The Soul Of The World, Roger Scruton

https://www.amazon.com/Soul-World-Roger-Scruton/dp/0691169284

After "Face of God" and this fine effort, I'm a confirmed Scrutin fan. In "Soul", Scruton continues his analysis of what it means to be human as opposed to atoms, cells, chemicals and adaptive evolutionary programming.

"I know that I am a single and unified subject of experience. This present thought, this pain, this hope, and this memory are features of one thing, and that thing is what I am. I know this on no basis, without having to carry out any kind of check, and indeed, without the use of criteria of any kind -- this is what is (or ought to be) meant by the term "transcendental". The unity of the self-conscious subject is not the conclusion of any inquiry, but the presupposition of all inquiries. the unity of consciousness "transcends" all argument since it is the premise without which argument makes no sense."

The paragraph is a bit longer than "I think therefore I am", yet I see it as gaining commensurate meaning from that added length.

As humans, "we" have to start somewhere, meaning we have to find some way to postulate that we actually exist from "nowhere". If we sit quietly, focus on only "our" breathing, watching our breaths happen on their own, our thoughts come and be acknowledged/dismissed as "we" return to watching our breath, our emotions pass through us as we acknowledge them and gently return to calm attention on our breath, the question arises as to "what or who" is doing the watching?

We will discover as millions have discovered throughout history (and millions more have not), that "I", is not our physical body, not our thoughts, and not our emotions. We each "have" all those things, but we, ARE something else. Another version of this realization is covered in an Atlantic article that I reviewed not long ago. Reality IS experience.

So if what we experience IS all there is, then how might we think about that?

"There is a culture of long-term thought and abstract conception, represented by Moses; and a culture of short-term pleasure and easy communication represented by Aaron. The first points to the transcendental ground of being; the second reduces beings to idols.:

In this section of the book, Scruton uses music as the example of how to know the difference. I believe however that this quote goes a long way toward the heart of the matter:

"... the difference is between preventing silence, and letting silence speak. Music in the listening culture is a voice that rises out of silence, and which uses silence as a painter uses the canvas ..." 

Scruton is seeking to capture "the ghost in the machine" of physical creation, as many lovers and believers have before him. (and what are true lovers but believers?)  I think we all understand that if we step back and let the silence speak, it DOES speak -- which is why the forces of Aaron work incessantly to make certain we never stop and listen!

"In music as in sex and architecture, the relation between subjects can be uprooted and replaced by an arrangement of objects. And in a hundred ways the result of this is is a culture of idolatry in which freedom and personality are obliterated by intrusive images, clamoring for an addictive response." 

"We are spirits living in the material world" (as "The Police" once put it). Much of modern man's time is spent trying to anesthetize that knowledge via clicks, games, music, drugs, media, work, relationships, ANYTHING!

"The Fall did not occur at a particular moment in time; it is a permanent feature of the human condition. We stand poised between freedom and mechanism, subject and object, end and means, beauty and ugliness, sanctity and desecration. And these distinctions derive from the same ultimate fact, which is that we can live in openness to others, accounting for our actions and demanding an accounting for theirs, or alternatively close ourselves off from others, learn to look on them as objects, so as to retreat from the order of the covenant to the order of nature."

Why is it critical for the left to cover their ears and scream "safe space! Nah, nah, nah, nah"? Because in a fallen world, even a fig leaf is imagined to provide "covering" of the nakedness of corrupted nature denying it's soul. The unbeliever MUST deny their soul, the pain of it's corruption is unspeakable, so they can ONLY "cover", never account for their fallen state until they accept redemption.

For the lover and the believer, the idea of hiding our true face and soul from others, especially those we love, is painful in the extreme. Many of us must do this in order to maintain any relation at all with family, to hold our jobs, or to interact socially.

The question "Why"? is addressed from I to you. It is thrust upon us in those moments in extremis when the order of creation irrupts around us. It is then that we cry out to God -- who will tell us why we suffer, why we live, and why we die. Within the envelope of nature there are only causes. But for the eye of faith the envelope has a telos, a reason for being as it is. And to have faith is to believe that the worlds teleology will account for my afflictions too.

"Irrupts" -- to enter forcibly or suddenly.

In this week before inauguration day 2017, the year of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I stand in awe of the power of God and of Satan. My sense is that "The Fall" was the "reification" of the spiritual perfection of creation. "Reify" is a dangerous word which I believe holds a paradox within itself. The literal meaning of the word is "to make something abstract more "real" as in "understandable" ".

Since I believe that what we see as "reality" through our fallen senses is what scientists might call a "quantum flux" and God calls "spirit and truth", the act of "reification" is the act of making MORE FALSE -- making something seem to be more physical, or "quantified", "measured", "real".

In my world view, mathematics is closer to "truth" than engineering (applied physics). Reification as  it is commonly used is actually  "making a graven image" from a spiritual perspective.

Scruton has helped me immensely in trying to "un-reify" my world ... as in "sanctify", or "recover the spirit".

HIGHLY recommended to those who seek to recover the spirit.

TP Religious Hatred

Blog: Why the left hates Trump so intensely:

We've been over this more than a few times. The assertion is that "Secular Humanism", "The Party" (TP-D), "Blue America", "progressivism", etc, have become very much a religion, and not a particularly tolerant one. TPism is pretty much like Islam -- It demands that the State and the religion be one in the same -- in Islam, that is called "Sharia Law", in the TP Religion it is called "Secular Humanistic Administrative Law" with Political Correctness enforcement as one of it's branches.

Cults get very unhappy with members that leave, especially if they publicly say bad things about the cult -- and Trump was a definite member in good standing of the TP elite until he "went rogue'.

The whole linked article is not all that long, but still not very worthy, but I found the following to be the highlight:

Blue Team Progressivism is a church, offering you moral superiority and a path to spiritual enlightenment. As a church it's got a lot going for it. It runs religious programming on television, all day every day. Every modern primetime program is like a left-wing Andy Griffith show, reinforcing lessons of inclusion, tolerance, feminism, and anti-racism. 

Watching a 90-pound Sci-Fi heroine beat up a room full of giant evil men is as satisfying to the left as John Wayne westerns were for the right. 

The Blue Church controls the HR department, so even if you don't go to church, you have to act like a loyal churchgoer in every way that matters while you're on the clock. And off the clock, on any kind of public social media platform. 

Jon Stewart and John Oliver are basically TV preachers. Watching them gives the same sense of quiet superiority your grandma gets from watching The 700 Club. The messages are constantly reinforced, providing that lovely dopamine hit, like an angel's voice whispering, "You're right, you're better, you're winning." 

Hollywood award shows are like church talent shows - the skits and jokes aren't really funny, but it's fun to look at the pretty girls, and you're all on the same team.

When you have been ensconced in a blue bubble through all your educational years (and for many, in your comminity and job as well), fully assured that you were on the "right" (meaning correct) "side" of history and heading inevitably to nirvanah, an event like Trump can be REALLY disconcerting!

The "Blue Church" has it's own escatology (description of the "end times") that is rooted in concepts like the old Hegelian / Marxist Dialectic of "Thesis->Antithesis->Sythesis" or "Problem->Reaction->Solution". Since most of the post-moderns are not aware of much of history, theology or philosophy, many of them think this is also "new".

This all assumes that "history" somehow has some sort of "direction" apart for the one in Christianity. Historicism asserts that somehow, not just plants, animals, etc are "evolving" to a "better" state. How did it get this "direction"? ... big mystery. It "just is", or "somehow" in 10 to the 400th UNIVERSES, this one with all these cool Goldilocks characteristics also has some mysterious built in "random teleology" that pushes it toward "better", and "better" just happens to always align perfectly with whatever "progressives" are thinking as being "better"! A very very happy accident indeed!

The bottom line here is that as finite and very limited beings, ANY explanation of our existence is at some level "fantastic, improbable, paradoxical, etc" ... which is why when I went through my greatest faith chllenges, I eventually settled on belief in things that have a history (meaning 100's or thousands of years) of WORKING!
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SNAP, Lobbying and Pop (Soda)

In the Shopping Cart of a Food Stamp Household: Lots of Soda - The New York Times:

10% of what we spend as a nation on providing "food" to the poor goes for soda.

That means a household that spent 10 percent of its SNAP money on soda could buy at least 20 two-liter bottles of orange Crush soda at a Fine Fare supermarket in New York City, or about 50 cans of Sprite at a Walmart in Oakland, Calif.

One might think that given government's propensity for "controls", there might be some ... however: 

But the food and beverage industries have spent millions opposing such measures, and the U.S.D.A. has denied every request, saying that selectively banning certain foods would be unfair to food stamp users and create too much red tape.

The "government" (more explicitly it's employees and elected officials) have an even greater propensity for graft and kickbacks. Besides, SNAP is part of the payout to supporters of "The Party" (TP-D) ... BO got a record number on Food Stamps  45 million people!








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How Can I Miss You, When You Won't Go Away?

How Can I Miss You, Barry, When You Won’t Go Away? | Power Line:

It would be great if BO would really go away, but this is a stench that is certain to linger.

Is Barack Obama the worst president in the history of the United States? A strong case can be made that the answer is yes, but in any event, he is undoubtedly our most delusional. You have to take your hat off to the man: going eight long years without ever acknowledging reality is no mean feat.

Ramirez summarizes it well as always.

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Lewis? Have A Nice Negation

Rep. John Lewis: I don’t see Trump ‘as a legitimate president’\

Oh really. OK, I don't see you as legitimately existing. Have a nice negation.

Your judgement will endure for never.

Tim Scott, Senate, Not House N-word

Someone called Sen. Tim Scott the N-word on Twitter. The South Carolina senator shut it down with one word. | News | postandcourier.com:



Tim Scott, first black Republican Senator since reconstruction from S Carolina is no stranger to hatred -- racial and otherwise. "The Party" (TP-D) doesn't cotton to blacks leaving their plantation and thinking independently -- let alone going so far that they become actual REPUBLICANS!



Scott is a TRUE "profile in courage" and CLASS!



So someone calls him a "house N-word', one word tween response ... Senate.





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Pathetic or Frightening, A Tough MSM Question.

Donald Trump’s First, Alarming Week as President-Elect - The New Yorker:

As an avid MPR listener, I'm always impressed by their balanced and diverse coverage of the the left and the far left. It reminds me of the eclectic tastes of Bob's Country Bunker in "The Blues Brothers":

Trump has already increased the entertainment value of National Liberal Radio enough that if I wasn't required already to pay for through my taxes and and MN sales CONSTITUTIONAL sales tax, it might be worth paying for!

Why each day gives me a chance to hear them right next to tears and HORRIBLY worried about how we will all survive under this disaster of Trump! It is sweeter still, since I remember this time after the election of BO, they were having a hard time figuring out if he was going to be more like Washington, Lincoln or FDR, or quite possibly as good as 10x all three of them rolled into one.

Turns out, like Jimmuh Carter that gave us Ronald Reagan, BO's only accomplishment turned out to be the election of Trump! It just took him two terms rather than one, so maybe Carter wins there.

Anyway, the New Yorker, WaPo, NY Times, NBC, ABC, etc are pretty much in the same boat. Glum, despondent, afraid, angry, confused, apocolyptic, depressed, outraged, incredulous -- it is just such a joy to listen to them and read what they have to say. It reminds me of the midnight dessert buffet on a Cruise Ship!

This is just a lovely turn of phrase:

Some saw the tweet as self-pitying and pathetic. Others saw it as a frightening attack on the First Amendment by the man who will soon swear to defend the Constitution.

When you write something like that AND PUBLISH IT, without any thought that you MAY not quite be aligned with even much of the country, you might be "in a bubble"! Some people saw it is "self-pitying and pathetic", others saw it as a "frightening attack", end of story, all bases covered.

I really didn't find the tweets to be a good thing, yet it becomes increasingly obvious they are genius. Just how stupid does the New Yorker look to anyone not made insane by the election of Trump? And if you are insane, then what really matters?

God, I do love it, I love the smell of burnt liberal press in the morning! It smells like .... VICTORY!

In looking around for the Apocalypse YouTubes, I ran into this. OMG! People, if you can't get a clue, GET A LIFE!

Perhaps this would make them feel better as the inauguration theme music?
Romeo Foxtrot, Shall we dance? !

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The Trump Dossier

The Bizarre Trump Dossier | The Weekly Standard:

Today in "news of the surreal", the "Trump Dossier". Yesterday on MPR, this was all the big deal ... "unprecedented". Indeed., Unprecedented in former Constitutional Republics -- totally common in backwater third world banand republics.

"For at least five years"—in other words, starting no later than 2011, Vladimir Putin believed that the host of "The Apprentice" was the linchpin holding together NATO. You see, Putin has special insight not only into Trump but also the American electorate. Unlike most every other expert who handicapped the 2016 elections, and gave Trump zero chance of victory, Putin knew Trump would win—and he knew it five years ago.

If Putin is truly that smart, I hope he DOES have a very close relation with "The Donald" (TD) and gives him advice. We could use A LOT of help from someone that smart.

Imagine, FIVE YEARS AGO! Why in that dim and distant piece of hitory, "The 1980's called for their foreign policy"

AND, BO was promising  those Russion friends "more flexibility after the election"!

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Around The Bend With Trump

Trump Bestrides the Liberals’ World Like a Colossus | Power Line:

Vanity Fair? The entertainment value of the post election lefty Tumpocalpse has exceeded even my expectations for extremely high entertainment value.

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Return Stolen Asian Baby

Intolerant Left: Conservative Minorities Are Sellouts | National Review:

Here we see a classic example of "tolerance" from the left. What they "tolerate" are people that think in lock-step with all the dictats of "The Party" (TP-D). Others deserve to be maligned in any way the left desires, including calling their granddaughter a "prop".

The whole article is worth the read, it covers the attacks on Bobby Jindal well. In TP doctrine, "Thou shalt not be a Republican if you are not lily white saith TP!  Such is an abomination before TP and requires that you be put to at least political death as painfully as possible by any means possible".

As we know all too well ...

For far too many standard-bearers of their movement, disagreement with any conservative on policy need not be tempered by basic civility, since the Left is always entitled to be mad about whatever it is they’re mad about, and thus, the ends always justify the means.

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32 Grand For Food -- What Was The Bar Tab?

U.S. Bank Stadium suite guests feasted on $32,000 in food on state dime - StarTribune.com:

The boys and I went up to a couple games and had a good time. Stadium food is really expensive, but $32K sounds a bit steep, even for a few games.

I'm wondering if they ran out of numbers to print the bar tab, or the computers are still working trying to calculate it?

Talk about "government service!".

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Streep, The Standard Fake News

White House defends Meryl Streep's anti-Trump speech | TheHill:

The left got pretty excited about some "Fake News" (FN) stories from the right for the same reason that the government prosecutes crime -- they hate the competion.

This week shows us that we are back into the regular FN cycle. First of all "The Golden Globes".

A buddy and I working out at the local health club were asking each other what they heck they even are ... we knew they were an awards show for the entertainment types of some sort, but we didn't know. We suspected that they might be for women who were well endowed. Had to look them up, it appears that they are sort of the "Junior Oscars" where TV gets a award as well. "newsworthy" in the sense that People magazine and TV Guide are "news".

What we see though is the symbiotic relationship between entertainment and the media arm of "The Party" (TP-D). It would take 50 to 100 years of Republicans being dominant in order for a return to anything like "cultural equality". The entire federal bureaucracy, 80% of the media and academia are under total TP domination. Mere elections don't change that as the Streep FN incident shows.

I covered the manufactured story of "Trump mimics disabled reporter" before. I think the article linked from there does a good job of debunking that claim, but even if he did drop into mimicry as his opposition does of him all the time, or the left does constantly for the poor slobs who live in "fly over country", greater and lesser things have happened. Hillary mocked dogs, and if I was a dog lover, I'd be REALLY pissed about that! BO talked of "Special Olympics Bowling" ... as I covered in the Trump mimic link ... when you are TP,  apology always accepted, when you are not, don't misspell "potato'.

For the easily led, just create a negative narrative for the opposition, and historically it has been OVER. Trump has broken that mold -- perhaps we are in a new era where the stranglehold of TP and the MSM is weakened, or more likely Trump is just an exception, in either case it is fun to watch.

I do love the selective outrage -- Streep thought a child rapist was worth of a standing ovation. What a marvelous "moral sensibility"!

Let's face it, it will take a LONG time to get the Sheeple to even consider that thinking for themselves might be worth a shot!


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Due Process For Buckeye Terrorist , Fake World

Social justice warriors add Ohio State terrorist’s name to list of people of color killed by police - David Clarke:

The linked article is by the conservative BLACK sheriff of Milwaukee, David Clarke. Ohio State disinvited him from speaking because he has referred to"Black Lives Matter"  as "Black Lies Matter". Hard to imagine how a black conservative sheriff might find the BLM narrative to be less than truthful.

The paragraph that caught my eye was this:

“In some cases, the deceased may have committed acts of violence against others before they were killed. Perhaps they were domestic abusers, perhaps they threatened or killed others. This possibility is not something to shy away from. The protest against police brutality extends to the innocent and the guilty alike, because we know that no matter the crime, justice and due process don’t come from a cop’s bullet.”

When you attack police, you have just waived "due process".  When you employ force, both those you attack, and certainly authorities have total and complete right to meet that force with superior force.

This is not even a societal law, but rather the "law of the jungle", that of tooth and claw. See what happens if you corner a racoon, woodchuck, or even a bunny. In pretty much any case, the creature will fight for it's life with all it has. Self defense is as basic a creaturly right as exists.

So even the snowflakes writing the drivel of that paragraph would fight if they were ever faced with an ACTUAL existential threat that they could not subdue with tears and "safe spaces".

We live in a FAKE WORLD and folks like those that wrote the paragraph above are increasingly unaware of that fact!


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A Party Typo, "The least of these"

Democrats' Religion Problem - The Atlantic: 

Some of the mouthpieces of "The Party" (TP-D) are still doing some navel gazing, and this column is an example. For any actual practicing Christian that pays attention, it has been obvious for a very long while that it is impossible to be politically associated with a party that considers the killing of 60+ million babies in their mothers wombs a sacrament which competes in secular holiness with only homosexuality. Quaint ideas of God creating heaven and earth are constantly derided as "backward" in TP, and any concept that religion might have an impact in a believers life outside of the walls of an appropriately leftist church for an hour on Sunday AM on rare occasions is beyond the imagination of TP.

Thus, it unsurprisingly happens that even what a leftist liberal "christian" might assume would be a very important scrap of scripture plucked from an otherwise abandoned Bible is totally unfamiliar.

"Some of his colleagues also didn’t understand his work, he writes. He once drafted a faith-outreach fact sheet describing Obama’s views on poverty, titling it “Economic Fairness and the Least of These,” a reference to a famous teaching from Jesus in the Bible. Another staffer repeatedly deleted “the least of these,” commenting, “Is this a typo? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Who/what are ‘these’?”"

Well,  an example of "these" would be the 81% of evangelicals that voted for Trump because they really don't want to be forced to bake cakes for gay "weddings" or let men shower with their daughters in public locker rooms! Especially not while TP celebrates dress designers, entertainers, etc bragging about not working with the Trumps. Freedom of Association for all or for none!

The following paragraph fully summarizes for me what happened to nearly all  actual practicing Christians in the 2016 elections. We realized that this was no longer "America", which WAS a Christian nation, and voted accordingly.

Many of those 81 percent are accommodating cultural changes in America that are deeply problematic. Liberals have been trying to convince Americans, and evangelicals in particular, that America is not a Christian nation. The 2016 election was evangelicals saying, “Yeah, you’re right! We can’t expect to have someone who is Christian like us. We can’t expect to have someone with a perfect family life. What we can expect is someone who can look out for us, just like every other group in this country is looking for a candidate who will look out for them.”

The whole article is worthy of a read. It makes what I regularly say in this blog clear ... TP is no longer interested in actual Bible believing Christians, only in "social christians". Since TP lives in it's urban bubbles, it doesn't realize how many actual practicing Christians there are, so it remains shocked it can lose an election. The article goes into some detail on the fact that it is impossible to be a pro-life TPer these days because TP no longer even affirms life. (and this is the ATLANTIC!)

One of the somewhat surprising but very true things about human nature is that we can know a truth at a very deep level, yet not apply it in some area because we are totally blind to it right in front of us. I'll use gayness as an example. NPR quite regularly talks about the importance of "gay outreach" -- making sure that people meet and know gays and have gays talk to them about how important gay "marriage" is to them because it "puts a face on the issue".

They regularly say this, yet the vast majority of them don't know a practicing Bible believing Christian ... and don't want to. Being gay is only of this world ... like being an alcoholic, workaholic, adulterer, etc.  If one is willing to humble themselves and seek repentance, our earthy demons can be battled and we are ultimately assured of victory, at least in eternity.  Belief in the saving power of Christ and Gods Truth is eternal -- so perhaps THAT is why they shy away from Christians. They seek "heaven on earth", and their "heaven" damned sure isn't the one that any Christian would desire.

I see us as at a new transition point. *IF* Satan has become real enough to the secular christian left that they can "walk in the garden" as Satan did with Eve, and converse with practicing Christians about how important it is to doubt God on issues like homosexuality and gender (did he REALLY say ... ?"), then there is a major prospect for the descent of this tribal territory (BOistan)  to continue and even accelerate no matter who is in political power. The "ace in the hole" of Christ in the modern world may well be that the dark forces are even more distracted by the physical "pleasures of the flesh" and world than the Christians. We can pray it is so -- secular "chrisitians" avoiding actual Bible Christians cuts off one avenue for Satan. Unfortunately it also reduces the chance for the prodigal secularists to return to Truth (Christ).

Secular "christians" being willing to sit down with Christians and do their best to convert them is more dangerous than having them disassociate, shun and unfriend them. Secular (social) "christians" are often very intelligent and well able to discuss and influence. As CS Lewis covered so well in the "Screwtape Letters", Satan and his demons are very willing to help those who serve him to believe that they are serving God and are oh so pious in their service of "the good of our father below".

What the article does not mention is Ephesians 6:12

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Typing away on a laptop ready to post to a blog that lives in "the cloud" of the vast internet makes it seem surreal that this physical (and virtual) modern world is only a "lens", and not reality. Reality is eternal and spiritual.

We are spirits having a physical experience -- we need to remember that every day in fear and trembling. I love the main message of this old song ... it's particular theology is vague to non-existent (likely just as well), but it is basically true, assuming the "material" part is even what we think it is.

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The Liberal 8-Year Moral Coma Ends

Articles: Liberals Awake from 8-Year Moral Coma:

Pretty much all well covered ground relative to this blog, but it is good for me to see that I'm not completely the lone voice from time to time.

Suddenly, after eight years in which their secret mantra seems to have been “Make America Hate Again,” they protest that the notion of stopping their immoral destruction of our country is itself immoral and hateful. Many of us have noticed that the damage they forecast, the shredding of our national fabric, has been well underway for eight years, and that their unhinged reaction to being stopped from finishing the job is far more morally disgusting than anything Donald Trump could do to make us the United States again.

"Morality" used to have something to do with transcendent values that were thousands of years old, however left wing "morality" is whatever situationally provides more power to "The Party" (TP-D). Thus, deviant sex practices, strange/imaginary "genders", dependence, celebration of tiny minorities combined with lack of ever tolerance for large majorities and attacks on the few remaining institutions with any remaining respect (police) were put in the place of actual morality.

The column is worth a read ... he has a different voice saying much of what I have said many times, but naturally in a somewhat different way. He closes with the following, I much agree we have A LOT to be done, and the "lectures" will be the least of the problems. The entire BOistan media, bureaucracy, educational and legal systems are already working to destroy Trump before he even takes office. It's going to be a nasty war.

There is much work to be done, but we needn’t pause to consider lectures on morality from amoral people. Those who are still Americans will rebuild what was wrecked by those who have become something else. While we do so, we would be wise to remember that those who are transitioning from Americans to “something else” are determined to finish the job. If given another chance, they will happily force us to live in their corrupt, coercive Orwellian zoo. They won’t rest until they control everything, and we are compelled to do whatever they want, for whatever reason they say. That is, they won’t rest until we are no longer free people living in the United States, but rather are just a means of funding the overthrow of a country designed to prevent the corruption and tyranny they showed us for eight long, morality-free years.

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