The Government You Deserve

Spade=spade

Posted on April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 by Mike

We Are Governed by People Who Suck

Who could possibly deny it? Or would? The most terrifying thought in the world is that this plague of a government might actually be the one we deserve.

Let’s face it: Joe Biden sucks.

Everything about him sucks. He sucks as a messenger, his economic policies suck, he completely sucks as a truth-teller. He sucks in the integrity department.

Not surprising. It’s almost impossible to excel at things one has absolutely no interest in whatsoever.

Joe Biden sucked before he became increasingly, cruelly incapacitated by the decline of his faculties. Thursday’s Potemkin sham of a press conference, in which pre-written questions and scripted answers replaced an honest dialogue with the American people over the state of our union, made that clear.

That press conference sucked. It wasn’t a press conference; it was a book report.

We shouldn’t have been forced to embrace Biden’s suck.

Biden’s family sucks for putting him, and us, through what’s going to obviously get much worse over time.

They’re all horrible, awful people—the very incarnation of a most repulsive breed, the American Professional Politician. This misbegotten sub-species is a grotesque evolutionary perversion, a line which should have been exterminated immediately after the first mutated form appeared. The Founders considered it an abomination, and firmly warned their posterity against ever allowing the ProPol monster to gain a foothold. We foolishly ignored their wise advice, sat idly back as the disgusting and dangerous breed flourished, and must now deal with the disastrous consequences.

Hm. Maybe this IS the government we deserve at that.

We’ve had presidents who have sucked before. But not since Woodrow Wilson had a stroke in office and finished his second presidential term as an invalid, mostly comatose, with his wife running the country as a proxy president, have we had a situation sucking as badly as this one clearly will.

What’s worse is even now, we really don’t know who’s running the country. It’s supposed to be the guy we elected. The president is supposed to be in charge.

Is Joe Biden in charge? He doesn’t even know what he’s doing here. He says it all the time.

That sucks. And the world is watching.

And laughing.

Where is the Democrat Party based? Our large cities, which it controls so completely they might as well no longer be seen as emblematic of a democratic republic.

Pick one, doesn’t matter which, and several things will undoubtedly be true: its infrastructure, business climate, public safety, quality of life, affordability, culture, and governmental ethics have declined in recent years; there has been no Republican administration of that city for a long time and there is no foreseeable prospect of one ever again; the middle class has decamped for the suburbs en masse as a reaction to policies promulgated by the ruling Democrat machine in a knowing and purposeful campaign to rid themselves of those people and their fickle voting habits; the public schools are criminally, abysmally deficient despite breathtaking amounts of money spent on them; the Democrat machine is openly racist in whatever direction benefits it most politically; and all of the circumstances and symptoms of the manifest decline of the place are somehow blamed on white Republicans who don’t live there.

Everyone runs from places they govern. When they govern cities, people leave for the suburbs. When they govern states, people leave for states they don’t govern.

When they govern Washington, D.C., there’s nowhere to run. And everything begins to suck.

It sucked for eight solid years of the Obama–Biden administration. Everybody knew it. The Democrats blamed it on George W. Bush. They weren’t completely wrong in that. But Obama told America to embrace the suck. He said there was no magic wand to bring back economic prosperity, at the same time he told the world America sucks, then proved it by starting and prolonging wars around the planet that were neither in America’s interest nor the interests of the people affected by them.

And the Democrats’ auxiliary suck-meisters in the media made it their livelihoods to explain the suck. Obama was a great president, they said, and if you don’t agree you’re a racist.

Or a deplorable.

For four years in the interregnum from the Obama–Biden suck-fest, Donald Trump told America it didn’t suck and that we had a right not to suck. And for a good chunk of those four years, we didn’t. Then came a Chinese virus and the needless and pointless loss of our liberties, livelihoods, and quality of life, most particularly in places Democrats govern, and everything sucked again.

Here’s the problem: at some point, you just can’t cover it up. At some point you just plain suck.

As I keep saying: looks more to me like they don’t care much about covering it up any longer. They obviously don’t think there’s any real need to. And so far, it appears they might be right about that.

It’s a funny article, on a topic that ain’t no laughing matter.

Cognitive dissonance? Or just plain old stupidity?

Posted on March 10, 2021March 10, 2021 by Mike

One of those can be fixed. The other…can’t.

Last year, like many other Democrats, I took action. I campaigned, responded to social media misinformation and donated money to candidates. I celebrated when Joe Biden was announced as the winner of the presidency and when Democrats took back the Senate.

I also wrote a book to remind myself — and all of us — that honesty was something that still mattered, despite having the most dishonest person imaginable leading our country. But now that Donald Trump is out of office, I’m facing a painful truth: The man I prayed would become president could sign a piece of legislation that would kill my career as a freelance writer.

It’s the strangest political cognitive dissonance I’ve ever experienced.

You’re being far too generous with yourself there with that “cognitive dissonance” diagnosis, sweetie. No worries, though, you can always fucking learn to code, right?

Right now, my party is pushing a bill called the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or the PRO Act, in an ostensible bid to help gig workers exploited by employers who won’t give them health care coverage and other benefits. But because of a problematic clause in the bill, it’s far more con than pro for me. The bill could end my ability to be my own boss, set my own hours and otherwise live the American worker’s dream.

Interesting. Despite being a Democrat-Socialist—even admitting that you celebrated when your crime syndicate masquerading as a political party stole an election and installed a corrupt, senile drooltard as pRetend pResident—you nonetheless seem very taken aback by certain home truths that are glaringly obvious to sane people. Let me try to enlighten you on just a few of those.

“Honesty” is the absolute LAST thing that matters to your professed party
The only thing your party gives a tinker’s damn about is power
Your party’s politicians care not a whit about any trauma or tragedy their own pursuit of power might inflict, on you or anybody else
The actions of your politicians are governed exclusively by expediency and effect; for them integrity, principle, patriotism, and empathy are NEVER of even minimal concern
Your politicians, though bloated with arrogance and conceit, are completely clueless as to how national economies function. Their vanity assures them that vastly complex and intricate economic systems can be successfully micromanaged, in defiance of historical confirmation of their total inability to manage anything other than economic collapse and destruction—confirmation so voluminous as to be beyond calculation

That “cognitive dissonance” clearing up any for ya? Or are you, as I strongly suspect, still stuck on stupid?

Beyond that, all my colleagues and I have been hearing from Democrats in response to our concerns are talking points about how they are fighting for American workers. Don’t I count as an American worker?

Closer, but not there yet. Another hint: To them, you don’t count at all.

I know what I believe in — things like an end to systemic racism, better support for families and children, increased voting rights and equity in schools. Yet now I find myself looking at Democrats’ slogans and questioning my assumption that their bills truly help the people who need it most.

The dawn struggles valiantly to break, yet somehow darkness persists.

I recognize that I’ve bought into broad narratives about the power of the people, usually pushing the most progressive-minded, feel-good policies that have easily repeatable language about things like the “dignity of work.” But when you’re the one whose work is suddenly threatened, it’s a bit more complicated.

Yep, life is like that. Ain’t it a cast-iron bitch?

I’m still holding on to my idealistic Leslie Knope-ish tendencies. I still believe good ideas and earnest people will be heard. But right now, it feels like I’m being sacrificed for support from unions — the major interest group pushing this legislation. And given the vitriol my colleagues and I are getting on Twitter, like repeatedly being called “scabs,” I don’t think there’ll be any holiday cards this year.

I’m not looking for sympathy.

You may rest assured that I’ll not be offering any.

After all, I’m a well-paid professional with plenty of lucky breaks to my name. What I am looking for is to be heard by the party I always believed best appreciated the breadth and width of America.

Oh for God’s sake will you get a fucking clue. Instead of stubbornly “looking to be heard” by a party that isn’t listening, the thing you really need to be looking for is the intestinal fortitude to admit that what you “always believed” was patently false—a deliberate, cynical deception used for purposes of manipulation. After that you can move on from there, maybe. I wish you luck and all, but I won’t be holding my breath waiting for it.

Lick it up

Posted on February 7, 2021February 7, 2021 by Mike

Somebody get the bitch a big spoon, stat.

I am a staunch supporter of Joe Biden and voted for him to save this country. Now I ask him to save my restaurant from the good intentions of progressive policy makers.

I own Pizza By Elizabeths, just outside Wilmington. The restaurant is named after the two Elizabeths—me and my former business partner, Betty—who founded it in 1993. It features an upscale-casual menu with vintage wines. Our guests dine under French chandeliers, alongside wall decor featuring other well-known Elizabeths, from the queen to Betty Boop.

We pride ourselves on serving all Delawareans, including the president. Mr. Biden, who at times has frequented our establishment two to three times a week, has been a great and gracious customer.

Yet friends can have disagreements. The president and his team may understand Delaware politics, but I’m not sure they understand the difficulties of Delaware restaurants. How else to explain his proposal to raise the minimum wage for our servers and bartenders from $2.23 an hour to $15—an increase of more than 400%—which would be a death knell for our industry?

Oh, they understand, insofar as they can be said to understand anything at all. It’s just that they don’t give a shit, see. Once you figure that part out, everything else suddenly makes sense.

And quite frankly, when it comes to Biden supporters like you, neither do I. The Biden-Harris junta‘s authoritarian intentions were spelled out explicitly throughout the campaign. Nor is there the slightest ambiguity about the kind of meddlesome, fingers-in-all-pies government the Democrat-Socialist Party stands for, not anymore. You voted for this. You did so knowingly, of your own free will. Now you think yourself entitled to whine and cry because your guy is doing what he told you he was going to do? You expect sympathy for the awful, awful plight you brought on your own damned selves?

Sorry, not sorry. Idiots like you are gonna learn what the shit end of the Progtard stick smells like, so to speak, and I think it’s a fine thing. Stupidity should be painful, in all kinds of ways, lest it go on steadily increasing. So yeah, I hope you lackwits get everything you voted for, good and hard, and I hope it rocks your fucking world right off its axis. Enjoy poverty, homelessness, and immiseration, shitlibs. Welcome to the New Normal you inflicted on all of us. May you have joy of your choice.

It ain’t my favorite KISS song by any stretch, nor are the lyrics in any way related to the topic at hand. But considering my post title above, along with the mention of Gene Simmons in the previous one…awww, what the heck.

Learn to code!

Posted on February 4, 2021February 4, 2021 by Mike

Hey, I hear there are lots of good-paying opportunities in the solar-panel industry. Plus, there’s the new Morannon being built around the Imperial Palace in Mordor on the Potomac. Y’know, to protect “democracy” and all.

People who work in oil and gas are not the only ones immediately losing their jobs under Joe Biden.

Biden signed the executive order to fulfill his campaign promise of stopping the construction of the new border wall system that was being implemented by former President Donald Trump’s administration. While some areas on the southwest border saw a whole new wall being put in place where none existed before, the new wall system also replaced old barriers that were laughably easy to get over, such as old fencing in the El Paso Sector.

The construction crew was working hard to demobilize and bring their equipment, such as excavators and bulldozers, out of the area as soon as possible in order to comply with the executive order. I was told the crew was about two months away from completing the project they had been working on, which was now over with the quick signing of a pen…

I asked how everyone else on his crew, about 20 people, felt about the cancelation of their project.

“F*cked, to be honest with you,” he replied. “A lot of these guys, they don’t have nothing” because this was the only prospect that was employing them during these rough economic times. “A lot of people don’t know what else they’re going to do.”

“If you want my personal opinion, [the wall] was actually a good thing. You talk to a lot of locals in town and everything” and they were appreciative of what we were doing, the driver added, “We feel like our country really don’t give a sh*t about us.”

Actually, it’s your government that doesn’t give a shit about you. Half the country actively hates your guts and wants you dead, or engulag’ed.

What they voted for

Posted on January 31, 2021January 31, 2021 by Mike

Good. And. Hard.

Don’t know if it’s for real or not. But I desperately hope that it is.

Next, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh:

Heh. That delicate, far-off sound you’re straining to hear is the world’s smallest violin as it plays Hearts And Flowers, expressing my sympathy level for all China Joe-voting idiots suddenly waxing all stunned and dismayed at getting PRECISELY what they voted for. Enjoy your palatial new Tent Homes in a Fauciville near you, assholes.

Speaking of Faucivilles: some of y’all may already know that I’ve spent almost my entire adult life supplementing my perennially pitiful income as a professional writer. The overwhelming majority of my work over lo, these many years has been political essays, with the occasional history- or music-related article, celebrity interview, or random humor piece sprinkled in here and there just to stave off the monotony. I even tried my hand at an autobiographical novel a few years back, at the insistence of several good friends and relatives. I managed to get a bit under three chapters into the thing before having to admit I was in way over my head and giving it up as a bad job.

Oh, and then there was my stint writing porn “letters to the editor” for various Bob Guccione periodicals, about which the less said etc. Who knows, though; I might just decide to do a tell-all about that someday too. Turns out there’s a lot to tell, surprisingly enough. I got that gig via the influence and connections of my dear departed brother Chris Pfouts, another pro scribe who also happened to be one of the best damned writers I’ve even been fortunate enough to know personally.

On my arduous journey through the killing thickets of writerdom I’ve commited one (count ’em, 1) act of true, honest tp goodness journalism—available for perusal using the Leatherballs menu link above;the Myrtle Beach Goodbye piece, should you be at all interested—back when I was working for Outlaw Biker. Now I’ve decided to embark on a second foray into the treacherous toils of Real Journalism, chronicling the incredible blossoming of one of those Fauciville tent-cities becoming increasingly familiar in decrepit urban shitholes all across the “nation.”

It started at the triangle-shaped island where Church Street splits off from southbound North Tryon, which suddenly became host to a small encampment of around fifteen or twenty tents just a few months back. From there the disgusting, garbage-strewn atrocities have multiplied, now engulfing very nearly every last square inch of available ground on the northern quadrant of downtown Charlotte.

Having worked for many years in the downtown CLT area, the sight of homeless sidewalk-dwellers is nothing new to me. But I have never, ever seen anything remotely like this. And it’s by no means the filthy stewbums, crackheads, and mentally-disturbed wretches, mostly Negroes, that we’ve all become familiar with. I know of at least one young-ish white woman with two small children in tow out there too, her overall appearance disheveled but not downright grungy…yet. I’m seeing a rapidly increasing number of others who are similarly outside the bounds of familiar stereotype, looking more like shell-shocked recent arrivals rather than the irretrievably dysfunctional habitues of the shelters and street grates.

What I’m NOT seeing is any local media coverage of this mind-boggling surge of homelessness, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. “Growing armies of the homeless” media pity-parties, after all, only come along to monopolize tee-wee “news” broadcasts and newspapers when there’s a Republican in the White House. They’re like those old “Grim milestone” body count tallies that were ubiquitous back when “journalists” had Dubya the Genocidal Chimperor’s neck to hang ’em around; maybe you noticed how, despite launching deadly military adventures of every stripe so long as there was no perceivable US interest at stake, the Ogabe junta nonetheless found itself unburdened by the kind of saturation coverage used to hound and hinder his hapless predecessor. Probably just coincidence, I’m sure.

If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself, I suppose. So first chance I get over the next cpl-three days, I’ma go take a few photos of the wreckage. From a distance, that is; I don’t plan on interviewing any of the residents, since what folks used to quaintly call “hobo jungles” are known for being veritable petri dishes for the cultivation of exotic, fatal diseases, as well as the random knifings, rapes, beatings, and sundry mayhem common therein—none of which I have any desire to be subjected to. I’ll get the pics and write a little something up for posting in another day or two.

Gonna need more popcorn over here

Posted on January 24, 2021January 24, 2021 by Mike

Wherever HL Mencken’s eternal soul is resting these days (or roasting, as the case may be), you can almost hear the crusty old curmudgeon roaring with laughter.

https://t.co/bMdThimB42 pic.twitter.com/3grahmtn24

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 23, 2021

Suffer, bitches. As Mencken said: Good. And. HARD. Mo’ bettah just deserts:

Several unions that eagerly endorsed President Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election are now learning the hard way what it means to support Democrat policies.

During his first day in office, the newly-inaugurated president revoked the construction permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, thus destroying thousands of jobs.

And not just any jobs — but union jobs.

TC Energy Corp., the Canadian company that shares ownership of the pipeline with the Alberta government, had estimated that 10,000 jobs — in addition to the 1,000 already established — would be created in 2021 alone thanks to the construction of the pipeline.

In response, several once unabashedly pro-Trump unions lashed out.

“In revoking this permit, the Biden Administration has chosen to listen to the voices of fringe activists instead of union members and the American consumer on Day 1,” Mark McManus, the president of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters said in a statement Thursday.

“Sadly, the Biden Administration has now put thousands of union workers out of work. For the average American family, it means energy costs will go up and communities will no longer see the local investments that come with pipeline construction.”

But the problem is that the union endorsed Biden last year and repeatedly promoted his agenda.

You were warned; it’s not as if Biden made any secret of his plan to kill off the oil bidness, along with several other entire sectors of bedrock American industry. Now you’re all weepy and butthurt, so shocked are you all to see a goddamned Commiecrat behaving in precisely the same destructive, economy-killing fashion they have been for decades now.

Sucks to be you, cupcake. You dumb shits made a bed of nails for the entire country. Now you get to lie in it beside the rest of us. Serves you right, say I. Once again: suffer, bitches. I sincerely hope you savor every last second of the pain and hardship you heedlessly, needlessly brought down on not just your own empty fucking heads, but everybody else’s too.

Idiots.

Mythbusters

Posted on January 4, 2021January 4, 2021 by Mike

2020 was the year many of the fairy-tales Americans have turned to for comfort and reassurance took it on the chin.

Perhaps the saddest casualty of 2020 is the myth that average Americans cherish their personal freedom. Politicians continually shifted the rationale for lockdowns – from flattening the curve, to ending “community spread,” to reducing cases to near zero. Regardless of the proclaimed rationale, most people submitted without a fight, and usually without even a whimper. Politicians and bureaucrats fanned mass fears which quickly ripened into hatred of anyone who did not comply with the latest edict.

States and cities across the country set up snitch lines that were soon deluged with complaints of people outside without a mask, meeting friends, or having more visitors in their homes than could fit in a phone booth. Many, if not most, people quickly acquiesced to the “new normal” where any government hack who recited the phrase “science and data” became entitled to rule their lives with an iron fist.

As the Harvard International Review warned, “The very methods that liberal democracies are currently using to effectively fight the virus are the same tactics that authoritarian leaders use to dominate their people. The tools that have been temporarily deployed in the fight against a once-in-a-lifetime disease may become permanent.” That was written on May 23, more than 15 million Covid cases ago – proof of the failure of lockdowns and pervasive restrictions to make Covid-19 vanish. But the miserable batting average of officialdom will vanish into the Memory Hole if politicians launch a campaign to make Covid vaccinations mandatory, complete with boundless vilification of anyone who balks at the injection.

Perhaps it has long been a myth that we live in a self-governing republic rather than a Leviathan Democracy where citizens merely make cameo appearances every few years at the voting booth. It is still possible that the catastrophic and pointless losses imposed by Covid crackdowns will finally awaken enough people to their growing subjugation. But the most dangerous myth is that Americans will finally become safe after they cease making any efforts to leash their rulers.

That’s the biggest myth of them all, one which desperately needs busting.

“Do We Have What They Had in 1776?”

Posted on December 19, 2020December 19, 2020 by Mike

The biggest question of them all, one that will be answered for all time very soon.

In 1776, 56 brave patriots signed their names at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence — a document that spelled out the specifics as to why the thirteen colonies were making a break with England and King George.

Signing that document was treason against the British, and every single man, some with names you know — Benjamin Franklin, Sam Adams, and of course John Hancock — and some you may not, such as Thomas McKean, Button Gwinnett, and Arthur Middleton, risked literal life, limb, and property by doing so. Had the British prevailed, they very well may have ended their days in front of a firing squad or at the end of a hangman’s noose. Yet still they signed.

The interesting thing is, only about a quarter of the population actively supported the break with England at the time the Declaration was signed. Another quarter, largely those whose fortunes benefited greatly from the connection with England (which some of the signers did themselves), wanted to remain part of the Empire, while fully half the population were what we’d call today “undecided.”

The reality is, leaders do what these men and others did: they led, they fought, and they went home and convinced their fellow citizens about the righteousness of their cause and inspired others to join the fight. In the end, they prevailed, and in doing so, they set forth a path that changed the course of human history, much for the better.

Today America finds itself in a place not so different from what the thirteen colonies faced 246 years ago. While the thirteen disjointed colonies faced the greatest empire the world had ever known, patriots today face the greatest propaganda machine in human history: the Democrat-Media-Tech Industrial Complex.

There are two big differences, however. The first is that the thirteen colonies had the benefit of 56 men who were willing to stand up and challenge the king and parliament in order to do what they knew to be right. Today, patriots find a largely barren wasteland devoid of leaders willing to stand up as the Democrats and their cabal seek to steal an election in broad daylight.

The other difference is that in 1776, war was the last option available to the patriots. In 2020, patriots still have one last option before something drastic…and the odds of it succeeding are as slim as those faced by the thirteen tiny colonies taking on the most powerful empire in the world.

You know what’s coming next, don’tcha? You should.

As The Hill detailed earlier in the week, there is a constitutional tactic through which the Republic can be saved — and make no mistake: that is exactly what is at stake here.

The tactic involves senators and representatives using the procedures outlined in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act (ECA) to delay the acceptance of the electors to a point where the House would then choose the president, with each state having a single vote. Given that Republicans control a majority of the state delegations, Donald Trump would be declared the winner.

Sigh. And if that doesn’t work, why, Trump can run again in 2024! Right?!? And when THAT doesn’t work, why, we’ll just keep on FIGHTY-FIGHT-FIGHT-FIGHT-FIGHTIN’, until the Democrat-Socialists finally agree to give our petitions for redress a fair and honest hearing before the beatings resume! YAAAY, ‘MURKA! WE WON!!!

Looks like the title question got answered a lot sooner than I expected.

Pinochet’s legacy

Posted on December 19, 2020 by Mike

He was effective. His reversal of the disastrous policies implemented by his socialist predecessor made his country a far better place to live. One of his very first moves after taking over was to dismantle and ban all Marxist political parties, just as every nation which aspires to freedom and prosperity must do sooner or later. No wonder the American Left hates Augusto Pinochet so bitterly, and has slandered him ever since as one of history’s greatest monsters.

Chile was appeared to be hurtling toward a bitter, emotionally charged civil war. So, in September of 1973, to prevent a violent upheaval with the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of Chileans, the military stepped in.

The coup was not the act of an individual power-mad opportunist, as Pinochet is sometimes depicted. The heads of all three branches of the military, plus the caribineros (national police), participated in the takeover. The junta had shown considerable restraint, holding back for roughly a year in the hope that a constitutional solution could be found. Pinochet, as head of the most powerful branch, the army, emerged as the ultimate authority.

Among the junta’s initial acts was the elimination of Marxist political parties. To restore the market economy, they relied on the advice of a group of economists from Catholic University in Santiago who had studied at the University of Chicago where free market guru Milton Friedman dominated the economics department.

Even so, the economy did not immediately spring back. It took several years to get inflation down to its historical (but still very high) levels. Income also did not rise immediately, since Pinochet had to institute austerity measures first. Allende had created artificially low unemployment rates through government featherbedding; among other measures, the junta had to eliminate many unnecessary government jobs to allow market forces to operate.

But eventually, in the mid-1980s, the Chilean economy took off. Today, Chile is the most prosperous country in Latin America, with a per capita income of $15,111 in 2018 (it was only fifth-best in 1970). Inflation for 2018 was a paltry 2.56 percent. Chile ranks 15th worldwide in the Heritage Foundation’s 2020 “Index of Economic Freedom”; the next closest country in Latin America is Colombia in 45th place. It also ranked first in Latin America in the Cato Institute’s “Human Freedom Index,” last published in 2017. And it is just edged out by Costa Rica for having Latin America’s longest life span: 79.57 years to 79.52 years.

Those statistics — not the numbers but the human flourishing they represent — are Pinochet’s real legacy. Would most Venezuelans today — who live in a failing totalitarian state with a popularly elected Marxist government — prefer that a military junta had wrested control from Hugo Chavez and eliminated a few thousand of the most hardcore Marxists? They would likely jump at the opportunity. Pinochet took over an equally nightmarish state that was racing toward either bloody civil war or totalitarian communism (or both), made hard decisions to correct the problems, nurtured the government for 17 years, and voluntarily relinquished power in 1990 when the nation’s practices and institutions were strengthened so that it could flourish democratically.

For that, the international left has damned him for all time.

The Chilean coup of 1973 offers hard lessons that many will not accept because these lessons do not appeal to superficial norms of fairness and tolerance. For one, electoral politics do not always equate to human flourishing but can instead bring repression. For another, a nation must deal harshly with those who would deny liberty to the rest.

Precisely so. America That Was’s failure to do so was the costliest of errors, with the bill now due and payable. It would have been A-okay with me if Trump had taken a page or three out of Pinochet’s book, especially the chapter on the proper treatment of malignant Commies. Instead, we got our own coup, which won’t have nearly as congenial an outcome as Chile’s.

Truth hurts

Posted on December 16, 2020December 16, 2020 by Mike

Your friend and mine SteveF kindly does the gang here a solid by reminding us of a depressingly clear-eyed DP post of his, from nine (!) years ago.

The US Constitution is the “contract” which authorizes the federal government to exist, which gives the government its sole legitimacy. That seems obvious when stated like that, but many people don’t think about it. The US federal government is there and always has been there and does whatever the President says it does.

That way lies tyranny.

I’d argue we’re already there. The federal government blatantly disregards the document, the contract, which authorizes it.

The US federal government has no legitimacy.

The US federal government now operates only by chicanery and naked force.

Given this, what is the moral obligation of the citizenry to support the US federal government?

None whatsoever.

As it was then, orders of magnitude worse now, which renders it damned nigh impossible to argue with a single word. I haven’t the least intention of making myself look foolish by attempting to, either. That way lies self-beclownment.

Take it off

Posted on December 2, 2020December 2, 2020 by Mike

Defiance is the only option, and there ain’t but one way to do it.

Previously I had labeled the masks that our control-freak society is demanding everyone wear, wherever they go and whatever they do, as a mask of ignorance. While the evidence is still uncertain on whether high quality masks, used properly, can stop the spread of COVID-19, the improper use of masks guarantees that they will contribute to the virus’s spread.

I however no longer see masks as simply a symbol of ignorance. I now see masks as a symbol of oppression, and the willingness of Americans to submit to that oppression, without a whimper. In fact, the mask will prevent anyone from really hearing that whimper. It tells everyone you are willing to be silenced and subjugated, like a dog.

Yet, everywhere I go almost everyone is masked. Even more ridiculous, I have seen Trump supporters get out of their car, put their mask on to enter a restaurant, walk to their table and take it off for the rest of the meal. They then put it back on when they got up for that short walk back to their car.

This is not only irrational, it is downright stupid. That mask they put on is often coming from their pocket, and is not antiseptic. The odds it is a carrier of the virus is not trivial. Putting on your face, even for a few minutes, is counter to everything the mask control-freaks claim.

So why do they do it? They do it because they want to avoid trouble. They don’t want to risk an argue about the mask, with anyone. And they also tell me they fear the possibility of being verbally accosted by a control freak, and want to avoid that above all.

Worse, no one believes me when I tell them that none of that happens. No matter how many times I tell them that no one will question them about their lack of a mask, they still put the mask on, in fear.

For conservative Trump voters who claim to be lovers of freedom to bow so easily to fear and bullying bodes badly for the future of our free society. Seeing everyone wearing muzzles enforces the belief that peer pressure rules, and that you must obey the orders from on high. It makes it easier for the power-hungry to demand more, knowing from the sight of all those masks that no matter how unreasonable their demands, their servants will obey.

The thugs in power will take full advantage of this voluntary muzzling. They will know that if they can get away with that, they can get away with anything.

Seeing how brazenly, how audaciously they just stole a presidential election in open view of the entire fucking world, I’d say they know it full well, and no longer have the slightest concern about what anybody might think or do about it.

Update! I have to admit, this here is a mask I might actually consider wearing. Everywhere I went, all day, every day.

Hat tip to Brack.

The era of cynicism

Posted on November 24, 2020November 24, 2020 by Mike

It’s the only thing that makes sense anymore.

The Soviet Union, like all radical experiments, went through several phases in its roughly three generations of existence. The first phase, of course, was the revolution, in which the old order was toppled and a battle ensued to fill the void. This initial phase of revolution is always the one that attracts the most attention. This is when the great heroes of the revolution and the great villains of it are made. It is in this phase we get both Lenin and Stalin, hero and villain.

There is a phase that gets little attention and that is when the people come to terms with the irrationality of the world that has been created for them. One reason Stalin was able to send so many to their deaths or to labor camps is so many people kept thinking there was some rationality to the world being created. Some remained idealistic believers in the cause, while others became critics of the cause. They assumed the revolution would bring clarity and rationality when it brought only the opposite.

In time, the people came to terms with this. The humor of the Soviet Union reflected the fact that one got along by accepting the irrational in the same way you accept that the grass is green or the sky is blue. You don’t think about it. The jokes were often about these daily contradictions and how the unfortunate were those who did not get the joke that was at the heart of those contradictions. In other words, the joke was always on the fool who was not cynical enough to anticipate the lie.

This is relevant in our current age as we may be past the revolutionary stage and into that time when the people adjust to the irrational. The legacy conservative media keeps pounding the drum about how “we’re lurching into socialism” when we have been a socialist society for generations now. There is no aspect of our economic life outside the grip of the now semi-permanent ruling class. Telling people otherwise is just part of the way the ruling class controls the population.

Of course, this reality is dawning on even the dullest people, so we are being told that the bad guys are planning a “radical revolution.” The truth is, that revolution is well past the planning stage. It has already happened. From top to bottom, despite party labels or rhetoric, the system is stacked with people committed to the great reordering of society into the egalitarian paradise. The expulsion of Trump from office like a foreign body is the proof that the organism of state is wholly alien now.

In other words, a revolution has occurred out of view from the rest of us and now we are seeing the revolutionaries step out of the shadows. This is not a lot different than how Stalin took control of the party and government. He quietly consolidated his hold on the party, while his rivals were thinking the revolution was still ongoing. By the time they realized what had happened, it was too late. This realization was probably (the) penultimate thing that went through Trotsky’s head.

GREAT line, that one. Onwards.

Now we are in the phase where we get used to the often-bizarre contradictions in the rules being imposed by the new rulers. Some are easy, like the fact that states have put mentally disturbed Jewish men in sundresses in charge of public health. These are ornamental positions, so putting a crazy person in the role allows the governor to display his piety at little cost. Until the Covid hysteria, no one had any reason to know their state had public health officials.

Other bits of the new normal have no explanation. For example, states are now telling people they cannot make noise in their home, as part of the alleged fight against the spread of Covid. In Europe, they are banning the sale of alcohol at certain times, claiming this is to fight Covid.

Hate to bring it up and all, Z, but it ain’t just Europe.

On Wednesday, Nov. 25, restaurants and bars (in Pennsylvania—M) are ordered to suspend alcohol sales at 5 p.m. until 8 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 26. Gov. Wolf says the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the “biggest day for drinking” and acknowledged bars and restaurants have been hit hard by the pandemic, but this one-night ban is needed.

Uh huh. Now as it happens, this grotesquely un-Constitutional decree was actually issued by the very “mentally disturbed Jewish man in a sundress” ZMan mentioned above (utterly ludicrous photo of said headcase at the GP link), which is pretty funny all by itself. But El Supremo Wolf’s follow-on “don’t blame meeee!” whine is one for the record books.

“The thing that we can’t do is ignore reality and say ‘yeah you folks, for no fault of your own, have been hit hardest by this virus.’ But the virus is what’s doing this. It’s not me. It’s not the administration. It’s not the government,” said Gov. Wolf.

Oh no no no, of course not. As everyone knows, tyranny is never, EVER the fault of an invasive, too-powerful government, even less so of the overreaching crawly things in charge of running it! Why, who could ever countenance making such an outlandish, irrational claim as that, for goodness’ sake? Such talk really ought to be against the law, if you ask me.

My GOD, the balls on these oxygen thieves. But honestly, how can you not love it just the same? Consider:

The ability to spew patent claptrap with a straight-face: “The thing that we can’t do is ignore reality…”WHEN “IGNORING REALITY” IS PRECISELY WHAT HE’S DOING
Alcohol sales must be banned—because, as has been firmly established by extensive research, testing, and observation, THEVIRUSTHEVIRUSTHEVIRUS!!!™is a bigger lush than Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and the ghost of Ted Kennedy put together, and just looooves itself a good, solid toot—but only between the hours of 5pm and 8am Thanksgiving Day. After 8am, humanity will BE SAAAAAFE!!! again, and can enjoy a snort if it likes. But not a moment before. Because, y’know, SCIENCE!!!
A nonsentient cluster of RNA strands and other such granular material—without authority, official standing, or even the ability to speak or sign the unlawful order—is somehow, some way, “what’s doing this.” Again: uttered with a straight face, with as much fake conviction as any lower-tier American pro-pol slime mold can scrape up, as if the man actually expected sensible people to believe it
BE SAAAAAAAFE!!! Also, do as you’re told, or else

Please pardon me, all, but I need to ask a simple question at this point:

WHY IN THE EVER-LOVIN’ BLUE-EYED WORLD AREN’T THESE WORMS EITHER LOCKED UP OR SWINGING BY THEIR NECKS FROM A FUCKING LAMPPOST, ANYWAY?

Asking for a friend, that’s all.

Cynicism? You better believe it, chum. It’s the last refuge sane people have at this late date.

“Evidence” and “proof” are NOT synonyms

Posted on November 24, 2020November 24, 2020 by Mike

Codevilla explains.

Now, black letter law.

The Trump campaign are plaintiffs. They have no obligation to prove anything. Nor do they have the power to subpoena things, documents, and persons, nor to compel testimony that might be dispositive regarding the sufficiency of fraud. Nor do they have the right to adjudicate disputes any more than the press has the right or power to do so.

The plaintiff’s only burden is to establish in the minds of persons who are empowered by law to subpoena evidence, compel, testimony, etc. what the semi-sacred words of American law call “probable cause” that fraud may have been committed. These persons are courts, principally federal, as well as state legislatures that possess investigative powers, as well as the U.S. Justice Department. These institutions (other than Justice) are also the only ones that have the right to decide what constitutes sufficient proof of what.

The Trump campaign has spoken in ways that suggest that it can prove fraud. It cannot. Not as a matter of law nor, given its lack of subpoena powers and compulsive power, can it do so as a matter of fact. Giving that impression, it has tended to discourage the persons who should be seized by their duty to follow “probable cause” of fraud—and there is plenty of that.

The Enemedia wretches cawing about the “lack of any evidence” are perfectly aware of the distinction between “evidence” and “proof,” of course. Likewise, they also know full well that Trump’s legal team is under no obligation whatsoever to reveal any part of the probable-cause evidence to them, nor to any other living soul on Earth not directly involved in the investigatory and/or litigation process.

Yes, Tucker too. He was dead wrong when he jumped all over Powell after she repeatedly declined to make her case and present her evidence, in full or in part, for his TV audience. Sorry, Tucker, but you have neither the right nor the weight to make such a demand. By persisting well beyond the point where you should have just backed off and let it go, all you accomplished was to make yourself look like a petty, petulant, over-entitled jackass. Hate to say it, but that’s the long and the short of it.

But while we’re excerpting Codevilla, let’s all follow along as he delves into the underpinnings of the whole damnable 2020 mess, a blatantly stolen election being only the ne plus ultra of this shaggy-ass goatfuck of a year.

For four decades beginning in the mid-1960s, a class of rulers grew in America. They became ever more uniform socially and intellectually, ever more opposed to the rest of Americans, and ever more powerful. This happened as government took upon itself the tasks of eliminating poverty and harmonizing the races, and as it controlled ever greater shares of the national income.

Increasingly, their powers were based on claims of expertise coming from the universities. These underwent a fourfold increase in size (from 9 percent of Americans with four-year degrees in 1965 to 36 percent in 2015). Their connection with government conferred both wealth and additional prestige. Few paid attention to President Eisenhower’s warning about the connection between government and academic elites.

Elsewhere, I have discussed how inherently pregnant with peril the existence of such a class was for constitutional life. Suffice it to say, by the beginning of the Obama Administration in 2009, the rest of Americans had sensed that American public life had ceased to revolve around the struggle between Democrats and Republicans, and was more between those who lived by the ruling class’ privileges, and those who did not—between the “ins” and the “outs,” between the ruling class and what had been known in English history as the country class.

During the Obama years, the American country class’ budding resistance spurred the ruling class further to become conscious of itself, to increase its own privileges, its cohesion, and above all its contempt for and demands on those below them. Political correctness ceased to be bemusing for the country class and came to be seen as the threat to freedom that it is. Corporate America became indistinguishable from government in its demands for compliance. That is why the 2016 presidential primaries and election revealed a substantial anti-ruling class majority among Americans, though it was split between opposite ends of the political spectrum.

In short, during the Obama years the ruling class was becoming an oligarchy that ruled by exercising the powers of government and of incumbency in corporations as well as all manner of social institutions. Private institutions, allied with government and inspired by government-supported universities, increasingly exercised arbitrary powers.

But by November 2016 this oligarchy had yet to articulate itself into something capable of acting for a common purpose. That is why the 2016 election may prove to have been the last more-or-less bona fide free election in America’s history.

Count on it. The one and only amusement Real Americans can savor from the situation, bitter though it is: the Gentleman Losers of the GOPe seem to truly believe that, now that the horrible Orange Man will soon be disposed of, we can all get back to business as usual straightaway, just like it was back in the good old Before Times. Gee, too bad for them that Codevilla is perfectly correct about 2016 being the last relatively free election this country will have, until/unless the rotten and illegitimate FederalGovCo is toppled and replaced with something entirely else.

The Democrat-Socialist crime cartel is now large and in charge, and they aim to keep it that way too. So can anyone really be so obtuse as to imagine that, having successfully swindled their way back into absolute power, they’ll balk at any conceivable skullduggery to do it over and over again from now on? Because what, they’re just too nice, too morally upright, too honorable to stoop to such chicanery more than just this one time?

It is to laugh. Say it with me: They will not stop. They will have to BE stopped. Until such time as we muster the yarbles to do it, we’re all in for a rough, rough ride, folks.

The Venezuela-ing of America

Posted on November 18, 2020November 18, 2020 by Mike

Banana republic is as banana republic does.

By now, the election has displayed numerous “tells” that our own State Department uses to highlight fraudulent vote tabulation in countries like Iran and Ukraine: statistical anomalies, blocking and obscuring official observers, procedural irregularities such as stopping vote counts, suspicious software “glitches,” and social media blackouts when citizens raise the alarm.

Thankfully, litigation, hand-recounts, and even federal investigations of fraud are all underway—a process that other countries with questionable elections like Syria don’t have. But if proof of systematic meddling is uncovered, Americans must still rely on the justice system to act on this proof, and the media to ensure the rightful winner is declared.

But what if these hallowed institutions don’t deliver?

It might be terrifying to admit, but American democracy depends on authorities who have lost the public trust: unbiased state and city officials to ensure procedural fairness, unbiased election workers to ensure vote integrity, unbiased judges to enforce that integrity, and unbiased media to inform the American people about the other three. Who will audit the auditors? To examine one test case, the Georgia GOP has already raised alarms that the promised audit in their state does not meet crucial evidentiary criteria. Will something be done?

This election represents the ultimate test of our system and its resilience in a partisan age. If partisans can seize levers of power that impact election results, and they’ve shown they’ll stop at nothing in their revanchism, why engage in elections at all?

And what other recourse, short of revolution, can right the situation?

I’ve been trying really hard, but I can’t think of a single one. So it’s Amerizuela or bust.

Sidney Powell explained one of the many alleged anomalies of the 2020 presidential election on the Rush Limbaugh show: “Trump votes were programmed to switch to Biden ahead of time, but Trump’s votes were so high, it didn’t work right because they didn’t set their algorithms high enough.” Could that explain the sudden pauses in the counting of votes in crucial swing states on election night? Trump was too far ahead, and adjustments had to be made to ensure a Biden victory? Powell has also released information claiming that Smartmatic voting software, which was used extensively in the United States in the 2020 election, was manipulated in Venezuela to ensure the victories of socialists Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro.

That isn’t evidence that this software was used in a fraudulent manner in the United States, but it raises the question, and we will likely not get definitive answers until the disputed election reaches the Supreme Court, and even then the arguments will go on. Nevertheless, the ongoing revelations about the 2020 election are more than enough, if not to overturn the result, then at very least to underscore the fact that whether or not President Trump’s efforts to throw out illegal votes and stop voter fraud this year succeed, America will have no more free elections if this problem is not thoroughly addressed, and concrete actions taken to ensure that future elections are tamper-proof.

And so it’s all on the line now with Sidney Powell, Rudolph Giuliani, and the rest of Trump’s legal team. Those who are dismissing even the possibility that the presidential election could have been rigged lack a historical sense. America has had fraudulent elections before, even at the presidential level: as Rating America’s Presidents details, Andrew Jackson raged (although he almost certainly wasn’t as unhinged as Hillary) for four years against what he called the “corrupt bargain” that he charged John Quincy Adams had made with Henry Clay to secure victory in the 1824 election, which went to the House of Representatives; he then rode that rage to a landslide victory over Adams in 1828.

Then in 1876, the election dispute dragged on until March 2, 1877, two days before what was then Inauguration Day. In exchange for Democrat acquiescence to his victory, the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes agreed to remove federal troops from the South, disenfranchising black Americans and creating the Democrats’ segregationist “Solid South” that lasted until the next fraudulent election, that of 1960. In that one, Democratic Party machines manufactured enough votes to deliver Illinois and Texas to John F. Kennedy. JFK’s opponent Richard M. Nixon opted not to contest the results, despite having evidence in hand, because of the disruption a disputed election would have caused to Cold War America.

But now the Cold War is long over, the Solid South is a distant memory, and the “corrupt bargain” is the one Trump referred to in a late October rally: “Joe Biden has made a corrupt bargain in exchange for his party’s nomination. He has handed control of his party over to the rage-filled socialist Marxist and left-wing extremists. And could we put another name in there? Starts with a ‘C.’ Communist. Yes. No, we got a couple of them too, unfortunately.”

Yes, we do. And we could have more very soon. If they’re victorious now, we may not get another chance to challenge their hegemony. We have seen how that works in Venezuela.

And now, thanks to the systemic corruption and megalomania of the Democrat-Socialist criminal cartel, we’re seeing it at work here too.

“Avoiding death is not living”

Posted on November 14, 2020November 14, 2020 by Mike

Julie Kelly says give ’em the bird.

There’s only one response to anyone suggesting families shouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving together this year because of COVID-19: Go to hell.

Actually, there IS one other response available for Real Americans who still retain the gumption to countenance using it: SEND the bastards there.

“Encourage guests to avoid singing or shouting, especially indoors. Keep music levels down so people don’t have to shout or speak loudly to be heard.”

That is not a passage from some dystopian novel or a command by a Marxist dictator or a parody in The Onion. It’s guidance posted on the Centers for Disease Control website courtesy of the United States government. Think about that: Some federal bureaucrat, probably a highly credentialed “expert” with a messianic complex, is telling 330 million Americans that they should not sing. In their own homes. So they don’t spread a mostly harmless virus to other people.

It’s beyond laughable, but this isn’t a joke. These people are serious. And they should receive a collective middle finger from the American people.

If there’s any upside to this God-awful year, it’s the revelation that the people in charge are inhumane sociopaths consumed with their own egos and lust for power. The nation—and the world—is being subjected to a destructive pseudoscientific experiment that has failed spectacularly in its stated mission to “stop” COVID-19 while inflicting an economic, educational, and personal toll that never will be fully calculated.

Everyone has suffered but no one has been punished for unleashing this slow-moving catastrophe. To the contrary, the cabal of culpable government leaders are digging in their boot heels to crush the collective spirit of the country. At a time when people need to be with their friends and families the most, a time when the soul-soothing routine of the holidays has never been more necessary, the government’s soulless apparatchiks seek to strip away our last vestiges of joy.

These people are not healthy. They don’t care about you or your child or your elderly parent. They care only about power and control. They should be mocked then ignored. Sadly, however, millions of brainwashed Americans will dutifully comply. Cherished moments will be forsaken without any guarantee they’ll return next holiday season.

With ya one hundred and ten percent there, Jules. Alas, thanks to the panic-ninnies’ hysterical overreaction to the Red Death—and the audacity with which our new overlords so eagerly exploited it for nefarious purposes—all too many Americans proved all too willing to give up essential liberty to purchase a wholly-false security. In perfect accordance with Benjamin Franklin’s unheeded warning, they have now lost both, and deserve neither.

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