The Letter And The Spirit Part 2: Moral Surgery

If you’ve been reading my drivel for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with these sentiments:

Though your Curmudgeon disbelieves in left-liberal doctrines, he believes strongly that they should be argued for -- that men of wit and knowledge should undertake to defend them with all the logic and evidence they can muster. This is important precisely because they are opposed to the ideas of freedom, the free market, inviolable individual rights to life and property, and a system of justice founded on objective law, objective evidence, and unbending rules of procedure. We must know how to defend these things logically. If we're never required to do that, we will forget why they're important, and will fail to do them justice when they're attacked by force or guile.

There is this as well: the Starkman paradigm, which accuses conservatives of sealing themselves off from facts and theses that contradict their beliefs, whether by intention or incapacity, actually puts left-liberals in far greater danger of that pitfall. It is not possible to dismiss one's opponents as either stupid or evil, yet still grapple with their contentions in full sincerity. If we on the Right are correct and the left-liberals are wrong -- it doesn't matter about what -- the left-liberals will never learn it....

Leftists have assumed their moral standing to be significantly above that of others. Over the century past, they've had to confront an avalanche of evidence that their prescriptions are less than effective; indeed, that they're utterly unwholesome, toxic to human life and happiness. Were they not to wall the evidence irretrievably out of bounds -- were they not to dismiss all arguments against their notions presumptively, as the whisperings of Satan -- the earthquakes that have toppled their political edifices would topple them from their moral pedestals as well.

So they demand to have their intellectual and moral superiority deemed unchallengeable. They exhort us to subordinate our moral and political opinions to the "experts" -- care to guess who those are? -- and to dismiss counter-evidence and counter-argument with prejudice. They seek to sweep their opponents from the field by disqualifying us morally, before battle can be joined.

Perhaps the height of irony is Hellie's conclusion that "all that left wing political writers need to do is report the truth." Clearly, if that were so, his demonization of us as conscious agents of injustice would be unnecessary, as would the campaigns of calumny the Left is conducting against anyone to the right of John Kerry.

In a way, the sentiments of Neal Starkman and Benjamin Hellie are not exceptional. It’s been a longstanding pattern for left-liberals to dismiss their political opponents as “stupid or evil.” But in light of the most recent developments in left-wing arrogance and deliberate mendacity, it’s worth revising the subject to contemplate what those attitudes allow us to infer about their moral standing...and how they live with it.

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The “stupid or evil” pattern in leftists’ political rhetoric has only grown stronger as the years have passed. They simply can’t abandon their intimations of idiocy, venal motives, or bigotry when confronted by a dissenting conservative. Perhaps that’s because the Main Stream Media have accorded those calumnies their approval...and their promulgation, of course. Or it might be that they’ve become “grooved,” and find the habits involved too hard to break. Whatever the utilitarian case, the tactic became blatant during the Bush the Younger Administration, has continued to intensify during the Obama years, and will probably continue to strengthen should a Republican take the White House in November next year.

It hasn’t done a thing for the efficacy of their prescriptions, of course. But the combination of their slanders with the consequences of their policies casts doubt on their own intellectual and moral standing.

We must start by assuming that the left-liberal who employs “stupid or evil” rhetoric is himself neither stupid nor evil. He might be badly misinformed. He might never have acquainted himself with critical aspects of history, economics, or human nature. His own motives, despite the chaos and destruction his preferred policies have produced, might be entirely benign. All of that is possible even for an American with an advanced education and an occupation that puts him among others of diverse backgrounds and views.

Of certain things we can be sure:

1. He thinks more of his ability to gauge intelligence and judge character than is warranted.
2. If he’s familiar with the Golden Rule, he doesn’t think it applies to political discourse.
3. He’s never received the sort of verbal lambasting that would suffice to get him to doubt his premises.
4. When he confronts a conservative, he doesn’t “see” a person of equal intellectual and moral standing.

In consequence of those four conditions, he awards himself an exemption from the rules of courtesy and civility when fencing with a conservative. He doesn’t reciprocate the conservative’s assumption of mutual benevolence.

In a way this is all quite logical. Why employ reason when one faces an irrational opponent? It would be wasted, wouldn’t it? When one is assured, a priori, that to dissent from left-liberal orthodoxy implies evil motives, why grant the dissenter’s assertions and arguments the respect of sober consideration? Surely the Devil, who “can cite Scripture for his purposes,” should get absolutely no slack.

The problem, of course, is in the premises...but very few persons, once they’ve allowed themselves to assume an attitude of intellectual and moral superiority, ever dare to question the premises that underpin it.

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I’ll allow that the assumption of intellectual and moral superiority can be a hazard for conservatives as well. Yet it doesn’t seem to be nearly as widespread, nor as venomous and unrelenting in action, on the Right as it is on the Left. Perhaps that’s because conservatives are more likely than leftists to be believing Christians, but it’s an untestable hypothesis. At any rate, we haven’t sunk nearly as far into the disease, as one can verify for oneself merely by watching the talking-head shows for a few weeks.

Yet the problem is a serious one that threatens both camps, for as Tom Kratman has told us, over time we will come to resemble our adversaries ever more strongly:

[I]t has been said more than once that you should choose enemies wisely, because you are going to become just, or at least, much like them. The corollary to this is that your enemies are also going to become very like you....

If I could speak now to our enemies, I would say: Do you kill innocent civilians for shock value? So will we learn to do, in time. Do you torture and murder prisoners? So will we. Are you composed of religious fanatics? Well, since humanistic secularism seems ill-suited to deal with you, don't be surprised if we turn to our churches and temples for the strength to defeat and destroy you. Do you randomly kill our loved ones to send us a message? Don't be surprised, then, when we begin to target your families, specifically, to send the message that our loved ones are not stationery.

Tom isn’t the first writer to note that progression:

The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it. – Adolf Hitler

Hitler imposed himself upon the world both by promoting Nazism and by forcing the democracies to become zealous, intolerant and ruthless. Communist Russia shapes both its adherents and its opponents in its own image. – Eric Hoffer

...but we’ve seldom needed to ponder the premises involved quite as much as we do today.

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Ayn Rand made the exhortation to “Check your premises” famous, at least among persons who’ve admired her thinking. When the premise is that the person with whom you’re arguing is on a far lower intellectual and moral plane than you, such that you need not grant him the respect due a putative equal, the consequences can be disastrous:

• Persons too stupid to be reasoned with can legitimately be deceived and coerced “for their own good.”
• Persons who lack an adequate moral sense can legitimately be forcibly re-educated, confined, or eliminated “for the greater good.”
  
• Worst of all, persons who, though assumed to be your intellectual and moral inferiors, turn out to be right when you were wrong, can make you look like a fool.

I submit that it’s that last possibility that poses the greatest hazard to the body politic.

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Once the gentleman’s code ceased to bind a significant number of persons engaged in political activism or discourse, and once enough of us who still adhere to the code lost the moral confidence required to enforce it, it became inevitable that “stupid or evil” rhetoric would proliferate. To beat it back requires a massive campaign of “moral surgery:” the willingness to reprove the behavior founded on the pernicious premises, brutally if necessary.

Of course there’s a need for this in the home, in the rearing of one’s children, but the need to do so in public, among other nominal adults, is far greater:

• Never tolerate being treated like an intellectual inferior.
• Never allow anyone to imply that your motives are venal or corrupt.
• Never allow a conversation in which the “stupid or evil” premises are visible to go unchallenged.

Wrap your good right hand around those premises and rip them out roots and all, perhaps as follows:

Miscellaneous Arrogant Leftist: [Insert some insulting statement founded on the “stupid or evil” premise here.]
Offended Conservative: Tell me, do you think I’m your intellectual inferior?

MAL: Well, no, but...
OC: Do you think I’m morally deficient?

MAL: Well, I wouldn’t say so, but...”
OC: Because what you’ve just said implies either or both. It’s extremely offensive, the sort of remark that once led to pistols at dawn. As I always assume an adult has said what he meant to say, you can continue this conversation by yourself. [Turns and strides away.]

Among other things, it’ll make you feel better than you can imagine.

The Letter And The Spirit

I've just read one of the most remarkable, even critical documents of our time. It's so vitally important to the future, not merely of the United States but of Mankind as a whole, that not to proclaim it far and wide would be a sin of omission for which no penance would be sufficient.

Wait for it. I have a couple of other things to say first. I trust you'll appreciate the perspectives they afford.

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First, allow me to recount an episode from more than a decade ago. It occurred at the home of some friends, who had invited us over for dinner. They'd also invited another couple, about whom I’d been told nothing except that the husband, Abe, was someone "you might enjoy talking to, Fran."

Abe was a left-liberal of typical left-liberal opinions and arrogance. We fenced verbally for an hour or more -- apparently our mutual friends had told him a little about me and my proclivities -- during which:

• The topics were many and various;
• Abe repeatedly made factual assertions I could easily disprove, but which he insisted were true, while freely dismissing my factual assertions as "nonsense;"
• Despite severe temptations to do otherwise, I remained courteous. I was in someone else's home and felt an obligation to maintain the peace.

But there came a point where Abe felt he simply had to address what he deemed the inadequacies of President George W. Bush. Now, whatever Dubya's missteps were -- and I'll allow he made a number of them, some of which were quite serious -- he was a man of sterling character. You could believe that he meant what he said. When he proposed a plan of action, you could be confident that he was sincere about it and would prosecute it to the limit of his ability and authority. When Abe lit off in that direction, I could sense that trouble was on the horizon.

And indeed it was. I managed to hold myself in check throughout most of Abe's tirade, but when he sneered at Dubya for his Christianity -- for "needing the comfort of an imposed structure," as Abe put it -- I snapped.

"Do you have any idea," I said in a tone that might have issued from the bowels of the Earth, "what you just said to a devout, practicing Catholic?" I didn't wait for an answer. I turned on my heel and walked away. We exchanged no further words that evening. Indeed, my wife and I left without wishing him a good night.

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I wrote some time ago -- apologies; I can't find the link -- that among the patterns that characterize men of good will is the tendency to assume that others are equally as benevolent. That attitude is one of the main supports to the maintenance of the conventional courtesies: broadly speaking, refraining from calling someone an idiot, fool, dupe, liar, slut, thief, murderer, or otherwise unsatisfactory person in a nominally social setting. Abe felt no such inhibitions, at least when his target was someone who wasn't physically present. When I put him on notice that he'd denigrated my convictions, his face fell apart. He couldn't believe I had reacted in such an unrestrained fashion. Why, it was positively discourteous. And after such a nice dinner, too!

I'd reached my limit. Everyone has one. Abe had found mine, whether or not he'd deliberately sought to do so.

It was the beginning of a rather sharp swerve in my attitude toward leftists who denigrate Christianity. I once felt it was something like an obligation to remain courteous, to try to demonstrate how far wrong they were by my conduct, erudition, and sound reasoning. Beneath that, of course, lay the assumption that they could be led to see their error and retreat from it: if not to the extent of becoming Christians, at least so far as allowing that we might not be the imbeciles, buffoons, and would-be oppressors they'd taken us to be.

The assumption was the problem. Indeed, it still is: far too many men of good will retain it, despite innumerable demonstrations that it is false-to-fact.

President Bush labored under that assumption, too. He repeatedly acted as if he accepted without question that his political adversaries were as benevolently inclined as he. He received numerous rebuffs without ever abandoning that premise. It cost him, and the country, in ways that still burden us and will continue to do so for some time to come.

To cut to the chase: Courtesy toward one another is a formal thing. It's not context-free; sustaining it requires a state of reciprocal obligation, in which all persons strive to remain courteous. It derives from the spirit of the Second Great Commandment: to love your neighbor as you love yourself. But one can maintain the specific standard of the Commandment without straining to remain courteous to an unmannerly boor.

Once Abe had demonstrated that he felt himself unbound by the courtesies, I declared myself free of them as well. But Abe is in no way exceptional among left-liberals. To left-liberals, courtesy and propriety are shackles for conservatives, Christians, and their other enemies. They have no interest in donning those fetters; they might keep them from winning an argument...or an election.

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The double standard in political and social discourse has never been clearer. One side has declared itself outside all rules. It will lie, cheat, steal, sling unbelievably vile calumnies, and generally do whatever it deems useful to its aims, moral standards be damned. The other side strains to remain within the traditional standards of polite conduct, even to the extent of declining to give true coloration to the adversaries' words and deeds. The height of the madness is captured in this: left-liberals' slanders frequently include accusations that conservatives are doing what left-liberals have already done or are planning to do.

Religion has become a particular battleground. The Left has put its nominal atheism to the side to defend Islam, despite its exhortations to violence and oppression and the savagery of its most visible adherents. That's an outcome of leftist "othering," in which any enemy of American norms is immediately granted sanctuary within the Leftist fold. But Islam has sworn the destruction of its enemies -- Christianity and Judaism in particular -- and the Left, in support of its clients, has taken up cudgels against those faiths, while ceaselessly proclaiming that we whom it would destroy must be "tolerant of other faiths."

If you're familiar with the "Islamic Two-Step," this tactic should be familiar to you as well.

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The spirit of the Great Commandments is generous beyond measure. As the angels who massed above Bethlehem sang, they proclaim peace on Earth and good will toward men -- all men. But the letter of the Law does not demand that Christians sit meekly and unresistingly before a campaign of annihilation.

Now for a snippet from the essay that I praised so highly in the opening segment:

The degradation of our culture has gone too far, and I’ve fucking had it....

This is the Progressive vision for the future, where fat and unhygienic is beautiful. This is a world in which John Scalzi is the pinnacle of writing talent, where Michael Moore is your script writer and Ben Kuchera is your journalist. Your State Department official is a moron who claims the unemployment numbers in Syria are largely responsible for global terrorism. Your own President cannot name who the terrorists are.

Utopia for Progressives is Hell on Earth, possibly worse than any the Bright One who Fell could think up. Your live entertainment will be based on vaginas. Your art is a Crucifix in a jar of piss, or period blood on canvas. Paul Krugman will be your personal banker, with every Western government worth mentioning so far in debt that the entire population could work for well over a year doing nothing but paying it, without coming close to discharging it....

I’m going to say two things in rapid succession, because, again, I’ve had it. My patience has been exceeded. The tank for tolerance is empty, it’s been running on fumes for years now.

I’m a Christian. Okay? And this is a remarkably unChristian thing for me to say, but if you don’t like it… to hell with you (I just realized this is a good pun). I’m tired of being Peter to the rest of the world and skirting the issue, denying it because it’s the fashionable, popular thing to do in a degenerate age, because it might mollify a gatekeeper lording over his own personal pile of waste. I encourage other Christians to do likewise. Proclaim it, loudly and proudly, and say “now what?” Yes, I DJ Industrial-Goth dance clubs, and I am a Christian. We’re everywhere, you know. And there are more of us than there are of them, even today.

Second, and I want to make this as abundantly clear as I possibly can with words, I’ve had enough of the destruction of Western Culture. Progressives have ruined all that is good and Holy on this planet. Wherever there is ugliness, you can be sure to find one of their ilk behind it. Not only do they loathe standards of conduct, beauty and comparison, they actively promote anti-standards. They deconstruct so far, they’ve tunneled straight through civilization and into barbarism, they are the men digging in the ground all the way to China.

They elevate diarrhea to fine wine, while pouring the good vintage down the drain. A beautiful woman in a bikini is an ugly demonstration of sexism, to them, instead of a wonderful example of femininity. A strong man is a patriarchal, heteronormative oppressor. The intellectual is a “mansplainer.”

When you next make use of the bathroom, know that your excrement, your bodily waste, is of higher value than anything they can produce. For at least that waste can become fertilizer for something greater. They are the snake, the worm, the voice of unreason. They are the Autumn People, the product of a century of spoiled children, rotten parenting and failing families. They are reared on garbage, educated by propagandists and coddled by elitist fucks living so far up the Ivory Tower they haven’t seen Terra Firma in their entire lives. Yet, as high up as they are, Dante knew their ilk well enough in the bottom rungs of Hell.

The garden is full of weeds, more wheels are squeaking for the greasing. Civilization is oinkin’ for the boinkin’ while politicians discuss the proper regulations for tree removal in my front yard.

Dystopic, you're my hero. I could not have said it better. Gentle Readers, please read the whole thing. Spread word of it far and wide.

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A significant number of people look at me, probably because of my tirades here and elsewhere, as an authority of sorts: someone who can certify conclusions, award permissions, and pronounce absolution. In reality I'm nothing of the sort: just one more American with opinions he dares to set forth on the Web. I'm flattered by those who regard my reasoning as sound and my conclusions as important, but in reality the only thing that could make them important is if they were to become your reasoning and conclusions as well. If that's the case, I'm doubly flattered, but remember that it's you that made the critical difference.

All the same, in recognition of the exalted status I don't deserve, I hereby declare, ex cathedra from my bellybutton:

Conservatives and Christians are hereby relieved of any perceived duty of courtesy toward the Left.

Dystopic has stated the case in the strongest possible terms. Perhaps some of you have already experienced what I did from Abe. Perhaps you've cringed before the larger syndrome Dystopic has so passionately denounced. Perhaps you've been wondering "is it time to take off the gloves?" I proclaim it so. Indeed, the time arrived some time ago.

They have placed themselves above the Law.
They are no longer entitled to the protection of its spirit.
Treat them as roughly as they treat you.
Leave them naked before the firehose of your contempt.
They have earned that and nothing more.

Have a nice day.

Observing Disinterestedly from the Bleachers as the Wall Tumbles

Observing Disinterestedly from the Bleachers as the Wall Tumbles
By: SilverDeth
Date: 2/17/15

As we sit here, divvying up our freshly acquired aumunition dump, (f*ck you very much BATF Jackboots), we can’t help but find ourselves bored sh*tless by constant droning of the various suicidal cheerleaders pimping The Evil and Stupid parties:

“The Iraq and Afghanistan disaster is all Bush\Cheney’s fault!”

“Nu-uh… it’s Obama’s incompetence that made it all fall apart!!!!”

“No no no no… none of it would’ve been necessary if Clinton had killed Osama when he had all those chances!!”

“But Daddy-Bush started that whole mess over there when he didn’t finish Desert Storm!!!”

“Pfffft – if Regan had not been arming up the Taliban and training them as insurgents to proxy war with the Russians there would be peace!!!”

“Oh yeah? Well if Carter had not been a useless putz and let the Shaw fall, that whole region…. blah blah blah.”

Constant readers – did you ever consider that perhaps everybody is simultaneously wrong and right? Imagine for a moment that your incompetent, evil and greedy GOVERNMENT is the issue. Oh… we see… it’s easier to create boogeymen – to blame one matching set of f*cks for what is in fact the systemic and terminal failure of this republic. (Not that we can totally blame you – the slide-show-train-wreck has been going on since before our grandparents were born).

The American public – those not anesthetized by the “circus-of-the-week” (TM) – watch the decomposition accelerate with a sense of befuddlement and growing dread. They desperately want “a reason” for our snail-motion-collapse – they beg for a remedy. Yet, nothing staves off the empire’s fall. Civil unrest grows yearly. The wealth drains away with every quarterly report. Elections swing more and more violently each cycle. Debts scale at exponential rates. The panicked population tries to quash the “cause” of our asphyxiation – they want a clearly named foe, a single villain, a lone malefactor they might rally against to resuscitate our suffocated country.

Our media and political lick-spittles are happy to oblige.
“Deliver us!” the people shriek – and slimy tadpoles squirm from the muck, more than happy to demagogue in exchange for graft and power. Yet nothing happens – same looting, same stomping on sacred freedoms, same pointless bungled wars. Just a different class clown helming the good ship Lusitania.

The facts are obvious – America has been dead a long time. So great was her engine of creation that she’s continued decades on the momentum alone – forward motion generated by giants of men, great and terrible both. The frightened citizenry know enough to see the wheels coming off, but they want an easy solution – a quick panacea to one hundred years of malfeasance and foolishness. As a result, they blame their favored enemy:

“The corporatist Neo-Cons killed America with their bloody wars for oil!”

“Stupid Prog-Nazi’s are to blame for the U.S.A.’s unsustainable public debt!”

“Dumsh*t LiberTardian pot tokers didn’t pick a side and now Obama won the White House!”

“Retard Sheeple plugged into their TV and video games so the Republicans own Congress!”

Everyone needs their bunyip to scare the children and blame for the malaise. Because vanquishing a single monster is the perfect achievement for a lazy, scared and mal-educated society. It’s so much easier to confront a fiction than the possibility that “our creature” is in fact a legion of faceless, nameless bureaucratic puke-weasels whom WE empowered to destroy our lives.

What if the collapse was not exclusively brought about by this or that specific idiot? Open your mind to the possibility that our doom was a collective effort. Decades of greedy, evil and stupid people, each yanking bricks from the gate keep, until the castle was a ruin… threatening to topple with the next prevailing breeze.

No – the failure was not a single politician, (or even a single political party). What we’re witnessing is ruin brought about by our entire government, and by sad extension, the idiot population who granted them high office. Yes, that means “us.” We the stupids – who voted “pragmatically” instead of clenching our principles. Who faltered in the face of tyranny, because, “our team is the good guys!” (Whichever Godforsaken group that happened to be). Us... who, to our eternal shame, handed off the justly warranted revolution to our next of kin.

We applied our signatures, in blood, to the contract that empowered our taskmasters. And we so graciously signed our kids into serfdom, the very way our parents bound us. Now, as our generation withers away, we leave, as our legacy, the girdled corpse of a once living nation, and all the suffering that will skulk in it's shadow. This is our children’s inheritance. Damn us.

A fix you say? Sorry constant readers. If you’ve came seeking wisdom, we’ve got nuthin’ fer ya. What we can offer is this:

If there is one constant in the universe, it’s that you can’t bring back the dead. The United States of America is dead. Best be planning for the eventual funeral now – and what you’ll do in the aftermath.

Other folks certainly are. You might not care much for their intentions.

Arnaud de Borchgrave Dies.

Mr. Arnaud de Borchgrave was an amazing gentleman as the Newsmax piece on his death makes clear.

In his last column, the long-time war correspondent urged America's leaders to stop getting sucked into conflicts in the Middle East, and turn their attention instead to restoring the standing of the U.S. middle class and repairing America's crumbling infrastructure at home.

"The bottom line," he wrote, "is that the U.S. is now faced with a historical choice. It is high time to regroup on the home front while shedding a dysfunctional political system still posing as a functioning democracy."^[1]

De Borchgrave's view of the state of representative government in America is shared by many.

Political pathologies swirl about us and choke off rational, truthful debate. Liars, cowards, and subversives cower behind pathetic concepts like "hate speech," "bigot," "intolerance," "equality," "multiculturalism," "diversity," "micro invalidation," and "patriarchy" while fatal problems take root and grow. The ability of the top .1% -- not 1% but the top .1% -- to determine the outcome of American elections (and concomitant irrelevance of the political views of ordinary citizens) chief among which.

The desire of that ultra wealthy class to flood America with millions upon millions upon millions of hostile, undigestible, and parasitic foreigners and forever change America into a third-world, social welfare state, ruled by a tiny wealthy elite is crystal clear from the words and actions of every bought-and-paid-for politician in the land. Does the speaker mouth the words "diversity," "multiculturalism," "amnesty," "asylum," or "comprehensive immigration reform"? If so, then bought and paid for.

The alarming success of the radical left – quite unopposed by the "journalists" in today's news rooms and editorial suite and aided and abetted by the highest court on down – puts liberty at risk. The ultra left have no regard for liberty because to implement their agenda requires it to be diminished. If we do not understand that, we are in great danger of seeing this great experiment in self government fail, only to be replaced by the greasy nostrums of communism lite – the welfare state and necessarily related fantasies about fiscal arithmetic, history, the efficacy of government action, and human nature.

Notes
^[1] "Arnaud de Borchgrave, Legendary Journalist, Dies." By David Patten, Newsmax.com, 2/17/15.

Encirclement

Einkreisung! “Encirclement!” It was the cry of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the inconstant, ill-mannered, self-doomed Emperor of Germany in the years before “the Great War:” World War I. Wilhelm wanted the sort of imperial power the other nations of Europe had established and would soon surrender: military might upon the seas, colonies in Africa and Asia, and the obeisance of the “lesser powers” of the world. When he became expansive, Wilhelm would admit that destroying the British Navy, seizing a few colonies from his European neighbors, and compelling a kowtow or two from the potentates of Britain and France would be a good start.

What did Wilhelm mean by encirclement? Merely that in the face of Germany’s rapid military expansion and its aggressiveness on the seas and in Africa, the other European powers had formed mutual-defense alliances. While their alliances were not explicitly directed against Germany, there was no other military threat on the horizon...no other nation, except for the United States, that any one of those powers could not have defeated single-handed. Germany was their common concern.

Some historians have claimed that those alliances helped to precipitate the Great War, by inducing a sense of confinement that pressed upon Wilhelm until he could bear it no longer. Yet not one of the other nations made even a threatening gesture toward Germany. Indeed, on July 30, 1914, only days before the outbreak of hostilities, French Premier Rene Viviani ordered the withdrawal of French forces ten kilometers from the Franco-German border, hoping that such a demonstration of pacific intentions might prevent a conflagration. Needless to say, it did not: the German General Staff had already committed Germany’s forces to the Schlieffen Plan – a two-million-man ground invasion through Belgium and down the Channel coast, intended to catch the anticipated French thrust through Alsace and Lorraine in the rear – and would not be denied the chance for which they’d waited so long. At any rate, the Kaiser had decided upon war, and the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand provided the pretext he needed.

The sense of being ringed about by enemies resolved upon one’s destruction can do that.

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Some persons in the freedom movement have felt encircled for quite some time. They’re just waiting for a reason to “go for their guns,” already convinced that the events of the most recent decades can produce no other outcome. I shan’t dismiss their attitude; they could well be correct. Moreover, the encirclement they sense is more objectively substantiable than what Kaiser Wilhelm suffered.

Incursions upon Americans’ rights at home have grown so various that there’s no point in enumerating them any more. The sense of threat from abroad, principally manifest in Russian and Chinese militancy, the flood of illegal aliens over our southern border, and many thousands of Islam-powered terrorist acts, makes it still worse. There’s no longer even a pretense that “private property” is truly private. The only thing that hasn’t happened yet is a general rounding-up of “dissidents” in the style of a Communist dictatorship...though the public pillorying of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula for having “caused” the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi is enough to give one pause.

With the most recent revelations about Obama Administration deference to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the BATFE’s attempt to ban the most popular rifle ammo in America, and the FCC’s imminent announcement of regulations on the Internet, the tension is approaching an unsustainable level.

Yes, we are encircled, almost entirely by the actions of “our” government. Whether it’s time to break the encirclement is no longer at issue; determining whether it remains possible, and if so, the best method for doing so are all that matters.

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I’ve written on other occasions that freedom in any degree rests upon a tripod of supports:

• Education,
• Communications,
• Weaponry.

Education, with the exception of homeschooling and Internet-schooling, is a lost cause. NSA shenanigans about phone and email monitoring have abraded some of our communications privacy. However, Internet communications and the general availability of weaponry to private citizens have remained open and liberal, until recently. With the developments cited above, those supports to what remains of freedom are critically endangered.

Whether there’s a point to continuing with peaceable political action is open to dispute, as is whether it’s time to “shoot the bastards.” But there might still be a middle course that is neither easily ignored nor unbearably costly: a course that could “put teeth” in our political activism without shedding great quantities of blood.

In discussing international diplomacy, the great Thomas Sowell noted that nation-states only negotiate when one of the alternatives is war – more specifically, when one of the parties at the table is credibly ready, willing, and able to make the refusal to negotiate potentially more costly than the other is willing to bear. This, of course, hearkens to the “economic model” of deterrence that I’ve also discussed at other times: the premise that regardless of how aggressively a nation might posture, there is nevertheless a maximum price it’s willing to pay for its objectives.

Do our oppressors prize their power over us so greatly that no price for their deeds could ever deter them? If so, then it’s all over but the shooting. If not, then a possible middle course would be a campaign of intimidation -- “we know who you are and what you do” -- to let them know that they’re under our crosshairs, and not just from adverse developments at the ballot box. (Cf. this fanciful novel of some years ago.)

What capacities do freedom lovers possess for putting “the bastards” under a multiply-bladed sword of Damocles? Do we have a way to put those who oppress us in a state of fear – fear of us – and keep them thus for an indefinite time, such that they could never be certain when the blow might fall or from which direction it might arrive?

We would need a great deal more information and organization than we possess at present. We would also need to contrive a way to communicate, both among ourselves and with those whom we must counter-coerce, that’s as close to unbreakable as human ingenuity can get it. And of course, we would need the resolve required to do what’s necessary, should it become necessary.

Some will respond that the enforcers – those federales who constitute “the sharp end of the blade” – don’t originate their orders; they merely do as they’ve been told. We didn’t allow the functionaries of Nazi Germany to escape punishment at Nuremberg by saying that “I was only doing my job.” Lon Horiuchi and Janet Reno were “only doing their jobs,” too.

Could we credibly present the starkest of alternatives to the enforcers of anti-Constitutional, anti-freedom federal laws and regulations? Could we at least pose that choice to a large enough fraction of them that the rest would feel unbearably unsafe? Could we amass the required information about identities, movements, and vulnerabilities? Could we attain the necessary degree of coordination without being traduced? Most important of all, could we do so in good conscience, as fully resolved to enforce our will as the mandarins of the State are to enforce theirs?

What if the sole alternatives to such a course are complete subjugation and outright civil war?

What to say when you don't know who you are, where you came from, or where you want to go.

What is France? The left responds to that question with a void, the emptiness of those "values of the Republic" about which no one knows where they come from, what they are founded on, or who has the right to establish an exhaustive list in order to "form" the citizens of the future. A freedom of expression empty of all significance, that reveals every day its obvious inconsistencies. A superstitious laïcité, closer in nature to magic than to a reasonable principle for living. The incantation for national unity, brandished coercively by those who, for years, have been transforming the solitary whims of inconsequential individualism into progress. What can one build on "values" that have for so long resounded with hollowness?^[1]

~ François-Xavier Bellamy, philosopher-teacher and adjunct mayor of Versailles.

Tiberge points out the equally vacuous term "American dream" that is beloved of bubbleheads and politicians in the U.S. who are clueless about what it takes to build, maintain, and protect America. "French values," "American dream," "diversity," "hodgepodge." All shibboleths of knuckleheads or liars.

Notes
^[1] "Empty words." By Tiberge, Gallia Watch, 2/13/15. Original article at Le Figaro.

Dutch orchestra walks out on Muslim conductor's commercial for Islam.

Here.

May 9, 2014.

A sliver of normality in the long, sad surrender of the West to madness.

Obama And His AUMF

By now everyone in the English-speaking world is aware that “our” Nobel Peace Prize winner of a president, having casually squandered the blood of thousands of Americans who gave their lives in the decade-long effort to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq, wants Congress to authorize him to send American forces back into the Middle East. The questions of greatest immediate importance are:

1. Why?
2. Does he think everyone in Congress is blind, deaf, and crazy?

Okay, okay. Given Congress’s behavior in recent years, he might have a basis of sorts for an affirmative answer to question #2. But given Obama’s demonstrated unwillingness even to mouth a word Muslims might deem offensive to them, coupled to his open hostility to America’s military, how could a rational man expect that an Obama Administration military action waged against an Islamic enemy could work out well? He doesn’t fight wars to win; he hates our armed forces; and he flinches at the very thought of offending a Muslim.

So his request might just meet with sufficient resistance to derail it:

President Obama’s request that Congress authorize military action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was met with skepticism from both parties on Wednesday, raising questions about Capitol Hill’s ability to pass a war measure.

The divide is largely centered on language prohibiting the use of “enduring offensive ground combat operations” against ISIS.

Democrats say this does too little to limit the White House from committing ground troops to the fight, while Republicans say the restrictions could handcuff the military.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

---

Senator Rand Paul was recently quoted as saying that sending American ground troops to battle ISIS is a mistake – that ISIS can only be defeated by troops supplied by the regional states. For that statement he was roundly criticized by several figures on the Right. His statement was variously mischaracterized as isolationism, as moral indifference to the horrors ISIS has inflicted on its victims, and as a slur on America’s fighting forces. Yet when viewed in the proper context, he was quite correct.

Ours is not the fully roused, invincibly resolute United States of America that defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Nor is ISIS the sort of terror that can raise Americans onto our hind legs. Worse yet, those we would go forth to rescue from ISIS are in fundamental agreement with ISIS’s premises and principles. Worst of all, we have been made all too aware that Obama simply won’t allow a war against an Islamic enemy to be fought effectively – that whatever gains American forces would achieve at the cost of further American blood and treasure would be fleeting at best, illusory at worst.

Obama might well have been pressured by his political advisors into requesting the AUMF. I could easily believe it – and that he opposed them to the extent of insisting that it be so sharply limited that it would be clear to all and sundry that he doesn’t really want to fight.

As submitted to Congress, the requested AUMF displeases both caucuses. The Democrats, ever the lily-livered, quail at the idea of further American casualties. More, they detest the thought of having to defend a new and foredoomed war against the criticisms of their hard-left base. The Republicans, a trifle more alert to the reasons the requested AUMF is shaped as it is, are unwilling to allow Obama another double-bind at their expense. For should the AUMF be approved as requested, Obama would not hesitate to blame the subsequent failures on the GOP. Should Congress modify the AUMF to provide an actual possibility of military victory, Obama and his allies would castigate the Republicans for letting more of our young men die in foreign lands.

Though our military men are inhibited against giving their opinions of such matters to the media, it would be difficult for me to believe that our commanders are at all enthusiastic about heading back to the Middle East while Obama is their Commander-In-Chief. They’ve worn his shackles long enough to know them – and him.

No, the war against ISIS, if it’s to be fought at all, must be fought by the locals. America must stay out of it, at least for now.

---

In straining to comprehend a geopolitical insanity such as contemporary Islamic militancy, it’s vital that we look beyond the superficial aspects to the foundations of the thing. Those foundations are on vivid display for anyone to see:

1. Islam is a program of totalitarian conquest with a few theological decorations. Its founder, a sex-crazed, bloodthirsty warlord who commanded jihad against “unbelievers” until the whole world is under the boot of Islam, is venerated as The Perfect Man, to be emulated in all things.
2. The program draws substantial support from the Muslims of the world: reliable estimates range from 10% to 25% accord with the militants’ aims and methods.
3. The hypothetical majority of “moderate” Muslims is unable to resist the claims of their militant co-religionists, because:
   1. The militants have the Islamic scriptures firmly on their side; and:
   2. The militants are willing to slaughter “moderate” Muslims as heretics and apostates.
4. The will of the West to resist the Islamic program is weaker than ever before in history. Indeed, our “leaders” aren’t even willing to call Islam-powered terrorism (or ISIS itself) Islamic.

If ever there were a time for Islam to strike the West, this is it. We are divided, weakened by secularism, multiculturalism, moral relativism and a pervasive reluctance to judge others of “different standards.” The states of Europe have emasculated themselves militarily, while America has squandered her own power in a number of pointless, even pathological efforts. If more were needed, a resurgence of imperialism from Russia and looming threats from China have divided our geopolitical attentions.

This is not a time for another expeditionary war on our part. It’s a time for redressing our mistakes:

• We must extinguish the cultural viruses of multiculturalism and moral relativism.
• We must reanimate American principles and values.
• We must reinvigorate the American military and reinforce the virtues that made it fearsome.
• We must cleanse our halls of power of the secret allies of anti-American, anti-freedom forces worldwide.

The war against world Islam – and make no mistake; ISIS is only the tip of the spear – is a world war. It can only be won by a fully mobilized, morally resolute, armed-to-the-teeth nation determined to obliterate the enemy completely and permanently, as we did in World War II. It’s madness to commit one’s forces to such a war in the hesitant, divided, unprepared state we’re in today.

Obama’s request for an AUMF should be defeated.

Gotta Brag!

My daughter was just published.  She wrote about the good things she has found in religious life.

Walls Closing In Dept.

Before I launch into today’s tirade, allow me to make a strong recommendation for the website of a friend and colleague: The Declination. The site is run by frequent Liberty’s Torch commenter Dystopic, and is a wealth of good thinking and fine writing. Dystopic’s post of today, a compressed history of the conflict between Islam and Christendom, is an excellent example of his work. Please read it all, and reflect on its significance.

---

Now and then I feel what the title of this piece indicates: the sense that I’m being ever more closely monitored by faceless others determined to control my every word and deed. Some of the aspiring controllers are determined to police my language. Others merely want to collect information about me: perhaps to sell it; perhaps to set me up for a fall. I dislike the idea and fight it whenever I suspect it’s in operation. For example, I’ve avoided the acquisition of a cellphone for that reason, as literally all of them report where you are to someone at all times.

A few days ago, Samsung’s “smart TVs” became a new entry on my list of avoidances:

Introducing the full 1080p Samsung Telescreen:

The potential privacy intrusion of voice-activated services is massive. Samsung, which makes a series of Internet connected TVs, has a supplementary privacy policy covering its Smart TVs which includes the following section on voice recognition (emphasis mine):

You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands. If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.

As an Electronic Frontier Foundation activist pointed out earlier today, via Twitter, the concept of a TV screen that might be snooping on your private conversations — and thus broadcasting a chilling effect by inculcating self-censorship within its viewers — is straight out of George Orwell’s 1984....

If the SmartTV owner does realize how ridiculous this is, Samsung does at least allow them to disable the eavesdropping voice recognition ‘feature’, and instead use a more limited set of predefined ‘voice commands’ — and in that instance says it does not harvest their spoken words.

However it will still gather usage info and any other text-based inputs for data mining purposes, as it also notes further down in the policy. So an entire opt-out of being tracked is not part of this very expensive package.

That’s bad enough, but via the esteemed Charles Hill, we have still more noxious icing on an already distasteful cake:

After Samsung calmed us all down, users of smart TV app Plex noticed a Pepsi commercial playing in the middle of content streamed from their own media server within the house. Plex simplifies using your home computer as a media server for smart TVs, streaming devices, tablets, phones, and game consoles. It is not supposed to inject ads in the middle of the program you’re enjoying. Yet that’s what users report happening: Pepsi ads pop up during shows streamed to their sets using Plex.

A spokesperson for Plex told GigaOm that they weren’t adding ads to users’ video streams. Users reported Pepsi ads interjected in other programs while playing programs directly on the TV from their computer, so the app wasn’t serving up the ads. This was caused by the TV, and only users of Samsung smart TVs have reported it.

Assuming that all the data reported above is accurate, Samsung’s smart TVs are being used to push advertising into the lives of their owners, independently of the source of the material being played.

Would it happen were the source material coming from a DVD? I don’t know. I have no data either way about that possibility. It seems to be a possibility whenever the TV is Internet-connected. For a “smart TV,” overtly intended to facilitate user choice and customization of the viewing experience, this is a most egregious sin.

Am I paranoid? Perhaps. But that’s not the question that concerns me. What I want to know is: Am I paranoid enough?

---

Commercial motives are potentially innocent. Nearly all of us seek to sell something to others, whether it’s our products, our services, or our insights. But hyperaggressive “push” marketing is another matter. If you’ve deceived your target into rendering himself defenseless against your importunings, you’ve committed fraud. Innocence is no longer yours to claim.

However one views the commercial aspects of this phenomenon, one must also address the ways in which evil persons with evil agendas can make use of it. For example, it’s not that long ago that we learned about telecom companies’ “pen registers:” the records of what numbers were connected to what other numbers at what times, and for how long. The federal government has employed that data in its anti-terrorism operations. Has it used it for other, less worthy purposes? We cannot know.

We know that major Internet service providers have been frequently pressured by the federal government to yield up information about their subscribers. The rationale is almost always the anti-terror campaign or some other kind of federal-level crime-fighting. Similar pressure has been put on the operators of popular Web-based services, such as Facebook. We cannot know whether that pressure has been consistently met with successful resistance.

---

“Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies!” – current Internet meme.

For many persons, a new technique for invading the privacy of others is merely an opportunity to be exploited as it becomes relevant. Those will try to pass it off as purely a commercial gambit, a version of the pre-movie commercials we must endure at the local theater. Others will characterize it as the price we must pay for the expansion of our choices technology has bestowed upon us: unfortunate perhaps, but unavoidable. While there are kernels of truth to both statements, neither is a complete picture of the situation and its hazards.

Technology, be it ever borne in mind, is value-free. It can liberate, but it can also confine and destroy. Nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons make use of the same principles, and many of the same technologies. Governments are relentless about seizing upon new technologies for the advancement of their perennial aim: the control of their subjects.

You’re surely aware of the proposals in several states to mandate tracking devices on privately owned motor vehicles, so their owners can be taxed by the mile traveled. Whether or not you think that to be a fairer method for funding road building and maintenance, think also of the possibilities for the monitoring and control of your movements. For example, think of the way it could be used to prosecute you for using your mobility to escape sales taxes. It’s not that long ago that New York State made a practice of sending tax agents to major furniture outlets in North Carolina, to record the license plates of New Yorkers buying furniture there. Is that still going on? Perhaps not. But with the near-ubiquity of the EZ-Pass, it has ceased to be necessary, as virtually all the states along the Atlantic coastline, plus quite a few others, are linked into that system – and the transceivers aren’t installed solely at toll booths.

Still think keeping that smartphone in your pocket, always powered on, is a good idea?

African (dictator) logic.

Ok. This is just hilarous.

"Robert Mugabe 'suspends 27 bodyguards' for failing to stop his humiliating podium fall that sparked worldwide mockery online." By Simon Tomlinson, Daily Mail, 2/11/15.

H/t: Gates of Vienna.

Pearls of expression.

Jonathan Chait, the sort of nice suburban liberal boy you’d want your daughter to marry if you hated your daughter, in his recent essay on the alleged renaissance of political correctness, bemoaned the emergence of racial- and gender-identity politics as an ultimate rhetorical trump card.

An insightful article.

"The Brute-Force Left. The Left lost the argument, but is determined to win the fight." By Kevin D. Williamson, NationalReviewOnline, 2/8/15.

Something's Come Up

I was sitting in front of the TV today, at around 7:30 pm, when a Viagra commercial appeared.  It was the one that has a 40-ish woman in a slinky blue dress talking about "erectile dysfunction".

My first thought was "How glad I am that I no longer have young children at home.  Wouldn't want to have to explain what THAT is!"

My second thought was, "Why on Earth do they put these provocative, sexually blatant commercials on so early in the evening?  Families probably don't want to have to explain, in detail, the facts of life to their children who are still awake."

My third thought was, "Eh, the guys who most need it - old guys - are probably heading to bed - I mean SLEEP - early."

Police State NYC

New York State residents outside the five boroughs of New York City tend to regard political developments there with a certain detachment. After all, city ordinances and practices don't affect us directly. The city can't tax or regulate us. The city is fairly well confined to its current boundaries. Were it to attempt to annex portions of the nearby counties, as has occurred around other major cities, the reaction would be swift and terrible to behold.

But developments in the two leading cities of these United States, New York and Los Angeles, can never be safely ignored. They set too many trends -- and some of the trends are very unpleasant.

Here's one that should disturb you:

Attempting to further bolster a de facto monopoly of violence in New York City, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton proposed additional edicts to tip the power scales even more in favor of enforcers over citizens, the New York Observer reported Wednesday. In addition to stiffening penalties for things like wearing protective body armor, tinting windows and holding police to similar information disclosures that “civilians” (a telling attitude in itself ) are subjected to, Bratton said it would be “very helpful” if charges of resisting arrest were upped from misdemeanors to felonies....

“NYPD Has a Plan to Magically Turn Anyone It Wants Into a Felon,” Gawker Justice observes in a more hard-edged assessment that includes examples of resisting arrest charges being deliberately unjustly applied. And it’s that felony rap that should most outrage right to keep and bear arms advocates, because such convictions will result in lifetime prohibitions against owning guns, outcomes Bratton and his boss, socialist mayor Bill de Blasio, wouldn't mind seeing more of. Understand, these are people who want to deploy with machine guns to control protesters, a wish they've apparently publicly backed down from -- for now.

Ponder that for a moment.

---

Just a few weeks ago, I wrote:

What is a policeman, in the American context of our time? He’s a municipal or state employee, protected by a powerful union and laws akin to those that protect civilian Civil Service employees, and effectively answerable only to his superiors in the police hierarchy. He’s been granted certain legal privileges – already we’re in murky waters – and a default presumption of justification regarding his uses of coercive force. He may have had some training in police procedure and the restrictions on his activities, though the smaller the district and its police force, the less certain that will be.

What does this policeman do? More to the point:

• What must he do?
• What may he do?
• What must he not do?

...ex officio?

The “must” part has grown very slender. Recent Supreme Court decisions have decreed that, regardless of the prevalent conceptions, the police have no “duty to protect” and no “duty to intervene.” If you deem yourself to be in danger, the problem is yours, even if the police agree with your assessment. You can be in the midst of an actual criminal victimization, yet the police have no duty to intervene to stop it or to protect you, even if they can see it happening before their own eyes.

The “may” part has become very broad. For example, numerous court decisions have ruled that all a policeman needs to detain you is “reasonable suspicion” that you are or have been involved in a crime. What constitutes “reasonable suspicion” has proved remarkably flexible. A cop who wants to search your car can simply say “I smell marijuana,” and suddenly the most invasive imaginable search is “reasonable,” no matter what his original reason was for detaining you. Regardless of any and all circumstances, you are not allowed to refuse his “lawful order” – yet another serious departure from American norms.

The “must not” part has effectively vanished. State and local police forces have become quasi-military bodies. They’ve been equipped with large amounts of military-grade hardware that no private citizen would be permitted to own. They frequently stage violent intrusions and “no-knock” raids on private institutions and private homes. Most of the time, they have court authorizations for those activities...but often on suppositions that later prove to have been wrong, or based on testimony or “evidence” that was convenient but fictitious. Despite all that, courts have ruled that persons subjected to such treatment do not have a right to resist it – that any violence committed in the process of resistance will be held against the citizen, not the police.

Does that seem relevant to Commissioner Bratton's request that "resisting arrest" be upgraded to a felony count -- a charge that the police could use a posteriori to justify killing a "resister?" Bear in mind that the cop's claim that he ordered you to halt, and that you refused, is deemed sufficient foundation for a charge of "resisting arrest," even if no other offense was ever charged to you.

There's been a lot of discussion about the burgeoning of police-state tactics in the United States these past few years. Skeptics have dismissed it as just "loose talk" that tries to elevate "isolated incidents" into patterns of abuse of power. Now that you've been apprised of Commissioner Bratton's latest request, does it seem all that loose to you?

---

David Codrea, the author of the article quoted above, is a long-time activist for the right to keep and bear arms. His observation about the special danger to firearms enthusiasts:

And it’s that felony rap that should most outrage right to keep and bear arms advocates, because such convictions will result in lifetime prohibitions against owning guns, outcomes Bratton and his boss, socialist mayor Bill de Blasio, wouldn't mind seeing more of.

...should alarm any city dweller with a legally owned firearm. City authorities, not just in New York City but in many other cities as well, are passionate about disarming their subjects. Exceptions among them are few. New York City is merely the "leader" in this regard: except for the well connected and very well-heeled, it's become all but impossible to get a permit to possess a firearm -- handgun or long gun -- within the five boroughs.

Were city residents who possess already-registered and permitted firearms to be targeted with "no-knock" raids under specious justifications, and killed for daring to appear at their own doors with their guns, what would the popular reaction be? That the police have become an instrument of tyranny? Or that one foolish enough to "resist arrest" deserves whatever happens to him?

Opinion is sharply divided on this subject. The geographical cleavage is plain, but the political cleavage is more interesting, as it defies party affiliation. Staunch conservatives passionate about the right to keep and bear arms become queasy when confronted with a case of police overreach. Their natural tendency is to support and defend the police as "the forces of law and order." Conversely, staunch liberals generally hostile to private ownership of firearms are more likely to judge the police harshly for such tactics...at least, when the victim isn't a prominent conservative.

New York State has already made severe incursions upon the right to keep and bear arms. Yet city and county police forces are accumulating military-grade weapons and equipment at a record rate. Should the City Council look with favor upon Bratton's suggestion, and should the state legislature proclaim the change in law state-wide, Andrew Cuomo's campaign against privately owned firearms could receive a significant boost.

It's been said that a state in which only the police have weapons is the essence of a police state. Perhaps that's not quite enough, but when we add the provisions that "resisting arrest" shall constitute a felony and that a "civilian" may not refuse a cop's "lawful order," we're getting very close. Given that the definition of such a "lawful order" is effectively "whatever a cop tells you to do," I'd say we've arrived.

No, it's not safe to ignore developments in the Big Apple. Stay tuned.

When Is Abortion NOT Abortion?

When the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says so, that's when.

What happened:

In 1965, the medical definition for when pregnancy begins was changed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Why? Ideology.

MORE:

One of My Favorite Sites for Re-Post Links

It's Liberal Logic 101.  

Today I woke early, and was catching up, and found this:

Naturally, as I am Catholic, it caught my eye.

The Crusades were a Defensive War.  The Muslims were attacking an ally, who asked for our assistance.  They were not that successful - as the Muslims kept re-grouping and re-attacking over 

MORE:

Semantic bullshit.

Most of the liabilities the government has incurred in the postwar period have been kept off the books because of the way we’ve labeled our receipts and payments. The government has gone out of its way to run up a Ponzi scheme and keep evidence of that off the books by using language to make it appear that we have a small debt.^[1]

Isn't it amazing how outlandish subterfuges such as keeping government liabilities "off the books" become just accepted facts of national life, like winter snow and spring flowers?

And Social Security is clearly a Ponzi scheme, a scam from the git as evidenced by the payout to the first recipients who made out like bandits because they'd contributed nothing to the (LOL) "Trust Fund," another example of our precious national semantic legerdemain. The Social Security Administration's explanation of why Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme is bullshit piled on bullshit.

"Multiculturalism" is another gem, as is "comprehensive immigration reform." Complete bullshit either one but so much a part of our national debate today a diesel locomotive couldn't pull either terms out of the politicians' armamentarium.

Grown people use these terms in their daily speech.

"Climate change" is the latest greasy locution. When the temperatures wouldn't cooperate in recent years by showing global warming, well, late-stage American democratic Republican luminaries embraced "climate change," and this mendacious term just slid effortlessly into the vocabulary of the lying press and other members of the Treason Class like $90,000 into Congressman William J. Jefferson (D-La.) freezer.

Notes
^[1] Economist Laurence Kotlikoff, an expert on the national debt, quoted in "Economist Laurence Kotlikoff: U.S. $222 Trillion in Debt." By Joseph Lawler, The Mark Up, RealClear Policy, 12/1/14.

Yes, We Are Now Officially Living in Bizarro World

I grew up reading Superman, Batman, and all of the other DC heroes (and heroines - I LOVED Supergirl).
There was a character, Bizarro Superman.  Can't remember just how he was created, but he was like a Frankenstein version of Superman - craggy, just as strong as Superman, and dumb as a box of rocks.  He was like the Anti-Superman - not evil, just whackily determined to do the opposite of whatever made sense.
Sort of like our current Liberal/Leftist/Progressive Americans.  If it's BAD for America, then they are resolutely FOR it!

MORE:

The deliberate, stubborn denial that will kill the West.

There are astonishing parallels between the [Cold War] efforts of the [East German] Society for German-Soviet Friendship to idealize the conditions in the Soviet Union to fairy-tale status and the contemporary, widespread practice of trying to see Islam solely as a “religion of peace.” They both use the same trick.

The mismanagement and cronyism in the Soviet Union had nothing to do with socialism. There was no poverty, no unemployment, no corruption and no criminality, apart from dissidents and other “negative elements.” Socialism was a paradise on earth, a guarantee of individual and collective well-being.

The only truly stupid people were those who did not want to participate. The fact is, socialism was a thoroughly tolerant philosophy which co-existed peacefully with other philosophies wherever it was not in power. And everywhere where it was in charge… forget peacefulness and tolerance.

It is pretty much the same with Islam. Al-Qaida, Boko Haram, the Islamic State and the Taliban have nothing to do with Islam. The regime of the ayatollahs has nothing to do with Islam. The bloody battles between Shi’ites and Sunnis have nothing to do with Islam. When blasphemers are flogged and adulterers are stoned in Saudi Arabia, that has nothing to do with Islam.

* * * *

The 9/11 killers had nothing to do with Islam. And what happened in London, Madrid, Bali, Boston, Sydney, Brussels and Toulouse had nothing to do with Islam. You see, Islam means “peace” and “jihad” — as we keep hearing — does not mean “holy war,” but simply “inner struggle,” whatever that is. There are fanatics in every religion, but in no other one is there such a stubborn denial that they have anything to do with the religion they profess.^[1]

Of course, the consuming desire to see communism in practice in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and elsewhere as benign and superior to one's Western home was not limited to the D.D.R. Strictly speaking, communist governments had a vital interest in propagating that lie and their citizens may be forgiven for wishing to appear to cooperate with their enemies in the government, but Westerners living in freedom still embraced that lie by the millions even though they had but to read one book or article – available by the tens of thousands – to learn that communist regimes were all ghastly tyrannies. Tyrannies that were good at two things: killing the spirit and the body, often enough, of their imprisoned citizens.

In the Soviet Union, subject citizens who refused to submit to the regime of lies were simply branded as mentally ill and confined in "insane asylums" and injected with whatever chemicals government officials wished. In the West, citizens who refuse to submit are deprived of their livelihoods; attacked as bigots, racists, and haters; or physically attacked by AntiFa thugs (encouraged and protected by Western governments) or Muslims disgruntled by Western ways, food, dress, and ideas. Of the latter, there is never a short supply.

Disgruntled renegades.

Notes
^[1] "Learning From Islam Means Learning How to Win. There are fanatics in every religion, but in no other one is there such a stubborn denial that they have anything to do with the religion they profess." By Henryk M. Broder, Die Welt, 1/11/15. (Translation at Gates of Vienna, 2/5/15.)

Addicts

By now everyone in the world knows about ISIS’s immolation of captured Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh. Most persons will also know that ISIS killed Lt. Kaseasbeh on January 3, and thus had been negotiating with the Jordanian government in the quintessence of bad faith. As of this morning, world reaction is essentially “on the record,” with nothing more to be added.

Supposedly, all the recognized governments of the Islamic Middle East are denouncing the atrocity, but inasmuch as Muslims will say anything at all that they think will serve the cause of world Islam, I’m inclined to discount their “outrage” as mere posturing for geostrategic reasons.

Here at home, we have Barack Hussein Obama stridently pontificating about the need for “greater vigilance,” however that might apply to confronting and defeating an enemy openly at war with us but which he won’t even name. Actions? A plan of campaign? Please! This is Obama we’re talking about.

But the most significant response to the atrocity has come from the governments of Europe.

“What response was that?” you say. Exactly what you’re thinking, Gentle Reader: None at all.

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A few months ago, I wrote about the unwisdom of our post-World-War-II military guarantees to other nations:

NATO, the military consequence of the North Atlantic Treaty, became a growing burden on American power and finances. At its peak, in combination with our security commitments to Japan, Taiwan, and several other states, it employed roughly a third of American combat power and consumed approximately half of all American military expenditures. We told ourselves those deployments were the indispensable bulwark against Communist expansion, the sole force capable of deterring aggression from the Soviet Union and Red China. And we were quite correct to think so.

Yet it was inevitable that those deployments would have a cumulative consequence for the priorities and behavior of the governments whose nations they shielded. Trusting that America would provide, they systematically underfunded and undermanned their own military establishments. The funds Europe would otherwise have put to military preparations went to expanding its welfare states: creating a culture of idlers and persons who disdained any responsibility for their own defense. Perhaps worst of all, the dynamic nourished political forces that blamed all international tensions on American militarism. In their view, the one and only enemy was the one whose sons stood ready to defend them.

The dynamic has produced a continent lousy with state-supported layabouts, and cultures to which things military are anathema. It no longer matters that they would refuse to defend their own nations, for they lack all power to do so. As for conflicts in other lands, they're inherently someone else's problem -- and probably America's fault.

Over the decades since the North Atlantic Treaty was ratified, the states of Europe have become addicted to American military protection. The desirability of creating and maintaining armed forces sufficient unto their own nations’ defense never enters the thoughts of the political masters of the Old World. It would mean transferring far too much money away from their welfare states and toward warlike things. It would elicit strident protests from their millions of layabouts and deafening outcries from the anti-military sectors of their electorates. But worst of all, it would deprive Europe’s political class of the ability to blame any and every ugly international incident on “American militarism.”

Europe’s silence toward the evils of world Islam, coupled to its reflexive blame-the-Americans response when confronted with Islam-powered tensions, has protected its access to Middle Eastern oil. That supply has become critical now that Vladimir Putin has demonstrated his willingness to use his control of the bulk of the continent’s natural gas supply for political leverage. Alongside that, the large Muslim sub-population of Europe is kept in a state the elite regard as tolerable, though Europeans whose cars and shops Muslims burn might disagree.

Europe’s addictions go beyond American guns, tanks, planes, and soldiers.

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Any number of self-help gurus preach the beauty of “living in the present.” Inasmuch as there’s nowhere else one can live, it would seem a foregone conclusion that one should make oneself comfortable there. But like all maxims, “live in the present” comes with a limiting principle that must not be overlooked.

The great Mark Steyn has written about Europe’s descent into self-extinction. Europeans’ low birth rates aren’t biologically determined. a la mode de P. D. James. They stem from a disinclination to reproduce. It arises from a present-moment attitude driven beyond rationality by the continent’s political devolution.

When “live for the present” becomes so imperative that one utterly forsakes all thought of the future, so also does it eschew all thought of:

• Redressing injustice;
• Protecting the oppressed and defending the beleaguered;
• Making provisions for future generations to enjoy what one has;
• Making future generations at all.

The implications for national policy are obvious:

• Passivity in the face of even the most atrocious crimes;
• Acquiescence to the formation of exclaves within one’s borders;
• Indifference to proper budgeting and to conditions that incentivize or disincentivize business and commerce;
• Utter disregard of conditions that discourage reproduction;
• A fierce and unrelenting grip upon whatever external sources of sustenance and protection exist at the moment.

Europe’s flaccidity in the face of the ongoing Islamic colonization of the continent is part and parcel of these attitudes and responses. The Old World has lost interest in the future. Its peoples regard their present moment as too comfortable to compromise with concerns for an era they will not see. Their political classes are aware of the upheaval that would result from any attempt to chivvy the continent back toward military self-sufficiency, economic dynamism, and cultural confidence. Though they never say so explicitly, they have ceded their continent’s future to the Muslim invader.

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Today, Barack Hussein Obama, who favors European social-fascist policies for the United States, sits in the Oval Office. His presence there ought to have disturbed Europeans’ slumbers, for Obama is the least inclined president since Warren Harding toward the active opposition of evil – especially the Islamic evil now swelling worldwide.

Europe can no longer rely upon the military protection it has come to expect from America.
America’s Obama-induced economic stall has deprived Europe of both goods and export markets.
European indifference to its own culture and to American culture have left it culturally vacuous.
How, then, could it oppose, much less defeat, a culturally confident invader determined upon conquest?

Europe’s addiction to its seemingly comfortable present has occasioned an even stronger addiction to military, economic, and cultural supports upon which it can no longer rely. Any European awake to the realities of geopolitics and the dynamics of cultural morphology should be shuddering at the implications...but how many such Europeans are there? Indeed, how many such Americans are there?

Verbum sat sapienti.

If It Looks Like A Duck Dept.

Ever since he burst onto the national scene, there have been questions about Barack Hussein Obama’s religious affiliations. The revelations about his Islamic upbringing and the various documents that listed the young Obama as a Muslim were disturbing. Neither did it help Obama’s claims of devout Christianity that the only Christian church he ever attended was that of black racialist, anti-Semitic, anti-American “pastor” Jeremiah Wright, nor that Wright himself said that he’d put special effort into making the formerly Muslim Obama “comfortable” with his change of affiliation. And of course, we have Obama’s current non-attendance at Christian services, his dismissal of traditionally celebrated Christian holy days, his demonstrated antipathy toward Israel, and his pronounced favoritism toward the Islamic states of the Middle East.

Despite all that, it was difficult for me to see Obama as a Muslim for a single reason: it would require him to accept that there’s a Being superior to him. That’s a tough dictate for someone as narcissistic as Obama to swallow:

If you want to know why the Obama administration failed so spectacularly to defend Obamacare in the Supreme Court last week, look no further than a 2008 statement President Obama gave to author Richard Wolfe: "You know, I believe my own bulls--t."...

Here is what Obama told aide Patrick Gaspard in 2008: "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."...

When Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., told Obama that the political atmosphere in his state felt a lot like 1994, when Democrats lost the House for the first time in two generations, Obama replied, "Well the big difference between here and in '94 was you've got me." Upon hearing those words, Berry chose to retire rather than run again. Democrats lost a record 63 House seats -- including Berry's -- and control of the House....

But don't worry. Obama is the most talented politician of our time. Just ask him. In 2004, after his Democratic National Convention speech, Obama told David Mendell, "I'm LeBron, baby."

(Granted that his narcissism also undercuts his claim of Christian allegiance, but for me at least, that’s been a non-starter from the first.)

But they who make it their practice to delve into the backgrounds of the highly placed have not been idle:

For example, at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Secretary of State John Kerry made certain to avoid offending or disrespectingMuslim terrorists such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He told the attendees at the forum that the U.S. government will never rush to judgment regarding the nature of the Islamic State: “We have to keep our heads…the biggest error that we could make would be to blame Muslims collectively for crimes not committed by Muslims alone. Crimes that the overwhelming majority of Muslims oppose… Religions don’t require adherents to raze villages and blow up people, it’s individuals with a distorted and an even ignorant interpretation of religion who do that.”

According to the Examiner's anonymous source, those were not the words of Kerry, but were the dictates of Valerie Jarrett, who had been born and raised in Iran, and has always shown sympathy for the fundamentalists in the Islamic religion. While a student at Stanford University, Jarrett admitted her loyalty to Islam and continues to object to any negative statements aimed at any part of her "religion of peace."

" Farsi-speaking Valerie Jarrett, the senior advisor to Obama, his right-hand woman was born in Iran. She also has ties with terrorist William Ayers, and her father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett is a card-carrying communist party member and associate of Frank Marshall Davis, the controversial Communist Party activist who was Obama’s childhood mentor. Davis is mentioned many times in Obama’s autobiography. Obama’s senior advisor/campaign manager David Axelrod also has family roots in the Communist party. His parents were Communists," according to former Saturday Night Live comedian and actress Victoria Jackson, who now hosts a conservative talk show and researched what she calls "the real Obama White House."

(Applause to CM Blake for the link.)

Given the indisputable behavioral patterns of the federal executive branch and essentially all its conspicuous members, perhaps the acknowledged religious attachments of Obama and Jarrett don’t really matter. But doesn’t it all make a consistent, hugely compelling picture?

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Any Gentle Reader who hasn’t yet lapsed into a diabetic coma from regularly reading my treacly-sweet effusions will already be familiar with my opinions about Islam. That we have an executive administration resolved to kowtow to this totalitarian, inherently anti-American creed should appall anyone with three functioning brain cells. That with sufficient information it might have been predictable from the first makes the matter even more disturbing. It resurrects a set of familiar “whys:”

• Why has Obama been so secretive about his college and law school records?
• Why is so little information about Obama’s pre-Senate career publicly available?
• Why has Valerie Jarrett trailed him like an imprinted duckling, wherever he’s gone?
• Why, given her obvious influence, does Jarrett have no official position in the Administration?
• Why did those who know the answers to the above questions work so diligently to suppress them?

And why did the American electorate, which already had four years of experience with the duplicity of the Obamunist cabal, return him to the White House for a second term – if, indeed, it really did?

Food for thought.

Ragnarok. Are you ready?

To any of my readers who may live, or know somebody that lives, in Sweden.

Regarding the Muslim invasion of your lands.

Ragnarok.