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.

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.

 

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.

Virginia Gun Rights Demonstration Totally Peaceful - Fake News Hardest Hit

The big story yesterday was the thing that didn't happen.

Gov. Klansman Blackface of Virginia, demanded extraordinary measures to contain the alleged white nationalists who were sure to descend on Richmond, bringing looting and violence.

You know, like leftist mobs do, only worse.

He even declared a pre-emptive state of emergency.

Alas, it was all for naught.  Around 20,000 citizens gathered peacefully, waved signs, posed for photos and then went home.

This of course reinforces the truth that law-abiding citizens pose zero threat to the public order.  Mountains of research prove this.  The notion that less guns = less crime has been refuted in every culture and every continent.  There is not a single example of gun control curtailing violence.

Why then do people push it?  The answer is partly that it's an emotional response, but increasingly it is yet another aspect of the authoritarian progressivism that deems to control the Democrat Party.

Their policies are increasing about punishing perceived enemies rather than improving the quality of life of the whole.

This is increasingly clear to normal Americans who are luke-warm at best on Donald Trump.  I suspect that will heavily influence voting come November.

2020 Starts with a Bang in Baghdad

Overnight, Iran tried to gin up a propaganda victory by attacking the US embassy compound in Iraq.  Local security forces stood down so that Iranian-controlled militias could do their dirty work.

As the news broke, the anti-American left and the Quisling Never Trumper (but I repeat myself) exalted that Donald Trump now had a Benghazi of his own.

Except that he didn't.  Trump responded quickly and resolutely.  Reinforcements have already arrived and others are on standby.

What was telling about this was not just the gloating over the potential deaths of fellow American soldiers and diplomats, but the fact that nominally pro-veteran individuals and organizations joined in.

Vote Vets is an astroturf sock-puppet organization created to serve as a club against George W. Bush.  Nominally non-partisan, its Twitter account openly expressed the hope that sufficient American corpses could be laid at Trump's feet to overshadow Obama's 2012 failure in Libya.

These people are sick.

Noted incompetent Ben Rhodes also tried to make hay over the incident, only to be slapped down when people properly pointed out that Iran's current activities were largely funded by the Obama administration's pallets of cash.

I sense that 2020 is going to see the trend of unmasking accelerate as the left burns through all of its artifices and strategms in a desperate attempt to remove Trump from office.  A second term - likely with pro-Trump majorities in both legislative chambers - is an extinction-level event for the Deep State.

We can only hope.

Molotov-Ribbentrop at 80: The concentrated essence of unprincipled leftism

Today marks the 80^th anniversary of the infamous Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, which sealed the fate of Poland and set the stage for World War II.

The alliance was purely tactical for both parties.  Joseph Stalin wanted to push his frontier further west and gain hegemony over western Poland, parts of Finland and the Baltic States.  Adolf Hitler wanted to avoid a second front during his ongoing showdown with the western Allies.

After years of heated vitriol, both totalitarian states turned on a dime, going from hating one another to proclaiming the wisdom of rapprochement so they could fight the true common enemy, western liberal democracy and capitalism.

The alliance was the basis for George Orwell’s famous formulation that “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia,” reflecting the ease with which the propagandists did a complete reversal on the Nazi-Soviet relationship and then reversed themselves again when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941.

The crucial lesson of this anniversary is that the left is utterly without principle.  It has but one goal: total, unbridled power.

This is how people who claim to worry about carbon emissions fly around on private jets and live lavish lifestyles while hectoring poor people to give up hamburgers.

It is how we must “believe all women” - unless they are accusing Bill Clinton.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder are free to call for more gun control even though it was their policy not to prosecute gun law violations.

The means are irrelevant to these people and even their goals are negotiable because all that matters is power for its own sake.  Arguably, they don’t have a clear vision of what they will do with it, other than enjoy its free and easy exercise.

Oh, and crush their enemies utterly.  That part at least is known.

This is why the best analogy to the contemporary US is not its previous civil war, but rather then one in Spain from 1936 to 1939.  Then as now, a major part of the divide was between the right – who respected institutions and culture – and the left, which respecting nothing but its quest for power.

The Spanish “Republic” was nothing of the sort, and it leaders were quite willing to rule by decree and use political assassinations and militias to achieve their goals.

Far from being a true Popular Front, the government was bitterly divided between Socialists, Communists and Anarchists, with only the common enemy of traditional Spanish culture and the Catholic Church holding them together.

What made the war inevitable, with the Popular Front’s abuse of power and its seeming pleasure in flaunting it.  Here we see a clear parallel with the left’s treatment of Antifa.  Just as in Spain, law enforcement has zero interest in breaking up the terrorist organization and instead blames their atrocities on their victims.

All of this has the effect of radicalizing the middle class, which is the crucial precondition for civil war.

The left seems convinced that this won’t happen, or that if it does, they will win easily.  The Popular Front felt the same way and it didn’t work out well for them.

Spain was the first time fascists and communists clashed militarily, with the Soviet Union backing the Republic while Germany and Italy sided with the insurgent Nationalists.

It was billed by both sides as an existential struggle and yet no sooner had the Spanish war drawn to a close than Hitler and Stalin were able to forge their infamous pact.

Because the pursuit of power demanded it and both Stalin and Hitler were leftists in every sense.

Today should be a reminder that the left is implacable, knowing no decent limits and eager to make a deal with anyone and everything to achieve power.

None shall know the hour

For years the "Q" community and their less zany allies over at The Conservative Treehouse have been predicting a grand counterattack by Trump against the criminal conspiracy to overthrow the 2016 election results.

I've seen elaborate time flow charts, numerous "significant dates" and yet nothing seems to be moving in the order predicted.  I've noticed that a lot of these predictions are actually couched in evasive terms suitable for the Oracle of Delphi or a first-rate carnival fortune-teller.

But some things are clear.

The Mueller gambit failed and the GOP's questioning was unusually precise.  Instead of going for "gotcha" style questions and killer soundbites, the House members consistently focused on the question of who ran the investigation and therefore why certain decisions were made.  For example, Russian Agent Mifsud lied to the FBI three times without consequence, while Gen. Flynn allegedly did so only once, yet who is being dragged through judicial hell?

The Epstein investigation is also a front few people expected to emerge, and the (depending on who you ask) fake suicide attempt or botched murder highlights the seriousness of the case to a lot of very important people.

In fact, if it was a failed murder attempt, that may show that Clinton, Inc. is losing its mojo.  The guy was an easy target in a municipal jail kept in the violent criminal wing.  Apparently he wasn't under 24-hour watch, either (though he is now).

Inspector General Horowitz's report has become a moving target, sliding from a May deadline to September.  Contrary to popular myth, his 2018 report wasn't a dud, it simply was exploited.  The IG can't issue indictments or inflict punishment, so the disappointment of the previous release centers not on what was in it, but the fact that little was done.

Will that be the case now?

As my esteemed co-blogger pointed out, the outline of the conspiracy is now pretty well known.  The only remaining question is whether anything will be done.  I confess, I don't know the answer.