Liberty's Torch

Monday, July 22, 2019

Pearls of expression.

Wait, does this mean drain the swamp was a meaningless campaign slogan?

Comment by Reality_checkers on "New US Pentagon Chief – Vested Interest In War & Conflict." Editorial, Strategic Culture Foundation, republished on ZeroHedge, 7/20/19.

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Changes

Sit by my side, come as close as the air,
Share in a memory of gray,
     Wander in my words,
     Dream about the pictures that I play
Of changes.
Green leaves of summer turn red in the fall
To brown and to yellow they fade,
     And then they have to die,
     Trapped within the circle time parade
Of changes.
Scenes of my young years were warm in my mind,
Visions of shadows that shine,
     Till one day I returned,
     And found they were the victims of the vines
Of changes.
The world's spinning madly, it drifts in the dark,
Swings through a hollow of haze,
     A race around the stars,
     A journey through the universe ablaze
With changes.
Moments of magic will glow in the night,
All fears of the forest are gone,
     But when the morning breaks,
     They're swept away by golden drops of dawn
Of changes.
Passions will part to a strange melody,
As fires will sometimes burn cold,
     Like petals in the wind,
     We're puppets to the silver strings of souls
Of changes.
Your tears will be trembling, now we're somewhere else,
One last cup of wine we will pour,
     And I'll kiss you one more time,
     And leave you on the rolling river shores
Of changes.
Sit by my side, come as close as the air,
Share in a memory of gray,
     Wander in my words,
     Dream about the pictures that I play
Of changes.
[Phil Ochs]

Yeah, Phil Ochs was a New Left asshole who destroyed his own life, but what a songwriter! Anyway, this piece isn’t about Ochs, or the New Left. It’s about Apollo XI, the moon landing, and what’s come over us in the fifty years (and one day) since.

(Fooled you, didn’t I?)

Mark Steyn deposeth and sayeth:

     Four decades later, Bruce Charlton, professor of Theoretical Medicine at the University of Buckingham in England, wrote that “that landing of men on the moon and bringing them back alive was the supreme achievement of human capability, the most difficult problem ever solved by humans.” That's a good way to look at it: the political class presented the boffins with a highly difficult and specific problem, and they solved it—in eight years. Charlton continued:
     ‘Forty years ago, we could do it—repeatedly—but since then we have not been to the moon, and I suggest the real reason we have not been to the moon since 1972 is that we cannot any longer do it. Humans have lost the capability.
     ‘Of course, the standard line is that humans stopped going to the moon only because we no longer wanted to go to the moon, or could not afford to, or something....But I am suggesting that all this is BS. . . . I suspect that human capability reached its peak or plateau around 1965-75—at the time of the Apollo moon landings—and has been declining ever since.’...

     [I]f you think about it, isn't it kind of hard even to imagine America pulling off a moon mission now? The countdown, the takeoff, a camera transmitting real-time footage of a young American standing in a dusty crater beyond our planet blasting out from his iPod Lady Gaga and the Black-Eyed Peas or whatever the twenty-first-century version of Sinatra and the Basie band is.

Those are among the saddest statements the famously optimistic “happy warrior” Mark Steyn has ever penned. I can’t find anything in America Alone or After America that compares with them. But that doesn’t diminish their accuracy – or their supreme importance – one iota.

Fifty years of changes. Some of them were good ones. It’s awfully hard to knock the developments that furnished me with a lucrative career and made it possible to post these interminable essays. But sociopolitically and culturally, the great majority of them were negative – and they were not offset by the positives interspersed among them.

I could enumerate the changes. I could go into gruesome detail about why most were net negatives despite the positive ballyhoo about them at the time. In nearly every case that ballyhoo was copious and wholly meretricious, even treacherous. But we swallowed every change whole. We’re still struggling to digest them.

Quite a lot of decent Americans were utterly shocked by this New York Times article:

The Cold War was fought as much on an ideological front as a military one, and the Soviet Union often emphasized the sexism and racism of its capitalist opponents — particularly the segregated United States. And the space race was a prime opportunity to signal the U.S.S.R.’s commitment to equality. After putting the first man in space in 1961, the Soviets went on to send the first woman, the first Asian man, and the first black man into orbit — all years before the Americans would follow suit.

I can feel my blood pressure rising as I read that vile screed, so out of consideration for the sentiments (and blood pressures) of my Gentle Readers, I’ll spare you any larger excerpt. This feminist-socialist bitch is determined to pollute the greatest technological achievement in history: one that no other country has even attempted since. It’s a good thing she isn’t here as I write this.

Yes, the three Apollo XI astronauts were white men. White Christian men, at that. As were the great majority of the people whose technological savvy and unstinting effort made the Apollo XI mission possible. At that time, most American women were more interested in things other than the STEM fields: marriage, children, homemaking, the nurturance of a family, its roots and its standing in its community. Very few went into the sciences or engineering – by choice.

Very few do so today – again, by choice. Wherefore, then, does a no-achievements bitch, in commemoration of the greatest of all American achievements, praise a nation that was largely impoverished and barely twenty years from total collapse?

Well, possibly because she’s a mealymouthed feminist-socialist bitch of no attainments whatsoever whose invidious resentment of people who actually did something — and of her comparably able contemporaries – compels her to denigrate their achievement. Envy can be that powerful.

Envy is at the core of many of the individually identifiable ills that overtook us after Apollo XI.

You’ve probably seen this before. Indeed, you might have seen it here. It’s the immortal Clive Staples Lewis on envy, which he describes as:

     [T]he feeling...which prompts a man to say I'm as good as you.
The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid, resounding lie. I don't mean merely that his statement is false in fact, that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says I'm as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.
     And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food: “Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I — it must be a vile, upstage, lah-di-dah affectation. Here's a fellow who says he doesn't like hot dogs — thinks himself too good for them, no doubt. Here's a man who hasn't turned on the jukebox — he's one of those goddamn highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were honest-to-God all-right Joes they'd be like me. They've no business to be different. It's undemocratic.”
     [From Screwtape Proposes a Toast]

Envy is the secret motivation of every whining bitch -- of either sex — who claims to stand for “equality.” And by legitimizing envy and propitiating the envious, we have brought America, the Renaissance Civilization, the highest fruits of the Christian Enlightenment, to the brink of ruin.

Envy isn’t just a capital sin; it’s the deadliest of the lot. If permitted to take root in one’s soul, it can flower into any – or all – of the mortal sins. And I submit to you that culturally, socially, and politically, that is exactly what it has done:

It has catalyzed the destruction of intergenerational loyalties and respect.
It has given rise to undreamed-of carnage through abortion.
It has fueled vast waves of adultery.
It has been used to justify theft, both individual and systemic.
It powers great volumes of slander.
And of course, it feeds upon itself, such that no one anywhere who is superior in any way to the envious ones is permitted peace, privacy, or security.

Envy is unassuageable. It hurls accusations and mud at others who have anything the envious one does not. It saps the desire to achieve. It gradually reduces the envious one to total impotence. And it is destroying this nation as we speak.

Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.”
The Lord said to her in reply, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her." [Luke 10:38-42]

Could the Redeemer have been any clearer? He had no need of a great feast. Indeed, He had no need of a simple dinner. He came to us in the flesh to tell us of the Kingdom of God and the relatively simple requirements for entry. Mary, who listened to Him attentively while Martha scurried about dealing with food, plates, and utensils, had chosen “the better part:” the wisdom He had been born to dispense. Martha resented it – a not uncommon occurrence when “the chores” are apportioned unequally – yet failed to realize that what really bothered her was the choices she and her sister made: in both their cases, free and uncoerced.

It cannot be made clearer, Gentle Reader. The rebuff of envy and everything it powers is vital both to our individual souls and to the health of the nation. We have shirked this duty for too long. I pray that it’s not too late to undertake it, and to bring to it the wholeheartedness, the constancy, and the righteous fury it demands.

May God bless and keep you all.

Saturday, July 20, 2019

Health Care Fraud Adds to YOUR Costs

Health care fraud is massive - and getting bigger. A few years ago, the federal put some effort into trying to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse. Clearly, there needs to be more accountability on the part of insurers, and Medicare, as well.

This Twitter story is dumbfounding - it's hard to believe that no one in government or the defrauded insurers bothered to take the LEGALLY MANDATED STEPS to stop it.

And, yes, they are legally mandated - I recently renewed my Medicaid/Medicare certifications (I'm a licensed agent), and part of that was passing a test on Fraud, Waste, and Abuse, that clearly put me on notice that I, personally - at risk of prosecution, fines, or loss of license - was obligated to report any suspicions that someone was abusing the system. Agents and brokers have to take that training/testing EVERY year, or they can't sell that type of insurance.

Here's some ideas for reducing the fraud. One is quite simple - Medicare has to verify a physician's credentials before issuing him the number that gives him the right to bill Medicare. Failure to follow that simple action is behind this felon's abuse of taxpayers' money.

A Simple Life

Do you regard your life as “simple?” Before you answer, think about this: what qualifies a life as “simple?” Doesn’t the answer depend on the meaning you assign to that word?

Some great, genuinely accomplished men have been vocal advocates of the “simple life.” You know about some of them: Thoreau. Tolkien. Steinbeck. They didn’t all agree on what such a life might be, but they all liked the phrase.

I’m something of an advocate for simplicity myself. Complex things are daunting. They mystify. Some of them terrify. It’s part of why I went into physics in my youth: a sound grasp of physics takes the mystery and terror out of many complex things by making them comprehensible. Even simple, in a certain sense.

But all the physics in the world won’t repair your flatscreen television if it should stop working. Neither will it rewire your kitchen or pump out your cesspool. Those chores require carefully nurtured skills and – often – a lot of special equipment.

The contemporary middle-class American is surrounded by complexities. He can’t cope with most of them from his own knowledge and tool resources. What makes coping possible is that mysterious phenomenon called specialization, a.k.a. the division of labor.

The availability of specialists who can cope with your particular complexities on your behalf, plus the wherewithal to pay their fees, can transform a life utterly buried in complexities into one that’s simple, yet no less comfortable or convenient.

J. R. R. Tolkien had some unusual views. His idea of the “simple life” might be called anarcho-pastoralism. He disliked government of any kind to the point of nausea, and modern technology almost as much. He occasionally expressed those opinions to an effect that would shock most of the admirers of his fiction. And to be fair, he lived as simple a life as one could contrive in the Twentieth Century, while serving as a college professor.

But Tolkien, for all his brilliance, did not have a real appreciation for the sacrifices a genuinely pastoral, technology-free life would require: the endless backbreaking labor; the few physical comforts; the uncertainty about tomorrow. Pre-technological simplicity was a hard way to live. It killed most infants in the crib. Unending labor and hardship brutalized those who survived to adulthood, nor were their lives as long as ours, on average.

The price of that kind of simplicity is one that few would willingly pay. Contemporary advocates for such a life usually have no idea whatsoever what they’re advocating.

Present-day simplicity, in which each of us strives to master one skill with which he will earn his living, and pays part of his earnings for the skills of others at need, deserves to be better appreciated, and much better thought of.

All that having been said, there is merit in reducing one’s dependence on complexities – if that can be done “at a profit.” To become omnicompetent, such that one never needs the services of others regardless of what problem one confronts, is a dream that fails to envision the consequences of such absolute self-reliance. Economics will have its say, and what it says in this instance is known as the principle of comparative advantage:

David Ricardo made one of the enduring contributions to the analysis of international trade with the publication in 1817 of his On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. In addition to putting forward what was to become known as the Principle of Comparative Advantage, in this treatise Ricardo analysed the effects of import tariffs and subsidies (“bounties”, as he called them) on resource allocation, trade, and the level of profit; the impact of shocks to international trade; and the terms upon which the UK traded with its colonies....
Ricardo put forward a simple and compelling example that showed why two nations would trade cloth for wine and why both would benefit from that trade, even if one nation maintained a productivity edge over the other in the production of both goods. Some object to the simplicity as being unrealistic but, as Richard Baldwin argues in his chapter of this eBook, Ricardo simplified to clarify. And with it the implication that it is comparative cost advantages – rather than absolute cost advantages – that matter.

The above refers to international trade, but it applies with equal validity to relations among individuals. For example, if a lawyer were to hire a secretary, and then to discover that he types more rapidly than does she, it would still make more sense for him to leave the typing to her. Time the lawyer spends typing is time not spent lawyering, a far more remunerative undertaking. Similarly, for Smith to hire specialist Jones to solve a complex problem will usually make more sense than for Smith to undertake the task himself. In the usual case, the cost of learning (and equipping himself) to do Jones’s work at least as well as Jones would do it is, if not prohibitive, at least a net detriment to Smith’s overall happiness and well-being. (Besides, where would he keep the spools of wire, the large inventory of electrical components, or the cesspool-pumping truck?)

Happiness is the goal, isn’t it? For a considerable range of problems, Smith will be better off in “happiness units” for having “rented” Jones’s skills and equipment than if he were to tackle those problems himself.

It’s natural to admire others for skills one does not possess. I do, certainly. But let’s not kid ourselves: locating reliable specialists, paying their fees, and enduring their occasional surly remarks about the foolishness and carelessness of homeowners are a reasonable price to pay for contemporary simplicity. There’s great comfort in knowing that one’s own skill and equipment are sufficiently valued by others to allow the employment of such specialists at need. It’s the route to simplicity I prefer, though your mileage may vary.

What's not to love?

“Well, so here’s what we’re left with,” [Daniel] Horowitz replied. “Eighteen percent more spending than under Obama, the border numbers are two to three times higher than under Obama, and then, when it comes to defunding Planned Parenthood, gee, what ever happened to that?”^[1]

We elected an immigration hardliner, supposedly, but the reality is a massive jump in illegal immigration. What am I missing here? The wall, such as it is, inches along the border, the vaunted troops on the border are nothing more than a light infantry nursemaid auxiliary, e-Verify is as dead as the investigation into Hillary's destruction of the 180,999 emails relating to Chelsea's wedding (a/k/a "official correspondence") on her powder room server, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 is still in force notwithstanding two years of Republican control of the legislative branch and the White House.

Ann Coulter had it right a year or so ago when she said you could go down to the border and throw a brick in the dirt and you'd have done more to build a wall than Trump had. A few miles of fence have been installed since then but it's essentially no obstacle at all to anyone interested in walking across the border. And anyone "apprehended" is forthwith released into the interior in a matter of days.

Notes
^[1] "‘Indistinguishable from Democrats’: Daniel Horowitz tells Mark Levin what’s behind Republicans’ debt-exploding budget deal." By Nate Madden, Conservative Review, 7/19/19 (emphasis added).

Pearls of expression.

Well, this ticks all of the boxes of modern Latin American political thought:
Victimhood--- Check
More Victimhood--- Check
Did I Mention Victimhood?--- Check^[1]

Notes
^[1] Comment by hondah35 on "'It Was Never Just About The Chat': Ruminations On A Puerto Rican Revolution." By Miguel Cruz-Diaz, ZeroHedge, 7/19/19.

Friday, July 19, 2019

ATTENTION: Free Fiction!

Today, Friday, July 19, 2019, my most recent novel The Wise and the Mad, the capstone to the Futanari series, is available free of charge at Amazon:

A futanari clone has displayed miraculous powers...
An English duke has fathered a second futanari daughter...
The first American Pope must rule on the moral status of clones...
Gay-rights activists are enraged over a desire-modification technology...
Onteora County is once more in turmoil.
The long-awaited sequel to Innocents and Experiences is here.

Get it while it's free!

Quickies: Predictions Versus Reality

I’ve just viewed the video embedded above for the first time. It’s largely a compilation of predictions of doom by left-leaning commentators, most of whom will be familiar to you, made immediately after Donald Trump’s surprising victory over Hillary Clinton in November 2016. And whatever your political leanings, the refreshment of your memory is worth thirteen minutes of your time.

Compare all the forecasts of every sort of doom made in the video with reality as it stands. Which of the predictions of those left-liberals have proved correct? Which have proved incorrect? Finally, if possible, get a left-leaning friend to view the video with you. Do you think he’ll come to the same assessment as you just did?

What if he remains on the side of those left-liberal commentators and doom-shouters even today, after two and a half years of major Trump Administration successes? If so, it would mean that he’s immune to factual evidence. I submit that that’s a gauge for the mess we’re in: a nation half of whose voters are seriously out of touch with objectively verifiable reality.

Success at prediction is the only valid demonstration of knowledge. By my standards, that destroys any claim to knowledge the various commentators in the video might ever have made: about politics, about political economy generally, about foreign policy, or about the mind, temperament, and inclinations of President Donald Trump. Yet millions of left-of-center Americans will continue to believe every word shrieked from “progressive” talking heads’ mouths, and reality be damned.

Discuss.

Some Low-Key Common Sense on Trump

Which, as we all know, is rare.

Here's a link to some non-bombastic, low-key appraisal of Trump's progress.

Trump is decidedly NOT a perfect man - not even close. His flaws are obvious (mostly because the Leftists are so eager to point them out).

We didn't vote for the Archangel - we voted for the best opportunity we'd had in years to stop the Leftist Avalanche. Trump's successes have been sufficient that I'm planning to return him to office in 2020. SMART politicians, rather than challenging him, would focus their efforts on helping him get his reforms in motion, vocally supporting his successes, and PRIVATELY communicating their disagreements.

The goal, for SMART politicians, is to position oneself as a good choice for successor. If that's the plan, those guys need to make sure that they are onboard with the major components of the program - AND that they dedicate themselves to learning some things about strategy and tactics from a guy who knows how to get things done.

Another From Knuckledraggin’

I have no idea where Wirecutter finds the GIFs and JPGs he posts. They often have me in tears from protracted laughter. This one, however:

...has me wondering what she’s thinking. Is she thinking that “It takes the same ammo as my Kel-Tec Sub2000!” Or is she thinking, “I wonder if I can get this in mauve, with fuschia detailing?”

One way or another, as Wirecutter would say, I’m sure she’s taken.

Thursday, July 18, 2019

New / Old Fiction

A fantasy about an atypical politician in a fictitious nation. You might like him, or you might not. It’s the same to me either way. But I’ve become so tired of the mealy-mouthed insincerities of “real” politicians that I had to create a character of the opposite stripe and portray him at work. Enjoy, or not

Free of charge in all major formats, at Smashwords.

Assorted

The day promises to be hot, muggy, and lethally busy here at the Fortress, so have a few links and offhand observations in place of the usual animated, highly literate, and maddeningly long soliloquy so many readers label “TL;DR” after a quick glance at the headline.

(You knew that’s why I deliberately write strange headlines, didn’t you?)

1. Principle Or Pragmatism?

Principles are important. Ask the man who can’t find his! But in some areas of public policy and legislation, a pragmatic approach – i.e., what’s most likely to benefit the nation, in a statistical sense – is superior. Mike Hendrix provides a pithy observation today:

CRH: I’m all for African immigration, as long as they come the right way.
ME: That’s because you’re a moron. (Gasps from people around me)
CRH (looking at me slyly): Well, what about Ben Carson? (NOTE, I’ve heard him do this schtick on the radio before.)
ME: What about him?
CRH: Well, what if by not having immigrants from Africa, we were eliminating potential Ben Carsons? (At this point, he thinks he’s won.)
ME: Yeah, still good with that. What do you suppose the chances are of getting a Ben Carson from Africa? CRH: Uhhh….what?

Please read it all – and by all means follow Mike’s trailing link to its origin! (Those who insist that every would-be immigrant has an “equal right” to come to the U.S. may pass on, though I can’t imagine what they’re doing here in the first place.)

2. “Christianity” As Liberals See It.

Articles such as this one are why I’m a major fan of the Babylon Bee:

     A lot of Christians are criticized for not being very compassionate to the poor. But you can't say that about Larry DeManson, a local believer who is so committed to charity for those less fortunate than himself that he always votes for government to steal money from his neighbor and give it to the impoverished.
     "The Bible calls us to take care of the poor," he told reporters, "but that's tough because it costs money. But then I was looking over at my neighbors and realized they have more money than I do---why not just vote for the government to confiscate their wealth and give it to the poor? Problem solved."
     DeManson no longer has a guilty conscience whenever he sees people in need.

Apparently all four of my Bibles are misprinted – Jesus didn’t say “love thy neighbor as thyself,” but rather “Subcontract thy love of neighbor to the State.” How late in life we learn these things!

3. The AOC Gaffe Machine.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is perhaps the Republicans’ best weapon against the Democrats in 2020:

There’s just one teeny problem with AOC’s attempt to associate herself with King: He was a Republican.

President Trump’s recent tweets have made AOC and her buddies in “The Squad” the face of the Democrat Party. The electorate will not forget, especially as the rest of the Dems are busily straining to defend them without implicitly endorsing their lunacies. Bravo, Mr. President!

4. “Goes To Motive.”

People do things for a reason. Sometimes the reason is “habit.” But not always:

Many have argued that the Russian Facebook ads about the 2016 presidential election had no measurable effect on balloting. That might be true; I’m in no position to argue in either direction. But no one spends a six-figure sum on advertising if he’s already convinced that it will have no significant effect. The advertisers clearly hoped for an effect on the balloting, whether or not they got one.

So it is with Zuckerberg and Facebook. Any argument to the effect that those pro-life ads “probably wouldn’t” have affected the Irish plebiscite are irrelevant. Facebook banned them, thereby forfeiting the revenue from them, because its cadre believed that the ads might have an effect: specifically, that they might bring about the defeat of the pro-abortion initiative.

We can’t know what might have been; we can know, from their actions, what the conscious actors in the drama hoped for.

5. Contemporary “Patriotism.”

Warner Todd Huston has compiled a great many inarguably anti-American statements from the ladies of “the Squad.” This is extremely important; the major media, all of which are deep in bed with the Democrat Party, refuse to report on them in an objective fashion.

Please review the linked compilation – and for God’s sake, save the link! If you should have the misfortune to cross rhetorical swords with a “Squad” defender, you’ll surely need it.

That’s all for the present, Gentle Reader. I have innumerable chores to address in the heat and the ick. Among them are some so unpleasant that I can’t even hire them out: no one is willing to do them for money! Clearly, there are some jobs Americans won’t do...but illegal aliens won’t do them either.

Have a nice day.

Keeping the Cold War alive.

Eric Zuesse has written the clearest and most insightful analysis of Collusiongate and Skripalgate I've run across.

The details of

the Dirty Dossier and its provenance;
the way in which the CIA, FBI, and DOJ colluded to commit fraud on the FISA Court;
Hillary Clinton's involvement;
the role of Crowdstrike, Fusion GPS, Orbis Orbis Business Intelligence Perkins-Coie, and the DNC;
MI6's involvement in the Dirty Dossier and connection to Serge Skripal (as can be seen in Pablo Miller's employment in Orbis, compiler of the Dossier); among other things,

are mind numbing even to this sorta kinda observer.

Before I zoned out, I read various accounts of aspects of this and tried, without much success, to understand (partial list)

the forces at play,
the asinine hyperventilating about Russia!! (as Tucker Carlson likes to say it),
our lunatic "public debate" and media betrayal,
Mueller's odd appointment and bizarre choice of staff,
the contrived rush to extend NATO to the Russian border,
our mysterious hyperinterest in involving ourselves in Georgia and Ukraine,
our lies about Russian aggression in Crimea,
our shameful responsibility for the murder of Gaddafi and jihadi scum destruction of Libya,
our moronic obsession with the Mad Dog Ophthalmologist in Syria,
our fanatic determination to keep our borders wide open, and
the ultimate objectives of this massive, sustained assault on Trump and on what remains of our representative republic.

The article does answer all my questions but I think it shines a light squarely on the problem. Here's perhaps the money quote, though there are many in Zuesse's article:

But the historical background of this entire matter — both Skripal and Trump-Russiagate— is obvious: MI6 is Britain’s equivalent to America’s CIA. That was Obama’s CIA. This was entirely a MI6-CIA disinformation campaign, which was an extension from Obama’s (and the UK Government’s) participation in US President G.H.W. Bush’s decision, on 24 February 1990, to continue the Cold War until Russia becomes swept up in, controlled by the US[.]^[1] And Britain’s Guardian served the Deep State as the core conduit for disinformation to the public on this particular operation (Russiagate-Trump — Obama’s operation to make irreversible Obama’s public restoration (most obvious in Ukraine) of the Russia-is-America’s-top-enemy meme), for and on behalf of the Deep State, so as to continue G.H.W. Bush’s Cold War, inside the US — never to reverse it, until ‘victory’ is achieved.
The “special relationship” between the US and UK (CIA and MI6) is obviously to assist each other in deceiving the other’s public. (Not only did MI6 participate in deceiving UK’s public to fear and despise Putin, but it was crucial in deceiving the US public that Trump was Putin’s stooge.)^[2]

So we're chasing our tail in this new, bright age of American exceptionalism (why not "saintliness"?) and two of the greatest nations of the Anglosphere are playing stinky games with each other to concoct greasy playlets that are an insult to their citizens.

Zuesse's views on the state of American representative system are chilling:

[Ever] since at least 1981, only Deep State controlled people have lived in the US White House and controlled Congress. As a group, they have perpetrated incalculable harm (such as this) to the entire world. Their only masters have been America’s billionaires. America certainly is a dictatorship, no democracy — [it] represents only its hundreds of billionaires and their millions of agents, no public at all it. The two Parties represent the two factions into which America’s aristocracy have divided themselves. Neither^[3] represents the public.^[4]

What is left of British and American political legitimacy? Personally, I despise the vast majority of ciphers, grifters, fools, sociopaths, and psychopaths at the highest levels of the U.S. federal government and the media.

Ain't NObody mindin' the store who's worth a damn. Pretty much.

Notes
^[1] Does Mr. Zuesse mean "becomes swept up and can be controlled by the US"?
^[2] "Mainstream Media Hide Skripal’s Connections to Russiagate-Trump Case." By Eric Zuesse, Strategic Culture Foundation, 7/15/19.
^[3] Link is dead. This "Wayback Machine link worked for me. Article is "Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy." By Eric Zuesse, Huff Post, 8/4/15.
^[4] Zuesse, "Mainstream Media Hide Skripal’s Connections to Russiagate-Trump Case," supra.

H/t: ZeroHedge.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

A Letter to Former Gov. Mark Sanford

I know you're ticked off about Trump having ruined your re-nomination - it had to hurt.

You never were pro-Trump (he's just not cultured enough for you - not an Elite in manners). But you were steamed when he failed to support your attempt to return to the House.

After all, you supported him in 2016; you claim to have voted for his policies 89% of the time. That number can be disputed - other sources found that claim to be exaggerated.

But, see, here's the thing - it's less important to vote with the President, than to avoid unnecessary criticism. He gets a lot of that, BTW, and he probably thinks, "I don't need this guy to pile on!"

Loyalty is important to many people, Mark. It is especially important to Trump, a man whose battled a LOT of people who talk nice to his face, but stab him in the back. You probably consider it less important than dignity or reputation.

But, you might remember when you were at a low point - little dignity (due to the South American tootsie), and reputation in shreds. The GOP gave you another chance. Unlike the media, that reveled in blasting your actions, making a private affair a public disgrace.

BTW, most people weren't all that scandalized - we know politicians are as stupid and slimy as most of us - but, the media hyped the story because you were effective, and the Dems and RINOs wanted a crack at the job you vacated.

So, when all the "right people" tell you to take on Trump, I have just one word of advice.

Don't.

Auto Da Fe, 2019 Edition

Nations that try to commit suicide usually succeed. It’s a testament to the resilience of America that we keep trying and fail.

I could go into great and boring detail about the previous occasions:

Southern secession, the Civil War, and the de facto rewriting of the Constitution;
Woodrow Wilson’s proto-fascist autocracy;
The corruption of the federal government under Warren Harding;
FDR’s “New Deal;”
The whole of the Carter Administration;
The whole of the Obama Administration;

...but anyone capable of reading a textbook either already knows about those things or doesn’t care enough to be adequately educated. The remarkable thing about those episodes is how little we learned from them.

To be coherent and enduring, a nation-state must possess certain characteristics:

Its government must be generally deemed legitimate (a.k.a. “consent of the governed”).
Its borders must be adequately maintained.
It must not permit the formation of exclaves.

Those requirements ought to “go without saying.” But there’s a factor that’s seldom been mentioned in this connection that’s so shriekingly obvious that it embarrasses me to have to mention it:

It must not tolerate traitors.

It’s been said, and truly, that one traitor inside the gates can and will do more damage than a thousand outside them. The ability of a traitor inside the power structure to wreak havoc is limited only by the latitude others afford him: i.e., the degree to which they tolerate his presence in their ranks.

Today we don’t have a mere lone traitor embedded in the power structure. We have an entire political party whose aim is the destruction of these United States. Regard the Democrat Party’s demonstrated attitude toward the legitimacy of the current federal government, the security of America’s borders, and the tolerance of Islamic and Hispanic exclaves, and tell me how you could reach any other conclusion.

Yet a hefty fraction of the electorate continues to vote for these villains.

Yes, I said it and I meant it: Any officeholder or candidate who affiliates with the Democrat Party is a villain. (That logic applies to quite a lot of Republicans as well, but that’s a tirade for another time.) Regardless of their personal representations, they vote in lockstep. They never deviate from the Democrat position as dictated by the party’s leadership. And the party’s leadership is utterly determined to delegitimize the Trump Administration, to eliminate the nation’s borders, and to tolerate the emergence of zones in which American law is contemptuously ignored.

That a number of Democrats recently “came out of the closet” as America-haters shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Their party has given them a tacit nod for their behavior. This can only have one of two meanings:

Democrat Party leadership has decided that the time has come to vie for permanent and absolute power;
That leadership has become so weak that the party’s lunatics are comfortable in rebellion against it.

Yet at least forty percent of the electorate will vote for Democrats in 2020.

It’s unlike me to take a dark view of things to come. Still, I’m having trouble imagining how there can be so many nominal Americans who are willing to vote for Democrats, given their demonstrated behavior in power. It’s not necessarily about love of country; it’s about the bedrock requirements one must meet to have a country. Grasping those things doesn’t require a lot of intelligence or insight. Yet millions of Americans are apparently either blind to them or indifferent to the consequences of neglecting them. How can this be?

There are possible explanations, including an old joke:

     A Democrat candidate for office was haranguing the crowd that had gathered to hear him speak when one attendee broke through their numbers and shouted, “I’m a Republican! I’ve always been a Republican! My father was a Republican, and his father, and his father before him!”
     The candidate glared down at the speaker and said, “Well, sir, if your father were a murderer, his father were a rapist, and his father before him were a horse thief, what would that make you?”
     For a moment it appeared the candidate had scored a point. But the heckler merely smiled and said “A Democrat, sir! A Democrat!”

Political affiliations are seldom the fruit of research or reasoning. They’re more often inherited from one’s parents than acquired in any other way. I’ve observed this myself on dozens of occasions. The sense that there’s a family obligation to be upheld might make zero sense from any rational or patriotic perspective, but the effect is undeniable.

In a way, it’s much like a fandom. Sports fandoms aren’t rational; indeed, in this time of fluid trading and free agency, to declare oneself a fan of some particular team is, in Jerry Seinfeld’s words, “rooting for laundry.” It’s the same with an unthinking allegiance to a political party – not, in this case, because the “team” bears the name of “your” city, or because you like emblem on the uniform, but because Dad, Granddad, and Great-Granddad were all Democrat “fans,” and you believe at some level deep below rational inspection that loyalty is a supreme virtue – that being faithful to “your team” matters.

Words fail me – and when you hear a professional writer say that, get out your diary and note the date, time, and place.

Glenn Reynolds and others have popularized the saying that “These are the Crazy Years; we’re just living through them.” The “Crazy Years” were a feature in some of Robert A. Heinlein’s fiction. He proposed that they would be followed by a resurgence of rationality and the emergence of “Man’s first mature culture.” That “mature culture” has yet to emerge, but the arrant, unbounded lunacy of our time is on garish display. With open America-haters claiming to be patriots, Senators demanding the elimination of the borders, candidates for president screaming that transwomen have a right to government-funded abortions, and the complicit media lavishing time upon all their ravings, you have to be willfully blind not to see it.

And the lunatics have a fair-to-middlin’ chance of destroying the last, best hope for liberty and justice that exists on Earth.

Have a nice day.

This Got Me Laughing So Hard I Hurt Myself

Shamelessly stolen from Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away.

US strategy: Wage war, worship foreigners, avoid reality, more debt, coast.

But I have a question:
Why does the global economy need rescuing after 10 years of non stop monetary stimulus?
I also have an answer and it’s an unpleasant one. Because by bailing out markets and economies at every sign of trouble over the past 10 years central banks have given politicians license to do nothing. And nothing is what you get as political discourse fragments and majority solutions are impossible to come by.
But not only are majority solution impossible to get nobody even wants to even talk about them. Why? Because they involve pain. Voters don’t want to hear pain. Hence all you hear is free money. Tax cuts in 2016. Now we hear free college, health care and debt forgiveness for 2020 and who knows maybe more tax cuts.
Nobody wants to campaign on pain. I get it. But does anyone really think solving the structural problems that are behind slowing growth after 10 years of monetary stimulus are easily solvable?
* * * *
Debt ceiling? Nobody takes it seriously and the supposed enemies labeling each other currently as racists and socialists will suddenly find a solution and compromise to raise the debt ceiling. They always do. It’s always drama, and talk and hand wringing, but it never means anything.^[1]

It's maddening the way the political swine can summon the will, time, and energy to get done what they really want done. Thousands of troops to Syria? Billions for war? Done and done. Troops for the southern US border? Can't have that. Please wait for our "comprehensive immigration law reform" package. Schedule? Jamais! Items to be addressed comprehensively? Water boarding wouldn't get it out of those toads. Not one troop on the border until we are clear on whether there should be an official Border Patrol no. 2 pencil. Our hands are tied, yo. Meanwhile, let millions of hostile, criminal, parasitic, unassimilable foreigners flow across the border like long lost cousins.

Bottom line: the nation is adrift with a bed sheet for a sail and the captain and crew despise the passengers and the vessel they control. Chance of fixing the engines? Zero. Of official betrayal? 100%.

Mr. Henrich also has this cheery thought:

Nobody is talking about structural solutions. Not the politicians, not the voters, not the central banks.
You know when structural solutions will be discussed? When it’s too late.

What we'll get for now is more debt. Yes, more debt. Hence the word "insanity" in the author's title. People like Ron Paul, Tucker Carlson, and James O'Keefe stand out for their willingness to discuss real problems but they might as well not exist. No, let's earnestly consider the views of Nancy Pelosi and the important issue of Donald Trump's tweets.

Notes
^[1] "The Rise Of Insanity." By Sven Henrich, ZeroHedge, 7/17/19 (emphasis added).

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

When Even Maureen Dowd Thinks You're Too Left

You may be overdue for a serious Whompin' by the Democratic Leadership.

Look - the Dems are Leftists, Financial Idiots, and Shrill Antagonists.

But, they ain't stupid (well, most of them). They can suss out the tenor of the public, and they are NOT supporting AOC and the Squad.

Dems have slapped back at their membership before - heck, look at how they took out Huey Long when he started threatening the position of the Leaders. So, treating AOC and the Squad with disdain is not new to them.

But, when Maureen Dowd - the 'lady' who never met a Leftist politician she didn't wanna lap-dance - says the dissidents have gone too far, you know the end is in sight.

The Shape Of Things That Are

There aren’t a great many things I’m good at – the vast sums I’ve been shoveling into the pockets of various home-improvement contractors will stand as evidence of that – but I am good at spotting patterns. And when I spot a pattern, I tend to become obsessed. I want to know what started it and what sustains it. The answers aren’t always easy to unearth.

I have a few dots to connect this morning. You might want to follow along with me...though if you’re smart, you might prefer to pour yourself another cup of coffee and turn to the sports pages.

First up: If you’re familiar with the Sturm und Drang cooked off by President Trump’s recent Twitter barbs at “the squad,” you’re probably also aware that there’s been quite a lot of hand-wringing about his tweets and other comments on the nominal Right. We can omit consideration of NeverTrumpers such as Bill Kristol and his gang at The Bulwark; they would denigrate Trump for reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. But when usually sensible commentators such as Ed Driscoll, John Hinderaker, and Deanna Fisher of the Victory Girls get into the act, it should draw some attention to the specifics.

I repeat: the latter hand-wringers are not NeverTrumpers. Indeed, they’ve spoken warmly of the president and generally support his approaches to governance and communication. Yet they reacted reflexively and foolishly to a typical Trump stroke that subsequent events have established as well struck. So what evoked their all-too-swift condemnation of the president’s tweets?

Give it some thought while I put up another pot of coffee.

A couple of days ago I found myself in a back-and-forth with another generally sensible person who announced in the middle of an otherwise unrelated conversation that he dislikes and rejects President Trump. I probed for the reasons, and as usual, there weren’t many to be had. His dislike was mostly about Trump’s pugnacious style, which to be fair did rankle quite a few among the glitterati of American politics. He did cite one specific: Trump’s declaration that the U.S. would no longer work with British Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch. He felt that to be an elevation of personal pique over sound management of international relations.

But soft! What light of evidence through yonder window breaks?

     Leaked U.K. diplomatic cables critical of President Trump have led Britain’s ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, to announce his departure from Washington earlier than expected. But the story is not yet concluded.
     According to one current and one former U.S. government official speaking on the condition of anonymity, Darroch repeatedly leaked classified U.S. intelligence information, including highly classified information, to a journalist for a U.S.-based media outlet. The sources are consolidated by the reaction my related inquiries have received from other government officials....
     A second source, a career government official, described the leaks as "unprecedented."

So it appears that Darroch’s disgrace wasn’t entirely about his badmouthing of the president after all. But as the above information wasn’t available to the public until this very morning, my acquaintance’s reaction to the story couldn’t have taken that into account. Nor was he the only person I’ve encountered to react that way.

Reflexive reactions are often poorly aimed. Yet how common they are! Especially in our era of news-at-the-fingertips, delivered at broadband speeds. The great irony here is that Donald Trump, the uncouth Queens businessman derided and dismissed by the political elite and their hangers-on for daring to bid for the presidency, is proving to possess the supreme political skills the media repeatedly told us were the property of Bill Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, both of whom now appear destined for ignominy.

You’d think “we” would have learned by now. So why haven’t “we?”

When a man does something strange, we tend to look for his reasons, which we assume will be specific to him. After all, we didn’t do the strange thing, so his reasons either haven’t reached us or didn’t affect us. But when large numbers of people all do the strange thing – in the case at hand, at the speed of reflex reaction – it should prompt wider, deeper thought.

And looky here!

     How is it that Facebook, who refuses to dox any of the violent Antifa terrorists that use its platform, are happy to give up the personal details of the Facebook user who anonymously uploaded a slowed video of Nancy Pelosi, within minutes, to some rando journalist on the phone? (How do you even call Facebook?)
     Well what if I told you a Policy Director at Facebook was Nancy Pelosi's Chief of Staff before taking said job directing policy at Facebook? What if I told you the head of algorithm policy at Facebook worked for Hillary at The State Department? Or that the Head of Content Policy worked for the Hillary presidential campaign? What if I told you the person in charge of privacy policy at Facebook used to work for Al Franken, before he worked for Senator Bonoff, before he worked for Congressman Oberstar? Or that the Director in charge of "countering hate and extremism" at Facebook came from the Clinton Foundation? Did you know that the person at Facebook who currently "oversees programs on countering hate speech and promoting pluralism", and "develops internal third party education and drives thought leadership on hate speech and content moderation" was one of Obama's policy advisers at The White House?...
     How about YouTube? How does Laura Southern's documentary about the border get removed from YouTube within 24 hours of posting without any reason or explanation? What if I told you a Policy Manager at YouTube, before becoming a Policy Manager at YouTube, was employed by Hillary for America and was a manager in Obama's campaign before that? What if I told you YouTube's Global Content Policy Lead previously worked at the DNC? Did you know the person responsible for "growing the next generation of stars" on YouTube worked in the Office of Digital Strategy at the White House under Obama? Or that the person in charge of developing the careers of YouTube creators was the Director of Video for Obama? Speaking of helping the careers of creators, did you know Vox, the company that got Steven Crowder demonetized, was one of the companies that YouTube doled out $20 million dollars to, for 'educational videos'?
     Ten people, directly connected to the progressive Democrat political machine who are now controlling our conversations online. Sounds like an important alarm, no?
     What if I told you there were nearly a hundred more?

Must I exhort you to read it all? You will, won’t you?

The moguls of the New Media have acquired a degree of power over our communications that no one anticipated in the early days of the publicly accessible Internet. For reasons beyond the scope of this tirade, that power has concentrated at a few points: Facebook, Twitter, and Google and its YouTube subsidiary. And power attracts those to whom power is the asset of supreme importance.

Hierarchies all possess a centralizing tendency. Whatever goal the organization was formed to pursue will eventually become the strictly controlled domain of the top people. If the goal of the organization is profit, eventually all profit-and-loss decisions will be controlled by the chief executive officer and his inner circle. If the goal of the organization is power over others, eventually all that power will be controlled from the pinnacle of the highest tier of government. Against this dynamic, no known counter-dynamic is effective in the near term. Only collapse can thwart the progression.

The power-seeker seeks power wherever it can be had, including in nominally private organizations supposedly formed to pursue profit, the promotion of some interest or enthusiasm, or whatever else stimulates people to form a group. Consider this development as an illustrative case:

Bodies that practice collective decision making excite those who seek power: they target such bodies for infiltration and takeover. That's what happened to [the Science Fiction Writers of America.] It's also what's happened to both major political parties and quite a few less well known organizations.

The New Media powers, which have been targeted, colonized, and conquered by the Left, have steadily accustomed us to swift delivery of both news and opinion. They’ve often disguised one as the other, while simultaneously excluding alternative perspectives on the developments of the day from reaching our eyes. One of the effects has been a sharpening of our mental reflexes: we are ever swifter to reach conclusions, despite the demonstrated lacunae and ambiguities in the “news.” We are no longer wary, no longer suspicious of what axe the “reporter” might be striving to grind.

This is very much in the interests of both the media and the Left. The quicker we are to react, the less reflective we will be. The less reflective we are, the less likely we are to notice discrepancies and “palmed cards” in the coverage. If they can condition us to their liking, they’ll be able to get us to accept anything we’re told, to believe it without any consideration of alternative assessments, and to act on it without qualm. We will have descended from a people to a mob.

The Spinquark article about the emergence of a new “revolving door” between the Left’s political organizations and the bastions of the New Media should sound an alarm that rings deafeningly, and nationwide. Will it? Or are we all too busy updating our “statuses” on Facebook? Will we take note? Will we ponder what it means that a group of power-seekers, who have already demonstrated that no tactic or lie is beneath them, has acquired de facto control of the most important communications conduits and conversational fora the world has ever seen? Will we take note of how those channels are being used to deprive us of the element required for gathering the facts and reflecting soberly on them – time?

Take a few moments’ thought over it. Please.

Privatizing Tyranny

Ten people, directly connected to the progressive Democrat political machine who are now controlling our conversations online. Sounds like an important alarm, no?
What if I told you there were nearly a hundred more?^[1]

Whoever came up with "privatizing tyranny" is a brilliant. The article below is fascinating and it sheds light on what is the central issue of our time. Private censorship is more dangerous even than mass immigration because absolutely anything can be done by our leftist revolutionaries if citizens' voices are swallowed up by the self-annointed conniving, dishonest, leftist zealots who run Big Tech.

Here's another excerpt from an article highlighting the same issue:

According to PJ Media, during a recent interview at this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival, Zuckerberg began to explain how the social media firm is attempting to work with the governments of other countries to determine what political speech should be allowed on the site. Zuckerberg gave an example of Facebook’s interaction with the Irish government ahead of a 2018 referendum on the legalization of abortion in the country.^[2]

The picture of Zuckerberg accompanying the passage just quoted is of a soulless dweeb. He's not my idea of a red-blooded American and I don't want him deciding on what shaving cream I should buy let alone deciding what is or is not appropriate for anyone to say on the internet.

Trump is a disappointment to me on this issue, just as he is with the danger of Antifa, his understanding of his powers under Art. IV, Sect. 4 to repel a blankety blank invasion SHMG, his unwillingness or inability to point out that "health care" is a phrase found nowhere in Art. I, Sect. 8, and his stunning blindness on the issue of vote fraud. Inter bleeping alia.

On this issue, however, his lack of depth is disastrous. We already have a plutocracy and it's a terrible development to have free speech matters off loaded onto freaks like Zuckertrucker. Private tyranny is the perfect description of this spreading poison and Trump and his administration, true to form, are asleep at the switch.

Political cartoonists are missing an opportunity to show a massive freight train marked "Media giant censorship" blasting by with the sleeping switchman marked "Government defense of fundamental liberties."

Notes
^[1] "Welcome To 'Social Government' - Privatizing Tyranny." By Spinquark, ZeroHedge, 7/15/19 (emphasis removed).
^[2] "Zucked Again! Facebook's Founder Admits To Interfering In Political Speech." By Mac Slavo, ZeroHedge, 7/15/19 (emphasis removed).