More From The Church Of Extreme Tolerance

     I’m beginning to have more sympathy for the “trans” community. Its members get a lot of static from a lot of directions – and the following, from a transwoman on Facebook, illustrates one such aspect of it dramatically:

     Coming out as transgender was easy and I was met with only positivity from family and friends.

     Starting my Youtube channel and "coming out" with center-right beliefs has wreaked havoc on my life. Within the first month, feminists in my town tried to get me evicted from the place I was living at the time, I lost a significant amount of friends, and overall people were super shitty to me. Then BLM tried doxing me and threatening my family.

     I'm not saying this as a "woe is me" post. I'm a big girl and I can handle whatever comes my way. But the point is to say that "coming out" as someone with any set of beliefs that are not perfectly far-left is more dangerous than coming out as transgender these days.

     I think of this as Plantation Syndrome: If you’re a member of a demographic the Left claims as “its own,” you are not permitted to have views other than doctrinaire Leftist views. That persons such as the author of the above dare to find more ideological commonality with us horrible *ists and *phobes of the Right threatens the Left’s ownership of that group.

     (The asterisks in the above paragraph are wild cards. Replace them with whatever word you please. The Left does it all the time.)

     Therefore, by the Gospel of Leftist Tolerance and its Boundaries:

• Blacks are not permitted to be conservatives; that’s “race treason.”
  
• Women are not permitted to be conservatives; that’s “gender treason.”
  
• Homosexuals are not permitted to be conservatives; that’s...I don’t know, just icky.
  

     And now we have the “trans” community discovering, like its Marquee personality of the moment Caitlyn Jenner – I’ve decided to call X whatever X wants to be called, at least until the absurdities become overwhelming...and just what is the proper pronoun to use for someone who “identifies” as a rutabaga, anyway? – that “tolerance,” for the Left, is merely a political shibboleth, and not a genuine commitment.

     UPDATE: Oops! I forgot to mention the relevant Youtube channel. The proprietress is, quite frankly, a scream. Give her a try.

Clunk! Edition

     Some of Sarah Hoyt’s guest posters aren’t quite as careful about their stuff as they should be. For example, in this essay decrying the decline of “literary” science fiction, I found the following:

     [I]f you want to be commercially successful now, you have to be willing to go into growing subgenres where a less literate population with reduced attention spans are buying.

     It pinned my irony meter. What does it do to yours, Gentle Reader? Take your time and read it carefully.

Persecutions

     Hearken to the esteemed Dystopic:

     Contrary to the beliefs of Leftists, being Christian has, historically, meant accepting a great of persecution. The followers of Christ, not unlike the Jews, have suffered under great persecution from other faiths. The Romans killed them (until converting). Then the Muslims came, and did likewise.

     But the day came when Christianity was ascendant and unchallenged in the West. And so it is easy to forget that, as a Christian, persecution is not so far away as we often think it is. We’ve suffered comparatively little in recent years. The worst we’ve had to deal with lately is militant atheists with their smug, Jon Stewart liberal grins and airs of superiority. Easy enough to suffer that.

     The killing of the priest, during Mass, tells us that a new round of persecution may be beginning. I honestly didn’t think I’d see that in my lifetime. But, here it is. In a sense, it is worse than the other terror killings. Not in number of bodies, of course, but in the brazenness of the act, and in the specificity of the target. Where you could theoretically lump other Islamic terror attacks in the West into some kind of general malaise, and excuse it by some sort of twisted Left-wing, secular reasoning, this attack smacks more obviously of religious war.

     It “smacks more obviously of religious war” because that’s what’s in progress. That and nothing else.

---

     The great difference between Islam and all other religions is that Islam explicitly preaches intolerance of other faiths. Islam is therefore inherently and irremediably at war with every other religion -- including atheism -- practiced by anyone, anywhere on Earth.

     Christianity has had its excesses. The Inquisition was the worst of them. However, our principal sin, over the centuries, has been to snub the followers of other faiths. Over time we did unlearn such contemptible practices. But at their worst, the crimes committed in the name of Christ – none of which can find any justifications in the teaching of the Redeemer – pale in comparison to the immeasurably greater and bloodier rampage of savageries committed by explicit direction of the bloodthirsty, adulterous pseudo-prophet Muhammad.

     Moreover, Islam represents itself as a totalitarian political entity with God-given authority: a State with power over all things great and small. Thus it is at war not “merely” with other religious creeds, but with the political authorities of every non-Islamic nation. The refusal by the “leaders” of the West to acknowledge this has baffled many. It almost seems as if they believe the boogeyman will go away if they pretend that they don’t see him.

     That, to put it as gently as possible, is not on.

---

     At this time, Europe is under continuous siege. Its already-imported Islamic fraction becomes more troublesome with each day that passes. Its borders are under extraordinary pressure from “refugees,” the great majority of which are military-age Muslim males unaccompanied by women, children, or the aged. Both sets demand accommodation; in response, Europe’s leaders wring their hands for a moment and submit. The portents are anything but good.

     Meanwhile, America’s specialist in pissing on our heads and telling us it’s raining, Barack Hussein Obama, repeatedly tells us it’s our moral obligation to accommodate such “refugees” in or own lands. Nor does he care to listen to any backtalk. Despite loud, fervent rejections of the idea, his myrmidons have settled thousands of such “refugees” in towns whose previous populations were smaller than the Muslim influx. I seem to sense an agenda in there. Do you?

     Obama’s seven and a half years riding roughshod over individuals’ rights, the Constitution, and everything else Americans treasure have crippled our economy, enervated our military, and made our international position a laughingstock. The Republican majorities in Congress have done nothing even to retard his depredations; neither have the supposedly conservative justices on the Supreme Court. Add to this his undisguised attempt to flood our nation with persons as hostile to it and its norms as is he.

     Persecutions are often conducted under color of law.

---

     America is at great risk. The news media deliberately exclude or downplay any news that would reflect badly on the Obama Administration. They’re particularly determined to conceal the effects of the Islamic infestation. As other pundits have already noticed, “our” chief concerns appear to be catering to homosexual sensitivities and contriving transgender-friendly restrooms. But the apostles of “tolerance” have no time or attention to spare for the intolerance of our invaders. Not while there’s a man in a dress being told he can’t use the women’s lavatory.

     Is it any wonder that resentment of government – all of it; not just the Golfer-In-Chief – is nearing a peak? Should that boil burst, the consequences will be unpleasant – Civil-War-level unpleasant, if not worse – and Muslims who’ve wormed their ways into America will enjoy them least of all.

     My Gentle Readers have probably noticed that recently I’ve been posting a greater fraction of humorous stuff. There’s a reason for that. I’m sure I don’t need to state it explicitly.

     Recently, the esteemed David de Gerolamo proclaimed that he would no longer write about political and governmental matters. He might be more sensible than your humble Curmudgeon Emeritus. I continue in the hope that there’s a chance, however slim, that men of good will can talk the country down off the ledge. I might be wrong, of course. But the ocean of blood that will be spilled if the American people rise up and take matters into their own hands tells me that I must continue.

     Read Dystopic’s essay. Take it seriously. And pray – but don’t stop there:

     Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. [Luke 22:36]

     Don’t forget to buy plenty of ammo for your “sword.”

Conversations

     FWP: (peering dourly at the CSO’s deli sandwich) How can you eat that?
     CSO: (shrugs) I like it.

     FWP: It’s all fat!
     CSO: Well, I didn’t ask for “extra lean.”

     FWP: I don’t get it. They take the cheapest, fattiest cut from the cow, soak it in hair dye, slice it up, hang an Italian’s name on it, and you guys have it for lunch.
     CSO: Huh? An Italian?

     FWP: Yeah, Giuseppe Pastrami, 14th century Italian astronomer. You didn’t know?
     CSO: Oh. I thought it was named after that Indian guru, Pah Strami.

     (You might find it hard to believe, but the conversation got sillier from there. However, at this point transcription will cease, to preserve whatever shreds of my reputation remain un-tattered.)

Marxist dystopia.

America, the extraordinary experiment in self government, has evolved into a joke. Consider this from the party that has run it for the last 28 years (and, let it be said, Ronald "Trust but verify" Reagan was fine with open borders):

Tim Kaine, the perfect persona of the non-threatening, white, do-gooding, suburban squish, who speaks Espanol to boot. A non-threatening but “Catholic” face to serve as cover for alpha female/pen_s envy Hil_LIAR-y and the Dem/Marxist platform:

• abortion on demand for women so “they can have it all”;
• socially destructive welfare/affirmative action aka Black Skin Privilege for A/As;
• amnesty/open borders/affirmative action aka Brown Skin Privilege for Hispanics;
• gender neutral toilets for TGs; and
• oppressive EPA regulation to appease the “the end is near” global warming alarmists, etc.

It’s the ticket to Marxist—Hil_LIARy, Obama, Sanders--dystopia.

Comment by Mike Ludwig on "The Hillary Watch. Hillary Tells It Like It Ain’t." By George Neumayr, The American Spectator, 7/27/16 (emphasis and bullets added).

Unguided missiles.

Americans, that is.

At least the nation is not guided by anything resembling rationality. Our political class just can't get enough of "Heal the world," "Transform the world," and "Invade the world."

Yes, we are the indispensable people. The world yearns for our leadership. The key to human happiness is known to us. America is but one nation among many. Global interests must be pursued. American interests are of no consequence in the larger scheme. Our resources know no limits. Let the world contemplate our "exceptionalism."

Outside of the leadership of France, Germany, Sweden, and the E.U., people around the world must think we've lost our minds. Gaddafi's got to go. Assad, too. We know these things. Vladimir Putin is a thug and Russia must be made to back down. From what, it isn't clear. We judge and we judge with unerring accuracy.

Our insufferable arrogance must stimulate white-hot fury, though that of the northern Europeans and the joke known as the E.U. differs but little from our own.

As some wit of something particularly nauseating, "It's enough even to make Rod McKuen throw up." Except the people of Serbia, Iraq, Ukraine, Libya, and Syria, our dead and wounded troops and their the families, and the families of those left to die in Benghazi are the only ones paying the dearest price in wasted and shattered lives for our arrogance.

To internationlists/globalists, Trump's nation-centric program summed up as "America First" is the abyss. It spells "retreat" from global interests and multi-national organizations (more abyss). Their own notions of American interests are collectively, yea, utopianly and even zealously conceived, something a la George W. Bush's. The anti-democratic European Union is their idea of an ally, not the sovereign states attempting to be reborn from it. They seem never to be happier than when some "US-led NATO" action is underway, attempting to create global/U.S.-led utopia, the one that always fails to take root while killing tens of thousands of people along the way. It is this worldview that has in recent years led to thousands of American troops losing their lives and their limbs deep in the Islamic world, but, hey, anything for utopia.^[1]

Notes
^[1] "The PCE, Pt. 25: In the (Russian) Tank for Hillary." By Diana West, 7/25/16.

Weather Map Trouble

     Apparently, the following was a spontaneous reaction to a malfunction by the electronic weather map display on an Arizona news report:

     Now that’s what I’d call “grace under pressure.”

On The Front Lines

     Be certain that you know where they are:

     Francois Hollande says France is at war with ISIS after two Islamist knifemen butchered a French priest and left a nun fighting for her life before they were both shot dead by police in Normandy.

     One of the men who stormed into the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen during mass was a local man, who was being monitored by electronic tag after being jailed for trying to join fanatics in Syria.

     The 84-year-old priest, named as Jacques Hamel, had his throat cut while a nun is critically injured in hospital following the raid which saw five people held hostage by ISIS assailants shouting 'Allahu Akbar'.

     It’s been a public doctrine in Israel for many years that every Israeli, no matter where on Earth he may be, is a front-line soldier. I submit that today the same doctrine applies to:

• Europeans other than Islamic migrants;
• Christians everywhere;
• Jews everywhere;
• and, of course, Americans.

     To all Europeans who value anything European about Europe: You had better take this to heart, arm yourselves, and get ready to act. Your governments did this to you. You cannot count on them to protect you.

Political Skills

     If you’ve bothered to watch the thirty-six second video below, you already have an inkling about the subject for today’s tirade. If not...well, I don’t charge extra for bullheaded stubbornness.

---

     “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.” – John Adams

     “War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means.” – Karl von Clausewitz

     “War is deceit.” – Muhammad

     “Politics is conceit.” – Me

     There’s nothing more conspicuous about the nature of the politician, whether already in office or merely aspiring to it, than his enormous ego. This follows from the nature of his quest: the pursuit of power over others. To desire such power and pursue it as his foremost priority, he must meet one of two requirements:

1. He must believe himself fit to rule;
2. He must be completely amoral.

     And yes, sometimes those two qualities are found in the same person.

     In private life, men of good will exhibit neither trait. Even those who believe themselves to be superior to others in particular ways will have been conditioned to modesty as children or (at the very least) taught to simulate it. Indeed, we who don’t aspire to rule others intensely dislike excessive ego and open amorality...at least, in other persons.

     This presents the politician with a problem. The very traits that admit him to the political class will be serious detriments if allowed to become visible. From this arises the skill that’s the sine qua non of every politician: the ability to conceal what he truly is from the inspection of others.

     There are occasional exceptions. One such, the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, makes no bones about his belief in his own greatness. In all honesty, he’s earned a certain amount of his self-adulation. What’s singular about him is that his blatant ego has not impeded his political rise. Indeed, it may have been essential to it. But he is, most definitely, an exception.

---

     He who deems himself fit to rule others will have plans: laws and policies he means to push with the powers of the office he seeks. In the usual case, some of those plans will be unpopular. Therefore, he must prevent them from becoming known. Anyone who tries to unearth and expose them, whether by direct examination or by inference, must be deflected.

     A politician’s record of public statements and alliances will usually provide clues to the plans he’d prefer to keep to himself. When a nonpartisan or hostile journalist seeks to examine him on them, he must talk his way adroitly around what he really intends. This requires skill at circumlocution: to speak of something that edges toward but sounds more palatable than the nub of his plan. Thus federal welfare became “a hand up, not a hand out.” The imposition of licensure for the practice of medicine became “medical quality control.” Social Security payroll taxes became “contributions.” The list could be extended many times over.

     The video below provides an example of a Michael Kinsley-esque “gaffe:” a politician unwittingly telling the truth. What follows from such a gaffe is usually unfortunate for the politician.

---

     A third skill found in most politicians is generally visible at certain times: specifically, during contests for office. It manifests when the politician is attacked in some fashion where the objective evidence supports the attack.

     No one likes to be criticized. Politicians, possessors of oversized egos, dislike it far more than private persons. Moreover, a sufficient volume of criticism believed by a sufficient number of voters can deny a politician the power he seeks (or wants to keep). However, if the facts are against him, a straightforward defense will be difficult. It might well be impossible. Therefore, the tactic he’ll most often reach for is discrediting the source.

     We’ve already seen this tactic used several times during the current campaign. Maximum effectiveness requires that the wielder know discreditable things about his critics. That’s the motivation for “opposition research,” a phrase that’s become well known since the Democrats’ odious 2008 efforts to disparage Sarah Palin. However, even without such knowledge, it’s always possible to impute discreditable traits or motives to the critic. At least, one can accuse the accuser of being a “paid shill for my opponent.”

     In the usual case, the politician wielding the discrediting tactic will know himself to be no better a man than his critic, and quite possibly worse. But in politics, playing defense is playing to lose; no matter how feeble one’s weapons, it’s always preferable to be on the attack. The skill of greatest importance here is the ability to say the meanest imaginable things about one’s critics with an air of self-righteousness and a perfectly straight face.

---

     The Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch are unlikely to feel great esteem for persons who possess the political skills described in the above. Yet that is the nature of politics in these United States in this year of Our Lord 2016. It might have once been otherwise, but no one alive today has known anything else. Which, as with T. S. Eliot’s “Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent,” leads us to an overwhelming question:

Why support any politician?
Why not ignore the lot of them,
And be about our proper business?

     Just a thought for those of you who, like myself, have grown so thoroughly disgusted with politics that we’d greet news of a nuclear attack on the District of Columbia with wild applause and raucous cheers.

They Don’t Want To Take Your Guns, Of Course Not!

     Thirty-six seconds of truth from a DNC delegate who doesn’t know she’s on a hidden camera:

     Make it go viral!

"Conservatives" unmasked.

One of the great, great side benefits of the rise of Trump is the slipping of the mask of the smug, lilly-livered, lying, sneaky, conniving, useless, posturing, sellout oxygen thieves of the "right" who have cried mighty rivers of tears over the lost greatness of the American republic, limited government, and constitutionalism but done bugger all to reverse our slide into being a nation that is nothing more than a formless, brown, third-world glop.

On one of the most fundamental aspects of our Western tradition, Kevin Williamson had this to say:

As National Review #NeverTrump-er Kevin Williamson has suggested, “"the Democratic party and its undemocratic ‘superdelegate’ system sure is looking smart right about now."^[1]

Nothing vexes these latte-drinking grandees than to have the unwashed citizens of fly-over country actually decide to change the political and social course of the country. They're perfectly comfortable with any measure that debases the Constitution so long as it can be squeezed under the heading of "market-based" and "meritocratic." An efficient, meritocratic tyranny is just the ticket. They will bow down before some pale, flaccid abstraction and spit on actual flesh-and-blood fellow citizens and the plain wording of the Constitution.

I think American politicians accrued a lot of trust and credibility in the long struggle with Stalinism and other forms of communist terror even though they were incapable of putting their finger on what exactly it was about communist theory that guaranteed the disasters their governments effected. To this day, communism is no more threatening than Christian Science or Mormonism to the smart set. Nonetheless, the general competence and patriotism visible in most of the major actors of those times was appreciated and we knew the general course of the nation was a correct one.

However, that trust and credibility spilled over into the politics that ensued after the fall of the Soviet Union and the morons and traitors who rose to prominence busily concerned themselves with locating and combating chimeras and will-o'-the-wisps like badness, un-Chinese dictators (brutal), "Islamism," "terror," "radical fundamentalist, Islamic Jihad," and the ghost of Josef Stalin risen from the grave to re-occupy the Kremlin in the person of the most evil man on the planet, Vladimir Putin. Not counting Bashar Assad of Syria. Words cannot describe the evil nature of that man.

If I ask how did we come to be ruled by such dweebs, twinks, and twits, the answer is that we either inherited them or they poured out of the woodwork of trusted institutions like cockroaches in the dark. We thought that today is like yesterday and there must have been some logical laying on of hands.

The full extent of the populist fury that's been fermenting and boiling up is not yet known but you can be sure that a lot of regular Americans are wide awake to the betrayals of the elites and the contempt they have for us.

Notes
^[1] "If Trump Loses, a “Transformed” GOP Might Not Get a Second Chance." By Jim Jatras, Chronicles, 7/25/16.

Crankings

     Lately every single day starts with a slew of irritations. Not calamities or crises, mind you; just minor niggling nuisances that obtrude and obstruct my progress.

     For example: I have dogs. Two. One of them is the size of a small horse. The other is...well, for a female German Shepherd Sophie’s pretty large (77 lb), but she's nowhere near Rufus’s size. And they have the unholy habits of:

1. “Following me from in front;”
2. Penning me into whatever room I occupy.

     I know their behavior is fueled by affection. I know they’re simply doing what they can to protect me, though from what or whom remains unclear. But that doesn’t make the back spasms any less severe when I have to brake to an instantaneous halt in the bedroom hallway because over two hundred pounds of canine companionship has slammed to a stop directly in front of me. (Catalogs of “hazards in the average home” really should include this.)

     Then there’s the “penning / herding” stuff. This can be particularly trying when I settle myself in front of my main computer. (I have five.) Rufus immediately lays himself down in such a fashion that I can barely get out of my office chair and must perform like a master contortionist to get out of the room. Does he care that I desperately need a coffee refill? Of course not. Neither does Sophie, who immediately gets up from her dog bed to “escort” me the instant I a stir a muscle.

     Yet somehow, despite advancing age and early-morning perceptions and reflexes that are, shall we say, not at their best, I get by. I manage to conduct my morning rituals, eat a dubious kind of breakfast, and write these intolerably sententious essays for your reading displeasure. Eventually, I get to Mass...Rufus permitting.

     Then there’s my wife Beth. Now, I love my wife. She tolerates me, a challenge that’s defeated a number of other women. But...well, let’s just say she has some odd ideas about what constitutes “putting away.” On various occasions I’ve asked her please to put away whatever she’s finished using. Her replies would stagger Socrates:

• Piles of magazines mounded on the living room coffee table, some of them approaching a year old, and crossword puzzles printed out from various websites and completed long ago, scattered over the sofa-back table, are “put away.”
• Bags, cans, and dishes of ingredients littering the kitchen counter, the baker’s island, and the kitchen table are “put away.”
• Huge masses of her work papers that detail miscellaneous deviousnesses among her accounting clients, spread over the dining room table and its six chairs, are “put away.”
• Six years’ accumulated detritus from her minivan, removed and scattered over the garage floor – “so I could get the car washed” – are “put away.”
• And lately, she’s been leaving bags of groceries on my basement workbench. When I ask for the wherefore, she shrugs and says, “I thought I put them away. Would you take care of it, Sweetie?”

     (BONUS ROUND: Late yesterday, I noticed that the currently deployed roll of toilet paper in our master bathroom was getting near to exhaustion, so I took a fresh roll out of inventory and left it on the counter next to the Porcelain Throne. This morning on my first...visit, the deployed roll was down to three single-ply squares and the replacement roll was nowhere in sight. So I called out plaintively, “Sweetie, what happened to the fresh roll of toilet paper?” Her reply? “Oh, I noticed that was out and I put it away.”)

     I’ve checked; this is not considered a symptom of ingressive dementia.

     I know, I know: Women are just “like that.” No man will ever understand them. But it would chafe a bit less if she hadn’t started trying to “put away” her adult daughters’ relics in my closet.

     Finally for this morning’s curmudgeonry, there are the books. I have a lot of books: something over 13,000 physical volumes plus God alone knows how many ebooks. I need my books; they’re my tutors, my entertainment, and my boon companions. But when I’m doing research, I need to be able to find particular items swiftly rather than comb through the entire library for the volume of interest, and they’ve started to migrate.

     He who lives alone would have only himself to blame...but I don’t live alone. One wife, two dogs, four cats, and (I think) a doppelganger who rises in the wee hours to rearrange the bookshelves. Despite all my efforts, I can’t keep the reference volumes segregated from the pleasure reading. Just yesterday I went looking for Paul Johnson’s Modern Times – highly recommended, by the way – and despite a clear recollection of having installed it in my office next to my other histories, after a two-hour search I found it in the basement, between John Ross’s Unintended Consequences and my collection of cartoons by the late, great Bernard Kliban!

     You know I didn’t put it there. I don’t drink that much. So who did?

     Clearly, there’s villainy afoot. The scoundrel must be pursued relentlessly, caught, and brought to book. But for a change, most of the indictable miscreants are holed up at the Democrats’ National Convention, and as W. C. Fields once said, “One day I spent a month in Philadelphia.”

     Time was, life was a lot simpler. At least, it seems that way in memory, though the memories of an old man aren’t perfectly trustworthy. Get up, get clean, get dressed, get in the car and go to work, do software and management stuff for nine or ten hours, get in the car and go home, eat something, and collapse into bed. Repeat as needed. Plain instructions and few complications. If we overlook the tendency of the lawn to keep growing despite my express disapproval, that is.

     Maybe this is the dark side of retirement: finally noticing all the little stuff that seemed unimportant when I was bringing home the bacon...most of which Beth and the animals would consume before I could even get to my seat at the table.

     Surely there’s a silver lining to all this. A plot for a novel. Maybe a thriller about a sexagenarian driven by the minor garbage of exurban existence to become a serial killer. Has there yet been a blockbuster about an old fart who strangles passers-by with a garden hose after torturing them with atrocious puns? And for which of those categories of offense would he be more roundly condemned? (Soon to be a minor motion picture!)

     “Man plans and God laughs.” (Old Yiddish proverb. Use it on the old Yids you know.)

We stymied.

The familiar explanation for black failure – repeated endlessly in motion pictures, newspapers, magazines, and by political and educational leaders – is lingering white racism. As Taylor stresses:

"Americans are so accustomed to hearing – and repeating – this view that they scarcely bother to think what it means. It means, essentially, that white people, not blacks, are responsible for black behavior. It implies that blacks are helpless and cannot make progress unless whites transform themselves.

"Do blacks drop out of school? Teachers are insensitive to their needs. Do black women have children out of wedlock? Slavery broke up the black family. Are blacks more likely than whites to commit crimes? Oppression and poverty explain it. Are ghetto blacks unemployed? White businesses are prejudiced against them. Are blacks more likely to be drug addicts? They are frustrated by white society… There is scarcely any form of failure that cannot, in some way, be laid at the feet of racist white people."

"A Powerful Indictment of America’s Failed Racial Policy." Review of Paved with Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America, by Jared Taylor by Charles Stanwood, The Journal of Historical Review, March-April 1993.

Hillary's health.

Does this look normal, staged, or tampered with in any way? Pay attention to the reaction of the woman with pink nail polish:

Don't look for this to be on the MSM anytime soon.

H/t: John (magnum) at mrc Newsbusters.

Democracy.

Great article. I may make my students read this when the semester start next month. Reminds me of the following joke (I live in California):

Q: What’s the difference between California and the Titanic?

A. The passengers on the Titanic didn’t vote to hit the iceberg.

Comment by Macesays on "No Lifeboats." By Robert Gore, The Burning Platform, 7/24/16.

Hallowed Names: A Sunday Rumination

     A story for you this morning.

---

     Long ago, in the capital city of a kingdom whose name has been lost, a horde of rag-clad beggars daily prowled the central square, pursuing prosperous-looking passers-by and importuning them for alms. As is the case even today, the greater part of those passers-by turned away their faces and hurried on, for they knew that the majority of the beggars were not truly victims of fate dependent upon the kindness of strangers, but could have lived by their own efforts. Thus did the many, who slothfully strove to live without work, pollute the square to the great detriment of the few.

     One of the few, a man named Aaron whom chance had genuinely disfavored, rather than aggressively pursuing every well dressed man who passed, stood stolidly and humbly at the edge of the square. Yet he was not neglected by those moved to give, for he made a practice of thanking his benefactors and praising the name of God for each gift. Near him chanced one of the many, a fellow named Balaun, who was ever alert for advantage. Balaun noted how Aaron’s receipts exceeded his own, though Aaron never strayed from his accustomed place. Balaun asked Aaron about his habit, learned of it, and was impressed. “Brother,” Balaun said, “one can easily see how slender are the proceeds for any mendicant in this place, for there are too many of us. We must go where there are fewer of us and more wealth at hand. Let us, therefore, go to the gates of the palace, for no one has yet dared to approach the king.” He smiled slyly. “Should he not have the opportunity to give alms?”

     Aaron was disturbed by Balaun’s suggestion. He foresaw not munificence but sorrow coming from such boldness. Yet he thought it his part to accompany Balaun, saying to himself, “Perhaps I can gentle the mood of the guards by my example, that they not drag Balaun away by his beard and put him to an ignoble ending.”

     At the right of the gates Aaron knelt and bowed his head, presenting himself in full and abject humility. Balaun stood at the left with his head thrown back and cried in a loud voice, “We petition His Majesty the King for succor.”

     The king, who by chance was strolling his grounds, heard Balaun’s outcry, stopped, and faced the gates. He saw the beggars, one standing and one kneeling, remarked to himself upon the novelty of the sight, and was moved to charity. He beckoned to a servant, who bowed low and asked of the king what he would have done.

     “Go to the kitchens,” the king said, “select two fat loaves, and bring them to the gates. Give one to each of the beggars there, tell them it is their king’s gift, and report to me on their replies.” The servant bowed again and departed to do as he’d been told.

     When Aaron received the loaf given to him, he quietly thanked the king for his gift, and said “Praised be the name of God, in whom all good things have their origins.” The servant recorded this and turned to Balaun.

     Balaun, who had watched Aaron closely, took the loaf from the servant with eager hands and cried out in a loud voice, “Forever praised be the name of our glorious king!” The servant recorded this, and the three went their separate ways.

     When they met the next day at the city square, Balaun persuaded Aaron to repeat the experiment of the day before. Aaron assented, and the two returned to the palace gates. Once again Aaron went to the right and dropped to his knees in a posture of humble supplication. Once again Balaun stood at the left with his head held high and cried out, “We petition His Majesty the King for succor.”

     The king took notice, summoned the servant of the day before, and asked him “What response did these beggars make to yesterday’s gifts?” The servant replied, “Lord, one thanked you and quietly praised God as the origin of all good things. The other shouted praise to you and your glory.”

     “Was it so?” the king said. “Then today let us follow a different path. Select two fat loaves as you did yesterday. Then go to my treasury, slit open one loaf, hollow it out and fill it with gold and silver coins. Then seal the loaf to conceal your tamperings. Give that loaf to the beggar who called out praise of my name. The other shall receive no more than he had yesterday.” The servant bowed and departed to do his king’s will.

     When the servant gave the unmodified loaf to Aaron, he did as he had done the day before: he quietly thanked the king for his gift, and said “Praised be the name of God, the progenitor of all blessings.” Balaun took the modified loaf, once again loudly praised the name of the king, and the three went their separate ways.

     As they hurried back toward the square, Balaun weighed his loaf in his hands and felt doubt. “It is not like yesterday’s loaf. There is a defect in it. Perhaps it was not baked to completion.” So when they reached the edge of the square, when Aaron momentarily set aside his loaf to adjust his garment, Balaun swiftly and cunningly exchanged the two, and hurried off before Aaron could notice and hail him back.

     Aaron took up the loaf, noted its considerable weight, and broke it open to expose the riches within. Overcome with gratitude and joy, he cried out “Blessings unlooked-for and unmerited! Thrice praised be the name of God!” He then roved the square to distribute the wealth, a little to each of the other beggars, so that all would have some share in it. Upon seeing this, a passing vineyard owner, who had need of a steward for his lands, approached Aaron and took him into his employ, and from that day Aaron begged no longer.

     The next day, when Balaun returned to the square, he saw no trace of Aaron, but departed alone to beg at the king’s gates once more. When he cried out for alms, the king was disturbed, summoned his servant, and asked, “Is that the beggar who praised my name yesterday, to whom you gave a loaf filled with riches?” The servant replied, “It is, my lord.” The king then said “To what extent did you enrich him?” The servant replied, “Lord, I chose the fattest loaf in the pantry, hollowed it almost to the crust, and poured in handful after handful of your coin until it was filled.”

     The king was deeply angered. “Avarice cannot be countenanced, especially from one who has already been the object of such beneficence.” So he summoned the captain of his guard, pointed at Balaun, and spoke a single terse command:

     “Behead him.”

---

     Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.

     And may God bless and keep you all.

Quickies: “Change”

     To all those crusading for “change,” marching for “change,” collecting bottle caps for “change...”

     What do you mean? What do you want to change, in what direction and by what magnitude? If it’s something you can do personally, then do it and leave the rest of us in peace. If it’s a political quest, such that you think the government “must” take more power over our lives, stay well away from me: I shoot first and deal with the paperwork later.

     Nothing is quite as ignorant as a demand for unspecified “change.” Those who make such demands deserve to be dismissed with prejudice. They get an unfortunate amount of attention and media adulation, as if they were actually capable of doing something that would benefit others. In nearly every case they’re consuming our time and attention to no constructive purpose, and creating an opening for demagogues eager to snatch away still more of our hard-earned money and our rapidly dwindling freedom.

     Insult them. Be crude. Mock them. Be cruel! Make them feel like the morons they resemble (and probably are). Take vengeance for their consumption of your precious time. Nothing else – nothing within the penal law, at least – has the slightest chance of deterring them.

     Yes, I’m in a foul mood. I got up, looked in the mirror, and realized afresh that I’m old – that the hours of my life are trickling away. And the very first thing I confronted thereafter was a moron calling for completely unspecified “change.”

     Attila the Hun brought “change.”
     Genghis Khan brought “change.”
     Timur-i-leng brought “change.”
     Tomas de Torquemada brought “change.”
     John Calvin brought “change.”
     Hitler brought “change.”
     Stalin brought “change.”
     Fidel Castro brought “change.”
     Mao Tse-tung brought “change.”
     Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mobutu Sese Seko, and Haile Mengistu Mariam brought “change.”
     Ruhollah Khomeini brought “change.”
     Osama bin Laden brought “change.”

     None for me, thanks.

Quickies: On Punching Back

     Remember The Won’s exhortation to his allegiants to “punch back twice as hard” -- ? It’s become something of a mantra on the Right, in part due to the efforts of Glenn Reynolds. As it turns out, the “twice as hard” part might not be necessary.

     I’ve discovered that metaphorically speaking, the Left has what boxing enthusiasts once called “a glass jaw.” They can’t take a punch. Not even an oblique, glancing one.

     Just recently, a Web conversation that I was privy to included a typical sort of Leftist disparagement of Donald Trump. I’m not one of Trump’s bigger fans; about the most positive thing I can say about him is that I think he’d be a better president than Hillary Clinton. But this...person made a direct, undisguised comparison of Trump to Hitler.

     To which I responded:

     “If you’re an American, another county heard from; how nice, but the voters will decide in November. If you’re not, we’ll gladly stay out of your politics if you’ll stay out of ours.”

     The original commenter replied “what are you trying to say in your response to my comment about trump sounding like hitler?” (Note the lack of capital letters; many Leftists never learn to shift for themselves.) He then blocked me from responding. No one else has responded – and I’d bet my bottom dollar that the others privy to it were as far to the left as the original commenter.

     It surprised me a bit. I’d thought I was being fairly mild...for me, at least. But Leftists cannot abide any dissent from their doctrines – and one of those doctrines, as several successive presidential elections have shown us, is that whoever the GOP nominates is “just like Hitler.”

     Now, some will “punch back,” but they can seldom rise above the sort of economic, social, and political ignorance of a Bernie Sanders fan. It’s nearly always sufficient to laugh, call them unintelligent and uneducated, and stroll away. The others reel in shock that someone has dared to call them out – even as mildly as I did above. They retreat to the Leftist cocoon to lick their wounds and garner sympathy from their fellows for having been so cruelly abused.

     Many on the Right have refrained from tactics such as mine out of a desire not to “offend,” or to “avoid unpleasantness.” The asymmetry involved could not be starker. They’ll call you every foul thing in their lexicon – and they do so because they’re confident that you won’t respond.

     If we go by the transactional classifications in Eric Berne’s famous little book Games People Play, the Leftist has descended to Child level in hurling an unsubstantiable insult. It’s the Rightist’s part to respond as a Parent: with the reproof an ignorant, unintelligent child deserves for such a remark. To refrain from doing so is to miss a huge opportunity: not for outreach – there’s no outreach possible to someone such as our hypothetical Leftist; he’s a life member of “a compact and unified church” outside which there is no salvation – but for the humiliation and discouragement of the enemy.

     Think it over. The tactic might be more valuable than it appears at first blush, and we need all the weapons we can get.

The Times delivers the slime.

The execrable New York Times writes of the increasingly important role that Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner plays in Trump's campaign and inserts a greasy insinuation at the end:

A 35-year-old real estate developer, investor and newspaper publisher, Mr. [Jared] Kushner derives his authority in the campaign not from a traditional resume but from a marital vow. He is Mr. Trump's son-in-law. Yet in a gradual but unmistakable fashion, Mr. Kushner has become involved in virtually every facet of the Trump presidential operation, so much so that many inside and out of it increasingly see him as a de facto campaign manager ... Much about the Trump candidacy seems at odds with Mr. Kushner's personality and biography: An Orthodox Jew and grandson of Holocaust survivors, Mr. Kushner is now at the center of a campaign that has been embraced by white nationalists and anti-Semites.^[1]

Where is Robert "Have you no sense of decency, Senator" Welch when you need him?

We already went through this over what Trump was supposed to do because David Duke allegedly supported his candidacy. Politicians can't be tagged with the views of any of the millions of people who support them. If the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam support Hillary, I suppose we'll read how her campaign has "been embraced by black nationalists and screwballs who believe there are invisible space ships circling the earth." Don't anyone hold their breath if that happens, however.

Where Trump is concerned, the Times sullied what's left of its reputation by insinuating that the Trump campaign is characterized by white nationalists and anti-Semites.

So, it's beyond fortunate Times didn't get hold of this confidential rough draft of the seating chart for the Republican convention that one of our sources was kind enough to pass on the Intergalactic Source of Truth. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the Convention proceeded to seat merely the state delegates. But you see here a good example of what Republicans mean when we say we're a "big tent" party:

Little did the Times realize how close they came to putting their finger on the true nature of the Republican Party.

Notes
^[1] "Quiet Fixer in Donald Trump's Campaign: His Son-in-Law, Jared Kushner." By Michael Barbaro and Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times, 7/4/16 (emphasis added). Good job, Michael and Jonathan. Your future at the NYT is assured.

UPDATE 7/23/16:

CNN contributes its own slime:

That black gentleman is awesome.

It’s Over...

     ...the Republican National Convention, that is...and the Democrats’ jamboree will soon follow. The serious Sturm und Drang is on its way.

     Several speakers at the RNC characterized Hillary Clinton as a criminal, and wholly corrupt. I shan’t dispute the point – I can’t, really; no honest man can – but I shall point out that in our time, the fraction of office seekers who aren’t at least somewhat corrupt is vanishingly small. While that doesn’t make Republican disparagement of Mrs. Clinton a case of “the pot calling the kettle black,” let it serve as a reminder: He who points his finger at another is pointing three other fingers back at himself.

     The final stage of the campaign is likely to be as vitriolic as any political contest in American history. Moreover, it’s possible that this will be part of the Democrats’ strategy, as Democrat voters are harder to drive away from the polls with simple nastiness. Unfortunately, the GOP’s nomination of Donald Trump gives them a clear target: Trump’s embrace of insult and vilification as weapons to wield against his Republican opponents opens him wide to such attacks. But then, they also showered such attacks on Mitt Romney and George W. Bush, two of the most gentlemanly men to enter politics in a century.

     Do you get the sense that I’m not looking forward to what’s next, Gentle Reader?

---

     Everyone has opinions. I’m open about mine, as any Gentle Reader will attest. One of them is that no matter whom the voters choose on November 8, “the government” will remain as it has been since the inception of the New Deal. I’d like to be wrong about that, but Of course I don’t think I am.

     Something else is “over,” something apart from and much larger than any political party’s convention: the presumption of individual rights as the foremost of all legal and political considerations. The Deep State, the militarization of state and local police forces and large parts of the federal bureaucracy, and the rise of a political class that:

1. Believes itself entitled to power;
2. Believes itself above all laws, including the Constitution;
3. Has rigged the game such that it cannot be defeated by any nonviolent means;

...have put an end to that aspect of the American creed.

     Freedom as our grandfathers spoke of it – i.e., as a political attribute – is dead. For practical purposes, every assertion of a right – to speak, to worship, to bear arms, to assemble, to be secure in one’s possessions, to a trial by a jury of one’s peers, and so on – can be nullified by an assertion of “compelling government interest.”

     For any “right to vote” fans in the audience, that’s been reduced to a farce by vote fraud, voter intimidation, and the casting of ballots by millions of illegal aliens. But do go ahead if it makes you happy. Just remember that I’ve said it: We’re not voting our way out of this.

     An alternate approach is required.

---

     In his novel The Black Cloud, the late Sir Fred Hoyle had his protagonist character opine openly that political authority is a matter of belief:

     ‘Here’s a fine thing,’ he gurgled. ‘I forgot to stop our conversation going out on ten centimetres. They’ve been hearing everything we’ve been saying – Alexis’s reference to the Kremlin, Chris’s remark about cutting their throats. No wonder they’re in a rage! I reckon the fat’s in the fire now, all right.’
     No one seemed quite to know what to do. At length Kingsley walked over to the control board. He flicked a number of switches, and said into a microphone:
     ‘This is Nortonstowe, Christopher Kingsley speaking. If you have any message, get on with it.’
     An angry voice came over the loud-speaker:
     ‘So you’re there, are you, Nortonstowe! We’ve been trying to get through to you for the last three hours.’
     ‘Who is that speaking?’
     ‘Grohmer, U.S. Secretary for Defence. I might tell you that you are talking to a very angry man, Mr Kingsley. I am waiting for an explanation of tonight’s outrageous conduct.’
     ‘Then you will go on waiting, I fear. I will give you another thirty seconds, and if your statements have not assumed some reasonably cogent form by then, I shall switch off again.’
     The voice became quieter, and more threatening:
     ‘Mr Kingsley, I have heard before of your insufferable obstructiveness, but this is the first time I have encountered it myself. For your information, I intend that it shall be the last time. This is not a warning. I am simply telling you here and now that very shortly you will be removed from Nortonstowe. Where you will be removed to, I shall leave to your own imagination.’
     ‘I am anxious that in your plans for me, Mr Grohmer, you have given full consideration to one very important point.’
     ‘And what is that, may I ask?’
     ‘That it is within my power to obliterate the whole continent of America. If you doubt this statement ask your astronomers what happened to the Moon on the evening of 7 August. You might also like to take into account that it would take me substantially less than five minutes to implement this threat.’
     Kingsley clicked off a group of switches and the lights at the control panel went off. Marlowe was white-faced and there were little beads of sweat on his forehead and on his upper lip. ‘Chris, that was not well done, it was not well done,’ he said. Kingsley was genuinely disturbed.
     ‘I’m sorry, Geoff. It never occurred to me while I was speaking that America is your country. I say again that I’m sorry, but by way of excuse you must know that I’d have said the same thing to London, or to Moscow, or to anybody.’
     Marlowe shook his head.
     ‘You’ve got me wrong, Chris. I’m not objecting because America is my country. In any case I know you were only putting up a bluff. What worries me is that the bluff may turn out to be damn dangerous.’
     ‘Nonsense. You’re giving an exaggerated importance to a storm in a tea-cup. You still haven’t got over the idea that politicians are important because the newspapers tell you so. They’ll probably realize that I might be bluffing but while there’s just the possibility that I could make good my threat they’ll lay off the strong arm stuff. You’ll see.’
     But in this matter Marlowe was right and Kingsley wrong, as events soon showed.

     [Sir Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud]

     As Hoyle illustrates in what follows, political power isn’t about us peones believing that it exists. It consists in the willingness and ability to enforce its will, which arises from weapons and men willing to wield them at the politicians’ behest. In other words, political power is a matter of the allegiance of enforcers.

     It’s been suggested, for example by promoters of the Oath Keepers approach, that one avenue back toward freedom lies in splitting the enforcers off from the politicians and bureaucrats. The allegiance of our military and police forces to the political class isn’t impenetrable. Indeed, many soldiers, sailors, and airmen have expressed disgust with Washington – sotto voce, of course – and have suggested that they might be amenable to a coup. Nevertheless, this is a chancy path to follow; violent revolution always is. The typical revolution is followed by greater tyranny, not greater freedom. At best it’s a roll of a twenty-sided die with all of one’s hopes and prospects staked on getting a twenty.

     Besides, counting on others to liberate you places the ultimate decision out of your hands.

---

     Freedom, de facto if not de jure, consists in not being interfered with. He who can contrive that precious condition for himself is freer than any obedient citizen of any government, however straitly limited.

     Given the conditions that prevail today, the man determined to be free will find that his best chance of achieving it lies in individual action. Actions taken to reduce one’s visibility, and thus one’s vulnerability, to the State, judiciously supplemented by cooperation with like-minded friends and neighbors, are the most promising way forward. Nor will it matter who prevails at the polls in November. All power seekers want power; that makes them enemies to freedom wherever and whenever it arises.

     There are things “we” can do “together.” The most important of them is the creation, refinement, and dissemination of tactics: methods by which to keep the State unaware of our decisions and actions.

     I’ve suggested this before. However, no significant conversation on the subject has arisen. We’ve spent too much of our precious time and energy listening to politicians scream imprecations at one another. Why, if their posturings will amount to mere noise? Wouldn’t you rather be doing something constructive? Something that will enhance your life, broaden your possibilities, and maybe put a little extra purchasing power in your wallet?

     Wouldn’t you rather be free?