Important Tribal Genius, Wrong Country

How to Get Beyond Our Tribal Politics - WSJ:

As many of you know, I have a lot of respect for Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height", but considering what he writes on, "hate" is funnier").

If you want a cliff notes version of some of his previous writing see here http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2014/11/a-righteous-haidter.html.

If you want to dig a little deeper, here is the cliff notes on another of his books http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2015/10/the-happiness-hypothesis-jonathan-haidt.html.

I consider Haidt to be a genius, but while he is a "fan" of wisdom, as an atheist he misses the largest spiritual truth in the universe, that the BEGINNING of wisdom is the fear of God. We are all prone to believe that our viewpoint is "special" -- unless we internalize at a deep level that we are special ONLY in deep relation to God, we are pretty much doomed to keep forgetting our place.

Thus Haidt, a more brilliant human than I will ever be, says the following ...

So are we doomed? Will the polarizing trends identified by Pew just keep going until the country splits in two? Maybe John Adams was right in 1814 when he wrote, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.”

This has been a frightening year for many Americans. Questions about the durability, legitimacy and wisdom of our democracy have been raised, both here and abroad. But the true test of our democracy—and our love of country—will come on the day after the election. Starting next Wednesday, each of us must decide what kind of person we want to be and what kind of relationship we want to have with our politically estranged cousins.

Regular readers of this blog know that America WAS NOT founded as a "democracy" but rather as a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC ... BOistan is very close to a "democracy", which is precisely why at least the 10-20% of us remaining that realize that are so concerned about being completely crushed by mob rule.  John Adams was correct when he said that "democracy never lasts long", as he was when he said: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other".

In general, I think the column is EXCELLENT -- I would, the only hope for my dwindling unwilling to be tribal tribe is that enough people of the dominant tribe are willing to follow this advice ...

Second, step back and think about your goals. In the long run, would you rather change people or hate them? If you actually want to persuade or otherwise influence people, you should know that it is nearly impossible to change people’s minds by arguing with them. When there is mutual antipathy, there is mutual motivated reasoning, defensiveness and hypocrisy. 

But anything that opens the heart opens the mind as well, so do what you can to cultivate personal relationships with those on the other side. Spend time together, and let the proximity recommended by Cicero strengthen ties. Familiarity does not breed contempt. Research shows that as things or people become familiar, we like them more.

So if you happen to read this and try spending time with a Burkean Christian that will do their very best to love you even if we disagree, I'm available. If you find yourself leaving groups, shunning friends and family, etc because they are "not of your tribe", then perhaps at least consideration of  Haidt (hate?) is in order?

The set of people that are like myself -- who understand that America was a Constitutional Republic and BOistan is not, is exceedingly small -- I'd guess less than 5% of the population. BO has usurped the most basic of separated powers in spending money on BOcare not approved by congress -- who sued him and it went to the DC court of appeals and BO LOST -- badly. Nobody cares. We are no longer a Constitutional Republic -- so no longer America. (that is just one example, there are a bunch)

The SCOTUS won't take the case because it would be 4 to 4, thus allowing the DC circuit ruling to stand and BO to be guilty of brazenly violating his Constitutional oath, getting caught and adjudicated against. A HUGE percentage of BOistan has no clue what I'm even talking about.

But BOistan does NOT have a Constitution that means anything, so he skates.

So Haidt is wrong on where he lives. If you care about IDEAS -- and if you were American, you had to, because America was founded on IDEAS, not race, religion, territory or ethnic identity, then it is already "the day after". America might well have survived physical destruction, but it could no more survive the loss of shared ideas, than Christianity could survive the loss of Christ being THE WORD, fully God and fully man -- born of a virgin, dying for our sins and rising from the dead. All the churches could be physically destroyed, but as long as THE TRUTH remains, Christianity will live on.

And so it was with America. It could only exist when a supermajority understood what it was.

So Christians, continue to do the best you possibly can to love those that call you names and hate you -- and pray for them, certainly for their souls, but I also think it is OK to pray that they will read Haidt and decide that they would rather "re-educate us" than kill us.

If Hillary wins as we expect, the best thing about that might be that those "re-education camps" will be a great place to lose A LOT of weight!

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MoveOn.org

Trump accuses Clinton and media of trying to 'poison the minds' of voters - POLITICO:

Actually it was BO himself who made the role model remark, but the point is simple. When POWER is your only "morality", hypocrisy is impossible. There is nobody in the elite of TP that has any problem with Trump's behavior, it is all and purely politics.

The memory of the sheep in BOistan is so amazingly short, and the propaganda so thick, that they are scarcely able to remember anything beyond what the media told them to think in the last hour.

The following is from Wikipedia:

The MoveOn.org domain name was registered on September 18, 1998 by computer entrepreneurs Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, the married cofounders of Berkeley Systems, an entertainment software company known for the flying toaster screen saver and the popular video game series You Don’t Know Jack. After selling the company in 1997, Blades and Boyd became concerned about the level of "partisan warfare in Washington" following revelations of President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. [2] The MoveOn website was launched initially to oppose the Republican-led effort to impeach Clinton. Initially called "Censure and Move On," it invited visitors to add their names to an online petition stating that "Congress must Immediately Censure President Clinton and Move On to pressing issues facing the country."

So 18 years ago, "The Party" (TP-D) decided that even after "feminism" and countless hours of employees being lectured that "sexual harassment is whatever the woman FEELS is harassment", as with any other law, TP was above it. "The law" is just one more thing for TP to use for it's own political purposes, while it's own members in good standing are able to be completely immune to it. MoveOn was one of the mouthpieces to make this truth clear to the sheeple on the issues of sexual harassment, rape, etc.

The really sad part of this is that the natural moral sense of Christians and Conservatives can be used against them so transparently. When MoveOn was founded, they were "prudes, scolds and hypocrites" -- ANY sexual  matter that could be dug up on a Republican, was grounds on which their opinion on Slick was totally dismissed as "hypocrisy". People with moral standards are always beset by hypocrisy -- TP has the ultimate solution, no morals ... just POWER!

No matter what charge was brought against Slick, "it had nothing to do with the important job of the presidency" ... and we desperately needed to "Move on". It was shouted from every corner -- "The  French were laughing at us" for our "prudish attitudes on men in power". That always makes me change my positions -- nothing like cheese eating surrender monkeys finding a position "laughable" to turn my thinking around!

The true bottom line here is simple. TP has **NO** other concerns than POWER, and Conservatives and Christians DO. Most likely the charges will work, and in this case even better than the DUI "news" about W, brought out the weekend before the election to manipulate it. There is very little doubt it cost him 5-10% nationally -- especially in states like Florida.

It is hard to really care about BOistan. Things like Slick Willie establishing that the president need not be a person of any character or moral standard is exactly what makes either Hildebeast or Trump fully acceptible candidates for tribal chieftain of BOistan. "The standard" here is simply whatever TP decrees to to be.

The only quote I found worthy from the linked article is how far out of touch Paul Ryan is -- we ALREADY LIVE IN BOISTAN !!! Look around you! America was lost thanks to people like Ryan who failed to stand up and strongly oppose BO. Had the Republican party opposed BO half as hard as they oppose Trump, we might still have a country. They are just stopping at nothing to KEEP IT the way they want now.

“In the America they want… government is taken away from the people, and we are ruled by our betters, by a cold and unfeeling bureaucracy that replaces original thinking,” Ryan told an auditorium of students. “It is a place where the government twists the law — and the Constitution itself — to suit its purposes. A place where liberty is always under assault, where passion — the very stuff of life — is extinguished.” 

“That is the America Hillary Clinton wants,” he continued, adding, “If given control of Washington — if given control of Congress — it is the kind of America she will stop at nothing to have."

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A Liberal Thought On Trump

I believe the cartoon captures both the religious and cultural state of the west today. The moderns gleefully want to kill the culture, tradition, Christianity, Capitalism, the family, philosophic and often even scientific truth -- yet in their glee, they fail to realize it leaves them nowhere to stand!

The following is written by a liberal friend on FB. I know him to be intelligent and totally believing of the dominant left narrative taught in US public education, the media and entertainment. He is not an atheist, but has moved to become a modern secularized Christian, denying the Bible on at least sexually related issues like abortion, homosexuality and gender. As with all people of the left,  I certainly do not blame him in a human sense for "following the crowd". Holding the beliefs that I do is often costly in certainly friendships, some family relationships and possibly job and career.

While he as at times "unfriended" me on FB, I believe he attempts to be civil. I certainly have no trouble remaining his friend, FB and otherwise, because I hold this mortal coil to be but the most fleeting of experiences for our true eternal selves. To even consider judging or "unfriending" someone over the merely political would violate my own values, but given life in BOistan today, I fully understand why members of "The Party" (TP-D) feel they have no choice but to do so.

 I'll summarize and give my views on the quoted FB post below.  He titles it: "Leave it Blank?":

Though I am clearly a Democrat, I live in this country, I work with lots of good people, and so I know lots of good people who are Republicans. Honest, moral people with integrity. They think there's a better way to go about governing than what Democrats do. I respect that. 

And in a normal election cycle, I would expect them to support their "team president" because that person, the GOP Presidential Nominee, would represent their conservative values -- and would probably also be an upstanding representative of the kind of personal behavior they prize. Mitt Romney was not a "perfect" Republican for some conservatives and some Evangelicals, but he was/is Conservative, spent a long time as a public servant, and presents himself as an honorable, respectful man. John McCain was even better (the closest I've ever come to supporting a GOP candidate.) When their "team leader" is a person like these two, I can't blame Republican friends for supporting the leader.
What we have this time, though, is a candidate who quite simply does not represent the demeanor of a President, who doesn't have enough respect for the job, or the people with whom and for whom he'll have to work, to truly represent the kind of Republicans I know. 

So, can those people really vote FOR Donald Trump, just because he's on their "team?"
Now, I don't expect most of them would vote FOR Hillary. I can dream, but I do recognize that Secretary Clinton is more liberal than they are. And there are really good reasons a traditional GOP Conservative would not vote for Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein -- well, if Clinton is too far left, Jill is not right for a Conservative either. 

So, what I am wondering is this: Will these true honorable Conservatives just leave the Presidential candidate selection blank? I mean, in the future, whether Trump loses or wins, would these people want to have voted for him? 

Or does some sort of "team loyalty" require them to do what Ted Cruz did --- go against the very morality which matters so much to them and vote Trump? 

Now, I am sure I also know some Republicans who honestly support Trump. I don't get those people, but they are there. But they were not in the majority in the the early days of the GOP primaries, and many of that majority fought against Trump precisely because of the attributes he has continued to display. 

I expected the "politicians" to fall in line -- I had some hope that Cruz would stick to his principles, but even he recognized the future political disadvantage of not being a team player. 

But the average GOP voter does NOT have future politics to consider. They have to decide whether a vote for Trump is something which will weigh on their conscience in the future. 

Now, perhaps Trump would not be another Hitler, as so many of us liberals (and non-US people) worry about. Perhaps the checks and balances in place would keep him from truly taking the US in dangerous directions. Perhaps, once his records are made available, we won't find anything impeachable, and when his financial assets are placed in a blind trust, he'll be unable to try to work the system for his personal benefit, and he'll stop trying. Perhaps the "only" thing he'd do is continually embarrass us until 2020.
But even if a President Trump is only embarrassing, will a typical Republican really want to admit, 20 years from now, "Yes, I voted FOR Trump" or will they just leave that part of the ballot blank? 

That's what I am wondering today.

This post boils down for me to:

1.  Democrats have been saying the Republican nominee is "Hitler" at least since Nixon, with Reagan and W being prime past examples, and this whole straw man has it's own name (Godwin's law). The entire argument is based on the fallacy that "right" is control  and "left" is chaos/freedom, when of course the opposite is true. Whole books are written on this standard piece of TP propaganda, which I cover in summary here.  The charge has been repeated so often that one wonders why anyone would bother to do it yet again.
   
    In my mind, killing over 60 million babies in their mothers wombs is easily comparable with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or Biblical sacrifice to Moloch ... but that is a world view that radically differs from the approved world view of TP.
   
2. There is the "metaphysical certainty" that Trump is somehow "evil, bad, embarrassing, etc" ... which TP assured us was true of at least Nixon, Reagan and W. In this case, "somehow", one would be "embarrassed" years later to have voted for Trump ... and least at this point, supposedly worse than they would have been for Nixon, Reagan or W. Therefore, they would "leave the space blank", implicitly helping Hillary. 

I voted for Carter, and I'm not "embarrassed". I was young, I had just been fully indoctrinated by 16 years of schooling, my family voted Democrat, so I voted for him. The loss of Iran as an ally certainly caused and continues to cause world problems. The miscalculation on Afghanistan also had far reaching repercussions. Could these had been avoided with a better leader? I firmly believe so,  but as with pretty much anything outside of proven mathematical equations, reasonable people can  and will vary in their opinions. My only claim to wisdom is the fear of God -- I prayerfully consider decisions and study hard -- I don't take credit for Reagan, nor blame for Carter. I doubt that will ever change. 

I have no confidence in Trump as a leader -- as I have commented on the writings of Decius, I see this as the first of likely many Russian Roulette elections. Hillary is roulette with a semi-auto, Trump is a revolver -- at least for people that have nostalgia for the old Constitutional Republic that was America. Best to have an outside chance of a pause in our decent to totalitarianism. A Trump victory would be a chance for the left to revisit how they felt after Reagan, Newt as Speaker, or Ws election. People with a rightward tilt got to feel that way for the past 8 years -- only I suspect we don't feel it as deeply as they do, since politics is WAY below God for us.

BOistan is a territory based on no principles, save possibly the hope that "with more government everything is better".  2008 was the HUGE election, 2012 was the "kill shot" for America. America is dead already, many people are just not aware of it -- and some, (as I suspect the author of the post above) celebrate the "change". 

If Trump wins, as Scott Adams, the writer of "Dilbert" expects him to, it will be a LONG way from any indication that "good things will happen". It will merely be proof that there are still a lot of people out there that oppose the ending of America that BO was able to accomplish. Any road back to a Constitutional Republic is going to be LONG and arduous. The most positive aspect of a Trump win in my mind is the potential for some level of national "dialogue", more likely to be a shouting match, since the majority of the Trump supports merely sense that things are broken really badly, but have no idea at all why America once worked, how it was destroyed, or how to rebuild it.

The left will of course continue to arrogantly dismiss all who disagree, as is covered here. 

As the copied post tells you, loyal members of TP see no reason to even attempt to "reason" or consider any alternative views. Indeed, in BOistan,  POWER is all that counts, and increasingly it is coercive power as in "we will put you in jail if you claim Global Warming isn't gospel" (Exxon, NY).

The smarter TP members (like the post author) vaguely realize that once law has been abandoned, such mechanisms could theoretically be used by the opposition. I think they are wrong ... they forget the power of the administrative state, which only operates for left leadership. 

For people who hold traditional Christian views, own guns,  etc we are left with no rational choice but to vote for the candidate who will be most opposed, which is clearly Trump. 

Most of all, I wish for a renewal, which I believe must be a revival, of acceptance of Christ and Biblical principles as the transcendent values that the vast majority of Americans would be again in agreement on, and thus see government as FAR beneath those principles.

Government would be returned to being a SERVANT of both God and the people.  In America past, and I hope in an America or at least "remnant" of it, future, Christian friendship would FAR outweigh anything political, not only because one is eternal and the other but a tiny temporal moment, but also because God's Wisdom would be what drives the lives of a clear majority of Americans. 

Both Trump and Hillary are so far from decent leaders that such a vision most certainly requires a miraculous intervention from on high. Both are likely to make such a vision less possible, but I see Hillary as certainly continuing on the path to Bible following Christians being directly persecuted -- a threshold we are perilously close to.

Heavenly Father, please forgive this broken country, revive us, restore us. Amen. 

BOistan, Insulting Tribute

Why wouldn’t China insult Obama? | Power Line:

BOistan is a nation that submits tribute to those in power -- Iran, China, Russia ... even Cuba. When BO fell on his father's and grandfather's graves in Kenya, wept because they had not been able to destroy the colonial powers that treated his self-identified people, the Luo, so badly, he promised that this day would come.

I see BO as the most successful leader in modern world history at succeeding at HIS agenda (ending America) ... although the absolute proof will be in what plays out in the next couple decades.

Reagan was able to arrest the long leftward slide of America into economic stagnation and military weakness, but he could not reverse it, so the slide continued and BO was able to strangle the last of the exceptionalism that was America and covert it to the client state of BOistan.

The linked article gives you one example -- China insults the leader of the nation paying them environmental and economic tribute, while flexing their military muscles and those of their ally, North Korea, in opposing THAAD missile defense in S Korea

The launches also came hours after Chinese President Xi Jinping told his South Korean counterpart at the G20 that Beijing opposes the deployment of the United States' THAAD missile defense system to South Korea.

So, while the world meets for the G20, N Korea accurately fires 3 missiles and China tells S Korea they had best be careful, and then  insults the current leader of BOistan while he signs a deal for us to pay further tribute to China.

In practice, this deal amounts to Americans paying tribute. . . . 

For Americans. . .the result will be to increase the regulatory strictures already strangling an economy now growing at a dismal 1%. You, the American consumer, taxpayer, shunted-aside voter, will pay. For China, the cost is far less clear. As the state-controlled China Daily summarizes the arrangements, China has pledged to “peak” carbon emissions by 2030. Obama, by contrast, has promised that America will cut emissions by 28% by 2025, as compared to the year 2005. 

In other words. . .America starts paying now. China has 14 years to play around before the deal starts to bite. Plus, under China’s despotic system, coupled with a treaty in which governments are effectively held accountable only by their own citizens, the rulers in Beijing have plenty of room to toss their international commitments right out the window.

They also forced BO to exit from the rear of the plane ... usually called "The Hildebeast Exit".


The other recent tribute was BO breaking open $100 billion plus for Iran so they could sign a deal to get nukes in 10 years or so with zero sanctions. He sent them a $400 million ransom as pallets of cash at night from Switzerland, but they took a couple boats hostage at almost the same time and keep harassing our ships this summer, daring them to shoot. At every opportunity they snub their noses at us and bray a bit more about "The Great Satan".  Perhaps they know something we don't?

Biblical scholars have known this for a long time ...

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Open Letter From BOistan, Lost In Wrong Country

An Open Letter to My Friends Who Support Donald Trump:

This "open letter" gives us a wonderful insight into "liberal" thinking.

But I can’t understand why you would support someone as hateful, sexist, racist and ignorant as Donald Trump.

If some crackhead black mom murders her children, it would be SHAMEFUL to "judge her" -- why it would be societies fault, hundreds of years of racism, her poor childhood, opportunistic drug dealers, urban blight, income inequality, global warming, ANYTHING but her fault!!  In any case, "labelling" people  is always supposedly wrong for liberals  -- with enough government spending, unionized education and community programs, ANYONE can be "rehabilitated".  (but then consistency is unknown to liberals, so who is to say?)

But Trump and his supporters CAN be labeled!  ... he is "hateful, sexist, racist and IGNORANT".

So does that sound "hateful" to you? Isn't this "open letter" just the reverse side of what is claimed to be the problem of Trump? Doesn't the author in fact hate Trump and find anyone who supports him to be pretty much similarly worthy of hatred?

Well, why? See, cuz Trump is "sexist". So the Democrat candidates husband is a serial abuser of women with very credible rape charges against him. You don't have to believe me ... go read the liberal rag Vox on the subject. Back in the old days of Slick, a man was to be judged purely by his wife's opinion of him -- if Hildebeast thought Slick was "ok", then how could anyone criticize his behavior? Let's see, if the Trump wives or daughters think the Donald is OK, then how can he be questioned? We aren't even talking "fondling" here, we are talking "comments".

"Racist". Is this like the "Taco Bowl Outreach" that we find out about today? I wonder what color the "bitter clingers" were -- or if you go read BO's "Dreams", is the idea of filtering out your white mother's blood racist at all? See the fact is that EVERYONE is racist -- it is just that the MSM likes to use that label like others to take down people they find objectionable. That "PC Power" and the fact that Trump seems immune to it is one of the BIG reasons for his popularity.

"Ignorant"? Say what? Calling someone "ignorant", like calling them a lot of other names says an awful lot more about the target of the name calling than  the name caller. What color is your jet smart guy columnist?

It’s not okay to discriminate against an entire religion based on a small percentage of its followers who have become terrorists by twisting the words of the religion to fit their crazy ideals.

Really? But it is OK to discriminate against the mass of gun owners because of a VERY tiny percentage of crazies? How about to pass business regulations to choke off whole industries because of a few bad apples in business? Pretty much every regulation penalizes masses of people in order to try to ferret out some tiny minority for something that government wants to sanction -- maybe just to pad their own pockets or those of their "friends".

Radical Islam is part of ISLAM. Gun owners generally have no trouble declaring the acts of their MUCH tinier minority to be abhorrent, but the mass of Islam seems to have a terrible problem calling the radical elements out as bad! I wonder how many tears the columnist has shed for gun owners, business or "bitter clingers"?

Trump’s supporters are angry, and anger is infectious. I can tell you as a non-supporter of Trump I am just as angry.

How about BLM? Hildebeast is embracing them at the convention. We have 7 cops shot down in just the past few weeks. We have marches with chants like "What do we want? DEAD COPS!", "Pigs in blankets, fry-em like bacon!" Seems like the author of the column wants to see a country with rule of law and SHARED ideals and morals, but that was America. That is gone, this Tribal BOistan. This violent tribe vs tribe with might being the only determinant of right.

If you’re not a racist, bigoted, misogynistic jerk, then voting for Trump simply because you don’t like Democrats is wrong.

My how friendly. So "wrong"? In a post truth, post religion, post law tribal BOistan, what the hell is "wrong"? The column author clearly means POWER -- what he seeks to do is FORCE those that he labels with whatever his label of the day is to act in accordance with his will, or to shut THE F UP!

In this country we FIGHT and DIE for freedom, for Truth and Justice. We fight for what’s right. And what Trump is doing and saying isn’t right.

Uh? Not in BOistan we don't. "Right"? We threw that out with decency, gender, prayer, God, ethics, etc. We fight for POWER, with tooth and claw -- because BOistan is the Hobbesian Jungle where life is increasingly "poor, nasty, brutish and short" -- especially if you are one of the 60 million slaughtered for convenience on the altar of abortion, or the 6K or so black lives that DON'T matter dying on the streets of our big Democrat controlled cities every year.

"Truth"? The Democrat Convention shows you how tired a concept that is -- rigged and ragged, with everyone convinced that THEIR "truth" is the one that counts. With no higher "ideals" than power and pleasure, concepts like "freedom, truth, justice, right, law, etc" disappear like the morning mist before the raucous chants and slogans of ME, ME, *** M - E ***, and POWER! POWER FOR ME!

BOistan is a hell hole where vermin like Hildebeast live completely above the law -- profiting to the tune of $200 million a year from the incestuous fascist relationship between big government and Wall Street.

The simplest reason to vote Trump is EASY -- FAR Better a Fascist with opposition!

America is gone, welcome to BOistan my fine liberal friend. May those with the sharpest claws and teeth prevail! We sold our souls to BO, now we struggle as tribes, devoid of any shared values, nor and values at all save power and pleasure.

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BOistan Raises Asherha Poles, Honors Moloch

100 Sheroes Just Posed Nude At The Republican National Convention:

We are living in primitive times -- Old Testament times. We can just walk the streets and see the primitive tattoos and piercings that would be at home in any pagan tribe that has existed on the planet in the past few thousand years.

When the Israelites came into Canaan, the worship of the goddess Asherha was in full swing, and sacrifice to Moloch of children was the order of the day. Just like today -- with 60 million babes slaughtered in their mother's wombs, while the female body is used and abused as it was before the rise of civilization. God spoke to the Jews and the Judaeo Christian West and made it possible for women to become far more than they had ever been in history.

I don't think this "courageous act" would be very well received by  our "trusted friends" in Iran -- but never matter, Hildebeast is fine with that.

During the shoot, the diverse, undressed subjects each held a large, round mirror above their head. Reflecting the earth and sun and sky, as well as the fleshy forms of the manifold women around them, the mirrors spoke to the communal power of womanhood, a force almost supernatural in its strength. As Tunick explained in a statement: “The mirrors communicate that we are a reflection of ourselves, each other, and of, the world that surrounds us. The woman becomes the future and the future becomes the woman.”

Ah, the "communal power", ALMOST supernatural ... but not quite. It's all about US ... as a group maybe, but US -- we are "almost god" ... but since there is no GOD, then naked women with mirrors is a super substitute.

If ever a nation begged to be smitten by God, it is BOistan. Nazi Germany was an amateur at evil with a mere 6 million Jews slaughtered -- 1/10th our evil. I regularly accept that as a sinful person, I deserve the judgement of God, but beg forgiveness with the hope that my sinfulness will be covered by the blood of Christ. (communion)

BOistan is already a place of suffering and we will see MUCH greater suffering. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; Blessed be the name of the Lord!

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Long May Hildeast Rule BOistan

Comey comedy, Comey comity | Power Line:

Are your minds right yet folks?

1. Why would BO endorse Hildebeast while she is still supposedly under investigation of his justice department? There is no reason for him to do so, it looks TERRIBLE to anyone paying attention, but he did it anyway.
2. Why would Slick Willie meet with Loretta LynchMob in private when she is even closer to the FBI investigation? The optics were HORRIBLE, and they could have met at a 1000 secure locations and nobody would know. But they did it in the open so all would see.
3. Why would BO be traipsing around the country with Hildebeast  (BOII) on the very day the FBI is going to announce their decision on her crimes? Would tomorrow REALLY be "too late"?
4. Why would the head of the FBI admit that Hildebeast broke the law, but that they are not going to prosecute because she is Hildebeast? They could have just said "they didn't find anything". 

BECAUSE THEY ARE SHOWING YOU THEY ARE NOT ONLY ABOVE THE LAW, THEY MAKE IT AND APPLY IT AS SUITES THEM! 

So if you have not bended your knee and shut up already, SHUT THE F**K UP! 

Readers of this blog know they are already doing "guilty until proven innocent" when it suits their fancy and beating in private citizens doors when they support the wrong folks (Non-TP). 

I still assume that there are a lot of people they will make examples of  before they come for me -- but NOBODY should be the least surprised when other nasty shoes start dropping. These folks LOCKED UP the poor schmuck they falsely blamed for the "Benghazi" mythological film. 

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The Atlantic Semi Spots The Chaos

How American Politics Became So Ineffective - The Atlantic:

According to science, language, like life, is an "emergent phenomenon" -- which is scientific for "damned if we know where it came from"! They like to sound more sophisticated than that -- it "emerged" via "memes" in populations where some forms of wording conveyed proper meaning better than others and thus "were selected". How? Well, like the Heisenberg compensators in the Star Trek transporter, "very well".

Whole rafts of things in human existence are unsurprisingly "emergent", since according to Darwin, all life is emergent, and thus humans themselves are an example of "stuff that showed up because it must have worked better than other stuff".

Free Markets are emergent. Culture is emergent. Darwin's Cathedral tells you that religion is emergent. The linked article tells you that political parties were emergent from the basic framework of the Constitution. So far, political scientists have not tried to assert that the Constitution "emerged" from some primordial soup of ancient memes and the "founders" are merely "myth", but give them time.

In any case, Trump has the folks at the Atlantic trying to figure out "what went wrong?", and it is entertaining at least to observe their thinking.

"Americans have been busy demonizing and disempowering political professionals and parties, which is like spending decades abusing and attacking your own immune system. Eventually, you will get sick."

See, political parties, "middlemen", local hacks, toadies, sycophants and all sorts of flora and fauna "emerged" to magically make the American political system work -- but we failed to understand that you can't have a "political market" without "market makers", and thus "attacked our immune system" (the "political professionals" acted as gatekeepers) ... an "immune system" if you will.

The middlemen could be undemocratic, high-handed, devious, secretive. But they had one great virtue: They brought order from chaos. They encouraged coordination, interdependency, and mutual accountability. They discouraged solipsistic and antisocial political behavior.

Ah yes, "order from chaos". Me thinks that the column authors targeted a WEE bit too precisely here. In a truth free, value free, culture free nation, do you really expect that "political parties" can bring "order from chaos"? My assertion is that we attacked our CULTURE -- which was based on RELIGION, and the problem that the Atlantic perceives with "political parties" is just a SYMPTOM ... like "liver spots" on the skin being a sign of a failing liver -- but they want to treat the spots!

Middlemen have a characteristic that is essential in politics: They stick around. Because careerists and hacks make their living off the system, they have a stake in assembling durable coalitions, in retaining power over time, and in keeping the government in functioning order.

It used to be that religion, culture, community, family, truth, values and a whole lot of other stuff including the Constitution "stuck around". The columnist has a pretty high expectation of the powers of "political middlemen".  The article writer actually gets it right early on in the article:

The core idea of the Constitution was to restrain ambition and excess by forcing competing powers and factions to bargain and compromise. 

The Framers worried about demagogic excess and populist caprice, so they created buffers and gatekeepers between voters and the government. Only one chamber, the House of Representatives, would be directly elected. A radical who wanted to get into the Senate would need to get past the state legislature, which selected senators; a usurper who wanted to seize the presidency would need to get past the Electoral College, a convocation of elders who chose the president; and so on.

If you summarize the relatively long article, the author is really attempting to constrain democracy by party political patronage!  Naturally, as a liberal, he is only REALLY worried about Trump, but he DOES point out that Bernie, Cruz and Trump are all "political psychopaths" -- meaning that they don't care what their political parties think.

The problem is in the paragraph I quoted above -- we were NEVER intended to be a "democracy" AT ALL!  but rather a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC. The ONLY "democratic election" was to be for the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES! There would be no need to try to hack political parties to subvert the democracy needed to elect the House!  The death of party politics is just one more symptom of the chaos engendered by directly electing the Senate, neutering the Electoral College,  and abandoning the Constitution with it's amendment process!

The left is unable to see that ever more massive government is NOT American, nor even sustainable ANYWHERE -- no matter how much party patronage you have. He can only see that "parties losing power" (the Republican party) has given rise to two "pathogens" in his mind -- the Tea Party and Trump. Take a look around. Are brontosauruses still in existence? Are blue whales being replaced by "mega blue whales"? SCALING PROBLEMS EXIST! Bigger IS NOT always better!

I signed up for IBM because I really thought that a large corporation had distinct advantages -- it did, but it also had big DISADVANTAGES -- as does big government, or the EU, or ANY large organization or organism!

What he fails to see is that when there is no culture, no truth, no standards, no shared common values, then for a nation founded on IDEAS, there is NO COUNTRY -- just a rotting massive hulk where EVERYTHING is rotting, and the political parties are just one small example!

Trump, Hildebeast, BO, Bernie, political middlemen,  etc are ALL just symptoms!

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Due Process And Other Words That Don't Matter

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436725/orlando-massacre-political-response?utm_source=NR&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=June17Goldberg

A post-American column worth reading. If Goldberg fully understood the words that even he is saying his cause would be #NeverHillary rather than #NeverTrump. His own column makes the case -- at least Trump would be opposed! 

In a world where there is no truth and no agreed principles, words indeed do not matter -- only POWER matters, which is what BO uses constantly. What he clearly means is that HIS words matter -- more than the Constitution, more than the Bible, and clearly FAR more than those who have been declared "persona non grata" by "The Party" (TP-D).

Let’s start at the top. President Obama once famously said (more than once, actually), “Don’t tell me words don’t matter.” Fast-forward to this week, when in a tantrum of biblical proportions, the furious president said . . . words don’t matter. Responding to complaints from Donald Trump and others that he won’t say the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” Obama huffed, “Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction.”

"Due Process" which means that there must be a known and "fair" process before a citizen can be deprived of their rights under what used to be the American Constitution. Now Senators care nothing for those words that don't matter in the face of raw power.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) thinks the constitutional requirement for due process is “killing us.”

When words don't matter, there is no truth but that which power demands be given service. "Due Process", that which was the basis for any right of free men needs to be done away with. Who is at fault for this latest killing"? According to TPs paper of record, the NY Times, "Christians and Republicans".

“While the precise motivation for the rampage remains unclear,” the New York Times editorialized, “it is evident that Mr. Mateen was driven by hatred toward gays and lesbians.” “Hate crimes don’t happen in a vacuum,” added the Gray Lady (I’m referring to the Times, not Clinton). 

“They occur where bigotry is allowed to fester, where minorities are vilified and where people are scapegoated for political gain. Tragically, this is the state of American politics, driven too often by Republican politicians who see prejudice as something to exploit, not extinguish.”  

The killer was a registered Democrat. The source of his hatred was not the Christian Coalition but radical Islamism. He stated this motivation clearly during the shooting and for months prior. He reportedly also considered attacking that notorious gay hangout Disney World. Would we be hearing about the pernicious, right-wing, anti-cartoon-character climate if he’d opted for that target?

When territory is ruled by a single party, the ONLY thing that matters is THE WORD OF THE PARTY! The fact that the killer was Islamic and trumpted his allegiance to ISIS **DURING** the killing does not fit the TP narrative, so it is discounted -- "Republicans, Christians, guns" ... those are the problem, and if you do not buy that, you need to get your mind right! 

Mike Rowe, Scotch, Fire, Ron Swanson

That Time Mike Rowe Drank Scotch With Ron Swanson:

Out nation could use a lot more "folk heroes" -- Will Rodgers, Audie Murphy, Paul Harvey ... even Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Rosie the Riveter, etc. People who are real or legendary that provide examples of what it means to be an American.

Mike Rowe seems to be well along on the path of being about the best we have today.

The linked article is worth a read -- turns out there is a video of "Ron Swanson" sitting in front of a fire and drinking Scotch for an hour -- just that. I especially liked this quote -- but it is pretty short and worth the read.

“The first thing that an honest politician would say is, ‘Look, I have no idea what’s best for you and your kids, but if we’re guilty of elevating one form of enlightenment at the expense of all the others, we’re gonna create a list of problems’…that’s what we’re experiencing now. It’s amazing to me the implicit value judgments that go into all the platitudes.”

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Most Important Election, Voting 3rd Party Is Voting For Hillary, and other Myths

Wilson County News - Commentaries - Sorry Friends, If You Are #NeverTrump Then You Are #4Hillary:

Nothing special about the linked column, "Not voting for Trump is voting for Hillary, the future of America hangs on this election".

America was founded on the idea that there would be an "elite" of "like minded individuals" like the founding fathers that were educated, accomplished, men of reason, dedicated to their nation above their own self interest, that would provide PRINCIPLED leadership to the nation. The "principles" were "self evident truths" of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc -- I've written elsewhere that the principles were not "perfect", but they existed and were respected in their time and for a good period of time after.

Perhaps Lincoln is the last president that pretty much everyone can agree on carrying "the burden of office", not because of his own personal drive for fame, fortune, and immortality, but because it was a tough and critical job and he believed it was his destiny to serve. I'm actually not a big Lincoln fan at all -- I think Reagan was "good enough", or even HW and W Bush -- they were "honorable men" that SERVED even though they new they would be maligned and challenged. Perhaps LBJ was the last honorable Democrat -- I pretty much disagreed with 100% of his policies, but I think he saw the presidency as a critical burden rather than a "prize".

More important than "principled servant leadership" was the Constitution. Prior to Roe V Wade, you could argue that we nominally had a Constitution, after Obergefell (gay "marriage"), it's gone.

So the basic idea of a decent character and even slight competence has been removed post-BO, and there isn't any law to restrain the president. The idea of "saving America" made some sense in '08, and even maybe a TINY bit in 2012 if you were REALLY optimistic. Sorry, that casket is already buried.

Not electing BO mattered, but we failed that. I'd argue that Trump is marginally better than Hildebeast, but really, it is a bit like if Cleveland loses in 4 or 5 games in the NBA Finals at this point!

Sure a vote for some "third party" is effectively a vote for Hildebeast -- but the people that vote for 3rd parties aren't the logical type anyway! You may as well try to use "reason" to convince Charlie Manson that he isn't Jesus than try to convince a third party person that they are voting for Hildebeast. Voting is a simple preference selection method -- there is no "message", or "statement".

The odds your vote will be the deciding vote are roughly 1 in 60 million  ... or about 3x greater than your odds of winning the Powerball. CERTAINLY, anyone that says "my vote doesn't matter" ought NEVER play Powerball -- see "humans are not rational".

We have no principles as a people or we would not have elected BO twice. There are no "important elections" left in this sorry place -- hope for a civil war, complete economic collapse, or some sort of big natural disaster. MAYBE those are things that might cause a return to something like America -- but for a good long time it looks like BOistan and likely worse from here on out.

Get used to it.






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The Face Of The Ubermensch?

Obama Appoints Transgender Person To Advisory Faith Council - Breitbart:

When Nietzsche decided god was dead, he realized that new "myths" would be required for mankind to function.  I look at this face and think of Helen of Troy, the woman over whom the Trojan War was fought in Homer -- "The face that launched a thousand ships".

That is "Barbara" Satin, a "woman" whom BO appointed to the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

I believe that I shall remember that face as "The face that launched millions of men into the bathrooms and locker rooms of our wives, daughters and granddaughters".

From reading Nietzsche, I know his "Ubermensch" ( "Superman", maker of myths) was imagined to be more like Hitler -- and Hitler considered himself a "post god, god", much as BO does.

We have forgotten all the myths -- Icarus, Prometheus, Pandora. We are certain we can strike down the "old" and "something wonderful" will this way come.

Indeed, Ideas DO have consequences!

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America Never Great, Is BOistan Great?

‘America Was Never Great’ Hat Leads to Death Threats - The New York Times:

The NY Times naturally presents this as a "free speech" issue. The woman has received some "threats on the internet" -- ho hum.  Not supporting gay "marriage", men in women's bathrooms or saying "all lives matter" is good enough to get one at least internet death threats in this time of incivility, boycotts, and loss of jobs for non-PC speech. Meanwhile our tender college students demand to not even hear the name "Trump", nor see it chalked on sidewalks.

The pictured young woman expects to graduate in a couple of weeks and is seeking a career in media,  I know it is the most egregious of cynicism to even suggest that wearing such a hat and getting covered in the NY Times might be an asset to such a career.

She said she was set to graduate in two weeks with a degree in media studies from the College of Staten Island and wanted to pursue a career in music, radio, social media or journalism. She has already started looking for jobs in those fields.
As for the custom-made cap, Ms. Lake said she had ordered only one but planned to buy many more.

We know of the long list of terrible sins against the secular god of Political Correctness that may not be uttered or even alluded to lest someone be offended. But how WOULD someone have a "nation" these days? Back in 2008, Michelle Obama was for the first time "proud of America" -- but only because she saw it stepping up to be "Fundamentally Changed".

It has been, and now we live in BOistan -- and nobody ought take offense at a hat saying that "America was Never Great".  They may have fought for that never great nation, possibly have been wounded and still bear many scars, but their view is wrong and to be offended by such a hat is WAY outside the bounds of what is now allowable in this territory.

There is  LOTS of right to take offense at a Confederate Flag, somebody saying "All Lives Matter", a person objecting to a man in a wig and a dress (or apparently just "feeling girlish")  entering a woman's changing room with their 12 year old daughter however -- in fact, the Totalitarian State of BOistan may well prosecute for "Hate Speech" if they step out of line and transgress these disallowed types of speech.

Yes, Trump has all sorts of flaws, but look at the hat and read the article.

This election is about "Is BOistan Great"?

 If you vote for Hildebeast, or stay home, you are voting for speech like this blog to suppressed.

In BOistan as advanced by the Hildebeast, there will soon no longer be dissension -- we are RAPIDLY getting to the point where all MUST agree with whatever edicts the head of "The Party" chooses to hand down, and the "Bitter Clingers" will shut up or disappear!

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Fragmented Society, Brooks Slides More Statist

The Fragmented Society - The New York Times:

David Brooks of the NY Times is a great example of what "The Party" (TP-D) believes a "conservative" should be. Every Friday he shows up in NPR for a little segment with EJ Dionne that is a great example of how NPR and the MSM cover "both sides". The left, and the far left. Brooks voted for BO, hates Trump, and found Cruze to be just as bad as Trump. Both the NY Times and NPR believe that he is a good representative of a "conservative" view.

I suspect that I'll have to read the "Fragmented Society" book that he is reviewing, I found the following observation interesting.

"I’m acknowledged in the book, but I learned something new on every page. Nonetheless, I’d say Levin’s emphasis on subsidiarity and local community is important but insufficient. We live within a golden chain, connecting self, family, village, nation and world. The bonds of that chain have to be repaired at every point, not just the local one. It’s not 1830. We Americans have a national consciousness."

I'd love to know "why 1830"? Maybe election of Andrew Jackson? Why not say 1860? (start of Civil War), or 1869, the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, or some other watershed date. My guess is it was just Brooks way of saying "long ago".

I also found this factoid interesting.

For example, religious life has bifurcated. Church attendance has declined twice as fast among people without high school diplomas as among people with college degrees. With each additional year of education, the likelihood of attending religious services rises by 15 percent.

Not what the the MSM tries to convince us of is it? One would THINK that "more education = less religion", but that is not so. I was somewhat aware of this, I read "Coming Apart" which Brooks mentions in the column, but for some reason I failed to blog on it -- there are only a few HUNDRED books of which I'm guilty of that!

So, "we have a national consciousness"? What might that be? Is it represented by Trump, Hildebeast, or Bernie? Perhaps it is best revealed by the emperor's decree on bathrooms and locker rooms?  I readily agree that is not "1830", but if you started at the OTHER end, with the "individual", could not one expect many of our "modern" youth to compare tattoos and body piercings with some primitive of a thousand years ago or more? 

Our personal spiritual level is that of primitive pagans, we are gender confused, "marriage" is legal for undefined pairings ("bi-sexual marriage"?), village? There is no "chain", and there is no "national consciousness". We are broken -- things were much better in 1830.


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Prager, Name The Enemy, Soaking In It

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0516/prager051716.php3#2gE0J3QSLYRYlRrC.99

A column in which Prager points out the obvious fact conservatives, Republicans, etc pretty much never state the name of THE PROBLEM that is killing us.

Why? Because they assiduously avoid identifying who or what acts are causing our universities to mimic fascist institutions, namely: ruining dissenters' careers; penalizing dissenting students; not hiring dissenting professors; disinviting the few invited speakers with whom the majority differs; shouting down dissenting speakers; students and faculty occupying and taking over college administrators' offices, etc. 

The Bloomberg-Koch column is like going to your doctor and getting back a fully accurate report that you are dying that doesn't even hint at why you are dying. 

Why don't Bloomberg and Koch mention the words "left" or "progressive" or "liberal" even once? The entire deterioration of the American university (and high school and elementary school) is the result of leftist influence. How could they not mention this?

The simple answer they don't name it is because they don't want to be called idiots. There is a whole book that covers a lot of this, Roger Scruton, "Thinkers of the New Left". The left already took over the university, and if Prager hasn't noticed, the entire Federal / State and Educational bureaucracy, as well as most of media and entertainment, law and a few other major parts of our world.

I enjoy a lot of Prager's thinking, but I really think this is one he knows. Calling the left out is like calling out Godzilla, or going for a stroll in Iran with a funny picture of Mohammad on your shirt.

No, if you are in the public eye like Bloomberg-Koch, you better try to pussyfoot around like mammals hiding out from T-rex. Also, since Bloomberg is a lefty and Koch is a libertarian,  it really would not do for Koch to say that "Bloomberg is the problem" if they want to write a column together.


The BIG reason for not naming the left as the problem though? Like fish in water, or Madge and Palmolive, "We're Soaking In IT!".

I Tell You The Truth, There Is No Truth

A Melancholy Calculation | PJ Media:

The title is a variation of "Everything I say is a lie ..... I'm lying." Covered well on the old Star Trek.

I've attempted to write quite a few posts like this, and will no doubt attempt many more, since I believe that the biggest question of our age is "Truth, does it exist, and allowing that, what forms does it exist in and how are those to be perceived". My short answer would be yes, transcendent -- as in eternal, metaphysical, God, scientific -- as in the best current approximation of physical phenomenon, and emotional -- as in the feelings perceived by humans for each other, God, community, country, etc.

I find this paragraph critical to his thesis.

Perhaps the most evident sign of civilizational devolution is the inability or unwillingness to acknowledge reality, to come to terms with things as they are, and to oppose the suppression of objectivity and its substitution by fantasy, illusion and wish-fulfillment. The resonating dictum of the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides from his fragmentary poem On Nature—variously translated as what is, is, and what is not, is not!—sounds like an empty tautology. But it has relevance for our present historical moment, with respect to the cultural and lexical inversions of contemporary thought and discourse. Apart from its metaphysical implications, which we won’t go into here, the Parmenidean maxim expresses the criterion for survival, the need to separate truth (aletheia) from opinion (doxa) and to recognize things as they are if an individual, a culture, a people is to transact successfully with the existing world. But when thought and action come to be governed by the anarchic principle that what is, is not and what is not, is, a process of social, political and epistemological disintegration invariably sets in. This is the condition in which the West finds itself today.

Today, outside science, there is only "doxa" (opinion), and each personal doxa is supposedly just as valid as anyone else's, but of course, there is the rub. POWER ... of media, of party, of public opinion, of money, etc is what REALLY makes some opinions to be "truth". If you fail to bow to them -- as in believe that men should stay in men's bathrooms even when wearing a dress, well then you have to be bludgeoned into agreeing with the POWERFUL opinions!

It is all well worth the read, I've come to see our present crisis as completely obvious, but I realize that is a minority option -- us cranks enjoy seeing the occasional apparently sentient human in agreement! I'll close with this for those of you not up to reading it all.

When a civilization, or its cultural and intellectual curators who wield the instruments of power and authority, re-interprets reality as merely discretionary, decline and eventual extinction are guaranteed, and the Angel of History will preside over the ruins. When pretending becomes believing, and believing becomes mandatory, and calling out the naked emperor is punishable by law or fine or ostracism or loss of employment or worse, and when the scale of such abuses becomes effectively global, the “lifeworld,” or communal nature of daily life, as we have known it has ceased to exist.

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Responding To Senator Ben Sasse's Open Letter

Ben Sasse - AN OPEN LETTER TO MAJORITY AMERICA TO: Those who...:

Senator Sasse,

First of all, thanks for writing the letter. As we see in the protestors at Trump rallies, in Black Lives Matter, and many other places in this country, we are approaching the time of violence being seen as a solution. If we don't start talking, violence will almost certainly be one of the answers to our crisis.

I'm a 59 year old Christian father of two boys, blessed grandfather of one beautiful granddaughter, married for 31 years, 34 year career in computer software, raised on a dairy farm, now retired and trying hard to write about what I believe matters in my blog and pieces of a book.

You mention the political parties, Washington DC, and what a third party candidate might look like. I believe that American problems always start with IDEAS. We are a country based on ideas, not territory, race, or cultural origin.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I believe the origin of our current problems are in that sentence:

These truths -- What is truth? Possibly the majority of people today think of "truth" as either empirical, the scientific "truth" of numbers and experiment, or as power. The "might is right" of the ballot box or bullet. Many believe that there is no such thing as truth.

created equal -- Our founders thought equality of OPPORTUNITY was the obvious meaning of that term. Today, possibly more than half our nation thinks it is equality of OUTCOME, and even believes that it is the responsibility of government to define and insure that equality of outcome.

endowed by their Creator -- We were founded on TRANSCENDENT values. Not "situational", not "whatever polls say".  "Ideas Have Consequences"  is a book that every educated American ought to understand, because it provides the definition of transcendent truth and the consequences of not having it. The phrase makes clear what our founders knew about our nation, best stated by John Adams: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other".

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- A nation that has slaughtered 60 million babies in their mothers wombs has certainly abandoned the protection of life. We could talk of the loss of liberty forever, but the simple fact that everyone talks about "what is happening in DC" vs what THEY are doing in their families, community, churches and states tells the tale.

Sadly, I believe that our founders made a grave mistake in adding "the pursuit of Happiness" to the Declaration. Happiness is a side effect of meaning, and without maturity and meaning, it is not possible. As with most of "my thoughts", this too is stolen, the book that makes it most clear and concise in my experience is "Happiness Is a Serious Problem"

Our nation lost it's way long ago. In recent times, the failure to remove Bill Clinton from office showed that the presidency could be held by a person of no moral character. The election of Barak Obama showed that the office could be held by someone who had no demonstrated competence in leadership or executive function. Being able to campaign and win became the only qualification for leading the area of North America founded on ideas that are no longer known or understood.

George W Bush was the last president of "The United States of America". What we are now is unknown -- and either Trump or Hillary clearly meet the "standard" of "no standards".

We don't need a "candidate to campaign 24/7", we need A NATION! Right now, we don't have one, because the one we had was founded on IDEAS, which our people no longer understand, let alone believe, and a Constitution, which apparently we will demonstrate yet again that we do not follow, with the case of the North Carolina law that specifies males and females using the proper bathroom.

We need a "Movement", a "Revival", a return of the spirit that was America to sweep the land and restore the bulk of our heritage, and yes, maybe correct a few glaring errors like "pursuing happiness". I fervently believe that such a revival may happen -- it may well form a new nation rather than the old one. It may well be that the coasts demand a centralized government, massive dependency, open borders, the exclusion of God from the public square -- in short what is seen as "progressive" by many today.

Most of all, we need to understand what it is that we once were, and what it is that we are seeking to be! Protecting this broken immoral shell of a once great nation from Jihad, getting the books balanced, restoring education, and putting fresh politicians in DC seems a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I have made a personal shot on arriving at what an agenda for restoration might look like here.

Again, thank you for the seed of dialogue. Somehow, we must save at least a remnant of the light that was America, even if it is a new nation made up of what is today "Red America". We need humble ourselves and pray mightily while following the words of Churchill in England's finest hour and Never, Never, Never giving up!

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Some Frankness From Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank on How Democrats Went From Being the ‘Party of the People’ to the Party of Rich Elites - In These Times:

I loved this quote ... isn't it wonderful to see how the DC wing of TP ("The Party"-D) thinks?

I live in Washington, D.C., and I spend time around Hillary-style Democrats. They really think that they’ve got this thing in the bag. And I don’t just mean her versus Bernie. I mean the Democratic Party winning the presidency for the rest of our lives. From here to eternity. They can choose whoever they want. They could nominate anybody and they would win. They think they’re in charge.

I tend to agree with them -- they have brought in enough illegals, made voting with no ID nearly the national standard, and through organizations like ACORN and just the fact of 90% of the people tabulating the votes being union government employees, that all counts are suspect. As Stalin said "The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do". TP counts the votes -- or contracts for the machines to count the votes.

The main thesis of the article is:

According to Frank, popular explanations which blame corporate lobby groups and the growing power of money in politics are insufficient. Frank instead points to a decision by Democratic Party elites in the 1970s to marginalize labor unions and transform from the party of the working class to the party of the professional class. In so doing, the Democratic Party radically changed the way it understood social problems and how to solve them, trading in the principle of solidarity for the principle of competitive individualism and meritocracy.

There is that left wing word again "meritocracy" -- oh how they hate the idea that people are blessed with different abilities and can use them wisely or foolishly to obtain different economic result! TP moved away from PRIVATE sector unions in the '70s and focused on the massive growth of PUBLIC  sector unions. Automation, global trade and non-competitive labor had pretty much destroyed vast swaths of American industry by that point already, Steel being a great example. TP cares about POWER not people -- they go where the power is, and it was certainly with the professional class.

But Frank seems surprised that TP operates as it does and clearly took action when BO took office to benefit it's major constituency, the upper 10-30% (Frank wants it to seem more elite than it is, it's more than 10%)  -- government workers, teachers, university professors, lawyers, financial people, fortune 500 professionals.

This is not only because of those evil Republicans, but because Obama played it the way he wanted to. Even when he had a majority in both houses of Congress and could choose whoever he wanted to be in his administration, he consistently made policies that favored the top 10 percent over everybody else. He helped out Wall Street in an enormous way when they were entirely at his mercy. 

He could have done anything he wanted with them, in the way that Franklin Roosevelt did in the ‘30s. But he chose not to.

He didn't do what FDR did because what FDR did failed miserably. It prolonged and deepened what would have been a bad recession, much like 1982 into the Depression. BO's "FDR lite" of STILL massive government intervention, regulation and cronyism have made a "recession" into the "Great Recession". BO got away with what he could get away with to not make the disaster as obvious as it ought to be. It is STILL easy to look at the 1930's, late 1970s and 2008-2016 as times of TP taking control (they took Congress in 2006) and the economy being bad.

The big overarching problem of our time is inequality. If you look at historical charts of productivity and wage growth, these two things went hand in hand for decades after World War II, which we think of as a prosperous, middle-class time when even people with a high school degree, blue-collar workers, could lead a middle class life. And then everything went wrong in the 1970s. Productivity continued to go up and wage growth stopped. Wage growth has basically been flat ever since then. But productivity goes up by leaps and bounds all the time. We have all of these wonderful technological advances. Workers are more productive than ever but they haven’t benefited from it. That’s the core problem of inequality.

First of all, productivity is NOT improving. The OBJECTIVE of the left is the story of inequality! A more and more privileged government crony elite class and an ever more dependent and controlled mass "proletariat". The left is about CENTRALIZATION OF POWER in the hands of the VERY few, ultimately THE ONE! Left is control, right is chaos, the US was supposed to be "center right".

If policies of merit and competition are allowed to work, one gets the US 1982 - 2008. If the policies of the left are allowed to work, the result is East vs West Germany prior to '91, North Korea vs South Korea today.

The biggest question I have is whether Frank is a "Useful Idiot" and doesn't know that BO (and FDR and Carter before him) are doing exactly what is intended, or if he is simply a propaganda shill for the TP. I guess it really doesn't matter ...


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Perspectives of a Russian Immigrant (IBD Series 2)

A Russian Immigrant Sees U.S. Making Same Mistakes As USSR | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD: " ibdeditorials.com."

I ran into this on one of my old blog posts -- I'll likely put up a few of them at least, it looks like they may all be a good read by a woman that emigrated from the USSR in 1980.

“Authors writing about socialism need to know what socialism is. The author of this article would rather just go into a tirade about the problems in our country … and automatically jump to the conclusion the problem is socialism. Huh? What? Where is the socialism you’re talking about?”

An old Soviet joke goes as follows: “A Soviet and an America journalist argued about whose society is freer. The American declared, ‘I can stand in front of the White House and yell that our president is a fool!’ ‘Big deal,’ responded the Russian, ‘I can stand in front of Kremlin in Moscow and yell that your president is a fool too!'”

This joke is at least 40 years old. But today in the U.S., very much as it was in the USSR, a rodeo clown’s livelihood is in peril because he dared to make a joke about the president. One can measure level of socialism by the number of lives wasted, humiliated or destroyed by a centralized government that is pursuing its agenda and control.

I covered the Rodeo Clown incident a bit here.  She has an excellent list of some of the techniqes used by socialist / centralized / command and control nations. I'll bring a few here, but the whole set is worty:

• Polarizing society by dividing people into groups by ethnicity. 

• Controlling speech, enforcing political correctness and attempting to suppress opposition media.

• Intimidating opposition through Justice Department investigations of journalists, IRS intimidation of groups and individuals who oppose government policies, and information collected on citizens that becomes quite handy. 

• Controlling people by making them dependent on government for basics such as medical care, property rights and income. 

• Applying separate standards in medical and other services for government employees and acolytes vs. the rest of society.

The control spreads ... Curt Schilling losing his job is a current example.  I liked the following quote:

A prominent Soviet physicist, Lev Landau, defined the USSR’s system as “a dictatorship of bureaucrats.” It amounted to socialism, he said, “because the means of production do not belong to the people, but to bureaucrats.”

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57 One Way Streets To Perdition

Thoughts from the ammo line | Power Line:

I've covered at least very nearly all of these, but the litany is important, I highly recommend reading it. As you read the following paragraph, context is important -- the ex-wife of the person BO was running against (Jack Ryan) was 7 of 9 ... Jeri Ryan. Men have done strange things when involved with even less good looking women.

In Obama’s 2004 race for the U.S. Senate – which was the springboard a mere 105 “Present” votes later for his Presidential campaign – first his primary opponent’s, then his general election opponent’s SEALED divorce records were broken into and unsealed. In one case, some extremely minor mutual push-and-shove “abuse” and, in the second, some consensual but embarrassing sexual hijinks spilled out into the world. Obama prevailed. What are the chances that someone could catch such a lucky break? Twice?

I'm with Ammo Grrril on  the basic reason that BO's records all need to be sealed.

I’ll tell you what I think: I think he got into college as a foreign student, one born in Africa and raised in Indonesia. I’m not a “birther.” I do not believe he was born in Africa. I believe he was, in fact, born in Hawaii. But I believe Obama is the original “birther”; he lied and said he was born in Africa to get into college, just as he did in the bio his booking agency used. A bio he let stand for 18 years, uncorrected. I also think the old Choom Gang slacker had mediocre grades. And I’d bet my favorite gun that every lawyer on Power Line kicked his ass on the LSAT. Prove me wrong, Barry. Let’s see the records.

The book bio factoid above is absolutely true -- but of course, nobody cares. We are on a lot of one way streets and BO is a Democrat. Nuff said! Good God, Hillary Clinton is running for for president and Mr blue stain is still around! We live in a world where well over 50% of the population is purely following the script laid down by The Party and it's media / propaganda arm.

Nothing but One-Way Streets. No wonder we’re on the road to perdition and can’t even make a U-Turn.

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