Nice People (UPDATED)

Two all-important checklists:

1. Nice People Dos:

• Nice people do as the police tell them.
• Nice people are always polite and orderly.
• Nice people conform to the dictates of the law.
• Nice people accept the authority of elected officials.
• Nice people petition peaceably for a redress of grievances – and if denied, they go home quietly.

2. Nice People Don’ts:

• Nice people don’t accuse others of lying or cheating.
• Nice people don’t defy properly constituted authority.
• Nice people don’t condemn those who have wronged them.
• Nice people don’t form mobs and go about demanding justice.
• Nice people don’t tar and feather their oppressors and run them out of town on a rail.

     Remember these lists. There’ll be a test on them later.

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     A little C. S. Lewis always goes down well at times like this:

     “Come in,” said Dimble in his rooms at Northumberland. “Oh, it’s you, Studdock,” he added as the door opened. “Come in.”
     “I’ve come to ask about Jane,” said Mark. “Do you know where she is ?”
     “I can’t give you her address, I’m afraid,” said Dimble.
     “Do you mean you don’t know it? “
     “I can’t give it,” said Dimble….
     “What do you mean?” he asked. “I don't understand.”
     “If you have any regard for your wife's safety you will not ask me to tell you where she has gone,” said Dimble.
     “Safety from what?”
     “Don't you know what has happened?”
     "What's happened?"
     “On the night of the riot the Institutional Police attempted to arrest her. She escaped, but not before they had tortured her.”
     “Tortured her? What do you mean? “
     “Burned her with cigars.”
     “That's what I've come about,” said Mark. “Jane–I'm afraid she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. That didn't really happen, you know.”
     “The doctor who dressed the burns thinks otherwise.”
     “Great Scott!” said Mark. “So they really did? But, look here...”
     Under the quiet stare of Dimble he found it difficult to speak.
     “Why have I not been told about this outrage?” he shouted.
     “By your colleagues?” asked Dimble dryly. “It is an odd question to ask me. You ought to understand the workings of the N.I.C.E. better than I do.”
     “Why didn't you tell me? Why has nothing been done about it? Have you been to the police?”
     “The Institutional Police?”
     “No, the ordinary police.”
     “Do you really not know that there are no ordinary police left in Edgestow?”
     “I suppose there are some magistrates.”
     “There is the Emergency Commissioner, Lord Feverstone. You seem to misunderstand. This is a conquered and occupied city.”

     [From That Hideous Strength]

     If Dimble were an American citizen alive today, he would be speaking of Washington D.C., our nation’s soi disant capital city. That story ended with a Divine intervention. We might not be so lucky.

     God does help those who help themselves, don’t y’know.

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     Yes, I’m in a bad mood, if so mild a phrase applies to a state of mind that contemplates mass assaults and bombings of government facilities nationwide. The presidential election was stolen. Two elections for United States Senate have been stolen. Other elections, for other offices, were probably stolen, though the ones I’ve just mentioned have received all the coverage.

     The last vestige of legitimacy provided by electoral mechanisms has been ripped away from government in these United States. And our would-be conquerors demand that we sit quietly and accept it.

     Many will do exactly that, especially as the police have shown a demonstrable partiality toward the conquerors. The events of yesterday make that perfectly clear. And nice people always do as the police tell them.

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     Political authority in these United States has dismissed the constraints of the Constitution for many decades. Nice people, unwilling to make a fuss, have gone along with it. Some have adjusted their behavior. Others have found ways to “play the angles.” Still others have “gotten into the game,” maneuvered for control of the levers of power, and have used them for their own purposes. After all, in America the political game is “open;” anyone can play.

     The dynamic of politics and the nature of power have caused political authority to move into ever more concentrated, ever more ruthless circles: circles utterly devoid of nice people, though some of their denizens are adept at faking it.

     Those non-nice people have a terrible weapon to use in our subjugation. It’s a weapon we have put into their hands: our niceness. They’re banking on Americans’ love of peace and order. They hope and expect that our niceness, and what it demands of us, will keep us from mounting any but a shallow resistance to their usurpations.

     Given the events of November 3 and January 5, it’s time to invert the checklists in the opening segment: i.e., to stop being nice people.

     God forbid we should be twenty years without a rebellion. What country can preserve its liberties if the rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? – Thomas Jefferson

     It’s been a lot longer than twenty years.

     Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved of any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. – John Locke

     Verbum sat sapienti. Oh, and do have a nice day.

     UPDATE: Have a few words from Ragin' Dave:

     You shut down people's speech. You commit blatant fraud during the election, and when people try to deal with that the right way (i.e. through the courts) the courts dismiss the lawsuits either because of "standing" or by saying "Well, too late for you to file this now!" You've taken away the soap box, the ballot box and the jury box.

     In the meantime, the Left gets to run rampant, burn down cities, attack people on the right, literally attack them in public, violate the law multiple times over, riot at the drop of a hat, and what happens to them? Nothing. Not a damn thing....

     Did the powers that be think that we the people weren't watching?

     Possibly. More likely they're counting on our remaining passive and accepting subjugation. Either way, all the chips are in the middle of the table now.