Begins At Home – Page 35

Time, and past time

Posted on August 14, 2020August 14, 2020 by Mike

A stirring, if bleakly realistic, call to arms.

America is at a crucial moment in history when one system has failed and all wait and wonder what the new system will be. Very likely, with all of the momentum in the direction of tyranny and force, it will be an ugly, miserable system. While they might hope for a resurgence of American freedom, the opposite has been steadily built on top of that very freedom, smothering it for decades, piling rules and regulations on top of one another until their weight is so great that freedom is no longer known, much less imagined or brought into the light.

It is not enough to win an election. It is not enough to reverse the ruthless penalties brought onto the heads of those laboring to survive not only the pandemic, but the economic disaster it wrought. It is not enough to beg for what little freedom is left. One must be rabidly anti-communist. One must thirst for freedom, demand it beyond all restraint, settle for nothing less than an eradication of the small ministerial laws that sneak communism into every corner of the republic, for that is the root of all we see today. That is the root of Antifa/BLM and Revcom. It is the normalizing of force, the institutionalizing of extortion. Even one law that places the state above the individual is one too many. That one law becomes a guidepost for imprisoning a barber for cutting hair. To imagine that possibility is an affront to American freedom. It still rings with the sound of a thousand chains in the patriot’s head.

What comes to America after the election, no matter which way it goes, is a fight for the survival of American freedom. It is not something that can be done through elections. Each law that allowed petty tyrants to destroy the livelihoods of fellow citizens must be ripped out by the roots. Communist actors that enter the neighborhood must be forced out. If anything has been made abundantly clear over the past few months it is that the police will not help. They have lost the understanding of their oaths. They are subject to the whims of heretical politicians and that makes them dangerous to freedom, because they have no reasoning, no understanding of right and wrong, just instructions, whatever those instructions might be. They rely on no laws, no legislation, but respond to the orders of tyrants and dutifully obey. Breaking that relationship should be high on the agenda as well. There is room for reorganizing the police as so many communists demand, but reorganizing them to fit a model of freedom is just as easy and more necessary.

There will be a lot to do in the coming months. It will be an uphill fight with every institution against one’s efforts. Not even those on the side of freedom know what that means, they repeat it like a parrot, but do not know. Show them. The world waits your every move.

We can only hope it’s not already too late. But TL is correct right down the line with this one, of which you should read the all.

THAT’s how you do it

Posted on August 4, 2020August 4, 2020 by Mike

Shut ’em the fuck DOWN. Whatever it takes.

Armed residents offer no-nonsense response to ‘peaceful’ invaders marching to Seattle police chief’s home
The home of Seattle police Chief Carmen Best was targeted by “peaceful” protesters who were deterred by armed neighbors protecting their property.

Residents in Best’s Snohomish County neighborhood confronted the leftists as they attempted to make their way to her home, making a clear case for the importance of the 2nd Amendment and the protections it offers.

A road into the neighborhood was blocked by residents who also apparently posted on social media about the group of about “200 persons, mostly white men and women in their twenties” who were “dressed in black with masks and black hoods and carried signs that read “Black Lives Matter,” according to the Lynnwood Times.

“Black Lives Matter protestors shouted profanity and insults at neighbors, took license plate information on vehicles, took pictures of homes, and asked little kids who lived in the neighborhood what schools they attended,” the outlet reported, adding that some of the protesters carried “large duffle bags” and attempted to get to Best’s home in the neighborhood.

One video showed the rude awakening some of the group received by locals who clearly were not going to put up with their antics.

“This is a private drive, get out of the road,” a man can be heard telling the approaching protesters.

“We are peaceful! You pointed a gun at my face!” one protester yelled back to the armed residents.

“That’s why you are peaceful,” the resident quipped.

Bold mine, and delectable. Ace says:

Antifa and BLM “protesters” have two modes: Savage, feral violence when they think they can get away with it and puerile whining when they think they can’t get away with violence.

As they were confronted here by people with guns, violence was off the table, and they resorted to whiiiiining.

I keep saying this: If police won’t do their jobs, citizens will do it instead.

But citizens are not trained law enforcement officers.

Expect high casualties.

Expect it? Hell, at this point I’m actually hoping for it. Because this nonsense won’t stop until at least a few of these Leftard terrorists are fucking massacred. At least one of the valiant Snohomish Minutemen knows the score:

“They were very organized. They had radios, talking to each other. They had numbers they used to decal all their cars for who knows what. So, they were identifying all their vehicles individually by number,” one neighbor told the outlet. “They came with a mission…They were out here intimidating us.”

“I feel incredibly unsafe,” another said. “We think it will happen again…Their objective was not completed; they never made it to her house, we stopped them…so we think they will be back.”

Count on it. Best be ready for them. ALL of us better be, like it or not.

NYC Kommissar DeBalledZero doing a bang-up job

Posted on July 31, 2020July 31, 2020 by Mike

Coming soon to a soon-to-be hellhole near you, as ever-more New Yorkers flee the cesspit they created to begin the process all over again in your hometown.

It’s the Great Black Tar Way.

A cluster of junkies has turned Broadway into a shooting gallery, injecting drugs unhampered in broad daylight and then shuffling around in a zonked-out stupor, seemingly oblivious to the Midtown bustle around them, The Post has learned.

If that wasn’t enough, the addicts are peppering the area with used syringes, turning individual planters on 40th Street and Broadway into mini needle parks.

“They’ve taken over the tables, blatantly using needles and shooting up heroin all day long,” said a local worker who asked that he only be identified as James. “There’s no police action, there’s no reach-out. There’s nobody preventing this, and you know we’ve had multiple calls to 311 but nobody really responds. It’s becoming a real problem.”

He called his own 311 calls “futile exercises.”

The Post spotted several of the spent needles dumped at the scene — and even caught one of the vagrants shooting up out in the open on Tuesday afternoon, with no one stepping in or saying a word.

The accompanying pictures are…well. Hate to say it and all, because I still have plenty of friends in NYC and its environs, people I love and care greatly about. But the sad, sorry truth is this: New Yorkers twice elected the asshole primarily responsible for The City’s current sad collapse into misery and chaos. They should now be forced to enjoy what they voted for.

I suppose the ship already sailed on that Big Beautiful Escape From New York-style Wall idea, eh…?

The laws will be enforced—one way or another

Posted on July 29, 2020July 29, 2020 by Mike

Vigilante justice is the last desperate resort of a civilization backed into a corner by rampant, implacable liberal degeneracy.

William Smith, 28, was discovered in the early hours of Tuesday morning, decapitated and slumped against the front door of the judge who had granted him bail in August.

Smith was arrested last month following allegations by his then girlfriend that he had raped her 8-year-old daughter.

After a police investigation in which Smith was found in possession of child pornography, he was arrested on two counts related to child pornography and one count of child molestation.

After being charged, Smith walked free from the court after the judge controversially ruled that he did not pose a threat to the local community, and he raised the $30,000 bail required to trigger his freedom.

The alleged victim’s family said they were “shocked” that Smith had been allowed to walk free from court.
 Smith was awaiting trial for his crimes and was awaiting a court date which was due to be scheduled for later this year, however it seems that somebody from the local community decided to take matters into their own hands. The judge, whose name has been withheld, was woken at around 3am by his “frenzied” barking dog. When he went outside to find out what his dog was barking about, he found the decapitated body of the man he had allowed to walk free slumped against his front door with the severed head left on the steps.

A local resident said of the horrific discovery that finding a headless body was an “unusual” occurrence: “This is a nice area.This is the kind of thing that usually happens in mob films, but not around here.”

Could be that’s the real problem here, then. Because I can guaran-gott-damned-tee you one thing at least: it wasn’t the first time this monster had committed such an atrocity against an innocent child…but it will certainly be the last.

If this turn-’em-loose-Bruce judge refuses to learn the obvious lesson from this episode and continues to blandly unleash quasi-human abominations on the general citizenry to wreak havoc as they will upon them—a citizenry who just proved themselves to be not quite so helpless as Hizzoner had assumed, saints be praised—then perhaps the next decapitated corpse found propped adjacent to somebody’s front door should be his own. Pour encourager les autres, don’tchaknow.

Update! Expect a lot more vigilantism, coming soon to a burning city near you.

Seattle police call it quits. What’s next? Vigilantism
Something will fill the vacuum left by police, and it seems doubtful the left will like the results.

University of Tennessee law Prof. Glenn Reynolds wrote in June about the absence of police:

We’ll see a lot of vigilante justice. And what are people gonna do about it? Call the cops? Remember, in the end the police aren’t there to protect the public from criminals, they’re there to protect criminals from the public. Communities dealt with crime long before police were invented, usually in rather harsh and low-due-process ways. The bargain was, let the police handle it instead. No police, no bargain.

Get ready, folks. Major parts of the country are about to descend to the level of the Wild Wild West.

Ordinary, decent, right-thinking folks have a lot of forebearance, and will put up with a heck of a lot. But their forebearance is not without limit. Methinks the Left hasn’t really thought this whole thing through.

(Via Gerard)

Fake news update! As SteveF points out to my tremendous disappointment, the first linked article is labeled as “satire” at the bottom of the page. Too bad.

Restaurant holocaust

Posted on July 28, 2020July 28, 2020 by Mike

Told ya so.

New economic data released Wednesday by business review website Yelp shows that approximately 60 percent of restaurants that had to shut down during the pandemic have permanently closed their doors.

Outlined in a July economic impact report, this figure is notably higher than the same data from March, where Yelp found 53 percent of all restaurant closures were indicated as permanent closures.

Countrywide data indicates that the most permanent closures have occurred in California, Texas, Florida and New York — states that have been or are currently especially affected by the virus.

Overall, as of July 10, 26,160 restaurants closed in the U.S., an increase of 2,179 since June 15.

Bad as that is, it’s only the beginning. Partial, tightly-controlled “reopenings” requiring no more than fifty percent capacity, early close times, no bar seating at all, and the like will no more than delay the now-inevitable tsunami of destruction. The sad, sorry fact is that the restaurant biz as we once knew it, along with many other worthwhile and irreplaceable things, is now gone for good—all wilfully and wantonly destroyed by bureaucrats on a power-rampage; a compliant press; Democrat-Socialist politicians intent on unseating Trump by any means necessary; and the foolish, unnecessary panic instigated at the behest of that nefarious combine.

Resist we much!

Posted on July 27, 2020July 27, 2020 by Mike

Signs and portents—encouraging ones.

One such example is the police department in the town of Marshall, Arkansas. Despite Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) officially signing an order forcing civilians across the state to wear masks, Police Chief Lang Holland has said that his officers will not force anyone to do so, nor will they wear masks themselves.

Chief Holland said that people “have the freedom to choose” whether or not they wear a mask, and that such a move “should not be dictated by the nanny state.”

A similar example, also located in Arkansas, is found in Lonoke County. There, Sheriff John Staley said that while he agrees with Governor Hutchinson’s mask decision, his department will not “be out writing tickets for masks,” primarily because they simply do not have the manpower needed to enforce such an arbitrary rule.

Similar acts of civil rebellion by police forces have occurred in Texas, Montana, and Alabama, among other states.

Good on ya, fellas, with three groans and a moist fart for Lonoke’s Staley for doing the right thing for the wrong reason. It’s only a bare handful of PD’s and states at this point, but it’s a start.

It’s come to this

Posted on July 25, 2020July 25, 2020 by Mike

Ace sums up the current contretemps before providing us with the Feel Good Video of the Week.

Police won’t protect us. It’s time to admit our only defense is self-defense, and the only help we can expect is self-help.

And to mutually vow to each other that we will never, ever convict someone for resorting to self-help, if we’re on someone’s jury.

Either the state will enforce the law and protect us, or we’ll protect ourselves, and protect those who protect themselves. Period.

The officials sworn to protect the civil peace have instead decided to protect the bandits and looters and arsonists. Instead of prosecuting them for their crimes, they nullify the law and let them out the next morning.

We can nullify the law too, guys.

You’re not the only ones who can set aside the law and free people for what might, in other times, be considered crimes of violence.

If you won’t prosecute looters, arsonists, and insurrectionists, we will not convict those who use violence to stop looters, arsonists, and insurrectionists, or use violence (as here) just to fucking get home without being illegally held-up by bandits blocking the road like old-time highwaymen and road-thieves.

The state has decided we will be ruled by the mob.

But we never agreed to that. The Constitution says that we will rule ourselves, through our elected officials. Not to the violent insurrectionists and anarchists the police and government have turned the streets over to.

Read it all, then watch the vid. You’ll feel a whole lot better.

The sad fact is, if Real Americans had taken to dealing out some righteous street justice to PantiFa and all the other ingredients of the noisome, toxic Leftist bouillabaise right from jump, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.

The Peltzmann effect

Posted on July 22, 2020July 22, 2020 by Mike

Unintended consequences.

In the 1960s, numerous countries (including the United States) began adopting laws that mandated the use of seat belts. The hope was that this would reduce mortality in motor accidents.

However, economist Gordon Tullock once quipped that “if the government wanted people to drive safely, they’d mandate a spike in the middle of each steering wheel.” Why would that be? Because of how we respond to risks. If we know that even the slightest accident might impale us on our driving wheel, we would all drive more safely. While it is a strange thought experiment, we can run it in reverse. If one driver knows that all the other drivers are wearing a seat belt while he also wears a seat belt, that driver faces a lower risk level. As a result, feeling safer, that driver acts more recklessly. He exceeds the speed limit, accelerates at a yellow light etc. This greater recklessness, in turn, increases the risks of an accident.

As a result, there is an ambiguous effect from the regulation. On the one hand, the law reduces risks but it also induces a behavioral response that increases the likelihood of an accident happening. Thus, we must wonder which effect dominates the other.

The same logic applies to face masks. Imagine a fictitious Canadian economist who, fearing the risk of bringing the virus to a loved one or catching the virus himself, avoids situations that would be too risky for his tastes. He avoids going to the coffee shop for a latte and limits himself only to doing groceries. With everyone being forced to wear a mask, he may decide to go pick up that latte. Technically, the activities of shopping for coffee and groceries are individually less risky with mandatory face masks. However, that fictitious economist now exposes himself to two activities that carry a risk rather than a single activity and so he faces a higher likelihood of catching the disease. Just as with seat belts, we must ask which effect dominates: the risk reduction of masks or the behavioral response?

In the end, the answer is an empirical one. Yet, the case of seat belt laws suggests that the precise answer might be elusive. The first paper of importance on the effect of seat belts was published in the 1970s by Sam Peltzman who found that the behavioral response by American drivers completely washed out the effects of the law. Since then, numerous papers on the topic have been published. Some confirm the findings of Peltzman while others infirm them. All these studies confirm that there is some offsetting behavior. They simply cannot agree on how strong it is.

However, let us take one important fact in consideration: the first laws mandating seat belt use were adopted in the 1960s. This is more than fifty years ago. Yet, there is still a discussion among experts who try to design the most convincing statistical tests. If there is uncertainty about the past, how can experts today be certain that compelling the use of face masks will not result in a greater level of risk taking? What if the offsetting behavior is stronger? Experts and policy-makers probably do not know this information (and I believe that they cannot reasonably be expected to know this). As the damages from faster propagation are exponential (given the nature of the virus), there is a real risk of backfire!

The question of whether or not seat belts, motorcycle helmets, masks, suits of medieval armor, etc save lives might be a fascinating one. It’s probably worth the ongoing research it inspires, I suppose. Ultimately, though, it’s the wrong question. What any and all Americans SHOULD be asking themselves, and constantly, is this: in a supposedly “free” country, with a government whose reach and scope is confined within very explicit limits set by the US Constitution, are ANY such mandates in accordance with those limits? Or do they so flagrantly breach them as to do far greater harm to the Constitution’s continued authority and relevance, thereby harming the nation entire?

Tragically, most of us long ago forgot about just how important that question really is, and no longer care anyway. If they think about them at all, they consider such notions quaint, antiquated, and hopelessly silly—the exclusive province of cranks and fools who are completely out of touch with reality, too thick to really comprehend what government’s true purpose is: to solve every problem, grant every wish, scratch every itch, safeguard every life, and abolish all risk, forever.

Apologies to one and all

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Mike

For the delay in posting the new Donnybrook edition this week, y’all. Had a major automotive disaster over the weekend: apparently, either the timing chain or the camshaft broke, bending a few valves and leaving me without compression and therefore stranded until I could get a tow-truck out to drag the shattered carcass on back to the house. Been coping with that mess all week so far, which has of necessity shifted all other considerations to the back burner for the nonce.

To make matters worse, after consulting with the fine folks at Hosting Matters it seems almost certain that all those suspicious user registrations I mentioned last week are most likely the precursor moves for another catastrophic Russian hack attempt, a la the one that laid us so very low this past winter. So for now anyway, registration is disabled. I’m considering either just forgoing registration permanently or implementing a Captcha-type deal for user logins. I hate to do that, really; I know it’s a damnable pain in the ass, particularly for those of you who comment most frequently around here. So I dunno; we’ll see about that, I suppose. Maybe the absence of any login process at all for a while will be enough to persuade those nefarious creeps to look elsewhere to get their sick jollies.

Liberal Utopia: if you build it, they will run

Posted on July 11, 2020July 11, 2020 by Mike

Looks like we’re gonna need another Big Beautiful Wall, stat.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and his former police commissioners such as Bernard Kerik, who headed up the NYPD force from 2000 to 2001 and directed the police response to 9/11, can only watch and weep as the city they had so successfully cleaned up rapidly descends into chaos and carnage. This Nightmare in New York is brought to you courtesy of Gov. Andrew Cuomo; Mayor Bill de Blasio; and a cast of thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters, anarchists, and street thugs. The once vibrant city is turning into a virtual no-go zone of looted shops, shuttered store windows, and skyrocketing murder rates. The number of shooting victims is up 51% this year so far, and that tragic trend is accelerating. In June of this year, there were 250 shootings, as opposed to 97 in June of 2019.

New York was already reeling from the highest coronavirus death toll in the (formerly) United States, due in large part to Gov. Cuomo approving the transfer of thousands of recovering COVID-19 patients to nursing homes at the height of the pandemic. Then the rioting began, and Mayor de Blasio’s response was to shame cops and propose cutting his city’s police department budget by more than one billion dollars. (That’s one thousand million for those of you who were educated in the city’s public schools.)

The Dimwitted Duo have caused a mass exodus, with 500,000 mostly middle-class New Yorkers fleeing the city thus far and many more likely to follow. Half a million New Yorkers heading for the proverbial hills. That’s more than the entire population of Minneapolis, where all the madness started. Of course, with the Minneapolis City Council repeatedly voting to disband its police force, the entire population of the “Mini apple” may head for the hills as well.

They should all be forced—at gunpoint if necessary—to stay and enjoy the fruits of their labor. They should DAMNED sure not be permitted to scatter out and infest the more civilized and liveable parts of the country, locust-like, to then start lobbying for, voting for, and otherwise insisting upon the exact same policies that they fouled their own nests with all over again.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE!!!

Posted on July 6, 2020July 6, 2020 by Mike

Whatever you do, DON’T PANIC. Unless they tell you to.

A new pandemic is raging. Even before the Covid 19 pandemic has subsided, the WHO has now warned that a virulent form of Hoof and Mouth disease has “jumped” species in record time from horse to humans and is threatening to devastate the planet. It is even more deadly than the original. An appropriate name for the pathogen is being considered, as we speak. A tricky task, this, as it is imperative to avoid giving offense and fostering lasting grievance on the part of those who would level the charge of speciesism. After all, equine phobia is a thing. We must avoid maligning horses and their hoofs at all cost. Needless to say, the same consideration must apply to their owners, as well as their countries of domicile and origin.

Let us discuss the symptoms: Because we are confronted with a new disease, the syndrome and its various manifestations are still regarded as capable of impressive plasticity—that is, they are changing and changeable. The disease can rampage through every organ, bone, nerve, blood vessel and system in your body. The result is manifold noxious, painful, and deadly symptoms that appear to be unrelated to each other. Furthermore, these symptoms are similar to every disease, ailment, malady discomfort and inconvenience that you, or anyone else in the world, has ever experienced. Thus, it is easily confused with other morbidities. But, make no mistake about it, the underlying cause can only be one thing when testing indicates that the pathogen is present.

Curiously enough, the pathogen has an affinity for the right foot of its human host. At this early stage of the pandemic, we can already state, with confidence, that the microbe can be detected by the application of a simple laboratory test to the right foot. A swab administered between the big toe and second toe with a sterile Q-Tip is capable of rendering a true positive, false positive, true negative or false negative result, based on the suppleness of the skin. In short, the test is just as efficacious as the current Covid 19 test. A small fragment of DNA of the patient’s skin is sufficient for one of the above four possible diagnoses.

However, acute observational skills are also imperative! Let us describe what we definitively know: In addition to the laboratory test, the disease can also be diagnosed visually, if the carrier’s big right toe angulates away from the foot, upward by one fourth of an inch, in either or both directions.

Because an emergency has been declared, a vaccine is being rushed to market and will be ready between six months and two years from now. It will be administered alongside the greatly anticipated vaccine for Covid 19. By necessity, we have dispensed with the usual safety controls required for other drugs. Fortunately, therapeutics, such as hydroxychloroquine, widely in use for over 70 years for other diseases, and proven safe for them, is frowned upon by pharmacists. They are withholding the drug from the patients whose doctors prescribe them for Covid 19. Obviously, the pharmacist’s judgment should and does pre-empt the advice of the patient’s doctor! The pharmacist studied drugs in school. That is why he or she is called a pharmacist. What does a doctor know?

Now that we know what we are dealing with, what do we do to prevent the spread? We cannot simply wait for the vaccine. Patience is not an option. There is no time for that. We must act now!

Fortunately, our experience with Covid 19 has paved the way for imposing the additional discipline required for battle against the soon to be renamed disease originating from the beloved horse. First of all, we have become accustomed to sheltering in place. We now have learned to distinguish between essential and non-essential businesses. We wear a mask and we maintain social distance. Furthermore, we are intensely motivated to continue to observe the above admonitions, rules, and guidelines, thanks to our recent and current riots.

The riots have taught us that the nonessential businesses are the ones that the rioters have looted, ransacked, and burned. We know that they are nonessential because we are still alive even though those businesses are gone. If they had been essential, I would not be writing this essay and you would not be reading it.

This would seem to be satire worthy of the Bee itself…OR IS IT?!? No matter what, we must all proceed with extreme caution to eliminate all risk until we’re absolutely certain one way or the other. Therefore, I am pleased to join the author in her urgent call for a new national and/or state and/or local and/or neighborhood decree requiring every American to…

No, I can’t do it; you gotta go read the whole thing to find out.

Just how the hell DID we get here, anyway?

Posted on July 5, 2020July 5, 2020 by Mike

If we’re ever to have any hope of repairing this badly broken nation, we all know where that Herculean labor must begin.

A recent man on the street interview by Campus Reform saw many college-aged kids asked about what they think of America, its history, and what the 4th of July means. Nearly all of them showed an astounding level of ignorance, and not even just ignorance, but disinformation.

Most didn’t know the 4th of July celebrates the day we declared independence, and all but one couldn’t even come close to guessing the year. Guesses as to which war helped us gain our independence ranged from the Civil War to World War 2.

What they didn’t know isn’t even as shocking as what they thought they knew.

Nearly all of them believed that America is a racist country founded on racism. This is completely false as Lincoln himself pointed out during a speech generations ago.

“America was built off slavery,” said one of the kids.

One of the kids said that America is built off a bad legacy and that the presidency of Donald Trump is proof that our country is a racist one.

There was, however, awareness by the students that something was missing once confronted with their own ignorance. One confessed to never having been taught any of this in school.

“I just know that teachers do not want to teach it,” said one of the kids.

Campus Reform later proved this in the same video as an interview was conducted with a couple of teachers, one of whom admitted to not teaching American history, focusing instead of social issues and painting America as a racist country. Sadly enough, the teacher didn’t even seem to know what year we won our independence.

Can it really be any wonder that things have deteriorated to such a fantastical degree? Somewhere, in one of the very hottest corners of the excruciating fires of Hell, Antonio Gramsci smiles over his brilliant victory.

This, too, must be part of the overall plan for recovery.

You can take all that as "crazy talk," or you can wake up and see where this all came from and what history tells you has to be done with it, before it consumes us and we are no more.

— Martin McPhillips (@corpseinarmor) July 3, 2020

They have called the question. That's the answer.

— Martin McPhillips (@corpseinarmor) July 3, 2020

(Via Larwyn and WRSA)

Independence Day, or something like it

Posted on July 4, 2020July 5, 2020 by Mike

This is gonna be a long ‘un for sure, with some twists and turns y’all might find surprising. I’ll probably still only manage to get around to a fraction of all the things I want to say even so, and I’m thinking I’ll just go ahead and dump half of it below the fold under the “More” link.

First off, a real gem from the inimitable John Wilder.

Boston, Massachusetts: 122 killed, 211 wounded in a daybreak raid by troops sent to confiscate privately owned weapons and ammunition. “Patriots” claim government troops fired first.

It has been reported that at dawn a group of self-styled “Patriots” engaged a heavily armed troops sent to confiscate guns and ammunition. These “Patriots” though initially outnumbered, stood by the side of the road, fully armed with modern assault weapons at the ready. The “Patriot” leader at the site, John Parker, claims to have been only standing there with the other “Patriots”. It has reported that Parker said, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

According to Parker, the soldiers ordered the “Patriots” to disperse, and he ordered his men to “disburse and go home,” but “the soldiers were yelling,” and there was confusion. There was a shot, fired, but both the “Patriots” and the spokesman for the troops claim the other side fired the first shot. Badly outnumbered at first, the “Patriots” were reinforced by the local members of their radical libertarian movement as the firefight wore on. House-to-house fighting was reported.

Sources to this blog have indicated that the “Patriots” had been tipped off to the troop movements and were aware the gun confiscation was coming. The troops were forced to withdraw under fire, although rescue from a larger detachment of troops from Boston was required for their safe evacuation.

A local lawyer, John Adams, viewed the battlefield the next day, “The die was cast. The Rubicon crossed.” Pressed by this blog for an explanation of these cryptic comments, he referred us to our previous post (American Caesar: Coming Soon To A Country Near You?).

The events listed above happened 245 years ago, except John Adams being snarky to me, yet somehow the concepts behind them are fresh in American life in 2020. The battles of Lexington and Concord, though small by today’s standards, produced the “shot heard ‘round the world” as the American Dream and American Identity were formed.

Why yes, you WILL want to read the rest, why do you ask? John’s closing question is piercing; its pertinence is everlasting, and will never fade.

Next, via Ed Driscoll, a 4th of July speech from the greatest President America ever had, or ever will have.

It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.

Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the Colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.

If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought.

A wonderful, insightful speech that, to those among us of a certain raddled decrepitude, probably sounds at least somewhat familiar. But then, we old fogies came up in a time when Civics was still a class taught in the schools.

As beautiful, as uplifting as Coolidge’s speech most certainly is, however, it is also profoundly depressing—downright heartbreaking, in fact, when you contemplate how very much we’ve either allowed to be stolen from us or just flat given away with nary a thought.

Continue reading “Independence Day, or something like it” →

A win is a win

Posted on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 by Mike

Even the smallest victories count in these parlous times.

A southern Illinois judge on Thursday voided Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker’s Coronavirus lockdown orders.

The Illinois Attorney General’s office is expected to appeal.

Pritzker first declared a statewide disaster because of Coronavirus back in early March and continued to issue 30 day extensions — he has used the disaster proclamations in his restrictions in each ‘reopening phase’ dubbed “Restore Illinois.”

Recall, back in April Republican Rep. Darren Bailey sought a restraining order against Governor Pritzker and Clay County Circuit Judge Michael McHaney sided with him personally.

Judge Michael McHaney on Thursday said state law does not give governors the authority to extend disaster proclamations past 30 days or activities and businesses via executive order.

Mo’ bettah still:

The immediate implications of Clay County Circuit Judge Michael McHaney’s order, which stemmed from a lawsuit filed by state Rep. Darren Bailey, were not clear.

“That’s gone as we stand here right now,” said Bailey’s attorney, Thomas DeVore.

“This is a victory for freedom. This is a victory for the people of Illinois,” Bailey said Thursday outside the courthouse, where he was greeted by supporters, some of whom wore T-shirts that read “My governor is an idiot” on the front and “Fire Pritzker” on the back. None of them appeared to be wearing the face coverings required under Pritzker’s executive order

At the risk of seeming churlish, I’d like to remind those good folks that they’re the ones who hired the “idiot” in the first place.

It’s always darkest just before the dawn

Posted on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 by Mike

And right now, it’s pretty danged dark out there.

Let me tell you why I believe the polls… Because in 2016, the polls were accurate. No, not the state polls. The state polls were way off. The average of the national polls, however, was almost exactly correct.

President Trump lost the national popular vote in 2016 by 2.1 points — and just barely beat Hillary Clinton.

The average of the national polls in 2016 had Trump behind Hillary by 3.2 points.

So, as you can see, the average of the 2016 national polls was only off by 1.1 points. That’s what you call some damn fine polling, and right now, those very same damn fine polls have Trump losing to Joe Biden by 9.2 points.

And these polls were all taken before the president stupidly tweeted out video of an idiot yelling “White Power!”

Donald Trump is not only losing this election, if the election were held today, his loss would possibly be catastrophic, would be remembered as one of the most humiliating in history. He’s not only facing a landslide rejection of epic proportions, he’s losing to a 77-year-old imbecile and racist who’s hiding out in his basement.

How is this possible?

How is it even remotely possible Joe Biden is kicking Trump’s butt?

Don’t know how much of what Nolte writes here I actually agree with; Nolte was originally a NeverTrumpTard who eventually came around, and for all I know he might be eagerly reverting to type. But the dismayingly-successful COVIDIOT gambit, followed by the sacking and burning of pretty much every city in America with no response from Trump besides unfulfilled Twitter threats, has undoubtedly shaken his support more than anything the Marxist-traitor Left has been able to come up with so far. And, well, here we all are.

Despite their roots in reality, there is no doubt that these crises — and the White House and Senate’s attempts to tackle them — would be reported differently if Hillary Clinton were president.

The Federalist’s exclusive Friday Oval Office interview revealed a president and West Wing that are happy and optimistic, while realistic about the political danger they face — a stark contrast, publisher Ben Domenech notes in Monday’s Transom newsletter, with his “interviews in the dark days of George W. Bush’s second term.”

“The president clearly believes he is down, and that he has been prevented from using ammunition curtailed by the continued challenge of the virus and without Joe Biden doing things like walking outside and talking for more than 30 minutes,” Domenech writes. “But the president clearly is not of the opinion that Biden’s lead is insurmountable.”

And it isn’t. But a corporate media that have struggled for years to achieve their openly stated goal of defeating the president finally have a working plan. The president and his Republican allies had better get ahead of it, or Democrats will win the Senate –and Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

And that there is the problem, really: despite his own natural inclinations, Trump appears now to have shifted—been maneuvered, more accurately, with an unwitting assist of every panic-ninny currently berating sensible people for refusing to don the Mask Of Submission—from the offensive to the defensive. That’s a defeat in and of itself, and I’m unsure how it might be reversed. But it must be, that’s all there is to it. Charles Hurt warns that complacency is the real enemy:

Mr. Trump’s fourth year in office has been an unusual one, to say the least. But even that gives his supporters unwarranted reason to be complacent. They see a president in a time of national threat trying to unify the country while his enemies in Washington and in Congress only work to weaponize every tragedy for their own personal political advantage. With dishonest, evil vermin like this against him, how could Mr. Trump NOT win?

To be clear, any such complacency among Trump supporters is badly misplaced. The only difference between 2016 and 2020 is that this time, Democrats, the political media and the so-called “Deep State” now know that Donald Trump can win. This time, there is nothing they will not do to destroy him.

Something decides every election. oftentimes, it’s the economy, Stupid. Other times it is security. It can even be personality that determines the outcome of an election.

The 2020 election is shaping up to be the “Make it stop!” election. Ardent Trump supporters love Mr. Trump and will walk through fire over broken glass to vote for him. Rabid anti-Trumpers despise the president and will loot and riot through tear gas to vote against him.

This election will be determined by an altogether different group of voters. These voters don’t particularly like Mr. Trump, but they also aren’t crazy haters. Many of them voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and are open to doing so again.

Today, they see rioters in the streets, smashing store fronts, torching police cars and toppling statues. They are appalled, and they just want it to stop.

Mr. Trump claims to be the “law and order” guy, but the mayhem continues under his administration. Mr. Biden is desperate to curry favor with the peaceful protesters so he cowardly declines to forcefully condemn the lawlessness and rioters.

The average voter is watching it all and just wants it all to stop. If a vote for Mr. Biden would make it stop, that’s what he will do. Same with Mr. Trump.

It’s kinda tough for Trump to run on “law and order” when he’s the guy ultimately responsible for seeing to it that law and order is maintained…and anyone can see that he has failed to do so. To wit:

Trump’s campaign has suggested that riots and more disorder will happen if Biden is elected. The problem with this argument is that disorder is already happening now under President Trump.

Admittedly, Trump has had a difficult fight from the beginning. He has been hamstrung by investigations, a hostile deep state resistance from career civil servants, and a nakedly partisan propaganda campaign by the media. Nevertheless, he has a job to do. He’s not merely citizen Trump. He’s not just an observer. It’s his FBI. It’s his government to run. It’s his military to command. If he can’t run it, he needs to fire people until he can get the right people where they belong.

It’s not entirely clear whether Trump’s reluctance to use force is a cynical calculation that this chaos works to his advantage, or a vague instinct that anything he does will boomerang. It does not matter; there is a job to do regardless of electoral consequences.

As it stands, the country and the president are diminished in the face of extended disorder. A strong and swift response, while controversial, would restore the sense that the nation is not up for grabs. It would also do much to restore Trump’s prestige. Impotent tweeting and inaction encourages more assaults, demands, and brinksmanship.

Voters need to understand that ejecting Trump will not lead to a restoration of order. But Trump needs to understand that inaction will not bring it about, either.

Here’s hoping it does. But there IS at least a feeble ray of hope amidst all this gloomy darkness.

President Trump has told people in recent days that he regrets following some of son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner’s political advice — including supporting criminal justice reform — and will stick closer to his own instincts, three people with direct knowledge of the president’s thinking tell Axios.

Behind the scenes: One person who spoke with the president interpreted his thinking this way: “No more of Jared’s woke s***.” Another said Trump has indicated that following Kushner’s advice has harmed him politically.

…Several conservative allies of the president have reached out to him and advised him to reduce Kushner’s influence over his re-election campaign.

For God’s sake listen to ’em, Mr Preznit, sir. They have a much better idea of where your best interests lie than any damned liberal ever will, however highly your liberal daughter might think of him.

‘Trump has a Jared problem,’ is how one conservative activist who works with the White House on immigration puts it. ‘Jared is a total fuck-up. Everything he touches turns to lead.’ Others groan about ‘four more years of Jared’ should the President be re-elected in November.

And if Trump does, we all do. Dump him. An hour ago wouldn’t be too soon.

Various sources in, or connected to, the administration are stunned by the amount of power Kushner wields. He is a 39-year-old rich kid who had no experience in government before 2016, yet he is in charge of Middle East diplomacy, police reform, a major immigration reform package, criminal justice reform, PPE procurement during COVID-19 and construction of the border wall.

Kushner’s inexperience might be excusable if he were particularly brilliant. People who have sat in meetings with him, however, describe him as ‘slow’, ‘a moron’ and ‘not really that bright’. He struggles to master detail. One official suggests he doesn’t have the acuity to master one, let alone all, of the tasks the President gives him. For instance, he was in charge of producing the 600-plus-page immigration reform package, but conservatives were horrified at how little he knew about the issue he was leading on. He didn’t even seem to know what was in his own proposal; others had to step in when he was unable to answer the more technical questions.

One conservative source who attended a briefing on the plan led by Kushner told The Spectator he was shocked that Kushner seemed to have no sense of how to answer basic questions about chain migration and the diversity visa lottery. ‘He presents as someone very knowledgeable and in the know until he faces questions,’ the source said. ‘He goes off the record or on deep background so people don’t realize he’s a fucking idiot.’

Some assign sinister motives to Kushner’s missteps. His negative influence on the administration, it’s whispered, goes beyond incompetence and veers toward deliberate sabotage. Several individuals close to the administration claim Kushner’s history as a rather progressive Democrat makes him far more ideological than he lets on, and this causes him to subvert Trump’s populist agenda. ‘The depths and lengths Jared is going to to stab Trump in the back [are] quite profound,’ one source claimed. ‘Trump’s been burned by Jared so many times,’ said another.

Naturally. What we’re all pleased to misnomer “liberalism” isn’t a set of political opinions, nor a mere ideology. It is a religion, and its faithful acolytes will always and forever put advancing the agenda way before friendship, family ties, decency, and common sense six days a week, and twice on Sunday. If Trump doesn’t realize this by now, he’d better wake the fuck up, and fast. He has no more than three and half months to turn this out-of-control bus around, before we all wind up bleeding in a ditch on the Left side of the road, dazed and wondering how the hell we got there.

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