Crenshaw Future Of Republican Party

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/02/is-dan-crenshaw-the-future-of-the-gop-225257

Just go read the article, 

The weekend before the 2018 midterm elections, “Saturday Night Live” comedian Pete Davidson mocked Crenshaw’s physical appearance, saying the wounded veteran’s eye patch made him look like a “hitman in a porno movie.” When “SNL” invited Crenshaw on the show the next week, he agreed and, after ribbing Davidson, provided a rare moment of political unity. “Americans can forgive one another. We can remember what brings us together,” Crenshaw said, before telling viewers to “never forget the sacrifices of veterans past and present, and never forget those we lost on 9/11, heroes like Pete’s father,” a firefighter who died trying to save those trapped in the World Trade Center.

And while you are at it, read his book. 

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!

"Love Your Enemies", Aurthur Brooks

https://www.amazon.com/love-your-enemies-brooks/s?k=love+your+enemies+brooks

A worthy read for our times by an ex-professional orchestra french horn player, a current staunch Catholic intellectual, and outgoing president of AEI,

Aurthur's thesis is that our problem is "contempt", and that in sort of a self help way by looking at how contempt damages us personally, breaks our relationships and is toxic to our country, no rational person would continue to want to wallow in it.

He is right of course, however, even though he brings in the work of Jonathan Haidt (the innate moral virtues) in chapter 4, I question if he really has internalized (or maybe doesn't agree with) Haidt's thesis that we are not in fact "rational", but rather "rationalizing".

He says a few times a version of "Unless we hope to become a one-party state...we" 1) need to honor different viewpoints 2) can't afford contempt 3). require a healthy opposition ... etc.

My take on late 20 teen America is that half the country thought we WERE a defacto "one party state" as of 2008, with the Deep / Administrative State being totally locked, academia, the bulk of the media and media happily on board, topped off with  a demographic juggernaut of thoroughly indoctrinated left leaning youth and safety net addicted immigrants (legal and illegal)  insuring that the single-party lock was only going to get more solid.

Their response to Trump seems to be: 1). Impeach him 2). get rid of Electoral College / Senate power 3). Stack the SCOTUS  4). Collect all the guns in case the "deplorables" take offence to any of this. If they do accomplish those goals, we will have a one-party state, and I'm not so certain that a whole bunch of folks on the left don't find that to be a very good idea.

If not, then the advice in this book on learning to listen, the advantages of understanding "them", and "better disagreement" is excellent.

While there no doubt some right-wing extremists that unfriend, shun, etc, I've never met any. (just like the folks at CBS in NY in 1980 were shocked because they didn't know a single Reagan voter maybe). My sense is that Christians like Brooks and myself really just don't "get" how truly inhuman "Love Your Enemies" is -- we know it is hard, however we accept on faith that it is possible. My sense is that for many non-Christianw, this admonishment is akin to "Be a married bachelor" or "be a living dead person".

An oxymoron ... like "military intelligence'.

When one sees something as irrational to the point of being ridiculous, it seems unlikely they will seek to undertake the difficult task of embarking on the attempt.

Again, I hope I am wrong!

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!

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!

Standing Rock and Mars

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/11/when-did-nasa-go-to-pot.php

In these days of insanity it boggles the mind to try to figure out what is "real" vs "fake", and if even the supposedly "real" has any sort of relationship with actual reality vs the fake reality generated by "The Party" (TP-D) and the Adminstrative / Deep State which is a major part of it's power.

Here we have a NASA administrator talking about problems with going to Mars ...

Lucianne Walkowicz: I can’t give you an example of what a decolonized Mars looks like, but it starts by having multidisciplinary conversations about the things that happen here on Earth. I often give examples of Standing Rock as an Earth-based example of interests colliding, where you have indigenous people opposing a large-scale project that, much like space exploration, ...

Sadly the techical difficulties of Mars colinization are WAY bigger than the question of wether or not the Martians are going to set up a camp and protest. 

As Power Line pointed out, today's NASA  could not have gotten to the moon -- certainly not technically, and politically they would still be arguing over how to not offend the USSR, or appear "competitive".

BOistan has a LONG way to go before there is any danger of us being remotely "competitive" again. We will likely need at least 50 years of Congressional Republican dominance as TP had from the mid 1950's to 1994, plus some 70 vote majorities in the Senate and maybe a 3 term R president like FDR in order to destruct BOistan and get a start on rebuilding something like "America" -- to the extent anyone remembers what that even was!

I think the odds are pretty solid against it!

Less Important Politics, Less Political Violence

https://reason.com/archives/2018/10/30/make-politics-less-important?fbclid=IwAR2P70A5QtV_Z9JYiWUJLVMKC3r4wXl0UdmN8BQjlwg0MfPB-DCpKkmMVns

As the reach of government has grown ever larger, it's ability to have huge effects, both positive and negative on peoples lives has grown exponentially. Worse, government must be adminstered by HUMANS who are absolutely as capable of being self centered, tribal, greedy, vindictive, etc as anyone else -- and possibly more, since their work and personal lives are lived in massive beauracracies located in cities that are the seats of political power, thus very aware of the side in the "more or less government" debate.

As the article states ...

Officials can be vindictive creatures, eager to use the power of the state to penalize those whose lifestyles, economic activity, and political affiliations they dislike. Tax power was long ago turned to such misuse, probably because tax collectors had authority to intrude into people's lives before other government employees gained such clout. "My father may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution," Elliott Roosevelt observed of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Obama used "The Chicago Way"  ... "reward your friends, punish your enemies". This is ALWAYS one of the ways that people in power will operate -- and the more power we give them, the more it is worth fighting, up to and including violence to get "your side" in power!

Fake Manipulation

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/11/the-ultimate-fake-news.php

One of the reasons that we live in such a fractured and failed state is that "The Party" (TP-D) which consists of the MSM, the Administrative/Deep State, academia,  and of course the Democrats (but I repeat myself) can create "facts" out of nothing and convince near majorities that the fabrication is true!

And yet, two-thirds of Democrats say it is either “definitely true” (31%) or “probably true” (36%) that Russia tampered with vote tallies. Women are especially gullible; 48%, across all party lines, have fallen for this fake news. Sadly, 70% of blacks have bought it hook, line and sinker. The Northeast is the country’s most ignorant region, apparently: 47% of Northeasterners have fallen for the hoax. 

So the Democrats, by their constant hysteria and innuendo, have convinced a large majority of their followers, and 42% of all Americans, of a palpable falsehood that was fabricated in order to assure Hillary Clinton’s election and then, when that effort failed, perpetuated in an attempt to cripple President Trump’s administration.

As I've written on this before, two weeks prior to the 2016 election when it was all but certain that Hillary would win, BO himself assured us there were NO ISSUES AT ALL with any sort of "Russian Meddling", let alone modifications of vote totals.

If we had anything remotely close to even just a moderately biased media in this country, TP would be losing by double digits in all elections but those in the core inner city and richest counties. Sadly, what we have is truly the "Enemy of the People", #FAKEMEDIA!

The Morning After Off Year

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/11/first-reads.php

My first thought at looking at the results after wakeup is, "Wow, I'm proud to be an IA resident rather than a MN resident!". The Republicans in MN pretty much took a pure shellacking, including the excreable Keith Ellison ... "Hey, my first wife beat me, so I picked women I could beat after that!"

My hope and somewhat expectation is that 2 years of Pelosi, Nadler and Waters will invigorate the remaining Trump hold-outs in the R party + demotivate some more D's, and 2020 will have a shot to be a truly historical election.

Republicans haven't had a 60 vote advantage in the Senate since FDR, and the D's held the house for 50 years after FDR. FDR is what "poltical re-alingment" looks like. Reagan was a nothing in comparison POLITICALLY -- although his contribution to keeping the echos of "Real America" alive was HUGE.

This is still BOistan, and last night proved it. After Kavenaugh, the D's ought to have lost 80% of the races by double digits, as it is, what happened in the Senate shows that there are at least a few people that still believe in the Golden Rule -- Manchin voted for Kavenaugh and prevailed, while Donnelly, McCaskill, Nelson, and Heitkamp voted against him and lost.  In America, the Ford calumny would never have seen the light of day -- at least it didn't succeed in BOistan, and was not well received by a majority of people! In case you really think anyone "cared" about Ford on the left, it is often more important what you DON'T see them talking about! (Remember Roy Moore!)

While the Civil War, TJR, and Wilson all contributed to the end of America, the long slide from FDR through LBJ and then the BO cliff dropped us into the abyss of BOistan. It is going to be a LONG slog against huge odds the whole way if we are ever going to make it back. The only way we will ever do it is with a LOT of prayer and the Grace of God, in whom we must truly trust as a nation if we wish to be blessed again!

Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen

For the non-academic, "liberalism" here is classical liberalism -- individual rights (especially property), government at the consent of the people, and freedom of economic activity (often capitalism).

This book is so important I'm including a negative review -- from of all places, National Review!

Now, I am not sure the higher purpose that religion offers its adherents can ever be replaced by any other human enterprise. Nor do I discount religion’s positive contributions to the building of community, or to the development of our culture. I am just not convinced that there was ever a way for religiosity to have fully survived Charles Darwin. Even if secularization is in some ways undesirable, it is at least partly inevitable. Most of Europe, for one, has renounced Christianity. Deneen mourns the death of God, and understandably so, but as a political theorist in modern society he cannot just assume that the strength of organized religion can be easily regenerated. He must grapple with, rather than just complain about, the rise of secularism. And his inability to cope with it, ironically enough, serves to demonstrate the wisdom of liberalism — for part of liberalism’s genius is that its pluralistic capacity to foster freedom of association can incorporate atheists and people of faith into the same body politic.

And then a "less negative" review from David Brooks of the NY Times!

When your argument is that the only remaining "ism" after Communism, Socialism, and Fascism have failed many times is ALSO a failure, it is not all that surprising that pretty much everyone in the modern intellectual elite would have a lot of negative things to say about your thesis.

NR shows it's true colors by siding with godless atheism as a "value" of the liberal project, and Brooks vacuously points out that something so old can't possibly be wrong ...

Deneen’s book is valuable because it focuses on today’s central issue. The important debates now are not about policy. They are about the basic values and structures of our social order. Nonetheless, he is wrong. Liberal democracy has had a pretty good run for 300 years. If the problem were really in the roots, wouldn’t it have shown up before now?

I think if Brooks read just a little closer, even in his own review, he would see his problem ...

The problem, Deneen argues, started at the beginning. Greek and medieval philosophies valued liberty, but they understood that before a person could help govern society, he had to be able to govern himself. People had to be habituated in virtue by institutions they didn’t choose — family, religion, community, social norms.

  While liberalism was far from perfect in basic construction, the fact that up until maybe "1930 or 1940", "culture" at least in the US still involved the CULTIVATION (root of "culture") of the basic virtues of governing yourself as Buckley expertly pointed out in "God And Man at Yale". Unfortunately NR, founded by Buckley has obviously strayed from this key quote from that work ...

"The duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world, and the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level".

Without the transcendent foundation of Christianity, a country like what America was is impossible -- Buckley saw that in 1950, Reagan saw that in the '80s, and by 2008, such knowledge was all but gone -- which is why Rod Dreher outlines "The Benedict Option".

NR may find that Nietzsche was right and god is dead ... however, God doesn't agree, and that is far more important. Nietzsche is well dead, NR is showing definite signs. Evolution is MECHANISM -- it is a HOW, not a cause. To the extent it operates, it operates in a universe that it did not create, and it operates because of underlying principles in that universe that were not created by evolution.

If I write a program you like and you say, WAIT! You used C++! (a programming language, "mechanism"), therefore you do not exist! You would be using the same argument as "Darwin disproves God).

Whatever science "proves" (and it can only EVER prove by induction), the fact remains that for the vast majority of "common people", "the rank and file", Faith and Hope found in religion and family is the only way to a decent life in THIS world. For those of us that believe, the life in this world is only the preseason for the next, but for the purposes of this book, we are dealing with the here vs hereafter.

Shorn of the deepest ties to family (nuclear as well as extended), place, community, region, religion, and culture, and deeply shaped to believe that these forms of association are limits upon their autonomy, deracinated humans seek belonging and self-definition through the only legitimate form of organization remaining available to them: the state. Nisbet saw the rise of fascism and communism as the predictable consequence of the liberal attack upon smaller associations and communities.

("deracinate" -- remove from native environment and/or culture) Once both social and economic "liberalism" have "freed" you from all your "obligations" save to the State, you find that the State is never going to be able to love you or even "care" about you, since it MUST, (by definition) consider you a 100% interchangeable "citizen", "consumer", "taxpayer", etc. that is to be treated "equally".

Our “community” was now to consist of countless fellow humans who shared an abstract allegiance to a political entity that would assuage all of our loneliness, alienation, and isolation. It would provide for our wants and needs; all it asked in return was complete devotion to the state and the elimination of any allegiance to any other intermediary entity. 

Say that when you discover that you are completely alone with only a cold uncaring state as a constant companion, you decide to make some friends of your fellow "citizens". Remember the root of "culture" so gleefully fled and then destroyed was "cultivation" -- both you and they needed to have an actual culture to CULTIVATE what it means to be the sort of human that can have meaningful relationships with other humans.

These three cornerstones of human experience—nature, time and place—form the basis of culture, and liberalism’s success is premised upon their uprooting and replacement with facsimiles that bear the same names.

So now you realize that you truly NEED to relate to other HUMANS in order to live, but you find that both you and your peers are not humans of the sort that relate, but rather deracinated "individuals". The problem has cartoon simplicity!

Finally, we find we are really "all on the same side" to the extent we lost our transcendent faith. We are one big "liberal tribe" mistakenly thinking we are "left and right"! Each a generic greedy, self-centered consuming pure creature, shorn of anything "higher" than the self save the all encompassing state!

People who are “uncultivated” in the consumption of both food and sex, Aristotle observed, are the most vicious of creatures, literally consuming other humans to slake their base and untutored appetites. Far from being understood as opposites of human nature, customs and manners were understood to be derived from, governed by, and necessary to the realization of human nature. 

Since we are now mostly atomic individuals who are proud of **OURSELVES**, we choose our vaunted "identity" -- through what we consume, where we live, where we go to school, our sexuality, our degrees, our tats,  .... always our "own creation", or more accurately, the creation of a godless state and godless corporate marketing tricking us to the false belief of our "independence".

The book ends with the following ...

After a five hundred–year philosophical experiment that has now run its course, the way is clear to building anew and better. The greatest proof of human freedom today lies in our ability to imagine, and build, liberty after liberalism.

I STRONGLY recommend reading this fairly short work. Almost certainly it will make you uncomfortable no matter what your political, religious, or philisophical stripe. Which for me is one of the most important things a book can do -- because only through pain can there be growth!

The fact "both sides" hate it is an awfully good recommendation!

Trump Is An Average American

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-reason-they-hate-trump-1540148467?fbclid=IwAR1UqPJecmUHVDb8B_h0bcT8DJtWJ606oAIFVJ9y7SQFLybFW9BMR8Me5Ls

Great article, just go read it. In our hearts, we all know we are filthy rotten sinners -- the issue is usually just "about what explicitly". For the average joe, we have our vices, our bad language, we didn't do our homework or well in school, we might be lazy, etc; For the elites, we know we are snobs, we revel in our pride, yet secretly know how naked we are no matter our degrees, wealth, supposed sophistication. As Earnst Becker put it in "Denial of Death"...

“On the highest throne in the world, man sits on his arse. Usually this epigram makes people laugh because it seems to reclaim the world from artificial pride and snobbery and to bring things back to egalitarian values. But if we push the observation even further and say men sit not only on their arse, but over a warm and fuming pile of their own excrement - the joke is no longer funny. The tragedy of man’s dualism, his ludicrous situation, becomes too real.”

Here is a teaser from the article ... just go read it!

The difference between citizens who hate Mr. Trump and those who can live with him—whether they love or merely tolerate him—comes down to their views of the typical American: the farmer, factory hand, auto mechanic, machinist, teamster, shop owner, clerk, software engineer, infantryman, truck driver, housewife. The leftist intellectuals I know say they dislike such people insofar as they tend to be conservative Republicans.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama know their real sins. They know how appalling such people are, with their stupid guns and loathsome churches. They have no money or permanent grievances to make them interesting and no Twitter followers to speak of. They skip Davos every year and watch Fox News. Not even the very best has the dazzling brilliance of a Chuck Schumer, not to mention a Michelle Obama. In truth they are dumb as sheep.

In short, the elites seek to convince many "typical Americans", largely those who dearly want to be "moral" in the sense of "popular elite approval", that being "holier than Trump" is a great way to signal their "virtue". They may or may not be practicing Christians, and they may or may not have any understanding of what it means to be  "moral" in the sense of what the liveral elite tell them is "moral", but they feel that by claiming to hate Trump, they have some sort of "superiority".

The coastal elites and elite mainstream however have nothing but contempt for them anyway -- but naturally, they know if they can defeat "Trump", they are defeating the only remaining strain of what was "typical America" -- people that understood that the Constitution meant LIMITED government, not an all encomassing adminstrative or deep state.

To many who retain some allegiance to the America that was, it also meant family, community, and the worship of God who was MUCH higher than government -- and of course much much higher than Trump and all temporary holders of the imperfect position of President -- as BO, W, and Slick Willie were before him.

 And best of all, the article is by David Gelertner!

Spartacus Gay #METOO

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/10/whataboutmetoo.php

Rick Moran writes at PJ Media: “A gay man who describes himself as a liberal Democrat is accusing New Jersey Senator Cory Booker of sexually assaulting him in 2014…The man, who wishes to remain anonymous for now, penned a lengthy open letter that was posted on Twitter. In the letter he describes the assault that occurred in a bathroom following a meeting at his workplace, where the two met.” Moran links to the letter posted here on Twitter. As Moran puts it, the letter “goes into excruciating detail.”

"Justice" works in mysterious ways, especially if your version of "justice" relies on a belief that the accuser is always to be trusted and the accused is "guilty" unless they can somehow "prove" a negative!

I await the unlikely event of Booker being held to the same standard as Kavenaugh, Judge Moore, or others on the right.

The Liberal Mind

http://www.skepticaldoctor.com/2013/05/02/kenneth-minogues-the-liberal-mind-at-50-2/

I covered this fine where back in 2005 and and thankful that I've had the time to fill in some of my lost knowledge since then. If you follow the link above you will see that I've linked to yet another review of this fine work, one from the 50th anniversary of the book in 2013. The book is just a little younger than me.

The "liberalism" used here is Lockean liberalism -- government based on the consent of the people, AND, the individual being the "master of all things", AND, "representing political life as the struggle by which men make their society rational, just, and capable of affording opportunities for EVERYONE to develop his own potential", AND peace, tolerance, equality, "modern" ... essentially "utopia"!

"... Liberalism has come more and more to see politics simply as a technical activity like any other". In programming, we used to mutter after being treated to some grand vision by a high level manager or software "architect" that all that was left was a "small matter of programming" -- typically as in a millions of lines including some yet to be invented sleights of hand, but never mind, "the brilliant ones" had set our course!

The "engine" of liberalism is meliorism -- the faith that everything is "getting better every day, better in every way". Faith is faith, so things like the election of Trump can be a bit of test for the liberal meliorist faith, but never mind -- they will win the midterms, impeach Kavenaugh, Thomas, Trump and Pence, Pelosi will be president and they will appoint and approve 3 liberal judges, declare thoughts not aligned with the theirs to be Constitutional Treason, kill all those guilty of those thoughts and things will be perfrect from then on!

Think I'm joking? Page 134 ... The "real question" in liberal terms is "wether the social order actually serves our needs"?  Naturally of course it is THEIR "needs" which count, since they have defined themselves to be the most "moral".

Around 101 and 102 there is a good discussion of meliorism;

"Meliorism is, then, a way of discriminating between activities according to how effectively they produce rsults in which we happen to be interested. The various doctrines to which it gives rise are really tangental to meliorism itself; and at the center lies the metaphor of "building"."

I am reminded of Don Henley ...  wow, they have cracked down on at least SOME songs available on Youtube!

A little later on page 102 is "The conversion of a majority point of view into a monolithic one lies behind most versions of meliorism". Liberalsim -- "ideas so good they must be mandatory"!

In the age of mass marketing, "education" done by left wing unionists from K-MS and PHD along with total media control as well as "polling" that shows whatever you want the answer to be, just how hard is it for the dominant left culture to make a "point of view" a "majority one"???

Page 99 goes through the philosophical sleight of hand to turn virtually everything into a "human need" ... at least for "generic man", the object of all of liberalisms "goodness".

"A great mistake has been to imagine that an ideology consists of a set of answers to neutral questions, where in fact it consists in the questions!"

In many ways, liberalism is somewhat the "forbidden fruit" of Genisis. We have all sampled it -- we like the individual freedom to pursue our "happiness", and the idea of "equal opportunity" sounds "just". As in all things of this world, the devil is in the details. Eden, the promised land, utopia, shangrila, eldorado, etc always seem "just in our grasp" -- "if only".

I'll close with this quote from 178 ...

"Whenever men have in recent history attempted to snatch a political salvation, it is truth which has always been the first casualty, since, of all the causes of human turmoil, facts are the most obvious, and therefore first to be suppressed. The more we dream of utopia, the less we can bear to face our imperfections".

The Left Trusts Trump Supporters

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/10/trump-comes-to-rochester.php

My wife and I tried to get in to see Trump in Rochester Thursday night -- we didn't, but it was an amazing experience anyway. The BIG observation is that Black women, Muslim women and frail white women and men in pussy hats don't actually believe the nasty things they say about Trump supporters. Exhibit A ...

Would you go to N Minneapolis and walk around happy and confident with a sign reading "ALL Lives Matter! I Support the Police! ??? I wouldn't, because I would consider it to be provocation, and I would be unsurprised if the local residents responded violently. I actually would not blame them all that much -- I'm invading their turf with a provocotive message after all. 

The attitude of the leftist protestors last night was much like that of preschooler teasing a dog through a fence or poking some animal in a cage -- primitive, giddy, unserious, "it's a game and we know that we are safe". On one hand, I'm extremely proud of the Trump crowd -- as we all know, the odds that many of them are Christian are pretty high, and they fully displayed it as lefties waded out into the crowd yelling obscenities, showing signs with obscenities, and naturally belittleing the President any way they could. The media loves to report to us every time Trump "mocks somebody" -- right after which they do an article on how he is crazy, stupid, looks funny and is pretty much "Hitler". 

My mind goes back to the VERY moderate and reasoned Tea Party "demonstrators" (like the description hardly fits)  in 2010 -- specific messages like "Cut the Debt", "Smaller Government", "Follow the Constitution", etc, No profanity, virtually nothing about Obama beyond maybe "We DID build this!", or "Bitterly and HAPPILY Clinging to Bible and guns!". Naturally, the Tea Party was maligned as RACIST ... and sexist, homophobic, backward, stupid white men, DANGEROUS!, etc. 

We have become tribal, but it is obvious that our tribes are very much not "the same"!

How crazy and violent will the left need to get before they awake the sleeping giant of the right? Standing in the MASSIVE crowd trying to get in to see Trump last night, I'm wondering if they have not already accomplished their task? 

Certainly we all now know that the left has no interest in such arcane morality as "The Golden Rule" --  nobody would want what has been done to Kavenaugh and his family done to them or those they love. We can of course never know "for sure" what happened between two people 35 years ago, but we CERTAINLY know WHY what has happened to Kavenaugh NOW has happened! Ford decided that she wanted to smear Kavenaugh and prevent him from gaining the SCOTUS! Wether it is made up out of completely whole cloth, or she saw him "behaving badly" (in her judgement) at some party once, or exactly what, we can't know -- but since nobody corroborates her story, reasonable people must conclude that what she says happened did not -- at least if "reasonable people" assumes the presumption of innocence. If it doesn't, then "reason" really doesn't mean much. 

Certainly anyone with some semblance of "reason" remaining understands that when you go up against "The Party" (TP-D), there is no presumption of innocence and the burden of proof is on whomever is not of the party. It is also important to know that even if whatever infraction you are accused of -- say a remark, or a look deemed to be sexist, racist, homophobic, etc, there is absolutely NO REDEMPTION. If you are a member of TP in good standing, any "infractions" are unlikely to even be of interest (Ted Kennedy, Slick Willie, Hildebeast, BO, etc) however if there is ANY interest, time redeems TP members in a matter of weeks. 

For example ... 

Oh, and if they call you a "rapist", any response on your part means you "lack judical temprament"! Oh please! 

Cultural Twilight

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/30/epitaph-for-a-dying-culture/

A great one be Victor Davis Hason, better to just read it than my weak musings.

So everything from Facebook and Twitter censorship to politically recalibrating the order of Google searches serves the larger collective “good.” Even ancient ideas of wealth and poverty fade before our current ideology. If riches are used for social change, even if cynically and for careerist and self-interested reasons, then how they were obtained or otherwise used is irrelevant; if not, then they are proof of greed in their acquisition. Multibillionaire George Soros might be a wanted felon in France or have attempted to break the Bank of England and thereby ruin small depositors. But his wealth is welcomed because he invests a small percentage of it in progressive causes and thereby purchases his own progressive insurance and protection. As did the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages of yore, the Progressive Church now sells indulgences.

Man never lives by bread alone -- he always lives by faith, the question is just "in what"? The reason is that Christ's yoke is light is that besides being Divine and loaded with Grace, it is "not of this world". Taking on the yoke of Christ puts this world in it's right perspective -- temporal, passing away, and certainly passing away QUICKLY for us all, easily seen by those of us over 60!

Your faith, your religion -- or ideology permeates your life. If it is of this world, then you will merely be tribal as man has been and continues to be since his createion. "Progressiveism" is the secular church, and as we see in the Kavenaough hearings, it permeates our culture making largely bad men like Teddy Kennedy, George Soros or Bill Clinton, to be "good" in the eyes of the left, while making me like Kavenaugh, Clarence Thomas, or even W and HW Bush to be "bad" because the left requires it.

Much better to just read it and likely weep a little. America is long gone because as Hanson covers, culture trumps politics. Our dominant culture is totally of the BOistani tribe.

#COUNTMEOUT!

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/thoughts-from-the-ammo-line-240.php

Just go read it -- she is open, honest, forthright, and RIGHT!

The Burden Of Tribal Proof

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/571021/?__twitter_impression=true

The linked article continues the thread covered here, how the "burden of proof" in BOistan has completely shifted for those who are not members of "The Party" (TP-D). When you are not a member of TP in good standing, you are presumed guilty.

The most basic fact of humanity is that we are ALL guilty of original sin at a minium, a cosmic failure worthy of an eternal death sentance without the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. Dealing with this problem which we all share determines the fate of our eternal soul -- it is a problem that really will still matter to us in 100 years, a 1000 years, or 10¹⁰⁰ (a "google").

For earthy charges made from one sinner to another, the burden of proof has always been on the accuser since ancient times for obvious reasons. Proving a negative is notoriously hard -- PROVE that Earth has never been visited by aliens from space. Prove that you never did "x". Much like the right of self-defense, it is a basic human right.

Until the advent of BOistan that is! -- now the burden of proof is on the accused, and it is proudly trumpeted from the headlines of mainstream news rather than some backwater of internet fever swamps or academia.

Is BOistan Kennedy's "America"?

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/reflections-on-the-devolution.php

A worthy read that pegs the devolution of America into BOistan to the Bork hearings in July of '87. I agree this is a key event, however as I cover here I think Chappaqiddick is an even better point of inflection. Teddy's Bork rhetoric however still bears repeating as a lesson in rhetorical malpractice ....

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….

They didn't try their hand, but I will ...

BOistan is largely Teddy Kennedy's America. A land in which 60 million babies have been slaughtered and when deemed "inconvenient", their body parts sold to the highest bidder over wine and salad. The doors of conservatives homes are battered down in the early morning hours, children as young as kindergarten are schooled in anal sex, bakers and florists are charged with crimes for failing to perform their craft for political adversaries, simple speech is labeled "hate speech" and criminalized, even universities are no longer able to have even civil dialogue on political subjects, and the judiciary has become a politicized mockery always leaning to to the left, a scourge of the rights of any who fail to agree with "The Party" (TP-D).

Teddy predicted -- I report.

The Liberal Mind on ATVs

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/01/20/editorial-ban-atvs-iowa-roads/79064158/

I'm re-reading the excellent work "The Liberal Mind" by Kenneth Minogue and plan to blog on it later. I originally read it in 2000 before I started blogging my books. The book is very academic / intellectual and points out that the roots of "liberalism" contain the strain of "libertarianism", and the book documents how the desire for "total agreement" has trumped the libertarian  strain over the years.

I ran into thos column while looking up the rules for riding UTVs on roads in IA and found it to be an excellent example of the liberal mind.

The modern liberal mind is often described as "ideas so good they must be mandatory!". On issues of "safety", "liberals" have long ago decided that they know better than any individual what trade-offs ought to be made in order for one to be made as safe as "liberals" deem ought be required.

From seat belts, air bags and a chorus of warning gongs and lights in our cars, motorcycle helmet laws, gas cans that don't pour, packages that don't open and various attempts to restrict fireworks to disallow even the lowly sparkler, "liberals" have our best interests in mind, and THEY know what those interests are FAR better than we do! In fact, they use the force of law to make CERTAIN that we follow their wishes, lest they be forced to fine or jail us "for our own good".

The linked article is fairly standard fare -- there are a bunch of ATVs/UTVs out there, people want to drive them on the highway, they aren't as safe as cars, CHILDREN might be hurt, THEREFORE, ban the them from the road! Simple.

As is pointed out in some detail in "Coddling", life is actually about more than "safety". Is it better to die in a recreational accident at 14 or commit suicide at 24? Obviously, we are thankfully talking about relatively small numbers for ATV/UTV deaths  ... order 500 deaths per year  ... for suicide, the numbers are not so small -- suicide deaths are order 45K a year and rising. What we are beginning to understand is that some level of risk taking may well be at least a near requirement for a worthwhile human life -- apparently sitting in your bedroom with a cell phone and a video game console, while "safe", is actually not actually "a life". Churchill said that "there is nothing quite so exhilerating as being shot at without effect". It may well be that without some actaul (NOT "imagined") exhilerating danger in life, either our spirit or our brains are tragically stunted.

The Iowa House of Representatives sided with the industry, approving the bill on a vote of 75-22. Thankfully, Democrats in the Iowa Senate believed the health and safety of Iowans was more important than the profits of ATV dealers and put a stop to the legislation. But that action did nothing with regard to county roads, which is why counties continue to pass ordinances allowing ATVs on their roads. 

State legislators should ban ATVs from public roads, and while they’re at it, they should take a hard look at the existing state law on age limits. Today in Iowa, a child of any age can drive an all-terrain vehicle of any size on private property, without regard to training, certification or parental supervision. That’s a prescription for disaster.

Letting people decide what their children are capable of doing on their own private property is "a prescription for disaster" in the liberal mind. Only the Nanny State may decide what is "good" and "prudent" in the liberal state. What they totally fail to understand is that "life" is not equivalent to "safety". One of the old benefits of Christian Faith was the idea that this mortal coil was only a prelude to a greater life to follow. It was a life to be LIVED in gratitude and joy, NOT a life to be hidden away by like the man that hid the talent in the parable of the talents (Matt 25 14:30).

"Liberals" have a remarkable tendency to destroy all they touch -- as the suicide rate climbs we have excellent evidence that they have succeeded in destroying the joy in life itself!

Do Unto Kavenaugh

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/17/what-should-the-senate-do-with-brett-kavanaugh-219985

The most interesting thing about reading the linked article  is the utter predictability of responses from legal scholars of the left and right. In BOistan, NOTHING is more imprtant than one's political worldview, because in the absence of belief in a transcendent authority (God) -- all is politics, and there is CLEARLY no morality in politics. Obviously, the "rule of law" isn't any substitute for God at all -- even the top legal scholars simply twist "the law" to be what they want it to be.

The immediately obvious thing about the loss of God in this case is the loss of the "Golden Rule". I'm guessing that some people still recall it, though in this tribal state, rarely if ever apply it. The best place to read the basis for it is Matt 22:37- 39 Jesus declared, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.This is the greatest commandment, And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

These two verses get summarized in Matt 7:12 even more succinctly: "Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets." The "Golden Rule".

We all understand that when seeking a job, we would be completely aghast for someone to come out with a charge against us that they had never brought to our attention in 35 years.  When nobody else agrees with the accusers version of events  (of the 5 people supposedly at the party, none except the accuser says what was charged happened at all) .

In decent society for thousands of years we also understood how to deal with a sin against us. If possible, GO TO THE PERSON, if not, got to "authority" -- QUICKLY, because if this is really a serious matter, other young women might be harmed. When you fail to do this for "weeks, months, or ...", especially when you are talking about a 17 year old boy who is exceedingly well known, you make your charge under no threat of reprisal. We are not talking about the town tough who is going to be sure "you get yours", because he is certain he has no future anyway. Failure to come forward drops your credibility with each passing day. LONG before "35 years", your credibility is gone.

So what of "the woman"?  Given the amount of time, the fact that supposed corroborators swear under oath that what she claims did not happen, 65 women and many others coming forward to vouch for the character of the man she seeks to destroy, and the obvious politically motivated climate she came forward in, her credibility is ZERO.

Perhaps she was attacked when young once or multiple times and imagines that Kavenaugh was one of those attackers, or perhaps she only observed Anita Hill ($9 million net worth), and decided that she too could be a heroine to the left for a price. Women trading virtue for rewards is the oldest proffesion after all. In a world where honor and wealth are attached to calmuny, this is certainly well within the grasp of understanding. When there is no other world to come, the taking of easy wealth and fame in this one actually makes total sense. What would be against it? Morality? What a joke.

A country with even a hint of what used to be called "decency" would make certain that every Democrat up for election in November lost by historically unprecedented margins. If we were were a moral and religious people, that would be the certain case. As John Adams said,  "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other".

Clearly we are NOT that people, and since that state was founded on IDEAS, not territory, religion, ethnicity, etc, -- this is more proof that this is BOistan, not America. BOistan is in the process of development -- and as we see from Clarence Thomas and now Kavenaugh, it is not a good place to live if you are not a member in good standing of "The Party" (TP-D). On the TP plantation, you-uns gotta lay LOW if you don't kneel at the alter of the left.

As the charges against Kavenaugh show, liberty can't survive in such an environment because liberty requires the potential of leadership for people of more than one political stripe. We can run down a short list of men of the left NOT destroyed by charges significantly worse than this one even in the unlikely event that what the accuser says has any truth -- Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton are only the head of a sordid list from the left.

On the right? Well, Roy Moore is the most recent example of 35-40 year old "charges" being used to take him down. As I covered here, the Stupid Party (R) is reaping what they sowed. Now Kavenaugh. As the last entry in the linked article says ...

Ford, Kavanaugh’s accuser, maintained a stony silence on these allegations for more than 35 years. At no point did she raise them in connection with the Senate confirmation hearings before Kavanaugh was confirmed in 2006. Kavanaugh has categorically denied the allegations. Late last week, Mark Judge, his alleged accomplice, denounced the allegations as “absolutely nuts.” No other woman has ever made any allegation of this sort against Kavanaugh. and 65 women have written an explicit letter in his defense. Kavanaugh is right not to respond beyond his categorical denial, knowing full well that further comment would only draw him further into a vortex on which credibility determinations would be unending. And the Senate is right to continue with the confirmation vote. The institutional damage to the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the nation has already been enormous. What is left now is only the sorry task of damage containment. What sane judge would like to be the next Supreme Court nominee.

The author of that last piece (the best in the bunch) leaves out the obvious "What sane NON LEFTIST judge ...". The BO istan political buzzsaw really only cuts in one direction, and if you are willing to accept a nomination to a position which the left wants to block you from, not only will they try to block you, they will try to remove you from your CURRENT position -- unless you are a member in good standing of TP (The Party - D), it is best to keep your head down!

This nomination process cannot continue as it was before these grave and credible allegations became known. That would be a slap in the face to women and survivors of sexual assault everywhere. The question isn’t only whether Brett Kavanaugh can still be a Supreme Court justice; it’s whether he can still be a federal judge.