Working on a Project That's Been Back-Burner'd For a While

I've been thinking about turning some of my old posts into a book-length collection. I started with The Declination (I've been blogging for the shortest time on that site), then combed through some of the older posts on Liberty's Torch, and am now moving backwards at Right As Usual.

It didn't take that long - only about two days - to put together about 40% of my goal's output in one place. I'm grouping them by topic, not date, and adding in some commentary/introduction to provide some perspective. It's been educational.

I've been seeing some themes. The current Leftist drive to bring on revolution has been brewing for some time. The difficulty with getting government to act in small things, rather than bringing in yet another cumbersome and liberty-destroying bureaucracy, is also not a new thing.

As I'm coming in from a distant past (to the young, anything older than last year is ANCIENT), I comment from the perspective of one who has seen this playbook before (as have most of Liberty Torch's readers). Defeating the Left should be a cinch; they don't invent new tactics, just recycle the old ones (with some modification for tech changes).

Update - Friday, 6/20/22 - I've identified and pulled together the posts I want to include, most fairly recent. What remains is checking all links to make sure they are still active (and noting those that can't even be found in the Internet Archive), adding context to some of the posts, and adding additional commentary.

That whole remaining process will likely take a LOT longer than the first part. I HOPE to be done by the end of July, 2020.

This is NOT News to Non-Leftist Dissidents

How do you like my new term? "Non-Leftist Dissident" is how I, in the future, will describe myself and others who oppose the Left.

It's an end-run around the designation "Right" (as opposed to Left) that is often conflated with the term Nazi or Fascist.

I found this article on the New Yorker page. It looks at the bias in the field of social psychology, based on the research of Haidt. It validates my experiences with Leftist-dominated organizations, in general.

Here is a more scholarly paper on the same subject.

Here is "Witches and Viruses" - another paper dealing with a similar subject.

Speaking of Non-Leftist Dissidents, we have a Catholic arch-bishop who is not afraid to go on record opposing the actions of the "Deep Church". Do read what he has to say to Trump.

For more about the Deep Church, read this.

One big threat to the Non-Leftist Dissidents is the War on the Normals. It's the coordinated work of Leftists to demonize, de-monetize, strip of influence, and, generally, exile the NLDs from public life. Their only role with to be taxed to death.

This story will not be news to the many Cubans who experienced the Castro tyranny. But, it may be new to modern-day Normals, who've been fed a load of pro-Marxist propaganda from their teachers. Perhaps it's time for a Spanish-led "Friends of Abe" chapter, to lead the charge to bring the story to the screen.

Here's a voice that has been around for a whle - Mallory Millett, whose older sister, Kate Millett, was one of the leaders of the Feminist Movement of the 60s and 70s. She writes about her experiences at Ground Zero in the developing Feminist Nest of NYC.

The money quote:

We’re all so busy congratulating each other because Ronald Reagan “won the Cold War without firing a shot” entirely missing the bare truth which is that Mao, with his Little Red Book and the Soviets, won the Cold War without firing a shot by taking over our women, our young and the minds of everyone tutored by Noam Chomsky and the textbooks of Howard Zinn. 

This Decision Informs Us...

That the Leftist members of the Court (or, their likewise clerks) have been informed that DHS is under the control of the Deep State, and will use every means to stop, slow down, and sabotage any attempt to curb DACA.

Don't get angry about the decision (yes, it's a BAD one, but it makes it clear that they are worried Trump will win in November, and want to put shackles on his power to change things). Mine it for information about where to strike next in our fight against the Deep State.

Guys, this isn't about getting pissy, or angry about setbacks. It's about staying cool-minded, and using their actions to fight back.

It's an object lesson about how to do so.

Does you local zoning board implement pro-Left decisions? Recruit people to run against them, and start collecting money and people to assist with the election.

Does the IRS act in predictably Left-supporting ways? Support politicians with records of simplifying the tax laws.

Many of us, for example (both the general voting population and us, personally) aren't always up to speed on the elections that shape out lives - judiciary, when that's an elected office, county boards, state regulatory boards. All are places where the Left has burrowed in for decades.

A prime example is Tim Hagan of Cuyahoga County - he was a long time County Commissioner (Also married to Kate Mulgrew, actress, and a close associate of the Kennedy family). I sometimes heard people joke about his long-time presence on the board, and conclude that he just didn't have ambition, that he would 'settle' for such a lowly position.

As If!

At that time, there were 3 county commissioners - they controlled ALL the activity of the county - including construction contracts, the zoning boards, insurance contracts (a HUGE amount), sheriff's department, county health services, jobs and family services, clerk of courts, medical examiner, budgets and who got contracts, just to name a few. The power of a county commissioner, depending on the structure of county government, can be greater than that of many mayors, state legislators, and, sometimes, even the governors.

Find out:

• Who your county commissioners are
• What, exactly, are their responsibility areas
• What's their budget, and what purchases do they control
• When the next election is for those slots

You may be astonished at the extent to which the Deep State is embedded in your relatively local area. You may, finally, realize why your efforts at getting the Left out is not working.

Now, in Cuyahoga, they've moved from 3 commissioners - it's still an elected position, and one that is often overlooked by many voters - don't do that! It's a HUGE amount of control over your life. I had to read the county charter to find out that it's still an elected position - details here.

In my present county, the County Manager is appointed by the County Council. The Council controls a large budget - $66 million for next year.

Here's a bio of the County Commissioner for my region - note that the member still has to work a job, in addition to his work for the Council. Most people who go into county government will not get rich doing so. But, they will build a network from those departments and sub-boards that they do control, as well as valuable contacts with the local movers and shakers. And, it's a partisan, elected position, so they will have a lot of say in who else gets elected.

Now, do you realize why you have to find out who's in charge, and what they control? And, that's it more important (most years, not this year) who gets elected at the national level?

Trump knows this - as a real estate guy, he knows who REALLY controls government - and, it's NOT Cuomo, or even de Blasio.

It's the relatively unknown guy to gets to appoint/control budgets/direct expenditures at the county level.

The End Of A Very Brief Era

     Well, I did it. I terminated my “affair.” No, not a sexual affair; you should know me better than that by now, Gentle Reader. This was a far more serious involvement, centered on fibreglass, a retractable roof, and big horsepower. The fulfillment of a yearning I’d felt since I first got my driver’s license.

     Joy the 2009 Corvette Convertible has been sold to another owner.

     I couldn’t justify keeping her, for three reasons:

• Beth (a.k.a. the C.S.O.) refused to drive her, so we couldn’t go on long trips in her.
• I have another beautiful car – Milla the Mercedes S550 – that’s more versatile;
• We’re beginning to “pare down” for a planned relocation to North Idaho.

     Yes, it’s a sad moment. I’d wanted a Corvette for many years, and my purchase thereof in 2017 brought me much satisfaction. But as Chad and Jeremy have said, all good things must end someday, and this is merely one instance among many.

     So commiserate with me briefly, Gentle Readers. My dream machine has gone into other hands, hopefully to be driven more, and with more pleasure, than I was able to drive her. But every old man must eventually acknowledge that he is old, that his time has come to “put away childish things,” and that there are too many pleasures still available to him to obsess over one he can no longer enjoy.

     But for this evening, the flags are at half-staff and the Fortress is swathed in somber black bunting. I shall remember her fondly.

Amazingly, I Wrote This Years Ago!

Long before BLM got on the bandwagon.

Franchise Fantasies

     In the course of a long life you’ll hear quite a lot of BS. Much of it is “relay BS,” of the “I heard that” or “People say” variety. Great are the tidal waves thereof, especially about persons or events in the news. However, an equally great amount is self-serving BS: the sort intended to get the listener to do something that would benefit the BSer. Political BS is obviously of that sort.

     Much political BS concerns the franchise, i.e., voting.

     A few years ago there was a series of “public service” pitches on the airwaves about “feeling the power” as you pull the lever in the voting booth. Now, as an engineer of much experience (to say nothing of my two extremely muscular cars), I have a considerable acquaintance with power. Power, when exerted, achieves something. It might not be what you wanted from it, but there will be a change.

     There’s precious little power in the vote. Great quantities of votes are cast in most elections, even local elections for minor offices. Yet only one candidate prevails; the others are cast into the darkness, where there is the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Whatever “power” there is in voting is thus diluted by the quantity of voters trying to exert it. Indeed, you’re more likely to wake up in Burkina Faso than you are to determine the outcome of an American election with your individual vote.

     And that’s a minor consideration compared to this one: When voters succeed in replacing Public Official A with Candidate B, what changes?

     In the usual case, even the complete displacement of a ruling regime by its opposition effects no changes of significance. There have been exceptions, of course; the election of Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrats’ takeover of both houses of Congress certainly inflicted a lot of changes on us. But exceptions, as it should not be necessary to state, are exceptional.

     In some ways, that continuity and stability is a good thing. Dramatic change in the legal / political environment usually forces dramatic changes upon private citizens. While such change is sometimes for the better in the long term, in the near term it always demands adjustment – effort. It disrupts the patterns of life, often including plans of long standing. That’s why Thomas Aquinas wrote passionately that instability in the law is itself a source of evil.

     But to return to the “power” aspect of it: there’s precious little to be had, especially when it comes to elections for federal offices. Millions of votes are cast in an election for President / Vice-president and United States Senator. Many thousands are cast in an election for a Congressman. Gubernatorial elections are almost as voluminous. So an individual’s vote must be regarded as of little consequence.

     It’s worse, of course, if your guy loses. Where’s the “power” then? Even notionally, what have you achieved other than casting a ballot?

     A great part of the reason for the Constitutional constraints on government, including the “checks and balances” aspects, is to mitigate the effects of an election. Yes, you might want most ardently to “turn the rascals out,” but the Constitution requires that Congress, the President, and the federal courts concur on any changes you hope will follow. Change can be rapid in “parliamentary” countries, where the party that dominates the legislature gets to choose the executive administration, but not here.

     So don’t be misled by the “Pull the lever and feel the power, America” pseudo public service pitches. There’s far more power in your ability to make decisions for yourself, to plot the course of your own affairs. It’s that power that citizens can, should, and must guard most jealously – particularly against the representations of demagogues about all the problems they’ll solve for you. In the usual case they’re lying, either about what they can actually achieve, or about their real intentions should you elevate them to office. When they’re not lying, the probability that they can deliver is less than the likelihood that you’ll find the consequences as pleasant as you hoped.

     Verbum sat sapienti.

After the Riots

“A very civilized thing, glass—almost an index of civilization. When civilization retreats, it leaves behind broken glass.”  

― John Derbyshire

By that standard, we're doomed. Our streets in major cities are littered with broken glass. They have been, for some time.

I live in a generally quiet and safe neighborhood (helped along by the near-total status of gun ownership in those homes - SC is a 2nd Amendment stronghold). But, even there, I sometimes come out to find litter - beer bottles and cans, fast food wrappers, detrita of smoking implements and butts.

We clean it up, of course - it's one of the chores of home ownership. We clear up, not simply because we care about the condition of our property, but also because failure to do so diminishes us in the eyes of our neighbors. That conformity to the neighborhood norms is what marks us as part of the group.

True, that conformity can be oppressive - anyone who has lived in an HOA, or heard the horror stories of HOA Karens-Gone-Wild, knows that standards can be used as a club to batter away individuality and enforce rigid rules. In HOAs, residents need to be vigilant in keeping the baby tyrants from gaining control.

I well remember the 70s, and the way the cities broke apart after the riots. Previously, Cleveland's neighborhoods had been generally clean, peaceful, and supportive of family life. It's school system was considered one of the best in the country, and better than that of the nearby suburbs.

Shopping in Cleveland before the 70s was a treat - Euclid Avenue, the main street of downtown, was filled with businesses, stores and shops on the street level and in the arcades. Department stores were multi-story, and quite profitable. The upper stories of many buildings were occupied by lawyers, insurance agencies, dentists, doctors, and other non-manufacturing businesses.

Shortly after the riots - neighborhoods such as Collinwood, Glenvale, and Hough were torn apart, burned, and left with few viable commerce (often literally 'food deserts') - the movement out of Cleveland, and particularly the downtown district, commenced. When leases were up, tenants left. Even lower rents couldn't persuade them to stick around - the reduced foot traffic made those deals not worth it.

In the residential neighborhoods, people scrambled to get PART of their investment out of their house, and move to the suburbs. Most sold cheaply; some converted their unsalable home into multi-family units, and became instant 'slumlords'. The city and the schools suffered from the loss of the tax base.

Arson grew in the newly depopulated neighborhoods - who knows how many of the fires were attempts to get the insurance companies to pay out, and give the owners some cash with which to start over?

Those who had choices, took off for greener, and less squalid, hills. Primarily those who were more stable - those having a family, a job, personal gumption - were the ones to leave. Those who were less mobile, those who had few resources to finance a move, those who were stuck in denial, and those that LIKED the "New Normal" - stayed. And watched the world surrounding them sink into barbarism.

If I owned property in the cities, I'd have my ear to the ground. I'd be very attentive to the signs of impending chaos. Many of us, before the cities fell in the 60s-70s, allowed the first signs of collapse to creep in, ignored by most.

“Western culture is in its twilight; there is a dark age ahead; and while college-humanities fads and 'secular-progressive values' have certainly done much damage, they are symptoms, not causes—fragments of junk sucked into a vacuum. The fundamental reason why so much of our culture is shit—either literally, like Signor Manzoni's masterwork, or figuratively—is exhaustion, cultural exhaustion.” 

― John Derbyshire, We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism

 The signs include:

• Trash/litter - this has nothing to do with the city services available. Do the homeowners have to clean up trash on a regular basis, that was deposited by others? Do the multi-family homes take care of the area in front of their own place, or do they let it pile up?
• Do the local stores put bars on their establishment? Are new buildings put up with limited access/few ground floor windows?
• Are public parks safe to walk around in, at least during the daylight hours? Do you notice broken glass/smoking litter on the grounds?
• Do the police take down the information for crimes, but do no more? Do you hear about or get notification of crimes (you can access the police reports/maps for crimes by date in most cities). For smaller communities, the local police blotter/sheriff's dept. reports are your go-to. But, remember that many crimes are never reported, so this is likely to be underestimating the problem. Sign up for the NextDoor app if you want to keep on top of your neighborhood locally. Or, join a neighborhood association, and attend the meetings. It's a good way to get to know your neighbors, and make some connections with those who you might want to have beside you should TSHTF.
• For Sale signs - a leading indicator - particularly if the properties sit on the market for months/years, this is VERY bad. To find out what the trend is, look at the Zillow listing - focus on the recent sales. Are they showing a drop in price? Staying the same? Increasing?
• Keep an eye out for guys with backpacks wandering around, seemingly without aim. They're generally homeless. If you notice more of them, whether or not the economy is stable, this is bad.
• Drive around - are neighbors working their gardens, painting or otherwise maintaining their homes, letting their kids play outside with minimal supervision? At night, is it rare to see a car not in the garage? Do some/most of the homes have security lights/alarms? What's the feel in the neighborhood?
• Does the talk among friends/relations/acquaintances turn to worsening conditions? Could you sell your home without a loss, or with minimal loss, quickly?

The Most Urgent Connectedness Problem

     Things don’t just “happen,” as if the universe were nothing but a giant random-number generator. They happen for reasons that can almost always be teased out by an inquiring and attentive observer. Cause and effect, don’t y’know. (Any “essential chaos” fans in the bleachers are invited to play a frame or two of snooker with Ronnie O’Sullivan or Judd Trump. Then prattle to me about “the randomness beneath it all.”)

     Sometimes – and lately it seems to be more often than not – problem A gives rise to problem B, because people mistakenly see problem B as a solution to problem A, or at least a compensating response. This tragic pattern helps to explain the striking connection between the violence and squalor in our cities and the legitimization of militarized police forces.

     Both these problems have important, though not absolute, connections to another problem with which America has not adequately coped: the sociodynamics of the city.

---

     Mark “Mad Dog” Sherman contends that the city – categorically speaking – is and was a mistake. This overstates the case slightly. Cities, understood as concentrations of population with human densities appreciably higher than their surroundings, were not someone’s bright idea that just hasn’t worked out. They arose because of important social and economic forces: largely, the need for access to trade routes and transportation for goods.

     Consider New York City and Los Angeles. Neither of these cities would exist except for their excellent harbors. Manhattan Island is a slab of rock inhospitable to life. Los Angeles is situated in a desert. Only access to waterborne transport made these locales places anyone would care to be...but for a developing commercial republic with a hunger for markets, that factor trumped all else in the early years of our nation.

     As populations concentrated in the zones of what would become cities, other factors emerged to accelerate their development. In particular, for quite some time the cities were safer than the regions around them: fewer wild animals and more people to come to one’s aid in an emergency. They also provided residents with employment opportunities and easy access to goods. That latter trade-off is one that many young people still make today.

     But there’s no such thing as an unmixed blessing:

     “Now, we know from historical data that predators of all sorts will concentrate where the prey is fattest. The State, which is merely an organized band of predators with a veneer of legitimacy derived either from tradition or from a manufactured appearance of the consent of its subjects, took a huge fraction of its subjects’ annual production from them in taxes. A typical State would increase its exactions on its subjects faster than those subjects could increase their own fortunes. That compelled wage earners to strive ever harder just to run in place, with obvious consequences for production and marketing.”

     Feel free to argue, but as Arne Stromberg is the holder of the Edmond Genet chair in the sociology department of Gallatin University, Hope’s most prestigious institution of higher learning, you’re likely to come away feeling foolish. So cities attracted human civilization’s worst known enemy – the State – merely by concentrating potential prey.

     Cities also attract another sort of enemy: parasites. Wealth is like that: those who want it will move toward it. That includes persons willing to work for it and those to whom work is unattractive or unknown. The synergistic effect of the State plus hordes of good-for-nothings “should” be “obvious” – including in its effects on law enforcement and public order. The parasites will demand freebies. The productive will demand protection. The State will promise to satisfy both. In reality it will satisfy neither, while increasing its own exactions and coercions upon the law-abiding.

     The welfare state and its excrescences are the State’s pander to the parasites. The intensified, militarized police force is its pander to the productive residents. Note, however, that the police do little or nothing to quell the violence and disorder in the welfare zones. Rather, they exert themselves against the productive, in a classic illustration of Samuel Francis’s conception of anarcho-tyranny:

     What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny—the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through “sensitivity training” and multiculturalist curricula, “hate crime” laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny.

     The parasite class is quite as important to the maintenance of an anarcho-tyrannical regime as are the violent and criminal. And cities, which naturally attract both predators and parasites, are the anarcho-tyrant’s “ecological niche.”

---

     Rather than thrash this to a pulp, allow me to cite a single illustrative episode, one that exhibits all the features of a city in grip of anarcho-tyranny: The Baltimore boy with the BB gun:

     A Baltimore family got a surprise visit from the police after someone noticed a fifth-grader’s BB gun in the background during a virtual school session....

     Courtney Lancaster is a Navy veteran with extensive knowledge on guns and gun safety. Her 11-year-old son is an aspiring Eagle Scout who has learned to shoot BB and Airsoft guns as well as taken archery lessons.

     They’d never had an issue until the cops unexpectedly showed up one day.

     “So, I answered the door. The police officer was, he was very nice. He explained to me that he was coming to address an issue with my son’s school,” Courtney told Project Baltimore. “And then explained to me that he was here to search for weapons, in my home. And I consented to let him in. And then I, unfortunately, stood there and watched police officers enter my 11-year-old son’s bedroom.”

     Baltimore, Gentle Reader. Baltimore! If there’s a city more deeply mired in violence and squalor anywhere in the U.S., I, at least, am unaware of it. Yet the powers that be in that city deemed it a proper use of the police power to investigate a child’s BB gun, while genuine crime runs rampant throughout the region. Savor that.

---

     Though cities formed from natural causes and according to easily comprehended incentives, today they’re ever less a source of the things for which people once flocked to them, and ever more a concentration point for things people – decent people, at least – prefer to avoid. Their predator and parasite classes are large and rapacious; their police forces are militarized and more intrusive than ever; and their law-biding residents are more coerced and mulcted than ever before in history.

     Perhaps, had we avoided certain historical mistakes, it could have been otherwise. Yet we live with what is, not what might have been. And we cannot solve either the problem of crime and parasitism, or the problem of overweening governments supported by militarized police forces, in isolation from one another; either both must go, or both will continue and worsen. Which is why Americans are steadily leaving large cities, especially those along the nation’s seaboards, in search of something less violent, more orderly, less expensive, and more respectful of personal and family privacy.

The Newest Absolute (UPDATED)

     The Left is fond of absolutes. Not all absolutes, mind you; just the ones it finds politically profitable in its unending quest for power.

     For a while, the Left’s favored absolute was a peculiar approach to freedom of expression: Mario Savio’s “Filthy Language Movement.” That didn’t have much impact, probably because America has too many Navy veterans for a few four-letter words to shock us much. But then came the next absolute: sexual freedom without consequences, which reached its apogee with Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court’s sanctification of abortion.

     Time marches on, and so did the Left. Pretty soon it proclaimed the right to “affordable housing,” and the right to a “living wage,” the right to proclaim your own “gender identity,” and of course we all know about the right not to be offended (a.k.a. the demand for a “safe space” that has swelled to encompass the entire nation). Americans have been frankly staggered by all these “rights,” for which no basis can be found anywhere except in the Left’s whiny insistence upon them.

     Recent events have brought us a new absolute, one that the Left’s master strategists probably think will crown their victory over us Normals:

The right of non-whites to do:
Whatever they please,
To whomever and whatever they please,
And suffer no negative consequences.

     You probably think I’m kidding about that. I’m not:

     Atlanta police were called to a local Wendy’s restaurant Friday night on University Avenue where a man was passed-out in his vehicle in the drive-thru. After police arrived Rayshard Brooks, 27, was given a field sobriety test which he reportedly failed. Two officers then told Mr. Brooks he was under arrest.

     Mr. Brooks then struggled with police officers as they attempted to handcuff him.

     The struggle escalated and Mr. Brooks is seen on video fighting with the two officers and gaining a taser in the fight.

     Mr. Brooks ran from the two officers who pursued him.

     During the chase Mr. Brooks turned and fired the taser at the police. One of the officers fired his handgun at Mr. Brooks who later died in the hospital. Both officers were put on leave while the shooting is investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).

     So Brooks, who had already assaulted an officer and stolen his Taser, ran from the police, turned and fired the Taser at them. One cop fired his service pistol in reply, fatally wounding this miscreant.

     So far, it sounds as if it was just one more unfortunate encounter between police and a lawbreaker, in which the lawbreaker, by his own actions, reaped an impromptu execution. But what followed?

• The mayor of Atlanta immediately declared the shooting “unjustified.”
• Unruly, riotous protests immediately followed.
• The Wendy’s where the police first found Rayshard Brooks passed-out-drunk behind the wheel was attacked and burned down.

     Need I tell you of Rayshard Brooks’ race? How about the race of Keisha Lance Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta?

     Maura Dowling asks this question:

     Do they [the cops] have the right to use force if the accused is a white person? Just wondering.

     But of course, for asking it, Miss Dowling will undoubtedly be called a “racist.”

     The moral of the tale should be clear: Negroes are to be held immune from police action. Failure to honor that immunity is grounds for a violent, property-destroying riot. Nor does the property to be destroyed need to be at all relevant to the incident that triggers the riot.

     I said Negroes, but the Left will surely insist that this newest absolute also applies to other pet minorities...and to its street thugs, of course.

---

     This is happening, to some degree, in every American city of substantial size. The administrations of those cities are uniformly Democrat. Those cities’ police forces are restrained by orders from above; they are effectively rendered incapable of protecting the persons and property of the law-abiding. The rioters can do as they please, having been placed de facto above the law.

     Moreover, the Left has declared its intention to spread its “protests” from the urban areas into the suburbs and exurbs. Black Lives Matter. AntiFa. Black Bloc.

     President Trump has threatened to use federal troops to quell this obvious, well coordinated insurrection. For that he’s been castigated by every major media organ. In the idiom of a friend, they’ve called him “everything but white.” Whether those calumnies have caused him to stay his hand, I cannot say. But I can say this: The United States of America is no longer a nation governed by law. It is now a nation where some persons, at least in some locales, are deemed innately and absolutely above the law, owing to their race or ethnicity. Anything done to them in service to the laws that bind the rest of us is cause for a protest destructive rampage.

     Quoth Matt Walsh:

     There is no bridge that can connect the Left to the Right. The differences are too deep, too wide. For unity to occur, one side or the other must simply abandon almost everything they believe and profess, and join the ranks of the other. That is not likely to happen any time soon. So the divisions will remain, and grow deeper, and we will be less united over time.

     I don’t know where to go from here, or how to fix it, or if it can be fixed at all, but I know that any path forward must begin with an honest assessment of the situation. This is my honest assessment, for what it’s worth.

     It’s my assessment, too.

     I think I’ll accelerate the timetable for our relocation to Idaho.

---

     UPDATE: I’ve received some email dissenting from the above. One correspondent was particularly incensed about Brooks being arrested for a malum prohibitum: i.e., an offense that’s an offense simply because a legislature declared it to be one, rather than a malum in se: an offense in which an objective injury or wrong is done to someone. That misses the point. Brooks did not die because he failed a sobriety test; he died because he:

• Resisted arrest;
• Struck at least one of the cops;
• Snatched one cop’s Taser;
• Tried to flee;
• And then pointed the Taser at a pursuing cop.

     The cops were doing what they’re charged with doing under the existing law. Brooks had passed out in the drive-through at a Wendy’s, thereby infringing on the restaurant’s property rights and its ability to conduct business¹. He proved to be drunk, and as he was behind the wheel of an auto at a place other than his residence or an associated parking spot, ipso facto he’d been driving while intoxicated². He then resisted arrest³, struck one of the cops⁴, stole a Taser⁵, and tried to use that Taser as a weapon⁶ against the police in pursuit. That’s a minimum of five acts – 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 – that are against the law everywhere, and one – 1 – that’s considered actionable in nearly every American jurisdiction.

     It is not for the municipal police of Atlanta to repeal the Georgia state law against DWI. The cops were doing their duty in performing an arrest. Once an arrest is in progress, for the detainee to resist, fight back, snatch a cop’s weapon, and threaten him with it are deeds that cannot be waved aside. Whether maintaining a public police force is a good or a bad thing is an entirely separate subject, as is the rightness or wrongness of laws against driving while intoxicated. It was by his own actions that Rayshard Brooks, who had no excuse for not knowing better, invited his death.

Channeling Winston.

Some attribute to Churchill the observation that "Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted." The following choice comment is along those lines:

[From Einstein101 comment:] Yeah, trump wants to have all the options, he will not start a war with Iran. But Iran needs to be aware that this option is on the table.

Yeah every option is always on the Washingtonians table save for having a workable and viable approach to foreign policy and a good strategy and good plan. Every option is always on the Washingtonians table except for a workable peaceful solution since they're basically brainless, clueless, hopeless, and hapless, inept & incompetent idiots. . . .^[1]

Notes
^[1] Comment by Max21c on "UN Report Finds Missiles In Last Year's Aramco Attack Came From Iran." By Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge, 6/14/20.

Some Random Thoughts From One Who Lived Through This Before

Nothing in life teaches as well as experience - particularly BAD experiences.

We're surrounded by the detritus of some really bad ideas. Few are original - most have been recycled from discredited ideas (many from foreign countries). It's like Leftists live an existence comparable to that of a person with brain damage that prevents them from forming new long-term memories. They can have experiences, over and over again, without learning a thing from them.

McCarthyism has long been the Bogeymen for the Left - according to their memories, the Evil Bad Man of the 1950s terrorized the entire country, jailed countless citizens, and - by government decree - fired them all. ALL of the people he named were completely innocent of any involvement in promoting communism, and were unjustly hounded into early deaths.

The actual truth:

• McCarthy's actions were the result of public outrage about the takeover of vulnerable countries - the Soviet bloc and China were the prime examples. His investigations were quite popular with the average people. It required a LONG campaign by the Leftists, filled with lies, half-truths, and directed by foreign entities, for people to drop their support. That media campaign was led by the Liberal newspapers, at the urging of their Left-leaning peers in academia. The average man on the street, who often had experience with Communists/Socialists, and didn't view them favorably, supported the Senator's work.
• Few were jailed; those that were had committed crimes (espionage), or were jailed for refusal to cooperate with the Congressional investigations (which were NOT McCarthy's responsibility - he was a Senator).
• Those that refused to sign so-called loyalty oaths were - with few exceptions - actually Communists/Socialists/Leftists. Not just misunderstood Liberals/Progressives. By not signing, they protected themselves against prosecution for perjury. They hoped to use their "principled" stance to protect themselves against firing for cause. It didn't work.
• GOVERNMENT didn't fire them. Their employer did, often because the company did business with the Federal government, and they needed to ensure that their employees didn't engage in espionage for foreign countries. Most weren't even fired.
• As a result of the change in how tolerant the public was towards Communists, for a time, American education, media, and entertainment actually promoted American values. Open support of Leftist goals was rare.

Reality:

• Leftist groups are tightly and rigidly controlled in what they can say, write, and do. Failure to follow ALL restrictions will result in "un-personing" of the offender - which, those who don't toe the line are finding out.
• The social pressure on dissidents is often harsher than any government could impose. And, it lasts longer.
• The Gentle, Compassionate Left is not. They are humorless, inflexible scolds. They will pursue even the slightest opposition to their authority with Javert-like persistence.
• The Po-Po are not as vicious as the Non-Official Punishment Squad. Police have to answer to the courts and the civil authorities. Police have rules governing their conduct. Those whom the Left targets have no civil recourse, no appeals process, and, even if they debase themselves in apologies, will not be pardoned from their Leftist banishment.
• The Left inevitably degenerates into a tightly controlled dictatorship - CHAZ, the Capitol Hill Anonymous Zone, is one such example. A Warlord has arisen - Raz Simone, link here. Note that only in the last paragraph does the report note that Raz and his crew are extorting the locals.

What will happen to the Revolutionary Left when this Revolt collapses?

I predict very little will be charged against them (despite their Martyr Rhetoric, they're pretty safe from prosecution - the Connected Elite usually are). They will likely burrow into a safe job, collect a paycheck, and attempt to influence the next generation - like this guy did.

The Elite will not suffer, unlike those sucked into their hare-brained schemes. THOSE followers will find their lives interrupted, their ability to earn a living hampered, and, likely, face jail time.

Etymology For Our Times

     The word privilege has been much in the news and the national discourse lately. It’s been propelled mostly by the claims of black racialist mouthpieces, ever eager to stir up interracial animosity, that we whites possess it and blacks don’t. But what does their claim really mean?

     A look at the etymology of the word proves exceptionally revealing:

     privilege n: from Latin privilegium "law applying to one person, bill of law in favor of or against an individual," in the post-Augustine period "an ordinance in favor of an individual, privilege, prerogative," from privus "individual" (see private (adj.)) + lex (genitive legis) "law" (see legal (adj.)). Meaning "advantage granted"

     Thus, to call a person privileged is to say that the public laws do not apply to him – that he is governed by a set of private laws that don’t apply to the rest of us. This also applies to the notion of group privileges, no matter how the group is defined.

     With that as our setting, let’s have a look at today’s most privileged group: those to whom the public laws seemingly do not apply:

     [W]here are the police while these vandals destroy public property and tear down priceless works of art that have stood, in some cases, for a century or more? You almost have to remind yourself that the people tearing down the property actually do not have the legal right to do what they’re doing. You’d be excused for thinking otherwise – does the term “public property” mean that the public can do whatever it wants with it? – however, destruction of property worth more than $500 is a felony in most states. These statues are worth many thousands of dollars, making these mob-led “removals” felony crimes. They are also dangerous crimes, as the man who had his skull cracked open in Virginia convincingly discovered.

     But this has been the theme in recent weeks. The police standby while leftist radicals do, quite literally, whatever they want....

     It seems to me that the greatest privilege on offer in our culture today is the privilege to be utterly immune from the law. This is the privilege exercised by many of the “protesters.” And though some of them are white males, many are not. It is, then, a privilege that is not dispensed based on race, but on ideology. We might call it Leftist Privilege. A person with the “correct” worldview, especially if he is gathered with a group of other correct-thinking people, can do almost anything he wants. The Powers That Be will bend over backwards to accommodate him and meet his demands.

     Now, Matt Walsh calls this Leftist privilege, but it is important to take note of the rationale under which Leftist activists assert this privilege: their claims about “white privilege.” The Left has seized upon the Black Lives Matter racialist cult’s claim that American Negroes are generally oppressed by “structural racism” and is using it for its own, entirely political purposes. And so these vandals and insurrectionists are privileged to commit deeds of destruction and violence for which normal Americans would suffer harsh consequences.

     I can’t imagine how the matter could be made any clearer. There’s much more to be said on the subject, particularly about the hand-wringing paralysis that has afflicted our so-called “leaders” in the face of what’s so obviously an insurrection against the legal order, but now is not the time.

     It is time to recognize that it’s not law-abiding white Americans who have the privileged position here.

     There’s no point in trying to argue this point to any Left-inclined person. They’re insusceptible to facts and reasoning. Their agenda requires that they be deaf to all rational argument, and they regard their agenda as supreme above all other things, even if they’re incapable of expressing it plainly. (Cf. Eric Hoffer’s “fact-proof screen.”) But if you have generally decent relatives, friends, or acquaintances who are moved to any degree by the Left’s claims about “white privilege” and “structural racism,” you might want to try Matt Walsh’s reasoning on them. It’s simple and clear. It certainly doesn’t require a convoluted deductive or inductive argument or a deep acquaintance with the law.

     You might mention, as an aside, that the Left’s racialist perversion of the concept of justice is directly responsible for the creation of the burgeoning white identity movement, but consider it the advanced course in racial sociodynamics: not appropriate for dilettantes or those unwilling to do the necessary reading.

Take A Second Look At Conservative Organizations

     "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." – Eric Hoffer

     The critical importance of “supporting conservative organizations” is touted widely and vociferously...by conservative organizations. Yet, as Ned Ryun points out in this piercing piece, “conservative organizations” such as the Heritage Foundation have a stunning record for consuming millions in donations while producing nothing but froth and gas:

     Today some people, myself included, are rightly asking: if Heritage can’t support the most basic tenets of America’s founding and affirm its rise to exceptionalism, what is the point of Heritage at all? They claim to be conservatives, but what have they conserved? Where are their victories?

     Their own list of alleged accomplishments is amusing, to say the least. Heritage claims credit for the list of President Donald Trump’s judges—which is funny, as it is common knowledge among conservatives that the list was compiled, analyzed, and vetted by the Federalist Society at the direction of Leonard Leo and former White House Counsel Don McGahn. Heritage takes credit for being active in some policy issues during the Trump Administration, too. But for an institution that once prided itself on being the “think tank” of the Reagan Revolution, that’s not saying much.

     Donald Trump did not come our way out of any “conservative organization.” Indeed, most of them fought him savagely – and not on the basis of his positions, but because of his “style.” Concerning what Heritage has actually been doing with the donations of its supporters, Ryun cuts like a new scalpel:

     What is more interesting—and telling—is what Heritage considers one of its greatest achievements in the past 20 years. Going back to 2003 this former bastion for the limited size of government brags about doubling in size, building an eight-story office edifice with a 230-person seat auditorium. More troubling than expanding its own footprint is its efforts to vastly expand the size and reach of the federal government by promoting and pushing ideas that are antithetical to conservative principles.

     Look only at the famous—or infamous, depending on who you talk to—example of Heritage being one of the primary advocates of Romneycare, the godfather of Obamacare. Ed Feulner, former president of Heritage, vociferously denies it, but facts are pernicious things.

     Not terribly conservative, eh what?

---

     One of the most insidious diseases of the institutional mindset is the tendency to conflate inputs with outputs – i.e., when asked “what is being accomplished?” (especially if a truthful answer is “approximately nothing”) to redirect attention to what’s being spent. This sprouts directly from the institutional dynamic, the highest priority of which is to survive and to grow regardless of whether the institution’s nominal purpose is still being served. (Cf. the Eric Hoffer quote at the beginning of this screed.) Governments do it, too, which is one of the Right’s greatest frustrations with our federal government.

     It’s worse, of course, when a “conservative organization” starts to turn traitor, and lobbies for “compromise” with the Left on matters of principle. Heritage and others have been found advocating soft versions of Leftist nostrums. Often their policy wonks will back a weakened Leftist proposal – the sort of thing that’s guaranteed to deteriorate over time into outright socialism or communism, such as RomneyCare – with the plea that “we have to do something” and “it could be worse:” hardly a conservative’s favorite argument.

     (“Smile,” the man said. “Things could be worse.” So I smiled...and they got worse.)

     There’s no need to thrash this into pulp. Before you pull out your checkbook, or fish out your credit card, or click the PayPal donation button, or whatever donating to XYZ Society involves, try to determine what that organization has actually achieved. Insist on real, individual-rights-respecting achievements in public policy, not fancy new office buildings or “white papers” that have had no demonstrable effect on American governance. Be critical of claims that XYZ is responsible for some Right-leaning policy, if those claims are presented without hard evidence. Be furious about XYZ’s participation in advocating or enacting policies that undermine individual freedom or the Constitutional limits on government.

     It’s your money. Spend it wisely.

     “Now that you know the truth about your world, stop supporting your own destroyers. The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. Withdraw your support. Do not try to live on your enemies’ terms or to win at a game where they’re setting the rules.” – Ayn Rand

Maybe There’s Something In The Water

     Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today? – Thomas Sowell

     I cannot imagine it being put more succinctly or better. Dear God, please keep Dr. Sowell alive and in good health. Yours truly, Francis W. Porretto.

Why the RNC is Moving Out of Charlotte

It's not completely a done deal yet. As of now, the convention committee is looking for an alternative place to hold the nomination/acceptance speech. Much of the rest - the committee meetings, meet & greet at the state level - could easily take place in any city, even Charlotte. With the current prices for flights, this could end up being a two-part convention - first, the preliminary stuff (fewer people) in Charlotte, then jetting on to the public part of the convention. Which, at the moment, looks like it might be FL or TX, two of the states that have been mentioned the most.

Both states have governors eager to make that deal, likely cities have sufficient hotel and meeting space, and they've not been generally a focal point for Leftist disruption and chaos. I'd be expecting one of the things to look for is no large university with entrenched Leftists in charge. This move, so close to the convention, may well cripple what most of us have expected will be the Plan to Recreate Chicago Riot, 2.0.

For sure, it's gonna make both Charlotte and NC look bad - VERY bad. The local businesses were counting on the RNC money coming in to help them stay afloat. I don't think Trump will be blamed, as much as the local chuckleheads that thought the riots were just an "organic expression of their refutation of injustice".

Right. I've been watching the news in Charlotte for some time (we're in SC, just 1/2 hour away). The crime problems of Charlotte are huge, and nothing the city has done has improved the situation at all. The protests just added some heat to an unstable mix, and they are killing the city. Protesters gathered on major highways recently, and - for a time - shut down access in and out of the city. It took way too long to resolve. People were seriously pi$$ed.

The plan to cause chaos, if that is what is intended, actually makes ZERO sense. They seem to have forgotten that the Chicago Insurrection, 1.0, was a dismal failure. The rebel leadership was caught up in legal problems in the aftermath, it was expensive to litigate (the leadership took the majority of the money donated for their defense, leaving the rank and file to dangle in the wind), and the main mass of followers jumped ship, preferring not to have their heads split open by those Evil We're-Not-Playing-Nice Chicago Cops.

And, the outcome of that chaos?

Nixon won handily. The Democratic party went down in flames, and took decades to recover fully. The only Democratic president for a long time was Carter, and we all know what a mess he was. It wasn't until Clinton got elected that centrists - sort of - had any influence in the party. And, it didn't take long before the radicals took control, culminating in Obama's election, and the enshrining of the Deep State apparatus, both in the executive branch and the military.

Update on the Revolution/Coup

I read Had Enough Therapy's posts on Gen. Mattis' arrogant attempt to sidestep both his professional obligations and adherence to the Constitution, in his "schooling" of Trump. If you follow the link, please read the comments - they are an example of the deep understanding of the average non-lawyer of political issues and their Constitutional implications. FAR better than most of the Deep State suits.

Here's a few somewhat scattered thoughts about the current uprisings in the cities/states:

• The Left, in a panic at the COVID-19 Shutdown Theatre Failure, jumped the gun in their response to Floyd's death. It was understandable, as a video'd death, by cop, as others (mostly trainees) stood around their mentor, was a Perfect Flash Point. Too soon, too violent, may very well peter out by summer.
• There are two factions - the mostly peaceful protesters, led by experienced and seasoned community members, that are The Face of the Floyd Protests. The other, the Raiding Thugs and their Allies (The Left), have, in some vulnerable Democratic strongholds, reduced the neighborhoods to pre-1980's, hollowed-out slums. All that money that was poured into the 'hood is now smoldering, along with the will to build it up again. An entire generation of entrepreneurial Black adults have been destroyed.
• This is NOT getting 'Da Man on the Street to support the Left. All he can see is his job, his home, and his life (whatever remains after the Shutdowns) is going up in smoke, along with the neighborhood. Expect him to vote HIS interests, never mind his color/ethnicity.
• That Sex & the City lifestyle is also being destroyed in NYC and other urban enclaves - so, except for the most hard-core revolutionary, a sizable chunk of the Female vote is also not gonna vote Democrat. They'll likely NOT vote for Trump, but they're gonna stay home. And drink wine - LOTS of wine.
• Kids are not being used as scenery for these protests, for the most part. Without their teachers and pliable peers to chide them along for the march, kids are mostly choosing to sit this one out. They may use fear of infection as their excuse, but - without their academic future riding on showing up, they'll pass.
• I have a feeling that this woman's early death (she was only 22), although tragic, will be found to have NOT been caused by the tear gassing. Drugs have been suspected (although the tox screen is not yet in), and a heart attack sounds more like drugs and/or congenital heart problems.

Thoughts? Put them in the comments.

UPDATE: I saw this post after I wrote the above - if he's right, we're screwed.

Conversations

     When you have an odd sense of humor, it’s important to let it out now and then, so it won't erupt from you at an inopportune moment. The C.S.O. and I both possess that sort of humor. In addition, our new Newf puppy Joy appears to be exacerbating our natural tendencies. Thus:

FWP: You know, there are tragedies that never get any attention.
CSO: Hm? Like what?

FWP: The agonies of all the colors that, try as they might, can never be primary.
CSO: Like fuchsia?

FWP: Yes! And chartreuse. And cerise!
CSO: What about teal?

FWP: Of course! And magenta and cyan, too!
CSO: Don’t forget mauve!

FWP: (sniff) “I so badly wanted to be purple, but try as I might...”
CSO: Then there’s the heartbreak of burnt sienna!
FWP: Something must be done!

CSO: Think there’s any grant money available?
FWP: I’ll make some calls.

     Just a little levity to soften you up for the horrors of the day.

A more bracing age.

The climate change scare was a self-indulgent luxury from the Age of Abundance. Unfortunately that age has passed, replaced by the more bracing Age of No Money Left to Waste on Green Virtue Signalling.

"Delingpole: We Voted Boris Johnson, We Got Pol Pot." By James Delingpole, Breitbart, 6/7/20.

The Reason for Hearsay Exclusion

Hearsay 'evidence' is generally excluded from trials. That is, with rare exceptions, you can't testify about what you claim someone said to you. One of the exceptions is if the hearsay explains some motivation of the case, or the person is in danger of immediate death (the so-called deathbed confession).

Most, if not all of us, can understand the reasons for not allowing it. Hearsay depends on the words of someone who is not present, and (in many cases) not alive to refute any claim about the content of that speech.

That's why it's so disturbing that the woman at the center of the Emmet Till murder case has had her testimony during the trial, in which her encounter with Till was described for that acceptable exception to the hearsay rule, challenged.

With a 'confession' which ONLY the author of a book that, once again, claims Till completely innocent of the circumstances that were said to have led to his execution by the husband of the woman involved.

 Still, no author save Tyson has ever interviewed Carolyn Bryant Donham. (Her ex-husband and brother-in-law are both dead.) “That case went a long way toward ruining her life,” Tyson contends, explaining that she could never escape its notoriety. His compelling book is suffused with information that Donham, over coffee and pound cake, shared with him in what he calls a “confessional” spirit.

Did she recant her testimony? The only words the author, Timothy Tyson, claims she said was, "That part's not right," in talking about her court testimony, an ambiguous statement at best. She apparently wrote a memoir of her life, which is locked up in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until 2036.

Soledad O'Brien did an interview with Tyson - linked here, if you'd like to hear what he has to say about the case.

Certainly, someone can have a change of heart, or yearn for an opportunity to confess a deception as they near death. Jane Roe, of the famous abortion case, apparently did so (she was videotaped saying that she had faked her conversion). But, the ambiguous words of Bryant lead to some degree of interpretation.

Was her husband unreasonably jealous of Bryant, and - hearing that she had been talking to Till - killed him in a rage? Possible.

Did Till actually insult her by speaking crudely of sex, which she later told her husband about? Possible.

Was there no interaction with Till? Unlikely - even his supporters admit that Till had, at least, flirted with her.

In any case, none of the actions described above are worthy of a death, as Bryant herself said about the killing. Tyson does NOT say that Bryant made herself more clear that those four words, so - based on what she said at the time - we cannot say more plainly whether she lied in that interview, or was truthful - or, in fact just what happened.

And, that's why hearsay is not acceptable on which to base life and death decisions. It's simply too easy to mishear, misinterpret, or flat-out lie about.

It will be interesting to read the memoir when it is released for publication in 2036. Perhaps the ambiguities will be, finally, cleared up. Even so, it will be ONE person's account of what happened - the only survivor, at the time it was written - and, thus, regarded with a degree of skepticism.

Ray Bradbury, Call Your Office!

     I have a huge personal library – approximately 12,000 physical volumes, and approximately another thousand eBooks. About a quarter of those books are non-fiction, divided irregularly among the several categories of my interests. If memory serves, only three of the authors are black:

• Thomas Sowell
• Walter Williams
• Larry Elder

     As for fiction, I’ve never inquired about the race of a writer whose fiction I enjoy. That having been said, apart from the late Frank Yerby, I don’t know of any black writers whose fiction I own.

     Apparently, that makes me a terrible person:

     Juan Vidal, a radical alt-left writer who contributes to deranged anti-Trump websites like The Daily Beast and Rolling Stone, published an article on NPR’s website demanding that white people “decolonize” their bookshelves by removing all books written by white people and requiring they be replaced with books that are written by people of color....

     Vidal: If you are white, take a moment to examine your bookshelf. What do you see? What books and authors have you allowed to influence your worldview, and how you process the issues of racism and prejudice toward the disenfranchised? Have you considered that, if you identify as white and read only the work of white authors, you are in some ways listening to an extension of your own voice on repeat?

     Vidal also goes on to say that white people need to “silence” themselves before actually consuming literature by people of color.

     This sort of activist makes it hard for me to restrain my, ah, tendency to express myself in my father’s favorite Navyisms. Oh hell, why not? Candidly, Vidal’s a lump of dogshit. And we already have a quite serviceable prescription for dogshit:

     Listen, punk. To me you're nothin' but dogshit, you understand? And a lot of things can happen to dogshit. It can be scraped up with a shovel off the ground. It can dry up and blow away in the wind. Or it can be stepped on and squashed. So take my advice and be careful where the dog shits ya!

     Yet Vidal’s attitude is becoming broadly characteristic of the “activism” practiced by “people of color” – or, in the original formulation, colored people. While there are surely many colored people who would cringe and turn away from such “activists” and their demands, they’re doing very little to restrain or repudiate them. Some colored people – Biden advisor Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is among the more prominent of them – are actually encouraging this sort of self-abnegation by whites. And of course, some whites are performing the demanded kowtows.

     Disgraceful and horrible.

---

     Allow me to link together a few facts:

• Whites of European heritage built this country.
• A number of Negroes, sold to white slavers by Negro tribal kings, were brought to antebellum America to labor as slaves, predominantly on cotton plantations.
• The Civil War / War Between The States / Late Unpleasantness and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution ended slavery as a legal institution in the U.S. There have been no legally recognized slaves since then.
• While there was a long period of legal distinctions, which varied from place to place, that partly or wholly disenfranchised Negroes, that came to an end in 1964: 56 years ago. Since then, more and more laws and programs have been enacted in the hope of redressing the inequities of the previous years.
• Today, the law actually confers preferential treatment on Negroes as regards education, housing, employment, and government contracting. Firms have been put out of business for hiring too few Negroes; no firm has ever been assailed for hiring too few whites.
• Whites of today bear no guilt for the enslavement of Negroes. Indeed, vanishingly few American whites are descended from a slaveholder.

     To top it all off, this Vidal fucknozzle is not a Negro. He’s Hispanic, and Hispanics cannot claim ever to have been enslaved by American whites, nor have the laws ever discriminated against them. For his cheek he deserves to be tarred, feathered, and dropped from an airplane over Caracas. (Perhaps we might provide him a parachute; I’m of two minds about that. But no skydiving lessons.)

     What’s that you say, Gentle Reader? I sound angry? Why, whatever gave you that idea?

---

     “If I am offensive, you may take it that I am offended!” – Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes, in Murder by Decree

     It is notable that while “black identity” and “the black experience” occupy a huge amount of our national discourse, any trace of pride in white identity is shouted down, and no discussion of the white experience – our achievements, our quest for justice, or our sacrifices of our own interests in pursuit of the phantasm of “equality” – is permitted whatsoever. Rather, whites and “whiteness” are perennially and mercilessly cast as “the problem:” that which must somehow be transcended or eliminated for “equality” to prevail.

     The “activists” describe America as a hellhole of bigotry and injustice. Yet colored people continue to stream over our borders by the thousands. Are they insane? Or might there be something just a wee bit inaccurate about that negative characterization of these United States?

     And now we have would-be book-burners. They seek to “decolonize” our bookshelves. They exhort us to “silence ourselves.” I don’t think Ray Bradbury anticipated the racial and ethnic angles of this campaign. But what they seek is every bit as terrifying as the firemen who were Guy Montag’s colleagues in Fahrenheit 451.

     Stand your ground, white America. You’ll have to do so anyway, as our backs are now against the wall, so brace up.