Jul 09 2021

Diseases And Cures

     Informal conversation, and most writing, tend to be casual about the exact meanings of words. That doesn’t mean the words we use don’t have exact meanings. Moreover, those meanings are more important than most people are aware.

     For example: What is a disease? Could you define the word intensively, with confidence that your definition could resist attempts to distort it? Most people couldn’t do so.

     Here’s what dictionary.com has as the primary definition of disease:

     a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors.

     At the very least, it seems a disease must do something to the affected person that’s bad for him. It could be temporary or permanent, but it must involve a degradation of some bodily function. Depending on the severity and persistence of that degradation, we arrive at assessments of diseases as more or less serious. Cancer is generally deemed very serious. The common cold is less so, for obvious reasons.

     Now, consider the category of microbial “infections” that do not involve a degradation of function. There are many such: all the microorganisms that reside in a healthy human body, for starters. The word disease would hardly apply to such infections, would it? Especially the ones the intestines can’t function without. So not all infections are diseases.

     This leads us to consideration of the word cure. Again, here’s dictionary.com:

  1. a means of healing or restoring to health; remedy.
  2. a method or course of remedial treatment, as for disease.

     From this we must conclude that if X is a cure for disease Y, then:

  1. Either X reverses Y’s degradation of function;
  2. Or X purges the disease agent – i.e., whatever caused disease Y – from the body so that the body’s own healing mechanisms can repair it.

     This leaves open the possibility that X has undesirable side effects. As “No action is without side effects” (Barry Commoner), we must remain alert to the possibility that X’s side effects will result in a more severe degradation of the patient than the disease X is intended to cure – i.e., that “the cure is worse than the disease.”

***

     There are several well-known jibes about cures that are worse than their associated diseases. Larry Niven made use of one in his novel Ringworld:

     Louis saw it happen. The puppeteer charged into an intersection, one head held high, one low. The high head was suddenly loose and rolling, bouncing. Nessus stopped, turned, then stood still.
     His neck ended in a flat stump, and the stump was pumping blood as red as Louis’ own.
     Nessus wailed, a high, mournful sound.
     The natives had trapped him with shadow square wire.
     Louis was two hundred years old. He had lost friends before this. He continued to fight, his light-sword following his eyes almost by reflex. Poor Nessus. But it could be me next….
     The natives had fallen back. Their losses must have been terrifying from their own viewpoint.
     Teela stared at the dying puppeteer, her eyes very big, her knuckles pressed against her teeth. Speaker and Seeker were edging back toward the Improbable–
     Wait a minute. He’s got a spare!
     Louis ran at the puppeteer. As he passed Speaker, the kzin snatched the flashlight-laser from him. Louis ducked to avoid the wire trap, stayed low, and used a shoulder block to knock Nessus on his side. It had seemed that the puppeteer was about to start panic running.
     Louis pinned the puppeteer and fumbled for a belt.
     He wasn’t wearing a belt.
     But he had to have a belt!
     And Teela handed him her scarf!
     Louis snatched it, looped it, dropped it over the puppeteer’s severed neck. Nessus had been staring in horror at the stump, at the blood pumping from the single carotid artery. Now he raised his eye to Louis’s face; and the eye closed, and he fainted.
     Louis pulled the knot tight. Teela’s scarf constricted and closed the single artery, two major veins, the larynx, the gullet, everything.
     You tied a tourniquet around his neck, doctor? But the blood had stopped.

     Now, injured party Nessus in the above isn’t human. He’s a “Pierson’s puppeteer,” a non-humaniform sentient whose brain is not in his heads. A puppeteer’s heads are organs of sensation, communication, and manipulation. So a tourniquet around the neck is just fine for stanching Nessus’s potentially fatal bleeding. In Nessus’s case, the cure is not worse than the disease. But for a human…!

     We don’t treat a bloody nose by amputating the head, either.

***

     Now concerning the Wuhan Virus / Chinese Lung Rot / Kung Flu / COVID-19: the vaccines being distributed are not being touted as cures but as preventatives. At least that’s how they’re billed. But they don’t seem to prevent infection by the virus or transmission of the virus. Indeed, there are even some reports of persons who have recovered from COVID-19 infections, and have thereafter been vaccinated for it, but have then been reinfected. That’s poor performance by the standards that usually apply to contemporary vaccines.

     But wait: there’s more! The vaccines have side effects of their own…and one of them is death. At this time nearly 7000 vaccinated persons, nominally healthy at the time of their vaccinations, have died shortly thereafter, with the vaccine itself as the most probable proximate cause. Of course, the vaccine makers and promoters would prefer not to discuss that minor matter, but…

     A “cure” that might kill the patient is rather hard to sell to the majority of healthy Americans, at least if the disease itself isn’t normally fatal. As the COVID-19 virus is non-lethal at least 99.8% of the time, and the overwhelming majority of fatalities have been persons with one or more serious “co-morbidities,” the vaccine seems more of a crapshoot than the infection itself.

     Add to the above that:

  1. It is possible that the majority of COVID-19 infections are wholly asymptomatic;
  2. There are cheap and reliable palliatives for the symptoms of COVID-19 infection, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin being the best known and verified;

     Suddenly the vaccines don’t sound attractive to a normal, reasonable man.

***

     The Sturm und Drang over COVID-19 has been constant for more than a year. It’s been used:

  1. to isolate us from one another;
  2. to force us into face masks and “social distancing;”
  3. to suspend religious services, entertainment spectacles, and the majority of public gatherings;
  4. to close businesses and cripple the American economy;
  5. and to put millions out of work.

     All this, for a disease that’s frequently asymptomatic, is dangerous mainly to the already seriously ill, and can be cured or endured with cheap, readily available drugs with known, very mild side effects. Is it not superb!

     But what has the Usurper Regime had to say about this? Oh, not much:

     Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday it was “absolutely the government’s business” to know which Americans haven’t been vaccinated yet against the coronavirus.

     Responding to GOP criticisms of the Biden administration’s planned “door-to-door” campaign to encourage unvaccinated Americans to inoculate themselves, Becerra told CNN the government has had to “spend trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic.”

     “So it is absolutely the government’s business, it is taxpayers’ business, if we have to continue to spend money to try to keep people from contracting COVID and helping reopen the economy,” he said.

     Becerra doesn’t seem to be aware of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, but then, what else would we expect of a member of the Usurper Regime? At any rate, he has backers in the Main Stream Media who are equally unaware of it:

     It is time to impose vaccine mandates and passports. The Covid-19 vaccines continue to perform extraordinarily well, but the rate of infection is worsening in unvaccinated populations. The Delta variant is offering a sobering reminder that the pandemic has faded in much of the country but certainly not ended.

     Both political parties have made the mistake of framing vaccines within the tradition of individualism. Even President Joe Biden, who has demonstrated his comfort with a muscular role for government, keeps appealing to individuals to make the right and patriotic choice when it comes to receiving their jabs.

     Governors are imploring residents of their states to vaccinate soon. For many, the goal has been to keep making it as easy as possible for persons to have quick access without being too overtly pushy. Incentives, from multimillion-dollar lotteries to baseball tickets to a shot and a beer, have all been thrown in as part of the package. The message has been that the government will keep making vaccines as easy, accessible and attractive as possible.

     It’s not enough. Easy, accessible and attractive are important; nobody should face barriers toward receiving vaccines. But citizens must also not see this as an optional inoculation.

     Biden and other political leaders need to start thinking about the good of the collective and not just the rights of the individual. Doing so is not some sort of move toward socialism, as conservative critics inevitably argue. Thinking of the common good is as American as apple pie.

     Anything to expand the Omnipotent State’s powers over us peons, eh, Mr. Zelizer? Once again, this is only what we’d expect from a Regime bootlicker. Still, you’d think that CNN would want its “political analyst” to be more conversant with the Supreme Law of the Land, wouldn’t you?

     If I might recontextualize a quote from longtime favorite Ragin’ Dave, the Bidenista doorknockers had better be wearing Level IV plates.

***

     I’d say that’s about it for today, Gentle Reader. The rain and wind are very severe at the moment – Tropical Storm Elsa has come to town – and I’m running around looking for leaks. Do try to have a nice day, and remember: it’s legal throughout the country to refuse to answer the door…or to answer it with a loaded shotgun at port arms.

     Ah, life in the Land of the Formerly Free!

Jul 09 2021

Chiming In

I’ve been out of town, in Ohio. We’re in the process of looking for a house (both depressing, and something I’m getting better at).
As a result, I’ve been largely out of touch with events and commentary. This morning is the first time I’ve had to just read. I’m reading Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. It’s quite engrossing, and I’m reluctant to put it down to get other things done. The main character is a teacher turned astronaut, and, what Weir has managed to pull off it that his protagonist acts and thinks like a teacher. Hard for non-teachers to do.

I’ll be heading back home by Sunday night. I have a virtual course for the next 4 days, so I’ll still be busy. But, maybe less so.

Jul 08 2021

For The Masculine Readers Of Liberty’s Torch

     Has a woman ever betrayed you?
     Has a woman you’ve cherished abandoned you?
     Do you live with the inability to trust to this very day?
     Then this is for you:

     They think we do not value them.
     They think their bodies are all that matter to us.
     They think they’re our superiors – because they feel so deeply!

     They are fools without a clue.

     But do have a nice evening.

Jul 08 2021

Unsettling Connections

In my youth I loved the PBS show Connections, and subsequently Connections 2 and Connections 3, all hosted by James Burke.  Thanks to prompts and an emphasis on education by my parents, plus a (cough) rather high IQ, I became someone who often could see disparate things and put them together into patterns to understand the larger tapestry far sooner than most.  Admittedly, this is an imperfect science and I do not claim infallibility, but I’ve been told, as one example at a place where I worked, that I was “easily the most intelligent person who ever worked there…”  Parenthetically, that same person then added “and that scares a lot of people”! It may amuse the casual reader to note that I made a prediction / recommendation about aligning the design and manufacturing of the product line… something dismissed as mere fantasy when I was there. It was, perhaps, 3-4 years later when a friend who still worked there told me that what I said needed to happen, a statement that was utterly derided as impossible when I said it, was slowly happening as an explicitly-stated business need. (Did I get credit? HA, don’t make me laugh.)

—–

DOOR TO DOOR

So a month or three ago I was talking to a fellow congregant, politically conservative, and also a Jab skeptic.  He mentioned a book, IBM and the Holocaust, which I have bought and is stacked on my to-be-read shelf – time being at a premium especially with the younglings on summer vacation.  In his description of the book he mentioned how the Nazis, in preparation to round up people who were Jewish, would have door-to-door surveys, again and again, to identify who would later be put onto boxcars.

And, of course, being good Germans and all “Twenty Niners” (coined here), they’d comply.  Time and again, survey after survey, people would admit to being Jewish.  So when the time came, they had been tagged multiple times. Easy pickings.

—–

—–

So now the FICUS – well, more precisely his handlers and puppeteers – seek to have a Covid Corps going door to door to preach the Jab gospel lest some rube/hick/redneck not have been enlightened to take what is increasingly looking to be a vastly dangerous injection to “prevent” what is increasingly looking like a deliberately-engineered bioweapon; ‘Uniquely Designed to Attack Humans’: Stunned Researchers Accidentally Discover Covid-19 is a Man-Made Abomination:

Unlike anything that could have developed over time in nature and jumped to humans, Covid-19 demonstrates a unique design that was intended to attack humans specifically. This is, of course, impossible if one were to believe everything (anything) the Chinese Communist Party has said about the coronavirus. But considering all the evidence is pointing to the theory that Covid-19 was artificially produced through gain-of-function research as either a way to develop defenses against biological weapons or a biological weapon itself, we should heed this report’s findings.

—–

WHEN THEY COME…

Record the interaction.  This is on your property.  Record it; you are entitled to.  Be polite, don’t be confrontational – because they’re going to record and report that you’re confrontational.  Don’t deny anything, don’t offer or volunteer anything.  Just take their literature and say thank you. Make sure to get their name, and take a picture of them and their ID.

What will be interesting and IMHO actionable is if they know you have not taken it.  That sounds like a yuuuuuge HIPPA lawsuit right there. 

And some musings…

  • Are these people being deputized?  It is currently a crime, which has caught many, to lie to an agent of federal law enforcement – will that apply here? (Being the paranoid sort that I am, watch for the group having 2-3 people, with one being the “silent one” – I’ll opine that if they do this, they’re the one who is looking to catch you in a lie.)
  • What if they DO come to your door knowing whether you’ve been Jabbed or not?  Who authorized that knowledge transfer to – ostensibly – a civilian untrailed in HIPPA rules?

Many imponderables.  Incidentally, some useful – and I assume law-founded – advice here. It might also be worthwhile, IMHO, to brush up on a common-in-Islam mental evasion. Hey, good enough for the Left’s Islamic allies, good enough for us, right?

—–

—–

JEW SENSE?

From GunFreeZone comes this great quote:

My Jew-sense starts to tingle when politicians talk about going door-to-door to look for people not in compliance with government edicts.

Mine as well.  But what’s truly frightening to me is that when you raise the alarm, the refrain is the same:

But this is America… that can’t happen here.

From the same essay about Good Germans / “Twenty Niners” I cited above I reprise a video and my transcribed quote:

Note the man, starting at 7:41, who recounts asking his mother about Hitler (my transcription, bolding added):

“…my mother who, when I asked her if we had to worry about a guy like Hitler, she said: ‘No, we are living in a Democracy, we have the protection of the police, nobody is going to hurt us’, so talk about warning signs there were plenty of them.  Did we take them serious, my family didn’t, never believed the Germans would stoop so low they would implement the threats one fanatic uttered…”. 

One of the things I have hammered on for decades now is the number one lesson of the Shoah (Holocaust): That such a thing can happen at all, and if it happened once it can happen again. Yes, there have been genocides and far larger. But none were done with such deliberate and mechanical intent, and none “just because”. The Holodomor and the associated starvation of others including my wife’s ethnic group, the Chinese, Cambodia, Rwanda, Venezuela, Cuba… all were done to advance an ideology, and/or to gain land / property, etc. The Shoah was done simply to kill off a group of people who were, ostensibly, well-assimilated members of German (and then more broadly European) society.

—–

JSUAEI

From an episode of the great sci-fi TV series Babylon 5: “Just shut up and eat it”.  Now we have “Just shut up and take it”; CNN: It’s Time To Make COVID Vaccinations Mandatory.  An embedded quote (bolding added):

Biden and other political leaders need to start thinking about the good of the collective and not just the rights of the individual. Doing so is not some sort of move toward socialism, as conservative critics inevitably argue. Thinking of the common good is as American as apple pie

And notice the spin, saying the common good is the highest priority and a fundamental American value.

No.

Either the individual is sovereign or The State is.  And if The State is the highest good, then that is a functional definition of Socialism over Individualism. And while individuals can, voluntarily, subsume their interests to the collective, the key word to this is voluntary.

But never mind that the technology is proving harmful to people, especially young males.  Never mind that it is still experimental, and thus compulsory Jabs are violations of the Nuremberg Code:

—–

—–

Just shut up and take it.  For the common good.

No.  Gonna be an awful lot of people surprised when people refuse to obey, and resist BAMN.  Surprised… and furious that their anointed intellect good intentions are being rejected.

—–

—–

That fury at their suuuuper-genius good intentions being denied, plus the oft-discussed scariants arising and being blamed on the unJabbed, will not end well.

And the door to door surveys are the groundwork, just as the surveys in Germany – helped by IBM – were keys to the Shoah.  And anyone who rejects the Church of the Covidian will be the heretic. Heretics don’t fare well against an aggressive state religion.  Arm up.  Spicy time is coming; they’re gathering names. And the oppression and murder will – citing CS Lewis’ famous quote – be done with the approval of their own consciences.

—–

—–

>>>>>=== ADDED ===<<<<<

—–

A friend of mine sent me an Epoch Times piece (paywall, sorry, but quote excerpted below) with a compare-and-contrast thought.  On one hand, you have HHS Secretary Becerra stating, explicitly, that the government has the right to know who has had The Jab because it’s spent trillions (bolding added):

HHS’ @XavierBecerra on Biden’s controversial door-to-door vaccination program: “The federal government has spent trillions of dollars to keep Americans alive during this pandemic. So it is absolutely the government’s business” to know if you’ve been vaccinated.”

Then you have Spokes-spewer Psaki coming out to say soon after (from the Epoch Times):

“The federal government does not have a database of who has been vaccinated… we don’t maintain a database along those lines.  And we have no plans to.”

Note two things.

First, Islamic-level mental evasion (see Bill Warner’s video, above):  The federal government doesn’t have one explicitly dedicated to this, have plans to, etc.  That doesn’t mean there isn’t one… it just means, taking her statement at face value, that it’s not government-owned, or that it’s specific to this purpose.  Just like Fraudci wasn’t having virus gain-of-function done in the US, or funded by the US… they gave a “grant” to a private agency and then that agency funded the Wuhan lab.

But second, when I saw those polar opposite statements, a statement followed by a quick and precisely-worded denial, this famous quote came to mind:

—–

—–

They’ll know one way or another, and if you refuse – in the best-case scenario – you will be a second-class citizen in your own country. At worst, they’ll force the issue like already happening overseas, e.g., New Zealand. See the cartoon at the link.

Parenthetical aside: I had lunch with a former coworker a few weeks back. He’s gotten more and more religious, at least contextually from conversations… he and multiple others have all, independently, mentioned END TIMES. What happens in Revelations?

And the second beast required all people small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark … so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark.

And I noted on a two-part post on my old blog that in Judaism, one of the signs the Mosiach is coming is that the land will get greener (he shall come riding on a donkey’s ass – and donkey dung is fertilizer) as related by my Orthodox friend as we planted trees our last trip in Israel… and that a conversation with a Muslim on a business trip (the poor woman sitting between us!) revealed that the Islamic end times were coming when Mecca becomes green and, I’m taking his word for both the prophecy and claim but he came across as sincere, the city is doing so.

Jul 08 2021

The Petty And Mealymouthed We Will Always Have With Us

     First, please read this article:

     Hobby Lobby is embroiled in another controversy after running a full-page advertisement in numerous newspapers throughout the United States on July 4 that appeared to advocate for a Christian-run government.

     The arts and crafts giant’s ad, which ran in newspapers on Independence Day included the Bible verse “Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord,” was titled “One Nation Under God” — the ad posted about its campaign on its social media pages.

     The ad in question assembles a number of quotes from historically important Americans and institutions. All the quotes can be easily researched, and are accurate presentations of what their sources said or wrote. Of course, the militant atheists were immediately up in arms that a private company should dare to run an ad that appears to promote Christianity, Christian values, and Christians in high office. That was to be expected…but soft! What have we here?

     Mr. Weissman doesn’t seem terribly bright. The Constitution doesn’t forbid any private citizen or organization to have a position on religion or religious values in government. But sadly, there are a lot of people badly deluded about what the Constitution says.

     If there is any identifiable people – whether identifiable by race, creed, or national origin – that should be grateful that America is a majority-Christian country, founded by men who shared Christianity’s ideals, it’s the Jewish people. If you know an American Jew who shares David Weissman’s attitude, ask him the following question assuming you can do so safely:

“Would you leave the United States if its federal government were somehow to be staffed – all elected, appointed, and Civil Service positions – entirely by Christians?”

     Remember, I did say “assuming you can do so safely.” People nowadays are a lot touchier than they used to be.

     For lagniappe, have a little Tom Clancy:

     “We are what we are because people from all over the world came to America to work and live out their dreams. They worked hard. My grandfather came over from Russia because he didn’t like getting fucked over by the czar, and he worked, and he got his kids educated, and they got their kids educated, and so now I’m pretty damned rich, but I haven’t forgotten what Grandpa told me when I was little either. He told me this was the best place the world ever saw to be a Jew. Why, Cliff? Because the dead white European men who broke us away from England and wrote the Constitution had some good ideas and they lived up to them, for the most part. That’s who we are, Cliff. And that means we have to be what we are, and that means we have to stand for certain things, and the world has to see us do it.” [From The Bear and the Dragon]

     Apropos of which, it was a Jew – his name was Abe Moisievich – who belittled President George W. Bush to me because of his Christianity. Derided him for “needing the comfort of an imposed structure.” I didn’t hit him, but I admit I was tempted.

     May the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forever guard and guide these United States of America…especially in our times of trouble, such as now.

Jul 08 2021

Another Dropped Mask

     I’ve known for some time that male homosexual activists seek to “convert” young boys – typically before they hit puberty and start to feel an attraction to the opposite sex – to homosexuality. The fictional group “Inclusivity” in my novel The Wise and the Mad was intended to represent the attitudes and operations of such activists. One such group has as its mantra the phrase “Sex by eight or it’s too late.”

     However, the claim of such activists for public consumption has always been that all they seek is tolerance from us hetero types. Which makes this report a straw to the wind to which American parents should pay very close attention:

     The pinnacles of tolerance are at it again, this time with a “message” that they are literally coming for our children.

     I mean they really, actually made a song that says “we are coming for your children.”

     Please read the whole article. Then read this one, and ask yourself whether “tolerance” was ever the true aim of the sodomists.

     I cannot escape the conclusion that homosexual “pride” is actually shame: a shame that demands to be salved by acceptance in law, the submission of private persons and institutions, and the protection of an ever larger number of allegiants, boosters, and apologists.

Jul 08 2021

The “1000 Words” Edition

     There are days when a single graphic expresses my sentiments better than any essay I could write. Here’s one, courtesy of our favorite Bookworm:

     Militant anti-theists tend to preen themselves as brighter than believers. Yet all their arguments are patterned after the “argument” in Bookworm’s graphic. There’s a moral in there, somewhere.

     I may be back later. For now, have a nice day.

Jul 07 2021

Extrinsic Science Must Be Exposed and Eliminated

Through its use of intrinsic science, humanity advanced technologically. Long before Sir Francis Bacon, the scientific method was employed and exploited by those who engaged in the practice that had no formal name.

Mathematics is the king of the sciences. All other sciences rely upon its intrinsic values to qualify and quantify their investigations and conclusions. It ceaselessly earns our respect and deserves our protection.

Extrinsic science relies upon the trustworthiness of “men of science.” Men who have achieved a reputation and find that lending their name to projects works magically. Their association with any pursuit adds weight to public perceptions. Venture capitalists usually seeking to earn an honest buck see their past successes as a risk reducer and thus a more sure guarantor of return on investment.

Unfortunately, that also opens the door to nefarious players who game the practice and seek to entrap even initially well-intentioned men by various disreputable means.

Fortunately the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic science can be understood with the simplest of terms.

Two plus two equals four is intrinsically correct. And even two plus two may equal five is true, but only for very large values of two after the sum is rounded.

But claiming that two plus two is equal to 5, or 8 or 17 because a group of supposedly reputable men say so — and “the discussion is over” — is beyond reason, reality, and honesty no matter how many times the world hears over the megaphones “four cannot be the answer.”

No society that insists on extrinsic science can exist for long. Not even Orwell explored what had to happen to O’Brien and the Inner Party after they destroyed too many Outer Party members like Winston Smith, men who built and ran the machinery that permitted them to rule.

For the West to survive — should that still be possible — it must recover first from this amazingly extensive corruption. Assuming you are not a death cultist and do not care to be its victim, then among other things it is essential that extrinsic science be exposed and eliminated. That game must end.

Sadly, too many of its practitioners are out of reach because they are no longer alive. But the corporations and their political lackeys that rely upon their chicanery still carry on, still juggling to keep too many balls in the air at once. I don’t have a solution for that other than being as prepared as possible for the deluge of falling balls.

Maybe you will find these words insightful enough into what has been going on that you find a way to pass them on to a network of intrinsically valuable friends you will surely need as, mercifully, they will you. I hope and pray they help and do not fall mostly on deaf ears.

Jul 07 2021

So You Think?

     Matters are coming to a head in several ways. A collapse into complete civil chaos looms on America’s horizon, and we’re speeding toward it in a Bugatti Veyron. The evidence is available to the eyes, ears, and sometimes the noses of anyone who ever ventures out of Plato’s Cave. Even so, there are forces determined to prevent you from seeing and assessing that evidence according to your own reason and your own common sense.

     This piece will largely be a collection of links to such evidence. Pursue it or not, according to your tastes.

***

So You Think There’s No Race War In Progress?

     Oh, there’s this, too:

     Funny how, when you tell an inherently savage demographic that it’s “oppressed” and has a “right” to go looting and rampaging, and then instruct the police to let it do what it likes, its members go…looting and rampaging! Whoda thunk it?

***

So You Think They’re Not Really After Your Guns?

     Andrew Cuomo certainly is:

     Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose no-bail laws and mass release of prisoners have ruined crime-fighting in New York, has a new plan to solve the crime wave. His latest plan – a distraction from the core problems – is to declare so-called gun violence a public health emergency.

     He plans to treat ‘gun violence,’ which is actually gang violence, like COVID. It gives him dictatorial powers.

     This is the man who rammed New York State’s odious “SAFE Act” through the legislature in one day, in the wee hours of the morning, without any opportunity for the public to comment on it. I’m sure he’ll have the enthusiastic support of the Usurper Regime.

***

So You Think They’re Not Really Rendering Your Kids Illiterate?

     Have a report from Michigan, a few years old but still relevant. It concerns two minor children whom their teachers found to be reading too well:

     When my sons were approximately seven and eight years old, I received a call from their school. I was told that I needed to come in for a parent-teacher conference, at my earliest convenience which, they suggested, should be at 4:00 PM the following day. Yes, in their infinite wisdom, they somehow knew what would be convenient for me. The only other information I was given was that I shouldn’t bring either of the boys to the conference.

     I arrived ten minutes early and waited twenty minutes for the conference to begin. I was ushered into the conference room and I immediately noticed the psychology involved in the decorating scheme. There were two huge, expensive looking, high-backed leather chairs behind a large, heavy desk. Across from the desk was a tiny chair that appeared to have been liberated from a kindergarten classroom. I knew where I was expected to sit, and it wasn’t the position of power behind the desk. It was the subservient little chair. They were in a position to look down at me and I had to look up, at an uncomfortable angle, to speak to them.

     I took my seat across from two teachers who, I noticed, were viewing me with a certain disdain. It was as if I smelled badly or was a known, convicted child molester. I could tell they didn’t approve of me, but I didn’t yet know why.

     The meeting commenced, without so much as an introduction, when one of the two women, who I suspected were the boys’ teachers said, “Mrs. Komatsu, while testing your sons we’ve discovered some highly disturbing information.” They now had my complete attention.

     I asked, “In what class are they having difficulty?” I’ve always taken their education very seriously and I monitored their progress, in all their classes, on a daily basis.

     “The problem we’re having concerns their reading abilities,” I was told. I was completely speechless. I just sat there like a fool with my mouth hanging open. This was simply not possible. Both boys were excellent readers and read, on an average, a book per week.

     Finally, I replied, “There has to be some sort of misunderstanding. Sean and Mike are excellent readers. As a matter of fact…”

     “I assure you there is no misunderstanding,” she interrupted. “We’re professional educators and we are fully competent in our areas of expertise.” At this point I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this little meeting was about to get really interesting.

     “There must be some sort of mistake,” I said again. “I know how well both…”

     She interrupted me, yet again, to say, loudly and slowly. “There… is… no… mistake.”

     I was beginning to get a bit irritated. I was called in for a conference, yet I’d already been interrupted, twice, when I attempted to participate. It was becoming clear that my place in these proceedings was to sit quietly and display the proper respect to these highly qualified individuals. However, my respect and my patience was rapidly diminishing. “So why don’t you just tell me what the problem is. I’m sure we all have better ways to spend our afternoon,” I suggested.

     The teacher who had previously been silent now spoke. “Mrs. Komatsu, we didn’t know there was a problem until we conducted a test to determine all the children’s levels of reading ability. We’ve never seen this happen before. The test evaluates performance up to the ninth-grade level and both your boys passed all elements of the test. Because of that we can’t determine how well they can read.”

     Please, please read the rest. It lays bare the real agenda of our “public” school “educators:”

  1. To render your children inadequately literate and numerate to learn on their own;
  2. To protect their own positions.

     There may be exceptions, but as they’re detected they’re swiftly forced out of the government-run schools…and increasingly from private and parochial schools as well.

***

So You Think The Usurpers Aren’t Really Out To Eliminate The Opposition – i.e., You?

     That’s the biggest laugher of the day:

     Which is why I answer the door – when I deign to answer it – with a shotgun at port arms.

***

     That should be enough to get your blood pressure up close to mine. But do have a nice day.

Jul 07 2021

Insight into the rules-based world order.

The term “rules-based world order” has surfaced in U.S. diplospeak in recent years. Whatever does it mean?

[Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov surveys the results of the recent G7, NATO and US-EU summits prior to Putin-Biden in Geneva:

These meetings were carefully prepared in a way that leaves no doubt that the West wanted to send a clear message: it stands united like never before and will do what it believes to be right in international affairs, while forcing others, primarily Russia and China, to follow its lead. The documents adopted at the Cornwall and Brussels summits cemented the rules-based world order concept as a counterweight to the universal principles of international law with the UN Charter as its primary source. In doing so, the West deliberately shies away from spelling out the rules it purports to follow, just as it refrains from explaining why they are needed.

As he dismisses how Russia and China have been labeled as “authoritarian powers” (or “illiberal”, according to the favorite New York-Paris-London mantra), Lavrov smashes Western hypocrisy:

While proclaiming the ‘right’ to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries for the sake of promoting democracy as it understands it, the West instantly loses all interest when we raise the prospect of making international relations more democratic, including renouncing arrogant behavior and committing to abide by the universally recognized tenets of international law instead of ‘rules’.[1]

I’d naively assumed that the term was but a convenient way of referring to international law as expressed in important part in the U.N. Charter and various treaties and conventions. As I’ve heard the term more and more, I see that it has a certain spongy quality such that it is actually a fig leaf obscuring untrammeled, unilateral, arbitary, discretionary action on the part of the U.S.

The world apparently can be reordered according to these “rules” that only we can decipher. NATO can be expanded into Lithuania and Micronesia, Serbia can be subjected to 30,000 air strikes, Kosovo can be ripped from Serbia and its non-Muslim minorities ejected, the government of Ukraine can be overthrown, and the windows in the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol can be measured for new drapes by an advance party of the U.S. Navy.

Afghanistan can be invaded and reformed by a procession of strutting cockatoos and Iraq can be invaded and upended and its people killed off like flies on a pretext after years of enthusiastic U.S. support for Saddam Hussein so long as he was willing to gas and bomb Iranians. Our exquisite sensibilities regarding chemical weapons had not then yet reached their present peak of volcanic outrage.

Too, Libya can be turned into bandido land and its gold reserves spiritied away to who knows where. To be fair, the Libyan bomb fest had something of a blessing from the U.N. Security Council though with less justification than the WMD threat that supposedly existed in Iraq. More of the “evil ruler who lives to attack his own people” firewater. Sells like hotcakes at a Weight Watchers convention.

Iran can be casually designated as the chief sponsor of terror in the world while the U.S. and certain of its “partners” and “stakeholders” around the Middle East can kill over 500,000 Syrian civilians, displace millions, and lay waste to its cities. Turkey can cart off Syrian factories and flood Syria with troops and the U.S. can send in troops to steal Syrian oil protect Syrian oil fields and it’s all good. Apparently, plunder and aggressive war are part of the RBWO. As is attacking the Syrian Arab Army in support of ISIS. The point being here that we are not at war with Syria and it threatens no American interest. But the “rule” is we get to decide who’s the bestest ruler for Syria and which elections are Grade F elections and which elections are like American elections. Wait! That didn’t come out right.

I’d have less of an urge to take a shower and disinfect my clothes at the mention of the RBWO shliblut if The Sacred Homeland weren’t afflicted with (1) a Supreme Court that flees from facing its responsibilities like a virgin at a BLM convention and (2) any number of gutless, traitorous local and state authorities who would rather stab their grandmothers with a Ginzu knife than maintain order and the rule of law.

Honorable mention to all of the state supreme courts and bar associations who seem not to have noticed that the Interstate Commerce Clause has been studiousl not enforced since the 1930s, thereby enabling the expansion of the federal government to its present monstrous, wildly-unconstitutional size.

Gigantic monopolies also seem to have escaped the notice of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission for, oh, the last 50 years. (Lina Khan at the FTC seems to have some salutary heartburn over monopolies. We’ll see if that’s sincere or if she’ll be stalled before she can even zero her Glock.)

But, yeah. We’re sticklers for “the rules.” And if you’re not careful, we’ll arrive in force and straighten your asses out.

Notes
[1] “Escobar: The Long & Winding Multipolar Road.” By Pepe Escobar, ZeroHedge, 7/4/21.

Jul 06 2021

Final Stages

     In the demise of every organism and every nation, there is a set of terminal symptoms that heralds the imminent conclusion of the process. In many plants, it’s a visible condition of wilting. In many animals, it’s a distortion of the creature’s breathing. In a society, it’s the pervasive defiance of the laws against violence and public disorder.

     And with that, a brief (six minute) video from Paul Joseph Watson:

     The events at the spa were bad enough. The attack by AntiFa, and the subsequent actions of the police in 1) refusing to defend the peaceable protestors and 2) arresting a man who dared to defend himself make it plain that Los Angeles, California is about to collapse into complete chaos – and it might take the whole state with it.

     The Golden State is the chief “produce cart” of these United States. Imagine it as a “failed state” in which there is no order and no safety. Be quick about it; soon you won’t need to imagine.

     The lesson in this “should” be “obvious.” Sadly, it isn’t.

***

     Throughout the nation, public order is breaking down. I can hardly name a city of significant size where Black Lives Matter and AntiFa don’t run rampant. Municipal police departments are either indifferent or impotent. Though there haven’t yet been many, reports of home invasions by those forces are making honest, peaceable Americans fearful about their own homes. As for urban commercial districts, I hardly think I need comment.

     Los Angeles may be the forerunner of a complete social collapse from coast to coast. The consequences will include food shortages, loss of electrical power, unavailability of fuels, disruption of the roads, open gang violence, and many other things. If you think having the kids confined to the house this past year was bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet – and I hope you never do, though in my view the portents are grim.

     Recently, someone on Gab asked founder Andrew Torba what sort of preparations for the future he would recommend. His response was terse: “Stockpile food, silver, and ammo, and learn to farm.” The advice may be ominous, but those measures are like chicken soup: they can’t hurt you and they might just save your life.

     But something else we could do would save a whole lot of lives.

***

     The following is from a novel-under-construction:

     “Public order is a matter of public will,” Merrell said in his most famous first-term address. “We have lacked the will. We dislike to compel immigrants and the young to conform to the norms of public decorum. We dislike to demand that public charges aim for self-sufficiency and make an honest effort to achieve it. We dislike to budget for law enforcement. We dislike to see armed men who embody the authority of the law patrolling our streets. We dislike to erect and staff prisons. We especially dislike to clear the streets of vagrants and idlers by force, or to hold parents responsible for the deeds of their miscreant children. Yet these measures, not ‘tolerance,’ nor ‘leniency,’ nor ‘understanding,’ nor ‘compassion,’ nor ‘community service,’ are the ones that will mitigate our problems with poverty, vagrancy, vandalism, and more serious crimes.”

     Would anyone care to argue with John Merrell?

     Remember the immense improvement in the condition of New York City when Mayor Rudy Giuliani sent forth its police to enforce all the laws, including the ones pertinent to “quality of life?” You don’t have to be that old to recall those years. Giuliani’s success in making the Big Apple a pleasant place to live, work, and shop was why he acquired the sobriquet “America’s Mayor.” Contrast the Giuliani years with those of the odious crypto-Communist Bill de Blasio.

     There is only one issue that matters in the elections of the years before us: law and order. No candidate who refuses to make that his one and only priority should receive even a single vote. Unless and until peaceable Americans are once more able to go about their lives without fear, this nation will come ever closer to chaos and disintegration. Whether anything could be reclaimed from the wreckage is dubious.

     The traditional norms of public deportment, from the prohibition of violence all the way to standards of decency, must be enforced humorlessly and without exception. Nothing else will serve. What people choose to do in the privacy of their homes is of no moment.

     You can argue the point if you have the cojones, but you’d bloody well better make it good. My country is dying and I’m in a foul mood.

Jul 06 2021

Thank you, Jesus.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, eminent scholar, departs the University of North Carolina to delight and inform the journalism students at Howard University.[1]

Nothing says “scholar” in my book so much as bright red clown hair but that’s just me. The quality of her work, however, is beyond dispute. Fact, Jack.

Well, ok. Sincere condolences to those future Howard students who will find that they enrolled in a course on creative writing instead of something remotely connected to the trade of journalism. In an uncharacteristic burst of cynicism, however, I do predict an initial standing ovation from the students.

And sincere condolences to the UNC students she left behind. Their eventual degree will be conferred by an institution that will be forever remembered as being governed by cowards who give new meaning to the word “craven.”

Notes
[1] “1619 Project Creator Nikole Hannah-Jones Rejects UNC Tenure Offer.” By Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge, 7/6/21.

Jul 05 2021

Pearls of expression.

Corporations like Warner Music Group, Sony Music Group, and Comcast gave donations of $100 million each to social justice organizations like BLM just this month. I mean, we all know how underrepresented blacks are in the music industry. Apparently, the U.S. music industry had decided that promoting gangster culture, violence, drug use, and objectification of women for decades in rap music hasn’t been quite destructive enough in perverting black culture in America. They needed to do more by donating millions to organizations that literally burn, pillage and loot in poor black communities as well.

“The United States in Crisis: The Politics of Racism And the Coming Storm.” By Cato, South Front, 6/24/20.

Jul 05 2021

Cartoon: Jab’s Witnesses and the Covid Cult

OK, the creative juices have been flowing, the cartoonist engaged and loving the idea, so here is my latest cartoon concept executed – again – wonderfully:

——

—–

I hope you like it. This was inspired by the news that multiple places are organizing door to door campaigns.  E.g., in Michigan, Louisiana, Connecticut, Florida, etc.  In Colorado.  Maine farms and in churches and other places. Everywhere, if Kamala has her way.

But it’s not a cult.

—–

—–

So I subscribe to The Epoch Times, paper edition.  There’s something satisfying to me – call me old-fashioned – in flipping through an actual newspaper to look at the articles and something struck me a few issues ago, i.e., an article on rites of passage and how we’ve abandoned so many of them in today’s society (e.g., Catholic confirmation, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs in Judaism, and other landmark ceremonies like weddings being shed in favor of shacking up together for years without a formal commitment – all marking a transition from one phase of life to another).  And it hit me that masks and Covid Jabs are exactly that: in this nihilistic, we believe in nothing age, the ease with which mask compliance and Jab acceptance have penetrated and conquered our society shows they are perceived as ways to become part of a broader community and, thus, address a spiritual need people have to belong to something bigger than themselves.  For example, people wear masks and “I’m vaccinated” buttons and stickers to signal I’m in:

—–

—–

And Jab sites even have selfie-stations where you can snap your picture to post on social media that you are now a member of The Club.

—–

—–

The preening, self-aggrandizing virtue signaling is being touted as a way to influence others to convert, er, get The Jab as well (bolding added):

As with any selfie, the trend leans into our desire to share positive moments in our lives, not to mention a certain self-promotional impulse. But the motivations behind vaccine selfies go far beyond that: It’s viewed as a way for the selfie-taker to signal to loved ones they are safe and vaccinated, a tool to broadcast being part of an exclusive group and a potential means to help dispel vaccine skepticism in others.

So look out.  That knock on the door could a Mormon missionary group.  Or a set of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Or… the Covid Corps who will doubtless chant SAFE AND EFFECTIVE as a part of their conversion pitch to get you to convert to the Church of the Covidian (post 1, post 2).

Me?

I’ll point to my mezuzah and politely say We’re spoken for; and if people come with syringes, I’ll meet them with my 9 mm.  We’ll see who leaves with a hole…

—–

—–

And with our host’s permission, though I will only do it occasionally, I am posting one of my favorite designs (well. favorite designs that so far have not as yet been canceled) – this one a bumper sticker though I have assorted mugs and T-shirts too – in the hopes that it goes viral, I make a boatload, and can thus afford to buy my bunker in the hills.

6uild 6ack 6etter

Jul 04 2021

Happy Independence Day…

     …if possible. For most American patriots, it’s a bit of a challenge under current circumstances.

     The greatest American put it quite plainly:

     We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

     But we have done essentially nothing about it.

***

     What follows is a short story I wrote a few years ago. It’s about a man who takes rights seriously – so seriously that he knowingly risks his life to defend them. I’m not talking about a soldier, but about a man who defends Americans’ rights in America. That’s the sort of man we need today…but where is he?

     Do you know such a man? Why haven’t I heard his name? We need him, and thousands more like him, rather badly. But the cost of being such a man, and doing what he would do, is high. Perhaps you should read on.

***

The New Paradigm

     Less than half a second after the alarm light flashed on his intercom panel, Integral Security Services commander and CEO Kevin Conway surged out from behind his desk, plucked his life vest from his coat tree, and sprinted down the stairs toward the monitoring room.
     He donned the vest as he ran. People were scurrying and red lights flashing throughout the building. As he passed through the ready room, he distributed quick shoulder pats and murmurs of encouragement to patrolmen garbing for action, then moved as swiftly as was politic to the large, dark chamber that housed Integral’s twenty-four-hour audio / video monitoring operation.
     The staffers at the monitoring stations were unusually quiet even for them. The overhead screen tuned to the feed from Integral’s drone aircraft displayed the reason: a SWAT team of considerable size assembling in the staging area behind Onteora County’s First Precinct.
     This one could get ugly.
     He stooped to whisper to the young woman attending to that data stream.
     “Do we have a target yet, Phyllis?”
     She shook her head, eliciting a faint rattle from her headgear. “Still quiet, Boss. Orders should be coming down…wait one.”
     Conway held his breath. On the screen, a police lieutenant was unfolding a stapled sheaf of papers.
     “2317 Kettle Knoll in Foxwood, Boss,” the young woman murmured.
     That’s Art Giordano’s place. Shit.
     “Scream it out, Phyl. All hands. We’re going to need the whole standby force for this one.”
     He clapped her on the shoulder and headed toward Integral’s own staging area as she called out the all hands alert on the PA and the company’s breakthrough frequency.

#

     Integral’s four heavily modified H1-Alphas roared down the streets of Foxwood hamlet at top speed. Conway was determined to get his forces to the target address before the SWAT team could get there. Though they’d executed such a lightning mobilization and deployment several times before, an all hands alert never failed to raise blood pressures throughout the force. There’d been no live fire or other violence on any of the previous sorties, but no one could be sure that it would always be thus.
     At the targeted address Conway leaped out of the lead vehicle, trotted for the house’s porch, and took up station immediately before its front door. The commotion brought Art Giordano to the door, coffee mug in hand, wearing a terrycloth bathrobe and a puzzled frown. Conway waved him back authoritatively and bade him close the inside door. Giordano complied at once.
     As Integral’s troopers debarked from the other Humvees, Conway directed them into their various positions with quick, crisp hand gestures. Sixty seconds after his arrival, he stood at his ease, the Humvees had roared off to concealment, and his men were locked, loaded, poised and ready for whatever might come next.
     They were quick enough by less than two minutes.
     Onteora SWAT’s armored car, a legacy of the infantry drawdown of the decade before, pulled to a stop before the residence of Arthur Giordano, retired engineer and shooting sports enthusiast. The lieutenant Conway had seen via the drone feed debarked from the shotgun seat, papers in hand, and strode toward the porch. When his gaze landed on Conway’s face, his lips contorted into a snarl.
     Conway smiled. “Good morning, Lieutenant Reynolds. Lovely day for a SWAT raid. May I ask the purpose of your visit?”
     SWAT team commander Lieutenant Ellis Reynolds kept his voice under tight control. “We’re here in pursuit of some illegal firearms.” He glanced down at his papers. “Our investigators reported an unregistered AK-47 and AR-15 in the possession of the owner of this residence.”
     “There is no such thing,” Conway said, “as an illegal firearm.”
     “New York state law—”
     “Does not trump the Second Amendment to the Constitution, Lieutenant.”
     “That’s a matter for the courts,” Reynolds growled. The rest of the SWAT team had debarked from their vehicle and gathered close behind him, weapons in a variety of postures.
     Tactically unwise, but I’d rather not teach them the hard way.
     Conway shook his head. “I disagree.” He raised his voice. “And I brought a few friends who feel the same.”
     It was the signal the Integral troopers awaited. They moved out of concealment and converged on the front of the Giordano home, rifles trained on the SWAT personnel.
     The cops behind Ellis Reynolds exchanged uneasy looks and shrugs of a most un-SWAT-like variety. The dark crimson of the lieutenant’s face suggested that he was edging toward a stroke.
     “How did you know—”
     “I have investigators of my own, Lieutenant. Good ones. And Arthur Giordano is a client of Integral Security. I protect my clients—from public as well as private threats.”
     Hope Art’s got his ear to the door.
     It wasn’t a standoff in the usual sense. The Integral personnel outnumbered the SWAT team members, were exquisitely well placed, and toted rifles that overmatched any known body armor. The excellence of Integral’s forces, an order of magnitude beyond the capabilities of the county police, was well known. Should matters come to a head, their standing orders were to gun down the entire SWAT detachment…even if it should cost Conway his life.
     Might be for the best if it did.
     He did his best to appear utterly unconcerned.
     Reynolds turned to his men, growled “Mount up,” and waited as they complied. Before he departed, he awarded Conway a final scowl.
     “We’ll be back,” he said.
     Conway nodded. “We’ll be here.”
#

     Conway watched the last of his Humvees pull away, turned to Giordano, and shrugged expressively.
     “Hell of a start for your Saturday, eh?”
     Giordano was still visibly adjusting to what had occurred on his front porch.
     “Kevin, what was that—”
     “About you being an Integral client?”
     Giordano nodded, eyes wary.
     “Call it a conversation filler. A moment, please.” Conway pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed-dial button. “Larry? All secure. You’re in command until I get back. Send a car, would you please? Thanks.” He closed and pocketed the phone and glanced at Giordano’s mug. “Might I impose on you for a cuppa? It’s been a difficult morning.”
     Giordano gestured him inside. Presently they were seated at the dinette table in Giordano’s modest kitchen, each with a mug and a doughnut.
     “Look,” the retiree said, “I appreciate what you did, but you know very well I can’t afford—”
     Conway waved it aside. “Very well indeed, Art. But you know just as well that my sort of operation costs serious money. I have to keep a sizable standby force, a drone in the air around the clock and people to monitor the feed from it, and a police informant on the payroll. The county could bankrupt me simply by staging these raids continuously, two or three at a time, such that all my forces had to go to stopping them.” He grimaced and sipped from his mug. “Integral doesn’t have the taxing power. Not that I want it.”
     Giordano said nothing.
     “Have you given any thought to what I suggested at the civic association meeting?”
     “Kevin,” Giordano said, “there aren’t enough of us willing to buy in just yet. We’re already paying some of the highest property taxes in New York. We can’t afford you. Not if what you charge your condo clients is any indication.”
     “I understand, Art. Believe me, I do. But there are ways to lower the cost quite a bit, if you and your neighbors would be willing to help.”
     “No one,” the retiree ground out, “is ready for the sort of surveillance setup you proposed. Cameras all over the place. Hard lines to your office. Rotating foot patrols with walkie-talkies. For God’s sake, Kevin, we’re a bunch of private citizens who just want to be left alone, and we’re already dealing with a sense of being watched wherever we go!”
     A car pulled audibly into the driveway. Conway nodded, finished his coffee, and gently set the mug down before him.
     “That’s the heart of the problem,” he said. “Not only are you being watched—that raid was because an Onteora cop spotted you at the range in Hamilton you visited a week ago—you’re paying through the nose for it. And here I am, struggling to protect you from those watchers, pleading that you pay me for the privilege.” He grinned humorlessly. “You’d have every right to suspect that the cops and I are in it together.”
     Giordano shook his head. “Never.”
     “Well, that’s a comfort, at least.” Conway rose, and his host did the same. “But please, Art, think about what would have happened if my guys hadn’t been here. The standby forces and support personnel that made that mobilization possible cost me about a million dollars a year. That halves Integral’s annual pre-tax profits. Imagine if the county were to get really aggressive about the firearms laws, and I had to double or triple those forces. How long do you suppose I could stay in business?
     “The state police aren’t willing to get involved with the firearms laws…for now, at least, and thank God for that. But that could change. I doubt I could deter them with nothing but Integral’s forces and resources. There’d be blood spilled. Likely some of it would be mine. The only way to avert that beforehand is to turn communities like Foxwood into self-protecting bastions, places where only the newest, dumbest rookie would dare to throw his weight around.”
     Conway put out his hand, and Giordano took it.
     “My ride is here. Think about it some more? Please?”
     The retiree nodded.
#

     Conway returned to find Larry Sokoloff waiting at his office door. Integral’s second in command noted the expression on his commander’s face and smirked.
     “No change?”
     Conway chuckled. “Why, as a matter of fact, Larry, in my back pocket I have a security contract for the whole of Foxwood hamlet. Twenty mil a year. Monthly payments in Spanish doubloons. Get on the horn and start hiring now. Anyone who can fog a mirror!”
     “Ah.”
     Conway seated himself at his desk. Sokoloff slipped into a guest chair.
     “Boss—”
     “I know, I know. It’s just money, Larry.”
     “It’s money,” Sokoloff intoned, “that would pay for new guns and armor, a new firing range, improved gym facilities, and raises that would put smiles on quite a few faces.”
     “Including yours.”
     Sokoloff nodded.
     “I’m not going to let the cops trample our neighbors’ rights, Larry. It might break us financially, but as long as we’re capable—”
     “Kevin.” Sokoloff slid forward, new intensity in his eyes. “What about what it’s doing to you? How much sleep did you get last night?”
     Conway tried to shrug it off. “I’m fine. And if it gets to be too much for me, that’s why I have you, Syl, and Ken, right?”
     He tried to make it light and jocular. Sokoloff’s gravity remained unchanged.
     “You know I’ll always back your play, Boss,” the lieutenant said. “Hell, I’d take a bullet for you. But you can’t expect that from everyone on the force. And you can’t expect to run a…a charity operation like this for much longer before the guys start wondering what’s in it for them.”
     Conway’s neck muscles drew tight. “They do get paid, Larry.”
     Sokoloff nodded. “That they do. But is it enough to cover having to face down the county cops over and over? When it’s a lead-pipe cinch that sooner or later the lead will fly and someone will get killed?”
     A charged silence passed between them.
     “I do think about that,” Conway said. “It’s why I go on these sorties unarmed, so it’s as obvious as it can possibly be that mine will be the first blood spilled. But I can’t do anything more about it until our neighbors wake up to the threat and take a hand in their own defense.”
     “And you won’t stop providing that defense gratis,” Sokoloff said. “Even though that’s the perfect disincentive to getting them to act for themselves.”
     Conway opened his mouth to reply, closed it without speaking.
     He’s right.
     Sokoloff waited impassively.
     “I’ll give it more thought, Larry. I promise.”
     Integral’s second-in-command nodded, rose, and made his exit. Conway dropped his head into his hands.
     The State bleeds you dry for funds it uses to tyrannize you, while your only defender, who risks his life to thwart your official oppressors, has to work for coffee and doughnuts. Organized crime never had it so good.
     Is it a whole new paradigm of governance, or the oldest one of all?
     It doesn’t matter. Either way it can’t go on much longer. But I can’t just go limp on them.
     They need a leader figure who’ll rally them to their own colors. A Man on Horseback they’ll follow without having to be prodded or shamed. For damn sure that’s not me. But who, then?
     He had no answer.

==<O>==

Copyright © 2010 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Jul 03 2021

The resolution carries…

Of all the scenes in the notable miniseries “John Adams” this strikes me as the most pivotal – among many, of course.

These men were committing high treason and understood fully their fate if they did not succeed.

Happy Birthday to my beloved America.

—–

Jul 03 2021

Formerly Unconscionable Connections

News item: Former Police Officer Recounts Witnessing ‘Industrialized’ Organ Harvesting in China

The following are questions our society would almost certainly have insisted be asked in another era.

  • Have you asked what is the source of your life-saving organ?
  • To what soul or grieving family may you direct thanks for it?
  • If you asked, did you get an answer?
  • Do you believe it?

Now an observation.

    When Covid-19 was blamed on the Live Market, we learned that Chinese will literally eat anything.

Finally, two more questions:

  • In such a society, may cannibalization be viewed as a step up or a step down from a more primitive practice?
  • Care to identify which segment of America appears to be little different from their counterparts in China?

For those who feel uncomfortable providing answers, no answer is necessary. The rest of us won’t turn our backs. Personally, I’ll suffer and even die rather than seek, let alone accept, any “donated” organ. I no longer live in the society won, preserved and most of all promised by my ancestors.

Jul 03 2021

Who Should Be Allowed To Vote?

     Victory Girls’ Nina Bookout has a good piece on the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding Arizona’s new anti-fraud statute and the Democrats’ reactions:

     Democrats are really good at gaslighting temper tantrums. Some great ones have been taking place since SCOTUS announced their decision on the Arizona voting rights case.

     In a nutshell this case, Brnovich vs Democrat National Committee, was about ensuring illegal ballot harvesting and out-of-precinct voting couldn’t take place. The Democrats wanted anyone to be able to trot into some person’s home and “help” them fill out their ballot. Arizona wanted to, rightly so, limit those people to a family member or a caregiver. Furthermore, Democrats wanted a voter, who is found to be at the wrong precinct, be able to cast their vote anyway. Because, according to the Democrats, if this isn’t allowed to happen it is racist voter suppression!!

     The article is worth reading in its entirety. For me, it’s raised afresh the question of who should possess the so-called right to vote. If you need to be told, my answer is no one.

     Surprised? You shouldn’t be. There is no right to vote, and the briefest acquaintance with the laws that govern the franchise should make that clear.

     A right is something that’s yours by virtue of being what you are: i.e., a human being. You have a right to life, a right to your personal liberty, and a right to whatever property you can acquire through honest means. No government “created” those rights. You would have those rights even on a deserted island, or in a monarchy. Yes, they can be violated. Even so, they are moral-ethical norms rather than the dictates of a government.

     In these United States, the franchise is conferred upon:

  • Citizens, whether natural-born or naturalized;
  • Who are over the age of eighteen;
  • And have satisfied the residency requirements of their state and legislative-representation districts;
  • But who have not had the franchise taken from them because of a felony conviction.

     That’s quite a different thing from a “right” to vote. Besides, a “right to vote” for whom? Do Frenchmen have a “right to vote” in American elections? Do Californians have a “right to vote” on New York’s governor or state or federal legislators? Five seconds’ consideration ought to blast a huge hole in the notion that the franchise is a “right.”

     The greatest of tragedies lies in this: by relentlessly pounding the “right to vote,” the Democrats have nearly succeeded in destroying our real rights to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property. Wholly in thrall to the “the government can do anything it likes” notions of such as Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Party has campaigned relentlessly for absolutely unlimited “democracy,” meaning mob rule in which 50% plus one can override anyone’s rights. Then it’s gone on to corrupt our election systems so that it will always win, regardless of the tally of legitimate votes. See what they did there?

     If this doesn’t infuriate you, check your pulse: you may have died and not noticed.

***

     “But we need elections!” I hear you cry. For what? What has any elected official ever done for you personally? Don’t you dare tell me about an exception to some regulation your Congressman got for you; the regulation probably shouldn’t have existed in the first place. As for initiatives and referenda, I have yet to learn of one that actually protects our real rights, or strengthens the protections for them. So why do we need elections? So that aspiring tyrants and parasites can fight over who will get to shove his hand into your pocket?

     Hearken to the great Frederic Bastiat:

     I wish merely to observe here that this controversy over universal suffrage (as well as most other political questions) which agitates, excites, and overthrows nations, would lose nearly all of its importance if the law had always been what it ought to be. In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual’s right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder — is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?

     Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent of the right to vote would endanger that supreme good, the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would refuse to peaceably await the coming of their right to vote? Is it likely that those who had the right to vote would jealously defend their privilege? If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone’s interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that, under these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience those who did not vote?

     Indeed.

***

     There are two categories of vermin persons who “need” elections:

  1. People who aspire to ruling over you;
  2. The media types that make their livings chattering about politics and elections.

     If you’re not one of these, you’d be better off were there no elections whatsoever. That would deprive those would-be rulers of any illusion of “the consent of the governed,” and their media cheerleaders of any pretense that what they do has objective value to the public. (If you are an aspiring ruler or media type, stay well away from me and keep your hands where I can see them. No sudden moves; I’m heavily armed, very nervous, and suspicious of your sort.)

     But there will always be people who want “a say in things.” So I have a proposal for a rationalized election scheme. Perhaps it will be tried in some forward-looking, reasonably compact district. Let’s call that district Voteland:

  1. The Voteland taxing authorities repeal and renounce all compulsory taxation for the upcoming executive / legislative / judicial term.
  2. Voteland’s legislators then formulate a “budget,” according to their notions of “public needs.”
  3. They divide the total amount they hope to spend by the number of legitimate voters known to reside in Voteland. Let’s say, just to have some numbers at hand, that the “budget” comes to $100 million, and there are 1 million legitimate voters in Voteland. Thus, the quotient would be $100 per voter.
  4. Voteland’s election authorities then have 1 million “enfranchisement swipe cards” made up – “one user one time only” must be built into the design – and issue an announcement:

    We’ve just received this year’s tally of legitimate Voteland voters, and there are 1 million of them! So we have exactly 1 million votes to auction off. The bidding will start at $100 per vote. The auction will be held on September 1, and the elections on November 2. Don’t forget to bid for a vote – or maybe two or three!

  5. The vote auction is held. Whatever amount it takes in for the votes purchased, that’s the amount the legislators will get to spend over the upcoming executive / legislative / judicial term – and not a dollar more.
  6. Any swipe card purchased at the auction may be legitimately used by whoever holds it. Any that were not purchased must be destroyed.

     Give it some thought – and do have a nice day.

Jul 03 2021

Our Happy Birthday Weekend

This is going to be a bittersweet year. Like “celebrating” your beloved relative’s birthday, shortly after they got the news that their cancer is back again.

You will see the candles through a veil of tears, find your voice quivering, as you realize that this may well be the last time you will sing those words for her, and fight to keep that smile on your face.

Because, although she is Not Dead Yet, the odds in favor of her survival don’t look too good.

That doesn’t mean that you are throwing in the towel, only that you recognize that the fight has long odds against its success.

So. Happy to be with her. But, also, Sad for her prospects.

With that in mind, here’s a link to news of some Hail Mary plays from the states.

Jul 02 2021

Reversing the Exodus

(This post is modified from its original appearance at GraniteGrok.)

I am a Zionist Jew interested in the goings-on in Israel, my spiritual home, and thus subscribe to a variety of news sources.  Some are on the Right, some are on the Left, some are a mix, a couple are wingnut, but I peruse them all even just in a skimming mode to get a broad perspective of things.  I do myself no favors by only reading sources that I agree with – intellectual honesty demands that I look at information I do not agree with so as to not be in an ideological bubble, and to challenge / test my understanding against other views via the crucible of evidence to make sure I am as close to The Truth as humanly possible, wherever that Truth lies.

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But I came across this pity-party-for-me piece that made my gorge rise; America is no more (bolding added):

You cannot hold together a nation in which huge numbers of people embrace a kind of idiocy that ought to be embarrassing, but is instead proudly displayed. Science isn’t real. Facts are choices. Truth is like a feather, floating in a cauldron. Education need not have any bases in reality, in history, in analysis. The only thing that matters is what each of us individually wants, cares about, and chooses. Collective interest only matters if the collective I am in has been fully vetted for full agreement and fidelity to whatever the ideology of the group happens to be. And let’s not forget the pornographic attachment to guns and other weapons of violence that seem to be at the heart of America, always ready to displace anything that resembles truly life-affirming and dignity-endorsing choices, the things a sane, compassionate, worthy society and nation ought to care about above all.

In other words, the raw seething arrogance of the elite who believes they are the wisest, best educated, most noble, etc., etc., etc.  The disdain for anyone who thinks otherwise is clear.  Thomas Sowell captured it well in Vision of the Anointed (a must-read book IMHO).  This quote of his applies perfectly:

“One of the most pathetic—and dangerous—signs of our times is the growing number of individuals and groups who believe that no one can possibly disagree with them for any honest reason.”

This writer I referenced is, obviously, of a different opinion than myself on, well, just about everything.  That’s all well and good – if I value my right to think for myself I must acknowledge their right to do the same – but where I take issue is their moral superiority in thinking as they do.  They also have the right to retreat if that is their choice (bolding added, their italics):

So how is it, given my analysis of the problem(s), that I can be so calm about the fate – the death, even – of America? I think it’s because in wrestling with all that has been and will be lost, I’ve come to realize that I have what I think might actually be one good, viable option. And that is to retreat to a narrow place, to my mitzrayim. For me, that means that I no longer consider myself to be living in the United States of America (since there is nothing that even resembles a UnitedStates of anything here anymore).

But in retreating, what is she ceding? I find it most telling that this woman references mitzrayim, Egypt, from where Hashem’s hand freed us.  Like the Jews who stayed behind when Moses led us out of slavery, fading out as a people to be diluted and assimilated into the general Egyptian population over time, they were scared of liberty with all it’s messy differences of opinion, and debates, and self-determination; they were scared of responsibility.  They wanted the comforting embrace of being taken care of, even if that meant the loss of freedom. This woman, too, is faced with the uncomfortable animated contest of freedom, and so she chooses to retreat to the tranquility of servitude, literally undoing Hashem’s work in freeing us.

In the Passover service four sons are mentioned as metaphors. This one applies to her:

He removes his “self” from the rest of the people of Israel; that is, because he removes the divine part of his “self” he is guilty of denying the basic principle of Judaism. We chastise him by saying you are not worthy of redemption because you think that you are somehow deserving of this gift from God.

This woman, in not just retreating, but in retreating specifically to mitzrayim, is removing herself not just from America, but from Am Yisraei, the freed people of Israel, and by that choice is not worthy of being redeemed.

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—–

Instead, I live in a sliver of America, from which I have no desire to experience anything of the rest of the country. Where I live, I can encounter diversity in terms of people, cuisine, art, even topography. And I can retreat even from that, to greater quietness and isolation. Yes, where I live is home to some of the idiocy that exists in surrounding places, but even so, I think I can tune out the noise, the hatefulness, the increasing spiraling into lunacy that defines that thing called America. I cannot avoid its impact fully, if only because things like climate change (among others) don’t respect state boundaries. But as much as possible, I can retreat into my narrow place, feel gratitude for what is part of it, recall with fondness when America felt like something worth cheering for, but know that in declaring “America is no more,” I am letting go of something that has become a nightmare I no longer want to wake up to.

In other words, this woman is a child retreating to her pillow-and-blanket fort when the ugly world of growing up gets too scary.  As an adult, she is making a choice to ignore reality.  The reality of violence, the reality of the coming instability from whatever source, the reality that others might dare differ from her enlightened self.

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When the food shortages hits, the national race war starts, the Jab die-off kicks into high gear, or the nation gets hit with an EMP, China goes after Taiwan or Israel attacks Iran’s facilities and the world ignites, inflation turns to hyperinflation and functionally strips her of any assets, or any of innumerable possibilities wreck her pillow fort to which she has retreated, and this utterly blindsided woman screams for a man with a gun to protect her from the emerging savagery, I observe the prescience of Conan:

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She will call for redemption, she and countless other child-like deniers of reality and wanters of safe spaces and being cared for, and even were it in my power to redeem her and those others who, similarly, rejected freedom and Hashem in the Exodus, I will take after His example of leaving them in Egypt, and whisper “No”.

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