Impeachment Farce

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-impeachment-farce-limps-along-to-its-anticlimax/?sfns=mo

Good article on how foolish and dangerous this coup attempt is.

Fauxahontis On "Marriage"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/warrens-same-sex-marriage-quip-captures-what-some-find-exciting--and-others-distressing--about-her/2019/10/11/f3e15a14-ec34-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

Much like Hillary (irredeemable deploreables), Fauxahontis seems determined to give up the moderate vote in order to cater to the bulk of what the Democrat party has become.

At least she and Beto are being honest ... collect all the guns, drop tax exempt status to organizations that don't bow at the altar of gay "marriage" (soon / currently? to be any combination of 57 "genders")  ... and then? Well "progress" would require the next step because it is ALWAYS moving "forward" ... my guess us legalization of sex with minors. If they are mature enough to change their sex, how can they not be mature enough to consent to sex?

How long before anyone that doesn't follow their agenda must be "re-educated"?

Gays For Biology

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/andrew-sullivan-the-nature-of-sex.html

The level of confusion engendered by the insistence that gayness is immutable and gender is fluid is impossible to overstate. The linked article really just expands on the confusion.

If this sounds like a massive overreach, consider the fact that the proposed Equality Act — with 201 co-sponsors in the last Congress — isn’t simply a ban on discriminating against trans people in employment, housing, and public accommodations (an idea with a lot of support in the American public). It includes and rests upon a critical redefinition of what is known as “sex.” We usually think of this as simply male or female, on biological grounds (as opposed to a more cultural notion of gender). But the Equality Act would define “sex” as including “gender identity,” and defines “gender identity” thus: “gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or characteristics, regardless of the individual’s designated sex at birth.”

Under the sought after definition, apparently "sex" as in Male or Female would essentially cease to exist -- "nature" as in what sexual parts you happen to have is not a factor. It is ALL about how you "identify".  Needless to say, this offends homosexuals -- they are really attached to immutably being attracted to their own biological sex! 

So, here we see a gay man defending biology. 

The Leftist Media Drumbeat

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/the-media-factor.php

Just a better than average example of how the leftist media acts as full time unpaid Democrat propaganda. When people talk about "getting big money out of politics", what they are really advocating is total surrender to the left.

They already have the bulk of the media, the universities, and the administrative state.

The Mueller debacle showed us that Democrats and their allies the Deep State worked to interfere with the 2016 election, and then -- starting with the day after the election, have ceaselessly worked to overturn it.

Naturally, any investigation of their activities is at least impeachable in their eyes, and extremism in the defense of leftism is to duty of all non deplorables! 

Trump Turns Down Mud Wrestling Invite

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/trump-refuses-to-participate-in-impeachment-farce.php

Good summary if the "impeachment" version of the witch hunt (the sequel to Russiagate). The Ds pushed to have Trump nominated because they were certain that having him as the nominee would be the end of the Republican party. They expected total control of all branches of government in addition to the all powerful Deep State and a soon to be leftist packed SCOTUS. Lefty heaven!

Since they were as sure of this plan as they are of global warming, a semi-conscious person would wonder just a bit how competent they are.

What us clear at this point is that they are not willing to allow the duly elected president to govern unless he is a de-facto Democrat like W!

They may still get to their objective, it is likely only a matter of time. At least some of their cards are more visible now -- Beto made it clear that they WILL collect the guns as soon as they have enough power. If they can get a majority on the SCOTUS, the Electoral College is history, and likely the two senators per state as well -- in which case, why bother with a Senate at all ? ND, SD,WY, MT,NB would maybe get ONE!

America died with the election of BO -- Trump has at least slowed the rotting of the corpse!

A Thousand Small Sanities

https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Small-Sanities-Adventure-Liberalism/dp/154169936X

I was recommended this book by a friend associated with a small left Lutheran (ELCA) college. I wasn't very far into it before I thought of Bill Buckley's "God and Man at Yale" .. I imagine unsuspecting parents sending youth off to a school that they think is "Christian" only to find them returning as godless atheists worshipping pleasure and self -- the book puts up as "heroic"  adultery, cohabitation, atheism, and homosexuality ... or anything new that comes along that trips their trigger.

I'm a traditional liberal -- certainly people have a right to any manner of idea they want to have, and even to proselytize such beliefs. I just fervently wish that anyone who even marginally maintains any sort of even remotely Christian belief would realize that there is no need to waste time at a supposedly faith based university exposing them to more atheist, relativist, materialist, hedonist, etc views. They get LOTS of that from the general culture!

The title and subtitle tell your this is not in any way an objective book  -- if "liberalism" is "sane", then conservatism must be "insane", and if "liberalism" is "moral" ... (in it's own estimation of course), than those who are not of the "liberal faith" are "immoral".

On page 232 we find: "Liberal tolerance includes tolerance of non-liberals and anti-liberals as long as they accept the rules of pluralism." (as the book clearly states, those are admittedly muddled "rules" that are ever changing, so beware! -- one best stay very current on what is "sane", lest you be declared insane.

Your only defense is to bow at the "liberal" altar de jour -- Trump was fine for the left as long as he was one of their team! Oh, the book is a reaction to Trump, seeded with the standard gratuitous criticisms. In the universe inhabited by this author, the thought that there might be a "sane" other side just as disgusted with Obama would be impossible -- certainly, by definition, those people would be INSANE!

So why were the adulterous lovers Mill and Taylor "moral"? On page 12 we read:" What they were is realists - radicals of the real, determined to live in the world even as they altered it". In simpler terms. the "liberal" form of "morality" ... "If it feels good, do it" -- and as it becomes more "advanced", force others to celebrate the "morality" which you feel.

The main point of the book is that "liberalism" is a forever changing, but always the best "muddle" -- his "aways true/just/factual/moral" and ever "advancing" defense of liberalism reminded me of the movie "The Blob", or very much like "The Borg" on STNG -- you WILL be assimilated!

Reagan said it best: "A liberal will defend your right to agree with them to your dying breath".

So how are we to begin to "know" what the ever changing "liberal rules" are? On page 27 we see: "And that (Montaigne quote) meant we had to base our social behavior on compassion, skepticism, and uncertainty rather than on dogma, justice and utopianism." Got that? -- in short, no fixed rules.

The "compassion" is interesting -- based on the actions of today's "liberals", that means forcing other people to transfer their earnings to the "less fortunate" -- or just less successful relative to the liberal ever evolving standard of "enough", which conveniently is never reached.

"Compassion" and "sympathy" are themes of the book. On page 37, we see of Hume -- "He saw, and showed the sharp limits of reason--and the power of sympathy, rather than either reason or faith, to make humankind one".  Later on that page, "Sympathy lets us turn ideas into emotion".

On page 39 we see why Hume is especially dear to the author -- "have little patience only till I have the pleasure of seeing the churches shut up, and the clergy sent about their business".

"Sympathy" for me, but not for thee.

On page 51, we see the attempted cleavage of "liberals" from "left activism" (although the "heroes" of the author are the radicals) -- so allowing freedom of speech by purchasing ads, and the electoral college are declared "not worth saving" by the hard left, the authors unicorn "liberals" think it is acceptable to "get there slowly" ... but nevertheless, inevitably!

Page 72, "Where conservatives believe in the renewal of traditional community, liberals believe in the flight from family and tradition into new kinds of communal order" ... a Montaigne type skeptic might ask, "and how is that working out?" We see rising suicide rates, declining lifespans, addiction, hopelessness and mass shootings, all of which were declining or non-existent under tired old Christian culture as late as "1960".

On page 238, "Liberalism isn't a political theory applied to life. It's what we know about life applied to political theory." Nice claim, however given the previous discussion of page 72, is that a truthful claim? Eric Fromm says in "The Sane Society":

"We find then that the countries in Europe which are among the most democratic, peaceful and prosperous ones, and the United States, the most prosperous country in the world, show the most severe symptoms of mental disturbance."

And this was in 1956! Fromm for one would say that we "know" very little about "life". Wikipedia says: There is currently no consensus regarding the definition of life. One popular definition is that organisms that maintain homeostasis are composed of cells, have a life cycle, metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce, and evolve. However, several other definitions have been proposed, and there are some borderline cases of life, such as viruses or viroids.
Given that, how can one claim to "know about life"? I'd assume, in the same way as pretty much all "liberalism" posits, it is "whatever the most "powerful" (most votes, most scientists polled, etc) think, or even feel it is -- and thus "know".

Page 81, we see a core of the liberal faith -- "These values are rooted in a simple idea about human capacity - a moral idea about the source of meaning in the human imagination. This just means that people make up their values, they aren't handed down from the past or on high. This humanist ideal is what inspects and animates liberalism with moral energy."

Translation -- man makes it up his own morality as he goes along, and he declares it to be "very good". Niche figured this out long ago -- God is dead, so might is right.

From 184-190, Gopnik goes from the Mill definition of free speech. -- "unless the speaker is actually ready to cut your throat, you have to let him work his jaw". To applauding a Canadian court ruling preventing a Christian from passing out pamphlets critical of homosexuality, to saying that while "suppression of free speech on campus is alarming to "liberals"", to "real though the problem of civil liberties on campuses might be, it is infinitely less concerning than the power of corporate speech or the daily presence of hate speech from the highest source of power directed against threatened groups".

My "highest source of power is God". The Bible says; "If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." ... or Rom 1:22-32. Both God and Nature abhor homosexuality (it isn't adaptive ... doesn't reproduce, the holy grail of evolution).

So clearly, although I'm sure he meant Trump, and recognizes not at all my higher power, Gopnik would seem required to see the Bible as "hate speech" -- and the definition of what "hate speech" would be whatever he sees "liberal" orthodoxy saying it is at this "advanced time". (stay tuned ... no doubt it will "advance")

I love his heartfelt defense of one of his huge heroes, Red Emma Goldman, on page 160; "Throughout her life she never compromised either the purity of her anarchist, sensualist and libertarian principles in the face of left-wing totalitarianism". So much for the "reality based" theme of supposed "liberalism" -- what it really means is "my view wins" ... always, no matter what it actually turns out to result in.

p 319, "But few ideas could be more fatuous than that secular ideals are really just as religious as religious ideals.". hmm other than the idea that "religion" is what you hold to be the highest value, and secularism holds itself to be "the highest value". Or maybe he just doesn't understand the definition of "fatuous"?

And on what basis would that statement have merit? Well, the same basis as all metaphysical claims -- "belief". At the base, one either believes that there is some metaphysical standard, or there isn't. If God exists, and he has declared standards for us to follow, then there IS a standard. If not, then NO STANDARDS beyond might is right! For a more complete discussion of what is "fatuous".

There has been a lot of ink wasted on trying to "prove" the "liberal / progressive / humanist" faith (of any given moment -- it's "strong point" is it's constant "evolution". What used to be Western civilization was based on Christianity. The fervent hope of the left was that you can just pull the foundation of Christianity out from under it and things would still be fine. (so why don't they look "fine"?)

Nietzsche covered this topic very well -- and seeing this shallow book being proffered for review by impressionable youth with little comprehension of the depth of the danger, it is good to be living deep in fly over country!