Does Size Matter?

     The arguments over political systems, what makes them possible, what undermines them, and so forth are doomed to go on until Man is no more. Some of the most basic ones – the fundamental questions beneath all political discourse – arise from considerations of size: How large or small should a political unit be to attain stability?

     The arguments over whether to tolerate “globalization,” and to what extent, are part of this. Commercial currents that flow above political units confound many people’s notions. Businesses that operate internationally seem to flout some of our political aspirations. Or perhaps it’s that they flout the aspirations of politicians; that’s equally likely.

     I’ve long held that bigness in business requires bigness of governments. There may be exceptions, but they would be cases where truly huge amounts of capital and labor are required to pursue such enterprises. However, when power-wielders turn their voracious attentions to business, it’s the biggest players that they go after first. Also, really big businesses tend to need more competition than the marketplace will naturally provide them; Alfred Sloan recognized that when he arranged for the divisions within General Motors to compete against one another. All this suggests that bigness, even if it confers an advantage in certain fields, comes with compensating disadvantages that limit its value.

     Many of the dynamics that characterize businesses in competition also apply to political units – governments. But governments are loath to admit it. The European Union came into existence mainly because of politicians’ desires to rule a nation larger than their homelands, a nation that could compete politically and economically with the United States. American politicians, analysts, and influential commentators encouraged it for reasons of their own, some of which are unclear to me.

     Large or small? World-girdling or localized? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? The questions are pressed in many fora. But answers are slow to appear.

     The following first appeared here on May 14, 2020.

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     Wes Rhinier at NC Renegade has penned a short piece about what he foresees for America. His expectations are bleak. In particular, he’s troubled by the many plaintive calls for “a leader” for “the coming civil war.” Here’s the part that plucked at my fiddlestrings:

     We are all too divided. We all have our own ideas. It’s always been a problem in this liberty movement.

     I think a Balkanization is more likely to happen. Or maybe small confederations happen.

     For me, this called to mind the conclusion of Poul Anderson’s Hugo-winning novella “No Truce With Kings.” It concerns the efforts of an alien race to engineer a specific sociopolitical outcome for Man on Earth…by subterfuge and the use of alien technology to promote one faction in a distributed, multi-participant war over the others:

     “You wanted to re-establish the centralized state, didn’t you? Did you ever stop to think that maybe feudalism is what suits Man? Some one place to call our own, and belong to, and be part of; a community with traditions and honor; a chance for the individual to make decisions that count; a bulwark for liberty against the central overlords, who’ll always want more and more power; a thousand different ways to live. We’ve always built supercountries, here on Earth, and we’ve always knocked them apart again. I think maybe the whole idea is wrong. And maybe this time we’ll try something better. Why not a world of little states, too well rooted to dissolve in a nation, too small to do much harm—slowly rising above petty jealousies and spite, but keeping their identities—a thousand separate approaches to our problems. Maybe then we can solve a few of them…for ourselves!”

     The idea of federalism was an attempt to harmonize the large nation – by virtue of its size capable of standing against other, more rapacious nations – with the small community of independent identity. Federalism proposed a way of having many small, largely autonomous regions within a central structure with sharply limited powers that would defend all of them against invasion. But governments always suck power from smaller units toward larger ones, and from peripheral loci toward central ones. We might not have known about that dynamic two and a half centuries ago – we didn’t have that many examples of it to study back then – but we have no excuse for not knowing about it now.

     However, there’s more than one view about these things. Here’s another angle, from Tom Kratman’s very best novel:

     “Do you know why we band together into nations, girl?”
     The question seemed so totally out of the blue that Maricel didn’t really even comprehend it. She shook her head, a gesture that meant, in this case, I don’t understand.
     Aida took it wrongly, assuming the girl meant she didn’t know why. She answered the question herself. Pointing towards the flames, she said, “We band into nations for just that reason. In the real world, little tribes like TCS are destroyed. They can’t compete against determined bands of raiders. It takes more power than that to defend yourself against people like yourself, people with no law above themselves.”
     Ah, now Maricel understood the question. She wasn’t sure she understood the answer and, given that she was going to die, the answer didn’t really matter anyway.
     “It’s the flaw in some utopian schemes,” the woman continued. She looked at Maricel’s uncomprehending face and said, “You don’t understand that word, do you?”
     “No.” Sniffle. Just get on with it, will you?
     “Never mind; here’s the truth, a truth I’ve been trying to find for the last . . . well, for the last good long while. People band into nations, real nations—not travesties like TCS, gangs that fancy themselves nations—to defend themselves. It requires an emotional commitment. The limits of nations are not how far their borders can reach, but how far their hearts can. People with tiny hearts, people like TCS, can never reach very far, can never gather enough similar hearts together to defend themselves. Only real people, and real countries or causes, can do that. That’s why TCS is going to die tonight.”

     [Tom Kratman, Countdown: H Hour]

     Perhaps the question is multivariate, in which case the answers will be multivariate as well. At the very least, it’s not simply What do we seek for ourselves and how can we get it? but Are we able to do what it will take and endure what we must to remain that way? That all sociopolitical arrangements are inherently unstable doesn’t mean that all are equally desirable.

     Freedom is not the only good people seek from their political alignments and arrangements, as we should all know far too well. They also seek prosperity for themselves and their families, and security against threats, both actual and potential. And some – there will always be some – have a vision of “the good” that requires others to bend their knees and their necks:

     One female (most were men, but women made up for it in silliness) had a long list she wanted made permanent laws—about private matters. No more plural marriage of any sort. No divorces. No “fornication”—had to look that one up. No drinks stronger than 4% beer. Church services only on Saturdays and all else to stop that day. (Air and temperature and pressure engineering, lady? Phones and capsules?) A long list of drugs to be prohibited and a shorter list dispensed only by licensed physicians. (What is a “licensed physician”? Healer I go to has a sign reading “practical doctor”—makes book on side, which is why I go to him. Look, lady, aren’t any medical schools in Luna!) (Then, I mean.) She even wanted to make gambling illegal. If a Loonie couldn’t roll double or nothing, he would go to a shop that would, even if dice were loaded.
     Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws—always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: “Please pass this so that I won’t be able to do something I know I should stop.” Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them “for their own good”—not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

     [Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]

     Are Anderson’s mini-states impossible by Kratman’s logic? Or are Kratman’s larger nations doomed to deteriorate into tyrannies owing to the dynamic of power-seeking as Anderson has pinned it? And what about the people – “crazy as a Cyborg” or otherwise – who insist that the State compel others to bend to their preferences?

---

     The questions are inclusive and eternal. The answers are idiosyncratic and fleeting. The arguments never cease.

     And some of us just want to be left alone.

     “Politics and business… I don’t pay them no mind.” (Jesse Colin Young, The Wine Song)

What is to be done?

 

Steve Biddle, in one of the comments to my Christmas Day post, “An Epidemic of Politics” agreed with the need to resist evil, but asked  how older, infirm, or otherwise unfit persons ought to go about it. “And I ask in all seriousness: What are we to do?” I was going to post a reply to that question, but quickly realized that the subject was far too involved to cover in a comment, and was worthy of a broader response.  Steve, here is at least the beginning of an answer to your question.

'Chto délat'?' - 'What to do' or 'What is to be done' is famously known as the title of one of Vladimir Illich Lenin' pamphlets extolling the virtues of Marxism and how to establish Socialism in Russia. I knew it was published in the early 1900s but what I did not recall until I looked into it again was that it was inspired by a novel by Chernyshevsky in 1863 written while he was imprisoned in Saint Petersburg. Those interested may find more information in Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_to_Be_Done%3F_(novel).  

It would appear that Liberty loving folk here in these united States are awakening to the idea that their freedoms may indeed be gone if THEY do not do something about it. Most folks, having never considered the subject, are reasonably enough at a loss for how to proceed. One of the reasons that I am a student of history is that while technology changes, human nature does not. It is always worth examining the strategy and tactics of the enemy for useful means and methods, and while I revile the result, one has to regard Lenin's approach as successful, especially since the American Left has emulated it so closely. What did Lenin say should be done?

What Lenin advocated was that there ought to be theoretical, political and economic education system supported and carried out by a political party to provide motivation for the man in the street. What this approach did in essence was to separate the direct action elements from the political elements, and provided a support structure for those folks actively involved in physical confrontation. It also provided a level of deniability to separate the folks who did the talking and educating from the folks that carried out the riots, bombings, sabotage, assassinations and other physical activities. The consciousness raising and propagandizing of the political wing allows persuasion of the undecided,  gradually moving the moderates toward the extremes, and provides a recruiting ground for those willing and capable of direct action. We see this pattern carried out by the Left repeatedly, with a political front organization supporting a violent direct action wing. We see it repeated because it often works. One example is the IRA.

The Irish Republican Army, a Marxist organization, had no more than 300 active members involved in direct action for most of its existence, yet it was able to hold the British Empire at bay and ultimately win a victory. It was able to do that despite constant betrayals by splinter groups and factions, and penetration by British spies because it had Sein Fein as the support/political wing, providing money, food, safe houses, and other support for their fighters, and propagandizing the British ceaselessly. Sein Fein was, (and remains!) a classic Leninist theoretical, political and economic education and support organization.

Similar groups exist within Islamist culture; there are numerous educational and relief organizations believed to be fronts for direct action jihadis. Germany's National Socialist Worker's Party followed a similar approach, with the SA as the tip of the spear (at least until the Nazi party took power, at which point they became a threat!) We see this model in use here in these presently united States today, with the Democratic Party and its allies in the media and technology groups acting as political and indoctrination front groups, and BLM and Antifa, among others, acting as the direct action arms. They are organized, they have abundant funding from corporate appeasers and traitorous billionaires, and they are dedicated to the destruction of America the Free. It is clear that the Left has organized and coordinated their activity; the recent massive election fraud is the result of a coordinated attempt to subvert and overthrow the Constitutional order, which has been under attack for over a century.

Rage is the appropriate emotional response, but rage, by itself, is insufficient. Liberty loving folks are late to the party and we are fragmented, divided and under ongoing assault. So, assuming Biden is illegitimately installed in what will once again be the Spite House, what are we to do about it?

Make our weakness our strength. A grass roots resistance movement numbering in the millions, composed of tens of thousands of small independent cells cannot be effectively infiltrated. Hidden in the body of the American people it cannot be overtly crushed militarily. And with somewhere between 600 million and a billion small arms, with over a million unlicensed machine guns, it cannot be disarmed. Unless we consent.

The road to a successful resistance movement is a journey, and each individual in it has to walk that road at their own pace. The key is starting the journey, establishing the habit of independent thought and action as you take each step. Some may move faster than others and are willing and able to go farther in their journey, but that does not matter as much as your commitment to Liberty.

First, establish your own ideological foundation. Ask yourself, and be sure that you understand the answer to the question, “What is the primary function of government?" If, like me, you believe that the primary function of government is to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then you are a friend of Liberty. Satisfy yourself and understand the reasons why you believe that the present actions of the Left are INTOLERABLE. Not just evil, but not to be tolerated under any circumstance. Withdraw your consent from what would be an illegitimate government. Once you have established that in your mind, then take the next step.

The Left want you alone and isolated; this is why the Left is trying to outlaw any sort of congregation under the fiction of infection prevention. Even outdoor activity, which carries a very low risk of CCP virus infection, is under attack. Effective resistance starts with associating with other people, so do not let yourself be isolated. Talk to your local acquaintances at church or other social events. Make a holiday cake or pie for your neighbors and engage them. Sound out your bowling buddies or sewing circle friends about what is happening. Restaurants and bars are good places to congregate when possible; if indoor activity is “not on” then set up outdoor events.

Call your friends and acquaintances, and set up some sort of outdoor activity- a nature walk, a cookout, a trip to the range. When you have those meetings, walk the parking area and look for bumper stickers with pro-liberty messages or promoting pro-liberty political candidates, and ask about why they have that sticker. One of the clubs I belong to has a weekly outdoor get-together at a local park. Don't let yourself be isolated! Reach out and make connections; you can use the fact that the government is trying to isolate you as the entry wedge for a larger discussion about individual freedom. Make it your goal to have at least one event every week, even if it is just a few people. Every meeting of liberty minded folks is, by itself, an act of resistance, for it offers the opportunity of meeting and learning about liberty minded folks. Then take the next step.

From these contacts, build your own 'Committee of Correspondence.' These are acquaintances who have a clear interest in promoting Liberty. Make it your goal to add at least one person per month to your group (which does not even have to have a name.) Encourage your committee to make their opinions known; letters to the editor, comments on Liberty loving blogs and websites, attending local political meetings. (town meetings, county board meetings.) The Sons of Liberty were known to paste up political pronouncements on various local public walls, the Colonial equivalent of graffiti. Signs and billboards with pro-liberty messages are in order. “Stop the Steal!” A public lecture and discussion group is in order, if you can swing it. Invite friendly local leaders to the discussion. Then take the next step.

It is well to keep in mind that any active resistance group requires tremendous logistical support. Modern militaries require at least 10 support personnel for every 1 person in the field, and they rely on government support for their material; taxes pay for fuel, food, ammunition, transportation, lodging, equipment, and all of the myriad of things one needs to deploy an effective military. The support folks are just there to distribute all the stuff that government taxes have bought. Insurgent groups have none of that support. Any effective resistance movement must have a deep base of support for everything needed to fight in the field; the 300 active IRA had tens of thousands of supporters in Ireland, and had millions of dollars, plus small arms and ammunition coming to the movement largely from contributions from the USA. (Reference this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehukpdse8_w  Each of these Armalight rifles came from the US. ) Encourage each member of your group to store food, clothing and other essentials. Such stores are the backbone of active resistance. Then take the next step.

Identify members of your group with useful skills, assets and the willingness to use them to support the fight for freedom. Folks with shooting, gunsmithing and reloading experience are obvious candidates, and equally obvious targets for the Left; some help in diversifying the flow of arms and ammunition is worth consideration. Communications is another obvious need; amateur radio operators or CB operators are useful both for providing communications to the Resistance and in providing signal intelligence. These are all obvious items to consider, but there is much more to be considered under “logistics.” Any experienced combat veteran will tell you that the ability to rest, recuperate and re-equip in a secure comfortable location with good food after combat operations is essential. Being able to provide and move needed supplies from secure storage to the people who will use them likewise. Who can do these things?

That old widow in your sewing group who knows how to make and repair clothing, and has a three bedroom house, with room for “an out of town cousin.” The retired transportation specialist who drives professionally knows how to get anything from one place to another. The amateur carpenter can make hidey holes for those needing to conceal politically incorrect items ranging from arms and ammunition to pamplets and leaflets. The local shoe repair place can mend worn boots for freedom loving feet. The Polish grandfather who makes the best potato salad and sauerkraut, or the farmer who raises chickens, goats and beef cattle. The list is almost endless, but there is one other specialist I will make a point of considering.

Socialist regimes often try to restrict movement of their subjects; historically they've done this with various sorts of physical documents, and the historic answer was forgery, developed to a high art, and to some extent still of use.  These days the up-to-date Communist uses tracking and identification with electronic devices, like your smart phone. The Chinese government does exactly that, and monitors every text, email and telephone message for “incorrect thought.” Who helped them do this? Why, various US tech companies, like Google. Just as IBM enabled the Nazi government to identify the Jews in Germany by applying their data processing technologies to German census data, which the Germans were promised would be confidential, so Google has helped the Communist Chinese to identify their dissidents. Any bets on whether Google would be unwilling to do that here in these presently united States? Resistance groups will need a specialist to spoof and confound these tracking technologies.

A step you can take any time is to learn something new and useful, and teach what you know to the other members of your group. First aid, orienteering, shooting, communications, reloading, growing food, cooking food, camping securely are all obvious topics but there are others. Field repair of clothes, shoes and gear. Combat skills. The list is endless; I consider any day I haven't learned something new to be a wasted day. Now here is another step; it should probably be one of your first, but it will be a hard one for most people.

With the exception of people who run extreme triathlons and engage in other extreme athletics, most people in these united States can benefit from physical exercise, and most people in these united States avoid it like the plague. To paraphrase Michael Z Williamson, “Combat does not determine who is right. Combat determines who is left.” Physical fitness is the foundation for becoming combat ready, regardless of your age. Keep in mind that during the final days of the Third Reich, an improvised German unit comprised of old gamekeepers and hunters ruined several units of elite British troops. One surmises that these old Germans, while not able to perform as they could when young, were likely in very good condition for their age. With that and their hunting skills, they devastated their opponents. Whatever your age, spend an hour every day on improving your physical fitness, both strength and cardio. Any exercise is better than no exercise, and walking is a good start. Get exercise! Then once you have exercise established as a habit, take another step.

We've talked about the need for the Freedom Forces to have a robust logistical infrastructure, but we must also consider attriting the Left's infrastructure. One way to do this is to shun them. Have nothing to do with a Leftist; refuse them service if you can. If forced to, give crappy service in the guise of stupidity or incompetence. If you are a barista, put salt in their coffee instead of sugar, or put too much sugar in.  Never give them what they want. Overcharge them. Give them the two day old pastries or the moldy ones with the mold scraped off, especially if they are taking it “to go”. If you get a complaint, take refuge in the rhetoric of the Left, accusing them of ageism or sexism, or racism if you are a person of color. If you are involved in online sales and can identify your customer as a leftist, send them the wrong stuff; my wife ordered gloves and got a bunch of food containers, purely by accident. This was amusing, but imagine a Leftist receiving a copy of Trump's "Great Again" instead of the Lenin's "State and Revolution." Confusion in medical records is always interesting if it is possible to do without being traced. The point is, make their interactions with Americans as unpleasant as possible, and never relent. Be innovative and creative. Take another step.

If and when you are ready to take the risk, there are all sorts of other monkeywrenching that you can do. People spend most of their time at home, at work and in their cars; if you know what a communist's activity schedule is there are a myriad of possibilities for the devious and creative that are hugely annoying but stop short of doing physical harm to anybody. I could go on for hours on how *I* might take take such a step, but that is not the point.  

 Each of you, gentle readers, must take your own steps in the direction your best individual judgement tells you best suits you.  The forgoing are just a few suggested steps each of you, O gentle Reader, can take on the journey to becoming an effective member of the Resistance to Tyranny. They are not the only ones, by any means, nor do they have to be taken in any particular order, except for the first. Once you have taken that step, never give up. Never, ever, EVER give up. Keep making new steps. Be uncompromising. Be relentless. Be as brave as you can be.

Most important of all, be DANGEROUS. Remember, the Left have asked for what is coming. Make sure that they get it in fullest measure, and beware of the sin of mercy.  "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." 

With regard to all who seek the Light,

Historian

That Which Is Not Free

     "There is an old song which asserts that 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted... and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.
     "Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain."

     [Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers]

     The above quote, one of the most significant statements of Heinlein’s personal convictions from one of his most influential novels, contains both a great truth and a misleading implication. That’s not a criticism of the conviction, mind you; the old boy sometimes stumbled on his way to his destination, as do we all...but he almost always arrived where he intended, whereas many of us do not.

     I’m going to leave that there for a bit, and turn to another focus. This one comes our way via Mark “Mad Dog” Sherman. It’s a look behind the Left’s “free stuff” curtain:

     Democrats see your paycheck as fair game for their endless social-improvement projects. Every Democrat vying for the White House backs federal legislation that would guarantee workers nearly three months of paid family medical leave every year.

     Sounds wonderful. We all favor caring for newborns and sick relatives. And working nine months while getting paid for 12 will appeal to many voters. The issue is who foots the bill for paid leave. These pols want to force you to pay with a hefty federal payroll tax.

     Please read the whole thing. Yes, the article is a year old. Even so, as an illustration of Heinlein’s central truth – “Nothing of value is free” – it’s a gem.

     If Smith gets paid for work he isn’t doing, who’s providing the pay? Who’s producing the goods and / or services that make it possible for Smith’s employer to pay him for doing nothing? It won’t be the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent State. Someone has to pick up the tab.

     Yet there is a freebie in the scenario. It’s just one the proponents of “free stuff from the government” don’t want you to see. And it’s very, very valuable – to them.

     Take a moment over it. The effort is worthwhile; I promise you that.

---

     To return to the Heinlein quote, the misleading implication is contained in the very same, beautifully concise phrase that expresses his central truth:

“Nothing of value is free.”

     That depends on who gets what’s been purchased. If Smith pays but Jones gets the product while Smith goes uncompensated, the product is free to Jones. Taken one step further, the price Smith pays – either his labor or remuneration he acquired at some point as compensation for his labor – is free to Jones. Causing such divisions of labor from valued reward, with the reward being diverted to someone other than the laborer, is the central motivation of all political action. Politics exists for that reason alone!

     Franz Oppenheimer noted this truth in The State, his magnum opus on the emergence of governments. We can see it in operation in every activity of governments, all of which are paid for by Us the People through taxation, conscription, or a combination thereof.

     But the naive and the witless – a demographic that looms uncomfortably large in today’s America – swallow Democrats’ promises of “free stuff” uncritically, as if there were a fairy godmother who provides the federal government with good stuff to give us cost-free. That says more about the failure of American education than anything else that comes to mind at this admittedly early hour.

---

     In one of my early short stories, there’s an illustrative exchange between a recently dead semi-layabout and the Great Whatever. The semi-layabout, Richard Schiffers, at one point in his middle years receives a mysterious credit-card-like item that bears only his name and the legend “20% Discount.” Though mystified by its provenance or the nature of the “account,” he joyfully puts to use. He’s never had any idea where the Card came from, or who stood behind it...but now that his life has ended, he seeks to know:

     Schiffers’s foretaste of the solitude to follow would have unhinged a living man. He feared with all his soul the approaching moment when the Presence would remove itself, but there was only one more question he could frame: the one he had actively suppressed for nearly fifteen years.
     - Tell me of the Card.
     It was tailored to your configuration of desires, strengths, weaknesses and insights. Presented with such an opportunity, a creature like yourself will either come to an understanding of the temptation, or surrender to the fulfillments available. Every intelligence that lives, that has ever lived, and that ever will live must face such a test.
     - How did I fail?
     In three ways: You never grasped the essence of your own nature, the things that are human. You failed to think enough about the basic features of your world to understand their functions. You failed to consider the implications of the existence of the Card, while you used it unceasingly.
     Schiffers could only feel incomprehension.
     - But what were these essences, these implications? You speak as if they ought to have been crystal clear, but during my life nothing was ever perfectly clear.
     Nonsense. Was it not clear that all things have a cost? Did you not know that the ultimate cost of all things is labor, physical or mental? Could you not have deduced that to demand a discount from others as a matter of right is to assert ownership of their labor, making them your slaves? Could you not have deduced that in a world with unbreakable natural laws, such as yours, you would never have been permitted a privilege such as the Card without being required to pay?
     - But how did I pay?
     With your own life. Each use of the Card caused a portion to be deducted from your lifespan.

     What Schiffers received at a discount had to come from somewhere: specifically, the uncompensated labor of others. It only appeared “free” to him because the identities of those uncompensated others were hidden from him. And so it is with governments.

---

     In the midst of his agonies and losses, Job cries out that “the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” And it is so. But the State giveth not; it only taketh away. It may redistribute part of what it takes – never the whole of it – but it cannot honestly claim to be the true source of the benefits it showers on it chosen beneficiaries.

     Your tax dollars and conscripted, uncompensated labor are free to those at the levers of State power. They who seek to get their hands on those levers, and who promise you “free stuff” in any form as an inducement to vote for them, are vying for a position once prominent on slaveholding plantations, one far too many young Americans have never been taught about: The Overseer.

     The Overseer was the whipholder who watched over the Slaves. He ensured that they attended to their uncompensated labors in the interest of their Master. He was generously paid for that “service,” out of the proceeds of the Slaves’ labors. It was a much-prized post in the antebellum years. In its new guise, it’s prized even more highly today. That the Master is a multitude of “beneficiaries,” and that the Slaves are effectively all of us, makes no essential difference.

     “Nothing of value is free”...except to our Overseers: they who control the State. Remember that as Campaign 2020 progresses.

Quickies: A Is For Arrogance

     And certain Democrats and their fellow travelers have plenty of it:

     Several candidates were in San Francisco for the California Democratic Party convention and a slew of other gatherings -- including MoveOn.org's Big Ideas Forum. [Former Vice President Joseph] Biden, who has sat comfortably atop the polls with a message anchored in more establishment Democratic politics, opted to stay out of the fray, skipping the convention and instead headlining the Human Rights Campaign's annual Ohio gala….

     Biden's leading challengers won those audiences over by using him as a punching bag….

     "Some Democrats in Washington believe the only changes we can get are tweaks and nudges. If they dream at all, they dream small," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in her speech at the Democratic convention.

     "Some say if we all just calm down, the Republicans will come to their senses," she said. "But our country is in a time of crisis. The time for small ideas is over."…

     Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday continued the barrage of criticism aimed at Biden, casting his 2020 rival as pursuing a "middle ground" ideology and blasting him for skipping the gathering.

     Warren and Sanders are about as far to the left as anyone in the Democrats’ ranks. They do not hesitate to call for completely socialized medicine, confiscatory levels of taxation, and other horrifying, anti-Constitutional measures. Which has caused your humble Curmudgeon to ask: What are the odds that they and their supporters will ever come to their senses? And if they don’t, whence goeth the Democrat Party, in 2020 and beyond?

     Joseph Biden would never get my vote for any office, much less the presidency. However, when compared to Warren and Sanders he looks like a fount of reason and judicious moderation. What do the party’s kingmakers, strategists, and major donors think of it all? It will be at least a year before we have a clear idea.

     Meanwhile, Americans in the Right: Remember that crack about “Republicans coming to their senses,” and ponder what it implies about how the Democrats would use whatever amount of federal power they might obtain in next year’s elections.

The Bifurcated GOP

     Ace of Spades has an important column today:

     I mentioned in a post below that the NeverTrumpers -- who are actually the most liberal of all Republicans, but pose as the most conservative for branding purposes, and because this party has this utterly retarded I'm-more-conservative-than-you dick-measuring syndrome where no liberal Republicans can ever just admit they're liberal Republicans -- are trying to hand this election to the Democrats, because they want their precious control over the party back and they will sabotage it and empower the left until we embrace liberal Republicanism again.

     Please read it all; it’s more than worth you time – and not because I agree with it in its entirety, because I don’t.

     Go ahead; read it. I’ll wait here.

---

     Even among persons who think seriously about such things, there’s a tendency to regard the realm of conviction as:

1. Flat;
2. Static.

     In other words, if Smith possesses two convictions about some subject – and this applies far more broadly than to politics alone – they will have equal weight. Moreover, they won’t be prioritized, whether against one another or against Smith’s other desires, fears, and beliefs. This could not be more untrue.

     Personal considerations will, more often than not, take precedence over abstract convictions in individuals’ decision-making. Indeed, that’s at the core of the rationality-versus-allegiance phenomenon I wrote about yesterday. This might seem like an “of course” sort of observation. It’s not, especially in the realm of politics.

     The several pseudo-conservative figures Ace calls out in his essay might really hold, at some abstract level, to conservative premises and postures. It’s not guaranteed, but it is possible. What’s almost guaranteed is that they regard personal considerations as of much higher priority. When gauging whom to support politically and what to say about him against those considerations, their conservatism, if any, fails to register. It’s of far higher priority that they protect their rice bowls. To expect otherwise is to take the short end of the bet.

     But what’s in those rice bowls? And what sort of vessels are they?

---

     As I wrote yesterday, most of us don’t arrive at our political positions through a rational process, but rather as a consequence of upbringing or as tools in a quest for personal advantage. Moreover, even among persons who have a sufficient conversance with history, economics, moral-ethical theory, conflict resolution studies, and so forth to make rational choices, personal considerations are likely to have a higher priority. This is colloquially known as “voting your pocketbook.”

     What I have in mind is the prestige factor that animates persons whose public persona is critical to their self-regard, their social standing, and their livelihood. The prestige of a political commentator can be damaged in certain ways:

• The discovery of hypocrisy;
• The discovery of venality;
• The admission of error.

     The Kristols, Frenches, Goldbergs, et alii who are frequently classed as “NeverTrumpers” have excessive self-regard, owing to...drum roll, please...their status as widely read conservative commentators. That’s natural; when tens of thousands of people read you daily or weekly, it tends to fatten your opinion of yourself. Beyond that, their political adversaries regard them as “big boys” of equal stature. They travel in a common social circle. Under social circumstances, they treat one another cordially.

     That mutual acceptance as “one of us” is a component in their livelihoods. Even though his emphasis is on “business interests,” George Carlin’s observations about the “big club” (that we ain’t in) are highly relevant here.

     But seats in that club, that little league of “us” in which the Kristols, the Frenches, the Goldbergs, et alii have sat for many years can be lost. And repeatedly being wrong, especially about who and what will serve one’s supposed, repeatedly expressed political convictions, is one way to lose them.

---

     So I differ to that extent with Ace’s analysis. These “NeverTrumper” pseudo-conservative commentators aren’t necessarily liberals in conservative costumes. They could be, but they might honestly hold to conservative convictions. They might even support politicians who would implement the conservative, pro-American policies Donald Trump has implemented, as long as it isn’t Donald Trump who’s implementing them. But they don’t like being wrong – and their reaction to having been visibly, audibly, and repeatedly wrong about Trump and his agenda, often from the very start of Trump’s campaign for the presidency, has made them fear for their standing in their occupation and their acceptability in the social circles they frequent.

     Personal priorities are like that. It’s not just the indignity of having been proved wrong and outperformed by a businessman from Queens. The upper echelon of today’s Republican Party is bifurcated for that reason, and essentially no other.

Remedies for Illegal Immigration

Some of these - there are 25 - have real promise. Even better, they do not require a new law, just an administrative interpretation.

Prediction: The Appointee to the Empty AZ Senate Seat

UPDATE: I wasn't clear - I think the perioxided twit would be AWFUL as a Senator. However, from her standpoint, it would be "like TOTES GRATE!".

Cindy McCain has been brought to the forefront as the potential appointee by many.

Not gonna happen.

This coming week is going to be all about Meghan McCain's strong, brave appearance in the funeRALLY display. She will be in the limelight, as she shepherds her grieving mother around, taking center stage in the public interviews/photo ops, and generally setting herself up as the Next AZ Senator.

It would be a great move, even if she only manages to hang onto the seat until the next election. She would be able to wear her burnished credentials for every future political commentary opportunity, use it to guarantee her a seat at the news table, even after her looks have faded, and sell a crap-load of books, focused on Daddy's legacy, and how she, alone, can Keep the Flame Alive.

Bet on it.

Are the Elite Getting Close to Retribution?

It's nibbled away at the next level down for a while.

The younger ones have found that their Elite Privilege hasn't insulated them from all consequences. Some have been nipped at by the #MeToo movement. Some have experienced the reach from other countries/federations - China, the EU - that has forced them to curtail their Empires. They have not acted with absolute impunity in those other locations.

Only in America have they been secure to act without regard to government or public opinion. And, that security is only as good as their hold on the corridors of power.

Trump was the first volley. They responded with vicious propaganda - some based in reality, although exaggerated, other stories wholly made up. They were astounded when his supporters failed to act as they had in the past, by abandoning their resistance to the grip of the Entitled Elite.

They doubled down, with legal, or quasi-legal attacks on individuals and groups, shutting down the media and banking connections of the opposition, and using every facet of government to defeat their opposition. They cooly engineered smear campaigns against individuals, pressured (largely through their affiliates's actions) employers to fire dissenters, and those insufficiently in line with Leftist dogma. They began to confidently speak of a Blue Wave in the 2018 elections.

Will it happen? I wouldn't count on it, but it's going to be a hell of a fight from now until after the Election. If they can be made to decisively lose, it may cause them to begin to retreat, hoping to save their own ass - and assets. Don't forget, they have a lot to lose if the Real Resistance takes over. Their cushy ride on the backs of the Taxpayers may come to an end through:

• Reduction - SERIOUS reduction of official government. The bureaucracy decimated, agencies working under reduced funding, and the legal leeches no longer able to be kept from street corners, begging for work.
• Lost of jobs/programs downstream, as the states reduce their payrolls from no longer needing those hanging onto the coattails of the Feds - the paper-pushers, regulators, HR lackeys, and the formerly powerful Ladies Enforcing the Long Arm of Regulation (and overwhelmingly female contingent).
• NGOs cut loose from the government teat - their ability to staff themselves with semi-professional workers eliminated.
• Subsidized industries - energy, education, housing, and law - all cut loose.

I would expect that they will throw all the firepower - literal and figurative - at us over the next 3+ months that they can marshall. It's a last-ditch effort, a virtual Siege of Stalingrad. You might want to hide any guns/ammo/records that you can - even after they lose, they will attempt to use local and regional resources, along with any of the Deep State that remain, to take back their power. They will have nothing to lose, at that point, so expect the Last Days of the Left to get grimly ugly.

When everything is on the line, they won't lay down and cry. At least a few will take the attitude, if I'm going down, everything and everyone else is going down with me.

Boiling It Down

     You can ponder the Twenty-First Century American milieu for a whole year. You can turn it this way and that, studying it from every possible angle. You can contemplate its shadow by the light of Sun and Moon. You can even hold it up to a funhouse mirror and muse over the images therein.

     You can do all these things, yet never arrive at a worthwhile degree of comprehension of our social malaise, unless you admit one critical fact to yourself. However, to maintain and heighten the dramatic tension, I shall delay the disclosure of that fact for few paragraphs. The better to reel you in with, my dears.

---

     We have our problems, as individuals. It’s in the nature of things. I’m a novelist whose novel under construction is fighting him with the ferocity of a UFC champion. This past week I struggled to rid myself of a burrower wasp infestation. Just now I’m dealing with a half-dislocated jaw – no, I wasn’t punched in the face; I got it from yawning too widely — that makes it painful to eat. Those are my current troubles. I’m sure you have a few of your own.

     But I cope. I’m sure you do, too. That’s what Americans do. It’s our defining characteristic. Throw anything at us – a natural disaster; a global depression; a world war; the Yankees being swept by the Red Sox – and we deal with it. Usually we come out stronger, richer, and happier than before.

     What spoils the tenor of our lives isn’t our individual problems. It’s our all-encompassing politics. And politics is the province of that lowest of the low of our species, the politician.

---

     The late, great Henry Louis Mencken, for many years the foremost opinion-editorialist in America, was contemptuous of politics in its entirety. Yes, he wrote about it – dismissively. He had reasons. He knew far too many persons who had or sought political altitude. He told many a story about them. Here’s one, which appears in A Mencken Chrestomathy:

     One night out in the Bible country, after the hullabaloo of the day was over, I went into [an unnamed presidential candidate’s] private car along with another newspaper reporter, and we sat down to gabble with him. This other reporter, a faithful member of the candidate’s own party, began to upbraid him, at first very gently, for letting off so much hokum. What did he mean by making promises that no human being on this earth, and not many of the angels in Heaven, could ever hope to carry out? In particular, what was his idea in trying to work off all those preposterous bile-beans and snake-oils on the poor farmers, a class of men who had been fooled and rooked by every fresh wave of politicians since Apostolic times? Did he really believe that the Utopia he had begun so fervently to preach would ever come to pass? Did he honestly think that farmers, as a body, would ever see all their rosy dreams come true, or that the sharecroppers in their lower ranks would ever be more than a hop, skip, and jump from starvation?

     The candidate thought a while, took a long swallow of the coffin-varnish he carried with him, and then replied that he answer in every case was no. He was well aware, he said, that the plight of the farmers was intrinsically hopeless, and would probably continue so, despite doles from the Treasury, for centuries to come. He had no notion that anything could be done about it by merely human means, and certainly not by political means; it would take a new Moses, and a whole series of miracles. “But you forget, Mr. Blank,” he concluded sadly, “that our agreement in the premisses must remain purely personal. You are not a candidate for President of the United States. I am.”

     As we left him his interlocutor, a gentleman grown gray in Washington and long ago lost to every decency, pointed the moral of the episode. “In politics,” he said, “man must learn to rise above principle.” Then he drove it in with another: “When the water reaches the upper deck,” he said, “follow the rats.”

     The episode of which Mencken writes took place early in the Twentieth Century. From my own observations, I could never argue that politicians have improved in any respect. Quite the reverse.

---

     The man who aspires to political office has two and only two arrows in his quiver:

1. Promises;
2. Fear.

     Don’t let that slip past you. I’ve just told you exactly what you need to know about politics and politicians, now and forevermore. If you had a dim glimpse of it before this, now it should be clear.

     We want things. We want to acquire them at the lowest possible cost in money, effort, and time. And we fear: death, disease, madness, impoverishment, disfigurement, enfeeblement, failure, isolation, and losing our glasses. We want those fears alleviated. These vulnerabilities in the human psyche, coupled to a desire to believe that cheap and easy solutions to our wants and fears must exist somewhere, make us susceptible to the claims of politicians.

     Yet there is this:

Politicians cannot solve any human problem.

     Of course they’ll tell you otherwise. What else could they do to gain your support? They’ll tax the outer limits of human credulity to its breaking point long before they acquire the power to reach into your wallet. To do so, they’ll engender fears, or amplify fears that already exist, and make promises.

     The fears will be of other people. The promises will be to satisfy our wants by taking our money and buying goods and services provided by others. Think about that for a moment before you continue on.

---

     A couple of days ago, I posted a brief piece about a (reasonably) smart guy who said a stupid and arrogant thing. Now, I would never claim that I’ve never said anything arrogantly stupid. I’m 66 years old, and you may take it as written in stone that if there’s some ceiling atop the heights of arrogant stupidity reachable by human effort, I’ve scrawled my initials on it. So while I’ll refrain from providing details, I’ll allow that I’ve been there and done that.

     In all probability, you’ve been there too. Keep that in mind.

     We are fallible. We are afflicted by a will to believe what sounds good – especially about ourselves – and to disbelieve what sounds bad – again, especially about ourselves. These traits lead us into the most important error one can make, which is the belief that what we want can be had, what we fear can be averted, without paying the associated price.

     Let’s have a little Heinlein on the subject:

     “Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain....The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion...and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself--ultimate cost for perfect value.” [From Starship Troopers]

     Our specifically political error is to believe what politicians tell us: that is, that they can and will fulfill our wants and dispel our fears, with no need for expense or effort from us except for supporting them. Go back and reread that Mencken excerpt for reinforcement.

---

     A side note: A few years ago, a dear friend named Lynn Chesnut wrote an essay about “Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate.” Lynn’s central point was that the purpose of broadcast journalism, in which I would include all forms of unidirectional transmission of “news” and opinion, is not to provide us with the objective facts about real events. It is to propagandize on behalf of some politician or political agenda.

     Here, for me, is the most striking snippet of Lynn’s piece:

     When the Constitution was written communication from one end of the country to the other could take weeks. Our republic is designed to work admirably if most of the electorate is not up to date on every cause celebre. Leave aside traffic and weather, and broadcast journalism essentially never tells you anything that you need to know on a real-time basis.

     There you have it, Gentle Reader: an insight of incomparable penetration, diamond-hard and diamond bright. Lynn grasped that the function of unidirectional “journalism” is political rather than educational. He saw through the gauze curtain protecting the “newscaster” and glimpsed the politician standing behind it. While his orientation was conservative, his insight applies equally well to “news” outlets that appear biased toward supposedly conservative politicians and their agendas.

---

     Now, you who have read this far might have been saying to yourselves that “it’s just Fran’s old rant again; he’s telling us nothing new.” And so far, you would be correct. None of the above is new, even in having issued from my pen. But how much of what anyone really needs to know is genuinely new? Aren’t human problems the consequence of human nature – of the existence of Mankind itself? If that’s the case, why should we expect that some atavistic genius laboring in the shadows or in some isolated tower, would some day emerge and present us with the critical truth that would fulfill our wants and dispel our fears? Isn’t that just another version of the political mirage?

     Pause here and take a deep breath, Gentle Reader. Make sure you’re securely seated. Because here comes the haymaker I promised at the outset of this tirade.

YOU ARE THE PROBLEM YOU SEEK TO SOLVE.

     Your desire to have what you want at little cost or effort, and your desire to believe that what you fear, including what you’ve been made to fear by political forces and their allies, can be beaten back by wiser and more competent others: these are the problems.

     It’s a lie from first to last. Moreover, we should have known it at the outset. What politician has ever done anything by himself?

What politician has ever improved farm productivity or profitability by himself?
What politician has ever devised an important new technology by himself?
What politician has ever beaten back an invading horde by himself?

     They cannot do what they promise. Worse, the fears they attempt to inflame, when they’re real, are almost always of ourselves or others like us. That which we truly ought to fear, only we can defeat – as men of good will and voluntary associations thereof.

     We’ve been there ten thousand times. Our gullibility guarantees that we’ll be there ten thousand times more. Only by denying politicians the use of our credulity can we armor ourselves against them. This is the challenge of our age, for there is nothing more provably lethal than political power.

     And we keep sacrificing ever more of our freedom to it.

---

     To close, a few words about Donald Trump and his Administration.

     First, I was dubious about Trump during his campaign. Like many others, I doubted his honesty and felt his temperament was wrong for public office. Since his ascendancy I’ve come to believe otherwise. Trump is doing, at least at the moment, what he promised to do and must be done: He’s chipping away at the edifice of federal power, and so is incrementally serving the cause of freedom.

     Watch him. He wasn’t a politician before his election. Now he is one. Despite his achievements in other realms, he could prove as susceptible to the adulation, the incentives embedded in political office, and the desire to believe himself a savior that has corrupted so many of his predecessors.

     No one should be trusted with power over others. He who attains high office and uses it wisely, as Donald Trump is doing today, can also wield it foolishly...and if the past is any indication, the longer he’s allowed to wield power, the more likely his corruption, by self or others, will become.

     Anyone can make promises. Only a fool swallows them without hard evidence. There was one Cincinnatus. There might never be another. Even George Washington succumbed.

     Trust in God and the power He has placed in your mind and hands. All else is folly.

Ultra-Quickies: Speaking Truth And Shooting The Arrow Straight Dept.

     I live on Long Island, a fair distance from Kansas, but after reading this piece, just for a moment I found myself wishing I were a Kansan so I could vote for Steve Fitzgerald for Congress:

“Our Judeo-Christian ethic is what is civilization. And that is what is under attack here and abroad. It also goes by a different name. Christendom. It’s under attack. And even speaking about it can bring you under attack. It has brought me under attack.”

     He’s right on all counts. The Christian Enlightenment is solely and wholly responsible for what freedom there is, for the prosperity and order that freedom makes possible, and for the ethic of interpersonal tolerance the Left is laboring to destroy. If it is brought low, the whole world will plunge into the darkness.

     I hope Mr. Fitzgerald will rise to national prominence. We need more like him.

     UPDATE: Link was broken. Fixed now.

Re-Privatization

     “Opinions are like assholes: Everybody’s gotta have one.” – Porretto’s Principle of Personal Assertion

     I feel a change coming on. I’ve been ranting and raving and generally bellyaching about politics and government, here and at other sites, for more than twenty years. Yet I’ve accomplished nothing except to alert a few kindred spirits to the existence of a cranky old bastard who sees things approximately as they do. Those two decades of effort have wearied me in several ways. My will to continue is lower than it’s ever been.

     I think I know why my efforts, and the efforts of innumerable other thinkers and writers, have produced so little progress. And if you have the patience for just one more tirade, I’ll attempt to explain.

---

     “The personal is political.” – Leftist mantra.

     Once in a great while I get my fangs into something with broad explanatory power. It might not unify gravity with the other three fundamental forces, but it seizes my imagination, and my desire to explore it thoroughly, even so. The recent one that strikes me as being of the most value is the one I explored in this piece:

     I’ve long held the belief that any man who’s willing to assert the absolute truth of even one statement must eventually accept that every well-formed statement – i.e., a statement that either posits a fact or a causal mechanism -- is either absolutely true or absolutely false, men’s contrary opinions notwithstanding. The concept behind that assertion is, of course, that there is such a thing as absolute truth – objective reality itself – which makes my notion quasi-tautological. For all that, note how few persons are willing to contradict the anti-objectivity propagandists of our time. That latter sort is permitted to gambol about screaming that “There are no absolutes!” virtually without contradiction – not even a murmur of “Including that one?”

     This is not an utterly new and fresh observation by any means. Bishop George Berkeley and Dr. Samuel Johnson had it out over the existence of absolute truth nearly three centuries ago. As it was Johnson’s foot that recoiled, his position remains the more persuasive.

     Consider in this context the oft-repeated tale of a first-grade class that was asked how to determine the sex of a kitten:

     Years ago I supervised the Indian seminaries. On a visit to a school at Albuquerque, the principal told me of an incident that happened in a first grade class.
     During a lesson, a kitten wandered into the room and distracted the youngsters. It was brought to the front of the room so all could see it.
     One youngster asked: “Is it a boy kitty or a girl kitty?”
     The teacher, unprepared for that discussion, said, “It doesn’t matter; it’s just a kitten.”
     But the children persisted, and one little boy said, “I know how we can tell if it is a boy kitty or a girl kitty.”
     The teacher, cornered, said, “All right, you tell us how we can tell if it is a boy kitty or a girl kitty.”
     The boy answered, “We can vote on it!”

     This episode, if it’s factual, occurred several decades ago. Yet it pertains with a terrible power to the major sociopolitical problem of our time. That problem is summarized in the quote at the head of this segment.

---

     “Skinwalker is a Native American concept, the gist of which is a person who can turn themselves into an animal by wearing the skin of that animal. The tradition is most developed among the Navajo and is part of the Witchery Way, along with another branch known as the Frenzy Way that was used by a witch to influence the minds and emotions of others.
     “Why?” a girl in the front row asked.
     “Excuse me?” Pitcairn asked.
     “Why would they call it the Frenzy Way when it only influenced an emotion or two?” she clarified.
     “Have you ever seen video footage of a mob or riot?” he asked.
     She nodded.
     “Heard of the Salem Witch trials?” he asked.
     Again she nodded.
     “And you still wonder how much power there is in influencing emotions and thoughts? My dear, the entire marketing and advertising industry is dedicated to influencing emotions and thoughts, not to mention a little branch of human endeavor called politics.”

     [John Conroe, Brutal Asset]

     Politics has become the biggest sector of human involvement and maneuvering in American life. Today it affects everything. There is no area of life in which government, and therefore politics, does not intrude.

     The reason is the great skill at manipulating human emotion which those who strive for power have acquired. If you can elevate the emotions of a substantial group over some “issue,” you can politicize that issue: i.e., you can make it seem like a proper subject for governmental action. And of course, in our “democracy” – yes, those are “sneer quotes” – that implies decision-making governed by electoral processes, whether directly or indirectly.

     Do you doubt this? Consider only one example, because it underpins everything else: the cherished right to freedom of expression. No right is more clearly expressed by the Bill of Rights. Yet today that right is under sustained attack by persons who demand that an “exception” be made for “hate speech” – and who demand the sole and absolute authority to decree what constitutes “hate speech.” Could there ever be a clearer linkage of politics to emotional appeals?

     You’d think the Left’s campaign to achieve that end would be laughed aside on the grounds of Constitutional law, three hundred years of Anglo-American tradition, and simple logic. If our power to express our opinions and convictions is politicized, then nothing remains outside the political orbit. A country once nearly wholly free would become a country wholly enslaved, a rightless chattel at the mercy of the whims of the Omnipotent State. Yet that is the abyss at whose edge we stand.

---

     “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.” – John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton

     When Ben Franklin was carried from the constitutional convention in September of 1787, he was stopped in the street by a woman who said, “Mr. Franklin, what have you wrought?” Franklin said, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” – Lawrence Lessig

     Emotional manipulation is the means, but the politicization of everything is the end. Needless to say, the Left’s aim is to become and remain the master. Yet even if the Right were to prevail and to exterminate the Left utterly, the consequences would be just as bad.

     When we in the Right allow a subject to become political, we collaborate in our own destruction. Granted that there are some subjects which are inherently political: our military and how it’s employed, international relations, the defense of acknowledged rights by the courts. But all else is at least potentially private.

     The proper role of the American patriot in this Year of Our Lord 2018 is to preserve and re-expand the private sphere. When we depart from that role – i.e., when we engage in politics over a subject that can be made a matter for private decisions and actions – we fail of our duty.

     The Constitution of the United States was written to define and delimit the public sphere. Most of our state-level charters were made in accordance with the same ideals. Indeed, the word republic, which was once understood to be the quintessentially American term for our polity, derives from the Latin phrase rei publicae: “public matters.” If there are properly public matters, any of the Founders would have told us, there are therefore properly private matters as well – and keeping the two separate is the critical activity of men determined to remain free.

---

     “And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

     I’ve come to feel that the “Mishnory road” essays, which are grouped here, plus this older piece that addresses the commonalities and divergences between “orthodox” conservatism and ideological libertarianism, are the most salient of my contributions to American political discourse. Everything else I’ve ever written is a consequence of the thoughts expressed in those pieces.

     That recognition has me pondering whether to continue on with these interminable, often repetitive op-eds. If the appropriate logic for dealing with a specific “issue” can be found in something I’ve already written, why go on to write further about it? Why surrender implicitly to the Left’s endless temptation to treat every subject, great or small, as something to view through a political lens?

     Politics can be fascinating...much in the same way as torture, which it’s coming ever more to resemble. But one does not immerse oneself in a horrifying subject without sustaining personal harm.

     I harbor no illusions about my vulnerability...or my mortality. Advancing age presses those subjects upon one’s mind. So I hope you’ll bear with me as I make a number of adjustments to the sort of material I post here at Liberty’s Torch. While I appreciate the value my regular Gentle Readers place upon these screeds...candidly, often without understanding why...I hope you’ll appreciate the sense of urgency under which I labor.

     The most private of all things is one’s own life and what one chooses to do with it. Let’s resist the temptation to drown our lives in politics.

     “Keep thine eye fixed upon the doughnut, lest thou pass unaware through the hole.” – The Curmudgeon’s Carbohydrate Aphorism

Expect a WICKED Last-Ditch Attack...

...just before the Wall crumbles.

We MAY be on the verge of the uncovering of the Deep State. The link is to a LONG post, but worth it.

More on Fusion and Other Government Issues

Not nuclear, but GPS Fusion - the ones that attempted to throw the 2016 election by posting "Fake News" about Trump.

Here's a cry for Obama to "Let It Go". Your party lost - Get Over It.

Too many in government have been co-opted by the political part of it. I'm in agreement that it's time to Drain the Swamp - and, a large part of that is to reduce the size of these agencies. Trump has focused on a major reason the size of the bureaucracies have swelled - too many regulations. He's cut many of them, and should focus on reducing more.

If there is less work (in the form of enforcing regulations), there will be less need for many of the Swamp Creatures. When I refer to federal employees that way, I'm merely noting that some of them - not all - were hired as a way of paying off supporters with a cushy job.

As the President would say, "That's sad." And, it is. To place a person in a position that they, and everyone around them, know was meant primarily to provide what amounts to - in their case - as a type of welfare check (although, a gigantic one), undermines their dignity as a human being. They use their position, not to learn something useful, but to provide services for the person that put them there.

At this point, we have at least twice as many people as would be needed in the most optimistic appraisal - the number is likely 5 or more times the quantity necessary.

How can you get rid of them without pushback?

• Reduce the regs - their position can then be eliminated outright.
• Attrition - as people leave, don't replace their job.
• If the position is necessary, hire from outside, with someone you can trust.
• Eliminate the time off for union business - they can take care of it on their own time.
• Outsource - use temps for jobs not having access to sensitive information or areas.

But, the biggest part of this is the first. Eliminate positions.

The Whole "Trump is Crazy" Thing - I've been hearing a lot of this lately (perhaps more as Trump's "Wins" start to accelerate). Dilbert's creator, Scott Adams, a man who has some knowledge of dealing with political maneuvering in the workplace, and the War of Words that is part of it, adds in his perspective.

FWIW, I think this guy has a realistic viewpoint on Trump and how he operates.

And, now, Just for FUN, here's some good ones - From Single Dad Laughing. If you don't check him out, you're missing one of the funniest sites on the web.

For all my friends with more than 2 kids. Bless you.

And, why do I think of Meryl Streep when I see this?

Actually, NOT true for me, but - a WHOLE lot of people I know are in this situation.

Monday Round-up

I've decided to return to posting 3 X a week, with occasional Sundays. I'm going to put all of those "I HAVE to get this off my chest" posts into a summary. If I stop to post on the spot, I'm going to waste a lot of time I really need to get things done: my book, Christmas prep, household organization and cleaning, etc.

Here's one that 'got my Irish up."

Found this on a site called Dangerous.

"Feminist" Tree Toppers? Words fail me. Here's a picture of Beyonce's topper - I WON'T post Serena Williams' terribly top-heavy one.

Because, nothing says feminist icon like boobs and legs on display.

Man, that ISIS is BRAVE - nothing says True Courage like putting out a death threat against a FOUR-YEAR-OLD.

Which is a greater crime:

• Rape of a minor
• Calling that rapist an ethnic slur

Silly bean! Of COURSE the charge of Hate Crime is greater!

Klavan has the right idea.