Posse Incitatus

Happy (belated) Birthday, America!

As all normal people should, I took a break from the flickering screen yesterday and enjoyed Family, Faith and Freedom.

After a refreshing session of recreational firepower, it was time to fire up the grill and then set off some fireworks as the evening closed in.  The neighbors complimented us on our display, which was nice.

Seasoned readers have no doubt noticed that I'm not posting as often as I used to, and part of this is that things are getting too stupid for words.

Even the trolls are transparent idiots, on the one hand maintaining Antifa doesn't exist, and on the other claiming that no black businesses have been harmed in widespread rioting.

Given the prevalence of damage (and black-owned enterprises in city cores), this is not only patently false, but insultingly so.

It's on part with a Monty Python sketch in its absurd denial of observable truth.  With such people, discussion is pointless.

This blog has lasted far longer than I thought it would, and it provides a written record of the left's utter degeneration from credible political philosphy to a nakedly illogical movement bent purely on the seizure of absolute political power.

Gun control is a great example of this.  Back in 2004, there was still a serious discussion over whether it was necessary or effective.  This was based on actual evidence, and a particularly telling piece of it was that more and more states allowed concealed pistol licenses and yet the crime rate continued to fall.  Clearly the more guns = more crime theory had been disproven.

Tellingly, this is was the signal to move away from any association with logic and to pure insult and social punishment.  Gun control - like so much of the leftist agenda - became couched in moral terms and those who opposed it were evil.

So it is with Black Lives Matter, whose policies have destroyed lives and livelihoods.  Crime is soaring across the country and it is the black community in particular that is suffering.

The "autonomous zone" in Seattle claimed the lives of two young black men, but no one knows or cares about them, because their deaths don't advance 'the cause.'

Another example:  Remember when George W. Bush was a warmonger?  Remember the peace movement?

Where did it go?  Donald Trump is trying to pull out US forces from pointless and unwinnable wars and yet the Democrats are now demanding that they continue!  It's fascinating to watch the same people who denounced General Petraeus as "General Betray-Us" now quoting him as a wise sage who wants unending death and destruction.

Also disappeared - wrenching stories of civilians killed by US bombs, or the struggles of wounded veterans.  BTW, do those black lives matter - the ones in uniform being wasted in sandpits across Asia?

This is why I've cycled down, because arguing with idiots gets old.  I have not yet closed the comments, but I have blocked trolls and recently deleted a comment that violated our long-standing policy against substituting links for commentary.

If you have something interesting to say, say it, don't spam my comments with your links.

 

There can be no discussion about race because progressives are dishonest

Recently I had to banish our remaining troll (who I strongly suspect was a sock-puppet of another troll) because the cartoonish parodies of actual insight it offered had become tedious.

Such nonsense is sadly all too common on the left these days.

The troll's last act of defiant stupidity was to insist that Antifa does not actually exist, and also to ask for specific links of minority-owned businesses damaged by Democrat-sponsored riots.

This willful dishonesty is what precludes any kind of intelligent politics.

Antifa is of course real, it has adherents, "liberated zones," and a number of partisans who boast of their strength.  It cannot be "legitimate protest" and also "a bugbear of the right."

Similarly, one can't keep going on about "mostly peaceful protests" and ignore the massive physical destruction they caused.

The media is now openly into Goebbels mode, pushing Big Lie after Big Lie, completely indifferent to the contradictions in their statements.  Similarly, Democrat politicians and their corrupt public health allies want to simultaneously emphasize the need for eternal lockdowns, but then make bogus exceptions ("racism is woth the risk").

Right now there is chatter hyping the growing number of "cases," by which they mean people who test positive for the Wuhan Virus.  This is meaningless.  There are a number of viruses that have almost universal spread, such as the herpes variant that gives one "cold sores."  None of these would justify an economic shutdown of indefinite length.

The reason for the shutdown was to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by sick patients.  That risk has disappeared.  Not only has the case load dropped, capacity has been increased in case there is a surge.  Responsible, non-partisan scientists would point this out.

But science also must serve The Party, so whatever The Party requires is now the new science.

All of this renders normal politics impossible.  I don't think the left understands that what comes next will be beyond the ability of their twitter accounts to control.

Minnesota burning

Late yesterday the Flynn-Kislyak transcript was finally released.

And no one cared.

A number of Democrat-run satrapies are catching fire in response to alleged police brutality.  Oddly, Trump is on the side of the protestors and demanding a federal investigation, but the rioting continues.

I see chatter that maybe this is part of the Antifa network flexing its muscles in the run-up to the election.  If so, it's spectacularly self-defeating.  Hillary's already come out in favor of the rioters and Biden has to oppose Trump, whatever he does.

Which means the Silent Majority will have to vote for Nixon.

I mean, Trump.

What I find truly disconcerting is the number of affluent liberals who are cheering the rioters on - naturally from a safe distance.

Civic disorder isn't a form of performance art, and actual livelihoods are at stake.  The wealth being put to the torch is real.  It's clear that Trump hatred has gone beyond pathological into the realm of suicidal. 

Better the void than Trump.  We'll see shortly how many people are that committed to the kind of victory that leaves them masters of a barren, blasted land.

Obama and his lying liars will continue to lie about his crimes

The ongoing revelations about the depth and scope of criminality within the FBI, Dept. of Justice, intelligence services and the Obama White House has unleashed a predictable set of excuses based on outright lies.

Oddly, some people are bothered by this.  I assume they expect Obama's minions to hang their heads and mutter that they could have gotten away with it too, if was wasn't for those meddling kids.

In fact, the lies are all the left has left.  All their policies are based on lies, and they have to lie about their predictable failures as well.

Should any go to prison, they will be declared political prisoners, complete with candlelight vigils - even if they plead guilty.

Remember, these people have been screaming "Free Mumia!" for decades.  They have zero shame.

Of course, if a Howard Dean figure emerges (and doesn't commit suicide), things will get more difficult.

This is why Mexico's demand for information on Eric Holder's "Fast and Furious" criminal enterprise is so intriguing.  It will be a treat watching the Democrats pivot from praising Mexico to trashing it.  I don't expect much to come of it, but it would be interesting if it actually happens.

In the meantime, the real game will play out in the courts, and if we see indictments handed down, maybe something tangible will come of it.

Is Spygate reaching its culimation?

The collapse of the case against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn seems to be the pebble that starts the avalanche.

This week a number of hitherto classified documents have been released exposing the corrupt nature of the entire RUSSIA probe.

Included in the trove is the assessment of the FBI itself that Flynn had done nothing wrong.  We also know that the original interview notes that were the core of the case against him have been lost.  The Dept. of Justice was charging him based on a copy heavily edited by lying love birds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

There's a lot more, too much for me to list here.  The central question is: what now?

For the past few months I've been hitting the snooze button on this issue because those who have been following closely knew the score and those that didn't would only be roused by vigorous prosecutions.  Perhaps those are now underway.

What is no longer in dispute is that virtually everyone involved, from St. Comey all the way to President Obama knew what they were doing.  Many of these personalities played a double game, admitting under oath that they had zero evidence and then keeping that evidence under seal while they went out and lied to the microphones.

Since no one is being frog-marched, I'm going to doze off again.  Perhaps something tangible will finally come of it.

In the mean time, congrats to Gen. Flynn on his long-overdue vindication.

Will the Wuhan Virus kill off gun control for good?

It's interesting how the left is pushing gun control when it's arguably less popular than ever.

Back in the 1990s, it was still a 50-50 proposition, but as shall-issue laws spread and violent crime collapsed, the contentions of its supporters that more guns = more crime became untenable.

Indeed, this blog is old enough that you can still read some of those exchanges.  It was clear by 2004 that gun control was losing the argument.

The left then changed tactics, deciding to push it only where the Democrats had total control.  It became  less about stopping violence than about punishing 'the deplorables.'

The issue also become a moral one for its supporters, as in:  "We must ban guns because our higher ethics demand it."   They still pay lip service to the lie that it prevents mass shootings, but events in Canada, Germany, England, France and everywhere else show this is utterly false.

The Dems' gun control push in Virginia - which is not yet a monolithic Dem satrapy - is therefore interesting.  The fact that they passed their laws under the cover of the Wuhan Virus lockdown speaks volumes.  These people aren't interested in fulfilling popular mandates, they are interested in asserting their power. 

The problem is that the law is enormously unpopular and will likely be met with widespread and open contempt.  That's why it's a stupid idea to enact a law in the teeth of opposition.

It's even stupider to do it while insisting on decriminalization of offenses.  I guess the Dems' dream is of a society where violent criminals roam free and the prisons are full of political dissidents.

Good luck with selling that.

Meanwhile, the gun market has been turned upside down with the panicked purchase of firearms.  As the lockdown took effect, I know several local gun stores that literally ran out of guns. 

The online retailers who never ran out of ammunition during the worst days of the Bullet Bubble are also running low on inventory.

Some wags have suggested that once things open up, there's going to be a glut of never-fired guns hitting the secondary market.  I'm not so sure.

Having gone through the administrative difficulty of making the purchase, I think a number of people will want to try out their new possession and enjoy the peace of mind they get from having it. 

They are also likely aware that if something like this happens once, it can happen again.  Better to be prepared.

The result is that a lot of people who hitherto were lukewarm or neutral about gun ownership now have skin in the game. 

The Wuhan Plague

We've gotten used to a level of safety and security that is without precedent.

Two generations have grown to mature middle age without lasting privation or the experience of widespread disaster.

Perhaps this is why there have been so imaginary panics over the intervening decades.  Humans are hard-wired to detect danger and when non materializes, they invent it.

But now there is something very real to fear.  Pestilence rides the land once again.

Naturally, the remnant main stream media is worse than useless.  Their pathetic partisan plays are self-refuting and whatever political capital they hoped to make for the Democrats from large-scale loss of life was destroyed by their premature gloating about it.

PRO-TIP:  You can pretend to mourn thousands of dead if you're openly talking about how you'll profit from their demise before they even die.

They've also decided to go all-in on parroting Chi-Com propaganda regarding the spread of the Wuhan virus, which is never a good look.

Given the current dilapidated state of the US administrative state, the Trump administration's actions have been timely and appropriate.  I will also give a nod to Michigan's Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whose decision to close schools statewide was also correct.

The only way to get ahead of this thing is to shut things down early.  A single infected individual in a school building could immediately generate hundreds of additional cases.

Our ancestors understood this.  When travel was difficult, diseases could be contained with less disruption.  Closing the city gates and patrolling the countryside would often stop the outbreak.

The advent of steamships and railroads rendered this approach inadequate, hence the massive public measures taken in 1918.  Put simply, we cannot test or isolate individual cases to stop this thing.

This is why the Democrat howling about cutting travel routes is not only stupid but dangerous.  The only sure way to stop infection is to stop infected people from moving about, and to hell with the economic consequences.

Economies exist to serve people, not vice-versa.  This short-sighted and callous fixation on the bottom line is what hollowed out American industry, destroyed its working families and left us crippled and unable to meet our own pharmaceutical and medical needs.

The Quisling Never Trumpers have much to answer for in this regard.  Is it a "blessing of liberty" that Communist China can hold us hostage by refusing to provide the vital medications our own scientists developed? 

What dystopian author of years gone by could imagine that people we be so feckless, so stupid to allow the crowning glory of science to be sold off to a hostile and ambitious foreign power for stacks of paper - no, not even paper - electronic money?

In a just society, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush would be driven from public life, forced into overseas exile while a People's Tribunal would even now by rounding up the Obama administration officials who allowed this weakening to take place.

A nation that can't even provide medical masks for its own doctors is not even an independent state, let alone a superpower.

 

Partisan Impeachment fails on partisan vote

One of the most annoying things about the Democrats is that they can't show even the slightest bit of consistency.

Is impeachment a deeply-serious matter involving criminal conduct, or merely a political act?

If it is the former, Trump should never have been impeached in the first place because no criminal conduct was ever alleged.

If it is the latter, why should anyone be surprised with the GOP majority sides with the president?

Oh, right.  Mitt Romney.  Yes, the King Republican in Name Only decided to win endless plaudits from the Democrat media who utterly destroyed him in 2012 by kissing their collectives asses.

Color me surprised.

One of the most fascinating qualities of the Quisling Never Trumpers is how openly masochistic they are.  They take abuse from liberal reporters day in and day out, yet they're always eager to sell out the conservative moment for a pat on the head.  Kurt Schlichter is right to describe them as wearing Dem gimp suits.

In any event, the pathetic distraction is over and now the the Dems have emptied their revolver and thrown it harmlessly at Superman, it will be interesting to see how he reacts.

Seattle shooting vs Richmond demonstration

Nowhere is media bias more insidious than in prioritization given to various stories.

As noted, the Richmond Second Amendment demonstration was entirely without violence.  On cue, liberal outlets scrambling to claim that but for super-diligent law enforcement there would have been violence, and so we should still treat it as the significant threat it actually wasn't.

You know, the threat that left no one even injured.

Meanwhile, seven people were shot in Seattle last week, with one death and yet the national media is silent.

That's because they only care about crimes that fit their narrative.

"White Nationalism" is the essential myth to keep black voters from supporting Trump.  They are the Nazis under the bed that everyone should fear.

Actual violent criminals with dozens of arrests who somehow remain outside of jail and are able to obtain more guns and kill people with them?

Not important.

Murder rates are spiking in liberal jurisdictions - again, those are actual dead people.

Not they hypothetical dead people we are supposed to be worried about in Virginia, but real human beings with loved ones who now have their lives wrecked.

The media doesn't care about them.

The politicians don't care about them, either.

In the early days of this blog, there was much serious debate about whether gun control was an effective way to reduce crime.

It is now irrefutably clear that it doesn't.  Germany - that paragon of gun control - just had six people shot last week.

Gun control has never worked, anywhere.

Interestingly, the people pushing it no longer care.  Crime rates don't interest them. 

This is because gun control is about political control, not public safety.  Anyone who pretends otherwise is lying, stupid or both.

China's leadership failue

For the last three decades or so, we've been bombarded with stories about how China's brilliant leadership is running rings around the United States.

Some of these books and articles have made valid points, but a number have struck me as just the latest incarnation of the Yellow Peril, the inscrutable Menace from the East.

In many ways, China has played the West for saps, but it's now clear that this was because the West allowed it to happen.

It wasn't that China is led by geniuses, the West was simply being run by incompetent sell-outs.  Donald Trump's policies are not revolutionary or particularly brilliant, but they are effective.

Indeed, Trump's desire of preserving American manufacturing was once so obvious as to be unremarkable.  Both parties understood that a nation incapable of making its own arms and goods would be a helpless target for foreign aggression.  It was only in the halcyon and feckless years after the Cold War that elites convinced themselves that war was impossible and selling out to foreigners was the smart play.

China now has three serious crises to contend with. 

The first is the lingering rebellion of Hong Kong.  China should have taken care of this long ago, and its persistence is proof of the regimes ineptitude.  It also serves as a harbinger of worse risings to come.

The trade war has also gone badly for China.  When Trump put tariffs on manufacturing goods, China's response of retaliating against imported food was idiotic in the extreme.  Of course it failed because people need to eat.

Now we see yet another failure as a deadly disease threatens to kill tens of thousands of people.  China's response has been dilatory, opaque and inept.  The ostentatious quarantines complete with physical road blocks and frenzied hospital construction are nothing more than photo ops to show the regime is in control.

But it isn't.

One thing I've learned over the years is that traditional Chinese culture is largely gone.  Much play is given to the works of Sun Tzu, but it's clear that the ChiComs don't read the old boy any more.

If they did, they would know never to make a trial of strength in a city.

They would know that open confrontation in trade only works if you already have the upper hand, which includes the ability to feed your own people.

Finally, the ChiComs are violating the central tenet of his teachings that one must know oneself and know the enemy.

The Chinese know neither.  They lie to themselves all the time and they lie just as much about their enemies.  The regime has placed a premium on lying, which is why nothing can be trusted.

This is the great weakness of all totalitarian societies.  The leaders only want to hear good news, so that's all they get.

Reality has a way of asserting itself.

For all the mockery of the left and their Never Trump Quisling allies, Trump is an actual practitioner of Sun Tzu's arts.  He sees into the very hearts of his enemies and knows himself completely.  He plays to his strengths in every instance and will shift ground abruptly if he loses the advantage.

It is hard to imagine China collapsing.  It appears so strong, so formidable, but then again, so did the USSR.

In many ways, the question is not whether it will fall, but instead how much longer can the regime hang on?