Liberty's Torch

Sunday, November 20, 2016

The reigning leftist paradigm – worship of the outsider and the deviant.

The reigning leftist paradigm – worship of the outsider and the deviant. The following is from an interesting article about the radical change in leftist ideology that took place in the late 1970s:

The more or less mythical hero of the left was no longer the proletarian but the marginal, the migrant, the foreigner, the dissident, or the rebel – even if he happened to be a religious fanatic that no leftist intellectual would have anything to do with. One recalls how Jean-Jacques Rousseau made fun of those who pretend to love the Tartars in order to avoid loving their neighbors.^[1]

Charles Dickens had another take on the propensity of wooly-headed people to love distant foreigners while neglecting their own family. Ours is not the only age afflicted with morons. The snowflakes and commie wannabes on campuses and riding their buses to the next Soros-financed rally probably consider themselves the most loving people EVer but entertain the most ridiculous caricatures of normal people and employ the tire iron and face mask to express their love.

Mr. Bricmont's observation is right on the money and he shines a bright light on Merkel's, Sarkozy's, Hollande's, Blair's, Cameron's, and Löfven's vicious elevation of the savage over their own people. This worship of the foreigner by the ruling elites is one of the most astonishing features of the declining Western world. Suddenly switching to a diet of potting soil is on a par with the madness of this new governing ideology.

As I write this the ReligionofPeace.com counter shows that there have been 29,747 victims of Muslim terror since 9/11. Only 253 to go till it's an even 30,000 and who doesn't have confidence that the lads will surpass that mark and soar to new heights. But it was Hillary's desire to ramp up Muslim immigration to the U.S. and any American Democrat politician worth his or her salt demands that the full mantle of constitutional protections and all possible welfare benefits be showered on these emissaries of a repulsive culture. Who hate us.

I have to admit that citing an article from Counterpunch is to venture into unfamiliar territory. When someone states an glaring truth, however, you gotta go with the honest commentator.

Notes
^[1] "Trump’s Victory: Arrogance Defeated." By Jean Bricmont, Counterpunch, 11/11/16.

Different breed of cat.

In virtue, the American oligarchy currently in control of the intellectual means of production bears no resemblance to the natural aristocracy, the object of Thomas Jefferson’s lauding reflections.^[1]

The media monopoly that distorts American society and government is a curse. That and the inordinate role that money plays in our politics cause gross distortions in public life. But, like vote fraud, don't expect the Republicans or ultra-leftist Democrat hysterics to effect reforms any time soon. Massive distortions of the political process are the cornerstone of 21st-century America.

However, who can use what bathroom, Steve Bannon's being a Big Blue Meanie, the patriarchy, our "rape culture," and equality for our pampered, infantile females will be page one news for the next decade. I'm concerned. I know you are too.

Notes
^[1] "A President Who Doesn’t Hate Those People Clinging to Guns & God." By Ilana Mercer, The Unz Review, 11/13/16.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Hope Against History

Being a “fan” of reality, I’ve tried to hew to the evidence in reaching conclusions about the various social, economic, and political questions that Americans must face. It’s possible that I haven’t always succeeded, but I’ve tried.

Today, we have a brief but illuminating exchange between Stacy McCain and a commenter:

     Daniel Freeman offered this gloomy assessment:
     Diversity + Proximity = War. The details vary throughout history; in our case, it turns out that all non-whites are tribal, so we can’t afford not to be.
     Even when they aren’t violently racist, mere tribalistic nepotism is a powerful competitive advantage, to the point where our choices are to copy them, die out or kick them out.

     War? Is America doomed to be destroyed by ethnic violence? Or is there still hope for our nation? This was my reply to Mr. Freeman:
     It is still possible, I hope, for the American people to step back from the brink of the abyss toward which the past eight years have led us.
     “It is history that teaches us to hope,” a great man once said.
     “Never take counsel of your fears,” another great man said.
     Strange as it seems, our new president may be the man who can heal the wounds our nation has recently suffered. The opportunity is there, and I dare to hope Mr. Trump will make the most of it.

McCain has hope “on his side;” Freeman has history. Where should we place our bets?

The history of Mankind is to be at war: with persons of different races; with persons of different faiths; with persons who speak different languages; with persons who follow different kings; with persons who wipe with the other hand. We’re a bit less bellicose today than we were a few centuries ago...well, most of us, anyway...but the history is there for anyone to read.

Part of the reason we make war less frequently than we once did – and I know the Hate Mail Bag will swell to bursting over this – is the ascendancy of whites of Anglo-European heritage over all other peoples. Over the three centuries behind us, the Anglo-European nations accomplished two things of supreme importance:

The transformation of the greater part of the world economy into a market economy in which value and efficiency prevail over force and tradition. Let’s call this the market ethic.
The transformation of warfare from a hand-to-hand struggle between the retainers of nobles into a massive, highly technological, earth-shaking cataclysm with the potential to extinguish Mankind.

The acceptance of the market ethic, with its emphasis on peaceful production and trade rather than war and plunder, makes possible the elevation of living standards. Thus, wherever trade has displaced force as a means of bettering one’s condition, people have become steadily better off as time has passed. All people, even those who, whether from lack of interest or lack of ability, fail to participate in the productivity explosion.

Note that living standards and the potential devastation from warfare have risen in tandem, as both are fueled by advances in science and technology. These, with vanishingly few exceptions, are the domain of Caucasian Anglo-Europeans...whites.

In consequence, the predominantly white nations have advanced faster than the rest. That was inevitable, given that the breakthroughs and innovations were occurring in the white nations. But the inevitability of it did nothing to assuage the envy of others.

Envy may be the most powerful immaterial force known to Man. It’s been the principal retardant of all human progress. No “natural disaster” can compare to its corrosive effect. When envy is mated to a perceptible difference between the envious and the envied, the combination frequently proves deadly.

Once again, I exhort you, Gentle Reader: Don’t take my word for it. Study history. Read Helmut Schoeck’s treatise on the power of envy. Look for the patterns. They’re plain to anyone with eyes to see.

Envy powered the wars of pre-Westphalian Europe, and a couple of the post-Westphalian ones as well. Envy was the moving force behind the tribal clashes of Africa. Envy animated the conflicts of Asia and the Middle East. Only where the envious impulse – the impulse to wound another even though his loss would do oneself no good and quite possibly harm – was controlled by even more powerful forces has peace prevailed among men.

In recent decades, envy has become a powerful force within the Anglo-European nations. The pseudonymous “John Galt” has this to say:

As mankind has advanced through the centuries, envy has come to be almost as much at home in prosperous nations (who prosper only because they have been able to limit the influence of envy in their societies, yet feel unjustifiable guilt for their productivity) as impoverished ones. The fear of envy may explain why the countries with more freedom always seem to self-destruct through economic (redistributive) anarchy. Although envy is never absent from any society, it becomes most pervasive and counterproductive when it gains control of government and then of the “law,” which subsequently sets itself above the rights of property. As laws of envy multiply, so does the emotion, because like all forms of neurosis envy cannot be satisfied. Various envious entities continually find new “inequalities” that must be rectified by more government plunder, and thus less individual freedom and security.
[From Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics As If Freedom Mattered (1st Edition). Emphasis added by FWP.]

The rise of envy as a sociopolitical force in the Anglo-European nations correlates with another macro-scale phenomenon: the ingress of the world’s non-white populations into those nations. The tribalism of those non-white peoples has been an important spur to envy. As non-whites and their tribal mindsets – what’s more politely termed “identity politics” by those reluctant to call a spade a spade – have acquired mass and force in the politics of the West, envy has become the dominant driver of changes to our legal systems.

I’ve written in other venues about the importance of formal structures in limiting the frictions that arise between different races, ethnicities, and creeds when brought into proximity. The most important such formal structure is the market: the trading interface between buyer and seller, who interact within a set of customs and procedures. Those customs and procedures seem simple, even casual, but in point of fact they had to be invented, then protected by another formal structure – the law – and kept in place by the forcible correction of deviances.

When different races, ethnicities, creeds, et cetera interact through a market, the influence of envy upon their relations is minimized by the customs and procedures that markets observe. When the interaction is more intimate, such as is brought about by large-scale immigration, the frictions and resultant envy of the better off by the less-well-off are greatly magnified. In nations with a quasi-democratic order, the natural dynamic of aspiring politicians is to pander to the envious demographics.

Thus did identity politics, and the concomitant struggle over the law, enter the lives of previously stable, peaceable, predominantly Caucasian Anglo-European nations.

I don’t want to beat this topic senseless, but before I conclude, allow me to point out how white women, who until about forty years ago had never been regarded as a downtrodden group, have learned to imitate the attitudes and political orientation of non-Anglo-European demographics. Feminist politics is almost entirely driven by white women, the most prosperous, even pampered group in Western society. Yet the women who embrace it claim to be “oppressed,” “victims of the patriarchy,” and spout hatred of men as they clamor for legal, economic, and social privileges no group in Western history has ever possessed.

Feminist women, particularly white American women, embraced not merely the politics of those other tribes, but their envy as well. What were they envying? Men’s greater initiative and aptitudes for innovation and enterprise? Those things had been at their service for centuries, with little to no effort required on their part. Now that forty years of “I am woman, hear me roar” has proved to be a disaster for the majority of its devotees, feminist luminaries have begun to castigate their own former followers, with open envy of those women who’ve embraced femininity, home, and children and have rediscovered happiness thereby.

Such an irony is beyond the creative powers of any storyteller.

To sum up: tribalism is a potentiator for envy. Where tribes form, human envy will rise in importance. Unless controlled by custom, religion, and law, it will provoke conflicts that will destabilize any political system. The natural reaction is the one Daniel Freeman cited: a counter-tribalism will be practiced by those under attack.

The hope Stacy McCain expresses can only be realized by the quelling of the tribal impulse among those swarming into the Anglo-European nations. That will require that our nations rediscover a truth Clarence Carson noted in The American Tradition:

In a conversation with one other person, you have discovered that person to be sympathetic, polite, and thoughtful You may go away from such an experience concluding that you have met and are coming to know a genuine human being. Your next meeting, however, may take place in a group. Here the person who was congenial when alone with you may make cutting remarks and align himself with the others of the group against you on matters upon which you were sure you would agree. A little reflection should convince us, if we are not entirely unusual, that we have done the same thing ourselves....
Anyone who has worked with aggregates of people should have noted some differences between groups and individuals. Groups do not think or reason; that is solely a function of the individual. On the other hand, individuals, feeling the strength of numbers, are emboldened to do things which they would be afraid to do alone. Children in a classroom will become defiant if they sense the class is with them, and one may observe them darting their eyes about over the room to assure themselves that the others are behind them. At a more serious level, anyone who has endured the abuse of massed pickets when he crossed the line can testify to the loss of inhibition which accompanies the merging with a group. People tend to lose their sense of individual responsibility when they become part of a crowd.

So far the resolve and consistent effort required to disaggregate our querulous, demanding tribes back down to individuals, to be treated entirely according to their rights, desires, and capabilities, has not emerged. Stacy McCain can Hope that it will, but for my part, I’m betting on History.

I second that emotion.

And whatever one thinks of NED [National Endowment of Democracy] and its subsidiaries, it is time Americans took a hard look at the tax-exempt foundations, think tanks and public policy institutes operating in our capital city.
How many are like AEI [American Enterprise Institute], scheming to predetermine the outcome of presidential elections while enjoying tax exemptions and posturing as benign assemblages of disinterested scholars and seekers of truth?
How many of these tax-exempt think tanks are fronts and propaganda organs of transnational corporations that are sustained with tax-deductible dollars, until their “resident scholars” can move into government offices and do the work for which they have been paid handsomely in advance?
How many of these think tanks take foreign money to advance the interests of foreign regimes in America’s capital?
We talk about the “deep state” in Turkey and Egypt, the unseen regimes that exist beneath the public regime and rule the nation no matter the president or prime minister.
What about the “deep state” that rules us, of which we caught a glimpse at Sea Island?

"The Sea Island Neocon Conspiracy Against Trump." By Patrick J. Buchanan, VDARE.com, 3/10/15 (links omitted).

They bad.

Washington just hates it when the Russians dare do what the US has been doing since World War II: conduct gunboat diplomacy, however limited.

"The Russian Navy Is Back." By Eric Margolis, The Unz Review, 11/19/16.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Blunted Swords Continued

A reader of Rod Dreher’s has something to say:

     As a 46 year old white male, I’d like to give my perspective for the various liberals and leftists who comment here (and I’m truly glad you are here).
     By your definition, I’m a racist, and I just don’t care anymore. I don’t believe I’m actually a racist, but you’re going to label me that way anyway, so I’ll just accept it. I’m a racist based on your definition. Fine. I won’t argue, I’ll just acknowledge you are right. I’m guilty of racism. Frankly, I’ve given up trying to prove you’re wrong. Hell, you’ll call me a racist for thinking algebra should be taught in school, and gifted programs should be kept even if they “lack diversity.”
     And so now, if I can be so bold, here’s my response: “So what? I get it. I’m a racist. Do you have anything else to say? Now that you’ve defined me as a racist, should I just disappear? Should I just admit that you are right, and come around to your way of thinking? What, exactly, do you want me to do? Because I still think about the issues affecting this country in the exact same way.”

Anyone who fails to understand the mechanism displayed in the above should be deprived of the franchise until he’s finished grade school.

Not long ago, Fred Reed, an open controversialist, announced that he’d decided to treat the matter in the same way:

Detractor: “You’re a racist!”
Fred Reed: “So what?”

That reply is the only effective and self-respecting retort to such an accusation. “You’re a racist!” is supposed to be a lethal stroke – the sort of moral condemnation that automatically invalidates anything and everything one might say thereafter. None of the more recent “ists” or “phobes” has the potency of “racist,” specifically because some Americans once enslaved Negroes.

But what most people call “racism” is merely the recognition that there are differences among the races. Those differences can be contextually significant. A psychologist friend once put it this way: You’re a basketball coach with a slot to fill in your starting lineup, but there’s a constraint on your choices. There are three candidates for the position. One is Caucasian, one is Mongolian, and one is Negro. You must choose without knowing anything else about them. Which do you choose?

Note that I used the anthropological terms for the three recognized races in the above example – and note that at this time, about 95% of the players in the National Basketball Association are Negroes. Do you suppose the owners and coaches are biased against Caucasians and Mongolians?

Slavery was unfortunate. Americans have done quite a bit to atone for that crime. But neither the history of American slavery nor the demands of left-liberals can obscure the real, objective differences among the races. Oriental laborers brought to the United States to labor as “coolies” were badly treated, too. Their descendants perform at least as well as American Caucasians on most measurable matters...and they don’t agitate for preferential treatment.

Awareness that “You’re a racist!” is a rhetorical bludgeon rather than a substantive accusation is spreading rapidly. People are learning to shrug it off. Few imaginable developments would be more conducive to the health of our public discourse.

Motives And The Media

When I first sat down to write this piece, my dominant thought was that “it’s getting to be a bit much.” In fact, the first sentence I typed was “Some days it all gets to be a bit much.” And if your experiences with the “reporting” coming out of the Mainstream Media have been at all similar to mine, I’d bet you feel the same.

We suffered through a maximally contentious presidential campaign. We wrangled with colleagues, relatives, friends, and former friends. We endured every sort of dire prognostication – from both sides. And we became the sort of news junkies, hanging on every scrap of coverage of every quasi-relevant development no matter how plausible or remotely relevant, that the media purely love.

And it won’t stop. We’re being allowed no peace.

The drums of contention aren’t beating themselves; they can’t. Moreover, the overall balance of attitudes toward the results isn’t changing. I’ve come to an unfortunate conclusion about it. The drum beaters aren’t just biased; they’re actively malevolent. They really, truly mean us harm.

Harm of what sort? Ah, there’s the question of the hour!

In the following snippet from On Broken Wings, Malcolm Loughlin, immortal grandmaster of war, is tutoring Christine D’Alessandro in strategic analysis:

     "Of all the musts and must-nots of warfare, this one is paramount: you must conceal your motives. Unless he is insignificant in comparison to you, once your opponent knows your motives, he'll be able to defeat you. He'll probably even have a choice of ways to do it.
     "You must move heaven and earth, if necessary, to discover your opponent's motives. His tactics will be determined by them. If his motives change, his tactics will follow. There lies your opportunity, if you can get him to adopt tactics unsuitable to the conflict. Of course, he could try to do the same to you."
     "What's the countermeasure?"
     "Constancy. Refusal to let yourself be diverted. Of course, that can be a trap, too. Motive is partly determined by objectives. If your adversary's situation changes but his objectives remain the same, he could find himself committed to paying an exorbitant price for something that's become worthless."
     "And that's the time to stop playing with his head?"
     His grin was ice-cold. "You have a gift."

Politics is a struggle over who shall have power over whom: warfare without violence. Accordingly, discovering the motives of its opponents is the chief requirement of any political force. Even a victorious force must do so, if its victory hasn’t included the complete destruction of its adversary.

As I’ve observed here many times, the political Left is a coalition of diverse elements. The overtly political component, the Democrat Party, has the same principal motive as any other party: to install as many of its candidates in office as possible. The motives of other components of the coalition are more complex.

The Left’s media allies are especially interesting in this regard. The alliance itself has become undeniable. Vignettes such as this one from R. Emmett Tyrrell suggest that the alliance is effectively international, which gives it a unique aspect. But as reporters and commentators don’t share the Democrats’ foremost motive – the acquisition of directly wielded political power – we must ask what the media seek from that alliance that would be most valuable to them.

There may be a clue in one of the media’s more common tactics: openly accusatory behavior toward figures from the Right while consistently treating figures from the Left with “kid gloves.” This appears meant to encourage conciliation of the media by the Right. It would also predispose the Left to grant the media broad access to its officials and other luminaries.

When the Right is politically dominant, as it is just now, the media must tread carefully. Sufficient access to the powerful is vital to “reporters;” most of the “news” is about the operation of our political system and the machinations of those within it. Therefore, the approach the media take toward the Right cannot be too confrontational, lest they find that they’ve been shut out completely. However, they never show nearly as much warmth toward the officials of a conservative government as they routinely show to left-liberals.

In treating with left-liberal politicians and allied figures, the media display an open assumption of their benevolence. Not so in treating with conservatives.

Marshall Fritz, founder of Advocates for Self-Government, argued that as the personality type most common in the communicative trades is emotion-dominant, we must expect reporters and opinion writers to be driven primarily by their emotional reactions to the subjects they cover. Moreover, the emotion-dominant personality has little interest in actual analysis – the rational consideration of evidence and causation – as it detracts from emotional considerations. In other words, one particular toddler that hasn’t eaten for three days has more appeal to the reporter than reasoning out why all the people of the district have lacked adequate nutrition for decades.

Apart from permanent front-page / above-the-fold status, no desire is more common among journalists than the need to see themselves as “among the good guys.” And of course, a “good guy” rushes to feed that hungry toddler; he doesn’t waste time noodling over why a nation might never, in all its history, have had an adequate supply of food.

The conservative’s objective is to improve matters in a stable and lasting fashion, which requires a depth of understanding that gets in the way of the prompt emotional fulfillment the emotion-oriented reporter seeks. The reporter naturally finds the attitude and opinions of the liberal more palatable. Never mind that left-liberalism’s emotionalism has caused widespread dependency, while its policies have perpetuated the very conditions it claims to deplore.

He to whom emotional fulfillment is the ultimate goal will naturally value situations and circumstances in which he might find it. The reporter is therefore more powerfully drawn to conditions of chaos, poverty, and oppression than to those of order, prosperity, and social harmony. If forced to endure the latter, he might even contrive to evoke a little of the former, that he might have “something meaningful to write about.”

When I wrote this essay, which first appeared at the old Palace Of Reason, I hadn’t yet come to grips with the needs of the emotion-oriented, or the dynamic those needs propel. Yet it was quite visible then as now. Without it, there’s no possibility of explaining why the Mainstream Media so doggedly seek to highlight discord and foment even more division over the recent election. And when you find that “it’s getting to be a bit much,” reflecting on the most effective countermeasure – focusing relentlessly on evidence and logic – is both constructive and reassuring.

Passion of one sort or another is at the root of every political turning. This piece suggests that we ponder what could follow should conservatives attempt to ignore or dismiss it. It would be wise to take J. D. Rucker’s warning seriously.

     Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
     Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcon at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
     Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
     Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
     Mongol General: That is good!
     [You know perfectly well where that came from.]

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Allies, Real And Imagined

Coalition politics, if practiced too optimistically, can make its allegiants see things that aren’t there. That’s most emphatically the case on the Left.

Remember Hillary Clinton’s masturbatory “Why aren’t I fifty points ahead?” declamation? It was a classic case of a politician having swallowed her own bullshit and being duly poisoned by it. She believed she had a divinely appointed destiny to become The First Woman President. Her treatment of her inner circle was such that after a while, only those who were willing to tell her exactly what she wanted to hear remained around her. By the time Election Day rolled around, no one who could see the true state of affairs received any credence from her.

But a self-deception of such magnitude must begin somewhere. In this case, it finds its roots in the fevered exhortations of the most enthusiastic “social-justice” activists associated with Democrat Party politics: gender-war feminists, rabid open-borders types, and the racialists and similar oppression-flacksters whose personal fortunes are indissolubly bound to ever-expanding government. These people were almost as thoroughly deluded as the candidate herself. They firmly believed that “their time” had arrived. They were willfully blind to the counter-evidence, and they helped to shield Clinton from it.

Allies of that sort are worse than any declared enemy. Though a declared enemy has an obvious interest in clouding your vision, you’re unlikely to cooperate with his efforts.

The cherry on the slag heap is that even now that the election is over, those allies continue to do their damnedest to maintain an impenetrable screen against the true state of American political opinion...though their motives aren’t what they were before Donald Trump’s smashing victory.

The persistent notion that Clinton “really won” the election because her official popular vote total exceeded Trump’s is as fallacious as many other left-wing claims. It’s been established that many hundreds of thousands of non-citizens cast ballots that were counted with the rest. Moreover, an enormous number of absentee ballots remain uncounted; state election officials don’t bother with them unless they exceed in number the margin between the two highest-polling candidates, which is not the case in any but a very few states. Absentees have traditionally favored the Republican heavily, Given all that, it’s probable that Trump won the popular vote quite as handily as he won the Electoral College tally. However, those determined to see what they want to see will continue to maintain otherwise; it’s likely that an objective refutation will be forever lacking.

Alongside that, the Left is invested in the promulgation of fallacious notions about why Trump won: racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and the like. That’s a large part of why one particular figure – Trump consigliere Stephen Bannon, formerly executive editor of Breitbart.com – has been targeted for vilification and for why the Left-aligned media are assisting passively in the effort. It’s exceedingly difficult to demonize sixty million voters, many of whom voted for Barack Obama twice, as racists, xenophobes, et cetera. However a smear campaign against a single individual can often score despite the available objective facts to the contrary; witness the attempt by the “social-justice warriors” who dominate science fiction’s Hugo Awards to smear Brad Torgersen as a racist despite his having married a black woman.

Finally for this morning, consider the intent behind the George Soros funded / MoveOn organized disturbances in several American cities. Those rioters aren’t going to change the results of the election. Not one Electoral College vote will flip because of their “demonstrations,” despite all the Left’s efforts to intimidate the EC into faithlessness. Moreover, those paying them, busing them, and egging them on know it. So why do they do so?

A baseball maxim about managers’ arguments with umpires is applicable here: “You’re arguing for the next one.” By inflaming unruly crowds in major cities, the organizers are attempting to leave an impression in the minds of state and municipal officials and voters generally: next time it will be worse. While an attempt to intimidate that spans months or years has obvious drawbacks, there is some statistical evidence for its ability to leave a persistent legacy of fear in people’s minds. Additionally, the organizers might hope that the riots will predispose local officials to make concessions to local activists about other matters.

Despite the energy and resources the Left is pouring into these efforts, I expect that this time around, they will prove disastrous to its aims. First, the emergence of a new, harder to intimidate “silent majority” of Americans who really are fed up with the Left’s accusations and demands contributes significantly to my prediction. Owing to the Internet and the associated rise of “alternative media,” these people know how numerous they are. That allows them to deduce the relative weakness of their detractors. It’s hard to persuade an opponent that he’s outnumbered when he has hard evidence that he outnumbers you.

Second, the identities of these allies of the Left are also far clearer than in previous decades. Their slime trails can now be traced a considerable distance backward. Many have records that range from unsavory to outright criminal. That’s not good for the general opinion of the Left’s self-touted virtue.

Third, the ugliness of many Left-aligned public figures’ statements and behavior cannot be concealed. Entertainment celebrities, popular leftist voices on Twitter and Facebook, and other persons involved in the foofaurauw have blotted their reputations for a long time to come. To expect that open condemnations of white Americans and women and minorities who voted for Trump will alter those persons’ political opinions is counterintuitive, to say the least. Yet the volcanic public rages of the Left’s more prominent figures continue.

These persons and organizations are not the sort of “allies” I’d want “helping” me. What about you, Gentle Reader?

(For alternative treatments of the above phenomena, please read this excellent article from the esteemed Ace of Spades, and this emission from the now-proven prescient Ann Coulter.)

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Process And Policy

Every organization needs creatives. Even a company that does nothing but sell products designed and manufactured by others needs someone to originate its policies. However, if you’ve read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, you might remember World Controller Mustapha Mond’s discourse about why a society of “all Alpha Pluses” is inherently unstable and unworkable. What Huxley aimed at the idea of a world populated solely by persons of genius-level intellect is even more lethal to the idea of an organization in which everyone is creatively gifted. Even an organization that sells original artwork needs some folks who don’t wield a brush.

Any large organization will require a substantial percentage of persons whose principal talent is following orders. These folks don’t have to be original thinkers. They do need the ability to comprehend clearly stated policies, to deduce and act on their immediate implications, and to carry out specific instructions. Their diligence in executing the organization’s processes and procedures is an under-appreciated asset.

But to follow orders, one must have orders to follow. That’s the realm of the idea man, the “policy wonk.” He might be an original thinker, or he might merely be skilled at discerning the necessities around him. In either case, he and his fellows concoct the policy directions the “organization men” will follow.

Whereupon we come to Donald Trump’s choices of Reince Priebus for his chief of staff, and Steve Bannon for his consigliere, and why the Left is apparently exercised about the latter but not the former.

Priebus is a classic “gray flannel suit” organization man. You wouldn’t expect him to run for president, Congress, or any similar position. He’s a gifted organizer who knows how to “work the machine” to get it functioning in the direction prescribed from above him. President-elect Trump is confident that Priebus will direct the White House staff smoothly and effectively.

Bannon is an idea man, if not a classical “policy wonk.” Once Trump has specified the priorities, he will be one of the “inner circle” members entrusted with formulating policies appropriate to them. Cabinet secretaries will have some input to this, of course; oftentimes they’ll know what’s been tried by previous administrations and how well it worked (or didn’t). However, a Cabinet secretary is not mainly a policy maker but a manager. Their function, despite the prominence of their positions, is to take clearly stated policies and break them down into smaller bits that their subordinates can effectuate.

That’s why the vitriol from the Left has focused on Bannon rather than Priebus. Bannon, the prominent conservative who’s helped to make Breitbart.com a smashing success, is the figure more likely to evolve administration policies from Trump’s statements about priorities. If the Left can somehow intimidate him, it will have blunted one of Trump’s major weapons.

Process and management, of course, are not automatic. More is required than just “turning the crank.” But a process man is far more difficult to attack than a policy originator. There’s also less gain to be had from it. So Bannon will get the greatest share of the Left’s venom, at least until Trump announces his Cabinet nominations.

The attacks on Bannon are classical Alinskyite thrusts: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.” The Left has made Bannon the personal representative for conservative policy thinking. It doesn’t matter that there are many other, equally prominent conservatives who agree with him; he’s inside the emerging administration and they’re not. So it will be his profile on the Left’s dart boards for some time to come. Any administration initiative the Left decides to target will be attributed to him.

Note in this connection that the Left, despite its detestation of Trump himself, will prefer to attack Bannon. The president-elect’s victory at the polls has proved his popularity. The wise tactician looks for a softer spot in the enemy’s line. Trump must say or do something egregious before it becomes profitable to assail him directly.

Therefore, for the present we should expect Bannon to take most of the Left’s flak, while it leaves Priebus unmolested. Moreover, should Bannon leave the administration, the Left’s odium will fall on whoever replaces him, regardless of that person’s identity and background. If there’s any sniping aimed at Priebus, it will come from within the Republican Party, which he served well and whose major figures are no doubt unhappy at losing his services to a figure they regard as “not one of us.”

It will be an interesting show to watch, at least for the first few episodes.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

A Soupcon Of Spleen

Forgive me please, Gentle Reader. I’ve just had an attack of writerly irritation that I must disgorge before it sours my whole day. Now that you’ve been forewarned, feel free to ignore this rant if you prefer.

I write fiction, as most of you already know and the rest of you can see from the sidebar. I’ve already released ten novels and a host of lesser works. They haven’t received much attention from reviewers. As I publish my own work rather than beg for crumbs from the barons of Pub World, I’ve never expected much. Besides, low expectations are generally a good policy. As Benjamin Franklin has told us, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” However, those who’ve read my books have largely been complimentary about them, for which I’m grateful.

There’s a new trend afoot: indie writers much like myself have been cruising Amazon’s review sections, looking for reviewers whose email addresses are available, whom they can solicit to review their books. I have no idea what sort of response such solicitation email campaigns get; it’s an approach I haven’t tried and don’t intend to try.

I’ve received a number of such solicitations over the course of 2016. I’ve made a point of replying to them by proposing a reciprocal exchange of reviews: “You do one of mine and I’ll do yours.” I’ve usually offered free copies of whatever my correspondent might be interested in reading. Yet not one of those writers has agreed to an exchange of reviews. Most don’t even reply to my offer.

Over the past few weeks I’ve received several such solicitations and have responded as I indicated above. Two of my correspondents did deign to reply. They shouldn’t have:

The first one wrote that “I don’t want to feel pressured to reciprocate a five-star review.”
The second one said that given my “bona fides,” it wouldn’t be a “fair exchange.”

So we have one imputation of dishonesty – that is, that I would write an insincerely glowing review of her book in exchange for a similar one from her – and one who thinks a one-for-one exchange of reviews somehow wouldn’t be “fair.” I shrugged off the first one; after all, she was effectively accusing herself of insincerity and dishonesty. With the second one, I felt my blood pressure rise dangerously high, for that fellow’s book – his first – has already received more reviews than any one of mine.

Indie writers need one another’s support. I buy quite a lot of indie-published works, and write quite a lot of book reviews, out of the desire to help others who’ve taken this course, as I know it to be a difficult and frustrating one. But how could one who solicits a review imagine that he should be exempt from reciprocating the courtesy?

A great deal has been written about the plague of “entitlement syndrome” at work in these United States. This is close kindred to it. I’ve had quite enough of it. Having to cope with it threatens my generally good disposition. I will tolerate no more. Accordingly:

To All Indie Writers:

If you write to ask me to support you with my time, money, and attention, you had better offer to support me in a similar fashion. No excuse for not doing so will be accepted. If you have the time to ferret out the email addresses of Amazon reviewers and blast out solicitation emails imploring us to read and review your works of imagination, you have the time for a little pleasure reading of your own. You have been warned.

Blunted Swords

It’s possible to damage a weapon by using it wrongly. For example, no sensible person would attempt to chop down a cherry tree with a broadsword. It’s the wrong tool for the job. At the end of the attempt, the cherry tree would still be standing and the sword would be useless. The owner wouldn’t just be frustrated; he’d also have ruined his weapon. What if he were to need it in the future?

So it is also with political combat. There are political weapons, including rhetorical thrusts, that must be used on their proper targets only, lest misapplication render them useless. proper application requires an assessment of the target. Will he bare his neck to the stroke, or is the blade more likely to bounce harmlessly off his armor? The political tactician must know.

The recently concluded presidential election presents a fascinating study in political weapon selection: largely correct on one side, and badly misjudged on the other.

The Trump for President campaign directed a lot of attention toward the failings of its opponent, former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, and First Lady Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton’s failings, both personal and political, were considerable. Her slime trail was long and wide; her years in the public eye had made them impossible to conceal. Worse for her chances, they synergized: her decision to “play the woman card” clashed with her tactics in defense of her philandering husband, while her unconcealed, overweening ambition made her claims to accomplishment clash with her actual record. In consequence – and as more than one commentator noted during the campaign – the more Americans saw of her, the less they liked her.

It is probable that the Clintons’ effect on the American political scene was dealt its death blow by the presidential campaign. Bill Clinton is no longer the most recent Democrat to win two terms in the White House. Hillary Clinton is no longer credible as a “champion” for anything. More, the Clintons’ inner circle is tainted by the association, and will more than likely go down with the Clintons’ ship. Dabbling in “spirit cooking” and secret pedophilia / child porn rings does tend to damage a political career. Given those consequences, we may judge the Trump campaign’s tactic to be a weapon properly deployed.

The Clinton for President campaign attempted to swing a similar sword against Donald Trump. The allegations of racism, of sexism, and of personal unfitness for the presidency flew thick and fast. Hillary Clinton could hardly open her mouth without uttering one or more such denunciations. Yet they had little effect, if any, on the momentum of the Trump campaign: Trump’s public record provided little support for the accusations of racism and sexism. (His many successes as a manager of extremely large projects refuted the suggestions that he would prove an incompetent executive.) Whether the allegations were important in reinforcing the loyalty of Clinton’s supporters is unclear.

However, the effect on the political utility of accusations of racism and sexism could well be disastrous for the Democrats, who’ve made frequent use of them over the past several election cycles. The persistence of the Democrats in accusing all Republicans of such biases had “pre-wearied” the public. The slanders had already lost a lot of tread from previous overuse. Clinton’s reliance on them may well have dissipated their effect for the long term, such that even if used against a candidate who fits them, they might prove ineffective.

As an open, gleefully admitted “ist” and “phobe” of every sort, I might seem the wrong person to comment on the ruination of such accusations as political weapons. Well, we all have our jobs, and this is mine: to make wider sense of phenomena frequently remarked upon but with little understanding.

For the moment, the point is of contextual importance only. However, when the next presidential contest begins about ~~a week from today~~ two years hence, should the Left deploy the above discussed scurrilities against its next opponent, a huge percentage of the electorate will smirk, say, “Yeah, we’ve heard all that from you clowns before,” and dismiss them. Note how smoothly this commentator deflects them in the post mortem. Indeed, they might well rebound against their wielders, as an ineptly wielded weapon will sometimes do; in that connection, note how easily the esteemed Stephen Green scores against them. It puts me in mind of this famous P.J. O’Rourke rant:

     Back in London, I was having dinner in the Groucho Club—this week’s in-spot for what’s left of Britain’s lit glitz and nouveau rock riche—when one more person started in on the Stars and Stripes. Eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about “Your country’s never been invaded.” (This fellow had been two during the Blitz, you see.) “You don’t know the horror, the suffering. You think war is—”
     “A John Wayne movie,” I said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie—with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You’re right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD.
     “We’re the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.
     “You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right, little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying ‘Cheerio.’ Hell can’t hold our sock hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer, and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.”
     [From Holidays in Hell.]

Aragorn could not wield the shards of Narsil. They had to be reforged into Anduril to become useful once more. Whether any operation of rhetoric or minority-group pandering can similarly restore the political efficacy of accusations of racism, sexism, et cetera, we’ll have to wait and see. I’m certain there are Democrat Party strategists cogitating over the problem as we speak.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Establishmentarian Counter-Revolution?

Liberty’s Torch is seldom if ever “first with the news.” That’s not our function. We’re thinkers and commentators. We write to bring our particular perspective – both preferential and analytical – to events as reported by others. That being the case, we’re always interested in the outlooks of other commentators, especially those who view events through a different lens of premises and experiences.

And today, via the indispensable Brock Townsend, we’ve come upon one that’s uniquely and darkly suggestive. It proceeds from a relatively recent phenomenon, until recently confined to Third World countries: the “color revolution:”

     The fact that Obama still believes in Trump’s inability to replace him in the White House has already been announced by the White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. At the same time, he would point out, while commenting on the anti-Trump protests in the US, that the right for freedom of expression must be exercised without violence, clearly alluding to the current administration’s arsenal of “peaceful” tools that would allow it to get rid of Trump.
     That is why we already are witnessing a wave of “protests” being unleashed under the control of the Obama administration. The corporate media and social networks are openly arrayed against the incoming 45th US President. These very tactics have been used by US intelligence agencies in Brazil, Nicaragua, Hong Kong, Thailand, as well as across the Middle East and Eastern Europe to unleash a “color revolution”. In some countries, such actions have brought foreign government under the direct control of the White House, as we can see it in Ukraine, Brazil and several other countries.
     As a result, we are now being told about thousands of protesters in US cities rallying against the Trump election victory. These claims were followed by a petition published on Change.org that demands the US authorities change the results of the recent election, demanding the electoral college be revised, and that the election results be overturned on December 19. It is being reported that this petition has already been signed by a total of two million people.

Please read the whole thing. Essayist Martin Berger has indirectly fingered something that hasn’t received adequate attention until now: the nature of the political Establishment as a coalition of “sub-establishments.” Each component of the political elite has a stake in perpetuating the status quo ante and controls one or more techniques for defending it.

Needless to say, it’s chilling to imagine that here in the United States, there exists a political-corporate-media coalition that might succeed in shoving aside the results of a duly conducted election. But the unpleasantness of the notion doesn’t refute it factually. It has heft; it deserves to be explored in some detail. Whereupon we must examine the powers possessed by each component of the coalition, to determine whether, given the required motivation – which they have –they might succeed in retaining their grip on our nation.

The media’s ability to influence public perceptions and attitudes has been an important factor in our politics since the Spanish-American War. Whether they seek to do so or not, journalists routinely sway popular beliefs about what’s happening, what caused it, and what governments should do in response. Even the choice of what stories should appear on the front page above the fold factors into such perceptions.

As regards the current spate of disruptions afflicting large American cities, the media’s treatment of the participants, their statements and actions, and what forces might be organizing and funding them matter significantly in determining whether other Americans will approve or disapprove of them. At this time mainstream media organs have paid little attention to the involvement of communist and socialist groups, or to the provenance of the protestors’ funding, which is coming in the main from MoveOn.org and other organizations aligned with financier George Soros.

No political class can long survive without an economic / financial base from which to operate. It’s critical that the above-ground rulers be able to reward supporters and penalize opponents widely, which takes more than just control of the State. The ability to hire and fire, to subsidize the enterprises of supporters, and to obstruct or prevent outright the undertakings of adversaries provides those who regard the status quo as in their interest with an important set of tools.

That group of America’s largest businesses aligned with the Establishment has already begun to operate in its defense. Now and then a head will appear above the trench lip. The ugly statements of GrubHub CEO Matt Maloney have received attention in this regard. However, most corporate powers will act far more subtly; it’s not in their interest that the spotlight shone on Maloney should shine on them.

Within the State itself, among the Establishment’s least visible and most important defenders are its millions of faceless bureaucrats. These possess the twin advantages of anonymity and invulnerability. Their decisions, which are seldom reviewed by any above-ground authority, can make or break any private person or organization. Catherine Engelbrecht could tell you all about it.

What those millions of bureaucrats might contribute to the Establishment’s defense of its position is difficult to predict or estimate. Yet given the incoming administration’s expressed distaste for the size and intrusiveness of the regulatory State, the nature and strength of those bureaucrats’ incentives cannot be denied. As individuals, they have reason to fear that their livelihoods are threatened – and there are few motivations with more power to move a man.

Finally for today, we have our domestic “forces of order:” the police, firemen, municipal paramedical services, and support apparatuses behind each of them. If you’ve seen Costa-Gavras’s movie Z, which is closely based on a true story, you already have a sense for how those forces can predetermine the influence of the sort of “popular protests” our cities currently suffer. Much of that influence is exerted by decisions whether or not to act, as we’ve already seen in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland.

At this time, the official responses to those urban disruptions have been various. The police haven’t always acted with dispatch or adequate force...but sometimes they have. Concerning the responses of the other responder cadres, I have little information. However, it would be reasonable to assume that those responses would be consistent with those of the police.

The aim of those orchestrating a “color revolution” is to persuade the populace generally not to resist: i.e., that the “revolution’s” objectives are both acceptable and inevitable. They seek to give the private person viewing events the sense that no matter his own opinion and preferences, the “revolution” is both morally sound and practically unstoppable. Among those generally aligned with the “revolution,” that buttresses morale and enthusiasm for “the struggle.” Among those opposed to it, it produces a sense of isolation and futility.

Is this what’s happening in America today? Is the coalition of Powers That Be consciously – whatever that means when applied to politicians, bureaucrats, municipal workers, corporate executives, and media barons – attempting to bring about the nullification of a presidential election?

At the very least, it’s among the possibilities. I’ll be watching for subsequent indications of such an effort. I suggest that you, Gentle Reader, do the same.

IGST instant translation service.

The new and improved New York Times campaign to return to honest reporting has apparently been suffocated in the cradle:

At home, the hard-right Alternative for Germany party has scored a string of victories in state elections.^[1]

"Hard-right," of course, means simple common sense and patriotism. It's a term that will never be published within a 1,000 miles of the term "hard-left," unless the Times allows it to happen accidentally.

Amazing contributor #4,530,956.

The title of the Times piece is also illuminating, with its description of Angela Merkel as the last defender of the "liberal" West. (Obama was one too!) "Liberal" here signifies a vicious attack on the German people by importing over a million useless Muslims and Africans to indulge in rape, enjoy a life on ease on the public dole, and turn public streets into mosques, "refugee" centers into hell holes, and public swimming pools into latrines.

Liberalism!

"Liberalism" in the title also signifies using native German, AntiFa brown shirt thugs as a way of attacking Germans who express their fury at being dispossessed and and who demonstrate peacefully in the streets.

How else to explain the appointment of Anetta Kahane, the former Stasi informer, as the woman in charge of monitoring the internet for "xenophobic" comments? There's an appointment that virtually shouts out one's commitment to the key liberal right of free speech! (Kahane's views on open borders and "diversity" are the by-now-current mad views, and are yet another reason to understand that "liberalism" to Merkel and the New York Times means obliteration of whites. Sign me up!!)

Paying lip service to "democracy, freedom, as well as respect for the rule of law and the dignity of each and every person regardless of their origin, skin color, creed, gender, sexual orientation or political views" is apparently sufficient to establish Merkel's "liberal" credentials. Smale and Erlangernov, ace New York Times reporters, have the political acumen of children. Blowing airy lefty bubbles and indulging in lefty intimidation do not amount to liberalism.

Notes
^[1] "Donald Trump’s Election Leaves Angela Merkel as the Liberal West’s Last Defender." By Alison Smale and Steven Erlangernov, New York Times. 12, 2016 (link omitted).

The Marxist-Leninists among us.

Contrary to media misrepresentations, many of the supposedly spontaneous, organic, anti-Trump protests we have witnessed in cities from coast to coast were in fact carefully planned and orchestrated, in advance, by a pro-Communist organization called the ANSWER Coalition, which draws its name from the acronym for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.” ANSWER was established in 2001 by Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center, a group staffed in large part by members of the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party.

"The Communists Behind the Anti-Trump Protests." By John Perazzo, Frontpage Mag, 11/11/16.

H/t: Gates of Vienna .

Sunday, November 13, 2016

The Previous Piece Is Not Intended To Say...

...that the Left and its media annex shouldn’t study up on the virtue of humility:

...because the need should be obvious by now.

[I do love me some well-placed double negatives!]

Healings: A Sunday Rumination

Jesus’s attraction to the folk of Judea was twofold. The first of His offerings was His simplification of the traditional Mosaic / Levitical demands upon the Jewish people. As I’ve posted Matthew 19:16-19 many times already, I’ll refrain from doing so today. Nevertheless, it is at the heart of Christ’s assertion that “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Many have failed to grasp the import of that passage of the Gospels, and more’s the pity.

The second of His attractions was, of course, the multitude of miracles He performed. Many of those involved the healing of chronically sick or crippled persons. Even more strikingly, in at least two instances He returned a dead person to life. When Christians speak of “the imitation of Christ,” they don’t mean that we should attempt similar phenomena. Ordinary mortals possess the ordinary powers of mortals; we don’t command Divine authority over all things, as Christ did.

Yet both of these threads remain for Christians of our time to follow, as ineptly as we might.

The Gospel According To John, which is not one of the “Synoptic triad,” contains this passage of great importance:

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. [John 13:34-35]

Now, strictly speaking that commandment is not “new.” Neither was it the first and only time He pronounced it. Remember that He included as the Second Great Commandment that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. There’s no real difference between those two prescriptions.

However, it was the first time He commanded it directly to His Apostles. Though the subject is only lightly treated in any of the four Gospels, there was some degree of contention among the Apostles: jockeying for pride of place. It’s possible that His betrayal by Judas Iscariot was in part animated by Judas’s envy of those Apostles who received more of His attention, and by resentment of the Redeemer Himself. That Jesus was aware of that jostling for place, I have no doubt. It strikes me as plausible that He proclaimed the Second Great Commandment directly to them, as John’s Gospel tells us, specifically to emphasize that they were not exempt from any of His teachings.

After all, “Do as I say, not as I do” was as serious a problem in classical Judea as it is today. Ask Caiaphas and his brethren on the Sanhedrin.

The Sturm und Drang over the election might have a while yet to run. I don’t expect the Left’s anger or disappointment over it to subside any time soon. Neither do I expect any major figures on the Left to counsel their fellows to calm and conciliation of the victorious Right. That’s not in the Left’s political DNA. It would be a millennial event for them to “break type” after their recent, resounding repudiation by the electorate.

Similarly, one of the hazards of a smashing victory is for the victors to lord it over the vanquished in an arrogant, obnoxious fashion. The luminaries of the Right haven’t generally behaved that way after our triumphs, but for us to react nastily after the ocean of vitriol the Left has poured on us would be all too easy. If we want those who have supported conservative and Republican candidates to remain our supporters, we must be better than that. We must resist the temptation to strut, to denigrate the intelligence or sincerity of our opponents, and to grind their defeat into their faces.

The nation must begin to heal at once.

At the most recent census, 74% of respondents self-identified as Christians. There’s never been a more important time to be Christians in action as well as in name. We must be our best selves: the most gracious and magnanimous we can possibly be. That does not mean concessions about policy. Neither does it mean permitting our detractors to go unanswered and unrefuted. It means conducting ourselves as courteous citizens, with dispassion and unfailing civility as we undertake the necessities of the day.

     May God the Father create in each of us a magnanimous spirit.
     May God the Son lead us into becoming our best selves.
     May God the Holy Spirit animate all our dealings, whether with our allies or our opponents, with brotherly love, for there is a speck of the Divine in every man that lives.

And may God, in all His Three Persons, bless and keep you all.

Uncivil Wars

We were told that the disaster of Donald Trump’s nomination for the presidency would cause a “civil war” in the Republican Party...after he lost by an embarrassing margin, of course. Well, that didn’t happen...inside the GOP, that is:

     Liberals are seething over the election and talking about launching a Tea Party-style revolt. They say it’s the only way to keep Washington Democrats connected to the grassroots and to avoid a repeat of the 2016 electoral disaster, which blindsided party elites.
     Progressives believe the Democratic establishment is responsible for inflicting Donald Trump upon the nation, blaming a staid corporate wing of the party for nominating Hillary Clinton and ignoring the Working Class voters that propelled Trump to victory.
     Liberals interviewed by The Hill want to see establishment Democrats targeted in primaries, and the “Clinton-corporate wing” of the party rooted out for good.

There’s a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in this. On the one hand, Trump’s Electoral College edge was significant – 306 EC votes to Clinton’s 232 – which does call Democratic strategists’ heavily urban approach to political outreach into question. On the other, the popular vote for president was split almost exactly down the middle, with Hillary Clinton having a slight edge. So the notion that the Democrats exhibited bad judgment in nominating “establishment candidate” Clinton isn’t well supported by the tally. But how does one challenge the judgment of the party leaders in choosing a candidate whose approach did obtain a majority?

Ultimately, the contradiction involved won’t matter. Political parties are about the acquisition, maintenance, and expansion of power. Power is the one and only metric by which they measure success. And the Democrats are as close to being completely out of power as they’ve been since the Coolidge Administration.

So the finger-pointing and jockeying for advantage has begun. It won’t end bloodlessly; careers will end and some among the mighty will be laid low. But that’s all to be expected. As usual, the buried ironies are worthy of attention.

First, the candidacy of Hillary Clinton was essentially inevitable, given the popularity of Bill Clinton. Clinton, after all, was the first Democrat to be elected to two terms in the Oval Office since FDR. That made him the Democrats’ political leader de facto, even though the hard-left Kennedy / Obama wing of the party had the top elective spot. The male Clinton was as eager to be back in the White House as his wife, for reasons better imagined than described.

Second, despite Barack Hussein Obama’s victory in his 2008 campaign for the Democratic nomination, there was no way he could have won the presidency without the energetic support of the Clinton camp. However, he wasn’t about to get that without cutting a deal with the Clintons to support Hillary’s candidacy in 2016. That, of course, included keeping her in a position of nominal power for at least the first of his terms in office. That suggests that much of what the public was told to hold against her as Secretary of State was in fact dictated to her by Obama White House...though, given Obama’s attitude toward the Clintons and toward his position generally, we should have expected nothing else.

What follows from Campaign 2016 will be instructive. The Republican power establishment is already adjusting to the triumph of “maverick” candidate Trump, who appears to have taken the reins in a firm and confident hand. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have “climbed on board the Trump train,” which speaks well of their political percipience. Whether the nation’s Republican governors and state legislators will do so as willingly remains to be seen, though I consider it far more likely than not.

On the Left, the disarray inside the Democrat Party is mirrored in the “street protests” occurring within Democrat-controlled cities. The Clinton wing of the party has always been closer to the political center than the Kennedy / Obama wing, despite Hillary’s preference for a large, activist federal government. The “protestors” in the cities, supposedly in opposition to the incoming administration, have no chance whatsoever to affect that aspect of the elections. However, depending upon their persistence and their underlying support, they might succeed in displacing the Clintons and their allegiants from significant power within the Democrat Party. That would make room for the ascendancy of Elizabeth Warren and like-minded socialists.

The Democrats’ intraparty war is already at high tempo. How long it will run is anyone’s guess. But its potential impact upon the American political scene is guaranteed to be serious. Such wars only end when one side is too exhausted to continue, which will raise the victors to the heights of their party for a long time to come. Stay tuned.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

The Safest Space

Just a quick thought for today, as I’ve been procrastinating about several chores that I must address without further delay. It arises from the many reports, distributed widely over the nation, about miserable, terrified left-liberals seeking out and erecting “safe spaces” in which to garner some consolation...for the election of Donald Trump to the presidency.

First, as is my wont, a brief citation from a work of fiction:

“We are what we are because people from all over the world came to America to work and live out their dreams. They worked hard. My grandfather came over from Russia because he didn’t like getting fucked over by the czar, and he worked, and he got his kids educated, and they got their kids educated, and so now I’m pretty damned rich, but I haven’t forgotten what Grandpa told me when I was little. He told me this was the best place the world ever saw to be a Jew. Why, Cliff? Because the dead white European men who broke us away from England and wrote the Constitution had some good ideas and they lived up to them, for the most part. that’s who we are, Cliff, and that means we have to be what we are, and that means we have to stand for certain things, and the world has to see us do it.”

That’s about as concise a statement of my thesis as anyone has ever made – and it came from the pen of a conservative novelist who fought his way into publication against fearsome odds, ultimately becoming the most popular writer in the world. A novelist the Left – especially its annex in Pub World – derided as a war-lover, a jingoist, and of course a hack who churned out the military equivalent of porn.

An American may not agree with you. He may find your opinions obnoxious, even dangerous. He might consider you personally disgusting, beneath contempt. But as long as your behavior remains within the law, he will tolerate you. He will even defend you from others who won’t tolerate you. Consider the famous “Skokie Affair” as evidence.

Just now unhappy left-liberals are doing their damnedest to overturn the results of a legitimately conducted election that took place on schedule and which “stayed within the lines,” as far as anyone can tell. They’re doing it with supposedly spontaneous street protests. Despite the disorder and occasions of vandalism, law enforcers in the affected cities have met these disruptions with restraint. That restraint will come to an end should the authorities conclude that only a suppressive application of force – enough cops, National Guardsmen, and firehoses to render the continuation of the disruptions impossible – will restore public order.

Public order is required for peaceable persons to be safe from assault when they leave their homes. Before all else, America is a place whose residents, regardless of their race, sex, creed, heritage, sexual preferences, or political opinions, have a right not to be assaulted. It’s more commonly called the right to life.

Americans concede one another’s right to life. That concession is required for Americans to feel and be safe. Consider in that light not just the street disruptions and vandalism our cities currently suffer, but also the many calls from the Left for the assassination of Donald Trump. From all that it should be clear that such persons, regardless of their races, sexes, creeds, heritages, sexual preferences, and political opinions, are not Americans. Yet these creatures need “safe spaces” in which to huddle, because of their misery and terror...over having lost an election.

America, regardless of the Left’s fevered fantasies, is the safest space.

Diversity is our strength.

Art Torres, California Democratic Party chairman, at the Latino Summit Response to Prop 187 at U.C. Riverside (Jan. 14, 1995): "Power is not given to you, you have to take it! People say to me when I was on the Senate floor, when I was in the Senate, why do you fight so hard for affirmative action programs. And I tell my white colleagues: because you're gonna need them. Remember, 187 is the last gasp of white America."
"... Brown Berets, we're here today to show L.A., show the minority people here, the Anglo-Saxons, that we are here, the majority, we're here to stay. We do the work in this city, we take care of the spoiled brat children ... We're here in Westwood ... to show white Anglo-Saxon Protestant L.A., the few of you who remain, that we are the majority, and we claim this land as ours, it's always been ours, and we're still here, and none of the talk about deporting.
"If anyone's going to be deported, it's going to be you! ... Get out! We are the future. You're old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you - leave like beaten rats. You old white people, it is your duty to die. Right now, we're already controlling those elections, whether it's by violence or nonviolence. Through love of having children we're going to take over." Augustin Cebada, information minister of Brown Berets, militant para-military soldiers of Aztlan shouting at U.S. citizens at an Independence Day rally in Los Angeles.

"ABC Posted Election Results 11.2.1998 12 Hours in Advance – Were They Right?" By Devvy, NewsWithViews.com, 11/7/16.

H/t: Gates of Vienna.

Friday, November 11, 2016

This Is What We Face Today

It just turned up on Twitter:

Plan your day accordingly. And if you have the opportunity, record events. It could well be critical.