More pearls of expression.

I'm confused. Did Romney and McCain represent authentic true conservatism? If so then that is redefining the term. What is laughable to me is the outrage against Trump when the Party hasn't elected a true conservative since Reagan. And boy did Reagan have a mixed past. This is just personal and that is okay, just say so. But stop making this a true conservative argument because that is a joke.

Comment by Unqualified? on "I Choose Ted." By Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 7/21/16.

The real agenda of the climate hysterics.

In recent years we've documented the true motivations that are driving the global warming scare.

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change, who aspires to be U.N. secretary general, has admitted that the goal of environmental activists is to destroy capitalism.

* * * *

Ottmar Edenhofer, who co-chaired the IPCC working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015, has conceded that the climate crusade is an effort to shackle capitalism and establish a global welfare state.^[1]

Milton Friedman stated it simply: Capitalism has done more than anything else in history to lift people out of poverty.

Notes
^[1] "Global Warming: One More Official Exposes Real Goal Of Climate Scare." By Kerry Jackson, Investor's Business Daily, 7/19/16 (emphasis added).

Pearls of expression.

This gave birth to “Black Lives Matter”, which started as a banal cliché and then grew into a radical protest movement. The movement is founded upon the idea that the United States of the present day is a white supremacist country in which black lives are devalued and the police, the agents of white supremacism, systematically target blacks with violence causing a disproportionate number of black deaths. This idea is, of course, completely contra factual, although every smug, snarky, self-assured, progressive on the planet seems to be convinced of its truth.

And:

At the beginning of his presidency, Obama’s administration asked for a national conversation on race, and at the end of it, what he has given America is a race war. This will be all that history will remember him for.

"Obama's Legacy." By Gerry T. Neal, Throne, Altar, Liberty, 7/20/16.

Endorsements, Conscience, And Political Campaigns

     There’s been a lot of noise over Senator Ted Cruz’s speech of yesterday at the Republican National Convention. Much of the noise has been to the effect that Cruz “broke his promise to endorse the nominee.” But look what I found!

     I didn’t hear the word “endorse.” I heard the word support, which is not the same. One may support a candidate without granting him an endorsement. An endorsement is a positive affirmation of quality and fitness; in contrast, one may support the least of the evils, as Ann Coulter did in supporting Hillary Clinton over John McCain in 2008.

     Cruz made an impassioned plea for voters to “vote your conscience.” He exhorted them to vote, up and down the ticket, for candidates they can trust to defend freedom and the Constitution. Absolutely nothing in that strikes me as objectionable...because nothing about it is to any slightest degree different from what I would do – what I always do.

     Republican Party unity is at a low ebb. Many Republican diehards are unhappy about that, feeling as they do that the most important thing, the thing to be striven for at all costs, is to elect Republicans. They sense a threat from the Libertarian ticket, which is currently polling at about 10% and could be the deciding factor in November. Other minor parties could also have a disproportionate effect on the outcome, though the likelihood is considerably less.

     But will Republicans raised to federal offices improve on the performances of those there already? Some say yes, once there’s a Republican in the White House. But the matter admits of some doubt.

     Others have attacked Cruz personally as somehow insincere in his exhortations to “vote your conscience” and to vote for pro-freedom, pro-Constitution candidates. Why? Has he been an insincere promoter and defender of those things in the Senate? Doesn’t his record there entitle him to the benefit of the doubt?

     Political campaigns are becoming affairs where those of decent sensibilities refuse to go. No one is tolerant of a difference of opinion any longer. No one is willing to grant the other person’s sincerity or integrity. That can’t be good for the country.

     Worse, not only has the political polarization of America divided Left from Right with an impenetrable wall; it’s clearly invaded the GOP as well, further reducing the possibility of a restoration of Constitutional government. This is not a state of affairs that bodes well for the preservation of any particle of our badly battered freedoms...and it casts a shadow over the candidate best known for his personal aspersions upon his competitors.

     I shall echo Senator Cruz:

Vote your conscience...
if you vote at all.

     UPDATE: Hearken to the esteemed Ace of Spades to much the same effect.

They Have Given Us A New Commandment

     What is that commandment? It’s not that we love one another. That one is already taken, and if there’s Anyone you shouldn’t get into an authorship wrangle with, it’s the Son of God. And tangling with the shade of Ronald Reagan is almost as ill-advised.

     No, the newest commandment is this:

“Thou Shalt Not Make Other Races Feel Inferior.”

     That’s from The Gospel of the Left. When a white man dares to speak well of white people, or an American praises America, or a Christian lauds Christianity, he’s in violation. Neither is a white person / American / Christian allowed to defend white people / America / Christians from insult; that’s considered a backhanded violation as well. However, note that the stricture does not apply to any other group.

     Congressman Steve King violated it yesterday:

     Congressman King is exactly correct: Essentially all of human progress has been due to the white race – principally white Christian males – and minorities chafe under the sense of inferiority that gives them, whether it’s stated explicitly or merely implied.

     Let’s take a close look at the contributions of the other races:

• Mongolians / Asians: gunpowder and pasta.
• Negroes / Blacks: broken-field running and the slam-dunk.
• North American Indians: maize?
• Pacific Islanders: poi?

     But actually trying to come up with more than those “contributions” would excessively embarrass the moderator schmuck, so he had to mention Hitler and Stalin. Of course he made no mention of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Mao Tse-tung, Tojo, Julius Nyerere, Idi Amin, Sekou Toure, Haile Mengistu Mariam, Mobutu Sese Seko, or any of the bloodthirsty leaders of the African cannibal tribes European colonial powers strained so hard to civilize.

---

     Congressman King is being pressed to back away from his early, quite clear and correct remarks:

     Fellow panelist Charlie Pierce, of Esquire, had said on Monday: “If you’re really optimistic, you can say that this is the last time that old white people will command the Republican Party’s attention, its platform, its public face,” adding, “That hall is wired by loud, unhappy, dissatisfied white people.”

     “Now, that’s disparaging a group of people, and ‘old white people’ — can you trade that language out by adding any other group in there as an adjective?” King said Wednesday. "And by the way, I am wise enough not to even do that for people, because then it blows the whole Twittersphere up again. But he was disparaging a group of people, a subgroup of people, ‘old white people,’ and saying they’re going to be out of the politics of the Republican Party. That’s gotta be answered....

     “And so, yes, any civilization, you can look down through that and say these are things that we’re not proud of. I could go back and give you that list,” King acknowledged. “But the sum total that’s been contributed by Western civilization, it surpasses any other culture or civilization, partly because we borrowed from them along the way, and we’re flexible enough to do that. And so I don’t think we should apologize for our success. And the idea of multiculturalism, in that every culture is equal — that’s not objectively true. And we’ve been fed that information for the last 25 years in this country, and we’re not going to continue to become a greater nation if we don’t look at this objectively.”

     But even defending white people – by the multiculti edict, the source and reason for all evil anywhere – is forbidden by the Left, and the Left controls the major media. I have no doubt that the media reaction against any praise or defense of Christians or America would be at least as severe.

---

     I’ve had it with this nonsense. Let it be known to all:

• The achievements of the white race are objectively superior to all the others.
• The other races are consumed by their envy of whites.
• Therefore, in accordance with the dynamic of envy, the other races are trying to destroy the white race.
• And quite a lot of inferior whites are helping them.

     Note that today’s public proponents of segregation are nearly all black. Being compelled to measure their achievements against those of whites has warped their brains. They seek isolation...but not complete isolation; that would deprive them of whites’ largesse. They want political and legal separation from whites, but they also want whites to pay them Danegeld. That’s the real cause of most of the interracial violence in the United States today.

     It’s not “the legacy of slavery.” It’s the difference between what whites have achieved and what blacks have managed. That gap is indisputable, and it grows ever larger as time passes. Take a close look at the black-run nations of Africa. Then try to argue the point.

     And have a second look at these essays, and this one, and this one, and this one, and perhaps this one before you indulge in any foolish, unearned guilt.

Fanboys

     This warning might be a wee bit late, but I’ll post it anyway: It’s a medically proven fact that watching televised political conventions will reduce your brain mass by as much as 103%, so don’t! (No, I didn’t. If I had, would I be writing this?)

     Anyway, the agonizing suspense has ended at last: the presidential nominee of the Republican Party is Donald J. Trump. That has a lot of people cheering wildly and a lot of others trying to drink themselves senseless. Which camp is “right?” Well, I’ve long been a proponent of the Mencken Recipe: i.e., that the country’s ills could be most effectively treated by keeping us all “gently stewed:”

     ...I marvel that no utopian has ever proposed to abolish all the sorrows of the world by the simple device of getting the whole human race gently stewed....The man who is [gently stewed] is a man who has put all his best qualities into his showcase. He is not only immensely more amiable than the cold-sober man; he is immeasurably more decent. He reacts to all situations in an expansive, generous, and humane manner. He has become more liberal, more tolerant, more kind. He is a better citizen, husband, father, friend. The enterprises that make human life on this earth that make men uncomfortable and unsafe are never launched by such men. They are not makers of wars; they do not rob and oppress anyone. All the great villainies of history have been perpetrated by sober men, and chiefly by teetotalers. But all the charming and beautiful things, from the Song of Songs to terrapin a la Maryland, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the Martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from well water to something with color to it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen. [“Portrait of an Ideal World,” 1924.]

     However, I draw the line at blackout drinking. Nubile young ladies can make free with your body and you won’t enjoy it. Indeed, you won’t even remember it.

     But seriously, Gentle Reader, the question of the hour is what it’s always been: What now? And your humble Curmudgeon Emeritus is here to tell you.

---

     Allow me to lay down a postulate. It’s an important one, from which much else follows:

No politician will succeed in restoring Constitutional soundness to government in these United States in our lifetime.

     At this point in our political degeneracy, elected officials possess far less power than what has been called the Deep State: the millions of unelected bureaucrats and functionaries who are the true rulers of our nation. It is they who set agricultural, industrial, commercial, and informational policy. It is they who determine what shall and what shall not be done. It is they who thwarted the efforts of Nixon and Reagan to reduce the burden of government on our longsuffering backs. Remember this blatant statement of conditions:

[United States Senator from Oklahoma David L.] Boren, formerly a state legislator and governor, went to Washington expecting to make some changes. “What impressed me most is the great power of the bureaucracy compared to that of elected officials. All the talk about growing control by the bureaucracy is not exaggerated. The shift in power is very real.... There is almost a contempt for elected officials.”...

Senator Boren found, to his surprise, that a Senator has great difficulty even getting phone calls returned by the “permanent” employees, much less getting responsive answers to his questions.

The voters can’t “throw the rascals out” anymore, because the main rascals are not elected but appointed....

Regulatory bureaucrats have extra power because they can outlast the elected officials. “Often,” Boren explains, “I’ve said to a bureaucrat, ‘You know this is not the president’s policy.’

’True, Senator, but we were here before he came, and we’ll be here after he leaves. We’re not in sympathy with his policy. We’ll study the matter until he leaves.’”

[From Armington and Ellis, MORE: The Rediscovery of American Common Sense.]

     Now imagine what would follow from an attempt by a sitting president to abolish an entire department of such creatures. The rest of the bureaucracy would rise in defense of their threatened colleagues. Tens of millions of private citizens – what’s been accurately if scatologically called the “Free Shit Army” – would league with them. Chaos unimaginable by a decent man would ensue. Congress and the White House would never recover.

     There are some who yearn to see such chaos. I don’t.

---

     Electoral contests are times when the politician’s central gift is on most garish display: the ability to make promises he can’t keep. Politics is like that. An old joke, the Pachydermic Personnel Predictor, puts it thus: “Politicians don't hunt elephants, but they promise to share the elephants you catch with whoever will vote for them.”

     That’s politics, Gentle Reader: the making of insincere promises to gain, keep, or increase one’s own power, prestige, and perquisites. An American over the age of forty has no excuse for not knowing it.

     Much of the enthusiasm for the candidacy of Donald Trump is founded on his being outside the political elite. That’s understandable; when you’ve become convinced that all of those inside the elite are corrupt or ineffective, turning to an outsider makes sense. However, it doesn’t make perfect sense.

     Should Trump become president, then all other things being equal, he will face the same resistance from the Deep State that other presidents have faced. Its incentives and constraints will be unchanged. Therefore, its behavior will be consistent in direction with what Nixon and Reagan faced. The vector of government growth and its progressive strangulation of individuals’ lives will continue as it was.

     But what if all other things are not equal? What if Trump should take office with a greatly strengthened Republican majority in both Houses of Congress, including a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate? Wouldn’t true change be possible then?

     Theoretically, yes. The Democrat minority would no longer be able to prevent any sort of legislation. But the Deep State, whose numbers are vast, would hardly sit idle in the face of such a threat. For example, consider what would happen were Congress to consider a bill to abolish the Department of Education:

• The educrats would immediately rally government-school teachers to support their continuation;
• The major media would trumpet alarms of unprecedented magnitude about the prospects for “crippling the educational system;”
• Racialist mouthpieces would beat their drums about this “assault on minorities and the poor;”
• A minimum of ten million voters, many of them residents of districts represented by Republicans, would descend upon Washington via letters, emails, phone calls, and no small number of demonstrations.

     Is there any great likelihood that the bill would even be reported out of committee?

     Think so if you like, but the odds are heavily against it.

---

     My point here is that in our milieu, to look to an office seeker as a potential savior is a mistake. Regardless of what a candidate promises, his power to effectuate such promises is sharply limited. The Deep State, with assistance from its allies in the media and various quasi-public institutions (e.g., teachers’ unions), will thwart any attempt to reduce its power in scope or magnitude.

     Political fanboys either don’t get this or willfully disregard it.

     Political fanboys can be more fanatic than other sorts of fan. There’s a reason for that: they’ve pinned enormous hopes for enormous changes on their idol. Anyone who suggests to them that their hero is a single man with ordinary human qualities, and no match for the Deep State in a contest of wills, becomes the enemy. Several such fanboys have assailed me for sentiments of this sort. The most fanatic of the lot have assumed high dudgeon over my having pointed out Donald Trump’s personal flaws. They seem to think he’s the living incarnation of Stephen Graham Sumner.

     Sumner is a fictional character in a plot premised upon a devil theory. He’d have as much chance of prevailing over the Deep State as an infant would have against a tank.

---

     Finally for this morning, a few words in support of a healthful skepticism.

     Anyone can make promises. When ordinary men make them, they tend to be trustworthy. When a politician makes them, it’s best to put one hand on your wallet and the other on your gun. There is no sort of political promise that can’t be dismissed by the invocation of a single word: necessity. Nor will it matter whether you and I disagree about the “necessity.” The nation’s experiences of Jimmy Carter and Bush the Elder should be sufficient to drive this home.

     It won’t matter what the promising politician’s intentions were at the time he made his promise. All that will matter is his perception of a “necessity” that trumps the promise he made. That the “necessity” might be illusory, political, or personal and venal will carry no weight.

     Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. [Psalm 146:3]

     In short, don’t be a fanboy. Trust only in yourself and those who demonstrably love you. All else is folly.

Too Much Truth Dept.

     I swiped this from A Nod To The Gods:

     Hopefully, the right heads will explode.

Rape And Islam

     The rash of rapes and other sexual assaults erupting in European districts where Muslim “refugees” have been permitted to mass has left a lot of commentators tongue-tied. On the one hand, they’re well aware that the rapists and molesters are Muslims, and that the general public is aware of that as well. On the other, they fear for their lives, jobs, broadcast licenses, and so forth should they dare to imply, however delicately, that Islam’s adherents as a group are more inclined toward sexual violence than other demographics.

     But then, there’s a lot – both about sex and about the cultures where Islam flourishes – that no one wants to discuss.

---

     I wrote, some years ago:

     Though the language seems brusque, even a bit savage, the principal fulfillment to the man is that of conquest: winning access to the body of his lover. The principal fulfillment to the woman is that of agreeable surrender: the cession of her body to his, not merely for immediate pleasure but also in hope of a union that will last well beyond the physical connection. These satisfactions greatly overshadow those of the body, despite all attempts to assert the contrary.

     This is the aspect of sex relations that writers typically refuse to mention: its undercurrent of aggression, which is – girls, hold onto your boyfriends – the man’s province. He and she both know, subconsciously, that the initiative is his. The decision about whether to respond affirmatively is hers...among civilized people.

     Among other things, civilized people hold that one’s body is one’s property, with all the rights pertaining thereto. Criminals excepted, civilized people don’t invade other people’s property. Here in the U.S., that’s considered a sound justification for homicide. Indeed, until about 1940, there were states where rape was considered a capital crime.

     But Middle Eastern Muslims are not civilized people. The sole civilized region in the Middle East is Israel, where Muslims do not predominate. And if I may “repurpose” an old maxim, you can take the Muslim out of the Middle East, but you can’t take the Middle East out of the Muslim.

     In the Muslim Middle East, all relations are about power.

---

     The principal difference between the civilized man and the savage is this: the civilized man, cognizant of the rights of others, will restrain himself from aggressing against those rights even when it would be to his profit and he’s certain he could get away with it. From this perspective, the criminal is a kind of savage, a throwback to Hobbes’s “war of each against all.”

     A civilized society is one whose uncivilized fraction is recognized and treated as such If it is small enough to be managed institutionally, it will erect institutions to do so; if not, that society is in a state of upheaval that will eventually cause a civil war or a descent into savagery...and possibly both.

     By that standard, the Muslim Middle East is not civilized. It’s a place of perpetual aggression – including sexual aggression against women who have been bludgeoned into accepting that they have no rights against any man. A Middle Eastern Muslim woman is always the property of some man – usually a husband or father. It’s equally significant that Middle Eastern preteen and adolescent boys are frequently made into sexual playthings by older men, emphasizing and perpetuating the only-power-counts ethic of that region.

     Part of the reason Islam took firm root among the peoples of the Middle East is that it ratifies such practices.

---

     Among civilized people, the aggression inherent in sex is tamed and made acceptable by a number of legal and social constraints. The most important ones are the laws against sexual trespass and the binding nature of a marital commitment voluntarily entered into by both parties.

     Note how this contrasts with the practices of the Muslim Middle East. It’s essentially impossible to prosecute a man for rape in that region, owing to the Islamic requirement for four male witnesses to the act. Moreover, a woman who alleges rape and fails to produce four such witnesses can then be tried and convicted for adultery or fornication and stoned to death. The connection to the “honor killings” of women and young girls by male relatives who suspect them of dalliances should be too obvious to require comment.

---

     Note that rape, sexual assault, and “honor killings” among Muslims in America are far rarer than in any other place where significant numbers of Muslims can be found. There are several contributory factors:

• Some degree of acculturation;
• America’s legal system, which isn’t Islam-compliant;
• The prevalence of armed American husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons;
• American women’s political and social power: far greater than their counterparts in other lands.

     However, such things do occur, especially in areas that have become Islamic exclaves and can therefore be covered up by the surrounding community. Islam tolerates Muslim men’s worst sexual aggressions and condones – even encourages – the reduction of women to property. When they can get away with it, they replicate the Middle Eastern pattern wherever they are.

     The governing elites of Europe have decided, sotto voce, to let them get away with it.

---

     If you wish a civilized society, in which a woman’s body is her recognized, rightful property and not to be trespassed upon, you cannot accept Islam or the Middle Eastern cultures from which it sprang. Yet Europe has opened its doors – admittedly, under some external pressure – to a flood of Muslim migrants, a great proportion of them young men. The consequences are only what one who understands the Middle East’s power-obsession and Islam’s attitude toward the female body would have expected.

     It’s not impossible that the pattern might someday be reproduced here in America. Perhaps that’s among the reasons our governing elites, who have been spreading a welcome mat for tens of thousands of Muslim migrants despite widespread resistance to the idea, are so anxious to take our guns from us. It would be a poor sort of “official welcome” to the Islamic horde to discipline it to civilized sexual norms under threat of death by armed and enraged male relative. The matter – both Muslim men’s tendency to rape and molest, and our authorities’ seeming eagerness to have them here – deserves a great deal more attention and discussion than it’s received.

Absurd. Protect American interests.

A brief summary of what the U.S. foreign policy establishment won't touch with a ten-foot pole:

If defeating the Islamic State really were the desired outcome [of Obama's policy in Iraq and Syria], the pieces are in place for an advance on Aleppo, Raqqa, and Mosul by the Syrian Army, the Kurds, and the Iraqi Army, backed by massive American and Russian air support.

* * * *

. . . It’s past time that U.S. foreign policy served the interests of Americans, not those of neocons and theocratic Sheikhs.^[1]

This excerpt actually makes reference to the interests of the American people, which are in stark contrast to the mysterious, illogical, and unannounced purpose behind "U.S." foreign policy in Iraq and Syria. Assad is by far the best alternative for Syria yet the U.S. approach is one for which "success" would be measured, in part, by the takeover of Syria by:

• ISIS,
• al Nusra, or whatever the elusive al Qaida is called these days, and/or
• a fanciful bunch of "moderate" Syrian "rebels" with unknown plans for a Syria without Assad and a demonstrated willingness to cooperate with the two former groups.

So that's the official U.S. policy now: Remove the obvious decent choice for Syria, wage a pretend air war against (and arm and train) scum, and lay the groundwork for it to take over a whole country.

However, the American people have no interest whatsoever in effecting a takeover of a sovereign country by our mortal enemies -- who are absolute animals.

A united front with Russia, Syria, and Iraq is the only strategy that will serve our true interests, one of which is disengaging militarily from where we're not needed and where we are doing immense damage, not least of all to ourselves.

Notes
^[1] "Kerry in Moscow: What is more important for America: Defeating ISIS or overthrowing Assad?" By Edward Lozansky and Jim Jatras, Washington Times, 7/19/16 (emphasis added).

H/t: Russia Insider.

The vilification of Trump.

Sixth in a series.

• "Trump’s abrasive, Know Nothing-like nativist rhetoric" – Jeb Bush.
• "[S]et a new standard for disingenuousness and catering to voters’ fears"; "fabricates realities that ignorant people like to inhabit." – James Traub.
• “[T]oo bigoted and racist” -- Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).
• Vile, raging, vengeful, dysempathic, and relentlessly exploitative; foul, profane, and violent language and harangues; constant reversals of positions; compulsive lying – Sam Vaknin, Gulag Bound.
• Conscienceless demagogue, serial liar, and nihilist with a belief in nothing save himself – Steve Fraser, The Unz Review.
• Facitilitates “trickle-down racism.” – Mitt Romney.
• "Megalomaniacal, Misogynist, Racist, Islamophobic, Ableist, Transphobic Hellhound" – Lena Dunham
• "[S]eems a crude man of action"; creepy; little political knowledge; crudity and buffoonery; blond comb-over real-estate dealer -- Victor Davis Hanson. (Help wanted: Refined man of action.)
• Racist, sexist demagogue – Arianna Huffington (Please, God. Not a sexist!).
• A "scatter-shot speaker, a bully, an adolescent, and a narcissist" – Victor Davis Hanson
• The Anti-Christ – New York Daily News.
• Somebody "who has divided us, who is grooming brownshirts" – Glenn Beck.
• "There is no longer a Republican Party rooted in the main street highways and byways of America. What's left of it is not even the xenophobic, nativist, crypto-racist flotsam and jetsam of the populist right that The Donald is successfully calling to arms." – David Stockman.
• A platform that is "ugly, superficial and stupid." – David Stockman.
• Guilty of "loose cannon oratory" – David Stockman.
• Has "absolutely no semblance of a coherent program." – David Stockman.
• His "pitch is comprised of pure bombast and bile." – David Stockman.
• Trump "has fashioned his platform by opportunistically scratching the most fearful and bigoted itches roiling the electorate." – David Stockman.
• "While he contributes to charity, it’s not so clear that being service-oriented has been a high priority for him. He said he got into real estate simply because it’s lucrative." – Stephen M. Krason, Crisis Magazine. (Being a social worker is a great way to accumulate money to donate to charity. And no one else in America engages in any endeavor because it might be "lucrative." Only Trump is that greedy.)
• Massive business successes "accompanied by shady business practices. . . , questionable associations, loan defaults, using political connections and maneuvering to get what he wants"; eminent domain against a widow to expand his Atlantic City casino operation; a tendency generally to use pressure tactics on those who get in his way. – Stephen M. Krason, Crisis Magazine. (Uses political connections? That cur!)
• "[C]ampaign has profited from voter prejudice and hatred" – U/I Washington Post writer mentioned in Pat Buchanan article, 3/4/16.
• Trump represents an "authoritarian assault upon democracy." – Same Washington Post writer.
• "Moral stain" if anyone embraces Trump. – Same Washington Post writer.
• A lunatic; a national embarrassment; an exquisite marriage of ignorance and confidence. – Salon.
• “I would sooner vote for Josef Stalin than Donald Trump” – Max Boot. (Stalin the mass murderer.)
• “I’m literally losing sleep over Donald Trump.” – Max Boot, C.F.R. fellow, foreign policy adviser to McCain during 2008 presidential campaign.
• Hillary Clinton “would be vastly preferable to Trump.” – Max Boot
• “For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.” -- Robert Kagan, foreign policy adviser to McCain during 2008 presidential campaign
• “I’m voting for Hillary” – Joshua Muravchik, neoconservative.
• “I am very skeptical of [Hillary]. But Trump has degraded American politics in a way unlike anything I have ever witnessed. I can’t say enough bad things about him. His ignorance is staggering and his personality is revolting.” – Joshua Muravchik
• Trump is "not sophisticated enough to have any political ideology. He is a narcissistic bully, a shrewd marketer, and an amateur politician with authoritarian instincts." – Sam Vaknin, Gulag Bound. (Politicians with authoritarian instincts. So rare these days.)
• "[B]lusters in such an off-putting and sloppy fashion"; "his barroom rhetoric"; "mean-spirited rhetoric" (of course); "blundered into at least a few legitimate issues"; "the racial incendiary"; "a crude reaction to a smooth and unquestioned racialism"; "his racism, nativism, and xenophobia"; "a loose nuclear weapon" – Victor Davis Hanson.

This from the la-di-da, holier-than-thou Ladies' Auxilliary of the Uniparty. May Mr. Trump carry the day in November and treat us to a spectacle of watching all these hounds come crawling to him on their bellies.

Trump 2016!

Crisis And Politics

     Remember this golden oldie from Rahm Emanuel?

     For those allergic to videos, here’s the complete transcript:

     "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

     To the best of my knowledge, no one has publicly analyzed the subject of that political mantra for its internal mechanisms. Given the sudden rash of crises and events being styled crises, both here in America and elsewhere in the world, I’d say the time has come.

---

     Crisis, like many other dramatic words, is often employed idiosyncratically or interpreted tendentiously. Let’s take a hard look at what sort of event would constitute a crisis in the social, economic, or political order.

     First and foremost, crisis is a matter of scale. The number of persons affected must be large enough to be significant in the surrounding context. Shouting “Crisis!” over an event that affects only one person or family is disallowed.

     Second, there must be either ongoing damage or a serious threat of damage to the affected persons. Moreover, the damage must be significant. A hangnail or the loss of a quarter in a vending machine won’t make the cut.

     Third, and most important for political reasons, the event being styled as a crisis must appear to call for a centralized, authoritarian response. The “spontaneous order” coalescence of privately motivated healing forces must appear, or be made to appear, too slow or too weak to meet the needs of the affected.

     Fourth, it helps greatly to justify the categorization of crisis if the event features swift acceleration: a sharp crescendo away from normality. An effect that’s been building up gradually and gently over a long period of time is likely to become embedded in the general notion of the normal order of things. In contrast, a swift acceleration of damage throws people “off their stride,” and makes them more amenable to the arrogations of authority and its assertions of mastery.

     In summary, a true crisis must be:

1. Large;
2. Painful;
3. Disordering;
4. And preferably Quick to hit.

     Several events of recent years that would not qualify as crises according to the criteria above were nevertheless made to seem crises by the skillful withholding of information and manipulation of news coverage. Sometimes such pseudo-crises can be seen more clearly in retrospect as relatively minor matters which politicians and their hangers-on, eager to claim authority and garner public acclaim, seized upon for their own purposes.

---

     Just now, the United States is afflicted in several directions. It has a massive illegal immigration problem. It’s sprouted a number of racial, ethnic, and religious exclaves. Interracial, inter-ethnic, and inter-religious tensions have come to constitute a serious threat to social cohesion and the rule of law. Its economy is staggering under an unprecedented weight of laws, taxes, and regulations. Its federal government is in deficit every year, has amassed a debt greater than the Gross Domestic Product, and appears not to be reformable. Two enormous programs, Social Security and Medicare, are crumbling fiscally owing to changes in American demographics. Its military, overstretched for fifteen years, is no longer equal to the demands being placed on it. A steadily increasing fraction of its populace regards its governments as enemies rather than protectors. Those in that fraction have largely elevated their personal ethics over the laws of the land.

     In each case, the number of persons affected is in the millions. In each case, the damage or threat thereof is general and significant. In each case, the appearance of the thing suggests that only a centralized response can stem the tide. However, these conditions did not have swift onsets; they built up over the decades.

     Each of these phenomena has become a marching tune for some breed of social parasite: politicians, public figures, opinion mongers, and organizers of various sorts. Some want high (or higher) office, some want increased power and prestige, some want money, and some merely crave the limelight.

     These parasites have contrived both the crisis-like conditions mentioned above. Each of them was brought upon us by government: either by making bad laws with pernicious effects, or by failing to enforce good ones. However, to make it appear that increased government power is the proper response to the crises, they secured the cooperation of the news media at depicting them as having come upon us suddenly. Their success, while not complete, has been impressive.

     Anyone who’s been watching the important metrics would have known about the steady onset of these problems long before politicians et cetera mounted their soap boxes to pronounce them crises. Some pundits told us what was coming long before it reached its present magnitude. As is usually the case these days, not enough of us listened.

     There’s nothing more useful to the power seeker than a crisis. He’ll mount any that’s handy, and he’ll ride it until he gets what he wants or is shot off his steed. In the latter case, the fatal bullet is usually the penetration of the “official” news by “unofficial” voices with facts at their command. Consider the nicely debunked “man-caused global warming” fad as a prime example.

     Keep abreast of the news.
     Access a variety of sources, and remain skeptical.
     Remember the inherent dynamics of power and the power seeker.
     And though it might seem an “of course” matter, protect freedom on the Internet.

     We don’t need any more “crises” or politicians to ride them over our backs.

Political dumpster diving so you don't have to.

I don't know of a way to link to YouTube videos that start and stop at particular times and run on this page. Embedding an entire clip is simple enough but not embedding a segment so far as I know. Thus, please bear with having to click on each image, having a new page open for each clip, and having to make note of the time periods for each video clip that are relevant for my purposes (indicated after the names of the individuals below).

Aux barricades!

Hillary Clinton, candidate for president (2016), on retroactive classification (unh huh) of government documents, 7/2/16 (0:02-0:45 mins):

Since she received classified documents from other agencies (see excerpt from Dir. Comey's press conference below), to believe Hillary's version you have to believe that other federal agencies removed classification markings before sending classified documents to Her Grace -- an absurdity -- or that "someone" on Hillary's staff or a contractor (with unknown security clearances) removed those markings. Really?

Xavier Becerra (D-CA), on subsequent classification of government documents, 7/3/16 (5:50-6:59 mins.):

Rep. Becerra here either has a horrible memory, is recklessly making statements on a red-hot national issue he's not examined, or he is lying with a straight face.

James Comey, FBI Director on the documents on Hillary's server being classified at the time, 7/5/16 (4:08-4:43 mins.):

You have to love the Director's emphasis on "at the time."

Since emails pass through various portals on their way to their addressees and copies of what passes through those portals (non-government in Hillary's case) is possibly retained on their servers (at least outside of the E.U.), I wonder whether the investigation of Hillary's emails included subpoenaing those backup files to determine what each email looked like as it left that last portal before arriving at her server.

This "marked as classified" evasion is just garbage and Comey did not address it in his press conference. If U.S. law prevents retention then so be it but unencrypted emails still pass over the web whether or not they're retained.

Not my thing but it seems unlikely there's no retention since Google apparently keeps a record of every search any user makes. If there's no record or copy, hypothetically speaking, it's a certainty that there are existing capabilities to read email if the link immediately above is accurate. But then, who'd be interested in the email communications of the United State Secretary of State?

I'm under the impression that state of the art opinion is that you lose any practical (v. legal) right to privacy as regards the content of your email as you are in essence publishing your unencrypted email for the perusal of strangers when you hit "send."

Comey's being coy about the "marked as classified" issue and what I've discussed here, not least because a deliberate removal of classification markings writes a whole new chapter in the law on the (immaterial) element of her intent. Maybe Hillary's emails were encrypted and Guccifer thus did have to hack into her servers themselves.

At this point, who outside of the FBI and Hillary knows?

H/t: 5 MINUTES AGO for first two videos and LesGrossman2015 for the last one.

Day Off

     Yes, yes, I took one only five days ago. That one was for pain and anxiety. Today it’s to:

• Mow my lawn;
• Attend to home maintenance chores;
• Flesh out a staggeringly original idea for a new novel.

     Bear with me.

I Am Not Making This Up Dept.

With such a delegation of responsibility [for combating terrorism to an entity not part of the Swedish security establishment], the government seems either to be trying to hamper efforts to combat violent extremism, or it does not understand the nature of the threat.

The lack of understanding of violent extremism, combined with politicizing the problem, has been evident, for instance, in Malmö, Sweden's third largest city. After the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the city councilor responsible for safety and security in Malmö, Andreas Schönström, said that European right-wing extremism is a bigger threat than violent Islamism. And on June 5, 2016, Jonas Hult, Malmö's security manager, wrote: "The right-wing forces in Malmö are the biggest threat."^[1]

It's easy to see the Swedish government – duly elected by the Swedish electorate with malice aforethought and with every opportunity to vote for a non-lunatic, right-wing government – as being the World Champions of Down-to-the-Bone Stupidity. Even the Swedes, however, can't be this stupid though I realize that this assertion has me rowing upstream against a mighty current of evidence to the contrary. Still and all, Swedes differ only in degree from most other European governments in this regard and I simply have too much faith in the basic common sense of people to eventually get it right about reality. At least, once they realize that their "leaders" are in fact actively conniving at their destruction. It's taken 70 years for this to awakening but it appears the populist giant is stirring and the toothpaste isn't going to go back in the tube.

So, bottom line, the Swedish government is trying to hamper efforts to combat "violent extremism." They'll call out the infantry and their masked AntiFa shock troop auxiliaries if there's a neo-Nazi bake sale in Hasvik^[2] have no doubt but about tackling obvious problems with Muslims they're not so brave.

Notes
^[1] "How Serious Is Sweden's Fight against Islamic Terrorism and Extremism?" By Nima Gholam Ali Pour, Gatestone Institute, 7/17/16 (emphasis added).
^[2] Remote village in far north of Sweden.

The Common Sense

     “What is real?” is the supposedly confounding question of the Berkelian idealists. Many of them aren’t aware that it was asked long before they latched onto it. Nor did that original asker stay for an answer.

     Leaving the origin of the question to the side, the answer isn’t as difficult as those who pose it appear to believe. Samuel Johnson did it quite some time ago. Trouble is, the answer is tabulative, rather than intensive. It leaves the asker an opening: “Very well. What else is real?”

     To answer a question that begins “What is...” is to offer a definition. An intensive answer must follow a particular structure.

• It first states a genus: a superset to which the set being defined is a subset.
• It qualifies the members of the set being defined with a differentia: a characteristic possessed only by members of the defined set.

     That’s an intensive definition: a statement that allows any arbitrarily chosen item to be tested for membership in the defined set. The sole alternative is the nomination of specific items as members of the set, followed by the imperious closure thereof: “These and only these are members of the set being defined.” That’s the tabulative approach. It asserts a kind of personal authority over the set being defined: an authority others might choose to dispute or reject.

     Reality is intended to refer to the ultimate superset: the set that is not a subset of any larger set. Therefore, reality can have neither a genus nor a differentia, and so cannot be defined intensively. Philosophical inquiry is inside it, and cannot be stretched to enclose it.

     We experience reality sequentially, as a train of perceptions and events. We kick stones, bruise our feet, and rebound knowing that a real event, involving objects whose properties are not mere matters of opinion, has occurred. Sometimes we formulate theories about those events and objects that will later prove useful...or destructive.

     By corollary, each person’s experience of reality is unique. What Smith experiences today will vary, at some level of detail, from the experience of Jones. That doesn’t make Smith “right” and Jones “wrong.” It merely makes each man’s experience and the knowledge gained from it partial.

     When two persons are present at the same event, certain elements of their perceptions will be common: i.e., agreed upon, except in cases of hallucination and deliberate deceit. They may attempt to interpret the event differently, but the event itself will have fixed, known properties.

     This common sense of things is what the deceivers among us – they whose agendas are impeded by reality – perpetually strive to warp.

---

     Consider the following scene from the extraordinary movie 300:

     “It is not fear that grips him...only a heightened sense of things.” That heightened sense of what is real and imminent is what calls most urgently upon our special powers of apprehension and reason: First, to know what is; second, to reason out what must be done about it.

     When the alternatives have been reduced to survival or death, there can be no airy-fairy philosophizing about “what is real;” there can be only perception, reason, and unhesitating action.

---

     The events of the past few years have given rise to a common sense of things that includes the following elements:

• There are malevolent forces abroad.
• Some seek our enslavement; others intend our deaths.
• Some have established beachheads among us, on our soil.
• Some of the beachheads are situated within the halls of power.
• Our media strive to shape our perception and understanding of those forces:
  • Their size,
  • Their power,
  • And their objectives.

     When a Muslim terrorist extinguishes eighty lives in a single incident such as the one in Nice, France, it’s extremely difficult for any organ to prevent the news from getting out. When a man with a rifle takes the lives of five police officers and wounds seven more, the media have a somewhat greater (though not absolute) degree of control. When a man we have foolishly entrusted with political authority uses his position and its prestige to further an unwholesome agenda, his media protectors (if he has any) will move heaven and earth to dress his actions in the garb of purity and civic virtue – and such is the power of the unholy alliance between the media and the political elite that they will often succeed in blatant contradiction of reality.

     But all success at warping the common sense is temporary, for word gets around. If nothing else, the simple accumulation of incidents with common elements on garish display will make the pattern impossible to gainsay.

     Since September 11, 2001, there have been nearly 29,000 terrorist attacks by Muslims. The conviction that Muslims cannot be permitted to mass their numbers among free peoples has become widespread and invincible. When Newt Gingrich proposes that those Muslims whose allegiance belongs to shari’a in exclusion of the Constitution should be deported, it resonates with the common sense among ordinary Americans.

     The Black Lives Matter “movement” is an organized campaign, well funded by the financiers of the Left, to disrupt the normal order of life in the United States. It has trashed two cities and taken the lives of five policemen. But it gains no ground with ordinary Americans, for it is their common sense that Negroes kill Caucasians far more often than the reverse. (Indeed, most Negro homicide victims are killed by other Negroes.)

     Despite extensive media protection and exculpation, Hillary Clinton’s protests of innocence in the Benghazi atrocity and the classified-email scandal are falling on deaf ears. The facts have become too widely known; the obfuscations and dissimulations have lost the power to cloud the issue or change the subject. That the Clintons are inherently dishonest and self-serving is now the common sense of Americans. If there are Americans who dissent, it would be the Clintons themselves.

---

     Developments of grave import have accumulated and accelerated. Tensions of several kinds have come to a head. Issues of survival or death – personal, social, and national – are now at the forefront of many millions of minds. The American public is moving toward exactly that “heightened sense of things” that permits no further evasions. Its common sense of where we are and the train of events that got us here will stand for no more stalling or deflection.

     If America is to survive and flourish once more, the common sense must lead us to a common sense: a common grasp of what may continue and what must be expunged; what may be tolerated and what must not; to whom one may listen in confidence and who must never, ever again be allowed to occupy any position of profit, trust, or power to persuade.

     Pray.

This Day Of Tears And Rage

     By now, everyone with access to a television or an Internet-enabled computer is aware of what happened in Nice, France last night. There’s no point in expounding on the event itself. What matters henceforward will be the reactions of decent persons and the governments to which they claim allegiance.

     But the Nice atrocity is quite literally yesterday’s news. Today is Black Lives Matter’s “Day of Rage,” upon which massively disruptive demonstrations are planned in a host of American cities. Never mind that the killings of black suspects that evoked this most recent outburst have been proved objectively justified. Racialist hucksters have never let such matters interfere with their plans. The movement must keep moving.

     American military personnel have been strongly warned to stay away from the demonstrations and the cities that will suffer them. Given that, the federal response is likely to be nonexistent, regardless of what might eventuate. I have no idea whether state governors will make use of the National Guard in their attempts to keep order and prevent bloodshed. Quite possibly, Barack Hussein Obama will do something to forbid, impede, or prevent that.

     It’s beyond question that this “day of rage” will be a day of danger for those in the affected cities. Along with the danger to proximate human life, there’ll be a danger to property on a scale comparable to the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore. And let it never be forgotten that when wealth is destroyed, lives are destroyed along with it.

     Is there a reporter, anywhere in these United States, brave enough to corner a few of the organizers of these “protests” and ask a few hard questions? I have a few I’d like to hear put to them:

• What’s your objective? What, specifically, do you hope to get out of this?
• Do you regard the police as enemies? Would you prefer that your neighborhoods not be policed?
• To whom do you answer? Who provides you with funds and marching orders?
• What’s your opinion of the BLM marchers who’ve called for dead cops?
• And exactly what do you think about what happened yesterday in Nice?

     Of course, it would be best to be heavily armed and armored when posing any of those questions. But those requirements are not insuperable.

---

     The state of interracial, inter-ethnic, and inter-sectarian tension today is beyond what anyone would have expected immediately after the election of Barack Hussein Obama. Indeed, a great part of the reason so many Americans voted for Obama was the hope that putting a mulatto of diverse background and associations into the White House might help to relax such tensions. Those hopes have been bitterly dashed.

     It doesn’t help that Obama and his lieutenants have been such ardent practitioners of the politics of division. However, what’s been even worse for the country is the general flaccidity governments – federal, state, and local – have exhibited in response to the associated violence. It’s fairly easy to imagine the strategists of movements such as Black Lives Matter, Aztlan, and so forth saying to one another, “It worked once. Why not try it again – and maybe bigger?”

     Violence, be it remembered, is a means to an end, a technique the aggressor hopes will get him something he wants. It will be employed wherever and whenever the probable gains outweigh the probable penalties. When it succeeds, it will spawn repetitions and evoke emulations. This is exactly what’s happened these past few years.

     The worldwide Islamic militancy of our time might be the conceptual genesis of all of it. Militant Muslims, whether inclined to violence or merely willing to agitate, have reaped tremendous gains for their agenda. Make no mistake; that agenda is available to anyone who cares to see it. It’s down in black and white in the Qur’an. In light of their many visible successes, why wouldn’t organizations such as Black Lives Matter seek to emulate them?

     Add to this that the current executive administration simply refuses to allow that Islam itself is the genesis of Muslim violence. Add the penetration of the federal government by Muslims known to be hostile to the Constitution and affiliated with organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Add the incredible foolhardiness of European governments in admitting ever larger swarms of young Muslim men to their nations. Add the incomprehensible behavior of Christian schools accepting Muslim students and Christian religious leaders pleading with their congregations to accommodate Muslims. Add that after (and despite) all these things, Islam-powered violence accelerates.

     These are not difficult dots to connect.

---

     The most tragic thing about all the appeasment and refusal to react against outbreaks of violence is that it builds the head of steam behind them. The violence increases: it becomes more frequent and more widespread, reaps more lives, and destroys more property. The ultimate reaction, when We the Beleaguered decide we’ve finally had enough, could be Biblical in scale.

     Never forget that these militant minorities are minorities. They’re more militant than the rest of us at the moment. But then, so was Japan before Pearl Harbor.

     Keep your eyes open today. If you’re in one of the danger zones, do everything possible to minimize your exposure to risk. If you’re not, pay close attention to developments. Keep an ear cocked to an all-news radio station you know to be reliable about immediate events.

     One may hammer blows upon a rock in confidence that sooner or later it will split open, but one never knows which blow will do it. More, one never knows how big the shards will be or in which directions they’ll fly. Protective clothing, gloves, and goggles are always wise.

     Be prepared, and be watchful.

Ready, fire, aim.

French President Hollande wants to send troops to Iraq and Syria now. This would be in response to the attacks in Nice and Paris. Military ops in the Middle East can't fail to stop further outrages in France. I see the connection.

The presence of millions of surly, unassimilable, subversive Muslims and hostile, parasitic Africans inside France appears to have escaped Francois's notice. Plans to import more of both are being implemented as we speak.

But I can't fault Hollande for false priorities. He spends enough to buy a good used car every month on haircuts so we know he's a man who understands priorities. The fate of France is in the hands of the right man.

Seth Cropsey, Former Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy, was on Fox Business News just now and thinks we're not winning the ideological war. We need to go after "Islamic radical fanatic jihadists" and all will be well. "Radical fanatics" alone is indicator of intellectual unclarity in the "ideological war." Unless there are "moderate fanatics." Just dinking around with the language.

Did anyone ever say that the Nazis would be an OK bunch of guys if it weren't for those radical, fanatic, Nazi militarists? No one excused Nazi excess in this way. Apparently the wise people in the U.S. and Europe are unable to draw a line from jihadi crimes to fundamental principles of (plain-vanilla) Islam. Cropsey seems like a sensible guy. Why he can't bring himself to identify the real source of the world's difficulties is a mystery. (Conversely, note that if some white lunatic goes after Rep. Gifford or kills some black churchgoers that's solid proof of the horrible danger of "guns" and universal white racism.)

Meanwhile, U.S. importation of surly, unassimilable, subversive Muslims is proceeding at flank speed as we speak as more U.S. troops are being sent to Iraq to stem the flow of ideas out of Iraq. No plans to use them inside Syria at further huge expense and without a constitutional declaration of war, I'm sure. 100 years after a world war of unspeakable slaughter and privation, entered into as casually as choosing the right tie for a day at the office, we have learned nothing. We now similarly pursue mysterious and unidentified national interests. 21st-century snipe hunting and questing for that bucket of steam beloved of construction site jokers decided upon by the Teleprompter Reader in Chief.

Also, no plans for U.S. troops on the U.S. border yet. That's one of the more outlandish proposals that wise pundits and experts simply won't touch with a 10' cattle prod. Bunny, as usual, rushes in to suggest it.

Would You Like To See

     ...a movie about innovation?

     ...a movie about guts under unimaginable pressure?

     ...a movie about determination undaunted by any obstacle or opposition?

     Then see Joy.

     Jennifer Lawrence gives the performance of a lifetime, ably assisted by Robert DeNiro, Bradley Cooper, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, and Isabella Rossellini. Directed by David O. Russell.

     See it!

Assorted

     I haven’t got a compelling theme for an essay today, so have a few selected lunacies from various parts of the Internet.

---

     1. Sulva Comes Knocking Once More.

     Yes, Gentle Reader, there are shadowy forces with malign intentions. They have an agenda – a sexual agenda – and you just might be drafted into it:

     Our future sex lives will be filled with robots, virtual reality pornography, and haptic sensations implanted into our skin, according to a paper by "futurologist" Dr. Ian Pearson commissioned by online sex toy shop Bondara. Science fiction storytellers and anyone else who has ever considered how technology will impact sex has likely considered similar ideas.

     To find out just how much technology is reshaping the way we connect with humans and vibrating objects (and to advertise their new teledildonic devices), Bondara published a paper written by Pearson that details some expectations of virtual and robot-assisted sex in the future.

     Hm, sex with robots -- again. Is this merely an extrapolation of current trends? One might think so, but:

     Pearson says virtual sex will be as casual as porn by 2030; VR-enabled sex toys will be owned by a majority of people by 2035; and sex with robots will be more popular than sex with humans by 2050. It's unclear where, exactly, Pearson is pulling his predictions from as there is no methodology included with the paper.

     Double Hm. Retailers’ interest in selling their wares can’t explain all of this. For my suspicions, I recommend that you read this 2014 essay and the short story “The Screwfly Solution,” by Dr. Alice Sheldon (a.k.a. “James Tiptree”).

---

     2. Protection From Whom?

     The following cartoon by Michael Ramirez is getting a fair amount of exposure:

     Powerful, eh? However, there’s a misconception buried in that striking visual metaphor: The function of the police is not to protect us from criminals or crime.

     The nominal function of the police is to pursue those believed to have committed crimes and force them to face the justice system. If that provides us with a “defense” of some sort against crime, it’s entirely indirect, via deterrence. But for deterrence to work, it must be credible: i.e., the man pondering a crime must assess his risk of being:

1. Identified;
2. Caught;
3. Indicted;
4. Tried;
5. Convicted;

     ...as unacceptably high for the prospective gain from his crime.

     Add that there are “impulse” and “necessity” crimes that cannot be deterred. Unless a policeman is literally present where and when the crime is about to occur, he cannot protect its victim-to-be, even by the deterrence route.

     So how do you feel about Constitutional carry today, Gentle Reader?

---

     3. Are We That Bad?

     Any number of persons have said things along the lines of “why bring a child into this horrible world?” (I remember it most vividly from an episode of Normal Lear’s “All In The Family” sitcom. It came from meathead Michael, played by Rob Reiner, of course.) My usual rejoinder is something like “Are you unhappy about having been born?” If memory serves, I’ve never received an answer, other than a scowl.

     Courtesy of the esteemed Charles Hill comes this snippet of condemnation of the present age:

     Someone I follow on twitter posted a photograph from one of those truly beautiful European libraries and made a comment about how he could "carry around more books on my phone" and it seems to me that that's a big part of the malaise of our times - or at least, the malaise I am feeling. That the beautiful and the aesthetic are slowly being replaced by the functional but ugly, and no one seems to think that losing those aesthetics don't in some way impoverish us. I once referred to it as "the gradual crappification of everything" - how some nice groceries close up and are replaced by wal-marts with bad management and surly employees and tvs at the end of every aisle blaring ads, how it's no longer "profitable" for students to do anything outside of technical or STEM degrees, so the humanities are in decline or are derided, that instead of lovely places being appreciated people complain about how the space could be "better used more efficiently" or something like that.

     And I admit, sometimes I feel like we will someday be surrounded by nothing but concrete-box buildings, noise, and greyness, and very few people will ask, "Why are we here? Isn't this an unpleasant state of being?" because everyone will have been convinced that this is The New Normal and it is all we merit, because anything else is "unprofitable" and therefore not worth it. Or that it's somehow all we deserve because we are awful. And I don't know, yeah, humans are awful but having an awful world around us doesn't exactly encourage us to be better

     No, Fillyjonk: Humans are not awful. You’re projecting your current emotional state onto seven billion other persons, who – from time to time, I’m sure – make similar projections of their emotional states onto you.

     Profit drives many things. Some we find wholly beautiful. Others have for us a very ugly appearance. And others still blend competing currents of beauty and ugliness. But it's the task of each of us:

• To find beauty and inspiration for ourselves;
• As far as we’re able, to create additional beauties for others to share.

     If you find “the world” – meaning your surroundings – to be getting uglier by your lights, ask yourself a simple question: “What am I doing about it?” Then ask “What can I do about it?” The rest is an exercise for the man of good will.

---

     4. A Vignette.

     Certain things “trigger” me: i.e., they cause me to rear up on my hind legs, bellow Have at you! and charge into battle. I’ve been trying, for some years now, to whittle away at that set, with limited success.

     Yesterday, I had an unpleasant exchange with a Militant Atheist. I’m sure you know the type: utterly convinced of his religion – yes, Gentle Reader, as a statement of belief about the supernatural that gives rise to other aspects of one’s behavior, atheism qualifies as a religion – and quite willing to slather any theist he encounters with contempt. This particular specimen called me “irrational” for believing in God.

     The impulse to strike back surged in me. I fired up the old word processor, typed a scathing refutation of his various fallacious assertions, inferred from them his total lack of knowledge of both propositional logic and the Christian moral code, and reviewed it for accuracy, clarity, consistency, and logical soundness. And yea verily, it was good.

     Then I deleted it.

     I’d had a close call, and I knew it. There’s simply no good to be had from that sort of exchange. No one gains. Everyone loses. The general tenor of society, including the sort of disembodied society we have here on the Web, would be further degraded. So why do it? To demonstrate that my intellect and erudition are superior to his? Vanity of vanities!

     You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors do the same, don’t they? And if you only greet your brothers, what more do you do? Even the Gentiles do the same, don’t they? So then, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. [Matthew 5:43-48]

     I’m trying, Lord. Really I am.

     Enjoy your Bastille Day.

55+ years of "civil rights."

Illuminating video here showing just one example of what's been achieved.