Comte To Hillary, The Real Goals

https://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/secret-religion-american-left-jonah-goldberg/

This column is a good example of why I love Jonah Goldberg's writing -- he has a broad expanse of knowledge, AND he is able to apply it to the world at hand.

I won't do a bunch of quotes, just one, which is actually a quote from Jonah's book, "Liberal Fascism" about Herbert Croly, one of the demigods of early 20th century liberalism:

Croly was a quiet man who’d grown up with noisy parents. His mother was one of America’s first female syndicated columnists and a dedicated “feminist.” His father was a successful journalist and editor whose friends dubbed him “The Great Suggester.” Their home was something of a “European island in New York,” according to one historian. The most interesting thing about the senior Croly — if by “interesting” you mean really loopy — was his obsession with Auguste Comte, a semimystical French philosopher whose biggest claim to fame was his coinage of the word “sociology.” Comte argued that humanity progressed in three stages and that in the final stage mankind would throw off Christianity and replace it with a new “religion of humanity,” which married religious fervor to science and reason — even to the extent of making “saints” out of such figures as Shakespeare, Dante, and Frederick the Great. Comte believed that the age of mass industrialization and technocracy would pluck the human mind from the metaphysical realm for good, ushering in an age where pragmatic managers would improve the plight of all based upon man-made morality. He anointed himself the high priest of this atheistic, secular faith, which he called positivism. The elder Croly made his Greenwich Village home into a positivist temple where he held religious ceremonies for select guests, whom he would try to convert. In 1869 young Herbert became the first and probably last American to be christened in Comte’s religion.

As I have mentioned ad nauseum, "liberalism" and "progressivism" are RELIGIONS and their faith is in experts, science and the perfectability of the human.

It's a worthy read!

API, DNC, It's All "The Party"

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/the-associated-press-lies-about-the-fisa-application.php

If you listen to lefty media like NPR, stories like the API story are gospel. To anyone that wants an FBI, Justice Department and FISA courts that follow the rule of law as opposed to acting in blind hatred against a president they happen not to like, the Saturday night document dump on the FISA warrants

If you listen to lefty media like NPR, stories like the API story are gospel. To anyone that wants an FBI, Justice Department and FISA courts that follow the rule of law as opposed to acting in blind hatred against a president they happen not to like, the Saturday night document dump on the FISA warrants that started this "investigation" is a smoking gun for the partisan nature of the Administrative / Deep State, which sadly includes the judiciary. It all reports to the Democratic National Committee (DNC)

Trump is absolutely right, this is nothing but a purely political witchhunt, and it adds further concrete proof to the case that what is supposed to be a non-partisan Administrative State is nothing but an arm of "The Party" (TP-D).

If you need more detail, you will find it here ... https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/carter-page-fisa-applications-fbi-steele-dossier/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202018-07-25&utm_term=VDHM

If you don't bow to all the doctrine and dogma of TP, you can't expect anything like "justice" from the rogue state that is BOistan.

Democratic Socialism Explained

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/the-polls-are-crazy.php

Powerline accidentally explained Democratic Socialism in a nutshell ...

Which raises the question: how could anyone think that socialism is a system that empowers the individual, as many young people do? The answer, I suspect, is not encouraging. When young people (or, most likely, people of any age) say that socialism gives the individual power, I think they mean the power to hang out, smoke dope, and not worry about working, while the state provides. That isn’t my idea of individual autonomy, but it is a lifestyle to which a growing number of Americans apparently aspire.

The question is raised because ...

Those under 40 have a much more favorable opinion of socialism than their elders do and are the strongest supporters of Democrats becoming a national socialist party. But younger voters are also the most likely to believe the individual has more power under a socialist system.

Socialists are all about assumed ends rather than means. They assume that if everyone is taken care of then life will be good. What they don't think about is the MEANS to their assumed end. 

The assumption is always that since there is income inequality, ergo, there is plenty of money to be taken from "someone else" to reach the goal state of the socialists. The only problem with this assumption, like pretty much all wishful assumptions is that it is wrong as I have covered here. If you have net positive wealth, the CURRENT welfare state has insufficient funds and is looking at you as a kid looks at a cookie jar.

Evicted : Poverty and Profit In the American City

https://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/dp/0553447459

The subject book by Mathew Desmond is way way longer than it needs to be unless you have REALLY lived a very sheltered life. Being amoung the poorest Americans trying to rent appartments and stay in a rental in American cities is not "the good life" to say the least -- I suspect all of us knew that. The repetitive struggles went on long enough so it just causes compassion fatigue.

The book chooses to follow a series of people through the squalor, massive inconvienience and dehumanization of that sort of life ... Arleen, the Hinkstons, Larraine, etc. One of the landlords covered is "Tobin", who is the owner of a very low quality trailer park and makes a high income (like $400K) by essentially renting a concrete pad and making the low income people keep the usually rotting away trailer up. I'd say a trailer court owner is only nominally a "slum lord". The other pair of landlords followed are Shereena and Quentin -- African Americans who on paper have a "high net worth", but who actually make very little money due to all the costs of trying to keep their slum level properties rentable, and collecting rents from people with very little in the way of assets.

There are a host of "bad guys" in the book, and really no "good guys". All levels of government ... local, state, federal, police, judges, HHS, HUD, etc, etc come in as slow, inefficient, underfunded, and having all sorts of unintended consequences for basically all of their many and various programs -- the sheriffs force people out because of too many 911 calls to a property, they assist with eviction, most of the various agencies are either reject or rubber stamp. As I've observed many times, "the govnernment" can't care for you ... it MAY "send you a check" in one form or another, but "it" MUST be a faceless bureaucracy with lots of layers, people, agencies, policies, programs, forms, rules, etc -- it is simply too large (enough just the "local" city government) to be anything else.

The author plays it pretty straight up until he gets to the epilogue on page 293 ... "a different kind of society is possible, and solutions are within our collective reach. But those solutions depend on how we answer a single question: do we believe that a right to a decent home is part of what it means to be an American?".

The basic question there again is what country is "America"? In America, there was a written Constitution, and it CLEARLY did NOT include a "right to a "decent" home". Partially because the definition of a "decent home" is very very difficult to arrive at for starters. Say if you are a single mom ... if you keep having more and more kids, does that mean that the square footage of a "decent home" keeps going up? Also, one of the values of America was private property -- the wealth of the nation was created because people got to keep the vast majority of what they earned. The money to create this right has to be taken by force from somebody else who is earning it.

One of the things I appreciated about the authors honesty in the book -- on page 214, we find that Crystal, one of the people followed has an IQ of "about 70" ... which would make her inelligeable for the US military (minimum 85). If you want to consider a sobering fact, consider that in 1959, below 85 would have classified you as "retarded". Since there is a lot of stigma associated with mental retardation however, we have LOWERED the threshold in the face of a society that demands increasing cognitive ability, so "70" is now that threshold. Alomst certainly, the "housing" that Crystal needed was a "group home", or some other sort of hopefully compassionate environment. However, in our zeal for "mainstreaming" and "reducing stigma", Crystal was on the street turning tricks.

The world view of the author is displayed very well on page 293.

There are winners and losers. There are losers because there are winners. "Every condition exists" Martin Luther King once wrote, "simply because someone profits by it's existence.This economic exploitation is chrystalized in the slum"

Only in a zero sum world, and that is not the one that we live in. Bill Gates or Steve Jobs creating new compaines and making billions of dollars CREATED wealth -- not just for them, but for tens of thousands of employees, suppliers, retailers, etc. More importantly, they created VALUE -- something that billions of people wanted and made use of to create all sorts of other useful and entertaining things.

One old adage is to "follow the money" ...

Here’s one way to follow the money in the United States: look past the Washington Monument and the Capitol to the D.C. suburbs. Half of the richest counties in America are roughly an hour away from the capital.

One would not know it from this book, but poverty in the US has DECLINED since 1960 ... and yes, it has been urbanized.

As a result, many of the nation’s biggest counties by population had high poverty rates in 2010, though that was not the case in 1960. Twelve of today’s most populous counties had poverty rates above the national average in 2010, including Los Angeles, Cook (Chicago) in Illinois, Maricopa (Phoenix) in Arizona, Kings (Brooklyn) in New York, and Dallas. In 1960, eight of these 12 counties had poverty rates below the national average. Another three had poverty rates above the national average in both 1960 and 2010: Bexar (San Antonio) in Texas, Miami-Dade in Florida, and New York (Manhattan). And one county, Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) in Florida, had a poverty rate that was above the national average in 1960 but dipped below the average by 2010. 

It’s worth noting that as the geography of poverty-stricken areas has shifted, the nation’s official poverty rate has declined over the past half-century, from 22.1% in 1960 to 14.5% in 2013, according to Census Bureau data.

The first point to be made is that King is right that "profits" or "rent seeking", DOES matter, but not quite as much as he thought. First of all, there will AWAYS be a "bottom 10%", and unlike Lake Woeboegone, all of our children really can't be above average!

Secondly, there is no magical suspension of human nature when people move into government employment. They STILL want to improve their personal and family situation -- they want to have a better more secure position, higher salary, nicer home, etc -- it is just as true for the government sector as the private sector, and as the government sector has gained more and more power, they have increasingly succeeded in gaining as evidenced by the richest couties and the fact that government employees on average do better than private sector employees.

While the author of the book certainly believes it is a tale that proves that simply that more government money will "solve" this problem (as he likely believes it could solve ANY problem). In the 3rd from the last paragraph he declares what he really believes about economics ... "Each year we SPEND three times what a universal housing voucher program is estimated to cost in total on homeowner benefits like mortgauge interest deduction and capital gains exlusion".

The government produces nothing. All it's funds arrive because they are TAKEN from someone or increasingly from future generations through massive debt. If the government was to switch to a flat tax or a consumption tax, rather than using tax policy to incent and disincent behaviors, the entire discussion of what is SPENDING would be totally clear. The only universe in which tax deductions is "government spending" is a universe in which government is God, and all assets and income are the governments -- it only deigns to let various people retain any income or assets at it's pleasure.

Venezuala is a great recent example of how well that works. When we believe that we have a "right" to our physical and even recreational "needs", we believe that others have a "responsibility" to work to cash the checks on those "rights". That is the essence of corruption -- "taking without making". The lives followed in this book should be adequate evidence as to what this philosophy creates -- hopelessness, amorality, addiction, despair. The author would tell you that "the material circumstance makes the man".

Spirit or material? If you believe in only material, then you likely agree with the assessment of this author, and likely "felt the Bern" in 2016. Please read this and consider the day after "the Bern" burns down the remaining wreckage of what was once America.

A Tribal FBI

http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/397902-opinion-one-fbi-text-message-in-russia-probe-should-alarm-every-american

"The Hill" is generally rated as a centrist news outlet, and I generally agree with that. I find this article well worth the read -- my standard for bias is always "what would be happening if it was the other side we were talking about?". I believe that is entirely impossible -- the Deep / Administrative State would NEVER be looking at "Russian Meddling" at all if Hillary had been elected. The certainly didn't investigate  BO promising the Russians "more flexibility after the election" accidentially on camera. Hard to beat that for "evidence of collusion" ... whereas with Trump we are coming up on TWO YEARS with NO EVIDENCE of any collusion. Funny, usually you have a PROSECUTOR, special or otherwise, when you have solid evidence of a crime. Oh wait, Trump was elected -- to the Deep State, that IS a crime!

So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to “nothing” and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment. 

Impeachment is a political outcome. The only logical conclusion, then, that congressional investigators can make is that political bias led these agents to press an investigation forward to achieve the political outcome of impeachment, even though their professional training told them it had “no big there there.” 

And that, by definition, is political bias in action. 

How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job. 

Is that an FBI you can live with?

The reason the left is unconcerned is because they are certain that THEY don't have to live with that FBI ... only people that have moderate to conservative views that become too prominent in the judgement of somebody with power on the left have to deal with that sort of Deep / Administrative State attack.

It isn't only the idea of prosecuting someone for something that you know to be "nothing". It is breaking down any shred of privacy for those that stray from adherence to the rule of TP  ... this from NPR on the push to try to break the confidentiality of an interpreter between Trump and Putin:

CHANG: So with that in mind, could an interpreter be legally compelled to tell what was said during a conversation where he or she acted as the interpreter? 

OLSEN: You know, I am not a lawyer, but I will say that compelling an interpreter to do so in general is not a good idea. 

CHANG: Why don't you think it would be a good idea? 

OLSEN: Because it would undermine any confidence that people would have in interpreters. Whoever the statesmen or whoever the interlocutors may be, they have to have trust that that interpreter is not going to share the information that comes from a confidential encounter whether it is at the level of heads of state or it is in a medical clinic.

And of course, it isn't just "interpreters" -- for the left, the idea that anyone not a member of "The Party" (TP-D), or wholly in agreement with them, would have ANY sort of confidentiality ... for example, the breaking of  "attorney client privilege" ... here we  have the LA Times waxing hopeful that they have FINALLY "gotten the goods" on Trump through breaking into his attorneys office and taking what they wanted.

Tired old things like "rights" demanded that the rights apply to ALL! "But Trump" actually means that NOBODY has rights ... at least not ones that they can actually count on. Sure, TODAY, the left is total control of the Administrative / Deep State, most of the media, education, lawers / judges, the wealthy ... in general "the elite" ... so people of the left feel that using ANY method to attack Trump is fully justified BECAUSE TRUMP!

However, if you follow some of the links, the practice of using any means to attack even the sort of evil people that contributed to Scott Walker in WI  is becoming more and more common as covered here.

We are now DAILY, (and sometimes multiple times a day) reminded that for the Deep / Administrative State there are NO RULES! Certainly NPR and the left in general believes that the BIG RULE is that they are in POWER, so the "no rules" will only affect TRUMP! or those who foolishly voted for him or defend him!

Without transcendent beliefs and agreed to rules (like a written Constitution), POWER becomes the only operative rule -- and that is a big truth in BOistan!

BO Goes Reasonable In South Africa

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/obama-speech-south-africa-slams-habits-drove-career/

Not sure why BO would go down some of these paths. Alpha particles hit his teleprompter?

Also no sure why it matters ... I STILL don't believe anything he says, even if it appears to make sense all of a sudden. Talk about WAY too late!

Partisan Comey On Federalist Papers

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/the-comey-endorsement.php

I wonder if it ever even occurs to a party swamp creature like Comey that coming out as a partisan hack (even though it is of course obvious anyway) is really not that becoming for a recent director of a supposedly apolitical organization?

So in Federalist 51, Madison DOES indicate that "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.", however the main mechanism for that is SEPARATION OF POWERS!

So who does the FBI report to? The executive, meaning Trump? The legislative,  meaning the Republican controlled House and Senate? The SCOTUS? Clearly, Comey thinks "NOTA" ... the FBI as all of the Administrative / Deep State is a 4th extra-Consitutional branch of government controlled by "The Party" (TP-D) and reporting to nobody but TP!

In Federalist 47, Madison has THIS to say; "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

It is doubtful that Comey is going to be quoting that -- since the core of the Deep / Administrative State is having the power of the executive (bureaucracy), the legislative ( regulations, taxes, fees) and the judicial (Adminstrative Law) all combined in one tyrannical branch run entirely by "The Party" (TP-D)!

At least the swamp creatures are OBVIOUS about the fact that it is a TP controlled swamp!

America Is Over, But Why?

https://medium.com/bad-words/the-end-of-the-american-experiment-9bc855ad0cc2

Readers of this blog and my previous know that I believe that we went too far away from the WRITTEN rules for what was created as "America". America was a nation with a "government" to keep the borders secure from challenges both domestic and foreign, to err on the side of liberty vs "safety" ( Franklin; "Those that trade liberty for safety wind up with neither") and a willingness to allow people and families to seek, build and KEEP fortunes. In America, results mattered.

What does the author of the column think America was supposed to be about? Why does he believe "the experiment" was a failure"? Well, because of ...

Working societies — if they are to endure, grow, and cohere, if they are to prosper, hang together, and really mature — need moral universals. Moral universals are simply things that people believe everyone should have. In the UK, those things — those moral universals — are healthcare and media and welfare. In Germany, they are healthcare and media and welfare and higher education. And so on.

So "moral universals" are what "everyone believes that everyone SHOULD have"! Isn't that cool? If we all believed that everyone ought to have a Gulfstream jet, then "wham", everyone would have one! Hmnm ... like a lot of metaphysics, it doesn't seem like this form of absolutes is really quite as cut and dried as some might tell us.

Even crazier, why did "the American Experiement" end NOW? Was it on a timer? I mean, in 1900 EVERYONE in America didn't have "healthcare, media, welfare, and higher education"  -- so why wasn't it over then?

Without moral universals, there is no process of civilization, and democracy itself can no longer continue to grow and develop.

To the extent that there is any such thing as "moral universals", they are NOT "stuff", they are TRUTHS like "all men are created equal" (meaning equal before God and the law, not equal as to what is in their billfold, or obviously how smart they are).  Some set of people "hold these truths" because they share fundamental non-negotiable beliefs -- like they are Christians, or "Americans" ... the sort that had a written Constitiution, valued liberty, hard work, private property, etc, and were not at all enamored with "free stuff".

From my view, the "end of the experiment" came because there was no longer any group that believed in a common set of ideas, even less that believed in a written Constitution and LIMITED government. UNlimited government is nothing new ... every potentate, pasha, pharoh, dictator, monarch in history has had THAT!

When the SCOTUS started legislatoing from the bench, the written Constitution died. When BO proudly weilded his "phone and his pen", and especially now that the Administrative / Deep State is in open revolt against the duly elected president, "America is over".

It certainly isn't over because the State doesn't spend enough money on the populace though -- the elderly have all sorts of assistance including FICA and Medicare. Vast swaths of BOistan live off SNAP, Welfare, Secition 8, Aid to women with a lot of kids out of wedlock, etc

All of that is "progressive social goods", except many of them are rotten and lead to misery, addiction and suicide.

Most of the "good west" with all those "moral universal social goods" are in bad shape as well -- high deficits, rising suicide and drug use rates, low birth rates, lots of immigrants increasing crime, etc.

Venezuala had LOTS of what is being espoused in the article ..., except now they don't, so you eat your pets, then the rats, then maybe your kids. But you do it as a REAL "moral universal" -- the kind you ACTUALLY have a "right" to ... HUNGER!

Anthropology, Sexual Mores, Culture

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/sex-consequences/

The linked article is by a Dr Peter Wood, and again, my juvenile sense of humor is piqued by the name and my appreciation for the not so subtle innuendo of ZZ Top ... more on Peter here.

Unlike me, the article is very academically serious -- sexual morals are one of the most important bases of culture, and therefore are a major part of religion, which up to say "1700" pretty much WAS culture.

I love his opening paragraph "all night diner" ... it is strongly visual for me.

Anthropology—hometown to cultural relativists and all-night diner for disaffected intellectuals—may not be where you would most expect to find good reasons to defend traditional American family values. But anthropology, in fact, guards a treasure house of examples of what happens when a society institutionalizes other arrangements.

I'd argue that the points he makes here are those kinds of points that are known in our souls before he even says them, and if they were not, a cursory look at statistics for the US circa 1960 to now would show that the obvious is indeed true ...

Want to know what it really means for a society to recognize “gay marriage”? Or for a society to permit polygamy? Or when the stigma on out-of-wedlock birth disappears? Care to know what happens to a human community that tolerates sexual experimentation among pre-adolescents and teenagers? Are fathers and mothers really interchangeable? Anthropology actually has a large amount of empirical evidence on all these matters—and many others that are now on the table in the United States thanks to various advocacy movements.

The Leftist political convictions of many of my fellow anthropologists tend to keep them silent about some of the scientific findings that have accumulated over 150 years or so of systematic ethnographic study. But these findings strongly suggest that the family is a bedrock institution and that the kinds of modifications to the family advocated by gays, feminists, and others who speak in favor of relaxing traditional restrictions on sexual self-expression will have huge consequences.

The article is a pointy-headed intellectual discussion of anthropolical / historical results of various sexual arrangements -- shockingly, sex is not new, nor are pretty much any form of deviation thereof. And, like everything in this universe, choices have consequences. If our society and especially political elites actually had any interest in "science" they would take this very seriously.  The following paragraph has no connection to prudish religion, yet is pretty much factually obvious ...

Forms of “sexual expression” are, at a deeper level, modalities of social relationships that do have very real public consequences. Whatever a society accepts as legitimate “in the bedroom” inevitably becomes a choice affecting the status of husbands, wives, children, and many others. In this sense, every society in effect chooses to have a strong version of marriage in which husbands and wives are bound by public expectations of good behavior or it chooses a weak version in which people work out their dissatisfactions and hurts in private and walk away from the marriage when they can’t. Likewise, a society chooses to respect women as mothers or treats them primarily as income-earners. It chooses to create families that invest love and attention in their children or alternatively to treat children as a luxury good. Society chooses whether children will be the focus of adult sexual interest; and it chooses whether it will cultivate families that care deeply about education or delegate the whole task to strangers, and so on. If we indulge the fantasy that “sexual expression” is only an individual matter of no valid concern to society at large, we choose our high rate of divorce, our ambiguous regard for motherhood, our unhappy children, and our poor schools. It doesn’t seem like an especially good choice.

What does gay "marriage"  (or any other sexual variation that can be imagined) have to do with you? Why not just "live and let live"?

Because just like putting nasty things in the air we all breathe, we all have to live in and around the BOistan "culture" polluted and falling apart though it may be. We did some cleaning of the air and the water from the '60's on, but our pollution / destruction of the culture accelerated to the point at which addiction and suicide are gigantic issues here in BOistan.

It's not an article that is going to change many minds -- it does however put some academic light on the level of intellectual dishonesty that has been required from the elite in their present attack on the family. Social "engineering" isn't really "engineering" (there are blueprints for that, and codes, and inspections) and it certainly isn't "science". Science, religion and philosophy all knew and know that what is happening is a disaster for our civilization and millions of people -- they just fell under the spell of the poltical dream that they could "progress" to a brighter future, and got the imaginary ends mixed up with the noxious means as humans are wont to do.

Further reading at https://privatemoose.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-aristocrat-next-door.html
and http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2015/05/proof-of-god-inhumanity-of-western.html

Was It A "Slam Dunk" ?

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-putin-press-conference-doesnt-criticize-putin/

Even the right seems have to developed a sudden respect for the veracity of the Deep State intelligence. My, how far we have come since George Tenet issued his "slam dunk" summary of Saddam's WMD!

My biggest problems with "Russian Meddling" are these:

1. Why? Russia's main export (outside of Vodka) is Energy. They have spend tens of millions to defeat fracking and pipelines in the US because they don't like competition (most businesses really don't!). They paid Hillary something around $50 million to gain access to 20% of US uranium reserves, so they certainly were not "anti-Clinton". Why would they work to get the most likely candidate to help the US produce more energy in office?
   
2. How? No, I'm not Liz Warren saying hello. How did they 'influence the election"? By buying some bogus FB ads? By doing "fake news"? By helping release emails the D's had protected with a password of "password"?
   
   The US MSM was a full time shill for Hillary and every week was a new thing that HAD to do Trump in. If you listened to NPR, his campaign was "hopeless", "over" and in "disarray" every week. Why Republicans were likely going to lose the house and the senate because of what a disastrous candidate Trump was. They were ALWAYS going to "replace him".
   
   HOW did the Russians counteract BILLIONS of US media directed against Trump on a daily basis? I actually think I DO have the answer to this one! Hillary is certainly too smart to call half the electorate "irredeemable deplorables" on her own ... clear Russian trickery with her 

If Trump is like me, he no longer believes ANYONE! Not our Deep State, not the Russians, and CERTAINLY not the media! ... not any side of it to do anything put put out stories to improve their ratings!

When you are leader of a failed state run by an Administrative / Deep State that is unaccountable to anyone and where the Sheeple have such short memories that I doubt they recall a decade ago when the CIA was considered completely unreliable.

In fact, on the left, way back to the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iran, etc, the CIA or any "American Intelligence" was as much an oxymoron as "military intelligence"! 

The left spent decades telling us this nation was "not a Christian nation"! and we finally believed them. They have spent at least since the '60s telling us how corrupt and untrustworthy government institutions like the military, the CIA, the FBI and the NSA are -- now they suddenly find them to be above reproach! Gee, that is really hard to understand! 

Could it be that when all that matters is political victory, that you will take any position in order to make political points? Is Trump any different? 

Who knows? We trust the Russians more than our own NASA to put men in space, perhaps they are better at intelligence as well? Or maybe just less political agenda driven than our own Deep State. 

Hillbilly Eligy, JD Vance

https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547

The subject book has amazingly been a rather celebrated book from some quarters on the left as to how people on the left might understand the shock of Trump's election. The subtitle of the book is "A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis".

In many ways, it is often a small world -- a professor that significantly helped Vance at Yale was Amy Chua, who wrote the recent "Political Tribes, Group Instinct and The Fall of Nations". which I find to be a more important book for understanding our peril than this one, however both are useful.

Vance tells his own story of a childhood full of chaos and a "crazy hillbilly Mammaw (grandma)" that kept him from becoming the standard "statistic" and rather becoming an "outlier" who graduates from Yale Law, has a great wife, job, etc. Along the way he tells about other "hillbillys" that moved north from Tennesee, Kentucky, "Appalchia" for "better lives" in Ohio and other Rust Belt states, only to discover that when removed from the tight extended families and communities in which they were born, they turned to rank consumerism, generally poor life choices in food, finance, health, and love (out of wedlock births, serial relationships, abuse), and often addiction and early death.

The "Hillbillys" are dying ... thus the "eligy", kind of like "eulogy", a lament of the dead or dying.

He talks about the perils of life on the dole -- and how the working class poor can't figure out how the government funded poor have smart phones, steak for dinner, better housing, etc, and actually "look down" on those working serial and sometimes parallel low wage long hour jobs. As he says on page 140:

"Political scientists have spent millions of lines of words trying to explain how Appalachia and the South went from staunchly Democrat to staunchly Republican in less than a generation. Some blame race relations and the Democrat party's embrace of the civil rights movement. Others cite religious faith and the hold of evangelical churches in that region. A big part of the explanation lies in the fact that a big percentage of the white middle class saw just what I did working at Dillman's (grocery store). As far back as the 70's, the white working class began to turn Republican because of the perception that as one man put it; government was payin people on welfare for doin nothin! They're laughing at our society! And we hard working people are getting laughed at for working every day!"

At times I wonder if people on the left actually read the supposedly "in" books of the left. The idea that the shift of the South and Appalachia from D to R was CAUSED by Nixon's "Southern Strategy" of "dog whistle racism" is dogma on NPR and in general on the left of this country. It is sort of like "the Virgin Birth" to Christians ... if you are left, you HAVE to believe that most of what has caused the rise of Republicans is racism ... coupled of course with stupidity, R's are ALWAYS really really stupid! To be part of a tribe is to believe it's dogma (and of course believe that it is a "fact", not dogma)

Another point he makes that would seem obvious to anyone having remotely looked at the history of Western civilization and the decline thereof since say "1900", is the following on page 92:

"Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those  who don't attend church at all. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber even found that the relationship was causal: It's not just that people who happen to live successful lives go to church, it's that church seems to promote good habits."

I'm always suspicious of "statistical proofs", ESPECIALLY when they agree with my biases! My PERSONAL belief is that especially in today's world, people that practice their religion MUST be people of sturdy individual character (or what I REALLY believe, "have a strong relationship with Christ"), because the general culture is so much against them. The other obvious observation is that people under common duress (like soliders being attacked) tend to bond pretty well. Since the practice of religion is being generally attacked in the west, the faithful tend to bond better than ever, thus making vital human connections that serve to improve their lives.

In any case, even though it can be damned depressing at times, it is a good little story that has a happy ending, and often one can't really ask for much else in a book. In my opininion, you would be far better served by just reading "Suicide of the West" and just skipping JD and Amy -- however, my opinion is also that reading is always rewarding. Deeper knowledge and multiple perspectives are a gift if you have the time and inclination!

Swamp Creature Classification, Peter Strzok

https://spectator.org/peter-strzok-a-cocky-liar-to-the-end/

I actually watched a few minutes of the farce/hearing while I was working out yesterday. The article is a good summary, I recommend reading it when you have nothing handy to throw.  Those of us who want to believe that there is some outside chance that we will return to something like "America" from the current BOistan, or successfully break off a "New America" from the "10ish" states that are core BOistan needs to look at a tiny bit of the video of the hearing and read at least a little of it. TP has established a new "problem word" ... "it", to join in infamy with "is".

This is the opening paragraph:

The Peter Strzok hearing was a travesty, starting with the fact that he testified as a cocooned, lawyered-up government employee still working for the FBI. It is outrageous that he hasn’t been fired yet. He even still has a security clearance! That alone is proof of the deep state’s hold on certain executive branch agencies. If the FBI keeps its so-so employees close, it keeps its worst employees even closer. That Strzok could huddle with FBI lawyers while stonewalling a Republican-led committee speaks to the corruption of official Washington and the comparative impotence of Republican administrations. Does anybody think an FBI agent who had vowed to “stop” the candidacy of Barack Obama would have lasted a week at his job, let alone over a year, after the discovery of his bias?

I understand that the most partisan of the lefties will just say BUT TRUMP!

The name and the effect in card games is so ironic that it continually amazes me. Our founders created a nation where the president was certainly important, but the Constitution, the separation of powers, AND the generally religious and God fearing nature of the American populace was FAR more important!

What BO showed us is that a major portion of the country was entirely ready for one party Administrative/Deep State rule, and president as dictator in all but name. In fact, they were certain they had ACHIEVED it -- I agree with them. They DID, and HAVE ... as the article makes clear, people that believe otherwise would absolutely KNOW that "Americans" of ALL political leanings would rise up in disgust and extreme anger at such a travesty from their own employee (Strzok) and his obvious colluders from "The Party" (TP-D). The Administrative / Deep State and TP are clearly of one piece -- the biggest fear of the Federalists has come to pass ... exectutive, legislative and judicial powers all coalesced in the Administrative / Deep State and in control of the single party, TP!

That is "the ball game", and incredibly, ALL that stands against it is the very thin and very hard to understand reed of TRUMP! Most of his strong supporters don't understand the real depth and mechanism of our peril in any level beyond their gut feel that their country is broken. Even those that DO to some extent understand the extremity of our danger (like Jonah Goldberg), fail to consider that at the moment, Trump is the only real resistance to TP tyranny that isn't just pointy headed intellectualism and purist posturing that gives any hint of a move to restoration of a just government to this sad broken territory of BOistan.

The article is a classic case of "read it and weep".

Suicide Of The West, Jonah Goldberg

https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-West-Tribalism-Nationalism-Destroying/dp/1101904933

The subject book is subtitled "How the rebirth of tribalism, populism, nationalism, and identiypolitics is destroying American democracy". My title for the book would be "Letting the miracle of liberal democracy and capitalism fall apart for lack of care".

The short short summary of the book is that in 17-1800 the combination of certain thinkers (Locke, Adam Smith, etc)  created what Goldberg calls "the miracle" of liberal democracy and capitalism which resulted in the greatest improvement of the human condition in all of human history.

"...liberalism -- by which I mean not partisan Democrats or progressives, but the original Enlightenment-based understanding of natural rights and limited governmen -- and capitalism".  

"Liberalism, by enforcing the rule of law and recognizing the rights of everybody, especially property rights, makes trade easier, and trade makes liberalism more desireable.

The Miracle comes out of this worldview. It is the product of a bourgeois revolution, an eighteenth-century midle-class ideology of merit, industriousness, innovation, contracts, and rights. Capitalism is the most cooperative system ever created for the peaceful improvement of peoples lives. It has only a single fatal flaw: It doesn't FEEL like it".  

The book contends that liberal democracy and capitalism are not "natural" -- if they were, they would have shown up earlier and more widely. When they DID show up was in England (by accident) and in America (by choice). Like your home or your car, they are not of nature, so without constant vigilance, they are "corrupted" ... meaning the natural process of decay and putrification. It is the thesis of the book that sometime around "1900", we started to assume that the mechanisms that provided the seemingly never ending cornucopia of wealth were "natural", or in themselves "rights" as in thinking we have the RIGHT to have lots of economic goods and freedom without having to work at the underlying system that creates those things.

Chapter 5 gives the key insight in my mind ...

"The history of political philosophy is really the history of the of the stories we tell ouselves about ourselves. The two most important creation myths of the modern West were told by Locke and Rosseau. They are in constant battle with each other to this very day, and as of this writing, Rouseau is winning". 

"...Locke believed in the sovereignty of the individutal and that we are "captains of ourselves". Rosseau aruged that the group was more important than the individual and the "general will" was superior to the solitary conscience. Man is sinful according to Lock, a noble savage according to Rosseau. Our rights come from God, not government declares Locke. No, we surender our individual rights to the judgement of the sovereign, replies Rosseau. Lock says that the rights of property and to the fruits of our labors is the keystone of a free and just order. Rosseau says that property is the original sin of civilization and, in a just society, property must be mentioned by the sovereign for the good of the whole community ..."

And so it goes. Chapter 5 is an important chapter for understanding where "The Miracle" came from, and why it is in mortal danger.  The Miracle is largely the temporary triumph of reason over emotion in the specific form of liberal democracy and capitalism, but since it is emotion, not reason, that is natural and dominant in humans, when we forget the "why" of the system that got us here, the system is certain to fail. (I wrote on this a lot in the old blog, a good example is here).

Jonah is a "#NeverTrump" person, so I was glad I hadn't taken a drink when I read on page 316:

"The imperial arrogance of progressive social engineers and social justice warriors had earned an apocaylyptic backlash so powerful that even clear-eyed conservatives that recognized Trump's dishonesty and demagoguery couldn't resist it. Indeed, as much as I hold Trump in contempt, I am still compelled to admit that, if my vote would have decided the election, I probably would have voted for him."

Jonah is an intellectual ... I'm not sure he has ever claimed to have a practical bone in his body.  So, even though HE also realized that Trump was better than the alternative, he talked and spilled lots of ink against Trump, likely swaying at least 100's of K of people on the right to not vote, vote libertarian, etc. Nobody has to be "taken in" by any "dishonesty, demagoguery, poor personal morals, etc" to realize that any sort of restoration, while still EXCEEDINGLY unlikely, was just totally beyond the pale if Hillary won and turned the SCOTUS to a full legislate from the bench on anything and everything 100% of the time. Christians would not only be baking cakes for gays, we would be well on the road to being lion treats in the DC colluseum!

The book is WELL worth the reading time -- I've covered a lot of the ground he covers before, but he is a smarter and better writer. The conversion of the US "government" into an all inclusive and intrusive unconstitutional "state" that has become an unelected 4th branch, the Adminstrative Sate, that combines the legislative power of the purse/making laws, executive, and judicial all in one branch that only reports to The Democrat Party ("The Party" TP-D) is well covered.

The loss of meaning in life because of the loss of "the little platoon" ... the buffer organizations of church, local civic organizations, BOY Scouts, extended, and even nuclear family, leaves atomic individuals with nothing for meaning but consumption and distraction.

On page 302 is a great aside about Phil Graham talking to a crowd and saying "my policies are based on the assumption that nobody loves our children as much as my wife and I do".

A woman in the crowd yelled out "I love your kids as much as you do!".

Graham responded; "Oh really. What are their names?"

The point is that the State can promise you a lot, but it actually can't even care about you, let alone "love you" ... at best, you are a NUMBER to the faceless Administrative State, and what they primarily care about is increasing their own power.

It pprovides an excellent summary on what I have blogged on for years. A highly recommended read!

Republicans, Conservatives, People

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-left-the-republican-party-now-i-want-democrats-to-take-over/2018/07/03/54a4007a-7e38-11e8-b0ef-fffcabeff946_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.31489306ad9b

I've often said that the Republican Party is validly called "the stupid party". The biggest reason for this is that many that call themselves "Republicans" have some version of a largely dead traditionalist world running around in their heads that is complete fantasy ... "return to the gold standard", "pay off the national debt", "no military intervention anywhere ... and maybe no armed forces", "demand leadership with absolutely unimpeachable character!", "get us out of the UN!".  "voting only on a mountain top with finger print ID!" ... and on and on.

Often they hearken back to some halcyon politician of the past ... "Reagan!", "Goldwater!", "Ike!", "Coolidge!" ...  even Lincoln ... how dead the heroic politician is makes no difference, and in many cases, the caricature of the imagined "great one" is way beyond what the actual person was. Never mind! These purist Republicans have "STANDARDS!", and to some degree, why have standards if they can't be unrealistic??

Which brings us to George Will, Max Boot and even John McCain to a certain extent -- they REALLY hate Trump, and they increasingly REALLY hate anyone that can look at him pragmatically and say "damned site better than the alternatives".

I read articles like the linked and am simply amazed that anyone really thinks people care about the virtue signalling of the column authors relative to Trump. So what? HW Bush had a stellar character and demeanor -- he was destroyed by the media. W was much similar -- kind, decent, Christian, honorable, etc -- he was road kill for the Democrat media popular culture machine. AND they were PROUD of doing it!

BO ignored the Constitution constantly, wanted to "bring a gun to a knife fight", and just generally stunk up the economy, foreign policy, the SCOTUS, race relations, and everything else he walked by ... always with his nose in the air, "above the fray".  If some of these virtuous purist Republicans could have shown a  TENTH the interest in combating BO as they do in combating Trump, we would have gotten Mittens in 2012, a few tatters of America would have been saved, and there never would have been a Trump presidency. Their "virtue" is very selective -- and not productive in the least!

Politics, ESPECIALLY conservative politics is never supposed to make people, or even politics itself an idol. The principles are smaller government, reining in the administrative state, strong defended borders, keeping religion in the public square and culture, low crime, encouragement of a work ethic ... those sorts of things. All people and certainly all politicians are imperfect in the extreme -- "the lesser of two evils" is vcry commonly the choice.

Sure, you can give yourself some faux "virtue" by being anti-Trump, but even REAL human virtue is seen as "filthy rags" to real conservatives that see man as the measure of VERY little, and certainly not "virtue".

Voting in Democrats because you want to virtue signal how much you dislike Tump is pretty much sanding your whole body and jumping into a vat of acid to show how "serious you are" -- seriously lost in space, certainly ... but why are we supposed to care?

Trump has governed far better than I think even the most optimistic of rational conservatives would have expected ... and now, another SCOTUS pick looms. It doesn't take much of a genius to see that Ruth Vader Ginsburg may exit at any time. Potentially, the stain of Roe V Wade can finally be overturned and the days of legislating from the bench might be significantly slowed for a generation!

Trump is a president and a person ... not a moral leader. 2016 was the election that Christians finally accepted the fact that we no longer lived in a "Christian nation"  ... we could no longer hope for a president that shared our faith and values, but we could attempt to get one that would at least recognize us as a political bloc with a right to exist!

Conservatives, and especially Christians are in an existential fight in America, and we have been losing badly for a VERY long time. Trump is nothing more than a "reprieve", but we need to get together and take full advantage of that reprieve, not play into the hands of those that would make BOistan a nation where conservatives and Christians are hounded in the streets!

Here was my personal shot at what a new conservative party might be like.

NEA Post Janus Meeting (Power Line)

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/how-we-welcomed-the-national-education-association-to-minneapolis.php

Power Line covers it pretty well. I'm sensitive to the "evil" charge these days since after reading Suicide of the West, I can see where it really fails to move us forward -- "very misinformed", "alternative tribal world view that is at odds with liberty and keeping food on your table" (see Venezuala).

In any case, thank God for Trump and the Roberts Court! One thing about America vs BOistan ... when you have good ideas, they DON'T need to be mandatory as in they collect union dues from you no matter what!

Documentation of Deep State and Democrat Media Collusion

http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/14/inspector-general-put-together-insane-fbi-leak-chart-upon-finding-rules-widely-ignored/

The linked article documents the conclusions of the Inspector General report on happenings in the FBI corner of the Deep State during the cover up of the Hillary illegal e-mail server and the creation of the false "Russian Collusion" story used as the "insurance policy" to damage Trump in what they considered to be the nearly impossible case of him winning the election. A key finding ...

“FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work by reporters, and were the guests of journalists at nonpublic social events,” the report states.

Anyone paying attention knows the Deep State and the MSM operate as one organization to assure that "The Party" (TP-D) maintain actual control of the BOistan State no matter what sham elections "by the people" are supposedly held. If the results of those elections ... as in 2016 result in the supposed transfer of power to a party "not TP" happens, then the result is what we have seen -- the Deep State, the media, and the entire elite apparatus of the actual power in BOistan ... the Administrative State and the elite including most of the judiciary, immediately seek to invalidate the results of the election. 

The conclusion of their own report ...

The IG’s stated takeaway from the discovered leaks is a needed change in the FBI’s apparent cultural attitude. They recommended that the FBI “evaluate whether (a) it is sufficiently educating its employees about both its media contact policy and the Department’s ethics rules, and (b) its disciplinary penalties are sufficient to deter such improper conduct.”

The obvious answers to "a and b" are clearly "no, and hell no" ... however any actual move to make any even cursory attempt to fix that is nowhere to be seen. 

Since the majority of the Republican party is also signed up to continue the sham "4th unaccountable branch of the state" (The Administrative State) the chances of reform are minimal.

What we have at this point is clear documentation of what I've been writing about for more than a decade -- we no longer live in "America", but in a failed state controlled by unelected beauracrats who are unionized Democrats who contribute mightily to TP.

Will the recent SCOTUS rulings that government unions no longer be able to demand that all employees provide mandatory financial support to this unholy arrangement have any teeth?

We are far from seeing any real progress -- but at this point, all who care certainly can see the truth of what has happened.