I just love this President's fearless and open disdain for the left's sanctimonious intransigence.. His tweet that "we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming" in the icebox we are having now really tickled me.
A well known activist in the 60's bade an audience mostly sympathetic to him to laugh at the hecklers in the audience rather than confronting them with anger. He knew that would leave the hecklers fuming in irrefutable humiliation.
I can just picture Al Gore after having read the President's comment, lip curling and chin held high, heaving his ever more luxurious bulk and his capacious three overcoats to his protesting feet to place another corn cob on the fire and bid the help ready the sleigh for yet another progress to the place of expostulation, there to satisfy his unbearable outrage with impassioned and universally lauded excoriation of he who has the crust to disagree with Al's unquestionable truth and justice (while the President giggles unforgiveably).
I don't know if global warming is happening and if it is, that humanity is the cause. Its really not the issue highlighted by the President's insolent crack. The pompous self assurance displayed by those who believe both theories to be FACT (!) is a laughable matter on the face of it but it sure could lead to alot of wasted money and effort. The economy is fired up now and zillions poured into yet another increasingly totalitarian leftist journey toward perfection could be the dousing the left wishes for our undeserved prosperity. As always radicals cannot abide any possibility of their being tragically wrongheaded, as they have been since 1917, to the ruin of hundreds of millions of lives. And that is the real import of President Trump's little poke at them. Jack
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Saturday, December 30, 2017
National Endowment for the Arts - kill it this time!
This is mostly a rewrite of a post I made in March, 2017 on another blog; with a substantial tax cut now law, elimination of unnecessary and unjust federal and state spending is so much the more vital. Last year's proposal to eliminate the NEA failed; the effort must go on this year.
Here we'll go again with the anguished protestations of those who say they foresee the death of the arts in the prospect of the complete federal defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts which I hope to see realized in this year's budget. Oh somehow the arts, which have weathered the vicissitudes of ten thousand years of human folly and destruction, will survive I owe (the worthy ones at least).
What must die is the requirement that taxpayers pay for "art" which often sneers at traditional values but never dares to blaspheme the "politically correct". The NEA funded Andres Serrano, who executed the celebrated "Piss Christ" (damned be the thinking which conceived that title) in hopes, I suppose, that it would one day flank The Pieta. His abomination depicts a crucifix dipped in urine; that speaks for itself. You can be certain that an imaginary creator of a "Piss Hillary Clinton" or "Let's Defecate on a Statue of Nelson Mandela"would never have been supported, despite the transcendent beauty and art historical significance of such daring ideas.
I think there are people of good will who sincerely believe the proposed defunding to be a philistine attack on the arts by low brows. It is not. For my own part I treasure what is generally considered to be encompassed by the term "the arts". I love Shakespeare and and I experienced "the joy of being alive in his great poetry" several years ago on stage with a local theatre group which does receive some taxpayer funding. I am convinced this group and any doing as good a job as it does would be supported by the public, without requiring taxpayers to ante up, on its merits (that's the key - MERITS).
Similarly, artists lauded for depicting Santa's elves having sex and other disdainful masterpieces would be hard put to gain support from the general public - why that's just common sense. But experience shows we simply cannot expect such rectitude from unelected bureaucrats - deep staters ad nauseum. In Buffalo, several years ago, elected County Executive Chris Collins, now a Congressman, relieved county taxpayers of having to pay for art organizations. But Shakespeare in the Park soldiered on somehow and I rejoice that it did.
No, the visceral outrage comes from those who believe it just that our public and what is left of our "private" lives be controlled by an "enlightened" elite and that that should include devotion of taxpayer's money to cultural efforts which satisfy that elite and often ridicule Middle America. ( How would these snobs feel if they were forced to pay for The Young and the Restless?) "Benevolent" but mandatory guidance on the part of our betters is integral to their continued crusade to transform our nation to one of political righteousness. And public acquiescence in this advances their all too obvious relentless campaign to subject us all to totalitarian control of expression in order to place us permanently in their thrall. That is why the amount of the funding is of secondary importance ( though of course lots of small cuts add up to big savings ); it is the purpose and the message which it sends which must be resolutely confronted while we are yet able. Jack
Here we'll go again with the anguished protestations of those who say they foresee the death of the arts in the prospect of the complete federal defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts which I hope to see realized in this year's budget. Oh somehow the arts, which have weathered the vicissitudes of ten thousand years of human folly and destruction, will survive I owe (the worthy ones at least).
What must die is the requirement that taxpayers pay for "art" which often sneers at traditional values but never dares to blaspheme the "politically correct". The NEA funded Andres Serrano, who executed the celebrated "Piss Christ" (damned be the thinking which conceived that title) in hopes, I suppose, that it would one day flank The Pieta. His abomination depicts a crucifix dipped in urine; that speaks for itself. You can be certain that an imaginary creator of a "Piss Hillary Clinton" or "Let's Defecate on a Statue of Nelson Mandela"would never have been supported, despite the transcendent beauty and art historical significance of such daring ideas.
I think there are people of good will who sincerely believe the proposed defunding to be a philistine attack on the arts by low brows. It is not. For my own part I treasure what is generally considered to be encompassed by the term "the arts". I love Shakespeare and and I experienced "the joy of being alive in his great poetry" several years ago on stage with a local theatre group which does receive some taxpayer funding. I am convinced this group and any doing as good a job as it does would be supported by the public, without requiring taxpayers to ante up, on its merits (that's the key - MERITS).
Similarly, artists lauded for depicting Santa's elves having sex and other disdainful masterpieces would be hard put to gain support from the general public - why that's just common sense. But experience shows we simply cannot expect such rectitude from unelected bureaucrats - deep staters ad nauseum. In Buffalo, several years ago, elected County Executive Chris Collins, now a Congressman, relieved county taxpayers of having to pay for art organizations. But Shakespeare in the Park soldiered on somehow and I rejoice that it did.
No, the visceral outrage comes from those who believe it just that our public and what is left of our "private" lives be controlled by an "enlightened" elite and that that should include devotion of taxpayer's money to cultural efforts which satisfy that elite and often ridicule Middle America. ( How would these snobs feel if they were forced to pay for The Young and the Restless?) "Benevolent" but mandatory guidance on the part of our betters is integral to their continued crusade to transform our nation to one of political righteousness. And public acquiescence in this advances their all too obvious relentless campaign to subject us all to totalitarian control of expression in order to place us permanently in their thrall. That is why the amount of the funding is of secondary importance ( though of course lots of small cuts add up to big savings ); it is the purpose and the message which it sends which must be resolutely confronted while we are yet able. Jack
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Our Western Civilization: how I love it!
I've just listened again to Handel's Messiah, as I delight in doing every year in this glorious and glowing season. An image I cherish in connection with this work is that of George II, in regal dignity no doubt but mightily moved by the magnificence and deep, deep beauty of the Hallelujah Chorus, surging to his feet in reverence. What a thrill it is to participate in the traditional reenactment of that sublime moment which attends every performance of this treasure.
How great the civilization which generated and preserved such wonders. I'm reminded of this most intensely when we celebrate the birth of the spiritual founder of our western world; the credibly believed to be redeemer of all humanity from chastisement for its misdeeds and guarantor of eternal life. His Faith is the essential moral backbone which is sine qua non in our public and private lives in our part of the world ,the willful and presumptuous rejection of which in our time by so many of its fortunate and ungrateful spawn has had predictably catastrophic consequences. What a lovely and inspiring time it is.
He was born into a place in which the high and seminal culture of Rome met that of the people for whom it can be believed that they have a covenant with a power which will always be beyond our comprehension: to witness just how he wishes human life to be led. Within a little more than three centuries they had given rise to that without which present day Western Civilization could never have been - the Catholic Church.
Via the Romans and classical Islam - the Greeks - who introduced us to the intellectual rule of reason and the worth of the individual; to the Romans with their noble language, their vision of Europe as a whole, their superlative engineering and above all their regard for the rule of law; to Christ, Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Henry II, Petrarch, Michaelangelo, DaVinci, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Newton, Locke,Voltaire, Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln , perhaps Churchill and of course Mother Theresa and St.John Paul II; our Western pantheon does us proud.
The Chinese sun shines never more proudly than now in the East. Theirs is a very great and consequential culture and I hope that it may live in harmony with ours. I am so very grateful that I've been born into that of the West. Jack
How great the civilization which generated and preserved such wonders. I'm reminded of this most intensely when we celebrate the birth of the spiritual founder of our western world; the credibly believed to be redeemer of all humanity from chastisement for its misdeeds and guarantor of eternal life. His Faith is the essential moral backbone which is sine qua non in our public and private lives in our part of the world ,the willful and presumptuous rejection of which in our time by so many of its fortunate and ungrateful spawn has had predictably catastrophic consequences. What a lovely and inspiring time it is.
He was born into a place in which the high and seminal culture of Rome met that of the people for whom it can be believed that they have a covenant with a power which will always be beyond our comprehension: to witness just how he wishes human life to be led. Within a little more than three centuries they had given rise to that without which present day Western Civilization could never have been - the Catholic Church.
Via the Romans and classical Islam - the Greeks - who introduced us to the intellectual rule of reason and the worth of the individual; to the Romans with their noble language, their vision of Europe as a whole, their superlative engineering and above all their regard for the rule of law; to Christ, Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Henry II, Petrarch, Michaelangelo, DaVinci, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Newton, Locke,Voltaire, Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln , perhaps Churchill and of course Mother Theresa and St.John Paul II; our Western pantheon does us proud.
The Chinese sun shines never more proudly than now in the East. Theirs is a very great and consequential culture and I hope that it may live in harmony with ours. I am so very grateful that I've been born into that of the West. Jack
Monday, December 18, 2017
Trump hatred - what it predicts
Try as they will to mislead us as to their totalitarian intent, leftists just cannot avoid offering us telling previews of how it will be for all of us should they take over permanently (their undoubted and cherished goal).
A cartoon in our local newspaper today highlighted yet another harrowing example . It depicted Ebenezer Trump contemplating the image of Marley/Nixon on his door - a prelude of course to visits by cathartic spirits bent upon apprising Scrooge/Trump of his manifest perfidy. This image is thought by the overwhelmingly leftist bigoted press to be one of which the vast majority would naturally approve.
The left considers any who oppose it to be both objectively mistaken and morally reprehensible. That is because its principles are based on its expectations for the future, for which there can be no empirical evidence to support or refute their predictions. So convenient and so typical, yes, of those whose beliefs were formed out of whole cloth in '60's dorm rooms. Objective intellectual inquiry and examination was not their style, because to them it was the way of an older generation summarily dismissed by the multitudinous "boomers". The "boomer's" beliefs, profoundly influenced by theretofore rightfully despised radical leftist academics, with whom they fell in love, are therefore beyond controversy -" they are self evident because we say so". "Look how we had our way, we must be correct." Actually there were so damn many of us that we could have crammed into phone booths and swallowed goldfish and still have brought down and elected Presidents.
This has, of course, made it possible to blithely dismiss the yet very empirical history of the 20th century, replete with the incalculably monstrous crimes of the left, as simply a tactical mistake and a learning experience. Certainly it is not, by their lights, a condemnation of their cause. To them, 100 million deaths at the hands of leftists in power is a risk worth repeating. So much for that.
Now along comes Donald Trump, a canny courageous player and a loyal American who sees them for what they are and has the guts to say so. Now the comparison to Richard Nixon: Oh how the jackals of the left expect to worry Trump unto destruction as they did Nixon. I lived as an increasingly comprehending young adult through much of the public life of Nixon and I'm acquainted with the early part of it. I don't know why but much of the press was already inclined left by the '50's. McCarthy? How else to explain its excoriation of Nixon for his now proven indictment of Alger Hiss, the third ranking official in the State Dep't at one time, as a toady for the hellish and subhuman Stalin. Too bad Hiss was never given a taste of the Gulag. But another knock on Nixon was that he was perceived as being as plain and droll as Pat's cloth coat and had the temerity to rise despite the contempt accorded him by the fashionable. One recalls the description of "JFK"s lip curling at the sight of Nixon conceding and one can sympathize with the self made Nixon's dread of yet another defeat by that silly voluptuary clan.
The nonpolitician Trump is uncool too and that enables in those already incensed at him for having derailed their love train the most unrelenting viciousness. In doing so they predict what they will do to all Americans who have the gall to yet embrace traditional American values after the left's "inevitable" takeover. If the 20th century experience of the always murderous far left in power was not enough, this should be an unmistakeable warning and promise. And it should strengthen the real America's resolve to cause its defeat and unconditional surrender. Jack
A cartoon in our local newspaper today highlighted yet another harrowing example . It depicted Ebenezer Trump contemplating the image of Marley/Nixon on his door - a prelude of course to visits by cathartic spirits bent upon apprising Scrooge/Trump of his manifest perfidy. This image is thought by the overwhelmingly leftist bigoted press to be one of which the vast majority would naturally approve.
The left considers any who oppose it to be both objectively mistaken and morally reprehensible. That is because its principles are based on its expectations for the future, for which there can be no empirical evidence to support or refute their predictions. So convenient and so typical, yes, of those whose beliefs were formed out of whole cloth in '60's dorm rooms. Objective intellectual inquiry and examination was not their style, because to them it was the way of an older generation summarily dismissed by the multitudinous "boomers". The "boomer's" beliefs, profoundly influenced by theretofore rightfully despised radical leftist academics, with whom they fell in love, are therefore beyond controversy -" they are self evident because we say so". "Look how we had our way, we must be correct." Actually there were so damn many of us that we could have crammed into phone booths and swallowed goldfish and still have brought down and elected Presidents.
This has, of course, made it possible to blithely dismiss the yet very empirical history of the 20th century, replete with the incalculably monstrous crimes of the left, as simply a tactical mistake and a learning experience. Certainly it is not, by their lights, a condemnation of their cause. To them, 100 million deaths at the hands of leftists in power is a risk worth repeating. So much for that.
Now along comes Donald Trump, a canny courageous player and a loyal American who sees them for what they are and has the guts to say so. Now the comparison to Richard Nixon: Oh how the jackals of the left expect to worry Trump unto destruction as they did Nixon. I lived as an increasingly comprehending young adult through much of the public life of Nixon and I'm acquainted with the early part of it. I don't know why but much of the press was already inclined left by the '50's. McCarthy? How else to explain its excoriation of Nixon for his now proven indictment of Alger Hiss, the third ranking official in the State Dep't at one time, as a toady for the hellish and subhuman Stalin. Too bad Hiss was never given a taste of the Gulag. But another knock on Nixon was that he was perceived as being as plain and droll as Pat's cloth coat and had the temerity to rise despite the contempt accorded him by the fashionable. One recalls the description of "JFK"s lip curling at the sight of Nixon conceding and one can sympathize with the self made Nixon's dread of yet another defeat by that silly voluptuary clan.
The nonpolitician Trump is uncool too and that enables in those already incensed at him for having derailed their love train the most unrelenting viciousness. In doing so they predict what they will do to all Americans who have the gall to yet embrace traditional American values after the left's "inevitable" takeover. If the 20th century experience of the always murderous far left in power was not enough, this should be an unmistakeable warning and promise. And it should strengthen the real America's resolve to cause its defeat and unconditional surrender. Jack
Saturday, December 16, 2017
"Internet neutrality" yeah right!
Certain verities define the Obama viewpoint and the consequent intent of Obama actions. He is a committed Marxist devoted to the destruction of the Marxist antithesis, the freedom loving U.S. Sure, in office,he brilliantly maintained the false image of a yet loyal American in accordance with the precepts of the seminal Saul Alinsky, which bade radicals be ever deceptive about their beliefs and intentions until they achieve confirmed, permanent and irresistable power. He expected to be succeeded by a radical who would carry on his work, perhaps to realization. He could not have anticipated the despised real America's decisive support for Donald Trump. It was beyond his ken.
Now his mandates, which he thought irrevocable, are being reversed by one as Machiavellian as he!
I know very little about the technicalities of "Internet Neutrality" but I need merely know that it was advanced by Barack Obama. And that guarantees that its purpose in his establishment of it in the administrative law of the U.S. was to extend Federal power toward the eventual goal of completely centralized Federal control of all aspects of our lives. The Internet is not a minor factor now is it?
But the "inevitable " progression of the rule of the left has been interrupted. For them it is two steps "forward" and 1.999 backwards, courtesy of Donald Trump, who they could never have foreseen as their Nemesis, as snobbish as they are . I delight in their discomfiture, as it heralds the salvation of our good nation. Of course some change is in order; but it is not the comprehensive rebuilding the left seeks. Sorry, its just not!
I know that Rush often speaks of the ever most important goal of the American left - comprehensive, totalitarian domination of America. Can it ever be spoken of too much?. I think not; it is the fundamental threat to all we hold dear. Being totalitarian it is "total" in its dictatorial intent and its deadly promise ,yes? Jack
Now his mandates, which he thought irrevocable, are being reversed by one as Machiavellian as he!
I know very little about the technicalities of "Internet Neutrality" but I need merely know that it was advanced by Barack Obama. And that guarantees that its purpose in his establishment of it in the administrative law of the U.S. was to extend Federal power toward the eventual goal of completely centralized Federal control of all aspects of our lives. The Internet is not a minor factor now is it?
But the "inevitable " progression of the rule of the left has been interrupted. For them it is two steps "forward" and 1.999 backwards, courtesy of Donald Trump, who they could never have foreseen as their Nemesis, as snobbish as they are . I delight in their discomfiture, as it heralds the salvation of our good nation. Of course some change is in order; but it is not the comprehensive rebuilding the left seeks. Sorry, its just not!
I know that Rush often speaks of the ever most important goal of the American left - comprehensive, totalitarian domination of America. Can it ever be spoken of too much?. I think not; it is the fundamental threat to all we hold dear. Being totalitarian it is "total" in its dictatorial intent and its deadly promise ,yes? Jack
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
A costly victory for calumny
Well, we surely did take it on the chin with the defeat of Roy Moore and so did the country. Judge Moore would have been stalwart in the Senate for the unapologetic, confident conservatism which recognizes our nation's Christian essence. He was defeated by the circulation of unproven charges of sexual misconduct. Without the substantiation of the charges he was eminently representative of his state. Senator Jones will answer to the most unAlabama like Charles Schumer, a man who could not be elected Assistant Pencil Sharpener in any state other than the people's republic of NY.
Despite the fact that Republicans still control the Senate, Dems today think they are back where they belong, in the driver's seat. This is to them a return to normality after a bizarre interlude of hissy and ignorant reaction by the real America. And when they think that, they always overreach. Hence. . .
Thinking this strategem a windfall delivered them by their longtime benefactor, Harvey Weinstein, Dems will now go all out to encourage the levelling of charges of "sexual harassment" against any who attract their basilisk gaze. Its an old, old thing with them; they delight in the visible quivering defensiveness which certain charges automatically manifest in those who are spineless or cannot afford to defend themselves. Their favorite is "racism", a term so misused and overused by them over the last fifty years that it can be defeated simply by asking them to define it. Most of the time they cannot, or they comically point to themselves in doing so, because they have never before been required to think the term out.
Similarly they will hasten to use "sexual harassment" now as an all purpose condemnation upon accusation of any man who opposes any woman in any way, including very serious crimes. Eventually they will make the term as bereft of logical negative impact as they have "racism". But along the way they will do much evil with it both to the innocent and perhaps to themselves:
I am put in mind of how the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution destroyed its progenitors . This could easily happen to the Dems as the fear of mere accusation they will now be blithe to excite in their opponents is turned on them. They have many candidates for such calumny in their ranks and I don't mean Slick Willy - he is to them completely expendable now. He has sunk beneath contempt but he may be lifted from the ooze just long enough to face disingenuous formal excoriation and final exile.
Call me Pollyanna (or don't) but the real America still prevails. I rejoice to know that the left thinks otherwise; it will be their undoing yet. Jack
Despite the fact that Republicans still control the Senate, Dems today think they are back where they belong, in the driver's seat. This is to them a return to normality after a bizarre interlude of hissy and ignorant reaction by the real America. And when they think that, they always overreach. Hence. . .
Thinking this strategem a windfall delivered them by their longtime benefactor, Harvey Weinstein, Dems will now go all out to encourage the levelling of charges of "sexual harassment" against any who attract their basilisk gaze. Its an old, old thing with them; they delight in the visible quivering defensiveness which certain charges automatically manifest in those who are spineless or cannot afford to defend themselves. Their favorite is "racism", a term so misused and overused by them over the last fifty years that it can be defeated simply by asking them to define it. Most of the time they cannot, or they comically point to themselves in doing so, because they have never before been required to think the term out.
Similarly they will hasten to use "sexual harassment" now as an all purpose condemnation upon accusation of any man who opposes any woman in any way, including very serious crimes. Eventually they will make the term as bereft of logical negative impact as they have "racism". But along the way they will do much evil with it both to the innocent and perhaps to themselves:
I am put in mind of how the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution destroyed its progenitors . This could easily happen to the Dems as the fear of mere accusation they will now be blithe to excite in their opponents is turned on them. They have many candidates for such calumny in their ranks and I don't mean Slick Willy - he is to them completely expendable now. He has sunk beneath contempt but he may be lifted from the ooze just long enough to face disingenuous formal excoriation and final exile.
Call me Pollyanna (or don't) but the real America still prevails. I rejoice to know that the left thinks otherwise; it will be their undoing yet. Jack
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Oh please B'rer Bear, don't throw us Dems in that briar patch!
Why those sincere Dems! They really do mean it; they are resolutely determined to purge their ranks of all who have looked cross eyed at any politically correct woman. To that end they have thrown ancient John Conyers and sanctimonious Al Franken on the offal pile. In doing so they have, by their lights, affirmed their never to be doubted commitment to political ruin for any simply accused of such offenses. That they went to the wall for "Bill" Clinton, for whom there is credible evidence ,in the view of those not enamored of him, that he is a repeated forcible rapist and that they reflexively supported his grotesque partner's trashing of all women who protested Slick Willy's smarmy advances, is to be forgotten, yes? Why, its in the past isn't it? Bless me for a fool but those Dems might even turn on the royal couple now that their value is no more.
They do gain from this in the short run. They can disingenuously but effectively maintain that they are the friends of oppressed women and that their actions bear this out. They expect the Governor of Minnesota will appoint a Dem to serve out Franken's term (bumptious Keith Ellison I hope, I hope). And as for Conyers, oh well they are so far behind in the House that the numbers don't matter and he's, well, spent, yes?
In the long run the real America benefits though. That's because Kirsten Gillibrand, she of the junior class demeanor and Charles Schumer's faithful vassal, makes progress thereby toward the Dem's Presidential nod in 2020. Why, she has squeaked most eloquently at thankfully almost former Senator Franken. It is for the common sense America a much to be wished for outcome that young Kirsten carry the banner of the unquestionably just left in 2020 against the demon Trump. He'll "learn" her, alright and she'll join Anthony Weiner in that special place reserved for Schumer's avatars. Oh cry the beloved"Empire State"! How the real America must despise us for having polluted the national polity with such as Anthony, Charles, Kirsten, Hillary and Andrew.
Can't say I'm sorry to see Franken disgraced. He and his ilk (eg. Samantha Bee) know no limits in their vicious "humor". Good riddance. Jack
They do gain from this in the short run. They can disingenuously but effectively maintain that they are the friends of oppressed women and that their actions bear this out. They expect the Governor of Minnesota will appoint a Dem to serve out Franken's term (bumptious Keith Ellison I hope, I hope). And as for Conyers, oh well they are so far behind in the House that the numbers don't matter and he's, well, spent, yes?
In the long run the real America benefits though. That's because Kirsten Gillibrand, she of the junior class demeanor and Charles Schumer's faithful vassal, makes progress thereby toward the Dem's Presidential nod in 2020. Why, she has squeaked most eloquently at thankfully almost former Senator Franken. It is for the common sense America a much to be wished for outcome that young Kirsten carry the banner of the unquestionably just left in 2020 against the demon Trump. He'll "learn" her, alright and she'll join Anthony Weiner in that special place reserved for Schumer's avatars. Oh cry the beloved"Empire State"! How the real America must despise us for having polluted the national polity with such as Anthony, Charles, Kirsten, Hillary and Andrew.
Can't say I'm sorry to see Franken disgraced. He and his ilk (eg. Samantha Bee) know no limits in their vicious "humor". Good riddance. Jack
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
I rejoice at our President's rendition today to Israel and Jerusalem of the deference due that redoubtable land and that sacred city. What an interesting but redeeming spectacle it is to see our young country honor that old and seminal culture, to which we owe so much that is positive in our tradition and so very much admiration for their unconquerable fortitude. Why, of course Jerusalem is their capital; they've known it for millennia.
Jerusalem was the Jewish nation's capital centuries before Christianity and Islam were realized. When Islamic forces had full control of the city between 1948 and 1967, they forcibly denied Jews access to their most sacred sites. Since Israeli Jews took control of the city by mortal combat in 1967 they have allowed access to all sites sacred to the three Abrahamic religions to all who do not seek to harm Israelis. Full stewardship of the city by a civilization as wise and tolerant as that of Israel is a guarantee of such freedom and it is unthinkable that Israel would or should ever relinquish that tortuously achieved dominion.
Recognition by our great democracy of this reality is an act to be treasured by all in the real America and yet another expression of our courageous President's resolve to fulfill his campaign promises. I've said it before: I think any nation's support for Israel is a credible test of its own civilization; not its leftist perfection - no, its fundamental humanity.
Oh my, some will be upset by this. Some have been as upset over the years as to advocate, or to apologize for those who advocate, merely the complete eradication of Israel, population and all. Presumably salt would be plowed into the soil of the cleansed land, yes? So some don't like today's U.S. action. So what else is new?
When we support Israel we do ourselves proud by standing with the most heroic and civilized people on earth. I am not Jewish but I love the Israelis for the transcendent honor which accrues to their miraculous home and for the shining example they have set for all of humanity, as was intended by the Lord with whom I believe they have a convenant. Jack
Jerusalem was the Jewish nation's capital centuries before Christianity and Islam were realized. When Islamic forces had full control of the city between 1948 and 1967, they forcibly denied Jews access to their most sacred sites. Since Israeli Jews took control of the city by mortal combat in 1967 they have allowed access to all sites sacred to the three Abrahamic religions to all who do not seek to harm Israelis. Full stewardship of the city by a civilization as wise and tolerant as that of Israel is a guarantee of such freedom and it is unthinkable that Israel would or should ever relinquish that tortuously achieved dominion.
Recognition by our great democracy of this reality is an act to be treasured by all in the real America and yet another expression of our courageous President's resolve to fulfill his campaign promises. I've said it before: I think any nation's support for Israel is a credible test of its own civilization; not its leftist perfection - no, its fundamental humanity.
Oh my, some will be upset by this. Some have been as upset over the years as to advocate, or to apologize for those who advocate, merely the complete eradication of Israel, population and all. Presumably salt would be plowed into the soil of the cleansed land, yes? So some don't like today's U.S. action. So what else is new?
When we support Israel we do ourselves proud by standing with the most heroic and civilized people on earth. I am not Jewish but I love the Israelis for the transcendent honor which accrues to their miraculous home and for the shining example they have set for all of humanity, as was intended by the Lord with whom I believe they have a convenant. Jack
Sunday, December 3, 2017
A preview of Utopia
Individual leftists like Barack Obama often conceal their convictions in well advised compliance with Saul Alinsky's advice to them that that is the only way to actually gain the power to "fundamentally transform" this unforgiveable land. But the American left as a whole often offers us brazen demonstrations of how it will be if they achieve the totalitarian sway they seek. They do this in areas which they already dominate.
The obvious example is the American "university", which has become a disgraceful swamp of vindictive radical bigotry. The entertainment industry and its cousin, the mainstream "news" outlets are two more obvious examples.
The disgraceful exoneration of an ad infinitum illegal immigrant and reflexive law breaker from responsibility and consequent inconvenience for a death he nonetheless caused, by a jury in lala land San Francisco, serves us fair notice of the principles upon which justice would be conducted in the "fundamentally transformed" America for which the left yet strives with unrelenting devotion.
Judgement would be conducted with a swiftness impossible at present. Critical and summary would be the "political correctness" test apparently embraced by this jury. The defendant was eminently correct in that he came from a nation impoverished solely by U.S. greed and oppression and in that he was a criminal. But certain forgiveness was his, due to his being an illegal immigrant and therefore the darling of those incensed by President Trump's determination to enforce our laws. The dead victim: Well, she was apparently bright and happy ( a sure sign of undeserved "privilege") and though she gets some points for being a woman . . .
Here's the clincher: we know that racism is anathema to the left (I use the term"racism" only to refer to it. It has been thoroughly overused and misused over the last 50 years). But there is one group for which radicals cheerfully violate the principle and the San Francisco victim was an involuntary member of that racial group. If she was Jewish she belonged to the one similarly excoriated ethnic group . On either count she stands condemned of inexcusable political incorrectness and therefore undeserving of justice due to her consequent responsibility for offenses against the wretched of this earth. See how simple it is? None of this unnecessary "due process" now.
That is how it could be everywhere in our country if we don't stop it. Jack
The obvious example is the American "university", which has become a disgraceful swamp of vindictive radical bigotry. The entertainment industry and its cousin, the mainstream "news" outlets are two more obvious examples.
The disgraceful exoneration of an ad infinitum illegal immigrant and reflexive law breaker from responsibility and consequent inconvenience for a death he nonetheless caused, by a jury in lala land San Francisco, serves us fair notice of the principles upon which justice would be conducted in the "fundamentally transformed" America for which the left yet strives with unrelenting devotion.
Judgement would be conducted with a swiftness impossible at present. Critical and summary would be the "political correctness" test apparently embraced by this jury. The defendant was eminently correct in that he came from a nation impoverished solely by U.S. greed and oppression and in that he was a criminal. But certain forgiveness was his, due to his being an illegal immigrant and therefore the darling of those incensed by President Trump's determination to enforce our laws. The dead victim: Well, she was apparently bright and happy ( a sure sign of undeserved "privilege") and though she gets some points for being a woman . . .
Here's the clincher: we know that racism is anathema to the left (I use the term"racism" only to refer to it. It has been thoroughly overused and misused over the last 50 years). But there is one group for which radicals cheerfully violate the principle and the San Francisco victim was an involuntary member of that racial group. If she was Jewish she belonged to the one similarly excoriated ethnic group . On either count she stands condemned of inexcusable political incorrectness and therefore undeserving of justice due to her consequent responsibility for offenses against the wretched of this earth. See how simple it is? None of this unnecessary "due process" now.
That is how it could be everywhere in our country if we don't stop it. Jack
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Crime and common sense
Dear Reader: (I started this before the disgraceful verdict was rendered in San Francisco. I'll write about that very soon.) Here we go again. An article in our rural area newspaper suggests that the"mass incarceration" "evident" in the numbers (some 2.2 million imprisoned nationally) must be proof of catastrophic and unjust dysfunction in the criminal justice system itself. In this case it is maintained that overly zealous and socially unenlightened prosecutors intimidate the accused into plea bargains for reduced penalties for crimes they did not commit. Yeah, it happens but for the most part most of those accused of felonies are up to their neck in prior and present offenses.
I worked in four NY state prisons for 20 years with intensive contact with state prison inmates as a law librarian and with frequent access to their "rap sheets". Most of them, though not all, were habitual criminals.
The number of persons incarcerated in the U.S. is a direct result of the rate of committed crime in the U.S. If incarceration disproportionately effects certain areas, mostly in U.S. cities, it is because that's where many, many crimes occur, at the hands moreover of residents of those areas, not of some imaginary invading horde. The victims are of course very often those who reside in these unfortunate areas. Those who do not reside there cannot but be aware of the daily outrages in such areas due to local news coverage of both that and crime in less dangerous areas.
We must make a fundamental decision in this country to emphasize the protection of those any sane society protects as a matter of course - the innocent and law abiding,especially senior citizens and children - so that this consideration becomes paramount. We have paid an enormous, unconscionable price for our well intentioned but proven over time to be wrong headed overconsideration of the "rights" of purposeful lowlifes. They CAN be controlled; it takes political will to do so but it can be done. The positive living, law abiding majority must protect itself and the most vulnerable it contains, against victimizers, no matter the dubious and self serving excuses the perpetrators consistently advance.
We can start by dividing our prison systems into two levels only: the first would be for those whose crimes do not mandate their permanent divorce from society. These should be involuntarily committed to shock incarceration facilities for 6 months of militarily disciplined rigor coupled with intensive group therapy designed to impress upon them society's resolve that they accept individual responsibility for their behavior, featuring instant consequences for negative behavior and positive reinforcement for improvement. They need, for the benefit of those among them who truly do not know the fundamentals of positive living, to see what it is. In this setting any plausible expression of "fronting" on the part of inmates must result either in reconsignment to the beginning of the program or exile to the second level for those proven incorrigible. For graduates,it would be their choice thereafter to pursue or disdain what they have been taught and the consequences would accrue to them individually. Failure to pursue positive lives must assuredly result in consignment to the second level. I worked, with pride, in Shock Incarceration for seven years and I know it renders justice to tax payers, crime victims and yes, to inmates.
The second level would be for those whose vicious crimes or resistance to correction make it necessary for them to be kept in permanent custody.This would be accomplished by confining them to prisons for life (for those convicted of unforgiveably cruel crimes)or to inescapable electronic surveillance until very advanced age cures them of the lust for such perverse excitement or profit. The death penalty would be administered only to those whose guilt is beyond ANY doubt, whose crimes warrant it and would be accomplished by the fearful method of electrocution. Society and crime victims are due some retribution after all; it was a beneficial thing to see the fear in Ted Bundy's countenance as he fully realized what was about to happen to him in the chair.
Along with this must be a sea change in our drug laws. Sure, low level drugs open the door to much worse substances but so does alcohol. We tried to outlaw alcohol and that didn't work. Legalize all the recreational drugs and then make the laws against the truly destructive ones draconian indeed. Singapore offers us a good example, in their treatment of all drug offenses, for the course we must follow in prosecuting the heartless distribution of the obviously and assuredly lethal drugs. Use of such drugs rates assignment to the first level. Distribution must result in assured tenure in the second level.
Our democracy is an experiment and we must face the fact that some of it has been counterproductive. We must of course continue to protect inherent human rights confirmed by our Constitution but we must summon the moral courage necessary to take in hand those who make a cynical mockery of those rights and to deny them any gain from their unempathetic and unsympathetic misdeeds. Mayor Guiliani demonstrated, in a New York City virtually prostrate with crime and degradation, that this is only common sense. Jack
I worked in four NY state prisons for 20 years with intensive contact with state prison inmates as a law librarian and with frequent access to their "rap sheets". Most of them, though not all, were habitual criminals.
The number of persons incarcerated in the U.S. is a direct result of the rate of committed crime in the U.S. If incarceration disproportionately effects certain areas, mostly in U.S. cities, it is because that's where many, many crimes occur, at the hands moreover of residents of those areas, not of some imaginary invading horde. The victims are of course very often those who reside in these unfortunate areas. Those who do not reside there cannot but be aware of the daily outrages in such areas due to local news coverage of both that and crime in less dangerous areas.
We must make a fundamental decision in this country to emphasize the protection of those any sane society protects as a matter of course - the innocent and law abiding,especially senior citizens and children - so that this consideration becomes paramount. We have paid an enormous, unconscionable price for our well intentioned but proven over time to be wrong headed overconsideration of the "rights" of purposeful lowlifes. They CAN be controlled; it takes political will to do so but it can be done. The positive living, law abiding majority must protect itself and the most vulnerable it contains, against victimizers, no matter the dubious and self serving excuses the perpetrators consistently advance.
We can start by dividing our prison systems into two levels only: the first would be for those whose crimes do not mandate their permanent divorce from society. These should be involuntarily committed to shock incarceration facilities for 6 months of militarily disciplined rigor coupled with intensive group therapy designed to impress upon them society's resolve that they accept individual responsibility for their behavior, featuring instant consequences for negative behavior and positive reinforcement for improvement. They need, for the benefit of those among them who truly do not know the fundamentals of positive living, to see what it is. In this setting any plausible expression of "fronting" on the part of inmates must result either in reconsignment to the beginning of the program or exile to the second level for those proven incorrigible. For graduates,it would be their choice thereafter to pursue or disdain what they have been taught and the consequences would accrue to them individually. Failure to pursue positive lives must assuredly result in consignment to the second level. I worked, with pride, in Shock Incarceration for seven years and I know it renders justice to tax payers, crime victims and yes, to inmates.
The second level would be for those whose vicious crimes or resistance to correction make it necessary for them to be kept in permanent custody.This would be accomplished by confining them to prisons for life (for those convicted of unforgiveably cruel crimes)or to inescapable electronic surveillance until very advanced age cures them of the lust for such perverse excitement or profit. The death penalty would be administered only to those whose guilt is beyond ANY doubt, whose crimes warrant it and would be accomplished by the fearful method of electrocution. Society and crime victims are due some retribution after all; it was a beneficial thing to see the fear in Ted Bundy's countenance as he fully realized what was about to happen to him in the chair.
Along with this must be a sea change in our drug laws. Sure, low level drugs open the door to much worse substances but so does alcohol. We tried to outlaw alcohol and that didn't work. Legalize all the recreational drugs and then make the laws against the truly destructive ones draconian indeed. Singapore offers us a good example, in their treatment of all drug offenses, for the course we must follow in prosecuting the heartless distribution of the obviously and assuredly lethal drugs. Use of such drugs rates assignment to the first level. Distribution must result in assured tenure in the second level.
Our democracy is an experiment and we must face the fact that some of it has been counterproductive. We must of course continue to protect inherent human rights confirmed by our Constitution but we must summon the moral courage necessary to take in hand those who make a cynical mockery of those rights and to deny them any gain from their unempathetic and unsympathetic misdeeds. Mayor Guiliani demonstrated, in a New York City virtually prostrate with crime and degradation, that this is only common sense. Jack
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