Posse Incitatus

Memorial Day amongst the ruins: 2021

One of the classic precursors to the collapse of democratic government is military defeat. 

 

This need not lead to dictatorship or civil war, simply a new constitutional order, as happened when the Fourth French Republic gave way to the Fifth.

 

That these are the thoughts that come to mind on Memorial Day is a telling indicator that something is deeply wrong with our country.  Congressional Democrats want to establish a permanent military garrison in our nation's capital.  This is not what a popular government with record-seeking vote totals normally does.

 

Readers may well point out that the United States hasn't been defeated in the way of Imperial Germany in 1918, but victory also can be a source of unrest, particularly if the costs seem to vastly outweigh the benefits.  Both Japan and Italy were on the winning side of World War I, and yet both experienced changes in government because of internal discontent.

 

All of these examples have as a core feature the population's loss in confidence in the ruling class.  As we pause to consider our honored dead, we cannot help but ask why their sacrifice was necessary.  If one reads through the archives pertaining to this date, there is an obvious trend: from grim determination to disillusionment and finally where we are today, bitterness.

 

The earliest years of this blog sought to defend George W. Bush's policies and his leadership from vicious (and often dishonest) attacks.  What's striking to me today is how all of his worst enemies - the very people screaming that he was a war criminal - are now his political buddies.

 

A full reversal has occurred on the right as well, and it's remarkable to see.  I imagine a dialog between the two sides much go something like this:

 

The Right:  You know what?  You were right.  Bush was a criminal.

 

The Left:  No, he's a respectable leader, not like Drumpf!

 

The Right:  Wait, what?!  You called him Literal Hitler for years!

 

The Left:  Yeah, but that's before he became useful to us.

 

The Right:  What about his crimes?!

 

The Left:  Oh, we were never serious about that.  It was all politics.

 

Watching the classic Orwellian rehabilitation of Dubya is an object lesson in the left's endless ability to betray its principles.

 

And yet our dead remain dead.  

 

Did they die in vain?  Were the wars worth the cost?

 

I think they could have been.  A punitive expedition to rout the Taliban and break up their networks was both worthwhile and feasible.  Unfortunately, that offered insufficient opportunity for graft, so we went another route.

 

Similarly, removing Saddam Hussein from power started out as a political masterstroke, cowing America's enemies and offering a new global order where state-funded terrorism would be traced back to its sources.  Alas, our rulers didn't see the profit in that venture, either.

 

Again, it's illustrative that Dick Cheney was reviled for years as a war profiteer through Haliburton and yet our current Secretary of Defense is an actual board member of a weapons manufacturer - and no one on the left has a problem with this.

 

For all that, there was a brief dawning of hope at the end of the Trump administration when the Arab-Israeli conflict finally achieved a resolution.  The Abraham Accords and the promise they hold were the kind of solution that made the deaths of soldiers like Capt. Sean Grimes worthwhile.

 

Naturally, that achievement was denigrated and the Biden Administration's top priority is to pour arms and dollars into Syria, Iran and Palestinian terrorist organizations. 

 

And the peace movement?  Nowhere to be seen.

 

Nothing lasts forever, and governments have an expiration date.  It is inevitable that in the distant future a people completely strange to us will walk amidst the tumbled stones of Arlington and ponder what it was and why it was built with the same curiosity we regard Stonehenge or Saxon burial mounds.

 

All we can do is offer prayer for the dead and solace for the ones they have left behind.

 

And maybe, for a little while, the wars of choice will pause.

 

 

 

 

Media tries out the fakest story to date

The last couple of days have been fascinating to watch.

As someone who grew up around journalists, it's a surreal experience watching reporters and commentators all weigh in on a story with zero actual evidence.

I am of course referring to the allegation that Donald Trump disparaged America's World War I dead while in France more than two years ago.

Yes, breaking news from two years ago!

The curious thing is that no one will go on the record about it.  Not only are the allegations from "anonymous sources" so are the supposed confirmations.

Meanwhile, the documentary evidence says it never happened.  Even Trump's arch-enemy John Bolton called the allegation absurd.  He rightly notes that if it had happened, he'd have done a whole chapter about it in his tell-all book.

This is supposed to damage Trump's standing with veterans, but the actual effect is to further wreck the press' credibility.  Trump's veneration of the military and especially wounded veterans is beyond question.  Yet the press (and their handlers in the Biden campaign) seem to think this will crater that support.

This is of course nonsense because in order to make the case that Trump disrespects the military, the press must itself disrespect the military.

The pilots, aircrew, command elements - all of these people who can attest to the truth must necessarily be denounced as corrupt liars with no sense of honor in defense of sources who may not even exist.

I've seen some stupid moves, but this is a strong contender for Dumbest Line of Attack Ever.

Indeed, Biden is leading with his jaw on this, because Trump can rightly counterattack by asking where Slow Joe was as American troops were being slaughtered in Benghazi, or why did the Obama administration fix the VA?

Thousands of veterans died due to the Obama administration's ineptitude and their response was to simply cover it up.  Add into it the number of military members killed on Biden's watch without achieving a single strategic gain and you have an excellent issue for the Trump campaign.

Finally, if the press must go all-in on a coordinated lie, to do so this early - so that the outrage is fresh in the public mind well before October - is a colossal blunder.

I'm sure there will be more where this came from, though.  These people learn nothing.

There is no 'reasonable dialogue' because the Democrats killed it

Our new (and perhaps old?) comments troll has made an appeal to reasonable discussion as a means to bridging disagreement.  All very reasonable and 1990s in outlook.

Yet for all the fair words, it's impossible at this late date to take them seriously.

In the first case, anyone wishing to learn more about 'the right' would likely choose a far more consequential blog than this fading relic, where a good weeks sees maybe three posts.

However, there is a truly massive archive, where such a person could - through careful reading - learn much about the evolution of non-establishment conservative thought.  Certainly we have better things to do that repeat arguments that are readily available.

But in the larger sense, dialogue is pointless because the Democrats have unmistakably signaled that they are done talking and ready to impose their will by any means necessary.

This became clear under Obama, when Democrats nakedly used their power in the teeth of public opposition and in violation of long-standing tradition to obtain what they assumed would be permanent gains.  Thus, in the quest to dominate the judiciary, the Senate filibuster was cast aside.  Similarly, the long-standing tradition of bipartisan support of major legislation was trashed in order to put Obamacare into effect - even going so far as to jam the bills through on Christmas Eve.

The Democrats knew they were flirting with electoral suicide, but such considerations were secondary to the belief that they would fundamentally alter the American political landscape.  Winning was all they cared about.

So it is today.  The Dems will trash anything that gets in their way.  How quaint is it to recall the Democrat opposition to the PATRIOT Act in light of how they used it to spy on - and undermine - the Trump administration!  The FBI and CIA - once deeply distrusted by the civil libertarian left - now are given full license to lie about warrants and use thug tactics to jail political enemies on specious charges.

Which is a weird posture to take for a party that claims to oppose "over-incarceration."

Perhaps the clearest signal that debate is pointless is the Democrats' reversion to using moral arguments instead of logical ones.

This not only frees them from having to explain the practical effect of implementation, it also absolves them from responsibility for any unfavorable results.

For example: de-policing in Democrat cities has produced a surge of crime, shootings and death.

By any objective measure - improving safety, protecting the lives of black people - the policy has failed.

But since it is a moral imperative, these injuries or deaths are but collateral damage on the path to Utopia.

The last time this happened was regarding slavery - when the Democrats of the 1840s shifted from defending slavery as regrettable but necessary into a positive moral good. 

It is eerily similar to the move from Bill Clinton's claim that abortion should be 'safe, legal and rare,' to 'shout your abortion!' campaigns, and concurrent lawsuits to force Catholic hospitals to perform the murderous act.

A true dialogue takes place where both sides are open to new ideas and new opinions.  For Democrats, this is an impossibility.  When they speak of 'national dialogues,' they mean that everyone else has to listen to them until they are tired of talking and then do what they say.

Not long ago, one could expect nominal Catholics like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden to denounce the attacks on Catholic churches and monuments, but their silence (and even outright denial) speaks volumes.

Indeed, a previous concern troll tried to argue that Antifa didn't exist, ignoring the prominent displays of their symbols, banners, and social media accounts claiming to speak for them.

The first place for such a dialogue to begin is therefore the admission of reality: Antifa is a violent, leftist domestic terrorist organization.  If such agreement is impossible, there is nothing left to discuss.

The Biden Paradox: We'll get a Return to Normal *and* Revolution

For some reason this blog is like a honeypot for left-wing talking point bots.  Not sure why that is, since our traffic is but a shadow of its greatness during the Golden Age of Blogs.

Anyhow, it's interesting to see the latest example of Leftist Doublethink:  Joe Biden will bring a return to peaceful normalcy and usher in the Revolution the left has been longing for.

It's a fascinating argument to make, but the Dems are world-class experts at arguing contradictory things.  "Freedom is Slavery," "War is Peace" and now "Green New Deal is Return to Normal."

Obviously, one of these things is not true, and it's obvious that the claim of returning to normal is the lie.

The Left hates this country - it hates its history, its traditions and its greatness.  Joe Biden's ghost-written Independence Day speech was all about how disappointing the United States has always been to him.

If we simply blow up the energy industry, repeal half the Constitution and create Green Workers' Soviets, then we will get what we truly deserve.

I suppose at this late date arguing specifics is pointless because it's painfully obvious that the Dems don't mean anything they say.  Once they get power, they'll do whatever they want with it.

As they always have.

 

The Vanishing Moderate Left

In the comments, the question was raised:  Why do I paint the left with so broad a brush?  What about the moderate left, which is open to appeals to reason?

My answer is simply this: it's gone.

Look at the furor surrounding an attempt to by prominent writers to stand against "cancel culture."  The old liberal wing - based on free speech, individual liberty - has collapsed completely.

Slow Joe Biden, who was once something of a centrist (certainly he favored banking centers in Delaware), has now embraced every radical policy pushed by Bernie Sanders.  He was pitched in the primaries as the "safe, reasonable" choice, but his positions are indistinguishable from the radical "Squad" on the far left of the Democrat Caucus.

Even if the moderates hadn't immediately folded on their abortive letter in opposition to cancel culture, a close reading of it showed they didn't object to censorship by the mob, they merely objected to it being applied to them.

Leftist institutions are nothing more than front organizations pushing for the radical overthrow of the existing order.  The ACLU no longer supports free speech, the ADL is comfortable with anti-semitism so long as it supports their cause of Orange Man Bad.

Maybe these people will come out of their bunkers on election day, but I get a sense that they also dislike Trump and figure once he's gone, then they can take back their party.

But history shows that it won't work like that. 

Once the radicals gain the summit of power, they go into overdrive and their first victims will be the people on their own side who might get in their way.

You'd think the right wouldn't have to explain the left to itself, but I guess that's where we are.

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.