Where Do We Go from Here?

What now?

Posted on November 6, 2020November 6, 2020 by Mike

Does anyone have a good answer? IS there a good answer?

We’ve seen this movie before. This is how they beat Scott Walker in Wisconsin in 2018, Tom Foley in Connecticut in 2010, and Norm Coleman in Minnesota in 2008.

Why stop the count? Because that’s the only way to know how many votes you need to “win.” Sure, you can just brute force things by backing up a truck full of ballots. But that looks bad. You might even end up counting more votes than there are registered voters in the state. Better to eke out a narrow win. As Joseph Kennedy, Sr. allegedly said to his second son, “I’m not paying for a landslide.”

The thing could (but will never) be proved. Those who ran the operation are also in charge of all the potential investigating agencies. There’s zero chance they will use any of that power to uncover their own malfeasance. Think a Biden Justice Department will look into it?

Expect instead a media typhoon of propaganda insisting that the results are all legit, that any anomaly you think you see (or saw) is a “conspiracy theory,” or at any rate innocently explainable by mundane process details too boring to get into. Twitter is already slapping warnings on the accounts of those who point out irregularities. How long before they start outright suspensions?

Will it work? That depends on the president and his allies and what they do. The odds and the forces arrayed against them are immense.

What would I have them do? I’m no expert but the crew at Revolver has some good ideas: (1) challenge the late-night “finds” in the courts; (2) hold rallies in contested states; (3) urge GOP officials in close states to expose shenanigans and, if necessary, to refuse to seat Biden electors in the event of a fake count; (4) mount a campaign to marshal grassroots public opinion in the president’s favor. Convince the people that if in fact the election is in the process of being stolen, the president and his allies are going to fight the steal on their behalf. If middle America wants to prevent this election from being stolen, it will have to be willing to act—now. I know they are willing, but they need to hear from the President and his best surrogates. I’d get Trump on Tucker, tonight, to explain his plan.

But in another sense, the Democrats’ plan won’t “work.” Even if the steal can be made to stick, half the country won’t accept it. That is, they’ll accept the reality that power is now in the hands of a party that took it by fraud. But they won’t believe that the election was fair or the outcome real. They will believe, or be confirmed in a belief that’s been brewing for a long time, that the system is rigged, the process is fake, the ruling class are liars, the government is illegitimate, and that they themselves are subjects and not citizens—anything but a free people with a say over its own destiny. If the ruling class can get away with this, they will be able to get away with anything. And they will know it.

And they will be perfectly correct about all that too, every last word of it. In fact, we’re even further down the rabbit hole than we think.

Voter fraud is happening right now. We all know it; one would be hard pressed to find a single American on either side of the aisle who would not acknowledge that it’s taking place. Around half the country realizes (or is willing to admit) it’s happening in favor of Democrats, but very few realize just how deep this particular rabbit hole goes.

Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney does. The retired military man has kept his finger on the pulse of the intelligence community and national politics since retiring in 1994. He’s not alone in this regard, but what separates him from other retired military personnel is that his love for the nation and oath to the Constitution compel him to speak out even when he knows it will get him some heat. That heat will be coming based on his revelations in the latest episode of Two Mikes.

A CIA program known as “Scorecard” allows its users to change voting outcomes by hacking into the transfer between local reporting stations and state or national data centers. According to McInerney, it’s a small amount, under 3%, to keep it from triggering any alarms. He would know. He served in top military positions under the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President of the United States. His insights into the matter are coming at just the right time with election day tomorrow. Hopefully, it’s not too late.

It’s imperative that President Trump and whoever he can trust implicitly to look for signs of “Scorecard” being used in swing states. Lt. Col. McInerney says it can be traced. If the left is stealing this election, we need to catch them red-handed.

Done and done, dude. So…what next? Sefton asks an even more burning question:

We also have Miranda Devine insisting “the Dems will not get away with this” as well as the outstanding Michael Anton stating “It will all go according to plan — unless we stop it.” Well, Mr. Anton I am open to suggestions. To my mind, the only way to do that requires the five or six armored or airborne divisions to seize the statehouses and legislatures in question, arrest every damned Democrat in sight, seize all the ballots and/or thumbdrives (evidently that’s a thing in Michigan) and declare Donald J. Trump as the winner based on the real projections at about the time on Tuesday night when the Chinese yuan crashed.

And since that is probably not going to happen except in my mind, I don’t know really what can be done. The whole thing is now a hot mess of phony ballots, real ballots and the rules and regulations of six states, some of them changed literally almost at the last second before election day to make it impossible to reject clearly bogus ballots. How are the courts or Supreme Court going to clear that up, assuming we have a majority that wants to do so?

Look, for better or worse, in elections past when things did not go the way I wanted, I swallowed, bit the bullet and then moved on. But I never thought in a billion billion years that the American system of free and fair elections would ever be anything but that. And here we are, on par with Zimbabwe in 1980, or Mexico for nearly 100 years with the PRI (which is indeed where we are headed). Yes, the average Democrat voter is upset about what happened NOT because their party sabotaged the election but that they did not get the clear victory they were promised. And now, if Trump does in fact survive this not-so-soft coup attempt, it will further tear the country apart. Not that there is any love lost between the Left and America as founded (or what vestige is left of it). Funny how if Trump does win the shrieking about how the Constitution was ignored or destroyed will be deafening. Ironic, and disgusting at the same time.

It’s one thing when the thug terrorists of Antifa/BLM say “by any means necessary.” It’s quite another when what is supposed to be one of the two major American political parties says it as well and takes it to heart. They lost this election. They know they lost this election. Worse for them, they have lost a good chunk of their base – the disaffected, disenfranchised and so-called “marginalized” “victims” ironically enough who are that way because of Democrat policies. The Deep State machinations of power, thievery and perversion wrapped in privilege also took a massive hit insofar as it was exposed to the people. They lost this election months ago if not a year ago before the phony pandemic hit. They lost it when Trump stated to their faces and for the whole world to see on January 20th, 2017 when he promised to drain the swamp.

But the swamp is wide and it is deep, as we have now seen. So I ask Ms. Devine and Messrs. Goldman and Anton, who are no doubt sincere in their words, yes let’s fight back and not let this happen.

The question is “HOW?”

At first glance, the answer might not seem at all obvious or simple. But it is, even though the actions required to implement it would be difficult and painful. Via WeirdDave, the inspiring story of the Battle of Athens shows us the way.

Athens is the seat of McMinn County, which, at the time, was the nerve center for Sheriff Paul Cantrell, a major lieutenant of a corrupt Democratic machine which stretched from Tennessee to the District of Columbia. Though we will eschew labeling Cantrell or his machine politics “evil,” as this was simply the way things were done in many American polities, it is worth noting that before and especially during the Second World War, Cantrell presided over corruption and graft on an industrial scale. As Chris DeRose details, the Sheriff drew salaries of nearly sixty thousand dollars per year over his first six years that were worth well over one million dollars in today’s purchasing power. He was also appointed superintendent of the county workhouse for an additional salary of over two thousand dollars; DeRose notes that “McMinn County did not have a workhouse, making its superintending easy.” This at a time when the median Tennessee home was worth less than two thousand dollars and the starting salary for enlisted men was fifty dollars per month. Despite strict rationing, McMinn machine men never wanted for cars, tires, or fuel. Illegal casinos, speakeasies, and whorehouses payed thousands of dollars per month in protection money. Dozens of county employees were listed on the payrolls for the sole purpose of providing cover for a vast money laundering operation.

There were no “elections” in McMinn County through the war years. The ballot boxes were in Democratic offices, and Cantrell’s deputies served as the election officers, some of whom were brutal killers with the blood of innocent civilians on their hands. Other local thugs and felons were on hand to further inculcate the climate of fear, including a man who murdered his own father and, five months after the election, murdered his sister-in-law, an expectant mother, and an infant child. There were about two gunmen for each voter; DeRose further illuminates the chicanery, noting that some voters were temporarily imprisoned to prevent them from voting, while others had their poll tax receipts and eligibility certificates invalidated, “in some cases by the very official who had issued them.” Word was put out among elderly voters that their pensions would be held up unless they voted “the right way.” When the Republican election judge, a disabled veteran of the First World War, attempted to view the ballot count, he was dragged into the corridor and beaten, leaving him paralyzed. Another man who attempted to observe the ballot count was pistol-whipped, and one gunman fired at a poll worker who tried to leave the courthouse.

Several Athenians petitioned the Department of Justice for relief, knowing that local and State officials would not take any action against the machine. A hardware store owner wrote Attorney General Francis Biddle, imploring, “The good people of this county are sacrificing for the cause of America’s freedom but have lost their freedom at home. Both parties have lost the freedom of the ballot box, a dictatorship has been set up, the county treasury is being raided at the expense of the taxpayers, and the good people of this county would like to sell their property and move away. Your department is our last line of defense. Please, for God’s sake come to the rescue of a helpless people.” A minister wrote to Biddle of “a ruthless exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous men who sacrifice public liberties for the sake of private gain…nothing has been considered too low if it will enable them to perpetuate themselves in office. Decent citizens feared to bring their wives to the polls, and often felt it unwise to cast their own ballots…It is not possible for a letter to contain information concerning all the subversive and unscrupulous activities that have taken place in this county.”

In a sadly unsurprising echo of the situation today, the DoJ filed a report, then sat back and did nothing. However, since in 1946 Americans were still Americans, that was by no means the end of the story. A group of just-returned WW2 vets led by local hero Bill White put together a bipartisan slate of candidates for office, the “Ex-Serviceman’s Cleanup Ticket for McMinn County”:

As C. Stephen Byrum notes, the GI ticket was superior to the machine’s, “by any rules of logic,” comprised of men “young and old, Democratic and Republican, city and country, all veterans, all battle-tested, and all highly thought of.” The local Republican Party resolved to officially endorse the veterans’ ticket instead of running its own candidates; after seconding the motion in favor of the resolution, one party official delivered an excellent summation: “We are involved in a conflict with desperate enemies who have sought to subject us to tyranny and oppression…We feel a deep sense of obligation and now seek in measure to repay…Young men who have fought against oppression abroad will continue that fight for honesty and decency at home.” Amid a campaign of harassment and violence to silence them, the GIs persisted. Bill White, the most prescient of the group, felt that his compatriots were being naïve, arguing that they had to organize a “fighting bunch.” “Listen,” he said. “Do you think they’re going to let you win this election? Those people been taking these elections for years with a bunch of armed thugs. If you never got the guts enough to stand up and fight fire with fire, you ain’t gonna win.”

The Demonrat crooks and thugs stood their ground at first against the GIs on election day: beating some of the GIs; jailing others; ejecting poll watchers and holding them hostage; and even stealing the town’s 12 ballot boxes, locking them up in various locations under their control. Things looked bad for a while, the GIs confused and uncertain about what their next move ought to be. Then Bill White rallied his troops with a stirring speech.

Well! Here you are! After three or four years of fighting for your country. You survived it all. You came back. And what did you come back to? A free country? You came back to Athens, Tennessee, in McMinn County, that’s run by a bunch of outlaws. They’ve got hired gunmen all over this county right now at this minute. What for? One purpose. To scare you so bad you won’t dare stand up for the rights you’ve been bleeding and dying for. Some of your mothers and some of your sisters are afraid to walk down the streets to the polling places. Lots of men, too! Because they know what happens. A car drives by in the night and shoots out your windows. If that doesn’t scare you enough, they’ll set fire to your house or your barn. They’ll beat up members of your family and put them in jail. For no reason! Is that the kind of freedom you were supposed to be fighting for? Do you know what your rights are supposed to be? How many rights have you got left? None! Not even the right to vote in a free election. When you lose that, you’ve lost everything. And you are damned well going to lose it unless you fight and fight the only way they understand. Fire with fire! We’ve got to make this an honest election because we promised the people that if they voted it would be an honest election. And it’s going to be. But only if we see that it is. We are going to have to run these organized criminals out of town, and we can do it if we stick together. Are you afraid of them? Why, I could take a banana stalk and run every one of these potbellied draft dodgers across Depot Hill. Get the hell out of here and get something to shoot with. And come back as fast as you can.

Guess what happened next. Go on, guess. Hint: Thompson subguns, a German Mauser, a .30 cal M1917 machine gun, and “an enormous stockpile of dynamite” were involved. The happy ending:

The next day, a reporter noticed that the GI guarding the jail was armed only with a blackjack, with no gun in sight. He asked why, and the young veteran replied, “Don’t need a gun today. That’s what all the shootin’ was about last night.” Indeed. Knox Henry was sworn in as Sheriff, declaring: “We have accomplished what we started out to do. We’ve broken the grip of the political machine that has ruled McMinn County for ten years without regard as to the wishes of the people in how their government was to be run. When I say we, I mean the other GIs on the nonpartisan cleanup ticket and the citizens of McMinn County who helped us win the battle. We regret that the gunfight at the jail had to happen…Our only alternative was to use force…there will be no trouble of this kind at the next election. Any person who can qualify for an office may run with the full assurance of an honest election and the people will have nothing to fear when they go to the polls on Election Day.” Henry needed a whole new team of deputies, and pinned a star on Bill White. Almost immediately, they carried out raids on the moonshiners and bootleggers who had enjoyed the protection of the vanquished machine.

Letters inundated the local papers, with messages of encouragement such as: “To the GI Patriots, Athens, Tennessee: Thank you indeed for restoring the faith in America which so many of us had lost. Keep pitching and firing when necessary.”; “We have chicken-stealers and hog-stealers! House-stealers and auto-stealers! But the lowest, dirtiest of all are our election-stealers!”; and, “I congratulate you in the memory of my son, who lies buried in the South Pacific.” One GI carried a small paper with him everywhere, which read: “Remember…that no American can afford to be disinterested in any part of his Government, whether it is county, city, State, or nation.” The Tennessean praised what “has happened in the beautiful little city of Athens in McMinn County,” which “undoubtedly has awakened a thrill of pride throughout this machine-ridden state. Make no mistake. The McMinn County veterans and their supporters had first won their victory at the polls. Then they fought, with their bare fists and such weapons as they could seize, to protect their election from the theft attempted by force of arms before their eyes. This was no ‘riot’—unless Bunker Hill was a riot.” The “Boston Tea Party of Tennessee [caused] by a decade of election corruption and thievery, has stamped upon a brutal farce it had determined to endure no longer.” The battle was “what always has happened where men not born of a craven race have been pushed too far by tyranny.”

Major Carl Anderson, one of the heroes of the Battle of Athens, distills our lesson in its purest form: “Before you go, I want to say that I hope that our country, especially those places that are as boss ridden as we were, will take hope from what we have accomplished here. I think we have shown how to clean out those dirty nests. Anyway, we’ve done it.” These Southern heroes, Dixie incarnate, took back their town. Let us now take back our nation.

By all means, let’s. The soap box and the ballot box have failed us. The jury box may yet come through and avert bloodshed, although the early indicators there aren’t encouraging. Should it too fail, there’s only the one box left to us: the very same one that was used to liberate Athens, Tennessee from Democrat corruption and criminality way back in ’46. May God grant that this generation of Americans proves to be as stout-hearted and indomitable as their Tennessee forefathers were, in numbers sufficient to turn the Dismal Tide.

Dereliction of duty

Posted on November 5, 2020November 5, 2020 by Mike

The dereliction I mean was not theirs. It was ours.

Over the past two days I’ve been composing a post in my head. Tonight I get home and, preparatory to pulling my thoughts together for a post, I check in beforehand on some of my daily (or several times daily, actually) blog stops, WRSA always being one of the very first among those. So what to my wondering eyes should appear but the two images below, which pretty much say everything I was thinking of saying, only way more concisely. So as to preserve readability for the geezer-types among us, I’ll keep them at their original size instead of shrinking ’em down, and stash ’em both below the fold. Don’t let that prevent you from clicking the link and checking them out, though; trust me, you NEED to see these, folks. You really do.

Plenty more on this topic to come, but it’s gonna take me a minute.

Continue reading “Dereliction of duty” →

A brand new day, a brand new way

Posted on November 4, 2020November 4, 2020 by Mike

Humble congratulations and a servile tug of the ol’ forelock to the new FUSA “president,” Kamala Biden-Harris. After all, she “won” the “election” “fair and square.” Now we must all bow down and acknowledge her as the “legitimate” “president” chosen “fair and square” to be the leader of all “Amerikans,” for the good of our beloved “country.” It’s the RIGHT THING TO DO.

In a motherfucking pig’s eye. *spit*

I won’t bother going into the details, nor risk getting lost in the weeds of linking/excerpting stories cataloging the numerous examples of election fraud being committed even now, all across the country. They’re easy enough to find out there, if you haven’t seen ’em already; the fraud is blatant, brazen, and entirely obvious. There is no way for any honest person to contend otherwise with any credibility.

But this is what it all boils down to: The hard fact is that the corrupt, power-mad Democrat-Socialist Party machine has successfully stolen the 2020 election. They announced specifically and upfront what they intended to do, they’ve been openly declaring their intentions for months. And now, right this very moment, they are indeed proceeding to steal a fucking election right before our very eyes.

Which, in turn, raises a difficult question, the only one that truly matters anymore: What, if anything, are we going to do about it?

It’s mo(u)rning in Amerika!

Posted on November 4, 2020November 4, 2020 by Mike

Oh no, what am I gonna do know?

Today’s throbbing, hammer-and-anvil hangover makes poor old George’s look like a day at the beach. We can all look forward to suffering from its effects for a helluva lot longer than he did, too.

Thanks

Posted on November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 by Mike

An open letter to Trump, from Sundance.

Thank you President Donald Trump, today I voted for you.

Thank you for providing me, us, my friends and family, an opportunity to vote for a person who relentlessly and tirelessly has worked for all of us.

Thank you (for) putting on that bullet-proof vest, working and campaigning on behalf of all Americans.

Thank you to First Lady Melania Trump for giving up the privacy of a very comfortable life to support you, help us, and represent our nation with class and impeccable distinction.

Long ago we accepted the geography of this battle. We knew the campaign and presidency was going to get ugly on many levels. You knew it too – yet, you did it anyway.

You have confronted a body of globalist political elites both at home and abroad. We know there are trillions of dollars at stake, and significant power over world events hanging in the balance. We knew you would be attacked. You knew it too – yet, you did it anyway.

As a nation we are not disconnected from fully comprehending the issues at hand. Most are fully aware of the fraud, scheme, manipulative lying and corrupt propaganda inbound from every entity who holds a vested interest in your elimination.

You knew that too – yet, you stepped-up anyway.

We fully understand the scope of media hatred perpetuating a fraud which is occurring on a grand scale. We are well versed in the machinations and schemes of the interests you have faced. We are aware and clear eyed to the hate expressed by your opposition. You knew that would come too – yet, you did it anyway.

We refined our understanding based on prior years of confrontation; essentially training ourselves amid the various battlefields controlled by the very powers established to see your removal. The swamp is vile. You knew that – yet, you did it anyway.

And should Trump somehow lose this thing, it will establish clearly that not merely an election but America That Was itself is indeed lost. In fact, it’s probably been gone for a good bit longer than some of us may have realized. Not that that realization, painful as it is, calls for a lapse into despair, mind. But it DOES strongly suggest the necessity of a redirection, a course correction, in terms of vision, ambition, and action.

In the end, no matter which way the election goes, it still comes down to the same thing. Really, it probably always will.

Yep. And apres Trump, le deluge.

“In This Election the Establishment Is Playing for Keeps”

Posted on October 30, 2020October 30, 2020 by Mike

If you unpack it, the URL for this piece directly asks: Will the presidential election bring chaos and an irredeemably torn American political fabric? But I’d put it a little differently: Because the American political fabric has already been irredeemably torn, the presidential election will almost certainly bring chaos.

The widespread use of mail-in voting in this presidential election makes it unlikely that a winner will be declared on election night unless it is Biden. The reason is that polls indicate that a majority of Democrat voters intend to vote by mail. As long as the ballots are postmarked by November 3 (election day), they are considered valid. As mail-in votes will be delivered after November 3, unless one candidate wins the in-person vote by a landslide, the outcome will not be known until days later.

If the outcome seems favorable to Trump, this gives Democrats and the media, which is uniformly against Trump, days to make propaganda that Trump is stealing the election (with Putin’s help). Rioting and looting will be encouraged in cities under Democrat control in order to create more chaos and charges against Trump. If enough confusion can be sown, an “investigation” can be demanded and/or Democrats can demand the outcome be put in the hands of the House of Representatives where the Democrats have a majority. It is entirely possible that Trump can win and be denied inauguration.

This, of course, would be more than an attack on Trump. It would be an attack on the Constitution.

There is circumstantial evidence that more than opportunism is involved and that this scenario is an orchestrated plot to prevent a second Trump term.

Gee, ya think? Please note how, even after the Mueller Report explicitly and definitively dispensed with the “Russia collusion” hoax, the Usual Suspects are still flogging away at that same expired equine. TPTB never even broke stride after that unexpected reversal, much less changed their course. Which is one of the things that makes this such a vital proposal:

If Trump Wins, There Must Be a Reckoning for the Destructive Left
It doesn’t take a fount of political wisdom to say that if Biden and the Democrats carry the Electoral College, America is lost, perhaps forever. The U.S. will become a Leninist country. Madness and ignorance will have triumphed.

If Trump and the Republicans survive on November 3, as I hope and suspect they will, certain policies will have to be enacted to ensure that the country never again approaches the brink of social, political and economic perdition as it has in recent times, most emphatically engineered by the administration of Barack Obama premised on the “radical transformation” of America. And these policies will need to be draconian. Leftist sentiment will always exist, but the institutional left will have to be extirpated root and branch.

In other words, the gloves will have to come off and the institutional power sources engaged in the destabilization of the country must be put to bed once and for all. A reckoning must come.

Oh, the gloves will have to come off all right. But the big problem for Trump, as for all Real Americans, is that he/we are facing not just one enemy here, nor even two or three of them. Since so many of those enemies are so deeply buried underneath layer upon layer of Establishment camouflage, it’s difficult to even calculate how many of them must be confronted and destroyed. The DC Swamp entire, comprised of the GOPe, the Democrat-Socialists, and the federal bureaucracy from top to bottom. The Fake News media establishment. The “education” megalith, from K-12 to university-level. The arts/entertainment/pro sports sector. Big Tech, along with most other American corporations, from Coca-Cola to Nike to Disney to Intel and beyond—all of them “woke,” all of them on the other side.

Just trying to list them all is a daunting task in itself, to say the very least. Nonetheless, despair is NOT an option for Real Americans. Likewise lethargy, dithering, or half-measures. Solway couldn’t be more right: no matter how monumental an undertaking it undeniably will be, a reckoning is essential, and long overdue too. One way or another, whether Trump wins or loses, the effort must begin no later than January 21st of the coming year.

Yes, the Establishment IS playing for keeps here. Could any among us have been so credulous, so foolish, as to think that they wouldn’t?

Update! Think I’m kidding here? They aren’t.

Many leftists have directed some deeply disturbing rhetoric at conservatives and Trump supporters in recent months, claiming President Trump’s bombast is responsible for the political polarization of today’s America. This is pure nonsense.

Sure, Trump talks about MS-13 as “animals,” Antifa as “thugs,” and Hillary Clinton as crooked enough to “be in jail.” His supporters know his presentation to be a bombastic and theatrical schtick, but he never threatens any group of voters.

By contrast, some ominous tones, even homicidal and terrorist tones, are coming from the mainstream left. Increasingly, through mainstream media and Big Tech, high-profile leftists are speaking openly about violence to be inflicted on Trump and all his supporters.

I’m not talking specifically about the Antifa and Black Lives Matter street violence we’ve seen in places like Denver and Portland, which includes outright murders of Trump supporters. I’m referring here to voices that normalize and promote open terror against any freedom-respecting person who has different views from those blessed by left-wing leaders, media, and Big Tech. Seven examples are included below.

Funny how so many of these seven examples involve flatly-stated threats of violence posted on Twitter…none of them censored, deleted, or otherwise screwed around with.

America in trouble

Posted on October 28, 2020October 28, 2020 by Mike

The Biden saga is about more than just Biden, and more than just corruption, even.

Even if Joe Biden were guilty of unethical or illegal conduct while in office; or were now in a position where he could be blackmailed as a president either because of his own misdeeds or Hunter’s…

…millions of Democrat voters would either not know because of DNC-driven media blackouts on the story; or if they did find out, would either not mind, and even kind of admire Biden for his chicanery, or else instantly dismiss the story as “right wing propaganda”—meaning that between the transformation of media outlets into propaganda organs for the Democratic Party, voter indifference/amorality, and voter gullibility, it would be as if those misdeeds had never happened.

In addition, the likely refusal of the FBI and Department of Justice to go after the Bidens—just as they have refused to go after the Clintons and a host of other clearly guilty malfeasants—would also help render the misdeeds effectively non-existent, even if they constituted the rankest bribery and a clear violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

And what this all amounts to is just one more indication, among many others too numerous to mention in this article, that the world’s greatest democracy is in far deeper trouble than even most conservatives recognize; that’s true even if Trump wins. If your press is so outrageously partisan and screwed up, that even your publicly-funded national broadcaster, NPR, can refuse with impunity to report on what must be one of the biggest political stories of the year, if not the decade, and almost all other outlets join in the obfuscation and distortion, then you don’t have anything better than Brezhnev-era Pravda. You don’t have “reporting”. You have propaganda—mythmaking—lying—in service to a partisan quest for power. And by the way…how long until Fox falls? It could be next week, next month, any time. And when it does fall…then what?

The point is: You can’t have a functioning democracy unless the citizens first care about facts, and then, have access to those facts. Even then, democracy is fragile. Even in the best circumstances, where everyone’s conscientious and the facts are known, people come to different conclusions, or get things wrong.

So…are the Bidens corrupt?

My First Answer: I’m going to go with yes, yes, and yes. I don’t think they’re All-Star Thespians. Hunter’s been running around for years selling lobbying access to his father, who has at times changed American foreign policy in response, and who has repeatedly enabled and covered for his son’s shenanigans, if he has not profited from those deals himself in the end. If that’s not corruption, nothing is.

My Deeper Answer: Yes, the bad news is they’re corrupt, but the worse news is, it doesn’t really matter anymore. Half the country either doesn’t know about the corruption, doesn’t mind, or wouldn’t mind even if they did know; a mendacious, unaccountable media is covering for the Bidens; and federal law enforcement can’t be trusted to hold the Bidens accountable anymore.

And that’s a story about the country more than about Joe Biden. He’s corrupt, but the country itself is breaking, and breaking ever more deeply. That’s the real story here, and I hope it has a happy ending.

It might, or it mightn’t. Problem is, such happy endings are always dearly bought, paid for in blood, treasure, and misery.

The binding chains of history

Posted on October 26, 2020October 26, 2020 by Mike

This one’s going to require a lot of excerpting, but I’m not going to tuck any of it under the fold. It needs to be up front and in easy viewing reach, in its entirety.

Seated at his kitchen table, finishing off the remains of a Saturday breakfast, Hunter Hollingsworth’s world was rocked by footsteps on his front porch and pounding at the door, punctuated by an aggressive order: “Open up or we’ll kick the door down.”

Surrounded on all sides of his house, and the driveway blocked, Hollingsworth was the target of approximately 10 federal and state wildlife officials packing pistols, shotguns and rifles. And what was Hollingsworth’s crime? Drugs, armed robbery, assault, money laundering? Not quite.

Months prior, in 2018, the Tennessee landowner removed a game camera secretly strapped to a tree on his private land by wildlife officials in order to monitor his activity without apparent sanction or probable cause. Repeat: Hollingsworth’s residence was searched by U.S. government and state officials, dressed to the nines in assault gear, seeking to regain possession of a trail camera—the precise camera they had surreptitiously placed on his private acreage after sneaking onto his property at night, loading the camera with active SD and SIM cards, and zip-tying the device roughly 10’ high up a tree—all without a warrant.

Can the government place cameras and monitoring equipment on a private citizen’s land at will, or conduct surveillance and stakeouts on private land, without probable cause or a search warrant? Indeed, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) interpretation of the Fourth Amendment. Welcome to Open Fields.

The vast majority of Americans assume law enforcement needs a warrant to carry out surveillance, but for roughly a century, SCOTUS has ruled that private land—is not private. Fourth Amendment protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures” expressed in the Bill of Rights only apply to an individual’s immediate dwelling area, according to SCOTUS.

However, SCOTUS’ Open Fields doctrine has been bucked in Mississippi, Montana, New York, Oregon and Vermont through protections granted by state constitutions, and for many American landowners, the more they discover about Open Fields—the more questions they have regarding the bounds of government power.

In Tennessee, Hollingsworth and Terry Rainwaters, another landowner who discovered multiple trail cameras on his property placed by the state, are taking their cases to state court, claiming violations of the Tennessee State Constitution. The Rainwaters and Hollingsworth stories contain alarming claims regarding the behavior of wildlife officials and raise a bevy of questions over Open Fields, states’ rights, and the sanctity of private property.

It shouldn’t be shocking, I know. All of us should be fully cognizant by now of the boundless reach of the State, at every level. Certainly this past summer has provided confirmation aplenty of even the wildest, most out-there conspiracy theories when it comes to the audacity and omnipotence of the almighty government. Nonetheless, somehow, I have to admit to being shocked by this one.

On bottomland squeezed in the rolling hills of northwest Tennessee’s Benton County, a short walk from the banks of the Big Sandy River, Terry Rainwaters, 53, owns 136 acres of land containing two homes, farmland and an equipment shed. Rainwaters and his son, Hunter Rainwaters, 20, live in one of the homes; a tenant occupies the other. The acreage is the physical center of Rainwaters’ life—a small place to farm, hunt and reside—with one way in, one way out, and a gate that stays locked, backed by “no trespassing” and “posted” signs.

On his way to hunt on his father’s land during the first week of December 2017, Hunter Rainwaters was driving a side-by-side through the property when he noticed an oddity positioned roughly 4’ off the ground. He popped the brakes, backed toward the object and looked in surprise at a trail camera belted to a tree.

“I didn’t see any words or stickers on it, but I knew right away it wasn’t ours,” Hunter Rainwaters recalls.

Following the hunt, he drove back onto the family property and spotted a second trail camera attached to a tree with several branches removed to allow for an unimpeded lens view. Rainwaters dialed his father’s cellphone, and described the two cameras: “I was shaken up when my son called and I knew immediately it had to be the TWRA (Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency),” Rainwaters recalls.

Deeply disturbed, Rainwaters arrived home later in the afternoon and took a look at the two cameras, mulling over whether to remove the pair. Two days later, with Rainwaters in limbo on what action to take—both cameras disappeared.

“Ask TWRA how many cameras they have on people’s private land right now watching their every move,” Rainwaters says. “I’ll bet they won’t answer that question and we all know why. No warrants, no judge, and no crime necessary, just set up surveillance and do whatever they want to.”

And guess what. Go on, just guess.

(Farm Journal asked TWRA multiple questions related to the use of trail cameras in surveilling Tennessee residents, including, but not limited to: Does TWRA have a list of past camera locations and current, active cameras? Who in TWRA is allowed to view the footage? How long are the cameras allowed to operate in place? Does TWRA recommend prosecution for a landowner for breaking or removing a camera? TWRA declined comment: “The Agency cannot comment on matters in litigation, nor can we provide comment on issues that are currently being litigated.” TWRA directed all questions to the Tennessee Attorney General’s office. However, the Tennessee AG office declined comment.)

Okay, I’m NOT shocked by that. Not in the least, I ain’t. But now we accelerate right on past merely shocked, to flat-out pissed the fuck off.

The vast majority of Americans assume law enforcement needs a warrant to carry out surveillance, but for roughly a century, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has ruled that private land—is not so private. Fourth Amendment protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures” expressed in the Bill of Rights only apply to an individual’s immediate dwelling and curtilage, according to SCOTUS. Curtilage is an arcane term loosely translated as the area directly around a home, or the yard.

In 1924, Hester v. United States set up the Open Fields framework and said the U.S. Constitution does not extend to most land: “the special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects,’ is not extended to the open fields.” Significantly, Open Fields is translated beyond its literal sense, and basically is defined as general acreage: woods, fields, farmland, barren ground, and more.

Further, in 1984, SCOTUS gave additional strength to Open Fields in Oliver v. United States: “open fields do not provide the setting for those intimate activities that the Amendment is intended to shelter from government interference or surveillance. There is no societal interest in protecting the privacy of those activities, such as the cultivation of crops, that occur in open fields.”

Disturbing, infuriating, and downright frightening as it is, you need to read all of it. Once you have, you need to do another thing. Distasteful and unpleasant as they are, you must accept and internalize a few realities:

You have ONLY whatever liberty Government deigns to allow—which liberty may be denied, wholly or in part, summarily and at Government’s whim, with neither notice nor explanation
You have NO rights
You have NO privacy
You have NO security
You own NOTHING, and “private property” is a misnomer; it is NOT private, and is under the control NOT of the putative “owner” but of the State
You are NOT in any meaningful sense a “citizen” of the US and your state of residence; you are the wholly-owned PROPERTY of those entities

One needn’t be in the least doubt as to what Thomas Jefferson would have had to say after discovering government surveillance cameras strapped onto trees around Monticello—placed there clandestinely, his permission unsought, by trespassing government spies skulking about in the night like contemptible house-burglars. But it is incumbent upon us—upon ALL of us—to ponder his inevitable response to such an affront thoroughly, and most gravely.

Jefferson and his fellow Founders would have been apoplectic, of course. But there’s no reason at all to think any of them would have been shocked. Those men had a deep and thorough understanding of exactly what government, ALL government, really is. Of how every government throughout history—no matter how well-intentioned, carefully conceived and constructed, and competently administrated—eventually devolves into corruption, despotism, and petty bureaucratic abuse. Having been schooled in the classroom of first-hand experience, they paid strictest attention to the lessons taught there.

Alas, their complacent and oblivious descendants have done no such thing. The lessons of history having been ignored, the explicit warnings of far-wiser ancestors spurned, the inattentive students wound up in precisely the straits foretold for them. Not really shocking at all, is it?

“America’s real problems are urban problems”

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

Daniel Greenfield argues that we must kill the cities, before they kill America.

The American city has failed. The coronavirus lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter race riots haven’t revealed a new reality, but the old truths under the glossy branding and hipster cafes. The underlying failure of the city isn’t social, it’s economic. Urban areas parted ways from the basis for their existence generations ago. Cities don’t exist because we need them, or because they’re more efficient ways of bringing workers and businesses together. They’re relics of economic empires that have collapsed leaving behind beautiful architecture and urban decay.

Major cities only productively employ a fraction of their residents, and most of their better jobs in both the private and public sectors are filled by workers who don’t live there. But the limited culture, medical, financial and tech industries that do thrive there produce a lot of money and even more influence. The difference between the perception of a failed city and a successful one is bringing in a few companies with a national brand and a global footprint. A city with a few major publishing firms, financial companies, or dot coms is seen as a success even if these narrow sectors have little to do with the majority of the millions of people who actually live there.

Urbanization has become a pyramid scheme taking over entire states, while hollowing out the more conservative rural areas, turning red states blue, and leaving everyone except those at the top of the pyramid scheme poorer with each generation.

America doesn’t need an expanding population. Urban political machines do. Nor do we need massive urban density that no longer occurs because of the density of opportunities, but just the opposite, the density of failure and the real estate bubbles that are fueled by urban crises.

There is no shortage of cheap labor in America. We don’t need more of it. Every major city is already choking on the unemployed cheap labor forces they have. And unless we have a massive manufacturing boom, the only employment opportunities for them are in the gig economy where they can deliver pad thai and give rides to environmental consultants.

The urban model hasn’t worked for America in sixty years. The pandemic has put it on the verge of collapse as the wealthy industries that made cities their base flee into virtual workspaces. It’s time to rethink and defund cities as the hubs of our economy and our nation.

Just another characteristically brilliant and well-written Greenfield piece, who I haven’t been looking in on nearly as often as I should of late.

Tocsin, rung

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

I’m sure most of you here know me well enough by now to have heard my oft-repeated declaration: “No cop-sucker, I.” That said, you no doubt are also aware that I don’t harbor any reflexive distrust or dislike for the po-lice either. I’ve known and been around cops my whole life long: as neighbors, as friends, as family, even. Around a third of the customers in the Harley shop I turned wrenches and busted knuckles in for years were cops; another third was black guys, and the last consisted of a mix of what we used to call RUBs (Rich Urban Bikers) and the more authentic and likeable old-school Harley trash. Almost all the cops I’ve spent any time around were perectly decent guys, although it must be admitted that I and my cop buds alike were all too aware of the existence of some wrong ‘uns in the law enforcement field.

Thankfully, bad cops tended not to last very long on the force in those days. They usually wound up either fired because of some variety of excessive-force hassle; being shot, whether rightly or wrongly; or just going mental from the stress and frustration, enough so to make them walk away from the job more or less voluntarily. The ones that did hang in would find themselves patiently schooled by the older, more experienced heads, resulting in a much more relaxed and professional attitude that served both the officers and the public much better than the eager-beager, gung-ho aggression ever would have.

So no, I don’t really have a problem with cops. Most cops, anyway. My cop friends are all retired now, and they tell me it’s a whole different ballgame out there nowadays. Without exception, they say that they wouldn’t take the job now for any money, and are damned glad to be out of it.

As y’all know me and my opinion on the police by now, we all likewise know Angelo Codevilla to be one of our most sober-minded and judicious pundits. He’s a bona fide intellectual heavyweight, with not an ounce of the wild-eyed, snarling radical about him. He constructs his arguments meticulously, according to the facts as he perceives them, then presents those arguments passionately but without excess heat. He unflinchingly confronts difficult or unpleasant truths, without ever lapsing into bomb-throwing or inflammatory rhetoric.

All of which means that when Codevilla expresses alarm about something, we are obliged to listen, and listen well.

Turkeys cheering the arrival of Thanksgiving would be only marginally more pathetic than the conservative luminaries on Fox News who cheer for the police as civilization’s saviors. The police. You know—the heroes who stood aside as mobs looted and burned Minneapolis, Portland, Kenosha, Chicago, Macy’s in New York, downtown Chicago and so on while organized mask-wearing Antifa thugs beat whoever got in the way? Yes, the police we watched tase a woman for not wearing a mask in a stadium and arresting people for singing Christian hymns in a park. The police, who don’t answer calls from people who are being threatened in their homes. Those police.

Ah! the conservative luminaries tell us: the cops really would rather protect us. They don’t want to hurt us. Yes, the police fine us and jail us on behalf of politicians who hate us. Yes, effectively, they are protecting the mobs. But that’s only because they are duty bound to obey the duly constituted authorities who also pay them. They’re just doing their jobs even if they don’t like what they are doing. What should they do, disobey orders and get fired? So, let’s give them more money and more power.

The more we think about that, the more we realize that this attitude corrupts citizens as well as police. Let us reflect.

Begin by dismissing the idea that serious repression, criminalization of people for their religious and social identity, or for political opposition, can’t happen in America. It is happening. And it is sure to get a lot worse because the people in charge of the permanent government, the media, and corporate entities, increasingly are united in making it happen. More so than just about anywhere, ever.

And that includes Germany in the 1930s.

We have already experienced that, unlike even in Nazi Germany—and much like in the Soviet Union, China, etc.—the farther up the ordinary citizen looks in the hierarchy of the American ruling class, the more likely one is to find all manner of corruption and enmity. Dangerous to our health and liberties as the police and judicial system of California may be, the FBI and the Department of Justice are worse.

What then shall we do with and about the police?

He has some ideas about that, and you must read them.

How a nation was lost

Posted on October 13, 2020October 13, 2020 by Mike

In case anybody out there isn’t up to speed already.

You may have heard the terms “Cultural Marxism,” “Critical Theory” or “Frankfurt School” bandied about. And while you might have an intuitive approximation of what these terms mean for America in the 21st century, there’s a good chance that you don’t know much about the deep theory, where the ideology comes from and what it has planned for America – and the world.

The underlying theory here is a variant of Marxism, pioneered by early-20th-century Italian Marxist politician and linguist Antonio Gramsci. Gramscian Marxism is a radical departure from Classical Marxism. One does not need to endorse the Classical Marxism of Marx, Engels and others to appreciate the significant differences between the two. He is easily the most influential thinker that you have never heard of.

Whereas Classical Marxism located what has been called “the revolutionary subject” (the people who will overthrow capitalism and usher in socialism) within the broad working class, primarily in what is now the First World, Gramscism takes a very different approach. This approach underpins most of the social unrest that is gripping America and the West today. In a sense, we are living through the endgame of a Gramscian revolution.

There are two important diversions that Gramscism has from more traditional Marxist thought: First, that economics was the base of culture and politics. Second, philosophical materialism in the Marxist sense where reality is effectively formed by the means of economic production.

For Gramsci, culture was more important than either economics or politics. This was what needed to be changed for there to be a revolution. As such, the weapon to be used for revolution was not the economic might of an organized working class, but a “long march through the institutions” (a phrase actually coined by German Marxist Rudi Dutschke), whereby every institution in the West would be subverted through penetration and infiltration.

I’ve said it many times, and I’ll keep right on saying it: Gramsci was a damned genius, albeit a diabolical one. Marx’s original idea was that Communism was a historical inevitability, an evolutionary transition that would lead to a bottom-up eruption of revolutionary violence sparked by the Proletariat’s frustration and fury over having been used and abused by the Bourgeoisie for long enough to have gotten themselves a solid bellyful of it.

Gramsci, on the other hand, held that such a revolution was unlikely—particularly in the West, where general prosperity and the lassitude of relative contentment would tend to dull the Workers’ passion for any bloody, bothersome overthrow. Instead, in successful Western nations a Marxist state is far more likely to be brought into being through a slow, patient process of incrementalist takeover of the cultural institutions—the arts, entertainment, and news media, and most especially the schools and universities—followed by thorough brainwashing of the benighted Sheeple via said institutions. Gramsci’s divergence from Marxism v1.0 was nothing short of brilliant; certainly, the results speak for themselves.

This is a long ‘un, and quite ably covers one hell of a lot of ground. In fact, it’s good enough that I immediately bookmarked it myself for future use as reference material; no matter how well-versed you may be in this stuff, I’d bet nearly everyone will find something here they didn’t already know. Originally put up by our friends at Ammo.com, this one is strongly recommended reading. Many thanks to the good folks at AP for re-posting it, and to WRSA for kindly bringing it to our attention.

Timely information

Posted on October 8, 2020October 8, 2020 by Mike

CA posts a handy threat-level terminology chart.

Sporty: Baseline level of unprecedented behavior; think 2016

Frisky: “Holy cow”; think intel community coup of 2016-2020

Spicy: Getting warmer; “Is that gunfire nearby?”

SPORKY: Shit Pants Or Roof Korean; YOLO (you only live once)

Plan accordingly.

And whatever the Eff you do, don’t freaking lose.

Learn ’em, live ’em, love ’em, that last in particular. There’s also a link to Wilder’s latest CW 2.0 Weather Report installment, which is summed up in his opening caption:

Right now it feels like we’re watching a slow-motion video of a wreck that’s getting ready to happen. We know it’s going to happen, but have no idea how to stop it as physics makes it inevitable.

When I started doing these updates, I wondered if I was being too pessimistic. In part, the original scale was developed based on personal experience – I had visited a “blue” state a few years ago on summer vacation.

A man, apparently looking at birds in a little-used state monument, saw us drive in. He trained his binoculars on our license plate. “Lower-upper Midwestia, eh?” he yelled. “Yes,” I responded.

“Who’d you vote for?” Unusual, but, whatever.

“Well, his name starts with a T,” I replied, grinning.

He then proceeded to call me a name for a portion of the anatomy that was the first thing people panicked about when COVID-19 hit and everyone bought all of that toilet paper.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me.” He then repeated the anatomical description and then scurried, rat-like into his SUV.

The Mrs. had gone to the little bathroom at the historical site, and had missed the interaction. I’m glad. She would have broken him like a stick. She always handles my light work.

But this was a significant data point. Never in my life had I been attacked, in public, for no reason other than my ballot. For most of my life, political differences had been a path to amusing conversations among friends. We had considered moving to this state. Why would we, though, when people acted like that? And now, people are moving out of California for the same reason we didn’t move to that blue state.

Once upon a time, we could talk about our political disagreements and still be friends. That worked, because even though there were things we disagreed about, we agreed about most things. Now? Leftists have largely abandoned the things that made us Americans. We have nothing to say to each other.

When a stranger will insult you in public over nothing more than your ballot? The time of violence is close.

Just one symptom of a much broader national ailment—an incurable, usually fatal one.

Catastrophe cascade

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Mike

Hope it was worth it, panic ninnies.

Hardly anyone expected that things would get this bad in 2020. Once the pandemic hit and states all over the country started instituting lockdowns, economic activity collapsed dramatically. U.S. GDP was down 31.4 percent during the second quarter of 2020, and that was a drop without parallel in all of U.S. history. In fact, that decline was more than three times as large as the previous record. But eventually states started to “reopen” their economies, and U.S. GDP for the third quarter is expected to show a significant rebound when the numbers are finally released. Of course we still aren’t even close to where we used to be, but at least things weren’t as bad as they were in the second quarter.

But now as the fourth quarter begins, it appears that economic conditions are heading back in the wrong direction again.

Follows, a list of fifteen truly grim portents, which are just the tip of a very, very big iceberg. No matter how desperately TPTB try to juggle and parboil the numbers, we’re only in the very beginning stages of an unprecedented, wholly self-inflicted disaster. It’s going to get worse, and may well never get much better.

Then again, the economy could well turn out to be the least of our worries before the year is out.

Now we are less than a month away from a presidential election that promises to be incredibly chaotic, and the extremely deep divisions that already exist in our nation are likely to get even worse. Many believe that this election will produce even more civil unrest, and that will likely depress economic activity even further.

I truly wish that economic conditions would “return to normal” and that all of us could get back to our old patterns.

But there isn’t going to be any “return to normal” any time soon.

Instead, very dark days are ahead, and those very dark days will shake this nation to the core.

Yep, that’s my conclusion too. Better get used to it, folks; as I keep saying, this is our New Normal, like it or not. Another one of those times when I hope and pray that I’m wrong, but…well, it ain’t looking like the way to bet.

Getting literal

Posted on October 3, 2020October 3, 2020 by Mike

The crucible of hate burns away all impurities, leaving only truth.

Liberals are jumping with glee right now. Yes, some are sending well wishes, but it’s people who, you know, mostly can’t tweet how they really feel. Pete Buttigieg is a former 2020 Democratic candidate for president, he can’t go with the “I hope you die” route. All these well-wishers on the Left don’t mean it. They’re snickering. They’re laughing. They’re hoping Trump dies. I wouldn’t expect anything less. These people hate us, and we should hate them with greater intensity. My hatred of the Left is what keeps me going every day. I’m sure you all could tell. If a liberal was drowning, I wouldn’t throw a life vest. I’d throw an anvil.

People have many opinions about politics. Some think public service is a means of doing good. It’s become a snake pit, however, and while our Founding Fathers were brilliant–our institutions are pretty much crap now. Damaged beyond repair? No. Of course not, but eight years of Barack Obama certainly chiseled away at their credibility. Have we forgotten that the Department of Justice was weaponized and spied on the presidential campaign of the rival political party?

Again, let the Left be terrible. What is often missed in these incidents where liberals get their rocks off is that conservatives often think we get brownie points for being the “better man.” That’s crap, especially now. It’s an election year. We are where politics usually resides—in the gutter. It’s a knife fight. The one who inflicts the most damage and spills the most blood—figuratively speaking—wins.

That’s the only rule to live by now. Politics is war. The Left is just lusting to enact an agenda that snuffs us out, and their 100+ days of rioting should give insight into how far they are willing to go to achieve that aim. Don’t be the “better person.” We never ever will get credit for being the better, principled party—ever. Have we learned nothing from 2012? When we get punched or have hate hurled at us, throw it right back.

Sorry to have to say it and all, but I’m afraid we blew right on by that “figuratively speaking” sidewinding and left it in the rearview a goodish while back.

“Figuratively speaking” didn’t prevent the four-year Deep State coup attempt; Shampeachment; the destruction of the Trump economy via the Covidiot pretext; and the burning of American cities because of yet another lie, among other things. It isn’t going to prevent the theft of the upcoming election, continued violence against Real Americans by Leftist mobs, and the perennial campaign to undermine and tear asunder the US Constitution.

“Figuratively speaking,” for better or worse, is no longer adequate to the task before us. It’s a luxury available only in nations less fractured and divided than this one now is. Things are about to get very literal indeed, whether we like it or not.

American Renaissance

Posted on September 26, 2020September 26, 2020 by Mike

AOSHQ COB KT mentions the Gipper’s farewell address in 1989, and his excerpt rang sharply enough in my head that I went looking for a transcript of the whole thing. Which, irony of ironies, I found tucked away in the online archives of…the NYT?!?

It’s stunning how familiar so much of this speech sounds today. Better go download the PDF now, before some NYT trog realizes their blunder and deep-sixes all reference to it.

Well, back in 1980, when I was running for President, it was all so different. Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our views on foreign affairs would cause war, our plans for the economy would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that “The engines of economic growth have shut down here and they’re likely to stay that way for years to come.”

Well, he – and the other “opinion leaders” – were wrong. The fact is, what they called “radical” was really “right”; what they called “dangerous” was just “desperately needed.”

And in all that time I won a nickname – “The Great Communicator.” But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference – it was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation – from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.

They called it the Reagan Revolution, and I’ll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the Great Rediscovery: a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.

I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once again 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.

Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American, and we absorbed almost in the air a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-Sixties.

Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom – freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise – and freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.

We’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important: Why the pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago, on the 40th anniversary of D-Day. I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who’d fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did. Well, let’s help her keep her word.

If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. I am warning of an eradication of that – of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.

Familiar? All too, I’d say. Every word of it was true then, and is equally true today. And the Left still reacts to those eternal truths as a vampire does to a splash of Holy Water in the face—the only difference between then and now being how much more vicious, violent, and just plain bold they’ve become while Real Americans fitfully slumbered.

This is quite heady and essential stuff: music to the American ear, of a tone and timbre we heard no more of in the long, dark years after. Until Trump entered the arena, that is. Is it really any wonder why they hate him so fanatically?

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