Opening The Overton Window

Donald Trump & The Overton Window --Resetting America's Political Debate | National Review Online:

Another thing I had never heard of, the Overton Window:

... the “Overton Window.” Developed by the late Joseph Overton, a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the “window” refers to the range of acceptable political discourse on any given topic. As the Mackinac Center explains, “the ‘window’ of politically acceptable options is primarily defined not by what politicians prefer, but rather by what they believe they can support and still win re-election.” The key to shifting policy lies not so much in changing politicians but in changing the terms of the debate. In other words, “The window shifts to include different policy options not when ideas change among politicians, but when ideas change in the society that elects them.”

The column is a good one, it points out how well the left, with control of the media, the arts, the university and the government bureaucracies federal and state has been able to RAPIDLY move the window in areas like abortion, restricting Christianity, gay "marriage", nationalized healthcare and transgender. Eg.

The Overton Window moved even faster on transgender rights. Ten years ago the notion that a man with emotional problems and breast implants could be named “Woman of the Year” was unthinkable. Now, in some quarters it’s just as unthinkable to refer to Bruce Jenner — Bruce Jenner! — as a man.

Right now, they are pushing the window on gun confiscation, but along comes Trump and gives it a mighty shove in the direction of restricting immigration of Muslims.

While many of Trump’s actual proposals are misguided, nonsensical, or untenable, by smashing the window, he’s begun the process of freeing the American people from the artificial and destructive constraints of Left-defined discourse.

Well said! What has counted as "debate" in this country since at least the '60s and to some degree ever since Woodrow Wilson has been a discussion of "just how far left are we going on THIS issue".  The very THOUGHT of say, reducing the size of government, or (gasp!) unravelling parts of the "Great Society" directly responsible for the yearly 5-6K violent deaths of young black men have been "radical, reactionary, unthinkable". I mean, why would you reconsider programs just because they result in 50-60K untimely violent deaths over each decade??

the Left’s very success at defining the terms of discourse meant that the price of civility and unity was all too often an acceptance of liberal norms and manners. It meant swallowing liberal pieties and confining your discourse to Left-approved terms. In other words, it often meant surrender.

Surrender is FAR too high a price for "civility". While I am now, and I'm sure very few others were aware of the Overton Window concept, it shows one benefit of Trump. We MUST get out of having the left completely declare the shape of the battlefield and ever more consistently the terms of conservative surrender if there is to be ANY hope of recovering America, and indeed of "Making it great again".

I remain convinced that Trump is the WRONG fighter, but he IS a fighter -- and he HAS changed the terms of the battle. Without "outlandish positions" being declared on the right, there is no hope at all that some of those positions can slowly seep into the consciousness of the public and people running for office and eventually have a chance.

It's definitely time for our national "window" to be a LOT less open on the left and a lot MORE open on the right!
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XB-70

The Aviationist » Impressive video of an XB-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 bomber’s emergency landing:

Worthy read and an impressive video in linked article. The only remaining copy of this VERY impressive aircraft sits in The National Museum of the Air Force at Wright Patterson, Dayton OH.

I've been there and plan to go again. It is VERY impressive ... the XB-70 is off display right now, back on in June of '16 when they open a new building.

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In Praise of Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss' Political Philosophy: Reviled But Redeemed | RealClearPolitics:



I used one of my favorite Strauss quotes today ... "If all values are relative, then cannibalism is a matter of taste", so I did some looking on which of his many books and articles I really need to read. I haven't picked yet -- surprisingly my reading list remains very long, but this column is an EXCELLENT synopsis of why he is so important and so reviled in the modern left wing only academy.



He is mentioned a good deal in "Closing of the American Mind" and many other conservative works. Modern "liberalism" demands the ending of dialogue and fealty to power -- as in, they will demonize you, slur your good name, etc, but they generally will not engage in intellectual and reasonable debate with a man of Strauss stature because they deny that "truth" even exists.



A quote from the article, but it is short and WELL worth just reading.

In article after article and book after book, he argued that contemporary scholars were enthralled to “historicism” and “positivism.” Historicism holds that ideas and principles are nothing more than an expression of their time and cannot transcend the historical era in which they arose. Positivism decrees that the natural sciences offer the only legitimate form of knowledge and adds that since the natural sciences cannot distinguish between good and evil, all value judgments are subjective. (Postmodernism radicalized this sensibility by denying that science itself yielded objective knowledge.) 

In much of the academy, historicism and positivism came to be taken as self-evident truths. That both imply moral relativism, which means that there is no rational basis for judgments about right and wrong, was seen by many of Strauss’s colleagues in the university world as an important contribution to progress. 

Left-liberals regarded the supposed discovery of moral relativism as a blessing because they believed it bolstered pluralism and toleration. If there is no truth about the moral life, then custom and tradition lack authority, individuals are freer than ever to make their own choices, and society can dedicate itself to letting a thousand flowers bloom.

Indeed, and in a completely relative world with no objective truth, how does one identify "progress", or a blooming "flower" from a blooming "weed"?



As readers of this blog know, and is evident from the article, BY POWER! In this case academic power "97% of Political Scientists say Strauss is "wrong, dangerous, anti-intellectual, etc" and DEMAND that nobody read or teach his material!



The base "liberal" argument -- shut up!



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Sticks, Stones, and The State, Vikings Edition

My run-in with hate speech at a Minnesota Vikings game - StarTribune.com:

While I'm going to treat the tale in the linked article as completely true, I would much prefer that before the Red Star prints such a thing they would have at least found the security guard mentioned for corroboration.  As you will see, the "story" is just a BIT too pat for someone that has any shred of independent thought.  That said, let's take it as gospel.

The charge is that "some angry guy" demanded to know if the "attorney and director of the Advocates for Human Rights Refugee and Immigrant Program" was a refugee,  at a Vikings game. Nothing physical, just a question, but this attorney and director "felt threatened", got security involved, got an apology that he felt was not sincere enough, demanded the interlocutor be ejected and the Vikings failed to comply.

Asking if the attorney was a "refugee" is supposed to be clear and reprehensible "hate speech". Not "rude", not "bad manners" ...

I was raised with "Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you", and "If you can't stand up for yourself, nobody else is going to". We don't live in that civilization today, but what IS the "civilization" we have wrought?

I remember the time in my adult life when I came the closest to being intimidated. An old candidate for Congress from our district, Mary Reider had 20-30 union folks marching in a circle in front of the entrance to the Kahler chanting and blocking people like me heading in to see Newt Gingrich speak. The more intelligent people were going around to another exit. Something in my nature compelled me to stride into the group -- which, probably since I'm slightly above average size (though clearly not intelligence) completely stopped and let me pass with a just few shouted nasty words.

Did they have a right to block the entrance? Were the words that they hurled at me "hate speech"?  -- we know the answer. "Hate speech" and "proper intimidation" are declared by "The Party" (D).

I'm reminded of Churchill, "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without effect". Walking through demonstrators is tame by comparison, but I'm sure the feeling is related.

So how does tattling to the teacher or the security guard make one feel? I suppose it depends on the results that your tattling provides, but I can't imagine it makes one EVER feel "secure or good", because AT BEST you are in hopes that the watchful eye of the State in some form or another is ALWAYS going to be there to protect you.

It is a huge difference in worldview. Like the liberal woman's rape defense -- pee or soil yourself in hopes that the attacker will be turned off and leave you alone, vs the conservative woman's defense -- pull out your .45 and let the attacker pee or soil himself while he hopes you let him live.

But the "liberal" mind never stops at just making THEIR choice, they want to make YOUR choice as well! Gun control is just one example.

But what scared me the most was the silence surrounding me. As I looked around, I didn’t know who was an ally or an enemy. In those hushed whispers, I felt like I was alone, unsafe and surrounded. It was the type of silence that emboldens a man to play inquisitor.

I hate to tell him, but the real world is ALWAYS that way, at least until you make your play.

So we live in a society where males are feminized and individual responsibility is transferred to the State, while anyone that "gets involved" is very likely to be sued by lawyers just like the one complaining. He wants people to stand up and get involved, yet he apparently feels no personal backbone to simply say "none of your damned business"! <insert favorite emphasis here ... a*hole, d*head, would all be "appropriate">

The problem with the "liberal" world view is that the only way it can come close to being any sort of reality is "1984" -- EVERY action of EVERYONE is completely scripted and "Big Brother" ALWAYS has the video of EVERY incident so that those that fail to comply COMPLETELY with liberal dogma will be punished, and those who do comply will be rewarded. The State tells you exactly what to do, and you WILL do it!

The column shows where "Hate Speech" starts to become thought control. One person decided to ask a question that the column author decided went beyond "rude or inappropriate", but he felt ZERO responsibility to personally stand up for his rights. HOWEVER, he believes that people otherwise conditioned by thousands of cues in their daily environment to "let the proper authorities handle it" ought to somehow "step in" when the "confrontation" had never even risen to the level of "words were exchanged".

The attorney failed to cross-examine -- but it is "society's fault".

The very people intent on producing a society of absolute sheep are now incensed when the sheep behave as sheep -- and they apparently actually believe (or at least claim to) that is possible to achieve their "utopia" without levels of State control and surveillance that so far have only been imagined in fictional books.

A people who can't stand on their own feet will eventually kneel before people that can.

America, Land of the Politically Correct and home of the kneelers.

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Iran Gives US the Missile Finger

US conducting 'serious review' of latest Iran missile test | Fox News:

When a nation is a has-been joke like the BO destroyed US, insult is a daily occurrence.

What are we going to do about it? Oh, "Seriously review it" ... seriously?

We are rapidly approaching the ending of the country that half of us voted for!

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Watch List Consistency

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/07/two-new-york-times-editorials-terror-watch-lists-run-amok-now-lets-ban-gun-purchases-by-people-who-are-on-them/

When there is no consistency there can be no truth or reason. Looking at the position of the NY Times on the use of the Watch List"in the past, and the Watch List now the "Watch List" now, we see that what matters in a NY Times position is "which party is in office".

How does a nation descend into chaos? When truth, meaning, reason, law and consistency are thrown away. The old standard used to be God, the new standard is man ... which is no standard at all. Even relativity needs SOMETHING to be "relative to"! (the speed of light in physics for example)

When there is no standard, might is right -- POWER becomes the standard!

Trump, Obama With Balls (The Meaning of "No Rules")

Testosterone is the hormone of human action, power, swagger, bluster, attack and dominance.

As readers of this blog should well know by now, when law, reason and revelation are abandoned, there is no god or rule but power, and might becomes right. The largest armies, the most votes, the most bombastic violent dictator, the government most willing to silence, imprison and finally kill it's opposition. Such becomes "the good".

In the past two days we have a crystal clear example that would be completely obvious to a people versed in "self governing". The fact that the discussion we see happening, IS happening, makes it clear we are not a self governing people. Again, if you read this blog, that is no surprise to you and you have known it for a long time.

To state the obvious:

Exhibit A: Sunday Night, The President goes on national TV and says; "That is insane. If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous, by definition, to buy a gun."

The "No Fly" list is a semi-secret list with no Due Process to get on it. To take away an enumerated Constitutional Right without Due Process as been declared unconstitutional over and over as I covered in detail here.

Exhibit B: Last night, Trump calls for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering our country until our officials can figure out what is going on". The media and many that should know better go berserk saying this is "clearly unconstitutional"? Really? We have restricted immigration over our history on the basis of damned near anything you can think of -- country of origin, mental health, criminal record, skills, age, disease, etc, etc.

The Constitution (the one we no longer follow) was for AMERICANS, not the whole world!! We may have been imperialist, however we were not THAT imperialist.  (note, I disagree with Trump's position, but it is NOT obviously unconstitutional like BO's)

When the rule of law is removed (and even knowledge of the law), removal of consistency is absolutely required (consistency relative to ??), which in turn makes reasoning and peaceful negotiation impossible, since THERE ARE NO RULES! This being illustrated extremely well by this movie clip:

Obama believes in the power of manipulating the masses through the media and buying votes -- he scolds, pontificates and whines, he is bored and disappointed that he has to school the stupid recalcitrant masses yet again,  but he gives off no sense of personal power.

Trump does.

I have always assumed that our destruction would just continue the long slow slide to being a single party socialist dystopia like the old USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela, etc with a media yammering about "what a paradise it is" while most waited in line for toilet paper and traded recipes for rat.  Those of us who foolishly spoke out remembering what once was, either died slowly in Gulags or rapidly by the "Stazi", while the youth, brainwashed in the horrors of "nasty old America" prior to the forces of of our new "woke enlightenment" approved demise.

But Trump shows us another face of lawlessness -- the kind our founders dealt with in the King, and the kind that arose in Germany. The CORE of conservatism is the recognition that man is NOT the "measure of all things", and that ALL human nature is both flawed and fixed -- it can be directed, cajoled, influenced, dominated, manipulated, etc, but it remains.

Humans like "royalty, wealth, athletes, movie stars, big televangelists, demagogues, etc" ... we don't all react the same to each one, but on the mass scale, we DO have an innate "urge to be led", urge to look up to SOMEBODY -- like testosterone, it isn't really bad or good, it just **IS**. It is BOTH a strength and a weakness like all our humanness.

So, once you throw out the rules, and people no longer even know what the rules once were, they start "seeking" -- "safety in numbers" is the Democrat way -- buy all the votes, dumb down the masses, promise them what they want, rig the "elections" with open borders, no id voting, etc, and EVENTUALLY all the power is yours! (and power is ALL without law)

Another way is the Trump way -- to hell with "Political Parties", to hell with anything but POWER! Sure, make use the hulk of a minority party out of any real power for 20 years (W was a RINO) as a vehicle, but make it clear, THERE ARE NO LONGER ANY RULES AND I AM PROOF!

Side Note ... The "nice" thing about lawless chaos is that there are MANY ways it can go -- the bad thing is that like all disordered systems, the VAST bulk of those ways are BAD -- yet another way than the Trump or BO, a better way would be a "return to revelation, law, reason and consistency", but that is REALLY unlikely right now!]

Once the mass of the people no longer care or even know about laws, reason, consistency, truth, morality, etc, as has happened here, things go "fully chaotic", or if you prefer "insane", but in any case "Beyond Reason" (Nietzsche),  what piece of vacuous fallacious rhetoric conjured for the purposes of today will win out with the ever flowing emotional tide of the shallow and fickle masses? Nobody knows -- the center has been removed. THERE IS NO LAW! LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE!

"Give us Bread and Circuses!", "Give us Barabbas!", "Sig Heil!", "Hope and Change!"  ... "Make America Great Again ??"

At a fundamental level, they are all the same. A republic with the rule of law was pretty nice in retrospect -- certainly "flawed", but then once you accept human nature (as our founders did), what you are seeking is a "bad system that is better than all the other systems", to paraphrase Churchill.

Funding The Climate Church

Unearthing America's Deep Network of Climate Change Deniers - Bloomberg Business:

Here we have a lot of attention being paid to how scientists that look at climate and weather as an area of legitimate scientific research are funded. ( not accepting that climate is "settled" is labeled as being a "denier" by the Climate Church).

We already know how the high priests of the Climate Church are funded -- through the State, like the Church of England, Church of Norway, etc. ... we don't need to study that, we know how linkage of Church and State works. There used to be a country in N America that had stamped out having a State Church until the Climate Church came along, but I forget it's name. "Obamination" I think.

State Churches tend to have Inquisitions to hunt down and prosecute Heretics that refuse to submit to the authority of the State Church -- which is one in the same as the State, and enjoys the power and the funding of the State.

The State Religion and the State work together to hunt down and remove any opposition -- the purpose of the "research" cited in the linked column is just that. Pointing out that that there are still guys actng like Copernicus out there trying to claim that the Earth goes around the Sun -- rounding them up and maybe burning them at the stake is the sort of thing that State Churches are quite good at.

Money that comes from the State is holy ... money that comes from the private sector is SINFUL! Thus saith the State and it's Church!

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Due Process of Insanity, Convertibles

Obama: It's 'Insane' That People On A No-Fly List Can Legally Buy A Gun In The U.S.:

"That is insane. If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous, by definition, to buy a gun." 

So this is being said by the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, a man SWORN to uphold the Constitution of the United States. He even claims to be a "constitutional scholar"!!

Therefore, **HE** has got to be INSANE to utter those words!!!!!

There is ABSOLUTELY NO DUE PROCESS AT ALL to get on the "No Fly List" ... I had a friend on it that grew up in Austin MN, went to the UofM and worked at IBM for nearly 30 years. At the time he was on the list he didn't even own a gun. He didn't even know he was on it until they started delaying him at every flight!

The Huffington Post covered how easy / random / etc it is to get on the list. It's a bureaucratic CYA list, there is NO PROCESS ... "due" or otherwise.

Are we REALLY so Constitutionally illiterate as a people that we don't realize that "Due Process" as specified in the 5th and 14th has been stretched to include "rights" to busing, affirmative action, equal access for the handicapped, gay rights including "marriage", voting with no ID and through the vaunted "penumbra" (legal term for "made up"), abortion.

We have the President of the US asserting that an enumerated right, the 2nd Amendment, SHOULD be denied to people on a list that has no due process relative to one being added to it! Btw, not only no process to get ON it, but no process to GET OFF IT either!

Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard is on the list, as are 72 DHS employees !!

We actually might be able fire anyone from DHS that is on the list, however, I suspect that THAT might well run afoul of some "due process right" relative to equal treatment as a Federal Employee.

How can a sitting president POSSIBLY make such a claim for restricting an actual Constitutional right?? If he is THAT incompetent, then he certainly can't fulfill the oath of his job. If he does understand what he just said, he must be IMPEACHED -- because he completely broke his oath of office on TV!

But we live in an insane world, and we as a people are clearly no longer capable of even having an IDEA of what America at least USED to be!

Naturally, in the real world, the San Bernardino shooters were not on the No Fly List.

So why is this being proffered as a solution after San Bernardino? Simple, because we no longer live a world that is real or sane.

I am reminded of a friend (a different one) who tends to buy cars without a lot of rational justification. Showing up with an expensive sports coupe, and being accused of "purchasing on a whim", he got a bit flustered and exclaimed; "But I've always wanted a convertible"!

To which the reply was, "But that's not a convertable".

It was however a "car", so we are talking rationality FAR greater than that used by BO on TV last night!

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Marco Rubio Drinks Water

Marco Rubio's 'water thing' - POLITICO:



It's a useless read, seriously, it's ALL about him drinking WATER while speaking!



Just to give one example of how important this rather longish column on DRINKING WATER is!

“Huckabee didn’t need water,” said an event organizer, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld and the event not be made identifiable. “It was the first time that glassware entered into one of these events.”

This is a story? When the current occupant of the WH needs a teleprompter to get through a press conference?



If this is what it takes to come up with some "dirt" on Rubio, the guy is TOO clean!



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Vegans Mentally Impaired?

The Scary Mental Health Risks of Going Meatless | Women's Health:



My tongue is a bit in my cheek, but seriously it seems that there is a correlation -- and like all correlations, it may well not be that meat CAUSES the issues. It could be that folks that go vegan are more prone to the issues.

"Even the pros find the stats confounding in a chicken-or-egg way. "We don't know if a vegetarian diet causes depression and anxiety, or if people who are predisposed to those mental conditions gravitate toward vegetarianism," says Emily Deans, M.D., a Boston psychiatrist who studies the link between food and mood."

On the other hand ...

Without meat, we'd never have matured beyond the mental capacity of herbivores like gorillas

They didn't call them HUNTER gatherers for nothing.  The evolution people have lots of theories about how it was maybe to coordinate hunting in groups that was one of the major reasons for the  growth of the human brain, language, etc. ...



In any case, even the major "truth" that vegans are so ANXIOUS to tell you, that veganism is DEFINITELY a healthier diet, may only be true if you don't need your head for anything beyond a hat-rack



They maybe SO ANXIOUS to tell you BECAUSE they are vegan and their brain is impaired ... which is pretty much poetic irony.



HUMOR ... Question: How do you tell if someone is a vegan?



ANS: "They F**ing TELL YOU!!!"

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Hail Mary, Hail Christmas At Luther

Being on the positive side of a game ending like Thursday night in Detroit puts a smile on your face that tends to stay for awhile.

My smile  got a big boost last night as we were privileged and blessed to be gifted with amazing seats to participate in "Christmas At Luther: Saviour of the Nations Come!".  It was an experience like nothing I ever really imagined, and one which I know will stay with me the rest of my days.

Raised in a Baptist church in the day when elaborate musical programs were considered "worldly", and were done by Catholics (considered to be the "Whore of Babylon" in fundamentalist theology of the sixties at least), and Lutherans -- considered to be another of the apostate churches by that particular Baptist sect, my exposure to such worship was non-existent.

Add to this the fact that my musical talent would generously class as "minimal", and my background in any sort of classical music or understanding is woefully barren, and we have the proverbial beggar approaching the banquet. Oh, while we are at it, such a feast of spirit is properly preceded by a feast of a Norwegian buffet -- lefse, lutefisk, meatballs, brussels sprouts (which a like) and heavenly rutabaga mashed potatoes. It was definitely the best lutefisk which I have ever given a game try -- for some reason my Swedish blood apparently just can't quite get by the quiver though! We Swedes crushed the Norwegians potatoes and dumped lye on their fish, and the resourceful Norse consider them delicacies!

I'm not equipped to make intelligent comment on the program. Rapt amazement, awe and joy are the operative terms that come to me. SIX HUNDRED FIFTY young vocalists with symphony orchestra, handbell choir,  heavenly organ  in an incredible setting and really for the first time in my life I considered that angelic choirs and instruments praising God really could be something to look forward to in Heaven ... although I'm not giving up on shore lunch with Jesus.

I'm not sure two hours have ever passed faster! I was somewhat surprised, but very gratified to see that this was DEFINITELY an unabashed and unapologetic CHRISTIAN  CHRISTMAS celebration, . It included some of the manadary modern nods to "diversity", but they were not a distraction. I did reflect a bit on "why"? The crowd and the student body were certainly conspicuously caucasian with only sprinkling of others, but we were after all in Decorah IA, deep in the midwest.

In some ways the evening was coming "full circle". It was interaction with Luther graduates at IBM that provided the example that eventually led me to the Lutheran Church. I felt as if I was privileged to glimpse a special bit of that rich spiritual heritage that eventually drew me to the Lutheran Church. (a bit on that if interested)

What a miraculous complex creation we are gifted with. A little Norwegian-American school named after "Luther", a somewhat brooding German's German. Germany, where much later a madman idolized the Valkyries and a vision of "Aryan" that looked positively Norse, yet he himself looked nothing like the ideal. Enjoying the celebration of a Jewish child born in the mideast over 2,000 years ago with many aspects of the actual holiday translated by a Roman Church from pagan winter solstice rituals -- a Roman Church that the German Luther stood up to in The Reformation, 500 years ago in 2017.

Somehow though, when the candles are lit and the strains of the "First Noel" are coursing through the night and our gathered spirits, it is all simple.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas ... er wait, "Happy Advent" ... I'm a Lutheran now!

Thanks to the wonder of the internet, here it is https://vimeo.com/248192944.

No Right Is Safe, Or Real, "Privacy Clause"

The NY Times is all for extensive regulation of one enumerated right in the Constitution, the Second Amendment.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

A nation where there is such a thing as law must bow to reason if it is not to descend into violence, and reason requires CONSISTENCY, something certainly flown from our nation's discourse.  How would the NY Times react to their own statement if you put "abortion" rather than "guns" in as that "no right"?

Abortion is a "right" that is not found in any wording in the Constitution at all -- "peculiar" or otherwise. It is said to be based on "the privacy clause" of the 14th Amendment, but alas, "privacy" is not mentioned there either. You can link off to a few pages of legalese here  that define which batwing and eye of newt was thrown into the conjuring pot to find "privacy",  but it real base is in the "penumbra" of the Constitution -- meaning "rights that can be inferred".

To put it in common terms -- rights that are not present in the Constitution, so they were MADE UP to suit liberal justices!

If we were reasonably law-abiding people that understood the logical and rational requirements of freedom, we would have had a Constitutional Amendment to attempt to define ACTUAL RIGHTS -- like "privacy", or "abortion", or "gay "marriage"". If they passed, we could point to what those new rights included -- and did NOT include. But we are no longer that kind of people.

In fact, we are a people so supremely inconsistent that a paper like the NY Times can do a column like this relative to the 2nd Amendment, while at the same time holding the position that no state may regulate abortion in any manner at all, and in fact, it may not even restrict FUNDING of abortion! (The fact there is a 2nd Amendment would require that you pay for my guns if the 2nd was treated like abortion!)

They can favor the killing of 60 million babies for mere convenience, yet claim that those that believe in law, reason and consistency, lack "decency" -- which after law, reason and consistency have been removed is merely "power", "popularity", or "mob rule".

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

As Nietzsche stated so well, once God is gone, "decency" is only a matter of WILL! Whomever can impose their will can define "decency".

The NY Times, BO and "The Party" DEFINITELY want to IMPOSE THEIR WILL, and the 2nd Amendment is an obstacle in their way.

As is covered extremely well in the video of this post, OUR MURDER PROBLEM IS CULTURAL, and it was created post 1960!!!

If you factor out our large violent cities, our murder rate is like SWITZERLAND! Our large cities have 3rd world murder rates, and our little Plano Texas like towns have murder rates like Switzerland. What is more, our crime rate precipitously went up, then down, now up again since the 1960s, and as the NY Times laments, our GUN POLICIES DIDN'T SIGNIFICANTLY CHANGE!

We broke the murder rate, we can fix it, but the big problem is that what broke it is "The Party", and they have no desire that people realize that, let alone that they change their policies to save lives -- if they did, we would never have had Roe v Wade, nor the government programs that encourage single female head of household, and consign young black males to shooting each other in the streets.

Good Buddy Weisser

Teen named Bud Weisser arrested at Budweiser Brewery:

Truth can be stranger than fiction.

NBC Nineteen-year-old Bud Weisser was arrested Thursday evening for trespassing at a brewery of uncanny similarity to his own name in downtown St. Louis, police said.

Made me think of George Thorogood "Just me and good buddy Weiser, That's all I ever need" , and a lyric that always brings a wry smirk to my face "You know when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself ...".

Ah, the "wisdom" of rock with a really wise guy bad attitude!

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Prayer Goes The Way of "Merry Christmas"

Prayer-shaming isn’t about attacking prayer. It’s about calling out empty platitudes.:

Until now, “thoughts and prayers” has been a bipartisan cliché, and a harmless one. Going forward, it seems the phrase will become a politically inflected dog whistle in some quarters in the vein of Chik-fil-A and “Merry Christmas.” That’s a loss. But it’s nothing compared to the losses we endured this week, and last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that.

They don't really mean it is a "loss" -- to them it is a GAIN. They also have no trouble with killing innocents -- see abortion. What they want is POWER and guns in the hands of people are a problem on that front, as is prayer, so they want them both gone! The god of government is a VERY jealous god, and it demands direct and ACTIVE control over ALL of life. Certainly including anything said, but to the extent possible, even "thoughts and prayers".

In the Totalitarian States of America (TSA ... good acronym), behavior formerly private, like sexual preferences, MUST now be public and celebrated! Behavior formerly public, and explicitly protected like religion, MUST be closeted "in the bedroom", and ANY use of language associated with religious belief must be suppressed ... with the current focus toward moving "prayer" into the same closet as "Merry Christmas".

The idea of ANY power beyond government, or even the idea of things beyond human power -- say life and death for example, is an idea that a jealous government god seeks to suppress and hopefully remove from the mind.  The State wants its minions to believe that through the State, ALL things are possible. It jealously seeks to remove all competition in the hearts and minds of those under its dominion.

Government can't give life, but it certainly can take it away, or allow it to be taken away by the many 100's of millions in the case of abortion and war. Leviathan however would like to hide the "little" secret that for all it's supposed power, it is unable to prevent the death of even a single human. It works constantly to focus the minds of all under its sway on temporal existence being "all there is" and seeks to promise as much earthly pleasure as it can to those that worship it.

Those that bow at the altar of government have a fervent belief that DOING **SOMETHING** ... ANYTHING! is certain to "help". Evidence of the fact of many past "actions" being counter productive, costing much more in lives and treasure than the original problem, having all sorts of negative side effects, etc does nothing to cool the fervor of the confirmed government congregant. MORE controls, more laws, more programs ... more, more more must be sacrificed on the altar of government, and the tentacles of the state must be extended to the very language we use!

For those still able to think independently. The 2nd amendment is not new, nor is broad gun ownership in the US. Our murder rate per 100K is also middling in the world, even very low if one factors out our lawless heavily gun controlled major cities. What has changed? Well, as the article happily points out we have become WAY more Pagan. We also have WAY more broken homes than we had prior to becoming way more Pagan, and the Pagan god of government has grown in intruded with ever more increasing vigor into every aspect of our lives. Naturally, to the government believer, government is ONLY good, and EVERYTHING can ONLY be solved by more government. Let those that can still think pay attention!

Controlling language is as close to thought control as the government can get, so it is completely unsurprising that government and its acolytes seek to control the words we use. Many of our most rational thoughts are in terms of words -- make the word "prayer" into a word that elicits "mental care" relative to its use, and a major beachhead in the installation of government as the "one true god" has been accomplished.

Our pagan nation is in severe need of fervent prayer!

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