Alt-American

Charlatans

Posted on October 14, 2022 by Mike

Michael Anton deftly skewers the loathsome, treacherous snake in the grass Bill Kristol, among several others.

One astonishing feature of the present era is that it is now common for former friends to hurl the vilest insults, to make the wildest accusations, and then honestly expect to be treated in return like an old pal. This is not the Washington slogan “We’re all friends after five o’clock,” Ronnie and Tip getting a drink in the Oval as the sun sets (which anyway never happened). This is viciousness expecting to be reciprocated with oblivious graciousness.

Who does this? The answer turns out to be: a lot of people. Did people used to behave like this? Not in my experience, nor do I find examples in literature. I have experienced a few, however, in my own life.

This fall, I gave a speech at the Philadelphia Society, a notable conservative gathering founded in the wake of the 1964 Goldwater defeat. I was asked to answer the question “what do the founding principles require of us today?” I discussed my proposed talk in advance with Society President R.J. Pestritto, a longtime friend and now colleague. He and I agreed that I would address the increasing tendency of conservatism, or at least of conservatives, toward historicism: the idea that political right is contingent on its historical situation. In particular, I planned to criticize what I consider conservatism’s tendency toward so-called “rational historicism”: the notion that history has an upward direction, that “progress” somehow makes awful calamities in the human past impossible to recur in the future. The American founders, I would claim, did not believe this. They may have hoped that their revolution would, mirabile dictu, turn out to be permanent,

Not so, actually, at least in Thomas Jefferson’s case. In his justly renowned letter to William Stephens Smith, which I shall never tire of re-quoting here, he explicitly spelled it out:

God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Sounds a lot to me like Jefferson, for one, far from hoping for permanence, would be appalled at the American nation he helped create stagnating for so very long under the same ever-expanding, ever-more-oppressive central government. Clearly, the concept of a fundamental right to revolution is manifestly indispensable to the preservation of “the public liberty,” in Jefferson’s estimation. The two ideas are inextricably entwined; absent the former, the latter cannot long endure. Onwards.

but they did not assert that human nature had (or could) permanently change for the better, or that tyranny could never recur. Hence they claimed that the right of revolution—the right of the people to alter or abolish tyrannical government, and establish a new one—is the most fundamental of all political rights, the one on which all the others rest.

I predicted to R.J., and then predicted in the speech itself, that the right of revolution would be denounced simply because I cited it, and that I would be accused by “conservatives” and former friends of calling for violence. Right on cue, both predictions came true. Leading the charge was America’s foremost former conservative, Bill Kristol.

I have, or had, known Bill for almost 30 years. We were quite a bit friendlier than Gabe and I ever were. When Bill turned on me, he turned hard. No consideration was given for all that time, all those conversations, all those prior agreements. I know I am not nearly alone in this.

Despite Bill’s constant insults, calumnies, and attacks over the past six years, I’ve never once said or written a public word against him. I hesitated for many reasons, of which I will mention two. First, I admire his parents, both of whom I consider to be high intellects and benefactors of the nation. I even had lunch with his father when I was 23, a high point of my young life as a wannabe Washington intellectual.

My placidity began to give way when Bill first called me a Nazi—and then did it again, and again after that. As I have explained elsewhere, people who call you a Nazi are not your friends. They are your enemies. They mean to hurt you.

About two years after that, I attended a conference where Bill was present. I had not seen him at all in the intervening time. He greeted me with a big grin as though nothing had happened and said that, since he was sick, he would understand if I didn’t shake his hand. Of course I didn’t, but—the chutzpah! As if I would! More to the point, why would Bill himself want to shake a “Nazi’s” hand?

Bill is a double Harvard graduate—A.B. and Ph.D. He was, as noted, a student of one of the three or four greatest conservative minds of the past 100 years. He wrote his dissertation on the Federalist. He ought, therefore, to know something about the American founding.

Why, then, does he deny the right of revolution? Actually, he didn’t—not explicitly. Granted, 280 characters doesn’t give one the latitude to say much. But that’s the clear implication of his attack. If my speech were so objectionable, it could only be because the assertion that the right of revolution exists—the only assertion I made—is objectionable.

Did Bill always feel this way about the right of revolution? Or is he only now against it because I’m for it? Does he think it wasn’t present in the founders’ thought? How then does he explain away the two specific explications of it in the Declaration of Independence?

In fact, I can find almost no position Bill used to hold that he hasn’t since repudiated. He was against abortion and Roe before he was for them. He used to be against the normalization of homosexuality. Do his new leftist allies know that? In almost every respect—from criminal justice to taxes and spending to the culture war—Bill not very long ago was not merely a Republican but a conservative Republican. He has not merely abandoned all these positions without explanation; he attacks with venom all his former friends who still hold them.

The only issue over which Bill has been consistent over the last 20 years is war. He’s for it! Here again is a grave issue where honest men can disagree. But Bill is not content to disagree, much less to give the benefit of the doubt to any of his former friends who question the wisdom of the last 20 years of war. You are either for maximalist interventionism—in the present context, that means arming Ukraine—or you are a wicked person. No leeway is allowed for genuine differences of opinion, or even prudential miscalculation. Bill is entirely Manichaean on this (and every other) topic.

This is perhaps understandable. Bill is best known for his vociferous support of the 2003 Iraq war. “Support” is really too mild a word because, while it may be hard to remember, Bill was extremely influential back then. More than anyone else outside of government, he made that war happen.

Full disclosure (which I have disclosed many times): I supported it, too. One difference is that by 2007, I saw clearly that it had been a horrible mistake. Bill never has. Not that he (or anyone) should repudiate a position he sincerely holds.

But it is reasonable to ask how anyone can still sincerely hold that position. The Iraq war was a catastrophe. It failed to accomplish its stated ends. It killed thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and crippled many more from both countries, many of them women and children. It cost trillions of dollars. It destabilized the Middle East for a generation and counting. It intensified deep divisions in the American public and the Republican Party. It got Barack Obama elected twice (against Bill’s stated wishes both times).

Even partial responsibility for a disaster of this magnitude is enough to break the psyche of anyone possessed of a modicum of introspection. If that’s what happened to Bill, he should have our pity. Not that he’s behaved in a way to deserve any.

Bill’s hit squad aside, my biggest criticism of him is his blinkered field of vision. Bill enjoyed one of the greatest gifts anyone of an intellectual bent could wish for: a great teacher and exposure to the greatest books.

What has he done with all of that? Uncritical support of Biden, Kamala, Fauci, Mark “White Rage” Milley, “Admiral Rachel” Levine, COVID lockdowns, BLM riots, pre-dawn raids, pre-trial detention, pre-teen genital mutilation. This is where reading the Bible, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Montesquieu and the founders led him?

The great thinkers whom Bill once claimed as sources of inspiration were all dissidents—dissidents, especially, from the prevailing orthodoxies of their times. Bill, by contrast, is a supporter of orthodoxy, an enforcer of leftist pieties, a (well-paid) regime hitman.

The rest of Anton’s piece is precisely the kind of taut, well-reasoned rhetorical bloodletting we’ve come to expect from the man. His arguments are air-tight and entirely unassailable, impervious to the juvenile pokings and proddings of capering mental dwarves like Kristol for one reason above all others: those arguments are constructed upon an intellectual foundation laid down by America’s Founding Fathers themselves. For all their posturing, their puffery, their vanity and self-regard, that sturdy foundation presents an obstacle big enough, powerful enough that the conniving grifters of Conservative, Inc can never hope to overcome it.

Amerikan horror

Posted on October 13, 2022October 13, 2022 by Mike

I shouldn’t find this all that shocking at this stage of the game, I know.

And yet.

Severely Abused in D.C. Jail, Jan. 6 Prisoners Ask for Transfer to Guantanamo

Is this America? Gateway Pundit recently published a letter to Gestapo chief Merrick Garland from 34 of the prisoners who are being held under inhuman conditions in the District of Columbia Jail because of their role in the Jan. 6 “insurrection.” But can these unfortunate prisoners really expect any justice from Garland, a rabid partisan and sinister authoritarian who has sicced the FBI on parents protesting the woke agenda at school board meetings? He is virtually certain to ignore the letter and allow the heartless treatment it describes to continue. In reading their description of their treatment, the question is inescapable: How can this be happening in what was once known as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?

In order to buttress their bogus “insurrection” narrative, Biden’s handlers have clearly decided to treat the Jan. 6 protesters, who are overwhelmingly patriotic Americans guilty of nothing more than supporting the former president and being concerned about the integrity of the 2020 election, as if they were dangerous enemies of the state. Based on the false claim that the Jan. 6 entry into the Capitol was aimed at nothing less than overthrowing the government, the Biden regime has created an American gulag and filled it with political prisoners. The prisoners wrote:

When one considers a society that distinguishes itself upon the standards of a “First World Country” allocation among the other numerous Nations around the globe, while informing its citizens that they belong to a country that ensures “Liberty and Justice for All”, it’s difficult to imagine then, that The United States of America, supposedly the wealthiest Nation on the planet, would subjugate its own citizens to that of incarceration and injustice instead, all while administering medieval standards of living to the agonizing occupants of its “Correctional Facilities”.

These Americans, whose most serious crime for the most part is trespassing, state that they “have and will continue to endure” a long list of horrors, including “Begging for Help / Water / Medical Aid / Mercy through a 4 inch by 10 inch window of cold metal doors”; “No Visitations”; “No Religious Services”; “No Attorney Access”; and “Mail delayed 3-4 months prior to delivery.” Their laundry is returned “with brown stains, pubic hair, and or reeking of ripe urine.” They have found worms in their salads at mealtime, and the food is so poor that many are now suffering from a variety of ailments. In their cells, they endure black mold, cockroaches, and mice, and are denied “basic cleaning equipment to sanitize Living Space.” They have been “Stuck in Cells for 9 days without shower.”

That isn’t even close to all of it; the prisoners even charge physical and sexual assault by the guards. They accordingly ask Garland: “We hereby request to spend our precious and limited days, should the government continue to insist on holding us captive unconstitutionally as pre-trial detainees, to be transferred and reside at Guantanamo Bay, a detention facility that actually provides nutritional meals, routine sunlight exposure, top notch medical care, is respectful of religious requirements, has centers for exercise/entertainment for its detainees despite the fact that those residents are malicious terrorists, real members of the Taliban, and few are United States Citizens, instead of remaining trapped within the wretched confines of cruel and unusual punishment of the DC Jail.”

This is not grandstanding. The few remaining prisoners at Gitmo are treated far better. Biden’s handlers have a far more positive view of the Taliban than they do of conservative Americans. It is breathtaking that anything of this kind could happen in America, and it’s an indication of how far the Biden regime is from our founding principles. But this treatment will continue: the regime needs its scapegoats, and its preposterous “insurrection” narrative, and so these unfairly persecuted people will continue to be made to pay for the crime of being in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

It surely will. It doesn’t help any that even most Righty commentators persist in bending over backwards to publicly display their dismay and disgust at the J6 “riots,” as if “parading” in peaceable petition for redress of grievances was some kind of unforgivable, intolerable Crime Against The State, rather than the exercise of their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

Spencer laments, “How can this be happening in what was once known as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?” Which is all the confirmation anybody ought to need that this obscenely warped caricature of America That Was is no longer either of those things. GP has the transcript of the original in its entirety; as Robert says, the above litany of suffering and injustice isn’t even close to all of it. Read the whole thing, painful reading though it most certainly is; maddening, appalling, nauseating, it simply beggars belief.

Biden marionette marching as to war

Posted on October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 by Mike

Vengeance is ours, sayeth the Deep State.

Treasury Department inspector general to audit DeSantis migrant flight spending
Treasury Department inspector general to review whether any federal money was spent inappropriately

The Treasury Department inspector general confirmed in a letter to Democratic lawmakers that the agency is planning to audit whether spending by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on migrant flights was improper.

The lawmakers asked the Treasury Department to look into whether Florida improperly used American Rescue Plan funds for the migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, which drew widespread media attention.

Florida lawmakers authorized a $12 million migrant program funded with interest earnings from the federal Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund, according to documents.

“As part of its ~~oversight responsibilities for the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund~~ campaign to deal out a good, hard smackdown to this uppity bastard and make sure he damned well knows he better stay in his proper place, OR ELSE, The Treasury Office of the Inspector General has audit work planned on recipients’ compliance with eligible use guidance,” the Office of the Inspector General wrote in a letter dated Oct. 7 and made public Wednesday.

Fixed it for ya, asshole-eyes.

Democrats’ appeal to the Treasury and the newly announced audit are only the latest in a series of attempts to push back on the Florida governor after DeSantis transported migrants from Texas to the progressive bastion of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts — a move Democrats have blasted as a “terrible idea” and a “publicity stunt.”

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., celebrated the announcement Wednesday, taking credit for spurring the Treasury Department into action.

Yeah, because we all know how very conscientious DemonRats like this Markey turdball are about making sure FederalGovCo funds aren’t misallocated or *shudder* frittered away for no good purpose and all.

See, this is exactly why I wrote to Christina Pushaw urging her to prevail upon DeSantis The Barbarian to stay in Florida and not waste his time and effort running for President. As they did unto Trump, so they will surely do unto DeSantis. And a DeSantis under siege in the White House, like Trump was, isn’t much use to anybody; like Trump, whatever good he might accomplish can only come about by executive order. And like Trump, every bit of it will be undone before noon on January 20th after the next DemonRat usurper defrauds his way into the seat of power, as if none of it had ever even happened.

And even that assumes that they don’t steal the election in 2024, for some incomprehensible reason. Stay in FLA, Guv; we need you there, not Mordor On The Potomac surrounded by Sauron’s orcs, trolls, and Winged Nazgul hordes.

Can a full-proctological IRS audit, a wee-hours FBI raid on the Governor’s Mansion, and a lengthy cortège of crackwhores claiming DeSantis coerced them all into having abortions after date-rape drugging them at one of his frequent crystal-meth parties be long in coming?

(Via Divemedic)

She didn’t leave them, they left her

Posted on October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 by Mike

The last sane Democrat…is no longer a Democrat.

Tulsi Gabbard Formally Leaves Democratic Party

Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) announced on Tuesday that she was finally leaving the Democratic Party over its increasingly radical positions, and further explained her stance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show.

As reported by The Daily Caller, Gabbard described the Democratic Party as being “controlled by fanatical ideologues who hate freedom.” She added that today’s Democrats despise the Constitution,” and “actively find ways to undermine our God-given rights enshrined in the Constitution like freedom of speech.”

“They will do all that they can to destroy you, silence you, smear you, work with Big Tech, work with corporate media to actively destroy anyone who dares even question their agenda. They are against freedom of religion,” Gabbard continued. “They are hostile towards people of faith, people who have their own spiritual practice, especially Christians, finding ways to be vindictive, to discriminate, to punish people who happen to exercise that freedom of religion.

“The list goes on and on but the foundation of freedom is really what was at the heart of my making this decision that I cannot be a member of the party that is against freedom and actively trying to undermine it,” she added.

Good for you, ma’am. It is greatly to your credit that you feel that way, and says nothing but good things about who and what you are down deep. If there still even is anything we could correctly call a “loyal opposition,” Ms Gabbard is its last standard-bearer for sure and certain.

Update! The plot thickens.

Trust must be earned, especially in the polarizing world of politics. Many conservatives cheered when former Congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced yesterday that she was leaving the Democrat Party. Others were skeptical; she may have been a libertarian-leaning moderate Democrat during her political career, but she was STILL a Democrat.

Old wounds are hard to heal. And while she has been a thorn in the side of the Democrats she used to caucus with on Capitol Hill, she also voted with them on most issues. That’s why many of us — and I’m included on this list — waited to see who she would endorse, if anyone, for the upcoming midterm elections.

Would she push for Lisa Murkowski like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have? Would she jump on the Dr-Oz-bandwagon and endorse the RINO over his unambiguously dangerous Democrat opponent, John Fetterman? Would she throw her weight behind Trump-hating Brian Kemp because Stacey Abrams represents the radicalization of the Democrat Party that drove Gabbard away?

Nope. She just endorsed Trump-backed MAGA patriot Joe Kent.

Well, that makes me feel much better about her. I’m not ready to say I fully trust Gabbard. Like I said, she worked against the America First agenda when she was on Capitol Hill. But endorsing Joe Kent, a former Green Beret and unabashed Trump supporter, is a great first step toward making me think there’s hope for former Democrats who aren’t just going to embrace milquetoast moderates.

Well, I can’t say I’d be willing to go quite as far as all that just yet. Then again, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as the saying goes. Perhaps in her case, the operative word here may turn out to be “FORMER.” And as we all already know, Tulsi would hardly be the first liberal Democrat to go on to great things after having come to her senses. Time will tell, I suppose.

Updated update! Tulsi takes Kumswalla Harris down. Again, that is.

Former Hawaii Congresswoman and now-former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard sat down with Joe Rogan on his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” and had a very interesting conversation. Part of this conversation involved a discussion around vice-President Kamala Harris, whom Gabbard is partly famous for absolutely demolishing on stage during the 2020 Democrat primaries.

Rogan brought up the fact that the relationship between Gabbard and the Democrat Party began to sour the moment she made Harris look bad. Gabbard told Rogan that Harris was the Democrat Party’s chosen one at the time and exposing Harris as a liar who did many things that the Democrat Party claims it was against made her something of an enemy.

Gabbard noted that the info about Harris wasn’t that hard to find and yet despite this, no media figure or candidate was willing to bring it up.

“No one in the media did that. There’s no other candidate on the debate stage who had the balls to bring that up.”

“How are voters supposed to be able to make their best-informed decision when the media and fellow Democratic candidates who are running, who are her opponents in that race, don’t have the courage to ask a very factual question on a record that she says she’s proud of?” Gabbard continued.

Gabbard guessed that the reason no one called Harris out was due to her status as a woman of color and no one wanted to be the one accused of racism and have their career ruined for confronting her about her record. Sure enough, after Gabbard did it, she massively fell out of favor with the Democrat Party.

She also guessed she was well-connected and that the Democrat Party also favored her because they knew they could count on her to be obedient.

“She was connected,” Gabbard said of Harris. “She’s playing the game. She’s somebody that the Democratic Party knows that they can control.”

OOF. That’s gotta smart some. At this point, Tulsi might want to look into going in halfsies with DeSantis on hiring a few bodyguards, I’m thinking.

A superhero? MOI?!?

Posted on October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 by Mike

Aww shucks, now you’ve gone and made me blush, mon Général.

French General says Unvaccinated are “Superheroes”
Even if I were fully vaccinated, I would admire the unvaccinated for standing up to the greatest pressure I have ever seen, including from spouses, parents, children, friends, colleagues, and doctors.

People who have been capable of such personality, courage, and such critical ability undoubtedly embody the best of humanity.

They are found everywhere, in all ages, levels of education, countries, and opinions.

They are of a particular kind; these are the soldiers that any army of light wishes to have in its ranks.

They are the parents that every child wishes to have and the children that every parent dreams of having.

You are made of the stuff of the greatest that ever lived, those heroes born among ordinary men who shine in the dark.

They are beings above the average of their societies; they are the essence of the peoples who have built all cultures and conquered horizons.

They are there, by your side, they seem normal, but they are superheroes.

They did what others could not do; they were the tree that withstood the hurricane of insults, discrimination, and social exclusion.

And they did it because they thought they were alone and believed they were alone.

Excluded from their families’ Christmas tables, they have never seen anything so cruel. They lost their jobs, let their careers sink, and had no more money… but they didn’t care. They suffered immeasurable discrimination, denunciations, betrayals, and humiliation… but they continued.

You’ve passed an unimaginable test that many of the toughest marines, commandos, green berets, astronauts, and geniuses couldn’t pass.

Never before in humanity has there been such a casting; we now know who the resisters are on planet Earth.

Women, men, old, young, rich, poor, of all races and all religions, the unvaccinated, the chosen ones of the invisible ark, the only ones who managed to resist when everything fell apart. Collapsed.

You’ve passed an unimaginable test that many of the toughest marines, commandos, green berets, astronauts, and geniuses couldn’t pass.

You are made of the stuff of the greatest that ever lived, those heroes born among ordinary men who shine in the dark.

Why, thank you, sir, thank you very much; t’weren’t nothing, really. Backstory:

In a powerful letter making waves across Europe, French General Christian Blanchon praised citizens who refused the experimental Covid “vaccines” injections. Despite years of pressure campaigns, discriminatory policies, social exclusion, loss of income, threats, and being blamed for other’s deaths, the General thanked the “unvaccinated” for their strength, courage, and leadership.

Heh. You gotta love it.

How is this NOT communist?

Posted on October 7, 2022 by Mike

TL Davis poses the central question of our age.

The events unfolding today in America only happen in totalitarian/communist regimes where political prisoners are kept, like the January 6th defendants; where political opponents are targeted and the full-weight of the governmental bureaucracies are unleashed on them; where whistleblowers and individuals who have exposed the crimes and criminality of the regime are targeted and the full-weight of the governmental bureaucracies are unleashed on them.

Only in totalitarian/communist regimes are deadly doses of chemicals forced on the population as “health measures;” where lockdowns are anticipated as punishments for refusing to allow the government to injure or murder it’s citizens.

The United States has suffered all of this and more, yet people still talk about “democracy” and “the republic.” They wave the flag and act in unspeakable ways against the very freedoms and individual rights acknowledged in the founding documents. Corporations have banded together out of fear of reprisals, or like-minded sympathies to punish individuals who speak up, who refuse to go along to get along, who stand their ground and refuse to comply with illegal demands. The whole weight of society from employers, neighbors, the government and law enforcement will come down on anyone actually demanding that our laws passed by elected representatives be enforced. They aren’t demanding new laws, or refusing to obey any law, they simply are speaking out about the failure to enforce the laws.

What insanity is this? How do you wave the flag when all of this has taken place under that banner? When Putin sounds more like an American than almost any American in a position of power today, there’s something wrong, people. When those in power in America sound more like Stalinist thugs than Putin, there’s something wrong. There’s been a reversal. We tout and support all of these communist principles and call ourselves Americans. How?

A: Erroneously, that’s how.

Surprise send-off

Posted on October 1, 2022October 1, 2022 by Mike

Okay, I admit I did NOT see this coming.

Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson attended the funeral of Hells Angels Motorcycle Club founder Sonny Barger, Saturday.

Carlson was one of more than 7,000 people who gathered for the six-hour service at the Stockton 99 Speedway to pay tribute to Barger, according to the Daily Mail. The Hells Angel founder died in June at the age of 83 after a brief battle with cancer.

Carlson spoke at the funeral, according to the Daily Mail, saying that “Sonny Barger died in his home state of California. He was 83-years-old. When he died, his letter to his wife and friends was released, and my college roommate was also a Harley-Davidson fan, sent it to me.” He went on to note that though he’d always been a fan of Barger, he was not fully aware of his personal views outside of the motorcycle club.

“And the letter, if I can summarize it from memory was: ‘Always stand tall, stay loyal… remain free, and always value honor,” Carlson continued, according to the outlet. “Stand tall, stay loyal, remain free, and always value honor. And I thought to myself, if there is a phrase that sums up more perfectly what I want to be, what I aspire to be, and the kind of man I respect.”

He continued to tell the crowd that he wanted to pay tribute to the man who said those words, adding that “the president of the United States should be saying that, every single morning as he salutes the flag, but only Sonny Barger is saying it.”

No surprise there. After all, Sonny was never a shitlib, nor were any other of the HAs I’ve known or heard tell of over the years, as people like Ken Kesey, Hunter Thompson, and Neal Cassidy learned to their great regret. Lest we forget, this is hardly the first time Leftards got themselves pantsed by the Red And White, after trying to use them for their own purposes on the grievously mistaken assumption that those burly biker doodz just HAD to be on the side of the hippies, peace love and understanding, and grooving on a righteous high, maaan.

The M/C, for those who may not already know, was originally founded by WW2 vet Otto Friedli, after dropping out of the Pissed Off Bastards M/C over an ongoing hassle with a rival club. Even the origins of the HA moniker itself remains a topic of serious controversy. One version:

The Hells Angels originated on March 17, 1948, in Fontana, California, when several small motorcycle clubs agreed to merge. Otto Friedli, a World War II veteran, is credited with starting the club after breaking from the Pissed Off Bastards motorcycle club over a feud with a rival gang.

According to its website, the club’s name was first suggested by Arvid Olsen, an associate of the founders who had served in the “Hell’s Angels” squadron of the Flying Tigers in China during World War II. It is at least clear that the name was inspired by the tradition from World Wars I and II whereby the Americans gave their squadrons fierce, death-defying titles; an example of this lies in one of the three P-40 squadrons of Flying Tigers fielded in Burma and China, which was dubbed “Hell’s Angels”. In 1930, the Howard Hughes film Hell’s Angels showcased extraordinary and dangerous feats of aviation, and it is believed that World War II groups that used that name based it on the film. According to the Hells Angels’ website, they are aware that there is an apostrophe missing in “Hell’s”, but “… it is you who miss it. We don’t”.

Some of the HAMC’s early history is not clear, and accounts differ. According to Ralph “Sonny” Barger, founder of the Oakland charter, early charters of the club were founded in San Francisco, Gardena, Fontana, Oakland and elsewhere, with the members usually unaware that there were other clubs. One of the lesser-known clubs was in North Chino/South Pomona in the late 1960s.

Other sources claim that the San Francisco Hells Angels were organized in 1953 by Rocky Graves, a Hells Angel member from San Bernardino (“Berdoo”), implying that the “Frisco” Hells Angels were very much aware of their forebears. The “Frisco” Hells Angels were reorganized in 1955 with 13 charter members, Frank Sadilek serving as president, and the smaller, original logo. The Oakland charter, at the time headed by Barger, used a larger version of the “Death’s Head” patch nicknamed the “Barger Larger”, which was first used in 1959. It later became the club standard. The first chapter to open outside California was established in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1961.

It’s worth noting that the M/C itself flatly disavows any connection between the Hells Angels name and the 303rd Bomber Group’s famous “Hell’s Angels” B 17, or any other specific aircraft or military unit, on the club’s website. The one historical fact that no serious person disputes is that there was precious little, if any, common ground to be found betwixt the Hells Angels and the hippies, contra the M/C’s friendly relations with the Grateful Dead. The only possible exception might be the renowned Chocolate George, whose 1967 funeral procession is the stuff of biker legend.

Back to the Tucker/Barger story for our closer, which I find just funny as hell.

Carlson was invited to the funeral and dropped his broadcasting responsibilities in order to attend, according to the Daily Mail.

The Hells Angels motorcycle club has some 2,500 estimated members in the U.S. and abroad, according to the Justice Department. It typically keeps a low profile, but residents in Sweden reportedly protested in May to keep the Hells Angels in an upscale neighborhood rather than have their properties turned over to house migrants.

Heh. Guess nobody wants to wind up living next door to those blasted “migrants,” no matter how staunchly “liberal” they proclaim themselves to be, eh?

Update! Now this, anybody could see coming.

Tucker Carlson showed up at the Hells Angels funeral as a representative of white Christian Nationalism and far right ideology to vulnerable people grieving.

Fascists never miss a brainwashing opportunity to build their army.#DemVoice1 #OurBlueVoice #TruBlue

— Dark Straffin 🇺🇦 (@lyndastraffin) September 26, 2022

GOD, but these Lefty shitweasels give me the ass-ache.

This is who Tucker thinks are real patriots. — Tucker Carlson turns up to pay tribute to Hells Angels leader Sonny Barger https://t.co/mjRhEI5U5J

— Fred Wellman (@FPWellman) September 26, 2022

A damned sight more patriotic than you’re ever gonna be, Poindexter.

GOOD training

Posted on September 30, 2022September 30, 2022 by Mike

PGF over at the Captain’s Journal provides some truly helpful links for the AR15 newbie.

Many Traditional Americans have bought an AR-15 recently but have used it little or not at all. (Ahem, you know who you are!) The first thing to do is read the whole manual that came with your weapon. The manual should have a parts list diagram. This will be important info providing proper terminology. Most say what to do next is to take it partially apart (field strip), clean it, and reassemble it, even before shooting. You should at least field strip it and wipe down the excess manufacturer’s oil.

There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of information about the AR-15 platform on the web. Most of it is useless. It’s super high-speed operators, the bulk of whom are total jerks, trying to impress and one-up each other, whose language and decorum are despicable, which doesn’t help the average family with their homesteading, church, or team-building needs.

The object should be to train with the AR platform to get beyond your hunting knowledge. Your women folk also need to learn to run the gun.

Get very familiar with the weapon platform, how it performs, its capabilities, and its uses. Training with an AR is different than hunting; the platform is designed primarily for defense. That’s why you bought it, right!?!

Well, you need practice in all phases; handling and manipulation, including loading/unloading/reloading mags, safety, sling, sights, how and when to use the “ping pong paddle” – bolt catch/release lever, safety positions, the six-position buttstock, learning/running drills, shooting static/moving targets, shooting while you’re moving, etc.

You can see how this is definitively not a bolt gun and not like hunting! The time to learn your AR isn’t when your family is in trouble but before.

Indeed so. There’s also some handy, and free, AR info to be found here.

(Via WRSA)

The unalienable right of revolution

Posted on September 30, 2022 by Mike

Just when you begin to think that the great Michael Anton can’t possibly top his latest brilliant essay, he goes and raises the bar still higher on ya.

It’s ridiculous for the modern conservative to profess to admire George Washington. The real George Washington did things—many things—that the modern “conservative” cannot countenance in theory, much less in practice.

In the speech I referenced earlier, Joe Biden said, “There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever.” Leave aside the fact that his team commits such violence almost daily and with impunity. As a historical and theoretical matter, this statement is ridiculous.

It’s just a historical fact that violence birthed America. Granted, that violence was justified, organized, careful, and the furthest thing from indiscriminate. But the American Revolution was still a war waged against a government that considered itself legitimate.

Rather than play along with the conservative desire to get me to, as the kids call it, “fedpost” so that I can be served up to the security state’s wolves, I’d rather turn it around. I have a question for the conservatives—actually several. Which I know they won’t answer. So, really, the questions are for you, the reader, to ponder.

Is the right of revolution ever justified? Was it justified only that one time, in 1776, but never again? If so, why was it justified then and what makes it unjustifiable ever again? Because of historicism? Because the American Revolution was somehow an irreversible leap forward?

Is it that you think things can’t ever get bad enough to justify recourse to this right, or merely that they won’t? Is there some deep structural reason for America’s privileged position, or is our miraculous continued good fortune merely your expectation? If the latter, then you are implicitly admitting, at least in theory, that the right of revolution might, at some point, be justified—and that it has not been obviated by “history.”

Now, we should all hope that this remains merely a theoretical discussion. And, in the terms of that theoretical discussion, I maintain it as axiomatic that you can’t have natural rights without a right of revolution, just as you can’t have the founding without an actual revolution, and since you can’t have the regime of the founders without natural rights, you can’t have the founding principles or the founders’ regime without a right of revolution. Each piece is integral to the machine. Remove one, and the whole thing collapses in self-contradiction.

Finally, what does the denial of this right entail? What would it force us to do or accept? Anything and everything? Where are the limits?

The Declaration of Independence says “while evils are sufferable,” clearly implying that at some point evils cease to be sufferable. But are we to understand that insight to be wrong? Are we to accept all evils as sufferable—forever? Are we required to suffer them? God commands us to accept a certain amount of suffering as the price of living in His creation. Does He also command us to accept eternal torment from the hands of wicked men?

The implicit—and sometimes explicit—conservative answer appears to be “yes.” Turn the other cheek. Bend the knee. Endure your beatings. Forever. For if there is no recourse to a higher principle or law, then there is no other choice. To borrow from Machiavelli, the “effectual truth” of conservative pusillanimity about the right of revolution is perpetual self-subjugation to tyranny. “Weasels, compromisers, mediocrities, and losers” indeed.

The conservatives justify this counsel of perpetual passivity with the observation that things can always get worse. But things can also be made better, by the actions of men. It is the office of prudent men to discern when things are bad enough that action is justified, or even obligatory, and to devise a plan propitious of success. It is the office of the conservatives to ensure that such thoughts are never thought, and punished when they are.

One of Anton’s very best, no two ways about it. Makes me look forward to his next one, which, if the pattern holds, will be even better. Yes, you definitely want to read the whole thing.

The Enemy

Posted on September 29, 2022 by Mike

Before you can fight him, you must identify him.

Who is my enemy? He is the one who:

1. Taxes me into poverty
2. Inflates my dollars until they are worthless
3. Murders children in the womb
4. Vows to seize my guns
5. Allows crime to run rampant
6. Forces me to get the vaxx
7. Threatens to use the US Military against me
8. Forces pedophilia, sodomy and sexual degeneracy onto school kids
9. Uses government agencies to break into my house in the early morning and haul me to jail
10. Punishes opponents of the ruling class
11. Calls me an extremist and an enemy of the state
12. Conducts a coup d’état against a sitting American president
13. Rewards traitors but punishes and kills patriots
14. Hands out medals to those who perpetrated Ruby Ridge and Waco
15. Corrupts all elections and so makes my vote worthless
16. Opens the borders of my homeland to the most violent and depraved criminals ever conceived
17. Appoints Satanists, pedophiles and the sexually depraved to positions of authority and power

Neither Russia nor China nor Iran does any of these things to me. The US government does all of them to me.

So who is my enemy?

As Joey Shithead so memorably said, you got to know who your enemy is.

Gearheads

Posted on September 16, 2022September 16, 2022 by Mike

Man, where was this awesome chick back when I was 17?

Carburetors may represent old-school tech in the automotive world, but don’t tell Riley Schlick, a high school senior in Florida who rebuilds them for a tidy profit. Send your tired, dirty, mucked-up carburetor to Schlick and she’ll return it to you clean, shiny, and ready for duty once again. She has operated her Bradenton-based business, Riley’s Rebuilds, for three years now, and a steady stream of carburetors has crossed her path.

At first, Riley’s Rebuilds was a way for 17-year-old Schlick to buy her first car, which had to meet her parents’ specifications: It needed to have a manual transmission and a roll bar. Within a few months, she made enough money to buy a Jeep. Then, she brought on four friends to work with her. That hiring spree solved two problems, in Schlick’s mind. Her friends make more money rebuilding carburetors than they would working a minimum wage job, and they get to spend time together.

She learned how to do the work from her dad. “I said to her, ‘You can get a job at Publix or I can show you how to do some restoration stuff in the garage,” says Schlick’s father, Dane Trask, who rebuilds classic cars as a hobby. He showed her how to do it, and also made use of some YouTube tutorials. “She picked it up quick,” he says.

That alone is impressive. Myself, I had the hoary old gag line drilled into my head from early on: “Carburetor” is French for “leave it the fuck alone.” This next bit is pretty impressive as well.

Once the origin of the carb is determined, Schlick and the team document the model number and CFM rating (cubic feet per minute) and get the device ready to break down. Each carburetor has eight screws on top, Schlick explains, and they remove the hat and the floats (those work similarly to a float in a toilet tank, regulating the fuel level). Out comes the choke, which controls the air intake, and all the springs, screws, and bolts inside.

The team takes the screws and bolts and tosses them into a tumbler for about 20 minutes. Next, they soda blast the body, which harnesses tiny baking soda fibers to remove the dirt and grime. Then they transfer the parts to an ultrasonic tank, and blow out the ports with an air compressor to clear any remaining soda bits.

“We use soda blasting instead of sand or glass because it’s not super aggressive,” Schlick said. “The soda doesn’t get stuck in the carburetor like other materials would.”

We had a glass-beader in the HD shop I worked in, and the quickest way I can think of to convert any carburetor into an overpriced doorstop would be to put it in the beading cabinet and blast away at it. Hell, if my boss had ever seen me walking too close to the beading cabinet with a carb in my hand—even a lowly old S&S Super B, a long-outdated piece o’crap Harley carb consisting of nothing but a venturi’d throat, an idle screw, and an air screw, with a flange bolted onto the side to attach the throttle cable and fuel line to and a float bowl on the bottom—he’d have skinned me alive with a rusty old Buck pocketknife.

Nope, suffice it to say that in our shop, carbs and blasting cabinets did NOT mix. Using baking soda as a blasting/scouring medium is a genius idea, if you ask me. Via Bayou Pete, who follows up thusly:

God bless them all:

The parents who encourage their kids to succeed;

The girls who aren’t afraid of hard work;

The ability of all concerned to recognize a gap in the market, and fill it;

The girls’ drive to succeed, and build a business that’s as much fun as it is work.

That’s just great!

Those girls won’t have to waste tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a worthless degree, and won’t have to beg for extra money from their parents. They’re earning their own way in life from a very early age, and setting an example for every one of their peers. They’ll hopefully be able to afford to choose their further education based on what they can pay for out of their own pockets, and what interests them rather than what’s politically correct.

Congratulations to all concerned, and thank you. We need more like you!

Do we ever. This calls for a song I actually wrote for my own darling daughter, who shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in turning wrenches and busting knuckles, the lone exception to that total dearth of interest being the day I snapped this pic at the shop:

Jr wrench

The young ‘un took a notion all on her own hook, went to Daddy’s rollaway box, snatched up a wrench, and monkeyed around with the shift lever on that unfinished custom-build for a while before scampering off someplace else, lured away from a prospective mechanicing career by God only knows what. Probably a good thing, as anyone who’s ever wrenched for a living could tell you. Now for that tune I mentioned…

That song came to be when I was out working on something or other underneath the ol’ 56 Club Sedan one fine day, with baby Madeleine strapped into her little rocking-chair thingy on the driveway nearby. I cracked my skull but good on the front crossmember as I tried to slide under the blasted thing, whereupon the young ‘un just about choked herself laughing at poor old Daddy’s plight.

Walking away from a sick, ruined system

Posted on September 12, 2022 by Mike

Kudos to this woman for her courage and her moral fiber, but I must strongly suggest she hire herself some bodyguards. I suspect she’s gonna need ’em, and I don’t mean just one, either.

So, here’s my big (for me) announcement: I am retiring from the active practice of law in the courts. I will no longer be representing clients in litigation (criminal, civil, appeal, administrative) matters or defending investigations. I am done being a working litigator.

I’ll have more to say later, but the bottom line is, after 26 years, & especially the last few, I have come to an inescapable conclusion: there is no justice to be had in our “justice” system. I am no longer willing to participate in a system that I consider to be a total farce.

My status as a practicing litigator has constrained me from speaking truth to and about the system. With that constraint removed, I will not be silent any longer.

The state of our institutions – particularly the criminal “justice” ones, but also the federal civil courts – is dire, & is unacceptable for a functioning republic. They must be radically overhauled & reformed, & a renewed emphasis on first principles restored.

Lawyers working from inside the system can make some changes, but not the radical reforms that we now need. Some of us will need to be outside the system to do what is necessary & what can only be done by speaking freely.

That can’t be done by me personally unless I no longer have clients whose interests I am honor-bound to place above those of the system and the nation. So, I am changing that to chart a new course.

I may in future again testify as an expert in clearances & I will probably still provide consulting advice to people who need help w/the clearance process.

But, in the main, & for the foreseeable future, I am going to be focusing on our most urgent needs as a nation.

We must rededicate ourselves to the rule of law, to federalism, to free speech, to true tolerance, to the Bill of Rights, to liberty values.

We have lost our connection to these things. We must find it again. We will lose the Republic if we don’t.

I leave you for now with this observation from Elmer Davis:

“This republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it.”

Amen to everything you’ve said here, ma’am. Fair winds and following seas to you and yours.

(Via Insty)

Reminder: not “ours,” not “sacred,” not a “democracy

Posted on September 12, 2022September 12, 2022 by Mike

Mike Walsh pisses all over the misbegotten, disingenuous shitlib shibboleth of “Our Sacred Democracy” via a history lesson.

A republic is a form of government in which voting citizens elect representatives to small political bodies in order to vote on matters of civic interest or concern on behalf of the citizenry. The Romans, for example, were ruled in their Republic by a pair of consuls, serving simultaneously for a one-year term, and a senate composed of mostly wealthy men, usually aristocrats. There was also a host of lesser officers, including praetors, questors, aediles, etc. There was even an unwritten but constitutional provision for the office of Dictator in times of civic or national crisis.

Tribunes, who could be elected by the people or appointed by the consuls, represented the common folk, and had veto power over legislation. but overall the votes of the propertied classes and equestrians had a greater weight than those of the lower classes. Women, although citizens, were not allowed to vote or hold office; instead, their political power was wielded behind the scenes. A Roman politician could go very far as long as his wife’s fingerprints were on the knife.

The Roman way may not be to modern tastes, but it worked from the expulsion of the Tarquins in 509 B.C. (the last kings of Rome) up to the assassination of Caesar in 44 B.C. (His dictatorship-for-life only lasted a month.) Caesar’s death at the hands of his political opponents in the senate came at the end of a half-century of civil war during which time Rome’s empire had outgrown the capacity of its political system to effectively govern it. Further, the increasing aggrandizement of personal wealth via military conquest in effect produced large private armies that were set against each other until the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C., in which Antony and Cleopatra were defeated by Octavian, soon to become Caesar Augustus, the first emperor. After all, Caesar conquered Gaul not because Rome asked him to, but because he needed the money.

As monarchy gradually made way for various forms of republicanism, at no time was a plebiscitary democracy—a society in which every man, woman, and child got a vote—ever envisaged. There was no enumerated “right” to vote in the Constitution; the qualifications were largely left up to the states, which set minimum ages for voting in their own elections. Early on, for example, the original 13 colonies each had some sort of property qualification for male voters, and by the time the national constitution was ratified in 1789, free black men of property could vote in some jurisdictions. But as the Civil War loomed, and Southern Democrat animosity toward Africans hardened, black men had been stripped of voting privileges, and only got them back with the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment under Republican president Ulysses S. Grant in 1870.

…Madison has, of course, been proven right. From the time of ancient Athens and the Roman Republic, no sane system of government ever afforded the franchise universally and uncritically. Today, as the chief advocates for the craze of egalitarianism in all things, the Left speaks of the franchise in religious terms, as a “sacred right,” which is rich coming from them, since the only thing they currently hold sacred apparently is their right to contract monkeypox without social disapproval in their continuing pursuit of Dionysian sexual excess.

Just how badly the universal franchise has turned out can be seen in this current moment of our electoral politics. Chaotic elections in 2000, 2016, and 2020 have become the new normal. The Left howls about “disenfranchisement” even as it tears down all legal restrictions on untrammeled voting, most notably attacking the role of the states in determining eligibility (an authority that, as noted, goes back to the founding of the country) and relentlessly gutting protections against voter fraud.

And yet despite its ready availability, the vote seems not highly prized by the public, where it is routinely met by indifference by half the population.

Probably because a goodly portion of them long ago recognized American national “elections” as the insultingly-bad theater production they’ve long since been reduced to: easily tampered with; falsely promoted as “free and fair,” not perfect, but in the main reliable and above-board; the exclusive preserve of Uniparty candidates, which is deceitfully hyped as being a “two-party system.”

In recent years, it has come to matter less and less whether the President is a Dem or a Repub: either way, the government gets bigger, more powerful, and more meddlesome; freedom shrivels as corruption metastisizes; federal spending gets more and more out of control, with less and less tangible results bought by it. The notable exception is one Donald John Trump, and we all know what they did to him. As Bono once said, no matter who you vote for, a politician gets in.

In a most refreshing departure from the recent norm, Walsh’s closing ‘graphs are dead on the money.

The Democrats say they want everyone to vote and every vote to count, but what they mean is they want their people to vote, and only their votes to count. Reinstating a property requirement, or even restricting voting to those with a positive net worth (even if it’s only one cent), regardless of race or sex—although there were and still remain strong arguments against female suffrage—would do wonders for governance, but it will never happen for reasons you well know. The point of the exercise is not to preserve the Republic for a better tomorrow but to destroy it.

In their incessant quest to dilute the value of the vote by expanding it, the Left has shown its true anti-constitutional colors. Should one pose the value-neutral question, “Why should the franchise be universal?” the answer is “because.” As we go about our efforts to restore the intent of the Constitution, it behooves us to remember the crucial role that property—”skin in the game,” as we might say today—has played in the preservation of our freedom from the beginning. Now you understand why the communist/Marxist Left is so dead set against it, and why it has inverted the very concept of freedom against those who would preserve it.

We want, and were given, ordered liberty. We prize our Constitution; these blackguards despise it. But it’s our Republic, not their “democracy,” and it’s about time we make that clear to them—by any means necessary, as they like to say.

Yes, yes, a thousand times YES. It’s about damned time one of our more prominent pundits just came right out and said it, no flinching, no backfilling, no equivocation. Good on ya, friend Mike.

Same old same old

Posted on September 12, 2022September 12, 2022 by Mike

I know it’s pointless, that there’s nothing worthwhile to be gained by responding to it. I just felt like I could have a little fun with it, that’s all.

The national media have spent the last several weeks insisting that after enduring months of record inflation, unaffordable gas and electric bills, plus a completely avoidable war costing taxpayers billions (and counting), the country is now feeling a new sense of affection for Biden. I’m sure. Now they’re hyping up the Democrat line about some “extreme MAGA ideology” (what?) and “authoritarian leaders” who “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

Those are all quotes that Biden slurred his way through last week in Philadelphia, but the sentiment was just as sweetly captured the previous day in a New York Times column by Thomas Edsall. But instead of targeting the unnamed yet ever-so-fearsome “MAGA Republicans,” Edsall and a round of scholars went after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, aka God’s Chosen One.

“The fact that Ron DeSantis … is favored to win re-election is a clear warning to those worried about declining support for democratic institutions and values in the United States,” wrote Edsall.

Should DeSantis win reelection, he wrote, it would indicate that voters in a major swing state “will tolerate, if not actively embrace, the abuse of traditional political norms by domineering leaders.” It’s unclear what Edsall meant by “abuse of traditional political norms,” but he noted that the governor “has made no secret of his intent to use executive authority to the fullest extent.”

If an elected official’s use of authority “to the fullest extent” is “the abuse of traditional political norms,” it would be interesting to know what Edsall makes of Biden unilaterally spreading hundreds of billions of dollars of student loan debt among taxpayers, including many who never went to college and many who had already paid off their own. It would be interesting to know what he makes of Biden’s failed attempt at coercing millions of workers to inject themselves with an experimental drug.

Those weren’t an abuse of traditional political norms. Those were bold progressive actions!

Edsall went on to cite some of DeSantis’s more widely known achievements in office, including his crackdown on public schools that were teaching children that to be white is a problem; punitive measures he took against corporations that get tax breaks and then get mouthy about politics; and his removal of a state attorney general who openly said he would not adhere to a Supreme Court ruling.

That’s the real problem, see. DeSantis has actually accomplished things, running the Sunshine State less like your standard-issue Vichy GOPe collaborationist and more like a for-real, hand-to-God Goldwater conservative—governing as if the US Constitution was still extant; as if liberty and limited government really, truly matter; as if he believes the relationship between the sovereign States and FederalGovCo needs to be re-calibrated and brought back into the proper balance.

No wonder Leftard shitweasels like this guy hate him so fanatically.

This is where Edsall introduced his trusty gang of “experts” to make the case that despite DeSantis having broad appeal among the people who would have to hand him any higher office he has designs for — we call this an “election” — such a victory would mean certain doom for democracy.

T’is a consummation devoutly to be wished, seeing as how we AREN’T a “democracy,” never HAVE been, and were never INTENDED to be—democracy being a system cordially and correctly loathed by the Founders as “mob rule,” nothing more nor less than the prelude to national disaster.

And this is where the Opposite Rule—ie, whatever the Democrats are denouncing Republicans most hysterically for is exactly what they themselves are doing—kicks into full effect. For instance:

Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, told Edsall that what would worry him about a “Trump Republican” like DeSantis in office is “the extreme politicization and abuse of federal government power, the targeting of political enemies and the mobilization and emboldening of the violent, well-armed, extremist fringe of Trump followers.”

Gee, none of THAT sounds at all familiar.

UCLA law professor Richard Hansen was then allowed by Edsall to dream up a scenario where former president Trump runs for a second term and “fails to win legitimately but finds a route to being installed as president,” which, according to Handsen, would mean the United States “ceases to be a democracy.”

Nope, nothing familiar there either.

The piece went on like this at length, with various scholars and professors consulting their dream diaries about what a future second term for Trump or first term for DeSantis would mean.

—“Certain groups would be more vulnerable. These include historically marginalized groups, who might find new restrictions on voting. Or members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community who are treated as second-class citizens.”

Actually, I’d gladly settle for not being forced to prostrate myself at their feet and worship them as if they were Morally Superior Beings anymore, myself. As for new restrictions on voting, we’re currently in most dire need of that.

—“One might imagine the [Republican Party] in power during unified government would seek to dramatically expand the number and size of the federal courts, then fill these new positions.”

Um, whut? Who and when the hell has anyone mentioned anything like that?

—“There could also be soft or harder controls over the media. There would be tremendous uncertainty over what a postdemocracy period would look like in the United States.”

Again: not a democracy, jackass. And since the media insists that we all agree to turn a blind eye to their transparently-partisan politicking for the shitlib agenda entire, yeah, I’d say they of right ought to be treated as the propagandists they in fact are. Which of necessity means harder controls on them, which as far as I’m concerned can’t be imposed fast enough.

Edsall concluded his piece by asserting that whether DeSantis wins a second term as governor, it will be “a referendum on democracy, and the odds do not look good.”

Eh, not so much. A referendum on DeSantis, absolutely. Heck, I’ll be big about this and call it a referendum on Democrats if you like. Whatevs, Poindexter.

That we got from Point A — DeSantis is an exceptionally skilled and popular policy executive — to Point B — DeSantis as president would turn America into an authoritarian hellscape — should leave everyone reading this with severe neck pain from straining to find the logic.

To call this talk “divisive” is to give it way too much credit. This is panicked.

It is no such thing. What it is, in truth, is a pep talk, of a piece with Biden’s historic Satanic Speech. They’re preaching to the choir, motivating, inciting, and inspiring their Leftist base to aspire to greater heights of derangement and blank-brained hate than ever before attained. This is how fascist dictators have always prepared their peoples for war, since the days of Hitler and Mussolini. Not that Our Side dares to take the explicit threats being made against us as unserious, without danger, or purely as a matter of rhetoric alone. The other way in which they’re a lot like their ideological forefathers: they’ll really fucking do it, and fully intend to.

Easy fix

Posted on September 11, 2022September 11, 2022 by Mike

Sorry and all, but I’m afraid “failing harderer,” to shamelessly pilfer Robert’s most apt phrase, is NOT gonna cut it.

It is disheartening how many people are pinning their hopes on the next two elections. We still don’t know exactly how the last one was stolen—the thieves were never charged, evidence was never presented, there was no discovery, cross-examination, or verdict in a court of law—but stolen it was. Yet, many believe Lucy won’t pull the football away this time.

In 2020, no one showed up for Joe and Kamala’s appearances while Trump was pulling them in by the tens of thousands. Trump got more votes than any sitting president had ever received, but Biden supposedly beat him by 7 million votes. There were myriad inconsistencies and irregularities, many connected with procedures concocted to deal with the overhyped Covid threat. However, the election was pronounced free and fair, January 6 protestors were arrested and jailed, Trump relinquished the presidency, and that was that, a bipartisan-endorsed end of story.

Everything the Democrats have done since Biden halted the Keystone XL pipeline on inauguration day seems designed to lose votes, and the polls register fading support. Yet, the Democrats are acting as if they have this year’s elections in the bag, just as they did in 2020.

That’s because they do. And that’s because it ain’t gonna be anything resembling a legitimate election, if they have anything to say about it.

Politicians interested in winning legitimate elections don’t appropriate $80 billion three months before the election to hire 87,0000 new IRS agents, some of whom will be armed, to harass tax-paying voters. They don’t conduct a raid on the home of their hated opponent, handing him an issue which solidifies his support. They don’t engage in a Quixotic proxy war on the doorstep of a nuclear power. Their nominal leader doesn’t disparage half the population in a creepy, neo-Nazi setting and speech.

Of course not. Know who does? An emboldened, aggressively tyrannical criminal organization masquerading as a political party, that’s who. Next, Gore poses the biggest gimme-question of our era:

Is it because the vote doesn’t matter, only, per Joseph Stalin, who counts the votes?

Winnah winnah chicken dinnah! Confirmation of my jaded, cynical nature coming right up.

On that score not much has changed. The documentary 2000 Mules came and went; once in a while someone mumbles something about election integrity, and a few states have passed a few laws purportedly ensuring fairer votes (“restricting voter access” in Democratic parlance).

The “who” counting the votes will be, for the most part, the same officials who counted them the last time. Many states will continue to use programmable and internet-connected voting machines. Ranked choice voting is the newest scheme. The Biden administration has opened the southern border for millions of sure-thing Democratic voters. No one will be surprised if a manufactured emergency requires mail-in voting and the rest of the 2020 rigamarole. And no one should be surprised if the Democrats “miraculously” hold on to the House and Senate. Republicans, of course, will shout, “Just wait until 2024!”

That, of course, is because the overwhelming majority of them are willing, active participants in the Grand Scam. and the rest are dewy-eyed dupes. But the really crucial aspect here is the bit I boldfaced.

As I have repeatedly insisted, if We The People truly do want free and fair elections, there is actually an extremely simple, easy-peasey way to get there: do away with every single last voting machine and go back to paper ballots, counted by hand under the eagle-eyed scrutiny of men and women of unimpeachable honesty—election supervisors who care far more about restoring some semblance of integrity and trust to American elections than they do about jockeying for some kind of partisan advantage. Until such frabjous day arrives, alas, we’re stuck with this.

The professed faith in elections dismays. The notion that changing from blue to red will change anything substantive dismays still more. The delusion that government can solve problems created by government, the lack of understanding that it is the mortal enemy of the honest and the productive, dismays the most.

Neither party cares about fair elections because together they constitute the Corruptocracy. The U.S. government is the largest criminal enterprise in history and there’s enough booty to go around. Regardless of who is nominally in power, warfare and welfare-state rackets rake it in. Nothing says “Republican” quite like their failure to repeal Obamacare when they controlled the House, Senate, and presidency, although they voted seven times to do so when Obama was president (and they knew he’d veto the legislation). It’s all for show.

After a denunciation of Trump as an ineffectual egomaniac, some of which I actually agree with, Gore says this:

Violence has no place in the discovery and employment of nature’s laws. Pounding the earth with a club won’t free you from gravity. Discovering the principles governing flight might. Ritual human sacrifice to the rain gods won’t produce water for crops. Devising systems of irrigation and water storage might. Nature is a trove of secrets, but they’re only revealed through inquiry and experimentation, not violence.

Violence has no place in human interaction, except in self-defense. It is fundamentally immoral for one person to initiate violence against another.

Think so? What, then, are we to make of this?

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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Precisely so. In a more perfect world, perhaps, things might be different, but in this one, the only way to “throw off such Government” is by resorting to violence. It blows my mind that so many of us revere the Founders and honor their sacrifice and incredible effort in gaining their independence from the Mother Country, yet mulishly denounce the very idea that we, their Posterity, might even dream of availing ourselves of the selfsame methods by which this once-noble nation was created

Robert Gore is a highly distinguished writer and thinker, one of Our Side’s best and brightest, so of course he’s acutely aware of this blaring contradiction in our contemporary consciousness. That being so, he goes on to wrap the rest of his analysis around the words of the Declaration his own self, dubbing our modern self-styled masters the Deficient, which is probably more charitable than they deserve. He closes the essay out thusly:

The order that will emerge from the coming chaos is that of organized resistance, guerrilla war, and rebellion, not the Deficients’ reset. There is little chance that present governments and political subdivisions will be sustained. When the rebels are at the gate and the Deficient realize that they and the few praetorians who haven’t deserted them are outmatched, they’ll do what the Deficient have always done under such circumstances—scatter like cockroaches in a dirty kitchen when the lights go on. Another Deficient deficiency is courage.

This may seem unlikely, but it’s far more likely than the fantasy in which elections and wise politicians lead governments to dramatically reduce their size, shed their powers, and restore a semblance of freedom. When has that ever happened?

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.”

John Adams, 1818

The revolution has been effected. The Deficient, clinging to their copies of The Great Reset, their woke praetorians, and their F-15s, feel it as creeping, nameless fear. The rebels already know in their minds and hearts—it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. They’ll miss an historic opportunity if they replace old despotism with new. It’s time to give freedom—the system most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness—its chance.

I repeat: ain’t but one way that happens. As the bumper sticker tells us:

(Via WRSA)

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