STRONG HINT: It is NOT Jason Aldean.

The latest headshaker is Kathryn Jean Lopez tut-tutting that “Jason Aldean Isn’t Helping,” presumably by not being the kind of cerebral invertebrate that some at NR confuse with being a proper conservative. WFB went to Ft. Benning to become an Army officer and fight Nazis; the current NR leadership seems committed to fighting against anyone else on the Right man enough to fight back. A song hailing communities that come together to defeat crime and chaos? Apparently, that is not who we are. Oh, well, I never. That sound you hear is my pearls being clutched.

The current incarnation of National Review generally offers readers a conservatism that demands we use our inside voice, placing form – “Jason Aldean is so mean!” – over substance. The substance includes defeating evil when it comes for us, sometimes using violence. But apparently, this is too real. Well, it’s real life for millions of us. Theory is fun, but sometimes you gotta throw a punch. WFB got that. These guys and gals don’t.

It’s sad for me. Like most cons of my generation, notably Rush, I subscribed to National Review back in the day, and it was vital to shaping my thinking. You whippersnappers do not understand what the 80s were like for real conservatives. Sure, the music was awesome, as were the clothes and movies and all that, but if you were a committed conservative, particularly in the hinterlands, you were often alone. NR coming in the mail was my lifeline to an ideology that America embraced but barely understood. You could not go online and get a thousand different conservative views, or turn on your AM radio and get any at all. Buckley’s publication was it, and that is why its fall to effete establishment mewling is so painful.

There are still some people on NR worth reading and who I will not embarrass by listing. I read and like their work even when I disagree, and disagreement is good. But this pervasive vibe of prim submission is something else. I could fisk through Lopez’s sorry take on “Try That In A Small Town” to explain why no, it is not bad to protect your home from rampaging criminal scumbags even if you have to use violence. But I should not have to. That is a self-evident truth. Lieutenant Buckley knew that – he famously once threatened commie-symp Gore Vidal that “I’ll sock you in the…face” if the leftist weasel called Buckley a Nazi again.

I am at a loss as to why Kathryn Jean Lopez fails to understand this. Being a conservative does not mean being a pacifist, though that pacifism does not appear to extend to Ukraine, only to Americans defending themselves. It is of a kind with NR’s tendency to embrace a neutered, weak conservativism that offends no one, defends nothing, and always goes down in defeat. But it is not the only kind of conservatism now. We have an alternative. There is the muscular conservatism of the Reagans and Trumps and DeSantises, and then there’s whatever dog’s breakfast the new NR seems intent on serving up.

Kinder, gentler, a thousand points of light. To again evoke the 80s, gag me with a spoon.

The problem is not that Ms. Lopez does not appreciate Mr. Aldean’s tune but that she does not appreciate Mr. Aldean’s people. One of the great problems with conservatism, or rather with the intellectual conservative elite, is that so very many of them have never been in a fight punched in the mouth.

Fixed it for ya, Kurt ol’ buddy. Onwards.

In the real world, most of us have. But NR conservatism grows within the DC/NY hothouse; the idea of it outside in the real world where today’s conservatives live would make one of those hilarious fish-out-of-water movies where the guy in a bow tie from the Big City has to milk a cow. I’m not saying you must tromp through the woods stalking deer to be a con – post-Army, my idea of outside recreation is sitting on a lounge having someone bring me G&Ts – but it helps to get out a little and visit America and meet some Americans.

Yeah, like NRO’s effete limo-libs and faux conservatives have the slightest interest in rubbing elbows with THOSE people. “Not our sort, dearie!”

Elsewhere, Demo Don Surber lays into K-Lo even more unsparingly, leaving nothing but a quivering, gooey mess in his wake.

She objects to the video showing violence.

Conservatives object to the violence shown in the video.

K-Lo wrote, “Part of the reason some conservatives are defending the song is that there is plenty of other music that is violent that doesn’t get pulled by anyone. The healthy answer isn’t to add more anger and violence. Some of us are old enough to remember former second lady Tipper Gore, a Democrat, and former secretary of education William J. Bennett, a Republican, warning us about sex and violence in music and video games. They were right. And it’s only gotten worse since then. No small part of the reason that young people find themselves getting abortions is that the music they listen to insists that aggressive sexuality is the only way to have a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Then if they are not having sex, TikTok videos tell them the solution to their normal middle-school awkwardness is puberty blockers and surgery. Our culture adds cruelty to life that is already challenging.”

I am not really sure how a song that condemns urban violence connects to TikTok, abortion, and transgendering but she is agreeing with Tipper Gore, which is always a sign that a writer works for National Review.

K-Lo’s call for singing about virtue and not violence is dime-store National Review virtue signaling. The liberals-have-a-point mentality of its writers do the opposite of enhancing their argument because I always wonder when they will admit conservatives have a point too.

And we do. The point of Aldean’s song is that no one is standing up to the rioters and the looters. Someone should.

It is easy to take potshots at someone liberals have attacked. It takes true courage to defend not only Aldean’s right to free speech but what he is saying. Aldean wants to end urban violence. K-Lo just wants to please her oppressors on the left.

This is not just about winning. This is about survival. Once again, the choice is simple and once again, National Review made the wrong choice.

Bang, zoom, to the moon with ye, K-Lo and your fellow NRinOs! More still from Evita Duffy-Alonso:

Perhaps Lopez doesn’t know what it’s like to witness Marxist looters and arsonists descend on a small community. I, however, saw this firsthand while reporting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the 2020 riots. There was no time to instill “hope” and “love” into the hearts of leftist criminals. Everyday citizens were forced to fight tooth and nail for their lives and livelihoods.

After the shooting of Jacob Blake, Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters from blue cities like Chicago and Portland swarmed the city. Outnumbered local and state law enforcement only had enough manpower to protect public buildings in the town’s center, leaving citizens’ homes and businesses at the mercy of the mob.

Meet Chuck, the owner of a tire shop who spent every night on his roof, gun in hand, guarding his business. To the rioters, he said: “Come to my shop and I’ll blow your heads off.” On the second night of rioting, I witnessed dozens of men like Chuck standing in front of their homes and businesses with guns and baseball bats, ready to defend themselves.

Perhaps Lopez would argue 2020 was an exception, but the physical threat of leftism is felt every day, making Aldean’s song all the more pertinent. Take, for example, the horrific 2021 Christmas parade attack in Waukesha, Wisconsin. In a city not far from Kenosha, convicted felon Darrell Brooks Jr. plowed through parade-goers in his vehicle, with the criminal complaint saying he drove in a zig-zag to hit as many people as possible.

Even though Waukesha is a small city with a community-oriented atmosphere, its people were not immune to the disastrous crime policies of Milwaukee. Aldean’s song is a powerful anthem for these casualties of Democrat disorder and violence. It’s a statement of agency and strength in the face of real-life threats to countless American lives.

Democrats have essentially declared war on the homeland, and in the face of this imminent danger, people have a right to defend themselves. The reality is love and free hugs won’t protect anyone from Molotov cocktails, free-roaming violent criminals, mob looting, and professional Marxist rioters and arsonists.

Nailed it clean and tight, I’d say. The point about those who live in smaller towns and rural areas not being immune to the lawless disorder in a given state’s more populous urban war-zones, as well as their unalienable right to defend themselves, their families, and their hard-earned homes and property is especially well-taken.

Okay then, let’s just do a final tot-up of the things 2A people are NOT permitted to do with those icky, dangerous firearms:

• Cannot use them for hunting, because PETA might object
• Cannot use them for self-defense against rioters, looters, and arsonists, because NRinOs might object
• Cannot use them as the Founders did—to throw off a tyrannical government and reclaim their natural rights—because that would just be WRONG, don’t you dare even THINK about it!

Far as I know, that leaves us with one (1) acceptable use for firearms: storing them in perpetuity inside a locked, heavy-steel gun safe, with trigger locks in place, ammo (if any) for them to be kept in a separate secure space. IF, and only IF, there are no (NO) children up to age thirty-five (35) within fifty (50) yards of it, that is. To further ensure safety for one and all, all keys to aforementioned gun safe must be kept in a vault provided for the purpose, at a reasonable monthly rate, at your local police department headquarters.

I was about to ask why the NRinO assclowns and their ilk even bother to speak out in defense of the 2A anymore, but then it hit me that, not having looked in on their websty in quite a long while now, I have no idea whether or not they actually DO defend it anymore.