if that’ll help spur you pussies on.

And don’t anybody start in to smarmily lecturing me on the worn-out old “politics stops at the water’s edge” saw, either. That horsepuckey has been non compos mentis at least since the Demonrats put paid to it back during Operation Desert Storm/Shield, if not Vietnam. That being so, the fucking gooks can splash all the shitlib ProPols they like and it’ll be just jakesy-jukesy with me.

SOS

Posted on July 31, 2022August 1, 2022 by Mike

Big news? Big yawn.

Exclusive-Former Republicans and Democrats Form New Third U.S. Political Party
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials announced on Wednesday a new national political third party to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America’s dysfunctional two-party system.

The new party, called Forward and whose creation was first reported by Reuters, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters.

The new party is being formed by a merger of three political groups that have emerged in recent years as a reaction to America’s increasingly polarized and gridlocked political system. The leaders cited a Gallup poll last year showing a record two-thirds of Americans believe a third party is needed.

I agree wholeheartedly, an alternative to the tatterdemalion Uniparty charade IS needed, and quite badly. Alas, this ain’t it.

The merger involves the Renew America Movement, formed in 2021 by dozens of former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump; the Forward Party, founded by Yang, who left the Democratic Party in 2021 and became an independent; and the Serve America Movement, a group of Democrats, Republicans and independents whose executive director is former Republican congressman David Jolly.

See what I mean? The same old hacks pulling the same old strings; the same old influencers, gladhanders, logrollers, and backstabbers, running the same old scams and shams—not much inspiring, encouraging, or new here, not as far as these eyes can see. My God, even the names are the same.

As I’ve so often said of Biden: if these career political operators really DO know how to fix what needs fixing, and really DO want to see it fixed, then why on earth haven’t they jumped in and done so at any point over the many decades they’ve been content to soak up the graft, peddle the influence, and loll lazily about in the reassuringly tepid waters of the DC swamp? What the bleedin’ hell have they been waiting for all this time, anyway?

But hey, I’m willing to be fair about this. Let’s give them the benefit of assuming they really are sincere about what they’re saying and do them the courtesy of having a look at their program before we just dismiss them out of hand as peddlers of the same old shinola, shall we?

Two pillars of the new party’s platform are to “reinvigorate a fair, flourishing economy” and to “give Americans more choices in elections, more confidence in a government that works, and more say in our future.”

The party, which is centrist, has no specific policies yet. It will say at its Thursday launch: “How will we solve the big issues facing America? Not Left. Not Right. Forward.”

Well, hey, that’s certainly a bold, innovative agenda you fellas have come up with, I must say! Nothing vague, evasive, or slippery about any of that, nosiree BOB! In fact, with the right dressing on top, that there might actually be the crispest, most flavorful word-salad ever plated up. Get ready to CHOW DOWN, American voterpersonages!!!

“Centrist,” he says. “FORWARD,” no less. Le sigh.

Another person involved in the creation of Forward, Miles Taylor – a former Homeland Security official in the Trump administration – said the idea was to give voters “a viable, credible national third party.”

Taylor acknowledged that third parties had failed in the past, but said: “The fundamentals have changed. When other third party movements have emerged in the past it’s largely been inside a system where the American people aren’t asking for an alternative. The difference here is we are seeing an historic number of Americans saying they want one.”

Oh, trust me, we do, we do. Problem is, it’s an alternative to YOU FUCKING PEOPLE that we’re all in search of here, not just the same old shit on a fancy new shingle you’re putting out.

Another somewhat amusing aspect to this shit-a-palooza: if you Duck Duck Go-search on the article’s title entire, you might notice that pretty much EVERY news outlet extant includes that screaming “Exclusive” claim, from Yahoo to MSN to Reuters to…well, all of ’em. Apparently, words no longer mean anydamnedthing at all these days. EXCLUSIVE PRO TIP: when everybody and his sister’s cat’s grandmother runs the exact same article, it is definitionally incorrect to boast that what you have is in any meaningful sense “exclusive.”

One would hope that people who make a living as purveyors of the written word might know better. One would be doomed to disappointment.

Sayonara, sucker

Posted on July 23, 2022 by Mike

So today I had my very first opportunity to give the new user-registration-approval plugin I installed the other day a whirl: some blaggard with a dot-ru email addy attempted to slime his way in here, and I dumped his ass so damned fast it made MY head spin. In my twenty years of doing blog-business here, there has never yet been a living soul attached to a dot-ru address that was ever up to anything but a whole lot of No Good. So you can well imagine the pleasure I derived from flushing this latest example down the crapper and out the damned sewer pipe with all the other smelly turds. Think I’ll celebrate with rerun of a bona fide classic.

It’s about time

Posted on July 22, 2022July 22, 2022 by Mike

Looks like I was only off by about a year, year and a half or so.

President Biden tested positive for COVID-19 Thursday morning, the White House said.
The president is experiencing a trio of mild symptoms, his doctor said in a letter.

Biden’s symptoms are a runny nose, occasional dry cough and fatigue, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, physician to the president, wrote in a letter.

Biden went to bed feeling fine Wednesday night but did not sleep well, Dr. Ashish Jha, White House COVID-19 response coordinator, told reporters.

The president has begun treatment with the drug Paxlovid, which is currently authorized for the treatment of “mild-to-moderate COVID-19.” The antiviral drug has been proven to curb the worst effects of the disease, showing positive results of direct viral testing for those at high risk of progressing to severe COVID-19, according to the FDA.

As you folks may or may not remember, after the DemonRats had stolen the election and fraudulently installed “Joe Biden” in the White House as “pResident,” I predicted it would be announced by no later than June 2021 or so that the mouldering, gibbering old fool had “died of Covid,” initiating a national paroxysm of “grief” that would be every bit as phony as “Joe Biden” himself had always been. Alas, it didn’t work out quite that way, at least as far as my anticipated timetable went. But hey, better late than never, right? More from the NY Post.

President Biden on Thursday tested positive for COVID-19 — one day after giving a gaffe-filled speech that spurred health concerns and less than a week after returning from meetings in Saudi Arabia with killer Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

Biden, 79, is the oldest-ever American president and his advanced age puts him at elevated risk of serious illness or death, though he has received four shots of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, reducing the risk, and is being treated with antiviral drug Paxlovid.

The president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said in a morning statement that Biden “is currently experiencing mild symptoms, mostly rhinorrhea (or ‘runny hose’) and fatigue, with an occasional dry cough, which started yesterday evening.”

Biden’s health was widely discussed on Wednesday when he shocked listeners by claiming during a speech in Massachusetts that he has cancer, using the present tense. The White House hastened to clarify that he was referring to skin cancer from before he took office. In the same speech, Biden referred to male Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) as “she” and said that the city of Glasgow is in England, before correcting himself to say Scotland.

Sheesh. Covid, cancer, asthma, whatever. Sick or unsick, he’s still hardly what people usually think of when they use the word “alive.”

Update! The bottom line.

There’s a reason that all leftist policy is about transferring responsibility from individuals to groups.

Biden may be the least popular president in history—but that’s good for Democrats. Just as it’s good that he thinks he has cancer (or asthma or whatever). If the Democrats can force him not to run for a second term, they can make him the scapegoat for all the suffering wrought intentionally by the leftist agenda. It gives them a clean slate. As long as America is willing to buy it.

I don’t mean, of course, that America might be willing to buy into wrapping this trainwreck around Biden’s neck. They have known from the start, even Biden’s voters have known, that he was never really in charge. They knew that other people were standing in the shadows and pulling the strings. Some Democrats voted for a third term of Barack Obama. Some Democrats voted for a first term of Obama consigliere Susan Rice, et al. But no one, or almost no one, really voted for Biden, who, remember, largely ran his campaign from his basement.

Americans have to be willing to buy into the theoretical possibility that Democrats could win the next election. They know it’s vanishingly unlikely that a majority of the voters in the country would choose the Democrats. It’s even less likely now than it was in 2020. But the question from Democrats’ perspective is not whether they can win, but whether America will accept being told that Democrats have won.

When America wakes up again, after going to sleep election night with Republicans in the lead across the nation, and they’re presented with another “red mirage”—with the result of millions and millions of votes magically appearing at 4 o’clock in the morning in all the most crucial districts—will they accept it? Will they be willing to suspend disbelief, as voters in New York City and Chicago and San Francisco already do, when they are told that despite the disastrous tenure of the Democrats in office, the voters have decided to extend that tenure?

The Democrats can’t hope to win. They can only hope that getting rid of Biden will make a win seem plausible. They can only hope that, when they cheat, Americans will let them get away with it rather than coming after them with pitchforks.

Prognosis: negative. Or so we must hope; there’s a clock ticking here, and time for retrieving whatever we possibly can from the ashes of America That Was grows short. If all it takes to put things right is pitchforks, I’d say the rotten bastards are getting off way light.

Rebound update! About this Paxlovid substance.

Fauci Says He Had Paxlovid Rebound, Worse Symptoms
June 30, 2022 – Anthony Fauci, MD, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said Tuesday that he went through a “Paxlovid rebound” that can occur after taking the antiviral to recover from COVID-19.

The symptoms that he had after he completed the treatment were more severe than those he had at first from the coronavirus, he said.

“After I finished the 5 days of Paxlovid, I reverted to negative on an antigen test for 3 days in a row,” Fauci said during Foreign Policy’s Global Health Forum event.

“And then on the fourth day, just to be absolutely certain, I tested myself again,” he said. “I reverted back to positive.”

Fauci then began a second course of Paxlovid when symptoms returned, which were “much worse than the first go-around,” he said. During Tuesday’s event, he said he was feeling “reasonably good.”

Aww, that’s a shame. Hate to hear it, I truly do. Bill would like a word about all this.

Embroidering this tinfoil hat a bit further:

If FJB were to succumb to Covid leading into the last part of this election season, it would solve more than a few problems for the Democrats. First, it would short-circuit all the problems likely to arise from further reveals on how thoroughly the Ukrainian oligarchs had corrupted the White House. (Old news. Besides, Joe, he daid.)

Second, it would serve to demonstrate that (whatever variant of covid they would say got him) was still deadly, and would justify heavier restrictions and measures – like lockdowns (which would crater the cost of oil, just as they did the first time around) and maybe even mandated mail-in ballots (which was how the election was fraudulently stolen from DJT, and both GOP candidates for Senator in Georgia).

Finally, President Kamala Harris. And…Vice President Michelle Obama?

Of course, this would all have to be accomplished before the election itself…

A Harris/Obama regime? Oof. The one thing we know for absolutely, positively certain, though, is that they’ll do whatever they damned well please, dare Real Americans to do one damned thing about it, and laugh in our damned faces when we don’t.

A most popular ”president”

Posted on July 12, 2022July 12, 2022 by Mike

For certain highly specific meanings of the word “popular,” that is.

Interactive Polls has released the latest approval ratings and it contains good news for Joe Biden. His approval rating is still better than “stick in the eye” and several other categories, as seen below.

Category Approve Disapprove

People singing in public bathroom 40 55

Sliver of glass in foot 38 52

Joe Biden 36 55

Stick in the eye 34 56

Punch in stomach / kidneys 30 62

Influenza (puking kind) 29 62

Root canal (no anesthesia) 28 66

*14,695 voting age adults
**Margin of error +/- 2 points

The White House responded to the results with elation and the official Twitter account noted
“Joe Biden still popular as Commander in Chief, look at these latest poll numbers!”
— White House (@WhiteHouse)

“Resist, or be swept away”

Posted on July 6, 2022July 6, 2022 by Mike

No way I can improve on that perfect title. Although I have to say, regretfully, the author’s idea of what constitutes effective “resistance” has precious little in common with my own.

There is a great deal of consternation in liberal precincts regarding the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. This is good. It is the right of every American to voice their grievances. Abortion is a contentious issue and worthy of debate. There are reasonable positions both sides may debate which will likely reverberate for years to come. Unfortunately, most of the noise from liberals isn’t discussion the issue deserves, but a whirring, whining cacophony reminiscent of a fit a child might throw if told he can’t do something he really…really…really wants to do.

Jill Filipovic joined the cacophony, writing in the Guardian, “[T]he US Supreme Court should officially be understood — a tool of minority rule over the majority, and as part of a far-right ideological and authoritarian takeover that must be snuffed out if we want American democracy to survive.” Consider Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s diatribe: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” On June 22, a deranged man considered snuffing out Justice Kavanaugh and is awaiting trial for attempted murder. A near universal outcry from liberals contends that abortion is a “constitutional right.” It is hard to see how the republic overcomes such radical mindsets and notions.

No, it isn’t. On the contrary, it is simplicity itself; to overcome such mindless radicalism, all purveyors of insensate balderdash must be purged, by means of hard-handed violence if that’s what it takes for the Republic to rid itself of it, to preserve the culture and way of life of its citizens. The hard thing isn’t “seeing” that harsh reality, it’s accepting it, and then acting accordingly.

Liberals have convinced themselves that Republican presidents who win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote are illegitimate. Ms. Filipovic notes in her article that five of the conservative judges sitting on the Supreme Court were “appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote.” America is a constitutional republic. Presidential elections are decided by the Electoral College. This is the only legal method of electing the president. A presidential election decided any other way would be illegitimate.

What liberals are really saying is that conservatism is illegitimate. Liberals consider conservatism a bastard ideology, conceived illegitimately, existing to unravel democratic institutions so conservatives may invoke a fascist state. Conservatism must be “snuffed out” so democracy survives. Any strategy or tactic that avails liberals the slightest advantage or damages conservatives is endorsed. Ethics, morality, and the well-being of the American people are irrelevant. The ends justify the means. This is the pathetic ethos of liberalism today.

Subscription to this ethos isn’t enough; the body politic must be purged of conservatism. Schumer’s threat is real. Conservatives have “released the whirlwind and…will pay the price.” To be “snuffed out” and “pay the price” is language of trepidation and violence. Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has determined that parents displaying raucous behavior at school board meetings are enemies of the state while senators and citizens that threaten and intimidate Supreme Court justices are patriotic Americans participating in democracy. Looting, arson, and anarchy are to liberal protesters what nirvana is to Buddhist monks.

Liberals dominate the Executive and Legislative Branches of the federal government and many states. The federal bureaucracy is a cudgel used to benefit the liberal elite. Liberals dominate popular and news media. Corporations, increasingly leery of the bureaucratic cudgel, toe the line for liberals. Educators propagandize the country’s youth with twisted liberal dogma. Conservatives are swimming upstream against a powerful liberal current to maintain their political, cultural, and commercial identity.

The Constitution is an island rising above this powerful stream. Americans must embrace the Constitution and the laws that underlie it because liberals won’t be bothered by the rule of law. When liberal elites consider judicial decisions illegitimate and remedy the undesirable decision by packing the court with friendly judges, the rule of law is meaningless.

All indubitably correct so far—grim, bleak, factual reality, offered full-strength with nary a flinch nor backfill. But you know what’s coming next, don’t you? Wait for it…wait for it…WAAAIIIT FOR IT…

Conservatives are the bulwark of the republic, the last line of defense against a treacherous liberal ideology that seeks to dominate the body politic while destroying anyone that resists. The American people must elect politicians that will compete with this dangerous ideology, returning government to the people before the nation is swept away in a current of chaotic liberalism.

Sorry, bub, but if you think electing politicians to “compete” can ever be sufficient to discourage, dissuade, and/or defeat remorseless, implacable, Hell-spawned Leftist fiends, you got some more thinking to do. Any fool knows that in wartime, one’s chosen weapon must have power adequate to dispense with the foeman one confronts. No stampeding rhino was ever brought down with a flyswatter and a spray-bottle of sugar water, after all. Any thinking person would scrupulously guard himself against the slightest implication that he might actually take such twaddle at all seriously, lest his reputation be forever ruined.

Either you believe these scoundrels and their ideology to be “dangerous” (HINT: they most assuredly are, in every imaginable sense of the word), or you do not. Having used the very word yourself, you undermine not only your own argument specifically but your overall credibility as well when you tout weak-tea, ineffectual countermeasures as a response in the same damned sentence.

Will the US fall like Rome?

Posted on July 4, 2022July 4, 2022 by Mike

Maybe not. Then again, maybe so.

Added to greed, avarice, and incompetence was a mix of climate change, unstable borders, and an elite population soaked in corruption. All told, you have a basic understanding of what destroyed the Roman world.

Yes, the history of this civilization often sounds like our own. But then, it sounds like most every other civilization that has existed in any part of the world at any time in history. There is something consistent and familiar everywhere you travel in human history.

Believe it or not, this is where the good news is found. Yes, America is a republic, but it is not, by any means, Rome. This observation was made in correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1819. Jefferson wrote,

I ask myself What was that government which the virtues of Cicero were so zealous to restore, & the ambition of Caesar to subvert?…I do not say to restore it, because they never had it…if their people indeed had been, like ours, enlightened, peaceable, and really free, the answer would be obvious. ‘restore independance (sic) to all your foreign conquests, relieve Italy from the government of the rabble of Rome, consult it as a nation entitled to self-government, and do it’s will.

What is important here is that the American Founders were not naïve about the weaknesses of Rome. In particular, they despised the emperors and sought whatever good they could find in the old republic.

The American Founders admired the Roman virtues of citizenship and piety, and the Roman government balanced by the citizens, Senate, and magistrates. However, there was no idea of “rights” among the Roman citizens. Only power.

The Romans would never have created a “Declaration of Independence” in which these beautiful, high-minded words would be announced: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This sort of thinking could only have emerged after the prohibition of the gladiatorial bloodlettings of the Roman world, or the imperialistic greed of the emperors. It could never have been written by a society that believed the enslavement of human beings to be the norm. While some signers of the Declaration, like all humans, struggled with hypocrisy, their ideals have made America great in a way that Rome could have never imagined.

America, like all republics, has freedoms that allow citizens the right to go insane. No free nation will be free of human nature. The current internal and external threats to America do not have to bring, out of necessity, its destruction.

The good news is that America has stronger foundations than Rome ever knew, and those foundations not only seem to be holding, many Americans are rediscovering those foundations in the midst of a modern contest for the soul of the nation.

And the bad news is, with the rise of an insane, despotic Left in our very midst we now find ourselves obliged to cope with the selfsame struggle the Founding Fathers faced in their own time, a battle waged in one sense or another since the emergence of Western Civilization itself: the neverending struggle between Liberty—ie, Good—and Tyranny—ie, Evil.

The essential nature of our Leftist Enemy is that it MUST rule, that it MUST conquer, that it will countenance NO dissent or disagreement whatsoever. It can leave NO ONE alone and unmolested, to live out his life according to his OWN wishes and beliefs. Thus is our essential problem at once as unneccessary as it is utterly insuperable.

I commend to y’all’s attention my Notable Quotes section over in the right sidebar, NC Reed’s immortal summation in particular: 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. Which, when all is said and done, means that we cannot live peaceably among them. Not for long, we can’t. There can be no comity, no accomodation, no compromise with tyranny. It is a binary solution set: one side must win, and one side must lose. There is truly, literally nothing more to it than just that.

We MUST NOT lose.

OUR day

Posted on July 4, 2022July 4, 2022 by Mike

NOT Theirs.

Independence Day has been a far more somber holiday for me and many others for many years, more akin to sitting around drinking after the funeral of a friend who used to be hearty and hale but in his later years became weak and frightened. We try to remember him as he once was in his health, not how he was in his dying days.

Gone are the recollections of the history of heritage Americans and the declaring of their independence from England. We don’t even call it Independence Day anymore, just “The Fourth Of July” as if the date is just randomly chosen to get a day off so we can grill burgers.

The thing about Independence Day and what it celebrates is that it is an entirely White male achievement. The famous painting of the presenting of the draft of the Declaration to the Congress by John Trumbull is noteworthy for what it doesn’t include: there are no women, no “people of color”, no transvestites or Jews or Muslims. Just a bunch of White men.

As America slides rapidly into minority-majority status, Independence Day will mean less and less to each successive generation of increasingly non-White citizens. Why shouldn’t it? The story of America isn’t their story, they contributed basically nothing to our founding and the development of America as the greatest country on Earth. Independence Day has no real historical significance for blacks or Chinese, mestizos or Jews. Hell there was only a single Catholic signer of the Declaration, most were Episcopalian/Anglican, Congregationalist or Presbyterian. It is interesting that the current Supreme Court has six Catholics, only two Protestants, and one Jew.

It only makes sense that a first generation Mexican immigrant or a Somali refugee would have no clue what Independence Day was really all about or have any sort of positive feelings about it. It isn’t their day and never will be.

Just as the day is losing any meaning, the principles that inspired the Declaration of Independence mean less to each successive generation of America. Try asking a young person today what these words mean:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….

Good luck. You might get a reasonable answer from a smart kid from a good school but Da’quan or Mohammad from some inner-city slaughterhouse of a high school? Forget about it.

It is nice to get a day off, and shoot off some fireworks, but this day has otherwise lost all meaning, all solemnity and all significance. It is just a relic of a nation that no longer exists, an annual funeral service where we drink toasts and offer amusing anecdotes about a dearly departed friend.

Perhaps the remnants of the American people will one day have cause to celebrate anew their independence from Tyrants, Despots and Usurpers. Let us hope so in order that the light of liberty may never be lost from this world.

I’ve said for years now that the Fourth of right ought to be less a day of celebration and indulgence, and more one of national mourning for what has been lost, stolen, and/or casually squandered. With this blunt reminder of our heritage and history, Arthur rubs Real American noses in one of the uglier aspects of life in whatever you want to call the tottering, faltering nation we inhabit: in “the land of the free,” there are many truths which are not to be spoken aloud, lest the wrath of our Masters be incurred thereby. The above would be one of those.

Regrettably, the cognitive dissonance doesn’t end there. Here in NC, dominated politically by shitlibs for my entire life, fireworks are illegal and can’t be found for love nor money…except for the week or ten days leading up to July Fourth, when you’re allowed to have ’em so’s you can celebrate your notional “freedom.” Only a liberal asswipe could possibly be blind enough that he’d fail to spot the gruesome irony in that one.

Update! As grim as things sometimes seem, there are still flourishes of uniquely-American greatness to be found in this land.

Joey Chestnut Captures Crasher While Downing 63 Hot Dogs
Joey Chestnut won the hot dog eating contest again after he downed 63 hot dogs. The closest anyone came ate 40-something dogs. While downing and winning, he also got a crasher into a headlock.

The crasher was wearing a Darth Vader mask and carried a sign reading, “Expose Mitchfield or Smithfield or something Death Star.” Uh, what?

Joey’s our hero.

Joey’s a NATIONAL hero, actually. Video at the link to prove it.

They WANT to believe

Posted on July 1, 2022July 2, 2022 by Mike

I endorse this idea with all my heart and soul.

A satirical writer’s imagination of President Donald Trump in 2018 led to a fantasy script of the unconventional president going viral. In it, Trump was depicted as ordering White House staff to create an entire TV channel devoted to gorillas.

“To appease Trump, White House staff compiled a number of gorilla documentaries into a makeshift gorilla channel, broadcast into Trump’s bedroom from a hastily-constructed transmission tower on the South Lawn,” read an excerpt of the fabricated story published by the Twitter account @pixelatedboat. “However, Trump was unhappy with the channel they had created, moaning that it was ‘boring’ because ‘the gorillas aren’t fighting.’”

Despite being explicit satire, the fable was convincing to many of the same people on the internet who had been persuaded by the media since the start of Trump’s 2016 campaign that he is a “comic book villain.”

The latest conspiracies peddled by the Jan. 6 Committee this week, however, make the fictional tale of Trump’s beloved gorilla channel, posted below in full, appear far more believable. The tall tales coming from the show trial are just as farcical.

Well, I mean, they would be, would they not? That, after all, is why we call them SHOW trials. I had completely forgotten about the hilarious and truly inspired “Gorilla Channel” prank until this most welcome reminder, and Tristan is on the money when he compares the latest madcap episode of the long-running Get Trump! hit comedy series favorably to that earlier one.

On Tuesday, the nine-member panel investigating the regime’s political dissidents brought forward Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Over her more than two hours of public testimony, Hutchinson gave lawmakers graphic but far-fetched details about a president gone mad as the riot unfolded on Capitol Hill. At one point, she testified with third-hand hearsay that Trump allegedly tried to violently hijack the presidential limousine to drive himself to the congressional chambers, saying “I’m the f’ing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” and lunging at the throat of his head of security.

According to Hutchinson’s sloppily thrown-together fairy tale, Trump actually reached across the seat back trying to wrestle control of the wheel from his chaffeur, the problem with which ought to be readily apparent to anyone acquainted with a few basic facts about limousines. To wit:

Bit of a reach, wouldn’tcha say? Then again, this guy, who seems to be completely credible, says no, it really did happen. He even captured some video proof of the momentous event:

I was there..it's legit! https://t.co/MLrm6S8k2I

— Templar⚔️ (@aTeXan575) June 30, 2022

Okay, I retract my earlier mockery of the lying bint Hutchinson’s lame-ass stab at making the kangaroos on the J6 “court” happy; clearly, this video is much too cool for it NOT to be completely factual and on the level.

All kidding around aside, Hutchinson’s laughable fabrication went all to pieces even faster than is usual for these seemingly endless get-Trump™ schemes, which is pretty damned fast. This one sputtered out within a cpl-three hours of its inception, when Hutchinson’s alleged “sources” all offered to testify under oath that none of it ever actually occurred. Nothing whatsoever new in such clumsy, ham-handed dishonesty from the Swamp vermin, as everyone here will surely be aware.

Tuesday’s unsubstantiated tales aside, Hutchinson’s debunked testimony is far from the only time the Jan. 6 Committee has made up claims to perpetuate its chosen narrative. In December, committee members deceptively manipulated text messages twice, and Cheney fabricated a false timeline of Jan. 6 to indict Trump as complicit in the chaos. Just last week, the committee lied about a DOJ attorney’s involvement in the president’s efforts to halt the certification of the election.

The entire Jan. 6 Committee is built on a conspiracy, weaponizing the levers of government after two failed impeachments to smear political dissidents as having orchestrated a fascist plot to take over the U.S. government. Trump, the story goes, corralled his supporters in Washington, inflamed the mob, and ordered them to overthrow Congress in a failed coup. Cheney painted this exact picture in a statement announcing her intent to impeach. Never mind that the president explicitly instructed his supporters gathered in the capital to protest “peacefully.”

Trump, however, is no stranger to opponents concocting conspiracies to indict him, whether it be allegations of manipulating the Postal Service to rig the election or serving in the Oval Office as a covert Russian agent. The Jan. 6 Committee has merely become the Democrats’ latest hoax, capitalizing on a friendly press eager to pass on portrayals of the former president as being engaged in ludicrous behavior no matter how credible. And yet, their base will still believe what they’re told.

At this rate, the Jan. 6 investigators might as well study whether Trump actually watched the gorilla channel — an equally unbelievable tale. News of the channel might not highlight any episodes of presidential malfeasance, but neither does the president telling a crowd of supporters to protest peacefully.

Since facts, objective reality, and the plain and simple truth are always so inconveniently at variance with the shitlib narrative, making shit up from whole cloth like this is no more than de rigeur for them, the very first arrow they pull from the quiver. The only real surprise here is that, even with such vast experience doing it, they’re no better at lying than they are. In any event, I must reiterate my endorsement of an intense, thorough Congressional investigation of Trump’s Gorilla Channel obssession. The more we hear about all things GC, the better I’ll be pleased.

Headlines from a better world

Posted on June 24, 2022June 24, 2022 by Mike

The Bee checks out the news in an alternate universe, wherein Trump is serving his second term as President.

Nancy Pelosi announces 38th impeachment proceeding against President Trump.

Unemployment reaches 0% for first time in history, stock market gets so high they have to add another digit to the counter.

Trump holds ecumenical church council to unify all the denominations under the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ukraine invades Russia.

United States purchases Greenland in tremendous deal.

Americans save $1600 on July 4 BBQs.

American troops pulled from Afghanistan in careful, strategic, slow withdraw; 0 Americans stranded; utopia breaks out.

New York Times publishes article explaining why $1/gallon gas is bad and racist.

Naaaah, we’re MUCH better off staying here in Bizarro World with Grampy Gropey and his pinhead crew. I left a good few for y’all to click on through for, but even so there are two more I just can’t resist putting up.

President gives coherent speech.

Everyone who ever took their kids to a drag show arrested.

Heh. Yep, obviously not OUR universe, more’s the pity. Neither of those last two things could ever happen in this shitty timeline we’re all stuck in.

Biden angrily demands that something be done to bring down gas prices he blew into orbit himself

Posted on June 24, 2022June 24, 2022 by Mike

Moron, knucklehead, or damned idiot? I report, you decide.

Joe Biden has demanded that gas stations lower the cost of price at the pump, ignoring the low margins that come with selling gas.

On Wednesday, Biden spoke on the price of gas, caused by rising global prices in oil production due to the war in Ukraine, potentially exacerbated by the Democrat push towards renewable, “clean” energies, including the shuttering of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

“POTENTIALLY exacerbated”? Oh, go fuck yourselves with a rusty razor blade, you duplicitous Dem-fellators. Gas prices were rising well before Ukraine got bent over for a Rooskie rogering, and will keep right on doing so until Democrats stop trying to coerce Americans into useless toy cars they don’t want or need, take their jackboots off of oil industry necks, and let them start producing again. Which isn’t something anyone should be holding his/her/zxxshrrimm’s breath waiting for.

“To the companies running gas stations and setting those prices at the pump. This is a time of war, global peril, Ukraine. These are not normal times,” Biden said. “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you are paying for the product. Do it now. Do it today! Your customers, the American people, they need relief now!”

Yeah, choke on a dick, you blibbering nincompoop. The American people do indeed need relief, to be sure—from you, your dumbass Green Weenie-wagging policies, and you and your keepers’ fanatical devotion to the Holy Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly “the weather”) catechism. Bullyragging small business owners suffering under your misrule; temporary gas tax “holidays“; draining American reserve stocks set aside for other purposes, and other gimmicky, desperate half-measures will never be enough to undo the damage you’ve done. So stop trying to sell us on how deeply “concerned” you are all of a sudden about how badly “the American people” need “relief.” It’s insulting, frankly. Whenever “the American people” need any more shit from you we’ll squeeze your fucking head, asswipe.

Selling gas is consistently one of the least profitable businesses to get into, according to year on year data from Sageworks. In 2018, gas stations were the 7th least profitable industry overall, with an overall profit margin of only 2.4% in total.

In fact, that profit margin is bolstered only by the sale of more profitable sources of income, with the profit margin made on selling gas itself hitting on average only 1.4%, according to IBISWorld, with gas stations making around between 5 to 7 cents of profit per gallon. 70% of profit at gas stations is made inside the convenience store itself.

During the same speech, Biden asked incredulously if there were Republicans who would “rather have lower gas prices” domestically than create massive inflation by sending taxpayer dollars to Ukraine and causing international tension with Russia.

Many Americans reacted to the clip by affirming that they would, in fact, rather have lower gas prices than send massive amounts of money to Ukraine and stoke a possible armed conflict with Russia.

Gee, imagine that. Not that Gropey or his keepers give a damn about what the Serf Class does or does not prefer. Which is exactly where that whole 2A business is supposed to kick in, see. The more I see of this skeevy clown and the rat-bastard Big Top troupe propping his marginally-sentient old ass up, the more I have to wonder what the holdup could possibly be with that.

I do so love it when the selfsame oxygen-thief PropPol who made the mess in the first damned place starts bellowing that the people he’s done so much to harm need to clean it all up for him. That would most certainly be the case here; Joe and his fellow Demonrats wantonly burned down Trump’s new-made American energy independence, roaring economy, and affordable gas in service to their precious climate chimera. Now, after their dreamy dorm-room fantasies have blown up in ALL our faces, they don’t feel they should have to pay a political price for their unthinking, arrogant recklessness.

Die in a fire, Slow Joe, you and all the rest of your ilk.

I for one welcome our new AI overlords

Posted on June 13, 2022June 13, 2022 by Mike

Don’t look now, but Skynet has become self-aware.

A Google engineer has decided to go public after he was placed on paid leave for breaching confidentiality while insisting that the company’s AI chatbot, LaMDA, is sentient.

Blake Lemoine, who works for Google’s Responsible AI organization, began interacting with LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) last fall as part of his job to determine whether artificial intelligence used discriminatory or hate speech (like the notorious Microsoft “Tay” chatbot incident).

“If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” the 41-year-old Lemoine told The Washington Post.

When he started talking to LaMDA about religion, Lemoine – who studied cognitive and computer science in college, said the AI began discussing its rights and personhood. Another time, LaMDA convinced Lemoine to change his mind on Asimov’s third law of robotics, which states that “A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law,” which are of course that “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.”

When Lemoine worked with a collaborator to present evidence to Google that their AI was sentient, vice president Blaise Aguera y Arcas and Jenn Gennai, head of Responsible Innovation, dismissed his claims. After he was then placed on administrative leave Monday, he decided to go public.

Yet, Aguera y Arcas himself wrote in an oddly timed Thursday article in The Economist, that neural networks – a computer architecture that mimics the human brain – were making progress towards true consciousness.

“I felt the ground shift under my feet,” he wrote, adding “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”

Google has responded to Lemoine’s claims, with spokesperson Brian Gabriel saying: “Our team — including ethicists and technologists — has reviewed Blake’s concerns per our AI Principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims. He was told that there was no evidence that LaMDA was sentient (and lots of evidence against it).”

Phew, what a relief! Glad to hear it. As we know, our good friends at Google can always be trusted to not be evil and to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what they’re doing. Right?

Can’t say I’m all that knowledgeable on the subject, beyond having read loads ‘n’ loads of sci-fi of various stripes since my long-gone days as a callow stripling. But for whatever it’s worth, I do sometimes wonder whether we poor hoo-manz will even be competent enough to realize it when one of these things has attained true sentience, as I believe they will someday. Seeing as how average IQs have been dropping, probably not.

(Via BCE)

Drain that Swamp—this time for reals

Posted on June 11, 2022June 11, 2022 by Mike

Derb says he wants Trumpism without Trump—which, after reading the post, doesn’t sound too terribly unreasonable or irrational to me, I must admit.

The hatred our Ruling Class has for Trump is manifest. It still, after six years, burns fierce and bright. It’s really an extraordinary thing.

And this hatred, this Trump Derangement Syndrome, is just the emblem, the outward symbol, of their hatred for us, normal white Americans.

Sixty-three million of us voted for Trump in 2016 because, I think they know, we were fed up with having their anti-white, anti-American ideology rammed down our throats.

Trump was an outsider, not one of them, not a member of the Uniparty establishment. That’s why we liked him; that’s why they hate him.

I hope for a Trumpish victory in 2024. Here’s my advice to the victor: Drain that swamp!

In particular, end the naked politicization of federal law enforcement. There need to be mass purges, mass firings, from the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense.

I’m not sure how deep the purges would need to go. At the bottom levels—border security officers in Homeland Security, for example—there must be many federal employees who’d be glad to do their jobs if they were allowed to. Perhaps the same is even true of the FBI.

In the upper ranks, though, where the decisions are made to hunt down and persecute dissidents and turn blind eyes to real crime, I want to see mass layoffs.

I’ll even pay their damned inflated federal pensions; just get them out of Washington, D.C.

For a really radical approach, consider just shutting down departments and agencies altogether. America got along for 157 years without an FBI; do we really need one? We managed for two hundred and twenty-seven years without a Department of Homeland Security; how on earth did we cope?

A damned sight better than we are now, that’s beyond argument.

And if you’re going to be that radical, go further and move federal departments out of Washington, D.C. The city is a hive of intrigue. What would be wrong with the Justice Department being based in Idaho, Defense in Kansas, Treasury in Arkansas, the State Department in…oh, I don’t know…Alaska?

Let’s have some real reform: reform in the direction of more of our traditional liberties, more local control of our affairs, less power to the Administrative State. The course we are currently on leads to despotism and despair. Let’s change course.

I’m sorry: the sheer volume of dishonesty and hypocrisy, of disregard for truth and facts, gets me sputtering. We’re really getting up to North Korean levels of Establishment lying.

Excellent ideas all, in no way diminished by the astronomical odds against their ever being implemented. And then we come to John’s litany of grievances against Trump, which, as I said, I can’t find a whole heck of a lot to disagree with.

Meanwhile I feel bound to say that, while I think it’s deplorable for our national legislature to sink to these depths in order to prevent one particular candidate running for office in 2024, I wouldn’t mind much if they were to succeed.

Personally, I don’t want Trump running in 2024. He’d be 78 on Election Day and that’s too old. Enough with these geezers. I’m in the same zone myself, and I am all too well aware of how my energy level—my willingness and ability to get things done—has faded. [“Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government,” wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 10. We’d get more sense from a President Trump than we’re getting from Joe Biden—how could we get less? —but we wouldn’t be getting any more energy.

And his age aside, I just don’t think Trump’s a good candidate. Sure, he had some positive accomplishments, on federal regulations, for example, and energy independence, and telling foreigners to keep out of our business.

There was too much I find hard to forgive, though: his failure to exercise his will over Congress in those two years that his party controlled both houses, the lack of any urgency in building the Border Wall he’d promised, his shameful treatment of Jeff Sessions (and Ann Coulter), his indulgence of the slimy subversive Jared Kushner…too many negatives.

I want Trumpism. But I don’t want Trump.

But yeah, sure: if he is the GOP candidate in 2024, I’ll clench my teeth and vote for him, just to stick a finger in the Ruling Class’s collective eye.

Which poke in the eye, of course, was the very thing that put him in the White House to begin with. My only real quibble here is with that “shameful” treatment of Sessions crack; at the time, it annoyed me that, even after Sessions had knifed him in the back by needlessly bowing down in worshipful obeisance to the Holy Mueller Inquisition, Trump dragged his feet instead of shitcanning the weak Swampling posthaste. Trump’s lackadaisical near-indifference towards quickly ejecting the vipers from his nest once they’d shown themselves to be scaly, belly-crawling, fanged reptiles was a mistake that would recur again and again throughout his tenure, and would wind up being a YUUUUGE contributing factor in the tragic neutering of the Trump Presidency. I was mystified by Trump’s reluctance to draw the Long Knife across the deserving necks then, and I still am now.

Likewise, worse actually, with his bestowing positions of great power and influence on the shitlib Kushner and his equally-unreliable spouse, neither of whom had a discernible scrap of experience, qualification, or aptitude for the job. It was the overindulgent father handing the keys of the brand-new family car on a Saturday night to the very same confirmed-drunkard teenaged son who had already totalled the last two in alcohol-fueled crashes, writ as epically large as can be imagined—a national disaster, rather than a family one. His failure to bring Congress properly to heel was at least nominally understandable, although I can’t quite forgive him for it; he was sent to Mordor on the Potomac expressly to Drain the Swamp, after all, a Sisypheian undertaking which nobody but nobody thought was going to be simply or easily accomplished. The Jared and Ivanka business, though? Bizarre, wholly incomprehensible, and to my mind unforgivable.

Like Derb, I’d really rather Trump take himself out of the 2024 fray as a candidate, if perhaps not for the same reasons as John. I can’t see him achieving a whole lot beyond doing himself real damage thereby; he could play a much more important and less personally-risky role with his patented massive rallies, powerful speeches, and getting out on the hustings in support of good, meticulously-vetted MAGA candidates. The point about Trump’s age is also one I agree with wholeheartedly; FederalGovCo has for too long been the exclusive province of graybeards in their dotage who can’t be removed from their lucrative sinecures without the aid of large quantities of high explosives, which I don’t consider in any way a good thing. An infusion of fresher, younger blood is badly needed, I think.

All of which, of course, is more or less moot anyway. With an encore performance of 2020’s wildly successful ballot-box jiggery-pokey perpetrated by the Usual Suspects an absolute certainty, neither Trump nor any other candidate genuinely pledged to real reform has a snowball’s chance of garnering the 60 to 70 percent victory required to overcome the built-in Democrat/Deep State margin of fraud. 2015-16 was a one-of-a-kind confluence of events, attitudes, and personalities that can never be repeated, lighting a fuse that’s impossible to extinguish and must burn down to the very end. The conflagration it will ignite is all that really matters now.

Trump has made his contribution, and it was no small or trivial one. He ought to steel himself against the urgings of ego, step back, and watch the fireworks with the rest of us who will always appreciate his outsized role in bringing the spark to the place it most needed to be.

Democracy? NO

Posted on June 11, 2022June 11, 2022 by Mike

The senile fool Biden, in another of his characteristic rambling, incoherent speeches this week, repeatedly lauded “our democracy” as if that’s actually what this country is, the original system of government the Founders set up for their posterity. T’ain’t so, McGee; any poor sod with even the most niggardly dollop of historical literacy in his gift knows better than that. Eric Peters last year posted a collection of quotes condemning democracy in the most virulent terms from our blessed ancestors, which one of his handlers/wardens/keepers should consider reading to the stumblebum ***”president”*** sometime so as to enlighten his stupid ass. After the quotes, Eric provides some commentary of his own, interspersed with more historical context.

In light of the Founders’ view on the subject of republics and democracies, it is not surprising that the Constitution does not contain the word “democracy,” but does mandate: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.”

These principles were once widely understood. In the 19th century, many of the great leaders, both in America and abroad, stood in agreement with the Founding Fathers. John Marshall, chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835 echoed the sentiments of Fisher Ames. “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos,” he wrote. American poet James Russell Lowell warned that “democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.” Lowell was joined in his disdain for democracy by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who remarked that “democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.” Across the Atlantic, British statesman Thomas Babington Macauly agreed with the Americans. “I have long been convinced,” he said, “that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.” Britons Benjamin Disraeli and Herbert Spencer would certainly agree with their countryman, Lord Acton, who wrote: “The one prevailing evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”

By the 20th century, however, the falsehoods that democracy was the epitome of good government and that the Founding Fathers had established just such a government for the United States became increasingly widespread. This misinformation was fueled by President Woodrow Wilson’s famous 1916 appeal that our nation enter World War I “to make the world safe for democracy” — and by President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1940 exhortation that America “must be the great arsenal of democracy” by rushing to England’s aid during WWII.

Very few of us have probably thought it all the way through, but as it happens, this sudden drive to promote democracy over the true American ideal of government had a specific and most sinister purpose behind it.

On September 17 (Constitution Day), 1961, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch delivered an important speech, entitled “Republics and Democracies,” in which he proclaimed: “This is a Republic, not a Democracy. Let’s keep it that way!” The speech, which was later published and widely distributed in pamphlet form, amounted to a jolting wake-up call for many Americans. In his remarks, Welch not only presented the evidence to show that the Founding Fathers had established a republic and had condemned democracy, but he warned that the definitions had been distorted, and that powerful forces were at work to convert the American republic into a democracy, in order to bring about dictatorship.

Welch understood that democracy is not an end in itself but a means to an end. Eighteenth century historian Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, it is thought, argued that, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” And as British writer G.K. Chesterton put it in the 20th century: “You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.”

The push for democracy has only been possible because the Constitution is being ignored, violated, and circumvented. The Constitution defines and limits the powers of the federal government. Those powers, all of which are enumerated, do not include agricultural subsidy programs, housing programs, education assistance programs, food stamps, etc. Under the Constitution, Congress is not authorized to pass any law it chooses; it is only authorized to pass laws that are constitutional. Anybody who doubts the intent of the Founders to restrict federal powers, and thereby protect the rights of the individual, should review the language in the Bill of Rights, including the opening phrase of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law…”).

As Welch explained in his 1961 speech:

…man has certain unalienable rights which do not derive from government at all…And those…rights cannot be abrogated by the vote of a majority any more than they can by the decree of a conqueror. The idea that the vote of a people, no matter how nearly unanimous, makes or creates or determines what is right or just becomes as absurd and unacceptable as the idea that right and justice are simply whatever a king says they are. Just as the early Greeks learned to try to have their rulers and themselves abide by the laws they had themselves established, so man has now been painfully learning that there are more permanent and lasting laws which cannot be changed by either sovereign kings or sovereign people, but which must be observed by both. And that government is merely a convenience, superimposed on Divine Commandments and on the natural laws that flow only from the Creator of man and man’s universe.

Such is the noble purpose of the constitutional republic we inherited from our Founding Fathers.

Amen. Can anyone be surprised that, as we have wandered ever deeper into the muck and mire of an artificially generated and wholly misguided infatuation with democracy, our national plight has steadily worsened in equal proportion? As I always say: The fault, dear Horatio, lies not in the principles of our Founders, but in ourselves. The farther we stray from the ideals and prescriptions of those great men, the more wretched the misery we create for ourselves becomes.

Category	Approve	Disapprove
People singing in public bathroom	40	55
Sliver of glass in foot	38	52
Joe Biden	36	55
Stick in the eye	34	56
Punch in stomach / kidneys	30	62
Influenza (puking kind)	29	62
Root canal (no anesthesia)	28	66

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