Female Idiocy (UPDATED)

[A Public Service Announcement, brought to you by Men Who Have Had It With Women's Pretensions To Equality Coupled With An Insistence On Being Treated Like Delicate Hothouse Flowers.]

Some things simply piss me off -- and I'm unembarrassed about it, feel fully justified at having my hackles rise over them, and am determined to do my part to grind them into powder. You're about to hear about one of them.

Have a gander at the following image:

Many American women would smirk and nod at that bit of obscenity. They'd pass it along to like-minded female friends, and possibly a few emotionally emasculated male friends, expecting nothing but giggles over it.

I'm not giggling, nor is any emotionally healthy man I know -- and whoever produced this faex is on notice that she's done her "sisters" a grave disservice.

You're on notice, ladies:

• Even hinting that "a few words" could provoke you to violence toward a man -- especially violence directed at his most sensitive parts -- is enough for decent men to rule you out of bounds for anything: acquaintance, employment, or any other form of courteous association.
• Suggesting that some other "few words" could earn one of us "a blowjob" is beyond mere insult: it's both humiliating and degrading -- to both sexes.
• Men restrain themselves around you out of awareness of our several advantages over you. As a rule:
  1. We're larger and stronger;
  2. We're also smarter -- to judge by the bilge that dominates "women's magazines," the Oxygen cable station, and "Women's Studies" courses, much smarter;
  3. We have better control over our impulses;
  4. We don't strike to humiliate; we strike to wound or kill.

Compared to that, your fine motor control means approximately nothing.

So as they say in the Navy, now hear this:

You are not men's equals.

Here's the proof:

1. You demand "equal treatment" while simultaneously demanding that women be held to lowered standards;
2. You've agitated ceaselessly for laws that privilege women over men, especially as regards employment, sex, marriage, and the family;
3. You take without giving, treating what you receive from men as your God-given right but what you return as an act of generosity or a damned imposition on your time and patience;
4. Your representatives in the schools constantly strive to make boys over into little girls;
5. Whenever you're challenged on any of the above, you scream "sexism!" or whine like two year olds denied a demanded treat.

Which is why American men who still possess a shred of masculine self-regard won't marry you or procreate with you, treat you with suspicion at all times, speak derisively of your oh-so-vaunted "accomplishments" and the viragoes who trumpet them, and are generally disdainful of your entire sex.

Think about that when you next hear a "joke" about kicking one of us in the nuts.

PS: I don't want a "blowjob" from any woman, including my beloved wife. The act is degrading to both parties. Come to think of it, that's probably why so many people are obsessed with it. Ours is a thoroughly degraded culture. A single hour of television viewing is ample evidence to that effect.

UPDATE: The incredulously enraged can further elevate their blood pressure, if they like, over this post. Happy fulminating.

Rand And Orlov: A Guest Post by Ol' Remus of The Woodpile Report

[Guest Contributor Ol' Remus has once again favored Liberty's Torch with a pithy and disturbing piece. It will also appear in a forthcoming edition of The Woodpile Report. -- FWP]

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You will find, in Woodpile Report's right hand column, at the top, a quote from Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness, 1961: "We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission." Here, from The Nature of Government, is the full sentence:

Instead of being a protector of man's rights, the government is becoming their most dangerous violator; instead of guarding freedom, the government is establishing slavery; instead of protecting men from the initiators of physical force, the government is initiating physical force and coercion in any manner and issue it pleases; instead of serving as the instrument of objectivity in human relationships, the government is creating a deadly, subterranean reign of uncertainty and fear, by means of nonobjective laws whose interpretation is left to the arbitrary decisions of random bureaucrats; instead of protecting men from injury by whim, the government is arrogating to itself the power of unlimited whim—so that we are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

Dmitry Orlov—by coincidence another Russian-born American, or perhaps not so coincidentally—revisited Rand's proposition in an essay largely devoted to analyzing President Putin and the events in Ukraine. It's a hard but refreshing summary of the sort we see only at long intervals. Ominously, but justifiably, he drops the "fast approaching" notion. Who, given the events of the intervening 53 years, will contradict him?

Compare the concept of the “dictatorship of the law,” domestic as well as international, as it is promulgated by Putin, to the sort of law which now prevails in the United States. In the US, there are now two categories of persons. There are those who are above the law: the US government and its agencies, including NSA, FBI, DOD, etc.; Wall Street financiers and shadowy government contractors who are never prosecuted for their crimes; the über-rich who are politically connected and can prevail legally against anyone simply by throwing money at lawyers.

And then there are those who are below the law: everyone else. These are some of the most sheepish people in the world, living in constant fear of getting sued and stripped of their savings—or arrested, intimidated into accepting a plea bargain, and locked up. They can now be detained indefinitely without a charge. They can be kidnapped from anywhere in the world, transported to a “black site” and tortured. They can be put on trial without being informed of the charge and convicted based on evidence that is kept secret from them. Their communities can be placed under martial law without cause. Individually, they can be shot on sight with no provocation of suspicion of wrongdoing.

Recent history – executive summary.

There are 4 principal presidents that presided over and pushed this country over the edge.

Woodrow Wilson (FED, IRS, League of Nations), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Who made communism ok and was the first democratically elected Fascist), LBJ (who decided we could have Guns, i.e Vietnam and Butter :created govt jobs for the unemployable by expanding the welfare state and all of its agencies) and Barack Hussein Obama (who will preside over the collapse with the gutting of the economy and expanding beyond LBJ's vision with Obamacare and everything else he can do that follows the Cloward-Piven model.)

The Bushes (41, 43) are the willing accomplices and in many ways did far more damage to this nation because they were trojan horses. (Personally I think Bush 43 was worse than LBJ because LBJ was at least transparent about his new deal beliefs). Bush 41 only got elected becuase he was Reagan's third term. That blue blood Rockefeller republican is nothing but a NWO progressive who, with his thousand points of light bullshit, help to destroy any semblance of principle in the republican party. (I'm ashamed that my alma mater hosts his Library) and it galls me that he call himself a Texan. He is a Yankee Blue Blood Carpetbagging NWO POS

Worse is his Faux conservative George 43 who is a progressive who lied about his conservative roots by putting on boots and throwing a few pitches out in Dallas. He doubled the DEBT on his watch and deserted core principles at the counsel of his stooge Rove and became Demo Lite. Bush prostituted himself with the Meidcare part D (which now has a higher liability than freaking Medicare itself). Bush bankrupted this country by the engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan and fed the authoritarian monster that is the police state. He gave Obama everyhing he needed to complete the destruction.

The Bushes are worse in my opinion because at least the Dems act like Dems. The Bushes sold this country out far more. Obama has an excuse, he is American by birth but not by identification. Frank Marshall Davis saw to that.

We are screwed and all of this [these] POS's had a hand in it.

Comment by Einsilverguy on "Peter Schiff: Debt And Taxes." Submitted by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, 3/22/14.

An apt comparison.

One notable thing about [heroin] addicts is all they focus on is their next fix...regardless of the fact that the building is burning down around them.

It's apparent that this same kind of behavior is prevalent in the financial industry...

And society at large.

Hence a populace impervious to facts and reason.

Comment by Illillilli on Peter Schiff: Debt And Taxes. Submitted by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, 3/22/14.

Our balkanized minds.

No man was more sensitive than [Stefan] Zweig to the destructive effects upon individual liberty of the demands of large or strident collectivities. He would have viewed with horror the cacophony of monomanias—sexual, racial, social, egalitarian—that marks the intellectual life of our societies, each monomaniac demanding legislative restriction on the freedom of others in the name of a supposed greater, collective good. His work was a prolonged (though muted and polite) protest at the balkanization of our minds and sympathies.

"A Neglected Genius." By Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal, Winter 2004.

The stealth tax – inflation.

But unfortunately, everything has a price, even free money.

~ Peter Schiff.

Quoted at Peter Schiff: Debt And Taxes. Submitted by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, 3/22/14.

Ukraine, Russia, And America

As if it weren't perfectly obvious from his entire record in the public eye, it is now pellucidly clear that Vladimir Putin means to reconstruct the Soviet Union -- not its political system, which would confine him too tightly, but its sway at its most territorially extended.

The United States can do little to nothing about it. Geography is against us. It's equally against those smaller states that would prefer not to be reabsorbed into a Greater Russian Empire. Not one of them could resist the forces at Putin's disposal with any hope of success.

Our hope lies in the NATO Alliance, and a feeble hope it is. The nations of Europe simply will not approve a military campaign to check Russian expansion, perhaps not even should Putin direct his forces against the NATO member states of Eastern Europe and the Baltic coast. Only an American response is even faintly plausible -- but without European cooperation, it would be fatally hobbled from the outset.

As with so many other maladies of the day, we did it to ourselves.

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NATO has become an impediment to American power projection. Our unwillingness to proceed unilaterally has doomed us to wait for endorsements that will never arrive. Worse, the militaries of Europe are jokes from first to last, pitiful fractions of those that preceded World War II and utterly insignificant compared to our own. Even were the states of Europe to join an American military campaign, as they did in 1990 for the first Gulf War, their participation would be token, fraught with annoying complexities, and accompanied by strident demands for all manner of military and political accommodations.

That our pledge to defend Europe was a terrible mistake should now be perfectly clear.

But wait: there's more! Our very own "leadership" has embarked on a campaign to reduce America's military capabilities. the Obama Administration seeks to reduce our ground strength by 130,000 troops: just under one quarter of our current forces. It seeks to reduce the size of our blue-water navy and our strategic forces as well. The rationale? "Budget constraints," a plaint never heard when the subject is some aspect of our ever-expanding Welfare State.

With geography as a retardant, "allies" nearly as hostile as declared enemies, and a political elite that lacks all interest in the use of military power in service to freedom, the odds of an American expedition to limit Russian expansionism are slim and none -- with "none" being the more attractive pole.

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Several commentators have opined that Putin's initiatives toward Ukraine will not stop with Crimea. Their position is strong; Russian forces have swarmed the Russian / Ukrainian border. Perhaps the Russian satrap is awaiting a "provocation." Perhaps he just hasn't finished his buildup. And perhaps it's a feint, intended to deflect our attention from his intention to reabsorb Estonia. We must wait to see. However, two things are clear even today: first, that Putin wants his Greater Russia more than anything else; second, that the political elites of America and Europe are reluctant to the point of paralysis to do anything but bluster about "the wrong side of history."

The Obamunists' bluster, the posture of the Europeans, and the pitiful "sanctions" add up to a losing hand. We cannot intervene usefully. Given Europe's unwillingness to wage war, its economic dependency upon Russian natural gas, and America's steadily diminishing willingness to spend the blood of its sons for others' benefit, whether we will ever again be able to do so is open to question.

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It's possible that America's days as "world policeman" have come to a close. We were never really suited to the role; our natural inclination is to mind our own business. Our titanic military prowess is almost irrelevant when it's under the hand of unwilling statesmen. Since the close of our Vietnam adventure, there's been very little will to repeat anything of comparable magnitude. What arose under Bush the Younger seems to have been dissipated by our missteps in Afghanistan and Iraq.

However, maintaining at least a piece of the "hyperpower mystique" is important to the world at large. Deterrence is a mental phenomenon. It wasn't necessary that potential aggressors be convinced we would intervene against their initiatives, but it was vital that they think it possible, even likely. The sort of calculation that goes into the decisions of a "rationally evil" potentate takes account of probabilities and possibilities along with facts and certainties. "Nations in general will go to war whenever there is a prospect of getting something by it," as John Jay said. That makes "getting something by it" a prospect nations ardent for peace must cloak in uncertainty. That task has fallen principally upon American shoulders since the fall of the U.S.S.R.

It's not a role we can relinquish. The states immediately after us in military potency -- Russia and China --are anything but peaceably inclined. They demonstrate their aggressive tendencies regularly. Nor can the job be passed to any "international body," the fantasies of the One-Worlders notwithstanding.

The deterrent value of the "hyperpower mystique" depends mainly on the maintenance of a large and capable armed force, the ability to swiftly deploy it anywhere in the world, and a public posture, at least, of willingness to do so. All three ingredients are currently under attack, by a political elite that openly prefers American impotence to American strength. No other explanation is consistent with the many anti-military moves of the Obama Administration, most especially the choice of the odious Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

You already knew that much of immediate domestic importance is riding on the outcomes of the next two elections. Add the peace of the world, and the futures of millions who would rather not be made into unwilling subjects of enormous tyrannies, to the list.

The socialist essence.

Mises, Hayek’s mentor, refuted socialism by 1922. It is my belief that we are on the (long) road to a massive financial crises, brought about by succeeding attempts to mask the failures of socialism. The US public deficit is one sign of that attempt to conceal these failures; the exportation of manufacturing to China is another sign of that concealment.

Yet if you visit somewhere like Wikipedia, the entry on Mises is about 10% of the size of the entry on Cher.

Socialism never works. In our time, extraordinary economic productivity financed a lot of hair-brained schemes and the government appeared to get away with at the time. We subsidized bastardy at the same time we threw sand into the gears of the productive economic machine. However, even huge good fortune can be frittered away. It starts with minor borrowing, but borrowing soon enough becomes a mild concern. Then the need to borrow becomes as insistent as a crack addiction. Overall prognosis for an individual or a society . . . what you'd expect.

When government exactions and stupidities suffocate the productive, the "right" to a job or the "right" to food and shelter -- bedrock articles of faith for socialists -- are exposed for the lies they are. But socialists never cease to talk about economic "rights." As the graph line for national debt races to the near vertical, even that is not enough to break the back of the corrupt socialist, something-for-nothing system. And its apologists.

A dog can live with one tick. But not a swarm.

Socialists are indifferent to the inflation that steals money from the bank accounts and other assets of prudent, self-reliant citizens. Watch for the talk of outright state confiscation from bank accounts to grow louder and more insistent until the very beating heart of socialism is exposed for what it is –- theft.

It takes a depraved spirit to ignore the 100+ million deaths of the last century due to totalitarian powers that embraced socialism every waking moment of their existence. But socialists will never acknowledge that carnage. To them, the worst evils of our age are the U.S.A., Israel, and National Socialism (dead going on 69 years now) but still out there. Like the Arkansas Yeti.

For Marxism and its worldwide destruction and killing there is, however, still reverence.

Even worship.

Comment by Joe on "To Be Considered: Are Socialists Fun-Impaired?" By Dymphna, Gates of Vienna, 3/21/14.

Quickies: The Criminalization Of Justice

My day has already been overfilled with obligations, so I must content myself with a brief piece that proceeds from Glenn Reynolds's excellent USA Today column of yesterday.

Professor Reynolds, whose fame among laymen proceeds from his InstaPundit blog and his role in the "blogging explosion" of the Nineties, is also an astute legal mind and a pithy commentator on the flaws he sees in American law and justice. His column, which I entreat you to read in its entirety, addresses the fatal lack of due process requirements and feedback mechanisms that has permitted American criminal justice to descend from Olympus to Hades, in effect becoming an instrument of oppression. His focus is not on what happens in the courtroom, but what goes on before a criminal case ever gets there.

The combination of grand jury biddability and prosecutorial discretion has given rise to an assembly-line character in the criminal justice system. Prosecutors tend to be as ambitious for advancement as anyone else in "public service," and in their case the road to higher positions is paved with copious convictions, whether or not those convicted deserve their fates. Inasmuch as the luxuriance of criminal law has created a state of affairs in which every one of us, whether wittingly or not, is "guilty" of something, an aggressive prosecutor can "rack 'em up" by pursuing a simple strategy:

1. Look around for "suspicious" behavior -- i.e., behavior on the part of a private citizen that can be made to appear suspicious;
2. Ruthlessly probe every element of the "suspect's" life, using the effectively infinite resources of the State, until enough "suspicious" behavior has been amassed;
3. Assemble a huge list of charges to place before a grand jury;
4. Present the case in such a fashion as to promote the more plausible accusations and obscure the less plausible ones, thus securing a grab-bag indictment;
5. Offer the indicted person a plea bargain that will spare him centuries in prison and complete pauperization at the bargain price of a few years and/or a few thousand dollars.

There is no brake to this strategy. Excessive law plus complete prosecutorial discretion plus a competent prosecutor's ability to lead a grand jury by the nose combine to put even a simon-pure citizen at the mercy of the criminal justice system. And what a system it is! Had it been consciously designed to put the maximum number of persons in prison regardless of guilt or innocence, it could not have been done better.

But there's a flip side, as well: a prosecutor's discretion about whether to file for an indictment allows him to curry favor with criminals and corrupt officials, while his ability to lead a grand jury in his preferred direction allows him to detoxify allegations made by others, which public pressure has compelled him to "investigate." So the very attributes of the system that put innocent persons at its mercy combine to make it a bottomless well of protective resources for the evil and corrupt. And prosecutors, as Professor Reynolds has observed, are immune from redress on the grounds of their discretion and their grand-jury proceedings.

Vigilance committees, anyone?

Activity at www.franciswporretto.com

I've just added an article, "Show Them A Hero," to my fiction promotional site.

Threats Real And Imagined

Probably the most important distinction Americans could possibly learn to make is that between real threats and figments of someone's imagination: that is, between what we have sound reason to fear, and what's been contrived in an attempt to make us fear. Quoth Robert Anton Wilson:

"The State is based on threat....If people aren't afraid of something, they'll realize they don't need that big government hand picking their pockets all the time. So, in case Russia and China collapse from internal dissension, or get into a private war and blow each other to hell, or suffer some unexpected natural calamity like a series of earthquakes, the saucer myth has been planted. If there are no earthly enemies to frighten the American people with, the saucer myth will immediately change. There will be 'evidence that they come from Mars and are planning to invade and enslave us. Dig?"

It's perfectly acceptable to argue that the Soviet Union constituted a real threat to Western Europe. However, we now know, thanks to the disclosure of much information the USSR's masters kept secret, that that tyranny could never have harmed the United States a tenth as much as the scare propaganda would have had us believe. Investigative journalist Andrew Cockburn (not to be confused with hard-lefty Alexander Cockburn of The Nation) produced an excellent book on this subject. Unfortunately, it never garnered the readership it deserved. Whether China can ever constitute a real threat to the U.S. is for the future to determine.

Many of the real threats used to justify ever-increasing defense budgets are mainly threats to other nations. The argument there is about our obligations as "world policeman," itself a disputable role for this or any nation. But note that even as defense appropriations grow seemingly without limit, the actual force available to be deployed has shrunk. It seems we reduce our ground forces, decommission a carrier battle group, and decimate our strategic weapons every time Congress votes to increase the defense budget. If the increases aren't buying us more military power, then what are they buying us?

But that's all about external threats. Those aren't the only ones.

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Back during the Administrations of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, we were introduced to the notion of a "War on Poverty." The rhetoric was deliberately chosen for its connotations of crisis. Poverty in America, according to the political mythmakers of those years, was a large problem that constituted a threat to all of us, though just how was never clearly articulated. The promoters succeeded in winning a degree of support sufficient to enact large, opulent "anti-poverty" programs and bureaucracies to match.

Fifty years have passed. Several trillion dollars have been spent on anti-poverty programs and related activities. Yet according to the official definition of "poverty," we have more of it in the U.S. than ever before. More, we've been told that we suffer from a malady called structural poverty, a kind that grows from the very nature of our economy, and which therefore cannot be eradicated, only palliated. The only response Washington and the state governments ever make to our demands for explanations is to demand more money for more and larger anti-poverty programs. This threat, it seems, can only be fended off by throwing bales of dollar bills at it.

Sociologist Charles Murray, in his book Losing Ground, pointed out that three simple measures appear completely sufficient to keep anyone out of poverty:

• Finish high school;
• Get married;
• Get and keep any sort of job at all.

Few are the Americans who simply cannot implement those measures. Yet -- once again, according to federal definitions of poverty -- today some 47 million Americans are designated "poor," and are therefore entitled to monetary assistance. Wherein lies the threat to the rest of us, the benighted ones who've chosen to marry, to work, to live within our means, and to defer those gratifications we can't immediately afford?

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While we're discussing domestic "wars," we must not neglect the War on Drugs. No sensible man would deny that drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and crack are genuinely dangerous to their users. No sensible man would assert that complete social passivity toward such temptations is rational and wise. But once again, the heart of the issue is the carefully nurtured perception that those drugs and their devotees constitute a threat to the rest of us.

Before the Harrison Narcotics Control Act of 1914, heroin and morphine were available "over the counter," at innumerable pharmacies. Indeed, as many physicians were insufficiently mindful of morphine's addictive property and tended to over-prescribe and over-administer it, heroin pills were originally marketed as a remedy for withdrawal from morphine addiction. Cocaine was available commercially in several forms, including the original formula for Coca-Cola^® However, the potencies of those legal drug formulas were far below those of the "street drugs" of today.

The malignancies inherent in the Harrison Act had to wait a while to come fully to flower. Alcohol Prohibition took first place for fifteen years. That prohibited product was simply far more popular than the freshly banned drugs, and so commanded a swifter response. Only after the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed did the American underworld take a significant interest in drugs. When it did, the explosion that followed was entirely predictable.

The "threat" posited before the Harrison Act was entirely imaginary. The users of the banned drugs were of no social consequence. Indeed, it has been argued that part of the willingness to see such drugs banned sprang from xenophobia, as the most visible users of opium were Chinese immigrants brought here to build the railroads. But after the Twenty-First Amendment deprived the underworld of that highly profitable black market, commerce in drugs did become a threat, mainly due to the violence between contending gangs. It was a clear case of the "solution" giving rise to the "problem."

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Threat-mongering has grown into an industry of its own. Consider the threats we're most stridently told to fear today:

• Disease threats;
• Climate threats;
• Pollution threats;
• Terrorism threats;
• Threats to the water table;
• Resource-exhaustion threats;
• Threats from privately owned firearms;
• Threats from possible asteroidal impacts;
• Threats from genetically modified foodstuffs.

Those are just the ones that occur to me at the moment. No doubt there are others I've overlooked. But my point is larger than any threat or compendium thereof could ever be:

The principal function of a threat, whether real or imagined, is to induce fear.

Fear causes people to look for a protector...and what have we here? Why, it's Big Government, resplendent in tights and cape, offering to protect us from everything! At a price, of course. A price in dollars and lost liberties. A price we must pay in advance -- and which will not be refunded even if the threat proves to be imaginary, and regardless of whether government can do the least little thing about it.

Food for thought.

Assorted

Look at it this way: when you see that title at the top of a post, at least you know I won't be droning on for a thousand words or more on a single subject!

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1. Crimea, Spheres Of Influence, and American Foreign Policy

Yes, Russia has invaded and annexed Crimea. Yes, Vladimir Putin has poised forces around the borders of Ukraine in a fashion that suggests that he intends to annex the entire country to Russia. Yes, Putin has openly deplored the disintegration of the USSR. Yes, he thinks he's the second coming of Czar Alexander II. Yes, yes, yes.

Does any of that matter to the United States? Sufficiently so that it should evoke a genuinely powerful American reaction? And no, I'm not doing a Hillary Clinton imitation.

Like it or not, the United States can do nothing about Putin's territorial ambitions. Even in the Sixties, at our military and economic zenith, when we had to be propagandized into fearing the Soviets' next-to-negligible nuclear arsenal, we could have done nothing.

Ukraine is not within our sphere of influence.

In the Game of States, where Great Powers face off against one another for geopolitical advantages, spheres of influence are largely determined by proximity and geography. This is the reality of international dealing, which is always founded on the credible threat of military action. Every request portends a negotiation; every negotiation shadows a threat; and every threat implies the possibility of armed conflict. Intelligent statesmen know this -- and even the most junior strategic planner will tell you that a nation's ability to shape events in another land is inversely proportional to the distance from the zone of interest, if not worse.

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan lies in our sphere of influence, either. We were right to strike the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and we were morally justified in toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein, but now that we have withdrawn the greater part of our expeditionary forces from those nations, the natural spheres of influence dictated by proximity and geography are being restored. Yes, it's unfortunate. That doesn't make it other than true.

So: to the many in the Right who are ranting about the Administration's weak response to Putin's initiative -- and by the way, I think it to be as ludicrous as you do -- I pose two questions:

1. Would you be willing to go to war with Russia over its actions in the Crimea?
2. What would the point of such a war be? In other words, how would you frame the expenditure of blood and treasure as being in America's national interest?

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2. The Revolt Against the Anti-Gunners

Developments in Connecticut and New York are forcing those states' anti-gun forces to take stock of the initiatives they recently rammed through their respective state legislatures. There isn't a single sheriff in New York who's agreed to enforce Andrew Cuomo's "SAFE Act." Similarly, Connecticut gun owners affected by Dannel Malloy's comparable law have essentially told him to "come and take them" -- a challenge the governor would be wise to decline.

This is heart-lifting stuff, in two states not normally known as bastions of liberty or homes to widespread libertarian sentiments. But though it's highly unlikely that the myrmidons of those states will accept the risks involved in going toe-to-toe with private citizens who are armed equally well (and are probably better shots), at least one of the possible outcomes remains unpleasant.

The anti-gun laws of those states could remain on the books unenforced.

An unenforced law is among the most insidious of all political things. First, it weakens respect for all law. Second, it muddies the predictability of events. Third and perhaps worst, it gives the politicians a rationale for moving against anyone unwise enough to act as if the law had been repealed.

It would be foolish to be satisfied with a status quo in which gun owners are left alone but the anti-gun laws remain on the books. That tableau is more likely to result in death and tragedy than any other plausible outcome.

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3. Executive Overreach

Congress is contemplating a bill to curb the usurpation by the president of powers not granted to the president by the Constitution. Emperor Barack the First has promised / threatened to veto any such bill. What's wrong with this picture? Why wouldn't he simply ignore it, as he's ignored so many other laws to this point?

Yet there are persons, including demonstrably intelligent persons, sincerely convinced that a Constitutional Convention of the States is the route to repairing and restoring the Republic. It is to laugh.

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4."Friendly Lawsuits and Potemkin Protests"

Ed Driscoll has an important article today about the use of "friendly lawsuits," filed by environmental activists, to "compel" the EPA to "make law" that would never be approved by Congress or command majority approbation. Please read the whole thing. It has staggering implications for the ascension of the Regulatory State over the Constitutional one we thought makes our laws out in front of God and everybody.

The process is more significant than the results it has reaped to this point. How did such an obscenity get started -- and by what rationale do the settlements of such lawsuits become part of standing law that binds us all?

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5. For My Christian Readers: Unbelief vs. Disbelief

When they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. Immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed and began running up to greet Him. And He asked them, “What are you discussing with them?” And one of the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.” And He answered them and said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!” They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” And Jesus said to him, “‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.” After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, “He is dead!” But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up. When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, “Why could we not drive it out?” And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.” [Mark 9:14-29]

I've recently begun to ponder the nature of unbelief as distinguished from the more easily comprehended concept of disbelief. To disbelieve is to reject a proposition, either as untrue or unconvincing. Unbelief is a different animal, the nature of which might not be made perfectly clear by the Gospel passage above.

I expect to write about this come Sunday. Until then, please let me have your thoughts, Gentle Readers, on what unbelief connotes to you -- if, indeed, it connotes anything at all. Particularly interesting suggestions will be incorporated into Sunday's Rumination.

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That's all for today, Gentle Readers. Enjoy your Humpday.

"Fundamental transformation" explained.

Commenter KO:

Fjordman addresses the great mystery of leftism: is the true motive of leftists to build the just society, or to destroy the society they know? The psychological child molestation undertaken by Swedish authorities and the license to rape given to immigrants--policies which not even the most deluded can believe will lead to the socialist utopia--strongly suggest that destruction is the true motive, not creation.

KO goes on to observe:

Westerners need to have the conversation about how far they are willing to let things slide. If a party or faction would exceed that boundary if it came to power, then society is imprudent to permit that party or faction to participate in political processes rather than suppressing it. If a minority is unwilling to live under socialism, it probably has no business tolerating the participation of socialists in the political system. In any case, those who are willing to import foreigners into the political community to outvote their compatriots, thus redefining the community in their own interest instead of preserving it for the common interest, would seem to have lost their right to participate in the political community.^[1]

This directly attacks the sacred left-loony principle of "inclusion" and calls to mind the political devices of "treason" and the "outlaw." Our wiser ancestors knew a skunk in the parlor when they saw one and didn't waste time worrying about hurt feelings. Jurists of our day seem able to conjure the most amazing rights and privileges out of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Maybe they could get creative and come up with a workable definition of treason that incorporates more of the concept of subversion. And which allows us to revist the idea of "beyond the pale."

Won't happen, however. Not in a nation that celebrates Andres Serrano and Karen Finley and makes Bernardine Dohrn a professor at Northwestern University School of Law. And elects to the U.S. Senate the man who abandoned Mary Jo Kopechne to her death.

The moron majority cannot see any meaningful difference between a U.S. citizens and a cannibal. (Hannibal Lector was just downright lovable the way Hollywood played that one.) Why would the same people concern itself with the difference between loyal citizens and treacherous ones? Today, we don't banish scum to Sherwood Forest; we vote them into the Congress, give them to endowed chairs at our universities, and pay to see their corrosive movies – where Nazis are the perpetual scum par excellence, the ne plus ultra of all evildoers. Such is the tightly circumscribed universe of evil in the leftist imagination.

Don't miss the full article by Fjordman on the extent of the psychosis in Sweden. After your read it, you'll say to yourself that NO nation could be that stupid.

Trust me on that one.

Notes
^[1] Comment "How exasperating!" by KO on "Sweden: The Triumph of Cultural Marxism." By Fjordman, The Brussels Journal, 10/9/08.

The EU’s Stunning Hypocrisy on Crimea

The European Union’s characterization of the Crimean vote to join Russia as “undemocratic” is laced with stunning hypocrisy given that the EU ignored its own citizens when they rejected the European Constitution on numerous occasions.

Following yesterday’s referendum in which people in the black sea peninsula voted 97% in favor of becoming part of the Russian federation, the EU responded by slapping sanctions on 21 Russian and Ukrainian officials, declaring the referendum to be “illegal”.

That’s standard operating procedure for the European Union, which habitually denigrates the will of its own people by ignoring popular votes and referendums if it doesn’t like the result.

"The EU’s Stunning Hypocrisy on Crimea." By Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com, 3/17/14.

H/t: Gates of Vienna.

Reviving The Constitution Part 2: Marque and Reprisal

Congress shall have the power...To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water... [Article I, Section 8]

Letter of Marque and Reprisal: A commission granted by the government to a private individual, to take the property of a foreign state, or of the citizens or subjects of such state, as a reparation for an injury committed by such state, its citizens or subjects. A vessel loaded with merchandise, on a voyage to a friendly port, but armed for its own defense in case of attack by an enemy, is also called a “letter of marque.” [From the American Wiki Encyclopedia of Law]

In the early years of the Republic, one of the greatest threats its citizens faced was that of the superior sea power of older nations, especially that of England. The terms "contraband" and "impressment" were of much significance in those days. The former was applied, by English naval captains, to any goods the captain wanted to seize from a ship flying some other flag. The latter word referred to the English practice of conscripting persons arbitrarily into its naval service, including citizens of other countries. Both these practices were in full flight in the years after the American Revolution.

American outrage at such seagoing invasions of Americans' rights and property caused Congress to grant a number of letters of marque and reprisal. Though the rationale for a letter of marque and reprisal was restitution for injuries done specifically to the bearer of the letter, a private vessel whose captain had been issued such a letter was a de facto element of the United States Navy, with all the powers and privileges a naval vessel would command. The letter pre-indemnified that vessel, its captain, and its crew against any legal complaint for seizures or sinkings on the high seas it might thereafter perform. (In American courts only, of course; the vessels and nations against which a privateer was expected to operate took a different view of matters.)

With the steady growth of the United States Navy, and owing in part to incidents of flagrant abuse, letters of marque and reprisal slowly fell into disuse. One of Congress's other powers, "To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations," gradually subsumed the duties that had previously been the domain of privateers. Yet the power to issue such letters remains in the Constitution. Its presence there helps to illuminate an early portion of our history and rise as a seagoing power. But more than that, it adds to our understanding of the legal and moral philosophy upon which the Constitution, and indeed all of American law, reposes.

---

When the State is deemed supreme over all things, he who has suffered an injury must apply to the State for redress, usually through a court proceeding. (The old language for such a proceeding was "to petition for a writ of replevin.") To act on one's own was deemed lese majeste, and was therefore forbidden. Prior to the Revolution, that was the norm throughout the more advanced nations.

American legal philosophy, while it inherited much from its English ancestry, denied the supremacy of the State and the coordinated notion that only the State may act in redress of injustice. State supremacy on the "high seas" -- i.e., navigable waters outside the formal jurisdiction of any nation -- left private vessels utterly exposed to the predations of national navies. Thus, for the American conception to apply, private vessels had to have an avenue by which to enforce their rights by themselves.

The letter of marque and reprisal could also function as a way to commandeer private ships into the temporary service of the U.S. Navy. There was often an element of bargaining involved (such a letter could be given scope beyond the Navy's immediate needs) and sometimes of implied coercion (for example, the enemy could be told that a captain held such a letter even if he declined to accept one). In any event, the practice was employed in at least one well-known case: the Battle of New Orleans, in which pirate Jean Lafitte lent his men and vessels to the defense of the city against the British.

Though the United States has issued no letters of marque and reprisal since the Civil War, the power remains in Congress's domain.

---

High Seas law is largely a matter of expediency. Congress does possess the power "To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations," but such a self-granted power inherently contends with the self-granted power of every other seagoing nation. What one nation regards as a "felony committed on the high seas," another might regard as its own prerogative within its "territorial waters."

In the main, such disputes are rare because of the supremacy of the U.S. Navy, incontestably the most powerful blue-water naval force in existence. No one wants to tangle with an American naval expedition. More to the point, America's use of its naval power has exhibited both restraint and respect for justice; other nations are largely satisfied to have us police the oceans.

But all such powers are limited, especially in geographical scope. The troubles that modern pirates have inflicted upon commercial shipping, especially in the waters east of Africa, have the theorists discussing the pros and cons of letters of marque and reprisal once again, despite the dust time has deposited on the practice. Beyond that, the steady advance of Mankind into the greatest of all oceans -- space -- could soon see letters of marque and reprisal become important in that venue.

Beneath all such discussions lies the notion of objective justice, and the right to act upon it for oneself, without the approval or assistance of some "public peace officer." Granted that when justice is "taken private," abuses can occur...but abuses are equally rife (and always have been) in the administration of public justice. In any case, that abuse is possible doesn't vitiate the conception of justice as the implementation of individuals' rights, which the letter of marque and reprisal confirms.

Bonfire of the absurdities.

Rage Boy, Sen. John McCain, has called Russia “a gas station masquerading as a country” and called for military aid to Ukraine^[1]:

If only he [Sen. John McCain] were so militant in defense of America’s borders as he is of Ukraine’s.^[2]

Not to be outdone in the hysteria dept. is Sen. Cruz:

Sen. Ted Cruz offered the subtle geopolitical insight that the situation in the Crimea is a battle of “good vs. evil.” Even Tea Party Republicans seemingly feel it is safer to engage in saber rattling against a nuclear power than give a plain statement of opposition to Amnesty.^[3]

And then there's "President" Obama who in a matter of a week or two decided that "the actions and policies of persons -- including persons who have asserted governmental authority in the Crimean region without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine" (hint: "persons" = "Russians") "constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

This speedy decision making contrasts favorably with Obama’s inability to determine over the last five years whether the XL Pipeline poses a threat to Dakota Prairie Chickens. Some important things just can't be rushed.

Notes
^[1] "Demography Is Destiny—In Crimea And In The U.S." By James Kirkpatrick, VDARE.com, 3/17/14.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.

Christianity And Power: A Sunday Rumination

I've written on several occasions about the evil of the politicized pulpit -- more specifically, the modern tendency clergymen have displayed toward promoting their own political views while sermonizing to a congregation. I think I've made my condemnation of that practice clear enough that I needn't expound upon it further. Moreover, I would exhort any self-nominated Christian who thinks a pastor may properly promote a political position, whether from the pulpit or at any other time, to re-examine the matter closely and very humbly. The usual reason for holding so is the desire to see some specific position promulgated thus, as implicit in Christ's teachings. But Christ made only one statement that touches in any way on affairs of State:

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." [Matthew 22:21]

Note the absence of specifics: the Christian is left to determine for himself what "things that are Caesar's" he might have in his possession.

I've looked high and low -- even cleaned out the attic -- and to this day I've never found a "thing that is Caesar's" anywhere in my holdings. What "things that are Caesar's" do you possess, Gentle Reader?

---

This is the history of governments — one man does something which is to bind another. A man who cannot be acquainted with me, taxes me; looking from afar at me ordains that a part of my labor shall go to this or that whimsical end — not as I, but as he happens to fancy. Behold the consequence. Of all debts men are least willing to pay the taxes. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The methods of governments are two and only two: coercion and predation. Men with guns enforce the State's compulsions, prohibitions, and expropriations upon subjects who lack effective means of resistance. These are not methods of enhancing understanding, but of compelling action contrary to it. They're not methods of supporting or strengthening the individual will, but of negating and suppressing it. Thus, government is the exact antithesis of conscience.

One of the reasons I wrote the Spooner Federation books was to create an environment in which, were Christian faith to germinate there, take root, and become widespread, it would be free of the worst of all the temptations that have ever bedeviled the Church: the temptation to marry Throne and Altar. For many centuries the Church in Europe succumbed to that temptation, not merely by allying itself with various governments but also by exercising temporal power directly: through priests and bishops who assumed the power to tax and levy temporal punishments, and by equipping the Holy See with an army of its own. Those were among the very worst years for Christianity. Under the threat of temporal authority as wielded by the clergy, no man could be perfectly sure that his Christian allegiance and obedience flowed purely from the dictates of his conscience. The era constitutes a black mark on the Church's record, a permanent (let us hope) reminder of the terrible error of putting Church and State in the same chariot.

If the conscience is what truly matters -- if, as I deem it to be, it's the "still, small voice" of God speaking to us, reminding us that we know what we must, may, and must not do -- then for the Church to possess even the smallest shred of political power, either directly or through its influence on those who rule, is an abomination, the worst imaginable affront to the sanctity of the human soul and to Him who created it. To make a man act against the dictates of his conscience is always wrong; to claim that temporal punishment has somehow freed an errant soul from the burden of his sins can never be right.

The implication for our evaluation of the political priest -- he who cannot or will not refrain from inserting his political positions and preferences into his sermons -- is inescapable.

---

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Actually, it's worse. The sincere Christian -- he who accepts Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God and Redeemer of Mankind, and who accepts the Gospels as an essentially accurate record of the life and teachings of Christ -- cannot and must not subordinate his conscience to the State's decrees. To the extent that he accepts government at all, it must be as "a necessary evil:" an ugly device, unpleasant of aspect and dangerous to abide, yet one by which certain functions required by national defense and natural justice might be performed. He cannot permit the State to assert prerogatives of its own, as if it were an individual man, with a life and property of his own and the right to defend them. Yet that is what every government on Earth is doing today.

But what rationale for unbinding the State from all constraint predominates among the men in black robes? That of "compelling state interest:" that the government has "interests," as if it were an individual with a proper sphere of its own, in pursuit of which it can set aside the rights of private persons. Such "interests" have been extended all the way to the ultimate absurdity: forbidding subjects to emigrate, as if they were its property.

We have an unfortunate example before us at this time: the contretemps in the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine. Yes, Russian forces have taken de facto control over Crimea, effectively severing it from Ukraine. This is a stroke I cannot and will not defend; more, it casts an impenetrable cloud over the future of Crimea, Ukraine, and the other European states adjacent to Russia. But let's imagine that the invasion had not occurred, and that the people of Crimea were to hold a referendum about seceding politically from Ukraine. On what grounds could a sincere Christian defend the position, taken by the government of Ukraine and several others, that such a referendum is inherently illegal?

• Does any government possess a right to rule over those it claims as its subjects?
• If so, whence comes that right?
• How extensive is it? That is, can a government arbitrarily legislate on any subject, and to any extent, and to any end, or is it bounded -- morally at least -- by laws that no legislature can repeal or modify?

---

I asked one of the members of Parliament whether a majority the House could legitimize murder. He said no. I asked him whether it could sanctify robbery. He thought not. But I could not make him see that if murder and robbery are intrinsically wrong, and not to be made right by the decisions of statesmen, then similarly all actions must be either right or wrong, apart from the authority of the law; and that if the right and wrong the law are not in harmony with this intrinsic right and wrong, the law itself is criminal. -- Herbert Spencer

There is no middle ground. Either the State is bounded de jure by the very same laws that bind individuals, or it's inherently temporally omnipotent, and can only be obeyed, fled, or fought to the death. In the former case, a Christian can tolerate it, albeit warily and with abiding suspicion of those who seek to wield its powers. In the latter, the Christian's duty is above all to refuse to submit, and if possible and prudent to oppose it by whatever means avail him.

It is indisputable that all the States that have ever existed eventually became corrupt, overbearing, and therefore intolerable. If ours is not to be the very first counterexample in the history of the world, it becomes a Christian's part to stand firmly by his own conscience and to make ready for the day Thomas Jefferson foresaw:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

No, Jefferson was not a Christian...at least, not an open one. But he had a clearer moral vision than many millions who've worn the appellation.

---

I should note here that mine is not an uncontested position among Christians. Indeed, in his book Triumph, Harry L. Crocker, Vice President and Executive Editor of Regnery Publishing, takes the exact opposite position. Consider these passages from the paperback edition, concerning Europe, and particularly France, in the early Nineteenth Century:

It is ironic that Napoleon -- viewed in his own time as a radical -- was in fact a monarchist who believed in one God, on Church, one pope, one emperor, and a subsidiarity of subordinate kings and princes....[H]e was too clear-eyed about "the people" to think in terms of republics or democracies..." [Pp. 350-351]

Intellectually, Catholicism fulfilled its role of affirming established authority. [Pg. 356]

The new Pope [Gregory XVI] had many good ideas -- banning trains, forbidding democracy, and opposing political activity in the Papal States... [Pg. 358]

[Lord Acton] was under the misapprehension that political liberty was a moral absolute handed down by God. [Pg. 369]

[Pope Pius X] was unyielding to theological or political liberals....The Church's role was "to restore all things in Christ," which was the motto he wanted as the keystone of his pontificate. Separation of Church and State on the liberal model was the denial of Christ's and the Church's primacy and was "a grave insult to God, the Creator of man and the Founder of human society." These words might shock modern ears, but they did not shock Catholics, whose imaginations held fast to royal crowns consecrated to the Church and to the memory of Christendom. [Pg. 383]

I'm not unsympathetic to the desire for a king, but mine is a quite different vision: a king as a guarantor of justice and peace, who has no power other than what others voluntarily and unanimously concede him. Such a king floats on an ocean of individual liberty; peaceable private persons have no need to fear his whims.

As in all such oppositions of concepts, you pays your money and you takes your choice. But in my estimation, Crocker is one of a certain kind: those who sincerely believe that temporal power can be made to serve the Right and the True and the Good if only "the right people are in charge"...by which he would mean the Church. Despite his undeniable Catholicism and devotion to the Church, he has missed the point -- a point missed by the devotees of despotism everywhere and everywhen. That point was most eloquently expressed by a non-Catholic of some notoriety who made his mark half a world away:

The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from the violence to which it owes its very existence. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

May God bless and keep you all.

Quickies: When You Don't Know Where You're Going...

...you need a very detailed map:

In an autobiographical essay published 20 years ago, the left-leaning economist Kenneth Arrow recalled entering the Army as a statistician and weather specialist during World War II. “Some of my colleagues had the responsibility of preparing long-range weather forecasts, i.e., for the following month,” Arrow wrote. “The statisticians among us subjected these forecasts to verification and found they differed in no way from chance.”

Alarmed, Arrow and his colleagues tried to bring this important discovery to the attention of the commanding officer. At last the word came down from a high-ranking aide.

“The Commanding General is well aware that the forecasts are no good,” the aide said haughtily. “However, he needs them for planning purposes.”

I have nothing to add.

Government Lexicon

By Michael S. Rozeff

Words no longer mean anything stable and therefore laws mean nothing stable at the highest level of U.S. government. The government is the master of words now. It creates threats when none exist. It defines and names them according to its pleasure. This in turn justifies it in creating a national emergency when there is none.
There is no restraint, no constraint, no boundary on what a president can do when and if words fail to provide such constraints. When a president uses words to mean things they do not in fact mean, that is, when he uses bald-faced lies as justifications for his actions, then any so-called law can be issued by a president. He can do anything by declaring that the situation demands it, even if it doesn’t. At that point, words mean nothing of what their conventional content gives them. They become what authority says they mean. At that point, we are in an Alice in Wonderland world.

Alice is talking with Humpty Dumpty:

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
“‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
“‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’”

Who is master, the word or its user, in this case Humpty Dumpty? Humpty tells Alice he’s the master.

Obama is now the master. Here is Humpty Dumpty Obama speaking. Obama issued an executive order that says:

“I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, find that the actions and policies of persons — including persons who have asserted governmental authority in the Crimean region without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine — that undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat. I hereby order:”

What national emergency? There isn’t any. I defy anyone to prove that there is an actual national emergency because of relations between Crimea and Ukraine. Obama finds “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States…” What threat? I defy anyone to prove that there is a threat to the security of Americans arising from Crimea’s relations with Ukraine.

What danger is there to Americans if Crimea holds a referendum? What danger if it decides to alter its political relations with Ukraine and Russia? What actually is the “Government of Ukraine” of which Obama speaks? What are its democratic processes being undermined? How can a vote in Crimea cause an emergency to Americans? How can such a vote cause an emergency to Americans while riots in the streets, snipers and thugs can cause a change in government in Ukraine and that is no cause for Obama to declare an emergency, indeed that becomes a cause for approval?

In Obama’s dictionary, if he thinks something has happened in Crimea having to do with its government that another government (in Ukraine) has not authorized, then this constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States…” This constitutes an “emergency”.

If the foreign policy of the United States is unlawful to begin with and if it is thwarted by Crimeans or a Crimean vote to separate from Ukraine, does that give rise to a threat to the foreign policy of the U.S.? Even if it does, which it doesn’t in this case, is it so serious as to declare that the U.S. foreign policy faces an emergency?

A national emergency arises from a threat to THE NATION, that is, to Americans regarded as a people. If there is a threat to the foreign policy of the U.S., and I deny that a vote among Crimeans is a genuine threat even to that, this is not the same as a threat to Americans. There is no national emergency.

How can a vote in Crimea be viewed as a threat to U.S. foreign policy and the overturning of the government of Ukraine by violent means not be viewed as a threat? Only if the U.S. is content with the latter but unhappy with the former. In other words, to the U.S. government, a threat is that which frustrates what it desires. It is not based on something objective that endangers Americans but on an impediment to U.S. foreign policy. This impediment is declared to be a threat so that then a national emergency can be declared when none exists. That in turn then is used to justify taking actions in the form of sanctions.

Is the frustration of a want to be called a threat? If I want a Mercedes-Benz in a showroom but can’t get it without paying for it, is the dealer a threat to my “foreign policy”? Do I then declare that the dealer has threatened my family? Do I declare a family emergency? Do I then use my power to blockade the showroom or to prevent the dealer from accessing his bank account or to stop trailers from delivering new cars to him? Yes, this all sounds very far-fetched but so is it far-fetched for Obama to see a threat to this nation from a vote in Crimea and declare a national emergency.

Obama’s executive order is a raw exercise of power dressed up to give the appearance of legality.

An Ides Of March Victimism Review

"I love Mankind. It's people I can't stand." -- Origin unknown

Good morning, Gentle Reader. I'm in perhaps the foulest mood I've ever occupied -- persistent pain in all your major joints will do that to you, trust me on that -- so for today, let's have a brief survey of those charming types, seemingly multiplying beyond all limits, who feel the rest of us owe them and deem no tactic beneath them in seeking what they want.

---

First up are those lovable guys we simply can't get enough of, the Muslims:

DEARBORN — This week’s city council meeting started out on a positive note as the city honored former Seattle Seahawks assistant coach and Dearborn native Robert Saleh for his recent Super Bowl victory. However, the atmosphere at City Hall took a bizarre turn after a local Arab American confronted the council on what he said were “troubling issues in the city.”…

The highlight of the evening came at the very end during the public comment section, when a local Arab American took the podium to address concerns he had with the city. The man, who identified himself as Hassan, stated that he lived in Westland but had concerns he wanted to address as an individual who works in the city. He refused to publicly give his address fearing for the safety of his family.

After referencing Prophet Muhammad and loudly chanting Islamic prayers, Hassan said that the city needed to monitor neighborhood parks around the clock because people have been using them to conduct sexual activities. Council President Susan Dabaja, however, told him that the city doesn’t have the resources or money for increased security at parks and asked him to move on to his next point.

Hassan also stated that there were magazines and newspapers at the public libraries and civic center that can “cause colossal damage to a child’s health,” asking the city to review and monitor literature before they are distributed.

According to another report, "Hassan" cited shari'a law as the proper basis for his demands. However, that citation has not been confirmed by an independent source.

This is Muslim arrogance in its clearest, least obscure form: All shall conform to the dictates of Islam. The Prophet said it; how dare you barbaric Westerners defy him?

There are several million of these dictatorial savages in this country. More arrive daily. With every increment to their numbers, their demands become louder and more self-assured. Let that thought sink in for a moment or two.

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Second on our Hate Parade are those champions of brotherly love and tolerance, America's militant homosexuals:

I have little use for Ezra Klein but I applaud him here for two things:

1. Hiring a guy who he knew would write things that his intended audience would react intolerantly towards.

2. Then defending his hiring of the guy, and imploring "liberals" to practice what they preach as regards tolerance for dissent.

The writer, Brandon Ambrosino, angered many on the intolerant left for writing that despite expecting to be shunned at his alma mater, Liberty University (a Christian institution founded by Jerry Falwell), his preconceptions were in fact wrong, and most at Liberty University didn't seem to care all that much that he was gay.

But then he truly crossed the line when he dared to venture the idea that not all on the left are perfect moral paragons with impeccable levels of psychological and emotional centeredness, but sometimes -- get this -- demonstrate their own form of ugly hostility to those perceived as The Other:

The world and the people in it are really wonderful with just a smidge of ugliness about them. I think the really vocal anti-gay Christians display this smidge, but I also think the really vocal anti-Christian gays display it as well.

In resisting the activist homosexuals' demands that young Mr. Ambrosino be tarred, feathered, and run out of the Web on a rail, Klein demonstrated the operation of a law of combat that operates at all times and in all venues, including politics:

Success Breeds Failure.

Denunciations and condemnations for "homophobia," "racism," and other imagined offenses have worn out their target audiences. However, those slinging them have become habituated to them because of their previous efficacy. The tribes that wield those epithets -- used quite as often to keep their own "members" on the plantation as for any other reason -- haven't yet grasped that their blades have been blunted by overuse.

But anyone stupid enough to think his preference for one orifice over another entitles him to anything from anybody is unlikely to grasp that.

---

You know, as much as I enjoy women -- their appearances; their locutions; their shopping addiction's contribution to tectonic instability -- I must concede that there are quite a number of vicious women in the world:

A Premier League footballer cleared of gang rape allegations has lashed out at women he sees as targeting wealthy footballers as cash cows.

French international Loic Remy, who plays for Newcastle United, says wannabe WAGs go after players like him for their cash - however they can get it.

'These girls are vicious and greedy,' he told The Sun's Rachel Dale, in his first public comments on his ordeal since he was first arrested nine months ago.

Twenty-seven-year-old Remy was one of three men last year accused of the champagne-fuelled gang rape of a 34-year-old woman at his rented flat in Fulham, West London.

He denied the allegation, and last month the Metropolitan Police finally said there would be no further action taken against him.

He admitted he should have been smarter, but said: 'When you're a footballer, single and want to have fun, you can have any girl you want.

'Before it was not like that. I see things that make me afraid. I see these girls - what they can do.'

Doing your bit to get a little back for the Sisterhood from that nasty old White Male Capitalist Patriarchy, eh, Brittie birds? Never mind that Remy is black and was born into poverty. Never mind that all the forensic evidence was in his favor. He has it; they wanted it. As with Crystal Gail Mangum, the idea of a false rape allegation just popped out of the slot.

(Never mind which slot. Get your mind out of the gutter.)

---

I mustn't close this tirade without noting our race and ethnicity activists' most recent contribution to world peace:

As the #BBUM movement gained traction at the University and attention across the nation, one student began working behind the scenes to tackle diversity from inside the classroom.

Public Policy junior Carly Manes, an LSA representative on the CSG Assembly and current CSG presidential candidate for FORUM, has met with University administrators since October to reform LSA’s Race and Ethnicity requirement, gathering a coalition of student activists along the way to promote the cause.

The group met Tuesday night to draft an initial proposal for a new “identity requirement” — its official name is still in the works — which the group’s members will present to the LSA Curriculum Committee on March 18.

The proposal is two-pronged: aiming to both expand the breadth of classes that satisfy the current R&E requirement as well as implement the component into the curriculum of all University colleges.

“It would highlight and it would focus on intersectionality as the core component of the educational model,” Manes said. “So, insuring that intersectionality is highlighted in every class that counts for this new requirement.”

According to Manes, intersectionality is meant to envelop a number of identity-based themes including sexuality, gender expression, religion, documentation status and race.

(Applause to our favorite Graybeard for the link.)

When it suits race, sex, and ethnicity activists, "we are all the same." Race is a fiction; sex is a social construct, and everyone is an immigrant from somewhere else. But when there's an opportunity to seize the brass ring of political power -- and don't kid yourself; political power exists in many institutions nominally outside of formal government and politics -- those things come roaring back, objective and irrefutable totems before which all must kowtow.

Michigan taxpayers had better know about this. Particularly the ones who've sent their progeny to the University of Michigan in the belief that its former reputation as one of America's top "institutions of higher learning" continues to apply today.

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A few closing thoughts about the victimism / entitlement syndrome illustrated above:

• It's everywhere. You can no longer get away from it.
• It generally goes unchallenged, which is why it's important to take up cudgels against it.
• Challenge a mouthy victimist only in the midst of rational types, never when he's surrounded exclusively by his fellows. This is especially important if you left your gun at home.
• In all such encounters, define victory as embarrassing the living daylights out of the victimist. Don't imagine that you can persuade him away from his conceit; it's been embossed on his soul.
• Refuse to allow the subject to be diverted from what the victimist claims is owed to him and those like him, and why. You're not demanding anything; he is.
• Remember that the alternative is surrendering the field to the victimists. It comes with consequences. I doubt you'd like them.

Have a nice day.