OH School Initiates Expulsion of Student for Thinking Some Girls Hotter

Which, as any goodthink person knows, is a crime. He has been targeted by the school system, after being arrested for "telecommunications harassment", for listing The Hottest Girls of the School.

The arrest will likely not result in charges - it's a pretty clear 1st Amendment violation.

Here's my letter to the Superintendent:

Have you completely lost your mind? Has a raging feminist got pictures of you in drag, smoking crack?

The student certainly should be told to shut down the site. He should have to face those girls at school every day, noting their scorn and disapproval. Heck, if you wanted to keep him from participation in extra-curriculums, until he displayed more adult behavior, OK.

But, EXPULSION?

No.

Not unless you ALSO expel all of those girls who contributed to making girls feel badly about themselves. As a retired OH teacher, I absolutely KNOW every high school in the country has a sizable number of “Mean Girls” who harass, lie about, attempt to drive to suicide/isolation/anoxeria/whatever, just because they can.

Are teens going to be talked about? Sure. Are they - too often - judged on superficials like looks, cars, clothing? Sure.

Ain’t gonna stop - this kind of repression will only drive it underground.

Your system should stop the expulsion process entirely. He’s a pig, not a criminal.

I’d take a wager that you have students who have engaged in actual crimes - some of them against girls - and still are not expelled.

BTW, I have access to blogs, and I intend to use them to expose this over-the-top response to a student’s exercise of Free Speech - you remember that Constitutional Right, don’t you?

A Few Words About Everyone’s Favorite Subject

     I found this over at 90 Miles From Tyranny:

     It’s not perfectly correct, though the underlying sentiment is spot on. However, it makes a good introduction into the overall subject of taxation: why it’s done, what it’s supposed to fund, how it’s executed, and why Americans have come to hate even the mention of it.

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1. The Why.

     The rationale for taxation is moderately complex, but comprehensible by anyone who can read English:

1. There are things that must be done for the benefit of the entire polity.
2. Those things must be paid for.
3. However:
   • No one receives a sufficient individual benefit to volunteer to pay for them;
   • Anyone who avoids paying for them would get the benefit anyway.
4. Therefore:
   • Payment must be made legally mandatory and enforced;
   • The government must determine the amount and perform collection and enforcement.

     Don’t yell at me. I didn’t come up with it. It’s the generally accepted rationale. It’s been the generally accepted rationale for centuries. It’s been called the “public goods” or “externalities” argument. It says nothing specific about what will be funded or how lavishly. Some fine minds, including those of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, have defended that rationale as inescapable, and have devoted their subsequent attention to the omitted specifics.

     From this point forward, remember that a “rationale” is something employed in the service of rationalization: i.e., composing a post hoc justification for something you’ve already decided to do – something you’re determined to do regardless of any and all other considerations.

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2. The What.

     What specific undertakings, as referenced in Item #1 above, “must” be paid for but “justify” taxation by the criteria listed under Item #3?

     Today in the Land of the Formerly Free, there are innumerable such activities and projects. No living man could list them all. And – drumroll, please – if we omit those things under the Departments of Defense, State, and Justice, only a vanishingly small percentage of Americans benefit, directly or otherwise, from any particular one of them.

     However, in aggregate, it is arguable that for any particular American, there’s a measurable chance that one or more of those activities and projects does bring him some benefits. Possibly it’s even a better-than-even-money chance. And that is the version of the Washington Monument Defense that protects the tax system. “It’s good for everybody! What’s that you say? You’re against it anyway? Very well then; we’ll eliminate your slice.”

     Columnist Russell Baker pinned this back in the Sixties, when income tax reform was being hotly discussed. As he put it, everyone is in favor of simplifying the tax code...with the exception of the portion upon which your personal calculations for survival are based.

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3. The How.

     Taxation in pre-Enlightenment societies was conducted by the undisguised use of armed force. Soldiers went door-to-door raking in the loot, skimming off some portion, and toting the rest of it back to the King or the local fief holder. Taxation in modern societies is largely deemed “voluntary.” In the American system, you fork it over through “withholding,” and possibly in an annual “adjustment,” because if you fudge your busybody neighbor might tattle on you, after which the IRS will send armed men to your door and haul you off to live in a reinforced concrete box guarded by other armed men, who will shoot you if you try to leave.

     (Why, yes: I did have to send an “adjustment” to Washington this year. A rather large one, at that. However did you guess?)

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4. The Hatred.

     The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don’t know when it’s through if you are a crook or a martyr. – Will Rogers

     America’s best beloved humorist has nailed it exactly. Everyone knows that taxation is excessive, that the burden is unequally distributed, and that special interests are cleaning up at our expense. Everyone knows that regardless of the legal and pseudo-ethical rationales taxation is indistinguishable from armed robbery. And everyone knows, especially between January 31 and April 15, that the great majority of us have become liars and fabulists in a despairing attempt to keep some of what we’ve earned.

     Why shouldn’t we hate it? It’s made us hate the sight of our pay stubs. It’s made us hate the nameless others who benefit from it. It’s made us hate a government that’s no more “of the people, for the people, and by the people” than any private-sector con job.

     Most terrifying of all, it’s made us hate ourselves.

     Our forebears failed to realize the danger. They were caught in the toils of envy, class animosities, and ersatz “progressivism,” as so many are even today. They failed to restrain the Omnipotent State when it was still within our power. Indeed, many of them cheered as they watched Leviathan burst its Constitutional chains.

     And here we are, in this year of Our Lord 2019, forking over ever more of our pittances to governments that do little more than fatten political insiders and ne’er-do-wells, and make us beg permission even to ply our various trades.

     Perhaps I’ll expand on this later. Just now it’s time for Mass.

"It's Hard to Say What His Intentions Were"...

Yeah. A guy walks into St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC, armed with gasoline, lighter fluid and lighters.

A "New Jersey" man. Naturally, his name/background wasn't released. We all know why that is.

The full quote:

“It’s hard to say what his intentions were, but I think the totality of circumstances of an individual walking into an iconic location like St. Patrick’s Cathedral carrying over four gallons of gasoline, two bottles of lighter fluid and lighters and lighters is something we would have great concern over,” Miller said.

Insight into northern European politics.

The Yankees also call Sanders fringe left.. in my country Sanders would be a middle of the road conservative, Pelosi would be a extrem right winger and the republican party would probably be forbidden. Heck we have a couple REAL communists in parliament that want to abolish capitalism.

Comment by schroedingersrat on "Britain's Fleet Street Ignores Pelosi's Pandering To EU Autocrats." By Mark Angelides, ZeroHedge, 4/18/19.

Pearls of expression.

But perhaps it is not Pelosi’s lack of political charisma or knowledge on Brexit that is to blame for the paucity of British media coverage. She is not well-known in the U.K., nor is she seen by those who do recognize her as a major political player. It is both the blessing and curse of the American presidential system that there is only one Big Kahuna capable of commanding media attention; it seems the Brit public would rather deal with the organ grinder.

"Britain's Fleet Street Ignores Pelosi's Pandering To EU Autocrats." By Mark Angelides, ZeroHedge, 4/18/19.

A Just War

     The theory of the “just war” is largely unknown to the general public. As with all concepts about justice, it attempts to draw a dividing line between wars that are morally acceptable, even mandatory, and wars that are driven by evil motives such as cupidity. It also touches upon tactics: what methods are legitimate in conducting a just war, and what methods are morally proscribed. As with many other elements of moral-ethical theory, the Catholic Church has been in the forefront of just-war theory for many decades.

     Now that the Church and Christianity itself are under attack by a worldwide force determined to destroy them, the time has come to answer some important questions. Start from the following premise: the pope – not necessarily Jorge Bergoglio – has declared that the Church is at war with that force.

1. How are the allegiants of that force to be identified, ideologically or strategically?
2. Would taking up arms against them – actual weapons of war and destruction, not just talk – be justified?
3. What tactics would be morally acceptable in conducting the war?

     We begin.

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0. Can you make war on an ideology?

     Before we address the questions enumerated above, let’s dispose of a canard that would otherwise hamper the discussion. The notion that “you can’t fight a war against an ideology / belief system / conviction / opinion” has been widely promulgated in recent years. It first received circulation during the Cold War years, when our principal foe was communism. More recently its importance has derived from the position of Islam in the array of anti-Western and anti-Christian forces.

     This misconceives the nature of war. War is not a thing apart from all other things, a phenomenon aloof from all other aspects of existence. War doesn’t simply “happen now and then.” War is a method: a technique for pursuing a goal, chosen by persons who believe it will get them what they want at an acceptable cost.

     Some wars are ideological in nature. They’re initiated to elevate one belief system over another, or to impose it on unwilling others. Many of the wars of pre-Napoleonic Europe were ideological wars. Some were fought between contending religious doctrines. Others were fought over principles of royal succession. The Treaties of Westphalia and the Congress of Vienna were in large part animated by the desire to put an end to such wars.

     An ideological war can be quite as bloody – and quite as conclusive – as any war for gain. Yes, the wars for gain of the Twentieth Century were the bloodiest conflicts in history, at least if we go by body counts, but that’s because those wars were fought with weapons of unprecedented killing power in the hands of armies of millions. A contemporary ideological war could reap casualties quite as copiously. Depending upon how it’s fought, it could be just as conclusive as the Allied Powers’ defeat of the Nazi Axis.

     So let’s not waste our time on whether one can fight a war in defense of a belief system. When the enemies of our belief system – specifically, Christianity – are already openly at war with us, our alternatives are somewhat limited.

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1. How are our enemies to be identified?

     They tend to identify themselves:

• Their more militant allegiants mount physical attacks against Christians and Christian institutions;
• Their other allegiants defend the overarching ideology from the identification of its role.

     Consider in this light what happened on the one occasion that President George W. Bush cited Islamism as the core driver of terrorism. CAIR and other Muslim mouthpiece groups immediately assailed him, with the connivance of the Legacy Media, as calling for a war against Islam. Dubya immediately backed away from his statement. He and his political strategists didn’t want to deal with the flak from the matter, even though it emanated from a relatively small number of institutions. Yet Islam explicitly commands violent jihad against all “unbelievers,” among which it numbers Christians and Jews most prominently. “Islamist” is merely a convenient term for those who act on Islam’s politico-religious imperialism.

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2. Would taking up arms against them be justified?

     The core of just-war theory is that shooting back is always justified. The aggressor is responsible for what happens afterward. The problems involved in dealing with the ideologists and apologists of an aggressive ideology are more complex.

     At this time, a bare handful of Islamic militants have emerged in the United States. Up to now, when they’ve revealed themselves, we’ve pursued them through the justice system. It’s acceptably workable…at present. However, if the U.S. were to experience Islam-powered violence and vandalism on the scale already suffered by France and England, it would be necessary to abandon that approach for a more military one aimed at quelling the insurrection. That would necessarily involve shutting down Islam’s support networks, whether or not their organizers and supporters were provably involved in the violence.

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3. What tactics would be morally acceptable?

     Those who make war against Christianity are diffusely distributed among us, but concentrated in a handful of other nations. Thus, the problem is twofold.

     In conducting the domestic conflict, Americans determined to defend Christianity against its Islamic attackers must use discretion. As L. Neil Smith has observed, a diffuse threat can only be countered with a diffuse defense. Moreover, the law will extend no tolerance to any organized effort to extirpate the as-yet-“innocent” Muslims among us: they who confine themselves to words and agitations. Yet they can be opposed, and not merely with words of our own.

     The key is to make their continued existence within our borders intolerable:

• Socially,
• Economically,
• Politically.

     Ostracism, refusing to have commerce with them, and opposing them politically by every legal means, especially giving true and accurate coloration to their aims, will do the trick.

     Yes, there are some legal problems, but were millions of American Christians to act approximately in concert – refusing ever to buy from, sell to, or employ a Muslim – the federal government would be powerless to do anything about it, no matter how ardently the Left and the Deep State might wish otherwise.

     Concerning the external concentrations of our enemies – i.e., the Islamic states of the world – in the absence of aggressive acts by their subjects against the U.S., American citizens, or Americans’ property, the same approach could be applied:

• Terminate all diplomatic contacts with those nations;
• Embargo all trade with those nations;
• Oppose the Islamic governments of those nations at every opportunity.

     This of course requires command of the political system – but once again, were American Christians to act in reasonable concert, eyes unclouded by specious notions about “compassion” and “fairness,” it could be done.

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4. The Left and what to do about it.

     It has become painfully clear that the American Left sees Islam as a useful if unwitting collaborator in its efforts to destroy American social, economic, and political norms. That leagues the organized Left with our overt enemies de facto. It suggests that similar tactics can be used to bring it to heel.

     Yes, millions of Americans consider themselves left of center. However, few of those, if challenged directly on their fundamental allegiance, would side openly with Islam and its ideology of world conquest. (They’d probably protest that “you can’t fight a war against an ideology,” for which see section number 1 above.) These “weak tea” left-liberals can be shamed out of opposition, just as they were after September 11, 2001, if American Christians can remain united and resolute. The full-blooded enemies of the Republic are the Left’s strategists, tacticians, and public mouthpieces. These must face the same weapons we must bring to bear against their Islamic analogues. Once again, the legal difficulties can be surmounted with a sufficient degree of concurrence among American Christians.

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5. Non-Christian sects other than Islam.

     Given that 74% of Americans self-identify as Christians, some 26% remain to be considered. Yes, by the numbers as well as historically, America is a Christian nation. However, extending our tolerance to that which is tolerable is an essential of Christian ethics. Those 26% must be accommodated to the maximum possible extent: i.e., short of allowing them to take up our enemies’ cause.

     I wouldn’t expect American Jews to pose a problem, despite their historical allegiance with the increasingly left-wing Democrat Party. Neither would Buddhists, Hindus, Shintoists, Taoists, Hare Krishnas, or Amiable Agnostics be a cause for concern. Militant atheists, who’ve made the Christian faith their favorite target for several decades, would be required to show their true color…and in the preponderance of cases that color would be yellow. However, as long as they stay out of the conflict, these too could be ignored.

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Coda.

     There’s a certain amount of “throwing out the rule book” involved in the above. The major “rule” that must be set aside is that of treating individuals as individuals, disassociated from the crimes of those who share their anti-Christian ideology and have acted on its dictates. The relevant insight here was provided by none other than the greatest butcher in human history, Mao Tse-tung:

     “The people are the sea in which the revolutionary swims.”

     By “the people,” Mao meant the ideologically allied, not the undifferentiated mass of the people. Though they commit no violence themselves, the ideologically allied provide concealment, sustenance, and “human shields” to the insurgent. This cannot be tolerated.

     Are nine tenths of the Muslims who attend some particular mosque innocent of personal misdeeds? Irrelevant, just as Brigitte Gabriel said in the video I embedded yesterday. They are enablers and supporters of our more active enemies, whether voluntary or coerced. It’s like dealing with a pest species; the best way to clean it out is to destroy its habitat: the environmental conditions that support its flourishing. Supposedly innocent and peaceable Muslims are the jihadist’s habitat, and must be routed out of the country.

     Yes, it’s a harsh prescription from start to finish. I don’t like it much, but it’s being forced upon us. Feel free to suggest another.

     Deus vult.

Absolutely intolerable.

America first.

A few weeks later, in his first formal foreign policy address, he [Trump] announced that “America First” would be his guiding policy as president. Here’s what he said:

My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else. It has to be first. Has to be. That will be the foundation of every single decision that I will make. America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.

More poison protest headlines followed. But consider for a moment what it means when the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States makes waves by declaring he will put America first in formulating his policies; and, further, has to explain what it means to do so; and, then, on the whole, is met with derision, outrage and fear on the part of commentators and politicians and academics and the like – no matter where on the political spectrum they may have located themselves.

"The Case for Trump -- Minus "America First"?" By Diana West, 4/12/19 (emphasis added).

Notre Dame

     It wasn’t the most glorious of Christendom’s cathedrals, but it was one of the oldest. It was deeply embedded in the history of France. Now a lot of it is gone. Will it be restored? A good question, given Europe’s flight from Christianity and its welcome of Muslim savages. Indeed, I would expect restoration efforts to be opposed rather vigorously, especially if the French government proposes to lend a hand. Can’t afford to anger the Muslims!

     This is what Europe has done to itself. Yes, I know the “official story” is that the fire was “an accident.” I also remember the old maxim about such things: “Never believe anything political until it is officially denied.”

     The despicable Ilhan Omar referred to the cathedral somewhat dismissively as “art and architecture.” But then, Omar is a Somali Muslim, and is given to excusing Muslims and Islam for anything and everything. (Hey, so “some people did something.” So what?) On the other hand, she regards depictions of the horrors of September 11, 2001, which I still call Black Tuesday, as a threat to her life. She got some concurrence from the equally despicable Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called a video of the attack “triggering.”

     My God, yes, it’s “triggering.” Any red-blooded American should feel his trigger finger twitching as he watches it. He should yearn for a properly sighted-in rifle, ten thousand rounds to hand, and a federal declaration of “open season,” to continue until every Muslim within our borders is a corpse.

     How can any American worthy of the name watch what Europe is suffering yet support the continued importation of Muslims to our shores? For many do, as if we owe them something, though specifics on that matter are sorely lacking. After those Muslim “refugees” have been here a short while, they start trying to recreate the hellholes from which they emerged, by creating Islamic exclaves, bullying and terrorizing American Christians and Jews, and “progressively” inflicting shari’a law upon regions of American cities. Yet the Left tells us we’re supposed to welcome them, in the name of “diversity.” Note that these selfsame cheerleaders for mass Islamic immigration have no sympathy for Christian refugees from Islamic persecution. I can’t help but wonder why.

     It’s happening throughout the U.S. It’s pervaded my state. The political class and the Legacy Media are blandly dismissive of it all.

     That’s all for the moment. I feel my blood pressure peaking and need to decompress. Perhaps I’ll be back later.

Quickies: An Important Project Has Hit The Anvil

     Co-Conspirator Linda Fox and longtime friend and reader Pascal have suggested a compilation of the “Death Cult” pieces, from here, Eternity Road, and the Palace of Reason into a downloadable pamphlet for the convenience of pro-life activists. It immediately struck me as an immensely worthy undertaking, so I’m heading into it at once. Accordingly, I expect not to post, other than this announcement, until I’ve finished it.

     I intend to put the completed work at Amazon for $0.99. (Amazon balks at making a publication permanently free, so that’s the best I can do.) Stay tuned.

WHY Those Responsible for the Attempted Coup Have to Face Charges

In a court of law. Not just exposed. Brought up on CRIMINAL CHARGES.

The Ultimately Taboo Topic

     I’ve written before about taboos, specifically the Left’s tabooing of particular words as “hateful,” “racist,” “sexist,” or what-have-you. The Left’s attempt to exert linguistic control over us is a great part of its overall strategy. It makes it more difficult for conservatives to give the full, horrifying coloration to many of their intentions.

     It’s the intentions that matter. Consider, for example, the steady advance of the Left’s drive to eliminate the right to life.

SCREECHING HALT!

     “What’s that you say, Fran? You can’t be serious about that! Why, no one would dare to…” Yes, Gentle Reader, I am serious. Moreover, at this point that element of the Left’s agenda should be as plain as a fart. If you’ve been reading Liberty’s Torch for any great length of time, you’ll have seen this list at least once:

• Abortion without restrictions.
• Assisted suicide.
• Commonplace ritual mutilations of the human body.
• Involuntary euthanasia of those deemed untreatable or having "no quality of life."
• Legal infanticide within the first X days post-birth.
• Compulsory surrender of the organs of the deceased for transplantation.
• Environmentalist crusades that prioritize human life below other considerations.
• Use of “abandoned” embryos for “research.”
• Creation of zygotes and embryos for non-procreative purposes.
• Government-enforced "triage" to “conserve medical and financial resources.”
• Compulsory acceptance of specified therapies.
• Procreation licenses (alternately, compulsory sterilization of those deemed “unfit”).
• Government eugenics programs:
  • At first, as subsidies to couples with favored genetic characteristics;
  • Later, as compulsory donations of gametes for use in government-supervised breeding programs.
• Conscription for military purposes.
• Conscription for non-military purposes.

     The first five elements on that list are already among us. Yes, including de facto legal infanticide. What else could it mean for Congress to have rejected the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, to secure the lives of babies who have survived an attempt to abort them? As for the rest of the list, several items are approaching at a steady clip.

     But those first five are critical. Politically they’re “the camel’s nose under the tent lip.” They had to come first; the rest are founded on them. The Left is aware of their indispensability.

     So naturally, when some cultural item arises that challenges any of the Fundamental Five, the Left must stamp it out. Certainly no one in a position of authority or influence should be allowed to promote it – or even make reference to it.

     Consider this squib in that light:

     White House To Screen Gosnell Movie Today And The Media Throws A Fit

     In the midst of the many other relevant issues going on such as the Barr revelations, two movies have been getting attention like never before. The first is the incredibly brave “Unplannned” movie talking about one’s move from pro-abortion to LIFE. The second is the movie about an abortion butcher, Kermit Gosnell, that debuted last fall. The White House will be screening it this afternoon and the media is throwing a tantrum.

     Please read it all, and follow the embedded links.

     Gosnell and Unplanned are the most important polemic films ever made. They make obvious what the Left does not want you to know: that the drive for “abortion rights” is exactly and only an attack on the right to life. It was never anything else.

     Were the Left capable of it, it would prevent those movies from ever being seen by anyone. That the President of the United States is hosting a showing of one horrifies them, as the wails from their media annex demonstrate. What outcry will they mount should he host Unplanned?

     For the Left to succeed in its drive for total power over all things forever, you must be stripped of your right to life. You must be reduced to a tool in the State’s toolbox, to be used and disposed of when no longer useful. A right to life, predicated upon the sanctity of human life, is inconsistent with that.

     Of course they began with defenseless infants. Of course the next step would be almost-as-defenseless elderly people, increasingly looked upon by their progeny as burdens to be sloughed if possible rather than treasured ancestors to be protected and loved. And of course both drives will be swaddled in the Left’s most successful shibboleth: the aura of “compassion.”

     Have you ever heard a Leftist refer to abortion as a “safe medical procedure?” Safe for whom? It sure as hell isn’t safe for the baby. The mother frequently suffers as well. But it’s “compassionate,” you see, because a girl who’s “made a mistake” ought not to be “punished with a baby.” It was the 44th President, Barack Hussein Obama, who said that last. The promoters of euthanasia will call it “compassionate” too; after all, the guest of honor has “no quality of life” and therefore should be relieved of the burden of existence.

     Don’t think so? Have you no familiarity with Peter Singer or Daniel Callahan? Have you never heard of the Groningen Protocol, Jack Kevorkian, or the rash of involuntary euthanasias in Belgium and Holland? Are you unaware of Eric Pianka and his followers?

     The Left could not prevent us from knowing about Kermit Gosnell. It strained but failed to keep us from knowing about Abby Johnson and the Planned Parenthood sales of baby parts. It has protested and obstructed showings of the movies about those things, with tactics ranging from street demonstrations to lawsuits. There’s even been some violence against persons and property.

     The airing of Gosnell in the White House is driving them insane. All their cards are face up. Their camouflage has failed. They can no longer conceal their intentions.

     Draw the moral. And pray.

Tundra tyranny.

Nowadays, making political candidates and dissident voices invisible and depriving people of their livelihoods is job number one for the political elites. James Kirkpatrick turned over that rock last year in his coverage of the mayoral campaign of Faith Goldy in Toronto, Polarbearstan's answer to The Matrix.

Still, RT provided one of the best breakdowns of the deplatforming campaign against Goldy:

In every avenue of her activity, obstacles have been created not just to delegitimize Goldy, but to make her campaign difficult, if not impossible.

Patreon, a major source of income for non-mainstream public actors, shut her out in May, while PayPal closed her account in July. Campaigners have attempted to no-platform her to deny her access to speaking venues, and organizers barred her from mayoral debates, claiming she did not fill out a form, something Goldy, who gatecrashed the debate anyway, denies.

Bell and Rogers, the two large media conglomerates dominating the landscape, have both accepted money to run her adverts, and then refused to run them, defending this as a business decision.^[1]

Mr. Kirpatrick found what you usually find under a rock. The leftist PressProject – having no interest in promoting anything like a free press – reached deep into its kit bag of original observations to allow how Russian "propagandists" were hard at work. They were planting the totally false idea that Goldy was being ground into Yukon mine tailings by that faction of Canadian society being charter members of The Vicious Prick School of Democratic Governance.

Kirkpatrick rather aptly notes on the hyped foreign threats in Canada (and America):

Meanwhile, however, the same media outlets that claim to be concerned about foreign interference are openly shilling for mass immigration, even though each foreigner that occupies our territory effectively disenfranchises one American or Canadian citizen.^[2]

Strain at a gnat, swallow a camel.

I wonder what happened to Ms. Goldy's white privilege.

Notes
^[1] "'Managed Democracy'—Faith Goldy’s Heroic Mayoral Run, The MSM, And Steve King." By James Kirkpatrick, VDARE.com, 10/23/18.
^[2] Id.

Day Off

     Apologies, Gentle Reader. I’ve had a very poor night, and many necessities impinge – especially preparing for having my floors refinished, and preparing to pay for having them refinished – so I shan’t be posting today. See you tomorrow.

The Serious And The Unserious Cannot Converse

     You’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself. It’s a requirement for civility in any age. It’s a requirement for survival in an absurd age such as ours.

     How doth our milieu mock thee, base reality? Let me count the ways…naah, strike that. I’m not sure I have enough lifespan left. But there are certainly enough to keep the satire sites and publications fat and happy. Here’s a recent piece from the Babylon Bee:

     GLENDALE, CA—A man was rushed to the hospital yesterday after encountering a slightly different viewpoint than his own Wednesday. Shortly before 12:30 p.m., Glendale PD officers responded to a 911 call at the Java Lounge Coffee House in the 900 block of North Emerson Road. They found a person who had collapsed in shock and went to the station for help. Witnesses say the man was having a casual conversation about politics with another patron when the minutely opposing viewpoint was expressed.

     "They were both Democrats, Bernie supporters," said Janice Hughson, a barista at the Java Lounge. "Then the guy he was talking to said he had some issues with abortion and thinks there should at least be a few limitations put on the practice. That's when the man seized up and began foaming at the mouth. It was terrible."

     Four other bystanders were also emotionally injured by the moderately divergent opinion but were not hospitalized.

     The man is being kept stable on ideology support at St. Francis medical center, surrounded by friends and family who agree with him 100% on every single issue.

     The man who suggested the slightly differing opinion fled the scene. Anyone with information is asked to alert the authorities.

     Funny? Hilarious! But note how infinitesimally it departs from contemporary American reality. It reminds me of college slanging matches between mathematics majors: “Oh yeah? Well, my differential is smaller than your differential!” (Yeah, I know: “What?” Be glad you weren’t there. I was.)

     But here’s the real punchline: There are “Americans” who don’t think the above is funny. Indeed, there are probably some in your neighborhood. I could name a few in mine. (No, I don’t seek them out. I have enough aggravation.)

     Humor, according to Nessus, a Pierson’s Puppeteer, is associated with an interrupted defense mechanism. Nessus was trying to explain to Louis Wu, a somewhat unusual human, and Speaker-To-Animals, a Kzin, why Puppeteers have no sense of humor:

     "We do not joke," said Nessus. "My species has no sense of humor."
     "Strange. I would have thought that humor was an aspect of intelligence."
     "No. Humor is associated with an interrupted defense mechanism."
     "All the same —"
     "Speaker, no sapient being ever interrupts a defense mechanism."

     The Pierson’s Puppeteers are herbivores and natural cowards. Hangs together nicely, doesn’t it?

     I make jokes, puns, obscure ridiculous references and allusions. I always have. But it’s getting harder – not because my penchant for such things is fading, but because far too many people, approaching a majority lately, refuse to get the joke.

---

     I have a couple of homosexual acquaintances with whom I get along tolerably well. Time was, homosexuals could joke about their own condition. That time has passed. Today, no one is allowed to joke about homosexuality or what it entails. When a colleague told me the following:

Colleague: You know how you can tell if a guy is a homosexual?
FWP: No, how?
Colleague: His dick tastes like shit.

     I laughed – and immediately cautioned him about “audience selection.” In a work environment that sort of jest can get you canned…even blackballed at other potential employers. People simply refuse to accept the notion that something about homosexuality could be the legitimate bait for a joke.

     Here’s another:

FWP: How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?
Unwitting victim: I don’t know, how many?
FWP: Two: One to change the bulb, and one to rave about how much better it was than with a man.

     I caught a lot of flak for that one.

---

     This one is making the rounds:

FWP: Hey, there’s a new complainant in the Gropin’ Joe Biden scandal!
CSO: Who?
FWP: Michelle Obama!
CSO: No, really?
FWP: Yeah! She claims he grabbed her penis!

     Beware, Gentle Reader. Obama worshippers will not allow such blasphemy. They’ll be on you like flies on feces, and there are a lot more of them roaming around loose than you can possibly imagine.

     Humor is close to being disallowed as a form of interpersonal exchange. It’s bad already. It looks to get worse. And that, like dirty public washrooms, bodes ill for our civilization.

---

     I don’t plan to cease cracking jokes, puns, et cetera, regardless of the reception they get. But I do plan to go more heavily armed from now on. People are being assaulted for innocent japes and jests. Lawsuits are being filed over “offensive jokes.” The old feminist joke:

FWP: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
CSO: That’s not funny!

     …is coming ever nearer to being the de facto law of the land.

     Reistance is demanded of us. But do we have it in us?

     I cannot say. All I can do is keep on keepin’ on…and watch for the humor in quotidian existence. Because – drumroll, please – only genuinely serious people make humor. The unserious are too self-absorbed. They look, perhaps, but they do not see. Some of them refuse to see. Either way, they miss the delicious ironies, the multifarious absurdities, surprises, and contradictions that make the human carnival a marvelous, eternally laughable thing to behold.

     The serious and the unserious cannot even converse constructively. Humor? Forget it, Jake; that bus drives past the unserious without even slowing.

     But the serious among us, we who understand the need for humor, will keep on crackin’ ‘em. We must. It’s genetically mandated. And we’ll give as good as we get, if not better, from the unserious who aim to shut us down with their frowns and grim catecheses. But we really must be careful about audience selection. After all, the humor-challenged are people too. Besides, you wouldn’t want a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act aimed at you, would you?

     I must see what I can do to assuage their pain. Perhaps a joke:

Hire The Handicapped!
(They’re Fun To Watch!)

Conversations

     Just a few minutes ago:

CSO: What’s your agenda for the day?
FWP: First, I’m going to assemble a medium-size box and fill it with books I intend to give away. After that, I’ll bring a Totelocker^® upstairs and fill it with books I intend to keep. And finally, I shall peruse what remains, select one single, very special book, and read it.

CSO: Wow! What an innovator!
FWP: Better than being an outivator, no?

CSO: Well, you could fool everybody and be an excavator.
FWP: Naah. They don’t make enough money.

CSO: But they get to play with really big toys!
FWP: Come on! Do you really think they drive their bulldozers around the neighborhood for fun? Picking up garbage cans and tossing them across the street? Digging up mailboxes and leaving them on front porches? That sort of thing is considered dirty pool most places. Remember, most of their neighbors don’t have bulldozers of their own!
CSO: (Unintelligible)

Mining Twitter for Stupid Leftist Comments

The Left has, largely, abandoned Blogs. Those that continue are what you might call Institutional Blogs - those controlled by organizations/Old Media.

Where the Left lives is in the limited-text, largely graphic/meme New Media - Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, etc. Where some of need to spend time is on those sites, both looking for Stupid Leftist Comments/Statements to analyze (Boy! There's a LOT!), but also to use to grow our audience, through SHORT statements/memes summarizing our thoughts, with links for those ready to tackle the larger argument.

Also, pictures, video, and some audio. That, I think, is the way to hook our new audience.

Any ideas or rebuttals?

Thursday Tergiversations

     There are far too many things going on for me to write an essay about any one of them. It would leave me feeling guilty that I’d shortchanged the others. So instead I’ll do a frivolous piece that shortchanges all of them.

---

1. Targets.

     In hewing to Alinsky’s dictum that it should personalize its targets, the Left operates according to certain criteria, of which the following are the most imperative:

1. The target should be white – i.e., of Euro-Caucasian ancestry.
2. He must, of course, have done something to disserve the Left.
3. He should display a certain hesitancy about expressing his convictions.
4. He should lack a platform from which to speak on his own behalf.
5. He should be reliably disinclined to fight back.

     Candace Owens’ recent appearance before a Congressional committee supposedly convened to discuss “white nationalism” made it plain that the Left cannot afford to target her. Not only is she black and forthright, she’s the communications director of Turning Point USA and she fights back fearlessly. Newly confirmed Attorney-General William Barr, on the other hand, fits all the criteria:

     The stammering is a dead giveaway that Barr was massively reluctant to express his belief that the Obama Administration, or parts of it, did spy on the Trump for President campaign. And the Left’s mouthpieces were immediately all over him like a cheap suit.

     I hope the Attorney-General is braced for the torrent of vilification and slander guaranteed to follow.

---

2. The Witch Hunt Continues.

     The Dishonorable Jerrold Nadler (D, NY) is determined to spread as much manure over President Trump as he can. His charge that Trump has indulged in “betrayals of the public interest” got a lot of press attention when he first leveled it. Has he produced even a single specific allegation to that effect? No. He has no evidence for it…but that’s never stopped a Twenty-First Century Democrat.

     The Supremely Dishonorable Maxine Waters (D, CA) has apparently taken a “time out” from haranguing her colleagues about the importance of impeaching the president. Instead she’s pursuing members of his Administration…but as usual for Mad Maxine, she can’t keep her ducks in a row:

     Mnuchin made it plain how little he thinks of her – and it’s about time.

     Democrats mistreating Republican Cabinet Secretaries has a long and detailed history. Remember this incident, from when the late William E. Simon was Gerald Ford’s Energy Secretary?

     While we were in conference, I got a message that Representative Al Ullman, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, wanted me. At the end of the conference I rushed out to my car, from which I intended to phone him. Actually I rushed backward, since I was talking to two lieutenant-governors who were talking to me. As I backed into my compact car—I had already “grounded” all government limousines—I cracked my head, splitting the back of my scalp wide open. Blood started to pour from my head. I held a handkerchief to it and phones Al Ullman. He said “We want you up here immediately to answer the Shah’s charges.” I replied, “I’ve just split my head open. I’ll have to see a nurse first.” I visited the Treasury nurse, who told me that my scalp required half a dozen stitches. I relayed that information to Congressman Ullman, and that kindly fellow said “Absolutely not. Get down here right away. We’ll keep you only half an hour.” In fact I was there for about five hours, bleeding incessantly, in considerable pain and facing Congressmen who were screaming and yelling. [From A Time for Truth]

     That was forty-two years ago. What’s changed since then?

---

3. The Old Guard Is Getting Tired.

     Mike Hendrix – and Gentle Reader, he goes back to blogging’s Big Bang – has some thoughts for us:

     As I’ve said before: over lo, these many years I’ve occasionally mulled over packing this blog up myself, and come damned close to doing it too, more than just once. Doing this stuff is work, and it’s time- and energy-intensive, and I find myself with precious little of both these days. But then along would come an email, from a soldier or sailor or Marine or flyboy slogging along out there at the pointy end of the spear, telling me how awfully much the blog means to them. Whereupon I sit right back down and get back to it.

     Is there a point to doing this, anything to be accomplished? Probably not, honestly. After years of sincerely and respectfully debating with the libs who wandered in once in a while, it finally dawned on me that I was never going to persuade them about anything. The divide is fundamental, deep, and unbridgeable; debate is bootless now. As I’ve so often said: either you favor a limited central government as the Founders intended and their Constitution demands, or you favor a meddlesome, almighty federal Superstate with no meaningful restrictions on what it may choose to either mandate or forbid. There is no middle ground left. After decades of steady Leftist encroachment and subversion, all that remains now is the desperate struggle for victory…or defeat.

     It has become plain that the top and middle tiers of the Left’s pyramid:

The Top: Ideologists and Strategists
The Middle: Organizers and interest-group administrators
The Bottom: Low-level allegiants who mainly provide money and votes.

     …are unreachable for religious reasons. (The top men worship only power; the organizers and interest-group barons have made their politics the justification for their sense of moral superiority.) The bottom tier is theoretically persusasible, but in practice this is usually cost-prohibitive, owing to their fear of condemnation, ostracism, and worse by other Leftists.

     So why continue to talk at them, especially as they reply with slanders and insults far more often than not?

     Good question. I lack a convincing answer. But the Dextrosphere still has a part to play in keeping up the Right’s morale and helping conservatively-inclined Americans to stay abreast of developments.

     All the same, as Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde have told us, all good things must end someday:

     Stay tuned.

Consummations Devoutly To Be Wish’d Dept.

     Hearken to Kim Hirsch at Victory Girls:

     Barack Obama has been watching the clown car of Democrat candidates careen down the highway towards 2020. And this crop of fools is making him very nervous.

     Meanwhile, they’re making me snicker.

     At a town hall in Berlin, speaking for the Obama Foundation in Berlin, the former president is worried that progressives are taking things a bit too far:

     “One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States . . . is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, ‘Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be,’ and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a ‘circular firing squad,’ where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens.”

     Kim’s not the only one snickering. However, I propose that there’s more than one reason for The Won’s dismay. It’s not just that “the progressive movement” is (supposedly) fractionating under the strain of individuals’ presidential ambitions, you see; it’s that his movement, with his name indelibly attached, is being ground into the subsoil. His co-partisans did not learn the lesson he so resolutely strove to teach them: talk out both sides of your mouth. Speak in glowing terms of freedom and the free market while doing your utmost to undermine and destroy them. Accuse the opposition of low motives and bad faith simply for opposing you. The cognitive dissonance that tactic can induce in one’s adversaries and the public generally is a weapon of political combat akin to a paralytic gas.

     All that having been said, there are some indications that the Left has pulled the Democrat Party so sharply in its direction that it has lost the credibility required for public acceptance. A political machine that promotes socialism in Gucci couture, from a bevy of mansions, while driving European supercars is unlikely to be convincing – and despite major-media efforts to keep those matters under cover, the facts about the lavish styles and ways of these so-called socialists are on garish display. (Say, does anyone else remember John Forbes Kerry? I seem to recall that he was in the Navy back when; my memory’s not perfectly clear.)

     The socialist Left’s efforts to homogenize the Democrat presidential field aren’t doing that much to fracture the Democrats' sacred coalition. However they are steadily alienating various of its members and components. America remains a majority-white, majority Christian country. Whites have had enough of the racialist hucksters’ promotion of white guilt. Christians have had enough of the wanton slaughter of babies for the convenience of ne’er-do-wells and sluts. And Americans have had enough of political flaccidity before hordes of invaders who bear no love for America nor any interest in becoming Americans. That’s how we got the Raul Grijalvas, the Luis Gutierrezes, the Ilhan Omars, and the Rashida Tlaibs that infest our polity, and we want no more of them. Indeed, we’d like to see the ones already here tarred, feathered, and run out of the country on a rail.

     For the Democrats’ electoral prospects, fractionation would be preferable to the advance of Left-powered extremism. They might get a viable presidential candidate out of fractionation. To this point only one Democrat who has declared himself a candidate for that office resembles an actual American to any degree: serial plagiarist, documented liar, and woman groper Joseph Biden. Reflect on that.

     Conservative Republicans should be rubbing their hands together and snickering in chorus. The way things are trending for the Democrats, the 2020 elections should be a home run trot for the GOP. Of course, the NeverTrumpRump and “Conservatism, Inc.” will do what they can to prevent any such horrifying eventuality. (Add your own “sarcasm on” and “sarcasm off” tags; I’m having too good a time.)

     At this point I will add the boilerplate admonitions against complacency. Elections don’t win themselves. Candidates must compose platforms and campaign on them. Party barons must gather data, assess its significance, and assign district ground workers with well-defined missions. Ground workers must distribute information about the candidates and urge their neighbors to vote. The public must go to the polls with a clear picture of the stakes. If so much is not obvious after all this time, check your pulse; you may have died and not noticed.

     All the same, there are reasons to look ahead to November 2020 with optimism. The Trump Administration continues to improve and achieve. The “collusion” investigation is over, done, and has been rendered politically impotent. Ever more Trump skeptics are coming around, as evidenced by the president’s steadily improving approval ratings. Last but not least, the minions of the Deep State are quivering in their Uggs.^®

     Make sure you have a goodly supply of popcorn on hand for the actual event. There’s likely to be a shortage in the stores on Election Day.

Con artist.

Trump has no interest in building the wall or in restricting immigration. Period. Action on e-Verify? Action on birthright citizenship? Action on remittances? Action on vote fraud? Total freeze on H-1A and H-1B visas? Troops on the border? Pressure on Mexico? Don't make me laugh. Path to citizenship? Always in style.

Nearly everything Trump has done in the name of restricting immigration has turned out to be an empty gesture and mere theatrics: threatening to close the border, offering protections to “Dreamers” in exchange for funding for the ever-elusive wall, threatening to end the “anchor baby” phenomenon with an executive order (which never came to pass), cutting off aid to Central American countries, claiming that he will appoint an “immigration czar” (and then proceeding to appoint McAleenan instead of Kobach as DHS secretary), and on and on.^[1]

Invaders are not repelled. They are allowed in and then released into the wind.

It's all cringing surrender to the globalists.

Where do the founding people of this country go now?

Notes
^[1] "Trump’s Betrayal of White America." By Alex Graham, Counter-Currents Publishing, 4/8/19.

H/t: The Unz Review.

Could the cards just lie where they fall?

By which I mean, could we please just deal with human life as it is and not as some kind of blank canvas to be splotched by finger painters from the nearest day care monstrosity? The sequence facts-->analysis-->rational reaction has been replaced in the social, political and economic spheres by facts-->malevolent ideological filter-->dangerous maladaptation. Some young woman who perceive they have a problem to deal with end up thinking lesbianism, abortion, and parading on the street with bared breasts are good options. Some women with attitude think they have a "right" to jog where they want in the big city.

Putting the problem of ideological filters aside, it's more than clear that we all live in an enormous steaming stew of propaganda that hides accurate data and and ensures that our lives unfold in diseased ways.

Here's (yet another) insightful essay from Alex over at Ammo.com on the accurate input part of the sequence: "The American Old West: How Hollywood Made It 'Wild' to Make Money & Advance Gun Control." He looks at the actual record of unlawful behavior in the Old West and finds the truth varies greatly from the imaginings of Hollywood producers. Then he shows how modern ways of dealing with rampant crime focus on depriving citizens of precisely those tools that made the Old West a decidecly peaceful place.

"Ready! Fire! Aim!" and not just with respect to crime. Everything is conducted this way.

I'm reminded of a visit I made to Old Bent's Fort in southeastern Colorado. It wasn't a fort in the usual sense though it looks like it was one. There might have been some federales there during the Mexican-American War (never quite concluded, it seems) but basically it was a trading post out in the middle of nowhere. Eighty days to St. Louis by wagon, IIRC.

The gates stayed open and the local Indians (three or four tribes) entered freely and even put on some of their dances for the entertainment of all. The fellow who ran the fort paid fair prices for the buffalo skins the Indians sold and they lived well with what they purchased to make their lives easier.

If anything, the fort was a refuge for various Indians being pursued by men from other tribes.

All quite contrary to what we think about life in Indian Country from what nonsense Hollywood served up. The Lewis and Clark museum in Great Falls tells similar stories. The expedition had some tense moments with the Lakota at the start but it was quite different later on. Their lives were saved when they decided to cross the Bitterroot Mountains in the winter! It was a close thing but they managed to make it out of the mountains in pretty bad shape, whereupon they were taken in by the locals who saved their lives and sold them horses later on.

The Comanche, Apache, Crow, and Iroquois were another story but that is not part of the Lewis and Clark story. Indians murdered and enslaved each other and stole each other's lands with abandon but guess what version of history underlies all public policy now. Correct. The rapacious white man invaded and brought death and destruction to "Native Americans" living in harmony with themselves and the land.

History is more interesting than the ridiculous versions peddled by various parties. I've read stories of German decency in WWII and British and American criminality. I enjoyed a very interesting book about a fellow who spent a short time in the Gulag and found his way to a job as an accountant in a timber harvesting enterprise. It depicted the Soviet citizens as quite normal and decent, though I think the distance between the place and the madness of Moscow had something to do with the normality. The book is Bitter Waters: Life And Work In Stalin's Russia by Gennady Andreev-khomiakov et al.

Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945 by Marie Vassiltchikov similarly portrays a side of wartime Germany that is quite unlike the usual portrayal of Germans as demons. Many first-person accounts by German troops of fighting on the Eastern Front are also eye-opening. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Hortatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy" as Hamlet observed.

Today, it isn't just the past that's shredded and twisted, but the pestiferous present. The left insists on characterizing whites and our culture as something diseased that oozed out of a crack somewhere. Feminists distort marriage and men in the same way. It would be humorous if we weren't witnessing a game plan for social and political disaster.

One of the interesting things about Old Bent's Fort is that you can walk down to the river a hundred yards or so away. The territory on the other side of the river was Mexico at the time! I've even heard rumors that there are Mexicans on that side of the river who still think the land belongs to Mexico.