On our watch? NOT!

Wes contends that, since we’re the ones who allowed it to happen, it’s on us to put things right.

The Deep State is overseeing the fall from greatness of the United States. There is no freedom without bravery. As a society, are we free if we tolerate intimidation by government agencies like the IRS, FBI, DHS etc. Are we free if we allow the NSA to illegally search and seize our private documents? Are we free if we allow ourselves to be forcibly placed into an ill-conceived health care system with forced vaccinations? We are no longer in the process of relinquishing the freedom that is America, we have freely given it away. Are we really brave if we allow all these things to occur and keep silent because we are afraid that some government agents will come and hold us indefinitely without cause? The Deep State just stole our country from us in broad daylight and smirk at us. They dare us to do something about it.

Our forefathers’ worst nightmare has now come upon us. They created a free government, limited in its powers and a servant to the people. But today the United States has become an empire, fast decaying into tyranny, and we their children have become strangers and subjects in the land our fathers won. Instead of a free and just social and political order, today we are threatened by a Godless national culture and a corrupt, despotic federal government that knows no limits to its power.

We are NEVER going back to the America that was. The America we once knew is DEAD! Our children and grandchildren deserve so much better.

Freedom is not reserved for those unwilling to fight for it.

Nope. In fact, freedom is never stable, permanent, or cheap. It must be jealously guarded, scrupulously maintained, and eternally defended—yes, even violently defended, as spelled out in the clear and simple words of the Second Amendment—lest it be taken away. Freedom can never be assumed; it must be earned, again and again and again, by each successive generation. It is always under attack, ceaselessly endangered by enemies who are tireless, relentless, and ruthless.

Bayou Peter rediscovers an uncomfortable truth about those enemies.

I’ve fought Communism in more than one country, over an extended period of time. I’d thought that, in my old age, I could relax and hand on the fight to others. It looks like I was wrong.

Hate to say it, buddy, and I sincerely hope I don’t come off like I’m trying to be insulting or anything like that, but, well…yes, you were. No disgrace in it, of course. Certainly you and others like you—doughty, valiant men who have personally faced the foe and stared him down—have earned a respite. But it can never be. Because of who and what they are, the Enemy will not allow it. In truth, so profound is their lust for unconstrained power, they CAN’T allow it. It simply ain’t in ’em.

Oh, well. A lot of Communists and their followers have tried to kill me over the years. I’m still here, as are many other veterans of hot zones in the Cold War. I guess the ideological descendants of those Communists are going to have another go at us, and people like us. Well, we may be old farts now, but I think we can still pull a rabbit or two out of the hat if we have to…

You—WE—will indubitably find out. And so will our children, then their children, their children’s children, on down through the long years. Each generation’s devotion to freedom will be tested. Why? It’s quite simple, really. If there’s any one thing about the Left that we all should fully and firmly understand by now, it is what I have repeatedly said of them: They will NOT stop. They will NEVER stop. They will have to BE stopped. Tyrants, in short, are forever.

The Left will ALWAYS come back for another bite at the apple, until either Team Liberty is vanquished utterly or they are dead, dead, DEAD. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be compromised with. They cannot be appeased, placated, or bought off. They are supremely uninterested in peaceful coexistence with a free people not under their total control. From the sidebar, Daniel Webster may have said it best.

There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

Webster spoke those wise words many years ago, but nothing has changed since, nor will it ever. NC Reed put the thing a bit differently, but the sentiment remains the same, as does the situation. As Webster

Ain’t no misunderstanding this war. They want to rule us and aim to do it. We aim not to allow it. All there is to it.

It is indeed. Period. Full stop. End of story. They destroy us, or we destroy them. There is no third way. Nobody has to like it. But sooner or later, no one will be excused from his confrontation with the fateful decision: to bend the knee, or to stand your ground. And then, we will have to choose—a choice that will both reveal and define us, now and for all time.

Do, or do not

Can a post be both dead on the money and piercingly astute—yet totally, cluelessly oblivious and ambivalent simultaneously?

Over the past several years, as the woke cultural revolution intensified, conservative conversations focused on the Second Amendment as the final defense against the tyranny that may result as progressives march toward authoritarian-style government. In response, right-leaning and independent-minded citizens have shown up at protests to exercise those Second Amendment rights by posturing with firearms and assorted tactical equipment. Regardless of the prudence involved in such actions, we are now treading on new ground.

Following the November 3 election and subsequent January 6 protest at the Capitol, the current regime set out to eliminate political opposition by casting them as “white supremacists” and “domestic extremists.” They intend to use the legal authorities, tactics, and techniques that were previously employed against Al Qaeda and ISIS against those ordinary Americans who refuse to accept the ruling elite’s political ideology.

Simply put, the most deadly counterterrorism machine from the world’s most powerful country is coming for you. You, ordinary American, are the target.

Good on ya, son. I’m with you a hunnerd and ten percent so far.

Now is not the time for impotent tough talk and posturing with weapons at protests.

Uhhh, wait, whut?!?

The Second Amendment, and all of our rights, are critical to a free society, and we should seek to understand how best to exercise and defend them from authoritarian factions of the ruling elite.

By…preemptively vowing we’ll never exercise them? Are you seriously proposing that patriots should effectively disarm themselves by placing use of the 2A for the purpose it was explicitly and specifically intended off-limits and out of bounds? If you really, truly consider the 2A to be as “critical” as all that, there would be no lengths to which a patriot wouldn’t go to defend it—much less restore it. Which is where we all are now, frankly.

This is the time to get smart on how to counter this assault on liberty and avoid falling into the traps the ruling elite are setting for traditional America.

Fair enough, especially your point on the need to be extremely wary of the traps and other provocative skullduggery already deployed by The Enemy. Just the same, I question how effective any attempt to “counter this assault on liberty” is likely to prove if our very first step is to limit those attempts to strictly rhetorical, political, or nonviolent ones—particularly when The Enemy has repeatedly made plain that he recognizes no such restraints on his own actions.

But it ain’t too hard to make a pretty solid guess. When literal, intentional, and unrestrained “assault” is met with a reflexive demonstration that the response will be nothing of the sort, that display of weakness and lack of self-respect is the practical equivalent of assuring The Enemy that he has already won. However lofty or high-minded you think your intentions to be, by openly renouncing all notion of responding to authoritarian violence unhesitatingly and overwhelmingly—using any and every tool in the box—you have all but sworn fealty to your new masters and guaranteed your own subjugation.

No offense and all, but I’m afraid that just doesn’t work for me. This next part I’m okay with. Mostly.

The U.S. military uses a concept called “defense-in-depth” as its primary defensive strategy. Defense-in-depth is a layered, multi-domain approach that uses numerous defensive elements designed to delay and diffuse the advance of an attacker. Rather than relying on a single, strong defensive line, the defender wears down the enemy, causing casualties while deliberately yielding space. Once the enemy has lost momentum and is under stress, the defender mounts a decisive counterattack to destroy the enemy or drive them back to their original lines.

This strategy also works in the political world and is relevant to our current situation. An effective political defense-in-depth strategy should include all mechanisms of political action to wear down the attack on our republic, its culture, and the Constitution. The term political action isn’t just limited to casting a vote or sending money to a political party. Effective political actions include protests, general strikes, walk-outs, sick-outs, civil disobedience, lawfare, and nullification.

The Polish Solidarity movement used many of these same political actions to bring down a socialist government at the height of the Cold War without firing a shot, despite having to outmaneuver rigged elections and a Soviet-style corrupt bureaucracy.

Now might be a good time to remind everyone of my maxim that revolution and/or civil war are not events, but processes. Although the current conflict is rapidly escalating, we’re still in early innings here. Absent some totally unlooked-for, out-of-left-field igniting of the conflagration, the time is not yet ripe for violent resistance, or so it seems to me. But every passing day—and each successive outrage against America That Was—brings us closer.

Granted, the Solidarity example could well be the best one to follow at this stage of the game; as I’ve said, no nonviolent card should be left unplayed, for all sorts of perfectly good reasons. Regardless of whether the Solidarity gambit is or isn’t tried, though, I can’t quite see preemptively forswearing the 2A Solution doing any good. I really do hate to come off as if I’m ragging on a former Marine here. It’s a good article with plenty therein to make it worth a read (aside from the one thing I zeroed in on for this rant) and I do recommend it.

In the end, though, I can only see this thing the one way. And what it looks like to me is this:

The first three of the Four Boxes Of Liberty have failed us utterly; there is simply no longer any room left for productive discussion about that. To publicly vow that the Fourth Box will be forever left unopened, no matter what, is to foolishly hand The Enemy a tremendous advantage—one he will not hesitate to make fullest use of. The historical record provides more than adequate proof: an absolute, total commitment to victory at any cost will trump flinching, hesitation, and half-measures Every. Single. Time.

The secession dustup continues

TL responds to Aesop, Aesop responds back, and Bracken wades in as well:

Aesop gets the better of the debate, for sure.
But I’m not so sure if after the “cleansing” we wind up with 50 states under the old Constitution.
Nobody can predict how CW2 might go, but extrapolating something like Weimar X Yugoslavia X Rwanda is the best I can do.
What emerges on the other side of that is probably not another George Washington uniting the country again.
A breakup seems likely, once the regional warlords have subdued their collections of states.
I could see New England and the Rust Belt under some socialist dictator, the SW as “New Aztlan” run by the last cartel boss standing, and so on.
I could even see West Coast governors inviting in ChiCom “peacekeepers” to restore order and get the grid running again. ChiCom peacekeepers who would never go home.
If anybody’s crystal ball is less cloudy than mine, your predictions are probably more likely to come to pass.

Helluva thing about those proverbial Interesting Times we’re cursed to live in: from within them, one’s vision tends to be cloudy, distorted, and confusing, reducing attempts at prediction to little more than guesswork.

For my own part (not that anybody asked, mind) I remain convinced that secession, most likely nullification as well, can only ever be an entertaining topic for speculative after-dinner debate over brandy and cigars, if even that much. As a practical, real-world eventuality it is chimerical, a phantasmagorical will o’ the wisp that only serves to distract from the real problem we face, the fundamental, rock-bottom issue that must sooner or later be decided. I’ve written numerous times over the years about this problem, which Aesop identifies thusly:

Nobody serious is seriously considering secession. It’s like talking about winning the next election. They’re considering insurgency, revolution, and overthrow. I don’t want a piece of what used to be known as the U.S. of A.

For about the tenth time I’ve said it and posted it here:

I am so enamored of the republic that was, that I’ll not willingly part with a square foot of it to the communists. I want the whole damned thing back. Whether any of them survive the transition is a matter to me ranging from complete indifference, to active revulsion at the thought.

That isn’t secession. It’s cleansing.

France didn’t secede from Nazi Germany. America didn’t secede from Britain. And no place is seceding from the U.S. They’ll either win their independence, again, or roll over, give it all up, and wind up in the gulags featured in every communist state since ever. There’s no third option. And there won’t be any safe space unless it’s called Everything, because the other side has proven beyond all doubt that the one thing of which they are wholly incapable is to leave everyone else alone. Couldn’t do it in Korea. Couldn’t do it in Vietnam. And only brinksmanship and the threat of global thermonuclear war stopped it in Germany. Communists, like muslims, are the world’s original pugnacious busybodies, and the only successful remedy is removal in toto.

Amen. Broken-record time: Liberty and tyranny can NOT peaceably coexist. Ditto with free people and Communists. One of these things is not only not like the other; one of these things eternally seeks to strangle the other—to choke it out of existence, to eradicate it entirely. And that we simply cannot have. Which, all reverence for the First Amendment notwithstanding, means but one thing. Yet another of Mike’s Iron Laws, in the form of a Biblical rejiggering: Thou shalt not suffer a Communist to live. The tension between the absolutes represented by the idea of freedom of speech and thought and the necessity of seeing to it that our principles are not allowed to be used as the means of our own destruction is beyond ironic. But paradox is the way of things on this poor planet.

So be it, then. If it’s war to the knife they want, then it’s war to the knife they should damned well get. It’s impossible not to hear the creak and groan of A House Divided Against Itself, on its way to doing that thing such houses must inevitably do:

The Schumer-Pelosi gang looks exorbitantly proud of their legislative coup in the stim bill (and Mitch McConnell’s gang, too, which had to play along, or get tagged and cancelled as Dr. Seuss-like creatures of Grinchified parsimony). Obtuse, desperate, and stupid as these grandstanding politicians are, they all overlook the workings of entropy in these foolish expedients to keep the plates spinning in this performance-art economy. Namely: disorder. Everything is groaning and cracking out there.

One-time $1,400 handouts and even regular $300 unemployment subsidies won’t pay the mortgages or feed families very long, and every day there are fewer families bringing in anything close to that mythical $150,000. For many, it’s more like… nothing. The one-time bailouts of recklessly insolvent city and state governments and pension funds will only postpone their collapse. The varying guaranteed basic income schemes, enhanced child credits, advances on tax refunds, and other gimmicks would turn the former working class into sub-lumpenproles with nothing to occupy them but crime and vice. In fact, we already have a sizable underclass demonstrating exactly what you’ll get from enlarging the social group dependent on government support.

The only other question for now is when do the different population groups in this land explode in violence? The group loosely bundled as “Red” is angry enough with the ongoing insults of Wokery, failed rule-of-law, and abridgments of basic constitutional rights. The states where they dominate are likely to resist any more fiats by the federal government, like the imminent attempt to confiscate firearms. The “Blue” auxiliary armies are beyond their creators’ control. Antifa will be ready to rock-and-roll in the streets with good weather because so many young people have absolutely no prospects to thrive in the collapsing economy, and the streets have become their social space, with so little money for lattes and beers. And BLM need look no further than the Derek Chauvin trial in Minnesota, starting today, for an excuse to resume its characteristic activities.

Does anyone seriously believe that the husk of Joe Biden will remain in office more than another few weeks? It’s obvious that he doesn’t have the mental mojo to work an authentic press conference, and surely not the customary address to a joint session of Congress. Even the news media may seek to know who is actually in charge of the executive branch before much longer. Pay close attention to events unspooling. Get ready for trouble. It’s coming every which way, from money to public order to rollicking spring weather.

It is. So here we all are: the lines drawn, the final pleas for redress issued, the warning implicit with those pleas arrogantly, contemptuously spurned by those who would enslave all free Americans—ie, those who would have profited most by paying more careful attention. The stage is set. All that’s left now, for both sides, is the breathless pause before the curtain rises.

The play’s the thing. Although Hamlet meant something else entirely by them, his words fit this context well enough too.

VOTE SECEDE HARDERER!

Fond as I am of at least some of those calling for it, secession is a non-starter. Big fat caveat: I’ve already declared myself all in for the nullification idea, and I still feel that way. But that doesn’t mean I have high hopes that it will work. Ultimately, the roadblock obstructing secession is simple: FederalGovCo absitively, posolutely WILL NOT let it happen without a fight. Ask somebody from the Confederate States of Americans how it worked out last time around. I see no reason to think that FederalGovCo’s position towards secession has mellowed; the roadblock still stands, as impassable as it ever was.

With nullification the same roadblock looms, but it is at least conceivable that a way could be found for the several states to pull it off without sparking a violent response. It’s a remote possibility to be sure, but a possibility nonetheless. I don’t have a whole lot of faith in it, but it does exist.

Secession, though? Not a chance.

Secede where? From whom?

You live in a purple state, in a purple country, and in which no legitimate election can ever be expected from now on. Times 50 states.

You want to oppose the illegitimate government, product of a wholly fraudulent election?

Bravo. So do I, and so do millions more.

But this isn’t 1861, and you have no safe space to retreat to where your values hold sway, nor where you are and will be in the majority, nor will such ever be left alone by the other side. They never have, they never will, and they don’t care about the inevitable consequence of that course of action.

Ask Georgians how that plan worked out for them in January.

Secession is a myth, based on a delusion. The idea is laughably ridiculous, doubly so given how it worked out the last time it was attempted.

Aesop is specifically flensing TL Davis’s mention of the secession fantasy in his most recent piece, but seems to me that maybe TL isn’t necessarily all that dreamy-eyed and damp about its chances for success himself. To wit:

The question of secession arises simply because there is no other resort. It is not something arrived at easily and it doesn’t solve all problems. There is still a virulent strain of communism running through all of our institutions that would have to be dealt with, many of which are easily corrected if the Constitution were adhered to, something each state can enforce individually, even without secession, but where is the will to do that?

People who will not carry their torches and pitchforks to their state capitols will not force those political bodies to defend their rights. Trust me, I am with the resistance. I will stand with any who stand with me. It is now, or never.

YMMV, as always, but that sounds less to me like 1) enthusiastic endorsement from a naive fever-dreamer of a course of action he is confident will resolve our conundrum satisfactorily, and more like B) a patriot casting desperately about for an option, ANY option, that might possibly lead to a relatively peaceful way out of this. Unfortunately for all red-blooded Americans, the questions TL poses next all have the same answer.

If it is to be a peaceful resistance, let me know which road to take that leads us toward faithful public servants. Which road leads to undeniable and unmodified rights? Which road leads to fiscally responsible government? Which road leads to quality education for our children? Which road leads to reliable power supply and energy independence? Which road leads to unencumbered commerce? Which road leads to more employment? Which road leads to prosperity? Which road leads to a secure border? Which road leads to a military focused on defense of the nation?

Difficult questions, although from this side of the Great Divide they’re more likely to be viewed as basic, elementary—the stuff of grade-school civics and history classes, I mean c’mon DUH. A huge complexifying factor in treating such questions as something other than idle woolgathering, with little real-world relevance, is that The Enemy has no desire whatsoever to travel those roads in the first place. To them, not one of the destinations suggested by TL is appealing. I doubt you’d even been able to get them into the car at all, without either some elaborate trickery or a physical struggle.

To boil it down, then, TL is seeking a route to peaceful coexistence, as a free and properly-governed people, with Communists. Alas, no such route exists, or ever really has. Due to the nature of both Communism and its adherents, no such route CAN exist. We’re stalled at a dead-end, and Aesop knows there’s only one way out.

This isn’t going to be won at ballot boxes, protests, strongly-worded letters, nor brilliant legal opinions.

No one you’re talking to in those forums cares.

Write that on your hand, lest ye forget.

This is going to be a cage match to the death, and it isn’t over until there’s only one side left standing. And that’s true whether you fight, or surrender. All giving up changes is how fast you get on the boxcars.

And if you choose to fight, it’s going to be fought house to house, floor to floor, and in some families, room to room. In every town and city in every state. Some will be easier than others, but no place is 100% anything. For now.

When that penny drops, and the range goes hot in both directions, you’ll be at the starting line.

The finish line is  a long, long way off, even at that point.

But at least people will be in the right event.

S’truth. And, as I keep saying, nobody has to like it. I most certainly don’t. Personally, I would much prefer to live out my remaining days in a nation NOT riven by strife, deprivation, and calamity—grubbing for meager sustenance to fend off starvation; constantly sidestepping a ruthlessly despotic government as best I can; completely surrounded by bleating nitwits accepting of their own subjugation, in blissful ignorance of their ignominy.

I had hoped to die gently in my sleep, my loved ones close at hand to see me on my way. But NOOOOOO. LIKE it? RUFKM?!? Man, I am too old for this shit.

Trust me, I absolutely HATE that this conflict has been forced upon on us. But forced upon us it has been. We all knew this day would come. Now that it has, facts must be squarely and honestly faced. There are tough choices to be made. What do I truly, deeply believe in? Am I willing to fight for my beliefs—to die in defense of them, if I must? What is my duty—to myself, to my family, to my neighbor, to my country? What does duty, what does honor, require of me? When should I act, how will I know the time is right to act, and what actions should I take?

War is coming. It won’t be pretty, or easy, or brief. Victory for Truth, Justice, and the American Way is by no means assured. It is entirely possible (if not damned likely) that it will not end well, for anybody.

Gird your loins.

“Hypocrisy” is the LEAST of our problems with them

Physically, politically, and ideologically, location determines perception: where you stand determines what you see. If the biggest worry you see coming from the Left is their hypocrisy, you are either wilfully blind or cripplingly obtuse.

Calling today’s Leftists hypocrites requires endless contortions. It is simpler and scarier to see that the Left has rejected the standards of common citizenship. The Left is rejecting equal protection, equal treatment of the laws, and the rule of equal laws and opportunities for all. Its principle of justice is to help friends and relatives while harming enemies.

Double standards sown into law enforcement and culture, with the rulers defining the boundaries between the two standards, is the hallmark of oligarchy. Oligarchy is not just the rule of the rich, though that is part of it. Oligarchy is the rule of the few for their own interest. Oligarchic justice demands that unequals be treated unequally, as Aristotle writes, and it extends the idea of human inequality way beyond its legitimate scope. Friends of the oligarchy are treated one way because they are presumed better. Enemies or non-friends of the oligarchy are treated another way because they are presumed worse.

The Left is not hypocritical to its standards: help friends, harm enemies, unequal justice. So, the Left can practice what was hypocrisy openly and without shame. What, from the standpoint of common citizenship, amounts to hypocrisy is, for today’s Left, an edge of their attempt to transform the regime from a republic of equal citizenship to a woke oligarchy.

TSM Kevin agrees:

No, they aren’t hypocrites. They’re engaged in a war and there are two sets of rules. Yes, they’re revolutionaries. They’re running a revolution to immanentize the eschaton, and that has driven them insane, but even the insane know that blowback will eventually come. They must do everything in their (extensive) power to delay, deflect, diminish that blowback. The attempt to control the flow of information is critical component. (Can you imagine the outrage if, under the Trump administration, a similar letter had been issued pointing out the lies and falsehoods put forth by the “mainstream” media, asking why they were still being carried?)

First we’re “The Other.” Then we’re “Deplorables.” Finally, we’re DANGEROUS. Have you noticed how the Left is treating the events of January 6? It was called “1000 times worse than 9/11” and “it became clear that the United States is involved in a generational struggle to save our democracy.” Not our Republic, our Democracy. The “mostly peaceful” riot in the Capital has been called an “armed insurrection,” except nobody apparently was armed. We were told that the plan was to “capture and kill” members of Congress. Apparently not. We were told that a Capitol Hill police officer died after being “hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.” Apparently not. But there’s going to be a witch-hun… an independent investigation of the events of that day, events that by all evidence were made possible by the (in)action of certain members of the Ruling Party.

Anyone not of the Blue Church, especially gun owners, are dangerous reactionary maniacs waiting for the right time to rise up in counter-revolution! AND MANY OF THE LEFT BELIEVE IT. When you’re asked how you could believe the election was stolen, they’re asking you how crazy you are.

So how crazy, how dangerousare you?

They want us to be violent. They need us to be violent. They have to have an excuse to crack down and violate the Second Amendment with the blessings of the populace and the full cooperation of the police and the military. They actually think they can pull it off.

Keep fucking around and they’ll find out.

They should—in fact, they must, or else Team Liberty will wake up one fine morning to see that they HAVE pulled it off—completely, all liberty and individual rights stolen from us with nary a shot fired in defense of our precious inheritance. We’re already much too close to that state of affairs for comfort. Follow-up no-shitter from Peter at BRM:

I’ve written several articles pointing out that we can’t vote our way out of this mess. When the November 2020 elections were stolen – literally, through electoral fraud – the conservative side of US politics was (rightly) furious;  but they’re talking in terms of winning the next election, and undoing the damage. That’s not going to happen. The electoral legislation that the Democratic Party is right now ramming through Congress is designed to ensure that it alone wins elections from now on. Anyone else won’t get a look-in unless the powers that be decide to throw the other side a bone or two, to satisfy those they consider dangerous or obsessive.

This has led several commenters to talk (in so many words) in terms of civil war, armed resistance, and the like. I’ve said on more than one occasion that I’ve seen it happen too often in other parts of the world, and it doesn’t solve the problem. It merely compounds the misery for the survivors. However, I fear greatly that it’ll be inevitable sooner or later, because those who’ve seized power are adamant that they’ll never give it up.

Conservatives may believe that the restoration of our constitutional republic is of overriding importance (and, from a political perspective, I agree with them):  but, in terms of that same constitution, the progressive Left has committed high treason. They’ve subverted and undermined the US political process to steal power from the legitimately elected candidate. They know that if they ever lose power, those who take the reins from them will want criminal investigation and prosecution of all those involved in that electoral fraud – and one of the penalties for high treason is death. For the left to allow the right to win would be to commit at least political, if not a very physical suicide. This they will never do voluntarily.

So, when you talk politics in the USA today, bear in mind that it’s not just politics.  It’s a conflict for survival. If we all come to our senses and seek mutual accommodation, that can be mutual survival…but that’s no longer likely. The progressive left has gone all-in on seizing and maintaining control, at any cost.  They’re maintaining a puppet President in power, a man mentally incompetent to and incapable of exercising that office, because they can manipulate him to achieve their ends. They’ve shut off the capital city of our nation from its people, and are protecting themselves and their institutions behind barbed wire and military guards, to keep the people out and keep themselves in power. Those realities alone should illustrate that they’re not going to give up, and they’re not going to go away.

There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This.

Our Founding Fathers had an answer for that. I fear we may have to follow their example.

Peter is correct in every particular; I do believe he’ll be right at home in Ye Olde CF Blogrolle, in which his acute insight and unflinching analysis just landed him a too-belated place. Which reminds me that I really need to do some rearranging and refreshing of the tired ol’ place.

Although I know he wasn’t being literal there, it feels somewhat imprecise for folks to say they “fear” following the Founders’ admirable example. It might be more apropos for one to say he “dreads” that we may have to etc, or “regrets” that we etc, or is “saddened” that etc. But fear? Not so much.

Oh, they might think they want us to be violent; it is imperative, then, that they be schooled in the awful things that can sometimes happen when a misguided or inadequately-considered wish comes true. What THEY want or need is no longer of any concern to us, undeserving of a moment’s attention. Having now openly declared themselves our enemy, our sole concern is our own needs, and how we might go about fulfilling them. The thing WE want THEM to be, the thing we NEED them to be, is mortally terrified of ever fucking with us again. Beyond that, not one damned thing, thanks.

The Left has committed treason all right, but it didn’t begin yesterday, nor even four years ago. They crossed that Rubicon long years ago, incrementally ratcheting up the depredation after being emboldened by the indolent, lackadaisical shrug of the Real American shoulder that was the only response to their heinous offenses. Which only goes to show that, although they may fear us to some extent, they don’t fear us nearly enough. Not yet. Our disgraceful lapse on that count was extremely dangerous—to freedom, to our national birthright, to our future collectively and individually—and must be seen to without further delay.

(Via WRSA)

Nothing new under the sun

Give ’em an inch, and next thing you know you’ve been purged.

Dr. Seuss has been cancelled. Some of his work has been deemed racist, and we can’t have that. On Tuesday, the entity that oversees the estate of Theodor Seuss Geisel announced it would no longer publish six of Geisel’s books because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”

There’s not much point in quibbling over whether these and other such illustrations in the condemned Dr. Seuss books are in fact racist or bigoted, or whether Geisel held racist or xenophobic views. By all accounts he was a liberal-minded and tolerant man who hated Nazis and, as a political cartoonist, mocked the antisemitism that was all-too-common in America during World War II.

But context and nuance don’t factor into the inexorable logic of the woke left, which flattens and refashions the past into a weapon for the culture wars of the present. What’s important to understand is that this isn’t simply about banning six Dr. Seuss books. All of Geisel’s work is, in the judgment of left-wing academia, an exercise in “White supremacy, paternalism, conformity, and assimilation.” It might be easy for conservatives to laugh that off as nonsense, but they shouldn’t, because this isn’t really even about Geisel.

That’s always the way of it. Though it might appear otherwise at first, they’re always aiming at bigger targets, working a broader, more comprehensive plan.

To grasp how a man known as much for his messages of tolerance as for his artistic genius could be canceled for racism, you have to understand what’s actually happening here. The left’s war on the past, on long-dead authors like Geisel, isn’t really about the past, it’s about the future. It’s about who gets to rule, and under what terms.

There’s a predictable pattern to what we’re seeing now. It’s predictable because it has happened before in much the same way it’s happening now. During China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ‘70s, the Chinese Communist Party, at the direction of Mao Zedong, called for the destruction of the “Four Olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas. All of these stood in the way of Mao’s socialist ideology, so they had to be destroyed.

Children and students were encouraged by the communist government to inform on their parents and elders, to shame and condemn them in public. The guilty were forced to recant in “struggle sessions,” during which they were mocked and humiliated, sometimes tortured, sometimes murdered. Before it was over, millions were dead.

We’re obviously not there yet, but the woke revolutionaries who now run our elite institutions and exert outsized influence in the corridors of power are following this same pattern.

Granted, we aren’t there…yet. But we’re a hell of a lot closer than we ought to be, and drawing closer every day.

The people behind the statue-toppling, the digital book burnings, and the street violence won’t stop until all three of these things—history, ideas, and dissidents—have been destroyed. These are all impediments to their cultural revolution, and they mean to eliminate them.

So forget about Dr. Seuss. Forget about the statues and the books. Those things are just the beginning. It could easily get much worse. The woke revolutionaries of the left can’t be bargained with or appeased. They believe this is a zero-sum game, that one side will win and one side will lose. And they’re right.

Indeed they are. All liberty-minded Americans need to figure that out, with a quickness. Because there are a thousand ways this truly existential struggle might be lost, and only way to win it. This New Zealander gets off on the right foot with that, but quickly wanders WAY off course.

Though I’m a New Zealander, I know America and its people well. I’ve travelled to every state in the Lower 48 and have addressed more than 500 audiences across this amazing nation. My message has always been the same: The United States is heading toward a brutally tyrannical socialist revolution—and if America goes down, every free country follows.

Well, now it’s here, people, unfolding before our very eyes.

So, what can be done? Can the Republic be saved? Honestly, I don’t know.

However, I can suggest some steps that would at least give this country a fighting chance.

1. Face Reality
Millions of Americans are still in complete denial. Many think the military is secretly in control—that it’s only a matter of time until justice is done and President Donald Trump is restored. There’s a “secret plan”—just “have faith.” The truth is that Trump was outmaneuvered by an alliance of communists, globalists, and even traitors in his own party. The “deep state” is now almost fully in control.
Trump isn’t coming back into office any time before 2024—if we still have meaningful elections by then.

We’re undergoing a Marxist-Leninist revolution driven by China—right now, in real time.

The military can’t save us, nor can Trump. On the contrary, it’s up to patriots to protect Trump and the Armed Services from unrelenting Democrat/communist attacks.

When enough Americans face the unpleasant truth, then, and only then, can we talk about hope.

No argument here. And now we go a-wandering off into the weeds, wherein Mr Loudon decides to completely turn his back on Step One for some strange reason.

2. Stop All Violent Rhetoric
Violence will not save America. The harsh reality is that President Barack Obama had eight years to replace patriotic generals with left-leaning political appointees. He did a great job. If violence breaks out (God forbid) the military will stand with the government, not the insurgents.

Beware anyone inciting violence online, at a public gathering, or in a private meeting. Distance yourself fast. They will be at best hopelessly naive, at worst government provocateurs.

The left is praying for “right wing” violence. It will give them an excuse for a massive crackdown on patriotic Americans.

Uh huh. As if that wasn’t happening already.

Having said that, the Second Amendment must be preserved all costs.

For what, pray tell?

An armed populace is at least some check on tyranny,

How so, since you already ruled out even “violent rhetoric”? Having foresworn violence altogether, what’s that “armed populace” supposed to do—wave their guns menacingly at their oppressors? Read the Second Amendment to them in a commanding voice? How much of a “check on tyranny” do you really think that amounts to?

even if useless in the face of biological warfare or nuclear attack. Americans should keep their guns and work every day to ensure they never have to use them against their own people.

Sorry if I’m bursting any bubbles here (non-violently!!), but the only sure-fire way of ensuring that is by A) maintaining an absolute, one-hundred-percent-unwavering commitment to liberty and Constitutional principle, and B) abolishing any possibility of doubt in anyone’s mind about the willingness to use those guns for their intended purpose, if regretfully, should ever-creeping tyranny make it necessary. For anyone unclear on what that “intended purpose” might be, do feel free to explore America history circa 1775-79, when it was explicitly and comprehensively spelled out—in writing—by the Founding Fathers.

Follows, some piffle about election reform, boycotts, and other things, which I won’t bother with right now beyond commending Step 1 above to the author’s closer attention. Some of his suggestions actually could be worthwhile; some of them are almost certainly wastes of time and effort. I still do like the nullification idea myself, although the odds of it proving sufficient to avert bloody conflict and restore some semblance of proper governance do seem kinda long. As far as I can determine, historical precedent so far supports “you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out” as immutable Truth, an Iron Law.

I don’t mean to sound as if I’m bashing Loudon, really I don’t. The man is certainly no dummy, and his heart is in the right place. That said, though, we’re brought right back around to the most essential component, the foundation on which the house of liberty stands: the willingness, the resolve, the steel to at least credibly proclaim that the unalienable right to resist tyranny by any and all effective means—emphatically including those codified in the 2A—will NEVER be off the table. Without that all else is moot; the foundation must crumble, and the house of liberty fall.

Talking turkey

Bless our esteemed chum Aesop’s coal-black heart, sez I. That boy still hasn’t learned to pull any punches, and seems commendably disinterested in trying to learn how.

I’ve posted links to military manuals any half-dozen times for a reason, dammit, and it isn’t nostalgia.

Most of you (95%, by all polling data, though the blog stats here may skew a wee bit higher) never got any closer to a military formation than lining up outside for phys ed classes in school. And that was great in a free country but not so much for a burgeoning banana republic, with all the trimmings, which is what we are, right this minute.

So let’s talk turkey:

There are three undeniable truths operating right now in America.

I. Elections are pointless, worthless, and futile.
If you didn’t get that memo despite what happened in November, and again in GA in January, sorry to break it to you, but it’s nevertheless gospel truth.

Anyone yakking about “We’ll get ’em next time!”, “Vote Harder!”, or any variation on “MOAR Elections!” is an unredeemed delusional jackass suffering a psychotic break from reality. They should be placed in a room in a quiet glen, featuring soft music, soft lighting, soft food, and soft walls. They’re fucking nuts. Don’t waste any further breath on them until they wake up, if ever.

TINVOWOOT: There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This.

Learn it, Live it, Love it.

Should you still pull a lever ever again? Hell yes. Enjoy whatever simulacrum of freedom you can, and maximize the time and minimize the gradient of the decline, if such be within your power. Primary out RINOs. Use it as a weed-out for whom to ever listen to, and whom to discount, forever. And a platform to shitpost, meme, rabblerouse, and generally send raspberries at TPTB, while you can. But minimize the time, energy, and funds you spend waste on electoral activities going forward, knowing the entire process is as fake as TV News and pro wrestling.

The other two are just as undeniable as the first, and Aesop lays ’em down just as straightforwardly, unabashedly, and plainspokenly as he did Numero Uno, with nary a flinch to be discerned throughout. After that, a compendium of recommended next steps, the aggregate of which definitely meets all qualifications for what military types of yore used to refer to as a Real No-Shitter. It ought to be required reading for anyone given to A) hopeful and/or naive overconfidence; B) obstreperous blowhardery; or C) half-baked or downright ign’ernt online strategerizing. The kind of unsupported assumptions, egotism, and lack of either practicality or any acquaintance with harsh reality that occlude the vision of people like this has landed way more functional, stable societies than this one deep in the soup, way more than just once.

Yet another alarm klaxon, klaxoning

An intriguing look at the Texas disaster, from the inside.

How would your family, and a hundred thousand other families, like to be stuck in your cars for days at minus 16 degrees?

The death toll would be huge.  It almost happened in New England in 1989.

And in Texas this week.

I was part of the 1989 Freeze and have some hopefully interesting insights.

In 1989, the weather just before Christmas was terrible.  Cold temperature records were set from Texas to New England.

That year, I was responsible for a midcontinent gas gathering system that normally produced about 500 million cubic feet (MMCFD) of natural gas a day.  That could supply up to 2 million New England homes.  During the 1989 Freeze, we produced 30 MMCFD, roughly a 95% decline.  Similar results were happening throughout the Oil Patch.  Supply cratered.

Meanwhile, demand for natural gas was exploding, almost literally (more on that below).  While the midcontinent temperatures were low enough to freeze gas wells, New England had dangerous arctic temperatures of minus 16 degrees.  This created huge natural gas demand for home heating in a major New England town.

The city ultimately weathered that crisis through luck.

Now that we’ve established this guy’s credentials, on to the juicy stuff.

Your city gas company takes gas from high-pressure interstate and intrastate gas pipelines. The gas then moves to customers through its lower-pressured gas distribution pipes. The gas pressure decrease as it as moves to the customers. Normally the utilities’ inlet gas pressure is more than enough for them to supply gas safely.

With 1989 gas production down dramatically and demand exploding, the high-pressure gas system could not supply enough gas to meet demand. This resulted in decreasing line pressures in the high-pressure supply system, lowering the gas utilities’ inlet gas pressure.

The utility’s inlet pressures were so low, and dropping, that soon the distribution system pressures would be below atmospheric pressure. Air could then flow into the gas pipelines. Typically, back-flow valves stop that. Since many of the furnaces were old and converted from prior fuels (oil, coal), proper valving was a big problem.

Oxygen in natural pipelines is incredibly dangerous. Whole city blocks could be destroyed in an air/gas explosion.

To maintain safe gas pressures, the operators wanted to shed load with localized gas shutoffs. Since all non-critical gas loads had already been shutoff, only critical loads were left. This included houses and hospitals. To save the gas grid, the operators had to cutoff gas to a very large number of customers.

Whose gas to shut off?

Scary stuff, this is, and absolutely essential reading. Don’t worry, though; now that Pretend pResident Bai-Ding has given complete access to all aspects of the decrepit and barely-functional US power infrastructure to his CCP handlers and officially made it a wholly-owned subsidiary of ChiCom Inc just like he personally is, I’ll sure our new overlords will be able staighten out this mess for us straightaway.

DeSantis is already MY president

This isn’t the part of Kruiser’s Morning Brief I wanted to mention, but there’s something in the second paragraph I can’t let slide by without comment.

Lent is here and none too soon. This year I’m giving up regret and despair. That stuff is too easy to get addicted to these days. Let’s hope and pray that the secular heathens don’t try to cancel Easter in the name of public safety now.

Maybe Stephen didn’t intend it, but the implication seems to be that the Fauxvid panic-pimps didn’t already cancel Easter once. In fact, if I remember right, last year there was even a minister or three arrested for daring to defy Amerika’s One True God (the Almighty State, that is) and hold Easter worship services anyway. Our power-drunk despots coast to coast then went on to try to rigidly control every other holiday in 2020, meeting with varying degrees of submission. So sorry and all that, but any hope that our masters might deign to relent and take the boot off our necks in time for Easter this year is vain, a fool’s fantasy.

Now let’s move on to more heartening stuff.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. I’ve been singing his praises since last spring, when he was doing all of the right things in response to the Wuhan Chinese Bat Flu while idiot boy Andrew Cuomo was killing as many elderly New Yorkers as he could. The press was excoriating DeSantis and praising Cuomo, and a conservative star was born.

DeSantis’s handling of the bottom feeders in the mainstream media has been so masterful that I recently wrote that it would be nice if he could teach some tricks to other Republicans. The kinds of Republicans who are going to try and screw up the party now that Trump is no longer in D.C.

DeSantis continues to make all the right people angry, which as you know is a favorite criterion of mine for judging our elected officials. DeSantis has been flying in the face of the liberal hypocrisy orthodoxy regarding whether schools should be open or not. Lib politicians are, of course, utterly beholden to the demands of teachers’ unions, who have been lobbying hard to get paid, get vaccinated, and not return to work.

As the GOP looks to 2024, it should look outside the Beltway for its nominee. This is, of course, setting aside the idea of Trump making a comeback, which I would still support. Who knows where we will all be by the time the 2024 presidential campaign kicks off on New Year’s Day 2023? If we had to set the wheels in motion for a candidate now, however, DeSantis would be one of the most obvious choices.

As the governor of a large state, DeSantis has a name recognition advantage that most governors don’t enjoy. Additionally, all of the undeserved negative press he’s gotten in the last year has backfired and made him better known than the Democrats probably wanted him to be. If he remains popular and is a serious contender in ’24 it will make all of his haters’ heads explode. He might get my support just for that.

The Republican cupboard isn’t bare as we head into the next couple of election cycles.

We have to take our comfort where we can get it.

True enough, as far as it goes. But knowing that there is no longer the proverbial snowball’s chance of electing anything but a housebroken GOPer from now on—that having gotten away clean with stealing the last one, the pattern for successful Demonrat election theft going forward is firmly set—makes that comfort mighty cold indeed.

RIP Rush Limbaugh

Someone who understood that, once in a great while, it really is possible for a single individual to change the world—understood better than most, because he did it himself.

Before Rush, talk radio was different. Talk radio was about cotton-candy issues.  Larry King on the Mutual Broadcast Network hosted an overnight parade of callers talking about pets, childhood memories, landscaping, and just how they were doing. Scores of local talk show hosts – like Perry Marshall at KDKA in Pittsburgh – entertained with friendly chat, the sweet cotton candy that dissolves away quick into meaninglessness.

That was radio B.R. – Before Rush.

To exactly no one’s surprise, the Compassionate, Caring Left™ responded with their usual subhuman, barely-sentient cruelty.

After news broke that conservative talk show giant Rush Limbaugh had died at age 70 on Wednesday, many on the Left took to trashing Limbaugh and celebrating his death. Many on Twitter expressed ill-wishes, hoping Limbaugh would “rest in piss.” Many prominent celebrities shared fabricated quotes falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh or took his remarks out of context to condemn him.

Because of course they did; this is who they are, this is what they do, and I see no need to belabor that more than obvious point. There’s a different one to be made here, a far more worthwhile one, which I’ll preface with this ostensibly more “reasonable” response:

Uygur-Limbaugh-Tweet.jpeg

No, you lying, sniveling pussy, what Limbaugh actually attacked was Leftism. Which brings us to the bottom line:

THERE IS NO LONGER ANY REASON WHATSOEVER FOR NORMAL AMERICANS TO TREAT THESE VICIOUS ANIMALS KINDLY, FAIRLY, OR RESPECTFULLY, NOR TO ACT AS IF THEIR OPINIONS MATTER IN THE LEAST.

Sympathy? Restraint? For them? Not on your life. Their own unrestrained hatred and vileness must be returned tenfold. The war against them must be acknowledged and waged as war to the knife—real, existential, and morally just.

All fretting over “becoming more like them” or “taking the high road” from our side must now be abandoned. There is no longer any need for analyzing or genteely discussing such matters; there is no longer any question about them. Ugliness and evil must be reflected directly back, in fullest intensity, at the twisted goblins who weaponized them for political use—the tools of tyranny—lest the righteous find themselves overwhelmed. Those who fail to recognize this demonic Enemy for who and what he is, or are too fastidious to do everything necessary to ensure his destruction, will surely perish.

I decided long years ago—I think it was the frabjous day that the odious Ted Kennedy assumed room temperature, maybe—that I would no longer express anything but my truest feelings on the passing of such filthy scum. Never again will I feign grief or sadness when some cancerous Lefty boil on the ass of humanity is finally removed from this world. Their rightful place is in Hell, in the presence of the Master they were always so eager to serve. So when such a one shuffles off this mortal coil at long, long last to receive his eternal due, is there anybody who could seriously argue that his departure from our midst ought to be regarded as some kind of loss? When decent men contort themselves to heap empty, false praise upon the death of lesser sorts whose corruption, moral bankruptcy, and contempt for justice is well known, does not the dishonest act, although well-intentioned, put their own eternal souls at risk? Is prostitution really the price exacted by politesse at times like this?

Speaking strictly for myself: nope, don’t think so, sorry, not gonna do it. Call me uncivil, call me uncouth, call me whatever other names you wish. This is a game I just won’t play anymore. After so many years of enduring the sordid spectacle of soulless fiends gleefully ladling shit over the memory of our dear departed the way they always do I am quite happy to return the favor, with interest compounded. If I even bother to say anything at all, that is. If that leaves me open to a charge of “sinking to their level” or some such from my more effete colleagues…well, so be it then. Don’t like it? Don’t care. Henceforth, I desire only to inflict any and every injury I can on The Enemy, crippling or trivial, and pledge not to allow a single opportunity to do so pass me by. The more he suffers, the gladder I’ll be. To hell with them, one and all. That’s all there is to it.

Now let’s leave the Left to their abominable obsequies and get back to Rush, shall we? Doc Zero says it’s a funeral for a friend:

I never got to speak to Rush Limbaugh, but he always seemed like a friend I heard from every day. He quoted my work on the air a few times, and it was a surreal delight, a joyous thing that could not possibly be happening. He helped us all become friends.

That’s the real measure of Rush’s impact. He helped so many people realize they were not alone, even as the mainstream media labored to make them feel isolated and hopeless. He understood that totalitarians overwhelm and dominate ordinary people by making them *feel* surrounded.

How often good and decent people felt isolated before Rush! They wondered why nobody could see what was so perfectly obvious to them. The secret of totalitarian success is to make ordinary people fear everyone around them is an informer or enforcer. Rush shattered that illusion.

The illusion of manufactured consensus and forced conformity never worked on Rush, not for a minute. He KNEW we were all out here, long before his ratings proved it. He gave so many others the confidence to raise their voices, knowing they were not alone.

It takes incredible talent and discipline to realize a bold vision like that. I heard him on the air not long ago, and thought he sounded great, as if time had not touched the voice I first heard over 30 years ago. Someone had to do what he did, but not just anyone COULD have.

And now the Internet will be filled with ugly cries of triumph from the howling darkness Rush spent his life opposing… proving him right once again, one more time. They’re still dangerous, but they aren’t scary any more, not after Rush spent all those years mocking them.

We all lost a great friend in Rush Limbaugh today, but he showed us how many friends we really have, across this nation and many others. We are one less, but because of him, we will never again fear we are alone. One voice is stilled, but there will never again be silence.

We can only hope not. Even so, it’s hard to imagine who could possibly fill his shoes. Whatever comes next, the struggle will go on. Klavan recommends defiance as the proper way to honor Limbaugh’s memory:

How could I not be delighted at the fear and loathing he inspired in the great and good? During my long absence from America, the great and good had become such smug, small-minded, and provincial little people, it was a guilty pleasure to watch them writhe on the flame he lit beneath them. For decades, feminists had called men “pigs.” Now Rush called them “feminazis,” and they threw their aprons over their faces and sobbed about his lack of civility. For decades, race-mongers had blamed an innocent generation of whites for a history that they hadn’t made, and now Rush mocked the mongers with wicked impressions, and declared it was time for black Americans to get on board the freedom train with their white fellow citizens.

It was beautiful. Courageous. The kind of radio magic I’d grown up with. And it changed me, or at least helped me change. Rush gave a joyful voice to the new thoughts I didn’t even know I’d had.

I do not cry for dead celebrities. I have just enough tears for the people I know and love. But I choked up when I heard that Rush had left the studio. He was silenced just at the moment when the elite and powerful would silence us all. Our politicians seek to demonize half the nation—Rush’s half. Our news media calls for censorship. Tech billionaires sit on their mountains of gold and gesture like foppish princes to tell us who shall speak and who shall not.

Let us defy them, then. Let us all speak, and fearlessly. Let that be Rush’s monument. In a way, he built it himself.

Seconded, heartily. In his brief post, Michael Walsh offers similar advice:

A great man died today: Rush Limbaugh was 70. He was perceptive on many social and political issues, including the ludicrous claims on the Left that human beings are causing “global warming” or “climate change,” when in fact the “crisis” was and remains simply another “progressive” path to power and domination — “a political movement disguised as science.”

A notion that carbon-based life forms (us) are destroying the planet (ours) by means of carbon emissions is profoundly anti-human. Rush’s greatest legacy may well turn out to be how accurately he exposed them and their malignant misanthropy on this and many other subjects. Let us never forget his lessons and continue to face down the enemies within with humor, wit, intelligence and, above all, courage.

Above even that, let our perception of the Enemy be clear-eyed; let us neither shirk nor flinch from whatever our sacred duty to defend liberty may demand of us, no matter how daunting or distasteful. Let our resolve in the face of the Enemy be as steel, our hearts as ice. Let us be unstinting and implacable in the pursuit of victory—uncompromised victory, unambiguous victory, TOTAL victory. Let us be fully aware that anything short of it would be tantamount to defeat, therefore unacceptable.

Elsewhere, Steyn’s compelling tribute might be the perfect closer, so I’ll excerpt liberally from it even as I also insist that you read every word of it.

It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of Rush Limbaugh, a giant of American broadcasting, a uniquely talented performer, and a hugely generous man to whom I owe almost everything.

One man doing what he wanted to do saved an entire medium – AM radio – and turned all its old rules upside down: Traditionally, morning drive is your big audience, and everything tapers off from there. Rush figured that everyone needs a local guy at that time, with traffic and weather updates, and that the opportunity to build a national show lay in the hitherto somnolent slot of noon-to-three Eastern/nine-to-twelve Pacific. And within a couple of years hundreds of stations were building the entire schedule around the midday guy. In the scheme of things, I am not sure how many of those stations will be able to keep that going without him.

Powerful politicians and longtime fans were often surprised, upon meeting him, to find a man who was quite private and indeed shy – because, like many radio guys, he had no desire to have a public persona other than at the microphone. Unlike so many others in this business, Rush was hugely generous and totally secure. Unlike other shows of left and right, where the staff come and go every six weeks, everyone at the EIB Network has been there fifteen, twenty, thirty years. That includes, in a very peripheral way, yours truly. When I first started guest-hosting, I found it odd that, on the rare occasions Rush mentioned the subs, it would be to put them down. Because, I mean, who would do that? But Rush is the least insecure star on the planet, and I came to see that he was actually teaching the neophytes a very important lesson: You guys need to be completely secure too – because it’s the only way to survive in this wretched media. I came to appreciate that being put down by Rush was actually a far greater compliment than him doing some boilerplate hey-he’s-a-great-guy shtick. And one of the saddest days of my fifteen years with EIB was when I heard Rush a few months back expressing genuine, sincere gratitude for something I’d said about him a few days earlier. As I pleaded on air, I just wanted the old Rush back scoffing at his guest-hosts – so we’d know all was well in the world.

I have come to admire him even more this last year. When he announced his diagnosis, we all knew this story only has one ending, and it’s just a question of how many chapters there are leading up to it. Rush loved what he did more than anything in life except his family. He had no interest in going to Tahiti to watch the sunset. He wanted to be behind the Golden EIB Microphone every day that he could. So initially he took a couple of days off every three weeks for treatment, and then the two days became four, and the treatment weeks took their toll and spilled into the following week. But, through it all, he remained determined to do every single show he could – because, aside from anything else, he wanted to make sure he, his listeners, his brand, his stations did everything they could to put President Trump across the finish line on November 3rd.

Events didn’t quite turn out the way he wanted – although they might have if more people had worked as hard as a man ravaged by Stage IV cancer did, in defiance of his doctors’ prognostications. The last three months, when he and Kathryn had surely earned those Tahitian sunsets, took a terrible toll. But he stayed on the air until just a fortnight ago – because above all he wanted to keep faith with tens of millions of listeners, many of whom had been listening to him their entire lives and could not imagine a world without him.

We are about to find out.

We are at that, and it promises to be neither pleasant nor pretty.

In a sense, it’s fitting that Rush leaves us even as the light of America That Was has been dimmed, if not extinguished outright. One can easily imagine how deeply the unprecedented events over the last year must have troubled him, how painfully they wounded him as he witnessed his beloved country wantonly savaged by audacious but wholly witless fanatics. The Shadow, expanding as it descends, is a drain on the spirit of the strong and weak alike, until it finally devours all.

In his post title, Steyn calls Rush The Indispensable Man, and that he indubitably was. Although I haven’t listened to him much over recent years, there’s no gainsaying his impact, and we can all expect the impact of his loss to be no less momentous. Conservatism as we know it today would simply not exist without Rush Limbaugh. As he singlehandedly revived the dying medium of AM radio, so it was with conservatism itself. Love him or hate him, he was and will ever remain not merely “The Big Voice on the Right,” as he dubbed himself with the bombastic yet slyly facetious overstatement so characteristic of the man. In reality, his voice was The Biggest.

If that ain’t indispensable, I don’t know what is. Be at peace, Rush. You will be sorely, sorely missed.

Update! Several good reminiscences from reformed liberals on their conversion from darkness to light, starting with the valiant, much-lamented warrior Andrew Breitbart.

One day I asked [my future father-in-law Orson Bean] why he had Rush Limbaugh’s book The Way Things Ought to Be on his shelf. I asked him, “Why would you have a book by this guy?”

And Orson said, “Have you ever listened to him?”

I said yes, of course, even though I never had. I was convinced to the core of my being that Rush Limbaugh was a Nazi, anti-black, anti-Jewish, and anti-all things decent. Without berating me for disagreeing with him, Orson simply suggested that I listen to him again.

This is where my rendezvous with destiny begins.

I turned on KFI 640 AM to listen to evil personified from 9 a.m. to noon. Indeed, my goal was to derive pleasure from the degree of evil I found in Rush Limbaugh. I was looking forward to a jovial discussion with Orson to confirm how right I was. One hour turned into three. One listening session into a week’s worth. And next thing I knew, I was starting to doubt my preprogrammed self. I was still a Democrat. I was still a liberal.

But after listening for months while putting thousands of miles on my car, I couldn’t believe that I once thought this man was a Nazi or anything else. While I couldn’t yet accept the premise that he was speaking my language, I marveled at how he could take a breaking news story and offer an entertaining and clear analysis that was like nothing I had ever seen on television, especially the Sunday morning shows, which had been my previous one-stop shop for political opinions.

Most important, though, Limbaugh, like the professor I always wanted but never had the privilege to study under, created a vivid mental picture of the architecture of a world that I resided in but couldn’t see completely: the Democrat-Media Complex. Embedded in Limbaugh’s analysis of politics was always a tandem discussion on the media. Each segment relentlessly pointed to collusion between the media and the Democratic Party. If the Clarence Thomas hearings showed me that something was wrong, the ensuing years of listening to Limbaugh and Dennis Prager — who at the time was also undergoing a political transformation from the Democratic to the Republican Party — explained to me with eerie precision what exactly was wrong. I swallowed hard and conceded to Orson that he was right.

It takes great courage, strength, and humility to swallow one’s pride, admit error, and redirect oneself towards the path of wisdom. Not everybody possesses those gifts; hardly any Leftists do, which helps to explain the extraordinary vehemence and frenzy fueling the ritualistic denunciation of former comrades who reject their previous Progtard beliefs for conservatism. Another:

It was 1992, and I was on vacation in Dallas, Texas. I had literally escaped Los Angeles after riots had broken out, but that’s a story for another time. My friend, who is an airline pilot, told me about this great new radio program called The Rush Limbaugh Show, and since I was a passenger in his car I got a chance to listen in. This Rush Limbaugh guy was kind of funny, but a little too bombastic for my then-moderate tastes. So, once I returned to California, I dismissed the show from my mind.

In 1995, I had a roommate who I couldn’t stand, and she was a Dittohead. Rush Limbaugh was in the last year of his television show, so she watched it religiously. I thought it was a bit cultish and, coupled with my disdain for this particular roommate, I decided that if she liked it, then it wasn’t for me. So, I once again dismissed the show.

Fast forward to 2007. I had a hella long commute to work, and since my very new husband at the time listened to talk radio, I decided to give that a try to get me through the miles, and give us another point of commonality to share. Guess who happened to be on during the time I was on the road? the one and only Rush Limbaugh.

Maybe it was the ability to listen to the entire show, but this time, I was drawn in. Rush’s distribution company Clear Channel Communications had just received a censure letter from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, lambasting Rush for criticizing U.S. troops who were against the war in Iraq, calling them “phony soldiers.” What ensued, with Rush auctioning off the letter to charity for $2.1 million dollars, was the ultimate troll, and extremely savage. Rush gave zero f**ks about it and flipped the script by doing some good for a worthy cause while handing the evil Harry Reid his ass.

From that moment on I was hooked, and listened regularly.

Rush was indeed unique in his ability to persuade, as well as his near-uncanny insight into the effectiveness of humor to get his ideas across. But there’s another essential ingredient in the Limbaugh formula for success, maybe the most important of them all. And somehow, despite their self-proclaimed intellectual superiority, it’s always been beyond the comprehension of Lefty Limbaugh-haters.

Rush’s critics always… always misunderstood him. Maybe it was purposeful. Rush’s critics always depicted him as an angry flame-thrower ranting into his microphone and giving marching orders to his army of ignorant, brainwashed minions.

They couldn’t be more wrong about all of that.

Rush was always smiling… and he was always funny. And he wasn’t giving us marching orders by telling us what to think. It was, in fact, the very opposite.

Rush wasn’t telling us what to think; he was articulating what we already believed. He was just the first to come along and respect us for our views, told us he shared them, and then he used his talents (on loan from God) to crystalize those ideas and articulate them in a clever, succinct, and entertaining way. And…never forget this…he was communicating those ideas on our behalf.

He was there for us. Not to tell us what to think but to help us articulate what we believed and remind us that we are not alone. And he did that in a very personal way.

Precisely. It’s so simple and obvious only a liberal could be unable to grasp it. It’s hopeless, I know, but what the hell. I’ll explain it one more time.

See, some might wave away Rush’s astounding and prolonged success as a matter of sheer dumb luck or, slightly more charitably, fortuitous timing. I think that’s dubious at best. Rush had a huge audience already in place just waiting for someone like him to come along. Millions of put-upon Americans, traditionally revered as the very heart, soul, and backbone of their nation, suddenly scorned as disgusting, bigoted ignoramuses—undeserving beneficiaries of a commodious lifestyle made possible only by the systematic exploitation and abuse of blameless foreigners. From salt of the earth to scum of the earth, in what must have felt like no more than the blink of an eye.

So here’s Normie Joe Sixpack, having had a bellyful of being defamed, denounced, and socially disenfranchised for crimes he never committed at the (soft) hands of mollycoddled ingrates who parasitically enjoyed the fruits produced by Joe’s hard work and ever-stiffening taxes. Then he happens upon a fella on the radio one fine day who not only professes the same beliefs as him, but is doing so with pride, passion, and eloquence. Can you even imagine what that unlooked-for discovery must have felt like to bewildered, frustrated, increasingly pissed off ol’ Joe? It was an affirmation long overdue, and well-earned. How could poor Joe reasonably be expected not to respond with jubilation, rewarding this newfound champion with undying loyalty and affection for their against-all-odds liberation?

Note: If this doesn’t remind you of the response bestowed on a certain outsider President (himself criminally harried from office by the same Lefty hellhounds persecuting poor Normie Joe) for a like affirmation, you should see a doctor to have yourself tested for latent Libtard Syndrome without delay, before your affliction can metastasize and reach its final, incurable stage. The good news is that a significant percentage of the population enjoys a powerful natural resistance to infection; for reasons not yet understood, those with higher levels of intelligence and self-respect have nothing to fear from this mysterious and deadly disease. For the unfortunate percentage who do contract it, LS is known to be one hundred percent fatal to reason, happiness, and mental stability in the briefest of intervals following the onset of frank symptoms. It is nothing to be messing around with.

Anyways. Evidence abounds supporting the contention that Rush was well aware of his potential audience, and of what that might mean for his own prospects, and his country’s. Not to imply that he cynically exploited that knowledge solely for his own enrichment; far from it. Limbaugh still faced years of toil, skepticism, and overt opposition from within his own industry, which I’m sure he also knew. It’s to his eternal credit that he didn’t let the obstacles daunt or dissuade him, readily accepting the challenge to eventually win through via dogged determination; an unshakable faith in his talent, his audience, and his message; and a lifelong ambition to carve out a career for himself in the broadcast-radio industry he so passionately loved.

It sounds like a horrible thing to say, but it’s kind of a shame Rush’s death had to come during the chaotic, floundering rein of an Enemy regime composed entirely of traitors mindlessly hostile to absolutely every principle he stood for. Trump would have seen to it that this profoundly consequential patriot’s legacy was honored as it ought to be, the grief of his admirers respected instead of ignored. But regardless of the indifference that is the very best we can hope for from the illegitimate BaiDing-Harris junta, I’d bet Rush Limbaugh’s funeral is going to be as unforgettable as the man himself was.

So fuck all the haters anyhow. Who cares? There’s not a damned thing they can do to prevent Real Americans from paying their last respects to a truly extraordinary man who was truly one of their own, and proud to be. Maybe the incandescent rage sparked by their own impotence will cause a few of them to keel over dead from a stroke or something. Let them fume, let them shriek, let them hate; the hatred of a scoundrel is an honorable man’s reward. The MahaRushi will be fondly remembered long after the pathetic Stumblebum In Thief and all his works have been forgotten. Rush Limbaugh’s inspiring legacy of achievement and uplift will forever eclipse the usurper Biden’s disgraceful record of corruption, self-regard, and insignificance.

The Plot thickens

Well, this certainly didn’t take as long as I expected it to.

Kamala Harris Already Taking Head of State Phone Calls With World Leaders
Just weeks into Joe Biden’s “transition” presidency, his second-in-command, Kamala Harris has already begun taking Head of State phone calls with world leaders, it has been learned.

A White House readout of a recent call between the deeply unlikable and unpopular Harris and President Emmanuel Macron of France was first noticed by the National Pulse. 

On Feb. 1, Harris also spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in her first call with a foreign leader, the Daily Mail reported.

I said from the start that I figured his puppeteers would go on with the charade that Cadaver Joe was competently in charge for a few months before somebody slipped a stiff jolt of cyanide into his daily reanimation injection, whereupon it would be announced that poor ol’ Gropey had succumbed to the FAUXVID19 Plague and the nation would pretend to be in mourning over their tragic loss as Kummala underwent her final preps for the move into the Big Chair.

I adjusted my thinking after reading (someplace or other, can’t remember now) some speculation on an even more likely scenario: the mouldering Bidencorpse would be propped up somehow for two years before the switcheroo is made, after which Harris could not only serve out Gropey’s last two years but also remain eligible to run for two full terms of her own. Should Gropey succumb before that two-year line is drawn, no dice.

Plausible? Oh, you betcher. That would give the Dems ten uninterrupted years to cement their hold on power permanently, trashing whatever pitiful remants of the country are left and completing their lusted-after Fundamental Transformation once and for all. I mean, what’s not to like? For them, I mean. Ace analysis:

State-to-state communication is supposed to always be between equals. And that means a head of a foreign state talks to the head (supposedly) of the American state.

If the president delegates a lesser official to call, then the foreign state also puts a lesser official on the call.

But Vice President (citation needed) Kamala Harris is now doing the job of the Commander in Chief.

And foreign heads of state are talking with her.

So they know. They’ve been told, Dementia Joe just isn’t up to it. He’s an old cottonheaded puppet.

This is unconstitutional. Invoke the 25th Amendment and call a lid on Sundown Joe.

A fine idea, sure enough. But the execution of such an obviously appropriate move would require a genuine, honest-to-God opposition party, an item which we seem to be all out of at the moment. In any event, one thing is perfectly clear: the Seatwarmer In Thief must be in pretty sorry shape indeed if he’s already being nudged offstage so Kummala can prematurely take her star turn. The shadowy Deep State director behind the curtain can’t be too happy about that; the Fourth Wall has been broken, throwing the whole production into a cocked hat. Some pretty fancy footwork will be necessary if suspension of disbelief is to be restored.

Mythbuster

The Trumpian Heresy.

We all know, deep down, that our “Republic” is not a really functioning democracy. This is probably why our leaders, far more so than leaders of genuinely democratic countries such as Switzerland or Norway, feel the need to constantly emphasize the importance, as Nancy Pelosi put it pompously in a January 10 press release, of “protecting our Constitution and Democracy.” They do this to overcompensate for insecurities and doubts. It is part of our national Myth—our Civil Religion—that we are the ultimate democratic nation. This is the real reason why Donald Trump was impeached. He has committed heresy against the American Myth.

Myths, according to anthropologists, are fundamental in holding peoples together, in covering-up contradictions, creating a united group and legitimizing those in power. Thus, questioning them—even if they are empirically false—is generally Not Done. Doing so is, perhaps only unconsciously, regarded as a heretical attempt to destroy the society and all those invested in the status quo.

This was best articulated—though you have to read between the lines—by NBC political correspondent Kelly O’Donnell when she was interviewed on NBC News on the morning of February 11th. O’Donnell explained that Trump’s political career has been marked by:

…saying things that others would fear to say and recoil at saying; talking about rigged elections…The idea of saying that something is rigged for most politicians would be a step too far. For Donald Trump, as a candidate and president, he was certainly willing to blow past those lines of normalcy and sort of discretion and the frequency of repeating it really created a bond with his supporters. [My transcription].

Saying these things, according to O’Donnell, caused Trump’s supporters to question the sacred cow of whether American elections were genuinely fair, infuriating them, and leading to the “insurrection” that was indeed—according to O’Donnell—a “threat to democracy.”

So, even if there has been a rigged election—or even if you genuinely believe that an election has been rigged—you should surely have enough “discretion” to not go public about it.

Although Americans aren’t generally aware of it, international analyses have concluded that America is the one of the least democratic countries in the “democratic” category of countries. It is only just about possible to call it democratic at all. According to the Electoral Integrity Project’s analysis, the US came near the bottom of this second highest group for honest elections, tying with Mexico. This because a number of factors frowned on by international observers open it up to electoral fraud. These include: no voter ID, mail-in ballots, duplicate registration, election observers being prevented from observing, unreliable voting machines, the media calling results while some areas are still voting and so literally influencing the election, and voter fraud not being prosecuted often enough.

But of course voter fraud can’t be prosecuted. To admit that it happens would be to admit that a component of the American Civil Religion is nonsense.

There was way more than just that one component confirmed as denialist moonshine during Trump’s wearing term under Oval Office siege. Ultimately, though, the problem vexing our present-day Swamp “nobility” is the same one their Medieval forerunners—cited by the author in a most apt comparison—were eventually undone by: once the serfs have witnessed the slaughter of those Sacred Cows, there’s no way they can be made to unsee it.

Publick Notice

So after many months of stalling and dithering on my part—leading to a good swift boot in the ass from a good friend of mine who has appointed himself my partner in this venture, so as to goad me into finally doing something I’ve been extremely reluctant to do—I am, umm, pleased to announce that all the pieces are now in place allowing me to get to work in earnest on Ye Olde RadioCF Podcaste. Meaning, all the necessary startup gear has been rounded up; I’ve put together an archive page for the thing; cobbled together some theme music; settled on vital conceptual minutiae like format and features, etc. I’m even now working on some rough script outlines and trying to figure out how said hardware works, and expect to begin actual recording in about two weeks or so.

We’ll see how it all goes, I reckon. It’s gonna be audio only, at least for now and most likely permanently, since I have no wish to inflict my scarifying elderly visage on anyone via video, and it would only be just me and another guy sitting around talking anyway. It won’t be all politics all the time either, not a-tall. At the moment, the plan is to include:

  • A regular music segment, with recordings and historical tidbits featuring old blues, rockabilly, country, and maybe classic rock
  • A regular American history segment, with brief bios and quotes from the Founders, analysis and discussion of their intentions, maybe some overview of the Constitution and how our goobermint is supposed to work, as contrasted with the toxic sludge-pit we’re currently cursed by
  • A regular political/current events rant, which will probably be a bit lengthier timewise than the rest
  • The occasional celebrity and/or public-figure interview, as and when
  • Occasional random odds ‘n’ ends about old Fords, old Harleys, old guitars and amps, Snap-On tools, and whatever else pops up
  • Other stuff (???)

I also really dig the idea of throwing in some fake interviews, kinda-sorta stealth comedy a la the great Phil Hendry, a guy I used to love listening to back in my truck-driving years. It was always a toss-up as to which aspect of the Hendry schtick was more gut-bustingly hilarious: the goofball characters Hendry would (self-)interview, or the rubes who called in to froth and rave in objection to the outlandish, made-up flakes and freaks Hendry had just suckered them with so slyly. Hell, there were times when I wasn’t quite sure myself if an interview was on the level, although as the night wore on and things started to get progressively more chaotic and out of hand the hoax became obvious, and was all the funnier for it. Successfully aping Hendry might well be beyond my ability, I confess; I am by no means the talented professional comic Hendry is, not even close. Again: we’ll see.

Per the advice of a certain other buddy of mine—an experienced and well-connected broadcast media pro who is responsible for pushing me in the podcast direction in the first place—the schedule calls for one thirty (30) minute RadioCF ep per week. New installments will probably drop on Wednesday evenings, or perhaps Fridays. Or Mondays. As you can see, that part is still up in the air. But we’ll definitely be sticking to a regular release shedule once things get cranking.

Anyways, there ya have it. I’ve never had the slightest interest in podcasts for some odd reason, either doing ’em myself or listening to ’em. In truth, I’ve only ever listened to precisely one of the blasted things, which was an interview by the above-mentioned media-connected friend with legendary rock and roll producer Rodney Mills, who as it happens was also the engineer/producer on the BPs live rekkid, One Nite of Sin.

In the end, the only way I could finally bring myself to go ahead an attempt a podcast of my own was by using the old radio shows done by iconic Golden Age platter jockeys such as Murray the K or the insanely brilliant Pete “Mad Daddy” Myers as my guide and model.

The whole idea here, then, will be to maintain my own interest in this project and keep things fresh for one and all via refusing to recognize any restrictions on subject matter, concept, or anything else. There may be some wild ideas expressed, or well-outside-the-mainstream points of view presented. There may be music you don’t much care for, other things you may find offensive or obnoxious. I can pretty much guarantee there will be cussin’.

That’s the real beauty of podcasting, though. As with the Innarnuts entire, there ARE no restrictions. It’s the Wild West plus Mardi Gras times Mad Max—no limits, no hidden surcharge, no holds barred. Likewise, I am under NO “fair play” obligations; there is no “equal time” rule I’m aware of for podcasts. So you can safely assume that, except for purposes of ridicule and insult, Leftism will have no home here, to stab them with their own lazy lackwitticism. Hopefully, we can come up with a show each week that’s fun, interesting, rollicking, even informative for y’all CF miscreants and scoundrels to enjoy. Once more: we’ll see how it goes.

The story so far

The Burning Platform’s Jim Quinn graciously e-mailed to inform me that he had put together a two-parter whose conclusion had been partially inspired by my own humble efforts. Part One opens with an excellent, if dismaying, sit-rep:

The takeover of the country by an amalgamation of bad characters representing fascist corporatism, collectivism, billionaire oligarchs, social media tyrants, pandemic peddlers, and Deep State snake oil surveillance state salesmen has marked a turning point for the country. Battle lines are being drawn, a propaganda war is already being waged, enemies are preparing for conflict, rage is rising, and the country is headed towards some level of dissolution.

Events since the inception of the release of the China virus from the Wuhan bio-weapon lab, have been accelerating towards an epic struggle between those constituting the true power in the country and those they consider deplorable and undeserving of respect or a voice in how the country is governed. The shadowy figures behind the curtain of Bernays’ invisible government have revealed themselves and no longer fear the plebs they rule over, as their sociopathic hubris has convinced themselves they are invincible.

They have been emboldened by the success they have achieved in engineering a takeover of the government through weaponizing a flu to coerce politicians into shutting down the nation; utilizing propaganda to induce the majority of Americans to cower in fear from a virus that is highly non-lethal (99.7% survival rate) to anyone under 80; destroying hundreds of thousands of small businesses while enriching mega-corporations; successfully rigging a presidential election through mail-in ballot fraud and vote machine machinations; provoking a fake race crisis using BLM and ANTIFA useful idiots; profiting to the tune of trillions from the Fed money printing operation; suppressing free speech and medical truths about the virus through social media censorship; setting up Trump supporters as dangerous insurrectionists with the Capital farce, subsequent white supremacist storyline, and militarization of Washington DC to complete the false narrative; and now having their empty vessel pretend president signing executive orders to pull the country hard left; with Supreme Court packing, DC and Puerto Rico statehood on the docket; and Domestic Terrorism legislation to make all Trump supporters enemies of the state.

The overlords think throwing $600 at the plebs every six months, while allowing them a pittance of unemployment crumbs, will keep them sedated as long as they have their iGadgets to keep them distracted. The unholy triumvirate of Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Gov are generating tens of billions by peddling a DNA altering experimental rushed vaccine, that isn’t really a vaccine and doesn’t really keep you from getting Covid or spreading it further. We also don’t know the long-term consequences of this “medicine”. And it seems the triumvirate is doing their best to cover up the adverse reactions being reported, miscarriages and numerous deaths of nursing home patients shortly after getting the jab.

The blizzard of lies about the effectiveness of face diapers and lockdowns from “medical experts”, “journalists”, corporate media propagandists, and government apparatchiks has been relentless. These fabricators bloviate about following the science while ignoring the facts proving masks and lockdowns DO NOT WORK and ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine DO WORK. The level of deceit and deception being applied by those in power is drastically increasing the anger and rage in the country towards authority.

The country is already at war, even though many don’t know it, and the Deep State/Oligarchs are clearly winning. This begs the question, how can you defeat an enemy who controls the presidency, congress, mainstream media, social media, major cities, major states, the military, FBI, CIA, DOJ, and the courts? The truth is they think they’ve already won the war and will dictate the terms we will be forced to live by.

But hubris, arrogance and pride are always the Achilles heel of sociopaths, believing they know what is best for humanity while inflicting their lunatic solutions upon their subjects. The feeling among millions of Americans is they have either been abandoned, stabbed in the back, or robbed. They aren’t exactly sure who to blame, who to trust, or who to fight, but they are trying to figure out the best course of action, given the current circumstances.

The building anger in the country is palpable. The question is how do you fight an enemy with overwhelming superiority in financial resources, police and military forces, corporate media outlets, social media platforms, the financial system, intel agencies, and all branches of the government? This question is what made me recall the WarGames final scene. The only winning move is not to play. Direct confrontation is destined for failure.

The only way to defeat this enemy is through guile, cunning, patience, and persistence. The same method of resistance will not work for all people. Everyone’s individual circumstances will dictate how they resist. There doesn’t need to be a central commander or massed forces. Differing versions of guerrilla warfare will suffice. The enemy is a bureaucratic behemoth, slow and unwieldy, led by arrogant mediocrities, unable to strategize their way out of a wet paper bag. They know only how to use force and threats to achieve their despicable ends.

A strong dose of 190-proof truth, injected straight into the main vein via needle-sharp analysis and pulse-quickening prose. In Part 2, Quinn examines a possible cure for what ails us, a prescription I wrote about a few weeks back my own self. Read both of Jim’s pieces, and ponder ’em well.

The nullification ball gets rolling

Wheels are turning.

North Dakota Republicans Move to Wrest Control from Biden, Place Power Back with the Constitution

Whenever Real Americans are forced to rely on Republicants *spit* to do anything, Real Americans have cause to worry. Perhaps Dakota ‘Pubbies are cut from a different and sturdier cloth. We’ll see, I suppose.

As the federal government in 1798 teetered dangerously close to what James Madison considered a vast misuse of its powers under the Constitution, he authored the Virginia Resolution.

The resolution affirmed that “in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.”

More than 220 years later, North Dakota legislators — alarmed by the deluge of executive decrees from the Biden White House — are considering legislation to push back against the flood.

House Bill 1282, introduced recently by Republican state Rep. Sebastian Ertelt, creates what legislators are calling a committee on nullification.

I can find no fault with the specifics of the bill as it currently stands:

“Upon receipt of federal legislation, regulation, or an executive order, for consideration and process, the committee shall recommend whether to nullify in its entirety a specific federal law, regulation, or executive order. In making its recommendation, the committee shall consider whether the legislation, regulation, or executive order is outside the scope of the powers delegated to the federal government in the Constitution of the United States,” the bill reads.

“The committee may review all existing federal statutes, regulations, and executive orders enacted before the effective date of this section for the purpose of determining constitutionality and shall recommend whether to nullify in its entirety a specific federal statute, regulation, or executive order,” the bill said.

If passed, the State Legislature ostensibly would decide if the edict becomes the law in North Dakota.

“If the legislative assembly approves the concurrent resolution by a simple majority to nullify a federal statute, regulation, or executive order based on constitutionality, the state and the citizens of the state may not recognize or be obligated to abide by the federal law or executive order,” the bill reads.

A companion piece of legislation, House Bill 1164, takes aims at presidential executive orders.

Daniel Horowitz takes a closer look.

This is the key to thwarting a wholesale slide into national despotism and ensuring that there are some places for Americans to go and enjoy the blessings of liberty. The question is whether leaders in those legislative chambers as well as Gov. Doug Burgum will pick up the mantle, not to mention Republicans in other states.

The list of issues covered under the bill are:

  1. Pandemics or other health emergencies.
  2. The regulation of natural resources, including coal and oil.
  3. The regulation of the agriculture industry.
  4. The use of land.
  5. The regulation of the financial sector as it relates to environmental, social, or governance standards.
  6. The regulation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Thus, an easy first candidate for such legislation is Biden’s recent mask mandate, which unconstitutionally prohibits humans breathing without cloths on their mouths and noses inside any public transportation, including in-state ride-shares and taxis. The CDC created an entire criminal offense for something that never passed Congress.

These bills should serve as a model for all 31 GOP-controlled legislatures, especially in the 23 states where there are also Republican governors. I hear so many conservatives acting despondent and either resigned to tyranny or calling for secession or even a civil war. But the solution implied in these bills would keep the union loosely intact while peacefully maintaining a constitutional sanctuary for those who still value constitutional freedoms. This is the best way to peacefully and gradually separate blue and red America into their respective cultural, economic, and governing choices so we can live together more agreeably as a federal union.

Seems so to me, yeah. In fact, I think it’s the only possible way of doing it peacefully. Forlorn though the hope may be, we owe it to ourselves and our posterity to try.

Let’s be very clear: The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution subordinates states to follow only laws that are pursuant to the Constitution on issues that were given over to the federal government to determine. However, if the federal government blatantly violates the Constitution, especially in a way that harms individual liberty, even Alexander Hamilton, the great supporter of a powerful national government, said that states should ignore it. “It will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land,” wrote Hamilton in Federalist #33. “These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.”

Well, if it was good enough for Hamilton, it should be good enough for states with strong Republican majorities in the legislature.

It damned sure should. Ahh, but is this nullification ball rolling only in North Dakota, you ask? By no means, says I.

“Unite the country” may be the three scariest words coming out of Washington, D.C. right now. Conform or be crushed is what they mean. Thankfully, Second Amendment sanctuary state efforts are drawing bold lines against federal encroachment.

Missouri is close to nullifying federal gun control within its borders. On Tuesday, the Missouri House overwhelmingly passed the “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” which prohibits public officers, state employees, and political subdivisions from enforcing federal acts, laws, executive orders, court orders, and other edicts that transgress the right to bear arms.

Just like so many states took their own side on policy questions involving marijuana prohibition, civil asset forfeiture, and illegal immigration, many will also follow Missouri’s lead on gun control.

In addition to Missouri, other versions of the Second Amendment Preservation Act are currently under consideration in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Wyoming, to say nothing of dozens of local resolutions and ordinances. County sheriffs are doing their part as well.

Good on ’em, one and all. Hopefully this is only the beginning of a steadily burgeoning trend, the little snowball that grows into an unstoppable avalanche. As I said: we shall see. As for Phony Joe’s phony “unity”:

The “more perfect union” envisioned by the U.S. Constitution took as essential the delimiting of powers not just between the branches of the federal government, but the states and the federal government as well. How off-balance that sharing of powers has become.

Don’t expect Congress, the president, or even the Supreme Court to undo more than a century of federal overreach. It’s going to take serious disruption to return to the spirit and letter of the 10th Amendment, which rounds out the Bill of Rights to say: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Enforcing that cornerstone of the Constitution must be done locally. Recent history proves this most clearly in the case of nullifying federal marijuana prohibition. Persistent non-compliance ultimately renders the feds impotent.

Stiff resistance from FederalGovCo to this encouraging trend can be expected, of any and every sort our would-be masters can conjure. Nice thing is, though, the DC despots only have so many cops, troops, and various other tyranny-enforcers at their beck and call. As muscular as the Deep State is, they may well find the American Resistance too numerous, too resolute, to be easily crushed.

At the end of the day, the outcome is likely to come down to the will of the American patriot—to his determination to throw off the strangling yoke of tyranny and live free. Which is only meet, and just. How wonderfully fitting is it that the path to restoration of liberty and Constitutionally-correct governance might run along the very ideals of decentralization and local control our Founders commended to us?

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CF Glossary

ProPol: Professional Politician

Vichy GOPe: Putative "Republicans" who talk a great game but never can seem to find a hill they consider worth dying on; Quislings, Petains, Benedicts, backstabbers, fake phony frauds

Fake Phony Fraud(s), S'faccim: two excellent descriptors coined by the late great WABC host Bob Grant which are interchangeable, both meaning as they do pretty much the same thing

Mordor On The Potomac: Washington, DC

The Enemy: shitlibs, Progtards, Leftards, Swamp critters, et al ad nauseum

Burn, Loot, Murder: what the misleading acronym BLM really stands for

pAntiFa: an alternative spelling of "fascist scum"

"Mike Hendrix is, without a doubt, the greatest one-legged blogger in the world." ‐Henry Chinaski

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Correspondence

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Notable Quotes

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution

Claire's Cabal—The Freedom Forums

FREEDOM!!!

"There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
Daniel Webster

“When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill.”
Charles Bukowski

“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
Ezra Pound

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Frank Zappa

“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.”
John Adams

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."
Bertrand de Jouvenel

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."
GK Chesterton

"I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free."
Donald Sensing

"The only way to live free is to live unobserved."
Etienne de la Boiete

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"To put it simply, the Left is the stupid and the insane, led by the evil. You can’t persuade the stupid or the insane and you had damn well better fight the evil."
Skeptic

"There is no better way to stamp your power on people than through the dead hand of bureaucracy. You cannot reason with paperwork."
David Black, from Turn Left For Gibraltar

"If the laws of God and men, are therefore of no effect, when the magistracy is left at liberty to break them; and if the lusts of those who are too strong for the tribunals of justice, cannot be otherwise restrained than by sedition, tumults and war, those seditions, tumults and wars, are justified by the laws of God and man."
John Adams

"The limits of tyranny are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Frederick Douglass

"Give me the media and I will make of any nation a herd of swine."
Joseph Goebbels

“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan

"Ain't no misunderstanding this war. They want to rule us and aim to do it. We aim not to allow it. All there is to it."
NC Reed, from Parno's Peril

"I just want a government that fits in the box it originally came in."
Bill Whittle

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