Posse Incitatus

Ban all the things

Once again, I see the usual suspects are demanding gun control measures that would have had zero impact on the latest criminal act.

The advocates bolster their arguments with outright lies about current laws, the mechanics of firearms and the experiences of other countries.

If gun control worked as advertised, the United Kingdom would be a place of total peace and serenity.

Predictably, the locals moved on to acid and knifes for casual violence, though they can still get mass shootings when they want them.

Magical thinking seems to be the rule these days.  That and enacting laws specifically to punish political enemies.

I don't think things will work out the way the elites anticipate.

Meanwhile, Blighty gets a new P.M.

It's wall-to-wall Mueller at the moment, so I'd like to take a moment to focus on events elsewhere.

Today Brits got a new prime minster, Boris Johnson.  Johnson is both like and unlike Donald Trump.  They're both popular with the ladies, have crazy hair and a reputation for cutting remarks and blunt truths.

However, BoJo is definitely not an outsider like Trump, nor was he chosen by popular acclaim.  In fact, the Conservative Party remains a minority government sustained by a coalition agreement with Ulster Unionists.  Johnson has stated that he plans to lead his party for the next election and presumably that will be after he has handled Brexit and had a chance to prove his ministry to voters.

In fact, the person most like Trump is Nigel Farage, founder of first the UK Independence Party and now the Brexit Party, which he currently leads.

The Brexit Party has made deep inroads into both Labour and Conservative and should BoJo's hard-core Remain colleagues try to bring down the government, there is a real possibility that Farage might win enough seats to hold the balance of power.

All of which is to say that the UK is at a crossroads, with its ancestral freedoms under attack and crime soaring out of control.  Johnson has his work cut out for him, but if he succeeds, he will deserve comparison with Margaret Thatcher.

The warrior caste

For most of the 20^th Century, military service was seen as a collective duty.  Especially in Europe, conscription was the rule. 

The “peace dividend” at the conclusion of the Cold War caused most nations to abandon (or at least greatly reduce) the practice, with the result being a return to the pre-industrial practice of staffing their military establishment with professional long-service volunteers.

The practical effect is a return to the ‘warrior caste’ in many societies.  The United States is somewhat unique among Western nations insofar as it treats military service as a portal to civilian job opportunity through training and education benefits. 

Yet even with the famous benefits of the G.I. Bill, military service is confined within a narrow band of the population, and it is a very rare thing for someone to enlist without having also had a family member serve before them.  The military is quite literally a family profession.

This seems to be even more the case in socially-stratified societies in Europe.  Military families there might proudly point to ancestors not only fighting during the world wars but also to the Napoleonic conflicts a century earlier.  Years ago I spoke with a British “squaddie” who told me his lieutenant could trace his military lineage back to the army Marlborough, more than 300 years ago.

I mention this because this article shows how the ongoing breakdown of legitimacy is affecting the civil/military relationship.

France is famously politically unstable, of course, having gone through two empires, one restoration and five republics since the United States ratified its Constitution.

Mark Steyn has repeatedly pointed out that when “respectable” parties take important issues off the table, it naturally falls to “unrespectable” parties to pick them up.  This in turn calls the political system itself into question and strikes at the core of government’s legitimacy.

In the UK, a great many of people have to wonder why they even voted on the question of Brexit since exactly no one in the political establishment is inclined to follow through with it. 

Similarly, there is a multi-party agreement that unlimited immigration by people who absolutely refuse to assimilate and bring rampant crime.  To disagree with this is expressly forbidden and will earn one a visit by the police.

The unhappy truth of the matter is that a great many military coups come as a relief to the population.  When democracy devolves into factionalism and civil disorder, only a strong hand can bring a semblance of peace. 

The “end of history” in 1991 was supposed to make that impossible, but as we see with the return of medieval disease outbreaks in the progressive paradise of California, history can and often does repeat itself.

The elites have only themselves to blame for the populist backlash

The weekend blackout on the European elections has lifted, and what a changed landscape now stands before us.

Everywhere the Establishment is in retreat as populist movements rise in the polls.  

The talking heads assure us that these are dangerous "far-right" movements on par with the Nazis.  In fact, they were the predictable consequence of the Ruling Class ignoring the people who elected them.

The UK should not have even been voting.  Outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May insisted more than 80 times that Brexit would happen in March - only to back down at the moment of truth.

The Ruling Class elites no doubt savored their triumph, but the electoral disaster they suffered over the weekend was the direct popular response.  Naturally they are too stupid to understand this and will try to step up their repression, but that will only lead to greater convulsions as the people demand their sacred right to self-rule.

This is why the "nationalists" are working across boundaries and languages to form a common front against the Ruling Class.  These people aren't xenophobes or chauvanists, they simply believe in self-determination and like their national culture as it is.

For more than 50 years, the blame for the wars of the 20th Century has been laid at the foot of "nationalism."  If only people didn't care about their country, no one would have died - or so the theory goes.

But the truth is that the world wars were the result of the Ruling Class, not popular rage.  Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany were monarchies, not participatory democracies.  

There was even less democracy on display in the years before World War II, with left-wing dictators ruling Russia, Germany, Italy and a host of lesser nations.  The EU is merely a transnational version of these movements - a corporatist entity determined to reduce its subject peoples into a faceless, culture-free proletariat ruled from on high.

When Brexit was thwarted, free people everywhere understood the real meaning:  the Ruling Class will no longer accept the results of popular elections.

Thus they are using their vote to send a message that they strongly disagree.  If the Ruling Class continues to ignore them, the next message will be louder - and more violent.

The most important aspect of a functioning democracy is for the loser to accept the result with grace.  Yet the Ruling Classes - for all their sophistication and alleged intelligence - is failing this basic test.  In the process they are destroying the institutions they rule and putting their own pathetic existance in peril.

May finally out - UK's worst prime minister ever?

Theresa May has finally announced her resignation, ending one of the most sordid and disgraceful governments in British history.

I say this as a student of UK government.  When people think of awful prime ministers, Neville Chamberlain frequently comes to mind, but while Chamberlain's foreign policy was disastrous, he didn't undermine the core values and rights of the British people.

May has done exactly that.  Her nominally "conservative" government has turned a blind eye to rape gangs, stood helplessly as violent crime has surged and instead wastes police resources on censoring people's social media accounts.

Her political prosecution of Tommy Robinson is a national disgrace to the Sceptered Isle.

Electorally, he's wrecked her party and undermined public faith in the government itself.  She lied about holding a snap-election and then lost it.  She lied about implementing Brexit and then lied about its timetable.  

The Tories have lost their way and Nigel Farage's Brexit Party may be the only hope to rebuild British liberty.  

Set against these follies, Chamberlain looks pretty good by comparison.  When he reluctantly stepped aside, his successor faced a dire strategic situation, but at least could look with hope and confidence at the core institutions and society of the United Kingdom.  May's successor won't have that luxury.  Virtually every institution stands discredited.

Good riddens.

BONUS ANGLE:  Her ouster will likely free Donald Trump of any reluctance to expose British involvement in Spygate, particularly collusion between CIA and CGHQ.  I can't help but wonder if Trump's declassification order might have been a factor.

Benedict speaks and Notre Dame burns

Over the weekend, word came out that Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI had prepared a 6,000 word essay examining the moral basis for the Catholic Church's sex scandals.

Benedict resigned from the papacy in 2013 and hitherto had remained silent, but the recent revelations - and Pope Francis' bumbling efforts to respond - clearly touched his conscience.

Yesterday we all watched in horror as Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire and burned with incredible ferocity.  While damage assessments are still in progress, it appears that the overall structure remains sound and that most - if not all - of its priceless relics and artifacts survived.

That both of these events would coincide with Holy Week would seem to be no accident.  The crisis within the Church is in many ways analogous to a fire started through carelessness that eventually consumes the structure under repair.

Fire can destroy, but it can also warm and inspire.  Benedict clearly believes that the Church will go on, and this this will be yet another example of how the Church has gone from prosperity to complacency, to decadence and crisis - and then into a period of renewal.

Similarly, it's possible that the danger presented to Notre Dame will help spur the French people and Christians across Europe to reconsider the danger to their illustrious heritage.  Are people really willing to see all that they have known, all that was given to them, wiped out in a consuming fire?  

Much of the talk in France centers on the cathedral's historical and artistic merit, but perhaps people will also consider the faith that went into building it - and can be renewed within it once more.

Another RUSSIA distraction fails

Yesterday my prediction once again came true that whenever Trump gained traction in the shutdown, the RUSSIA investigation would immediate pop with yet another "bombshell."

Of course, it wasn't bombshell, but a damp squib.  In fact, the claim was so blatantly false, even Robert Mueller had to bestir himself from going through Trump's sock drawer to knock it down.

It's a tiresome pattern, and part of why my blogging drops off from time to time - there simply isn't anything new going on.  RUSSIA has been a lie from the get-go, and anyone who has been paying attention knows this.

The tired "walls closing in" cliche is now celebrating its second birthday with nothing to show for it but empty indictment and pleas for various process crimes.  Oh, and Paul Manafort - who was a peripheral figure on the campaign for a couple of weeks - got busted for taxes years before Trump ran for office.

This cycle will continue until Mueller is finally put out to pasture because it's all the Dems have.  Their stance on open borders is deeply unpopular, even with their base.  Furloughed federal workers have to be wondering why Pelosi wanted to take a junket and let them keep suffering delayed pay.

In short, its a disaster and the same old isn't going to change things.

As I noted yesterday, the House Dems are out of ammunition.  They have nothing left to throw at Trump.

The president, on the other hand, controls the executive branch, and has almost limitless options for his next move.  I see Theresa May's zombie ministry managed to survive, which likely means full declassification remains on hold, but a new attorney general means that much of the skullduggery within the Dept. of Justice will finally come to light.

Perhaps this is why Mueller suddenly decided to perform rumor control.  His action was "unprecedented" only because he's spent the last few years doing the exact opposite, leaking salacious details whenever possible.

So maybe he knows the reckoning is near.

Theresa May's Brexit debacle

It is fascinating to see how many of the allegedly competent establishment politicians are in fact staggeringly incompetent.

Emmanuel Macron has managed to create persistent unrest in France.  Despite his earlier policy surrender, the popular anger shows no signs of abating.

Angela Merkel is Germany's first lame-duck Chancellor.  She's still clinging to office, but her abysmal electoral performance resulted in her resignation as the head of her party.  It's a pretty damning indictment that most of her final term in office will be as a "caretaker."

Then there's the UK.  The British are often the forerunner of popular movements, both good and bad.   Just as Thatcher's rise heralded the Reagan revolution, so Brexit anticipated the Trumpening.

But Theresa May has proven herself one of the most inept politicians in British history.  She inherited a solid majority which she pissed away and a botched snap-election.  She then negotiated a Brexit deal that was voted down by the largest margin in modern British electoral history.

The next step is likely a vote of confidence on her creaky minority government.  The Ulster Unionists who've been propping her up have been getting treated like crap and are likely to tell her to piss off.

This would lead to a bit by Labour to form a government, which will likely fail, bringing on a general election that would certain favor the Reds.

I've long since come to realize that sometimes people can't be saved from themselves.  A Corbin-led government would give the UK as much socialism as it could handle and wreak ruin on the nation, but maybe that's what the Brits need. 

Meanwhile, the fall of May's government would also free President Trump to declassify documents relating to the bogus RUSSIA investigation - a step he backed away from after the British and Aussies begged him to.  With May's government a smoking ruin, there's little reason for him to offer deference at this late date.

Each one of these three leaders - May, Macron, Merkel - were held up as the anti-Trump, the globalist alternative that would save the world from the horror of the deplorables taking control.

And yet, all of them have failed by any objective measure.  The nations now powering ahead are the ones who have heeded the call of their people to stand up for their nation rather than interests of their own elite class.

The political establishment has proven they are unworthy of any deference.  The sooner they are swept away entirely, the better.

How many times will gun control fail before its supporters admit it doesn't work?

Actually the title is a trick question.  Gun control supporters stopped caring about whether it worked a long time ago.  They new push it as a way to signal their virtue and punish people they don't like.

They don't give a damn whether it saves a single life or costs hundreds of additional ones.

But for those who live in an evidence-based world, here's the latest news from gun control paradise (via the hated Instapundit):

Chief constable Andy Cooke, the national police lead for serious and organised crime, said law enforcement had seen an increased supply of guns over the past year, and feared that it would continue in 2019.

I am of course referring to the UK, which for the last two decades at least has been the gold standard for gun control zealots.

Of course, things aren't working out the way they are supposed to in ol' Blighty.  Violent crime is soaring.  It's hard to say how bad it really is, since official figures have been doctored for a while.  This passage is particularly revealing, though:

Cooke said that the dynamics of the streets of British cities had changed and that criminals were more willing to use guns: “If they bring them in people will buy them. It’s a kudos thing for organised criminals.” [Emphasis added]

Ya think?  Michigan just abandoned the war on marijuana for essentially the same reason.  Marijuana is something people can grow themselves and they are willing to break the law to get it.  After spending countless millions of dollars trying in vain to fight it, people have finally decided to give up.

The next paragraph is also pretty telling:

He said said one factor was a reduction in police proactive work because of government budget cuts leading to big falls in officer numbers: “The ability of law enforcement to respond to this rise in the criminal use of firearms has been hampered by the large reduction in police officers and the resultant diminishing of proactive capability to keep these criminals on the back foot.” [Emphasis added]

I emphasized that section because we also know that the UK police are spending a massive amount of time on Twitter and Facebook telling people to stop using naughty words.  So maybe it isn't budget cuts but the fact that too many bobbies are handing out tickets for being impolite rather than working on more serious crimes?

In any event, the failure of gun control in the UK clearly demonstrates why it would never were here.  The UK is an island, which should make gun smuggling devilishly difficult.  The gun supply there was never that large thanks to it being a stratified, urban society.

And yet, despite both of those advantages and having close-captioned tv cameras on every corner, still the supply of illegal guns is going up.

It's a puzzler, ain't it?

The globalist gods that failed

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

After Donald Trump's election, the leftwing media was positively falling over itself in admiration for Angela Merkel, Theresa May and their ultimate hero, Emmanuel Macron.

Yet one by one these towering figures have stumbled over the fruit of the seeds they sowed in hubris.

Merkel's migrant policy has crippled her party, forcing her resignation.  She continues on as a zombie chancellor, free to deliver empty broadsides but lacking any real power over the international scene.

Theresa May's government also has become a shambling, undead husk, waiting only for the final convulsion before it collapses in a heap.  Given that her minority government depends on Ulster loyalists to remain in power, it staggers the mind to understand why should would try to push a Brexit agreement that slices off Northern Ireland and binds it in the EU in perpetuity.

Finally, there is the great Macron, Savior of the West and Hero of Globalism.  His bizarre obsession with global warming - and resultant effort to impose crippling energy taxes on the French people - has led to a prolonged popular revolt that refuses to dissipate.  The latest development is that the police union has declared themselves to be in solidarity with the "yellow jacket" protesters and plans to go on strike in support of them.

We must note that like everything French, there are detailed regulations about how one gets permission and who actually can strike, but still, this is significant.  For now, the French riot police are playing by the rules, but a public statement of this sort is often the precursor to not playing by the rules, which is common in French history.

The Sixth Republic may only be a few weeks away.

These are the globalist gods that failed, each in their own way embodying the transnational elite pushing ever less accountability and ever more fluid movement of people.  They won over their electorates and then set out remake them. 

They tried to use the rules to stymie their people, creating "all party-alliances" to lock out the will of the majority, but the outraged populace is determined to have its revenge.

The funny thing is that we've seen this play before, during the initial spread of Marxism.   Attempts to create "class solidarity" across borders collapsed when it became clear that "foreigners" would gain from lost jobs and wages at home.

The left responded by imagining "national socialism," and we all know how that worked out.

The Global Warming racket falls into the same category.  Everyone wants to feel good about the environment, but it's telling how little even the elites are willing to do to stop it.

Instead of taxing automobile fuel, why didn't Macron but a surtax on private jets?  Perhaps a landing fee on all aircraft with fewer than 20 passengers. 

Ah, but that would harm the elites, and our current crop can't tolerate the slightest inconvenience, which is why Hollywood celebrities preach environmentalism while consuming more carbon than an entire midwestern suburb.

This transparent greed and hypocrisy would be bad enough, but it is the gross incompetence that renders it a lethal combination.  The globalists are losing not just because they are wrong, but because they are stupid.