Social Norms, Virtue, Enforcement

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/david-brooks-gay-marriage-changing-norms/

In the middle of a column about how norms change, David Brooks remarks, “There used to be a social penalty for supporting gay marriage. Now there’s a social penalty for not supporting it.” I am not at all sure that there was a significant social penalty, in almost any stratum of our society, for supporting same-sex marriage.

Indeed.

In the past, HAVING OPINIONS rarely involved sanction. The leading exception in relatively recent memory being the dreaded HUAC (House Un American Activities Committee) focused on comunists in the country potentially spying for the Soviets. "Are you now, or have you evern been a communist or communist sympathiser".

Today, "Do you now, or have you ever been a supporter or voter for Donald Trump" seems FAR more "reasonable" to the left. Along with support gay "marriage", or lose your job, position, etc. The list keeps lengthening -- transgender, privilege, cultural appropriation, etc.

American "Morality" once was the agreed to Judaeo-Christian, 10 Commandments, New Testament, God, Country, Mom, Hard Work, Salute the Flag, Apple Pie ...

Today, "morality" is the observance of the will of THE PARTY (D) ... Salute the Deep / Administrative State, gays, trans, Muslims, destruction of the Consituition, etc. If / when you fail to 100% comply, you are very likely to be sanctioned. "Virtue" today is compliance with THE PARTY.

That is the water in which we now swim.

It seems to me that there is an asymmetry between how social pressure worked back when same-sex marriage was a minority position and how it works now that it is a majority position. That asymmetry tends to reinforce some of Brooks’s larger points about how norms change. The traditionalist view was widely but, it turned out, often lightly held, and barely conscious of itself as a view. Marriage as the union of a man and a woman was just “the water in which we swam,” as Brooks describes the general functioning of norms. The progressive view is by contrast extremely conscious of its status as a view that can and should be socially enforced.

Our Contemptuous Nation

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html

An article that observes part of our problem in BOistan, but fails to really understand it. It is worth reading it. A quote ...

People often say that our problem in America today is incivility or intolerance. This is incorrect. Motive attribution asymmetry leads to something far worse: contempt, which is a noxious brew of anger and disgust. And not just contempt for other people’s ideas, but also for other people. In the words of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is “the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.”

 I argue that we did not experience this situation even close to fully until the Obama years. In the Obama years the "dominant party", the modern leftist Democrats, who I refer to as "The Party" (TP) experienced total control for the first time since at least the 1960's, if not "ever". Why?

Because prior to the 60's, the "Solid South" was all "Democrat", but those were conservative Democrats. Being anti-Christian, or as we see recently, anti-Semitic, let alone Socialist was beyond the pale. Sure, they often had big majorities in both houses and won the presidency by large margins, but those margins included many Democrats that were much more conservative than today's "moderate Republicans" ... they were Christian, pro-family, pro-life, pro-military, pro-business, pro-gun, strongly patriotic, hard working, etc

After the initial foray of using the Deep State to attack political enemies -- Watergate, the Democrats again had all the apparent cards, but Carter himself was at that time a fairly conservative Democrat, and many of the Democrat elected officials from the south were still conservative.

Post Reagan, they had two years that were a prelude to the BO years -- they had the presidency and both houses of congress, plus a left leaning judiciary, however, the Senate still honored the 60 vote filibuster, and even Bill Clinton at that point was aware that moving too far left would likely hobble his presidency. He attempted Hillarycare, and was rewarded for that attempt at government overreach with the loss of the House for the first time since 1954!

The election of BO in 2008 was a total loss of control of all levers of power by Republicans in a way that was unprecedented in American history. Because the left leaning SCOTUS was willing to legislate from the bench,  the power of Administrative / Deep State, plus the D party being universally far to the left of what even FDR or LBJ were, conservatives found themselves no longer living in "America", a country where even a strong political majority was limited by the Constitution, and the supposed jealousy of the houses of congress to prevent a president from usurping his authority.

BO was even allowed to use a "phone and a pen" to act as a monarch, and in fact, even usurped the long jealously guarded power of the House of Representatives to be the chamber with the "Power of the Purse".

While the election of Trump and both houses of congress in Republican hands in 2016 might seem similar, it quickly became obvious that it was not at all so, because the Deep / Administrative State, the Judiciary, the media, and the elites of BOistan immediately declared war on Trump and Republicans, seeking to overturn the election. The author of the article would like us to "disagree better" ... because the competition in the market of ideas is beneficial.

So what can each of us do to make things better? You might be tempted to say we need to find ways to disagree less, but that is incorrect. Disagreement is good because competition is good. Competition lies behind democracy in politics and markets in the economy, which — bounded by the rule of law and morality — bring about excellence. Just as in politics and economics, we need a robust “competition of ideas” — a.k.a. disagreement. Disagreement helps us innovate, improve and find the truth.

The author is completely correct in a rational, historical, enlightenment sense. I maintain however that he just doesn't understand that we now live in ... BOistan.

Take a look at today's campuses. Read a couple books like "The Coddling of the American Mind", "Political Tribes", or "The Suicide Of The West".  The idea that the free exchange of ideas in a "market of ideas" is a primary GOOD is an AMERICAN ideal based on Western civilization. BOistan does NOT share that vision! BO and the nation he created sees Western civilization as BAD ... in "Dreams from My Fathers" he explicitly sets out to "destroy the colonial powers", which WERE "Western civilization", and replace it with a 100% leftist tribalist, socialist, centrally controlled world state. THAT is the "the world" he declared himself to be a citizen of -- NOT "America"!

Why is MAGA so triggering to the left? Because as they say regularly, AMERICAN WAS NEVER GREAT! America was founded by white people who took it from native people and held slaves. It did not truly provide equal opportunity to all, and it certainly did not provide the goal of the left, equality of result! "America" as understood for over 200 years of it's history does NOT fit with the goals of the left, and one of the specific areas it does not fit is relative to competition of any sort as being "good". The left sees "rule by experts" as the proper solution, NOT some free market of anything ... certainly not ideas or products!

It would be wonderful for this territory to return to Western civilization and values, but while the author of the column, and even the authors of may of the books above may believe that "reasonable people" will look at their arguments and agree, I maintain that if you look at Ilhan Omar or Ocasio Cortez and their level of popularity, you see that the mood of the left is NOT toward any return to what Western civilization was based on, but rather to continue the path started by BO -- to see it's continued destruction.

The intent of today's left, which clearly includes the entire Deep / Administrative State at the Federal, State and Local levels (all unionized employees), the universities, the major corporations (Google, Amazon, Apple, etc), the vast bulk of the legal system and the media is a centrally controlled totalitarian state that explicitly prevents any form of disagreement, and immediately labels such disagreement "hate speech". MAGA itself is considered "hate speech" in many quarters.

It would be wonderful if we could talk our way out of this by "disagreeing better", however a short look at the current trends of the Democrat congress ... all out war on the president, including attacking and jailing anyone associated with him including family, failure to censure anti-semitism, and promises to pack the SCOTUS to destroy the main thing gained democratically in the last election -- I think you will agree that the way this is headed is not a "talking" or "voting" war.

TP has made VERY clear that they only honor elections that are in their favor, and they seek to overturn those that are not. They don't want to talk, they don't want to vote! They want to WIN and RULE! ... and it their eyes, it is simply for our own good ... we irredeemable deporeables!

The Banality of Totalitarianism

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/todays-progressive-race-hate-moment/

Look at National Socialist Germany, the USSR, Mao's China, N Korea, Venezuala, etc and sane people wonder "how do things like that happen?". Oh if there were just one crazy simple "sure sign" that would allow us to innoculate against the totalitarian impulse!

There are all sorts of base reasons ... people lose a sense of history, of culture, the ability to understand what it is that their civililization and culture are about, they start to believe that "history has an arc" ... therefore what is new must be better, and the future better still. We could go on ... but the day to day reason is simply that nearly everyone wants to "go along to get along". Why have a conflict if you can find a way to fit in and go along with whatever the masses are saying is "correct".

The linked article covers the specific case of Esquire magazine doing a profile of a "typical white male  teenager in Trump country".

The linked is a bit long,  but I think it is worth it because it is all so ordinary ... banal. We see this sort of writing and thinking everyday, however if one reads something like the Gulag Archipeligo we realize that we are increasingly living in the conditions found in a totalitarian state already -- it is just that so far, unless you really stick your head up like Trump, the "enforcement" is via public shaming vs incarceration.

I think this quote from the article is a good example of what I'm talking about:

To explain the stultifying effects of Communism on the individual, he relates a story of the greengrocer who puts a sign in his shop window proclaiming, “Workers of the World, Unite!” The grocer doesn’t believe the Marxist credo. Rather, he displays the sign “because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble.” The sign, Havel writes, conveys the following message to passersby and society at large: “I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.” 

So much of what passes for journalism and political conversation today mimics the pathetic self-abnegation of the greengrocer. People are constantly writing and saying things of highly dubious merit — “Hannah Gadsby is funny,” “Islam is the religion of peace,” “Trans Women are Women,” “’Black Panther’ deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Picture” — as if they were religious incantations. The whole lamentable phenomenon is utterly totalitarian in spirit and has been abetted by social media, where one can instantly and constantly display his or her correct opinions and righteous outrage in the hope of keeping the wolves at bay. Depart from the consensus, fail to display the correct slogans in the proverbial shop window, and “there could be trouble.”

National Emergencies, A Dime A Dozen

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/list-31-national-emergencies-effect-years/story?id=60294693

BUT TRUMP!

Otherwise ... well, no issue with 58 National Empergencies since the concept was created in 1976, 31 of them still active. All sorts of directed foreign policy against certain countries / dictators, property, funds, moves against cyber crime, etc ... a laundry list.

The wall? Even the 25 billion is basically chump change. The US Postal Service which is supposed to be solvent lost $5.5 billion in one year, the F-35 fighter, $29 billion a year, in 2013 Medicare made $45.7 billion in "improper payments".

A one time investment of $6, $16 or $26 billion to save a MINIUM of $54 billion a year is a damned good investment! Nobody knows how many illegals we have -- that is the point of "illegal", it is ALL estimates. Conservatives are going to estimate high, liberals are going to estimate low -- AND, they are going to value the contributions of illegals very highly.

Unless we have controlled borders, we will never know!

My preference would be to repeal the National Emergency law -- it is definitely a sign that the executive and legislative branches are unable to govern using the checks and balances that were intended to be used. Has it been, will it be misused? Absolutely -- it's a government law, it HAS BEEN, IS, and WILL BE misused! What part of the reason for smaller more accountable government are you missing?

That said however, the reality is that we DO have it AND the government has been broken for a very long time ... at least since Watergate. We have a royal unaccountable Administrative State that actually calls the shots. That Administrative State **OUGHT** to be under direct control of the executive branch ... it is an active function like the military. Congress is like the Board of Directors ... they control funding and they can pass laws to modify how the Administrative State functions -- but the President out to be able to hire, fire, furlough, etc like any other executive -- and as FDR realized, government employees should NEVER be unionized!

The current situtation is completely simple. "The Party" (TP-D) which controls the Administrative State, the media, most of the professions including law and judgeships, wants open borders to allow "undocumented democrats" to come in as voters and be included in the census (this is why they are fighting to avoid even having a question asking if the person is a citizen on the census!) to add to the already extreme power of TP.

TP is for open borders and against voter ID. Does it really get any simpler than that!

Godless Tribal Life and Death

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/02/magazine/why-they-kill-their-newborns.html

New York now allows infanticide and the passage of the law has been duly celebrated by the left. The top link points to a deeply scientistic article from '97 that ought to be kept around, here is a summary from near it's end.

So how do you provide grounds for outlawing neonaticide? The facts don't make it easy. Some philosophers suggest that people intuitively see neonates as so similar to older babies that you couldn't allow neonaticide without coarsening the way people treat children and other people in general. Again, the facts say otherwise. Studies in both modern and hunter-gatherer societies have found that neonaticidal women don't kill anyone but their newborns, and when they give birth later under better conditions, they can be devoted, loving mothers.

Ah "the facts" ... you know, "statistics say", "studies say". I found this excerpt to be prophetic;

Full personhood is often not automatically granted at birth, as we see in our rituals of christening and the Jewish bris. And yet the recent neonaticides still seem puzzling. These are middle-class girls whose babies would have been kept far from starvation by the girls' parents or by any of thousands of eager adoptive couples. But our emotions, fashioned by the slow hand of natural selection, respond to the signals of the long-vanished tribal environment in which we spent 99 percent of our evolutionary history.

The "invisible hand" of amoral evolution, whose only possible morality is exactly the same as the "morality" of Science ... "what works", "might is right", "the fittest survive". Science provides "the facts" ... it sets up the experiments or studies and Science decides what are "legitimate questions". "Truth" is a "repeatable experiment".

Strange though, the article was written in 1997 and the scientific minded author assumed that tribalism was "long gone"! Yet, in less than 20 years, BOistan has moved back to being a completely tribal state. The Governor of Virginia agreed with the 1997 article from the left one week, then an old picture of him was found wearing blackface a week later. The R tribe is very angry about killing babies. The D tribe is fine with baby killing, however the blackface was enough to momentarily label him an R before they went back to their usual practice of just not putting a party label on a badly behaving D (CNN)!

What would the "Scientific Facts" say about the morality of wearing blackface in 1984? See "the facts" don't support any sanctions against infanticide, so we ought not have them. What does Science tell us about wearing blackface, supposedly in a Michael Jackson dance contest? Does the fact that Michael Jackson attempted to LIGHTEN his complexion and enjoyed having sleepovers with underage kids affect the "morality"? 

What one would think would be completely obvious at this point is that tribalism is a natural behavior of humans, and the largest single thing that allowed us to rise above it was religion, with the grand champion religion being Christianity, one of the foundations of Western civilization. Some of us older people are still vaguely aware of Western civilization, and I know, ULTRA amazing, are still believing practicing Christians! 

As late as the late '90s, one would have to have journeyed to Borneo, Paupa New Guinea, or the deep jungles of the Amazon to observe humans in their natural tribal state. Now we can watch congresswomen dress all in white and synchronize their actions like native women in the jungle on live national TV as they assume that they are doing something that the rest of their tribe will be impressed by! 

Without transcendence, usually provided to the masses by religion, humans operate in the way their genes tell them to. "Education" about "facts" does nothing with emotions, and as even science is increasingly aware, our "reason" is largely used to explain our emotions. We are rationalizing rather than reational creatures. 

Infanticide, genocide, slavery, the use of might to vanquish and even exterminate the weak -- all are exemplary of homo sapiens in our natural state, and Civilization / Culture was the UNnatural "cultivation" that allowed us to be more than "natural humans". We gave that up though ... so we could more like the "very flower of  humanity" as Star Trek explored in "Mirror, Mirror". 

Imagining A Two Party State, Russia Investigation Version

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/429292-the-case-for-russia-collusion-against-the-democrats

"The Hill" is left-center bias -- about as good as one gets in major outlets in BOistan these days ... NPR is about the same.

The article provides a good scorecard of the DOCUMENTED Clinton / DNC involvement with Russia both before and during the 2016 campaign, including millions of $$ going to the "Clinton Fund" (funds ... for Clintons!). This is their summary:

There is clear evidence now that shows Hillary Clinton’s family and charity profited from Moscow and simultaneously facilitated official government actions benefiting Russia that have raised security concerns. 

And there’s irrefutable evidence that her opposition research effort on Trump — one that inspired an FBI probe — was carried out by people who got information from Russia and were consorting with Russians. 

It would seem those questions deserve at least some of the scrutiny afforded the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry that is now two-plus years old.

"It would seem" ... well, yes, in a nation not ruled by a single party by virtue of the entire Administrative / Deep State being in the hands of "The Party" (TP-D).

Unfortunately, we don't live in that state, but rather in BOistan, where anyone not a D that is elected is saddled with being "under investigation" the entire time they were in office -- a policy of TP that started with Watergate, moved to Iran Contra under Reagan AND HW Bush, and continued with "Valerie Plame", 911, and other investigations of W Bush.

Once we went from being "One Nation, Under God" to being "A Tribal Mess, Under TP", articles like this OCCASIONALLY  get written from the State controlled media, but they are virtually unknown.

They are part of the fig leaf that lets the sheeple claim we have a "democracy".

Fake News Enemy of Kids, and Decency

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/01/whats-news.php

This PL post does a good job of debunking the whole "teens in MAGA hats "mocked" Native American" headline calumny, He came up to them, started beating a drum in their face, and they stood their ground.

I guess a buddy and I "mocked" a bunch of union thugs attempting to block entrance to a Newt Gingerich talk in Rochester in the mid-90's as we walked through their picket line and they decided that avoiding physical contact was the better part of "valor". They had no business blocking the entrance -- protesting, YES!, with my support, but do not seek to intimidate!

The MSM used to be horribly biased in what they picked as stories and how they reported them -- but they used to stick to things that were at least somewhat "news" -- actual leadership/political actors, famous, well known, wealthy were involved ... "public people".  Not a completely NOT NEWS case of demonstrators attempting to intimidate KIDS and the kids doing NOTHING!

Just think if they reported every time some young "psuedo-toughs" of any race walked down sidewalks forcing other people to get out of their way? I imagine that is how I'll first find out I'm old -- when one of them fails to move out of my way (the norm), or one keeps coming at me as I walk on the right side and they eventually don't bounce off.

Perhaps we could just stick to when youth of any race disrespect their elders -- old veterans in uniform, the Flag, etc. -- oh wait, I guess disrespecting the Flag is now "truth to power", my bad.

The MSM used to just be embarrassingly one sided -- now it is the enemy of the people, even the kids.

If those of us who look at this trash and fail to speak up keep doing so, we deserve what we get -- it won't be old indians with drums doing the intimidating then -- it will be the modern version of the Hitler Youth or the Soviet "Young Pioneers" pushing and kicking us when we are too old to do anything about it.

Bad stuff comes on slowly -- day by day, drip by drip. We ignore it at our peril.

Davos World In Crisis?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/19/business/davos-world-economic-forum/index.html

One of the stories I try to follow because the MSM barely takes notice is the yearly meeting at Davos Switzerland of the 3,000 or so wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet. Even the MSM admits that it is "more than a thousand" private jets. Naturally, since our true ruling class -- the Davos elite, is under no circumstances going to give up flying, we are regularly told that "flying doesn't matter much" for the supposed scourge of Global Warming -- which is sort of like saying "where you dump sewage doesn't matter much" (if it is YOUR yard, or the intake to YOUR cities water supply, does location matter?).

Apparently, so it is with jet travel ...

... if we focus just on the impact over the next five years, then planes currently account for more global warming than all the cars on the world's roads – a stark reversal of the usual comparison. Per passenger mile, things are even more marked: flying turns out to be on average 50 times worse than driving in terms of a five-year warming impact.

Of course "50x" would be for travelling on commercial jets, where the cost is spread over a couple hundred people. As anyone knows from driving, speed costs a lot -- and the private jets go as fast as they can because their owners are REALLY important! -- just ask them. The best way to go fast is to go high, which is of course a worse place to dump your carbon. let's just say that each of those global elites are doing as much carbon damage as 50x200 driving 20k miles or so (there and back)! So like 10,000 people driving 20k miles x 1,500 or so (jets)  -- eg, the carbon footprint of 150,000 people driving 20k miles a year spent on just one trip for our oh so concerned about the warming "crisis" elites!

But never mind. THEIR world is in CRISIS! The top 8 of them have more wealth than the botton half wealth holders on the planet -- however, the DAVOS people are in CRISIS!

It was a sub zero weekend here in Iowa flyover country USA. We spent a good portion of the weekend taking part in a fishing tournament with 150 other folks, nary a bit of evidence of a "crisis" of any sort in sight. Current outside temp, -9 degrees.

If you want to waste a little time of just how screwed up our "values" are -- remember this.

Russian Botnet Helped Beat Roy Moore

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/alabama-senate-roy-jones-russia.html

A little comparison of "important" election meddling and "totally innocuous election meddling". This from the NY Times on admitted meddling in the Roy Moore election.

The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention. “We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.

For comparison, the Russians supposedly spent $46K in FB ads on the 2016 presidential election in which $81 MILLION was spent on FB ads by the campaigns. Naturally that doesn't include the billions of free time given to Hildebeast by NPR, CNN, WaPo, NY Times, NBC, CBS, etc, etc.

We can all be VERY certain at this point that the smear campaign against Roy Moore was completely false -- or else certainly the high minded people of the left (or the easily led of the right for that matter) would be hot on prosecuting this nefarious child molester to keep him from repeating -- which they generally do, thus all the sex offender registries. They aren't ... so "mission accomplished" for a KNOWN smear campaign that included influence spending FAR beyond the supposed "2016 election meddling" smear on social media.

Any with even a tiny bit of perspective know that Russia is an oil producer and they have fought hard against fracking in the US to the tune of tens of MILLIONS of dollars as opposed to "$46K" that they ALLEGEDLY spent on EITHER Trump or much more likely just sowing discord in the US.

It is often both funny and sad to read the left wing media doing "fact checking" -- the biggest thing you have to believe for this "fact check" to not just fully say "you would be better off listening to Trump tweets than us for FACTUAL news" is that THE ENDICTMENT says that the Russians were trying to influence the election! They did however admit that 56% of their "thousands of dollars" was spent AFTER the election! "thousands of dollars" on a presidential election where over a billion is spent! One is reminded of ...

If you believe indictments from the Administrative State are "facts", then you will believe anything -- ever hear of a country where INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty was the standard? Wake up and realize that the prosecution of non-Democrat politicans by the Deep/Administrative State is standard operating procedure for the dominant left in BOistan! MANY of those "prosecuted" turn out to be completely Innocent after the damage is done.

We live "down the rabbit hole" where if one works very hard to keep a diet of widely different media, it is remotely possible to occasionally see something approximating "the real world" vs dueling narratives that are more concerned with creating anti-tribes for profit than in providing information needed by CITIZENS vs consumers!

Clinton Fund Whistleblower Raided By FBI

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/is-it-something-he-said-6.php

There may be some questions remaining in even fairly non-partisan people's minds about potential Trump "collusion" with Russia in the 2016 campaign, but we KNOW that:

1). The Clinton campaign worked with the Russians to create the Steele Dossier to bring down Trump.
2). The Clinton Fund (Funds for Clintons) pulled in 100's of millions of dollars for the Clintons, and now it's donations have all but dried up, ( down 90%) showing that if the Clinton's can't provide "play" (payback), donors do not want to pay! The Clinton Fund was obvious Pay to Play, now it is PROVEN Pay to Play!

The linked article covers the case of a whistleblower who apparently has the legal goods on the Clinton Fund Urainium One deal and shows that Robert Mueller (the current "Special Council") failed to investigage covered in an excellent article here.

The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to investigate allegations of criminal misconduct pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to Uranium One, the document reviewed by TheDCNF alleges. Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Powerline has been doing a great job of covering the FBI raid on the whistleblowers home and other intimidation tactics.

Any rumor or innuendo against a person with an "R" next to their name, even if the allegations are decades old is worthy of heavy duty investigation with the accuser treated as a saint (see Kavenaugh), while documents related to malfeasance in the case of a known questionable matter (Urainium One), are treated as an attack on the state, with state apparatus being used to attack the person presenting actual documentation of the crime.

This is what happens in a totalitarian one-party state people! Trump is fighting the entire US Deep State apparatus, and now he must fight the House of Representatives as well because too many supposed small government supporting people (Rs) deciced they would rather single their "virtue" in being anti-Trump than support the only person with any power in this country standing up to the single party rule of the Deep / Administrative State!

Neil Armstrong, Citizen of the World

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/a-useful-reminder-that-liberals-dont-like-america.php

The left doesn't like the idea of any form of "nationalism", and the idea of planting the flag of the old America on the moon will soon be disappeared like some confederate monument if they manage to take over the whole show. "The State" is "god", and what The State says about everything, including "history" is "truth".

BO would no doubt tell us that "America didn't go to the moon" ... those were GERMAN engineers, proud remnants of the Third Reich! ... oh wait, strike that part ... "Europeans, probably descended from some member of Genghis Kahn's Mongols! Why, it was the Chinese who invented rockets in the first place! The moon landing was a global achievement!

And so it goes ...  never mind reality, whatever The State tells you is what you need to agree with!

The McCain Matrix, TP Good Old Days

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-mccain-funeral-dc-20180901-story.html#

"Eras" in the BOistan technoworld seem to last minutes ... remembering "all the way back to 2008" is like eternity, but supposedly that is the time for which "The Party" (TP-D), and it's adjunct the MSM want to paint a misty portrait of with the now "great man", John McCain looming in the background. My, my, how times change ... here is a quote from WaPo in April of 2008.

It was early 1992, and the occasion was an informal gathering of a select committee investigating lingering issues about Vietnam War prisoners and those missing in action, most notably whether any American servicemen were still being held by the Vietnamese. It is unclear precisely what issue set off McCain that day. But at some point, he mocked Grassley to his face and used a profanity to describe him. Grassley stood and, according to two participants at the meeting, told McCain, "I don't have to take this. I think you should apologize." 

McCain refused and stood to face Grassley. "There was some shouting and shoving between them, but no punches," recalls a spectator, who said that Nebraska Democrat Bob Kerrey helped break up the altercation.

McCain is Trump with a worse temper and a lot less money. His ONE advantage over Trump is his service -- something TP gives ZERO respect to when he failed to do their bidding.

He has ALWAYS been an angry prima donna, demanding to be at center stage and unwilling or unable to deal with those who fail to bow and worship at the altar of McCain ... or "McNasty", his old nickname.  I love this one from the article -- talk about "karma" relative to the Trump digs at McCain ...

Smith, whose service in the Navy included a tour on the waters in and around Vietnam, said he stood stunned one day when McCain declared around several of their colleagues that Smith wasn't a real Vietnam War veteran. "I was in the combat zone, off the Mekong River, for 10 months," Smith said. "He went on to insult me several times. I wasn't on the land; I guess that was his reasoning. . . . He suggested I was masquerading about my Vietnam service. It was very hurtful. He's gotten to a lot of people [that way]."

Trump and McNasty ... peas in a pod. Vain, narcissistic, hot tempered, profane, womanziers, etc ... no wonder they didn't get along. McCain ESPECIALLY liked to **WIN**, and no doubt that is the BIGGEST single thing he and TP hate about Trump. "Winning" is of course the ONLY thing that matters to the underdog in BOistan ... and it also matters that you support someone who can win even a tiny bit against the TP behemoth.

 I liked this meme for those whose memory has been dulled enough to think the MSM always thought McCain was "great'.

Think it's just a foolish meme? Here is a link to at least one such article ... isn't interesting how Republican candidates always suffer from Alzheimers or some other mental illness? From TP's POV, opposing TP is either a sign of low intelligence or insanity, so it is a small wonder they see the world this way.

I don’t take the subject of Alzheimer’s lightly. My grandfather died of complications from the disease, and I watched his mind waste away over a period of several painful years. But it’s a question that must be asked in view of John McCain’s age. If elected, he would be the nation’s oldest president in history.

If you read this blog you are aware that you live in a TP/MSM (but I repeat myself) created imaginary narrative that bears very very little resemblance to "reality" -- to the extent that exists in this TP, Davos, Deep / Administrative State, made to mislead the sheeple so they believe it is in their advantage to cede more and more of their power and critical thinking to the elites. So was "America" ever great? According to McCain's daughter, yes ...

When she fiercely declared that "the America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great," the generals, senators, former presidents and other world leaders who filled the pews burst into applause.

Really? BO now thinks that "America" was "always great"? Here he is in New Hampshire in 2008

We are ready to take this country in a fundamentally new direction. 

That's what's happening in America right now; change is what's happening in America.

You, all of you who are here tonight, all who put so much heart and soul and work into this campaign, you can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness.

"Fundamental new direction"  ... "out of a long political darkness" ... doesn't really sound like something a "great nation" would require. Michelle Obama was never proud of America until BO was elected -- but there she was, getting candies from W at a TP staged funeral where the elected president of the people who oppose TP was not invited!

The real honest TP answer to "Make America Great Again" is that "America was never great!" ... slavery, discrimination, not enough equality in income, not kind enough to the environment, too warlike, took the country from natives, etc  ... "The Party" (TP-D) since at least FDR has ALWAYS been about LOTS of "change" ... always in the direction of more government, more regulation, higher taxes, being more like Europe, restricting speech, less individual rights, less Christianity, etc.

Cuomo is taking some heat for stating the obvious TP position for some reason this week. Must be "America was always great" week for TP. 

Thinking people certainly understand the reality here. At the time of Nixon, the Deep / Administrative State plus the combined power of TP and the MSM became powerful enough to take down opposition that did not behave in a manner they found acceptable. **ALL** elected officials served at the pleasure of TP! Nixon was proof, that is why his impeachmet is maybe the greatest TP rememberance next to Roe! 

Reagan was an anomoly -- such a great man and such a great communicator, he was well into his 2nd term before TP was able to suitibly damage him. Even then, he destroyed one of TP's most powerful allies, the USSR, a crime for which they will always hate him. 

HW was a complete TP cutout -- heart of a RINO, former CIA director -- 4th branch Deep / Adminstrative State swamp creature from way back.  

Under Slick Willie, Newt Gingerich gained power by appealing to the Reagan / eventual Trump "real American" constituency -- people that thought that the 4th branch could be controlled and reduced, and people that believed that presidents of BOTH parties were under the law. TP proved again that it could protect it's own as it had with Teddy Kennedy  ... as it would do again and continues to do with Hillary Clinton. If you are a TP person with power, you are above the law, and if you are in opposition to TP, there are no lengths they will fail to go to in order to destroy you, your family and your friends! 

We now officially know that W, like his daddy and the whole Bush family was nothing but TP lite. 

BO was to be "The One", the culmination. He DID succeed in making it very clear that TP was in control. The Constitution was abandoned, the separation of powers was ignored, and the new rule of became "a pen and a phone". 

From the POV of TP and no doubt Meghan McCain, 1986-2016 were when "America" was "great", because it was really BOistan ... at least "in waiting". As Trump has made clear, from the start of 1986 when Iran Contra put Reagan in a box, up to 2017, TP has called the tune. RINOs faked being a "nice opposition" so that TP would not destroy them, and people that cared about tired old things like God, morality, Constitutions, limited government, laws that applied to all, etc were faked into thinking they still had some voice. 

McCain was the perfect RINO -- he loved to venemously attack semi-real Republicans in order to be honored by TP and it's spokesman the MSM. The years of "greatness" were the effective BOistan years from '86 - '16. Reagan had been kind enough to fix the economy so there was a lot of money for most of it, and then BO stole enough from the few remaining workers in BOistan and the future to at least make it seem "stable". Hey, "2%" of cooked numbers "growth" became what BOistanis accepted as "sustainable, realistic, environment friendly, psuedo growth". 

According to Politico in 2016, growth like 4% isn't even POSSIBLE any more, and back then, economic performance was apparently a lot of what they saw "greatness" to be. 

Yet that hasn’t stopped a bidding war of unrealistic promises, beginning with Jeb Bush’s claim that his economic proposals could raise U.S. annual GDP growth from 2.5 percent in 2015 and 2.4 percent in 2014 to 4 percent—a rate much higher than the rate under Obama (2.1 percent), George W. Bush (1.6 percent), Bill Clinton (3.7 percent), George H. W. Bush (2.0 percent), and Ronald Reagan (3.4 percent).

See, "2 something" (after juicing the number by 2-3% in 2015) is all the real experts say is possible. Get used to it you stupid sheeple! Pay no attention to that 4.2% 2Q 2018 ... hell, we may have even just had an ACTUAL 1-2% GDP growth since TP last took over the full reins in '06! 

TP's idea of "greatness" is no, or fake opposition. McCain and his band of fake RINOs were PERFECT! When BO was in power, TP was well down the road to jailing Christians for their religious beliefs and stamping out the speech of everyone who failed to bow to whatever TP declared to be "moral" -- all while McCain and his merry RINOs cheered them on! 1986 to 2016 were their "good old days", and they get especially misty eyed for '06-'16! 

If only Hildebeast was in the WH, Slick would be doing more than just enjoying a "look" at one of Ariana Grande's many good sides ... 

Note, while the media finds it very sad that Slick is appreciating her, I would not want to be subjected to such constant filming -- as I often say, I may be old, but I'm not dead ... there is actually nothing much more natural than a male noticing a pretty woman, especially when she has not wasted a lot of material in providing length to her skirt. I know, I know ... "women can wear WHATEVER they want, or very close to nothing, and in the modern world it is SICK for men to notice. OTOH, any male that doesn't CELEBRATE a gay kiss is ALSO "sick" ... it is just the world that we are told we live in.

It takes a good deal of effort to retain your memory and observe how we are all being fed a narrative with an agenda that is TOTALLY not your agenda if you are remotely Christian or conservative. This past week was a major climax in the TP story line  -- a new dead hero was created out of smoke and mirrors with  basically no connection to the actual man, nor the real times that he and we lived through. That is BOistan -- it is one big made for propaganda funhouse.

Will the "Reality TV" background of Trump allow him to survive and even thrive in this left leaning matrix? 

Perhaps, if more people take the Red Pill!