It’s time for some more tom-foolery from our friends at the GOP!

Yes, I received an email (unsolicited) from the Grand Old Party today. It seems they have “based on my feedback”, “compiled a list of what it means to be a Republican”.

That I haven’t directly talked with, texted, or mailed (e-mail or otherwise) any “feedback” to any individual member of said party, or to the party itself, I am assuming they are qualifying that statement as being “feedback received from their membership at large”, and not any one particular individual.

So let’s take a look at the “New and Improved" ™ “ GOP “Core Values”!!

“I believe that our:

County is exceptional

(Oh, I see, you left out) “…but not for long. “ There, fixed it for you. As based on the actions of most of the senior members of the GOP in the house and senate, this would certainly be the case.

Leaders should serve people, not special interests.

First of all, are there any members of the GOP who qualify as leaders? And not just folks who have either put in enough time so they are now “entitled” to senior positions in either the house, senate, or upper echelons of the party. Or are boot lickers who have “worked their way up (?) into positions of authority”, if only because they know where all the skeletons are buried.

Of course the “serve people”….however, it seems, more often than not, they are serving the interests of people from “across the aisle”, vice either their constituents, or on a national level, the best interests of the GOP platform/ national interests. (Anyone remember a time when at least a large percentage of the GOP elected officialdom would have said “Illegal Alien” vice “Undocumented Alien”…followed closely behind with “Securing the border(s)” vice “amnesty”? Yeah, it has been quite some time here too. And even if they did…how did they end up voting on this issue?)

You may not have to have as big and brassy a pair like General Patton, but it would be (or at least it used to be a requirement) nice if you at least had a pair to call your own…assuming you wanted to be a leader. And, of course, the special interest groups are not in and of themselves a bad thing (the NRA. FRA, and others come to mind). It is a way for various folks who share a common ground to help get their voices heard. And this is as true for progressives as it is to those of us who are either more conservative in nature, or at the very least more beholding to the (alleged) governing framework we have in place otherwise known as “The Constitution”.

Which brings us to ...

Constitution should be honored, valued, and upheld.

I have become cynical enough to almost expect any Democrat in office, and especially those of a strong liberal/progressive bent, to pay lip service to the above only when it is politically expedient to do so. Even then, I would understand it is only that, lip service. But in the last eight years or so (and even longer if you count the Clinton and Carter terms of office.) there have been some chirps coming from the GOP…but mostly silence… concerning the almost too many to count abuses put forth by the current administration.

“They” got Nixon for his part in Watergate…perhaps even more so for his (alleged) cover up(s) involving same (and or folks involved with it).

For almost the past eight years, we have at least one, and very possibly many more individuals, up to and including the current President, who are, at the very least, guilty of “High crimes and Misdemeanors”, and at the most treason. Yet all we hear from the GOP regarding same...crickets chirping.

This one and the last one go together hand in glove. No balls = no (real) leader(ship) = failure to truly honor, value, and uphold the Constitution.

Families should be strong and free from government intrusion.

Don’t know what the GOP (or any other party) has to do with families being strong…but it sure do sound pretty don’t it. Impose mandatory fitness standards perhaps?

Now “Free from government intrusion” I can understand. And I could see the GOP getting behind that….err….except they have not done a damn thing while having control of either the house or senate, to say…reduce/ change the current tax system. (Talk about your government intrusion…the IRS is right up there!!) Or perhaps stop fighting a “war on drugs” which they either are not serious about “winning”….or know in their heart of hearts it is “unwinnable”. And all the thousands upon thousands of laws now on the books which potentially set up almost everyone to become a felon, without really trying.

It seems to me the Dems want to get into every aspect of your life, and your pocket book….the GOP wants to get into your pocketbook, and your bedroom.

And how about the smoking laws. Ya can’t smoke in a bar??!!!! Okay, I won’t smoke in YOUR bar…I will go and open one of my own which allows one to drink and smoke at the same time, in the same place. What?? Can't I do that? Naaa…the GOP never sided with the Dems on this one…..never in a million years. Dictating what a business owner can and can’t do? Same with men only clubs….and various private clubs and institutions. They have caved before, and it seems they will cave again. Free from government intrusion my rosy red butt!

Hmmm….does anyone else besides me see a trend developing here??

Institution of traditional marriage is the foundation of society.

Ok, I happen to personally believe in this. BUT…. I don’t want my political party (whichever it may be) to be traipsing into matters of religion. That worked so well with abortion … and is working so well with the LGBT agenda(s). (Need I add a "sarc tag" after that?)

That the real issue with the current gay marriage kerfuffle is not one of getting married, rather one of forcing those institutions who believe their sacrament of marriage is not something to be sanctioned out to any group or couple other than a man and a woman … to include US too. This is not out of a legitimate sense of being excluded, but of willfully tearing down said institutions …[traditional] Christianity is bad … we must change it so it conforms to what WE want. Or get rid of this pesky morality altogether.

Healthcare decisions should be made by us and our doctors.

"Right after you fill out this form, and let us know if there is anyone in your home that is mean to you. Oh, does anyone own a firearm in your home?"  These are some of the questions one may be asked on your next visit to the docs or the ER.

I know the GOP believes in this core value…that is why they allowed passage of Obamacare. What on earth makes you believe they are going to start adhering to their “platform” now?

Paychecks should not be wasted on poorly run government programs.

So if they are managed properly…then we can count on our paychecks being wasted on them?
And by definition, aren’t just about all government programs poorly run? Name me one that could not be run better, cheaper, or if not cheaper at least more cost effective.

And yes, I noticed “Paychecks” has replaced “taxes”. Or are they saying, very soon, all your paycheck shall belong to us.

Military must be strong and prepared to defend our shores.

A couple of things here. In this day and age, should not “our national interests”, when necessary, call for us to power project well beyond our shoreline? And be it defending our shores, backing an ally (Israel, for example), or defending our national interests abroad, should we not train our troops, Sailors, and Airmen to win?? And not impose “rules of engagement” which prevents same. Or not have the (political) will to do what it takes to “win” in the first place?

Culture should respect and protect life.

So, by the above statement, the GOP (and by extension the federal government) is going to dictate to the entertainment media what is acceptable in meeting this “core value”? You can not do this and be faithfully adhering to the constitution. Some would argue we should have the government set acceptable standards. Wouldn’t it be better if we left this to the various religious outlets? Oh wait, we keep stepping on their toes. You can’t (even if it is acceptable by the majority of that community, or school, or sporting event) have general religious standards (Giving thanks to God before your team takes the field, for example, or allowing for a nativity scene to be set up on “community” property, or the ten commandments being placed in a courthouse.).  In short, the acknowledgment of the Judeo-Christian ethos being a part of the nation's founding fabric. No one specific church being singled out, but a general reinforcement of what is being supposedly espoused from any number of pulpits and other places of worship throughout the week. Perhaps this would at least begin to “strengthen the culture”.

You want to respect and protect life, allow that aspect of our nature to be reminded from time to time outside of one's formal attendance at their house of worship.  Nothing compulsory, but being "a predominantly Christian Nation" should not make the public display of same something which has to be fought over.  Especially if it is consensual, if involving a group.  (Most polls taken claim something between 70-90%  polled attest to being Christian.  I suspect if you add the various flavors of Judaism into the mix, the percentage would be even higher.)

Now if we are masking the real intent here…and that would be to remove the legalization of abortion, or to at least restrict the window of opportunity for same to something much less than it is now.  Then at least have the balls (There are those pesky testes again!) to come out and say as much.  And let’s have an honest discussion about same.  Let’s set a limit, a window on it.  Hell, let’s go a step further and “value, respect and protect” the life of all the unborn babies out there, after that “window” has closed, making it a case of homicide if any are “aborted” afterwards. But stop tap dancing around the issue. You are either serious about it or you are not.

Children should never be left in failing schools.

Damn, don’t you check the rooms before you lock the doors at night?

Hmm,  perhaps starting with the abolishment of the Department of Education being a great step in the right direction.  Allowing local (city, township, wards, parishes) to set their own criteria, and or, standards. Kinda what was done up until the beginning of the last century…seemed to work okay for the country up until then.  Abolish the teacher’s union(s). Take the pension funds out of the hands of the state(s). Naaaa, that would never work!  Of course, the GOP will come up with some sort of program, federally funded (and then de-funded when the Dems assume control of the house).  And the real losers at the end of the day will be the kids.

Veterans should have the best care and opportunities in the world.

I assume they are referring to medical care (physical and mental) here. But what is this "opportunities" they speak of?  You mean something which you would receive after completing at least one enlistment with honorable service? Hmmm…something that covers at least the cost of your college courses/trade school fees for say…four years or so. Oh, you might still have to work to keep a roof over your head, and put food on the table, but at least the schooling is “free”.  And if you do well enough to earn a scholarship then you have the monies go into your pocket for the remainder of the time allowed for you to (hopefully) complete your degree/certification?  We used to have that, back in the years immediately following Viet Nam (and WWII and Korea) they called it "The GI Bill".  Wonder what happened to it?  Oh yeah, it morphed into any number of different plans and options.  None of which was as easy to negotiate, or as uncomplicated as the original.

Or are you talking about preferential hiring of vets?  Thought that was already in place for government jobs.  Also thought there were tax and other incentives for the private sector to do the same. 

 So what other opportunities are being implied here?   Or is this just another rather nebulous piece of fluff designed to make GOP’ers feel good, and not really meaning anything at all.

Social programs should help lift people out of poverty.

My how Great Society we are sounding now.  What about we look at what is keeping a lot of folks at the poverty level and work to alleviate that? Break the chain of poverty, if you will. (If such a thing is even possible.)  Perhaps we stop paying out when you have so many kids, with no idea who the father is, and no desire to get any sort of training to get yourself off the poverty merry-go-round.

America should be energy independent.

Grow a pair and call the current administration to account…..stop buying into all the green bs and allow those who produce the energy to do so…and we will be, in very short order.

I saved one of the first ones on this list for the final entry because, after all the above, I think this is where it belongs.

Government should be smaller, smarter, and more efficient.

This, in one form or another, has been at the core of the GOP platform, for at least the last 60 years, if not more.  And in all this time, through Republican administrations, Republican control of either or both houses, along with an always positive response to this particular “plank”, they have never really been serious about it.  Not once.  Ok, perhaps a much younger Newt Gingrich worked on pushing in this direction, but at the end of the day….like a tumor gone wild…the cancer which is DC and it’s DNA, the federal government, continues to grow.

And grow…

And grow…..

Here is a short list of what should be your real core values, GOP.

Close the borders….send everyone who is not in possession of the proper documentation across the border (north or south doesn’t matter). If we are in need of migrant workers…let those folks in who meet the requirements and have at it.

Adhere to the Constitution. Hold all who do not do so to the fire. File charges and or Impeach as required by said Constitution.

Do your damn jobs to the best of your ability.

Grow a pair!!!!

If you follow the above, you will go along way toward meeting much of the supposed “Core Values” you spewed forth in your little email.

Or continue on the path you are on, and watch your party….and the country dissolve and crumble before your greedy, power hungry, corrupted little eyes.

Because most of this country, at least those who would have given you the benefit of the doubt…have long since left your tent.  Trusting neither you, or your progressive partners across the aisle.   And this, yet another thinly disguised attempt at getting money, will end up the same as the last one you sent me…like your political promises, and your rhetoric, and your (supposed) leadership abilities….empty.

The New Segregationists Yet Again: Public Facilities

     There are so many ways to approach the intractable problems that pertain to “public property” that I could write for ten years about nothing else. However, events in McKinney, Texas, coupled to similar developments in and around various American cities, have brought one especially troubling aspect of the matter to the forefront of my attention.

     Pour yourself another cup of coffee, Gentle Reader. I’m feeling particularly circumlocuitous today.

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     Imagine for a moment that you’re the baron over a medieval fief. The responsibility that comes with that position includes keeping the peace in your realm. Believe it or not, most medieval nobles took that job seriously, and did what they could to suppress violence and predation within their domains. Sometimes, they had to get creative to do so.

     Now imagine that your region is beset by marauding robber-knights: men who have acquired mounts, weapons, and armor, and are using them to plunder your common folk. You could, of course, mobilize the knights sworn to your service and send them out a-hunting. That might work...but it would involve bloodshed, significant costs, and probable collateral damage to the lands and properties around you. So you hunt for a more agreeable approach while you keep that sort of direct confrontation in reserve.

     You could attempt to entice the robber-knights into your service, putting them nominally under your authority and that of your captains. Again, that might ameliorate matters...but it’s unlikely that all would accept your service, and very likely that among those who do accept it there would be some who would simply go on as they’d begun – except that they would also have “the color of law” at their backs. As that would blacken your reputation, and possibly even invite intervention by your liege lord the king, you reject that approach categorically.

     But wait...what’s this? The local prelate has just announced a fresh Crusade! Splendid! That provides a new possibility: you could export the troublemakers as part of the Crusade army. Yes, there would be costs, but any bloodshed would take place outside your demesne. Nor would any odium for their deeds attach to you...at least, not directly enough to matter. Capital! So you have the prelate’s announcement trumpeted far and wide, add financial resources of your own to the Crusade fund, and watch as the marauders, their minds alight with the prospect of a salary for bringing plunder and rape to a foreign land, form up to board ships bound for the Holy Land.

     That was a significant part of the dynamic that powered the later Crusades, particularly the ones of the 14th Century. The nobles of France and Italy, while some of them did join the expeditions along with groups of their loyal retainers, were assiduous about exporting their troublemakers in this fashion. As a regional peacekeeping measure, it worked fairly well.

     Imagine how it would work if applied here in the United States. Of course, we’d have to identify the predators and entice them to go a-hunting elsewhere. We’d also have to choose an “elsewhere” to which they’d be sent. However, the cries of “racism” that would result would cause political tremors of serious magnitude. Worse, if we were to use the armed forces as the vehicle for this, there would be international blowback from it, possibly far more serious than any national gains in peace and prosperity would justify. Given the amorality of our political class, those considerations are probably why they haven’t yet tried it.

     That doesn’t mean that others aren’t trying something comparable.

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     A public facility is, by definition, one intended for use by the public, albeit upon conditions. There might be a residency requirement. There might be a fee to be paid, which would go to the maintenance of the facility. There might be conditions of deportment to be observed; indeed, there almost certainly would be. Meet those conditions and you gain admittance.

     Imagine yourself to be a town supervisor or county executive contemplating a proposal for a new public facility, perhaps a public swimming pool. The idea is superficially attractive, especially since it would tap state or federal funds while still providing a pretext for new taxes and fees. Demographics now come into play. What sort of populace would use the facility? Is that populace inclined toward public discipline or public disorder? Should corrective measures be necessary – e.g., the invocation of the police to quell a disturbance – would the consequences be likely to affect you adversely? Would there be negative media coverage, perhaps even big-ticket lawsuits? Where would the balance fall between “public good” – i.e., favorable reactions toward you for creating the facility – and unintended, undesired consequences, of which there are guaranteed to be some?

     If you have an unruly, troublemaking demographic to deal with, you might prefer that a neighboring town or county build the facility. You could then export your troublemakers to that neighbor and let him deal with the consequences. This is a particularly attractive approach if the history of public facilities in your domain is marred by high costs, disorder, and violence. (It’s also attractive if your neighbor is a political thorn in your flesh.)

     Political decisions about facilities such as swimming pools open to the public often turn on exactly those considerations.

---

     No doubt the thought processes delineated above sound venal. They are venal; that’s politics in the “democratic” era. They’re also quite commonplace among a political elite whose members are generally without moral scruples and deem themselves to be above law and justice. The only thing that countervails them is public sentiment. That’s why politicians labor ceaselessly to gain control over the media, and why the Internet is such a threat to their little ways.

     Public facilities sited in predominantly black neighborhoods have a very poor history. They tend to deteriorate much faster than similar facilities in white neighborhoods. That gives rise to demands for external funding for replacement and repair (and cries of “racism” from idiots). It also gives rise to informal “emigration:” the unruly ones who trashed the facility tend to seek out other, nearby neighborhoods whose facilities are well maintained.

     I don’t need to describe what happens thereafter, do I, Gentle Reader? Colin Flaherty has already done an excellent job of it. The black intruders are usually treated as victims of “racism,” sometimes at the hands of “racist police.” The media’s coverage is consistently slanted against the predominantly white communities that experience the consequences. The Chicago Tribune’s recent diatribe on the “sad, racist history” of public swimming pools is a typical case.

     And those who continue to get their news from the Main Stream Media swallow it hook, line, and sinker, while an objective reporter who merely presents the facts, sometimes with historical foundations that suggest the causes of such disturbances, is treated as Public Enemy #1.

---

     In April 2007, when I wrote that the media are deeply complicit in race-based troubles in modern America:

     Journalists who downplay or conceal inter-racial crimes out of the mistaken notion that they're helping to avert further hostility are either deluded or hopelessly stupid. By furthering the conviction among private citizens that we're being lied to, they advance the concomitant conviction that "the other," about whose deeds we're being denied full and accurate reports, really is someone to be feared...someone to be located and destroyed, or cast out of our midst, for our own safety's sake.

     Thus, whatever their conscious motives and intentions, politically correct journalists who spike stories about horrific crimes by black perpetrators are the new segregationists. It is their decisions about which stories should be emphasized and which ones must be buried that will persuade white Americans that their black neighbors cannot be trusted and must be expelled from the body politic.

     ...I was as yet unaware of the full dimensions of the plague of racial violence, always black-on-white, that had erupted in our large cities. It was some time before I learned even the outlines thereof. It was not a pleasant experience.

     To what extent are white liberals, invincibly resistant to admitting that such violence emerges from black racism, complicit in the problem? To what extent does:

• Their denial of the racial aspects of the “knockout game;”
• Their acceptance of clearly biased media coverage of racial incidents;
• Their kowtowing toward “black spokesmen” such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton;
• Their refusal to allow that American blacks have the primary responsibility for the problem, owing to rampant black illegitimacy, black welfare dependency, and lax discipline of young blacks;

     ...exacerbate the increasing resentment of American whites and Orientals over being blamed for racial clashes such as McKinney?

     And to what extent is the intensifying reluctance of white voters to approve the construction of public recreational facilities and private gathering places such as enclosed shopping malls due to white neighborhoods’ awareness of the proximity of large, mobile black communities?

     Think it over.

Today’s Feminist Outrage-Meter-Pinner

     Ace has the story:

     Nobel Prize winning scientist says he's not keen on women in the laboratories.

     Nobel prize winner Sir Tim Hunt has an issue with female scientists -- they're too distracting romantically and they cry when criticised.

     Hunt, 72, an English biochemist who admitted he has a reputation for being a 'chauvinist', reportedly told the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea:

     "Let me tell you about my trouble with girls... three things happen when they are in the lab... You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry."

     Please read the Telegraph article Ace cites. The reactions of the feminists – both sexes – who immediately went into High Dudgeon^TM over Dr. Hunt’s opinion, are the point of what follows. Ace’s take on their reactions is classic:

     This guy is a Nobel prize winner. I assume he's not insane. So when he claims these things have happened, I tend to assume that these things have actually happened, not that he is a psychopathic liar who makes things up because he Loves Rape....

     Argue with him, rebut him, point out that his frame of reference (emotional simplicity) is not the same as women's, and that he should not assume his frame of reference is the objectively correct one just because of the happenstance that he happens to have been born male.

     But this whole shrieking jag? The whole Women Shrieking the Same Shrieks and gnashing their teeth thing, every third day?

     Doesn't that tend to support his "retrograde" notions about feminine emotionality, rather than rebutting them?

     Gentle Reader, that is How It’s Done.

---

     I’ve worked in the sciences and, of course, in engineering. Both environments included a few women. Emphasis on “a few:” women are not drawn to the STEM fields, for reasons we needn’t address this morning. Such environments can be successful, if certain conditions apply:

• Everyone involved is at least 60 years old; or:
• All the women are married to linebackers, wrestlers, or Navy SEALs; or:
• 98% or more of the work is actually performed by individuals working in isolation.

     You see, what Dr. Hunt said is accurate. Let’s take his observations in reverse order.

     Women are far more sensitive to criticism than men. I’ve encountered only one woman, the most intelligent woman I know, who can stand to hear a man tell her that she’s made a mistake. To get a woman to take a critical look at her own actions requires so great a load of pre-exculpation and emotional padding that for practical purposes, it’s not worthwhile. It’s far easier simply to fix her mistakes for her and say nothing about them, then or afterward.

     Women of the susceptible age range (0 to about ten years after menopause) do fall in love with men they work alongside – if the man treats the woman exactly as she desires to be treated, which is a requirement for averting the torrents of female tears of which Dr. Hunt spoke. Not many men are willing or able to do this, as we’re not nearly as emotional and are far more tolerant of criticism. We tend to assume that what we would find appropriate and acceptable really is appropriate and acceptable. Women disagree. Everything must be sugar-coated to spare their feelings...and a man who treats them that way, assuming he doesn’t look like Quasimodo or smell like a Staten Island landfill in July at high noon, almost automatically becomes a fantasy-romance object.

     Finally, men in the STEM fields don’t have a lot of female presence in their lives. The natural consequence is an amplification of the significance of those they do have around them. The tendency to attempt romantic involvements with them follows as a matter of course.

     But facts have never mattered to an aggrieved feminist.

---

     Here are a few more facts:

1. Women are not men;
2. Men are not women;
3. Neither can be made into the other.

     Henry Higgins’s plaint is as pointless as the “Women Shrieking the Same Shrieks” Ace cites. The sexes are optimized for different things, as a result of many millennia of evolutionary pressures. To demand that they react to the same things in the same ways is fatuous.

     Today, far more men understand and accept la difference than women. Feminists reject it categorically, even militantly. Indeed, they want to have the cake and eat it, too: they demand not only that women be regarded as absolute equals to men in all things, but that they be treated as infinitely fragile creatures to whom even the slightest disagreement might prove fatal. The contradiction involved troubles them not at all.

     Needless to say, this is not on. American men are steadily withdrawing from women in every way: economically, socially, and romantically. Women find this unacceptable, but it will continue to worsen until they accept that they’re women and not men, with all that implies.

     One way in which American men are not withdrawing from women is sexually...but this is hardly something to be celebrated, for the mode of interaction is increasingly depersonalized: he wants access to her body and nothing else about her. This Neanderthalization of male-female relations is sending large ripples through American society. Deceit and abuse of intimacy are, if not the norm, increasing in frequency, especially among younger Americans to whom every encounter with the opposite sex takes place in a demilitarized zone, a place where no one can set up housekeeping.

---

     All generalizations are inaccurate, including this one. There are women who are sensible about the ways in which women differ from men, and who take no offense at being treated as women. There are also men who sincerely strain, against the evidence and their innate inclinations, to treat women as if they were men. But these aren’t the ones under discussion this fine June morning.

     There is no Last Graf. The problems that stem from what’s increasingly a live-fire war between the sexes cannot be “solved.” The war will continue until American women accept, en masse, that they are women, that men will never see them as anything else, and that attempts to bludgeon men into treating them as if they were men, even with the force of law, will only result in misery for all concerned.

The Saudis and jihad.

Why is there no outrage that the Saudi and other Arabic royals fund islamic jihad (so long as it’s not in their own countries) but America instead demonizes Russia’s leaders, who consistently oppose jihadists and jihadism? Why are America’s rulers allied with the top financiers of jihad? Why is that being kept so secret?

"German Banker: Obama Is Destroying Europe." By Eric Zuesse. Excerpted in ""Obama Is Destroying Europe", "Dragging It Into A Crusade Against Russia" Says Former French PM." Submitted by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, 6/10/15.

The Endgame - Full White Genocide documentary.

The New Segregationists Yet Again: The McKinney Foofaurauw

     The media have made race the single most important factor in law enforcement. Media coverage of the Michael Brown upheaval, the death of Eric Garner, the Freddie Gray riots, and many similar cases has produced a state of affairs in which law-abiding Americans are unprotected, de facto, against mobs of unruly and violent Negroes who choose to invade their lives and properties.

     This should come as no surprise to any Gentle Reader. Incentives matter, and the media have changed the incentives with their coverage. In covering a disturbance or a riot, seemingly the only thing that matters to the media is race. In the cases enumerated above, a Negro was dead at the hands of the police. The media framed the event as a case of racial bigotry – whites’ bigotry toward blacks, of course – and the professional racialists leaped on the opportunity to foment disorder with their customary alacrity.

     Thus today, the police are increasingly fearful for their careers should they have to intervene in a situation heavily populated by Negroes. The media-fueled race-war Narrative trumps all other considerations even when no lives have been lost and no violence has occurred The uproar over McKinney, Texas merely adds a data point to the graph.

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     Conservative Treehouse provides the full McKinney story:

     The woman who organized the event in McKinney, Texas is named Tatiana Rhodes (or Tatyana Rhodes). She is approximately 19-years-old; however, she retains a fake id and has began scrubbing most of her social media accounts, so her exact age is undetermined. Update: confirmed profile DOB 04/02/1995, so Tatiana Rhodes is 20.

     Tatiana had been promoting a party via twitter under the hashtag name “Dime Piece Cookout” for approximately a month. She planned the event at a sub-division called “Craig Ranch” in McKinney Texas.

     Tatiana (pictured below left) lives in the sub-division with her mother Lashana Burkes (pictured right). Both appear to be natives of Chicago....

     The Craig Ranch subdivision has a neighborhood park and a gated pool and clubhouse for residents. The pool and clubhouse is gated and a scan card is needed to gain access. (You an explore via google earth here)

     The subdivision has a Homeowners Association (HOA) which regulates and controls the activities in/around the HOA swimming pool and clubhouse and has strict rules for use thereof.

     ....Neither Tatiana Rhodes nor her mother sought permission to use the pool or clubhouse area as part of the event. However, Tatiana hired a DJ and promoted the event to include a pool party...

     The following was posted to Facebook by Michael Cory Quattrin, a resident of “Craig Ranch,” in the aftermath of the media’s predictably tendentious, race-centered coverage:

     A DJ setup in a public space next to the private pool in our neighborhood on Friday and played loud explicit (F-bomb) music for multiple hours....The teenagers (both black and white) were being brought into our neighborhood by the carload....The teens began fighting with each other and pushing their way into our private pool. Some were jumping our fence. The security guard was accosted when he tried to stop the beginnings of this mob scene. Some residesnts who live around the park/pool area tried to come out and settle things down. The teens started yelling racial slurs at our neighbors and started assaulting people and property (throwing bottles at cars and attacking a mother at the pool with 3 young children). The first officer on the scene was by himself, At that time the party had grown to a large, aggressive crowd. As the officer arrived, many teens started running through our neighborhood. Many of the teens were being very aggressive and yelling at the officers as more arrived....

     Now ask yourself what other outcome the “Dime Piece Cookout,” which was swarmed under by a huge group of unruly black teens and young adults, could possibly have produced. But Mr. Quattrin has a bit more to say:

     The news media has refused to hear the neighborhood’s side of this story. The video being distributed is only a very small segment of what happened. This information being distributed by the media and others is extremely distorted and in some cases outright lies.

     PLEASE HELP US STOP THE BROADCASTING OF THIS IGNORANCE. The media is trying to make it look like our neighborhood is a white’s only, racist area....The unfortunate result is that our neighbors are now being threatened. We have also had cars and property in and around the park vandalized this weekend. Unfortunately, the press and social media are trying to enflame the situation.

     Surprised?

---

     The media face incentives of their own, of course. Their editorial staffs continue to be dominated by Leftist ideology, but ideology doesn’t free them of the need for “eyeballs:” readership or viewership, the quintessential asset that sells advertising space. Therefore, they continually seek effective means to induce readership and viewership...and a tactic that will do that while conforming to their ideologically required Narrative is favored above all others.

     So they perpetuate the myth of white racism against blacks: the great, unending narrative of Caucasians oppressing “people of color.” It refuses to be quenched because the media, which find it exceedingly useful both commercially and ideologically, are determined to keep it going.

     When I wrote the initial “New Segregationist” pieces, the dynamic of the situation struck me as perfectly clear. Yet it remains unclear to a huge majority of well-meaning whites. Worse, there appears to be no way to induce the media to stop fanning the flames. They want a racial bonfire, as widespread and as hot as possible. They expect it to sell papers and air time. And it will...for a while.

     Remus’s wildly popular “Frankly My Dear” piece strikes a chord with so many Gentle Readers because it verbalizes the impulse behind gated communities, the steady blackening of coastal cities, and all the other phenomena grouped under “white flight:”

If you insist on acting like thugs,
We’ll simply distance ourselves from you.

     But thugs need victims. It’s a matter of “self-esteem.” And so, like the homing missile in Yar’s Revenge, the thugs will pursue the peaceable wherever the latter might seek refuge. And the media, desperate for as many “eyeballs” as it can collect as their hegemony over news dissemination decays, will pursue us along with them.

The Coverage Of What’s Being Labeled “L’Affaire Jenner”

     ...puts one of the saddest, most pitiable things any man has ever chosen to have done to himself on a par with such trivialities as Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon, ISIS’s campaign of extermination of non-Muslims, Vladimir Putin’s determination to recreate the USSR, and China’s steady development of an amphibious assault capability sufficient to overwhelm Taiwan.

     And now I have Gentle Readers emailing me about l’affaire Jenner. Wanting to know where I stand on this supremely important subject. Asking why I’ve been silent about it for so long. The most...interesting email I’ve received to date included this deathless phrase: “Why the reticence, Fran? Does your Catholicism pain you in your freedom organs, or is it the other way around?”

     Well! As if I’ve ever exhibited any reluctance to offer an entirely unsolicited and baldly offensive opinion about anything. I have one, and you’ll receive it anon. But on a subject of such world-shaking gravity, I prefer to open with the thoughts of an authority with whom no one can dispute:

     The priest gazed out the west-facing window for a long moment. “I want to say a few words about...mutilation,” he said. “Something that’s slowly becoming commonplace, but which the Church cannot and will not approve. There’ve been some high-profile cases of it recently, haven’t there, Hank?”
     Hallstrom nodded. “I can think of two, a model and a famous athlete.”
     “I had the same two in mind.” Father Ray rose from his armchair and ran his hands down his trim, muscular frame. “I am a combination of two things: what God has given me, and what I’ve done to develop it. The first of these is immutable. God decreed it. His will in the matter cannot be countervailed. The second is merely the consequence of my decision to make the most of that gift—to develop my body in a direction natural to it with proper exercise and dietary discipline. As that does not in any way cross-cut God’s gift, or whatever element of his plan resides in me, my use of his gift is entirely acceptable.”
     He resumed his seat. “Mutilation is not. These pitiable souls who insist that they were ‘born into the wrong body’ are badly damaged, mentally and emotionally. My heart aches for them, each and every one. They desperately need treatment, counseling, acceptance, and the charity appropriate to those whose minds are diseased. But instead we have a media praising the self-mutilators for ‘courage’ and ‘heroism,’ when what they mostly need is to have it sandblasted into their skulls that what God does is well done, that He does not make junk.”

     The reason you can’t dispute him, of course, is that Father Ray – more specifically, Father Raymond F. Altomare, who became the pastor of Our Lady of the Pines Parish in Onteora County, New York upon the passing of the greatly beloved Father Heinrich Schliemann, and who served as a critical spiritual advisor to Stephen Graham Sumner during the latter’s campaign for the presidency – is a fictional character. Nevertheless, he is entirely correct. (Yes, you’ll get to read the story that features the above passage; it’s just not quite ready yet. And no, it’s not about a troubled soul who seeks a sex change.)

     Health is not a matter of opinion. One is healthy to the extent that one’s bodily elements do what they’re designed to do, without crippling or lethal undesired side effects. It’s acceptable for one who is somewhat unhealthy to seek redress of that which ails him, which in some cases might involve surgical methods. It’s acceptable for one who is more healthy than not to work to increase his health, or his fitness, by various measures. But he who is healthy, yet looks at himself and says “this is not what I’m supposed to be,” and invokes surgery to alter himself into something other than God intended, is insane. As Father Ray says above, he needs “treatment, counseling, acceptance, and the charity appropriate to those whose minds are diseased.”

     It’s quite possible that Bruce Jenner has been driven insane by the foofaurauw that has erupted around his kinda-sorta family (i.e., the Kardashians). Nevertheless! His act – and this applies to anyone who seeks gender-reassignment surgery – marks him as someone in desperate need of mental and emotional assistance.

     Some years ago, science-fiction writer John Varley wrote a series of stories in which sex changes and other bodily transformations are normal, even customary “options” indulged by the long-lived members of his fictional societies. Quite a number of readers found the idea appealing. Either this suggests that there are more lunatics running around loose than we normally imagine, or it illustrates the depths of fantasy of which the human mind is capable.

     The human creature is, broadly speaking, of two parts: a “who” and a “what.” Your “who” is the product of your individual choices and their consequences, which depend on your context, capabilities, and character. Your “what” is graven into your genes. It was determined at conception. If you insist upon denying it, you will thereafter find yourself, in the common parlance, in a world of hurt.

     Bruce Jenner, once the foremost athlete in the world, has chosen to enter that world. I doubt he’ll be spared the consequences.

“Don’t Enter Reality Without It!”

     I refer, of course, to the magnificent, fantastic, utterly indispensable:

Get Out Of Reality Free Card!

     It simply must exist! How else could we explain phenomena such as these:

     Remember Lilly the Human Train Wreck, the mentally ill feminist Tumblr blogger who filed a federal complaint against her university? She did not like being quoted on my blog:

     Check it out. He “wrote an article” on me. He victim blames me the entire time. He hates that I am bi. He thinks I’m insane since I have mental illnesses. We need to get him off the internet. https://twitter.com/rsmccain This is his twitter. Please report him for harassing me!!! And report other abusive things he says to or about other people.

     I’m “harassing” her? By quoting her?

     Apparently, in the worldview of those who believe their words should carry no undesired consequences, being quoted is a felony. It should either be impossible, or should occasion severe punishment for the violator. But that’s not all the Card is good for:

     ONE late summer afternoon when I was 17, I went with my mother to the local bank, a long-defunct institution whose name I cannot remember, to apply for my first student loan. My mother co-signed. When we finished, the banker, a balding man in his late 50s, congratulated us, as if I had just won some kind of award rather than signed away my young life.

     By the end of my sophomore year at a small private liberal arts college, my mother and I had taken out a second loan, my father had declared bankruptcy and my parents had divorced. My mother could no longer afford the tuition that the student loans weren’t covering. I transferred to a state college in New Jersey, closer to home.

     Years later, I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.

     I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans....

     Am I a deadbeat? In the eyes of the law I am. Indifferent to the claim that repaying student loans is the road to character? Yes. Blind to the reality of countless numbers of people struggling to repay their debts, no matter their circumstances, many worse than mine? My heart goes out to them. To my mind, they have learned to live with a social arrangement that is legal, but not moral.

     Maybe the problem was that I had reached beyond my lower-middle-class origins and taken out loans to attend a small private college to begin with. Maybe I should have stayed at a store called The Wild Pair, where I once had a nice stable job selling shoes after dropping out of the state college because I thought I deserved better, and naïvely tried to turn myself into a professional reader and writer on my own, without a college degree. I’d probably be district manager by now.

     Or maybe, after going back to school, I should have gone into finance, or some other lucrative career. Self-disgust and lifelong unhappiness, destroying a precious young life — all this is a small price to pay for meeting your student loan obligations.

     So the Card will absolve one from freely chosen material obligations too! Where can one apply for this marvel of modern life?

     Yes, you may well shudder.

---

     The remarkable thing about the above stories isn’t the whining demand to be excused from the foreseeable consequences of one’s freely chosen course. There’ve always been deadbeats, and a fair number of them whiners. No, what’s significant here is the aggressive counter-moralism: the strident proclamations that the laws of cause and effect woven into the very fabric of reality are somehow wrong.

     Whence cometh such notions? Who has been telling these...persons that what they want, no matter how absurd, is theirs by right, without let, hindrance, or consequences? More urgent still, who will discipline them for their follies? Will some sensible relative or friend take “Lilly” aside and tell her: “Look, you ninny, when you post statements on a public website, they’re susceptible to being quoted, and there’s nothing you can do about it” -- ? Will Lee Siegel, the author of the second quoted piece, be held to account, whether for his act of passive burglary by refusing to repay a freely contracted loan, or for denouncing the mechanism that allowed him to acquire a college degree?

     Commentators such as I, Stacy McCain, and Linda of Right As Usual can sift the ordure of modern life for such items so you can employ your time to better effect. We can point to the inevitable consequences of tolerating such scurrilities and plead with you to take appropriate action. We can’t do much more than that.

     The Card is the problem. A staggering number of pseudo-adults are waving it in our faces and demanding that we honor it...and owing to their well-intentioned but misguided acceptance of the contemporary conception of “tolerance,” quite a number of persons who should know better are doing so.

     Don’t kid yourself. The Card is seductive. If you were offered one, with a credible guarantee, perhaps backed by the force of the federal government, that it would be honored, you’d be tempted at the very least.

     Seemingly consequence-free freebies are like that.

---

     I have a personal story for you. It concerns a young woman of my acquaintance for whom I’ve come to have the highest respect. Let’s call her Jane.

     Jane works as a therapeutic masseuse. Her trade is very hard on her physically. She’s good at it – I can attest to her skills personally – but it causes her quite a lot of pain, owing to injuries she sustained some years ago. Yet she perseveres, because she, her husband (another therapist), and their young son badly want to own a home, a difficult hill to climb here on Long Island. They’ve been living with her in-laws while straining to save enough money for an adequate down payment.

     Jane has become quite valuable to me; her skills assuage several of my chronic pains. I only found out about her sufferings quite recently, and indirectly at that. When I discovered them I dithered over changing masseuses, but realized that that would achieve nothing. Jane’s services are in high demand, so some other old crank in a decaying body would take the slot I’d vacated.

     However, I have significant financial resources, and I wanted to do something to ease Jane’s burden. So I offered to help her with the down payment on a house.

     She thanked me but declined the offer. “I have to do this myself” was all she said. I dropped the subject at once, and I think it was well that I did.

     Jane would refuse the Card. No barrage of seductive offers, whether snail-mail, email, or telephonic, could persuade her to accept one. She has a visceral understanding of personal responsibility. For some that comes from an innate sense for the laws of reality. Many others learn it only by trial and painful error – the consequences of their bad decisions.

     We need more Janes. We need to bludgeon the “Lillies” and the Lee Siegels with the consequences of their decisions until they shut up and slink away from sheer embarrassment...assuming they can feel that precious corrective to folly. With all levels of government actively colluding to give them a free ride at our expense, this will be difficult to say the least, but it’s morally imperative. Not to do so will empower them to seduce other susceptible young Americans into accepting the Card.

     Take away their Cards. The rest will follow.

Reality And The State

     The following is in part an extension of the thoughts in “Mimes” and in part an addendum to Dystopic’s superb essay “Good is Evil.” I hope you’ve read them both.

     The great majority of psychiatrists purvey an expensive, jargon-heavy pseudo-science for which little to no objective basis exists. The consequences of investing one’s trust in one can be severe, especially if the psychiatrist is hooked on some au courant mental-health snake-oil nostrum. However, there are a few who will tell you, unabashedly and in simple language, what you need to know to “get well”...which almost invariably amounts to: Cowboy the fuck up and face reality.

     The late M. Scott Peck was one:

     What are these tools, these techniques of suffering, these means of experiencing the pain of problems constructively, that I call discipline? They are four: delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing. As will be evident, these are not complex tools whose application demands extensive training. To the contrary, they are simple tools, and almost all children are adept in their use by the age of ten. Yet presidents and kings will often forget to use them, to their own downfall. The problem lies not in the complexity of these tools but in the will to use them.

     Here’s another:

     Why, after all, is the truth said to be sacred? Why can’t we indulge the parts of ourselves and our culture that suggest we can slip the bindings of reality and use our imaginations to pretend we have more friends than we do, or that we aren’t facing mortal enemies abroad, or that our leaders need not be authentic, so long as they are entertaining, or that our companies need not prove their value, assuming they can assert it, convincingly?

     The answer is this: Human beings suffer in exact proportion to the extent that they depart from the truth. This is a structural beam of the individual and collective human mind and soul, perhaps literally encoded in our DNA, and it defines our place in the universe. Human beings need the truth as much as we need food. Jesus and Gandhi both proved it by fasting, when necessary, until certain truths became known to them and others. And, for the sake of this argument, it matters not at all to me whether you believe that this elemental need is woven into us by God or by science. It just is.

     Dr. Ablow’s last three words are the one and only key to emotional health: What is, is. Deny it at your peril.

---

     Mimes was about the deliberate destruction of the objective meanings of words in service to an overt agenda that contradicts reality. Good is Evil reviews the Orwellian use of the deliberate contradiction of verifiable realities to induce passivity and submission in one’s targets. Reality, of course, is “the point:” the point the destroyers want to obscure, and the point you must see despite all the obstacles to it. But here’s the Ace kicker: the destroyers know the truth; they simply don’t want you to know it.

     Smith who knows the truth has a tremendous advantage over Jones who doesn’t. If Smith is a man of good will, he will attempt to “clue Jones in,” so the two of them will see the same reality and can cooperate in coping with it. But if Smith is morally deficient – a destroyer – he will attempt to profit from Jones’s misconceptions.

     One of the things the destroyers know is that government – the institution that is allowed to use force against others – cannot produce anything but deprivation, destruction, and death. The bedrock political deceit is the notion that the use of force against peaceable others is justifiable – perhaps even mandatory – if it can “solve” some “problem” or achieve some “desirable end.”

     Government is not “just another word for the things we do together.” As George Washington apparently did not say, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

     The destroyers know that, too.

---

     Remus’s essay “Frankly My Dear” is one of the most popular ever to grace this site. Why? The reason is simple: It tells the truth about a subject on which our eyes have been averted from the facts to make room for pretty lies. Other Liberty’s Torch essays that have proved popular share that central virtue: truth about a subject dominated by attractive fictions.

     Dr. Ablow was more right than even he might know: People hunger for the truth. They know, in their heart of hearts, that they’ve been deceived, that the grand, ever-expanding campaign of public deception rolls on, gathering force from second to second. They suspect that they know why. But misbegotten notions about “politeness” and “political correctness” have inhibited the great majority of them from speaking out.

     Schematic: A politician lies to you. You smell it and accuse him of trying to deceive you for his own advancement. How does he respond? With manufactured outrage. Perhaps he’ll accuse you of “racism,” or “sexism,” or “lacking compassion,” or of “questioning his patriotism.” If you’re typical, the accusations will either silence you or disgust you into abandoning the field.

     Have a few truths:

• The biggest racists and sexists in America are politicians, as studies of politicians’ staffs have confirmed.
• Politicians are completely uncompassionate; they merely seek more of your money with which to buy votes, regardless of the havoc that results.
• To go into politics in this year of Our Lord 2015 is virtually a Certificate of Un-Patriotism. A true patriot would have no truck with the lying, thieving, murdering apparatus government in these United States has become. Rather, he would seek to empty the halls of power completely, perhaps as an overture to demolishing them once and for all.

     How many of us are willing to say any of that into a live microphone, perhaps at a politician’s “town hall” meeting?

---

     A final thought for this morning: Along with the many words whose meanings are being undermined or utterly destroyed, there are words and phrases whose utility is for nothing but deception. Their destructive power screams to have them excised from our political discourse. Today, one eclipses all others for cogency: public service.

     “Who is the public? What does it hold as its good?” cried Hank Rearden at his “trial” for an “illegal” sale of Rearden Metal to Ken Danagger. Do you have an answer, Gentle Reader?

     I have never held elective nor appointive office. I have never worked in government. Yet I am a public servant, and have been all my life. I produce products that are voluntarily purchased by my customers, to their material profit or non-material benefit. In all probability, this is also true of you.

     What of the individuals to whom the title “public servant” is normally applied? How do these richly compensated, perquisite-heavy barons of the “public good,” to whom nothing but more power and prestige really seems to matter, actually “serve” the public?

     I’d love to see one of them compelled to mime it.

Back to the USSR.

He who doesn't regret the collapse of the USSR doesn't have a heart; he who wants to see it reborn doesn't have a brain.

~ Vladimir Putin, December, 2010.

Flappers: The Political Class Of Which We Do Not Speak

     My attention was turned in this direction by a brief piece at Crusader Rabbit:

     ‘Rubio, Graham Refuse to Answer Whether They Read Obamatrade Before Voting on It’

     ....Somebody tell me again what is the point of voting?

     Keith has the right of it; at least, I can’t disagree with his obvious anger. However, the headline above isn’t a major revelation of a previously closely-held secret. It’s an open matter, and has been for some time, that Congressmen and Senators never read legislation. That includes legislation they have submitted to the floor.

     They have flappers for that.

---

     For those who have never read Gulliver’s Travels:

     At last we entered the palace, and proceeded into the chamber of presence, where I saw the king seated upon his throne, attended on each side by persons of prime quality. Before the throne, was a large table filled with globes and spheres, and mathematical instruments of all kinds. His majesty took not the least notice of us, although our entrance was not without sufficient noise, by the concourse of all persons belonging to the court. But he was then deep in a problem, and we attended at least an hour before he could solve it. There stood by him on each side a young page with flaps in their hands, and when they saw he was at leisure, one of them gently struck his mouth, and the other his right ear; at which he startled like one awaked on the sudden, and looking towards me and the company I was in, recollected the occasion of our coming, whereof he had been informed before. He spoke some words, whereupon a young man with a flap immediately came up to my side, and flapped me gently on the right ear; but I made signs, as well as I could, that I had no occasion for such an instrument; which, as I afterwards found, gave his majesty and the whole court a very mean opinion of my understanding. [Part III, Chapter II]

     Here we see the Laputan institution of the “flapper:” a servant whose function is to “flap” the ears of his master when, in the opinion of the servant, it is desirable for the master to hear what is being said. Plainly, the “servant” exercises considerable power over the “master”...a condition substantially replicated by the arrangements in the two Houses of Congress.

     Congressmen and Senators all possess large staffs. Those staffs have internal hierarchies resembling the sort you’d find in any business office. The staff members are aware of their boss’s overall political orientation, his priorities, and his positions on the issues of most importance to him. When legislation reaches the floor of his house, staffers portion it up among themselves, read it as closely as possible, decide whether the boss should speak or act on it, and note where he would be likely to take exception to it.

     Legislation is crafted in a similar fashion: the legislator gives general orders to his chief of staff, who then sets the others to work composing a bill to that end. Parkinson’s Law kicks in at this point. A staff of twenty or thirty is inherently incapable of writing a short bill. Among other things, each staffer wants the final product to have his fingerprints on it, to prove his importance to his coworkers and to the legislator. The consequence is invariably a bill that runs to dozens if not hundreds of pages, reads as if it had been assembled from a congeries of legal treatises, obsolete encyclopedias, and phone books, and contains almost as many internal contradictions and ambiguities as there are words in it.

     No, the legislator doesn’t read the bill. He has a chief of staff to assure him that the final product expresses his intentions suitably for the purpose. Really, what other function, aside from bossing the rest of the crew around, would such a head factotum serve? (Whether the chief of staff himself reads the bill is undetermined at this time.)

     That’s what you’re paying $175,000 per federal legislator per year, plus many millions in staff salaries, office expenses, travel expenses, franking privileges, and miscellaneous perquisites, to do.

---

     The power and importance of legislators’ staffs becomes even more visible when we address the pernicious mess called constituent service. No legislator is ever the first person to hear from an aggrieved constituent. Whether that “front man” deems the constituent deserving of the legislator’s “service” will determine whether he gets it, to what extent, and for what reciprocal price...and the “front man” will have opinions, preferences, and biases of his own. Few are the constituents who automatically receive the benison of a legislator’s immediate and undivided attention; it typically takes an eight or nine digit bank balance to enter that highly desirable class.

     There’s one good thing about Congressional staffs that cannot be said of the rest of the federal apparatus: they’re not protected by the civil service laws. They can be fired, or disciplined in other ways, at the discretion of their legislator...if, that is, he can be made interested in and disturbed by what they’ve been doing in his name. Yet their power, as “flappers” who can direct or withhold the attention of their employer, is undeniable. They constitute an unelected layer of government arguably more important than the legislatures themselves.

     So it comes as no surprise that two Senators, both of whom have thrown their hats into the Presidential ring, should decline to say whether they’d read the ObamaTrade bill before voting on it. It’s a poisoned inquiry; the truth would harm them politically while a lie would be far too easy to detect and disclose. The questioners know this and use the question in an attempt to weaken politicians they dislike, even though every federal legislator, if compelled to speak the truth, would answer the same way.

     This is the reality of extra-Constitutional government in the year of Our Lord 2015. Don’t care for it? Either overthrow it or find a suitable asteroid. There are no other options.

De-Mystifying the ISIS Successes

According to this site, it's not rocket science, but known principles of war and politics. 

Here's a link to some free pdfs detailing Boyd's thinking.

Want to know more about the Future of War?

[MORE]

Turkish hypocrisy.

Source: Walid Shoebat.

The Hijab Decision

File this one under "Much Ado About Nothing".  The decision does NOT affirm the woman's right to wear a hijab, but, rather, her right to sue without having specifically told them she needed an accommodation for religious reasons.

Naughty Words Part 3: "Security"

     Senator Rand Paul has drawn quite a lot of flak for his firm stance against the bulk collection of phone call metadata. Some of that flak has come from persons who really ought to know better:

     During debate over renewing the Patriot Act:

     People here in town think I'm making a huge mistake. Some of them, I think, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me.

     Takeaways: 1) It's all about Rand, 2) There can be no legitimate disagreements over the pros and cons of the Patriot Act, and 3) If you do disagree with him on this, you're probably a bloodthirsty, spiteful f*ck.

     And in a similar vein:

     Rand Paul is not just criticizing his named enemies in the Senate, then. He's criticizing the millions of GOP voters whose instincts tend to be more conventional and interventionist than his own.

     Mind you, it’s quite all right to disagree with Senator Paul on this or any other issue. But why tar him as self-absorbed, interested solely in his prospects for the presidency? It should be clear by now that he has essentially no shot at gaining the GOP nomination; all the big guns of the Republican establishment have aligned against him. Therefore, we must seek elsewhere for the reason.

     Fortunately for my aching fingers, we don’t have far to seek.

---

     The following comes from Daniel Yergin’s Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State:

     In the autumn of 1945, civilian and military heads of the different services trooped up to Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate committee on the question of the unification of the military services. Whereas in an earlier round of such hearings, in spring 1944, “national security” barely came up at all; in these 1945 hearings, a year and a half later, the policy makers constantly invoked the idea as a starting point. “Our national security can only be assured on a very broad and comprehensive front,” argued the most forceful advocate of the concept, Navy Secretary James Forrestal. “I am using the word ‘security’ here consistently and continuously rather than ‘defense.’” “I like your words ‘national security,’” Senator Edwin Johnson told him.

     That was the origin of the pernicious phrase national security, which has come to dominate every discussion of military posture, of information classification and handling, of the gathering of intelligence, and of federal surveillance of the American homeland. Pick an arbitrary member of Congress, invade his bedroom at two AM, and dump a bucket of ice water on him, and he’ll come awake sputtering “National security!” But I have a question: What does it mean?

     It doesn’t appear to mean:

• Protection of Americans’ rights;
• Enforcement of America’s borders or immigration laws;
• Rational provisioning and employment of our armed forces.

     If you can define it, please help me out, because the only coherent meaning I can assign to it is:

That which can justify any violation of Constitutional constraints and any abridgement, infringement, or suspension of individuals’ rights.

     Think about it.

---

     Senator Paul has called into question the use of national security as a password to extra-Constitutional power. The federal government is nowhere granted the power to do what the NSA’s metadata-collection program is doing. It’s neither necessary nor proper to the defense of the United States. Indeed, it’s openly acknowledged that the program has yielded no actionable intelligence. Its masters cannot point to even one terrorist plot that metadata-collection has foiled...and they’re open about it.

     Even leaving Constitutional considerations aside, the metadata-collection program is very difficult to defend. It has yielded nothing of consequence to anti-terrorism efforts. When combined with facilities such as EZ-Pass and cell phones’ GPS facilities, it equips the federal government with the means to determine, within about a quarter mile, exactly where any cell-phone-owning American is at any time. When combined with other data available from the Internet, it provides Washington’s busybodies with an extensive dossier on every last individual within our borders: who and where you are, what you’ve been doing with your money, and how you go about your day.

     Who and what are being secured? Whose interests are being protected in this fashion? Is it not transparently obvious that this program is of far more value to the political establishment than to any private citizen? Is it not equally obvious that it would be invaluable in ferreting out pockets of resistance to unConstitutional federal activity and squashing them before they can become numerous or well organized? And is it not mind-shatteringly obvious that this invasion of our privacy could only have been justified by the claim that it’s “essential to national security” -- ?

     Of course, obvious does mean overlooked.

---

     Don’t imagine for an instant that it’s only Republicans who constantly plead “national security” to justify the invasion of Americans’ rights. The Democrats do it, too. Indeed, as Daniel Yergin points out in Shattered Peace, it was the Democrats who started it: the Truman Administration, which rationalized its actions as politically necessary to fend off the GOP. “National security” is immensely useful to all elements of the political establishment, for not only does it justify all sorts of unConstitutional federal activity; it also functions as a shield against disclosures that would topple many a political edifice and end many a political career.

     The redaction of documents released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, which robs the Act of the greater part of its value as a watchtower against federal corruption and overreach, is justified entirely by “national security.” Try to imagine how such excisions could be justified on any other basis. I can’t.

     Just how secure are you feeling right now, Gentle Reader?

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     In a rather different context, Robert A. Heinlein wrote:

     I no longer gave a damn about three-car garages and swimming pools, nor any other status symbol or "security." There was no security in this world and only damn fools and mice thought there could be.
     Somewhere back in the jungle I had shucked off all ambition of that sort. I had been shot at too many times and had lost interest in supermarkets and exurban subdivisions and tonight is the PTA supper don’t forget dear you promised.

     The entire notion of “security” is a phantasm, a shiny bit of colored glass used to lure us away from that which is possible and attainable, and toward that which is not, has never been, and never can be. This is true at any level of organization, from individuals to nation-states. Indeed, the Earth itself is irremediably insecure, as earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, meteorites, near-encounters with asteroids, and the occasional solar flare should demonstrate to anyone’s satisfaction.

     There is risk in everything. There are defenses against some sorts of risks, but no defense is “secure” in any sense that holds water. Human life is an ongoing game of rock / paper / scissors. So also is the bizarre perversion of social organization we call government – but no member of the political class, high, middle, or low, has ever dared to admit it. That is, until Rand Paul, United States Senator from the state of Kentucky, dared to challenge the concept in open Senate session, at least by implication.

     No, Senator Paul will not be the GOP nominee for president, nor should he be. But it would bring a smile to this old face if a larger fraction of the Republicans on Capitol Hill were to admit what’s become so glaringly obvious since 2001:

• That we are not “secure;”
• That we cannot be made “secure,” even at the cost of all freedom;
• That only the Leviathan on the Potomac has any interest in imagining otherwise.

     Remember you read it here first.

Stars Fill Night Sky With Fluid Beautiful Milky Way Time Lapse and Music

Utoobasaurus

H/t: Stephen Hsu.